Roy couldn't quite keep the wince off of his face as Alphonse poured antiseptic over the bite wound in his forearm. It was a nasty injury; two ragged, crimson half-moons punctured into his flesh that dribbled blood down his wrist with every pump of his heart. "I'm not sure that you shouldn't go to the infirmary for this, Colonel," Al said, sounding somehow guilty, as if he were the one that bit Roy. "It's pretty deep."
"And here I had always assumed his bark was worse than his bite," Roy commented wryly, dabbing at the excess bloody fluid with a clean towel. "Just wrap it and I'll check on it in the morning."
Even without a face to work with, Alphonse managed to convey his disapproval easily enough. "Okay," was all he said though, thick fingers rifling through Roy's first aid kit for some gauze.
Silence stretched between them as Roy watched Al work, his eyes following the young boy's movements, but his mind back to the look on Ed's face right after he bit him.
There, with his back against the wall, he had looked so scared, so animalistic with Roy's blood dripping down his chin and his teeth bared like a dog. It disturbed Roy greatly to think Ed had been put in a place like that, where that kind of reaction would be necessary, It was a behavior that Edward had learned and cultivated, just so he could survive those horrid three months.
Silas had called him at the office to let him know Ed's first psychologist appointment was later that week. There was no way anyone could talk Roy out of Ed missing it. Not after this. As much as Roy hated to admit it, that last flashback was more aggressive than anything Ed had ever exhibited before. His other flashbacks had him fighting off others in a terrified frenzy, but this one was different. There was a clear intent to do harm, and that made Roy nervous.
"Colonel?"
Roy blinked, focusing his eyes once again on the suit of armor sitting across the table from him. "What is it?"
Alphonse was looking at him, but once Roy acknowledged it, he ducked his head and glued his eyes on the task at hand. "There's something I need to talk to you about," he said, casting a nervous look at the stairway, as if to ensure Ed was still in bed and not eavesdropping from the top of the steps.
Roy frowned, unsure about the boy's hesitancy. There was a level of foreboding about it that Roy found terribly unsettling, like the flutter you got in your stomach right before stepping onto a mine field. "What's that?" he asked, his own voice measured, cautious.
Alphonse fell silent as he wrapped the bandages around Roy's arm in steady, careful movements.
Roy waited.
"Sir, I'm going to leave."
Roy stared in incomprehension. He was simply unable to wrap his mind around such a statement.
Al, leaving? Leaving his house? For how long? Or maybe leaving Central . . . ? What would he do with Ed? Where would they possibly be going in such a state?
"I don't know that Ed's well enough for travel, Alphonse," Roy said deliberately, as if talking to a slow child. Perhaps Al just wasn't thinking clearly, but there was no way Ed could just be taken out like that.
"I don't think you understand, Colonel," Al said. His eyes lifted to meet his, crimson and careful. "I'm leaving. I'm not taking Ed."
Roy gaped for only a second, but then realized he must have misheard, because the brothers didn't just separate. That wasn't how it worked, wasn't how they worked. Unless ordered apart, or some sort of necessity required it, they were together. Always. Period.
"I'm sorry, Alphonse, but could you repeat that?" he asked stupidly.
"It's not what you might think," Alphonse said, voice quivering as if filled with emotion. As if he was about to cry, despite the physical impossibilities. "It's just . . . I don't see a way around it, Colonel. The only leads I've found to get his sight back point to Xing. After tonight . . ." He looked down at his leather hands. "I can't just sit around and leave him like this, Colonel. Every time he wants to do something he can't, every time he looks so scared . . . this is torturing him." He was gaining momentum, and even without a body's physical reaction to grief, Roy could hear every ounce of it in his voice. His gaze snapped up to meet Roy's "He can't sleep, and he had nightmares bad before, but now it's like he even has them when he's awake! I can't leave him like this when there might be a way to fix it!"
Roy frowned as a foreign, uncomfortable sensation stirred in his chest. "Alphonse, I know you and Ed have done a lot of travelling. Do you know how far away Xing is? Do you know how long it will take you to get there? Much less find the answers you need and get back?"
Alphonse nodded. "I know," he whispered, turning his attention back to Roy's forearm still laid bare on the table between them. He finished tying it off with a steady hand. Roy was certain that if Alphonse had been in a real body, he would be shaking too much to perform the simple task. "But I can't leave him like this any longer than he has to be . . . and that's what I want to talk to you about."
