yes i update late. yes i am a jerk. yes i deserve to be drawn and quartered, and if i were a guy maybe i should be castrated too. but moving on... any other questions before we begin? but really, i apologize. this is one of the chapter ideas i've had in my head from the inception of this fic. it just took me... two years to put it on paper. yeah, i suck. anyway, here it is.

Chapter 13
five minutes to midnight

Envy lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, which was faintly visible in the dim, bluish glow from the streetlamp outside. The couch was hot and scratchy on his exposed skin, the rough fabric trapping his body heat and sending it back. He had already thrown the blanket to the ground, and was contemplating tossing his pillows as well. Anything to make it a little bit cooler, to increase the chance of catching just one breeze... Even though the window was open a few inches, the air outside was flat and dead.

He turned over on the cushions, sticky and uncomfortable and wishing for air conditioning or, in lieu of that, a fan. Even one of those Asian paper fans. Even a piece of paper he could wave back and forth in an effort to dispel the clinging heat - but he was lazy, and not yet desperate enough to get up and go get one. And if he did walk around, he would be even less likely to get to sleep.

His legs felt restless, no matter how many times he stretched them out. Strands of hair clung to the side of his face, and when he brushed them from his eyes they fell limply to the pillow. No matter how many different ways he shifted, he was unable to get comfortable at all. And that litany of complaints didn't even begin to cover the anxious and irritable thoughts running through his head - worries about Kimbley, his parents, the Elrics, exercise, horniness, et cetera.

Life, in short, sucked.

Giving a sigh, Envy turned so he was on his back once again, watching the ceiling with half-lidded eyes. The clock on the VCR told him it was only eleven forty-five. Eight hours until morning. Eight fucking hours.

He was startled from his bitter contemplations by the creaking of a door. Barely moving his head, Envy peered down the hallway. Al, getting up for a drink? Ed, getting up for a midnight snack? A bathroom run? An illicit phone call?

Footsteps padded across the carpet and Envy saw a silhouette cross the living room. When the figure passed the window, the streetlight illuminated a flash of long golden blonde hair - Ed, then? Curious, the long-haired teenager levered himself up on an elbow as Ed passed and quietly unlocked the front door.

"Where are you going?"

Edward jumped, visibly startled, and Envy was amused as well as curious. "None of your business," he replied defensively, opening the outside screen door. "Stay here."

Envy, already irritable from the heat and itching for an excuse to get up and cool off, stood. "Make me," he replied, stretching. Even the stuffy air felt good moving across his sticky skin.

Although he couldn't see Ed's face, the teenager paused, and Envy assumed he was staring. Glaring, probably. "Fine," Edward said after a long pause, where Envy fanned himself with his hand and looked around. The VCR said eleven forty-seven, now. "You can come with me."

Envy's eyes widened with surprise, but he stepped through the now-open door, giving Ed a wary look when the blonde held it open. "Where are you going?" he asked, stepping aside so he could follow Ed down the stairs.

Ed jerked his chin at his car, parked under one of the awnings provided by the apartment complex.

"Driving?" Envy asked, climbing the stairs gingerly and only now aware of his bare feet. He was still in his pajamas, too, and that realization came with a rush of vulnerability. But Ed was in his boxers and an old t-shirt, so they couldn't be - "Where are we going?"

"Away," Ed replied, walking across the parking lot in giant strides. He was wearing flip-flops, Envy noted with a little bitterness. So not fair.

The long-haired teenager walked to the car with tentative footsteps, praying he wouldn't step on a goathead or a rusty nail or something equally unpleasant. When he reached the passenger side of Ed's car, he breathed a sigh of relief and brushed loose gravel from the bottoms of his feet. "Away where?" Ed was unlocking the door. "Hey, what about Al?"

"He's fine," Ed said. "I locked the door behind you."

Envy gave him a skeptical look but opened the car door nonetheless. "If you say so," he muttered, climbing into the vehicle. Ed's car really was a piece of crap, he reflected. A generic tan color on both the interior and the exterior, it gave of the odor of gas, sunscreen, and sweet pea scented lotion. He raised an eyebrow and cranked down a window - the car even had the rotating hand cranks to move windows up or down. The body sagged, the wheels were worn, and the outside was covered with dents.

