fandom - Hagane no Renkinjutsushi / Full Metal Alchemist
title - gekkabijin no kibou.
rating - pg
pairing - roy + ed
description – (AU) In the modern world, Roy is a middle-aged man with everything anyone could possibly want to have. But more and more, he'd trade it for something more unknown…

Disclaimer – Hagane no Renkinjutsushi / Full Metal Alchemist isn't mine.

gekkabijin no kibou
(wish of the Cereus.)
By miyamoto yui

Once upon a time, there was man who led an ordinary life of work and sleep. He'd go in with his dark suit and come out more exhausted than the previous day. To give his life a little variety, he always came in with a different tie though.
He took the same amount of coffee everyday with just a tinge of sugar and creamer. And everyday, he would read the newspaper in between phone calls and meetings while appearing to be busy.
All in all, things amused him, but would never penetrate within him.

Life was life.
It just had to be lived through with 'efficiency'.

But one day, because of strange circumstances, he found himself suddenly taking a trip…

"Please be careful, everyone! Watch your step while heading outside to the sides of the steeple!"

The group of twelve walked up the stone steps while holding one hand onto the gray wall to support themselves. Since this was an antique, yet prestigious church, the uneven width and coarseness of the feel of the spiral staircase made of rock was a little more than unnerving.
Though the dark-haired man was not scared of heights, he took a deep breath and was more upset at how everyone overreacted to the situation. He almost wanted to slap some sense into them, but he had no right to. For some reason, there was an itching on his palms as if he could incinerate them.
Ah, if only it were another time and place.

When they got to the outside, it was a breathtaking sight that couldn't be taken in one gulp. It was bizarre because you were able to look out as if it were a tower, but here they were walking the sides, mid-air around a steeple. This was what this unusual church was known for.
He immediately took out his camera to take a ton of pictures. Turning around slowly, you could see the whole desert city in all its brightness with the passersby below scrounging from one building to another for shelter from the high sun. It was then that the man took the camera away to watch life with his own eyes.

Was this what god saw from such a high place?

Despite the melting effects of the sun and the annoying tour group chattering mindlessly, he felt swept away and lonely at the same time. It was a feeling that almost became an invisible companion that followed him everywhere. It had the taste of a bittersweet fruit.

Maybe he answered his own question about god.

As he looked down at the stands selling fruit, he could almost imagine clearly peering at the peaches bruised because of the heat. They were tender to the warmth of the sun.

Almost like a heart unused to being touched. Or was it rotting away because it wasn't being used? He wasn't so sure anymore.

As the tour leader smiled, she thanked them for being a wonderful group all this time and that it had to come to an end sometime. He nodded politely, almost wanting to snicker at being able to finally escape from the contentious crowd that he put up with for the past few days. It was all to save money anyway.
Besides, there was no one he could have invited. He just wasn't used to getting close to anyone.

It was like he forever put this fiery barrier around him. It blocked anyone from ever crossing inside of his personal space and into his heart.

At this thought, he ran away. Sentimentality was starting to accost his unemotional stance to his current view of life. He rushed down the stairs to avoid the people that were still watching from above, holding his camera in his hands and carrying his small bag on his right shoulder.
The tapping of his shoes echoed into his ears as if he were the only person on this Earth. But as he walked out of the gigantic wooden doors, the blaze of the sun embraced him until he was sweaty from just walking around the open market that sold many items that he probably didn't ever need.

"But I'll just buy one," he told himself as he eyed the stands while patting his forehead with a blue and white plaid handkerchief.
It was his policy to just buy one souvenir. Anything more was just excess that crowded his entropic room already filled with paper and unfinished personal projects. All was arranged in the name of his own definition of 'neat'.

His white shirt was almost completely drenched and faded, ripped jeans were almost sticking to his legs. He needed to find something fast before heading back to the hotel. There was no time tomorrow before his flight home.

As he thought that, his eyes caught sight of an unusual picture beside a cactus full of needles. He headed towards the green and red stripped blanket over the wooden stand. Without discretion, he pointed at it with a shocked, yet curious expression. He had a knack for collecting odd things. Anything he touched soon showed characteristics of its 'master' anyway.
He smirked. (He liked power, even from inanimate objects. ^^;;;)

"This will turn into this." The young woman with the red bandanna politely commented while gesturing her hand from the cactus to a photograph with a fully-bloomed flower that had long, slender white petals and a yellow middle. "It is a relative of the Cereus, so that's why they look like twins. However, there is a legend that when it blooms, it will grant a wish for as long as it's alive."
The man cupped his hand on his forehead with the handkerchief in between. He laughed at the ridiculous story, unable to take anything without concrete evidence. His skepticism made the blond girl pout with a hurt face as if to say, "I'm not lying."
Her grandmother stood up from her chair and walked up to him with her pipe in the air. She looked up to him and he felt a shiver down his spine for just a moment.
She adjusted her glasses in serious manner. Surely, this was a woman not to be angered.

