Chapter Text
Cover: Instagram / DeviantArt
Edward Elric, seven years old, didn't hate his father.
Well, maybe he did a little. Dad was always gone or locked up in his study, and the only time he even acknowledged Ed's presence was when there was no toilet paper in the bathroom. He used to play with him when he was younger. He even stirred up Ed's interest in alchemy by reading to him from basic alchemy books at night instead of bedtime stories. But that was years ago, before Al could even walk.
Now, if Mom was at work or out running errands, Dad just put on the same boring DVD for babies and locked himself away again. Ed liked the music, but the show was about colors and shapes and Ed had learned those when he was two. Did Dad even know he'd grown up? Al liked the show, though, and sat with wide eyes through the entire half hour of it every single time, even though he was almost six now.
Ed just wished Dad would come out sometimes. Mom was so busy and tired with work that he felt bad trying to show her whatever silly art project they'd made at school or tell her about the cool bug he'd found on the sidewalk. Dad was busy and tired, too. But he just sat in his closet of an office all day and never once brought home any money.
Maybe Ed wouldn’t have stolen the chocolate bar for Al’s birthday if Dad helped Mom out sometimes. Mom didn’t like to say it, but Ed knew they were poor. He saw it every day at school. When the other kids needed a new jacket, they got one. Al wore the old patchy one Ed had grown out of, the one with holes in the elbows and shredded wrists where Ed had chewed them when he was little. The other kids got pudding cups and bags of chips in their lunches. Ed and Al got a peanut butter sandwich each, and nothing else.
So he knew Al’s birthday was going to be disappointing. He was turning six, and he was old enough now to remember the disappointment when he got older. When Ed had seen the chocolate bar right there by the cash register, practically calling out to him, he hadn’t hesitated to slip it into his pocket when Mom wasn’t looking.
Mom was not happy when she found out. She lectured him for way too long about stealing and dishonesty, and then when Dad had slipped out of his office, she turned to him. “Van, tell your son why he shouldn’t steal,” she said.
Dad looked down at him. The light glared across his glasses. “You’re better than this, Edward,” he said softly, and then turned and went into the bathroom.
Edward Elric, eight years old, definitely hated his father.
Because three days after Ed's birthday, he left and never came back. Mom had said he'd be back soon, but she cried at night and Ed knew that meant he was gone for good.
The kids at school had already made fun of him and Al for having a deadbeat dad, and rumors spread fast in the dumpy apartment complex where they lived, so the teasing only got worse when Dad left. Not to mention that his parents hadn't been married, and the old ladies liked to gossip about how terrible that made them. Mom just told him and Al to ignore them, because they were old and didn't know any better. But the kids picked up on it, too, and some of the older boys said that the reason Mom and Dad hadn't gotten married was because Dad didn't want to be tied down. And because Dad had left without so much as a goodbye, Ed couldn't even argue with them.
Mom started a second job, and sent him and Al over to her friends the Rockbells’ apartment a lot. Their daughter, Winry, was nice enough, but she was homeschooled and obsessed with her grandma's automail shop downstairs, so Ed didn't really have anything to talk to her about. Especially when she said alchemy was dumb. He'd thrown her wrench off of the balcony and spent the rest of the evening in time-out, where his buzzing thoughts got loud.
Granny Pinako paid a lot of attention to Al. Al was picky about lots of dumb things and cried a lot. One time, he'd thrown his spoon across the kitchen, but he hadn't gotten time-out. So Ed tried it once, just for the attention. He'd spent the rest of the night in time-out and didn't get a popsicle for dessert. Granny said Al was trying his best and that sometimes he didn't know how to express his discomfort. Ed thought that was very unfair.
Mom paid a lot of attention to Al, too. Al sometimes had trouble talking, so she spent a lot of time helping him. Ed wasn't jealous. Definitely not. He could deal with his racing mind all by himself. He just didn't think it was fair.
The older boys at school started calling Al mean names. So Ed punched them. And got sent to the office. A lot. Nobody seemed to care that Al was being bullied. Even if Ed was a little jealous of the attention Al got, he loved his little brother and would do anything to protect him.
