I missed my June update.

I got a new gaming/video editing computer and I've been practicing with Adobe Premiere and playing Dragon Age 3.

Then my car broke and I had to buy a new one. This one lets me play my heavy metal through the stereo!

Needless to say, I've been distracted.

So, here is the late but scheduled one-shot/first chapter and, per routine, it is full of medical grotesqueness and angst and... stuff.

I need to go pick up pizza and go home so I can watch HAMILTON!

"Playing it awfully close. A few years ago, we didn't have this. We probably would have had to put him under. All the way under."

"Technically, we don't have this. This procedure is still experimental. You know what his outcome looks like. He probably won't thank us for saving him once he sees what we had to do."

The first person, a lady by the sound of it, snorted dismissively.

"He doesn't have to thank us. As long as he pays us, he can rip himself open again on the rocks and die there for all I care."

If they knew he was awake, they didn't show it.

She was patting his stomach, right between his left hip and ribcage, where the pain was still there, dulled by drugs but powerful enough to continue to throb.

The lady stepped away, still talking to her companion. They'd lowered their voices; his senses weren't strong enough to make out what they were saying.

Perhaps they did know he was awake.

With a tremendous effort, he pulled his eyes open. It felt like his eyes had been glued shut and he had to tear the hardened paste apart.

He wasn't staring directly at the ceiling, his head had been propped up by pillows or maybe the bed, if it was one of those reclining frames. What he could see was fuzzy and doubled. It was a plain room, undecorated and bearing no hints of where he might be. The man and woman at the far end of the room looked like unbaked gingerbread folk.

He had blankets, but they'd been folded down to his legs, and the thin shirt they'd given him was pulled up to his chest, exposing his abdomen. He watched himself breathe, fascinated by the way his torso would rise and fall without him having to think about, and tried to remember how to think.

He was so distracted by his lack of remembrance of the process of thought and the unmonitored functioning of his body that it took him quite a while to notice the crimson bloom sprouting from the far side of his midriff.

They'd planted a rose in his stomach.

Had that been what the patting had been about? The woman had been settling the flower in its new pot, the way his mother would situate the tomato shoots in the spring.

Reflexively, he tried to raise his right hand so as to touch this addition to his person.

His arm was gone.

How inconvenient.

His left arm was still here, and though sluggish and clumsy, it was obedient enough. Shakily, he guided his hand by sight more than feel, as he was unable to feel most of his body, to the rose buried in his belly, not sure what to expect but most certainly not expecting what he felt.

It was squishy and warm, not at all like the roses he'd touched in his life. The sensation was surprisingly grotesque, like fondling a giant worm, and he took his hand away in disgust.

His fingers were tipped with red.

The rose was bleeding.

And then the lady was back and she was wiping his bloody fingers with a rust-stained rag.

"I'd advise you not to touch it. You're at quite the risk of infection and with how weak you are right now it won't take much to bump you from a bed to a box."

He stared at the rose made of blood and at the old woman cleaning his hand, and the longer he stared the more awake he came, the more he understood what he was seeing, and then the Fullmetal Alchemist was shrieking, a gargled, feeble shriek no louder than a puppy's cry.

The woman squeezed his hand, not out of sympathy but as a reprimand.

"Hush. It was either cut out the thing you turned your intestines into or let you die of toxic shock. You wanted us to save you, didn't you? Well, we have, and this is part of the price."

XXX

One of the nice things about living in a town of shepherds was that wool and its products were relatively cheap.

Mrs. Buxton (a name that adamantly described the woman, though only her husband dared say so) didn't ask for details when Edward Elric made a "personal request for a custom order." Perhaps he shouldn't have tried so hard to keep the explanation so formal, because when he arrived at her little quilting shop four days later to pick up his "personal custom order," the farmwife had concluded an explanation for herself.

"You know, darling, if you really want to commit to her, you ought to take the previous step first."

"Huh?" Ed looked up from his inspection of one the double-layered cloth pouches in the basket.

"Well, it's not proper, for starters. I know your parents didn't have the ceremony, but everyone knew, and the important thing was that they acted the way, until he left her, the scoundrel – well, I thought he was scoundrel, we all did, but that was before he came back to her, though it was far too late for him to take up being the gentleman and not just because your mother had passed, gods rest her soul –"

It wasn't until that moment that Edward realized what Mrs. Buxton was insinuating.

