Merry flibbin' Christmas and a happy flippin' end to 2020!

I finished the second chapter!

And it's even more boring and more medically horrifying than the last one!

And I'm posting this on my lunch break because I'm afraid if I don't do it now I'll forget.

Next chapter of Taut will happen in the hopefully distant future.

I need to eat my lunch before my 30 minutes are up.

The Central City Museum of Natural History was a few blocks over from the university.

The school day had ended, but Ed was pleasantly surprised to see the stone entrance steps and the marble-floored lobby filled with children and their families. The receptionist began reading them the admittance prices, but Atkins interrupted her with a gesture, then whispered something to her over the desk so the brothers couldn't hear. Her eyes rounded in shock and she stared unashamedly at the two young men, the younger whom raised a hand in greeting.

The receptionist stuttered out that their admittance fees had been waived and that anything they wished to purchase from the cantina or the gift shop were free of charge. She then asked if the brothers would like a private tour of the museum, also free of charge.

Edward, who once would have accepted the lady's offer with cool entitlement, struggled to find words as his face rapidly turned pink.

Alphonse, as always, came to his brother's rescue, and said no, thank you, they would rather have the standard tour.

Nevertheless, they were placed at the front of the line and left two minutes later with a group of what looked like university students trying to find exhibits to write papers on.

Ed and Al had been too busy with the military and researching on how to get their bodies back to be concerned with any part of the museum that wasn't related to alchemy, all of which was exhibits on concepts they had been familiar with from a young age. Now, simply viewing the displays and listening to the tour guide explain their properties and histories, Ed found himself wishing they had taken the time to visit.

After walking through a hall of giant ancient bones that reminded Ed sickeningly of what Envy's skeleton might have looked like (the tour guide said some specialists claimed they were proof that dragons had once roamed the earth), glass cases of pottery and cloth left from the tribes and clans that had lived on the land that was now Amestris (Edward squealed with delight when they got to the spears and swords and quickly dodged behind Al when the rest of the party looked their way); and a cathedral-like room full of early industrial antiques, including the first train engine and a replica of a typical rural homestead (Alphonse had cried out in horror at the sight of the taxidermied animals surrounding the wax figures and Ed had turned him away from the morbid sight, shushing and consoling until Al finally quietened), they reached the corridor dedicated to the history of medicine.

The herbal remedies and disused tools were fascinating.

They burst into tears at the sight of the dead babies.

Doctor Atkinson gave them a handkerchief and gentle pats on the shoulder.

"Yes, it's very sad… Most of them were born dead. We study them to make sure no mother has to lose her child to the same causes."

The medical students and tour guide cast them sympathetic glances, but didn't approach.

Instead, they waited patiently for the brothers to compose themselves.

Al gave an appreciative smile, his cheeks and eyes red.

"S-sorry," he sniffled. "We… we…"

"Knew a little person who couldn't be saved?" offered one of the more proximal students. "I had a little sister who died of polio when she was five. I cried when I saw this part of the exhibit the first time, too."

Alphonse looked away sheepishly. Edward was too busy scrubbing at his eyes to say anything.

"S-something like that…"

They moved on.

XXX

Edward was surprised by the surreality he felt when they came across the amputated body parts. Most of them had been removed due to diseases, like leprosy and gangrene, but some had clearly been torn off in accidents.

The muscles and vessels were pale and still, bland and still.

"It's actually less gross-looking when it's alive," he heard himself commenting at a slice of severed leg.

The entire party stared at him.

Ed's mouth went dry.

Doctor Atkins, knowing what he meant, looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to elaborate.

He did not.

He cowered behind his brother again.

The innards were a little more interesting, what with the different shapes and lobes and tubes. Ed saw an attendant setting up a glass case.

The crisp new placard said:

Kidney (left)

Eviscerated through blunt force trauma

Graciously donated by E. Elric

Edward skipped away from it as if it had threatened to kill him.

When the professor had said they would make preparations "posthaste," he'd meant it.

The tour group was too busy looking at cases that actually had displays to notice.

