What Next?

The thought had occurred while Edward was waiting in the old, slouching, coal-packing plant. He'd brushed it aside when there were soon other things to concentrate on; such as warping the cracked concrete floor around his father's hands, trying to immobilize his individual fingers without crushing them too badly as to distract him from talking.

Envy shifted back to his preferred shape with a triumphant whoop. Hoenheim's face twisted to the side, searching in the direction the alchemical reaction had come from. 'Dante...?' He'd mumbled, searching the dark, dusty interior of the slowly rotting building with his eyes.

'Oh, no, bad guess.' A giddy giggle had bubbled its way involuntarily into the words. 'But you still get two more, old man.' Ed wandered into a brighter patch of the shadowy single room of the building created by a crumbling upper window.

'... Edward...' his father whispered.

Envy threw back his head and laughed loudly. 'He looks surprised!'

'How did he fool so many people into thinking he was smart?' Ed chuckled. He knelt down next to his father and just looked at him for a moment. Edward had made sure to fix his fingers so the man couldn't make a circle. This was the moment of truth. This was what all the searching and planning had been for. Now he got what he needed and then Envy would kill the man. He had no delusions that Envy wouldn't instantly slaughter their father as soon as Edward had the information he'd been looking for.

But it was after that that bothered Ed. What happened next? Obviously, he'd use the information he got to restore Al's body. But then? What of Envy? When the key was gone, what then? It was, of course, far too late for these kind of thoughts. If he tried to sabotage this, Envy would know, and would consider it a betrayal. Then neither Hoenheim nor his middle son would walk away from this old coal-packing plant.

No, if anything went wrong, Envy would hate him too. Edward bit his lip and then glanced over his shoulder, back up at Envy. Envy blinked back at him and then his expression hardened, fury coming into his violet eyes.

'No. You are not chickening out on me!' Envy snarled viciously and swooped down on Edward, his hands clawing and digging into Ed's shoulders. 'I will not let you back out of this!'

'Not that...' Ed shook his head. 'The bastard dies today... but...'

'No!' Envy's voice came out as a desperate whine this time and he nuzzled Edward's neck. 'No buts! You promised! You promised!'

Envy would always fixate, right? And with the fixation of their father removed, he couldn't abandon his fixation on Ed, right? Envy needed him. 'Yeah...' Edward shook his head. 'Sorry.'

Edward stood up again, Envy coming up with him and hugging his back. 'So... old man... does everything you touch turn to shit?'

Hoenheim sighed. 'It seems that way.'

Envy snarled loudly and his body was shaking violently in anger and anticipation against Edward's back.

'... You killed my mother...'

'Edward...'

'Because of you, she got sick! Because you weren't there! You weren't there to take care of her like you should have been! You didn't even come to her funeral! I HATE YOU!'

Envy's arms tightened around him and teeth scraped over his neck, all the while the homunculus continued shaking in that barely-in-control-of-himself way. Edward fisted his hands and drew a few steadying breaths.

'... Do you think parents have responsibilities to their kids?' Edward asked quietly. 'Do you think that when you conceive a child, either intentionally or by happenstance, you have some responsibility to them? I mean, you're a man, so it's not like you could be raped and end up with a baby you had no fault in creating. If you have a kid, there is no way you can shirk the blame for it.

'And you, you've had three kids, and you abandoned each one of them!' Edward wasn't sure if it was just Envy shaking anymore. His own fists seemed to be shivering at his sides. 'And considering you went and did it again after you knew damn well the first one went murderous on you, what the fuck did you think was going to happen this time? I fucking hate you, you irresponsible fucking bastard!'

Hoenheim's eyes closed. 'I'm sorry.'

Ed shoved Envy off of him with a string of curses and lunged for his father, slamming his steel fist into the man's jaw. He heard something snap under the flesh of his father's cheek and grinned. 'You like it?' he asked with a wicked smile, pulling off the glove concealing his gleaming, silvery hand and pushing back his sleeve. 'The Rockbells do good work, yeah?'

He clapped his hands and transmuted the shell of his forearm into a blade. Envy was at his ear again, biting it and whispering. 'Cut him! Take his eyes!'

