It took way too fucking long, for Ed to stumble his way across the little village back to Marcoh's house.
He hadn't slept much, the night before.
By the tossing and turning in the darkness, coming from the bed right across from his, he was pretty sure Hughes hadn't, either.
He desperately wanted to just be able to call Al. Talk to someone, because Hughes had pretty obviously not been in any shape to have a helpful conversation with, and even if Al wouldn't be able to fix it, he'd at least understand. He'd at least listen and be there for him to talk it through with and tell him to calm the hell down, because even now after a sleepless night and hours to think it through he could barely so much as still still.
There was no Al here, though. There was no even calling him. His brother was still off carrying out what was meant to be his mission, dozens of miles away- it wasn't even safe enough to risk calling him in case the lines were tapped. There was absolutely no way safe way to contact him, and after all he'd found out about the military in just the past twenty four hours, he sure as hell wasn't going to do anything at all that could put them at the slightest risk of their location being found.
Which meant last night, instead of a terrible phone call to Al, he'd tossed and turned all night long, an even more shellshocked and lifeless Hughes doing just the same across from him, and-
Now he was here.
Alone in the middle of his ramshackle, dreadful little town, and glaring up at the door to Marcoh's house with the undeniable will to punch his straight straight through it.
He was lost, confused, and so disoriented it felt like he was drowning in a hole of mud. He barely had any idea at all what was going on and was still half-convinced this whole damn thing was a messy, bewildering nightmare.
But he did know that if they had any other option right now for keeping Mustang healthy, they'd already be gone, and Marcoh would be in desperate need for a doctor himself.
Fucking bastard.
Fucking piece of shit BASTARD.
His fists curled, nails grinding into the skin of his flesh palm while his metal hand shook, anger constricting in his head so violently it ground his patience into dust. He didn't want to have to care if Mustang needed him right now. He didn't care that Al would probably tell him to calm down or that Hughes would tell him to bite his tongue or that Mustang himself would snap at him to grow up and control himself.
He wanted to punch Marcoh in his fucking face.
Those two hideous, foot-long scars on Mustang's back, all that remained of fucking wings...
And he cut them off.
Red rage blinded his vision again and in that moment, if Marcoh had been in front of him, he would've done it. He would've punched his fucking lights out and dragged Mustang somewhere, anywhere safe-
And anywhere away from him.
Except he couldn't do it.
Mustang needed help, and March was the only one who could give it.
It was simple as that.
Breathing in slowly, Ed hunched his shoulders, trembling again right there in the middle of the empty street. Revulsion and disgust swept through him in a toxic wave and for a sick heartbeat, he wanted to just tilt his head back and scream.
He had to do this. He had get himself the hell together, and go in there. Because Hughes, apparently, wasn't going to do it, so that meant it was all down to him. He had to calm his stupid nerves down, yank himself together, and drag himself straight back inside to face him.
Mustang had spent years smirking behind his desk, smug and lofty as fuck, and telling him to act his rank instead of his age. Well, Ed didn't give one single solitary shit about his rank, and now, after what he'd found out about what the military had done, part of him wanted to turn in his resignation this very second then set his watch on fire.
But Mustang was right, about one thing.
He wasn't a little kid.
Right now, that meant holding it together, because Mustang and Hughes evidently couldn't, and doing the right thing.
Cracking his knuckles, Ed squared his shoulders and his back, took another deep breath, and then, strode inside.
The room was just as cluttered and dark as it had been yesterday, such a contrast to the bright glare of the outside that at first he could see nothing at all but indistinct shadow that he had to squint to make clear. It was stifling and silent again, that same oppressive air as the day before, like a forgotten tomb or shut away crypt.
He shuddered miserably again.
When his eyes at last adjusted to the darkness, searching past dust and reluctance, the shadows softened away to reveal Marcoh waiting for him. Silent and withdrawn at his desk, a book settled out before him and papers scattered like a storm had torn through the house. He, too, looked like he had not slept much last night. He, too, looked exhausted, and like he'd rather be anywhere but here.
Black eye and all.
Somehow, Ed couldn't really find much sympathy for him.
With an instant, furious scowl, Ed stepped the rest of the way inside to shove the door shut behind him. Marcoh stiffened subtly again, withdrawing as if expecting to be struck, but Ed merely firmly turned his back to head down the stairs without care. "I'm not here to see you," he snapped over his shoulder, not even turning his head back to look at him. "And trust me, it's best for you if you keep it that way."
"...Edward-"
"Shut up."
For one lucky moment, the so-called doctor actually did. Ed stood there, barely able to see past the bloody-red rage choked into his throat and waited, still trembling, sick at heart, knowing there was more to come and in the same breath wanting nothing more than for him to never speak again.
"...please," Marcoh murmured at last. "If you're going to be angry at somebody, be angry with me."
"Oh, believe me-"
"Just don't be angry with Roy."
Ed stumbled to a halt.
The words were quiet and passive, not the argument or defense Ed had been ready for but instead a meek request and nothing more. It also was perhaps the only thing Marcoh could've said to not drag him on to be even more angry with him, and instead sail straight underneath his every defense to strike at his still wounded core.
The sense of betrayal from yesterday, upon realizing the full and horrible truth and what that meant, lived on- as did the very small part of him that was not upset with Marcoh, but instead, upset with Mustang, for lying to him.
Lying to him and Al, ever since the very first day that they'd met.
His throat tightened again, so much it was painful. It felt as if with those words alone Marcoh had seen straight through him and stripped him bare and flipped this entire meeting around on its head, and he fucking hated it. This wasn't- no. Marcoh could not make him feel like this. He could not. He-
And this was about Mustang, not him.
It certainly wasn't about Marcoh.
Ed squeezed his eyes shut, and once again swiveled around to turn his back to Marcoh, and his focus back down the stairs. He refused to so much as give that man the time of day. Fighting another breath as deep as he could, suffocating the disquiet already collecting around his heart that kept his hands shaking and his stomach sick, Ed kept his back turned, and at last, trudged onwards back down to the basement.
It was time to get his answers, once and for all.
Just like yesterday, the room he crept into was dim and hot. Suffocating in its loneliness, and uncomfortable already just one step inside. The orange glow of the candles was hardly enough by which to see, giving off the smell of smoke and heat that now felt all too fitting.
And there, just like yesterday, was Mustang.
Ed had tried to enter quietly, apprehensive that the colonel might be asleep. But when the door creaked open at last and his eyes landed immediately on him, it was with relief, because Mustang was awake, and undeniably so. Settled in the same tousled, unmade bed as the day before, a book propped open in his lap- and those strange, pale eyes, already watching him.
