Focus
"I heard that you could be quite the loudmouth, Edward," that was NoName – no, Kimblee – talking to him. Ed stared stubbornly at the wall past the black man's hair, watching the drugged Al fighting the effects of the sedative. Ed listened to the dripping of water spilling on the floor, staring at the grey wall behind Al.
Ignore it. Ignore it.
"Your coarse language has also quelled during your time with us. I am glad," the man started to whistle aimlessly, leaning back on his chair (which had replaced his pathetic, shattered stool) as he watched Ed hooked up to the machine. Ed still stared at the wall.
On the outside, he looked like a blithering idiot.
His thoughts however, were a different matter entirely:
-This man has been stalking you and your brother. What if he wants to hurt Winry too?-
You're just assuming, you bastard. Always assuming the fucking worse. Stop it!
-No, you're the alchemist. You need to rationalise your thoughts. Surrender to logic. This man wants to hurt you.-
If I stay silent, he can't hurt me.
-And what then? He went for Al. Who will be next? Which alchemist? How about that Colonel Bastard as you refer to him – he'll generate a mass of energy.-
Stop it.
"Stop it."
"Oh, Edward, have I done something to offend you?" NoName reached forward to stroke Edward's bleeding face, removing the bangs that parted in front of his hair.
-Your life is worthless. Think about it. The Philosopher's Stone. They're masses of energy. Not people. Never people.-
Al was a soul, but he was able to think and love.
-But he couldn't feel. He was barren.-
Not now! He can see and touch and sense.-
-He can never listen again. He can't listen to your pathetic excuse of a voice. Edward Elric, your brother may have been the bodiless one, but in exchange, you are the soulless one.-
"Stop it. JUST FUCKING STOP!" Edward screamed, lashing against his restraints. The machine was feeding off of his anger, his pain, and the dials were whirling around in a frenzy. NoName's eyes followed their movement, intently hungry.
While NoName was the enemy in his reality, his mind had become his enemy in fantasy. Edward was beginning to realize…this world was never simple.
It was painful.
Ed had grown accustomed to having his soul's energy be drained from him on a daily basis. Sleep was a non-existent thing for him. And his stomach was empty since NoName had decided not to feed the Elric brothers after the incident the day prior. It was his mind that was aching. He had been sick and frightened when his body succumbed to paralysis during those short moments when the alchemic voltage pummelled through his veins. His mind was starting to suffer from the toll. He was running out of time…
It was true. His thoughts were becoming less coherent. His body needed nourishment to fight the infection. But NoName had kindly removed sustenance from the Elric brothers too -
Apparently they had had too much zest about them.
Zest. Like a fucking piece of fruit.
"Language, you bad boy," NoName said in a patronising voice. But Ed's mind was wandering -
Al had been chained beside Ed again. Their movement was limited however. All that Ed could manage was to crawl to the puddle in front of them to lick the moisture clean like a dog. Al lapped at the liquid gratefully. But Ed knew it was piss – it leaked through from the room above and in the darkness it was impossible to discern its colour. It tasted stagnant but Ed hadn't given a damn but it was when he had been dragged through the puddle by NoName that he had realized that they had been forced to drinking piss.
However, it confirmed Ed's suspicions that there were other prisoners in this facility.
-Who are they, Edward? Who are they, you miserable boy?-
For once, Edward complied to the wishes of the arsehole which was his brain. There was no time for subtlety (a week was a lifetime).
Breathe. Focus.
His chest stabbed with each breath that he drew. Kick. Punch.
There more of Ed's ribs were broken. How could he tell? He could see them. His ribs dug into his skin. NoName believed this was removing the blond's zest.
Well fuck that.
What made matters worse (as if it wasn't bad enough already) was that the infection had spread. Sore blisters swirled over his skin like tattoos from where the poker had been jabbed into his port.
Go on. I've been tortured, abused and fucked. Throw your worst at me.
Go on go on gogogogogo ON!
"GO ON!" he screamed. Edward had become numb to the pain, but sure enough the voltage had been upped. It was at its maximum.
"So keen, Edward. Fire it at me!" NoName was shouting and dancing on the spot.
Even this pain was overwhelming. Each time that Ed's body jolted in the chair, agony lanced across his right side. Burn.
