Roy Mustang paused his stride, and looked up at the sky. Thunder, lightning, rain. No surprise there. Just completes a perfectly miserable day.
He sighed, and kept on walking. No use agonizing over what he can't change. No use…no use at all…
"Fullmetal! Ed, stop! "
No answer…just silence…silence that had manifested just a few days ago, no, silence that had infected…
He watched the small blonde walk away, silence around him, silence behind.
He turned around and shut the door…There was always another day of work, another day of the damned silence…
He looked back to the ground; water now dripping down his neck, cold, icy, tracing paths down his skin. Or were they all so cold?
He resumed walking, walking in the rain, his uniform plastered to his skin, tracing muscles and scars. He watched as his feet traveled over the ground, step, step, step…a tempo, the sad, slow heartbeat of his life. He counted his steps, one, two three, again, one, two three…
Silence, not a sound as he walked down the deserted street, not a sound to interrupt his depressing train of thought. Silence, the silence that had held up since that day…
"Mustang…"
"Fullmetal?" Since when did the boy call him anything other than Bastard or Colonel?
"Taisa…"
Ah, there it was.
"Fullmetal—"
"Look…" A slip of white paper. It could've held anything at all, but he couldn't imagine what—
"Dead."
"Excuse me?"
"Alphonse."
"!"
"He's dead." Silence. That was when it fell, before the boy lifted his haunted eyes to meet Roy's before tears dripped from his eyes and he ran out of the office.
When would this end? The isolation, the freezing cold demeanor, the stumbling, dead gait, the silence…
Ah! There, a sound, a squeak… Not really what he had been looking for, but a noise nevertheless.
He kept walking.
Rain…water, to wash away the dirt and bring the new day of life. Water that could just have easily stolen away something…
The sound again…Roy froze in his tracks…Squeak? No, a whisper…
He turned slowly on the spot. Nothing, no one. No frightened animal to chase away his thoughts, no person to offer solace to or to give him solace, no small, blonde haired boy to be there and end it all…
He kept walking.
The only way to escape from it all. That's why he was here in the first place. Here, he felt at home. Alone, cold, and wet. Rain pouring down from all sides.
A streetlight, a guiding spirit in the midst of the darkness. It glared at him from its metal perch, up there on the cold metal, shining down upon him. He stopped in front of it, mesmerized by the pure light issuing forth. Light, light like the sun that warmed his body, dried his clothes, glinted off golden hair…
The boy. All thoughts led back to the boy. The boy who was the cause of this mood...the cause of this I silence…
"Roy…" Distinct now, a whisper out of the darkness… It sounded awfully like--
"Roy…" Why would he be here? Why not at home? Was he here to forget? To let water wash away all thought, all depression, all memories? Was here in the same place? Trapped by the same silence?
Silence. Roy walked down the alley, wishing the voice to continue, the silence to wisp away…
"Roy!" A whisper still, but more urgent more demanding…He walked more briskly down the alley, closer, closer to heart's content…
"Ed!" Hands on his arms. Blood on the floor. A gaping hole where flesh and blood should have been.
"Roy…" Golden eyes turned to his, full of dread, despair, hope …
All rational thought was gone. He fell to his knees and curled the boy up on his lap. There was no use calling an ambulance…no use at all…All he could do was live the moment, and the moment was here, sprawled on his lap, barely coherent enough to manage a few words…
"Roy…"
Roy supported what was left of the boy's back against his shoulder, and hugged him to his body with an arm. He slid one hand to the boy's cheek, wiping away the hot tears of regret.
"Roy!" Ed gripped Roy's arm for support as one final spasm consumed his body. What was left in its place was stillness, a stiff form, no sound, just silence.
Roy made a shushing sound as he rocked the limp body to his. He stayed there for a long time, hugging the boy to his body, memorizing the scent on him, the fell of his skin, the warmth that was rapidly dispersing.
He stood up, and placed a chaste kiss on the boy's forehead. He slowly walked out of the alley, a grim resolution forming in his mind.
And that was it. No words of love, no soft tones…Nothing that should have been, that they had had all the time in the world to do. Just a cold, wet day.
Just silence.
He kept walking.
Ooohhh! I killed Ed, please don't hurt me! Please review!