Again, his eyes met Roy's, but this time, instead of a well of grief, Roy saw something else there. A steel that looked so much like the stuff once found in Edward's gaze; pure, unadulterated, unapologetic determination.
"I want you to promise me you'll take care of him while I'm gone."
The unidentified feeling in Roy's chest blossomed into realization:
Panic.
Roy was a soldier. He was used to being in charge, being in control. A snap of his fingers could end life or save it, the words from his mouth inspire fear or hope.
But Ed . . . Roy had taken all of his power and betrayed the boy. With nothing more than sketchy intelligence and an unrefined plan, Roy had sent the child into harm's way and he had come back missing pieces of his body and his soul. If there was one person that couldn't be trusted with Ed's welfare, it was Colonel Roy Mustang.
But here Alphonse was, asking him to protect and care for what he valued most, despite his failure. As if the whole thing hadn't been his fault to begin with.
As if he were somehow adequate to do this without Alphonse's help.
Edward could sense it, the need to mistrust Roy, the need for caution. Roy had betrayed him once, and he could do it again easily. Roy understood that he needed the boy to rely on him if he were going to make any headway in dealing with Ed's new limitations and insecurities, but there was a difference between Ed trusting him and Roy trusting himself. A big, ugly, terrifying difference.
"Alphonse," Roy began, the feeling in his chest tightening, making him take a deep, controlled breath to ease it. "I don't know that that's a good idea—"
The boy shook his helmet. "Sir, you're the only one. Besides me, you're the only one he would ever let help him. You're the only one who can do it. I know Ed. I know how stubborn he is."
Alphonse broke eye contact and began packing away medical supplies back into their container, his movements methodical and distracted. "After . . . after that night, when we lost so much, he was devastated and he was lost, but that was because he had no direction or purpose. If you didn't come when you did . . . I'm not sure what would have happened to us.
"But that's what he needs right now. You gave him a direction, and you can do it again. He'll want to give up and just quit because he sees no way through this, but you won't let him, and right now he needs to be pushed more than ever."
Alphonse paused, but Roy's mind was reeling too much to come up with any sort of response. How could he refuse this? What words could he give to convince Al that this was wrong? He couldn't be trusted, not with something this big, something this important. Not with Edward.
"When I leave," Alphonse continued. "I don't think he's going to react well, but I'd feel a lot better knowing that he's here with you than if I left him with anyone else. I mean that, Colonel."
Roy wasn't sure if he should feel terrified or elated that Alphonse trusted him so much.
He settled for holding his breath and trying not to choke.
"Alphonse—"
"I know I'm asking a lot, Colonel. But I wouldn't ask if I had another option." His eyes were unwavering, no trace of the uncertainty he had possessed earlier. "So, will you promise to take care of him?"
The heavy question lingered on the kitchen table between them like a sleeping tiger: docile and dangerous. Roy could sense the threat as clearly as when he was caught in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle.
This was not a promise to be taken lightly. If he accepted this binding contract, he would be held to it with uncompromising severity. If he accepted and didn't do all in his power to ensure Ed's safety and wellbeing, if he was incapable of protecting Alphonse's big brother, the consequences were more or less obvious by his tone of voice:
Alphonse would kill him.
Roy didn't doubt this truth for a moment.
Alphonse was the opposite of his brother. He was kind, good-natured, and understanding. He was patient and thoughtful and Roy had always found him likeable, but Roy knew from experience what losing someone close to you could do to your mind. The one desire that had plagued him in the dark months following Hughes' death was to find his murderer and turn him into a singed, bloody carcass. He wasn't proud of it, but he couldn't deny it. And he suspected that no matter how kind, how gentle the soul, grief could drive one to impossible extremes.
And if Alphonse had a weakness, it was Edward.
Part of Roy wanted to deny any responsibility. Ed wasn't his subordinate anymore. He had already gone above and beyond for him, lending him his own home and his care and support. Surely that was enough. Surely his obligations had been over the moment Ed's blind hand scratched out an illegible signature on his honorable discharge form.
But if Roy denied this, if he turned his back on them now, he would be no better than their father. Perhaps much worse. If he turned them away now, after all he had done, he doubted he would be able live with himself.
He was trapped in a place he didn't even have the will to escape.
"I promise."
He felt the crosshairs settle somewhere between his eyes.
Roy wasn't sure when he finally got to sleep, between his restless mind, the throbbing in his arm, and the whimpers and cries coming from across the hall, but when he finally did, it was disrupted all too soon.
