Break
Al was screaming out his name…
Was he?
Edward wasn't too sure.
He was in a vortex of numbness. It was an escape from the torturous alchemic voltage being pummelled into his skull at that moment. Ed had taken the pain (like usual) but when Kimblee had taken out a knife and started to shear off clumps of his golden hair until he was left with bald patches across his head, he had started crying. He wouldn't make a sound. Ed cried under his breath and wished that the pain of losing his last shred of dignity would end soon.
Al was awake this time; NoName had given him the opportunity to watch.
After Ed's hair had been sheared off, he had felt a tingle, a prod and then a smack at the back of his head. He couldn't turn around, but the throbbing proceeded to become more intense. It was then that Ed had looked at the floor and saw chips of bone flying across the floor like pellets someone might feed to their pigs. Parts of his fucking skull were being strewn away, chiselled away by the sculptor to form a masterpiece.
And then: Voltage.
It was an old routine. So so old and so so painful. Edward couldn't tolerate the pain and even though he wanted to scream in frustration and protest and refute, he was so damn tired of the acting. Acting like he cared. Acting like he wanted to live.
Because sometimes in this Hell, this was the last thing that he could want.
He had listened to his brother cry out in frustration and he had wanted to laugh at Al's quiet (not that quiet however) courage. At least his brother had hope and a chance to see the world once this nightmare was over. But for Edward, he wasn't too sure. He was never too sure.
Except that he would rather escape to a world of numbness rather than stand another second of this reality.
"Quiet today, aren't we, Edward? I don't believe I have damaged your speech receptors, but we never know the extent of the alchemic current's power now, do we?" Kimblee said placidly, tossing the wires providing the voltage to the side as if he was a dentist performing a routine extraction of rotting teeth. Too damn right – Edward's mind was rotting.
Just like his body. He had perhaps three days to live. Four if he was lucky. The infection had spread across this torso already. Under normal conditions (normal torturing conditions that was) , the infection would not have spread like wildfire unless provoked by the numerous factors in Edward's environment that were responsible for his decline.
Blood, vomit, piss, shit.
Broken, fractured, splintered bones (including his skull now goddammit).
Al was screaming something again. Louder than before.
Kimblee tutted, "Poor little golden boy. Messing up his syllables. I think he is trying to tell you something."
I'm sorry Al, you don't want anyone as useless as me in your life.
"Oh? Are you trying to tell me something, Alphonse? You know you have to enunciate very clearly. You are disorientated and deaf and initially a side effect could be incorrectly pronouncing your-"
A side effect?
A fucking side effect?
Was this man having a joke, a good old humorous joke to make his sadistic character ever more authentic? Edward knew what Kimblee was – as malignant as cancer.
Or possibly worse.
Having alchemy fired through his brain frazzled all sense of hope and pride in the blond. He was struggling to stay conscious. No matter how much he drank, his throat was always parched. No matter what he thought, the worst would always happen. No matter how much he had tried to comfort his brother, he had had to learn that his brother had been beaten up while he was unconscious.
All that he had had left was the sanity of his mind, and with the voltage churning inside of his head, he felt like that was being probed too. He had no space, no personal space and so he had escaped to the vortex of numbness and nothingness a sweet bliss and paradise from the pain that was too much for him to feel and he wanted to stay there forever and have a damn break from this madness-
When suddenly he heard Al.
"You're a doctor. A DOCTOR!" Ed lazily opened his eyes (more of a struggle with each passing blink) and watched his brother writhe and lash against his chains in a puddle of liquid Ed didn't want to think about. Al's hair was longer than his now, even though his younger brother prided in keeping it short, cropped and neat.
Al was always the perfectionist of the two of them.
And lying crumpled and broken, inside and out, Edward was helpless to watch his brother scream the same phrase over and over again, like a glitch.
"You're a DOCTOR! YOU HELP PEOPLE!"
This was the first that it had ever been mentioned. And even in the blankness of his mind, two thoughts became one, like molecules constructing in a chemical reaction. Kimblee. Doctor. Could have treated Al. The fucker.
Edward didn't value his own life. He had stopped caring about his own the minute he had woken up in this godforsaken place. His only thoughts had been for Al.
His brother needed to live. He needed to love. It was a human function, as real as breathing.
In and out. In and out. Inoutinoutinoutinoutinout. Breathe. Breathe.
Spark. Static. His head.
Breatheeeee.
My HEAD.
Focus.
