FMA Fanfic: Unconditional – Fourteen
Unconditional – Fourteen.
by arcanewinter. R 5740 Roy*Hughes. Fullmetal Alchemist. AT, pan-series spoilers.
What they thought would be good enough turns out to be furthest from it.
These characters do not belong to me. I do not profit from this. [...]
It had been a long time since Greed had suffered any need for a brothel. Things had changed in that time: the establishments were harder to come by, weaving themselves into society with a greater degree of subtlety. Their wares dressed and spoke differently, and cost a great deal more. But it was the same need they fulfilled, the same wish they granted, even if Greed preferred the other gender for it this time around.
He’d told himself that was the only concession he’d make. After all, there was no reason for him to be picky. He was Greed: anything would nearly satisfy him if he got enough of it. But as he sat at the associated bar, drinking himself into a decision, his preference was clear. Boy after man approached him to win his interest, but he turned them away for being too young, or too effeminate, or too fair-headed, or too clean-shaven. He tried to coax himself into accepting some other type, any other type, as he’d used to, but his greed had narrowed, focused, against its very nature.
But as he considered it, as he questioned himself in a rare case of introspection, he knew this preference for someone specific didn’t make any sense.
Envy could be anyone.
Greed fingered the tumbler before him, nearly empty again.
If all he wanted was to pretend, anyone would do. If all he wanted was to imagine Envy under him again, anyone would do; he just needed to come up with Envy’s motive.
So why was he so adamant? Why was it so important, as it’d been the first time he ever saw him; why was it paramount that he look like–
Greed gripped his drink again and emptied it, tossing a payment onto the bar before turning and surveying the room. His vision was clear enough behind the shaded glasses, and he crossed the room to pluck one of the older boys from the arm of a patron who hadn’t made his mind up yet.
His green eyes were startled under his fringe of dark hair, but his seductive demeanor recovered gracefully. “This way,” he advised.
* * *
The boy offered him a cigarette when Greed had finished for the final time, and Greed took it, never one to deny himself anything if he still had it in him.
He took the lighter to ignite it, drawing from it until it caught.
“Interesting tattoo.”
Greed glanced to him, suspicious that he would bring it up. But the boy’s face betrayed only an innocent curiosity. After all, he hadn’t seemed to care much when Greed pulled off his sunglasses. Maybe their characteristics weren’t so recognizable anymore, or maybe his lot was less likely to judge. “I guess.”
“Must have hurt, on the back of the hand like that. What’s it mean?”
Greed turned his hand to look at it himself, the cigarette drooping as he frowned. “I dunno. It’s just what I am.”
The boy leaned back with a cigarette of his own. He drew it in and out a few times in silence.
“I know what you mean.”
* * *
It didn’t take long for Greed to run out of the money he’d brought. He was an easy customer, taking almost anything offered to him, though he demanded the most out of it.
He was pleasantly exhausted as he set off for home, vaguely marveling that he’d managed to put this off for so long, being who he was. Even after that night on Hughes’ back, when his libido had reminded him it was still there, Envy or no Envy, other matters had forced him to postpone.
They had covered roughly half the distance home that night after their visit to Elycia, Greed guessed, when Hughes noticed they were being followed. And though Greed was for the most part drunk at the time, it was he who all but hauled Hughes after him, forcing him to exceed the human limitations he’d adopted in order to lose their pursuer. And though he was quick, they were quicker, narrowly losing him as they headed for the greater chaos of the city center.
That it had taken so long for Hughes to notice–that Greed would not have noticed him even through his dozing, had been an indication of their tracker’s expertise, and Greed made sure to catch some glimpse of him as they vaulted up the side of building after building.
It was the hooded figure he’d seen back in Amestris’ fledgling territory, watching his destruction of the manuscript. And he was one of the alchemists: Greed had recognized the energy flares he’d used to catapult himself forward along their path.
Roughly a month had passed. Having just regained Elycia’s presence in his life, Hughes had been reluctant to vacate the city, so they stayed, cautiously certain that they would not be sought there. But venturing out was still risky, so Greed had waited, until after four weeks of stillness he was reasonably certain he could indulge in a night on the town.
It wasn’t his own safety he was particularly concerned about, but the wellbeing of the one he left alone. Could he even trust him to defend himself? Had he left it up to Hughes, that alchemist would have caught them with ease.
Or maybe he was underestimating him, but Greed didn’t want to put him to the test. He had no idea what it would take for Hughes to acknowledge the abilities granted to him beyond his current appearance, and there was no guarantee they’d kick in in time.
