Title: Winter March

Fandom: FMA.

Pairing: Roy/Ed hints, but mostly gen.

Summary: As Ed and Roy lead the Amestrian army North into the snow on a dangerous mission, Ed's automail poses problems. Side-story to my other fic, "Ed's Turn."

Important Notes! I posted this over six months ago and have yet to really work on it. To be honest, I'm just sort of lacking the inspiration or interest to write FMA fanfiction anymore, and I doubt I'll find that inspiration again any time soon -- I've moved on to other fandoms, and have other interests. So... sorry, this story is probably discontinued. I'll leave this one chapter up for posterity's sake, I guess, but I probably won't be continuing it.

"…This is bullshit."

The change was almost instantaneous – the world went from dull gray to white overnight, as the temperature plunged and autumn gave way to winter.

"…It's October. October. It isn't even fucking November yet, and already we've got a foot of snow on the ground."

The metal ports where his automail was attached were nothing but continual cold burning, an ache that didn't go away no matter what he used to escape from it. Sometimes the arm was bearable, because he didn't have to use it all the time – when they were marching he let it hang at his side, wrapped in scarves. There was no escaping from the leg.

"Why couldn't this be a mild year, Colonel? Why couldn't we just have a rainy winter? Who the fuck did we piss off, anyway? Roast all summer… Drown all autumn… Freeze our asses off all winter--"

"Fullmetal."

"—and there's going to be pollen in the spring. I'm allergic to pollen. It always makes me sneeze… I even broke out in hives one year. Al thought I'd caught the plague or something. But if I had a choice between pollen spores all over the fucking place and this shit, I'd chose the pollen every time. Every time. I'd swear if it wasn't for shitty luck we wouldn't have any—"

"…Fullmetal."

"—What?"

Mustang actually paused, and Ed watched snow swirl in little eddies around the colonel while trying to predict what the bastard was going to say. It was either an insult or a reprimand – maybe both. Ed waited with unbecoming patience, pausing in his march even though he knew the joints in his leg were likely to freeze without motion.

"…Nothing." Mustang turned around and continued forth. Ed stared after him, momentarily bewildered, before scowling and jogging to catch up, ever mindful of the odd tearing sensation starting to develop in his left leg. The pain was…

…No. He wasn't going to even attempt to describe it. It was something best ignored for now.

"…What moron came up with this idea, anyway? Leading a fucking army over a mountain pass in the dead of winter when there's likely to be an avalanche… It's like they're trying to kill us all off," Ed muttered. "Are you sure we're the most important part of the army? Maybe we've just been labeled as a bunch of invalids, and they're trying to get us killed. Do you ever think that? Because this is insane. Oh, I get it… Was it Hakuro who came up with this? I know it wasn't you, Colonel. Not even you're this stupid."

The bastard was ignoring him again, naturally. Ed didn't bother pausing for long enough to allow Mustang to respond, knowing he wasn't going to get words out of the older man, anyway – the stick was wedged firmly up his ass, Ed surmised, and it was probably going to remain for the duration of the operation.

"…I can't believe those jokers gave this that stupid name, either… Operation Strike-through? What kind of crap is that, anyway? Let's just call it Operation Fuck Off and Die. It would be so easy for the enemy to get our supply line, you know. They'd cut it off, and we'd all last about six weeks on the supplies we're carrying – if that – before we all starved to death. The last few bastards left alive would probably start eating--"

"Edward. Shut up."

Ed paused, surprised to the point of being momentarily speechless. Mustang only used his first name when he was seething mad or making some halfhearted attempt at kindness, and based on his tone, Ed guessed it was the former. It only occurred to him after a moment that several other soldiers, all regular enlisted men, were staring at both of them.

...What the hell is everyone's problem?

For the second time, Ed hurried to catch up with Mustang, struggling to keep from crying aloud as the frozen wiring tore aggressively at the already aggravated flesh around the port in his leg. Despite his affliction, it wasn't hard to catch up with the older man.

A while passed. They walked in silence, Ed trying to wipe ice crystals away from his nose, Mustang trudging with his hands in pockets. They marched ahead of the rest of their unit at a breakneck speed, up the steady incline of the mountain slope and towards the pass. Ed didn't want to think of how far they had come.