Ed flinched again.
"...Well," Mustang drawled softly. His voice came out rough and deep, deeper than yesterday; perhaps because now, when Ed listened to him, he wasn't listening for the colonel, but instead staring at him and seeing a beast beneath his skin. "Hello again, Fullmetal." He paused, then, with movements agonizingly precise, shut the book in his lap to set it away. A small smile crossed over his scarred face with an agonizing sense of smug calm.
Even from here, Ed could still see teeth that tapered into gentle points.
"Have you calmed down, yet?" the colonel asked, gaze flickering pointedly over his shoulder. "I didn't hear chaos from upstairs, so I can only assume Marcoh made it through in one piece."
Ed glared back, reflexive irritation tightening in his gut. "I'm not a kid," he muttered under his breath, even as his face started to warm, but something about that pale blue, piercing gaze from that pale blue, scaled face was just too fucking wrong, and when Ed drew a step closer he suddenly found his gaze glued down to his feet, because he couldn't look him in the eye. "I... I know you need his help, right now. I get that, so. I won't do anything to him."
"...I would actually prefer it if you didn't do anything to him regardless of my needing his help, but- I suppose that's a start."
Ed kept his eyes averted, still thoroughly miserable and barely able to stop himself from fidgeting on the spot. The instant his gaze landed on a nearby stool he made for it, relieved to be able to sit down and hide his still trembling hands. He should be in jail, he wanted to mutter, but the injustice of it made his mouth turn sour, and instead he just kept his mouth shut.
He knew that real justice, in this case, was never going to happen.
Jail was for people who broke a country's laws.
Not for someone who'd done exactly as the Fuhrer had ordered.
Hell, Mustang had turned out so well, they'd probably given the man a fucking medal.
Another long moment dragged by in unbearable silence.
Until, at last, Mustang sighed.
"Come here, Ed."
Ed swallowed, hard. It felt like he was all but choking on the shock and reluctance still gathered in his throat and at first, no part of him wanted to move at all. He didn't even want to look at him. Not when he knew the impossible, insane sight that awaited him on Roy Mustang's face.
But the alternative was even worse, wasn't it? Just sitting there, blatantly ignoring him to stare blankly at the floor, instead, confessing without words I can't do it, you look weird, I can't look at you, you're a freak-?
Ed gritted his teeth again, this time with a violent wave of self-loathing and disgust.
He was not here to fall apart.
He could do this.
With another shuddering, almost gasp of a breath, he forced himself to settle for a compromise, and blindly dragged the stool closer. Out of the corner of his eye he saw blue hands and scars and this time, he kept his gaze firmly planted down.
Every part of him, as an alchemist, wanted to see it. Examine this amazing feat of alchemy sitting before him, a work of transmutations that Ed hadn't even realized were possible until just yesterday, never mind as perfected and advanced as the chimera before him. He wanted to lay the puzzle open with his own two eyes and read all its secrets, to understand everything about him, everything about Nina, until every last detail of the arrays made sense and there were no questions left unanswered. He wanted to stare at Mustang until every single circle was burned into his mind so thoroughly he not only understood how Mustang and Nina had been made- but how he could unmake them, too.
And all the rest of him was so sickened by this he could barely stand it.
He wouldn't have been the first, to look at Mustang like nothing more than a fucking lab experiment.
"Look," Mustang ordered quietly, evidently undeterred by his continued refusal to so much as look him in the eye. With an awkward grunt, the colonel shifted a little bit closer but instead of reaching out for Ed, he merely turned the book in his lap, bringing it closer to him with one stiff, still strikingly unnatural hand. "Ever read this before?"
"I- what?" What was he even talking about- a fucking book? Really? A book? Utterly thrown and losing whatever patience he had left, Ed glared awkwardly on at Mustang's stomach, not quite looking at him, not quite staring at his feet anymore, either. "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes," he read, squinting in the dark. A collection of short stories following the life of Detective Sherlock Holmes.
...okay, then...?
Why, exactly, was Mustang showing him a children's novel?
Hell, why was he wasting his time reading it in the first place?
His utter lack of understanding must have shown itself on his face, because after a few moments Mustang pulled the book back to settle it on his lap, gripping it between two long fingers and thumbing at the pages with his other hand. "It's relevant, if you'll bear with me for a few moments to allow me to explain... Dragons don't read Amestrian, Ed. We have our own alphabet, and its not yours. However, a soldier who can't read is a rather badly handicapped one, so the military had to teach me that, too- among almost everything else." Sighing heavily, Mustang settled back in what felt like an almost painfully fake air of enforced calm, still thumbing on restlessly through the book with scaled hands that were all Ed could see, because he just couldn't make himself lift his eyes to his changed face. "I was really only allowed history texts and military strategy, but those aren't quite suited towards a child learning how to read. It was... not easy going, and let's leave it at that."
Ed shuddered, a little seed of cold planting in his stomach and turning his mouth bitter. Yeah. Yeah, after everything that he'd seen so far, he could guess that it wasn't.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could just see a faint pallor come over the colonel's face, new shadows from the memory that was obviously utterly unpleasant. But the moment he started to look up he caught another flash of blue scales and his eyes were sucked right back down to his legs. "...okay," he mumbled at last, weak and uncomfortable. "What does this have to do with that?"
"Well, as much as you may hate him, Ed... Marcoh felt sorry for me. He'd always been nicer to me, than the others, but this was pretty much the first time I really recognized him apart from the others." He shifted the book again, thumping it gently between his hands, then gave another warm laugh that was so out of place it made Ed's stomach churn. "He was the lead alchemist on the team so managed to make it his job, to examine me each night, but all he was really trying to do was help me learn how to read without getting screamed at for forgetting a word. He'd bring in books from home and work with me on them... at first he'd mostly read and I'd follow along, usually children's stories, but as I got older he'd start bringing in anything he could find that he thought I'd like. Detective novels, fantasy, adventure..." He laughed again, tossing the book to the side for it to thump down, forgotten, the distant smile undeniable in his voice alone. "For a few months I was very confused by some sappy romance tripe, after which Marcoh decided that perhaps human romance novels didn't quite work for a dragon, and we abandoned it for some ridiculous explosion-fest instead."
At that, Ed couldn't quite help himself, or maybe just didn't want to, and actually found himself just laughing along with Mustang. He was still barely following along but just the idea of him reading some trashy romance novel- and the colonel just sitting there, sounding so blasé about it all...
