Disclaimer: I do not own FMA.
Rating: Severe angst warning in effect.
Pairings: Roy/Envy, Roy/Ed.
Note: This story is for kiiroi yumetobu, who came up with the idea. It's my re-imagining of the Roy/Envy face-off, using my story "The Denial Twist" as the background. However, it is not necessary for you to read that story to understand what is going on...
The Sound of Dying Embers
A single snap...
A slight whoosh...
And suddenly he was standing inside a supernova. Standing in the middle of an inferno.
Why? Why did he have to say it? This could have all been avoided if he had just held back the words. If he had only practiced a little discretion.
But no, he didn't. He couldn't hold back the truth. And discretion? Well...he was quite done with discretion.
He was done with all these humans and their tawdry little games. Their maneuvers, their personal politics. To hell with all of them, he thought.
Still, it didn't have to end this way. It could have gone on. He could have played their little game right up until the end. He could have played with the Flame Colonel forever, could have kept this going...
...if only he hadn't said the words.
He wasn't sure why he did it. Why he felt this sudden and intense need to destroy. Maybe it was the presence of the Fullmetal Brat, his so-called 'brother,' standing right behind the colonel. His realer than real human brother, whom he hated so much. Whom he envied so much.
Or...
Maybe it was the combination of the three of them: he, the colonel and the brat. The three of them, together at last. Their togetherness shattered the illusion; it broke the spell. The illusion that he, too, was human. Humanity: the thing that he wanted most, the thing that he couldn't have. The thing that drove him mad, drove him to the very depths of insanity, turned him inside out, left him craving, wanting. The thing that made him...
...Envy.
He thought: To hell with his little human brother! I want to hurt him; I want him to bleed. He had everything, everything! It wasn't fair! Why did he get to have it all? And, as he looked at the two of them, the colonel and the brat, a new knowledge revealed itself: one day Edward would have this, too. The colonel would be his. His little brother would have it all! He would have everything, and he, Envy, would be left with nothing! Nothing! Not a shadow, not even a shred of humanity to claim as his own! It wasn't fair, wasn't fair! Why, why did it have to be like this? And that's when it happened. When, in a single moment of glaring, unwavering hatred, in a fantastic, all-consuming need to destroy (the colonel, the brat, or himself?), in his depraved headlong rush to annihilate, he said those three horrible words:
"I killed Hughes."
And with a single snap, his whole world was lit aflame...
It began simply enough. He was told to watch the Flame Colonel. To keep an eye on him. And so he shadowed his movements and watched him from afar. But after a while, it wasn't enough. The distance was too much, the thing that he was-it was too much. So he conspired to get closer, to initiate contact. He wanted to be near the Flame Colonel; he wanted to touch and to talk to him. So one day, during an amber-lit autumn evening, he went to his house. And like a spider in a web, he waited.
He waited...
In the shadows of the colonel's oh-so-tastefully decorated living room, he waited. Waited for the colonel to come home, waited for him to come into the room and pour the inevitable tumbler of scotch, like he did every night. Every evening, the colonel would sit in his chair before the fire and drink himself into oblivion. Did anyone else know this? Did anyone else see the colonel's pain? Well, Envy saw; Envy knew. He saw a man weakened by the weight of a heavy conscience. He saw a man weakened by the force of events he could not control. He saw...
He saw a man weak enough to claim as his victim.
He saw a man brimming with humanity.
And oh, how he wanted it, that humanity! He wanted the colonel. And, stepping out of the shadows of the living room into the meager gloom of the firelight, Envy finally revealed himself. He showed himself to the startled colonel. Showed him what he could do, what he could become. He stood before the colonel in a crisp blue uniform with pinned-up blonde hair and russet-colored eyes. Saw the colonel shake his head, saw him turn away. Oh? Not the the right thing, then? A thought occurred to him, and Envy shifted, changed himself again. Changed instead to long braided hair and a red coat and gleaming, golden eyes. He watched the colonel's face change, saw his mouth fall open. So that was it. He wanted him. Envy felt the beginnings of rage, of jealousy begin to rise, unwanted and unstoppable, like a bloated corpse from beneath a noxious bog.
How ironic that he was to become the object, the person, that he envied above all others.
It did not matter. Once Envy saw the flame of desire burning bright in the colonel's eyes, he forgot his hatred. He forgot everything. He approached the colonel's chair, took the glass of dark golden liquid from his hand and dropped it to the floor. He ignored it as it pinged! and spilled over the carpet. In the flickering firelight, Envy-as Edward-crawled onto the colonel's lap, straddled him. He leaned his head in and waited. He didn't have to wait long. The fire in the colonel's eyes blazed with the heat of a long-restrained desire, a desire that could be contained no longer. Flash fire! The colonel grabbed the back his head and pulled his mouth against his own, his tongue probing, mining the depths of the thing he wanted most. The thing that, in the harsh unforgiving light of day, wasn't really his to have.
