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batsutousaiTitle: Come What May
Series: Part one of Our Sinner's Redemption
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Darius/Edward Elric/Heinkel, pre-Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Warnings: Ed's potty mouth, spoilers for FMA:B ending, canon-typical violence, pile 'o OCs, survivor's guilt, angst, original character death, slow build (btwn Ed & Roy), referenced underage relationships, off-screen violence against women
Summary: After the Promised Day, with his alchemy still intact thanks to Hohenheim's sacrifice, Ed finds himself and his chimera team getting dragged into the shadowy world of military secrets in an attempt to keep Bradley's legacy from causing a civil war.
A/N: There is a side-story for this chapter, which can be found, as always, on Archive of Our Own or LiveJournal. It's Darius/Ed/Heinkel smut, so if that's not your cup of tea, go ahead and skip it.
As a reminder, you may wish to read the whole chapter first, to avoid any confusion. (It's following the first scene, so you can just skip off to read it right after that, if you want, tbh...)
Chapter Sixteen
-0-
Hunting down the last of the bombs didn't take long, and Ed rang Grumman after he'd dropped his note past the nearest police station for them to pick up the final group. "Clear," he said as soon as the line picked up.
"How clear?" Grumman requested, sounding as tired as Ed felt; he'd picked up a paper while they'd been in Dublith, and, yeah, people weren't happy about the south lines being shut down.
"If any more bombs pop up, this group never had them."
"I expect you know what happened to the missing weapons inventory paperwork," he said rather pointedly.
"If such a thing exists, I'm sure it'll make its way to you eventually," Ed allowed; he'd actually sent it out with one of Chris' ladies before dropping by the police station, since she'd found him before he got there, so Grumman should have it within a couple days. And then Ed would probably get a scathing letter back about destroying military property, but fuck the bastard, anyway.
Grumman sighed and said, sounding freakishly honest, "Good work, Lieutenant Colonel."
Ed...didn't quite know what to do with that – Grumman didn't praise him – so he fell back on the old safety net of, "Fuck you, sir," and hung up. And then he sort of stared at the phone and decided, "Bastard needs a holiday worse than I do," before shaking his head and returning to their car.
"Fotset?" Heinkel asked as Ed slid into the passenger side.
"Yes."
"No." Darius leant forward over the seat between them. "Celebration sex, then Fotset."
"You two have fun with that," Ed replied, relaxing against the cushioned back of the front bench. "I'm happy to watch."
Heinkel let out an amused snort while Darius turned narrowed eyes on Ed. "You promised me arse."
Ed pretended to think about that for a moment, using one hand to cover the grin he couldn't quite suppress. "I don't remember that promise," he announced once he no longer felt like he was about to start laughing.
Darius stared at him for a long moment, his eyes still narrowed, before he turned to Heinkel. "He's a liar."
"Pathological," Heinkel agreed, and Ed snorted as Darius shot him a victorious smirk. "We're not in a rush," Heinkel continued, "we can camp overnight, or aim for Syrell and get a hotel."
"Hotel," Ed insisted, and Darius fucking cackled. "I will punch you in the face."
"I'm strangely okay with that," Darius decided.
Heinkel blindly reached over and shoved him hard enough that Darius flopped back onto the back seat and the whole car shuddered with the motion. "No punching or you're both walking."
Ed cleared his throat, but Heinkel shot him a look that said he would regret it if he tried pulling rank, so Ed huffed and slouched in his seat. "No punching," he agreed.
"Groping, however..." Darius suggested.
"Keep your hands to yourself until we get into the hotel room," Ed ordered.
Darius sighed and very obviously changed tracks, asking, "Were there any groups along the route that you wanted to tackle?"
Ed considered that for a moment, going over his mental map of the intel Grumman had given him, as well as what he'd picked up since from the Dublith group and word of mouth. "If we're staying over in Syrell, there's a small group north that I heard about in Rush Valley. They're still sticking to the smaller villages, for the moment, but the fact that they heard about them in Rush Valley..."
"Do we know where, exactly, they're located?" Heinkel asked while Darius pulled out their map of the southern area.
Ed shook his head as he turned to lean over the back of the seat. "No, but we should be able to narrow it down in Syrell, if we take a few hours to snoop in the morning." He pointed between a few of the villages that were just barely big enough to be marked on the larger country map and the huddle of villages that only appeared on the area map, all of them to the south-west of Rush Valley. "Most of the thefts have been from the more southern towns, closer to Syrell, which makes sense, really, because no one in their right mind is going to try stealing from someone who lives that close to Rush Valley; even odds if they've got a gun hidden in their extremities or not."
"Automail users are weird that way," Darius agreed drily.
Ed rolled his eyes. "They're tacky and stupid as all shit; why bother with a gun in your arm when you can just own a regular gun and not chance the damn thing gumming up the works because a round didn't chamber properly or whatever?"
Darius snorted.
"Yes, I know you're trying to make fun of me, but I'm not that weird."
"Ed," Darius said, his eyes fairly glittering, "you used to turn your arm into a blade."
"Alchemy is something completely different from the bullshit those other automail weirdos screw around with."
"Right. So, alchemists are–"
"Shut the fuck up, monkey-brain," Ed ordered, and Darius flashed him a mean grin.
"Walking," Heinkel reminded them.
Ed raised his eyebrows at Darius, who grimaced and nodded; truce, for the moment.
He turned back to the map. "I'm hoping we'll pick up some better information in Syrell, maybe get an idea of where these fuckers are camped out."
"After two weeks without train service, I'm sure people have been going a little stir-crazy," Darius pointed out. "We're going to have to sift through a lot of misleading information."
Ed shook his head. "No." He tapped the marker for Syrell. "Crime sprees like that happen in big cities, places where people have the leisure time. We're heading for farmland; the only stir-crazy we'll be faced with is a lack of outside gossip, and I think we can solve that pretty well."
