…Okay, so, this chapter ran away with me. And you know what, that's a good thing, because it means that the story is officially Completely Awake again.
But also, fuck, I'm concerned for my characters now.
(Somebody: Don't you write this thing? LISTEN. The fingers know. The brain doesn't. I have plot outlines for pages and yet do I know what's going on? Not a clue.)
I don't usually explain TWs, but in this case, I think it's important going into this chapter to understand that I have personal experience with the type of mental illness that Will deals with. It's deliberately a little unclear (it's 1914; psychiatric diagnoses and treatment were not the same, not to mention even today diagnostic criteria gets very wibbly) but psychosis, PTSD, and violent impulses are all drastically misunderstood and mistreated even today. Will isn't violent because I think violent mental illness is funny or what 'all mental illness' is like; he's violent because, even aside from the character-swap side of things, violent mentally ill folks are the ones who face the most reprisal and danger from authorities, family and even the mental health professionals tasked with their care. Historical fantasy usually erases the reality of mental health prior to 1960, but we have always been here.
Song is by Evanescence.
TW for discussed genocide/war, crimes against humanity (not in detail), ableism, mental illness*, suicidality, guns, distrust/paranoia triggers, alcohol/alcohol abuse
~37~
They'll never see
I'll never be
I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger
Burning deep inside of me
-Lies
If she had been asked – that is, by anybody but Jareth or Maes – Diana Solaris would have stiffly denied having a maternal bone in her body. This was actually largely true. She didn't want children. She wasn't cut out for motherhood, and motherhood wasn't cut out for her.
But usually, this question came about because of one particular person. Two, if they'd but known it; William and Alex Elric. She ignored or deflected the questions when she could, because nobody was ever asking about the only female State Alchemist's "maternal instincts" for good reasons. Besides, what did that even mean? She didn't crave a baby, or a family.
She didn't know what else, though, to call the gnawing, drilling concern that lived at the base of her spine. If she'd had a mother worth a damn, maybe she would have a better idea whether or not it was normal to worry about someone so much you were ready to murder them once you got your hands on them again. Not that Will had done anything wrong – this time. She'd been the one to send him and Alex packing to Rizenbul. And they had Major Armstrong with them, as good protection as any.
No, she reflected, trying not to snap her fountain pen between her fingers, she just felt like this all the time. She couldn't feel like this about somebody who only crossed streets at crosswalks and was always inside by nightfall. No, her "maternal instincts" or whatever the fuck they were – she wasn't convinced this was particularly motherly – had attached themselves firmly to the kind of idiotic teenager to use his own detached arm as bait and brush off her own violence as something he could just forget.
She slumped at her desk in irritation, and was more thankful than she'd ever confess to when Maes – bless him – opened the door. "Hello, hello. Busy?"
"A little, but I can make time for y-"
Maes closed the door, making their conversation private.
"Thank god you're here, I think I'm losing my mind."
"Only now?" Maes quipped.
"I hate my new office, I keep assuming Elric's dead in a ditch somewhere, and I don't have a single lead on our bizarro killer. Not to mention that calling this an 'anti-terrorism unit' is more than a little inappropriate, don't you think?" Then she noticed the look on Maes's face. "And you're here to tell me something else has gone terribly wrong."
"Afraid so, although it's not as bad as all that."
"What is it?"
"The 1st Branch of the Central Library burned down last night."
"Wh-what? How?"
"We're working on it," Maes sighed. "Investigations always gets called in on these things just in case, but there's been a few eyewitness reports of a man fleeing the scene who-"
"Who fits the description of our killer?"
"Bingo. But on the upside…" Maes slid some pictures of Elysia under her nose. "Isn't she cute?"
She couldn't help it. She cracked a smile.
"Aha! Knew that'd help."
"We still have to deal with this. Okay, so, have you confirmed whether or not it was arson?"
"No, and we might not be able to. My crew have been interviewing the librarians, and apparently they've been nagging the brass for funding to fireproof the place for almost a decade."
"Of course. So it might be a genuine accident."
Maes shook his head. "Unlikely. It's possible, but the whole building's gone."
Diana suddenly groaned. "And it's the first branch. So that's-"
"All the archived case files that aren't currently stored elsewhere, research publications from State Alchemists going back about twenty years, a number of mission reports-"
"Wait." Diana grabbed one of her pieces of paperwork and flipped it over. "Twenty years. Does that include the ones during and after the Ishvalan war?"
"Yes," Maes replied, shifting uncomfortably.
"You and I both know some of what was in the classified sections of that library." She chewed on the end of her pen. "The B- our killer is Ishvalan. The brass seems happy to call this a matter of terrorism, but if this was terrorism, why not burn down barracks, or the Parliament, or City Hall? Why the library?"
