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batsutousaiTitle: Burning All the Bridges
Series: Come Hell or High Water
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/manga
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Gracia Hughes/Maes Hughes/Roy Mustang
Warnings: Pirate AU, polyamory, canon-typical violence, mind control, character death, angst, loss, Ed's potty mouth
Summary: The shadows of the military were far more terrifying than any of them could have guessed, and Team Mustang is forced to run for their lives, and the lives of those they hold most dear.
Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: For day 2 of the FMA Polyship Week on tumblr. This day's prompts included the theme of Battle, imagine your polyship on the run, and the dialogue prompt "This is one fight I'm not getting involved in." Which resulted in this foolery.
I did warn you people to watch out for more of this stupid AU, dammit.
Kudos to Guest+Princess on AO3, who was the one to suggest the series title. I put it up on twitter and tumblr for people to vote between my idea and this one, and this is the one that most people seemed to like. (It's growing on me, tbh.)
This sort of explains why Team Mustang are stuck playing pirates, because backstory is...something. Also, I accidentally headcanoned Gracia/Maes/Roy while I was working on Sun Over the Yardarm, and this IS Polyship Week, so...
*coughs and pointedly throws the canon timeline out the window* I'm going to hate myself later for doing that, because I'm spastic about my calendars, but some character backstories are just different enough to fuck with it anyway, so... (Why do I do this shit to myself? *glowers at muse*)
I blame the fucking US election for how late this is. Pre-election stress and post-election depression conspired. The fact that this fic ends with Team Mustang running away from the bad guys because there's no way for them to win doesn't help. :/
You can also read this at Archive of Our Own, Fanfiction.Net, or tumblr.
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Edward had always suffered fainting spells, ever since before he joined the military, and it had been a massive joke around the office for years – unsurprisingly, he'd never found it funny; Roy was just glad he'd never realised he could pretend to faint into someone's arms and brain them with his automail as payback for making fun of him.
Now, not three hours after their move to Central City, Roy had ceased to find anything amusing about it, and he doubted the rest of his team were enjoying themselves, either, as Edward was laid out on the hospital bed next to Roy's, while the armour hosting his brother, Alphonse, was still in the car, likely still nonresponsive.
Edward had suffered a fainting spell shortly after they'd stepped off the train, and Roy had sighed and told Alphonse they'd drop him by the dorms on their way in, so he could get a room for Edward to sleep it off in. But Alphonse had sort of...faded out, almost, after about ten minutes in the car, and Roy had started feeling dizzy by the time they'd reached the dorms. When he'd got out to try and help Riza wake one of the brothers, he'd felt a little unsteady, and when he'd touched Edward's shoulder, he'd collapsed. When he'd regained consciousness, he was back in the passenger seat, and the military hospital was just coming into view through the windscreen.
"There's no reason I can discern for your fainting, Colonel," the doctor informed him with a helpless shrug. "There's also no apparent cause behind Major Elric's unconsciousness, but we've been unable to wake him."
"I see," Roy murmured, rubbing tiredly at his eyes and trying to convince himself it wasn't because he was suffering vertigo when they were open.
"However, sir, given your continued dizziness, I'm going to have to prescribe you bedrest. If you have somewhere to go – preferably with a friend who can check up on you regularly – I'm willing to release you from hospital."
Well, Roy had already intended to stay with Maes and Gracia as long as socially acceptable, so that wasn't an issue. Still... "Lieutenant," he murmured.
"Sir?" Riza was quick to respond, the movement of boots against the linoleum telling him she had stepped closer.
"Please ring Gracia. And tell her not to ring Hughes."
"Of course, sir," she agreed, the faintest hint of amusement in her voice, before moving away, another set of footsteps suggesting the doctor was following her out.
Roy sighed and carefully laid back against his pillows, leaving one hand resting across his eyes. "I'm sorry, Ed," he whispered into the silence of the room, because he knew, now, exactly how miserable Edward must have been. Or, well, he certainly had a better idea, and he hated himself – all of them, really – a bit for making such light of the issue. Though, when the doctors couldn't find anything wrong... And Alphonse said the spells had started after their failed attempt at human transmutation–
Roy frowned, taking the silence as a chance to finally wonder after the change. Edward had been having fainting spells since before Roy had found him, but he had never suffered anything like it, himself, and neither had Alphonse, so far as he was aware.
If it had just been Edward, Roy probably would have shrugged it off, maybe put in on his behalf for leave and made Alphonse take him back to Resembool, but it wasn't. And that suggested it was an external force of some sort acting on him – on all three of them – and Edward had just been sensitive enough to it that it had been affecting him in the east.
He wished Alphonse was responsive; he'd very much have liked to find out if the frequency and length of Edward's fainting spells had correlated with how close he was to Central City. He suspected they would turn out to be.
It did seem to be something specific to alchemists, though, and Roy made a mental note to get his team and Maes looking into other local alchemists. There were enough posted in Central, it should have been noted by someone that Central City was toxic for alchemists, but perhaps it was something one adapted to? Though, that didn't explain Edward, who had been suffering his fainting spells for almost four years. And what was it about human transmutation that had made him so much more sensitive, and why didn't Alphonse have the same problem?
He had so many questions, and he suspected he would need Edward conscious for the answers to at least half of them.
Riza returned after a bit longer and helped him out of bed and back into his uniform jacket – he had no interest in attempting the rest of his uniform, not when his head was still spinning, and she didn't push him – then out to the car. "Havoc and Breda took Alphonse to the dorm," she murmured once they were out of the hospital, before he could squint through the sunlight and realise the back of the car was empty. "They'll inform us if he wakes."
Roy gave a cautious nod, grimaced a bit when it upset his balance, then murmured back, "I need to know if any other alchemists have been suffering dizzy spells here in Central. Visitors or locals."
"I'll have a report for your first thing in the morning," she promised.
Roy closed his eyes once he was comfortably settled in the car, and didn't open them again until the motor switched back off. When he looked toward the familiar house, he found Gracia waiting just up the walk, looking as lovely as he remembered her. She was smiling, but there was a faint crinkle of concern between her eyebrows, which deepened when Roy took his time getting out of the car.
