Freelancer New York (freelancer_york) wrote in knowhereic, @ 2017-10-01 15:19:00 |
|
|||
The event when Ed had connected all the arrays had been a spectacle. Too bad most of knowhere was empty, even York and the freelancers had been elsewhere. He wasn’t sure what they saw or if they saw it but what Ed saw was different than what he saw with any sort of normal alchemy he ever performed. It was a rush of information, and hot white light. In the middle of it all wrapped in an inky darkness. One he was all too eerily familiar with from beyond the Gate. A thing that liked to call itself Truth. A thing that reached out to touch him as that many arrays connected like an explosion of color to the spectators. Ed’s normal energy wave was blue, but this? This was something else entirely. This was wild and unfettered energy. It was white in a sea of darkness. This was eight times the scale he normally worked on. This was overwhelming, and at one point he’d nearly lost control of it. Every bit of energy had flickered in attempt to get away from him, but Roy’s reminder was still on the back of his mind this is all our lives on the line And Ed grit his teeth against its backlash as it drained him like a battery of any sort of energy he had to offer. It tore through him like fire, lapping at every small pain censor it could touch but Ed didn’t waver anymore. The wind in the stupidly sized space head was like a hurricane. Which was eerie in it’s own right considering there weren’t changes in weather in space. Everything else was silent, anything living that wasn’t human seemed to understand what was about to happen. Even the chittering of tribbles had stopped. This was something they couldn’t fight, it was bigger than they were on a physical and mental level. They were still as the light from the arrays touched them and the cold began to set in from the weather controllers. There was a crackling sound as it settled over the critters, and then it faded out. The last thing Ed saw was darkness. He didn’t know what had happened after that, what would become of the space head or the tribbles. It was out of his hands now. He had no concept of pain or time left, he fell and the light of the arrays faded. It’d succeeded. --- It succeeded, but at what cost? Neither Roy, nor the others, had been able to watch due to the blinding light from the array. They’d been forced to take shelter behind their arms, hiding their eyes until the intensity faded and with it the thundering power of Edward’s work. It succeeded as an array. But did it stop tribbles from breeding? Who would know for another twelve hours? Had anyone fallen under the effect that Ed didn’t intend to make suffer? Now it was a waiting game. But Edward collapsed, the expected outcome, and Roy was launching from his position several yards off of the boy, his dark eyes pinned to that limp shape, his expression one of awe mixed fear. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. Roy sped up, dropping to his knees and dragging that limp body into his arms. Ed was heavier than he looked with his automail parts, but Roy pulled him in against his chest anyway and touched his fingers to the pulse in the boy’s throat. You didn’t have permission to die, Ed. *** Ed hadn’t expected to feel that bad as the connection severed itself from him. He hadn’t expected a lot of things, but as he’d predicted the array had connected properly. That part had gone as he thought it would. They’d run all the right calculations, did all the right things. They fortified the Head so if something backfired drastically there wouldn’t also be holes inside it (holes in space meant death and he’d promised not to kill them all, so.) He’d quadruple checked himself, but the power was so much more than he’d ever felt that it was overwhelming. The blonde didn’t respond to Roy’s touch. It was very likely if not for the added weight of that automail he’d have been blown over by the power of the arrays as well. They’d served as good anchors. He had a pulse, but it was weak to the touch at best. Ed’s energy had been drained, but he was still alive. He still breathed albeit slowly. ---- Roy knew biological alchemy like the inside of his hands. What he didn’t know how to do, beyond a field medic standpoint, was heal. The boy had a pulse, and that was all Roy could hope for. He repositioned Ed, dragging him up closer, brushing that blonde hair out of Ed’s face with long, thin fingers. Everything was there on the surface, a cursory glance that said as much. Ed had given his energy, as required, and it had nearly killed him. This wasn’t what Roy had wanted, it was exactly what he’d tried to avoid, because he knew. His inaction had as much to do with this outcome as the rest of everyone’s decisions did. And the one to suffer was the kid in his arms. “Come on, kid,” he said fervently, “open your eyes. You’re alive, it’s okay now.” He held him close for a moment as he shrugged out of his black military jacket, dragging it around to drape over the boy’s small frame to keep him warm. *** Nothing, for a long time there was nothing but silence. His body struggled to regain the energy necessary for him to respond. It was a strange sensation. It wasn’t like the movies it just literally felt like emptiness. It felt a little violating that something had taken that much energy from him. Blonde locks fell almost lifelessly against his skin, small form only seeming to make a slight shift when that warmth touched its nerve center and he curled closer to Roy and the source of that warmth with a sound of discomfort. Ed didn’t open his eyes but he was starting to respond. Finally he took a deeper breath and seemed to have a little more awareness, but he was far from recovery. Every inch of his body was exhausted, and energy would take time to rebuild, but he said something inaudible at first. Ash flooded his senses, was he curled up so pathetically with Roy?...Was that worried tone really coming from Roy Mustang? He couldn’t open his eyes if he tried to get a good look but god damn he wished he could. --- The slight movement, the subtle tells that Ed was coming to were the most relieving things Roy had seen in a long