Chapter Text
You blink, slow and heavy.
The room is still dark.
“I’m sorry, Roy.” Marcoh says. “I rebuilt your eyes, but…”
“I doubt anyone else could have done better.” You say. “Thank you for trying.”
“The Gate likely removed the neurons responsible for sight as well, in addition to severing your optic nerve. I just don't have the knowledge to rebuild that many structures.” He says, shaking himself slightly. “I’m not even sure if the knowledge exists.”
“I had plenty of time to resign myself to it.” You say, as gently as you can manage. “I have lost nothing. Thank you, Marcoh.”
“I’ll… I’ll see myself out.” Marcoh says.
Havoc rolls himself towards you from his corner.
“Well,” he says, “Maybe Riza will take it easy on you with the paperwork?”
The silence weighs between the two of you, the man-made-whole and the man-made-less-whole-than-expected. You hadn’t truly believed that you would see again — something about blindness seems to resign itself to permanency, like some nights seem endless until you see that pink-bleeding sun-color — but you had never really believed that you wouldn’t see again, either. You really had just… tried not to think about it. You tried to pretend, if only to last the war.
You have always been good at lying to yourself, but this is the first time that it has hurt you this much.
“Are your legs all right?” You ask, and you are forever grateful that you can hardly hear the bitterness in your voice.
He pops an ankle and laughs, booming. “As good as they’re gonna be. The doc said that the damage wasn't too bad, actually — Lust only severed part of my spinal cord. He just glued two bits together.”
“I’m glad, Havoc.” You say, and mean that much, at least. “You better not stay in that wheelchair for long. I expect to hear,” (see, part of you whispers, see), “you walking into my office soon.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Havoc says. “Chief…” He pauses, and you can almost feel him wishing for a cigarette, if only so he’d have something to do with his hands. “Are you gonna be all right?”
You don't still, per se — you are already frozen, and have been since your temporary diagnosis was made terminal. But all the bits of you that are still moving slide to a stop: your thoughts pause, your eyes stare fixedly at the wall. You can hardly hear your heartbeat thuds.
You are arrogant. This is something you have always known; you could hardly have staged a coup without arrogance lending you the audacity. But now…
You never thought you were going to lose something, in this war. You survived Ishval, after all — there was nothing left to confront, no demons left to torch. You blinded yourself — and you will only laugh at blind jokes when they start being funny — to the truth: you never meant to walk away from the end of the world with more than a scratch. You were never meant to scar.
“Eventually.” You say, finally.
The world has had it out for you for a long time, after all. You open your eyes, and resign yourself to it.
The 47th division, stationed along the Drachman border, politely requests financial aid from Central Command in order to repair structural damage to the foundational pillars of the Fort Briggs caused by the events of the Promised Day, as well as additional manpower to hasten the process of reconstruction. This request requires approval from the Departments of Internal Repairs and…
You run your fingers along the smooth nobs, small and vaguely plastic underneath your hands. The paper whispers as you run your hands along the Braille, crinkling gently as you move across the page.
You had thought, at first, that your blindness would be a severe detriment to your ability to serve in the military, or, at the very least, your ability to process paperwork. Riza, fortunately, disagreed, and commissioned an alchemist and several engineers to make a printing press to translate documents. With the use of a very clever internally-powered transmutation circle and a few weeks, they had fashioned a device that could scan and write documents fully in Braille that only had to be fed materials every once in a while.
It was a beautiful thing, really, and the illusion of normalcy is gave you was essential for you to resume your everyday life.
You still felt ill-at-ease with the whole process, however.
The purpose of the Braille printer was to allow you to pass in society — to, essentially, pretend as if you still could see. If life is a performance and the world is a stage, well, then — this is your role.
You are — or, at the very least, you were — a connoisseur of theatre; you went to see shows with dates rather frequently. You aren’t particularly picky when it comes to art, but your favorite plays were those that felt real, their immediacy tangible and heady in the theatre. Those plays were powerful because they hid their innards — the actors because their parts, the sets became the landscapes, and the audience became one with the world that they were being shown. Very few things remain magical once you are aware of the wires in the back. A transparent performance is less ethereal and more mundane, the bones too visible for the beauty of it to remain alive.
Everyone has their facades, the things they wish everyone else to believe. Your performance — Roy Mustang, a voice in your head intones, in the role of “Sighted Man” — must, then, be as transparent as they come, ruined by your cane leaning against the desk and the hunker of the Braille printer taking up too much office space.
If the bones of your performance are always so present, then who on earth is going to believe it?
Someone’s hand is on your shoulder, and you flinch so hard that you knock everything off your desk.
“Shit, Boss!” Breda says, as your pens roll onto the ground, one after another. “Are you good?”
“…Fine, Breda.” You exhale slowly, and train your gaze on where you assume his head to be. “What is it?”
“You want to head out?” Breda asks. “The whole team’s going — there’s a barstool downtown that’s got your name on it.”
“Could you help me pick up my things?” You ask. “I am rather fond of some of those pens.”
Breda huffs out a breath and bends over, plonking your pens back into the metal cup you use to organize them on your desk.
“Boss…” Breda murmurs. “This is… Are you sure you don’t want to go out?”
“I’m quite sure, Breda.”
You can hear him rubbing the back of his neck, and you can feel his eyes probing your face.
“Okay, Boss.” Breda says, after too long of a pause.
He pushes himself to a standing position with a grunt, and asks, “You need a ride home? You’re on the way.”
You wish if he was going to pretend to believe you, he could play the part a little more convincingly.
You stand up yourself, and close your eyes.
“That would…” You say. “That would be nice.”
Havoc gives a quiet affirmative hum from his desk, and everyone moves to leave.
Something thick and woolen jumps up in your throat, and you can feel the disappointment seeping into the room.
“Wait,” you say, because you can't have this continue — because even if they don't believe you, you have to wish that they did. “There’s no reason for you to worry about me.”
