Gifts part 3: Reflection
UGH it's done, but it's sooo rough.
TITLE: REFLECTION (Gifts Part 3)
PAIRING: Roy!Greed x Roy, Roy x Ed
RATING: PG
WARNING: No sex, some mild violence, but nothing hard core. Angst. Plot!
Roy watched Ed struggle to dress. He managed the boxers and pants with a bit of slithering and pulling, closing his belt one handed without even a trace of awkwardness. There had been times when Ed had gone without the arm before, after a tough fight, or during routine maintenance. It shouldn't have been a surprise that he didn’t need any help.
Roy looked down at his two useless hands. His mouth felt dry and dumb. He couldn't hope to explain to Ed that despite being whole and hale and supposedly capable, it was almost too difficult to contemplate dressing without Greed's permission. He was shaking and sweaty with adrenaline at the thought of defying Greed in such an open manner.
Ed lifted up his torn undershirt and contemplated it a moment before throwing it aside. He fastened his long sleeved coat over his bare torso with deft fingers. That done he glanced Roy's direction.
"Don't just sit there! Do you like being naked?" Ed looked confused. "Aren't you… cold."
Roy was cold. Bitterly cold, but it was a sensation he'd become used to. Warmth was nice when Greed allowed it, but it was always fleeting… and it usually came with uncomfortable strings. The blankets and sheets on the bed came with drops of dried blood, and crusted secretions. They were disgusting. But they were warm. Sometimes Greed dressed him in his uniform, but it was only as a fetish. Greed loved to remind him of his former pride before forcing him to swallow it. He'd once had pajamas but they had been long since torn to shreds along with his self-respect. Mostly Roy just endured the cold.
Ed pulled up and balanced on his one leg. He then hopped to the closet and looked inside. There were two uniforms there, one of them stained with Ed's blood, the other clean and pristine. Ed grabbed the clean one and, leaning against the door jam, tossed it into the room. "See there are clothes. You'll feel a lot better once you get that on."
In some ways Ed's fierceness and determination were infectious. Roy found himself wanting to believe that there was hope. That he could put on the mantel of his old existence and resurrect his old confident self. Part of him also feared that Ed might hit him, or worse, mock him, destroy what shreds of self he still had left. He felt torn between two impossible choices, defy Greed or defy Ed.
In the end, Roy stood up and picked the clothing off the floor because Ed was right in front of him, standing balanced on one leg and proving that it was possible to stand proud even in circumstances like these.
Ed found him some underwear in a drawer. Roy dressed with tingling fingers. When he finished he was out of breath. His blood sang in his ears.
Ed was staring warily at him. "Don't flake out on me, Mustang," he growled. "I need you."
"I'm sorry," said Roy. "I'm not much of a man anymore, am I."
Ed glowered at him. "Don't talk like that. That's what that insane homunculus has been telling you. Don't take his word for it. Listen. I'm sorry it took me so long to get you guys, but I'm here. We are going to get out of here. Trust me."
Roy just sat down on the bed again. He wanted to believe Ed, but he could still see the way Greed carried the teen so easily into the room. Ed had been just as helpless as he was to stop the rape that followed. Sure death might be better than this life, but it wasn't death that Greed threatened him with. Greed knew Roy's mind perfectly, he knew exactly what price was too high to pay.
Ed seemed oblivious to Roy's internal struggle. "Now don't tell me you didn't even try to escape. It surely took Greed a while to beat you down. What have you already tried?"
"I tried to find the door out, but I was unsuccessful. It's too cleverly hidden. I tried to tunnel my way out."
Ed perked up, "Yes?"
"Greed found out and forced me to show my tunnel to him and fill it in again."
"How long was it? Did it connect up?"
Roy sighed with anger and anguish. "No, of course it didn't. It was a random shot in the dark. I spent a week on it. I never got anywhere. It was, I'd guess at least 1000 feet maybe more."
"You filled up the 1000 feet?"
"No… only the first 5."
"Then we can open it."
"The others in this place will hear us. They know that trick already. They won't let me do it again. It was a one shot thing… and it depended on stealth. We'd be grabbed and hauled out of there… and then…"
Roy could still hear Greed's voice, threatening to throw Al in the river, locked in a waterproof box, to lie in torment alone for however long it took for the seal to break, and his soul to be wiped free of the last scrap of steel left to him.
Ed knew that threat, too, but it didn't seem to daunt him. "That's your problem, Mustang. You are too cautious, too calculating. You take too many factors into consideration. Sometimes you have to say, screw it, I'm doing this. I don't care how many people say it's impossible. I'll deal with failure when it happens…. If it happens. Anyway, I have an idea."
Roy felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. The idea of spending his meager strength going back to that project… a week of his life, the stress, the constant fear, but more over the hope.
"You won't be alone," said Ed hopping to the bed, and sitting down. He clapped Roy's back in a friendly way "I'm sure I can move quite a bit of stone at a stretch."
Roy looked at him puzzled. "Without your arm?"
Ed frowned and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Mustang, my alchemical skill isn't in my automail arm. Yeah, I can't just clap, but I can draw an array."
Roy's mind went momentarily blank with confusion. "But you… when you… When Scar destroyed your arm you lead us all to believe you couldn't do alchemy."
"You were the one to say that, not me. I just didn't contradict you." Ed rolled his eyes. "That's the other thing wrong with you, you make assumptions. It's a pain in the butt to draw an array, but trust me, if I'm motivated, I'll do it.
"I'll need my arm to put Al back together, " Ed continued, "But that's different, Roy. The problem is that I don't consciously know the array to do that. When I clap my hands together I can see how everything can go, but I can't translate that into a two dimensional glyph. On the other hand, moving ordinary earth shouldn't be a problem. I could do that when I was six."
Roy's felt his heart start to lighten, at the same time his stomach tensed. Hope was a very scary feeling.
Ed turned to Al who had been quiet all this time. "Al? Are you still with me?"
"Yes, brother. I'm not following you, but I trust you."
"Do you think you can still perform alchemy?"
There was a strange disembodied laugh. "I can't draw an array."
"No, but you can activate one. You haven't forgotten how to do alchemy have you?"
"I suppose if you placed me in an array, I could activate it. I don't see any reason why I couldn't."
Ed smiled, satisfied. "That makes three powerful alchemists and one simple array. We'll start with the tunnel you blocked off." Ed pushed himself up onto his leg again.
