Prompt 25 :: What if? :: "The Switch and the Spur"
Title: The Switch and the Spur
Author: colonel_bastard
Series: manga
Word Count: 6225
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Roy Mustang, Maes Hughes, appearances by Kimblee and Armstrong
Summary: What if the Ishbalan soldiers were the least of their problems? What if the desert itself was their worst enemy?
Warnings: rated for language, violence, and desert madness.
Any poor souls who trespass against us, whether it be beast or man
Will suffer the bite or be stung dead on sight by those who inhabit this land.
For theirs is the power and this is their kingdom, as sure as the sun does burn
So enter this land but heed these four words: you shall never return.
- The Raconteurs
Something tickles at the corner of his mouth, and on instinct, Roy reaches out with his tongue to quell it. To his horror, he disturbs the rest of a large black fly and that has been drinking his sweat.
Welcome to Ishbal.
They were all given a briefing on their new environment, but being warned about the flies doesn’t prepare you for the constant battle of keeping them out of your eyes, your nose, your mouth. These flies are different from anything Roy has seen in Amestris, like a house cat is different from a lion. Massive black creatures, their backs spiny and their wings beating so loudly that they sound like small engines. They seek moisture, and what better place to find it than in a camp densely packed with overheated soldiers who leak saltwater from every pore? The men swat at the air, growling and cursing as the swarms descend on them the moment they step off the trucks. Someone tries to make a joke about flyswatters being issued as a standard weapon alongside their guns. There are a few half-hearted laughs, but most of them are struck dumb as they take a good hard look around them, as the enormous reality of Ishbal sinks in and their first drop of sweat rolls down their backs.
- - -
He hears about the new trucks rolling in, and he wonders if Roy is among them. It’s funny, but Hughes has been here so long that he hardly remembers what it was like to be a fresh arrival. From his lookout post he can see the plumes of dust being kicked up by the incoming Amestrian vehicles. He remembers that much, can still remember peering out through the haze, trying to catch a glimpse of the landscape as it rolled by. I can hardly see anything, this can’t be right, it all just looks exactly the same. This was before he learned that it wasn’t an optical illusion created by poor visibility- it really is all just the same, as if some ill-tempered god had created a single patch of brutal terrain and set up a ring of mirrors so that it reflected itself a million times.
A particularly nasty fly nips his ear before he can swat it, and he feels a pang of sympathy for Roy if he’s down there. That’s one thing that will take some getting used to, and he would know. The whole damn thing takes some getting used to. He doesn’t know which is worse- the fact that he had to get used to it, or the fact that now he is. Ishbal gets a little deeper into his bones every day, and he fears that if he stays here much longer, it will start to feel like home.
- - -
So far, three different soldiers have cautioned him against rolling up his sleeves, explaining that he’ll lose more moisture if he leaves himself uncovered. Two men have warned him that there’s a leopard prowling the outskirts of the camp, and he’s lost count of how many times he’s been reminded to shake out his boots every morning. Roy’s been here three hours, and he’s already getting the distinct feeling that the land itself is trying to kill them.
This has to be paranoia. He gives a condescending nod to the warnings and amicably agrees to roll his sleeves down. Kimblee catches Roy’s eye and winks, jerking a thumb towards Armstrong, who looks spooked and wide-eyed as he is regaled with tales of snake bites and wild dogs. Roy looks down at the bitter earth, dry and cracked, rocks and sand. There’s no way it can be as teeming with monsters as the men claim. He thinks of the snipe hunt he was sent on when he arrived at the military academy, and he refuses to be so easily frightened.
Defiantly, he makes a promise to himself to never shake out his boots.
- - -
Baking in the yellow-red heat, Hughes can feel his wet, soft mind leaving his dry, hard body. Two separate beings, the man and the sentry, the one longing for rain and the other paying no heed to the sun. There’s a part of him that insists he is uncomfortable, but the truth is that he hardly notices anymore.
There’s a flash of movement in his peripheral vision and the two beings slam back into one, a terrified sentry that uses one movement to bring his rifle to bear while turning to face his enemy.
It’s one of those goddamn birds. They’re almost like Amestrian sparrows in size and shape, but their feathers are charcoal-grey, and their eyes- Hughes lowers his rifle and tries to laugh at the bird, but those eyes get to him every time. The eyes themselves are blacker than night, and each eye is surrounded by a ring of flame-orange. It shouldn’t be so unnerving, but the way they move, darting from stone to stone, their heads cocked and their eyes so cold and dark- goddamn it. No one will ever know this, but Hughes would rather turn around and see an Ishbalan soldier than one of those birds.
- - -
It’s supposed to be a reunion, but it feels like they’re meeting for the first time. Their small talk is on the subject of killing. Roy feels uncomfortable, like Hughes is some strange, fierce creature that has stolen the skin of his tender-hearted old friend. The physical changes are slight, but quite noticeable to one who knew him so well. Gone is the idle slouch, the crooked smile, and the playful shrugs of agreement. Here is a man who stands at attention at all times, whose eyes are constantly searching, whose tense posture suggests that he could bolt at the slightest hint of danger. It’s this goddamn desert- it’s turned Hughes into one of its own children.
Roy watches him carefully. His speech is more or less the same, and sometimes he even manages to mimic his old grin. He gushes over pictures from home, but although the sentiment is real, the enthusiasm is exaggerated. Under the facade, there’s a hardness that was never there before. There’s a bitterness in his voice, as though he carries acid under his tongue instead of spit, and the taste never quite leaves him.
They stand together on one of the higher ridges, looking down at the tidy rows of tents, in an effort to achieve some sort of privacy- an unheard-of luxury in these camps. You are shoulder to shoulder in battle and elbow to elbow when you need to take a piss. Your nose feels raw from the smell of men who need to conserve water and only shower once a week.
Hughes reminds Roy of the strange little antelope that passed close by camp yesterday. They seem not to acknowledge the omnipresent flies, but are acutely aware of them. Their skin shivers, giving the insects no landing place. Their tails flick relentlessly, chasing the tormentors away. Hughes is so similar, never once breaking conversation but somehow holding a dozen flies at bay. They land at the corners of his eyes and he winks them away. They land on his mouth and he twitches his lips to the side, and when they come to his nose, he simply snorts them off. Roy has not yet learned these habits and his hands are in constant motion, fanning at his face, batting at the air, almost shadow-boxing.
“Red heat today,” Maes sighs, his feet shifting restlessly under him.
“Red?” Roy squints in the over-bright sunlight. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“All kinds of heat out here.” Hughes gives him a sidelong glance, but looks away before Roy can read his expression. “Red heat, yellow heat, white heat. The red heat- like this- it feels bigger, heavier. The white heat, that’s when it feels like you’re under a magnifying glass. Yellow heat, not so bad. Almost mild.”
It’s Mustang’s turn to shift uneasily. It sounds too much like the mutterings of a madman, a hermit marooned for too long on the same unchanging island. He clears his throat and says, “I haven’t noticed.”
Hughes shoots him another peculiar look out of the corners of his eyes, and Roy reads it this time: pity.
Then Maes says, with all seriousness, “Don’t forget to shake your boots out in the morning.”
- - -
With the heat of battle and the heat of the sun, it’s easy to forget the little details. Roy has more important things on his mind and on his hands. The other soldiers are equally distracted, as they’ve gone from shooting at paper targets to human ones. They’ve seen blood shoot geyser-like from skulls centered in their sights. They’ve seen the strings of tendons dangling from stumps that used to be arms. They’ve heard human screams of fear and pain, a sound unlike anything they’ve ever heard before.
