This is the last super long chapter. This is ridiculous. You people shouldn't have to wait a year in between chapters. Therefore, I hereby induce a 10-page-limit on chapters of this story. This, along with my newer, faster computer that I got for my birthday, should speed up updates for this story.
I have a couple of one-shots planned out and am finalizing the details of an original novel I'm hoping to publish someday, so I don't know how well these expectations will be fulfilled.
This chapter is boring. It's just a bunch of talking and science and talking and I have let you all down I'm a failure just like my potential in life I'm a 21-year-old autistic single who can't get out of bed before noon or do simple math without a calculator it is late I should go to sleep now.
"Brother, are you sure you don't need any help?"
"Alphonse, go away!"
"But what if you start… you know… You won't be able to shout for anyone then. You'll suffocate on the floor! That's it, I'm coming in!"
"Al, no! I'm pissing!"
"You're standing up?!"
"What? Of course I'm not! I can't-can't fit in the bastard's tiny outhouse of a W.C. at my full height."
Alphonse was not fooled by his brother's clumsy attempt of a save.
He was about to turn the doorknob when he heard the toilet flush. After a few seconds of what sounded like the sloppy adjustment of clothing, Edward bade him entry, albeit in a rather strained voice.
Ed lay crumpled on the bathroom floor, if it hadn't been for the absence of the mandatory thud that typically accompanies a falling body while Al had waited on the other side of the wall, he would have assumed his brother had slipped off the lavatory. Alphonse kneeled, his body creaking, and gingerly scooped his brother off the cold tiles and cradled him against his breastplate. He took care to straighten himself slowly, and began carrying his older brother back to his bed.
Edward's flesh hand was curled into a tight fist and his neck muscles were pulling so vigorously that the tendons pushed against his skin as if they were trying to pop out. The effect on his face gave the impression that Ed was imitating a particularly curious turtle-like expression that, under normal circumstances, Alphonse would have found quite comical. But these were not normal circumstances and Al did not laugh.
Ed's eyes were closed, the lids twitching feverishly, and he pressed his pounding forehead against his brother's cool, hard chest. Ever since waking that morning, (this was his second day in residence of Mustang's house and the time was approximately one in the afternoon) Edward's body had been ticking nonstop. The muscle relaxant from the previous day had worn off, and his reviving muscles were making up for disregarded stimuli with a vengeance. His throat felt inflated, like he was about to yawn but never performed the action, and his head felt squeezed, as if he was wearing an iron band smaller than the circumference of his skull.
"How are you feeling, Brother?"
Alphonse did not think Ed's pallor was an indication of good health.
Ed did not bother to lie when the truth could literally be seen on his face.
"Thirsty."
"I'll get you some punch, we still have some left, and Mr. Hughes will be by with more in a little while. Do you think you could eat something? You didn't have breakfast this morning."
Eating hurt.
He'd managed two bites of the toast Al had made for him. His jaw felt stiff and loose at the same time and his esophagus burned when he swallowed. He was beginning to form a habit of taking a deep breath (or as deep as he could without causing himself pain or sending himself into respiratory spasms) before swallowing, a process which was surprisingly tedious and exhausting despite its simplicity. Overall, the entire affair was unpleasant and so he wished to avoid it.
But he was famished. And that was just about as equally unpleasant as eating.
He couldn't distinguish the worst of the two evils.
"No."
Alphonse's armor hesitated in its walking for only a fraction of a second, but Ed knew his brother, had known him since birth, and so he noticed it, and knew Al was frightened. Because Edward loved food. He never refused a meal, no matter its ingredients, unless it tasted of milk or something was wrong. Which there was.
And then Al had an idea.
"What about ice cream for breakfast, Brother?" He did his best to make the offer sound seductive and titillating, as if they were small children left unsupervised while their mother went to market. "I bet I could convince Mr. Hughes to pick some up for you on his way here."
And you won't have to chew it and it's cold so it'll make your throat feel better.