Because someone was in his room.
Half-formed memories played through his muddled mind of an Ishvalan soldier skulking into his tent, almost planting a knife in Hughes' chest before Roy's flame turned the assailant into ash.
He didn't notice the blond hair glinting in the moonlight before his glove was on his hand, fingers poised to snap.
The blind boy was frozen in the middle his room, wrapped in his blanket and clutching something cylindrical and white in his hand.
"Did I wake you up?" he asked softly, barely louder than a breeze but somehow deafening in the consuming silence. His blank eyes were wide, fixed somewhere at Roy's right.
Roy blinked at him. "Fullmetal, what are you doing?" he demanded, too tired to muster up the energy to be angry yet. He squinted at the analogue clock on his nightstand, trying to make out the numbers in the faint moonlight. "It's . . . four in the morning."
Ed winced. "Sorry. I didn't know."
"What are you doing?" Roy asked again, eyes moving to regard the white object in Ed's hand. Sudden suspicion tugged at his groggy mind and he kicked back the covers, peeling off his glove and tossing it on the nightstand as he rose.
Ed's eyes widened as he heard Roy get up, his only hand tightening around the white thing. "It's nothing. Sorry to bother you." He started making a hasty retreat for the door, but despite it being hasty, it was definitely slowed by his broken automail. He made a near comical, frantic shuffle for the hallway, but Roy caught up to him easily, plucking Ed's prize from his surprised hand with ease. "Hey, give it back!" Ed ordered, blinding reaching for Roy's arm.
Roy brushed him aside, instead choosing to glare at the bottle in his hands. "Edward, do you have any idea what these are?"
Brief panic flashed across the boy's face before his features settled into something more annoyed. "It's none of your business, Mustang. They're my pills, they came from my bag, I can take them if I want!"
Roy fought back a deep, burning desire to slap the kid in the back of the head. There was a reason Roy kept Ed's prescriptions and other medical supplies in his own bathroom. He didn't trust Ed with them, and for good reason. The kid was blind, for goodness' sake!
"Did you take any of these?"
Ed ducked his head.
"Fullmetal, answer me," Roy commanded, his patience wearing thin. Four in the morning did that to him.
The boy muttered something.
"What?"
"Couldn't get the top off," he repeated in exasperation, waving his single hand as evidence before dropping it dejectedly at his side. Despite the faint light, Roy could see the blush heating his cheeks.
Roy struggled to hold on to the anger rippling in his belly, but it lost some of its momentum at the reminder of Ed's other limitations.
Wouldn't Roy be fighting for some control, too, if he were in Ed's place? If he couldn't see, could barely walk, and couldn't even get off a childproof lid without assistance?
"Edward, Alphonse already gave you all your pills before you went to bed."
Ed kept his head bowed. "I know."
"What were you going to do with these?"
Again, Ed answered with miserable silence.
Roy had an idea, but he wanted to hear it from Ed's own mouth. "Ed?"
The blond grimaced. "I was going to take them. What do you think I was going to do with them?"
"Any particular reason you think you need another round of antibiotics at this time in the morning?"
Roy watched as Ed's eyes widened, then a dark, frustrated look stole over his features. "I was aiming for the sleep aides."
That was odd. Normally Ed refused the sleep aids. He never really explained why, but Al had told Roy that it made it hard for him to wake up when he was having nightmares. After particular sleepless nights, Alphonse said he liked to slip him one mixed in with his other pills anyway, like Silas suggested. Just so he could get at least a little rest. That Ed was seeking them out voluntarily just went to show how desperate he was.
But Alphonse had already given him sleep aids for the night, and they weren't to be taken for another six hours, at least. What if he had just indiscriminately taken half the bottle in Roy's hand? Even if they were sleep aides and not antibiotics, he could still be dead!
Roy sighed. "Fullmetal, you can't just go picking up medication and trying to take it! You have no idea what you're grabbing or what dosage you need. It's dangerous!"
Ed's scowl remained firmly in place. "Al's downstairs. He thought I was asleep when he left, but I wasn't. I can't sleep knowing that . . ." his voice faltered. "With her coming tomorrow. You were asleep. It was the perfect time to . . ."
"To what?" Roy pressed.
Ed turned away. "I was going to try to find the sleep aides so I could sleep through tomorrow."
Roy suppressed a deep sigh. "Ed, you can't possibly—"
"I can't hurt her if I'm asleep! Besides, I knew if I asked you or Al, both of you would say no."
