[fic] "CSI: Amestris" (Detective AU) - Chapter 1, Part II

[cryogenia]

Title: CSI: Amestris
Genre: AU
Rating: R
Summary: Originally written for this prompt on the FMA Kinkmeme. Detectives Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes are caught up in a web of intrigue and murder as a series of brutal murders rocks Central city to its core. Along with their informant Edward Elric, a brilliant but troubled young man, their investigation will take them into the darkest reaches of Amestris's underground, and uncover a secret so dangerous they may not live to betray...

Back to Chapter 1 - Part I

Contrary to popular belief, South Central wasn't the lowest rent part of the city. It was infested with gang fronts and chop shops and condemned slumlord housing, but that it had rent at all still set it one step above the Waterfront. The Central River, with her plethora of sewage treatment facilities and garbage barges and industrial waste, moved all the human trash along too. When the beggars finished their day, and there was nothing but litter in their caps; when the junkies had sold their last fillings to pay for the chemicals rotting the teeth out their heads, the three-mile stretch of open and covered canals that formed the border between the bad and worse sides of town was what they had to go home to. Territory so worthless that no gang had even bothered to claim it; no-man's land, in the most literal sense. There was rock bottom, and then there was the river.

Roy picked his way carefully along the frontage road next to the river as the sun began to set. There was Canal Road and then there was Canal Street, the unofficial designation for the stone pathway set down into the open canal proper. It was the hope, back when the canal system was first designed to contain Central's natural waterways, that at low-water times the public might use the access path as a scenic walking path down by the water. A gathering place for society ladies, access for their children to be introduced to Nature and the virtues of wildlife in the water. What no one seemed to have accounted for, Roy thought with dark amusement, was how much less scenic a natural tributary became once reed covered creek banks converted to concrete, or how few children wanted to play in dank, polluted waters. No one had seen a fish in years.

Wildlife still flourished, though, especially at night. Aimless shapes shifted on the walkway fifteen feet below, men and women draped in linens and tablecloths and even plastic bags; piled with so many layers of makeshift clothing the men were no longer distinguishable from the women. Some wore pots covering over their heads, some walked round with pans taped onto their backs, all their earthly belongings and trappings of madness meandering with them. The people in the downtown districts, they thought they knew what destitute was, the busker on the corner who played the violin. To many on Canal Street, money no longer had meaning. Their despair had grown past that point. Young and old, tall and small, all of them simply shuffled, bearing the same identical zombie stares.

There was one figure down on the banks that did not fit in, Roy noticed as he passed, and he stopped and turned back a moment to watch. A man, bending next to a woman cocooned in three knit quilts. He, too, was dressed nondescriptly, carrying a sack, but when he straightened up his posture was all wrong, the set of his shoulders far too proud and wide. It was obvious this man, alone of the throng, walked with purpose.

That he was not Roy's quarry was also apparent. His skin was dark and tan-colored, his short white hair meticulously cropped at the sides and back of his head. An Ishvarite monk then, bringing gospel to the poor. Roy watched as the man knelt beside another pile of carpet and clothing and reached into his simple sack, pulled out a bit of bread to offer to the person buried beneath. The outcasts feeding the outcasts.

As if the man could sense his presence, suddenly the monk rose up again, turned around to meet Roy's gaze. His eerie eyes were baleful in the orangeing light, demonic chips of red not browbeaten or downtrodden at all. Challenging, direct. Slightly uncomfortable, Roy waved and moved on.

He wouldn't find his contact here anyway, he never did. Not down by the canal itself. The waterfront was just a convenient cover, a place the man tended to drift. Usually when the heat was bad. And judging from what his contacts down south had told him, right now Aquaroya might as well be on fire. It would take a good while of laying low before that little jewelry heist incident blew over.

