Chapter Text
Roy took off running, and he did not stop until the ash-choked air had so suffused his lungs that his vision swam white, and the whole of the world crumpled all the way down.
"Hughes!" he screamed, and it came out as nothing at all more pathetic than a desperate whine.
"MAES HUGHES, ANSWER ME!"
There wouldn't be an answer.
They'd left Maes behind, because Maes wasn't walking, and none of the squad could've carried him. They'd left him behind, and that, as far as Roy was concerned, was a hard and instant no.
None of his team was dying out here this time.
Not on his fucking watch.
"HUGHES!"
Roy coughed and hacked and spat, keeled over on to one knee to wheeze into his hand. He couldn't fucking see, dust and sand and ash clouding thicker and thicker the further he fought into the storm. His bare face was scalded, his eyes burned wet, his throat scraped raw as serrated glass. God DAMN you, Hughes-
With a hiss through gritted teeth, Roy clenched his fist, tugging his glove tight. A hacked breath later a neat funnel of oxygen purified around him, clean enough to breathe and scrubbed cleaner by the second; 15%, 17%- fuck, fuck, fuck...
Roy hit the abandoned outpost just in time for a second earsplitting, ground-shaking boom to reverberate from the distance. He swore over his shoulder, glove tugged tighter again. So he wouldn't be alone for long. Good, as far as he was concerned. His limit was somewhere long behind in Central and he'd shattered it so completely so long ago he did not care. They were coming? Good.
Let them come.
"Hughes," he spat, and snapped once. Snap-crackle-boom! "You'd best still be breathing, and that's a direct order, you bastard. You will be breathing if you know what's good for you." Snapped again; the crumbling walls, already in severe danger of a collapse and as such, crushing anyone still left inside, blew clean through.
Because if he's not...
If you're not...
"HUGHES!"
"Colonel!"
It was not Hughes.
Roy spun on his heel, crunching into the hard, burnt sand with a scalded ankle and a raised hand. In the same instant, there, torn around the corner with braid and coat billowing in the wind, coated from head to foot in ash, smudged soot, and blood, dripping in his hair that was not his own, was Ed.
Fucking hell.
"What are you-"
"Colonel!" Ed shouted again, his voice coming out just as choked and wracked as his. "Don't give me that fucking look, there's no time and you know it. Come on! Get Hughes and let's go!"
Roy made a mental note to thank all the gods he did not believe in for the foresight of Riza Hawkeye, the loyalty of Edward Elric, and the apparent insanity, of every single member of his team.
Then, he tore straight off into the devastated outpost, this time, with Ed right there, hot on his heels, behind him.
They found Maes collapsed just back where Roy had known he'd be, protected back in the far corner in the safest spot he could've found. A rifle once in his hands, gone slack and cold to the floor, and his face, as white and unmoving as glass.
Shit. Shit.
"No," Roy snarled, and he blinked and found himself across the room, dropped to his knees and one hand curled as if to backhand him across the face. No, Hughes, fucking no.
"Is he...?"
"He's breathing," Roy snapped tensely, and said nothing more than that. They both knew that there was no guarantee of keeping him staying that way; not for long. He curled his gloved fist tighter still and went for Maes' uniform with his other hand, yanking the coat aside to find the gunshot that had caused all of this. Cauterize it, pick him up, get back to camp. Cauterize it, pick him up, get back to camp. "That's it, you bastard, come on-"
A third boom echoed in the distance. Closer than before. Some part of Roy acknowledged Ed vanishing out of the corner of his eye, flickered back towards what had once been a door; the whole rest of him saw nothing at all beyond the whiteness of Maes' skin and the cooling spill of red blood, splashed over his stomach like a puddle of ink.
"Hey, bastard, hate to break it to you? But we just ran out of time."
"One minute," Roy hissed, fingertips rubbed together to burn a spark into existence. Just one dammed minute, Fullmetal-
"We don't have one minute. We don't have one second, Mustang; if we leave right now, then they will see us and we'll get mowed down before we got five feet away."
"One minute!" He tensed again, pressing his hand to Maes' chest. His stomach contents were currently being burned shut, right now, and there was no reaction. No reaction. Shit, shit, shit. "Fullmetal, go! I can't move Hughes yet but I can hold them off. You, go, now! Get underground- you can still make it back! I'll link up with you later!"
They both knew that was a lie.
"GO, Fullmetal! That's a direct order!"
They both knew that there would not be a later, if Roy stayed.
And Roy was staying.
Ed stared at him through the fall of his ravaged braid and soaked hair, his fierce eyes all but feral in the ash-choked light. He smirked once, shoulders rolled with a petulant sort of an almost child-like huff, and just like that, cracked his knuckles, fist by fist.
"Thanks for making it an order, at least," he called. Or, perhaps, it was closer to a growl, his voice so low and hard-fought from the ruined air. "That makes it easier for me to ignore you."
"Full-"
"Come on, Mustang. We both know I'm never going to do what you tell me to."
Roy tensed wordlessly, again. Something close to affection, closer to despair, and just a shade away from heartbreak tightened agonizingly in his throat.
Ed, without one single more disparaging comment to give, rolled up his sleeves, tossed his hair back, and crept up to the crumbling dust of what had once been a pillar. He hid himself out of the way, tense and dangerous and every inch a soldier, and he shouted, "You'd better back me up, Mustang!"
When the gunfire came, Ed was there. When the gunfire came, Ed clapped.
The explosions started.