Greed hurried a little faster through the biting wind fighting him across the city’s rooftops.
* * *
His worry had been a small one–he’d never have left if it weren’t; still, he was relieved to find the house more or less as he’d left it in the late evening.
As he closed the door behind him, though, he caught sight of the desk in front of Hughes, strewn with photographs. A box held more within his reach.
Greed bit his first retort out of his tongue before trying again.
“Your kid stop by?”
He sat carelessly on the couch, putting his feet up. He wanted another cigarette, but realized he had none. Oh well: he’d probably be asleep soon from his eventful night. He considered sharing his adventures with Hughes, but decided against it.
“Yeah,” Hughes answered, and even in that micro-syllable, Greed noticed the strain in it. But he attempted to recover. “I told her it wasn’t safe at that hour, but she won’t have it.”
“Like father, like daughter,” Greed murmured. With his arms folded and back slouched, he was already close to dozing off where he sat. He should do this more often, safety permitting.
But Hughes’ silence threw off his semblance of small talk.
“Why do you say things like that?”
Greed opened one eye, dreading his tone before he even glimpsed the tension across Hughes’ shoulders. “Like what?”
“Like you knew me. Like you’re in any position to comment on who I am.”
Greed sighed slowly. Hughes knew why; he knew exactly why. “Because I have his memories, whether I want them or not, and they tell me plenty about you. You know all about that.”
“About what?”
Maybe Greed should have just gotten up again and left, but he’d been fantasizing all night about something he couldn’t have, and he was bitter. He wasn’t ready for a fight, but he was ready for something.
“About memories that aren’t yours.”
“No. I knew they were mine. They were always mine, you just–”
Greed laughed suddenly, interrupting him. “Bullshit. Envy was terrified of you; did you forget that? Envy saw you, the first inkling of you, and panicked, and begged me to help him through it. But you–”
“Then it’s the same for you.”
“I told you it isn’t. And you told me you’d accepted–”
Hughes stood up, slamming the desk top and its photographs to drag one of them in front of Greed’s face. He towered over him where he sat, having closed the cramped distance swiftly.
“Tell me again that this means nothing to you.”
Greed kept his eyes on Hughes’, refusing to look.
“Look at this, and tell me it means nothing. And I’ll leave it be.”
His gaze incendiary, he finally lowered it to the photograph in front of him. He couldn’t help the lurch in his gut: it was the very disconnect between them that made him ill to see his own faded likeness smiling back at him beside his best friend for life, smiling because he was drunk , smiling with even teeth and eyes too dark to register any color at all.
He looked up again, meeting Hughes’ eyes, just as fierce.
He smiled, and he meant it. “It means nothing to me.”
Hughes’ jaw clenched, but the look in his eyes remained as hard as ever.
“I don’t believe you.”
Greed laughed dryly, cynically. It had only been a matter of time. “You’ll ‘leave it be,’ huh?” He stood. He knew now what a fool he was, thinking Hughes might ever really accept him, that he could still maintain any shred of a friendship with anyone, now. He’d taken Hughes at his word, and once again, Greed’s trust was far from rewarded.
But as he turned, Hughes stopped him with a vise-like grip on his shoulder. He didn’t pull him back again, not yet, but his tension told Greed he was close.
“I gave you time. I even thought I might be able to let it go entirely if you never changed. But I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.”
“You’re a bastard,” Greed answered, speaking to the room in front of him, his curse slow and sincerely affected. “You’re worse than anyone I’ve ever known. Envy was–”
It was now that Hughes whirled him around and took him by both shoulders. Greed’s Shield flared up over his arms, claws as sharp as he could make them.
“Envy was afraid of me because he was me.” The tension in his mouth resembled a grimace, though it didn’t linger. “You’re afraid for the same reason!”
“Do I look frightened to you?” Greed retorted, almost a roar despite their closeness. “You only see what you want to see! After everything you took from me–”
“‘Envy’ was the only thing I ever took from you!”
“And he was everything, you asshole,” he growled, pushing out of Hughes’ grip and drawing blood from his chest as he did it. “What else did I have?”
“There must be something if you’re still holding onto it–”
“MYSELF, you son of a bitch, but I guess a homunculus called Envy wouldn’t know what that means!”
His pretense gone in an instant, Hughes had lifted him by his collar before Greed could dodge him, but it ended there. Hughes was lightly shaking where he held him.
Greed watched his expression as it shifted, releasing its rigid fury. They’d both reached their breaking point. They’d have to agree to disagree, and never see each other again.