"This is a specimen we are quite proud of," the guide was saying when Ed caught up. The university students were crowded around whatever it was for a closer look, cutting off Ed's view. "It is very nearly complete, as you will notice by the clear formations of the attempted structures. When it was brought to us, the curator thought it was an impressive fraud. Sequencing testing and analysis by our medical and alchemy specialists determined it to be authentic."

Doctor Atkins seemed to puff up when he heard himself mentioned and Ed suddenly felt ill.

"Where did this come from?" one of the students asked, his voice high with awe.

"The patient from which it originated from was transfixed by a large foreign object in the left lumbar quadrant. The injury was stop-gapped using amateur medical alchemy to keep the patient from fatally hemorrhaging before they could be reached by medical personnel."

Edward would have typically bristled at being called an amateur.

As it was, he was too busy keeping his legs from buckling.

Doctor Atkins turned to him, presumably to say something, but was stopped by Al appearing from the crowd.

His face was white as sheet.

"Brother… you don't have to look, okay? We can just go, just let the university deal with it."

This was so backwards from what Alphonse had been saying since they received the Atkins's that Ed felt his remaining insides tumble around inside him, as if they were celebrating being united from the parts of them that had been taken.

"Let me see it."

"Brother –"

"You're the one who insisted we do this. Let me see it."

Al's mouth clopped shut.

The tour guide continued answering questions as Edward pushed his way to the front.

"Is the originator still alive?"

"They are. The university made contact with them recently to check on their status."

"What was the recovery period?"

"The injury destroyed the patient's lower colon and a segment of the small intestine. The medial team who treated them surgically removed the growth and then reconstructed the patient's GI tract with an alternative evasion route. They were then held in intensive care for six weeks during the post surgery recovery."

"Experimental visceral reconstruction! Oh, I'd love to see that."

One must be careful of what they wish for, the student who'd commented learned that day, as he was suddenly assaulted by limp body as Edward pushed his way through the group, saw the exhibit, and promptly lost consciousness.

XXX

Al shrieked and began violently shoving and clawing his way through the swell of people to reach his brother.

"Clear the way!" Atkins barked in a commanding tone honed from years supervising new adults and giving lectures. The wall of students split cleaner than if it had been cleaved by a butcher's knife and Alphonse leapt to his brother's side.

The student who had caught him had not let go. He'd lowered Edward to the floor slowly, Ed's head in his lap an immediately took Ed's wrist to measure his pulse. Another student left to fetch Edward some water and a third knelt on Ed's other side and began maneuvering Ed's arms out of his coat.

"Brother! Brother, talk to me!"

"I think he's only swooned. His heartbeat's going back up and his breathing's normal." He peeled open Edward's eyes one by one, moving his head this and what to study their reaction to the light from the bulbs on the ceiling. "Irises are behaving as they should, so there's no aneurysm. Yeah, it's just a vasovagal."

The student removing Ed's coat had moved on to his legs, gathering them under the knees and lifting them with a grunt.

"What's going on? Brother? What are you doing to his legs?"

"I'm moving the blood from his feet to his brain with gravity," the student explained, shifting her grip on Ed's knees. "It'll help him wake up faster… Geez, he's heavy."

"Put down his left leg." Al knew that Ed probably wouldn't appreciate the extra attention, but right now he was more concerned about the amount of blood in his brother's brain.

The student raised an eyebrow but obeyed, guiding Ed's left leg to the floor gently and raising his right leg straight up.

She whistled.

"Wow, that's much better. Is his other leg made of metal?"

Then she realized and her face turned red from more than just exertion.

"What's his name?" the student cradling Edward's head asked Al as he began softly tapping on Ed's face.

"Ed. Edward. What's wrong with him?"

"Nothing. He's just had a bad spook. It happens to everyone sometime."

Ed's nose wrinkled and he jerked, instinctively turning away from the annoying pecking of the medical student's fingers.

"Edward? Mister Edward, can you hear me? You've had a scare."

"Brother? Brother, please wake up."

At the sound of Al's voice, Ed's eyes opened and he sat up so quickly he nearly clocked Alphonse in the forehead with his own.

The student holding his leg let go of his knee and took Ed's hands in her own.

"Easy, easy."

Ed looked around as if he didn't know where he was (which he probably didn't), looked at his hands, looked at the woman holding his hands, looked passed her and saw –

His eyes rolled up into his head and he slumped forward. Al caught him and rested his brother's head on his shoulder.

