I get on a boat today! I have published and unpublished this like 4 times is it even good but whatever I drank too much tonight and here it is. almost 4000 words. THIS IS KIND OF DARK BUT ULTIMATELY OPEFUL
“I went to my supervising officer.”
Her eyes were so faraway. She was tired, in every way that it is possible for a person to be tired.They were both tired. Desperately fighting to keep Roy’s head above water while he seemed content to sink. Neither of them able to do the smart thing and let him go.
“They--” There was sadness in Hawkeye’s face, but it was eclipsed by her sheer quiet rage. “They don’t care if he dies. Ishbal is over and they will just--replace him later.”
Her fists were balled as she stared out the window, her shoulders trembling. She was the unquestionable success of her program. Hawkeye had been led to believe it was her job to protect her alchemist by any means necessary. That his life was the most important thing. She had taken that to heart, she had grafted her life to his, she had set her steps to the measure of his days. She had done as she was told. They lied to her. Only in open conflict did he matter. A badly broken toy that would be too much work to repair, now. Best to find another.
“He told me,” her teeth were gritted, “I was a good soldier and could be reassigned.”
He will recover or die. They will pay for the burial. Hughes was familiar. He’d been disgusted when the first investigation of a suicide came across his desk, with a little note about a weak mind. Roy’s file, he was sure, said the same, as they inevitably waited for Roy to kill himself, or die of illness like an underfed dog. They’d declared his major operations in Ishbal over and said he could do what he liked until needed. Which was mostly to destroy himself. ‘A weak mind’ he was sure Grand had written.
Roy’s mind wasn’t weak at all, that was half the problem. It was dagger-sharp, and quick, stubborn as a mule and strong as two. Hughes had never thought what it might look like to have that mind turn on its owner. An impossible thing for him to imagine.
Roy was going to die. He was so good at getting what he wanted. Hughes was good at puzzles, always had been, but this was something he could not puzzle out, the question of how to make Roy save himself. He had begged. And pleaded. Offered a dozen alternatives to what he was doing. Hawkeye had done everything she could. They had both fought this battle so hard, and Hughes could see they were losing it.
He’d come up with this idea in the dead of night, alone in his room.
He grabbed Hawkeye by the shoulders. “If anything goes wrong, I hope you can forgive me. But if you can’t. That’s okay too.”
This season of life had given them nearly no gifts, but Hughes noticed she did not shy from his touch, now. She trusted him, he took it to mean. So that was something. He looked for the silver lining.
“What are you doing?” She did trust him. It meant something. No matter what.
“We have to try something else. It has to be me. I can’t tell you. I can’t.” Hughes shook his head. “Go get him a sandwich or something--no, something easy. Actually, no. Anything you think he might eat.”
“That’s nothing.” She looked at him flatly. “I’ve tried. He won’t.”
“He used to love my Mom’s cream of mushroom soup.” He shrugged. “Anything like that. It can’t hurt. I’ll be here.”
Only Hughes could have gotten her to agree to it. He watched her do the math, that Hughes loved Roy, that anything he did would be to help him. She nodded in seeming gratitude for the gift of a mission and a chance to step away from the scene of the disaster, and quickly clicked down the hallway. She would find it, if it could be reasonably had in Central. Or unreasonably.
Hughes touched his hand to the doorknob of Roy’s door, and sighed, pressing his head against the wood. There was every chance in the world that this was not going to work, and this would simply be telling Roy goodbye. As he closed his eyes against the grain of the door, a dozen thoughts flashed through his mind, boys catching tadpoles in jars, wrapping up a hand when Roy had burned himself again, refusing to look at each other for the blush when discussing girls, laying on Hughes’ bed studying, lying in the grass under the stars, faces red, drunk for the first time, drunk for the last time, just before, singing at the top of their lungs. Roy’s bright laugh so loud and wide it took over his face. He felt a twist of anticipatory grief, in his heart. He swallowed it.
Hughes opened the door. In the moment he had been pressing his head against the door, he had been steeling himself, and yet he still was taken back. The bed was made, the floor was swept--Hawkeye clearly busied herself scrubbing it--but Roy himself was a ruin. His eyes were hollow, his face drawn and pale. It looked like he hadn’t changed his clothes in days, the cavern of his collarbone visible under his half-buttoned shirt, bent over an alchemy book and drawing circles with the other hand without paying any attention to the pen drifting off the paper. There was a bottle in front of him, rotgut without a label, refusing to be dignified with a glass. He glanced up at Hughes disinterestly.
“Shift change?”
His eyes were dull. That squeezed at Hughes’ chest, more than any other thing. They had managed to extinguish every bright star in Roy’s eyes. It was sometimes very easy to understand the simmering and near-constant rage Hawkeye managed to keep buttoned up. When he looked at Roy’s eyes.
