Chapter Text
Oh shit oh shit oh shit "Oh shit!" Ed grabbed Roy by the shoulders and forcefully rolled him onto his side. Roy hacked, choked, and vomited over the side of the bed.
Pinako had a few choice words of her own, kicking a trash can under Roy's chin before too much can get on her floor. Hawkeye had not left Mustang's side, keeping a firm but comforting grip on his forearm, even as he heaved and keened under the sheets. Winry only had eyes for the automail, deciding that three sets of eyes on Mustang's wellbeing was enough. She pulled aside the bedsheet and studied the port on Mustang's missing leg, still fresh out of surgery. She winced inwardly, seeing the skin around the port was swelling and turning red.
"Granny, it's the port," she called out over the sounds of Roy throwing up.
"Heard," Pinako said, patting Roy's forehead with a cold compress as the sickness subsided. Roy panted, gasping for breath, still nearly halfway off the bed.
"Just breathe, colonel," Ed whispered, which Roy only responded with a pained moan. "You done being gross?" Another sound of pain that Ed decided to take as an affirmative. Grip still steadily on Roy's shoulders, he rolled him back onto the bed. Hawkeye was by his side in a second, a paper cloth in her hand. She wiped at Roy's lips at far too intimate a gesture that Ed had to turn his eyes away. He used that as an excuse to glance over at Winry, who was still frowning over Mustang's port. "Is there something wrong?" Ed asked, trying to hide the touch of concern in his voice.
"Not necessarily," Winry said. "He's just reacting to the surgery. It's gonna suck, and he's gonna be in pain, but we'll take care of him," she glanced up at him, finally noticing his worried gaze. She smiled gently. "He'll be okay."
"Ed?" a small, pained voice came from the bed, and Ed all but reeled back around. Roy's eyes were open, blearily staring up at him.
"Hey, colonel," Ed smiled, not wanting to cause Roy any panic. "Feeling better after that?"
"Not really..." his superior muttered, and Ed's smiled wavered.
"Yeah, I figured. You're going to feel shitty for a bit, but we're here to help, okay?"
"Okay..." Roy's eyes fluttered closed, and Ed didn't have the nerve to try and keep him awake.
"It's hard to see him like this," Hawkeye admitted, startling Ed a little bit. Ed looked up, blinking in surprise. "He's so sick," she said, eyes never leaving Mustang's face. "In so much pain. Were you like this, Ed?" she asked, looking up at him with a sympathetic gaze. Ed fought back the instinct to scoff and brush off the concern.
"I don't remember much from the first days after surgery," he explained. "Winry would be the better one to ask."
"Lots of people get sick after automail surgery," Winry spoke up. "Ed was in rough shape, too, just like anyone."
Roy tensed at that, his mouth tightening noticeably, lips pulling inwards. His already pale complexion worsened into a greenish color.
"Colonel, are you okay?" Ed asked, leaning over him. "Do you think you're going to be sick again?"
Roy's response was rolling over in bed, nearly collapsing out of it to reach the trash can in time.
Roy jolted, reeled, and heaved, clamping his mouth shut. He had woken up, sitting up against the wall, with the sudden urge to vomit, but he managed to keep it down. If for no other reason than there was nothing to keep down. Nothing but bile and bread. As his head spun, he realized he was not at the Rockbell's, but still underground, where Envy had been keeping him. His breath shuddering in his chest as he tried to fight the nausea, he leaned back onto the cave wall and closed his eyes.
What a visceral dream. Memories of first waking up after surgery were blurry, and probably inaccurate. But still, he was reminded that he should probably apologize to Pinako and Winry for all that, once he was rescued.
They're never going to find you, you know.
Roy ignored the pestering voice, head rolling tiredly on the cave wall. His automail port, lacking in an automail leg, laid out in front of him, his biological leg tucked to his chest.
It had been a full week.
A full week of darkness, of underground pressure, of kicks from Envy, of bread on the floor, of a malfunctioning automail port. Of blood loss, of pain, of dark, dark, dark.
Lose one leg, and suddenly you can't fend for yourself?
