A/N: I do plan on having updating every week or two, but after chapter three, I think I'm going to take a brief break, as one of my two beta's is going out of town. sends the luff after her In the mean time, chapter three is made possible by the uber beta's which are Sapphy and Chev.
Disclaimer: FMA does not belong to me. If it did, male military uniforms would have a whole lot less material.
Warnings: Slash, slash, and more slash. Roy/Ed-ness and so forth. Though not in this chapter unfortunately. If you don't like it, run away now and spare yourself the horror that will be. That said, onward!
A Dedication: To my lovely beta Chev who be coming down to Seattle to visit me. Oh I love ye, yes I do. cuddle
Mortvi Non Mordant
By LCM
The cell was almost clinical in its sterile whiteness, all pastels and professionalism, easily mistaken for a hospital room if one overlooked the fact that he was tied -in itself a highly unprofessional medical practice- to the bed. That was to be expected, however, and Ed could ignore the situation if he tried; he was under arrest after all. His bandaged shoulder was aching again like some mad priest's idea of penance, and moody as he was, Ed wondered why his captors didn't simply kill him. It wasn't like they hadn't already made one good attempt and certainly, despite all prohibiting laws, waivers, and arrest forms, they didn't actually plan on having a trial. To his credit, Edward hadn't been expecting one; he'd worked with the military too long not to have caught on to some of its less savory habits. No, they would be skipping the legal proceedings, if you please, and were probably just holding out for an inquisition.
May the prosecution begin, your honor? No, there is no defense, your honor. Yes, why thank you, your honor. Cigar, your honor? …You're most welcome. Mh… I think they're quite excellent too.
…Depressing, really. For a moment, Ed contemplated the wisdom of flipping over on his belly to brood, then remembered the shackles and stopped, fuming, frustrated by his utter inability to figure things out.
There had already been some questioning, of course, but essentially it had just been reminders that Al was being held, that he – Ed – was detained, and that the military wanted answers and wanted them now. Funny, that they seemed far more interested in getting him to talk on the subject of the Philosopher's Stone than of Roy, (thus forever proving the theory that yes, Mustang was not the sun, the world did not revolve around him, and no, light did not shine out of his ass) who was the reason he'd been arrested in the first place.
The Philosopher's Stone; and the thought of it sent a streak of searing white lightning down the back of his throat because…. He had no idea where it was. At all. It even made a certain sort of sense if you looked at it from his point of view: there had been more imperative things to think about during the transmutation, better things afterwards. Could he truly be blamed if he had simply, honestly…lost track of it?
Yes.
Yes, apparently he could, and the military was doing a damn fine job.
Not, of course, to imply that they believed him in the first place. Ed sunk his head deeper into the pillow and gold eyes flickered upwards, counting watermarks on the discolored ceiling.
When there's nothing good to think about, don't think anything at all.
.oOo.
It was late on the afternoon of what Ed guessed to be the third day (but could just have easily been the fifth) when the knock came: three raps in succession, quick, hard, and practical. Amusing, almost, that they waited for his bark of 'fuck off' to proceed, stepping into the fluorescent bright chamber to inform him that he had recovered well enough, and that it was time for him to 'fill in the blanks' as it were. Ed nearly died, insides churning and then freezing solid, when the first man slipped out and another replaced him.
Hughes stood in the doorway with a file under his arm and a look on his face that Edward had never seen before: not scary, no, – a Hughes just back from vacation and loaded down with brand new family photos was scary – but…closed. Yes, closed and very cold. Then he opened his mouth and the image shattered.
"Edw- Fullmetal," He said, his voice a strained, anxious tenor that was low and desperately tired. He sounded like a man caught between two impossible choices and right on the verge of falling to pieces. Ed, just across from him, felt a thickness – strong and bitter – settle in his mouth, as in his chest something broke a little. They sat in silence for a while, and then the Lieutenant Colonel sighed, a weary, heavy noise, pushing his glasses up his nose and hanging a false smile just beneath it. His hands trembled faintly as they pulled up a chair and opened the manila folder, but his words – when they came – were steadier for it.
"Alicia's been asking after you." There was a hesitancy to his manner that almost flooded over the pride, but a wallet was opened, pictures ogled liberally, and it was gone in a gush of adoration and heart-shaped-sparkles. "Mmmh my baby girl is so smart. She's even transmuting things now! Why just the other day –"
The launching of that familiar routine struck Ed harder then any accusation or distrust – a final fluttering straw that broke him – swamping the Elric brother with the reality he'd been playing hide-and-seek from for the past several days. The Stone's Sacrifice, the blunder of the transmutation, his new arm and leg, the attack, the arrest, the confinement, the fact that Al had just gotten his body and was now who knows where subjected to who knows what, whatever everyone else must be suffering too, and…Roy. Goddamn Mustang…and no, not really, not at all, but he was entirely, hopelessly, dead and it hurt.
