Multi-part production, [FMA]: "Symphonic Suite #1" (Roy/Winry)
...I forgot how to use the Internet for a second, there. f^__^;;
Anyway, in the end, this is that Roy/Winry multi-part thing that I promised Jenn. It's not done, obviously, but I decided to post the first two parts of it because Vel said she missed me. ^^;;
Also, I have only Roy/Ed icons, so I fail. *POSTITY POST POST*
Arc: Symphonic Suite
Movement: 01.) Mars, The Bringer of War
Conductor: devils_devotion.
Measure: It varies, but the highest rating is NC-17. At the request of my f-list, I porned.
Tempo: Romance, angst. ZOMG HET?! Quite a bit of introspect, too.
Tone: Roy/Winry. Needless to say, this is very very difficult for me to write. Watch out for other random pairing hints, because I have a tendency to do that. >.<;; You know, just throw them in when they're not wanted/not appropriate. *shoots self in head*
Rhythm: A symphony in seven movements. They say that mustangs can sense a storm brewing on the horizon.
Audience: cephiedvariable. Aside from Hime and angels_resolve, she is the only person I'll write multi-part fics for. Ever. By this I mean, obviously, "FUCK YOU, JENN, I WRITE WAAAAAAY TOO MUCH STUFF FOR YOU." -___-;;
Form: Well, there's END-OF-SERIES SPOILERS like crazy, and this is more than likely AU of the movie. Still avoiding the movie until a better rip of it comes out in, like, November. -___-;; Other than that, there's only the usual warnings for this fic: angstangstangstangst vaguely weird mindsets, angst. You know.
Accompaniment: This entire arc is based off of a symphony by Gustav Holst called "The Planets". This is the first movement: Mars, The Bringer of War. It'd be awesome if you guys would listen to it. ^____^
Back during his war days, they used to tease him for his ability to sniff danger out of any sort of air, but the truth of the matter was, during that vengeful night at the symphony, he hadn't been given any sort of warning sign at all.
'They say that mustangs can sniff a storm brewing on the horizon', his former commanding officer had once joked with him, a cheerful smile on his face. 'I wonder if that's the same with you? Will you toss your head and prance your feet with the incoming threat of rain?'
While it was true that Roy preferred to err on the edge of caution rather than anything else - too many of the King's horses and men had the tendency to end up dead - he disliked being associated with the sort of uncertainty that was reserved only for the elderly, or the weak, and so he set off into the military with wide eyes that were just that short of blind, determined to prove that he was unbeatable, and not merely some mouse of a man. He had been 21 at the time, fresh from the national academy and full of his braggart's ideals, and he recalled thinking at the time, I'll protect this country down the barrel of a gun.
After the war, that mantra quickly changed to I'm going to change the way this country is run.
He served under a colonel and didn't have any of his own men, but at the same time he had so many men, so many friends and compatriots and brothers-in-arms that he felt like through all of the dust and dirt and grime, that he might have finally found a calling he could name his as his own. He erred no longer on the edge of caution, but on the edge of the Fuhrer's swords, taking the man's words as his creed, following them in blind faith and destroying whatever targets were listed on his missions report for that day. Names and faces and lives were all burned away under the crisp clean of fire, and the distance and the gloves kept the blood from ever staining his pristine hands.
He wondered when it was that he, as the sheep, had finally realized that what he had been doing was nothing more than absolute slaughter.
He recalled a letter from Hughes. 'Man, Roy, we've really got our hands full up here with you State Alchemists. When you guys keep leveling these city blocks like you do, it makes it really hard for us intelligence guys to get in there and get the body counts. I've been putting in loads of overtime, you know - I hardly get to see my girlfriend anymore... Look! I sent you some pictures of her; isn't she the greatest...?'
'Hard to get the body counts'... Yes. He supposed that it had been. After all, fire left no traces of anything - it simply burned, burned, burned to the ground.
He was able to placate his most ruthless inner demons - the remnants of his conscience, as it were - with various tracts of knowledge; these people were the enemy (though how could they be, when their combined power didn't even give them the strength to stand a chance?), he had no choice but to follow the Fuhrer's orders (a Fuhrer with an All-Seeing Eye who smiled tonelessly with that serpent's tongue, though of course he didn't know it at the time), and strangely, the belief that his alchemy wasn't good for anything but death, anyway, so he might as well have made himself useful. Much of his existence was spent mourning the hollow path he was walking as a killer, but another part of him wondered, dismally, if he would be mourning another fate if he had lived his life an entirely different way. The military felt eerily like home, after all, for all of his initial awkwardness at that brisk snapping motion with his fingers.
