I am flesh and I am bone

They’re confident, well-prepared. Two drops of blood fall onto the pile of materials, two sets of hands come down on the circle’s edge, and the last thing Ed sees before lightning blinds him is Des across the room, a wildcat’s eyes full of determination.

The world cracks open and open and open. Everything is white and still, stagnant and terrifying, and the god of alchemy threatens and promises and takes.

Des is in his arms, a housecat now, just big enough to hold close even though they’re both trembling, even though Ed knows he’d feel safer as a mouse or a bug or anything small enough to hide under Ed’s clothes, but this is inescapable and there is no way for them to hide from Truth’s allknowing eyes.

They are exposed, they are vulnerable, Des wasn’t even in the circle with them when the array activated, they are pain pain pain and fear and long arms—tendrils—are pulling them apart, are touching his daemon and he screams, hoarse and terrified, he—

Screams until he can’t anymore and then he is bleeding and still screaming and clutching his stump despite the red flowing freely, despite Des’ pained noise and panicked claws in his leg, and he can’t stop to do anything because dark realization has punctured a hole in his chest, like a broken rib sticking straight through a lung, and he’s going back, he’s—

“Give them back to us!”

— grabbing Kiers barehanded to keep her safe, her fluttering heart so terrified in her breast, and promising the world to a laughing god.

–

“Where’s Alphonse?” Winry asks, voice shaking, as her wide eyes struggle to take in the large bear holding—

Kiers is there but Alphonse isn’t, her brain keeps tripping over it, it’s not possible. She’s a doctor but she can’t focus on Ed, on Ed who is bleeding so freely and who is half a body lighter, limbs missing, because Kiers is there so Alphonse must be where is he, where is he, whereishe—

“Help us.” Kiers croaks, broken, and Des lets out the most heartbroken sound she’s ever heard.

–

It doesn’t get better. Her eyes scan right over Kiers, not that she isn’t important, but she’s here so her brain keeps looking for Al, why can’t she see Al, it—

It never goes away. It doesn’t get better.

–

Ed and Al had always talked to each other’s daemons so freely, is the thing. An outsider might be hard pressed to tell whose was whose. It wasn’t unusual for Kiers to talk to Ed, as she might talk to Al.

This, however, was new: Kiers as a rabbit, as something scared and wild-eyed and soft, trembling on Ed’s chest, pressing for touch and comfort like she couldn’t get close enough, like she was desperate for it, like she wanted to crawl into his skin trying to find something alive.

Des made himself bigger and scarier, where before he used to favor small and fast animals—coyotes and bobcats, hares and housecats. He watched with a tiger’s eyes from his human’s bedside, hardly blinking and oddly quiet; by all rights Ed was hurt and he should be, too, curled up safe and small and resting with his boy, but there he was, large and on-guard and twitching at the slightest sound, eyes pinned to the door, protecting the two on the bed.

Kiers was the one who preferred large forms, usually. Kiers was the one who stretched her wings as a thousand kinds of birds, who hit the ground as a panther, whose favorite form was a large grizzly bear like teacher’s to scare away anybody who tried to hurt them.

Kiers wasn’t big, now.

Kiers was a rabbit who couldn’t sleep, shivering on Ed’s chest, as the boy slept feverish and nightmarish and panicked with bandages wrapped around his two missing limbs.

–

The boy with two daemons takes the State Alchemist Exam.

One stays close to him, always on hand; a ferret on his shoulder, a snake wrapped around his neck.

The other is bold. It almost seems like a true wild animal; aggressive, wild, angry. It favors larger forms, with glinting teeth and intelligent eyes. More than one criminal, in the years that follow, see a raccoon on Ed’s shoulder and get taken out by the lion roaring in out of nowhere.

His eyes are hard as he works through the exam, giving no quarter in the paper test, stopping for no one in the practical. He twists his hands and brings forth sculptures and weapons, and saves them all from some moron’s attempt without using a transmutation circle. He doesn’t make time for jokes, except in a quiet voice to Kiers; most of his bravado had fallen away with Alphonse in the white endless depths of the Gate.

He is named the Fullmetal Alchemist anyway.

–

“It doesn’t work.” Ed said, speaking up in the dark. “The taboo. Human transmutation. You can make a body, but you can’t make—”

He cuts off harshly, face jerking like struck.

“She came back without Galen.” Kiers whispered, from the cradle of his arms. She had been there when they killed and buried that thing. “Our mother.”

Des didn’t speak often. He didn’t now, curled against Ed’s calves like a threat, wearing the guise of a wolverine.

Ed pressed a glaive to Marcoh’s neck and the man only cowered.

