Chapter Text
Roy’s team is waiting for Ed when he arrives, the sun settled deep past the horizon. There’s just enough light to see by; in it, Roy’s obscured by the apartment’s shadow, his dark hair slicked back save for a few strands that frame his face. The street is silent, the scrape of Jean’s jacket against cobblestone wall echoing as he pulls out a lighter.
“Maes said you quit,” Ed says. Jean’s daughter had been born sickly; her lungs too weak to handle the pungent smell of smoke that lingered on him. Ed thought it had been an easy choice.
Jean empties his other pocket. “Lighter was a gift from Maria,” he says. “I haven’t touched a cigarette in months.”
“Thank you for meeting us here, Edward,” Riza says. There’s a rifle strapped to her back, extra ammunition hanging from a belt around her hips. The other men are similarly armed, Brenda’s Browning holstered to his thigh, Jean’s pistol tucked in the small of his back. Falman and Fuery each have a rifle in hand, similar in style to the ones Riza showed him yesterday.
Roy clasped his gloved hands in front of him, the familiar red ink staining black in the darkness. He hands Ed a pistol, the handle worn with age. Still, it shines when Ed holds it up to the streetlight. It’s a 1903 Bergmann model, the barrel extending well past his knuckles when he grips the weapon. Semi-automatic.
“I thought tonight was just reconnaissance?” he asks.
“Just in case,” Roy replies. He sweeps inside the building, his blue outercoat snapping behind him. Dramatic bastard. The team follows him with practiced ease.
Riza hangs by Ed’s side as the apartment door slams shut behind them. She pulls out a revolver from her jacket and holds it out to Ed. Ed takes it, now holding a gun in each hand.
"Why?” he asks, baffled.
“Sometimes it’s good to have weapons your superior officer doesn’t know about,” she says.
“How many weapons do you have on you right now?” Ed asks. By looking at her, Ed would guess just the rifle she’s holding. Knowing her, the number’s probably closer to ‘more than enough’.
Riza opens the complex door. There’s a smile hinted in her eyes. “Come on,” she says, “they’re waiting for us.”
Ed threads the revolver through an elastic strap sewed into the inside of his coat and follows her inside. The complex is only two stories. Riza leads him to Bloodhound’s apartment folded in the top corner of the building.
Still, it’s not hard to identify Bloodhound’s apartment, the sharp smell of iron identifiable even behind the sturdy wood door; opening it is like wading through Envy’s stomach. The stench is so potent it’s almost tangible.
The apartment’s door opens to the living room, the entire place stripped bare, dust floating in the air, the windows bolted shut. There’s a large crack in the wall facing the alley, allowing a mixture of moonbeams and streetlight to illuminate the space. There are unlit gas lanterns scattered across the apartment, but it’s bright enough without them.
Mounted to every exposed section of wall are bookshelves, a myriad of mismatched glass jars along them. The jars themselves are filled with a dark, viscous liquid. When Ed taps the one closest to him it sloshes lazily in its container before sliding back down the sides, leaving a red tint that’s slow to follow.
“Careful.” Roy stops him with a hand to his chest. Etched into the oak is a transmutation circle, drawn edge to edge across the floor, dried blood sunk deep in the cuts. The array is made of two concentric circles a few centimeters apart, a regular hexagon inside it. Inside that is a triangle, its points connecting the hexagon at the edge of the innermost circle. At the orthocenter of the triangle is a circle, its center the intersection for the triangle’s three medians to retain a bismuth-copper alloy. In the center of the entire transmutation is a signifier for a carbon-12 isotope. Tangential to the inner circle are three arcs—a hydrogen bonder.
Inscribed between the two circles are symbols for recalling neon, argon, radon and helium. Four of the strongest stabilizing gases. Criss-crossing the entire transmutation are staggered perpendicular lines, the small circles on their ends. It’s perfect; every line straight, every angle clean, Ed’s seen worse work on university blackboards.
And it doesn’t make any fucking sense. At least as far as Ed can tell. The transmutation is designed to sustain itself indefinitely, but there’s no source of activation energy. Kinetic energy is wasted in preserving the massive amount of bismuth, who’s half-life is so long the entire endeavor is pointless. The carbon and hydrogen are set to yield an incredibly unstable compound without ionization. There are marking for sensory connections but Roy’s right, it’s not human transmutation.
He says as much to Roy, waits for him to thank Ed for his help then politely usher him out the door and complain about the waste of time the second it closes behind him, but Roy just nods.