"You would know, wouldn't you, farm boy?"
Ed just stared at him.
Darius groaned. "Dammit, Heinkel! Would you stop putting a moratorium on our bickering?"
"I am not crashing the car because you two decided to come to blows," Heinkel informed them drily.
"I can fix the car," Ed pointed out.
"No," the chimeras chorused.
"Keep your 'cool' alchemy redesigns away from the car," Darius added.
"You arseholes have no sense of style."
"Says the idiot who ran around in a bright red coat while liberally pissing people off."
"Go fuck yourself."
"Both of you shut up!"
Ed huffed and turned back around in his seat to face front. "Darius is right," he muttered, "you suck all the fun out of our conversations."
The look Heinkel shot him made it clear he believed 'conversations' was entirely the wrong word.
From the back seat, over the sounds of the map being folded back up, Ed heard Darius snickering.
Arseholes, both of them.
They managed to take out a couple groups on their way to Fotset, taking their time getting out there, then spent a week collecting intel on the larger group down there before taking them out.
"It may be time," Ed commented as they went through the group's paperwork, about half of which was written in something other than Amestrisan, "that I picked up a few languages."
"I love how casually you say that, like learning a new language is as easy as taking someone home for the night," Darius muttered.
"Isn't it?"
Darius shot him a disgusted look.
Ed shrugged and ducked his head back down towards the paperwork to hide his grin. "I know it's not that easy. I only picked up a little bit from Ling–"
"Who Greed never let talk," Heinkel pointed out.
"You didn't sleep with them often enough," Ed muttered, because Greed had fairly regularly let Ling have control of their body back after he was sated, so long as Ed was the only one there, and Heinkel snorted while Darius outright laughed. "Shut up. He taught me a little bit."
"Pillow talk," Darius said to Heinkel in a stage whisper.
Ed threw a pen at him. "And I got Keith to teach me a little Cretan during our free time at the academy, but he kept insisting I take it slow because it's a 'hard language' or whatever."
"Is it?" Heinkel asked.
"I didn't think so."
"I may hate you a little bit," Darius informed him.
Ed flashed him a smirk. "Is monkey-brain jealous that mine is bigger than his?"
Darius flashed him a smirk right back. "I'll show you whose is bigger."
"Yours isn't that big," Heinkel deadpanned, and Ed couldn't help a laugh at the pathetic look Darius shot his fellow chimera.
"Muscles, Heinkel," Darius insisted, and Ed had to crouch down behind the desk he was searching and clutch his stomach, he was laughing so hard. "Why are you such a pervert?"
Ed couldn't see Heinkel's response, but from the way Darius started cackling, it was probably sufficiently disgusted.
He shook his head, still snickering to himself, and stood back up to continue going through the desk. Except he made the bad life choice of looking at Darius and found him doing that disturbing little dance with his eyebrows again and just...decided he needed to sit on the floor and laugh for a while.
Arsehole.
With the help of a Cretan dictionary and a native Aerugonian who'd immigrated to Amestris, they were able to use a couple of the papers they'd found to track down local groups and break up a weapons trade. Of course, Ed hadn't really banked on the Aerugonian knowing someone in one of the groups, and they ended up walking right into a fucking trap. Which, well, it wasn't the first time they'd been seen by one of these groups en route, but it was the first time they were expected and the idiots hadn't fled, and it showed in the hail of bullets that greeted them as soon as they came within range of the building.
Ed threw up an earthen wall for them to hide behind, and they sketched out quick plans in the mix of military hand signs and their own additions (which incorporated things like their chimera abilities and Ed's ever-evolving alchemy) that they always used in enemy territory.
While Ed hadn't got in the sort of practice he needed to feel secure actually using Mustang's flame alchemy, it hadn't taken him much to figure out how to affect the oxygen in the air, so while Darius and Heinkel split off to either side of the wall, into the low brush, Ed clapped his hands together and closed his eyes, turning his focus to drawing the oxygen away from the building.
The sounds of shooting were quickly replaced with people letting out panicked noises as they gasped for breath, and Ed let the alchemy go, so his team would be able to breathe when they went in – he didn't have quite the skills needed to keep them surrounded by a bubble of oxygen while depriving their opponents. And then he just sat there and took a moment to catch his own breath, because it was far from easy to pull a single element from an area when you didn't really know what that area looked like. By comparison, using an element to act as an ever-extending bridge for a spark was simple.
And he should probably tell that to Mustang next time he saw him, just for the expression he'd make.
He opened his eyes, only to find himself facing the muzzle of a handgun, which was being held by a boy who couldn't have been more than ten and looked half terrified. Ed slowly raised his hands in a sign of surrender and murmured, "Please put that down."
The boy shook his head. "No," he said, a hint of an Aerugonian accent to his voice. "I will be great honoured for killing the blond one."
Ed sighed and put on a flat look. "I don't want to hurt you, kid. Put it down."
He saw the moment the kid decided to fire and threw himself out of the way, leaving the bullet to lodge into the remainder of his earthen wall where his head had just been. In the distance, he thought he heard someone call his name, but he was more focussed on rolling to his feet and grabbing the gun with one hand, pointing it up so the next shot went uselessly into the sky, while he used his other hand to knock the kid out.
The kid slumped to the ground, leaving the gun in Ed's hand, and he'd just finished emptying all the bullets – he didn't like carrying loaded guns, okay, and he wasn't about to leave it with the kid – when something exploded from the other side of his wall.
He had a moment of frozen terror – it was still too close to the train bombs, to handling crates of explosives and pretending they weren't walking hand-in-hand with death – and then he spun and tore down his wall with a quick clap, started towards the building, the right half of which was a ruin of blackened wood and plaster, flames licking along the remainder. "Darius!" he shouted. "Heinkel!"
