Title:Cracks

Pairing: KimbleeRoy

Rating: PG/PG13

Spoilers: For the Ishbal arc, around episode 15 or so.

Warnings: Dark-ish, m/m(yaoi)

Notes: Ishbal ficlet, Roy's POV, just over 500 words, inspired by theburrahobbit on eljay and beta-ed by lykomancer, also on lj. Took about an hour to write, and it seems to have chased off all my plot bunnies, so you may not hear from me for a little while after this. Concrit very appreciated, flames are pretty, I'm a comment whore, so I'm happy with anything. XD

Fic:

It was almost as if a little bit more of Roy's soul broke off and fell into an unfathomable abyss every time he snapped his fingers, every time he felt the coarse fabric rub and bring a spark to life, every time his arrays activated in a flash of red light and the air around another helpless civilian burst into flame. Or maybe, that damned Stone absorbed it; every time it worked its powers into his alchemy, it took a piece of his soul as equivalent trade. No matter where it went or what happened, he wanted it to stop. He didn't want to come out of this war dead on the inside; what purpose would that serve? None whatsoever. How could he repay his sins from the battlefield if he was nothing but an empty husk, a broken man without a will to live on? He couldn't. He'd be useless.

Then again, maybe useless was a preferable option if useful meant that he'd have to face how dirty he felt when Gran told him he'd done well, told him that he was due for a promotion for his services. And of course, Crimson would be there, nonchalantly smirking, all glory and pride as that bastard told him the same thing, told Kimblee that only Flame came close to touching upon his "heroic deeds".

It was sickening, how the two reacted to the "praise" in such opposite ways… how Kimblee soaked it all up like he deserved it, when in Roy's mind, not one of them did. It made Roy want to leave, run as Marcoh had done. That was the honourable thing to do, he believed. The sane thing. Wanting to stay and fight, to end hundreds of lives each day in massive, amplified explosions, to kill, was insanity. Such was Kimblee's affliction. Everyone knew the man was bat-shit insane, with him it was just BOOM! BOOM! BOOM, laughter swirling heavy though the air around him, warning his fellow soldiers to stay the fuck away or else they would go out like anything else that stood in Kimblee's path.

With a bang.

They were on opposite ends of the spectrum, yet in the end they were the same. As much as Roy wanted to deny it, he couldn't hide from the truth during those long nights where he never slept. How could he, with the memory of his kills fresh in his mind, haunting him? They held the power to destroy his world in their hands. Were the two ever to join forces and put their collective mind to it, all it would take is a snap and bang, and then goodbye cruel world.

When Kimblee took it upon him to make the nights worse still, Roy found that there was nothing he had the strength to do about it anymore. When the man slipped into his tent, bringing sand and searing cold with him, Roy raised his head from his uncomfortable cot and gave a small frown before sitting up to strip off his clothes. He knew the procedure now. He also knew that he wouldn't win, so why fight it? By the time Crimson's slow gait had taken him to the bedside, Flame would be half-naked, reaching out to draw the slightly taller man into a rough kiss, tasting of sand and ash and death. He may have made it worse, but in a way he helped him forget too.

But only until he started talking, then Roy's soul threatened to crack clean in half.