He has never been very good at pretending.
A glimpse of that fellow and he judges the guy is as creepy as Gold Tooth, head Alchemist of the inner circle of guys running the bloody plot beneath Central. The old man in the corner has a face with too many wrinkles to count, and a shiny bald head. The only bit of hair comes from drooping white brows that are so long they brush the man's cheeks. In no way would Ed ever trust that toothless grin, however friendly it might appear.
The old man tries several phases of gibberish, but Ed's eyes are too busy studying the cracks in the walls. In time the old man huffs and shambles out.
Ed yells his complaints about his slooshing bladder towards the woman who enters next. She ignores him, even when he leaks.
To his amazement, the bed does not get soaked from his "accident", and trails the yellow fluid-- or rather the long tube filled with yellow fluid-- emerging from that area and into an awaiting clear bag hanging in easy view. His cheeks heat up and he shouts in embarrassment. How was he to know these freaky people had an weird ass upgrade from a bedpan?
So much for the famous Elric bathroom escape plan. He slumps back into the pillow and stares at the ceiling. He tugs on the chains and grumbles that he can't even sulk right while in here. Fortunately, he comes up with plan "B" as a too long nail scratches the dry skin on his upper left thigh.
The woman flows about the room, and places a delicious smelling bowl on a table by his head. His mouth waters and he tugs on the chains as he squirms for a closer look. Something is off in the scent, and he wrinkles his nose as he figits to face away.
Chains rattle with his every twitch. He has never had much patience, and the fact the he's strapped down with chains in a HOSPITAL bed of all things certainly doesn't help.
He hates hospitals nearly as much as that wretched white juice secreted by a cow. He certainly doesn't need to be IN one for a little thing like a broken nose, either.
He remembers everything with crystal clarity. The battle with the black thing, a homoculous known as Father. His trip to the Gate afterwards to stop his sorry excuse for a father, Hohemheim, from being an idiot and sacrificing anything. Such a thing was his duty alone to bear-- he was the one that wanted to see mom again. He was the one that chose to study Alchemy. He was the one that developed the theory and the circle to perform the forbidden act of human transmutation.
He knew it was Father's swiping hand that gripped his neck and yanked him away from the white. It was his fault entirely, that. He wasn't expecting the homoculous to still be there in the void of white at all. He doesn't quite remember the awful doors slamming shut behind him, but his hard landing on his face, sprawled in dirt before someone's booted feet was certainly memorable.
He is sure of the booted feet, even though most of the feet he's seen since have been sandaled. That's right. He was sold. Slavers. He's a slave now, just like his sorry excuse for a father. So what.
He doesn't want to dwell too long his swirling recollections, and squirms some more. Al needs him. Al NEEDS him, and who knows how long his precious brother has been waiting. How long someone can stay alive in that white void is anyone's guess, even with a tiny trickle of nutrients supplied through a maybe bond to foolish brother's body.
It takes forever, done blind, but the equation is easy enough to carve on dry skin with a fingernail.
The woman hovers by the door, and says something, waving vaguely at the bowl.
He shifts to look. If he stretches his right, his knows he can reach the sticks. It would be very awkward to eat that way, barely reaching his mouth, and the off smell of the bowl's contents further demotivates him. He curls his upper lip back, and, in spite of the demanding rumble echoing in his belly, shakes his head in a firm gesture he hopes is universal for, "no".
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
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