Hawkeye trusted him, and that was nice. Now he might have to betray that.
This was such a stupid idea. This was the only thing he could do.
Hughes flung himself down into a chair, took the gun out of the holster, checked that it was loaded, and set it down on the table, pushing it over to Roy with a direct stare.
“Well. Do it then. Come on. Get it over with. Do it and I’ll clean up the mess and bury you.”
Roy sat back in the chair, giving Hughes his full attention now. The pen rolled off the desk, and clattered to the floor, the echo of it rocketing off the walls. With a shaking hand, Roy picked up the pistol and studied it. He pulled back the safety, and Hughes winced.
“Well.” Hughes wiped at his face, his nose sniffling, and tried to set his jaw hard. “Get on with it.” A choked sob nearly broke, and he swallowed it. “Ignore that.”
Roy turned the gun over in his hand. “If you want me to die, why are you crying?”
“I do not want you to die. Dick.” A sniffle, a wipe. “Would I have done everything I’ve done, if I wanted you to die? I absolutely do not. But..” He took in a breath, half cursing himself for crying, half hoping Roy knew it meant something, “If I have to bury you, I’d at least like to get it over with. Instead of waiting for you to starve yourself to death or drink yourself to death or whatever it is you’re doing here.”
Roy set the gun down. ‘I’m not--”
Stubborn fucking mule, since they were kids.
“Roy! I can count your goddamned ribs! I can smell the alcohol on you! I’m sitting at work, waiting every day to get a call that you finally collapsed, and there’s nothing they can do for you. I stare at my phone all day. I can’t live this way anymore. So, if you’re going to break my heart, break it! Don’t do it by degrees! It hurts! Break my heart and ruin Hawkeye’s life, if you have to, but at least have the courage to do it quickly. You owe me that. Do it to my face.”
Roy scoffed. “I’m not ruining--”
“Oh yes you are!” He flung his finger across the table. “She’ll never fucking recover. You have no idea what you mean to her. To me. But respect us a little bit, a tiny fraction, and get it over with, if you have no intention of living! If you’re going to give up!”
Roy stopped. He stared at the gun. With fear, with longing, with exhaustion, with a desire for absolution. He moved his hand toward it, and then took it back. Put his hand back in his lap. He sighed, reached for the slower suicide of the bottle instead and took a drink. He shook his head, staring at the table.
“What’s the point?”
Frustration and exhaustion crackled behind Hughes’ eyes. He was a gentle man, and a patient man, and the last few months had worn heavily on everyone’s best attributes. He felt something start to bend, and crack, inside him.
“I am going to beat the shit out of you. You. You are the point.”
“There’s nothing left of me.” he barely managed a shrug “I’m already dead. What is there to--”
“You know what, Roy?” Hughes stood up and took off his glasses, tossing them on the table. “I’m done talking.”
Roy barely had a moment to register confusion before Hughes’ hands were on him. There was no resisting. He slammed Roy into the bookcase, nearly tipping it over with the force of the blow, as he crumpled to the ground. A rush of pure satisfaction came over him.
He did not have to be a gentle or patient man. He could replace it with pain and fear. He could make Roy understand how he felt. Pain and fear.
Hughes grabbed Roy by the shoulder and punched him in the jaw. Roy tried to crawl away, but Hughes was too fast, and his reach was too long, and Roy was too weak to mount any sort of defense. He latched onto Roy’s leg, pulled him back and hoisted him up, his arm tight around Roy’s neck, locked.
“You want to die?” He yelled in Roy’s ear, felt him wince. “Okay! Can do, buddy!”
He leaned back against a chair, Roy’s toes barely scraping the floor.
Roy clawed at his arm, tried elbowing him in the gut, wriggled against him. Desperately fought for a breath. To no avail. He may well been a kitten.
“Oh, you want to live now?”
After a few long brief seconds, Hughes dropped him to the floor, where he choked and sputtered and gasped.
“What’s the point? I’ll tell you the point.”
Hughes flipped him onto his back in an easy twist, refusing to give him even a moment to breathe, and pinned him down.
“Because we love you! Asshole!” He dripped a tear onto Roy. “This has been going on for MONTHS, and the only thing that’s changed is that you’ve added a long, slow suicide to the really fun bursts of trying to get there fast. We don’t want you to die! I don’t want you to die! Don’t let them fucking win, Roy! Don’t let them break you! I know that you having a really, really hard time. But you are the most stubborn person I know! Hang on! We are trying to pull you up a cliff and you need to at least hang on.” He shook Roy against the floor. “Make a fucking effort!”
The silence hung between them, and Hughes released Roy’s shoulders, still straddling him but rocking back onto his heels. He’d always been able to beat Roy handily, in a physical match. But it been funny, before. Roy was so quick-witted, and had the alchemy, and it could just be teasing. But now, the anger ebbing, it began to feel cruel. Roy’s grip on life was so fragile. Hughes could see his heart pounding through his shirt. He was so weak. Hughes had hurt him.
