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It’s Sheska who warns them that something is going to happen.
In the immediate aftermath of Hughes’ death, as Mustang’s entire office is transferred to Central to account for the power vacuum of Scar taking out Grand and some Colonel that Ed never bothered to learn the name of, everything feels significant in a way that makes Ed’s mouth taste sour.
Ed’s been feeling the dread growing in his stomach ever since he was called in to identify Hughes’ body, and when Sheska just so happens to walk past the café where he’s been eating breakfast since forever (introduced to him by Gracia and Hughes, and oh, how the absence of Hughes makes it feel like someone’s scooped out his insides and replaced them with lead) he just knows that shit is about to hit the fan.
It’s not a long conversation— really, it’s pleasantries at best, exchanged by two people who don’t possess an ounce of social skills —but it’s long enough for Sheska to sneeze, apologise profusely and procure a paper tissue from her pocket that just so happens to land on the table. She fixes him with a significant look as she digs up her actual cloth tissue, wiping her nose just so.
Ed wasn’t born yesterday; has traded secrets with all manners of people since he joined the military. The tissue’s a decoy, likely filled with a note on the inside. It’s not the most graceful way, but if there’s one thing that people know about Ed, it’s that he doesn’t do handshakes, and so no smooth handover of notes can be done. There are always people watching. He quickly pockets the tissue as she rambles about whatever book she’s been reading.
Eventually she excuses herself, because she has an earlier start time than he does— it’s not like he’s bound to be anywhere at any given time unless he has an appointment —and she runs off in the direction of the Investigations building, heels clacking on the cobblestone.
He has no clue how she learns about all that she does; she’s a Private by rank and insignificant at best, spending her day flittering between the different libraries and the Investigations department. By all accounts, she shouldn’t even spend any time at HQ, where these decisions take place. But Hughes has trained her well, and Ed knows that she might just provide the greatest threat to the horror they’re about to face.
The first thing he does when he makes it to the Central Library is to set up his station as always, pulling out a million different books that may or may not lead him to the answer about the Philosopher’s Stone, because while he’s given up on making one to get his and Al’s body back, he doesn’t think that this is public knowledge to the higher ups.
Then, when he’s hidden away in the men’s bathroom, crouched on the floor, he pulls out the tissue and finds the expected note inside. The font is so tiny, a million words somehow crammed onto this sheet of paper no larger than a typical postcard.
Somehow he’s not even surprised by the contents on the page because Ed’s been cynical before he learnt to read (and he learnt to read young).
The nationwide transmutation that Hughes figured out about and only hinted at to Sheska is one thing.
Another thing entirely is the fact that they’re planning to dissolve Mustang’s office. Perhaps not yet, but the moment that Mustang shows himself to be a threat to the establishment, he's fucked.
Ed’s known for a long time that Mustang is more than the vapid, air-headed bastard that he plays. Ed’s a man with masks, each one more volatile than the next, and he recognises the same behaviour in Roy. It doesn’t help that just once, as Ed was doing something about a trafficking ring, that he happened to meet Mustang drunk as hell at some pub Ed was passing through to get to the back alleys.
The higher ups must have cottoned onto this and sought to get something done about Mustang. He’s a threat, and not in the same way that Ed is.
Ed’s known for a while now that stuff isn’t right; that by all accounts the military shouldn’t be allowing him to look for the Philosopher’s Stone, knowing how the thing is incredibly restricted. They must have figured out that he intends to use it for human transmutation (or, intended to, in any case). And they’re allowing him.
Suddenly, he doesn’t feel so guilty about sending Al to Liore to help with the aftermath of the rebellion there.
At first, it had felt bad to send his brother off, but divided conquers more. The risk is well worth the reward, and they owe Rose for doing so much for them, whether she realises her significance or not. It’s rough to not be able to talk to Al every day since they’ve been attached at the hip since well before Mum got sick and died. And now he hasn’t seen him since before Hughes’ murder.
They communicate in heavily encoded letters sent back and forth through Winry, who makes an effort to come visiting both of them once a month despite the fact that she has her own bustling business in Rush Valley. Ed doesn’t keep any of them; he reads them in rooms as brightly lit as possible, because the last thing Al told him before he hopped on the train towards East City was that he could have sworn that the shadows had eyes.