"I – what?!"

"Well, I'm just saying, it's just the kinder, righter thing to do, and it'll give her comfort to know that you want her for the result as well as the act –"

Ed's face had turned the color of a ripe beet.

"What?! No, no, that's not –"

Mrs. Buxton raised a bushy eyebrow.

"You don't want to conjugate the Rockbell girl?"

"I do! I mean, I think I –"

Ed struggled for breath and words, then sighed dejectedly.

"They're not for that."

He should have just taken the basket and left but Mrs. Buxton was looking at him expectantly and he knew that if he left without providing an alternative purpose for the woolen sacks, she would (understandably) assume that he'd lied to save face. As kind as she was, Ed knew what country women often turned to gossip for entertainment, and he didn't need to deal with that sort of story soaking into the population of Risembool… again.

So he defaulted to the method he'd used when he'd needed those around him to be aware of his automail – he showed her.

And like with his automail, he closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the reaction.

It wasn't so bad when the response was enthusiastic or even fascinated, but more often than not he received exclamations of horror or worse, pity.

He let Mrs. Buxton stare and when he felt she'd stared enough, he pulled his shirt down and opened his eyes. The woman's expression was disturbed but he could tell it wasn't nearly as so as in the first moments of seeing.

"I was in an accident. The rubber chafes on my stomach. It's just kind of annoying."

Mrs. Buxton didn't ask what kind of "accident" he'd been in, she didn't need to. She knew his past as well as anyone else in the village. Ten minutes later, he left the shop, basket full of woolen pouches and a smaller wicker basket full of brown eggs. It wasn't uncommon for stores in farming villages to sell surplus crops and animal products alongside their chosen craft. Mrs. Buxton had given Edward all of her extra eggs from that morning free of charge.

Ed had refused but the woman had insisted and the look of pity – not sympathy, but crooning, frightened pity – had convinced him to take the gift so that he could leave the shop and the awkward atmosphere within it.

Edward returned to his house about two hours after he'd left. It was quite the walk from the Rockbell house to the Buxton farmstead, but Ed enjoyed the quiet and solitude and the excuse to move his body. His muscles were used to being pushed far beyond their limits, and between Alphonse's inability to spar during his recovery and the peace of valley life, Ed's limbs (including his metal one) were positively sparking with the need for exertion.

Den met him in the front yard, barking excitedly, and Pinako stepped onto the porch obediently to greet the newcomer the dog had announced.

The old woman waited for her surrogate grandson to meet her on the steps of the porch before speaking.

"We have plenty of eggs."

"We do now," he answered, ever the wiseacre. "She insisted," he added as an explanation.

Pinako cocked a brow, obviously wondering what Edward had done to cause a farmwife to thrust a basket of eggs in his face but didn't ask. She knew that if it concerned her, Edward would tell her, and if it didn't concern her, she didn't need to know.

Ed stepped passed her into the house. He heard a knife against a cutting board in the kitchen. The source of the sound proved to be his little brother beheading and deboning trout.

"Whoa, Al! That's a real haul!"

Alphonse glanced up from his work and gave his brother his trademark charming smile.

"I used the pickled roe from Mr. Downes. It really does work like a miracle."

He saw the eggs in his brother's basket and his expression turned bemused.

"Mrs. Buxton insisted," he answered without having to ask what Al's question was. "I guess she had more eggs than she could stand."

Al accepted this with a "hmm" of consideration.

"I have an idea. Just let me see if we have any onions or dill."

Ed watched his brother set down the knife and turn to the sink to wash the fish blood of his hands.

Every move Al made, every breath he took, every beat of his heart, was a pure joy to witness. The rubber could rub blisters into Ed's skin for all he cared, it was worth every callous and scar.

XXX

"Is it good? Was it good?!"

It was delicious.

Al had always been self-conscious about his cooking, even in the armor. Ed guessed this was because his lack of taste and smell made it impossible for him to know if what he made was edible and the habit had carried over into his human body.

"Is it –"

"If it wasn't good, we wouldn't have eaten it," Pinako pointed out gruffly, tactful as always. Her pipe wiggled between her teeth above her cleaned plate, they'd decided to eat outside on the porch, taking advantage of the beautiful evening.