With all the blood and sweat and battle, it’s easy to forget something as simple as shaking out your boots in the morning.
Roy isn’t up yet. He’s lying on his cot, willing himself to be cool, willing his mind to focus on clean and bright things. Sounds all around, focus on those. There’s the soft grunts from the tent next door as Armstrong finishes his early-riser push-ups. There’s the distant clang from the mess hall as breakfast is prepared. There’s the screams of his tent-mate-
He sits bolt upright in panic. The other soldier- a corporal- is casting his boot to the ground in dismay. When it rolls to a stop, lying on its side like an overturned wagon, something comes crawling out. Roy has seen pictures in the manuals on desert living conditions, but this is the first time he has seen an actual, living scorpion. He had swung his feet to the ground, but now he picks them up and tucks them under him, sitting in a defensive crouch, watching in amazement as the corporal curses and throws his other boot at the escaping creature. It scurries out between the tent flaps, vanishing into the sand.
The corporal looks at the alchemist and growls, “That little fucker!”
Uncertainly, Roy says, “Are you all right?”
In response, he pokes his foot, probing the little red mark. It doesn’t look that bad to Mustang, and right on cue, the corporal shrugs, “Feels all right. Just surprised me, sir.”
“Undoubtedly.” Roy tries to sound like it wouldn’t have startled him even worse, and he casually swings his feet back down to the earth, doing a marvelous job of concealing the wince of anticipation as he fully expects to step on a whole nest of scorpions.
Within an hour, the bite will have turned black. Within four hours, the corporal will be twitching and foaming at the mouth. By nightfall, he will be dead, and Roy will shake out his boots every morning, as faithfully as a man who prays every sunrise.
- - -
The first crash sounds like a bomb. The camp is scrambling into action, overturning poker games as rifles are fumbled for, kicking over makeshift writing tables in the rush, everyone bolting out for a firefight.
Another crash and all eyes go to the ridge, fully expecting to see Ishbalans swarming over the crest and scrambling down the rocky face like beetles. They see no such thing. Another crash, no sign of the enemy. Hughes fumbles for binoculars and scans the ridge.
“Look!” He points. “They’re fighting!”
They’ve not quite mountain goats and not quite antelope. Hughes scrambles for the word from his reading-up on the wildlife of Ishbal- it’s ibex. They’re ibexes, two males, and they’re in the middle of something. Like so much in this godforsaken country, it’s a vicious counterpart to something meek and commonplace from Amestris. Hughes has seen goats butting their heads together, and now he sees the same activity taken to a brutal extreme. These creatures scramble to get the higher ground on their opponent, then throw themselves from the rocks to land head-first on their enemy. The enormous violence is what caused the crashing sounds- it’s the horn-to-horn impact, reverberating down the barren hilltop and echoing through the camp like a call to arms.
Soldiers gather and binoculars are passed hand to hand. Scarcely a full minute has gone by before people are placing bets. Something so exhausting and vicious shouldn’t last long, and they all hold their breaths in anticipation. Time drags by at such an agonizing rate that they’ve been staging races between captured lizards. This fight is the best entertainment they’ve had in weeks.
It goes on. Ten minutes. Twenty. The panting, bawling ibexes go again and again, throwing themselves at each other, hurling their bodies down from the rocks, smashing horn against horn. Thirty minutes. Forty. Their knees are bloodied from stumbling under impact. The roaring enthusiasm of the men has dwindled to a quiet that could almost be described as respectful.
At every crash, Hughes grits his teeth and shudders. The longer it goes on, the more raw his nerves become. Relentless, inexhaustible violence- and he realizes he has lost track of how long he has been out here in the rocks and the sand- and his hands tremble with longing to feel something soft- and if one of those goddamn birds flies by at this moment he might lose his mind. A flash of movement in his peripheral vision and he turns, a scream forming like a lump in his chest.
Roy says, “There you are.”
Maes says, “Yo, Roy,” and tries to hide the tears in his eyes.
The defeated ibex limps away and silence sweeps through the camp like a wind from home.
- - -
Even the alchemists have to pull their own weight around the camp. Mustang is a night sentry for the first time, and he hadn’t realized how absolutely dark the world can be. He has lived his whole life in the city, surrounded by street lamps and lighted windows. Out here, the sun goes down, and instead of rejoicing he finds himself praying for its swift return. Endless night, a million stars, and one moon that seems to hold its breath and fade away.
Deep and primal fear bubbles at the base of his skull. There are things out there, his instincts tell him. Go to ground. Dig deep and hide yourself. He remembers the animal flash in Hughes’s eyes- the desert brings out the beast in everyone. As the days stretch into weeks, Roy no longer thinks in words. He thinks in pictures- water, food, shelter- and in feelings- hot, cold, sharp. His senses have been heightened to dog-like clarity. He can smell every man in camp, he can hear every scorpion scuttling out in the sand, and the longer he stands here, the more his eyes adjust and he can see the world as deep and drowsy as a nocturne.
Now he knows why Hughes dreads this post. Every rustle out in the scrubby brush, every murmur of the wind, magnified a thousand times by the sheer size of the sky. He longs to hear footsteps and hears only the whisper of snakeskin on sand. Something screams in the distance, almost human and then at the same time absolutely not- it is something wild. The word wilderness did not truly exist for him until now, in this moment, as he stands a handful of heartbeats between the camp and the creature.
All at once, something is looking back at him.
He bolts into awareness, his half-focused gaze snapping back to clarity, his fingers already raised and poised to launch one of the bolts of destruction that has become as familiar to him as exhaling. There is long frozen moment where they simply look at each other.
It’s the leopard. She must have come down along the northern ridge, walking on velvet paws that made it impossible for Roy to notice her until the moonlight caught her golden eyes, causing them to flash in the dark. She is paused mid-step, startled into stillness by Mustang’s sudden movement. His fingers tremble, press together- and relax. He is spellbound, has never seen anything quite like her.
Satisfied that the human is no danger, the leopard goes on her way. She moves gracefully around the perimeter of the camp and Roy turns his head and then his body so that he will not lose sight of her. Her coat is yellow-grey and her spots are a black rosette pattern that ripples over glorious, undulating muscle. A heavy ache grows in Mustang’s heart. She moves like water, like liquid sunlight, sure of every step, afraid of nothing. She means him no harm.
Incredibly, he feels a tiny bit of respect for Ishbal. That this wretched country could make something so beautiful- it’s not something he would have ever believed.
Just before she fades into the night, the leopard turns to look back at him. They look into each other’s eyes, and the sleep-deprived alchemist would like to believe that they reach some sort of understanding. Then she turns and, without a sound, disappears, swallowed by the eternal desert.
- - -
It’s amazing how little time is actually spent in combat. Hughes had always rather imagined that going to war would be an endless battle, no time to think, running from firefight to firefight, pausing only long enough to reload. In reality, they spend a majority of their days simply passing the time. Lizard races, letter writing, gambling on anything that is remotely viable- going on monotonous patrols, repetitive drills, and the occasional trip to the mess hall. One of the worst enemies out here is boredom.
He and Roy have taken to patrolling the path between their respective camps, just for the sake of something to do and somewhere to go. Roy is changing right before his eyes. His whole body is constantly rigid with the alertness of a prey animal, his gaze always hunting, his ears practically twitching with the effort to hear everything all at once. Hughes wonders if he himself looks so wild, and then wonders if it would be such a problem if he did. They trot along a path of their own making, a pair of coyotes walking side by side with their goddamn tails wagging in spite of everything.