But Envy would give him what he wanted. Again and again. In those shadowy, fire-lit rooms, Envy would create the perfect illusion of the colonel's desire, and their little passion play would repeat itself, over and over, in an enduring parody of false lust. False, because Envy wasn't Edward. False, because Envy wasn't human. False, because the colonel didn't really want him.
He didn't want him!
Again, Envy was reminded that he existed as a mere shadow, a sad reflection, of his human brother...
Still, that didn't stop him from visiting the colonel, night after night. The way the colonel looked at him...well, it made him feel things. Human things. And he craved that feeling, longed for it. He wanted-needed-those feelings that the Flame Colonel evoked in him. He became addicted to them. And, like a junkie needing his next fix, Envy came back, again and again, to the colonel's house. To the colonel's bed. Came back to the place where he could feel, where he could pretend. Where, for a few illusory moments each night, he could be human...
DAMN HIM TO HELL!
That was the first thought Roy had after the awful words spilled from the Sin's evil tongue. I killed Hughes. And then that laugh. That horrible, taunting laugh.
Burn!
The snapping of his fingers was an instantaneous response. He didn't think twice about it. All he knew was that he hated this creature. Hated him. He killed Hughes, and for that he had to die. He killed Hughes, and so Roy was given the perfect excuse-
-to burn away the object of his own shameful desires.
Flames roared, whirling inside a white-hot inferno. And in the middle of this inferno, Envy screamed. The Sin screamed, and Roy snapped, again and again. Die! Die! I want you to die! He wanted the Sin to burn; he wanted to wipe the memories of the things they had done together, of all those dark, lurid nights, from his mind. He needed to purify his soul.
He needed to cleanse himself through fire.
Somewhere in the background, Edward hovered like a guardian angel, a witness to his crime. No, Ed! Don't look! Don't listen! Go away! Sweat broke out on his brow, not from the heat of the flames, but from the fear that Edward might overhear, that he might discover...
No, he could never know! He was too good for this! Too innocent, too pure!
Too good for the likes of Roy...
Shame and guilt burned like an untempered flame in the reflection of Roy's eyes as he remembered, unbidden, all the things he had done. All those sinful things he had done with this creature, this thing, in the guise of Ed's skin. Bent over the curved arms of a chair, by firelight, Roy fisting the long blond hair in his hand, pounding him lustily from behind, moaning, crying out...
No! Shut it out! Don't think about it! But he couldn't help but think about it, not when the Sin stood screaming before him, like some kind of vengeful banshee in the night. Not when the true object of his desire stood just three feet behind him, like a silent accusation.
Suddenly, there was a hand on his arm.
"Colonel, don't!"
The flames wavered, flickered, with their master's concentration. A concentration broken by those words, that voice. There were two hands on his arm now: one metal, one flesh. "Colonel, stop! You don't want to do this-"
-no, Ed! I do! I really, really do! Because if you knew what this creature was really like, what I'm really like, then you would-
"-is this what you really want? Is this what the future fuhrer of Amestris aspires to be? A raving madman bent on revenge?"
A flicker of hesitation. His hands stilled by the accusations, by guilty thoughts. By the memories of Hughes own words, from so long ago: "I'm in. I'm behind you. Personally, I can't wait to see what these naive notions of yours will do for this country..."
Oh Maes! You always had such common sense! Where are you when I need you? When I need you standing behind me?
But it was no longer Hughes standing behind him. It was...
Ed again: "Colonel, I won't let you kill Envy. I won't. Don't you see? Can't you see what drives him? Envy is jealous, jealous of us humans..."
The flames flickered and dissipated. They whooshed away into the ether, into the void. There was nothing left now but the crackling sound of dying embers. The sound of Envy's own skin, crumbling into ash.
"GOD DAMMIT! I hate you! HATE YOU! You pathetic human! You stupid BRAT!" Envy continued to scream even as his own body crumbled away, even as he was reduced to cinders. Until he was left in the tiny shell of his own skin, his true skin: all green and scaly and decidedly repulsive.
He was repulsive!
He used to not feel that way. He used to think that he was better than humans, that he was superior. He used to hate their fragile skins and their even more fragile hearts. Such disgusting, pathetic little creatures. But now...
Now...
He knew. He knew he had spent too much time wearing Edward's skin, spent too much time pretending to be Edward, for the colonel. Siphoning off all that love and desire and affection, he was made to feel differently. He was made to feel. And he could no longer tolerate the half-life he was made to live. He could no longer tolerate the fact that he wasn't human. Not anymore.
Not anymore...
And the fact that the Fullmetal Brat saw this and understood it, well...it was just too much. It was all too much. The jealousy that Envy felt, the emotion that looped and threaded its way through his very core, the thing that made him who he was, screamed out its vitriolic hatred, screamed out its painful, unacknowledged desire:
Edward, I want to be you! I want to have what you have! I want it so, so much! It hurts, hurts!
Envy wanted what he couldn't have...
"This is...disgraceful! Disgraceful! You humans are...are..."
