FMA -- Getting Off Easy II: 1919
Title: Getting Off Easy
Chapter: 2. 1919
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed, featuring much Al
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,961
Warnings: language, sexual situations, mild violence, major spoilers for Brotherhood
Summary: Ed happens upon the unsettling revelation that Mustang is desirable, and Roy happens upon the implacable revelation that Edward is off-limits. A story in two halves.
Author's Note: And now for a section that's so completely different from Part I that you may get whiplash. Please don't hold me liable. D:
1919
In the five years since the Promised Day, Ed’s really only seen Mustang in the papers. And in the shower in their flat in East City, because Al clipped out the front-page photograph of the new Führer, wrapped it in waterproof film, and secured it to the wall tile with alchemy so that Ed can’t tear it down. There’s no longer any doubt in Ed’s mind about the evil thing; Alphonse Elric is a demon.
Not that Ed doesn’t love him to little tiny warm-and-breathing pieces anyway, but the fact remains.
“The mail came while you were getting off,” Al says today when Ed emerges toweling his hair.
“My own brother,” Ed says, “a slanderous fiend. Who would have thought? After all I’ve given, all I’ve sacrifi-”
“Postcard from Winry and Paninya,” Al says, setting it down on the coffee table and then promptly whisking it away before Cat #2 can sit on it. “And you have an unmarked envelope postmarked from Central.” He waves it, raising an eyebrow. “Care to explain?”
Ed snatches for it and misses. “Like you haven’t already opened it and then resealed the flap.”
“I haven’t,” Al says, blinking, and this time Ed nabs it. “I was going to, but you finished too fast.”
“It’s from Sheska,” Ed says as he tears it open and scans the coded note. “My hunch was right-that guy we ran into at the bazaar, who was obviously experimenting with chimera? Same ugly neck tattoo as a guy who used to work in Lab Five but disappeared before they purged the place. Apparently there was a manhunt, but obviously they couldn’t afford to draw attention to it, so they had to let him go. They also destroyed the records-other than the ones in Sheska’s head, anyway.” He taps the corner of the letter on his right palm, and Cat #3 noses at the envelope he dropped on the floor. “Now the only question is where a creepy ex-State Alchemist would keep his workshop and his wardrobe full of hooded robes.”
Al shifts Cat #2 off of his lap (Cat #2 has a weird compulsion to sit on things at the most annoying possible moment) and goes to the phone. “Do you remember the license plate on his truck, Brother?”
They did enough snooping around the ozone-tangy vehicle and its endless cages that Ed doesn’t even have to think about it before he nods. “But the transportation authority won’t tell you what address it’s registered to; we’re just civilians now.”
It’s funny how he misses the silver watch for different reasons than he thought he would. Plus he never knows what time it is.
“We’re not just civilians,” Al says, spinning the dial rotor. “We’re the Elric brothers, and we’ve taken government contracts before. Additionally, I am the undisputed master of name-dropping, as you should know by n… Hello, is this the East City records department? Lovely! Say, has Lieutenant-Colonel Hawkeye stopped by lately? I asked her to give me a call, but you know how busy she is these days…”
Demon. Wonderful demon, and Ed’s flesh and blood from golden head to carpet-tracing toe.
Turns out the man officially known as Doctor Vern Powell, the Fine Graft Alchemist-unofficially known as Zamundo, Purveyor of Exotic Beasts-has registered his truck to an extremely ordinary farmhouse out in the countryside, much closer to Resembool than Ed would like. It doesn’t take them long to find the place, and the truck’s parked in the dusty driveway. Ed adjusts his belts, and he and Al size up the premises.
“Basement?” Ed hazards.
“Always,” Al says.
“Does illegal alchemy just make you stupid?” Ed asks.
Al grins. “He’s got a track record for stupid.”
Ed squares his shoulders and starts for the front door. “Stupid it is.”
The door, as it happens, remains steadfastly locked even when he implements some rigorous handle-rattling. He glances at Al and raises an eyebrow. Al shakes his head, half-bows, and steps back, which means Let’s not risk Powell noticing the alchemical hallmarks of melting a lock-or, as Ed prefers to interpret it, Pick the fuck out of that thing, Brother.
Ed drops to one knee and busts out the picks, holding his breath so he can hear the tumblers tipping. It’s kind of amazing how dextrous you can become when you have two hands and a big swathe of open-ended hobby time.
He pushes the door open slowly, and, of course, it creaks. The room is ominously dim owing to the fact that Powell’s boarded up all of the windows, and what furniture there is looks ancient and disused, but there’s nothing especially sinister about the house just yet-so far it bears a passing resemblance to Granny Pinako’s place after a several-all-nighters job. Ed tries to avoid squeaky floorboards as he moves over to the bookshelf, which is the only thing in this room that appears to see consistent use. The vague feeling of foreboding settles into solid grimness as he skims the spines. He recognizes a number of these titles from Tucker’s library, and that alone is enough to make him want to cut this bastard’s heart out.
“Brother,” Al whispers.
Ed turns in time to watch Al lift a small wire cage from behind the couch. The cage’s occupant is a small, frightened-looking thing with glowing eyes. Ed squints and makes out what appears to be a cat shape covered in feathers.
