Icebane - Chapter One

[cryogenia]

Title: Icebane
Author: Skyroslayer collab
Rating: PG-13 this chapter
Note: Sequel to BOTH "Once Somebody Loved" and "Firebrand"


White. He opened his eyes to white; the sky above, everything to either side a flat, textureless expanse. He was lying on his back on something squishy and unnatural, and if he could turn his head, he was sure that too, would be white.

At first, he honestly thought he was dead. Not dying, because that, he was sure, hurt a lot more. He had been dying outside, in the Real-Night; it had hurt so very bad and he remembered just running and running and then running out… Falling down on his knees, feeling the life seep out of him, looking up at the Mustang and his brother above him and feeling the pain leave. But he squirmed a little, still fuzzy, and his shoulder screamed dully, and he realized that he was feeling too much for this to be either death, or a dream. Dreams never hurt, at least, not so consistently.

He lay there for several more seconds to determine whether or not the dreamscape was going to shift, but as it didn’t, he judged himself unfortunately alive and moved on with said life. It was how this always worked.

“< Al? >” He ventured, heard nothing. Smelled next to nothing, only the slight musk of human, which was so long a part of his universe that it barely even registered. He inhaled again and decided his nose must have been broken, too. There was no blood-scent. No scent of ash, sickness, or the death he knew he had most certainly inflicted; the Envy-tooth’s guts had been all over his-

--arm. His automail arm, which strangely, he could not sense at all.

He whined and turned his head slowly, agonizingly, to his right. All he could see at this angle was the nondescript curve of his automail port, as seen obscured by a strange, powder-blue pelt. He could not raise his arm at all, nor could he wiggle his fingers; feedback was always muted if he’d taken a nasty blow to the head, but for it to not respond at all…it must have really gotten damaged.

He tested his other arm and found something was not right there, either, but he could at least curl a finger and tap against the source of the problem. Tried to bend the rest of his fingers; found that he couldn’t - possibly broken? His wrist didn’t do anything either, but his elbow worked. It was as if there were something around him, preventing him from moving from the elbow down… Slowly, shakily, he began to pull the offending limb up above his face, where he could see without having to sit up.

He almost couldn’t hold it. His muscles spasmed erratically and he nearly dropped his arm right onto his face. He managed to swing it aside at the last second, but not before he’d gotten a good look at what had seized his poor appendage.

Another white thing, this one long and stiff, was coiled around his left forearm from elbow to palm, effectively capturing all of his lower arm but his thumb and index finger. It didn’t seem inclined to be going much of anywhere. He wanted to prod at it, see if it would come off or if it was more like his palm restraints, but dammit, his automail wasn’t moving, why wasn’t it moving!

“< Al? Al?! Al! >” He cried again, frantically, needing some kind of comfort, feeling utterly trapped and defenseless. He whacked the white restraint against the soft thing beneath him and immediately wished he hadn’t; the motion was jolting enough to send another spike of pain through his broken opposing shoulder. He yelped and gave up. If this was a new palm restraint, it would not come apart anyways.

Something made a noise, high and away, and he tensed up instinctively. It sounded human. He absolutely hated that.

We were so close. He thought. We were so damn close.

He smelled like humans, too. Not much, mostly just some new flavor of the ‘soap’ they were so fond of afflicting his pelts with, but still, their dirty touch was on him. His pelt wasn’t even the right color anymore, they had done something odd to it… He reached down with his rigid, hobbled arm (why, oh why, couldn’t he feel his automail?) and touched the tips of his two exposed fingers over the front of his pelt. Growled with alarm. The material was rough, unnatural, against his skin; moving closer to the center, his fingers even brushed something hard and round. Tugged at the round thing, and discovered it was firmly affixed to the cloth.

This wasn’t his pelt. It was some human thing, and Edward did not like it.

He struggled to sit up then, still didn’t quite have the energy for it. He thought he might be able to get up on his side, but his right hurt too much to put weight on his bad shoulder, and his lying on his left would make it even harder to work the hobbled limb. He fussed and remained where he was, tugged as best he could at the upsetting garment.

