Nightmare

Reviewer Thank Yous: Melaiya, thank you, here's the next chapter. Lilith, thank you. Evermist, thanks so much. MustangsHavoc, I don't enjoy torturing Ed, but this worked so well for my callenge on LiveJournal. Much less fluffy than the Kain one. Besides, it it starts out this bad, it has to get better. chelzi, thanks so much. It really is terrible for poor Ed. MaryLover, I'm trying to figure out if this pushes the boundaries on ff.net or not, but you'll probably see it there. It isn't so much I like Hohenheim (I don't hate him) but that someone had to help Al. Life definitely won't be easy for Ed and Roy, no denying that. As for the other things... I have no idea. This one is much less planned than the other two multi-chapter fics I've doen. Orion117, yes, poor Al and poor Ed during that scene. And here is more.

Chapter 2

Ed lay on the bed in the hospital. Al had just left as it was time for Mustang’s check-up. The two injured alchemists still shared a room, and both had agreed to allow the other in on their medical check-ups. It was a consolation made on Mustang’s part more so than Ed’s. As his superior officer, the fire alchemist would have known nearly all of the teen’s medical history as it was.

It was a show of good faith on the older man’s part to allow Ed in on every aspect of his treatment, despite the fact that any psychiatrist appointments and exams of damage from the repeated rapes were still off limits in regards to Ed’s treatment. Mustang understood that those aspects were far too personal.

At the moment, the nurses in the room were re-dressing Mustang’s wounds. They started with the pale alchemist’s shoulder. The robe covering his lean chest and back was pooled on the bed, and for the first time since they’d shared the room, Ed didn’t look away. It had only been a week in their matching beds, but Ed managed to bare to look at the other man’s chest. After all, Mast-the son of a bitch had never disrobed.

“You have a lot of scars,” Ed said.

“It’s the nature of fire alchemy,” Roy said. “You make mistakes and burn yourself. Not to mention the years I was a soldier in combat.”

The nurses were done unwrapping the wound and were now removing the gauze. It was a nasty mark, and after two surgeries, it was still a mass of stitches with the flesh around it pulled tight and dark pink in color.

Mustang hissed as the nurses dabbed cotton balls covered in alcohol at the sword wound both in the front and back. His right hand clenched to the left wrist, as he attempted to keep it in the position it had been in while in the sling. The single eye closed for a moment, then opened again.

“How did you carry me with that?” Ed asked, more to himself, but immediately regretting it. He hadn’t wanted to think it, let alone say it aloud for all the memories it evoked that he was trying to repress.

“Adrenaline,” Roy answered simply, hissing again as the two women in white dabbed again. “I could have lifted Al in his armor at that point.”

Ed nodded, and merely watched as the nurses placed gauze once again on the wound and wrapped it again. The teen’s arm and leg were still in casts, so the damage done to them was visible and yet wasn’t. Other areas, well, they were taking longer to heal, according to his doctor, though he thankfully could rest more easily on his backside without the shooting pain he’d experienced before.

Now, the teen watched as the two nurses removed the bandages from Mustang’s eye. Ed hadn’t dared to look at that yet. There was a part of the teen that felt it was unfair, knowing the brigadier general had always left the room for Ed. The teen looked down at his hands, all the while wondering how bad the damage was. Would his commanding officer have to wear an eyepatch like…

At that thought, Ed audibly gasped, looking up and unintentionally meeting both the good and bad eyes of the older man. The damaged eye was nothing but an ugly mass of stitches and scabs, and for all appearances, seemed to be completely gone. He saw hurt on Mustang’s face, but he hadn’t meant his surprise that way. Ed closed his own eyes tightly and looked away.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I told you that you didn’t have to leave the room,” Roy said. “I don’t mind that you saw, and I know it looks pretty bad.”

“It’s not… Ed shook his head. “You could have gotten away.” He was feeling sick to his stomach. He wasn’t worth getting someone else hurt. Even if there had been a point at some time when he might have been, he certainly wasn’t now. Not after that man had taken his value from him.

“And I would have gotten shot in the back, Fullmetal.” There was a hiss; they were obviously cleaning the wound now. “Colonel Archer has always had a lot against me, and he had lost his mind thanks to the automail that made up half of his body.”

“I don’t think there was much there to begin with,” Ed quipped.

“No, I have to agree with you on that.” Ed looked up to find the nurses re-wrapping the older man’s wounds. “I do believe you made a small joke, Fullmetal.” The older man was smiling at him. Ed couldn’t remember a time in their past when the older man had genuinely smiled at him. He’d only seen a smile before, but never…

This was making Ed even more uncomfortable, this smile, one that didn’t even hold the pity he received from Al. He didn’t often get, and certainly didn’t deserve someone to smile at him with no hidden meaning. Ed looked away, eyes blinking furiously so that he wouldn’t remember the way master—no, the son of a bitch would smile at him. That smile had always been so condescending, but had been designed to let Ed know his place. He was a pet. He only deserved a smile if he obeyed.

He felt a hand on him now. “Fullmetal.”

The teen flinched back, moving as much as he could with the two heavy casts on his arm and leg. He looked up to find the older man, his face partially bandaged, standing over him.

“Making a joke is a good thing, Ed. It means that somewhere in the midst of everything that asshole did to you, the you I knew is still there.”

********

Roy had thought the joke coming out of Ed’s mouth would be a good thing, but the moment he’d smiled at the teen, Fullmetal had once again drawn back into himself.

“So when did you notice this change?” the psychiatrist asked him.

“After I smiled,” Roy answered. “I just don’t understand it. He made a joke, a remark that at least resembled something he’d have said a few months back. I was happy to har it, to see it, and I smiled at him.”

“They did a lot of damage to him,” the psychiatrist answered. “You can’t expect him to just go back to what he was overnight.”

“I know that, damn it!” Roy yelled at the woman. He then cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “It’s just that it isn’t fair to him that this is happening. I just want some sign the person I knew is in there. That I didn’t completely fail at taking care of him.”

“And why would you think that?”

“Look at him!” Roy said, voice raised again. “I’m his commanding officer, the only thing he had, and I never could manage to be kind enough to him to get him to trust me even slightly. I kept information from him to spare his feelings, and it made him distrustful, so distrustful that he couldn’t bring himself to tell me that his brother discovered the fuhrer was… inhuman.” Roy couldn’t tell her exactly how inhuman the man really was. “If I had known, I could have helped him, protected him. He never would have gotten captured, never been…” Roy started to hiss in pain. “Damn it,” he muttered. “It still hurts like hell.” He wiped the eye that the tears were visible from but the damage done to his left eye only cause more pain as he continued to cry.