He hates his nightmares.
It's the same thing every time, the same story behind each one. He's stuck in an outpost somewhere out north, always staring into a fire (the fire reminds him of Ed, he thinks, he doesn't know why) but feeling cold all the same. Maybe it's because of the blizzard present outside the window in every dream. He's completely alone in this post, but for some reason he feels that he deserves it.
He never wears his gloves in the dreams. Once, when he was lucid enough to try searching for them, he couldn't bear to wear them for more than a few minutes (alchemy reminds him of Ed, he thinks, and there's a pang in his chest and he doesn't know why). They feel soiled somehow, his hands and his gloves, far more than he feels they should be. His hands shiver from something more than the cold when he takes them off.
He gets visitors sometimes, mostly Havoc and Breda, and never anyone else. They call him corporal, and he doesn't know why he never corrects them. He misses Ed in those dreams, longs for him, constantly wishing for him to appear because if this is his dream, he should – but he only every catches glimpses of gold, either from the fire or his imagination.
With every passing dream, the longing grows. It grows into desperation, it grows into an ache in the pit of his stomach and in the bottom of his heart, it grows into something regretful and he has no control over what he starts to feel in these nightmares. He thinks that this hell or something worse, because it feels like he's fucking rotting and he can't stop it. He wants Ed, but Ed is never there.
He starts to think Ed is dead in these nightmares, which is ridiculous, because he is alive in reality – he's sure of it – but he still thinks of it anyway. He thinks of it when the dreams get ridiculously long and he tucks himself in bed and stares at the drawer with the gun in it. Ed is dead, he thinks, and he almost reach for the drawer – but he's always a coward, and he just sinks back under the covers and forces himself to sleep.
He starts losing count of how many nightmares he's had, how many times he's subconsciously thought that they were real – but it doesn't matter, because they're nightmares, and because even if he wakes up panting and covered in sweat, Ed is always there with his arms wrapped around his body and cradling him until he can breathe normally again.
Here in reality, he has Ed. Ed is here and not in his nightmares, and because of that Roy is sure of what is real and what is not. Nothing else matters other than this simple fact, so he ignores the thoughts of his nightmares being too real to be mere dreams, of the fact that the shade of gold in Ed's eyes seem a little off, of the little detail that he seems to spend more time in his nightmares then in his reality. Ed is here, and that's all that matters.
A/N: Bah, ficlets. Why do you pop into my head when I'm studying for a test tomorrow, huh? And suuurrree, it just had to be an idea that sparked my interest, hm? Why couldn't you be a stupid idea like that Trainer!Roy and PokemonNeko!Ed that I had last month?
... Sigh.
Written because it refused to leave my head - reviews will be cherished, loved, and will most likely either motivate me to write more or give me energy to revise for my test -, and whoever's read until here, thank you for doing so!