“< Al!? >” He cried again. “< Come help me, I need you! >”

No brother was forthcoming. Fuck. He squirmed a little more and pawed at the cloth, complained. It was something human. He wanted it OFF. One of the round things caught between his fingers and came off, but fuck, he still couldn’t shred it, couldn’t sit up, how the hell was he going to get this thing off over his HEAD without help -

“< Al? >” He shrieked, lurched, desperately needed to be free of this oddity. “< Al? Al?! ANYBODY!!?! >”

Something clicked, and he turned his head to the left to see a door crack open in one of those expanse sheets of white. Wall. He remembered, and if that wasn’t proof enough the humans started to enter.

He was Inside. He was trapped. Edward bared his teeth and howled, and thrashed and thrashed to sit up. He was not going to meet any damned human with his belly exposed.

“Shhh, easy boy…” A bumpy-chest-female, with yellow hair, like the Woman had been, only hers was longer. She held her hands out to either side, palms facing down in submission, but did not stop advancing. He redoubled his efforts and made it halfway up, but only by cheating and rolling onto his left hip. Hissed.

Back the fuck off. His bared teeth said. I may be missing a few of these babies, but I still bite damn hard.

“Well, he’s certainly awake.” A white-coated man came behind the female, carrying a little white box. Edward spat. He was pretty sure he’d never seen either before, and he didn’t like either fucking one of them. He just wanted his Al, and then he just wanted to collapse, and neither of those involved humans.

“Watch it Marta. He’s probably disoriented.” White-coat said.

“I know.” The woman flicked her eyes only briefly to her companion. “It’s okay, Fullmetal. Edward. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“< Famous last words. >” He had heard that phrase before.

He steeled himself for an upward thrust, but she did not move to stand over him, much less bend down with her neck exposed like most idiots did. Instead, she sank into a half-crouch and tucked her chin down before she even reached him, kept her jugular protected. Began inching the last few feet forward like that, slow and controlled.

Smart, for a human. He would have to wait until she scooted close enough to try anything.

“Easy.” She said again (what the fuck did that mean?). “It’s okay.”

She made a move to touch his left shoulder and he lunged, ready to take her hand off at the wrist. She whipped it to one side and her other hand was at the nape of his neck immediately, triggering his kitten reflex.

“< No. >”

What?

“< No. >” She said again, in Elric, in perfectly intelligible Elric. That shocked him more than the grab did.

“< You…talk. >” He said, stupidly. “< You…talk? >”

“Pete, I got him.” She didn’t appear to be listening. “What do you advise we do.”

“I need to take the walking cast off so we can get an IV in him.” The white-coat said, moving over to set his box next to Edward. Edward shivered. It smelled of medicine, of shots, and of pain.

The woman nodded. “Okay. I want to get this shirt off him first. I don’t think he likes it. It’s upsetting him.”

The other human made an exasperated, sighing noise. “If it’ll make you happy...”

“Help me keep an eye on him, will you?”

The woman’s free hand began traveling down his chest, tugging at the strange human pelt, and he growled helplessly, set his whole body into shivers with the force of trying to overcome the damnable reflex. She did something with the round things and the pelt began to come free across his chest, allowed her warm, dry fingers to prod at the flesh beneath.

Edward trembled.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The human said again, uselessly, and began to roll the garment down off his shoulders. Edward grimaced as her hands pressed too close to his automail port, growled a little, back in his throat.

“Careful, he’s injured.” The man warned. “His collarbone is cracked down along the port.”

“I know. Poor guy…” She lifted him up briefly and stars burst across his vision. Dizzy. He still wasn’t very steady. She tugged his right sleeve down and he struggled to watch, at a better angle to see now. What was wrong with-

His arm. Wasn’t. There.

“< Oh no. >”

He would have panicked if he could have, but the kitten reflex had him in its throes. He couldn’t move anything if his life depended on it. They had his ARM. They had his ARM. His blade. His alchemy. They had everything. Even had him by the nape.

