A/N: Written for the FMA Big Bang event over on Tumblr! This was my first time writing for a BB and it was both a nerve wracking and immensely enjoyable experience. It's so nice to be at a point in my writing life where a ~30k fic no longer seems impossible. :)
Warnings for general descriptions of severe food poisoning, delusions, and hospitalization. This is a hurt/comfort fic first and foremost, not my typical body horror extravaganza, so no graphic descriptions will be found here.
Dried up, a guitar upon my knee
I should have sold out when the devil came for me
Dig a hole and throw it out to sea
Break the code, how happy I could be
The flush of the toilet seems twice as loud as it should be, doing Ed's aching head no favors. He groans, carefully setting both seat and lid down, and rests his head against the cool porcelain. His back and shoulder hurt from puking yet a-fucking-gain. His knee and hips hurt from spending half the night knelt on the tile. His whole stupid, traitorous body hurts. All he wants is to keep a glass of water down, a blisteringly hot shower, and a solid eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. The best thing for him right now is to stay put if the frantic jig of his stomach is anything to go by. That's all right. He's feeling a mite too shaky to try standing at the moment anyway.
The bathroom door rattles impatiently. "Dad? Da-a-a-ad!"
So much for that.
"Leave him alone," he hears Winry scold. "He doesn't feel good."
"But I gotta go."
"S'alright," he calls out hoarsely. "C'mon in."
The door swings wide, thumping against the wall. Nina swarms him, Winry hanging back. A discordant burst of movement his eyes flinch from. "You're still sick?" Nina asks, astounded.
"Uh-huh."
"But you never get sick! Not in my whole entire life!"
"You're not that old, bud."
"Give him some space," Winry says. To Ed she asks, "How are you feeling?"
He grunts, opting to focus more on getting his feet under him than on lying. She'd see right through him; waste of time to try. And anyway, he's actually having to pay attention to where his limbs want to wander. He must be pretty damn dehydrated if he's this dizzy. He keeps a hard grip on the towel rack for balance, grimacing as his head pounds.
"Can I have some privacy, please?" Nina demands. "It's aw-full-ly crowded in here."
"You can hang on another minute," Ed grumbles, swaying past her to the sink. He washes his face, rinses out his mouth, drags damp fingers through his hair. He risks a glance at the mirror and regrets it. He looks about as good as he feels; flushed and greasy, shadows under his drooping eyes from a night spent staggering between the bathroom and bedroom and back again all while his stomach does the goddamn can-can. Ugh. No wonder Winry's looking at him like that.
He shuts the bathroom door behind him to let Nina pee in peace, sagging against the frame. Mm. Pressure feels good on his shoulder. He's going to be so fucking sore after this runs its course.
"What did you eat?" Winry asks. She sounds torn between amusement and genuine concern.
His eyes shutter closed of their own accord, too heavy to keep open. He's too tired to deal with Winry making that face at him anyway. "Dunno. Be nice if it quit kickin' my ass though."
"Have you been able to keep anything down? Water?"
His stomach clenches. It must show on his face because suddenly the back of her hand—startlingly cool—is pressed to his forehead. He flinches, knocking his head against the wall hard enough to rattle a nearby picture frame. His whole skull throbs. Gravity makes a brave show of trying to drag him straight to the hardwood floor. He pops his knuckles on the doorframe as he catches himself; a secondary crack of pain that barely registers.
He squints at Winry through the flicker of his migraine. Her hands are hovering, not quite daring to touch him again. "Don't," he says thickly.
Her hands drop. "You're warm."
He doesn't say anything. Just figures, is all.
She huffs as the toilet flushes. "I'll bring some tea up in a bit. You try and get some rest, okay?"
His stomach clenches again. He keeps it off his face this time, barely. "Go easy on the honey?"
"I'll double up on the milk to make up for it," she teases.
Ugh. He can't even remember the last time somebody tricked him into drinking milk, but he does remember the awful taste of it. How it lingers on the tongue, in his throat; heavy, thick, cloying—
"I was kidding," she says, dismayed.
