The Art of Being Human
By Kay
Disclaimer: I don't own FMA. Attempted to buy it off the owners with three pennies, some lint and a half-dead moth, but they refused. Greedy bastards.
Author's Note: Roy!angst all over again… I need to get a life. Very disjointed. As usual. Enjoy.
0.
The day is sticky and hot, in the way that leaves Roy's uniform clinging to his shoulders uncomfortably.
"Summers in East City are like this, sir," one of the man comments when he finally complains, fanning at his own sweat-drenched neck. At the quick glare Roy sends him, he flushes and looks away. It is not in his best interests to irritate the Colonel any further today, not when all anyone in the office wants to do is sit back and moan pitifully under the sweltering heat.
Roy spends most of the afternoon at his desk, chewing lightly on the end of his pen and considering the fact that he is miserable. He spits out the taste of ink in the sink of the restroom later, and leaves with the echoes of his boots across the tile in his ears. The orange sun is setting low, the world silent beyond his window blinds, and he sits there at his desk until the night comes, swift and cool.
i.
There is a water leak in his house. It mysteriously disappears during the daylight hours, but returns with a vengeance when he is already in bed. Staring up at the navy blue ceiling tiles, he can hear it dripping, agonizingly slow, from the faucet in the kitchen. He shouldn't be able to hear it from all the way upstairs, but he can.
Sometimes he tosses aside the sheets and goes to see it, but the faucet is dry when he gets there. Sometimes he throws his pillow at the wall in frustration, unable to sleep while it pounds against his head, and attempts to rip out his inky black hair by its roots. Sometimes he sits in a kitchen chair for hours, staring at the sink as though it is mocking him, part of a joke he can't quite grasp.
More often than not, he welcomes it. It intrudes into his dreams of sand and gritty blood, this running water that never existed in Ishvar.
ii.
It is late July, and the cicadas are buzzing in the trees.
He has an orange sucker in his mouth, wedged between his molars and the pink of his gums. It hurts, but he finds himself gnawing on it rather than waiting for it to melt, just grinding away with his teeth against the sour crush of candy. A little of the stick hanging out of his lips is slick with juice.
"Alicia has been practicing her tricycle—it's absolutely amazing, my angel on wheels, she's so smart—sweetie, you have to show your Uncle Roy, show him how you like to ride it."
Roy chomps down hard, absentmindedly twirling the sucker in his mouth. He's not entirely sure it tastes like orange, but rather that fake product the candy companies call 'orange,' which isn't at all like citrus, yet remains perfectly indescribable. Carelessly, his dark eyes roam the expanse of the Hughes' backyard; the green grass is longer than it should be, toys scattered around in the dirt.
"I wanna sucker like Uncle Roy's," the little girl beside his knee says longingly, looking up at her daddy and his friend with big eyes. She tugs on the distracted man's pants, hugging his leg and staring intently with a pleading expression. Maes shoots him a look, as if saying, 'See what you've done?'
But Roy is looking down at her, lost and bewildered.
iii.
Roy still has the first pair of gloves he ever wore.
They aren't very impressive, to his great chagrin; the loopy and somewhat misshapen array was drawn in red ink with a hand that hadn't yet grown used to the rough fabric's surface. The concept had still been new, and therefore there was an excess of flint intermingled in the cloth—it itched and rubbed his fingers raw, he remembers with a grimace. They hadn't known if it would work.
It worked altogether too well, of course.
He's thrown away every single pair of gloves he wore in Ishvar, whether they were ruined from being saturated with too much blood or he just wanted to burn away the memories. Ever since then, he's made it a habit of destroying his overly-used gloves—there's no use in leaving them around in his drawers.
But he keeps the first pair, and sometimes at night he will take them out and put them on, pretending his hands are still clean.
iv.
He really does love his uniform. Roy doesn't tell anyone else this, because obviously no one would understand or really care, but he likes the way it looks on him. Loves the way it feels. The brass buttons and smooth, blue folds of it against his skin, perfectly clean and aligned. The collar is stiff and brushes against the angle of his jaw line sometimes, a cloth caress he knows better than a lover.
He's worn this uniform through a lot. Through sand and blood that weighed it down into the earth, further past the level that any man should go. Through enough sweat to drown several men, more charred wood and ash than anything else could handle, and sometimes the bitter salt of tears in a small cot at night, when he awoke to find his eyes damp and sore, unknowingly using them in the night.