That was it, he was finished. He had no defense left.

“Marta, he’s getting agitated.”

“I know, I know…shhh, settle down, it’s okay!”

She lowered him back to the squishy thing and stroked his hair with her free hand, murmured soft things and instructed him to breathe. Edward did - in short, shallow breaths - but at the same time he could feel himself calming, slowing. She knew just where to scratch and it was disarming. It was an Alphonse’s grooming motion, gentle fingernails trailing just behind his ear.

I won’t hurt you. Those fingers said. Home. Safety. Warmth.

“There. It’s okay, buddy, you’re safe. See?”

He was still terrified, but at least his heart no longer felt like it was about to rip free of its moorings.

“Better get on with it.” She said to her companion. “Okay Fullmetal, hang in there! Gonna take this the rest of the way off now, okay?”

The hand left his nape and he tried to nail it almost immediately; was rewarded with another squeeze and a sharp “< No! >” She tried again and they repeated the process; finally, by the sixth go-around, he was exhausted enough that he let her arm move without an attempt on it.

“Good boy.” She said, and pulled the offensive pelt off his flesh arm in one fell swoop. “There? Now isn’t that better?”

Lying half-naked on his back, in the presence of two unfamiliar humans, Edward wasn’t sure if it was or not.

She began to fiddle with something on the top of his arm-hobble, and that’s when he tried to lash out with his automail leg. The white-coat got his nape this time, and held him until she managed to crack the strange device open.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Stretch his arm out and hold him, please. I have to get a tourniquet on that.”

His nape was released, but this time something heavy - a knee? - pressed down on his automail thigh; a hand secured his chin and held his jaws shut. The white-coat seized his flesh arm and wrapped something tightly around his upper forearm.

“I’m going to hit him a little harder, this time. He needs to stay out for a while so he doesn’t pull the IV out while we’re feeding him.”

“Okay.”

“Have you figured out a solution for the restraints?”

“Yes, I think so. We’re going to have to reinforce with steel, and use chains, for the one leg. Everything we have here is aluminum, too.”

“Sounds good. That automail would probably bend anything else.”

“Well, we don’t necessarily know that-“

“I think there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence, thank you very much. You saw what he did to my gurney, when he seized.”

The white-coat pulled out a small pouch with what could only be a needle in it, and Edward thrashed as best as he was able. Clicked his teeth together in the woman’s tight grip.

“< No. >” She repeated firmly. “Pete?”

“I got it.” The man said, and then there was a familiar burning in his arm, and Edward snarled in frustration. “There, it’s in.”

The man took the tight thing off his arm, and replaced the heavy plastic shell. Edward growled weakly at the strange snake now winding its way out of the arm-hobble. It was attached to a clear sac hanging from a tall iron pole. White-coat took out a syringe, and bizarrely, injected into a small goiter swelled near the top of the snake-looking thing. His arm did not hurt at all anymore, really.

The female’s gentle fingers found his ear again, and Edward protested only slightly. It didn’t hurt, and things were generally hurting less the longer he let her touch him. Starting to get sleepy, around the edges. He was already having enough trouble keeping his eyes open, he had expended so much energy trying to scare the humans away. Couldn’t have…some weird shot…making him pass out…too…

“It’s okay, Fullmetal.” The female said, stroked the crest of his mane. He tried to growl but the sound was too complicated for right now. He didn’t like humans, didn’t like humans touching him, but he couldn’t refuse this one. He let it go.

Their voices were taking on an echoic and distant quality, and he heard much, understood little. He blinked once a millennium now, and his heart beat once in a century. Slowing down, dragging down…

“I really hate having to dope him, but…”

“I know. I don’t much like it either. But we really don’t have much of a choice.”

“That withdrawal could kill him just as dead, though. It’s dangerous…too.”

“I guess that’s a chance…we’ll have to take. Edward is…no shape…die if we try…”

Whatever else was said, was both lost on him and lost to him. Edward’s eyes closed, and he slept as one dead.

