JeniOctavia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jenioctavia) wrote2006-11-14 11:13 am
jenioctavia) wrote2006-11-14 11:13 am
Entry tags:
FMA Fan fiction: In the City Part 3
Name: In the City, Part 3
Fandom: FMA
Genre: AU, Self insertion, First person narration, drama, humor, suspense
Rating: PG13
Parings: None
Additional notes: A lot of this comes from a strange history I have with a little game called Chrono Cross and my over all view of paranormal activity in general. So there's going to be some parts where the narrator starts rambling on about some paranormal babble. I'm going to try not to go into it TOO much, but if anyone doesn't get anything, they can ask me.I already know how little I can make sense sometimes.
Bit of a short one, but I realized if I put in the explanation part that it was going to run WAY too long without a good stopping point. More will be up later.
Even as I sat there on that roaring bus that traveled the length of Murray Boulevard in between the flesh and blood versions of two people I'd previously thought to be purely fictional, a part of me still swore up and down that I was going to wake up at any given second back in my bed at home, slightly blinded by morning light and confused about such a strange dream. The other voice in my head that I expected to be the logical one in the situation and agree with those other thoughts simply reminded me that if that were the case, my legs wouldn't be throbbing and slightly sticky with dried blood and my head wouldn't be pounding the way it was.
Something in me wanted to shoot that voice...
I glanced at Al curiously, smirking lightly when I saw that his gaze was plastered on the big front facing window near us, his eyes huge as he watched all the cars go zooming by around us and saw the strange building and tree speckled landscape that we were driving through. Beaverton, unlike the neighboring Portland, suffered from a bit of a pretty boy complex; the beautification projects for the area were insanely bigger than Portland's and the result was an architectural anomaly for such a big city. Rather than being building and structure heavy, we some how managed to balance Oregon's natural forest beauty with lower rise buildings and plenty of landscaping. Al seemed to be attempting to take this all in while we moved. Ed on the other hand was sitting with his arms crossed, automail hand hidden beneath one arm, and one leg propped up on his knee, his deeply thoughtful gaze trained at the black floor of the bus.
I leaned closer to Al, peeking just over his shoulder at the large man-made lake that bordered an expansive shopping center that resided at the corner of Murray and Scholls Ferry Road. Within the lake, two large fountain jets resided, splashing multiple arcs of water in to the air.
"Beaverton was mostly swampland before the city started building out here," I explained to Al, causing him to jump a little in distracted surprise, "Almost everywhere you go you're bound to run in to some sort of water way around here and in Portland. This city could flood and I'm pretty certain the locals wouldn't give it two thoughts," I added with a small smile. Al's head tilted to the side curiously as the bus slowly turned to corner on to the next road.
"Portland?" he echoed curiously. I nodded slowly, vaguely catching movement out of the corner of my eye. Ed had seemingly come out of his trance and taken an interest in our conversation.
"I said 'Beaverton', but the truth is Beaverton is more a suburb of a larger metropolis named Portland. There's several smaller towns around the area that have merged in to one massive city. Out in these areas, though, it seems less like the actual city. Portland is immense, tall and crowded. Out here we at least still have some country side and forest to look at."
"This place seems huge already," Ed chimed in, leaning forward with his arms still crossed to keep his metallic hand hidden. He affixed me with another soul-gazing stare, and I found myself shifting slightly uncomfortably in my seat, finally able to take in the look fully. Back in the field I was far too worried about the predicament at hand to realize just how powerful that one look could be when actually seen in person, "You're telling me there's a place that's even bigger?"
A gave a small chuckle and nodded, turning my head to watch the stops that we passed in order to make sure I didn't miss the stop we needed.
"Imagine all this land completely gone, replaced with streets, sidewalks, and buildings taller than your wildest imagination," I explained, looking to Al as he gave me a much more bewildered look than his brother, "People everywhere, cars constantly on the road. Maybe the occasional park here and there, and its not like the streets are without plant life, but its sparse, stuck in to planters in the sidewalk and building courtyards. That is Downtown Portland."
"Where is Portland?" Al asked me curiously, his voice so much like a young child's in tone.
"About a half an hour that way," I said, pointing my hand in the Eastern direction before reaching up a few inches above me to pull the stop-cord, causing a small 'ding' noise to ring out through the nearly empty bus and a red "Stop Requested" sign to light up above the door. I motioned for them to follow me and got to my feet, keeping myself balanced by using the standing loops that were set in the metal bar above the seats.
The bus slowed to a stop and one by one we exited, Ed keeping careful attention on making sure that his automail went unseen. Just as the bus pulled away, I could hear a melodic tone coming from my pocket and felt a slight rapid vibration against my hip. Giving a jump at the sensation, I scrambled for my ringing cell phone and held my hand up so that the boys would pause in their walking. I finally retrieved my charm-laden phone and flipped the lid up just after seeing Krissie's name displayed on the screen.
"Where are you?" I demanded the second the phones were connected.
"On a shuttle bus back to Milikan. I'll be catching the next 62 home," she said to me on the other line. A beat, and then her voice dropped in volume, "What...what did you find?"
