Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ By Sightless Lightning ❯ Part IV - Human Transmutation ( Chapter 4 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Edward woke the next morning, muzzy at hearing the clink of metal against metal. There wasn't much that was peculiar in this, as he heard this sound pretty much every time he moved, but what woke him this time was a minor fact pointed out by his sleepy brain, that he hadn't moved. He cracked his eyes open.

At some point in his sleep, he'd thrown out his automail arm and it lay limp and lifeless across the mattress. His brother, tented under the blanket, was scrutinizing the flex of his thumb, bending it so carefully that the motion didn't jar his arm at all.

It was unusual for Alphonse to wake before Edward; for Alphonse to wake first and not immediately rouse his elder brother with his restless fidgeting had never happened before. Still confused with sleep, Edward watched as Alphonse bent his thumb so far back that he would have broken it if he'd picked the other one. He wondered blearily if that was okay on the automail, or if he should rescue it. Despite everything, it had been good to him.

"Al," he murmured, and Alphonse glanced at him, smiled a little, and left off the automail abuse in favor of sliding over to kiss him. Edward encircled his brother's waist without thought, and mmmphed as he was clumsily kissed and pushed onto his back. He suspected that he tasted pretty nasty, but Alphonse didn't seem to mind if that was the case, and as always Alphonse tasted merely ... odd. In his half-awake state, the weight of his brother's body was comfortable and solid, pressing him reassuringly down into the mattress.

Although the bedroom door had no lock - none of the doors had locks - Edward seriously doubted that Russell would come wandering upstairs. There was therefore no reason to exert the effort to stop Alphonse from engaging in an extended ten minutes or so of deep kisses and rubbing against him. Once Edward had cleared a little more of the sleep out of his brain, it occurred to him to wonder why Alphonse seemed so randy; he'd just gotten his brother off the night before. Surely he couldn't want it again already ...

But when Alphonse snuggled close to roll his hips against Edward's thigh, the hard press of his erection was unmistakable.

Damn. He was half-hard already himself, and feeling that just encouraged his body to react further. His mouth was full of Alphonse, and the pocket of air beneath the blanket had grown hot, and scented with sweat and the musk of last night's stale sex, none of which was telling him to mind his own business. He hooked his good leg over his brother's thigh, arched his back to grind his erection into the softness of his brother's belly.

Edward broke the kiss, raising his chin in invitation, and gasped softly when Alphonse's wet mouth moved to his throat. Alphonse kissed Edward everywhere in easy reach, it seemed ... across his neck and chest, over his shoulders and the edge of his automail, his ears and cheeks and occasionally his mouth. The kisses were directionless, going nowhere and intending nothing but to satisfy whatever desire gripped him at the moment.

For all of that, Edward found them priceless, and each one branded itself into his skin.

"Al," he moaned, and in his mind the answer came, Nii-san.

He could tell himself that he didn't enjoy it when Alphonse's mouth fastened to his, and the wet slide of his brother's tongue was against his own. He could claim that the dig of Alphonse's hard penis into his thigh didn't affect him, and that the moist heat of the skin under his hand was nothing. That he submitted to these things in an effort to sort of repay Alphonse somewhat for what Edward had done to him. And, maybe all of it had been true a couple of months ago.

Edward prodded Alphonse to lift himself a bit, and snaked his hand between them; the whimper when he caught his brother's cock was breathed into his mouth and made him moan again. Alphonse began to thrust into his hand immediately, soft cries muffled and his body hot against Edward's, their skin melding together wherever they touched. For a few moments Alphonse forgot to kiss, letting his mouth slide away from his elder brother's in a wet trail over Edward's cheek, and then he was panting hard against Edward's shoulder and groaning in pleasure and coming in a warm rush over Edward's hand.

Most of it got on Edward's leg, and he could feel it drip down the inside of his thigh as his brother kissed the side of his neck and relaxed against him. This dripping was a pretty nasty sensation, ticklish and sticky. It would have made Edward want to come, if he hadn't wanted that already. "What was that all about?" he murmured softly, before worming his hand out from under the blankets to lick it clean. Alphonse offered no reply.

