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Roy hasn’t been home since it first started.
The vocal recordings and their corresponding photos they’d received in an unlabelled package have been pinned to a series of cork boards that had been liberated from the Eastern Investigations Department. Their departmental Head, a Sophia Ellicot who’d assisted with the Peale case when it had first crossed Roy’s desk, had given her assistance once more, but Roy had shaken his head, thanking her but knowing Maes would want to be the lead Investigator on this case, especially since it was Fullmetal who’d been taken.
Roy knew if it was anyone else Maes would still stop at nothing to get them back; Fuery and Falman might not have served with them in Ishval, but they’d become trusted members of Roy’s team since their inception, and despite Maes having been the Original Suspicious Bastard, he’d come to trust every single soldier serving beneath Roy’s command. That it had been Fullmetal taken, however, not only a child that Maes had bonded with, but who’d recently almost died due to saving Maes’ own life by sacrificing himself, was something that Maes would not forgive lightly. The man’s jovial behavior and eccentricities, though often genuine, were a good cover to the darkness that Roy knew hid beneath the surface; Maes Hughes hadn’t survived Ishval’s extermination as a soldier because of his good nature towards those they were massacring.
There was a reason Maes Hughes was the head of Central City Investigations. People forgot that.
There wasn’t anyone else that Roy would want on this case, not now, not when it had become even more personal than Andrew Peale shooting at Roy’s best friend and getting the child beneath his command instead, due to Fullmetal being reckless and fucking stubborn and self-sacrifical -
Scrubbing his hands over his face, Roy forces a forceful breath out, slumping back onto the couch in his dimly lit office.
It’s been almost eighteen hours since they’d first got the recordings and photos, and Roy thinks each one of them is etched in both minds eye and brain; his neural systems rewired for them to be the first thing he sees when he shuts his eyes, when he steps into a silent room. He’d wish himself blind and deaf if he thought it would stop , but it never does, and Roy has to hear the moments as his subordinate is- is-
He propels himself to his feet, scrubbing his hands over his face again until hurt, fingers grasping uselessly at his hair until pain. He feels useless , unable to truly do anything. They’ve exhausted most leads that they’ve gotten from both photos and recordings, having turned copies of it and transcripts to Eastern Investigations in an attempt to see if they could decipher anything further.
He can hear the rest of his team still in the main office, muffled noises filtering through his half open door. Havoc and Maes had been sent out onto another whereabouts lead after going through Andrew Peale’s financial records again, trying to scour personal properties or places where he’d frequented before becoming a fugitive. There was a slight sense of futility in the air; they’d combed through Peale’s history when they’d first seen him as a suspect in the killings of abusive or neglectful mothers, and it had been Ed who’d made the original connection between the children and Peale being a receptionist in the social services agency who’d been unable to become a social service agent due to his lack of fundings and higher university education.
With Maes and Jean as their boots on the ground, and with Fuery monitoring phone lines and radio signals just in case they indicated for back up, Riza, Breda and Falman were holding the fort in going through the files, and recording transcripts over and over, trying to find something that could help them. Roy should be doing the same, honestly, but there’s a tension in the very pit of his belly that makes him restless, longing for an ignition glove, or even a service weapon.
He’ll see Andrew Peale in front of a firing squad for this, he thinks viciously, if his flames don’t engulf the bastard first.
Fullmetal would never forgive him, not truly. The kid, for all his otherworldliness and the way he wore how trauma had aged him like a well worn coat, had a sort of naivety and innocence to him that Roy hadn’t had since Berthold Hawkeye told him the secrets of Flame alchemy and the truth behind it all, hadn’t had since Riza had shown him her scarred back and asked him to burn her, to erase the secrets of a terrible power that no one else should ever truly have. Fullmetal had a policy of never killing, never taking a life knowingly, and Roy was proud of that fact, that Edward Elric was able to retain a least part of his soul in a world that would see him torn apart simply because of his being a dog of the military.
That was why Roy had to kill Andrew Peale, because Fullmetal never would.
