Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Family ❯ Connection ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter VIII: Connection

The Thursday afternoon sun was already filtering through the drawn curtains when a nearly-awake Ed felt someone unceremoniously prod him in the side. He grumbled incoherently and made to smack away the offending digit, only to be rewarded with a slap on his hip and to have his comforter and sheets ripped away from him.

Golden eyes widened at the audacity of this person who had so boldly interrupted his sleep, and he sat bolt upright to glare at them through sleep-crusted eyes. He was greeted by the sight of Madalay, the housekeeper, stuffing his bedding down into a wicker laundry basket at her feet. She straightened and turned her dull blue eyes back to him, placing her hands on her ample hips in a motherly, almost scolding manner. “Mr. Elric, I need to change your sheets. Get up, please.”

Ed grunted a sleepy negative and fell back onto the new mattress; he could imagine Madalay shaking her head in annoyance, her curly auburn locks bouncing with the motion, but he was really too interested in staring at a small dirty spot on his new bedroom ceiling to care. The blonde thought that the spot might be some sort of wood polish, simply because the room had been a storage place for extra furniture before he and Roy had hastily renovated it—but, what the spot was doing on the ceiling, he didn't know.

It might've been a burn mark, knowing his lover—he had discovered some cleverly concealed scorch marks at various locations around the manor . . . most of them located in places that, Ed knew, caused Roy annoyance and comical grief: the library, his study, his personal office, and of course, the kitchen.

Of course, those were just because he couldn't cook.

A light tapping suddenly interrupted his reverie and he glance over to see the petite tanned woman tapping her sneakered foot in vexation.

“What time is it?” Ed yawned out with a long stretch.

Madalay glanced down at her wristwatch and stated, “It is now 1:45 in the afternoon.” Looking back up at him, she added, “You know, Edward, sir, it really isn't good for you to sleep this late. It throws off your sleeping habits, which isn't healthy.”

“Why, Madalay, I didn't know you cared,” the blonde teen said in a sarcastically touched voice, pressing his hand to his chest in a show of mock sentiment.

The woman harrumphed and said, “I don't really—but, if you're healthy, energetic, and . . . active, then that means that Mr. Mustang is happy. And if he's happy, then that means that he pays the staff more.”

Ed chuckled. “I'll be sure to tell him that.”

“You do that, sir,” she replied with a kind smile. “In the mean time, though . . . I need to change these sheets. I could try with you on top of them, but that would make my job much more difficult, so . . . if you don't mind . . .?”

With a listless sigh, the Elric rolled over and got out of bed, stretching his arms up above his head with a barely-stifled yawn. Grabbing a tie from his bedside table and then reaching up to begin languidly braiding his thick hair, Edward asked, “Where is Roy, by the way?”

Madalay had already moved to strip his mattress and responded while she worked, “Mrs. and Ms. Mustang wished to go shopping and sight-seeing today.”

Ed quirked a curious eyebrow, wondering if the woman would choose to elaborate on this enigmatic statement, but she said nothing further on the subject; she completed stripping the bed, told him that she'd be back in a few minutes to remake it (“So, you had best not go back to sleep.”), and then left without a backwards glance.

Once the door shut behind her, Ed immediately padded back to the bed and crawled in, curling up into a tight ball in the centre of the naked mattress. “Mm . . . sleepy,” he mumbled to himself, tucking his face into the crook of his flesh elbow. However, for Edward Elric to say that he was merely `sleepy' would be a vast understatement.

Ed was dog-tired. Dog-of-the-military-tired, in fact . . .

He had stayed up till the wee hours of dawn with Roy, doing nothing but talking and some G-rated snuggling . . . but that didn't seem to compensate for the fact that the young alchemist was emotionally drained. Ed opened his eyes to stare past his arm at a bare spot on the wall, letting the golden orbs go unfocused as his mind drifted back to the previous evening.

- + -

Edward stormed out of Tamalynn's room, slamming the door behind him. Okay, so he was mad . . .

No. Scratch that. Not mad—furious. He could feel the blood boiling underneath his skin, the marrow of his bones liquefying and seeping out through the calciferous pores to blend with his spasming muscles; he could just smellthe tears burning his eyes, warping the golden halos into flames and vaporizing them, turning them to dust. He was seething, ready to spit fire and sulphur at the first person who looked at him wrong, even though the only thing he could taste in the back of his throat was his own vomit.

The blonde torpedo was dead-set on finding Roy and having a longtalk with him—and, of course, by talk, he meant that he was going to hurt him. Badly. He was gonna grab him by the collar of his nicely-pressed uniform and pound his pretty little face in, until he either confessed to Ed why he had cheated on him . . . or until the blonde knocked all thirty-two of his goddamned teeth out.

