Chapter Text
People say the Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the most skilled alchemists in the military — perhaps even the country. They say he can transmute using only his hands, no circle necessary, and his fighting skills are that of a professional three times his age.
People also say he's a loud, arrogant, undoubtedly evil little brat of a twelve year old.
People mostly being Roy Mustang.
Maes Hughes is about to find out how much truth his best friend has been spouting this past month, and he’s deriving more than a little excitement from it.
According to what Roy’s team have told him, Edward Elric is a decent kid. Loud and a little arrogant, yes, but that’s to be expected from “an obviously spoiled kid”, to put it in Havoc’s words. Fuery says that he’s on the phone all the time, though, talking to someone called Al. Breda says that if the kid’s disturbed while he's talking to this Al guy he glares like he's imagining how to best kill you with your own shoelaces. Hawkeye says “stop asking me about the Fullmetal Alchemist and go back to your own office”. Yikes.
Maes rests his hand on the handle of Mustang’s office door. He can hear a kid’s voice inside, though his exact words are muffled by the wood.
Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist.
He pushes the handle down and opens the door.
“If he makes me go to one more fucking town to do one more fucking inspection–”
Okay, so it seems that Roy was mostly telling the truth about the loud part.
The kid is slouched in one of the room’s plush chairs, clutching what looks to be a written report. He’s small, even for a twelve year old, and the expression on his face is not unlike that of a grouchy cat.
Exactly as Roy had described.
Maes looks around. Roy’s team had stopped working to greet him when he entered, but now they're back to either writing or idly watching Fullmetal rant. Most are smiling slightly, like watching the kid burn himself out is a welcome distraction from their work.
Maes turns back to Fullmetal, but it seems like he’s done with his tirade by now. Perfect.
“Yo! Is Roy still in?” He forces all the cheer he has into the greeting, just to make sure Roy hears him. Of course he’s still in; no way in hell would Hawkeye let him leave early.
“Yes, he is, Major Hughes.” says Hawkeye. “In his office doing paperwork, as usual.”
“Unfortunately,” grumbles Fullmetal so quietly that Maes doubts he was supposed to hear it.
“Ah-ha! You must be Edward Elric, correct? Roy’s told me so much about you!”
Fullmetal looks like he knows exactly what sort of things Roy might have said about him, and he doesn't look too happy about it.
Maes holds out his hand for Fullmetal to shake. The kid accepts it somewhat warily and Maes shakes enthusiastically.
He hopes his surprise at the kid’s hand being hard metal beneath the white gloves doesn't show on his face. That would be awfully rude, not to mention bad for a first impression.
“Why are you here, Hughes? It’s late.” Roy stands in the open doorway. He looks exhausted.
A bit like a grouchy cat.
Maes has a good internal laugh at that.
“I’m here, Roy, to share some very important information.”
Roy raises his eyebrows. “Oh? Care to elaborate?”
Maes pauses for effect. One, two, three, and…
“My little Elicia’s eight months old today!”
Roy groans. Someone stifles a guffaw. Hawkeye congratulates him.
“Elicia?” says Fullmetal, looking a mixture of entertained and confused at the exchange.
“Yes! My daughter, the most beautiful angel to ever exist!”
“Oh, you've done it now,” says Havoc.
“Watch. He’ll get out the photos in a second,” says Breda.
Maes is all too happy to oblige.
After a good five minutes of showing off his latest family photos, Maes puts his plan into action. He didn't only come here to gloat about his family, after all. Thought that is a decent enough reason alone.
“Where are you staying tonight, Ed? I can call you that, right?” Nice and natural sounding. He’s good at this.
“Uh, yeah, Ed is fine.” He frowns. “And I guess I was just gonna book a hotel room or something…”
Just as Maes suspected he would. Perfect.
“Well, that's no good! It's so late! Stay at mine tonight. My wife cooks the most delicious food.”
Ed looks close to refusing out of politeness, so Maes leaps into action and practically drags the kid from his chair and out the door. Someone calls a gleeful goodbye – probably Havoc – and Roy shouts at Ed not to be late tomorrow. Ed shoots a fuck you back at him.