For a fact, so much of his life had been born and bred from his experiences within the military - for better or for worse, he would leave up to the judgement of others beside himself - that he couldn't bring himself to hate the trials and tribulations that had taken place therein, couldn't bring himself to feel much more than an abstract pity for those he had wronged, and a desire to reroute the unrepentant criminals of the world. They all faded into each other; became a single sentiment, became "those terrible things I did during the war", and all melted away almost passively into memory.
Save that one thing.
He could recall a weeping boy clutching a rifle to his chest and feel only determination and an alienated pity - won't let it happen again - and perhaps that was because the boy had been the one to make the first move, had been the first to leap from his fitful crouch. It never quite dispelled the guilt, but it kept the same guilt from eating him alive; his goal now was to live, and to better the country from the inside out, and if he had allowed himself to be stopped in those bloody tracks some seven years ago, then what would have happened to those he had sworn to protect? Lieutenant Hawkeye? Havoc? And the other members of his staff...
Typically, his thoughts try to wander to Maes and Edward with that vein, but he won't allow it; Maes had his reasons, and how could he have known...? And Edward...Edward...
Well, Edward had never needed much protecting, anyway.
But for all of his faults, Roy had still kept his gloves on, kept his hands clean. They would forever smell lingeringly of charcoal, but it wasn't a scent he hated, and there were far worse things in the world. The flint never flaked itself onto his hands, after all, and the salamander array was sewn only with thread, and not with blood.
Yes...there were far worse things in the world.
'Orders?! On whose orders?!' she demanded, eyes wide with fright and horror and yes, even a small amount of disdain, stubborn and proud. Her blonde hair was long yet cropped neatly around her face, framing high cheekbones and curving around a slender neck. Her eyes were aquamarine fire.
'Brigadier General Gran's orders,' he had replied, quietly, the gun shaking in his hands. 'For the aide and assistance of enemy forces, you are hereby ordered to cease and desist all medical actions within this facility.' Traitorous to his hands, his voice was steady.
His voice was always steady. It was another thing he had learned, in the soldiering life - your actions may have spoken louder than your words, but a man was more likely to listen to your military strategies than to your heartbeat - and so he had kept his words calm, his tone steady, and his goddamned hands kept forever pinned to his sides. He didn't choke, he didn't curse, he didn't cry. If his hands happened to shake, then he could always release their tension by snapping his fingers.
'These are your own men, sir!' the man had shouted at him, voice hoarse - he, evidently, refused to play traitor to his emotions with his tone. 'We refuse to discriminate against who does and does not have the right to live! To ask my wife and I to shut down our facility will sentence hundreds of your own men to their death!'
'These are General Gran's orders,' he replied stoically, but his voice was growing weak and he found himself at a loss when faced with those twin heads of blonde hair, shining in the firelight like halos. They looked as though they were wet with blood. He considered telling the pair that they weren't his men, not really, but the truth of the matter was, it didn't sound right, no matter how many different ways he considered putting it. They weren't his men, but they were still men, believeably, and perhaps there really was no difference between the lives of a friend or foe...
When he spoke, his voice was steady again. 'You have a week. Please...use it.'
He remembered the orders, and the lies he had been told but vaguely, but one thing that he would always remember was the weight of the gun in his hands. If there was one thing in the world he detested, it was the harsh brutality of a firearm; the tasteless metallic clack of the chamber being loaded, the crackling bang and the disgusting reek of gunpowder as the bullet was fired, the resounding sting of recoil. His gloves were a sharp and snug declaration of his power to both his foes and his friends, and the flames that spiralled out from them forthwith were both distant and dulling, but a gun... A gun.
'I've never shot anyone before,' he confessed, and though it was weak, it was the last excuse he could think of, the last line of defense against the harsh brutalities of war, and he seized it like a golden opportunity. 'Perhaps you'll want someone who's more..qualified...for the job?'
And:
'Nonsense,' replied Gran, moustache appearing to twitch faintly in cruel amusement. 'They're doctors, after all. How much resistance could they possibly put up? Fish in a barrel, Mustang. Fish in a barrel.'
And though Roy had disregarded it at the time, his thoughts had run dangerously close, then, to I would rather be a fish than a sheep.
He had wanted very desperately to use his gloves, but to these people...these strange and kind and ridiculously idealistic people...he owed it to them to use the gun. It would not be a matter of business for either of them. They would not be yet another set of faces swallowed up by the flame, and so Roy had smoothed the oily metal of the revolver under his palms and swallowed his impending nausea. The mustang was getting skittish in the face of the oncoming typhoon - his voice shook when he spoke, and it was a far larger amount than 'a little'.
