Chapter 4

There's a moment where Fullmetal is still, a tableau against a background of flickering flames, hands fisted and head bowed as his brilliant mind churns. Mustang's own thoughts flitter about, and embers glow red-hot in his chest like impatience, like anger—like something primal and sharp and terrible—and it's all he can do to keep reminding himself of the fear laced through the younger alchemist's voice when he'd muttered I need to talk to you.

Fullmetal breathes deep. "You've gotta—"

He swallows, tries again. "I—"

He glances at his commanding officer, and his eyes are wide and wild. Mustang's hands find his pockets, burying themselves there to keep from reaching out to—to what? Offer comfort? Some sort of placation?

In some twisted form of luck, he doesn't have to find out.

"Fuck." Fullmetal mutters, drawing a hand down his face, burying his fingers in his hair. Then again, "Fuck!"

Then, suddenly, he's moving.

He drags his thick winter coat from his shoulders, drops it carelessly onto the couch. Unzips the black jacket that's been fastened to the throat, and Mustang has just enough time to wonder just what the hell he's thinking before it, too, is tossed aside—

—and lurid, black-purple bruises glare out at the world from around his neck, tattooing a collar into his skin, collecting across his throat, and tucking itself away behind that loose blond braid.

Another band of bruises decorates Fullmetal's flesh bicep. A third stamps around his wrist. When he tilts his head back, finally setting aside that golden shield of bangs, Mustang can see the bloody mark on his cheek bone and the swell, stark and shining, that surrounds it.

He pauses, taking it all in. Fullmetal stills, allowing him.

Because it's unsettling, yes—Mustang isn't a heartless bastard, as much as some would claim otherwise—but it's also not the first time he's seen his youngest subordinate look like he went three rounds with a pack of wolves. Hell, it's not even the worst state that the kid's been in since accepting his watch from the military. Bruises and swollen lips and bloodied brows are all things Fullmetal shrugs off like water, so why all the secrecy now?

Just what the hell is going on?

"So," he says, "you got into a fight again and—"

In an instant, Fullmetal turns on him, face etched with something between pain and betrayal, teeth bared, hackles up, hands balls into fists. The animal is back, a half-trapped thing being dragged to the slaughter, ready to howl and snarl and fight—

"Is that what—? I came to you—I trusted you and…"

And Mustang's mouth moves of its own accord, even as his mind shouts at him to stop, to ask, to listen, to do something—anything—other than be the asshole Fullmetal assumes him to be. "And I was given a cursory look at a few bruises by way of explanation. You make a habit of both flaunting authority and of getting into fights. What do you expect me to think?"

"You stupid bastard. Expect you to—? You tracked us down! I thought you'd—you…" Fullmetal's shoulders slump. A sigh carves out his chest.

Watching him surrender is a terrible thing.

"Shit… Fine, okay. You're too—whatever. Fuck you, too, Mustang."

He shoves his arms into his black jacket, hiding the bruises colouring his arm and wrist. Zips it up until the marks around his neck disappear. His doesn't so much as glance at his commanding officer, so Mustang can't see the swelling on his face any more than he can make out whatever emotions are trapped behind it.

There's no way, though, that he can hide the shaking of his hands.

And it's this—seeing those hands tremble, not in anger, but in fear and desperation and dread—that finally stops his wicked blade of a tongue. It's this that makes Mustang realize: if he allows Fullmetal to step out that door, he'll forever lose whatever paltry scraps of trust he's been given.

Something serious is going on here. And everything he needs is strewn across his living room floor like a puzzle.

I trusted you.

He was one of the youngest State Alchemists to earn their certification before Edward came along—a near genius in his own right. He can solve this. He can solve this. He just needs to gather all the pieces, and fit it all together.

"I'll drop off my field report tomorrow," Fullmetal mutters, "so you can stop bitching about how I was 'flaunting authority' while me and Al—"

He's seen his subordinate show up with black eyes and bleeding lips more often than he could count. The face was an obvious target when fighting, after all.