Al pouted, the only thing in the world that was both obnoxious and wonderful (accept perhaps Winry, but it was terribly complicated).

"How do I know you're not just saying that to be nice?"

"Because Ed loved it and he's never nice," Winry reasoned. Ed glared at her.

Terribly complicated.

Al chewed on his lip, cogitating, then brightened. "You're right. He's horrible."

Winry laughed and Pinako smiled.

Infuriatingly complicated.

Edward had never heard of, let alone ever considered, the idea of fish-and-egg sandwiches, where the eggs were fried and one was placed on the plate, the fish on top of it, and a second egg on top of the fish. Al said he'd found it in a Cretian cookbook, which answered several questions. Cretians were infamous for their ridiculous yet delectable cuisine.

Ed made a show of pushing away from the table and grabbing one of the remaining bread rolls from the basket and marching into the house, stuffing the bread in his face as he went. He could hear Winry and Alphonse laughing from the second floor.

XXX

The first days had been agony.

The nurse said it was the stretching and pulling of scar tissue as his intestines remolded themselves and it would take some time for the pain to completely disappear.

"Sometimes it takes years for the scars to finish settling. You'll just have to put up with it."

Edward had been shivering with pain, sweat sticking his bangs to his forehead.

He said nothing.

He had nothing to say.

The woman rolled her eyes.

"It's not that awful. Just empty the pouch twice a day and clean it once a week. It should be easy enough to get you a spare one. Clean the stoma when you empty the pouch and watch out for itchiness or burning. The pouch could be leaking or the stoma could be getting infected. That's what the books say, anyway, for whatever they're worth."

Nothing besides the chattering of Ed's teeth.

The woman huffed.

"Well? Are we clear or do I have to repeat myself? The radio is about to broadcast and I'd rather not miss it –"

"There's a hole in me."

Somehow saying it made it more real than seeing it or touching it. Now that he'd acknowledged its existence, he would never be able to pretend it simply wasn't there. It was distressingly similar to when he'd woken up to find his arm and leg gone.

The woman grinned sardonically.

"Yes, you have a stoma and you will have it for the rest of your life. Other than that, I daresay nothing else about your life has changed."

And then she'd left him there, lying in his bed without his shirt, staring at the belt strapped around his abdomen, just above his belly button, and what looked like a rubber lung from a probably now dysfunctional respirator that was being held in place by it.

"There's a hole in me."

XXX

He hadn't been able to keep it a secret from his brother.

Al had needed him nearby to sleep through night in the hospital.

Nightmares were Alphonse's new companion in the night and he would often wake up wailing, calling for his brother and his mother, occasionally even his father. Ed had heard him shout for the posthumous Brigadier General Hughes, and though Ed couldn't be sure, he thought he'd heard a cry for the now Brigadier General Mustang.

Edward would crawl into his brother's bed, mindful of the intravenous lines snaking through the sheets and hold Al's trembling human body until the sun crossed the horizon.

Sometimes it had been Edward seeking comfort, needing a reminder that it was over and what happened next… it hadn't mattered what happened next.

Ed stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink.

This was what happened next.

It was a bit early to empty it, but he was eager to try Mrs. Buxton's covers. She'd already made him some sleeves that he could slip the harness through to keep the leather from biting into his skin (he ended up needing quite a few, as the wool would collect sweat and at the end of a summer day, the smell was atrocious).

Edward pulled his shirt over his head and quietly went about the business of unlatching the pouch from the harness (courtesy of the town leatherworker, it was far better than the makeshift one he'd worn for a nearly a year after the surgery) and turning it inside out into the toilet (a luxury in such a small village, automail was quite a profitable business), then pulling the chain and dabbing around the red circle with gauze wet with alcohol (he'd quickly become numb to the sting). It was a simple matter of pulling the wool cover over the rubber and clicking the pouch back into place.

Ed closed his eyes and sighed.

The absence of the sensation of rubber against his skin was magnificent.

Still though, he should probably rub some petroleum into the friction burns. It would take more than some wool to get rid of them.

XXX

He hadn't been able to hide it from the nurses and doctors.

Many of them took advantage of examining his body for infection and poor healing to study the anomaly that was his physical form.