Any soldier beneath Roy’s command - from stoic Riza who's killed her first man without hesitation when she found him attempting to rape another woman, to Jean who’d fed a fellow soldier his back teeth when he found them bullying Fullmetal, to Heymans who’d thrown the first punch at Kimblee when he’d almost gotten a fellow soldier blown up in his perverse eagerness, to Vato who’d lost his daughter too young and vowed to never lose another child again like he’d lost her and then his husband to depression, to Kain, who was a lot like Fullmetal but who’d stood up against that which had terrified him when Fullmetal had needed him - would do what was needed to get Fullmetal back, to make sure he came back alive. Would do the same for Al, for any other member of the team.
Maes was never truly under Roy’s perview, not as a member of Central Command Investigations, but Maes Hughes had been family since he’d first dragged Roy out of his shell at the Academy and then once more in Daliha and refused to leave. Instead, he’d dragged his own family and Roy and Riza had fit into it like a well worn puzzle piece just a little out of shape. Like Roy had fit into Maes family, Maes had wormed his way into Roy’s team, had made himself indispensable, and that he’d bonded so well with the younger of the team, with Fullmetal who’d come with a hanger on that perhaps shouldn’t be allowed in military buildings but had been the reason why Fullmetal had sold his soul to a government Roy was determined to rebuild from the ashes.
Fingers gripping his hair, Roy pulls until pain, shuddering as it reverts his focus to the now .
He’s standing in front of the first of the cork boards, with the very first recording and the photo of it. Roy can’t help how he stares at it, how it sends a chill down his spine, makes him wonder just what’s going to happen after.
The photo is grainy, sepia toned and blurry around the edges.
A body shot. Ed trembles beneath the stance of a man whose feet are just at the very edge of the photo. His entire body is blurred, mouth especially, as if someone has smeared a great hand across it, as if he's shouting. Sepia toned, but Roy can see the flush of anger and terror that Ed can never quite escape from that floods up his bared throat, the curtain of paled golden hair that slips over trembling shoulders, a noticeable difference in one strand that hangs shorter than the others, curling around that flushed throat.
Reaching up a hand - trembling like he’s gulped down too much caffeine - Roy presses the ON button on the sound of the recorder.
For a moment, there’s silence, the soft fuzz of static. Then;
“I’m sorry, child, ” Andrew Peale rumbles quietly. “I truly didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He begs forgiveness from the child he’s taken and Roy has to swallow down the rush of bile and rage that he’s had since he first listened to this with a handful of cut golden hair wound around his fingers.
On the tape, there’s a soft rustling; the movement of hair as if Peale is running a hand through Fullmetal’s hair. The soft snap of scissors echoing in the background, a soft breath.
“This will let them know that you’re safe.” Peale murmurs.
In his hands - his dirty, filthy fucking hands - he holds the very same strands of gold that Roy had wanted to sob over. Roy’s going to string this man up from the rafters, press burning strands of golden hair to his skin over and over until he’s pleading and even then he will not stop, not until Peale tells him everything he did to Edward Elric and plead for mercy.
“You’re safe with me, Edward, I promise. ” Peale lies.
He lies because he’s taken Fullmetal and Roy will do everything he possibly can to get him back, even if he has to choke Andrew Peale with his own bare hands, even if he has to do it with golden hair that he keeps wound around trembling fingers. Roy would scorch the entirety of Amestris, would scorch Drachma and Xing and Creta, whoever or whatever got in his way if he needed to.
Roy hasn’t been a good man for a long time.
A soft noise, Roy leans closer. A hitch of soft breathing, and then a whimper, a soft forceful exhale, the rustle of clothing abruptly stopped.
“...where -”
Even though this isn’t the first time Roy has heard this, heard the soft question, the way a mouth refuses to fully shape the word, something simultaneously cold and hot drips down the very base of his spine.
“Shhh, Edward .” Peale says quietly, tenderly . “Shhh, don’t worry, you’re safe, I promise.”
Another noise, like a hand tenderly carding through too long hair.
