#venom crossover

Art without comic book edits:

“It’s okay hon, c’mere.” His voice was soft and inviting. You fell back against the mattress, breathing out deeply. Peter could hear you’re heart hammering, like knocking on wood to his trained ears. He placed a hand over your chest which you took into your own, bringing it up to kiss his fingers individually, meeting his eyes and offering a small smile. Peter wanted to ask if you were okay, but he needed to know what had changed in you that caused such nervous behavior. 

But you’ve been gone for a long time.

 Is that even my business anymore?

Peters eyes scrunched at the thought and his brow furrowed harshly. You could see his troubled expression and turned to your side, sliding your hand up his cheek and meeting those warm eyes.

“Peter, what’s the matter?” You inquired. He shook his head softly finding your eyes, knowing your inability to hide from him, to hold anything back when he looked in them deeply. Something had changed in you since he had left, and he expected things to be different. But not like this. Seeing you frightened, and jumping away from him merited worry within him, and he had to know. “What happened while I was away?” Your became small curling down, and Peter knew immediately by your expression that something had happened. He hoped that you wouldn’t get angry with him for needing to know, but his heart couldn’t help but feel as if he had failed to protect you. 

And yet, here you were cowered into your pillow, hands drawn closely to your face, refusing to let anything slip. “Y/n, please...You jump away from me like I’m going to kill you, you flinch in your sleep when I touch you. If something happened I just need to know so that I can help you.” His voice was earnest and caring. His fingers gently lifted your chin to face his eyes, and you studied his face. Honest intentions and love was all that could be found. “When you left, something happened, and I had to start seeing a doctor. He diagnosed me with Anxiety...” Peter’s eyebrows raised as you trailed off. “Oh and also Major Depression.” You finished, gnawing at your nails. Peter carefully grabbed your hand away from your face, kissing your fingers. “Can you tell me what happened...Is that my fault?”

Yes. Yes it is. 

“No, of course its not your fault.” you stated, your fingers tracing his lips. “And I don’t think I’m ready to discuss it just yet.” You hoped that your words weren’t too sharp, that Peter wouldn’t be able to feel the resentment you still held. Many talks with your counselor had proven that it was easy to forgive Peter when he was long gone, and never coming back. But here he was, directly in front of you, and there was a face to the name that had marred your lips for the past year. 

Can I really move past this?

You knew that Destiney’s answer would be ‘Fuck no.’ So your mind wandered to your parents, what might they have said? You couldn’t gauge, they had been deceased for such a long time, you’d have no way of knowing. You were pretty sure your counselors answer would be something along the lines of... “In order to be able to forgive him, you need to let him first know what he did wrong.”

You snorted internally to yourself. It wasn’t time. And even when it was, it had to be done in a gentle way, a way that Peter could mourn as well, because it was his child, after all. It would need to be done with no animosity, no hurt feelings. Just support and love. Peter’s hands traced over your shoulders and down your arms, sending shivers over your body. “You’re so beautiful...but you look so different.” He didn’t meet your eyes, focus only trained on your body, as if he was just having a conversation with himself. 

“Yeah I’ve lost weight...” your voice cracked. You were embarrassed. You used to have beautiful curves, but after becoming severely depressed you had gotten down to one meal a day. Destiney called you every day to threaten getting on the first plane to New York if you didn’t start eating again. You had improved a lot over the last few months, but your struggles weren’t lost by you. “Destiney got me back on...somewhat of an eating schedule. I’m doing much better. I kind of just lost myself after...you left...” You trailed off, noticing Peter’s sad expression, he lifted his head to meet you. “Well, I’m here now. And I’m going to stuff you full as a tick.” He winked as you laughed at the expression he had stolen from you. Something your grandmother used to say. 

“Okay then, I won’t complain about that.” your eyes sparkled up at peter as his smile warmed your chest, he rolled over on top of you, warm skin blanketing you, making you feel protected. “You won’t complain about this either...” He breathed into your ear, lightly nibbling at your earlobe. You didn’t realize how ready you were for him until Peter slipped inside of you, drawing out a soft moan. The morning sun was just peeking through the curtains, and you felt safe in his arms as he caressed, and lazily kissed you, movements slow and relaxed as he savored you. And that’s how the rest of your first morning with Peter was spent, your breathless moans mingling in the air along with Peter’s soft grunts, sloppy kisses, and a lazy cleanup afterwards, followed with the pair of you tangling up, and once again falling into a peaceful sleep. 

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You stirred again for the second time that day with peter breathing gently next to you. The sun seemed to be well into the sky now. You studied Peter as he slept and felt a giddy smile cross your face. His eyes were soft, his lips slightly parted as he snored lightly. You smirked as you untangled yourself from his arms and checked your phone, finding you had slept until eleven.

That’s what good sex will do to you.

You laughed to yourself, unable to shake your airy feeling as you slipped out of bed and threw on peters tee that was strewn over the floor with the rest of your clothes. You crept downstairs, making coffee as your phone buzzed. It was MJ.

Well that good mood didn’t last long.