By the time they got through the last of the evening’s checkups, Marta was absolutely exhausted. Fullmetal was still out of it from his earlier treatments, so he put up little resistance when they put in his IV, but the Mustang had protested his examination mightily, had to be wrestled to the floor. He had ruptured some sutures on a minor gash, and it shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes to repair, but it seemed he was terrified of the stitching needle. Add that to a lonely Alphonse calling for an Edward, and a lonely Edward calling for an Alphonse, and she was working on an absolutely splendid migraine.

If Pete was tired too, he didn’t show it. She escorted him to the front door and he bid her goodnight with his usual cheerful tagline.

“Take care! Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Pete.” Marta said. “You’re an absolute sweetheart, putting up with this never-ending circus.”

Pete smiled.

“No problem.” He laughed. “Glad someone still thinks I’m a sweetheart - lord knows I’m in the doghouse with Melanie.”

“Oh no!” Marta wailed, distressed. “Pete, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble…”

“No, oh no, it’s nothing like that!” He laughed. “I just broke her favorite end table doo-dad going out the door this morning, and she called to make sure I heard about it. I love her dearly, but sweet mercy...” He shook his head. “Sure knows how to drive a man crazy.”

“Still.” Marta frowned. “You shouldn’t work such long hours.”

Pete shrugged, and opened the door. “I’m a doctor. It’s what I do.” He said.

Gave her a wink. “Besides, if you didn’t have ‘em, I would. They’d keep me busy, either way.”

Marta nodded and waved as he walked toward his truck, watched from the doorway as it crunched along their gravel drive. Pete certainly had a point, but she couldn’t help but feel guilty. If his clinic had been ill-equipped to handle the sudden influx of patients, the sanctuary had been even less ready. She’d had to call in some emergency favors to make even a quarter of the necessary modifications to handle just four of the rescue cases, and those had barely been sufficient. She hadn’t been able to get Plexiglas cut to order fast enough, so she’d had to have a contractor replace the enclosures’ glass with iron bars. Iron bars. Hardly any better than that hell hole the poor things had come from. Marta hadn’t been allowed into the shell of the gutted-out building, but she’d had a good friend on animal control who saw what it was like. They’d kept them behind bars, on plain concrete without even a pad to lay on, no place to get outside, not even an outside window…they would have had it better behind bars in prison!

Just thinking about it was enough to get her blood boiling again, and she shut the door with authority. No, she could and would give them a hell of a lot better than that.

Starting with dinner. She didn’t begrudge the new arrivals - far from it - but they had certainly thrown the once-tight routine of her little household into disarray. Here it was, almost ten ‘o clock, and she had yet to get any dinner on the table. Absolutely ridiculous. Now that the sanctuary was growing again, again, she wished there was room in the budget for some full-time, professional help. Kate was great for a volunteer, and her students were wonderful too, but when something like THIS happened unexpectedly, she really needed somebody on-call 24/7…

Preferably someone with veterinary experience. She thought, remembering Pete and his poor wife. Dr. Greeson didn’t deserve to be out here changing IVs all day. And minor sutures she could handle, but when she needed help restraining the animals, she was stuck. Well, with the new animals in, she was bound to get donations sooner or later. Sorry, big-eyed Elrics, and one of them with automail... It was something to think about.

So was her increasing ‘security problem’. As she neared the kitchen, she could definitely hear a low but intense scraping noise, not at all unlike someone fooling with a padlock. Marta sighed.

“No, Ling.” Marta said as she rounded the corner. Guilty hands withdrew quickly, but not before Marta saw the twisted paperclip glimmering between his fingers. Figured. Last she had seen, Ed had been taking a nap with Eddie, curled up in Ed’s enclosure, which left Ling at loose ends. And experience had taught her, a bored Ling was prone to get into trouble.

“Give it here.” She said, and Ling took a few tentative steps backwards, whined a little. “I’m sorry it’s locked, Ling, I know you’re hungry…but there’s medicine in there now, okay? You can’t just eat whatever you find in there.” And she knew he would, too. Ling was their household’s equivalent of a garbage disposal; he would eat anything. Once, she had even caught him nibbling on the edge of soup can.