'This,' Edward held up his arm and showed it off. 'Is definitely your fault. You should have been there. You should have been watching us and you should have been there to explain why we couldn't bring Mom back. You're the only one who could have. You're the only one who really knew. And it was your fucking responsibility to be watching your kids and making sure they didn't, oh, I don't know, loose an arm? Loose an entire fucking body?'

'You did this to me and then you go and find a new family and do it to the whole lot of them!' Envy snarled and slammed his hand into Hoenheim's gut, gouging through the flesh. 'Sick bastard!'

Hoenheim gasped.

'Envy, wait!' Ed snapped.

'...' Envy quietly stared down at his wrist coming out of his father's stomach, looking slightly entranced.

Ed leaned forward, crouching over his father and glared at him. 'I can live with the automail,' he said quietly. 'But I lost Al's whole body to the gate. I've got his soul affixed to a suit of armor. That's where it's been for the last four years. What do I do now?'

Hoenheim stared back at him, the pain in his abdomen seeming to have been forgotten. 'Edward... I-'

'And don't give me any shit that you would have to do the transmutation yourself because you won't live more than a few hours with that hole Envy just put in you,' Edward warned. 'And if you can't think of anything useful to tell me, then I think I'll just transmute your skin away and I think I could scrounge up enough salt around here to make your last moments in this world very painful.'

Hoenheim's eyes widened, some mix of horror and pity crossing his face. He then closed his eyes again and sighed. There was a slight wheeze in the sound, like a pneumonia, probably caused by the hole. 'Use my body to open the gate and make the trade.'

Edward blinked. 'My god... did you just do something decent for once in your miserable life?'

'NO!' Envy screamed. 'He's mine! I'm going to kill him!' He finally yanked his hand out of Hoenheim's gut and drew it back for another blow.

'ENVY!' Edward tackled him. 'ENVY! LISTEN TO ME!' He watched Envy's eyes reluctantly turn back towards his, tearing from stress.

'I'm going to kill him...' Envy whimpered.

'Envy, think about it,' Ed whispered, petting his cheek. 'The irony of it. We could abandon him. Inside the Gate!'

Envy's face softened, curious. He stared back at Edward, blinking a few times, looking unsure. 'Wouldn't that be great?' Ed prompted, giving him an encouraging smile. 'The Gate! I don't even know if he'd die there! He could be trapped like this, in pain, for ever!'

Envy's eyes were widening, picking up a twinkle. 'With them.'

Edward nodded, his smile wide, desperate, half-hysterical. 'That'd be so great, yeah?'

'Yeah,' Envy whispered, his own lips pulling back into a mirror grin. 'Yeah, I wanna do that.'

'Good.' Edward pressed his mouth to Envy's. Thin arms wrapped around him, smearing their father's blood into the back of his shirt.

'... Edward...' Hoenheim called in a low, raspy voice. 'You are going... to have to do... this quickly...'

Ed looked up and then partially disentangled himself from Envy, though he left the thin, pale arms clinging around his waist as the homunculus did not seem inclined to let him go. He scooted back across the floor to look down at his father.

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It was a while before Envy stopped shaking and his arms loosened from around Ed's chest. The Gate, Edward knew, was one of the only things that properly terrified Envy. He wasn't paying much attention to his half-brother though, the whole of his mind was focused on the body now laying across his lap. Ed ran his fingers through long, tangled, tawny hair and over the ridges and dips of bones nearly protruding through taught flesh.

Al's body was emaciated. It needed immediate medical attention. As he watched his little brother's body slowly breathe in and out, looking as though it were just asleep rather than entirely vacant, he felt the arms around him untangle and draw away, leaving his back feeling chill and uncomfortable. He found himself shivering.

'What are you going to do now?' Envy's voice asked coolly from behind him.

'I... I need to get him to a hospital,' Ed said quietly. 'And... I should get Al to come out here... I don't want to move him too much without a soul inside.'

There was a long silence. Edward could hear Envy shifting slightly on his feet. Why was he still here? Hadn't he done what he needed to? Didn't he want to go back to the other homunculus and whoever their leader was? Wasn't it over now?

'Envy...' Ed started quietly, still looking down at the body in front of him. 'W-would you please help me? I'm a bit worried about moving him by myself. I don't want to hurt him.'

'Yeah, sure, whatever,' Envy said a little too quickly and with a little too much relief in his tone to be entirely casual.

'Thank you,' Ed sighed.

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