Author: m.jules
Rating: Hard R for the whole thing
Summary: "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." Alphonse Elric helps Roy Mustang face life after more tragedy than one man should endure and finds something for himself in the process.
Pairing: mainly Roy/Al, with hints of and references to others. (Including, but not limited to, Ed/Winry, Al/Paninya, Gracia/Maes/Roy/Riza, and Al/Elicia.)
Disclaimer: Arakawa would KILL me. I bow low in supplication.
Warnings: Slash, het, multiples, sex, violence, character death... did I miss anything?
Author's Notes: This was meant to be "The Story That Proves In-Character Roy/Al Is Possible." Don't know if it worked. For my 7stages claim, prompt "New every morning."
Thank you, thank you, thank you to cornerofmadness and evillittledog who have beta'd every chapter without complaint even though this isn't their pairing. To drfiredog for enduring me chattering about it, and to all my fellow Roy/Al 'shippers whose excitement about the possibility of this story kept me writing on it.
This is manga-verse, with every chapter yet released and scanlated as fair game for spoilers and many liberties taken as far as speculation about the future. If you want to know how Al got his body back, Yet Gentle and The Frost of Awakening can be considered my default answer to that question for now at least.
"Good afternoon, Alphonse. How are you?" Gracia Hughes kissed his cheek as he entered the house and he returned the gesture politely. She offered to take his coat and though he almost refused – I have to get back on the tip of his tongue – his manners won out and he shrugged out of the garment, handing it to her to hang up on the rack. He could always put it back on, after all, and he didn't want Gracia to think he was rushing out.
"I'm doing well, thank you," Al responded, though a trace of exhaustion tinted the rich tenor of his voice. He knew the strain showed on his face, too – he'd seen it in the mirror just that morning, in fact, the way his eyes were slightly duller than normal – but he gave her a friendly, cheerful smile and followed her into the living room. "How are you and Elicia?"
Gracia gestured to the sofa, indicating that Al should take a seat, and seated herself in an an armchair at the end of the coffee table where they could easily see each other as they talked. "We're just fine, Alphonse; thank you for asking." There was tiredness to her smile, too, and a new degree of sorrow that Al hated to see there.
He let his eyes scan the room, smiling at the new picture of Elicia that graced the mantle of the fireplace. The eight-year-old had grown unnaturally serious after her father's death some five years earlier, but the photograph captured her with a rare, unguarded smile as she regarded a yellow butterfly that had come to rest on a head of cabbage in her little vegetable garden.
"Is she making any progress?" he asked Gracia as she began to pour tea from the service she'd had waiting on the table.
"She has her days," Gracia nodded, setting the teapot back down on the tray and holding the cup and saucer. "Milk? Sugar?"
"One sugar, please," Al accepted graciously, and she dropped in the requested cube of sugar before she handed over the cup, a small spoon resting on the saucer.
As Al stirred, Gracia began preparing her own tea. "Speaking of progress," Gracia began smoothly. "I wanted to ask you how Roy's been."
Al took a deep breath, watching the tiny eddies in his tea as he thought of how best to answer the inquiry. "He's… well, he has his days," he said wryly, borrowing her phrase. "Though lately the good ones seem to be more frequent. He still misses her, though. Very much."
Gracia nodded, the sorrow in her eyes deepening visibly as she sat back in her chair, tea in hand. "Yes, I would imagine so," she murmured. "We all do."
Al remembered with a jolt that two days later would mark ten months since Riza Hawkeye had died in the hospital of complications from pneumonia. The onset of the disease had been swift and acute, and though she'd been hospitalized and Roy had called for a healing alchemist from Xing, she had lost the battle before the healer had so much as set foot in Central.
"Yes," Al said sadly, his fingers tracing lightly over the enamel-coated handle of his cup. "We do."
Gracia seemed to shake herself, emerging from her heavy thoughts as she regarded Al over the edge of her teacup. "But you say Roy's doing better?"
Al followed her cue and left the direct words of Riza's death unspoken, nodding in answer to her question. "As I said, he still has his bad days, but I'm not hiding the kitchen knives from him anymore." There was a hint of levity to his voice, but it disappeared as he added, "We still don't have a gun in the house, though."
When it had become apparent that Riza was irretrievably gone, Roy's anguish had overpowered him. Gracia had called Ed and Al from the hospital to tell them the news, and they'd gone up immediately. Gracia had been there, of course, with Elicia; Havoc and the rest of Mustang's former subordinates were there, and Winry had informed them that she was boarding the next train out from Rush Valley.
Al remembered thinking how impossible it was that Hawkeye, with all her strength and vitality and brilliance, had been struck down by something as simple as an illness. After a while, someone -- had it been him or Ed? -- had noticed that Roy wasn't there and had gone looking for him, concerned. They'd found him outside the hospital, by the car he'd driven Hawkeye in, with his gun in his mouth, finger already tightening on the trigger.
Al had grabbed him from behind as Ed wrestled the gun out of his mouth. There had been an ugly struggle, and Al remembered his horror at the blood that ran from Mustang's lips as he and Ed abused them with the barrel of the gun before Ed finally managed to jerk the gun down and away from Roy's face. That was nothing compared to his panic when the gun had gone off and Roy had screamed in pain. Al remembered the sensation of warm blood and tiny fragments of flesh and bone splattering his forearms, remembered the way Roy arched in his arms and then collapsed, writhing in agony.