The smoke flowed from the thin pipe as she said, "You're skeptical because you're scared of being hurt by the hope she's giving you. But if that's how you think, why did you even visit this gorgeous, dream-like city anyway? Nothing here was made to be 'normal' like in everyone else's hometown around the world."

She took a puff with her wrinkled left hand becoming a fist that pushed behind her lower back. The old woman still looked at him and he looked at her and then at the cactus.
"Tell me why you're here."

He came here because a dream told him so. Wasn't that silly? He didn't want to spill something he didn't desire for anyone to ever know about him. If anyone from his office knew, they'd laugh at him for being so romantic. He'd never live it down.
But here he was giving a minute explanation with his head going a little dizzy from the rising humidity. He didn't know why he was telling this to two people he didn't even know.

"What's it supposed to do?" he plainly asked but was attracted to the flower even more despite logic trying to overcome his apparent madness.

"You came at a good time, young man." She laughed while tipping some ashes onto the dirt ground. Her expression loosened and now she was back to her good spirits. "It blooms tonight. If you buy one, we will deliver it half an hour before it blooms. At that point, you must make a wish. And when it dies, do as you please with it."
But she caught his wrist as a warning of precaution. "You have to have an equivalent for this wish. Are you strong enough for that, young man?"

Slowly, he nodded with a solemn innocence he had lost long ago. He couldn't help it because the woman seemed to know something he didn't about himself. And somehow, he felt like he had seen her before somewhere else.
So, he trusted her.

He looked at the old woman but couldn't bring himself to ask, "Why did I buy something I couldn't bring home whole?"

Nothing in this place made sense;
not even the self he was so sure of.

"Can you really give up everything for this wish, young man?"

He gave her a serious face but still kept silent.

"It will only last until the warmth of the dawn touches its petals."

So after a few hours, he took a shower and carelessly put on a robe with his hair still uncombed and dripping wet. There he was on the highest suite of the hotel waiting for the plant to be delivered.
He looked down the balcony, but according to his watch, it was only about a quarter until eight in the evening. Then, he went inside to sit on the bed. He picked up the pencil and sketchbook he had brought.

The handsome man stared at the empty page. He was good at taking pictures and remembering a scene, but to produce it again with his own hands was just too much for him. The only reason he even started drawing was because his hands felt like fire at certain times. There was a restlessness that happened once in a while and it only came whenever he dreamt of that one person.

And this person, though detailed in his mind, was vague when he drew him onto paper.

He didn't draw anything else but this boy that kept on appearing in his dreams. At the beginning of the week, on the morning before he left on trip to come here, the boy with the read cloak in his dream whispered in a playfully acerbic yet provocative tone, "What's natural doesn't necessarily mean it has to be there."
In that dream, they were in bed and the boy was teasing him while pushing his bangs to one side.

What did he mean exactly?
He couldn't ask because he woke up, almost late for his flight.

Here he was now vigorously scratching away with a concentrated face trying to get all the details down.

The feel of those golden eyes and their vivacity as they shot through him whenever they looked at him...
Those lips with the slender figure clothed in black like a priest but a red jacket that hugged his figure whenever he'd slip his hand over his waist.

Ironically, why was he more real than anything that existed around him?

He was a matter-of-fact kind of guy. Unless you could justify it in some way, he wouldn't even think of it as a possible subject of interest. Though it would provide entertainment, because there was no substance on which he could hang onto, he'd soon back into his familiar lull.
Everyday, he worked in an office from 9-5 as a manager and still had to submit to the complaints of the higher-ups. There just seemed no way out.

But this sketchbook had been his escape route. It was his alone.

Even though he wasn't very good, he tried his hardest to capture the emotion this boy gave him. But there had also been another brownish-blond with the boy, who happened to be his brother. He drew him beside the golden-eyed one that he was entranced by. Equally, his interest level was high for this younger brother with the hazelnut tinted eyes.

However, he was completely lost within the vampire's golden gaze.

He stared at the drawing, but as he squinted at it, there was a knock on the door. The girl now had a long ponytail, but was as charming as ever as she politely gave a medium-sized pot with the Cereus' twin tightly sealed in its white bud.
"Thank you," he said while holding it cautiously like a father who didn't know how to carry his newborn baby.
The girl laughed and looked at him for a moment. It was matched with a smile of thoughtful sadness. "Take care."

