Here's the first chapter~ :D Much longer. *Nods*
I have to upload this before school 'cause there was no time last night... XD
Warning: Completely AU. Set in modern day Amestris. Of course, since it's Amestris, automail still exists. (I'm not gonna tell you my version of how Ed got his, 'cause that'd give things away. ;) )
Disclaimer~
Chapter One - Black and Gold
"C'mon, Roy, or we're gonna be late - what on earth do you think you're wearing? Wear something else!"
Roy was crudely shoved back into his bedroom by a Hughes closely resembling a terrier on cocaine. Apparently, his simple jeans-and-t-shirt combo hadn't been good enough. As was the same for the other seven outfits he'd tried on.
Roy sighed mournfully, wishing he didn't have to go and have his eardrums blown into his brain. Why couldn't Hughes have asked Hawkeye instead? He discarded the refused clothes on his bed with all the others, and pulled on a pair of black jeans and a white-and-black top closely resembling a chess board. He shrugged into a black zip-up hoodie, striding past Hughes down his corridor as he exited the room.
"That's-" Hughes began to protest, but Roy cut him off irritably.
"I'm wearing this, and that's final." Roy sent Hughes a childish glare, and Hughes relented. After all, it was a miracle he'd even managed to convince Roy to accompany him in the first place. He shouldn't push his luck.
"Fine," Hughes sang, skipping down the narrow hallway to catch up with his best friend's power-stride.
The two left the run-down apartment building, heading towards the old Ford Mustang in the car park out the back. Hughes cracked up after Roy had told him he'd bought a second-hand Mustang off a friend - Maes was convinced the only reason Roy bought it was to inflate his own ego by owning a car with his name on it.
Roy fumbled with his keys as he neared the vehicle, opening the driver's side for Hughes and slipping into the passenger's seat. Roy had - after a rather long conversation in which Hughes insisted he wouldn't crash it - decided to let Maes drive. Roy had no idea where he was going, anyway.
"How far is it?" Roy asked. On one hand, he was eager to get the concert and get it over with - on the other hand, he desperately yearned for Hughes to get lost and end up in Resembool.
"About... fifteen minutes?" Hughes supplied as he tried to find the slot for the key below the steering wheel.
Roy groaned.
Hughes grinned devilishly. "And the concert lasts until ten!" he sang, purposefully dramatizing every syllable just to wind Roy up.
Roy scrunched his face up, grunting in annoyance. He turned his head to stare out of the window - the seven o'clock evening light was somewhat calming to the twenty-six-year-old.
He pondered the thought of what the band would be like live. Hughes had played some of their music rather loudly countless times at work - to Roy it sounded like a kid yelling over the top of a dying cat. He could see no earthly reason how Hughes could love music like that so much. Then again, this was coming from a fan of classical and country music.
The music might not have been to Roy's taste, but the band itself was rather interesting. He'd looked them up after Hughes and told him their name, and he was surprised by the results. The band was, to Roy's mild surprise, made up of only two people; two brothers, to be exact. The older sibling was the lead singer and guitarist, and the younger played the drums and backed up the vocals. Strange, Roy had thought when he first found out, I could've sworn I heard two guitars. He later found out that both brothers were considered musical geniuses, and for Roy that was more than enough explanation for the inexplicably complicated drum rolls that should not have been performed by just two hands and the seemingly impossible multi-layered streams of semiquavers from the lone guitar.
Roy had paled when he'd seen their photo - two short-ish teenagers with fiery golden hair and eyes, sporting excessive eyeliner and far too many piercings, and in the older sibling's case, black tiger stripes on his cheeks and dark purple lipstick. They'd both been swearing at the camera, a small smirk on the younger brother's face and a dangerous grin on the elder's. Roy inwardly cringed at the thought of ever meeting them in person. They seemed the type to drink, smoke, do drugs and burn down his apartment for fun.
The main thing that had caught Roy's attention, though, was the elder boy's arms. A tattoo of thick, black barbed wire snaked up from his left wrist to his shoulder, and Roy couldn't help thinking it was a rather strange and somewhat wild tattoo for someone of his age to have. And his right arm - oh god, his right arm. Who the hell has automail when they're still so young...?
