Misplaced but not Lost

Warning: Ed's language, adult situations, and same gender pairing. If you do not like this then stop reading now.

Slight AU. Takes place after series but ignores the movie. Ed is 18, Roy is 29 (for the safety of my own mind), and Hughes is alive.

Summary: After sacrificing himself to save his brother, Ed finds himself trapped within the Gate. Is he dead? Is he still alive? Why is Roy the only one able to see him and what will Roy do to get Ed back?

Chapter 1

Al!..

Brother, I won't let you give your life for me.

No Al! This is the only way.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

Roy…

With a jolt Ed opened his eyes. A bombardment of images started to run inside his mind: the underground city, arrays, blinding blue light….Al. Then it all stopped. "Oh fuck, Al!" Ed sat up and looked around, seeing nothing but an expanse of whiteness in every direction. Even the floor, if he could call it that, beneath him had no definition, no blemishes. It was purely a solid block of nothing as far as he could see.

"Al?" No response, no sounds…nothing.

Slowly Ed brought his left hand up towards his face in an attempt to wipe away the tears he knew should still be there but instead of being met with lines of salty tears Ed brushed against the side of his bare cheek. Continuing with the motion and letting his eyes follow, Ed brought his hand down to his neck, then chest, stomach and finally his left thigh before testing the movement of his right arm and legs. Everything seemed to be fine. He was still in possession of the metal limbs, but at the moment he had control over his body.

Staying on the ground, Ed twisted around, fully taking in his new 'home.' Just like before, Ed seemed to be the only person, or thing for that matter. "Where the fuck am I?" Letting out a sigh, Ed bent both of his legs and used his right arm to push himself up from the ground. Taking one last despairing glance around him, Ed looked back down to his body. The skin uncovered by his black leather vest and skin tight pants was alight with a sun-lit glow of warmth that he could not feel.

Fuck. Ed could sense that this was not the other side of the Gate. He had seen it before; awhile back with that bastard he refused to call his father. Here there was nothing…he was alone. At the very least Ed expected to be placed before the grand doors of the Gate. Something must have gone wrong when he tried to bring back Al. Ed wracked his brain to think of what could have happened. No! He did everything right. He used his own body and soul to bring back his brother. It should have worked!

"I can just imagine the pompous look on that Bastard's face." Yeah, that Bastard…his Bastard. Ed took another deep sigh and slowly let it out. He could no longer remember when he started referring to Mustang as his. Even when Ed was much younger he always found the Bastard sexy. There were many times Ed found himself staring at Mustang's ebony hair that brushed the tips of his lashes whenever he tilted his head to the side, a common motion when delivering an angry or sarcastic comment in Ed's direction. In those moments Ed would clench his twitching fingers into tight fists, passing off the motion as anger, so he wasn't tempted to card his fingers through Mustang's hair. It wasn't until Ed was fifteen that he noticed the different shades dancing inside Mustang's eyes. At first he assumed that his eyes were the same unfeeling blackness as his hair, but he was wrong. So very wrong. In early morning, the sun's rays would hit Mustang's face at just the right angle where they would shine with the hint of sapphire blue. This quickly became Ed's favorite time of day. To Ed, the change was enough to cause the sensation of drowning whenever he found himself locked in the man's gaze.

Roy…Only in private would Ed let the sound of the man's name roll off his tongue, letting the feeling of suffocating heat travel from his throat to coil at the bottom of his stomach. Ed was now eighteen and even though he was now an adult in both the eyes of the military and the community at large, he refused to act on his feelings. Roy could have anyone on two legs that he wanted, man or woman. Ed refused to give in to the hope that Mustang would want a shattered man like him with a tainted past and more than likely a desolate future.

Growling, Ed lifts both hands up to cup his own face. This was not the time to be thinking of Mustang. If he was correct in his thinking that he was on neither side of the Gate but stuck in-between, then there was a great possibility he would never see Mustang again, and for that matter Al.

"Oh, Al." The feeling of guilt started to build inside of Ed's body until he thought he would choke on it. Here he was thinking about Mustang instead of worrying about the safety of his brother. Was he alright. Was he alive?

The overpowering urge to vomit took control and rattled Ed's body forcing him to the ground. Ed wrapped his arms around his stomach as unseen and unheard tears rolled down his face.