- - -
They meet on the trail and piss back to back, each being the eyes on the back of the other’s head. Roy smacks his lips and winces as the urine hits the sand and is sucked away, precious moisture that he is recklessly discarding. He wouldn’t be so bothered if it didn’t feel like he was just feeding Ishbal the poison it craved, making it stronger while he grows weaker.
“Almost heartbreaking,” he mutters.
“Hnh?” says Hughes, half-turning his head to listen.
“There it goes,” he shakes the last few acid-yellow drops off himself. “Too bad we can’t drink it.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” Maes nudges an elbow into his back, trying to hide the sadness in his voice. “Trust me.”
There’s too much pain in that admission, and Mustang decides to pretend that he never heard it. He’s had enough water trouble as it. Getting down to that last sip in the canteen, torn between drinking it and splashing it on the back of his burning neck. The sun here is like a sentient enemy- it sleeps at night, but every morning it wakes up and hunts him, reaching out and raking its claws across any skin he doesn’t shield from it. One canteen-full a day sounds like it should be enough in theory, but by the time you’re finished with your first drill, you could drink a whole lake right down to the sediment.
Even his eyes feel dry in this heat. He blinks repeatedly and wonders how it got to the point that even taking a piss would make him upset.
- - -
“I can’t stand those things,” Roy grumbles.
He gestures out at the rock formations in the distance, looming on the horizon like discarded statues. There’s something unsettling about them. Mushroom-shaped behemoths- gigantic boulders perched atop unreasonably small pillars. Armstrong explained that it’s the wind that does it, so that what used to be a solid column of stone becomes these peculiar monuments to balance. These rocks, these forces of nature, are being destroyed simply by being here. They are being eaten by the desert itself, dying an undignified death and being reincarnated as simply more sand.
Hughes doesn’t want to bother him with his opinion on the landscape, but the truth is, he prefers the rocks to the plants. What little flora there is, it gives him the creeps. Everything out here has a thorn on it. Absolutely everything, from bushes to flowers. Some of the plants are simply giant columns encircled with spikes. Some of these are so big and sharp that they can go right through the sole of your boot. He thought he’d found refuge once, spotting a scrappy little cluster of blossoms. A closer inspection revealed that every tiny branch was tipped like a spear. It almost broke his heart. They walk through a land crowned with thorns.
His hands itch to hold something soft. More than an itch- an ache. He puts one hand in his pocket, feels the photograph of his beautiful girl that he carries with him at all times. He puts the other hand on Roy’s shoulder, grazing his fingers against the side of his neck- but Roy’s city-soft skin has turned desert-hide tough.
- - -
“Look,” Hughes points into the distant sky. “A cloud.”
“It’s got better places to be than here.” Roy mutters.
Hughes says nothing, but Roy catches the nod of agreement. Far to the west, they spot a herd of antelope picking their way among the rocks, sniffing cautiously at the scrub. Roy can see himself as one of them- now he winks the flies away and sucks on pebbles, an act that increases salivation but gives him the appearance of constantly grazing.
A scorpion skirts by, a bit too close, and in a flash Hughes has thrown a knife. It bites into the sand, a fraction to the left of its target. Hughes curses and tries again- this one makes contact, and with a satisfying crunch the scorpion is crucified to the earth.
“Nice work, Captain,” Mustang applauds as Hughes retrieves his weapons.
“I’ve been practicing,” Maes feigns modesty, but the gesture was designed to impress and he’s clearly thrilled that it did.
“I guess they’re less than impressed,” Roy indicates the antelope, which are running for the horizon.
Tucking the knives back into his belt, Hughes comes to stand beside him, his eyes following the line of Roy’s arm and off the end, until he sees the animals racing away. Roy had thought they were just behaving foolishly, but from the way Maes’s eyes darken, he knows something is very wrong.
“If you ever see something in this desert running away,” Hughes growls. “Brace yourself.”
They turn and look over their shoulders, and there it is- a tidal wave of sand, like a sentient monster, rushing towards them, blotting out the sun. The sensation of helpless panic is the same as looking right down the barrel of a gun. Then Hughes screams, “Run!” and they’re scrambling down the hill, a desperate race to get to shelter before the storm is upon them.
The earth is too hard for such running- each step sends tremors of impact along Mustang’s legs, jarring his spine and cracking his teeth together. The air is too hot for such running- each breath is like swallowing cotton, his mouth getting drier and drier and his lungs getting smaller and smaller. He feels light-headed, from heat and exertion and sheer terror, as the rumble of the approaching wind builds into a roar behind him and he realizes they will never make it back to camp in time.
Hughes has the same realization and suddenly veers to the right, grabbing Roy’s arm and pulling him with him. He’s aiming for a small outcropping of rock nearby. He looks over his shoulder- Roy can see the whites all around his eyes like a horse smelling smoke- he looks back and has about two seconds to draw a deep breath before it hits. In those two seconds, Maes has yanked him in close, thrown his arms around him, and turned his own back to the storm as a shield.
The monster swallows them whole.
Everything is gone, the world is gone, it’s all noise and heat and dust. Roy tries to draw breath and inhales sand. He wants to cough but can’t. He dimly feels something being pressed into his hand, then his hand pressed against his nose and mouth. It’s that stupid handkerchief that everyone makes fun of Maes for carrying, like he’s so prim and proper. Now it’s the only thing that allows Roy to breathe in this inferno. He can’t open his eyes. Like a drowning man, he presses against Hughes, terrified that they will be torn apart and he’ll be lost and alone.
Maes has opened his jacket, and he fumbles to tear his shirt for something to cover his own mouth with. He comes away with a fistful of fabric that he immediately ties on as a mask. Then he puts his arms back around Mustang and almost squeezes the life of him, so desperate to hold onto him. Over the thunder of the storm, he can hear that Roy is calling his name. Sand is beating at their faces, trying to get in their eyes, their ears. The wind presses at them like a physical force, dragging them along the rocky desert floor. He opens his eyes a tiny bit and sees that the camp has disappeared.
“We have to get to higher ground!” Hughes is shouting. “We have to go! Come on!”
Roy doesn’t want to move. He’s absolutely stuck to the spot, but Maes gives him a violent shake and then they’re going. Hughes has taken off his jacket and tries to hold it over and around both their heads. It’s like trying to walk underwater. Each limb weighs a hundred pounds. He can no longer see the rocks they were aiming for, but he trusts Maes to lead the way. The ground underfoot goes from being level to sloping upward. The climb is unbearable. A gust of wind almost literally lifts him off his feet, and in a panic, he freezes, willing himself to take root.
It- is- fire. It’s like being consumed in flames- the roar, the heat, the burning sensation of sand ripping into his exposed skin. This is how they feel. This is how every one of them felt when he snapped his fingers and sent them screaming into the afterlife. He sees gaping mouths and melting eyeballs. Relentless, inescapable, the storm howls around him- Ishbal has snapped its fingers and turned on him with vengeful justice. Bile surges in his throat and he pisses his pants and wishes he were dead.
Then someone kicks his feet out from under him and he falls. Maes catches him, pulls him back against the outcropping that they managed to reach after all. Roy is screaming and sobbing and Hughes just tries to hold onto him, tries to shield him from so many things. He pulls his jacket over the both of them, settles back against the rock, and waits for the storm to pass.
- - -
They’ve gone hunting. A man can only eat so much hardtack and powdered eggs before he loses his mind, and when Roy put forward the idea of taking matters into their own hands, he received several volunteers. Hughes, of course, was the first to step up. Kimblee volunteered, his bloodlust waxing full and no sign of battle to sate him. A few lower-ranking men, including a young sergeant, offer to fill out the hunting party.
