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Roy knew his new routine to the letter.
It wasn't as if he had anything else to do other than learn it, after all.
He wasn't given any freedom any longer. No more sitting out on couches with Ed. No more chances to sneak patient files. No more nurses who might let the details slip... there was none of it. He had gone from somewhat unwilling hospital patient to a prisoner overnight, and it showed.
Every bit of it showed.
Whenever they didn't need him he was left alone in his room; ironically, how this entire ordeal had began. Alone in his tiny, windowless room, with the door locked and it didn't even matter, because he was restrained to the bed, again; wrists and ankles and another strap across his chest, and he wasn't going to be breaking these, because they wouldn't even so much as tear no matter how hard he struggled. He knew, because he'd already tried once before; made an ironclad pact with himself to fight for the whole night long and not rest until he'd at least gotten at least one limb free.
Eight hours later, he was exhausted, sore as a bug that had been stepped on, and had earned only a knock to the head for his efforts, when the guards came by the next morning and realized the mess.
He hadn't torn even one of them.
That was another thing- guards. Those two men from before, the dark-haired one and the dark-skinned one. Not nurses, anymore; guards. Sure, they were still dressed as hospital staff, but Roy didn't know who they were trying to fool, because it certainly wasn't him or themselves. These weren't smiling women who gave him patronizing, sad looks and told him this was all for his benefit; they didn't even try to lie. These weren't nurses who chided him when he fought back; they were guards who just threw punches until he went down.
Roy was pretty sure he preferred it this way.
Even if it tended to hurt a lot more.
The next step in the routine was when they needed him, and he hated this part of it, just like he hated all the rest of it. On the dot, every morning they'd come in to his room turned cell, not speaking to him, barely even looking at him, but tense enough to fight him if they had to. They'd disconnect the drip in his arm, still pouring god knew what into him, but whatever it was it had to be sedatives of some kind. He'd tried fighting back, at first, but was just too drugged and uncoordinated to beat them both at once and had found himself subdued, painfully, every time. But it wasn't as if it mattered much, either, because they gave him next to no opportunity to fight back. Roy wasn't sure he could've won even if they hadn't been drugging him senseless every night anyway.
Their procedure was the same, every day, almost safe in its monotony. First his right wrist was freed from its strap, the sluggish limb lifted up into the air by one of the guards, assholes, thugs, whomever; then a handcuff was clicked shut around it for the steel to bite into his skin. Then the same to his other arm, binding his hands in front of him before he'd even had the chance to blink. Only then would they free the rest of him and haul him up, each grabbing onto one of his arms like he was no more than a common criminal, and forcing him out into the hallway.
The second day, Roy had tried to run.
Just taken off running, in any other direction that was not here as fast as he could get.
He'd earned a twisted ankle and another blow to the head for his troubles, and the promise of much, much worse, if he ever tried it again.
Not that it mattered, because he still had no idea where here even was, or where the hell was supposed to run if he ever got free.
Not that it mattered, because the message in all these careful restraints and guarding was very, very plain:
He was never getting free.
They'd hustle him off down the hallways then, the same path every time; he had it memorized, by this point, because the destination never once altered. Justin- Roy refused to think of that man as a doctor now; whatever the hell he was, he was not that- always him; always fucking Justin, and one of his arrays. Every single time.
Whatever reason they had taken him and Ed for, it very clearly had been ordered by Justin, and it was because they wanted him and Ed using those arrays for him. He didn't know anything else anymore, had no hope or chance to ever learn anything again- but that much, he was sure of.
Sometimes, Roy had to wonder just who they thought he was; what they thought him capable of. He might not remember any of it, but somehow, he doubted this much careful procedure was the norm with prisoners in this country- but with him, they acted as if he was some sort of super-soldier or god. Like one splitsecond free, and he'd incinerate them all. It was almost funny; would've made him laugh if it wasn't so horrific, because all Roy could think to do if they unlocked his restraints right now and sat down on the floor to give him free reign was just to turn and run for his life. What did they think he was capable of? What was he supposed to be able to do? Clearly it was something horrible to be guarded this closely, and Roy would believe it, too; with everything he could remember he knew he was a horrible person and at this point Roy would give anything to remember even more, because it might just have been his key to escaping-
But he didn't.