“Oh, no,” he says. “No damn way, Al.”
“But we only have three others,” Al says.
“Three others that’d hunt that one,” Ed says, “because it’s some part cat food.”
“They would not,” Al says. “They’re much too spoiled to hunt anything.”
Ed points an imperious finger at him. “You admit it!”
Al rolls his eyes and then very carefully pokes a fingertip through the wire. The cat-bird-thing sniffs at him with damningly adorable curiosity.
“Leave it here for now,” Ed says. “We can’t carry that thing and kick Powell’s ass at the same time.”
“I’ll think of a name for you in the meantime,” Al coos to the obnoxiously cute chimera. “You just sit tight and be a good… mostly-kitty.”
Ed sighs inwardly and commences the search for the basement.
A glance into the kitchen is unrevealing, and the largest room on this floor is a study crammed with empty crates, cardboard boxes, and a few mostly-empty gasoline cans. Shifting them around a bit confirms that they’re hiding nothing, and Ed leads the way back out into the hall. He exchanges a glance with Al-he loves that he can actually see when his brother raises an eyebrow now, rather than listening for it and having to guess-and Al presses both palms together in preparation as Ed flings open the final unmarked door.
A pile of black hooded robes tumbles out, and then everything is still.
“Closet,” Al says, lowering his hands. “Surely he wouldn’t put his workshop upstairs.”
“I have an idea,” Ed says.
“Does it involve the gasoline cans? Because the answer to that sort of idea is always going to be no. You remember what happened outside of Dublith, with the guy living in the windmill-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ed says, nudging him out of the way and starting back down the hall. It’s nice that he can nudge Al now and (a) actually move him, plus (b) not get a serrated metal elbow in the eye. “That asshole should have fireproofed the damn thing better. And it’s not one of those ideas anyway.”
“It’s a pity I know better than to bask in my momentary relief,” Al says, but he follows.
Ed plants his hands on his hips and gives the kitchen a proper look this time. Between some mostly-bare shelving and an iron potbellied stove, he finds the telltale transmutation marks.
“What do you think?” he asks, brushing his fingertips over them as Al peers (with irritating ease) over his shoulder. “Is he waiting for us?”
“Only one way to find out,” Al says. He takes a deep breath, flashes Ed a reckless grin that the mirror’s long since made familiar, claps his hands, and dissolves the wall. As expected, the opening reveals the beginning of a narrow stone staircase.
Because of innumerable previous arguments won by the irrefutable logic of defensive alchemy, Brother, Al goes first-which doesn’t stop Ed from holding a hand just above his shoulder, ready to pull him out of the way and take the bullet if it comes to that. The trade-off is really tough some days-Ed gets to hear Al’s laugh unfiltered, gets to ruffle his hair and watch him squirm, gets to see him smile and roll his eyes… but Al’s so much more vulnerable when he’s not shelled in steel. And Ed can’t protect him as well anymore. That kind of balancing act definitely doesn’t make it easy to sleep.
There’s a broad wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. The light from the kitchen just illuminates Al’s face as he turns to Ed and mouths No doorknob.
Ed lifts his left arm and twines it with Al’s right. When they’re braced against each other, they each raise their inside leg and apply their respective heels to the door.
It slams open with a sound like a gunshot. The chimeras are on them before it can rebound off the wall.
Ed uses his grip on Al’s arm to drag them both to the floor, and an extremely confused combination of a snake and a bat sails over their heads-but ducking puts them right in range of what appears to be evidence that warthogs and crocodiles should never interbreed. For a second Ed’s not sure if vomiting or escape should be a higher priority.
Al’s arm slings around his neck and hauls them both hard to the left, leaving the cavernous jaws to snap shut harmlessly, grimy tusks rending nothing but air. Ed scrambles to pull them both to their feet again, kicking the croc-hog-nightmare thing’s snout aside with his metal foot. A falcon with a shark’s eyes dives at them, wings churning the air in the claustrophobic space, and Al whips them out of the way as the sinuous snake-bat rounds on them again, recovered from its collision with the staircase. Ed hears a faint rattling and glances over in time to see Powell, now much less mysterious and much more concretely assholish, unlatching another cage.
Al disentangles his arm from Ed’s, claps, and presses his open hands to the wall, which loops tendrils of liquid stone around the falcon and secures it there beside the door. Keeping one eye on the croc-thing, Ed catches the snake-bat’s tail, which is more slippery than he expected-but not too slippery to grasp, and not too slippery to swing the creature like a weighted weapon, releasing it at the perfect point in its trajectory to send it flying straight at Powell.
The bastard seems to be as good at evading projectiles as he is at evading the law. He wrenches two more cages open even as the bat-snake goes flailing into the wall behind him. Some kind of fox with a badger’s markings-and its claws-climbs almost daintily from its prison, momentarily joined by a vastly oversized scorpion with far too many legs.
