Chapter Text
"Hey... Brother, please speak... You're worrying me" Al said for the umpteenth time in the past hour, voice very much human and completely lacking any tinny quality.
His brother was sat across from him on the bed, very real and fleshy legs crossed with equally real and fleshy elbows propped on his also very real and fleshy knees. His face was childishly rounded, a small bit tanned and held a concerned expression that hadn't lifted since Ed had decided to cut the transmutation short.
Downstairs was a metal tub containing the spendings of his pocket money and produce of his naivety. The components that made up the average human body and quite importantly nothing that accounted for the worth of a human soul. Granted, that sum had proved to be immeasurable even with the years he put into the hypotheticals of human transmutation that one time he got bored, depressive and morbid. Not a great combination of moods.
After an 'awakening' of sorts, he'd found himself in front of a wretchedly familiar array for the nth time and went through the motions of barreling into his brother before he could so much as clap his hands, scuffing the chalk and kicking over the armour in the corner. The last item on that list he'd checked for fun rather than out of necessity.
Al had been alarmed, he always was, but his face had also betrayed his relief, as it always did. But he expressed no protest when being dragged up the stairs and back into the bedroom so Ed could brood and silently count as the seconds ticked by with some semblance of comfort from the bed sheets.
Once the shock had subsided though, his brother wasn't so obliging. To be fair, Ed hadn't spoken a word and he was willing to admit that he was generally pretty chatty. A bit obnoxious even. But only a bit! It was warranted, he had wells of accumulated knowledge that only a select group of people could rival under one condition: they also 'awakened'. So pardon him if he acted accordingly and lacked the patience for those who simply just couldn't understand.
Al was a member of that select group but he rarely seemed to meet the condition. Meanwhile, other less savoury people did, especially a couple of annoying individuals who made it almost every single time. Such as one particular bastard he was waiting on right now.
"Come oooon..." Al whined and it was not irritating in the slightest because Al's voice was perfectly human in the best way and Ed could never tire of it. It was also why Ed wasn't talking because he wasn't confident in his own voice's ability to not crack because after that it was all just downhill from there. Al didn't need an uncontrollably crying brother right now so this was the alternative. Just give him five more minutes, he'll be fine.
Five minutes passed and he cried anyway. Like always.
Fortunately, his eyes dried up before the next Event came up and he was able to placate a very distressed Al and explain while also not explain why he decided they shouldn't do human transmutation and that Al was right all along. Al, the little angel, reminded him that he had been completely down for it as of last week but was happy with Ed's decision. Truth, he gave the best hugs.
If his eyes are still a little red-rimmed when the next Event happened, whatever, he'll just kick the bastard if he points it out.
The next Event involved a very dramatic crash from downstairs as the front door is relieved of its hinges. Al yelps and looks to Ed with fear-stricken eyes because he doesn't have the foreknowledge that the door murderer downstairs is one of the biggest softies for kids Ed knows. He just doesn't show it very well.
A muffled "Thank fuck" is heard followed by a crackle of alchemy as Ed presumes the door is fixed. It better be fixed, without any creaking either. The bastard has done it enough times, he's got to be a pro by this point.
"Don't worry" Ed said and damn, he almost sounds like a girl his voice is so young. "He's a good guy"
Al looked confused but more or less placated which is good enough, Ed thinks, so he slips off the bed and heads over to the ajar bedroom door with Al hot on his heels. Al squeaks and well, the bastard does cut an imposing figure in the darkness of their stairwell, all grown up and tall. The ambient pattering of the rain outside doesn't help. He can't see Hawkeye though and she's plenty more frightening.
"Stop scaring my little brother, you bastard!" He calls down, prompting the figure to pause for a second. He's told him two things: one, Edward has awakened and two, Alphonse has not. A click and a lit flame later, Roy Mustang's twenty-seven-year-old face is revealed in flickering orange.
"It's the height, isn't it?" He drawls with a smirk and God why did it have to be him that had awakened and not Al? Screw his military connections, they weren't worth putting up with the idiot attached to them.
"Fuck off" Ed replied, short and simple. But then Al gasps because "Brother, you swore" which leads to Mustang's smothered giggles and how old is he again? Thirteen? Grow up.
Miraculously, they move on from spiting each other after roughly ten minutes and get themselves sat around the dining table, Mustang lighting the place with a click and Al looking very overwhelmed. Understandably, Ed could remember feeling something similar the few times he'd been the one who'd failed to awaken and Al had to deal with Mustang. Except Ed was a bit more loud-mouthed about the whole thing and Al reprimanded him a fair bit. Not something he stood for but then Mustang had tried only for Al to tell him to shut up and Mustang did so clueless Ed had been satisfied at the time.
"So we don't have Hawkeye" Ed began with dread seeping heavily into his tone. Hawkeye was brilliant. The world needed more Hawkeyes.
