Hello, everyone! It's Swampeh again, writing away at an incredibly angsty plot that won't leave me alone. Some of you are probably wondering why I'm posting this when I should be working on "Reconstruction", but I don't want to overload it with angst. So this fic's going to get most of the angst out of my system, and then I'll get back to work on my wonderfully happy EdWin fic. :D
But about this fic:
1. It's AU manga ending. Lots of spoilers.
2. Started writing it before all of the "Promised Day" plotness. So none of that.
3. For some odd reason, Kimbley and Hohenheim are gone/dead/missing. Ling is not Greed. Hooray.
4. It's very very angsty. Character death. Blood. 2-chapter-long fight scene. You've been warned.
Oh, I have a habit of starting in the middle, having a couple chapters of flashback, then getting to where I started and finishing the fic. Odd, but it's how I roll.
Roy clenched his eyes shut and bit his bottom lip so hard it started to bleed. The red liquid dribbled off his chin and dropped steadily into pool already forming beneath him. Even though his eyes were closed, he could feel the blood seeping into his gloves, where it was slowly cooling off and hardening. The blood wasn't even his, and yet he was covered in it; his blue military uniform was almost purple from it.
He could hear the rustling of cloth and some muttered instructions from a couple of feet away, but he didn't open his eyes to look. He didn't want to; he had seen it all already.
His knees were starting to throb from kneeling on the cold concrete floor of the Central sewers, but he didn't shift his position the slightest. There was the sound of boots walking across the cement ground towards him, where they stopped a foot away; Roy could practically feel the person staring at him.
"Roy. Get up, we need to go."
The alchemist's only response was to clench his fists on the ground.
The person sighed angrily and muttered something. "Mustang, pull yourself together! We have to get him out of here and-"
Roy didn't open his eyes when he cut the speaker off. "And what? Take him to Knox?" he spat angrily. "Too late for that, Marco."
The older alchemist was glaring at Roy, he knew it. "We can't run the risk of the military being the ones to do the autopsy! They'll raise questions about the wounds, but Dr. Knox will keep it quiet and fudge the exact cause of death for us."
The Flame Alchemist let out a bark of humorless laughter. "Why? So the military brass can't demote him or something?"
He hadn't been expecting the slap that came flying across his cheek. Roy fell back on his rear, staring Marco in the face, jaw hanging open in surprise. Marco looked livid and ready to rip his head off. "Colonel Mustang, you are an ass," he said in classic military style, complete with a sharp salute.
Roy couldn't think of a suitable retort for that. Instead, he averted his eyes to the ground and exhaled loudly. "Trust me, Marco, I know that."
Silence stretched out between them. Suddenly, a hand entered Roy's field of vision. Surprised, he glanced up at Marco, who gave him a half-hearted smile. "Come on. We've got to get your leg fixed up, too."
Roy accepted the hand and, a little unsteadily, rose to his feet. He made sure to keep his back towards Armstrong, but Marco shook his head. "It's okay; he's…covered." Roy stiffened at the words and went back to chewing madly on his bottom lip. Marco looked like he was ready to slap him again, but thought better of it. "Roy, listen to me. You're going to have to face it eventually-"
"'Face it'? I have faced it, Marco! It happened right in front of me! But do you honestly expect me to just get over the fact that Edward's dead and gone?!"
He, Edward, Armstrong, and Marco had decided to beat the Homunculi to the chase and attack first. That had meant sneaking out of Gracia's house where everyone had been staying after the events up north near Briggs. It had been a difficult task to get all four of the State Alchemists out without anyone noticing- after all, the house was crammed. Besides the four of them, Al, Winry, Havoc, Hawkeye, Breda, Fuery, Falman, Ling, Ran Fan, Mei, Scar, Kimbley's two chimeras, Gracia, and Elicia had all been staying under the same roof. At first, Roy had assumed it would have been easy for them to slip out in the chaos, but Al had managed to foil those plans, as he had become incredibly clingy and refused to leave Edward's side.
From what Roy understood, Al had pretty much had a heart attack when Kimbley's chimeras had caught up with them, carrying a blood-soaked and recently impaled Ed. Even though Ed had managed to stop the bleeding and save his organs, Al had given the elder Elric a piece of his mind. When Roy saw the young state alchemist for the first time since Edward had left for Briggs, he had been sure to steer away from Alphonse. It looked as if Alphonse had broken Ed's nose, judging from the nasty purple bruise.
