Fic: There and Back (RoyAi, challenge response)
FMA fic response to kittu9's challenge. (Sorry about the no warning, but I didn't want to make a promise I wouldn't keep.) This is a Roy... of a new breed, even for me. Don't kill me?
There and Back
He is running a marathon, a marathon to the top, and it has taken too much from him. This one man race, run according to other men’s rules on other men’s terrains, has slimmed him to the barebones of existence, to skin, muscle and bones of ambition and determination. It has burned away the fat of his existence-the luxuries of normal, obedient life.
Down the road, he finds himself feeling less than human and wondering where he left the pieces of himself behind. When he looks back across the distance, racing back through his own memories, he finds them strewn between the milestones of his achievements, monuments of unnatural disasters.
First, security, left behind like an ill-fitting jacket at the door of Ishbar. Next, mercy, gone at the snap of his fingers, buried in the settling dust. After that, trust, whittled away with every new suspicion, restricted to only a cautious few and even then practiced with judiciousness. On and on until he is emaciated through self-denial and bloated with purpose.
How can his own self-destruction amount to the person he is now? How does subtraction become addition? How can disaster be so beautiful?
But she changes everything. When he sees her, he wants it back. He wants himself back. He wants to turn around, to retrace his steps, piece back together the parts that make Roy Mustang. He wants to be whole. But he has come too far to stop. Twenty-six point two-one-eight-seven-five miles of his life and with no idea how much of it left to run, how many more years he must sacrifice to its grueling length.
He wants to tell her all he feels, he wants to bind himself closer to her, but the words fill his mouth like ash. The race steals every labored breath. So he composes letters. Letters in his actions, letters in the monotony of everyday conversation, letters in his looks and glances.
He scribbles rambling lines of appreciation in his smiles, sonnets in his lingering gaze, confessions in his shared plans. His signature at the bottom of pending documents says he understands her efforts. His mustering to her aid betrays his concern.
These are his letters, signed with sincerity, hidden like tokens from a secret admirer.
When he asks her to come along with him, he imagines that he is writing a proposal to her, that he puts on paper the promise that one day he will cross the finish line of his marathon. That then he will turn back. That he will finally reclaim the pieces of himself. That he will discover all the luxuries of living.
He assures her that the journey back should be easy. He tells her “If this reaches you, wait for me.”
He wants to believe that the words “start over again” hold no terror for them.
She writes back through her frank gaze, through her confident, almost offended stance, through her proximity and her loyalty. She checks the little box marked “Yes.”
Roy Mustang is running a marathon, a marathon to the top, and it has taken too much from him. But there’s someone waiting for him at the finish line and he has every intention of meeting her.
Why do my titles suck?
There and Back
He is running a marathon, a marathon to the top, and it has taken too much from him. This one man race, run according to other men’s rules on other men’s terrains, has slimmed him to the barebones of existence, to skin, muscle and bones of ambition and determination. It has burned away the fat of his existence-the luxuries of normal, obedient life.
Down the road, he finds himself feeling less than human and wondering where he left the pieces of himself behind. When he looks back across the distance, racing back through his own memories, he finds them strewn between the milestones of his achievements, monuments of unnatural disasters.
First, security, left behind like an ill-fitting jacket at the door of Ishbar. Next, mercy, gone at the snap of his fingers, buried in the settling dust. After that, trust, whittled away with every new suspicion, restricted to only a cautious few and even then practiced with judiciousness. On and on until he is emaciated through self-denial and bloated with purpose.
How can his own self-destruction amount to the person he is now? How does subtraction become addition? How can disaster be so beautiful?
But she changes everything. When he sees her, he wants it back. He wants himself back. He wants to turn around, to retrace his steps, piece back together the parts that make Roy Mustang. He wants to be whole. But he has come too far to stop. Twenty-six point two-one-eight-seven-five miles of his life and with no idea how much of it left to run, how many more years he must sacrifice to its grueling length.
He wants to tell her all he feels, he wants to bind himself closer to her, but the words fill his mouth like ash. The race steals every labored breath. So he composes letters. Letters in his actions, letters in the monotony of everyday conversation, letters in his looks and glances.
He scribbles rambling lines of appreciation in his smiles, sonnets in his lingering gaze, confessions in his shared plans. His signature at the bottom of pending documents says he understands her efforts. His mustering to her aid betrays his concern.
These are his letters, signed with sincerity, hidden like tokens from a secret admirer.
When he asks her to come along with him, he imagines that he is writing a proposal to her, that he puts on paper the promise that one day he will cross the finish line of his marathon. That then he will turn back. That he will finally reclaim the pieces of himself. That he will discover all the luxuries of living.
He assures her that the journey back should be easy. He tells her “If this reaches you, wait for me.”
He wants to believe that the words “start over again” hold no terror for them.
She writes back through her frank gaze, through her confident, almost offended stance, through her proximity and her loyalty. She checks the little box marked “Yes.”
Roy Mustang is running a marathon, a marathon to the top, and it has taken too much from him. But there’s someone waiting for him at the finish line and he has every intention of meeting her.
Why do my titles suck?