Rainjoyswriting - Clean Break & Mending.pdf

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Clean Break
By the time Roy had closed the front door behind himself Ed had appeared in the living
room doorway. Roy said, "Good evening," and took his coat off, took his boots off, but
still Ed was just standing there giving him the hardest look, like he was holding his jaw
so tight his teeth must hurt, like he was trying to glare through Roy's skin.
And Roy hadn't left him halfway through an argument this morning, it had been the
same kiss at this door as always, so he said cautiously, "Where's Maes?" because he had
no idea how explosive this could become, he had no idea what this was .
"I sent him to Gracia's for tonight." Ed said. "Didn't want him to hear us havin' this
conversation."
All sorts of possibilities presented themselves to Roy, flickered through the dark of his
mind like a shoal of flashing fish, and he said, "What is this conversation, Edward?"
Ed stared at him hard, stared at him like he was trying to place his face, and swallowed,
which took some effort with his jaw held that rigid. "Come sit down," he said, and turned
into the living room.
Roy followed him, wary of Ed's silence - his rage usually meant Roy got something
thrown at him when he came through the front door, he wasn't quite sure how to deal
with this quiet, tense Edward. It wasn't that he seemed less angry than he might
normally seem; he seemed more angry. And Roy was wary enough that when Ed sat on
the sofa Roy didn't sit beside him, didn't dare risk his jagged, raging aura, sat in his
armchair at a safe distance and watched Ed glare at the fireplace for a long time before
he took a little breath.
"Ali- Alisa came t'see me today. Told me she's marryin' Havoc. But you must've known
that, right?"
And now Roy knew exactly what this was about, and sickness pooled low in his stomach,
swimming and sinking in his guts. He had known in the abstract that one day this would
happen, but he'd always assumed he'd have one more day to think of the right thing to
say, one more day to hold it off, make it something he could control . . . and now he was
out of one more days, and still he had nothing. "Yes. Jean told me this morning."
"She invited us to the wedding," Ed said. "I found out why she was at our wedding too.
She said - well, she had to correct me on her name, an' everything started sort of -
coming out. An' it's high time I started callin' her by the right name, right?"
"Edw-"
"Why didn't you tell me."
It was terrifying how that wasn't even really a question, every word so flat, hammered
out of iron, Why clang Didn't clang You clang Tell Me . Roy said again, softly, "Edward-"
"Don't use that voice. Don't you dare use that voice for this. Do you have any tiny little
clue of how much I want to fucking kill you right now?"
"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you-"
"You don't sound very sorry."
That - something in the tone of it, some threat, made Roy's stomach drop a little more
but he held his face steady. "I needed for you to be natural, Edward. Anyone who saw
you as you really are could never deny-"
"Don't fucking try to turn this around. Don't try to make it like you did this for my good -
you couldn't tell me ? You put me and my kid on some sick stage you made up for people
to gawp at an' you couldn't tell me?"
"Ed-"
"What're you gonna say, you didn't know how much I hate them? You know full fucking
well how much I hate them, Roy! An' I held my tongue an' held my head up an' I behaved
myself every fucking time for you. And you - you invite them into my life even more, even
when I'm walkin' with my kid I'm your publicity stunt-?"
"You were not a publicity stunt. Edward, I needed to pass the marriage law through
Parliament and the only way-"
"Bollocks it was the only way, bullshit it was, Mustang!"
"What the hell else was I meant to do? It would have dragged on and on, endless debates
while Maes went to school and came home with even more questions than he already
did-"
"Don't you dare use the kid as your bargaining chip in this, you had people spyin' on him
too, Mustang. Treating us like your property to display how you like-"
"That is not what I was doing."
"That is exactly what you were fucking doing. You - you didn't tell me, you didn't discuss
it with me, you act like I'm still that eleven year old kid you can do what you like to, like I
got no right to my own decisions and my own life-"
"I didn't-"
"It's my life, Mustang!" Roy kept himself from jerking in his chair, understood why Ed
had kept Maes out of the house for this; his quiet rage was only ever going to last so long
before the shouting started. "I gave you every- fucking -thing but it's still my life, you
don't get to hand it out on a plate for other people - I feel sick talking about this, I can't
believe - I know what they write about me an' I never cared 'cause I thought all I needed
was you and the kid but you -"
"All I wanted, I swear that all I wanted was to marry you, Ed, it wasn't meant to be-"
"And your equivalent exchange for that was using me and your kid as your bargaining
chips," Ed said, quiet and lethal back. "Of course you were willin' to make that trade, it
didn't cost you anything."
Roy was not so stupid as to point out that before Ed found out about it, it hadn't cost him
anything either. He said again, quietly, "All I wanted was to marry you."
Ed said, "And you think that's a basis for a marriage, using me like that? It ever occur to
you that you might've been willing to make that trade-off but maybe I wasn't?"
". . . what do you . . . ?"
"Why did you assume that I'd think marryin' you was worth this price?"
Silence. Roy's heart beat sick and fast like it was giving out, the bright stuttering flicker
of a dying star. It took enough effort to hurt to keep his voice steady. "Edward, please
don't say that just because you're angry."
"I'm not sayin' it because I'm angry I'm saying it because you used me and I am so fucking
mad with you I can't even look at you properly - you let them follow me around an'
watch my every move, you encouraged them, all so you could get what you wanted but
you never once asked me what I wanted-"
"I asked you to marry me."
"You didn't tell me you were this much of a manipulative psychopath. I knew you were
weird Mustang but shit , this is fucked up , you know that? You pulled this shit with me
when I was a kid an' you're still pulling it now, there is something wrong with you-"
When he'd weighed the risks, when he'd made this decision, it had become so important
to him that he marry Ed that he'd told himself that by the time Ed found out, Roy would
have had the words ready to make it sound right to him. He'd never found the words.