“You got these, Al?” Ed asks, offering the croc-hog his metal shin as it snarls and snaps again. After a flash of consideration, he hits the clasp that releases the katana’s sheath from where it’s belted across his back-he’s got no grudge against a couple of innocent, if horrifying, chimera, and he’s not about to use the blade on them.
“I can handle it, Brother,” Al says.
Ed brings the sheathed katana down hard on the misshapen skull of the croc-hog, and it whines piteously and releases his ankle to retreat. Animals know when they’re outmatched, and they respect a fair victory. It’s a pity the same can’t be said for most people.
A swipe of the covered blade sends the fox-badger flying with a high-pitched yelp, but the scorpion is sizing Ed up as Al makes short work of the others. Ed glances over again, and Powell’s opening more cages still, and then the scorpion curls its tail and strikes.
The barbed tail tip clangs resonantly off of Ed’s metal knee-it was aiming for the vein inside his thigh in order to inject its venom directly into his bloodstream, which means it’s way too goddamned smart for Ed’s tastes. Where have all the dumb monsters gone?
“Bad abomination of nature,” he says, and clubs the exoskeleton with the katana.
Evidently they don’t call that shit exoskeleton for nothing-there’s a dull noise, and then the unruffled scorpion goes for his other knee with its freaky pincers, and only a quick leap backwards saves him from getting a chunk taken out of his favorite leg.
“How you doin’, Al?” Ed calls, not risking a glance over his shoulder.
“Fine, Brother,” Al says. “Doctor Powell, I advise you not to do that.”
Ed gives the scorpion an even more vigorous smack and sends it skittering and toppling, its half-dozen limbs jackknifing as it careens into the cages-the whole stack of which wobbles dangerously. Close enough to a solution; he spins on his heel and catches Powell bending down to chalk the last of an array.
A quick transmutation to slam a stone fist into this guy’s face would be awesome right now.
But a well-aimed throwing knife to pin his dramatic robe to the wall behind him does not go amiss.
Powell’s gasp lowers to a hiss, and he tries to wrench his shoulder to free himself, but Ed’s been practicing. The knife blade is buried in the mortar between two stone blocks, and the guy’s cloak is too thick to tear away. His eyes widen as Ed strides over, the sheathed katana his right hand, his left settled on his belt beside the next knife-just in case.
“You worked with Doctor Knox, didn’t you?” Ed asks, trying to stifle his delight at the fact that he can actually loom over people now… at least when they’re cowering. “So why-” Al traps another chimera, which howls. “-are you such-” Ed bats some kind of growling porcupine-dog out of the way with the katana. “-a dumbass?”
“Brother!” Al cries.
Ed swivels just in time for the snake-bat to launch itself at his chest, and his reflexes are the only thing between its fangs and his throat-his reflexes, and the katana they bring up sharply just in time to avert a collision. The snake-bat’s momentum winds its body around the sheath, and it makes a bizarre mewing noise, and then Ed half-turns and sees Powell smearing a few chalk lines out with a fingertip and scraping one more into place.
There’s time to stare at him in disbelief, and then he’s flattening his hands on the finished array.
Ed knew the function from the sigils that he’d been able to make out, but some part of him is still surprised as the walls start caving in.
The noise blots out every shred of coherence in Ed’s head except for one shrill and circling thought reduced to three cycling words: get him out get him out get him out.
He remembers the positions, because he’s a genius; he can judge the trajectories, because he’s a genius; he drops everything and dives across the room and throws his body over Al’s as stone crumbles and the world collapses, because he wouldn’t have to be a genius to understand brotherhood. He squeezes his eyes shut and buries his face in Al’s dusty hair and tries to harden his spine against the imminent weight of the whole building.
But it doesn’t come. The ambient roaring of pulverized stone and shattering beams fades into a strange combination of clattering and creaking.
Ed cracks an eye open and peeks. Debris is still raining down from a massive cleft in the ceiling, and most of the wall that was behind Powell has crumpled and buried him in rubble, but the destruction has been halted-frozen, almost. Al shifts slowly, lifting his filthy palms from the pockmarked floor, and Ed steps back from beneath the small stone umbrella Al had drawn out from the wall, because there’s definitely something… new.
His first impression is that this bit of alchemy is unusually artistic. It’s the same basic trick he always used to use, which Al still does, of pulling the fabric of the room out into supporting arms. They’re scored with transmutation marks, but these limbs are elegant and slender. They arc gracefully up to hold the ceiling, and the way they twine and curve around each other, spreading from a central point, almost makes them look like… flames.
Ed follows the line of them to their single spot of origin near the doorway. Roy Mustang stands there blinking through the gray dust, unbowed and unchanged, one hand splayed out on the wall.
He’d really just been curious. Perhaps there had been a sliver of a scheme in it, but he likes to think he’s entitled. With politics as they are, Amestris would be in dire straits if its Führer couldn’t machinate a bit.
Roy has been intent on cleaning up the mess that Father left as thoroughly as possible-that means picking up the pieces, and it also means coming clean, insofar as they can without alarming the squeamish populace. It means transparency and accountability. And it means tracking down every last escapee and defector of the Ishval era.