Edward's eyes very quickly turned from clouded and tired to hopeful and glittering.
This was why he loved his brother. So much.
"Yes, Al. Please."
Al hastened his steps, his worry had been replaced by happy excitement. If Ed was still able to crave desserts, maybe he wasn't so broken after all.
Al propped up his brother with pillows upon returning him to the guest bed. He considered pulling up the blanket but decided against it; Edward was currently experiencing a rare respite in his sweating and Alphonse didn't want to end it too soon.
"Stop it. 'm fine," Ed mumbled when Al started triple-checking that his brother was comfortable. "Ice cream," he added, as if Alphonse had forgotten and he was reminding him.
"Of course, Brother. What flavor would you like?"
"Vanilla. With strawberries. And nuts."
Alphonse paused. Edward expected him to refuse, and to say that that was unhealthy.
"Absolutely, Brother."
XXX
"Ice cream?!"
"Please, sir, he hasn't eaten all day and he's so sore-"
"No, Alphonse. You misunderstand me. Your brother-the milk-hater-likes ice cream?"
Al mentally took a deep breath. It was surprising how often he had to explain this trick of Edward's dynamism, and how quickly doing so became annoying and boring.
"Brother says that once it's sweetened, frozen and mixed with oils and fruits, it's not milk anymore."
"But it's the prime ingredient-"
"Is a jar of jam a bunch of grapes?" Al's voice sounded perhaps a little more irritated than he'd meant it to.
"Well, no…" Hughes began rather meekly. "The grapes have been smashed and pickled in honey and sugar-"
"Then if a jar of jam isn't the same as a bunch of grapes, ice cream isn't the same as milk, now is it?"
There was a silence that was half defeated, half triumphant.
"Any specific flavors?"
Al relayed his brother's request.
Maes whistled into the phone.
"That's a tall order, isn't it?"
"Brother wants ice cream-"
"And he'll get it!"
Alphonse's words had sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of a threat, and Hughes preferred not having a ten-foot spiky invulnerable golem stampeding through his nightmares.
"Is Roy or Riza nearby?"
"The colonel's sleeping while pretending to do paperwork and Miss Hawkeye's snuggling Black Hayate while pretending to oil her gun."
Hughes chuckled jovially.
"Why don't you go ask them what kind of ice cream they want while pretending to catch them goldbricking?"
"That's a lot of ice cream."
"You guys need to keep your spirits up over there, and that's what ice cream was invented for! At least, that's what Gracia says when it's her… Anyway, Havoc's coming with me today, there's something that needs to be brought over. And while we're on the topic of my beautiful wife, you won't believe what our darling little girl did today-"
Alphonse very quickly hung up the phone.
XXX
"Colonel? Mr. Mustang? Excuse me?"
The man might as well have been comatose. Ed tended to snore when he slept-he usually started a couple hours after losing consciousness and would typically continue to do so until he woke up. Unless Al pinched the bridge of his nose to shut him up. Which he almost always did.
When words failed to rouse his brother in the morning, Alphonse would proceed to poking his face or shaking his shoulders. However, he felt such behavior most likely inappropriate for a high ranking officer. So he skipped the second method and employed the frequently used Plan C: he picked up the nearest book, a thick volume lying open on the desk next to Mustang's inert fingers (he closed the book upon lifting it), raised it about five feet above the table, and dropped it without ceremony.
It hit the surface of the desk with an inconsiderate BANG!
A heartbeat later, the chair Roy had been sleeping in was broken, Al's breastplate had a new scuff mark, and Mustang was upright, his eyes wide and his brow wet with cold sweat.
The only sound in the sixty second silence that followed was the colonel's heavy breathing.
"Mr. Hughes wants to know what flavor of ice cream you want." He tried to keep his voice casual and oblivious, but a small thread of apprehension slipped through. If Mustang noticed, he showed no sign of it.
