Chapter 5: The Walk

"Ed!" Roy said, loud enough to show the urgency, but quiet enough to keep his mom from hearing.

"Hi mom." Roy said with a smile as her head emerged from the trapdoor.

"What have you been doing up here?" She looked around the attic.

"Umm...I..." He needed an excuse. Now.

"I came to check out the attic." Ed said, sounding bored.

"I came to check out the attic." Roy said, saying the first thing he thought would get him out of this.

"Where did all these things come from?" She asked, gesturing to Ed's small inventory.

"I think it came from the last people who lived here, they just left it." Edward said. Again, Roy copied him.

"Oh. Well, Ill get your father or one of your brothers to come up and take it out later..." She said, shrugging.

"No!" Roy cursed himself silently for sounding so desperate. "Uh, I think we should leave it. There's some pretty cool stuff up here..."

His mother looked at him strangely. "Oh, Okay then. Get washed up and come down, we're about to have supper."

"'Kay."

His mother closed the door.

"Where do you get that stuff from? Right off the top of your head." Roy turned and looked at Ed, who shrugged.

"Im a master at these things. What do you think I did to keep my dad away from me?"

"Oh...right." Roy went down the trap door, and just as his head was about to disappear he asked;

"Can you come down to the first floor?"

Ed looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

"Why the hell would I do that? Am I your playmate now?"

"No, I just-"

"You don't have any friends do you?" Ed cut him off.

"At least Im taller than four feet at sixteen." He smirked and disappeared, ignoring the crashing and raving that followed.

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Roy was surprised to find that Edward Actually did come down while they ate, he leaned against the wall, observing.

"I heard Goth-boy has an imaginary friend..." His eldest brother snickered, nudging Roy in the ribs.

He hated it when he said that. It's not his fault he has black hair and dark eyes. It's not like he dyes it and wears contacts to look that way. It's not his fault he's the only one with black hair, he got it from his mother's dark hair. It's not his fault he likes black, in fact, he hardly ever wore black anyway.

"It's not an imaginary friend, Dumb-ass, it's a ghost." He pushed his brothers arm away from him.

"Boys, no name-calling." His father said.

"It?" Edward growled, smacking Roy in the back of the head.

"What the hell was that for?" Roy snapped at Ed as he turned around in his seat.

Aw...shit.

It was silent, and then his brothers broke out into howling fits of laughter.

"Goth-boy's talkin' to spirits now!" One of them hollered.

Roy stood up from the table and grabbed Edward's braid, dragging him up the stairs by it. He didn't care how stupid he looked, he was too pissed at the moment.

He opened the trap door and threw Ed onto the pile of quilts.

"Why the hell did you have to do that!?" He screamed at him.

Ed sat up, rubbing the tears from the corners of his eyes.

"That hurts you know!" Was all he said, rubbing the back of his head.

"My whole family thinks im nuts now, are you happy!?" He continued to yell at the blonde.

"What happened to respect for the dead?" Ed snapped back just as quickly.

Thats right...

He was dead.

He was talking to a dead person.

"I really am insane..." He said, storming downstairs and out the door.

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Roy walked alongside the dirt road, cursing under his breath that he'd never even moved. He'd only been walking for a few minutes, but already the house was beginning to look small. The sun was about to go down, and there was nothing to look at. Dead trees, dry soil, and the dirt road. That was about it.

"Hey, Roy-" Roy screamed and jumped suddenly. "Im sorry for that thing at the dinner table, it was pretty stupid."

"It's ok," Roy said, seeming to regain some composure. "I knew a girl just like you at my old school. Almost exactly, I know it's not your fault. You're just short-tempered and don't think before you act." He said with a smile.

"Um...thanks, I think..." Ed said, not really sure about what to say to that.

"She was great," Roy continued. "Now that I think about it, she was exactly like you. She even wore her hair the same way, but it was a darker color. Brownish."

"And you put up with her, right?" Ed said, looking out to the east.

"Yeah. It was a pain sometimes, but overall she was a good kid."

"So...You can put up with me, right?" He asked, his voice sounding like he didn't mean to say it out loud.

Roy stopped walking, watching Ed go on ahead of him for a minute. Why would he say something like that?

"O-Of course I can..."

"Good..." Ed said, still staring off into the distance. The house slowly became smaller and smaller, and Roy wondered what Ed was thinking about.

They walked for a few more minutes before Roy spoke again.

"Ed?"

"Ah?"

"Are you okay? You're not walking straight..."

"Mm..." All of a sudden he made a choking sound and fell to his knees.

"Ed!?" Roy shouted, running over to him. Ed collapsed face-first onto the ground, and Roy rolled him over, panicking.

"Ed? Ed, talk!" He shouted, but there was no answer.

This was not good.

Definitely not good.

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What will Roys parents do? What happened to Ed? Will he be ok? REVIEW!! I have 9 reviews right now, and Im so happy, this fic is gunna be da BOMB. Now REVIEW! They make me warm and fuzzy and hyper inside.