spin - part 3

[metisket]

The bottom line is, Edward Elric has a secret fucking weapon for a dad. Worthless dad, awesome secret weapon.

There’s probably a metaphor there, but Ed doesn’t want to think about it.

And unlike Ed, this secret weapon can fix things as well as break them, which is the reason Ed’s dragging his worthless dad to the safe house before he’s really sure of the guy. Tick tock, right? He can regret it later.

They walk in the door to find Mustang out in the hall bent double like he’s been sucker-punched. Only when they’re practically on top of him does he tip his head up, but he’s staring though them, not seeing anything.

Ed’s not exactly an expert on the human condition, but he knows this look inside and out. It’s the look of somebody who’s just had everything he relies on get ripped away, and nothing he could do to stop it.

He’s too late.

Too late. Too fucking late, too late for Hawkeye, too late for Al, too late for his mom—and Hawkeye said he’s supposed to look out for Mustang, the fuck was she thinking? He’s never around when anybody needs him; they all slip through his fingers and break, one after another, he shouldn’t ever touch anybody, he’s poison. Did he think that had changed? Had he actually managed to forget what happened to just about every fucking person he’s ever loved? What the fuck was he thinking?

He slams his hands together, and the world shatters like glass around him.

Later—he doesn’t know how much later, and he doesn’t know what happened between; all he has are images and colors, fragments—he realizes he’s on the floor. Or, to be specific about it, the crying Armstrong’s pinning him to the floor and looking at him like he’s a wild animal escaped from the zoo. Where the hell’d Armstrong even come from?

“Get off me.” He’s hoarse, the way he is when he’s been screaming. Shit. “What happened?”

“Top ten most unsettling questions I have ever heard asked,” says a husky, dazed voice Ed recognizes as Hughes’s. “Item the first: ‘What happened?’ courtesy of one Edward Elric, who had just been prevented from destroying a building and killing us all—apparently by accident! Ah ha ha!”

So that’s why Armstrong’s looking at him like that.

Hughes stands up and brushes himself off. He’s a little wild-eyed, but, well. Fair enough. “I’m going to check on Lieutenant Hawkeye,” he says. “Major, don’t let him move.”

Shit, Hawkeye.

Ed tries to throw himself out of Armstrong’s grip, but it’s like wrestling a goddamn mountain. If he’d been in anything like his right mind, he’d never have let a beast this big pin him. It’s a sad fact, but his best bet is to try to talk his way out of this.

“Seriously, Major, you can let me go now. Uh, sorry about that. But I’m okay now. I just wanna see Hawkeye, I just wanna see—” Armstrong’s still staring at him with that fucking horrified face—“I’m not gonna do anything, just let me, let me—fuck you, I’ll kill you, get off me, I’m—”

“Major,” Hughes says from the door to Hawkeye’s room, luckily before Ed has time to verbally dig himself any deeper. “You can bring him in now.”

Armstrong stands, hoists Ed up, and turns him facing forward. He grabs him by the upper arms and lifts, so Ed’s feet don’t even touch the ground.

Good job talking him into believing you’re a-okay, Elric. You’ve got a brilliant fucking future as a negotiator.

He’s amazed Al-voice has no comment on this. Maybe it’s off laughing to itself too hard to comment.

It doesn’t matter, though, none of it matters, because they take him to Hawkeye’s room anyway, and he can see in a second that she’s fine.

She’s fine. She’s totally fine, out but breathing easy, and Knox is even smiling. This is the happiest damn sick room Ed’s ever seen. She’s fine, fine, fine. He wasn’t late this time.

He didn’t kill this one. He didn’t kill Hawkeye.

Shit, Mustang almost gave him a heart attack and made him blow up the building for nothing. He lurches forward in Armstrong’s grip and bares his teeth at the idiot. “You asshole, you said she was dead!”

“I did not say she was dead, Elric. I didn’t say anything. Whatever assumptions you may have made—”

“Oh my God, shut up, you were acting like it was the end of the world. What was I supposed to think, you fucking drama queen!?”

“She was in surgery. Knox said she probably wouldn’t survive. I wasn’t being dramatic, I thought—” Mustang stops, closes his eyes, presses his lips together in a flat line like it hurts.

She almost died, then. She really almost died, not just, you know, in a few weeks, but right fucking now. Oh. Oh shit, that was close. If not for Hohenheim…

“Where’s Hohenheim, anyway? Bastard does his good deed for the day and then wanders off?”

Why Ed should care is a mystery. He wants to talk to the guy, but it doesn’t need to happen this minute. It’s not that. So what?

You miss him.

Al-voice has this awesome timing. And hell, there’s no end to the pathetic. How’s he managing to miss a guy he hasn’t seen for years?

Mustang’s recovered enough to make weird eyebrows at him. “Yes, apparently. Like father like son, perhaps,” he says.

Ed’s eyes fly wide, the snarl is totally out of his control. He feels like he’s gonna puke and he just about dislocates his shoulder trying to wrench away from Armstrong.

Mustang acts unimpressed. And Ed would believe that a lot more if he didn’t reek of fear sweat.

Mustang, though, he’s used to fighting when he’s scared. It’s part of what makes him cool. His face never changes, he just stares Ed down and says, “You’ll wake the Lieutenant.”

Ed slumps like he’s a puppet and Mustang cut his strings. Hawkeye. He was about to lose it in Hawkeye’s room for fuck’s sake. He really is gonna puke now, and no wonder. This day is bullshit, what the hell else are they gonna throw at him? Fuck.