He didn't want to think about how long they had to go, either.

The main body of the army was a few miles behind and slightly to the west; Mustang had been assigned by General Hakuro to lead a troop of about forty men, including seven or eight alchemists and several young foot soldiers, on a more direct path through the mountains, with plans of clearing out any natural obstacles in the way. Ed knew the only reason the foot soldiers were traveling with them was to be used as cannon fodder – impressionable young foot-soldiers came at a dime a dozen, but alchemists were invaluable.

"…People don't like hearing the truth, do they?" Ed grumbled, in a quieter tone. Next to him, Mustang tensed – something he did with annoying frequency – and turned to Ed. The look on his face was the usual – annoyance and a touch of sympathy. He was glad to see that he had irritated the Colonel, but the sympathy was annoying.

Still, Mustang – although he was going to say something – stopped before he did, shook his head, and turned around without a word. Ed attempted to contain his irritation, but the effort failed.

"What? They were all thinking the same things that I said. It's not like it's a shock to any of them. We've been marching for three fucking days--"

"Fullmetal…" Roy began, again, and he sounded tired. "…Do I really need to explain to you why none of the soldiers here want to listen to you complain for the entire march?"

Ed's booted left foot struck something hard through the snow – probably a protruding tree root – and another lightning bolt of pain shot through the wires. He swore – more out of desperation, than pain – and the air seemed to be growing noticeably colder as the afternoon around them deepened, making the patches of skin, nerve, and muscle where the automail was attached burn even more intensely.

It might not have been so bad, he mused, if his metal parts were not sucking heat and energy from him. Automail was a constant effort – it took effort and energy to control it, effort and energy to walk on it, and the metal itself seemed to be drawing heat away from his body. The cold sank all the way down to his bones.

As silly as it was, he couldn't help but think he was going to look down at some point and see a jagged flesh, torn muscle, and the protruding white bone, sheared off at the edge, instead of his standard issue uniform pants and his boot.

Maybe it's just because I'm about ready to rip the damn thing out of the socket…

Or claw it off…

Or light it on fire and melt it away… That would be warmer…

Ed re-focused on Mustang, now lagging slightly behind the man again. He swore the bastard was purposely trying to leave him behind – longer legs and less metal parts to weigh him down seemed to be working to the older man's advantage. But falling behind was the same as letting him win – surely, the bastard would mock him or reprimand him, like always, if he even dared to complain about his automail.

"The temperature's dropping. Are we gonna stop soon?" Ed asked. No answer. "…I swear, it must be twenty-freaking below out here… And once it gets dark, it's only gonna get colder. Hell… We'll probably all get lost, too. It's impossible to see with all the snow."

"We'll stop in an hour." Mustang replied. His voice was low and muffled by the snow around them.

"…Fine."

Ed took another step, and another, before he realized he was now counting. Not each footfall – rather, each time a lightning bolt of pain shot up through his port. After five, he started limping, favoring the right-side of his body.

It might have been the nerve endings. He didn't like thinking about all the mechanics of it. Although Ed was intimately familiar with the inner workings of the human body (he'd made a couple himself, actually, and Al had the working model) he preferred to consciously ignore his own. It had little use these days – something to put food in, something to sleep with – and something to hurt.

…Thirty. He grimaced now with each new bolt of pain.

…But the pain wasn't anything even remotely surprising. Earlier there had been a bizarre damp feeling and brief warmth, but it had disappeared swiftly. Now it felt like something was stuck to his skin just above the port. He didn't want to think about it.

Forty, fifty… Sixty… Seventy…

I think there's frost on my wires.

Even underneath the clothes and the large sock he wore over the automail, the damn thing hadn't been entirely dry for a long time. Water might have melted and found its way into its inner workings, and now it was frozen to the mechanical parts and causing all sorts of damage.

"Hey Colonel. If you lick my right arm now, I bet your tongue would get stuck to it. Wanna try?"

Mustang ignored him.

One-hundred-twenty-two.