"…Oh dear." Maes crossed his arms, sighing deeply. "This is getting into stuff I don't officially know anything about, Diana."
"Neither do I, but you don't spend years in Black Ops without knowing how to read between the lines. It might have been an accident, Maes, but there were enough State Alchemists in Ishval given free license and as many test subjects as they could ever want-"
What she was saying caught up with her, and the room spun a little before she pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. "Or my imagination is running away from me. The fire. Let's deal with that first."
"Investigations has got it well in hand, but I'll pass along the list of witnesses to you once we have it." Maes took a few steps forward, and put a hand on her shoulder. "Diana. Are you going to be alright?"
"Well, I'll bloody well have to be, won't I?" she muttered. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk, reached to the back and pulled out a small decanter of whiskey and a glass.
Maes gave her a look, and she ignored him. "I love the detail that you put the beautiful decanter away in your drawer so nobody will see it."
"You know how it works. Men with booze are classy. Women with booze are whores."
"I'll leave you to it. For the record, I think you might be onto something – as disturbing as it is."
Diana reflected on that as she downed her first glass of whiskey. It was almost worse having somebody else confirm the idea-
The phone rang. She debated ignoring it, but she couldn't exactly afford to do that. Besides, it might be important.
She picked it up. "Colonel Solaris speaki-"
"Yeah, I know who I fucking called."
She couldn't help the rush of relief. "W- Fullmetal. Good to hear from you." Sander had sent her a few brief telegrams, but that was all she'd heard.
"You've got a lot of fucking explaining to do."
A chill ran down her spine. "…Will, where are you?"
"What the hell am I holding, Solaris? Because it looks a hell of a lot like a Ph-"
"Will, don't. Not-" Fuck, fuck, fuck. She still didn't know what he was talking about, but her brain was drawing connections with what she'd been talking to Maes about, and the fury in Will's voice. It had been years since she'd heard him this badly off. She couldn't decide whether or not she hoped he was hallucinating – it was almost preferable if he was, but Jareth had said as much on the train ride. Keeping Will sane was in everybody's best interest. "This isn't a secure line."
"Bullshit it's not a secure line."
"Despite what you think, I can't afford to be paranoid all the time." She took a deep breath. "Fullmetal, are you in Rizenbul?"
"No. Bradley sent us after a lead – some old military doctor who deserted."
She'd thought the room had spun earlier – that had been nothing. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Which meant what he was holding was…
"Whatever it is in your hand, Fullmetal," she said, trying to sound as calm as possible to avoid alerting the switchboard operators who likely weren't paying attention, "don't use it. Besides, I think it's high time you reported back to Central."
"Central? What-"
"We've been transferred."
"You could have fucking told me! I-"
"I just did, Fullmetal. If you stayed in contact more, this wouldn't be an issue."
"This wouldn't be an issue if you didn't send me away, you lying fucking b-" Will took a moment to take a breath. Diana tried not to hold it against him. Considering the amount of sexism he probably heard on a daily basis, he was still better than most of the military. And it wasn't like she didn't give him a lot of reasons to swear. "Central. I take it you know what's going on."
"Not a clue, Fullmetal," she lied, hoping he could hear it. "But I look forward to your mission report when you return home."
"…you lied to us."
He said this part in such a low voice that she almost didn't catch it. "I know." I'm sorry, she almost added. Almost.
"Are you ever going to stop?"
She inhaled. Exhaled. Felt the whiskey beginning to burn in her veins. It helped, as much as anything did. "Probably not. The question is if I lie any less than anybody else."
"I guess it is."
The phone line went dead. Diana took some more deep breaths, trying to calm the panic going through her lungs, still holding the receiver to her ear.
Then she heard the confirmation to what she'd suspected – a gentle breath on the other end of the phone line, and a click.
She wasn't surprised somebody was keeping tabs on her. She was just worried about what they'd heard. And she'd thought Doctor Marcoh was long, long gone.
She had work to do. She couldn't afford weakness. But…
She poured another glass. Just to take the edge off.
Major Armstrong had been standing still as a statue in the corner the whole time, and Alex observed him steadily, the anger still rising in his chest. He wanted to be wrong. He hoped he was wrong. He didn't want to think about these being used in Ishval – and maybe they weren't even what they looked like. It would be impossible to have created just one Philosopher's Stone without anybody knowing, let alone multiple.
It didn't make any sense.
But the evidence of his own eyes showed him everything he'd read about, now in painstaking detail. The 'red glow' was the gentle light that the vials gave off, described as lux sanguinum in Julius Albanus and leukos stygos from Epaphras. The shift between phases of matter – within the vials, liquid, poured out of them, stone, and – though he dared not test it – liable to crumble into gas without something to hold it.
