The finale of Nightmare

[nomdeplume13]

Two Years Later

Roy adjusted his glasses as he walked through the halls of Central Headquarters. He passed by various lieutenants, majors, sergeants and other military personnel. All looked at him with some mix of fear and respect, but none really looked at him as a human being. It was a persona he really worked to engender while in the office. It was easier this way.

His state alchemists generally knew otherwise, as he was now freer to find some enthusiasm in their research. He could more readily support them in their endeavors and as he was as high-ranking as he could get-barring the resignation of the fuhrer, and she wasn’t likely to give that up any time soon-he had no reason to try to guide their research to his benefit. As he’d found with Ed, it wasn’t necessary. On his own, Ed had shone.

His chest tightened at the thought of the young man. He heard from Al often enough, but rarely from Ed.

Reaching his destination, Roy was greeted by one of those who at least realized he was a living, breathing person.

“Heya, Chief,” Jean said wit ha broad smile.

“Hello, Havoc,” Roy said. “Is the fuhrer in?”

“D’you think I’d be here if she wasn’t?” Jean asked. The expression on the blond’s face told him the question had been a dumb one, since one was rarely without the other. “She’s in her office and expecting you.”

Jean opened the door and stepped inside with Roy. The blond woman behind the desk gave a smile. “Well, General, do you have your reports on the state alchemist program?”

“I do, as well as a complaint from Major Brocklehurst,” Roy answered. “It is his wish that you reconsider his title of the Goose Alchemist.”

“Remind the major that while I was not wearing my coat and insignia at the time, I was still clearly a member of the military and such behavior will not be tolerated. Tell him that if he should make a name for himself through exemplary acts I may reconsider it, though he should be grateful to still be a member of the military.”

“And alive,” Jean added as he put a paper on her desk for her to sign. His voice was calm but the threat was there all the same, though Roy wasn’t sure which of the two might have killed Brocklehurst first.

“You do realize that if he makes a name for himself as the Goose Alchemist, he’ll be too popular to ever change that title,” Roy said.

“Really?” Fuhrer Armstrong said with a wry grin. “I’d never realized.” It was quite obvious she had.

The woman’s posture changed from the rigid formal pose to a more relaxed position, chin resting on her hand. “So, onto less official things. I hope you will be attending the wedding this weekend.

Roy smiled. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it regardless, but I think I should be there if for no other reason than the fact that he kept his fiancée a secret.”

Roy had been more than surprised to find that the lieutenant that Anton de Havilland had all but chosen to overhaul the JAG department, who’d followed Roy, himself, down into the bowels of Xerxes, was engaged to Heymans Breda.

“Will you be attending?” Roy asked.

“She’d better be, or I’m without a date,” Jean replied.

“Even with the complaints about the two heads of JAG being in a relationship?” Roy asked. It was a good blend, with Heymans bringing fresh ideas and Janine Pierson, now a captain, as a familiar face who knew the way things worked best in the department.

“They were already in a relationship long before both became heads of JAG,” the woman said. “And besides, considering I’m living with my secretary, that would be a bit hypocritical of me.”

Roy smiled and explained that he’d need to head back to his office to finish off the last of the issues with getting the newest state alchemists placed in their proper programs.

To his surprise, Riza was at his office door, a faint smile playing at her lips. “Sir, you have a visitor waiting in your office for you.”

Roy was curious about the person on the other side of the door, for him or her to put such an expression on the woman’s face. That look was something he usually only saw when Al would call the office. Even more curious were the expressions on the two men standing behind her. Both Kain and Vato looked almost expectant at what this visitor might mean.

It wasn’t until Roy opened the door to find a smaller frame with blond hair long enough for a low ponytail looking out of the large, semi-circular window in his office. At hearing Roy enter the room, the young man turned his head, looking back over his shoulder.

It took Roy aback to see how tan Ed was, as his last memories were of a teenager whose skin was pale with a constant, though faint, gray tint to it.