God . . . Hughes. It had been fuckingHughes? Why didn't I see it? I mean . . . they were close . . . I thought that they were friends, but . . . Hughes. Dammit! Even when you're dead, you somehow manage to take Roy away from me . . .

Now, Edward hadbeen intent on doing great harm to his dark-haired lover; however, somewhere between Point A and Point P (which, coincidentally, stood for Pummel), he stopped. Halted dead in the middle of the hallway at this thought . . .

And he gagged.

Luckily for him—and the hallway carpet, for that matter—the point at which he had stopped was conveniently located just outside the upstairs lavatory and Ed made immediate use of it. For the second time that night, he slammed a door behind him and, kneeling before the toilet like some sort of drunken worshipper, vomited into its watery mouth.

The Fullmetal emptied his stomach and spit and cried and gagged again . . .

He retched because the realization had hit him square in the gut:

Hughes was dead. Roy hadn't cheated on him. He had gotten turned down, rejected. He'd had his heart stomped on by his best friend . . . and he hadn't even knownEd back then . . .

Back then.

Not now.

Not ever . . . He'd never cheated on him.

His nose and throat burning with the acrid taste of bile, Edward reached up and pressed the flusher, watching through blurred eyes as his own stomach contents swirled around once . . . twice . . . countless times . . . and then disappeared, only to be quickly replaced with fresh water.

“Dammit . . . I'm such a fucking idiot . . .” he whispered hollowly to himself, leaning heavily against the toilet bowl and crossing his arms across the rim of the seat; resting the side of his head on his flesh arm, Ed slowly let his eyes flutter shut, his body ultimately succumbing to the late hour.

“But then again . . . so are you . . . Mustang . . .”

- + -

Ed sighed as he made his way down the stairs and into the living room, wobbling to and fro slightly—partly due to his exhausted state, and partly due to the nasty welt he was now sporting on his backside, courtesy of Madalay.

Well, he couldn't say that she hadn't warned him.

And, he had to admit that he was now very much awake . . .

The Elric slowly meandered over to the front door and glanced out through the amber-tinted, rippling lead glass of one of the vertical windows that framed it; his eyes subconsciously darted towards what Roy called the “parking curve” of their circular driveway and he saw, with slight trepidation, that the car was gone. Though, Ed just as quickly heaved out a relaxed breath as Madalay's message replayed in his head.

“Mrs. and Ms. Mustang wished to go shopping and sight-seeing today.”

Ahh . . .

As the housekeeper had so cryptically explained, Roy must've taken his mother and sister into Central for the day—that certainly clarified why the car was now missing, anyway. The Fullmetal turned away, arms akimbo, and made his way towards the library. If Roy and the rest of the Mustangs had departed from the residence for the day, then that gave him plenty of peace and quiet to get some research done. And, he was happy to report that his boyfriend could claim one of the most extensive private libraries in all of Central—second only to the fuhrer's, actually.

Lucky him.

Edward pushed open the heavy wooden doors—which Roy had installed to keep out unwanted sound, much to the appreciation of Ed (especially during the final weeks leading up to his yearly assessment)—and entered the athenaeum, immediately turning to head over to his favoured alchemic section; however, he stopped short when he caught sight of someone else seated in the carrell.

The Major General looked up from the thick tome he was currently reading to eye Edward past his long-stemmed pipe.

“Oh,” the blonde stammered in surprise. “I-I'm . . . sorry. I didn't . . . I didn't realize that there was anyone else . . . here. I'll just go—”

“No, no,” the dark-haired man cut in smoothly, removing his pipe from his lips and setting it down on the gueridon next to his chair. “Come in. Sit down. Do what you will . . .” He then placed his book, face-down, in his lap and busied himself with refilling his cup of tea, likewise located on the gueridon.

“Oh . . .” Ed muttered uncertainly. “Okay . . . sure . . .”

The blonde stood there entranced for a moment longer, then continued on to the alchemic section. It took only a short search and the resentful obtaining of one of the rolling shelf-ladders to retrieve the book that Ed wanted; he then shuffled back over to the sitting area, and plopped down into one of the comfortable armchairs near the Major General.

He slowly situated himself into a position that he knew from experience would be appropriate for several hours of quiet reading, and then opened up his book to the dog-ear that showed where he had stopped last time. However, instead of immediately picking up where he left off, he took several seconds to gaze out of the corner of his eye at the Major General.

The man had his unlit pipe back in his mouth and was casually leafing through War and Peace like it was a romantic paperback that one selected out of a train station kiosk; instead of the blue military uniform that Ed was used to seeing him in, he had on a checkered smoking jacket, covering up his silken pajamas.

Well, I guess he's not going out today, thought Edward to himself. At least, the blonde suddenly felt a lot less insecure about the pajama-like clothes that he was now wearing.