'B-By... By the o-orders of F-Fuhrer K-King Bradley and...and B-Brigadier G-General Basque Gran, the tw-two of you are h-hereby sentenced to...to..." and here he choked a bit, and attempted to cover it up with a cough - "...to death, on this day the...'
He read the execution notice stiffly, without any of his usual pomp or self-importance, and his hands felt raw and too-white, almost doughy in the sputtering light of a fluorscent bulb. The man started towards the dresser beside the two of them calmly, and though Roy watched his movements with strained eyes, he almost prayed for a fight, for an excuse to act in self-defense, and the woman watched him practically impassively from out of her brilliant sapphire eyes. She too was belied by the shaking of her hands, and by the tears that fell almost accidentally down her cheeks. Terrified, for certain, but she held herself high in the air and looked him straight in the eye, almost as if challenging him to stare back, to memorize the lines of her face in the same way she was memorizing his.
It was a terrifying look that had haunted his nightmares forever.
The man came back, something small and square cradled against his chest, and he held his wife firmly with his other arm. "You know," he said, almost calmly, "if you should ever meet my daughter..." But the rest of his words were swallowed in the impending gunfire from outside, too near and too loud in relation to their location, and Roy jumped, reflexively; squeezed his fingers on that relentless trigger - once, twice. He caught the looks on their faces, for certain, for an instant - startled a bit, understandably, yet strangely unregretful, strangely satisfied - and for the rest of his mortal life, he could not figure out what their expressions meant. Their backs were straight and proud even as he shot the both of them in the heart.
BANG!
Startled, Roy jumped and nearly fell out of his chair at the crashing of the cymbals, the crescendo of the bombastic Mars movement by the orchestra, that brisk Thursday evening, in the dimly lit symphony hall. He was currently enjoying a night out at the symphony with Lilith, the buxom brunette from Intelligence, who was at the moment giving him a rather strange look. He smiled and shrugged, though even his sheepishness was feigned, and she smiled back at him before taking his hand in her own and resuming her observation of the orchestra. Lilith was a wonderful date in the sense that she absolutely loved to be wined and dined, though she was made jealous very easily, as Roy had unwittingly discovered during his first date with her, during which she had nearly put him through the restaurant window for happening to make sultry eyes at the waitress.
Hence, the symphony. Lilith was rather fond of this particular movement, based idly off of some of the ancient Cretian gods, and while Roy preferred something more interesting than sitting in a chair for about two hours straight listening to obnoxious instruments clash loudly from an insufficient distance away, he had to admit that this particular suite was rather intriguing thus far. The harsh tempo of "Mars" reminded him rather unpleasantly of his own war days - marching in time to the beat of the drum - but Lilith's hand was warm on his own and he was still wearing his gloves, so everything was all right. The banging of the cymbals was nothing when he could see them, after all, and as long as he kept his focus on it, they sounded absolutely nothing like the discharge of a gun. For the next hour, he kept his eyes open and his thoughts low, and listened attentively as Mars was paired with Venus, who made way for the messenger Mercury...then Jupiter, the prime of youth and the climax of the piece. Lilith smiled at him, occassionally, and he could forget that harsh blue stare under the comfort of her comforting chocolate eyes.
Perhaps it was that false sense of security brought about from too many years of peacetime that dulled his reception to the impending danger, because if he had known what was going to happen during the process of intermission, then he would have been prancing like a pony in premonition before he had even left his seat in an attempt to stretch his legs. As it was, he simply stood, bent low for a moment to murmur in his date's ear that he was going to step out for a moment, and started resolutely for concessions, determined to feed the impatient growling of his stomach, though perhaps what he'd really wanted, in hindsight, was a chance to clear his thoughts.
Roy ordered a coffee and a croissant at concessions, feeling his appetite wan in the face of his memories, in the rebirth of his regrets, and he sighed, raking a hand through his hair and downing his coffee as he would cognac, desperate and unreserved. The beverage was gritty and lukewarm, and the croissant was soft around the middle; refreshments definitely not worth their cost, and he scowled at the smooth polish of the floor, unable to discern the sound of heels clicking on the tile from the automatic clicking of a reloading gun.
The sound of it made him shudder, inadvertantly, and he turned, quickly, with the intent to return his seat; his progress arrested, suddenly, as he hit solid flesh, and stumbled back a few steps, a somewhat embarrassing showcase of stupidity.
