Rating: T-ish
Warnings: For the Ed's mouth, if only a little. Also weirdness. And my very poor, sad English that I haven't practiced in some time.
Word Count: ~3200 (complete)
Pairings: Roy/Ed
Summary: Another day, twelve more drops of blood, and there's a slight spark along Ed's spine that feels like alchemy. It's a step, it's an attempt, and it's enough.
Disclaimer: I don't hold the copyrights, I didn't create them, and I make no profit from this.
Notes: As a warning: it's been a very long time since I've written FMA. Also I entirely ignore CoS here, as much as I appreciate it. This is angsty and vague and I'm actually rather fond of it, which doesn't often happen with what I write. But then, Ed and Roy have always had a special place in my heart.
(Title samelessly stolen from Get On Your Boots by U2, because their No Line On the Horizon album is pretty much the soundtrack for this fic, and was on repeat while I was writing it.)
Get On Your Boots
Ed takes a little blood each day. Just a few drops, a teaspoon here and there, stored in jars in his workroom where Alfons will never find it—Alfons, who will never believe that what Ed says is true, even with all of the evidence right before his eyes. It hurts a bit, more than the cuts he makes to take blood, because Ed's Alphonse was always, always willing to believe in Ed's madness, even if it took some convincing.
But Alfons is not, will never be Alphonse, and though Ed can try to draw all the connections in the world, they'll never fully settle. Germany is not Amestris, can never be, and more than anything Ed aches for home, for a world where alchemy sings in his blood instead of this aching emptiness.
So he saves blood whenever he can, just a bit, because the only thing in this world that's still of his world is his own body, what's left of it. And if Alfons sometimes gives him strange looks when he appears with bandages on his fingers, on his arms, well. He won't ask, and that's just one more difference from Alphonse to be catalogued and stored away.
Not to say that Ed hates Alfons, or even greatly resents him, but Ed has spent years of his short life trying to restore Al's body, to save him from the hell he was living in, and right now he has no idea if it even worked, if his sacrifice was worth anything at all.
A quick slice of a clean knife, twelve drops of crimson into a jar already nearly full, and Ed is one step closer to finding out.
He puts the jar back in its hiding place, cleans the knife with alcohol, and wraps a bit of cloth around his finger. Alfons won't find anything out of place, should he decide to venture into Ed's sanctum for once.
Yesterday, there was a man on the street who looked like him, tall and dark-haired and clearly proud. But his eyes had been hazel-brown instead of jet-black, too soft for the familiar arrogance that Ed wanted to see there. His walk hadn't been right, either, absentminded where the man Ed wanted to see strode everywhere with a clear purpose, wouldn't have known how to move at a student's inattentive meander if his life had depended on it. Ed had looked, had watched from a distance for far longer than was proper, and thought that if he just pretended hard enough…
Another day, twelve more drops of blood, and there's a slight spark along his spine that feels like alchemy. It's a step, it's an attempt, and it's enough.
This world is at war with itself, or on the verge of it at the very least. Ed has heard the whispers, felt the tension that fills the country whenever he sets foot outside the door. He's seen the ghettos and the Jews with their wary eyes, encountered the rumors of a superior race and seen the looks directed at his blond hair, at Alfons' blond-haired and blue-eyed good looks. It's frightening, in a way that nothing has frightened Ed before, because they're people and they're terrified of starvation and poverty and outsiders, and the politicians are just making it worse.
Ed listens to Alfons and his talk of rockets to help, to usher in a new age for the world, and all he can think about is alchemy and the alchemists and Ishbal, of a force for such incredible good corrupted and turned into a weapon. The rockets, Ed thinks, will be much more easily degraded, because while a human hand is behind them, alchemists are human, and able to resist corruption just that much more.
Always, always Ed walks the streets and looks for broad shoulders and black hair and dark eyes, looks because he's been in that bastard's shadow for almost half of his life and it doesn't feel right not to be, looks because he doesn't know how to do anything else, and is forever disappointed.
Twelve drops, thirteen, fourteen, and he's almost got enough now, almost, almost.
Hoenheim has disappeared, but that's nothing Ed isn't familiar with, nothing he can't move past—he's had experience, after all, with being abandoned by that selfish failure of a father—so he collects the scarlet drops that spill so easily and saves each one.
Ed's a genius—has always been, in alchemy, in science, in most things that don't have to do with people. He doesn't need the ability to perform alchemy with a clap of his hands to understand and build arrays. Some people, seeing his ability, thought that he had moved beyond needing arrays and circles and symbols, but if anything, Ed had depended on them even more, had taken those symbols and circles and made them a part of himself, incorporated them into his very being and then used them like another limb. If anything, it's deepened his understanding, and now, when he draws them out on the wooden floor of not-his-Gracia's house, he still has that spark inside him, that flare of intuition and perception that lets him take lateral leaps that would leave anyone else baffled.
