A/n- OMG! Thanks for all of you who reviewed! I got some EXCELLENT feedback, and for all of you who checked up just to tell me how you thought this was going, thanks so much! I wasn't planning on going anywhere with this, but I feel so positive now! I'm gunna smack the hammer down on poor Ed…but it about 12:30, so I'm off to bed. Haha. :-)
Roy Mustang was not in a forgiving mood. Of course, any day upon having woken up to recall reeling and passing out in front of your subordinates while they laughed your drunk ass into the floor, was no day at all to be in a lenient frame of mind.
"And who the hell let me into the office while I was…" Roy searched for the right word to sensitively describe the stupidity of last night. "…under the influence of an intoxicating substance?"
"Hell, colonel. You were three sheets to the wind and tanked up for more." Roy wondered how the man could effectively speak around the cigarette in his mouth, and actually gave serious contemplation to whether or not the end was soggy from all the usage.
"If you don't learn some DAMN respect, Havoc, and soon, I'll help along your destined lung cancer by roasting you up another cancer stick. I might end up torching your face and anything else attached, but that's a risk I'm willing to take." To prove his point, the alchemist raised a gloved hand poised for snapping, smirking smartly as the occupants of the room surged towards the door.
…But of course the door had just flung open, sending officers close to it flying all throughout the room.
"Hey Roy!" Somehow, Hughes didn't have to be holding a photograph to give rise to dread. "Yanno, I heard just the craziest thing today. Word around Central is that-"
"Hughes…"
"I mean, did you really-"
"Hughes."
"Gee, you must have been pretty shit faced last night to even consider-"
"HUGHES!" Everyone in the room took a cautious step backwards as sparks began jumping randomly from the man's fingertips. "Hawkeye, you have my permission and utmost encouragement to shoot anyone who takes so much as one step into this room-"
SLAM!
…And of course, the door flew open once more.
For three entire seconds of bliss, nothing happened. Then quite abruptly, and undoubtedly unexpectedly, a tornado of blue and white military uniforms discharged itself into the room, kicking and screaming in a match to rival complete chaos.
"Cowards! Just give me a chance and I'll whip the piss out of you!"
The previous occupants of the room froze.
That voice…
"Somebody sedate the damn kid already!"
So familiar…
"…Ed…" Hawkeye stepped slightly forward, staring unbelieving into the focal point of the brawl. "…ward…?" The whisper, barely audible, went entirely unnoticed throughout the room in a blur of black and blue.
"Hold him down!" A sterile needle was forced down into the boy's arm for the fraction of a second it took to inject the fluids into his blood flow before he jerked away, leaving a shallow cut where the metal had pulled away.
"Fullmetal!" Roy was the first to regain his composer, the other officers still left in a flummoxed daze.
The teen was already slowing down as the sedatives took their toll on his system, swaying slightly, even in the firm grasp of two of the men who had brought him in. He looked straight into the older alchemist's eyes, or would have, if his own weren't beginning to become unfocussed and hazy.
"Bastard…would expect… of course it was you who… couldn't leave me in…peace… could you?…Bringing me here like this… Damn it, colonel!" And with that, the golden haired youth slumped into the soldier's arms, already in a heavy stupor.
"Sir!" One of the men hastened over to the colonel who still hadn't taken his eyes off the boy who had once again managed to stumble back into his life so suddenly, and snapped a perfect salute.
"Privet Grace." The soldier grinned in response, obviously new to the field, and Roy noticed the cut on the young man's brow still bleeding. On closer inspection, most of the men, with exceptions to the newcomers who had congregated towards the commotion, sported similar such cuts and bruises, one man holding his arm in an awkward angle, waiting for someone to tend it.
"Quite the handful this one is! We got orders to bring him back, and the papers say he's signed out under your command, so now he's your burden, not ours." Privet Grace looked almost relieved as the words left his lips.
"Who sent you?" Roy had now turned his penetrating glare to the man, his eyes all but reflecting the fire he manipulated.
"Well, the Fuhrer said-"
"Where did you find him?"
"Well…" The soldier began shaking under the man's intense scrutiny.
"Answer me, dammit!"
"It- it was an accident, really, sir. On the train we-"
"His brother. Was there anyone else with him? A suit of armor maybe?"
"N-no…it was just him…"
"You're absolutely sure?"
"Sir, calm down. You're scaring the poor boy." The alchemist snapped around, only to find himself face to face with Hawkeye, merely inches from his shoulder like a loyal dog to its master. But wasn't that what they all came to equal out to in the end? The same loyal hounds that Edward so despised, so hated, and in his own way, refused to become? With a bitter look at the unconscious boy now slung over some random man's shoulder, Mustang sighed.
"Very well. You did good soldier," he supplied grudgingly to the man, who hastily snapped a salute, did an instant 180, making a beeline for the door, throwing a hasty "Thank you sir!" over his shoulder before disappearing behind the corner. That was of course the correct reaction, to say in the least, when the Flame Alchemist's snapping fingers began to twitch uncontrollably and without restraint.
