Chapter Text
Ed stuffs his hands in his pockets and watches with a sharp golden eye as Mustang paces back and forth behind his desk, finally settling into his chair with a deep sigh, fingertips pressing into his temples.
“Fullmetal, I do hate to do this, but in light of recent events-” he stops again, and squeezes his eyes shut. “Could you- maybe- possibly- find the kindness in the depths of your shrivelled heart to do a tiny favor for your favorite commanding officer? Completely off the record?”
Ed narrows his eye, and taps his black combat boots’ toe on the floor as he waits for the Fuhrer Bastard to make his case. Ed’s been in the reserves for a whole year now, Mustang knows that, and the only reason he’d kept his State Alchemist’s watch after the Promised Day at all was because Mustang had asked him too- asked him to help build the new world with his team.
(Even after Mustang knew what Ed had given up at Truth’s Gate to get Al back that day- after Ed had offered up his alchemy and been rejected, after a different deal had been struck in his alchemy’s place.
Worse than losing his alchemy, but better than losing his brother. He’d had something Truth wanted. Truth had Alphonse. They made a deal, the Dwarf in the Flask’s mangled soul supplementing and smoothing the Exchange.
Ed wears his eyepatch for more reasons than the fact that the eye behind it isn’t gold anymore.)
“Plead your case, Fuhrer Bastard, but you better have something good for me,” Ed snorts, pulling out a chair and swiveling it around so that he sits backward, his arms folded over the back and his chin resting on top.
Mustang visibly steels himself, which makes Ed’s eyebrow tick up. Mustang is constantly composed. The only reason he would be grimacing like this is if this assignment is something particularly distasteful.
“ Magic ,” Mustang spits out, burying his head in his hands. “What do you know about it?”
“Impossible,” Ed immediately tosses back with a narrow-eyed glare. “Why?”
Mustang flinches, and hunches over his desk, uncharacteristically serious-looking. No sarcastic quips about Ed’s height. No cocky smirk. Looking like he’s ready to die.
“I received an-” Mustang swallows. “An interesting communication today. Would you like to see it?”
“Not really,” Ed replies, watching Mustang warily. “But now I think I might need to. Hand it over,” he replies, holding his right hand out. He still doesn’t trust his left with delicate things, like apparently priceless communications.
Mustang glares at a loose piece of weird-looking paper that’s tossed haphazardly on his desk. Ed hadn’t noticed it in the mess of paperwork, but now that Mustang’s called it to his attention he can tell that there’s something- wrong about it.
He suddenly doesn’t really want to touch it.
He and Mustang share a loaded glance, and when Mustang nods Ed takes a deep breath and flips up his eyepatch, letting the pale glow of Truth bathe his field of vision in bluish-white light.
(Because Truth wanted to see the world, watched to touch the world, hear the world, taste the world, feel the world’s dirt beneath his feet.
Because Ed’s right eye socket is filled in with Truth’s gaze, his right arm’s automail still in place while his only human hand is replaced with Truth’s, his left foot’s automail standing next to Truth’s right leg from the hip down. Because his right ear, outer shell and inner workings, all glow with Truth’s harsh light. Because the right half of Ed’s tongue joins messily with the left and nothing he tastes with it tastes to Ed.
Because exactly half of all his assorted organs are composed of the pure, condensed alchemic energy that powers a Gate. Because Truth wanted to feel the air in his chest and the rush of blood through his veins.
Because Truth could only touch their world if someone foolish like Ed attempted forbidden alchemy, and Truth wanted something no one had ever been dumb enough to pay with.
Truth had all the alchemy they could ever want. They had no use for Ed’s, the exchange wasn’t equivalent.
So Truth had proposed a deal of the little al-che-mist, and now half of Ed’s body isn’t his anymore.
But Al is whole , body and soul, and that makes everything worth it.
They’ve learned to coexist. Ed’s speech isn’t horribly slurred anymore, even though he’s fallen out of practice with it. Their gait is relatively smooth, and they’re getting better at writing, because he doesn’t have the option of using his flesh-hand anymore, it’s either automail or hoping Truth wants to cooperate with him. Their depth-perception is better, even though Ed usually wears the patch in public anyways, if only to stop uncomfortable questions.
Truth had made it very clear, with angry scribbles and mangled speech that they hate the patch, but then Truth’s left ear hears people’s disgusted murmurs about the freakishness, and Truth’s uncovered right eye sees the pity on Al and Winry’s faces, and they roughly concede.
Edward Elric is some strange amalgamation of human and not, a chimera if there ever was one, and even though it was completely worth it, there are moments of weakness when Truth’s half of their tongue won’t let him speak that he regrets not just giving up his entire body rather than being forced to live a half-life instead.)
