Ed dreams. That much he's sure of.
Flickers of nonsense, suggestions of scenes rather than anything concrete to ground himself in. Motes floating in a beam of sunlight. A stained glass window. A steaming cup of coffee. The sound of horseshoes on a cobblestone street. Fresh fish laid out on a bed of ice. An automail arm displayed in a velvet-draped case. The shocking, brassy joy of a live band. A voice in his ear, the words indistinct over the louder chatter of crowds. Always the crowds. Chasing him, pushing him, hemming him in, indifferent to him, a part of him. Smears of motion and color and smells, perfume or coal dust or trash or grilled meat or antiseptic—
—a slice of dark skin, a wrist glimpsed between the edges of a latex glove and a pristine white sleeve—
The dreams shift, become firmer scraps of recollection. Detailed enough to call it backdrop for all that they're still unfinished sketches. There, the rolling fields of Resembool blanketed in snow. There, the perfect geometry of a parade field, soldiers stood in equally perfect formations. There, the sandstone pillars of Dà Yōng jutting hundreds of meters high into the misty morning air. There, the impossible blue of the Great Sea stretching beyond the horizon, and the sight of it inspires such awe in him that he can only stand there, breathing it in.
Crowds again. Crowds everywhere he finds himself. Pieces of his life filled with people without faces, voices he knows but no one familiar when he looks to find the source. Shoulders and elbows and kids hardly any older than his own banging carelessly against his legs, and he has to check each and every one of them to make sure they haven't bruised themselves on his knee. The price of good automail is bruises, one he's glad to pay. It's far more preferable to a lifetime spent hobbling around on cheaper models, but he lives with low-grade anxiety of another baby tooth getting knocked out or Al's stupid cat earning another crook in its tail—
—white lights glaring in his eyes, harsh and artificial, fluttering shadows, the urgent clamor of raised voices—
One wrong step is all it takes. He knows that better than most.
He dreams—remembers?—Mei dragging them all further and further southeast until they arrive at the Nányáng Ocean. They slump against each other in mutual wonder, forgetting the breathless stickiness of the coast, the white sand getting into his joints, Winry's terrible sunburn. How could he call the Great Sea impressive when compared to something so vast as this?
He dreams—remembers?—arduous weeks spent slow-roasting on horseback across the Great Desert. Breda telling ridiculous stories from growing up out West and his Academy years, Armstrong telling stories of his family's illustrious history, Mr. Han telling stories about a dozen different cities in Yao territory that he's lived in. Ed had told stories too, in the mornings before the heat began to blister the scarring under his automail; about Resembool, about Dublith, about the wild escapades he and Al got up to after he'd earned his pocket watch. He remembers being too tired and hot to laugh then, but he remembers all those stories fondly still.
He dreams—remembers?—blood and darkness. Too many injuries, too many sleepless nights. He's dealt with far too much of both, compared to most people his age. Even in a country as hungry for conflict as Amestris he knows he's seen too much. His neighbors hardly know how to talk to him sometimes. If not for Winry there to smooth ruffled feathers—
—her hand in his, her eyes wet and red-rimmed, her voice calling his name—
—he'd hardly ever be able to muddle his way through a normal conversation.
The dreams shift, and shift, and deepen, and settle. He still knows he's dreaming, but he'll take what stability he can get.
Another body of water lapping against another coast. The water is summer-bright, a hundred thousand shards of sunlight cutting his vision until he has to drop his gaze, blinking away after images. He sees himself. Two arms, two legs. The body of a child. He looks up, shielding his eyes. He knows this horizon, a colorful city hedged in by forest. He's found his footing in Dublith, of all places.
He scrunches his toes, reveling in the sensation of having ten of them again. There are bones beneath his feet; small, knobbly, sun-bleached shapes. Knuckle bones. Human teeth. The tiny vertebrae of tiny creatures. Fox skulls grin thither and yon.
Al swings his arms back and then forward, tossing his fishing line out beyond the gentle waves. He tosses a grin Ed's way too. "Forty-seventh time's the charm, yeah?"
"Yeah," Ed laughs. He marvels at the smallness of Al, baby-faced and short again, as Al had remained in his mind for too many years.
"Hopefully none of them come and steal our dinner again tonight, huh?" Al asks, nodding at the fox skulls.
