Chapter Text
“The problem is my brother—he just doesn't seem to get it. I'm busy, working two jobs just to get by, but he seems to think the answer to all my problems is to put more on my plate! Get a cat this , start a little league that . There's no more room in my life for bullcrap, but every spare weekend I get where I think I might finally be able to relax? He shows up on my stoop like, hey Marge! Wanna go on a hike? And next thing you know I'm halfway up a mountain dehydrated, cranky, and ten bucks out on trail mix, but he thinks he's gone and done me a favor!”
It’s Friday. 6:53 pm. Partly cloudy. His coffee is cold, the weather is cold, hell, just about everything about today has been as frigid and slow moving as a rabbit in a snow-storm.
Ed drags a hand down his face and pulls the mic closer to him. “Marge, let me get this straight. Your brother, having decided on his own what is best for you, is pushing those decisions on you, without any concern for whether they actually fit into your life or not?”
The phone crackles with a sigh of relief. “Yes!”
“And it’s making you feel like you have no control over your own life? Like your sole purpose is to cater to his whims?”
“Yes, ohhh yes yes yes! Exactly like that!”
“And, Marge. One last question. What… exactly… does this have to do with today’s topic of the true costs of recycling or, you know, science in general? ”
“Well, I was hoping that you’d tell me how to get him to stop.”
He turns his head to gape incredulously at Rose through the pane separating the booth from the producer’s studio. Like, seriously? This is what she’s putting him through? But she doesn’t respond with more than a shrug before she holds up her wrist and taps it urgently. Running out of time already? Well, it’s no wonder when you schedule a windbag for a call-in. He’ll have to talk to her after.
“Listen, Marge. Thank you so much for calling in—” His teeth are gritted as he says it, damn these radio niceties— “But we’re almost out of time here and this? Is really not my area of expertise. Our network has a call-in psychiatric program on during the day that you may be more interested in, but as someone with a brother, I’ve often found that firmly saying ‘no’ gets me out of things that I don’t want to do.”
There’s a soft “But—” that Rose cuts off with the switchboard, and he’s in the clear.
“That’s it for the show today! It’s been a great time here on Truth Talk, I’ll see you all again on Monday, but be sure to check out our weekend programming! We have a,” he glances down at the powder-pink flier that was left in the booth, “radio special with Diane and Levi at two tomorrow, where they’ll be talking about the cupcake bakery storm that has overtaken Seattle, with special guest Laura Miller from Alki’s very own Miller Cup-Bakery. It’s sure to be a real treat. Once again this is Dr. Edward Elric and Rose, KERO 900 Seattle talk radio, turning the time over to the hourly news and weather report.”
He's through Rose’s door before she even has time to take off her headphones.
“Ed, hold on—”
“What was that? Like, actually. Honestly. I would really, really like an explanation for why I just had to end my science news and talk radio show by placating a woman with no spine instead of answering someone’s honest questions about how the world around them works. Please. Tell me.”
Rose sucks in a breath through her teeth and looks off to the side. Classic Rose maneuvers for when she knows the answer, but also knows you won't like it. She's empathetic that way. A little bit naive, but good people, and a well-connected radio producer. Just… cares too much about what other people think. People like him, whose tempers sometimes get away from them and then trample all over the poor things egos.
“She was really, really insistent, Ed.”
“Most people who think they're right are,” he responds dryly.
She wrings her hands and starts to gather up her papers, busying herself as she deliberates over the best way to deliver her explanation. He, on the other hand, doesn't really give a shit what the explanation is as long as he gets it, and soon. Work wasn't just the one hour that he was gracing the people of Seattle’s earholes, after all.
“Your ratings have been slipping,” she says, and he bristles. “I did some digging… And people think it's funny when they get your show mixed up, and you get angry. So… I thought I would set the stage a little bit here and there. Start letting people slip in. Kind of like a fun, running joke. He's a doctor, but not that kind!” She does this little pose at the end of it that would actually be kind of cute if his head wasn’t swimming.
