One Of The Lost Ones (complete)

[deadgoldeyes]

Character(s): Edward, Pride
Content: Edward needs rest, and Pride stays in sight
Setting: Edward's room
Time: Evening
Warnings: Awkward cuteness and smiles


Edward was gone after Sasori and Zetsu left. None asked him to follow, and Edward's previous instructions were still clear in Pride's mind: 'stay in your room.' Of course, Pride understood that this was not his room. His room was far away, past becoming lost and the long train and Prinnies. Where there was another Edward, perhaps. This could be his room, then, since Edward had come to stay with him. He could stay with Edward. (Not that he wanted to lose him again, anyway.)

This room was bigger, with more things in it. Pride had seen most of them before. Bed, table, door. Window, which looked down at the street and the people below.

Edward was gone. Pride should stay.

The homunculus blinked and turned his gaze to the window, settling upon it like Sasori had in the chair. One leg dangled, toes almost touching the floor, and Pride's other leg bent up under himself as he watched the 'sky' of the domes, and waited.

Edward found it fortunate that the hotel restaurant was happy to supply him with a cold sandwich, rather than having to wait for something fancier to be made and then eat it right there. He limped back up the stairs and down the hall to his room with the sandwich wrapped in paper in hand. When he opened the door and stepped through, he could see Pride sitting across the room from him on the windowsill.

He put a smile on his face like he would have given Nina and said, "Okay, I'm back. Sorry about that." He moved to the table in the corner, near Pride's window and set the sandwich down. "Do you want any of this?" he asked, unwrapping the sandwich and pulling the little bag of plastic silverware the restaurant had given him out of his pocket.

Pride's eyes shifted from the domes back into the room as Edward spoke, and his question prompted the homunculus to slip easily and silently to the floor again. Pad pad pad he was at Edward's side, glancing down at the sandwich and then back up at the other blonde, meeting his gaze steadily but offering no response more than a tilt of his head.

Maybe asking whether he 'wanted' something was a bit too abstract. Edward tried again, in less abstract terms. "Do you get hungry? Do you eat?"

Edward had asked that already. Different Edward. "...No."

"Oh. Okay." Ed agreed and put the plastic cutlery aside, no need to divide the sandwich. He remembered Wrath eating, but maybe that was just because Izumi had put food in front of him and so he ate it to please her. It was logical. He dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed as he ate his sandwich and felt awkward at the extended quiet. He swallowed a bite he'd been chewing on for a while and stared down at his sandwich for a moment before speaking quietly. "I'm sorry about before. I shouldn't have been talking about that stuff. I can be kind of stupid sometimes..."

He quickly filled his mouth with another bite of sandwich before he could continue to say stupid things.

Pride watched him for another moment. His eyes had changed, and so had his face. His body, too, was different. Not angry or happy, but a little sad, and a little of something else that Pride couldn't identify. He considered, in any case, and sat. Not in a chair, but with his legs tucked under himself again, on the floor. His head came to rest against Edward's leg. "...Okay."

Ed blinked and started just a little, staring down at Pride's blond head. It was... odd. Edward wondered where he'd picked up the gesture of affection. It was simple, but it also... suggested an odd level of subservience that Ed found disconcerting. It was... dog-like. He shook that thought away and ran his flesh hand over Pride's hair, holding the remains of his sandwich in his automail hand. He took another bite, gazing down at the top of Pride's head for a while before quietly adding, "It scares me, too."

Again, Pride's head rose, his eyes meeting Edward's. Home, where the others were, where Father was, and where Brother was... people like Edward- alchemists- always seemed like Brother. Not scared. Not sad. Angry, and dangerous. Edward wasn't like Brother, not like anyone said. There was something that rang close to comfort while Edward was nearby. It made Pride feel like nothing bad- no attacks, no pain- would happen.

"Everywhere was blue," he said, after another long moment. It was a repetition, but those things that Edward wanted to know probably would be. Pride had answered a lot of questions already. "...Everything hurt."

Edward paused, his jaw stopping halfway through a chew, and looked down at Pride for a long moment. Then he reached back to the table and put the sandwich down on the paper wrapper again. Then he slipped off the edge of the bed and knelt down next to Pride instead. He rested his flesh hand on Pride's arm. "The blue was made of light?" he asked quietly. "And it crackled?" Did Pride really remember all the way back to the transmutation itself?