“So don’t ever try it.” He said quietly, lowering the weapon. “Nothing is worth the cost.”

–

Nina was the first breath of innocence, of something close to joy, that Ed experienced since the Gate. He’d had moments, here and there, that reminded him of the good in the world, but nothing as effortlessly good as this little girl who’s other half rolled with Des in the grass and coaxed Kiers into something like play.

Shou Tucker combined her and her daemon, Alexander, into one grotesque body, not even aware enough to ask for death.

“It hurts, brother.” They said, whimpering, and beyond the horror of this scene—awful enough on its own, worse than anything Ed could imagine—the words rip into him, Al’s hand reaching out, words he might have said if his voice wasn’t a bloodcurdled scream.

Ed makes it better, hands shaking, two daemons pressed scared against him.

Then he kills Shou Tucker, too, and throws up in the alley behind the house that needed to burn as much as the Elric’s ever had.

Des was the one who brought him the matches, but human hands—one human hand, and one metal, at least—set the blaze.

Mustang and his daemon found him there, staring at the fire. Too close, probably, but he couldn’t move and didn’t really care.

–

Hughes introduced his daemon before himself, and then his wife and his daughter, and something about their simple home was like stepping foot in Risembool.

Elicia was happy and carefree and perfect, toddling around with an equally as erratic other half, who flitted between shapes almost too fast to track.

Ed still took him aside that night, this man he knew, and clenched his automail in Hughes’ lapel. Des growled behind him, something with teeth, as Ed made his threat.

“If you hurt her, we’ll kill you.” He said, sick to the heart of him. There was only so much one person could take and they were so close to that limit, every day.

“Ed.” Hughes started, eyes so kind, and he snarled.

“Ed.” Said the soft voice of Amelia, his emperor penguin daemon, and Ed’s arm shook. His eyes blurred with—tears, somehow. “Ed, we would want you to.”

She gathered Kiers and Des both to her, as best she was able, and Kiers made a soft sound that hit Ed like a car, but Des whined, snuffling, and Ed fell into a sobbing mess in Hughes’ arms.

–

Ed and Des and Kiers still travelled all around the country, righting wrongs and causing problems. They rerouted rivers, overthrew corrupt regimes, and bolstered the heart’s of the people unlike anyone else.

They were impossible. They were so impossible, in more ways than one.

Hughes kept Mustang informed more than Ed did, intel agents keeping tabs on the comings-and-goings more reliable than one feral teenager remembering to pick up the phone and inform his commanding officer of anything.

It’s for this reason that Hughes swung by after work one Friday, Amelia nudging the door open as her human carried some really very nice whiskey, and Roy felt his migraine triple in strength immediately.

“Don’t tell me,” he begged, forlornly, but Hughes cheerfully ignored them despite Arendt’s best puppy eyes. The wolf trotted over and nudged the avian until they formed a pile on the floor, and the two humans got spectacularly drunk.

“Roy,” Hughes insisted, hours into the night. “Roy. Roy. They’re not even settled. Roy!”

“Fuck.” Roy buried his head in his hands and laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “I know. God, I know.”

“There’s not enough whiskey in the world.” Hughes said, sadly. “I can’t fucking—who lets them do this, Roy? How do we help them?”

“I wish I knew.” He drains the last of his glass. “God. God. I’m afraid all we can do is be there for them, however they need us. Try to keep the brass of their backs’.”

“They’re so bright, Roy.” Hughes whispered. “They’re amazing. How can it be so goddamn sad?”

“It gets less sad if you remember how much you want to strangle him,” Roy offered, refilling his glass.

“No, it doesn’t.” Hughes and Arendt said together, and Roy huffed.

“No.” He agreed. “No, it doesn’t.”

“We never even met Alphonse.” Hughes whispers into the office later, like a horrifying secret. They’ve emptied the entire bottle between them, here where it’s safer than their own homes, because they’re always here and the sheer amount of sweeps ensure there are no bugs.

“At least we know he’s alive, somehow. Or something like it.” Roy offers, though every time he thinks about that he wants to drown in the alcohol.

“Amazing, isn’t it? How little that actually helps.” Hughes’ hand shakes on his own glass, morose. “I can’t even imagine. Kiers is so goddamn small, she—they would have been nine, Roy. Nine.”

“I know.” Roy says, hands aching to take his own soul in his hands. Arendt comes over to him and rests her muzzle on his thigh. “Fuck, I know.”

His hand trembles as he pets her.

“The world is fucked up, Roy.” Hughes sighs.

“One day at a time.” Arendt says quietly, their solemn promise. “We make it a little better, every day we’re alive. We have to.”