Ed’s seen the worst of the world and survived. Shadowy eyes is something he’s seen before.
It doesn’t matter if it isn’t the Gate that’s observing them; it can’t be, the Gate’s only summoned when someone performs human transmutation, so it must be an entity with the ability to mimic the characteristics of Truth and the Gate, and that’s scarier. Knowing how damn rotten the core of the military is, he wouldn’t put it beyond them to create inconceivable horrors.
It doesn’t say anything like on it on the page, but Ed only knows of one kind of creature that walks on Earth like men but with powers beyond.
Homunculi.
In the end, Ed makes it to his two pm appointment with Mustang ten minutes late, notebook full of notes that barely makes sense to him.
“I see you’re as disrespectful of my time as ever, Fullmetal,” Mustang says, but there’s barely any bite behind it.
He’s been looking drawn and pale since the transfer, since the funeral, and the past two weeks where Ed hasn’t seen him haven’t been good to him.
“In my defense,” Ed says, “I really did have better things to do than to look at your ugly mug. I was hunting.”
“You still haven’t found it then,” Mustang says, putting his fingers together like it makes him look intelligent or something. “One would think you’d give up your silly goose chase soon enough and cut your losses.”
The comment stings, but Ed doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a shit if Mustang’s barbs are hitting worse than usual, because shit just got real and he needs to warn the guy.
“I think you’re a bastard,” he says instead. “Here’s your stupid report.”
Mustang doesn’t even look at it, and instead places it on top of the tall stack of papers on his left. “Thank you. I only asked for it last week.”
“We both know that the time you ask for me to hand in my reports is an arbitrary number of days before the thing’s actually due,” Ed says, flopping down onto the sofa in front of Mustang’s desk and pretending that it doesn’t hurt where the automail screw attaches to his collar bone. “At least you got it this time. Better than last time.”
“I don’t think last time gets to count,” Mustang says, and he’s no longer looking at Ed. Good, he’s gotten his fill already. It doesn’t make Ed’s heart flutter when Mustang looks at him. It doesn’t. “Considering that you were busy being under sedation at the hospital when you decided to bleed out.”
“Bleeding out’s good for character building,” Ed says dismissively, picking the cigarette box out of his pocket and playing with it. It’s the brand that Hughes used to smoke on special occasions, and Ed knows that Mustang will recognise it when he deigns to look back on Ed.
It’s a decoy box because Ed’d rather cut off his other arm than ever smoke the damn things. That being said, it’s a real pack, freshly bought from the tobacco shop a stone’s throw away from HQ.
For all that Ed thinks that smoking is gross and horrible for you (he’d grown up with Winry, and he knows that she hates how her grandmother elects to ruin her lungs with smoke), he can appreciate the aesthetic, and understand why Mustang does it sometimes. With Mustang’s title, it only seems all the more fitting.
Ed bets that the bastard uses his gloves to light cigarettes as some sort of flirting.
It’s quiet for a moment, and then there’s the sound of paper shuffling as if Mustang’s doing more paperwork. Ed’s gotta hand it to him; the man’s not half as lazy as he presents himself to be.
This part of the routine is familiar— if you can even call it a routine and all, what with it happening like once a month at most —, where Ed gets a moment of calm and Mustang has someone to do unreciprocated body-doubling with. He continues to play with the cigarettes. Admittedly, they do have good potential for fidgeting. Not that he’ll ever confess that out loud.
“Picking up bad habits, are we?” Mustang asks some time later, the shuffling sound dying down.
“I got it from Gracia,” Ed says, which is a lie, but Mustang doesn’t need to know that. “She said that you ‘n’ Hughes used to smoke together. She found it laying around and thought that you might want to have it. Since I bitched about having to see you, she asked if I’d bring it along.”
Bait laid.
“Did she now,” Mustang says flatly, and it’s clear that he doesn’t quite believe Ed. He doesn’t care; Mustang doesn’t have to believe him if he doesn’t want to. What’s important is that he takes the bait like he’s supposed to.
“You’re supposed to say ‘thank you Ed, I really appreciate you bringing it along’,” Ed says, adopting the same kind of condescending tone that Mustang takes with him.
Mustang snorts. “I didn’t know you had it in you to recognise when politeness is the socially accepted thing. Figures you’d only do so when it’s towards you.”
