"Al?" Ed closed the door behind himself, crept into the dark room and felt like he was trespassing. He could just make out the shape of Al in the bed, a lump of black against the evening half-dark, and he remembered a time when Al couldn't fit under a blanket properly even if he'd needed one, wished he could just stop ruining things for him. "Al?"
Another step brought him up beside the bed, the lump, and a hand darted out (skin blanched dull in the dim light, and Ed didn't think that would ever stop being the most amazing thing he'd ever seen), caught his wrist and pulled him down with an uncompromising yank onto the mattress and under the covers and into Al's arms like they were newly alive again.
"Al–"
"I'm not mad at you, brother." Al said, pressing his face into Ed's shoulder and twining his limbs with Ed's and around Ed's until they were as close as they could be when Al didn't have a hollow metal body for Ed to crawl into any more. "I'm not mad at – her, either, I guess, I just... it's fine. It's fine. I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy."
For a long, terrifying moment, Ed had no idea what to say that didn't start with I don't –
"I thought I was supposed to be the stupid one." He said over his own thoughts, shifting so that Al's hipbone wasn't grinding quite so hard into his. "Winry's like a sister. That's it. I don't – think of her like," oh god he was blushing, "that."
Silence, a moment.
"But she loves you." Al mumbled into his skin, pressing closer like he was trying to suffocate himself away from the hitch in his breath. "How can you not –?" – and then he reared back, eyes wide and horrified – "What did you say to her?" He demanded. "Is she alright? Did you – god, did you make her cry? Ed? What –"
"I didn't say anything! God." He huffed out a breath, ignored how it rasped on the way up his throat. "Nothing happened. She just – looked at me, and then ran off. What was I supposed to do, I didn't even know she..." Something.
"She's been waiting for you since we were kids." Al said, heavy like the sky sinking, and Ed pulled and shifted and tugged at him until Al flumped back into his arms again. "How could you not know? We'd come back to visit and she wouldn't even see anything else, it was like – like I wasn't even there –"
"It was different then. I mean, I'm sure if she'd got to take a wrench to you she'd be all over you like a rash."
"– and you just ignored her, or – she's not a rash, brother," Al said indignantly, interrupting himself where Ed hadn't quite managed, "she's – beautiful –"
"Hey." Ed said, nudging Al embarrassedly with his shoulder, because – because it was Al and Winry, and he really didn't need to be thinking about Al thinking about Winry or remembering them in the kitchen in front of the stove and god he was never going to be able to cook anything on it or look at it ever again – but Al was upset, and it was Al and Winry. "She's always got on better with you, y'know. You tell her nice stuff, 'stead 'a just the truth that she's a spastic, machine obsessed psycho. She'll figure it out."
Silence, and then; "She's not spastic. And we've always been the same and she'd still follow you around and ask for you and miss you and like you and I was just – just –"
"You weren't just anything." Ed snapped, couldn't help it. "And she didn't follow me around; we all did stuff together." Another nudge, and, "If anything, we'd both be following you, 'cause you always had the longer legs."
Al made a choked sound, and then another, and his body shook against Ed's.
"Shit." He said, the word wet on Ed's skin. "I must be pathetic if you're making short jokes." Another sound, and Ed burrowed closer, ran his hand unthinking down Al's spine.
"You ever tell Mustang, I will hurt you."
Al's laugh only had an edge of tears, and Ed had just started to feel relieved when Al said, "Yes, brother." in a suspiciously agreeable tone.
"I mean it, Al." Because, okay, it was good that Al was a little less tangibly miserable, but there were limits to what he'd do for his brother. "I'm not kidding. If you breathe a word to anyone who knows someone who knows someone who works near his building, I'm gonna tie you to a tree covered in sugar water and leave you there."
"I know, I believe you."
"Al, I swear I will transmute you into a doormat."
"Do it. I'll just get to see up Winry's skirt whenever she goes out." And Al jerked back, eyes wide and face burning and mouth open on some excuse that wasn't coming.
Very slowly, a grin spread over Ed's face.
"Really?"
