Edward didn't want to move that day.

He wanted to close his eyes, and not move a muscle.

Not because he was lazy, oh no, not at all.

Merely because he was sick of this life.

If he didn't have people to protect still, people who would die without his knowledge of the future, who he needed to protect...

Well, Alphonse was strong enough to get by without him.

He wanted to fade away and never cone back.

So he tried his best, laying perfectly still, not moving a muscle, eyes closed just enough so that everything was black around him.

Al wouldn't be back for a while, as he was out exploring Central some more, so he had time.
--

His plans for the day were rudely interrupted by one bastard of a Colonel named Mustang.

"Elric!" The man barked, fist banging on the door heavily. "Elric I swear I will break this door down!"

When he didn't respond by his usual few rough taps on the wall, he heard a muffled curse from outside. Ed couldn't even bring himself to smile even slightly at the man's obvious frustration as he once would have. No, he instead just merely twitched a finger and went back to the white, glaringly familiar void that had become so common in his daydreaming.

He didn't flinch when he heard the door be kicked open. He didn't flinch when he heard footsteps moving towards him.

He did flinch when he opened his eyes and Mustang was staring down at him, glaring.

Suddenly it wasn't Mustang anymore.

His breath hitched, panic rising up in his throat, bile following not far behind. Ed wasn't aware of moving, not in the least, but he had gone from laying flat to curled up into a ball in the corner of his bed, as far away from Mustang as he could get, within only a few seconds

"What, don't want to play?" Alec's voice hissed in his ear, hands running over his body, finding the edge of his shirt. "Too bad. You're mine. You'll always be, as broken and useless as you are. No one else will want you, ever, so you should just stop already. Stop fighting. You're mine."

Ed, unaware of the now concerned Colonel, only curled up tighter, wheezing breaths leaving his lips rapidly. Not enough air, not enough air...suffocating...hecouldntbreathehecouldntbreathehecouldntbreathe...

"Fullmetal!" Mustang snapped, shaking his subordinate roughly in hopes of snapping them out of the seeming trance they were in.

Rough lips on his as he struggled to get away, shaking heavily. Hecouldn'tbreathe.

Useless. Pathetic. Worthless. He was filth. Trash. Unloved, unwanted, and unneeded.

"Fullmetal!" Mustang tried again, this time going for an even more physical route that, usually, worked on others. He slapped the alchemist straight across the face with a resounding crack that seemed to linger in the still air

"Fullmetal, are you all right?" His voice was softer now as he tried to pull Edward fully from...whatever it was he had just witnesses. The rage from earlier about the boy not having showed up on time had completely faded away with this new, unforseen development.

The only response was for Ed to curl in tighter in himself, a feat that Mustang hadn't known was possible.

"Fullmetal, look at me." He murmured, sighing in relief as Edward finally, finally, looked at him, eyes teary and panicked, seeming to finally focus in on him, who he was.

He mouthed Mustang's name, a look of complete and utter shame and guilt on his face. Roy nodded, carefully, oh so carefully, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "Edward, I need to know what that was, to make sure it doesn't happen again. Is there any way-?" He cut himself off when Ed began to shakily mime writing.

Mustang nodded immediately, starting to look around for the notepad Edward often kept with them, as well as for a pen.

Locating both items in the inner pockets of Edward's coat, he hastily brought them over to his subordinate, subconsciously worrying his lip.

Had he been the one who caused that..?

Ed's hands trembled terribly as he wrote, but eventually, he held out the notebook to Roy, averting his eyes and going back to curling himself into a ball as tightly as he could.

What Roy read made his vision seemingly cloud up in a crimson haze of pure, unbridled wrath.

There, in Edward's chicken scratch handwriting that was only made worse by the trembling, lay a story Roy knew with a sinking feeling of dread was the pure truth.

This first, you need to understand. It sounds insane, but it's true. Please believe this.

Just the please made him more then willing to believe whatever this boy, frail and broken, had to say to him.

When I was twenty eight, I was assassinated. I don't know by who, but I can only assume it was some sort of revenge deal. I died instantly, and was brought to a realm of stark white as far as you can see. The gate.

The figure there, the Truth, told me I had two choices. One was to 'move on', and actually die, and the other was to be reborn to save the people who had died who had not been meant to.

I chose the latter, and was sent back to the moment of my birth. The toll was my voice and half my life, and I have been mute ever since. I have no idea when I'll die, whether it be in only a few years, at fourteen, or whenever I was meant to die truly, if I had not been killed.

An unforseen development showed itself a few years later, when I basically felt the moment of my death again without the numbing quality of death itself.

My attacks, I guess you could say, are never small. They're long and drawn out, and leave me aching for hours, sometimes a whole day.

My...

The writing to hesitate before forging on.

My father apparently couldn't bear it, and requested the aid of a traveller who claimed he could help.

The quality of the writing only got worse from there.

He sent my father outside and he...and he raped me. I couldn't do anything. I was weak. I am weak. I'm supposed to be saving all of these people but I couldn't even save myself.

He looks almost exactly like you.

Roy didn't realize he was crying until a salty tear splashed onto the paper, smearing the ink. "I'm sorry," He said, voice cracking.

Why did he care so much?

Why?

Was it because they had been raped?

Was it because all that Ed had wanted was to save the people he had most likely cared about and whom had died last time, but instead had all this absolute shit dumped on him?

Or was it because they had, all of them had, gone all of this time without noticing anything? That Ed would never be able to look at him without seeing the man who had taken away something so, so very precious?

He didn't seem to be able to think straight anymore, and without even a second of hesitation, wrapped his arms around the boy-who-was-actually-older-than-him and pulled them close in a rare, very, very rare show of affection.

Roy felt his heart shatter when Ed froze, and the trembling began anew.

--1242 Words--
Daaaamn, angsty and long! Perfect chapter! A bit overdue, but I couldn't figure out how I wanted it to end so I finally decided, literally a half an hour ago, to do the letter and parental!Roy route and finished this as fast as I could. Comments are absolutely adored! They make me happy, and its the holiday season, so spread the love, even if its in hateful comments for the angst (*cough cough* especially if its in hateful comments. I thrive on them *cough cough*) ~The_Sin_Pride