A breif bit of angst. Life is busy with grad school and finals, but I found the time to bang this one out for ya. Beware- trauma ahead.
He was standing in the woods. Alone.
"Hawkeye? Furey? Breda? ...Fullmetal?"
He looked around. There was a low, creeping mist on the ground, and he was only answered by an eerie silence.
Something was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and his mouth was dry. His palms itched. He clenched and unclenched his hands- this wasn't good.
Every soldier had a sixth sense, he'd tuned his very well in Ishval, and something felt... off.
He looked around for as far as he could see- not very far, thanks to the fog. He could probably only see about fifteen feet in each direction. It was so cloudy, he couldn't even see the sun, and he had no idea which way would get him out of the forest.
Guess I'll keep walking, then. Find something familiar.
He kept his eyes glued to the ground- metal traps leered up at him, and he watched every footstep, not liking the lack of familiar terrain or visibility at all.
Where is everyone?
Something scurried in the leaves to hi rihgt, and he jumped.
It was a squirelle. The creature whipped its tail at him and chattered, scurrying up a tree, and he took a shaky breath to steady his nerves before he was stepping forward.
The mist had started to lessen slightly, and he kept walking, slightly heartened by the fact.
He'd just noted the seventh steel trap he'd come across when he heard a metallic clang and a scream in the distance, and animalistic cry of pain...
He was sprinting before he knew what he was doing, and he stumbled and set off a trap to his left, but he didn;'t care, heading towards the horrible sound...
It was Black Hayate. The animal had gotten it's back paw caught in a trap, and while it was quite gruesome, and painful looking, Roy was slightly glad that the creature hadn't managed to break a leg.
"Easy, Hayate."
Black Hayate whimpered, giving his tail a weak wag as he saw Roy, but his dark eyes were full of pain.
"I know. I'll get out out of there. Just hang on a minute..." he was searching for a flat stone to wedge into the trap. "I wonder where the hell Hawkeye is. Have you seen her?"
But Hayate only gave him a shaky whimper, and Roy sighed.
"Right- let's get you out first..."
"-ustang! Somebody!"
Muffled shouting carried to him in the breeze, and Roy jolted to his feet. "Fullmetal?" he breathed.
Hayate whimpered, but there was somethin in Ed's voice that made Roy turn tail and run towards him anyways- they'd come back for Hayate, he promised himself...
"FULLMETAL! WHERE ARE YOU!?" he was sprinting through the trees like his life depended on it, but that damnable mist was so thick it was hard to see.
"No! No, get away! Stay away from me you freak!"
Ed's voice was getting louder, and he kept running towards it.
"Sto-ack!"
He burst into a clearing to see a man clad in a black trench coat, holding Ed up by the hair.
He dropped the kid into a heap in the leaves and turned and sprinted off into the mist, and Roy let him go.
"Fullmetal? Are you alright!? Did he hurt you?" Roy was running over- Ed hadn't faired as well as Hayate, his flesh knee was caught in one of those damnable traps.
"It's alright- you're okay- we'll get you out, I promise..." He turned the boy onto his back, pulling him into his lap.
He expected Ed to make some witty remark, and he found the quiet unnerving. His eyes traced every inch of the black leather pants, gave lingering on the injured knee and continuing on up to the kid's face. There was a rapidly growing stain on the kid's black shirt, and Roy suddenly forgot how to breathe.
The kid's throat had been slit.
He was alive, but he didn't have long- every wet, rasping breath was another grain of sand in the hourglass that was rapidly running out.
"F-fullmeal..." Roy gasped, going pale.
Ed took a wheezing breath and coughed, blood bubbling past his lips...
"No..." his hands were shaking, and he shook his head, looking at him in disbelief. "No!"
"T-take care..." Ed rasped hoarsely, more blood bubbling past his lips. His eyes were going glassy, and he was already too pale.
"Shh! Don't try and talk, save your strength..."
Ed gave him a pitying look, as though to say, I'm already dead. Before he was trying to talk again, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth as he spoke. "of Al. Take care... of... h-him. Promise."
"I won't have to, because you're going to be fine! Hold still- I can cauterize this- my gloves..." he was frantically searching his pockets, trying to find his gloves, but he couldn't find them...
Ed coughed, and crimson sprayed the front of Mustang's uniform jacket and the leaves, coating everything.
Roy growled, pressing one hand to the kid's throat and trying to slow the bleeding without suffocating the kid and continuing to search for his gloves. "Hold still, it's alright, you're going to be alright..." he sounded like a broken record, and by the time he realized he didn't have his gloves with him, Ed had already gone still in his lap and was staring at him with glassy, unseeing golden eyes.
"No..." Mustang whispered. Useless. Always useless. a vile voice in the back of his mind whispered.
Somewhere off in the mist, Black Hayate howled.
"No!"
He sat bolt upright- sweat was trickling down his face, and he looked around frantically. It was dark- there was light in a hallway, he was in bed, in a room... He smelled antiseptic.
He was in a hospital room. And there was a lump of blankets asleep beside him.
His breath caught in his throat, and he peeled back to blankets to find Ed, still clad in his bowers and perfectly clean white t-shirt without a speck of wretched crimson on him. The kid's throat was perfectly intact, and his blond hair was messy, but it wasn't nearly as bedraggled as before. He could hear each slow breath the kid was taking, and by how still he was lying, could tell the kid wasn't having nightmares.
Slowly, he gathered the sleeping teen into his arms and pulled him close, tucking he blond head beneath his chin and just... holding him... just for a moment, just to be sure he was real, he was alright...
He took a few deep, shaky breaths. He could feel Ed's heartbeat- slow and steady, so unlike the frantic hummingbird thrum of his own, beating against his ribcage.
It was a dream. It was just a dream. He's here. He's alright.
Ed hummed and shifted in his sleep, wiggling closer and pressing his face into Roy's chest.
"Fire man." Ed mumbled, humming at him before going quiet and still, still dead asleep.
Roy felt relieved tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, and he blinked, not sure whether to laugh at the fact Ed was talking in his sleep or cry out of fear- that for a moment, just a moment, he'd thought he'd lost the little brat...
It was a dream. Yes, just a dream. A nightmare. He'd had them before, he reminded himself, about Ishval. He was waking up more now, starting to act more like himself.
With every time he ran his finger's through those blond locks, with every breath he counted the kid taking, he reassured himself that Ed was here, alright, next to him, he was fine, and it'd just been a dream.
Just a dream. Just a dream. He repeated it over and over in his head, choosing not to think about tomorrow morning or the horrors it'd entail, and instead chose to look at the small body curled up against his own.
Yes, it'd just been a horrible, sick dream. He loathed working cases about child killers, he always had, but he'd hated it more since Ed had started to work with him, if that was even possible.
It was harder to detach, to be cold, clinical, in rounding up the degenerate scum of humanity, when everyday at the office, he had to look into those naïve eyes- not innocent, no, Ed had lost that even he'd tried human transmutation- but he was still very much oblivious to the way the world worked and naïve, and it unsettled Roy to no end when he was chasing down the kidnappers and the pedophiles, thinking hat next time they might go for his boy...
You have to stop thinking about this. It was a dream. Let it go. He held Ed tighter to his chest and forced himself to take a few more deep breaths. Yes, it was a dream, only a dream. Not real.
The real Edward Elric was right here- he was curled up in the hospital bed next to him- warm, alive. With blankets and a full stomach, sleeping without a care in the world.
Or at least- sleeping as soundly as someone who'd seen the things Edward had could be.
Roy let out a sigh.
It took him an hour to fall back into a fitful doze.
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