Cost of a Secret 23/?
Ed tried to avoid debris from the most recent bombing. “Shit!” he yelled as another stone came crumbling down, nearly hitting him this time. Lawson easily dodged the rest of the debris. It was irritating to realize that this had been thoroughly thought out. Shane’s explosions were causing damage and bringing rubble and shrapnel onto the Amestris soldiers, but at no point did Ed feel as though there was going to be a cave in. Ed knew that he had to go after the monkey chimera, as he was causing the biggest distraction for the rest of the team. It was hard enough to focus on the different chimeras and soldiers without also trying to dodge minor explosions.
The problem was that Shane’s chimera status made him next to impossible to catch. The half-monkey moved with ease along the room, swinging along rafters that Ed almost suspected had been put there for the soul reason of aiding the chimera’s attacks. He watched as Everett fired a round of bullets into one of the chimeras, a part polar bear, it looked. The thing was unfazed.
Riza seemed to be having the same luck with the part-yak that was charging toward her, her gun hardly doing more than irritating her. The others were busy fighting, trying to stave off the chimeras and the soldiers. Another thing, a wolf of some type, but with far more human qualities than the others, was busy going after Everett and Lawson, who Ed was glad to say could fight considerably better in the field than he had in the ring at the gym.
Ed’s focus remained on the betrayer, the one still swinging around, causing distractions for the rest of them. The one that Ed should have trusted initial instincts about because something had felt off from the very beginning.
Ed realized now what a liability it was having Al in the field, something that Roy had warned him of and he’d long suspected. The younger brother was fighting, very well, in fact, but he was determined not to kill. He was using that staff when a spear or a gun would have been better, and his fighting was stilted by his mind trying to not only get a good blow in at the right time, but getting it so that it didn't do permanent damage to the person he was fighting. Ed's own concern for Al was making it difficult to focus solely on Shane, who continued his swinging until he was directly over Al's head.
Shane paused only to grin at Ed as he reached his hands down toward Al, whose head was within easy reach for the chimera dangling by his back legs from a rafter. The blond’s mind split into a few dozen thoughts as he cursed his brother for being so darned tall, cursed Karen for possibly costing him his little brother, wishing maybe he'd never recovered Al's body because they could always get a new helmet, wanting nothing more than to see Shane dead, and trying to figure out the best way to get up to him to do it.
With a cry of “No!” as he almost inhumanly tried to climb the wall to get to Shane, Ed brought his transformed arm up and into the monkey chimera's gut, just before his hands could clap down on Al's head. Though Ed knew he'd made contact, knew he'd kept the monster from getting his little brother, his mind still visualized, for just a second, the primate hands pressed to either side of Al's head, turning him, turning his head into a bomb, blowing him up.
“Brother!” Al's voice said, sounding panicked. But it was there, and that shook him from the grotesque imagery in his mind as he looked first at Al, whose eyes were firmly on Ed's automail arm. He heard the gurgling laughter coming from the chimera as his body fell to the ground, hands sliding down Ed's arm as he descended. His arm... the thing had turned it into a bomb.
Someone, Everett, Ed believed, fired a round into Shane to ensure he didn't move his hands again, to ensure he didn't move anything again.
His left hand scrambled up to his right shoulder, fingers digging into the joint at his shoulder and tugging. “Help me, Al,” he said, despite the chaos which surrounded him. He only half noticed that both he and his brother were covered in blood, Shane's blood. Al dropped the pole to grab at Ed's automail arm.
They tugged and Ed screamed.
“I'm sorry, Brother,” Al said, backing off slightly as wires could be heard tearing and breaking.
“Don't apologize,” Ed shouted through his pain. “Pull!” They ripped his automail arm off and tossed it into one of the cells. Armstrong and Lawson, who had been putting up amazingly effective fights with two of the chimeras managed to force the two beasts into the cell with the arm, one landing atop it as it exploded, the other getting fatally wounded in the process. The room rumbled and shook, but it didn't collapse, which meant this was a definite trap, which meant Roy was in real danger if Karen had thought things through this much.
The lingering pain was still there. Automail wasn't made to be ripped off, but adrenaline was rushing through his body, preventing him from really feeling the pain. He hurt, no denying it, but it was distant. He knew he hurt, he felt it vaguely, but it wasn't as though it really was him who was in pain, not with how he knew it hurt. Though putting the arm back in always hurt more. Glancing back at the debris and carnage where his arm had once been, putting it back on wasn't going to happen soon.
The soldiers had fallen, two of the chimeras were gone as was Shane and the other two looked nearly at that point. He felt the rush of alchemy being used somewhere nearby. It was like alchemy had become a part of him with how he could sense it now. He didn't know what she was doing, but he could guess, and he could feel it in his veins, the energy that only alchemy provided.
“I need to get to Roy,” Ed said.
Al nodded. “We can handle it.”
Ed didn't know if he believed his brother. The others, yes. He didn't know about Al, but for once, he had to focus on something other than his baby brother.
Liam's birth, the little boy behind the glass at the hospital.
Ed turning red at the mentions of Psiren and her attractiveness.