But that hadn't been the only change in the Elric brothers. The biggest shocker was that Alphonse was back in his 15-year-old body- a very undernourished and scrawny body. There had been an impromptu party at Gracia's house, where Al was given an entire apple pie to himself, but Ed had spent most of the night on the sofa sleeping off the pain medication Marco had forced into him.
It had been sometime in the night after the party when Armstrong had woken up Roy and dragged him unceremoniously downstairs.
"Wuz happen?" he asked blearily, trying very hard not to trip and wake up the rest of the household. Armstrong's answering glare warned him to keep quiet, so he did while running a hand over his face in an attempt to wake himself up.
Once they were at the bottom of the stairs, Armstrong led him into the dark living room, where Roy could make out two other shapes. It took Roy a moment to distinguish that it was Ed and Marco, the former stretched out on the couch with his eyes closed as Marco examined the stab wound by the light of a lamp.
Roy had never seen the gash that the metal pole had caused, and morbid curiosity propelled him closer to the couch to stand behind Marco. Edward's shirt was off, revealing a tanned, muscular chest. Roy's eyes fell on the automail port on the teen's shoulder first and he fought to control a wince at the large assortment of scars and screws from the surgery. His eyes traveled slowly down to where Ed had been impaled.
The black, jagged circle was almost directly above Ed's stomach and dark scars emanated from the wound, showing where skin had been ripped off when the pole had been removed. The circle was ringed with red with some odd green splotches, and Roy assumed that it was infected. As he watched, Marco pulled a syringe out of a bag at his feet and filled it from a bottle in his other hand. After returning the bottle to the bag, the older man positioned the needle above the wound, the other hand firmly on Ed's chest. Ed tensed as the needle slid in, but didn't show any other sign that he was aware of what was going on.
"Done," Marco said quietly, which gave Mustang a chance to back up and appear as if he hadn't been watching the whole ordeal. Edward would spill his blood if he knew that Mustang had been watching him receive medical attention.
As Marco stood up and put the syringe away, Mustang crossed his arms across his chest. "So what was I dragged down here at this hour for?" he asked testily. He had been having a very enjoyable dream that involved Hawkeye and a plate of spaghetti before Armstrong had woken him.
It was Ed who spoke up after putting his black shirt back on and sitting up. "We have to go after Father and the Homunculi tonight," he said flatly.
Roy raised an eyebrow at Ed's tone. "…Tonight? Any particular reason for the rush?" he inquired.
"We have to beat them to the chase. Things are only going to get worse as time goes on. They won't be expecting us, either," the blond replied, hands gripping the edge of the couch that he was sitting on.
The black haired man shot a glance at Marco, who looked very displeased, and then to Armstrong, who looked worried. Roy licked his lips before glaring at Edward. "That's all very true, but you can't even walk properly, Fullmetal," he stated.
Edward let out a growl. "That's not true!" he hissed, voice a barely-controlled whisper. To prove his point, the blond stumbled to his feet and stood unsteadily, glaring at Mustang. "See?"
The Colonel rolled his eyes. "So you can stand. That doesn't mean you can fight. Your body's still in shock from the attack, you've lost a massive amount of blood, and Marco's given you enough drugs to knock out a horse," he spat, hands on his hips.
It seemed Ed could not find a good enough retort for that and allowed Marco to push him gently back onto the couch.
"Edward's right, though," Marco said quietly, a somber expression on his face. "The more time we spend waiting for something to happen, the stronger they'll get. We don't have much time to waste."
Roy winced at the truth in Marco's words. The Homunculi weren't bothering to keep themselves hidden anymore. Envy had attacked Marco in the middle of an Ishbalan refugee camp. Wrath had revealed himself without a fight. Sloth had broken into the Briggs fortress. Pride had confronted Hawkeye in the middle of Bradley's mansion.
That only meant that the Homunculi were ready to wrap up their plan.
A tense silence followed, broken only by the creaks and groans of the house and its sleeping habitants. Roy ran a hand through his hair, trying to sort out his thoughts. It seemed that Marco and Ed were ready to get it over with, and Armstrong would probably agree to go along. That left him. They wouldn't go if he didn't; the four of them, the last of the State Alchemists, had to go together.