"—were out by Pendleton and everything. I'll do that stupid assessment, too, but then, after that—"

But the bruises around his bicep and wrist don't make sense if he'd found himself amid his usual brawls—

"—we're getting out of Central for a while. Don't care what you say, I'm not staying in this shithole—"

—and bruising around the neck like that… Mustang may not have Fullmetal's talent at hand-to-hand combat, but even he is well aware of the fact that a combatant should always—always—protect his neck.

"—any longer than I—"

A single thought, slick and black like oil, bubbles up in his mind. The embers, still crackling and flickering in his chest, catch. A truly vicious thought twists and tumbles in the smoke that starts to rise.

No. No.

"Fullmetal." He chokes out the name. The younger alchemist has shrugged on that ridiculous red overcoat of his, and is digging through the pockets as he makes for the door. "Edward. Stop."

And maybe it's some sort of miracle—or, more likely, Fullmetal really is just that desperate—but he does.

For a moment, there's nothing. Just the hiss and crackle of the fire, the gentle patter of the rain on his living room window and, so much louder than it all, the sound of his heart hammering against his ribs as it catches fire.

He lets out a breath. With a casualness he doesn't feel, he removes his ignition gloves, one finger at a time, and shoves them in a pocket. He can do this right. He has to. "You've been under my command for nearly four years now, Fullmetal."

"So what?"

"So, in four years, have I ever done anything that might have put your or your brother's secret at risk? Have I ever backtracked on my promise to allow you to continue to search for the Stone, or tried to stop you from finding a way to return yourselves to your original forms?"

Edward turns his glare away from the door, and instead fixes it on his commanding officer. Progress. "So what? Having an alchemist like me under your command helps you, too, Bastard. Don't think I don't know—"

He presses on. "Have I ever done anything that would slow down your search? Perhaps the fact that I directed you to Reole—or introduced you to Dr Knox for that matter—has slipped your mind."

"If you want a damn thank you card or something—"

"Have I ever tried to reign you in when you've dropped whole buildings in your pursuit of your goals? Or even reprimanded you when you disappear for months at a time, galivanting across the country without reporting in?"

"What," Edward growls, his hand slipping off the door knob and curling into a fist, "is your fucking point?"

"My fucking point," Mustang shoots back, "is that you've spent the past four years trusting me. You followed those leads, asked for clandestine medical help—hell, came into my office today, hours after your scheduled debriefing—because of it. Don't you see? You've come to me. You've trusted me. And I've always—always—tried to give you a reason to keep doing that."

He swallows once, twice, wetting his ash-coated throat and doing what he can to kill the flames flickering in his chest. His heart is pounding. His lungs are filled with smoke. "Edward," he says, voice hoarse, "come here. Please."

Wary eyes, half-hidden as they are behind a thick field of hair, stare him down, measuring him against some unknown metric. Slowly, hesitantly, the gloves disappear. The garish overcoat slides off mismatched shoulders. The black jacket follows.

Then, finally, Edward steels himself and steps forward.

He's breathing deeply, slowly, as though willing himself not to try to bolt once more. His eyes stay fixed on worn rug at their feet; Mustang's eyes stay fixed on him—still searching, still questioning, even as his hand reaches out toward that bruised wrist.

It pauses. In the firelight, Edward nods.

Mustang wraps his fingers around the lurid marks, hiding them away from the world as he pulls the young man's hand forward. He'd assumed—and then, against all odds, hoped like hell—that Edward had gotten into one of his infamous fights, and he knows from personal experience that decking someone results in bruised, bloodied knuckles.

But the young man's knuckles are whole, unblemished.

Whatever had happened, the Fullmetal Alchemist hadn't fought back.

The conclusion comes to him like a whisper, like the shadows hidden in the corners of filthy back alleys, like a shameful secret taken to the grave. It comes to him like the storied floods of long-dead religions, cascading through his mind and drenching his thoughts, snuffing out the embers that have been crackling and smoking in his chest.

His body is numb.

Edward hadn't fought back.