“Hey, Bastard,” Ed said casually, though the fidgeting of his hands, two very real hands, belied the teen’s easy words.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Roy asked, shutting the door but knowing it wouldn’t stop the three outside from knowing exactly what would happen.

“Just thought I’d rub your nose in the fact that I’m not a dog of the military anymore.” Ed walked over to the sofa along the side wall. Sitting down, he put one arm on the armrest, the other along the back. It was an open posture so familiar to the old Ed and so unlike the one that had been wiped away in the blast. “But seriously, I think you can help me on a few things. Number one, getting my brother and Lieutenant Hawkeye-”

“Major Hawkeye. With the complete restructuring of the military, a lot of us got promoted up a few ranks.”

Ed smiled. “Major Hawkeye together. Al likes her and I’m sure it’s mutual.”

To anyone who watched her, there was no ignoring that Riza obviously had some feelings for the younger man, but it appeared that both she and Al were in some kind of frustrating denial. When pressed on it, Riza said that it was just something that formed out of a traumatic event, adding that there was too great of an age difference. It hadn’t really changed from when they first met, but it was more publicly obvious as the Gate had brought Al’s appearance much closer to his actual age.

“I was actually thinking the same thing,” Roy said as he went over to his desk and sat down. His hands took a steeple position, as though this was all once again old times, before the fuhrer’s defeat, before he got to know a totally different Ed.

“They’ll both be at the wedding, and it just seemed like the best time to get them together. Otherwise, I don’t think Al will get the nerve to do it. My father has even agreed to help.” That said something that Ed was willing to work on this with his father. “But we need you to help with Riza.”

Roy nodded. “I’ll do the best as I can.” The young man smiled, but said no more. What followed was a very uncomfortable halt in the conversation.

“So…” Ed looked up at Roy, his position on the sofa looking less confident. “The glasses are new.”

The general nodded. “But a step better than an eyepatch.”

“So the, um, blast…”

“It gave me back my eye, even if not at 20/20 vision. As I said, it is still better than an eyepatch.”

“I can imagine,” Ed said. “It’d throw your depth perception off, and the last thing I’d want is someone shooting off fireballs without depth perception.”

“I was getting better at it,” Roy said.

“Yeah, but at least now you don’t have to worry about it.” The blond fidgeted a bit, jiggling the leg that was partly crossed over the other. He moved his left hand over and looked down at his nails as though they were the most interesting thing in the world. Much more interesting than the dead silence that swallowed the room whole.

Roy broke the quiet. “What else do you want from me?”

“Well,” Ed said, moving so both his hands dropped and moved to his lap. “I don’t know if you know what I’ve been doing the last two years, but I sort of worked things out with the engineering firm so that Al and I were separated there for a while. He’d tried to tell me about those two months, but I just couldn’t believe it. The problem is, even though I eventually went back to working alongside him, when told him I thought it might all be a possibility, I still hadn’t really believed it.”

Ed looked up at Roy as though waiting for him to make some snide comment. It hurt that the young man was waiting for a jibe from him, but Roy kept his composure. He simply nodded.

“I really didn’t, but then I went into a cellar when we were in Rush Valley on a job,” Ed said. “I had a near panic attack. When I talked to Al, I was finally ready for him to tell me everything he could, but he said it wasn’t much. He suggested I talk to you when I came in for Breda’s wedding. He said we were close.”

“You sound like you doubt that,” Roy said.

“You didn’t hear the way my brother said ‘close.’”

The general chuckled. “Your brother’s imagination might have gone a bit overboard, but yes, we were close as more than just confidants.”

Ed fidgeted again, not really looking Roy in the eyes. “I thought so. I mean, I hoped not, but I kinda suspected from… other things.”

Roy dropped his hands onto the desktop, slowly waiting for elaboration, both to what the “other things” were as well as why Ed had hoped that they weren’t close.

“Winry and I tried to date and it didn’t feel right. Any of it, and I really wanted it to because it just made sense, her and me.” Even though the young man said it felt wrong, Roy couldn’t stop the feeling of jealousy at those words. “Then when I tried to think about what did feel right, you came into my head.” He ran a hand through his bangs and over his bound hair. “Nearly fell down from the top of building I was working on when that hit me. Then, I damned near pissed myself because it was a seven story building.”