Roy blinked slowly, swallowed, licked his lips, and nodded his head as if Alphonse had just given him a status report for an assignment.
"Chocolate."
He looked away self-consciously, saw his chair was missing two of its legs, and a look of childish disappointment crossed his face.
"I'll get it," Al said quickly and clanked over the chair, creaking as he crouched beside it. One transmutation circle drawn with chalk from within his left gauntlet later, the furniture was repaired, and Al replaced it behind the desk with all the stateliness of a butler.
"There. Good as new," he pronounced gently. Roy only nodded briskly in response.
"Um… I guess… I'll go ask Miss Hawkeye what ice cream she wants," Alphonse stumbled awkwardly.
Roy swallowed again and cleared his throat.
"I'll go check on Edward."
They both left the room without saying anything more.
XXX
Edward was having tea with his family.
They were sitting on the couch in the living room of his childhood home.
Trisha was telling a story, her eyes bright and her voice melodious, though what she was saying, Ed couldn't make sense of; her voice sounded clouded and distant, as if they were underwater. Hoenheim sat stiffly, a statue of himself, never smiling, expression blank. Alphonse-both of him- sat next to Edward on the sofa opposite their parents.
The armor looked barbaric, almost bestial, next to its flesh facsimile: tiny ten-year-old Al, as gentle and pure as Edward remembered him.
The fact that he was sharing a repast with two little brothers, his estranged father, and his long-lost mother did not reach him as bizarre in the slightest.
Such is the nature of dreams.
At some point, Trisha must have finished her narrative because her voice became clear and sharp, and her words would stay with her son, even after he'd woken.
"It's a shame I died so soon. I would have loved to see my little man earn his pocket watch."
Edward felt sorrow, for himself and for his mother, and then it was replaced by glowing excitement when he realized she could see it. He reached into the pocket with his right hand-it flashed pink and silver, as if it couldn't make up its mind about whether it was organic or artificial-and pulled out the State-issued watch with a living hand he could not feel.
"Here it is, Mom!" He stretched his arm out, precuring the metal device. "D'you wanna hold it? You can if you want."
Trisha did not take the watch.
She giggled, a heart-tickling sound that made Edward feel proud of himself; he'd made his mother laugh, even if he'd accomplished it by doing something incredibly foolish-like the time he'd tried to do the laundry all by himself and ended up flooding the front yard with bubbles.
"Oh, sweetheart, don't you remember? I'm dead."
Edward pulled back. The way she said it, so casually, so matter-of-fact, was almost offensive. Except that Trisha Elric was incapable of being impolite.
"But… but you're here- "
"Yes, dear, but I'm only visiting. I'll have to go back to the cemetery soon enough."
Edward stared at the serpent design on his watch, feeling small and childish.
"Oh… do you have to go back?"
It came out as a whine. This only made Trisha laugh some more.
"Yes, I do. It is, after all, quite exhausting to die twice."
Her revelation gave Edward pause.
"Die… twice?"
"Don't you remember, Brother?" Little Alphonse, who had been sitting silently next to his steel duplicate, spoke in his high-pitched prepubescent voice.
"You brought Mom back and she died again. And I died, too."
Edward did not have a chance to respond.
Hoenheim stood up abruptly and loomed over his eldest child like one of the great bears that lived in the Briggs mountains. He placed his large, heavy hands on his son's shoulders. They were warm and solid.
And then the man's nails were digging into his shoulder.
Edward could not open his mouth. He could not yell at his father to stop. His right arm, now decisively automail, wrapped its nerveless fingers around Hoenheim's wrist and pulled the man's hand away. Hoenheim paused for a moment, then calmly removed his other hand from Ed's other shoulder and used it to pry away the boy's grasp. Ed noted he did this by aiming his strength at the joints of the fingers, where maneuverability was priority over durability.