Roy is going to put a single bullet through each of Andrew Peale’s palm for every time the man has touched Fullmetal; he’ll make Peale tell Roy every single thing he did to Ed and for every unwanted touch, for every time he made Fullmetal cry or flinch or shift away, he’d burn a scorching bullet into his flesh until Andrew Peale asked for it to stop, for fucking mercy from the child he’d taken. For Ed ’s mercy, never for Roy’s.
Roy doesn’t think he has any mercy left to give, not after Ishval, and certainly not after this.
He’d been angry when he and Riza had saw Ed shot and pistol whipped in the alley, cradled in Maes’ arms, but now he’s furious.
“ ...et me….go,” Fullmetal whispers, voice drifting in and out of recorder. “I don’t… don’t-”
A soft gasp, an aborted rustle of clothes as if someone tries to move away but is unable to.
“I…I know you,” Ed murmurs. He sounds dazed, out of it. They’d agreed that Peale had most likely drugged him after ambushing the brothers at their barracks dorm. Ed’s tone turns insistent. “I know you !”
Al had hesitantly recounted the way Peale had been lying in wait for them, no doubt having researched and watched them since Ed had first left the hospital after recovering enough from his gunshot. How he’d managed to get the drop on an exhausted Fullmetal, who’d staggered through the front door of the dorm and made a beeline to his bed, still fuzzy with painkillers and tiredness. How Peale had been apologetic about everything even as he’d put a gun to Al’s older brother’s head as Ed had lay still and limp in the man’s arms, how he’d threatened to shoot Ed right in front of Al if Al didn’t let Peale tie him up even if Peale had tried to plead that he truly didn’t want to hurt Al’s brother.
Alphonse had done so, terrified for his brother and unwilling to push the man who’d seemed all too ready to do such a thing, tied tightly with ripped up bed sheets and any rope Peale had been able to find after upending the dorm room, shoved into the little closet that could barely hold Al. He’d sat there for nearly four hours, wishing he could cry, wishing he’d been stronger. He’d blamed himself for Ed being taken, and that was another sin to lay at Andrew Peale’s feet, another set of reasons for Roy to scorch fire into Peale’s very sinew.
A sharp inhale, static overtaking the recording.
“Al!” Ed shouts, or he tries to, slurring. A sound like he’s tried to get up but hasn’t quite managed it, a sound like he’s being forced back. “Where- what have you done … done to him?”
“Your brother is safe, Edward, I promise,” A sound like Peale is shifting closer; the click of a shoe, the rustle of trousers. When he next speaks, his voice is even closer than before. “It’s you that I need to focus on, child, don’t worry about anyone else, you’re safe and that’s all that matters.”
Safe, Peale had said, and Roy had to choke back vomit and rage once more. Peale tells Ed that he’s safe, as if he hasn’t invaded the boy’s space, hasn’t tied up his brother and left a little boy wanting to cry and terrified in a closet, wondering if his older brother is even still alive .
The melting point of visceral fat, Roy knew, was roughly thirty five degrees celsius.
His flames had claimed flesh and fat and bone before; had left nothing but charr and ashes in their wake in Ishval. He’d promised to never do that to another person, another child , he wakes from hourly nightmares of the screams of people - of men, of women, of fucking child - that he’d burned alive because he’d blindly followed the orders of a government he’d believed in at the time. He knows better now, and though he promised to never set alight to another person, he’s sure Riza will forgive him this once.
Roy had burned his foot once, by accident. It was when he was trying to control the temperature of his flames, able to do so with an ingenious application of oxygen manipulation and gaseous application/ He’d screamed when he’d burned a part of his foot at a temperature that had hurt when neared his belly, but was excruciating upon the tender flesh of his underfoot.
Beneath the feet started to melt at just below ten degrees celsius. He wonders if Andrew Peale would scream like he’d done.
“-about anyone else, Edward, ” Peale murmurs as the first tape comes to an end. “I'm going to save you.”
The sound from Roy's subordinate could only be described as a panicked whine, half cut off as static overwhelmed it and the recording cuts off.
For a moment, Roy only stares blankly forward, suddenly empty of the encompassing rage that had so suddenly possessed him. The rage had simmered beneath his skin since he'd first listened to the tapes and stared at the photos when they'd first been delivered, and if he could just reach for it, he's sure it will reach back for him too with grateful, familiar hands, but for now, staring into photographed damp eyes that stare back at him, all Roy feels is a pervading sickness, a grief where anger wants to be.