His hand slides back to the younger alchemist's wrist, and his fingers cover the bruises all but perfectly. Up around that tense bicep, and its another near-perfect match. Someone had grabbed him, then, hard enough to bruise. Had wrapped their hands around his arm, around his neck, left him wheezing and gasping and desperate for air—

—but he hadn't fought back.

He lets own his hand drop. It's almost a small miracle that, when he speaks, his voice is still.

"Who did this?"

For a moment, there's nothing, but Mustang is close enough that he can see Edward's throat bob, can see the hunch of his shoulders as he shields himself from the truth.

"…Fox."

And at once, the pieces snap into place. The puzzle is whole.

Edward's flat out refusal to show up to the office when scheduled is no longer a childish display of rebellion, but a desperate decision to both avoid Fox and create an opportunity to speak to Mustang. His uncharacteristically quiet entrance when he finally did make an appearance is a precaution—one more way to make sure that he doesn't draw the old general's attention.

All those weeks spent on the road, keeping his head down, disappearing so well that even the Madam had a hard time tracking him, are no longer him trying to hide from his commanding officer—but from General Fox.

Mustang breathes out. His fingers find the bridge of his nose. Just how far back does this go? Back to October, surely—his suddenly remembers the heated glare that Edward had fixed upon Fox all those months ago, when the arrogant clotpole had made his little speech to the State Alchemists. But the fainting spell back at the parade grounds, and the limps and bruises and black eyes in the months before…

A thousand questions flitter about his mind, and it all makes so little sense that he doesn't know where to start—how long has this been going on, then? When did it get so bad? When did it get so vicious and desperate that Edward had had to run from Central, just for a reprieve? Why did this maelstrom of pain, of misery, of fear—

But no.

He catches those questions between his fingers, clutching them tightly until they brand him. They aren't important—not now. Keeping Edward—keeping both brothers, really—safe, and far away from whatever the hell was going on in Fox's head was the priority.

Answers could come later.

That, however, didn't keep his mouth from opening on its own accord and asking a single, and singularly stupid, question: "General Fox?"

"No, an actual fox." Edward's response is quick, acerbic, and frankly, deserved. "What the hell do you think, bastard?"

What he thinks is that this is beyond despicable. Edward, for all that he insists otherwise, is a child.

He's just a child.

But he's also smart, and capable, and he doesn't suffer fools easily—not matter how powerful a person they might be. So then, Mustang realizes, the burning question isn't 'how long' or 'why talk now,' but rather 'why is the man not already eating his own teeth.' And when one is an Elric, the answer to that is invariably…

He breathes in deeply. Counts out one, two, three quick beats of his heart. Forces out the breath between his lips. "Of course," he mutters more to himself than to the teenager standing before him. "How careless of me."

It will be difficult—and doubly so if he intends not to betray Edward's trust and tell at least one other person about this whole contemptible situation—but he'll manage. He has to. "Alright, Fullmetal. Edward. This… I'll fix this. It'll be fine. You and Alphonse—"

"Al? What the—"

"Of course. If he's involved—"

"Oh hell. You're the biggest dumbass I've ever—"

Wait. What? "And how, exactly, do you figure that—"

Edward scrubs a hand over his face. "Because," he says forcefully, "I already fuckin' told you. Al's not involved. He doesn't know shit. And I plan on keeping it that way."

He blinks. "But Fox… Surely there's something he's holding over... It is Miss Rockbell? Someone else?"

The noise that bubbles up from Edward's throat is somewhere between a curse and the noise of a cat being strangled. His eyes dart around the living room, over the bourbon and the half-finished research articles and the twin military jackets tossed oh-so-carelessly onto the couch. They land, finally, on his own red overcoat.

"Fuck," he says, for the third time that night. Then he's moving again, rooting through a pocket with hands that tremble, pulling out a bundle of papers, some yellowing and some half burned and all of it bundled together in a tidy little knot of twine.

"Here." Edward all but throws it at him. "It's not… It's not them. It's…"

Mustang accepts the package with still-numb fingers, picks at the twine until it gives way, and flips through the whole of it.