Too bad "laying low" wasn't exactly his snitch's forte. If there was one area he excelled at, really excelled, it was knowing criminals better than they knew themselves. It wasn't long before he found it. Another aspect of the city's failed scenic park planning was the creation of several "miniparks" across covered parts of the waterway; they were to foster the illusion that when the water disappeared underground, it was to nourish flowers and trees. Right now this one was nourishing a bright orange extension cord, plugged into a concrete pillar originally intended for picnicer's boomboxes. Even in the failing light it stuck out like a sore thumb, snaking curiously out across the road and all the way across to an alley, a narrow little gap between two dilapidated old buildings.

Roy grinned to himself, then bent down and unplugged it.

There was a predictable amount of cursing. A tiny figure came storming out from between the two buildings a moment later, tracing back along the extension cord with a focus others might reserve for bombs. When he finally came near enough to see Roy's standard-issue blues next to it, his little blond head jerked back like he'd been hit.

"Oh fuck, not you again!"

"Me again," Roy confirmed, not even bothering to keep the triumphant smirk off his face. Of all of his snitches, Edward Elric was always the most entertainingly predictable.

"How was Aquaroya?"

"Sucked," the boy snapped back, typically blunt. He lunged down to pick up the extension cord and Roy shifted his foot over to pin the plug to the ground. Edward bristled like an unhappy cat.

"Oh come on, you bastard! You got no right to disconnect my electricity!"

"It's the city's electricity," Roy said evenly, gesturing toward the park district sign. "I believe the park district is footing the bill."

"So? I pay for that with my tax dollars!"

"You don't pay taxes, Fullmetal," Roy asserted. "Unless you've had a lobotomy and converted to the straight and narrow. What were you using it for, anyway?"

Edward sighed and rolled his eyes, crossed his arms in an exaggerated gesture.

"I'm not getting rid of you, am I?" he muttered. Roy didn't bother dignifying that with a response; he knew a rhetorical question when he heard one.

"Just put it back and I'll show you."

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on," Roy shot back, equally as firm. "If this is for a lab, Fullmetal..."

"LOOK, you dick," Edward snarled. In the deepening gloom, his hair was the only feature that stood out, preternaturally gold, the same color as his alien eyes. They looked more like a lion's than a person in the closing night.

"It's for my new place, I just finished it! Got lights and a heater and everything. So you gonna stand out here and play games all night, or are you gonna come in where it's warm?"

Slowly, Roy lifted his foot back off the cord, though he made no move to plug it in. After a moment, Edward grumbled and leaned down to do the honors himself.

"You are such a bastard," the boy growled as he waved for Roy to follow.

As they neared the mouth of the alley, it became obvious this particular dark blight in the streetscape was rather less dark than it properly ought to be. The glow seemed to be radiating outward, not from a security light, but from a rather strange construction nestled halfway down the alley, stretching neatly between the brick walls of the two neighboring warehouses. It appeared to be a wooden shack, not unlike a slightly larger version of an old-fashioned kid's clubhouse, constructed from a hodge-podge of different painted boards with a dilapidated men's restroom door accessing the inside. It was also glowing. Edward grumpily yanked the door open, at which point the reason for the eerie glow became clear. The extension cord was cut apart at one end and the copper inside sussed out and hot wired into an eclectic chain of holiday lights, a ripped Xingian paper lantern, and a single bare lightbulb, swinging overhead. Also of note was a radial heater, with its own separate ball of wire and electrical tape coaxing it to put out warmth. It was nearly as tall as Edward's hip.

Edward pulled a couple of stained bed pillows off the sleeping bag in the corner and flopped down right next to the heater, sighing with obvious content. He made no move to find something for Roy to sit on.

