Chapter seventeen
Ed had never felt this small and weak in his life. He was just sitting there, hugging his right leg weakly to him, leaning his forehead against his knee.
Mustang was gently running his left hand up and down his back, guiding the warm water from the showerhead along with his hand, carefully removing all the grains of sand littered across Ed's back. It felt weird, being cared for like this. Having someone treat him like a small child. He didn't know exactly why he was letting Mustang do this. To see him this way.
But it felt good. It felt good to have that large, warm hand on his back. To just feel the gentle touch of a grownup not leaving him to do everything on his own. To just be a child. To just have the warmth of a grownup to lean on in all of this cold darkness.
Mustang left him to clean his private parts alone, just holding the showerhead in place for him as Ed set to work. It was awkward, but at Mustang's reminder that he'd been in the military for nine years and he'd seen pretty much everything in the shower rooms during that time. And so Ed just nodded and thanked him quietly and had his hand washed with soap afterwards.
Thirty seconds later, Ed had returned to his original sitting position and found himself relaxing as Mustang began rubbing gentle circles into his back with a soapy washcloth.
There was something weird about this. It made him ache with something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It felt so familiar, but also not. Like a gentle itch in his arms and body.
Then he realised that it reminded him of Mom. It reminded him of the time that Ed and Al had been visiting the Rockbells in the middle of a rainstorm about a month before Mom collapsed.
The phone rang downstairs and Ed paused, still holding the piece of chalk to the floor. He was sitting in Winry's room with her and Al, a nearly finished transmutation circle on the floor in front of him. Winry and Al were looking at the transmutation circle with interest, Al more so than Winry.
Ed finished drawing and looked it over to see that everything was right before he activated the transmutation, transmuting a small, wooden butterfly. Al looked at it excitedly, holding it up and turning it around to see every part of it, just as Auntie knocked on their open door, smiling at them. "Edward, Alphonse, your mother called to say that dinner's ready."
Al gave Ed the butterfly and Ed put it in his pocket, and soon the two of them were walking back home in their boots and raincoats. Ed hadn't bothered to button his closed because it only took five minutes to walk tops, even with this weather. The road was muddy and slippery, but the rain wasn't as bad as it had been earlier. It was probably going to get better soon.
Then came a bright flash of light and the loud rumble of thunder above their heads and the rain began pouring even harder and they started running up the hill to their house. Lightning was dangerous and they were really exposed at the moment so they should get inside quickly. Ed slipped suddenly and he fell forwards into the mud, getting completely covered in the muck, feeling his fear growing. He was soaked and muddy and there was another bright flash of lightning and an even louder rumble of thunder.
"Brother! Careful!" Al shouted and began pulling him up by his right elbow, just as Mom began shouting and came running to meet them. Ed felt scared and miserable tears running down his cheeks. He was cold and wet and the thunder was so loud and threatening. Like it wanted to kill him and his left foot was stuck in the mud.
Mom came over to them, she wasn't even wearing a raincoat over her dress and apron and she was already getting soaked. "Al, you go ahead, but be careful not to slip," Mom said, smiling at Ed who was still kneeling in the mud, his leg still trapped. Al did as he was told just as Mom placed her hands under Ed's armpits and pulled him free, his boot still stuck inside the mud as Mom lifted him up to her chest and he put his arms around her neck, crying into her chest as she carried him back inside the house, the thunder louder than ever. "I've got you, my little man," she said gently, holding him close as she walked. She shut the door behind them, and Ed heard Al come running towards them and hugged Mom too, sobbing, just as scared as Ed was. Mom spoke with warm and comforting words as she carried Ed upstairs, Al holding her free hand.
She had washed Ed in the same way that Mustang was doing right now. The same gentle circles up and down his back.
But this time Al wasn't sitting there in the tub with him, hugging his right arm like his life depended on it because he had thought that his big brother was going to die. This time Mom wasn't there to tell them that it was all right. This time they weren't safe and warm inside their home. This time Ed didn't have a small gift for Mom that made her smile widely and call him special. This time they couldn't walk back downstairs after Mom had changed into a clean dress and then eat their dinner once she had reheated it.
