Chapter 12
Even having done work as a diplomat, Roy was still puzzled and fascinated by how similar and different foreign houses were. Whoever owned this house had obviously been wealthy, he knew that without recognizing the ancient Xerxian artwork and Xing vases. He stood entrance in front of one tableau that took up nearly an entire wall. It was an early form of alchemy that could be mistaken for artwork rather than science. Any treasure hunter or untrustworthy soldier could make a fortune here. Even now he would never tell anyone about this place; too many liabilities, too much room for error.
He should've known Edward but find the library first. The young boy was framed by the light of the window, does cheddars turn like to let in the strong new light. The mysteries of the house left his mind is he enjoyed the familiarity of the boy's face lost in thought. The boy look his age that way, all the hard lines softened with concentration as his eyes narrowed into the pages of the book he scoured. Roy turned to make his own examination of the collection. All the books looked old, bound in leather with the title worked skillfully into the spine. The languages of the titles spanned several countries and he pulled one in Xingese from the shelf and moved to sit near Ed in the window. He was close enough to watch the breeze catch the loose golden pieces of Ed's hair.
"Colonel Bastard, what do you know about Astrology?"
"It's a pseudo science. Central shut down the research facility years ago."
"this journal is someone's research on astrological amplification of alchemy," he murmurs, turning pages, his eyes scanning diagrams and charts. "Sonofabitch has a fucking good code, too." Roy swore he could hear Ed salivating at the thought of a challenge. Opening his own book with a crackle, his eyes took in the familiar harsh characters of his childhood. On every page, there were contrasting diagrams, beautiful sweeping ellipses interlinking. He'd seen them adorning the walls of the house. He didn't know much about Xingese astrology except that he was supposed to be a metal dog, but Madame Christmas didn't put much stock in the ways of the mother country. She prefered the ways of Amestrians, she felt they were a practical people.
Suddenly, Edward startled, shifting and tensing. Roy looked up slightly, through his bangs. He coughed from an aggravatingly familiar tickle in his throat. It gave him flashbacks of lying in a cot in some field hospital, far from the trenches. Ed sat like that, frozen hunched but alert before finally speaking.
"Do you think, this is what we've been feeling?" He breathed.
"Don't be silly. I thought you were a man of science, Fullmetal," he prodded. Ed's lips pulled into a thin frown, before ducking back into the pages.
It wasn't until church bells came ringing through the woods that Roy was able to pull the boy from the house. Ed put up a vicious battle, snarling and bristling like a cat. Roy won in the end, removing the boy bodily, books clutched to his chest and all. The man did not escape unscathed, though. Per usual, the automail caught him by surprise and his back paid the price when he realize the boy weighed about a hundred pounds more than expected.
He was glad to be rid of the house. The tension that it created in his mind faded like sweat cooling on his skin as they trudged through the forest, back to their silent and solitary jeep. By the time they finally returned to the meadow Edward had last camped in, it began to rain. They had heard the rumble before the storm began. It was soft and filtered by the forest. Occasionally the blonde before him would stop, flicking open his watch, lips moving silently.
"We should hurry," he started.
"Why?" Edward looked up at flickers through the canopy.
"The edge of the storm is coming fast. It's going to be strong," he clipped, Ed's usual succinctness combined with his only recently developed stoicism. Without knowing why, Roy watched his hand reach out to rest on his subordinates shoulder, stopping him. He kissed the boy through brief, muffled curses. Up against the tree, the air grew heavy with the storm's moisture and their own sweat, and it smelled of lighting and butterscotch.