"You know you wouldn't need the heater if you wore more clothes," Roy pointed out, appraising the boy now that they were in the light. Edward was dressed conservatively, by Edward standards, which was to say he might not be thrown out of a truckstop diner. The black long-sleeved 'shirt' he was sporting barely came down to cover his nipples; the fabric below that line had been shredded into holes so large the divisions between them were little more than strings. All the better to show off the wares, Roy supposed. Edward was inhumanly ripped, and his abs were individually defined; an actual six-pack, as opposed to the beer belly Patrolman Breda liked to slap and joke was his six-pack. There was a light line of down shooting straight down the middle of them too, disappearing into the top of the seemingly shrink-wrapped leather pants the boy was wearing. The treasure trail, a bonafide sign that Edward was going through puberty. That was good, he wanted Ed to be at least that age. It made not thinking about the nature of his job easier.

Ed's answer was an extended middle finger.

"Don't show up wanting shit if you're gonna be judge-y. I delivered as promised, I took down your cat burglar."

"Indeed," Roy said. "Along with the majority of Aquaroya's National History Museum. The cost of restoring some of those exhibits might possibly exceed the value of the heirlooms you were supposed to recover."

"What, you questioning my methods now?!" Ed actually looked affronted. "I get results. That's what matters to you people, isn't it? If you don't like my tactics, don't use me."

A tense, shrewd expression flashed across his sweetheart's face, twisting it into ugliness.

"Which reminds me...you got the other five thou you owe me?"

Roy sighed and pulled out his wallet, peeled off several bills and tossed them to the sulking boy. Ed flicked through them quickly, counting them with practiced ease, before concealing them somehow in the pocket of his skintight pants.

"Ten thousand, as promised," Roy said. "Go buy yourself a real shirt."

Ed nodded and finally seemed to relax a bit, slouching back resplendently into his glamorous throne of cast-off pillows, eminently pleased with himself. Now that he'd been paid, he even offered Roy a hint of a real smile, an unusual gesture that left him disarmingly pretty.

Roy said nothing. Technically, the department had offered thirty thousand for the capture of the infamous Psiren, but there was collateral property damage to be considered, and ten thousand cens was still nothing to sneeze at for a couple day's work. Plus, no matter what Edward promised him, Roy knew full well that in a matter of days he would be flat broke and scrounging again. Ed might have the distinction of being the only genius-level repeat offender in the tri-county area, but the depressing reality was that his intellect had no effect on his ability not to shed money like water. He would blow through this ten thousand and go right back to his same old tricks, until Roy cornered him again and sent him off on another mission for hire.

Roy looked up at the cheery little string of lights and shook his head. All that talent and drive, so very horribly misplaced. Edward might be brilliant, but Edward was still an addict, endlessly, hopelessly enslaved. No matter how beautifully the boy smiled, he had to remember the nature of the beast.

Ed saw him looking and scowled. Now that the magic of his smile had broken, he quickly reverted to form, impatient and energetic.

"So what is it this time? I know you didn't come all this way just to pay me. Tight ass."

Roy ignored the insult, though the attitude, as always, was starting to get to him. He wondered sometimes if the kid even understood Roy was trying to help him. Hughes didn't see it of course - Hughes was always on him to bring Edward in with them, for fuck's sake - but Hughes didn't know what it was like, the hunger. There were many designer drugs and they went by many names, the Crimson Elixir, the Red Stone, the Dragon, but any way you picked your poison, the desire was the same. A man searching for the stone was a man possessed, and when an addict was still caught in that thrall, nothing and no one could stand in their way. The courts had tried sending Ed to rehab. He'd snowed even the most seasoned social workers and escaped in a matter of days.

"Information, Fullmetal," Roy said brusquely. "I need to know if you've seen a particular symbol around."

"All right, then I need to see some particular dead politicians," Ed said without missing a beat. He extended one gloved hand, gesturing for more bills, and the cocky way he spread his legs as he did so (was that possibly reflex!?) set Roy's teeth on edge.

"You know technically, I wouldn't have to pay you," he growled. "You could cooperate because it's your civic duty."

Ed leaned forward and grabbed the cuff of Roy's uniform pants, looked at him and tugged hard. For one heart-stopping moment, Roy thought the kid was actually coming onto him -- did he really think Roy was holding out for him to sweeten the deal!? -- but then Ed released him and gave him his very best shit-eating grin.