Maes laughs. He likes this kid already.
Gracia, as always, is infinitely kind and prepared in the face of unexpected guests. There's enough food and more to feed Ed, which is just as well, because it turns out the kid can eat like a demon for someone so small. (Maes quickly learns that mentioning the kid’s height it strictly off-limits, unless he has some kind of death wish.)
What surprises Maes most about Edward Elric is how well he gets on with Elicia. She still hasn't learned to walk yet, but Ed has infinite patience for her almost-one-year-old antics. He coos at her and tells her he likes her hair. Somehow, he gets her to giggle in the way only Maes has ever managed to.
At one point, Elicia notices that one of her new big brother’s arms is harder than the other. Maes thinks Ed will make up an excuse to avoid showing her what’s obviously a prosthetic, but instead he pulls off his coat and glove and lets her small hands inspect the metal. He looks a little unsure at first, like he’s worried she’ll be scared. But when it becomes apparent that she only has wonder for it, he grins and holds it up to the lamp so pretty light dances around the room. She giggles again.
“How did it happen, if you don't mind my asking?” Maes asks, so softly that Ed could pretend he didn't hear if he wanted to.
Maes doesn't miss the way Ed’s breath catches.
“Alchemy accident when I was eleven.” From the way Ed says it, Maes can tell it's not a lie, but not a whole truth, either.
“Your legs are automail too, aren't they?” Not a question, not really.
“Picked it up from the way I walk, huh?”
Perceptive kid.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Ed. No one deserves that.”
“I don't know, Major Hughes. I think that maybe – maybe I did deserve it.” How can a twelve year old sound so tired? So old and weathered?
There's a story behind Ed’s words, a long and painful one. But one for another time.
So Maes shakes his head and says, “You’re very good with Elicia.”
Ed doesn’t meet Maes’ eyes. “Yeah. I have a little brother.”
“How old?”
“Seven.”
“And he’s back home with your parents?”
“No. Family friend.” Maes doesn't miss the implication there.
No parents left. No family.
“What’s he like, your little brother?”
“Kind. Gentle. Smart as hell.” The kid’s eyes mist over. Maes gets the feeling that Ed doesn't realise he's smiling.
Ed reaches into a trouser pocket and pulls out a folded photo. It’s of Ed and another little boy who looks very much like a smaller version of him. They're smiling. Ed’s limbs are all flesh, not metal. He looks about ten in it and the smaller boy looks much younger than seven. Maes doesn't want to let himself wonder what it might mean that Ed doesn't carry a more recent picture.
“What’s his name?”
“Alphonse.” Edward says the name reverently, like it's the most precious thing in the whole world, the only thing he has left to love.
It probably is, to him.
“Was he hurt in your… alchemic accident too, Ed?” Maybe Maes is pushing too far, but if he doesn't ask these questions now then the curiosity will eat him alive later. He is in Investigations, after all.
Ed doesn't answer verbally. That's all the confirmation Maes needs that the answer is yes.
Elicia mumbles that she's tired and Maes, ever the loving father, sweeps her up to carry her to her room. He’s halfway through the door when Ed calls after him.
“Major Hughes!”
“Yes, Ed?”
“Can I, uh, use your telephone quickly?”
“Sure you can, kid. It's just in the hallway.”
Ah. So that's why Ed started looking so antsy the darker it got outside. He’s probably late for his frequent calls with “Al”.
Oh.
Al. Alphonse. That makes sense. Maes wants to smack himself for not seeing it immediately.
He tucks Elicia into bed, by which time she’s mostly asleep, saving him from reading her a story, though that's not to say he doesn't enjoy such activities. Silently, he returns to the living room and chooses a seat that has a view of the hall through the open door. He can just see Ed, turned with his back to Maes. He finishes punching a number into the phone.
Does this count as eavesdropping? Maybe. Does it make Maes a bad person? Likely.
