Chapter Text
Edward Elric tried not to think about that day too hard. His therapist told him he should revisit it every once in a while because bottling it up would only make it worse for him. He said that was bullshit advice.
That day had been sunny---birds chirping from trees blooming with flowers, little daisies scattering across the hills. Edward and his brother, Alphonse, had just gotten home from school, where they learned absolutely nothing. Their mom said they were too bright for their little town, but the townsfolk said it was just their father’s genes. Ed always sneered at that. That deadbeat didn’t deserve credit for their brilliance. He left long, long ago, back when Edward had just started learning how to count and spent his nights tracing his ABCs until his lines stopped shaking. Now, though, he had 11 years to resent him; his anger, furious and red, seemed to grow every day. He hated even more that he looked like the man, long blond hair framing his honey-brown eyes. Ed never said it, but he envied Al, who looked so much like their mom.
For days, Ed had tugged at his mom’s skirt, begging and pleading for her to take them to the park where Mr. Mike sat in his ice cream truck. She finally relented, promising that if they could wait until Friday, she’d buy them two scoops each. Hearing that, Ed was on his absolute best behavior for the rest of the week. His dreams were filled with chocolate and strawberries and more sprinkles than stars in the sky. He couldn’t wait. When the highly anticipated Friday rolled around, the three of them piled into the old 2007 Hyundai Tucson for the short 5-minute drive. Edward bounced in his seat as he stared out the window.
The hills rolled alongside the car, the sun chasing behind them. Small-town life had its beauty, Ed mused, though it meant everything took forever and a half to get to. Every weekday morning, he and Al woke up with the birds just so they could bike to school. They even turned it into a race. Ed swore he won every time, but Al loved to lie and contradict him. By the time they arrived at the schoolhouse, they were both red-faced and sweaty. Their teachers always shook their heads in exasperation at their antics---something about “kids will be kids,” or whatever. Ed never took it to heart.
The car rolled up and down another hill, the Reynolds’ family farm coming into view on the right. The Reynolds farm focused on potatoes and carrots this time of year; after every harvest, they threw a party and let folks take bags of the harvest home. Ed always wondered how they could make any sort of profit doing that, but his mom hushed him and said maintaining good relationships should always come before monetary gain. He didn’t really understand the concept, though; he couldn't buy a new bike with friendship, could he?
Regardless, he liked it here. He liked the people; he liked his family and the neighbors and the neighbors’ dog. He loved the dog, actually. He, Al, and the neighbors’ daughter Winry spent hours running around outside and throwing frisbees for her dog to chase after. They played and laughed together until their parents called them inside for dinner. They’d wave goodbye with big, toothy grins, only to meet up again the next day.
A large, unexpected bump in the road made him jump in his seat, scrambling his thoughts in his surprise. He let out an embarrassing squeal when he felt his butt leave the comfortable plush. When he finally settled back down, Al giggled at him from his seat to Ed’s left. Edward flushed and slapped his arm. His mom reprimanded him, but her small grin at the exchange betrayed her feigned aggravation.
Ed noticed there were hardly any other cars on the road. It was rare to see cars on the road, anyways; people tended to prefer walking or biking over using the narrow dirt roads. He craned his neck to look through the front windshield, rolling hills and green grass being all he sees. Their mom hummed along with the music playing scratchily on the beat-up radio. It wasn’t a song he heard before, but anything his mom sang sounded beautiful. The melody was soft and sweet. He looked to his left, where Al sat swinging his feet and bopping his head in a slightly off rhythm. Ed smiled.
Sparing a glance to his right window, Ed recognized where they were. A little white cross sat at the peak of the hill, a marker that Ed used to remember they were only a block away from the park. They slowed down as they approached the intersection at the top of the hill. An ear-splitting honk cut through the air. A sudden bright light blinded him. His mom screeched, swerving wildly to avoid the truck barreling toward them.
The impact came from the left. Ed’s head slammed against the window, limbs flailing as the car spun.
He blinked, and suddenly, they flew. Glass exploded around him, embedding in his skin as they rolled and rolled and rolled down the hill beside them. His mom’s and Al's screams pierced through the cotton filling his ears, a sickening harmony he never wanted to hear again. Metal bent, something banged, and a liquid dribbled thickly somewhere nearby. Ed felt like he’d been dropped into a furnace, his body ablaze and searing like a steak on a grill. When the car finally stopped tumbling, he hung upside down, seatbelt digging into his neck, arms limp against the ceiling.
“Momma? Al?” he cried, snot mixing with the blood on his face, tears falling the wrong way. “Momma, I’m scared.”
She didn’t respond.
“Momma, please!” His scream ripped out of him, a horrible aching wail that left him huffing for breath. The smoke he breathed in filled his chest with ash. Through the haze, he finally saw her. Her head bent at an unnatural angle, hands twisted pale as they lay before her, brittle bones poking through soft skin. In the fractured rear-view mirror, he saw her face: mouth open as if mid-laugh, eyes wide and unseeing. He knew then that she would never see again.
Groaning sounded to his left: Alphonse. Ed turned his throbbing neck and found his brother twitching, eyes squeezed tight, moaning without words.
“Al? You okay? Al?” Ed’s words tumbled out, interrupted with small hiccups and gasps.
Only groans answered him.
He scrambled to unbuckle himself until he fell, red-hot pain blinding him as his body smacked the roof. He saw white, ears ringing and ringing and ringing---an unbearable sound, ringing and ringing. He could hear someone screeching, something ugly and raw. It took him a few minutes of scratching pain in his throat for him to realize it was him. He didn't know where the pain came from---everything hurt; everything was burning.
He blinked through it, tears falling in buckets down his face as he crawled to his brother, dragging his useless right arm behind him. His left hand managed the buckle, and Al dropped into his arms when the constricting polyester released him. Fire coursed through Edward’s body, but he held Al close to him, rocking his supine form as he stared at their mutilated mother in the front seat. He cried.
After what felt like days or maybe years, he heard the whirring of sirens and the screeching of tires. Boots pounded, voices shouted, and Ed screamed louder.
“Please! Anyone, please!” A fireman dragged him out, and Ed clawed at him, crying, “My brother! Get my brother first!”
Everything sort of blurred for him from there. A pair of cops ushered him and Al to the paramedics, the bumpy ride and the sirens meaning nothing in comparison to the feeling of fire traveling up and down his veins. He had passed out from the pain in the ambulance, the doctors told him later.
The first time he woke up in an unfamiliar room, he had an IV drip strapped to his left arm. He screamed and cried for his mom, for his brother. His body moved on its own, thrashing with abandon; his broken body hit the railings until blue mottled his sweaty skin, until red seeped and spread over the bandages on his right arm, until nurses rushed in and held him down and pricked him with a needle, until darkness befell him and his breath evened out.
The next time he awoke, he was calmer. He still had an IV stuck into his left arm, but his right was rebandaged into fresh gauze, lacking the blood stains he remembered causing. He lay on the uncomfortable bed, blue-checkered blanket tight around his chest, waiting for someone to tell him about what was going on.
Edward found himself staring at the painted animals on the walls---surely a motif meant to keep an unruly or scared child calm. It wouldn’t help him, though. The most they did for him was offer a distraction. Besides, he thought, he was only one of those things. Mom called him a troublemaker. Mom had called him a troublemaker. He sniffled, lip trembling as he fisted his blanket in his left hand.
The door opened. A black-haired man in a police uniform walked in and a blonde woman wearing the same attire followed closely behind him holding a grocery bag. They stopped their pursuit when they noticed his eyes on them.
“Riza,” the man said. “Go get a nurse.”