"So far nothing jingles. Or did I pull the wrong one, for the bells?"

And now the delinquent was taking his own words and mocking him with them. As though it was perfectly normal for a detective to go out of his way to pay known addicts, and thus bankroll their continued attempts at clandestine synthesis. Little bastard, he never changed.

"And if I took this place apart right now, you're telling me there's not a single thing the D.A. would find disagreeable."

"Illegal search and seizure," Ed whipped right back at him. "No warrant."

He did sit up a little straighter in his pillow nest though, Roy noticed with a practiced eye. The way Ed now leaned to the left, the stash was probably in that side's pocket. It made sense - like a thief was actually going to be able to get a hand down those pants.

"Probable cause," Roy fired back. "You being you. And I wouldn't need a warrant, anyway."

He gestured to the ramshackle construction above. "Unless you've got a deed and zoning permit I don't know about, technically, you're squatting. And stealing electricity."

He looked over at the dingy sleeping bag, the mismatched pillows next to it. "Dumpster diving's illegal too."

"Bastard," Ed muttered under his breath, but subsided.

Roy reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a notepad and pen. He wasn't as talented as Hughes but he could at least assemble a few shapes together, enough to capture the relevant details.

"Here," he said simply and handed it over, watching closely for Edward's reaction. Unlike Greed, he was acutely in tune with all of Ed's tells. It was a curious thing. For all that 'Fullmetal' fronted he was hard, for as much trouble as he tended to get in, the boy's poker face was still laughable. His feelings were always right front and center.

Right now, his countenance was saying "confusion".

"It's supposed to look like this?" Ed waved the pad up at Roy. "What's with the fangs growing out of the egg?"

"The ellipse is supposed to be a circle, and the circular part is supposed to be a snake," Roy grudgingly explained. Damn, he really ought to have waited until the crime scene photos developed. "The ouroboros is a serpent from an ancient tradition--"

"Xerxian, yeah," Ed interjected, waving his hand. As though it were perfectly normal for a street rat and addict to know the ins and outs of classical literature. "They thought it was responsible for earthquakes, planetary rotation. Though how the fuck you think something's both squeezing the planet together AND making it spin, I have no idea."

And more details than he'd been able to remember himself. It figured Ed would do that. He was staring at it just a little too hard for history, though. Ed was staring at the paper as though it personally offended him, and Roy was willing to bet the animosity ran a little deeper than Ed's usual dislike of 'theistic idiocracy'.

"With the wings, one could also say the ouroboros counts as a 'dragon'," Roy prompted smoothly. "I was thinking perhaps your crowd would know something about that."

Ed licked his lips, now clearly nervous.

"My 'crowd'? What crowd, do you see a crowd here?"

He raised his right arm and swept it defiantly around, showcasing the emptiness, then leaned back against the wall of his shack, trying to front that he wasn't the least bit concerned.

"In case you haven't noticed, I don't exactly play well with others."

Roy just arched an eyebrow, kept it arched, its ire trained directly at the middle of Edward's forehead. After half a minute of unrelenting skepticism, Ed invariably cracked. Hard, indeed. Sometimes, he thought that Hughes was right. If this kid ever did cross paths with an actual street-for-lifer, the real gangbangers would eat him alive.

"Look, I'm not dealing, if that's what you're getting at!" Ed blurted finally.

"But you still use," Roy growled, seizing at the obvious omission. He didn't even bother waiting for the half-hearted protest. In the same breath as he was bristling to proclaim his maligned innocence, Ed was leaning even farther over to protect his special pocket. It was a move so transparent it would have been laughable if Roy had time to be anything but irritated.

"Fullmetal, I know you know something. Don't make this difficult."

Ed squirmed again, hunched pathetically over his hip stash, before finally giving in.