He held his son's arm in his own big fist, and plunged his fingernails, as keen as talons, back into his shoulder. A dog-like yelp of pain escaped through Ed's teeth and Hoenheim paused a second time. Ed did not waste his chance wondering why. He ripped his arm free of his father and sent it pummeling into the center of the man's chest.
Mustang made a sound between a cough and a gag, and collapsed onto the floor.
XXX
Roy stared at the book in his hands.
He didn't know why he had a heavy university textbook titles Human Biology in his study, perhaps he had grabbed it absent-mindedly while perusing one of those free-book-giveaways that the book shop or the library did sometimes.
However it had ended up there, Roy had found it while looking for something that might prove insightful towards their situation. His effort was both a success and a failure. The book did contain a chapter on the nervous system, unfortunately the book was clearly meant for a student who had taken certain prerequisites prior to attending a class that would list that book under required materials. He kept on having to use his finger as a bookmark while he used his free hand to flip through pages to the glossary.
Roy glanced at Edward. True to his word, the colonel had taken the younger brother's place as vigil. Fullmetal's face shone with sweat and the fingers of his left hand twitched like they were searching for something. Mustang looked back at the book, decided it was worth one more try, sighed, and started looking for the page he'd been on when he'd stopped for a break to clear his head of medical jargon and protein functions-and may or may not have taken a short nap.
He passed over the section on the spinal cord… not what he was looking for.
Something about "helper cells" … no.
Blood-brain barrier… Roy was certain he did not want to know what that was.
He caught the term sarcolemma and stopped.
"Muscles are made up of bundles of fibers called sarcolemma. Each sarcolemma is innervated by its own neuron, or nerve cell, called a motor neuron (for more information on sarcolemma, see Chapter 9: The Muscular System)."
"Damn school books and their damn references. Why don't they just put the whole thing together instead of making me go back and forth through their amazing coffer of knowledge?" Roy quoted a critic's remark that had been slapped onto the book's cover. His sarcasm was lost on Edward, who swallowed stiffly in his sleep.
Mustang noticed his jaw was clenched.
He turned back to the book.
"Like any other neuron, electrical signals from the dendrites are transferred to the cell body and then the axon, where channel gates open, trading sodium for potassium as the ions travel down their concentration gradients (if you recall from earlier in the chapter-Roy did not recall, he had not read earlier chapter-this is what creates the electric chemical signals we call 'nerve impulses'). However, unlike in other neurons, the axon terminals of a motor neuron meet with a specific section of the sarcolemma called the sarcoplasmic reticulum. The sarcoplasmic reticulum is a storage unit for the ion calcium."
Mustang couldn't stop himself from snorting.
"Is the doctor sure this isn't what's wrong with you?"
Edward's body was tensing and untensing in a bizarre unconscious exercise. His shoulders would pull into his torso and would hold for a millisecond before melting into relaxation, then would pull back in just as fast. Roy watched in macabre fascination until he remembered that Fullmetal wasn't doing body tension therapy. The boy's insides were moving with a mind of their own. The thought made him feel ill.
He kept reading.
"Impulses from the motor neuron stimulate gated channels within the sarcolemma, releasing the calcium, which binds to troponin, forming tropomyosin."
Roy didn't care.
He continued to flip through the chapter, and stopped near the end. The last section before the chapter review was on neurological diseases. It didn't take him long to find the paragraph he was looking for.
"Tetanus, or lockjaw, is a condition caused by a powerful toxin produced by the bacteria clostridium tetani. The toxin, called tetanospasmin, acts by blocking the release of the inhibitory transmitter, GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid). Since GABA is the primary inhibitor in the nervous-muscular system, the toxin tetanospasmin affects nearly every muscle in the body. With GABA channels inoperable, the motor neurons are unable to prevent the muscles from contracting when undesired. A person infected with tetanus will experience near constant involuntary spasms. These spasms are extremely painful and can be life-threatening if they reach the diaphragm. Treatments aim to kill the infection- "
Oh, this was not helping.
