All the waiting-room furniture has been pushed to the walls. A boy lies naked on the linoleum, his head turned aside, face obscured by the fair hair fallen across it. His body is livid with scars and bruises; the right arm sits strangely, as if dislocated at the shoulder. Twisting around him is a transmutation circle, its chalked outlines shimmering with potential energy. Ed squints furiously and the mercurial symbols resolve into a chain, earth linked to air, sealed at the cardinal points with a hamus enclosed in an octogram.
Al kneels at the boy's feet. "Mine," he whispers.
oOo
"No!" Ed says. "Al, your body's at the Gate."
"But this one's here," Al answers, stroking the boy's foot. "I want it, Brother. I want to feel ... " He pinches a toe until the joint pops. "I want to hurt. I want -- "
"Stop it!" Ed lunges forward, but something seizes his left ankle, dumping him to the floor, and then the enemy pile on like playground bullies, crushing him beneath their fetid weight. He gags; spits; shouts, "That's not yours!"
"I want to live!" Al claps and bows his head to his joined hands. "I want to die!"
"Wait! Don't -- Alphonse!"
oOo
When he can see and hear again, he panics, because he's elsewhere.
And alone.
For a nauseating moment Ed can think of nothing else, muscles spasming uselessly until his brain catches up with his senses and throttles back on the adrenaline. The sun, low and huge, shines red in his eyes; turning his gaze away, he realizes his automail's been removed and his breathlessness is as much the fault of the ropes compressing his chest as his own alarm. His mouth sets. Anyone who considers him helpless without his prosthetics is mortally mistaken.
You should've killed me when you could.
Author's Note: Hamus is the Latin word for fish-hook.