Perfect After All: Odds Without Ends
Future Possibility
Jaya Mitai
Disclaimer: Don't own FMA. Making no money. Please don't sue.
Dug this snippet out of an email account I was closing, and figured some of you might enjoy it. It was written for a friend while I was in the midst of writing PAA: Price of the Past. Technically it's a possible future for PAA canon, but would require further explanation to address slight continuity errors, like Hawkeye's presence. Also, it was a hurried off-the-cuff drabble, as opposed to intended for mass consumption, so don't expect the quality to be quite up to snuff.
But it is cute. Good ol' Ed and Roy working together. Think of it as a deleted sequel thought.
-x-
It tickled at him, incessant and irritating, and he paused in his work to wipe at the trickle of sweat running down his cheek. Inside, the shade and the promise of a cool beverage beckoned him away from the hot, humid air, but he wasn't ready to call it quits until this section, at least, had been completed.
He so rarely had time to work on his home, after all. And while paying the gardeners to look after it was only money, in the great scheme of things, there was something satisfying about using his own hands. Hands that were suited for so many other tasks, now focused on something as simple as weeding.
Roy Mustang bent his head again, ignoring the growing feeling of sunburn on the back of his neck, and drove the trowel deep into the gravelly soil. It was much more granular than it looked; soft earth met his eyes, but he could feel the tiny, hard balls of baked clay that lay just beneath the velvety loam. No wonder the bushes were looking so ragged. Maybe he was paying these clowns too much-
He smelled something acrid, something that tugged at his memory so strongly he paused again, lifting his head to look around. Definitely sunburned, but it was too late to worry about that now. He took another swipe at the rivulet of sweat, casting his eyes around the small, pleasant garden behind his home, the neat grey stones walling him in the little paradise he never really saw, unless it was behind a coffee cup standing at the sink, or long after the sun had set.
Maybe it was a blessing. There was no smoke in the wet, hot air, but a faint breeze was blowing in from the west, which carried directly over his neighbor's yard-
It came again, a little more muted, but his stomach turned queasily and he frowned, reaching into the bucket beside him for a glove. He hated to pull them on unwashed hands; he could feel the dirt and grit between his fingers when he rubbed them together, though they looked more like they were covered in mud. Wiping them on his shorts didn't do much to get rid of the dirty feeling, though they looked better, and he frowned again as he slipped his hand into the familiar article of clothing.
Why had he even thought to bring them out here? It wasn't as if Scar was still around . . .
Scar . . .
It was only a faint whiff, but it was enough to remind him that he didn't like it. He was staring at the wall, and for a second it had seemed there was blood there on the gray, that it was taller, but then there was that tickle again, and he wiped at it before he remembered himself. Hot. Weeding. He pulled the glove away, and it was sunlit again.
Good thing he didn't need any fire, he thought sardonically, glancing again at his neighbor's yard. Whatever was the man cooking over there? It smelled quite rank, very offensive for such a beautiful, early afternoon. He raised the glove, letting his fingers relax, and focused on pulling clean air from the north, from the street. Normally he hated car fumes more than almost anything, but it had to be better than that sickening, almost cloying scent that keep creeping into the otherwise pleasant little breeze-
It was quite hard to focus on the reaction, and Roy stopped, looking at the glove in confusion. It looked just like it always did, with the embroidered circle, and he inspected the array for damage. It wasn't responding as well as it ought to, and worse, he couldn't quite focus on the salamander, couldn't quite tell if the edge was fraying. Frowning, he pulled it closer to his face, but try as he might, he just couldn't quite make out if the edge was sound or not. It was still glowing, though he felt as if he was concentrating in the wrong place, somehow. The stench of his neighbor's early lunch made his gut cramp again, and he rubbed his face on his shoulder in irritation at the tickle of sweat there.
It had gotten cloudy – did he do that? Roy glanced up at the sky, and found grey clouds roiling there, far faster than he'd ever seen before. The back of his neck still ached from sunburn, but how could he have sunburn in such a place? It was hot, the air was pregnant with rain that wouldn't fall, and he stood, confused at a sharp ache from his abdomen. There was something on the air, something quite wrong, and he glanced up again at the clouds. That acrid quality . . . lightning?
He was definitely the tallest thing around, so he crouched again, raising his gloved right hand and feeling the atmosphere around him. It was moving, in ways he wasn't accustomed to, and it was extremely difficult to stabilize it. There was . . . but he couldn't quite feel it out. He pulled the basic gases to himself in the hopes of creating a safe pocket of air around him. Oxygen, carbon, nitrogen. There was something else there, lots of something else, and he reached out for it, his eyes aching with the strain of focusing. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around the structure of the chemical, but it was familiar, the longer he remained in his crouch the clearer it was coming-
He rubbed at his face in irritation at a tickle of sweat, but it didn't help. Maybe it was a bugbite?