Hughes lowered him to his heels again, and Greed deigned not to rip his skin open.
What more was there to say between them?
But naturally, perhaps, Hughes found something.
“No,” he murmured, addressing some specific matter he hadn’t shared aloud. “You might not be afraid, but Roy is. It’s easier to stay quiet, stay asleep. I know it is.
“But it’s time to wake up.”
Greed scoffed, but he lost even that shred of humor as Hughes looked up at him from a different face.
“Now you use that,” Greed whispered, his disbelief significant only to him. “Against me.”
But Hughes didn’t heed him. Greed doubted that he would again.
“Who’s it gonna take?” he murmured, staring hard at him through the visage of a much-younger Hawkeye.
“You’re wasting your time,” Greed spat, tearing his eyes away to turn, though mere curiosity tempted him to look, to compare, to see memory in life.
He felt the cold barrel of a gun at the back of his head, obviously a means to keep his attention. Another ripple of change, and Greed could see it was a male soldier aiming the gun, a cigarette hanging off his lip.
“It’s gotta be somebody,” Hughes intoned. “If not me for God’s sake, then somebody!”
Greed cocked a half-smile as he turned back. He was over it. He was over everything. All he had left was the irony.
“Keep going. Keep proving to me how inhuman you are.”
His finger tensed on the trigger, as though it would have done anything to pull it. But the provocation stopped there.
“If that’s what it takes.”
Greed couldn’t help his frown. That, he was not expecting. Hughes was, at least for the moment, taking command of himself. And though he knew in the end that there was nothing for Hughes to win, he didn’t want to be forced through this. He didn’t want to be reduced to that.
“Thanks for the show,” he announced, tipping an imaginary hat. “Have a nice life.”
Turning, he made way for the door, ready to pull it off its hinges. Every step was a forfeit, but he had lost everything long ago. He just hadn’t accepted it.
Tonight, it was inevitable, irreversible. Tonight, everything was clear. What had taken him so long?
But though he moved like a juggernaut, Hughes stopped him a few paces from freedom, his swiftness surprising, yet familiar.
“We’re done here,” Greed snarled, side-stepping him only to be met again, his escape resisted by one form after another. Most reached for some positive memory, but not all.
He laughed harshly, still looking for an opening, and ruing that Envy had always been just a little faster than he was. “Was that Scar? Really?” He rushed, and darted, only to be blocked again and again as though Hughes’ life depended on it. “What logic does that–”
He stumbled briefly as Hughes shifted tactics, opting for the more fragile, the more innocent.
“Poor little Winry,” Greed mocked. “Do you think I give a shit?”
“Don’t you want to know what became of her?” Hughes asked. “Shouldn’t you care?”
Though the girl’s face was full of the gullibility of youth, her eyes watched Greed with an obvious intent. Hughes was looking, still, for any sign that he was breaking through, any indication of an effect. He was a predator as perfect as any other, intelligent and equipped especially for exploiting his opponent’s every weakness.
Greed lunged with a sort of wild satisfaction, claws primed as he swiped for him, but Hughes flipped back, incredibly nimble in such a small space.
When Hughes hit the floor again in a crouch, his arm sported a long blade made of the same steel as the entire limb.
Greed laughed loudly, masking the air as it was knocked out of him. He stumbled to a halt.
Roy had buried Ed’s memory well.
“You do care,” Hughes said, standing, though unimpressively. He lifted his hand to jab a metal finger toward him, the blade disintegrating. It was Ed’s voice, but Hughes’ words still. “You were always the best at hiding it, but you never fooled me. Not then, not now.”
Again, Greed laughed. It took him a little longer this time, his responses delayed by a troubling backlog of recollection to process. But still, Hughes wouldn’t get what he was after. Not with that face. I don’t owe him a goddamned thing.
He charged once more, but not for the door. He caught Hughes off-guard enough to slam him back to the desk, easily tipping his lower center of balance and ignoring the painful kicking as Hughes’ feet left the floor. “You want to talk about hiding things? About pretending?” Before Hughes could push him off, Greed ripped through the layers of clothing that obscured it: the ouroboros, still plain as sin on his hip.
Hughes was changing again under his hands, muscle tightening underneath the design. But as always, inescapably, the mark remained emblazoned there.
“You can’t fool me either,” Greed countered, his grin malicious if not triumphant. “Whether you like it or not, you’re still–”
Greed’s words froze on his tongue as he lifted his eyes. Slouched into the wall, Hughes was again himself, and yet not himself. The color had drained from his face, and his eyes, though not lifeless, were nearly there, overcome with defeat.