I glanced up at Ed and Al who were both staring at me as though I were absolutely nuts, talking in to the strange contraption held to my ear, and found myself chewing on my lower lip nervously. For once, I really didn't know what to tell her. She was the kind of person to believe even the most out there things simply because she knew there were far more things in the world than could ever be explained by logic, but this time I felt that just hearing about it would pull even the stretches of her imagination.
"...you'll see when you get home," I finally said, motioning with my hand to begin walking again, guiding the two of them through the parking lot that belonged to a small subsection of a large shopping center area that resided near my home. We were heading for a nearby by road called North Dakota where the apartment complex lay just a head of us.
"Jeni, why can't you tell me now?" she asked after a long bit of uncertain silence. Like Ed, I knew she was being eaten away by a million questions that couldn't wait the 15 or so minutes it would take for her to get home.
"Just trust me this time, okay? You need to see rather than hear," I explained.
"...okay, I trust you. This better be damn good, though."
"Yeah yeah, threaten all you want," I teased, smirking a bit, "I know where you sleep."
"And I, you. See you at home."
"See you," I shut the phone, a small ding telling me the call had been terminated, and shoved the device back in my pocket. Just as I did so, Al pointed to it and asked if I was speaking to some one using it and what it was, "Its a cellular phone," I explained, "A portable device that uses towers to bounce signals back and forth in order to allow conversation when you're away from home. That was Krissie on the other end, my roommate. She'll be home shortly after we get there."
I saw Al mouth the words 'portable telephone' in confused curiosity, but he seemed, at that moment, not to want to bother me with additional questions. Instead Ed took his place on that.
"And where is home exactly?" Ed asked, just a tiny hint of snippiness that caused Al to shoot him a chastising look.
"Right here," I said with a smile as I led them across the empty side street. As we neared the large driveway and the wooden sign declaring "Meadow Creek" the Elrics were treated to the impressive sight of a large expanse of greenery and two story apartment buildings.
The entire complex was landscaped so as to have lush green central yards complete with picnic benches, barbecue grills, flowing fountains, trees and pathways. The buildings were painted a cool slate gray with white trimming and each apartment looked spacious from the outside as well as in. Cars were parked in carports lining the backs of the buildings, and everything had a homey, lived in feel about it despite the immaculate manicuring. Though the buildings themselves weren't huge, each quad of apartments was comprised of about six or seven buildings, and from what could be seen it seemed the amount of buildings stretched on forever.
Both boys stopped just at the entrance, staring in awe at their first close up view of the inside of an apartment complex. Chuckling, I turned around and clasped my hands behind my back.
"Come on, its not going to bite you," I chided, walking backwards for a few steps until they finally moved and caught up with me. I twirled around in a slightly goofy manner, feeling strangely happy and optimistic despite everything that was going on.
"This place is huge. Its like something you'd seen in Central or downtown Munich," Ed muttered, "Its hard to believe people live here,"
"Oh, we do," I sing-songed, hopping up on the sidewalk with a bounce as I led them to building 8 where I and my roommate resided, "We pay a pretty penny for it, but its home and we enjoy being here."
The rest of the walk went in silence until we finally reached the apartment. Stepping up to the door, I fumbled with my keys until I was able to get the house key in to the lock and click the deadbolt out of its holding. I pressed the door open and stepped inside, holding it back as I gestured for the boys to enter the humble place that I called home. It really wasn't much, as I was still working to get furnishings and what not, but it was livable in a second hand cozy kind of way. One thing I was grateful for was the fact that just the week previous I'd moved a lot of my anime merchandise that had been on the walls in to my room rather than leaving them in the living room. It saved me from having them further shocked by the revelation I'd presented in the field earlier.
They glanced hesitantly at each other before Ed gave his younger brother a light shove on the back and caused him to stumble past the threshold. A offered him a reassuring smile and moved over towards the large glass porch door, pushing the hanging paneled curtains away in order to splash sunlight in to the dim room. When I turned, Ed and Al were standing inside, the door closed behind them, but both seeming unwilling to move from their spots.
I was about to tell them to make themselves comfortable while we waited for Krissie, but was interrupted by a tiny mewl from the floor, and before I could even predict what was going to happen, Al let out a squeal and went right for the noise. The source: my pure white, blue-gray eyed kitten Shiori. Only a couple of months old, she was a stubby little thing, a Domestic Shorthair-Munchkin crossbreed, with the diminutive noise to match. The usual description of her given by others was 'absolutely adorable', and Al seemed to be agreeing at that moment.
He picked her up under her arms as she let out a confused noise, holding her out at arm's length to Ed with a rather adorable look of his own.
"Look Ed! She's got a kitten!" he exclaimed as if it were the one thing that would bring world peace, which of course got a soft laugh from me as I walked over. Ed, however, wasn't impressed and simply rolled his eyes.
"Yes, and it's her cat, so you'd better not get attached," he curtly informed his little brother, causing Al to deflate a bit. He brought the kitten back to his chest and cradled her there. I put my hand on top of her tiny head and scratched my nails in to her head, causing her to purr loudly.
"Her name is Shiori," I explained to him, "I only got her a little while ago, but she's pretty loving when she's not tearing through the house."
