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Ed isn’t sure what wakes him up. Typically, he’s a heavy enough sleeper that as soon as he’s out, he’s practically dead to the world— but his rest has only gotten more restless the more nights they spend out on the run.
It’s still the middle of the night. He wouldn’t be surprised if he’d only slept for less than an hour, the moon is still high in the sky, bright and round. Ed is an alchemist, he knows a perfect circle when he sees one.
That’s the second full moon he’s seen since they ran into Ling— Greed— it was Ling first, then Greed took over, and Ed has only seen Ling as many times as the full moon has shone through those clouds.
There are no clouds tonight. The stars twinkle like someone scattered shards of glass as fine as the grains of sand they were melted from across the blacker-than-black blanket of the night sky, each of them shining brilliantly. For a second, Ed forgets himself, looking up at the night sky. He missed being able to see the stars like this-- there are too many artificial lights in East city or Central, they make the stars run and hide. But like this, out in the middle of nowhere, there are more than Ed remembered there being. It reminds him of home, before it wasn’t his home anymore; before he forfeited the right to it.
A rustle in the bushes beyond the clearing they had camped out in snatches his attention back to the present, and he remembers that he didn’t mean to be awake right now. With a low grunt, he sits up, looking at the two chimera men slumbering on the ground a few metres from his. Accounted for. He looks to his other side, and sees only cold, hard earth where, before he closed his eyes, there had been a homunculus in the shape of his friend lying.
Ed wishes he had been willing to call Ling his friend while he still really had the chance.
Standing, Ed ventures off into the woods in the direction of the shivering bushes. He pulls his jacket closed tighter around him. They’re far enough south that the autumn brings little more than a frosty chill, but it’s still colder than what he’s used to. He breaks through the other side of the tree line in less than a minute, and what he sees there has him freezing in place, his breath caught in his throat.
Black coat and white shirt that have gotten dirty and dusty enough to nearly turn them the same shade of gray are spread out on the rocks next to a shallow but swiftly moving river, exposing the expanse of muscled, faintly silver-scarred back to Ed’s view, already pale skin turned shining and silver under the full moon’s light. The figure leans down, kneeling on the rocks, shaking their long hair out of its ponytail, the midnight dark strands standing starkly out against their moon-white skin, like bold strokes of ink dripping and spilling around their fingers. Quickly, because the water must be freezing, they dip their hair to the roots in the river, washing it to the best of their ability with efficient, broad movements of their hands through the strands.
They move as fluidly as the river below them does, with a grace and elegance that Greed does not possess in favour of his more brash, bigger, louder movements. Ed’s lungs tighten and he steps closer, moving away from the trees towards the prince, his eyes wide.
“Ling?” He asks quietly, kicking himself at how hopeful he sounds. The prince doesn’t jump or startle at the sound of his voice even though he would have sworn he was being stealthy, so he must have already sensed him there. He raises his head, dripping water, and turns to look at Ed.
His eyes are closed and there’s a small, soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He reaches up to pull his wet hair back over his other shoulder, and the red ouroboros mark on the back of his hand looks almost black in the night, marring Ling’s skin, and for a second, the reminder of it makes a flash of anger light up in Ed’s chest. He thinks it’s vile, he thinks it’s perverse, Ling’s head has become his own prison and it’s--
It’s not fair.
But the rage vanishes as fast as it comes, as soon as Ling opens his eyes.
“It’s too distracting; all the lights and colours and everything, there’s just too much of all of it.” Ling had once explained why he prefers to move through the world with his eyes closed, why he prefers to instead focus on reading the flow of energy through the land and all the people that walk it, instead of getting overstimulated by sight.
But he opens his eyes and looks at Ed, and Ed’s heart jumps into his throat. “It’s me,” Ling says, as if there was any more doubt about it, and Ed practically scurries to his side as he wrings the water out of his hair. Ed forces himself not to watch so closely.
“What’s Greed… up to?” Ed asks. Ling shrugs. Ed notices how broad his shoulders are. He tries really really hard not to notice things like that when it’s Greed in there walking around-- partly because while Ling is his age Greed is like, what, two hundred years old? Grown up, and also, any time Greed notices, he teases him about it. But it doesn’t look like Greed is here right now, just Ling, and it’s harder to stop himself, even though he knows he shouldn’t.
“Dormant, I guess.” Ling dips his hair in the water again, trying to rinse the grease out, and Ed watches at it goes from being weighed down and wet to each strand floating softly in the current, blending in with the deep shadows under the moonlight reflected on the rippling water.
“Isn’t that cold?” Ed asks, and Ling breathes a laugh.
“Freezing,” he says, raising his head again and shaking out water droplets. “But Greed just doesn’t know what to do with my hair, and I take the chance to wash it when I can. I wish I had all my nice soaps, and scented oils,” he sighs forlornly. “But this will have to do, for now. When I get home, I’m going to take a bath and I swear I won’t come out for a week.”
Ed laughs. “Damn rich people,” he says, “ ooh, your hair isn’t so perfectly silky smooth like you’re used to -- I haven’t brushed my teeth in a month, and you don’t see me complaining!”
