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Ed wakes up, and immediately regrets his decision to do so.
Everything hurts. A bone-deep ache that has his head reeling, and he has to take a few deep breaths before the urge to hurl subsides a little. He doesn’t even have to move -luckily -to know that it’s raining outside. Even if he couldn’t hear the rain beating away on the window, he’d know.
Because this is what happens every time it rains. It turns the background thrum of pain in his thigh and shoulder into screaming agony that spreads to every part of his body like poison, until he can’t move, until he has to force himself to remember to breathe, just breathe , through the pain.
Three years of this, and he knows better than to curl up into a little ball, but he still does it. Because sure, it does nothing to help the pain -and he knows it’ll make it last longer, being tense and curled like this -but he can’t help it. It’s like… an evolutionary trait of humans, hell, of most animals, to make themselves smaller when they’re in pain. So he’s not being stupid, he’s just doing what’s natural. Besides, it tricks his brain into thinking it hurts less, and… well, quite literally, any port in a storm, in this case.
He tugs the blankets up over his head as best he can with one arm, trying not to shift or move too much. Another lovely side effect to the rain aggravating his automail ports is that it always causes a low grade fever. On the really bad days - like that storm that lasted four days last year -he inevitably ends up in the base infirmary with a fever that knocks him on his ass, and makes him too weak -and, one one memorable occasion, hallucinating too much -to stop Al from dragging him there.
Which inevitably always leads to more problems, because Ed’s had exactly two nurses in three years realize that they can’t calculate the medicine dosage based on his weight. Because his hundred and seventeen pounds is twenty-eight pounds of metal attached to his thigh, and seventeen pounds attached to his shoulder. Neither of which have any blood circulation, so he inevitably ends up high as shit, or -on three different, memorable occasions - overdosing whenever the nurses give him pain meds. And getting his damn stomach pumped when he’s already in agonizing pain is right down there with getting his fingernails ripped out, as far as his ‘things he enjoys’ list.
He grits his teeth as a loud clash of thunder makes him jerk, ratcheting the pain up to about an eight out of ten on his scale of ‘falling out of bed’ to ‘losing his limbs’. And he knows he’s got at least a slight fever, because he can already feel himself sweating, and shivering at the same time.
Part of him wants to rant and rave about how unfair it is. Wants to scream that he’s only fifteen, he shouldn’t even know this amount of pain is possible , let alone feel it every time it freaking rains . Because it’s not like raining is some super rare event that doesn’t happen often, it’s something that happens regularly. And sure, maybe it’s not always this bad, maybe it’s just an increase in the steady throbbing ache most times, but it’s also this a lot of the time, and it’s not fair. He shouldn’t have to deal with this, because he’s fifteen, and everything hurts, and part of him wants to just curl up somewhere and die so he doesn’t have to deal with this, because it’s just not fair.
But he also knows that’s categorically untrue; this is, after all, his punishment . It’s a completely fair equivalent exchange. He broke the rules; he tried to do the unthinkable, tried to circumvent the laws of the universe. This is what he deserves, and as much as he wants to deny it, he knows it’s true, deep down in his core. He tried to play god, he broke the rules, tried to beat death, and this is what his arrogance earned him.
Of course, it also doesn’t help that he forced himself through a three year rehab program in thirteen months. Granny had warned him, hundreds of times, that he was going to cause himself more damage and pain if he didn’t slow down. That he was going to regret it later on, when all the stress he put his body through caught up to him. And he’d been so focused on his goal - get better, become a State Alchemist, fix Al -that he’d ignored her, blown her off, and forced himself through it anyways.
So no matter which way he spins it, no matter what angle he views it from… this pain is his own damn fault. Pain he’s brought on himself through his exceptionally shitty -and often stupid -choices. As much as he wants to deny it, he knows that he absolutely deserves this pain, probably deserves worse most days, if he’s being honest.
He’s pulled from his thoughts by the door to the dorm opening slowly; the only reason he notices is because he can hear Al’s armor clinking and clacking, and he forces himself to open his eyes, to look over at his little brother.