They had, of course, been sworn to secrecy about the Fullmetal Alchemist's right arm, but Ed had doubted it mattered. Central Headquarters was a smoking crater a mile wide, an amputee apparently magically regaining his missing limb would probably be the last thing on the public's mind.

Edward had had to verbally request (demand) that they not say anything about the contraption around his stomach. The ones who knew what it was would give him advice and help him maintain it. Ed didn't mind them. The ones who didn't know stared at best and asked questions at worst. Ed tried not to mind them.

He hadn't been able to hide it from Alphonse, either.

His baby brother had had to relearn how to sleep, and with sleep came dreams, and in those dreams were nightmares.

Colonel Mustang had been pivotal in convincing the staff to allow the brothers to share a room; they had been reluctant because of Al's susceptibility to illness because of his malnourished condition. Al was basically allergic to everything; his body had forgotten how to deal with existence and couldn't tell dust from bleach.

They had expected as much, but it didn't lessen Edward's heartache that Alphonse's first sensation he refamiliarized was pain.

Al would cry out in the night because of nightmares, would cry out in the day from the stinging, itching rashes all over his body, would cry out because he could, could feel the sound in his throat and the tears on his face.

And Ed would hold him, his own bed forgotten, always mindful of the lines of fluids shunted into his brother's skin.

Sometimes, Al would do the holding and Ed would do the crying. He had forgotten how to cry in the years since their mother's death, had forced himself to forget, forced himself to be strong.

Edward taught Alphonse how to cry again and Alphonse taught Edward how to do it properly.

They had been lying together silently in the night, Al pawing at Ed's body, taking in the feel and smell of his big brother, the warmth of his skin and the sound of his breath.

Alphonse's fingers danced over the strap around Ed's waist.

"What happened, Brother?"

Ed wasn't sure of exactly when Al had seen it the first time, Al always seemed either asleep or inside his own mind except for in moments like these, where he could practice being human with the only person in the world who truly knew him.

Ed hadn't been sure of exactly how long it would take for Al to muster the nerve to ask him.

Ed hadn't been sure if he could muster the nerve to tell him.

He must have though, because he'd told Alphonse everything, and when he was done telling they both did the holding and the crying.

XXX

"Are you hurting?"

Edward looked up from the mug of hot chocolate he'd been nursing. He smiled lovingly at his brother.

"Are you?"

Alphonse smiled back and sat down on the porch steps next to Ed, his own mug in hand. The stars were always beautiful in the country. It was a bit warm for hot chocolate but Edward had wanted something sweet and Al had obliged him.

"I'm achy. In a good way," he added before Edward could even begin to consider panicking. "The kind of achy that tells me my sleep will be good tonight."

Ed sipped his drink before giving his own answer.

"I burned my tongue on the first swallow, but other than that, I'm fine."

Al's brows crinkled in worry and Ed sighed.

"Dinner is sitting fine. It's only really rich foods that hurt."

The nurse had been right, the scar tissue was still there after all these months, though it wasn't nearly as stiff as it had been. When he ate a particularly large meal or food that was hard to digest, his guts would pull against the scars that hadn't yet softened. The pain could be enough to only make him sit for a few minutes until it passed or terrible enough to make him hug himself and break into a shivering sweat.

At best, it was like he'd swallowed a sharp rock. At worst, it was like his guts were angry vipers trying to tear each other to pieces with their fangs.

There was nothing he could do about it but bear with it until it faded. It was consoling to know that it would most likely stop completely in the years to come.

They looked up at the stars and said nothing for a while.

"Are you going to tell Winry?"

"When it feels right."

When I'm ready. When she's ready. When we're both ready.

"What about Granny?"

"I would if I knew how. I still don't know if she'd not care or kill me."

Al chuckled and wrapped an arm over Ed's shoulders.

Ed let himself be held.

They spoke of other things until they were ready to go back inside.

XXX

Lions couldn't purr. They were far too large for that.

His fur was soft, though. Softer than he'd thought. He'd always assumed it would be rough, like sheep's wool.

Neither of them had ever spoken of these moments.

The chimera man would come in to check on Edward's progress, whether out of true concern or boredom Ed would never be sure. He would see Ed shaking, sucking air through his teeth, his arms wrapped over his ruined innards and shaking, shaking and gasping in place of sobbing, wet with tears and sweat.