Heinkel stumbled out of the left half of the building, his glasses missing, bloody rips in his clothing, and a burn on his left forearm. He looked somewhere between furious and panicked, and Ed didn't need him to say anything to know Darius had been in the part of the building that had exploded.
He clapped and formed his carbon armour as he ran for the site, ducking through a giant hole in the front-facing wall just before his shirt finished hardening too much for him to easily do so. "Darius!" he called ahead, squinting into the smoky interior. Given the hole in the ceiling, it wouldn't take long for it to clear, even with the little fires still burning, but that still wasn't fast enough, so he clapped and activated an array that would give birth to a gust of wind, strong enough to clear out the smoke and put out a few of the small fires. (Also, strengthen a few others, but Ed really couldn't be arsed about that right that moment.) "Darius!"
A weak cough came from the far side of the room, and Ed vaulted over the fallen ceiling, dodged a struggling fire, and found Darius lying amid the remains of what looked to have once been a table and some kitchen cabinets. His trousers from his knees down and most of his boots were gone, leaving blistered burns behind, and he had blood on his face, which Ed couldn't tell the exact origin of.
"Fuck," he breathed.
Darius' mouth twitched, like he was trying to smile, and Ed couldn't quite hold back a noise of relief.
Still, there was no way Ed could move Darius on his own, and a quick glance at the way his little shelter had fallen showed he was either going to need some fancy alchemy or a second set of hands, so he shouted, "He's alive! I need your help!"
Heinkel appeared through the same hole Ed had used after a moment, his burned arm wrapped in the remains of his shirt. He took a second to get his bearings, then moved with far more care than Ed had across the room. When he reached them and saw Darius, he snarled, "Shit."
Ed clenched his jaw and nodded; that was a pretty good way to put it. "Hold the table so I can get the worktop before it falls," he ordered, because it looked like the table was bracing the stone worktop, miraculously; it had probably saved Darius' life.
And, fuck him, Ed could not deal with how close they'd come, how close they could still be; awake enough to try smiling or not, he had no idea the full extent of the damage, and Darius could be fucking bleeding out while he was debating how to unbury him safely. He needed to be doing something, not thinking. Anything but thinking.
As soon as Heinkel had a good grip on the table, Ed clapped and shifted the worktop to either side, folding over on itself until there was no chance it might land on Darius if it fell. He had Heinkel move the table, kneeling to brace the remainder of the cabinets, just in case, then used alchemy to get that out of the way once he was certain it wasn't about to fall apart if he wasn't bracing it.
Finally, they could see Darius' middle. He had a few of the same small cuts as Heinkel, but there was also a deep gash in his side, which was bleeding sluggishly.
Ed clapped and pulled the carbon away from his right arm, then ripped off the sleeve of his button-up and wadded it up before pressing it tight to Darius' side.
Darius let out a weak grunt.
"Don't fucking die on me, you arsehole," Ed snarled. "Heinkel, check his head for whatever's bleeding."
Heinkel carefully knelt at Darius' head to do so, while Ed did some quick one-handed alchemy to turn his button-up into a wrap and twist it around Darius, keeping the wadded sleeve pressed tight to his side. "Minor," Heinkel reported after a moment.
"Good. Let me turn the table into a stretcher, then we can get him out."
"And clear us a path," Heinkel pointed out as Ed turned to transmute the table.
Ed glanced at the mess between them and their exit as the table shifted under his hands. "Yeah," he agreed as the alchemy faded, its work done, "give me a sec."
He pulled from the ground under the building, since the floor was about as viable as the ceiling, at this point, and made them a tunnel, then helped Heinkel move Darius onto the former table and carry him out of the building and down the road to where they'd left the car.
It took a bit of work – and some, admittedly, reassuring grunts of discomfort from Darius – but they got him stretched out across the backseat and wrapped his legs in a couple of clean sheets that Ed and Darius had both mocked Heinkel for adding to their gear. (No one was mocking him now.)
"Can you drive?" Ed asked Heinkel, and he nodded. "Good. Get him to hospital in Fotset."
Heinkel narrowed his eyes. "You're not coming?"
Ed motioned back towards the ruins of the building. "One of us needs to clean this shit up, and you're in need of a doctor, too. Send the locals up after me, if you must, but I'm finishing what we came here to do." And he couldn't fucking sit in hospital, waiting to hear news about Darius; he needed to be doing something, and cleaning up this mess, getting some fucking answers from any survivors, that was the best task he could set for himself right now.
Heinkel's jaw clenched and he gave a tight nod. "Yes, sir," he bit out.
"Hospital. Now," Ed ordered; if Heinkel was going to start 'sir'ing him, he was going to start ordering him around.
He waited until Heinkel had driven away, then turned and stormed back up to the remains of the building. He created a cell in the middle of the yard in front of the building, then started tossing people into it, not being particularly gentle, and only checking for weapons or life-threatening wounds, the latter of which he bound, the former he took.
When he was sure he had everyone who'd survived out, he stalked up to the cage and sent the occupants his best 'don't fuck with me, fuckwits' glare. "Someone," he said, keeping his voice low, letting his anger show through, "is going to start fucking talking, or I'm going to prove that I do, actually, have the stomach for torture."
(He didn't. He really, really fucking didn't, but he was pissed off enough that he could threaten it without feeling sick, which was a step up from usual. Or down; it was really all a matter of perspective.)
Those of them conscious traded uncertain looks, but when Ed took an angry step forward, they all started talking.
It came out to this: The Aerugonian they'd had translate the notes from the large group in Fotset had a nephew in this little group, and she'd sent out a warning to them shortly after Ed and his team had left her. They hadn't known any specifics about how Ed's team fought, beyond that he could use alchemy and his two men were both terrifyingly strong, so they'd just aimed to keep them at a distance. The nephew had got it into his head that, if they managed to catch him, it was over for all of them, so he'd been hoarding grenades, and while the group leader had taken to divesting the crazy fool of them, he'd clearly missed one.
