What Kills the Dog

by

Hecate's Apprentice 1997

They always said curiosity kills the cat. So what kills the dog?

Roy Mustang cursed himself silently as he ran as fast as his legs would allow him to the nearest hospital, the heavy body of a fifteen-year-old teenager with a red trench coat and long, loose golden hair in his arms. The bright red coat was stained with a deeper crimson, the color of blood.

He had been so stupid. If he'd checked for vengeful assassins before he walked into that alley and paid attention to his surroundings instead of his paperwork and how cute Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye looked in the dress at the ball the night before…

Was it gullibility?

"C'mon, Fullmetal," Mustang hissed through gritted teeth, hugging the unconscious form closer, not sparing the deathly pale and deathly familiar face a look out of fear and urgency. "You'd better not die on me!"

Rain was pouring down on them relentlessly. Mustang's boots made wet squelching sounds every time he slammed them against the puddles on the ground or the pavement. Strangely, Mustang found that some of the raindrops were salty as they ran down his face and into his mouth, but he ignored them.

Mustang rounded another corner, vainly searching his mind for the closest hospital. That would be the Central Main Military Hospital, which would be a fifteen-minute car ride from there, but it would take a while yet if he was to travel on foot, and he wasn't sure Fullmetal could hang on that long.

"Roy!"

The colonel couldn't remember when was the last time he'd felt so grateful upon hearing that voice. He whirled around to face a worried-looking Maes Hughes jogging toward him, a hand over his glasses in order to protect them from the pouring rain. Hughes took in the limp boy in his friend's arms and his eyes widened for a split second.

"Damn!" Maes swore a second later and beckoned for Mustang to come with him. "C'mon, I've got a car!" He pointed to a vehicle not far up the street, and the two men dashed that way. Hughes trotted slowly enough for Mustang to catch up with him.

"What happened!" the Lieutenant Colonel yelled over the rain, scanning Edward Elric quickly, noting the large red stain on his side, the pale face, and then looked at Roy quizzically, horror and fear clear on his face.

"I'll…explain…later," Mustang wheezed from the exertion of running so long. Hughes nodded silently and accepted that.

Recklessness?

They got into the car and Mustang carefully laid the boy down, his head resting in the colonel's lap. He dimly heard Hughes shouts for the driver to hurry up to the nearest hospital, but his attention was strained on Edward's pallid face. Quickly, Mustang felt for a pulse with a shaky hand. He was aware of Hughes' stare all along, but chose not to pay it too much attention.

The pulse was there, but extremely weak. Mustang grounded his teeth again, then asked loudly, "Can't you hurry?"

"I don't want to ram into innocent people or other things," the driver answered. "But I will see what I can do."

And that left the two extra-tensed men in the back to do nothing but wait. Hughes asked again, gently this time, "Roy, what happened?"

The Roy in question didn't answer for a few moments, instead applying pressure to Edward's wound and brushed a few strands of stray hair out of the young alchemist's face. When he answered, his voice was thick.

"He took a gunshot for me."

Or was it idiotism?

Nobody questioned when Mustang barged into the hospital, yelling orders and demanding a doctor. Two rushed to him with a bed right between them. They asked Mustang a few questions and then rushed Ed out of sight, not even bothering with reassurances. Mustang didn't need them anyway. He needed proof that Fullmetal would make it through the night.

That was what kept Mustang sitting outside the operation room from twelve o'clock midnight until four in the morning. Hughes joined him after he had called Alphonse and explained about the incident.

When Al rushed in, it was two a.m. The boy looked like he didn't even have the time to brush his hair, and his shirt was buttoned wrong. Alphonse gave the two a pained look and demanded to know everything, which forced Mustang to repeat what he'd told Hughes again, this time adding a sincere and tired, "I'm sorry" at the end.

"It's not your fault, Colonel," Al shook his head. "You can't know if there was a maniac with a gun in that alley before you step in, right?"

Actually, if I've looked a little harder, that bastard would've stood out like an elephant on a desert, Mustang thought grimly.

The doctor came out at four o'clock, weary like all of them, and informed Mustang that "The kid will live. He was still unconscious and lost quite a large amount of blood, but he'll live."

Ignorance, perhaps?

Two days later, when Mustang finally got some free time in his schedule to go see Edward personally, the question he'd asked the still-pale and weak (but not unresponsive to Mustang's taunts, thank goodness, which means he was doing just fine) after throwing around a few short comments just to assure himself Ed was himself was,

"Why did you take that bullet for me?"

Edward turned his disgusted gaze away from the bottle of milk set in front of him to look at his superior office. His gaze turned thoughtful, and his golden eyes glazed over, like they couldn't see the colonel anymore.

"I don't know," Edward admitted after awhile, shrugging, then winced as it moved his side. "It's just…it feels right, I guess."

Roy stared at his most difficult subordinate for a few seconds, then chuckled and sat down next to his bed, reaching over to Ed's nightstand to take the basket he'd brought in and took out one of Gracia's special apple pies.

Ed's eyes brightened at the sight of the pie, and as he ate, Mustang sat back with his chin in his hand and looked outside the window at the lightly falling rain. For once, he was grateful in a rainy day. Not even useless-in-the-rain taunts could get him now. As long as the taunter remains in the dry hospital, too. If not, well, Mustang thought he need more training in using guns.

They say curiosity kills the cat.

"Hey, Mustang, give it back!" Edward shouted, reaching for the other half of the pie that had been yanked out of his hands by no other than Colonel Horseface. He winced as he moved and resolved to glaring and cussing at his superior, who stuck a piece of pie into his mouth and made a loud, "Mmm...!"

"Hey, what's wrong?" Roy smirked, getting another bite out of the (supposed Ed's) apple pie. "Ran out of gas already? That's kind of disappointing, Fullmetal. I expect your temper to be a bit shorter than you, and you know, that says a lot."

"DON'T CALL ME SHORT!"

The room rang with Ed's cusses that could've shamed a sailor and if you had looked closely, you would see a smirking colonel standing just out of the boy's reach, ducking heavy volumes of books flying his way.

But selflessness kills the dog.

A/N: A completely random one-shot I thought of. Tell me what you think.