Roy saw Alphonse on the way to Edward's room.
"Hey, Al, I wanted to talk to you."
"Sure thing, Colonel." Alphonse stopped, waiting for him to speak.
Roy had been looking for the younger Elric brother all day. Eventually, he had decided to visit Ed (and try to convince him to leave the hospital—the boy seemed scared to do so) before continuing his search. However, now that he had Al in front of him, Roy couldn't seem to say what he needed to. "I just…wanted to know if Ed was talking to you?"
Alphonse seemed confused by his question, his brow wrinkling. "What do you mean?"
"I mean has he told you anything about what happened to him?"
Al's face flickered, too fast for Roy to catch the emotion that had stolen across it. "No," Alphonse said slowly, "he doesn't say much to me at all, actually."
Roy sighed. "I was afraid of that. He talks to me, but…it seems he doesn't engage anyone else." Al was silent. "Well," he pushed, finding himself irritated, "doesn't that concern you just a little?"
To his great surprise, Alphonse merely shrugged, his face blank. "I suppose so. There's nothing much we can do though."
"What's wrong with you, Al?" Roy half-shouted, a grimace on his face. How could the kid who had so adored his older brother be this apathetic? "He's your brother!"
Al glared at him, a surprisingly cold look. "You think I don't know that? What am I supposed to do if he won't talk to me, Colonel?"
"It used to be you would do anything for Ed."
"Who said I wouldn't anymore?"
"You sure don't act like it."
Roy and Al stared at each other for a heartbeat before the latter turned abruptly, stalking off.
Roy took a few deep breaths. What was wrong with that kid? What had changed him so? Whatever it was, Roy couldn't let it get to him now. He had to see Edward, and he wasn't going to let himself be irritable just because of Alphonse.
When Roy entered the room, Ed was nervously toying with his hair, sitting cross-legged on his hospital bed. With a shock, he realized Edward had his automail arm back.
"Hey, Ed," he said, sitting down next to, but not touching, the boy as he always did. "Winry already come up?"
"No," he mumbled. Roy frowned. Sure, Ed was still sullen most of the time, and always nervous, but the boy seemed especially subdued today.
Roy merely stared at Edward until the blonde glanced up at him. He gestured for him to explain. "I…didn't want her to come to Central." Ed seemed to say this with great difficulty.
"Why?" Roy had thought they were friends, that maybe seeing Winry would help…
The boy swallowed, looking vaguely nauseous. "I can't explain. Just, trust me; it might not have been safe." He took a deep breath before continuing. "I got this from the automail guy here."
This revelation was rather disturbing—Edward apparently didn't trust anyone, except maybe Roy himself. Roy didn't know why that might be, but decided not to push that issue right away. He had something else he had to get out of the boy.
"Look, Ed…what I'm about to ask you is going to be hard. But I have to get a statement from you—you can't imagine how much I had to argue to be allowed to give you a week. I need to know what happened to you."
Edward's eyes grew wide, and he stared at Roy, shaking slightly. "You know what happened to me," he whispered.
"I know," Roy said, dying to comfort the boy but knowing better than to touch him. "But only vaguely. I need to you tell me, with as much detail as you can."
Roy had always been impressed by Ed's ability to control himself, but was surprised to see the blonde close his eyes, and begin to speak, after a short pause, in a hushed monotone. "I…guess it started when I fixed Al. I traded my alchemy for his body—which turned out to be really shitty timing. I could only defend myself to a certain extent…"
So that was how Alphonse had gotten his body back. Roy had wondered. It also explained how the Fullmetal Alchemist had been weak enough to be kidnapped.
Here Edward paused. "There was a guy," he said finally. "He came at me, and I was surprised and…he beat me. I was unconscious. When I woke up, I was tied up, and naked, kneeling in front of a different man. The first one took some money, and then I was dragged into that house."
A single sob, angry and pained, escaped the boy. "He sold me." Again, Ed miraculously calmed himself down. "That first week I had to be tied up constantly. I was still strong enough to try to fight the men—sometimes women, too—off and sometimes they would drug me. The first time they…raped me, I was just angry. He was huge…it hurt so bad…"
Roy found himself feeling a little queasy. Sure, it wasn't his first time hearing about these sorts of events, but to think of Edward in that situation…
"After that first week, I think the owner was fed up with having to work so hard to get people in me. So…he arranged an event."
Edward gulped, his voice dropping so low that Roy had to lean in to hear the boy. "He drugged me, again, and when I woke up I was in a larger room, tied up on the floor. He looked me in the eye, told me it was a good thing I was awake, because he had customers waiting and he wanted me to be conscious for what he had planned. He opened a door, and all these guys started coming in…there must have been twenty or thirty of them. The owner said, 'This is what you get for being so difficult.'"
Roy had half a mind to stop Ed. The blonde was shaking like a leaf, his voice trembling. But he kept going. "I saw—I saw the guy who sold me standing there, just watching. Then they all came at me at once. They—" here his breathing became ragged "—they took turns shoving their dicks down my throat. It was terrifying, I couldn't breathe and I was scared, and at the same time another one would start fucking me. I started bleeding, and crying, and it hurt so bad and all they did was laugh. Eventually someone got the idea to see how much I could take, and I ended up with two of them in my ass and another in my throat. They tried to fit another in me, but the owner stopped them, saying he wanted me punished, not unusable."
Roy, at this point, had a hand clamped over his mouth, and was torn between wanting to vomit and wanting to hunt every last one of those bastards down.
"When they were done, I was covered in their…stuff. It was everywhere, and I had inhaled some near the end and I couldn't stop coughing. It felt like my ass was going to split in two and the owner told me to get up but I couldn't, and when I tried I slipped. He ripped off my arm, and left me to lay there until the next morning. I thought…no, I hoped I was going to die. I had never been in so much pain, never been so humiliated."
Edward whispered his next words. "I was nothing more than a toy." Roy noticed then the tears flowing silently down his cheeks.
"After that I didn't fight. I just begged them not to hurt me…I didn't want anyone else to touch me, wanted to be left to die. I was like that until you came and got me. When you did, at first I was scared—I thought you were going to hurt me too. But when you took me outside and covered me up, I realized that wasn't the idea, and didn't want you to leave for fear it was a dream…" Finally, finally, the boy trailed off and did not speak again.
Roy decided to disobey all unspoken rules between them, and leaned over and hugged Edward. The blonde stiffened terribly, but then all at once relaxed, crying messily into Roy's shoulder.
"Ed," he whispered. "You know who sold you, don't you?"
After a tortuous moment, the boy let out a tiny, "No." It didn't convince Roy—something in the way he had worded that portion of his story was off, like he was hiding something—but he didn't push it.
"Ed, it's going to be okay. We're going to find who did this to you, all of the people who hurt you, and make sure they're punished."
"What if they find me again?" The blonde whispered. "I don't know where to go to be safe…"
"How about you and I take a trip up north? It's got to be good for you to get out of Central." Sure, the thought was spontaneous, but maybe Ed would open up once he was further away.
"Okay," he mumbled after a pause, still seeming tense.
"It's alright Ed. I won't let them find you again. I'll protect you."
Edward was quiet.