Keeping My Brother

Genre: Crossover
Universe/s: Two FMA'ers land in the Bleach world.
Spoiler Warnings: Set around Bleach anime eps 15-18, but references manga knowledge from a little farther on. Involves the end of the FMA storyline.

Chapter 7 : What Is The Price?

Al opened his eyes slowly. Soft light seeped into the room through the opaque windows all around. What happened... so much... yesterday, then, we slept, and... He started and sat up a little onto his elbows. "I had a dream!" he happily exclaimed to a large empty room.

He turned and saw Ed, messily entangled in futon covers, lightly snoring, and grinned. "Nii-san, nii-san! Okiru, okiru!" He shook Ed's leg, the closest appendage.

Ed groggily opened his eyes. "Naaaaniiii," he groaned, squintingly opened his eyes against the light, and raised his head a bit.

Again, there was a knock at the door. Ed fell back on his pillow as Tessai again pushed the door open. No formalities this time. "Urahara has work for you." And then the door closed.

Ed's stomach growled. Al giggled. "All that food last night wasn't enough?"

"Never is."

They both had a pair of pants out of a slightly stiff blue material, and Ed had a shirt combo that was black and white, whereas Al's shirt was a dusty sage green button-front. They padded their way down the hall towards the room that had been a dining room, and Al whispered, "Do you think I can ask for shoes? My old shoes from yesterday were way too small."

As if in answer, Ed whispered back, "I smell rice," and slid open the door. Sure enough, the other four were already at the table, with a meal similar to last night's dinner.

"Forgive us for already having started, but the day waits for no being." Somehow, Urahara kept that fan in the same hand he held his chopsticks with, even as he was eating. The cane was by his side too. For a man who looked as... young? Old? Did Urahara look like he had an age? Whatever he looked like, he didn't look like he needed a cane. Tessai was the first one done and through the kitchen to leave his dishes before vanishing towards the store-area of the building. The two children finished and followed suit, but Urahara ate calmly. When he too finished, he set his bowl down and said, "I have a job for you. It involves walking in a city you don't know, and moreover, both of you leaving at once. Is at least one of you good with directions, and is there any collateral I can keep here to ensure a return?" He said it as though he had half an idea, or more, of what collateral he could use.

Ed said around a mouthful of rice, "We'll come back."

"How do I know?"

"We'll come back. You have our word."

"I'm envious that you come from an age where giving word has such weight."

Ed right hand twitched, sending his white-rice-filled bowl halfway across the table, spilling clumps of rice everywhere. Al exclaimed, "Nii-san!" and moved to start cleaning things up. Urahara merely looked at Ed in surprise. The shadow that slammed into Ed's face couldn't have been hidden if he tried. But then he blinked, and apologized, and helped Al collect the spilled rice.

"Wow," Urahara mused, tapping the fan to his lips. "Was it something I said?"

"Nandemonai," Ed muttered, standing with the discarded rice in his hands and moving to the kitchen. "Just an involuntary shudder."

Urahara looked at Al, and said quietly, "I don't believe him."

Al looked down at his own food, suddenly very un-hungry. "If you can, please, try not to use a word like 'envy' around Nii-san."

"'Like' envy? What words are 'like' envy? Jealousy?"

"No, jealousy is fine. But a word like... 'greed,' maybe. And definately not 'sloth,' I'd think."

"Al." Ed had returned with a clean bowl. "Don't say silly things to our employer. There's no problem." He knelt and dipped some more food, and began to eat again. After a moment, Al picked up his chopsticks too.

"And the otouto? Do you have any words that bring involuntary shudders?" Urahara's voice was carefully stripped of all emotion... unless there was a slightly concerned paternal tone hidden under the still-closed fan.

"I said I was fine," Ed stated.

"You are not the otouto."

With his bowl in one hand and chopsticks in the other, Al quietly asked, "Perhaps 'pride', please." And then slowly finished his breakfast.

Urahara merely looked on, eyes hidden beneath the green striped hat. "A pair of very interesting boys indeed. I suppose they were happened upon by the Spanish Inquisition." He stood. "When you are done, leave the dishes and come out front. I'll write you directions to where you will take some medicine. And we'll discuss... collateral."

Ed strolled out first, hands in the small back pockets of the pants. "Where's the cat? Yoruichi. San. I should probably ask her what her favorite food is."

Urahara looked up from his seat on a tatami mat. "And why would you be interested in such a thing?"

"I've decided I need to ensure I stay on her good side." Even as he said it, Ed wasn't sure why he had; he hadn't meant to, and it was something relatively unlike him to actually say. "And because I'm curious as to how a talking cat comes about in this world."

"Ah. Well, rest assured, you won't find any like her. And should you actually do, it won't matter, because you'll die immediately after." Ed and Al, till now scanning around the shop, both snapped their heads over in shock. "But! Like I said, it won't happen, so you won't need to worry. Now, about the job."

Somehow, him saying things like that so casually... I believe him. He's completely right. What kind of world is this?

Urahara held out a piece of paper, with a cross-hatching of roads on it, some labeled, most not. "You, are here. You need to be here." He pointed. "You will take this," he handed Al an oblong container with an animal's head on one end, "and meet a young man and a young woman. They will be expecting you. She is rather short and has short dark hair, and he is rather tall and has bright orange hair. That is relatively rare for this culture, as is your own hair-eye combinations. So, three exceptional people looking for each other."