"Hello, Roy," she said as she reached him, one hand fluttering a bit helplessly just out of reach of his elbow, and he knew she was calculating whether or not it was socially acceptable to take the arm of her husband's best friend right away, given it had been almost two years since his last visit.
Normally, he'd be making the same calculations – handshake, kiss on the cheek, or hug; how obviously joking did he need to be about flirting with her – but he wasn't particularly of the mind to care what the neighbours thought right then, so he sort of swayed toward her, and her concern for him won out over their careful dance.
"Sorry to be an imposition," he offered as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"You're never an imposition," she insisted, and he knew she meant it, which would always boggle him, a little bit. Too, that she'd never been bothered by his and Maes' relationship, had been perfectly willing to share Maes with him. And, when Maes had decided he wanted Roy and Gracia together, well.
They both loved Maes; it wasn't hard to learn to love each other, too.
"Sir," Riza interrupted, a whisper of fondness in her voice that most people would have missed completely belying the far more obvious hint of impatience, "can you and Mrs Hughes manage your things, or do I need to help you bring them in?"
"I'm sure we can manage," Gracia promised with a lovely smile, "but there's fresh biscuits, if you wanted to take some in with you."
Riza's sigh was all for show, Roy knew, because she had a terrible sweet tooth, and she followed it with a bland, "I don't suppose I can really leave you alone to manage the colonel and his things."
"Yes, that might be a little much," Gracia agreed.
"I'm right here," Roy felt the need to remind them.
Gracia laughed outright and tugged him toward the house. He caught sight of a flash of amusement in Riza's eyes as she passed them to collect his bags from the boot, because she'd always got far too much amusement out of his misery.
Why had he agreed to let her watch his back again?
They had barely got through the front door, when a little face peeked around the doorway into the living room, wide green eyes taking events in, before she vanished from sight.
Elicia, Roy could only assume; he hadn't seen Maes and Gracia's daughter in person since he'd visited for her birth, but Maes was irritatingly good at keeping him up to date with piles of photos posted to both his office and home. Roy complained about it every chance he got, because it was expected of his public persona, but he was actually quite grateful for the photos. Both because it was a way to keep track of his two lovers while he was posted in East, and they had been quite reassuring, at the start, because none of them had been able to say for certain whether him or Maes was actually her father. But she hadn't shown any signs of Roy's – diluted, but still plenty strong – Xingan ancestry, had, in fact, taken rather strongly after her mother, which meant no one was likely to start questioning Gracia's faithfulness to her husband.
"Elicia, sweetie, your Uncle Roy's come for a visit," Gracia called, before twisting slightly and telling Riza, "You can just set them down anywhere. Thank you, Lieutenant Hawkeye."
"Uncle Roy?" Elicia repeated as her little face peeked around the doorway again.
Roy managed a smile and waved at her. "Hello, Elicia," he offered.
"Hi," she mumbled in return, looking quite uncertain.
"I'm afraid Uncle Roy's travel didn't agree with him," Gracia said in a light tone, "so he's going to go lie down until Papa's home. And we'll have to be quiet, right?"
Elicia blinked a couple of times, clearly considering that, before she nodded and vanished back into the living room.
Roy raised an eyebrow at that. "From Maes' stories, I'd expected her to be a little terror," he admitted.
Gracia's snort was probably the least lady-like thing he'd ever heard from her, which was oddly endearing. "Give her a couple hours to get used to you," she suggested, and Roy grimaced; hopefully she'd wait until his vertigo had settled. (Assuming it would.)
Somehow, they made it up to the guest room Roy would be using for the sake of appearances, and he let Gracia bully him into the bed, ignoring where Riza was watching from the doorway and radiating amusement.
Once he was settled, the two women left him to rest, and Roy didn't have any trouble falling asleep.
When Gracia came to wake him just before Maes was due home, Roy's vertigo was completely gone, and he felt very much his usual self, like he'd never suffered one of Edward's spells.
"Maybe it really was from the travel?" Gracia suggested when he'd explained why he was frowning about feeling fine.
"It's not my first time making that trip," he reminded her quietly, shaking his head. "And it doesn't explain the Elrics both collapsing, either. Edward I can accept, to an extent, but Alphonse's collapse is just..." He shook his head. "Disturbing."
Gracia offered him a helpless smile and shook her head. "If you're not going to explain why it's 'disturbing', then come down and meet your daughter properly."
Roy raised both eyebrows at her; he couldn't tell her more about the brothers' circumstances, hadn't even shared it with Maes, though he knew he would need to, now they were all posted to Central, because the less she knew about military secrets, the safer for her, which they all knew. So he tackled the more accessible topic: "How is she my daughter? I thought you'd determined she's Maes' fault."
"You and Maes might had settled on that," Gracia returned as she stood from where she'd sat on the edge of the guest bed, making a show of dusting off her dress, "but I'm not wholly convinced she's not hiding behind my side's appearance to mess with all of us." She cast him a narrow look. "I wouldn't put something like that past either of your sides."
Well, she wasn't wrong about both him and Maes having a propensity for pretending to be someone they weren't, and it was true that she bore a striking resemblance to her mother, but still. "I'm fairly certain biology doesn't work like that."
"Don't science at me, Roy," she returned, unimpressed. "Whichever of you two are her biological father hardly matters; you're a part of this family, and that means she's your daughter, too. Now change out of that hospital clothing and come downstairs to meet her properly."
Roy levered himself out of the bed and caught her hand before she could quit the room, using it to draw her back around and into his arms properly. "You're right, of course," he murmured, smiling a bit helplessly down at her flat stare. "I don't know how you always manage to be right–"
"More common sense than you and Maes have put together," Gracia deadpanned.
Roy couldn't quite manage to choke back a laugh, and he shook his head at the gleam of amusement in her eyes. "Quite an impressive feat."
"Not particularly."
Roy sighed. "Beautiful and sensible; how did we ever get so lucky?"
"Something to wonder about while you play with your daughter. Downstairs," Gracia reminded him.