Roy wasn’t lying when he’d once drunkenly muttered that you wake up one day and realize your hands are covered in blood. He would never hurt Roy intentionally. Except when he did.
“I’m sorry.” Roy’s eyes were closed. “ I want--to want to live. But. I don’t know if I can.”
“Try.” Hughes swung his leg over and knelt down by Roy, whose eyes fluttered open. “I will fight for you. Every single day. I just need you to fight too. A little. I know your mind has turned on you. And it’s sharp. Boy, do I wish your mind was less quick. But you don’t have to die, Roy. Please listen to me. Come on.”
He abandoned any sense of restraint--he had done it anyway, with the hitting, which he hadn’t meant to do, so he may as well abandon it a direction he preferred--and scooped Roy up into his arms as easily as a doll, laying Roy’s head against his shoulder.
“You don’t have to die. You do not have to die. I want you to live. You want you to live, I promise. Fuck Grand. You can’t get him if you die. Fight alongside me. We’ll take him down. Plenty of people will help you. We can turn this thing around. But you have to try. If you have ever loved me at all. If you appreciate everything Hawkeye’s given up for you. Try.”
Normally, Roy had only a passing tolerance for Hughes’ physically affectionate nature. So it came as a surprise to Hughes when he simply stayed there, quiet, head on his shoulder. A clock ticked in the background. Outside, the sun was setting, tired from its long day of baking the grass to brown. Roy wrapped his arms around Hughes, still silent, which Hughes took for the desperate cry it was, and held him a little tighter, ruffling the back of his hair.
“Okay. Okay.” Roy whispered, and Hughes felt something wet and hot on his neck. “I’ll try. But--”
“Just keep fighting. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“God,” Roy tried to push himself to sitting, “You’re such a big girl.”
Hughes smiled, and steadied him. ‘All the time. Absolutely. Will not stop. It’s why I had to learn to fight.” he wiped at his face. “I was never going to give up crying. A man needs his vices.”
Hawkeye came through the door, impressively quick for a difficult ask, though Hughes never really found himself surprised at her skill anymore. She had a tureen in one hand, and a baguette in the other, and an expression of confusion on her face mixed with a teaspoon of concern.
“Hawkeye,” Roy cleared his throat, “I think I need a shower.”
Hawkeye set down the soup on the table so fast her nod was lost in the rush of activity, a spark of hope in her eyes as she went to turn on the tap. As Roy half-heartedly washed his hair, Hawkeye laid out a grey t-shirt that was too big for Roy in the best of times, but soft and clean, alongside some cotton pants. September was an awkward month. The days were hot but the nights were cool. She laid an extra blanket on the bed. She took the half empty bottle and poured it out the window.
Then she stood in front of Hughes, who was sitting on Roy’s bed, and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. Impossible show of intimacy.
“Thank you.”
Hughes looked up, beginning to realize just how tired he was. But she trusted him. That was nice. “I can’t ever tell you what I did. It was….stupid”
“Tell me when the Major improves.” Hawkeye considered a moment, “If it works, it won’t be stupid.”
She gave a small, tense nod, and then went to find a spoon somewhere in the room. Stream rolled out of the bathroom, and Hughes rose to his feet, grabbing the tshirt.
Roy was still slightly dripping as he sat in front of his soup, Hawkeye trying to make a better effort of drying his hair. He picked up the spoon, hand shaking, and took a bite before setting it down.
“Everything tastes like ash.” He looked over at Hughes, and then over his shoulder at Hawkeye.
“Well, Major,” Hawkeye sat down next to him. “You smell better.”
“I will eat it. Just. Nothing tastes like anything.”
Roy dug up something from deep inside him. “What will I do with all these compliments?”
He took another bite of soup. Hughes watched Roy doing the only thing he’d asked. He was trying. He was fighting back. Sometimes a fight is won bite by bite. No ship is saved by a single sailor. Hughes had never imagined the level of joy he could feel looking at an empty bowl.
Hawkeye did not take a moment to celebrate--she seemed too afraid the spell would break--and guided Roy over to the bed, throwing back the faded blankets.
“It’s so cold.” He lay back on the pillow, purple bags under his eyes. “I’m so tired. I can’t sleep. When I do, I hear--I can’t.”
“Try. Just close your eyes.” Hughes pushed in his chair at the table.
“I feel like I’m going to float away.”
“Not with us here.” Hughes scooted him over and climbed in next to him, his arm around him.
Roy gave a deep sigh and stared at the ceiling. Hawkeye crawled over the end of the bed, her boots thumping onto the ground as she kicked them off, and rested on Roy’s other side.