When the pulling and the pain became too much, too much for Edward to bear or too much for Heinkel to watch, the man would shrug out of his shirt and shift, sprouting whiskers and fangs and mane.

He would bend over the cot, wet nose moving as he sniffed instinctively at the smell of sickness and sweat and medicine and fear, and Ed would reach up his quaking arm and run his trembling fingers through the tickly fur.

It was like petting Den when he was a child after being scolded particularly harshly by Granny.

He may have shoved his face into the lion's mane once or twice. If he had, it had been when the agony had been so awful, he'd been sure he was dying and could barely quiet his weeping.

Heinkel had never said a word. Ed knew he never would.

XXX

Winry had noticed he had stopped taking his shirt off in front of her.

When pressed, he would simply say that now that his real arm was back, she didn't need him to remove his shirt to maintenance his remaining automail.

She accused him of being shy.

He'd accused her of being hormonal.

She'd hit him with her wrench.

They'd both screamed when the blow reopened the scar above his eye and blood poured down his face.

Then he'd had to remove his shirt to change into one that wasn't covered in blood, though he did this in the bathroom where she couldn't see his new scars.

In any other relationship, these interactions would be considered battery, barring the fact that the one being battered was the man. But then, Edward and Winry had grown battered, and so treating each other in such a way was par the course in the world they lived in. An outsider looking in might find this very sad, but they had never known much different. Winry never meant to draw blood, but sometimes she would knock a healing injury or one that healed messily and the wound would break open and she was always apologetic and quick to stop the bleeding when it happened.

Most things about their relationship were strange to those who didn't know them.

So on nights when they were feeling particularly lonely or reminiscent of their hardships or simply cold, it was perfectly acceptable for Ed to crawl into Winry's bed as the moon began to rise in the sky. Alphonse would never be far behind him.

Then they would have to do some squirming and maneuvering, because Al was always in the middle and Ed was always on the edge and Winry was always by the window (Al was still struggling to keep his body temperature where it should be, Winry liked to hear the night birds and insects while she slept, and Ed had a habit of sticking out his metal leg when he was sleeping).

And that was how they were, two hours after they'd finished their cocoa, Edward snoring as he always did and he and Winry holding Alphonse between them, with trusty Den at their feet.

XXX

Edward flipped through the book, searching for any tidbits that might be useful to getting their bodies back. His brother sat beside him, wholly human (though Ed's mind did not seem to think this detail was important) and asked if the book said anything about frogs. Edward glanced at the pages and found them to be full of pictures of Roy Mustang making various poses and what little text there was appeared to be a recipe for laundry detergent.

Ed would later wonder if it was his brain attempting wash away the images his subconscious had created.

In the moment, Ed had apologized, showing Al the contents, to which Alphonse responded to by snatching the book out of his hands and screeching like a train pulling into the station while bodily shredding the book with his hands…

…then they were on a train and Edward was trying to write his report.

Mustang was there, and he kept on shouting at Ed to redo it, that it was too sloppy, that his handwriting was horrendous, and in a fit of rage and frustration, Ed stood up and dropped his pants, proceeding to urinate on the papers and the colonel –

Edward jolted awake and was barely able to roll off the bed and sprint/waddle to the water closet before he wet himself. That was what he got for drinking something that was three-fourths sugar before going to sleep.

The look on Mustang's face in his dream had been worth it, though.

It took him almost an hour to get back to sleep, and when he finally did, Den had plopped himself over his ankle…

…Little Envy, in his true form, lay snaked around his leg like a docile dragon. He wondered what the other Homonculi had looked like in their true forms. As if in answer, Greedling appeared (Ed defaulted to Greedling because he couldn't tell if it was Greed or Ling) and transformed into a frog. He then went on to explain that they were all actually various types of reptiles and amphibians, except for Father because he was a mink. Said mink then showed itself and stood on its hind legs to perform an impressive Mayday jig.

The frog asked him why he wasn't dancing.

Edward said he didn't know how to dance, which was true enough.

This answer did not please the Homonculi. Greedling/Frog insisted that he must dance and Envy wriggled on his ankle.

Edward protested, repeating that he did not know to dance nor did he care for dancing.

