The Golden Sun: Chapter Seven: Rumors

AN: Everyone loving Papa!Roy and Winry being hella gay and the Elrics being dark-skinned because Hohenheim was from a freaking desert country lol

It's the fourth day of Edling week and I'm not sure this really counts since the Edling hasn't actually happened in the fic yet, but its pick your favorite au, so soulmate au it is!


Ed was fully conscious enough to listen to Breda and Havoc poke fun at how adorable he was in uniform and even more conscious to threaten them with murder, the bastards. And he knew Mustang got a picture of it, which annoyed him even more, but he figured screaming at the guy wasn't going to do him many favors with his stitches the way they were…that, and he was using Mustang's couch and coffee table like it was his personal desk.

It was rather accommodating of Mustang given his initial reaction to entering the outer office and Ed was trying not to let it show how relieved or surprised he was by Mustang's actions.

Of course, he was still doing Mustang's work that the man should've been doing himself, which was a bit souring but Ed was really good at math, and he'd taken a look at the pile of papers before him, Mustang, Hawkeye, Havoc, Breda, Falman, and Fuery…there was no reason that this office was getting that much paperwork. There were a lot of different offices in Eastern Command, there was literally no reason to give Mustang this much work.

"Hey, Mustang?" Mustang hummed to indicate he was listening (to indicate he was alive) and Ed didn't even bother to look up from the papers he was sorting. He'd lucked out with the easy job, but Ed was pretty sure that it was just a way to ease him into work which was simultaneously relieving and annoying. "Do other Colonels have to do as much work as you?"

That made him grin widely. "Think I'm doing a lot of work, Fullmetal? Is it because the pile of paper is too tall for you to see over?"

Ed's teeth snapped tight and he growled. "Thin fucking ice, Bastard Colonel."

Mustang's eyes gleamed and Ed almost expected him to pull out another jibe about his height, but Mustang, surprisingly, let it go. "The higher-ups don't appreciate my ambition as much, in comparison to the other Colonels."

Ed furrowed his brow in confusion, looking over to Mustang this time to see him put down his pen (he'd been doodling, Ed would bet his military pension on it, even if he couldn't see the paper from his position) to give Ed his full attention, like he was the most important person in the room.

Ed didn't understand that or why it made his chest feel tight. Most of his first five years of life had encompassed trying to gain the attention of Hohenheim and utterly failing. If there was one memory of the man that was biologically his father, it was of his back -sitting in his office surrounded by books on alchemy, as he left out the front door without a glance back-, gaining his attention had never been without effort.

With Mustang it was effortless. Al always found the attention on him, good or bad and he certainly shone under the good, like when they were in Eastern Command with Mustang and his subordinates. He was used to people being afraid of his imposing appearance as a large suit of armor that being actually treated like a kid made him warm and…gooey.

Ed wasn't sure how he felt about it.

He almost looked away, hoping his warring emotions and confusion weren't clear on his face, but Mustang was giving him his full attention, Ed should respond with the same.

"Is ambition a bad thing?" He had no way of knowing that his look of confusion had morphed into a pout many would consider adorable and Roy wasn't immune to its power just like he wasn't immune to Al's puppy eyes despite them only being pinpricks of light. He really was far too soft where the brothers were concerned.

"Not necessarily, but I have jumped up the ranks rather fast," he conceded. "Obviously, you know that all State Alchemists receive the rank of Major upon certification." Ed nodded, not entirely sure where this was going. "State Alchemists were highly sought after when the war with Ishval became inevitable…I had already spent years studying under my master when I joined the military, something he didn't approve of."

Ed snorted, thinking of Izumi's dark disapproval of that particular decision of his. Maybe it was something that all alchemy instructors shared.

"The war had been going on for four years by the time I became a State Alchemist and was sent to the front lines…I was made a Major at the same time Hughes hit Captain and we were in the same classes together in the Academy." There was an almost grim sort of wistfulness about him as he said that. "Ironically, that's how we found out about the whole soulmate thing, my jumping a few ranks without too much effort never seemed to bother him very much, but Hughes is a very easygoing person to begin with."

"And most of the military aren't?" Ed was guessing.

Mustang gave a careful shrug. "It takes a lot of hard work and effort to rise up the ranks. The fact that I skipped right to Major at twenty probably bothered a lot of them…and you might've noticed that most Colonels are a good deal older than me."

Ed thought about making a jibe about Mustang's age, but this seemed like a fairly serious topic that it would probably be in poor taste. He simply nodded.

"It's mostly the generals that don't like me too much, but they wouldn't, they're one step below the Fuhrer…the only thing I'm good for in their eyes is my reputation as the Hero of Ishval."