He turns to knock on the door, flinching at the volume. "Time's up, bud."
After some mysterious bangs and clatters that rattle like hail against Ed's tender skull, Nina yanks the door open and bolts between their legs with a, "Thanks!" tossed over her shoulder. Ed staggers back to the toilet, jaw and abs both clenched tight, catching himself against the bowl so his knee can't crack the tile. He half-expects Winry to say something else, but he only hears the bathroom door shut quietly, then her footsteps diminishing down the hall. He spares half a thought of gratitude her way; grateful for the peace, grateful she didn't get this shit too, grateful she can wrangle the kids while he's out of commission.
Mostly though, all he can think about is how goddamn sick of being sick he is.
The next time Ed stumbles out of the bathroom Winry's there again, waiting for him with a mug and a bottle of acetaminophen. His stomach only manages a weary flip-flop at the bitter smell of the tea, and it feels more like habit than a warning. A good sign, hopefully.
"Bed," she orders without preamble.
He follows her on auto-pilot to their bedroom. She's drawn the curtains shut and turned the ceiling fan on low. It's a slow and steady hum, comfortably familiar. She guides him to the bed, tuts over a scratch on his left knee and a bruise on his right as he gingerly stretches his legs out. In the time it takes him to dry swallow two pills she magics up a thermometer. He gives her a disbelieving look that slides right off of her terrible bedside manner.
"Be grateful I didn't grab the one that goes in the other end," she says, popping it in his mouth.
"You—"
She pokes his nose. "Hush."
He scowls while she primps the pillows and smoothes the blanket, then plucks the dumb thermometer out of his mouth once she's deemed enough time has passed. His scowl slips when she frowns. "That bad?"
"Higher than I'd hoped," she admits. "Drink your tea and try to get some sleep. I'm gonna call Doctor Brahim."
"It's just a little food poisoning," he protests. "Don't call him. I'm probably through the worst of it by now."
"You said that three hours ago," she retorts with a quelling look. "Drink your tea. Get some sleep. And don't go wandering off to your study again. You need to rest."
"What if I gotta hurl?"
She produces a wastebasket, setting it down by his nightstand with aplomb.
He's not impressed. "And if it starts comin' out the other end again?"
"Then you've got my permission to go to the bathroom. I'm sure as hell not cleaning that up."
"Gee, thanks."
She rolls her eyes. "You must be feeling better if you're getting sassy."
He's not, actually. For all that he's not currently doing his level best to puke his small intestine out, he's pretty sure that can only be attributed to having wrung his stomach dry sometime around dawn. The last three times he puked it was just the tap water he'd tried and failed to keep down. Still. He probably really is through the worst of it by now. No need to make Winry worry. He brings the mug to his lips and pretends to sip so she'll stop tapping her foot at him.
"I won't ask him to come by yet," she relents, immediately following it with a threat to make sure he stays put. "I'll be up in a bit to check on you."
He grunts through a legitimate, albeit cautious, sip of tea. Winry takes that as her cue to tiptoe out of the bedroom, not quite closing the door behind her. He rolls her eyes and takes another sip. He thinks this one is from the box of goodies Al sent a few months back for his birthday, because Al's a giant sap and can't let any excuse to send gifts go by without taking advantage of it. It's some kind of feel-good, qi vibe-sensing bullshit improvement mix; heavy on the ginger with something floral to soften the bitter bite. He can recall the Xingese characters stamped on the tin box it came in easily. What the translation is? Pfft.
He takes another sip, playing chicken with his own nausea to sate his dehydration. He's not normally one for ginger-anything, but he knows it's one of the safer things to have when your stomach's no longer sure which way is up. So far, at least, his stomach seems fairly indifferent to the intrusion. If he takes it slow maybe he'll be able to keep the whole mug down. That'd be nice. For all that his gut feels like someone's gone after it with a trowel he knows it's not wise to go without fluids as long as he has. May as well take the risk on this weird, Al-gifted, Winry-approved tea.