He could imagine the screaming faces of children as they were burnt to death in Ishval by the Colonel. He could feel the heat searing against their skin, a rush of energy so overwhelming it could shrivel up limbs whole. He could imagine flames burning in the sockets of those children's eyes, bursting like confetti in a mass of congealed liquid, with the consistency of jelly or soup. And that was for those who had the luxury of a swift death.
His was tortuously long.
Too fucking long.
Did those fuckers have an infection which was destroying his body (and his mind whatever the Hell was left of it)?
Did those goddamn Ishvalans have to watch in silence as a madman crooned over his subject as if he was nothing more than a piece of furniture - like a stool?
"GO ON!" Ed screamed, kicking against the restraints. His skin was tearing apart as angry red blisters carved its way along his right side. But his digits (ha - he had half the right number now) were throbbing too.
NoName had broken each of his fingers and toes in turn. He hadn't snapped the bone cleanly either. Where walking had been arduous before, now it was impossible. Each of his joints curled up and Ed's face smashed into the floor. His front teeth had chipped from the rounds of punches NoName had fired at him as if he was a target for Hawkeye. Some of his molars had been crumbled to resin and because he had been starving, he had swallowed their chalk-like remains. Moments later he would vomit their contents back up as he remembered that he was a goddamn monster.
And that was about an inch of the pain that was coursing around his blood each goddamn second. It was worse when he was attached to the machine being pumped with an extremely high alchemic voltage. Having a madman dance around in front of Ed was not helping the situation either -
Ed wanted to blow the man's brains to smithereens.
The blond licked his bloody lips, his body banging against the back of the chair as the alchemy worked its blasphemous magic over his soul. Ed could only wait in nervous trepidation for the worst part to come -
I wish I would just die already.
...
Stop.
His body just...stopped.
Ed's limbs sagged to the floor, his head and back and stumps all flopped without any attempts of getting up. It resembled a stroke victim. "It" was the bloody mess of Edward Elric.
NoName gave a final cry of delight before turning down the voltage with a series of knobs. Ed could barely move his eyes (which he usually could do - fucking Hell how much power could this machine generate?) and he watched, terrified, and focused on his breathing.
The sensation of being ripped in half should have passed after a few seconds. Ed counted them with each beat his sluggish heart found the energy to conjure (since his mind had surrendered a long time ago). However, when more than 10, 20, 30, 60 seconds had passed, he was still paralyzed. His body was numb and the dull prickle of pins and needles shot up and down his spine. Saliva was dripping out of his mouth; piss out of his shorts; pus out of his infection; and blood just about everywhere else. He would have shuddered but could not. It was a distraction. Anything from the goddamn pain of living.
"Kimblee" had made no attempt to move or say anything. He was looking at Edward with curious, inquisitive eyes that glowed in the darkness like orbs. He reached a hand out to Ed's cheek. Ed wanted to flinch away and withdraw from that icy touch but was forced to endure the dragging moments of NoName caressing him like a precious toy. A very broken toy.
He unbuckled Ed from the restraints and the blond slumped to the ground, breathing heavily, waiting for the darkness to take him permanently to a better place than this.
He closed his eyes. Get me out of this, Hell. Please.
-You think the show is over? Ha...that was just the prologue. There is so much more to come...-
Alphonse loved the summer flowers. They smelt beautiful and danced in the breeze. All of the daisies and dandelions and buttercups...But there was something about spring that made Al's spine tingle with anticipation. It was the time of year for new growth, for love and hope.
It was the time of year for daffodils.
This entire situation was out of the ordinary. He had been taken and tortured, but when one had been sitting in a damp prison cell for weeks on end, those factors didn't feel abnormal anymore.
Al started shaking when he saw the vase of white daffodils blooming magnificently on the table in front of him. It was summer.
So much had changed for him - there wasn't one moment of continuity in his life. Every day would bring a new form of pain and agony walking through that door to his right.
First he would hear the footsteps wandering along the corridor. He would hear the nervous holding of his breath and how his heart started to thud a little faster. And then the door would open and the machine would start whirling he would scream nobody would hear him was it because he was bad bad bad BAD BAD BADBADBADBAD-
"You're a good boy, Alphonse Elric," Al stared up at the figure in front of him. NoName had reached forward, his black locks obscuring his face. He had picked up a white daffodil and was now twining the stem delicately around his fingers.
He did not seemed bothered when the younger Elric failed to make a reply. NoName was likely used to the silence by now.