A realization came to you as you stared at the picture of her smiling and hugging you around the neck from behind: Your friends knew about Peter, and lied to you. A small pit gathered in your throat as you clicked the ignore button and slammed your phone back down, running your hands through your hair.

You heard Peter clambering down the stairs, you shook your nerves pulling the cream out of the fridge and continuing to make a cup for yourself and Peter. “Still take your coffee black? No sugar, right?” Peter nodded but his look was more concerned. “What’s wrong hon?” You rolled your neck out, forcing a half smile. “Fine. MJ just called me.” He looked confused. “Did you talk to her?” You shook your head. “Nope. And I don’t really want to either.” Peter nodded slowly, deciding not to push you on the topic, but you needed to rant anyways. “I just think it’s funny she knew where you were at and didn’t say a thing to me. Especially after what I went through, she could have told you...or me... it’s whatever.” You trailed off sipping your coffee and meeting his eyes over the brim of your mug. You could feel the yearning to let your hurt and anger out to Peter building up but you kept reminding yourself, it’s not the right time.

“Tell me what..?” Peter’s curious look was making it difficult to hide your own pain. “Ugh..we have a lot to discuss...but let’s start with you. What’s going on Peter? I still don’t know exactly why you had to leave.” His expression was hard but he sat next to you at the bar, and held your hand. “I just want to start by saying that I’m sorry I left you...I never wanted to...I always made sure you were safe. Tony’s been having people watch out for you, so you were never in any danger. But, Nick Fury got word about a major corporation in San Francisco that's been harboring illegal alien life forms.” You blinked at Peter and he sighed. “This sounds fucking nuts, I know.” He ran his hands through his hair and sat back in his chair. “Yeah it does but I’m listening so go ahead.” You still struggled to process all of this information but continued to power through as Peter explained a symbiotic life form attempting to merge with him, and soon after running loose in accompany with three more and murdering several people across the United States, including New York.

You sat back and slowly nodded. “Right here in New York...” you bit at your nails softly and glared at Peter. “Yes. And the rest of the avengers have been running around here like crazy trying to contain it. It uses the victims body, like a host, for a short amount of time, and when it feeds off of them to the point they can’t go on, it abandons them to find a new host. Leaving them dead, or in critical condition. The one here in New York, that’s still on the loose, seems to be more...violent in its actions. But my focus was to go to San Fran to find the source and attempt to capture one, well only one of two that still survived anyways.  But Tony ended up doing that in one week...so...” Peter sat back as he grumbled his last sentence. “Why couldn’t you tell me this?” You shook your head at him. “Because I knew you’d want to go with me to San Francisco and I couldn’t put you in danger or impede on your life. You’re so busy with school I knew you’d graduate this year, and it’s so important to me that you reach your goals, I couldn’t uproot you like that, and put you in harms way.” Trying to be understanding was hard, but you knew peters intentions were good. You had been working hard to graduate, and work for homeland security, your dream. You couldn’t imagine peter would do anything to jeopardize your career or your safety. But there was still a couple of things you needed him to address.

“And as for MJ, May, Ned, the rest of our friends? They know, don’t they?” Peter nodded with shame. “All of them.” He stated, your suspicions confirmed. “And they ALL lied to me.” Your lips puffed in anger as you crossed your arms. “They never wanted to, especially May...” you sat up straight, meeting peters eyes. “Well at least May invited me over, and cared for me. No one else ever came to see me, matter of fact, they avoided me.” Peter breathed deeply. “Because I asked them to.” Your stare was ice, penetrating peters heart.

Now you’ve done it.

“And I need you to know why...if they saw you like that they would have told you everything. I couldn’t have that happen, y/n it’s dangerous!” You slid off of your barstool, storming up the stairs into your bedroom, ripping off peters tee shirt and pulling on a towel. His eyes followed you. “Y/n please say something to me...” his voice was sad and needy, but your anger trumped everything he could feel. Your head was getting hot, anger bubbling over, clouding your judgment, you no longer cared about your actions. You stormed over to your night side table, ripping open the drawer you took out the small piece of paper he had left you, his eyes were shocked. “You left me with this. Just this. You had me watched, compliments of the philanthropist playboy-billionaire Tony stark. And I couldn’t know a thing about you. But what you don’t know? Is that I was pregnant with your child when you left me. And sad to say, I lost it right on that bathroom floor. So don’t talk to me about ‘dangerous’ because for a while, I was a danger to myself. And you weren’t there.”

You cut your words short due to the tears in your throat, slamming down the letter on the nightstand, and turning to go shower. “Sonograms in the fucking drawer next to our picture, if you wanted to see it, babe. Congrats.” You jarred shut the bathroom door with a loud thud, leaving Peter standing with tears welled in his eyes. He couldn’t say a word. His breath was caught in his throat as tears involuntary slid down his cheeks. He walked over to the nightstand and pulled the drawer open fully, revealing the picture of you and him at his internship graduation, right before he became an actual Avenger. He softly picked up the folded envelope next to it that had written in your curly handwriting “Baby Parker.” Opening it up, he withdrew a tiny print out of a black and white depiction, a tinsy little squiggle with an arrow pointing at it stated “baby.” He put the photo back in the envelope and folded it into his pocked, sniffing hard.