Roy sighed again, but quickly followed it up by leaning in and kissing her, then promising, "I'm getting changed right now. This is me–"
She pulled away with a laugh. "I'm sending her up after you in ten minutes," she threatened, then quit the room.
Roy obediently changed into his own clothing, then made his way downstairs to find Elicia.
Maes got home before Roy could quite sort out how to behave with her – it had been a long time since he'd been around any children, not counting the Elrics – and the first thing he said, upon seeing Roy, was, "Is it my birthday?!"
Roy rolled his eyes, because of course that would be Maes' idea of a delighted greeting, but Elicia turned to Gracia, who was standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen, and asked, "Mama, is it?"
"It's not," Gracia promised. "Papa is just excited to see Uncle Roy. Why don't you come help me in the kitchen for a bit?"
Elicia made some excited noises about getting to steal food – Roy was becoming more and more certain she was Maes' fault, though he suspected his aunt would be happy to provide proof to the contrary, if anyone thought to ask her – and followed Gracia from the room, leaving Roy and Maes alone.
Maes was across the room before Roy could fully rise, and he caught his face between his hands, green eyes dark with worry. "Well," he murmured after a moment, "you don't look quite so bad as your people had left me to believe."
"I'll dock all their pay," Roy muttered, though he honestly doubted even Riza would have been able to hide her concern well enough to keep Maes from noticing, especially when Roy's absence would have been so obvious. "I'm fine. Whatever it was seems to have passed."
"For the moment," Maes returned, clearly unwilling to be soothed. "What happened, anyway? I couldn't get anything specific out of Hawkeye, and she wouldn't let me near the rest of them." His irritation was obvious in the turn of his mouth, but there was just the slightest hint of respect in his tone, telling Roy that he was more impressed with Riza than actually angry with her. (Given their relative ranks, he could have demanded answers, but that wasn't something his chosen persona was likely to do, and Riza had likely told him just enough to know he could expect answers from Roy at his house.)
Roy frowned and worried his fingers along the front flap of Maes' uniform jacket. "I'm not altogether certain," he admitted quietly. "I've told you about Edward's fainting spells?"
Maes' eyes were narrowed when Roy met them, quicksilver intelligence all too obvious in them, and Roy couldn't help but wonder, again, how much he actually needed the glasses, and how much he used them to keep people from seeing the play of thoughts in his eyes. "Yes. You fainted?" He raised an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving.
Roy understood his scepticism, but he didn't share it, and Maes' deepening concern made it clear he got that. "Edward fainted almost as soon as we got off the train, Alphonse lost consciousness in the car, and I fainted when we got out to wake them at the dorms. I slept after I got in here, though, and I'm fine now."
Maes' eyes shifted off to one side, clearly going over the facts. "So this is centred on Edward?" he murmured.
"I'm not entirely certain," Roy cautioned. "This is the first time one of his spells had affected other people, and the last I heard, the doctors couldn't wake him. It does appear specific to alchemists, though, whatever it is. Do you know of any in Central who might be suffering from dizzy spells?"
Maes shook his head. "I haven't heard anything about such, but I can do some digging."
"I'd appreciate it. I've got my team looking into it, but you've got the connections, and Breda and Havoc likely have their hands full with Alphonse."
Maes' eyes sharpened on him. "Are you finally going to tell me what the big secret is about those boys?"
"Papa! Uncle Roy! Mama says dinner!"
"Tonight," Roy promised, and tried to take a step back, only for Maes' hands to tighten around his face. "Maes."
Maes leant in and murmured, "I'm glad you're feeling better," against his lips, then pressed his mouth tight to Roy's and proceeded to coax him into an extremely distracting kiss.
Fingers pinching his ear – and Maes', he saw after a moment – forced him back into the present, and he turned a pitiful look on Gracia, who was clearly unmoved. "Dinner's ready, if you two are done snogging like school boys?"
"We can snog you, too, if you're feeling left out," Maes promised, wiggling his eyebrows so they looked like they were bouncing on the top edge of his glasses.
"Let's save any future snogging for when the youngest member of the household in in bed, hm?" Roy suggested, because now he was thinking straight again, he realised he felt a little uncomfortable with the idea of Elicia seeing them kissing.
(It's possible he was turning into a bit of a prude in his old age. How horrifying.)
"I suppose," Maes agreed with one of his more ridiculous pouts.
Roy rolled his eyes and pointedly turned away, wasn't surprised to see Gracia doing the same thing next to him. They caught eyes and her expression twisted as she attempted to hide her smile.
Roy bit back a chuckle of his own and led the the way into the kitchen.
The next morning, Riza picked him up and they returned to hospital, both so the doctor could clear him for duty again, since he felt fine, and to check on Edward, who apparently still hadn't woken yet. (Neither had Alphonse, from Riza's report en route to hospital, but Roy would need to trust in Havoc and Breda to keep him updated about the younger brother, for the moment, unless he wanted to take a trip past the dorms on his way back to the Hugheses' that night. Which he might, but that was hours away.)
The doctor agreed that Roy looked much improved and was happy to clear him, though he did warn him to take it slow, just in case. When Roy and Riza entered Edward's hospital room, though, a rush of vertigo hit him, and he quickly stepped back out into the hallway, all too aware of Maes' thoughts that Edward might somehow be the cause of Roy's own fainting.
"Sir?" Riza asked, stepping back out of Edward's room after him and giving him a concerned look.
Roy shook his head and let himself lean back against the wall. "I believe I'm better served remaining out here, Lieutenant," he offered.
Her eyes narrowed and she stared at him for a moment, the way her mouth tilted down just the tiniest bit giving away her concern. "Of course, sir," she finally agreed, and stepped back into Edward's room.
She didn't demand an explanation, but Roy offered her his and Maes' suspicions on their way into the office, because he knew she'd give him the silent treatment otherwise. Which, well, one never realised how terrifying the silent treatment could actually be, until the one being silent was armed.
"You will not be visiting Edward or Alphonse until we've discovered the cause behind their unconsciousness," Riza announced as she drove them into Central Command's parking garage. "And you will stay in the office today."