And now he’s hanging from Armstrong’s hands panting like a mad dog. In front. Of Mustang.

“Major, let’s step outside,” Mustang says. And that’s fine, that’s good. Once they get outside, Ed’s out. He’s had it, it’s too much, he’s fucking going into hiding until the world is less nuts. It’s not brave, it’s not even sane, but that will be what he does, even if he has to dislocate one arm and detach the other to do it.

They get about ten steps from the building and Ed’s just tensing himself for a full-on fight when Mustang says, “Set him down, Major.”

“Colonel?” Armstrong asks, and Ed would snarl on principle, but he’s too confused. Mustang nods and Armstrong sets him reluctantly down.

Mustang’s gonna let him go? That doesn’t make any fucking sense. Doesn’t he want to ask about, like, Hohenheim, Philosopher’s Stones, the way Ed almost blew up the damn safe house? He does. He has to.

He’s letting Ed go?

Ed takes an experimental step back. Nobody tries to stop him.

Mustang’s messing with his mind again. Doesn’t matter. Ed’s grateful anyway. “Ask Hughes,” he says. “He pretty much knows what I do.”

Mustang nods.

Ed tips his head to the side and, despite the day, he smiles. This guy, he honestly trusts Ed. Even after today, he still trusts Ed. Seriously, how wacky can you get?

“Thanks, Roy.”

He runs like hell before Mustang has a chance to change his crazy mind.

* * *

Ed goes on a smashing spree when he gets to his place. Hughes wants to know why he doesn’t care about central heating? Cuz it’s worth it. It’s worth it that he can break everything in the house and it won’t matter because, hell, that shit was broken anyway.

That lasts him a couple hours. Once he’s worn himself out and feels less like the ground is cracking apart, he collapses and checks out his hands. They’re bleeding all over the fucking place, not really a surprise. From the glass, right? (Hey, no maggots.) He thinks about fixing them with alchemy as a sort of fuck you, Roy Mustang, but that’s not fair. A deal’s a deal. Besides, it’s not even Roy he’s pissed at, it’s freaking life.

Which is pathetic, and he’s giving himself exactly one day to get over it and get off his ass.

Or that’s what he decides on the first day. Of course he instantly gets sick after that. Whenever there’s too much crazy, his body starts failing him, and that’s a bitch, because his body’s pretty much all he’s got. His soul’s gotta be rotten through by now, and his brain’s prone to misfiring at the best of times. And this for sure isn’t the best of times.

In a way, getting sick is nice, though. Gives him an excuse to hide and lick his wounds. Not have to deal with Roy. Or Hughes. Or Hohenheim. He’d like to check on Hawkeye, but he’s not ready to deal with her, either. Anyway she’s fine, he saw. She’s fine.

He thinks about dragging himself to the desert, but that’s not a great idea. Not now, down to less than three weeks (eighteen days). Shitty timing for a nervous breakdown. He is gonna learn to stop being worthless someday. Assuming he doesn’t die first.

Mostly he stays curled on the bed that Lizard fixed, staring at the dried flowers and the broken stuff. Dirt and spiderwebs and shards of glass, and the sun comes in everywhere and reflects at weird angles. The place is kind of nice, that’s what Hughes doesn’t get.

Ed reads, off and on. He works out as much as his body can handle. He buys food every once in a while. He tries not to think about anything, just listens to Al’s voice whispering in the quiet.

Sometimes it’s not so bad, having Al’s shadow in his brain.

Al-voice thinks he should stop running away. Al is almost always right. If he hadn’t died and left Ed alone, maybe he could do something about forcing Ed to listen to him, too.

Eventually Ed gets to the point where he can see that, actually, the Day of Oh My God was pretty freaking funny. All that crap happening on the same day, what’re the odds, right? The gods have it in for Edward Elric.

He doesn’t think he’s keeping track of the time, but apparently he is, because he wakes up one morning and knows they’re down to ten days.

It’s past time to get off his ass and make himself useful. He’s not sick anymore, he’s not crazier than usual, he’s as close to fine as he gets. He’ll go find somebody who deserves a beating, and that’ll make him feel real again. Then he’s gotta find Greed, who’s been MIA for a worryingly long time. Next he’ll check on Hawkeye, and after that he’ll talk to Roy, who’s probably in a tizzy by now. Last and maybe least, he needs to see about his secret weapon dad.

He’s still got a lot to do.

* * *

Greed is unfindable, apparently. Ed looks in all the usual places, but no Greed and no Ling. Instead, there’s an enraged Lan Fan and her equally unhappy granddad.

Turns out Ed shouldn’t have started the day with a fight, cuz he’s coming off being sick, and it might’ve been nice to be fresh when imperial bodyguards attacked him. Too bad about that.

The good news is, Lan Fan doesn’t kill him.

The bad news is, nobody knows where the fuck Greelin is.

“I thought you were following him around,” Ed says once everybody’s calmed down and stopped throwing knives.

“We thought you were working for him,” Granddad says.

Lan Fan just polishes her knife. She’s a straightforward one, nice and easy to understand.

“I am, but he decided I can look out for myself. Greed doesn’t fret about me, yeah? Or about you. As compliments go, it’s a really fucking annoying one. Ling still frets, though, and that’s why this is weird.”