But then Roy's heart fell again. "The problem wasn't powering the array, Ed. It's where to put the dirt. I had to compress it, and find what empty spots I could fill without the Sin's noticing. It started easy enough but the longer the tunnel got, the more difficult it became. The pockets I ran into got filled quickly. I was blocking up some of the air vents by the end."
But Ed merely grinned. "That part is not going to be a problem at all."
Ed didn't elaborate on his scheme, and Roy didn’t ask. If he knew what Ed was planning his mind could poke holes in it, show up the failings. Hope had dug into him, despite his misgivings. Roy's mind slipped over its exquisiteness, so sharp he couldn't tell if it was pleasurable or painful, only that it was something he didn't want destroyed.
Ed asked for something to draw an array with, and for a moment Roy couldn’t think of anything that fit the bill. Chalk, the alchemist's favorite tool, didn't even exist in this hell pit. Nor did pencils, pens or any standard form of stylus. But in a pinch any sharp edged object could do the trick, so long as the surface being cut wasn't too tough.
The storage room Roy had used was lined in concrete, the amount of time it would take to draw scrape an array was problematic. Roy had initially used the thick layer of dust, and later the mud of his own tunnel to draw the array. But since it's discovery not only had that room been swept clean, but all the other rooms as well. Roy had done the sweeping himself, with either Greed or Envy watching on. He knew the job was thorough.
Then inspiration struck. Roy headed to the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain back. There on the narrow shelf was the shampoo. It was clear, but that hardly mattered, the important thing is that he could draw with it, and it wouldn't evaporate before the array was completed.
Ed gave only the briefest of nods of acknowledgement before going back to carefully wrapping his brother in the scarf that had been Greed's first gift to Roy. The metal was slightly bowl shaped and when Ed pulled the fabric tight, it stretched over the array without actually touching it. The material was thin enough that he could still see the lines of Al's seal through the silk. Ed took the excess material and tied it in a square knot to his belt.
"Let's go," Ed said, holding out an expectant arm. Roy leaned down and slid an arm under the boy's armpit, helping him up from the bed. Ed gripped his shoulder, and then hopped forward. The walk to the storage room was something like a three-legged race. It took a while to find their rhythm. A few times, Roy felt Ed's full weight as he lost his balance, but he didn't let the boy fall. The kid was surprisingly light anyway.
Never had a hundred feet of corridor felt so long.
Roy worried they would come across one of the Sins in the hall. Greed, of course, was gone for the next day or two, but his siblings were just as dangerous. Gluttony was the most likely interrupt their escape attempt. Without another Sin to hold him in check, the short grotesque creature had a tendency to give in to his nature. Almost as likely and much more worrisome was Envy. Roy had never been able to detect a pattern in that creature's comings and goings. Then there was Wrath who had shown up twice, long enough to gloat. Roy had never seen Pride or Sloth, though he knew they existed somewhere.
The last danger came from architect of Roy's misery. Roy had only caught glimpses of Father since Greed's making. The creature seemed to have attached himself to his machine and turned his back on the world.
No, there would be no help there, but likely no hindrance, either.
Roy breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the storage room. It felt odd to walk across that familiar floor again. Memories of Greed pacing the perimeter ghosted Roy's mind, and again he could almost feel the Sin's breath on his back.
Ed looked up at him quizzically. "Are you cold? You are shaking." Then the boy's face seemed to solidify in a frown. "Oh, don't go wonky on me now. I need you to focus. Where was the hole, we can't go fishing about for it. We need to connect up in a single shot."
Roy licked his lips and then scanned the room. The boxes had been moved when he'd cleaned the place, but his memory was clear enough. He'd hidden and reopened the hole many times before. While Ed sat on a box and watched, Roy stood in the corner and then stretched his arms out as far as he could reach. Pivoting on the palm of his hand he stretched out into the room and then crouched on the floor.
He pulled the bottle of shampoo from his pocket and poured a large glop out on the floor. Using it like finger-paint, he drew the array. It looked like a dark wet line against the pale concrete. Roy noticed his hand shaking, but dismissed it. The circle didn't have to be perfect. It just had to be close enough.
He imagined the route the tunnel had gone before. Down five feet under the earth and then hooking out. He paused and turned to Ed.
"Where should I put the dirt?"
"Just leave it in the room."
Roy blinked. That would work for the first five feet of dirt, but who knows how many cubic yards they would have to move before they reached the surface. Still, Ed had a plan, and that was whole lot more than Roy had.
Roy put his hands in the array and willed, holding back on his power in favor of silence. The concrete slowly cracked and then shifted, lifted in the air and moved fill a corner of the room. Ed watched, frowning. "Very… discrete," he said. He then pulled up to standing and hopped over to the hole, arm twitching for balance. Roy grabbed his waist to steady him, then lifted him up and set him in the hole. Roy's memory had served him well; the claustrophobic tunnel was right there.
"It will be dark," Roy said. "I had a candle before." Roy didn't mention that the candle had appeared during one of Greed's misbegotten attempts at romance -- as though the dim flickering light could make unsweetened oatmeal or a psychopathic companion more palatable. It had been, of course, long since confiscated.
Darkness swallowed them immediately, and Roy was left with the sound of Ed's harsh breathing as they crawled up the inclined slope. Finally Ed stopped.
Roy heard Ed rustling about and felt a hand brush against his face then slide down to his neck over his shoulder to his hand. Roy fought the urge to pull away as Ed's fingers slid around his, exploring his hand in a bizarre but purposeful way. "Point your finger," Ed said.
Roy did. Ed grabbed his hand and pressed his finger into the dirt. Roy resisted for half a moment then understood, Ed was using his hand to draw the circle. Sure enough he could feel the soft earth give under his finger, the outer circle was drawn and then the inner loops. Roy was amazed. He wouldn't have been able to draw a perfect array in the pitch black.
"Hold your hand still," Ed ordered, his voice hushed. Roy froze. Then he felt something solid press against the side of his hand.
"On the count of three, " Ed went on, "Put all of you strength into the array. Let me direct where it goes."
Roy's heart skipped. "All of it? But … the noise, and where will all that earth go?"
"One, two, THREE!"
The alchemical light dazzled Roy and he almost stopped adding his strength. The noise was deafening. Roy heard ground slide over and around them. The Sin's would have certainly heard that! Hell, people on the SURFACE probably heard that. It went on for close to fifteen minutes during which the air filled with choking dust.