The older man chuckled, but his expression quickly became serious. “So, you want to know more of what happened during the month after your rescue?”

“I want to know everything that happened, yes,” Ed said. “And everything that I told you.”

“You’re better off not knowing,” Roy told him without hesitation, as to tell the man there was no room for argument.

“The hell I am. I tried to go in a basement, Mustang. Just a simple dark basement and I damned near curled into fetal position the minute my foot hit the concrete floor. Memories might be gone, but obviously, the emotions from that time aren’t.”

He looked up at Roy, gold eyes uncertain but undamaged by all that was done to him meeting Roy’s obsidian ones. The older man knew he didn’t want to see that lost look in the teen’s eyes once again.

“I can’t do that to you,” Roy said. He remembered how broken Ed had been and he couldn’t go back to seeing the teen as a ghost of what he was. What if the memories were only repressed, if they came back if he told him? Or worse yet, what if they came on their own? And what if Ed wasn’t prepared for them when they did?

“You can’t just keep those from me,” Ed said. “Those were my memories, my experiences. You can’t withhold two months of my life from me.” He jumped up from the sofa and stormed over to the desk where Roy sat.

“And what if that was what the Gate wanted?” Roy asked. “What if the Gate wanted you to forget it all?”

“Then it would have erased everything. I wouldn’t have lingering feelings. It would all be nothing.” The teen looked at the General and shook his head. “You must be some kind of masochist.”

“What do you mean?” Roy asked, eyebrow raised at how easily the word “masochist” had rolled off of the young man’s tongue when nearly any thing sexual before or after the fuhrer would have turned the teen red.

“Keeping all these secrets from people. You kept my secrets from the fuhrer and everyone else and now even me. You must like suffering a little bit too much to be normal.” Ed had his hands on his hips and was not standing so close that when Roy turned his chair to look directly up at him, he could feel the heat radiating from the younger man’s body.

“You have been given a second chance, Ed,” Roy said. “Take it.”

“I’ve been given a fear of dark spaces, Roy,” Ed said putting particular emphasis on the man’s name. The blond was definitely trying to maintain his anger, but just the fact that he was using Roy’s name was enough to make the general want to smile at this very inopportune time. “Look, if you were dealing with a kid who was afraid of the dark, would you tell them the story of why they got so afraid?”

“Only if I didn’t think it would bring back the memories of what caused the fear,” Roy answered back.

“Look, if I don’t remember the fuhrer fucking me or Envy breaking my arm and leg from Al’s description, the memory isn’t coming back,” Ed snapped. “I want to deal with what the hell is wrong with me and I can’t do that while you’re pretending you’re banker to my experiences and want them locked in some kind of vault. It doesn’t work that way, Mustang. I deserve to know.”

“Not now,” Roy said.

Like a furious little bird, Ed puffed out his chest and looked defiantly down at Roy, throwing his chin out slightly in the process. He was ready to fight now. “You can’t just put me off-”

“Tonight, Ed. The last thing I want is for it to happen now. Right here at the office. It isn’t going to be easy for you to hear. Or easy for me to tell.”

Ed’s bravado deflated and he nodded. His hands slipped into his pockets and his face softened. He really was beautiful-though the other Ed would have denied it and this one would have smacked Roy for the thought-when he let his guard down.

“Okay. Fine.”

Ed looked down at the scrawled address on the paper in his hand. “And he talked about my handwriting all those years.” But Ed knew that really wasn’t fair. Roy’s hands had practically been shaking when he wrote it. Ed might have threatened to spit on them, but his reports never made his hands shake.

There was a niggling voice at the back of his mind that questioned just what it was that made Roy’s hands shudder on the scrap of paper. Was it fear of what he’d have to tell Ed or was it being around Ed because of whatever it was they’d shared? Ed swallowed; his mouth and throat were suddenly very dry.