Roy sighed at the second order, but he still felt a little off from whatever had happened at Edward's room, and there was a certain degree of good sense in remaining where his people could keep an eye on him, just in case. "Of course, Lieutenant," he agreed, and the smooth way she turned into the first spot she found told him she was grateful for his easy acquiescence.
The first day set the standard for days to come, with Roy going in to the office and meandering his way through paperwork, while his team took shifts to snoop around Central for information, and Maes and his people ran their own investigation. On the way back to the Hugheses', Roy would direct Riza to stop them past wherever he was expecting to meet with one of his aunt's informants, and he would flirt his way to the information he needed, as well as a future meetup disguised as a date; after all, he could hardly be the military's most eligible bachelor if he didn't have a calendar book full of dinner dates with beautiful women.
And then Riza would drop him past Maes and Gracia's, and he'd have dinner with his family, play with Elicia a bit – the position of 'favourite uncle' had taken approximately two hours to earn, never mind that both Maes and Gracia were only children – and take part in the adventures inherent in putting a three-year-old to bed at a reasonable hour. Once Elicia was in bed – and they'd determined that, yes, she would remain there for the rest of the night, barring nightmares – Roy and Maes would sit down together and trade information, while Gracia worked on crafts within hearing range and pretended – often poorly – that she wasn't paying attention.
At the end of the night, they'd all retire together to the bed in the master bedroom, and it was even odds who would end up getting stuck in the middle. (Maes liked to joke it should be his spot, since he was clearly the most important part of their triad, but Roy and Gracia enjoyed shoving him out of the middle, if just to make a point.)
Over the course of the month, it started to become clear that most Central City alchemists – military certified or no – suffered from fairly regular headaches and a level of lethargy that Roy had never heard of in the east. Fainting spells, however, weren't common, though a test with Major Armstrong, who Maes said was plenty trustworthy, showed that Edward's mysterious ability to cause dizziness when Roy was nearby worked just as well on other alchemists.
As for Edward and Alphonse, there was no change in either of their condition, really. The doctors had reported Edward awakening for brief periods, remaining groggy the entire time he was awake and falling back asleep after eating something. There had been discussion of having a member of Roy's team stationed in Edward's room, see if they couldn't get any answers from him – by the time the hospital thought to call his office, the boy had always fallen back asleep; Roy appreciated that their focus was getting food and water into Edward, rather than calling him, but it was frustrating not being able to ask his subordinate what he might know – but it had been decided against because they didn't really know when Edward might wake, and they had too much else on their plate.
Alphonse, unlike Edward, had shown no signs of life, and it was making them all nervous. Roy desperately wished he'd thought to ask Edward more about the alchemy behind Alphonse's attachment to the armour, but given the literal taboo surrounding the subject, not to mention that Edward and Alphonse both seemed far more interested in talking about how to reverse it, rather than how it happened, he'd never pushed the subject. Not that he was likely to have been able to fix whatever had gone wrong – Roy didn't fool himself into thinking he was much more than half as skilled as Edward – but at least he might have had a better idea if Alphonse was still in there, somewhere, because it was becoming a very real fear that he was gone.
Roy seriously considered having the brothers shipped back to Resembool, but Armstrong mentioned that he, at least, was suffering fewer headaches, of late, and most headaches that he – and Roy, when he thought to draw the correlation – did get, happened during those brief periods when Edward was awake. As though the little prodigy's unconsciousness was protecting them from whatever was messing with Central City alchemists. So the brothers remained where they were, and Roy and his team worked as fast as they could to find the cause, the weight of Edward and Alphonse's future heavy on all of their shoulders.
Their first good lead, unexpectedly, came from Edward, during their second month in Central. He'd clearly figured out on his own that he wasn't going to be talking to any of Roy's team any time soon, because he'd complained to a couple of nurses that he'd never finish a fiction book titled Symzonia. One of the nurses had thought to find a copy and read it to him during the rare occasions when he was awake, so she'd asked Riza during one of her regular trips to check on Edward's status if she could find it in his things.
Of course, all of Roy's team knew Edward despised reading fiction, so everything was put on hold for a day while they hunted down a copy to, with any luck, figure out what Edward was trying to tell them.
They ended up getting a little lost in the story – it was a foreign work about a ship captain and his crew going to some place translated as 'bottom pole' and finding a place translated as 'the planet's centre', where they meet what is apparently the original human race, all of whom are anti-war and extremely religious – and confused about what Edward had meant to tell them with the whole thing. (Never mind the question of where he'd heard about it, and why he'd remembered the title at all.)
At home that night, when Roy mentioned the title of the book, before he could explain the plot, Gracia said, "Oh, I've heard about that book. It was supposedly written by some man who thought the planet was hollow. I mean, it's fairly obviously fiction, right? The idea that there's some ancient, all powerful civilization hiding just beneath our feet."
Of course, Roy realised a bit distantly. He'd grown up in Central City, had known nearly his whole life that the sewers were a maze of tunnels more than large enough for a grown man to walk, and far too extensive for anyone to ever map. The military had always kept them barricaded, but a kid would find their way in every once in a while, and they only made it back out about half the time.
And that wasn't mentioning the sheer height of Central Command. There was a garage, certainly, and the gym and locker rooms were underground, but that wasn't enough. There was still too much excess space under the military headquarters, like, maybe, there was something hiding under there.
He caught Maes' eyes, found dawning understanding making them go wide, and got up to pull Gracia out of her seat and into a hug. "You," he breathed into her hair, "are a genius."
She laughed and hugged him back. "You just needed a slightly more common view point," she promised, before kissing his cheek and pulling back to cast a look between Roy and Maes. "So? What was the message?"
"Underground," Maes said, rubbing at his beard in that way that meant he was troubled. "There's someone down there, someone far more advanced than us."
"We'll go in as prepared as possible," Roy announced, and when Maes looked up at him, he gave a firm nod, trying to look certain of their success. "Me, Armstrong...enough firepower to take down a tank, if possible."
Maes snorted a bit grimly. "Right. This weekend?"
Roy nodded, and they silently agreed to halt all future talk and turn in for the night.
That weekend did, indeed, find Roy with Armstrong, Riza, and a handful of military police, skulking through the sewers nearest Command. Maes had managed to find them something like a blueprint in the military archives, so Armstrong had the map open and was giving them quiet directions as they made their careful way through the echoing passages.
