A heart (madefullmetal) wrote in knowhereic, @ 2017-08-14 11:25:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | fullmetal alchemist: canon: edward elric, the dresden files: canon: harry dresden |
Who:Harry Dresden and Edward Elric
What:Ed apparently has a breakdown. What the hell Harry?
When:Recently
Where:Ed and York's place
Warnings:D for depressing af.
Status: complete
Another monotonous day after the last. Ed went to work and again came home. Wash, rinse, repeat. He hadn’t really touched anything by way of food, he wasn’t interested. He’d had something at work, but it was pretty underwhelming. Just some stupid granola bar or something. Now, thank god it was time to be at home. York was at work, the house was quiet. Ed had the t.v. on, but it was on mute. He was mostly paying attention to the enchanted ceiling York had had those two wizard guys do at lunch the day before that he was dragged out for.
Magic he called it. Ed was taught to believe that magic was just a thing of fairy tales and stories. Nothing to be taken seriously, and yet right above his head there was a starlit sky for him to look at. Tiny balls of light that flickered much like the real sky. If he focused hard enough he could almost pretend he was anywhere else but space.
--
While the short blonde on the inside of the apartment contemplated his decision to live, a giant of a man outside knocked on the door. Harry Dresden, wizard extraordinaire, stood on the other side. He was dressed down today (he was never dressed up really) in jeans, a plain t-shirt, and work boots. His customary black leather duster was left at home, as was the quarterstaff and other gear he typically carried into battle.
Today was a social call, except for the private items tucked into his pockets for York. It was York who he’d finally ventured out to meet… which, of course, the wizard probably should have checked his schedule before coming. But, oh well.
Harry knocked again, his temper flaring. So he was an impatient person, sue him. Maybe York wasn’t even home though, what was he getting annoyed about? Schooling his emotions, the wizard calmed himself down and sighed. Then he dug into his pockets to retrieve a folded piece of paper.. He didn’t have a pencil.
He’d planned to leave a note but …
Well, shit.
“York?” he said aloud, “It’s Harry.”
***
The knocking almost seemed to shake the very foundation of the magic suspended above him, and caused an irritated scowl to creep over his face as he finally got himself up. At the very least, today he was wearing clothes? Getting up seemed like a feat on it’s own. Depression York had called it. What an obnoxious feeling. Parts of him wanted to be productive, but he had zero drive to do so when even getting up was hard. It felt like living under water, all the time and he didn’t know how to get to the surface. Alcohol had helped for a while but it’d proven only to be temporary relief. He wanted a permanent solution but everything was muddy. Nothing was fun or interesting anymore. Only that ceiling had piqued his interest momentarily.
It took him a moment to get to the door and another to curse as it’d shattered under the grip of his automail hand. But hey, the door opened?
“...York’s at work.”
--
The door opened and Harry peered inside… only to find a blank spot on the wall on the opposite side of the living room. He blinked. There was a voice. Harry’s eyes dropped and he found himself peering down at the top of the head of a very small blonde. Was it a boy or a girl? He couldn’t tell for a moment.
Harry raised both brows.
“Uh,” he said. So Smooth. “You must be Ed?” He said it like a question. Get it together wizard. Harry cleared his throat and eyed the boy. It was a boy named Edward Elric. The alchemist. Another one. Harry perked up a little at the idea.
“Hi,” he started, “I’m Harry Dresden. I’m a friend of.. Uh our mutual friend, York. He’s at work?” Awesome listening skills, Harry.
***
Ed let the remains of the door knob litter the ground and scowled a bit. He had two options now, repair it the regular way or the alchemy way-problem was he didn’t know the regular way and his alchemy...wasn’t something he had any drive to use. His scowl turned into an annoyed sigh as he looked straight up at the obelisk of a human being that stood in front of him. “Of course you are. Because apparently space mass produces giants.” He commented dryly with a shake of his head, but the comment of York being a giant was more endearing these days. Less scathing. Unless he was in a bad mood. Which, he wasn’t. Ed was just existing for the time being.