Armstrong had mentioned seeing something like pigs in the area- peccaries, he’d called them. The memory itself causes Mustang to wince- Armstrong is long gone, and it’s best not to think about the breaking of such a noble heart.
Camp is far behind them. Kimblee makes restless windmills with his arms, itching to lay his hands on something. Hughes has a knife at the ready. The others have guns, and scour the dry earth for tracks or droppings. Upon reaching a particular ridge, a fierce debate breaks out over whether to go north or south. Kimblee takes a few to the south, while Mustang, Hughes, and the sergeant go north.
The sergeant is poking among some brush, probing for hoof prints. Hughes speaks idly of Gracia, and Roy idly listens. Then there’s a sharp gasp of surprise and the sergeant rocks back on his heels, his hand pulled protectively to his chest. Roy spots a shadow gliding away over the sand, but then Hughes throws his knife and pins the snake by the back of the head.
They rush over and crouch on either side of the soldier. Hughes takes hold of the sergeant’s hand and turns it over, exposing the two puncture wounds. The sergeant says, “oh, god,” and Roy says nothing. The bite is already turning red, already starting to swell.
“Hold still, hold still,” Hughes commands. “Roy, hold him.”
He gets out a second knife and cuts into the bite. Then, with a quick look at Mustang for strength, he sets his mouth to the wound and sucks out a mouthful of poison and blood. When he spits the vile combination into the sand, he jokes feebly, “Finally got the taste of breakfast out of my mouth.” Roy tries to smile at him for encouragement, but he thinks of the corporal and the scorpion and he doesn’t feel that optimistic. The sergeant keeps asking if that fixed it, if he’s all right now. Hughes sucks out another mouthful and almost gags as he spits it out.
“You’ve got to keep still,” he insists, pinning the sergeant down to the earth. “If you keep kicking around like this, your heart will beat faster, and that’ll just make everything a whole lot worse. Just rest.”
The sergeant rests. Roy and Maes go look at the snake, bigger than they thought a snake could be. It has a triangular head and dusty-colored scales, born to be invisible in this wretched terrain. Then the sergeant calls for them.
A red streak has appeared on his arm, branching from the wound and growing towards his shoulder. Maes goes pale and says weakly to Roy, “It’s the poison, it’s headed for his heart, I didn’t get it all, it’s headed for his heart.”
“What do we do?” Roy can’t take his eyes off the wound.
“We need the- the- antivenom. There’s gotta be antivenom at the camp. Right?”
Roy shrugs helplessly at the same time the sergeant calls out for help. Hughes takes a look at the soldier, then says, “I can run for it. I’ll run. Keep the wound lower than his heart. I have to run.”
Then he’s gone, kicking up a trail of dust in his desperate haste. Roy knows what it’s like to run in this desert, and he only hopes that Maes has the stamina for it. They’ve come a long way out, and it’s a long way back.
In the meantime, they can only wait. Roy tries to make small talk with the sergeant, tries to distract with questions about home and family. It’s not working- the boy’s eyes are riveted to that red line, watching as it creeps, almost imperceptibly, closer and closer. Their little plateau becomes a vacuum, a timeless void, and Roy wishes the bastard would just die and spare him this waiting.
The streak reaches his elbow. The sergeant rolls his eyes heavenwards in a silent plea for mercy. Roy wants to slap him, tell him to lower his gaze and not shame himself with begging. There’s no one up there to hear him, anyway.
The streak reaches his shoulder. The sergeant starts giving Roy messages to give to his family, messages that Roy promises to relay although he has no such intention. He’s almost ashamed of himself for hating this man so much, but if you’re foolish enough to stick your hand in a snakepit, you get what’s coming to you. There are men dying in this god-awful desert that don’t deserve it. He hates the boy for being weak, and he hates himself for thinking that way.
The sergeant has died. Roy drapes his jacket over the face and torso, sparing himself the sight of a face contorted by venom-induced agony. He pulls Hughes’s knife out of the dead snake and cleans it thoroughly. He cleans the knife with the sergeant’s blood on it and kicks dust over the two puddles of blood and poison that were so valiantly expelled.
Distant, pounding footsteps- Hughes crests the ridge, barreling towards them. He sees the coat thrown over the body and slows down, his chest rising and falling at an almost unbearable rate of speed. His tongue lolls out of his mouth like an overheated dog, his jacket soaked through with sweat at the neck and armpits. He throws the antivenom packet to the ground and sobs, “Goddamn it!”
A bird cries as it cruises overhead. Roy stands at a respectful distance while Hughes chokes on his shallow breaths, his eyes too dry to cry, his heart too broken to feel anything but disappointment. When Maes has exhausted himself, they pick up the sergeant and carry him back to camp.
Hughes, carrying the feet, says, “I thought I got it all out.”
Roy, carrying the arms, says, “I know.”
They get back to the camp at the same time as Kimblee, who brings three dead peccaries. Fresh meat for dinner.
- - -
In the morning, Roy finds Kimblee skinning the leopard. He’s bragging to a group of admiring corporals that all he had to do was get his hands on it, then the fight was over. He has several deep, bloody gashes in his forearms- she fought back. “To the victor go the spoils,” Kimblee says with a razor-sharp smile, peeling that beautiful fur coat away from muscles that used to move like water.
It’s all Roy can do to suppress his screams of rage. By the time he gets back to his tent, the rage has turned to despair of unbearable depths. He lays down on his cot and focuses on the filthy canvas overhead. He knows that there are tears in his eyes- the moisture is as foreign to him as the idea of a warm bath or a soft bed- but he refuses to let them fall. They would only attract flies, anyway. If he keeps perfectly still, the surface tension will keep them safely held. There’s dust in his mouth and blood on his hands. He saw something beautiful once and he will never see it again. He flexes his fingers and ponders breaking them off.
He closes his eyes and tries to see the leopard. He sees nothing but the inside of his eyelids. The strength to remember anything good has left him.
- - -
Hughes stands lookout, swaying slightly with the wind. His eyes feel dead. Someone approaches, the footsteps unmistakable, a rhythm he knows better than his own heartbeat. Without turning, he says, “Yo, Roy.”
Mustang posts up next to him and surveys the emptiness. “Yellow heat today,” he sighs.
In a feline gesture of contentment, Maes rolls his shoulder in Roy’s direction- if they were close enough, he would have rubbed up against him. As it is, it’s an airborne gesture, like a wave or a beckoning hand. With a faint smile, Roy mimics the action.
They stand on the ridge. If they were coyotes, they might howl. If they were ibexes, they might knock horns in a play fight. As it is, they are men, and they are content to share the silence.
- - -
In a soft bed, Maes wakes up to next to his soft wife, and he can look into the crib and see his soft child. It is still enough to bring him to tears, and when Gracia wakes up, she sees him scrubbing helplessly at his eyes. She murmurs his name, kisses his face, and rubs his tired body with her soft, soft hands.
“Maes,” she whispers, sweet and thornless. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he sighs. “Nothing.”
- - -
On a couch in an office, Roy wakes up to the gentle prodding of his second lieutenant. Havoc looks away respectfully, mutters something about an impending meeting, apologizing for being so bold as to disturb his colonel’s rest. Mustang waves away his concern and reaches for the boots he kicked off before his nap. Taking them each by the heel, he turns them over and gives them a thorough shake. He catches himself in the act and freezes.
“Sir?” Havoc says uncertainly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he sighs. “Nothing.”