And he needed them, he needed them but -
For the first time, he noticed the suitcase beside the sofa. And for one second he thought
that his heart was giving out.
Ed had spotted the flick of his eyes, swallowed hard. "I told the kid I had to go to a
conference, really short notice." he said roughly. "That's what you're gonna be telling
him."
"Ed-"
"I need to think, Mustang. I - you don't have a clue how shit this is, do you-? I can't - get
my head around it all properly, I need to think . 'cause if you did this - what else have you
been doing? What else would you do? I bet you don't even remember, that's the sick
thing, this is just what you do and I bet you don't even remember half the little times you
twisted me around a finger and used me without me even noticin' just to make things
that little bit easier for you-"
His lips had gone numb. "What are you-?"
And he stuttered on the 'you', and Ed looked at him finally with some of the softness that
Roy knew there was in his eyes, but he took in a breath and they hardened again. "I need
to think," he said. "That's all. It's not permanent. I just need to think. And I want to punch
you so bad I can't share a bed with you, Roy. Not tonight."
"I'll sleep on the sofa."
"I won't sleep. I'll lay there 'til I go insane an' come down and smash your brains out
with a frying pan. I need to think . I need to get away from you for a bit. Since I was eleven
you've been pulling this shit with me like you got some fucked up right to-"
"I was- Ed I'm sorry, I'm sorry , I'm sorry please don't-"
He almost flinched but he still stood up. "It doesn't make me stop hating you, Roy."
"No-" He was on his feet instantly, he almost grabbed for Ed before he saw the flash in
his eyes, the barely-leashed desire to go for the throat. "Ed, please , I'm sorry , you don't
have to-"
"Roy, I do."
" Please don't-"
"I just need some space ." Ed stared at him like he barely recognised him. "Roy - don't
spaz out, okay? You can't guilt me into not bein' mad at you anymore, not after this-"
"I'm not trying to guilt you into anything I am-" losing my mind. He wanted to tear his
own hair out. He wanted to sob, he could feel the one dam-breaker rising hard like a
stone in his chest. He wanted to drop to his knees and grab Ed's hand and hold on so
hard he couldn't leave him-
"Roy," Ed said, slowly like he was explaining again to Maes why they couldn't have a dog,
"I just need to think. That's all. I just need to get out of this house so I can get my head
together and stop hating you so much. I am not trying to make you have a nervous
breakdown so stop scaring me. Be an adult about it since you like pretending you're the
grown-up so fucking much. Pull yourself together for when you pick the kid up
tomorrow night, he doesn't need to see you . . ."
"Will you be back tomorrow night?"
He sounded pathetic. He didn't care.
Gently, "Roy, I dunno. I dunno how long it'll take. Stop tryin' to distract me." He picked
up the suitcase; the whine nearly escaped Roy's throat. His limbs had all turned to lead,
he couldn't even raise a hand as Ed walked to the living room doorway and then stood
there, turned to him again, and he looked so hurt, Roy had never seen Ed look so broken
by another person's actions, and he said, "I love you. D'you know that? I mean that every
time. I love you."
He could form the words but he couldn't make a sound, because his entire life was trying
to walk out of his front door, dragging itself from his heart, ripping free from his chest.
His lips moved silently. I love you too.
"I just need to get some space," Ed said, his voice gently pleading, and his hand shifted on
the suitcase handle, tightened and relaxed and tightened, and he gave Roy a long, long
look like he was making sure he wouldn't forget his face, and turned away.
Roy stood like lead until he finally jolted forward to follow him, like surging up from a
dream, a drowning man grabbing for the rope too late as the front door banged.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He had to sleep in a bed without Ed. It was such a completely impossible task that it was
so much easier to not sleep, to just lay there dumbstruck and trying to calculate what
was left of his life without Ed. His son - and he was under no illusions of how well he
would cope with raising Maes on his own. A job that he had to do but it just might kill
him if he didn't come home every night to Ed's worried, "You silly great prat, why'd you
want the stupid job in the first place?" and . . . and what? No Ed, therefore nothing. He
had nothing. He had nothing.
Where was he, where was he going? It was a cold night, where would he sleep? How long
did he mean to . . . ? Roy couldn't dare to think beyond tonight, stared into the darkness
like a child woken from a nightmare. But it had been in the present tense, I love you , his
anger was in the present tense, he hadn't said - he hadn't said -
He put his face into Ed's pillow, in the hollow Ed-side of the bed, inhaled the heavy scent
of his hair. His stomach was agony , clenching inwards hard like a fist. He wanted to
throw up. Somehow he believed that if he could just throw up then all of this wouldn't
have happened. He'd only wanted them to be married. He'd spent night after dark night
holding Ed and holding inside the bitter knowledge that every man he met with a ring on
his finger had never had to fight for it like this; most of the men he met with rings on
their fingers felt nothing like this, nothing. It wasn't about convenience, expectation, by
now it wasn't even about hope because Roy was so sure . It was a flamethrower of an
emotion, the rage, the bitterness, this anguished love and he ruled the fucking country
but he couldn't put a legitimate ring on his finger-?
He drifted in the dark lands between sleeping and waking where a worry becomes a
dream and dreams bleed through the emotions and into the skin, the gut. He'd fucked up.
Oh god, he'd fucked up. And he could spend minutes so angry with Alisa that all his
internal organs burned - but angry with her for what? Because Roy had invited her,
dragged her into their lives and resented her now for turning out to be a decent human
being, a better person than he was?

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