"Sorry," he apologized politely, shaking his head in an attempt to restore his cognizance, and looked up to catch his unintentional victim by the eye; froze, then, as the phantom of his complete and utter moral failing was thrust before his vision yet again - a slender neck, that swirl of citrine hair, and those brilliant blue eyes, as startled as they were the day he shot her -
" - sorry," he said again, and again; "sorry, sorry, sorry - " His eyes were wide, but he couldn't see, couldn't look past the dregs of his duty, and he leaned forward, clutching the counter of the concessions booth for support. "You've got to understand; I'm sorry, I am, but I had no...no... - "
'If you should ever meet my daughter...'
"Choice?" Winry Rockbell supplied, bitterly, eyebrows raised upon her forehead and mouth twisted in a cynical sneer, nearly unrecognizable in her strapless navy opera dress, with her hair pulled up into an elegant bun, and - dear God, could it be? - was that makeup on her face, soft gray shadow and sugar pink lipstick?
It took a moment, but Roy was able to recover, bending at the waist and breathing through his nose, focusing on the suspicious murmurs of the crowd around them, and he striaghtened with effort, jerking on his tie almost...awkwardly, clearing his throat of any and all cotton that may have taken up residence there. "Miss Rockbell." A distinguished nod, if only with a small touch of shame.
A returned nod, equally as stiff. "Colonel. Oh, I'm sorry, it's Brigadier General now, isn't it?" A smile that was almost as empty as it was cruel. "Congratulations on your new promotion. Maybe one day, you'll actually reach that goal of yours, eh?"
The words were sharp, and unnecessarily harsh, but it's no more than he deserved, really, and so, Roy attempted to shrug it off to the best of his ability. He couldn't stop staring at her face. "May I...inquire as to your presence at the symphony this evening, Miss Rockbell? A night of makeup and music seems most...nefarious...of you, if you'll beg my pardon."
"I'm not begging you for anything," she hissed, in reply, hands clenched into fists at her side, as though barely refraining from using them on the man's face. "It's unfortunate that you're here, as well, but just so you know, what's so impossible about me liking the symphony, hunh?! Even I can take the time to appreciate the niceties of fine art and high society, you know! Maybe I just like the symphony, had you thought of that?!"
And her eyes, ah, her eyes - they burn and blaze and accuse him of all of the atrocities that he'd ever commited when he was young, a fire so much brighter than the flare of his own flames - and Roy retreated under their glare; took a step back and flourished his hands, gracefully, the perfect picture of the polite gentlemen. "My apologies, then." A sort of awkward silence. "Are you...enjoying the symphony then, Miss Rockbell?"
"I was," was the tart reply, and Roy sighed, shook his head against the oncoming headache.
"It's dangerous for a well-dressed young lady to be wandering the streets of Central so late at night," he admitted, mildly; "did you come alone?"
It was more of a more as a stab at conversation than any stab at her capabilities, but of course, the young lady would just have to take it that way, as she snorted at him, derisively; "I can take care of myself, you worthless bastard, so don't even bother! I grew up without any parents to take care of me, you know!"
She attempted to brush past him, all stark pain and bristling fury, but without thinking he seized her arm, bent low to her contorted face, and said desperately to her frantic breathing:
"You look...lovely...tonight. You look like...your mother."
In an instant, her face went from furious to stunned.
"You're... You have no right to..." she breathed, shaking and nearly shrill, and yanked her arm viciously out of his weakening grasp. "Don't touch me!" she demanded then, loudly, and squinched her eyes shut to the intensity of his stare. "Murderer!"
The words were a slap to his face, drastically colder than the most freezing of rain, and Roy could only stand there, numbly, as the Rockbell girl whirled through the startled crowd, something vaguely recognizable as tears streaming down her pretty face.
- the bullet sends her pirouetting once, in place, and her hair is a brilliant carousel of blonde as she falls -
- and before he could even understand what the hell was happening, she had started running, a fleeting phantom with the speed of a frightened filly, composure cracking and pushing harshly through the crowd, sobs racking openly through the silent air, a whole new symphony of sorrow and war.
And peacetime must have dulled his reception to danger, because without a single moment of self-doubt or hesitation, Roy began to run after her.