Nothing about Pride's gaze wavered for several moments. But then, his head tipped forward, eyes meeting the floor, and he nodded, just once.

Ed nodded slowly in response. "I lost my arm and my leg in that kind of transmutation... These ones are fake," he said, lifting his automail hand to illustrate, the 'skin' was still up on the table where he'd left it earlier and his sleeve was rolled up past the elbow, leaving much of the inner machinery exposed to view. "But... I know it didn't hurt me nearly as much as Sloth... She couldn't even scream," he trailed off into a whisper, ducking his head and blinking fast.

He swallowed and took a few deep breaths before trying to explain himself. "It was an accident. I... I wanted to see my mother again, because I missed her, but instead I accidentally made Sloth... And she was hurting... And I didn't know what to do... I got scared and didn't do anything to help her... Because of that, somebody bad found her and told her to do terrible things... Because this bad person knew how to take care of her and I didn't." He stared down at his automail hand for another long moment before continuing. "I don't want that to happen again. I don't want somebody evil to make you do horrible things... I'm gonna try my best to help you so that doesn't happen..." his voice became quiet again and his eyes narrowed. "I'm not going to let Envy get to you."

Silence came as an answer to Edward's explanation, until Pride's hand alighted softly on his automail. The other hand joined it shortly, and brought the lines of metal between them as gently as if it was made of glass. Pride's eyes, however, didn't meet Edward's this time, intent as they were on the prosthetic. "Brother is... angry," he said softly, thinking back to the Envy he had met before, at the little café.

Ed started again, not at the touch, but at Pride's strange statement. At the word 'brother'. He stared for a while, as Pride continued to avoid his eyes. "You know him?" he whispered, a chill running down his spine. "Envy is your brother?"

For such a seemingly awkward situation, Pride was surprisingly talkative, though he failed yet again to look up at Edward. "Brother... with Father."

It sounded like a confirmation, but Ed had no idea who 'Father' was... "Is Father the one who made you?" he guessed quietly. Not Dante then... someone who would have tired to resurrect Ed... "What did Father look like?"

That, Pride didn't have an answer for. He could see only remnants from before, something akin to shadows like Envy skulking through a town, and what gaze of his that settled on Edward's was as blank as it had ever been. What he saw, he could not describe. He could merely say it existed. That was obviously not good enough for Edward.

"Okay," Ed said, looking down at his hands again. "It's not important," he lied. He knew that question was going to nag at him for a long time. His back stiffened slightly as a yawn suddenly caught him. "... I need to sleep soon, Pride... I hope that's all right," he said and then yawned again. He'd seen a shower in the bathroom when he'd first looked the room over, which was a relief. He was filthy from running all over Munich. And on top of that he'd really had to compromise hygiene in the first place when coming to the dirty city in the first place. Paixao looked to be the kind of place that put cleanliness as a high priority, more in line with the way Amestris had been.

He pushed himself a bit awkwardly to his feet and headed to the bathroom in question.

Pride watched his back, if only for a moment. In the next, he stood, and after that, padded just as quietly as the first time, following Edward like a shadow.

Edward looked back from the door to the bathroom and blinked in surprise as he found Pride still right next to him. He offered a nervous grin and stalled for a moment by looking in the closet across from the bathroom door while he tried to decide the appropriate next step. Exploring the closet, however, turned out to be a fortunate serendipity as he discovered that it contained a pair of cheap, terrycloth robes. He pulled one off a hanger and carried it into the bathroom, feeling self-conscious as Pride continued to follow him.

It was silly. It wasn't like he was a shy person. But it was really weird having somebody just standing there, watching, while he stripped off his shirt. Of course, if he was going to be body-shy, it would probably be about his exposed automail and ports. His current arm, too heavy for the port to support alone, was held to him with a thick, leather harness. Not the most attractive thing in the world. He dropped his shirt into the sink and then paused, realizing the rubber covering that could protect his automail from water was back in the main room, on the table.

He sighed and went to retrieve it, aware all the time of Pride following him around, but he was unsure of what to do about it and so ended up ignoring it as best as he could. He pulled the skin back on like a glove over his automail and then turned on the sink, soaking his shirt. He'd be damned if he was going to smell like a giant foot tomorrow. Hand soap was the best he had and so he managed, scrubbing the fabric together and wishing for a washboard. Or better yet, a washing machine... Although he hadn't had the benefit of one of those for three years and was well used to doing his laundry by hand.

