FMA: Double Whammy: Flip-side
Jun. 10th, 2011 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lynx212Title: Double Whammy: Flip-side
Fandom: FMA
Pairing: Maes/Ed, past Roy/Ed
Words: 1,539
Genre: Romance/Drama/Angst/Smut
Rating: M
Warnings: None
Summary: There are two sides to every coin and Roy finds out he is not as blameless as he'd like to be...
“You have no idea how hard this has been for me.”
Roy scowled at Ed through the veil of rain between them, “Pardon me for not feeling sympathetic right now.”
“I’m not asking you to but as you stand here shouting your pain, I want you to know you’re not the only one hurting.”
“You have each other now I don’t see where…”
“That’s a very constricted view of the situation, Roy. That’s one of the things about you I could never understand. For a man that had a plan for the entire country you could never see the whole picture in your personal life.”
Today was just one slap in the face after another for Roy. Was Ed really standing in front of him calling him narrow-minded?
“The man in that cabin has lost his wife and child, yes they are still alive but I’m sure he never pictured living his day-to-day life without them. She gave him a choice he couldn’t make because once you’re a certain rank, the Führer has to approve your resignation. With what Maes knows there is no way that’s ever going to happen. Believe me he tried.”
“Why didn’t he tell me this? Why am I only hearing this from you?”
“Where were you Roy? He came to your place… our place and told us both at the same time that Gracia wanted to leave him because of the danger his job posed to them. What did you do with that information?”
Roy thought hard, that was nearly a year ago, he was drawing a blank.
“You were too busy assuring your spot on the Council and brown-nosing the Führer. You told him she was just being dramatic and things would be back to normal before he knew it and left it at that.”
Roy wanted to deny what Ed was saying but he couldn’t, he’d suffered from more than a little guilt over not taking Maes’s concern seriously. He’d lost more nights of sleep over the fact that he didn’t take the time to sit down and talk to him like a good friend should have than he could count. It only hurt more to have Ed throwing that in his face. Anger and rage warred with reason in Roy’s mind and he struck back in the way he figured would hurt the most.
“Well it looks like he had your shoulder to cry on so it’s not like he was alone.”
“There you go again, judging a situation from your assumptions. I wasn’t always there either.”
“Well if that’s the case, it doesn’t sound like you have a whole lot of room to talk.”
“My reasons for distancing myself from Alan at that time were quite different than yours.”
Roy was staring at the rain soaked figure in front of him trying to decipher the expression on his face. It has gone from distraught to an odd mix of restraint and something Roy couldn’t define.
“Well then enlighten me Ed. I’d love to know why it seems fine and dandy that you weren’t there for him, even by your own admission, but it’s something I need to be persecuted for.”
Ed shook his head as a bitter sounding mockery of a laugh passed his lips, “You won’t believe it but this entire situation has been like walking over hot coals for me. Gracia and Maes treated me and Al both like sons. Do you have any idea how it felt for me to realize my feelings for him were no longer familial? I felt guilty every time I sat down at their dinner table, every time they invited me on some outing, and every time I so much as looked at Gracia I wanted to gore myself for feeling the way I did.”
Ed’s resolve was cracking and with his arms crossed over his chest Roy could see his fingers digging into his upper arms. Amber colored orbs looked at Roy and said, “You can’t tell me you’ve never wanted something you know you shouldn’t and the hundreds of reasons why, don’t force the desire away with their logic.”
Roy wished he had no idea, but he knew that feeling all too well. In some ways Ed was one of those very things.
“When I realized Gracia was indeed serious about leaving I all but begged you to spend some time with him.”
“I remember that, but now in light of everything I have to admit it confuses me. Why would you do that if it was him you wanted anyway?”
“You never knew me at all did you Roy? Despite the fact that I’m loud, opinionated and a whole host of other things, I am not selfish. That and if my life as well as my mistakes have taught me anything it’s where to draw my lines.”
Roy just looked at Ed. He didn’t need to ask anything further the, confusion was dancing in his dark eyes and written all over his face.
“He needed a friend Roy and you know as well as I do how tight a lid he keeps on his personal life. You and I are both the same way.”
“It’s not like I’m the only friend he has, Ed.”
“No but you are the only one he would have felt comfortable talking to about the disintegrating state of his marriage with. He didn’t need to talk about painting his house, or buying a new car, Roy. His wife wanted to leave him and take their child halfway across the country!” Ed shouted his control finally giving way, “Who the hell does a person talk to about that if it isn’t their best friend?”
Roy flinched at that but he wasn’t giving up so easily, “Ok so I fucked up, but that still doesn’t explain where you were.”
“Me, I was trying to figure out how I was going sit and listen to the love of my life cry over the fact his love was leaving him! This is one of the many reasons why I wanted you to go console him because I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t want all of that emotion bouncing around and me screwing up and telling him how I felt when that’s the last thing he needed to be worried about.”