“I’ll be all right.” You say, and you know from the way the room goes quiet that that line might have been the least convincing of all.
You all file into Havoc’s car, and you swing your cane onto your knees so it’ll fit with you in the backseat.
Fuery bounces at your side, chattering lightheartedly about something that goes far over your head. The conversation is light and lilting, and the car buzzes with companionable energy.
You have to resist the urge to bury your head in your hands.
They’re all so — well, you wouldn’t want to say anything so pedestrian as whole, but they have all their pieces in place, at the very least. If they’re suffering, their suffering is contained, a private matter not subject to scrutiny.
You brought these people together for your cause. You built this team, that camaraderie. They’re as close to your people as you ever could hope to find.
You still don't feel as if you belong among them.
Havoc swings to a stop, and you assume that it must be yours.
“Thank you for the ride, everyone.” You say, smilingly. “Have a good time for me.”
If they respond, you don't stay long enough to hear it. You step outside, and, with a few clacks of your cane on the familiar cobbled stone of your walkway, orient yourself enough to walk to the door.
You walk inside and shut the door behind you, and maneuver to remove your shoes. You wiggle one ankle, and you place your hand on the wall for reassurance.
— except, you don't quite find the wall, and you fall to the ground with a boom that hurts far more than it startles you. Your cane clatters to the ground next to your head, and you flinch away as best you can.
“Fuck.” You murmur.
More loudly, you shout, “Fuck!”
You brace yourself with your elbows, and you sit up as best you can, wincing as your knee pops with a painful twinge.
“Fuck.” You say, once more, but this time, your house eats up the noise.
You reach across the floor for your cane, and you grasp at nothing for a few seconds, before you wrap your fingers around it. You push yourself roughly to a standing position, and feel for the wall. You walk along it until it bends, and then you walk along another wall, into you collapse into something soft and malleable that compresses under your weight. You think it’s your couch. You don’t particularly care — you have no intention to move for any length of time.
You grab at the side table until your hands close around a bottleneck, and you grab at it until the cap pops off in your hands and whiskey is pooling in your lap in a slow dribble.
If life is a performance, and your couch is the stage, you can imagine the musical accompaniment, all heavy and thudding and low. You can imagine the way the audience would look around, askance.
You wish that everyone could be a least a little courteous. You wish that, if you were going to put so much effort into a performance, that everyone could, at least, pretend to believe you.
You take a swig, and you savor the feeling of it going down too much to say that it burns.
“Congrats, General.” Fuhrer Gruman says, slapping your shiny new star into your palm.
“It’s an honor, sir.” You say, and you only are lying a little.
“Try not to topple me off my perch too soon, Mustang.” Gruman says, in that lilting way of his that hides his sharpness.
You’ve played this game before too, though — you could do it blindfolded. “I think I’ll leave all the rebuilding to you.” You say, and smile in a way that says I’m deferring, I’ve lost, let the little blind man go play off alone.
Gruman laughs and clasps your shoulder in a grip slightly softer than you’d expect. “All right, Mustang.” He says.
He walks away from you and you move to the side of the stage as well as you can manage. Your cane smacks against the white stone of the Central pavilion, and you hope it echoes in everyone’s ears.
“Congrats on the promotion.” Ed says, off to the side. “Took you long enough.”
You are the youngest General in Amestrian history.
“Yes.” You say. “I’m inclined to agree.”
“Any plans now, then?” You hear a hard smack of shoes on the ground, as if Ed jumped off of something.
“Nothing in particular.” You say. “I need to run by the office, perhaps — pick up some paperwork.”
“No, you don’t.” Ed says. “The team’s meeting up at the bar on Hepburn, and you’re coming.”
“Am I?” You respond. “I was unaware that we had made plans.”
“And that’s why they sent me to tell you.” Ed says. “Don’t think they haven’t noticed you dodging their attempts to get you to go out.”
“I wasn’t being particularly subtle about it.” You say. “Although I certainly didn’t think they’d send you as the messenger.”
“They thought you’d listen to me.” Ed says. “Well, it was more that you wouldn’t listen to them.”
“What I do is only my own concern.” You say, and something a little too close to anger for your comfort boils up in you. “As I’ve told my team, I’m quite fine, thank you.”
“No, you’re fucking not.” Ed says, abandoning all of your restraint by barking out the words.
Everyone around you goes silent and staring, and Ed huffs out a sigh.
“Come on.” He grabs your wrist. “We shouldn’t be talking about this here.”
His strides are slightly longer than yours, so you half-stumble trying to catch up to him properly. If you had any damn idea of where he was headed you’d yank your wrist out of his hands, but you’re far too aware that there are quite a few places you can’t reach by yourself, so you don’t. He walks, and you follow, and that’s all there is to it.
He pulls you down to a bench somewhere and plops down with more panache than is really necessary.
“Sit, Mustang.” He says, and you do, albeit a little bit grudgingly.
You start, “I’m fine —”
“No,” Ed interrupts. “You’re not. We’ve been through this.”
“You can't expect me to be the same as I was.” You say, quietly. “None of us are, Edward.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Ed says, and his words are laced through with iron.
You inhale harshly, because you'd forgotten, somehow. You’d forgotten that other people had lost something, too.
Everyone had their aches after the Promised Day, certainly — Havoc complained regularly of pain in his legs, and many soldiers under you are still recuperating from their injuries. Those losses, however, are less immediate to you, and they are less severe than a loss of sight.
But an Edward Elric without alchemy is nigh-unimaginable. To imagine an Edward Elric without alchemy is to imagine a loss so drastic and sudden as to be unsurvivable. Alchemy is a thing of earth-shattering electricity, turbulence and will made manifest in chalk and dirt. It is the most powerful tool humanity possesses to shape its world — it is the closest thing to a god-maker among men.
To imagine Ed — someone made of that same electric spitfire heat, fueled by that same beyond-world power — without it is unthinkable. Maybe that was why — well. Maybe that was why you didn’t think about it.