He had been oddly intrigued, however, when, though there were seemingly endless pages of information about the band, albums, concerts and the like, the amount of information on the two boys personally was next to none. Neither of their birthdays - or even ages - were mentioned anywhere, and apart form the fact that the two were siblings (and Roy guessed from the photos they were close in age), none of their relatives or family was mentioned. Not once, anywhere.
Hell, Roy didn't even know their names.
"We're here!" Hughes sang hysterically, crudely yanking Roy out of his train of curious thoughts.
Roy grimaced, not bothering to hide his dread of the whole event. "Oh, great," he muttered under his breath.
Hughes grinned, laughing lightly. "C'mon - we've got an hour to kill before we even need to think about getting there. Hey, maybe there's a bar round here."
Roy raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Drinking already, Maes?"
Hughes rolled his eyes, lobbing Roy's keys at him as the pair dragged themselves out of the heated car and into the autumn cold, the icy breeze nipping at their bare fingertips and thin clothing. "Not me, obviously. Just you." At Roy's mildly irritated, questioning glance, Hughes added, "I find it's easier to let loose and have fun if you're drunk."
Roy scowled, subconsciously hunching his shoulders and wrapping his arms around his torso to preserve his body heat. "I don't think I could ever 'have fun' at this concert, even if I was so pissed I was passed out unconscious with five pairs of earmuffs on."
Hughes burst out in raucous laughter, alerting a nearby stray to their presence. It howled at whined at the intrusive noise from somewhere down the street. "Ah," Hughes finally managed to say once most of the laughter had dissipated, "I shouldn't have expected anything less of you, Roy."
Roy merely set his face into what was probably going to be a permanent scowl for the rest of the night, and turned his face away from his grinning friend beside him.
"So, friend - where do you wanna go?"
The two had ended up going to a bar anyway - there wasn't really anywhere else decent to go. Roy refrained from drinking as much as he normally did, as he was sure he'd need a good few glasses of scotch later to clear the ringing from his ears, and settled for a pint of weak lager. Hughes, however, threw himself straight at the whiskey, and he was in fits of giggles half an hour before the concert even started. It took Roy quite a while to decide whether to let Hughes knock himself out and then attempt to find his way back to East City by himself, skipping the concert, or whether to prevent Hughes from becoming any more of an embarrassment and stop him drinking, only to have to attend the concert with a drunk best friend and many screaming fans that would surely be the death of him.
He decided, rather grudgingly, to be a kind soul and save Hughes's liver from any more damage, and proceeded to quite literally drag him out of the bar.
"Aww," Hughes had loudly moaned after Roy closed the door behind them. "I was just starting to have fun." Hughes pouted.
Roy resisted the overwhelming urge to smash his head against a wall. "There's the concert, remember?" he muttered irritably.
Hughes's face lit up. "Oh yeah!" he said dumbly. He blinked. "What's the time? It starts at eight-fifteen!"
Roy glanced at his silver wristwatch. "Half an hour."
Hughes jumped into the air - literally - and squealed for joy. He grabbed Roy's arm and began to sprint down the quiet cobblestone street, yelling, "C'maaaaaaan!"
Roy groaned, giving in. He was going to the damned concert whether he liked it or not (Hughes would make sure of that), and Maes wasn't going to suddenly become sober if Roy wished hard enough. He may as well just take it all in stride... right?
The pair were some of the first there - apparently, this was the type of concert where it was acceptable to walk in half an hour late. Roy was told by Hughes that they had seats reserved, but Hughes was going upfront to see how close he could get to the stage. Roy had rolled his eyes and sat down, grateful for at least some form of rest as he absently watched his best friend wandering aimlessly around the standing section of the stadium.
As Roy sat down, he began to appreciate the seat he had been given. He wondered what lengths Hughes had gone to to obtain some of the best seats in the stadium, and Roy pushed aside all thoughts of cost.