He decided to learn more about alchemy. What better way to protect his brother than with alchemy? After school, instead of doing his homework, he poured over Dad's old alchemy books. Eventually, Al joined him. The basics were pretty easy, and his first successful transmutation was turning one of their forks into a little horse. Alchemy made Mom happy. Her exhausted eyes lit up whenever they showed her their progress. It was definitely a nice change to the disappointment Ed got whenever the school called her to report another fight.
“You're brilliant, Ed,” she told him. “You need to start using that brilliant brain of yours to think instead of your fists.”
“But they called Al bad words again,” Ed complained. “And the dumb teachers won't do anything.”
Mom smiled sadly. “You're a good big brother. My little man.”
Then one day, Mom came home from work early. She looked pale and shaky when she came in, and Ed tried to help her to the beat up old couch, but she collapsed on the floor. He shook her shoulders and called her name, but she wouldn't get up. So with a racing heart and a sick feeling in his stomach, he called the emergency services while Al started crying.
The EMTs pronounced her dead at the scene.
Edward Elric, nine years old, almost missed his father.
The dumb bastard missed Mom’s funeral. He didn’t even send a letter or a postcard or an email to Granny Pinako. He might as well be dead, too. And for a minute, while Ed sat on the muddy ground in a too-big hand-me-down suit, he wished Dad was there.
“I wish Dad was here,” Al whimpered.
Ed didn’t miss him anymore. “Yeah, well, he’s not,” he snapped. “And he’s never coming back, so stop waiting for him.”
“Don’t say that, Brother!” Al cried. “He has to come back! Mama said so!”
“Then where is he, Al?” Ed shouted. “It’s been almost two years and he hasn’t even called once! If he really loved Mom, then why didn’t he come to her funeral? If he really loved us, why did he leave?”
Al cried harder.
“Edward!” Granny Pinako scolded. “Don’t yell at your brother!”
“Why not?” Ed yelled at her instead. “Isn’t he old enough to know the truth?”
“This must be so hard for you,” Winry whispered. She was crying, even though it wasn’t her mom who was dead.
“And how would you know? You still have both your parents, so shut the fuck up!”
“Edward!” Pinako shouted again. Why could she shout, but he couldn’t?
“I wanna go home,” Al cried.
“Then go home! I don’t care!”
Ed climbed to his feet, and before he knew what he was doing, he ran. He ran and ran, out of the cemetery in the suburbs and back towards their old apartment. He hadn’t been there since the night Mom died. Granny Pinako had come over and he and Al had packed an overnight bag, and then they hadn’t gone back.
But Ed didn’t stop at the apartment. He just kept running. Running until he couldn’t breathe and his legs couldn’t move. Then he went into the crummy gas station on the corner and locked himself in the bathroom stall with a stolen bag of chips and a chocolate bar. He put his feet up on the toilet seat and ate his undeserved snack with bitterness in his heart. And in the quiet, his endless thoughts got loud again.
The store manager found him hours later after multiple complaints about the single men’s bathroom stall being occupied. Ed refused to answer any of his questions, so the man called the police. Which Ed thought was a huge overreaction to a dumb kid stealing a snack.
And so Ed found himself at the police station for the very first time. It was not the last.
Edward Elric, ten years old, didn’t even think of his father anymore.
Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true. He still heard Hohenheim’s voice in the back of his head every time he got caught shoplifting. Which wasn’t very often, but come on, the bike was right there and the employee at the door just let him walk right out with it. And it had cats on it, which were Al’s favorite, so he just had to take it. Apparently, nobody cared about a poor kid getting a birthday present. Plus, he was bored. Stealing gave him a thrill of excitement he couldn’t find anywhere else.
Eventually, he started to hear his father’s voice even when he didn’t get caught. And then he heard it when he got into fights at school, and then every time he ran away from home. He began to prefer the voice of Deputy Maddsen, who had started to say the same thing every time they met, which was frequently.
“You’re better than this, Edward.”
Amestris officially fell into civil war with Ishval on the Eastern border, and Winry’s parents never came home again. Everyone cared more about her than they ever had when his mother had died. He wasn’t jealous, he told himself. She was more emotional than he was, anyway, so she needed the support more than he had. In fact, he liked being ignored. It meant he had more time with his alchemy books.
