A/N: Trigger warning for suicidal ideation
After they shut him in the cell Roy starts counting the hours by the drill bell. It rings every hour, on the hour. Around the clock, through the night. Well, what he thinks must be the night—the cell has no windows and a dull bulb hangs from the ceiling, flickering every so often but never shutting off. There's nothing to make a mark with—the walls are smooth concrete, bare, exposed, impossible to scratch a transmutation circle into. Instead, he keeps a mental tally, a number he repeats over and over in his head or under his breath, until the bell clangs again and the number goes up by one.
After thirty hours there are footsteps and then a tray of cold soup and a stale roll are shoved through the grate at the bottom of the door. He crams his face near the opening, trying to glean something, anything, but the grate slams shut as soon as the food is pushed through. They've given him a cup of water too, but most has already spilled down the sides. He digs into the food ravenously.
The bell wakes him every hour when he tries to sleep. He huddles in his uniform, incrementing the tally, and forces his mind to quiet, to forget how cold and hard the concrete floor is. When he finally feels himself drifting, the bell wails again.
At forty-seven hours they bring him more food. This time, Roy tries talking to whoever pushes the tray through. The grate slams shut apathetically and the footsteps fade into silence. Roy hurtles the tray at the wall and immediately regrets it; after he hurtles insults at the silence while licking as much of the soup as he can off the floor.
After a hundred hours he starts to lose a few here and there. The bell doesn't wake him as much and his waking hours aren't as sharp anymore. He tries to compensate for the missed ticks, to judge how much he's slept, but it's impossible. When he's awake he's as tired as if he hadn't slept at all, but the unconscious hours disappear into dreams that feel like they last for years. He dreams of the Military Police dragging him naked across the square in Central. They've fed him seven, maybe eight times? That's something like a week, unless they've been feeding him less frequently…the gnawing ache in his stomach makes him wonder if that's true. He dreams Lieutenant Hawkeye is leaning over him, holding a whip. She caresses his cheek with her calloused hand.
"Oh Roy, what have you done to me?"
"You never call me Roy," he says to her. She kisses him fiercely, and then the whip is licking his skin, lighting it aflame. He dreams of the Elrics holding knives to his throat, Winry Rockbell standing at a podium ordering his execution. Falman and Havoc strung from the windows of Central command, dead eyes leering. Riza's lips, Riza's lips. The number—the tally—is always in his head, but he isn't sure of it anymore. Is it one hundred seventy-two or two hundred seventy-one? Is that the real number or the one he dreamed?
"Hey!" he screams at the walls, "Whatever it is, do it already! Kill me, if that's your plan! Just let me the fuck out of here!"
Maes comes to visit him, and he knows he's starting to lose it.
"Hughes," he says, "I hate to break this to you but—"
"I'm dead. I'm a figment of your imagination. I know, I know, Roy-boy, don't ruin the fun. Don't you want the company?"
"Only crazy people talk to the voices in their heads," he mutters. "And even crazier people see them."
"You've really done yourself in this time, haven't you Roy?" Maes chides. "What happened to the big plan? Becoming Furher?"
"There were things that had to be done first."
"You're not getting any younger, Roy. Clock's ticking."
It's always when Roy wants to punch him most that the phantom disappears, and he's left with the numbers and the walls and the dreams. He stares up at the flickering bulb on the ceiling, wondering if it's enough to slit his wrists with if he shatters it. If he gives up, they've won, but who's even keeping track anymore? Maybe they've forgotten about him, left him here to rot in this cell. How many ticks has it been since the grate last slid open, since he's had a cup of water?
And then one day the footsteps are accompanied by other sounds: someone struggling, the scuffle of a bodies, a voice—a real, actual voice—hollering thickly against a gag. The footsteps pass his cell; there's a groan of metal, and then a resounding thud. Somewhere to his left, the voice begins cursing and Roy wonders if this is another figment of his imagination. It sounds real, realer than Maes, but somehow not as real as the dreams. At the same time that he dares to hope there's another person in this void, he hopes more fervently that he's well and truly lost it. He doesn't want the voice to be real, doesn't want to think about what that means if it is.
After several minutes the cursing fades to silence, and only then does he speak up.
"Fullmetal?"
A/N: More to come
-JR