He remembered nothing.
All he knew was that he still dreamed of fire, and he still saw his array, seared into his mind amidst the screams.
Each day, every day, they'd force him back to the room with the array, and Justin. Each day, every day, they'd force him down to his knees before it, and Roy would dutifully try to activate it, because he had no choice. His hands cuffed in front of him, the guards didn't even have to release his bindings for him to work for them; he just awkwardly thrust them forward and touched the lines on the floor, and- nothing would happen. Nothing at all.
Well, not nothing. The circle would remain totally dead, sure.
Then, as his answer, Justin would return to beating his hands into oblivion. Sometimes just crushing the bleeding pliers into the back of his bleeding hands; other times, taking his sweet time ripping his fingernails off, one by one by one.
Sometimes the pain would get him to make the circle light up again. Sometimes not.
Roy had quit looking at his hands a long time ago.
And then, then, Justin would just give him that cold grin announcing thank you for your service, dog, with some sort of strange irony Roy didn't recognize but that always set the guards off laughing, and he'd just be hauled back to his feet and dragged off back out of the room, with the promise that Edward would thank him for his continuing failures no matter how he screamed for them to stop, to hurt him instead- but it had already long ago become apparent that it didn't matter in the slightest what he said.
Justin was going to do whatever he wanted to him, and whatever he wanted to Ed, and that was that.
There was nothing he could do to stop it.
Then, of course, however… they didn't take the same way back.
He wasn't sure if Justin knew; in fact, Roy was rather sure he didn't, since it was clear Justin's only aim was to keep him failing to use that damn array until he died, and this didn't seem at all conducive to that goal. But it was clear the guards had some sort of grudge against him. Some sort of reason to hate him; to Roy, they were just his captors- but he was very obviously more than a prisoner to them. He had done something to wrong them, and whatever it was was bad enough that they hated him.
Because every day that he lurched from that room, bleeding hands still cuffed in front of him and the guards hands still on his arms, they took a little detour before heading back to his room. Just a little detour.
Back to the room with the ice baths.
Again, they didn't bother to pretend it was a treatment for his benefit anymore.
They just shoved him down on his knees and forced his head beneath the water until he stopped moving.
Sometimes they let it end at that. Other times, they'd drag him back upright again, making him cough and gasp and just when he'd gotten his first breath of air dive him back under again; this time it'd only take seconds before the black obscured his vision, only for him to be dragged back out again- and then submerged once more.
They went on until they got tired, or he passed out for good.
Either one seemed to work, with them.
Roy learned to hold his breath when they got near the room. If he timed it just right, he'd run out of air just as they stuck his head under the water for the first time, and the minutes spent flailing would transform into only seconds. Painful, terrifying seconds- but seconds all the same, and then, he'd just wake up tied back down to the bed again.
Anything he could do to decrease the amount of time spent in that room... even if it didn't work very often.
The one constant he had, the one constant he had ever had since this new routine had started, was that he never saw or heard any sign of Ed.
He'd tried yelling for him. He'd tried. He'd tried pulling away from the guards to run for him. He'd tried so hard. He'd done everything of what little was in his power to find him.
He'd gotten nothing more than some bruised ribs and a probable concussion for his efforts. And what was worse, he'd never expected anything different.
From what very little he'd been told, he and Ed had purposefully been separated as much as possible. They'd taken Roy back to his old room, which meant Ed was not in his old room- probably nowhere close to him at all. Probably… well…
Probably…
Left back in that padded cell.
It made him sick to think it. It made him sick with terror to even acknowledge it as a possibility. But Roy knew the strongest possibility was that he had been taken back to his room and tied to the bed- and Ed had been left in that padded cell in a straitjacket.
The same place they'd already left him alone for over two weeks before.