She held her hand out. “Come on, give me the paperclip.”

He whined again and shook his head, clutched his prize closer. Marta rolled her eyes and seized his wrist, forced his hand open and confiscated his homemade lockpick.

“No, Ling. Come on, I’ll help you get something.”

She found the correct key on her keychain and wrestled the padlock open. Ling watched her intently, and seemed disappointed when she opened it the boring, regular way. Ling had always been an escape artist, but lately he was getting more and more interested in locks, and the opening thereof. She had already had to swap up the locks on the kitchen door, her office, the infirmary from combination to padlock - what next? Dead bolts? Magnetics? Given enough time she was sure he’d have padlocks figured out too.

New locks on everything. God. Another expense she just didn’t need. Thankfully, Ling did not seem to much care for the world outside. She honestly wasn’t sure she wanted to have to lock herself IN at night.

Ling went straight for the fridge and gave her a reproachful look.

“I know.” She sighed, and fished out a bag of baby carrots for them both to munch on while she got something reasonable together. “Yes, it’s my fault. Here, be patient just a little bit longer and I’ll thaw you some catfish? Okay? Fish?”

Ling nodded fervently. Fried catfish fillet was his new favorite dish. She had determined long ago that Emperor Lings, being from a rather wetter part of the world, appreciated ocean fish and occasional rice, but this one seemed to be just as happy with freshwater fish and breading. Which was good, because there was no way she could afford to fly him in roughy and sturgeon. She felt a pang of shame, at that. The Xingian Empress had promised to feed him sea urchin and crab off a silver plate.

But he chose to live here. She reminded herself as she hunted through the freezer, Ling cooing encouraging things at her back. He came back here, to be with us.

Sometimes, she still felt he got the raw end of the deal.

She popped the frozen catfish into the toaster oven and punched the timer for a couple minutes - it was leftover from their last fish fry, so all she had to do was warm it up. Ling sat at the table and munched on the carrots slowly, obviously not wanting to waste room on something as mundane as vegetables when fried catfish was afoot.

“Don’t think for one second you’re getting out of eating your veggies, young man.” Marta scolded him, fondly. She delved back in the refrigerator to see what hadn’t yet gone soft. “Here, have some celery.”

Ling fussed mightily but deigned to gnaw on a stalk for a while. He made a soft nyik-ing sound at the fibers, and eventually dropped the celery to dig strands out from between his teeth.

“Natural dental floss!” Marta laughed, amused. Ling gave her a wounded look and heaved a great sigh of annoyance, picked up the remaining chunk of celery and chucked it, determinedly, onto the floor.

“Ling!” She scolded.

He snorted and turned his nose up.

“You’re not getting any of this until you pick that up, you know.” She informed him. He harrumphed and ignored her, made his annoyed-noise again.

The timer dinged and she went for a pair of plates, extracted the now-crispy fish and gave them both a piece each, along with some carrots and celery. Ling’s eyes were on her every step of the way, and she could practically hear his mouth watering.

“Ling. The celery.” She repeated. He made a mournful noise and slid off his chair to retrieve the sodden mass. When prompted, he even deposited it in the trash. He then turned and marched over to her, folded his arms and stuck his chin out.

“Okay, okay.” She laughed. “Yes, you get your fish now. Come on, have a seat.”

Ling’s face lit up and he dashed back to his seat immediately. He babbled nonsensical praise as she set the plate in front of him, and went to work on the food with a fervor that made her wonder how Ed and Eddie were holding up. They’d gotten a late afternoon snack that Ling hadn’t - she knew she should watch their sugar intake, but both Edwards just loved granola too much to deny them - still, they were probably hungry too. Marta bit the side of a finger, thinking. Eddie was always sluggish after being woken up, it would be a pain to drag them both out into the kitchen…would be easier just to take them a tray in their (Ed and LING’S) enclosure. But that deprived Ling of his mate at dinner time, yet again, and they already got so little time together lately.

