Who: Edward & Lina, with baby Amelia What: Checking up on Edward and discussing the kid that has his limbs When: Early December Where: Ed & Riza's Rating/Warning: Talking about missing body parts but it's fairly low Status: Complete!
Ed had officially decided that sleep was bullshit, but as a result he found himself tired and cranky(er) than usual. Go figure. One plus one equals two. But still it was better than reliving the nightmare that was Wrath. That kid was some kind of fucked up, Ed longed for the days when his ‘dreams’ would be over. Whoever created this parallel thing deserved to be punched in the nose about now. Of course not all of it was bad, but his brain couldn’t uncross the wires just then.
He’d decided to hole away in his house rather than his lab per the usual, phone off, brain supercharged on caffeine, and lights on. He’d forgotten about his tendency to become a bit mad-scientist flavored when these things combined. He’d lost track of what day of the week it was, the t.v. was now a resting home for various open books-and his homework was left untouched for the week. The only thing it seemed he’d left his room for was the occasional scavenge of the kitchen on the first floor.
There was a routine they were used to by now, she and Edward - and when the vertically challenged alchemist with metal limbs withdrew back into his steely shell, that’s what gave Lina the heads up that there was something wrong. Texts could be easily evasive, and tone was difficult to read so that method was ditched for something a little more straightforward. A visit right to his home it was, since his usual station was abandoned, and she didn’t come empty-handed.
Or with any free hands, really. In one arm was an extra-small baby of approximately six months, a fuzz of dark hair and wide, blue eyes (taking after her father even if it was the mother that pushed her out, go figure), with a sweater and a little headband with a bow. Her other hand had a bag of greasy eats, because if there was something that’d get the eldest Elric brother comfortable, it was food.
Lina struggled to push the doorbell a couple times but eventually succeeded. “Hey, it’s me,” she called out. “I saw your light on from the other side, doofus, I know you’re in there.”
Ed had all but locked his door only to escape now and then for the occasional caffeine rush that week. He really hadn’t been feeling very interested in human contact otherwise. He had several notebooks open on his lap and was busy scrawling away in them, he didn’t even hear the door at first, but then the second one caught his attention. Several inaudible curses spilled from his lips as he forced himself upward.causing his book pile to collapse on him. “Fuck!” A book hanging out of his closet he kicked a couple aside and stomped his way toward the irritating doorbell.
“What?” If this were some kind of ridiculous cartoon fumes might have been visible, he was frazzled. There were dark spots under his eyes, and it seemed that he’d forgotten sleeping was an important human function. “I’m busy, it important?” He asked moodily as he ran a hand through frizzy hair.
“Don’t get rude,” Lina snapped with a glare and a huff, adjusting the weight of baby in her arms - Amelia was mostly attached to her hip, tiny balled fist in her mouth, and those rounded baby blues were staring at Edward in such curious wonder. “You look like crap, I haven’t seen you, so I figured you were in a shit mood and I got something for you to eat. I know how you get, Ed.”
They’d been around each other for a while, and she was some kind of younger brother figure she was sometimes straddled to care for - therefore, when Edward Elric went extra antisocial, it was usually because something was wrong and he wasn’t keep it bottled up inside. “You haven’t been sleeping, I take it?”
That glare was only met with one of his own. Patience wasn’t his finest virtue, but the idea of food did lift a bit of the annoyance to curiosity as he peered at the bag. “‘M just workin on stuff.” He finally stepped aside to let her in, though it was fairly difficult to see what exactly the project was in the scattered room. “I’m fine.” Things that normally should be on the floor, clothing, game controllers, that sort of thing had been replaced with books. Various kinds of books that seemed to reflect the state of min. No one project complete, just many unfinished thoughts.
A pair of gold eyes flicked toward the baby she brought. “Didn’t miss training then did I?” initial annoyance deflated into slight exasperation as he tried to reach for the food. “What day is it?” It hadn’t even dawned on him that maybe he had, he slipped the phone out of his pocket to check. “Weekend..last I checked it was Tuesday. Fuck.” He was going to have a few makeup assignments to do, but when he got in obsessive mode literally blinders to anything else in the world covered his eyes. “Not really. Not tired though, it’s fine.” Caffeine was his new best friend. “Pretty sure I just invented a stronger version of caffeine anyway.” It was a green liquid that resembled Mountain Dew and tasted a bit like fruit loops on his desk by the t.v. across from them.