"This is what you've been searching for?" Selim asked quietly. Alex could hear the hurt in his voice.
"Something like it. I expected – we wanted to know how to make it, not…" Alex couldn't stop looking at Major Armstrong. He hadn't said a word. He'd barely breathed. "I mean, there's every chance they weren't used," he said, desperately trying to come up with an excuse, a reason that Diana hadn't lied to them. She just hadn't known, right? "I mean, they all seem to be here. That's probably why he deserted."
"I still don't understand."
"If this is – these are – Philosopher's Stones, then it means an alchemist can ignore the rule of equivalent exchange. You remember that."
Selim nodded slowly. "You can't make something out of nothing. Equivalent exchange means you can change matter, pull it apart, destroy its structure, but you can't make more or less of it."
"The Stone ignores that. Which is impossible. Physics don't work that way. But that also makes it-" Alex had to speak past the fury still rising in him. Emotions were worse when there was no physical expression of them – his hands weren't hot, his head wasn't spinning, his voice wasn't shaking, and so it had nowhere to go. "It makes it a very powerful weapon."
"Oh," Selim breathed. "But you and W- Oh."
He was ashamed, Alex suddenly realized, mixed in with the anger; he was ashamed that this was how Selim was finding out what they really wanted. He'd known, of course, in broad strokes.
Selim reached for one of the Stones. "How do you even know what they are-"
A hand clasped, gently but firmly, around his wrist. "I do." It was the first time Armstrong had spoken since they'd entered the house. Now Alex could see his expression for what it was, a mirror of the one he could feel his ghost wearing – shame and anger and fear.
Armstrong quietly closed the briefcase. "I had thought he would have destroyed them," he said, his voice measured and low. "When he disappeared-"
"You knew him?"
"Only in passing."
"You couldn't have said so?" Was this was Will felt like? The urge towards violence because nobody would answer shit otherwise.
Armstrong stood there between them, massive and unmoving. "…You're both too young to know much about the war."
"I know a bit," Selim replied defensively. "Rizenbul's not that far from Ishval."
Alex just shook his head. "I remember the soldiers, and – Selim, remember the train station?"
Selim grimaced. "Right. The station got bombed, like…. 1906?"
There was a yell of frustration outside, and Alex glanced through the open door to see Will kicking the phone. The conversation with Solaris hadn't gone well, clearly. He strode back into the house, face a mask of fury.
"We're to report back to Central as quickly as possible, and then she might be nice and fill us in. Bullshit. There's only one way to know if this is what it looks like." He glared at the vial clasped and hidden in his hand –
-and before he could do anything, Armstrong had taken it from him.
"Hey!"
"I won't let you use this, Will," Armstrong said, sounding more miserable than Alex had thought possible.
"Why? Worried you'll get exposed as a liar?" Will sneered. "I've sold my fucking life to the military and turns out the thing I've needed this whole time was just too classified. Now give it back."
"It's not that simp-"
"Yes it fucking is, Armstrong. This is real fucking simple." Will's hands came together and slammed against the abandoned metal plate and cutlery; a flash of blue light filled the room, and Will picked up the revolver, aiming it at Armstrong. "We're walking out of here with that briefcase. And if you try to stop us, I'll blow your brains out."
"Will, no." Selim clasped his hands to his mouth in horror.
"Selim, they've been lying to us. Solaris practically admitted it. And you really gotta ask, who was using these in Ishval, huh? Some war I don't know anything about and it's the reason everybody gives for why they won't tell me shit."
"Because it never should have happened," Armstrong responded, insistence written on every word. "We didn't –" He closed his eyes. "The Ishvalan War started as an uprising – a protest over the accidental death of an Ishvalan death, fueled by anti-alchemy sentiment from the Ishvalans. It went on for years and years, and the military wanted it over."
"So what, they send in a State Alchemist with a Philosopher's Stone and pretend they never made one?"
"How many Stones did you see in that briefcase, Will?"
Will's grip on the gun faltered.
"They sent all of us. Every State Alchemist."
"Why?" Will asked, voice hard as rock and not entirely hiding the instability underneath. "I thought Ishvalans hated alchemy. How was a Stone going to help bring peace?"
"We weren't making peace with them. We were ordered to –" Armstrong swallowed. "To wipe them out."
Will's eyes were pinpricks in his skull. "Wipe them out."
"I need to destroy them. I can't – I won't let it happen again."
"Alex, do something," Selim hissed in terror. "I can't – I can't do anything."
Alex thought about it. He did. He was his brother's keeper, after all. It was his job to intervene where others couldn't.
"Major, I'm telling you, step away from the briefcase."
"I won't," Armstrong responded, an unmoving behemoth.
