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[fic] As Virtuous Men Pass Mildly Away, pt.1 [Fullmetal Alchemist]
I know, f-list. I know. I am so sorry that I have ADD when it comes to fics and fandoms. At least you can have a reasonable expectation that I will one day go back and finish my unfinished fics? So sorry, so sorry. Also, this shouldn't drag out. I'm expecting three parts, max.
So now watch my ride my one-trick pony into the sunset. NEIGH NEIGH NEIGH
Edward Elric will not die.
He refuses. Dying is for old people, for adults, for mothers to make you sad. Dying isn't for young people. Dying isn't for him. Dying when you're young is a damn cheat, that's what it is, and he just doesn't want to go through it. If life is the toll to get to the other side of the gate then that's just plain cheating, right? He gave up the easy way a long time ago for a good reason--
"But you've never let such small moral offenses stop you before, have you, Fullmetal?"
"Fuhrer, sir," Edward spits, "I think you're being a bit of an insensitive bastard, don't you?"
Mustang smiles and inspects his nails. His only saving grace is that maybe that smile isn't really that amused, but hey, Edward is determined not to think about that because--
"Well if you're so convinced that you're not going to die, Fullmetal," Mustang drawls, eyes just as mischievous as they were twenty years ago.
"I'm not, you know."
"So," Mustang sighs, "I don't think I'm being insensitive at all. I mean, if you're really not dying, then you're being extremely dramatic, and when Edward is being dramatic then hunting season is open. Which is to say, hunting season is always open."
"You are an asshat and I want to poke out your eyeballs all over again."
"You'd have to get out of bed to do that," Mustang points out helpfully.
"You know, Mustang, you're right. I am so glad that no matter how low I get in life-- orphaned or crippled or in my deathbed --you are always around to give me a little perspective."
"Oh?"
"Yup. It's real nice to know that no matter what, you'll always be the world's greatest fuckface. It's a comforting constant in my ever transient life."
Roy Mustang, almighty fuhrer, smirks and gives Edward a little wink. "Atta boy." And then he gets up, pats Ed's unfeeling left leg, and leaves.
"Your face is stupid, too," Ed calls out after his back. Mustang waves off the insult to his mustache and the door closes behind him.
Edward heaves a sigh and a groan and closes his stupid tired eyes and lets his stupid tired neck relax. Outside closed windows he hears the stupid wind do its howl and rattle the trees and swirl the leaves up from the ground. Honestly he would like very much to get up right now and sneak out through this window, seeing as how he can't just barge out of the door because stupid fucking Mustang has it guarded because he apparently thinks Ed is a stupid fucking idiot. (Which he is, whispers a more sensible part of his brain, but that part of him has always been rather-- "Small?" sneers his personal, mental Roy Mustang --INSIGNIFICANT is the word. Mostly he's kind of a genius and geniuses don't need trivial hindrances such as sensibilities.)
But alas, the room is on the third floor and any escape attempts in his current condition would doubtlessly result in-- well. It seems Roy Mustang plans for all things. If he were less of a son of a bitch then maybe Edward could appreciate the sheer immensity of all of Mustang's forethought. Unfortunately he is a son of a bitch, and so Edward spends his time being pissed off and bored in a hospital room with very thin walls. He takes it out on the nurse because it's a male nurse and if Edward really is dying, couldn't they have spared some pretty young thing to lean over his prone form? Then Ed thinks of what his wife would do if somehow she could sense these disloyal thoughts and he gets even more pissed off (and a little scared). A vicious cycle, really.
Of course, Mustang doesn't visit personally very often. He's a busy man, after all, running the country and whatnot. In fact, according to him-- "Don't be mistaken, Fullmetal. I wouldn't come this far South just to say hi to some washed-up child genius turned unemployed retiree-- really, how do you support your ludicrous lifestyle? --in fact I am here on official business for a while. I might drop in because I do need a good chuckle now and again, but don't expect me and please, try to refrain yourself from asking for me. And remember to drink your milk to get big and strong. Bye now."
Remembering this (fairly one-sided conversation) makes Ed's belly churn in festering hate. He really has to find a way to get that pig back. But the point is that Ed rarely gets visitors because, honestly, he can't be bothered to broadcast the news of his hospitalization. It's not like he's really going to die; that much he has already decided due to many reasons, some more logical than others and at least two already mentioned. (One being that he isn't a cheater [anymore] and two being that he really can't have Roy Mustang of all people have the last laugh.) In any case, Alphonse is all the way in Xing and Winry is doing her work over in Rush Valley and okay, maybe he is scheduled to call Winry and give her an update as to when she should expect him home in oh, about two days, but that's plenty of time to get better, isn't it? (Well, it's due any time now because he's been bedridden for nearly two weeks and it is driving him absolutely fucking nuts.)
In fact... only Mustang really knows where he is and how he's doing (this in his infinite boredom does he grudgingly admit to previously mentioned male nurse, mister, er, Frank or Fannie or some F name, whatever). It has occurred to him if he dwells too long that maybe he really is dead and for all of his sin and blasphemy he was sent by God to hell, and hell is a stark white room and uncooperative body and poorly written books to pass the time, and the only people he ever sees are: this bland male nurse who is supremely uninterested in famous people and by extension Edward fucking Elric, the Fullmetal, formerly the Fullmetal Alchemist; a doctor who is far, far too enthusiastic about everything that moves and shakes hands just a little too long with everyone he meets; and motherfucking Roy goddamn Mustang. Seriously, that is the perfect recipe for hell.
Edward comforts himself by taking the time to laugh at his Hell Recipe. Maybe one day when Mustang is the one on his deathbed because of his advanced case of geriatricness, Edward, full and fit and most definitely not dead, will visit every fucking day with a new witty insult and sell Mustang this Hell Recipe so that the evil bastard can get in good with the Devil and advance in the ranks of the demons. It'll be a good deed because there is nothing Roy Mustang likes more than to get in good, so to speak, and for this good deed Edward will go to Heaven. It's a foolproof plan for when and if Ed decides to die. Which is not now. Just clarifying there.
Edward keeps forgetting to ask how Mustang knows. Well, he is the Fuhrer, and he knows Edward far too well, so perhaps Mustang has some nation-wide secret law that if any patient by the name of Edward Elric checks in to a hospital then the doctors have to immediately inform the government or something. Or maybe the creeper is having Ed followed somehow. Or maybe-- and Ed likes this theory the best because it seems most plausible --maybe Roy Mustang just has this huge invisible antennae or natural sense for suffering and it draws him like a magnet. Then the scientist in Edward further extrapolates on this theory by supposing Mustang must have developed this sense because he actually feeds on sadness and despair, especially that of children, and that's how he found Edward in the first place some twenty-five years ago. After that Edward just became a favorite meal to the world's greatest fuckface and so doggedly Mustang pursued and nagged and leashed and jerked Edward around in the hopes of specifically cultivating this most exquisite and satisfyingly deep suffering. It would explain why Mustang seemed bit thinner since Edward left the military. (Other explanations include his imagination or stress, but they don't ring as nicely.)