He draws his arrays in chalk, over and over until every last line is correct. Then he paints over the chalk with his own blood, remembering, thinking of Al and of broad shoulders and black hair, dark eyes and humor and burning, blazing determination so very carefully banked. There are sparks crawling down his spine, sharp darts of lightning and wonder, and when Ed has used up the last of his saved blood, he sets the jar aside and stands.
Four years to reach this point, four years of working each night in secret and in solitude, because Alfons will never understand this science that has bound itself so tightly to Ed's soul, but it's done.
Ed steps around the circle, picking up the thick envelope on the desk and weighing it for a moment in his human hand. Alfons' name is scrawled across the front, stark and black, and Ed feels a twinge of guilt that this is the only goodbye he can leave the other man, who so easily could have been his brother. But Alfons is not Alphonse, cannot be, and this is not Ed's world. He can't stay here, not even for another minute when a way back home is laid out before his feet.
He leaves it on the table downstairs, where Alfons will see it, and then goes back up and closes the door of his workroom. He rolls up his sleeves, steps into the circle, and closes his eyes.
Three drops of fresh blood, and the spark down his spine becomes a hurricane.
Even with his eyes shut, he can see it when the lines begin to glow.
The office is dark and the complex is silent, only a few sharp, booted footsteps from the patrolling guards to break the hush. Roy resists the temptation to give in to his weariness and rub his eye. He's the duly elected Fuehrer of Amestris, the Flame Alchemist, the one to overturn Bradley's reign and give the power back to the citizens. He's not allowed to be tired, even if he feels as though every day is spent wading through syrup.
It had been different, once. Once he'd been a slave to paperwork, but there had been things to alleviate that, like missions and dinners out with beautiful women and—
And fire, golden and devouring, bright in the darkness and more captivating than the sun.
Roy's breath catches in his throat, far more painful than it should be, and the ache spreads through his chest like poison. He gives in then, drags his hands over his face and nearly knocks the eye patch askew. It's been four years already since Ed vanished, and still, still Roy can't make himself face it, even in the privacy of his own thoughts. Even though Ed is the reason he's Fuehrer now, with the uproar he caused and the rebellion that followed.
But Edward is gone, and Alphonse hasn't found any way to get him back, even with all of his alchemical brilliance.
That brilliance is nothing compared to Edward's, though, and they both know it. Ed was the one to make connections that no one else would think to, to leap from one train of thought to a completely separate one and then tie them together with sheer genius. His taste in decorating aside, Ed was—he did things with alchemy that Roy could have sworn were impossible, or improbable without months of drawing and redrawing arrays. Watching him work was glorious, because he was like a sun and everyone around him became the moon, burning with borrowed light.
And then there's a crackle, liked caged lightning, and Roy jolts to his feet—cautious, wary, because even with peace there are still dissenters who want the old regime, who want power, and Roy donned a target then size of Xing when he took his position. He's never not careful now, never not expecting a betrayal, and this—
There's a flare and flash of light, brilliantly blue and edged with an achingly familiar gold, and an array etches itself into his floor, lines of incandescence imbedding themselves into the worn wood. Roy takes a step back, one hand coming up, glove on—always, always, because he can't be otherwise and live.
The light turns to silver, to red, and then the gold devours every other color and burns, burns like the summer sun at noon. Roy falls back, one hand coming up to shield his face automatically—the other ready, ever prepared, but if this is an attack it's a good one, since he's alone and already off balance because of that color—
The brilliance flickers once more, dances for a long and breathless moment, and then fades away entirely.
There's supposed to be a guard outside the door, keeping watch, but the man's whereabouts are perilously close to the very last thing on Roy's mind at the moment, because Edward Elric is leaning against the doorframe, arms folded casually over his chest. That's much easier to think about, because it's been four years and thirty-seven days since this boy—a man now, though, clear as day—disappeared completely and left so much personal desolation in his wake.
Roy stares at him, hand still raised to call forth flame, and the Edward Elric in front of him is not the one who left. This young man is quieter, more thoughtful, with an aching undertone of weary sadness that belies the fond humor in his gaze. Roy can see it with only a moment's observation, because where the Fullmetal he knew was a wildfire, quick bursts of heat and anger and passion, this man is a forge-fire, focused and fixed, tempered but never tamed.
And he's here, he's here, when Roy had taken to believing he never would be again.
Edward looks at him, golden eyes still so brilliant, golden hair up in a ponytail that makes him look older even as it turns his face into something delicate, refined. Ed looks at him, because he's here, and Roy stopped believing in the gods a very long time ago, but for this he's willing to offer up a bit of faith.
Ed is back, even more beautiful than the day he left, and Roy's never managed to put a name to his feelings for the younger alchemist before beyond simple fascination, but now it hits him like a fist in the gut, a punch of want where he's been empty and aching for the past four years.
