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He wasn’t sure why he even cared about it, anyway. In his line of work, it was nothing new for Balrog to happen across beat-up bodies left lying around after a fight. Only real value it had was if there was something shiny he could nick while nobody was looking. Usually, he’d just regard it with disinterest and move on. He had work to do, he was a busy man. Jobs to get done, money to make. Standing around and gaping like a dope was a waste of time, and time was money.
So he couldn’t think of a good reason why he’d followed the trail of downed bodies. It could’ve been because for all the weird shit he’d seen in his career, a bunch of freaks wearing cardboard boxes still managed to confuse him. Maybe it was because some of those bruises and broken bones looked familiar. Maybe it’d been long enough around magic freaks and psychics that it’d started rubbing off on him, and now he had some kinda super-powered intuition (damn, if only. Would be one helluva way to cheat the stocks.)
The sounds of fists and grunts of exertion appeared as he followed, then grew the further he went. And he could swear it was familiar.
…Well, wasn’t that just his goddamn luck.
Balrog wandered in to the tune of someone getting their teeth knocked down their throat, and another unconscious body hitting the ground. The sight of the poor loser flopping over like a sandbag almost made him laugh. It wasn’t a feeling that lasted. He knew that swing, of course he did. It was his own technique. A direct copy of his work.
Despite his shock, as he opened his mouth to speak, only a sigh of resignation came out.
“‘Course I finally find ya like this.”
Bigger, like always- seemed like he couldn’t so much as turn around without the kid growing more when he looked back. But he knew that face all the same. Same hair he never knew how to keep out of his eyes, same natural sneer that, to be fair, he’d probably gotten from spending too much time around his tutor. But that sneer was shaking, less like the proud swagger of someone knowing they were gonna win, and more the bared teeth of a cornered animal.
“G- get away from- !” A half-baked threat was thrown in his direction, interrupted when the fighter realized he recognized the newcomer that’d stumbled into his battleground. Ed dropped his fists, and his jaw. “Wh- Balrog…?”
“Kid…” The man sighed “what the hell did’ja do?
He’d hoped, at least, that the familiarity would make the kid drop his prey animal demeanour and look more like himself again. Wishful thinking. Ed already didn’t look like himself, and that wasn’t anything to do with how he’d grown taller. He’d also grown gaunt, somehow paler than normal, and though his muscles were still defined, nothing padded them out. The frond of hair that obscured his eye now felt less like cocky style and more like an attempt to hide away from sight.
Balrog could have scrutinized Ed’s shabby state all day, if not for something else catching his eye. Bright scarlet, a far harsher shade than the dulled maroon of his jacket. The wrapping around both fists was sloppy, but a bright red spot stained the palm of his right hand. Just a bit of spatter from some chump whose face got busted in- that’s what he’d assumed, until he realized the spot was spreading further.
“How’d ya manage that? Hasn’t been so long you forgot how to throw a punch, did’ja?”
“Don’t- “ Even if he weren’t shaking too hard to put up a decent fight, the wrap was so poorly done that it practically fell off on its own. Balrog grabbed him by the wrist to keep it still.
A patch of skin across his palm had been scraped away, either by friction or with a trembling hand holding a poor-quality blade. Probably both at some point. A thin trail wrapped around the side of his hand, a final piece that had refused to let go as the rest of it was peeled off.
The wound wasn’t healing well. It couldn’t. Boxing and criminal dealings were two things that had a lot in common, and one of those was patching up wounds after the job was done. Balrog liked to consider himself familiar with it. The palm was a harder area to heal from how often it bent. The best way to let an injury like this heal up was to keep the hand from moving too much, because pulling on the skin would just open it up again. Ed, clearly, hadn’t been doing that.
He tugged away as Balrog tried to get a better look. “The hell you do this for? Someone else musta’ pulled a knife on you, right? Right?”
Ed jerked his head back and forth, still pulling until he managed to get his arm free. He still grabbed at his wrist like he was trying to strangle someone, staring daggers into his palm all the while. “Needed it off. Had to get it off. Kept lookin’ at me, had to get it off to make ‘im go away-”
The old marking on his palm. Balrog had never been sure if that thing was a tattoo, or some psycho-power wizard shit, or whatever. When he first found the kid, he’d thought that was a sign that the brat had some kind of value. He’d cared less and less about it the longer things went on, but he wasn’t dumb enough to not notice Ed staring at the thing every time he jerked awake from a bad night’s sleep.
Okay, so the kid was wigging out about something. Question was, why? It couldn’t have happened out of nowhere. Something had to have set him off to make him like this. Hell, why was he even out by himself?
“Where’s your buddies? Thought you had a whole crew of ‘em now. Jerk move of ‘em to make you do all this yourself.” Balrog toed one of the unconscious bodies.