"Do you know what this daffodil symbolises?" NoName lifted the white flower to his face, inhaled deeply, and rubbed its petals tenderly across his lips. "It's you.
"A bundle is associated with happiness and joy and unity, although the one on its own is a symbol of misfortune. Where would you be without your brother, my dear Alphonse?" NoName sneered at the word "brother" which was odd amid the patronising tone of his voice.
A wave of protectiveness surged through Al. It quashed his fear (even though it didn't truly abate it. Like Ed, he wondered if he could ever get over the nightmares of Mama) and gave him inkling strength -
"My brother saved me life..."
"OH SHUT UP WILL YOU!" NoName picked up the vase and hurled it against the white wall, where it smashed into pieces. Some fragments hurled towards Al, and as he couldn't fully dodge the glass missiles, some embedded into his skin. He bit his lip and waited for the sudden pain to pass. He could sense three or four deeper cuts and about a dozen more along his ripped clothing, cutting through capillaries.
NoName was pacing like a bull. He was breathing heavily. Suddenly, he snapped his head up and stared at Alphonse, who couldn't help but quiver under that crimson bloodshot stare, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT GOLDEN BOY? I KNOW YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN A GOLDEN BOY, HAVEN'T YOU."
"My mother is dead," Al hissed icily, trying and failing to disguise the fear edging his voice, "and I would never dare to be such a thing. I'm glad to be alive."
"Of course of course..." NoName retraced his steps, picking up the shards of glass and waxy petals before ripping them to shreds. "It wasn't you. But Brother."
Again, "Brother" was said with such spite and animosity that something clicked in Al's brain. He scolded himself for not seeing the signs sooner. And between him and his sibling, he was the one better with his words.
"Do you...have a brother, Sir?" Al said testily, knowing the dangers of walking into unknown territory, "It must have been hard...watching their success...while you were like a shadow..."
"Oh yes, it hurt," was the abrupt reply. Blood was streaming like tears along NoName's face, as were actual tears.
"It's okay...I understand."
"He got to murder people! He got to listen to their screams and writhing agony for hours upon end. It was a wonderful symphony and only because he was the skilled one of us! My parents suggested that while my brother took the path of destruction, I should take the opposite. Creation! I became a fucking doctor to make them proud. But did they give a shit? No. They died," NoName laughed.
While the Colonel and Teacher could laugh seemingly without remorse or emotion, deeper down Al knew that both of these adults possessed a hidden motivation; they were laughing at the bitterness of the world, seeing the humour in its flaws. This man however, this sadist, thought that those flaws came when the world was peaceful and perfect.
"Aren't you proud of the work you could do? The lives you could save?" Al gasped in shock, pleading with the man's faintest shred of humanity (if he possessed any that was).
"Those that survived wandered free for several years," NoName rambled, his mind lost amid memories, and then a smile beamed across his face, "I then slit their throats."
Al recoiled. This man...
NoName was a monster. And a doctor.
He could have treated their wounds.
He could have saved Brother's infection, but had instead chosen to let it fester...
And then, Alphonse Elric lost his temper. Without his zealous brother to repress the anger, it unleashed itself a series of feral snarls. This was wrong all of it!
NoName glared at Al, whose golden-green eyes had lost all traces of humanity. The boy's hair had grown shaggy and course without being kept and flickered across his face as his neck snapped from left to right, trying to free from the restraints.
"MONSTER!" Al's bruises stung like Hell. But he didn't care. He had to get to his brother as soon as possible and get them out of here they had to be near civilisation someone had to help them -
"You aren't being a good boy, Alphonse..." NoName moved with the speed of a hurricane. He was behind Al in a heartbeat.
However, as he passed, Al lurched forward and sank his teeth into NoName's palm.
The man cocked his head with blue eyes. So blue...And those sky-coloured eyes narrowed to splinters of ice, "How dare you...
"Bite me anywhere else, Elric. But these palms allow me to conduct my art. And you've...bitten into them. You savage fucking little beast!" NoName hollered, kicking Al in the skull before rummaging on the ground beside the dizzy Alphonse.
Below NoName was a pile of wires attached to a machine -
The same goddamn alchemy-conducting machine -
And he plugged the wires into Al's ears -
And switched on the power:
Voltage.
Al didn't have time to reel back; he could barely compute what was happening.
Except he could feel his brain splintering in half.