Al smiled softly, that kind of boyish smile that would make younger girls weak in the knees at the simple cuteness of it. While I wasn't quite that effected by it, it did give me a warm feeling inside to see that despite everything that had happened to him he could manage to keep such an innocence about him. He rolled Shiori's name around, repeating it as a way of committing it to memory as he wiggled his fingers over her face.
Leaving Al to be entertained by the white ball of fluff, I turned back to Ed, frowning as I noticed his distant _expression that was turned to the world outside my apartment. Somewhere near by a child laughed, a dog barked, and some one went walking by the pathway near us. I shoved my hands in my pockets, lips twitching as I tried to figure out what to say.
"I don't know what went wrong," Ed said before anything could come to mind. Now both Al and I were looking at him, wearing similar expressions of concern, "I knew it was a shot in the dark, though. I made a mistake," he said, his voice slightly softer as he looked up at Al with his eyebrows knitted together, "I'm sorry, Al,"
There was an uncomfortable silence in the room, one of those that wasn't so much awkward as it was the complete uncertainty from either of us on how to respond. I looked to Al, attempting to read his expression but having a hard time getting past the simple heart ache that was shown in his faded eyes for just a long enough moment to be seen. A few hours ago these two had been little more than something seen on the weekday line up of Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" programing, but the longer I was around them the more I saw that they really had been through so much Hell together, and they both harbored so much emotion inside themselves that it was amazing they weren't both completely loony from the fact. I'd seen my fair share of terrible things in life at my age, but I could never imagine going through what they'd experienced and felt.
Those few seconds seemed to stretch on for eternity before Al finally broke in to a huge, but some what forced grin, tilting his head to the side in what only could have been described as the cutest, most feminine happy-bounce to EVER be produced a straight boy.
"We'll fix it. We always do," he assured his brother, who, though remaining doubtful in his current stance, seemed to brighten just enough.
"I'll help," I said after a few beats, causing them both to look at me. Even Shiori, who'd been preoccupied with chewing on the buttons of Al's jacket up until then, quirked a triangular audit in my direction and tilted her head at me, blinking and giving a soft mew from his arm's.
"You will? How?" Ed asked skeptically, the brothers now turning towards me as if I were suddenly under the spotlight. Ed simply looked like he was about ready to laugh in my face, be it out of anger or absolute mind-numbing frustration, and Al was just plain curious, which seemed to be an expression he'd taken a shine to in the last twenty minutes or so.
I swallowed hard, though I wasn't entirely sure why I suddenly felt as if I were under the Spanish Iniqusition and the next words out of my mouth would make or break my chances of survival, but it was entirely possible that particular sensation was what caused my lungs to tighten and remind me of that stabbing, tender pain in my rib cage. I didn't gasp, though admittedly for a moment I wanted to. Instead I simply gave a shake of my head kicked off my shoes, trying to ignore the dull throb in my chest.
"I will. I'll recruit every damn piece of help and intelligence I know," I said, pausing for a second before finishing with, "I'll take care of you. I don't know why, but I just have this feeling that I should, and I will. This world, even without Alchemy, is far more dangerous than anything you'd imagine, and I'm not about to throw you out to the proverbial wolves and let the city have its way with you."
I sucked in a sharp breath, something on Ed's face telling me that he was about to make a similar comment to the one he made in the field, about not needing nor wanting my help, but instead he softened and looked away again.
"...thank you. If there's anything we can do to help-"
I cut him off with a wave of my hand and a rather sharp exhale, moving away from the doorway and down the hall.
"We can discuss that later, if at all. For now, just sit down on the couch," I said in a slightly wheezy voice as I limped away, chest sore and legs stinging, "I need a damn ice pack and some gauze..."
Ten or so minutes later...
The door clicked open and my head, propped up by the back of the couch as I sat between a rather silent Ed and kitty occupied Al in a slumped position with a thick gel pack of ice on my lower rib cage as well as wraps of loose gauze around my ankles, turned towards it as Krissie entered. She closed the door behind her and began removing her shoes without even looking up.
"I cannot believe those fucking cops! Do they have a goddamn quota to fill on search and rescue operations or something? I swear, had I not wanted to just get the hell home I would have stayed just to fuck with them!" she ranted, moving right for the kitchen without even giving the two blonds a moment's glance. She opened a cupboard, grabbed a glass, and went for the fridge, leaning inside as the two males watched her curiously, Ed getting a tiny smirk of amusement on his lips, "Oh hey, I saw that one cat again, the big ol' gray stray. Anyway, it would have been kinda funny to send them on a wild goose chase -hey, are we out of Pepsi Jazz? - but I'm not entirely sure if that's obstruction of justice or not."
"In the back," I said softly, repressing the urge to laugh, "Uh, Kriss-"
"Then again!" she went on, snagging a can of said soda out and bumping the door with her hip to close it, "how can I be obstructing justice if there's nothing really wrong? I mean, would sending them on a wild chase really mean anything if no one's really in trouble?"
"I have no idea. Krissie, could you pay attention for three seconds? We can Wikipedia 'obstruction of justice' later, okay?"
"Huh?" she muttered, turning around fully. Her eyes fell on the two sitting with me and her jaw slowly slid open. I could see her expression slide through several different thought processes, clearly trying to put her mind in a position to some how understand what she was seeing. Her eyes went back and forth between Ed and Al repeatedly, each time scrutinizing some aspect and looking for some flaw that might present them as being fake.