You’d forgotten that there was a reason that he didn’t show up at the office anymore. But maybe that had less to do with alchemy and more to do with how a part of you had thought he’d just — left you behind. Moved on with his life, like everyone else did.
“I didn't mean —” You begin.
“I know that.” Ed interrupts, and he suddenly sounds weary.
“Are you… all right?” You ask, tentative.
“I’m fine.” He says, and you can hear his sideways smile. “You see how fucking fake that sounds, Mustang?”
“I’m… I’m sorry.” You murmur. “I didn't intend to mislead anyone, or cause them concern. I just…”
“Needed some time alone?” He asks. “Yeah. I get that.”
He grabs you by the hand and yanks you up. “But you’ve spent enough time wallowing. Are you comin’ to the bar or not?”
You exhale, and you shoot him a smile as best you can. “I guess I am, then.”
“Good, Mustang.” He says. “Good.”
His hand finds your wrist again, to walk to the bar, and this time, you don't find yourself opposing it.
You walk together, and the silence is gentle between you for a few moments.
“Where are we going, anyway?” You ask.
“This dive that your team picked out.” Ed responds. “I actually haven’t been before, but Breda told me the address. It’s called — Odd Bear, or something? I’m not sure.”
“Oh.” You murmur. “I remember that place.”
You had liked this bar, however-long-ago it was that you actually had the time to frequent bars on a regular basis. It wasn’t exactly classy, and it wasn’t exactly new — it had that sticky-dark lighting that clung to everyone in all of the wrong ways, and smelled like the headier parts of cigarette smoke.
But it was quiet, as bars went. The leather seats had been ripped for so long that the stuffing was stained, and the electric lights were a seeping blue neon that made every other color blend together, but, as much as anything was, it was yours.
Or, at least, it had been.
Ed pulls open the door and the two of you walk inside.
“Hey!” Havoc shouts. “Glad you two made it. Ed, you didn't let him change out of that uniform?”
You feel your lapel, and the familiar gold braiding makes you curse — you never had the chance to change out of your uniform from the ceremony.
“He looks fine.” Ed says breezily. “Just because you felt the need to change into civvies doesn't mean he needs to.”
The room goes quiet, and you become aware that he's still holding your hand. It’s not a bad feeling — his fingers are calloused on the ends, and his hands are smaller than yours. His hand is warm.
It’s not a bad feeling.
He guides you to your chair and, with some nudging with your cane, you’re situated, and the conversations all start back up lively around you.
“Hey.” Havoc says, and he grasps your shoulder firmly. “I’m glad you could make it out tonight. We were getting worried, ya know?”
“We should’ve sent Ed after you sooner!” Breda says with a laugh. “Would’ve saved us a lot of time!”
“I think I would have come on my own eventually.” You say. “But… thank you, everyone.”
“A round of drinks on me?” You suggest, and the room explodes into joyful, uproarious noise.
After tossing too much money on the counter, you start sipping a drink of your own.
“General.” Hawkeye says, and, judging by the sound, drags a chair over to you. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.”
“I’m well aware.” You smile at an approximation of her location. “You all deserved it, really.”
“I’m glad you’re moving forward, sir.” She says, and she sounds as contented as you’ve ever heard her.
“…I’m glad you’re moving forward too, Riza.” You say, after a moment, because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Isn’t this just another chance, for both of you?
“I’m still never letting you out of my sight, sir.” She murmurs. “Some things aren’t meant to change, I don't think.”
“Take time for yourself, though.” You say. “Take Black Hayate out more often. Pick up a hobby. Find somebody. We’ve got the time, now.”
“Some things really are meant to change.” You say, and you hug her to you, as tightly as you can. “Thank you — for everything.”
“You’re welcome, sir.” She says, and she hugs you back just as fiercely. “I hope that you’ll do the same.”
You smile into her shoulder, and it might be the alcohol, but you have to resist the urge to cry.
Maybe… maybe everything didn’t turn out the way that you hoped it would. Maybe there are some people that you failed, and maybe there are some ways that you failed yourself.
But this is more than you ever could have hoped for, when you vowed to begin all of this — when you entered the military, when you wept for all of the lives you spilled into the sand. Everything is not as victory-tinged as you could have hoped, and the world is not as perfect as you once imagined it could be.
But it is your world now — in ways that it wasn't before. You still plan to become Fuhrer, and there are still wrongs for you to right and things for you to change, but you have time, now. You can stop, and savor everything. This is absolution — as much as either of you deserve.
And perhaps you can no longer stop to see everything so clearly, but the roses are still yours to smell. You see no reason to be greedy.
“I needed to stop, for just a little while.” You say, and now you’re mostly talking to yourself.
“A moment to yourself, after everything stopped rushing past you?” Ed asks. “Yeah. I needed that too.”
“Oh?” You say, half in response to his question and half in shock to his sudden appearance. “I’m surprised. I never thought you'd voluntarily slow down. If I remember correctly, your favorite form of relaxation in the past was research.”
“Winry actually forced me to.” Ed chuckles. “She said I’d done too much to do anything else for right now, and she got sick of watching me pace. She actually confiscated all of the alchemy books we kept at Granny’s.”
“Winry?” You ask. “Not Al?”
“Al’s too busy recovering to say much of anything, though he would’ve normally.” Ed snorts. “He’s not usually this self-involved.”
“Has he checked everything off that list of his?” You ask. “The one that he was making of things to do when he got his body back?”
“Not even close.” Ed says, and his voice gets so bright you swear you have to blink off the afterimages. “Apparently he filled it out as a stress relief, so he ended up with something like 700 entries. He’s gotten… 300 done, I think.”
“What was on that list?” You marvel.
“Al-stuff.” Ed laughs. “The first couple were stuff like petting kittens, or eating certain foods. It turned into a bucket list, after a while. He put down certain things he wanted to do when he could feel the challenge of it again. Certain things he wanted to see with his own eyes.”