She nodded, handing off the plastic bag to the man.
“What---” Ed croaked, voice crackling on the word.
The man pursed his lips, “Let me get you some water.” Ed’s glassy eyes tracked him as he walked to the water dispenser in the corner of the room. Not without grumbling, Ed accepted assistance when he fumbled trying to lift himself into a sitting position. He nearly melted into the pillows behind him, his back thanking him for the change in pressure.
Soon enough, his throat felt relief.
Ed coughed before he tried to speak again. “What are you doing here? Who even are you?”
The man opened his mouth as if to speak, but the door opened before he could respond. A nurse filtered in and politely sent the man outside.
The nurse---a brunette with bouncy hair and a mole beneath her eyes---asked him routine questions, like how he was feeling and if he was in any pain. After a moment’s hesitation, he said he was fine and that he felt no pain.
“Good,” she said, writing something on a clipboard. “We might lower your morphine dosage soon, then.”
Yeah, whatever that means. He shook his head, “What’s going on? Where am I?”
She hummed in acknowledgement, finishing up whatever she was writing. “You’re in a hospital, sweetie. Do you remember what happened?”
Remember what happened? He leaned forward in his sitting position, pale, bandaged arms reaching to rest on his legs. His right hand met his leg. His left hand touched the bed. Confused, he skimmed his left arm around, searching for his mark. He didn’t find it. He looked down.
The blue-checkered blanket lay flat and motionless where his left leg should be. His breathing picked up, face draining of color. He heard beeping to his left; though the frequency kept increasing, Ed thought the sound kept getting further and further away.
He huffed and wheezed, eyes wild as his hand kept searching for something that wasn’t there. A hand rubbed his back, the rhythmic circles feeling like ants crawling under his skin. He swatted at the violation, a resounding smack when he made contact.
His body continued to flail, skeleton trying to inch its way out. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe.
A prick on his arm, and he was out.
Ed awoke once more to familiar animal wallpaper and a blue-checkered blanket. He shut his eyes tight, wishing for everything to just go away. He wished for this to all be a dream---a nightmare. He wished for things to make sense. He wished for his leg back, and to know if his brother was okay. He wished for his mom.
He felt burning behind his eyes. He squeezed them tighter, shapes and colors dancing across the darkness. Edward laid there for a while, blanket fisted in his hands, eyes shut, and missing a leg. He couldn’t tell how long he waited. It felt like years.
He heard the door open, and his eyelids fluttered to follow. The same nurse from before walked in.
“Oh!” She exclaimed. “You’re awake!”
He grunted, fingers tightening around the cloth in his hands. She asked him the same questions as before, writing something down on that clipboard again.
“Where’s my brother?” Ed asked after her nose lifted from the clipboard.
She blinked at him. His heart dropped. “Oh, yes! Alphonse is in the ICU.” He breathed a sigh of relief. She moved to the water dispenser.
“So he’s okay?”
Her hands paused, half-extended to grab a cup. “Well,” she started, continuing the motions to get water. “He was severely injured in the accident, honey. He’s in the ICU. He’s in a coma.”
Ed’s breath hitched. He tried to respond with something sensible, like “Oh, okay,” or “I understand,” but all that came out were garbled syllables and a pathetic whimper. He forced his palms into his eyes, squiggles of color racing against each other. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t.
He let out a heavy breath, dropping his hands back to his sides. His breath hitched again, but the burn behind his eyes stayed just a burn.
The nurse sat him up and gave him a cup of water. His hand shook as he brought it to his lips, but he didn’t cry. He could tell she pitied him; her eyebrows scrunched low on her face, lips downturned in worry. He hated that look.
She told him about his injuries---about his leg. Gasoline had apparently leaked out of the car and lit up in flames when they skidded across gravel. His right arm had been pressed against the burning metal and seared into second-degree burns. It would heal, but it would scar. It’s not like it matters, really; he’s missing a leg, what would a scar mean to him? The doctors assumed that his leg had been crushed beneath his seat or had somehow been aggravated during the impact, but they weren’t quite sure. What they did know, however, was that it couldn’t be saved. When Ed asked about specifics, the nurse patted his shoulder and told him it would be better for him if he didn’t know.
She said they had taken him and his brother to a hospital a few hours away from their hometown once they were stable enough to move. He didn’t remember that. It makes sense, though; Ed didn’t think the town hospital had an ICU once the nurse explained to him what that entailed.
She said the state would be giving him therapy and a cane. She said he would need a lot of physical therapy before he could be cleared to start thinking about prosthetics, though.
What a crazy thought. A prosthetic. Just a month ago, his teacher praised him for being the fastest kid to run the mile. Now he can’t even walk.
He stayed a little over a month in the hospital. When he asked, nurses wheeled him to see Alphonse, who lay breathing through a tube and unresponsive, machines doing all the work. Seeing him like that---weak, pale, effectively dead---killed Edward. His little brother was always so full of light and energy; everyone loved Al. He was kind and had a tendency to pick up stray animals wherever he went. He loved romance novels, and he got along with every person he talked to. He was the favored Elric brother. Ed smiled in pride at the thought as he brushed the mess of blond hair from his brother's face.
Ed started seeing an in-hospital therapist at some point. The therapist was an old man---Carl, he said his name was---who was rickety in the way he walked, hair graying and face wrinkled with age. He carried mints in his pockets and acted like he pulled them from behind his ear every session. Carl was nice. He was funny. He cared.
Carl told the nurses that Ed wasn’t allowed to see his brother. The reason was something completely untrue, completely wrong. He never told Carl anything like that. He never told him that he felt guilty. He never said that that day was his fault. The words never left his lips. He made sure of it.
When Ed heard the news, he screamed and clawed at the man. He was angrier than he had even been in his life. He drew blood from the man’s arm when he sunk his teeth down. The nurses removed Carl from the room and reprimanded Edward for his behavior, but they didn’t understand. They wouldn’t understand. They couldn’t. The only family he had left was an elevator ride away, and he wasn’t allowed to see him. Ed cried that night.
If anything, though, Ed was a fighter. Mischief in human form, Winry had called him once. He hadn’t disagreed.
No one really suspected a wheelchair-bound kid to roll himself halfway across the hospital in the middle of the night. Ed used that to his advantage.
When he saw the hallway lights dim under his door a week after Carl ruined his life, he sprang into action. He hobbled on his lone wobbly foot, grasping at his bed railing and walls as he made his way to his wheelchair. It took him a few minutes to maneuver himself across the room, and a lot more to roll himself down the hallway and avoid anyone wandering the halls. He had to reroute one too many times for him to get there quickly, even if he hadn’t been wheeling himself. When he finally opened the door to his brother’s room, he released a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding.
Nothing could prepare Edward for the immense relief he felt when he ran his fingers through his brother’s hair. The week away from him was hell. Ever since the doctors cleared Al for visitors, Ed hadn’t gone a day without sitting beside him. He brought books that the nurses lent him, sometimes reading them out loud when he thought Al would like them. The abrupt change in schedule devastated him.
Ed kept one hand in Al's hair, folding the other beneath his chin, smiling small as he watched his brother’s chest rise and fall with each breath. Ed knew that Al would wake up one day---contrary to what the nurses whisper when they think he’s sleeping. Ed knew, too, that he would be there for Al once he woke up.
He doesn’t know how long he sat in the room, threading his fingers through his brother’s hair. Eventually, though, he heard shuffling and heavy, urgent footfall outside the door. He sighed, keeping his eyes focused on the single most important thing in his life.