“Harry Dresden.” He paused for a moment giving him a thoughtful once over. “The lizard.” He remembered from their brief interaction on the network. That comment had amused him, and stuck. Ed was probably going to call him that until something better popped up.
“Ed.” He was nowhere near as concerned with titles as Roy was.
---
“Nah, I’m not from space, I’m from Mars,” Harry replied candidly. “Hence the lizard brain.” He winked. Yeah, Harry Dresden, the lizard. He didn’t mind. Kids were fine, when they weren’t being moody assholes. But he’d been a moody asshole 16 year old once too, so he could forgive the kid’s general attitude.
Life seemed to suck a lot more than it really did at that age. Of course Ed was having a rough time. Not that Harry was aware of any of the shitty things Ed had been through, but if he did… well, he could relate.
“Do you mind if I come in? I don’t like having my back in the hallway, personally. I’m too paranoid for that.” Especially not wearing his duster. It was a giant target that said ‘Kill me now!’
***
Ed actually smirked at that. “Should’ve thought of that.” And stood to the side once he asked to come in. “Lots of people try to kill you or something?” Of course they did, he was a friend of York’s. Looking at the types of people that York seemed to collect that wouldn’t surprise him if it were the case. “If you want….assuming you can get through the door.” He couldn’t help but to ad as he walked away from the dusty pile of metal.
“Know how to fix a door knob?” He thumbed over at the empty space where it used to be, and frowned. He didn’t want York to have to do everything, he still tried to at least take care of himself and his business as much as he could.
--
Harry snorted. “Yeah, pretty much regularly.” He shook his head and stepped inside (yeah, he had to duck just slightly, fuck off). But at least the ceilings were high enough he didn’t have to hunch his shoulders or anything. Man, is this what Gandalf felt like inside Bag End?
“Should I tell York to install a Hobbit shaped door?” He asked, looking back at the broken doorknob.. How had…
Harry’s eyes tracked back to Ed’s face then darted down to his arm and the metal fingers shining there at the end of his hand. His whole arm, York had said, and his leg. Harry backed up a pace, suddenly unsure.
“Uh, how sophisticated is the technology holding your limbs together?” Harry’s magic interfered with technology. He didn’t want to short out the wires and things that attached themselves to Ed’s nerves and enabled him to move his fingers and toes like a regular limb.
***
Ed raised an eyebrow at that remark. “York has weird friends.” Ed commented offhandedly, not really meaning to be an asshole about it-but it was true. Look at his collection. Broody teenager, giant lizard.
“Only if we can put you out someplace in the desert to guide ancient Egyptians.” He said easily enough, pretending not to be phased by the comment on his vertically challenged dispositio but clearly annoyed.
Yet another raise of an eyebrow at that comment. “I don’t really remember. I was only half aware when it was attached to me.” Grown men had complained more than he had, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t felt it. “Why?” The way the wizard recoiled caused him to be a bit wary. “If you’re planning something weird you can find the door.”
--
“I keep telling him to find better ones, but he hasn’t yet,” Harry said with a sigh. He continued to watch Ed from his position, wary.
“Because I don’t feel like torturing a twelve year old today, that’s why.” Harry frowned. “I don’t think we have the kind of engineers it’d take to fix you… My magic interacts badly with technology.”
Ed hadn’t started screaming yet, so there was that at least. Maybe… did Harry wanna risk it? He kept watching the boy for signs of discomfort. When none were forthcoming, the wizard slowly stepped forward, prepared to bolt back if he needed to. Weird. But he’d never been around prosthetics before to know how they’d react, especially not ones that let a kid have full function of his fingers.
“How’d you get metal limbs anyway?”
***
“So do I.” Ed knew he was an asshole occasionally, York deserved better people around him. He hated that sometimes he just shut down and was unable to pull out of whatever mood he got in. If York happened to be in the way of that mood, then god help him. It was mostly the reason Ed ended up staying in his room a lot of the time or pushing York away. He didn’t want to hurt him, and he knew he could be hurtful.
“I’m sixteen, old man.” He looked up at him with a burn in hell expression for that comment and shrugged. “So far I’m fine.” He wiggled that hand to prove it.