All things being equal, he would have waited until Alphonse was lethargic and pliable, and then sneaked briefly off to masturbate. He remembered perfectly well why he hadn't done that the night before, however (and why had he decided to jack off in front of his brother? Didn't he have more self control than that?), and that situation hadn't appreciably changed overnight. Maybe he could quietly slip past Russell on the pretext of using the bathroom for its original intended purpose, but somehow that struck him as just ... wrong somehow. Touching himself while trusting Russell to look after his brother was ... no.

Obviously the first order of the day would be to get rid of Russell.

Resolve alone allowed Edward to still his breathing and give his brother a nudge. "Hey," he murmured. "Get up."

Alphonse gave a sleepy little grunt and resumed blindly kissing Edward's neck.

"No," he said, and if the word came out accompanied by something like a moan, he could excuse himself for it. "Come on, Al, we need to get up." If Alphonse heard, or understood, there was no sign.

Picking his brother off of him bodily was an option; Edward preferred to squirm out from underneath. This had its own drawbacks, primarily that it was awfully easy to accidentally brush his cock against some part of his brother's body, and secondarily because Alphonse didn't want to release him. Without a lot of clothes for him to grab, however, Alphonse was not coordinated enough to do more than pinch Edward painfully once in the arm.

Edward didn't mind the pinch. He needed to get rid of his erection, and the pain helped.

Eventually, he got himself free and sat at the edge of the bed wiping come off his thigh, and then pulling on his pants. Alphonse lay on his belly, looking unhappy and touching Edward aimlessly on the back. It was a little disgusting to have to put on pants and a shirt before he'd gotten a bath, and this only made him more annoyed at the fact that there was a stranger present in his house.

"What is it?" he asked, ruffling his brother's hair. Alphonse looked thoughtful for a moment, but made no effort to speak, and eventually looked down and touched the back of Edward's leg. Edward smiled at him and kissed the top of his head. "Come on, let's get you dressed."

Edward's annoyance at Russell abruptly spiked as soon as he opened the bedroom door, and he was greeted with what was unmistakably the scent of breakfast.

"He's just making himself at home, isn't he?" said Edward, as he took a step down the staircase and stood there to let his brother brace against him in order to navigate the top step. It was outrageous that Russell should be messing around in Edward's kitchen ... but the salt smell of frying bacon was certainly an interesting one now that the surprise was over, and it made it hard to hold onto that outrage.

Long before they reached the bottom, Alphonse startled, and would have fallen right down the stairs if Edward hadn't caught him. He sort of knew what the cause was before looking, and so there was no real surprise to see Russell standing at the foot of the stairs.

"I made breakfast," said Russell, unnecessarily. Alphonse stared at the other alchemist in shock and seemed to lose concentration for his own balance until Edward snapped his fingers in front of his brother's face.

"Oh, go away," said Edward crossly. "At least until we're downstairs. You're distracting Al."

"Sorry," said Russell. Edward was too busy keeping Alphonse from falling to see Russell leave, but Alphonse calmed quickly and got the rest of the way downstairs without incident.

"Damn him," muttered Edward. His aggravation and the concentration necessary to get Alphonse downstairs had done it for his erection, at least.

As soon as Alphonse caught sight of Russell again in the kitchen, it was as if he'd walked into a basilisk's gaze instead. Edward almost ran into him.

"You remember Russell, don't you Al?" said Edward, pushing his brother bodily toward a chair at the table and forcing him to sit down; Alphonse wasn't resisting so much as just neglecting to cooperate. "You spent more time with his brother than with him, maybe you'd remember better if they'd both come." When he had Alphonse sitting, Edward ran an affectionate hand through sandy hair, and flicked a glance up to check what Russell was doing.

The other alchemist had his back turned, botching around with the stove, and if it was curiosity that was lending the tension to the lines of his back, he still had it mastered.

"See that?" he said, leaning down to speak to Alphonse. "He's going to try to bribe me with breakfast."

"I'm not trying to bribe you," said Russell.

"No? What's with the invasion of my cellar then?"

"Just trying to make up for showing up in the middle of the night and asking favors of you before taking up space on your couch. Equivalent trade."

Edward slid into a chair beside his brother, and said, "Or it would be if that weren't my food to begin with."

"I can't do much about that. I'm not good at transmuting food yet."

Sincerely glad that he hadn't tried, Edward changed the subject. "So, do you always wander around the hinterlands with just the clothes on your back?"

"No." Russell slid something that looked suspiciously like eggs out of a skillet and onto a plate, and offered it to Edward. "I checked into a room at the inn in town before I heard that you were here and came to look for you. I'd expected to be back last night. All my things are there."