“If the homunculus has somehow killed our prince—”

“No way.” Weren’t they paying attention? “If anything, Ling’s gonna own Greed soon. Greed’s kind of a simple tool, you ask me.” It occurs to Ed that this whole conversation is pointless. “Anyway, if you don’t know and I don’t know, this is a waste of fucking time. He’ll turn up. Can’t mind his own damn business. Soon as there’s a shot at world domination, he’ll be there.” Ed turns to Lan Fan, who’s carrying an arsenal and wearing a freaky mask with black clothes and still isn’t fooling anybody. “He’s fine, okay? Get a grip.”

She chucks the knife at him. He’s fairly sure she misses on purpose, though.

* * *

That exercise in uselessness accomplished, next order of business is Hawkeye. So far, the Hawkeye errand isn’t looking much better than the Greed one.

Ed’s standing just inside the door of the safe house. He’s been there for a while, and hasn’t yet convinced himself that it’d be what you might call a smart idea to get any closer to Hawkeye’s room than this.

Gunshots sound.

“Wah ha ha!” cackles a woman whose voice he doesn’t recognize. “You suck!”

More gunshots.

“Whoa, shit, Riza.” The strange woman again. “Don’t shoot the messenger! How’re you gonna get better if nobody gives you constructive criticism?”

More gunshots. This has pretty much been the pattern the whole time Ed’s been standing here, which is why he hasn’t moved yet. But he decides he’s being a wuss, and makes himself go to the room. He’s the fucking Demon Alchemist—people are meant to be afraid of him.

Besides, he’s for sure not gonna say anything about Hawkeye’s shooting, so there’ll be no reason for her to kill him. Right?

“Edward,” Hawkeye says, shooting him a quick, dismissive glance. “You’re late.” She fires one last shot. Not at Ed, thankfully.

“Didn’t know I was on a schedule,” Ed mutters, sidling over carefully out of the line of fire. The strange woman’s sitting on the other side of Hawkeye’s bed, staring at him with big, interested eyes. She totally looks like the kind of person who’d give Hawkeye crap about her shooting. Which is to say, she looks completely deranged.

Hayate’s sitting at the woman’s feet. He looks up when Ed comes in and thumps his tail against the floor a few times before settling back down and going to sleep. Dogs have it so fucking easy, they don’t even know.

“Cute,” the strange woman decides after she’s given Ed a good once-over. “Which is amazing, considering whatever the hell happened to his face. But too jailbait for me. Who is he?”

“Edward,” Hawkeye says. “Meet Rebecca. Rebecca, leave the room.”

“Give the woman a few helpful comments, she turns into a four-square bitch,” Rebecca mutters, but she jumps up so fast she startles Hayate. “I hope you don’t expect any gratitude, Edward. You’ll be doomed to disappointment.”

“Gratitude?” What the fuck? Ed thinks he’ll be doing well if he gets out of here without bullet holes. Gratitude, shit.

Rebecca pauses and gives him another hard look. He wishes she’d just fuckin’ leave already. He hadn’t been looking forward to this when he thought he was only gonna have to talk to Hawkeye, and instead he’s got Hawkeye plus nosy peanut gallery.

“Riza,” says the peanut gallery, “is this kid broken?”

Hawkeye’s reloading, doesn’t bother to look up. “Compared to whom?”

Rebecca snorts. “Yeah, right,” she says, and finally freaking goes.

Hawkeye finishes reloading and aims again. She’s shooting across the room—maybe fifteen feet—at a human-shaped paper target. If she’d been shooting with her good hand, all the bullets’d be going through the same hole in the middle of the target’s head.

Havoc said he once saw Hawkeye shoot at a match with such precision that the bullet scraped the top of the match and lit it. He didn’t actually say he was holding the match at the time, but his panicky face told its own story.

She hasn’t gotten that scary awesome with her off hand. She’s not even trying for the toughest shots; aiming for the chest, not the head. And the pattern isn’t textbook pretty.

Still, you know, any one of those shots would’ve killed the guy.

“You’re secretly not human, right?” Ed says, trying not to sound too impressed or freaked out or anything. “You’re like the Ultimate Gunslinger homunculus or something.”

Hawkeye scowls at him. “This isn’t close to good enough. At this range? I’ll be useless if I can’t do better than this.”

“Uh, okay.” Shit, she agrees with the peanut gallery. “But if you’re seriously pretending you’re human, remember it’s only been like two weeks since everybody thought you were gonna croak. Baby steps.”

“And where have you been all this time?” she asks, glaring at the paper target like it’s a fucking insult. “You promised to watch the Colonel.”

Ed shuffles in place and remembers why he’d thought about hiding out until everybody died and nobody could blame him for anything. “I promised to watch him if you died, not—”

“Go find him.” She’s giving him the gimlet eye, whoa.

“For fuck’s sake. Fine, I’m goin’ already.”

He told himself he’d do anything for her as long as she survived, right? Right. And if what she wants is for him to get away from her when she’s holding a gun and looking like that, hey—that’s okay. He’ll leave the death-defying Hawkeye-taunting to this Rebecca character, who is apparently that kind of weird.

* * *

“Ed!” says Hughes, friendly like he’s never seen Ed lose it and blow shit up ever, let alone recently. “Where have you been?”

“What’s it to you, asshole?” Ed snaps. “I’m here now.”

“So you are, so you are!” Hughes beams and seizes Ed by the shoulders and Ed tries real hard not to freak out and cut him. “Go talk to Roy! Roy’s spent this time so well, Ed, you’ll be proud. He has plans. He has deep thoughts. He needs to talk to you.”