"STOP!" said Ed suddenly, and in the dying reaction Roy saw something moving up the tunnel towards them at an alarming speed. Gluttony? No… no… it was the earth. It block up the tunnel behind them. For a moment it looked as if it might run them over, but the wall of earth stopped only a few feet behind them. Roy gasped. The air suddenly seemed very stale and close.
In the last glow of the alchemy circle Roy saw Ed's smug look.
"We don't have to be stealthy Roy. No one will be able to follow us now."
Yes… because they were now buried alive.
Ed led the way up the tunnel carved by their alchemy. It seemed to stretch farther than Roy's original tunnel, but it was hard to estimate. The air grew staler by the minute. Roy hoped that they would break through to something… anything, but it didn’t. Roy bumped into Ed's foot again, and felt him wiggling around.
"The air's going bad," Roy felt compelled to mention.
"I know," Ed growled. "It's fixable."
Again the groping hand, this time Roy guided Ed to his finger. The younger alchemist was not particularly gentle pressing it into the ground. Roy bit his lip as his nail caught on small stones, and he wondered if in fact the earth was suitable for even taking an array. Apparently it wasn't, because Ed hissed in frustration and said rather tersely, "Back up about three feet. I'm pretty sure I felt a softer patch back there."
They backed up and did it again. Roy knew the array Ed was going for, but didn't try to control where Ed placed his finger. Roy again was astonished by the young man's spatial sense. Very few could memorize arrangement of objects by touch alone.
Again Roy blinked when the array light up. The air immediately tasted cleaner. Roy sucked in great breaths with relish. Damn it, this was going to work after all. He looked over at Ed as the light from the array faded. The alchemist looked pensive.
"Are you all right," Roy asked.
"It's nothing. Crawling isn't the most comfortable thing to do. I'm a bit… nevermind."
Roy knew exactly. The pleasure of escape drained away and what he'd done the night before. He felt a wave of nausea. "I'm really sorry, Ed. I… what can I say…"
"You don't have to say anything. You didn't rape me. That monster did."
Roy was confused. Surely Ed didn't mean…"You wanted? Is that - how?"
He heard Ed snort in the dark. "Don't flatter yourself. What I meant is that I raped you just as much as you raped me. Or rather Greed raped us both. If you hadn't done what you did, he'd have taken it out on Al. Yeah, given a choice of … whatever the hell you call what we did … or say automail surgery, I'd probably pick the surgery, but that wasn't the choice. You did what you had to. I've lived through worse. "
"Brother," murmured Al.
"I'm just sorry you had to watch that, Al."
"I felt helpless."
"I think that was the point," said Roy, gently.
"Anyway, that whole sex thing wasn't about me anyway," said Ed. "It was Greed fucking with your mind, trying to make you think you were a rapist, when you'd never do that to anyone. It's a mind fuck, just like what he said about you wanting me when we first met. Don't buy into that garbage just because Greed says so."
Roy swallowed and was very glad that Ed wasn't privy to the darker parts of his past.
"He isn't you, Roy. Don't you forget it."
Roy couldn't resist twisting the knife in his own belly. "And yet he is close enough that no one recognized he wasn't me."
Ed stopped again and Roy bumped up against him. "I already told you I'm sorry about that. He wasn't that good a copy, Roy. Trust me, we ALL noticed how off you… he was. We just never thought that it could be another homunculi. Oh for a while Riza speculated you were Envy, but then we saw Envy and you at the same time and we knew that wasn't the case."
Roy was ashamed he'd mentioned it. "It's not your fault."
"Yeah, well, it's not a great reflection on me either. You wanna know the truth? I really thought for about an hour that you'd gone psycho and killed my brother. I was ready to eviscerate you. You see after we finally found the rest of Al's armor, which you… he hid in an abandoned warehouse, After we found that, we also found a note that was in your handwriting telling him to meet you there.
"At first I thought you might have met with him and then a psycho got him afterwards, but it didn't make any sense, I mean you would have stepped forward and told us where you'd seen him last. So I asked you… I mean Greed… point blank what he did with Al. He told me that he knew something, but I'd have to meet him privately. He said that it was some high up conspiracy and he didn't feel comfortable talking about it in his office."
"Like an idiot I followed him to an isolated alley way and then you… I mean Greed took me out. I was expecting a flame attack, but he just overpowered me physically."
Ed took a deep noisy breath. "So there you have it. I found you through luck and idiocy, not insight or detective work. And it was because I was looking for Al not you."
"It doesn’t matter how you found me," said Roy. "Just that you didn't leave me."
Ed snorted and started to crawl again. "That wasn't all charity either. I need you to help me take out Greed. You are the only person to ever take out a homunculus before."
They expanded the tunnel again, filling in the hole behind them. When the air grew too stale, they drew an array and refreshed it. Still the walls seemed oppressively close and they appeared no closer to the surface.
Then there came a queer rumbling. They both paused and held their breaths for a moment. Roy could feel that queer buzz at the edge of his mind that alchemic reactions always gave him.
"That was someone else moving earth behind us," Al gasped.
"Hohenheim," muttered Roy. None of the homunculi could perform alchemy, a fact that made Roy heartily glad.
"It doesn't matter," said Ed. "He won't find us." Still, he crawled faster.
They performed the ritual one more time, and this time there was a distinct difference. Roy could FEEL when they broke through to the surface. More, he could SEE it. A distant light like a star. The air began to taste better immediately. They crawled up and out into someone's fenced back yard.
The owner of the property was an elderly lady, hunched nearly double, who watched them emerge like moles from the ground with a mixture of curiosity and alarm. "I'm calling the police," she declared as Roy pushed himself onto the grass.
"That would be an excellent idea," said Roy. He lay back and breathed hard and took in the sight of clouds and breathed fresh air, and felt sunlight on his face for the first time in nearly a month.
They'd escaped.
Roy felt a bit strange drinking tea and eating cookies in the old woman's parlor. For a bit he was overwhelmed by the sheer flavor and texture of the food. It was the first thing he'd eaten that hadn't come straight out of can or a packet since he'd been kidnapped.
"How are you holding up," Ed asked after a while.
"It feels strange."
The door bell rang and the old woman tottered over to open it. Riza walked in. Her eyes scanned the two of them briefly before she unslung the duffle from her back. "Sir, " she said hesitantly. Her brown eyes softened, and she looked less the hardened soldier and more the concerned friend.
"It's okay." There were really no more words than that.
"I had my doubts…"
"It's okay," Roy repeated. The last thing he needed was Riza to feel guilty. He had as much on his plate as he cold muster as it was, without needing to counsel her as well. "I'll be fine," he added. Even though it was the most blatantly false thing he'd ever said to her, she seemed to latch onto the words and relax.