You shuddered as you heard the front door slam downstairs. Peter was gone. Maybe he’d walk out of your life for good this time. A part of your heart hurt for him, imagining the shock and pain he was enduring, you desperately wanted to hold him or comfort him. “I didn’t have him to comfort me, and I survived.” You spoke aloud to yourself, as if it would convince you that he would be okay too.

So much for gentle and loving.

You washed your thoughts away, letting the steam consume you.

—————————————————————————

Peter padded harshly along the sidewalk towards May’s apartment. Tears stained his face and he hoped that no one noticed as he passed them. Bounding up the stairs and fumbling with the door, Peter burst through and slammed it shut behind him. Head resting on the frame, as his hands traveled through his hair.

I shouldn’t have left her like this...

“Peter..?” Mays soft voice beckoned his attention, he turned around to meet her eyes. Her face settled with understanding. “So you know.” She stated, shifting her feet. “May it’s all my fault.” Peters voice cracked as his tears fell, he carried himself over to the kitchen table and fell hard into a chair as May’s arms wrapped around him, gently comforting him as she had done for you many nights. “You can’t blame yourself, Pete. Sometimes it happens to women.” Peter pulled slowly away from her embrace and his bleary eyes gazed up at her, he was slowly shaking his head. “But maybe if I didn’t go...” May shook her head and put a finger to his lips. “Uhh-uh, hush. You did what you needed to do, and y/n was taken care of, she had Destiney and she had me. What’s done is done, you can’t sit and hone on it. Mourne if you need to, but most of all, you need to talk to her about it.” Peter laughed despite everything else. “Talk to her? She doesn’t even want to look at me May?” May chuckled.

“That’s not true Peter, you were over there all night. Everything is new to her, and for you too. You both need time to communicate and discuss what happened.” May nodded her head at Peter encouragingly. He wiped his face clean with his hands. “Okay.” He stated simply. Peter grabbed his phone to shoot you a quick text apologizing for leaving, and to see if you’d be okay to talk later.

Pulling out the envelope his fingers traced over the little squiggle in the photo. “I was a dad, May. I didn’t even know it. Why didn’t you call me? I would have came back?” Peter looked up at may with a hurt expression, and her own features hardened. “For the same reason you didn’t tell her you’d left, Pete. It would stop you from doing what you needed to do.” Although Peter was hurt he understood why May had hidden it from him. It became clear to him everyone had something to hide from one another, not just him from you.

His phone buzzed and he hastily picked it up, sad to see Tony’s name instead of yours. He slid to answer the call and Tony’s frantic voice bleared through the speakers before he could even give a proper greeting. “Kid you gotta make it over here, ASAP!” Tony continued bellowing on so Peter hung up the phone. “May I gotta go.” Peter let out a frustrated grumble as he hugged his aunt quickly, activating his suit. Slipping out of the window, he raced towards Stark Tower.

________________________________________________________________

Needless to say, what Peter stumbled upon his arrival was a mess. Furniture was knocked over everywhere, Tony was in full suit, arm raised towards a large glass mixing bowel that Natasha was perched on top of, Steve was shouting at her, hands flailing through the air. “Get off of the fucking bowel and just let him blast the damn thing Nat?!” Natasha held fast her position, the goopy substance tumbled around in its confinement, struggling to escape. “No can do Steve! We’ve worked too hard to find these things and contain them, we need to keep them alive, for research. What if it’s potentially a more dangerous threat then we first imagined? And what if there’s more?” She struggled heavily against the rumbling bowel as she spoke. “We need to know more about them!” Steve rolled his eyes his hands met his face in frustration. “Not at the cost of killing you? That thing would have to if we wouldn’t have stopped it!”

Natasha gasped in frustration. “We don’t know that! If it wanted to infect me it would have, it’s like it’s searching for something else.” Tony stood strong, charging up his reactor, aim ready to fire. “Pete, go get her off the damn bowel and I’ll do the rest.” Peter didn’t think anyone had sensed his presence yet in all the chaos, but his mind was filled with questions. “How did it get out?” He blurted. Steve turned his head slightly, still not taking his eyes off of Nat and the vibrating mixing bowel. “We don’t know, this thing is smart, one second we were all up here having a drink, and the next it had set itself loose and was fighting to get out of the flat. Nat trapped it in this bowel.

“WHICH IS MY FAVORITE MIXING BOWEL, BY THE WAY!” Peter turned to see Pepper flying downstairs to join the madness. “Tony stark I told you to get rid of that fucking thing or take it somewhere else! I know Nick Fury has a perfectly good lab somewhere but you keep it held up here like a house pet while you and Peter prod at it day in and day out!” Her eyes flickered towards Peter, who froze in his place. “No offense, Peter...” she added, unable to bitch him out without feeling hurt.