Except for the color and the model (and the smell), Ed's vehicle could have been a twin of Kimbley's. Envy tightened his hand on the armrest as Ed climbed into the driver's seat. This wasn't going to end up like that time, he told himself. The car was well-worn in a nice way, and Ed's eyes were a warmer gold color than Kimbley's. He leaned his head against the doorframe and watched the scenery with half-closed eyes as Ed backed out of his parking space, tires crunching on gravel, then maneuvered onto the street.

The city lights sped past them as Ed turned onto the main road through Central, passing gas stations and restaurants, theaters and ratty old motels. The night was illuminated by neon signs and the sodium-orange of streetlamps, and Envy leaned his head against the cool glass of the window and watched it speed past. He had always liked driving at night, he recalled, with the glow of passing streetlights a series of orange flickers and his reflection ghostly pale and barely there. It was soothing, sleepy. The slow movement of the car lulled him into a trancelike state near sleep.

It had been just like this when Kimbley had -

But he wasn't going to think about that. /Ed isn't Kimbley,/ Envy thought to himself, taking a deep breath and letting it out. /He's an asshole, but he's not Kimbley./ And for once, he believed himself.

---

Envy came awake fully when the lights began to be spaced further and further apart, and the city limits receded behind him. He sat up slightly and shook his head, running his fingers through long, dark hair. Ed showed no sign of stopping. From what Envy could see in the light from the occasional streetlamps, he was still sitting straight, with the same expression he had worn before - blank, silent, closed in.

The long-haired teenager watched him for a moment, as Ed watched the road. The radio had been turned on sometime during his sleep, and now provided a constant background of music and chatter. It was turned down low, too low for him to be able to make out the actual words, but loud enough that it broke up the silence of the car. He looked at the dashboard clock, surprised the hunk of junk car even had one. Twelve fifteen. They had been driving for nearly half an hour, which was rather a lot for a nighttime outing.

"Where are we going?" Envy asked finally, when Ed showed no sign of acknowledging his gaze. "We're outside the city; aren't we going back?"

There was no reply, though Envy noticed a slight inclination of Ed's head, just enough of a nod to acknowledge Envy's question. An actual answer would have been nice. People didn't ask things to get nodded at.

Envy sighed, wondering where his accepting mood had gone. He had gotten into the car himself, so wherever Ed felt like going, he had to come along. That or walk God knew how many miles to get back to an apartment building - and he wasn't sure exactly where said apartment was located, come to think of it. Somewhere in Central, somewhere sort of near Kimbley's place but not too close - and he didn't even know where Kimbley's house was.

Well, good riddance. He sighed again and leaned his head back against the window. The road was narrowing and they seemed to be climbing into the mountains, part of the range that spread out east from Central. Parts of the area had a rather unsavory reputation, and Envy began to wonder what Ed was doing driving all the way out here in the middle of the night. Perhaps he was a serial killer, and Envy was going to be his latest victim. A drug deal, and he was going to give them Envy to pay some kind of debt. A secret Nazi society initiation.

He almost snorted to himself, watching his pale reflection smile lazily. Yeah right. Ed was too straight and narrow to get into any kind of shit like that.

Though he would have never believed something like that from Kimbley; never believed he would -

That didn't matter, though. Ed wasn't Kimbley, and Envy had told himself and believed that Ed wasn't Kimbley, and if he kept bringing up Kimbley whenever possible he would never be able to get away, and it wasn't like what Kimbley had done was a big deal in the scheme of things, and Envy had probably done worse than Kimbley had ever done -

He was shaken out of his totally new, self-recriminating thoughts by a sudden swerve. Envy jolted upright, taut as a wire, before realizing that Ed had just pulled into a parking lot on the side of the highway, one of those placed by the forest service for intrepid hikers. Curious, he peered over the railing, where the side of the mountain fell away abruptly, the bottom barely visible in the faint moonlight. An observation spot, then, a proverbial dead end.