The door opened. The nurses scolded him as they wheeled him away, telling him lies like “he shouldn’t be here” and “he’s only making things worse.”
Ed weaseled his way to Al's room periodically from then on, always in the middle of the night, and always when the nurses least expected it. He fought them when they tried to keep him away. Eventually, they locked his door at night. He found that out when he needed to see his brother the most---when every time he closed his eyes to sleep, he would see the odd angle of his mother’s neck, and fire and fire and fire. He rammed into the door, clawing at the handle until the skin around his nails became raw.
He begged that night, hot tears falling shamefully down his face as he screamed pleas to whoever would listen---to the nurses, to passersby, to God Himself. When a wandering nurse heard his cries and checked in on him, he had fallen onto the floor, curled up tight against the wall, trembling.
The next day, they took him to see his brother.
Carl came by the day after for a routine therapy session; he said Ed would be allowed to see his brother, but only once a week and with strict supervision. Despite the restrictions, Ed thanked him. He stopped trying to sneak out to Al's room, too.
Some days, Edward had visitors. He learned that the robust fireman who dragged him out of the car was named Alex Louis Armstrong, and that his large blond mustache made up for the lack of hair on his head. Armstrong carried himself with pride and just enough exuberance to grate on Ed’s nerves. The nurses found him endearing---a surprising bundle of joy, a big scary teddy bear. All Edward felt was annoyance when the man dragged him into a tight hug every time he visited. Even if he felt warm inside, too.
Ed found out that the black-haired man and the blonde woman in the police uniforms who were there one of the first times he woke up were on-site responders during the crash. The cops, Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye, brought him books and sweet treats occasionally. Ed liked them more than he wanted to.
On sporadic evenings, the two sat on each side of his bed. Riza asked him about his thoughts on the newest book she brought him, and he responded in kind to her genuine curiosity. Roy watched the conversation unfold with an impassive expression betrayed by the quirk of his lips, a discarded file lying forgotten on his lap.
They never talk about anything important, only casual, non-committal conversations here and there. Riza asked him once about what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he had to fight off tears. Things got dicey when they talked about holidays or his hometown. They learned that food and books were safe, though.
One day, Riza walked in by herself.
She immediately took notice of his confused expression and shook her head, closing the door softly. “He’s behind on some paperwork,” she said.
Ed stuck out his tongue, “Gross.”
She hummed in agreement, taking a seat to his left. “Don’t worry, though. He’ll come by next time.”
Ed froze, wide-eyed and staring at her. He wasn’t worried about that.
Her eyes danced with mirth, a smile playing on her lips. He didn’t recognize this emotion on her---something exasperated and maybe fond. He blew out a breath and rolled his eyes, “Tell him not to bother.”
She only chuckled at that, then asked him about his book as usual.
Sure enough, Roy walked in right behind Riza a few days later just as she said he would. When they left, he felt his heart leave with them.
He told the nurses not to let them come back. They asked him about it, saying that the sudden change was unlike him. They said that they thought Ed liked them---that he enjoyed their company. He shrunk in on himself, curling up in his bed and grumbling at them to go away. They sighed but did as he requested.
Eventually, the hospital cleared him to leave.
The state stuck him in a yellow house with a picket fence and a foster mother who smiled too wide. She made him pancakes the first morning and called him brave. Brave, when it was his mother who died gripping the wheel, his brother who still breathed through tubes. Ed was just Ed, still there.
The prosthetic rubbed his tan skin raw. It clattered and clinked with every step he took and wearing it didn’t even mean he could stop using his cane. His foster mother said it would help with support, but it really just felt like a nuisance to put it on every day. She flinched every time he stumbled, watching him like porcelain ready to crack. She gasped the first time he tripped on the stairs. He wanted to scream at her to stop looking at him like that---like he was a charity case, a fragile thing that might shatter if she breathed too hard in his direction.
She said he needed a schedule to rehabilitate to the “real world.” She planned mealtimes to the minutes, woke him up at the same time every day, and drove him to the hospital to see Al every Friday at 5. He never asked her to breathe down his neck and nitpick his lifestyle, pulling him left and right like a puppet on strings. Ed found that he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of his obedience.
All he wanted was Alphonse. The hospital was only a fifteen-minute walk away, but it felt like an ocean.
So, he did what he did best and snuck out. He would leave the yellow house at dusk, hobble down the road with his leg clanking against the pavement. He learned which bus drivers would let him ride free if he looked pitiful enough, which lies worked best. The nurses knew him well, some trying to block him with polite excuses about visiting hours, but Ed could throw tantrums that echoed through hallways. He didn’t care if he looked like a lunatic, screaming until he could taste copper in his throat. After enough noise, someone always gave in, walking him into Al's room where he saw his brother lying there---skin pale, chest rising in shallow machine-assisted breaths. Sitting beside Al was the only place he could breathe, too.
His foster mother complained when she noticed his borrowed bed empty at night. She called the social worker more than once. “He’s impossible,” she’d say. “He doesn’t listen. He keeps running off.” Ed overheard her once, her voice sharp with exasperation. “I can’t keep him if he won’t stay put.”
Good, he thought. Let him go. Toss him somewhere else. As long as it was closer to Alphonse.
That became his rhythm: act out until they had no choice but to move him again. Foster placements came and went. The second nearly lasted a year. The third, months. He smashed a lamp just to see if anyone would notice. He picked fights with the other kids, let his temper spill all over the neat living rooms and picture frames of families with two parents and smiling children. He wasn’t going to play house while Al lay in a hospital bed.
Somehow, Roy and Riza still kept showing up. He saw them at school events sometimes---separate on occasions, together most often. He didn't know how they always found out where he was going to be, what family he barged into.
They showed up at his doorstep every once in a while, bearing gifts for the family in a wicker basket. They always had a separate basket for him, too, holding all his favorite candies he’d told Riza about and a new book.
It felt like they were always there, watching over him. It should be creepy.
Ed scoffed at them every time they showed their faces, sneering and cursing them out. The foster parents always scolded him for his delinquency; Roy and Riza never seemed to mind, though. They never told him to behave, not really. Edward hated that. He hated that they worried about this kid that they didn’t even know a few years prior. He hated that they always seemed to know what family he ended up with, like they were keeping tabs on him. He hated that he started to look forward to their impromptu visits.
The fourth house broke him. They made him share a room with some kid who snored like a chainsaw, and the foster father locked the fridge at night. Edward didn’t last a week. He didn’t remember what exactly set him off---maybe it was the way the man’s hand gripped his shoulder too tight when he tried sneaking food after the sun went down, or maybe it was just everything piling up and finally spilling over. Either way, his anger boiled hot in his veins, an itch that released only once he heard the dull thump of his foster father’s diaphragm under his clenched fist. He didn’t do much damage, but the punch still put a grin on Ed’s face. When he looked up at the man, all he could see was a shadow---his face darkened in rage, red and ugly.
Ed ended up on the front lawn; his prosthetic leg felt wrong at the port, and it twisted at the metal joint of his foot. His lip was split, but it still shouted curses at the house.
He sat there for hours. Eventually, when the chill of night got to him, he dragged himself to sit beneath the big winding oak tree in the yard.
That was when Roy showed up. Like always, like clockwork, he was there.
Roy's boots crunched on leaves as he walked. Ed hunched closer to the tree, shivering in his thin flannel pajamas and glaring at the man as he advanced. Roy stopped in front of him. He didn’t move to kneel or anything; he simply stood there, hands in his coat pockets, shoulders squared against the chill. For a long beat, neither of them spoke.
“Kid,” Roy said finally, voice low, steady. Not unkind but not soft either. “You can’t keep doing this.”
