9. "You made so many enemies, which one was it that decided to put a hole in your face?"

Roy had to rub the sleep out of his eyes blearily and blink a few times before he was awake enough to process the question. Ed was sprawled out across the couch with his hair down and one arm over his forehead. If he were a taller man, his legs would probably be dangling off the arm, but even at twenty-three years old Edward Elric was still short enough to be mistaken for a child. Roy stared at him evenly in the fading darkness- the sun was coming up and the young man was finally somewhere approaching sober. He'd rambled on for most of the night about homonculus and gates and a place called Germany that Roy had never heard of before and then fell silent. Roy thought he had fallen asleep and wondered why he couldn't do the same.

"Are you going to answer my question or what?"

Roy sighed and leaned forwards on his knees, running his fingers across his eyepatch ruefully. He had hoped Edward wouldn't ask those sorts of questions. Talking about his encounter with Archer would invariably lead to questions about his fight with Pride and that was something he hadn't even spoken to Riza about.

"Mustang-"

"Archer." he said slowly, "It was Archer. He tried to extract his own brand of justice upon me- execution of a traitor."

Edward stiffly pulled himself into a sitting position, bracing himself unsteadily as he managed an incredelous expression, "That bastard? I thought he died in Liore."

"He should of." Roy replied wearily, "But then again, that's the wonder of Automail." Ed shrunk into his seat a bit and shifted his metal limbs awkwardly, "They had to rebuild more than half his body. I never liked him, but I cannot deny that Frank Archer was a man of reason. The doctors seemed to overlook the fact that a good portion of his brain had been damaged when the scarred man made the Philosopher's stone. He was... unbalanced."

"You know what?" Ed interrupted, holding up his hands. There was a pained expression in his shadowed eyes, "I don't want to know. I really, really don't."

Roy shrugged and leaned back in his seat. Sunlight was inching into the room through the slits in his blinds- it was morning already.

"I... um... thought," Edward coughed, refusing to allow silence to fall between them, "Well, I guessed that the eyepatch was from..." he trailed off and tried on an ironic grin. It dissolved quickly only to be replaced by a thoughtful frown, "Once in a while I wondered if you were even alive, Colonel. I've fought Homonculus and I know that they're next to impossible to kill and well..."

Roy stood abruptly and cleared his throat, "Edward, it's nearly daybreak- I think that you should probably sleep. You're still young and-"

"Don't change the subject!" Ed snapped, suddenly agitated. He winced at the tone of his own voice, massaging one of his temples as he gestured towards the other couch, "Sit down."

"I'm not going to discuss this with you, Edward." Roy said through gritted teeth, "And I don't want to argue with you. Just drop it."

"Dammnit, Mustang, just sit down! I'm not asking you about this for no reason- this is important."

When Edward said that something was important, he had a way of making it sound important. However, Roy knew from experience that the things Ed calssified as important were useful only to the induvidual. There were many things that could be said on the virtues of the Fullmetal Alchemist- he was corageous, he was intelligent and he was resourceful. Unfortunately, he was not selfless nor did he often give pause to think about the feelings and concerns of those around him. He was like a runaway train on full throttle and about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

"No." is all Roy said. It wasn't exactly a direct reply, but he was tired and slightly hung over and really didn't feel like dealing with anything at six o clock in the morning. He turned to leave- sleep maybe, but more likely get dressed for work (which was in less than two hours), but Edward leapt to his feet and grabbed his wrist with his automail hand. Roy felt himself swung around and he slammed against the doorway, short of breath.

"Did you kill him?" Ed hissed, "That's all I want to know. Godammnit, all I ever get from you is this weird avoidance bullshit! Did you kill that homonculus or did you just leave his body lying there?"

"Yes." Roy growled, patience ebbing away slowly like a low tide, "I killed him, Edward."

"Are you sure?" there was something dark and dangerous in Ed's eyes. It was like blood and murder and was entirely too old for his face. Roy felt something crack under that glare

"I'm sure that I killed him." he removed Ed's hand from his arm forcibly and pushed the boy away from him, taking a deep breath. He knew that he sounded angry- there was a deadly calm working it's way into his voice and he could feel his entire body shuddering. On the outside he was sure that he looked rather like steaming water about to break into a boil- he could tell because the expression on Ed's face was the expression of a man about to tread a thin line. On the inside he was blank. He kept expecting the watershead to happen- Edward always had that unique ability to push people over the edge no matter how much they had mastered the art of teetering- but he just kept seeing the same scene play over again in his head like a movie reel.

Fire, blood, smoke- a child's neck is as easy to break as bird bones. You barely have to apply any pressure at all- just press your fingers into to esophogas. All it takes is a little snap and a head lolls backwards at an awkward angle- dull eyes, clammy skin and an honestly surprised expression frozen on his face...

"I burnt his body into ash again and again and again until there wasn't enough ash to make a man anymore. I ground that ash into the wood grain and kicked it into the fire until there wasn't any of him left at all, except in the memory of the soot in my clothes. And then I watched his house burn down around me. Is that dead enough for you, Edward?"

Ed shut his eyes- they were puffy and dark from a night of drinking- and exhaled deeply, "I guess... no. It is. That's definitely dead enough."

Roy slumped against the wall and stared at the ceiling tiredly. Not tiredly really, he was past tired by now, at the point where he didn't even regret sitting down to drink with Edward in the first place. It really was ridiculous the way the boy managed to yank him around like a dog on a collar, "I just wish I knew what exactly you wanted with me, Edward."

He hadn't meant to say it aloud. Hadn't even registered that he had said it out loud until Ed replied, "What do I want with you?"

This was the beginning of a conversation that Roy didn't have any time for. He spun on his heel and headed straight for the kitchen. He needed coffee. He put the kettle on to boil and began fixing the grains methodically, trying to ignore the shadow of a boy standing in the doorway. Ed still hadn't answered by the time the kettle began bubbling, so Roy assumed that he had fallen asleep on his feet and began to fill his mug.

"I... want you to come with me."

"Come with you?" there was nothing to be surprised about anymore- Edward was a walking, talking source of unbelieviable statements and actions, "Where am I supposed to go with you?"

"I need to fix Al's memories, remember?" and there the boy went, taking a condescending tone. It was so very ridiculous, "I need to go see my teacher in Dublith, but I'm stopping off in Rizenbul to visit Al first. I want you to come with me."

He shot Edward a stern glare over his shoulder, "No Edward, I can't do that." and kept pouring, unaware that his mug was overflowing.

It wasn't a debateable issue. Edward tried anyways.

"I'm the walking dead, Mustang. I need somebody to help me get around unnoticed. I'd really rather not walk all the way to Dublith and there's no way I'm getting a train ticket on my own."

Roy noticed that the scalding water was dripping down the side of the counter in thin, vertical rivers. He put the kettle down and said, "Edward, I have a job. I can't just-"

"You have a title that doesn't really mean anything anymore." Ed retorted snidely, "I'm sure that no one would notice if you went missing for a week or two."

'And even if they did, they wouldn't care.' Roy added silently, taking a weary sip of his coffee. He grimaced when he discovered that it tasted like stale water, "The answer is still no."