Powell’s case is of twice the import given the dubious legality of his work and the increasingly strict regulations the Assembly is demanding for the State Alchemy program. If Roy had noticed the occasional missive or newspaper article noting an incident in which a certain famous pair of brothers targeted a creator of chimeras-if Roy had recalled that a certain famous pair of brothers has cause to hold a grudge against chemeric alchemists in particular-such speculative details won’t bear mentioning in his official report.
If Roy had felt a startlingly powerful urge of longing the last time some quick-snapping news photographer caught the glint of Edward Elric’s triumphant grin, well… Isn’t every Führer permitted a couple of secrets?
Powell’s last-ditch efforts largely backfired, but the paramedics are fairly sure he’ll live. Edward is much more worried about a cut on Alphonse’s cheek that won’t stop oozing, which has unsurprisingly distracted him from the fact that he himself is limping-to say nothing of the way the leader of the country is watching bemusedly as he berates the medics.
Then again, Edward’s priorities have always been in the right order. Roy never expected that to have changed.
When a scrap of gauze has been taped to Alphonse’s cheek, and Edward has finally ceased haranguing the medical professionals, Roy invites them to stay the night in the rooms he’d rented for this expedition, which-thanks to their semi-legal intervention-turned out to require rather less reconnoitering than anticipated.
“If it means we don’t have to camp out again,” Alphonse says, pushing the heel of one hand at the small of his back, “we certainly will. Thank you very much, sir.”
And because it’s about his brother’s comfort, Ed has no objections.
The moment Roy’s dropped onto the fauteuil in the sitting room, Alphonse yawns mightily.
“All of that alchemy wore me out,” he says. “I’ll just pop into the other room and take a nap while you two catch up. Thanks again, sir.”
He’s off like a shot, taking the cat chimera he seems to have adopted along with. The door shuts securely.
Edward pauses, and then he plops down onto the couch on the other side of the coffee table. He blinks. Roy looks at the curtains and vaguely observes that they’re hideous.
The silence swells for the better part of a minute before Roy clears his throat, brushes the last of the dust off of his uniform, and scoots his chair closer to the table. He and Ed stare at each other as the sunset dwindles beyond the windowpanes.
“Been a while,” Edward says.
“It has,” Roy says.
“You’re going gray.”
“What? I am not!” He isn’t. But he finds himself reaching up to pat helplessly anyway. “That’s ludicrous. Where? I’m doing no such thing.”
Ed’s grin is sharp-edged and gleaming and beautiful in the low light.
“Little rat,” Roy says. “Someday several years from now, you’re going to realize that that was extremely unkind, and you’re going to regret having said it.”
Edward shrugs languidly-luxuriously-and crosses his legs. They’re unmistakably longer now. He hasn’t stopped smiling, and it makes Roy’s heart strain with a fervor so obsolete it feels foreign. “How are things?”
“Things are delightful,” Roy says, which is sometimes true and sometimes heinously mendacious.
Edward studies the fingernails of his own right hand, then reaches across to catch Roy’s left-lightly, deftly, but irresistible-and tugs off the glove. He examines Roy’s fingers interestedly. “No wife?”
“I am blissfully wedded to my public office,” Roy says, which is heinously mendacious all the time.
“Girlfriend?” Ed asks without releasing his hand.
“That would be cheating on the Führership.”
“You just made that word up, asshole. Vengefully jealous fuckbuddy?”
“That is a tawdry term for a tawdry excuse for an interpersonal relationship,” Roy says. “And the Führership would be absolutely livid.”
“I can’t believe they let you out without the dress,” Ed says. His gaze spends longer than strictly necessary attempting to parse the shadows that have settled in Roy’s lap.
“First of all,” Roy says, “when I promised to change the country, I was including the dress code. For instance, as of yet I cannot make miniskirts mandatory for legal reasons, but they are readily available. Second, to say that they ‘let me out’ in this particular raiment posits an acknowledged allowance and, even more basically, an awareness.”
Edward smirks slowly. “You ran away from your retainers.”
“Yes,” Roy says.
“I can’t believe you’re even better at bullshitting than you were before. I thought you’d peaked.”
“It’s an art,” Roy says. His hand is still cradled in Ed’s curled fingers. “I am obligated to practice daily, you understand.”
Edward’s smirk has tilted into a soft, almost fragile smile. “Things are different,” he says.
“Extremely,” Roy says.
Ed’s hand tightens around his. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Roy says, twisting their hands and lifting Ed’s to breathe against the knuckles, “that I have reached a point in my life at which it is no longer necessary to deny myself anything that might be dangerous.”
“Do you want me or not?” Ed says, eyes huge and bright in the dim room-which dims further, to absolute insignificance, with him in the foreground.
“I’ve always wanted you, Edward,” Roy says, reeling him in by one tantalizingly muscled arm. “The only difference is that now I can have you.”
“You’re even fucking smugger,” Ed murmurs against Roy’s mouth. “I owe a lot of people money; I didn’t think it was possible.”
“You, of all people,” Roy says, tasting him, thrilling, tasting more- “…ought to know that anything is.”
And if, as their tongues meet and their hands spread and they arch into each other’s warmth, they both hear a “Finally” sighed just a little bit too loud, neither of them bothers to comment.