The blueprints ended before the passage did – they'd all been suspicious about the missing section of blueprints, which was why they'd taken that path – and it wasn't much further along that they came upon a cavernous room lined with pipes, a bit like some sort of central repository, or whatever they were called, except there was a stone chair in the centre of the room, upon which sat a pale man with hair the same shade as Edward's. Not far away from him was another person with golden blond hair, but Roy was at the wrong angle to see more than the top of their head, and that they seemed to be laying down on a slab of concrete.
"You don't belong here," the blond figure on the chair said, tone so utterly flat, it sent a chill down Roy's spine. "How did you get in here?"
Roy swallowed down his nerves and stepped forward. "I'm Colonel Roy Mustang, of the Amestris military. We're attempting to find the cause behind the headaches and fainting spells affecting alchemists in this city."
"Ah." The figure blinked, then sighed and slowly stood, apparently tall enough to tower over everyone but Armstrong. "You shouldn't have done that."
Someone – Roy couldn't say who – clearly took that as a threat, because a gunshot rang out, only for the bullet to be stopped by some sort of personal energy shield around the blond figure.
"Kill them," the figure said, almost carelessly. Like they weren't even a little bit of a threat.
(Roy was starting to think that Edward's 'hint', with its all-powerful race underground, had also been meant as a warning.)
He'd started to look for whoever the figure had been talking to, except a rush of...not really energy, more a consciousness hit him, and he didn't have control of himself any more, was trapped watching as his body turned toward the military police, Riza, and Armstrong behind him. Armstrong, too, he realised as his arm was lifted, fingers posed to attack, was getting ready to fight, and it occurred to him, probably a little belatedly, that whatever this was only seemed to affect alchemists.
A warning shot from Riza nicked Roy's ear, and he was snapping before the blood could start to well up and drip from the wound.
The spark his gloves made flared one large shock of flame in the direction of the MPs and Riza, which died before it could actually reach any of them, and Roy – trapped behind his own eyes – let out a breath of relief; it seemed that the overly complicated alchemy he favoured wasn't as easy to steal as his body was.
Armstrong wasn't so lucky, however, and stone points sparking with alchemic light took out a couple of MPs.
"Retreat!" Riza shouted, and those who were able, turned and ran for it.
The figure by the chair let out a tired-sounding sigh and ordered, "Go after them."
Again, Roy's body moved without his say, in tandem with Armstrong, and they stepped quickly after the fleeing MPs and Riza. They didn't run, though, and Roy was enough trapped in his head to wonder after that, if there was a finite amount of control that the figure had over them, if it was dependant on how many alchemists he was controlling, etc.
They came to a split in the passage. Down one way, Roy could hear the sounds of retreat, see speckles of blood from a wound dark against the light concrete, and that was so obviously the way to go. But, before they could continue past the split, a gunshot sounded down the other passage, and fire lanced the outside of Roy's right bicep. Not quite painful enough for a clean shot, more like it had gone wide. Or, more likely, a distraction meant to keep them from pursuing the MPs and their wounded.
Roy knew who it would be before his body turned toward her, and he was torn – for one long, terrible moment – between hoping he'd go after her so the MPs got away, and hoping he went after the MPs, because her death could not be delivered by the alchemy tattooed on her back.
But then he was turning toward her, his hand raising again, and the spark of flames wasn't any more effective than before, when his fingers snapped. But there was still a shift in the muscles of her face, suggesting something hadn't gone to plan, before she turned and raced down the passage.
Roy followed, still moving at a quick walk, and it took him a moment – not being able to look around had some serious disadvantages – but he did eventually realise that Armstrong had gone the other way, after the MPs. And it made some sense, of course, to split them, since there were two of them. More so, Riza had proven twice that she would rather wound him than kill him, and since whoever was controlling him couldn't really control his alchemy, sending him after the single opponent was sound strategy.
He really hoped Riza had a plan, because there was nothing he could do on his end.
It turned out Riza did have a plan, which Roy found out when he set off a tripwire – he'd spotted it, but whoever was controlling him clearly hadn't – and a cord snagged around his ankles and he ended up hanging upside-down in the air.
Almost immediately, the energy/consciousness interference was gone, and Roy had control of his body again. "Lieutenant!" he called.
She stepped into view, two guns trained unwaveringly on his head. "Sir?" she asked, and it was only because he knew her so well that he was able to detect the faintest hints of both hope and fear.
Roy made a show of holding up his hands in surrender, then slowly pulled off first one glove, then the other, tossing them to her feet. "It's me," he promised. "Something, some...consciousness, was controlling me." He allowed himself a grim smile, one he knew she'd be able to read the terror behind. "Perhaps we should have read a bit more into the warnings in Edward's book."
"Perhaps," she agreed flatly, as she put her guns away. "We'll have to come up with an alternate form of attack, one that doesn't involve yourself or Major Armstrong."
"Evidentially," Roy agreed in exactly the same tone. "Are you intending to let me down?"
"I'm considering it," she replied, deadpan.
All the same, she approached him and pulled out a small pocket knife, which she used to cut the wire.
Roy dropped to the ground, barely managing to catch himself before he broke his nose on the ground, and let himself curl away from her, into a crouch that he could stand from with as much decorum as possible, given the situation. "Thank you," he said as he ran a hand through his hair, settling it back into the calculated mess he preferred. "We should probably go after the major, see if there's some way to–"
It was probably only because he'd felt it once already that Roy recognised the consciousness' return, and he cut himself off with a shout of "No!" A warning to Riza, and a denial of what he knew was coming.
Riza – lovely, brilliant Riza, always just far enough back from Roy's shoulder to see the best next step, while he was still choking on the smoke from the latest fire – had one of her guns out and pressed into Roy's hand almost before he could stop shouting. A round fired – her action or due to the consciousness inside of him, he couldn't say – and she dropped to lay, facedown, on the ground.
The gun was lifted and the consciousness inside of him stared at it for a moment, then looked down at Riza's prone form. There was blood puddling out from under her, and Roy screamed a denial, trying to pound fists that didn't exist against whatever had stolen the control of his body from him.