Point being that it's a little strange that Mustang knew where Edward was and came to visit without being told. Even Edward hadn't anticipated this hospitalization because, much like his mother, say, thirty years ago-- one minute he was feeling a little under the weather, maybe coughing, maybe sweating under the South's blazing sky, and the next moment every vestige of strength suddenly and startlingly left his body, and he was tasting dirt and the other folks on the street were asking him if he was alright. (And alright, he was scared. Because he couldn't find the strength to answer any of them back.)
Now for hours he is left alone in a small white hospital room. It's a quaint little town where even the doctors have accents like Izumi's and Cid's. Edward is used to hospitals. The food here is better than elsewhere. What isn't better is the damn doctor, who Edward is convinced is a complete hack and a fool. Ed thinks this because when he woke up, the doctor explained a few things and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Elric. You have a terminal illness and blah blah blah", some stupid shit after that about minimizing suffering. But the moment the fuhrer entered Ed's hospital room was the moment Edward's suffering never had a chance to be minimized, only expanded upon.
So yeah, Edward thinks that the doctor is full of shit and he told him so to his face. The doctor took it well enough which bugged Ed, but Ed had more important people to shout at.
Mustang mostly leaves baskets with a lot of fruit Ed doesn't happen to like and flowers that smell sickeningly sweet and cards that say 'Get Well Soon'. When confronted over this, Mustang laughed mockingly and said, "Never satisfied, are you, Fullmetal?"
If only Ed felt strong enough to wring his neck. A damn shame. As soon as he recovers, though. In the meantime Ed ponders that which Mustang said in his visit today. Mustang said, "Sure, I know you're not dying. I get it, Fullmetal, really I do. But any time you're hospitalized, the general idea is to phone your folks."
"Did you at my age call your auntie every time your nose ran?"
"Yes."
"Liar."
"A bit of, yes. All the same."
Well Ed doesn't think it's really worth mentioning. He's been way worse off in his life. Pain is his game. In two days he'll call Winry as planned... Say hi to the kids... And now with this plan he sleeps worry-free.
Sometime in the night, far past the point where he could possibly be annoyed by the clicking of nurse shoes or the rattling cough of his next door neighbor, Ed is awake and he counts his breaths. He counts because he remembers a very singular and vivid moment in the haze of childhood when Alphonse said, "She isn't breathing anymore."
There is something even today about the particular way the lamplight fell over cramped text and intricate lines in an old, dusty tome he must have read thrice before That Moment. He remembers holding this book and instead of being entranced by the words, he was amazed by the weight of the thing in his hands. He felt the pressure coming down into his palms and spent his time thinking of that, of all the pressures in the world, and what it must feel like to be earth which holds everything upon it. Now why such an inane thought would take him over he does not know, or rather, did not know for the longest time and figured it with only half-hearted certainty much, much later.
You see, the breakthrough moments, the a-ha moments, the stark and paintable imprints of the mind, including That Moment-- Ed figures those were moments when he thought not of the past or of the future but waited-- a wait of minutes or mere split seconds --waited with an empty mind and neither speculation nor relation, and the moment was painted on the blank canvas of his mind. So, then, the book: volume two of Seymour's Intermediate Alchemy for the Modern Man and His Concerns. Edward marveled at it's weight without guessing what it meant or could mean.
The concept makes sense in his head, anyway, and he has never been good at explaining, but-- the point is that he did not think of other heavy things from the past and he did not think of heavy things to come, and he did not think of the heavy weight of his mother's prone body in the bed beside him. He sat at the end of the bed, by her feet, and Al sat beside her, hip brushing her white forehead.
Edward could have looked at her darkened cheeks or her limp hair or her closed, red-skinned eyes. He could have looked at her pale fingers where they were rubbed gently by an equally absent-minded Alphonse. He could have looked at Alphonse, even, at the way he maintained such close contact, at the way he stared down at his own book with unmoving eyes. But Edward looked at his book without much thinking, and he and his brother merely waited. All speak of memories had run its' course, as had speculations of the future. Now only they awaited That Moment.
It was Al who first pierced that lonesome night with a casual "What time is it?" Ed might some other day have responded, 'Dont you have eyes?'. That Time he twisted his neck and peered at the shadowed face of the clock.
"It's just in the morning... I didn't realize..."
Al said something vague and they both separately felt strange since no adult had told them to sleep. They had said they wanted to be by her side, and for some reason the request had been heard and granted, when before not even temper tantrums or the cusps of alchemical breakthrough would ever allow them up past eight thirty at its latest.
"I slept at nine," Ed admitted. Al didn't return a time. Had he slept at all? Did he really have such fortitude? Edward felt ashamed both as Al's older brother and as the son of the woman so quietly asleep now. And she really was quiet, wasn't she?
And that was That Moment. The kind of still-photo image, the paintable imprint, that lasts and lasts in the memory of Edward. He reckons he remembers it so strongly because to be an alchemist, you must be part scientist and part artist. That artist side of him saw something worth keeping.
This: Alphonse: small in wrinkled clothing; one leg folded, the other stretched out, book laid out along his thigh; head tilted and bowed, drawn to their mother's form below; face drawn, tired, contemplative, and something maybe darker. Mother: still, quiet; thin collarbones and the start of the line of her breasts exposed in the drooping flip of a worn pajama collar-- something a little risqué to that, some barrier of parent-child propriety crossed --hair grasping along pillow like a filthy, many-armed creature clutching for dear life; her lips no longer pink but the same tired gray of the rest of her. Even her fingers and her nose and her eyelids lost their color from the last time he had looked. Mother's hand laid, relaxed, palm up and fingers curving lightly upward-- Al's met them halfway, the lightest of touches. Suddenly Ed became aware both of how very dim the lamp was and how very cold the room felt.
Then Al ducked his head a bit farther, neck straining, brows knitted seriously. He watched her lips as he blindly marked his book, and Ed waited for that split second.
Alphonse said, "She isn't breathing anymore."
It was almost, almost like relief-- that peculiar tone of Al's hushed words. He stared down at her as if suspiciously disbelieving that it was really over. Like, what now? What's the trick to death? He looked up at Ed as if searching his opinion on a particularly perplexing equation, and Ed, ever the scientist, experimented. He reached under the blankets and touched their mother's feet in the way that usually made her squeal, but she did nothing. He withdrew and rubbed the freeze from his fingers into the blankets. Al lifted her hair gently and rubbed it between his fingers, as if the feel of it could tell him the Truth about death.