At that, she left and he closed the door. He went out to the balcony and placed it on a table, positioning himself to sit beside it. He looked at it and made a wish that wasn't exactly a 'longing' though. He wasn't really sure what exactly he wanted.

He traced the bud softly with his finger. "I just want to be where I'm happiest. That is all."

Taking his finger away, he went back into his room and took off his robe to put on a black t-shirt and gray sweats. He took up his sketch of the two teenage brothers sitting back to back. The short-haired younger brother had his eyes closed as if laughing while the older one was pointing his finger as if to say 'you!' to the viewer. He wore a confident smirk that complemented those powerfully intense eyes.

What was wrong with him? Wasn't he satisfied with life?
He had a job and traveled the world once a year. He had a million admirers of both sexes, but he hadn't found anything close to that boy in his dream, the one he was holding in his hands in pencil form. He was well-respected and handsome, which got him to a heap of trouble whenever he emphasized it with his egotism, but overall, why was he feeling so deficient now?

Yet, he knew. He'd always known: He'd never experienced giving himself completely to one person or thing.

Sure, he had fun crushing competitors with his advertisements. He got all the challenges he wanted, but those were like summer flings that rose his temperature for just a little and then everything was dull again. Working hard was something he had, and ambition was always part of his style.

So, to work for one single thing? Absurd! The man who hated commitment with a bitter aftertaste every time he just mentioned the word? No, certainly not him.

He liked control, but to leave himself to chance like that was undeniably horrifying to him.

His eyes turned along with his tall figure to stare at the table with the flower shining on its own. He walked towards it and vigorously sketched it in his book, the first thing he'd ever drawn that had nothing to do with the boy.
Or so he thought.

The man put the sketchbook down when the flower began to bloom. He looked at his watch. It read 9:47pm, but he soon became mesmerized when it opened its leaves revealing yellowish mini flowers that looked like small stems in the middle of the white flower.
"Beautiful…" he said, but then he grew sleepy.

He became dizzy, but he felt himself get up to go the kitchen for a drink…

"Colonel…Colonel."
He looked up to find a boy looking down at him with the blue sky above them. Why was he on this boy's lap?

The boy wanted to pop a vein as he raised his white-gloved fist. "You've slept on my lap long enough, Colonel Mustang."
He blinked up at him curiously. Wasn't that the name of the 'him' in his dream? But if it was, why did everything feel like this was his life all along?

It somehow felt so right…

"Ed, are you okay?" he teased while lifting up his hand to his face. Then, he smirked while making himself even more comfortable. "I'm not leaving yet."
The boy blushed and it enticed him more.

As if repressing himself all these years, he finally realized that this was the 'self' he felt contented with. This was what he wanted…

"I rue the day I ever made that stupid bet to wear this stupid skirt." He humphed and stuck his lip out while indignantly pouting and crossing his arms.
He laughed at being able to see this boy again, to experience this as more than a dream. He tugged on the red plaid skirt with white and black lines.
"Hey!" Ed shouted but still kept his arms crossed.

Their eyes met again.

"I need to finish the damn fairytale while you're awake or else I can't leave. That was the promise and I don't break them," he mumbled while taking the book from the grass.
The boy read and he looked up to the boy's face with a smile that he couldn't let go of. Ed stopped reading and looked down at him. "Are you all right? The way you're looking at me…"
His eyes averted away.

"How am I looking at you?" His mischievous, cat-like eyes smiled.

Ed looked up and then to the side. He pointed his eyes every which way with that perpetual angry pout that just encouraged the twenty-nine-year-old even more.

Directly, he looked down at him. "It's as if you're going away or something."
Then he hit his own head. "It sounds really stupid, doesn't it?"

"Ed, if you had a dream that you lived a different life, what would you pick?"
The boy put the book down and thought about it for a moment. But the answer seemed so simple to him. "To me, a dream is somewhere you can fulfill something with all your might, so anywhere is fine with me. As long as Al is there, I don't care where..."

It was too petty and dumb of him to say, 'then how about me?'
But he wanted to know!

Mustang smiled quietly. "Yes, that would be-"

"And you, you jerk." Ed tapped the book on Mustang's forehead and then placed the book to cover the colonel's face. He got up as Mustang fell off, grinning from the view when he took the red book away from his face.
Ed dusted himself off and his cheeks were bright red. He cleared his throat. "I'm just saying you're interesting. That's all. Nothing more."

"Yes, yes, Full Metal. Your secret is safe with me." He crossed his arms while nodding to himself.