Ed chucks the carton at Mustang, and unfortunately Mustang catches it with his non-dominant hand. Show-off.
“Thank you, Ed,” Mustang parrots. “Now, to show you some of the same kindness that you tend to show me, I will have to ask you to buzz off.”
“Sure thing, the library’s more interesting, anyway,” Ed says, getting up from the sofa, not mourning it in the least. It’s about as comfortable as his bed in the dorms, which is to say that it feels like sleeping on bricks.
He leaves the office with a goodbye to the rest of the team, but instead of going to the library like he’d told Mustang, he goes to the barracks to pack. It hasn’t felt necessary since his arm got shattered, but he needs to take a trip home and talk to Granny Pinako.
There are things you shouldn’t talk about over the phone. Homunculi might just be on the top of the list.
“You know what, I don't think I hate you,” Ed announces late one evening a few months later, curled up in front of the roaring fire in Roy's living room.
It's something he's been mulling over for a few months now, triggered by Hughes' death and Ed being the first person to come beat some sense into Roy when he'd tried to fall back into dangerous habits.
"Oh?" Roy offers, still filling out reports from his spot half-reclined on his sofa, probably looking like he's doing his favourite thing in the entire world right about now. Ed wouldn't know; he's still staring into the open flames.
"Yeah," Ed says, and he doesn't elaborate. If he thought about it for more than two seconds, he'd probably find the words to actually express himself adequately and get his point across to Roy. But that involves using his brain, and Ed's been awake for close to thirty hours at this point.
He can't sleep. The memories of Nina and Hughes haunt him, giant puddles of blood appearing behind his eyelids whenever he blinks, and if he were to fall asleep, there's no doubt that he'd be immediately woken up again by the horrors of his own mind.
There's something sickening about the fact that Ed was the one to find Hughes dead on the ground, on a late night walk to clear his mind during a research session. He's glad that Al hadn't been with him, because there are things that his younger brother shouldn't see.
He hadn't been able to shield Al from the horrors of seeing their transmuted mother, or from the terrifying knowledge crammed into his brain by Truth. But on account of Al not having the clearance of a state alchemist and being in Liore at the time of the murder, he'd been spared from the horror of seeing both Nina and Hughes’ corpses.
It's silent for a moment, save for the sound of Roy's fountain pen scratching over paper and the quiet crackling roar of the fire.
"It's funny," he eventually says, “how when I first joined your team, I really thought you were a bastard without substance. And now, four years later, I'm sitting on your rug late at night because I'm too much of a wimp to get some sleep."
"It's natural for relationships to change over time," Roy says, and to anyone else, it would sound like Roy's only half listening, but Ed knows better. Roy knows that he doesn't want platitudes or empty reassurances. "A lot has happened in the past five years."
Ed shuts his eyes, and again Hughes' horrified face appears in front of him. Since he'd known Hughes well, he'd been the only witness that had been asked to formally identify him. At least he'd been able to shield Roy from that particular burden.
"How do you handle it?" Ed asks, breaking the silence once again. "How do you cope with the horrors that happened when you were in Ishval?"
The scribbling stops then, and Ed turns to see Roy get up and leave the room. He doesn't know where Roy is going, but it doesn't take long for him to come back, carrying a glass bottle filled with a deep amber liquid and two small glasses.
"I know you're technically of age, being in the military and all," Roy starts, sitting down on the rug across from Ed. There's a book between them, one Ed had pretended to read in the hopes of masking his exhaustion. "But I'm still loath to give you this, considering that you're not yet eighteen. But you asked."
"That's alcohol," Ed says, thinking back to all the times he's been offered booze on his trips around the country. Back then he'd refused everything, still recovering from his automail surgery and scared to lose his inhibitions.
"Yes," Roy says, filling the small shot glasses with some of the liquid. "I had to learn the hard way that it doesn't solve any problems. But sometimes, in moderation, it helps take the edge off the worst nights."
Then he levels Ed with a solid look. "Alcohol can be addictive. I'm living proof of this. If you're going to take this drink, I need you to promise that you will only drink in my presence. Call it me making up for exposing you to this."
Ed swallows. The spit is thick in his mouth.