A full week of mockery, of deceit, of interrogation. Of Envy clearly trying to pull information out of him, specifically on if he performed human transmutation or not. Roy's lips stayed sealed, and his hands stayed chained behind his back, unable to clap and free himself.
Aw, ignoring me too? I'm hurt.
"Shut up, Maes," Roy finally grumbled, his head lolling to the side to glare at Maes Hughes, standing on the other side of the cell with his hands in his pockets.
A week of isolation, and a few days of this bullshit.
Finally talking back?
"I know you're not really here," Roy groaned in exhaustion. "And I know you're not Envy, or you would have kicked me, hit me, touched me somehow. I'm hallucinating." During his week down here, Roy had gotten acquainted with Envy's apparent shapeshifting power. Obviously, they had turned into a small child that had baited Roy down here, but since then he had watched them mold their face and voice into Fullmetal, Hawkeye, and even Hughes. But that had always involved some kind of attempt to trick him, grabbing him or hitting him. This was different. This was new.
Maes shrugged with a smirk. Guess so.
"Fantastic," Roy rolled his eyes, but any further sarcastic comment was cut off as sparks flew from his automail port. He grit his teeth, just barely holding back a cry of pain, throwing his head back against the wall, arching his back against the pain. When Envy had destroyed his automail leg, it hadn't been a clean break. His poor, new automail was now sparking frequently, sending explosive pain through his nervous system. Combined with the hunger, the thin air, and the darkness, Roy knew he had gone insane a couple days ago.
Insane enough to hallucinate, sure. But still sane enough to recognize that he was going insane.
Why haven't you just told Envy the truth? Maes asked in a casual way that was so, so like him. You know what they want to hear. If you tell them about seeing the Truth, they will probably stop torturing you.
"This...isn't torture," Roy managed to gasp between heaving breaths, his body still tense from the automail port's attack.
Isn't torture?! Maes laughed. You've been kept underground in the dark for a week, surviving off bread and- and spite!
"They could do worse," Roy panted, sweat soaking his skin so thoroughly he was sure he would glisten, if there were any light in this cell at all. "A few useless kicks...is not torture..."
And yet here you are, Maes lifted his hands out of his pockets, holding them out towards Roy as if presenting him. Chained to a wall, being electrocuted by your own metal thigh.
"You are such...a cocky bastard..." Roy groaned, squeezing his eyes closed as if that would do anything to keep Hughes' image away. It was already pitch black in here, and of course, closing his eyes did nothing.
Ouch.
"They're not torturing me," Roy opened his eyes again, head lolling to vacantly stare at the spectre. "'Cause they need me alive. Not only that, but they need me...relatively undamaged."
Maes shot the sparking automail port a deadpan look. Undamaged.
"You know what I mean, you annoying ass..." Roy mumbled, his muscles finally relaxing back into the concrete wall behind him. Even as the nerves relaxed, his stomach moaned in agony. He was starving. In the literal definition of the word.
You know, telling them the truth about the Truth, as it were, would probably keep you undamaged. If they know, they might just dust you off and send you on your way.
Roy shook his head. "It's too late for that. They found the map, they know I'm onto them."
You're not onto anything, Maes scoffed. You found a circle. You have no idea what it does, who it hurts, or why you needed to see the Truth in order to activate it.
"Even in my head, you're an observant dickhead."
Throwing out a lot of mean nicknames, Roy.
"Because you're dead, Maes," Roy stated plainly, sitting up straight and raising his chin. "And you're just my imagination being mean to me because I'm hungry and tired and haven't moved my body in a week. You're a hallucination here to torture me more than Envy is, and you are not my friend. My friend. Is. Dead."
Maes elected to not respond to that, or even react, keeping his laidback smirk on his face. And for some reason, that pissed Roy off even more.
"Why?" he whispered. "If you were killed for figuring this out, why am I still alive?"
The sound of grinding stone interrupted them, and Maes's image dissolved as an invasive ray of bright light suddenly shot into the room. Roy hissed in pain, closing his eyes and turning away from the light as much as he can. After hours of darkness, his eyes burned as someone's silhouette entered the cell, backlit by the sudden bright light.
