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Everything was wrong.
Ed didn’t know when everything had started to be wrong. Long before he had first noticed things flicker in the corner of his eye, maybe. He had mentioned it to Al, at the very start and steadily as things had progressed in their downward spiral. He had stopped when Al postponed his romantic trip with Mei for the third time and worry lines had started to be permanent features in his face.
He had thought he had been going crazy. The text of the book hadn’t suddenly changed what it said from when he read it out for Al to when he saw the passage a second time a glance later. Al had confirmed that it hadn’t when Ed read it a second time. The dumplings tasted of weird chicken, but they hadn’t tasted like shrimp a bite earlier.
Ed probably would have gone on trusting Al’s reassurances that the world was not changing subtly around him except one hour earlier Ed got proof. Proof that Al denied without batting an eye, voice laced with worry. So he needed help. There were probably plenty of people ready to give it, but Ed really only wanted to trust one person with it.
***
It’s not specially dark out when Roy wakes to a pounding on his door. He had not been in bed, his back would probably thank his visitor in the morning, Roy only hoped that he would still get to sleep that night. It was late enough that no one should call on him unless an emergency presented itself, but early enough that he could hope it was an easy one.
The pounding paused only long enough for a very familiar voice to call his name and Roy mentally waved goodbye to the possibility of sleep. Emergency or not, this visitor would not let him sleep easily. He hurried to the door without bothering to straighten up his uniform. Edward had seen him in worse.
It seemed Ed had a supernatural awareness of where he was, because all it took was a moment of hesitance before- “If you don’t open this door soon I’m going to-”
Roy opened the door, disappointingly Ed did not fall forwards in the middle of his next slam of the door. “Wake my entire neighborhood?” he asked pointedly. He planned to berate him some more, fall into the easy rhythm they had built years before, but when he looked Ed didn’t look normal.
He stepped to the side, letting Ed hurry inside, then closed and locked the door quickly.
Uncharacteristically, Ed had not found his way to the couch a couple steps farther in and it only served to highlight how things were off. “Good evening, Edward. You may come in,” Roy said almost automatically, though he wanted to go straight to the problem, there were usually things to be gained from sticking to the niceties. Allowing him to release some tension harmlessly, for one.
“Oh, yes, sorry, Good evening, General Bastard, can I please come the fuck in,” Ed almost snarled back. “Let’s get some other things out of the fucking way, right? Would I like some water? No. Something to eat? Your fridge is empty. I have no fucking coat to take off and you’re a heathen and wander around your own place in fucking shoes and-” he stopped abruptly, then glared.
Roy could have grinned back, but he felt ready to move on. “Now that you’re done, Fullmetal, what is wrong?” Ed hadn’t been Fullmetal for years, but the formality of a title might help him.
Ed took a deep breath, using it to center himself in a meditative technique he had learned from Xing. He plopped down on his floor pulling out a chalk in easy, practiced movement - Ed had drawn few circles in his time in the military, but since giving up his alchemy he had drawn out many.
Roy didn’t complain about his floor, instead watched as Ed drew line after line, familiar down to avoiding closing it right up until he was ready. He always argued that even if he couldn’t activate it by accident, someone else could and it didn’t hurt to be careful. He watched the circle, it was simple enough, surprisingly rather than destroy his flooring it looked like it would reinforce it.
Once he closed the circle, Ed did not step aside for him to activat it. Instead he looked up, checking that Roy was watching. “Look,” Ed commanded.
Roy’s vision flickered.
He saw in multiples.
Ed slammed his hands on the circle and nothing happened.
Ed slammed his hands on the circle and alchemical energy burst around him, the transmutation happening normally.
Ed slammed his hands on the circle and the floor changed instantly, without the alchemical lightning shooting around him nothing marked the transition.
Ed slammed his hands on a completely different circle, drawn on a floor that had always been sturdier, and nothing happened. Except that it had. Roy knew that it had. He could feel it beneath his shoes, the board he had been on no longer had the give that told him it would creak as designed.
Ed was still looking at him, frozen with tension, his hands on the circle. He did not look calm, but he seemed to be waiting. Roy considered, compartalizing his initial panic of whatever the fuck had happened. He had lost his sight once, he did not want to doubt what he saw forever.
“You know, Fullmetal, those floorcreaks were there for intruders,” Roy reprimanded.
Hearing his words, Ed seemed to instantly relax. “Thank fuck,” he breathed. “Al didn’t see it.”