Ling gives him a deadpan stare. “You disgust me, Edward Elric.”
Ed laughs harder, then catches himself and pipes down a little, aware of the two men sleeping just in the clearing, barely a few yards away. Ling smiles at him, and Ed realizes suddenly that he hasn’t seen Ling actually smile all that much-- he’s seen that goofy grin that had to be an act when they first met, he’s seen his devious smirk, he’s seen his face full of rage and grief and determination and-- and, he realizes, he hasn’t really known Ling all that long. They met, what, two and a half months ago? And the prince has been tucked away, inaccessible inside his own head for more than half that time.
But somehow, he’s managed to carve out a place for himself in Ed’s crowded mind, as permanent a fixture, it would seem, as Al, or Winry.
That scares him. Ed looks away, down at the rushing water, and Ling resumes washing his hair.
“So…” Ed sticks his automail hand in the water and splashes mindlessly. He can’t feel the water flowing around his fingers, but it’s been long enough that it’s not weird anymore. He doesn’t want Al to know, but he’s come to actually fully accept the automail as part of himself-- at first, he hated looking at it, hated the reminder of what they had done, but, somehow, against his own will… he’d almost managed to heal. To him, the quest to get their original bodies back, had become a quest to get Al’s back. If he lived with the automail for the rest of his life, he could be at peace with that. And besides, as excruciating as the agony had been-- what Al had paid, what he has been put through is so, so much worse, in comparison Ed feels as though he didn’t really pay any toll at all.
It’s not fair.
“So…” he repeats when he realizes he had gone too long without continuing his thought. “So did you have to, like, fight Greed to get in control, or did he just… let you out?” Ed winces as he says it, it feels like the wrong way to ask. But if he did fuck up Ling either doesn’t mind or doesn’t notice, because he shakes his head, squeezing water from his hair once more.
“I sometimes sleep when I’m not fronting. I guess Greed just doesn’t front when he sleeps. So I get the reins back most nights, on the promise that I don’t just run off.”
“Most nights?” Ed’s stomach sinks. “So you just-- sit around, awake, by yourself… most nights?”
Ling shrugs, and that has to mean yes. Ed frowns. “Why didn’t you ever wake me up?” He tries to keep the hurt out of his voice, but he doesn’t think he succeeds. He’s always been frustratingly bad at masking his emotions. Ling opens his mouth to speak, but Ed barrels on without thinking about the display of vulnerability he’s offering-- he must be going crazy. “Al can’t sleep in the body he has now. He spends every night awake, alone, and he always insists I get some sleep, and it’s hard not to fall asleep but I don’t want to, I don’t… I don’t want him to be so alone.”
He doesn’t look up once until he’s done saying it, glancing up at Ling tentatively before glancing back down at the river again, then back up. Ling is looking at him. Blinking slowly, the moonlight reflecting like a thick white glaze on his dark eyes. He had to have heard what Ed didn’t say. Ed looks back down.
“I’ll wake you up next time, then.” He says softly, and Ed doesn’t respond, just trying to un-hunch his shoulders a little. The bastard colonel is always telling him he would probably be taller if he didn’t slouch. What Ed would give to punch that guy in the face right now. What he would give for a bit of hectic normalcy.
He clears his throat. “Good,” he says. Ling seems to finish washing his hair, wringing it out a final time and sweeping the wet mass of it back over his shoulders to hang down his back. He hisses when the cold water still trapped in it hits the back of his neck, shivering. Ed regards him with narrowed eyes.
“Regretting that now?” he asks, and Ling shakes his head.
“I’ll be fine, it will dry soon.”
“No way, it’s freezing out.” Ed looks up at the sky as if that could denote temperature. “You’ll get sick.”
“Why don’t you alchemize me a towel, then?” Ling challenges, probably not seriously, and Ed pfft s at him.
“First of all, it’s transmute ,” he says, and shrugs off his jacket. “But fine.”
Ling blinks at him as he lays his jacket out on the ground, clearly not having expected Ed to follow through on his unrealistic request, and watches intently as Ed claps his hands together and places them on his jacket, changing the shape of it with a flash of light into something more properly towel-like. It’s not perfect, the material isn't quite right, but Ed thinks he did a pretty good job with it. He hands it to Ling, who accepts it slowly.
“I’m gonna need that back, you know.”
Ed lets himself watch again as Ling towels off his hair, glancing at the two thin, surgically perfect lines of light scarring under the prince’s pectorals. He sighs, a little jealous. He feels he has a lot to be jealous of Ling for.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Ling says, a little haughtily, and Ed’s posture jerks, embarrassed that he was caught looking. “I may not be educated on the intricacies of alkahestry, but I do know that it has made Xing’s medical practises the most advanced in the world.” He boasts, and Ed rolls his eyes.
“Whatever,” he grumbles. “Probably doesn’t hurt that you’re stinking royalty or whatever.”
“I don’t understand Amestrians,” Ling continues from under the towel. “You all think your country is the greatest ever-- even if one doesn’t know about the secret atrocities, it’s just so clearly… not. There are military everywhere, it’s practically tyrannical, the fact that the military just is the government. You can see the corruption from a mile away.”
