Sin

Chapter 9

Roy could sit there and scold himself all night long, but it wouldn't change his mind or his reactions. The Hughes that had been his best friend was dead, and he had now been replaced with something that Alicia had used his lessons in order to create. Roy had never even touched on the idea of human transmutation with his lessons. He had no idea where she had gotten the information.

A bottle of rum in hand, Roy paced around his house, walking nowhere in particular as he drowned his sorrows with his drinks. He had never thought that something like this could happen - not in a million years. The past was something he had always had a hard time facing. Who better to represent that past than Maes Hughes, brought back to life by his daughter after he had clearly told Roy many years before that it was a horrible idea. After too long, it had finally sunk in to the point where Roy had actually come to believe that Hughes was right. And then he was dead. Nothing Roy could ever do would ever fill that void. No one would ever be as good a friend to him. So Roy substituted the void for a new friend - alcohol.

Hawkeye had come over several times in the past week or two - Roy couldn't remember how long it had been since he had last actually had a regular day - to give him reports. He was always too drunk to remember him, but she would run them by him anyway. She would sigh and leave eventually, telling him that he was no good for himself, and he would someday need to come around and do his job again. Roy realized sadly that he quite honestly couldn't care less at the time, as he continued to destroy himself with something he scientifically knew as a depressant. To him, it seemed that there was nowhere else he could turn.

And then he moved to his living room to find Edward Elric sitting on his couch.

"You look like shit," the man-Roy-remembered-as-a-boy stated after looking him up and down.

"Thank you," Roy heard his own words out of impulse. "How did you get in?"

"The door," Ed replied.

"Oh," Roy said with a sigh, taking a drink.

"Too much of a good thing is bad for you," Ed reminded.

"I don't care," Roy grunted.

"Good to know," Ed said, stretching out on his couch and putting his feet up on Roy's table, creating a loud thud as his auto-mail leg hit the table. "Are you too drunk for me to tell you what happened to me in the past four years?" He asked, eager to tell his story.

"Yes," Roy stated, taking another drink as he crossed the room to his window. It was dark outside, which usually meant it was night. He wondered where the time had gone as he absently tipped his bottle back and forth.

"Okaaayy..." Ed hesitated. He hadn't been expecting that. "...But I really need to talk to you, regardless."

"I'm not stopping you."

"But will you understand me?"

"I might."

Ed sighed behind Roy. He was tempted to start calling him things for old times' sake, but he decided Roy probably wouldn't have the patience to hear them. "I want you to help me get kill Hughes' imposter."

Roy sprayed his rum all over his nice drapes, but didn't really register the latter part. "You want to what!" He asked, turning around to face the blonde.

"I want to kill him," Ed repeated. "Tonight, if possible."

Roy stared at him as long as his unfocused eyes would allow until he was forced to rub at them.

Ed sighed, "he's a homunculus, Colonel. He's already dead."

"I didn't know what to think about that," Roy confessed, glancing out of the window over his shoulder. "A homunculus... is the product of human transmutation, right?"

"Yeah," Ed nodded. "A being with no soul."

"That's quite the concept," Roy said, turning back to face the window. "Not once did I ever think to kill him."

"Maybe you should have," Ed grunted. "It would have saved me the trouble."

It was refreshing for Ed to be around Roy again - he was always able to take his sharp comments with a grain of salt. Al would scold him, but Roy would ignore the offensive words in whatever Ed had to say, and take what he really meant to heart. He sighed and placed his bottle of rum on a flower table near to where the curtains settled in their pulled-back position, to the sound of glass touching wood adding volume to the silence that stood in the dark of Roy's empty home.

"He was my best friend," Roy said softly.

"I know."

"He saved me from myself."

"I know."

"If he hadn't, I wouldn't be here now, and one thousand walking sins would be crawling the earth if things had worked out the way I planned."

Ed fell silent. This was new to him.

"I hated the war. I hated the killing. I hated what I was forced to do, and I hated myself for doing what I was told. I tried to fix it all the only way I knew how... and he was the one who stopped me. 'There are better ways to kill yourself', he said." Roy hesitated, finally taking another drink from his rum. "And he began to work under me, supporting me, and pushing me higher. He wouldn't let me stop. He wouldn't let me think about the guilt. It's been six years since he died. Six years..." Roy sighed, taking another sip of his rum and replacing it onto the table beside him before turning slowly to face Ed, who had righted himself on the couch, slouching slightly, but hands folded on his lap out of respect towards Roy's confession. "Have I done the right thing?" He asked Ed, quietly.