Hughes probably realized he was crying before Ed himself did – fists clenched up and tight – instinctively choking back sobs, and not even noticing when the Lieutenant Colonel's words slowed to a halt, tripping over themselves to hush awkwardly. In that instant, Maes would have given anything to be sure that Edward hadn't murdered his best friend, reach out a hand, tell the young alchemist it would be alright and that the Colonel was working on bailing him out as they talked. As it was, the tears were over before Hughes could make up his mind what to do with them. In the end, he spoke only softly,
"…She wants to be an Alchemist like you, you know."
And Roy. The last hung unsaid, assumed and almost tangible in the air. Ed – attempting to wipe the wet tracks off his cheeks and into his pillow – looked up again, face dry and eyes flashing despite their puffy red color.
"I didn't kill him."
"Havoc will be infinity pleased to discover; the Colonel owes him money, if I remember correctly." Hughes wasn't quite sure he'd meant to snap, and he sighed again. Rallying forces he didn't know he had, he slipped down a professional mask – never minding it had holes big enough to serve as byways for elephants, never minding it didn't hide one thing from Ed – and started the investigation. "I need you to inform me, Edward, everything you can about the events of three days past…"
So Hughes asked and Ed answered and the hours slipped away until neither noticed their passing.
.oOo.
They finished long after both parties had gone semi-hoarse and when the notepad Hughes had produced sometime during the juncture was two thirds of the way full. Ed had told all but everything – with a trust in the other man's discretion that made Maes sick with confliction – and there had only been one rough spot during the entire, sordid event.
"Ed...where did you get the Stone?"
It had been during the fourth reviewing of the story, and showed as the single discrepancy. The young alchemist had been silent then, and suspicions played dark games in Hughes head, taunting and teasing that perhaps he didn't know Edward as well as he'd thought. "…Fullmetal?"
"I made it."
"How?"
Ed had closed his eyes, and Maes let the still of the room speak for both of them.
Eventually, "You know about equivalent trade, about the things it takes, and…." He hesitated, scrunching his eyes even tighter. "…I made a sacrifice, okay? But I swear; it was only of me. No one else gave up anything." The last words came out with a vehemence that shocked him, and made having to speak what he did next all the more painful.
"As far as I can see, you seem intact as ever, Edward."
And whatever Ed had or had not done, Hughes could see that the last comment had hurt him. Deeply. Sincerely. Afterward, he could berate himself for relenting, but at the time he had let the issue go. Some hopes simply weren't worth breaking.
The rest of the incident progressed with a remarkable smoothness, and when it was finally done – the discomfited goodbyes said – the Lieutenant Colonel stood for a time before turning to depart. Hand on the doorknob, Ed's voice stopped him.
"…Hughes, do…you believe me?"
He told the truth.
"I want to, Edward."
Though it wasn't the reply Ed was looking for, it would to have to be enough, and the older Elric accepted that. He took a breath, and asked a favor he wasn't quite sure was within his rights.
"...Help Al. Please."
"…I'll try."And then Maes left, shutting the door softly behind him.
.oOo.
When Ed next awoke, he was blind.
Or at least, that was his first thought, sitting up in a maw of hungry darkness, disoriented and suddenly, violently ill. His stomach heaved up its last meal and he rolled from the mess with a moan. Even farther away the stench clawed at him, a noxious, bitter odor that made his belly turn twice over again. He ached everywhere and one of his arms, the right, had been strapped with a pole at a 90 degree angle from his body, making his personal brand of alchemy impossible. The other, however, was mercifully free and he brought it up swiftly to feel at his face. Finding eyes intact and his head lacking any of the characteristic injuries that might cause a loss of sight, Ed's breath hissed out a blessing.
Cold dirt was firm and dry under his bare toes and he tapped it softly as he thought. He had been moved – obviously – he supposed, and to judge by the way he was feeling, probably been drugged. He called out once, into the blackness, and the dusty echoes told him he was in a room much larger than the last one, walls far off to all sides. Another cellar perhaps, with no windows or light, underground and utterly forgotten. Reason caught up with Ed before he had a chance to take any firmer grasp at the panicky thought; if they – oh yes, that ever sinister and enigmatic they – wanted him dead, there were certainly quicker and easier ways than starvation.
Standing up, Ed was swallowed by a wave of vertigo that almost had him back on the floor. It did, an instant later, when he tried to take a step and forgot that now both his legs would be subject to such things as trembling, no longer cursed (blessed?) with iron's immunity. Getting to his feet the second time was even harder than the first attempt, robbed of its spontaneity, and crippled by an awareness of just how being on his feet would feel. Small surprise then; he fell once more. The third and fourth time as well. A sneaking voice of reason – undernourished and largely uncared for – suggested he crawl, and he squished it entirely. In the end, he made it on his sixth shot – all slow cautious steps – voicing a cry and heading for what sounded like the nearest of the walls.
