Work Text:
“Colonel!”
Ed’s hands balled into fists on the wet pavement, his muscles quivering with the strain as he tried to push himself back up. The metal of his forearm ground against the debris scattered about the desolate alley, a gritty, hopeless noise that made him clench his teeth.
“Stay down, Fullmetal!” Mustang’s voice rang out, his smooth, commanding baritone washed out by the heavy rain, dissolving over the barely ten feet that separated them.
The Colonel was soaked to the bone just as Ed was, dark hair saturated with water and clinging to damp skin, but his eyes were sharp as ever, narrowed and peering up at their assailant with neither fear nor shame.
That fucking idiot.
He was useless in the rain.
Ed blew out a harsh breath, his forehead dropping against the rough ground as he squeezed his eyes shut and steeled himself.
He had to get up. Up. Up.
“My quarrel isn’t with the kid,” a gruff, unfamiliar voice said, and Ed gritted his teeth and braced his palms, ignoring the dull, throbbing ache in his stumps that always came with changing weather.
If it wasn’t for that–him–the Colonel wouldn’t even have been out here. If he hadn’t noticed the rain clouds as he was leaving the office and realised Ed’s stumps were probably acting up, if he hadn’t dropped by the library to tell him in no uncertain terms that he was driving him home, if Ed hadn’t insisted to take that stupid shortcut to the parking lot-
“Long as he stays out of it, he won’t get hurt no more,” the man continued. Something around Mustang’s eyes relaxed the slightest bit, as if that was somehow good news to him. He slumped heavily against the wall at his back, tipping his head into it, rainwater sliding down his cheeks like teardrops.
The puddle of washed out red around his seated form was ever growing in spite of how tightly his fingers were clamped over the oozing hole in his side.
The man cocked the gun again, his thumb teasing along the safety.
This time, he pointed the barrel straight at Mustang’s forehead.
“Stop!” Ed screeched, desperate to buy them just a few more moments of time. If he just could come up with something–a transmutation that would stop the man without harming the Colonel in the process, without giving him a reason to shoot-
Throwing up a wall between them wouldn’t do anything, either, not with how close they were and the materials he had. Ed couldn’t risk a bullet in Mustang’s stupid skull.
“Stay out of it,” Mustang said without looking at him, dark gaze fixed firmly to the figure looming above him. “You heard the man, Fullmetal. He’s got no quarrel with you.”
“Stay out of it? And let him shoot you?” Ed yelled back, grunting with effort and pain as he made another attempt to heave himself up. His voice climbed in pitch, making his desperation so pitifully obvious.
“He’s gonna get shot either way, boy,” the man droned, eyes glinting coldly under the short brim of his cap, never breaking the ridiculous staring contest he and Mustang were engaged in. “An’ if you get involved, you’re gonna get it, too.”
Before Ed could retort anything else-
The safety clicked off.
He was out of time.
A clap rang out before a shot could, and he slammed his palms flat to the street, his heart in his throat, eyes wide with panic as they followed the blue flash of the alchemical reaction, and Ed didn’t even know what he wanted to do before he did it-
Lance-like spikes shot out of the wall the Colonel sat against. Distantly, Ed thought that he’d intended them to come out around the man’s shoulder level; to force him away, to create distance, to hurt him just enough to make him drop the gun and give them a much needed chance to regroup.
He realised he had miscalculated when a stone lance pierced the side of the man’s neck, ripping through skin and muscle alike.
A fountain of blood exploded forth.
The gun went off before the man dropped it, hands coming up to clutch at his neck.
He went down, hard.
Mustang ducked out of the way of the stray bullet. It ricocheted off the brick next to his head and off into the void.
The man writhed on the ground, gurgling helplessly as blood seeped out from between his fingers and mingled with the puddling rainwater.
And Ed stared, frozen, the gentle rattle of his shaking automail hand twining together with the pitter patter of heavy rainfall and the horrible, gargling noises of a man choking on his blood.
Roy watched the guy collapse from wide eyes, throwing himself off to the side on instinct alone when the bullet hit the brick behind him.
Close fucking call.
He let out a shaky breath and slowly settled back into a sitting position. His would-be executioner squirmed on the pavement in front of him, sputtering like a drowning man, his blood slipping through the fingers loosely cupped over the gnarly gash in his neck.