Roy hated it, god, he hated it. He'd do anything to switch places with him. He remembered how terrified Ed had been after that nightmare, how tightly he'd clung to him and the sound of him sobbing burned into his soul, the way he'd stuttered and stammered and not even been able to put his misery into words- god… Roy would change places with him in a heartbeat. He didn't want Ed left alone in that hell for another fucking hour- but it had been hours, now. Hours and hours, days and days; Roy had zero way of keeping track of the time anymore but he knew it had to have been weeks! It had been weeks since Justin had found the skipped sedatives and the hospital ward had become a prison, and if Ed had been left like that this entire time…
Oh, god, Ed…
And worst of all?
Roy had never been so helpless in his life. He couldn't help himself; he barely had the freedom to do more than twitch, every hour of every day. He didn't know where he was. He didn't remember who he was. He was as useless and incapable as wet paper. Ed could've been locked up in the room right next to him- and Roy wouldn't have been able to so much as try and talk to him, to give him something to hang onto in his worst, personal hell.
There was absolutely nothing that he could do for him.
Ed learned how to disassociate.
That was the best way to put it.
He spent most of his time with his eyes closed. It was easier. It was easier to just close his eyes, and imagine everything around him the way he wanted it to be. Imagine himself out of this hospital, away from here, in a place where this hospital had never existed and he'd never been a patient in the first place.
Even when the walls started to crush in around him, creaking in through his walls to press the air straight out of his lungs, he kept his eyes closed.
It was easier that way.
He'd learned early on spending too much time staring around white, padded walls, white, padded floor, identical white, padded ceiling, nothing at all left in the rest of the world but that tiny, white, padded room, and getting tinier by the second-
Well, he'd learned early on it was best not to do that.
Early on being relative, of course. He thought early on. It felt like early on. Maybe just a day or two after being left in that room. Or… maybe an hour. Maybe a week, maybe a minute-
He didn't know.
Oh, god, he didn't know how long he'd even been in here.
The only time he was let out of the room was to use the array, but it didn't matter that he kept track of that anymore, because his chances of escape then were so low he had better luck opting to wait for a meteor to strike the hospital. The guards twice his size, manhandling him out of the straitjacket to force him roughly into a wheelchair, by his side at all times… even if he'd been Roy, with all four limbs to use, he didn't believe he could've made it.
As it was?
He hadn't even tried.
He knew he wouldn't make it, and he wasn't going to ever risk them hurting Roy because he'd tried to run.
He still used the array for them, every single time it was put down in front of him because he had no choice. He'd do it for Roy. This was all he could do now; the only choice he had in his life now was this, either to fight back and be stubborn or keep Roy safe- so he did it every time. He kept Roy safe. He kept Roy safe even though he'd hadn't seen the bastard in days and the guards wouldn't even look at him when he begged to know what was happening to him. He kept Roy safe to the point that he was fucking proud of it, damn it.
Because that was all he had left.
They forced him down onto the array, and that was the one moment he was free, free, free, the one moment of his life where he existed and was something besides what Justin had forced him to be. The brilliant electricity would flow from him and his heart would beat in time with the light and that was the only moment of his life anymore that his mind was clear- until the array coughed up whatever they wanted for the day. Always, gold. And then he'd do it again. And again, and again, and again-
As many times as they asked him to.
They just kept him using the same array over and over, dragging in raw materials until they either ran out or he ran out, keeling over on the floor in a dead faint and waking up some hours later back in the padded cell and straitjacket and head aching, muscles fatigued into nothing, body filled with what felt like dead fluff. Whereas before his limits had mattered, and Justin had pushed him only just to them but not beyond, now…
Well, it clearly didn't matter anymore. They had him use the array until he couldn't anymore because he didn't have the strength, and only let him stop because he was unconscious and not able to go on.
Passing out there was probably the best part of his day.
He never knew how long he was like that for; there was no clock in that damn room, and the lights always stayed on, too, just like before; a horrid bright light piercing into his skull twenty four seven until the only darkness he got was that in his own head. But passing out became the only peace he had. He tried to sleep as much as he could, but even as exhausted as he was he could never get comfortable, trying desperately to just curl up on the flat floor even as his shoulders screamed at him and the walls tried to close in around him- and then, there was the nightmares- the rotting woman calling him sweetheart, that suit of armor that wouldn't talk to him, and now Roy being hurt because of him-
As crazy as it probably made him, the dead nothingness of passing out, even though it meant waking up back in the straitjacket and alone, was all the peace he had.