"That's not what I – brother –"
"Really, Al, would you?"
"No – yes – no, Ed, you – fine, I won't tell Mustang, but you can't say a word about – about – that. Okay?" Ed thought about it – eternal leverage over Al versus Mustang – at least until Al's grip started pressing in toward the bone. "Okay, brother?"
"Yeah, alright, promise. Jeez."
Al released his coiled-up tension in a heavy rush of breath and the sudden return of blood to Ed's arms.
"I promise too." He sighed, settling close again with his head on the pillow next to Ed's and wriggling into him until they were as closely fitted as before.
Ed watched his own breath stir the hair hanging over Al's forehead and all his muscles gradually relaxed into the tangle of their of limbs. Al's heart beat against his, and he let his thoughts fade into a humming nothing at the back of his mind, because Al's heart beat against his, and that was all that had ever really mattered.
---
("Ed."
"Ah-! Roy –")
---
Ed was ridiculously grateful for the groceries in his hands that stopped him from fidgeting as he stood waiting for Mustang to come in. He didn't know what had possessed him to extend the invitation (it was Mustang, for fuck's sake – but then again, it was Mustang), but he had, and now Mustang was stepping past him (into his home) and Ed had never been quite so aware of what his hands were doing or where his eyes were looking or what expression his mouth was trying to make on his face.
"This floor's just the shop." He said, kicking the door shut behind them and leading the way toward the stairs on the far right of the reception room. The room itself was small but clean, like Al had suggested they make it, with only a small desk set near the back wall, two chairs angled together in the corner to the right of the door, and some type of leafy plant in a pot pushed into the far left. "The workshop's through there," a wave to the door on the left wall, "and surgery's in the back."
He started up the stairs and tried not to show how his back shivered with the awareness of Mustang following up behind him.
"It's a good idea, having the reception separate." Mustang said, and Ed stumbled slightly on the next stair before he turned around to – stare. Mustang just shrugged, a smooth roll of fabric and skin and muscle and bone, and quirked an odd smile Ed didn't recognise. "Most people find automail a frightening prospect, even when it's necessary." He elaborated, and Ed – blinked, couldn't do anything else. Because Mustang had just elaborated, without the threat of very real, very impending harm, and Mustang was standing several steps below him, tilting his head back to look up at Ed, and Mustang's eye was on Ed's, even darker in the dim light of the stairwell and even deeper the further Ed saw into it. "I imagine a neutral environment goes a long way to soothing their initial fears."
It took Ed a moment to process the words, lost in that late-early hour dark and all the things you thought while you were hidden in it, but then he – blinked, again. And grinned.
"Yeah." He said. "Yeah, it was Al's idea. He's a genius, y'know."
And Mustang – smiled a little wider, and his eye shone like sunrise.
"I do remember something like that, yes."
The laugh that sprung from Ed felt natural even after the sound faded. "Bastard." He said cheerfully, taking the last stairs two at a time and stepping out into the lounge. Mustang made a sound between a snort and a catch of breath, but Ed ignored him. "Al!"
Footsteps, then, "I'm right here, brother, you don't have to – oh."
Al stopped in the entrance from the hallway, sheaf of papers forgotten in his hand, and stared at Mustang with his mouth hanging slightly open. Ed felt strangely vindicated that he wasn't the only one who'd done that.
Then Al shot him – a look, some look Ed didn't know and couldn't interpret, before turning his attention back to Mustang just as quickly and grinning.
"Mustang!" He exclaimed, and then he was across the room, papers dumped carelessly on the table and his arms thrown around Mustang with as much easy enthusiasm as when they'd left.
Something twisted up in Ed's stomach but he ignored it; it didn't even matter when Al was happy like that, anyway, so he just grinned, moved through the open doorway to the kitchen and started putting the groceries away.
"Alphonse." Mustang was saying, the warmth in his voice so different from the cold-blank drop of Ed from earlier – though that had been Ed not Edward and that was Alphonse not Al and – and what the fuck was he thinking? "It's good to see you. You're looking well."