"I've seen it around, yeah," the boy said slowly. "There's a guy who's got it as a tatt."

"Who?"

"Dunno. I never got his name," Ed flushed a little. "We partied a couple of times."

Translation, got blasted, probably exchanged sexual favors for hits. Ed wasn't known to Vice as a regular spread, not the way Greed's girls were, but Roy knew what it meant for an addict as young and pretty as Fullmetal to be on the streets. The next high was the only value that mattered to a junkie. Anything and everything else was negotiable.

Ed was glaring up at him, just daring him to comment, and Roy bit down on his cheek hard. Diplomacy and grace, that was what he needed. Their usual bickering would get them nowhere.

"This 'guy', can you at least describe him?" he asked instead.

"Like your long-lost kid brother?"

Roy gave him a look and Ed flailed.

"No, seriously! The guy was Xingian."

Ed reached up with his left hand and pulled the corners of his eyes into an outmoded racist squint. Roy had never bothered to enlighten him that he didn't actually find the gesture offensive.

"Tiny eyes and everything. Longer hair than you, though. He had it in one of those fake ponytails, what do you call 'em, rat tails."

"Where was the tattoo?"

"Back of his hand." Ed thought for a moment. "Left, I think."

That didn't seem like a fatty enough area to have produced the chunk they had found at the crime scene, Roy thought. Unless the man was extraordinarily meaty. He supposed it wasn't completely impossible. Inspector Armstrong was a bodybuilder and he had inhumanly beefy hands.

"How was he built?" Roy asked, just in case.

"Wiry, real long legs."

"Not overweight, then?" So much for that idea.

"Nah, he was cut." Ed nodded appreciatively, leaning back on his own muscular arms. Even through the dark fabric of the boy's shirt, Roy could see his biceps pop out.

Again, so much wasted potential. Edward might not have the height to be a model yet, but he certainly had the face and body for it. And Roy didn't believe for a second the boy was really eighteen and done growing, the way his IDs inevitably claimed. The boy had been 'eighteen' for at least three years now; it was a running joke at the office. Roy looked down over Ed's exposed abs again, the tight angles of his pelvis leading down beneath his waistband, and something inside him twisted.

"Anything else?"

Ed shrugged.

"He had a pretty wicked accent. Lots of clipped vowels, like he was fat."

"Fat--ah, right," It took Roy a second to process the acronym. "Fresh About Town", or more originally "Freight Ain't Ticketed", the catch-all for immigrants sneaking in via trainyards.

"Said he was a martial artist, though I didn't get the chance to test that part."

"You tried him out in other ways, I take it."

So much for diplomacy. The jab was out before Roy could think twice about it. It was just so natural to argue back and forth with Fullmetal. Their trash-talking banter had a rhythm that was more natural than most polite conversations. Most of the time, he secretly even liked it.

"No, actually," Ed growled. He actually had the gall to sounded offended. "You want to know the truth, he was kind of a dick. Stuck me with his entire tab at Atelier Garfiel. I think he ordered damn near everything off the menu. That place, a glass of water costs a fiver for the lemon."

Ed looked up at him suspiciously. "Why do you need to know all this, anyway? Is he not good people?"

Leave it to Edward to ever describe fellow addicts as "good people."

"It depends," Roy said evenly. "He might be dead people."

Ed visibly faltered. A shadow fell across his face and he picked at rung in the string-ladder pretending to be his shirt. So young, he looked so very young like this. Roy swallowed hard as something inside twisted again.

"...oh," Ed said after a moment. "Damn."

"'Damn' is right. You sure there isn't anything else you want to tell me?" Roy pressed. "Who else this guy parties with, what kind of business he's into?"

Ed shook his head.

"Last time was Garfiel's, two weeks ago. Private party, he was crashing."

"And you were invited?" Roy asked, eyebrow raised. Atelier Garfiel was known to be a "discrete" club, but still too high-end for the scene Fullmetal usually frequented. Garfiel's type of vice was gentlemen seeking gentlemen; closeted politicians with their consorts, not barely-clothed addict rent boys.