___end.
Author: colonel_bastard
Series: manga
Word Count: 6225
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Roy Mustang, Maes Hughes, appearances by Kimblee and Armstrong
Summary: What if the Ishbalan soldiers were the least of their problems? What if the desert itself was their worst enemy?
Warnings: rated for language, violence, and desert madness.
Any poor souls who trespass against us, whether it be beast or man
Will suffer the bite or be stung dead on sight by those who inhabit this land.
For theirs is the power and this is their kingdom, as sure as the sun does burn
So enter this land but heed these four words: you shall never return.
- The Raconteurs
Something tickles at the corner of his mouth, and on instinct, Roy reaches out with his tongue to quell it. To his horror, he disturbs the rest of a large black fly and that has been drinking his sweat.
Welcome to Ishbal.
They were all given a briefing on their new environment, but being warned about the flies doesn’t prepare you for the constant battle of keeping them out of your eyes, your nose, your mouth. These flies are different from anything Roy has seen in Amestris, like a house cat is different from a lion. Massive black creatures, their backs spiny and their wings beating so loudly that they sound like small engines. They seek moisture, and what better place to find it than in a camp densely packed with overheated soldiers who leak saltwater from every pore? The men swat at the air, growling and cursing as the swarms descend on them the moment they step off the trucks. Someone tries to make a joke about flyswatters being issued as a standard weapon alongside their guns. There are a few half-hearted laughs, but most of them are struck dumb as they take a good hard look around them, as the enormous reality of Ishbal sinks in and their first drop of sweat rolls down their backs.
- - -
He hears about the new trucks rolling in, and he wonders if Roy is among them. It’s funny, but Hughes has been here so long that he hardly remembers what it was like to be a fresh arrival. From his lookout post he can see the plumes of dust being kicked up by the incoming Amestrian vehicles. He remembers that much, can still remember peering out through the haze, trying to catch a glimpse of the landscape as it rolled by. I can hardly see anything, this can’t be right, it all just looks exactly the same. This was before he learned that it wasn’t an optical illusion created by poor visibility- it really is all just the same, as if some ill-tempered god had created a single patch of brutal terrain and set up a ring of mirrors so that it reflected itself a million times.
A particularly nasty fly nips his ear before he can swat it, and he feels a pang of sympathy for Roy if he’s down there. That’s one thing that will take some getting used to, and he would know. The whole damn thing takes some getting used to. He doesn’t know which is worse- the fact that he had to get used to it, or the fact that now he is. Ishbal gets a little deeper into his bones every day, and he fears that if he stays here much longer, it will start to feel like home.
- - -
So far, three different soldiers have cautioned him against rolling up his sleeves, explaining that he’ll lose more moisture if he leaves himself uncovered. Two men have warned him that there’s a leopard prowling the outskirts of the camp, and he’s lost count of how many times he’s been reminded to shake out his boots every morning. Roy’s been here three hours, and he’s already getting the distinct feeling that the land itself is trying to kill them.
This has to be paranoia. He gives a condescending nod to the warnings and amicably agrees to roll his sleeves down. Kimblee catches Roy’s eye and winks, jerking a thumb towards Armstrong, who looks spooked and wide-eyed as he is regaled with tales of snake bites and wild dogs. Roy looks down at the bitter earth, dry and cracked, rocks and sand. There’s no way it can be as teeming with monsters as the men claim. He thinks of the snipe hunt he was sent on when he arrived at the military academy, and he refuses to be so easily frightened.
Defiantly, he makes a promise to himself to never shake out his boots.
- - -
Baking in the yellow-red heat, Hughes can feel his wet, soft mind leaving his dry, hard body. Two separate beings, the man and the sentry, the one longing for rain and the other paying no heed to the sun. There’s a part of him that insists he is uncomfortable, but the truth is that he hardly notices anymore.
There’s a flash of movement in his peripheral vision and the two beings slam back into one, a terrified sentry that uses one movement to bring his rifle to bear while turning to face his enemy.
It’s one of those goddamn birds. They’re almost like Amestrian sparrows in size and shape, but their feathers are charcoal-grey, and their eyes- Hughes lowers his rifle and tries to laugh at the bird, but those eyes get to him every time. The eyes themselves are blacker than night, and each eye is surrounded by a ring of flame-orange. It shouldn’t be so unnerving, but the way they move, darting from stone to stone, their heads cocked and their eyes so cold and dark- goddamn it. No one will ever know this, but Hughes would rather turn around and see an Ishbalan soldier than one of those birds.
- - -
It’s supposed to be a reunion, but it feels like they’re meeting for the first time. Their small talk is on the subject of killing. Roy feels uncomfortable, like Hughes is some strange, fierce creature that has stolen the skin of his tender-hearted old friend. The physical changes are slight, but quite noticeable to one who knew him so well. Gone is the idle slouch, the crooked smile, and the playful shrugs of agreement. Here is a man who stands at attention at all times, whose eyes are constantly searching, whose tense posture suggests that he could bolt at the slightest hint of danger. It’s this goddamn desert- it’s turned Hughes into one of its own children.
Roy watches him carefully. His speech is more or less the same, and sometimes he even manages to mimic his old grin. He gushes over pictures from home, but although the sentiment is real, the enthusiasm is exaggerated. Under the facade, there’s a hardness that was never there before. There’s a bitterness in his voice, as though he carries acid under his tongue instead of spit, and the taste never quite leaves him.
They stand together on one of the higher ridges, looking down at the tidy rows of tents, in an effort to achieve some sort of privacy- an unheard-of luxury in these camps. You are shoulder to shoulder in battle and elbow to elbow when you need to take a piss. Your nose feels raw from the smell of men who need to conserve water and only shower once a week.
Hughes reminds Roy of the strange little antelope that passed close by camp yesterday. They seem not to acknowledge the omnipresent flies, but are acutely aware of them. Their skin shivers, giving the insects no landing place. Their tails flick relentlessly, chasing the tormentors away. Hughes is so similar, never once breaking conversation but somehow holding a dozen flies at bay. They land at the corners of his eyes and he winks them away. They land on his mouth and he twitches his lips to the side, and when they come to his nose, he simply snorts them off. Roy has not yet learned these habits and his hands are in constant motion, fanning at his face, batting at the air, almost shadow-boxing.
“Red heat today,” Maes sighs, his feet shifting restlessly under him.
“Red?” Roy squints in the over-bright sunlight. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“All kinds of heat out here.” Hughes gives him a sidelong glance, but looks away before Roy can read his expression. “Red heat, yellow heat, white heat. The red heat- like this- it feels bigger, heavier. The white heat, that’s when it feels like you’re under a magnifying glass. Yellow heat, not so bad. Almost mild.”
It’s Mustang’s turn to shift uneasily. It sounds too much like the mutterings of a madman, a hermit marooned for too long on the same unchanging island. He clears his throat and says, “I haven’t noticed.”
Hughes shoots him another peculiar look out of the corners of his eyes, and Roy reads it this time: pity.
Then Maes says, with all seriousness, “Don’t forget to shake your boots out in the morning.”
- - -
With the heat of battle and the heat of the sun, it’s easy to forget the little details. Roy has more important things on his mind and on his hands. The other soldiers are equally distracted, as they’ve gone from shooting at paper targets to human ones. They’ve seen blood shoot geyser-like from skulls centered in their sights. They’ve seen the strings of tendons dangling from stumps that used to be arms. They’ve heard human screams of fear and pain, a sound unlike anything they’ve ever heard before.