"We'll take Greed down," she asserted, the soldier back in her eyes again.
"Yes, we will," said Roy with confidence he frankly didn't feel.
Ed broke the moment with a happy near squeal. "YES! Thank you Lieutenant!"
Roy looked over to see the alchemist pulling his automail limbs from the duffle bag.
"Al's body is being kept in a secure storage facility. I'll drive us there as soon as you are ready."
It was one thing to defy Greed when he wasn't around, it was another thing to openly fight the monster. Roy wondered if he were up to the task. But the others around him were looking towards him for guidance. He turned his eyes to each of his trusted subordinates and remembered how easy it used to be to order them about. How little thought he'd once given to his unequal relationships with them.
His eyes stopped on Breda. The man looked thinner than he had when Roy had seen him last. Roy remembered Greed's cruel remarks towards the bright young man and he inwardly cringed. He owed it to Breda to be strong. To show him that he was a man worthy of following, despite what the monster had done in Roy's name.
So Roy started to act, pretending to be himself. His mouth fumbled the words he knew he'd have said before the kidnapping. Breda nodded his head, relaxed, ready, and ironically confident in Roy's leadership.
They snuck up on Greed in Roy's office. When Al kicked the door, the Sin looked up from the pile of paperwork with the oddest look of utter alarm on his face.
Roy stepped forward even as the others unloaded their pistols into the Sin. As expected the bullets staggered the homunculus backwards but didn't drop the creature the way they would have a normal human being.
Greed only had eyes for one person. "I see, Roy, all your -"
Roy didn't have any idea what the Sin was going to say, because he never got the chance to finish the sentence. Roy lifted his gloved fingers up and snapped and felt the stir of alchemy burn up from his soul and out his fingers and all the way to the Homunculus.
Greed started to turn dark, but Roy didn't give him the chance to complete the transformation. He kept up the inferno driving the fire under the hardening skin to roast the inner organs and crack the stone within Greed's heart.
Even as Greed burned Roy saw Ed and Al move in, driving spears they hadn't possessed seconds before deep into the creatures flesh.
Almost too soon for it to be properly cathartic, Greed shattered. His flesh fell apart like ashes in the wind and there was nothing but scorched mark on the floor, a ruined chair and desk and bits of burning paper fluttering about the air.
"It's done," said Ed reaching out a hand to clap Roy on the shoulder. "Now we can forget about it."
"Yes," said Roy. "Already forgotten," he lied.
The Elric boys must be made of adamantine, Roy concluded three sleepless nights later. Either that, or I'm made of tissue paper.
Roy pushed aside the covers on his bed and stood up once more to check the locks on his windows and doors. Again they were secure, as were the trip wires he'd rigged to sound if someone were to force entry.
Returning from his rounds he stopped by the bathroom to wash the sweat off his face. It wasn't a hot night, but after so long in the cold his body couldn't seem to adjust to the warmth.
Earlier that day, Riza had told him she was happy to see him back to normal. But normal wasn't even close to what he felt. He played the part of the Colonel as best he could, but under the thinnest skin was a layer of anger and fear that seemed to persist no matter how he tried to resolve it.
Everywhere in his house were reminders that Roy was anything but normal. The bathroom mirror was covered over by newspaper and masking tape. In the morning he'd pull it down to shave, but then cover it up again as soon as he could afterwards.
He couldn't do the same thing for the rest of the world. Lately he'd become only too aware of how many reflective surfaces one encountered in the course of walking from one place to another. Every time he saw his face, his body surged with adrenaline and for a second he'd worry that Greed was back.
To think, once he'd liked to look at himself in a mirror. Now his reflection was painful.
No matter how often he told himself Greed was gone forever, that he'd seen the thing die with his own eyes, he just couldn't believe it. And if Greed didn't make his waking life misery enough, he made Roy's sleep pure hell.
In his waking moments his mind looped endlessly over the acts he'd been forced to perform and the horrors Greed threatened. In his sleep, Greed always followed through, disposing of Al, murdering Riza, And Ed would be there lying broken in a corner of the room begging for Roy to stop.
The fourth time Roy woke up that night, it was to the alarm of his tripwires being set off.
His eyes flew open, and he held out his gloved hands (for he'd taken to sleeping with the gloves on) ready to snap.
"Don't bother," came an androgynous voice. "I'm not here to hurt you." Roy fumbled for the lamp and switched it on. Yellow light bathed the room.
Roy sat up and stared at the Sin standing by the foot of his bed. "That's good, because I've taken out two of you now. I wouldn't mind making it three." He hoped he had the willpower to follow up his words. He hoped even more the homunculus wouldn't test his resolve.
Envy snorted. "As if you could. But I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to negotiate."
"Negotiate?"
"Negotiate," confirmed Envy. "You keep your mouth shut about Wrath, and I won't eviscerate your underlings. Does it sound like a deal?"
"Why," said Roy.
Envy raised an eyebrow. "Why am I negotiating with you? Or why should you care about your underlings?"
"Why now," Roy felt anger bloom in him. "Why not a month ago, before all this started."
Envy sighed. "You know Roy, sometimes things seem like a good idea at the time. All my Master's Greed's have been problematic, they rarely last. Usually Father has to unmake them. They are too GREEDY you see. Too independent. They don't take orders well. This one was the worst of all, and so he didn't even last a month."
"Father is not upset we destroyed him?"
"Eh, saved us the effort." Envy shrugged. "But this is beside the point. Will you take our offer?"
"Yes," said Roy quickly, knowing the creature couldn't tell if he was lying or not. It was strangely powerful feeling. Sure he'd stay quiet about Wrath... openly. But with a bit more care this time, he'd build up his side. Roy felt a trickle of his old ambitions seeping back in. It was wonderful.
"Good." Envy stood up. "Now don't go imploding on us, Colonel. We still need you. But we can wait to collect you up when the time is right."
Roy clenched his jaw. I survived that once. I can survive it again. If it comes to pass at all.
"In the meantime, sleep well." Envy slipped back out the open window. Roy quickly drew the arrays to repair the window and reset his traps, but the act seemed hollow and unnecessary.
Father had been cowed. Roy had won. For the first time in weeks, Roy smiled a true smile. The smile that belonged to his old self. When Roy curled under the covers again, he fell asleep quickly. This time there were no dreams and strangely enough, Roy did, indeed, sleep well.