Ed blinked, and looked around again – his surroundings were still mostly white broken by the dark patches of soldiers' uniforms and the occasional tree, although he noticed that most of the soldiers were now marching ahead of him. The alchemists were in back again, and quite a gap was forming between Ed, The Bastard, and the rest.

"We're falling behind," Ed pointed out. "If we get lost, I'm blaming you."

Still nothing.

Fucking bastard.

By one-hundred-fifty, Ed occasionally let out a string of curses with each bolt of pain. The wind picked up again with a vengeance after one-seventy, and Ed attempted to burrow his face into his scarf as much as possible without bowing his head completely and losing sight of Mustang's back. The thought made him smile thinly – really, he'd seen more of Mustang's back in the last few days than he'd ever wanted to in his entire life.

"I'm tired of looking at your ass, Colonel." Ed whined.

Ed didn't wait for a response – one-seventy-three, one-seventy-four – because he knew it was pointless.

One-seventy-five.

Maybe I should just count every ten. That way it'll seem like we're walking less distance.

No. Ed, feeling rather pragmatic, decided that such a petty little delusion wasn't going to change things. They were still marching. It was still cold. He was still miles away from a warm bath, a hot meal, and Al. Tomorrow was just another day of marching, and then they'd rest, and fight, and march, fight again, and rest – it was unchanging. Today, actually, was the first day in a long time without an ambush by Drachman forces. Ed wasn't sure whether to be glad or not – without an ambush, the day passed without death, killing, terror, or blood, although the heat of battle warmed like no other.

Ed opened his mouth again, before looking at Mustang's back and stopping. It was pointless. He continued to count, climbing past two-hundred and on to two-fifty, before pausing in his march momentarily, feeling the strange urge to scratch at the port. Clawing his leg off wasn't going to do any good, but several sensations – burning pain and itching and aching and soreness and wet – were combining in an attempt, Ed surmised, to drive him even further down the road towards insanity.

Mustang didn't even glance back at him. Ed scowled and attempted to shamble along at a swifter pace, although it took longer to catch up this time. Once he did, he scowled and panted for a few moments before catching his breath enough to speak.

"Look… Maybe you and the other bastards didn't realize, but I'm not exactly built for marching."

Bastard, Ed concluded, after a few more seconds of silence, and he stuffed his hands – both real and automail – into his pockets. His shoulder ached acutely with the sudden movement, and Ed's sharp intake of breath made his lungs burn with the bitter cold.

Three-hundred and oh fuck it was starting to grow numb. Ed didn't know whether that was a good thing or not – a glance down at his feet told him that the nerve impulses that led to movement in his automail were hitting the wiring and going awry because of all the frost and the immense cold.

"Colonel, don't you owe me for something or another?" Ed began. "…Like that deal with those chimeras from a few months back. Remember how I saved your ass? I think you owe me. Can I ride on your back?"

He was half-joking, of course – he'd been all day. Mustang actually did afford him a glance, but a second passed and Ed froze to the spot. The Colonel's eyes weren't focused on him. Instead, he looked off into the dark snowfields behind them with a searching and suspicious expression.

"What is it?" Ed mumbled, reaching up almost subconsciously to rub at his right shoulder.

It's starting to go numb, too. Fuck, I guess metal, flesh, and freaking subzero temperatures do not mix…

"GET DOWN!" Someone shouted, and Mustang came lunging towards him, tackling him around the middle. Ed sensed rather than felt bullets pass right over where his head would have been, although the fact that he'd nearly been shot in the head failed to faze him. The moment he hit the ground there was a strange jolt in his left leg and the entire limb jerked of its own volition. The involuntary movement, followed by the sudden burning, and the swift electric current that traveled up his thigh and into places more unpleasant told him that some of the wires inside the limb had just shorted out and broken.

"Shit…"

The sound of rifle fire tore apart the silent afternoon, but even that seemed muffled by the layers of snow. Ed, sprawled across the snow, shivering and wondering if his leg was even going to work at all when he got up, tried to breathe again. Twice, he failed, and when he managed a third time, his lungs started to burn again.

It's really cold down here.

And now he was wet.

This is probably bad, isn't it?