"You're right," Roy agreed. "The answer is no."
Something like fear lit on Ed's features. "Mustang, please . . . she'll be here tomorrow, and I can't. I can't live with myself if I hurt her. And I . . ." He paused, faltering as he struggled with his confession. "I don't want anyone to touch me. Especially in my ports." An involuntary shudder jolted his small body and Roy winced. "Mustang, can't you understand? I'll hurt her, or you, or anyone in my way . . ."
"I already promised you, Fullmetal," Roy reminded him, forcing some confidence into his voice. "I promised you I wouldn't let that happen."
When Ed saw he was still losing ground on the issue, he changed tactics from pleading to defiance. "And that worked out so well for you tonight," he bit back.
Roy pretended the jab didn't make him falter. He pressed his throbbing arm to his side at the reminder. "That was before. I'm prepared now."
"That's a load of crap, Mustang," Ed hissed. "You can't trust me. I'm dangerous. It'll only be safe if I'm asleep for the whole thing."
"You can't sleep through the whole thing," Roy said, trying to keep his own voice calm and reasonable. The last thing he needed at four in the morning was a riled up blind boy with post-traumatic stress disorder. "Don't you have to be awake for the connection?" He had once heard from Ed that you could never be put under during the connection because you had to make sure all of the nerves were lining up right. Arguably the most painful part was the one you had to be the most alert for.
"I could make do!" he insisted. He opened his mouth to say more, then stopped, frozen. A moment later, Roy could hear it, too; the metal clanging of Alphonse coming up the stairs.
Ed sighed, and with it, all the fire seemed to leave him. Roy noticed it was starting to become a pattern: Some of his old temper would come back in brief flashes, then die back down into something more resigned and subdued. It would take a while for the fire to come back.
However dangerous it might be, Roy found himself preferring the fire over the beaten boy standing before him now. His shoulders slumped, head bowing to show his defeat. Like he didn't have it in him to fight this battle anymore.
"Are you going to give me the pills, or not?" he asked softly as Alphonse reached the hallway.
"Edward, I can't possibly give you a large enough dosage that will last that long and be safe for you. Sleep aides don't knock you out, they just help you sleep. Besides, if we're going through all this trouble to get your arm working, it needs to be right, don't you think?"
Ed didn't look up, or even respond. He just sighed and began shuffling for the door, his whole body seeming to shrink in on itself. He looked so young and vulnerable and not like Edward at all.
He was getting close to bumping into the doorframe. Roy reached out to help but Ed recoiled under his hand and shrugged it off. "Leave me alone, Mustang," he ordered, voice flat. "Sorry to wake you."
Why did he feel like he had just lost something important?
Alphonse appeared in the doorway, crimson eyes shining concern. "Brother? Why are you up?"
"No reason," Ed said, adjusting his course and following his brother's voice. "Just telling Colonel Idiot to stop snoring."
Alphonse allowed Ed to place his hand on his forearm and gently began to lead him away, throwing Roy one last questioning look before they disappeared from view.
Roy stood in the middle of his room, dressed only in his shorts and a rumpled shirt and holding a bottle of antibiotics. At four in the morning.
He wiped his hand down his tired face. He had been planning on going to the office early to get a few things accomplished before the Rockbell girl arrived, but a new priority had just clawed its way to the top of his list: more sleep. As much as possible before lunch.
Roy went to his bathroom and found it to be in a state of disarray from Ed's rummaging. He stepped over a mess of toiletries on the floor and only gave the bottle of spilled shampoo a weary glare before snagging Ed's upturned bag and shoving the bottle into its depths. He scooped up any other bottle he could find, his or Ed's, and piled it in as well. Then he went back to his bedside and shoved it all underneath his bed.
Without further ado, Roy collapsed back in bed and tried not to think about what tomorrow would be like.
Roy stared past the frozen breath curling from his lips as he searched the crowd, sharp eyes skipping from one blonde head to another.
The Central train station was a jumble of activity at this time of day. Trains whistled and puffed through the station like clockwork, loading and unloading passengers and cargo at every quarter hour. The station was packed with all walks of humanity, some leaving family in tearful farewells, some coming home to joyful reunions. Others slipped through the station without much fuss, business men shuffling on and off trains, forced along on a tide of vacationers and sight-seers with too much luggage and too many children. Steam filled the air from the trains and from the chatter of freezing pedestrians and Roy clutched his black overcoat tighter around him.