Pride didn't follow as close as say, a small child would. He stood slightly back, simply turning in a circle and taking a few steps where needed to stay within what he seemed to think was proper distance of Edward. That was... he did, until the other blonde stopped moving at the sink. Silent as ever, Pride took that moment to step closer. He had seen Edward's arm before, seen him acting strange because he could see it, but at the same time, there had been no resistance to touch.

His fingers found the edge of the metal, where it joined Edward's skin, his shoulder blade, and the strap that held tight across his back. It was almost like the front... but there were divots and curves that made it swoop differently, and just as he'd learned faces, hands, automail, he trailed one hand carefully along each scar and line and plane, and learned them, as well.

Ed shivered and bit his bottom lip a bit. The touch was a bit too intimate and made him nervous. It wasn't as though he expected Pride to suddenly turn violent like the others had been and attack him, but he still felt very vulnerable under the homunculus' stare and touch. He finished rinsing the soap out of his shirt and wrung out as much water as he could before draping it over a towel rack. Then shifted back and forth a bit nervously. His pants and vest could wait; he thought he'd go and see about buying some new clothes tomorrow, but he really didn't want to go two days in unwashed underwear.

He grabbed up the robe again and pulled it over his arms when Pride's hands moved. Then he thought to himself that he was acting like an embarrassed little girl. And that he'd have to take off the robe anyway to undo the strap for the automail. Crap. But he wasn't going to stand around naked while he was still washing his clothes, in any event. He kicked off his shoes and shed his pants and boxers, his face heating up embarrassingly. He was not blushing. This was not that awkward. Pride was clingy, not voyeuristic, and he probably didn't see anything awkward about this and Ed shouldn't either. Or maybe he should. Should he be correcting behavior? Like teaching a small child not to invade people's space... Maybe, but that was something that he would have to be in a more alert state of mind to decide.

He pulled the towels off of the other towel wrack in the room and hung the damp underwear there instead before setting himself down on the rim of the bathtub. It was helpful that there was a tub and not just a standing shower. He unbuckled his leg and carefully set it aside, next to the tub, and then swung his right leg over the rim into the tub. Now he did have to take off the robe to get his arm off. He was not embarrassed. With the arm joining his leg on the floor, it was time for the balancing act to begin. He heaved himself up off the rim of the tub, across to the shower wall, where he leaned against it for support while he reached back to pull the curtain shut.

Just outside the bathroom door, Pride watched through the whole ordeal, utterly silent and quite still. He made no move to help, no motion to say anything. What was there to say?

And then the curtain closed. Pride knew that gesture. He was to stay out, so that was what he would do. He backed up two paces, and then slipped out of view, and found his way to a proper little corner on the other side of the table, where he slid down to sit, wrapping his arms around his knees, and waited once more.

It had been a long time since Ed had had a proper shower, and despite the awkwardness of having to lean on the wall, he thoroughly enjoyed it. There was even hot water. After reluctantly turning off the water and awkwardly drying himself, Ed settled back on the edge of the tub and reattached his leg. He didn't bother with the arm, and just carried it in his right hand after pulling on his robe and headed back into the main room.

He spotted Pride under the table as he moved to the bed and set his arm down on the floor next to it. "Are you okay there?" he asked the huddled figure as he again unbuckled his leg.

Pride blinked back at him, and leaned onto all fours to push himself up once he was out of the shadow of the table, standing as if nothing had happened. He thought he knew what Edward was doing. "...Sleep," he confirmed.

"Heh, yeah," Ed said with a little forced grin as he pivoted around to lay on the bed properly and pulled at the covers with his left hand, managing to pull them on top of himself and get somewhat comfortable. He really needed a cane, at least until he could find someone who could make better automail for him, to facilitate getting around the room a bit better. That would make it a lot easier to get up and turn off that light he'd forgotten... "Hey, Pride, could you turn off that light?" he asked, gesturing at the lamp above the table.

Pride followed the line of Edward's hand with his eyes, then his body, blinking down through the top of the lampshade at the bright bulb behind it. This, at least, he knew about, and it didn't take him long to find the switch, blinking spots from his eyes as the room dipped into darkness.