“Oh?” You ask, softly. “What is it that he wanted to see?”
“The fields in Resembool, in the fall, when all the flowers are dying.” Ed murmurs, just as quietly as you did. “The way the sunset gets too messy and bleeds on everything. The way the sky can't decide what color it wants to be.”
“Sometimes he tells me about how dark everything was at night.” Ed says. “When he had too many hours with nothing in them but him.”
“Are you trying to tell me something, Edward Elric?” You ask, and it’s hardly a question.
“I don’t know.” He says, and it’s hardly an answer, but he brings your hand against his face and smiles into the meat of your palm like it should be one anyway.
He moves your hand away and takes it in his once again, but this time, he holds you like he means it, and if he were any other person, or if this were any other night, you’d say that the way his hand feels in yours is familiar.
But if it’s not that same feeling — well. It’s certainly something close.
You were never one for guarantees, anyway.
You can’t read anymore.
Well, obviously, but, specifically, you can’t read books. You can’t read your books.
You have a library. Your bookshelves span walls, and years — you’ve been collecting them since before you entered the military — and it’s not as if you can have all of them reprinted in Braille.
And, on the face of it, you suppose that that’s not that big of a deal. If you miss a specific novel, you can purchase it somewhere — hell, you could even scan the pages at the office and have it printed that way, if you were so inclined.
But, before, reading was an essential means of relaxation for you. When everything seemed heavier than you could bear, or your home got the wrong sort of quiet, you could pick a tome and exist elsewhere — somewhere where the world sighs into softness, like a golden, idyllic little farm-scape, with wheat stalks piercing the wind.
Maybe it’s wrong to feel resentful, and you know it’s not healthy, but you’ve been robbed of that, now, and left with only the raging emptiness of your thoughts.
Here’s the pencil, you think, because what other choice do you have? Make it work.
Sometimes, when you are alone, you beat your fists against your home and scream, and when the echoing finally settles into nothing, you eat up the silences with your eyes. You relearn yourself. You trace your hands down your body and don’t breathe enough at night. If you no longer can read, then you have time to be. If you no longer can escape, you have time to heal.
When you were younger, you thought to heal was to forget — to simply never think about the things that broke you. You thought wounds only went so deep as memories, and that pain could be cut out and severed.
But you’re not — you’re not severing anything. To sever would imply to cut, to destroy, and you don't intend to break much of anything else. What you want is to allow those last remnants of loss to leave of their own volition. You want to loose your sorrows into a grey-tinged and turbulent sea — to cast those last boats adrift.
And to let those boats drift past you, on this night of stormy seas — well.
You need to let them go.
“Are you all right, sir?” Riza asks.
“I’m — I’m good, Riza.” You swallow. “Could I have a minute? I’m sorry to ask, just…”
“I understand, sir.” She says, and her voice hardly trembles. “I’ll wait near the car.”
You hear her footsteps by the crunch of the grass, until they fade away into nothing but the wind, echoing in your ears.
There are times when you don’t need your sight to imagine the world. You’ve seen movies before — you know how you look, standing in front of your best friend’s grave. You know that there shouldn’t be warmth, near the dead — that the sky should be drooping and grey, with cloud bellies brushing the back of your ear and raise your skin with their chill. The grass should be curling around the edges of your shoes, dying and desperate in the winter.
Your breath turns to steam, and the cold nestles in the tips of your fingers. You breathe in, and feel the way that the winter tastes in your mouth. It tastes like a gun barrel, all metallic and gleaming. It tastes the way his knives did, in their creeping, subtle danger.
“Get out of your head, Roy.” Maes says. “Haven’t you learned by now that it isn’t a great place to be?”
You cast your eyes towards the sound — uselessly, you know, but maybe the blind can see the dead and you’d hate yourself if you didn’t try.
“Maes?” You whisper.
You reach for him, but all you can grasp is dust.
“Maes!” You shout.
Someone grabs your arm. You have to assume that it’s him — that no one is willing to take advantage of a blind man, reaching in the dark.
“It’s all right, Roy.” Maes Hughes says. “I’m here.”
You don't quite collapse, but it’s a near thing. You pull him close to you, the dirt of the uniform he was buried in smudging in your hands.
“And I’m not leaving, all right?” He says, and your whole chest seizes up.
“I don't remember,” you manage, and then start over, because your heart is trying to beat in time with a dead man’s, and you can hardly stand the familiarity of it, “I don’t remember you being this cruel.”
He chuckles, and you can feel it rumbling through him.
“I always was.” He says, and he gets closer, brushing your face with his hand. His skin is not quite clammy, and not quite cold, but he doesn’t feel human all the same. “You just didn’t want to see it.”
He kisses your forehead, all granite given shape. “You’ve always felt a little too much of everything.”
“That’s not for you to say.” You defend yourself, in a half-whispered murmur.
“Yes,” he says, “it is.” He kisses you.
You savor it, even in its strangeness, and the way his lips don’t give against yours, and how his tongue tastes like knives, too. If beggars can’t be choosers — well. You’ve spent long enough begging.
You break away, and try to take your breath back. “You left me for Gracia, Maes.” You say. Let me bury you, you don't say. I came here to leave you behind.
“Do you have anyone, Roy?” He asks, ignoring what you said, and you huff out a breath. You had forgotten about his mind — odd, considering that was what you loved him for.
And damn him, for phrasing it that way. You have loved people — many people. When you dated during your time in the East, you fell in love over evenings, memorizing phone numbers scrawled onto wrists by staring at them for too long.
But — have you ever had anyone? Kept anyone close, with your nose in their hair, breathing in the morning and solidity and things that are not the war?
“Not…” Your voice comes out hoarse and tired, like you screamed all the things bursting inside your head, “Not quite.”
“What about Riza?” Maes murmurs. He shifts his weight, and suddenly you realize that you are standing on his grave. “She loves you, you know.”