Bugbites . . . Roy lowered his hand again, looking around for the trowel. He needed to get this section done before he'd go in for a drink, and get out of this heat –
But there wasn't any light.
And then he realized he was dreaming.
That scent drifted by, moving on a light finger of air, and his gut reacted strongly, forcing its contents up his throat. He had the presence of mind to open his mouth, but he could barely taste it. He spat the thick sludge out, uncaring of where it ended up, and clung to his last memory. Rolling clouds . . . lightning? The back of his neck ached, it was sunburned because he'd been weeding – no. It was too dark to weed. His neighbor was cooking something, there was something in the air –
He concentrated, and this time it was easier. He pulled the simple, familiar gases to himself. Oxygen. Carbon. Nitrogen. They displaced everything else, and every second that ticked by made him more aware of his neck. It hurt. It ached. It felt as if the smallest shift would flake the top layer of skin right off.
But it was dark. How . . . ?
The same, irritating tickle, and this time when he moved, he moved. Barely. He heard his right arm dragging across the rough granules of baked clay, felt it in the shifting muscles of his back, but didn't feel the arm at all, not until something was gently flung against his face. His neck ached strongly as he manipulated the dead limb, and he realized he was wiping away water. More came to take its place, though. A tickle. Another.
Dripping water. But it felt neither hot nor cold.
He opened his eye, suddenly remembering that it was only one. Darkness. There was the faintest whiff of something, and his stomach clenched again. He let it; fighting it was pointless, and he spat when his throat was finished.
Something in the air.
Adrenaline surged through him as his body realized it was in danger, and he opened his eye wide, utilizing the circle on the inside of his eyepatch. He cleared a pocket of air around himself instantly, feeling the heaviness in the atmosphere around him. Xeon, chlorine, argon – compounds, as well. The air felt like heavy smoke from –
From a burned city.
He took a deep breath, ignoring an odd tickle in his lungs. It would get worse, as the mucous cleared, and he'd be coughing soon enough. His right arm was pins and needles, and he shifted it again, wiping at the warm water that dripped on his face. His neck was killing him, it was a burn, but he couldn't tell how bad and he couldn't tell what from. The sour smell of his own vomit was strong in his nostrils and he pushed himself away, instantly discovering that he couldn't.
There was something behind him. And above him, he found, as he unsuccessfully tried to sit up. Struggling reminded him that his left arm was completely unaccounted for, and he froze, taking short, quick breaths through his nose. Using the array on his eyepatch, he used it to feel the atmosphere around him, feel the way it was flowing, and he drew a mental picture of his surroundings. It was far too dangerous to use fire here, not to mention he didn't have the dexterity in his right arm to move it, let alone snap. There was absolutely no light, and he could tell what he was lying on wasn't flat.
He was buried. The air told him there had been a fire, as did the burn, and water dripping on him told him he had probably been right in the fucking middle of it. He was buried in debris.
His air pocket was actually quite large, though only about two feet high, and it wandered over debris so haphazardly he could tell at once that he wouldn't be able to crawl to freedom. There was a wider pocket near his feet, though, so if he could get some circulation in his left arm – assuming he still had it – and scoot backwards, he'd at least be able to move a little. He rotated his ankles, relieved when he could feel them moving in their leather boots, to confirm the space, and then bent his knees. His legs felt completely fine, which probably meant they weren't, and they responded, albeit clumsily. He had expanded his cloud of good air significantly during the exploring, so he wasn't concerned that his struggles would poison him further.
He'd almost suffocated.
Shifting his body weight allowed him to roll a little, and he used his flopping right arm to feel for his left. He found a mound of something, and when he yanked at it it shifted his back, so he assumed it was still attached. It still took a long time for any feeling to come to it, and he wondered exactly how crushed he was. He continued to use alchemy to explore, trying to determine if he could sense truly fresh air, and from somewhere nearby, there was a weak cough.
His eye snapped open again, though he could see nothing. It was too difficult to tell where it had come from, sound was muffled and bouncing off too many objects. He breathed quietly, using the array one more time to look for the telltale inhale and exhale of air as it entered lungs-
There were many places the hot air and cooler air were exchanging in little puffs, but whoever it was coughed again, and he narrowed his eye in concentration, trying to track it down. They were still breathing, that was good –
So there was someone else with him.
