Ritsuka!

Roy had to hold Soubi down physically to stop him. He had suddenly tried to leap out of bed with no warning, broken nose and overall bad shape notwithstanding. "Edward! Come help me, damn it!"

Ed came running in, quickly surveyed the scene, and was soon sitting on Soubi's torso restraining him, his metal hand pressed to his bare chest. He threw a sharp glance at Roy. "What the hell?" His attention was immediately directed back to Soubi, however. "Hey! Don't you try that Fighter voodoo shit on me! It wont work: I'm an alchemist, not some brainless idiot you can mindfuck like that! Roy, make him stop!"

Roy put himself bodily in between Ed and Soubi, trying to block the psychic attack. "SOUBI. Listen to me. We are trying to help you. You are going to hurt yourself. Please stop."

Soubi would have none of it, however. He latched onto Ed's right arm with both hands, eyes flashing like some kind of crazed demon. Edward let out a terrible cry and came crashing down to the floor. Meanwhile Soubi shoved Roy hard, jumped off the bed, then proceeded to exit the apartment immediately via the sliding glass door of the bedroom.

Roy put his head in his hands. What the fuck was that? He did not have much time for contemplation, however, because Edward suddenly let out another horrible scream. How is it that he's still being attacked…?

He rushed over to where Ed lay sprawled out on the floor, twitching like an epileptic, clutching his right arm with an extremely panicked look splayed across his features. There was a funny smell in the air that Roy recognized with horror as the acrid scent of burning flesh. "Fullmetal!" Not knowing what else to do, Roy climbed on top of him and put both his hands on his shoulders, trying to stop him from jerking around. He immediately had to retract his hand from Ed's right shoulder as a jolt of electricity shot through him like lightning. Son of a bitch…!

Roy didn't give up: he tackled Ed to the ground, throwing his entire body weight on top of him. Violent shocks wracked his body, but he forced himself to maintain contact. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried desperately to focus. Electrical current is just fire in another form. Fire must obey me. Fire must obey me… Images of the mechanics and circuitry inside Edward's automail flashed into his mind as he willed the electrical current running haywire through it to flow down and out. Wrapping his leg around the metal bedpost, he steeled himself to pull the electrical energy from Edward's body like a magnet, run it through his own, and then direct it out.

The effort completely exhausted him, and he lay panting on top of his Sacrifice for several seconds. He was immensely relieved to feel Edward moving underneath him, mumbling, "Get. the. fuck. off. me. you. bastard."

Roy pulled himself up gingerly, wincing. He looked over at Ed, still lying prone on the floor. "Hit me, will you?"

"What?"

"Right now, with your metal fist. Come on, I'm giving you the shot of a lifetime, here."

"...what the fuck… are you saying? I can hit you any time I… damn well… please…" Bemused, Ed swung his right arm in Roy's direction. He immediately regretted it, however, as he became acutely aware of the nasty burns and blisters surrounding his automail port. "You prick. You did that just to cause me pain."

Roy smiled grimly. No, I did it to make sure your nerves were still connected. He had been seriously worried that he'd removed the electrical impulses from the automail entirely. "Why don't you try kicking me, while you're at it."

Ed had wised up by that time and kicked out with his right leg instead, but he found that he didn't have much energy even for that. Roy grabbed it and pulled. "Ow, you bastard, quit it!" It worked; the other leg came up, and he noticed Ed wincing again, but the injury didn't seem as bad as the one on his arm. Roy breathed a sigh of relief. At least both of his limbs are still working.

"Mind telling me what the fuck just happened?" Ed growled, sitting up slowly.

"You got zapped. Apparently it's some kind of Fighter offensive technique I wasn't aware of." Roy scooted over and started taking off Ed's shirt to check the damage.

"I meant why did Pretty Boy just go fucking psycho on us? Ow! What the fuck are you doing, that hurts!"

"Quit whining, Fullmetal!"

"I will not! First you're jumping on top of me, now you're undressing me… What do you think this is, some kind of porno flick?"

"I have to get this off of you so we can dress your wounds properly. It's standard military protocol."

"Fuck standard military fucking protocol - OUCH!!"

Roy had finally managed to get Ed's shirt all the way off. Angry red sores were blistering all around the area where metal joined flesh. It looked excruciatingly painful. "Edward…"

"WHAT?"

"Just... sit there, okay? I'm going to get the first aid kit."

"You didn't answer my question!" Ed yelled after him. "What the hell is going on with Soubi? You didn't even tell me what happened last night after we got home; we just went to bed! Quit leaving me in the dark, goddamnit!"

Roy returned quickly with the first aid kit, a bowl of lukewarm water and some towels. He's putting up a good front, but I know that's gotta hurt like hell. Roy sat down carefully next to Edward, dipping a soft washcloth into the wooden bowl.