As if he's watching himself from so very far away, he reaches for a tape at random.
Recording number three, kept beneath another photo of Ed.
The photo is grainy, sepia toned and blurry around the edges. A close up of Fullmetals face, mouth swollen and mushy as if he's been backhanded one too many times, maybe to get him compliant, to get him under control. Roy will never think about smacking Fullmetal for his attitude again. Sepia toned eyes, turned from golden to a pale imitation, are half lidded, damp at the very edges, reflecting the fat lens of the camera used. Fullmetal stares through the camera into his commanding officer’s soul, and he’s useless to help.
He looks scared , and Roy had always known that Ed's brashness and larger than life personality and loudness was less of Ed and more of a defensive mechanism; if people were looking at Ed , then they weren't looking at Al . Anger was always a secondary emotion, and often rooted in fear.
Roy thinks Edward Elric has been scared for a very long time.
A hand that still trembles, nails having bitten into the soft flesh of his palm, reaches up. Roy presses ON , sick.
Once more, a silence broken only by soft static. Then;
“I didn’t- I didn’t mean to,” Andrew Peale pleads, soft and apologetic. Coldness drips down Roy’s throat. Not even Hawkeye will be able to hold Roy’s Flames back, not when he knows why Peale is apologizing. “I- I lost my temper.”
“You- you hit me?” Ed sounds...small. Surprised, as if for all that Peale had kidnapped him, had shot at him only a few weeks before, he was still sure that Peale wouldn’t have hit him, not truly. Perhaps Fullmetal was right, however; he’d killed the mothers of abused and neglected children when the social services agents were unable to gain sufficient evidence for the court to fully convict them, he’d never hurt a child, knowingly or not. But he had.
“ - never hit a child,” Peale carries on, as if Roy isn’t staring at his own handiwork on the face of a child. Liar . “I’m sorry, child, I am-”
“.... Fuck you.” Hissed out, soft with static that threatens to overwhelm the words. Slurred still, but not like before, when that had been from the drugs Alphonse had said Peale had used when he’d gotten a hold of Fullmetal, more noticeable when Ed tries and speaks louder. No, this is the sound of someone trying his hardest to form words through a swollen mouth, a tongue too large for its mouth after you’ve accidentally bitten it when hit.
“Shh,” Peale rumbles. A shift of clothing, closer, and then another shift, scraping across a cement floor, lighter, scrabbling. “I won’t do so again, child. ”
For a moment, there’s only static, the noise of someone standing, footsteps walking away. A sudden harsh breath, as if struggling to take a full breath.
“What are you gonna do?” Ed slurs quietly, there’s a sound as if his head has hit the ground, too heavy to keep up.
“I’m saving you,” Peale murmurs softly, almost fucking lovingly. “I’m going to take you away from the people who’d hurt you, who’d thought a child in the military was a good idea. ’
“You’re insane!” Ed hisses.
“No,” Peale tells him. “I’m justice.”
For a single moment, there’s only silence, as if Ed has been so overtaken by his surprise that he isn’t quite sure what to say. The recording is taken over by static, and then abruptly cuts off.
Roy stares blankly forward. Through the wide, almost wall spanning, window that overlooks the courtyard of Eastern Command, he can see the spires of the Third Branch Alchemist Library spiraling upwards to reach towards the slowly setting sun, the shadows of the cathedral-esque building throwing the alleyways and roads surrounding it in long shadows.
The alley right behind the Third Branch Library was, only weeks ago, fed the blood of Edward Elric and the horror of Maes Hughes. Roy had watched as the boy had been taken from Maes’ arms and onto the rickety gurney to be shoved into the back of an ambulance, Maes’ face stricken and almost terrified as he’d stared at Roy from the small window at the back, he’d called Havoc and Breda from the office to be stationed at the crime scene and Roy had tried to follow the trail that Peale had left.