TITLE: REFLECTION (Gifts Part 3)
PAIRING: Roy!Greed x Roy, Roy x Ed
RATING: PG
WARNING: No sex, some mild violence, but nothing hard core. Angst. Plot!
Roy watched Ed struggle to dress. He managed the boxers and pants with a bit of slithering and pulling, closing his belt one handed without even a trace of awkwardness. There had been times when Ed had gone without the arm before, after a tough fight, or during routine maintenance. It shouldn't have been a surprise that he didn’t need any help.
Roy looked down at his two useless hands. His mouth felt dry and dumb. He couldn't hope to explain to Ed that despite being whole and hale and supposedly capable, it was almost too difficult to contemplate dressing without Greed's permission. He was shaking and sweaty with adrenaline at the thought of defying Greed in such an open manner.
Ed lifted up his torn undershirt and contemplated it a moment before throwing it aside. He fastened his long sleeved coat over his bare torso with deft fingers. That done he glanced Roy's direction.
"Don't just sit there! Do you like being naked?" Ed looked confused. "Aren't you… cold."
Roy was cold. Bitterly cold, but it was a sensation he'd become used to. Warmth was nice when Greed allowed it, but it was always fleeting… and it usually came with uncomfortable strings. The blankets and sheets on the bed came with drops of dried blood, and crusted secretions. They were disgusting. But they were warm. Sometimes Greed dressed him in his uniform, but it was only as a fetish. Greed loved to remind him of his former pride before forcing him to swallow it. He'd once had pajamas but they had been long since torn to shreds along with his self-respect. Mostly Roy just endured the cold.
Ed pulled up and balanced on his one leg. He then hopped to the closet and looked inside. There were two uniforms there, one of them stained with Ed's blood, the other clean and pristine. Ed grabbed the clean one and, leaning against the door jam, tossed it into the room. "See there are clothes. You'll feel a lot better once you get that on."
In some ways Ed's fierceness and determination were infectious. Roy found himself wanting to believe that there was hope. That he could put on the mantel of his old existence and resurrect his old confident self. Part of him also feared that Ed might hit him, or worse, mock him, destroy what shreds of self he still had left. He felt torn between two impossible choices, defy Greed or defy Ed.
In the end, Roy stood up and picked the clothing off the floor because Ed was right in front of him, standing balanced on one leg and proving that it was possible to stand proud even in circumstances like these.
Ed found him some underwear in a drawer. Roy dressed with tingling fingers. When he finished he was out of breath. His blood sang in his ears.
Ed was staring warily at him. "Don't flake out on me, Mustang," he growled. "I need you."
"I'm sorry," said Roy. "I'm not much of a man anymore, am I."
Ed glowered at him. "Don't talk like that. That's what that insane homunculus has been telling you. Don't take his word for it. Listen. I'm sorry it took me so long to get you guys, but I'm here. We are going to get out of here. Trust me."
Roy just sat down on the bed again. He wanted to believe Ed, but he could still see the way Greed carried the teen so easily into the room. Ed had been just as helpless as he was to stop the rape that followed. Sure death might be better than this life, but it wasn't death that Greed threatened him with. Greed knew Roy's mind perfectly, he knew exactly what price was too high to pay.
Ed seemed oblivious to Roy's internal struggle. "Now don't tell me you didn't even try to escape. It surely took Greed a while to beat you down. What have you already tried?"
"I tried to find the door out, but I was unsuccessful. It's too cleverly hidden. I tried to tunnel my way out."
Ed perked up, "Yes?"
"Greed found out and forced me to show my tunnel to him and fill it in again."
"How long was it? Did it connect up?"
Roy sighed with anger and anguish. "No, of course it didn't. It was a random shot in the dark. I spent a week on it. I never got anywhere. It was, I'd guess at least 1000 feet maybe more."
"You filled up the 1000 feet?"
"No… only the first 5."
"Then we can open it."
"The others in this place will hear us. They know that trick already. They won't let me do it again. It was a one shot thing… and it depended on stealth. We'd be grabbed and hauled out of there… and then…"
Roy could still hear Greed's voice, threatening to throw Al in the river, locked in a waterproof box, to lie in torment alone for however long it took for the seal to break, and his soul to be wiped free of the last scrap of steel left to him.
Ed knew that threat, too, but it didn't seem to daunt him. "That's your problem, Mustang. You are too cautious, too calculating. You take too many factors into consideration. Sometimes you have to say, screw it, I'm doing this. I don't care how many people say it's impossible. I'll deal with failure when it happens…. If it happens. Anyway, I have an idea."
Roy felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. The idea of spending his meager strength going back to that project… a week of his life, the stress, the constant fear, but more over the hope.
"You won't be alone," said Ed hopping to the bed, and sitting down. He clapped Roy's back in a friendly way "I'm sure I can move quite a bit of stone at a stretch."
Roy looked at him puzzled. "Without your arm?"
Ed frowned and cocked an eyebrow at him. "Mustang, my alchemical skill isn't in my automail arm. Yeah, I can't just clap, but I can draw an array."
Roy's mind went momentarily blank with confusion. "But you… when you… When Scar destroyed your arm you lead us all to believe you couldn't do alchemy."
"You were the one to say that, not me. I just didn't contradict you." Ed rolled his eyes. "That's the other thing wrong with you, you make assumptions. It's a pain in the butt to draw an array, but trust me, if I'm motivated, I'll do it.
"I'll need my arm to put Al back together, " Ed continued, "But that's different, Roy. The problem is that I don't consciously know the array to do that. When I clap my hands together I can see how everything can go, but I can't translate that into a two dimensional glyph. On the other hand, moving ordinary earth shouldn't be a problem. I could do that when I was six."
Roy's felt his heart start to lighten, at the same time his stomach tensed. Hope was a very scary feeling.
Ed turned to Al who had been quiet all this time. "Al? Are you still with me?"
"Yes, brother. I'm not following you, but I trust you."
"Do you think you can still perform alchemy?"
There was a strange disembodied laugh. "I can't draw an array."
"No, but you can activate one. You haven't forgotten how to do alchemy have you?"
"I suppose if you placed me in an array, I could activate it. I don't see any reason why I couldn't."
Ed smiled, satisfied. "That makes three powerful alchemists and one simple array. We'll start with the tunnel you blocked off." Ed pushed himself up onto his leg again.