I'M IN AN INFERNO. IT'S RAGING AROUND ME AND WON'T STOP. EVERYTHING I AM IS BEING EATEN UP ALIVE IN FRONT OF ME PLEASE MAKE IT GODDAMN STOP AND MAKE IT ALL GO AWAY I WILL DO ANYTHING. I'M BEING SCORCHED ALIVE EVERY SINGLE SECOND THAT I LIVE AND NOW IT'S IN MY HEAD IT WAS MY RETREAT BUT THERE IS NO RETREAT LEFT FOR ME TO ESCAPE TO ANYMORE.
That's what he wanted to say and scream so desperately.
He just didn't have the strength to. So Edward had slumped his head and cried the precious drops of moisture he wasn't willing to lose. He had given his soul. And what had he regained in return?
A broken, decrepid form in the mirror, the ghost of the shell that Edward Elric had once inhabited.
He didn't even want to see the Sun anymore. Even if it was rain, or a streetlight, or that jackass Colonel Mustang being smug over anything. He wanted to see the world so much that it made him want to cry. But the Fullmetal Alchemist never cried.
When had Edward stopped being Fullmetal?
Was it when he had had his dignity ripped away from him by those thugs? Was it finding out his brother would never hear the melodic birdsong again? Or was it over the arduous seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, millennia of being beaten to a pulp of bloody shit and kicked and smeared in the stuff and being told that he was bad.
He was a bad bad boy and he knew it.
He knew it and he kept his mouth firmly zipped up so he couldn't make any more mistakes and be a burden upon Al. As long as his brother was not being touched then Edward would be happy and content and allow the madman to drill into his skull to collect his alchemic energy for whatever goddamn experiments he wanted to complete.
"You're a doctor. A DOCTOR!"
Help me. Please.
-You're begging with your captor for help? Pathetic little rat.-
Help me please. Someone, anyone.
-Nobody is coming to help you how many times does this have to be made clear to you?-
Mum. Please.
-She's dead, sunshine. You killed her. Don't worry though, you'll see her soon.-
Mum!
Edward wailed and choked on his vomit as the alchemic voltage left his body, and the familiar sensation (or lack of sensation) of the paralysis kicking in like a course of nerves roaring through his body.
He wanted his mother, or his brother or even that damn bastard Mustang or stern Hawkeye. He wanted anyone to take his mind away from the pain he had become a victim to.
Heal me. Help me. You're a doctor.
His thoughts were reflective and simple and pleading. Even his mind's thoughts were at a whisper-pitch, too frightened to be spoken aloud in front of his captor.
Kimblee was usually dancing or ecstatic by this point. At the end of one of their "sessions" as NoName (the name stuck) would call it, he was bouncing on his feet in evident delight and enjoyment. However, he was contemplative and brooding, which made Edward feel even more nervous. What made matters stranger was that he loosened Edward's restraints and left with the machine at hand. He didn't turn back or say another word as he closed the door behind him.
When Kimblee did not come the next day, or the day after, Edward knew that this should be ringing alarm bells in his head. But he didn't have any damn room left to think.
He lay strewn beside Al, watching his brother breathe to keep his own morale from hitting rock bottom. But he was falling very damn close to that point. Soon.
Train rides were the definition of torture.
-Of course you would choose "torture" the most appropriate word…-
-How could you think it, feel it.-
-You enjoy it, don't you. The powerfulness over your prey, their will to live already beginning to slip…-
Roy took a shot of his espresso and shivered as the scalding hot liquid burnt his throat. The adrenaline preparing him for the mission ahead pummelled through his veins. His world was spinning (a lot) and watching the rolling fields of the East Area zoom by made his dizziness worse. Luckily it hadn't reached nausea. Yet.
He didn't have the time to feel sick, he berated quietly to himself, rubbing his clammy palm over his forehead and focusing on the single map discretely unfolded across the table. He sat opposite Maes who was staring at the map intently. The three others were sitting further along the carriage. If there was a larger group of adults swarmed around a table together, it would only benefit in raising suspicion. From the point of view of an innocent bystander, the two men staring at the map looked like a groom-to-be and his best friend finding the best bars to spend their stag night.
Roy could imagine what that felt like, but then again he couldn't. He was a slaughterer, menace, murderer-
"Roy!" Maes was jabbing the Colonel's ribcage with a pen and went back to looking at the map, "This shop is really famous – we should go there!"
Maes was using the guise that they were soldiers learning to scout the area like tourists. The other passengers on the train often threw the pair a disgruntled look or a snort of annoyance, but no eyebrows were raised. Even if they recognised the Flame Alchemist, nobody would dare disturb his train journey. And this far out East, the people couldn't care any less for the military dogs that stole their beloved and fed them to the desert.