The frog's demands intensified and the mink danced harder. At some point that Ed hadn't seen, he'd donned a white dress coat and equally white fedora. As Ed watched, puzzling over wear the clothes had come from, the mink's teeth, eyes, and claws started to grow, bulging from its tiny body. The frog quickly followed suit, taking on the appearance of some sort of amphibious dinosaur, still commanding Edward to dance…

…it was getting darker, the shadows were lengthening and thinning like the silhouette of city at sunset…

…the eyes and teeth were everywhere, everywhere, he was tangled in the tendrils, he couldn't get away, they were wrapped around his arms and legs and pinning him down…

"Mmm… Brother? You okay?"

… He started to kick and flail as best he could, the teeth around his leg snarled and nipped at him…

"Brother, stop kicking Den. Brother? Ed, wake up!"

… It was going to break into his brain, it was going to eat his mind, steal everything he knew, rip him open and leave his empty carcass to dry and crumble…

"Brother, wake up, you're dreaming. It's okay, we're at home –"

"Huh… Al? Whassit?"

… The pointed faces pressed against his body, searching for the best place to bit, the soft part of his belly that would spill his organs if it was torn; in a surge of terrified adrenaline, he pulled his left arm free and swatted desperately at the serpentine heads…

"Brother's having a nightmare."

"Have you tried waking him up?"

"What do you think I've been trying to do, give him a massage?!"

…He regained enough control over his fine motor skills to get his hand around one of the snake-like maws, it felt oddly fuzzy and squishy but Ed was too frightened to ponder it…

"Brother, no!"

"Al? What's going on? What's he doing?"

… Edward tried to pry the teeth away from his skin and the jaws snapped down, catching on his belly and sending sharp pain spearing through him; the stinging added strength to his panic and he pulled harder, harder, harder…

"Brother, you're going to –"

Edward yanked the rubber pouch, wool cover and all, in a burst of pain and a shriek of terror.

XXX

Edward was sitting up in bed, shaking and sweating, his tummy throbbing and quickly turning wet. Al was desperately pressing the sheets against his waist, the fabric closest to his skin darkening in the moonlight.

"Shit, Brother!"

That got Ed's mangled attention. Edward could count on one hand how many times he'd heard Alphonse swear, and this was the first time Ed had heard him say that word.

He could hear peepers singing in the pond. That explained his brain's seemingly unprompted obsession with frogs.

"What? What's going on? Al? Ed?!"

Edward was not fully awake. He stared dumbly at the soiled sheets pressed against his stomach, then stared at the wool-covered leather in his hand.

He slowly woke up enough to realize what had happened.

Alphonse was frantically looked around, as if he expected the next step in this process to be handed to him.

"Um… um… okay… it's okay…"

They all knew anything that made Alphonse say "shit" was far from okay. Winry, a physician from birth, looked over Al's shoulder and studied what she could see in the moonlight. She crawled over the boys and out of the bed and grabbed the kerosene lamp from atop her dresser. She lit it with a match and turned the wick down, making sure to adjust the mirror before she brought as near the bed as she dared without risking dripping oil or igniting the sheets.

She saw the combination of red and green. She was too stricken by fear and her surgical instincts to notice the pouch in Ed's hand.

"We need to get him to the bathroom. I'll get the bandages and alcohol. Al, get Granny once you get Ed to the bathroom."

"No!"

The protest startled her and she glanced up, noticing for the first time that Ed was holding something.

"It's not that bad. Really!" he answered her consternated expression. "It… I just need to get to the W.C. and clean up –"

"Ed, you are bleeding from your intestines! I can see the digestive juices!"

Al wrinkled his nose. She didn't need to mention that they could smell vomit and blood.

"What's that in your hand?"

Ed glanced at the pouch as if he didn't know what it was.

"It's… it's a…"

"Can we discuss this when you're not squirting bodily fluids all over me?!" Alphonse barked, a smattering of his brother's temper smoldering awake. "I'll take him to the water closet," he said to Winry, nudging his brother off the bed with the pressure he was putting on the blankets. "You get the suture kit and the alcohol. Trust me," he said when Winry opened her mouth to question him.

She trusted him.

XXX

Alphonse's spine ached from bending over his brother by the time they reached the washroom. Al practically threw Edward onto the toilet and dared to take his hands away for the first time since this catastrophe began.

If he'd been anyone else, he probably would have retched, or at least gagged.

Being who he was, he simply returned the fabric to the bit of sliced gut sticking out of his brother's belly.