"If I start?" Ed asks, picking up the glass and letting the light catch on the liquid. It's a pretty colour, more distinguishable than the moonshine Granny Pinako gets from the Thompsons once a year. He probably shouldn't tell Roy about that; making moonshine is strongly controlled, and in a high-control state like Amestris people know how to keep secrets. It's not that Ed distrusts Roy; he'd trust the man to protect his life if it came down to it. But his family is precious, and he keeps trying to shield them from the reality that he works for the military all of them despise.
"Millions of people have a completely healthy relationship with alcohol," Roy says, picking up the second glass. "A dependence, an addiction— whichever term suits the affliction —is common but not so common that everyone who drinks does so irresponsibly and dangerously."
"But it's risky," Ed says.
He's not sure about this. If Roy is right and it will take the edge off the despair currently electrocuting his brain, then maybe it's worth it. If he doesn't like it he doesn't ever have to repeat it. He's a scientist through and through, and he wants to test every hypothesis.
Because he knows that sleeping pills exist; has been on them before, even. In the time following his automail surgery the pain had kept him up for days on end, and the only way for him to get some rest had been for them to dose him with heavy sleeping pills, the doses way too high for someone of his age and stature, never mind his reduced body mass. They had changed him, made him more of a zombie than a man, and for a couple weeks he'd gone between dozing and staring emptily into space.
He can't afford to be slowed down like that again.
He sniffs the drink then. It smells fruity and woody and almost … warm? All in all the scent beats out Granny Pinako's moonshine by miles.
"Everything is risky, when it comes down to it," Roy says. "I won't force your hand. You're old enough to make decisions for yourself. Whatever you decide on, I won't judge you."
"No," Ed says. "I'll do it."
He lets the glass clink against Roy's, and on a silent count of three they down the shots. It burns on the way down, and Ed almost regrets it for a moment. Roy fed him not even two hours ago, so there's still plenty of food in his stomach. Logically he knows that this amount of alcohol, even if it's got a higher alcohol percentage, will not do much for him.
As for the taste, it tastes almost warm, and exactly how he’d expected it to. He doesn't have any frame of reference, but he imagines that it's not as strong as it could have been.
But still, it makes him cough a little. Roy observes him with a small smile, head tilted to the side.
For a moment he looks similar to Black Hayate, and Ed feels the alcohol settle in his stomach.
"You handled that far better than I could for my first time," Roy says, putting the glass down. "I won't give you any more, not tonight. But maybe it'll be enough to trick your brain into letting you rest. You've been up for a long time now. You need the rest."
"Yeah," Ed says, but it's more of an exhale than an actual word. "If you want your report on Monday, I need to actually get some shut-eye."
Roy moves a hand then, almost as if to reach out to pat him on the shoulder, but the movement aborts itself, leaving the hand hanging in mid-air. "You know the report's only due on Monday because it would look bad to the higher-ups if I gave you an extension. They consider a week more than ample time to summarise your work busting that drug-trafficking ring."
Ed sighs, placing the glass back down on the book, next to Roy's. "I think they forgot to account for the fact that I spent three of those days in the hospital getting that gash in my arm flushed because it got a nasty infection."
The wound smarts then beneath the bandage, almost like it's aware that it's being talked about.
"Your dominant hand is listed as being your right hand," Roy says and they both look at Ed's right hand, the automail one. "As you were shot in the left upper arm, they considered you able to write despite the injury."
"I think the military is stupid," Ed declares.
Roy snorts, a quiet and somehow wonderful sound. "You're not the only one that thinks so, Ed."
"Yes, well I'm a genius," Ed says. "People should trust me on more stuff. I know my shit."
That gets a second snort out of Roy, but this time it sounds more like a laugh. "That you do. Do you think you’ll be able to get some rest now?"
He tries to take stock of how he's feeling. The alcohol seems to be entering his system now, and it's leaving him … if not calm, at least vaguely more settled.
“Maybe,” he decides. “I’m just gonna camp out in front of your fireplace. The rug’s cosy and I think laying in a bed right about now would drive me insane.”
“You don’t want to sleep on the sofa?”
He’s become painfully honest with Roy, since he was handed Hughes’ notebook by Gracia, the only thing that Maes had kept at home in a secret compartment under one of the floorboards underneath the coffee table.
It hadn’t taken him long to decode the notes in there, about the homunculi, about the corruption running all the way to the top of the military, about some alchemy stuff that Maes couldn’t possibly begin to decode and hadn’t wanted to burden Ed with unless he had no other way out of this.