Hughes shoves him across the Dividing Tape (yeah, there’s Dividing Tape in the safe house now), and stands beaming on the other side.

Bastard’s up to something for sure. Ed stares at him, but that smile says nothing giving, so Ed eventually shrugs and wanders off to find Roy. Working Hughes out is never worth the trouble it takes. Odds are he’s on your side, or at least he thinks he is, so it’s best to let him do whatever weird shit he wants and not worry too much about it.

Roy’s hiding in the study. He thinks he’s all sneaky, but when somebody’s hiding, the signs are pretty freaking obvious.

“And what the hell is your problem?” Ed demands.

“Elric,” Roy says, voice sounding kinda like it’s echoing out of the bottom of a well. Roy Mustang: frog in a well. “Where have you been?”

Ed is getting really tired of that question. “I took a lovely vacation to Creta, idiot. Where’d you think I was?”

“Well, I had no idea.” Ed loves how he gets all pissed off like he has a right. “How could I have known? You might have died.”

…Oh, so that’s what his problem is. Ed had forgotten what a worrywart Roy was even before the whole Breda and Hawkeye near-death things. He’s sort of out of the habit of having people worry about him. No worries, though; lately everybody seems determined to retrain him.

“Whatever, don’t you give me shit. You know how many people’ve given me shit today? Everybody plus Hawkeye. If you want me not to bail on you, then you need to chill the fuck out. Cuz I can’t take it. I’m like fragile.”

Roy pinches the bridge of his nose and does a laughing-so-I-don’t-cry thing. “Fragile?”

“You bet. Delicate, even.” Might just snap and kill you all. Ha ha. “Hughes says you got a plan, you’re gonna save the world, you are his sunshine. Well, you and his wife and kid. Or whatever. What’s that about?”

“I do have a plan. And now that you’ve resurfaced, all we have to do is find your father, and we’ll be able to put it into effect.”

“Don’t wait on him. Goddamn world could end while you’re waiting on him, trust me.”

“But—”

“No, Mustang, I’m fucking serious, here. Don’t wait. He’ll show up if he’s gonna.”

Mustang scowls at him. “All right,” he says, annoyed. “We’ll meet tomorrow at the safe house and discuss our strategy with Lieutenant Hawkeye. If that meets with your approval.”

Haha, yeah. Like as if the whole pack of schemers haven’t worked out absolutely everything and made a dozen backup plans by now. What is this, they want Ed to feel included? Freaks.

“Whatever. You killed Wrath and Pride yet?” Ed’s pretty sure they haven’t. Because if they had, Hughes would’ve bragged about it first thing.

“No,” Roy mutters. Loser. “But we will.” Roy proceeds to go on at length about how they’re gonna do more or less what Ed wanted to do a month ago, only now with a side of political bullshit.

Blah blah blah. The point is, these homunculus bastards are going down.

“And what’re you doing about the human douchebags?” Ed interrupts after freaking ten minutes of blathering.

“I will destroy them,” Roy says, scary all of a sudden. He doesn’t look like himself. Come to think of it, he probably looks like Ed gone cold.

Hawkeye said to keep him from doing anything unforgivable, but Ed’s not sure she has the same standards he does. If Roy wants to go on a lunatic killing spree for great justice, then isn’t Ed the last person in Amestris who can tell him not to?

He’s pretty sure Hawkeye wouldn’t want that. Still, Ed can’t exactly say shit like Hawkeye wouldn’t want that, because if he did, Roy would burn him to death and who could blame him? Maybe he’ll have better luck with I’ll tell Hawkeye on you.

Well, whatever. If it gets to be a problem, it’s not like Ed actually has to justify anything. He can just knock Roy down, tie him up, and leave him until he sees reason or at least mellows out. It’s not what Hawkeye would do, but Ed thinks she’ll approve.

“Okay,” Ed agrees.

Roy’s crazy face wavers; he gives Ed a suspicious look. “It must be a bad sign that you, of all people, are agreeing with me.”

Rock. Ed doesn’t have to do anything, he can just hang out and lead by negative example. “Hey, fuck you, Mustang. Maybe I was humoring you cuz you looked like Scar’s understudy.”

“And yet you never humored Scar.”

“Huh. No, I guess I didn’t. I killed him.” Ed does love a well-placed awkward silence. “Maybe it’s kinda different with you, though,” he goes on sympathetically. “I mean, I know exactly how you feel.” Rubbing salt into the wound.

He also happens to know that his sympathetic face is fucking scary these days. Hell yes.

“Would you prefer me to leave the humans to General Armstrong?” Roy asks, trying for snarky, mostly sounding cranky and stressed.

“Sure. She’s no good for the alchemy side, right? But she’s scary as fuck. Those desk jockey assholes’re never gonna know what hit ‘em.”

“I’m going to be very annoyed if I crawl out of the wreckage of the end of the world to find that General Armstrong is the fuhrer. Assuming we survive.”

Ed snorts. “Like Hughes’d let that happen.” And anyway they’re not gonna survive.

“Well,” Roy concedes, “you have a point.”

“I always do. So, right, tomorrow. Hawkeye. ‘Til then, I got shit to do. See ya.”

“Tomorrow.”

Ed runs into Hughes on the way out, obviously, cuz Hughes was lurking and eavesdropping like he always freaking does. It oughtta be way more creepy than it is.

“You, Edward Elric,” he declares, “are a good influence.”

In that leading by negative example way, sure. “You know what, Hughes? Nobody’s ever said that to me before. Like. In my life.”