“We knew better than to hope for an easy end,” Roy says. He drags a bare hand against the kitchen countertop, his fingers coming away streaked in grey. He grimaces and wipes his hand on the cloth Riza hands him. “Guess we’re in for a long night.”
Ed knows better than to like a gift horse in the mouth. They split off into groups of two, each taking a room in the apartment. Roy and Ed end up in the master bedroom, a small staircase placing them a few feet above the apartment. Roy brings two lanterns, handing one to Ed. The windows in this room are open; the space cast in an eerie white light.
There’s blood splattered throughout the entire building, but the majority of it seems to be concentrated here, turning the floorboards a rusty black. If Ed were to guess, he’d say it was a few bodies worth. Surprisingly, this room is furnished, though rather sparsely. There’s a threadbare bed flush against the wall that separates this room from the foyer, the top blanket crusted in blood. Flakes of it float to the ground when Ed kicks the foot of the bed, the metal of his foot clanging with the steel bed frame.
“How did you find this place anyway?” Ed asks. He kneels on the ground and lifts the blanket. The bed frame’s bolted to the ground. He runs a hand over the bolts; the warped edges of wood around steel nicking his fingers. A drop of blood splashes on the ground. Ed holds his breath, but the only sound in the room is the rustle of paper.
“A woman across the street recognized Bloodhound from the description we placed in the newspaper. It was empty when our special ops team got here,” Roy says. He’s a few meters from Ed, examining a newspaper clipping pinned to the wall.
“And none of his neighbors noticed the smell before?” Ed asks, appalled. The stench of decay is so strong Ed can feel it eating away at his skin, the stretch of his tendons exposed.
“He didn’t have any,” Roy says. “Hughes ran the accounts the other apartments were under. All of them traced back to Bloodhound.”
Ed whistles. “That must have cost a fortune.” While not in a particularly affluential part of town, buying out that many apartments must have been a strain. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t afford any décor.
“Bradley kept his pets well fed,” Roy says wryly. “He could have bought this place six times over.”
“You’d think with all that money he could have hired a professional carpenter,” Ed says.
“What do you mean?”
Ed pulls the blanket off the bed. Underneath there’s nothing but a frame. The bottom half of the headboard is nailed down. “He obviously didn’t want this bed to move, but he did a terrible job.” Ed hands Roy four steel bolts. “Dug them out with my hands. He shredded the wood so badly it was like sifting through sand.”
Roy raises a delicate eyebrow. “Someone was in a hurry.” He eyes the bed. “I wonder what he was hiding.”
Ed pulls a small husa knife from his boot, the handle engraved with intertwined red and yellow dragons, and gouges out the remaining two bolts. He drags the bed away from the wall with Roy’s help when he begins to struggle with its weight. The wood has been chiseled away to reveal another transmutation circle, smaller than the one in the foyer and less complicated. It forms the basis of combustion array, but with an additional hydrogen bond in the center. It’s hidden between the connecting oxidizer, so small Ed would have written it off as a mistake. But the entire circle is meticulously painted in blood, the only imperfection a thin river of blood from the base of the circle to the ground and even that is blade straight. There’s a large emblem near the edge of the circle, winding in a familiar pattern, but Ed can’t remember what it does, hovering just on the edge of his mind.
Roy wobbles closer to the bed, tripping over nothing. Ed catches his arm before he’s able to faceplant into the array. “What’s the matter with you?” Ed asks.
“Lost my footing,” he says. “It’s too dark in here.”
Ed can make out the fine details of Roy’s face with startling clarity, the moon more than enough to see by. Roy reaches for his lantern, his fingers scrabbling at air before they connect with its wire handle.
“Just, hold on a second,” Ed says. “There’s something about this array I don’t like.” It’s almost too simple, the transmutation should be easy to understand. But for the life of him Ed can’t figure out what it’s supposed to do.
There’s a dull crash from outside, shouts echoing around the apartment. They waste no time rushing towards it. Ed’s heaving by the time he makes it to the kitchen, his heart racing.
Fuery lays on the ground behind the counter, his arms splayed limply by his side. The rest of the team surrounds him, a mixture of worry and confusion painting their faces. Riza places to finger beneath against his neck.
“His heart’s still beating,” she says, brusque. “But it’s erratic.”
Fuery’s chest is moving, each breath shallow. There’s a gash on his temple, sluggishly bleeding. Ed wants to cup his hands underneath it and prevent Fuery’s blood from mixing with the crusted red floor. A drop hits the ground.