Of course he’d already had the suspicion about the homunculi, had gone through the effort of going home to talk to Granny Pinako about it, only to be handed a handful of books that Hohenheim had apparently not dared to keep in his own home.
Having some of the information given to him by Sheska before it had been a great help too; had allowed him to get Roy on board with the entire thing.
Even seeking out this information had been dangerous.
Because Hughes is six feet under and Ed had almost been sick when he’d uncovered the double layer of encryption that had kept Hughes safe. They’d still found out about him. It had never been a random hit, like the military had tried to claim. They had pinned the murder on Maria Ross, one of the most reliable people Ed’s ever met despite not trusting anyone, not even himself. There was no motive.
Does there have to be a motive when the killer’s somehow both less and more than human all at once? Hughes had been a threat, and so they had eliminated him. Ed knows that he’s an asset, and so they allow him to keep poking his nose into things.
Ed hasn’t told Roy because he needs the man to still sleep at night, but Roy’s an asset, too. He’s the strongest alchemist that Ed has ever met except for himself and Al, and Ed’s met a lot of alchemists.
The only thing that Roy knows is that a conspiracy exists. Everything else is conjecture, horror scenarios that Ed’s brain makes up based on the tiniest bit of evidence.
It’s no wonder. He’s seen the worst of the world and survived despite it, and it’s too dangerous to care about others in a world that wants to eat you alive.
There’s nothing more important to him than family, but it seems almost scary that he’s started counting Roy amongst them.
With one heavy mental movement, he pushes that thought away, because a stupid crush means nothing in the face of the end of the world as they know it.
And to save the world, he needs to get some damn sleep.
In the morning, as they drink their coffee, sitting on opposite sides of the table, Ed can feel the clarity of his mind returning.
“What will you do now?” Roy asks. “I don’t have any work for you once you’re done with that report.”
“I don’t know,” Ed says, which really means that he’ll go talk with Vanessa, Roy’s sister, to tell her all that he can’t tell Roy directly. It’s a convoluted way of exchanging information, but with Pride watching them every time they spend time together— there’s no doubt that his container has been spending the night outside Roy’s townhouse, listening in on their conversations —there really is no other way.
They’re planning a revolution, and it’s more work than any of them could ever have expected.
“I think Winry’s coming to visit me,” he says, taking an apple out of the bowl on the table and biting into it. There’s no point in washing it; if losing two limbs, double automail surgery, almost bleeding out five times and a billion infected wounds haven’t taken him out yet, then he doubts that something like an unwashed apple will spell disaster for him. “The automail world’s been moving really fast recently. She’s obsessed with looking at all the new stuff that enters the shops here.”
“She’s been visiting a lot,” Roy remarks, poking his fork into the over-easy egg until the yolk breaks, spilling all over the white. He mops it up with a slice of bread but doesn’t take a bite. “Anything developing there, Ed?”
“In your dreams maybe,” Ed says. “Winry’s a lesbian. I think she’s dating that girl that stole my watch a couple months ago. Paninya or whatever.”
“Interesting choice.”
Ed snorts. “You’re telling me.”
It’s almost a pity that they can’t pretend to hate each other anymore. It had had its benefits, with less eyes watching them. But since Roy’s taken out Lust and Al’s working on a way to kill Gluttony without completely burning up the Philosopher’s Stone that makes up his core, it hadn’t served them anymore. They haven’t officially joined forces, but they’re the leaders of a revolution that’s coming and that will take the world with a storm.
“I’ve gotta get going,” Ed says, throwing the apple core towards the trash can. It falls in perfectly, and maybe there’s still a little bit of that teenager left in him— which is objectively hilarious, since he’s still sixteen, almost seventeen —because that felt good. “See you at some point.”
“Don’t die,” Roy says. “I still need that report.”
Right after Ed hands in that report, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
He comes back from Liore after seeing Al for the first time in a year, and everything’s different.
The first stop, as always, is Madam Christmas’ establishment.
“Vanessa,” Ed says, a year older and aching more than ever, “do you carry the whiskey that Roy likes so much?”
“Where do you think he learnt to like it from?” Vanessa asks, patting him on the back as she swishes past him to move behind the bar counter. “Of course we’ve got it. But are you old enough to drink now?”