Ed had dealt with enough crazy fools by then that he could actually see it: Darius coming upon the idiot, seeing him pull the pin out of the grenade, then running for what cover he could find, grabbing the table and using it as a blast shield. If it had been Ed, that table would have been enough cover – if it had been Ed, he'd have had other options, truthfully – but Darius was too big, hence the burns.
He'd thought he'd heard someone call his name while he'd been dealing with that kid. Had it been Darius calling for help? Or had Ed's plight distracted him, and he hadn't seen the grenade fast enough to get it away from the crazy fuck before he'd pulled the pin? Would things have gone different if he hadn't been so careless with his surroundings? If he hadn't given the kid the chance to shoot, just taken him out?
The arrival of vehicles tore him from his 'what if's before they could turn into a full-on attack – thank fuck – and he turned to watch as Fotset's ranking officer, Colonel Sherman – who Ed absolutely did not get along with, and who made no secret about his disapproval of Ed's careless disregard for both the chain of command and most military regulations – stepped out of the lead car. "Lieutenant Colonel," he called, his tone cool.
Ed stalked up to him. "One of the fuckers had a grenade," he offered, motioning towards the ruined part of the building. "They're all out, sitting pretty for their trip to prison. Or hospital, a couple of them." He gave an agitated roll of his shoulders and admitted, "I need one of your people to drive me back to town. Please." Because now that he'd worked off some of his angry energy and had some answers, he really, desperately needed to check on his team.
Sherman stared at him for a moment, during which Ed clenched his jaw and tried really fucking hard to resist the urge to punch him, then knocked on the hood of his car and stepped out of the way. "Lance Corporal Karrier will take you back."
Ed somehow managed to get out a brusque, "Thank you, sir," as he stepped past the man and ducked into the car.
Sherman nodded to the driver, and the man put the car into reverse and took them out past the other military vehicles, all of which were pulled to either side of the dirt track, like they'd been expecting that the colonel's car would be leaving before they would.
Ed knew he should be grateful, but the last of his anger was giving way to that same sweeping guilt that had plagued him after Hohenheim's death, and it was all he could do to keep his back straight and his expression blank.
The lance corporal didn't ask where to take him, just pulled up in front of the hospital and, once Ed had got out, sped away, probably back to Sherman.
He found Heinkel sitting just inside, looking tired and stressed, a cup of something held tight between his hands. He'd clearly been seen to by a doctor, as Ed could see bandaging under his hospital-issue clothing and encasing the entirety of his left forearm, which was a minor relief; at least one of his team was okay. Mostly.
Heinkel got to his feet as soon as he saw him, a suggestion of a wince crinkling his eyes as he moved his left arm, and he held out his uninjured arm.
Ed walked up to him, had to swallow twice to get the fucking guilt out of his throat so he could ask, "How is he?"
"Commanding officers and next-of-kin only," Heinkel growled.
"Bull-fucking-shit," Ed snapped.
Heinkel shook his head, then used a hand on Ed's back to guide him out of the main sitting room and down a hallway. Ed thought he was leading him to Darius' room – or at least his doctor – but he was instead led into a public toilet. "Heinkel's, what–?" he tried as the chimera glanced around the room, then locked the door.
And then he turned around and caught Ed with his good arm, pulling him into a hug. "You look like you're two breaths away from an attack," he murmured, and Ed closed his eyes and pressed close to Heinkel because, yeah, he probably was; this situation had all the fucking triggers that usually set him off, and his only saving grace, so far, had been not really having enough time to think. "Breathe, Ed."
Ed did, took deep breaths and ran through the components of the human body in his head, let the familiar list centre himself, because he couldn't afford to fall to pieces when one of his team was in hospital and the other was wounded. He needed to be at the absolute top of his game, to cover for them; he could fall apart when they were safe.
He pulled away and yanked out his hair tie so he could catch whatever had fallen out and do it back up again. When he looked up, he found Heinkel watching him, looking rather like he wanted to curl up in a hole and hide from the world as much as Ed did. "Right," he said, drew his command training around him like armour, let it straighten his back and serve as in place of the strength he was struggling to find, "let's find this doctor and get an update on Darius."
He led the way out of the toilet, let Heinkel's barely-there hand on his back guide him towards the nearest nurse station. The woman sitting there offered them both bright smiles, her attention naturally sliding to Heinkel, and Ed knew it was his age, that even with the half-hidden mass of scars on his shoulder, he looked like a kid in his black vest, and that wasn't accounting for whatever shit he had left on him from going through the ruined building. "What can I do for you, sir?"
"You can tell me," Ed said, and she turned back to him with a startled look, "where I can find Second Lieutenant Darius Wright's doctor so they can update me."
She smiled at him a little uncertainly. "I'm afraid that we can only give that information to–"
Ed pulled out his pocket watch, keys jingling brightly against the back, and held it up for her to see. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Edward Elric," he said flatly, "Second Lieutenant Wright's commanding officer."
She pushed out of her chair in a rush. "Let me find Doctor Stevens," she offered before hurrying away.
"Yet again," Ed muttered as he shoved his pocket watch and keys away, "I'm reminded of the power of that fucking uniform."
Behind him, Heinkel snorted, far too familiar with the rant to actually engage.
It didn't take the nurse long to return with a man who was Ed's height and wore glasses not all that different from Heinkel's missing pair. He must have been warned in advance, for he looked straight at Ed as he requested, "Lieutenant Colonel Elric?"
"Yes."
The doctor nodded. "If you'll come with me?" He motioned for Ed to follow him down the hall, but stopped as soon as he realised Heinkel was following as well. "I'm sorry, but hospital policy–"
"I've heard your hospital policy," Ed interrupted, turning a hard stare on the doctor. "Now you can hear mine: There are three men in my team, and we stick together, especially if one of us is wounded. Second Lieutenant Potez will be coming in with me, and one of us will be allowed in Second Lieutenant Wright's room at all times."