( Next movement: Venus, The Bringer of Peace )
Author's Notes Upon Completion: ...The fuck. I was trying to upload this onto LJ one day and my disk randomly ate the last half of this fic, so needless to say, the parts I rewrote back in are...not as good. -__-;; Warui na. Either way, I hope that I'm writing this as plausibly as you'd all like, 'cuz let me tell you, this is a HARD pairing to assemble, and I really hope I'm not fucking it up. Input would be ♥s? ^___^;; *makes a hopeful face*
Anyway, in the end, this is that Roy/Winry multi-part thing that I promised Jenn. It's not done, obviously, but I decided to post the first two parts of it because Vel said she missed me. ^^;;
Also, I have only Roy/Ed icons, so I fail. *POSTITY POST POST*
Arc: Symphonic Suite
Movement: 01.) Mars, The Bringer of War
Conductor: devils_devotion.
Measure: It varies, but the highest rating is NC-17. At the request of my f-list, I porned.
Tempo: Romance, angst. ZOMG HET?! Quite a bit of introspect, too.
Tone: Roy/Winry. Needless to say, this is very very difficult for me to write. Watch out for other random pairing hints, because I have a tendency to do that. >.<;; You know, just throw them in when they're not wanted/not appropriate. *shoots self in head*
Rhythm: A symphony in seven movements. They say that mustangs can sense a storm brewing on the horizon.
Audience: cephiedvariable. Aside from Hime and angels_resolve, she is the only person I'll write multi-part fics for. Ever. By this I mean, obviously, "FUCK YOU, JENN, I WRITE WAAAAAAY TOO MUCH STUFF FOR YOU." -___-;;
Form: Well, there's END-OF-SERIES SPOILERS like crazy, and this is more than likely AU of the movie. Still avoiding the movie until a better rip of it comes out in, like, November. -___-;; Other than that, there's only the usual warnings for this fic: angstangstangstangst vaguely weird mindsets, angst. You know.
Accompaniment: This entire arc is based off of a symphony by Gustav Holst called "The Planets". This is the first movement: Mars, The Bringer of War. It'd be awesome if you guys would listen to it. ^____^
Back during his war days, they used to tease him for his ability to sniff danger out of any sort of air, but the truth of the matter was, during that vengeful night at the symphony, he hadn't been given any sort of warning sign at all.
'They say that mustangs can sniff a storm brewing on the horizon', his former commanding officer had once joked with him, a cheerful smile on his face. 'I wonder if that's the same with you? Will you toss your head and prance your feet with the incoming threat of rain?'
While it was true that Roy preferred to err on the edge of caution rather than anything else - too many of the King's horses and men had the tendency to end up dead - he disliked being associated with the sort of uncertainty that was reserved only for the elderly, or the weak, and so he set off into the military with wide eyes that were just that short of blind, determined to prove that he was unbeatable, and not merely some mouse of a man. He had been 21 at the time, fresh from the national academy and full of his braggart's ideals, and he recalled thinking at the time, I'll protect this country down the barrel of a gun.
After the war, that mantra quickly changed to I'm going to change the way this country is run.
He served under a colonel and didn't have any of his own men, but at the same time he had so many men, so many friends and compatriots and brothers-in-arms that he felt like through all of the dust and dirt and grime, that he might have finally found a calling he could name his as his own. He erred no longer on the edge of caution, but on the edge of the Fuhrer's swords, taking the man's words as his creed, following them in blind faith and destroying whatever targets were listed on his missions report for that day. Names and faces and lives were all burned away under the crisp clean of fire, and the distance and the gloves kept the blood from ever staining his pristine hands.
He wondered when it was that he, as the sheep, had finally realized that what he had been doing was nothing more than absolute slaughter.
He recalled a letter from Hughes. 'Man, Roy, we've really got our hands full up here with you State Alchemists. When you guys keep leveling these city blocks like you do, it makes it really hard for us intelligence guys to get in there and get the body counts. I've been putting in loads of overtime, you know - I hardly get to see my girlfriend anymore... Look! I sent you some pictures of her; isn't she the greatest...?'
'Hard to get the body counts'... Yes. He supposed that it had been. After all, fire left no traces of anything - it simply burned, burned, burned to the ground.
He was able to placate his most ruthless inner demons - the remnants of his conscience, as it were - with various tracts of knowledge; these people were the enemy (though how could they be, when their combined power didn't even give them the strength to stand a chance?), he had no choice but to follow the Fuhrer's orders (a Fuhrer with an All-Seeing Eye who smiled tonelessly with that serpent's tongue, though of course he didn't know it at the time), and strangely, the belief that his alchemy wasn't good for anything but death, anyway, so he might as well have made himself useful. Much of his existence was spent mourning the hollow path he was walking as a killer, but another part of him wondered, dismally, if he would be mourning another fate if he had lived his life an entirely different way. The military felt eerily like home, after all, for all of his initial awkwardness at that brisk snapping motion with his fingers.