time. “There we go, easy now,” he told him though he’d prompted him to waking in the first place. It was enough. Ed didn’t need to exhaust himself with showing Roy more. He pushed his hand through Ed’s hair, cradled the boy (because he was a child in this moment) in his arms, pulled that coat closer around him, and watched the color slowly return to Ed’s face. He’d be weak for a few days, if not a week. But he would recover. Roy refused to accept anything less. “You did great, kid,” he told him, “Rest now.” He just needed to see he was breathing and could hear Roy speak. The rest was just details. He closed his eyes briefly, a calm, pensive expression touching his face. Ed was okay, Roy had him. *** It was comforting. Roy was comforting and warm. Something solid for him to lean on, and he needed solid. Nothing had felt solid the last few days, so right then?This kind of thing was welcome for just a while longer even if it was brought on by Roy Mustang. For once in his life Ed didn’t fight, he didn’t struggle anymore he just gave in. A flesh hand reaching out to cling onto Roy’s shirt as he let his head droop against his chest again, listening to his voice and breathing. It should have been wrong on all levels for Roy to be this gentle and for Ed to feel good about this position, and yet there it was. Again he struggled to form words, his grip on Roy a little pathetic but needy. It took him a while to find his voice again, and when he did the only thing he managed to say was “Told you, asshole.” A thin faint contentment to the tone before that hand fell again and he lost consciousness once more but this time his life wasn’t in as much danger as it had been moments ago. He could breathe without as much difficulty, and his flesh hand remained tangled in Roy’s shirt albeit little lower then it’d been moments ago. --- Despite himself, Roy smiled. Ed being able to taunt him was the last tell Mustang needed to believe that Ed was okay, that he’d be fine. If he was alert enough to use words and use words to insult, he was alive and well as far as the Colonel was concerned. But, hefting the boy’s dead weight, Mustang pushed himself to his feet and turned, with Ed in his arms. He couldn’t leave Ed out in the open like that. They’d need to get somewhere safer where he could rest and be watched. Therefore, the clinic. It wouldn’t be the first walk Mustang had ever taken with a man’s body in his arms. Hell, it probably wouldn’t be the last. But he refused to be parted with the kid until he’d reached the clinic. Even then, Roy was reluctant to let him go. But he respected the fact that in a healing house, the physicians were in charge. Besides which, why bring him all that way if Roy wasn’t willing to trust Ed’s life into their hands? So he let him go and then hung back, standing forlornly in a hallway while the remaining physicians went to work. York was there, Roy trusted him with Ed. *** The remaining physicians had a name: York. All others had abandoned the space head and left behind the sole medic. He didn’t mind, he was more than capable of handling just about anything, even if he had no silly piece of paper to say so. He followed along, directing Roy to one of the many empty rooms, and instructing him to put Edward down in the bed, before he went to get the things he needed. Soon, Ed would be stripped down and left in a hospital gown (York had wanted to look over every inch of him for injury and had done so without so much as batting an eye about it-- if Roy didn’t like it, he could leave), then tucked into the bed and the golden boy had hooked him up for fluids-- thankfully something the tribbles had left alone. There was no blood, however, nor food, or even electricity. None of those things phased the Spartan, though, who let Delta pick out Ed’s blood type. “Sit down, sir.” York would give the instruction to Roy without glancing back at him. Then: “Texas, give me two pints.” He spoke up a little louder then. A few seconds later, the sound of footsteps moving in the hall. With Ed stable, York wanted blood-- just in case. And he and North weren’t a match. Alphonse surely was, but he wasn’t here right now. And the only two people near enough to give blood were going to do it. Roy and Tex. “Roll up your sleeve.” Instructed to Mustang as York snagged up the equipment to draw blood from the Colonel. When Al showed up, he’d surely want blood from him, too. Heck, Alphonse might be a good source for all sorts of things Ed might need. The worlds being different didn’t phase York, blood was blood. Delta had analyzed it months ago. He knew they were safe. *** “I can’t stay,” Roy told York, though he did actually sit down. He could stay long enough to give blood. That was fine. He rolled up his sleeve automatically, dark eyes watching a much more business oriented York move around with assertive precision. Weird, given the man was usually so cordial and gregarious. But this was his place of work and just as Mustang was the Flame Alchemist when required, York was… whatever this was. Roy made no commentary. Not even if the woman joined them. Roy had turned just enough to keep her in his peripheral, due to paranoia. But he said nothing. When York finished drawing his blood, Roy lingered long enough to fix his sleeve before he was up (... probably shouldn’t have gotten up so quickly) and turning away. He couldn’t stay. “Let me know if there’s any changes, York,” the Colonel said to the man. And then he left. *** Tex had never come into the room. Hell, she’d never even come to stand in the doorway. It was better that way. And once York was done taking his blood, he glanced after the Colonel. “Yes, sir.” He’d let him escape, however. Once into the hall, he’d be greeted by the six-nine suit of black armor and the reflective orange visor, as Texas stood there in the hall alone, a few pints of blood there on a tray, something she’d clearly done herself. She said nothing to Mustang, though, only waited for him to pass by. York would soon come out and get the blood and take it back inside. Precautions were good. The blood wasn’t necessary now, but if wanted it ready if it came down to it. Now they just needed Ed to wake up. |