The Empath Alchemist {Edward Elric X Reader}

2

The first thing that (Y/n) woke up to was her forehead colliding with Edward's chin.

As she stirred, the muffled sounds of the Elrics sharing a hushed conversation only grew louder as the (h/c) haired girl gained consciousness. She was drowsy, and it was still dark out. It honestly felt like she had just taken the shortest nap of her life rather than gone to sleep for four hours.

As her eyes focused, she saw Ed's head leaning close to hers. Out of panic, she rose from the bed quickly and accidentally bashed her forehead into the blonde's chin. Al turned in freight at the sound of the two yelping in pain, only to go back to what he was doing when he saw that the two were just messing around with each other again.

The two shared their first argument at 2:30 in the morning, clutching the parts of the faces that collided. That interaction should have shown them exactly how the day was going to go.

The kids arrived at the abandoned library by a little after 3:00. (Y/n) had been ready to walk out of the door in her sweats when Edward forced her to change, his reasoning being that he didn't want to be seen walking around with a girl who looked like she just crawled out of bed. (Y/n) argued that she literally had just gotten out of bed, but Ed wouldn't have it. She reluctantly threw on her regular clothes as she internally cursed Ed's existence prior to leaving.

The three entered the old building together through the back, and agreed to meet back up in the same spot within the next forty five minutes. If (Y/n) were to sense incoming danger, she was to go to the stairwell and yell out to them. All of their reflexes were rather quick, so none of them were truly worried about being unable to get out in time- not when (Y/n) was practically a walking warning signal.

The library had three levels, so naturally each of them took one. Ed took the first, Al the middle, and (Y/n) the third. This way, the Elrics would be able to get out first if she felt something was wrong. Edward had been against it, wondering why in the world she would risk herself by placing herself farthest from the door. But after she explained that it would make sense for her to be at the top in order to get the news down to the Elrics faster than they would be able to run downstairs, Edward loosened up a bit- but not much.

(Y/n) sighed once she was alone on the top floor, gazing across the dusty rows of books. A symphony of faint creaks resounded throughout the space as she walked, running her fingers and eyes along the spines of the faded leather. As she searched, everything seemed so familiar. Each time she pulled out a book to inspect its contents, she found nothing new- nothing depicting any signs or remnants of the Philosopher's Stone.

She yawned, blinking repeatedly in order to focus. Her mind was still adjusting to being awake at this hour. Being Roy's adopted daughter as well as the girl that every single military officer felt the need to protect and prepare for the world came with its fair share of late nights and early mornings of training and missions, but that didn't make her feel any less exhausted. Perhaps it was because Armstrong's incessant punching routines wore her down to the bone the previous day. The guy was so disgustingly cheerful that it was hard to disagree with anything he said, so she had to force herself to endure the exercise that left her arms sore. Humming at the conclusion, she proceeded her search and could only hope that Edward and Al were a bit more successful than her.

Edward.

Odd that her mind chose to drift to him as she leaned upward and pulled out another book from one of the shelves. He seemed to consume her thoughts at the weirdest times as of late, more so than usual. There was a time a year or two ago when Roy took her up North to see the snow for the first time. She was so excited, eyes glimmering happily and lips stretched into a ginormous grin. It was gorgeous, the snow falling delicately into the sheets of white below and tickling her eyelashes with its bitter touch. She adored it, and yet somehow while she was lost in the magic of the snow she thought of Edward. She thought of how much he would have loved to watch the snowfall, how giddy he'd be to feel the unfamiliar chill of the weather. She would have given anything to see his face light up the way hers had.