"Okay, Jeni, what the HELL?" she finally snapped, obviously wanting to just bring forward the question herself, "They're cosplayers, right? Random fully dressed cosplayers fell from the sky, yeah?"
"..no. They're not cosplayers," I said in the most even voice I could muster, ignoring the odd glance that Al was using on me at that moment.
"How can you be so sure? There are some really convincing costumes out there," she countered, crossing her arms over her chest after setting her can of soda on the counter. Before I could answer, a knock on the door cut me off. I groaned and struggled to my feet, holding a finger up at Krissie while she went back to looking over the boys and causing Ed to shift uncomfortably in his spot. A second later the door was open and I was standing face to face with the grinning facade of my next door neighbor, Joe.
"Hiya!" he chirped excitedly, pushing past me in an obvious self invite in to my home. I didn't complain, as it was something he did all the time anyway seeing as we were fairly close for two people just living next door to each other, even though at that moment I had to bite back a groan of annoyance. I adored Joe to death, but some days he had the worst possible timing. He waltzed in to the kitchen, Ed's eyes boring in to his back with an un-trusting expression, and opened the fridge door.
"...in the back," I said with a heavy sigh, knowing what he was going for. He snagged a can and popped the lid, taking a long drink. I walked to the side of the kitchen entrance, leaning against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest, muttering quietly under my breath for a moment.
"Why don't you ever buy those for yourself?" Krissie asked Joe curiously, receiving a shrug in response from the man, "I thought you didn't even like diet," she added a second later.
"I'm not a fan of it, no, but this Jazz stuff isn't half bad," he grunted, turning back towards me and finally noting the rather tense expression that was currently on my face, "...oh, crap. I came at a bad time, didn't I?" he asked me, his eyes going a bit wide. My frown pulled deeper. I really didn't want to say yes, but he spoke the truth right then. Rather than saying anything I tilted my head in the direction of the living room, causing his attention to move that way. He blinked a few times when his eyes landed on the two tow headed boys in the room, his own head canting as he reached up to scratch at his short hair. It only took him a few seconds to realize that their dress was totally out of place, and that their faces were vaguely familiar, and this was evidenced by the sudden change of expression. He went from confused to curious shortly there after, and I could tell his brain was trying to pin down exactly who he was looking at.
After a long, very uncomfortable silence of Joe staring at them, them staring at Joe, he looked to me and grunted with a weird little smirk.
"Where'd you dig these guys up?" he asked, clearly not caring if he was being insensitive or not. I wasn't surprised in the least.Where as Krissie was skeptical even after seeing the same thing I had, Joe was like me times a hundred. Not only did he believe in the paranormal very strongly, he claimed to have experienced far more than the average human, and his knowledge of anything out of the ordinary was beyond extensive. One of the main reasons we'd become such good friends after I'd moved in to the complex was because we could spend hours trading theories and discussing things not of the physical world. Therefore when his brain had finally given a 'ding ding ding! I know who they are!', he more than likely regarded it with all the strangeness of a typical human looking at a domestic cat with unique markings.
I was about to berate him for being so cold about it, since I figured he must at least understand that they really didn't belong here, but it suddenly clicked in my head that I could use knowledge to make some sense of just what had occurred at the field. I was stopped before I could say anything to him about requesting assistance, because Krissie had also clued in to the look on his face and turned on him.
"They can't be the real thing," she criticized him, "They're just some random cosplayers that, I dunno, fell out of a PLANE or something,"
"They'd be dead if they fell out of a plane," Joe said, unphazed as he took another drink of soda. Ed and Al exchanged disturbed glances, and Ed wound up pressing a hand to his forehead, probably due to a headache that had been there since his landing.
"What, exactly, is a 'cosplayer'?" he finally asked in a clipped voice, sliding his hand away from his eyes to look at me pointedly.
"Its a...well..." I winced and sighed, scrubbing a hand through my hair nervously.
Suddenly Joe stepped in to my uncertain place, sliding around me from the kitchen and heading for the living room. He snagged the computer chair away from the desk and pulled it to sit in front of the two boys, clasping the can of soda between his hands and resting his elbows on his knees.
"How much as she told you?" he asked, gesturing towards me with a nod. Al licked his lips, his eyes darting from me to Ed a few times before finally speaking.
"She...showed us that book. The one with...us on the cover,"
Joe nodded slowly, then sat back a bit to mull over how exactly he was going to approach his next works. I glanced at Krissie, who, while skeptical before, seemed to be sliding in to a bit more belief as the minutes ticked by. I grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and joined them in the living room, and Krissie followed shortly after.
"Well, boys, there's a lot that we have to explain, but we're also going to need some information from you as well. We'll try to break this down for you as much as we possibly can, okay?"
Ed and Al nodded slowly, Ed managing to relax a bit under Joe's calm demeanor that was such a contrast to my obvious mental panicking. As tactless as he could be at times, Joe had a good heart and knew when the situation called for a specific attitude. It really helped me, too, that I didn't have to ask him like I was planning on.
I managed a smile at him, softly muttering 'thanks' to him. He grinned back and shrugged nonchalantly.