His only hope was that she'd been the one to fire that shot, and it had hit something that she could survive for long enough to get the hell out and find help.
His body turned away, took him after Armstrong.
He found a massacre, the concrete of the tunnels cracked and broken, standing out in sharp spikes pointing in every possible angle and painted red with blood. The most obvious body was Armstrong's, blood from gunshot wounds having turned his white civilian shirt red, but the remains of other bodies – too many for Roy to count as his eyes cast themselves over the scene – showed between the concrete forest.
If he'd had control of his own gag reflex, he was pretty sure he would have thrown up.
Nothing moved during the brief perusal, and then Roy's body turned and returned to the large room with the blond man. Who had been joined by another, far more familiar face: Führer King Bradley.
"Find another way to control him," the blond ordered, while Bradley cast Roy a considering stare.
"It would be easier to kill him, Father," Bradley replied, and Roy was fairly certain he would have cursed if he'd been able to.
The blond man – 'Father' – frowned and rubbed at his beard, turning his own considering stare on Roy.
The consciousness left him again, and Roy had just about enough time to collect his bearings and remember the gun in his hand, and then the dizzy spell hit him and he stumbled a few steps, tripped over a pipe, and hit the ground hard enough to jar every bone in his body. His grip on the gun failed, and he heard it skittering across the concrete and pipes while he squeezed his eyes shut against the tilting of the world.
"No," 'Father' stated as the dizziness receded. "Find a way to control him."
Roy glanced up, squinting past the headache knocking around his head, and found he'd stumbled his way over to the prone blond. Male, emaciated, young, he catalogued as steps sounded behind him.
"Well, Colonel Mustang," Bradley said in a voice so cheerful, ice grew around Roy's spine, "it seems you've bought yourself a second life. Get up so we can discuss your future over tea."
Roy swallowed and caught the edge of the concrete slab, bare fingers brushing against warm skin of the boy lying there. Eyes fluttered open as he got his legs under him, and Roy found himself staring into eyes that were a familiar shade of gold, eyes that widened in shock the same way Roy knew his own must be doing. "Alphonse," he breathed, because the familial resemblance to Edward was too obvious in the impossible gold of his eyes and hair, the way his nose was just slightly bowed to the left.
'Colonel,' Alphonse mouthed in return, shock and terror writ too obviously across his face, like he'd never learnt to hide them, or had simply forgotten how.
Bradley took Roy's elbow, then, and said, "Come, Mustang."
Roy let himself be led away, trying to devise a way to get Alphonse out of there, to keep his team and the Hugheses and the Madam and her women safe, to protect himself against a power he couldn't begin to understand.
There was an Aerugonian saying about thrown into a fast current and not being able to swim, or something. The specifics of the idiom didn't matter, only that Roy felt like he was beginning to understand it, because he had a feeling there was no fighting against this current.
Bile climbed his throat, and it was an honest struggle to swallow it down.
Bradley left him sit in his office with a couple of his aids pouring two cups of tea. He returned as they left, smiling far too cheerfully as he settled down in the chair on the other side of the table. "As we speak," he said, "new assignments are being written up for your team, to positions where they'll be of far more use, and Major Elric is being transferred to my personal physician; after all, it's a crying shame that so promising an alchemist has been left to rot in hospital for so long. He needs proper, constant care, don't you agree?"
Roy swallowed down another mouthful of bile and quietly stated, "I see."
"Ah, and that Investigations officer you're friends with?" Bradley continued, and Roy's blood turned to ice. "I've heard excellent things about his investigative skills. Perhaps he can help us on the ground in Creta; it shouldn't be too hard to sneak him over the border."
Maes.
Bradley leant forward, his smile gone hard and his eyes gleaming with malice. "Do you understand me, Mustang? You'll keep your head down and do your paperwork, and if Father needs you, you'll go. And, so long as you play a good little human, your precious subordinates will live. But if you try telling anyone what you suspect, they'll all start finding rather unlucky ends."
No, Roy hadn't been thrown into a strong current, he'd been dropped into the middle of the sea and there were no boats in sight.
He needed to retreat. Regroup. He needed to see if Riza had survived, to sit down with Maes and try to find some way out of this.
"Ah, you humans," Bradley said, and passed a sharp knife across the table.
Before Roy could ask what that was for, the consciousness rose up within him again, and his hand picked up the knife and pressed it tight against his own throat.
"Do you understand me?" Bradley repeated, as Roy's throat started to burn and he felt something sliding along the skin of his hand; his own blood, doubtless.
The consciousness retreated a bit, enough for Roy to croak out a, "Yes," because he did. That man – 'Father' – could watch him, control him from anywhere, at any time. Could make Roy slit Maes or Gracia's throat in bed, or strangle Elicia while they played with dolls.
He could be made to destroy his family with his own hands. Just like he'd shot Riza.
Check and mate.
The knife fell from his hand and clattered against the table, splashing blood across the wood, as the consciousness left him. Roy reached up and pressed his hands against the wound, had a brief vision of him just ripping his own throat out. Right there, right that moment, before he had a single chance to hurt the people he loved.
And then someone just outside the office loudly called, "Führer Bradley! Sir! Major Elric is missing!"
Edward was missing?
"Get him out," Bradley snarled once he'd reached the door, menace practically radiating outward from him. "I am in a meeting."
Edward couldn't just get up and walk out, though. Which meant someone had taken him out, had realised the danger and–
Riza.
Something like hope fluttered in Roy's chest and he drew in a desperate gasp of air, clutching for the battered remains of the emotion.
It wasn't checkmate. They weren't defeated, not yet. His people – his pieces – were plenty clever on their own, had more than enough self-preservation to run for cover when the storm clouds started coming in.
He looked up and met Bradley's angry stare. And he smiled.
The black of unconsciousness sweeping over him felt like a victory.
When Roy opened his eyes, it was to the sky overhead, just starting to glow with the pale light of predawn. Everything was shaking slightly, like he was moving in some sort of vehicle.
" 'Bout fuckin' time," Edward said.