Truth’s eye looks at the piece of (parchment?) and immediately all of Truth’s parts of him are shrieking, and Ed falls back with a guttural cry of pain as exactly half of his body spasms, clutching at his chest with his gloved right automail as his heart stutters.
Mustang is immediately rounding the desk, crouching over Ed’s twitching form on the floor, ready to call for a medic when Ed lifts his right hand to stall him, sitting up with a gasp, blinking away the tears of pain gathering in his left eye.
“W’ae’er ih oh ‘ah ‘a’er,” Ed slurred frantically, “Ooth ‘id no’ li’e i’.”
“I figured!” Mustang hisses, pulling Ed to his feet and steadying him. “Which only makes all of this more unsettling!”
Ed collapsed shakily back into the chair, automail leg steady as Truth’s spasmed intermittently.
“‘Oh wha’s oh i’?” he slurred, features pulling in frustration at his still-malfunctioning tongue.
“It’s a request for a State Alchemist to come teach at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry,” Mustang said, back in his seat. “It arrived carried by a flaming bird this morning. It details the fact that the headmaster of this school, one Albus Dumbledore, in his youth, knew a man called Van Hohenheim, who told him of Amestris and a way to cross between our worlds at leisure.
“Apparently Dumbledore only remembered that the offer was made recently, in his plight searching for someone to teach an Alchemy class at his school, and that he hopes Van Hohenheim’s word that the State would assist him is still valid. It’s a pretty blatant threat, Fullmetal, and the letter says that the bird will be back in a week’s time to collect anyone who can teach for a year. It brought an Amestrian-to-English dictionary , Fullmetal, because everyone there speaks a different language. You’re the only person I can think of who’s qualified to dumb down Alchemy enough that you could teach it a bit, who I can trust to take care of themselves, and who can grasp an entire language from a book in a week. ”
Ed thought Mustang was absolutely insane, and as soon as he was relatively sure that their tongue was cooperative, told him so. “And you’ve certainly got some balls for asking this, Mustang, and frankly, I don’t see how it would work out at all. You just saw what happens if Truth gets around this ‘magic’ shit. How the hell am I supposed to function if I'm dying every time I touch the stuff?”
But as soon as he said that, Truth’s hand had pinned itself in the crook of Truth’s knee and wriggled out of the white glove covering it, reaching for the parchment on the table.
“What the hell?” Ed snapped, but when the smooth, faintly glowing hand cautiously prodded at the envelope, it only twitched lightly, a full-body shiver running up the arm as Truth’s eye flicked down to stare at the parchment in consternation.
Ed felt his tongue start to shift, and quickly relaxed his mouth as Truth wheezed air out of the right lung, dragging the tongue around to speak slowly and almost indecipherably.
“ Whh-he c-hhn g-hhet u-chsed t’ih, ” Truth garbled with Ed’s mouth. “ E-hh st-arhtlhd usth. Gi-th usth eh ‘inuh. ”
(Mustang shuddered. Seeing Truth looking out at the world from Fullmetal’s eyes was bad enough. Getting used to Truth talking with his subordinate’s mouth was worse .)
Ed’s golden eye slipped closed, and Truth’s hand ran up and down the parchment, lifting it up so that Truth’s eye could study it. Ed’s mouth still hung open, and the dim silver glow from the right half of his tongue as it ran over his teeth was a vicious reminder of the half-life Ed lived.
“ Whh-he c-hhn duh ih,” Ed- Truth slurred. “ Wh-he ‘ant t-he kno’ ‘ore oh it.” And then Truth set the letter back on the desk, and Ed’s eye flickered back open, a dullness to it that hadn’t been there before.
(Only controlling half a body was taking a toll on Edward Elric, slowly but surely.
He would ponder the way he missed being able to feel the ground beneath his feet, now that neither of his feet had nerve endings that belonged to him, and was surprised by how much he missed being able to feel socks. He wondered if this was how Al used to feel in the armour, with artificial limbs. He barely remembers the texture of shaking someone else’s hand.
His assignments recently have been dull. Little action, little excitement. Fighting with Truth’s limbs was still a struggle, and until last month Ed couldn’t even speak intelligibly, still trying to adapt to only moving half a tongue.
He was broken, and being surrounded by all the memories of what he’d been able to do while he was still his own person wasn’t helping. He needed something new. A new adventure.
Maybe this could be it.)
“I guess we’ll be taking that dictionary,” Ed said, pulling his glove back on, flipping his eyepatch back down and wiping some drool off the corners of his lips with the back of his hand.
Mustang didn’t smile, not really, but his eyes softened as he held the book out to Ed. “See you in a week, Fullmetal,” he called as Ed loped out the door, and snickered at the middle finger Ed threw back at him with his right hand.