temperance, part 3

[mikkeneko]

Much love for windandwater, who helped solidify ideas for this scene. <3


I changed a few things in the beginning of this part, so I'm including the early part as well as the rest of the scene.


Fandom: Full Metal Alchemist
Title: Temperance (working title only.)
Pairings: None yet
Rating: R
Older brother: Fourteen
Younger brother: Thirteen

The first floor was already a mess when he got to the top of the
stairs; the wooden railing at the top of the landing had been torn off,
leaving the stairway open to the the room. Ed considered jumping
straight down, as Al had obviously done, considered the state of his
legs, and took the stairs.

The tables and chairs had been pushed back from the center of the room
-- thrown back, and several of them lay in piles of wreckage on the
floor. The door to the kitchen had been torn entirely off its hinges,
as had most of the other first-floor doors. Al had the landlady backed
up against one of the wooden pillars, hands fisted in the front of her
dress and nearly lifting her clear off the floor.

"What did you do to my brother?" Al shouted as Ed came slowly down the
stairs. "Don't lie! You must have put something in the food! What was
it?"

The landlady was crying and shaking, her hands clutching at Al's
wrists. Normally, the sight of his sweet-tempered little brother
putting mortal terror in the heart of an ordinary person would have
shocked Ed, but he couldn't find it in him to muster up very much
sympathy for the woman right now.

"It w-wasn't me," the landlady sobbed. "M-master Doring's orders --it
w-was his orders -- all the tr-travellers are supposed to get a dose --"

"A dose of what?" Al hissed menacingly, lifting her another inch into
the air. "Was that poison? Is that what it was? Were you trying to kill
my brother?"

"No!" she cried, shaking her head wildly. "It was just a dose of the
Rapture, that's all -- it shouldn't have hurt anybody! It doesn't hurt
anything!"

"Doesn't hurt anything?" The light in Al's eyes flared like a
bonfire going out of control. "I spent half the night watching my
brother trying to cut open his skin and you tell me it doesn't hurt
anything?"

"It sh-shouldn't have done that," the landlady gasped, eyes wide and
horrified. "I -- I -- I measure out the dose every time, and put the
right amount in his food -- for someone your size, it would
take more, and it didn't hurt you at all, right?"

"You fool!" Al's gloved hands clenched, and the landlady shrieked with
terror as her feet left the ground entirely. "Brother's arm and leg are
automail! He's only two-thirds the size he looks like! And me -- I
don't even eat! You nearly killed him!"

"Al," Ed closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his
human hand. "How many times have I told you about not blurting out our
secrets and weaknesses to our enemies?"

"Brother!" Al whirled around, keeping a firm grasp on the woman. "You
should be upstairs, resting."

"I won't get much rest if you tear the building apart under my feet,"
Ed snapped. "Al, put her down."

"No." Al glared at his older brother with something approaching mutiny.
"She hurt you, Brother."

"It was an accident," the woman sobbed, tears streaking her face. "an
accident, I swear."

"She wasn't the one behind this," Ed said, both to Al and to the
hysterical woman. "And besides, we need her to answer our questions,
and she can't do that if you throw her off a building."

Reluctantly, Al put the woman back on her feet. As soon as he released
her shoulder, though, she collapsed into a heap. Al, startled, made a
grab for her and missed, and in a sudden flurry of wild hair and torn
skirts, she was making a run for the front door.

"Oh no, you don't," Ed muttered. He didn't feel up to a sprint right
then, so he merely clapped his hands, and planted them on the
splinter-strewn floor. The alchemical charge raced across the room,
crackling across the remaining tables and chairs, and one of them
warped and grew into a thick bar that fused across the door, sealing it
shut.

The woman skidded to a halt in front of the sealed door with a hopeless
cry, and didn't resist as Al grabbed her again. "You're an alchemist,"
she said to Ed, accusingly. "Like Master Doring."

Oh, good. She was providing information already. Ed swayed on his feet,
and groped around for one of the few chairs still standing. "Doring,"
he said. "The same Doring who tells you to put drugs in the food of
guests?"

Al apparently decided that once Ed was down, he was staying; reaching
out to snag a table, he dragged both table and landlady over to where
Ed was, and forced her into a seat across from him. For himself, he
stayed looming over the back of her chair, hands placed on the back. He
wasn't uttering threats any more, but then again, he didn't need
to.

The landlady darted a look up at Al, and Ed, and shrank down in her
chair. "You don't understand," she began in a faltering voice.