Ed remembers Yock Island. A full month spent balanced on the knife's edge of starvation, for all that Izumi mocked them for thinking it that. Their days spent trying and failing and trying again to catch a meal, their nights spent fighting Mason in his wolf mask tooth and nail to keep it. He can't believe how long ago this was. He's flummoxed by how real it feels now.
"Yeah," he repeats, following a script he knows by rote. He opens his mouth and memory fall out. "We'll be ready for 'em this time if they do come though. The foxes and that guy, huh?"
Al's grin is all teeth. Ed's never understood why people think he's the dangerous one. He still relishes the memory of the first time Mustang saw Al grin like this. That oh, well that explains a lot expression on his face had left Ed cackling for days after.
"Oh!" Al exclaims before Ed can say his next line—"Wonder what that guy looks like under the mask."—and then Al's hauling back on his fishing line. The thin wood of his pole bends nearly to its breaking point, but Al's always been the clever one between them; he coaxes his catch in inch by patient inch where Ed would have hauled too roughly and lost it altogether. The mirror-bright water bursts in a dizzying flash of white and silver and tan. Ed recoils while Al holds fast—
—gray morning light, beeping machinery, a feeling like something crawled down his mouth and made a nest in his throat—
—and dinner comes flopping to their feet in a last desperate scramble. Ed would feel bad, as he always used to when he watched a fish gasp, but this… this isn't….
Al whoops, jumping and punching the air to celebrate his victory. Ed stumbles back, his knee-jerk horror cut cleanly between his snapped-together teeth. He gawks as Al kneels to carefully pull the rough-hewn hook free of the thing's skin. Watery blood gets all over his fingers but he doesn't even seem to notice. "Look!" He cries, brandishing his catch. It's big enough that he needs to use both hands to keep it from flopping all over the place, an ungainly stretch of flesh and bone. An adult's arm is so much bigger than a kid's, after all.
Ed has to force himself to speak. "Put it back."
Al makes a disappointed face at him. "It's funny," he says.
"No, it's not."
Al does this deep, whole-body sigh, rolling his eyes like he can't believe how lame his big brother is. "It's funnier in Xingese," he says, playing with the twitching fingers of Ed's grown arm like he would a stray cat's whiskers. "I guess it doesn't translate well."
Ed looks away, swallowing nausea, and when he looks back he finds himself in a new dream. A dark space, vague enough that it's impossible to tell if it's a single cramped room or an open field beneath a starless night sky. He can find the dim suggestion of his own hands—both flesh, he thinks, though who's to say for sure—by a dulled orange glow. A single candle. A lantern. A campfire. A bonfire. A wildfire. Something too big to ignore, too big to fight, too big to survive. He warms his hands by it with a sigh so tired it sounds drawn out of his marrow. He'd transmuted his fingertips sharp enough to practically claw their rations open, spilling it into a pot he'd transmuted too. The joy of traveling light by necessity. He thinks of Captain Buccaneer's giant diamond-tipped fingers and scoffs to himself.
"Beans're good for you," Darius says, misinterpreting. "Lotsa iron in 'em."
Ed glares across the fire. He's spent too many nights on the run with these three men—three and a half, when he's feeling indulgent. Three other bodies, a parasitic homunculus, and however many Xerxesian souls that made up the Philosopher's Stone of Greed's heart. To this day he wonders if there would have been any use in trying to speak to them directly. If he'd quit badgering Ling to come out to play and called out to those poor bastards instead? Would it have changed anything? Could he have salvaged even one of them from Greed or Father's grasp?
Al had had the same thought too, after everything. He hadn't said as much to Ed before they parted ways, but he'd done his homework and legwork up and down Xing, dug through libraries and private collections, reading every scrap their good-for-nothing old man had personally written down. Al did the research, and came up with an inconclusive at his most optimistic. Ed trusts Al implicitly—
—a woman's voice, hard to hear over metal instruments clattering against themselves, "We can expect results by this evening—"
—and if Al says an idea's no good, then it's no good.
So, Ed scoffs again. "Fifth night in a row," he complains. "I'm fuckin' sick of beans."
Heinkel grunts on his left. "So we'll steal something else the next time we hit up a town."