"I hate you." And then, he noticed what exactly the Colonel was looking at.
He really did pop a vein and smiled scarily when he bent down just to whap Mustang's head. "Perverted old man…"

"I am not old! I'm at my prime!" He shouted when the boy stomped off and he got up.

From that day on, whenever he went to sleep, he couldn't seem to shake off the feeling of not waking up from this 'dream'. It was until he'd forgotten all about everything.
But one day, Ed was cleaning up their room because Al was coming over with Winry and found sketches of Al and himself in a drawer with dried up petals. He then looked at Roy, who was happily whistling in the kitchen cooking whatever he badly cooked.

With his fingers, he touched the paper reflection of himself and grinned. So, Roy had been to that world too, hadn't he?
But he'd forgotten somehow.

Did he go through the gate like he had? He must have been a special case of some kind…
But they'd kept Roy intact, this much he knew. Except, he just knew that the guardians of the Gate made Roy pay a greater, more oppressive price…

He couldn't understand, but he could feel that was just it. And even though he explained to Roy he'd been to the other sides of the Gate, Roy didn't seem to know what he was talking about, but believed him nonetheless.

Lovingly, he hugged the sketch book.

+/+/+

"Where am I?" Ed asked himself yet again for the umpteenth time.
The Gate was making fun of him, making him run ragged from different places and dimensions and teasing him as if he'd ever get to where he used to come from. It made him eat out his own heart, but he refused to cry from the pain of trying to get back to something that may have been lost.
Or all just a reoccurring reverie.

As he was transported into a hospital on a calendar that read July 9th, 20XX, he turned around to find people busily going from one ward to another in a frenzy. And as they were about to push him out because he was unauthorized personnel, there was a man with an oxygen mask being rolled by.
He reached out for him and said (almost like losing his mind), "I know him!"

The man blinked up at him sleepily and fell unconscious again as the bleeding over his heart was soaking everything in sight.

Somehow, a kind nurse took pity on him and put Ed in the waiting room, and was given a bag with Roy's stuff. They had told him that mysteriously, the man seemed to have gone crazy by stabbing himself for no apparent reason. He cried in this mysterious place, finding someone familiar after wandering around like a crazy man that felt he had no future, no past, and therefore no trace of existence.

"The name was the same. At least the name's the same." He rubbed his tear-filled eyes with his white gloves. He hugged the bag for the longest time.

Ed was finally invited to the room later on, but the man was still unconscious, on the brink of death or recovering from it. He didn't know what. He sat next to him waiting for him to wake up anyway.

Finally, he took out the sketchbook from the bag and opened it…
…and his face cried all over again as he found himself staring at his own face.

"Even here…you've been thinking everyday…about me…"

But as he hugged the sketchbook with the pink crushed petals, there was a light again. He tightly held onto the only thing he could and shook his head.

"It's too soon. No, not yet…"

He vanished all over again.

+/+/+

While Roy was washing the dishes now with his shirt opened and pajama pants, Ed , who was dressed only with Roy's favorite uniform blouse, tiptoed to the kitchen and hugged him from behind. He buried his face onto his back and couldn't hold the tears of misery and happiness at being able to come to this point.
Roy stopped the faucet from running and leaned his hands on the edge of the sink.

It had been some years since Ed had come back, but he always got this way whenever he stared at that old sketchbook with the blood-stained cover. And somehow, an ache would reverberate from the bottom of his own heart for both of them,

trying to remember something that he'd never recall again.

"Everyday, as long as you're with me…everyday," he whispered aloud for Ed to clearly hear. "That's enough."

At that moment, because he hated tension other than the sexual type, he reached back and tickled the boy who refused to give in. But he broke down in laughter as the man kissed him over and over when he pinned him to the cold kitchen floor…

The gods were jealous of the couple because they would do anything for one another. And the couple didn't want to ask any more than what they'd be given because it was more than enough. They didn't want to anger the gods anymore with the happiness only they could have shared.

Despite everything, they'd still have chosen this path:
It was the only one that led to each other.

And so, they were able to live happily ever after.

If not, they'd make it so.
That was just the kind of people they were.

Owari.
-
Author's note – I was on a sugar-high and thought of doing a fic for someone. Thus, this is the result of my irrationality to delve into a fic that's been bugging since the weekend.
I've never really written an AU of this type before so it was scary, but fun at the same time. It was surprising to me that just changing to doing just that made it have a flavor that I enjoyed tasting. Odd, yet satisfying.

The Cereus is a desert flower that blooms once a year, which is in mid-July around 9-11pm. ^_^

Two days worth of work, but I found it cute. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I loved making it.

Love,
Yui

Thursday, August 04, 2005
2:39:03 AM