Growing up as half-Xingian, being bullied for it. Meeting Maes, who didn't bully him, who protected him. Maes was less than an eighth Xingian. You couldn't tell, but he stood up for those who were more obvious.
Maes's funeral and Elysia's painful cries for her father. It should have been him, not his friend.
Being shot by Archer, the feeling of the blade so fresh in his shoulder still as the new pain started at his eye.
Going to the zoo with Liam and watching the little boy hold a snake with a look of awe on his face.
Ed pushing into his body, in and out, creating a steady rhythm as they rode one another. Switching later because while Roy might have enjoyed the feeling of Ed inside of him, he enjoyed being in his lover nearly as much.
Having sex with Karen, nails scraping down his skin.
Liam playing with Ed the cat, looking so small and so lost because of what his mother had done to him, how he'd been hurt by her, how he feared he'd be taken by her again.
“Enough!” he yelled as the light faded and he looked up at Karen. She only smirked at him.
“So you didn't transfer the whole circle onto your body then?” she asked as she walked around the array she'd drawn. “Who took the rest of it for you then?”
“Didn’t you plan on that, Karen?” Roy spat. “I thought you planned for every eventuality.”
Her brown eyes narrowed and she crossed her thin arms at her chest. The gloves remained on her hands. “Tell me who, so that if they die, I can check their body. If they live, I don’t duplicate my work.”
“Fuck off,” Roy said.
With a smile, she brought her hands together and transmuted the air into water that knocked him flat onto his back. The circle on the floor prevented him from getting back up after the deluge stopped. “You aren’t going to like this if you don’t talk.”
Roy said nothing, even as she clapped her hands together again, forcing rain over his face. It felt like he was suddenly laying upside down, in one of the hardest storms he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t move thanks to the transmutation circle, and he found himself struggling against the water, struggling to get his breath.
The water stopped, and she walked over toward him. “So… any answers, Roy? I might stop if you have one. I might not, too, just because I do have to admit I like hurting you.”
Roy gasped for air, but said nothing. He wouldn’t endanger Ed. He couldn’t.
“You always were too stubborn for your own good.” She brought her hands together again, and once again, the water poured over his face, triggering what felt like a gag reflex, fighting the water from going down into his lungs, though it never seemed to be heading there in the first place. He couldn’t tell, he couldn’t think. All he could do was struggle to survive.
“Roy!” The water stopped, and it left Roy gasping for breath, struggling so hard to look over, to turn that tiny bit just to see a one-armed, blood-covered Ed running toward him. He looked worried, relieved, angry, all at once. Roy couldn't find the words to ask what had happened. He couldn’t even find the air to tell Ed not to step onto the array, the array that wasn't blatantly obvious the way it was drawn on the floor because Karen had planned the trap, first just for Roy, but now, before Roy could manage to stop Ed where he was, she had them both. Roy watched in sickening horror as Ed froze on the spot and then cursed as he saw the circle beneath his feet.
“So this was where you put the rest of the circle,” Karen said with a smile. “Karen Tyler. I don't believe we've met, but I'm more than aware of you, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Elric. I do hope that the blood isn't yours.”
“You bitch,” Ed cursed, wiping blood that had been trickling down his red-tinged hair and into his face. “No, if you must know, it's your pet Shane's.”
Karen actually had the sense to look sad at the loss. “I had high hopes for him,” she said. “Of course, to face off against you and your brother, that had always been a goal of his. He must have gotten sloppy.” She frowned and walked over to the blond. “So you have the symbols then? That's why you can't move?”
“I was never good at freeze tag,” Ed said, scowling at her. “Not this good. But I don't just have the symbol from Liam. I have a bit of the cat as well. You transmute us, you risk blowing us up.”
“Actually, no,” Karen said. “There was nothing you could have gotten from your namesake that could blow the two of you up.” She's smirking now. “I tested just to be sure. In case Roy wanted to be a hero. Or you did, I suppose. The circle on Bowser here will overrule anything I put on the cat.” She shrugged, scrunching her nose slightly as she did, the freckles that Liam had inherited more noticeable in the action.” Karen walked from the circle, away from Ed, and Roy's eyes followed her. “It seems a waste to combine the two of you and your abilities. I could probably get more money for you as two chimeras rather than one, but if I pass up the chance of combining both the Flame Alchemist and the Fullmetal Alchemist, I know the Drachman military will be furious with me.”
“So you are working for them?” Ed asked, flailing his remaining arm. Roy's movements were limited. A turn of the head to look between his former fling and his lover took a great deal of effort on his part.
“Of course,” Karen said. “I had brilliant ideas, always did, but the Amestrian government never recognized them. The Drachmans nearly bend down and kiss my feet.”
“You'd turn on your own people?”
“What people? I have Liam. That's all I have and all I need.”
“You were going to use him in a transmutation!” Ed shouted.
“I unfortunately had to use him as bait, but I love my son dearly. Even if he looks too much like his father.” Karen smiled. “Enough banter. You're stalling the inevitable, and if your friends survive, it could be useful having a trained alchemist fighting for me rather than against me.” Roy looked at Ed, noting that either turning his head was getting easier or he didn't have to turn so far to see the blond.