Roy had been sitting down for only five minutes before something interesting caught his attention. A few people had been setting up the instruments and microphones onstage since Roy had arrived, so that wasn't anything new - it was the sudden intrusion of a new and completely unique element that caught his eye. Well, not his eye exactly... more like his ear.
"What the fuck are you putting that there for?" a muffled shout came from the wings. "The amp goes to the left of the mic, not the right! Otherwise no one will be able to see the fuckin' drums, will they?"
Roy raised his eyebrows. The voice was startlingly young, a rough, slightly raspy alto that could only be produced by long-term voice strain. It sounded really quite angry, and Roy suddenly felt sorry for the men hurryingly moving the equipment onstage.
"Well I'm sorry if it ain't perfect enough for you," one of the men currently shifting the ridiculously heavy amplifier grumbled.
"Yeah, well it's my fuckin' amp," the voice growled threateningly, and Roy wondered if he (it was obvious by the heavy tone of his voice that he was male) would ever actually come onstage. If he wanted the amp in a particular position, why didn't he move it himself?
Hang on... Roy thought slowly as a thought occurred to him. It's his amp?
Now, Roy didn't know much about amps, but he knew electric guitars were often plugged into them, and most electric guitar players had their own amp. So if that voice owned the amp...
...He owns the guitar.
Apparently, that teenager with anger issues was the guitarist and lead singer of Roy's best friend's favourite band.
Roy grimaced, groaning out loud. Oh great.
Roy listened absentmindedly to the rest of the hushed argument onstage as the rest of the fans filed in, a shockingly scene couple taking the seats to his left. Roy unconsciously leaned away from them.
After a further twenty minutes of agonised waiting, the lights currently blinding all occupants of the stadium dimmed considerably, leaving Roy blinking at the sudden darkness. He could vaguely make out two figures moving onto the stage. The band, probably.
His scoured the standing crowd for Hughes, but he was nowhere in sight. Roy sighed. He wouldn't even be able to see the sole reason why he was currently silently fuming at a concert of a band he absolutely detested.
At that moment, numerous white lights blasted onto the stage, and an explosion of screams, squeals and yells erupted from the audience.
Roy felt like just dying in a hole right there and then. The two figures on the stage were indeed the band members, and they truly lived up to their name. Both had voluminous black feathered wings seemingly sprouting out of their backs, and the effect was so good that if Roy was an idiot he would have believed them to be real. They had ridiculous black lipstick on, and rings of black eyeliner around their eyes, which in Roy's opinion just made them look like they'd been on the receiving end of a couple of tough right-hooks on the way to the concert. The teenager holding the shiny black guitar also had his famous tiger stripes on his cheeks, thought this time they were red. There were countless glints of silver littering both their faces and ears, though what Roy presumed was the elder brother's long, shimmering hair concealed most of his ears. They had matching outfits on, consisting of a red and black striped tank top and ripped leather pants, studded black gloves coating their hands.
The teenager standing at the front of the stage roughly gripped the microphone with his left hand while supporting the neck of the guitar with his right (Roy noted with mild surprise that the guitar was slung on the wrong way round - was the boy left-handed?) and flashed a rather luring grin at the crowd, which let out Round Number Two of squeals and giggles and screams. "Hey, motherfuckers!" he yelled into the mic. Roy winced at the language so openly used.
There was a loud chorus of response, and the teen's grin grew wider, showing a set of slightly crooked, pearly white teeth. "How is everyone tonight?"
There was another bout of incoherent screams, and the singer's grin turned into a broad smirk. He turned to mutter something to his bandmate before facing the stadium again and shouting into the mic, "What should we sing first?"
A sudden burst of words and phrases that Roy guessed must've been song names burst forth from the audience - though the song that stood out clearly over the rest was 'Fallen Angels'. Roy smirked slightly - a song named after the band. How original.
"Okay!" He yelled again, hoisting his guitar into a more comfortable position. The crowd was hushed into quiet murmurs as the drumsticks clashed four times, the harsh sound splitting through the thin air in the arena.