“I’ve been legal since I was twelve,” Ed says, fishing out the watch to show her, even though she should know this by now. “Here’s my ID in case you don’t believe me.”
“You’re not eighteen yet, though,” she says brightly, pouring him a more-than-healthy amount of whiskey, “and that’s what you need to be to drink the heavy stuff like this.”
“Well, kids aren’t meant to join the military either,” Ed points out before he takes a sip. He’s not here to get drunk— hates the feeling, in fact —but a bit to take the edge off while gathering information sounds practical. And if it makes the military think that he’s day-drinking, they might write him off as less dangerous than he really is.
Pity for them, Ed’s lethal.
“And have I got news for you darling,” Vanessa purrs, leaning on the countertop in a way that shows off all of her cleavage. She does it to tease him, knowing full well that Ed doesn’t swing that way. “My darling little brother had his team scattered to the winds.”
If Ed was any less trained in not showing off his true reactions, he would have sat up ramrod straight. He’s known that it was coming, but this means that they will have to start moving faster.
“And his aide?” Vanessa continues, probably having noticed his muted reaction. “Well, she works for the Führer directly now.”
Ed swallows, trying to wetten his dry throat. “And me?”
“Formally you’re under Olsen.” She fixes him with a look. “My brother suggests that if you want to keep your freedom, you should attempt to get lost.”
“Desert, you mean,” Ed says, and reality hits him like a truck. They’re moving now, and they’re moving fast.
One of the surprises that had met him in Liore had been his father helping out with the reconstruction effort. It hadn’t taken them long (after Ed had attempted to get a good hit in)— sitting in complete darkness, just in case Pride had followed him all the way out to the Eastern frontier —to come up with a plan to thwart this fake god’s plan to swallow Amestris up. He doesn’t like that he has to cooperate with his asshole awful shitty excuse of a father, but needs must when it comes to staging a coup and fighting a megalomaniac in the same go.
“He already left a new set of clothes here for you so you can go into hiding right away,” Vanessa says. They’re alone in the bar and Al’s taught him what those two Xingese people taught him as repayment for getting them somewhere to stay and giving them information on the state of the country. He’s learnt to sense the energy of life— and by extension, a Philosopher’s Stone is just a bunch of life compacted into a very small object.
Pride’s not anywhere close.
Ed swears still, quiet, but in the room it seems almost too loud.
“You were only gone for a week, and now your whole world must have fallen to pieces around you,” Vanessa says sympathetically. “You can stay here with us, if you’re staying in Central. But you’re gonna have to change your appearance quite drastically. With looks like yours you stand out whether you want to or not.”
Ed grabs his braid and observes it. The tips are damaged, and he has been growing it out since before Hughes died. Everyone who looks at Edward Elric expects long hair and a suit of armour towering next to him. And if he cuts the hair, then he will have neither.
“I guess it’s time for a change, huh?” Ed says, more to himself than to anyone else. ‘
“Do you know any good hairstylists, Nessa?”
Vanessa leans over the counter again and touches the tip of the braid. “Oh darling, I’ll do your hair. I’m sure you’ll look stunning with short hair. Roy won’t know what hit him.”
He doesn’t blush, but it’s a close thing. It doesn’t matter.
Ed doesn’t end up staying with the girls long, too busy travelling around the country and gathering allies and playing messaging boy between the different parts of what used to make up Roy’s old team, and by the time he sees Roy again it’s the day of the coup.
He’s nineteen now, and probably declared legally dead (he never looked into the durations needed to no longer be considered alive), and his hair is short and Al’s fading in and out of consciousness in his suit. The bastard fake god that’s made their life hell since Ed was four years old needs to give up his Philosopher’s Stone so Ed can get Al’s body back from the bitch in the beyond.
Ed’s been in contact with Roy only through very brief letters and communication through Vanessa and the other girls, and only ever enough to coordinate their efforts in taking down the corruption excuse for a government that currently runs their state.
Whatever it was Ed expected when they met again, it’s not what ends up happening. They both get dragged through their own portals and meet face to face and it’s all terrible.
Somehow the fact that Roy is unable to see and covered in blood seems like the least of their worries. The issue here is that all five sacrifices— and Ed hates how that’s the word they’ve chosen to use —are in the same place with the dickwad that calls himself Father. Ed doesn’t like father figures, and being in the same room with two people that look like the person that abandoned him? It makes rage well up inside him like lava.