Chapter: 2. 1919
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed, featuring much Al
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,961
Warnings: language, sexual situations, mild violence, major spoilers for Brotherhood
Summary: Ed happens upon the unsettling revelation that Mustang is desirable, and Roy happens upon the implacable revelation that Edward is off-limits. A story in two halves.
Author's Note: And now for a section that's so completely different from Part I that you may get whiplash. Please don't hold me liable. D:
1919
In the five years since the Promised Day, Ed’s really only seen Mustang in the papers. And in the shower in their flat in East City, because Al clipped out the front-page photograph of the new Führer, wrapped it in waterproof film, and secured it to the wall tile with alchemy so that Ed can’t tear it down. There’s no longer any doubt in Ed’s mind about the evil thing; Alphonse Elric is a demon.
Not that Ed doesn’t love him to little tiny warm-and-breathing pieces anyway, but the fact remains.
“The mail came while you were getting off,” Al says today when Ed emerges toweling his hair.
“My own brother,” Ed says, “a slanderous fiend. Who would have thought? After all I’ve given, all I’ve sacrifi-”
“Postcard from Winry and Paninya,” Al says, setting it down on the coffee table and then promptly whisking it away before Cat #2 can sit on it. “And you have an unmarked envelope postmarked from Central.” He waves it, raising an eyebrow. “Care to explain?”
Ed snatches for it and misses. “Like you haven’t already opened it and then resealed the flap.”
“I haven’t,” Al says, blinking, and this time Ed nabs it. “I was going to, but you finished too fast.”
“It’s from Sheska,” Ed says as he tears it open and scans the coded note. “My hunch was right-that guy we ran into at the bazaar, who was obviously experimenting with chimera? Same ugly neck tattoo as a guy who used to work in Lab Five but disappeared before they purged the place. Apparently there was a manhunt, but obviously they couldn’t afford to draw attention to it, so they had to let him go. They also destroyed the records-other than the ones in Sheska’s head, anyway.” He taps the corner of the letter on his right palm, and Cat #3 noses at the envelope he dropped on the floor. “Now the only question is where a creepy ex-State Alchemist would keep his workshop and his wardrobe full of hooded robes.”
Al shifts Cat #2 off of his lap (Cat #2 has a weird compulsion to sit on things at the most annoying possible moment) and goes to the phone. “Do you remember the license plate on his truck, Brother?”
They did enough snooping around the ozone-tangy vehicle and its endless cages that Ed doesn’t even have to think about it before he nods. “But the transportation authority won’t tell you what address it’s registered to; we’re just civilians now.”
It’s funny how he misses the silver watch for different reasons than he thought he would. Plus he never knows what time it is.
“We’re not just civilians,” Al says, spinning the dial rotor. “We’re the Elric brothers, and we’ve taken government contracts before. Additionally, I am the undisputed master of name-dropping, as you should know by n… Hello, is this the East City records department? Lovely! Say, has Lieutenant-Colonel Hawkeye stopped by lately? I asked her to give me a call, but you know how busy she is these days…”
Demon. Wonderful demon, and Ed’s flesh and blood from golden head to carpet-tracing toe.
Turns out the man officially known as Doctor Vern Powell, the Fine Graft Alchemist-unofficially known as Zamundo, Purveyor of Exotic Beasts-has registered his truck to an extremely ordinary farmhouse out in the countryside, much closer to Resembool than Ed would like. It doesn’t take them long to find the place, and the truck’s parked in the dusty driveway. Ed adjusts his belts, and he and Al size up the premises.
“Basement?” Ed hazards.
“Always,” Al says.
“Does illegal alchemy just make you stupid?” Ed asks.
Al grins. “He’s got a track record for stupid.”
Ed squares his shoulders and starts for the front door. “Stupid it is.”
The door, as it happens, remains steadfastly locked even when he implements some rigorous handle-rattling. He glances at Al and raises an eyebrow. Al shakes his head, half-bows, and steps back, which means Let’s not risk Powell noticing the alchemical hallmarks of melting a lock-or, as Ed prefers to interpret it, Pick the fuck out of that thing, Brother.
Ed drops to one knee and busts out the picks, holding his breath so he can hear the tumblers tipping. It’s kind of amazing how dextrous you can become when you have two hands and a big swathe of open-ended hobby time.
He pushes the door open slowly, and, of course, it creaks. The room is ominously dim owing to the fact that Powell’s boarded up all of the windows, and what furniture there is looks ancient and disused, but there’s nothing especially sinister about the house just yet-so far it bears a passing resemblance to Granny Pinako’s place after a several-all-nighters job. Ed tries to avoid squeaky floorboards as he moves over to the bookshelf, which is the only thing in this room that appears to see consistent use. The vague feeling of foreboding settles into solid grimness as he skims the spines. He recognizes a number of these titles from Tucker’s library, and that alone is enough to make him want to cut this bastard’s heart out.
“Brother,” Al whispers.
Ed turns in time to watch Al lift a small wire cage from behind the couch. The cage’s occupant is a small, frightened-looking thing with glowing eyes. Ed squints and makes out what appears to be a cat shape covered in feathers.