"Oh," Ed said finally when Al had dropped their mother's dirty bangs and clenched his hands on top of the closed cover of his book. "Oh," Ed said.
They were quiet long moments and at last Alphonse hiccuped and sniffed and began to sob and moan in grief before his eyes had mustered the tears. As her body laid before him, Ed thought, Where has mother gone? Soon, though, he could not think if he wanted to, because Al kept on and on and worked himself into a howling mess. Now his tears caught up and poured over his red face, down to lips stretched tight over teeth gnashed in agony. His grief dripped into his mouth and he flung himself from the bed. His book fell from his lap and thunked loudly on the floor, and while Granny Pinako shouted down below, mother did not so much as flinch. The noise startled Al and he wailed ever louder, crouching in the corner of the room and hiding his face. He pressed his hands to his eyes as if to erase the lingering outline of their mother in the dark of his eyelids.
"Shush, Al!" Ed said harshly, as if his noise might really wake the dead. "Shush, will you!"
Pinako came in without hurry, wrapped in her nightgown and hair falling in creased crinkles. She'd left her glasses elsewhere, probably on the bedside table. She toddled over with hands clasped behind her back and leant over the bed. She took a good long look at Ed and Al's mother before sighing an adult sigh and tugging up the bed sheet over the dead woman's face. Only then did Ed realize he was on his feet like the bed had burned him.
He felt much like running out of the door. He felt like punching Al. He felt like ripping every page from every book he owned, because nothing in those books would save her. He felt like destroying all the furniture that had been his father's, because he wasn't here to save her either.
With a long, sad face, Pinako tugged and tugged on Al's shoulders until he stood, and then she held her arm out for Ed, and Ed reluctantly stepped forward. She kept both of them close as she led them out of the room. Ed looked over his shoulder one last time to see his mother: a raised lump under yellowed bedsheets.
The nurse looked up from the foot of the stairs. Pinako nodded. When they passed her by, the nurse started up the stairs. Alphonse howled some more while Pinako fixed them mugs of hot chocolate. Finally he quieted down enough to stare sullenly at his puff-faced reflection in the mug, and it was when Al no longer cried that tears caught up to Edward. They did so in the middle of his first sip, and violently so, so that he spat out the warmth from the force of his choking throat. He cried so violently that his chocolate got tainted with snot and he felt his head would explode or he would run out of oxygen. Al only stared; neither of them, in all their lives before, then, or after, felt particularly comfortable crying when the other cried. The only time they cried together was at her funeral just a few days later...
Ed stares up at the ceiling of the hospital thirty years from That Moment and tries not to think that his mother was much younger when she died than he is now. Her children were much younger than his. Her children ended up orphaned while his would still have their mother. In this dark night now with the wind moaning like a man in pain and him by his lonesome, he feels hot tears begin to well...
--and he fights them down, because maybe somewhere in the great broad world, his brother is crying, too.
"On your way back, then, Pa?" his daughter says as soon as she knows who she's talking to on the phone. Ed takes a few deep breaths but stops because it makes him nauseous, but in that pause he still doesn't know what to tell her. She's twelve now. Same age as when he became a State Alchemist and began to travel the country. He's not completely sure why this is occurring to him now.
"Sure am," he says, and that alone makes up his mind. He won't lie to his kid.
"Cool," she says casually. Then, more excitedly, "So when's your next trip? Can I come with you next time?"
Ed huffs, but a grin stretches his face. "I haven't even gotten home from this one yet!"
"I know," she says, all innocence disappointed.
"Put ma on," Ed grouses fondly. Her voice comes again distantly as she holds the phone away to yell "Maaaaa!"
"She's coming."
"Love you."
"Love you too." A shuffling noise comes over the line, then Winry says, "Ed?"
"Yep."
"It's about time!" she yells. Ed hisses and holds the speaker away. He still hears her loud and clear as she launches into a full scale barrage of berates, because apparently he was supposed to call her last Tuesday. He makes up some excuse like, "Dammit, Winry, how am I supposed to keep track, you know I'm on the road!"
He tells her his visit to Aerugo went well. He didn't get shot at once, which is really something for an Amestrian down there. Winry doesn't find that funny in the very least so Ed tells her it's okay, he was tired of her laughing at his pain whenever Rush Valley auto mail mechanics saw his leg, and so he stole her sense of humor and left it in Aerugo. She can go get it if she wants.
He also asks if there is a letter for him from Alphonse. There is not.
At last Winry says, "See you later, then."
"Goodbye," Ed says.
"Not goodbye," Winry insists.
Ed, disproportionately startled by such a simple statement, stutters in his response. "Yes, er, right. You're right. S-see you later."
He hangs the phone perhaps a bit more heavily than he intended, hand too tired to hold up. He wipes his brow and curses the heat for making him so light-headed. Grudgingly he lowers himself back into his wheelchair and the young man Mustang has posted to him rushes forward with a smile to cart Edward back to that godforsaken white room.
"No, no," Ed snaps when faced with going back there. "Elsewhere!"
"Uhm..." The young man looks around as if expecting Mustang to jump from behind the nearest trashcan at any moment. "I'm supposed to--"
"By the Fuhrer's orders?"
"Yes, sir--"
"What is this, a dictatorship? And that cockmuncher dares think he'll ever get back his 520 cenz!"
"Please, sir--"
"And what the hell are you calling me 'sir' for? I'm retired, or haven't you heard?"
"Sorry, er, Mr. Fullmetal--"
Ed crosses his arms and glares up at the poor sweating enlisted man. It's not this guy's fault that Mustang thinks he still controls Ed's every movement, but Ed nevertheless takes some small pleasure in bullying him. Really-- guards? Okay, so probably he was a bit reckless the day after Mustang's first visit and charged out of the hospital and collapsed all over again, but that was no reason to lock a man up against his will.
"If you don't take me elsewhere, I'll get up and go myself!" Ed hisses.
The poor pig breaks a sweat. "M-Mr. Fullmetal, His Excellency the Fuhrer ordered me to--"
"The gazebo I saw from my window will be adequate," Ed says, pointing in the general direction.
Edward spends the day under the gazebo because he is known as Fullmetal, and Fullmetal always gets what he wants.
Also because he always gets what he wants: he tells the doctor the very next day thanks for nothing, he has to be getting home to his family. He's no deadbeat-- it doesn't take him ten years to return home-- the doctor doesn't quite understand, but Ed doesn't feel like explaining to a jackass that knows very little in any case. The simpleton just goes back to smiling as he waves goodbye to Ed's back.