Ling made a querulous noise and she smiled down at him.

“Well, you’re halfway through your fish anyways. Aren’t you?” She said. He made a noncommittal noise and tore off another hunk of flesh. Maybe it would be alright just to leave them separated for now. She picked up her own fillet and bit a chunk off it, too tired to be bothered with real utensils. Ling babbled at her happily and waved his own fish-filled hand.

“Yeah, I know, you’re rubbing off on me.” Said Marta. “Story of my life.”

She opened the fridge again with her free hand and found some grapes and avocado, a few non-moldy pieces of cheese and a good quantity of romaine lettuce that hadn’t turned too brown yet. She could trust Edward to feed Eddie soft things without supervision, and if they weren’t interested in food right away, she could leave these things out with worrying. Academically, she knew that Elrics in the wild could scavenge from far nastier foodstuffs than old catfish, but still... She didn’t want to go through all the trouble of heating them dinner just to have them get sick off it.

Ling watched as she prepared a tray of cheese, crackers, and various soft fruits. He smiled delightedly when she tossed him a butter cracker, his absolute favorite next to plain old Saltines. She made a mental note to pick up some of those, too, next time she went to the store.

Assuming she got a moment’s peace to GET to the store. Kate was down with a cold, and she didn’t trust Alexander alone with Eddie, so that left nobody to watch the sanctuary if she had to step out… No, what was she thinking, she could always send Alexander with a list. Trying too hard again, she thought. The same thing that always got her into trouble. She sunk her teeth into her forgotten fillet and tore off another chunk of fish. First things first. Couldn’t keep feeding everybody else if she didn’t take care of herself. The last thing she needed was Kate’s cold, because then she might give it to the other new Edward, and Pete had warned her that a repertory illness at this juncture might just prove fatal. That Edward had been caged inside the building when the fire broke out, and it was only sheer dumb luck that he’d been low enough to avoid the worst of the smoke. The animal caged above him had died. As it was, the Edward had been left with plenty of lung damage for his trouble.

And if Fullmetal got sick…well, there would go her photo shoot. She felt vaguely dirty thinking of him like that, but dammit, it was the cold, hard truth. The public didn’t care about big, strong Mustangs with gunshot wounds from poachers; they responded to starved kittens with big eyes. And the research community only cared about the automail. She’d already had numerous offers - several of them probably illegal - from universities wanting to buy him, research groups wanting to buy him, even Grocter and Pamble’s design unit. Automail was so hard to find in the wild - even rarer, to find an Edward so young wearing it. Nobody even knew how it was created, except that alchemy was involved, and you had to have a Winry or a Paninya. Preferably both. Which reminded her…the First National Zoo had a mated Winry/Paninya pair, now. She would have to put in a call to Cassie, they’d worked together on projects together in the past. Maybe, if Fullmetal recovered enough, they could arrange to have him put in with them. Get him an arm that wasn’t just that horrible, horrible knife…

But first things first. Take care of her household; take care of herself. She polished off the last bits of fillet and washed her hands at the kitchen sink, dried her hands on a towel. At least she could be a decent human being in THAT respect. She picked up Ed and Eddie’s tray and loaded one last fistful of crackers on it.

Ling smacked his chops and looked up at her expectantly as she moved toward the door. He had long since finished his dinner and was waggling his fingers for more. She lowered the tray slightly and let him snag a handful of grapes and of course, a few more of the treasured butter crackers. She snatched a couple grapes herself, and they shared equally guilty smiles.

“Okay, that’s enough.” She said. “Don’t want to eat all their dinner for them. You want to go see Ed with me?”

One thing about Ling’s comprehension, he certainly knew the word ‘Ed’. Ling slid off his chair immediately and pranced toward the door, preceded her out and didn’t even protest when she padlocked it behind them. He was lonely, Marta noted sadly. They seemed to have an amicable setup, somehow - Ed and Ling would sometimes disappear together, shortly before lunch or suppertime, and leave her with the kitten for a while - but on the whole, it rather seemed to her that Ling was getting the short end of the stick. Whenever Ed was with Eddie, Ling tended not to be…and tonight, Ed was sleeping with his kitten.