This time, Ed was alone in a strange house in a big city with no right arm to be hugged by his little brother because his little brother wasn't able to do it. This time the thing he brought was a pair of empty eye sockets and a giant list of expenses.
This time there wasn't any thunder and lightning to be scared of. There wasn't any rain. There weren't any bright flashes of light and there never would be ever again.
Mom was gone, Al was gone, and the people that were around him were strangers.
In a way it fitted that everything was black like this. That all those days filled with colour and smiles and love and family were all just in the past. That his new life was going to be dark. A fitting punishment for what he did. He didn't deserve any light. He didn't deserve to see people smiling. He deserved to spend the rest of his life in complete darkness.
He suddenly felt like his insides just dropped in a painful clench of panic. He had known it. He had known it was black, that it would stay this way forever, but now came that shocked panic of realisation that it was actually REAL. That he was REALLY going to be stuck with the darkness like this.
That he was never going to see again.
"They... they're gone... my ... my eyes," Ed said, terrified, his lips trembling as he placed his hand on the bandages, only earning him a spike of pain. "I'm... Mustang, I'm blind!" he exclaimed. He felt stupid and panicky at the same time, but it didn't change the fear of never being able to see again.
"Edward, just breathe," Mustang said, and Ed only now noticed that the hand on his back had stopped moving and that his breathing was a lot quicker. Ed began taking deep breaths, feeling his lips trembling. "That's it, Ed," Mustang said, gently rubbing the washcloth in circles on his back again.
Next second, before Ed had even had time to think it through, he had turned around swiftly and thrown his arm around Mustang's neck and was sitting there with his cheek pressed to his. Ed didn't even know what he was thinking or doing, just that his body desperately wanted to cling to Mustang in a hug and his brain had seemingly gone on holiday.
Mustang put down the showerhead and the washcloth and hugged Ed back.
Ed just knew that in a world that had been turned on its head and everything was black and unreal in this living nightmare, being inside a warm embrace, it made it a bit less lonely inside this darkness.
The loss of his vision made him feel detached from his surroundings. Like the things he didn't see weren't really there. That he was just inside this bubble of pain and darkness and that was all there was to his life from now on. The outside world had colours and people and light and Ed wasn't a part of that anymore. But being held like this, just hugging someone, it made them feel real. And it made him feel like his eyes were merely closed like when he hugged Mom.
This was the closest thing he had been to being hugged by a parent ever since Mom died.
He froze.
"Edward? What's going on?" Mustang asked, concerned, and Ed felt the cheek pressed to his move as Mustang spoke.
Ed pulled back and pressed his back against the edge of the tub. "Fuck... That's not ... No way in hell," Ed said, feeling awkward and his stomach was clenching.
"Ed?" Mustang asked, worry clear in his voice and Ed felt a hand on his left shoulder and immediately pushed it away with a flinch.
"Don't... don't touch me!" Ed exclaimed. He was panicking with realisation.
"Edward, what's wrong?" Mustang asked, clearly alarmed.
"You're gonna end up as Al's Dad!" Ed said. "You're his guardian, and... and he'll probably call you "Dada" or something within a year, and you can't explain to him that you aren't and if you do, then he'll grow up thinking that you don't want him as your son and that's really bad with everything else that he has to learn about his existence and if he grows up thinking that it's Mister Hughes, then it'll be even more messed up cos they're just living in the same house and he has no legal responsibility unlike you!" Ed barely took a single breath of air as he explained.
There was silence, and then Mustang sighed. "And the reason you're panicking is that if Al sees me as his father, then you, as his older brother would be expected to do so too, is that it?" Before Ed could say anything, Mustang spoke again. "Ah, fuck, kid, your problem with this is that you, because you always sacrifice yourself for your brother, now feel obliged to be my son, don't you? Just so that Al can grow up with a parent?"
Ed didn't even answer. He was terrified by this, because it was true, but he hardly knew Mustang when he wasn't being a smug bastard and Ed didn't want to trust anyone to be his father after Hohenheim. But he didn't have a choice, because Al shouldn't grow up without a parent and Ed would be damned if he let him grow up this time too with a father figure who pushed him away.