Ed paused at that question. Not sure he wanted to go into details of it, he hadn’t even told York about it much less York’s wizard friend.
“Human transmutation.” He wasn’t sure Harry would know what that was, but if he was a wizard there was a chance. “I broke half a dozen alchemical laws and paid the price.” He followed up in case he didn’t.
---
“Twelve, sixteen? What’s the difference,” Harry said with a shrug. A kid was a kid and Edward Elric wasn’t even done growing out of his teens yet. Harry wouldn’t look at him in any other way. He approached Ed and when the kid failed to fall over because his leg gave out, Harry relaxed considerably more.
His eyes darted to the golden eyes of the other (that was weird) without fully making eye contact. It wasn’t a lie when people said your soul was in your eyes, a wizard just put a literal spin on it. If Harry made eye contact with others he’d spark a thing called a soulgaze, wherein he’d get a good, solid and permanent look at the person’s soul and they in turn would get a good look at his. He didn’t want to drive himself insane, so the wizard had perfected the art of looking people in the face without looking in their eyes. He stared at Ed’s nose instead.
“Oh,” he said. Human transmutation. Ed had tried to bring someone back from the dead. That was illegal as all hell across the board for everyone except medical doctors in an emergency room. Creepy. He’d failed and paid the price. But he’d also lived and that was even more creepy. Huh. Harry nodded placidly though, not judging.
“Must have sucked,” he said mildly. “When I was your age… I made a deal with a faerie for power. She tortured me for a few days and tricked me into thinking it had given me the power I sought. All she’d done was given me the confidence to do what I needed to. Then I went home and murdered my abusive father because he’d tried to enslave me. We all do stupid shit when we’re desperate.”
Harry shrugged.
***
Ed gave the giant a roll of his eyes but decided he wasn’t exactly in the mood to fight about it. For now. He was tired, that was pretty much his constant state these days. Just tiredness, like he’d had enough of living and he knew that was a pretty sorry state-at the same time, he couldn’t fight it. The lack of Alphonse and lack of direction was enough to get to a person who’d literally stared death in the face on multiple occasions and lived. He was lost, it was an unpleasant sensation.
“Mmhm.” He responded as though it were a trip to the grocery store. It wasn’t every day you met someone though who actually understood the price of the things he’d attempted. Raising an eyebrow once more at the wizard’s story, he gave a slight tilt of his head at the mention of murder. It probably should have worried him more, having a killer in his house-but he shrugged. “Sounds like a universal constant. All dads are deadbeat assholes then.” He commented offhandedly, not really knowing what else to say, except hey he wasn’t alone? “Mine wasn’t quite like that though, just fucked off when I was younger and haven’t heard from him since….I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, it isn’t like you came here looking for my life story.” He’d left out some of the greater details and just shook his head.
“Uh..you want a drink or something Godzilla?”
***
Harry laughed at that, “Yeah, maybe. I don’t know, I know some guys that are good to their kids. Some of just got a shit hand in life, or you know, the universe just decided we weren’t worth caring about.” Harry shook his head and offered the kid a faint smile. “I remember my real father sometimes, usually in dreams.” Harry paused and considered that for a moment, his brows furrowing.
“Being alone sucks.” Because without parents what did children have. Did Ed have a mother? What happened to her? Siblings? Harry hadn’t asked for all the details in the times Ed had come up between the wizard and York. But he understood being alone and having to care for yourself. He understood the love and dependency between siblings. Elaine hadn’t been blood, but she’d been the only family Harry had until he’d killed her.
“Drink? A Coke, if you have any. I’m not much into alcohol. Can I sit down?” he didn’t want to assume. Maybe Ed would prefer he’d leave.
