He feels a cool hand rub his upper back and jerks his shoulders free from the invasive touch. The pale eyed girl moves shyly away, and he doesn't miss the fact that the veins bulge rather large at the sides of her head. Her brows rise as she lifts a glass of what looks to be water his way. He eyes the glass, but turns away to lean his forehead back on the cool curve of the toilet bowl.
"E-ed-s-sama..." The girl stammers again, and Ed weakly shakes his head in answer to her unspoken request.
"No." Ed breathes in Gibberish. "No hospitals." He scowls as he grips his stomach, and dreading returning to the next room.
This's all their fault anyway, he thinks.
ooooo
Ed scowls at the sandals which do nothing to hide his automail leg from view. It's as good an excuse as any to keep from seeing the many curious and pity filled faces that flow past him as he is lead along the plain dull corridor. The borrowed clothes he is dressed in feel baggy, over large, and generally ill-fitting. He certainly despises the color of them, and a surprising portion of him greatly misses the heft of his recently recovered pocket watch.
He wonders whatever became of the bloody thing as he gazes blandly toward Inoichi's pinched, pain filled face. He watches the man open one of the many identical doors and waves him inside with a heavy hand. He doesn't bother to listen to the name as the man says, introducing him to the tower of a fellow lounging in a chair within the equally bland room; instead he discreetly darts his eyes about as the chair he is clearly expected to squirm in is pulled out from the plain wooden table. He is unsurprised to see several more people standing about with the nin plates on their headbands, and he certainly is not introduced to them.
After all. Who really needs to know the name of their guards?
The towering freak folds his arms as Inoichi speaks too quickly for Ed to follow in Gibberish, and Ed pretends not to stare at the several long slashing scars running across his displeased face. The man replies just as quickly, and nods towards one of guards.
A sheet a paper is grandly produced, placed neatly just out of reach on the table, and something incomprehensible is scribbled upon it. He watches with hooded eyes as a jug filled with some sort of sloshing liquid is carefully plunked down on the ink. A loud cry and slap of palms later,
Ed waves the smoke clear of his eyes with a stony face.
The paper with the scribble on it sits on its lonely end of the bland table. Jug of liquid gone.
He leans forward, intending to wave his fingers over the symbol as a test, but goons on either side of him grab his shoulders. He abandons the tactic immediately, and, feigning an incorrigible struggle against the hammy hands on his arms, kicks his living foot out into the general area beneath. He figures he should be able to trigger something with his reaching toes, or at least find where the jug fell.
He frowns when he finds nothing but the stir of air. Instead of a faint glowing hum of the most basic of alchemic reactions, the ink on the paper remains a flat sheet of failed childish scribbles.
"There you go." He hears Inoichi say, as if translating what Scarface says. "What do you know of the Akatsuki?"
"They like to wear shower curtains." Ed replies flatly, staring at the spot on the table.
He hears someone let out a huff of air. A faint sparkle of light catches his attention, and with a flick of his eyes, he sees that, pinched between his massive forefinger and thumb, Scarface holds a diamond. He watches the man slowly lower the gem to the table, placing it just-so in the very middle.
At that moment, Ed's belly roars, and he presses his hand hard to his middle as if to restrain it from attacking anyone. He hears stifled chuckles erupt around him, and grimaces his irritation. Inoichi. speaks Gibberish too quickly again, and stops, almost like he was swallowing back his words.
The room is achingly silent.
Ed hears a dribbling something splatter like rain drops against the surface of the bland wooden table, and his gaze widens as he recognizes that the red substance dripping down and splashing about is certainly not composed of water. He darts his gaze to the source, and sees Inoichi holding his hand to his freely drippling nose.
The man squeezes his eyes shut as he swoons back, and Ed instinctively lunges up, intending to catch him. He takes in a breath as he sees the man's light hair is matted an ugly sort of pink by his ears. Before he can get very far, many hands attempt to force him back into the stupid chair.
He watches Scarface grip the fallen Inoichi in his beefy arms before the man hits the ground. Someone calls for a med nin as Ed meets and holds the man's cold beady eyes.
"Oh no!" A girl breathes, forcing Ed to break the useless stare down.