He moves further into the producer’s booth, shutting the door behind him. “Rose, how much have the ratings slipped?”
“Um, it’s not that bad, really! I mean, talk radio has been on a downward slide for years now, this is nothing unexpected, and I’m sure if we stay positive and put those thoughts into the world, we’ll make it through this. One-hundred-percent. It’s probably just a seasonal…” she blathers on and on, and it’s everything Ed can do to stay focused on rolling the bead of his bracelet between his fingers.
“Rose. I don’t do thoughts and prayers. What are the numbers?”
“Look, the numbers won’t matter if we just—”
“Rose.” he repeats, insistent.
“... Fourteen-point-eight percent, if you count this week.”
The words hit him like ballast. “Fourteen-point…? And you didn’t think this was important for me to know?”
“Edward, that’s not what I--”
“No, right, sure. You’re an omniscient radio producer and you know best, so why bother telling me— or, hell! Why bother asking for my permission to pull stunts like staging bad callers? I’m just a puppet on strings for you to jerk around, right!?”
“Ed—” Rose attempts, looking over his shoulder and gripping her folders so hard it whitens her knuckles. He doesn’t care, though.
“But I guess it doesn’t fucking matter anyway, because— goddamn— fourteen-point-eight?! I’ll be lucky if I still have this job on Monday! What were you thinking!?”
“I was thinking that maybe I’d like to have a job too, Ed!” She spits back, finally moving to get in his face about it. “You’re not the only one this affects, numbskull! When you do poorly, I do poorly! So excuse me for doing the best I can with a handful of crap—”
“Hey, you guys done?”
Rose and Ed turn toward the door, where the switchboard jockey for the next segment leans dully against the doorframe, black hair stuffed under a ratty Mariners cap and chewing bubblegum. Her eyes skirt them up and down. The bubble she was blowing pops.
“Not that I’m not like, suuuper into you two working out whatever it is you’ve got going here. It’s just that I would also prefer to have a job? And I can’t, like… do that until you guys move.”
Ed has the bead between his fingers again, spinning, spinning.
Rose collects herself quickly, of course. All professionalism and poise the moment she needs to be someone other than herself. “Sorry, Lan Fan. We were just leaving.”
He’s so pissed. Who does Rose think she is? They have a partnership. She promised. Day one, he said wasn't going to be anyone’s dog or puppet or mouthpiece. Sure, he would advertise the other programs, just as they advertise for him. Equivalent exchange, as it were. Maybe some ads for products he really believes in, here or there. He isn't so completely anti-establishment he can't recognize he lives in a capitalist society. That's the whole game. Rose agreed, said she'd do as much as she could. And today, she proved how much she really could.
He just expected a little more integrity. A little more transparency. The name of the whole damn segment is Truth Talk , after all. And he can't in good nature say he's doing that if someone is rigging the game behind his back.
The cold wind off the Sound whips his hair around his cheeks as he exits the radio station and starts making his way to the parking lot two blocks away. It's past eight, now. Usually he'd stay till ten, soaking up the productivity his night owl nature afforded him by chewing through science journals and studies to prep for the next show. But knowing you might not have a show come next week… It's a little disheartening.
He knows he's being a little dramatic, okay? Of course there's more steps to this than just showing up without a job on Monday. First it starts with a time slot move, and then another. Suddenly your audience doesn't know where or when to find you. Then there are apologies, explanations, and behind closed doors, admonishments. ‘We give you the privilege of making us money!’ they’ll say. ‘How dare you not jump through every hoop we place, each one higher than the other?’ And then you're working three times as hard for half as much, before you disappear altogether.
The sad thing about it is that he didn't even like this job when he first started. He figured it was something to fill the time before he finally got hired to do something, anything great. But then the letters came in. Validation that he wasn't just rambling on-air, he was convincing people. Changing their minds. Helping kids who didn't understand their teachers, teaching parents who didn't believe their kids. The attention and power a microphone afforded you was downright addicting, and its absence in his life had become unfathomable.