"Then explain," Ed hissed, eyes narrowing. "Because yes, I am an
alchemist. My name is Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, and I'm
here on behalf of the military to investigate the strange
disappearances that have been occurring in Elliotsburg. And I think you
know more than you've let on what's been going on around here."

Whatever color the landlady had had left, she lost at that
pronouncement, and Ed thought she would have fainted if she hadn't
already been sitting down. "Y-you're the Fullmetal Alchemist?"
she squeaked, gasping for breath. "That -- that's impossible! You're
just a child! You're much too small!"

"Who are you calling short?" Ed snarled, coming half up out of
his chair and over the table, before he gritted his teeth, and
restrained himself.

"Forget it," he said. "Explain. Who is this Doring, and why is he
poisoning people who travel to the city?"

"It's not poison," the woman began, hesitantly, still darting glances
back and forth between the two brothers before settling on Edward as
the safer of the two. "Master -- Master Doring provides the Rapture for
everyone in this town. He left orders that everyone who stays here
overnight should be given -- should be given a proper dosage of the
Rapture. You -- you must understand, it isn't supposed to hurt
anything! It's only to give people the most wonderful experience of
their lives!"

A low growl came from inside Al's armor, and the back of the chair that
he'd been holding in his hands snapped with a shot. The landlady
startled, and gave a small shriek.

"Without their knowing," Ed snarled. "Who the fuck does he think
he is, drugging people up without their permission? Why the fuck do you
go along with it?"

"Master Doring," the woman faltered. "Master Doring is in charge of
this city. He -- he is the only one who can make the Rapture. Everyone
does what he says, or else -- they receive none."

Ed's eyes widened in shock, his anger momentarily lost in a rising tide
of realization. "Are you saying," he said, "that everyone in
this city is taking this drug -- this Rapture?"

Quaking slightly, the landlady slowly nodded.

"Fuck." The pieces were falling into place, the connection made. This
was how a botanist, a chemist, could make himself the sole lord and
master of a town of thousands. This was how he had gained control of
the factories, the houses, the people; he was the only one who could
give them their happiness, their -- "Fuck," Ed said again, as a second
wave of realization crashed down on the first.

"This -- Rapture," he said, nearly spitting the word. "Once you've
taken it for a long time, you can't stop, can you?" He didn't wait for
confirmation, following the chain to its end. "Even if you want to, you
need to have it again, and since Doring is the only one who can make
it, he's the one who controls --"

He bit off the rest of the sentence, mind racing. Fuck. And by
launching it on the newcomers to the city, unawares, he could bring
them under his control, giving them no chance to run and report his
scheme to the military. No need for a prison to hold them, this was a
chain that was much harder to break. And once caught --

Al spoke then, breaking into his train of thought. "How much," he said
slowly, "does it take for a person to become addicted to Rapture?"

The landlady's lips quivered, and she hunched further into his chair.
Ed drew in a sharp breath, attention riveted on her once again. "How
much?" he demanded, in a shaking voice.

She gulped, visibly, and answered in a tiny voice. "Several doses," she
said, "if... if the amount is small. How... however... if the amount is
very large, then..."

Fuck just didn't seem to cover it any more.



"This drug," Edward said at last, "this... Rapture. What does it do?
That is," he added with some bitterness, "what is it supposed to do if
you aren't fed overdoses of it?"

The landlady twitched uncertainly, or perhaps that was guilt. "It makes
you feel... good," she said. From the tone of her voice, it was clear
she didn't really understand the mechanism of it herself. "It is the
most wonderful... It is like being blind your entire life and suddenly
having colors return to the world. All your earthly cares are lifted
from you; you are freed from the burden of pain and worry, you are --"

"All right," Ed said, propping up his head with his hand. "I
get the picture. Happy happy land. And this happens every time? People
in this city are wandering around in a constant state of bliss?" He
snorted. It sounded too good to be true, although it certainly might
explain why people didn't want to leave.

The woman's mouth opened, and then closed as she swallowed. "Master
Doring provides," she said weakly.

"That's a no, isn't it?" Al spoke up sharply from behind her. "Why is
that?"

She didn't look like she wanted to answer, but with Al looming and Ed
glaring, she didn't have much of a choice. "After - after a while," she
said, faltering, "the effects become -- less. More -- is needed, to get
the same effects, but -- even if the Rapture doesn't take you, you
still need..."

"Figures." Ed covered his face with his hands entirely.

"What's the cure for the addiction?" Al demanded. "What do you have to
do to stop needing it?"