“Brother?” Al asks softly, stepping into the room.
He forces some sort of affirmative noise from his vocal chords. It’s about the best he can do, because if he unclenches his jaw, he’s probably gonna start screaming.
“I went down to the infirmary, and got you some pain-killers. And I stopped by the colonel’s office, and told him we were taking a few days’ personal time,” Al says softly, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and Ed… dammit, he won’t cry. He won’t .
“ ‘Hanks’,” He manages to choke out.
“Of course, Brother,” Al says, as if it’s obvious that he would do this, that he would plan ahead enough - further than Ed, anyways -to go to the infirmary, and notify Mustang. And shit, it’s so fucking not, because Ed knew it was supposed to storm too, it’d been all over the radio for the last week, that a storm was brewing, and they needed the rain, and Ed had ignored it, too wrapped up in an old alchemy treatise he’d found on his last mission to take care of things the way he should. Because he’s an idiot, and Al’s way better than he deserves.
Ed can’t help the sob that escapes through his teeth as Al gently pulls him into a sitting position.
“C’mon, Brother,” Al says quietly, ignoring Ed’s moaning and groaning. “You need to drink some water, and take some medicine, okay? You can lay back down after you take your medicine.” Those large gauntlets hold a cup to Ed’s lips, and slowly let the cool water trickle down his throat, before pulling the cup away. Before Ed can react, Al quickly shoves three of the white tablets into Ed’s mouth, and then brings the cup back, trickling more water until he’s sure Ed’s swallowed the pills. “There you go. Alright, let’s get you back down. C’mon, Brother, just another minute, okay? There you go, that’s it,” Al says softly as he helps Ed lay back down. He quickly wraps the blanket around him again, and then grabs the extra blanket they keep in the closet to throw over him as well.
“There. Alright, Brother, we’re done, okay? We’re all done. Now what’d you do with that book last night?” He’s talking more to himself than to Ed, as he rummages through the piles and piles of book scattered across the room, on the bookshelf, on the coffee table, and on the floor, until he finds the old treatise Ed’s been reading. “Ah, there we go.”
As Al picks the book up, careful to keep it open to where Ed left off last night, Ed wants to cry.
He doesn’t deserve Al. Doesn’t deserve someone as good as his little brother taking care of him. This… this is all his fault, he’s put him and Al both in this position, and Al has every right to be angry, every right to enjoy Ed’s pain, since it’s Ed’s fault he’s trapped in the suit of armor.
But he isn’t angry. Al always takes care of him when this happens, even the stupid embarrassing stuff, like helping Ed to the bathroom because his damn legs refuse to work. He brings him soup from the canteen, makes sure he takes his pain pills, and sits with him until the pain dies down to something manageable.
“Brother… you shouldn’t tense up like that, it doesn’t help. Here, c’mon,” Al says gently, forcing Ed’s legs to uncurl and straighten, as he turns Ed onto his back. “I know it hurts, but… this is better for you, Brother, I promise. There you go. You want me to sit on the floor, or…?”
Ed can’t help the whining noise that darts out of the back of his throat, his flesh hand making grabbing motions. It’s about the best he can do, and luckily, Al understands. He carefully climbs over Ed, settling in against the wall, and Ed…
Well, he doesn’t deserve any of this, but it’s not going to stop him from stretching out, and laying his leg against Al’s, the cool metal against hot, inflamed flesh knocking his pain down by at least a point or two, and -after a minute -Al maneuvers him around the bed until he’s on his side, and pressed up against the length of the armor.
“Alright, Brother. Let’s see… Oh, here we go!” He tucks his arm underneath the pillow Ed’s head is on, and reaches over him to put the book in his hand, so Ed can follow along. “... when one discusses a transmutational reaction and subreactions, one must readily accept that there is always the potential risk of a post-subreaction, colloquially referred to by many as a ‘rebound’. This is, of course, simply a negative reaction between the physical material of the focus of the transmutation, and the metaspiritual material of the desired outcome of the transmutation. One must always be careful to…”
Ed doesn’t deserve any of this. But he can’t bring himself to refuse it either.