The damn guards try to stop him, but Edward needs only a few choice words to get them to back down-- something like, "Your hand. Off my arm. Unless you want to be the second person I have ever made fist his own ass." --and voila, he walks down the road, suitcase tucked under his arm and traveling coat donned. He really is much better, he reasons; he makes it all the way to the train station with nary a sway or stagger, and he certainly does not faint again.
Ed hunkers down on a bench to wait for the next train. In one hand is the last fourteen-page letter he received from Alphonse, in the other a waffle-to-go that gets a fine dust of white sugar all over his black shirt. The letter is part one of Al's most recent escapades in some sort of religious monastery in Xing. He writes, 'It is a shame you weren't there. I mean, a monastery? That's just too easy. It really called for some sort of wacky hijinks, but unfortunately I am just too respectful. Sometimes I feel like being the responsible brother is quite the burden. Now you? I'm sure if you were here, there'd be millions in damage, a horde of angry warriors, and maybe a pack of chickens escaped into the wild to make good. As it were, it only happened in my fond imagination.
'I had a very peaceful time learning about an incredible technique in which the fighting monks here strike a place on the body and disable certain bodily functions. It's really quite remarkable, astonishing even, and I can't wait to see you again next summer to fully demonstrate it. Until then, if it pleases you my brother, the last eight pages of this letter are notes I have taken and diagrams I have drawn.
My stay in the mountains with Mei...'
"Did you call your folks, then, Fullmetal?"
Edward nearly drops the last of his waffle in surprise, but holds on to it long enough to register that it's purpose would be best served by throwing it at the approaching Roy Mustang. Mustang dodges the chewed-up waffle as casually as he dodges paperwork and, without breaking eye contact, slides down to sit beside Ed. Edward in turn huffs and stretches out, purposefully taking up quite a bit of bench space. He stows his hands in his pocket and looks away, because he isn't speaking to his jailor, dammit.
"What's this?" Mustang asks, voice a shade gentler. He points to the letter opened and balanced over Ed's stomach. "A letter from family?"
"Alphonse," Ed grunts, figuring he can break his resolve of two seconds ago if the subject is Al, not the hospital or anything they spoke of there.
"May I?"
"Go ahead."
Mustang plucks the letter from Ed's belly and snaps it to stiff the paper. As he reads it, a grin forms slowly, and he merely skims over the manual, far more interested in the words of brother to brother. "It is well-loved," he comments at last.
Ed smiles a bit, too. "It's a few months old by now. We send four letters a year whenever he visits Xing, since it takes so long to deliver."
"He really loves that country, then, does he?"
"Positively slobbers over it," Ed agrees.
"He's involved with one of their princesses, right?"
"He insists to this very day that they are merely partners. Traveling partners, research partners, what have you."
Mustang chuckles. "Even still?"
Edward slides open one eye to glare, unaware of what point he closed them. "Al's just a player-- much like you at his age."
"Edward! I'm hurt...!" --but he's grinning, rubbing a hand idly through his goatee, possibly remembering the good old times when he was not an old fart with the responsibility for an entire nation.
"Oh! That's right, I'm sorry," Ed says in a high voice, mockingly waving his hand as if Mustang's old lechery still stinks rotten to this day. "At least Al is a gentleman about it!"
"Why you little..."
They pause then in a fond, easy quiet. Edward leans back against the bench and looks forward to sleeping on the train. Mustang folds his hands and smiles despite the nipping wind. He's wearing civvies and it puts Ed at ease for some reason. In the far off distance, the train whistle sounds, and nearby, leaves slither and rattle across concrete.
"So when will you be writing him back?" Mustang asks at last, face turned to the direction of the coming train.
"Already did," Ed grunts. He's rather sleepy. Damn this overcast winter sky. "I'm waiting for his winter letter. Should be here anytime soon, I expect." Then pointedly he says, "It'll arrive at my home. So I should be there. You know. Home."
"Sure, sure," Mustang says amiably, nodding in agreement. Then with eyes a little sharper he turns his head and levels with Ed. "When you respond to that one, you might want to make mention of your time in the hospital. What do you think?"
Ed sits up straight and snatches his letter from the bench. He folds it up again and stuffs it into his luggage before getting abruptly to his feet. "I think you're not my damn CO anymore," Ed hisses. "And neither are you my parent. I admit I respect you, but we're barely even friends. I think you need to stay out of my business. I'm not going to die, I'm hardly even sick! I'll tell my family what I want!"
The fuhrer holds up his hands and ducks his head, sad smile infuriatingly affixed. "Sure, sure, Ed."
"And don't you fucking contact them, either, Roy--" Ed is shaking his finger at the man, feeling heat pulse in his face. "It's not something you need to meddle in, you damn-- you-- you meddler!"
"You're right, Ed," Mustang acquiesces with a sigh. "It's not my place."
Thrown off by this too-easy capitulation, Ed simmers down into a light suspicion. The trains rolls in. The steam pours out. Edward tears his eyes away from the lined face of Roy Mustang and reaches for his luggage, but Roy Mustang's hand gets there first. The fuhrer so graciously lifts his luggage for him and leads to the nearest door. Ed, unfooted in what he had believed to be his own territory, follows with a cautious quiet.
As it happens, the fuhrer has no alternative or wicked scheme up his sleeve. Simply he loads Ed's luggage up for him and Ed, grateful but still prideful, says nothing. They exchanged handshakes, and Mustang grasps Ed's right elbow tightly, bracingly.
"Take care of yourself, Ed?"
"Why is that a question?" Ed mutters darkly but without bite.
"Stop in for tea sometime."
"Never fun drinking tea with you."
"Whiskey, then," Mustang corrects, smiling.
"You betcha," Ed returns with a roguish wink.
Then Mustang, hands still clutched around Ed's own, looks down as if in defeat, and it sends a disturbed shudder up Ed's spine. The man says lowly, "Or at least call."
"Whiskey," Ed reassures. "Next time I catch you in Central."
"Sure, Ed. Sure."
Ed withdraws from his grasp, not terribly sorry to be away from the sudden gloom and the tightness in his own chest. "See ya."
"Goodbye."
"No, not goodbye."
Mustang looks back up, a very human wetness in his eyes. His lips twist halfway between his old smirking swagger and the sweet gentleness of farewell. "See you, Fullmetal."
Edward finds his seat and sinks down into it with a groan. He closes his eyes until he feels the train start to move. At that moment he sits straight up, and as soon as he looks out the window he makes eye contact with Roy. His old-- friend, sure, friend-- Ed's old friend gets farther and farther away, smaller and smaller. Ed salutes lazily. The fuhrer salutes back.
Then Mustang becomes King Roy as his subordinates melt from the corners of the shadows and hurry him away for some important business. Mustang does not look over his shoulder at the train. Edward pulls back from the window and sleeps.
They part.