“Damn, kid,” he said, easing himself up onto his knees and biting back a wince when the movement pulled on the bullet hole in his side. “You really got him good.”
Ed didn’t respond. A tiny, hurt sound reached his ears, nearly drowned out by the rain, and he raised his head, finally turning to his subordinate, who had yet to get up from the ground.
The kid’s eyes were wide, usually bright, golden irises dulled by an unnerving haze, and glued to the man bleeding out in front of them; his tan skin had taken on a pale, sickly hue, a tremor shook his hands that he knew could have nothing to do with the cold-
And Roy’s stomach dropped.
Ed-
Ed didn’t kill people.
Ed had never and could never take a human life.
“Shit,” he hissed and forced his sopping wet, aching body into movement. He struggled out of his torn uniform jacket, ripping it from his shoulders to bundle the fabric up and press it firmly to the blood-seeping hole torn into their attacker’s neck.
If he could stop the bleeding- no, scratch that, there was no stopping this bleeding, but if he could buy the asshole just a few minutes of extra time, if they could get him to a hospital, maybe he would live.
His jacket absorbed the blood like a sponge, and Roy gritted his teeth and put his weight in it, pressed down on the gash until his side burned with sickening heat despite the water sapping all the warmth from his limbs, and he barked for the kid to go call an ambulance without turning around.
Judging by the sounds of it, Ed scrambled to his feet–stumbled, fell, got up again, God–and made his quick but limping way over to the next phone booth.
The man’s eyes rolled in their sockets until they settled on him, unfocused and clouded by agony, and Roy glared right back.
“Don’t you dare die. Don’t you dare,” he hissed, even though he doubted his words made any sense to him. He pressed down hard on the wound to get his point across. “Don’t you dare put this on him.”
Moments later, Ed dropped to his knees at his side like a ragdoll, and Roy wanted to scold him, because that must have hurt, but the expression of absolute devastation twisting those too young features made the words stick in his throat.
“I k- killed him,” Ed whispered, staring down at the puddle of blood staining the knees of their pants, and his face crumpled like he was about to burst into tears.
“He’s not dead yet,” Roy said and flicked the guy on the ear to make him twitch. “See, kiddo? He’s still kicking.”
Ed took his automail hand into his real one and drew them close to his chest, the tremor that shook both flesh and iron unmistakeable.
“A- ambulance is coming.”
Roy nodded and squeezed his eyes shut when the motion triggered a sudden bout of nausea; fucking bloodloss.
“Good. Good, Fullmetal, you did well,” he said, gentling his voice as much as possible, though he couldn’t deny that he still sounded frazzled and strained despite his best efforts.
The man sputtered and hacked up blood.
Ed winced.
“He’s not- not going to make it, he’ll bleed out before the ambulance gets here, and it- it’s all my fault-” Ed ducked his head, water-heavy bangs forming an impenetrable curtain around his face. “I didn’t mean-”
“I know, kid. I know, it’s not your fault, okay? You saved my life, I should have acted faster, you just did what you had to do because I- I failed you.” Roy swallowed against the lump in his throat and pressed down harder on the still gushing wound, willing that idiot to survive at least until they’d loaded him into the ambulance and he was out of Ed’s sight. “It’s my fault, Ed, not yours.”
The man’s spitting, gurgling breaths flattened off into strained wheezing.
Roy narrowed his eyes. “Oh no, you don’t-”
He went limp. Glassy, half-lidded eyes peered off into the distance, unbothered by the rain.
No more hacking, gurgling, wheezing.
“He’s dead.” Ed’s voice was hollow, barely audible over the pounding of the rain on the pavement.
He was. And Roy wished he had been the one to end the bastard, for Ed’s sake and his own.
Ed stared at the corpse from wide, empty eyes, chest rising and falling rapidly with shallow breath, small hands trembling so hard.
“Don’t look, kiddo,” Roy mumbled, defeated. He was fully and achingly aware that Edward had seen much worse in his short time on earth, and yet he had no doubt that the dead man’s frozen face would join into the kid’s extensive nightmare rotation.
He lifted his hands from his ruined jacket and wiped the tacky blood on his damp pants as best he could before he dared reach out to Ed.
The boy’s eyes were unblinking, fixed on the body.