"S'not me stealin' shit," he protests, but it's half-hearted.
"That's 'cuz it's your ugly mug on the wanted posters nine times out of ten," Greed points out, flashing his predator's grin.
They all laugh at his expense. He sneers back, more irritated by how his picture is drawn on the wanted posters than by the whole wanted for treason thing. He's not that mean-looking, is he? If he asked Greed the dirty bastard would say yes and follow it up with some sleazy joke. Ling would give him an honest answer, after he got done with some flirty teasing of his own. Two halves of a whole idiot, those weirdos. Still. It's been a while since Ling's been out, hasn't it?
How long have they been on the run now anyway?
Snap. The fire shifts, one log collapsing beneath the weight of another. Embers scatter into the smothering darkness above them, a jar of fireflies released all at once.
Snap. The fire shifts, and he's watching Mustang absently burn a missive over the metal wastebasket he keeps by his desk for just this reason. The curtains are drawn, the lights are off. The flicker and flash of alchemy in a dark room stings to look at directly. "Pay attention, Fullmetal," Mustang drawls, amusement brightening his ink-dark eyes. On the desk is a stack of papers three inches thick that needs to be burned before they can leave. "You might just learn something."
Snap. The fire shifts, darkness peeling back to a blaze of eye-wateringly lit concrete, as bright as the day it was poured. A horde of slavering mannequins has surrounded their camp, outnumbering them ten to one. Ed's the one who sealed the exits, alchemy still crackling at his fingertips as he readies a spear. Better they take these things down rather than risk them getting out into the streets. But they're losing. These things don't feel pain no matter how many of their bones he breaks. There are so many of them and the clock is ticking down. They're running out of time.
Snap. The fire shifts, hissing in a spring storm. Raindrops ping off of metal, armor and automail. Pieces of both scatter like hail. Scar made shrapnel of them with hardly any effort. Ed can't win now, not with only one arm. The only way Al survives today is if he bows his head and lets Scar kill him. The embers of Al's eyes blaze from the shadowed alleyway Scar broke him in. Al screaming his name is going to be the last thing Ed ever hears.
He shuts his eyes so he doesn't have to watch Scar bear down on him, and then the rain stops, and then there's the tell-tale clack-clack-clacking of a train hurtling down the tracks to destinations unknown.
Ed opens his eyes.
He's sitting in a well-lit passenger car, the other occupants dull suggestions of shapes and conversations without discernible words. He doesn't know where he was or where he's going. It's dark outside, his own tired reflection all he can see in the window; a grown man two days overdue for a shave, hair that falls halfway down to his hips when he lets it down, broad of shoulder and trim of waist, a touch shorter than he hoped to turn out (not that he'd ever admit that). His hands, lap, and every spare inch of seat his ass isn't occupying is full of paperwork. He's got... something? Due the moment he arrives... wherever it is he's going. A report for Mustang. Letters for Winry and Al. A new draft for his publicist. A story to share with the kids. All of them, none of them, something else entirely? There'll be hell to pay if it isn't ready when the train stops. It shouldn't be a big deal, not for him. He's a pro at improv at this point. But the thing is—
—he's shaking, the snows of the North, the sauna of the south, ice and sweat and steam, the hands holding him down may as well be brands to burn him with—
—he can't for the life of him figure out what he's supposed to be working on.
The more he tries to read all these papers the more the words muddle to gibberish before his eyes. Here—this page has to be in Cretan, he's sure of it. All the arrays look Cretan, but when he tries to focus on the notes squeezed around each circle it all falls apart to an illegible scrawl. It's like he's trying to learn how to write left-handed again, but now he's drunk on top of it. He squints and angles the pages sideways and suddenly it's Drachman, which just pisses him off more. Cretan he can read great but his Drachman's practically all verbal. He may as well be trying to make sense of Xingese—and hey guess what! This whole damn stack is in nothing but Xingese. Okay, fine, whatever, maybe this journal will be of some use? Nope, just page after page of Xerxesian right-to-left squiggles, with nary a short vowel in sight.