He breathes between sips. Slow, shallow, controlled. Bullying his stomach into cooperation. He needs to keep something down, otherwise he's gonna end up dragged downstairs to get fluids pumped into him through a tube. No thank you.
He breathes, riding out a sullen stomach cramp. Enough. Enough.
He's had enough.
He doesn't finish the tea.
He doesn't even manage to keep what he did drink down, for that matter.
Ed's not sure what wakes him up, only that consciousness tugs at his attention, insistently enough to drag him out of the miserable murk of fevered sleep. He blinks, taking in nothing. Sickness has made him stupid and sluggish; it takes a small eternity before he notices that the light leaking through the sea-blue curtains has deepened, scorched orange by the afternoon heat. It's really fucking warm in here.
A weight crawls up the bed, followed by a whispered, "Mooey, no!" Then he feels prodding up his thigh, narrowly missing his dick, then Al's stupid cat plops down on his aching stomach.
"Mmph," he protests.
"Brr?" Al's stupid cat asks.
Maes appears by the wastebasket, looking torn between glaring at the cat and staring at Ed. "Sorry," he whispers. "He ran in before I could get 'im."
"Mmph," he says.
Maes looks apologetic, and then properly nervous the longer he looks at Ed. Not a good sign. It takes a monumental effort to swallow his swollen tongue enough to speak. His mouth is a fucking desert. "Y'okay?"
"Yeah," Maes says, too quickly. A bald-faced lie. Kid worries about everything. Ed doesn't know how to tell him to stop. "Are you?"
Moving even that small amount has woken up a laundry list of aches and pains. His hands and foot are on fire, prickles working their way greedily up to his armpits and groin. His spine is an old rubber hose. For all that it's like he's been eating sand it sure tastes like he's been sucking on raw sewage. He feels like he's aged 20 years while he was asleep, which is really just the cherry on top. This is why he never naps anymore if he can help it. "M'okay. Where's your Mom?"
"Downstairs, in the showroom. She's gonna call the doctor for you after she closes up for the day."
Al's stupid cat starts kneading his hip. Ed feels its rusty purr shiver up his side more than he hears it. He doesn't have the energy to mind its claws catching in his skin through the blanket and his boxers. Then again, he can hardly tell the difference from cat claws and the warm prickle running through his whole body. His fever must have crept higher. Maybe it is a good idea to have Sidi stop by after all.
"Mmph," he says a third time. Vague noises really are all he can manage. He's pretty sure if he tried to sit up right now he'd end up falling over himself reaching for the wastebasket. Frankly he's too damn tired to puke anymore, and he sure as hell doesn't want Maes to see him at it either.
"D'you want me to take him?" Maes asks, pointing.
"Mm. S'fine."
"'Kay. I'm gonna go now. Feel better?"
He manages a lackluster wave as Maes slinks out of the bedroom. Al's stupid cat blinks slowly at him, settling down for a nap of its own. Little bastard. A loaf of marshmallow white fur and street cat muscle. Winry must have bullied it into a bath recently if it looks this clean. When did she do that? The damn thing always kicks up such a fuss, it's practically a two-person job. When had she done that?
He can't remember.
He's so thirsty. He's so fucking thirsty. The mug of tea is gone from his nightstand, a sweating glass of water in its place. Winry must have brought it when she came up to check on him. His right hand's such a tingling, prickling mess of nerve damage he can't trust it to hold the condensation-slick glass on its own. Funny. He hasn't had a day this bad since after his second shoulder surgery, and that was years ago.
The cold water is a fucking balm for his dry mouth, rinsing out the vaguely metallic-tasting fur on his tongue for all that it hurts to swallow. The second it hits his stomach he knows he's made another mistake.
He breathes.
He breathes.
He's had food poisoning before. Twice, actually. And sure, they'd been their own humbling little slices of hell, but neither time had been as bad as this one's turned out to be. Maybe he should be concerned after all.
"Ed?"
Awake again, with no memory of having shut his eyes.