It was normal.
It was, at so long last, actually okay.
It was a familiar footing that crumbled instantly away, when he started to lift his gaze up onto Mustang, and instead latched straight onto the leathery line of scales creeping up his neck.
"So, I'm not asking that you become best friends with Marcoh, Ed." Mustang pushed around to sit closer, not touching him, but gaze boring so pointedly into his forehead he could feel it there, burning. "But out of all the people responsible for this, he's the only one who's responsible for the good, too- the only one who's the reason that I'm even still alive, for god's sake. They took away my name because I couldn't say it anymore, and Marcoh named me Roy because he thought it would be something easy for a dragon to say, and when I was old enough to understand, he actually sat down with me to explain everything he knew about my family. You heard him yesterday, right? That I wasn't the only dragon taken, just the only one who survived?"
Ed tensed again, anger whiplashing through him even more violently than before. Yeah, he remembered that, all right. He wasn't sure what kind of defense for Marcoh that was, but he fucking remembered it. "Yeah, so? Great, so the dragons are half extinct specifically because of the military hunting them. Good for fucking them."
"...Actually... Ed..." the colonel sighed, rubbing a hand at his face with an air of great, domineering exasperation. "The military had seven dragons, including myself. They killed the first six, perfecting the chimera transformation. ...those first six were my four sisters, and two brothers."
Ed gasped.
What?
WHAT?!
"And you know what Marcoh did, Ed?" Mustang went on, plowing through the shocked silence with a deep growl of a voice like iron. "He had someone write a note for me, before I could even understand what anyone was saying, to tell me what had happened to them. He managed to salvage a few of their scales, and bury them. He- he told me he was sorry before I even understood the word, and ended up teaching it to me with some picture book just so he could properly apologize. He didn't have to do any of these things, Ed. But he did. So you can hate him, if you want- I certainly can't stop you. But someone in my position... really doesn't have that many people to rely on, Ed. I know if he could take it all back, he would, but he's never treated me as anything less than a person and that's all I can really ask for."
"Anything less than- how can you say that?! He- he-" Ed trailed off helplessly, without words but the injustice of it all tightening in his throat again. "He- you said... he killed your family! He could've killed you; he did this to you! How- just because he said sorry, that doesn't- he's still-" He panted to a nauseated stop, stomach churning and mind wiped blank of anything sentient at all, because all that was left was the sick rage clutching at his heart.
All he could see was Tucker standing over his deformed daughter.
"...Well, for one, Ed? Marcoh is actually able to look at me."
Ed froze.
Oh. He hadn't, actually- oh. Yeah. That. That whole part of it. The looking at Mustang, part. The part that he... hadn't managed to do yet. Right.
The part that had turned Mustang's words from calm to acerbic, and underneath them lived a genuine sense of actual hurt.
If anyone's not treating him as an actual person now, it's you.
The terrible silence extended on. It felt like a lead ball of guilt and dread had settled deep in his stomach, just him and Mustang sitting together, the colonel expectant and unyielding as rock while Ed was left to realize that no matter how many hours he'd spent trying to prepare himself for this, no matter how much he'd told himself Mustang could trust them, that he could handle it- he'd ended up doing just as badly as Mustang had expected him to.
Ed shivered again in his chair, and once again fought to swallow back another wave of guilt.
Then, he forced his eyes back up to Mustang.
The colonel sat there just the same as yesterday. Eyes that weren't the right color, skin that was all wrong. A facethat was all wrong, sharp teeth and a poisonous patch of scales on his cheek and features that were just a little too alien to even pass as human.
And still, underneath at all, was the very same colonel who had stalked into the Rockbell's years ago, hauled him up out of his wheelchair, and told him to turn his life around.
Mustang smiled a little, when Ed finally managed to get his eyes to find his. But it came out all wrong, small and restrained like he was well aware how unsettling it was and he was trying to hide his own teeth, and the wrongness of it all stampeded straight over everything else. "You really did say it for yourself, yesterday, Ed. I'm the same person that I always was, in here," Mustang said, tapping at his head with one curled finger. "I'm just not the person you thought I was."
...okay, that one was a fair point.
This time, Ed kept his gaze on him, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. This was who Mustang really was, and pretending it wasn't wouldn't get either of them anywhere. And it was uncomfortable, at first, it made his skin crawl and the back of his neck prickle, but- this was him. He could stare all he wanted, and he was never going to crack and turn into a dead-eyed dog that could barely say her own name.
He was Mustang, through and through, and he was apparently going to just have to get used to it.
Ed swallowed hard, finally finding the words past the discomfort tightening in his throat. "This... this'll go away, then?" he asked, inching forwards a little. "Yesterday, you said-..."
Mustang gave a half-hearted chuckle, but it was weak to its core, and when he ran a twisted hand through his hair, the half-claw of a finger dragged a tangle right out of his head. His strange face twisted a bit, jaw tightening with something unsaid, and once again Ed caught a slight, wounded vulnerability flickering through his eyes- a vulnerability he was almost sure Mustang hadn't wanted him to see. "Is it really that bad?"
He sucked in a breath, wincing and the words that caught in his throat did so like shattered glass. He worked with mouth pathetically, wanting to say something, make that utterly wrong look in Mustang's go away- but nothing helpful came out all. He couldn't find anything to say that would make this better.
Goddammit, he was fucking up right when it really mattered.
The silence stretched on between them, suffocating and thick in the stale heat. A sense of defeat emanated slowly after it, so palpable it made him sick.
"Well... yes, then. It will go away." Mustang's eyes turned away, narrowing down to his lap as his shoulders hunched and his hands curled. With an agonizing sense of precision and care, so careful it was as if one wrong move was all it'd take to shatter, the man started to work himself around, situating himself inch by inch to sit on the edge of the bed, instead. His legs dangled over, loose and limp, and he somehow looked so obviously wrong but in the same breath, so undeniably human, that Ed just couldn't understand it.
Sitting like this, Ed could now see his bare feet for the very first time.
They weren't all that much better than his hands.
Well, at least this time, his stomach didn't lurch.
"I don't really know what it was, that Bradley had them do to me. He only explained just enough so he could... gloat." The colonel splayed his hands in his lap, turning them over and flexing them as if they were as alien to him as they were to Ed, then just sagged with another weak grin.
Ed really didn't know what the hell he was smiling about, because there wasn't anything funny about this at all.