The doctor stared at him in return for a long moment, before caving under the force of Ed's 'I will not take any more shit today' stare. "Fine," he agreed, turning away from them. "This way."
"Remind me later," Ed murmured to Heinkel as they followed the doctor, "to find a way to get the three of us added as next of kin on each other's files."
"Good idea," Heinkel muttered in agreement. "Neither of us wants to be stuck sitting around and worrying while we wait for Mustang to show up because you did something stupid."
Ed didn't quite have it in him to point out that he wasn't the first one who'd ended up in hospital, thanks, but he thought it, and it was true. Unless you counted him needing to go by Winry, which Ed didn't, because he hadn't actually broken his leg, he'd just grown a bit.
The doctor let them into an unlabelled room, and they found Darius laid out on the bed, way too pale and with bandages wrapped around his head and legs, the latter resting on a pile of pillows to raise them.
As soon as the door was closed, the doctor said, "Second Lieutenant Wright should make a full recovery, though I expect it will be a long one. The cut to his side is of the greatest concern, as it is quite deep and there was detritus inside when he got here. While we're certain we got everything out, there is a high possibility that he'll develop an infection, especially if he doesn't take it easy."
Ed pressed his mouth tight and nodded; as if he didn't know exactly how hard it was to heal from a serious wound to the abdomen when you couldn't fucking stay still.
"The burns are my next concern: They're second degree, which will require fairly regular care, and he'll have to keep moving his legs or the skin might tighten and he'll lose full use of them. We usually refer burn victims to the hospital in South City or Central City, as they're better equipped to handle complications, but given the concerns about his side..." He trailed off with a sigh.
Ed glanced towards Darius with a frown. Complications with his side or no, there was also the very real danger of a terrorist group getting wind that their team was down and banding together with other local groups to try taking them out; Central's military hospital would have the necessary protection from anyone but the mole, and Ed or Heinkel staying in Darius' room would help mitigate that danger. Assuming the mole was stupid enough to try going after Ed's team themselves, which, so far, they seemed far too smart for that. And, besides, they seemed intent on Ed, rather than his team.
"What about the head wound?" Heinkel requested, and Ed glanced back at the doctor.
"It was ruled as not a danger. There's no signs of a concussion, and it had stopped bleeding by the time he was admitted. We're keeping an eye on it, just in case, but it's not a concern."
Ed nodded. "When can he be moved to Central?"
The doctor's expression said he very much disapproved of Ed's choice, but admitted, "I'd like to keep him overnight, at least. I believe there's a train leaving tomorrow afternoon. If you intend to take him, we'll hook up a medical car and have word sent ahead that there's a burn victim on this train, so a medical group from Central will be at the station to receive him."
"From the military hospital," Ed insisted.
The doctor gave a tight nod. "That is the normal policy for soldiers."
"Fine. Unless a complication that requires he can't be moved comes up, we'll be on that train."
"I'll have the arrangements made," the doctor promised before leaving the room.
"Ed?" Heinkel murmured.
"We can't chance some daring fuckwit making an attack on the hospital," Ed offered as he stepped up to the side of Darius' bed and gently cupped his cheek. "I mean it, arsehole; don't you dare die on me."
Heinkel settled gingerly into a chair on the far side of the bed. "What about the car?"
Ed sighed. "We'll have to write it off. I can get most of the stuff out of it, get that to the train, but there's not much to be done about taking it with us. We can buy another in Central and get Treasury to pay for it."
Heinkel snorted. "Of course you will. And when the military tries to claim the car as their property?"
"I've got two fists daring them to try."
Darius choked out a laugh that sounded like it hurt, and Heinkel rushed to his feet so he and Ed were both leaning over him when the arsehole squinted his eyes open. "Knew I wasn't dead," he rasped. "Doesn't hurt, but Ed's threatening people."
"Always a fair sign," Heinkel agreed, before nodding towards Ed. "Water's next to you."
Ed quickly set about pouring a glass, then transmuted a bent straw from some napkins, so Darius wouldn't have to move.
"Aw," Darius rasped when he saw the straw, "you do care."
"Shut up and drink before I give you an actual concussion," Ed snarled, and Darius managed something that might had been related to a smile as he accepted the straw and took a couple careful sips. "Idiot," Ed muttered, tightening his hands around the glass, "you're supposed to pull your abnormally long legs up behind your blast shield when you're hiding from a grenade."
Darius snorted and spat the straw out of his mouth. "I'll remember that next time," he promised, before closing his eyes. "Didja get 'em all?" he slurred out, clearly edging back towards sleep.
Ed gently squeezed his shoulder. "All but their informant, and I'll send Colonel Tight-Arse after her as soon as I know he's back from corralling the rest of the fuckers."
Darius let out a short laugh, his lips turning with a smile. "Good. Gonna sleep."
"Do that," Heinkel agreed. "You're less trouble when you're passed out."
Proving he was asleep again, Darius didn't have a response for that.
Heinkel looked across at Ed as he set the water glass back on the table next to the bed. "Grenade? Informant?"
Ed sighed and hooked a chair with his foot. "Yeah," he agreed as he sat down, then set about filling Heinkel in.
After Ed rang through to Colonel Sherman's office to ask him to pick up their former translator as a terrorist informant, he rang Ishval, because Mustang deserved to know he was going to be on leave until his team healed. (And, honestly, Ed sort of needed to talk to a friendly voice who fucking got it.)
"Ishval Command," Fuery picked up, and Ed felt his shoulders relax at the familiar voice.
"Hey, Fuery. The bastard around?"
"Ed! I just saw him, give me a moment," he replied and Ed heard the receiver be put down.
It didn't take long for it to be picked back up again, and Mustang, in that obnoxious smooth tone of his, said, "Fullmetal. To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your call?"