He blinks owlishly at his nightstand. He'd rolled over in his sleep, apparently. His wedding band is bright, solid, real. He, on the other hand, feels... soft. Sunken. Disconnected. Unreal.
"You awake?"
Paninya's voice, weirdly hushed. She's worried. He can count on one hand how many times he's heard her sound like this. Not a good sign.
He tries to grunt confirmation. It comes out as a kind of weird sigh instead, irritated and weary. It doesn't sound a thing like him. He's baffled by the ghost in his throat.
She appears at his bedside, a dim shape in a dim room. The last of the afternoon sunlight coming in through the gauzy curtains gleams off her eyes and teeth. "Jeez, Winry wasn't kidding. You look like shit."
"Mmph," is hardly worth the effort. His tongue feels swollen, pinched between his teeth. It unsticks from the roof of his mouth reluctantly, like picking at a scab. "Time's'it?"
"Almost six. You've slept the whole day away, lazybones. How you feeling?"
Ed takes stock.
His skin's... wrong. Ill-fitting, bristling with heat like a sweat-stiffened coat. Squirming and prickling. The numb shock of electricity running raggedly through his nerves. He feels sensationary. Deadened and overwhelmed at the same time. The thought of moving an inch sounds like the worst possible idea ever conceived.
It's so fucking hot in here.
"Ed?"
Oh. Right.
"Bad," he admits grudgingly.
"When's the last time you hurled?"
"Mm. Morning."
"Well that's somethin', anyway. Here, let's get some more water in ya before Winry comes up, huh?"
Paninya takes the empty glass—when did he finish drinking it?—and slides out of his peripheral. The floors creak underfoot as she leaves the bedroom and goes down the hall. Vague, incomprehensible sounds from the bathroom. The floors creak on her way back. She huffs, muttering something he can't understand. "C'mon, you big lump. Sit up."
Oh. Right. Hydration's easier when you're vertical.
He glares at his hand, his arm; bullying his limbs into cooperating by sheer force of will. His neck cracks when he moves, prickling heat racing down his right arm and setting all the fingers of that hand on fire. Seems like his shoulder's decided to pitch a real fit on top of everything else. Just figures. He changes tactics, rolling over to sit up without involving Righty at all—
Pain knifes through him without the slightest warning, hard and unexpected enough to startle a noise out of him that makes Paninya jerk back. It's the same kind of brutal agony as a kick to the stomach; he's left breathless and aching and bruisingly hot, certain he'll taste blood if he coughs. He flops onto his back, gasping.
A blissfully cold hand touches his arm for a second. Paninya swears and the hand vanishes, then presses against his forehead. "Fuck," she hisses, withdrawing again.
"Wh—" He breaks off coughing, an involuntary cry curdling out of him on its heels. It's like his stomach's full of nails, what the fuck—
"I'm getting Winry," Paninya says, urgent, and bolts out of the bedroom.
Ed can't even muster a weak protest; he isn't all that inclined to protest the worry anymore, actually. For all that he hates making any kind of fuss when he's sick or hurt, he knows now. This is bad. Dangerously bad, maybe, if he's too wrung out to even sit up.
There's a querying chirp from somewhere on the bed. Fuck's sake. Even Al's stupid cat sounds worried about him.
His stomach roils, audibly and physically. He curls onto his side, burying his moan into his sweat-damp pillow. It's so hot in here. He's so hot. His skin's on fire. Fire ants. There's a swarm of them biting furiously beneath his skin. If he moves something inside him will rupture. He doesn't know if that will bring further pain, or relief.
He breathes. It's all he can manage.
Footsteps charge up the stairs, down the hall, into the bedroom. The yellow lights from the neon sign across the street catch on Winry's hair, staining it the same warm gold as his own. "Ed?" Deliciously cold hands touch his face again, rough-palmed and familiar. Comforting. He leans into her touch with a groan, certain in his trust. Winry's here. He'll be just fine.
