Hello there.
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"Roy! I didn't run off because you wouldn't bring me- I just left early. I told you I was going to catch up with Al and that I couldn't reach him and what if I hadn't left then? Al would still be with our bastard father!"
"You didn't even tell me you were leaving, Edward. I was guessing you'd headed East, but I didn't know for sure. I didn't know if you were going to show up on my desk in a missing person's file or on a death certificate or if an enemy had captured you or if you'd broken your ankle putting too much strain on it or anything! I don't care how angry you are, you tell me where and when you're going somewhere and when you're coming back!"
Roy grabbed Ed's shoulders, leaning down to the blond's eye level.
"Why wouldn't you let me come?" Ed sulked quietly.
"Because the last time I did, you got on everyone's nerves and pissed off a dangerous thug doing something you should have known would get you into trouble!"
"Dolom fi kane," Ed muttered darkly, crossing his arms over his chest. He never saw Roy coming. The Flame whacked Ed over the head repeatedly, alternating hands as Ed cringed away, backing into the wall under the light blows.
Roy grabbed Ed's left wrist and pulled Ed's glove off, transporting Ed's mind to a scene in the past- after his first big lesson in Ishvarlan. The first time Roy had really-. Really punished him. Not just hit him-
"No, Roy!" Ed's voice was shrill as he tried to pull his hand out of Roy's.
"If I have to to get this across, I will."
Ed slid sideways against the wall, crabwalking in the hopes of getting back into open space, but Roy walked with him until he crabwalked himself into a corner.
"The ruler is downstairs. Stay here while I get it and think about your actions, considering how they affect the people around you." Roy knew he was being cruel. He let go of Ed and went downstairs, listening for any sound that might indicate Ed's trying to escape.
Ed slid to the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees. Roy wouldn't really do this again, would he? But he'd gone to get a ruler... Ed hoped none of the personnel downstairs started asking Roy questions. He was fifteen after all and while he wasn't going to say that to Roy because he'd tell Ed to act his age and do it anyway, Ed didn't want anyone else to know he was being punished this way.
Where was Roy? He should have been back by now, right? It would've taken Ed about sixty seconds to get downstairs and back, so where was Roy? Was someone asking questions? Was Roy explaining why he was carrying a ruler arouond and what he was going to use it for? No, he wouldn't. Right? Dammit, where was he? Ed got up off the floor and ventured to the door, but lost his nerve when he touched the knob. Roy had told him to stay put. So he went over and sat on the edge of the bed. He thought he heard some strange noise coming from Al's room but at that moment, Roy opened the door. No longer in his uniform, he was wearing comfy pants and a T-shirt. Ed frowned, wondering why punishment merited a wardrobe change, then peered at Roy. He didn't see a ruler. What the heck?
"Ed."
Ed nodded once.
"I'm..." Roy inhaled, "Not that cruel. But you scared the shit out of me and there will be a price to pay." He picked Ed up by his waist and laid him on his bed, lying down next to the blond.
"Now you're going to have to cooperate, alright? All is not yet forgiven."
Whatever it was, it looked to involve cuddling... Ed was annoyed at Roy for keeping him in such suspense, but cuddling was good...
"Jean will want pictures," Roy warned him. Ed frowned, staring up at Roy's face in the hopes of getting some clarification.
Roy reached into his back pocket and brought out none other than Jean's "Road Rage Helper" bottle. The same one he'd force-fed Ed with after he'd locked him in a janitorial closet.
As it had been the last time, it was filled with chocolate milk but Ed knew without thinking that the color was lighter than it had been the first time.
"Y-" Ed eyed the bottle, "You are cruel!"
Roy put a hand on Ed's other cheek and brought the boy's head closer to his chest.
"But not that cruel."
"There's not as much chocolate," Ed stalled, wriggling in place. He was nervous, of course, but he couldn't really... 'All is not yet forgiven,' that's what he said so... He said I had to cooperate... How mad would he be if I-'
Roy nudged the corner of his mouth with the already body-temperature plastic nipple.
"I know, but it still won't taste like milk. Trust me."
"Did you taste it?" Ed forgot that talking would allow Roy to put it in his mouth.
"Yes. Be quiet." Roy nuzzled the bottle into Ed's mouth, slipping it between his teeth.
"Roy!" Ed pushed it out with his tongue and tugged on Roy's collar in frustration.
"I said be quiet," Roy rebuked softly.
"Why are you- what does this have to do with me- is Jean coming?"