He hoped it’d get something out of Ed that sounded more like himself. To his frustration, it had the opposite effect. He watched him curl further inward, eyes darting back and forth like he expected something to jump out of the darkness.
“Didn’t show up. Said they’d come. Promised they’d come. Waited. Waited.” Ed put a hand to the brick wall behind him, fingers scraping against the rough texture. “Said they’d come. Only the old guy showed up. Old guy said they didn’t want me anymore.”
Well, this wasn’t clarifying much, but yelling probably wouldn’t help. Lord, the kid tested his patience sometimes. “What ‘old guy?’”
“A-Amnesia. Old guy. Petrovich. Wouldn’t stop fuckin’ bugging me, no matter h-how much I told him to piss off- “
“Sheesh, that old desk jockey? He was always fulla crap, you think he’s not just yanking your chain?”
He doubted it mattered either way. It was obvious Ed wasn’t thinking straight anymore. Too rattled to rationalize, to separate bullshit from valid threats. That’s how you ended up in a place like this, backed into a corner and twitching, throwing blows at anything even vaguely threatening.
“Kid- ”
Before he could even try to think of something encouraging, or at least placating, Ed shed any composure he had remaining and burst into tears. He slumped back against the wall and slid to the ground, utterly uncaring of how he looked or how much ruckus he was making with his quickening breaths. Balrog wasn’t sure how worried to be about the thought of more box-headed mooks showing up and starting shit. It was hard to care much with the display going on in front of him.
“He can’t have me, he can’t have me, I won’t let ‘im, he can’t have me- “ Ed was working himself into a further panic, shoving his head between the safety of his legs and covering it with his arms. If Balrog tried to strain his ears and hear through the layers of flesh and cloth, it would still be impossible to understand. The hyperventilation was starting to hit a point where Ed sounded a moment’s notice from throwing up, and any words that did manage to escape were a choppy slurry of frantic German.
“C- can’t- can’t- Ich bin verängstigt-” He choked out between short breaths. ”Hilf mir, hilf mir, bitte…”
This was exactly the sorta thing that was beyond the boxer’s wheelhouse. He had no idea how to approach, aside from kneeling down and attempting whatever vague placating gesture came to mind. “Shit, nobody- nobody’s gonna hurt ya, it’s just me here. Get it?”
“P-Papaaaa- !” The boy squalled, clinging to his father’s shirt with a vice grip. ”Ich- ich-
Even now, Balrog wanted to shove him back, tell him to get a grip and stop sniveling. Something managed to stop him. Though it didn’t do much for the awkwardness, mentally floundering for a way to intervene that didn’t involve the kind of sappy shit that he loathed.
It hurt to see his boy like this.
“Bitte, bitte, hilfe- “
“Sheesh, listening to you gargle rocks still makes my ears hurt. Look, what’ll getcha to stop? You want Mister Bunny?”
Ed wiped tears and mucus off of his face with the back of a hand. “You…you still have him…?”
Balrog wordlessly shrugged the duffel hanging from his shoulder onto the ground and tugged it open. From his bag came a battered old doll, a partially-flattened stuffed rat missing one of its buttoned eyes. In spite of its raggedness, Ed’s dour expression lit up at the sight, grabbing for the toy until it was handed to him.
“Mmm…” The ragged thing was cuddled against his chest, and the boy almost managed to laugh. “You were right. Doesn’t look anything like a rabbit.”
“Yeah, well,” Balrog replied with an offhand shrug. “Kids ‘re dumb. Just kinda gave up arguing about it, y’never listened.”
“Why do you even…?”
“Was gonna chuck it after you left, didn’t need the extra weight of your junk in my bag, but, I dunno. Maybe ‘s a good thing I didn’t dump it after all, looks like you missed the piece of junk, huh?”
“N-no!...Maybe…a little…” Ed went scarlet, but refused to loosen his grip on the thing. “Jeez, I’m a grown-ass man now, and you’re acting like I’m still a damn kid. What, did’ja keep my damn blanky, too?
“Hey, thing made for a decent workout towel. You said you were gonna throw it out, anyway.”
He said nothing in reply. Despite everything, Balrog almost managed a smile. “Y’know, there’s better ways of catching up with your old man than pulling this kinda shit.”
It had been a long time since he’d had to carry the little ankle-biter, but it was still second nature, growth spurts be damned…aw hell, there was the sappy shit. Whatever, he could pretend he didn’t notice that Ed immediately calmed down and got comfortable as soon as he was picked up. Balrog guessed he hadn’t changed all that much, either. It didn’t matter that they’d gone their separate ways. They had never stopped thinking of each other as family.
“C’mon, kiddo. Let’s go home.”
Where was home? It didn’t matter. If his father was there, then it was home.