He's running out of time. He can do this, whatever this is that needs doing, he just needs a solid foundation to work with. Same as whenever he gets his hands on an alchemist's private notes. One translation, one logical jump. A recipe for orange meringue, through a half-dozen mental backflips and two dozen reference checks, becomes a carefully encoded description to a particular illustration from the Splendor Solis, and the triple-headed dragon is both itself a reference to the making of gold, which is a poetic way on either side of the Desert to mean immortality, and so a meringue becomes a stepping stone to the Philosopher's Stone, and so on.
He wants to throw the whole mess out the window at this point, but he needs to finish this. He knows Al would be able to untangle this translator's circle jerk inside of five minutes, but that'd be a concession his pride couldn't allow. This is easy stuff, god damn it. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow. He shakes the tension from his hands, rolls it out of his neck and shoulders. The right takes twice as much cajoling as the left, the ungrateful prick. He's fine. He's got this. No need to bug Al.
He watches Al for a moment, sleeping so deeply in the seat across from him that even all the swearing Ed's been doing under his breath hasn't roused him. No way is Ed going to be the one to wake him up without a real reason to, no matter how many years it's been since the armor.
He throws his pen aside to scrub the exhaustion from his eyes. When he opens again the train and all his paperwork is gone as if it never existed. He flounders in a hard plastic seat for a moment, trying to make sense of the room his dreams have dumped him in this time. White vinyl floors, undecorated white walls, two dozen plastic hairs in slightly skewed rows, tired shapes in white uniforms bustling to and fro. A hospital waiting room. What's he waiting for? For Winry, of course. she went into labor hours ago, and all there is to do now is wait. But why is he out here? Spouses are typically allowed in the delivery room, and he was there holding her hand and apologizing a mile a minute to her for Maes and Nina's births. So why isn't he there now? A complication. Must've been. Yeah, he remembers now, in that funny hiccuping pattern of non-events in dreams. Something went wrong. Nothing bad-bad, but serious enough he'd been asked to step outside.
Okay.
He's been out here a while now, hasn't he? Waiting for the all-clear to rush back to her side. Any minute now they'll wave him back through the double doors to get scrubbed down and scrubbed up again. Sidi's face will be mostly hidden by a mask but it will be easy to hear the reassuring smile in the other man's voice—
"—you got him here in time—"
Right.
Weird though, how empty the waiting room is of other patients. There ought to be a handful of others regardless of the time, right? Rush Valley has more surgeons than it knows what to do with, but if it's not an outfitting the safe bet is either the teaching hospital at BVU or one of three family clinics. He knows this isn't the Brahims' clinic—too big and unfriendly—but he's not sure where else it could be. Wherever he is it ought to be bustling with cold and flu sufferers, folks not keen on their neighbors doing the stitching they might need after an accident, and others with any number of embarrassing or serious health issues. Apart from a few nurses that don't seem inclined to give him the time of day though, it's dead quiet. Something about that sets his teeth on edge.
Tick, tick, tick, goes the clock behind the intake desk, obnoxiously loud. He wants to take it off the wall and smash it to pieces for some peace and quiet. He settles on breathing. In and out, nice and slow, like Izumi taught them years and years ago.
The double doors swing open. It's not Sidi, like he expected. It's not a nurse either. Ed almost doesn't recognize the man swathed head to foot in surgical scrubs, but there's something about the nervous way he adjusts his glasses that Ed won't ever drive out of his memory.
"It'll be a little while longer, I'm afraid," Shou Tucker says. His voice is blandly apologetic in sharp contrast to his blood-splattered smock.
A red pool begins to seep out from under the double doors, unmistakable and ghoulish. Too much, too fast. Whoever is bleeding on the other side will surely die in a matter of minutes without help. Dread and terror force Ed to his feet. He did this to Winry. He did this. He feels sick. "A-are you sure I can't see her?"
Shou Tucker's mask vanishes in the easy glide of dream logic so he can give Ed a wide, wide smile. His teeth and glasses shine in the harsh overhead light. "There's no need to worry, Edward. They're both going to be just fine once I've finished with them."
Al's the one to rush the man while Ed's still trying to process the full meaning of that terrible promise. Al's the one to throw all his weight into a punch that leaves Shou Tucker spitting teeth.