He tried, normally, just to think about that, and nothing else.
Because everything else that he had to focus on was bad.
Before, Justin had cared about trying to hold up this facade of a mental hospital, and he had at least seemed to care about trying to keep him and Roy alive, and in good enough condition to help him. But as the days... weeks... went by, Ed was starting to realize just how much none of that was true anymore.
Obviously the bastard didn't care that he and Roy knew none of his facade and lies were real, but it went deeper than that now. Justin had all but admitted Roy was only helpful to him any longer as a tool in getting him to cooperate, and as for Ed himself, it really didn't seem like Justin cared any longer about keeping him even moderately healthy. He hadn't eaten in days. He had to assume they gave him drugs again when he passed out because that was the only way he could still even be alive without having starved to death by now. The only moment he was even let out of the fucking straitjacket was to use his damn array, his arm hurt so badly he could hardly even sleep anymore, and every day the amount of gold he was transmuting seemed to increase just a little bit more, until he saw it even in his sleep...?
Ed may not remember too much about this alchemy stuff, but he was pretty damn sure that wasn't healthy.
Justin didn't care if he and Roy knew the truth about him because Justin wasn't intending on them ever getting out of here. One day, he was going to hand him too much of a transmutation, expect too much gold to pour of his hands, and he was going to kill himself trying to do the reaction and that was that. The end. He'd die and then-
Then Roy would be dead, too.
Because that was what Justin had told him, wasn't it? Roy was only being kept alive to force his hand. And so far it was fucking working; he was too terrified of what they'd do to Roy to even think of refusing them- but what happened when he wasn't around for them to manipulate? Justin had said he didn't care at all about what little Roy could do for him so if he died, what did that mean for Roy?!
Ed couldn't care about getting out of here for Al anymore. That was just too abstract and distant for him to believe in. It hurt so much to admit that, it hurt so much to turn his back on the woman's corpse and the suit of armor in his dreams, to close his eyes to everything he'd ever wanted... but right now, every moment of every day spent in this cell wrapped up in this straitjacket or under such heavy guard he couldn't fucking sneeze without getting hit, escaping to find his family just didn't exist anymore. It was never going to happen. He was never going to see any of them ever again. He was never going to even know who they were enough to properly miss them.
Al would never be anything real to him ever again.
Sometimes, he whispered Fullmetal to himself, when he'd been alone in that cell for hours, just to remind himself that it and Roy were real, and he was something beyond this room.
But... if he was being honest with himself?
His own life hardly mattered to him anymore, either. It was almost frightening to fell that- that uncaring about his own life or death, to not even be scared about it, but... it was the truth.
With his life having been reduced to this, it was hard to keep on caring about himself. On some level, he guessed Justin knew that... and that was why he had given him the incentive to stay alive.
Roy.
If he died, then Roy was dead.
And he wasn't going to fucking let that happen.
There was an excruciatingly loud grating of metal, the hallmark of keys grinding in the lock that wasn't actually that loud, but after so many hours of dead silence it always hit him as earsplitting every time. Ed took in a shuddering breath and squeezed his eyes shut before the door ever even opened; it was easier just not to look. It was easier to mentally place himself just somewhere else, and try as hard as he could not to hear the guards breaking noisily into the cell or feel the hands on him as the straitjacket was roughly taken off, or as he was all but thrown into the wheelchair he'd known was waiting. If he didn't fight them, they wouldn't hurt Roy.
So long as you behave, everything stays okay... just behave, Fullmetal...
He kept his eyes shut as they started pushing him down the hall, already well aware that seeing the new sights and hearing the new sounds was too much for him. He'd been in that cell so long it made him all but panic to see anything else, but that- that didn't matter; he could just keep his eyes closed and think about Roy and it'd be okay. It had to be okay. And the guards didn't hurt him if he didn't fight back, either; sure, his arm was killing him, and if he screwed up and let himself panic too badly it would start getting hard to breathe and then he'd hurt all over so- so it was just safest this way, wasn't it? It was easiest this way. Just block out the rest of the real world, because why not; he'd never get to experience any of it ever again anyway, just do what Justin wanted from him, and that was it.
