Chapter Text
Ed stares at the snoozing chimera. Because he did bad things in a previous life and possibly also this one, he is accompanied by Ponytail Earring, Ex-Werewolf and Psycho. Because they’re the experts here, apparently.
Ed gestures. “If this thing’s a natural species, can’t you just release him into the wild? Where do these things even live?”
“Well,” Psycho says. “He was pretty happy up in the highlands. And probably any big enough forest would do. He’s just a wanted criminal, is all.”
Ed decides he does not want to know what they prosecute the birds, bees and hamsters for in this fuckhole of a legal system. “Okay, so, what? They’re on the lookout for his livestock tag, there’s wanted posters up with his horse bird ass on them, what?”
“I… suppose the ministry’s put a trace on him, maybe,” Psycho says doubtfully. “But they didn’t catch us when I rode him out, and they had a lot more incentive to get after him then.”
Ed sighs heavily. “Havoc?”
“Boss?”
“You ever paint horses?”
Havoc gnaws innocently on a rib, looking up in a very earnest and unassuming who-me-I’m-just-enlisted way. “My family runs wholesale, boss.”
“Class traitor,” Ed says amiably. “I know you know your way around a horse, you must’ve done something .”
“Oh, no, can’t say that I have. Boss.”
“But maybe you heard of somebody who had,” Al says idly from ladling rice into more dishes around the table. “Someone’s brother’s neighbor’s cousin, maybe. And they told you how it was done.”
“Well,” Havoc says consideringly. “If an individual found themselves in a situation where a horse paintin’ became, through a series of blameless and entirely legal events, necessary… I’d start with a dye dip for coat, mane and tail, and o’course you check its hooves and teeth and everything to make sure it’s healthy and trim everything fresh. Do the brand last, if there is one, ‘cuz you don’t want to dye on a raw burn and you don’t wanna be stuck waitin’ for it to heal. And o’course you want proper papers for it, and if you got the time you train it up a bit to answer to a new name. So now it looks different, registered different, act different - you sure that’s the right horse at all? Officer?” Havoc takes another bite of rib. “According to my brother’s neighbor’s cousin.”
“Can’t we just give it to Hagrid?” Ex-Werewolf says suddenly. “Buck beak was living in the forbidden forest originally. I’m a bit surprised he didn’t try and fly off home the minute we got here, actually.”
Then he looks almost sly, for a moment, and adds, “And even if the ministry has some other way to track him, I doubt any would actually venture to retrieve him from the forbidden forest.”
Ed stares at him, then half turns, points, keeps staring. “That forest?”
“Well. Yes.”
“Okay. Alright. Great. I fucking guess.” Ed throws up his hands and then gestures at Farmer’s farm. “Now how do we stop it from wandering back out looking for humans to easy-feed it and slaughtering all this guy’s chickens out here?”
Ex-Werewolf and Psycho look at each other.
“Hagrid?”
“Hagrid.”
“Yeah, Hagrid, awesome,” Ed says. “Is that your word for cattle fencing and shock collars or fucking what?”
“Hagrid is the man who was taking care of him before. When buck beak wakes up we’ll take him there,” Ex-Werewolf says decisively. “He lives on the edge of the forest, and would likely be the first place buck beak would go, if inclined to visit some settlement. Hagrid is an expert in the care of magical creatures and has gone to some lengths before to defy or otherwise sidestep the law on their behalf.”
That’s… okay, that sounds sort of good, if this thing really is just a normal fucked up magic freak and not, say, the product of a chimera alchemist who goes to ‘some lengths’ to ‘defy the law’ on ‘their behalf’. Ugh. Ed’s going to have to go with this pair and check this Hagrid guy out, probably. “Fine, we do that. But first,” Ed says, “we eat.”
Responsibilities temporarily discharged, Ed descends upon the flavor. A flatbread piled with pilaf, jeweled with chunks of apricot, mutton still sizzling - maybe love and light can live in this world. The table’s pretty crowded, so Ed picks a tree stump near the firepit, balances his plate on his knees and gets eating.
Of course, that’s when the kids all decide to corner him.
“Oi,” Not A Twin says belligerently, looming over Ed, his own plate held as if in total afterthought to the side. “What’s this about boy friends?”
“What? What about boy friends?”
“Why did you say you’re going to be,” Hairy begins hotly, and then seems to sputter out from sheer rage.