Can’t really say ‘I’m fine’ and then show blatant cluelessness at what day it was - and the rings around his eyes signified some sleep deprivation, definitely. “You missed training,” Lina confirmed, which was the first telltale sign of something amiss. But she handed the food over without a fight since it was brought for him, and settled her bag onto the closest surface. It finally gave her more of the freedom to adjust Amelia, who’d been making the crook of her arm sore.
“Then I had to pick Amelia up from my parents and figured I’d stop by to make sure you were taking care of yourself, and I figured you weren’t.” There was a sigh. “What’s wrong, punk?”
At the very least he was still hungry so it wasn’t life ending bad. Ed sat at the end of the bed near by Lina, i was basically the only clean spot left in the room to be comfortable in without knocking over some project he’d started on. “Got kinda wrapped up in a few projects is all. “ Lina didn’t seem to be buying it.. He reached in the bag and discovered the fries at the bottom, honestly the bag fries were the best fries. It meant the person at the window gave no fucks and you were in for French Fry coma.
“ just wish these damn dreams would end already.” They were only getting worse, and Ed was trying to hold himself together better these days but having minimal luck at best.
“You holing yourself up away from people isn’t going to make it end, you know,” Lina told him, taking the spot next to him with the baby in her lap - a smiley, drooly mess of chubby rolls and giggly sounds. This baby was just about friendly with anyone, and happily blinked those round baby blues at Edward. “You can’t change what happens there, but if you want to talk about it and try to make some sense into it? You have people willing to listen.”
If she didn’t care she wouldn’t have shown up, and she was also someone who didn’t have a problem lending an ear.
In theory Ed understood that. He did. It was just difficult to accept. Especially when he could do so many of the things from those dreams and they were nearly similar to the real world he lived in. He glanced at the kid, and then at the food again, distractedly eating a fry. Not all was lost, food was still good, it was something.
“I’ve never been afraid before..like this.” He fidgeted slightly. “I can’t even close my eyes without seeing him.” He paused as he picked up one of the books near by that the dreams had gifted him. “Wrath. The one who stole my arm and leg.”
Wrath. One hell of a name, but she could have sworn she might have heard him talk about others named after the deadly sins too. Anyway, the alarming thing about the whole thing was the leg and arm tidbit, because didn’t he - ? “I thought your leg and arm were lost along with your brother’s body during your human transmutation attempt,” Lina said after a minute, bouncing her leg some to keep Amelia soothed and occupied. “How the hell did he end up with it??”
No, she could understand how something like that could keep him up - the stuff he experienced in the dreams was something no one his age should go through, ever.
It didn’t take Ed long to finish off the bag of food, but now the question was what did he do with his hands. Lately he was occupying himself with anything he could hold onto so as not to think too much. Now he just looked awkwardly at the floor as though it had suddenly become interesting. “Yeah, I thought so too until the universe kicked me in the face.” And so did Wrath. That had been fun. Except for the part where Wrath literally wanted to tear him down.
“I didn’t remember him at first, but I do now. I remember the eyes behind the wall. I remember seeing everything. I called it ‘truth’ for a long time, but I’m not sure it was. I don’t know what it was. Hell maybe.” Ed shrugged. “Lost souls, men, women, children..felt like my body was crumbling apart.”
Well, geez, sounded like something belonging in nightmares. Amelia, oblivious to the utmost serious discussion happening made babbling sounds accentuated by drool bubbles. Lina, instead, frowned.
“What’s he saying to you, then? Any useful intel?” Maybe a hint to where this was all going - but, hell, it was all worrisome. He’d lost a leg and arm because of the dreams already, who knows what else could happen. It was already obvious this place didn’t really discriminate by age, and it made her hold the baby’s hand protectively. “Or are you worried that that’s...where you leg and arm are right now. The ones that got taken from you here. That some hell kid has them too.”
Ed wished they were just nightmares, but sometimes he could swear he actually felt that sensation on his body. Of course it was never real, but that didn’t make it feel any less. He idly touched the automail and shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing I can remember, just him wanting to rip me apart.” Ed was tired of the damn dreams already, tired of things wanting to kill him. “I don’t know, I don’t think it could happen here..I just can’t get it out of my head either way.” Last time he got a little too obsessive with the dream stuff he ended up taking a visit to the shrink. Maybe he really was crazy after all.
“Sometimes It just feels like I’m losing it.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “The closer we get to fixing ourselves the further away we end up. The whole point of it all is me fixing what I did to Al, but I can’t. And if I can’t stop it there, what chance do I have if it happens here?” He worried about his brother more than himself, it was his fault they were like this anyway. What right did he have to worry about his own limbs when his brother was gone? Just a soul.