"Brother?"

Edward's body gave an almighty shudder and he made a noise that sounded lime something between a gasp and hiccup.

"It has teeth."

The voice was so warped that at first Al didn't know that Ed had spoken.

Alphonse couldn't stop himself from looking at the… thing locked behind the glass case.

Given that the creature looked back with bulbous black eyes, the fact that it had more than a full set of teeth sprouting around the place that might I have supposed to be a mouth seemed to be one of its smaller horrors.

The student who'd left for water returned them, holding a glass bottle of soda from the museum's cantina.

"The extra sugar should make him feel better," she said, handing the bottle to Al. Ed was shaking and sweating against him.

The student holding Ed's hands let go of him so he could take the drink. Instead Ed buried his face in his hands and started babbling.

"It has teeth and eyes and hair and – fuck, it was in me –"

If his revelation surprised any of the students, they didn't show it. The tour guide was not so subtle, a hand flying to her mouth before she could stop herself.

Tanner Atkins decided it was time to intervene. As proud as he was of his students, he suspected that the best thing for the brothers right now would be privacy.

The professor slipped his hands under Ed's arms and lifted him like he was a rag doll kitten, placing him on his feet and steadying him when he swayed. Al stood up swiftly and took his brother's other side. One of the students picked up Edward's coat and handed it to Al, who had finally managed to get Ed to take the soda bottle and hold it himself.

"All right," said Atkins, nudging Edward to encourage him to start walking and failing, "how about we pay the curator a visit in her office? She's the sweetest lady, almost as sweet as the candy she always has on her desk –"

"What is it?"

It was whispered, but the commanding tone caught the professor off guard and he didn't answer.

"What is it?!"

"It's a teratoma," the student who brought him the soda offered.

Ed's grip on the bottle tightened as his alchemical brain automatically translated the Xerxesian work in the medical one.

"Monster."

"'Monstrous growth,'" another student finished the translation for him.

Ed ran his thumb up and down the side of the glass, feeling the condensation slide against his skin.

"It happens when the cells use the wrong part of the gene sequence," the student who'd caught him when he'd fallen elaborated. "All the cells in your body have the same sequence, but only use the part of the code for the part of the body they're in. Hair cells use only the part of the sequence about hair, teeth cells only use the part about teeth… a teratoma happens when some cells get confused about what part of the body they're in and start using the wrong part of the sequence. Like, say some cells in the intestine think they're actually in an eyeball so they use the part of the sequence about eyes, and then an eye starts growing in the intestine."

Alphonse reached for the soda bottle and deftly twisted the cap off, since it looked like Ed didn't have much interest in doing it himself. Edward listened to the fizzing sound of the carbonated pressure being released. He waited for reaction to burn itself out before bringing the bottle to his mouth and risking a swallow.

It was cream flavored.

"Cells judge where they are in the body by figuring out what the cells around them are," the student who'd been holding Ed's hands took up the explanation. "So the cells around the confused cells see that they're next to eye cells, and then they get confused and think, 'I'm next to an eye, so I must be a nose,' and the cells next to those cells think, 'I'm next to a nose so I must be a mouth,' and start growing a tongue.' And then it just keeps going until…"

"It makes a little person. Or it tries to," Alphonse finished, glancing at the exhibit.

Ed followed his brother's gaze, looked a little longer than before, then took a second drink.

"Does it… does it have a brain?"

"Sometimes," another student shrugged noncommittally. "Any kind of cells can be found in a teratoma. But teeth and hair are the most common. They think it's because your teeth and hair are the most replicated part so of the body."

Edward's eyes clouded with despair and his shivering reverted back to shuddering.

"So… so it… it was…"

"Oh, no, no," Doctor Atkins spoke this time, realizing where Ed's train of thought had been heading. "Teratoma aren't… it's not a child. It's more like a… a freckle."

"Or a bunion," said a student.

"Or when you burp and puke in your mouth instead," said another.

"No, it's not, Daryl."

"It's the same principle."

"It's really not, Daryl."

"Your body tries to do one thing and goes too far."