***
Ed didn’t like talking about parents, specifically his mother which was a sore spot for him. Why’d this new stranger suddenly get all sentimental on him? Was that how normal people acted? He was quiet on the subject before glancing toward his fridge for a moment instead. “I don’t have alcohol anyway, so lucky you. I’m pretty sure York only got me soda.” Most of it happened to be Coke. Ed didn’t drink much by way of soda, he tended not to drink much at all. He was small and skinny, but surprisingly well built for someone his age-but supporting automail required him to be in shape. To carry the weight of it and full range of motion, he had to be strong. With a slightly annoyed look to the bottles he grabbed two. “Sit where you want.”
He didn’t smile much. His expression was edging on steel to hide any emotion that may attempt to break his facade as Harry spoke of his father in dreams. Ed used that mixture of knotted feelings to break open the bottle cap of the soda without using an opener to hand over to the other man. “I just have my brother. My younger brother.”
--
Harry accepted the Coke then sat down, his eyes scanning Ed’s expression for signs of his tells. Harry was a private investigator, if he couldn’t read the body language of people he encountered he had no business being in the field. So he studied the boy quietly for minute before he finally took a drink of the soda.
“What’s he like?” Harry asked. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” He added after a pause. “I know sometimes it hurts too much.”
Harry took another drink of his Coke, toying with the bottle.
***
“He’s...the better of us.” Ed knew that, Alphonse was the bright light in his life. The one who made the world better, because without him Ed had no idea what the hell he was doing. Everyone knew it. As smart as he was, Alphonse was his moral compass. Without him he wasn’t sure of anything. He didn’t know where to step, or if he’d crossed that invisible line that Alphonse seemed to know so much better than him.
He stared at the coke ahead of him. “...They all have someone now and I’ve lost Al twice.” Ed had just come to that realization and fuck if it didn’t hurt. Roy had Riza, York had half a dozen people, and to be honest he didn’t really know anyone else.
“That night I blood bound his soul to a suit of armor.” He said almost mechanically as he attempted to emotionally shut down instead.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He gave the wizard a forced smile that bordered on wry.
--
I blood bound his soul to a suit of armor.
Harry stared at Ed for the length of several heartbeats. And this, kids, is why dark magics and necromancy were forbidden. When you crossed lines horrible things happened. Harry’s initial reaction was harsh, the kid shouldn’t have done it. He should have let his brother die and dealt with the misery of his choices on his own instead of forcing his brother’s soul to remain behind.
The softer more considerate part of Harry forced the wizard to breathe and think about it. Ed was a kid. Of course he’d gone with his gut reaction. He’d paid the price for it. He knew that.
Harry frowned and nodded again.
“Ed,” Harry said, “It’s okay. You didn’t know. How could you know? It isn’t your fault.” Whatever he’d done, he was a kid. And kids made mistakes. It was okay.
***
“I should have known. I should have..” He grit his teeth to keep emotion from showing again and stood. Pacing now. This topic was becoming a bit too heavy handed for him, and he didn’t know how to stop everything from flooding his head and heart for that matter. He’d kept emotions bottled up for so long now that everything felt like it was pounding in his ears and he put his hands there to stop the sound. It felt like everything was on fire, and yet nothing actually was.
“I can’t afford not to know.” And yet he hadn’t. He was so confident that his transmutation was going to work, that they were going to get to see their mother again but now look at the state of things. Words weren’t quite working right at this point anymore.
---
Harry watched the boy have a breakdown and felt like a fucking asshole. Way to go, Dresden, force the kid to walk into a topic that would basically rip his heart of his chest as effectively as if he’d stuck his own metal hand inside and done it. God.
The wizard frowned and set his Coke aside, scooting closer to Ed so he could reach out and take the kid’s arm, just briefly to draw his attention away from his thoughts and to the wizard himself.
“With great power comes great responsibility. We put all this pressure on ourselves to be better because we think we know better, that we exist on some plane higher than everyone else. But we’re not perfect kid, we’re not omniscient, we can’t change what’s been done. Okay? So even though all the things you know, all the incredible things you have done… and can do and will do, you’re only human, Ed. You have a great ability, and from what I’ve heard, a great mind to use it but that doesn’t mean you need to tear yourself apart to do more with it.”