"Thanks." Ed could hear the smile in Al's voice, and whatever his gut was still doing, it could fuck off, because he hadn't heard Al sound this unreservedly pleased since they'd come back to Central. "It's good to see you, too, sir. Ed didn't tell me you were coming." Sharp edge of accusation (of why-didn't-you-tell-me, of why-now, of a thousand things they hadn't said to each other for two, five, ten years) and Al's eyes didn't flick to him at all but they didn't need to.
Ed didn't lose his own grin, didn't let it so much as falter despite being the only one who knew it was there at all. "Ed didn't know." He returned, and he knew even with his back turned that Mustang's eye did flick to him; he felt it on his skin like the prick of a needle. "I found him wandering around without a collar so I figured I'd better bring him home. It's supposed to rain this afternoon."
"Brother..."
"I hope that means you intend to feed me, Edward." Mustang replied, and his gaze wasn't like a needle anymore, it was a searing metal poker – "My last owner seemed to think I could live on air and paperwork alone, which is why I ran away, you see."
Bastard (son of a bitch, ha).
Ed turned from putting the milk in the fridge to glare – and was caught by Mustang sitting at the kitchen table, legs crossed with casual elegance and chin resting on one hand and eye on Ed, pinning him as surely as a fluttering moth to a board.
He snapped back, "If you were mine I'd tie you up and –" and realised too late what that sounded like. And his mouth dried up when he realised too late what that sounded like, and his face seared red from his hairline all the way down his neck when his mouth dried up and he realised too late –
"Really?" And Mustang's voice had lowered and smoothed into something – something that made Ed – and fuck how had Ed forgotten how much he'd hated this man?
"Fuck you." He growled, determinedly turning away again and not thinking about the way his skin ached like he'd torn away from something. "You want anything but thrown out the window, you'll shut your face."
A pause, and then, "With a generous offer like that, I can hardly refuse."
Ed was not disappointed that the man's voice had gone back to normal again. Was not.
"Good." He grunted, filling the kettle and putting it on the stove. Al laughed behind him, and Ed nearly pulled something forcing his body not to jump; he'd forgotten Al was there.
"I guess some things never change." But he didn't sound upset about it, so Ed just snorted in agreement and didn't think, Too bad.
---
Ed was not reading the newspaper. Well, he was, but that was all. Maybe he'd had no interest in it when he was a kid (and god, he'd been such a kid, how the hell could he not have realised...?) but he'd been a bit occupied at the time, with little things like researching illegal alchemy and running around the country trying not to get killed and, oh yeah, getting Al's body back. Why would he have wasted time reading a bunch of bias, half-true, barely-intelligible drivel that had nothing to do with him (at least nothing to do with him that was useful) when there had been a never-ending pile of stale alchemy texts that could have held that essential word of a clue...?
Anyway, he'd never actually picked one up with the intention of reading it until it had been a week since he'd woken up in hospital and two days since the nurses had stopped sedating him into a bored-less doze – and even then, he'd been planning to transmute paper darts and aim them at the trashcan across the room. He'd gotten to page three (the first-page dart had missed the bin but the three he had made from page two had all got in because he'd adjusted the aerodynamics) when a headline caught his eye, stopping his hands nearly a foot away from each other.
Alchemist of the People Offered Honourable Discharge – which he'd certainly heard nothing about, and for a moment he'd wondered if this was Mustang's grand secret to knowing everything he did almost before he did it. And then he'd snorted, because the man's best friend was Hughes, and that was explanation enough.
Somewhat curious but mostly bored, he'd read the article – and actually choked on his own spit in – shock, something, when the reporter quoted Mustang; "Fullmetal has been an asset not only to the military and the People, but to my command. I'm sure those who have met him understand what I mean when I say it has been a wholly unique experience, and I'm privileged to have known him."
Not that that had anything to do with Ed's continued interest in the news.