Hughes pushes up his glasses and acts like he’s serious. “I stand amazed.”

* * *

So that’s that, then. Apocalypse imminent. Countdown begins. The eleventh hour.

Ed’s decided he’s not gonna waste time looking for Hohenheim after all. He’s got this possibly stupid theory that the guy hasn’t wasted his freakishly long life, that he has plans and shit. That he’s implementing those theoretical plans right now. Leave it to ol’ Da, right? Sure, because a guy who can’t do dick for his own family is just the man you want saving the country.

Ed needs to stop fucking thinking about it, cuz it’s way too late for that. And if it’s too late for thinking, then it’s an incredibly bad time to start worrying about everybody he’s ever met, and Lizard and Winry in particular. Especially since they already told him to fuck off because they weren’t leaving. Right?

So why the hell is he brooding about it?

You miss them, brother, Al-voice says.

Yeah, yeah, broken fucking record.

Ed walks past a phone booth and pauses. What he’s thinking about doing is dumb. As in not a good idea. Just because he’s got a phone, a pocket full of change, and a head full of phone numbers he doesn’t remember memorizing does not mean he should put them all together. Half the people on the other ends of those phone numbers hate the thought of him anyway. If they’re gonna hear about the end of the world, they’d rather hear it from anyone else. He should get Hughes to do this.

“Hey,” he inexplicably finds himself saying into the phone. “It’s me.”

“Ed?” asks Winry. “Why are you calling? Are you trying to banish me from the country again?”

“Just checking in, for fuck’s sake. Just—look, Lizard’s okay, right?”

“He’s fine. Checking in? Ed, you’re being weird. What’s wrong with you?”

“…Nothing new.”

“Mhmm. I don’t believe you for a second. By the way, I have made you, Edward Elric, the most amazing arm ever. I’m a genius. Everyone’s jealous. When are you coming to pick it up?”

“If the world doesn’t end—”

“The world had better not end. Do you know how many hours I spent on that automail? Don’t you dare tell me that was a waste of time. In fact, why are you talking to me? Get back to work, Ed.”

Click.

Ed stares at the phone for a while, eventually notices he’s kind of grinning at it. He nods, hangs up, picks the phone back up and dials again.


Hey, it’s me.

It’s who?

Come on, you remember me. I killed your dad that time.

…How did you get this number?

Don’t worry about it, hey, if you ever thought about visiting Xing? Now would be a really great time.

Wha—I mean—are you threatening—

The country’s blowing up or something.

What!?


Hey, it’s me.

The…Demon Alchemist?

Yeah. So the country’s blowing up.

Where did you go!? I can’t believe you just left me here, you just left, you, you, you—

Okay, sorry, whatever. Country’s blowing up. Focus for a second, shit.


Hey, it’s me.

You. You’re dead to me.

Yeah, I figured that, but listen…


Xing? But D, why can’t I go to Creta?

Wherever, that’s fine. Just not Amestris.

So I can come back in a month? Exactly?

Around a month. I gave you some leeway.

Less than a month, then? Three weeks? Three weeks and a day? Two days?

A month. A fucking month, Sal, why is this so hard?


So you’re paying for this vacation, are you, little Demon?

Don’t call me little, fucker, and yeah, if I survive—

Which seems deeply improbable. Just how likely is it that I’ll get my money?

Not all that likely. But hey, if you wanna stay here and die in a hideous, gruesome—

All right, all right. You’re so much trouble.

You are such a dick. It’s not like I’m asking you to help.

Perish the thought.


Hey, it’s me.

…Kid.

If, uh. So I sort of told some people that you’d meet ‘em in Rizembool and take ‘em out of the country with you. That okay? You’re taking Vanessa and them anyway, right? So, y’know, what’s a few more?

Does Roy know about this?

No. But, I mean, he can. I don’t give a shit. Whatever.

Where in Rizembool? When?

Awesome, so there’s this lady named Pinako, and shit, it scares me how much you’re gonna love her…


Ed carefully hangs up the phone and backs out of the booth, eyes on the dial like it might turn into a snake. He thinks about calling Granny Pinako, but no. This way’s more fun, and besides…

Just no.

Two more steps backward, then he shakes himself and turns to walk down the street, go meet up with Hawkeye and Roy and whoever, get on with the End Times.

That whole phone thing. That was weird. Needed to be done though, right? Right. Turned out pretty okay and everything. Considering.

He’s definitely gonna have nightmares about it. Fuck.

* * *

Apparently all the Civil Unrest wasn’t so much Civil Unrest as it was Roy and Hughes and the general Armstrong scheming their guts out. This means the citizens of Central are even bigger suckers than Ed thought.

Entire city played by Roy Mustang. Lame.

That piece of information aside, the chat with Hawkeye was, like Ed expected, basically pointless. All politics and no apocalypse, how is this his problem? And everybody’d made up their minds already, anyway; they just wanted Ed to smile and nod. Right, cuz he’s such a pro at being a yes-man. What the fuck?

Goddamn military, it seriously warps people’s brains. They could just go out and get stuff done, but oh no. Gotta have a fucking meeting first.

So today, two days from the end of the world, they’re having yet another fucking meeting at yet another one of Hughes’s infinite safe houses. This time Hughes swore and promised they’d actually do something afterward, but Ed’s starting to suspect he’s full of shit. People been talking for an hour, nothing’s happened. Ed’s bored.

He doesn’t get this. Didn’t they all agree not to wait for the actual Promised Day, since that’d be stupid? They did. And yet. Fucking talking forever.