He stood for a moment, then his soft, padding footsteps started again, and stopped, on the other side of the bed. A shift of the covers (before-Edward had taught him that blankets held warmth) and his head found the other pillow, a glint from the lights outside making his eyes shine almost like a cat's, just briefly.

"Thanks," Ed said as he fell back against his pillow. He was vaguely aware of Pride climbing into the bed next to him, but he'd already started to drift off. This had been far too long a day and he couldn't manage to keep his eyes open any longer. "... G'night..." he mumbled softly before he sank entirely into blissful slumber.

Pride didn't answer. He waited patiently for the cadence of Edward's breathing to change, becoming slower, more even and easy. He didn't have to wait long, and as soon as he knew sleep was fully upon the other blonde, he shifted again. It wasn't away this time, but nearer, tucking himself close enough that he pressed his nose to Edward's collarbone. Warmth he knew. Comfort, now, too. Not sleep, but comfort, yes.

***THIS EES A PAJE BRAKE***

Somewhere in the wee-hours, Edward had started squirming and mumbling vague apologies to half a dozen different people as he slept. That aside, the night was uneventful. During his unconscious fit of guilt, he'd pulled his remaining arm around Pride and started babbling into the homunculus' hair. That was the position he found himself in when consciousness gradually returned.

He woke up slow and groggy, his eyelids sticking like a gate that needed oiling, and found himself with his nose pressed into soft, blond hair, smelling of alchemy. It took him a moment to put together how he'd gotten there, at which point he groaned to himself and rolled onto his back to disentangle himself, swearing internally.

Pride's eyes had stayed open the whole night, watching Edward as he slept and realizing that he didn't move around as much as the before-Edward did. And now Edward was blinking at the ceiling, and Pride lay on his side and raised one hand, fingers coming to rest gently on Edward's cheek as the homunculus' eyes narrowed slightly in what appeared to be confusion. And softly, he returned the words that Edward had spoken. "...Sorry."

Edward turned his head to look at Pride when the hand landed on his face. The homunculus probably hadn't slept, just like how Wrath had been awake and wired that first night when he and Al had gone to investigate. When Pride spoke, Ed's brow knit in confusion. Sorry? For what? He didn't think the homunculus had anything to apologize for. Or rather, if it was something that Ed was unaware of, it could be potentially very bad... "What are you sorry for?" he asked, a slight croak in his voice from just having woken.

That made Pride quiet for a moment, as if he was considering. Something to be sorry for. The word held no meaning for him- 'sorry' for... 'sorry' for... His head tilted slightly against the pillow, an odd gesture in that regard, and the words Edward had said came differently. "...Sorry for... Edward..."

Ed stared for a minute, not sure how to respond to that. Sorry for him? Pity? The thought of being pitied by the homunculus made him uncomfortable and his face felt a bit warm. He put on a gentle smile and reached back to pat Pride's arm. "You don't need to be sorry for me, Pride," he said quietly. "I dug my own grave, so now I have to deal with the consequences." His smile became sad as he looked at Pride. "That's the difference between you and me. You're paying for someone else's mistakes..." He ran his hand over Pride's hair, looking at the vacant-seeming eyes.

As Edward's voice trailed into silence, Pride's hand alighted on his, then slipped under and pushed gently, causing their fingers to lie flat against each other, palms together. His own fingers were thinner, Edward's hand broader, older. Worn and tired, like what seemed to be behind the alchemist's eyes when he talked, quiet like that. Loud and everywhere and all the time was Edward without something hurting behind him. But now, this Edward hurt.

Pride shifted, pulling his other hand free from being pinned and resting those warmed fingers on Edward's cheek again. Pushing gently, he pressed and held one side of Edward's mouth, turning it into a lopsided half-moon, and considered his work.

It took Ed a minute to figure out what the homunculus was doing, but when he did, he spared Pride the trouble as his lips filled out into a smile on their own. The gesture was just so cute, he couldn't help smiling at it.

When Edward smiled, the creases of thought left, gone as if shooed away. Pride liked it. Something felt warm and right. His lips turned up of their own will, a mimic of the smile opposite him, even the eyes.

Seeing the homunculus smile in such a genuine way made Ed's own smile deepen a bit. After a moment, Ed noticed that they were laying nose-to-nose, holding hands, smiling at each other, and Pride's hand was stroking his cheek. At this realization, he naturally became rather embarrassed. His face once again feeling warm (what was with him today?!), Edward slid his hand away from Pride's and awkwardly pushed himself to a sitting position. A convenient clock on his night-stand informed him that it was already nearly eleven.