"It doesn't look to bad. I think it's bleeding more because it's long instead of deep." They probably still couldn't bandage it, though. Al didn't want to risk irritating the ho – stoma, it was called a stoma – anymore than could be helped.

Edward had started shivering ever so slightly, just enough for Al to notice by the tiny vibration against his fingers and the stutter of his brother's jaw. He had seen Ed in shock many times and knew that Ed knew how to deal with it, but it still hurt to see him have to deal with something that should have been left behind.

Winry came in, a small leather case in one hand and the lit lamp in the other, the bottle of surgical alcohol sloshing in between her arm and ribs. Ed and Al's night vision had still been strong enough for them to be able to make their way from the bedroom to the bathroom, but Al and Winry would need more light for this.

"Al…"

Alphonse looked into his brother's wide eyes and saw what Edward was struggling to say.

"Thanks, Winry. You can –"

As if she hadn't heard him, Winry grabbed the sheets in Al's hands and tried to tug them away.

"Winry!" Al exclaimed.

"Al!" Winry countered. "I have to see where he's bleeding from if I'm going to stitch him!"

"I can stitch him. You go back to bed. You've been working on automail all day –"

"What's gotten into you? Both of you?!"

"Brother… he… he's been…"

"I'm fine, Win," Ed managed to wring out. "Just… please let Al do it."

Winry pursed her lips, her brow furrowed as she considered.

"All right," she said, "I'll leave. On one condition. Have either of you stitched a wound before?"

Al felt the blood drain from his face in embarrassment and realization. He looked his brother in the eyes. Edward looked like he might have been at risk of being sick if there wasn't already a hole in his stomach.

"Right," she said, her face set determinedly. "Then I'm not leaving. And I need you to take the sheets away so I can see what the hell's going on!"

She snagged the blankets and pulled.

"Winry, wait –"

She didn't bother listening to Al this time.

When she saw Edward's intestine protruding from his skin, her eyes grew the size of saucers and she stumbled on her own feet, nearly dropping the lamp.

Edward swallowed and trembled.

"I, uh… Winry, I have to tell you something."

XXX

Den had been forgotten in the hullabaloo.

The scents of bile, fish, eggs, and blood made a trail from the bed to the washroom.

He had been trained to stay out of rooms that smelled of blood. He settled for sitting outside the doorway, keeping guard out of instinct. When he was finally noticed by his girl's friend, he was surprised when the boy gestured for the dog to enter.

Den did, and he saw something he did not see often.

His girl was holding her boy, her arms around and his shoulders and his face buried in her hair. It was usually the other way around. The boy's brother squeezed his shoulder with one hand and used the other to scratch Den behind the ears.

Soon his girl's boy joined in, and the next moment his girl was laughing tearfully as the dog became the center of attention.

XXX

It was exponentially easier to suture Edward when he was distracted by a dog.

Her deft hands had closed the wound and tied off the twine as simply as lacing and tying a boot, even when the string was wet with sterilizing alcohol. He hissed when she patted the stitches with soaked gauze and took the liberty of dabbing the stoma so Edward could replace the pouch and belt, which Al had fixed with his alchemy.

"I've read about colostomies," Winry said when they were done, "but the only examples I could ever find were pretty crude. I saw a schematic for pouch-and-belt contraption but not a lot about when and how it's used. Who did you say did your surgery?"

Before Ed could answer, the sound of feet on the floor made them turn to the threshold.

Pinako appeared, hair tousled from sleep and mumbling incoherently to the night, guiding herself by feel just as much as adjusted eyesight.

"What in heaven's name are you three doing at this time of night?!"

She reached the water closet.

In the lamp light, she saw the ruined sheets and her grandchildren around (or in Edward's case, on) the toilet.

She glanced at Ed's abdomen.

She sighed.

"Of course you got your guts ripped out. I shouldn't be surprised. Fleas have tiny brains, after all."

When dawn came that morning, it was the shouting of the Rockbells and the Elrics that woke the rooster.

Probably unnecessary, but colostomies are real things.

They first started becoming sophisticated in the Civil War when soldiers would literally have their guts blown out of their bodies by cannon balls.

In modern times, they're given to patients recovering from intestinal surgery and survivors of colon cancer.

Now I have to go kay thanks bye.