“Because it’s the most efficient?” Ed says. They stare at him. Hairy’s even darker than Ed is, so it’s hard to tell, but it kind of looks like he’s blushing. Though maybe he’s just angry. Ed sighs hugely. Magic must seriously do something to the brain. “It’s the best cover story for why we’re going out in public, without guards or friends, and just hanging out in indefensible places. Dating.” He very barely restrains himself from adding duh. “Also, running away to do drugs and have sex with your boyfriend is apparently classic shitty teen behavior. It’ll be totally believable. Or so I’m told.”
“Told? You’ve done that,” Al says, sitting down next to Ed.
“We didn’t do drugs, he wasn’t my boyfriend and it wasn’t running away, it was evading military police,” Ed says impatiently. “And it was all Ling’s fault anyway.”
“It’s just good to have prior experience,” Al says innocently, to which Ed tries to cut his fingers off with a knife.
“Where are you going with Hairy?” Smartypants breaks in, intense. “When?”
Al blocks Ed’s jab with the back of his evil wizard cleaver. “Did you not tell them, brother?”
“Tell them what? What’s there to fucking tell?” Ed parries Al’s own jab with his metal kneecap, shooting a glance over it at Mustang, off on the far side of the fire at the table. “Bastard! Where are we going, anyway? Back to the city, right? No fucking way there’s anywhere to show out around here.”
“The kid needs a new… wand, right?” Hughes interjects. “So he should go and buy one. They’re controlled objects. It’d be one of the most visible things he can do, Invoice here tells me.”
“Yeah, and some new fucking clothes, too,” Ed says disgruntledly, scanning Hairy up and down. “Don’t you have anything else? Do you just fucking dress like this? Nobody’s gonna fuckin’ believe we’re dating if you dress like this.”
“I don’t want to be dating you!” Hairy bursts out, looking like his hair is about to stand on end.
“You aren’t. Don’t fucking flatter yourself, jailbait, we’re doing this thing called pretend,” Ed says exasperatedly. Just because the kid’s turned out to be a little badass doesn’t mean he isn’t annoying.
“You’re… pretending to date Hairy?” comes Psycho’s voice, sounding ready to laugh but like he doesn’t quite get the joke. He and Ex-Werewolf have rolled up too, presumably from wherever they stowed the damn chimera.
“It’s a cover,” Ed says slowly and exaggeratedly. “For when we lure out lord muffintops.”
“A… cover,” Earring & Ponytail repeats, in a looking-at-package-he-isn’t-yet-sure-is-a-bomb voice. “Wouldn’t it be more - realistic? With a girl?”
Ed frowns and exchanges glances with Mustang and Hughes, whose faces also say they’re not seeing the problem. Hawkeye’s drifted over too, with both her own food and Mustang; while a firepit is a natural point of congregation, it’s starting to get a little crowded. “Why?”
“It’s just… you’re a man,” Ponytail says, though a little like he’s uncertain on this point.
“And? So?” Ed frowns at Hairy. Hadn’t somebody mentioned something about the kid being famous…? “What, did you go and announce you’re girls only in some interview or something?”
“What?” Hairy says, belligerent and confused, as usual.
“Is that why it won’t work with a guy? You told everybody you’re not into boys? Well so what, you’re like twelve, teens change their minds all the time.”
Hairy sputters a little bit. “I - you -” He visibly tries to get a grip. “I - it’s not -”
“It isn’t like that here,” Ex-Werewolf says, stepping in while Hairy is busy short-circuiting. He’s frowning too. “He would not be…”
Ex-Werewolf hesitates to complete the sentence. “Queer?” Hughes supplies.
“It’s a bit rude to call him strange, isn’t it?” Ex-Werewolf says, sharper than anything he’s said so far.
“Not strange, queer,” Mustang says, turning his frown on Ex-Werewolf. “Are you unfamiliar with the term?”
Ed stares. “Are you telling me you don’t have gay people?”
“What?” Psycho says, and there’s confused looks all around. Psycho frowns at Ed. “What do you mean, blue?”
“What?”
“What?”
“I suspect it may be a translation problem,” Hawkeye says diplomatically. “Gay is technically slang.”
“This thing fucking sucks at slang,” Ed declares, disgusted. “Homosexuality. Do you not fucking have that?”
That rings a couple bells, the wizards all giving each other super uncomfortable looks. “It’s… not very common,” Ex-Werewolf says carefully, after a long pause where clearly none of them want to talk.
“Uncommon enough to make the cover unbelievable?” Hawkeye says crisply, unfazed as usual by whatever the fresh-picked fuck this shit is.