“None taken..so how do we...handle this?” Peter stammered. “Just told you kiddo. Go tear black widow here off of the bowel and I’ll handle the rest.” Both Natasha and Pepper rather loudly protested at the same time, causing Peter to cringe. Nat carried on about how it didn’t need to be killed, and pepper seemed to be screeching about her rug and coffee table, causing everyone to jump when a voice approached behind the group.

“You could just let me have Venom back?” Peter whipped around, instinctively webbing the mans hand to the wall. Nat clung to the bowel even tighter, and Tony turned his attention, as Steve ran down to the lab. (peter presumed to go find his shield.) “Sorry, have WHO back?” Tony asked sarcastically. “And also why the fuck are you in my house?” The man was tall, with bulky shoulders, his voice was gruff and stubble lined his cheeks. He was wearing a casual hoodie, sleeves rolled up, tattoos covered his left arm that was webbed to the wall. “Yeah, security is shit here by the way, no offense mister Stark, and I’m referring to my symbiote, I’d like him back now, before you idiots fucking kill him.” Steve arrived back downstairs, clutching his shield tightly.

Peter blinked, unable to speak. Tony’s mask opened, and he stared the man down, cautiously lowering his hand. “What is your name? And why are you giving that thing a name?” He questioned. “Names Eddie Brock, I’m from Cali. Might’ve heard of me from my show, but that’s not important right now. I’m calling him venom, because that  his is name, and he’s my symbiote.” Eddie turned his attention to peter. “Say kid, you wanna get this off my arm? Your girlfriend might be into this type of shit but I’m not.” Peter thought of you briefly webbed to his bed, but pushed the thought far back reminding himself now wasn’t the time. He slowly shook his head, not sure how to gauge the situation. “Oh for fucks sake, Venom, I know you’re weak buddy but ya gotta help me out here a little?” Everyone’s attention turned towards Natasha as the bowel rattled violently and busted. Glass showered the ground as the symbiote twisted and shot across the floor towards Eddie, pressing against his skin. Eddie let out a sharp cry, then a second later appeared to be normal again, ripping his arm away from the webbing.

“Alright...” he started with a relieved sigh. “That’s much better. You guys wanna come sit down, I think we have a lot to discuss?” Everyone collectively steed at each other, then back at Eddie and nodded slowly, making their way to the table. “Alright good, we got lots to catch up on, so let’s get started.”

——————————————————————————

It was dangerous, of course. Ed understood that. Physically, you could pull a thing apart, and the only negative consequence would be not being able to put it back together again. Pulling a thing apart with alchemy? If you couldn’t understand it quickly enough, thoroughly enough, the backlash would be devastating. They certainly weren’t going to try in on Mum without testing it first.

At least, that was the plan, until Ed sent Al to get them a few drops of Mum’s blood while he double checked their array, and before a minute had gone by, Al screamed; “BROTHER!” Ed dropped the book he was holding, uncaring as to its fate as he rushed upstairs, a horrible sort of anticipatory dread coiling slow and sickening inside him.

Sure enough, when he joined Al in their mum’s room, it wasn’t hard to see why Al had screamed. Mum was- Ed couldn’t think the word, but she was perfectly still, sprawled limply with her eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, glassy and empty, one arm flung out like she’d been trying to reach for something on the night-stand, and just… switched off half way through the motion.

Ed’s head filled with a litany of denial, and he just stood there, dumbfounded with horror and the terrible creeping certainty that they were too late. Beside him, Al let out a wretched sob, almost a wail, and Ed snapped back into the present. “No.” He said, but this time, it was full of determination and ferocity. “We can still do this.” He announced, startling Al. “Get some chalk, we’re going to have to redraw the array up here.” Ed didn’t think he could handle trying to carry Mum down to the basement like this.

“B-Brother?” Al stammered.

“Chalk!” Ed repeated, and finally saw understanding, hope, and then determination fill his brother’s eyes, too. With a nod, Al bolted out of the room. Ed took the moments he was gone to go and… and check. He tentatively wrapped his hand around Mum’s wrist and pressed his fingers to her pulse. She was still warm, but there was no movement under his fingertips, no pulse.

That knowledge nearly broke him, would have broken him if it hadn’t been for the array all planned out and plotted in the back of his mind. They could do this. They had to. Al returned, breathless and brandishing a whole box of chalks, and they set to work. It took them a while, because the array was so stupidly complicated, and every minute that slipped by was another minute that dragged their mother further and further away from them.

They had to push the bed out of the way to finish it, and then, once it was done, they were forced to face the fact that they needed to move their mother into the center of the array. After sharing a dismayed look with Al, Ed set his jaw, and set to it, stubbornly ignoring the horrible fact of how lifeless the body in his arms was. It wouldn’t be that way for long.

And then it was ready.