Roy's fingers dug harder into his scalp before shaking his head, looking at the intricate lines that created a sketch of the town's layout. There was a market square in the middle of Turinene that Maes wanted to investigate (like the noisy dogs they were) because there had been…odd reports. The people were scared of something. This "something" was described as a phantom dripping with blood, stalking the streets at night and laughing manically from the shadows. However, it was only the Elric brothers so far (sofarsofarsofar) who had been reported missing from the area. The ties though were almost too good to believe – this mysterious figure was likely to be the boys' captor.
And the Flame Alchemist was going to find them and burn them alive until they were a mangled pile of organs he would then incinerate from inside out.
"I think you need to take a break, Roy. We'll be there soon. Get some shut eye for half an hour," Maes had folded away the map and was sliding it into his chest pocket. He unscrewed the cap of his pen and fiddled with it for a few seconds, as if waiting for his CO to reply.
"I can't take a fucking break, Maes. None of us can," Roy growled, pulling out clumps of his greasy black hair.
"We have to sometimes. For our own sanity," Maes laughed weakly.
"How can we take a break?" Roy said.
"By letting the moment pass for half an hour," Maes replied.
"For half an hour? Half an hour?" Roy spat, directing his anger not at Maes, but at the world. It was boiling in him like a brew in a witch's cauldron.
"Half an hour," Maes confirmed.
"Half hour is an eternity when you're in Hell," he spluttered, choking on the burning hot sand in Ishval…burying alive in the desert wasteland of death and sorrow…
"I know," the green-eyed man rubbed the bridge of his nose warily, his eyes closed and thoughtful.
"Then you understand why I can't sit here and do nothing for half a fucking damn hour," Roy scorched. The unspoken part in his mind continued: while those boys are being mangled alive like in a butchers! Like those children we slaughtered in Ishval but did I give a damn then yes but did I do anything no and now I'm doing something to save only two children what kind of fucking monsters are we…
"You're in no state to see those boys. Look at yourself in the goddamn mirror, Roy. Can't you see what a mess you are?" Maes drew his hand back, as if intending to punch his friend, but then his fist arched downwards to smash into the table. "Listen to me this one damn time, Mustang, or I swear I will drag you to the bathroom myself."
"Is that all you have to say?" Roy asked, his voice barely audible.
"No," Maes answered, "Your hair is becoming too scruffy. How can you hope to be a dashing ladies' charmer this way? Go and get a damn haircut you nuisance."
In answer Roy blew the bangs away from his eyes. His hair proceeded to fall straight back into place.
"You're right," he slid out of his seat, holding onto the back of his chair for support.
"As I've been pointing out from the start," Maes smiled darkly, ducking as an exhausted Roy Mustang imitated snapping his fingers in Maes' direction. The Lieutenant Colonel was experienced to Roy's antics however, and had predicted the Flame's movements flawlessly (as usual).
"I'll take a damn break. But tell the others to as well. That's an order," Roy pointed in the general direction of the other three. However, they were already heeding to his command. Fuery was asleep against the windowsill, mouth gaping open just a little, Havoc was twiddling with his unlit cigarette, and Hawkeye was polishing her rifle. For his team, this was an admirable version of a "break".
"Yes, Sir," Maes said cheerfully.
And Roy lowered his voice, intending for only his best friend to hear, "Nothing is alright right now Maes. But let's just keep trying."
"Except for Elicia's perfect little face in her new tutu! She looks adorable!" Maes squealed and his voice rose to a sonorous pitch. Other people turned around to see what these deranged lunatics (who were somehow members of the military) were talking about.
But by this point, the Colonel had turned around and refused to acknowledge that he knew a family-obsessed man that Maes Hughes existed.
And so as soon as the rattling carriages pulled to a halt at a station, they departed from the train without further delay.
The town was one of the few places in the East Area not famous for its sheep. The elegant clockwork spires and closely-packed housing emanated a prestige reserved for few places. Turinene was famous for its water fountain, and stories stated that the first settlers in the land had found a water spring with the sweetest tasting water. They had built the sparkling structure in tribute to this. Hundreds of years on, and even now it was raised on a dais, like a throne, in the centre of the cobbled market square, which was bustling full of people their trinkets, or with buyers hopelessly haggling for a bargain. Roy would have spared the time if he could. But he prowled past the crowds of people, eyes alert and head turning to survey his surroundings.
There wasn't a rain cloud in sight. Good.