Ed opened the door and clambered from his seat, his flip flops crunching on the gravel in the lot. /Suicide,/ Envy thought to himself before squelching his suspicion. Curious - sometimes he grew tired of his own nosy nature - Envy stood as well, wincing as his bare feet contacted gravel that was substantially rougher than the rocks that had coated the apartment lot. He wondered whether there was any broken glass in the vicinity, and if Ed would take him to urgent care to get a tetanus shot if he happened to step on a rusty nail.

Probably, he thought of the former, and probably not, of the latter. Ah well, feet were made for walking and whatnot...

Gingerly, probing with his toes at every step, he joined Ed at the small metal barrier that was all that separated them from at least a hundred feet of empty air. "If you're planning to throw yourself off," Envy said, "Al would be pretty pissed if I didn't at least try to stop you."

"If I wanted to throw myself off," Ed replied, giving Envy an exasperated look over his shoulder, "why would I have taken you along for the ride?"

Envy shrugged, finally walking the last few feet and coming to stand at the metal barrier. He could see the silhouette of the mountain behind him to his left, rising up like a behemoth and cutting off the faint light of the sky, but in front of him was empty - stars and what he could see of the horizon. Even though he was fine with heights, such a view was a little unnerving. "A desperate plea for help, maybe," he retorted, deciding that bantering was more comfortable than contemplating the dark void below him. "I bet you just needed someone to drive the car home."

Ed snorted, then looked away, his attention apparently reserved for the invisible vista before them. "When the sun is up, the view is amazing," he said after a while, causing the long-haired teenager to fidget a little. /If it's so pretty,/ he wondered, /why didn't you just drive all the way out here tomorrow?/ "The stars are pretty too," he continued, answering Envy's unspoken question. Envy looked up...

... and it took him at least a minute to catch his breath.

The stars were spread out above him like a living tapestry of lights. A blanket of diamonds. A horde of fireflies. He grasped at a less poetic description, but it evaded him - hell, there was no way you could describe a view like that in a way that was anything but poetic. They sprawled across the sky, glowing, and there were more of them than Envy had ever seen before. He could even point out the Milky Way, previously an abstract concept from his seventh grade earth science class. It unfurled like a reddish purple banner, swarmed by thickly congregating stars. All those pictures he had seen, from textbooks and movies and TV shows - they hadn't been lying.

"The lights from the city wash them out," Ed explained, but Envy was too enthralled to reply. "We're lucky the moon isn't full. If it was gone altogether, you'd see even more."

The long-haired teenager was beginning to get a crick in his neck from staring at the sky, but the sight was too big to drink in in a matter of seconds. He made a noise of affirmation, and they were silent for several more minutes, Envy looking around like a hick in New York City for the first time, and Ed staring at the stars with what appeared to be a contemplative expression.

"My mother's in a coma in the hospital," Edward blurted suddenly.

Envy blinked and twisted his head back around to stare at Ed. There was no way anyone could get away with ignoring that sort of comment. "...Oh really?" he asked after a moment, lacking anything better to say.

Ed was still staring up at the stars. His face was in profile against the magenta hues of the Milky Way, his golden braid catching the faint moon and starlight and turning silver, just like his eyes. Eventually, Envy settled for staring at the column of his throat, which moved up and down as he swallowed, and wondered whether he would speak again.

It took him a few minutes, but eventually... "She had a brain hemhorrage nearly a year ago. Actually, it would be a year ago this July." He paused, and sighed, still staring upwards and not meeting Envy's curious eyes. "One minute, she was standing at the kitchen counter, complaining she had a headache. She got headaches a lot. And then she was on the floor. We called the amublance and they did their best, but..." He shrugged, and Envy saw the corner of his mouth twist into a shadowed, lopsided grin. "Al started high school without her to drive him on his first day."

Al went to a private high school, Envy remembered. St. Charles, the only high school in the city to which Dante had not entrusted him - because the school's name was also the name of a saint. "I'm... sorry," he hazarded, having no idea what to say and knowing he had to say something.