"Hey, its what I do," he said, clapping his hand together, "Now, let's figure this all out, shall we?"
Fandom: FMA
Genre: AU, Self insertion, First person narration, drama, humor, suspense
Rating: PG13
Parings: None
Additional notes: A lot of this comes from a strange history I have with a little game called Chrono Cross and my over all view of paranormal activity in general. So there's going to be some parts where the narrator starts rambling on about some paranormal babble. I'm going to try not to go into it TOO much, but if anyone doesn't get anything, they can ask me.I already know how little I can make sense sometimes.
Bit of a short one, but I realized if I put in the explanation part that it was going to run WAY too long without a good stopping point. More will be up later.
Even as I sat there on that roaring bus that traveled the length of Murray Boulevard in between the flesh and blood versions of two people I'd previously thought to be purely fictional, a part of me still swore up and down that I was going to wake up at any given second back in my bed at home, slightly blinded by morning light and confused about such a strange dream. The other voice in my head that I expected to be the logical one in the situation and agree with those other thoughts simply reminded me that if that were the case, my legs wouldn't be throbbing and slightly sticky with dried blood and my head wouldn't be pounding the way it was.
Something in me wanted to shoot that voice...
I glanced at Al curiously, smirking lightly when I saw that his gaze was plastered on the big front facing window near us, his eyes huge as he watched all the cars go zooming by around us and saw the strange building and tree speckled landscape that we were driving through. Beaverton, unlike the neighboring Portland, suffered from a bit of a pretty boy complex; the beautification projects for the area were insanely bigger than Portland's and the result was an architectural anomaly for such a big city. Rather than being building and structure heavy, we some how managed to balance Oregon's natural forest beauty with lower rise buildings and plenty of landscaping. Al seemed to be attempting to take this all in while we moved. Ed on the other hand was sitting with his arms crossed, automail hand hidden beneath one arm, and one leg propped up on his knee, his deeply thoughtful gaze trained at the black floor of the bus.
I leaned closer to Al, peeking just over his shoulder at the large man-made lake that bordered an expansive shopping center that resided at the corner of Murray and Scholls Ferry Road. Within the lake, two large fountain jets resided, splashing multiple arcs of water in to the air.
"Beaverton was mostly swampland before the city started building out here," I explained to Al, causing him to jump a little in distracted surprise, "Almost everywhere you go you're bound to run in to some sort of water way around here and in Portland. This city could flood and I'm pretty certain the locals wouldn't give it two thoughts," I added with a small smile. Al's head tilted to the side curiously as the bus slowly turned to corner on to the next road.
"Portland?" he echoed curiously. I nodded slowly, vaguely catching movement out of the corner of my eye. Ed had seemingly come out of his trance and taken an interest in our conversation.
"I said 'Beaverton', but the truth is Beaverton is more a suburb of a larger metropolis named Portland. There's several smaller towns around the area that have merged in to one massive city. Out in these areas, though, it seems less like the actual city. Portland is immense, tall and crowded. Out here we at least still have some country side and forest to look at."
"This place seems huge already," Ed chimed in, leaning forward with his arms still crossed to keep his metallic hand hidden. He affixed me with another soul-gazing stare, and I found myself shifting slightly uncomfortably in my seat, finally able to take in the look fully. Back in the field I was far too worried about the predicament at hand to realize just how powerful that one look could be when actually seen in person, "You're telling me there's a place that's even bigger?"
A gave a small chuckle and nodded, turning my head to watch the stops that we passed in order to make sure I didn't miss the stop we needed.
"Imagine all this land completely gone, replaced with streets, sidewalks, and buildings taller than your wildest imagination," I explained, looking to Al as he gave me a much more bewildered look than his brother, "People everywhere, cars constantly on the road. Maybe the occasional park here and there, and its not like the streets are without plant life, but its sparse, stuck in to planters in the sidewalk and building courtyards. That is Downtown Portland."
"Where is Portland?" Al asked me curiously, his voice so much like a young child's in tone.
"About a half an hour that way," I said, pointing my hand in the Eastern direction before reaching up a few inches above me to pull the stop-cord, causing a small 'ding' noise to ring out through the nearly empty bus and a red "Stop Requested" sign to light up above the door. I motioned for them to follow me and got to my feet, keeping myself balanced by using the standing loops that were set in the metal bar above the seats.
The bus slowed to a stop and one by one we exited, Ed keeping careful attention on making sure that his automail went unseen. Just as the bus pulled away, I could hear a melodic tone coming from my pocket and felt a slight rapid vibration against my hip. Giving a jump at the sensation, I scrambled for my ringing cell phone and held my hand up so that the boys would pause in their walking. I finally retrieved my charm-laden phone and flipped the lid up just after seeing Krissie's name displayed on the screen.
"Where are you?" I demanded the second the phones were connected.
"On a shuttle bus back to Milikan. I'll be catching the next 62 home," she said to me on the other line. A beat, and then her voice dropped in volume, "What...what did you find?"
I glanced up at Ed and Al who were both staring at me as though I were absolutely nuts, talking in to the strange contraption held to my ear, and found myself chewing on my lower lip nervously. For once, I really didn't know what to tell her. She was the kind of person to believe even the most out there things simply because she knew there were far more things in the world than could ever be explained by logic, but this time I felt that just hearing about it would pull even the stretches of her imagination.