"Unfortunately" Mustang agreed and the pitter-pattering rain outside only made the realisation even more sombre. It was clear both Ed and Mustang shared little hope for this round.
"Um, what's going on?" Al finally asked. Not two seconds later, Ed launched himself from his seat while Mustang launched himself across the table to grab at Ed who, despite Mustang's reach, dodged out of his grasp by a hair's breadth and announced that he'd done the explaining last time so it was his turn to start the prepping. Mustang cursed him out but conceded, partly because Ed was already headed down to the basement.
Tentatively, Ed clapped his hands once he'd opened the basement's door and placed his them onto the floor. Predictably, a flash of blue light jumped from the contact and the chalk array disintegrated as though it had never been there in the first place. Once a sinner, always a sinner. But he always held onto that irrational hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd get a truly fresh start.
Prepping involved removing any evidence of human transmutation from the home and raiding his father's study of anything that could either be used to write on or write with. An added bonus was that he didn't have the gruelling job of explaining to whoever was out of the loop that this wasn't the first time this had all happened. Ed shrugged off the task whenever possible because not only did you run the risk of completely blotching it and coming off as crazy, you had to deal with the emotions of the other party. Sure, he loved his brother to bits, but dealing with the emotions that came with realising that the world was ending and Edward wasn't the same Edward he'd grown up with added years to his life. When the prepping was done, he'd be there to hug the shit out of him.
So that's what he did when he returned upstairs with blank journals, piles of parchment and every kind of writing utensil known to man (Hohenheim was a hoarder, but he'll protest and call himself a collector when confronted about it which Ed will make sure to do). "I still love you and you're still my brother," Ed said, rubbing comforting circles on his back. "And it's better this way, hugging a suit of armour just isn't the same"
"I love you too" Al replied and Ed let go a small sigh.
The scratching of a fountain pen drew his attention and he looked up to see Mustang writing up a checklist of names. The pen was a sleek black with a red jewelled end and he'd later inscribe his name in curly gold script along the barrel, as he did every time. Ed wasn't even mad, just a bastard stealing from another bastard. Fair play.
If he was honest with himself, he didn't hate Mustang anywhere near as much as he put on. But he wasn't honest so bastard it was.
Al yawned which reminded Ed that his younger self had picked a God awful hour to practice illegal alchemy so he took his little brother up and joined him to sleep, trusting Mustang to get as much as he could sorted before Event Number Two.
_-_-_
He woke up to the smell of sausages and when he groggily made his way down he found Mustang securing himself in Al's good graces by making shapes with his flames. With the sunlight filtering through the windows, merrily crackling fireplace and Al's giggling, it was easy to slip into the mindset that everything was okay. Good, even.
But no, Ed had lived too long and knew otherwise. So did Mustang. But he could forgive him for making breakfast a cheery affair since Even Number Two had yet to arrive.
Event Number Two, Ed reminded himself as he settled down at the table, could be one of three things. Well, technically, it could be more than one but still. There were three possible people who could have awakened and if none of them turned up within the week, they'd be off.
Looking over at Al happily chewing as though last night hadn't happened at all, he really hoped at least one of them turned up. He also hoped it was Granny who decided to show but the chances of that were slim to begin with because he could count the number of times that had happened on his now flesh and blood hands and still have fingers to spare. She also would have probably made it over by now.
Mustang had sat across from him and Al and was writing in a black leather bound journal while he absentmindedly twiddled a fork in his other hand. With a glance at the clock, he flipped over to the back of the book where he'd rewritten his list of names and struck a black line through "Pinako". That settled that then.
"If Winry isn't here by lunch, she's probably not coming at all" Ed commented and Mustang hummed in agreement while flicking back to the start of the book. Some of the pages appeared to have been ripped out at the start. Ed couldn't bring himself to care about what the book had been used for before Mustang had gotten his hands on it. Nothing important, probably.
"That leaves Hoenheim" Mustang replied, gaze not lifting from the book he'd reappropriated. A book which belonged to the bastard he'd just mentioned. Ballsy.
"You mean... dad?" Al asked in a small voice, finished with his breakfast. A sour feeling tugged at Ed's innards when he saw the sparkle of hope in his little brother's eyes. He held back a grimace.
"Yeah, he might come back, dunno yet" Ed answered, carefully removing any telling emotions from his words. At Al's apparent excitement at the prospect of their father returning, Ed continued "Don't get your hopes up, we don't know"
"He always seems to make it" Mustang added, rather unhelpfully, pausing to close his book. "Eventually"
"Annoyingly you mean" Ed scoffed as he slipped from his chair and started collecting the dishes, scowling at Mustang's barely concealed amusement when he had to tiptoe to make sure he was putting them into the sink safely.
As much as he hated it, what Mustang said was true. Hoenheim always came back in the same way that Father never did. Thank Truth for that at least.