"Don't be," Ed said. He finally took his eyes off the vista above him and turned to meet Envy's gaze with his own, resigned one. "It just... makes things hard, you know?"

Envy didn't, but he nodded anyway.

"We go to visit her every Thursday - I mean, I do; sometimes Al has studying or homework and that's really important, but..." His voice trailed off once more and he scrubbed at his face with the heel of his palm, rubbing his eyes and tossing his hair out of his face. "This is a nice place to go to, um, chill out."

"...I'm sorry," Envy said again, after a moment. Even if Ed didn't want apologies, it seemed the most logical thing to say. An impulse to make a confession of his own - I was raped by my best friend - surfaced, and Envy had to bite his tongue to keep from blurting it out. Edward didn't need to know. No one needed to know (/Roy knows,/ a voice whispered in the back of his head, but Roy was different), and he didn't need anyone's pity. He didn't need anyone's understanding, either.

"Yeah," Ed sighed after a while, when it became obvious that Envy had nothing more to add. Another faint silence drifted between them like regret, until the blonde turned to reenter the car. Envy followed, stepping carefully as usual across the gravel. When he entered the car, a thought struck him.

"Since I... Uh, since I started sleeping on your couch," Envy began, wincing at his word choice, "have you driven out like this?"

As the car started with a gurgle, Ed shot him a glance. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I have." And then he grinned - a crooked grin, but Envy could see his teeth flashing in the cast-off moonlight and knew it had real humor behind it. "You were just asleep."

After making an annoyed grumble (that he didn't really mean), Envy settled back into the worn leather of the seat and pressed his head back to the window glass once more. Ed turned on the radio again and the strains of some late night tune drifted through the speakers, a counterpoint to the cool wind rushing in through his open window. Envy opened his a crack, tempted by the sight of Ed's blonde hair whipped back from his face, and closed his eyes in bliss as the air swept his hair back and played over his face. Something had changed between them, Envy thought, and changed for the better. He let himself dwell on the fact for a few moments, basking in something that had been pushed one step closer to a friendship, before his mind began to wander.

And, like always, it wandered back to Kimbley. He had realized something, in the moments before Ed had stopped the car. Realized that Kimbley hadn't been as bad as - that he had - he had... forgotten completely. Heaving a sigh, Envy curled up contentedly and closed his eyes, basking in the mountain air and taking one last, wondering glance at the stars before falling asleep for real.

If he couldn't remember, then chances were it didn't matter.

---

At ten o'clock, Ed was up early, surprising both himself and Winry, whose house he had decided to visit first. He stood behind her with hands in his pockets as she shook out sheets one by one and clipped them to the clothesline, looking surprisingly domestic in rolled-up jeans and a button-down shirt with a pink kerchief tied around her hair.

"You look like a housewife," Ed observed with a lazy half-grin, feeling the breeze ruffle his hair and welcoming it.

"Shut up," Winry said, but without vehemence. She placed another damp sheet on the clothesline and the sun fell on her upturned face, highlighting the scattered freckles and her limpet blue eyes, far away with thoughts of her own.

Edward didn't reply, content to take in the day - the scent of freshly mowed grass, the bright blue of the morning sky, the early heat radiating from the sun, and the sounds of birds singing from the trees in the neighbor's backyard. He felt... a hell of a lot happier than he could remember being in a long time. It was like a huge weight had lifted off his chest, and all he could do was smile and start breathing for real again, and he had no idea why.

Well, that was a lie. He did kind of know why - the conversation with Envy had been the last happening in a watershed of events that had forced him to realize that maybe the guy wasn't half bad. Sure, he was a fucking nymphomaniac, and an asshole, and annoying, and a jerk, and really spoiled... but everyone had their flaws!

It was a ridiculously upbeat attitude and Ed knew it, had known it since he had woken up at nine-fifteen (unreasonably early), but for some reason he still couldn't wipe the stupid grin off his face.

"You seem happy," Winry observed after a while, stating (or so Ed thought) the obvious.

