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cornerofmadnessThe Light in the Upstairs Window
By D.M. Evans
Disclaimer - not mine, all characters belong to Hiromu Arakawa et al and funimition. I don’t make a profit, heck I probably lose money taking away time I should have been working.
Rating - FRT
Time line - Sort of goes AR during “Words of Farewell” (so certain characters don’t die), probably several months after Winry repairs Ed’s arm after Scar got to it
Pairing - Ed/Winry
Summary - When Winry goes along on an investigation, things become complicated
The rest of the story can be found Here
Author’s Note - When I started this story I hadn’t read all the manga/ seen all the anime yet and didn’t know Winry’s mom’s name was Sara. So, I’ve retconned this a bit and Sara the tavern owner is now called Sabrin.
Chapter Six
Ed’s head hurt more than he thought possible. Everything seemed upside down and spinning slowly and a foul odor permeated the area, coating his mouth with a raw metallic taste. He blinked his eyes a few times and the spinning stopped. Upside down, however, seemed to be the order of the day. Ed realized it was he who was upside down.
He tried frantically to find out what in the hell was happening. Someone had suspended him by his ankles from the rafters of what looked to be an old mill. Sawdust, mildewy and old, carpeted the floor. His arms were tied down to the metal rings that poked out of the wood refuse on the floor. Conveniently for his captors, his bonds were too far apart for him to touch hands. The copper metallic scent of the place was starting to make his stomach flip, especially when cold blasts of wind pouring through broken windows stirred everything up.
Ed blinked rapidly, unsuccessfully trying to clear the last residuals of bleariness from his eyes. He must have a concussion. His stomach seemed to wiggle inside him like a belly dancer and he’d be damned if he could remember anything. The last thing he could call clearly to mind was Winry pressed up against him when he woke up before dawn, so hard it nearly hurt. He had to shuffle to the bathroom before she woke up and noticed. It had taken forever to get control back over his own body. So how did that lead to him hanging upside down in a strange place?
His head throbbed as Ed closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. He peeled them open again and tried to sort out where he was. That’s when he saw the man hanging catty corner to him, or what was left of the man, Ed corrected himself, trying hard not to throw up. He’d choke in this position. The man had been gutted like the animals Sig used to prepare for his butcher shop and pieces of muscle had been flayed away.
“Looks like our boy is awake,” a female voice echoed in the empty mill. Her voice seemed familiar.
“Who are you? Where am I?” Ed tried to sound tougher than he felt staring at the massacred body. He struggled like an animal in a trap.
“Like you don’t know, Fullmetal,” a man replied.
“Fullmetal, what’s that?” Ed asked, not sure he had anything to gain by pretending to be ignorant. It was worth a shot if he could gain a little time to get his bearings. Icy spiders of worry crept up his back as his mind kicked around the idea that he was too dependant on alchemy; something he couldn’t use in this position.
“Then this isn’t yours?” Someone moved into his view, dangling his pocket watch from her fingers.
“Lieutenant Dance, should have figured you were involved. You, too, Leatherby. That is you in the shadows, right? Dr. Endymion was right not to trust you.” Ed’s words lashed out, filled with his impotent fury. He could do nothing but talk, his alchemy useless, all the martial skills he knew now fettered by his bonds.
“Yes, well, hopefully Dance didn’t botch killing her too badly,” Leatherby said, coming into view.
Dance glared. “I got interrupted.”
Ed’s throat went dry. Winry would have headed to Halia’s. Had they hurt her? Would asking them clue them into how much she meant to him? That could prove fatal to her. They probably already guessed it but just in case they hadn’t, he wasn’t about to point the way. “Which of you is the alchemist?”
“Why would you think there’s an alchemist involved?” Leatherby asked.
“Missing people turning up dead? Either you’re trying to create a Philosopher’s Stone or chimeras,” Ed said, tugging on his bonds and getting nowhere.
The laughter of a third person startled Ed. He convulsed like a landed fish in his bonds. She stepped into view and Ed’s mouth flopped open. Sabrin glared at his surprised. “That’s right, the humble tavern owner is the alchemist. Weren’t expecting that, were you?”
“No,” Ed admitted. He hadn’t even thought about Sabrin as anything other than a tavern owner. He couldn’t picture her as a murderer. “Why do you want the Philosopher’s Stone?”