When Ed finally reached his goal – outstretched fingertips meeting a rough expanse of mortared brick and stone – his shoulder was throbbing, legs felt like jelly, and eyes ached from staring out at nothing, but the nausea had calmed and his head was beginning to feel a bit more like it belonged on his shoulders again. There would be a way out of this – there was always a way out – and he would find it.
That's what he did, after all.
Ed walked the length of the room twice before the heady exhaustion finally caught up with him, twining from his legs up to drag at his consciousness. The stone at his back was cool but not entirely uncomfortable when he slid down its surface, though the pole on his arm made a soft, scratching noise of protest. So. This place, whatever it was: four long walls of fitted stone, rectangular –two long sides almost double the length of their counterparts – and moderate in temperature; a wine cellar most likely. There had been a stairway at one end, and a door at its top, but the first was difficult to manage in the dark and the latter was metal, locked up tight. In any case, both were – for the moment, at least – useless. What he had found at the top of the stairs, however, was not; the loaf of bread, dried-out orange, gourd of water and wedge of hard cheese had dealt with the worries of his body, if not mind. What was left of the stash had been wrapped – clumsily and one handed – back up into the scarf where he'd found them, then tied to the pole on his arm. Stomach appeased, and curling up now in the place's northwest corner, Ed allowed himself to succumb to the temptation of sleep.
.oOo.
He shouldn't have been surprised when the nightmares roused him, sweating hard and pressed up between the walls intersection, but he was. He had had no dreams since the transmutation, and it didn't seem right that they begin again here, while he was alone in the dark. It wasn't as if Ed had never had such things – and indeed, experiences hundreds of times worse – but it seemed an unnecessary helping of torment on an already too-full platter. He should be used to it by now, he reflected; life seemed to enjoy its ability of going from bad to worse on him.
And there was the self-pity, oh joy, just in time. Ed's free hand snaked up and viciously tugged at his braid. If he was sinking that low after only an hour or so, where would he be in a week? Two? Hanging himself by his hair, in all likelihood, and what in the hell would Mustang say to that? …Dear god. And as a note to himself: No matter what anyone says, dying does not make a person a paragon of virtue. Mustang can keep any and all pearls of wisdom he might or might not have possessed to himself. If those words ever cross my mind again in that particular order, remember that suicide is always the honorable option. There. All better.
Nightmares slipping from him and mind calming in small increments, he let himself mull over – seriously now, deeply and sifting –the events which had got him to the current situation. Hughes questioning had helped organize the thoughts in his own head as much as anything else; allowed him to view them with a workman's detached precision as opposed to the muddled sentiment of a participant. It wasn't as if he had reached enlightenment, but all of a sudden the possibility was there, he had actual leads, and if not that, then idiosyncrasies.
Like the fire.
Ed was no expert in flame alchemy, and wasn't even particularly interested. It was a tricky, unstable substance, and he liked his particular vein of talent, thank-you-very-much. He had studied it a little, of course, but only in the way that he made himself study everything. Given a spark, he could – with the right materials, planning, and research – make such a fire as the one that had blazed in that alley, but wounded and not even trying…? Ed knew he was good, knew just as well that he couldn't, and knew again that he had. So what in the world happened?
Statistically, he decided, the necessary spark could have been produced by the mere motion of snapping. If he had put enough force behind it, it was not impossible that the metal on metal of his right hand's automail against itself stuck the ember. The manipulation of that, however, was another matter and one on which his mind was drawing a blank. Give it time and…nothing. He was faced with the impossible, and there were no improbable choices to turn to. /Think/.
Ed was aware just how bad the idea was as soon as he had it. Was aware it would likely yield few results and aware that if it did, a good eighty seven percent of them would end with his eyebrows singed off. Was aware of all this and went ahead with it anyway, all the strength in his bound, automail fingers crushing together with a sharp, screeching sound that made him wince just thinking of Winry.
He wasn't even surprised when it wasn't enough. Concentrated his will down his arm, into his hand, snapped–
please.
And all of a sudden he was two people as he had been three before; a flash of light, heat, and giddiness enfolding him in with cradling warmth that didn't want to let go. For a long moment, everything stood stark white and then his vision cleared and in the dying illumination of a floating flame Ed could swear he saw Roy, smirking at him – eyes unreadable – over a raised fist as his right hand relaxed back into its glove.
Then the fire flickered out and the world fell back into darkness.
.oOo.
A/N: Cookies to all who reviewed XD And two to Omakase, who managed to review TWICE. Love you babe. XD Glad I could help make things clearer for you and firedraygon97.
If anything else is confusing anyone, let me know and I'll do my best to clear it up. May take a break for chapter four and update in perhaps a month or so. Love you all. This time, it's little heart shape candies to all reviewers. XD