Edward didn’t answer. His jaw tightened, and he focused on the ground, tracing the veins in a fallen leaf lying next to him. He waited for the rest that sure to come---what always came next. Sometimes a lecture, sometimes a smack, most usually the threat of moving. Whatever Ed thought would come, though, didn’t.
The night hummed instead. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, and the window light from a neighbor’s house flickered off. Ed’s breath fogged in small, uneven bursts. His mouth tasted like copper and defeat. Disgusting.
“Don’t care.” He spat on the ground, blood mixing with spit. “I’m not gonna go back,” he said. The words felt wrong in his mouth, but they bubbled up regardless. His chin trembled, but he forced it still.
Roy exhaled slowly, fog piling at his face until it was obscured. It took a moment for him to respond. “I know,” he said as if he meant it.
Ed almost laughed, but his throat burned too much. How could this man possibly think he knew what this felt like? The failure, the burden, the overwhelming, all-consuming guilt of being the last one of his family who was able to stand, yet still too weak to change anything. His chest ached something raw. “They said this place would be better for me,” he said. “They always say that, though.” His voice cracked halfway through.
The silence thrummed against his chest. For a moment, Ed thought Roy must have left him to his misery and sorrows.
“Better doesn’t always mean right.”
Ed’s breath caught. Adults never said that. They said things like “adjustment period” and “structure” and “you’ll thank us later.” Roy’s words felt too simple to be trustworthy, too trustworthy to be that simple.
He stared at his knees, the fabric damp with dirt. His fingers dug into the grass, pulling at roots until they snapped. “Everywhere I go, it’s all the same,” he said. “Everything I do. Nothing matters, you know. I’m always the problem. No matter what I do.” His voice dropped to a whisper, “I tried, but this is it for me.”
Roy didn’t move closer, didn’t try to fix it or rub his back in pathetic, demeaning circles. “You’re not the problem,” he said finally. “You’re just tired.”
Ed laughed once, sharp and bitter. “Yeah, well. I’m tired of being tired.”
Roy let out a small sound that could’ve been agreement or grief. “I know,” he said again. Ed didn't know how, but this time it sounded heavier.
The silence that followed stretched longer. Ed wrapped his arms around himself, his prosthetic cold against already freezing skin even through his pajamas. He thought about running, even though he couldn’t go far. He thought about Al---still in that hospital bed, still waiting.
Roy watched him for a long while. “You don’t have to go back there,” he said. “You can come with me.”
“What?”
“My place.” Roy said simply. “It’s not much, but it’s yours if you want it. No one’s going to make you smile for show or pretend everything’s fine. We both know it’s not.” He paused. “You don’t have to fight every day.”
Ed’s head snapped up to stare at him. The words didn’t sound like a deal, or even a rescue. They just sounded so, horrifyingly real---tangible, even. Like they could be true. He didn’t know what to do with that.
“Why would you want that?” he asked, voice warbling with what could be laughter or sobs. “Why me? You know more than anyone else what I’m like.”
“Because no one should have to sit outside their own house and freeze just to feel something that’s theirs,” Roy said. “Because you remind me of what happens when people give up on someone too early.”
Ed didn’t say anything. His eyes stung and his throat burned, but he didn’t move.
When Roy held out his hand, Ed hesitated for a long time.
This could be some horrible ploy---some last-ditch effort from his stupid social worker to get him into a house that could deal with him. Roy was a police officer. He was a war veteran. He knew how to get people to do what he wanted, and if what he wanted was to turn Ed into some bootlicker, he might even be able to achieve it. On the other hand, Edward knew Roy; he knew how he liked his coffee and that sometimes he liked to procrastinate on his reports and that he like to shoot goo-goo eyes at Riza. He knew what Ed’s favorite books were, and he knew about Al. He knew, intimately, what Ed went through. Roy could be the worst possible thing that could happen to him. But he could also be the best.
Ed reached out to grab Roy’s hand. It wasn’t a dramatic moment under any circumstances. There was no thunder, nor tearful hugs. All it was was just a quiet grip in the cold night air, and the faint, flickering idea that maybe---just maybe---he didn't have to be alone.
Roy didn’t pluck Ed off the lawn and toss him into his truck like some stray. There were forms, meetings, and a caseworker with a clipboard who kept adjusting her glasses as she tried to decide if Roy Mustang, longtime cop and war vet, was really cut out to raise a kid. Ed had expected the whole thing to collapse somewhere in the middle---the way everything else in his life seemed to---but Roy bulldozed through with the same stubbornness he probably used in interrogations. Somehow, unbelievably, it worked.
So, Edward landed in Roy’s house. Yippee.
Roy’s house was definitely a house. Ed didn’t think “home” would ever be a descriptor for the place, even for Roy himself. It looked like the man went through a furniture store magazine and decided to copy it from the picture frames to throw blankets; Ed had said that exact thing to him, too. At that, Roy had laughed, but hadn't disagreed.
Life with Roy was different. Not good, not bad---just different. Roy didn’t hover like the foster moms, didn’t gasp when Ed stumbled, didn’t lace his sentences with words like fragile and brave, didn’t strike, didn’t give him a bed and forget he existed. He didn’t remind Ed of his mom at all, though. She was gentle and sweet and had more love in her heart than bones in her body; Roy was all unreadable expressions and annoying attitudes and surprising care. The first time Edward shattered a mug in the kitchen, he braced for the inevitable explosion. Instead, Roy swept the pieces into a dustpan, muttered, “Ugly mug anyway,” and went back to frying eggs.
Roy cooked eggs every morning, never undercooked, never burnt, and always while half in uniform with the police radio buzzing on the counter. When he finished making the mediocre breakfast, he placed two plates on the kitchen table and called down the hallway with a loud and crisp, “Kid! Food’s ready!” Roy called him that most of the time, Ed sometimes, Edward when the brat-factor climbed too high---but never anything cloying. No sweetheart, no poor boy, none of the pity-soaked endearments that made Ed’s skin crawl.
Ed wouldn’t admit it, but he was beginning to get comfortable. He enjoyed sharing meals with Roy and hearing about his work over sorry excuses for food or the increasingly regular takeout. He enjoyed coming back from school and looking forward to telling someone about a new science project he had to work on. He enjoyed having someone wait outside Al's hospital room for him when he was ready to leave. He even enjoyed when the man ruffled his hair and teased him over this or that. It was worrying, but Ed slowly found himself not caring as much as he should have.
Edward hated that it made him feel safer. He hated that Roy was starting to take up space in the same corner of his mind where he’d put his mom. He didn’t want anyone to replace her.
Ed wouldn’t talk much about before, and neither would Roy. Though, when snooping around one boring night when Roy was out on a job, Ed stumbled upon a photo placed inconspicuously on a bookshelf by the back door. The ornate frame was clearly not something Roy would have bought for himself; he opted for the simple and sleek options, and none of the frames littering the walls held any photos of people. This one, though, was a photo of a gangly little black-haired Chinese boy surrounded by what must be 15 women of varying ages and races, with the oldest woman holding a pipe to her lips and smirking. When Roy returned an hour later, Ed was sitting on the couch gently holding the frame. Roy sighed.
That night, Ed learned that Roy had been adopted. He wouldn’t tell him much about the women but did say something about them being like sisters to him, and how the oldest with the pipe was his adoptive mother, Chris Mustang. Ed didn’t ask for it, but Roy told him a few stories from his childhood. He listened nonetheless. Ed learned that Roy’s childhood home had always been loud and full of life, and that his sisters forced him to learn how to braid hair and paint nails. Roy said that his experience steadying his hand for the perfect French tip helped a surprising amount when he joined the military. Ed didn’t ask for an explanation.