"Sir." Riza motioned ever so slightly with her head, jerking towards the cause of the fray, currently in the form of a blond headed alchemist.
"Hawkeye." The woman straightened, as if he had only just taken notice of her presence. "Take crowd control. We can't have idiots infesting the room with their idiocy."
"Right away, sir." For a moment he watched as she took control of the situation at hand, her voice rising above the others with orders of stringent force, but when her hand reached for her gun, her new and shiny gun, he shuddered and turned towards the large and bulky man in current possession of the Fullmetal. It took no more than a twitch of his head to gain the soldier's full attention, and a second nod at the office door.
"This way."
There was a back room, mainly a storage room for unfinished and forgotten paperwork, not that he would ever tell Hawkeye about it, but for some reason, it seemed suitable for the boy. Furnished with a desk overflowing with mounds of paperwork and a single small couch that now contained a single small alchemist, it was the only sensible place to lay the unconscious teen.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, sir." Roy looked up from his search for the release point of the shackles that forced Edward's hands apart, to face his silent shadow. Riza sighed. "You know how reckless he gets when he's confused, and just a guess, but I'm not sure he's too happy with the situation he's in now." There was a fraction of a second's pause before-
"Something's wrong." She stiffened. They both knew it, but it was only a matter of getting around to it.
"Sir?"
"His arm." He pulled up the sleeve of the red jacket to reveal an obvious metallic limb. "Either the transmutation I assume they performed didn't work, or there wasn't enough energy for him. And Alphonse is missing."
"You don't think-"
"No, he's not dead. Sometimes I wonder if it would be possible for one to operate without the other, but no, he's not dead."
"So what do you think?"
"Look at him Hawkeye, and tell me that he hasn't changed." She didn't need to look again. It was obvious to anyone that he had changed. The dark shadows under his eyes were telltale marks of exhaustion, and the pain in those eyes when they were open… it was nearly unbearable. His hair was unkempt, still in the confines of his sloppy braid, but ruffled, as if he had slept that way without washing or brushing it for days.
"Give me a moment, Hawkeye," the man muttered, not looking the woman in the eyes as he knelt next to the sofa and the boy occupying it. "It's been a long time…"
The woman faded out the door, and he listened to the hushed tones of the Lieutenant talking to the soldier who had carried Ed in, as the boy on the couch shifted from unconsciousness into the troubled dreams of true sleep. He may not get the most desired dreams, but sleep was now a sine qua non (1) for him to continue to bear the burdens of life.
"…tomorrow." The man listened carefully, a frown furrowing his brow.
"But that's too soon! He won't be ready-" Hawkeye's voice was sharp and cutting, but low enough to prevent eavesdropping. Of course, it wasn't exactly eavesdropping if she was talking loud enough to be heard. Roy couldn't help that. He smirked, loving the feeling of being on top of things intentionally.
"Fuhrer's orders, ma'am. I only deliver 'em. 'Sides, that kid's in deep shit as it is."
"What could he have done that's so important that the military would try to hide it from us? Let me remind you that the colonel is his commanding officer. Edward reports strictly to us."
"I dunno much about this alchemy stuff. Never was really big on it myself. I'm just the normal guy on the block, but it had something to do with, uh, Human…transportation."
"Transmutation?" Nothing new there. Couldn't they say something that hadn't been said a dozen times before?
"Yeah, that's it. Coupled with some assault to military personnel…" If Edward was tried every time he assaulted a person, he would get the electric chair… or something more painful and longer lasting.
"That's it?"
"Don't tell nobody, but," The man's voice lowered to the extent that Mustang had to strain to hear his hushed tones. "I hear he created one of them clone things that comes with a transmutation. That there," he confided quietly, "is the life sentence, if not death, it is." The colonel could almost see him nodding to himself, the lieutenant's hands over her mouth in a rare display of unveiled shock.
Edward Elric would be tried for death, under the premises of creating a homunculus…of Al?
1. Some people were asking about the meaning of this word, and it's pretty much like "Essential" or "necessary". An essential condition or prerequisite.Yanno? I believe that it's taken from part of Latin meaning literally "without which (cause) not".
Review please? . It would totally help me keep going. I know I know! Kinda sad for the second chapter, but… I have to set things up a little bit more…it's not like I go- POOF! Ed's a whore! …We have to wait till my warped mind sorts out HOW we shall make him that way. I love manipulating him. Sick, huh? Anyway, will you please tell me what you think? Keep going or stop? Any large errors? Wanna give me a taco:-p THANKS SO MUCH GUYS! I heart your support:-)
-Ally and Malli here! We're sharing this chappy, cause our cousin can't write for crap!…We kinda edited it a little bit a lot, and it's better, no?