"What happened?” Roy asks as stumbles to kneel beside Fuery. He takes off his coat and presses it against the wound.
“I don’t know, sir.” Riza sags against the wall. Her professionalism more veneer than anything else. Ed can see it rubbing off as she closes her eyes momentarily. “One second he was standing next to me, then, he just, he’s on the floor. I think he hit his head against the counter on the way down.”
“That shouldn’t have been enough to knock him out,” Ed says. The counter is decayed so thoroughly that Ed could crumble it with only the strength in his fingers. He does, the rotted teak soft in his hand.
“Havoc,” Roy says. Jean gives a delayed salute. “Call a medic. Have them wait outside when they get here. I don’t want anyone else here unless they have to be.”
Jean rises on shaking legs. “On it, sir.”
Roy hands Riza his coat, the blood starting to seep through the fabric. “There’s got to be something we’re missing,” he says. He rises to flick a switch. When nothing happens, he does it again.
“The,” Ed waves to the ceiling. “The electricity’s been turned off.”
“Right,” Roy says. He pinches his eyebrows together. “I knew that.” He walks to the foyer, a hand against the wall for support. Ed follows, his steps slightly more stable. Behind them, Falman drops to the ground next to Riza, his back against the counter. Brenda joins him a moment later.
Roy crouches over the array. “You said it was incomplete,” he says. Ed sways above him. Is it his imagination or is the circle moving? No, no it’s him who’s moving.
“Edward.”
Ed blinks the fog from his eyes. “Not incomplete,” he murmurs. “Wrong.” The smell of blood is suddenly overwhelming; the circle is starting to resemble the one in his nightmares. Ed’s glad Al hadn’t come, afraid that if his brother stepped near the array, he’d crumble away in pieces.
Ed thinks he’s going to be sick.
“I can’t see a damn thing in here,” Roy says, brushing his ungloved hand over the circle. The moonlight is blinding. Ed shields his eyes.
Roy poises his fingers to snap. “Wait,” Ed says. “Don’t--don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
Ed doesn’t know.
He looks at the array again. Grabs the reigns of his mind and tells himself to focus, even if he can’t remember why it’s important. The concentric circle are unusual for this type of array. Are they? Ed’s sure he’s seen them in some of his own work—no. They shouldn’t be framing stabilizing gases, it’s counterintuitive. The bismuth-copper alloy is a waste of energy.
Alright, ignore them. That leaves three carbons and a hydrogen. Unstable. The rest of the team hadn’t mentioned finding anything else, so Ed works with the idea that there are only two arrays. The other one could be reduced to a combustion agent, but the extra hydrogen doesn’t make much sense on its own.
Ed looks at the array in front of him. There’s a thin line of blood exiting the circle, it starts in the center of the array, crisscrossing through the hydrogen bonders. It’s buried between the rest of the blood soaking the floor he hadn’t noticed it earlier. It runs up the wall, stopping at Ed’s eye level in the middle of two shelves. There’s a faint glow coming from the crack between the two walls. Behind it is—
“Move!” Ed shouts.
“Edward, what are you—” Ed dives for Roy, tackling the other man around the waist. He sends them both crashing into the kitchen as the foyer explodes behind them.
His head collides with something hard, fire licking at his feet.
Darkness swallows him whole.
There’s pressure around his fingers. That’s what he notices first. His senses come back to him slowly, like the rising of a tide.
His head aches, but it’s a dull throb. An echo of pain, almost an afterthought. He’s under a blanket, the soft fabric snug around him. He can hear a bird’s lonely call, feel a cool breeze against his skin. Must be early morning.
Everything comes rushing back at once. Ed shoots up in his bed, his head protesting as he does. “Where’s Roy? The rest of the team?”
It’s Ling who stares back at him. “It’s alright,” he says. “Everyone’s okay.” The two words, Ling’s voice, his hand, quell the edge of Ed’s panic. He helps Ed sit up, adjusting the pillows behind him. “Well, everyone but you and Fuery, but the nurses said he’ll be fine in a few days. He got the worse of the poisoning.”
“Methane?” Ed asks. Ling nods. Ed should have noticed quicker. The nausea, weakness, increased heartrate, Fuery losing consciousness. If only Ed had been faster, maybe no one would have gotten hurt.
Ling taps him lightly on the head, mindful of the bandaging wrapped around it. “Knock that off. I can hear the guilt from here,” he chastises.