“All of this concern for Maes where did I fall on your list of gives a damn about?”
“If I hadn’t cared about you we would have never made as long as we did so don’t even try to play me like that. Besides, you didn’t have much more time for me in your life than you did for him.”
“That’s bullshit Ed, complete bullshit!”
“Are you sure about that, Roy? I can remember going on two of our vacations with Al and the other one was simply too centered on romance for that so I gave it to Kain and his girl. How many time a week do you think I ate alone that last year? Whether it was because you came home after I was sleep or you left me sitting in a restaurant because you got a last minute dinner invite, it happened a lot our last year together.”
“If it bothered you, why didn’t you say something?”
The indignant look Ed gave him made him step back, “Can you hear yourself saying that? I hope so, because it’s obvious you never heard me the many times I did. Hell, I even tried to pick one day a week so if someone asked you to do something, which was all the time, you could say I am free any night except Tuesday night, but that didn’t work either.”
At Ed’s words Roy got a flashback of a desk calendar where one column was always marked busy after 6pm. Unfortunately he also remembered ignoring that more times than he was willing to admit standing outside that cabin staring Ed in the face.
“Maybe I didn’t try the right ways or hard enough but I did try Roy. I even went out of my way to not be around the few times the two of you were hanging out,” Ed said as he ran his left hand down his face in some futile attempt to dry it in the middle of the pouring rain, “but when you wouldn’t be there for him when he needed someone the most I… I couldn’t stay away.”
“How touching,” Roy sneered.
“I’ve said it once but it obviously bears repeating, I didn’t tell you about me and Alan for many reasons.”
“Not telling me doesn’t change the facts, Ed.”
“I know it doesn’t but given more time between our break up and finding this out, it would have hurt a lot less I’m sure.”
Roy glared at Ed then, he was determined to hold on to his anger and there was nothing the younger man could do to make him let go of it. He didn’t want to sympathize with Ed or Maes, he didn’t want to factor in how everyone has had their share of hurt. Roy wanted to focus on the fact that he was hurting in that moment and he wanted to spread that pain around.
Fandom: FMA
Pairing: Maes/Ed, past Roy/Ed
Words: 1,539
Genre: Romance/Drama/Angst/Smut
Rating: M
Warnings: None
Summary: There are two sides to every coin and Roy finds out he is not as blameless as he'd like to be...
“You have no idea how hard this has been for me.”
Roy scowled at Ed through the veil of rain between them, “Pardon me for not feeling sympathetic right now.”
“I’m not asking you to but as you stand here shouting your pain, I want you to know you’re not the only one hurting.”
“You have each other now I don’t see where…”
“That’s a very constricted view of the situation, Roy. That’s one of the things about you I could never understand. For a man that had a plan for the entire country you could never see the whole picture in your personal life.”
Today was just one slap in the face after another for Roy. Was Ed really standing in front of him calling him narrow-minded?
“The man in that cabin has lost his wife and child, yes they are still alive but I’m sure he never pictured living his day-to-day life without them. She gave him a choice he couldn’t make because once you’re a certain rank, the Führer has to approve your resignation. With what Maes knows there is no way that’s ever going to happen. Believe me he tried.”
“Why didn’t he tell me this? Why am I only hearing this from you?”
“Where were you Roy? He came to your place… our place and told us both at the same time that Gracia wanted to leave him because of the danger his job posed to them. What did you do with that information?”
Roy thought hard, that was nearly a year ago, he was drawing a blank.
“You were too busy assuring your spot on the Council and brown-nosing the Führer. You told him she was just being dramatic and things would be back to normal before he knew it and left it at that.”
Roy wanted to deny what Ed was saying but he couldn’t, he’d suffered from more than a little guilt over not taking Maes’s concern seriously. He’d lost more nights of sleep over the fact that he didn’t take the time to sit down and talk to him like a good friend should have than he could count. It only hurt more to have Ed throwing that in his face. Anger and rage warred with reason in Roy’s mind and he struck back in the way he figured would hurt the most.
“Well it looks like he had your shoulder to cry on so it’s not like he was alone.”
“There you go again, judging a situation from your assumptions. I wasn’t always there either.”
“Well if that’s the case, it doesn’t sound like you have a whole lot of room to talk.”
“My reasons for distancing myself from Alan at that time were quite different than yours.”
Roy was staring at the rain soaked figure in front of him trying to decipher the expression on his face. It has gone from distraught to an odd mix of restraint and something Roy couldn’t define.
“Well then enlighten me Ed. I’d love to know why it seems fine and dandy that you weren’t there for him, even by your own admission, but it’s something I need to be persecuted for.”