Despite himself, Ed felt a smile struggling its way across his face. Stupid fucking bastard. "I'm taking that holiday you suggested," he offered.
Mustang was silent for a beat, before quieter, almost kindly, asking, "What happened?"
Ed drooped back against the thin privacy wall separating him from the next public phone over and closed his eyes. "Fucker had a grenade and a suicidal agenda."
"Are you okay?"
"If I wasn't, it would be my team fucking calling you," Ed pointed out.
"Ed," Mustang replied, and Ed realised the bastard was asking as his friend, not his CO.
He swallowed back the block that had built up in his throat and offered, "I was outside, but Darius and Heinkel both need medical leave."
"How serious?"
Ed opened his mouth to respond, then paused, because he had no idea how secure the hospital lines were, and there was no way he was bandying about his team's medical situation if there was a chance someone was listening in. (Fucking shadows.) "Second degree burns," he settled on, because if anyone knew burns, it would be the Flame Alchemist.
"So two to three weeks," Mustang assumed.
"Four," Ed corrected, because that was more likely, in his experience, for the wound on Darius' side.
Mustang was quiet for a moment – Ed could almost see him trying to figure out what wound would take that extra week to heal – then said, "Take five weeks."
"I don't–"
"Ed," Mustang interrupted, "listen to me this time and take the extra week."
Ed couldn't say whether taking leave after taking out the group by Dublith would have stopped this incident from happening or not, but all three of them had joked about taking a holiday a few times, and taking an extra week on top of Darius' expected healing time meant they'd all be less likely to rush it. "Okay," he agreed. "I have to ring old man Grumman next any way."
"You're still in the south," Mustang said, sounding rather like he'd only just realised that.
Ed snorted. "For the moment. We're heading up to Central soon as we can. Guess the lot down here don't trust themselves with burns."
"Burns are complicated."
"You would know," Ed agreed.
Mustang let out a snort. "Give your sister a hug from me."
"Ha. Want me to buy her something and say it's from you, too?"
"She wouldn't say no," Mustang pointed out. "Get her something from you and something from me–"
"I'll get her a candle from you," Ed promised.
"Please don't."
"I'll come up with something."
"On second thought–"
Ed surprised himself by laughing, felt it wash away most of his stress and ease the knot of guilt that had taken up residence in his chest. "Thanks, Roy," he said, and it was oddly easy to use Mustang's given name.
"Enjoy your leave, Ed," Mustang replied. "Try and actually get some relaxing done."
"Nah. I think I'm gonna try learning a couple languages," Ed decided, because this wouldn't have happened if they hadn't needed to depend on someone else to translate for them, and if he was going to be stuck in Central for a month, he might as well see what he could pull from the library and Central Intelligence's materials.
Mustang sighed. "Somehow, I'm not surprised," he admitted, and Ed caught himself grinning. "If your sister is speaking Cretan next time I visit, I'll know who to blame."
"I'm taking that as a challenge."
"Of course you are." Mustang let out a sigh that Ed knew was all for show. "Call the Führer and irritate him."
"With pleasure," Ed promised, and heard Mustang chuckling as he hung up.
He pulled out his pocket watch to check the time, then grimaced when he realised Grumman would be just about to leave the office for the day. He could ring him at Command and hope to catch him, or wait an hour and ring him at home.
Given the uncertain security of the hospital lines and the fact that this was a business call, Ed sighed and picked the handset back up to ring Command.
"Lieutenant Colonel Elric," Grumman said when the line clicked over to him, like he always did, and he didn't sound particularly stressed or angry, so Ed figured nothing had gone completely to shit in Central or the nation of late. Which was good; at least one of them was having a good day.
"I'm taking five weeks of leave," Ed informed him flatly. "Darius and Heinkel are on doctor-ordered medical leave."
There came the sound of papers being shifted on Grumman's end of the line. "Fine. I expect a full report at your earliest opportunity."
"I'll drop something by Command once we're back in Central."
"You'll come by my office," Grumman ordered. "I want it written and verbal."
"You're a fucking bastard, sir."
"That's been military policy for longer than I've been alive."
Ed suspected a lie – Mustang had let him slide with written reports and a bit of telling Ed what he'd 'forgotten' to mention for years, after all – but if he was going to avoid their mole snooping, he was going to have to take his written report straight to Grumman anyway. "Fine. I'll drop by the day after we get in."
Grumman sighed, but didn't order him to come in sooner, which was suspiciously nice of him.
Ed huffed. "If that's all the arbitrary orders you have for me?"
"Military policy is not arbritra–"
"With all required respect, sir, go fuck yourself."
Grumman snorted. "Do try to avoid destroying any buildings while you're on leave."
Unbidden, Ed recalled the half-destroyed building and, fuck, there went the good humour Mustang had left him with. "Yes, sir," he said, his tone way too fucking flat, too fucking telling.
"Lieutenant–" Grumman started.
Ed hung up the phone, because he really couldn't deal with the bastard any more. Instead, he went back to Darius' room and curled up in his uncomfortable hospital chair, leaning forward to rest his head against Darius' good side, let his steady breaths reassure him.
"Ed?" Heinkel asked.
"Called the Führer. Told him we were taking a fucking holiday for a month."
Heinkel was quiet for a long moment, likely parsing through what Ed hadn't said. "Okay," he finally said and didn't push any further.
Ed let out a quiet sigh, almost wishing he'd rang Grumman first, then Mustang after. That stupid destroyed buildings joke. It was supposed to be fucking funny, not–
A heavy hand came to rest on his head. "Ed?" Darius murmured.
"Go back to sleep, arsehole," Ed ordered, tried to pretend he didn't notice how thick his voice had become.
The hand brushed clumsily over his head once, then settled over his nape, a warm reassurance. And it helped, a bit, just like being able to feel Darius breathing.
Wasn't he pathetic?