“You don’t understand,” Ed says. “If I had just been a little bit better—”
“Everyone would be alright?” Ling asks. Ed sinks into the bed. Of course Ling understands. You don’t bury your grandfather without hating yourself a little. But Ling isn’t done.
“You did all you could. If you weren’t there the rest of you team would have left in body bags, not with minor scrapes.”
“We’re back at square one,” Ed mutters. “Bloodhound is still out there and we’re no closer to catching him.” Well, that’s not quite true.
Ling threads his fingers through Ed’s hair. Ed can’t help but melt into the touch. “That head wound really did a number on you, huh? Mustang told me a bit of what happened while you were out. He said after the explosion went off Havoc saw a man emerge from the alley. That he was heading towards the apartment faster than Havoc himself. Apparently, he matched Bloodhound’s description and ran when Havoc tried to confront him.”
“Damn it!” Ed says. He can’t believe Bloodhound was right outside and he let him slip away. The man had the best of the Amestrian military running around like fools, god knows when they’ll get a chance like this again. If he kills again, their blood’s on Ed’s hands.
“You’re not giving your team enough credit,” Ling says. “After Havoc left the effects of the methane started to wear off. Mustang said he called for a backup squad along with the medics. They caught Bloodhound before he even left the neighborhood. He also said you saved his life.” Ling is grinning, his hand moving down to grip Ed’s once more. He’s blinding.
“He’s exaggerating,” Ed says, heat racing up his cheeks.
“I’ve done nothing of the sort.” Ed didn’t even hear him open the door, but huffs his disbelief at Roy regardless. Roy ignores him and sets the large bouquet of daffodils in a glass vase near Ed’s bed. Roy rearranges them, his back towards him. Ling hasn’t let go of Ed’s hand.
“I was in the middle of that array, Edward. The ceiling would have crushed me if the fire didn’t get me first.” Roy unfolds the petals of a flower. “What an embarrassing way for the Flame Alchemist to go.”
“Everything you do is embarrassing,” Ed counters. Roy looks uninjured, his gait returned to its normal stride. There’s a faint cut across his temple, the skin already pink with healing.
“Then this would be the event to top them all,” Roy says. His shoulders inch towards his ears. He turns around and sits in the chair across from Ling, trying to catch Ed’s gaze. “Thank you, Edward,” he says, so sincere it makes Ed’s teeth ache. “Not just for saving me, but for the rest of the team. We’re in your debt.”
Ed barely resists the urge to squirm. “Don’t act stupider than you already are,” Ed says. When he meets Roy’s eyes, the gaze easier than expected to hold. “You’d all do the same for me, no thanks needed.”
Roy nods. “Still, thank you.”
“What did I just say?” Ed groans. “God, working under you is going to be a pain in my ass, isn’t it?”
“So it’s a yes then?” Roy asks. If Ed didn’t know better, he’d think the bastard was happy.
“You asked me to help figure out the Bloodhound case and I did. What, are you trying to take back the offer?” Ed sneers.
“We still don’t know how Bloodhound was able to kill all those people, nor what he was doing with those arrays.”
“Maybe you don’t, you incompetent bastard.” It’s a standoff, Ed refusing to elaborate lest Roy admits he doesn’t understand until Ling nudges him with a quiet Ed that he’s grown weak to.
“Who gave him his codename?” he asks. Roy seems baffled by the non sequitur. Good.
“…Bradley, after Bloodhound came back from the Ishvalan war.” The man’s a terror even beyond the grave. Ed has half a mind to bring him back just to kill him again. Disappearing into the wind was too kind a death.
“Of course he knew. That was probably what drew Bradley to him in the first place,” Ed says. “Bloodhound can activate arrays even if he’s not touching them. He infused them with his blood and activated them when his victims got too close.”
“But he’d still have to be on sight to make sure they were in the right place. He’d gain only a few meters of distance, that couldn’t be worth it,” Roy says.
Sometimes a few centimeters can make all the difference, but Ed digresses. “In the array we found in the bedroom, there were sensory connections scattered throughout it. It didn’t make much sense on its own, but I think Bloodhound used that to physically attach his senses to the array, border lining human transmutation. He’d feel when someone entered his array and he’d set them off. With his strength he might even be able to be in another city.”
“So the larger array was just nonsense?” Roy asks.
Ed tilts his hand back and forth. “Not completely. It was intended to waste our time, keep all of us in one place at once. But it held three of the four hydrogens needed to form methane, the fourth in the smaller array. He’d probably activated the methane transmutation the second we entered the complex. That place was drenched in his blood, he must have felt everything we did in there. Once you got too close to the array in the foyer, boom. He activates the combustion sequence—”
“And the entire apartment goes up in flames.” Roy finishes.