So now watch my ride my one-trick pony into the sunset. NEIGH NEIGH NEIGH
Title: As Virtuous Men Pass Mildly Away
Rating: PG-13 for death themes and coarse language
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Characters: Edward Elric, mostly, with a lot of Roy Mustang and a smidgeon of Winry Elric and Alphonse Elric.
Summary: "Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun." // Edward Elric refuses to die. [Post-series.]
Notes: Recommended side materials: (poem) A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by John Donne; (song) I'll Follow You Into the Dark by Death Cab for Cutie (I prefer the youtube user cover by katethegreat19, but that's just me.)
Edward Elric will not die.
He refuses. Dying is for old people, for adults, for mothers to make you sad. Dying isn't for young people. Dying isn't for him. Dying when you're young is a damn cheat, that's what it is, and he just doesn't want to go through it. If life is the toll to get to the other side of the gate then that's just plain cheating, right? He gave up the easy way a long time ago for a good reason--
"But you've never let such small moral offenses stop you before, have you, Fullmetal?"
"Fuhrer, sir," Edward spits, "I think you're being a bit of an insensitive bastard, don't you?"
Mustang smiles and inspects his nails. His only saving grace is that maybe that smile isn't really that amused, but hey, Edward is determined not to think about that because--
"Well if you're so convinced that you're not going to die, Fullmetal," Mustang drawls, eyes just as mischievous as they were twenty years ago.
"I'm not, you know."
"So," Mustang sighs, "I don't think I'm being insensitive at all. I mean, if you're really not dying, then you're being extremely dramatic, and when Edward is being dramatic then hunting season is open. Which is to say, hunting season is always open."
"You are an asshat and I want to poke out your eyeballs all over again."
"You'd have to get out of bed to do that," Mustang points out helpfully.
"You know, Mustang, you're right. I am so glad that no matter how low I get in life-- orphaned or crippled or in my deathbed --you are always around to give me a little perspective."
"Oh?"
"Yup. It's real nice to know that no matter what, you'll always be the world's greatest fuckface. It's a comforting constant in my ever transient life."
Roy Mustang, almighty fuhrer, smirks and gives Edward a little wink. "Atta boy." And then he gets up, pats Ed's unfeeling left leg, and leaves.
"Your face is stupid, too," Ed calls out after his back. Mustang waves off the insult to his mustache and the door closes behind him.
Edward heaves a sigh and a groan and closes his stupid tired eyes and lets his stupid tired neck relax. Outside closed windows he hears the stupid wind do its howl and rattle the trees and swirl the leaves up from the ground. Honestly he would like very much to get up right now and sneak out through this window, seeing as how he can't just barge out of the door because stupid fucking Mustang has it guarded because he apparently thinks Ed is a stupid fucking idiot. (Which he is, whispers a more sensible part of his brain, but that part of him has always been rather-- "Small?" sneers his personal, mental Roy Mustang --INSIGNIFICANT is the word. Mostly he's kind of a genius and geniuses don't need trivial hindrances such as sensibilities.)
But alas, the room is on the third floor and any escape attempts in his current condition would doubtlessly result in-- well. It seems Roy Mustang plans for all things. If he were less of a son of a bitch then maybe Edward could appreciate the sheer immensity of all of Mustang's forethought. Unfortunately he is a son of a bitch, and so Edward spends his time being pissed off and bored in a hospital room with very thin walls. He takes it out on the nurse because it's a male nurse and if Edward really is dying, couldn't they have spared some pretty young thing to lean over his prone form? Then Ed thinks of what his wife would do if somehow she could sense these disloyal thoughts and he gets even more pissed off (and a little scared). A vicious cycle, really.
Of course, Mustang doesn't visit personally very often. He's a busy man, after all, running the country and whatnot. In fact, according to him-- "Don't be mistaken, Fullmetal. I wouldn't come this far South just to say hi to some washed-up child genius turned unemployed retiree-- really, how do you support your ludicrous lifestyle? --in fact I am here on official business for a while. I might drop in because I do need a good chuckle now and again, but don't expect me and please, try to refrain yourself from asking for me. And remember to drink your milk to get big and strong. Bye now."
Remembering this (fairly one-sided conversation) makes Ed's belly churn in festering hate. He really has to find a way to get that pig back. But the point is that Ed rarely gets visitors because, honestly, he can't be bothered to broadcast the news of his hospitalization. It's not like he's really going to die; that much he has already decided due to many reasons, some more logical than others and at least two already mentioned. (One being that he isn't a cheater [anymore] and two being that he really can't have Roy Mustang of all people have the last laugh.) In any case, Alphonse is all the way in Xing and Winry is doing her work over in Rush Valley and okay, maybe he is scheduled to call Winry and give her an update as to when she should expect him home in oh, about two days, but that's plenty of time to get better, isn't it? (Well, it's due any time now because he's been bedridden for nearly two weeks and it is driving him absolutely fucking nuts.)
In fact... only Mustang really knows where he is and how he's doing (this in his infinite boredom does he grudgingly admit to previously mentioned male nurse, mister, er, Frank or Fannie or some F name, whatever). It has occurred to him if he dwells too long that maybe he really is dead and for all of his sin and blasphemy he was sent by God to hell, and hell is a stark white room and uncooperative body and poorly written books to pass the time, and the only people he ever sees are: this bland male nurse who is supremely uninterested in famous people and by extension Edward fucking Elric, the Fullmetal, formerly the Fullmetal Alchemist; a doctor who is far, far too enthusiastic about everything that moves and shakes hands just a little too long with everyone he meets; and motherfucking Roy goddamn Mustang. Seriously, that is the perfect recipe for hell.
Edward comforts himself by taking the time to laugh at his Hell Recipe. Maybe one day when Mustang is the one on his deathbed because of his advanced case of geriatricness, Edward, full and fit and most definitely not dead, will visit every fucking day with a new witty insult and sell Mustang this Hell Recipe so that the evil bastard can get in good with the Devil and advance in the ranks of the demons. It'll be a good deed because there is nothing Roy Mustang likes more than to get in good, so to speak, and for this good deed Edward will go to Heaven. It's a foolproof plan for when and if Ed decides to die. Which is not now. Just clarifying there.
Edward keeps forgetting to ask how Mustang knows. Well, he is the Fuhrer, and he knows Edward far too well, so perhaps Mustang has some nation-wide secret law that if any patient by the name of Edward Elric checks in to a hospital then the doctors have to immediately inform the government or something. Or maybe the creeper is having Ed followed somehow. Or maybe-- and Ed likes this theory the best because it seems most plausible --maybe Roy Mustang just has this huge invisible antennae or natural sense for suffering and it draws him like a magnet. Then the scientist in Edward further extrapolates on this theory by supposing Mustang must have developed this sense because he actually feeds on sadness and despair, especially that of children, and that's how he found Edward in the first place some twenty-five years ago. After that Edward just became a favorite meal to the world's greatest fuckface and so doggedly Mustang pursued and nagged and leashed and jerked Edward around in the hopes of specifically cultivating this most exquisite and satisfyingly deep suffering. It would explain why Mustang seemed bit thinner since Edward left the military. (Other explanations include his imagination or stress, but they don't ring as nicely.)