“This is going to work, Al.” Ed asserted. Al nodded, eyes burning just as fiercely as Ed’s, and grabbed Ed’s hand, gripping tightly, desperately. Ed squeezed back reassuringly, then let go so he could kneel beside their array. Al followed his lead and, in unison, they reached out and pressed their hands to the edge of the circle, activating their array. Actinic light spilled out as energy crackled through the lines they’d etched painstakingly across the floor of the basement, the force of it whipping their hair about their heads and tugging at their clothes.

The world came apart at the seems.

“Foolish little alchemist.”

Ed jumped, looking around, but there was nothing. Just an endless expanse of pristine white nothingness, stretching out into infinity. He turned around again, and jumped again, because he could have sworn there was nothing there, before, but now? Now he found himself looking up at a huge stone door, etched with a strangely branching tree. “Who- who’s there? Where are you? Where am I?!” Ed blurted out, peering around the sides of the great stone door, but there was only more nothingness beyond it.

“I’m so glad you asked!” The voice responded, but it didn’t sound glad. It sounded bitter. It sounded like Ed did, when he was forced to talk about dad. “I am nothing, and everything. The universe, and the void. I am, and so you are. I am Truth.” Ed spun around again, as the voice seemed to coalesce behind him, and he saw-

He stumbled backwards until his back hit the stone door, incomprehension sending him recoiling. The thing in front of him looked almost human. Two arms, two legs, a head, all in the right places, but wrong. There was no definition, no features, no solidity, just a writhing, amorphous mass of white-on-white that was only barely managing a paltry attempt at a human form. It grinned at him, showing off teeth that would have looked more at home on a piranha than a human, and waved a not-hand at the nothingness around them. “And this, little alchemist, is me.”

A deep, groaning crack reverberated out from behind Ed, and terror seized him. Every fibre of his being was telling him to run, to run and not look back for a second, but he couldn’t help it, he had to know what was there, so he turned, slowly, forcing himself to move one inch at a time, until he could see, out of the corner of his eye, what was behind the door.

Ed screamed.

He tried to scramble backwards, all the while keep his eyes on the incomprehensible writhing mass of strangely geometric viscera teeming and seething within the stone archway. Before he had gone more than two steps, though, his back hit something solid, with just a hint of give to it. Like flesh, but not, too slick, too fluid. He froze. Even the air in his lungs froze.

Two not-hands came up beside his head. He could see them moving just on the edges of his vision, curling round, closing in, and panic stole all rational thought from his mind. “I thought this was what you wanted, you arrogant little shit.” The not human thing behind him crooned, as those hands pressed over his face.

This time, it was Ed that came apart at the seams.

The worst part? The worst part was that he could feel it. He could taste it. Every molecule that broke away from the whole, every atom that was wrenched out of alignment. He knew by taste-feel-weight-texture-vibration what they were and what they did and how they fit. Right down to the plasma in his blood and the bacteria in his intestines, the bile in his liver and the mucous in his lungs. The electricity in his brain and all the little chemicals that strung the whole lot together into a functioning whole. He could feel membranes he hadn’t even known were there, knew the entire topographical structure of his lungs, felt every synapse in his brain as it was taken apart and shown to him. As he was vivisected all the way down to his atoms, until he was nothing more than biological mush. Just a puddle of writhing ooze on a blank white canvas.

And then he was whole again. Whole and gasping for breath as every nerve in his body tingled with visceral euphoria at being together and coherent again. “W-w-wha…” He tried to speak, to ask, to understand, but he couldn’t stop shaking long enough to get the words out.

“Equivalent exchange, little alchemist.” The voice said right into Ed’s ear from where it was standing directly behind him, breathing on his neck. All the hair on his body stood up on end, and he lurched away and around, wanting that thing and it’s teeth where he could see them-

It looked like Alphonse.

Al’s golden hair and Al’s hazel eyes and Al’s button nose and a mouth full of razors in a jagged crescent, splitting his face in two. “You opened the gate. You came here, in your arrogance, to take something from me, and you thought there wouldn’t be consequences?” It demanded, furious and vicious and smug.

“NO!” Ed screamed. He lunged forwards, grabbing the thing that was wearing his brother by the shoulders and shaking it. “GIVE HIM BACK! ALPHONSE!”

The world slipped away and slid back into place, a moment of vertigo and the nothingness was filled in. Ed wasn’t standing, he was half-lying, half-kneeling over Alphonse’s limp form sprawled across their basement floor. He looked like he was sleeping, no sign of those awful teeth or the horror sealed behind a huge stone door except for the way Ed could still half remember what his own brain tasted like.

“A-Al?” Ed breathed, unable to make his voice any louder with the horrible, terrible fear surging through him. Al’s shoulders shifted beneath his hands, moving with the suddenly rapid rise and fall of his chest. “Al?!” Ed called, stronger, more urgent, but the only response he got was not from Al.

There was a gurgling gasp from the center of the array. Ed’s head snapped up, breath caught somewhere in his throat, to stare at Mum. She was moving. She shuddered and arched until her back cleared the floor. “Mum?!” Ed called, not quite willing to let go of Al just yet, but still desperately wanting confirmation that all that horror had been worth it.