"He told me it was meant to deconstruct the transmutation," Mustang mused on absentmindedly, seeming to be speaking more to himself than to Ed, at this point. Like all of this conversation were things he had wanted to say to somebody for a very long time, and now that there was someone in the room to listen he was just going to say them without sense or any purpose at all. "I'm mostly dragon, believe it or not, and whatever array they used on me this time was meant to turn me back into that. There was just no promise I'd actually live through it. ...pretty sure I wouldn't have." He examined his hands again, this time with another faint scowl. "Thank you for getting me here as fast you did. Marcoh said if I'd been much later, my wings might've broken the skin. I think I speak for all of us when I say I'm glad they didn't."
No matter how hard he tried, Ed couldn't stop himself from shuddering. His own back itched and stung at the very thought of it. That was why Mustang had been so picky about his back, then? Yes, he'd seen the horrible scars before, and he'd known what they were from, but hadn't actually put two and two together- but this whole time... that was why? It had been because- because-
Because he'd been trying to grow wings? Just like that? Just straight out of human tissue and skin and those thick, ugly scars Mustang had showed them just yesterday?!
...no wonder he was in so much pain.
"That kind of alchemy is wrong," Ed hissed, eyes squeezing shut. This time not because he couldn't look at Mustang, but just that he couldn't beat back the images still flickering in his head any other way. "No one should use arrays like that. Not on someone who didn't agree to it and not on a- a fucking kid."
He hadn't felt this disgusted by something since Tucker. But now... Ed shook his head once, a breath sucked in past gritted teeth. It was too much. It was too wrong. It wasn't just Tucker all over again, it was their mother, too- it was him deciding to play god with his brother and pressing their hands to a circle that should never have been drawn, and making something horrible with it that could never be forgiven.
His stomach lurched, and the world around him cracked with it, too.
He wasn't any better than the sick freaks who'd- who'd made Mustang.
"I'm- I'm sorry," and then the words were just tumbling out, a low and sulky mutter that wrenched itself past the lump in his throat. He didn't even know what he was apologizing for but just knew that he was sorry, and more than that couldn't stop it as he ducked his head again, gaze trembling on the ground because he couldn't face him again. "This isn't right. It's- I'm so sorry, Mustang, I-"
Mustang snarled abruptly, a low and guttural noise that made him jump, because, not fucking human, but there wasn't time for him to get over himself because next moment, there was a rough and twisted hand settled right on top of his head.
It wasn't human. It wasn't even animal. It was something weird and unnatural inbetween the two, but it was also just a hand rested on his head no matter how deformed it was and with everything alien and broken around him this, at least, he could understand.
This made sense.
"Ed," Mustang growled again. "The only thing you and your brother have done is keep me alive. You helped me escape. You got me here. ...of all the people in the world who might owe me an apology, you are certainly not one of them."
He shook his head again; just what it was he was denying, he didn't know, but he had to do it. The injustice and wrongness of it at all was just so sickeningly much. "But-"
"Enough." Mustang's hand curled again, still rough against his head but gentle, somehow, a heavy, alien warmth that hesitated, then trailed down to his shoulder. "Enough, Ed. You did nothing wrong. You've done more for me than you can even understand, Ed- there is no but. There is nothing for you to say sorry for." The hand on his shoulder squeezed a little, gripping him into place and it was so reassuring an anchor, it was somehow enough to ground the chaos still spinning around him.
It was reassuring enough for Ed to calm the stuttering breaths caught shallow in his throat, and once again find the strength of will to force his head back up, and keep on looking Mustang back in the eye.
His still pale, unnatural, messed up eyes.
But from everything that he now knew, that was the real Mustang- this was the real him, scales, fangs and all, and he was going to have just get used to it.
The colonel sighed faintly when their gazes at last met again, another small smile coming into play. "I've never understood you alchemists," he muttered, then, bewilderingly, for no reason at all, lifting his hand again up to ruffle his hair fondly. "You always try and take responsibility for everything; take on guilt for things that have not even the slightest bit to do with you. Tell me, Ed; that's not a human thing, is it?" He smiled again, showing neat, pointed teeth. "It's an alchemist thing."
His head swam again, this time nearly tilting him to the side. Great, now he was even more confused than before. "I guess you're not actually an alchemist, are you, huh?" he asked, scratching his head. "This whole time... fucking hell, I can't believe it- do you even know anything about alchemy at all, bastard? Have you just been faking it this whole time?"
Mustang actually looked a little abashed at that one; at least, he thought that was it, the colonel smiling faintly but with an expression that was almost embarrassed. He rubbed at the blue patch of scales on his cheek, pale eyes scattering away, and when he spoke his voice was almost light again- almost familiar. "You are correct. I've tried to learn some of it, a few times, but... really couldn't figure my way through even the basics. I just don't have the arithmetic or scientific educational background to understand it." He hesitated again, half-growl of a voice wavering once more. "...I'm not sure if I'm even physically capable of it at all."
Once again, Ed's weak smile fell.
Just-
Just-
Damn it, Mustang.
It had been funny, to joke with Al that the bastard was a one-trick pony, secretly a useless alchemist who'd lucked his way through the state exam. Or he'd joked around, while Al had begged for him to please just be nice to their superior, please just stop calling him an idiot behind his back- but it had been funny then, a sulky sort of one-sided rivalry Mustang was a smug asshole who needed to be challenged, but of course he was really a good alchemist... of course he was...
Except, he wasn't.
And finding that out really sucked every last bit of amusement right out of it.
"...I could try and teach you something," Ed ventured hopefully, then coughed, clearing his throat. God, he sounded so pathetic. He wasn't helping at all. "At least see if you actually can do it. A simple circle shouldn't be too hard, even for a bastard like you."
Mustang smirked a little at that, and it was easily the most relieving thing about this. He wasn't too far gone to not be provoked by a little insult- he wasn't too far gone to not still be Mustang. Mustang smirked and Ed relaxed, the tense, crushing weight on his chest easing back gently to let him smirk back, too.
Until Mustang's ease faded back into a reluctant frown.
"Thank you for the offer," he sighed, "but I think I'm fine like this, Ed. No matter what talent for alchemy I do or do not have, I think it's clear I'm not ever going to be a genius alchemist. And... and, while I am grateful, Ed, I really a bit tired of dedicating myself to learning to pretend to be something I'm not."
There was a soft sadness underneath those words- something he had never heard from the colonel before, an old injury that hadn't healed. That had maybe always been there, Ed at last understood, but Mustang had hidden it all this time underneath that smug suaveness of his, sitting there smirking behind his desk like that-
And he'd always looked so confident and smug, Ed had never once thought to try and look deeper.