"Your body actually has 'burps' like this all the time," said the student who was trying to get Daryl to shut up. "It usually catches it, though, and stops the confused cells before they can really do anything. It's only when the confused cells grow faster than your body can stop them that you have a problem, and that's really rare. Like when an alchemist who doesn't know how cell replication works tries to regrow his small intestine."

Edward actually let out a huff of amusement before pulling third swallow of his soda.

"I do too know how cell replication works," he mumbled, pointedly looking at the floor.

"Oh yeah," said Daryl, "then in what phase do the chromosomes become chromatids for separation?"

Ed spun the bottle around in his hands.

"Um… aren't chromatids just parts of chromosomes?"

"Wrong!" Daryl crowed triumphantly. "Chromatids are the identical halves of chromosomes that form only during cell replication. The correct answer is G-two!"

"Actually, it's prophase," Alphonse cut in, wiping the smug grin off Daryl's face. "G-two is when the strings of the gene sequence copy themselves in preparation of the G-two phase, which is when all the strings condense into chromosomes, each made of two identical chromatids."

"He's right," Doctor Atkins said, gesturing to Alphonse.

Edward studied the – his teratoma in the case, the half-formed eyes and the curling hair and bubbling teeth.

"So I didn't… I didn't kill anyone?"

Al felt his heart break for his brother. It was far from the first time and Al was sure it wouldn't be the last time.

Of course Ed would assume that his humanoid tumor was akin to a fetus.

"No, Brother. You didn't kill it. It was never alive, not like that."

Edward sighed and took a long swig of his cream soda.

In the ensuing silence, Daryl (of course it was Daryl) broke it by saying, "So, what happened?"

Ed chocked, Al thumped him on the back, Doctor Atkins gave the student a glare so dark that he shrank into himself, and the student next to him slapped him.

"No, no, it's fine," Edward said once he caught his breath. "You already know everything else. I just… I fell."

Daryl rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, sure, you fell. And you snagged your intestines on a fence post and yanked 'em out, right?"

"Well, the 'fall' was fifty feet and the 'fence post' was ten by three and made of steel. But, yes."

Edward's ability to recover for the sake of having the last word would never cease to amaze his brother.

XXX

"So what's the part that looks a flower? The part with all the bumps?"

"That's the renal medulla. It's a system of tiny tubes that work like a backwards hose. Instead pumping out water, it sucks up all the water and sugar and all that stuff that you don't want to lose and then sends the stuff you don't want to keep to your bladder so you can pee it out."

Ed fondled his chin, a habit he inherited from their father though Al would never tell him this.

"So I've lost my piss machine."

"Well, you only need one. Your remaining kidney can do just as well on its own. You have an extra one in case one of them breaks. Same with your lungs. And your eyes and ears. And your testicles."

Silence.

"Do… do you have –"

"No, Daryl, I may have a rubber rectum and a metal leg, but my balls are both organic."

"And it's a good thing, too. Winry would be so disappointed."

And then Ed left of f studying his newly jarred kidney to chase his brother, who was cackling like mad, between displays of amputated hands and feet, out of the medical exhibit and into a room full of stuffed jungle cats from southern Creta.

So when the students and the professor saw Edward chase Alphonse out of the hall and then Alphonse came running back in tears, screaming, "They killed them! They killed them!" into Edward's arms, no one slapped Daryl when he voiced what they were all thinking.

"Whoever this 'Winry' is, they're either a war veteran or an alcoholic. Maybe both."

XXX

They got back to Risembool late that night – or early the next morning depending on one's perspective.

When Winry woke up with the rooster to find Alphonse scrambling eggs for breakfast, she sliced some bread from the breadbox and popped the pieces into the toaster.

"How was it?"

"We're going back next month."

Winry had been filling the kettle with water at the sink for coffee; she nearly dropped it at Al's answer.

"What?! Why?! What happened? What did Ed do this time?"

Al smiled as he scraped the eggs to keep them from sticking to the skillet.

"They asked Ed if he would let them study his stomach-pouch in a private seminar. He said only if Daryl demonstrated how to empty it."

"Who's Daryl?"

Al dashed some salt over the eggs with a wicked grin.

"A very unlucky bastard."

I GOOGLED TERATOMA FOR THIS FIC AND I REGRETTED IT IMMEDIATELY