For a fact, so much of his life had been born and bred from his experiences within the military - for better or for worse, he would leave up to the judgement of others beside himself - that he couldn't bring himself to hate the trials and tribulations that had taken place therein, couldn't bring himself to feel much more than an abstract pity for those he had wronged, and a desire to reroute the unrepentant criminals of the world. They all faded into each other; became a single sentiment, became "those terrible things I did during the war", and all melted away almost passively into memory.
Save that one thing.
He could recall a weeping boy clutching a rifle to his chest and feel only determination and an alienated pity - won't let it happen again - and perhaps that was because the boy had been the one to make the first move, had been the first to leap from his fitful crouch. It never quite dispelled the guilt, but it kept the same guilt from eating him alive; his goal now was to live, and to better the country from the inside out, and if he had allowed himself to be stopped in those bloody tracks some seven years ago, then what would have happened to those he had sworn to protect? Lieutenant Hawkeye? Havoc? And the other members of his staff...
Typically, his thoughts try to wander to Maes and Edward with that vein, but he won't allow it; Maes had his reasons, and how could he have known...? And Edward...Edward...
Well, Edward had never needed much protecting, anyway.
But for all of his faults, Roy had still kept his gloves on, kept his hands clean. They would forever smell lingeringly of charcoal, but it wasn't a scent he hated, and there were far worse things in the world. The flint never flaked itself onto his hands, after all, and the salamander array was sewn only with thread, and not with blood.
Yes...there were far worse things in the world.
'Orders?! On whose orders?!' she demanded, eyes wide with fright and horror and yes, even a small amount of disdain, stubborn and proud. Her blonde hair was long yet cropped neatly around her face, framing high cheekbones and curving around a slender neck. Her eyes were aquamarine fire.
'Brigadier General Gran's orders,' he had replied, quietly, the gun shaking in his hands. 'For the aide and assistance of enemy forces, you are hereby ordered to cease and desist all medical actions within this facility.' Traitorous to his hands, his voice was steady.
His voice was always steady. It was another thing he had learned, in the soldiering life - your actions may have spoken louder than your words, but a man was more likely to listen to your military strategies than to your heartbeat - and so he had kept his words calm, his tone steady, and his goddamned hands kept forever pinned to his sides. He didn't choke, he didn't curse, he didn't cry. If his hands happened to shake, then he could always release their tension by snapping his fingers.
'These are your own men, sir!' the man had shouted at him, voice hoarse - he, evidently, refused to play traitor to his emotions with his tone. 'We refuse to discriminate against who does and does not have the right to live! To ask my wife and I to shut down our facility will sentence hundreds of your own men to their death!'
'These are General Gran's orders,' he replied stoically, but his voice was growing weak and he found himself at a loss when faced with those twin heads of blonde hair, shining in the firelight like halos. They looked as though they were wet with blood. He considered telling the pair that they weren't his men, not really, but the truth of the matter was, it didn't sound right, no matter how many different ways he considered putting it. They weren't his men, but they were still men, believeably, and perhaps there really was no difference between the lives of a friend or foe...
When he spoke, his voice was steady again. 'You have a week. Please...use it.'
He remembered the orders, and the lies he had been told but vaguely, but one thing that he would always remember was the weight of the gun in his hands. If there was one thing in the world he detested, it was the harsh brutality of a firearm; the tasteless metallic clack of the chamber being loaded, the crackling bang and the disgusting reek of gunpowder as the bullet was fired, the resounding sting of recoil. His gloves were a sharp and snug declaration of his power to both his foes and his friends, and the flames that spiralled out from them forthwith were both distant and dulling, but a gun... A gun.
'I've never shot anyone before,' he confessed, and though it was weak, it was the last excuse he could think of, the last line of defense against the harsh brutalities of war, and he seized it like a golden opportunity. 'Perhaps you'll want someone who's more..qualified...for the job?'
And:
'Nonsense,' replied Gran, moustache appearing to twitch faintly in cruel amusement. 'They're doctors, after all. How much resistance could they possibly put up? Fish in a barrel, Mustang. Fish in a barrel.'
And though Roy had disregarded it at the time, his thoughts had run dangerously close, then, to I would rather be a fish than a sheep.
He had wanted very desperately to use his gloves, but to these people...these strange and kind and ridiculously idealistic people...he owed it to them to use the gun. It would not be a matter of business for either of them. They would not be yet another set of faces swallowed up by the flame, and so Roy had smoothed the oily metal of the revolver under his palms and swallowed his impending nausea. The mustang was getting skittish in the face of the oncoming typhoon - his voice shook when he spoke, and it was a far larger amount than 'a little'.