A few days later on a cozy Friday night, Ed opted to share his own stories of his childhood. He rambled about the neighbors and Winry and how, for a good five months, he’d been convinced they were going to get married. He talked about his mom’s melodic voice on long car rides and during nights when sleep wouldn’t touch him. He even admitted---begrudgingly---that his height had been a running joke in town until he started fixing the problem with his fists.
Roy laughed and decided that was the perfect time to add “runt” to his odd collection of fond names. Ed flipped him off and stole half his eggs out of pure principle.
What puzzled Edward the most about his new life, though, was the team.
Roy’s house wasn’t really Roy’s house. It was a revolving door of personalities, an entire circus of people who wore badges and carried the same tired eyes. That was about where their similarities ended.
He met them first about three weeks after moving in. He’d come home from school, tired and irritable, only to find four unfamiliar faces in the living room laughing at something he hadn’t heard. Their boots were kicked off by the door, jackets draped over chairs like this was their house too. He froze in the foyer, backpack sagging off one shoulder.
Roy spotted him and called him over. Ed turned on his heel and fled down the hall. Door shut. Done.
Over the next few months, “the team” just kept showing up, and Roy kept nudging him---casual invites, tapping the arm of the couch like there was a spot saved for him, comments from the kitchen---and Ed kept refusing with a huff.
One afternoon, for reasons Ed couldn’t articulate, he walked toward the living room instead of away from it. He hovered in the doorway, one hand on the frame, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.
Jean noticed him first. He was half-sprawled across an armchair, boots on the coffee table, cigarette smoke clinging to his jacket like it was stitched into the fabric. His laugh boomed through the room at something someone said, but when he spotted Ed, he lit up like he’d been waiting for him.
“Little boss!” he crowed, throwing both hands up in the air in celebration.
Ed scowled. “Don’t call me that.”
Jean was a mess of blond hair and stubble, and always made a point of grinning wide enough to show the chipped tooth he insisted was from “a heroic encounter with a filing cabinet.” He, if Ed heard correctly when he shoved his ear to his bedroom door to listen in to their conversations, was a lieutenant in Roy’s team and had a deep Southern drawl---something that Ed sort of took comfort in, being from the South himself.
“Champ it is!” Jean corrected, grin stretched wide across his face.
Ed grumbled but shuffled toward the couch anyway.
Kain was perched cross-legged on the rug, surrounded by a minefield of cables and a disassembled remote. His thin wire-framed glasses slipped down his nose every twenty seconds. He barely looked up when Ed passed him; he just mumbled with pinched brows, “Careful, careful---touch the red wire and the whole thing resets.”
Ed blinked. “What whole thing?”
“The whole thing.” Kain nodded pointedly, grave expression settled on his face as if that explained anything at all. Ed glanced at Jean. Jean shrugged. This was apparently normal.
Kain was a bit mousy; he had short black hair and big, round eyes that sparkled when he declared he was finished with what he was doing. He was the only Officer on Roy’s squad. His favorite thing to talk about---extensively---were new podcasts he stumbled upon, and he made absolutely certain that all of them listened to at least ten minutes of one per hangout. Ed didn’t know what to make of the guy; he was awkward sometimes, shy others, and incredibly intelligent the rest of the time. He floundered his way through conversations but always sounded so sure of himself when it came to the tech he was working on.
On the opposite end of the couch sat Heymans, big-bellied and rosy-cheeked, laughing so hard his shoulders shook. He scooted over---well, leaned, which was as far as the couch allowed. “Sit, sit,” he insisted, already fishing something out of his pocket. Ed sat.
A butterscotch. Of course.
Without asking, Heymans dropped two into Ed’s hoodie pocket. “For later,” he winked.
“For never,” Ed said, but didn’t return them.
Heymans was a sergeant, and a great one at that. Or, at least, that’s what Jean said about him; Ed didn’t know if he had said it sarcastically or not. Heymans was a city boy and always made sure to point out random differences between city-dwellers and “hicks,” as he called them. He would tell everyone that he was a hole-in-the-wall restaurant connoisseur and often showed up with takeout from a different one each time.
A soft, familiar voice drifted from the arm of the couch. “If you actually don’t want them, I’ll take those off your hands.”
Ed looked up.
Riza sat perched on the cozy saucer chair in the corner, legs tucked underneath her, one hand placed on her knee and the other holding a book. He genuinely, seriously, hadn’t noticed her. Was she a ninja or something? She lifted her eyes over the rim of the book and offered a faint, teasing smirk like she knew what he was thinking.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Ed said.
“I’ve been here,” she replied, flipping a page. “Jean wouldn’t stop talking about barbecue for twenty minutes before you showed up, if you can believe it.”
“You say that like it’s not the cornerstone of all culture,” Jean shot back, offended.
Riza didn’t look up. “You think everything is the cornerstone of all culture.”
“And I’m right.”
Heymans chimed in, “You said that about nachos yesterday.”
“You have no room---” Their bickering shot off like a race car.
Riza slid a subtle glance toward Ed, amusement shown through the quirk of her lips. She closed her book and sat it beside her, watching the chaos unfold before her. He couldn’t help but do the same.
Vato stood by the open window, arms crossed, posture so impeccably straight he looked carved from old war photos. His white-silver hair caught the light as he gave Ed a small nod towards the table. Edward followed his eyeline. A tin box sat in the dead center, untouched.
“For the kid,” Vato said quietly.
Ed didn’t move, but Heymans, intrigued and strangely excited, immediately stopped squabbling with Jean and lifted the lid. Inside it sat homemade chocolate chip cookies. Ed stared.
“I didn’t take you for a baker,” Ed continued staring suspiciously.
Vato blew out a breath that was probably a laugh. “My wife made them. Roy told her how much you love chocolate chip cookies.”
“I never said that!” Ed’s face could bake his own cookies with how hot and red it was. “And how’d she know I’d be out here today, anyway?”
“I don’t question it anymore. I just bring the cookies.”
Heymans whistled. “Either way, we’re eating good tonight.”
“They’re for the boy,” Vato said.
Heymans threw up both hands in mocked innocence. “I would never! But out of curiosity, what would happen if I did?”
Vato stared at Heymans silently until he wilted, then he looked back out the window.
Ed found himself sinking into the far end of the couch, the cushion dipping with his weight. He didn’t know why he stayed. He didn’t know why he chose not to retreat back to the room Roy called his, why his feet carried him toward the noise instead of away from it. He stayed, though, and nobody stopped what they were doing to make it weird.
Roy walked in from the kitchen a moment later, drying his hands on a towel. He took one glance around the room---Edward on the couch, surrounded by his long-time friends, and something in his expression softened.
He didn’t comment. Thank God.
Before anything else, though, a knock sounded---three short taps against the front door. Jean perked up. Roy sighed and crossed the room; when he pulled the door open, cold air swept in with it.
Maes filled the doorway. He was broad-shouldered with dark stubble littering his face, cheeks ruddy from the cold, carrying two grocery bags and a toddler-sized backpack slung over one wrist. His grin was automatic, bright and warm enough to thaw a small nation.
“Hope I’m not interrupting,” he said, stepping inside without waiting for an answer. He kicked the door shut behind him, boots landing with a thunk that shook the entryway rug.
Roy grabbed one of the grocery bags from his hand. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”
“Yeah, well,” Maes said, shrugging. “Elicia wanted to bake cookies, then decided halfway through that she wanted to ride her bike instead. So,” he shuffled through the toddler bag and grabbed a plastic container covered in stickers. He held it up, “these might be half-baked. Or double-baked. Not sure.”