"Four. The woman." Ed sat to put on his boots, still where they were left from yesterday. Al's shoes had been replaced with red lace-tied shoes that looked like they were made from canvas, and also looked like they fit his feet.

"Rukia is not someone I'd classify as visually exceptional. Therefore, three. Now. She may but probably will not pay you. This is fine. The young man most likely will take the medicine as soon as he gets his hands on it. This too is fine. However, if she asks you how much, and he has already swallowed the medicine, first you must say, with a completely straight face, thirty thousand. Hopefully she'll get mad at Ichigo."

"Hopefully?"

"If she asks before he takes the medicine, tell her, 'a day and a half, and half a kiss.' In which case she will probably swear under her breath at me and stalk off. This too is fine. If she does anything else, tell me when you get back." Urahara flipped out the fan in front of his face, as though that were the end of the conversation all together.

With his shoes on, Ed stayed seated and said, "You said our word was not enough to bring us back. You always mention the differences between this world and ours; in our world, it would be a grave offense to claim a man's word is not enough."

"No offense was intended, but this world has a saying: 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' And I would never take a man's word from a boy."

In a flash Ed was in Urahara's face. "Whom are you calling so small he'd fit under a tatami mat?" It was all Al could do to keep Ed away.

"Nii-san... this is harder when I'm so much smaller than I was! Calm down, please!"

And suddenly Ed was calm, and it had nothing to do with anything Al had said. In a flash, Urahara had grabbed his cane, the mundane walking stick he always had with him, and had laid it on Ed's shoulder. And suddenly, Ed had the feeling that if he moved, he would be cut. Deeply. Not that he was a particular stranger to wounds of the flesh, but to be sliced by a cane was... mildly unheard of. At best.

Urahara spoke low. "You don't get to see what's under this tatami mat." He stared Ed down, then added, "Now sit back. I still haven't told you of your collateral."

Ed backed off in that manner that Al had seen him do... he was still fuming inside, but he'd feign calmness to get what he wanted.

"You asked about Yoruichi as soon as you came out, I wondered if that was an actual observation that she is not here, or a trick of... fate. Yoruichi has gone to find out more about the other blue Reiraku."

Both Ed and Al sat up a little straighter. Al whispered to himself... "My dream..."

That morning, as soon as he had sat up and exclaimed joyfully, the dream started to fade rapidly. Al had barely noticed, he was too busy being happy with other aspects of being in a real body again. Even had he remembered, he wouldn't have realized what he had overheard in the night that had become his dream.

Urahara had said, "You remember more than you are letting on."

Yoruichi had said, "Of course. Granted they can hardly be lying - you can't change the color of your Reiraku - but I'd never let spill everything I halfway know."

Urahara: "Could that man really be their father? I remember those news bullitans as though they were yesterday, though of course I remember them with the clarity of one who didn't care in the first place. Heh. They are no more than fifteen, and the Blue Hohenheim was easily fifty when this story took place. In this world, ninty-plus year old men don't have children... much less two." He took a breath. "Buuuut..."

Yoruichi: "If they're not from this world, any number of things could be possible. They're not quite human and age very slowly. Perhaps something stranger." They paused for a moment, then she continued. "Will you keep them for a day or two? I wish this hadn't happened now. The school is almost out for the summer, and Inoue and Yasutora agreed to be trained. I can contact the net and see if this Hohenheim is still alive, or if not... what happened to him."

Urahara: "Ki wo tsukete. By now, the usual places will be crawling with Shinigami, looking for information about the Menos Grande fighter."

Yoruichi chuckled. "I've kept myself safe for a hundred years over here. One more day will not do me in. But thank you. I should be back in a day or two."

If Urahara heard his whisper, he gave it no mind. "She knows how to get into the information net here. I do too, but I don't like dealing with them. She will find anything there is to know, and bring it back. How is that for collateral?"

Ed sat silently and stared at his crossed legs before speaking. "You hang it over our heads like we are children who need a leash. I told you, we gave our word that we will return, and work to repay what you give us." He looked up at Urahara. "That is all the collateral I need to give." He stood and stepped off the tatami mats and headed out the front door.

Al started to follow, but turned back and bowed to Urahara. "Thank you very much, sir. Despite my brother's words, I know we are both eager to hear of any news that may be about our father. And he paused and thought, then asked anyway. "If she really presses us for a real number, what should we say."

"She won't." And Urahara paused. And said, "Two thousand." Al turned to go. "No... make it two and a half. But she won't actually ask."

Al jogged a few steps to catch up to Ed, who started grumbling. "Lackeys and runners, and I get the feeling he's trying to use us as a shield."

"I dunno, it might be interesting. I mean, he wouldn't send us out into danger."

"Who knows what this world is like now. This isn't anything like what I saw in London." They rounded the first corner, and Al hoped that Ed had committed the map to memory as well as he seemed to have done. "Everything's advanced, everything's different. It's... possible but unlikely that we're in some other part of the world and there really is that much of a technology curve, but... I doubt it. Something just doesn't feel right for that to be so. We are somewhen different. And I don't know why."

Silence.

"And he didn't tell me what Yoruichi-san's favorite food was." Al looked at his brother in surprise. "Well, after all, if she's going to go find information for us, the least we can do is thank the lady."

Al grinned and started to skip down the road a bit. It was so good to be with his brother and to be in his real body. The morning sky was beautiful and this strange world was a very interesting place. Yes... life was good.