"Yeah, I was invited! People know me!"

Spoken defiantly, as though he expected Roy to contradict him. As if Roy didn't know full well. Ed's reputation as a clandestine chemist was what he took advantage of to get his informant into sensitive situations; despite his lack of regular mob or gang connections, everyone had heard of Fullmetal, the 'alchemist'. Everyone wanted a piece of the magic Edward's talent could create.

"I'm fucking famous in Central, in case you forgot?"

"I'm just trying to get the facts," he said. "Fullmetal, I don't have time for your ego. Someone's been murdered in connection with that symbol. If we're going to solve this, I need everything you can give me."

Again with the shifting. Roy had half a mind just to go flip him over and dump out whatever he was trying to hide so at least he would stop that distracting wiggling. In those pants it almost looked painful.

"Well, like I said, this guy was new around town. He didn't seem to know anybody. He glommed onto me pretty hard though, once he found out who I was. And don't get pissed, but..."

He looked up at Roy furtively.

"He hit me up for the big time, okay? Said he was a prince."

For a moment, everything shut down.

"A prince," Roy replied flatly. "As in the mob kind."

If Ed saw heard the edge that had come into Roy's voice, he gave no indication. He waved a hand dismissively, looking vaguely bored.

"I guess. He claimed to represent some cartel back east. The Yao family, like anyone's ever heard of them."

Roy had in fact heard of them, and the Yao clan, an subdivision of the infamous Imperial Family, was definitely the last thing the city needed. Central had enough gang war and ethnic tension without a foreign outfit trying to move in. It would make sense though. Unlike the local thugs who played at being brothers-for-life, until they couldn't agree what color bandanna to wear, Xingian organized crime was fanatical and disciplined. Their hierarchy was clearly defined and absolute, in some cases leadership passed down for generations. Literal crime families, with business fronts and resources built up over many years.

Greed's words from earlier reverberated through his head. "Harder action", indeed. If a clan from Xing was trying to break into the Central drug market, it would be more coherent and competent than any scheme the city had seen before.

"This guy was part of a mob family," Roy said incredulously. "And you didn't think that detail was relevant to mention?!"

"I'm mentioning it now, okay!" Ed hissed. "Look, I thought he was shitting me! A lot of idiots make up things to get into a party. This guy was talking big, but it was pretty clear he had no idea what he was saying. He said he wanted the Red Stone, pure. That's not possible, it's volatile as fuck. Precipitates into all kinds of shit, no one's ever even come close. And sticking a guy with the bar tab don't exactly inspire confidence either. 'You can't pay for booze you can't pay to use', that's what I always say."

He grinned up at Roy anxiously, as though the cute rhyme was to somehow make up for this clusterfuck. Damn it, the little shit always did this. He waltzed into things blind, expecting his wits to carry him through; thinking he was so hard, when the reality was he had no idea what kinds of forces he was toying with.

"Actually, Fullmetal," Roy ground out, trying to keep a lid on his temper. "That part adds legitimacy. A clan leader never pays for his own things around subordinates. The bottom tier members are expected to take care of everything. 'Paying your dues' is part of the mob's initiation process. "

"Guess it's good to be the kingpin," Ed said breezily. "Sucks for the idiots who fall for it."

"You don't understand. If a prince left you a bill, and you paid it, that could be taken as a sign you're accepting his protection!"

"Yeah, well what was I supposed to do?" Ed snapped. "Somebody had to. Garfiel's good people, I wasn't gonna stiff him. Even though he overcharges."

First Greed, now Fullmetal. Great. Roy ran a hand over his face. Leave it to him to get stuck with the criminals with an inconvenient sense of honor.

"If the mob's involved, it gets complicated. I spent a lot of time working with that crowd back east. If this prince thinks you're interested, they're going to pursue you, aggressively. These people don't tend to take no."