Edward Elric had walked into the room.
Right away, Mustang could tell this was different. This wasn't like Hughes.
"Oh my, Fullmetal," Mustang drawled in a deadpan, unimpressed tone, fighting back against the oncoming headache already. "Have you come to rescue me?"
Ed's eyebrow cocked. "The hell? Mustang? What the hell are you doing down here? You're still alive."
"If he doesn't come down here to rescue me, then why the hell is he coming down here at all?" Roy asked, raising his shoulders in the best shrug he could pull off with his arms still chained to the wall. "You're getting worse at these storylines, Envy."
Ed's face peeled into a grin. "You've yet to fall for that."
"Because it doesn't work on me," Roy sighed deeply. "Not since your first little trick turning into that little kid."
Ed's skin peeled away, revealing Envy's form underneath. Despite always seeing through the ruse, watching them shed the disguise will never not be disturbing.
Some day, Roy really hoped it would be the real Hawkeye or Fullmetal showing up at his door.
"Hungry?" they asked, tossing another piece of bread to the ground. Yes. God yes. Roy, far past the point of holding up appearances, used his foot to pull the bread closer to him. "Did I hear you talking before I came in, colonel?" they asked, seemingly intrigued.
"I just like the sound of my own voice," Roy bared his teeth in a snarky smile. Envy's eyebrow twitched, a sign that Roy was far too good at getting under their skin.
"Really? Just thought maybe you were starting to go crazy," Envy said, slinking down to the floor. They crossed their legs casually, sitting across from Roy and leaning on the back of their hands. Roy watched them cautiously, it was strange that they were lowering down to his level. "Why don't we have a chat?"
"A chat?" Roy scoffed. The smell of the bread went straight to his stomach, which churned at the thought of stuffing his face right now. But in order to eat, he would have to bend over and eat it off the floor with his mouth, which he still refused to do in front of Envy. His stomach did another somersault, and despite the aching hunger, Roy still felt like he might be sick.
"I want to talk about the accident in which you lost your leg," Envy explained. "Some details just aren't adding up, to me."
Well, this was hardly new. Envy had been trying a slew of different techniques, trying to get Roy to admit to human transmutation. Every interrogation seemed more desperate than the last. However, Envy seemed more relaxed today. Roy wasn't sure if he should take that as a good or bad sign. The smell of the bread was too distracting to think of it any further.
"All the details were in my report, Envy," Roy sighed. "There's nothing more to tell. The alchemist injured me during battle, and the doctor had to amputate."
"Sure," Envy's voice warped slightly, and Roy's eyebrows furrowed. "Protecting that kid, right? The Fullmetal Pipsqueak?"
Whatever trick Envy was doing with their voice, it certainly confused Roy.
"I didn't think you two had gotten that close," their voice continued to warp and change.
"I protect all the members of my team," Roy said hesitantly, cautiously. What is this homunculus playing at?
"Come on, colonel, we both know why you did it," Envy's voice sounded higher. Younger.
It was Ed.
"Stop it," Roy growled. "Your tricks aren't going to work on me, they never do."
His stomach rolled again.
Sound was more effective than sight. Anyone who knew anything about interrogation tactics knew that. Hearing someone could be more convincing than ever seeing them.
But Roy was smarter than that.
Even as his stomach threatened to churn upwards and right out of his mouth.
"You don't look so well, colonel. Are you going to be sick?" Envy asked in Ed's voice.
"Colonel, are you okay? Do you think you're going to be sick again?" Ed asked from his bedside at the Rockbells'.
"Colonel, you're not...you're not regressing, are you?" Ed asked from the floor of his childhood bedroom.
"Colonel, you can tell me the truth," Ed said from inside the concrete cell underground.
Roy moaned to himself, tucking his head down and pulling up his one good knee to his forehead.
"Something happened to you, didn't it? Something took your leg?"
"I had to get us back somehow, and you wouldn't even give me the time of day!" Ed exclaimed from the barn floor, being pinned down by Roy himself.