"Do I?" Ed asked, still smiling in the direction of the garden. Granny Pinako had planted marigolds this year, the happy blossoms splashes of gold and orange against their green leaves.

The blonde turned to give him a look, half exasperation and half resignation. "Actually, I think you're the happiest I've seen since last month. What happened? Lose the prescription for your bitch pills?"

"I think you stole it, actually," Ed retorted, turning to grin at her. Even Winry's sour mood couldn't spoil his slightly obnoxious happiness.

"Har har," Winry laughed sarcastically. "Seriously, what happened to you? Did Envy leave? Die?" Her nasty tone made Ed realize that she wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, putting a slight damper on his feelings. The corner of his mouth twisted down into a slight frown, and he shrugged.

"We talked. Kinda."

The final sheet hanging forgotten from her arms, Winry turned to face him for the first time that morning, raising a slim blonde eyebrow. "Oh really? Did this 'talk' entail you guys beating each other shitless?"

"No!" Ed cried, slightly offended. "Why the hell would I want to do that?"

Winry's eyebrow went up a few more millimeters, and Ed's mouth snapped shut. /Oh yeah, because I already did last week./ His good humor suddenly evaporating, Ed turned away from Winry's gaze, studying the grass under his feet his face grew hot. He was probably - no, he was definitely blushing. "It's not - I mean - Look, I..." Clasping his hands behind his back and looking up at the blue sky, he shrugged. "I dunno. I was... I've been thinking about a lot of the things you've told me, you and Izumi, and..." He sighed. "I figured I should give him a chance, and so when he wouldn't go back to sleep I figured I might as well take him in the car with me and then I told him and, um, yeah..." Ed's voice trailed off as he gave a vague recounting of the night before. Then, before Winry could question him for specifics, he turned to look her in the eye. "He's, er, he's really... not that bad."

"Oh really?" Winry replied, both her tone and her eyes full to brimming with amusement. "So you're admitting I was right? Shall I take that as a kind of apology? Can I say 'I told you so'?"

"No way!" Ed began, before biting his lip. "Well... honestly, um, I guess you kind of helped."

The blonde gave him a hard stare, then laughed. "I guess that's the closest you'll come to admitting you were wrong," she said, finally shaking out the last sheet and clipping it up. It fluttered in the soft breeze, blue paisley rippling like the ocean.

It gave Ed an idea. "Hey, Winry, let's go to the beach."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Now?"

"No, dumbass," he replied, his good mood returning as quickly as it had vanished. "It's summer, I mean, we've gotta do something and we live in California. How about a day where we drive to the beach? You and Rose, me and Al..." He paused. "And Envy too, I guess. All day. With lunch and dinner and everything." He grinned at Winry, who rolled her eyes.

"I was wondering when you were planning to suggest something like that," she said, her tone good-natured for the first time that morning. "I don't see a problem. I'm sure I can convince Rose - and she's been doing a lot better since Al came to talk to her! I mean, she won't really talk to us, but at least she'll look at us like we're there, you know, and she's been eating again which is good because the baby -"

Edward took her by the arm, saw for the first time how strained her eyes looked, how hard she was trying to keep up her hopeful facade. "Don't sweat it," he said, projecting a confidence he really didn't feel. "We'll make her get better, trust me on that."

Winry blinked, apparently surprised by his words, before relaxing and slumping into his grip. The smile she gave him was tentative, but it was real. "Yeah," she said, and then again, "Yeah. We'll make it work out."

---

After informing him that Ed had left the house, Alphonse waved goodbye to Envy, reminded him that there was leftover pizza for the taking in the fridge, and climbed into Mrs. Tringham's car. At least, Envy assumed the blonde woman behind the wheel was the Tringham lady. Ed had left a note on the fridge reminding Al that she was to pick him up at ten-thirty, and it was ten-thirty, and Al was gone, so... Envy shrugged to himself. /No fucking shit, Sherlock./

He was standing aimlessly in the center of the kitchen, arms dangling at his sides as he contemplated his surroundings, really looked at them, for the first time. The apartment was small and slightly shabby, but kept obsessively clean mostly by Al, who spent most of his time (when not cooking) scouring at the countertops. Their dishes, he observed as he peeked into a cupboard, were generally plastic, and the fine china was kept on the highest shelf, covered with a dusty cloth.