“She doesn’t…” You start, “It’s not quite right, Maes. We wouldn’t…”
You turn to look at him as best you can, and you don’t think you manage to do anything beyond look into the distance. “We wouldn’t be good for each other.”
He chuckles, and it runs through you. “You already know everything I have to say, don’t you?”
“I —” You say, and then you stumble. “Wait, no, please don’t go — Maes.”
“Tell Gracia that I’m sorry.” He says. “And send her flowers every once in a while, all right?”
He swallows, and touches the gravestone. “She likes begonias. She — she really likes begonias.”
“I’ll remember.” You promise. You stop, and then your throat closes up, too full of all of things you told yourself you’d say to him if you got the chance.
“I…” You choke, and all of your I love you’s wither in your hands.
He holds your face in his hands. “It’s okay.” He murmurs. “I know.”
The wind swirls, cold and unforgiving, and you are alone again.
“Sir!” Riza says, running towards you. “Sir! Are you —”
She slows, and walks the rest of way to the grave in silence. You take her hand and hold it, as tight as you can without hurting her.
“I brought the flowers.” She says. “From the car.”
“May I have just one, please?” You ask. She hands it to you, and you lay it on the top of the grave.
“I’ll send the rest to Gracia.” You whisper to him, to whatever could be listening. “But you deserved one.”
You turn your back to the grave and walk.
It is snowing again.
You wrap up in yourself, coat providing little protection against the wet flurries dotting your face. You hide one hand in your pockets, and the other one feels numb against the metal of your cane.
You stifle a yawn into your hand, and try to shrug off the sleep. The staccato beats of your cane on the pavement are all that is keeping you awake — thankfully, you don’t need to be all that awake for this.
You’ve memorized your work route through steps. It’s 548 steps from your house, and then a right turn, after which you continue for 924 steps, and then a left turn, and 667 steps. Then, you’re at Central Command, after which it’s 74 steps from the lobby to a right turn, and 85 steps to your office. You are blind, yes, but you make do.
You were terrified to venture out alone, at first. Of course you were afraid — the only reason that you’ve managed to stay alive this long is because you knew what you needed to be afraid of. You are wandering in places that never feel familiar, despite the number of times that you have visited them. You are more familiar with being lost than you ever thought you could be, while being able to see. Blindness certainly had its way to disabuse you of your delusions.
You made a fool of yourself, when you first tried to walk. You stumbled into poles, into people — you dislocated your shoulder falling down a set of stairs. You’ve walked into traffic; you’ve knocked over trash cans.
You sigh, and your breath coalesces into mist.
“Good morning, sir!” The guard says, in front of Central Command. “How was the walk?”
“Quite refreshing, thank you.” You say, as you rub the feeling back into your hands. You continue the walk to your office, the clacking of your cane against the ground as comforting as it is irritating. You detest, sometimes, the audible reminder of your blindness; you cannot ever really escape awareness of it, but the cane brings it to the forefront of your mind. But the cane is also steady, and ensures that all situations are familiar. You will always be accompanied by the same clack-clack sound, which can be comforting, although you make a point of never venturing to unknown spaces. You may not walk so freely anymore — all that you feel from unknown places is fear, and that, too, is in no way unfamiliar.
You feel for the door with your cane, and you push it open gently.
“Hello, everyone.” You say, although you’re fairly certain that it’s only Fuery here this early. You’ve made a point of coming into work earlier and leaving later, since your incident — rarely does anyone beat you into the office.
Before, you were typically second-to-last, before only Havoc. Now, you likely no longer have the luxury of feigning laziness. The facade that propelled you to this position — that of an indolent, entitled, jack-ass with a sizable superiority complex and a penchant for womanizing to match — was no longer one that would be believed. That facade implied power.
Very few people believe in your strength, these days.
“Hello, sir!” Fuery and Falman chorus from the backroom, and you fail entirely to contain your smile.
You bury yourself in paperwork, and the sleepiness that you thought you had abandoned with the cold outside revisits you with a vengeance.
You rub your tired eyes and resist the urge to slam your head into the desk. You have work to do — even a blind man’s signatures have value these days.
A mug clinks next to you, and you train your eyes on the source of the sound.
“Coffee.” Riza says. “You seemed like you needed some.”
You wrap your hands around the mug and let the scent flood the room.
“Thank you.” You say, and it comes out a little more gruffly than you intended.
“Just… take care of yourself.” She says, finally.
She looks at you — you can imagine the way that her gaze has gone all sideways and weary — and it’s in moments like this you dare to consider what she is to you. What she was supposed to have been.
You love Riza — you do. You love her in ways that you have never been able to describe to yourself; you love her in ways that you’re afraid of, almost, because you can’t quite untangle them from each other. You love her, because she is there — because she has always been there, and likely always will be; you love her because she is strong, and made of marble as you rip at the seams; you love her because she bears the worst of your sins deep in her skin, and you loathe yourself for being grateful that you do not have to carry all of that weight. You love her because you are sand-stripped and in desperate need of a confessional, and she is as close to a priest as you are liable to find.
She took you, when you both got back from the war. You remember the way she looked at you — at the train station, at the office, at the remnants of the Hawkeye estate, when neither of you could breathe in anything but each other. She looked at you in that desperate, dying way that she had in the sand, when she was high in her watchtower as you burned below. She looked at you needy, like you were the last refuge she was likely to know.
You remember nestling your hands in her hair, oils caking under your fingers. You remember brushing the circles under her eyes, and feeling the wrinkles that were not there before. You moved against each other, underneath the rotting blanket that didn't protect you from the blistering of the house you scarred her in. You felt her folds, her edges, the softness you thought she had done away with long ago, and she whispered, sand-stripped and aching, “Come on, come on,” in the low light like a prayer, like she wanted to take your hand and run you into the distance. You convulsed against her, and she held you, gently, with all of her strength.