His head was bursting with NOISE. So much noise - a cacophony of noise, an abundance of noise. It started as a persistent buzz and milliseconds later it had manifested into a symphonic orchestra screeching throughout every cell in his body. His mind tried to blot any of it out, but nothing worked. The music moved like a fiend fire through his veins, crackling and destroying his soul's energy. This was the alchemic voltage at its most vicious.
In reality he screamed. He kicked and screamed and after his body became paralyzed and became limp his thoughts screamed for him. STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP. It never did.
Anything was better than this. Silence was his sanctuary.
NoName was sobbing and muttering about daffodils. Al mustered the strength to stare at their waxy petals. Misfortune. Sorrow. Pain. PAINPAINPAINPAIN-
And then Al's captor placed a bloodied hand into the wire end that attached to Al's temple. He began to cackle maddeningly as the current moved from Al into him. All of the younger Elric's strength and passion and loved poured out of him.
His chest hurt. He felt like he was being squeezed to a pulp and squish! There went his organs - something had literally squished inside of him. He could hear the blood roar past his head. Burst! A major blood vessel in his leg popped under the sheer pressure. Snap! His bones began breaking as the current contorted his body into shapes that a child might make their doll pose. Not a human...
Pop...pop...pop...
Al's skull was the last to go. It cracked and crushed him inside up, swallowing him up in a churning darkness like at the bottom of a pit of despair.
He lingered there for a minute, a century.
However, he could feel that he was still here. Still alive. Still the living dead.
...
How was he alive?
The alchemic current around him was beginning to fade; it's energy was dissipating from his body tissues. And he could feel his bones realign and join together...his organs knit together as well...
That was what NoName had created. A Philosopher's Stone which did not require masses of people's souls to control. All that NoName needed was an alchemist's soul to manipulate? And who better than the boy who had been stripped to a soul locked inside a desolate suit of armour?
Who better than a boy who wasn't even human?
-You aren't.-
-You gave up the right to be a human when you tried to play God.-
-Sink into Hell, Devil-spawn.-
Those were the voices in his head. Al looked up hazily, because he could see NoName talking victoriously, but the words slipped from his lips like a landslide. Nothing reached Al, as if he was drowning in a huge ocean.
He flinched as realization struck him.
He couldn't hear. The world around him was silent.
Blissful, tranquil silence. Finally.
But Al could hear the buzzing - so much NOISE it hurt - in his head. Pounding thumping like a fucking heartbeat every second of every day -
-This is your punishment, golden boy. All stars shine, but then they must crash and burn.-
Ed didn't bother to move. His body was sore and he was fed up with surviving on the barest of threads. He was fed up of being trampled upon like dirt. And even though almost no time had passed since he had returned to consciousness, he yearned for that sweet oblivion of death.
But he wouldn't sleep.
His eyes closed lazily, although his senses remained acutely alert. There was the drip drip of liquid falling from the ceiling, the quiet thumping of his heart, the content dozing of his brother, accompanied by the dull buzzing of the machine as it operated somehow, transferring the raw alchemic energy into a current one could manipulate (an ingenious step forward in silence, Edward had to admit). He didn't know what was worse - listening to the symphony of screams and cries as his body was contorted against its will or this goddamned silence.
This was a new position for him. NoName carried the older Elric back to the side of his younger brother. This was the first time he had left Ed by the machine. Who could reason with a madman, anyway?
-You know what that feeling is like.-
No I don't.
-The very reason that you have fabricated my voice in your head is a tribute to that.-
Oh fuck off, you.
-We're stuck on this journey together, Edward Elric. Slip into that void, and make this pain all go away.-
...
-It will be over in a week. Maximum. Don't prolong the inevitable.-
I'm not going to die.
-You're in the slaughterhouse already. There is no escape.-
I'll get Al out of here.
-There is no escape from your mind, Fullmetal Alchemist. Never.-
Ed shivered as he heard his official title. It made him wonder how a broken cripple like himself could be merited as "talented". He had gained fame and fortune for sinning and trespassing into God's domain.
He managed a weak snort in disgust. Fucking Equivalent Exchange.
Al - his baby brother. What had he lost? His body, his soul, his life, his touch, his sensing, his mother, his brother, his childhood, his hearing.
And him? An arm and a leg.
It wasn't fair. None of this was goddamn fair.
-Al has only had his wrist broken, bruises laced over his skin and been deafened.-
I won't let anyone else touch him.