Next to Ed Ling raises a hand high in the air like he’s in primary school. “If Bloodhound could active the array regardless of distance, why did Havoc find him in the wreckage? Why return to a crime scene you never had to be near?”
“If the man who put me in prison for something I thought was my God-given right, I’d probably like to watch him die too,” Ed says. “No offense, General.”
Roy stares at him. Ed meets it without flinching, dwarfed by the hospital bed he’s in. “Work starts at eight, Edward. I want a brief of the case on my desk by seven-thirty.” Roy pushes up on his thighs and walks to the door.
Ed gropes around the table next to him, hands curling on the first hard thing they meet. He throws an empty clipboard at Roy’s head. Bastard dodges without turning around.
“Sheska will show you to your office. I’ll tell your brother you’re awake.” He closes the door behind him, a soft click following him out. If Ed’s head didn’t spin at the thought, he’d get up and slam the door.
“I hate him,” he says.
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m going to quit.”
Ling laughs. “Then I wouldn’t be able to go on dates with my boyfriend and call it a political endeavor.” Ed’s heart stops. He’s lucky he’s already in a hospital.
“Boyfriend?” he whispers.
Ling looks nervous. He fiddles with skin between Ed’s fingers. Right, he hadn’t let go of his hand. “I--sorry I should have asked.” He looks up at Ed, pink flooding his pale skin. “It’s just what I’ve been saying in my head. I can stop, if it makes you uncomfortable?”
Ed can’t breathe. If this is a dream, if he hit his head harder than he thought and he’s in a coma, please let it last for a little longer.
“What about him?” Ed asks.
“Who? Mustang?” Ling’s eyes grow dark. “If he thinks he gets a say in our relationship because he’s your superior officer I’ll—”
It’s so painful to think about, harder still to say out loud, but Ed has to know. “Him. The man you’re in love with.”
Realization rises on Ling like the sun above clouds. Ed wants to bottle the soft smile Ling gives and hold it close to his heart. “Oh Ed, Sweetheart. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
Ed can’t breathe, doesn’t think he wants to. “Since when?”
“The day we met.”
“Ling,” Ed pleads.
“Oh you’re no fun,” Ling says, but he’s smiling. Grins bigger still when he looks at Ed. “I liked you the moment I saw you. The most passionate man I’d ever met, the kindest soul I ever felt, it was hard to say away from you. Not that I wanted to. Look at you!” Ling winks. “You’d make my consorts weep with shame.”
Ed’s going to strangle him. And maybe let his hands linger now that he knows they’d be welcome.
“But I think I fell in love with you after the Promised Day. Everyone was with their own groups, branching off to lick their wounds, and you pulled me off the ground and brushed the dirt of my face, right here,” Ling traces a reverent finger across the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t look at me like a soon-to-be emperor, or another fighter, or even as the last body of Greed. You looked at me like a person, someone you were with not because it was your duty, or because I’d be a beneficial pawn in the future, but because you liked having me around. After that it was the quickest, softest fall I’d ever experienced.”
“Same here,” Ed says. He thinks his heart is going to beat out of his chest. Ed can’t remember a time he’s been this happy, this content. He never would have thought his emotions could be swayed so completely by one man, never would have accepted it if it wasn’t Ling.
“I pour my heart out to you and all I get is ‘same here’?” Ling falls into his lap, delicate on his bruised ribs. He looks at Ed upside down. His smile looks strange from this angle. It’s the most beautiful thing Ed’s ever seen. “You hurt me Edward, you really do.”
Ed frames Ling’s face with his hands, and now it’s Ling’s turn to blush. Ed plans to make it a habit. “Same here,” he whispers. “Falling in love with you was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t think I could have stopped it if I tried, not that I’d ever want to. Ling, if I had the rest of my life to tell you all the things I love about you, I don’t think I’d ever stop talking.”
“I’ve got nowhere to be,” Ling whispers back, the ease between them too precious to break.
Ed laughs and leans closer, the tips of their noses touching. “You make me look forward to waking up on the chance I get to be near you. Each day I spend with you I think can’t be outshone, then I’ll see you again and it’ll pale in comparison to being with you in person instead of in my memories. You’re—"
Ling cuts him off with a kiss. It’s bruising and the angle is terrible, their teeth clacking together, but Ling laughs into it, and it’s the best thing Ed’s ever had the pleasure of calling his.