"I -- I don't know that," the innkeeper confessed, distress and
confusion plain on her face. "Nobody has ever stopped."

"There must be a way!" Al lost his temper, and slammed his hand
down on the table. It cracked down the middle, falling to the ground
with an ungodly clatter, and the landlady shrieked, bursting into tears.

"I don't know!" she sobbed, tumbling out of her chair to fall in an
ungraceful heap on the floor. "I don't know anything about that!"

"You tell us how to fix what you did!" Al insisted heatedly. "Brother
can't be addicted to that poison! I absolutely won't allow it! There
must be a way to undo it!"

"Some people have tried," she confessed reluctantly. "But -- in the
end, they always break down and beg Master Doring for more. The -- the need
is too strong for them to resist."

Yes. The need. Edward knew exactly what she was talking about;
he could feel that same need pressing against him even now. He
had felt it ever since he had woken up, but what he hoped could be
explained by headache, or dizziness, or even simple hunger -- he hadn't
had anything to eat since last night, after all, and he'd burned a lot
of energy since then.

"You know what's happening to my brother," Al said, voice hard and
accusatory. "Tell us how --"

"Al." He cut his brother off, too numb to really work up any anger
right now. "Leave her alone."

"She knows, brother!" Al protested. "She knows more than she's telling
us! I'll get the answers out of her if I have to rip her open to do it!"

"Al!" Ed started, shocked by the level of violence his brother was
displaying. "She clearly doesn't have all the details. You don't need
to terrify her..."

"Don't feel too sorry for her, Brother," Al hissed, eyes glowing a
fierce red. "She could hear you screaming all night but she
never did anything."

The landlady cringed, and her sobs intensified. "I d-didn't know what
to do," they heard between her hands. "No-nobody has ever reacted like
that before. I heard such strange noises -- I didn't know what to do!"

"You could have done something!" Al practically trembled with fury.
"You should have done something besides hiding like a coward!"

Ed'd head spun from this unnatural turn of events; since when was he
the calm one while his brother had to be restrained from a destructive
rampage? "Al, she couldn't have left --" A sudden thought struck Ed,
and he rose out of the seat. "Wait a minute. What happened to that
girl? The maid who brought us dinner last night?"

The woman huddled down a little further, sniffling, but didn't answer.
Edward swayed on his feet as the answer became blindingly clear -- she
must have been sent away, sent ahead to warn --

The thought was important, he could feel it; but before he could follow
it to the end, dizziness in his head magnified, until the world
vanished into white.



"Brother," Al said, from somewhere close to his ear. Ed groaned, and
turned his head slightly. "Brother, are you awake?"

Ed blinked his eyes open, slowly, and really hoped this wasn't going to
be a habit. "I'm fine," he said.

"Oh, sure, and that's why you collapsed and nearly broke your head open
on the edge of the table," Al said with some rancor. He heard shifting
metal, at the same time the ground under him moved; with a little
start, he realized that his head and shoulders were propped against one
of Al's legs, and the rest of him stretched out on the inn floor.

"If you hadn't bro --" The rest of Ed's retort was lost in a cough, his
throat feeling like it was clogged with dust. A glove settled on the
back of Ed's neck, lifting his head and supporting it as a glass was
placed against his lips. Ed growled, resenting the indignity, but Al
was insistant.

As soon as the water touched his mouth, though, he forgot all about his
pride as he realized just now thirsty he was. He drank greedily,
reaching up to tilt the glass higher when Al was too slow for his
liking, and made a protesting noise in his throat when Al firmly pushed
his hand down.

"Not so fast," Al said. "You need the water to rehydrate, but you'll
make yourself sick if you go too fast."

"When did you turn into a doctor?" Ed complained as he drained the rest
of the glass, and hung on to it, hoping for a few more drops. "More."

"In a minute. First, you should eat this." Again Al shifted, and the
slight movement in his support sent the room spinning queasily again.
Ed closed his eyes, then opened them again when Al's hand reappeared
with half a loaf of bread.

"Not hungry," he said, without much hope. As expected, Al simply tore
off a piece and held it out to him until he finally gave in and took
it. He chewed slowly, trying to sort out the mixed messages his body
was sending him. Part of him felt shaky and ill, and wanted no part of
solid food that might be returned to sender at any time. A larger part,
and more frightening, demanded that he eat, that he feed it more,
that he was starving, that there was a hole inside of him
that could not be filled until he gave it what it craved --

"Where'd the inkeeper go?" Ed asked abruptly. He tried to sit up, to
lever his body off of Al's legs, but his arms didn't want to
co-operate. "Al, you didn't --"

"I put her in the room and sealed the windows and door," Al said. There
was still a bite of anger echoing in his voice, but at least the near
homicidal fury of earlier was restrained. "I would have put her in the
kitchem, but I wanted to be able to get at the food."