"...you'll see when you get home," I finally said, motioning with my hand to begin walking again, guiding the two of them through the parking lot that belonged to a small subsection of a large shopping center area that resided near my home. We were heading for a nearby by road called North Dakota where the apartment complex lay just a head of us.
"Jeni, why can't you tell me now?" she asked after a long bit of uncertain silence. Like Ed, I knew she was being eaten away by a million questions that couldn't wait the 15 or so minutes it would take for her to get home.
"Just trust me this time, okay? You need to see rather than hear," I explained.
"...okay, I trust you. This better be damn good, though."
"Yeah yeah, threaten all you want," I teased, smirking a bit, "I know where you sleep."
"And I, you. See you at home."
"See you," I shut the phone, a small ding telling me the call had been terminated, and shoved the device back in my pocket. Just as I did so, Al pointed to it and asked if I was speaking to some one using it and what it was, "Its a cellular phone," I explained, "A portable device that uses towers to bounce signals back and forth in order to allow conversation when you're away from home. That was Krissie on the other end, my roommate. She'll be home shortly after we get there."
I saw Al mouth the words 'portable telephone' in confused curiosity, but he seemed, at that moment, not to want to bother me with additional questions. Instead Ed took his place on that.
"And where is home exactly?" Ed asked, just a tiny hint of snippiness that caused Al to shoot him a chastising look.
"Right here," I said with a smile as I led them across the empty side street. As we neared the large driveway and the wooden sign declaring "Meadow Creek" the Elrics were treated to the impressive sight of a large expanse of greenery and two story apartment buildings.
The entire complex was landscaped so as to have lush green central yards complete with picnic benches, barbecue grills, flowing fountains, trees and pathways. The buildings were painted a cool slate gray with white trimming and each apartment looked spacious from the outside as well as in. Cars were parked in carports lining the backs of the buildings, and everything had a homey, lived in feel about it despite the immaculate manicuring. Though the buildings themselves weren't huge, each quad of apartments was comprised of about six or seven buildings, and from what could be seen it seemed the amount of buildings stretched on forever.
Both boys stopped just at the entrance, staring in awe at their first close up view of the inside of an apartment complex. Chuckling, I turned around and clasped my hands behind my back.
"Come on, its not going to bite you," I chided, walking backwards for a few steps until they finally moved and caught up with me. I twirled around in a slightly goofy manner, feeling strangely happy and optimistic despite everything that was going on.
"This place is huge. Its like something you'd seen in Central or downtown Munich," Ed muttered, "Its hard to believe people live here,"
"Oh, we do," I sing-songed, hopping up on the sidewalk with a bounce as I led them to building 8 where I and my roommate resided, "We pay a pretty penny for it, but its home and we enjoy being here."
The rest of the walk went in silence until we finally reached the apartment. Stepping up to the door, I fumbled with my keys until I was able to get the house key in to the lock and click the deadbolt out of its holding. I pressed the door open and stepped inside, holding it back as I gestured for the boys to enter the humble place that I called home. It really wasn't much, as I was still working to get furnishings and what not, but it was livable in a second hand cozy kind of way. One thing I was grateful for was the fact that just the week previous I'd moved a lot of my anime merchandise that had been on the walls in to my room rather than leaving them in the living room. It saved me from having them further shocked by the revelation I'd presented in the field earlier.
They glanced hesitantly at each other before Ed gave his younger brother a light shove on the back and caused him to stumble past the threshold. A offered him a reassuring smile and moved over towards the large glass porch door, pushing the hanging paneled curtains away in order to splash sunlight in to the dim room. When I turned, Ed and Al were standing inside, the door closed behind them, but both seeming unwilling to move from their spots.
I was about to tell them to make themselves comfortable while we waited for Krissie, but was interrupted by a tiny mewl from the floor, and before I could even predict what was going to happen, Al let out a squeal and went right for the noise. The source: my pure white, blue-gray eyed kitten Shiori. Only a couple of months old, she was a stubby little thing, a Domestic Shorthair-Munchkin crossbreed, with the diminutive noise to match. The usual description of her given by others was 'absolutely adorable', and Al seemed to be agreeing at that moment.
He picked her up under her arms as she let out a confused noise, holding her out at arm's length to Ed with a rather adorable look of his own.
"Look Ed! She's got a kitten!" he exclaimed as if it were the one thing that would bring world peace, which of course got a soft laugh from me as I walked over. Ed, however, wasn't impressed and simply rolled his eyes.
"Yes, and it's her cat, so you'd better not get attached," he curtly informed his little brother, causing Al to deflate a bit. He brought the kitten back to his chest and cradled her there. I put my hand on top of her tiny head and scratched my nails in to her head, causing her to purr loudly.
"Her name is Shiori," I explained to him, "I only got her a little while ago, but she's pretty loving when she's not tearing through the house."
Al smiled softly, that kind of boyish smile that would make younger girls weak in the knees at the simple cuteness of it. While I wasn't quite that effected by it, it did give me a warm feeling inside to see that despite everything that had happened to him he could manage to keep such an innocence about him. He rolled Shiori's name around, repeating it as a way of committing it to memory as he wiggled his fingers over her face.