"In what?"

"In letting his death go when it happened. Looking for it, I would have lost my reputation and position in the military, therefore risking everything he worked to give to me. But... was it really the right thing for me to do?" The way his face looked in the silvery-blue moonlight only heightened the extreme contrast of Roy's handsome features. Ed watched him closely.

"It was the right thing," the blonde reassured. "He wanted you to succeed in everything you wanted. Could you say you did, even after sacrificing your ultimate goal to become the Fuhrer in the end for the greater good?"

"Did Al tell you that?" Roy chuckled bitterly, one hand in his pocket as the other hung next to his side. "That was the logical way at the time," he confessed. "I followed my head to the world we're living in now. Would I have felt more assured being the Fuhrer? Would he have led me down this path?"

"He would have led you down the path he thought you needed," Ed replied quietly. "I think it would have been the same."

"Ha..." Roy grunted, turning back again to face the window. "I guess I should go confide in his replacement."

"You said it. I didn't," Ed grinned.

"Sooner or later, it needs to happen. I'm being forced to look death in the face and deal with it." Roy folded his hand behind his back, forgetting his rum which had diminished into a few dark droplets resting unified in the bottom ring of the bottle. "I guess I did what was best for the country and the world, and it was the best for myself because I would have felt guilty about it afterward." He sighed as he shifted his feet. "But I still feel alone."

"But you aren't alone, Colonel," Ed said, feeling particularly compassionate as he stood and strolled over to the window, standing next to Roy. He picked up the bottle and consumed the last drops of the brew, wiping his mouth clean using the back of his sleeve. "I can be your drinking buddy." And after a short pause, "...for a price."

Roy chuckled softly. "That might be interesting. Bar nights spent next to a child who probably won't be able to hold his alcohol? I won't be the one carrying you home, Fullmetal."

Hearing that nickname had been such a small thing that had been missing from his new life through the gate; he had totally forgotten about it. It hadn't mattered so much to him at the time, but hearing it again along with Al's chirping 'Ni-san!' provided Ed with a warm, fond sensation.

He was home.

Now all he had to do was clean up the mess that he had left behind.

"Ohhh, I'll show you what I can do. I'll drink you under the table in a matter of minutes," he bragged.

"Ha. That would be quite the sight, Fullmetal. Maybe then I would finally be able to see your face."

"Whaaaat!"

About to vent a river of insults back at Roy, the Colonel laughed and Ed quickly shifted gears, settling for a childish pout as he crossed his arms firmly over his chest.

"He represents what Hughes taught you to avoid. Human transmutation... thanks to Alicia. We need to respect Hughes and the life he used to lead, Roy. The Homunculus could never replace the original, we just can't let it happen."

"I know, Edward-kun."

"...Are you with me, Colonel?"

"I don't think I have much of a choice," Roy replied with a sigh, leaning his head back. "Alicia, Gracia and myself need to face the fact that Hughes will be dead forever."

"Thank you," Ed said, breathing his own sigh of relief. In spite of how determined he had been to be rid of Sin, he knew he wouldn't have been able to do it on his own. As Al had stormed from their room earlier in the evening, Roy had become his last hope.

Ed didn't tell him everything... but he shared a lot. He tried to begin explaining what had happened with the gate after telling him about what homunculus were. Al took it all in with a solemn expression, listening closely to what Ed had to say. But the second Ed started talking about Hughes' replacement, and why they had to get rid of him, Al's face had clouded over with a painful emotion, and he had left before the two of them had really been able to catch up.

It was then that Ed had resolved earlier that Roy would probably be willing to help, but Al still didn't understand how vast the consequences were. Every time Al drew a circle and changed one thing into another, that 'magic' was feuled by the power of death in another world. Ed could never possibly use alchemy again. And he was tired of the rampage caused by the stray homunculus. Although Dante was gone, Ed never wanted to deal with any such thing again.

With Roy, Ed didn't even need to explain where he had gone. He just used the man's memories of Hughes.

"You can sleep in my bed tonight," Roy said quietly, glancing over his shoulder to observe the thoughtful Ed. "I'm going to be up late again tonight."

"I'll keep you company."

Much later, Ed found himself shuffling through the new and old books of Roy's library, and he discovered several missing. But for the rest of his life he would stay silent about how Alicia had discovered the theories of human transmutation.