“C’mere, pipsqueak,” he mumbled and cupped a palm to the back of Ed’s skull, gently pulling him closer until he could push his face against his shoulder and at least get him to look away, not that it would help much now. Ed was limp and unresisting in his grasp, and it pinched painfully at some hidden place deep within Roy’s chest.
Faraway sirens blared somewhere behind them.
Roy closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the top of the kid’s head.
He hated being so fucking useless.
Roy took Ed home with him, after.
He released himself from the hospital once the bullet wound in his side was suitably patched up–nothing vital was hit, so he considered it no more serious than a bad papercut–and put his name on the little dotted line labelled parent or guardian signature on Ed’s release forms.
Then, they went home.
Both their clothes were still damp–and bloody. Roy gave him some of his own to change into and proceeded to slap a towel on top of the kid’s head to rub his hair at least semi-dry.
Ed didn’t complain throughout any of this.
He didn’t do much of anything, really.
Roy settled on the couch with a drawn out sigh, next to the tiny bundle of misery that was Edward Elric with his knees pulled up and head tucked low, smushed against the armrest.
“You are a soldier, Ed,” he said, soft and low, reaching out to squeeze a knee. His hand ended up on the automail leg, but he couldn’t say he minded too much. “This… always was a possibility. A likelihood, even.”
Ed didn’t respond or even react, and Roy heaved another sigh.
“But I’m sorry it happened like this. I’m sorry it happened at all.” He lifted his hand from Ed’s knee and rested it on his bowed head instead, thumb drawing gentle circles into slightly damp hair just behind the kid’s ear. Roy cleared his throat, and when he next spoke, his words came out barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry I put you into that position. I should have been better. I’m sorry, kiddo.”
A brief tremor went through the small body beside him, and then, gradually, Ed raised his head. Roy’s hand slipped from his hair and came to rest on his shoulder–metal, again, but he squeezed it nonetheless.
Ed sucked in a rattling breath. Let it out, slow and controlled.
His eyes were red-rimmed and dull when he turned to look at Roy, and Roy’s heart did something funny in his chest at the pitiful sight.
“I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t want to,” Ed mumbled, finally, the first coherent sentences he’d heard him speak since before. His expression was almost pleading, as if he was desperate to be believed.
Roy nodded once. “I know.”
“I- I never wanted to kill anyone.”
“I know.”
“I knew it was a possibility that I’d have to, but I thought- I just thought I never would- that I wouldn’t! That I would find a way around it, that I would get our bodies back and leave the military and live, but how can I live with myself-” He broke off with a choked sound that hit Roy like a kick to the solar plexus. “A- and what will Al think of me…?”
Roy clucked his tongue in disapproval, and the boy’s wide, teary eyes snapped up to his face. “None of that now, kiddo. You know your brother will understand. And you will live with yourself, because that’s what you do. What you have to do.” He let out a long breath and closed his eyes for a moment. No teenager should have to deal with something like this. “You killed a man.”
Ed’s expression crumpled. He pressed his lips into a thin, shaky line and averted his gaze, golden lashes glistening with tears in the gentle light of the lamp in the corner.
Roy raised his free hand to the kid’s face and tilted his chin up until Ed had to meet his eye again, his thumb tracing softly along his jaw.
“And you saved my life. Two sides of the same coin, Edward.”
Ed sniffled. Flickered his gaze away. Wiped a hand over his eyes. “Well, it’s a stupid fucked up coin and I wanna toss it down a well.”
He snorted a laugh and didn’t say anything when Ed inconspicuously shuffled closer; just wrapped his arm more securely around his shoulders and drew him in until the kid could rest his head on Roy’s chest, his free hand coming up again to cradle that thick skull in his palm.
Roy had learned long ago not to comment when Ed initiated physical contact.
Who else was there for the kid to hug?
“I was a few years older than you. The first time I killed someone, I mean,” he mumbled, fingers stroking through drying blond hair. Ed stiffened against him, but didn’t pull away; perhaps even squirmed a bit closer. “I was a new recruit. A soldier fresh out of the academy. And I thought I was ready.”
He hid a bitter smile against the crown of Ed’s head as he remembered his own childish naivety. That just because he’d had a cause to defend, to fight for, he’d considered himself prepared to take another human’s life. That he had thought it wouldn’t affect him.