"If I wanted to rationalize this as punishment, I guess I could say that it was supposed to drive home the fact that you're still very young and dependant, but actually I just noticed Havoc carrying it around. In exchange for letting me borrow the baby bottle though, I agreed to let him take a picture. He should be here any minute now, so-" Roy grabbed Ed's hands with one of his hands and pushed the bottle into Ed's mouth, squeezing it gently so a steady stream of chocolate milk came squirting out of it, "Cooperate!" Roy finished his sentence.
"Mm-MM!" Ed squeaked.
"Yes. Hush." Roy moved it against Ed's gum and he swallowed. "Come on, now. It wasn't so bad last time, right? Just relax. The cuter you are, the more incined to forgiveness I'll be," he added wryly as Ed whimpered in partial defeat. He suckled on the nipple for a minute and Roy pressed him close.
Jean opened the door quietly and Ed cried and wiggled in protest as the man snapped several pictures.
"MM!" Ed's cry was very high-pitched, his cheeks very pink. He choked and Roy rolled him onto his side, patting his back while he cleared his airways.
"Hey, Boss?" Jean lowered his camera.
"Mm?" Roy glanced up at him, then back down at Ed who was finished coughing and was burrowing closer to Roy.
"Can I feed him? Please? I didn't really get to last time, remember?"
"No, I've got him," Roy snipped, cuddling his little one with one hand while trying to roll him back onto his back far enough to feed him with the other.
"But-!" Jean was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream of agony and pain from Al's room. The three boys were in the hallway and barging through Al's door faster than you could say:
"THAT. WAS SO AWESOME!!!! EeeeeeeeeeEEEEEK!"
"I KNOW!"
Roy stood there in the doorway, fists trembling with rage.
"Someone had better have died for a scream like that," he rumbled.
"Oh," Fuery laughed. "Sorry. We're watching horror movies."
"Come watch, Big Brother," Al invited from where he was propped up against a pile of pillows on his bed. Ed glanced up at Roy for permission. Roy blew his breath out of his nose intimidatingly and relented. "No more screaming," he warned.
For a few minutes, the three boys managed to keep quiet as Roy and Jean went downstairs to find a very confused Mason milling with the military personnel crowding Roy's living room.
As Roy was properly introducing Mason to Breda, three shrill shrieks of pure terror made the hairs on the back of everyone's necks stand up. Almost everyone in the room stiffened further when Roy yelled, "Shut up! I said enough with the screaming!"
His rebuke was almost immediately overlapped by a lot of screaming and a 'thunk'. He marched up hte stairs and heard Al cooing, "Ed, it's OK," followed by, "I know that!"
Roy reached to knock on the door and all three screamed shrill, little-girl shrieks. Roy jumped back, knocking Mason over, who flailed and smacked Jean. Ed came flying out of the doorway and flung himself against Roy, nuzzling his pale face into Roy's midsection with so much single-minded conviction it bruised.
"Ed, we didn't mean to scare y-..." Fuery forgot what he was saying when he encountered an angry colonel in the doorway.
"No more horror movies." Roy ground his teeth and shuffled Ed off to Jean who picked up his white-as-a-sheet wide-eyed little friend and eyed his shocked face with amusement before carrying Ed baby-style down into the living room where Breda got a good laugh at his expense.
Roy barged into Al's room, past Fuery, to the TV and took out the movie. "I'll return these tomorrow," he said to Al who positively glowed with anger.
"Come on! Put it back in! It's not over yet! Ed doesn't have to watch if he doesn't want to!"
Roy ignored him and Al called him a very rude name on his way out. After the chaos that had erupted last time, though, plus all the screaming and a terrified Edward this time, Roy was fed up with horror movies. It wouldn't kill Al to do without them anyway.
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"Aww, he's hiding from me!" Breda cackled as Ed tried to get between the couch and Jean's back.
"Well you did laugh so hard at him you couldn't breathe," Jean commented.
Breda plopped down right next to Ed on the couch, tickling him under the chin, which annoyed the blond.
"But it was so funny! What were you watching?"
"Dunno," Ed muttered, lifting his head away from Breda's finger. The red-head noticed and kuched Ed more insistently. Ed whacked his hand and Breda frowned.
"No," he said firmly.
"Arf." Ed slapped his hand again.
"No. I mean it, Ed."
"Bite me," Ed said lazily. Breda thumped him on the head and Ed pretended to ignore him, cuddling imperceptibly closer to Jean.
"He's right, Ed. No slapping people," Jean admonished lightly. Ed elbowed him.