“You must have the patience of a saint.” She told Ling as they padded down the corridor to their enclosure. Ling merely snuffled in reply and trotted to the door, pawed at it hard. She knew he had figured out THAT locking mechanism a long time ago - she didn’t trust padlocks on the enclosures, in case of emergency - but Ling wasn’t about to reveal his secrets in plain sight.

“Stay, Ling.” She said, and he gave her a brief, betrayed look that made her heart hurt for him all over again. But she still didn’t trust Eddie, especially not if Ling surprised him awake, so it was safer to keep him out. She unlocked the door and stuck her head in. Ling, unsurprisingly, did the same, but at least he obeyed her request not to run inside.

A lump of blankets stirred slowly, and Ling made a happy, greeting trill. Ed’s pale face surfaced from beneath the sea of bedding and he made a confused inquiry, eyes still full of sleep.

“Hi.” Marta said softly. “I brought you some dinner-NO, Ling, I’ll be right back!” She tripped carefully inside and set the tray close to the nest, made sure Ed got a good look at it first. His nostrils twitched, but he didn’t make a move for the food. Beside him, a smaller lump of blankets mewled softly, and Edward pleaded with his eyes.

“No, you don’t have wake him up now, if you don’t want to.” She told him. “You two can eat when you feel like it.” She backed up a few paces, as a show of good will, and Ed settled a little. All the while, Ling was chattering something low and urgent from the doorway.

Ed turned away from her and directed all his attention toward his mate. Ed made a sleepy noise at Ling, and his mate replied in a darker, husky tone. Licked his lips in an unabashedly suggestive manner. It made Marta shiver.

But Ed shook his head, a universal gesture for humans and Elrics alike, and said something softly. The corners of Ling’s lips turned slightly downward, but he didn’t seem to be overly upset. Just shrugged and babbled something cheerfully, and flashed them both a cocky grin. Ed whimpered and looked up at her again, quivering eyes pleading, and damn, she never could resist him when he looked at her like that. She nodded, stiffly, and retreated on auto-pilot, closed the door and left Ed and Eddie cuddled up, alone together. A perfect little family. They didn’t need anybody else.

How on earth was Ling dealing with this?

A wiry hand found its way to her elbow, tugged at her sleeve, and Marta found herself staring into yet another set of eyes she could never say no to.

“Okay, Ling.” She said, defeated. “You can sleep on my bed again.”

Why the hell not. He curled up at the foot of it so often, it might as well have his name on it. She was really going to have to do something about that. She didn’t have the room right now to put Ling in a new enclosure - wasn’t sure he’d appreciate that anyways - but surely there was something…

Ling made another soft noise and caught her hand, tugged it softly to the right. She looked down and he inclined his head in the direction of the house.

“Right.” She said, and nodded.

First things first. She thought, again, and allowed Ling to lead her in baby steps back to her bedroom so they could both get some much needed shut-eye.

O-MA-KE

“< Why don’t you come sleep with me tonight? >” Ling husked, licking his lips. “< I promise you, I’m a far more interesting bedmate. >”

“< I’m sorry, lover. >” His mate shook his head. “< But my kitten is asleep, and I don’t want to wake him… >”

The edges of his mouth threatened to turn into a frown, but he refused to let it. He was an Emperor Ling. Proud. Diplomatic. He had learned how to deal with this.

“< Alright. >” He said nonchalantly. “< But you’ll owe me. That brings the count up to what now? Five? >”

“< Lover - >”

He smiled, wickedly.

“< And I want that all in one go. By the time I’m through with you, you won’t be able to sit for a week. >”

His mate stiffened a bit, and turned his wide eyes despairingly to Mother.

“< …save me. >” Ed whined.

A/N: Hey, Marta can’t know EVERYTHING…