“No promises.” He rubbed at his face with a groan. “I can’t fall asleep. I can’t--When I do, I start to hear things.”
“Don’t worry, Roy,” Hughes chirped “this is all a scam for you to owe me for the rest of your life. I’m counting on your meteoric rise to offer me a comfortable retirement. Which is why I need your life to be long.”
“Listen to me.”
Hughes expected to say it. It was the kind of thing he would say. He was perfectly happy to--and would, many times, over the course of their lives--chat aimlessly, or with the perfect level of annoyance and demand, and distract Roy from the ruts his mind fell into. The ability to aggravate Roy out of a spiral would become among his most prized skills.
But it wasn’t him.
Hawkeye looked at Hughes. She was such a difficult person to read. It was by design, he knew, years of learning that it was better to hide your cards. Some people grew up playing backalley poker while he grew up playing a cozy game of Uno with the family. She was kinder than she let on. Her affections ran deeper. He wouldn’t let her know he knew that. It would only embarrass her.
Hawkeye gave a decisive nod, and began to sing.
Hawkeye was nails tough, solid, the consummate soldier with terrifying accuracy and uncommon observational skills. She was born for specialist work. Neat and reliable. Intense and focused. Hughes could not have imagined what it might sound like to hear her sing. It was like imagining the song of a hawk. He expected the screech a rabbit hears last.
But then again, he had expected Roy to take him up on his bullet-based offer. It was a day of the miraculous.
Her voice was beautiful. Soft and clear and calm, sparkling with all the gentleness of a crystal held to candlelight. Hughes’ mouth fell a little open. Hawkeye did not make eye contact with him. Roy, either having heard it before or too exhausted to care about the discovery of a muse in their midst, had his eyes closed and began to relax, his breath deep and slow.
The last few years of Hughes’ life had been strange ones. Strange bad, mostly, though he clung to the little bits of good in them. He had gone from being a wiry kid sitting by the side of a creek, hoping he could score high enough to get accepted into Investigations and Intelligence, with his impulsively foolish genius friend, to seeing atrocities cross his desk daily, so few of them pursued, knowing the alchemists were doing half of them at least, imagining how that could possibly be Roy. And here they were. Roy had done terrible things, and terrible things had been done to him, and maybe he deserved to be destroyed for what he’d done, but Hughes was far past believing that life was about what we deserve. Roy hadn’t deserved to be ordered to obey or die in the first place. He hadn’t.
The joke in his family was that Roy had learned fire alchemy because nothing about him was big but his mouth. He was too smart for his own good, and too proud. He possibly needed to be taken behind the woodshed, Hughes’ father had opined, not unkindly. Roy was an arrogant little shit who picked fights above his weight class, and always had.
And Hughes loved him. Love was the only thing he still believed in. Justice felt wavering, Courage ephemeral, but Love, Love he knew was real, and mattered, every single day. Roy was his flaws, but he was his virtues, too. THe whole of his life, he had a ready defense of Roy in his mind. He’d used his wit to defend other kids, when they were boys. He was charming and funny. He had singlehandedly passed most of the Hughes clan in Latin with patient lessons. He played the piano for dances and he laughed and laughed. Did Grand know any of that, before he tried to destroy him? The way he smiled when he was truly happy?
Hawkeye’s song faded out, Roy deep in sleep, relaxed, finally, and Hughes prayed to anyone listening that dreams wouldn’t find him tonight. He very nearly complimented Hawkeye, before deciding that--and he would always hate this about her--she would prefer he said nothing to the embarassment of a kind word. She nestled in on Roy's pillow, desperately and wordlessly.
Nothing was fixed that day. There is no real magic, in this world. Roy continued to struggle, to fight his way out of the well, to beat back the feeling that he should not be. There were a few near misses. But he woke up in the morning, and, mostly, he got dressed. He had a coffee. He choked down food. He faced the day, and he conquered it. He lived for months by the small motto of, ‘Not today. Maybe tomorrow. But not today.”
The working, the trying, was enough. Hughes and Hawkeye shuttled him outside, and annoyingly, the sun on his face did feel good. Slowly, life began to seem bearable. The first time Hughes saw him reading a novel again, he was so excited by it that he distracted Roy from actually enjoying the novel. Hawkeye left fresh notebooks and newly-inked pens on Roy’s desk. He kept living. Hawkeye got a remarkable talent for being a quiet presence during a long night. Hughes was unmatched at his ability to talk Roy through one of his fits. But Roy himself kept his word, and tried. He learned to let a wave pass over him. The three of them fought together, and kept it at bay.
One day the soup tasted like food again. One day he laughed at one of Hughes’ stupid jokes. One day he held his head up in a meeting, looking directly at Grand.
Hughes never did tell Hawkeye what he’d done.