He hated the cold.
Despite the glass ceiling and the heat off the coal trains and his many layers of clothing, Roy had already begun to lose feeling in his fingers and toes, the nip of winter slowly chasing the blood from them.
Just as Roy was about to give into temptation and wait in his car, he spied a shock of blonde hair moving steadily his way through the sea of humanity. Roy tracked the movement, and soon Winry Rockbell emerged through the crowd.
Roy had only met the girl a few times, but if he were any judge, it seemed as if she had grown a couple of inches since the last time he had seen her. Her pale skin was burned pink in the frigid wind, and her sunny hair and ragged scarf whipped around her head like some sort of possessed spirit. He knew she was thin, with only a hint of curves starting the show on her girlish frame, but her shape could have been anyone's guess underneath the large lavender coat engulfing her. She was lugging two heavy-looking suitcases with her, the strain of them obvious on her tightened features.
He was just about to call out for her when her blue eyes locked on him and flashed with recognition. She offered him a thin smile and made her way to him. "Colonel Mustang," she greeted, voice warmer than the air that carried it, though not by too much.
Roy had never gotten along too well with the girl. He suspected it had something to do with the way he had shown up when Edward and Alphonse were at their lowest and, as she probably viewed it, whisked them away from her. She seemed pleasant enough now, though a bit reserved.
Winry peered behind him, then all around, a frown slowly drawing her pale brows together. "Where are those two delinquents?"
A small smile tugged at Roy's lips. "That's why I'm here."
Sudden fear lit in her eyes, a look that was as much knowing as it was denying. Roy had seen it often enough on the faces of loved ones when their children went off to war; It was the look of those that were left behind to wait. "What's wrong?"
He sighed, his breath leaving in a cloud. "I'll explain in the car." He reached forward and took her bags, nearly dropping them as she relinquished their full weight to his numb fingers. How did such a small girl carry this? It weighted a ton!
"Pack for a long stay?" he asked, his voice strained as he tried to balance the weight.
Winry smirked at him in a triumphant sort of way that irritated him for some reason. "Not really, I only have two days to get back and help Granny, but Al said Ed's automail is a wreck." Her smile slid off her face and her eyes became distant, as if he wasn't a part of the conversation anymore. "That idiot doesn't take care of his automail at all! He reads all the time, but he didn't even glance at the operation manual, and then he does his stupid alchemy on it and turns my beautiful work into some kind of spear and I swear, he can't keep himself from getting hurt!"
Roy had heard the building worry in her voice, slipping underneath her words in a subtle stream, a blatant contradiction to her annoyed speech.
As if catching herself, she blinked, then glanced up at him, looking embarrassed. "Sorry. I just . . . worry about them, I guess." Her voice was suddenly stiff. "Why are you here, anyway?" she asked quickly, looking around as if searching for someone else. "Usually it's Mister Armstrong that meets me at the train station when those two morons can't."
"That's what I need to talk to you about," he said, gesturing to his car and ignoring her concerned look. He loaded the suitcases in the trunk and opened the passenger door for the girl before climbing in himself. He quickly started the engine, grimacing at the cool air that pumped through the vents. He had splurged to buy one of those fancy new cars with the fancy new heaters, and they took six blocks to warm up!
"So are you going to tell me what this is all about?" she asked warily, eying him the way seals eye shark-infested waters.
He sighed, feeling the weight of the past few months settle around his shoulders. He had rehearsed this all morning, and now had no idea how to tell her.
"Colonel?"
"Tell me about the last time you heard from Ed."
Not sure how I feel about this chapter . . . there are things I like and things I don't, but don't know what to do about -.- This was one of those chapters that just fights you every step of the way haha. I hope you at least enjoyed it, regardless c:
Probably not as much Winry as you were hoping for, but I realized these conversations needed to be had before she got there. It was just time xD And I don't want to keep you waiting for an update, so this was my compromise lol :'D
Oh, and someone said something about how Roy would react being bitten on the neck, because in Ed's head, he clearly bit the wolf in the neck. But where a wolf would grab with its jaws, a human would grab with their hand, thus Roy's forearm got bitten. Hope no one got too confused on that :'D
Al is leaving . . . WHY, ALPHONSE?! It's not going to go over well . . . Poor Edo. ;_;
I ramble. I apologize. I shall respond to reviews from the last chapter soon c:
God Bless,
-RainFlame