Roy made to slam the book closed so that the text could feel his frustration, caught himself, and pressed the pages together slowly and softly. Perhaps he should have gone ahead and snapped the book closed roughly. Because of his carefulness, his eyes, without his volition, caught the last sentence of the paragraph: "20%-50% of patients with generalized tetanus will die."
20%-50% will die.
20%-50% will die.
Die.
Die.
He tried to think about something else.
The snap of wood breaking and the scream of scratched steel as Roy, unconsciously but just as intentionally, tried to brain Alphonse Elric with his study room chair. If the boy had been flesh he could have at least broken open his throat.
That was why Roy had grabbed the medical book and moved to the guestroom, because the alternative was thinking about how close he had been to killing someone he was supposed to protect.
Mustang seemed to have an extreme talent for that, he mused as he glanced at Fullmetal.
The boy's chest and shoulders were still clinching and letting go. His automail arm had migrated to his chest and had clasped a fistful of his shirt, as if trying to grab the insubordinate muscles and physically subdue them.
Roy, with deep-washing relief tinged with selfish guilt, thought of a different productive distraction.
He retrieved the lye-coated soup bowl and half-melted bar of soap from the bathroom, stopping to refill the bowl with warm water from the tap and snatch a fresh cloth out of the drawers before returning to the guestroom.
Now that Riza had taken care of the initial, more graphic phase of the drainage process, the colonel couldn't imagine the follow-up to be any worse. Besides, Ed was asleep. Best to get it out of the way while he wasn't aware and able to flip off anyone who tried to help with something he insisted he could do himself-which was pretty much everything under the sun. And probably above it, too.
And he'd seemed to find Hawkeye's ministrations soothing, even therapeutic, judging by his pacified reaction.
Maybe he could even take care of the injection of anti-toxin while he was at it.
XXX
By the time they reached the colonel's townhouse, Jean Havoc's fingers were numb with cold. Jean held the paper mache tray carrying paper cups of ice cream, a carry-bag protecting a stack of paperwork sitting between his feet. Maes sat beside him in the driver's seat, happily chatting away about work life and family-mostly his family-as they made their way to Mustang's residence. As Jean struggled out of the car, the tray wet with condensation from the freezing cups, he wished it were his ears that had lost feeling instead.
"I wish I could compromise with my work partners the way Roy does with the lieutenant," Maes said, stopping to grab the carry-bag from beneath the passenger seat of his car and sling it onto his shoulder before walking with Havoc to the front door. "General Grand gave me one nasty phone call this morning."
Jean grimaced.
"What did he want?"
He was giving Hughes his full attention now. Office gossip was much more interesting than hearing about a one-year-old babbling" Dadadadada" while eating mashed peas.
"He demanded to know why I haven't returned to Central yet." Maes opened the door to the house and let Jean enter first. "'The cows have come home, and the crooks are in the pokey, why are you still there?' First, I told him that isn't how people in the countryside talk, and to please not to be so stereotypical and offensive. He told me I could go pleasure myself, I told him I don't need to, Gracia does a fine job- "
"Sir, please!" If Jean hadn't reached the small kitchen table, he would have dropped the tray on the floor.
"Right, sorry, sorry, off topic. I told him I was working on a local case, you know that jewelry shop break-in that happened over the weekend? And since the East County Fair has started making its rounds, I thought I'd take the opportunity to pay Roy a visit and let my girls have some fun for a few days. But then… well, you know," he gestured vaguely at the house," and so I told Grand that I'm staying for a family emergency."
While Hughes had been speaking, Black Hayate had trotted into the kitchen to greet the newcomers, his tail wagging happily. Havoc had leaned over to pet the dog between his ears. When Maes finished his sentence, Jean jerked his head up to stare at the man in incredulity, lost his balance, and landed on his buttocks on the tiled floor.
"You lied to the Iron Blood Alchemist?!"