***
For a moment Ed stopped pacing, Harry had his arm so moving was made kind of difficult. Reluctantly looking over at the wizard with some embarrassment, he frowned and nodded quietly. Looking much like a kid who’d been caught breaking the rules and getting a scolding just then. He didn’t like how he’d reacted in front of a stranger. They were just talking, he could have just told him to fuck off and he didn’t want to talk about it-but family was a sensitive topic for him. It probably always would be.
“I tried to change it.But I couldn’t just kill people to do it.” Ed frowned a bit more “...I’m afraid to do more.” He’d done it without caring about the lives he’d be taking. He was all set up to save his brother but hadn’t been able to go through with it in the end. “I keep trying to fix my jacket, but I can’t even do that.” There were remains of a red jacket on a chair near the kitchen, it wasn’t exactly a normal jacket. It’d been created with alchemy. By him. “Every time I try now I just..freeze up”
---
"That's probably a good thing, kid. I don't know what I would have done in your situation." What he could glean of it anyway? He'd been performing transmutation and using the lives of others to fuel the spell? Something like that. He didn't know the details and honestly, didn't want to learn. There were some things in life best kept secret.
"Are you afraid of the alchemy or what you think you can do with it?" he asked gently, brown eyes quietly probing. "When I burned my hand," he held out his left one, it was a mess of scars and evidence of burns--a scourge of vampires had blasted him and his friends with napalm and fire and Harry had used a shield that didn't block heat, melting his hand to a crisp a bunch of years ago--"I didn't use fire for almost a year. I didn't have the confidence, but eventually it came back. Eventually I did it without thinking. There's nothing wrong with needing time."
***
He gave a small nod. Still a bit unsure as to why he was telling a relative stranger all these things, it didn’t seem like his best plan ever-but York seemed to trust him. Edward was beginning to trust in York’s judgement, whether that was good judgement or not he wasn’t sure yet.
“..Both.” He admitted awkwardly, he didn’t like to appear weak. If Harry would have wanted to he could have taken full manipulative advantage of him just now and Edward knew that, but so far he hadn’t. Looking over at the charred hand, Ed didn’t flinch. His own was gone, people having mangled limbs or broken things didn’t bother him beyond feeling a bit sorry for them. “Problem is I don’t really know how to do things the normal way..You use it now though?” He’d learn if he was shown, or he’d figure it out through a book-but he’d never tried it, and that alone was a bit scary of an idea. The unknown.
--
“I get it, kid,” Harry said and offered a gentle smile. “It’s a terrible power for as beautiful as it is. When it feels like breathing and it’s so natural and then you just… stop. You falter and then it falls apart because you lack faith in the working. It’s natural, Ed, okay?” Harry reached out and squeezed the boy’s shoulder gently. Touch was important. Touch was key to knowing you weren’t alone in the world.
Harry smiled a little again. “One day you just use it again. I use fire now, all the time. I fixed my shield to defend against the weaknesses I’d been shown in myself. You learn, man. You survived whatever you went through, and that’s great.” He was a strong kid, a strong kid who had been through some bullshit.
Harry felt bad for him. But he didn’t pity him.
“I can show you some stuff, I don’t know how applicable it is because what we do is vastly different.”
***
There was a risk if he broke down and cried just then that Harry would probably never see him as an adult, but right then he felt like that ten year old kid back on the farm facing a father type figure that actually seemed to care and he couldn’t help it. As much as he tried to fight tears he’d been holding back for so long just fell down his cheeks.
A hot flood of embarrassment followed. Touch was something he rarely felt. Sure, Alphonse had touched him-but it was different. Metal to flesh didn’t have the same sort of sensation he wasn’t aware he actually craved. He didn’t know how to act, or what to do with himself so he cast his eyes anywhere except on Harry’s.
--
Oh, no. Good job Dresden. You made the kid cry. You pushed him through his trauma and made him walk all over it. Bet you felt like a real hero now.
Harry’s expression changed and he did something he didn’t often do, something he would have killed for as a child in his lonely terrified nights: he pulled Ed into a hug and let the kid cry.
“It’s okay,” he said, “You’re alright.”
He wasn’t alone.
***