So he likes the way it feels. It is familiar. It makes him look in control, perfectly clean and aligned, a symbol of his inevitable rise to the top. It makes him something other than that pale, drawn-faced man that stands in front of the bathroom mirror, the skinny jut of his shoulders making him appear much smaller than he is. It makes him Roy Mustang.
Still, he thinks he will like the Fuhrer's uniform better.
v.
"Branch out in the shadows, keep it comin' baby, the Devil stops for no one but a god…"
"Word in the ranks is that you're a real pain in the ass," Hughes says cheerfully, dropping down on the wooden stool next to Roy. He flips his hat down on the bar counter top, running fingers through the unruly mess left in its wake, and flashes a blinding grin at his best friend. "Of course, it's old news. I knew that years ago."
Roy tilts his head politely, a faint smirk twitching up on his lips. His eyes are already lazy and dark from the alcohol, lashes falling over the contented slits of black. He twirls the glass of liquor in his hands before drawling, "One could say the same of you, Maes."
Hughes laughs. On the other side of the bar, the jukebox sighs softly in acoustics and hazy lyrics. "Slaughter all the reasons for being wrong, honey, 'cause the end is so near that moments like this are long."
"You're late," Roy says, and tips back the glass for a swallow. But he's smiling. In the dimly lit, shady room, Hughes' quality shines at its highest. He separates himself with a glow that glimmers at the edges, and indefinable brilliance that he himself could never reach out to touch.
Instead, he inches as close as possible without touching, his elbow resting on the counter as close to absolution as it could get. It is enough. His shoulders slump in relief, the sense of belonging washing over him in a cloud of mingled frustration and needy desperation. His face never changes.
"We're all made of ruin and shame."
vi.
His mother never talks to him anymore. The last time he heard her voice, he'd been on a train coming home from Ishvar, leaning into a small compartment with the telephone clutched between trembling bare hands. It had been the first thing he'd touched without gloves for weeks. They were pale; soft to the touch.
They were shaking when they dialed the numbers. She hadn't written to him the entire time he was in the East—occasionally he received care packages, little boxes full of cookies or homely objects, things that seemed plastic and rushed. She'd never approved of him joining the military, even less of fighting a war. It had killed his father, too, a very long time ago. "A life is a life, and you're still taking it," she'd told him before he left, staring at him with hard, dark eyes that he saw accusing him in the bathroom mirror every single day of his life. "Think this through, Roy, before you make a mistake."
He'd put his hat on and turned away. Now he sags against the train's vibrating walls, exhausted, beaten, frightened, and when she picks up with a resounding click on the other side, all the words fly out of his head. Oiled excuses are crushed under the relief of her quiet, warm, "Hello?"
"Mother?"
There is a deadened silence. He knows that she's heard about the news. The massacre.
"You were right," he says quickly, blurring the words together in his haste, and hangs up the phone. Resists the urge to cry. Stares at it for a long time, and promises himself never to be this vulnerable ever again. It's time to toughen up. Time to get things done. Fix what should be mended.
He wonders if he should have told her that he loves her. He never mentions it, but when Edward Elric gives a report at his desk, head bowed in sullen anger and still too young to be motherless, he thinks about that exact question. Behind that smirk, he's chewing on the regret.
vii.
Once, in the evening, he caught himself staring at Havoc's cigarette.
"Colonel?" the man murmurs, quirking an eyebrow up. His blue eyes are curious, his head tilted to the side, and a long strand of faint smoke falls from his mouth. The embers of the stick burn red-hot; flaring. "You okay?"
Roy blinks, feeling a little irritated at being noticed. "Nothing. I'm fine." The smoke is mesmerizing. The sluggish, graceful drift into the air, followed by the utter disappearance of any trace of its presence. He thinks it would be nice to be like that. "You shouldn't be smoking in here."
"Want one?" The pack is offered. Havoc's grin is lazy, broad. He's a good man. But Roy knows the taste of smoke altogether too well by now, and he shakes his head.
"No. Thank you, Lt. Havoc."
"Anytime, sir," he mumbles, and it's meant.
viii.
It rains long and hard on East City, but that's been the way of it for weeks now. Only Roy's never been without an umbrella or car ride home before, either, and now he's cursing that fact along with every mother nature deity his brain can come up with—the puddles are too large to jump over, too long to walk around, and even on his toes the cold water's still seeping up his ankles.
When he makes it to the house, the coat is flung towards the floor. His black boots squelch wetly when he tugs them off, leaning against the wall for balance, and he can feel the slimy sensation of rainwater dripping down his bare neck when he bends. Miserable weather. He hates East City sometimes.