Leaving Al to be entertained by the white ball of fluff, I turned back to Ed, frowning as I noticed his distant _expression that was turned to the world outside my apartment. Somewhere near by a child laughed, a dog barked, and some one went walking by the pathway near us. I shoved my hands in my pockets, lips twitching as I tried to figure out what to say.
"I don't know what went wrong," Ed said before anything could come to mind. Now both Al and I were looking at him, wearing similar expressions of concern, "I knew it was a shot in the dark, though. I made a mistake," he said, his voice slightly softer as he looked up at Al with his eyebrows knitted together, "I'm sorry, Al,"
There was an uncomfortable silence in the room, one of those that wasn't so much awkward as it was the complete uncertainty from either of us on how to respond. I looked to Al, attempting to read his expression but having a hard time getting past the simple heart ache that was shown in his faded eyes for just a long enough moment to be seen. A few hours ago these two had been little more than something seen on the weekday line up of Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" programing, but the longer I was around them the more I saw that they really had been through so much Hell together, and they both harbored so much emotion inside themselves that it was amazing they weren't both completely loony from the fact. I'd seen my fair share of terrible things in life at my age, but I could never imagine going through what they'd experienced and felt.
Those few seconds seemed to stretch on for eternity before Al finally broke in to a huge, but some what forced grin, tilting his head to the side in what only could have been described as the cutest, most feminine happy-bounce to EVER be produced a straight boy.
"We'll fix it. We always do," he assured his brother, who, though remaining doubtful in his current stance, seemed to brighten just enough.
"I'll help," I said after a few beats, causing them both to look at me. Even Shiori, who'd been preoccupied with chewing on the buttons of Al's jacket up until then, quirked a triangular audit in my direction and tilted her head at me, blinking and giving a soft mew from his arm's.
"You will? How?" Ed asked skeptically, the brothers now turning towards me as if I were suddenly under the spotlight. Ed simply looked like he was about ready to laugh in my face, be it out of anger or absolute mind-numbing frustration, and Al was just plain curious, which seemed to be an expression he'd taken a shine to in the last twenty minutes or so.
I swallowed hard, though I wasn't entirely sure why I suddenly felt as if I were under the Spanish Iniqusition and the next words out of my mouth would make or break my chances of survival, but it was entirely possible that particular sensation was what caused my lungs to tighten and remind me of that stabbing, tender pain in my rib cage. I didn't gasp, though admittedly for a moment I wanted to. Instead I simply gave a shake of my head kicked off my shoes, trying to ignore the dull throb in my chest.
"I will. I'll recruit every damn piece of help and intelligence I know," I said, pausing for a second before finishing with, "I'll take care of you. I don't know why, but I just have this feeling that I should, and I will. This world, even without Alchemy, is far more dangerous than anything you'd imagine, and I'm not about to throw you out to the proverbial wolves and let the city have its way with you."
I sucked in a sharp breath, something on Ed's face telling me that he was about to make a similar comment to the one he made in the field, about not needing nor wanting my help, but instead he softened and looked away again.
"...thank you. If there's anything we can do to help-"
I cut him off with a wave of my hand and a rather sharp exhale, moving away from the doorway and down the hall.
"We can discuss that later, if at all. For now, just sit down on the couch," I said in a slightly wheezy voice as I limped away, chest sore and legs stinging, "I need a damn ice pack and some gauze..."
Ten or so minutes later...
The door clicked open and my head, propped up by the back of the couch as I sat between a rather silent Ed and kitty occupied Al in a slumped position with a thick gel pack of ice on my lower rib cage as well as wraps of loose gauze around my ankles, turned towards it as Krissie entered. She closed the door behind her and began removing her shoes without even looking up.
"I cannot believe those fucking cops! Do they have a goddamn quota to fill on search and rescue operations or something? I swear, had I not wanted to just get the hell home I would have stayed just to fuck with them!" she ranted, moving right for the kitchen without even giving the two blonds a moment's glance. She opened a cupboard, grabbed a glass, and went for the fridge, leaning inside as the two males watched her curiously, Ed getting a tiny smirk of amusement on his lips, "Oh hey, I saw that one cat again, the big ol' gray stray. Anyway, it would have been kinda funny to send them on a wild goose chase -hey, are we out of Pepsi Jazz? - but I'm not entirely sure if that's obstruction of justice or not."
"In the back," I said softly, repressing the urge to laugh, "Uh, Kriss-"
"Then again!" she went on, snagging a can of said soda out and bumping the door with her hip to close it, "how can I be obstructing justice if there's nothing really wrong? I mean, would sending them on a wild chase really mean anything if no one's really in trouble?"
"I have no idea. Krissie, could you pay attention for three seconds? We can Wikipedia 'obstruction of justice' later, okay?"
"Huh?" she muttered, turning around fully. Her eyes fell on the two sitting with me and her jaw slowly slid open. I could see her expression slide through several different thought processes, clearly trying to put her mind in a position to some how understand what she was seeing. Her eyes went back and forth between Ed and Al repeatedly, each time scrutinizing some aspect and looking for some flaw that might present them as being fake.