Ed looked up at the brick house. There was an overwhelming feeling of safety when he opened the front gate and headed up the steps leading to the large but obviously unused porch. There were some ugly metal ornaments put on the house that vaguely resembled gargoyles, and it was obvious, looking at the neighbors’ homes they were not appreciated. Ed smirked. This seemed like just the kind of thing he’d do if he lived in a hoity-toity neighborhood like this one.

His right hand rapped at the door. It still struck him as strange that his hand no longer made a harsh, metallic sound. That fact remained strong in his mind as he’d seen Wrath just a few days before getting a tune-up at Winry’s. The little brat was getting to be a teen and growing by leaps and bounds. Not to mention the fact he always seemed to do something to his automail to require a special trip to Risembool to visit Winry for a repair. Ed wasn’t blind to see that Wrath did it in order to see his mechanic just a bit more often than he might have otherwise or that he’d been considerably less hostile toward Ed since he and Winry had split up.

The door opened soon after as the older man warily looked down at Ed-though not by as much as he once had, since the Gate had corrected the automail and his growth it had stunted. “Come in,” Roy said, stepping aside to let Ed into the house. The glasses were something the teen would have to get used to. The coppery oval frames worked well against the man’s pale skin, Ed supposed. He just wasn’t used to them being there. But when the other option was Roy missing an eye and covering half his face-Ed had seen the news photos of the man to know the type of patch he’d adopted-glasses were an improvement.

He noticed there was the faintest dusting of gray hairs now mixed with the black. Ed had found some in his own hair, which wasn’t a huge surprise now that he’d accepted he’d gone through, well, what he’d gone through. He assumed the light hairs were present for the same reason in the older man.

With a small nod, the Ed stepped into the house. Again, he couldn’t necessarily say he remembered it, but like before, there was the sense of familiarity.

“Did you want something to eat? To drink?” Roy asked.

Ed had shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid having them fidget as they did when he was nervous. “Do you have scotch?”

“Scotch?” There was surprise written on the man’s face.

“What? I’m legal now,” Ed said. “And if you hang out with construction crews and contractors, you’ve got to find something to drink if you don’t like beer.” His nose wrinkled and a frown appeared on his face. “Looks and smells like piss. It’s right up there with milk for me.”

“Yes, I have Scotch,” Roy said. “Though some beers aren’t so bad.”

“You can have them,” Ed said dismissing the possibility there could be a good beer in existence. As with milk, he’d made up his mind he didn’t want to drink it.

Ed watched the man’s hands, still so uncertain in their movements as he got their drinks ready. He resisted the part of him that wanted to just help Roy put the ice in the glasses and pour the Scotch.

Taking the glass from the older man, fingers brushed against fingers, a small, nervous smile matched another then faded as they both remembered what they were about to talk about.

“Okay then,” Roy said, sitting down in the library/study. Ed had a feeling this had been his room while staying there. He could practically map out the place by memory, yet couldn’t really remember having ever seen it before. “So, you want to know everything. Where would you want me to start?”

“With whatever’s easiest. We can kind of work our ways to the harder stuff.”

Roy nodded and as though trying to plow on ahead in nearly Ed-like fashion, began talking. He started with the events involving Anton de Havilland, though Ed knew much of this thanks to his encounters with Wrath of the last two years. He then moved on to their house arrest and confirmed it had been the library that had been converted into a sick room for Ed. His voice remained steady for much of this part of what he had to say, though he still had some anger in his voice at mention of the captain now revered in Amestris for atoning his own sins.

Still, there was no mention of the two of them together, no talk of a relationship. Even a friendship.

The young man laughed as Roy told of an embarrassing strip tease when he’d had an unfortunate reaction to his medication and how he’d feared he’d traumatized Ed after all he’d just been through.

And seemed to be an easy transition, or as close to easy as it would get, on how he found Ed and of what Ed told him.

Ed could hardly believe some of what Roy told him and a good portion more he simply didn’t want to. As Roy carefully recounted details of how the former fuhrer had used and abused him, how Envy had tormented him. He had a visceral reaction more than once and actually had to vomit when hearing a story of how the homunculus had involved cutting and blood into sex.