Instead, what he got was discordant, reverberating laughter spilling out of his mother’s mouth. Jagged fangs bloomed behind her open lips, and when her eyes opened, they were opalescent white from lid to lid, and getting larger. They spilled out over the edges of her eyelids, while crystalline blue oozed out of her pores, crawling over her skin.

“No…!” Ed breathed, hope turning sour in a heartbeat.

The thing that wasn’t really his mother zeroed in on him, head twisting too far to be natural, and whole body contorting in ways that made Ed want to vomit. “Yes!” She – it – crooned, and the worst part was Ed thought he could almost hear his mother’s voice under the distortion. The monster laughed again, and lunged. Ed didn’t even see it coming, just registered that it was starting to move, and then the next thing he knew, he was pinned to the floor with a monster that used to be his mother looming over him, maw gaping wide and getting closer. “Mum?” Ed begged, even though he had no idea if his mum was even still alive – alive again – in there. “Mum, p-please don’t-!”

The monster paused, jerked forwards – making Ed flinch – only to suddenly fling itself backwards, back into the array. “No.” That was Mum’s voice, ragged and hoarse, but entirely and only Mum’s voice. Ed sobbed before he could stop himself. “You won’t have my boys-! Will. Hungry-! Over my dead body!”

Ed flinched at the words, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the way Mum screamed next, thrashing and convulsing in jerky, jittering motions. There was a crack, followed by another, and then several more in quick succession as Mum’s limbs twisted themselves into unnatural shapes, bones splintering and tearing skin, spilling blood. One last, violent flail was cut short when her head hit the ground with a terrible crunch, and she – it – went still, the blue sinking away back under the skin as the red spilled out, leaving Mum looking like a contortionist’s nightmare, and entirely lifeless once again.

Ed choked on a sob, but his grief was put on hold when Al let out a pained, confused groan. He couldn’t stand – his legs were shaking too much to support his weight, so he half-crawled, half-shuffled back over to his brother’s side, and patted his cheek. Al’s face screwed up, even as his mouth opened on panting breaths. A mouth full of normal, boring, perfectly human teeth.

He cast half a glance over his shoulder towards the… thing in the middle of the array, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at it head on before a shudder overtook him and he looked away. Al didn’t need those nightmares as well, he decided, and carefully pulled his brother up and around so his back was towards the middle of the room and they were facing the door.

Al lurched, and for a moment Ed was afraid he was going to fall, but all he did was lean over and throw up weakly onto the floor, one hand slapping down to support himself on an arm that shook violently. “Shit, Al-” Ed choked out, throwing an arm around Al’s shoulders just in time to keep him from collapsing face-first into the pool of his own vomit. Al made an unhappy noise, and dropped his head onto Ed’s shoulder. Ed flinched, because the bare skin of Al’s cheek was burning to the touch, and he could feel that even through his t-shirt. “Oh, fuck-” Ed didn’t need the echoes of everything Truth had shown him to know that that? Wasn’t a good sign.

“B-broth…” Al mumbled weakly, sounding just as tired and pained as Mum did- used to- That was not a comparison Ed wanted to make right now, so he shut that thought down hard. He also tried not to think about how what he desperately wanted to do right now was scream for his mum and have her come soothe them and fix everything, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because she was dead, and- He shook the thoughts off with a hiccuped back sob, and focused on getting Al out of the room before he came to enough to notice-

Al managed to coordinate his feet enough to be moderately helpful in walking to their bedroom, where Ed tucked him into bed, and Al promptly passed out. Which was good, because Ed knew he couldn’t hold it together much longer. He half stumbled down the stairs and called the only other person he could think of to turn to for help.

“Rockbell Automail.”

“G-granny? Al’s sick.” Ed said, and then choked. It was hard to keep the desperate, panicked sobs in now that he’d said it out loud.

“Edward?” Granny asked sharply.

Ed sobbed once, and then forced it back down, because he needed to be strong, for fuck’s sake. Needed to keep his shit together long enough to get Al the help he needed. “Al’s sick.” He said again, because he couldn’t manage more than that. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll be right there.” Granny promised, and then hung up.

Ed put the phone down with a clatter, and went to check on Al again, only to find him peering blearily at Ed from under the arm he’d flung over his face. “Al?” Ed breathed, relief tinged with desperation. “Al, are you okay?”

“C’n I… food?” He asked plaintively, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow again. “M’hungry.”

“Yeah! Yeah, sure.” Ed agreed. Honestly, he would have agreed to just about anything Al asked for, right now. He hurried down to the kitchen and frantically searched for something healthy that wouldn’t need a lot of preparation time. He settled on grabbing an apple for now, and filling a jug with water, and brought them up to Al. “Got you some water as well.” He explained, unnecessarily, as he put them on the bedside table. He poured a glass of water, and helped Al drink it, because his hands were shaking too badly to hold it steady by himself.

Truthfully, Ed’s hands weren’t doing much better, but between them, they managed to get more of the water into Al than on him. Then Ed offered him the apple. Al just about snatched it and sank his teeth into it with alarming voracity. He didn’t stop until the whole thing was gone, core and all. “Al…?” Ed asked tentatively, holding himself very still, uncomfortable visions of a different set of teeth swimming hazily in his mind.