Try as he might, he couldn't remember who it could be. He couldn't remember anything at all. What he ate for breakfast. Was it morning? He knew who he was, he was Roy Mustang, he was the Prime Minister-
He was buried in burned rubble. That other person breathing could have been anyone. An aide. One of his men. A bodyguard. The Speaker. More memories tugged at him, but he couldn't quite wrap his fingers around them-
Another cough, followed by a low groan. He tried to wiggle the fingers on his left hand, already able to make a strengthless fist with his right.
"Hello?" he called, and suddenly that dull tickling in his lungs became impossible to ignore. Whatever they'd been breathing had been toxic; the proof was in the copper that he could feel more than taste in his throat, and he went ahead and got it all out of the way. A few deep breaths worked better than alchemy to confirm all the gases had been exchanged from his lungs, and when he spoke again, his voice was rougher than before.
"Hello?"
How did he know the other person wasn't the one responsible for this?
There was no answer. No groan, no cough. He waited over a minute, but only the repetitive drip on his face could be heard, and once he could make a loose fist with his left hand he tried to move.
It was slow going. He was caught on something, probably his coat, and he didn't have the dexterity for the buttons. After an endless amount of swearing and repositioning his arms, he finally thought he had the thing open, but squirming out of it was another thing entirely. He eventually tore it away from his back with a peculiar catch that his foggy mind registered as probably not good, and then he was able to start squirming. He wanted to grab the lip of whatever separated his little pocket of space from the larger one, but something told him that would be a bad idea, so he sucked in his unhappy gut and did his best to move without touching his ceiling.
It took a long time, and he was thoroughly winded by the time he was able to swing his head to a point he thought it was out from under the shelf that had protected him. Once in the larger area, he dared to sit up, wiggling his fingers and rotating his wrists as he tried to take stock.
It was just as completely dark here. No light. He could hear trickling water, which he hoped was an indication that there were emergency units aware of the collapse, but there was still a dangerous heat above him; sitting up had raised the temperature at least twenty degrees between his face and his butt. He hesitantly brushed the back of his neck with a still-tingling finger, but he couldn't tell how bad the burn was. It hurt the instant he put pressure on it, but any burn from a third to a first would. He could feel some areas that felt more numb than others, so blisters. But the skin felt so wet, his shirt was soaked, and it wasn't sticky like blood -
Steam. It was a steam burn.
He was lucky it hadn't cooked his head, then. Might explain the dizziness and nausea, at any rate. Steam . . . what kind of building were they in?
What if it wasn't a building?
He leaned back down; the heat was making him dizzy. This pocket of air was about five by five, and there was something that felt oddly soft in the middle of the space, almost like a bed but not nearly long enough. A cushioned length of something, at any rate. Possibly a sofa? He wasn't sure of its orientation, but he was pretty sure his back was to the actual ground, because if he relaxed he didn't feel about to slither anywhere. There was no way to determine how stable the area was, or what kind of objects were inside it, so he went back to looking for whoever else was stuck here with him.
Once in the larger pocket, it was a little easier to trust sound. The next time he heard a groan, he could tell it was coming from his right. There were lots of little pockets from that direction, the poor soul could be in any of them-
There.
Roy took a deep breath, then gathered himself and sat up again. He wasn't sure if the shock was passing or just getting settled; he felt significantly worse, and the dim feeling that he'd almost remembered what had happened was getting further away. He was still keeping the air clean, and keeping as large a mass of it as possible in the hopes that he could help nearby survivors breathe, but for some reason it didn't seem as fresh as before, and the heat was stifling.
It occurred to him that he could actually be feeding the fires he was afraid were still burning somewhere above him.
Hmm.
He kept that in the back of his mind, crawling blindly across the uneven floor. His hands had finally regained enough sensitivity that he could find the sharp, jagged edges, and he avoided them as best he could. There was still some weird pull at his back, which he was staunchly ignoring for the moment, but it only hurt when he scraped it against something sticking out of the ceiling.
"Dammit!"
Something shifted, very close to his face, and Roy hesitated. He was still about five feet from the feeling of breathing, so maybe it was a foot . . . ? He reached out, groping around the area in front of him. There was something vaguely cylindrical, but it was far too hard to be a limb, burned or no. Still, there was something matted and softer around it, and he could grab it and pull-
"Wha . . . th'hell'r'y'doin'?!"
It was gravelly, low, and full of slurred malice, and he stopped what he was doing immediately. It sounded familiar, too . . he knew this person –
Fullmetal. Which meant-
Which meant he'd found the armored leg, and been pulling off his pants. Fantastic.
"Trying to pull you out," he replied, surprised that his own voice sounded almost as bad. Smoke inhalation did that, he reminded himself, and he continued reaching up – more carefully – until he found a belt. "You in one piece?"