Point being that it's a little strange that Mustang knew where Edward was and came to visit without being told. Even Edward hadn't anticipated this hospitalization because, much like his mother, say, thirty years ago-- one minute he was feeling a little under the weather, maybe coughing, maybe sweating under the South's blazing sky, and the next moment every vestige of strength suddenly and startlingly left his body, and he was tasting dirt and the other folks on the street were asking him if he was alright. (And alright, he was scared. Because he couldn't find the strength to answer any of them back.)
Now for hours he is left alone in a small white hospital room. It's a quaint little town where even the doctors have accents like Izumi's and Cid's. Edward is used to hospitals. The food here is better than elsewhere. What isn't better is the damn doctor, who Edward is convinced is a complete hack and a fool. Ed thinks this because when he woke up, the doctor explained a few things and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Elric. You have a terminal illness and blah blah blah", some stupid shit after that about minimizing suffering. But the moment the fuhrer entered Ed's hospital room was the moment Edward's suffering never had a chance to be minimized, only expanded upon.
So yeah, Edward thinks that the doctor is full of shit and he told him so to his face. The doctor took it well enough which bugged Ed, but Ed had more important people to shout at.
Mustang mostly leaves baskets with a lot of fruit Ed doesn't happen to like and flowers that smell sickeningly sweet and cards that say 'Get Well Soon'. When confronted over this, Mustang laughed mockingly and said, "Never satisfied, are you, Fullmetal?"
If only Ed felt strong enough to wring his neck. A damn shame. As soon as he recovers, though. In the meantime Ed ponders that which Mustang said in his visit today. Mustang said, "Sure, I know you're not dying. I get it, Fullmetal, really I do. But any time you're hospitalized, the general idea is to phone your folks."
"Did you at my age call your auntie every time your nose ran?"
"Yes."
"Liar."
"A bit of, yes. All the same."
Well Ed doesn't think it's really worth mentioning. He's been way worse off in his life. Pain is his game. In two days he'll call Winry as planned... Say hi to the kids... And now with this plan he sleeps worry-free.
Sometime in the night, far past the point where he could possibly be annoyed by the clicking of nurse shoes or the rattling cough of his next door neighbor, Ed is awake and he counts his breaths. He counts because he remembers a very singular and vivid moment in the haze of childhood when Alphonse said, "She isn't breathing anymore."
There is something even today about the particular way the lamplight fell over cramped text and intricate lines in an old, dusty tome he must have read thrice before That Moment. He remembers holding this book and instead of being entranced by the words, he was amazed by the weight of the thing in his hands. He felt the pressure coming down into his palms and spent his time thinking of that, of all the pressures in the world, and what it must feel like to be earth which holds everything upon it. Now why such an inane thought would take him over he does not know, or rather, did not know for the longest time and figured it with only half-hearted certainty much, much later.
You see, the breakthrough moments, the a-ha moments, the stark and paintable imprints of the mind, including That Moment-- Ed figures those were moments when he thought not of the past or of the future but waited-- a wait of minutes or mere split seconds --waited with an empty mind and neither speculation nor relation, and the moment was painted on the blank canvas of his mind. So, then, the book: volume two of Seymour's Intermediate Alchemy for the Modern Man and His Concerns. Edward marveled at it's weight without guessing what it meant or could mean.
The concept makes sense in his head, anyway, and he has never been good at explaining, but-- the point is that he did not think of other heavy things from the past and he did not think of heavy things to come, and he did not think of the heavy weight of his mother's prone body in the bed beside him. He sat at the end of the bed, by her feet, and Al sat beside her, hip brushing her white forehead.
Edward could have looked at her darkened cheeks or her limp hair or her closed, red-skinned eyes. He could have looked at her pale fingers where they were rubbed gently by an equally absent-minded Alphonse. He could have looked at Alphonse, even, at the way he maintained such close contact, at the way he stared down at his own book with unmoving eyes. But Edward looked at his book without much thinking, and he and his brother merely waited. All speak of memories had run its' course, as had speculations of the future. Now only they awaited That Moment.
It was Al who first pierced that lonesome night with a casual "What time is it?" Ed might some other day have responded, 'Dont you have eyes?'. That Time he twisted his neck and peered at the shadowed face of the clock.
"It's just in the morning... I didn't realize..."
Al said something vague and they both separately felt strange since no adult had told them to sleep. They had said they wanted to be by her side, and for some reason the request had been heard and granted, when before not even temper tantrums or the cusps of alchemical breakthrough would ever allow them up past eight thirty at its latest.
"I slept at nine," Ed admitted. Al didn't return a time. Had he slept at all? Did he really have such fortitude? Edward felt ashamed both as Al's older brother and as the son of the woman so quietly asleep now. And she really was quiet, wasn't she?
And that was That Moment. The kind of still-photo image, the paintable imprint, that lasts and lasts in the memory of Edward. He reckons he remembers it so strongly because to be an alchemist, you must be part scientist and part artist. That artist side of him saw something worth keeping.
This: Alphonse: small in wrinkled clothing; one leg folded, the other stretched out, book laid out along his thigh; head tilted and bowed, drawn to their mother's form below; face drawn, tired, contemplative, and something maybe darker. Mother: still, quiet; thin collarbones and the start of the line of her breasts exposed in the drooping flip of a worn pajama collar-- something a little risqué to that, some barrier of parent-child propriety crossed --hair grasping along pillow like a filthy, many-armed creature clutching for dear life; her lips no longer pink but the same tired gray of the rest of her. Even her fingers and her nose and her eyelids lost their color from the last time he had looked. Mother's hand laid, relaxed, palm up and fingers curving lightly upward-- Al's met them halfway, the lightest of touches. Suddenly Ed became aware both of how very dim the lamp was and how very cold the room felt.
Then Al ducked his head a bit farther, neck straining, brows knitted seriously. He watched her lips as he blindly marked his book, and Ed waited for that split second.
Alphonse said, "She isn't breathing anymore."
It was almost, almost like relief-- that peculiar tone of Al's hushed words. He stared down at her as if suspiciously disbelieving that it was really over. Like, what now? What's the trick to death? He looked up at Ed as if searching his opinion on a particularly perplexing equation, and Ed, ever the scientist, experimented. He reached under the blankets and touched their mother's feet in the way that usually made her squeal, but she did nothing. He withdrew and rubbed the freeze from his fingers into the blankets. Al lifted her hair gently and rubbed it between his fingers, as if the feel of it could tell him the Truth about death.