He hated being ignored.
When Ed started skipping school, more interested in the alchemy books than the dumb stuff he understood in two seconds anyway, Granny Pinako finally sat him down after she sent Al and Winry to bed.
“You’re clearly brilliant, Edward,” she said, “but you have to stop doing this.”
Ed had lost count of how many times an adult had said that to him. “I go to school and inevitably get into a fight, and you yell at me. So then I don’t go to school and you still yell at me.”
“Nobody’s yelling, Ed.”
Pinako drummed her fingers on the table. Ed had learned that meant she needed a cigar. But she never smoked in the apartment, so Ed waited for her to get up and go out to the tiny balcony. She didn’t.
“You clearly need something more enriching,” she said. “I looked around and found something you might be interested in.” She unfolded a newspaper and pointed to an ad for an alchemy course at the local laboratory. “What if we got you a real teacher?”
Ed recognized the name and crossed his arms with a frown. “I looked that guy up at the library. I already know everything he teaches.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be him. I just thought you’d want to consider finding an alchemy teacher.”
“I want a teacher!” Al said from the hallway.
“Al, what are you doing out of bed?” Granny Pinako scolded. The way she scolded Al was completely different than the way she scolded Ed.
Al squeezed his cat plushie to his chest. “I can’t sleep yet because Brother didn’t read me the story.”
“He’ll be there in a few minutes,” Pinako promised. “Why don’t you go wait for him?”
“The nightlight is broken and it’s too dark.”
“I’ll fix it,” Ed said, standing up quickly. He didn’t feel like arguing with Pinako tonight.
Al’s face lit up. “Thanks, Brother! I tried already but I’m not as good as you.”
“That’s ‘cause I’m older and I have more practice.” Ed went into their room and knelt beside the nightlight. Al had already drawn a transmutation circle on a piece of paper. “Your circle looks perfect,” Ed said. “It looks like you just need to practice some more. It’s about feeling the energy in yourself and the earth.”
“Show me again,” Al said, sitting down next to him.
Ed closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, steadying his energy. Performing alchemy was the one single thing that cleared his mind and calmed his heart. He touched the circle to activate it, and with a quick flash, performed the transmutation. The nightlight looked the same, but the bulb inside had been repaired. “Now see if it works.”
Al plugged it in eagerly, and sure enough, it lit up with a warm yellow glow. “Wow,” he whispered. “You’re amazing, Brother.”
He didn’t feel amazing. But he smiled at his little brother, anyway. “Thanks, Al.”
“Now imagine what you could do with proper training,” Pinako said from the door.
“Yeah, you could be the greatest alchemist ever!” Al said, waving his plushie in the air.
“There was someone else I came across,” Pinako said. “She hasn't taken a student in a long time, but with your natural talent, she might just make an exception. But last I checked, she requires a full time commitment, and she lives in Dublith. So you would have to be okay with leaving for a while.”
Suddenly he knew why she wanted to find him a teacher, and the all familiar anger seeped back into his bones. “You're trying to kick me out,” Ed hissed. “You want me gone because you don't care about me.”
Granny Pinako always said something snappy when he mouthed off. But this time, she sat down beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. “Ed, if I wanted to get rid of you, I'd call the foster care. That's much easier than this.”
“So, what, I'm a difficult child?” Ed scoffed.
A tear ran down Al's cheek. How dramatic.
“Yes,” Pinako said, which was not at all what he expected.
Adults always lied to him when he said he was a bad kid. They always said something dumb like you're not a bad kid; you just made a bad choice. But Granny didn't lie. And for some reason, even though he should be pissed at her, it was almost nice that someone finally admitted it.
“You are difficult,” she continued, “because you're too damn smart. How is a layman like me supposed to keep up with whatever’s going on in that brain of yours? That's why I think this woman in Dublith would be good for you. She's said to be an alchemic genius."
“Like you, Brother!” Al said excitedly. He wiped his tears with the back of his hand and rocked on his heels. “Mama said you're brilliant, like a genius!”
“If you want, I can give her a call.”