It looked like dollar store dishware, Envy thought, having never visited a dollar store in his life. But it was something you expected from kids, or something that you'd find in the dollar aisle at Target. /Which is probably where it's from./

He crossed the small kitchen in a few steps. Aside from a plastic-wrapped plate of pizza slices, the fridge was nearly empty. On the door, there was a half-gallon milk carton dangerously close to its expiration date, cuddling close to a quart of orange juice. In the fruit drawers were three apples, and a small package of cheese and some cold cut turkey sat looking lonely in the deli drawer. There were a few more unidentifiable containers of leftovers, a plastic pack of vegetables, ketchup, mustard, jelly, and a sadly wilted head of lettuce. Envy frowned.

The freezer was even emptier, containing a half-empty ice cream carton, ice cubes, a package of bread (?!), a bag of frozen corn, and a stack of microwave dinners. He made a face. Of course there was more in the pantry; brownie mixes, flour, packets of ramen noodles, crackers, chips, canned vegetables, and other food preparation items. But still, to Envy, it didn't seem like they had enough food. Fresh food, anyway.

He ran a hand through his hair, shaking the too-long strands back from his face (it had grown, and was hanging in his eyes, annoying), before heading down the hallway. It would be at least another half-hour before Ed returned home, and he had more judicious snooping to do.

The Elric brothers' room was easy to find, obviously; there were two rooms to choose from in the hallway and only one had a bunkbed. But the other room...

Hesitantly, Envy opened the door and peered inside. It was lighter than he expected - for some reason he had expected a dank and musty place, but the room had a window that faced the other side of the apartment complex (a grim parking lot and dumpster view, but it was light, and it was outside) and the walls were white and cheerful looking. There were even flowers on the night table, and Envy did a double take before realizing that they weren't real.

On the dresser there was a jewelry box and a picture frame. Hesitantly, Envy padded forward, practically holding his breath. He felt like a spy, like he was intruding on sacred ground. /Or a graveyard,/ he thought, but squashed that comparison before he could get any more nervous.

The picture was old and dusty, but its subject was still clear. A man. A woman. A kid. A baby. Envy resisted the urge to wipe the dust away from the frame, instead leaning closer and squinting to make out their faces. The man was blonde, with a square chin and a beard. Rectangular glasses rested low on his nose, and he looked like his thoughts were far away, even though he was smiling. The woman on his right (so she showed up on the left side of the photograph) was smiling joyfully. Her brown hair cascaded down her shoulders, and she was holding a smiling blonde toddler in her arms. The man was holding up the kid - he looked about five, or maybe six, and was smiling outrageously, his arms stretched out so that his father's big hands could lift him up.

Ed and Al, Envy realized. Duh. And their mother and father. The mother who was in the hospital, and the father who... had left, maybe, or died, because he was never there. Probably just walked out one day, like Greed would've done to Dante if he had the balls.

Not that Envy would have cared. He straightened and ran a careless hand through his hair yet again, taking one last glance at the picture before leaving. They looked happy. They had looked happy. That was... it must have been... what a normal family looked like.

Suddenly angry, he left the room with hurried steps and almost slammed the door behind him. Normal family. Like there was any such thing as a normal family. Because if things like that could happen, and suddenly life wasn't all happy like the pictures anymore, and everything was -

Envy stopped at the entryway to the kitchen, not really sure why he was angry. "So I guess it's really not like the movies at all," he sighed to himself, then glanced at the refrigerator. Maybe, when Ed went grocery shopping next time, Envy would come with him, and offer to pay.

Maybe.

"Five Minutes to Midnight" by Boys Like Girls.

um, i'm surprisingly busy even though it is summer break but when i have a chance i'll try and get the next chapter done. who loves the beach? i do. i hope we vacation there soon. adios!