They were outnumbered, too. There was Father, Pride, Wrath, Sloth, and Gluttony against the four of them. "We'll be outnumbered. Maybe we could recruit more alchemists…?" he suggested, glancing at the others.
Edward snorted "Who would we recruit? Scar? He'd be more than willing to help us since it would give him the opportunity to blow our skulls in and blame it on the Homunculi."
Marco tilted his head. "There's Mei. She's an accomplished alchemist."
It was Armstrong who spoke up this time. "No. She's too scared of Father to be of much help. She'd probably be killed before the battle got anywhere." Marco let out a grunt of agreement.
Roy frowned. "What about Alphonse?" he asked. As soon as the words were out, he slapped a hand over his mouth. He had not just said that out loud.
But he had, and the next thing he knew, Roy was flat on his back, head slamming onto the floor, with a furious Ed pinning him down. "Don't you dare drag Al into this! He just got his body back, and there is no way in hell that he's going to fight!" he hissed, automail hand digging into Roy's shoulder.
"Alright! Edward, get off!" Roy growled, shoving the enraged teen off of him. "You probably woke someone up with all that racket!" he said, rubbing the back of his head as he stood up.
Ed opened his mouth when a creak on the staircase echoed through the room. The four alchemists swung around the face it as Hawkeye reached the bottom of the stairs, gun in hand, aimed at them and ready to fire.
The five started at each other before Hawkeye lowered the gun and frowned. "I thought I heard something down here," she said, stalking over. Roy heard Ed shuffle back to the couch and out of firing range.
"There's nothing to worry about, Hawkeye," Mustang said calmly, trying to hide his fear. If the lieutenant knew what they had been planning, they'd be lucky to have all their body parts when the sun rose.
"Oh, really? Then please tell me what you were all doing down here and what you were arguing about?" she asked icily, one finger stroking the barrel of her gun.
Marco stepped forward. "There's no reason to be so suspicious, Hawkeye. Edward, Armstrong, and I sleep down here, you know. Roy came down for some water while I was working on Edward's wound," he said, motioning over his shoulder at the blond alchemist, who had a hand clamped over the gash and was glaring at Marco's bag. Apparently Edward was a decent actor. "As you can imagine, an argument broke out, and the Colonel felt the need to come take part in it."
Roy had to fight to nod in agreement and suppress his surprise at the same time. Who would have thought that Marco was such a good liar? But there was truth in the alibi: Marco had forced Ed to sleep downstairs near the kitchen so that the doctor would have easy water access during the night if it was needed for the wound. Armstrong had valiantly agreed to set up camp downstairs as well so that there would be more room for everyone else upstairs. And Roy did have an unexplainable habit of waking up in the middle of the night for a drink, though sometimes it wasn't exactly water. An argument breaking out that involved Edward and needles wasn't farfetched at all, and Roy sticking his nose in and making it worse was almost to be expected.
Hawkeye didn't seem as wary, but she still didn't look convinced. "Well, you were starting to make a racket. I thought someone was trying to break in," she said stiffly.
"No intruders, Hawkeye. Go back to bed and get some sleep," Roy said smoothly, turning the lieutenant around and pushing her back to the stairs. "Tell anyone who woke up that we're sorry."
Hawkeye gave him a death glare before making her way up the stairs. The four alchemists were silent until the sound of a door closing was heard. There were exhales of relief as Roy staggered back to a chair and flopped down. "That was too close," he moaned.
The four sat in silence before Marco sighed loudly. "Well, Roy?" he asked quietly, eyes narrowing at the younger alchemist.
It didn't take a genius to figure out what Marco was talking about. Roy stared at the ceiling in silence, as if the white paint could solve all his problems.
Finally he stood up, one hand sliding into his pocket and grasping the pocket watch. He glanced at Edward, who was gazing at him intently. Their eyes met for a split second before Roy looked away.
"Let's go."
YES. I KILLED ED. I DIDN'T TELL YOU HOW YET. I guess you'll have to keep reading. Aren't I evil?
A little tidbit about the title because it does have some significance to the story. "Tenebrae" means "darkness". It's the word used to describe Good Friday in Christianity and is to remind us of the darkness of sin and death.
And I'm not trying to make anyone Christian, alright? I just wanted to explain the title a bit. Don't flame for it.
Review for love! ;D