The two boys began the song with a harsh drum beat and few phrases yelled into the microphones. Roy sighed, resisting the overwhelming urge to cover his ears at the white noise about to cut his brain in half.
Scream, shout
Scream, shout
We are the fallen angels
The guitar entered, and the drum settled into a comfortable beat beneath it. Musically, Roy hated every second of it. Technically, he appreciated the sheer genius of the two boys currently playing in front of him. Their skills with the instruments were astounding - though only playing two instruments, there were at least three - possibly four - layers to the music, and it was so thick it reminded Roy of whipped cream.
It took him a while to figure out how strange that sounded when he was talking about music.
We are the in-between,
Cast down as sons of war
Struck to the earth like lightning
On this world we're torn
The teenager's voice sounded eerily like it did when he was talking - rough around the edges, but smooth and light. It sounded much better live than it did on the CDs Hughes played in the office, Roy would give him that much.
We won't cause the pain
Of living out their law
Take joy in who you are
We know our wings are flawed
Roy decided the only way he was ever going to get through this concert alive was to focus on the lyrics - he often found that if he focused on the lyrics of songs, most of the music was lost in the background. It was something that often annoyed him, but today he was euphorically grateful for it.
We're bored to death in heaven
And down alone in hell
We only want to be ourselves
The drummer joined in for the chorus, and together their voices rang out through the entire stadium. Roy wasn't sure whether they even needed microphones - all those were doing were giving him a headache.
We scream (we scream)
We shout (we shout)
We are the fallen angels
We scream (we scream)
We shout (woah, woah)
To those who sing alone
No need to feel this sorrow
We scream (we scream)
We shout (woah)
We are the fallen angels
There was a short guitar solo after the chorus, and Roy could swear he heard Hughes shout, "I love you!" from somewhere in the crowd. He cringed at the thought.
Follow the morning star
A land where darkness failed
The passion left unholy
Now you found yourself
We have nowhere to go
No one to wish us well
A cry to find our home
Our stories they will tell
We're bored to death in heaven
And down alone in hell
We only want to be ourselves
We scream (we scream)
We shout (we shout)
We are the fallen angels
We scream (we scream)
We shout (woah, woah)
To those who sing alone
No need to feel this sorrow
We scream (we scream)
We shout (woah)
We are the fallen angels
There was another guitar solo after the second chorus - this time, though, it was twice as long. The notes rolled off the strings in an astounding cacophony, and Roy was sure that had he seen the sheet music it would have been line upon line of triplets and trills. Roy was sure the boy was only doing it to show off his amazing guitar skills - yet something nagged at the back of Roy's mind. Even though his playing was extraordinary, it felt as if... it could be just that much better. Almost as if the teenager was holding back.
Scream, shout
We are the fallen angels
Scream, shout, woah, woah
We scream (we scream)
We shout (we shout)
We are the fallen angels
We scream (we scream)
We shout (woah, woah)
To those who sing alone
No need to feel this sorrow
We scream (we scream)
We shout (woah)
We are the fallen angels
The two seemingly abandoned all thoughts of a tune as they simply screamed the last lines into their microphones - though it sounded terrible and quite barbaric (not to mention the fact that the distortion of the speakers was physically painful), Roy couldn't deny the heartstring the final verse struck.
We scream, we shout
We are the fallen angels
We scream, we shout, woah, woah, woah
We shout, woah
We are the fallen angels
People were cheering even before the song ended. Roy wasn't, obviously - but hearing the raw desperation so well disguised by the guitar and drums had knocked Roy off his trail slightly, and he wasn't sure he liked it. Roy was typically a rather judgmental person, though he would never admit it, and someone's first impression on him was usually their last. Now, however, Roy wasn't quiet sure what to do, because the sincerity held in the harsh noise disturbed his mental image of the duo as common thugs.
Because common thugs wouldn't write a song like that.