"Fullmetal! We need a wall!" Mustang's voice, a command, came to him from what seemed like miles away. Ed mindlessly tried to obey, but something just wasn't working. Instead of moving his left arm and then the right and feeling his palms clap together, the right wasn't cooperating. Every attempt to move it only brought pain and a kind of prickling sensation. He couldn't feel it, either – Ed grabbed his shoulder, and pressed at the skin around the port. It was numb.

"FULLMETAL!"

Mustang shouted, and Ed finally found his right hand, lying uselessly in the snow next to him. Even motionless it still had some function – he clapped, felt the alchemical energy flow through him (and it was warm) and almost idly pressed his hand to the ground. Snow blasted aside and a stone wall emerged, shielding them from enemy fire. Mustang scurried away, shouting orders in a hoarse tone, and Ed remained, lying on his back in the snow.

The last thing I need is hypothermia.

He sat up with great effort, wincing – his body wasn't entirely numb, and there was still pain in the nerves, especially around the ports. There was also a dead soldier next to him.

The firefight was quick and subdued – a few more rifle blasts, and it was over. Ed lingered in the snow, blinking and looking around dazedly. He was waiting, he realized, for Mustang. A few minutes passed before the other soldiers reconvened and began to pace away through the darkness, and the Colonel came to stand over him.

"Get up, Fullmetal." Mustang commanded. Ed scowled and attempted to roll to his feet, struggling mightily before finally managing to lurch upright. He took two tentative steps – one with his right foot and one with his left – before crumbling into the snow again. After a moment of silently gritting his teeth, Ed looked upwards with a scowl.

"It's not working."

"Your automail?" Mustang replied, and that strange look was on his face again. It might have been contempt, Ed realized.

Fucking bastard. He thinks I'm such a hindrance to him… Even when I just saved everyone's asses…

Still, common sense told Ed that, perhaps, Mustang was just getting sick of all the maintenance Ed required in cold weather. It wasn't his fault that he had automail. It wasn't his fault that he –

Who am I trying to kid, anyway?

"I really want to blame you for this, bastard." Ed hissed, as Mustang knelt. The older man studied him for a moment, and gave Ed that look that made him want to bury his head even further in the snow. It wasn't only fondness this time – it was something even worse. Ed wanted to refer to it as helplessness, but that was a scary thought – the Colonel was always in control. He knew what it wasn't – contempt.

Mustang should have hated him by now.

Yet he didn't. Instead, the stupid bastard grabbed Ed's left arm and worked it over his shoulder, before lifting. It was pathetic – Ed kept on thinking of riding on Al's back when his brother had been a suit of armor, and Mustang was weak compared to what Al had been. But there was one advantage to leaning on the Colonel – Ed could feel his warmth.

I'm stealing his warmth, actually.

It seemed like the Colonel had a lot to spare. As ridiculous and unscientific as it was, Ed wondered if the man's alchemy, his fire, had something to do with it, before dismissing the idea entirely. Mustang didn't pity him enough to support him for long, and as soon as Ed started to put weight on his leg again, the Colonel released him. Ed managed to follow along for a few more minutes, before a bolt of pain in his leg grounded him again, somehow managing to both knock the air out of his lungs and evaporate whatever strength he had left.

"Fullmetal. Come on."

"What? No t-t-thanks for saving your ass, C-c-c-olonel?" Ed managed, unsurprised to find that he had started shivering again in earnest.

"Just get up."

Ed rubbed at his left thigh furiously for a few moments, trying to stimulate movement out of an artificial limb that seemed otherwise dead. Mustang watched, hands on hips, eyes narrowed… Impatient bastard… But through friction a trickle of warmth returned, and Ed, hoping his skin wasn't frozen solid enough to crack open under his furious ministrations, tried to roll back onto his feet.

It wasn't working.

"Colonel…" Ed began.

"I'm not carrying you." Mustang's tone contained an utter lack of understanding, and for a few moments, Ed silently hated him again. The hatred seemed to fuel something, both mentally and physically – he managed to get up, even as his automail threatened to give out on him again and as the skin around the port – not as numb as he'd imagined – burned in agony. Mustang did not wait – the older man turned and continued.