“It never seems like enough.” Amelia leans heavy into Hughes’ side, a comforting presence.

“No.” Roy says. “It doesn’t, does it?”

–

Teacher does not kick Ed’s ass. She asks the same question Winry had, so long ago, and this time—conscious—Ed breaks down, tears rolling down his face, and presses his forehead to the ground as he begs for forgiveness.

The bear that is her daemon, a giant grizzly named Emerson, scoops him up and it should be wrong, unnatural, to touch someone else’s daemon, but Ed and Al had never followed that rule with each other and she is their Teacher, their Teacher, and the closest thing they have had to a mother, even if he’d never admit it out loud, and the love and care pours out of him and her and she sinks to her knees beside them, hugging him tight, hugging them.

Kiers burrows into her chest and Des tries to climb into her lap, despite being a big black dog larger than Granny’s daemon Den, and she holds them all in arms big enough to swallow the world.

–

Sig’s daemon is a sun bear. Gracia’s is a polar bear. Teacher’s was a grizzly.

It’s no wonder Kiers always copied them, once upon a time, shifting large and unashamed into towering forms because Al was never scared even when he was, legs shaking as he stood between Ed and every danger, even as Ed shoved him back, too.

They were constantly racing to protect each other, to be there for each other, and it kept Ed up at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering what form Kiers would take, if she could settle. What Al was going through, wherever his mind and body were. How it would affect his soul, these years without him, and if Kiers would remember how to be big one day.

He stroked behind her ears, a koala hugged tight to him while Des stood watch, and failed to get any sleep at all.

–

May’s daemon is a small panda, most of the time. He’d thought she was settled, at first, and was relieved to find out she wasn’t.

Ling’s is a snake.

It’s funny what a person’s soul doesn’t say about them.

–

Homunculi don’t have daemons.

Ed reacts to that with all the shivering horror it deserves, once he’s done kicking ass, and it never gets any easier to deal with.

–

Hawkeye’s daemon is a destrier. It makes the most awful noise in the caverns under the city, and Ed and Roy split up without a second fucking thought.

It’s only at the last second that Ed grabs Mustang’s sleeve, and says, voice fierce and low and determined:

“You’d better make it out of this still in two pieces, you bastard.”

Mustang stops. He regards Ed for that one stretching second, no time to waste, something complicated in his eyes. He nods, sharply, and he doesn’t turn back once he sprints off after his wolf daemon.

–

Ed still punches a god.

He punches his father, first, as Des tackles Sigmund teeth first. Usually Des guards his throat, claws ready, using guerrilla ambushes to bite and nip at a predator and maximize his own defense; this time he tackles the white seal with nothing but fury in him.

“Edward? I don’t—understand.” Hohenheim’s voice is soft, wounded. He doesn’t defend himself. “Where’s Alphonse?”

Ed has always hated that question.

–

When he gives up his alchemy, he has no regret in his heart. Des is next to him, as peaceful as he ever is as a lion, and they stare down Truth with a smile on their face and no fear.

No fear.

“We’ll bring him back to you.” He’d said to Kiers once, the promise of a lifetime inscribed with a date in his watch.

He’d left her with May and a sharp glare, left her there to keep her safe, and fought until one arm was shattered and the other pinned to a rock and none of it, not a single ounce of that pain, is fucking anything to the sound of five knives slamming home next to them, the tears in May’s face, the realization that strikes through him as he sees her.

He’d traded this arm for his brother’s soul once and has never regretted, not once, not ever, and he’d give up the fucking other one for her; he struggles and hurts against the metal impaling him, fights to get free.

“No!” He screams, his pupils shrunk with horror and fear, “No, please! Kierkegaard!“

Ed has seen people die; he’s seen the way their daemons crumble into golden dust. He’d rather die himself than see it happen to her, to Al, to them. He’s always known he can get his brother back somehow someway because she’s here, she’s Alphonse, his soul a lifeline in Ed’s arms like a promise.

Kierkegaard steps into a larger form, but it’s not like she’s ever done before; she loses the things that makes her real, the texture to her fur, the color. She steps down on a kitten’s foot and steps up rising, a golden silhouette that stretches and stretches until she looks human, but that’s impossible, that’s–

Daemons can’t do alchemy, obviously, but Kiers looks like Alphonse when she claps.

“Be safe, brothers.” She says and the golden dust crumbles into nothing on the air.