With a silent sigh, Ed turned back to his book and found the line that he had abandoned last time, in favour of more . . . stimulating activity with Roy. He smiled and blushed slightly at the thought, glad that his fringe was now covering up his face.

We have good times . . . Tamalynn's right. We are good for each other . . . And I do love him . . . the big idiot.

Edward suddenly let the smile on his face drop, replaced by a contemplative look. Yes, he did love Roy. Loved him terribly . . . but, even still, he wasn't able to tell him the whole truth the previous night.

Yes: He had been mad at Roy for not telling him that he loved Hughes to his face. Yes: He had been pissed at Hughes for, ironically, making Roy gay. And yes: He had lastly been furious with himself for getting so worked up over things like that. But that wasn't everything. There had been one more thing . . . something that he had simply been too terrified to ask the man . . . something that, from now on, would sit in the back of his mind like a tipped inkpot, slowly leaking a black stain out over their relationship.

It had, ultimately, been Tamalynn who had put the thought in his mind. When she had been confessing in Roy's stead, she had mentioned how it was only after he had gotten shot down by Hughes that the colonel had begun to throw himself into meaningless relationships with hundreds of women.

Women.

And that was what had Ed so concerned. That was what had chewed at his nerves all night and kept him awake. And that ink stain would only continue to grow larger . . . until the Fullmetal finally got brave enough to ask his lover . . .

Am I just a replacement?

“You know, if you're simply going to stare at that book all afternoon, then you should just put it back on the shelf,” said a voice suddenly and Ed nearly jumped. Looking up, he saw that the Major General had once again set down his book and was now gazing at him intently over half-moon shaped spectacles. “Letting it just sit there isn't very good for it.”

Ed released the breath he had been holding since the man had first spoken and furrowed his brow. “I didn't know that books did anything other than just sit there.”

He was really only half-aware that the previous thought had actually come out of his mouth . . . that is, until the Major General smirked and shook his head in amusement; Ed thought that he might have even heard a small chuckle escape past that steel-streaked moustache.

Edward had, in the most basic sense of it, been stripped naked and shoved into an icy pool of shock. Who knew that the man could laugh, let alone smile without looking smarmy about it? Of course, only months before that, Ed had had pretty much the same impression of his son . . .

Bastard.

While the blonde was recovering from the blow he had just received, the Major General chose to deliver another roundhouse punch:

“The Rockbells make your automail, correct?”

Ed blinked. “Huh? Y-yeah . . . they do, but . . . how'd you . . .?” For a moment, Edward thought that maybe because of his . . . notoriety, the maker of his automail had likewise gotten some attention for her work; however, that notion was quickly thrown out the proverbial window when the Major General took his pipe by the stem and reached over to tap Ed on the bottom of his bare left foot, the wood making a strange pinging sound against the steel.

“I recognized the maker's logo,” the Major General stated, leaning back in his chair.

“Ah . . .” Ed knew that Winry had put the Rockbell logo—a small bell within a circle—along with her initials on both the pad of his foot and near the socket of his shoulder, basically marking her prize work. She had told him once that all automail mechanics did it, so that no one could claim anybody else's work as their own.

Ed didn't deny that this was a good idea—there had to be hundreds, if not thousands of automail mechanics out there. Anyone, if they so chose, could claim to have made someone else's limbs and get away with it. And, seeing as how he was known throughout all of Amestris as the Fullmetal Alchemist, he realized—not without some haughty satisfaction—that his limbs would be one of the top claims among automail technicians.

Of course, that also meant that there were hundreds or thousands of mechanic's logos out there—how the Major General had deciphered that a bell in a circle belonged to the Rockbells of Resembool . . . well, that was his next question.

“You recognized the logo? How?”

The man shrugged lightly and took a sip of his tea. “They do good work,” he admitted. “I wish that they had designed and constructed my automail.”

Back into the pool Ed went.

“Y-y-you . . . your automail?” Ed nearly-shrieked, incredulity apparent in his wide golden eyes. “You have automail?”

The Major General nodded placidly, not at all alarmed by Edward's somewhat violent reaction; he reached down and pulled up the pajama-pant of his right leg, revealing the glistening steel and other, visibly soft, alloyed metals of his decidedly well-made leg. “It's automail from about mid-thigh down,” he explained. “Yours?”

Ed was silent for a moment, staring at the metallic tendons and muscles of the Major General's prosthetic calf, before he shook his head and responded, “Oh, um . . . my left leg is automail all the way up till just past my knee . . . and my entire right arm, shoulder to the tips of my fingers . . .”

The limb disappeared as the older man dropped his pant leg and sat up straight once again, giving a slight nod of his head to indicate that he had heard Ed. “Hurt like hell, didn't it?”