What was happening? Ed- no, Envy's voice was being drowned out. By the real Ed. The real Ed, from different times. The pounding headache had worsened to an uproar, and his stomach felt like it was going to kill him right then and there.
"Leave me alone."
"No, Mustang, wait!" Ed called after him, reaching for him as Roy sprinted uphill, towards Master Hawkeye's house.
"Sorry, not happening," Ed's voice in the cave was as stubborn as ever. Trust that kid to never leave him be. Stubborn little brat.
Who wasn't actually here.
God, the bread smelled amazing. If Envy didn't leave soon to let him eat, was he willing to just debase himself and eat off the floor like a dog?
You need to eat.
"Come on buddy, you're going to make yourself more sick if you don't drink water," Ed said, holding him up in bed.
Roy was shattering. Shattering into three different places, three different times, talking to three different Eds, and it hurt.
"Stop..." he groaned into his knee, trying to hide his face, and force down the oncoming migraine. He was so hungry.
His port decided to spark at that moment. A flash of sharp pain shot up Roy's leg and into his spine, and he cried out in pain. His head flung backwards, smacking against the cave wall and
"Mustang, come on, open your eyes," Ed begged from his childhood bed. "I need to see if you hit your head too hard."
Another spark, another cry, boarding on a scream. He felt a hand press against his shoulder, bracing him against the cave wall.
"Mustang, just tell me and this will all be over!" Ed begged. He sounded in pain. Typical brat. He always seemed to empathetically take on other's pain, even Roy's. He hated when the kid did that.
"He's starving, Envy."
That voice was new. It wasn't Ed's. And it wasn't any other voice Roy recognized either. He heard hissing from either side of him, as if coming from the walls themselves.
"Pride!" Ed exclaimed.
"In this condition, he's going to die. You need to give him food, real food."
"Damnit!" Ed snapped. "I'm so close! Fine...fucking...eat!"
Roy choked as something was suddenly shoved intrusively against his mouth. His eyes flew open, both horrified and relieved to find that Envy, not Ed, was pushing the bread to his lips, snarling as they did so.
The scent of the bread right under his nose somehow cleared the fog from Roy's brain, tearing him away from the other memories and viscerally forcing him back down here, where bread was right against his mouth and his stomach was aching, yearning for it.
They're trying to break you.
Roy knew that. He knew that the disguises, the voice changes, the food and light deprivation, it was all to get him to confess. It was on the tip of his tongue, too. It would be so easy. So goddamn easy. 'Fine, I saw the Truth! I committed the taboo! Now will you let me go?!'
Despite the bread against his lips, despite his brain ripping itself apart three-ways, despite the aching automail port and the starvation and the lightheadedness, Roy pushed through stubbornly. His eyes rose to glare up at Envy. He pushed all other Edwards aside for now.
"I'm...not...talking," he growled over the bread. Fury crossed Envy's expression, and the bread was suddenly thrown across the room. Before Roy could react, Envy's foot swung for his head. Pain exploded behind his eyes and he was slammed once again into the cave wall. He gasped in surprise, blood bubbling up from his tongue, where he must have bitten it.
Spots peppered his vision.
"Colonel!"
"Colonel Bastard."
"Mustang!"
"You can't die on me, you bastard!"
"We're friends, right?!"
"Wake up, Roy!"
By the time the black spots behind his eyes subsided, Envy was gone.
This wasn't working.
Envy knew that. It's why they were so frustrated. Most humans would have broken by now, but they had expected the Flame Alchemist would be a little harder to crack. Isolation, deprivation, hearing his friend's voices as they were tortured, none of it worked. Roy Mustang was too smart, too ready.
"What the hell am I still doing this for?!" they asked the shadows on the wall.
"To find out if Colonel Mustang can be used as a sacrifice," the shadows answered. Envy scowled.
"He'll never tell me," Envy scoffed, crossing their arms and looking stubbornly away from the shadows. "I don't see why Father can't just figure this out for himself. Instead, I'm trapped in this podunk hick town for days trying to convince Mustang to confess to something I'm already ninety percent sure is true!"