Ed lost count at five-hundred, because he wasn't really walking any more – dragging his automail, falling behind, and stumbling frequently, he drug himself into a hastily established camp behind Mustang. The other soldiers were setting up their tents furiously under an outcropping from the wall of the mountain. Ed stood and watched as Mustang managed their tent…
…And the Colonel did it again. Just as he managed to get the stakes in the ground he turned and gave Ed that strange, unsettling look. Ed thought he recognized it, now, and felt his stomach curdle aggressively. He didn't have the energy to scream at the man, but he knew what this was about.

It was freezing here, there could be no denying it. Soldiers clung to one another out of necessity, shoved into tents in groups of two or three. Body heat was the only way they had of keeping warm through the long, cold nights… And Roy Mustang was the unlucky bastard who got to cuddle with Ed, who consisted mostly of two large, uncomfortable chunks of freezing metal. Ed closed his eyes for a moment.

I could see why he'd hate me, but it's his fault. He's too stupid to find someone who can actually keep him warm.

"Look. I'm going to set up my own tent over there--" Ed began. Like always, Mustang ignored him and took him by his good arm, dragging him inside. It wasn't any warmer in the tent, really, but Mustang had three blankets, and with Ed's one that made four total, much better than what the regular, non-commissioned soldiers had in their tents. Ed flopped uselessly forward against Mustang as the other man took him out of his wet clothes, helped him into warmer clothes from their packs, and wrapped him in blankets, focusing on the automail and trying to warm the desperately cold metal before its cold overcame Ed. Mustang's bare skin pressed to his in some places, but the fact that both of them were cold and shivering didn't help matters.

This really sucks, Ed thought, dully. I hope I'm not hypothermic.

Mustang hissed sharply when his side came into contact with Ed's right arm, but he withstood it and tried to move into a more comfortable position. It must have been impossible.

He thinks he has to keep me warm. Stupid, stupid, stupid bastard.

What did Roy Mustang owe him, anyway? If the man were smart, he would have gone off and found a prostitute from the main encampment – they traveled both voluntarily and by force in wake of the army – and warmed himself, instead of making his pathetic attempt at warming Ed. It was a losing battle, he wanted to tell the older man…

"…Your leg was bleeding earlier." Mustang murmured, obviously trying very hard to keep his voice steady and free of shivering.

"…Don't care…" Ed murmured. "Already said… I'm horrible at marching…"

"You should have told someone."

"…Who? All you do is ignore me…" Ed felt a small resurgence of anger. "…You're like talking to a goddamn brick wall, you bastard…"

Mustang raised his head, looking at him out of the darkness.

"…You're just using me again…" Ed accused, his voice coming out as a dazed murmur, fraught with exhaustion and something that, to him, sounded like a mild form of hysteria. Briefly, he wondered if he was having an out-of-body experience. "…You ignore me the rest of the time… But when you need someone to transmute something for you… It's always Fullmetal this… Fullmetal that…"

Ed wasn't impressed with his own coherency. It was hard to form thoughts right now, and even harder to try to figure out why being ignored by the Colonel was so fundamentally irritating to him.

"We should probably detach your automail."

"Nnnnn…" Ed tried to protest, but two sharp pains later, he was left with only one upper limb and one lower limb, and Mustang now pulling him close. He let out a soft noise halfway between a whimper and a curse, and tried to shove the man away, but not even his flesh limbs were obeying him, now. Ed groaned.

There wasn't any point in getting rid of the bastard, anyway. Mustang was bigger than him, and made a decent blanket, something worthy of leeching body heat from. Mustang might have been shivering, but he was still warmer than Ed. Listening to him breathe usually had a soporific effect…

…But Ed had to settle for listening to the older man draw in a ragged breath, exhale unevenly, and cough in an alarmingly routine manner.

Oh fuck... is something wrong with him, too?

Something distant and strange in Ed's mind panicked momentarily. Everything else shut down as exhaustion overcame him.

Notes (edited 07/31/09)

1. Since I probably won't be continuing this, I guess you can just think of it as a random extra chapter of "Ed's Turn."