Roy would stay alive if he did, and that was that.
The short journey to the array room was one he'd learned intimately; it was burned into his very brain even with his eyes closed and as detached as he could make it. He recognized when the door that opened was the last one, and he kept his eyes closed still, not even wanting to see the horrific pile of material waiting for him to transmute as he moved to crawl out of the wheelchair, already all but shaking with the nervous anticipation for the period of dead unconsciousness that was to come.
"Edward, stop."
His stomach lurched, and his heart skyrocketed to pound in his ears, so abruptly panicked he couldn't even move.
Different. Something was different.
Why was it different? Why was Justin making things be different now? After all this time, why- why suddenly a change in the routine? The first time since this nightmare had began- a difference, why was there a difference, why were things changing- god, were they going to hurt Roy? Ed didn't care if they were going to try and do something worse to him, but if they hurt Roy-
His eyes jerked open, all but against his will, to land right on Justin.
The not doctor wasn't even looking at him, withdrawn in the corner and speaking in rushed, muted tones to another, the guards still behind him and one hand already on his shoulder, tensed as if ready to strike him should he even dare to try and disobey the order. Ed stared in increasing almost panic at where Justin stood arguing with someone he'd never seen before; their words were too fast and quiet for him to catch anything specific, but...
He'd never seen Justin like this before.
He'd never seen him look that frantic before.
"-out of time!" he exclaimed, gesturing frantically, "Tomorrow if not today- I say we just do it now, get rid of him for us-" He broke off, shooting Ed such an abruptly cold, venomous look that his stomach lurched again and his gaze was suddenly forced back down to his knees, corralled like a pathetic dog, and then they were back to arguing again but too soft for him to hear.
Shaking, not even daring to look back over at them again, he looked shakily back over at the array on the floor.
He froze again.
No.
No, no, no.
No.
Ed's whole world ground to a nauseating halt, shock and horror piercing through him like an ice cold blade as everything about him revolted so hard he almost threw up.
The array, too, was different.
No.
Wrong.
Wrong!
The array for the gold had been wrong, he'd thought so, but he hadn't even known what wrong fucking was. This- he couldn't tear his eyes away, couldn't breathe, it was so wrong he couldn't think, no, no no no, oh god no, wrong, wrong wrong wrong-
I can't do it, I can't, I won't, I can't touch that, IT'S WRONG IT'S WRONG IT'S WRONG NO PLEASE
The hands were on his shoulders again, but this time- oh, god. This time they were moving him forwards. Closer to- to that- thing-
"No!" he screamed, kicking out desperately and throwing himself back like the ink would burn him. "No! Stop it! STOP IT! DON'T MAKE ME, PLEASE!"
He could hear them saying things to him, ordering him to do it, probably, threatening him, but he just didn't care. He couldn't feel any of it anymore; his mind was overridden by terror so complete he couldn't thing or move or do anything but get as far away from that circle as possible. "STOP! STOP, STOP, PLEASE! LET ME GO, DON'T MAKE ME-"
"Sit down!" Another hand on him, this time Justin's; right in his face as he was violently shoved to the floor then forced to the circle, and his pathetic flails did no more to stop it than wet paper.
"Stop, stop-"
"I said sit down, Edward!" Justin shouted and this time it came with a backhand to the face; he barely felt it as he kicked and screamed, trying to pull back, but the hands stayed on him like iron and he couldn't go anywhere. "Sit down and calm down! You've been so good up until now, Edward; you're not really going to force my hand, are you, n-"
"NO! NO! NO!" He tricked to kick away again, a frantic gasp turned sob driven from his chest as he pulled back, shaking his head over and over. He couldn't do this, he wanted out- "PLEASE, STOP!"
"Edward," he started warningly, hand raised as if to strike him again- but he was too far gone to care.