Not sure what to anticipate, Edward examined the plate closely, but it was just eggs and bacon, and bread that had been toasted in the skillet and gotten cool long before the rest of the food joined it. He got up to retrieve some silverware and began to cut everything into small pieces for Alphonse. "I'm surprised these eggs were still good." Edward made it a rule to avoid trying to eat any food that wasn't canned or salted or smoked, and which had remained in the cellar from one of Winry's visits to the next.

"They didn't smell bad when I cracked them," said Russell, and Edward decided to try a piece himself before feeding them to Alphonse.

"Nope, still good." He moved the plate over in front of his brother, and had to wave a hand in front of Alphonse's face to get his attention; the fascination of Russell hadn't worn off yet.

At this, Russell did say something. "It's like he doesn't remember that I was here yesterday," he said quietly.

"He doesn't." Edward didn't think that Alphonse had even noticed Russell the night before. "The only person he never forgets about is me."

Why not? What's the matter with him? Are you sure this is your brother? He used to be so intelligent, so well-spoken. An alchemist. Is this maybe actually someone else? The questions lingered, unspoken, and reflected against the quiet, uneasy horror in Russell's eyes. Edward waited for them, and swore that he would break the boy's jaw the instant they were given form. After a moment, however, Russell looked away and cracked another pair of eggs into the hot skillet.

Edward's hackles subsided, and he watched Alphonse eat, slowly and laboriously with his fingers and with much trial-and-error on where those fingers were supposed to go. The egg yolks weren't completely cooked, and there was a lot of mess with them, but Edward made no move to assist, beyond drawing his brother's attention back to the food whenever it wandered.

Although Edward certainly had no intention of telling Russell anything, it was somehow vaguely annoying that the questions weren't being asked.

I transmuted my brother, you know. Twice. I should have stopped at just once, but I didn't. I probably should have stopped at never, actually, but he's my only brother. I was too weak to just let him die. What's worse? A life with no body, or a life with no mind, or no life at all?

Edward bit his lip.

This was the first time since they'd come here that they'd had visitors, he realized suddenly. Winry came and went, of course, but she was more like family, and she knew everything already. She'd held Edward together in that first month or two, in fact, been underfoot way too often and threatened him when he needed it. It was hard to face her sometimes, but he would never have thought of turning her away.

But this was the first time a stranger had wandered into the small, circumscribed universe that Edward had created for himself, out here on the fringes of a town that lay on the fringes of life. He'd felt safe out here, and perhaps he had been ... nobody knew that they were here except for Mustang and a couple of people in Risenbourg. And now Russell Tringham.

I touched him this morning. While you were down here toasting bread maybe, I had my hand between his legs. He had his eyes closed, and he moaned into my ear, and came against me. He can be beautiful when comes, but I try not to look. I don't want to want him.

Edward picked up a bit of toast and wiped it around in the bright yellow puddle of yolk before nibbling it; his fingers still gave off the pollen-scent of semen. The urge to tell Russell everything was stronger than it had any right to be. Russell was nobody, someone whose life he'd briefly touched for better or worse, and who had formed a much stronger opinion of him than he had in reverse. They weren't friends, they barely knew each other.

Russell had no right to know.

I do want him. He's my brother. That would be unnatural and wrong under any circumstances but ...

"Here you go," said Russell, and laid another plate in front of Edward.

It took a moment to rouse himself out of his thoughts, and drive out the sudden spike of desire that was threatening his calm.

"I'm not going to teach you." Edward picked up his knife and fork and moved the eggs and bacon on top of the cold toast, and then crushed it all together to make a kind of sloppy sandwich out if it.

"You said that yesterday." Russell shrugged a little. "I can still hope."

Aggravation flared, for no good reason except that it could; perhaps it was born of something else. "Yeah? Well, it'll be easier on you once you give up hope. You're leaving today, like it or not, and if I ever see you again I think I might break your leg or something."

"You wouldn't do that."

Edward gave him a sharp look and swallowed the bite he'd taken. "You think I wouldn't?" Immediately, Alphonse leaned his head onto Edward's shoulder, which earned him a bemused look and a reflexive stroke through the hair from Edward's automail. "It's okay, Al, I won't break him in front of you." One of Alphonse's hands slid over onto Edward's thigh; Edward discretely pushed it off.