Des screams, a wounded sound, a sound no daemon should ever make, and Ed howls like a trapped animal, mouth open and ragged sound tearing out as his arm– his fucking arm– materializes on the base of his port-scar. He rips his other arm free, unnamed emotions tearing through him– love and grief and rage, a determination so deep it shallowed the sea by comparison–

This arm, an alchemist’s arm, somehow worth an entire soul– somehow worth her— so maybe the alchemy itself was somehow worth both of them, stupid as it was. Ed wasn’t thinking consciously, at that point; Ed was a sea of rage, an ocean of pain, the space between stars hurtling through him as he raced from instinct to instinct like constellations, burning bright until he found the solution.

Des turned into a fucking dragon, large enough to eat the sun, and they unleashed the full fury of their hearts on someone who deserved it, riding that unleashed storm until he found himself back in Truth’s white hall.

Ed’s alchemy was worthless compared to them, to Kiers and Alphonse, and he cut it off as easily as he’d cut off the arm so long ago.

Ed had punched one god and outsmarted another, and Truth smiles and smiles and smiles.

–

Alphonse sits up gasping.

“Brother!” He calls, but Ed’s hand is on his shoulder. More pressing is her.

The two of them had appeared together, in each other’s arms as man and daemon ought to be. The sight was enough to send Ed to his knees beside them.

“Alphonse!” She sobs, shifting forms so rapidly. A rabbit hops in his lap, a monkey holds onto him, and finally a heavy white tiger bowls him over, flesh pressed to flesh all over, and licks his hair and ear and face.

He laughs and he cries and holds her right back.

Behind them, Ed is so relieved and so happy that it feels like it should define him, this final moment. This finally.

Des changes into something with wings, joyous, and Ed wonders if this is it, but of course it’s not.

This moment doesn’t define him. They’re not finished. They’ve still got so much left to do.

Neither of them know who they are; they’ve hardly even had time to ask the question.

–

Winry and Sergius settle early.

She has more or less always known who she was going to be, but it solidifies in the middle of a surgery. He’s some sort of simian, handing her wrench after wrench, as they work until their hands shake trying to keep Edward Elric alive.

Granny can help, of course, but Granny’s hands shake too badly for this kind of precision work, age instead of emotion—though that doesn’t help—and it’s got to be her. It’s got to be her.

It’s horrible, but it feels good—fierce and righteous in her chest. Ed and Al have always had alchemy, but she has this. It’s horrible but it’s good and its hers. She is a doctor.

She has always been a doctor.

With these two hands she can save lives, and she will, goddamnit. She stops the bleeding and she connects the nerves and she ignores how small he is, like this, she ignores the horror and the gore because this is what she does.

Winry keeps Ed alive and her soul settles somewhere in the middle, through the sweat and blood and tears. She only notices afterward.

“What do you think?” Sergius asks, almost nervous. He doesn’t quite reach it, settles somewhere like bashful, and she smiles at him.

“I think it suits us.” She whispers into his fur, hugging him tight, and it doesn’t matter that her voice is wrecked from yelling, that her knuckles are cramped from their work.

This is who they are.

–

Alphonse recovers.

He feels behind. He has scattered memories from his time behind the gate, blurry recollections, but daemons don’t eat and don’t really experience things the same way.

He has so much to do, so much to see! He wants to go everywhere. He never wants to leave his brother’s side.

Kiers re-learns how to be happy, and easy, and how to laugh.

They don’t settle, yet. They probably won’t for a long, long while.

–

A year later, Alphonse performs a surgery.

Regardless of what others might call it—and he will never tell Ed how he’d felt familiar eyes on him, the curious gaze of their asshole god—it’s a surgery, a transplant, and it goes smoothly.

Hawkeye gives Edward something she doesn’t need, and Ed would never regret his sacrifice—would never, ever take it back—but he wasn’t whole, not as Alphonse was, and they’d made that silent promise to each other to regain what they lost.

Ed’s thoughts had never stopped going as fast and bright as liquid gold, as bound lightning, Alphonse’s settling in and around them like quicksilver racing to their alchemical and physical and scholarly conclusions as they fought and lived, but he’d been stymied time and time again by his inability to let reactions flow from his hands, all the knowledge in the world dammed by the need for chalk and willing hands, in an array he couldn’t guide.

When Hawkeye steps away, relieved, Ed grabs Al by the shoulders and looks fiercely into his face, his eyes, checking him over with Des’ concerned snout doing the same, making sure he hadn’t lost anything.

Al smiles and offers him every reassurance. He expects his brother to try it out, immediately, but of course he doesn’t. He rests his forehead against Al’s as Kiers shift into something larger to win the wrestling match with Des.

“It doesn’t matter if it worked or not.” Ed answers simply. “I already told you; I’ve got you, and that’s all I need.”

Al’s heart is warm, but his smile is warmer.