“Oh, no,” he says. “No damn way, Al.”
“But we only have three others,” Al says.
“Three others that’d hunt that one,” Ed says, “because it’s some part cat food.”
“They would not,” Al says. “They’re much too spoiled to hunt anything.”
Ed points an imperious finger at him. “You admit it!”
Al rolls his eyes and then very carefully pokes a fingertip through the wire. The cat-bird-thing sniffs at him with damningly adorable curiosity.
“Leave it here for now,” Ed says. “We can’t carry that thing and kick Powell’s ass at the same time.”
“I’ll think of a name for you in the meantime,” Al coos to the obnoxiously cute chimera. “You just sit tight and be a good… mostly-kitty.”
Ed sighs inwardly and commences the search for the basement.
A glance into the kitchen is unrevealing, and the largest room on this floor is a study crammed with empty crates, cardboard boxes, and a few mostly-empty gasoline cans. Shifting them around a bit confirms that they’re hiding nothing, and Ed leads the way back out into the hall. He exchanges a glance with Al-he loves that he can actually see when his brother raises an eyebrow now, rather than listening for it and having to guess-and Al presses both palms together in preparation as Ed flings open the final unmarked door.
A pile of black hooded robes tumbles out, and then everything is still.
“Closet,” Al says, lowering his hands. “Surely he wouldn’t put his workshop upstairs.”
“I have an idea,” Ed says.
“Does it involve the gasoline cans? Because the answer to that sort of idea is always going to be no. You remember what happened outside of Dublith, with the guy living in the windmill-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ed says, nudging him out of the way and starting back down the hall. It’s nice that he can nudge Al now and (a) actually move him, plus (b) not get a serrated metal elbow in the eye. “That asshole should have fireproofed the damn thing better. And it’s not one of those ideas anyway.”
“It’s a pity I know better than to bask in my momentary relief,” Al says, but he follows.
Ed plants his hands on his hips and gives the kitchen a proper look this time. Between some mostly-bare shelving and an iron potbellied stove, he finds the telltale transmutation marks.
“What do you think?” he asks, brushing his fingertips over them as Al peers (with irritating ease) over his shoulder. “Is he waiting for us?”
“Only one way to find out,” Al says. He takes a deep breath, flashes Ed a reckless grin that the mirror’s long since made familiar, claps his hands, and dissolves the wall. As expected, the opening reveals the beginning of a narrow stone staircase.
Because of innumerable previous arguments won by the irrefutable logic of defensive alchemy, Brother, Al goes first-which doesn’t stop Ed from holding a hand just above his shoulder, ready to pull him out of the way and take the bullet if it comes to that. The trade-off is really tough some days-Ed gets to hear Al’s laugh unfiltered, gets to ruffle his hair and watch him squirm, gets to see him smile and roll his eyes… but Al’s so much more vulnerable when he’s not shelled in steel. And Ed can’t protect him as well anymore. That kind of balancing act definitely doesn’t make it easy to sleep.
There’s a broad wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. The light from the kitchen just illuminates Al’s face as he turns to Ed and mouths No doorknob.
Ed lifts his left arm and twines it with Al’s right. When they’re braced against each other, they each raise their inside leg and apply their respective heels to the door.
It slams open with a sound like a gunshot. The chimeras are on them before it can rebound off the wall.
Ed uses his grip on Al’s arm to drag them both to the floor, and an extremely confused combination of a snake and a bat sails over their heads-but ducking puts them right in range of what appears to be evidence that warthogs and crocodiles should never interbreed. For a second Ed’s not sure if vomiting or escape should be a higher priority.
Al’s arm slings around his neck and hauls them both hard to the left, leaving the cavernous jaws to snap shut harmlessly, grimy tusks rending nothing but air. Ed scrambles to pull them both to their feet again, kicking the croc-hog-nightmare thing’s snout aside with his metal foot. A falcon with a shark’s eyes dives at them, wings churning the air in the claustrophobic space, and Al whips them out of the way as the sinuous snake-bat rounds on them again, recovered from its collision with the staircase. Ed hears a faint rattling and glances over in time to see Powell, now much less mysterious and much more concretely assholish, unlatching another cage.
Al disentangles his arm from Ed’s, claps, and presses his open hands to the wall, which loops tendrils of liquid stone around the falcon and secures it there beside the door. Keeping one eye on the croc-thing, Ed catches the snake-bat’s tail, which is more slippery than he expected-but not too slippery to grasp, and not too slippery to swing the creature like a weighted weapon, releasing it at the perfect point in its trajectory to send it flying straight at Powell.
The bastard seems to be as good at evading projectiles as he is at evading the law. He wrenches two more cages open even as the bat-snake goes flailing into the wall behind him. Some kind of fox with a badger’s markings-and its claws-climbs almost daintily from its prison, momentarily joined by a vastly oversized scorpion with far too many legs.
“You got these, Al?” Ed asks, offering the croc-hog his metal shin as it snarls and snaps again. After a flash of consideration, he hits the clasp that releases the katana’s sheath from where it’s belted across his back-he’s got no grudge against a couple of innocent, if horrifying, chimera, and he’s not about to use the blade on them.