“It… may be remarked upon,” Ex-Werewolf says, still very carefully not looking at any of the other wizards. “It will be assumed they are just friends.”
“Do you have a female agent who can pass for his age who’s qualified?” Hughes asks, bringing the what the fuck quotient up even further.
“We could poly juice him,” Pirate says, looking at Ed consideringly.
“Nobody’s fucking juicing me,” Ed growls, seriously weirded out by all the super awkward looks happening over there and getting increasingly pissed about it. “Hughes, you seriously want to send him out with a wizard? He’s gotta be out in public with somebody the terrorists or locals don’t recognize who can still do shit when the array’s on, and I’m gonna have to be in the room anyway. It’s not like we need dating to be convincing. If anyone recognizes him and asks what the hell is going on we just say oh, he ran away to be with his boyfriend or whatever. It’s not like we’re gonna call a reporter and have them watch us fuck on a park bench.”
There’s a brief and deeply uncomfortable silence, mostly on the part of the wizards. “This… could work in our favor,” Ex-Werewolf says slowly. “Nobody will believe Hairy is doing this as - as a cover. And it’d help make it convincing, him being out in public without a guard, with… Elric,” he adds. “Like it’s simply more of him being - rebellious.”
Everybody looks at Ed, except for Hairy, who looks all betrayed at the ex-werewolf. Ed scowls back, propping one boot on the rocks around the campfire. “Rebellious,” Mustang says, sounding way too fucking amused. “Indeed.”
“I’m a respectable fucking member of society,” Ed growls.
“You’d want to stand out,” Ex-Werewolf continues, still a little slower than his usual voice, as if he’s working through this out loud. “It would… expedite matters, to so visibly go against the cultural norm.”
Which wearing leather and having a boyfriend is apparently enough to do, in this intellectual leper colony.
“Of course, we could, in theory, acquire outside assistance,” Mustang continues, in a considerably airier thinking out loud voice. “But Fullmetal’s safety concerns do hold true, alas, and the child is a little young to be hiring escorts.”
This makes Psycho cackle. “Isn’t Alphonse… younger?” Ponytail says, in the tones of one trying to find a loophole. “Wouldn’t he be more - suitable?”
“If we have been compromised, it’s likely Fullmetal will be a priority target for the enemy as well, though it’s even odds whether they’ll try to kidnap or just kill him. I’d say kill outright, but since they have mind control, the usual metrics don’t apply,” Hughes says, looking like he wants to sigh but refraining. “This will make them a doubly tempting target. And Fullmetal has the relevant experience.”
“What relevant experience,” Ed says suspiciously.
“Well,” Al begins, which is not where Ed was expecting an answer from. “Technically, you’re a Xingese Imperial concubine.”
Ed nearly falls off the stump. “I’M WHAT?”
“Don’t worry, you’re of the fifth rank,” Al assures him, with the kind of earnestness that means he’s cackling his balls off on the inside. “It’s just a title. You don’t even get an allowance or anything, just those fancy food packages every lunar month. Didn’t you know?”
Ed gapes at him. “I thought that was because Ling fucking owed me for all the goddamn feasts I bought for him back in Amestris! I thought this was him paying the fuck up!”
Al gives him a faintly pitying look. “Right. That’s why you’ve been receiving silk-wrapped dried persimmon and imperial mooncake from his Master of House every month for the past two years.”
“What does that have to do with - he’s the fucking emperor! Of course he’s gonna send me imperial, whatever, official shit!”
“They’re all addressed to the 427th Blossom of Xing, brother. Do you even read what’s on the packages?”
“I’m going to throttle Ling,” Ed hisses.
“That’s a no.” Al sighs. “The title comes with legal privileges and some diplomatic immunities, seeing as you’re a foreign citizen, so I wouldn’t make him retract it too hard if I were you.”
“I’ll retract his balls with my fucking boot is what I’m gonna do -”
“No you won’t. Why did you think it was so easy for Amestrisan military personnel to travel armed and in uniform through Xing without an Imperial escort?” Al says with a touch of exasperation. “On the papers, they’re your official retinue.”
Ed stares, mouth open, then rounds on Mustang. “You knew!”
Mustang twiddles his fingers boredly at him. “Oh yes. Your unique position has opened a great many doors for us,” he says disinterestedly. “You’re also legally responsible for anything we might do within Xing. Isn’t it nice to live on the other side for a change?”