She shook her head, a smug expression on her face. “I don’t. I’m after the other stone.”
Ed blinked for a moment, trying to remember what he knew about the other great quest for alchemists; the White Lion, the White Stone, the elixir of immortality. He hadn’t paid it much heed since he didn’t want to be immortal, he simply wanted his brother back. The only time Ed had marked references to the White Stone were when it was discussed as possibly being the same as the Red Stone. “Is there nothing in higher alchemy that doesn’t involve human sacrifice?” Ed moaned then steeled himself. “What do you want that stone for?”
“To live forever, of course.” Sabrin looked at him as if he were the stupidest man alive. “Do you know what we could do if we could live forever?”
“Watch everyone you ever loved die,” Ed replied quietly. It was hard enough losing his mother and Al’s body. He couldn’t imagine living forever, losing Winry, Granny, Teacher, hell even Mustang and his men. Making new friends and losing them, too, over time; that was too much. Maybe he could use the stone on his loved ones so they’d live, too, but it probably wouldn’t work. It was too against the flow of nature.
“What’s love when you can amass great wealth?” Sabrin leaned down and patted his cold cheek. It made the pain in his head surge.
“More like amass great pain and toil,” Ed replied, his voice bitter as gall.
“You’re a gloomy little bastard.” Sabrin laughed, tickling her fingers over the patch of skin bared because his shirt and jacket were rucked up under his armpits.
“Well, have you managed to create the White Stone? Did you get anything for all the deaths you caused?” Ed snarled, nodding at the flayed body. “I’m betting not. Why cut them into pieces afterward? Isn’t killing them bad enough?”
“To hide the bodies,” Leatherby said with simple practicality.
“Only a bear carried some pieces too close to town and we were at risk of being uncovered. We had to change that practice,” Dance added.
“So, now what do you do?” No one answered Ed. “What can it hurt to tell me? You’re going to do that to me anyhow.” Ed swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought about it until that moment. Oh damn, they really are going to do that to me! A cold sweat dribbled out of his pores and his bladder kicked at him.
Sabrin shrugged. “What good does it do you to know? Bart, Tamar, make sure he’s incapable of going anywhere should he miraculously escape.”
“What?” Ed gasped, icy terror licking at him.
“My pleasure.” Leatherby grinned as he walked off.
“People will be looking for me,” Ed said defiantly. He didn’t know what they had planned but it was going to happen unless he stalled them.
“They’re already dead,” Sabrin replied and Ed couldn’t swallow.
Tears wanted to be shed but he refused. His mouth went salty and that clenching in his bladder hit again. Winry couldn’t be dead. Al...was his brother with him when he had been captured? He couldn’t remember but logically Al would have been there. Could they know about the blood seal? Could they have hurt his baby brother? “No.”
“You’re so hamstrung I lose nothing by giving this back to you.” Sabrin tossed his pocket watch into the sawdust under him.
Ed couldn’t rally. Suddenly the world rushed up at him as Leatherby let the ropes around his ankles go. Ed crashed to the flooring, his shoulders wrenching because his arms were still tethered. He thought his pocket watch had just sliced open his scalp and it did nothing for his concussion. Ed swallowed back vomit. By the time the stars cleared from Ed’s view, Leatherby stood over him, holding a sledgehammer. “What are you going to do?” Ed’s voice filled with impotent fury and fear.
Leatherby just grinned broadly as he raised the sledge and crushed it down on Ed’s automail knee.
Ed howled in frustration and pain as the automail wires shorted into the nerves of his thigh. Leatherby smashed the knee again, leaving it sparking.
“Get the hand, too. We can’t allow him to draw any arrays,” Sabrin said, sounding amused at his pain.
Leatherby laughed as he turned the hammer on Ed’s hand. When the pain faded, a cold sweat liberally coated Ed’s body. He dragged air in and out raggedly.
“He still has another hand to draw with,” Dance pointed out.
“No,” Ed murmured in spite of himself. His gut clenched as he fought with his bonds. They just laughed at him. How could anyone enjoy seeing someone in pain?
“No, not the sledge, Bart. That just leaves bone shards in the meat. I hate picking them out,” Sabrin said and Ed could barely process what she might mean by that. “Just take his fingers off with tin snips.”