The Fullmetal felt a small smile pulling at his lips. “Yeah . . . it did. But . . . Ro—I mean, Colonel Mustang never mentioned . . .”

“Neither of my children knows, Mr. Elric,” said the Major General as he picked up his book once again, turning back to the page that he had stopped on before. “And, I'd prefer it if they remained oblivious, if you don't mind.”

Ed knew that it wasn't really a request.

He sighed, eyeing the older man for a few moments, before taking a deep breath and hesitantly questioning, “Do . . . do you mind if . . . if I ask how . . .?”

“How I lost my leg?” the Major General finished without looking up.

The blonde nodded. “Yeah . . .”

The man took one final sip of tea, draining his cup, and then set down the container on the tray to his left. “Well,” he began. “It was in the Northern War. Back before we had a peace treaty with Drachma . . . I was just a sergeant back then . . . lower in rank than my son, or even you are now . . . but I was air-headed and so full of myself.” The Major General glanced over at Ed. “Sort of like you, I suspect.”

Ed huffed indignantly at this comment, but didn't interrupt the man as he continued. “Well, my unit was up in the Briggs Mountains, near a little town called Vernal. There was a battle going on nearby and our general had learned that a small Drachmanian division was being held in reserves in that town; our unit was to go in and disarm them—keep them from heading into battle when they were needed.”

Ed suddenly noticed that the Major General had gotten a distant, haunted look in his cobalt eyes. The young alchemist knew that look all too well.

He recognized it as the same look that Roy sometimes got . . .

He also knew that he himself had gotten it on more than one occasion.

“So . . .” the Major General stated with a small sigh. “We went in. Stormed the place . . . Unfortunately . . . we miscalculated exactly how large the division was. We were outmanned . . . at least five to one. We all knew that we were dead . . . and even worse . . . my younger brother was in the unit with me.”

Younger brother? Wait . . . hadn't Tamalynn said something about an uncle that Roy had been named after?

“Royce,” Ed murmured, almost to himself.

The Major General turned to him, a curious expression on his face. “Yes, that's correct. How did you know that?”

“Oh, well Tamalynn told me that Roy had been named after an uncle who had . . . oh, no . . .”

The dark-haired man smiled sadly and nodded. “Yes. My younger brother Royce . . . died on that faithful day. He and I, along with four other soldiers, including our colonel . . . were pinned down by Drachmanian fire. There was so much happening all at once . . . we were taken by surprise when some soldiers broke down the door of the building we were in. I suppose that if I had run, then . . . I would have saved my leg . . . but all I could think about was putting myself between my brother and their guns.

“I lost so much blood that I passed out. I found out later, after I woke up in a hospital in a city in northern Amestris . . . that one of our backup units had come in at the last second for a rescue. Unfortunately . . . they didn't arrive soon enough to save my leg . . . or Royce . . .”

Ed stared. The Major General had . . . given up a limb to try and save his younger brother . . .

Oh, irony was an evil bitch.

Sure, he had failed where Ed had succeeded—if you can call what the blonde accomplished a true success—but the resemblance that the alchemist saw mirrored in the man seated across from him was enough to stun him speechless.

“Would you like some tea?”

The question was so unexpected that it took Ed rather by surprise. “Huh?” he mumbled, still not quite able to form a coherent thought.

The Major General frowned. “Tea. Would. You. Like. Some. Tea?” He said the words slowly and deliberately, making sure that Edward heard each of them correctly—he might have been trying to be kind, but to the blonde's ears, it still sounded harsh.

He cringed. “Oh . . . um, yessir. Sure. Sure, I'd like some.”

The dark-haired man nodded curtly and poured the teen his own steaming cup of tea, adding in a cube of sugar and no cream—strangely, exactly how Ed liked it. “Yes,” the Major General said to no one in particular as the blonde took the cup. He held up his own delicate cup in a cheers type gesture, more reminiscent of something one would see done with a mug of beer in a smoky bar, instead of in a library with a tiny, bone china teacup. “Let's drink. I shall drink to your leg and you'll drink to my leg. We'll drink to each other's legs!”

As the Major General laughed and clinked their tiny cups together merrily, Ed vaguely wondered if there wasn't something more than just tea in his tea. And as he sipped down the sweet, raspberry flavoured water, watching as the older man downed his own, the realization of how much the two of them shared in common finally hit him:

Both of them had automail and both had obtained said automail because they had wanted to protect their brothers (in the Fullmetal's case, that was only half-true, but still . . . no use splitting guilty hairs); both were stubborn, begrudging dogs of the military; hell, they both drank their tea the same, apparently; and both—whether or not they chose to openly show it—dearly loved Roy Mustang . . .

Ed grinned into his drink.

Maybe they had more of a connection than Ed had originally thought.