Maes moved by his right side, Riza on his left, with Jean and Kain just behind him. Their marine blue uniform made them stand out in the muter shades of greys and browns and greens, like bluebells in a deciduous forest.
His gloves itched in his pocket. Roy swallowed the bile rising in his throat. This town...
It was too damn happy.
He thought of the monstrosities that had been occurring blindly under these merchant's noses. It was an abhorrent and abysmal thought. While someone was sleeping safe in bed, boys were being tortured less than a hundred metres away.
-You took your time getting here.-
I will find them.
-What if it's too late?-
I will find them!
-How will you be able to call yourself a "human" again?-
I don't. Sometimes, I really don't. So. Fuck. Off.
Roy cursed under his breath. He exhaled heavily, exuding an aura of confidence that was extinguished before the time it had reached his subordinates. He was dreading what was to come. Dreading it like the coward he was.
He wasn't behind closed doors anymore. He couldn't weep and be Roy. He had to be Colonel Mustang - the strong, determined, driven (ass) leader this country needed. The way he could achieve that was through the people. They couldn't see him as a killing machine (which he wouldn't deny that he was) but as a charismatic figure they could trust. But the people in the East had been closest to the action of the Civil War.
That made for a wary and cautious people. And even if all the time in the world had passed for the rest of Amestris, the East was only slowly beginning to recover.
I'm sorry.
He could see the scars of pain hidden beneath their complexions. This was a skill tha tcould only be built from living for years on the battlefield. It was the odd fact that some people were missing arms, or hobbling about on crutches, or had disfigured faces which were too severe to be a mild burn (Roy hadn't caused the injury to these civilians, if that was one good deed he had ever done). It was the scars that lined children's arms, as if they had grown up with these wounds from birth. Everyone in Turinene had been dropped into the same pit as Hell as he had. But he had killed. Those people knew he was in the military. They knew that he had killed. Their silent faces watched him and judged his every movement, the scum of this world. Monster, murderer, killing machine, why does he even bother living why does he not end his miserable life and atone for the smallest proportion of his sins-
I'm sorry.
And the Colonel remained absolutely composed on the outside, while his mind was a bundle of nerves ricocheting throughout his skull. He blamed the lack of caffeine.
"Hey, Sir," Maes gestured towards a stall he was passing. His green eyes reflected his own pain and awkwardness surrounded by his fellow veterans in that cruel and bloody war who had been made enemies for the blood that had stained the ground in the lonely deserts, sucked up by the ground like a parasite thirsty for destruction and the death of Ishvalan children-
An image of a bloody and broken Edward Elric flashed in his mind. This boy was not the Fullmetal Alchemist. This was a creature huddled over in chains, saturated with sweat and...other bodily fluids. His arm was pulled close to his side, ribs sticking out, bruises a palette of reds and purples lining his body. It was pathetic, and Roy was pitying the boy. Fuck, this was worse than seeing Fullmetal dead.
"No. We need to move," Roy gritted his teeth, feeling them be ground to powder in his mouth. That image of Ed curled over like a wounded dog stabbed in his chest. Throb.
"Roy, this is something you need to see," Maes' tone was clipped. There was no arguing with his best friend after all.
They were moving forward past a stall selling Xingese bracelets when they reached the next. It was a fortune-teller who had set up a stall. However, while phonies would have painted eerie diagrams of crystal balls with a ridiculous high fee for having a future foreseen, this stall had a simple painting of two paths. One path led to "Heaven", a land of bright colours and flowers. The other led to "Hell" - an array of darkened hues in a swirling void of crimson red, as if the painter had been quivering in fear painting the abyss of the sinful.
Roy would instantly fall into the latter category.
What further caused Roy to shiver momentarily was the the quote planted on the wall: "I speak the Truth; the Truth is all I See." Even if he wasn't overly superstitious, his feet shuffled on the cobbled stone beneath his feet, his military garb itching and rubbing against his skin.
An elderly woman draped a curtain out of the way, bracelets jangling at her wrist (likely from the stall next door), her eyes wide and blank. Whether it was terror or shock, or a blend of both, Roy would never be able to tell.
And then a figure with a hooded face shuffled out of the booth. Their face and eyes were obscured by numerous scarves wrapped around their body, even in the stifling summer heat. Instantly Roy knew that this person was a psychic; the way they presented themselves dispelled any doubts he had been harbouring moments ago.
"Roy Mustang," the voice spoke, tone as flat as ice. And then the figure's body began to convulse, manic laughter erupting from their fronds, "He's bleeding, bent and broken and there's nothing you can do. He's going to die. Oh, it may be too late for that!"