And now Ed was afraid of letting Mustang any closer, but he also knew he had to do it for Al. Al was everything. And if Al was happy, then that was all that mattered.
The hugs that had been so good, so warm and safe, were something that he still craved, but if he gave into it, then...
...Then there was no going back. But there wasn't anyways. He was scared. He had already become dependant on Mustang, but this was different. Or maybe it wasn't. He couldn't tell anymore. Ed had already put more trust in Mustang than he had in anybody ever since Mom. He had trusted him to guide him out of this hell. Ed was at the lowest point in his life, he was on the edge of giving up and he knew it. He was terrified by how far gone he already was, of the prospect of giving up. He wanted to be saved. To keep fighting.
But he hardly knew what he was fighting for.
He needed help. He needed Mustang because he was the only one who would stay here.
At least he hoped so. He didn't know why he should, though. He didn't have a reason to do anything other than do what was required of him as a guardian. He could easily decide at some point that Ed was just too much work. Mustang didn't gain anything from helping Ed.
But if Mustang decided to leave him, then Ed knew that he wasn't going to be able to get through this. Everything hurt and everything was scary and...
...And everything would be so much easier if it just stopped.
Ed felt his chest tighten. He only had two options: push Mustang away to keep himself from risking to be hurt in a way that Ed couldn't survive, but by doing so, he'd also find himself without anything to keep him going.
...Or he could trust Mustang to be the thing he needed the most, and thereby leave himself more vulnerable than ever in a way that could never be reversed.
Mustang slammed his hand on the edge of the tub angrily. "Dammit, Ed! That's one of the most fucked up things I've heard! First of all, I am not a father. I've only been a guardian for about thirty hours, and I have no interest in becoming a father, by force nonetheless, to a kid who feels obliged to be my son instead of doing it by his own free will! That's not how it works! I told you earlier that I'm not going to fail you again, and if Alphonse needs me to be a father figure, then so be it, I guess, but just so you know, that's daunting as hell! But there is no fucking way that I want a kid to be my son when he doesn't even want it!" Mustang said angrily. "You need to think about yourself! What YOU want! Not just what you want for Alphonse, because that is actually MY responsibility now!" He took a few deep breaths before sighing. "Ed, family is something you choose for yourself, no matter what any legal documents may say. And there is no way in hell that I'm going to be your father when you don't even want me to. I know that this whole thing is complicated, but seriously, Ed, just... Just please stop doing this to yourself." He suddenly grabbed Ed's hand in both of his, squeezed it and then placed it on his own cheek, and Ed was horrified to feel a tear there. "Just tell me what you need for yourself, and I'll do what I can to help you," he said softly. "And please don't be scared to ask for whatever you may need."
Ed paused. Mustang sounded ... afraid?
"Why...? Why are you scared?" Ed asked, his voice croaky and weak. Everything was just a torrent of emotional pain and fear and confusion.
"Edward... Please just let me help you," he said quietly, his voice heavy, like he couldn't bear the thought of the alternative.
Ed felt the warm cheek under his hand and the large one covering his own. He made up his mind, not knowing where this would lead him, and threw himself at him, leaning heavily into his chest, feeling those strong arms place themselves around him and hug him tightly. He pulled back his hand and let it wander to behind Mustang's ear and began scratching it, lips trembling. "Then I guess... I guess you're my Miniature Pinscher from now on," Ed said weakly.
"Your what?" Mustang asked incredulously.
"Miniature Pinscher. They're known for being courageous and dignified. And they're nicknamed "the King of Toys", which we can make into "the King of Roys", so that fits, doesn't it?" Ed teased, but his voice was weak, his chest filled with fear of rejection. He needed to stop that scared tone in Mustang's voice because it made everything a lot more scary.
Mustang actually began to chuckle, placing his right hand at the back of Ed's head, hugging him tighter. "Sounds good, kiddo. Sounds really good."
There was an unspoken "thank you" in his voice, but Ed had to say that he didn't know if he should ask just what it was about. All he knew was that he had left his life in Mustang's hands, and he was afraid to ever let go of this hug because he didn't know what came next once he did. "Please help me," he whispered weakly, his chest filled with terrified pain.
Please don't leave me too...