And there’re goddamn strangers all over the freakin’ place, whose genius idea was that? What kind of fail conspiracy is it when everybody including the guys you’re overthrowing knows what you’re up to? The hell.

Even the ones who aren’t strangers are kinda…well, frankly, Ed doesn’t like their looks. The weird Rebecca woman’s here with a military crowd, Hawkeye’s granddad passed by, some concerned citizen types with pitchforks and shit are lurking around. They none of them know what the fuck they’re talking about, but they all got somethin’ to say.

At least the Briggs guys are off bashing heads in, so somebody’s doing something smart. Ed almost wishes he were with them. Except they don’t need him, they got it under control. It’s best Ed sticks with the softy patrol here to make sure they don’t call the whole thing off cuz it’s inhumane or whatever.

The Xing girl (Ed did eventually find her), said she’d come, but she hasn’t. Most reasonable thing she’s done for a while; Ed’s still not real clear on what the fuck she thinks she’s doing in Amestris.

People never make any kind of sense, it’s depressing.

Roy’s talking. Something about monsters and justice and the beauty of humanity. Saving the country. Puppies and candy canes. Blah blah blah. People are buying it, too, like the tools they are.

That said, it is fun to watch Roy get his guys all fired up, like a magician’s trick. It doesn’t work on Ed—he’s basically a burnt-out match when it comes to shit like that—but that doesn’t mean he can’t see the art of it. The art of building people up and calming them back down, pulling them out of the hole when they’re at rock bottom. Pretty cool.

Personally, Ed likes to comfort himself with such reflections as everybody dies and at least I’m still bleeding blood. He gets that that wouldn’t be so much, you know, comforting for most people. But whatever works.

Bottom line: cool or not, Roy’s inspirational speeches have nothing to do with Ed, so he wanders off. He’s bored. Nobody’s looking his way anyway. He may as well go take down Pride while they’re all blathering. It’ll be efficient.

* * *

Problem with that being, first he’s gotta figure out where Pride is. Lucky him, though. He’s got connections.

“Freak. Don’t give alcohol to minors.”

Chris gives him her deeply unimpressed look, which is the one she’s best at. Her and Hawkeye, one as unimpressed as the other. “Did I just catch the Demon Alchemist obeying a law?”

Ed shrugs. “There’s no fun in it if you break all the laws. You gotta break ‘em at random and keep people guessing. Besides, that shit stunts your growth.”

Chris murmurs something that might be, “Well, you can’t afford that,” as she whisks away the drink, but Ed chooses to ignore it for the sake of the peace. Also because when you come right down to it, he’s sort of afraid of Chris.

“How’s my son?” she asks.

“He’s a pain in the ass, is what he is,” Ed tells her. “Was it his upbringing?”

“My, aren’t we burning bridges today?”

Fuck. If she actually came out and mentioned it, then Ed will pay. Not today. Later. When he’s least expecting it.

“Sorry,” he says, knowing it’s not gonna save him.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asks.

“Nothing, I’m fantastic, totally enjoying the End Times. What’s wrong with you that you gotta keep asking?” Damn, he’d be better off just cutting his tongue out himself. “Pretend I didn’t say any of that. I got a question.”

She scowls at him, then shrugs and grabs the rag to wipe down glasses like she expects to be bored. Like nothing Ed throws at her is gonna bother her, cuz for sure she’s seen worse. Ed’s always admired her—is there a word for it? That fuck you, fuck this, fuck everything thing she does. Fatalism. There you go.

“I’m looking for the fuhrer’s son,” he says. “Just wondered if you had a clue. I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“You think you can kill a homunculus by yourself?”

She doesn’t have to be so blatantly dubious about it. “Did it before.”

“Hm,” she says, wiping glasses and thunking them down along the bar. Wipe, wipe, thunk. Wipe, wipe, thunk. “You’ve never had it easy, have you, kid?”

Oh, what the fuck is this? Whatever, yeah, life hasn’t been kind to Ed. So what? Ed hasn’t been kind to himself, either. “I’m fine. Mind your own damn business. Do you know where he is or don’t you?”

She thunks down her last glass and rummages under the bar. She’s got fucking everything under there. Wouldn’t surprise Ed if she had a stockpile of Philosopher’s Stones just for the hell of it.

She fishes out a picture of the Pride kid and a map. “Sightings,” she says. “Probably meaningless, though. He used to pretend to be a normal kid, so he was usually at home or school. Who knows where he is now?”

Holy shit. Be prepared, yeah? Spend enough time with Chris, it kind of explains everything that’s wrong with Roy.

Ed looks at the picture, and yeah, he’d recognize this little bastard even if he didn’t know a name to put to him. Something about the blank eyes, maybe. Something about the fake smile, the one that says everybody else’s game isn’t his problem.

For the most part, people are all playing the same game, playing by the same rules. Basic politeness, not pissing in the street, not killing everybody who irritates you, that kinda thing.

Yeah. That’s most people, but there are a few assholes like the ones Ed kills. Like this homunculus kid. Those guys, they say fuck it, they’ll do whatever they want, play their own game by their own rules.

And that’s fine. They can do that.

Can I play, too?

Ed grins at Chris. “Hey, thanks.”

“He’ll probably be with the fuhrer’s wife,” she says, watching his face, waiting for something.

Ed taps the picture against the bar and frowns. “She know what he is?”

“I don’t know,” Chris says. “But she loves him.”