Ed frowned severely. "But a lot've generals have asked me about switching commanding officers, why would they do that if I just skipped ranks like you did?"

Mustang blinked in surprise, but then he laughed and Ed could feel an embarrassed and traitorous flush rising in his cheeks. "Hey, jerk! Why're you laughing?"

"I think you'd get more majors and soldiers below them irritated about that, especially since you don't seem to care too much about the military, but the generals would rather have you under them instead because it would help their reputation to have the People's Alchemist answering to them."

A crease appeared between Ed's eyebrows. He didn't think it really meant that much, to be known as the People's Alchemist. Surely, something like that didn't matter as much to powerful generals.

"Overloading me with paperwork and then claiming that I'm inefficient would be a good way for me to lose the star State Alchemist I've got answering to me," he explained helpfully.

Ed had never been quite so startled as he looked at Mustang. It sounded like the military dealt with a lot of underhanded internal politics than anything else and he didn't like it, though that might've just been him hating on politics in general.

"Does that answer your question?" Mustang arched an eyebrow.

Ed shrugged his shoulders. "I guess," he said and went back to sorting the papers, not noticing how Mustang was considering him.

"Do you ever think about what would've happened if your father stuck around?" Mustang asked him bluntly and Ed choked on his tongue and almost broke his pen as he jerked his head towards Mustang, fury in his eyes -if he was probing into Ed and Al's personal life as a way to procrastinate, the utter bastard- but all he saw there was honest interest.

"Why does it matter?" he snapped, trying to return his attention to the paper before him.

"Edward." Ed hated when he so directly said his name, it reminded him of Hohenheim too. "I don't like talking about the Ishvalan Civil War, even a little, the least you could do would be to extend the same."

Equivalent exchange was a concept they were both familiar with, as alchemists, and Ed hated that he'd pulled it, but it wasn't like he was actually wrong. Ed started to shuffle the papers into the appropriate folders.

"Things would've been different if the bastard had stuck around," Ed finally forced out, "things would've been different if Mom hadn't gotten sick…but I could think about what could've gone differently a thousand times and it wouldn't change anything; Al and I're still here, still trying to get our bodies back, wanting it to be different won't actually change anything."

He was supposed to file this shit somewhere right? Ed piled up the folders, and he really should've been watching his mouth a bit more, but evidently his ability to multitask was negligible at best that day.

"Besides, you're doing a better job than he ever did and you're not even trying."

He didn't think anything of it, his words, not right then, it was only when Mustang choked that it dawned on him.

Ohshitohshitohshit!

"SORRY, GOTTA GO!" Ed didn't care how loud his yell was as he grabbed up all the folders and kicked his way out of Mustang's office, ignoring the call of "Hey, Fullmetal!" behind him, his dark cheeks flooded with a traitorous warmth that had almost everything to do with embarrassment.

He barely heard Hawkeye's question behind him and he made it out of the door of the outer office, trying very hard not to bury his face in his hands -especially since he was holding an awful lot of folders and dropping them meant he'd have to resort everything. If only he could shove those words back into his mouth.

Roy Mustang wasn't like his father, not by a longshot (but maybe that was why he preferred him to Hohenheim in the first place).


The library in Eastern Command was very large and had a large number of books that were off limits to the civilian public. Al was lucky in that respect, because both Ed and the Colonel had written to allow him permission inside it. Even if they'd tried to refuse Ed on the grounds that he was Al's only living relative and allowing him in the library was some kind of breach (of security? Confidentiality? Al wasn't sure, but he was sure they would've come up with something), Colonel Mustang's signature was enough for them to concede.

The head librarian was a woman named Second Lieutenant Colette Nobile who had kind brown eyes and dark hair clipped short, and she was very familiar with Al by now. She was one of the few people in Eastern Command that actually saw past his armor and treated him like the kid he was.

"Hello, Alphonse!" she waved cheerily when he entered the room. "You're here early."

It was better that most people didn't know about him and his lack of ability to sleep, to feel, to…to do a lot of things that he wished he could.

"Yeah, couldn't really sleep," he did his best to come off as a sheepish eleven-year-old being caught out, but all she did was smile.

"How's your brother doing? I heard he just got out of the hospital." Her eyes softened.

"He's doing better." Al snorted a bit. "He really didn't like being stuck in the hospital, though, he really hates those. But he's more annoyed about being on desk duty right now."

Colette laughed loudly, her laughter echoing in the silence of the library -it wasn't usually packed full of people, that was true enough, but it was ever eerier when they were the only ones there. "Yeah, that doesn't really surprise me…did Colonel Mustang actually get him into the uniform."