'B-By... By the o-orders of F-Fuhrer K-King Bradley and...and B-Brigadier G-General Basque Gran, the tw-two of you are h-hereby sentenced to...to..." and here he choked a bit, and attempted to cover it up with a cough - "...to death, on this day the...'
He read the execution notice stiffly, without any of his usual pomp or self-importance, and his hands felt raw and too-white, almost doughy in the sputtering light of a fluorscent bulb. The man started towards the dresser beside the two of them calmly, and though Roy watched his movements with strained eyes, he almost prayed for a fight, for an excuse to act in self-defense, and the woman watched him practically impassively from out of her brilliant sapphire eyes. She too was belied by the shaking of her hands, and by the tears that fell almost accidentally down her cheeks. Terrified, for certain, but she held herself high in the air and looked him straight in the eye, almost as if challenging him to stare back, to memorize the lines of her face in the same way she was memorizing his.
It was a terrifying look that had haunted his nightmares forever.
The man came back, something small and square cradled against his chest, and he held his wife firmly with his other arm. "You know," he said, almost calmly, "if you should ever meet my daughter..." But the rest of his words were swallowed in the impending gunfire from outside, too near and too loud in relation to their location, and Roy jumped, reflexively; squeezed his fingers on that relentless trigger - once, twice. He caught the looks on their faces, for certain, for an instant - startled a bit, understandably, yet strangely unregretful, strangely satisfied - and for the rest of his mortal life, he could not figure out what their expressions meant. Their backs were straight and proud even as he shot the both of them in the heart.
BANG!
Startled, Roy jumped and nearly fell out of his chair at the crashing of the cymbals, the crescendo of the bombastic Mars movement by the orchestra, that brisk Thursday evening, in the dimly lit symphony hall. He was currently enjoying a night out at the symphony with Lilith, the buxom brunette from Intelligence, who was at the moment giving him a rather strange look. He smiled and shrugged, though even his sheepishness was feigned, and she smiled back at him before taking his hand in her own and resuming her observation of the orchestra. Lilith was a wonderful date in the sense that she absolutely loved to be wined and dined, though she was made jealous very easily, as Roy had unwittingly discovered during his first date with her, during which she had nearly put him through the restaurant window for happening to make sultry eyes at the waitress.
Hence, the symphony. Lilith was rather fond of this particular movement, based idly off of some of the ancient Cretian gods, and while Roy preferred something more interesting than sitting in a chair for about two hours straight listening to obnoxious instruments clash loudly from an insufficient distance away, he had to admit that this particular suite was rather intriguing thus far. The harsh tempo of "Mars" reminded him rather unpleasantly of his own war days - marching in time to the beat of the drum - but Lilith's hand was warm on his own and he was still wearing his gloves, so everything was all right. The banging of the cymbals was nothing when he could see them, after all, and as long as he kept his focus on it, they sounded absolutely nothing like the discharge of a gun. For the next hour, he kept his eyes open and his thoughts low, and listened attentively as Mars was paired with Venus, who made way for the messenger Mercury...then Jupiter, the prime of youth and the climax of the piece. Lilith smiled at him, occassionally, and he could forget that harsh blue stare under the comfort of her comforting chocolate eyes.
Perhaps it was that false sense of security brought about from too many years of peacetime that dulled his reception to the impending danger, because if he had known what was going to happen during the process of intermission, then he would have been prancing like a pony in premonition before he had even left his seat in an attempt to stretch his legs. As it was, he simply stood, bent low for a moment to murmur in his date's ear that he was going to step out for a moment, and started resolutely for concessions, determined to feed the impatient growling of his stomach, though perhaps what he'd really wanted, in hindsight, was a chance to clear his thoughts.
Roy ordered a coffee and a croissant at concessions, feeling his appetite wan in the face of his memories, in the rebirth of his regrets, and he sighed, raking a hand through his hair and downing his coffee as he would cognac, desperate and unreserved. The beverage was gritty and lukewarm, and the croissant was soft around the middle; refreshments definitely not worth their cost, and he scowled at the smooth polish of the floor, unable to discern the sound of heels clicking on the tile from the automatic clicking of a reloading gun.
The sound of it made him shudder, inadvertantly, and he turned, quickly, with the intent to return his seat; his progress arrested, suddenly, as he hit solid flesh, and stumbled back a few steps, a somewhat embarrassing showcase of stupidity.