“Roy!” Ed calls out, but before he can make it over to the man, the world around them blurs. Suddenly they're standing above ground, close to Father and the eclipse is total.
Ed immediately shields his eyes from the sun because he's not an idiot – when he'd told Winry that the Promised Day was set to land on the day of the great and total eclipse, she had immediately beaten it into him to be careful about looking up at the sun.
He wants to warn Roy, but once again he's interrupted by Father.
See, so Ed doesn't kill, doesn't do on principle because while he feels less than human on the best of days he hasn't lost his humanity, and taking the life of another person is something he doesn't want weighing on his conscience.
But never has he come so close to bloodlust as with Father.
“Roy!” he calls out again, and sue him, he sounds a little wrecked and a lot desperate. “Roy! Teacher’s on your right! Try to find her!”
He doesn't get out more than that before he feels the burning, electrical smell of alchemy in the air, and the air around them is tinged in a dangerous and toxic red.
Ed sprints towards Roy with his left hand out, trying to catch Roy's hand, shoulder, jacket, hell he’ll grab him by the neck if it means that he will be able to hold Roy as the world around them implodes.
Less than a metre away, he stumbles, and from his position on the ground, Ed can only see Roy’s panicked face blindly look around.
The air becomes too charged to breathe, and for a moment nothingness takes them all.
In the end, everything happens as they’ve planned out in pitch-black rooms away from Central; on scratchy, almost illegibly written notes on napkins; in heavily encoded letters and during seemingly-random conversations.
Everyone in on their anti-conspiracy (as they'd taken to call it) had been aware that it has to be Ed that takes out Father. He has to be the one to kill this thing masquerading as something above mankind. There's only one thing close to a god in this forsaken world, and Father isn't it.
Dragging the Dwarf with him to see Truth is almost the easiest thing. He’s planned this and tried it out with Pride because good riddance to Pride specifically; he’s the reason Ed never wants kids. Who knew that kids could be so creepy?
It's easy enough to clap his hands and grab onto the Philosopher's Stone that fuels the puppet suit that Father resides in, and for the nth time, Ed ends up in front of the Gate of Truth. This time, however, he gets to watch as judgment is passed on someone else.
It's first in the aftermath, when Father's dead and with no corpse left behind, that Ed feels like he can breathe for the first time in years. The sick and wounded are wheeled away to any manner of clinic able to care for them and the dead are gathered for identification.
The memories of having to identify Hughes bubbles up in him and Ed almost feels sick. Last time he'd managed to avoid having Roy do it, and this time…
… this time Roy can't help anyone even if he wants to.
They've kicked Ed out of his brother's room so that they can examine him and come up with the best plan for how to treat him. Wandering the hallways is no fun and his right arm is useless, hanging in a sling and bandaged up around the hand from grabbing onto that piece of rebar.
He's just about to give in and find a bench to sit down on when he hears familiar voices from an open door.
Ed tiptoes over to it– as much as someone can tiptoe anywhere in hospital-issued slippers –and listens in on the conversation.
“Do you think there is a future in store for me?” Roy Mustang asks, accompanied by a sigh.
He can't tell if Roy's talking to himself– something that he's known to do when Ed’s in the room and he's decided that Ed doesn't make a good conversation partner –or if he's sharing the room with someone.
“The military accepts people with prosthetics all the time,” Hawkeye says, “and a sizable number of the old guard that Bradley never wanted to change out were not only blind and deaf, but also cognitively not at their best anymore. With all due respect, sir, you should look brighter at your future.”
Ed can't help himself; he walzes in and only with an ounce of the disrespect he used to show Roy as a teenager exclaims: “So, you were blinded by your visions of the future, huh, bastard?”
He waves his one functional hand at Hawkeye in greeting and plops down on Roy’s bed, only taking a little care not to hit his legs.
“Edward,” Roy says, and he's staring approximately at where Ed is sitting, “I recall you screaming my name like a child only a couple hours ago.”
Hawkeye smiles, and it's that knowing smile that makes Ed think that she knows something that he doesn't.
“Can't blame me for being worried about you,” Ed snarks. “See if I ever try to care about you again.”