Roy looked over, past the sleeping, emaciated form of the youngest Elric, to where the elder was resting back against the wooden half-wall of a cart. He looked as drained as Roy felt, but the light in his eyes was as bright as ever, and Roy let out a quiet breath of relief and said, "I should be saying that to you; I haven't been out for over a month." Well, he hoped he hadn't been out for a month.
Edward snorted and tilted his head back, looking up toward the sky. "I don't have exact dates, but I think it's been about a week since you went to poke the hornet's nest." The look he levelled on Roy was equal parts disgusted and awed. "Fuckin' idiot."
"Your hint left something to be desired," Roy retorted, before starting to push himself up to sit across from Edward, grimacing at how weak he was. "Mind filling in some gaps?"
Edward let out one of his more exaggerated put upon sighs – Roy had taken to cataloguing them, he'd heard them so many times – then nodded. "Not much else to do 'til we hit the border," he agreed, and Roy couldn't stop from looking out at the surrounding countryside; he wasn't particularly surprised to find it was completely unfamiliar.
"When you and Hawkeye were down there," Edward explained, "she figured out that fucker's ability to affect us had something to do with us being in nearly direct contact with the ground. Like, in buildings or your car or through shoes and clothing, that all was close enough to work. But being suspended by a rope, or having enough insulation between us and the ground–" he tapped the bed of the cart, and Roy was a little surprised to realise it was well-padded "–blocks it. Mostly. Had to do a lot of tests to figure out the exact details. And that fucker, when he's looking for you, doesn't take him long to realise you're touching the ground."
Edward looked away, down to where his automail hand was curled into a tight fist in his lap. There was an air of self-hatred around him, so much more poignant than Roy remembered it being in the past, and his stomach jumped into his throat. "Who?" he whispered, hated himself for hoping–
"Which time?" Edward asked, shooting Roy a smile that should have been sharp, but was too dulled by bitterness.
"Edward," Roy pressed, keeping his voice gentle, quiet.
Edward's jaw clenched and he blinked a few times too rapidly as he looked away. "Some coroner Hughes talked into coming to help, Knocks or something."
"Doctor Edmund Knox," Roy said, and Edward flinched. "He would have thanked you; he gave up on life in Ishval."
Edward's jaw quivered, just enough to be visible in the growing light, and he snapped, "Hughes said it too, but it doesn't–"
"Make it better," Roy finished for him gently, and Edward's head came up and around, his gold eyes filled with so much self-hatred, Roy's heart broke, just a little. "Nothing ever will," he added, and Edward ducked his head forward, hiding behind his bangs. "Maybe living is our punishment."
Edward's smile, when he peeked through his bangs, was a horrible, wretched thing to behold. But it was something Roy had seen in the mirror after one too many rough nights, and he offered his own in return; one man's sins in trade for another's.
Edward looked away again, still looking a little too broken, and his voice, when he spoke again, was rough, but strong enough that Roy could almost see a day when he'd flash his familiar mayhem grin right before a building collapsed: "One of those military police you went with made it out, died 'cuz what I did, but the others..." He shrugged, just the left shoulder. "Bruises, some cuts. Havoc's been going on about my banging up his jaw so it hurts so much he can't even smoke any more."
"Better for his health."
Gold eyes caught the light of the rising sun from behind a shade of gold hair, highlighting a glimmer of humour that Roy didn't doubt for a second was sorely needed. " 'S what Hawkeye told him the second time he started in. Third time she told him she'd fix the problem with her gun; he shut up after that."
"Imagine that," Roy said in as dry a voice as he could manage.
Edward snorted. "Anyway, don't know much about their planning and shit, but they figured best not to give the fucker hostages, and we three gotta get out of the country anyway, so figured it was time to split. Dunno how they pulled it off, but they got some people to blow some pretty important buildings up, then a couple of them went in, got you and Al. Fuery and Havoc and Breda and Falman, they all went back east, said something about getting their families out, getting Winry and Granny out." He shrugged his left shoulder again. "Hawkeye and the Hugheses, they went a separate way, too. Better to travel separate, I guess."
"So who are we with?" Roy had to ask.
"No one important!" a familiar woman's voice called back from the front of the cart, hidden by a stack of crates.
"Vanessa?" Roy called, feeling...relieved; if Vanessa had got involved, that meant the Madam and her girls knew what was going on, were probably already making their own ways out of Amestris.
Edward's stare was flatly unimpressed as he said, "One of your girlfriends, then. Figures."
Roy took a moment to consider continuing the fiction of his playboy ways. But, with everything in upheaval, his intelligence network scattered and him and his people on the wind, there really didn't seem to be a point. So he said, "One of my sisters," because his aunt's women had always been far more that, than bodies to warm his bed on cold nights.
Edward blinked, glanced toward the hidden seat of the cart, then looked back at Roy again. "Right," he said, decisively enough that it was pretty clear he wasn't going to pursue that topic any further.
They fell into a silence after that, and Roy found himself dozing off again after a few minutes. He considered fighting it, but he still felt far too drained, and the warmth the sun was covering the world with was far too tempting.
They all met back up in Aerugo, buying a couple of houses on the same street with money from the Madam and Riza's grandfather, then settling in to recover and, hopefully, make new plans, because Roy wasn't certain he could just retire to Aerugo and forget about the man pulling Amestris' strings from the shadows.
Alphonse slept most often than not, but he was very obviously himself when he was awake, and a doctor Gracia managed to hunt down was certain he would be sleeping a lot while he recovered from his body's ordeal. (He was shooed out soon afterward, and paid handsomely to keep from asking too many questions about why Alphonse was such a mess.)
Edward spent a lot of time next to Alphonse's bed, the air of self-hatred making it difficult for any of them to approach him, though Roy knew all too well that Maes and Gracia were just as worried as he was, and he could see the concern in the eyes of the rest of his team.
It was Elicia who ended up being the one to pull Edward away from his demons, standing next to him and complaining about not having any friends and how none of the adults would take her out to see the city, and so forth and so on, until Edward agreed to take her out. When they'd got back, they both had ice cream all over their faces and were laughing over some Aerugonian word for reasons Roy wasn't sure he wanted to know. They all relaxed a bit, after that, and while it was clear, at times, that Edward was still struggling with demons Roy was intimately familiar with, he would go out into the city with Elicia every afternoon, and they'd come back within a couple of hours with wide smiles.