"Oh," Ed said finally when Al had dropped their mother's dirty bangs and clenched his hands on top of the closed cover of his book. "Oh," Ed said.
They were quiet long moments and at last Alphonse hiccuped and sniffed and began to sob and moan in grief before his eyes had mustered the tears. As her body laid before him, Ed thought, Where has mother gone? Soon, though, he could not think if he wanted to, because Al kept on and on and worked himself into a howling mess. Now his tears caught up and poured over his red face, down to lips stretched tight over teeth gnashed in agony. His grief dripped into his mouth and he flung himself from the bed. His book fell from his lap and thunked loudly on the floor, and while Granny Pinako shouted down below, mother did not so much as flinch. The noise startled Al and he wailed ever louder, crouching in the corner of the room and hiding his face. He pressed his hands to his eyes as if to erase the lingering outline of their mother in the dark of his eyelids.
"Shush, Al!" Ed said harshly, as if his noise might really wake the dead. "Shush, will you!"
Pinako came in without hurry, wrapped in her nightgown and hair falling in creased crinkles. She'd left her glasses elsewhere, probably on the bedside table. She toddled over with hands clasped behind her back and leant over the bed. She took a good long look at Ed and Al's mother before sighing an adult sigh and tugging up the bed sheet over the dead woman's face. Only then did Ed realize he was on his feet like the bed had burned him.
He felt much like running out of the door. He felt like punching Al. He felt like ripping every page from every book he owned, because nothing in those books would save her. He felt like destroying all the furniture that had been his father's, because he wasn't here to save her either.
With a long, sad face, Pinako tugged and tugged on Al's shoulders until he stood, and then she held her arm out for Ed, and Ed reluctantly stepped forward. She kept both of them close as she led them out of the room. Ed looked over his shoulder one last time to see his mother: a raised lump under yellowed bedsheets.
The nurse looked up from the foot of the stairs. Pinako nodded. When they passed her by, the nurse started up the stairs. Alphonse howled some more while Pinako fixed them mugs of hot chocolate. Finally he quieted down enough to stare sullenly at his puff-faced reflection in the mug, and it was when Al no longer cried that tears caught up to Edward. They did so in the middle of his first sip, and violently so, so that he spat out the warmth from the force of his choking throat. He cried so violently that his chocolate got tainted with snot and he felt his head would explode or he would run out of oxygen. Al only stared; neither of them, in all their lives before, then, or after, felt particularly comfortable crying when the other cried. The only time they cried together was at her funeral just a few days later...
Ed stares up at the ceiling of the hospital thirty years from That Moment and tries not to think that his mother was much younger when she died than he is now. Her children were much younger than his. Her children ended up orphaned while his would still have their mother. In this dark night now with the wind moaning like a man in pain and him by his lonesome, he feels hot tears begin to well...
--and he fights them down, because maybe somewhere in the great broad world, his brother is crying, too.
"On your way back, then, Pa?" his daughter says as soon as she knows who she's talking to on the phone. Ed takes a few deep breaths but stops because it makes him nauseous, but in that pause he still doesn't know what to tell her. She's twelve now. Same age as when he became a State Alchemist and began to travel the country. He's not completely sure why this is occurring to him now.
"Sure am," he says, and that alone makes up his mind. He won't lie to his kid.
"Cool," she says casually. Then, more excitedly, "So when's your next trip? Can I come with you next time?"
Ed huffs, but a grin stretches his face. "I haven't even gotten home from this one yet!"
"I know," she says, all innocence disappointed.
"Put ma on," Ed grouses fondly. Her voice comes again distantly as she holds the phone away to yell "Maaaaa!"
"She's coming."
"Love you."
"Love you too." A shuffling noise comes over the line, then Winry says, "Ed?"
"Yep."
"It's about time!" she yells. Ed hisses and holds the speaker away. He still hears her loud and clear as she launches into a full scale barrage of berates, because apparently he was supposed to call her last Tuesday. He makes up some excuse like, "Dammit, Winry, how am I supposed to keep track, you know I'm on the road!"
He tells her his visit to Aerugo went well. He didn't get shot at once, which is really something for an Amestrian down there. Winry doesn't find that funny in the very least so Ed tells her it's okay, he was tired of her laughing at his pain whenever Rush Valley auto mail mechanics saw his leg, and so he stole her sense of humor and left it in Aerugo. She can go get it if she wants.
He also asks if there is a letter for him from Alphonse. There is not.
At last Winry says, "See you later, then."
"Goodbye," Ed says.
"Not goodbye," Winry insists.
Ed, disproportionately startled by such a simple statement, stutters in his response. "Yes, er, right. You're right. S-see you later."
He hangs the phone perhaps a bit more heavily than he intended, hand too tired to hold up. He wipes his brow and curses the heat for making him so light-headed. Grudgingly he lowers himself back into his wheelchair and the young man Mustang has posted to him rushes forward with a smile to cart Edward back to that godforsaken white room.
"No, no," Ed snaps when faced with going back there. "Elsewhere!"
"Uhm..." The young man looks around as if expecting Mustang to jump from behind the nearest trashcan at any moment. "I'm supposed to--"
"By the Fuhrer's orders?"
"Yes, sir--"
"What is this, a dictatorship? And that cockmuncher dares think he'll ever get back his 520 cenz!"
"Please, sir--"
"And what the hell are you calling me 'sir' for? I'm retired, or haven't you heard?"
"Sorry, er, Mr. Fullmetal--"
Ed crosses his arms and glares up at the poor sweating enlisted man. It's not this guy's fault that Mustang thinks he still controls Ed's every movement, but Ed nevertheless takes some small pleasure in bullying him. Really-- guards? Okay, so probably he was a bit reckless the day after Mustang's first visit and charged out of the hospital and collapsed all over again, but that was no reason to lock a man up against his will.
"If you don't take me elsewhere, I'll get up and go myself!" Ed hisses.
The poor pig breaks a sweat. "M-Mr. Fullmetal, His Excellency the Fuhrer ordered me to--"
"The gazebo I saw from my window will be adequate," Ed says, pointing in the general direction.
Edward spends the day under the gazebo because he is known as Fullmetal, and Fullmetal always gets what he wants.
Also because he always gets what he wants: he tells the doctor the very next day thanks for nothing, he has to be getting home to his family. He's no deadbeat-- it doesn't take him ten years to return home-- the doctor doesn't quite understand, but Ed doesn't feel like explaining to a jackass that knows very little in any case. The simpleton just goes back to smiling as he waves goodbye to Ed's back.
