The silence was heavy, Edward panting softly as his eyes widened before his face drew back into a grimace, he let out a high and fearful keen between ragged inhalations. Roy quickly did his best to smother the cry by pulling the smaller man to his chest. Between the heaving cies he could hear the sobbing of "Al, Al, Al." If it was possible he curled his fingers tighter into the course snare of his hair. He inhaled a deep shudder himself, biting his lip and worrying the flesh there. His eyes pressed together enough he wouldn't cry. Ed grieved enough for the both of them.
They went to sleep separate and wake twined together.
They passed the morning in the same numb silence. The water was boiled, pine needles steeped, tannin tinted water choked down with hard tac that was gritty in their dry mouths. Edward's face was puffy and sore with crying. Nobody touched the radio and no questions asked when it was broken apart and used for firewood at their next encampment.
It was Edward who came to Roy first, a cold metal hand at the crux of his arm, sliding down to tug at the end of his glove before wrapping their fingers together.
"Two weeks," he whispers, head down, face shadowed by unkempt hair. Roy hummed an affirmative, bending his chapped lips to that golden crown.
Two days from that, Edward approached him at dawn, while the others were still wiping sleep from his eyes. Clutched in the flesh fist was a bundle of flowers.
"Fullmetal, while I appreciate the gesture, this isn't quite the time for romantic overtures," he teased. Edward returned the jab with a half-hearted smile, but it quickly fell back into it's usual solemnity. Roy squinted, and looked at the flowers more closely, the long stalks eppered with white, star-shaped blooms, and ice crept up his throat.
"No."
"Roy," Edward started.
"I said no," Roy snapped, chest heaving, stomach roiling and mind racing.
Edward allowed him a few minutes of silence. Roy paced and panted, running shaking hands through his hair.
"Roy, you know it's the right thing," he said quietly.
"How can you say that?" Roy spat. Edward help his gaze, level and calm in a way that turned his stomach at the suggestion.
"They're starving! They're going to die anyway! Why not let them go now?!" Edward hissed, visibly bristling as his voice rose. Roy's face froze, going even more wan. Edward watched his jaw work, the tic beginning in the corner of his left eye. The silence stretched thin and brittle while the shorter man watched him with coin-colored eyes.
"It will be a kindness. They'll fall asleep. Without them it'll be easier to move and ration food." Roy's jaw clenched one more time and he swallowed before tipping his head back to stare at the cloudless, pinking sky through the trees.
"Tonight."
Edward made their pine tea for the evening, sprinkled the little white blooms and crushed leaves liberally in the bubbling water. Everyone drank it contentedly while their eyes fell to half-mast, some wrinkling their noses at the unexpected bitterness. The following morning was a different sort of silence. Roy set fire to the tents and they never looked back.
Moving was easier with only two people, their steps more silent and they were able to listen for others without stilling 10 pairs of feet. Their path was more certain, towards the heart of Drachma.
They could move during daylight now, leaving nights for Edward to feverishly chart the moon and the stars. Roy listened in silence to the furious scribbling, quiet curses, and the occasional tearing of paper. He had never dreamt of a day where the night sky would feel so sinister.
No matter how late Edward stayed awake working, when he woke the younger man would be curled against his side and Roy's face would be covered in his lank blond hair that somehow never smelled filthy.
Beneath the copper of Ed's eyes was becoming blotched with the color of storms and the clouds grew darker everyday. Sometimes, when he was sure he would never wake, he would reach out and press the tips of his fingers to them. He only wished that his lips would be tolerated.
Their walk took on a certain eeriness as they began to backtrack their previous path. Some days they managed to stumble upon the ashy circles of past campfires, but they never stayed there preferring to shield themselves in the trees. Whenever they were near a meadow he would sometimes startle awake by a vicious rattle in his chest, desperate for air, and find Edward staring across damp fields filled with the sparkling of fireflies. Once Roy rose to join him, pausing to spit the blood streaked pus that he could always taste on the back of his tongue. He reached out gingerly resting a hand on a lean hip, the other sweeping aside the snarled braid so he could press cracked lips to the nape of his neck. In the distance lighting lit the clouds and the mountains.
"It looks like Risembool," the younger man whispered, shifting an automail hand to rest over his own.
Two days before the final night they lay on the forest floor, picking at their increasingly spartan rations with distaste. The constant damp had worked it's way into their boots, and Edward suffered the most. He attempted to hide it from Roy but his gait took on a different hobble from the rot between his toes.
The rabbit jerky Edward had made several days earlier had not dried quite fully and was beginning to taste rank. At this point it was beginning to feel pointless to try to seek out something better. His idle mind wandered and drifted to the rich foods of his childhood, and his mouth watered and his stomach clenched viciously with longing.
"What will you miss most?" The words were thick and uncomfortable as they stumbled across his tongue and he had to resist spitting to clear the taste out. The pine needles crackled as he shifted, trying to find a comfortable position without roots stabbing into his back.
Ed was silent for a moment, staring at a fixed point on the tree above him. Then he snorted, sharp and heavy, shaking his head slightly.
"Nothing I haven't missed for a long time now." His words were equally thick. "It doesn't even seem real anymore," he murmured in a rough whisper. Roy made a noise of agreement. These memories seemed like a dream, the life of a stranger who shared his face. He tipped his head to the side, to catch the young man's profile like he had so many times in the past. Instead, those amber eyes limned with storms met his as the bristling forest floor pressed against his cheek. His expression was so sad, so severe and full of questions.
"I'll miss you," he whispered in reply to the unspoken question, and marveled at the transformation of Edward's face as his brow and nose crinkled and eyes filled with tears and clenched themselves shut.