He unlocks his phone, and hisses at the alerts.
Three missed calls from Al, two texts. One missed call from Luke, no texts. He meant to check earlier, but Rose had him so heated and… Dammit.
It's not midnight yet on the East Coast, he rationalizes, as he ignores Al’s texts and dials Luke instead.
One ring.
Two ring.
Three ring.
He almost gives up, because duh, of course he’d already be asleep, or with his friends, or doing something wild and crazy, it's Friday night after all—
“Dad?” A small, crackly voice asks, and Ed can literally feel his heart light up like a goddamn Christmas tree.
“Hey bud! I saw you called, and I just wanted to check in since you don't usually call me outside our weekly chat?” he patters, trying to rein in his excitement.
“Uh… Yeah. I was trying to call Damien earlier. Sorry… I didn't think it had enough time to go through.”
Great job, Edward Elric. Make your kid feel like he did something wrong by calling you. “No! I mean, it's cool! It's okay! I was just in the middle of work, so I missed it! You know you can call me anytime, right?”
“Yeah, Dad… I know.”
Another heavy beat of non-conversation passes by.
“So… is Damien a friend, oorrr...?”
“Ugh, Dad .”
“Hey! I’m a parent! I have a right to ask totally annoying and invasive questions!” he jokes, but Luke is quiet. Or maybe talking to someone else in the room? It’s hard to tell over the wind.
“... He’s a friend,” he finally answers, and the phone crackles with a sigh. “I’m tired.”
Ed threads his fingers in and out and around the keyrings in his pocket. “Right. I should let you go back to sleep. Be good for your mom, okay?”
“I will.”
“Talk to you tomorrow?”
“Sure. Night.”
“Sweet dreams, kiddo.”
His son hangs up first, and he’s left with the craven hole in his chest that can only come from having an interaction go way more south than you anticipated. Rationally speaking, there are so many other factors to why he’d be so short with him, desperate to end the call. It’s late, he probably had a friend over, he might be stressed about school, the call was unanticipated… But emotionally, irrationally, just a teensy, tiny bit, he wonders what he could have done to make it better, or if they aren’t as close as he thought, or if he really is too far away to be an effective father, or...
He reaches the parking lot, nothing but a gravel ditch with a ticket machine perched on the side, and wrestles his keys into his beat-up old camry. He just needs to get out of this wind. Then he can think clearly.
The moment the car door shuts the air goes still around him, but his thoughts only seem to get louder. Rose betrayed you, your son hates you, there’s nothing to blame but yourself, you’re trapped, trapped, trapped...
He grips the bridge of his nose and starts the car. Maybe gritty guitars and hoarse vocalists on the radio can drown out his shitty-thought monologue on the way home.
Home, in his case, is his two-bedroom share of a triplex in some part of Seattle he tells other people is Ballard.
Some part of him feels like this Ballard is a shell, with a historic look but none of the vibrance he remembers. One part of it might be that he’s old now. The other might be that Seattle’s increasingly lucrative real estate market invited gentrification, drove up rent, and outpriced most of the locals that ever gave it that vibrance in the first place. It’s hard to see any of the influence of Norwegian immigrants when the closest any of these people have ever been to the culture is a mjolnir tattoo on their bicep.
He tries not to dwell on it too much outside of drunken rants. The problem is systemic, and all dwelling does is convince him he’s been complacent about the problem by renting a piece of triplex he can barely afford on a modest salary.
"... After this commercial break, we have an interview with New York Times best-selling author, psychologist, and renowned philosopher, Dr. Va—"
He turns the radio off (it wasn't really helping to distract him anyway) and turns the corner to his street.