Ed sighs. “State propaganda is powerful as fuck.” He says bluntly. “Those blue jacketed fuckers could make people believe anything. They could make people think the sky was on fire, if the Fuhrer made a rousing enough speech about it.”
Ling tsk s. He finishes drying his hair as much as he can, and hands Ed back the towel. Ed can feel him watching him as Ling puts his shirt and coat back on, and Ed transmutes his jacket back into a jacket again. Ed looks up at him, and thinks he sees a flash of uncertainty pass across Ling’s face before it’s gone again, replaced again by that easy, pleased-with-the-world smile that Ed thinks means Ling wants something.
“Would you make me something? With your alchemy?” He asks, proving Ed right, and Ed blinks, a little confused.
“Huh?”
“Something small,” Ling continues, “that I could keep in my pocket.”
Ed just looks at him. “Why?”
A glimmer of irritation, of that uncertainty again, before Ling just pouts at him, purposefully dramatic. “Just do it!” He smiles wider, flapping a prompting hand at Ed. “I want you to.”
“Bossy prince,” Ed huffs, but his mind has always been a few steps ahead of him, and he’s already thinking what on earth he should make.
Something small… that Ling could keep in his pocket…
What could he need something like that for?
Nevertheless Ed reaches into the water again and plucks out a smooth river stone, turning it over in his hands, examining it, scrutinizing it, trying to determine what mineral it’s made of, and feeling nervous as Ling watches him closely. Eventually he places it down on the riverbed with a soft tak , closing his eyes and picturing clearly in his mind everything that makes the stone what it is, and exactly what form he wants it to take. Taking a deep, concentrating breath, he claps his hands together and touches the stone.
With a small flash of light that has Ling’s grin widening, the stone starts to change its shape, until the light vanishes and Ed picks it up to show it to him.
It’s supposed to be a dragon, but Ed has always been more of a scientist than an artist, and he thinks it’s a kind of shitty dragon. But it has claws, and scales, and those whisker things, and it’s curled around itself in a figure eight, just big enough to fit in his palm. He hands it to Ling, and Ling accepts it with wide, shining eyes and a bright smile that is totally different from the one he used when he asked Ed to do this in the first place.
“Amazing,” Ling says, taking the small sculpture and holding it between his fingers to look at it better, and Ed shrugs self consciously, feeling his cheeks burn at the praise. He’s not sure why Ling is so raved about it, he’s seen Ed perform far more objectively impressive displays of alchemy before. And he’s not so sure why he feels so pleased about it.
Embarrassingly, even though Ed doesn’t know that much about Xingese culture or their symbols or iconography, he knows they’re big on dragons— dragon’s pulse and all that, and… he thought maybe Ling was getting a little homesick.
But he’d rather eat his remaining flesh limbs than actually tell Ling that.
“You know,” Ling slips the dragon into his pocket and chuckles, “for such an abrasive, incorrigible, ill-tempered, ill-mannered, mean-spirited, rude little gremlin nightmare monster boy… you can be quite sweet sometimes.”
Ed feels a vein pop in his forehead and he gnashes his teeth at Ling, with no rational explanation for why he’s blushing so hard. It’s cold as balls out, so what the hell? “What the fuck is that supposed to mean!” He snaps, raising his fist for effect. “I’m a fucking delight to be around!”
Ling chuckles. “Never mind,” he says breezily, standing up and stretching. “I’m getting sleepy. Come on, let’s go back to camp.”
Ed scramples to his feet as Ling starts walking back into the trees ahead of him on his (infuriatingly) longer legs. Ed stomps after him, crunching the underbrush under his boots, while Ling picks his way through with casual grace. They settle back in place at the camp, and Ed reaches behind his head to sort of twist his hair into a makeshift pillow under his head. He spends a moment looking up at the sky, inexplicably grumpy, before twisting his head towards Ling and taking a breath to say something— he doesn’t know what he’s going to say but—
Ling is already fast asleep.
Ed sighs and turns onto his other side. Before he can dwell on it any longer, his eyes slide shut and he, too, drifts off to sleep.
Six nights later, in a different forest, across a different river, under the same moon, Ed is shaken awake. “ Rnghhwhat ,” he grunts, scrunching his eyes before opening them to see Ling hovering over him, an eager expression on his face, hand on his automail shoulder and shaking him awake.
“Do you know any constellations?” Ling asks as Ed rubs his eyes and sits up. “I want to know if your stories about them are different from ours.”
Ed cranes his neck up to look at the sky. The moon isn’t quite full anymore, but the view of the stars isn’t blocked by a single cloud, and there are so many of them it would take more than a million lifetimes to count them all.
“I think I know a few…” Ed says slowly, uncertainly, trying to recall the details of the myths his mom used to tell him, staring out the window on nights he couldn’t sleep. Ling’s face brightens, and Ed’s stomach tightens uncomfortably.
There’s complete and utter doom on the horizon, Ed knows it for sure. He leans back on his palm and points to the constellations he remembers, and he doesn’t tell the story as well as his mom did, but Ling seems enraptured all the same.