The words bled off into a whisper, were choked away into mindless whimpers. The sounds of a dying animal. Envy lay on the ground, writhing in defeat. He could regenerate, but he would not. He would not. He cracked open his eyes one last time, and stared again at the Flame Colonel and the Fullmetal Brat. At the brat's hands on the colonel's arms: tender, comforting. At the look in the colonel's eyes: softening, yielding. The pull of their mutual understanding and attraction. It was there; even Envy could see it.
Yes, it would all be his one day. The colonel would be Edward's. It was fated.
Just as Envy was fated to die.
In one last rash, violent act, Envy reached inside himself and pulled out the red stone-the cold, unfeeling stone that served, appropriately, as his heart-and he threw it on the ground. He threw away his heart. If he couldn't be human, and he couldn't have the colonel, then he didn't want to live. He didn't want to live! So Envy literally tore out his own heart, and he tossed it away. I've broken my heart, he thought. And before the silence of death set in, his final thought was this:
So this is what it feels like to truly be human...
Gone. The Sin-his sin-lay dead on the ground.
Roy wanted to feel relief, but he couldn't. His own inner turmoil wouldn't let him. You slept with that creature; you slept with the thing that killed Hughes. You are unclean, unclean. The accusations kept spinning through his head; they wouldn't leave him alone. And he was alone. So utterly, terribly alone. Roy almost wanted to lay down and die with the creature. Almost. There was one thing, just one thing, that was keeping him from doing it...
The weight of those hands on his arm. That warmth of the figure standing behind him.
"I'm behind you," said Maes again.
"Don't worry, Roy. I'm behind you. You don't have to deal with this alone."
The sound of Ed's voice in the echo of Hughes' words. Fused together, into a single leitmotif. Shaking, Roy reached up a trembling hand and covered Ed's with his own. He hissed in air as those hands suddenly pulled away, leaving him bereft. That's right. Leave me then. I'm disgusting, and I don't deserve you. There was a moment where time was suspended, where everything hung in the balance. Where everything stopped, where Roy was left entirely alone. Then a few seconds later, the feel of Ed's hands returned, snaking around him from behind, hugging him, holding him close in the sanctuary of his strength. He held him up, like Atlas held up the world, and Roy was suddenly overwhelmed with a torrent of emotion.
He tried to convince himself that the sobs echoing through the tunnel weren't his. That this ridiculous, trembling body didn't belong to him.
"It's not your fault. Forgive yourself." Ed's voice, so unusually soft and kind. The voice of an Ed he hadn't given himself a chance to know, to become acquainted with. An Ed that, he suddenly realized, had just called him 'Roy' instead of 'colonel.'
Forgive yourself...
Roy watched his own tears as they dried to dark stains on his uniform. Watched the unmoving remnants of the creature on the ground. The remnants of sin. "I can't forgive myself," he whimpered, like a lost child in the dark.
I can't forgive myself for using him, for letting him be you...
"You can."
"No."
"Yes. You can. You will."
The words felt like a benediction, sounded like grace. Grace falling. Ed's arms tightened around him, and he leaned into their strength. A reversal of roles. Roy thought then of a sad little boy, a boy missing an arm and a leg, sitting in a wheelchair, with his head bowed. A memory from so long ago. How everyone thought that the boy was too broken, too awash in misery, to ever rise again. And how it was Roy who had seen something different, something the others didn't-couldn't-see. That, beneath the bowed head, beneath the superficial attitude of defeat, there burned eyes of blazing fire. Fire! Roy knew that the boy in the wheelchair would get up and walk again. He knew that he would be unstoppable. That, one day, he might even be extraordinary...
"Walk with me," directed Ed.
The two of them started moving back through the tunnel. Roy was leaning on Ed like a wounded man, like someone with an injury. But the only wound was in his soul. They walked by the thing that had once been Envy, by the small pile of ash on the ground, and Roy suddenly turned to Ed and said: "You forgive me, don't you?"
Please forgive me for all the things I've done...
"Of course I forgive you. I told you already, it's not your fault," Ed said this even though he couldn't possibly be aware of the true scope of what Roy had done, of what he and that creature had done. Still, the words made Roy sigh with a vague sense of relief. An internal cleansing. They continued to walk together, holding onto each other, through the darkened tunnel beneath Central, and Roy said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper:
"Thank you, Ed."
"For what?"
"For...for being you."
The real you.
Ed looked at Roy, his expression perplexed and said, "Sure thing." Their eyes caught and held, and there was an unspoken exchange, a silent agreement, which passed between them. That, along with the beginning spark of something else. He's not a little boy anymore, thought Roy. That kid in the wheelchair is long gone. He's grown so much over the years. The two of them approached the glowing light near the tunnel's entrance. And, squinting into the sudden brightness, Roy heard Ed say again the thing that was understood in a single glance:
"Don't worry, Roy. I'll always be behind you."
And then they walked together through the light at the end of the tunnel...
End/Fin.