She hisses through her teeth. "Pan, call Doctor Brahim. Tell him to come straight away." Paninya's murmured answer. Paninya's heavy tread out of the bedroom, down the hall, down the stairs. "Ed? Hey, look at me. Talk to me. What's going on?"
It's like he has to swallow a pine cone to speak. How the fuck was he talking to Paninya just a minute ago? "Nngh. I—Winr—haughk. I, ah, I dunno—"
"Symptoms," she demands flatly. Her voice has wound down to that of the calm clinician, a brusque tone he normally only hears her use when she's trussed up in surgical scrubs. It's a voice that tolerates no bullshit dilly-dallying.
"Hot," is the first thing that pops out of his mouth. "Stomach's—swollen?"
"Nausea?"
"Uh-uh." He's in too much pain to even consider puking. "Neu—um. Peri—" He rides out a fresh flush of heated knives perforating his guts through clenched teeth. He doesn't have the capacity to say peripheral neuropathy so he settles for, "Hands—foot—hurt—"
"Okay," Winry says. "You need to get up now. I got you. Just listen to me. We'll get you taken care of—" She gets his right arm over her shoulders—the stretch almost feels good under the prickle and burn of his skin—and leverages him carefully upright. His gut throbs; he can't help the anguished noise he makes. It feels like recovering from Baschool all over again. What the fuck is wrong with him? "—Easy! Easy, Ed. I know. I know. We gotta get you downstairs, 'kay? C'mon. Hardest part's right here. C'mon—"
Sheer spit and vinegar gets him out of the bed. It's his automail that keeps him up on his left side, Winry shoring up his right. His metal joints clank and clatter, shuddering to match the numbing weakness shivering through the rest of him. The room spins, his vision tunneling as his head pounds. It's like the first time he ever got properly staggering drunk, or the first time he rode a rollercoaster, or like a spectacular concussion. His stomach tries to pirouette clear out of him; he shuts his eyes and bobs along stupidly while Winry all but hauls him bodily down the hall.
Symptoms, she'd demanded. She needs to know his symptoms. He should—
He should take stock.
He should take better stock.
He should tell her how he feels, so she'll have a better idea of what to do with him. She'll figure it out, or Sidi will when he gets here. But they'll need data to make sense of him and whatever the fuck this food poisoning is doing to him. He loses control of his knees as he focuses more on thinking instead of walking; his clumsy stagger into a wall is acceptable collateral for his efforts.
"Throat hurts," he slurs. "Mm—metal taste. M-metallic. Migraine. Cr-cramps—" A horrible wheeze rattles out of him that he can only blink incredulously at. He was breathing fine a second ago. Wasn't he? Why is it so much harder to breathe now?
He's upright—arguably. Mobile—just as arguably. He's 98% sure he'd be a heap on the floor if not for Winry. She's strong as hell, sure, but he's not exactly light and his skeleton feels like charred spaghetti. How are they going to navigate all the damn stairs down to the clinic? What the hell caused this? What if it wasn't something he ate after all? Something environmental? Something catching? Something—
—another pained cry frays between his clenched teeth when Winry adjusts her grip—
"—sorry, sorry—"
—and he wheezes again, lungs cramping too sharply to allow for more than shallow panting. "Kids," he chokes out. "K-keep 'em away—"
"—I know. I will. C'mon now, careful, first step comin' up—"
Winry keeps talking, unhurried assurances to keep him focused on the task at hand. Stairs. He fumbles for the banister, wedding band cracking loudly against the wood. If it hurts he can't differentiate it from the pins and needles already sunk into him. He has to look to prove he's got a grip; even then he can't be sure how much use it is. Winry's voice in his ear, a litany of calm comforts as incomprehensible as Siglosian to him. He understands her tone, not her words. She's afraid and trying not to show it. She's tamping her own strain to focus on his pain.
A thought chills him, hand sliding off the banister. If he's sick with something catching, she shouldn't be near him. For her own health, obviously. Doubly so for the baby's. Right? He tries to shrug her off, grunting when that just makes her hang on harder.