“I didn’t bring them. I’ll have to come back,” Leatherby said, disappointment ringing in his voice.
Ed fought again not to throw up. They were talking about cutting off his fingers like someone would talk about plucking flowers. “How could you?”
“The quest for eternal life,” she replied. “You’ll be part of the great alchemic process, a successful part of the stone or just another dead body.”
“And then what? You’ll chop me up for bear food?” Ed growled, fighting vertigo as his concussion sent another wave a spinning his way.
“No, people food. You wanted to know what I do with the people, Edward. They’re the special ingredient in those meat pies.” Sabrin smiled at him.
Ed just stared. She had to be joking.
“That’s why she’s so damn picky about me getting bone shards in your meat, as if she’s really going to use a bony little hand,” Leatherby snorted.
They weren’t kidding. Ed gagged, half surprised his stomach or bladder didn’t let go. “How could you?”
“Had to get rid of our failures some place. Grinding them up for meat pies seemed like the best way not to get caught and it turned out to be very profitable. Everyone loves those pies,” Sabrin said as casually as if discussing the weather. “What’s wrong, Edward? You look green. I thought you liked those pies.”
Edward turned his head and vomited, getting it all over his metal arm. He spat, trying to clear his mouth, tasting bile.
Sabrin laughed again. “String him back up, Bart. It’ll make it harder for him to wiggle free.”
“Gladly.”
Ed groaned as they hauled him up by his ankles once more. His head hurt so much he thought he’d black out again and he couldn’t afford that. He was surprised his automail leg didn’t just shear apart given how much Leatherby had beaten on it.
“We’ll be back later to take care of those naughty fingers, Edward. Try not to die from the cold before we can use you. Oh well, if you do, I’ll just put you in a tart. You’re too little to make a whole pie.” Sabrin patted his cheek again.
Ed was far too afraid to allow himself his usual outbursts at being called little. He just watched them leave and set his mind to figuring out how to get free from his four-point restraints. If he some how miraculously did, how he was going to make it one-legged through the snow? He didn’t know but he’d belly crawl if he had to. He’d rather die of exposure than being gutted and dismembered.
By D.M. Evans
Disclaimer - not mine, all characters belong to Hiromu Arakawa et al and funimition. I don’t make a profit, heck I probably lose money taking away time I should have been working.
Rating - FRT
Time line - Sort of goes AR during “Words of Farewell” (so certain characters don’t die), probably several months after Winry repairs Ed’s arm after Scar got to it
Pairing - Ed/Winry
Summary - When Winry goes along on an investigation, things become complicated
The rest of the story can be found Here
Author’s Note - When I started this story I hadn’t read all the manga/ seen all the anime yet and didn’t know Winry’s mom’s name was Sara. So, I’ve retconned this a bit and Sara the tavern owner is now called Sabrin.
Chapter Six
Ed’s head hurt more than he thought possible. Everything seemed upside down and spinning slowly and a foul odor permeated the area, coating his mouth with a raw metallic taste. He blinked his eyes a few times and the spinning stopped. Upside down, however, seemed to be the order of the day. Ed realized it was he who was upside down.
He tried frantically to find out what in the hell was happening. Someone had suspended him by his ankles from the rafters of what looked to be an old mill. Sawdust, mildewy and old, carpeted the floor. His arms were tied down to the metal rings that poked out of the wood refuse on the floor. Conveniently for his captors, his bonds were too far apart for him to touch hands. The copper metallic scent of the place was starting to make his stomach flip, especially when cold blasts of wind pouring through broken windows stirred everything up.
Ed blinked rapidly, unsuccessfully trying to clear the last residuals of bleariness from his eyes. He must have a concussion. His stomach seemed to wiggle inside him like a belly dancer and he’d be damned if he could remember anything. The last thing he could call clearly to mind was Winry pressed up against him when he woke up before dawn, so hard it nearly hurt. He had to shuffle to the bathroom before she woke up and noticed. It had taken forever to get control back over his own body. So how did that lead to him hanging upside down in a strange place?
His head throbbed as Ed closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. He peeled them open again and tried to sort out where he was. That’s when he saw the man hanging catty corner to him, or what was left of the man, Ed corrected himself, trying hard not to throw up. He’d choke in this position. The man had been gutted like the animals Sig used to prepare for his butcher shop and pieces of muscle had been flayed away.