He had never once actually looked past that the arrogant colonel's expression to realize that something underneath wasn't quite right.
Nobody had.
Mustang growled quietly again, the hand still settled on his shoulder giving it another squeeze. "Stop looking like that," he murmured, smile playing underneath his voice, then brought his cold, rough hand around to nudge his face back up. "I told you already, the last thing I need from you is an apology, Ed. I'm alive because of you! What more could you and your brother have possibly done for me that you haven't already?" He groaned suddenly, a new pallor coming over him as he yanked away to jerk his hand back, rubbing it over the worn exhaustion on his face but there was suddenly resignation there, too, and it slipped out through the cracks no matter what he did to hide it. "This right here- this is why I never told anyone. This is why I didn't want you or Hughes to know even when you found out I'm a chimera, Ed. It was never about what I looked like; I've looked like a monster since I was eight! But my team was the first people I'd ever had who didn't treat me like one, too, and this was what I wanted to stop. I knew things would change and this is why I wanted to keep my mouth shut."
Mustang looked actually abruptly upset, now the distress out of nowhere and the emotion scattered and shadowed by everything else that the man was; authority, confidence, inner strength, assuredness, but he could see it all the same, see it even when Mustang turned his back to push upright and stalk towards the wall. He paced about once like a caged cat, snarling and staggering, then swiveled back around to him with a look on his face that made Ed feel like he'd just been stabbed.
"If you're really just here to gawk me, Ed, then you can go. Like I said, I'll be back to normal after long enough, so if you want to talk to me and still be able to pretend I'm just like you, you can come back then." His shoulder hit the wall with a loud thump and an equally loud grunt, gaze turned away but eyes still darting and fierce in the shadows, like a wild animal on the run- or even worse, cornered already, and about to be slaughtered. "Everything can go back to normal then."
"That's- that's not fair! You're not even giving us a chance! Mustang-" Ed sank back in his seat, utterly baffled. He didn't know what had even just happened, here. The bastard had been smiling just a moment ago, but now it was like a switch had just been flipped in his head and so much that he'd kept silent was suddenly pouring out, and Ed was the only one there to witness it.
He just stood there, back against the dark wall, and looking so withdrawn and alone that it was too wrong to bear.
It was wrong.
Ed had spent years standing up to Mustang, needling at him, trying to get to him, to make him for once just stop being a smug shit, but part of what had been so annoying about him in the first place was how damn hard it was to get to him. That no matter what he said or what monument got blown up, he always seemed just a little like a parent scolding a mischievous child. Untouchable, lofty, calm, an asshole.
Ed had hated it until now because he hated being put in the role of a child. He hated being the one in the room being looked down on and scolded, because he was not a fucking kid, not anymore. He had earned his way into the military and he deserved to be treated like an adult equal to everybody else in the room- not some stupid child.
But now, everything had been reversed.
Now, Mustang wasn't in control anymore. No matter how he tried to still order him about it was strikingly obvious, plain as day. He could stand there and snap orders all he liked; none of it mattered because instead of being that infuriatingly calm, controlled bastard sitting there smirking behind his desk-
Somehow, Ed had gotten to him.
Well, that just meant it was his responsibility to clean it up.
He closed eyes, biting his curling tongue to yank back every bit of a shouted complaint choking in the back of his throat, and made himself keep still.
"...That's not fair," he repeated finally, forcing his voice as steady and calm as he could make it. Nothing would be achieved here by letting Mustang provoke him. "We're still trying to figure this out, I guess, but we're trying, at least. None of us want to start pretending yesterday didn't happen. You're a- a dra..."
Mustang went unbearably still once again. His head tilted slightly, dark hair shifting, and those neatly pointed ears were left visible once more.
Even like this, even back turned, covered from the neck down, and standing in the dark, he couldn't pretend Mustang was human.
Ed took another deep breath, squaring his shoulders and solidifying his will. You're just going to have to get used to it. "You're a dragon," he said again, this time without wavering or stopping. "Or- half of one, or- I don't know what you call yourself. But what we thought you were before wasn't true, and none of us want to go back to believing a lie."
Mustang's shoulders hunched further and he pulled, still, further away. "Are you quite sure about that?"
"Of course! Of course, I-"
"And are you quite sure Hughes agrees with you?"
Ed choked quiet. His throat tightened, and every last bit of his newfound strength of will wavered like the candles that lit the room around them.
It was apparent now that Mustang had noticed Hughes' absence as acutely as he'd noticed Ed's presence.
"...Hughes is... struggling," he admitted, the words suffocatingly quiet between them. Right. Struggling. That was it.
Sitting there back in that ugly hotel room, shaking his head no matter how much Ed had wanted him to just come with him, affixed right in place without, seemingly, even the slightest bit of desire for visiting the guy he called his friend...
Ed's fists clenched.
Struggling.
Right.
Was it any wonder Mustang was reacting like this, when Hughes, the only person he probably actually wanted to talk to, just hadn't shown up?
Because it was now pretty obvious that Ed wasn't wanted, here.
Well, too fucking bad. Hughes was not here. Hughes was not going to fix anything, because Hughes was too busy sulking. Ed was the one who was here, and that just meant he was going to have to be the one to make this right- and Mustang was just going to have to fucking deal with it.
For a moment, glaring at Mustang's still turned, scarred back, he wanted to shout at him to just trust them. For once, in his stupid bastard life, just trust them. But Ed was starting to realize Mustang might actually have never have trusted any of them at all. Not really. And now, in Hughes failing to show up and Ed failing to say and do the right things, they were both just playing right into what Mustang had convinced himself was going to happen all along- convincing him that he'd been right, to not trust them. Ed's heart clenched again and he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from swearing aloud. Damn it, he wasn't helping at all!
"I... I think think he's mad and upset," he tried again, when Mustang still wouldn't even so much as face him. "And he's- he's still thinking, but... he never seemed like he was mad or upset at you."
Once again the dragon, chimera, half-human, whatever he was, gave an angry toss of his head, sullen and shivering like a put out child. "Right."
"Yeah. Right. Because you're his friend, just like Hawkeye and the team and mine too, you dumb asshole, and you're the same person you've always been. Maybe it'll take us some time to get used to, so if you want to be mad at us for that, go ahead, I guess, but this isn't going away and neither are we."
Mustang scoffed softly again but this time said nothing, hunched back against the wall just like he had been this whole fucking time. Just as stubborn and hidden as he had been since that day in the lab, except now, Ed knew what it was he was hiding, and he knew why he was hiding.