"It's okay, I got you," she says as they practically trip down to the landing.
He's going to drag her down with him at this rate. Too much. He's too much. He's gotta get off her. Away from her. He can walk down the stairs on his own. Course he can. He's not that sick, right?
"Ed, stop squirming. What are you—ow! Hey!"
He wriggles free at last, and promptly cants into the wall. A picture frame goes crashing but he doesn't hear glass shatter so he's still going to call this a win. He clings white-knuckled to the banister, squints at a divot of paint as if focusing on something an inch from his nose will stop the world from spinning off its axis. It doesn't. He wants to tell Winry he's fine, really, he can manage on his own. Weird though; he can't get his mouth to do what he wants it to. His throat either, for that matter. He tries to swallow and the whole instinctive motion fails him. Muscles twitch fruitlessly. He can't speak.
"Ed—"
Hard to breathe.
"Hey, Ed—"
Harder to breathe.
"Hey, look at me, c'mon—"
There's still an entire flight of stairs to navigate. They're on the landing. The kitchen is quiet and dark. One small light on in the far living room corner. Where are the kids? It's late. Isn't it? Maes wouldn't still be at school, right? Ed's got a vague memory of Maes' pinched face, Al's stupid cat kneading his hip. That was today, wasn't it?
Winry keeps talking, but it's like his tunnel vision has extended to the rest of his senses. Everything that isn't his immediate has gone long-range, out of touch, like he's one gasp away from going underwater completely. He's all too aware of what this feeling means. The return of the damn nausea though, he could do without. He'd prefer not to make a mess on the stairs. It'd be a bitch to clean up and in the state he's in it wouldn't be him doing the cleaning.
His grip slips. He wavers away from the kitchen, toward a yawning gray nothing.
"Ed—!"
Blacking out honestly comes as a relief.
Cool, quiet, dark.
It's the shivering that wakes him.
It's so cold. He's so cold. It's the North all over again, avoiding frostbitten stumps by sheer luck and the skin of his teeth. Shaking so hard it hurts to breathe. Muscles cramp. His leg rattles against something else that's metal.
Where is he?
There aren't any lights on. He has a vague sense of unfamiliar space, of his trembling exhale striking his ears strangely. Empty walls, empty space. The mattress is hard and narrow, the sheets thin and starched. The air reeks of antiseptic, lemon-scented.
A hospital, he realizes with a dull and sluggish sort of horror. He's in a hospital.
It takes a small eternity to get himself upright. He sits there, gasping, marveling at how unbelievably shitty he feels. The ants under his skin have turned into wasps, and there are at least a couple of scorpions raising merry hell in his guts to go with them. His skull feels like someone's been using him as a battering ram. He shivers, teeth chattering. Where'd his shirt go?
He tries to swallow and chokes instead. Tries again, chokes again. He tamps down the baffling urge to panic. Breathe, dipshit. Breathe.
His mouth tastes like he's been sucking on dirty cenz. He's so fucking thirsty. His vertebrae creak when the idea finally occurs to him to look around. Dim blue shapes, deepening grays, ink-dark corners. He can't see shit. Something niggles anyway. The window, leaking orange light from outside. The door, a fey yellow outline. The placement is something familiar, a buoy to cling to while his thoughts spin idle circles. He shivers again, twitching when something tugs weirdly at his inner elbow. A touch confirms what he dreads to find.. There's an IV attached to his arm. Someone put a needle in his arm.
No way. Abso-fuckin'-lutely not. He's out. He doesn't care what Winry might say. He didn't agree to this. He's fine. It's just a little food poisoning. He's feeling better anyway. Really. So it takes him a couple tries to get the fucking IV out. So he's kind of bleeding all over the place now. Whatever. It doesn't hurt. It's not serious. He just needs to slap some gauze on it, drink some water, sleep this off. He's fine. He'll be fine.
The ground comes out of nowhere and socks him in the face.
"Oof," he says.