"Oh, wow, I slept late," he noted as he reached for his automail leg and started to reattach it. "I should probably get something to eat before we meet back up with Sasori again." He belatedly remembered that he still had half a sandwich on the table. It hadn't been refrigerated, of course, but it had only been there for a few hours and he had certainly taken bigger dietary risks in recent years.

Pride followed Edward's lead, as always, and sat up, pushing the blankets that covered him away. After having food, they would see Sasori. Pride's head tilted. Sasori was good, protection and some shard of comfort came with that red-haired person.

After getting his leg fastened on, Ed pushed the robe off his shoulders and started awkwardly getting the arm reattached. It had been a while since he'd had to figure out the straps by himself. It was difficult to keep the arm steady while he buckled the harness. But there had been a period of a few months between the time Hoenheim had wandered off (again...) and the time Alfonse had started helping him with it, so Ed had figured out how to do it by himself, it just took a bit longer.

He connected the automail into the port and then braced the palm against the bed, holding his body very still, while he pulled the harness tight around his chest and secured it. Once it was on, he lifted his arm and flexed his fingers a few times, checking that they were all reacting properly. Sasori's tinkering the previous night had them moving quite a bit better than they had for a while.

He pulled the robe back up and pushed himself off the bed, making his way to the bathroom again and this time closing the door as he washed up and got dressed. His clothes were still a bit damp from being washed but, with an irritated mental kick for not have thinking of it last night, Ed clapped and dried them instantly using alchemy. It seemed obvious that his alchemy would work here, despite this not being his own world, because the 'storage scrolls' that Sasori had used last night clearly worked on the same principles as alchemy. Only more useful... Now that he remembered the scrolls, Ed's mind began to whirl with thoughts of energy-to-mass conversion and special-relativity and fourth-dimensional space.

He alchemied his pants, vest and coat to similar levels of pristine cleanliness and then returned to the main room feeling quite a bit more comfortable than he had in a while. He smiled at Pride, who was still sitting on the bed where Ed had left him, as he walked over to the table and his half-eaten sandwich. "So," he said as he took a bite out of the sandwich, "I guess we can call Sasori with the journals and see when he wants to meet."

He pulled his own journal out of his coat-pocket and flipped it open, hitting a few keys to find Sasori in it again. "Maybe before or after we meet up with him, we could go look for some place to buy some more clothes..."

At the appearance of the journal, Pride quickly became more animated. He slipped from the bed and tried to peek over his taller counterpart's shoulder, but when that didn't work as well as he'd hoped, he ducked around Edward's arm and looked at the screen that way. Something was happening, quite different than what he'd gotten his own to do. As Edward talked, however, the words drew some of Pride's attention as well. "...Clothes," he repeated. They already had clothes.

"Yeah, clothes. Mine are kind of old and they've never fit really well." Ed did not say that men's shirts in Munich were all too big for him. From what he'd seen, Paixao was not populated by so many (hideous giants!) ridiculously-huge people as Germany. He might be able to find clothes that fit him a bit better here. "Mm, and, um," he faltered a bit as he glanced down at Pride. "I... Your clothes look a lot like Envy's... I thought maybe we could find you something a bit nicer."

Pride ceased movement once more, and turned to look back up at Edward. Brother's clothes... They were comfortable. They allowed freedom of movement, nothing to get caught up in, nothing to trip over. Easy.

Something nicer? Something nicer like Edward wore, white and brown and brown... Pride considered. "... Like Edward..."

"Er," Ed twitched slightly, feeling awkward and embarrassed again. "Uh, no, it doesn't have to be. Just... not like Envy..." he fumbled through the words, trying to find a truly logical reason for the change beyond his own comfort...

So then... not like Edward. Not like Brother. Perhaps like Sasori, though the other not-Edward was like him. Then... "Like... other someone," he tried instead. If not those he knew, then perhaps someone he didn't.

Ed chewed on his lip for a moment. "Well, we'll find something that looks nice for you. It doesn't have to look nice for someone else, because you're the one who's going to be wearing it. So..." where was he going with this? "We'll find a store, and you can look and see what you like."