Ed blinks, more surprised than grateful, and the dream loses traction once again. All the lights go out. The air turns humid, gaining a stomach-churning coppery rink. His hair and clothes cling to his sweat-slicked skin. The ground grows spongy underfoot. A thick, warm fluid soaks him from the knees down. He stumbles to an exhausted halt, thoroughly sick of the runaround his sleeping brain is putting him through.
Here again, huh?
He squints into the expansive dark, hoping that this time, surely this time, there will be something out there beyond crumbling stone walls and old bones. No such luck. Then again, he wasn't hoping real hard. This is a place of disappointment.
He adjusts his grip on a torch fashioned out of a bit of old fence post and Mustang's useless attack, more out of habit than strain. It's only the muscles in his back that get pissy if he keeps his automail arm up for too long, and he's used to pushing through that particular burn. Still, the sound of steel fingers sliding along rough wood is comforting, in its own way. Grounding. A reminder that there are other things out there beyond this blood and darkness, if only he can find a way to wake up. This is the last torch he's got though, and it's already burning low. He's running out of time.
The thought of having to slog his way through the endless waste of Gluttony's stomach in absolute darkness, alone, makes his lungs squeeze so hard he can hardly breathe.
"Ling?" He has to cough after calling out, a raucously dry heaving of sound. His voice is rusty with disuse, and overuse before that. He'd shouted himself hoarse when he'd first woken up here, certain the idiot prince had ended up in here too. That had been a while ago though. Hours, certainly. Less than a day, surely.
It couldn't have been a whole day already, right?
"LING!"
There's nothing for his voice to echo off here. Dead in the water. Well, blood to be more accurate. Damn, but he is sick of the smell of it. First thing he's doing once he gets out of here is bolting for the nearest shower to boil himself clean. Then, food. He's so hungry his stomach quit making dying animal noises and just gnaws now. He wants a steak the size of his head. A mountain of garlic potatoes. Broccoli so Al won't sigh huffily at him. The whole mess slathered in an unconscionable amount of butter and a liter of water to wash it all down with. If that's not motivating he doesn't know what is.
Something pops underfoot and he stumbles. Too tired to catch himself, too tired to swear, he ends up kneeling hip-deep in blood. Only reflex and an arm that can't get tired keep the torch from getting snuffed out.
He breathes.
He's so damn tired. It's the same no matter what direction he walks. No hills, no valleys. No walls, no doors. Just an endless sea of blood with the odd moldering ruin. He has to get out of here. He's starting to think there isn't a way out at all.
"Oh," Al says quietly.
There's hulking steel in Ed's peripheral, flickering orange in the torchlight where it isn't splattered black and red. But when he looks directly Al's just a kid, baby-faced and up to his thighs in blood, looking just as confused as Ed is that he's suddenly here too.
"You never said it looked like this," Al says. Only his voice is right. Low and warm with humor at Ed's expense, exactly as it should be.
Ed snorts, too tired to laugh properly. "Said it sucked, didn't I?"
Al hums. "Probably. I never could get a straight answer out of you about it. Ling only ever talks about the shoe thing when I ask him." He holds out his hands, offering to help. Ed grimaces. He doesn't know which Al's the real one, if he'll manage to grab anything at all if he reaches out.
He reaches out anyway, and doesn't miss. Dreams are funny like that.
Al braces him as best he can, young as he appears. Pats Ed's elbow once he's upright, gives him in an exasperated little smile. It's twice the motivation to keep going than any imagined gourmet meal.
Ed has to keep moving. He can't afford another breather. If he stops he's honestly not sure he'll have the strength to start up again, which happens to be bullshit thinking of the highest degree, so. One foot in front of the other, same as he's been going for hours and hours now. Less than a day, surely, but each step brings him closer to crossing that line too. It doesn't matter. He can rest once he's out.
"Tell you what," he says over his shoulder. "I'll fill you in on every stupid, gross minute of this shithole once I'm outta here, alright?"
Al follows him after a moment's hesitation; the heavy tread of the armor slowly filling up to the mid-calf with blood, a child struggling to wade through a sea of warm gore. "You already did, though. This was years ago."
He scoffs. "This is a dream. Only way out is to wake up."
"Sounds like you know what to do then."
"Sure I do. Always do. Just haven't figured out the trick to waking up when I want to yet, s'all."
"Huh. I've always had the opposite problem."