Footsteps in another room. The door opens in a searing blaze of light. He hisses through his teeth, slapping his face in his haste to cover his eyes. He hears the slap but doesn't feel it. He's too full of wasps. Was he in an accident? Has he been drugged? Is that why everything feels so off-kilter?
"Ed—? Oh my god, what did you do?"
Winry's all over him out of nowhere, tugging on his arms, hauling him up to sit on the edge of the hospital bed. Her eyes catch the light spilling in, gleaming catlike in the dark. She witters on about blood and idiocy, which is old news as far as he's concerned. He watches her hands squeeze his forearm, fingers dimpling his skin. He can't feel it.
He can't feel it.
She's drugged him.
She's only ever put him on anything this strong when they were still kids. When she and Pinako cut him open and filled him full of metal and wires.
Oh, god.
"N-no," he slurs, tugging feebly. Let go. Let him go.
"Ed?"
"M'fine. Don't. Please. I can't. Not again."
"What? I need to get this cleaned up. You know better than to go tearing IVs out, seriously, what the hell—"
He shoves her.
He's too clumsy, too weak. She only staggers back a step, but it's enough. She stares at him, aghast. He ignores it; the hurt on her face, the guilt squeezing his throat so tightly he can only wheeze weak platitudes. "Sorry. M'sorry, but—don't. Don't cut it off."
"What?"
She ought to know. She ought to know. Why doesn't she know?
He hauls himself to his feet, wanting out of this hospital room, but his right leg gives out and he goes clattering to the floor again. At least one tile cracks under his automail but he can't find a shit to give about that. He slaps Winry's looming hand away. "Don't!"
She retreats out of his wavering reach. "...You're sick, Ed. Please let me help you."
The room heaves with his panting, sweat running in rivulets down the walls. He can't tell if it's his arms that shake under his weight or the ground under his hands. "Al—hhgh, hah—won't forgive you."
"What are you talking about?"
He's on all fours like a dog. May as well beg like one too. "Don't cut my arm off. Please, Win. I can't do that again. I can't."
She leans back. She stands very still. "...Okay. Okay, Ed. I promise. Can I please look at your left arm—"
"NO!"
"—your left arm! You're bleeding, Ed, please—"
She's not listening. She's not listening.
She won't listen.
Always so certain she's right. Always so goddamn self-righteous. He can't stand it. He has to get out of here. Al'll kill them both if he lets Winry cut his arm off, and then maybe cry after, which would be a million times worse. So what if his arm's acting up? The nerves in his shoulder are always tetchy. He's fine. He doesn't need her to cut it off. He's fine.
"Get off," he snarls, swiping blindly to keep her away. He just. Needs a minute. To get his breath back. Get his legs under him. Once he's out of this fucking hospital and back home again Winry will see that he's fine. She will. He's fucking fine.
"No, you're not," she says.
"Fuck you."
They look at each other. Him, mashed up in a heap against the hospital bed. Her, stood in the middle of the room with her hands hovering over the slight swell of her belly.
Maybe that was the wrong thing to say?
Footsteps in another room. Silhouettes appear in the doorway. He knows them before they can give themselves away by speaking. What the hell are they doing at the hospital?
"He okay?" Paninya asks.
"Uh-uh," Winry answers. "Garfield, can you get me five milligrams of—"
"Don't you fuckin' dare," he snarls. "Don't you fuckin' touch me."
She ignores him.
She ignores him.
She looks him in the eye and tells Garfiel to get more drugs to sedate him with until Sidi gets here and has the gall to put herself between him and Garfiel when he tries to lunge to his feet to stop the fucker from doing any such thing.
"It's fine," she lies to his face. "You don't need to worry, Ed. You know you can trust me."
Trust her. Like hell. She's going to take his fucking arm and fill him full of steel for shits and giggles, and who's to say she'll stop at just an arm? She's fucking twisted. She's the one who's fucking sick. Nothing would make her happier than to cut him open, to saw something else off of him, and if he lets her do it once she'll do it a hundred times. She'll turn him into mincemeat. She'll retrofit every inch of him if she gets her way. She hates him. Or worse, she just decided he's not worth enough the way he is now. She'll risk killing him just to boost the Rockbell name.