"Colonel Bastard," Ed says, mouth slowly, slowly tipping into a familiar sharp-edged and crooked grin that is Fullmetal at his most irreverent. "Nice patch. Someone girl finally take offense at you being a womanizing asshole?"
Roy twitches, automatically wanting to reach up and touch the bit of black cloth, but he refrains from giving Edward the satisfaction. He'd forgotten just what a little snot the Fullmetal Alchemist could be.
He missed it, though, missed it like a lost limb, like an eye forever darkened.
"An acceptable handicap garnered while in loyal service to my country, Fullmetal," Roy counters, but he's fighting a smile, because no one's really given him lip like this in almost half a decade, because no one pokes and prods and pushes the way Edward Elric does, without a care for rank or standing. "You're late handing in your report, Major Elric. Even for you, four years is…remarkably tardy."
A snort, a huff, and then all at once Edward is laughing, like a dam breaking open. He laughs, staggering forward, and somehow Roy is around the desk and Ed is colliding with his chest, still laughing, so beautiful, and Roy wraps his arms around him. He's grown into his shoulders, gained a little bit of height, but he still fits under Roy's chin, can be enclosed in Roy's arms so easily, and Roy clings to him as though he'll never let him go again.
(He won't.)
"I'm home," Ed whispers into his chest, not pulling away, and Roy savors it with everything inside of him. "I'm home."
Roy looks down at him, at the lean and compact body pressed right up against his, and drops his head to bury his face in vivid golden hair.
"Welcome back, Fullmetal," he murmurs. "Welcome home, Edward."
It's well before dawn when Ed wakes, still used to rising early and going to bed late, working on the world-crossing array whenever he had a spare moment. He sits up, blankets falling to pool around him, and knows immediately where he is, even though he'd never been here before last night. Mustang's guestroom is done in shades of red and blue and gold, tasteful rather than overwhelming, and it's clearly the home of a practicing alchemist, given the hundreds of books lining the walls of this room alone. There are more elsewhere, Ed is sure, and it's a little jarring, the wave of utmost relief that swamps him when he thinks alchemy and immediately feels the familiar surge of incandescent lightning in his blood.
He slides out of bed and dresses quickly, the clothes from the other world all he has—none of his old things fit anymore, and regardless, Ed's mostly outgrown his penchant for skintight leather pants. The door opens soundlessly, and Ed pads out, barefoot and glad of it; Germany was too cold to go without socks at the very least. Central City is warm at this time of year, even early in the morning.
As soon as he's in the main room, he's glad for the lack of boots and the noise that comes with them, because Mustang is asleep on the overstuffed sofa, just barely covered by a quilt. He's still in uniform, sprawled uncomfortably against the arm, and it only takes a glance for Ed to realize that the man had positioned himself so as to have a clear view of Ed's door. Making sure he didn't disappear during the night again, Ed supposes with a small smile, and carefully tugs the blanket up to cover Mustang fully.
Home, he thinks as he heads for the kitchen, savoring the sound of it. Home.
In the front hallway, a phone starts ringing, and Ed quickly darts over and grabs it before Mustang can wake. He picks it up, and by the time he's got it to his ear, a heartbreakingly familiar voice is babbling, "—just woke up with them this morning, and I remember everything, sir, it's all there! I don't know how, but I think that Brother might be—"
Ed laughs a little, relief and joy making his heart flutter in his chest, and cuts in. "Hey, Al. It's me."
There's a long moment of shocked silence, and then Al—no longer with that echo of metal in his voice, and god, that's good to hear—breathes, "Brother?"
"Yeah." Ed grins, trying to imagine the look on Al's face. He imagines it's fairly close to his own. "It worked, then, I take it? You got your body back?"
"It worked." Al sounds choked, breathless, and Ed can't remember the last time he heard anything that good—except, perhaps, a whispered welcome home, Edward. "You—you finally managed to—"
He breaks off, but Ed finishes for him, already knowing what he was going to ask. "Alchemy didn't work over there," he explains. "It was…an alternate universe, I guess? I had to figure out an array that would open a passage back to this world and then open it without using traditional alchemy. It took a while, but I used blood to activate it, since I figured it was a bridge back here, and it worked." He smiles, closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. "It worked, Al."
There's a sound like a train whistle in the background, utterly familiar, and Al says quickly, "I'm at the station, Brother, and I should go before I miss this train. I'll be in Central soon, though. You'll—?"
"I'll be here," Ed affirms, and the whistle sounds again. Al stutters out a goodbye and another order not to leave, and then hangs up. Ed is left holding the silent phone, his heart lighter than it's been in four years. He's in Amestris, Mustang is here, and Al will be here soon.
Home, he thinks, and grins.