“I can handle it, Brother,” Al says.
Ed brings the sheathed katana down hard on the misshapen skull of the croc-hog, and it whines piteously and releases his ankle to retreat. Animals know when they’re outmatched, and they respect a fair victory. It’s a pity the same can’t be said for most people.
A swipe of the covered blade sends the fox-badger flying with a high-pitched yelp, but the scorpion is sizing Ed up as Al makes short work of the others. Ed glances over again, and Powell’s opening more cages still, and then the scorpion curls its tail and strikes.
The barbed tail tip clangs resonantly off of Ed’s metal knee-it was aiming for the vein inside his thigh in order to inject its venom directly into his bloodstream, which means it’s way too goddamned smart for Ed’s tastes. Where have all the dumb monsters gone?
“Bad abomination of nature,” he says, and clubs the exoskeleton with the katana.
Evidently they don’t call that shit exoskeleton for nothing-there’s a dull noise, and then the unruffled scorpion goes for his other knee with its freaky pincers, and only a quick leap backwards saves him from getting a chunk taken out of his favorite leg.
“How you doin’, Al?” Ed calls, not risking a glance over his shoulder.
“Fine, Brother,” Al says. “Doctor Powell, I advise you not to do that.”
Ed gives the scorpion an even more vigorous smack and sends it skittering and toppling, its half-dozen limbs jackknifing as it careens into the cages-the whole stack of which wobbles dangerously. Close enough to a solution; he spins on his heel and catches Powell bending down to chalk the last of an array.
A quick transmutation to slam a stone fist into this guy’s face would be awesome right now.
But a well-aimed throwing knife to pin his dramatic robe to the wall behind him does not go amiss.
Powell’s gasp lowers to a hiss, and he tries to wrench his shoulder to free himself, but Ed’s been practicing. The knife blade is buried in the mortar between two stone blocks, and the guy’s cloak is too thick to tear away. His eyes widen as Ed strides over, the sheathed katana his right hand, his left settled on his belt beside the next knife-just in case.
“You worked with Doctor Knox, didn’t you?” Ed asks, trying to stifle his delight at the fact that he can actually loom over people now… at least when they’re cowering. “So why-” Al traps another chimera, which howls. “-are you such-” Ed bats some kind of growling porcupine-dog out of the way with the katana. “-a dumbass?”
“Brother!” Al cries.
Ed swivels just in time for the snake-bat to launch itself at his chest, and his reflexes are the only thing between its fangs and his throat-his reflexes, and the katana they bring up sharply just in time to avert a collision. The snake-bat’s momentum winds its body around the sheath, and it makes a bizarre mewing noise, and then Ed half-turns and sees Powell smearing a few chalk lines out with a fingertip and scraping one more into place.
There’s time to stare at him in disbelief, and then he’s flattening his hands on the finished array.
Ed knew the function from the sigils that he’d been able to make out, but some part of him is still surprised as the walls start caving in.
The noise blots out every shred of coherence in Ed’s head except for one shrill and circling thought reduced to three cycling words: get him out get him out get him out.
He remembers the positions, because he’s a genius; he can judge the trajectories, because he’s a genius; he drops everything and dives across the room and throws his body over Al’s as stone crumbles and the world collapses, because he wouldn’t have to be a genius to understand brotherhood. He squeezes his eyes shut and buries his face in Al’s dusty hair and tries to harden his spine against the imminent weight of the whole building.
But it doesn’t come. The ambient roaring of pulverized stone and shattering beams fades into a strange combination of clattering and creaking.
Ed cracks an eye open and peeks. Debris is still raining down from a massive cleft in the ceiling, and most of the wall that was behind Powell has crumpled and buried him in rubble, but the destruction has been halted-frozen, almost. Al shifts slowly, lifting his filthy palms from the pockmarked floor, and Ed steps back from beneath the small stone umbrella Al had drawn out from the wall, because there’s definitely something… new.
His first impression is that this bit of alchemy is unusually artistic. It’s the same basic trick he always used to use, which Al still does, of pulling the fabric of the room out into supporting arms. They’re scored with transmutation marks, but these limbs are elegant and slender. They arc gracefully up to hold the ceiling, and the way they twine and curve around each other, spreading from a central point, almost makes them look like… flames.
Ed follows the line of them to their single spot of origin near the doorway. Roy Mustang stands there blinking through the gray dust, unbowed and unchanged, one hand splayed out on the wall.
He’d really just been curious. Perhaps there had been a sliver of a scheme in it, but he likes to think he’s entitled. With politics as they are, Amestris would be in dire straits if its Führer couldn’t machinate a bit.
Roy has been intent on cleaning up the mess that Father left as thoroughly as possible-that means picking up the pieces, and it also means coming clean, insofar as they can without alarming the squeamish populace. It means transparency and accountability. And it means tracking down every last escapee and defector of the Ishval era.