He wasn't hiding his face from him.
He was hiding from the look on Ed's face, because he'd spent so long convincing himself that it wouldn't be anything that he wanted to see.
Well, he was just going to have to stick around until Mustang had gotten it through his thick skull that just because everything had changed didn't mean anything important was gone.
At last, Mustang slumped back around, settling again against the wall only to slip down to his knees. He hit the floor with a heavy sigh, face back in its seemingly permanent scowl, and this time just sat there, deflated and weary. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a... peculiarly unique way with words?"
Tentatively, Ed allowed himself to relax just a little bit himself. At least one hurdle was over with, then. "Yeah. Maybe." He pushed his chair closer, a weak grin softening into place. "If they were trying to be really, really, really polite. ...and probably still lying."
Mustang smirked at that, and it was still startling when bright, pale eyes met his, but he didn't let himself flinch this time and that was the most he could do. "It's true, though. Maes probably would've hit me by now, and I..." he trailed off, scowl already etched into his face deepening, then just sighed and tilted his head back.
Then, for the first time, Ed saw him spit fire.
It wasn't the uncontrolled, smokey snorts of flame he'd seen when hauling him all the way here, sick and half-conscious and near out of his mind with fever. It certainly wasn't his usual flashy display of fake alchemy, a dramatic snap of a gloved hand near his face and then a flare of fire and Ed had always thought he was just being a show-offy asshole when he made the fire come from his mouth...
This was just a calm, bemused breath of fire, a little plume that burst yellow and orange and burning bright in to dark basement. An ephemeral glow of flames that exploded to life and lit up Mustang's pale face, flickering as it faded with perfect control, and looked to be nothing at all more than an instinctual expression of amusement.
Holy shit, the guy really was a dragon.
"I meant what I said before, as well," Mustang continued calmly, as if nothing noteworthy had happened at all. To him, nothing had. "You and your brother have already done a great deal for me, and I don't just mean in helping me get to Marcoh. I know it's not quite the same, but, watching you and Al, these past few years- it has been... incredibly liberating, for me."
"...Liberating?"
The colonel gave a small smirk, leaning his head back more comfortably against the wall to nod. "Yes. I recognized something about you two when we first met... you were both just as different as I was. Al, especially- you'd never be able to hide it, like I can, but in the end that doesn't really matter. Anyone can look at you and see you're different, but you'll never be able to be honest about why. Neither of you will ever be able to actually live openly with the truth of who you are. That you're not..."
After a few moments, he just sighed and shook his head, trailing off into silence with little more than a fond smile. He breathed out another little swell of fire with the ease as if he was just smoking a cigarette and said nothing.
Once again, the scene was just entirely too unsettling.
Slowly, Ed ventured another few steps closer. He couldn't help but keep himself away from the colonel's dangerous mouth, but if Mustang noticed, he did not seem to care. He looked lost in thought, still, and that was more puzzling than anything else yet. "We're... not the same as you," he said back, and he tried to keep his voice steady, but Al was his weak spot and a little note of warning slipped in under his tongue that he could not hold back. "He may not look it, but my brother is still human, Mustang."
But Mustang was already shaking his head and smiling again, waving the words off without a care in the world. "I didn't mean any such thing, Ed. Of course he is. And- I suppose that is exactly what I'm trying to say. He's human, but only in the ways that matter... in so many other ways, he's not, but that never changed anything for you or anyone else. You never once treated him like he was... different. You, and everyone who knew your secret, acted like he was the same as all of us, just maybe a little bigger and- noisier." He smirked faintly, but there was no malice behind it, and again waved for Ed to join him down on the floor. "Even back when I first met you, I knew I would never be able to live openly and publicly as who I really am, but I'd never really given up hope on some distant future where at least someone would know. Not someone like Marcoh, but Maes or Riza or... it hardly mattered who, but just that someone did. That there be someone who I didn't have to lie to. I..."
He trailed off once again, words dwindling into silence as his face clouded and the look in his eyes turned pained and indescribable. It looked like he just didn't have the words for a few moments, and when he finally landed on them again it was with a heavy exhale as if a great weight was at last being lifted off his shoulders after years of it pulling him down. "If you'll forgive the melodrama, Ed, because as someone raised on wild fantasy novels I think I was doomed to be half ambition and half melodrama for life- I think you and your brother gave me hope. That is more than anyone has ever done for me, and more than I can ever repay."
There was a long, heavy moment of silence between them. Mustang still smiling faintly, while Ed abruptly found his face growing warmer and warmer, and his throat abruptly too tight to speak at all.
Then, Mustang smiled broader, confident and steady in all the ways Ed was not, and he shifted closer himself to rest another abnormally warm hand on his head. "My knack for flowery and sensationalist speeches was also inherited from Marcoh's book collection. If you're really intent on sticking around, Ed, you might as well get used to it."
Ed's face warmed again, flush burning from his ears down. Mustang was right; he did have a knack for this- a stupid one, because the words came out so sincere it was just embarrassing. He ducked his head again, face still burning, and found himself caught so firmly between rage and disgust and sorrow that he could barely think. Fuck. Fuck.
Mustang really was the exact same. The exact same person that he'd always been, except now he looked a little blue and scaly and animal, but apparently he'd always been a little blue and scaly and animal. He wasn't supposed to sound all painfully genuine and vulnerable and human like that, not because he was a dragon, but because he was Mustang, and that wasn't Mustang, but sitting here with that half-dragon by his side and smiling right now, Ed finally could see what Mustang had wanted this entire time.
He wanted the same thing Ed did: for everything to be the same as it used to be.
Except this time, he didn't want for it to be a lie.
Sitting here like this, Mustang's rough hand still resting on his head and ruffling his hair, Ed was pretty sure he'd be able to pull that off.
"Mustang?" he asked at length, eyes still averted but tension finally fading. Ordinarily he would've thrown the hand off his head a long time ago, but it felt instinctive, somehow; not as if Mustang was patronizing him like he would a small child, but instead was like an oversized cat, searching for contact and pawing about for something to touch. From what Ed had read about dragons, that actually might not have been too far off the mark.
Especially considering how often the bastard seem to nap in the sun while at work...
Mustang hmmed a little questioningly, head tilting to the side. Once again, Ed was reminded of a cat purring- a humongous, fanged, very deep-voiced, deadly cat- and he had to smother back an amused grin.
"I'm not really an expert on chimeras, you know that, but outside of the military, me and Al are probably the best there is for it. And I don't want to make any promises right now. I don't know enough to do that yet, but- Mustang-"
"Ed."