Having turned off the gas and moved the skillet to a cool burner, Russell took a seat at the table as well. "I promise I wouldn't be any trouble. I could just hang around, and you could teach me whenever you felt like it."

"And what if I never feel like it? What if it annoys me that you're here, taking up space and breathing my air? You don't really have any idea what you're asking of me."

"I suppose not." Looking toward the window, Russell said, "I'm always going to be a second-rate alchemist if I don't find someone who can teach me. I just know I could be better, but ..." He trailed off with what sounded to Edward like an overly melodramatic sigh.

Edward took one last bite and dusted off his hands, then stood up and picked up the towel that hung from a peg on the wall. Damping it down, he began to clean smeared egg yolk off Alphonse's face and hands. "There are worse things to be than second-rate," he said, sitting down again beside his brother, the better to reach Alphonse's face. The hand that had been on his thigh returned, and Alphonse leaned against him again. Edward pushed the hand off his leg again, but a moment later it was back.

"You tried to transmute a person, didn't you?" asked Russell.

The motion of the towel stilled, and Edward forgot about his brother's hand for a moment.

"I thought about it last night," Russell continued in a low tone. "That's the only thing I could think of that would be so awful that you wouldn't want to admit to it."

Forcing himself to move, Edward wiped the last bit of yellow off Alphonse's chin. "That's nonsense," he said.

"All right. That's not what I would want to learn, though. I swear."

Edward threw the towel down on the table in annoyance. "You just don't listen very well, do you? I keep saying no, and you keep hearing something else."

"I really need a teacher."

"Okay, here's your first lesson, in how to take 'no' for an answer." Alphonse rubbed his cheek against Edward's shoulder, much in the way that Den would sometimes rub anxiously against Winry when she was upset. The comparison did not improve Edward's temper, although he did spare a moment to pat Alphonse's hand on his leg; he felt his brother's fingertips twitch, and squeeze a little into the inside of his thigh.

"You're a State Alchemist," said Russell, and for the first time Edward detected a hint of desperation, a slight whine to his voice.

"Technically. There are a lot of State Alchemists, pick a different one."

Russell was quiet, looking thoughtfully at his fingernails before saying, "State Alchemists don't follow the same rules as the rest of us."

It took a moment for Edward to understand what Russell was saying, because the way Alphonse was touching him was reviving the erection that he'd thought he'd successfully suppressed, and that was really distracting. When he did understand, he glared furiously. "Don't make excuses for me! I don't need excuses." He thinks I did the transmutation just recently. He doesn't know the original one was years ago. This somehow made it even less tolerable.

When Russell blinked in surprise, Edward realized that he'd given himself away. Dammit. Alphonse's fingers on his thigh, and the effort of not letting it show on his face how this was affecting him, were making it harder to concentrate than he'd realized. "Don't think you can blackmail me," he added furiously. "If you try it, there's no telling what I might do, whether beat the crap out of you for threatening me or laugh in your face because the military already knows."

"I wouldn't do that," said Russell, but Edward kept his doubts. "I don't know what I'm trying to say." He wiped a hand across his face, and said, "I've looked. I don't know how to convince you of that, I've looked for another teacher and I can't find anybody who is both willing to take me, and knows what they're doing."

"You haven't now either."

"Please."

The tone of it, the whole I-need-help-and-I-know-you-help-people tone of Russell's voice, hit Edward all wrong. Perhaps it was at least partially due to the fact that he really, really wanted to come, and that wasn't going to happen for as long as the other alchemist was still present. With Alphonse touching him, it was all he could do to keep from turning to his brother in search of a suffocating kiss; instead, he snapped at Russell.

"I have my hands full here," he said. "I just don't have time to deal with you. And I'm tired of arguing, I'm not going to change my mind anytime today or ever." He wanted Russell out of the house. Immediately. "Thanks for making breakfast. And thanks for visiting. You know where the door is."

Edward winced a little at how cold his tone was, but he wasn't going to take it back.

For an instant, Russell looked like he might want to argue further; then he nodded a little and moved toward the kitchen door. "I'm sorry," was all he said.

Edward listened to Russell move around the house; then he said, "Come on, Al," and stood up. He tugged on his brother's elbow in encouragement, because Alphonse seemed a little lost; perhaps Russell's exit had confused him.