You remember that it was almost enough to ease your aches, to make you forget how blood soaked the boots propped at the door, but she wiped your tears off your cheeks once you finished. She sat, your head in her lap, the curve of her spine regal and her hair touching the back of her neck. She looked powerful and weary, like all of the gods you stopped believing in when they hurt the two of you.
You remember that she looked older than she did when you left. You remember that she looked like the war.
“This isn't going to work, isn’t it?” She had murmured, looking down at you.
“Likely not.” You had whispered. “I’m glad, though — glad we tried.”
She had chuckled, low in her throat. “Do you think that we ever had a chance?”
You knew that you did. You knew, in that moment and all of the moments since, that the war ruined both of you. You knew that you were worth something together, once.
“Not at all.” You had said. “But hope is for desperate men, and all that.”
She had pressed her forehead to yours and closed her eyes. “Thank you.” She had said.
“You’re welcome.” You had murmured, hoarse and low and honest. “You’re — you’re welcome.”
You break yourself out of your recollections and smile into your coffee cup.
“I will.” You promise — now, for the future, for forever. “I will.”
You’re knee-deep in paperwork and down to the last dregs of your morning coffee when you hear a decidedly foot-shaped bang, and, suddenly, your desk rattles with a boom.
“Mustang!” Edward Elric says, and you nearly jump out of your seat. “Al kicked me out, and I don't feel like drinking. Wanna hit the town?”
“Well, I’m flattered.” You say, after you recover from the initial jolt. “But why ask me? I’m sure the team would be thrilled to ‘hit the town,’ as it were.”
“Cause I feel like it, Mustang.” He says, imperiously, which you suppose that you shouldn’t be surprised by. “You comin’ or not?”
“I suppose.” You sigh, and you make a show of getting up, popping your shoulders with a toss of your arms. “You’re lucky I was already done for the day.”
Ed snorts. “You’ve been done since 12, you ass. Don’t pretend as if you've had a long day.”
“What is it that you’ve been doing, then, that puts you in a position to judge?” You snark back, and you can hear your smile bleeding through your words. “To my understanding, you’re currently out of a job.”
“This and that.” Ed says, with a roll of his shoulders that you can only hear because of how many of his joints pop in response — how stiff was he? “I’m trying my hand at cosmopolitanism. Al and I are learning Xingese together.”
“Well,” You say, and something you haven’t heard in a long time — something confident and glimmering and just so slightly heated —enters your tone. “If you’re so well-cultured now, how about we hit the new Xingese restaurant on Main? You can tell me more about your cosmopolitanism over dinner.”
“Not a bad idea, Mustang.” Ed says, and he places his hand on your arm gently. “I hope you know the way there.”
You still in reaching for your cane, for just a moment. “You do realize that you're asking the blind man for directions.”
“I’m absolutely hopeless when it comes to that sort of thing.” Ed says. “We’re better off following you than me.”
You giggle, and it comes out desperate, before you break into a full guffaw that echoes on deranged. Ed starts laughing too, then, in a gasping way that makes you even more hysterical.
“It’s gonna take us,” you say, between the contractions of your ribs, between wetness, “at least an hour to get there, at this rate.”
“I’ve got time to kill.” Ed says. “Do your worst.”
So you do. So you grab his hand and you drag him to someplace that’s tinged like the best parts of everywhere. You walk with him outside, and all the world’s warmth is enough to wash you mindless.
For the past six years of your life, Edward Elric has been a fixed point, in the same way that the stars are old friends; in the same way that he’s always surprised you with some precarious bit of brilliance, and then looked at you with something ancient and untouchable, like the oldest depths of the sea. You have known Edward Elric, and you know his essence is something molten and tumultuous, like lava that will not condescend to lower itself to dirt.
But this — even for all of these years of knowing, all those years of seeing — this is the first time that he’s felt inevitable.
The next morning you slide into wakefulness, the way that a cracked egg sizzles and spreads out on a pan. You make the slow shift from dream-heady and lackadaisical to something sparking in the heat, twitching from the tension.
You can only think of one reason why.
You pick up the phone and punch in the Elrics’ number.
“That you, Mustang?” Someone says, and it takes a moment for you to realize that it’s Alphonse. His voice still has that same softness to it, but all of its coolness had bloomed into sunshine, with no lingering hints of metal.
“Good morning.” You say, and you manage to swallow your surprise. “You sound well, Alphonse.”
“I’m doing pretty well, yeah.” Alphonse says, with a sheepishness that makes you smile. “I’m not the reason you called, though.”
You have to fight the urge to snort — Elric perceptiveness is going to be the death of you one of these days. “I wouldn’t put it that way, but… yes, essentially.”
“I haven’t seen Ed like this in a while, General.” Alphonse says, and his voice takes on a tinge more mischievous than you would like. “He’s spacing out, and he keeps clinging to the cats. Do you want me to put him on?”
You have to smile once more, in a way that’s too big for your mouth. You don’t necessarily want Ed to be off-balance, but all the same, it’s… nice.
It’s good to know that he’s been impacted, too.
“Yeah, go ahead.” You say. “I can wait.”
Alphonse sets the handset down with a soft click, and, after a few seconds of silence and a caterwaul likely from one the cats, Ed picks up the phone with an audible huff.
“Mustang.” He says. “What’re you doing, calling this early?”
Time has less meaning for you, these days, considering that it’s largely accessible through visual mediums. You have a grandfather clock that goes off on the hour, though, and it had said it was after 11…
“I may not have work to keep me on schedule today,” You snicker. “But I know it’s after 11. How late you usually wake up?”
“I’m unemployed – I am bound by no man.” Ed says, breezily. “There’s no reason for me to keep a schedule, so I don’t.”
“But anyway – don’t think I didn’t notice you dodging the question.” Ed says. “You got a reason for calling?”
You don't quite blush, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t feel a rush of heat in your cheeks. “I just thought that we could go out, again. Since it’s the weekend, and all.”
“It’s not like I’ve got anything else to do.” Ed says, and he largely sounds unaffected, but you can hear something like happiness in the way he shapes the words. “Wanna hit the town? We could do dinner again, if you wanted.”