"No, Ed," Jean sighed, clearly aware that this was not working. Ed elbowed him and then slapped Breda's hand before it could thump him again.
"NO, Ed!" they both shouted. Ed flinched, staring at the wall. They sighed. Roy stomped down the stairs with two videos in his hand.
"We should figure out sleeping arrangements now. Hawkeye can have the uninhabited guest room, Breda can have Ed's room, Fuery and Falman can sleep on the couch and Jean can sleep on the floor somewhere," Roy assigned them all lazily.
"Hey!" Ed complained
"You can sleep in your brother's room, Ed."
Ed blushed a little.
"Hey..." he sat up a little straighter. "Are those Al's movies?"
"Yes. I don't want those two watching them here, especially while we're supposed to be hiding out."
"Did he let you take them?" Ed asked suspiciously.
"He wasn't terribly pleased."
"You took them, didn't you?! Give them back!" Ed's apparent definition of "took" was more taken-by-force, but Roy understood.
Ed jumped off the couch and tried to grab the rentals out of Roy's hand. The Flame alchemist grabbed Ed by his ear and dragged him upstairs, crying and struggling, to Al's room, pushing him in and shutting the door behind him with gusto.
Both Elrics sulked determinedly and once Ed tried to sneak out and find the movies when he thought Roy was asleep, but the Flame came downstairs after him and began dragging him by his ear again.
"Cut it out, it's not fair!" Ed cried, both hands desperately working at Ro's pinched fingers.
"No horror movies. Don't be a baby, get back in your brother's room and go to sleep." Roy added more pressure to Ed's ear and began pulling again. Ed clutched at Roy's black pajamas, tugging on them as he skittered after Roy.
"Let go! My ear's gonna come off!"
Falman rolled over on the couch and flicked his personal flashlight on.
"Hnn?" he said sleepily.
"It's just Edward. Go back to sleep," Roy said.
"Hnn..." The flashlight flicked off. Roy yanked on Ed's ear to get him moving and pulled him back to Al's room. He shoved Ed in without a word and shut the door again.
Ed was absolutely fuming. He began banging on the walls with his automail fist as he had no pots or pans to bang on and Al did it a few times himself. Then the younger Elric resorted to squeezing his pillow with both hands, muttering darkly, "I'm strangling the colonel, I'm strangling the colonel, I'm strangling the colonel," over and over again.
Ed banged on Breda's wall one too many times in the next twenty minutes and the second lieutenant barged in and grabbed Ed by the braid.
"Settle down!" he barked, "It's after midnight!" He smacked Ed and Al shrieked.
"I said be quiet!" Breda howled. Ed twisted free of his grip and darted into the hallway.
"Roy! He hit me!" he yelled at the man's door. Breda came flying out of Al's room and Ed sprinted down the stairs, Breda on his heels.
"He's picking on me!" Ed zoomed around the couches, waking Fuery and Falman to a very odd scene.
Upstairs, Al wobbled out of his room into the hallway as Roy opened his door.
"Why are you out of bed?" he asked the younger Elric groggily.
"Breda's chasing my brother..." Al looked down the stairs. Ed screeched and overturned some large piece of furniture and Breda roared, "Settle down! Stop running!"
Roy trooped down the stairs and Al very slowly and carefully scooted down them on his rear.
"Heymans!" Roy used his first name to get his attention. Ed flew out from behind the kitchen island and hid behind Roy, grabbing the back of his shirt. Breda skidded to a stop behind Ed and seized him by the waist and Ed screamed in surprise. Breda clapped a hand over his mouth and Ed pried at the man's fingers that were digging into his cheek.
"Why are you doing this to me?" Roy groaned. "Peace, sleep, quiet- please, why do you not afford me such things?" he added very dramatically.
"Well, Mrs. Curtis says never to go to bed angry," Mason came down the stairs.
"Oops," Breda grumbled. "Sorry. Forgot you were sleeping in there, too."
Roy had forgotten that Mason had been in the room Riza was in, so the man had claimed the floor of Breda's or Ed's rather, bedroom for himself.
"So you're telling me that FullMetal is tearing around my house at one thirty AM because he doesn't want to go to bed angry?" Roy glared at Mason.
"Er, ehe, uhm..."
Ed attacked Breda's fingers with both hands and struggled to get away and Breda yelped in pain, Ed's automail proving very effective in removing Breda's hand from his face.
"That hurt!"
Ed gasped for breath, "Not as much as having the bottom half of your face squeezed off!" He looked furious.
"Why were you banging on my wall!" Breda yelled.
"I was pretending it was your face!" Ed yelled back.