“I'll think about it,” Ed said.
Pinsko smiled. It had been a long time since an adult smiled at him. She stayed in their room while Ed read Al his bedtime story, a silly little book made for toddlers about cats. Ed didn't know why Al liked hearing the same thing every single night. Ed had been reading it to him for years, and he could recite the thing front and back and maybe even in alphabetical order. But Al liked the familiarity, so Ed would keep reading it for him. He just wished he'd pick something new sometimes.
Maybe an alchemy teacher would be good for him. If the lady in Dublith really was a genius, he might actually learn something. He'd never been to Dublith, so at least he'd see something new.
“Do you think Dad was as talented as you when he was little?” Al asked as Ed tucked him in.
Why did Al still think about that bastard so much?
“I dunno. Goodnight, Al.”
Edward Elric, eleven years old, was so damn tired of thinking about his father.
It was all Al's fault. He always brought him up at the worst times, and then Ed’s stupid brain wouldn’t shut up.
When Pinako had taken them on the bus to meet the alchemy teacher in Dublith: “I wonder if Dad ever had a teacher?”
When they'd finally convinced—or maybe pestered—Mrs. Izumi Curtis to teach them and temporarily moved into her home: “Do you think Dad missed home when he left?”
When Teacher and her husband Sig got too lovey and mushy at dinner time: “Did Dad ever talk to Mom like that?”
And the worst—on Ed's eleventh birthday: “I hope Dad comes to your party this year!”
“Why the fuck would he come?” Ed snapped, squeezing his spoon so hard that his dry knuckles split and bled.
“Language, Edward,” Teacher said from the sink.
“I'm not even having a party,” Ed continued, ignoring her. “Nobody would come, anyway.”
He hadn't seen the kids from school in months; not since moving to Dublith. None of them liked him, anyway, which was fine because he didn't like any of them. Granny was probably busy and Winry wouldn't care and that was it. Maybe, he thought humorlessly, he should take the train back to Resembool and pop by Deputy Maddsen's office at the police station. The guy was probably wondering why he hadn't seen him in so long.
Guess what, Deputy? I'm finally getting my life together.
How pathetic he was to have ruined his life by eleven.
“I’d come,” Al said, and then turned to look at Teacher. “Can we make him a cake today after training?”
Teacher held still for a second, something she did when someone mentioned children, or birthdays, apparently. “Sure,” she finally said.
“I don’t want it,” Ed grumbled into his oatmeal.
“But you always like the ones Mom made for you,” Al said in confusion. Couldn’t he tell that Ed didn’t want to talk about this?
No, he didn’t. As big of a heart as Al had, he never seemed to understand Ed’s emotions unless Ed explicitly told him. Which was annoying, because Ed hated talking about his emotions. He hated feeling his emotions, because he only ever felt anger or bitterness, no matter what he did.
But Teacher must have caught something, because she got herself a bowl of oatmeal even though she wasn’t done with the dishes and sat down next to Al. “If Ed doesn’t want a cake, then we shouldn’t pester him.”
“But I don’t get it.” Al frowned and stared at Ed, concern obvious on his face. “He didn’t want one last year, either, but he liked my cake on my birthday.”
Ed squeezed his spoon harder. More blood oozed out of his split knuckles.
“Maybe you can ask him about it tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow? Why not now?”
Teacher opened her mouth to answer, but Ed beat her to it before he could stop himself. “Because I don’t want to, okay? Isn’t it obvious?”
Al bit his lip. If he started crying, Ed swore he’d punch a wall or something. Teacher looked over at Ed with an emotion he couldn’t place. He realized suddenly that this was the first time an adult hadn’t gotten upset with him for snapping at Al. At least not since Mom had died. And for some reason, it made his heart twist with a feeling he didn’t like. A new feeling, something he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
“I’m sorry,” Al said softly. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”
“I’m going on a walk,” Ed declared, and stood up.
“But we have to do our studies before sparring lessons at noon.”
“I’m going on a walk,” he repeated.
“But—”
“Let him go, Al,” Teacher said.