“Looks like our boy is awake,” a female voice echoed in the empty mill. Her voice seemed familiar.
“Who are you? Where am I?” Ed tried to sound tougher than he felt staring at the massacred body. He struggled like an animal in a trap.
“Like you don’t know, Fullmetal,” a man replied.
“Fullmetal, what’s that?” Ed asked, not sure he had anything to gain by pretending to be ignorant. It was worth a shot if he could gain a little time to get his bearings. Icy spiders of worry crept up his back as his mind kicked around the idea that he was too dependant on alchemy; something he couldn’t use in this position.
“Then this isn’t yours?” Someone moved into his view, dangling his pocket watch from her fingers.
“Lieutenant Dance, should have figured you were involved. You, too, Leatherby. That is you in the shadows, right? Dr. Endymion was right not to trust you.” Ed’s words lashed out, filled with his impotent fury. He could do nothing but talk, his alchemy useless, all the martial skills he knew now fettered by his bonds.
“Yes, well, hopefully Dance didn’t botch killing her too badly,” Leatherby said, coming into view.
Dance glared. “I got interrupted.”
Ed’s throat went dry. Winry would have headed to Halia’s. Had they hurt her? Would asking them clue them into how much she meant to him? That could prove fatal to her. They probably already guessed it but just in case they hadn’t, he wasn’t about to point the way. “Which of you is the alchemist?”
“Why would you think there’s an alchemist involved?” Leatherby asked.
“Missing people turning up dead? Either you’re trying to create a Philosopher’s Stone or chimeras,” Ed said, tugging on his bonds and getting nowhere.
The laughter of a third person startled Ed. He convulsed like a landed fish in his bonds. She stepped into view and Ed’s mouth flopped open. Sabrin glared at his surprised. “That’s right, the humble tavern owner is the alchemist. Weren’t expecting that, were you?”
“No,” Ed admitted. He hadn’t even thought about Sabrin as anything other than a tavern owner. He couldn’t picture her as a murderer. “Why do you want the Philosopher’s Stone?”
She shook her head, a smug expression on her face. “I don’t. I’m after the other stone.”
Ed blinked for a moment, trying to remember what he knew about the other great quest for alchemists; the White Lion, the White Stone, the elixir of immortality. He hadn’t paid it much heed since he didn’t want to be immortal, he simply wanted his brother back. The only time Ed had marked references to the White Stone were when it was discussed as possibly being the same as the Red Stone. “Is there nothing in higher alchemy that doesn’t involve human sacrifice?” Ed moaned then steeled himself. “What do you want that stone for?”
“To live forever, of course.” Sabrin looked at him as if he were the stupidest man alive. “Do you know what we could do if we could live forever?”
“Watch everyone you ever loved die,” Ed replied quietly. It was hard enough losing his mother and Al’s body. He couldn’t imagine living forever, losing Winry, Granny, Teacher, hell even Mustang and his men. Making new friends and losing them, too, over time; that was too much. Maybe he could use the stone on his loved ones so they’d live, too, but it probably wouldn’t work. It was too against the flow of nature.
“What’s love when you can amass great wealth?” Sabrin leaned down and patted his cold cheek. It made the pain in his head surge.
“More like amass great pain and toil,” Ed replied, his voice bitter as gall.
“You’re a gloomy little bastard.” Sabrin laughed, tickling her fingers over the patch of skin bared because his shirt and jacket were rucked up under his armpits.
“Well, have you managed to create the White Stone? Did you get anything for all the deaths you caused?” Ed snarled, nodding at the flayed body. “I’m betting not. Why cut them into pieces afterward? Isn’t killing them bad enough?”
“To hide the bodies,” Leatherby said with simple practicality.
“Only a bear carried some pieces too close to town and we were at risk of being uncovered. We had to change that practice,” Dance added.
“So, now what do you do?” No one answered Ed. “What can it hurt to tell me? You’re going to do that to me anyhow.” Ed swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought about it until that moment. Oh damn, they really are going to do that to me! A cold sweat dribbled out of his pores and his bladder kicked at him.