With all the blood and sweat and battle, it’s easy to forget something as simple as shaking out your boots in the morning.
Roy isn’t up yet. He’s lying on his cot, willing himself to be cool, willing his mind to focus on clean and bright things. Sounds all around, focus on those. There’s the soft grunts from the tent next door as Armstrong finishes his early-riser push-ups. There’s the distant clang from the mess hall as breakfast is prepared. There’s the screams of his tent-mate-
He sits bolt upright in panic. The other soldier- a corporal- is casting his boot to the ground in dismay. When it rolls to a stop, lying on its side like an overturned wagon, something comes crawling out. Roy has seen pictures in the manuals on desert living conditions, but this is the first time he has seen an actual, living scorpion. He had swung his feet to the ground, but now he picks them up and tucks them under him, sitting in a defensive crouch, watching in amazement as the corporal curses and throws his other boot at the escaping creature. It scurries out between the tent flaps, vanishing into the sand.
The corporal looks at the alchemist and growls, “That little fucker!”
Uncertainly, Roy says, “Are you all right?”
In response, he pokes his foot, probing the little red mark. It doesn’t look that bad to Mustang, and right on cue, the corporal shrugs, “Feels all right. Just surprised me, sir.”
“Undoubtedly.” Roy tries to sound like it wouldn’t have startled him even worse, and he casually swings his feet back down to the earth, doing a marvelous job of concealing the wince of anticipation as he fully expects to step on a whole nest of scorpions.
Within an hour, the bite will have turned black. Within four hours, the corporal will be twitching and foaming at the mouth. By nightfall, he will be dead, and Roy will shake out his boots every morning, as faithfully as a man who prays every sunrise.
- - -
The first crash sounds like a bomb. The camp is scrambling into action, overturning poker games as rifles are fumbled for, kicking over makeshift writing tables in the rush, everyone bolting out for a firefight.
Another crash and all eyes go to the ridge, fully expecting to see Ishbalans swarming over the crest and scrambling down the rocky face like beetles. They see no such thing. Another crash, no sign of the enemy. Hughes fumbles for binoculars and scans the ridge.
“Look!” He points. “They’re fighting!”
They’ve not quite mountain goats and not quite antelope. Hughes scrambles for the word from his reading-up on the wildlife of Ishbal- it’s ibex. They’re ibexes, two males, and they’re in the middle of something. Like so much in this godforsaken country, it’s a vicious counterpart to something meek and commonplace from Amestris. Hughes has seen goats butting their heads together, and now he sees the same activity taken to a brutal extreme. These creatures scramble to get the higher ground on their opponent, then throw themselves from the rocks to land head-first on their enemy. The enormous violence is what caused the crashing sounds- it’s the horn-to-horn impact, reverberating down the barren hilltop and echoing through the camp like a call to arms.
Soldiers gather and binoculars are passed hand to hand. Scarcely a full minute has gone by before people are placing bets. Something so exhausting and vicious shouldn’t last long, and they all hold their breaths in anticipation. Time drags by at such an agonizing rate that they’ve been staging races between captured lizards. This fight is the best entertainment they’ve had in weeks.
It goes on. Ten minutes. Twenty. The panting, bawling ibexes go again and again, throwing themselves at each other, hurling their bodies down from the rocks, smashing horn against horn. Thirty minutes. Forty. Their knees are bloodied from stumbling under impact. The roaring enthusiasm of the men has dwindled to a quiet that could almost be described as respectful.
At every crash, Hughes grits his teeth and shudders. The longer it goes on, the more raw his nerves become. Relentless, inexhaustible violence- and he realizes he has lost track of how long he has been out here in the rocks and the sand- and his hands tremble with longing to feel something soft- and if one of those goddamn birds flies by at this moment he might lose his mind. A flash of movement in his peripheral vision and he turns, a scream forming like a lump in his chest.
Roy says, “There you are.”
Maes says, “Yo, Roy,” and tries to hide the tears in his eyes.
The defeated ibex limps away and silence sweeps through the camp like a wind from home.
- - -
Even the alchemists have to pull their own weight around the camp. Mustang is a night sentry for the first time, and he hadn’t realized how absolutely dark the world can be. He has lived his whole life in the city, surrounded by street lamps and lighted windows. Out here, the sun goes down, and instead of rejoicing he finds himself praying for its swift return. Endless night, a million stars, and one moon that seems to hold its breath and fade away.
Deep and primal fear bubbles at the base of his skull. There are things out there, his instincts tell him. Go to ground. Dig deep and hide yourself. He remembers the animal flash in Hughes’s eyes- the desert brings out the beast in everyone. As the days stretch into weeks, Roy no longer thinks in words. He thinks in pictures- water, food, shelter- and in feelings- hot, cold, sharp. His senses have been heightened to dog-like clarity. He can smell every man in camp, he can hear every scorpion scuttling out in the sand, and the longer he stands here, the more his eyes adjust and he can see the world as deep and drowsy as a nocturne.
Now he knows why Hughes dreads this post. Every rustle out in the scrubby brush, every murmur of the wind, magnified a thousand times by the sheer size of the sky. He longs to hear footsteps and hears only the whisper of snakeskin on sand. Something screams in the distance, almost human and then at the same time absolutely not- it is something wild. The word wilderness did not truly exist for him until now, in this moment, as he stands a handful of heartbeats between the camp and the creature.
All at once, something is looking back at him.
He bolts into awareness, his half-focused gaze snapping back to clarity, his fingers already raised and poised to launch one of the bolts of destruction that has become as familiar to him as exhaling. There is long frozen moment where they simply look at each other.
It’s the leopard. She must have come down along the northern ridge, walking on velvet paws that made it impossible for Roy to notice her until the moonlight caught her golden eyes, causing them to flash in the dark. She is paused mid-step, startled into stillness by Mustang’s sudden movement. His fingers tremble, press together- and relax. He is spellbound, has never seen anything quite like her.
Satisfied that the human is no danger, the leopard goes on her way. She moves gracefully around the perimeter of the camp and Roy turns his head and then his body so that he will not lose sight of her. Her coat is yellow-grey and her spots are a black rosette pattern that ripples over glorious, undulating muscle. A heavy ache grows in Mustang’s heart. She moves like water, like liquid sunlight, sure of every step, afraid of nothing. She means him no harm.
Incredibly, he feels a tiny bit of respect for Ishbal. That this wretched country could make something so beautiful- it’s not something he would have ever believed.
Just before she fades into the night, the leopard turns to look back at him. They look into each other’s eyes, and the sleep-deprived alchemist would like to believe that they reach some sort of understanding. Then she turns and, without a sound, disappears, swallowed by the eternal desert.
- - -
It’s amazing how little time is actually spent in combat. Hughes had always rather imagined that going to war would be an endless battle, no time to think, running from firefight to firefight, pausing only long enough to reload. In reality, they spend a majority of their days simply passing the time. Lizard races, letter writing, gambling on anything that is remotely viable- going on monotonous patrols, repetitive drills, and the occasional trip to the mess hall. One of the worst enemies out here is boredom.
He and Roy have taken to patrolling the path between their respective camps, just for the sake of something to do and somewhere to go. Roy is changing right before his eyes. His whole body is constantly rigid with the alertness of a prey animal, his gaze always hunting, his ears practically twitching with the effort to hear everything all at once. Hughes wonders if he himself looks so wild, and then wonders if it would be such a problem if he did. They trot along a path of their own making, a pair of coyotes walking side by side with their goddamn tails wagging in spite of everything.