“Brother?” Al echoed, a touch of a tremor in his voice.

Shit. Ed needed to pull himself together, before his freak out made Al freak out. He tried for a smile, and knew it must have fell miles short when Al’s face crumpled. “I guess you’d like another one, huh?” He asked, pulling bravado over the top of his uncertainty.

Al licked his lips. “Somethin’…” He began hopefully. “Some… some of the… th’meat stew?”

“Sure.” Ed agreed. Reheating the stew didn’t take very long, and soon he was back at Al’s side, helping him sit up so he could eat. He got half way through it before his eyes widened and he shoved the bowl towards Ed, turning where he sat so that when he threw up, it ended up on the floor instead of in his lap. “Shit.” Ed said, because what the hell else could he say?

Al looked up, distress writ large across his face, his eyes pleading as they found Ed. “What’s- what’s wrong with m-me?” He asked desperately.

“I don’t know.” Ed admitted, even though he didn’t want to. He now knew exactly how fragile the human body was, what a delicate balance it hung in. There were just too many ways for it to go wrong, and it wasn’t as if the remnants of his knowledge of his own internal workings meant he had any hope of figuring out what was wrong with Al’s.

“What happened?” Al asked next, which wasn’t a very reassuring question.

“I don’t know.” Ed said again, a little more desperately.

Al looked at him with wide, tentative eyes. “Did- Did we- Is Mum…?” He stammered, not quite daring to hope.

It broke Ed’s heart, and his face crumpled up before he could stop it, his whole body shaking with suppressed sobs. It was awful, to watch that barely-there hope drain out of Al’s face to be replaced by the agony of grief. He started to cry, weak but unstoppable, and that just set Ed off, too, years of anxious grief pouring out of them all at once.

Ed pulled himself together first, when he heard Granny open the door and come stomping up the stairs. Al didn’t bother. Granny stopped in the doorway to take them in, and Ed looked over at her with a mixture of desperation and defiance. Granny just clicked her tongue at him. “Go get a mop, pipsqueak.” She  ordered, stepping inside and depositing her doctor’s bag on the end of Al’s bed.

Ed hopped up, glad for something to do. “He- he threw up twice.” He said, just before he left. “And he’s got a fever.”

“It’s probably just a bad stomach bug.” Granny assured him.

It could be that, or an infection, or the flu, or any number of his organs could be fucking up, like his appendix or his kidney or his pancreas. Maybe he hit his head and Ed didn’t notice and now he’s bleeding in his brain. Ed stared at her for a long moment, knowing that she could see just how not reassured he was by his expression, before he went to go get the mop.

He cleaned up their room, but even though he knew he ought to, he just couldn’t bring himself to go clean up Mum’s room, too. The memory of what she’d looked like after that- that thing was done with her flashed through his mind and he shuddered on a belated wave of horror, curling his arms around himself and focusing, desperately, on Granny fussing over Al. She was frowning, though, which only made Ed feel worse. “Granny?” He asked, wanting some answers, instead of this nameless, shapeless terror.

Granny glanced at him, then pursed her lips. “I think it’d be best if you boys came to stay at the clinic for a little while, so I can keep an eye on Al. It looks like an infection, which means antibiotics should clear it up, but just to be on the safe side.”

“Okay.” Ed agreed, even though he didn’t like the way Granny said it. He did actually kind of like the idea of not being in this house anymore, with the prickling awareness of what had happened in the other room constantly looming over his head. So he went to bundle Al out of bed and coax him into walking down to Winry’s house, while Granny bustled about getting a few clothes and their over-night stuff together for them.

“Ed…?” Granny called from upstairs once Ed had gotten Al to the front door. She sounded perturbed, but like she was trying to hide it so as not to upset him.

“Yeah?” Ed called back.

“Where’s your mother?”

Ed flinched, memory replaying, and no, no stop it. “In-” He choked, swallowed down the sob. “In her room.”

“No. She’s not.” Granny informed him, tone going sharp.

Ed jolted, looked to Al. Al looked back, frightened and bewildered, but he nodded hesitantly, and let go of the grip he had on Ed’s arm so that Ed could bolt back up the stairs. Granny moved out of his way, and he shoved into Mum’s room even though he really, really didn’t want to. The array was still there, half obscured by a few puddles of half-congealed- something. Not blood. It didn’t smell clean enough to be blood. Just… dead tissue. decomposing biological matter.

The memory of what Truth had done to him came back to him so vividly, so viscerally, that for a moment, Ed was half convinced he was going to simply collapse into his component parts and ooze away through the floorboards. “I-” He choked, unable to shape words through the guilt strangling his insides. “I th-think she dis-dissolved.”

“Dissolved?”

“She was- She wasn’t- We were just trying to- to bring her back, to fix it, but-” Ed shook his head, not wanting to go anywhere near the memory of what had happened.