"Wha . . ." came the uncertain reply, and Roy used the location of Elric's torso to build a mental image of the rest of him. He, too, had somehow been arranged with his feet towards that one large open area, and Roy couldn't even get his fingers between Ed's ribcage and the long, smooth thing that was laying atop him. It was lucky he could breathe at all, lucky that something else besides him was supporting the weight. Whatever it was, it felt almost like a beam, and it was at least four feet long.
A metal beam . . . more was coming back. The last time he'd seen Fullmetal was . . . no, not the school, he'd caught him after that, in his office, sulking because . . . but it was gone. He always sulked. Even as an adult he sulked.
Metal beam . . . well, so it was definitely a building. Steam, a sofa . . . surely Parliament hadn't been attacked? Why couldn't he remember?
"Fullmetal."
He felt the ribs try to expand as Ed took a slightly deeper breath. "Where'm'I?"
Mustang bit back the obvious explanation. He really didn't know outside of what Fullmetal should already be able to tell. "I'm going to move you. Tell me if there's pain."
"-werealways'z'pain . . ."
He let the mumble go, secured his grip on the younger alchemist's belt, and pulled.
It was almost as hard to unpin Edward as it had been to work himself free. Despite the lack of his signature red coat tangling things up – and thank the gods he'd had the sense to discard that costume once he'd become headmaster of the Academy - soon after Roy started extricating the alarmingly limp body from its extremely tight fit, he heard a scrape of metal on rock. Fullmetal's breathing caught, and Roy stopped immediately. Edward didn't say anything or give away any more pain, but Roy laid down as best he could, trying to work a hand under the beam to see if he could figure out what the armor was caught on.
"Sstp."
His hand met dampness, though whether sweat, blood, or water, he couldn't immediately tell. He had moved Ed's armored arm enough that he could worm his own up Ed's side, and he found that where Edward's head had been was slightly more open than the space he was being dragged through now. He also found that Ed's armored arm appeared to now be above his head.
Perhaps that was what was supporting the beam? Or the debris the beam was resting on?
"Does your arm hurt?"
Ed's slurred responses were not getting any clearer, nor was he tense in the slightest. "Bassard."
It was hard to tell if Fullmetal had finally recognized him, or was berating him for missing something obvious. "Can you move it?"
The faintest whisper of something moving in the rubble, followed by another hiss. "Aaauuhh . . . s'stuck."
Well, that was a little more coherent, anyway. Roy laid more fully on his side, careful to mind his back, and ignored the sharp ache in the back of his neck as he extended his right arm as far as he could up Fullmetal's body. The man was hot; it was very hot in the pocket his head had been in, and Roy facilitated the movement of air. It was getting hotter. There was no doubt about it. He felt the ribcage against his arm suck the cooler air in greedily, and there was another cough.
That's why they were so muted. He didn't have the room to cough like he meant it. He would have suffocated too. Quickly.
He still might.
Roy grabbed for the top of Ed's shoulder, trying to find where the armor was going, cursing under his breath that he couldn't simply disconnect it and pull the alchemist away. It was a real arm. Of all the times for that to be inconvenient-
"S'not automail," Ed said, with far more actual consciousness behind the words. "Armor won' c'm'off like that."
Well, there was nothing else for it. He couldn't crawl into the small area with Fullmetal, and he couldn't feel far enough up the arm to see what it was hung up on. If it indeed was pinned under the rubble, or worse, holding it up, he wouldn't have the time to be gentle, either. The delirium – and the wetness – was worrying him a lot. Though, if he was right, and it really was blood –
Then it wouldn't matter if he was gentle or not.
He needed to do something about that heat, or it was all moot anyway.
Hoping his own back was stronger than it felt, he wedged his right arm, then his back, beneath the beam. He had good leverage, and he could probably push Fullmetal the rest of the way out if he had to support that beam. Maybe. Or they'd both be pinned. It was better than just crushing the other alchemist outright. Roy took another deep breath, then grabbed at the top of Ed's armor and yanked.
He only managed to budge Edward slightly, and it was a good thing. Fullmetal shouted, whether in warning or pain he couldn't tell, and there was a sudden and alarming lessening in the amount of vertical space available. He was pressing upwards with everything he had, but he realized after a few seconds of pointless straining that he couldn't budge the beam above them. He tried relaxing slightly, and it didn't lower. There was the faintest whine of metal on metal, almost in his ear, and then he heard Fullmetal let out a shaky breath.
"Got it," he mumbled. "S'on m'leg."