Roy tilts his head to the side, and it doesn't matter that his eyes have a hazy white film over the pupils or that he's not staring directly at Ed. He looks eerily similar to Black Hayate and it occurs to him that he's compared Roy to the dog before; on the evening where Roy had first introduced Ed to alcohol as a method of calming down.
His crush since then has only grown, sprung roots in him not unlike a wild rose bush, and settled into something warm that had kept Ed almost as motivated to survive the end of the world as seeing Al returned to his original body. Ed’s never been one for reading fairytales, but he remembers faintly his mother reading him and Al a story of people so in love that they grew flowers in their lungs.
Ed feels a little like them sometimes. Choked up with affection so strong.
It doesn't hurt, by far not.
At first it had pissed him off, then it had worried him (because whether he likes it or not there is a fourteen-year age gap between them). Now it only sits warm in his chest.
“I heard from Vanessa that she cuts your hair now,” Roy says, apropos of nothing. “And that you calmed down a lot.”
“Suddenly being faced with a giant conspiracy trying to kill the whole country does that to you,” Ed says, and he touches his one good hand to his head. He's got that bandage, but most of his hair is hanging outside of it. “I know you can't see, so… do you want to feel it? To get an idea of how short it is?”
Ed doesn't need to look at Hawkeye to know that she's silently laughing at him. He would flip her off if he didn't respect her so damn much.
“If you'd let me,” Roy says.
Ed moves closer to him and carefully picks up Roy’s left hand to place on top of his head. Roy pets his hair carefully, follows the strands down, and after a few seconds, discovers the halfway grown-out undercut. It's not the most flattering hairstyle he's ever had, and Ed does want to grow it out now that the apocalypse has passed.
It had done something to his self-confidence to cut it so short, and whenever he'd looked in the mirror (something he'd tried to avoid at all costs) he'd looked back at the Ed from before their first attempt at human transmutation.
“I miss your long hair,” Roy says, and his hand wanders to tracing Ed’s face. “You've grown.”
“Im nineteen now,” Ed points out. “A lot has happened since we last saw one another.”
“So it has,” Roy says. “Say, Ed, are you staying with the military now that you've achieved your goal? Riza mentioned that you've got your arm back.”
Ed picks up Roy’s left hand, still mindful of the fact that they're bandaged. He doesn't know what happened, and it might be too painful to ask. “Depends. It'll be a while before I'm back on active duty if I stay, though. I need surgery, probably.”
“Surgery? Why?” Roy asks. He's careful when it comes to touching Ed’s hand and wrist, but it still prickles uncomfortably from the oversensitivity.
“There's still a bunch of metal in my shoulder,” Ed explains. “Winry’s coming to assess it in a couple days and to talk it over with the doctors here. When I talked to her on the phone, she said she doesn't want to cut into me unless she has to, but it's not exactly comfortable.”
He guides Roy's hand up to pet the bolt that's protruding from his collar bone. “That's one of the pieces she might want gone.”
“You have a long road of healing in front of you,” Roy says.
“So do you,” Ed says. “I heard Marcoh still has the Stone. Can't he heal your sight? I mean with something taken by Truth it's a bit more complicated than that. You'll have to perform human transmutation again and barter for as much vision as the stone is worth, more or less. It'd be by far the safest option.”
Roy looks down, and places one hand on top of each other. “I've asked him to heal Havoc first. It was my negligence that led to his injury. If there's power left in it after that… well, I suppose I can't say no.”
“The Stone’s already made,” Ed says. “You might as well use it. It's not like it can be destroyed by any typical means.”
“I suppose you're right.” Roy doesn't look up, but the defeated expression on his face doesn't suit him. Ed wants to make it go away.
“You can't just give up now,” Ed says fiercely. “What will happen to the country when the next crisis happens? You saw it through this one. You know what Hughes said because he told me! We're all rallying behind you, and we'll follow you to the top. Not just me, but Hawkeye, the team, Al, hell Winry supports your plans because you would go about it the right way.”
He doesn't realise that he's raised his voice until it echoes off the walls of the hospital room.
For a moment nothing happens. Then Roy starts to laugh, deep but clear. It's a wonderful sound. “Oh, Ed, never change. You're behind me, then?”
Ed grabs Roy’s hand carefully. “Till the end, bastard.”