"They'll take mine," Ed breathed. "I'm pretty aggressive, myself."

He pressed his hands together and did something complicated beneath his right sleeve. There was a slick metallic click and suddenly a wicked blade presented itself from Ed's right sleeve. Not a simple throwing knife, like Hughes kept secreted for emergencies; this baby was six inches long and worn over Ed's forearm like a gauntlet. A retractable quick-stick, the real reason he was called 'Fullmetal'.

It was also illegal as hell. Roy could feel his blood pressure rising already.

"Fullmetal!" he growled. "Put that away, I don't want to see it!"

"What's the matter?" Ed grinned. Back to flippant. He spread his legs coquettishly and dropped the blade-arm between. "Yours not big enough?"

Roy gave him the eyebrow treatment again, mostly for the painful double entendre.

"Do you really want to add to the list of reasons I should take you in? Central doesn't have concealed carry."

"All right, fine!" Ed rolled his eyes and pressed his hands together to make the blade disappear. It retracted with a neat, nearly silent ssschk.

At no point did he let either sleeve roll up, Roy noticed. Interesting. Was that because of the knife? Or was he hiding something else...like fresh needle tracks?

"Did the prince talk to you about anything else?" he asked. "Mention a contract, or offer you something?"

"Besides the Stone? No, not really," Ed said.

His eyes darted hard to the left, though, and he leaned over his pocket so fast his pants creaked. There was something in there, Roy could almost see the outline. Round and defined, like a pill case.

"'Not really'. What does that mean?" Roy ground out, voice tight. "Other drugs? Is that it? You used with him, didn't you?"

"We partied, like I said," Ed bit back, glowering. "Figure it out."

"So you shared," Roy growled back, staring at the boy's pocket. "Or was he selling to you? You were flat broke before I sent you out to Aquaroya. What exactly did you use to pay?"

As if it wasn't perfectly clear what currency Edward traded in, that tantalizing glimpse of skin. Such a waste, of brains and beauty and talent and energy...

You have to want to change, Hughes's voice echoed back to him over time and space, and somehow the memory only made him angrier.

Ed's eyes followed his down to the tight V of Ed's own legs, and the boy's temper visibly ignited.

"None of your business, how I get anything," Ed snarled. "I can take care of myself."

"And you've been doing such a good job of that, I see," Roy drolled, reaching up to tap the broken little paper lantern. It swung crazily in circles, splaying light unevenly from the tear in its side, an unintentional disco ball.

He glared down at the bristling boy.

"On the contrary, it is my business, Fullmetal. When homicide gets involved, then it's my business. This dealer may be dead, or he may be implicated, if that fancy snake is what he uses as a calling-card. Either way, it's bad news."

"So I'll tell him to fuck off, end of story," Ed glowered. "And you can fuck off too, if you're going to get all judgmental."

"'Judgmental'," Roy repeated flatly. "You traded favors with a mob boss! For what? One hit, two? Fun and done, Fullmetal, and you are about to experience a whole new world of pain-in-the-ass. These people don't compromise, they don't quit. They will get their claws in and they will not let you go. They will make you make the Stone for them, they will make you make it pure, and if you can't? They will farm your ass out on the street corners, or they will kill you. You tell me - was it worth it?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, cut the crap already, Mustang!"

Ed's mouth twisted down into one long drawn-out sneer, an ugly expression marring his pretty face.

"We both know you're just as big a user."

An icy rivulet ran down the back of Roy's spine and he stiffened in spite of himself. Hot eyes were on him, boring into him; wolf eyes, honed sharp with the greatest of man's intelligence, and all Roy could think for a moment was that he knew, Ed knew, son of a bitch, somehow he knew.

Except that was impossible, he realized a second later, when breath returned to his lungs. No one knew, not even Hughes; he was always careful. So what...