Ed looks over and feels his knees weaken. He flops into his seat as a girl with pink hair rushes by. He watches owlishly as her fingers glow like fire, pads lightly touching various spots on Inoichi's neck and temples.
"I'm sorry Mr. Inoichi, you really need to rest." Ed hears in Gibberish, and the girl rambles on further so fast that he can't follow what is said. He forces his eyes from her too familiar face, telling himself that she is a stranger no matter who she so strongly resembles.
She obviously is not from Liore. She certainly is not Rose. He sees Scarface frown at him, and directs his gaze elsewhere.
"Can't." The blond man breathes.
Ed's belly roars again, and he grimaces. The noise has Not!Rose looking his way with sea green eyes, which are certainly not the shade of brown he knows Rose possessed. She works with great confidence on Inoichi, and hands steady and face composed. She eyes the men standing about, surrounding her and frowns.
Several heartbeats pass, and with something of a growl, she calls out to the door. "Hinata-san!"
A girl with pupil-less white eyes pokes her head in. Ed suspects she is blind until her eyes move in such a way that he knows she is not. (Mustang's hadn't moved like that after being blinded on his forced trip through the Gate.) He finds it eerie, that seeing look with those unseeing eyes.
Without a single prompt, she looks right at him, almost as if looking through him, and asks something that sounds like rice and bowl after several stuttering attempts.
Ed mouth is dry as he nods.
He supposes he responded correctly, because the girl soon returns with a bowl that smells somehow off and delicious at the same time.
He glares at no one as he fumbles with the pair of stupid sticks stuck in the rice clumps, but manages to scoop in a mouthful of the stuff after a few tries. He ignores the amused smirks he sees as chews.
Inoichi is propped against the far wall, and waves off Not!Rose's attempts at forcing him to his feet. Beside him leans Scarface, face set in a stony frown as he speaks. It takes several moments, but he makes out the gist of what Scarface mutters in a low voice towards the fallen blond.
"We're getting nowhere with this. We'll need to probe his mind again."
Again?!
Ed angrily bangs the table with both fists, and turns his best glare to Inoichi. He recalls the recent, out-of-place, glimpses of a long flowing blond pony tails in his memories, and feels his stomach begin to churn.
"You. Were in my head!?" Ed yells out, and Inoichi cracks his eyes open.
"Yes."
Ed wrinkles his nose in disgust and shoves the bowl aside as his stomach tap dances about the thought of anyone traipsing about in his mind. "You have no right to..to violate my privacy..!"
"I told you. It was necessary. We are at war. I suspect this..." Inoichi gestures a hand weakly at his head, nose and ears still dripping blood. "..is a result of what I ran into while squeezing in. We needed to be able to speak with you clearly, and quickly. I had no choice but to master your strange language."
"You deserve what you got you son of a.. " The grumble is weak in his ears, but the sudden sinking of his middle is certainly not. He swallows the off taste lingering on his tongue, and the medicine tinge reminds of his extended time in hospital. He looks to the still mostly full bowl sitting innocently to the side, and looses his fingers. The stupid sticks clatter noisily onto the flat surface. He vaguely wonders of the dish's specific ingredients, for if he judges by his intestines' dramatic reaction, he believes he's found something he is allergic to.
Besides certain mushrooms, that is.
"..Even with able assistance, there's not much room to maneuver. Your head is crammed to the brim with.. Knowledge. Dangerous knowledge."
"..None of which concerns any of you." Ed snaps heatedly, wrapping his bubbling belly with both arms. He squeezes his eyes shut, willing the food he just downed to stay the shit down.
"That is something for us to determine." Inoichi says with a drawn out breath. "Now, back to the gem. What can you tell us of.."
Ed shakes his head slowly.
"No more. Not equivalent." Ed squeaks as he opens his eyes, looking pointedly at the slip of paper beyond his reach. "We are adults. You showed me what amounts to only a simple parlor trick."
Inoichi's face twists into a scowl, and by the gasps he hears, Ed knows the man doesn't dare say he's wrong.
"Apparently "cooperation" is another word that doesn't translate.." Inoichi states rather flatly.
ooooo
To be continued...
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
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