-And what about you, Edward? You've had your ribs, arm and digits broken. You've suffered from dislocation, mutilation and you're going to die. You've been used inside out and you're still searching for remorse.-
Focus. Ignore it, dammit Elric!
-I'm always here.-
"FOCUS" Ed called shrilly, panting at his losing battle with his mind (was he losing nonono he couldn't slip away yet and give up but oh the thought was sososo tempting).
Equivalency truly was a bitch. Nearly as much as Truth.
His throbbing skull changed his answer automatically. Much more than Truth.
Suddenly, a dim memory rose in the back of his mind. It wasn't from one of his recent scouting missions as a Dog of the Military or when he was younger with Al and his mother, but during an intermediary period before they had attempted human transmutation. It was a memory about a certain housewife..his Teacher.
She had taught him the fundamentals of Equivalent Exchange one morning before lunch. The Sun had been flaming hot and the grass was parched beneath his feet as Ed had been drenched with sweat. Of course they had been sparring. The adrenaline worked to course its way through Ed's veins, making his memory more acute. He could remember and visualise Teacher dodging his attacks while reading from an old recipe book.
Izumi Curtis had been as elegant as a dancer (who could also kill you).
"You are the circle, and the circle is you. Let the array summon your power - let it help you contain the elements. And then bend it to your will," Teacher had said simply, as though it was the most mundane rule every child should learn.
Ed had attacked at that moment, leaping off of his left foot before his body had curled around, his right leg preparing to hook a kick at Teacher's skull. She had ducked her head, her body a moving rhythm to its own beat, and a swooping punch had sailed straight into Ed's gut.
"Focus you damn brat!" she had hissed, raising her eyes for a second from her page.
"Yes, Teacher," Ed had mumbled under his breath, before shaking away the feeling of defeat and preparing a stance for his next attack. That was just the type of boy he was.
He had learnt more than one lesson that day...
But Ed's tired mind, though clogged with fatigue and fever, was still whirling. That was the bonus of being a prodigy and a goddamn State Alchemist. All of those hours of research and pain and automail surgery hadn't been for nothing.
His heart flurried in his chest, like a sick songbird fluttering around in its cage for one last stretch of its wings.
Was this feeling anticipation? Was this feeling hope? It had been too long - Ed had forgotten what those sensations felt like.
He smirked, his golden eyes narrowing to crescents in the darkness. He was an alchemist.
He operated through the use of arrays.
That was it. That was fucking it. The machine whirling beside him still had to follow the Laws. Equivalent Exchange existed. The bloody contraption needed an array to activate it. And all that Ed had to do was find the array and destroy it.
He could then use alchemy and get him and Al the Hell out of this place.
Roy scratched his head, wondering what he was going to do. This was a situation he had not planned.
Hawkeye was silent by his side. She was coming with him, and the rest of the team knew that. That left two tickets to Turinene.
And there were four members of Roy teamed left over, including a heavily-weeping Major Alex Louis Armstrong.
"It has been the pride of the Armstrong family to serve in scouting operations since the 1720's when Reginald Henry Armstrong devised the technique of silent tracking after he had spent a month locked in a mansion with his puppy Charles," Armstrong was lamenting, his shirt long abandoned. Visible sparkles shimmered around the man's hulking physique, which churned a mixture of awe and fear in Roy's gut. The blond mustached man was wiping tears from his eyes with a handkerchief.
Nobody wanted to say no to the Major.
But there was also Fuery, Breda, Havoc and Falman to consider. Each one of them wanted to join Roy, Riza and Maes on the mission to rescue the Elric brothers. All of them yearned to enact a fraction of the justice due to Fullmetal and Alphonse. No, justice wasn't the right choice of word. The far more colloquial term payback felt more appropriate.
Roy was ready to get his fists dirty and bloody if that was what it took to protect his useless subordinate.
"I have memorised the entire map of Turinine!" Falman was declaring, holding up his proof-drawn sketch of the town's streets and alleys to an uncanny level of detail.
"Everyone here knows I've got more experience than the lot of you in fieldwork. Sometimes it's good to get your head out of a book, Falman," that was Breda who muttered with unusual icy contempt. This entire case had given rise to the darker demons that rested in all of their hearts - and were only now beginning to make an appearance on stage.
"As a country boy I grew up around the surrounding villages. I have the contacts," Havoc extinguished his burning cigarette, and dropped it to the ground. He started to grind it up to cinders with movements from his boot.