There were a few times he thought Roy might actually leave the room as he had because it was quite obvious that just thinking about, let alone talking about, what Ed had been put through made him physically sick, but he made it through to the end.

For some time after Roy stopped, they sat, Roy looking down at the floor, Ed staring at the wall blankly.

After they’d been sitting quietly for a while, letting the scotch continue to warm their bodies, Roy finally spoke again. “I don’t know if there was any more. But I swear that was all you told me.”

“That’s… more than enough,” Ed said.

The dark head turned. “You didn’t want to listen to me. I told you that-”

“I don’t regret knowing, Roy,” the blond told him. “I’m just trying to take it all in.”

As his mind worked to process what Roy had told him, he did notice what the man hadn’t told him. Roy had said nothing about how “close” they were, Ed sat, watching and waiting. His mouth had once again gone painfully dry, the lingering mix of scotch and heavy mouthwash on his tongue, which was not a combination he’d recommend to anyone.

His eyes darted away when he felt the dark ones on him. Ed didn’t feel any different, didn’t remember any more than before. It was like being told something he’d done as a child long before he was old enough to remember it later in life. It was like, “You used to love to sit on your father’s shoulder, Ed.” Only, this time it was, “You were raped and tortured so severely that we thought you’d never come back to us.”

“I shouldn’t have told you all this,” Roy said, downing what had to be his fourth glass of Scotch, though he could have gotten another one while Ed was running to the bathroom.

“No,” Ed told the man. Again. “I’m glad you did. I don’t remember any more than I did before, but I feel better for knowing.” He looked up and saw a tear on the older man’s cheek. He’d never expected for Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist, gift to all women-and apparently men also-would cry for him. Cry at all, really.

“Mustang?” There was no response. “Roy?” This time, there was. Dark eyes looked up at him and Ed felt it was time to take the alcohol away. “I really am glad you told me.” His hand reached out for the small glass that held only ice now. Taking it, he placed it on a table nearby.

He had hoped he was wrong, certain that Roy would hurt him because what had passed between them must have been pity, but it seemed that right now, the blond wasn’t the one who was in pain. Ed’s loss of memory hurt Roy, and the older man had been more than just a confidante. Whatever had passed between them, whatever it was that Roy still wouldn’t talk about, it wasn’t just some kind of empathy for Ed.

And Ed’s feelings were not just leftovers of memories long gone. That realization was nearly as surprising as when he’d realized they existed in the first place.

“So, what… what happened between us?”

“We talked.”

“Did more than talked, I think,” Ed said.

“We comforted one another,” Roy said.

With a faint growl, Ed looked at him. “I know we did more than that. You all but said so yourself.”

He watched as the older man took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “A few kisses. That’s all.”

Ed nodded and moved just a bit closer to the older man, unconsciously. There was a brief moment of silence as he worked to get up the nerve to ask his next question. “And would you like to start again? I mean, is that something you’d really want if it could happen?”

Roy looked over at Ed, and though the teen was certain that the man might not have been so quick to answer if there had been a little less alcohol in his system, the dark head bobbed once in a nod.

Moving again, consciously this time, he pressed his leg to Roy’s so they were now sitting side by side and reached a hand over to the older man’s cheek before leaning in for a quick, very chaste kiss. He smirked as he saw Roy’s dark eyes grow impossibly wide, highlighting the faint remainder of scarring on the eyelid and cheekbone.

“Like I said. I figured out you felt right, even without all of that history or the feelings of obligation because you helped me through everything. Winry didn’t feel right. Even when I tried thinking of anyone else, it didn’t either. So… is there any need for freelance alchemists here in Central? Because I think I’d like to stick around for a bit, and I’m hoping to keep Al here too once we get it through his thick skull that he and Riza should be together.”
“I think something can be arranged,” the older man said. He smiled a smile went all the way up to his eyes and lit up the pale face. Ed secretly hoped that he’d see that a bit more often because it was beautiful.