It's a mess of barely legible notes and tidy formal letters, months old newspaper clippings and, most damning of all, a whole host of photos. A half-burnt envelope with the words be damn near invisible to scrawled across the back. Pictures of his team, laughing and drinking at his mother's bar. A shot of him in his formal uniform and Vanessa in a flowing evening gown, surrounded by Central's upper class and midwinter decorations. Of the two of them again, after their fake-date-slash-information-exchange, exchanging jabs on her doorstep. Of the Madam, his other sisters, and lastly, of him and Edward, surrounded by a sea of blue-clad State Alchemists—he, looking stern and alert; Edward, looking surly and exhausted and slightly sick.

"He said…" And the quaver in Edward's voice is growing, enough so that Mustang's can't ignore it any longer. He's scared. The kid's scared. Scared like he's never been facing down chimaeras or exchanging blows with villains.

If he weren't so numb, he would be furious.

"It's blackmail," Mustang mutters, unseeing eyes still glued to the photos. "He knows about the contacts I have. With the paranoia of the higher ups, and the recent push to root out foreign spies…"

Edward scrubs at his flesh arm. Offers a quick jerk of his chin.

Mustang breathes deep once, then again. His fingers start to heat again as he tosses the whole package into the crackling fire. It wasn't Al, or Winry, or their old teacher that Edward had been trying to protect. It was him. The bruises and pain, the dread and the deception. For him.

He could feel Edward's eyes on him, scoring his back. Waiting, crying out the words he knew he would never hear: Help me. Help me. I don't know how to break free. Before him, the fire darts and dances in its grate, curling around the photos and snapping up the damning letters, staining his vision. Above it, resting on the mantel, is an old chess set.

Clearly, Fox thought he had the check mate.

The kowtowing fool didn't know who he was playing with.

"You did the right thing," he finally says, "in coming to me with this. I told you it would be fine—that I would fix this. And I will." He turns away from the flames, meets Edward's gaze squarely. Finally, through the maelstrom of pain and fear and emotion, sees the one thing he didn't even realize he was looking for: trust.

"I will fix this, Edward. That's a promise."

The next few weeks are almost blessedly anti-climactic.

Thanks to a morning of training Lieutenant Hawkeye and his own prodigious memory, Edward manages to scrape through on his assessment. By the time the kid walks into his office afterward, Mustang has already vetoed the recommended remedial training and cobbled together some excuse for a mission near Rush Valley.

He offers the mission folder to the kid with a few quick words of explanation and an accompanying acerbic remark for good measure. Edward, in return, offers him a one-fingered salute and the unmistakable sound of an office door being slammed shut. By the time the sun sets, he's already well beyond the city limits.

Mustang, for his part, makes himself just as busy in the evenings. One dreary January night has him huddled in a phone booth, flirting and buying flowers as he quickly scribbles down notes. The following Friday sees him at the Madam's bar, where he complains—loudly and at length, so half the other patrons can hear—about all his misfortunes. What they don't notice is the slight-of-hand; notes being slipped under his drink's coaster, only to be stolen away by the Madam herself as she offers refill after refill.

The Saturday sees him and Vanessa together at the theatre; he slips an envelope thick with cash—untraceable, thanks to his split winnings from the office's betting pool—into her purse. She, in return, leaves a folded note on his vehicle's dash when he drops her off.

There's only one word on it:

Done.

It won't be long, he knows, until Fox's office is emptied, files packed up and desks cleared out, and that the man himself is been sent up north. It might not be a demotion, not officially, but the message is clear.

Fox is ruined.

He's fully away that Fullmetal will never thank him for making all this disappear—hell, the young man probably won't even acknowledge that anything has happened at all. They'll both fall back to their familiar routine of witty repartee and heated language and maybe, with time, even the memory will wither away, becoming nothing more than the half-forgotten nightmare it only ever should have been.

He smiles to himself later that night, his fingers wrapped around a glass of bourbon and his eyes watching note, curling as it's eaten away by a merrily crackling flame.

That's fine, he tells himself.

After all, words all too often, can be bought. Tongues can deceive.

So, the silence? For now, the silence is perfectly fine.