"I have the phone number of every major business in the town stored in my mind," Falman countered.
And so on.
Hawkeye was motionless, her eyes trained on the bickering men in front of her. Beneath her eyes half-moon bags rested wearily, and a neat bruise was swelling above her cheek. Roy didn't question her motives.
They each had their own way of dealing with this.
But he needed goddamn unity at the moment. His team had not felt more divided before.
"May I profess my familiarity with the Greenwood Pastures surrounding dear Turinene where my beloved second cousin Margaret Isla Armstrong has taken up residence for the last twenty-three years. Oh how she would love to provide her humble abode for our needs," Armstrong cried gallantly.
The glares he received replaced any need for words.
Roy thought the situation couldn't get much worse. The boasts and arguments had been hurled across the office (door closed thank God) for the past thirty minutes, and there had been no sign that any of one of his men was going to surrender their case. While Roy admired their charisma and dedication (goddamn pipsqueak had better be grateful) to the case, the Colonel's temper was wavering like a flame. They didn't have time for this.
But when Maes Hughes stepped through the door. Even though a "Do Not Disturb" sign had been attached to the front, the Lieutenant Colonel had not heeded its warning.
"So what have I missed?" Hughes called cheerfully as his glasses bobbled and fell down his face. The man quickly repositioned them. He moved gracefully to stand by Roy's other side.
"Oh for goodness sake," Roy muttered under his breath, scratching his temple to ease away his headache.
"Make up your mind soon, Roy...the pictures of Elicia with her new dollhouse are falling out of my pocket," Maes whispered snidely into his ear. "And I just have to pick them up!"
"I will singe your beard if you move an inch," Roy threatened, preparing to snap if necessary. He wasn't in the mood (as Maes should clearly know).
"You have five minutes to sort out who is coming tomorrow - or else!" Maes sang tunefully, and ducked out of Roy's menacing glare to stand next to Hawkeye, where they began to have a civil conversation about makes of rifle.
Fucking typical.
"I have-" Whatever.
"How dare you!" Just stop.
"It's only I-" Shut up.
"You will stop bickering now unless you want to be put on leave for a month and then you won't be able to come on this mission!" Roy growled, and his team didn't shut up until Roy reinforced his point, "That's an order!"
"Sir," five grumbled replies answered and saluted back.
"Now I understand what this mission means to you - what it means to us all," Roy corrected himself, "But I need three of you to remain here to clear up any challenging business that may arise. We don't know if we may receive another...delivery of daffodils. I have to trust you to have my back, understood?"
It seemed it was the perfect time for a victory speech. His words fell like raindrops, and the room descended into an uncomfortable silence.
And then: "I understand, Sir."
That was Breda.
"My knowledge does not match my scouting ability..."
Falman.
"Alas, I could see dear Margaret on my next leave."
Even the Major.
Fuery and Havoc remained silent as Roy handed both the men a ticket to Turinene each. Havoc grinned at that moment. He was the closest one to Ed out of his team (they seemed to share common knowledge on the farming techniques and shared a love for the outdoors. Well, they both grew up in the countryside.). And Havoc did not offer complementary titles like "Boss" and "Chief" to anyone that he didn't have to address. It was his way of expressing that he liked an individual.
However, Fuery was twiddling his thumbs, his head lowered as he refused to make eye contact. Out of his men, he had least expected Fuery to be the most stubborn.
"Sergeant?" Roy padded over, his arms lazily tucked into his pockets, itching against the fabric of his gloves. They always had to be in his touch now, otherwise he felt too damn nervous.
His fears were reflected in Fuery's eyes. Kain was the youngest member of the team and the least experienced, even if he was a technology prodigy. He admired the boy's charisma and enthusiasm; it had earned him a place on Roy's chessboard, the everlasting game he warred against his opponent to rise to Fuhrer.
"Edward fixed my radio, Sir, and I need to repay my debt," black eyes locked with black eyes in common understanding. No more words needed to pass between the two of them. The Sergeant lifted his right hand to salute his Colonel, and in turn Mustang rested a hand on the younger man's shoulder.
Maes Hughes smiled and shoved the photos of Elicia back into his pocket. They could wait for another day.
Phew this was a good chapter to write. A little bit of fluff *a little little little bit*.
Chapter 7 Break will be coming soon! I hope to see you then.
Edit: The chapter will be up tomorrow (May 4th) - just needs some final polishing.