It took Roy a second to work out what had happened, but once he did, their next move was simple. He squirmed out from beneath the beam, then reached back under, grabbed Fullmetal's flesh wrist, and dragged. The alchemist rotated in place – his bent knee, and the armor of his leg, had caught the beam and was currently the only thing holding it up.
Of course, it would completely come down when he finally pulled, but in the larger area, he had a hell of a lot more leverage, and hopefully the armor would protect Fullmetal's foot as well as it was protecting everything else.
His next thought was to wonder if it really was protecting Fullmetal's leg, or merely propping up bones that were already broken.
One he'd pivoted Ed out from under the shelf, the younger man took long, greedy gulps of air, and he waited, still clasping that wrist, until all sounds of squirming ended and he clearly heard Ed swallow. He reached across Edward again, checking to make sure his other leg was folded up as tightly against him as possible, out from under the beam, and then he cleared his throat.
"Ready?"
The fingers he was clasping tightened slightly around his sweating wrist, and he stood in a deep crouch, grabbed that arm with both hands, and pulled.
The effort jarred his back, and he found himself falling backwards amidst a deafening noise. He landed hard on his backside, though something cushioned his fall – the sofa? - and there was still a wrist in his hands, and he could feel the tension in it, Fullmetal was crushing his wrist. He continued dragging the other alchemist back until he'd practically pulled him into his lap, and then he utilized the hidden array, separating the dust from the air around their heads. It was getting harder to find oxygen, he was having to pull it from farther and farther away, and the damp body in his arms was shaking in a pronounced way, even as debris continued to settle-
"Fullmetal."
He could hear Ed's harsh breathing, and even over that was a metallic crunching, almost rhythmic. He hoped it was the leg armor being articulated, but then that would mean it was damaged, which might mean his leg had been crushed-
"Whi . . .S'g'nna'kill me," he managed to get out, and then there was what sounded like a quiet laugh that ended in body-wracking coughs. Having already been through that, Roy just rolled Ed onto his side, ignoring something extremely hot buried deep in his back. He knew he was making it worse, but he could see to it soon, as soon as he'd taken care of the other immediate threat to their lives.
Ed finally caught his breath, and the shaking was all but gone from his frame. He slumped exhaustedly against Roy's leg, apparently uncaring of whatever else he was laying on, and Roy let his head fall with a thump back onto the back of the sofa. It wasn't rounded enough to be a sofa back, so it was something else, but it was as reasonably comfortable as anything could be against the burn on his neck. In fact, slouched against it like he was, he'd remembered noting the same thing, that it was at a bad angle and it would put a crick in his neck-
He'd been sitting on it. He'd been trying to sleep on it. Why? He clung to it with all his concentration, but as before, it slipped away.
Grinding his teeth, Roy eventually let it go, and concentrated on the array once more. Then he released Fullmetal – he'd still been hanging onto him? – and pulled off the eyepatch. Might as well get a little light if he was going to go to all the effort –
Edward shifted in his lap slightly as the array glowed dully, and he gathered more oxygen toward them. Draining it away from all the other, smaller pockets and spaces around them. But what if there were others . . . ?
"Can anyone hear me?" he called, letting his irritated voicebox deepen his voice. He'd gotten well used to projecting with a damaged throat after the last debacle involving getting himself beaten up, but he was pretty sure this one wasn't his fault, he'd been taking a nap, for-
He'd been taking a nap because . . because . . . damn!
"Hello!" he shouted, listening to his voice being consumed by the dark and the smoke. It was amazing how a thick atmosphere could so muffle the human voice, but project other sounds . . . like the air itself was trying to keep him quiet.
"No one else," Edward muttered, shifting again with a hiss. "Armstrong'll've blocked it." It was almost hesitant.
Armstrong –
In his mind's eye he could see the now-General, still in his shirt, oddly, slamming a fist to the ground so that a huge row of busts dedicated to his family rose to meet the roaring –
But he couldn't make it out. Just a flash, and he'd worked with Alex long enough to have that image burned into his imagination forever.
"What happened?"
Ed was shifting in slow, painful movements, and leaned against Roy's stomach more strongly. This was accompanied by an odd metallic ring, almost like a silver plate had been dropped. "Blew up."
Did Edward actually remember? "What blew up?"
Another metallic ping. "Dunno. Must've been'n'th'baggage. X'ng'll've'ad alchemists. S'okay."
He couldn't make sense of the second slur. "Edward, I don't remember. Where are we?"
-x-
Author's Notes: Broke it into two parts due to posting limits. Told you the quality was an issue. ; ) Second part will be up in a jiffy, and I can promise it's only two parts, and it is not the beginning of a sequel. Not not not.
Mainly because a sequel would begin with Al, of course.