And that's them all over, isn't it? If it's not one problem it's another, and together they always seem to end up knee-deep in bullshit. Case in point: right fucking now.
Ed just grunts. He's got to put all his focus on breathing steady, his footsteps sure. Al takes his cue and follows him silently. He gets it, same as he always does. Al stays now in the dream for all that he couldn't when this was real. He's a sure, reaffirming presence at Ed's side—
—afternoon sunlight through vertical blinds, beeping machinery, something caught on his wrist, he can't move, agony burning curlicues under his skin, he can't MOVE—
Ed cries out, falling again. Al cries out too, startled rather than hurting as he is. This time the torch does slip from his metal hand, falling into the blood with a furious hiss. Darkness drowns them.
"Fuck," Ed gasps. "Fuck—"
Splashing, frantic and loud. He's pushed, then grabbed. Al's voice in his ear. "It's okay. You're okay. None of this is real—"
Said the dream to the dreamer. He hates the nightmares his brain cooks up when it's feeling frisky. After all the glucose and laboriously fun science he's fed it this is the thanks he gets? Ungrateful shit.
"I'm tired." The words are plucked out of him with brisk disinterest, no input from him permitted. Like laundry hung out to dry, truth is spooled out of him to hang in a stiff breeze. "I don't know how to get out. I can't. Not like I did the first time. I'm alone—"
"No, you're not—"
"I'm alone," Ed repeats harshly. "Ling's—gone. Didn't end up here, I guess. Doesn't matter. Envy's definitely not here or he woulda shown by now. That's how this one's s'posed to end. Between his teeth. That's when I always wake up—"
Al makes a small, wounded noise.
"There's no way out. Maybe there never was. Maybe it's better. Maybe I deserve—"
"Oh, fuck that."
Ed blinks into the darkness.
Al makes this huge, aggrieved sigh at him. "You're an idiot, Ed. I can't believe I forgot that for a minute. The door's right there."
And it is.
Just like that, the way out is only a few meters away, visible despite the crushing black on all sides. He'd recognize that door anywhere. Green-painted wood boards, scuffed and peeling at the corner where he's kicked it open so many times Winry and Granny have given up trying to browbeat some manners into him. It's home, or the closest to it's he's seen—
—latex gloves probing his face, a man's voice speaking with clinical calm, "Keep an eye on his blood pressure through the night—"
Ed turns to thank Al and finds only darkness. Obviously. But at the same time it seems emptier than it was a second ago. "Alphonse?'
Nothing.
Well. That makes sense, doesn't it? He was alone before. He's always alone in this dream. So what if the ending's changed for once?
He hauls himself to his feet. Staggers once, twice. Falls again. Hauls himself upright again. Eventually hauls himself up the familiar porch stairs. His right hand is his, really his, a thing of flesh and bone and blood, when he reaches for the handle.
Light blinds him, but that's alright. He'd rather blink away stars than stay trapped here in the dark belly of some dead monster. He pushes on. When he can see again he's somewhere else, somewhere unfamiliar but home all the same, yet also a place only humoring the consideration to indulge his human sensibilities into looking like somewhere real.
The sky is ink-dark for all that everything beneath it is drenched in sunlight warm as honey, practically dripping starlight, a gauzy streak cutting through the infinite nothing of the universe. Ed's never seen so many stars before, twinkling in iridescent constellations that change shape when he tries to focus on them. Mountains jut impossibly tall in the distance, in ranges that twist and cut through themselves like they're being braided together to form a firmer whole. The undulating foothills are swathed in green, trees triple the height of any forest he's ever seen. Endless fields stretch to the crooked horizon, and it must be the cusp of summer to explain the sheer riot of colors everywhere he looks. There are more wildflowers than he's ever seen before, more species than he could ever hope to name, surely none of which could be found in the waking world.
Dreams are funny things. Enough horrors to make him want to quit sleeping for keeps if he could, and then something as awesome as this comes along to make up for it all. It's really amazing what the human mind is capable of.