"Oh." Something still nagged at Ed, and he finally remembered, sitting
bolt upright again. "Al, the maid --"

"Gone." Ed wobbled and nearly collapsed again, and Al caught him
neatly, this time propping his back against his knee so his brother
could sit up properly. "I think she went sometime last night, to warn
Doring. I couldn't have stopped her, not without leaving you alone."

"Now he'll know we're coming," Ed fretted. The bread he'd eaten sat in
an uneasy lump in his stomach, but even though it was filling, it still
felt like he hadn't eaten at all. "We've lost the element of surprise
--"

"It can't be helped," Al replied. "Brother, everyone in this town
answers to Doring. He probably knew about us from the moment we stepped
off the train."

Oh, what a cheerful thought. "We still have to go see him," he said.

"Of course we will. But not until you've had a chance to eat and rest,
and get back your strength!" Al's tone was firm, almost fervent. Like
he hoped that by saying it, it could make it true.

"Al." Ed pressed a metal hand against his forehead. "I don't think it's
going to be that simp --"

What had been a vague feeling of nausea suddenly turned into an acute
feeling of nausea, and Ed doubled over, gasping, as bile filled his
throat. "Al, it's coming back --" was all he had time to say.

Of course, when Al set out to tackle a problem, he could be damn
methodical about thinking of everything. There was a bucket under Ed's
head before he could complete the first retch, and strong hands settled
on his shoulders, helping to support him as Ed heaved miserably.

He lost the water and bread within the first minute, but continued to
retch miserably for almost a full minute after that. Al's hands stayed
steady on his shoulders the whole time, very considerately holding his
hair out of the way. Finally, there was enough of a lull in the stomach
cramps for Ed to sit up, breathing hard, hands clutching his middle.

"Al," he said, fighting a losing battle against mortifying humiliation.
"You don't have to hover that way. I'll be fine." The weakness of his
voice wasn't exactly convincing, but Ed had his pride and stuck
stubbornly to it.

Al didn't answer, but offered a towel, and there was another glass of
water ready for him. Ed could nearly hve cried with relief at the
sight, but he blinked and decided firmly that the moisture in his eyes
was just from the strain of vomiting.

"I don't need your help," he said, in a voice that rose slightly at the
end.

"It's not always about what you need, Brother," Al told him
quietly, but there was a tone in his voice and a flash in his eye that
did not encourage further argument.

Ed wanted to respond to that, but his throat closed and his middle
clenched, and a few seconds later he was hunched over the bucket again,
bringing up the last of the water and more bile. And if Al was close
by, supporting him, one big hand stroking gently down his braid and
rubbing his back, he couldn't help but be grateful.


~tbc~

Comments

[kalikamaxwell.livejournal.com]

And you're threatening me? I'm sending the threats right back at you. *fusses over her lovely Elric kyoudai* Tear Doring in two damnit. >_

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Al probably would, if they got hold of him right now. O_O! He's wicked pissed. But things aren't going to be that simple. >_>

[kalikamaxwell.livejournal.com]

The story would be too short if it was that simple. :p

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

It only *just* occurred to me that this fic is going to be long. *faceplant*

[kalikamaxwell.livejournal.com]

I rather like being on the other side of things for once. I get to kick back and nag for more while you fight with your plot and whatsnot. <3

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

DAMN YOU!

T_T

...you could at least wear a cute cheerleader's outfit.

[kalikamaxwell.livejournal.com]

I don't get cheerleaders, so you don't either, na. I get death threats though. I can do that.

Write more or I'll have to make you eat your mouse! (the computer one. I am against force feeding poor mousies to people.)

[windandwater.livejournal.com]

I still want more comforting and things blowing up, but this is much better. ^_~*

*puts the poking stick away for the night*

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

T_T This isn't enough?

[windandwater.livejournal.com]

I told you that Doring's mansion needs to blow up. Gargoyles! GARGOYLES!!!

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

T_T But if you kill me, there won't be any more fic!

[nanashiivy.livejournal.com]

This is getting really interesting! Can I friend you so I can keep up with your fics?