Heymans gasped in mock horror. “A new Elicia mystery treat? I accept this challenge.”
“They’re not just for you,” Maes said, then caught sight of Ed on the couch. His expression changed---softened, brightened, something gentler, something Ed could easily assume he might look like when talking to his daughter. Ed scowled.
“Well hey, kid. Didn’t think we’d see you out here.”
Ed bristled out of instinct. “I live here.”
“Yeah,” Maes said simple, smiling. “You do.”
He set the backpack by the door, scooped a few loose groceries into Roy’s hands like the two had practiced this dance a thousand times, and stepped fully into the room. Roy took everything into the kitchen. Riza greeted Maes with a small nod, and Kain waved vaguely with the hand that wasn’t holding a screwdriver. Heymans tried to steal the container of questionable cookies when Maes went to place them next to Vato’s on the table.
Jean yelled, “Hands off! Those are for everyone!”
“I didn’t even open them yet!”
“That’s how it starts!”
Their voices braided together, overlapping and rising. Ed got the feeling that Heymans and Jean spent more time arguing than conversing.
Maes finally dropped onto the cushion beside Ed, lowering himself with a grunt. He stretched out his legs and leaned back. “It feels like I’ve been standing all day long. This is bliss.”
Ed didn’t know if he was talking to him or the room, but he nodded just in case.
Maes' eyes flicked around the room and landed on Ed again. “You settling in?” Maes asked, quiet enough that it didn’t pull anyone else’s attention.
Ed hesitated. He shrugged one shoulder. Barely. But it was a response.
Maes nodded like it was enough and ruffled his hair slightly. Ed found he didn’t really mind that much.
Roy returned again from the kitchen, empty-handed now. “You didn’t have to bring dinner, Maes.”
Maes grinned again, laughing, “Gracia insisted. Heaven knows what you’ve been feeding the poor boy. He deserves a decent meal, and there’s no better meal than one cooked by my wife.”
Roy huffed. “My cooking isn’t that bad.”
Ed snorted but fell into deep-bellied laughter. “Yeah, okay,” he paused to breathe, “keep telling yourself that. I could do better. I’m fourteen.”
The night continued smoothly; they all ate Maes' wife’s delicious quiche, chatted a bit more, then Roy sent him to bed when he realized how late it was. When Ed shut his bedroom door behind him, he was smiling.
Each time the team stopped by after that, Ed lurked in the hallway listening. Roy always caught him. He never told him to leave and he also never told him to join---he just arched an eyebrow until Ed shuffled into the living room muttering about being kidnapped. He’d collapse onto the couch with theatrical misery, cane clanking against the hardwood, as if their very existence had ruined his life.
Every time, Roy chuckled. Not loudly, nor mockingly---just that quiet, maddening sound, like he knew Ed wasn’t half as miserable as he pretended to be. Of course, in retaliation, Edward made sure to gag---loudly---every time he noticed the way Roy smiled at Riza. That small, tired curve of his mouth softer than he smiled at anyone else. Just to watch Roy groan.
“Ask her out already, Cap’n,” Jean would joke, and Roy would grunt something unintelligible and throw a pen at him. From the couch, Ed would add a deadpan, “Yeah, stop embarrassing yourself,” and bask in the team's laughter.
The years moved like molasses. Every day, Ed went to school, visited Al, and came home to at least two people who didn’t live there. He went to a trusted therapist once a week on Thursdays, and even made friends who were slightly less irritating than the rest. Roy tried not to hover but failed miserably. The first time Ed asked if a friend could come over, Roy grinned so wide Ed turned bright red. Worse, Roy kept walking into his room with snacks and drinks, inquiring about his friends’ lives and how they all met. Ling made fun of him for weeks after hanging out because of Roy’s behavior. Though, the glutton always seemed to be the first to grab a handful of chips when Roy walked in with a bag of Doritos.
The team rotated in and out. Ed eventually met the famed Elicia and Gracia one week when Maes offered to “babysit” him while Roy was out of town for work. Elicia tackled him to the floor as soon as he walked in and immediately declared he was her big brother. He patted her back and hoped no one could see the grin on his face.
He learned a lot about the Hughes family that week, like how Elicia could bounce around the house as if she were powered by pure sunlight and soda. He also learned that Maes and Roy were old war buddies, and that they considered each other brothers. Ed thought that Elicia’s insistence that they were siblings made sense, then. Ed found out, too, that Maes wasn’t even a part of Roy’s team. He was a detective in an entirely different unit, and he was a damn good one; he kept his work phone on hand just in case his coworkers needed another brain. His coworkers definitely utilized that, too.
From then, Maes' family became a regular presence. They dragged Ed to blow out birthday candles and take holiday photos Ed swore he hated. Riza was even more present, though. For an entire week straight, Ed came home from school to see Roy and Riza sitting on the couch chatting. He always groaned and made a show of sticking his tongue out at them both.
The best day of Edward’s life didn’t happen on an anniversary, or a symbolic date, or some poetic turning of the seasons. It was just a Wednesday. Late spring, and too warm already. Ed was rinsing a mug when his phone buzzed---a number he never saved into his contacts but recognized regardless. The hospital.
“He’s awake,” someone said on the other end. “Alphonse Elric is awake.”
For a second, Ed genuinely thought he was dreaming. Like he was floating on clouds, and Beyonce was about to dedicate a song to him. Then, the air snapped back into place and he was moving---fast, reckless, elbow catching the counter, cane skittering across the tile like it was trying to run ahead of him. He didn’t even put on proper shoes. The bus he hopped on took too long for his liking.
He got the hospital and it was horrifyingly the same. Antiseptic burnt his throat, fluorescent lights hummed like a machine heartbeat. If he closed his eyes, he could almost trick himself into thinking no time had passed at all. Years of grief and guilt and waiting---gone in the hiss of a sliding door.
He knew exactly how to reach Al's room, but a nurse guided him down the hall regardless. She talked too gently for Ed to process, and it wasn’t like he could hear her over the buzzing in his ears anyways. They reached The door.
There, on that same bed, was his brother, pale but awake, eyes open, chest rising in small uneven breaths. Ed’s own breath left him in one violent exhale. He grabbed the doorframe because his legs suddenly didn’t believe in physics anymore.
“Al,” he whispered, voice cracking in a way that embarrassed him instantly, but he didn’t care, not now, not today. He couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t get close enough. His hands trembled as he reached out, and Al's fingers twitched against his. It was enough.
He didn’t cry at first, though his eyes burned. He kept blinking faster and faster, terrified that if he blinked too slow, he would realize he was dreaming and Al would disappear again. Then, something in him finally snapped.
A single breath shuddered out of him, and the next thing he knew, he was sobbing. It wasn’t the quiet, controllable kind---it ripped straight through his chest because as if it's been waiting years for its exit. Every sleepless night slammed into him at once: lying on his back staring up at his stupid popcorn ceiling, wondering if the nurses were right that he wouldn’t wake. Standing in the shower long after the water turned freezing, replaying the last normal conversation he ever had with his brother. Trying to remember the sound of Al laughing and scrub out the memory of his voice cracking on a scream.
God---those mornings way before dawn when he’d knock on Roy’s door because he couldn’t breathe and needed someone to sit with. Sometimes he said nothing at all, and sometimes he made Roy promise he’d never bring it up again when he asked for a hug.
All of it hit him like a train. The weight he’d carried for so long finally burst open, and the grief was everywhere. He sobbed like he would never have the chance to again.