“Sure.” You say. “We could meet by the square near Central Command. See you at 5?”
“See ya, Mustang.” He says, and he hangs up with a soft click.
You place the receiver down with a grin, and resign yourself to five hours of waiting.
You show up too early.
Specifically, you show up twenty minutes ahead of time, because your can feel the nervousness fermenting in your bones, until your fingers can't help but twitch frantically.
Specifically, you grasp you knees in your hands and try not to think of how you must look, collapsing in on yourself on a park bench.
You don’t have any idea as to why you’re this nervous.
Maybe it’s because this the first time you’ve initiated anything. Maybe it’s because this isn’t happenstance, or coincidence. Maybe it’s because this isn't something that you can deny, anymore.
You haven't had a relationship with a man since Maes — you haven't ever had a public relationship with a man at all. Today is a turning point.
We are all going forward. You think, with a finality, and you close your eyes, and let the wind sweep through you. None of us are going back.
“Roy!” Ed shouts, and you turn your head towards the origin of the sound.
“…Roy?” You question, and it almost comes out as a croak, because you don’t think you’ve ever heard him say your given name.
Ed stills and then, with a characteristic decisiveness you’ve always admired, grasps your hand once again. “Roy.”
“All right, then, Ed.” You say, and his name tickles the back of your throat. “Any plans?”
“I wanted to get Al some things.” He says. “He’s very picky about textures right now, and I wanted to get him some soft stuff. Blankets, and shit.”
“Sounds good to me.” You say, and he leads you towards the shopping district.
“How’s it been, Roy?” He asks, briskly.
“I’m… all right. I’m getting better.” You say, surprising yourself with your honesty. Maybe it’s something about Ed, that pulls truths from between your lips like silk.
“Are you?” He says, and his voice opens up like a smile. “That’s good. That’s real good.”
You walk together silently, for few moments. He’s holding your hand again, which, at this point, shouldn’t be all that strange, and it’s not, really. But it’s still significant. It still makes even these silences headier than you’re accustomed to.
“What have you been doing lately?” Ed asks. “Not that I expect you to have all that much free time on your hands.”
“I go on a lot of walks.” You say. “When I’m not being held at the office for twelve-hour stretches, that is.”
“Isn’t the workload supposed to lessen the higher up the ladder you go?” Ed snickers. “The lackeys work ’till sunup and the brass goes home at 5?”
“Surprisingly, rebuilding a country takes some work.” You say, with only a hint of dryness. “We’re having to completely reforge diplomatic relations with Drachma, and the press is demanding stricter government monitoring of alchemical research. Plus, Grumman is attempting to make amends to the Ishvalans, and… well. You get the idea.”
“Who do you have representing the military in talks with the Ishvalans?” Ed asks. “I don’t think you would be very well-received.”
“Miles and Scar are spearheading the efforts.” You respond. “It’s worked out fairly well thus far.”
“Does he still go by Scar?” Ed wonders. “Didn’t he just – stop responding to it, after the Promised Day?”
“Well, yes.” You say. “But he didn’t pick a new name, and while we can speak to him conversationally without some form of nomenclature, the military, unfortunately, is rather fond of official documentation of diplomatic envoys.”
“You coulda just submitted all paperwork with him involved blank.” Ed snorts. “It’d technically be right.”
“You know,” You say. “I think you’d have a better idea of how bad an idea that is if you ever actually did your paperwork properly.”
“Hey!” Ed projects with a laugh. “I completed all of it!”
“Yes.” You say, dryly. “I specifically remember one report that was entirely incomplete other than a targeted ‘I did everything you asked, you fuck.’ written in the margins.”
Ed snorts. “I was 12! It was the military’s fault for trusting me with paperwork in the first place.”
“Alchemical prodigies should be preternaturally gifted in all other fields.” You say, nose in the air. “Actually, I should probably talk with Gruman about allowing minors into the state alchemist program. I don’t think the military could take anyone else of your ilk.”
Ed doesn’t respond, for a second, and your first impulse is to look over at him. You want to roam his face, measuring the crannies of his smile and the contours of his cheeks. You want to see whatever feeling that is folding his brow, to measure the silence by the lines of his eyes. You don’t want to have to be told that something is wrong.
But instead, you stop walking, and grab his wrist a little tighter.
“…Ed?” You say, softly.
“I’m being silly.” Ed says, quickly, his words hitting the ground with the cadence and weight of heavy raindrops. “I’ve had months to get used to it – the same amount of time that you’ve had, but…”
“…Has it been hard?” You ask, just as quietly as before.
“Sometimes it hasn’t been.” Ed says, and then the words start flowing. “Sometimes it’s been easy. I don’t need alchemy for so much, and I can still research it with Al. I haven’t even really lost anything.”
“But…” You murmur.
“But I miss it.” Ed responds, and his voice dips down to a barely-audible rumble. “I just… I just miss it.”
“I told you, earlier,” You say. “That I go walking a lot. And it’s hard. It’s a lot harder than it used to be.”
“But I can do it.” You say, and you try to infuse your words with meaning — with enough finality that he’ll never doubt himself ever again. Maybe with enough poignancy that you’ll fully believe it yourself. “I miss sight,” You say, softly, with something in you ringing deep. “But I never needed it.”
And maybe — maybe you do believe yourself. You’re not sure what you wouldn't trade to see the sunlight sloping down Ed’s spine, lighting him to flame. But it’s true, that you never needed sight.
You have too many things, now, to be left wanting for much.
You reach for Ed’s hands and weigh them in yours. The left one runs scarred underneath your fingers, with hardened, curling flesh worming down the length of his palm. The right one feels like a sweet sort of softness, thinner than the other hand, but mountainous with the bony ridges of his knuckles.
Maybe this isn’t anything — maybe this is only in your imagining, something that ought to stay in the quieter realm of dreams — but the way his hands sit in yours feels like something: something maybe like a promise.
