A/N Hmm, I'm finally back from vacation. This chapter took a bit of spontaneous stuff and some deep thought, so it's kind of a mixture of the two… yah. I'm feeling a lot better lately, things are still a bit weird with Moro… but we're starting to sort it all out. And so life goes on… and so here you go.
Disclaimer: If I owned FMA, it would be a terrible, terrible anime. But I don't, and thankfully it isn't, so hah.
"What is it Roy, what's going on?" Riza asked, pulling her hand out of his and stopping outside of the room.
"It's Ed," Roy said, rubbing the back of his neck, "He… he kind of needs a shoulder to cry on right now I think." Riza huffed, folding her arms.
"Lets see Roy, who here is in the romantic relationship with him?" she asked sarcastically, "You need to do these things for him, I can't come to your rescue all of the time. Spit it out, what went on over there?"
"We were eating," Roy started, "And he seemed really hungry and ate it all in a matter of seconds, and then, well, he fell over and puked." This caught the First Lieutenant's attention.
"He puked? How soon after eating? Are you sure?" she asked, flipping from sleepy pissed off woman to work mode in a second.
"I'm pretty sure he puked Hawkeye, I saw it with my own eyes," Roy retorted, "It was actually, well, must have been less than a minute after he ate that it happened." Riza's mind clicked at this.
"Roy, I think this could be serious, I mean really serious," She said cautiously, "I think Ed may be suffering from bulimia."
"Isn't that some sort of chick disease?" Roy asked in confusion. Riza glared at him, giving him her best withering stare, before continuing.
"I don't know the finer details of it, but basically what the subject, in this case Ed, will do is thy will gorge themselves on mass amounts of food, before puking it all back up. It's called purging and bingeing. It's an eating disorder that starves the user slowly over time," Riza looked at the floor thoughtfully, "I think it's to do with being in control of something if I'm remembering correctly."
"So how do you fix it?" Roy asked simply.
"I've never dealt with something like this before," Riza said nervously, chewing one of her fingernails, "He'll need a carefully watched diet, and he's got to get over the mental and emotional stress that's driven him to this."
"Well, go on in," Roy said, running his hand through his hair, disheveling it even more.
"You just don't get it!" Riza said loudly, "For god's sake Roy, it's not me that needs to do this, it's you. You're the one he would eat in front of, you're the one who figured this all out, and you're the one who can relate to dangerous behavior like this." Riza bit her lip in frustration and rising sadness. "You're the closest thing he's got to family, to love… to a real emotional connection. If you fuck this up, it won't be a question of how he could recover, it would be a question of whether or not he could!" Riza twisted the doorknob of Ed's dorm room, wrenched it open and shoved Roy in.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
Ed lay on his bed listening dully to the Colonel and First Lieutenant argue outside. He stared out the window into the starry night sky blankly, not bothering to kick off his shoes. He heard the door open, but didn't bother to look behind him.
"Ed?" a voice asked, lacking its usual confidence. Ed sat up on his bed and turned back to see Roy. He walked in and sat down next to Ed. After a minute or so of silence, Roy finally said the only thing that could come to mind. "Are you okay?" Ed's figure, draped in the dim moonlight from the window, looked ghastly. Ed felt Roy's eyes on him.
"…So you both know?" Ed asked blankly. He'd always imagined the moment he revealed his addiction to Roy would be very emotional and that he might, if things got bad, even be in tears. Thinking about it now was almost funny.
"Yeah," Roy said, equally quiet and dark, "We know. Why didn't you tell me?"
Ed tried to speak but gagged on his words. "I wanted to, I just… I didn't know what you would think… of my being so weak." Roy looked up.
"Ed, emotions aren't weakness, they're part of being human and being alive," he said solemnly, "After the war I questioned whether or not I had them… I felt like we'd all lost the ability to feel. But the undeniable guilt, the horror, and the sorrow that filled me over time… it wasn't weakness, it was the same as breathing. Just another part of life that no one can avoid. Not me, and sure as hell not you." Ed leaned against Roy, relaxing. He looked up at him, their eyes meeting in the darkness.
Ed sat up, leaning forward to kiss Roy. Roy sat, caught off guard, before returning it. "You know I love you," Ed said quietly, after a few moments of sweet bliss. "More than anyone else in the world." Roy felt warm happiness at this remark and yet an unexplainable sadness. He let out a heavy breath, not quite a sigh, but almost, before Ed kissed him again. And for Ed, for that moment, passion filled in the crack in his heart that had once been occupied by a brother.
"Ed, we need to talk about this," Roy said, pulling away with all of his willpower, "You know that what you've been doing is wrong, we need to fix it."
"Roy, shut up," Ed said, kissing him again, adding in some tongue. Roy leaned forward, Ed lying below him, taking off his shirt. Ed started necking him. "We can fix whatever you want later." Roy returned to his proper mind at this remark, a bitter taste invading his mouth. He sat back up, getting off of Ed's hips that he'd moments before been straddling. "Roy, Roy why the hell did you stop?" Ed asked, sitting up. He pulled his braid loose and pulled out his hair. "I know this what you want, and I want it too, so get back over here." He tried to look sexily at Roy, fiddling with his hair, but Roy looked away.
"It's just one thing after another isn't it Ed?" he sighed, looking back at the boy, not lustfully as Ed had hoped, but with a genuine sorrow.
"I'll start eating again Roy, I swear, but come on," Ed said in slight confusion, "I want you; badly."
"You can't keep avoiding your emotions with temporary solutions like this; trust me, I've tried," Roy said. "Now are you ready to face this without jumping me?" Ed sat up, still playing with his hair. He pulled part a split end.
"…I feel like dying. Like every day I wake up I should be dead, not him," Ed muttered. "I just can't believe it's too late… too late to give Al the life he always deserved." Roy pulled Ed into a hug, patting his blonde hair gently.
"It's going to hurt, and for a long time. There will be more than one day when you contemplate suicide, and it will feel as though the entire world is weighing you down, but you'll keep going," Roy said quietly, "Because the world is too beautiful, and there will always be someone out there who loves you, or whose life you could change for the better. And whether you hate it or love it, that's how it's going to be, so suck it up." Roy smiled lightly as Ed sobbed into his shirt and patted him on the back.
Riza pulled the glass from the door, running her finger across the rim thoughtfully. She sat with her back to the door for a moment later, before getting up and walking back to her room, smiling.
A/N I really love Riza, she's a wonderful character. I'm reading Memoirs of a Geisha; it's so addictive I love it! I feel so sorry for Pumpkin though, I really like her. New question: what does my pen name come from? If at least one person gets it right I'll update sooner than previously predicted. Here's a hint: Think CLAMP. Well, goodnight world, see you later.