Roy was thoroughly exhausted by the time the torture finally ended. He'd been whining to himself about the pain, apparently, when Hughes had found him among the crowd and dragged him outside. Roy wasn't too surprised that he barely remembered a thing after the first song - the songs had gradually escalated in volume, one by one, until the sound was almost unbearable and Roy literally couldn't hear what the person ten centimetres away was screaming at the top of her lungs.
"That was amazing!" Hughes screamed as soon as the left the building. "That was just... amazing."
Roy rolled his eyes. "Well at least someone enjoyed it," he muttered angrily.
Hughes grinned.
The couple Roy had been sitting next to suddenly sped past him, and their ecstatic yelps of glee made Roy wince. "Actually, Hughes, I'm gonna take a little breather round the back. All this noise is making my ears hurt."
Hughes burst out in extremely loud, tipsy laughter, further paining his best friend. "Sure, sure. I'll be in that bar from before, so find me there soon, 'kay?" Hughes didn't wait for an answer before darting down an alley, leaving Roy to his own devices.
Roy stared groggily after him for a few seconds before blinking and groaning, rubbing his face with his hand. He was so damn tired.
Roy tromped through the overgrown grass at the side of the road, heading towards the back of the stadium. The stadium was pretty big, so Roy figured in his current state it would take him a good ten minutes to reach the other side, and by then his ears will have stopped ringing and it's be nice and quiet. After all, who else in their right minds would hang around the back of a stadium when they could go loudly and annoyingly celebrate somewhere else?
To Roy's dismal disappointment, it seemed two other people had the same idea as him. They seemed to be just as exhausted as him, though, so he decided against interrupting their conversation. Not wanting to waste his walk here, however, he stayed just out of sight and listened in.
"God, that was fuckin' awesome," one muttered under his breath.
Roy's heart skipped a beat. That voice... it couldn't be-
He swirled around in his place, poking his head around the corner of the wall. His eyes widened at the two teenage boys leaning against the cold bricks. The Fallen Angels.
At first glance, they were almost unrecognizable. All the makeup was gone, and so were the wings. The choker necklaces, chunky silver rings and rude wristbands were also gone, leaving them looking surprisingly plain and, well... normal-looking.
"Yeah, it was," the younger boy answered, chuckling under his breath. Roy raised an eyebrow in surprise. The younger sibling was an inch taller than the first, and though not bodybuilder material, had a broader frame than his counterpart, and short, slightly spiky hair to boot. Yet his voice came out childish and high, reminding Roy of his own voice when he was eight.
The two stayed silent for a minute, before the older brother tugged something out of his right pocket, putting it between his lips while he searched his pockets for something else.
The younger one scowled, swatting his brother on his left arm. "You shouldn't smoke, Brother. It's bad for your health."
The younger brother gained an imaginary tick mark in Roy's mental list of good people.
"Don' care," the other muttered, finally finding the battered silver lighter in his pocket and lighting the cigarette. He breathed in heavily, before blowing a thick stream of smoke into his brother's face.
The younger's scowl deepened. "I'll confiscate the cigarettes."
"You wouldn't, Al. You know what I get like after a day without 'em." The older blonde gazed nonchalantly at a nearby tree, not really focused on it, but Roy could see even from a distance that his eyes were too sharp to not notice it, either.
'Al' sighed. "That's exactly why you need to stop smoking."
The elder snorted, but choked on the smoke and ended up leaning against a cold stone pillar, coughing his guts up.
The younger sibling looked on disapprovingly, crossing his arms. "Serves you right," he muttered.
"Fuck off," the older coughed.
Roy could swear he could see a small smirk on the younger brother's face, but he couldn't tell for sure. In an effort to get a better look, he leant forward - only to lose his footing on the damp grass and skid forward, landing face-first on the ground ten metres away from two of the most famous people in all of Amestris.
Roy lifted his slightly soiled face up off the ground, pulling himself into a kneel. The two teenagers were staring at him wide-eyed, as if they'd never seen a person before, and the younger brother ('Al'?) was doing a pretty damn good impersonation of a goldfish.
"What the fuck?"
Ahaha! Minor cliffy? Major cliffy? :3 (Get it? XD)
Yay for slight OOC-ness~