“But you’d be happier with alchemy.”

“I’m happiest with you, stupid.” A fist digs into his hair, gentler than he remembers noogies from the past, but it’s fine, it’s fine. They’ve got all the time in the world to work back up to the level they were before, where Al wasn’t breakable and they stood dead even in a fight. They had all the tools they needed now, a perfectly matched set once more.

Well, except for the leg.

“Mm.” Al concedes, breaking out of the hold and laughing, still reveling in the air he can feel on his skin, on the way he can feel Ed’s embrace, so much clearer than he ever could from the Gate, from the imperfect transference through his daemon alone, a waking dream.

He was wide awake, now.

–

The next day, Mustang annoys Ed somehow.

Ed responds by clapping and chasing the man with fast-moving granite pillars and moving the ground itself, giving chase with a snarl of indignant rage, as Mustang recovers from his shock and lights up the air with fire. You’d think it wouldn’t make a difference, Ed with two arms, but his transmutations are fast and terrifying and Mustang has to pull out all the stops and dirty tricks, and Al can see Ed loving it. Brother always did fight dirty.

They chase and play and Alphonse throws his head back and laughs, until his belly hurts from it, until wonder replaces joy because this is yet another thing he’d forgotten, being so happy that he cries.

It’s only afterward that they notice Des, who had been flying to keep up, seems unwilling to change out of his hummingbird shape.

The first time Ed catches his breath and catches sight of his daemon, he stills.

“Really?” He asks, eyes wide and voice soft. Des lands in his cupped palms, flitting and jewel-bright.

–

Later still, Ed holds Roy’s face in his hands and presses the words into his jaw like a kiss, like a secret.

“Meet Descartes.” He offers, unprompted, his heart on a silver platter, and Roy touches his hair with trembling fingers.

“Ed.” Roy brushes lips against his cheek, his temple. “It is my extreme pleasure to introduce you to the other half of my soul. Meet Arendt.”

Ed snorts, but touches his both—flesh—hands to her soft fur, feels Roy’s breath stutter and heart clench through that connection.

“So dramatic.” He mumbles, and Arendt huffs laughter into his palm.

Roy strokes Des’ breast achingly careful, as if the bird might break under his gentle touch.

“Don’t think this changes anything, bastard.” Des says, flitting around his head, and a blush jumps up in Ed’s cheeks.

Roy smiles faintly.

Through his daemon’s fur, Ed can feel the hope and joy that aches through him, anyway.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

–

Ed and Al still go off into the world, to change it for the better and learn new secrets; they just do it five years later than scheduled.

This time, Ed takes a kiss with him instead of a thinly veiled insult, and promises to call Mustang all the same.

“Come back to me still in two pieces.” He tells them, an echo of a panicked half-declaration on the Promised Day, and Ed snorts at his awful sense of humor and even worse timing.

Roy grins at him, not his smarmy smile; something a little lop-sided, something real.

“Course I will,” He laughs, settling down to pet Arendt and feel Roy’s gut clench with uncomplicated pleasure. “I still owe you 500 cenz.”

“When you get back, I’ll look forward to collecting.” Roy says, throat tight, and the train behind them whistles. Kiers flies in circles above it, Al’s voice calling out to him.

Ed closes his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by the realization that he has everything he wants.

“See you later, bastard.” He smiles, and heads back to where his brother is waiting.

The rest of his life is unfolding in front of him and he can’t say he minds.

The train starts moving, Al’s voice gets high-pitched in worry, and Ed jumps on at the very last second, laughing loud and unashamed. When he looks back, Roy and Arendt are watching and waving, already waiting for his return.

No. Ed can’t say he minds any of this, at all.

Daemon Reference:

• Ed’s daemon: Des(cartes), a hummingbird
• Al’s daemon: Kiers, which is short for Kierkegaard, who will settle as a honeybadger
• Winry and Sergius, who is a chimp probably
• Granny and Den, the dog
• Roy and Arendt, a wolf
• Maes and his emperor penguin, Amelia
• Gracia and her polar bear, Anthony
• Teacher’s grizzly bear, Emerson
• Hohenheim’s harp seal, Sigmund (alchemist’s name their daemons after philosophers and his is 100% after Freud)
• Nina and Alexander, who shifted between random puppy forms until the forced Settling and canon nonsense
• Elicia and Desmond, who will settle into a stoat, if it’s relevant
• Sig and his Sun Bear, Solomon
• Hawkeye and her destrier, Arthur
• Trisha Elric and her small horse daemon, Galen
• May’s will settle into a panda, obviously.
• Ling has a little jeweled snake, who he shares with Greed, named Sun.