When they'd gotten back to Risembool, he'd figured it was the best way of keeping an eye on any rumours that might start circulating about Al, or him, so they could be ready if the shit hit the fan (and he was still kind of stunned that it never had, but he was a little better at maybe trusting that it wouldn't, now). And after a while, it was just kind of a habit to go buy one and read it on the porch when the light started to fade, and he found he liked knowing what was going on even if he wasn't really a part of it any more. So what if sometimes he turned to the politics page first? He didn't do it all the time, and there was nothing wrong with following the progress of someone they'd known for so long or wondering why he didn't seem to have any designs on the Prime Minister's seat or maybe worrying a little that they'd had achieved their goal while he seemed to be leaving his discarded at the side of the road...
Ed was just reading the newspaper. People did it all the time, it didn't mean that it meant something. There was nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all.
---
("Fuck." Ed jerked almost violently at the first touch – there – and the throb of his heart beat through everywhere like it was too big for his skin. "Oh fuck –" It was too much, too close, too intense, he couldn't do this –
"Ed–?"
"Don't stop!" He scrabbled for a grip on Roy's sweat-slick skin and found Roy's shoulders, dragged Roy close over him and – arched up into the careful press of Roy's fingers, held himself steady in the naked darkness of Roy's eye. "Don't stop– aah –")
---
"I think we should go back to Central." Al said, and Ed stuttered mid-movement, barely managed to block the kick aimed at his gut.
"Why?" He grunted, ducking under a punch and missing one of his own.
"It's been a year already."
Ed didn't reply immediately, catching a hit in his chest and returning it with a low kick to Al's unprotected side. It's been a year already didn't mean anything, except that they'd had a year – twelve months, 365 days, a year – not having to run for their lives, or chase after them, or put one foot in front of the other pretending they weren't wishing to just stop.
Ed swept a leg under Al's feet and Al flipped back, caught himself on one hand before springing forward again and meeting Ed with a flurry of punches.
There was no reason to go back, anyway. Winry was here, and even though all she ever did was throw wrenches at Ed's head, Al had waited eight years to be able to come back and not be metal with her, and Ed wasn't going to stop either of them being able to have that. Their mum was here (even if they'd been here nearly a year and Ed still hadn't gone to see her; he knew Al had, did, every day), and Auntie Pinako, not far from there, whose funeral they'd missed because they'd been following a lead when Winry had called Central and no one had been able to get hold of them until they came back too many days later. And they were here, finally, where they'd been fighting to get back to since they'd left.
Even if sometimes all the space seemed just to strangle him and sometimes he itched to be doing something, anything else, the only thing they'd really left in Central was the military, and they never would have had any part in that if they (Ed) hadn't been desperate (stupid).
"Ed–" Al grabbed Ed's arm, extended from landing a solid blow on Al's shoulder, and threw him forward over it. "Why don't you want to go?"
He shot back, "Why do you?" and rolled back over his own head to avoid the downward cut of Al's foot.
Al paused just long enough to shrug before he was moving again.
"I miss it." He said with an easy honesty Ed had never been able to match. "Not the missions," he ducked where Ed had been expecting him to sidestep and caught Ed in the legs with a sweeping kick, "but meeting people, researching –" Ed barely rose an inch before Al sat on him, thumping him back to the ground with a grunted hah of breath. "Why don't you want to go back?" He caught and then pinned Ed's hands when Ed tried to grab him. "You're bored here, too."
"I am not." Ed scowled, bucking under his not-so-little brother without result. "Get off –
"No."
"Al –"
"No, brother. I've been trying to talk to you about this all week, and you just – why don't you want to go back? I know you don't want to stay here."
"I do so! Get off me – dammit, when did you get so fat? I swear you weighed less as fucking armour –"
"We both know you're heavier than I am, brother." Al said, smiling slightly but not loosening his grip at all. "And shor–"
"Shut up!" Ed howled, and thrashed, and bared his teeth because if Al got close enough he had better believe that Ed was going to bite his nose off, whether Ed had had to make it himself or not – "God, you're a shit, you're as bad as he is, let me go –"
Al didn't let go but he did stop smiling, his face slowly folding into a frown.
"Is that why?" He asked in a tone Ed didn't know but froze him instantly. "Because of the military? Did someone say something? Did Mustang –"
"He didn't do anything." Ed cut in, a little too quickly. "It's not the military, he has nothing to do with it, I just don't want to go."