“Huh.” Ed tilts the picture to look at the kid’s face again and tries to wrap his mind around that. Homunculus husband. Homunculus son. A woman who actually loves them both. But maybe it’s not so surprising. If Ed’s learned one thing from hunting down scumbags, it’s that most mothers can love just about anything. He’s not sure if that’s creepy or awesome.

It doesn’t stop him from killing anybody, though. “Sucks to be her. You’re leaving town tonight, right?”

Chris scowls. Ed doesn’t know what the hell her problem is now.

* * *

He can’t find the kid. He’s got a picture, he’s got a fucking map, and he still can’t find the kid. That is just plain sad. Embarrassing, too, cuz he’s gonna have to go back to Roy and troops now, and they’ll be like, “Where were you?” and instead of being able to say, “Kicking homunculus ass,” he’s gonna have to say, “Wandering aimlessly around Central pissing people off for no reason.”

Well, no, actually he’s gonna stare belligerently and refuse to answer and feel like a spastic little kid. But if he did answer, the answer would be lame.

By the time he gets back to the house, most everybody’s bailed, except for a little group hanging around in front of the door. Mysterious errands, who knows. And there’s some new guy there, looming over Roy like a man mountain.

“Who’s the freakishly huge guy?” Ed asks Hughes, eyeing said freakishly huge guy. He may actually be bigger than Armstrong. It’s not natural. “Or, I dunno, what is the freakishly huge guy?”

Hughes jumps a foot when Ed starts talking to him, and that’s gratifying, anyway. “Ah. Ed! We wondered where you’d gone off to.”

Ed shrugs and stares belligerently and feels like a spastic little kid. Hughes sighs, but lets it go. “That’s Basque Gran, the Iron Blood Alchemist.”

“Right.” Ed considers him again. This guy would be seriously hard to bring down. Ed’s not sure what those arrays do, but between the general look of them and the title, he figures it involves pointy hunks of metal. Yikes. Best bet would probably be to get behind the guy and go for the eyes.

Gran’s got a scar on his face, too. It’s not as cool as Ed’s. “He’s fucking enormous. How’d Scar miss him?”

“Perhaps Scar was distracted by you,” Hughes says.

“Huh.” Maybe Ed accidentally-indirectly saved this enormous guy’s life. How completely weird. “Okay. You said something was happening after your stupid fucking meeting, and everybody’s gone, so I guess it’s over. Now what?”

“We’re attacking the Father,” Hughes says proudly.

Ah, good. Ed’s not gonna have to charge in there alone and die stupidly, which was his plan if they didn’t do something today. Now he can charge in with a whole bunch of people and they can all die stupidly. Rock. “What’s this we?”

Hughes pouts. Hughes is nuts. “Fine. You and Roy and Gran are attacking the Father. Happy now? Hawkeye and I are going to wait outside and make sure the civilians don’t, ah. Become overly enthusiastic.”

Overly enthusiastic, huh? Ed grins. “Right.”

“Ah, Elric. There you are.” Roy.

“Hey.” Ed nods at Roy, but doesn’t bother acknowledging the huge guy. He’s kind of annoyed they’re taking a stranger. “I hear today’s the big finale. Make or break. Fuhrer or bust.”

Roy disapproves at him. “Catalina and her troops should be downtown by now, helping Briggs attack the capitol building and create a distraction. Once we’re in the lab, Hughes will meet up with my team, and they’ll keep an eye on the outside world.”

“Uh, okay.” Apparently Ed’s gonna get meetinged at no matter what. He wishes they’d stop confusing him with someone who gives a shit.

“What do you plan to do, Elric?”

“Tag along.” Did he seriously fucking ask that question? Because even Hughes knows the answer to it already. Roy seems to forget who found out about all this shit in the first place. Besides, Ed made a deal with Hawkeye. He figures if he keeps Roy alive until the end of the world, she can’t say he didn’t hold up his end. “See the sights.”

“Sounds fun. Can I come, too?”

Ed spins. Shit, he’s slipping, how many people have snuck up on him lately? Too fucking many.

And this time it’s Hohenheim. That definitely adds insult to injury.

“You! Where the fuck have you been?” He could ask how Hohenheim found the place, too, but he’s a little worried that Hohenheim’s been keeping track of him. And if he has, Ed doesn’t want to know. Too weird.

Hohenheim’s giving him fretful dad looks. It’s like he’s trying to goad Ed into attacking him. “Are you…feeling better?”

This puzzles Ed for a second, but then he remembers that the last time Hohenheim saw him close up, he was probably like. Pinned down by Armstrong and snarling on the floor or something. And Hohenheim left anyway. “Fuck you,” Ed tells him. “I said where’ve you been?”

“I’ve been preparing.” Hohenheim smiles like there’s something to smile about.

Ed scowls back, which is irrational, since that’s exactly what he’d hoped the jackass was doing. “Preparing what?”

Hohenheim takes this time to explain that the father guy can short out Amestrian alchemy. Wouldn’t that’ve been nice to know anytime before now?

“So we’re fucked,” Ed says.

“If that happens, I should be able to handle him on my own, but—”

“But obviously you’ve never checked, yeah yeah yeah. How about Xingian alchemy?”

“It should have no effect on—”

“Then we’re taking the Xing girl, if—Hughes. Hughes, you’re a giant fucking stalker, find the Xing girl.”

Hughes raises eyebrows at him, looks all amused. Then he points.

Xing girl, twenty feet to the left. So she came after all.

This is like the day of embarrassing.