The triplex itself isn’t much to look at. The tree out front is neither overgrown nor trimmed, what little patch of land it has that manages to be called a garden is well-kept but certainly not manicured, and the paint is starting to get that Seattle creep on it, making the house look way shabbier than it really is.
And what it is is pretty good, actually. Not too far from work, within walking distance of a good Creole food joint, and Russell, the guy he shares walls with, is mostly the quiet and studious type. Mostly being the key word. He’s out smoking on the front balcony when Ed pulls up, and they exchange a courteous nod as he starts climbing the steps.
Russell’s triplex is in the middle, and it’s clear from seeing it that most of the garden work around the place must be his doing. His piece of the balcony is cluttered from ceiling to stoop with every kind of basket and pot of plant imaginable. White daisies poking out of winter’s brown straws, early purple crocuses, evergreen ivies that cascade from their baskets and spin themselves around the guardrails in a dark green curtain… And those are just the ones Ed can remember by name. Even his ashtray is shaped like a lotus or something.
There’s a part of Ed that admires how frankly remarkable it is that he can keep track of so many things and keep them healthy, and another part that would be horrified if it found out there was somehow more inside. How does he make it through allergy season?
“Don’t you look glad to be alive,” Russell drawls smoothly as Ed walks past, blowing sour, skunky smoke out the side of his mouth, then pursing his lips for another drag. One deep blue eye scours him, the other hidden behind a swoop of wheat-straw hair.
He grimaces and veers wide on his way past. It’s not like Russell isn’t allowed to smoke on the balcony, but a contact high is the last thing he needs right now. He’s already anxious. “Tough day at work,” he explains, fishing in his pocket for his keys, which he just had , but has somehow lost in the 45 seconds it takes to get here from his car.
Russell hums thoughtfully, holding the smoke in his mouth for a moment. “Interesting. Here I thought you'd been the most entertaining today than you have been in awhile. People have been saying you've been losing your edge, and I was about to agree with them."
The world pauses itself around him. "Not everyone agrees with them. I need to appeal to a wide audience."
"You're the professional," Russell deflects. "I don't need to make your night worse, Ed. It's about to do that on its own."
Ed turns to stare indignantly at Russell, because who the fuck in their right mind says something cryptic like that to their neighbors, but the bastard won’t turn to face him. Too lost in staring up at the sky, like he’ll see anything past the cloud cover or light pollution. He gives it up, finally finding that metallic knot he calls a key ring, and looking up to also find a page protector taped to his door, a white sheet of paper folded inside.
It doesn’t register as immediately important to him. He plucks it off the door and wiggles the key in the lock until it turns, with more pressing concerns like the scratching at the door.
He is assaulted by a writhing mass of black fur the moment his foot is through the door, blocking his way and demanding ear scratches, ear scratches, oh god please ear scratches! as toll. The world’s most wonderful toll.
Whatever had been haunting him leaves itself at the door, because he just can’t not grin at the world’s wiggliest dog weaving herself between his knees and smacking her rudder-like tail against the wall, making it difficult to get much farther into the apartment. Her tongue finds its way on all his fingers as he tries to pet her into submission, but all that does is switch the problem from her being everywhere to leaning on his prosthetic at an awkward angle.
“Okay, okay girl— come on— Moony! Off!”
She backs off, careening herself toward the couch to thrash a stuffed raccoon instead, which is fine by him, because it’s not right under his feet. He dumps his keys in the dish by the door and shrugs off his jacket, throwing it on the table as he idly wanders into the kitchen, unfolding the sheet of paper with one hand and grabbing at the stuffed raccoon toy with the other as Moony pushes it into his palm. She’s such a good dog. He loves her so much.
He takes a moment to vaguely play tug with her while he reads the page.
… And then another moment when he’s sure he read it wrong.
… And then he tosses the raccoon down the hall, getting Moony out of his space so he can angrily storm right back out the door.
Russell doesn’t move an inch to get out of his way, and he swears he can hear a soft “There it is,” as he stomps past and down the balcony.