Al's eyes narrowed.
"You're lying."
"I am not. What about Winry?"
"You are so. Winry thinks it's a good idea, her and Auntie Pinako had started talking about it – before, anyway, but she didn't want to do anything until we got back. What did he do?"
"Nothing happened! And what the hell, everyone knew but me? Were you going to put me in a box to take with you on the train or just leave me here?"
"Neither, brother." Al said in his I'm-humouring-you-because-otherwise-I-might-do-something-I-regret voice. "I told you I've been trying to talk to you about this. If Mustang did something and you don't want to go back to Central, fine. We can go to East City again, or – or Dublith, Xing, it doesn't matter. I just want to do something again. It's been good here, I'm glad we came back, but it's not beneficial to either of us any more; my nightmares are getting worse and I know yours are, too, even though you pretend you don't have them. Don't you think it's time to get on with our lives? We spent so long getting them back that it'd be stupid to waste them lying around the countryside."
A moment, and then Ed said, "You've been saving that up, haven't you?" with a wry kind of surrender.
Al huffed.
"You've been dodging me for weeks, brother." He said, and finally loosened his hold a little, though he still didn't let him up. "We can talk about it, though, we don't have to go to Central –"
"I told you, nothing happened, he didn't do anything. Central's fine, if you want to go there, we'll go. Alright?"
"... Did he–?"
"Al! We're going to Central, you won, be happy. Now get off me, seriously, you weigh a fucking ton..."
---
("Ed." A husky murmur in his ear that shivered deep into him, sunk deeper even than the fleshsplitting him open. "You need to relax, Ed. Breathe...")
---
This was a stupid idea. Ed knew it was a stupid idea, why the hell had he agreed to –?
"Ed." Oh yeah – him. Ed opened his eyes but didn't move his head where it was resting against the back of the booth – and there was Mustang, right where Ed had left him on the other side of the less-than-steady table (whenever Ed put his drink down the glass clattered a little and the liquid sloshed up the sides). Mustang had taken his jacket off (not military-blue any more but an actual suit jacket that cut too temptingly close to his figure when it wasn't flopped over a chair) at some point between the second drink and whichever this one was, and it left him in just his white shirt – which was gaping open at the neck (like gasping in a breath) and rolled up to the elbows. His forearms, naked and pale, rested casually half-on half-off the table, and were infinitely more enticing than any stretch of blood and sinew and skin had any right to be.
And his fingers were wrapped loosely around his glass, and his thumb was rubbing absentmindedly up... and down one side, and up again, and god Ed wanted to touch him –
Which was a lot easier to admit when he was halfway to being comatose, actually.
Which was why he shouldn't have come. Stupid Mustang.
Stupid Ed.
"Ed." Mustang said again, and Ed dragged his eyes back up from imagining the man's fingers on not the glass. "For all our differences in the past, I had thought that by now you knew you could trust me."
Ed – blinked.
"Huh?"
Mustang... sighed.
"Something's been bothering you for a while." He said, like Ed didn't know that. "There are, of course, things that you can't or don't want to discuss with your brother, but I had assumed you would talk to me if you needed to. We're both reasonably grown up by now, after all."
Slight, slight shadow of a smirk, but for some reason it didn't make Ed want to punch him in the face at all.
"I – what? M'fine, m'always fine, wha'w'd I need t' talk about?"
"Whatever you like."
"What, y' jus-t want me to..." A naked hand wove a clumsy gesture in front of his face and for a moment he didn't recognise it at all, didn't realise it was his. "What? I don't – m'fine. Th'r's nothin' wrong with me."
Shit. He was too drunk to be playing word-chess with Mustang.
Predictably, the bastard said, "I didn't suggest there was." and his eyebrows weren't any less eloquent or just plain infuriating for all there was only one of them now (and god Ed wished he could bring Archer back just so he could rip his liver out his nose –) and they just as predictably echoed the smug git with that edge of sly mocking; I didn't suggest there was. Bastard.