“Hey, Al. Sorry I'm calling so late. I hope I didn't wake you or anything.”
Pause.
“Things are – they're fine, here in Central. The Colonel’s still a pain in my – uh, he's really annoying. I’m staying over at the house a really nice guy called Major Hughes. His wife cooked this apple pie that tasted exactly like mom’s.”
Pause.
“Yeah. I’d love for you to try it sometime. When you can eat again.”
Maes starts at that. What does that mean?
“How was your day, Al?”
Pause.
Ed laughs.
“Is that so?” He laughs again. It’s different from the laugh the kid used at dinner. Lighter. “Tell Winry I miss her dumb face too, okay?”
Pause.
Ed sighs.
“Al, you know you can't come. Not yet.”
Pause.
He swallows and when he speaks again his voice is thick.
“Yeah. One day, maybe. When you're older.”
Pause.
“Bye, Al. Go to sleep now, okay? I’ll call tomorrow. Not sure when though.”
Pause.
“I love you too. So much.”
Ed sets the receiver down and sucks in a rattling breath, as if steadying himself against tears. Seconds later, he returns to the living room and a excuses himself to bed, thanking Gracia for dinner. When he was on the phone, his voice sounded heavy and sad and too old for his years. Now, there’s no sign of such troubles on his young face.
Maes sits on the couch for a long time after everyone else is asleep, thinking about the kid in the other room who knows pain far too well.
---
When Ed is five years old, he wakes one morning to find that his father is gone. He asks his mother when he will be back. Instead of answering, she smiles and asks if he wants more dinner. Ed may be young, but he knows what that means.
His father isn't coming home.
Not a month later, his mother discovers she is pregnant with a second child. A little brother or sister for Ed to play with, she says. Ed wonders if his father would have stayed, had he known. He doesn't think he would have.
After seven months, the baby is born, when Ed is barely six. His arms shake slightly as it – him, Ed reminds himself, the baby is a boy, his little brother – is given to him to hold. His new sibling is small and pink with little tufts of golden hair just like Ed’s. He had been crying restlessly before, but when Ed holds him he quiets contentedly. Staring at the baby’s scrunched up face, Ed doesn't really understand why people think babies are so cute. Maybe it’s just this baby who’s so weird looking – he had overheard Aunt Sara telling Uncle Yuriy that the baby was early, and therefore small. That might have something to do with it.
“Alphonse,” says his mother, croaking the word like it took all the effort in the world. “That will be his name. Your father always liked it most, but he let me choose your name, Edward…”
Ed studies his mother’s face properly. She is still bedridden, sweat sheening her pallid skin, her kind face gaunt. Her hand, so thin and frail and callused, reaches to cup his cheek. It trembles violently all the way up.
“My boys…” She smiles weakly, looking like she wants to say more but not having the effort.
Her hand drops.
Ed is only vaguely aware of Alphonse being taken from his arms, of Aunt Sara rushing to his mother’s bedside, of being ushered out the room swiftly. Later, he realises that he had been saying one word over and over, hoarse and desperate and increasing in volume even after the door was closed.
“Mom, mom, mom…”
---
Ed knows it isn't his brother's fault that their mother is dead, not really. He’s just a baby; he didn't ask to be born.
He knows, but the resentment is still there.
If it weren't for Alphonse, everything would still be fine. Mom would be alive, warm and gentle as ever. She wouldn't be a rotting corpse beneath the earth, killed by giving birth to life.
They live with Winry and her family for a while, until her parents leave and don't come back and her granny starts working constantly as soldiers injured in the eastern conflict flock to Rockbell Automail. By then, Ed is almost eight and Al almost two, old enough to toddle around clumsily on his small legs. He doesn't say much other than occasional words like big brother and to point out things of extreme importance, like birds and cats and the colour of the sky.
Ed leaves Al with granny when he and Winry go to school during the day. Sometimes he stays the night at the Rockbell house, but there are times when granny has more work than usual, and simply making dinner for three children is too much for her. On those days, he takes Al back to his old home after school ends. The rooms that once felt just right in size and warmth are now cold and dead and far too big. He makes meals from what he buys in town using the recipes his mother scribbled on envelopes. They never taste the same as hers.
