Chapter Text
There was a strange numbness taking hold of Edward’s body when he first woke up.
It pulled like a vacuum on his torso and extended into his extremities as a tingling sensation.
It was easily enough explained when he took stock of his body, at least as far as his arms were concerned; uncomfortably pulled back and bound behind him with what felt like heavy shackles—judging by the pins and needles they’d been in that position for quite a long time. He felt cool air on their bare skin, though last he remembered he’d been wearing a jacket. Fabric shifting as he breathed told him he was at least still wearing his tank top, though.
Unmoving, Ed felt out his legs.
The right was bound as well, presumably attached to the leg of a chair, which made it safe to assume the same was true for the left, even if he couldn’t feel the cuff encircling his automail ankle.
There were low voices around him, at least three people that he could hear, within a fairly small enclosed space, judging by the sound of them. A small room, or a closed cell. He couldn’t hear anything beyond it, nor was there any distinct smell that might have told him something, only cold dust and cooling sweat.
He could feel Al’s presence through their soulbond, a faint tingle of worry at the back of his head, spiking into something like alarm, possibly in response to Ed’s wakefulness. He didn’t seem particularly distressed though, at least not more than a good old-fashioned kidnapping warranted.
Well, it had been a while since Ed had had to deal with one of those, so he might as well get right into it.
He raised his head and opened his eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the brightness and take in as much of his surroundings as he could before his captors could react.
Four people—three men in his line of sight, leaning against a small metal table in varying degrees of slouchiness as they talked. One person behind him, whose presence Ed felt more than saw.
The room was indeed small, empty save for the table and the chair Ed was tied to, no windows and one solid-looking steel door. It looked like an interrogation room of some sort—though the men distinctly did not look like any kind of police, military or otherwise.
One of them quickly alerted the others to Ed being awake with a grunt, and they interrupted their conversation in favour of turning towards him. Two of them stepped forward, looking down at him with arms crossed before their chests, the third remained back, leaning against the edge of the table, watching him warily.
The fourth person shifted too, stepping closer, judging by the prickling at the back of Ed’s neck.
“Aw, are we having a party?”, Ed asked with a smirk, his voice a little hoarse in his throat. “You guys should have woken me sooner!”
“Keep your jokes to yourself if you know what’s good for you, Elric”, one of the men barked in reply.
Alright, two pieces of information.
One—they spoke Amestrian, with an Eastern drawl too, so they couldn’t have taken him too far. After all, he had just recently made his way back to East City to meet up with Al, but given all the countries he’d visited—and, let’s be real, all the enemies he’d surely made there—in the last few years, you could never be sure.
Two—they knew his name. That was to be expected, he hadn’t exactly thought he was a random target, but it was good to be sure. The fact that they didn’t address him by either of the titles he no longer held—Major Elric or Fullmetal Alchemist—nor tried to be overly familiar by using his first name also told him something of what to expect from them.
But if he’d been specifically targeted, that meant they wanted something only he could provide. Nothing political, then—he didn’t have that much influence in that regard these days. No ransom either—there were many targets easier to acquire and contain that would be worth much more to the right people. That left either revenge or alchemy. Not that he could actually provide the latter even if he wanted, but people just didn't seem to get that into their thick skulls.
To them he was still, and likely always would be, the Fullmetal Alchemist.
“But what fun is a party if you can’t crack a few jokes?”, he asked, eyebrows raised.
The man who had spoken stepped forward, grabbing him by the hair, pulling him up as far as his shackles would allow.
Ed gritted his teeth. Why did they always go for the hair? At this rate, he’d end up balding by twenty-five.
“We’re not here to mess around, asshole”, the guy snarled.
“Well then, why don’t you tell me what we are here for, fuckface, because clearly my invitation got lost in the mail!”, Ed spat back.
The guy shoved him back into his chair, letting go of him and leaving his scalp burning.
He felt another twinge of worry through his soulbond in reaction to his own spike of irritation. He took a deep breath, two, trying to calm down, for Al’s sake.
“Soul alchemy”, said another voice, behind him, the fourth figure moving just enough that Ed could see their shape in his periphery, but not make out their face.
Ed frowned, giving up trying to catch a look at them—it only hurt his eyes and neck. He settled for glaring at the guys before him instead.
“What about it?”
“You know how to perform it.”
It wasn’t a question, and as a statement, it was … true in the broadest sense of the word. He did understand some aspects of soul alchemy, more than most really, having bound Al’s soul to a suit of armour and managing to keep their soulbond intact through it. So, yes, he knew how to perform certain kinds of soul alchemy, even if he couldn’t do it himself anymore.
“You fixed your brother’s soul to a suit of armour, without breaking your bond too”, the voice said when Ed didn’t reply. “I want to know how you did it.”
Ed narrowed his eyes, trying to cast another glare over his shoulder. “Why?”
“That doesn’t need to concern you.” The tone was calm on the surface, but there was a clear edge to it, a warning. “Just teach me and you can be on your merry way.”
Ed scoffed. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. No more alchemy.” He wiggled his fingers behind his back in emphasis.
“I’m well aware of that. But I didn’t tell you to perform it, now did I? I told you to teach me.”
“Thorough”, Ed said with a low whistle. “Still can’t do it though.”