He smiles placidly in the face of Ed’s snarl and turns it onto the wizards. “As you can see, Fullmetal is uniquely qualified to take this role. As our young friend here is uniquely qualified to draw our quarry in.”
“Okay, wait,” Earring & Ponytail says. “Back this up. You’re going out, from under the Fidelius, so Hairy can be seen buying a wand, and thus shortly afterward - when the Aurors apparate to the scene - get taken in to the ministry, where there are you know who sympathizers able to pull dementors from Azkaban, right out from under our noses, specifically to target Hairy?”
Ed snorts. “ We’re not getting taken in, we’re doing the taking,” he says. “ Your jobs will be keeping the cops off us so the freaks hitting us up are the actual terrorists. That way, either they follow us and we gettem, or they bring us into their hole and we gettem -“
“You - absolutely not. You are not getting Hairy abducted in order to find a death eater base,” Breakfast Lady snaps. “He is not some blood sacrifice to be staked out for convenience!”
“He is already a target,” Mustang says in what’s probably a very reassuring and reasonable voice to anyone who doesn’t know him. “This way he will be with a guard at all times, at a much closer remove than any he has been assigned previously.”
“That isn’t enough to send him out to be bait!” Breakfast Lady snarls.
Hairy, surprisingly, is the one to take offense to this. “I can help. And I need a new wand anyway, and it’s not like Voldemort is going to just forget I exist, now is he -“
“You’re fifteen!”
“Ask me what I was doing when I was fifteen,” Ed says under his breath, and Hughes snorts behind him.
Breakfast Lady, though, spins on Ed with a glare vicious enough to cut. “You think I can rely on an army that uses child soldiers? Maybe that is condoned where you come from, Lieutenant Colonel, but not here.”
A ripple passes through everybody on either side of Ed, Hawkeye stiffening subtly and Mustang and Hughes loosening in their sure-I-don’t-mind-a-knife-fight way. Not quite defensive, but - not quite not, either.
Which, okay, what the fuck ever. The older Ed gets, the more he understands that yeah, he’d been young. Objectively, too young. But life doesn’t care, and he’d made his own decisions, every single time. Maybe if he’d been dumber he would’ve been too young to make choices that would rip up his and his brother’s lives, and maybe if he’d been more complacent he would’ve been too young to take on all that came after. But he wasn’t. He’d been just smart enough to do the dumbest thing possible, and he’d been just smart enough to actually get off his ass and fix it, too.
“State Alchemists are not always soldiers,” Hawkeye says, a little unexpectedly. “The expectation was that Edward would work in a research capacity, should he pass the exam. His status as an active duty soldier was only instated a few years ago.”
Which is a truth, of a sort. Ed had only ever been accepted to the program as a human sacrifice, not any kind of soldier or even researcher. And even if he had been, good fucking luck keeping Ed on some army base corked up in some lab, building a better bullet or whatever horseshit. He can barely find an order he wants to follow now, let alone when he was god damn twelve.
Breakfast Lady damn near has her teeth bared at Hawkeye, contempt sparking off her: you think any of that reassures me? But it strikes Ed, watching her drawn and lined face, pale with terrified fury, that this is a mom, and she’s afraid for her kids.
Ed stands, setting his plate aside. “Lady,” he says to her, serious. “I already saved all your kids once. Killed those dementers for them.” He reaches out, takes Hairy by the back of his scrawny little neck. “I can keep this one alive. And I will.”
Breakfast Lady stares back at Ed, the whole of her limned by just the barest perceptible tremor. Then she jerks forward, her hand out, grasping. “Swear it.”
She also, concerningly, sticks out her wand at Ed, with the tip of the stick starting to glow white. “Yo, hey, cool it with the spell shit,” Ed snaps, retracting the hand he’d stuck out to grip for the swear. “I didn’t even bill you for it the first time, lady, you think you gotta fuckin’ threaten me into keeping a kid safe?”
“Ah - is an unbreakable vow necessary, Molly?” Ex-Wereolf says, also stepping forward, his hands up. “He is provably invested in the outcome, and he hasn’t a wand of his own to bind -“
Breakfast Lady wants to put him under some kind of magic promise? For fuck’s sake. “To, ah, bind one of my people in any way is a step I fear you must forgo,” Mustang drawls, his hands now inconspicuously clasped together as he leans forward to put them under his chin, elbows braced on his knees and a dangerously sweet cast to his expression. “I’m afraid I must insist.”
Luckily - and oh, what a state things have come to that Ed is thinking that - this is when Beardy arrives.