Ed heard movement behind him, and eventually looked up through blurry eyes to see Roy standing near the door, hands shoved into his pockets and a soft, proud smile playing on his lips. He caught Riza’s eyes beside him---steady, warm, and a little teary herself. She gave him the smallest, fiercest nod, and he turned back to Al.
“Hey,” Edward croaked. He leaned close, chair scraping loudly as he sank beside the bed. “You... you’re awake.” Ed’s heart thumped so hard it hurt; he laughed through his tears, a sound cracked and disbelieving. “God, Al, you’re actually awake. I’ve been waiting for this forever.”
Al's lips curved in the faintest, unsteady smile. He squeezed Ed’s hand weakly, and Ed laughed harder, messy and loud. “Yeah,” Edward said, brushing tears from his cheeks and sniffling, “yeah, you can’t do that again, okay? You’re just gonna have to be stuck with me. I’m gonna be insufferable.”
Roy came up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder, voice soft. “You’ve always been insufferable.”
Ed scoffed on principle, but didn’t actually mind the insult. He just let the warmth of the hand settle in. He let himself be supported for once.
Al's recovery was slow. Not just physically---though that alone was brutal---but also in the way he had to relearn his own life piece by piece. The first few days were the hardest. He kept waking up confused, blinking at the ceiling with a furrow in his brow like he wasn’t sure of anything at all.
He’d look at Ed, really look at him, taking in the older face, the leg, the bone-deep exhaustion he tried so hard to hide. Every time, Al's expression flickered with confusion, grief, and to Ed’s horror, fear. Ed would squeeze his hand, and Al would squeeze back, but sometimes he’d turn his face away and blink fast like he was trying not to cry.
Ed rarely left the hospital those first weeks, keeping an unwavering vigil over the monitors and charts and the tiny twitch of Al's fingers when he dreamed. Roy never pushed him to go home. He just appeared at odd hours with food, homework, and that stupid grin when Ed whined about English assignments.
Jean and Heymans would burst in occasionally like a pair of golden retrievers who’d learned to walk upright and dragged him into games and taught him how to count cards---”for educational purposes,” Jean insisted---whenever Roy left the room. Al would watch them with this bewildered fondness, like he couldn’t quite believe the universe had given Edward this circus to grow up with.
Kain visited exactly once, somehow hacked Al's oxygen monitor to make it flash rainbow colors for five whole minutes before the nurses chased him out. Al laughed---breathy, raspy, pained, but real. Ed was on cloud nine for days.
The chaos comforted him. It comforted Al, too. Ed could tell through the small smiles and gently-creased eyes.
Months passed easily. Therapy was its own battlefield, though. Some days Al cooperated, gritting his teeth through breathing exercises and muscle stim and speech drills. Other days, he refused to look at anyone, exhausted by a body that betrayed him and a future that no longer resembled the one he remembered. He would get tangled in his words, frustrated when they came out slanted or cracked, and Ed would gently remind him, “You’re here. That’s enough.”
It wasn’t enough for Al. Sometimes, rare but still present, Al wouldn’t let Ed into his room. It hurt, but Edward understood. It must’ve been hard to wake up to a brother by name but not by face. It must’ve been hard to be 10 and wake up legally able to drive. It hurt, but Ed understood.
Slowly---achingly slowly---Al's voice found its way back. At first a strained whisper, then a croak, then a thin thread of sound that broke halfway through sentences. Ed cried the first time Al said his name, which embarrassed them both.
They tried not to talk about anything of importance. Nothing about the hospital, or the years Al missed, or the cavernous hole their mom left behind.
The conversation that took place when Al first asked why their mom wasn’t there was tough. Edward didn’t have to say a word. It was written all over his face. Al closed his eyes and didn’t speak for hours, and Ed stayed beside him holding his hand until the tears stopped falling down Al's cheeks.
Instead, they talked about books, sweets, games, city life, et cetera. Safe things. Soft things. Things that didn’t require either of them to look directly at the fault line running between childhood and now.
Ed asked the nurses one day if he could take Al out to the park nearby. They only relented when the little menace himself gave them the biggest puppy-dog eyes he could muster. No one could resist Alphonse Elric and his puppy-dog eyes, even as a teenager.
Ed took him in his wheelchair, pushing him down the sidewalk with ease with his cane lying across Al's lap. They bounced from conversation to conversation the entire way there. They arrived. This park was nothing like the one with Mr. Mike and the big pond and rusty swing set they were supposed to see that day; it was busy and had more flowers than it did slides and sandboxes. Still, it felt right to be there. They made it to the park.
The weight of the location felt heavy on Edward’s chest. They sat on a bench in silence, just people watching. Eventually, conversation picked back up. They talked about everything and nothing at all, about school, about girls, and about their plans for the future.
Al asked him question after question about his life and what he’d missed. He mentioned, too, that Ed had lost his Southern accent. He hadn’t even noticed. It made him a little sad.
Al asked about Roy---something he did often in a casual “I’m not prodding but I’m definitely prodding” tone he got from mom. He wanted updates, stories, and details Ed always seems to collect accidentally. Like how Roy could never finish the New York Times crossword puzzle and always called Ed to the living room like he was in trouble, only to ask him for a five-letter word for a ding on a phone.
Then, Al asked, “So... did you take his last name? When he adopted you?”
Ed choked on nothing. “What?”
Al blinked at him like that was the confusing part. “Roy,” he repeated, slow and careful, as if Ed simply hadn’t heard him. “You took his last name, right? I mean---you guys are close. And he acts like a dad. I just figured...” He shrugged, sheepish.
Ed flushed, the color crawling from his neck to the tips of his ears. “No. No, that---Roy didn’t... I mean---he didn’t adopt me.”
Al stared. “He didn’t?”
His voice didn’t sound judgmental---it was more wounded on Ed’s behalf.
Ed looked down at his hands and picked at the stitching on his shirt. “I’m almost eighteen,” he muttered. “It’d be pointless. And I---I wasn’t, like... I wasn’t trying to stay long-term. I thought it’d be temporary at first. Then, I guess...”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
The sun dipped lower, turning the park gold and stretching their shadows long across the path. Birds trilled above them, and kids shrieked at a playground far away. In the middle of all the noise, Al was painfully quiet.
“Edward,” he said softly. “You know he loves you, right?”
Ed inhaled sharply and looked away. “Roy doesn’t want to be my dad,” he said, too fast. “He just---he’s responsible. He’s---that’s all he is. Responsible for my wellbeing.”
Al gave him a slow, unimpressed stare. It was silent for a moment, like he was waiting for Ed to try again. Eventually, he sighed. “You really believe that?”
Ed felt something twist in his chest. Something that he refused to name.
“He was there every day,” Al continued quietly, craning his neck to look at his face. “He took care of you. Stayed with you. Kept tabs on you even before you were his. When he’s at the hospital, he looks at you like---” He stopped. Swallowed. “like he’s so... fond. Of you. Like he can’t even imagine losing you.”
Ed’s throat closed. “Al...”
“I’m not saying he’s replacing Mom,” Al added quickly. “Just... maybe it’s okay if someone else cares about you. Maybe that doesn’t erase anything.”
A breeze rustled in the trees around them.
Al nudged him gently with his shoulder. “You deserve somebody who stays.”
Ed blinked hard. His voice cracked when he said, barely above a whisper, “He hadn’t asked.”
Al was silent for a moment.
“Maybe,” Al said, eyes kind and unbearably steady, “he’s waiting for you to want it.”
Ed didn’t respond. He didn’t run from the conversation, either, though; for him, that was something close to an answer.