The giggle inside the armor told her enough. "Please tell me you got a picture!"

Proof or it didn't happen.

And as it so happened, Al did have that proof. He pulled out the picture he'd just barely managed to snap that morning.

"Now, doesn't he look adorable!" Colette was almost cackling. "He should wear the uniform more, its suits him more than the red."

"I don't think he'd agree," Al giggled some more, tucking the picture away. If Ed knew about it, he'd probably kill Al, all while being completely red in the face, but if Al was really pushing his luck, he'd show it to the Colonel and watch Ed flounder.

No one said that Al didn't have a devious streak; he was Ed's brother after all.

So, he waved to Colette before heading off in the direction of the history section. There had been nothing on Xerxes in the public library and very little on Xing, in a rather disappointing way. Al wasn't quite sure what that all meant, but he couldn't help but be suspicious. What he'd read up on Xingese alkahestry sounded intriguing but there were hardly any books that did more than mention it. Xerxes was even more elusive.

There were absolutely no books on the subject, not in the public library, and as Al scoured the military library, he discovered that it was very much the same. And that was the oddest thing, because obviously Xerxes was still around, the ruins of it, at least, you would've thought that there'd be at least something on it.

But the absence of data was in and itself data, that was something he and Ed had learned in their search for the Philosopher's Stone. Xerxes was renowned for its advancements of the time, so how could a civilization that advanced fall, let alone in a single night…and why did there appear to be absolutely nothing on the country at all? Especially when it was known that Xerxes was from where Amestrian alchemy had sprung? How could anyone know that if there were absolutely no books on the matter?

Had there been a purge of Xerxes-related books at some point? Even to Al it seemed to be an odd thing to do, but he couldn't really come up with a reason to why anyone would want to remove them otherwise.

"Not everyone is conspiring against you," the Colonel had once said to Ed, patting the top of his head as Ed's expression was caught somewhere between a scowl and a pout.

But it was so easy to feel like that. Every lead they had for the Philosopher's Stone had dead ended, Al was old enough to think that was a bit suspicious. Ed might've been the genius, but Al knew, without shame or doubt, that he wasn't that far behind.

There were so many suspicions he had already but he had to wonder about the books he'd collected from Dad's study and hidden in the Rockbell's basement. Was it possible that there might've been something in there on Xerxes? Their father had a lot of old things in the study…but he was absolutely certain that Ed would pitch a fit to find out that he'd taken things from the house before they'd torched it.

Well, he couldn't really kill Al if Al was at the train station already, could he?

(Even Al knew that it was a terrible idea, but was that going to stop him? Of course not! He was an Elric after all)


Ed's emotions had cooled as he made his way around the command post. He didn't spend more time than he had to at Eastern Command, if he could get away with it, so he didn't know his way as well as he would like, luckily, though, the lady at the main desk recognized his predicament and pointed him in the right direction for each of his prospective destinations, though most of his files took him to the records room, which was helpful; it was less people to deal with, which Ed was all for.

Talking too much with people, especially people that he didn't know, took a lot out of him. Winry said he was just introverted but Granny had puffed on her tobacco pipe and told him to take time to himself if he was feeling too wrung out ("I know you boys want to get your bodies back," Granny had said seriously, "but it'll be useless if you emotionally exhaust yourself too much for it to actually happen.")

The records room had a confusing arrangement that made it almost impossible for Ed to find the right spaces to place the files in question (and he was too stubborn to ask for help again, so toughing it out was his only option), but then he only had one folder left to deliver.

Ed paused before leaving, his fingers trailing over the words 'personnel'. Curiosity reared its head and Ed found himself moving to the E's and pulling out the file on 'Elric, E.' It was relatively thin, which was expected, since Ed had only joined the military almost a year ago. His picture stared out at him from the first page, listing his details -his family, his height (he gritted his teeth at that; he'd grown some!), his commanding officer. There were a few notes on missions he'd been a part of, with surprisingly glowing reviews, which was weird because Ed tended to finish something and leave the area immediately afterwards and his attitude was negligible at best (it was something Al reproached him for constantly).

He shook his head, shutting the folder and sliding it back into place before looking down and moving along to consider the M's next. He traced over the name: Mustang, R. Mustang's file was a great deal thicker than Ed's, but he'd been serving in the military for far longer.

Ed could open the file if he wanted. There was no one here to complain or see what he was doing, but he remembered how Mustang had spoke that morning, mentioning Ishval. Ironically, Ed didn't know a lot about Mustang, but it seemed like a huge invasion of privacy to open the folder when the man hadn't opened much up about himself in the first place.