He stops at the third door of the triplex and raps the door with a balled up fist, loud and clipped. “Hey!! Get out here, you old hag!!” he shouts, peering through the doorside window, then slamming his fist against the door again. “I can see your lights are on! I’ve got something to settle here, and I’m not leaving until I get to talk to you, Dante! I’ll keep you up all night you sanctimonious piece of shit, I’ll goddamn do it, I’ve got nothing else going on tonight, and—!!”
The door swings open to reveal a woman in at least her seventies, gray hair pulled back in a bun and a scowl like vinegar. “Pipe down, Elric. I get enough noise complaints about you. What could you possibly want this late at night?”
He shoves the piece of paper in her face, forcing her to step back a little. “What the fuck,” he growls, “is this?”
She takes a moment to glance at the paper, then back at him. “I believe it is the notice I taped to your door earlier this afternoon, though a bit more crumpled,” she responds cooly, her demeanor infuriatingly unshakeable, while he stands in front of her absolutely trembling with rage.
“This is illegal. You can’t raise my rent like this.”
“I certainly can’t. This? This was a courtesy, intended to keep you from knocking down my door in the middle of the night. The actual notice should be coming through the post sometime tomorrow. Pesky red tape, and all that.”
His jaw drops. “Still, you can’t raise my rent by—!!”
She holds up a hand. “I think you’ll find that not only am I able to, but that it is well within my rights as your landlord to do so.”
God, he wants to put a fist in her face. He wants to knock that smug, passive mask she wears to the ground, and show her that she’s not nearly as invincible as she thinks she is. The bead on his bracelet is long forgotten at this point, and it’s really a miracle he acknowledges at all that knocking an old lady flat on her ass would be a ginormously bad look in this state. “What the hell am I supposed to do then, huh? Tell me that!”
“Frankly, Edward, I don’t care what you do.” She motions as if she’s wiping away a fleck of spit from her cheek. “Find new roommates, take a second job, sell smack on the street. It doesn’t make much of a difference to me. Simply, it is an immutable fact that unless you can pay me what I am owed, however that may be, you will no longer live here.”
His mouth goes dry, his rage fizzling out as he realizes his position in this situation. A position he desperately doesn’t want to acknowledge he’s in. He… can’t not live here. He can’t. “There is no way this place is worth this much,” he tries, the growl in his voice weaker.
It’s subtle, but the lady’s like a fox hunting prey, and he can see the barest hint of a smirk quirk her cheek. “You may believe that, and take your opinion with you when I free up your residence for a new tenant who agrees with me instead.”
“I’m…” He licks his lips. “Give me a little more time, I can…”
She shakes her head. “Two months is already quite enough.”
“Then let me—”
“This is not negotiable, Edward,” she interrupts. “Either you make adjustments to your life that allow you to remain here under this new price, or you vacate my property. And I would recommend you leave my doorstep before I force you to do the latter, in any case.”
“But—”
“Good night, Edward Elric.”
“I could—”
“I said good night .”
The wreath of twigs surrounding two painted, wooden blue birds on her door swings a little as she… not quite slams the door shut. She still manages a note of finality in it though, and he doesn’t quite know what to do with it. Listless, he walks back across the balcony to stand next to Russell, leaning his elbows on the railing. The still-smoldering joint enters his vision, but he bats it away. He needs to think. He needs to think. Think, damn it.
They stand there silently together, the night-time chill seeping into his bones through his hoodie, chilling him from rage to craven despair. He fills the void with endless calculations on wages and time, exactly how much more he would have to make to stay, places he could potentially cut the fat in his lifestyle… but none of it amounts to what he now needs.
Russell claps him on the shoulder and leaves, ducking into his own apartment. It’s probably getting late. God, he needs to get out of his head before he spends the night out here.
He takes out his phone and dials Winry, numbly pleased when she picks up after the second ring.
“Hey, Win. Chinese sound good for dinner tonight?”