I'm sorry.
Roy grunted and moved backwards. The image of a fallen Edward shimmered in his mind's eye once again. He writhed back as the surge of panic began to flood through his veins. Each word sang in his mind, each its own merciless taunt. Murderer. Demon. Scum. Abomination. Sin. Devil. Monster. Killing machine...
"No..." he found himself saying and he staggered backwards, nearly slipping over to the ground.
"More people are going to die at your hands, Roy Mustang. Many many manymanymany more people!" The figure danced on the spot.
"Sir... come on, Colonel!" that was Havoc, trying to sway Roy out of his vision.
Bloody deserts, sinking sand, howling children. Mounds of corpses piling up around them. He could build a tower with their body parts. Eyeballs popping out..gunfire...laughing and screaming and crying...Death. It reeked.
PLEASE NO MORE. NO MORE. PLEASE...
He had to exert every ounce of his self-control to stop himself from screaming out aloud.
"Make any more ridiculous accusations, and I will shoot you," Hawkeye said solemnly. Roy opened his eyes (they had been screwed shut) and saw Hawkeye at gunpoint with the figure still dancing ridiculously on the spot. He swallowed his heart that was rising in his throat.
And then what surprised him most of all was that the soft-spot Maes Hughes had lifted his gun: "Who are you?
"Roy Mustang has not been to Turinene before. And this far out East, regular newspapers from Central wouldn't always reach your town. The way you instantly came out and started to taunt the Colonel hints that you knew we would be coming," Maes' tone turned to splinters of fury, "And how do you know about Ed?"
A whistling tune was his reply: "We may want to take this conversation elsewhere, gentleman and lady. But I can tell you now, Edward has been a delight."
Hawkeye and Hughes shot instantaneously. But their target had darted down a dark alleyway at a moment's notice, as if he had planned the whole fiasco. Now that was a likely option.
Roy didn't think as he stormed down the alley. He would quite happily leave a wake of destruction if it meant he could be the one to lecture his lousy subordinate for not being able to keep him and his brother safe. How had Fullmetal gained the rank of Major? How could he be expected to command an army of soldiers when he couldn't even watch over himself?
The fool.
The man didn't make an effort to obscure himself. He stood leaning against a bin, staring at his nails in avid fascination that Roy found overcome him when he was completing some alchemic research. It was the intent scrutiny of a scientist searching for answers amid the cosmos, and a dangerous mind lurked behind those eyes; this individual, no matter what façade he presented on the outside, was an enemy. And Roy had long been devoid of human emotion when he was dealing with enemies.
"Edward is a darling, Roy Mustang. And he has given me everything I have wanted. Well, nearly everything," NoName leaned against his foot.
"Don't call him by his name; you have no right," Roy snapped.
"We have become close, him and I," NoName whispered lavishly, "closer than anything."
The seriousness of those words fell deaf upon Roy. He looked up and let his fingers do the talking:
YOU FUCKING SCUM BAG I WILL PUT YOU IN THE CENTRE OF AN INFERNO AND WATCH EACH OF YOUR ORGANS BURN AND DISINTEGRATE IN FRONT OF YOU. MISERABLE SCUM SHOULD RETURN TO THE HELL WHERE THEY CAME FROM. I'LL JOIN YOU SOON BUT NOT YET.
The flames licked against the brick walls.
BURN BURN BURN BURN DIE DIE DIE YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE CALLED HUMAN OR SCUM. YOU ARE LOWER THAN HELL.
Someone screamed.
I HOPE YOU DIE AND FEEL THE PAIN THAT HE HAS FELT THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE YOU COULDN'T EVEN COMPARE.
Someone screamed again.
BURN BURN BURN AND I HOPE THAT YOUR PAIN NEVER CEASES.
NoName whistled. He wasn't scathed in the slightest. Charred remains of rubbish and embers glistened around him, illuminating the haunting smile that the man possessed. His teeth were stained with blood.
"Oh, Colonel Mustang. You're the missing piece!"
And the last thing that Roy registered was a fist being pummelled at his skull, and hearing the cries of pain from another black-haired individual with glasses and marine-blue uniform as he was shot in the stomach mercilessly.
It seemed that suffering would never give them a break.
A little bit of a shorter chapter, although I am sure with the next update you'll see why...
I don't like to hurt these children but this is what the plot bunnies command of me. I am at their mercy xD
Chapter 8 Wonder will be up in the coming week. I hope to see you then!
This chapter didn't upload correctly. Hopefully the system will behave this time!