Ed didn’t walk. He ran, just like he always did. When he didn’t know what to do, he ran, as if he could outrun his own mind if he just went fast enough. He’d developed a good set of lungs by now. He was faster than Al and most of the older kids in his school, even though he was smaller than them. He could probably run forever if he let himself.
He wasn’t very familiar with Dublith yet, and he found himself in a dirty, rundown part of town with a lot of broken down cars. One of them had a broken windshield and looked like it hadn’t been driven in months. So Ed picked up a rock and threw it at the car as hard as he could. The rock smashed through the passenger window. And it felt good, so he picked up another rock.
Someone grabbed the back of his neck. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Ed’s heart nearly stopped. “I—”
The guy threw him back against the building behind them, and Ed’s head hit the brick with a crack. Warm blood seeped into his hair.
“What are you doing around here, anyway? Don’t you know where you are?” The man cracked his knuckles and stood over him with a smug grin. He was very tall and very wide. “This is the Devil’s Nest, and—”
“Yo, what’s going on?”
Ed snapped his head around to face the new voice. A pale man with black glasses and a sleeveless leather jacket stood in the doorway of the building with his hands in his pockets. He stared down at Ed for an uncomfortably long minute, and then smiled. Ed could have sworn his teeth were pointy.
“Hey, you’re Hohenheim’s kid, aren’t you?”
Ed’s eyes widened. This stranger knew Hohenheim?
“You know this kid, Boss?” the first man asked.
“Nah, but I met his pops once. Weird guy. Wouldn’t tell me anything.”
Ed took the momentary distraction to kick the first man in the shin and take off running. He doubted he did any damage, but the guy still stepped back, probably out of surprise more than anything.
“Damn brat!”
“Let him go,” Leather Jacket said. “He’s not worth it.”
So Ed ran again. Ran and ran and ran.
Sig found Ed hours later, sitting on a swing at the far end of town. Dublith didn’t get cold in the winter like Resembool did, being so far south, but the breeze was chilly and Ed wished he’d brought his jacket.
Sig, a man of few words, sat in the swing next to him and didn’t say anything. He looked comically large in the small swing. They both stared at the ground in silence. Ed scuffed his foot in the playground sand and wished he’d stop feeling.
“Here,” Sig finally said, taking off his own jacket and passing it to Ed.
“Huh?”
“You’re shivering.”
“Oh.” Ed took the jacket and hesitantly pulled it around his shoulders. It was, of course, massive on him and fit more like a dress. But it was warm. “...thank you.”
Sig just kind of grunted and went silent again.
Another few minutes of quiet passed. “Aren’t you going to yell at me?” Ed whispered.
“No.” Sig looked over at him again. “You’re hurt.”
Ed put his hand against the back of his head. The blood had dried by now and the running had caused him to forget the pain. “It’s nothing.”
“Let me see.”
Ed didn’t want him to see. Because Sig’s kind eyes reminded him of Dad. Back when he’d still loved him. Back before Ed had turned into a no-good delinquent who got in fights and stole from gas stations and ran away from home. Tears burned in his eyes and Ed blinked rapidly to clear them before they fell. If Sig saw him crying, he might think he was weak and tell Teacher, and then she’d stop teaching him the advanced stuff.
Teacher was very disciplined. She’d probably kick him out for running away, and he’d lose the one thing he actually found interest in. The one thing that engaged his stupid brain. They’d send him back to Resembool and he’d find himself back in the police station with Deputy Maddsen in no time. And he’d be right back to being a failure.
Hohenheim must be so disappointed in him. No wonder he’d never come back.
Sig didn’t ask to see his wound again, but he also didn’t reach for him anyway. He even turned his head back to stare at the street. Good. Then he couldn’t see the silent tears dripping down Ed’s nose as he curled into himself on the swing.
When Sig finally stood up again, Ed had stopped crying. “It’s lunch time,” Sig said, and nothing else. He didn’t mention Ed’s wasted breakfast, or the fact that he had hardly eaten anything the night before, or that his stomach growled embarrassingly at the mention of lunch.
Ed got off the swing and followed him back to the house.
Edward Elric, twelve years old, wished his father would have stopped him. Because he had made a terrible, unforgivable mistake.