Al has nightmares all the time. He cries a lot at the smallest things and Ed would be lying if he said he never felt the temptation to just stop caring, stop running to Al when he woke up in tears. What does he have to cry about anyway? What has he suffered compared to Ed?
Ed studies. He pours over the books his father left behind, teaching himself more advanced alchemy and learning about the world outside the town he's never left.
Eventually, he reads about the ultimate sin. Human transmutation.
An idea blossoms. It grows. Eventually, it grips Ed so tightly he spends every night by candlelight, working and reading and theorising.
He's going to see mom again.
“Brother?”
Ed turns to find Al peeking round the door to the basement, his small, round face illuminated barely by the yellow light of the candles. Ed didn't realise they had gotten so low.
“What are you doing up, Al? It's late. Go to sleep.” Ed turns back to his work. He doesn't have time for this.
“I can't sleep, Brother.” Al gulps audibly, as if gathering courage. “You used… you used to tuck me in.”
“Mm-hm.” Why can't Al understand how important this work is?
“I-I never see you anymore. You're always in here. I don't understand. Was… was it something I did?”
Suddenly, Ed feels four again. He remembers how it felt to be in Al’s place, always stealing glances into the office of the father who never had time for him. The loneliness that ached so deeply he still feels it. He sets his pencil down.
In a few steps, he crosses the room to stand in front of his little brother. Al shrinks back as if fearing reprimand. When did he start doing that?
He takes the toddler’s hand. He hates himself for how shocked Al looks at the mere feeling of it.
“You're right, Al. I’m sorry. It was nothing you did. How about I read you a story before bed? We can play tomorrow too.”
Al perks up at that, smiling like Ed just gave him the world.
So Ed reads Al a story, his favourite one, and he plays with him the next day too, and the one after that. He almost forgets about the research and the sin he is preparing to commit to see his mother again.
Almost is such an awful word.
---
An alchemist passes through one stormy day, an imposing woman with hair and eyes like spilled black ink. She performs alchemy with just a simple clap of her palms and Ed knows she is the one he must be taught by.
He begs her to take him on as her student, and perhaps he is a sorry sight, drenched in rainwater and holding his little brother on his back. Perhaps that is what convinces her to accept him.
“How old are you, boy?” she barks, though Ed gets the feeling she could be a lot more scary if she wanted to be.
“Nine. Almost ten.” He is proud of how steady his voice stays.
“And your brother?”
“He's four years old.”
“Too young. He’ll have to stay here.”
“No. Where I go, Al goes.” Ed surprises even himself with the defiance in those words. He cares about his little brother a thousand times more than he did a year ago, but to give up what might be his one chance of seeing his mother again just to stay with Al…
Surely the woman would refuse now. It was one thing to take Ed into her care, but a toddler as well – she’d have to be insane to accept.
Something in her unreadable expression softens.
“Alright,” she says, “but you better be able to look after him right. I'm not your mother, or whatever.”
Ed nods. He knows.
Training with Teacher is the hardest thing Ed has ever done. She shows no mercy when sparring with him, and mistakes are not received kindly. But still, he is grateful. He will have to be strong when he attempts human transmutation.
She is kinder with Al, almost like an entirely different person. She smiles softly at him and plays with him whenever she has the time. She cooks whatever Al requests, which isn't much, because Al is conscious of never being too demanding, so considerate even at his young age. Her husband, Sig, gets this wistful look on his face when his wife spends time with Al, like he is sad for a time that never happened.
Ed is surprised momentarily when Teacher asks him about his mother, what she was like and how she died and so much more. He has never talked with anyone but Al about his mother; in Resembool, everyone already knew. He finds it hurts a little to talk about everything he lost, but he doesn't mind it. He comes to like it, even.
He's going to get it back, after all.
Every day of training is one day closer to seeing mom’s smile again.