The bullet had gone straight through Roy's tibia, just under his knee cap, shattering the bone. Al shuddered, remembering the haze of Roy's surgery, the recovery time, the suicide watch they'd put him under. The watch that Al was continuing at Roy's home as he helped him rehabilitate. Shaking himself from the grim memories, he sat up a little straighter and gave Gracia a smile.
"But he's smiling more, now. He's still mostly bad-tempered, but he doesn't snarl at me. Brother, yes. Me, no." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "I'm sure he would like to see you and Elicia, if you ever wanted to visit."
Gracia shook her head, a subtle sadness playing over her features. "I don't think he's quite ready for me to visit yet." She smiled. "But after he's had a little more time, I would be glad to visit him."
Al gave her a confused look. "It's true he tires pretty quickly, but he has been having a few visitors lately. In fact, Havoc is keeping him company right now."
Gracia smiled a bit distantly, a hesitation in the set of her shoulders that made him wonder. "Al," she began slowly, setting her teacup and saucer down on the table. "There's something ... I think I should tell you."
Al's posture changed subtly, his eyes widening just a bit in anticipation of whatever secret Gracia was about to share. He watched as she got up from her chair and went to a high cabinet over the bookshelf, taking a little silver key from the fireplace mantle to unlock it. She pulled out a thick book that, upon second glance, Al could tell was a photo album. She rested it in his lap and he looked up at her in surprise.
She settled back in her chair and gestured for him to look through it. As he opened the cover, she began to speak.
"Not very many people know this, but Roy and Riza were more than friends to Maes and myself."
On the first page was a picture of Maes and Gracia with Roy and Riza, all of them laughing and happy. Al felt his throat tighten at the photograph -- to see Maes and Riza, who were now gone, looking so alive... and to see how happy Gracia and Roy were, two people who were now shaded with sorrow, filled him with something bittersweet and indescribable.
"We were lovers."
Al's head snapped up, his gaze fixing on Gracia. She wasn't looking at him, her eyes focused somewhere far inward, and Al turned the page. He smiled at the picture of Maes and Gracia kissing chastely, a sweet, romantic moment between husband and wife. His eyes widened a little at the next picture, Maes' mouth pressed just as sweetly against Riza's. Heat began creeping to his cheeks at the images of an illicit arrangement, though there was so much love between the subjects of the photos it was almost tangible, even now. His first impulse was to close the album, already feeling like an intruder on what had been very private, personal moments, but Gracia obviously had some reason for sharing these things with him, even if he couldn't begin to guess what that was.
"Even before Maes and I were married, the four of us fell in together. It was strange at first, awkward, even painful in the beginning while we worked out the little issues of jealousy bound to arise in such a situation. But we fell in love. All of us."
As Gracia spoke, Al continued turning the pages. It took a little effort but eventually he began seeing past the scintillating nature of the images to the humanity of the emotions that had been captured: Roy and Maes locked in a passionate kiss, fingers twisting through hair, eyes closed in a sweet kind of longing; Riza and Gracia gazing at one another, hands twined together and caressing over bare shoulders and arms; on and on like this.
"When Maes..." she stopped, choking for a moment with the fresh pain of the memory, then cleared her throat and began again, quieter. "When Maes died, it made it difficult. It was harder for them to come here, Roy especially, because we were constantly reminded that we were not whole. A vibrant part of us was missing." She stopped, blinking rapidly before she took a deep breath and continued. "But we still loved each other, and we were not willing to lose what we had left."
Al, feeling he'd gotten what he needed from the photo album and that to look any further would be in bad taste, flipped back to the first page and stared again at the heart-wrenching picture. He sensed it was easier for Gracia to tell her story without his eyes on her, so he studied the expressions, lingering the longest on Roy's. He lived with the man now, saw almost every emotion that crossed his face, and in the last ten months he'd seen only pale shadows of happiness. Somehow, seeing him here, younger and more carefree, eased Al's burden and reminded him that Roy hadn't always been so grim.
"Now..." Gracia shrugged helplessly, twisting her hands together in her lap. "I still love Roy, but we were only lovers because we loved the same people. We would not have been lovers otherwise and now what we have in common is how much we've lost." She smiled wryly. "There are too many ghosts between us; we would look at each other and see only what we no longer have. I am afraid we would only bring each other pain."
She looked at him then and Al, sensing her gaze, closed the album and looked up at her, meeting her eyes. "I am glad you're with him. I'm glad you're taking care of him. He needs someone, and I can't be that for him, not with our history. He needs to start over, to begin again, to be reminded that there is more to life than what he has lost." She gave him a quick, almost nervous smile, and Al could feel something twisting in him, almost sure he knew Gracia's next words. "But be careful, Alphonse. Roy has a reputation for being an easy lover, someone who leaves almost before he arrives, but that is as much of a ruse as Maes' carelessness was. When Roy falls in love, he doesn't let go easily."
Al sat back, shaking his head, about to tell her it was nothing like that. He was taking care of Roy and certainly he cared for the older man -- they were friends, after all -- but it was nothing more than that. Friendship and caring.
"If he falls for you, be sure you know what you're getting into. You can't play with him and then leave when you decide you want something else. Love is a very serious thing to Roy."
"Gracia, I'm not -- we're not --"
"Just be careful, Al," she said, a sad kind of smile crossing her features. "Love has a way of sneaking up on you sometimes."