"-if there's a way to fix you... if there's a way to get Al's body back, then there should be a way to get yours back, too. And- and we will. Whatever it is, Mustang, we're going to find it, someday, and then, if you-"
"Stop right there, Ed," Mustang growled.
"But-"
This time the hand on his head ruffled roughly again, mussing his hair into his face and overall being a huge asshole. Ed spluttered once, flushing furiously, and Mustang just looked infuriatingly smug and proud of himself as he smiled again and dropped a hand to his shoulder instead. "Ed, look at me- before you go off making promises you're not so sure you can keep or not in the first place, look at me, now- do I look like someone who needs to be fixed?"
"I..."
Mustang's slim smile broadened again, that strange and unsettling smile that showed off pointed teeth and Ed was half-afraid of finding a forked tongue. Did he look like he needed to be fixed?
He sat there on the floor, skin patterned blue and unhealthy grey in flickering firelight, creeping around his neck and face like a disease. His hands were still gnarled and scarred, and Ed knew it was so much worse underneath his shirt. One virulently blue vein of scales spidered through a pale eye and a starburst on his cheek, and even if those scales were going to recede and Marcoh was going to hack at those pointed teeth and he could go back to passing like before-
Did he look like he needed to be fixed?
Well... yeah.
He wasn't in the right body any more than Al was.
Mustang's smile softened a little, and he squeezed at his shoulder again. "Ed, I appreciate it. Truly, I do. But I have been in this body for many times longer than I was in my first one for- and a great portion of that time was me learning just how to be human. I'm almost thirty, now. ...I really don't have it in me to have to learn how to be something new a second time."
"But-" Ed shook his head, then huffed and shook it again, trying to shake that annoying, patronizing hand off his shoulder. "But it's not- fair! You just said, you were tired of living a lie, and-"
"And what, Ed?' the colonel laughed hoarsely. "You want to transform me into something I haven't been since I was a child? And then what happens? I'll be sitting around big as a house and no longer able to hide from the military or anyone else, so my only choice will be to find a dragon pack willing to take a displaced alpha in. A dragon pack who I have literally no idea on how to locate better than you. Who for some reason wants to take in an adult dragon who doesn't know how to fly, or hunt, or read, or even talk, anymore. And then what?" He laughed again but it came out hollow and lonely, pale eyes glimmering like fire in the dark. "Even if I could find a dragon pack willing to accept me, do you realize what that means, Ed?"
"I- apparently not, but-"
"I'd never seen any of you ever again," Mustang said flatly.
Ed jerked backwards away from him, eyes narrowing. What? "Of course you would, haven't you been listening this whole time? Just because you look different-"
"Dragons don't live anywhere it'd be easy for you to get to, Ed. And I imagine they're even less friendly with you than they were when I was a child. You..." With a heavy sigh, Mustang finally pulled his hand back to himself again, rubbing it slow and careful over his face like a curtain between himself and the world. A curtain that fell to shroud self-doubt and and an old loneliness, disguising him as merely sardonic but Ed knew him well enough to see straight through it, and recognize him as anything but. "I spent a long time believing I'd never have any sort of friend or family ever again, Ed. I also spent a long time being conditioned how to be human, in ways that were entirely unpleasant. I just... I really don't remember it, Ed- I don't remember most of my childhood. So, I appreciate the offer, I really do, but this is the closest to happy I've ever had, and I don't want to risk losing that and never getting it back."
Mustang then smiled faintly again, and whatever loneliness there was in his eyes was overpowered by it. Just that slight but sincere turn at his mouth that no matter what he'd said thus far.
He looked just like he'd said:
Happy.
Ed's heart skipped a beat, catching hard and fast in his throat, and the wrongness of it at all clenched around it tighter and tighter and tighter until every little breath hurt. Sitting there like that, looking at him like that, he actually really did look happy.
More genuinely openly content, in fact, than Ed had ever seen him before.
Combined with the fact that he was just sitting there, smiling on, and telling him no, it's good enough-
He was half human, could never live openly as anything but a lie, and had just gone on a long speech on how he'd spent so much of his life miserable he'd be content with the first little bit of normalcy he'd been able to find.
That was supposed to convince Ed this was okay?
His hands shook in his lap, all but vibrating with suppressed rage that had squeezed into his throat, and in that moment Ed wanted to rip something part.
Seeing that look, on someone like Mustang's face, was wrong.
"You-" he choked out, then coughed, fumbling down into silence. His eyes burned again and he squeezed them shut, favoring a vigorous shake of his head to will away the tightness wavering in his voice. "You shouldn't have to settle. You're the one who told me that, remember? Told us that!"
Because once, he'd been half a person, too. Once, he'd been crippled and utterly without hope, and his brother had been trapped and half-dead and it was all his fault and he'd been going to settle, too. The path before him to make things had right had been insurmountable and sitting there in that wheelchair, ten years old and no parents, half his limbs, and a brother who's life he'd destroyed- he'd been going to settle. He hadn't been going to give up, he had already given up.
Then, this chimera next to him, apparently, had just invited himself in, and told him to get up and keep going.
It made no fucking sense that Mustang had been able to look at his self-induced flaming trainwreck of a life and gotten him to haul himself out of it, but could look at everything he himself had now, and say it was too much and too hard.
But once again- Mustang did not look like someone who needed to be convinced.
He still looked happy.
"Ed," the colonel said lightly, that dumb, stupid little grin still prominent on his face. The hand went back to his shoulder and squeezed again and no matter how awful it was or how it made his heart shudder, that look on his face stayed. "When I first met you two, I saw two kids who still had a shot. You were still so young, and yes, you'd made mistakes, but you still had it in you to try and make things right again. You and Al haven't wasted ten years contenting yourself with what you had, you and Al still had that chance and could be better, you-"
"What are you trying to say?! That it's too late for you?!" Ed slammed his hand down on the floor to stop himself from hitting him, despair tearing through him like a physical blow. "It'd never be too late for Al or me, so it's not too late for you! You stupid- since when are you the kind of person who just gives up?!"
"...I didn't give up, Ed. I moved on."
Ed stopped dead.
And Mustang, still, continued to give that small, weak little smile.