He was healing, bouncing back, as the young were so good at doing, and Roy's breathing came a little easier.
They'd been in Aerugo for barely three months, when the first signs that they weren't safe came. It started out fairly innocuous, Edward or Alphonse – who had recovered enough to be stumbling his way around the house the Elrics shared with Havoc and Fuery – getting the occasional headache and needing to rest a bit until it went away. None of them really thought anything of it until the first time Roy got a headache and he recognised it for what it was: That 'Father' guy reaching through the earth or whatever to them, taking just a bit of their energy.
"We can't stay here," he said once he'd admitted the cause behind the headaches, and he could see everyone's shoulders slumping; they'd thought they were free.
"But where can we go?" Alphonse whispered, hugging himself and looking far too young to be a part of this discussion, but he was too much a part of it for Roy to leave him – to leave either of the Elrics – out. "If he can reach us in Aerugo, how much farther do we have to run?"
Edward let out a disgusted noise at the word 'run' and spun away to kick the wall. But he didn't argue; they all knew that Roy and the Elrics were far too much of a liability to be any use against their enemies.
They were all quiet after that, slumping under the weight of hopelessness, because where could they go? How many more countries would they have to run through before they were safe? And, once they'd found that place, was there any point in continuing to fight to better their home country.
Roy felt his dreams of creating a democracy for his people falling to dust and slipping between his fingers. He couldn't help but wonder, Without that goal, what's left for me?
Maes and Gracia, he supposed. Caring for Elicia and the Elrics. Trying to build friendships with his former subordinates, going out for drinks and bitching about their day.
"The ground," Havoc said, and Roy glanced up toward him, saw others doing the same thing. "That's what it is, right? Contact with the ground?"
"Yes," Riza agreed, her tone bland, but the fall of her shoulders speaking paragraphs about how tired she was, how much she just wanted to lay down and give up.
Somewhat belatedly, Roy remembered that he wasn't the only person who had staked his whole future on his making Führer.
"So, how about that book of Ed's? Find a ship."
A ship.
Water.
"Would that work?" Maes asked, hope making him straighten in his seat. "Would that work as an insulator?"
"It's worth a try," Breda said with a shrug. "There's a barge that goes down the river to the ocean; we can have Al and Ed on the boat, and the chief can walk the road with the rest of us, let us know when he's got a headache."
"And if we don't get one, too..." Alphonse murmured, trading hopeful smiled with Edward.
"I'll get us tickets," Breda announced. "Tomorrow too soon?"
They all laughed a bit at that, because they hadn't fled Amestris with nearly enough stuff they cared about to take more than a couple of hours to pack.
They separated back to their homes with smiles; all but Gracia.
"What is it?" Maes asked almost before their door closed behind them.
Gracia looked between them with tears in her eyes. "Elicia needs friends her own age," she whispered. "She can't live on a ship."
"If we stay docked–" Maes started, before cutting himself off. "No," he whispered, "we can't chance that being enough connection to transmit his control. If this works, you'll need to be at sea."
'You', not 'us'.
Roy swallowed and forced a smile. "I guess I'm getting transferred again."
Maes looked away, his face twisting with rage that Roy knew wasn't aimed at any of them, while Gracia took two quick steps forward and wrapped Roy in a hug, her face pressing tightly against his collarbone. He wrapped his arms around her in return, pressing his face against her hair and taking a deep breath, struggled to keep from letting it back out on a sob.
Maes' arms wrapped around both of them, and liquid splashed against the nape of Roy's neck. He couldn't quite stifle the next sob, which got Gracia started, hiccupping sobs against his chest.
Roy squeezed his eyes shut and did his best to burn this moment – this warmth and love – into his heart, hoped the scars went so deep that it would get him through however long it took them to finally devise a way to take out that 'Father' guy.
A week later, Roy, the Elrics, Riza, Havoc, Breda, and Fuery sailed out of Aerugo's bay on a ship Roy had chosen to name La Seguridad, Cretan for 'the safety', because that's what the ship was: The only thing that could keep them safe from the demon dogging their steps on land.
Not quite a year after that, when they chanced making port, they heard word of Amestris' steady wave of destruction through Aerugo, clearly intent on reaching the ocean.
"He's coming for us," Edward said grimly from where he was sitting on the railing of the quarterdeck, both of them watching the sailors Riza had hired to help them man the sails coming aboard.
"Good. Let him face us on our turf," Roy replied, just as grim.
"And if he figures out how to control us through water?"
Roy looked over at him, met gold eyes that were still haunted by the life on his hands, and said, "I'm done running."
Edward's return smile was as sharp as the edges of his arm when he turned it into a blade. "I always did want to be a pirate."
Roy snorted in disbelief, because Amestris didn't have pirate myths – too landlocked – but it occurred to him, "I suppose we are."
"Does that mean we get pirate names?"
Roy pinned him with his best unimpressed stare.
Edward's smile just widened, turning a little more manic. "No, but seriously, imagine the first idiots they kick out to sea who are high enough up the food chain to know our codenames pissing their pants when they hear them."
"No. Pirate. Names," Roy insisted. "We've already got enough of a target on our backs without letting stories get out that we're out here."
Edward huffed and rolled his eyes, but dropped the topic.
Five months later, after their first skirmish with one of Amestris' new navy ships, which had ended up involving Roy using his alchemy to protect the ship, some of the hired crew started calling him 'Flame' anyway. When Edward shot him a knowing look from where he was hanging upside down from the mizzen yard's shroud, Roy sighed and nodded, giving in to the inevitable.
It would be a long time before he'd be able to convince himself that Edward's brilliant grin was worth hearing his hated codename once again. But, then, he knew something of giving up parts of who he was; one day, he had to keep telling himself, he could go back to being Roy Mustang, lover of Maes and Gracia Hughes, favourite uncle of Elicia Hughes.
One day.
Sun Over the Yardarm
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