It's raining despite the clear sky and afternoon sunlight filling the valley. Ed can hear it plinking off of armor and automail, but when he looks over Al's grown and whole and laughing, exactly as he should be, and when he looks down at himself he's got ten fingers cradling an obnoxiously red cocktail and ten toes digging into the wet earth. Al's barefoot too, dressed like he's several hours into a party where it's okay to cut loose and have some real fun for once. Tie gone, vest and the first three buttons of his shirt undone, sleeves rolled up, hair a disaster. He's trying to keep his own obnoxiously red cocktail covered from the rain with one hand, but he's laughing so hard he's sure to spill it all anyway.
"I get it," Al wheezes, hard to hear over a sudden brassy swell of music. There's a big white tent nearby, draped in fairy lights, dancing shadows thrown large against the treated canvas. People cheer inside, shouting in an effort to be heard over their own joy. There's a hell of a party going on they need to get back to, but Al had pulled him outside to talk because—
—erratic beeping, plastic tubing smacking against metal, heat and hands, a rusted beam through his guts, a voice speaking with exhausted urgency, "—seizing again, mind his shoulder—"
"What?" Ed asks once the music's settled back down to a dull roar.
Al grins at him. "It's so obvious. I can't believe we didn't put it together before."
At once Ed knows he's talking about their theory, the one they still haven't agreed on a name for. They shorthand it to 10/11 in writing, generally stick to The Theory verbally, though they're both prone to tacking on a nasty adjective in either format if they're feeling pissed off about another dead end. He grins right back. Trust Al to have a lightbulb moment after a few drinks. Ed only ever gets happy and tactile when he's creeping past tipsy, like now. He just wants to ruffle Al's hair and maybe shove him in a creek for that crack about his cooking earlier. Ed's a great cook, damn it.
"We're so stupid," Al says.
"We're drunk," Ed corrects.
"Drinking," Al turns back on him with delighted emphasis. "Present tense."
"Don't make grammar jokes at me. C'mon, spill it. What d'you got?"
"I got that we're stupid," Al says, and the little shit dissolves into laughter again. Ed, a paragon of self-restraint and infinite patience, chooses to wait him out. God damn, but this drink is tart. It's like getting punched in the mouth with a lemon.
Al apologizes once he's got his giggles on a leash again, and Ed makes a show of rolling his eyes before shoving him companionably. "No, you're not."
"No," Al admits, insufferably, "I'm really not."
"Ugh, whatever. You thought of something, didn't you? A way to reliably bypass equi—"
Al waves his hand, joints loosened by whatever they're drinking. "Later."
"But—"
"It can wait." Al tosses the rest of his drink back, screws his face up at the taste, and sets the glass aside. "Really, Ed. We're supposed to be having fun right now, aren't we?"
The party is important, sure, and people will get huffy if they stay gone too long, but they can afford to talk shop for a few minutes more, can't they?
Al claps a hand on his shoulder. Ed rarely feels anything in his dreams, not really, but he knows with that inexplicable certainty of dream logic that it doesn't hurt, and in fact his shoulder has never hurt. Neither of them have ever been ground under the heel of something stark and terrible for missing Mom too much. They are both without pain, and time has sandpapered their grief into a tolerable shape. Something to roll in their hands on nights of quiet contemplation, playing games of do you remember that no longer bite hard enough to draw blood. "Go on," Al says. "You still owe Winry a dance."
"What about you?"
"I'll get the next one." He takes Ed's half-finished drink and tosses it back too.
Ed smiles at him, fond, and clambers a little unsteadily to his feet. Mud squishes between all ten toes, shockingly cold against imagined skin. There's no nearby creek, unfortunately, but he does take the opportunity to catch his balance on Al's head, messing his rain-damp hair into a ridiculous dandelion burst of frizz. Al just laughs, shoving him away.
As he turns to rejoin the party the rain picks up, drumming against the tent, armor, automail, all. Somebody shrieks something about a cake. Somebody else laughs. He ducks under the dripping entry flap and the dream dissolves once more. Colors and sounds become murky, nonsensical. Edges fray. The plot jumps ship. He wakes up at last, not completely, just enough to fully realize he's been sleeping. He doesn't surface any higher than a twilight fugue, awareness beyond himself an inconsequential thing. He knows he's lying on his back, that he's cold and a little sweaty, that there are machines beeping and hissing steadily nearby, that there's something in his mouth, on his face. He knows he's so tired he's already slipping back under.
A door opens. Low voices murmur. A door closes.
Ed doesn't dream again.