He straightened up and stepped back away from the shelf, heading out the way he'd come, with the last folder tucked under his arm and without a second look back. He should've realized at that point that he was pushing his luck with hoping to hardly have to interact with anyone when he stopped by the secretary to General Quinton Symons to hand off the last folder.

"So, this is the famous Fullmetal Alchemist I've heard so much about," a voice spoke to Ed's left and the secretary stood to salute with a "General!" so Ed figured it would be bad form to not to so; Mustang might've been willing to overlook his insolence to proper military protocol, but he doubted this general would.

He saluted -reluctantly and briefly and hated it the whole time- finally getting a good look at him. He was older than Mustang with salt and pepper hair and eyes that looked like they spent a great deal of time squinting. And Ed really didn't like the look in his eyes.

"That's me," he said without inflection.

"Must be hard to have your father for your commanding officer," General Symons said in a consoling sort of way.

"I -what?" Ed thought maybe his brain wasn't functioning correctly -when was the last time he'd eaten? Maybe his brain was trying to tell him something- because there was no way anyone in their right mind would think Mustang could be his dad.

Like obviously, unfortunately, Hohenheim was Ed and Al's biological father, their coloring made it impossible to be otherwise. They shared his golden hair and eyes and his darker skin. Did Ed wish he shared more features with his mom? Definitely, but that didn't change the fact that there was clearly no doubt as to who his biological father was.

But Mustang was, what, fifteen years older than Ed? Which meant he would've had to have been that old when Ed was born and the idea that someone would think that Mustang fathering a kid at fourteen or fifteen was more plausible than any other theory as to why Ed chose to serve under a 'less experienced' Colonel than a more experienced General was literally numbing Ed's brain.

Seriously? What the fuck? What. The. Fuck.

All right, fine, maybe Mustang had a paternal air about him -one that annoyed Ed as much as it soothed him- but genetics didn't lie and if anyone had bothered to check instead of gossiping like they had nothing better to do, they would've been able to figure that out!

"He's not my father," Ed just barely managed to keep the contempt out of his voice. "Excuse me."

He was gone before the general could reel him back in and Ed had no idea he'd escaped yet another attempt to recruit him to someone other than Colonel Mustang.

He slammed into Mustang's office like a hurricane and Mustang jolted awake, startled only to realize it was just Ed. "Oh, my wayward son has returned."

"WHAT THE FUCK, BASTARD COLONEL!"

Lieutenant Hawkeye sighed heavily, standing in order to pull the door shut before the whole of Eastern Command was aware of Colonel Mustang and Fullmetal's most recent disagreement; might as well attempt to save at least a little face.

Breda whistled lowly. "Damn…what d'you think's got the Chief so riled up?"

Havoc opened his mouth, probably to take a stab at guessing when Ed's ungodly shriek echoed "WHY DO PEOPLE THINK YOU'RE MY DAD?!"

"Huh, yeah, I thought that would be at the top of the list," Havoc admitted before nudging Fuery. "Hey, pay up, Fuery. I called the screaming match."

Hawkeye tried not to scowl as Fuery sighed and pulled out his wallet as Falman tried not to wince every time Ed's voice rose in volume, but, unfortunately, it wasn't like they didn't bet on how Ed would respond to certain things; it was always the safest bet to expect an explosion. Hawkeye had no idea why Fuery had thought that betting against Havoc would end well, because it rarely ever did.

"That's the most popular one," Breda admitted, "I'm surprised it took him almost a year to hear about it."

"Probably because he barely sticks around long enough to hear anything substantial," Hawkeye pointed out. "Don't you all have paperwork to do?"

"Mine's done!" Fuery was grinning widely, very pleased at the fact, but he withered when Hawkeye came around the cluster of desks to drop another pile on his desk that required his attention.

"Now you're not," she said with a steely look in her eye that everyone had seen bring Colonel Mustang to his knees without the affect of rain to make him completely and utterly useless. It was best to tuck your tail between your legs when it came to Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye.

"Sit down, Fullmetal! You're going to rip open your stitches and end up in the hospital, again!"

"Better in the hospital than finding out people think you're my dad, which, by the way, is genetically impossible! Besides the fact that you were fifteen when I was born!"

"If you don't calm down I'm going to have to put you in time-out!"

There was a high-pitched sound of rage and Havoc sniggered. "I think he's got the dad thing down, if you ask me, all the way down to punishing unruly children."

Hawkeye's mouth twitched.


AN: After Ed's relieved from desk duty I might do a year time-jump, because that'll get us closer to Ed and Ling meeting, but we'll see :)

Roy and Ed are the best and I love them…Al's debating running off to Resembool to look at the books he's got stashed there and you bet your ass Ed won't be happy about it.

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!