When they returned to the hospital, Ed’s eyes were rimmed with red. Roy noticed but didn’t say anything. All he did was smile softly and ask him if he was ready to go home. He was. They went home.
Eventually, Al learned to walk again. The first time he stood without tubes holding him up, Ed nearly collapsed from laughing and crying at the same time. Al stood trembling, hair mussed, and eyes bright with a victory that looked almost like defiance.
He grinned at Ed. “See?” he rasped. “Easy-peasy.”
Ed laughed so hard that his body shook.
At last, Al came home with them.
Roy held the door open while Ed wrestled the wheelchair over the threshold, muttering under his breath about the pesky welcome mat. Then, chaos detonated.
A shrill, off-key hurricane of kazoo noises blasted them directly in the face. Confetti shot across the entryway, and balloons thumped against the ceiling.
Jean practically fell out of his hiding spot behind the coat rack, kazoo still between his teeth. He yelled, “Surprise!” with the enthusiasm of the man-child that he is. Heymans triggered a confetti popper two seconds too late, showering only himself in metallic scraps. Kain proudly held up a lopsided banner that read “Welcome Home, Alphonse!” in three different marker colors, each letter progressively worse than the last. Maes was in the corner of the room trying to subtly take photos of the moment.
Riza set off her popper last, perfectly aimed so the confetti fell like a crown over Al's head.
Ed blinked, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. “Yeah, perfect,” he deadpanned, trying desperately to flatten the smile tugging at his mouth. “This is exactly the kind of subtle welcome I was hoping for.”
Al stared at everything. His throat bobbed in a hard swallow. His fingers curled into the blanket draped over his lap.
Roy moved behind the wheelchair and gently took the handles from Ed. “Welcome home, kiddo,” he said.
Al exhaled shakily, then let out a tiny laugh that sounded a bit rusty. “I... Y’all didn’t have to do this.”
“Oh, we did,” Riza said from the couch. She’d tied a purple ribbon in her hair in some attempt to “match the aesthetic,” or whatever. “You have no idea how much Jean begged for an inflatable bouncy castle.”
“And I still think it would’ve added to the ambience!”
Ed snorted and plopped onto the arm rest next to Riza.
“Also,” Kain added, eyes bright, “just so you know, I almost rigged the lights to flash when you opened the door, but Riza stopped me before I could finish. Something about that being ‘clinically insane,’ so, I’m saving it for your birthday.”
“Please don’t,” Roy said, pushing Al forward a bit to shut the front door.
“It’s already done,” Kain whispered.
Vato stood by the kitchen doorway, arms crossed. His voice softened when he said, “Ignore them. Or don’t. You’ll get used to it either way.”
Al looked at him, and his breath hitched just a little. Ed saw the tiny, careful shift of his fingers on the wheelchair armrest.
Roy rested a hand on the back of the chair. “How about we move you into the living room?” he said gently. “Give Al some space, you damned vultures.”
Riza was already up and clearing a path, scooping up streamer rolls and half-blown balloons. “Come on,” she said, smiling softly at Al. “We’ve got your spot set up. Blankets and everything.”
They wheeled him in, and the couch was piled with soft blankets in mismatched colors. Someone had even placed a stuffed cat on the armrest, and judging by Jean’s innocent whistle when Ed looked at him, the culprit was obvious.
Al stared at it all with wide eyes. “Guys,” he said quietly. “This is... a lot.”
“It’s supposed to be,” Ed said, helping transfer him from his wheelchair to the couch. “You deserve a lot.”
Al looked at him. Really looked. The way he used to look at Edward when they were little---like he was the whole world, or at least the safest part of it. Like he knew everything.
A lump formed in Ed’s throat. Al smiled.
Maes interrupted with a grin, “Okay, okay! Group photo! Everyone act like you love each other!”
Al leaned onto Ed’s shoulder. “That won’t take much,” he said, then smiled at the camera.
Everyone shuffled into position, but the only thing on Ed’s mind was keeping the happy tears at bay long enough not to fuck up the photo. When Maes' camera timer reached zero, everyone was huddled up close to the couch and there’s a possibility that Ed’s smile was a bit watery and shaky. That doesn’t matter, though.
What mattered most was this small moment, his brother safe and comfortable in the place he called his home and with the people he called his family.
As the months went by in the Mustang-Elric-sometimes-Hawkeye household, Ed and Alphonse settled into a rhythm. Mornings still meant mediocre eggs, and weekday afternoons still meant battling Roy with doing homework. Ed still went to therapy on Thursdays, and Al started going on Fridays. Some evenings were meant just for Roy and Riza, where the boys caught onto the way Roy’s hand lingered near hers while she passed plates. Ed made gagging noises every time their hands brushed. Al joined in, grinning. After dinner, Roy sent them to their room while Riza went to grab wine from the locked cupboard Ed wasn’t supposed to know about.
One evening, the team crammed into the living room, loud enough to rattle the windows. Heymans and Jean were mid-screaming match over something that might have been baseball stats or pizza toppings or even both, honestly---Edward couldn’t tell, and frankly, he did not care. Kain sat on the edge of the couch, adjusting his glasses and watching the period piece movie play intently on the TV. Vato occupied the rocking chair like a very polite specter from 1945 who’d decided to haunt them in his off-hours.
Al was sprawled across the couch beside him like sunshine in human form, grinning so brightly he might as well have been wearing a halo.
Ed leaned back against the arm of the couch, cane propped against his knee, and let his eyes roam the room. He didn’t stare at one person in particular---just the whole noisy, ridiculous picture they made. The shouting, the laugher, the food wrappers someone should really throw away. It should have annoyed him. It kind of did. Beneath that irritation was something far worse: comfort. Warm, familiar, dangerous comfort.
The kind that snuck up on him. The kind that stayed.
Al nudged him with a socked foot. “Hey. What’s with the face?”
“Nothing,” Ed muttered. “You’re just ugly when you smile that much. That’s all.”
Alphonse laughed, because of course he did, and Edward rolled his eyes to hide the way the sound eased something tight in his ribs.
For a moment---just one----Edward let himself breathe.
For the first time, Ed felt like the world hadn’t frozen on that day. The scars still ached on rainy days, the limp still tripped him up, and there were still nights when he woke up soaked in fear, convinced Al had stopped breathing again. There were still arguments that left him hoarse, slammed doors, and days where the grief simmered hot enough to burn holes through his chest.
But there were also eggs on the stove in the morning, afternoons where Roy nearly combusted trying not to helicopter-parent, and days where Riza dropped by with food Ed insisted was “too salty” while scraping every crumb out of the container later. There were times when Roy and Riza circled each other in that weird, awkward way adults did when they didn’t want anyone to notice they liked each other.
There were Jean’s screams of horror after losing to Mario Kart even though he cheated, and Kain’s podcast playing in the background of board game nights. There were afternoons when Heymans dragged him and Al out for burgers like he had a personal vendetta against Roy’s cooking. There were times when Vato showed up randomly just enough to keep them on their toes, and there was Maes' family practically kidnapping them into group photos like they’d always been there.
None of it was perfect. It was hardly even functional. But it was his, and it was real.
Ed wasn’t sure if he wanted all of it, or that he even deserved it, but he was in it whether he liked it or not. He glanced at Al, who was doubled over laughing at something Heymans did with a throw pillow, and thought---not for the first time---that maybe it was okay to stop running. Maybe it was okay to stop sitting in that car all those years ago. Maybe he didn’t have to live like everything could vanish in a second. Maybe---just maybe---he could let this be what it was: messy, chaotic, weird, but theirs.
And for Edward, that was enough.