"Sorry," he apologized politely, shaking his head in an attempt to restore his cognizance, and looked up to catch his unintentional victim by the eye; froze, then, as the phantom of his complete and utter moral failing was thrust before his vision yet again - a slender neck, that swirl of citrine hair, and those brilliant blue eyes, as startled as they were the day he shot her -
" - sorry," he said again, and again; "sorry, sorry, sorry - " His eyes were wide, but he couldn't see, couldn't look past the dregs of his duty, and he leaned forward, clutching the counter of the concessions booth for support. "You've got to understand; I'm sorry, I am, but I had no...no... - "
'If you should ever meet my daughter...'
"Choice?" Winry Rockbell supplied, bitterly, eyebrows raised upon her forehead and mouth twisted in a cynical sneer, nearly unrecognizable in her strapless navy opera dress, with her hair pulled up into an elegant bun, and - dear God, could it be? - was that makeup on her face, soft gray shadow and sugar pink lipstick?
It took a moment, but Roy was able to recover, bending at the waist and breathing through his nose, focusing on the suspicious murmurs of the crowd around them, and he striaghtened with effort, jerking on his tie almost...awkwardly, clearing his throat of any and all cotton that may have taken up residence there. "Miss Rockbell." A distinguished nod, if only with a small touch of shame.
A returned nod, equally as stiff. "Colonel. Oh, I'm sorry, it's Brigadier General now, isn't it?" A smile that was almost as empty as it was cruel. "Congratulations on your new promotion. Maybe one day, you'll actually reach that goal of yours, eh?"
The words were sharp, and unnecessarily harsh, but it's no more than he deserved, really, and so, Roy attempted to shrug it off to the best of his ability. He couldn't stop staring at her face. "May I...inquire as to your presence at the symphony this evening, Miss Rockbell? A night of makeup and music seems most...nefarious...of you, if you'll beg my pardon."
"I'm not begging you for anything," she hissed, in reply, hands clenched into fists at her side, as though barely refraining from using them on the man's face. "It's unfortunate that you're here, as well, but just so you know, what's so impossible about me liking the symphony, hunh?! Even I can take the time to appreciate the niceties of fine art and high society, you know! Maybe I just like the symphony, had you thought of that?!"
And her eyes, ah, her eyes - they burn and blaze and accuse him of all of the atrocities that he'd ever commited when he was young, a fire so much brighter than the flare of his own flames - and Roy retreated under their glare; took a step back and flourished his hands, gracefully, the perfect picture of the polite gentlemen. "My apologies, then." A sort of awkward silence. "Are you...enjoying the symphony then, Miss Rockbell?"
"I was," was the tart reply, and Roy sighed, shook his head against the oncoming headache.
"It's dangerous for a well-dressed young lady to be wandering the streets of Central so late at night," he admitted, mildly; "did you come alone?"
It was more of a more as a stab at conversation than any stab at her capabilities, but of course, the young lady would just have to take it that way, as she snorted at him, derisively; "I can take care of myself, you worthless bastard, so don't even bother! I grew up without any parents to take care of me, you know!"
She attempted to brush past him, all stark pain and bristling fury, but without thinking he seized her arm, bent low to her contorted face, and said desperately to her frantic breathing:
"You look...lovely...tonight. You look like...your mother."
In an instant, her face went from furious to stunned.
"You're... You have no right to..." she breathed, shaking and nearly shrill, and yanked her arm viciously out of his weakening grasp. "Don't touch me!" she demanded then, loudly, and squinched her eyes shut to the intensity of his stare. "Murderer!"
The words were a slap to his face, drastically colder than the most freezing of rain, and Roy could only stand there, numbly, as the Rockbell girl whirled through the startled crowd, something vaguely recognizable as tears streaming down her pretty face.
- the bullet sends her pirouetting once, in place, and her hair is a brilliant carousel of blonde as she falls -
- and before he could even understand what the hell was happening, she had started running, a fleeting phantom with the speed of a frightened filly, composure cracking and pushing harshly through the crowd, sobs racking openly through the silent air, a whole new symphony of sorrow and war.
And peacetime must have dulled his reception to danger, because without a single moment of self-doubt or hesitation, Roy began to run after her.
( Next movement: Venus, The Bringer of Peace )
Author's Notes Upon Completion: ...The fuck. I was trying to upload this onto LJ one day and my disk randomly ate the last half of this fic, so needless to say, the parts I rewrote back in are...not as good. -__-;; Warui na. Either way, I hope that I'm writing this as plausibly as you'd all like, 'cuz let me tell you, this is a HARD pairing to assemble, and I really hope I'm not fucking it up. Input would be ♥s? ^___^;; *makes a hopeful face*