The trail had gone dead in a graveyard not far from East Command and Roy had been left near to screaming. Instead, he’d gone to EastGen. He’d met Maes' in the waiting room. Covered in blood that had smeared across his stomach and chest, head buried in bloodied hands with his broad shoulders threatening to tremble, Maes' had given his statement in a rasping voice that had sounded deader than Roy had heard since Ishval.
He’d told a dead toned story of Ed had noticed something to take them into the back alleys that surrounded the Third Branch Library, and how he’d gone running off but Maes had been able to keep up pace with him until the fateful alley. How Peale had seemed to hunch in on himself when he’d first saw Edward, trying not to be intimidating, how Peale had said that he didn’t want to hurt children, that he thought of them as precious, but that Peale had been all too ready to shoot Maes when he’d seen the Amestrian blue military uniform. How Maes had thought that he’d been shot, had been happy to be shot if it had meant that Ed was safe, how Maes had genuinely thought for a moment that he’d been bleeding out from a gut wound until Ed had said his name, and Maes had known.
Roy can still see the hunch of Maes’ back, as if he was carrying the weight of the world, or the weight of a child heavier than he should be because of his two automail limbs and the stain of blood that Maes’ would never be able to get out of his uniform, not now, not after it had sat and dried.
In his dreams, Roy can see how he and Riza had heard the shot, echoing throughout the alleys to reach them only a few blocks over. How they’d run and ducked through streets, bowling through the scattering crowds. They’d taken a few wrong turns, a few dead ends that had had them retracing their steps but they’d come across the alley and across the scene that had haunted Roy’s waking and dreaming steps for days. How Maes had been lifting Ed into his arms, pressing the kids chest to his own so he could stem the tide of blood, how Maes had looked at him with wild, overtaken eyes, as if he’d been possessed .
Roy has started from nightmares of Maes holding a cooling child corpse in his arms. Maes having been shot and Roy having found Ed sobbing beneath the already dead body of Roy’s best friend, weakly asking him to wake up, please Mr. Hughes please. The dead body of Roy’s best friend hunched protectively over the equally dead body of Roy’s subordinate-
Roy stares blankly down at the empty paper takeaway cup that had splashed the very dregs of his coffee when he’d first heard the news of Ed’s disappearance; he hadn’t picked it up, and it’s rolled away beneath the window, crumpled. His knuckles are bruised from where he’d driven them into the top of his solid oak desk.
Roy has known what failure feels like; he’s been intimately acquainted with the feeling and has never truly forgotten it. He’s never quite felt it like this though, standing unhurt and untouched in the safety of Eastern Command as he tries to track down where a killer has taken his subordinate as the rest of his team are split into groups to cover as much ground as possible.
“Roy.” A tired voice says. Roy doesn’t turn, able to see Maes’ slumped figure in the window glass.
“Maes.” Roy says.
He doesn’t dare tear around, not when he’s so close to tears, to ripping himself in twain. His best friend is safe and sound, but the kid Maes would have happily sacrificed himself for before Ed had sacrificed himself in turn was gone and taken and Roy would happily burn everything from Drachma to Xing to scorches and swallow the ashes to try and find him, not even just to fulfill a debt.
“Anything?” Roy asks. He knows there isn’t, not if Maes hasn’t immediately told him, hadn’t come in so dejected.
“Nothing.”
He watches in the glass as Maes staggers to the first couch, set up staring at the board of photos and recordings, watches how he sits heavily in the very middle, glasses pushed to his forehead as Maes buries his face in his hands.
“This is my fault.” Maes says quietly, and ice slides down Roy’s spine.
His shoes are cement as he takes quiet steps toward the board, and it’s like Ed’s tearfilled eyes and swollen mouth follow him around the room. He sits quietly next to Maes, pressed thigh to thigh. Maes doesn’t move, but his forcibly light breathing and the tremble of his shoulders give him away. The man is one move away from breaking down, and Roy has never been the best at emotions, especially not when he's so close to breaking himself, but Maes has helped him through enough panic attacks and nightmares and night terrors. Maes is his brother in all but blood, and here is the strongest man Roy has ever known, close to shattering.