Hey, Lina could understand being done with things with murderous intentions - happened to her a lot too, but she at least wasn’t missing any limbs or had lost her sister’s body somehow (that’d be a universe where she met death at the hands of Luna, officially). All this stuff took a toll. It brought sleepless nights, worrying about things you couldn’t change, a lot of irrational feelings that clawed regardless.
Her fingers massaged Amelia’s bitty fist as she thought, and after a couple moments she expelled a sigh. “It could happen, and maybe it won’t,” she said. “But where there’s a will there’s a way, and you’re stubborn - you’ll find a way. We all know this world works a little different, and you’ve got other things at your disposal. Laws can be bendy, I mean, remember when I got sucked up into the void and spit back out? It took a trade to bring me back there, and it all worked out differently here.”
In both versions dreamt Gourry wouldn’t let her go, not easily - he chased her into the Sea of Chaos where the darkness enveloped the Sword of Light as a price paid, but in one world it was returned, the other a permanent arrangement.
“You’re not alone, and whatever happens, I’ll do everything I can to help you make sure whatever carries over pisses off. You can’t let what could happen cripple you. Don’t stress over a life once lived and forget to live the life you’ve got here.”
He gave her a half smirk at that stubborn comment. So he could be a little. Or well, fine. A lot. It wasn’t like he was about to just roll over, but the idea of it was still terrifying. He chewed at his lip and leaned back a bit on the bed with his hand. Bonuses of automail, leaning on it wasn’t as tiring as the fleshy one. In fact he considered that one his weaker hand now.
The idea that he had Lina around seemed to relax his nerves whether or not he wanted to admit it. Instead of using real human words or saying so though he paused for a moment before thinking of the right thing to say. Words weren’t exactly his strong suit though, so the most that came to mind was “So. training this weekend?”
Words were sometimes her thing. Sentimental ones, not so much, but she was getting there - she had to. Amelia would need some encouraging talks with her mum as the years went by, and she’d be there for them with nuggets of motherly wisdom (with a touch of spice). Anyway, Lina understood where he was going with it, and she raised a brow in mild amusement. “I’ll come get you to make sure you stick with your commitment, punk.”
Even the little one on her lap made a sound to add to that statement, a very pronounced bahhhhhhhh and grabby hands at Edward for simply being there. Downside of this stupidly happy kid was that she smiled at everyone and anything, which attracted unwanted grannies at the grocery store wanting to pinch her cheeks and made Mama Bear very cranky. Fingers off, hags.
He gave her a toothy sort of grin and glanced at the kid with an awkward eyebrow raise. “What, something on my face?” Understanding people was difficult enough, understanding little kids? Yeahhh he needed work on that-but he was getting there. A while back it might have creeped him the hell out having a baby so close by, but this time around he didn’t even flinch at her presence, he could even interact with her a little more than he could before. Figuring out things to do that were on the kids level.
Henry was easy, Henry loved video games, and Ed? Well Ed enjoyed them too even if he put up a front that he didn’t. He did have every system known to man hooked up in his room, sometimes Henry found his way over there after school still, so he was getting kid exposure. Not that he was all that much older than him, but mentally he’d had to grow up fairly quickly. Socializing wasn’t exactly his strong suit.
Amelia was at the age where she wanted to interact with everything, and Lina knew it’d roll down hill from there when the mobility started - she still wasn’t on the crawling stage so there was still some extra time to make sure everything ever in the house was baby proof. But if there was something close to her that she wanted, well, the littlest Wisdom made sure to let them all know what; by reaching out and making noises with an attempt to communicate.
“She likes you,” Lina snickered. “People in general too, actually. Strangest thing when Pete and I hate the general public.” Gods, maybe it was the namesake - she hoped by naming her after a bubbly, righteous-fisting princess of white magic didn’t make her take after that Amelia, otherwise the sorceress would have to heavily intoxicate herself for the remainder of her life. “But chin up, dude, and if you’re up for it, I’ll take you for some drive-thru dessert. We’ll get you so filled up that you’ll have to go into a food coma and sleep.”
Best way to knock oneself out: eat a lot, then lay on the couch to let nature take its course.
“You sure she’s related to you?” He teased, knowing her distaste of the general public. He didn’t really know Pete very well outside of the few conversations he’d had with the man when Lina died ages ago, but they both seemed similar in that regard. He reached over for his familiar red coat near by as it was still fairly blustery outside and shrugged. “Drive-thru dessert? And it took you this long to tell me about it? Some teacher you are.” He gave her a shit eating smirk that seemed to suggest he was already feeling better if he could sass her in return. Wrath would always be in the back of his mind, but he’d try to let him rule his life anymore otherwise the little bastard won without even being there.