Something maybe like hope.
“I’m going to try something that may or may not turn out well.” You say. “Feel free to stop me if I get carried away.”
You take your hands out of his and reach towards him until your hands touch the soft skin of his neck. You slide them slowly upward, until they rest on his cheekbones. He puffs out a breath. “Keep takin’ your time, Mustang.” He murmurs, and his voice just barely tremors. “Come on.”
You smile wider than you think you have in a long time, and kiss him as lightly as you can bring yourself to.
He doesn't respond, for a second, and then he does, and he washes over you like a storm — terrifying and ferocious and clean.
You pull away, and you can’t help but tip your head up to gasp up into the sky.
“You dumbass.” He says, breathy and with feeling, and he presses his face against your cheek. You can feel his smile, all long and jagged and blinding.
You may miss sight — may want to see that the way he smiles is as bright and burning as you imagine it to be — but you don’t need it, really. This is painful, certainly — but it is enough.
It is everything, it is everything — it is enough.
You do not know if you are awake.
You have, certainly, that crescendoing awareness that’s characteristic of wakefulness. The fullness of the world is building in the corners of your eyes, and you can feel the crumple of the sheets in your hands.
You know better than to trust that, though. You’ve had this dream before.
Before you were blinded, (and you will not shudder thinking that, because you have had time to adjust, and you are not so weak as to flinch at your own thoughts) waking was an entirely different sensation, dominated by the colors of the morning painting your walls. Now, you only have the dawning realization of wakefulness to inform you, and it has failed you often enough.
Some of your dreams start in the blankness of black, like your mornings, and burst into full color. Some of your dreams are monochrome; some have colors so vivid that you can't remember them having been real. Your nights sneak and cower in the dark, then explode triumphantly into color, as if they were never hiding at all.
Today, though, you do not think your dreams are lying to you.
There’s a chill that’s far from usual — a chill that coats your body until your thoughts are creeping and frozen. You move to stand, and you hit a form — frigid and curled up on itself. You move your hand across it, and feel the telltale bump of a kneecap, and the shocking cold of metal.
Ed.
His body is freezing — more reminiscent of an ice sculpture than a person. You move up closer to him, and it feels like you’re pressing up against steel, like Ed isn’t human — like he’s never been human in his life. He feels like one of those city hall statues, all foreboding and regal, a monument meant to last until the world burns. He feels like his steel parts are the weaker bits.
You twist yourself up in the sheets and grab the metal of his leg. It stings, like an ice slab, and you can almost see the mist of your breath in the cold.
“Oh.” You say. “My heating’s gone out.”
He rustles awake, and you can hear the crackle of his spine as he stretches. “Jeez, Mustang. This how you treat all your dates?”
“Unfortunately." You respond. “Things have a tendency to go wrong around me. I’m afraid you’ll simply have to get used to it.”
“Get used to it?” He smiles, and slides up next to you. He’s cold, but so are you, so you press up fully against his side. “Are you suggesting a part two? Think your luck’ll be better next time?”
You certainly hope so, but a little part of you says no, never — says he’ll never make it around me, says he was never meant to be cold and he’s already starting to freeze — but you’ve never gotten anywhere listening to yourself, so you turn your head towards his and pray that you’ve come close to meeting his eyes. “I doubt it. How did last night go, anyway? I can't seem to remember much of it.”
He moves closer, and damn, automail toes are cold. “After we got Alphonse some stuff, we came back here and got sloshed over my research.” He snorts, his face buried in your shoulder. “Pretty good date, all things considered.”
“It sounds like you’re up for round two, then.” You say, as smoothly as you can manage while attempting not to fist pump under the sheets. “Since when have you ever let a little bad luck stop you, anyway?”
He giggles like a wind chime, and you think of storms. “You’ve got a point, there. There’s this little Cretan place right near the office, off of South Haven. Meet me there tomorrow?”
“I’ll see you then.” You say, and you can’t help but smirking, just slightly. There’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence every once in a while, you think — you’ve spent too long waiting to dream of abstinence.
He laughs, bigger and brighter than you expected. “You dumbass.” He says, and suddenly the bed dips and his lips are on yours, thin and chapped. He applies a little wet pressure unevenly, and he missed your mouth a little, so it hits just off-center. “No, you can’t.”
He stands, slips his clothes on quickly, his struggle with his pants narrated by the clink of his automail on your floors. You imagine that he’s made an awful mess of the hardwood. You can't quite bring yourself to care.
He slides on his coat with a jingle of metal, and you can almost see the sloppy salute you’re sure he fires off at the foot of the bed. “I’m off to find some place warmer. Later, Roy.”
He says your name slowly, carefully, like he’s trying to savor the way it tastes. You’re smiling so hard you can feel it stretching your skin, and you’re sure it looks horrific. You can’t help yourself, though. You never could, really.
“Later, Ed.” You say. “Make sure not to hit your head on the doorframe on your way out.”
You’re almost completely certain that he shoots you a middle finger, but the door shuts anyway, and suddenly, you are alone again.
The silence is familiar, and pressing, but the way your heart thumps in your chest is new. It’s bloody and aching, and you want to walk to its beat until it’s familiar. One, two. It says, rushing. Go. It says, rushing.
You throw on a jacket and rush out the door, slamming it behind you. “Ed!” You shout, into the blankness, cold and swirling on your skin. It’s snowing, soft and impermanent, and you can feel it melt against you.
You imagine the way he turns around, his hair and jacket rippling color in the white and wintry cold. “You dumbass!” He yells. “Can’t you wait a day?”
No, your heartbeat says, thrumming and sure. You are brilliant, and beautiful, and beyond all else. I am done with such mortal things as waiting. “Never!” You shout, echoing across the distance. “I’m afraid that I’m here to stay!”
And the world is quiet and echoing, all snow fields and silent purity untouched by blood and war, because he is laughing, brighter than anything you ever could have seen.