- - -
They meet on the trail and piss back to back, each being the eyes on the back of the other’s head. Roy smacks his lips and winces as the urine hits the sand and is sucked away, precious moisture that he is recklessly discarding. He wouldn’t be so bothered if it didn’t feel like he was just feeding Ishbal the poison it craved, making it stronger while he grows weaker.
“Almost heartbreaking,” he mutters.
“Hnh?” says Hughes, half-turning his head to listen.
“There it goes,” he shakes the last few acid-yellow drops off himself. “Too bad we can’t drink it.”
“You wouldn’t like it,” Maes nudges an elbow into his back, trying to hide the sadness in his voice. “Trust me.”
There’s too much pain in that admission, and Mustang decides to pretend that he never heard it. He’s had enough water trouble as it. Getting down to that last sip in the canteen, torn between drinking it and splashing it on the back of his burning neck. The sun here is like a sentient enemy- it sleeps at night, but every morning it wakes up and hunts him, reaching out and raking its claws across any skin he doesn’t shield from it. One canteen-full a day sounds like it should be enough in theory, but by the time you’re finished with your first drill, you could drink a whole lake right down to the sediment.
Even his eyes feel dry in this heat. He blinks repeatedly and wonders how it got to the point that even taking a piss would make him upset.
- - -
“I can’t stand those things,” Roy grumbles.
He gestures out at the rock formations in the distance, looming on the horizon like discarded statues. There’s something unsettling about them. Mushroom-shaped behemoths- gigantic boulders perched atop unreasonably small pillars. Armstrong explained that it’s the wind that does it, so that what used to be a solid column of stone becomes these peculiar monuments to balance. These rocks, these forces of nature, are being destroyed simply by being here. They are being eaten by the desert itself, dying an undignified death and being reincarnated as simply more sand.
Hughes doesn’t want to bother him with his opinion on the landscape, but the truth is, he prefers the rocks to the plants. What little flora there is, it gives him the creeps. Everything out here has a thorn on it. Absolutely everything, from bushes to flowers. Some of the plants are simply giant columns encircled with spikes. Some of these are so big and sharp that they can go right through the sole of your boot. He thought he’d found refuge once, spotting a scrappy little cluster of blossoms. A closer inspection revealed that every tiny branch was tipped like a spear. It almost broke his heart. They walk through a land crowned with thorns.
His hands itch to hold something soft. More than an itch- an ache. He puts one hand in his pocket, feels the photograph of his beautiful girl that he carries with him at all times. He puts the other hand on Roy’s shoulder, grazing his fingers against the side of his neck- but Roy’s city-soft skin has turned desert-hide tough.
- - -
“Look,” Hughes points into the distant sky. “A cloud.”
“It’s got better places to be than here.” Roy mutters.
Hughes says nothing, but Roy catches the nod of agreement. Far to the west, they spot a herd of antelope picking their way among the rocks, sniffing cautiously at the scrub. Roy can see himself as one of them- now he winks the flies away and sucks on pebbles, an act that increases salivation but gives him the appearance of constantly grazing.
A scorpion skirts by, a bit too close, and in a flash Hughes has thrown a knife. It bites into the sand, a fraction to the left of its target. Hughes curses and tries again- this one makes contact, and with a satisfying crunch the scorpion is crucified to the earth.
“Nice work, Captain,” Mustang applauds as Hughes retrieves his weapons.
“I’ve been practicing,” Maes feigns modesty, but the gesture was designed to impress and he’s clearly thrilled that it did.
“I guess they’re less than impressed,” Roy indicates the antelope, which are running for the horizon.
Tucking the knives back into his belt, Hughes comes to stand beside him, his eyes following the line of Roy’s arm and off the end, until he sees the animals racing away. Roy had thought they were just behaving foolishly, but from the way Maes’s eyes darken, he knows something is very wrong.
“If you ever see something in this desert running away,” Hughes growls. “Brace yourself.”
They turn and look over their shoulders, and there it is- a tidal wave of sand, like a sentient monster, rushing towards them, blotting out the sun. The sensation of helpless panic is the same as looking right down the barrel of a gun. Then Hughes screams, “Run!” and they’re scrambling down the hill, a desperate race to get to shelter before the storm is upon them.
The earth is too hard for such running- each step sends tremors of impact along Mustang’s legs, jarring his spine and cracking his teeth together. The air is too hot for such running- each breath is like swallowing cotton, his mouth getting drier and drier and his lungs getting smaller and smaller. He feels light-headed, from heat and exertion and sheer terror, as the rumble of the approaching wind builds into a roar behind him and he realizes they will never make it back to camp in time.
Hughes has the same realization and suddenly veers to the right, grabbing Roy’s arm and pulling him with him. He’s aiming for a small outcropping of rock nearby. He looks over his shoulder- Roy can see the whites all around his eyes like a horse smelling smoke- he looks back and has about two seconds to draw a deep breath before it hits. In those two seconds, Maes has yanked him in close, thrown his arms around him, and turned his own back to the storm as a shield.
The monster swallows them whole.
Everything is gone, the world is gone, it’s all noise and heat and dust. Roy tries to draw breath and inhales sand. He wants to cough but can’t. He dimly feels something being pressed into his hand, then his hand pressed against his nose and mouth. It’s that stupid handkerchief that everyone makes fun of Maes for carrying, like he’s so prim and proper. Now it’s the only thing that allows Roy to breathe in this inferno. He can’t open his eyes. Like a drowning man, he presses against Hughes, terrified that they will be torn apart and he’ll be lost and alone.
Maes has opened his jacket, and he fumbles to tear his shirt for something to cover his own mouth with. He comes away with a fistful of fabric that he immediately ties on as a mask. Then he puts his arms back around Mustang and almost squeezes the life of him, so desperate to hold onto him. Over the thunder of the storm, he can hear that Roy is calling his name. Sand is beating at their faces, trying to get in their eyes, their ears. The wind presses at them like a physical force, dragging them along the rocky desert floor. He opens his eyes a tiny bit and sees that the camp has disappeared.
“We have to get to higher ground!” Hughes is shouting. “We have to go! Come on!”
Roy doesn’t want to move. He’s absolutely stuck to the spot, but Maes gives him a violent shake and then they’re going. Hughes has taken off his jacket and tries to hold it over and around both their heads. It’s like trying to walk underwater. Each limb weighs a hundred pounds. He can no longer see the rocks they were aiming for, but he trusts Maes to lead the way. The ground underfoot goes from being level to sloping upward. The climb is unbearable. A gust of wind almost literally lifts him off his feet, and in a panic, he freezes, willing himself to take root.
It- is- fire. It’s like being consumed in flames- the roar, the heat, the burning sensation of sand ripping into his exposed skin. This is how they feel. This is how every one of them felt when he snapped his fingers and sent them screaming into the afterlife. He sees gaping mouths and melting eyeballs. Relentless, inescapable, the storm howls around him- Ishbal has snapped its fingers and turned on him with vengeful justice. Bile surges in his throat and he pisses his pants and wishes he were dead.
Then someone kicks his feet out from under him and he falls. Maes catches him, pulls him back against the outcropping that they managed to reach after all. Roy is screaming and sobbing and Hughes just tries to hold onto him, tries to shield him from so many things. He pulls his jacket over the both of them, settles back against the rock, and waits for the storm to pass.
- - -
They’ve gone hunting. A man can only eat so much hardtack and powdered eggs before he loses his mind, and when Roy put forward the idea of taking matters into their own hands, he received several volunteers. Hughes, of course, was the first to step up. Kimblee volunteered, his bloodlust waxing full and no sign of battle to sate him. A few lower-ranking men, including a young sergeant, offer to fill out the hunting party.