The person leaned forward, their low voice suddenly much closer to Ed’s ear. “And why is that?”
Ed shrugged as much as his bonds would allow. “The only reason I could do what I did with my brother was because his soul was already separated from his body, free. I only had to affix it. I have no idea how to separate a soul from its body in the first place, certainly not without breaking a soulbond.”
This too was true in the broadest sense of the word. He knew of at least one way to draw a soul out of a body, namely as part of the process of creating a Philosopher’s Stone, not that he’d ever done it or even tried. He might be able to isolate that part of the array from the rest of it if he put his mind to it, but they didn’t need to know that. And he certainly didn’t know if it would keep a soulbond intact.
In the aftermath of the Promised Day, the people of Amestris had retained their soulbonds even after they’d been drawn out briefly by Father, but then they had been returned to their original bodies when the transmutation was reversed by Hohenheim. No saying what would have happened if you had forced those souls into a different container.
Al’s soul, on the other hand, had been separated from his body by Truth, hardly the same process.
“I was afraid you would say something like that”, the voice said, disappointment clear in its cadence. “But maybe we can convince you?”
“No thanks”, Ed said with a snort. “I’m not interested in anything you have to offer.”
“Is that so?” The faint edge of glee creeping into the voice made Ed tense. “Then perhaps you’d be more interested in what we can take away?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”, Ed snapped, an uneasy feeling gnawing at his gut.
The person behind him straightened up again.
“Maybe your expertise would be helped by experiencing first hand what it means for a soulbond to break?”
Ed went cold, numbness spreading further into his limbs. “What”, he said, toneless.
The figure hummed. “Word has it that you and your brother have a particularly close bond due to whatever it is you did with his soul. I wonder … would that make breaking it particularly painful, too?”
Ed suppressed a shiver. “Don’t make empty threats”, he bit out between gritted teeth. “It’s not gonna help you any.”
A chuckle behind him. “Oh? And what makes you so sure they are empty?”
Ed scoffed. “You can’t forcibly break a soulbond, it’s impossible. Not unless—” His breath hitched in his chest, hard and fast, strung up by realisation. “Al!”, he screamed, throwing himself forward to tear at his shackles. “Alphonse!”
He hadn’t even considered that these guys might have Al too. Why hadn’t he—
It just didn’t seem likely—he and Al hadn’t even been together when they took Ed, and even then, to get the drop on both of them at once? Besides, when he’d woken up he hadn’t felt the kind of apprehension he would have expected from Al if he had been taken too. Only a persistent worry that was likely centred on him, though it had grown more urgent as the conversation went on.
The person behind him laughed again, unconcerned by his shouts. “Do you take us for amateurs? Your brother isn’t here. We’re keeping him in a separate location. No need for the two of you to try and bust each other out, after all.”
Ed cut himself off, forcing himself to breathe, to focus. They were nothing but empty threats—he had no reason to believe they weren’t just bluffing.
Tentatively he felt for his connection again, trying to feel it out in more detail. The worry had firmly tipped over into alarm now, paired with a certain urgency and a slowly building undercurrent of anger. Just what he’d be expecting if Al was free and already looking for him.
“You’re lying”, he pressed out. “You got nothing. You think I’m that stupid?” He spat. “If you actually had Al, you wouldn’t just be telling me about it. You’d make me see. He’s fine, I can tell.”
The voice hummed, thoughtful, almost unconcerned. “So you want proof, do you?”
They must have given the other men some kind of signal because one of them pulled out a small radio, fiddling with the dials for a moment before speaking into it.
“Resin, you there?”
A moment’s pause before the line came alive with a crackle of static. “Yes, I read you, Skint.”
The man grunted in acknowledgement. “The other one awake yet?”, he asked, and Ed held his breath, listening for any indication of Al in the background, feeling for any change in their bond that would suggest he was hearing this exchange too.
Another couple of seconds delay, then: “Yeah, and he’s being a real menace about it, too.”
Ed tried to keep his breathing under control.
The man grinned a sharp grin. “Well, I have good news for you.” He looked up, over Ed’s head, to make eye contact with the person behind him, and gave a sharp nod. “Kill him.”
“No!” A sharp lance of panic cut through Ed, so sudden and all-encompassing that he couldn’t tell if it came from him or Al. “No, you can’t do this! Al!”, he screamed, renewing his struggle, desperately trying to free at least one of his limbs from their bonds somehow, but they held fast. “Alphonse! Stop, just—” he opened his mouth to tell them to stop, he’d tell them whatever it was they wanted to know, fear desperate to take over. But his instinct held him back. That’s exactly what they want you to do. They’re just bluffing. He repeated it over and over in his head. They’re just bluffing. You have no reason to believe they actually have Al. Trust your gut.
He heard a chuckle on the other side of the radio line. “Sit back and enjoy the show”, the voice said.
“Alphonse!”, Ed shouted again, hoping for some, any kind of reaction and dreading it at the same time. Panic still raced through his veins, laced with adrenaline, and—he could definitely feel fear from Al now, he was sure, and this couldn’t be happening—
He threw himself forward once more with all his strength, almost toppling the chair he was tied to, but there were hands grabbing his shoulders from behind, pulling him back, holding him in place. Ed couldn’t breathe, a second, two, then his soulmark flared with a burning pain and something— s n a p p e d.