"What?! No! Of course not!" They were both on the floor now, Jean sitting and Maes crouching, and Hayate's eyes were closed in delight as Hughes scratched the back of his neck. "I would never lie to a superior officer. Maybe tell a half truth or say nothing at all, but never lie. That would set a horrible example for my baby girl!"
"But you said you had a family emergency. You don't have any family in East City."
"Sure, I do. Roy-Boy is like a brother to me, and Ed is his kid… major… thing. So that makes me his uncle-lieutenant colonel-thing."
Havoc simply stared as Edward Elric's self-proclaimed uncle-lieutenant colonel-thing rubbed a dog's belly on the kitchen floor of the Flame Alchemist.
"I am worried for your daughter."
"Your concern is appreciated, Jeannie, it really is, but there's no need. Little Elicia is perfectly fine in the hands of her beautiful mother."
"Don't call me Jeannie."
"Why not? Your mother always- "
"You should get off the floor. I don't know when the colonel last mopped."
Both men quickly stood to attention, more out of fearful respect for Hawkeye than disgust for Mustang's cleaning habits.
"Where is the colonel, anyway?" Havoc asked, rubbing his bruised behind as discreetly as possible.
"He's on watch."
It took Jean a moment to decipher what she meant.
"And?"
Riza gave him a pointed stare.
"I'm not the one you should be asking."
It is not my place to discuss Edward's condition. If you want to know how he's feeling, ask him yourself.
"Can we see him, then? We brought ice cream."
He picked up the soggy tray and brandished it like an offering for passage. Hawkeye inspected it, then reached for one, picking it up with one hand and using the other to remove the cover of tin foil that had been tied around the cup with baking string. She replaced it after seeing the strawberries.
"That one's Ed's."
She found what she was looking for on the second try. Plain vanilla, with a bit of caramel sauce on top. She moved to the kitchen cabinet and drew a spoon from the top drawer. She had taken her first bite and paused to savor the creamy-sweetness before she noticed the two men were standing still, watching her. She made a waving gesture with her spoon and devoted her full attention to her dessert-or she tried to. Though she'd taught him not to beg, Black Hayate's round, pleading eyes were hard to ignore. She may have let a spoonful or two slip onto the floor, perhaps intentionally. Either way, Hayate was immensely pleased.
XXX
Roy lay on the guestroom floor for a minute, allowing himself to assess the damage. He didn't think anything was broken. Fullmetal's fist had socked him square in the sternum. It ached horribly, but he doubted it would result in more than a light bruise. He started to get up, stopped halfway as the pain squeezed his heart like a vice and waited until it had faded, and managed to push himself to his feet.
Edward had used his right hand to guide his left arm into a position where his left hand could smother his swollen shoulder. The dark spot on his left arm was uncomfortably conspicuous, marking like a beacon where the muscle had torn under the flesh.
"What the hell are you doing, you bastard?!" He hissed through gritted teeth.
"I was- "
"Don't touch it!"
Ed's eyes were shut tightly, and Roy could hear more than just annoyance in his voice.
Roy turned his attention to the rag clutched in his hand. Its warm wetness made his fingers feel cold and slippery, but the only things he saw there were cloth and a few small bubbles. There was no blood or pus that he could see. Edward must have been thinking along a similar line because he pulled his left arm away from his shoulder with his automail one and stared at his flesh palm. If he saw anything significant, he didn't show it. He simply returned his hand to his shoulder and closed his eyes.
Roy hadn't known what to do or say, so Hawkeye opening the door and entering the room with deadly calculation was no interruption. She saw Edward cradling his shoulder, saw Roy holding the soapy towel, and all but pushed the colonel aside to get to the boy.
"He was asleep, I thought I ought to get it over with while he was out…"
His excuses faded from his mouth. She wasn't listening to him anyway.
Riza wrapped her large, soft wrist around Fullmetal's small, hard one and gently pulled his hand away from his shoulder. The boy balked and resisted at first, then saw who it was and relented, but not without an air of hesitancy.
