Hello, everyone. My shoulders are KILLING me from typing for... a straight 40 minutes.
Hope you ENJOY the CHAPTER. glares at readers for making her type.
XD XD
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Roy's mouth dropped another few inches, his eyes widening with horror. Ed put his head down so Roy couldn't see his face. The Flame finally understood the extent of Ed's need to rid himself of his father's prescence. It hit Roy like an explosion, rattling his perception of Ed's disdain, anger, disgust and mistrust toward his father.
'Of course... He's just scared of him. Of being hurt by his father again.' Roy could see it in Ed's submissive but stubborn pose, his eyes where no one could see them.
'I wonder what he would have done if I hadn't come out here. I wonder if he's really capable of killing his father.'
Taking advantage of Roy's stunned stupor, Hohenheim bound him to the street with bands of hard, cement-like material, then trapped Edward next to him. Ed gasped, slamming his palms together as soon as he felt the binding traveling around his ankles. He stopped the transmutation, shoving the bands down into the ground. As soon as they were forced back down, six more sprouted from the ground around Ed. The boy yelped in dismay and transmuted them back into the ground. Hohenheim brought up more of them, walking slowly toward Ed, who was beginning to panic. He'd always counted on the speed of his transmutations to save him in battle, but Hohenheim was just as fast and holding a Philospher's Stone. During the next round of transmutations, Ed freed Roy instead of himself, just before his arms were bound to his sides. Roy didn't know what to do- blow Hohenheim up? Kill him? Scare him? He found himself bound again before he could make a move. Ed gasped aloud at his ta ctical error. Now neither of them could free themselves and Hohenheim was only a couple steps from Ed. Both state alchemists struggled vainly as Hohenheim closed the distance between himself and his son. Roy saw Ed go into panic mode, his eyes growing huge and his breath becoming quick and shallow. Hohenheim reached out to touch Ed's face and the younger blond cringed, shutting his eyes tight.
Roy heard Al before he saw the boy. His footsteps were loud and clumsy, his breath almost as loud. He ran up from behind Ed and Roy and glomped his father, stunning Roy, not because he didn't think Alphonse would hug Hohenheim, but because it was such an abrupt change of attitude from Ed's own. Roy had been in such an overprotective, aggressive mindframe that it alarmed him to see Al so close to the man who Roy had perceived to be threatening his FullMetal.
Hohenheim also looked shocked and confused, but in a much milder way. He carefully folded his arms over Al's back and waited for Al to speak. Roy glanced at Ed, who was so shaky with relief that he didn't seem outwardly angry with either his father or brother.
"C'mon, Dad. I want to talk this over, not have you and my brother fight it out." Al excluded Roy from the dispute. "So please come into the house and just give us a chance, OK? Please?"
"Anything for you, my son."
Ed fake-gagged at Hohenheim's use of "my son," and yelled, "Hey! Get us out of here, Al!"
Roy decided Ed must not have been that freaked out about Hohenheim touching him, or Al hugging Hohenheim.
"You have to promise you won't try to hurt Dad," Al countered, turning out of Hohenheim's arms to face his bound brother. Ed clamped his jaw in anger and glanced at Roy.
"Tell him to call off his homonculi," Roy said as if Al were some kind of translator. Alphonse looked up at Hohenheim for an answer.
"I only sent Envy to fetch you in the first place..." he said vaguely.
"Well don't do it again," Ed snapped.
Hohenheim nodded a little and squeezed the stone in his palm, sending Ed's and Roy's confines back into the ground. Ed stepped forward, reaching for Al's shoulder, but Al pulled away and led Hohenheim toward the house by his hand without so much as a backward glance at Ed. Roy put his hand on Ed's back to calm the seething blond, but Ed just walked away from his touch.
That simple gesture evoked more than irritation in Roy. Roy saw Ed walking away from hismelf and after his father. He took a few quick steps to catch up to Ed, then leaned down and wrapped an arm around Ed's chest.
"You'll always have me, no matter what, OK?"
Ed didn't look at him, just hesitated for a moment before nodding and taking a small step forward, waiting for Roy to release him.
---
'Damn it, Alphonse!' Ed didn't even know how Al could brush him off like that. Just step out of his reach and pretend he wasn't there. And all for that good-for-nothing shithead "father" of theirs. He s tomped after Hohenheim and Al, wishing Hohenheim had just died during the transmutation that brought Al's body back. That would have been perfect, Ed decided. Al would have his body back and could think of his father in a wonderful, self-sacrificing light, but Ed wouldn't have to deal with him.
'But no,' Ed thought bitterly, 'he had to come and corrupt Al and threaten Roy and Jean and everyone else.'
He had to bring his homonculi back to Central and terrorize what little peace and safety the city now offered Ed.
Ed heard Roy take three quick steps behind him, and felt the man's arms around him suddenly. Ed had already brushed him off once, not wanting Hohenheim, or even Al, to see him look to Roy for comfort, but now he momentarily surrendered to the embrace.
"You'll always have me, no matter what, OK?"
Ed wanted to hug Roy, to take more comfort from Roy before he had to go inside and face Al, Hohenheim and hte probably-confused-by-now soldiers, but he resisted the urge. Roy's words would have to be enough, he knew. He would have to trust Roy. He nodded to the man and stepped away from him. It was time to face the distant past. And resolve it once and for all.
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"Al! Don't go out there!"
"Ed's trying to kill Dad!"
"No, he's not-"
"He's telling Roy to burn him! Roy wouldn't do it otherwise!"