He couldn't do this. He'd rather die then touch that circle, and he knew right then and there that that wasn't an exaggeration; if Justin took out a scalpel and pressed it to his throat he'd let him do it before he touched it. Every fiber of his soul screamed that it was wrong and every bit of himself that he'd scraped together into surviving every last ordeal here just knew that they would all shatter if he so much as touched that array.
He couldn't. It was wrong, and he- he-
Justin grabbed him again, pinning him down to the floor and grabbing his hand to yank it forward, trapping it to the cold tiles as his other fist raised to force his head up, making him look him in the eye. "You didn't forget, did you, Edward? What happens if you disobey me here?"
"STOP IT!" he shouted again, fighting to pull away but Justin just gripped his face harder. "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, I WON'T DO IT! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!"
It's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong-
The blow actually did come this time, glancing off his head somewhere but Ed was too terrified to feel it. He couldn't care, either, when Justin yanked him closer again, forcing him to look up at him and nowhere else; he was almost too terrified to even comprehend the words as he spoke.
"If you go against us, we take it out on Roy."
Almost.
It was wrong- he couldn't touch it, he just could not, he would rather die than touch it, he'd rather be murdered on the spot than get near it; it was wrong, it was wrong, it was wrong-
Roy.
He couldn't do it, he wasn't supposed to; he'd transmute gold for the rest of his life if it meant he never had to look at that thing again-
Roy.
It was WRONG! He wasn't supposed to! It was just- just wrong-
Roy.
Justin would hurt...
No.
Justin would kill Roy.
But-
But-
Another frantic, terrified sob spilled out his throat, anguish splitting his chest in two.
But...
It was wrong. He couldn't touch it. He wasn't supposed to; if he wasn't going to hell already he would the second he touched that circle. He just... oh, god. He didn't want to. Everything about this was wrong and no part of it was okay, it was all just nauseatingly wrong-
He wanted out of here- he couldn't do this anymore-
But the price for this wasn't his own life.
They'd hurt Roy.
I...
I can't...
There was another blow to the back of the head, this one that hurt more than any of the ones before it, and suddenly Justin was at his back again, shoving him down to the floor where the only thing was that huge, horrible circle right in front of him. "I knew you'd see things my way, Edward," he chastised coldly, and his stomach lurched again; Edward, Edward, he just wanted to hear Roy call him Fullmetal again- he just wanted Roy back here, he wanted Roy to just make this all go away-
His heart skipped another beat, pounding so fast and hard he almost threw up.
Roy wasn't here.
And if he didn't do this, he never would be again.
Ed stared down at the horrible circle again, his hand trembling and his stomach churning so badly he could taste the nausea in his throat. A broken, terrified sob cracked out through his voice, and for several moments, all he could see was that horrible circle- and all he could think about was Roy.
He closed his eyes again, sobbing frantically- and held his hand out to the circle.
When everything stopped hurting, and the road in his head stopped, Ed finally managed to fight his eyes open again.
Everything was white.
Or maybe it was more accurate to say nothing was, because there was nothing here. It was just- just a massive, expansive white nothingness.
His first, very immediate thought, was that he was dead.
Was he dead?
There was nothing here at all- no hospital, no Justin, no monster array, no anybody else... and it didn't hurt, either. His shoulder had stopped hurting, and the guards were gone, and-
Where was he?
"H- hello?" he called anxiously, hoarse voice scratching out nervously past his throat. "Is... anyone there?"
His voice echoed like it was an empty chasm.
Ed swallowed anxiously again.
Where was he? Where was Justin? Where was Roy?
How the hell had he ended up here?
"Hello?" he called shakily again, turning his head to stare anxiously behind his back.
A scream so loud it hurt his throat ripped away from him and left him collapsed on the nonexistent ground, gasping so hard he almost passed out.
There was something else there with him.
A grinning, white something. A body that was all white, and a face that was all teeth and no eyes, and a thing that was smiling at him.
Waiting for him.
The thing's grin widened.
"Hello, Edward," it laughed, head tilting to the side. "Long time, no see."