By the time Edward had gently talked his brother into standing up, the front door had opened and closed. As they moved haltingly toward the library, Edward saw that Russell's raincoat was gone. He checked out the window anyway, once he had Alphonse settled on the library couch, and saw a tall, slender figure retreating down the lane toward town.

"Good riddance," he said. The weight of his desire to confess everything had lifted with Russell's departure, and he hoped he never felt anything like it again. "It's just not right," he said, sitting down beside Alphonse, who was offering him a loose smile. "Our secrets are ours, right? Just for us. Nobody else is supposed to know. Nobody else needs to know."

Alphonse made a vague gesture with one hand, the purpose of which was unclear, and then repeated it once before laying his hand on Edward's knee.

There was really no reason for that to set off Edward's erection again, but it did. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again his brother was looking at him with bland curiosity.

Don't touch him. Alphonse had just come an hour earlier, and the night before besides. He wasn't giving Edward one of those expectant looks, or touching him out of anything but a childish, innocent need for physical contact. If Edward were to walk away, no doubt Alphonse would occupy himself with picking at the upholstery or something like that, or perhaps devise one of his repetitive games.

Alphonse wasn't the one whose skin was burning with desire.

"Talk to me," murmured Edward, and he couldn't help but ease a little closer. "Please, Al. Tell me you hate me, tell me you never want to look at me again." His hand slipped up his brother's arm, and Alphonse tilted his head to one side in a parody of listening ... but he wasn't listening at all, of course, only trying to reach Edward's hand with his cheek. Edward obliged by cupping Alphonse's cheek, rubbing his thumb over his brother's mouth and letting his fingers rest on the line of his brother's jaw. Alphonse smiled and affectionately lipped his thumb; it cracked Edward's resolve, never very adamant where his brother was concerned.

"You're more responsible than I am," he whispered, leaning closer. "I need you to be responsible for me. I want to kiss you. I want to ..." What? Edward wasn't sure, and swallowed hard. "Talk to me. Tell me to stop."

But Alphonse had not told Edward to stop for years, and in recent months of course he wasn't telling Edward much of anything at all. There was no one left to remind Edward of what a bad idea it was to slide a hand under his brother's knee, pull his leg up onto the back of the couch to turn Alphonse sideways, and crawl forward between his brother's thighs. No one whispered Stop when he touched his lips to Alphonse's, and opened his mouth when Alphonse did.

He should stop, of course. He should take himself to another room, jack off, relieve the warm ache in his cock that was only being exacerbated by the way Alphonse squirmed in his arms ... then he could come back, and deal with his brother like a human being again. Knowing what he should do didn't help, and only made him tremble with guilt as hesitant, aimless touches landed on his back.

He should push himself up ... just like that ... and move off his brother and onto the floor. That would be the first step, and he could imagine himself doing it so vividly that he could almost believe that he had. And perhaps he did manage to pull back a little bit, before a moist hand curled around his braid and held him; another fisted in the back of his shirt.

"Al," he breathed. The word was almost a groan, and he ground his erection into his brother's groin. Everything he shouldn't be doing. As if in response, the fist in his shirt tugged a little, dragging the lightweight fabric across the skin of his back. A knuckle brushed the edge of his automail, where the scar was painfully sensitive, and he hissed with pleasure.

"Stop," he said, and finally someone had. "Let me go, Al." He hiked himself up, panting hard, wanting so much to just sink back down into his brother's warmth and give in to the lure of the thighs around his waist and that searching mouth. It would be difficult to escape the grip his brother had on him, but maybe he could slither out of his shirt ...

A sudden hard yank on his braid made him forget that plan. "Al," he said, trying to sound exasperated, but he suspected that he mainly succeeded in sounding desperate. How he wanted ... A second yank brought tears to his eyes, and his head down to his brother's throat; Alphonse was turning his chin to one side and making an annoyed sound. Trapped, Edward obediently began to mouth the side of Alphonse's neck, disturbed but somehow unsurprised when his brother's legs tangled through his. With their groins pressed together, he could feel his brother's penis against his, and it was only half-hard, nowhere near full arousal.

It was disturbing because it stripped him of his excuses, showed the lie that his motivation for molesting his brother was something other than his own lust. Alphonse was compliant, and probably he even liked being touched this way, but he wasn't the one in need.