"Piss off, don't twist my f'ckin' words an' don't pretend like you weren't implyin' it. I'm fine, I told Al I w'z fine, wha'd'y' want?"
"Only for you to be happy, Ed." He hated the man, hated him, hated him, hated him – "If there's nothing wrong, then I'm glad. I didn't mean to imply anything else."
"Sh't up." Ed mumbled, slumping further down into the booth and sinking his head back again, far enough that his eyes couldn't linger on Mustang like they kept trying to, like Mustang was – like Mustang was a magnet or something, only then Ed'd have to have automail eyes and he didn't, so maybe if his eyes were magnets – only wouldn't that mean Mustang should be drawn to him, and – that was just so stupid it was... stupid. "Shut up, Sh't up, cond'scendin' prick, I know, alrigh', I know, I'm no' f'ckin' – stupid."
"Ed, I doubt anyone has ever accused you of being stupid. Too smart for your own good, maybe."
"Fuck you." Damn bastard, why did he have to do this? Couldn't he just... not be him? What had Ed ever done that he deserved – no, no, that was a dangerous thought, you shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answers to and you definitely shouldn't ask questions you knew the answers to when the answers were that. "I ged'it, I do. Al's worried – which is stupid, 'cause he's got his own... an' Winry mus' be goin' nuts, 'cause she hasn't bashed me over the head with anythin' in... f'ckin' ages... but what'm I meant to do? Just – stop? I don't..."
Long silence – long, long, long silence, because Mustang was waiting for him to continue, but his eye on Ed drowned out the rest of the bar even better than the beer did.
He waited a long time before finally giving in and prompting, "Don't what?" but Ed was looking at the wooden beams above him and all he could hear was dark eyes and long fingers and one thumb rubbing up and down. "Ed."
"What about you?" He asked, and even drunk he got a certain satisfaction from catching the man off guard – until he realised that his eyes had found their way back to the man to see the blink and the stutter of his hand on the glass. Damn. "That guy w'z rakin' you over th' coals, goin' on 'bout – Ishbal, me, Lior. But you're just–" lickible oh god shut up "– th' same 's always."
"You read the newspaper." Mustang noted, half amused and half something – there, that familiar expression again. And Ed was old enough to recognise the facade for what it was now, so Mustang was just lucky that Ed was past the frantic-energy-drunk phase and was well into being too-heavy-to-move-drunk, or he would have found himself with a tight knuckled fist in the middle of his pretty fucking face –
He didn't just think that.
He didn't.
And Roy wasn't really pretty, anyway, it was just –
Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up –
"Bast'd, y' know I do – an' y' can't fuckin' say anythin' about it if y' didn't say anythin' the first time. So sh't the fuck up."
"Ah, I apologise, I didn't realise there was a time limit–"
"What'd I say? Shut up an' stop avoiding th' goddamn question."
"The same as ever." Mustang murmured, but before Ed could take issue with that: "I knew before I took the position that these things would come up, so to a certain degree I was prepared. And... I've had a lot of time to practice appearing unaffected."
Oh. Um.
"You. Get a lot'a shit. About me."
"Hm. Not as much as you might expect." And he looked at Ed in a way Ed wanted to squirm back and away from but Ed couldn't move. "Some, yes, but there's not much they can say when there are people who still hail you as the Alchemist of the People. I suppose I should thank you for that, actually; my position would be much harder if you hadn't endeared yourself to everyone you met."
"... 'cept the ones I punched in the face."
Holy shit. Mustang laughed, and the sound seared up Ed's spine like a tongue of flame, all connotation and innuendo included.
"Except the ones you punched in the face." Mustang conceded, and Ed wanted that smile, wanted it with a strength that was terrifying, wanted it on him and in him and around him and wanted it in a way that wasn't even sexual, wanted just to be near it, just to cause it – fuck why had he agreed to come –? "And Ishbal..." Roy continued, slowly, unprompted, "Well, technically I wasn't responsible for my actions there, as I was only a Major at the time. Realistically, it's bad press to call someone the Hero of the Isballan Rebellion one day and declare them a murderer the next. Besides all the politics involved, it's rather difficult to sell a newspaper to people who can't trust the news in it."