"I would listen to my brother if I were you," Alex found himself saying, his voice sounding like it was coming from a million miles away. "He seems like he's serious."
"Alex!"
"You can say a lot of things about Will," Alex replied to Selim, "but he's not an idiot. If we let Armstrong take these Stones, we'll never see them again. We'll never get our bodies back. We'll just keep searching til we drop for something the military always had and chose not to share with us."
"This isn't – he's your friend!"
"Never met him before this trip," Will said blankly. "And any friend of Solaris's at this point is no friend of mine."
Alex felt a stab of guilt at that. Solaris and Valjean had been so good to them-
How can it be a stab of guilt when you've got no flesh to feel it in?
"Will, put down the gun and listen to me-"
"I'm done listening! I'm done being patient and calming down and waiting for somebody to give me crumbs!" Will took a step backwards, his hands shaking. "I'm supposed to trust blindly in whoever Solaris or Valjean or the fuck decides they're going to make decisions for me, because what, I'm crazy and need taking care of? Sometimes I think I'm the only fucking sane one around."
"You're fifteen, and nobody thinks you're-"
"Oh yes you do," Will scoffed. "You don't think I know why Solaris thinks I need a bodyguard to go to my own hometown? You don't think I see everybody whispering and worrying about me – you won't tell me about a war because you think I can't handle it, you think I'm making up monsters, you-" He stammered, tripping over his words – then turned the gun, putting it at his temple.
Alex's world stopped.
He'd made the wrong call.
"Will," he tried to speak, but no words would come out.
Will took the gun from his temple and pointed it back at Armstrong, indecision turning his whole body into a shaking leaf. The attempt at respectable clothing and the long, golden hair couldn't hide the hollow look in his eyes or the way he seemed to be sliding out of his own body. "Shut up," he muttered to his side, and at first Alex thought it was at him. It didn't seem to be at anybody in particular. "If I need your input, I'll fucking ask for it."
Alex couldn't make himself move, or speak. It'd finally happened – he'd fucked up, he'd made the wrong call, and now the fragile hold on Will's sanity was gone. He'd never thought about what would happen if what they found wasn't what they wanted. He'd never thought that far ahead. His job was to keep Will alive, and he was going to lose him.
Selim and Armstrong made eye contact, and before Alex could stop him, Selim stepped into the path of the gun. "Will. It's me."
"I know who you fucking are-"
Selim held up his hands in an attempt at placation. "Let's. Put the weapon down and take a moment, alright?"
"How many more moments have I got?" he whispered.
One day I'm not going to be enough. Alex felt a sudden calm settle over him at that realization. One day, Will's going to succeed at killing himself and I won't be enough to pull him back.
The panic would come later. It was still there, lurking, rising and ready to tear through the
Selim put his hands on the barrel of the gun, the tears gathering at the corner of his eyes unshed. "Will?"
"I- I have to, I have to or it won't, I won't," Will stammered, words sliding out of order, almost indecipherable. "It's him or me, one way or another, something has to happen, something has to move-"
"I don't understand."
Will closed his mouth, fury warring with fear. He was afraid. It wasn't like this was new. Alex had seen him like this before, less and more aware of his surroundings at once, struggling with stringing words together in a straight line, like every thought in his brain was trying to come through his lips at once-
-Just, usually, Alex could intervene. Usually, they could hide it.
The hypodermic needle slid into Will's arm, and Armstrong at least looked apologetic standing behind him. Selim had made a wonderful distraction.
"Ow! You –" Will swiveled around, trying to point the gun back at Armstrong, but his grip was already loosening. "You motherfu- fucker-"
"It'll take a minute or two to take effect," Armstrong said softly. "I suggest you sit down."
"I'm not- fu- I won't and you can't – fuck you-"
The light slid out of Will's eyes, and he slipped backwards into Selim's waiting arms. The gun fell from his hand, and Armstrong caught it, setting it aside.
"We'd better get going. The train-"
Selim wasn't listening to him. He brushed Will's sweat-soaked hair from his face, then scrubbed a few stray tears from his face. "What's happening to him?" he asked softly.
"I can't answer that."
"For heaven's sake-"
"No, I mean, I can't," Armstrong said, his voice sounding like he might fall apart at any moment. It was a strange thing to hear from somebody as big as he was. "I don't know."
Selim returned his gaze to Will, stroking his knuckle over his cheek. "Think he'll ever forgive me?" His eyes didn't move, but Alex could tell the question was directed at him.
Maybe if I do, he thought, but didn't say. What was there to forgive? Will was alive, and nobody was hurt. That was a good outcome.
He still felt like he was coming apart at the seams.
My brother's keeper. Was that who he was? Was that all he was?
He genuinely didn't know.