The train ride was actually fairly boring, all things considered. Ed and Heinkel amused themselves by debating the watch schedule for Darius, whether they should actually bother with getting a hotel room (and where to put their things if they didn't), and other such nonsense that they felt safe discussing near the medic riding with them. When Darius was awake, the pain medication he was on left him fuzzy, which led to some amazing discussions-turned-debates, and Ed would always catch himself grinning during those and wishing he could somehow record them, because torturing Darius with his own drug-induced insanity would be a lot of fun, later.
The rest of the time, when Ed was just staring out the nearest window or flipping through his Cretan dictionary, he tried to pretend he didn't notice Heinkel watching him, and made a habit of escaping for the toilet or to 'get some air' when he said Ed's name with that particular tone of his.
Once they'd got into Central, though, and the doctors had kicked them both out so they could get Darius set up in his new room – brass-level security; Ed suspected Grumman was involved, and he was grateful, really he was – Heinkel managed to corner him in another toilet – there was a joke in there somewhere, if only Darius was there to tell it – and said, "Ed," in that tone that Ed had been trying so very hard to avoid.
"Please don't," he requested, slumping back against the wall Heinkel had cornered him against.
"None of this is your fault."
He closed his eyes. "I know that."
"There was no possible way for you to have known in advance that we were walking into a trap, or that one of the crazy fools had a grenade and the will to commit suicide to avoid capture."
"I know that," Ed insisted, because he did. He knew there was absolutely nothing he could have done differently. They'd been able to capture three other groups and take out a weapons trade with the translation from the Aerugonian who'd ended up betraying them, and they would have completely missed the weapons trade if Ed had taken the necessary time to translate the papers himself. He bore none of the blame for the complete clusterfuck of a mission, beyond his own lack of situational awareness, which had allowed a kid to sneak up on him with a gun (and he'd managed to avoid explaining that one to his team so far), and yet...
Heinkel's good arm came to rest on Ed's waist, warm and familiar, and his head pressed against Ed's. "Believe it," he whispered, sounding very near a plea.
Ed remembered a section from one of their command texts, which talked about how a commander's mood affected their people. If the commander lost hope – or, in Ed's case, let himself be swamped in guilt – their soldiers would know, and their own mood would go down. It was something Ed had long known – had practised with Al time and again, forcing a smile because that's all he had to offer his brother when things fell apart – but it was hard to remember, sometimes, when the very people he needed to be strong for were the ones who had helped him through some of the hardest times of his life.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, reaching up and clutching at Heinkel's shirt. "Give me a minute."
He shoved the wad of guilt back down, dropped a massive block of commander training on top of it to keep it there, and forced on a smile that felt too sharp, too brittle, but would suffice for a while. He'd already planned to visit the Hugheses later, see if Gracia was willing to store their things until Darius was released, and Elicia would do a lot, he knew from experience, to ease his smile into something more real.
He reached up with one hand and cupped Heinkel's cheek, looked up into his brown eyes. "I'm okay," he promised, willed it to be the truth. "We'll all be fine. And, somehow, I'll keep from punching our Führer in the face tomorrow when he starts laughing."
Heinkel offered him a smile in return, just as brittle, but better than either of them had managed when Darius wasn't rambling about whatever came to mind. "Please try to avoid a court-martial while you're on leave," he replied.
Ed snorted. "The key word is 'try'." Heinkel sighed. "At least the bastard likes me insulting him?"
"How have you survived in the military so long?" Heinkel muttered, pulling away.
Ed just let out a hollow laugh, because there was no good response to that.
He'd been right about spending the evening at the Hugheses' doing a lot to improve his mood, as he caught himself honestly smiling about two minutes after walking in the front door, Elicia chattering up a storm while very determinately hugging him forever. The only way he'd managed to free himself was by mentioning he'd brought gifts. (And he had to wonder if that wasn't half the reason Mustang always brought her something. The other half, very obviously, was the absolutely delighted expression she developed when she saw her new toys.)
"You're welcome to stay here, too," Gracia offered as they cleared a space in one of the hall cupboards for Ed and his team's things, those that they wouldn't need while Darius was in hospital. "The couch isn't that bad."
Ed snorted and shook his head. "Thanks, really, but I'll feel a lot better staying in hospital with Darius and Heinkel. Make sure Darius doesn't do anything stupid when they move him from the happy drugs to something that doesn't constantly put him to sleep."
Elicia, who was watching them from down the hallway, Ed's collection of photos from her, Gracia, and Al in her lap, and the stuffed monkey he'd bought her held tight in one arm, giggled. "Happy drugs," she repeated.
Ed flashed her a grin. "They make you completely silly, so you don't need any, but I should bring you in to see Mr Gorilla one afternoon and you two can chat. It'll be epic."
"Can I, Mama? Can I?!"
Gracia sighed and looked a bit helplessly towards Ed, who was trying very hard not to laugh. "Maybe on Wednesday?" he offered, because that would give him all of tomorrow for visiting Command and the library and whatever other errands he needed to get out of the way, having returned to Central for a long-ish stay. "However," he added, turning to Elicia, who put on her best serious face at his firm tone, "there will be no climbing or jumping on either Mr Gorilla or Mr Lion until the doctor says they're better. If you misbehave, I'm bringing you home, and you won't see either of them again until they're released."
Elicia slumped. "Okay."
'Fair?' Ed mouthed to Gracia, who smiled and nodded, then commented, "I suppose I can trust you to Ed for the whole day."
Elicia perked right back up again, grinning wildly, and Ed couldn't even pretend he minded getting stuck with babysitting duty for a day.
Since there was nothing to report about the incident that their mole couldn't easily pull from the report Fotset had or would send to Central, Ed didn't bother censoring himself when he made his report to Grumman. If it showed that he'd woken up in the middle of the night suffering from an attack and never managed to get back to sleep, Grumman didn't comment on it. He also didn't react to the flat tone Ed described the whole fuck-up in, though Ed swore he saw the bastard's mouth twitch down behind his moustache when he'd explained that the explosion had brought down half the building's roof.