---
The circle in the basement is perfect.
Its white chalk lines are clean and clinically precise, each symbol carefully selected and crafted for this exact purpose. Years of theorising and planning went into this circle and it was worth it all because it's so, so perfect.
Ed is eleven and his little brother is six. Six, the age Ed was when Al was born and his mother died and everything went to hell.
He is only moments away from making everything right again, the way it once was. The way it should be. Giddiness swells in his belly.
“Are you sure about this, brother?” whispers Al. “Maybe this isn't such a good idea.”
“Don't be such a coward, Al. I know what I'm doing. You want to meet mom, don't you?”
Al gulps. He knows alchemy. He’s good at it too, after growing up guided by Ed and Teacher and the books left behind by a father he never knew. And Ed has told him so much about their mother. Of course he's curious to know what it might be like to have one.
But still, he cannot quell the uneasiness thrumming in his veins, telling him to run, run, run before it's too late. He trusts his big brother, though. If Ed says it's okay, then who is Al to argue?
They cut open their fingers and spill the blood into the tray of ingredients, as Ed calls them. Like the human body is just the stew Ed says mom used to make, ready to be assembled.
Al tries not to think about how Ed often attempts to make mom’s stew, and how every time he throws the botched result out in dismay.
In unison, they press their hands to the circle. Ed’s grin is wicked in the purple glow, gleeful and so very sure that nothing could possibly go wrong with his perfect calculations.
Then Al is deconstructed before him, his little brother’s screams ringing in his ears. He opens his eyes to an endless expanse of white nothingness, a stone doorway, and a blank figure with a grin just like Ed’s own.
The gate opens, and Ed sees the Truth.
He begs the grinning figure to show it to him again, show him more, give him all the knowledge in the world, god, he's so desperate for it—
“I’m afraid that's all I can show you for the toll you've payed.”
Ed frowns. “Toll?”
Then the pain begins.
His leg is ripped from his body in seconds, the whole leg, from where it attaches to his torso and down, down, down until it’s just gone, empty space and pain and screaming, god, oh god—
The same happens to his other leg before he can scream a second time.
Through the thick fog of pain, he can just make out that Truth is speaking again, each word filled with joyous rigour.
“I had to take both legs. Your brother I took all of, of course, but he's just so small, barely even worth taking. You don't mind compensating for him, do you?”
Ed screams louder.
He drags himself across the stone floor to where the suit of armour lies and with shaking hands he draws a bloody seal on the metal. God, oh god, there's so much blood, he smeared a dark trail of it, it's all over him, his clothes, his palms, his face, warm and sticky, and the smell—
He claps his hands. Light flashes and electricity crackles. Pain flares in his arm – no, where his arm used to be. Everything goes black.
He swims in out of consciousness for the rest of the night, only catching glimpses of the world around him. The armour carries him out the house, even as wind and rain batters it mercilessly. Al’s voice comes from it, high and panicked and impossibly scared. Someone, a young girl, screams – Winry? Bright lights flash and an old woman’s voice shouts commands. Pressure is applied where his limbs once were, now just gaping stumps.
The whole time, the only voice Ed can decipher is his little brother’s. It sounds like it does when Al is about to cry, wobbly and faint. But he doesn't cry, doesn't wail. Ed wants to comfort Al, to hold him close and ruffle his hair like he does when he has bad dreams, but he can’t move or speak through the pain. He blacks out again.
---
A man named Lieutenant Colonel Mustang visits. Ed doesn't speak.
But he listens.
And he plans.
---
Ed gets automail. The surgery that should've taken three years for someone his size takes a year, and the pain of metal welding to flesh, steel drilling into bone, is a hundred times worse than the pain of losing limbs.
The pain is nothing compared to the guilt.
All through the procedures, Ed can only turn the Flame Alchemist’s words over and over in his head until he whispers them in his sleep.
So you attempted human transmutation and forced your little brother into it too.
Forced.