But then Roy's heart fell again. "The problem wasn't powering the array, Ed. It's where to put the dirt. I had to compress it, and find what empty spots I could fill without the Sin's noticing. It started easy enough but the longer the tunnel got, the more difficult it became. The pockets I ran into got filled quickly. I was blocking up some of the air vents by the end."
But Ed merely grinned. "That part is not going to be a problem at all."
Ed didn't elaborate on his scheme, and Roy didn’t ask. If he knew what Ed was planning his mind could poke holes in it, show up the failings. Hope had dug into him, despite his misgivings. Roy's mind slipped over its exquisiteness, so sharp he couldn't tell if it was pleasurable or painful, only that it was something he didn't want destroyed.
Ed asked for something to draw an array with, and for a moment Roy couldn’t think of anything that fit the bill. Chalk, the alchemist's favorite tool, didn't even exist in this hell pit. Nor did pencils, pens or any standard form of stylus. But in a pinch any sharp edged object could do the trick, so long as the surface being cut wasn't too tough.
The storage room Roy had used was lined in concrete, the amount of time it would take to draw scrape an array was problematic. Roy had initially used the thick layer of dust, and later the mud of his own tunnel to draw the array. But since it's discovery not only had that room been swept clean, but all the other rooms as well. Roy had done the sweeping himself, with either Greed or Envy watching on. He knew the job was thorough.
Then inspiration struck. Roy headed to the bathroom and pulled the shower curtain back. There on the narrow shelf was the shampoo. It was clear, but that hardly mattered, the important thing is that he could draw with it, and it wouldn't evaporate before the array was completed.
Ed gave only the briefest of nods of acknowledgement before going back to carefully wrapping his brother in the scarf that had been Greed's first gift to Roy. The metal was slightly bowl shaped and when Ed pulled the fabric tight, it stretched over the array without actually touching it. The material was thin enough that he could still see the lines of Al's seal through the silk. Ed took the excess material and tied it in a square knot to his belt.
"Let's go," Ed said, holding out an expectant arm. Roy leaned down and slid an arm under the boy's armpit, helping him up from the bed. Ed gripped his shoulder, and then hopped forward. The walk to the storage room was something like a three-legged race. It took a while to find their rhythm. A few times, Roy felt Ed's full weight as he lost his balance, but he didn't let the boy fall. The kid was surprisingly light anyway.
Never had a hundred feet of corridor felt so long.
Roy worried they would come across one of the Sins in the hall. Greed, of course, was gone for the next day or two, but his siblings were just as dangerous. Gluttony was the most likely interrupt their escape attempt. Without another Sin to hold him in check, the short grotesque creature had a tendency to give in to his nature. Almost as likely and much more worrisome was Envy. Roy had never been able to detect a pattern in that creature's comings and goings. Then there was Wrath who had shown up twice, long enough to gloat. Roy had never seen Pride or Sloth, though he knew they existed somewhere.
The last danger came from architect of Roy's misery. Roy had only caught glimpses of Father since Greed's making. The creature seemed to have attached himself to his machine and turned his back on the world.
No, there would be no help there, but likely no hindrance, either.
Roy breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the storage room. It felt odd to walk across that familiar floor again. Memories of Greed pacing the perimeter ghosted Roy's mind, and again he could almost feel the Sin's breath on his back.
Ed looked up at him quizzically. "Are you cold? You are shaking." Then the boy's face seemed to solidify in a frown. "Oh, don't go wonky on me now. I need you to focus. Where was the hole, we can't go fishing about for it. We need to connect up in a single shot."
Roy licked his lips and then scanned the room. The boxes had been moved when he'd cleaned the place, but his memory was clear enough. He'd hidden and reopened the hole many times before. While Ed sat on a box and watched, Roy stood in the corner and then stretched his arms out as far as he could reach. Pivoting on the palm of his hand he stretched out into the room and then crouched on the floor.
He pulled the bottle of shampoo from his pocket and poured a large glop out on the floor. Using it like finger-paint, he drew the array. It looked like a dark wet line against the pale concrete. Roy noticed his hand shaking, but dismissed it. The circle didn't have to be perfect. It just had to be close enough.
He imagined the route the tunnel had gone before. Down five feet under the earth and then hooking out. He paused and turned to Ed.
"Where should I put the dirt?"
"Just leave it in the room."
Roy blinked. That would work for the first five feet of dirt, but who knows how many cubic yards they would have to move before they reached the surface. Still, Ed had a plan, and that was whole lot more than Roy had.
Roy put his hands in the array and willed, holding back on his power in favor of silence. The concrete slowly cracked and then shifted, lifted in the air and moved fill a corner of the room. Ed watched, frowning. "Very… discrete," he said. He then pulled up to standing and hopped over to the hole, arm twitching for balance. Roy grabbed his waist to steady him, then lifted him up and set him in the hole. Roy's memory had served him well; the claustrophobic tunnel was right there.
"It will be dark," Roy said. "I had a candle before." Roy didn't mention that the candle had appeared during one of Greed's misbegotten attempts at romance -- as though the dim flickering light could make unsweetened oatmeal or a psychopathic companion more palatable. It had been, of course, long since confiscated.
Darkness swallowed them immediately, and Roy was left with the sound of Ed's harsh breathing as they crawled up the inclined slope. Finally Ed stopped.
Roy heard Ed rustling about and felt a hand brush against his face then slide down to his neck over his shoulder to his hand. Roy fought the urge to pull away as Ed's fingers slid around his, exploring his hand in a bizarre but purposeful way. "Point your finger," Ed said.
Roy did. Ed grabbed his hand and pressed his finger into the dirt. Roy resisted for half a moment then understood, Ed was using his hand to draw the circle. Sure enough he could feel the soft earth give under his finger, the outer circle was drawn and then the inner loops. Roy was amazed. He wouldn't have been able to draw a perfect array in the pitch black.
"Hold your hand still," Ed ordered, his voice hushed. Roy froze. Then he felt something solid press against the side of his hand.
"On the count of three, " Ed went on, "Put all of you strength into the array. Let me direct where it goes."
Roy's heart skipped. "All of it? But … the noise, and where will all that earth go?"
"One, two, THREE!"
The alchemical light dazzled Roy and he almost stopped adding his strength. The noise was deafening. Roy heard ground slide over and around them. The Sin's would have certainly heard that! Hell, people on the SURFACE probably heard that. It went on for close to fifteen minutes during which the air filled with choking dust.