"Alphonse!" Hawkeye barked, trying to aid Jean.
"Let me go!"
"It's really not safe-." Jean was at a loss for how to keep Al still. He'd expected him to be like Ed; hold him still for long enough and he'd stop trying to escape, at least until you disturbed him again. But the younger brother was far less intimidated by being held. Jean had tried picking him up and hugging him in two different positions, but the blond wouldn't even settle down to the point where Jean could hold him comfortably.
Jean finally just set him down on Breda's advice that maybe he would stop freaking out of Jean let him have some space. Instead, Al ran out the door, slamming it behind him. Jean momentarily forgot to chase him because he started shouting at Breda for having such stupid theories. Then Riza and Breda shouted at him for being so easily distracted that he'd let Al run off. When he opened the door again, Alphonse and Hohenheim were already walking toward him and Roy, with an arm around Ed's shoulders, farther behind.
So Jean just stood there and held the door for the three blonds and the Flame.
---
Al seated Hohenheim on the couch and sat down next to him. When Ed and Roy reached the door, Roy motioned Havoc in before htem and shut the door himself. When he took Ed and sat down on the other couch, opposite to Al and Hohenheim, the various soldiers in the room (plus Mason) quickly sat down whereever they could find a seat. In Breda and Falman's case, that meant on the stairs. For everyone else, it was kitchen chairs or on the floor against the wall somewhere.
Roy would have felt calm, knowing that he was perfectly capable of talking things out with Hohenheim, if Ed wren't so obviously still on the edge of violence. The boy just would not calm down and it set Roy on edge, knowing that if Ed snapped, he'd have to keep him under control.
"I want Edward and Alphonse to come live with me," Hohenheim began calmly. "They're my sons and I've come for them."
Ed stiffened and opened his mouth. Roy elbowed him, replying, "They've been living with me for quite some time now. It's what they're used to and I think that it should be completely up to them wehre they live and who they live with." When Roy was done, he gave Ed a stern look, trying to warn him off blowing up at Hohenheim like he'd just been about to do. Ed glared back.
"Edward won't give me a fair chance if the choice is left up to him."
"You don't deserve a fair chance," Ed mouthed off. Roy elbowed him again and Ed elbowed him back.
"There's a difference between what one person thinks is fair and what another does. If you really want Ed to live with you, maybe you should try to be more persuasive and less forceful. Maybe actually try to earn his respect," Roy said, ignoring Ed's elbow. Ed glanced up at Roy's face to see what it betrayed. A moment ago, he'd been certain that Roy's voice had gone a bit bitter and Ed wondered if it wasn't because Roy had had such a hard time getting Ed to respect and trust him and he thought Hohenheim was being a slacker.
"Where do you live?" Roy asked after a moment. "If you want the Elrics to live with you, you need to occupy a suitable residence for children to live in."
Hohenheim just shrugged.
"I live whereever I want to live whenever I want to live there. I can use alchemy to raise a house whereever I want one."
"And that's your idea of a suitable residence?" Roy raised his eyebrows. Hohenheim's face flickered in irritation.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
Roy fought with himself for a moment, his anger at Hohenheim for trying to steal his "adopted" little one, especially after hurting Ed, winning out over his need to keep the conversation calm and reasonable.
"Unstable parental supervision..." Roy said, as if making a simple suggestion and leaving it wide open, even though he was really making a direct accusation.
"Hey," Al snapped, "that's not fair, Roy."
"What's not fair?" Ed cut in.
"Calling him unstable!"
"Well he is!"
"Ed-" Roy warned.
"I am not unstable!" Honenheim balled up his fists.
"Really? Are you sure?" Ed was getting louder now.
"Don't talk to me that way! I'm your father!"
"You all need to calm down-" Riza tried to cut in.
"Maybe if Ed stopped being such a bastard-" Al's shout stoked the flame of Ed's anger and both brothers shot to their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs.
"Don't call me that! I'm your brother and I'm just trying to look out for you!"
"I don't want you to! Why can't you give him a chance!"
"I'll never forgive him, Al! You can't ask me!"
"Settle down," Hohenheim said, putting a hand on Al's shoulder. The blond boy immediately turned on him.
"I'm defending you! And I'm doing a hell of a lot better at it than you were!"
"See, Al? He's a bastard!"
"Language, Ed! Calm down, we get it!" Roy yelled to be heard.
"You shut up! You don't even care if he takes Al and me away!"
Al and Hohenheim continued screaming at each other, but Roy and Ed were suddenly both deadly quiet, eyes locked. Roy's body shook for a moment, then calmed. The Flame turned to Hohenheim and Al, who had noticed the stand-off next to them and were staring.
"Edward and I need a moment alone. Please excuse us," Roy said tightly. He took Ed by the shoulders and propelled him toward the stairs, not getting more than three feet before Ed dug in his heels and told Roy, "No, I'm not-"
Roy shoved him forward.
"You just-"
Roy dragged him up the first stair.
"Why do you have to-"
Roy hauled Ed up eight stairs in one swift jerk, while holding Ed's wrist and the pair disappeared up onto the second floor, Ed's protests having become much quieter, if not all-together ceasing.
Hohenheim turned to Al, asking, "What will he do?"
Al knew "he" was Roy, but he was almost as clueless as Hohenheim. "I don't know." Al glanced at Havoc. He suspected the blond lieutenant had a clearer idea of what Roy's intentions were, but Jean only gave him a tight-lipped, denying glare in return. The silence became awkward.
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I know it was a slightly short chapter, but I think there should be less of a wait between chapters this time.