"I will tell you what I know. I don't think Soubi is always aware of his immediate surroundings. He has flashbacks that are pretty severe. Who knows who he thought we were or what he thought we were trying to do to him." Roy paused. "Edward. This is going to hurt. Hold onto me."

Ed braced himself against Roy with his left arm, squeezing his eyes shut. As Roy applied the wet cloth to the burn, Ed cried out and gripped him tightly. "Fuck!" he growled through gritted teeth.

"It's all right. Just breathe." Roy pressed as gently as he could against the wounds, but he knew it was the cooling of the burn that hurt the most, not the pressure. Ed was crushing his forehead tightly to Roy's chest, quietly hyperventilating, clutching his upper arm like a sharp-taloned hawk.

"I'm going to have to ask you to lift your right arm. It might be better if we removed it until…"

Edward's head shot up. "NO!" Eyes smoldering like hot coals glared at Roy.

"Okay, okay, bad idea, forget I said anything. Just lift your arm, all right? Here, prop it up on my shoulder…" He should have known: all the automail veterans Roy was acquainted with were extremely sensitive about their prosthetic limbs. They didn't even like anyone touching them apart from their automail engineers, much less someone trying to remove them for any reason. Roy knew Ed's right arm had been lost or severely damaged in battle on numerous occasions and that he felt extremely vulnerable without it.

Still, it'd be a lot easier to bandage it that way. It had been an ongoing concern of Roy's since they had gotten stuck here, what they would do if something went wrong with Ed's automail. He sure as hell didn't know anything about fixing it, and he doubted there was anyone in this world who did, even if they were able to risk telling someone about it. Just another reason why we need to find a way to get the hell out of this godforsaken place, the sooner the better.

Unwinding strips of gauze, Roy began to wrap up Ed's shoulder as best he could. "Edward, I need you to let me know if this is healing properly. Don't lie to me and pretend it's okay. Electrical shock often causes more internal injuries than external. If something goes wrong with this arm…"

"I get it, okay? I've been a gimp most of my life, I know how fucking serious it is."

"Ed…"

"Forget it. You didn't finish telling me about Post Traumatic Pretty Boy. Did he tell you anything last night about what happened to Ritsuka?"

The casual way Ed threw out that insult rankled Roy more than a little, but as Ed had serious reasons to be pissed at Soubi at the moment, he let it slide. "As far as I could gather from him – he was still somewhat incoherent, and not everything he said entirely made sense to me – this man in black showed up and demanded that Soubi hand Ritsuka over. When Soubi refused – which I am to understand was a really big deal – the guy hit him and took Ritsuka anyway."

"Wait, what? What do you mean, a big deal? Why wouldn't he refuse? Are you telling me that Soubi went down in one punch? Why didn't he fight harder? He just fucking fried the shit out of me for disturbing his goddamned beauty sleep!"

"Well, think about it like this," Roy continued, tying up the bandages as gently as he could. "If Alphonse had shown up and demanded that I surrender you, he probably could've taken me out with one sucker punch. I certainly wouldn't have been expecting it."

"Al could take you out with one punch anyway."

"Not if I dodged."

"No way. I can't even dodge Al. You wouldn't have a chance in hell, old man."

"Anyway, we are obviously missing some information here, but if I were to speculate, I'd say that Soubi must have had a close relationship with Ritsuka's older brother."

"What, they were fucking?"

"Someone has their mind in the gutter today, hmm? No, I was thinking more that they were Fighter and Sacrifice."

"What?? Soubi had a different Sacrifice? But I thought if you were made into a Fighter-Sacrifice pair it was like, one partner for life, forever and always?"

"How touching, Edward. I had no idea you felt that way. I think you might make me blush."

"Goddamnit, not us, you asshole! I meant for them. I thought they were life-bonded, Ritsuka and Soubi."

"Apparently not. Soubi told me once that they do not share the same name, but he didn't elaborate. The way he was talking about Seimei last night… it was in that same devoted-slave voice he usually reserves for Ritsuka. I think they might have been paired before he died, and then he ended up with Ritsuka, somehow, maybe because they were brothers."

"Wasn't there anything about this shit in those books that I ordered you to read?"

"No, that's what's strange. The books all seem to indicate that partners are life-bonded, just like you said. I don't know what to make of it."

Ed put his left hand to his forehead. "Great. So now what?" Roy was silent. "What? What are you thinking?"

"I'm trying to think about how to get you to take off your pants without you ordering me to go fuck myself, in which case you will probably sabotage yourself, ignore the problem, and get gangrene. Then I'll have to drag your one-legged ass back to Amestris and we'll both get hit in the head with a wrench trying to explain to Winry how it was that neither one of us managed to take proper care of your automail."

"Damn it, you really are a royal pain in my ass, do you know that?"

Roy smirked. "Just lose the pants."