Ed tossed his head to the side, trailing his uneven, beautiful hair with it, sweeping it over the pillow beneath him. Every muscle in his defined abdomen tensed and then rippled all the way along his tawny treasure trail, right down to the top button of his pants.

"Yeah, that bastard wanted me," Ed said, arching his hips up. The ugliness was gone now, replaced by a knowing, predatory smile. A pro's smirk, somehow worse for its artificial cheer. "You know you wanna to pump me too."

"That's enough!" Roy snapped, leaning over him, almost ready to smack him but not wanting to touch. The boy's street persona was downright disturbing. He wielded his sexuality like a knife, pointed and to the point; an act of aggression, not of affection.

"Oh that's right, for information. Like that makes you better? News flash, you're still using me. I'm still using you. That's how this works."

Ed rolled his tight shoulders and leaned his entire body back, cascading his shimmering hair down around him in a sinuous motion. Roy watched, dry-mouthed, at the way the boy's chest and stomach tightened, his arms and legs spread. In the low, uneven light, the shift of the dark holes of his shirt made it look like he was writhing.

"Everything comes at cost," Ed husked, looking up at him. Challenging.

"Like it or not, you need me."

He couldn't hold it back anymore, the rage/embarrassment/shame was too strong to contain. Roy lunged down to seize the belt loop just above Ed's suspicious pocket, jerked the boy's hip toward him. He could only get the very tips of the fingers of his other hand into the pocket itself, but it was enough to feel something smooth and round, like a pill case.

"This is not about your ego!" Roy snarled. "If you're so damn smart, what are you doing here? This is how you want to spend your life? Huh? In a shack?" Each question was punctuated by another furious, vicious yank on the belt loop. "If I were smart, I'd arrest you right now!"

"Let me go, you son of a bitch!"

Ed twisted and scrabbled like a wild thing, desperate to protect his stash. Roy saw him bringing his hands together and pulled his own out of Ed's pocket just in time to catch the boy's wrist.

"Now I've got you on two counts. Possession and assault on an officer. You want to know how long you'd be in for that?"

Ed's response was a wordless hiss. He jerked the hand with the shiv hard back and forth desperately, trying to bring out the blade, but Roy twisted it down and to the side.

"The big time, not Juvvy," he warned. "I mean it."

"You wouldn't," Ed spat back. "I'm too useful to lock up! You know that!"

"You keep saying that," Roy snapped back, "as if that makes it true."

Ed recoiled as though Roy had physically slapped him, struggled harder to get free. His hair was wild and everywhere, no longer a curtain but a mane. A feral animal, fueled by desperation now, not bravado.

"You need me to find your man! Your prince!" Ed protested. "That's what you were gonna make me do, isn't it?! I can still do that! Just, don't--"

Ed twisted his hips so hard to the left that the joints creaked. That all-consuming drive to protect the stash, that desperate struggle between pride and the hunger. Roy knew that look well, that anxious, hollow-eyed stare. He had seen it on his own face in the mirror once, a long time ago.

You have to want to change, Hughes' voice whispered again.

Suddenly, ripping into the boy no longer seemed righteous, or courageous. It just felt sad.

"I'll find him! I will!" Ed panted, trying to bring one lone boot up to kick at him. "That's what you want me to do! Isn't it!?"

Roy blocked the blow and thrust the boy away from him. He stood and backed toward the ramshackle little door. As he did, he looked out across Ed's empire, the nest of old pillows, the single sleeping bag, the dog-eared stack of books, and shook his head.

"No," Roy said. "I think I'll find him just fine on my own.

He moved toward the rusty door and tugged it open, forcing himself to turn away from the sad little tableau.

"Hey! Hey!! Don't you turn your back on me!" Ed called after him plaintively. His eyes were large and luminous in the light he had created, the torn little lantern still swinging overhead.

"I'm a prodigy, you son of a bitch! You need me!"

"No," Roy said, "I don't."

---

(Look Ma! I have internets :D)