Granny shouted at Mustang for that comment, but Ed hardly heard her because, fuck, Mustang was right. Al was six years old. A child. Too young to really release what he was doing, too naive to do anything but blindly obey his big brother. Al trusted him more than anything and now he was trapped in an unfeeling metal shell, barely able to understand why.
Forced.
Ed hadn't cried when his father left or his mother died, not even at the funeral when they nailed her in a box and lowered it into the cold earth.
Now, with his little brother sitting on the other side of the door unable to sleep or eat or feel, sobs rip through him so hard he chokes.
Forced.
---
“Are you leaving soon, Brother?” Al is sitting cross-legged on Ed’s bed, a tabby kitten in his big leather hands. Ed had bought it for him not a week earlier from a lady down the road whose cat had given birth and was selling the babies cheap. Al was going to need a friend other than Winry and Granny while Ed was away. A cat would have to do.
“Yeah. I’m heading out to Central tomorrow morning, Al.” He chooses a small photo of mom from the wall and places it in his open suitcase. Her smile in it is wide and genuine; it was taken before dad left.
“Will you be home to spend your twelfth birthday with us?” Al pets the kitten clumsily. Ed silently wonders why Al bothers if he can't even feel the fur.
“No, I don't think so.”
“Oh. I’ll miss you, Brother.” Al lifts the kitten up to Ed’s face. “Chuckles will miss you too, won't you, Chuckles?” Apparently, Al has named his cat Chuckles after the strange way it meows. Exactly the sort of name a seven-year-old would give a pet.
Ed smiles. Al probably would have smiled back, if he were able.
Taking Al with him would be too dangerous, Ed had concluded. Once he was a state alchemist — and he would become one — he would be doing military work all over the country, as well as conducting his own perilous search for the Philosopher’s Stone. And while Al could fight decently enough, he was still seven. He’d been through enough already, and Ed would be damned if he made his little brother go through any more shit.
So for now, Al would stay in Resembool where it was safe. Neither Granny nor Winry liked the idea of Ed going off on his own, but they disliked the idea of Al being dragged along with him even more.
Maybe Ed will let Al come when he's older.
He hopes the day when Al has to join him in his search will never arrive, that his little brother will be back in his own body by the time he is eight.
Somehow, Ed knows that it’s a useless hope.
---
Ed stands in front of the mirror in his hotel room and inspects the new injury. It’s stitched up already, but still looks wicked nonetheless, running in a jagged line from his left ear and across his nose and stopping just before his right eye. It’ll scar, no doubt.
The guys he’d been fighting were skilled but not particularly dangerous — not compared to him. There’d just been so many of them, and one had caught him unawares from behind. He’d turned just in time to get a knife dragged across his face. That was the problem with fighting alone with no one to watch his back.
Maybe it was time he let Al come along after all.
It wasn't like Al was seven anymore. He was nine to Ed’s fourteen, and he hadn't just been sitting on his metal ass for the past two years, either. He’d been training with teacher again in Dublith, except this time he was old enough to learn martial arts and advanced alchemy properly. Teacher didn't go easy on him, if his phone calls were any indication.
She hadn't been happy to learn what they had done – what Ed had done, because it wasn't Al’s fault. He had been forced into committing the sin, and they all knew it.
She wasn't angry, either.
Just sad.
Ed visits as often as possible, which isn’t often enough. Al’s overjoyed to see him every time, and Ed spends the long nights sitting up with him and telling him about his travels. He knows Al likes that; his nights are spent alone with only his thoughts. It’s the least Ed can do to keep him company for a few of them.
Of course, it also means Al ends up begging to come with him every time.
And every time Ed answers with a stern not yet.
But he’s been having near scrapes with death almost every week now. He’s collecting nasty scars like stamps, and it probably wouldn't be too long until a knife found its way into something more important. Having a near-indestructible suit of armour to watch his back definitely wouldn't do any harm.
Al wasn't indestructible, though. He could still die. And to drag a child, a nine year old, into that kind of life – what would that make Ed?
No more of a monster than he already is, surely.