"STOP!" said Ed suddenly, and in the dying reaction Roy saw something moving up the tunnel towards them at an alarming speed. Gluttony? No… no… it was the earth. It block up the tunnel behind them. For a moment it looked as if it might run them over, but the wall of earth stopped only a few feet behind them. Roy gasped. The air suddenly seemed very stale and close.
In the last glow of the alchemy circle Roy saw Ed's smug look.
"We don't have to be stealthy Roy. No one will be able to follow us now."
Yes… because they were now buried alive.
Ed led the way up the tunnel carved by their alchemy. It seemed to stretch farther than Roy's original tunnel, but it was hard to estimate. The air grew staler by the minute. Roy hoped that they would break through to something… anything, but it didn’t. Roy bumped into Ed's foot again, and felt him wiggling around.
"The air's going bad," Roy felt compelled to mention.
"I know," Ed growled. "It's fixable."
Again the groping hand, this time Roy guided Ed to his finger. The younger alchemist was not particularly gentle pressing it into the ground. Roy bit his lip as his nail caught on small stones, and he wondered if in fact the earth was suitable for even taking an array. Apparently it wasn't, because Ed hissed in frustration and said rather tersely, "Back up about three feet. I'm pretty sure I felt a softer patch back there."
They backed up and did it again. Roy knew the array Ed was going for, but didn't try to control where Ed placed his finger. Roy again was astonished by the young man's spatial sense. Very few could memorize arrangement of objects by touch alone.
Again Roy blinked when the array light up. The air immediately tasted cleaner. Roy sucked in great breaths with relish. Damn it, this was going to work after all. He looked over at Ed as the light from the array faded. The alchemist looked pensive.
"Are you all right," Roy asked.
"It's nothing. Crawling isn't the most comfortable thing to do. I'm a bit… nevermind."
Roy knew exactly. The pleasure of escape drained away and what he'd done the night before. He felt a wave of nausea. "I'm really sorry, Ed. I… what can I say…"
"You don't have to say anything. You didn't rape me. That monster did."
Roy was confused. Surely Ed didn't mean…"You wanted? Is that - how?"
He heard Ed snort in the dark. "Don't flatter yourself. What I meant is that I raped you just as much as you raped me. Or rather Greed raped us both. If you hadn't done what you did, he'd have taken it out on Al. Yeah, given a choice of … whatever the hell you call what we did … or say automail surgery, I'd probably pick the surgery, but that wasn't the choice. You did what you had to. I've lived through worse. "
"Brother," murmured Al.
"I'm just sorry you had to watch that, Al."
"I felt helpless."
"I think that was the point," said Roy, gently.
"Anyway, that whole sex thing wasn't about me anyway," said Ed. "It was Greed fucking with your mind, trying to make you think you were a rapist, when you'd never do that to anyone. It's a mind fuck, just like what he said about you wanting me when we first met. Don't buy into that garbage just because Greed says so."
Roy swallowed and was very glad that Ed wasn't privy to the darker parts of his past.
"He isn't you, Roy. Don't you forget it."
Roy couldn't resist twisting the knife in his own belly. "And yet he is close enough that no one recognized he wasn't me."
Ed stopped again and Roy bumped up against him. "I already told you I'm sorry about that. He wasn't that good a copy, Roy. Trust me, we ALL noticed how off you… he was. We just never thought that it could be another homunculi. Oh for a while Riza speculated you were Envy, but then we saw Envy and you at the same time and we knew that wasn't the case."
Roy was ashamed he'd mentioned it. "It's not your fault."
"Yeah, well, it's not a great reflection on me either. You wanna know the truth? I really thought for about an hour that you'd gone psycho and killed my brother. I was ready to eviscerate you. You see after we finally found the rest of Al's armor, which you… he hid in an abandoned warehouse, After we found that, we also found a note that was in your handwriting telling him to meet you there.
"At first I thought you might have met with him and then a psycho got him afterwards, but it didn't make any sense, I mean you would have stepped forward and told us where you'd seen him last. So I asked you… I mean Greed… point blank what he did with Al. He told me that he knew something, but I'd have to meet him privately. He said that it was some high up conspiracy and he didn't feel comfortable talking about it in his office."
"Like an idiot I followed him to an isolated alley way and then you… I mean Greed took me out. I was expecting a flame attack, but he just overpowered me physically."
Ed took a deep noisy breath. "So there you have it. I found you through luck and idiocy, not insight or detective work. And it was because I was looking for Al not you."
"It doesn’t matter how you found me," said Roy. "Just that you didn't leave me."
Ed snorted and started to crawl again. "That wasn't all charity either. I need you to help me take out Greed. You are the only person to ever take out a homunculus before."
They expanded the tunnel again, filling in the hole behind them. When the air grew too stale, they drew an array and refreshed it. Still the walls seemed oppressively close and they appeared no closer to the surface.
Then there came a queer rumbling. They both paused and held their breaths for a moment. Roy could feel that queer buzz at the edge of his mind that alchemic reactions always gave him.
"That was someone else moving earth behind us," Al gasped.
"Hohenheim," muttered Roy. None of the homunculi could perform alchemy, a fact that made Roy heartily glad.
"It doesn't matter," said Ed. "He won't find us." Still, he crawled faster.
They performed the ritual one more time, and this time there was a distinct difference. Roy could FEEL when they broke through to the surface. More, he could SEE it. A distant light like a star. The air began to taste better immediately. They crawled up and out into someone's fenced back yard.
The owner of the property was an elderly lady, hunched nearly double, who watched them emerge like moles from the ground with a mixture of curiosity and alarm. "I'm calling the police," she declared as Roy pushed himself onto the grass.
"That would be an excellent idea," said Roy. He lay back and breathed hard and took in the sight of clouds and breathed fresh air, and felt sunlight on his face for the first time in nearly a month.
They'd escaped.
Roy felt a bit strange drinking tea and eating cookies in the old woman's parlor. For a bit he was overwhelmed by the sheer flavor and texture of the food. It was the first thing he'd eaten that hadn't come straight out of can or a packet since he'd been kidnapped.
"How are you holding up," Ed asked after a while.
"It feels strange."
The door bell rang and the old woman tottered over to open it. Riza walked in. Her eyes scanned the two of them briefly before she unslung the duffle from her back. "Sir, " she said hesitantly. Her brown eyes softened, and she looked less the hardened soldier and more the concerned friend.
"It's okay." There were really no more words than that.
"I had my doubts…"
"It's okay," Roy repeated. The last thing he needed was Riza to feel guilty. He had as much on his plate as he cold muster as it was, without needing to counsel her as well. "I'll be fine," he added. Even though it was the most blatantly false thing he'd ever said to her, she seemed to latch onto the words and relax.