Roy told himself he wasn't jealous.
Riza touched his shoulder delicately, then brushed her fingertips beneath the edge of the metal port. Edward sucked his breath in through his teeth. Hawkeye drew her hand back and examined her fingers, rubbing them against her thumb.
When she finally looked Roy in the eyes, he saw no anger there.
"You might be a little gentler. His shoulder's swollen and tender from all the scrubbing yesterday, and the wound is draining. I'll grab some ice from the cool box. It'll probably be a lot easier on both of you if his shoulder is numbed up first."
Easier on both. Roy's throbbing chest agreed. Before she left, Roy asked her to bring back two ice blocks. She glanced at him upon his request but didn't respond beyond a nod.
The two boys were left in an awkward silence.
Roy thought that perhaps he should apologize. He should. But he knew he wouldn't. He hadn't gotten this far in life telling people that he did the wrong things, made the wrong decisions, even if everyone around him expected him to, and cast him glares and hateful looks when he didn't.
So, he said nothing.
Riza came back with two chunks of dripping ice wrapped in washcloths in each hand. Alphonse had opened the door for her and he entered the room behind her. Mustang had the suspicion that his lieutenant had asked Fullmetal's brother to join them. He couldn't help feeling irked that she might think he needed supervision. He heard rather than saw Black Hayate pad after them.
Ed managed a strained, humorless grin.
"Come to see the show, huh? Is Colonel Buttface selling tickets?"
Roy couldn't pass this up.
"I certainly am. And there selling like hotcakes."
Ed's grin shifted to a scowl, which he turned on his brother when Alphonse giggled.
Hayate jumped on the bed and sniffed. He sniffed the air and the covers, then sniffed Edward's foot experimentally, then his side, his stomach (Fullmetal grunted as the dog's breath tickled his skin), and up to his shoulder. He snorted and drew back, settled himself on Ed's lap, yawned and closed his eyes. Ed sighed and scratched the dog behind the ears.
Hawkeye handed one ice block to Edward and one to Roy, who didn't bother with subtly as he tucked the ice under his shirt. Ed held his to his shoulder with his right hand and made a sound of grateful relief. The cold water slinking under his shoulder port felt heavenly.
If a conversation had been forming, it died before it was born. Almost as soon Hawkeye completed her delivery, the sound of the front door opening and closing took everyone's attention. Hayate plodded to the edge of the mattress and hopped to the floor, then trotted out of the room to investigate.
"General Grand gave me one nasty phone call this morning."
Hughes's voice.
"What did he want?"
"He demanded to know why I haven't returned to Central yet. 'The cows have come home, and the crooks are in the pokey, why are you still there?' First, I told him that isn't how people in the countryside talk, and to please not to be so stereotypical and offensive. He told me I could go pleasure myself, I told him I don't need to, Gracia does a fine job- "
Roy's face turned the color of a tomato and Riza made to lunge for Edward in a way that made him flinch (which sent his upper torso spasming again). She stopped and retreated when Havoc's horrified, "Sir, please!" echoed from the kitchen. It took Ed ten seconds to realize that Hawkeye had been about to cover his ears.
"Right, sorry, sorry, off topic. I told him I was working on a local case, you know that jewelry shop break-in that happened over the weekend? And since the East County Fair has started making its rounds, I thought I'd take the opportunity to pay Roy a visit and let my girls have some fun for a few days. But then… well, you know… and so I told Grand that I'm staying for a family emergency."
There was a painful sounding thump.
"You lied to the Iron Blood Alchemist?!"
"What?! No! Of course not! I would never lie to a superior officer. Maybe tell a half truth or say nothing at all, but never lie. That would set a horrible example for my baby girl!"
"But you said you had a family emergency. You don't have any family in East City."
"Sure, I do. Roy-Boy is like a brother to me, and Ed is his kid… major… thing. So that makes me his uncle-lieutenant colonel-thing."