“I'm sorry, Ed,” he said as her hands met the circle.
“Nothing to be sorry-” Ed's voice was cut off as the light again reappeared, there was more pain this time than last. Memories focused more on him and Ed than the last time.
Ed pale, just lost his arm and leg, small and fragile. Still, this boy, if he could manage a human transmutation, he was perfect material for the military and Roy’s advancement.
Lips crashing against lips. The fulfillment of lusting after the young man for so long, perhaps too long. He had been so young when Roy first noticed that he thought of Ed in a way other than as his subordinate.
Yelling at Ed after Nina Tucker’s death. Feeling like a total asshole after he’d done it.
Fighting against the young man, getting a flashback at the end of it that stopped him from firing that final blow at Ed.
Being held by the same person he’d tried to humiliate years before when he woke up from a horrifying nightmare.
Being the one holding Ed when the young man woke up from his.
Knowing that moment when he fell in love with Ed, but just waiting for it to end. Everything good that happened to Roy always did.
Goading Ed about his height because it was just damned fun
Fighting with Ed because Roy refused to open up.
Finding the cat in the alley to take home and eventually give to Liam, knowing Ed would likely never know. Wouldn’t want to teen to know he had a heart.
He felt the alchemy trying to break him down, more so than before, but still… something wasn’t right. His back felt on fire, but though it tried to reconstitute him, it wasn’t working.
Ed laughed as the light faded. He laughed at the shocked expression on Karen’s face, mocking her. She looked surprised it had failed. She had gotten smug, been too confident in her skills. If there was anyone in the state military that knew what ego could cost someone, it was Ed. He used his experience to his own benefit this time around and plan ahead. Self-importance had no place in alchemy.
“You set a trap and plan to include me, you had better know who the hell you’re dealing with,” Ed said, taking a few struggled steps toward the woman. He couldn’t move easily, but he could move. “You should also know how many people are loyal to this man. How many people are willing to go through the pain of getting that damned tattoo for the sake of him.”
“You split it up among others,” Karen growled.
“Duh,” Ed said. “The more people it’s spread among, the less likely we’re all going to be here on this transmutation circle.”
“You’re only delaying the inevitable,” she said. “All I need to do is find out just what you don’t have on you.”
She clapped her hands together, attempting to do to Ed what she’d done to Roy, but the young man was able to dodge it in a way that Roy knew he couldn’t. Was sure he couldn’t, as he was still slammed down against the floor unable to move even a finger.
“You’ll wear yourself out,” she said. “The array saps your energy each time it’s activated. Look at your lover there.”
She placed her hands down on the array again.
Visiting Roy at the hospital and seeing what had happened to the man’s face, to his shoulder. Ed had survived remarkably intact, his brother in recovery from massive dehydration and lack of good food while on the other side of the Gate, but he’d recover.
Posing for a photo with the rest of Roy’s team, feeling a part of it for once.
Realizing for the first time that he had no interest in women because his first fantasy, and most recurring fantasy, was of Roy Mustang.
Thinking Roy was a complete and total bastard for implying that Ed owed him for keeping the secret.
Smiling tiredly up at Roy as he sat at Al’s bedside. “Should you even be up? You look like shit, Mustang.” The older man handed over a candy bar to the teen.
The scars that litter Roy’s back, far more scattered than Ed’s own, and probably just as many.
Blurting out “I love you” in a moment of passion.
Pressing against Roy as-
Ed barely registered the sound of a bullet as it whizzed through the air. Karen’s body slumped down to the ground. For just a moment as he witnessed the scene, the teen felt remorse for Liam’s loss, because if the gunshot didn’t kill her, something certainly would once she was captured. His momentary thought, empathy for a fellow boy who would lose his mother, disappeared as he struggled to get over to Roy.
“Are you okay, sir?” Riza’s voice called from the tunnel.
“I’m fine,” Ed said. “Tired but fine. The others?”
“Your brother is treating the injuries,” she said as she approached. She didn’t seem to be elaborating.
“Can you scratch away some of the array, Captain Hawkeye?” Ed asked as he checked Roy, who had a steady pulse but was definitely unconscious. “I can’t move well, and Roy can’t at all like this.”
Ed tapped his lover’s face. “Roy… Wake up. Please.”
Dark eyes fluttered open a moment before shutting again. It was a small response at least.
Ed knew the moment the array was broken, as the lethargy that had been enforced on his limbs felt as though it had never existed.
Riza, followed by a bloody Armstrong came into the room, Armstrong going over to Karen, Riza checking on Ed and Roy.
“A perfect shot as always,” Armstrong said as he got to Karen’s body. He closed his eyes for a moment and looked down at her with a sad expression on his face. He placed his hands to the ground and restrained her to the ground. “Better safe than sorry. She planned out far too much. I’m going to find Liam and get him out of here. Captain Hawkeye, please, see to the Lieutenant Colonel and Major General.”
She nodded, though she obviously didn’t need to be told otherwise.
“Liam,” Roy croaked as he finally opened his eyes and rallied slightly.
“Armstrong will find him,” Ed said. “I’m sure of it.”