Envy Pov
The first thing I felt was the difference in the sheets. These ones were more hydrophobic, a thin layer of wax on them to prevent the oils on the body was contaminating them too much. Al-Metal boy had taught me that when the old hag was repairing someones automail once while Winry was away.
The next was the pain that ripped across me. "Fuck ..!" I croaked out, feeling my back twist slightly as the pulse of pain radiating from my ankle raced its way up. Broken was likely my best scenario.
My eyes fluttered open soon after, finding Metal Boy slumped on my bed. We were in the guest room often used for Automail patients. He was sleeping quietly, but his face looked strangely restless. There were deeper creases along his brow and nose that just didn't feel like they belonged. A strand of hair had fallen onto his face as well. I don't know why, but that bothered me, too.
I reached softly with a weak hand, feeling my strength fail instantly. Every inch of me felt... Sapped. Even my anger felt like it was coughing up fumes, and that was old reliable. There was a soft beep in my periphery, finding a monitor attached to my arm. How bad had I gotten my ass kicked...?
"Gave us a helluva scar there, Brat." Granny sighed quietly, looking shaken but not broken. She was sat on a second bed they had clearly pulled in here to accommodate us both. She looked frail, even for Granny.
"Ya, I gave you the scare." I grumbled, barely able to even move out of bed. That was when the cold chill hit me as I turned my head to the doorway.
"Seems she wasn't the only one." The blonde sniper leaned on the doorway, a pistol in her right hand while her left was kept tightly bound in a slight, alongside a patch covering her left eye. She looked fresh from the battlefield and was twice as pissed about it, but she wasn't who sent the panic into me.
Behind her, like a shadow of brimstone, stood the Flame Alchemist. His eyes were motionless, and yet even blind, it felt as if he was glaring into my very soul.
"It seems this new world is nothing like we hoped for." His voice was fire and grit barely masked by gritted teeth and a military officer's patience. Even that was straining, and I could feel it in his very presence. A white hot hatred that made my eyes burn like they were on fire all over again.
"Please... Don't kill me..." I whispered shakily. "I don't want to die..."
The Flame Alchemist seemed enraged by that. He walked past the sniper, dismissing her disapproval and stepping right into my space. "You don't want to die?!" His voice was quiet and loud at the same time somehow as he gripped me by the collar and yanked me up by the collar. "I didn't want my best friend shot in a phone booth!" He shook me a little, and I couldn't even mount a defense. I just felt like crying. Everything hurt and somehow felt numb and he was making every inch of me terrified, yet I didn't even have the strength to be really afraid.
"I'm sorry..." I murmured, feeling a tear streak down my cheek. It was pathetic and meaningless, but it was all I could manage out. I felt my throat crack quietly with half opened sobs, but there was barely any sound.
I felt dead without having taken my last breath yet.
"Roy... This isn't the same person. Not anymore." Her hand was on his shoulder, but he wasn't getting less angry.
"I don't care. You should have stayed dead in that fu-"
"Let her go." Metal Boy's voice cut through as I saw his hand grip Mustang's.
"Alphonse...?" The flame alchemist muttered. I glance at Metal Boy myself.
His face was a cold stone of fury. His grip on Mustang's wrist was visibly started to bruise the flame alchemist's wrist, and Metal Boy's knuckles were so tight, I swore they could have torn the flesh right off them.
"Let. Her. Go." His voice was like an icy spike into Mustang's ear. He dropped me, rough and a little suddenly, but he did. Metal Boy caught me, holding me against him as he sat on the bed. "Can't you see she's injured?"
"She? It. Is a murderer."
"HER name. Is Envy." I coughed painfully, unable to watch the argument but listening in as I curled into his chest. I felt my consciousness slipping again, but at least now I got to enjoy this nice smell.
I swore it smelled like old ink and dusty papers. Why did it smell so nice...?
...
Alphonse Pov
I clutched Ennie a little bit tighter into my chest, my gaze meeting Mustang's non-existent yet still powerful one. I felt sweat trickle slightly down my temple, and a shaking in my hands that wouldn't stop. My eyes glanced to Hawkeye, then to Roy's wrist, bow growing purple with a bruise. I should have felt bad, but a glance at the shaking, weak girl in my arms steeled my resolve. If it were Brother protecting someone, then he would stand up to anyone. Mustang was a dad to me, just like the late Mr. Hughes, but he wasn't going to hurt her. Not again.
She had suffered enough for her crimes.
"She isn't some weapon, Roy." I felt my throat dry, and he seemed a bit perturbed by his first name being used. I just couldn't work up a proper 'Sir' with the energy emanating from us both. We were two flames of opposite origin yet equal intensity, but I couldn't quite name what was fueling mine. Maybe...
"She's a monster, Alphonse! How can you forget what she has done so easily?" He growled, teeth gnashed and voice rising above the monitors. Granny was too weak to back me up, but I could handle this. I had to.
"I didn't! But I'm not so blinded by hate for you not to see what's right in front of me!" I shouted back, voice rising more than I intended, but I wouldn't back down.
"And what is that, Elric?!" His voice was a knife in my heart, but it only made me more certain.
"A girl shaking, terrified, hurt, and scared."
"Its just a-"
How many of those did YOU torch just because they were on the other side?!" Tears pooled into my face as I shouted at the top of my lungs, stunning Mustang. "How many did your slaughter like a dog of the military Roy?!"
"A... Alphonse..." His voice cracked, wavering slowly.
"HOW MANY ROY?! HOW MANY DID YOU BURN AS THEY RAN IN FEAR?! HOW MANY NEVER GOT THE CHANCE TO SAY THEY WERE SORRY?!" I shouted as hard as I could, eyes burning as I clutched Ennie closer.
He stepped back quietly, his face shaken as he quietly put back on his hat, dipping the visor over his eyes discreetly. "I'll be outside keeping watch. You talk to them, Riza." He turned and marched out, his shoulders showing the defeat his hat hid in his eyes.
"...so. She's really changed?" Hawkeye spoke up softly, sitting down once I had sat back on the bed with Ennie in my lap asleep.
"... Ya. It isn't perfect, but..." I trailed off, looking at her sleeping face. The bruise on her neck wasn't fading, and the tear tracks on her face felt like they were becoming a common feature.
"But she's trying. How, is she...?"
"We haven't really figured it out, but whatever that guy did, it drained her. In a way medicine and alchemy can't fix..." I felt a lump well up in my throat. Hawkeye's eyes widened if subtly, looking at me with a mixture of soft shock and confusion. "All I had managed to gather was that her soul was cracked open and bleeding."
"... How do we fix it?" She spoke carefully.
"I don't know. Whatever these things are... They are much worse than homunculus."