Powell’s case is of twice the import given the dubious legality of his work and the increasingly strict regulations the Assembly is demanding for the State Alchemy program. If Roy had noticed the occasional missive or newspaper article noting an incident in which a certain famous pair of brothers targeted a creator of chimeras-if Roy had recalled that a certain famous pair of brothers has cause to hold a grudge against chemeric alchemists in particular-such speculative details won’t bear mentioning in his official report.
If Roy had felt a startlingly powerful urge of longing the last time some quick-snapping news photographer caught the glint of Edward Elric’s triumphant grin, well… Isn’t every Führer permitted a couple of secrets?
Powell’s last-ditch efforts largely backfired, but the paramedics are fairly sure he’ll live. Edward is much more worried about a cut on Alphonse’s cheek that won’t stop oozing, which has unsurprisingly distracted him from the fact that he himself is limping-to say nothing of the way the leader of the country is watching bemusedly as he berates the medics.
Then again, Edward’s priorities have always been in the right order. Roy never expected that to have changed.
When a scrap of gauze has been taped to Alphonse’s cheek, and Edward has finally ceased haranguing the medical professionals, Roy invites them to stay the night in the rooms he’d rented for this expedition, which-thanks to their semi-legal intervention-turned out to require rather less reconnoitering than anticipated.
“If it means we don’t have to camp out again,” Alphonse says, pushing the heel of one hand at the small of his back, “we certainly will. Thank you very much, sir.”
And because it’s about his brother’s comfort, Ed has no objections.
The moment Roy’s dropped onto the fauteuil in the sitting room, Alphonse yawns mightily.
“All of that alchemy wore me out,” he says. “I’ll just pop into the other room and take a nap while you two catch up. Thanks again, sir.”
He’s off like a shot, taking the cat chimera he seems to have adopted along with. The door shuts securely.
Edward pauses, and then he plops down onto the couch on the other side of the coffee table. He blinks. Roy looks at the curtains and vaguely observes that they’re hideous.
The silence swells for the better part of a minute before Roy clears his throat, brushes the last of the dust off of his uniform, and scoots his chair closer to the table. He and Ed stare at each other as the sunset dwindles beyond the windowpanes.
“Been a while,” Edward says.
“It has,” Roy says.
“You’re going gray.”
“What? I am not!” He isn’t. But he finds himself reaching up to pat helplessly anyway. “That’s ludicrous. Where? I’m doing no such thing.”
Ed’s grin is sharp-edged and gleaming and beautiful in the low light.
“Little rat,” Roy says. “Someday several years from now, you’re going to realize that that was extremely unkind, and you’re going to regret having said it.”
Edward shrugs languidly-luxuriously-and crosses his legs. They’re unmistakably longer now. He hasn’t stopped smiling, and it makes Roy’s heart strain with a fervor so obsolete it feels foreign. “How are things?”
“Things are delightful,” Roy says, which is sometimes true and sometimes heinously mendacious.
Edward studies the fingernails of his own right hand, then reaches across to catch Roy’s left-lightly, deftly, but irresistible-and tugs off the glove. He examines Roy’s fingers interestedly. “No wife?”
“I am blissfully wedded to my public office,” Roy says, which is heinously mendacious all the time.
“Girlfriend?” Ed asks without releasing his hand.
“That would be cheating on the Führership.”
“You just made that word up, asshole. Vengefully jealous fuckbuddy?”
“That is a tawdry term for a tawdry excuse for an interpersonal relationship,” Roy says. “And the Führership would be absolutely livid.”
“I can’t believe they let you out without the dress,” Ed says. His gaze spends longer than strictly necessary attempting to parse the shadows that have settled in Roy’s lap.
“First of all,” Roy says, “when I promised to change the country, I was including the dress code. For instance, as of yet I cannot make miniskirts mandatory for legal reasons, but they are readily available. Second, to say that they ‘let me out’ in this particular raiment posits an acknowledged allowance and, even more basically, an awareness.”
Edward smirks slowly. “You ran away from your retainers.”
“Yes,” Roy says.
“I can’t believe you’re even better at bullshitting than you were before. I thought you’d peaked.”
“It’s an art,” Roy says. His hand is still cradled in Ed’s curled fingers. “I am obligated to practice daily, you understand.”
Edward’s smirk has tilted into a soft, almost fragile smile. “Things are different,” he says.
“Extremely,” Roy says.
Ed’s hand tightens around his. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Roy says, twisting their hands and lifting Ed’s to breathe against the knuckles, “that I have reached a point in my life at which it is no longer necessary to deny myself anything that might be dangerous.”
“Do you want me or not?” Ed says, eyes huge and bright in the dim room-which dims further, to absolute insignificance, with him in the foreground.
“I’ve always wanted you, Edward,” Roy says, reeling him in by one tantalizingly muscled arm. “The only difference is that now I can have you.”
“You’re even fucking smugger,” Ed murmurs against Roy’s mouth. “I owe a lot of people money; I didn’t think it was possible.”
“You, of all people,” Roy says, tasting him, thrilling, tasting more- “…ought to know that anything is.”
And if, as their tongues meet and their hands spread and they arch into each other’s warmth, they both hear a “Finally” sighed just a little bit too loud, neither of them bothers to comment.