Sabrin shrugged. “What good does it do you to know? Bart, Tamar, make sure he’s incapable of going anywhere should he miraculously escape.”
“What?” Ed gasped, icy terror licking at him.
“My pleasure.” Leatherby grinned as he walked off.
“People will be looking for me,” Ed said defiantly. He didn’t know what they had planned but it was going to happen unless he stalled them.
“They’re already dead,” Sabrin replied and Ed couldn’t swallow.
Tears wanted to be shed but he refused. His mouth went salty and that clenching in his bladder hit again. Winry couldn’t be dead. Al...was his brother with him when he had been captured? He couldn’t remember but logically Al would have been there. Could they know about the blood seal? Could they have hurt his baby brother? “No.”
“You’re so hamstrung I lose nothing by giving this back to you.” Sabrin tossed his pocket watch into the sawdust under him.
Ed couldn’t rally. Suddenly the world rushed up at him as Leatherby let the ropes around his ankles go. Ed crashed to the flooring, his shoulders wrenching because his arms were still tethered. He thought his pocket watch had just sliced open his scalp and it did nothing for his concussion. Ed swallowed back vomit. By the time the stars cleared from Ed’s view, Leatherby stood over him, holding a sledgehammer. “What are you going to do?” Ed’s voice filled with impotent fury and fear.
Leatherby just grinned broadly as he raised the sledge and crushed it down on Ed’s automail knee.
Ed howled in frustration and pain as the automail wires shorted into the nerves of his thigh. Leatherby smashed the knee again, leaving it sparking.
“Get the hand, too. We can’t allow him to draw any arrays,” Sabrin said, sounding amused at his pain.
Leatherby laughed as he turned the hammer on Ed’s hand. When the pain faded, a cold sweat liberally coated Ed’s body. He dragged air in and out raggedly.
“He still has another hand to draw with,” Dance pointed out.
“No,” Ed murmured in spite of himself. His gut clenched as he fought with his bonds. They just laughed at him. How could anyone enjoy seeing someone in pain?
“No, not the sledge, Bart. That just leaves bone shards in the meat. I hate picking them out,” Sabrin said and Ed could barely process what she might mean by that. “Just take his fingers off with tin snips.”
“I didn’t bring them. I’ll have to come back,” Leatherby said, disappointment ringing in his voice.
Ed fought again not to throw up. They were talking about cutting off his fingers like someone would talk about plucking flowers. “How could you?”
“The quest for eternal life,” she replied. “You’ll be part of the great alchemic process, a successful part of the stone or just another dead body.”
“And then what? You’ll chop me up for bear food?” Ed growled, fighting vertigo as his concussion sent another wave a spinning his way.
“No, people food. You wanted to know what I do with the people, Edward. They’re the special ingredient in those meat pies.” Sabrin smiled at him.
Ed just stared. She had to be joking.
“That’s why she’s so damn picky about me getting bone shards in your meat, as if she’s really going to use a bony little hand,” Leatherby snorted.
They weren’t kidding. Ed gagged, half surprised his stomach or bladder didn’t let go. “How could you?”
“Had to get rid of our failures some place. Grinding them up for meat pies seemed like the best way not to get caught and it turned out to be very profitable. Everyone loves those pies,” Sabrin said as casually as if discussing the weather. “What’s wrong, Edward? You look green. I thought you liked those pies.”
Edward turned his head and vomited, getting it all over his metal arm. He spat, trying to clear his mouth, tasting bile.
Sabrin laughed again. “String him back up, Bart. It’ll make it harder for him to wiggle free.”
“Gladly.”
Ed groaned as they hauled him up by his ankles once more. His head hurt so much he thought he’d black out again and he couldn’t afford that. He was surprised his automail leg didn’t just shear apart given how much Leatherby had beaten on it.
“We’ll be back later to take care of those naughty fingers, Edward. Try not to die from the cold before we can use you. Oh well, if you do, I’ll just put you in a tart. You’re too little to make a whole pie.” Sabrin patted his cheek again.
Ed was far too afraid to allow himself his usual outbursts at being called little. He just watched them leave and set his mind to figuring out how to get free from his four-point restraints. If he some how miraculously did, how he was going to make it one-legged through the snow? He didn’t know but he’d belly crawl if he had to. He’d rather die of exposure than being gutted and dismembered.
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