Ed said, "That's good," and his voice had an edge to it he hadn't really meant to be there and hadn't really not, "but y' say it like 'm not gonna notice how y' think you c'n tell me t' spill my guts an' then give me this shit about how it affects your position. E–"
"–quivalent exchange?" Mustang's lips quirked up into a wry smile and Ed wanted to – nothing. He didn't want to do anything. "I suppose I should have expected that. Very well." No, what – "The first time someone decided to seriously debate my involvement in Ishbal was before I started running for Minister, when I was still trying to get into parliament. I spent the night very, very drunk, and had to function on very little sleep and a lot of nightmares for the rest of the week. Now I've gotten to the point where I can get just a little drunk and have only mildly disturbed sleep for most of a week. When someone decided to mention you..." Mustang tapped his fingers on his glass a moment before lifting it to his lips, regarding Ed with an odd, amused-considering look Ed had never seen. "I found afterwards that I was rather glad I didn't have my gloves or a piece of chalk within reach. It was terribly frustrating at the time, however."
Ed tried not to gape. And failed. Miserably.
"You – what?" What? "What – what did they even say, you can't –"
Mustang's mouth was curling up at the edges in an all too pleased way and there was something weird leaking sharp and bright into his eye – Ed stopped, shut up, slumped back in the booth and glared. Bastard.
"Surprisingly," the man carried on like he wasn't giving Ed that look, "they generally don't spend too long on the fact that I sponsored you to join when you were only twelve – which seems like a waste of ammunition to me, but I'm not going to complain. Apparently, they prefer to focus on, as you said, Lior, as well as the reasons you got your commission. Honestly, it's like being at school again; all the children stand around calling each other names and the one who yells the loudest gets to be the leader. It's absurd."
Ed wanted to ask how people thought he'd got his watch if not for being – ha – too smart for his own good. It wasn't like the train thing was a secret, and he'd had to pass the alchemy exam just like everyone else, so what the hell...? But Ed did recognise the ragged-sharp look at just the edge of Mustang's eye, did notice the change of subject, and whatever Al said, Ed was older now, and he did know when it was better not to ask.
So instead, he said; "Told you politics was for idiots." and let Mustang's laughter wash over him like alchemy.
"Equivalent exchange, then, Ed." Mustang said after a time (second, minute, hour, Ed didn't particularly care when it was spent like that), his eye serious-intent now even if his mouth was still smiling. "You don't what?"
He didn't what what? For a moment, Ed didn't know what the man was talking about, still caught up in – oh. Fuck, did the man have a metal trap for a brain or something? For once, couldn't he just...?
Ed said – nothing, for a moment, for two and three and ten moments, because how stupid was he to get himself pushed back into this tiny, beer-sticky corner where he either had to tell Mustang (Roy fucking Mustang) that yeah, turns out I am the useless, dumb kid I always said I wasn't, or – even better – that when I thought I was going to die, even though I'd promised I wouldn't, I thought I was going to die and I realised –
"I have to go." He was stumbled to standing before he even realised he was moving and his legs thump-cracked hard into the table (it didn't even wobble at the impact even though it was rolling like a wood raft on rapids under his hand) but he hardly felt it, didn't, all his drunken attention focused on trying to fumble his way out from between the seat and the goddamn table with the room spinning everywhere and his stomach lurching up and his heart stuck in his throat the only thing stopping him from puking. Fuck, why couldn't he–
"Ed."
A hand on his wrist. No, not a hand, a hand suggested he didn't know whose hand it was and he knew exactly whose hand it was; his eyes were fixed on it, already pale skin turned moon-bright against the dirty hue of his own skin.
"Ihavetogo." He blurted again – he didn't squeak, he wasn't a fucking girl, didn't – and jerked his hand, his wrist, his skin away
"Ed–"
with too much force, half-fell a step back before he caught himself on the wall that had slid under his feet where the floor should have been and turned, ran.