Ed shook his head as a bitter sounding mockery of a laugh passed his lips, “You won’t believe it but this entire situation has been like walking over hot coals for me. Gracia and Maes treated me and Al both like sons. Do you have any idea how it felt for me to realize my feelings for him were no longer familial? I felt guilty every time I sat down at their dinner table, every time they invited me on some outing, and every time I so much as looked at Gracia I wanted to gore myself for feeling the way I did.”
Ed’s resolve was cracking and with his arms crossed over his chest Roy could see his fingers digging into his upper arms. Amber colored orbs looked at Roy and said, “You can’t tell me you’ve never wanted something you know you shouldn’t and the hundreds of reasons why, don’t force the desire away with their logic.”
Roy wished he had no idea, but he knew that feeling all too well. In some ways Ed was one of those very things.
“When I realized Gracia was indeed serious about leaving I all but begged you to spend some time with him.”
“I remember that, but now in light of everything I have to admit it confuses me. Why would you do that if it was him you wanted anyway?”
“You never knew me at all did you Roy? Despite the fact that I’m loud, opinionated and a whole host of other things, I am not selfish. That and if my life as well as my mistakes have taught me anything it’s where to draw my lines.”
Roy just looked at Ed. He didn’t need to ask anything further the, confusion was dancing in his dark eyes and written all over his face.
“He needed a friend Roy and you know as well as I do how tight a lid he keeps on his personal life. You and I are both the same way.”
“It’s not like I’m the only friend he has, Ed.”
“No but you are the only one he would have felt comfortable talking to about the disintegrating state of his marriage with. He didn’t need to talk about painting his house, or buying a new car, Roy. His wife wanted to leave him and take their child halfway across the country!” Ed shouted his control finally giving way, “Who the hell does a person talk to about that if it isn’t their best friend?”
Roy flinched at that but he wasn’t giving up so easily, “Ok so I fucked up, but that still doesn’t explain where you were.”
“Me, I was trying to figure out how I was going sit and listen to the love of my life cry over the fact his love was leaving him! This is one of the many reasons why I wanted you to go console him because I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t want all of that emotion bouncing around and me screwing up and telling him how I felt when that’s the last thing he needed to be worried about.”
“All of this concern for Maes where did I fall on your list of gives a damn about?”
“If I hadn’t cared about you we would have never made as long as we did so don’t even try to play me like that. Besides, you didn’t have much more time for me in your life than you did for him.”
“That’s bullshit Ed, complete bullshit!”
“Are you sure about that, Roy? I can remember going on two of our vacations with Al and the other one was simply too centered on romance for that so I gave it to Kain and his girl. How many time a week do you think I ate alone that last year? Whether it was because you came home after I was sleep or you left me sitting in a restaurant because you got a last minute dinner invite, it happened a lot our last year together.”
“If it bothered you, why didn’t you say something?”
The indignant look Ed gave him made him step back, “Can you hear yourself saying that? I hope so, because it’s obvious you never heard me the many times I did. Hell, I even tried to pick one day a week so if someone asked you to do something, which was all the time, you could say I am free any night except Tuesday night, but that didn’t work either.”
At Ed’s words Roy got a flashback of a desk calendar where one column was always marked busy after 6pm. Unfortunately he also remembered ignoring that more times than he was willing to admit standing outside that cabin staring Ed in the face.
“Maybe I didn’t try the right ways or hard enough but I did try Roy. I even went out of my way to not be around the few times the two of you were hanging out,” Ed said as he ran his left hand down his face in some futile attempt to dry it in the middle of the pouring rain, “but when you wouldn’t be there for him when he needed someone the most I… I couldn’t stay away.”
“How touching,” Roy sneered.
“I’ve said it once but it obviously bears repeating, I didn’t tell you about me and Alan for many reasons.”
“Not telling me doesn’t change the facts, Ed.”
“I know it doesn’t but given more time between our break up and finding this out, it would have hurt a lot less I’m sure.”
Roy glared at Ed then, he was determined to hold on to his anger and there was nothing the younger man could do to make him let go of it. He didn’t want to sympathize with Ed or Maes, he didn’t want to factor in how everyone has had their share of hurt. Roy wanted to focus on the fact that he was hurting in that moment and he wanted to spread that pain around.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-10 10:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-06-10 10:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-10 11:38 pm (UTC)I do so love how you can play with my emotions so much in the space of one story :) <333
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:10 am (UTC)My muse is churning things out at a rate I can barely keep up with. This was supposed to be a one-shot for bakeoff...lol
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 12:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 01:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 02:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-11 02:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:16 am (UTC)And yes there is definitely more.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-12 07:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-14 12:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-15 12:05 am (UTC)ZaKai made the icon for me <333
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Date: 2011-06-19 01:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-23 11:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-01 07:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-05-19 06:02 pm (UTC)