Later, a musky towel dragging through his errant hair, Roy sits at the sofa and listens to it pour in torrents over the outside world. He can't see through his windows; the panes of glass are blurred through. He coughs damply.
The house is quiet, empty. He can hear his own breathing in the barrenness of it, solitary and pained with an oncoming cold.
ix.
"Do you play chess?" It's possibly the first calm, interested question Edward Elric has ever asked of him. Roy barely glances up at it.
"Very well." The board is tucked on the corner of his desk, unearthed from the drawer when he'd been looking for the Ferschwitz papers that morning. It's folded and black and white. "And you?"
"No."
"Would you like to learn?" It's an impulsive, rash inquiry—he hadn't known it was hovering on his tongue until it leaped off into the air. They stare at each other abruptly, eyes widened and startled.
"No," Edward says almost as quickly, though not unkindly. A speculative expression settles over his sharp features, softening them into a slightly lopsided smile. "I don't think I have the patience or strategy for it."
Roy wants to laugh, but he doesn't. This is a good moment, he thinks.
x.
Most of his scars are from self-inflicted wounds.
This isn't what it sounds like—he fondly remembers Maes throwing a hissy fit the day he first saw them all in full daylight, raving at him in his apartment bathroom about guilt and brain chemicals and, "Why didn't you come to me for help!" It had taken him almost an hour before he could calm his friend down enough to shove him on the couch, gag him with donuts, and explain, exasperated, that it wasn't some sick masochistic tendency. Every alchemist bears the same burdens. The number of scars are directly proportional to the number of corners they were backed into and trapped within; and usually how many times they escaped.
An alchemist's greatest tool is his body. When out of chalk, cut off from supplies or fluid, unable to draw in dirt—an alchemist still has an advantage if he's still alive. His blood marks stronger arrays than any ink or lead could create.
He'd been in a cement locker with a renegade activist with a nasty temper and a meat cleaver—gloveless, helpless. A slice to the ankle, blood milking over pale fingers, and there was his salvation. Tiny white lines on his shoulders, biceps, ankles and ribcage. The marks of battle where he created weapons from his own life force. Any alchemist knew this. It was one of the first lessons taught to them.
The most dangerous weapons were an alchemist's mind and flesh.
Maes had touched them with quivering fingertips, his face ashen, and for the first time Roy wanted to erase them from existence.
xi.
Roy is secretly building the Elrics a trust fund.
He doesn't let them know it, of course; Edward wouldn't take kindly to the interference, and Alphonse would stammer and express his gratitude so much that it would be painful to watch. Even Hawkeye and Hughes, whom he would show even the most secret of documents or plans, don't know about its existence yet. (This should only last for another year or so, Roy calculates, knowing Hughes' information network. In fact, he's astonished it hasn't been discovered yet. The only thing he can think of is that it never occurred to Hughes at all.)
It's not much now. Just a bit taken from Edward's paycheck, a tidbit here and there from his own sizable account. Dollars he's gleamed from various sources for no other purpose. Over time, it will become a staggering inheritance, however, that the Elrics can claim once they reach maturity. They don't need it now, anyway.
For the future, though, Roy thinks tiredly. For the life they'll want to build after their rebirth. For all the kittens Alphonse will want to keep, and the giant dreams Edward will aspire to reach when free of obligations.
He only hopes he lives to see it.
xii.
"Jesus, Roy," Maes is saying urgently, lifting his face to a blinding light hovering above them. He blinks unsteadily under damp bangs pressed to his forehead, willing the hazy disorder of his world to reassemble and let him see his friend's concerned frown. It will probably be the last time he will look at it.
"'lo, Maes," he says, low and pleased.
"Oh for the—just hold still, your head is gushing like a waterfall," and gentle hands are wiping away the hot streaks of blood over his cheekbones, spreading the mask so far that it breaks, and he can see the uncovered smile of Roy Mustang start to appear.
"Maes, it was really good. Everything, I mean."
"You're not going to die, you idiot," his friend growls in frustration, shoving a padded wad of his own shirt sleeve against Roy's bleeding forehead. The dizzy feeling persists. "The bullet only grazed you."
Roy considers that. Closes his eyes. Rests his head against Maes' chest, feeling his heart pounding rapidly against his eardrums like a steady song. He thinks he could sing to it if he wanted to.
"Roy?"
He licks his dry lips. "It was good, Maes."
The breathless chuckle hits his hair and scatters it. "I know."
They sit there in the darkness, listening for the loud footsteps of backup rushing up through the corridors, and Roy wonders when he'll next feel this human ever again.
The end