Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Like a Disease ❯ Chapter 2

"I'll be damned." His Serene Highness, Fuhrer Mustang, blinked.

 

"I told you I'd do it."

 

There were two people sitting o the red velvet couch. Two boys- young men- where there was only one, just weeks ago. Rainwater dripped through a crack in the ceiling. A puddle grew on the floor. Moments fell with the drops, the air was moist. Questions were hidden in polite smiles.

 

How? How did you do it, Al?

 

"It was simple, really." The boy shrugged in the tattered red coat; a coat which belonged to the other boy, sitting next to him. A boy Roy had known, once A boy whose eyes knew Roy, whose smile wasn't in those eyes as they watched Roy smile back.

 

"You Elrics can make things seem that way."

 

"We can." That voice. Roy felt like it had been a lifetime ago, since he'd last heard the voice he'd chalked up to posterity like so many others. And yet, he could hear it again. It was like seeing a ghost. "We can do anything, with science."

 

Even bring back the dead. Roy took a frame from his desk and slipped it in a drawer. "Why are you here?" Roy kept his smile, though. Raindrops tapped and fingers drummed.

 

Al looked at Ed. "Tell him, Ed."

 

"I understand I'm still in the military?"

 

He combed his hair back. "You... don't have any automail?" Roy pointed to his bare hand.

 

"All of me is back." Ed smiled- finally. It was for his brother. It was a smile for a lover. Not a brother.

 

"So, all of you stays in service."

 

"I was listed as MIA." Ed lost his smile.

 

"And, now you're not MIA." Roy gave him a smile, instead. "You can't just forget your promises."

 

Roy didn't expect a tantrum. Not after the world had ended, not after rising from the dead, or wherever the younger Elric had conjured Full Metal from. Tantrums were a part of the past, a part of their childhood. Roy knew they were no longer children. Intimately. Each body was a known quantity he had tested and mapped out. Both boys, both brothers. Did they talk about him, already? Did they know? He couldn't tell, when he looked in those eyes.

 

Eyes without no tears. No. There was only rage. Rage Roy could feel that fire. He recognized the sign. "Bastard."

 

"Ed." Al put his hand on his arm. "Calm down, brother. He might be willing to work something out."

 

Roy smirked. "Listen to him, Full Metal. I can be a reasonable man."

 

The storm was over; the leak had stopped. Time was a breath they took in like a drug. Inhaling, exhaling, watching each other. Roy could feel the heavy hearts beating, their consciences turning.

 

"Why don't you come by the office, later. I need a few hours to think on this."

 

They didn't know. They didn't tell. Roy smiled. So something could come between brothers, after all.