“And were you?” Ed muttered into his shirt, and Roy made a miserable, ugly noise and let his eyes slip shut, tightening his hold on the kid the slightest bit.
“Of course not. The first time I shot a man in the line of duty, I threw up and had a panic attack in some alley. Hughes had to slap me across the face to snap me out of it.” He swallowed hard at the memory.
He wished Hughes was still around to smack him when he needed it.
Roy shook his head and forced himself to keep his tone light when he next spoke. “So, all in all, you’re not doing too bad there, pipsqueak.”
Ed huffed something that might have been a laugh on a better day, small and exhausted and pained, and Roy could have hit himself, because-
“Hey, do your stumps still hurt, kiddo?”
The boy froze and gave a little shrug, which Roy knew was Edward Elric Speak for yes, I am in a frankly ridiculous amount of pain, but I don’t want to be a bother and also I feel a little bit like I deserve it.
“You know better than to keep quiet about it, Ed,” he scolded gently and guided the kid away so he could get up, forcing himself to ignore the pathetic little noise of protest he made. “Give me a minute, I’ll get you some hot-water bottles.”
“You don’t have to-” Ed mumbled, curled up and tiny on Roy’s couch, absolutely swamped in his borrowed change of clothes, and Roy paused before he made for the kitchen, stroking a hand from the top of the kid’s head down the back of his skull, squeezing his nape softly.
“No matter what you might think,” he said, looking square into his bloodshot eyes, “you don’t deserve to be in pain. Don’t punish yourself, okay, kid?”
Ed’s throat bobbed with a thick swallow, and he gave a tiny nod; Roy nodded back and left for his kitchen with a last squeeze to the boy’s shoulder.
He made quick work of boiling some water on the stove and funnelling it into the bottles, not keen on leaving Ed to wallow and stew on his own for longer than strictly necessary.
Roy had never even owned a hot-water bottle before Alphonse had let it slip that they helped Ed when his stumps got achy. He had bought some specifically for situations like this–there were also a pair hidden away in his office–though he would never admit to it out loud, and especially not to his nerve-fraying pipsqueak of a subordinate himself.
“Alright,” he said, set the two bottles down on Ed’s lap, and dropped back to the couch next to him. “There we go.”
Ed rested his flesh hand on one of the bottles for a few moments, feeling the warmth of it, his eyes far away.
“Thank you,” he said quietly and positioned one on his shoulder, while the other remained in his lap, shifted slightly to cover his left thigh. His eyes slipped shut at once, and something tense melted from his features, made him appear even younger than he already looked.
Roy smiled and stretched an arm over the headrest behind the kid. “Better?”
Ed tipped his head back against his arm and leaned into him, drawn to his body heat–or, more likely, his comfort–like a moth to flame.
“Much.” He flashed a small smile that did nothing to conceal his exhaustion and heartbreak, and Roy reached up to tuck some wayward strands of long hair behind Ed’s ear.
“It will get easier, you know,” he said softly, and Ed blinked moist eyes and cleared his throat, averting his gaze.
He remained silent for a few long moments.
“I don’t want it to get easier,” he mumbled, finally, voice small and frail. “I- I killed someone. I don’t deserve easy.”
Roy heaved a sigh, all of a sudden reminded of himself when he was younger. He knew exactly where nonsense like this would lead to.
“Ed, if you keep picking at this wound and refuse to let it heal, it will fester.” He gently took the kid by the chin and made him meet his eye. “Don’t let it fester. It will kill you in the long run. Trust me.”
Ed opened his mouth, only to close it again. His eyes flickered down, and he swallowed, adjusted the hot-water bottle on his thigh.
“I trust you.”
A languid warmth spread around the cavity of his chest, and he pulled the kid in, tucked him closer until he could rest his chin on the top of his head.
“Good.”
Ed melted in his arms, a long breath shuddering out against the fabric of his shirt.
“Thank you,” he whispered, voice thick and heavy, and Roy tangled his fingers in golden hair, carefully smoothing out knots until the boy was near boneless against him.
“Of course, pipsqueak.”
The kid smelled like rainwater and blood, but he was so warm and pliant and safe in his arms, Roy found he just couldn’t bring himself to care about anything but giving him that at the very least.