"We'll take Greed down," she asserted, the soldier back in her eyes again.
"Yes, we will," said Roy with confidence he frankly didn't feel.
Ed broke the moment with a happy near squeal. "YES! Thank you Lieutenant!"
Roy looked over to see the alchemist pulling his automail limbs from the duffle bag.
"Al's body is being kept in a secure storage facility. I'll drive us there as soon as you are ready."
It was one thing to defy Greed when he wasn't around, it was another thing to openly fight the monster. Roy wondered if he were up to the task. But the others around him were looking towards him for guidance. He turned his eyes to each of his trusted subordinates and remembered how easy it used to be to order them about. How little thought he'd once given to his unequal relationships with them.
His eyes stopped on Breda. The man looked thinner than he had when Roy had seen him last. Roy remembered Greed's cruel remarks towards the bright young man and he inwardly cringed. He owed it to Breda to be strong. To show him that he was a man worthy of following, despite what the monster had done in Roy's name.
So Roy started to act, pretending to be himself. His mouth fumbled the words he knew he'd have said before the kidnapping. Breda nodded his head, relaxed, ready, and ironically confident in Roy's leadership.
They snuck up on Greed in Roy's office. When Al kicked the door, the Sin looked up from the pile of paperwork with the oddest look of utter alarm on his face.
Roy stepped forward even as the others unloaded their pistols into the Sin. As expected the bullets staggered the homunculus backwards but didn't drop the creature the way they would have a normal human being.
Greed only had eyes for one person. "I see, Roy, all your -"
Roy didn't have any idea what the Sin was going to say, because he never got the chance to finish the sentence. Roy lifted his gloved fingers up and snapped and felt the stir of alchemy burn up from his soul and out his fingers and all the way to the Homunculus.
Greed started to turn dark, but Roy didn't give him the chance to complete the transformation. He kept up the inferno driving the fire under the hardening skin to roast the inner organs and crack the stone within Greed's heart.
Even as Greed burned Roy saw Ed and Al move in, driving spears they hadn't possessed seconds before deep into the creatures flesh.
Almost too soon for it to be properly cathartic, Greed shattered. His flesh fell apart like ashes in the wind and there was nothing but scorched mark on the floor, a ruined chair and desk and bits of burning paper fluttering about the air.
"It's done," said Ed reaching out a hand to clap Roy on the shoulder. "Now we can forget about it."
"Yes," said Roy. "Already forgotten," he lied.
The Elric boys must be made of adamantine, Roy concluded three sleepless nights later. Either that, or I'm made of tissue paper.
Roy pushed aside the covers on his bed and stood up once more to check the locks on his windows and doors. Again they were secure, as were the trip wires he'd rigged to sound if someone were to force entry.
Returning from his rounds he stopped by the bathroom to wash the sweat off his face. It wasn't a hot night, but after so long in the cold his body couldn't seem to adjust to the warmth.
Earlier that day, Riza had told him she was happy to see him back to normal. But normal wasn't even close to what he felt. He played the part of the Colonel as best he could, but under the thinnest skin was a layer of anger and fear that seemed to persist no matter how he tried to resolve it.
Everywhere in his house were reminders that Roy was anything but normal. The bathroom mirror was covered over by newspaper and masking tape. In the morning he'd pull it down to shave, but then cover it up again as soon as he could afterwards.
He couldn't do the same thing for the rest of the world. Lately he'd become only too aware of how many reflective surfaces one encountered in the course of walking from one place to another. Every time he saw his face, his body surged with adrenaline and for a second he'd worry that Greed was back.
To think, once he'd liked to look at himself in a mirror. Now his reflection was painful.
No matter how often he told himself Greed was gone forever, that he'd seen the thing die with his own eyes, he just couldn't believe it. And if Greed didn't make his waking life misery enough, he made Roy's sleep pure hell.
In his waking moments his mind looped endlessly over the acts he'd been forced to perform and the horrors Greed threatened. In his sleep, Greed always followed through, disposing of Al, murdering Riza, And Ed would be there lying broken in a corner of the room begging for Roy to stop.
The fourth time Roy woke up that night, it was to the alarm of his tripwires being set off.
His eyes flew open, and he held out his gloved hands (for he'd taken to sleeping with the gloves on) ready to snap.
"Don't bother," came an androgynous voice. "I'm not here to hurt you." Roy fumbled for the lamp and switched it on. Yellow light bathed the room.
Roy sat up and stared at the Sin standing by the foot of his bed. "That's good, because I've taken out two of you now. I wouldn't mind making it three." He hoped he had the willpower to follow up his words. He hoped even more the homunculus wouldn't test his resolve.
Envy snorted. "As if you could. But I'm not here to fight you. I'm here to negotiate."
"Negotiate?"
"Negotiate," confirmed Envy. "You keep your mouth shut about Wrath, and I won't eviscerate your underlings. Does it sound like a deal?"
"Why," said Roy.
Envy raised an eyebrow. "Why am I negotiating with you? Or why should you care about your underlings?"
"Why now," Roy felt anger bloom in him. "Why not a month ago, before all this started."
Envy sighed. "You know Roy, sometimes things seem like a good idea at the time. All my Master's Greed's have been problematic, they rarely last. Usually Father has to unmake them. They are too GREEDY you see. Too independent. They don't take orders well. This one was the worst of all, and so he didn't even last a month."
"Father is not upset we destroyed him?"
"Eh, saved us the effort." Envy shrugged. "But this is beside the point. Will you take our offer?"
"Yes," said Roy quickly, knowing the creature couldn't tell if he was lying or not. It was strangely powerful feeling. Sure he'd stay quiet about Wrath... openly. But with a bit more care this time, he'd build up his side. Roy felt a trickle of his old ambitions seeping back in. It was wonderful.
"Good." Envy stood up. "Now don't go imploding on us, Colonel. We still need you. But we can wait to collect you up when the time is right."
Roy clenched his jaw. I survived that once. I can survive it again. If it comes to pass at all.
"In the meantime, sleep well." Envy slipped back out the open window. Roy quickly drew the arrays to repair the window and reset his traps, but the act seemed hollow and unnecessary.
Father had been cowed. Roy had won. For the first time in weeks, Roy smiled a true smile. The smile that belonged to his old self. When Roy curled under the covers again, he fell asleep quickly. This time there were no dreams and strangely enough, Roy did, indeed, sleep well.