This chappy is going to be angsty af.
I'm really sorry for the wait- I've been dealing with life to such an extent that I've just been a zombie for the last weeks.
I realize time and time again that I don't really want to finish this story. It's my baby, kinda.
Warnings for this chapter: descriptions of death and some cursing.
About an hour later, Roy couldn't stall the nurses any longer. Two reluctant teens were ushered out of the room so the nurse could check on Ed's wounds and give him his medications.
The Rockbells left to check in to their hotel after fighting off an overbearing Maes Hughes and his absolute insistence that they should stay at his house. Pinako thought that the man must really have a miserable home life if he needed their company so badly.
Roy re-entered the room to see Edward laying back on the bed with fresh bandages and renewed bags of fluids and pain medications on his IV stand. He closed the door quietly behind him.
"How are you holding up?" he asked, giving an involuntarily compassionate smile.
Ed's attention was directed at him, before his gaze quickly turned to face his lap, dragging his arm across his face. That was when Roy realized how shaky Ed's breath was. Teeth clapping while he tried to clench his jaw shut to make them stop.
"Ed..." he exhaled and went to sit by the bed. "What's going on?"
"I- I don't know," he trembled, hiding his face to the best of his abilities. "I've never been so happy in my entire life and still... I just can't stop shaking or crying or feel like..." Ed pulled his hair as his voice shattered.
Roy had no idea what to do. How in the world was he going to comfort the kid? He couldn't think of a single instance in his whole life where he had been able to comfort anybody. The only thing he was good at, was causing the grief.
The lack of solace didn't seem to matter to Ed. He was about as used to being comforted as Roy was to be the comforter.
"I've spent my whole life..." Ed started, sniffing slightly and trying to get a hold of himself. "...feeling like I've been in everyone's way. I mean- I'm an invalid, you know?" Ed was finally able to meet Roy's eyes.
Roy noticed something more sincere in his golden gaze. Something more vulnerable and honest than he- with his hand on his heart- could say that he had ever seen. A fire burning more fierce and brightly than he could imagine that even their house had been, that fateful day.
"Everything that has happened the last few days, almost makes me feel like... I'm wrong," he looked at Roy, surprised and almost not believing his own statement.
"I've never felt like I've been wanted, and yet, something tells me that... for the first time..." he continued, while his breaths became more rapidly, and he shook his head, clearly struggling to contemplate everything.
"He wants me, Roy. Alphonse actually wants me. I mean- when everything went down- when mom got killed in the fire and I thought Al was gone too... and I was sent to Drachma... The only family I had left was Hoenheim. And... and he didn't even want me. God," he pulled his bangs down his face as the tears once again came streaming.
"I used to lie awake every night praying that all of a sudden, he'd show up and take me away from the hell I was in... But he never did. I really truly thought that I was just a waste of space. I thought... I thought I was the one fucking person that overcrowded the entire planet all by myself. The least useful little shit..." He cut himself off from his rant to catch his breath and brush away the tears.
He exhaled sharply. "I don't think I've ever cried this much my entire life, I'm sorry..."
"Don't be," Roy said softly. Even he was surprised by his delicate tone. "You know... my parents died when I was really young too."
Ed's head shot up, listening intently as his rescuer opened up to him for the first time.
"I used to think it was my fault. There wasn't any logical reason to it, it's just how one's young mind works sometimes. I had these thoughts that, if I had only done one thing- anything- different that day, that maybe, it would have had a different outcome. The butterfly effect." Roy scoffed.
"It was foolish, really. No matter what I would have done that day, it wouldn't have changed my parents plans to go out fishing. It wouldn't have changed the fact that it was raining, and it certainly wouldn't changed the fact that the storm had hit before they could row back to shore," he paused.
The all too familiar heartbreak that he had pushed away and ignored for so long was grabbing a hold on him, stabbing him in the chest repeatedly as the pictures of the search team, police, coast guard and the diving team crept back to his mind. Remembering the transparency of his fathers blue skin (that he had been reminded of when finding Ed) as his body had been retrieved from the water. His mother was never found. The current had taken her further away, letting the depths of the sea swallow her into it's infinite void of darkness.
To this day he was afraid of the ocean and he still couldn't stand the rain. He exhaled sharply through his nose before he was able to continue.
"My aunt adopted me. She is an amazing person," 'I wish you could meet her' he thought but didn't dare to say it out loud. "And she opened her home and her heart for me. But, I was angry. I wasn't able to understand why at the time, and I certainly didn't have the words to explain it, but I blamed myself for so long, that it almost wrecked my relationship with the one person I knew I could count on," he sighed.
"Maybe that was what I was trying to do. I didn't feel like I deserved it... I guess what I am trying to tell you, Edward... is that you are much more emotionally mature than I was at your age. You might not believe it yourself and you're probably the most stubborn person I've met in my entire life, except for myself," he added. "But please, I'm begging you. Believe the Rockbells, believe your brother, Hawkeye, Havoc and myself, when we tell you that you are wanted. You are an amazing young man, wise beyond your years, smart and so completely capable to do whatever you put your mind to."
Ed looked at Roy's sad smile, feeling overwhelmed and a little embarrassed. How could he not have realized sooner that he- they- truly cared?
"Well, maybe except for growing another arm and leg," he chuckled carefully. Roy responded with a smirk.
"Never say never. I don't know if you remember this, but The Rockbell's are manufacturing prosthetic limbs."
Ed's eyes grew almost disturbingly wide at that statement and his jaw malfunctioned, leaving his mouth gaping as he tried to form any form of intelligent reply. It came out sounding more like a toddler who'd just found out it could make other sounds than crying.
After a short while, Ed was able to pull himself together.
"I- I don't know if they told you Roy, but they want me to come back with them to Risembool," Ed managed to say.
Roy felt his heart sink in his chest. A little puzzled at the unfamiliar feeling, he plastered a smile on his lips.
It wasn't as if he had imagined that Edward would stay with him. Why would he? He'd only known the kid for the better part of a week. There was no way he could bond with a person that quickly. After all, he had never been a people-person. Also, he couldn't take care of a child! Much less a child with a disability. A very much capable child with a disability, he corrected himself.
He didn't have anything to offer a kid like Ed. In Risembool, there were probably many kids Ed's age, and he would have his family there. The small part of it that was left anyway. He would go back to a place he knew. He would finally go home.
"That's great," he heard himself say, giving it everything he got to sound sincere.
Ed nodded. "Yeah, I think... I think it will be nice."
That night when Roy came home, he got drunk. He got fall-flat-on-your-face-and-wake-up-spooning-the-toilet drunk.
What was happening to him? He had always been completely content with living on his own. He loved his freedom. He loved being able to get shitfaced whenever he felt like it and not having to answer to anyone. In his thirty years, he had always enjoyed his solitude. So why did it all of a sudden feel like something was missing?
The ghost of a rude teen with his nose in a book, sitting silently in the couch- opposite from his favorite chair- still resided in his living room. The ghost lingered in every room of his house. The living room, kitchen, the study, and his guest bedroom- there he was. Or wasn't. He was supposed to be... No. This was all wrong.
Roy always seemed to be missing something or someone, that he knew he couldn't have anymore.
It was almost two in the morning. 'Fuck it' he thought, and grabbed his phone, calling a number he would never admit that he had memorized.
A sleepy but alert voice answered the phone after a little while.
"Riza Hawkeye," the voice said and sounded like sugar and honey to Roy's ears.
"Riza... I really fucking need you."
To be continued! The next chapter is going to be a fluff-fest.
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