Armstrong had mentioned seeing something like pigs in the area- peccaries, he’d called them. The memory itself causes Mustang to wince- Armstrong is long gone, and it’s best not to think about the breaking of such a noble heart.
Camp is far behind them. Kimblee makes restless windmills with his arms, itching to lay his hands on something. Hughes has a knife at the ready. The others have guns, and scour the dry earth for tracks or droppings. Upon reaching a particular ridge, a fierce debate breaks out over whether to go north or south. Kimblee takes a few to the south, while Mustang, Hughes, and the sergeant go north.
The sergeant is poking among some brush, probing for hoof prints. Hughes speaks idly of Gracia, and Roy idly listens. Then there’s a sharp gasp of surprise and the sergeant rocks back on his heels, his hand pulled protectively to his chest. Roy spots a shadow gliding away over the sand, but then Hughes throws his knife and pins the snake by the back of the head.
They rush over and crouch on either side of the soldier. Hughes takes hold of the sergeant’s hand and turns it over, exposing the two puncture wounds. The sergeant says, “oh, god,” and Roy says nothing. The bite is already turning red, already starting to swell.
“Hold still, hold still,” Hughes commands. “Roy, hold him.”
He gets out a second knife and cuts into the bite. Then, with a quick look at Mustang for strength, he sets his mouth to the wound and sucks out a mouthful of poison and blood. When he spits the vile combination into the sand, he jokes feebly, “Finally got the taste of breakfast out of my mouth.” Roy tries to smile at him for encouragement, but he thinks of the corporal and the scorpion and he doesn’t feel that optimistic. The sergeant keeps asking if that fixed it, if he’s all right now. Hughes sucks out another mouthful and almost gags as he spits it out.
“You’ve got to keep still,” he insists, pinning the sergeant down to the earth. “If you keep kicking around like this, your heart will beat faster, and that’ll just make everything a whole lot worse. Just rest.”
The sergeant rests. Roy and Maes go look at the snake, bigger than they thought a snake could be. It has a triangular head and dusty-colored scales, born to be invisible in this wretched terrain. Then the sergeant calls for them.
A red streak has appeared on his arm, branching from the wound and growing towards his shoulder. Maes goes pale and says weakly to Roy, “It’s the poison, it’s headed for his heart, I didn’t get it all, it’s headed for his heart.”
“What do we do?” Roy can’t take his eyes off the wound.
“We need the- the- antivenom. There’s gotta be antivenom at the camp. Right?”
Roy shrugs helplessly at the same time the sergeant calls out for help. Hughes takes a look at the soldier, then says, “I can run for it. I’ll run. Keep the wound lower than his heart. I have to run.”
Then he’s gone, kicking up a trail of dust in his desperate haste. Roy knows what it’s like to run in this desert, and he only hopes that Maes has the stamina for it. They’ve come a long way out, and it’s a long way back.
In the meantime, they can only wait. Roy tries to make small talk with the sergeant, tries to distract with questions about home and family. It’s not working- the boy’s eyes are riveted to that red line, watching as it creeps, almost imperceptibly, closer and closer. Their little plateau becomes a vacuum, a timeless void, and Roy wishes the bastard would just die and spare him this waiting.
The streak reaches his elbow. The sergeant rolls his eyes heavenwards in a silent plea for mercy. Roy wants to slap him, tell him to lower his gaze and not shame himself with begging. There’s no one up there to hear him, anyway.
The streak reaches his shoulder. The sergeant starts giving Roy messages to give to his family, messages that Roy promises to relay although he has no such intention. He’s almost ashamed of himself for hating this man so much, but if you’re foolish enough to stick your hand in a snakepit, you get what’s coming to you. There are men dying in this god-awful desert that don’t deserve it. He hates the boy for being weak, and he hates himself for thinking that way.
The sergeant has died. Roy drapes his jacket over the face and torso, sparing himself the sight of a face contorted by venom-induced agony. He pulls Hughes’s knife out of the dead snake and cleans it thoroughly. He cleans the knife with the sergeant’s blood on it and kicks dust over the two puddles of blood and poison that were so valiantly expelled.
Distant, pounding footsteps- Hughes crests the ridge, barreling towards them. He sees the coat thrown over the body and slows down, his chest rising and falling at an almost unbearable rate of speed. His tongue lolls out of his mouth like an overheated dog, his jacket soaked through with sweat at the neck and armpits. He throws the antivenom packet to the ground and sobs, “Goddamn it!”
A bird cries as it cruises overhead. Roy stands at a respectful distance while Hughes chokes on his shallow breaths, his eyes too dry to cry, his heart too broken to feel anything but disappointment. When Maes has exhausted himself, they pick up the sergeant and carry him back to camp.
Hughes, carrying the feet, says, “I thought I got it all out.”
Roy, carrying the arms, says, “I know.”
They get back to the camp at the same time as Kimblee, who brings three dead peccaries. Fresh meat for dinner.
- - -
In the morning, Roy finds Kimblee skinning the leopard. He’s bragging to a group of admiring corporals that all he had to do was get his hands on it, then the fight was over. He has several deep, bloody gashes in his forearms- she fought back. “To the victor go the spoils,” Kimblee says with a razor-sharp smile, peeling that beautiful fur coat away from muscles that used to move like water.
It’s all Roy can do to suppress his screams of rage. By the time he gets back to his tent, the rage has turned to despair of unbearable depths. He lays down on his cot and focuses on the filthy canvas overhead. He knows that there are tears in his eyes- the moisture is as foreign to him as the idea of a warm bath or a soft bed- but he refuses to let them fall. They would only attract flies, anyway. If he keeps perfectly still, the surface tension will keep them safely held. There’s dust in his mouth and blood on his hands. He saw something beautiful once and he will never see it again. He flexes his fingers and ponders breaking them off.
He closes his eyes and tries to see the leopard. He sees nothing but the inside of his eyelids. The strength to remember anything good has left him.
- - -
Hughes stands lookout, swaying slightly with the wind. His eyes feel dead. Someone approaches, the footsteps unmistakable, a rhythm he knows better than his own heartbeat. Without turning, he says, “Yo, Roy.”
Mustang posts up next to him and surveys the emptiness. “Yellow heat today,” he sighs.
In a feline gesture of contentment, Maes rolls his shoulder in Roy’s direction- if they were close enough, he would have rubbed up against him. As it is, it’s an airborne gesture, like a wave or a beckoning hand. With a faint smile, Roy mimics the action.
They stand on the ridge. If they were coyotes, they might howl. If they were ibexes, they might knock horns in a play fight. As it is, they are men, and they are content to share the silence.
- - -
In a soft bed, Maes wakes up to next to his soft wife, and he can look into the crib and see his soft child. It is still enough to bring him to tears, and when Gracia wakes up, she sees him scrubbing helplessly at his eyes. She murmurs his name, kisses his face, and rubs his tired body with her soft, soft hands.
“Maes,” she whispers, sweet and thornless. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he sighs. “Nothing.”
- - -
On a couch in an office, Roy wakes up to the gentle prodding of his second lieutenant. Havoc looks away respectfully, mutters something about an impending meeting, apologizing for being so bold as to disturb his colonel’s rest. Mustang waves away his concern and reaches for the boots he kicked off before his nap. Taking them each by the heel, he turns them over and gives them a thorough shake. He catches himself in the act and freezes.
“Sir?” Havoc says uncertainly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he sighs. “Nothing.”
___end.