"Your frustration is understandable," the shadows were as calm as ever, which only added fuel to the fire of Envy's fury. "But circumstances have changed. Not only has he possibly opened the portal, but we also discovered he's catching on to our plan. If he has seen the Truth, we can't just silence him the way we did his friend. This situation has to be treated more...delicately."
Envy remembered watching as Roy reeled from their kick to the head, all but passing out on impact. "Delicately." Sure.
They needed something more. Envy had tried his Lieutenant, they've tried the pipsqueak subordinate, they've even tried that nosy dead friend of his. No, they needed something that would thoroughly ruin Roy Mustang. Someone who Envy would have no reason knowing what they looked like, let alone shapeshift into.
"Could you do some digging for me?" they asked the shadows, pressing a hand to their forehead. Normally, Envy wouldn't be so polite, but these shadows were an entirely different kind of beast. One that even Envy couldn't help but respect. "Into Mustang's life? There has to be something I can use."
"I suppose I could," the shadows responded amicably. He must be in a good mood today. "Just keep him alive until I find something useful."
At that, Envy remembered throwing Mustang's bread across the room, far away from where he was chained against the wall. "Keep him alive. Alright."
Today marked one full week since Mustang's disappearance. Al had tried what he could, even going out and searching at night while everyone else was asleep. His placating words of comfort and encouragement were empty on his brother, and he could tell. Ed was wilting with every day passing without finding the colonel. The tension between his brother and Winry hadn't ceased since that day, either. Winry seemed angry, for whatever reason. Well, not quite. More upset than angry. It's just that when Winry gets upset, it often manifests as something akin to anger.
Al had known Winry his whole life, though. And he wasn't as emotionally-blind as his brother. He could tell that Winry's glares and snaps in temper weren't because she was mad at Ed. Moreso, she was frustrated with him.
Though for what reason, Al could not figure out.
They had tried everything. Asking everyone in town if anyone had seen Roy, to no avail. And the Flame Alchemist with an automail leg wouldn't go unnoticed around Resembool. Ed even tried having Den sniff one of Roy's shirts before sending the dog out on the town. But a tracking dog, Den was not. Den had lead them down the street, almost in the direction of the cemetery, but had quickly been distracted and instead sent them to the bakery.
Colonel Mustang had asked him for a map.
The day before his disappearance, before he had gone out for a walk, he had asked Al to bring him a map. Al had no idea why, and now he really wished he had asked.
"Why a map?" Ed asked once Al brought this up.
"I wish I knew," Al admitted dejectedly. "I wish I had asked him about it, but it was right after the phone call where he heard everyone was being transferred, so I didn't want to upset him."
"Hm," Ed covered his mouth thoughtfully, furrowing his eyebrows. "Maybe he just wanted to see where they were being transferred to on paper?"
"Well, whatever he was doing with it, it's gone now," Winry had spoken up from across the room at this point. The boys turned to her, and she shrugged. "I've cleaned his room, there's no maps."
"Maybe he took it with him when he left?" Al mused.
"I'm a little worried that map may be more important than we think," Ed said. "Something must have been bothering him. I mean, transferring the others was obviously a power play by-" Ed's eyes flickered toward Winry. "Some people."
"And now we can't get in touch with Lieutenant Hawkeye," Winry pointed out, giving Ed a suspicious look after he had abruptly cut off his sentence. "There's something going on. But I'm guessing you're not going to clue me in?"
Ed had no answer for her. She scoffed at his silence.
"Thought so," she snatched up an apple from the counter and left the room in a quiet, brisk fury. Al would have shivered, if he had a body to shiver with.
"You don't think this has anything to do with the homunculi, do you?" Al whispered once she was out of the room.
"How could it not?" Ed scoffed.
"But they promised they wouldn't interfere with us if we didn't interfere with them," Al pointed out. "Aren't we important assets to them?"
"We are," Ed sighed, crossing his arms. "Which means one good thing, at least."
"What's that?"
Ed glanced at Al, a flash of barely-concealed worry flickering in his eyes. "They won't let him get hurt."