The only thing Grumman had to say after Ed had finished talking, was, "Colonel Sherman is nearly as complimentary about you, as you are of him," because Ed's tone of voice didn't keep him from referring to the Fotset commander as 'Colonel Tight-Arse', among other less-than-fond endearments.
"That's because he's an arsehole who probably sleeps with the fucking rulebook," Ed retorted.
Grumman shot him a flat look. "Perhaps a little too crude for the office, Lieutenant Colonel."
"I just said he slept with it, not that he was fucking it," Ed pointed out. "Sir."
Grumman's mouth twitched. "Thank you for that clarification." He leant back in his chair, expression turning considering. "What are you intending to do with your leave?"
Ed narrowed his eyes at that question; it was never good when someone started asking after his free time, especially when that someone was their extremely manipulative Führer. "Pay a visit to the library and irritate my team by reading really fucking boring books to them." Which had actually crossed his mind, and he might well pick out a couple of basic alchemy books or the worst of the alchemic journals he and Al had hunted through to read aloud, just to see what the arseholes would do, but he was really going for books on other languages. Which would become readily apparent to anyone who checked his history, but lying about minor details had started to become second nature to him, especially when surrounded by military uniforms. (Fucking shadows.) "Refresh my knowledge of Central, for when trouble inevitably finds me in the most inopportune place." Because he really needed to learn Grumman's neighbourhood, especially after that report from his squad about being seen leaving the Führer's residence the night of the memorial.
Which, well, if he was honest, watching the Führer's place wasn't a terrible career move, was right up there with tapping his office phone, but Ed would very much like to find the best vantage points over there so he could avoid them; the last thing he wanted was for some too-watchful spy to equate 'alchemy lesson with Gloria' to mean 'secret meeting with Grumman', because that was just asking for someone to set a trap for one or both of them.
Grumman gave a faint nod. "I see."
Ed crossed his arms over his chest and resisted the urge to start tapping his foot. "Why?"
Grumman's mouth twitched like he was holding back a smile again, and Ed squeezed his arms over his fists, resisting the urge to punch the bastard. "You're familiar with the military's research labs, I believe?"
"More so than I like to admit," Ed allowed.
Grumman inclined his head. "We've cut back on the number of the labs in use for alchemy, and while I've tried dictating what they can work on, I'm no alchemist, and Major Armstrong is busy enough as it is with other matters, not to mention his alchemic studies were rather focussed; he can get a general idea about what someone else is working on, but he sometimes needs to be walked through parts, and he can't look at a master-level array and know exactly what it's for."
'Not like you can,' Grumman didn't say, and, oh, Ed could already see where he was going, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it. "Armstrong's not the only State Alchemist in Central," he pointed out, frowning.
Grumman nodded. "True. However, you and he are the only two State Alchemists currently in Central who have anything approaching formal military training. Ceramic, Colourway, and Quicksilver are all more interested in the military for the grants and chance to work in the research labs, and Blooming isn't much better. The last, Iron-Form, is more interested in creating arms and armour than in ever learning how to use them." He smiled then, his eyes glinting, and added, "You're also the most knowledgeable State Alchemist, in terms of the breadth of your studies; I suspect you, and perhaps Brigadier General Mustang, are the only ones who would be capable of taking a couple of weeks to observe the labs and come back to me with a detailed report on the activities, without having to disrupt those working for constant explanations about their projects."
"You want me to play spy," Ed said flatly, refusing to let his pride direct his response. (Because, of course he had the greatest field of study of the alchemists employed by the military; he was one of the few alchemists who had survived a meeting with the Gate – was probably the only one still alive to have survived multiple trades with the fucking thing – and the only other member of the military who could claim the same, had been avoiding using alchemy because he was living with people who disapproved. And that wasn't even touching on the fact that he'd been an alchemic prodigy – truthfully, Al was too, but he'd been younger and so had less control of his transmutations than Ed – had started seriously studying the science years before most alchemists would have touched an alchemy primer.)
"If you like," Grumman agreed.
"I don't like," Ed shot back. "This dog's off the leash for a month. You want me to do your fucking dirty work because you can't be arsed to pick up a fucking primer, you can wait until my leave's over. Is that all?"
Grumman sighed and nodded. "Do let me know when you start itching for something to do," he suggested, like he thought he was dangling a fucking bone in front of Ed. "You're dismissed."
"About fucking time," Ed muttered and stalked from the office, ignoring the half-disbelieving looks of the Führer's office staff. (Most of whom actually seemed to like Grumman, so Ed didn't think he was really the one most deserving of those looks.)
As he started across the parade grounds, however, he had to admit that Grumman's bone was a little tempting. Since Ed had studied various disciplines and had the Gate-given ability to understand most arrays with only some minor studying, it meant he wasn't a master of any particular branch of alchemy, so there was always more for him to learn. The chance to snoop through the remaining labs and watch alchemists with names like Blooming and Colourway and Quicksilver was...tempting.
Recalling his half-joking comment to Darius about snooping through the personnel files of the higher-ups next time he was in Central, Ed thought he might just sneak in one night and look through the files on the alchemists, too. If nothing else, it would be nice to know more about the lot before Grumman sent him to spy on them once his leave was up.
Ed was absolutely, one hundred percent, not going to let Grumman give him work while he was on leave.
Come What May Chapters:
01 || 02 || 03 || 04 || 05 || 06 || 07 || 08 || 09 || 10
11 || 12 || 13 || 14 || 15 ||
Extras:
Ch 04 (Roy) || Ch 07 (Roy) || Ch 10 (Roy)
Ch 10 (Darius - NSFW) || Ch 16 (Ed - NSFW) || Ch 17 (Roy)
We All Need Saving Chapters:
Unposted
Dancing With the Devil Chapters:
Unposted
.