Edward could have cried, but with his one effort at stopping himself thwarted, there was no way he could have tried again.

Thrusting helplessly against Alphonse's body, Edward felt his clothes sticking to his skin, and he was so hot ... he couldn't breathe properly anymore. Alphonse groped awkwardly across his back, plucking at his shirt, and eventually Edward made the effort to shed the garment. The grip on his braid meant that it couldn't go anywhere, really, but he wanted air against his skin because he was so hot, and he wanted his brother's hands on him. He had to brace himself on his knees to unbutton Alphonse's shirt.

"Mmmm," said Alphonse, as Edward tongued across his collarbone.

Not here, screamed Edward's better sense as he fumbled with his own belt with his left hand, but Alphonse still had him leashed by his braid ... and in any case he wasn't sure he was capable of the self-control necessary to move elsewhere. He needed to come, and he wanted it with his brother touching him. It was horrible to want it, and it seemed he could have torn the guilt physically out of his gut, but he did want it.

He wanted his brother's lips on his chest, sucking his nipple as he masturbated, as they'd done the night before, but the way they lay together made that problematic to arrange. So Edward settled for locking their mouths together, which made him breathe hard through his nose and cut off a lot of his air. He was light-headed by the time his hand found his cock, and his back arched in desire ... everything was okay. He could feel and smell and taste Alphonse, and hear and taste his brother's moans, everything was there, and everything was Alphonse.

Suddenly but not unexpectedly, Edward's mind blanked out, which was a damned relief, and a precarious moment of tension later he was climaxing across his brother's exposed belly. He wanted to collapse afterward, sprawl across the body between his hands and catch his breath, but there seemed to be a good reason not to; he remembered what the reason was when Alphonse dragged his free hand in a broad swath through the mess and lifted it to his lips.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing he could say. There came no reply - no forgiveness, no condemnation - only the wet sound of slow licking. "I'm sorry."

"Mmmm," said Alphonse, and finally the deathgrip on Edward's braid was released, in favor of using both hands to mop the semen off his belly. Edward sat up, wiping a hand over his hair and surveying his brother with dismay. Smoky grey eyes smiled up at him, the very picture of a victim of defilement.

Edward wanted to stop his brother from doing that ... watching that innocence lick up his come was disquieting ... but there seemed little point to it now, with most of it gone already. "We should go clean up," he said, once he felt less breathless. Alphonse grinned happily, and threw his arms around Edward's neck.

"Come on," said Edward again, but he did smile a little, secretly, into his brother's arm. It was hard to hold onto his guilt when Alphonse seemed so happy.

He figured it would be easiest to masturbate his brother in the bath, assuming that Alphonse held onto his arousal.



The mailman came while they bathed; Edward heard the man clunking around at the door, and then the quiet scuff of a letter coming through the mail slot and landing on the floor. He normally hid from the mailman anyway, so he didn't pause in scrubbing Alphonse's hair, except to make sure nobody was actually coming in the house.

Once they were both clean and dressed, though, and things were back to normal, he picked up the letter as he took his brother outside.

The sun was out, presiding over a wet landscape and air that was just this side of bitterly cold. Edward put both of them into their coats - putting on his own coat was okay, he'd discovered, as long as he dressed Alphonse in his own first, and made it very clear that he was taking his brother with him when he left the house. It was early afternoon already, the shadows beginning to sundial across the ground toward evening. Alphonse was too restless to sit in his chair on the porch, and crouched on the bottom step to favor the puddle of water with his full attention.

Edward sat in the chair instead, and rocked a little as he examined the envelope - it was Mustang's handwriting - and then slit it open.

He saw the words "regret" and "report back" in a flash, and the bottom fell out of his stomach. It didn't start to come back even after he'd read the letter twice through.

It was a strangely formal letter, very unlike Mustang's earlier inquiries.

Major Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist
Risenbourg
Amestris

Fullmet al,

As you know, your accumulated leave has been exhausted. Although I permitted you additional time to care for Alphonse beyond the exhaustion of your leave by commanding officer's prerogative in light of the extenuating circumstances involved, it's my regret that I must inform you that you have also reached the limit of that extension as well.

You are to report back for duty in Central City Headquarters at your earliest opportunity, and under no circumstances any later than the 27th of this month.

I did what I could, and I hope this was enough time.

Colonel Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist
Central City Headquarters
Amestris