“It isn’t your fault, Maes,” Roy says instead of all the ways he blames himself for not being there for the both of them. “The only person at fault for this is Andrew Peale, and we’re going to find him, Maes, I swear . We’re going to find Fullmetal, and we’re going to make sure he’s safe and back with us and Al.”
“I should have never let him go running ahead,” Maes tells him, and he leans against the back of the couch, eyes red rimmed. He stares at the board with a distant gaze, as if he’s looking at something far behind it. “I should have just- just shot Peale when I first saw him.”
Maes doesn’t say anything for the longest time. He stands from the couch, and he pulls a photo of Ed from where it’s pinned through the corkboard. He sits down just as heavily as he did before.
Ed stares up at them, with wide, wide eyes, and a mouth pulled back into a snarl. His hair sticks to tear damp cheeks that does nothing to detract from the rage and the helplessness that’s settled into his eyes. He’s pressed himself back into a corner, shadows over the slope of his cheeks and shoulders. He’s an animal cornered. Maes smears a thumb over the glossy photo, down the length of Ed’s hair that spills across his shoulders, down his back. Blood seeps down from his sepia, swollen mouth.
“Play them again.” Maes says, barely audible. Roy doesn’t do him the disservice of asking what .
Instead, he clasps Maes on the knee, and plays tape seven.
The second to last tape would have Roy on the very edge of his seat if he’d been able to bear sitting down during his eleventh listening. Maes has slumped down on the red couch opposite Roy’s desk, elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his hands. He looks wrecked, like Roy imagines he does
“No- don’t-” Ed sounds frantic, panting, sounds like he is trying to crawl away. “Don’t you fuckin’ dar-mph! ”
A quiet slap of flesh upon flesh; Ed is abruptly cut off, noises muffled but not silent, like a hand has been placed over his mouth.
“You weren’t supposed to get hurt,” Peale says softly, a sound like he’s running a hand through hair. A rustle of fabric pulled tight. "I’m sorry it’s come to this, child, but this is only to help you, I promise .”
A muffled noise, like shouting through a gag.
Scuffling sounds and then a forced out exhale, as Peale has lifted something, and then heavy footsteps that get further away. Something is placed down, but pinned as scuffling noises sound once more before being abruptly silenced.
A soft thud, a metallic lock.
“I’m sorry, Edward Elric, ” Andrew Peale declares. He sounds genuinely aggrieved , and Roy has never wanted to feel the heat of his flames this much before. “The damage they’ve done to you, it’s- ”
A soft thud, as if Peale has brought his fist down onto something wooden.
“Monsters.” He spits. “All of them! Every last one of those dogs. They’ve twisted your mind, child. But don’t worry.”
Roy stares blankly, chilled, at the photo of Ed neatly lying in a pale coloured sheet, the sheen of silk and satin apparent in even the sepia toned photograph, gilt gold hair sprawled across his screaming, gagged face. The sun highlights his tear damp gilt eyes, staring angrily up at Roy, writing scribbled over it, calling them dogs, monsters.
Just before the recording cuts, Roy can hear a bell tolling once, twice, thrice-
Fuck.
He darts his gaze to the very last photo, of Eastern Command at a particular angle, the sun illuminating the professional set of the building, the shadow of the Third Branch Library’s spires just in the very edge, and the intricate fencing of the chapel just off to the side, it’s meager bells throwing shadows across the very border of the photo.
He plays each tape over and over, ignoring the splintering of his chest as he strains to hear the backgrounds of each of them. For every hour, a distant bell tolls, prayers raising, a silvered voiced choir. A schoolyard bell ringing dully, the play of children in the distance.
Maes catches his eyes, hope rising in both of them.
“Lieutenant!” Roy roars.
Riza throws the door open, stopping itself with a quick hand on the doorknob. She steps out of the way as Roy strides through it, and she falls into step with Roy and Maes. Her face is blank but her eyes are as vicious as Roy’s rising hopes, bladed and scorching. The rest of the team raise their heads, like bloodhounds finding a scent. Roy gives a bared teeth smile.
“Sixteenth Avenue Civilian Chapel.” Is all he says.
Roy strides through the office door, pulling on his ignition gloves.