“Shut up,” Ed tells Hughes, who hasn’t actually said anything. “I’m having a shit day because it’s the end of the world. Cut me some slack.”

Hughes laughs at him. If Ed weren’t so busy with the aforementioned world ending, he might have to pound the crap out of the guy. But duty, you know, it calls.

The Xing girl marches up to him and scowls like the brat she is. He shares his good news anyway cuz he’s magnanimous like that. “I know a guy with a Philosopher’s Stone,” he says. “Wanna come get it?”

“You do have a way with words,” Roy murmurs as the Xing girl folds her arms and scowls harder. Ed ignores him.

“Is it this Father person you told me about?” she demands.

“Right.”

She gazes speculatively around at the gang. “I’ll come,” she decides eventually. Sounding not all that sure about it.

Ed smirks triumphantly at Roy. He can totally talk people into doing stupid shit; Roy doesn’t have a monopoly on it. “Hey, Lan Fan, you’re coming, too, right? Ling’ll probably be there. You gotta wait ‘til after the showdown to kill Mei, though, cuz I need her.”

Lan Fan drops out of the tree where she’s been listening to pretty much this whole conversation and nods. Everybody jumps including Hughes, it’s nice. See? Ed notices stuff. He notices when people are in trees, because trees are the logical place to go, being all high and hidden and with a great view. Why are people always walkin’ around on the ground?

Ed’s not the one who’s crazy.

Anyway, Lan Fan’s been following him for days (she must’ve been totally out of ideas to sink that low), so he knows to check for her.

“Okay, let’s walk and talk. And you.” Ed turns to Hohenheim. “I wanna hear this plan you came up with, cuz it’s still tough to believe you didn’t spend your whole life working fulltime on being a massive asshole.”

“Elric.” Roy’s scolding him. Roy, who should be staying the fuck out of it cuz it’s got nothing to do with him. And besides, he has a weird relationship with his parent, too; he can’t talk.

“Stay the fuck out of it,” Ed tells him. Roy starts to argue, but Hughes plucks at his sleeve and smiles at him, some mystery Hughes smile. Whatever. Point is, it shuts Roy up. Hughes is sometimes useful. And everybody else is minding their own damn business like they’re civilized.

“If my plan works out,” Hohenheim says, “I may have a request for you afterward.”

That is so not an answer to the question. Ed has to remind himself that it’s actually impossible to break this guy’s face. “I don’t owe you shit.”

“Of course you don’t. But it’s a request you may enjoy.”

“A fuckin’ request? Like what, and by the way, in what world do we have time for this?”

“We have a moment. As for the request, if I survive…well. I’ve been alive for a very long time. I understand fixing that problem is your area of expertise.”

Ed blinks for a second, just straight up confused. Then it hits him what his crazy-ass, worthless fucking excuse for a father is asking for, here.

“I’m not gonna kill you as a personal favor, you sick fuck.”

“Don’t call your father those names. And you tried to kill me the first time you met me in Central.”

“That was then, this is now. It was an accident, anyway.”

“Accident?”

“Yeah, remember how I’m batshit? I kind of wander around blowing stuff up and wreaking havoc and killing people in general, no idea what I’m doing half the time.” Ed can hear Roy making choking noises. Bastard. “God, you’re such an asshole. First you’re like, ‘You’d kill your dear old dad?’ all pathetic, and now you’re like, ‘Kill your old dad.’ I mean, what the fuck.”

“I’m reasonably sure this fight will kill me. But if it doesn’t—”

“Yeah, sorry if you’re disappointed, it’ll be tragic. Still not my problem.”

“Hm. We can address that if we come to it. In the meantime….”

Hohenheim shares his plan, if you can call it that. Sounds kinda like one of Ed’s plans, in the way it boils down to kill everything, hope it works out. Maybe this proves they’re related.

Or maybe Hohenheim’s holding out. That’s obviously what Roy thinks; he’s got his suspicious-constipated face on.

“Fine,” Ed says to shut Hohenheim up. They’ve made it to the lab now and there’s no point in dicking around outside. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy anyway, so let’s go with it.”

Roy’s staring with his mouth open. That’s right, jerk, I can read boring-ass military theory books as well as the next guy. “We gonna kill these guys or what?” Ed asks.

There are three guards outside the lab. Everybody else is probably off trying to keep the general Armstrong from destroying Central (total lost cause there). Only three. That’s easy enough.

“We’re not killing them, Elric,” Roy says all horrified. What must he have been like before Ishbal? Talk about babe in the woods.

“Okay, sunshine,” Ed says. “Are we gonna explain the error of their ways before or after they shoot you in the head, Roy Mustang, AWOL traitor guy?”

At this point, the huge guy steps up, smashes his fists together, and shoots fucking chains across the kill zone, wrapping up the guards like presents.

Ed turns and looks at the guy—properly looks at him, not just threat evaluation—for the first time. “Okay,” he says. “That was actually kind of awesome.”

The huge guy smiles. “Years of practice,” he says.

Ed’s glad Roy brought this Gran character along, after all.

“On that note,” Hughes says, “I am fleeing the scene. Lieutenant Hawkeye and I will come looking for your corpses if you don’t contact us within twenty-four hours.”

“Why bother? If we die, then you’re only gonna be a few hours behind us.”

“Keep smiling, Ed,” Hughes says, backing off with a wave. “Roy, don’t do anything Hawkeye wouldn’t let you do.” He pauses for one moment of seriousness. “Good luck.”


Part 4