"Fuck you," he snarls again, trying and only partially succeeding at bracing himself on the hospital bed. Wetness smears across his palm.
"Ed," Garfiel chastises, talking at him like he's stupid and naive and underfoot, too much trouble and not worth the effort. Ed fucking hates that tone of voice from anybody, doesn't matter who, so he does the only sensible thing and takes a swing at Garfiel's stupid face. The ground gets in the way again, lunging up and tangling his feet. He goes sprawling, left to gasp and gawk at the lot of them circling like vultures. How did Garfiel end up all the way over there?
"C'mon, man," Paninya laughs nervously, teleporting from the doorway to kneel at his side. Her hand is icy on his bare shoulder. He can't figure out if it feels good or if he wants to make her bleed for touching him. He settles on instinct, swinging out with his left hand, and finds grim satisfaction in the meaty hit of his knuckles against her tit. She grunts and swears, falling flat on her ass.
"Ha," he barks, and then, "Augh," because the scorpions in his gut decide, apropos of fuckall, to start stinging. He falls back against the hard frame of the hospital bed, scrabbling at his stomach and hoping that will make them stop. His back is nothing but hard knots, burning bright and unyielding. He's sick. Something's very wrong. He wants to go home.
Winry appears where Paninya was, hands outstretched again. Her wedding band glints in the light falling through the doorway. "You're sick," she says, gentle. "Please let me help you."
"I wanna go home," he tells her. Begs her. He knows he can't get there on his own.
Her face twists. "You are home, Ed. We're in the operating room—"
"I knew it!" He swipes at her again, though she's too far off to make contact. Fine by him. "Bitch. Don't fuckin' touch me. You're not taking my arm again!"
"What the fuck," Paninya whispers from somewhere near Garfiel. Winry makes a shushing gesture without breaking eye contact with Ed.
"Don't be stupid, I'm not taking anything—"
"Then why'd you drug me?!"
"I didn't—!" She covers her eyes briefly, breathing deep. "Edward. Listen to me. You have a very high fever and you're badly dehydrated. There's only saline in that IV drip. We're at home. We're in the—we're in here because I wanted to put you on fluids. You haven't been able to keep anything down. You also fell down the stairs and hit your head—"
He reaches up and touches gauze. See? See? She's already been working on him. She's already cut him open, cut into his skull—
Out. He has to get out. He'll be safe once he's home. Lock her out. Hide the kids—
No, wait. He—he's sick. Catching. Can't go near the kids—
He's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he has to be fine, he's got to save the kids from Winry, he can't let her get them too—
She wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't? Why would she? Why would she hurt them? Why would she hurt him?
His head's pounding. He can't catch his breath. Wounded? Sick? In no shape to fight. In no shape to run either but he has to run, he has to get out of here, he has to—
"The first step's the hardest," Winry says brightly, a child's voice, high and cheering, but when he looks she's grown and pale and scared.
"Ed," Paninya says. Her hands are up; placating, but ready to block too. "You know Win would never hurt you. You're really sick. Let us help, okay?"
When he tries to swallow he only chokes on dirty cenz, sun-warmed and rattling in his throat, his stomach, his lungs. Pain rattles through him too, pain enough to scare him still and stupid. The hole Kimblee put through his gut long ago is back again. He's sure of it. If he looks down his lap will be full of blood steaming in the biting cold of Baschool. If he looks down he'll see the blood-dark shadow of an organ bulging out of him. He's going to die. He can't close the wound this time. If he clapped now nothing would happen.
He's very sick. He knows that. He doesn't want it to be true, but it is.
He can trust Winry. Can't he?
Hasn't he always?
When the ground swims up again he's sure there are teeth that bite down, and laughter too, but he doesn't have the strength left to fight anymore. He doesn't have the breath to warn Winry and the others to run either. The scorpions have poisoned him all the way through.