"Okay, Jeni, what the HELL?" she finally snapped, obviously wanting to just bring forward the question herself, "They're cosplayers, right? Random fully dressed cosplayers fell from the sky, yeah?"
"..no. They're not cosplayers," I said in the most even voice I could muster, ignoring the odd glance that Al was using on me at that moment.
"How can you be so sure? There are some really convincing costumes out there," she countered, crossing her arms over her chest after setting her can of soda on the counter. Before I could answer, a knock on the door cut me off. I groaned and struggled to my feet, holding a finger up at Krissie while she went back to looking over the boys and causing Ed to shift uncomfortably in his spot. A second later the door was open and I was standing face to face with the grinning facade of my next door neighbor, Joe.
"Hiya!" he chirped excitedly, pushing past me in an obvious self invite in to my home. I didn't complain, as it was something he did all the time anyway seeing as we were fairly close for two people just living next door to each other, even though at that moment I had to bite back a groan of annoyance. I adored Joe to death, but some days he had the worst possible timing. He waltzed in to the kitchen, Ed's eyes boring in to his back with an un-trusting expression, and opened the fridge door.
"...in the back," I said with a heavy sigh, knowing what he was going for. He snagged a can and popped the lid, taking a long drink. I walked to the side of the kitchen entrance, leaning against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest, muttering quietly under my breath for a moment.
"Why don't you ever buy those for yourself?" Krissie asked Joe curiously, receiving a shrug in response from the man, "I thought you didn't even like diet," she added a second later.
"I'm not a fan of it, no, but this Jazz stuff isn't half bad," he grunted, turning back towards me and finally noting the rather tense expression that was currently on my face, "...oh, crap. I came at a bad time, didn't I?" he asked me, his eyes going a bit wide. My frown pulled deeper. I really didn't want to say yes, but he spoke the truth right then. Rather than saying anything I tilted my head in the direction of the living room, causing his attention to move that way. He blinked a few times when his eyes landed on the two tow headed boys in the room, his own head canting as he reached up to scratch at his short hair. It only took him a few seconds to realize that their dress was totally out of place, and that their faces were vaguely familiar, and this was evidenced by the sudden change of expression. He went from confused to curious shortly there after, and I could tell his brain was trying to pin down exactly who he was looking at.
After a long, very uncomfortable silence of Joe staring at them, them staring at Joe, he looked to me and grunted with a weird little smirk.
"Where'd you dig these guys up?" he asked, clearly not caring if he was being insensitive or not. I wasn't surprised in the least.Where as Krissie was skeptical even after seeing the same thing I had, Joe was like me times a hundred. Not only did he believe in the paranormal very strongly, he claimed to have experienced far more than the average human, and his knowledge of anything out of the ordinary was beyond extensive. One of the main reasons we'd become such good friends after I'd moved in to the complex was because we could spend hours trading theories and discussing things not of the physical world. Therefore when his brain had finally given a 'ding ding ding! I know who they are!', he more than likely regarded it with all the strangeness of a typical human looking at a domestic cat with unique markings.
I was about to berate him for being so cold about it, since I figured he must at least understand that they really didn't belong here, but it suddenly clicked in my head that I could use knowledge to make some sense of just what had occurred at the field. I was stopped before I could say anything to him about requesting assistance, because Krissie had also clued in to the look on his face and turned on him.
"They can't be the real thing," she criticized him, "They're just some random cosplayers that, I dunno, fell out of a PLANE or something,"
"They'd be dead if they fell out of a plane," Joe said, unphazed as he took another drink of soda. Ed and Al exchanged disturbed glances, and Ed wound up pressing a hand to his forehead, probably due to a headache that had been there since his landing.
"What, exactly, is a 'cosplayer'?" he finally asked in a clipped voice, sliding his hand away from his eyes to look at me pointedly.
"Its a...well..." I winced and sighed, scrubbing a hand through my hair nervously.
Suddenly Joe stepped in to my uncertain place, sliding around me from the kitchen and heading for the living room. He snagged the computer chair away from the desk and pulled it to sit in front of the two boys, clasping the can of soda between his hands and resting his elbows on his knees.
"How much as she told you?" he asked, gesturing towards me with a nod. Al licked his lips, his eyes darting from me to Ed a few times before finally speaking.
"She...showed us that book. The one with...us on the cover,"
Joe nodded slowly, then sat back a bit to mull over how exactly he was going to approach his next works. I glanced at Krissie, who, while skeptical before, seemed to be sliding in to a bit more belief as the minutes ticked by. I grabbed a chair from the kitchen table and joined them in the living room, and Krissie followed shortly after.
"Well, boys, there's a lot that we have to explain, but we're also going to need some information from you as well. We'll try to break this down for you as much as we possibly can, okay?"
Ed and Al nodded slowly, Ed managing to relax a bit under Joe's calm demeanor that was such a contrast to my obvious mental panicking. As tactless as he could be at times, Joe had a good heart and knew when the situation called for a specific attitude. It really helped me, too, that I didn't have to ask him like I was planning on.
I managed a smile at him, softly muttering 'thanks' to him. He grinned back and shrugged nonchalantly.
"Hey, its what I do," he said, clapping his hand together, "Now, let's figure this all out, shall we?"