Fic - "Nothing Left But Ashes"

[raj]

Title: Nothing Left But Ashes
Author: raja815
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Roy Mustang centric
Summary: One puff of smoke for everyone he'd ever let down.
Warning: Manga spoilers from chapter 40 and up, including recent chapters
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is © Hiromu Arakawa. I will make no capitol benefit from this.
Notes: I wrote this for fma_fic_contest for the prompt "Smoke." Just now getting around to reposting it here.



The package of cigarettes felt unfamiliar in Roy’s hand. Surprisingly slim, rather insubstantial, and, like the smoke that cigarettes themselves left behind, it looked much heavier than it really was.

Pocketing it, he folded his change into his wallet and started home. He usually took a few other things to the hospital along with the all-important cigarettes: a book or magazine, sometimes snacks. It made him feel better about using Havoc as a mailbox.

Replacing one of the cigarettes with the message to Lieutenant Hawkeye didn’t take long at all. At this late stage in the plans, they didn’t need more than a few words. Even once he’d gotten the rest of Havoc’s things together (a package of almond cookies from a Xingese bakery and one of the adventure fiction magazines that were Lieutenant Havoc’s guilty pleasure) Roy had ten minutes to kill before he could begin his walk to the hospital. If he got there before visiting hours started, he’d have to flirt charismatically with the nursing staff until they began, and he wasn’t feeling very charming at the moment.

He caught sight of the cigarette he’d removed from the pack, a small and innocuous blot of white on his dresser next to the more ominous white of his gloves. Without a thought, he put it into his mouth, donned the gloves, and lit it. He took a drag and let his memory unfold.

The first drag of smoke was for himself as he had been, young and carefree, sitting in a café with his friend Maes Hughes, blowing smoke rings and trying to catch the waitress’ attention. He let the second puff stand for Maes himself, who had given up smoking the second Gracia caught pregnant without a backwards glance.

Next came one for Jean Havoc, who would undoubtedly greet this cigarette’s packmates with considerably more enthusiasm than the cookies and magazine both. Havoc was the rawest hurt at the moment, and Roy steeled himself against the wash of guilt that always accosted him when he saw his ex-subordinate lying so prone and still in his hospital bed.

A drag too for Lieutenant Hawkeye, who would soon be reading his message. Roy had never seen her do anything as undignified as smoke a cigarette, but he had seen her blow smoke away from the tip of a recently-fired gun, and that was good enough.

The rest came thick and fast; drags for his trusted staff, for the Elrics, one for his foster mother who was never far from her long, thin cigarette holder, and finally, once the cigarette was little more than a smoldering roach, puffs of smoke to stand for the countless Ishbalans he had turned to ash with his alchemy as easily as he had done to the cigarette with his breath.

I promise, he thought, grinding the cigarette out, I promise you all, I’ll do so much better this time. I won’t…I can’t… fail you again.

He gathered his things and left to visit Havoc.