He felt the warmth against his hand where it framed the orouborous and pulled it away, the blood flowing into the space. Unbidden, his eyes followed it up to the wound in Hughes’ chest, a uniform still ripped to reveal it.
He’d hit the arm of the couch before he even realized the distance between them. He was both aware and oblivious, his mind flipping between two places, two times, fleeing from both.
“I was alone,” Hughes whispered. His breath was shallow, and drawn only to speak. “You never saw this. But you thought about it. I know you did.”
“Stop,” Greed heard himself saying. “Just stop! It wasn’t his fault!”
“I can’t stop now, Roy.” Hughes seemed wounded in an entirely different way as he pushed himself off the desk and stood, stepping toward him. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Greed felt along the side of the couch to back away, keeping himself paces away from Hughes as he advanced, a personal nightmare.
But he could only retreat so far. The wall met him and forced him fully open, exposed as Hughes followed, his eyes sharp again, and pleading.
He came to rest just a step away. Greed found himself struggling for breath in the small space, claws anchoring him to the wall. “He couldn’t help you,” he stammered, half the syllables falling away. “No one could have.”
“So help me now,” Hughes murmured. “I’m here now.”
“Stop,” Greed whispered, or he thought he did. He could only hear the word stalling between his teeth as he tried to breathe. Time hung there on his inability to change it, his heart beating rapidly in the silence before Hughes made one final attempt. His transformation was slower, without clear intent, but eventually every inch of him came to mirror Greed, only his eyes were almost black, and his skin was unmarred and human.
Roy. Roy staring back at him, as perhaps he had been all along.
His rapid heartbeat had slowed nearly to a halt, or maybe the time between each second had stretched.
He could hear the splintering of the wall as he pulled his claws from it. Raising them, he brought them down hard enough, deep enough, that he knew it would be a moment before any face would replace that one.
He didn’t wait. He was running, the door barely surviving in his wake.
He didn’t care who saw him. It was the dead of night, but the districts he passed through still bore their witnesses.
At least they did see him. At least he wasn’t invisible.
The wind stung from his speed, the clear sky overhead retaining nothing of the day’s warmth. He knew where he was headed, but had no part in the decision to go there. He was only a passenger, more and more with each step. He was outrunning something, but he wouldn’t look back to see it.
The crunch of gravel soon replaced the rapid clip of cement underneath. When he reached the train station, he half-expected it to collapse from the force with which he gave his weight to the crooked frame of its door. It would have to support him, if only briefly.
Inside, even in the darkness, he could still make out everything they had left here. He had memorized its contents many times over, and his eyes now easily followed each familiar shape: the original benches, rotted beyond usefulness; the busted table they had schemed and argued over; the books and the other myriad possessions that had fulfilled him; the pile of bedding that had brought him such close company.
He had last seen Envy there, at his side, but he wouldn’t make it there now. And what did it matter, anyway? He was too sentimental.
The gravel was uncomfortable where he turned and sat, propped up by the station, but it was there he would rest. He wondered for how long.
He laughed bitterly, quietly, head resting back against the splintering wood, eyes half-closed and weary. What the hell had happened to him? He used to be strong. He used to be invincible: he was the Shield for God’s sake. He could have fought this off. He could have fought anything off if–
If he hadn’t been alone.
* * *
He woke to the sound of footsteps on the field of stone around him.
The night breeze was cold on his face, and he realized his cheeks were wet. He dried them on a sleeve, his vision focusing more easily on the gravel at his feet. He realized for the moment that he was calm.
“I’m sorry,” Hughes offered when he’d come close enough to speak quietly. There was a note of futility in his voice: he had come only to say this, and then he would be gone. “I shouldn’t have pushed. I told you I wouldn’t. And I went . . . I went too far.”
The regret in his voice was palpable. His breathing was audible and barely controlled. Hughes was ashamed, but more than that, he was alone, irreparably alone.
“I’m sorry.” The repetition was quiet, receding.
He lifted his eyes, meeting Hughes’ gaze before Hughes could turn away for good. He held him there.
There was no sudden recognition in Hughes’ face. Unlike Hughes, his appearance could never be changed. There was nothing to notice, no telling shift to accompany the one that had already occurred.
The brutal mouth, the sinister eyes, the red lines that marked him: they were all his to bear, regardless of who he was.
“It’s too late, Maes.”