"Brother!" Al scolded, his voice straining to be heard. "You were mad at the colonel, not the lieutenant."
Ed blushed.
"You didn't do any damage, did you?" Roy snarled. Ed shook his head, sheepish under the heat of Roy's anger.
"I'm gonna let you guys sort this out..." Mason crept back up the stairs. No one noticed.
"You know, Ed, I thought having your brother here would settle you down a little. I didn't expect it to make you even more immature and bratty," Roy sighed.
"But you took away-"
"I don't want them in my house and it won't hurt him any not to watch them. Especially now that he can actually sleep and have nightmares!"
Ed bit his lip. Roy was right, he realized, Al could get nightmares-
"Oh, please. Brother, don't you dare take his side. Nightmares won't kill me, OK? Besides, I'm not that scared of- What was that? Did you hear something upstairs?"
Ed laughed behind his hands and Roy quirked his lips in amusement.
"I'm serious!" Al whined. "I'm giong up there to see what it is." He marched up out of sight slowly.
"If he screams at Hawkeye," Fuery said, "She'll shoot him."
Havoc cackled quietly.
Al searched Roy's room, the bathroom and then all the guest rooms. His and Ed's were empty, but when he knocked and peeked into the third, Riza and Mason were sitting and talking on the bed, Riza in a blue striped nightgown and Mason wearing no shirt.
"Uhhh..."
"Hello, Alphonse," Riza said calmly.
"Goodnight!" Al squeaked.
"Goodnight," she replied warmly. Al went back to bed.
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Ed continued to look at the stairs, wondering if Al was going to scream and after a minute or two, Jean spoke up.
"I can settle him down, how about letting him sleep with me for the night?"
Ed didn't realize at first that Jean was asking Roy about him.
"If you can let the rest of us get some sleep tonight, be my guest," Roy said. "You won't get any, though."
"We'll see about that." Jean picked Ed up.
"Hey! Hang on, I have to make sure Al's OK," Ed squirmed.
"I'll do it," Roy offered gently. "You can trust me," he reminded Ed. The blond stopped wiggling and looked at Roy closely before biting his lip and nodding.
Jean put Ed in his sleeping bag in the corner of the living room and went upstairs for a minute before coming and squeezing his giant body into the sleeping bag as well, Ed mock-suffocating and dying as he was squished. Jean finally settled in, Ed on his side with his back up against Jean's stomach. It was nice and warm and although Ed was still keeping an ear out for any noise of Al's, he started to relax.
Jean let him begin to doze before implementing his genius plan. He laughed evilly in his head as he prepared his weapon of choice which Roy had hogged so ungratefully earlier. Holding the plastic nipple in the palm of his hand to warm it back to body temperature, he squished Ed more firmly against the zipped side of the sleeping bag to confine Ed's arms, then reached a hand over the boy's body, searching for the kid's mouth with the nipple in the dark.
Ed grunted, slightly less asleep now, but only slightly more awake than he had been before he felt the warm, soft plastic brush his face. Jean blew in his hair to settle him, then nudged the bottle into the corner of Ed's mouth. Ed woke up, groaning in annoyance.
'Not again, what's wrong with these guys?'
Jean squeezed chocolate milk into his mouth and he caught it up with his tongue. Swallowing while lying on your side in a horizontal position can be tricky, but Ed managed the tiny bit of liquid Jean had squirted between his teeth.
"Shh," Jean blew on Ed's hair again, the little blond catching a whiff of cigarette smoke. The lieutenant carefully squeezed the bottle again, determined not to choke his charge. Then he moved the nipple up against Ed's upper gum, pressing lightly at first, then with more force. Ed relented. He knew what Jean wanted, so he opened his mouth and took the plastic between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, sucking at it. Jean cooed quietly and nuzzled Ed with the bridge and tip of his nose, encouraging him. Ed pulled the milk a little faster and pressed back into Jean.
The lieutenant thought Ed was being cute, which was what Ed wanted him to think so he could get far back enough to pull his hands up from where they'd been pinned inside the sleeping bag. He grabbed Jean's wrist and held onto it, gently steadying the man's hand as it held the bottle.
Ed closed his eyes, safe and warm next to Jean.
When Jean pulled the almost empty bottle from Ed's mouth, his little one just shuffled himself to get comfy and sighed, dropping off to sleep as soon as Jean put his arm over his waist, his hand under Ed's slowly beating heart to keep him where he was.
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OMG, was that a CHAPTER?? Wow, haven't seen one of those in a LONG time, eh?? XD