It was Fullmetal's turn to blush fiercely. He turned his gaze to his contracting and retracting chest muscles, more to avoid looking anyone in the eye than out of some morbid curiosity.
"I am worried for your daughter."
Mustang snorted. "We all are," he mumbled under his breath.
"Your concern is appreciated, Jeannie, it really is, but there's no need. Little Elicia is perfectly fine in the hands of her beautiful mother."
"I'd better go intervene before they hurt themselves." That was as close to a "permission to be excused" as they were going to get from Riza Hawkeye. She left the room, closing the door behind her, but not before giving her superior officer a scolding scowl. It was his house, after all, he should be the one greeting his guests. But Roy, like most men, did not understand his slipup nor Riza's ire because of it, and answered her glare with a pout of wounded confusion.
"His mom calls him Jeannie?" Alphonse asked as soon as the door was shut, his voice impish with mischief.
"Sorry."
The reparation came suddenly and without preamble; Mustang needed a moment to puzzle out what Fullmetal was apologizing for.
"It's nothing." He meant it. The blow had landed on a sensitive, although nonvital, part of his body. The ice's purpose was to simply calm the tingling ache than lessen any swelling.
"You're not bleeding or anything?"
"No. Just a bruise."
The boy sounded genuinely concerned and remorseful, and not just to save face. He felt backwards somehow, Edward asking him if he was all right.
"You have a cooling box?"
Roy couldn't help the smile the innocent curiosity he heard in the boy's voice.
"You've never seen one before?"
"Oh, we have. Teacher has one to keep choice steaks fresh for her butcher shop," said Alphonse, any previous hints of fiendishness long gone.
"Most people in Central have one. Mine's pretty simple-ice drawer on top, food cupboard in the middle, drip tray on bottom."
Edward was staring at the ice block in his hand with newfound wonderment.
"We weren't allowed near Teacher's cooling box," he said, watching water droplets coagulate on his metal shoulder. "She was afraid we would get locked in. Al did once, and I had to transmute a hole in the door, so he could get out. Teacher was always suspicious of the alchemy marks on the wood, but she had no evidence we knew anything about it, so we got away with it."
Roy studied the suit of armor incredulously.
"You got yourself locked in a cooling box? I thought you were the mild-mannered one."
Edward's indignant "Hey!" was ignored.
"I just wanted to see how it worked," Alphonse mumbled, quietly and sheepishly.
"You smelled like ham afterward."
"You smell like ham now," Roy commented under his breath.
Rather than chomp on the bait, Ed winced, then removed the ice from his shoulder and started rubbing it over his face in an impromptu bath."
Mustang swallowed a snort of amusement.
"You know, Brother, I could- "
"I do not need help taking a bath!"
"You would probably feel better- "
"No! That is the one thing you are not allowed to assist me with!"
"Brother, who do you think it was who washed you when you were stoned on morphine during your surgery?"
Edward took a breath and opened his mouth as much as his lockjaw would permit to retort, finished processing his brother's words, and the fever spots on his cheeks vanished as his face turned the color of snow. His eyes shifted from confrontational to pleading as he asked, "Please tell me it was- "
"They wouldn't let me until I proved I could feed you without shoving a spoon down your throat."
The snow color was quickly replaced with one of red wine.
To his credit, Roy Mustang held his tongue throughout the exchange. He wanted to tease him as was in tandem with his snark-based relationship with the boy, but his fundamental principles of manhood told him he owed Edward his congratulations.
Then again, he wasn't sure whether it had been the tender flower or the wrinkled prune who had serviced him-if Winry Rockbell could even be considered tender or a flower.
He decided he didn't want to know.
This is how Havoc, Hughes, Hawkeye, and Hayate found them-Alphonse snickering as subtly as an empty suit of armor can, Edward looking like he had a severe sunburn, and Roy Mustang smirking triumphantly like he had just won some sort of bet.