"I had to make that choice, Ed," he went on quietly, folding his hands in his lap. "At some point I had to make the choice to live with what I had instead of pining for what I didn't, and I made it. I moved on, Ed, and made as much of a life for myself as the military would let me- I don't want my old body back. I wouldn't be happy if you gave it to me. I helped you two because it wasn't too late for you, because I'd already moved on but you hadn't. You still wanted to fight, you weren't okay with how things were at all and I realized that I was in a position where I could help you fight to be something you were happy as. But I'm... okay like this, Ed. I'm not ever going to get my old life back anymore than either of you two are, and- I'm okay just the way things are, for me." He laughed again, beaming with a breath that gave off just the slightest hint of smoke, and reached out to give him another pat on the head. "Really. I promise."
He looked happy.
He actually, really did.
And Ed...
Well, he didn't think he liked it.
In fact, he was pretty damn sure that he didn't.
But he also finally understood.
Mustang was right, in a way. They were going to get their bodies back, in the end of this; somehow, some way, no matter what, his brother was going to be able to feel and taste and actually smile again, no matter how impossible the array that did it was to find or the cost it would make them pay.
But even when Al was back in his real, right body, not that hunk of fucking metal, they still wouldn't have their lives back. They would never be able to go back to the two dumb kids they'd used to be; there was no erasing all of Ed's scars and new nightmares and there was no wiping away the years and years his brother had had to suffer as a suit of cold, unfeeling armor.
And even if he could snap his fingers right now and turn Mustang into a full-bodied dragon, he would never be able to get back the years stolen from him, either.
He'd still be that exact same chimera sitting across from him, smiling sadly, and promising him that this was who he wanted to be. Who'd lived decades as a chimera and made a life as a chimera, a life that he wouldn't be able to have if Ed somehow could magically make him fully human or fully dragon.
Who was sitting right here, smiling at him, and saying that he didn't want to be turned back into something that he wasn't.
Again.
Ed took a deep, wavering breath. It caught and hurt in his throat, swelling until it ached to swallow, and instead left him sitting there as ineffectual as a useless lump and so stupidly helpless he felt like he was ten years old again. He looked back at the colonel and saw his brother, trapped in a suit of armor; he saw Nina, condemned to be slaughtered like nothing more than an animal. He saw all the people he hadn't been able to help in the past, the failures and mistakes and people he'd let down.
And he couldn't relive and try to fix those mistakes through Mustang, because Mustang didn't want him to.
It wasn't fair-
It was awful, it was wrong; his face burned and he saw infuriating red, blinding in his eyes and making his head pound. He wanted to tear the military apart with his own two hands, wanted to throw his watch across the room and never touch it again. He wanted to make this right, to get that awful look off Mustang's face and help him just like the colonel had once helped them-
It wasn't fucking fair-
Ed choked again and shook, his heart racing desperately in his chest, and knew that just because it wasn't fair, didn't mean it wasn't true.
This was what Mustang wanted.
He breathed in deeply again, willing the violent shivering to be pushed away. He still felt sick at heart and nauseated with solid rage, but after all Mustang had done for them, he could at least manage this much for him. With another shuddering breath, he nodded once, waveringly, not quite able to smile back but at least able to pull off that much, and made himself look back at the scarred chimera waiting across from him. "Okay," he started weakly. "Okay, I..."
He stopped. His gaze searched down for a heartbeat from his face, landing on the smallest hint of a scar by his neck- one of the two that he knew stretched across his entire back.
An idea at last filtered through, and for the the first time in this entire overwhelming, twisted day, he found himself able to smile back.
"Actually?" he said, grinning. "I've got you a counter-offer."
Confusion filtered across the pale, healing face. Mustang raised an eyebrow, but somehow managed to pull it off as sly rather than dumb, just like the smug bastard always did. "Oh, really?"
"Yeah." Ed smirked, trying his best to copy Mustang's own. "Okay- no dragons. If you really don't want us to look into it, we won't. But... I know you've heard about the military's flight division, haven't you? The engineer teams trying to figure out how to fly?"
Mustang gave a pretentious sniff , face twisting like he'd just tasted something positively vile. "Those metal and rubbish contraptions are an embarrassment that won't ever get off the ground. I'm embarrassed for them, and I'm not even on the project."
"And you always say you're embarrassed for me whenever you get the bill for a trashed statue, so I'll take that as a compliment," Ed snickered. "Regardless, that's my counter-offer, Mustang. Maybe you don't want to be a full dragon again, but... what about just getting to fly again? Not as a dragon, but just like this?"
The startled quiet stretched on between them. Mustang blinked several times, wide-eyed and silent, and managed nothing at all beyond a dumb, blank stare.
Ed coughed and flushed again, suddenly embarrassed, and fidgeted to drop his eyes down to his lap. Or not, maybe. Because why would some sort of metal machine even come close to approaching what Mustang was supposed to be able to do naturally? And why in the everlasting fuck would Mustang ever want anything to do with the goddamn military ever again? "I'm sorry," he rushed out, "I know, maybe it's dumb... I know it's not exactly the same, and- and maybe it wouldn't help at all, I don't know, but- I only mean if you want it. If you think it could help. ...the offer's there."
An uncomfortable silence settled between them again, Ed's face still burning and Mustang still frozen across from him, and the longer it dragged, on the worse Ed felt. What the hell had he been thinking? He'd seen the scars from his wings himself... this didn't make up for that. Nothing ever could, but this? It was barely a bad joke. Why would Mustang even ever consider- shaking his head vigorously, Ed bite his tongue and made himself look back up, mouth already open to take the stupid words back.
And then, like sunlight piercing through on a long overcast day, an honest and abject joy spilled across Mustang's entire scarred and scaled face in a vivid smile so bright it shone like a fucking lightbulb.
...oh.
That look, in fact, as insane and impossible as it was, was the exact same thing that Mustang had said Ed had already been giving him this entire time.
It was hope.
And that was all Ed had to see to make up his mind.
Maybe he couldn't give Mustang his wings back. Maybe, to him, none of this seemed even close to enough.
But he could help him fly again, and to Mustang, it seemed like that was enough.
"I'll-" he coughed, face flaming. Fuck, this was embarrassing. Could Mustang just stop looking like that?! "I'll take that as a yes, th- oof!"
Before he knew it, before he could even come close to preparing himself for it or maybe even defend from the crazy move, two burning warm arms smothering around him to knock all the breath out of him in an almost too-tight hug. Amidst another splutter, Mustang lowered his head down on top of his, and then just purred on top of him like a giant cat in the sun.
"This," Mustang said at length, "is how a dragon says thank you."
Then he shut his mouth to purr on over his head, and sitting like that, all Ed could feel was the overpowering, fiery heat in his limbs that rivaled the burning in Ed's face, and his continued smile, so big he could feel it pressed into the top of his head.