The damn guards try to stop him, but Edward needs only a few choice words to get them to back down-- something like, "Your hand. Off my arm. Unless you want to be the second person I have ever made fist his own ass." --and voila, he walks down the road, suitcase tucked under his arm and traveling coat donned. He really is much better, he reasons; he makes it all the way to the train station with nary a sway or stagger, and he certainly does not faint again.
Ed hunkers down on a bench to wait for the next train. In one hand is the last fourteen-page letter he received from Alphonse, in the other a waffle-to-go that gets a fine dust of white sugar all over his black shirt. The letter is part one of Al's most recent escapades in some sort of religious monastery in Xing. He writes, 'It is a shame you weren't there. I mean, a monastery? That's just too easy. It really called for some sort of wacky hijinks, but unfortunately I am just too respectful. Sometimes I feel like being the responsible brother is quite the burden. Now you? I'm sure if you were here, there'd be millions in damage, a horde of angry warriors, and maybe a pack of chickens escaped into the wild to make good. As it were, it only happened in my fond imagination.
'I had a very peaceful time learning about an incredible technique in which the fighting monks here strike a place on the body and disable certain bodily functions. It's really quite remarkable, astonishing even, and I can't wait to see you again next summer to fully demonstrate it. Until then, if it pleases you my brother, the last eight pages of this letter are notes I have taken and diagrams I have drawn.
My stay in the mountains with Mei...'
"Did you call your folks, then, Fullmetal?"
Edward nearly drops the last of his waffle in surprise, but holds on to it long enough to register that it's purpose would be best served by throwing it at the approaching Roy Mustang. Mustang dodges the chewed-up waffle as casually as he dodges paperwork and, without breaking eye contact, slides down to sit beside Ed. Edward in turn huffs and stretches out, purposefully taking up quite a bit of bench space. He stows his hands in his pocket and looks away, because he isn't speaking to his jailor, dammit.
"What's this?" Mustang asks, voice a shade gentler. He points to the letter opened and balanced over Ed's stomach. "A letter from family?"
"Alphonse," Ed grunts, figuring he can break his resolve of two seconds ago if the subject is Al, not the hospital or anything they spoke of there.
"May I?"
"Go ahead."
Mustang plucks the letter from Ed's belly and snaps it to stiff the paper. As he reads it, a grin forms slowly, and he merely skims over the manual, far more interested in the words of brother to brother. "It is well-loved," he comments at last.
Ed smiles a bit, too. "It's a few months old by now. We send four letters a year whenever he visits Xing, since it takes so long to deliver."
"He really loves that country, then, does he?"
"Positively slobbers over it," Ed agrees.
"He's involved with one of their princesses, right?"
"He insists to this very day that they are merely partners. Traveling partners, research partners, what have you."
Mustang chuckles. "Even still?"
Edward slides open one eye to glare, unaware of what point he closed them. "Al's just a player-- much like you at his age."
"Edward! I'm hurt...!" --but he's grinning, rubbing a hand idly through his goatee, possibly remembering the good old times when he was not an old fart with the responsibility for an entire nation.
"Oh! That's right, I'm sorry," Ed says in a high voice, mockingly waving his hand as if Mustang's old lechery still stinks rotten to this day. "At least Al is a gentleman about it!"
"Why you little..."
They pause then in a fond, easy quiet. Edward leans back against the bench and looks forward to sleeping on the train. Mustang folds his hands and smiles despite the nipping wind. He's wearing civvies and it puts Ed at ease for some reason. In the far off distance, the train whistle sounds, and nearby, leaves slither and rattle across concrete.
"So when will you be writing him back?" Mustang asks at last, face turned to the direction of the coming train.
"Already did," Ed grunts. He's rather sleepy. Damn this overcast winter sky. "I'm waiting for his winter letter. Should be here anytime soon, I expect." Then pointedly he says, "It'll arrive at my home. So I should be there. You know. Home."
"Sure, sure," Mustang says amiably, nodding in agreement. Then with eyes a little sharper he turns his head and levels with Ed. "When you respond to that one, you might want to make mention of your time in the hospital. What do you think?"
Ed sits up straight and snatches his letter from the bench. He folds it up again and stuffs it into his luggage before getting abruptly to his feet. "I think you're not my damn CO anymore," Ed hisses. "And neither are you my parent. I admit I respect you, but we're barely even friends. I think you need to stay out of my business. I'm not going to die, I'm hardly even sick! I'll tell my family what I want!"
The fuhrer holds up his hands and ducks his head, sad smile infuriatingly affixed. "Sure, sure, Ed."
"And don't you fucking contact them, either, Roy--" Ed is shaking his finger at the man, feeling heat pulse in his face. "It's not something you need to meddle in, you damn-- you-- you meddler!"
"You're right, Ed," Mustang acquiesces with a sigh. "It's not my place."
Thrown off by this too-easy capitulation, Ed simmers down into a light suspicion. The trains rolls in. The steam pours out. Edward tears his eyes away from the lined face of Roy Mustang and reaches for his luggage, but Roy Mustang's hand gets there first. The fuhrer so graciously lifts his luggage for him and leads to the nearest door. Ed, unfooted in what he had believed to be his own territory, follows with a cautious quiet.
As it happens, the fuhrer has no alternative or wicked scheme up his sleeve. Simply he loads Ed's luggage up for him and Ed, grateful but still prideful, says nothing. They exchanged handshakes, and Mustang grasps Ed's right elbow tightly, bracingly.
"Take care of yourself, Ed?"
"Why is that a question?" Ed mutters darkly but without bite.
"Stop in for tea sometime."
"Never fun drinking tea with you."
"Whiskey, then," Mustang corrects, smiling.
"You betcha," Ed returns with a roguish wink.
Then Mustang, hands still clutched around Ed's own, looks down as if in defeat, and it sends a disturbed shudder up Ed's spine. The man says lowly, "Or at least call."
"Whiskey," Ed reassures. "Next time I catch you in Central."
"Sure, Ed. Sure."
Ed withdraws from his grasp, not terribly sorry to be away from the sudden gloom and the tightness in his own chest. "See ya."
"Goodbye."
"No, not goodbye."
Mustang looks back up, a very human wetness in his eyes. His lips twist halfway between his old smirking swagger and the sweet gentleness of farewell. "See you, Fullmetal."
Edward finds his seat and sinks down into it with a groan. He closes his eyes until he feels the train start to move. At that moment he sits straight up, and as soon as he looks out the window he makes eye contact with Roy. His old-- friend, sure, friend-- Ed's old friend gets farther and farther away, smaller and smaller. Ed salutes lazily. The fuhrer salutes back.
Then Mustang becomes King Roy as his subordinates melt from the corners of the shadows and hurry him away for some important business. Mustang does not look over his shoulder at the train. Edward pulls back from the window and sleeps.
They part.