Granny sighed, long and slow, heavy with her own grief. “Alright, back downstairs with you. Come on. I’ll come back to clean this all up later.” She continued to ramble a stream of reassuring nonsense at him as she chivvied him back downstairs and out of the house. Ed stuck close to Al’s side the whole way, but now that Al was moving, he seemed to be a little better.

Right up until they were standing on the Rockbell’s front porch, and Al just crumpled. Ed didn’t manage to grab him in time, but fell to his knees beside his brother as Al convulsed where he was lying, twitching and spasming like- like- Ed reached out to grab hold of Al in a desperate, useless attempt to try and help, but Granny barked “Don’t!” at him, and he recoiled.

“Why not? He’s-”

“He’s having a seizure, don’t try to hold him still.” Granny informed him briskly. She leaned over and tucked her balled up apron under Al’s head, and then, just… waited.

“There has to be something-!” Ed choked out. Granny just shook her head, leaving Ed to stew in terrified helplessness until Al stopped convulsing and went limp.

“Winry!” Granny called. “Come on, let’s get him inside.” She instructed, and Ed leapt to help pick Al up. Winry appeared in the doorway and gasped, but then her expression set and she moved to help without a single moment of hesitation or distress. Ed was absurdly grateful, because he didn’t think he could handle her upset on top of his own.

They carried Al into the patient room on the ground floor, and then Ed parked himself by his brother’s bedside and refused to be moved. Granny tried to convince him to take one of the guest beds that were semi-permanently reserved for him and Al anyway, but Ed just glared at her, mulish and silent, until she threw her hands in the air and stalked off to get some antibiotics for Al.

Sitting vigil by Al’s bedside was awful, but Ed couldn’t bring himself to move. It was quiet, especially when Winry gave up keeping him company and went to bed, which gave Ed’s brain plenty of space to spin over everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong in such a short space of time. He thought he might have slept at some point, folded over with his head on his arms on the side of Al’s bed, because that was the only explanation for why he jolted awake in a panic some time later.

The night blurred into the next day. Al woke up enough to eat, which was good, because he was clearly starving, going by how much he ate, but he didn’t seem to be fully aware of where he was or what was going on, and then he went right back to sleep. His fever went up even higher, and Granny made noises about maybe trying a different – stronger – antibiotic.

Maybe if Ed had slept better, he would have thought better of it, but in his wound up state of sleep-deprived anxiety, he threw caution to the winds. He knew, at least in theory, what was supposed to be in the human body, and what wasn’t. It shouldn’t be too hard to draw out an array that would kill the infection without doing Al any real harm.

He snuck out of the patient room and found a spare bit of chalk he or Al must have left lying around the last time they were here, and snuck back into Al’s room. He hovered for a moment by the bed, eyeing the available space, and then turned to crouch down. Before he could, though, a hand shot out and caught his wrist in a bruising grip. Ed yelped and turned to stare at Al, who was glaring at him in uncharacteristic anger.

“Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?!” The thing that was wearing Al’s face demanded.

Ed choked, wrenching his arm out of it’s grip. Or trying to, because no matter how he wrenched or twisted, he couldn’t get free. “So it is you!” Ed snarled, glaring right back. “Leave him alone! Let him go!” He demanded, furious and despairing.

“We cannot.”

Ed felt as if his chest was caving in under the weight of that simple statement. He sobbed once, twice, and bowed his head over where Al’s – not Al’s – hand was still wrapped around his arm. “Why?” He asked wretchedly. “Why- We did it together, we- it was my idea, so why are you punishing him but not me? Why didn’t you take me instead? You should have taken me instead!” He wailed, begged.

Truth yanked him down, so brutal and sudden that Ed stumbled and fell against the side of the bed, finding himself staring into familiar eyes made alien by the burning ferocity behind them. “Do you mean that?” It demanded, sharp and desperate.

Ed blinked at Al – at Truth – utterly bewildered by the sudden shift from coldly indifferent to blazing intensity. “Of course! He’s my brother, I’d do anything to keep him safe.” He swore. “You can take everything from me, so long as Al’s okay.”

“We cannot reverse all the damage, but without me, he will recover in time.” It informed him, which was so much better than the alternative that Ed didn’t even hesitate to nod. Something moved against his wrist, and when he looked, he saw tendrils, white and writhing and entirely too reminiscent of that place, spilling out of Al’s skin and seeping into Ed’s. The moment the last tendril detached from Al, he went boneless. Ed yelped in horror and scrambled to catch Al’s hand and check his pulse.

It was still there, and when Ed held very still and quiet, he could hear Al breathing, soft and steady. He slumped, all the way down to the floor, and pressed his head against the side of the mattress, trying not to cry and failing.

We need food.

Ed jumped, and looked around, but Truth hadn’t manifested anywhere, except… except inside him. “Fuck you. I’m not leaving Al.” He muttered to himself, relaxing again. And then something other than himself rolled his eyes. “Fuck. You.” Ed growled again, trembling finely and not relaxed at all anymore. If that thing could move his body without his permission…