#next step is to watch and add the new songs ive collected in my watch later playlist. over the past 3 years or something like that

[skenpiel]

hard at fucking work cleaning up my ancient vocaloid playlist. and by cleaning up i mean locating and replacing all the deleted/private songs

[kittenwritesstuff]

P.S. I love you - part IV

Summary: When your husband, Tony, dies, you are convinced that your life ended along with his. On the day of your 30th birthday you receive a surprise from Tony and with every letter from him, you start to learn how to live on your own - based on a plot of ‘P.S. I love you’ for @hunters-from-stark-tower‘s  3K Celebration Movie AU Challenge. Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader (eventually), Tony Stark x reader (in flashbacks) Warnings: Cursing, mention of alcohol  Words: 2.911 A/N: flashbacks are in italic, the song mentioned in this part are: “Gett off” by Prince (in flashback) and “I love you ‘till the end” by The Pogues

Part I | Part II  | Part III 

Spring

You are sitting by the kitchen table, your laptop placed in front of you, opened at the page with job ads. You need to find a job, otherwise you’ll have to borrow money from mom, which isn’t really what you want to do.

Wanda, who came by to visit you two days ago, told you that she’ll look for something for you and if not, she’ll give – not borrow – you some money. Or she’ll pay your rent until you get a job.

Gosh, she is the best sister you could’ve dreamt for. Supporting, a bit crazy, but not obtrusive, Wanda always had your back and was there for you when you needed her. Even from across the globe, she always answered your call or reply to your e-mail within an hour after getting it.

“Screw it, there’s nothing I could do,” you murmur to yourself, reading an ad after an ad, none of which seems to be suitable. Yes, you used to change your job quite often, as Tony was kind to mention during your last big fight, but now there is absolutely nothing that catches your eye.

“Keep looking, baby,” you hear Tony’s voice and for a moment, he sits opposite you, sipping on his coffee. You sigh, blinking away the tears pricking at your eyes.

“Easier said than done, honey. You know that I’m not into babysitting and, apparently, half of New York had babies lately.”

When you look away from the screen to give Tony ‘the face’ he’s not there. He’s not sitting across from you, watching you intently as he used to. He’s not drinking his coffee even if the cup is placed right there, as if Tony would come and grab it any moment.

He’s not here anymore and you have to finally accept it. The thing is, you’re not ready. You’re not ready to let him go and move on.

Your eyes focus on the screen once more but before you can read another advertisement, a knock on the door tears your attention from the page. You frown, wondering who it may be. Surely, not Peggy or Nat – they’re at work (lucky them), not Wanda. It might be your mom, but she would’ve called you beforehand.

You swing the door open, revealing a tall man, dressed in all green. He has a hat and a bowtie, too, and in one hand he holds  balloons, green of course.

He doesn’t look very happy.

“Are you Y/N Stark?” he asks, his gaze rather bored. It’s easy to notice that he’d rather do anything else than that.

“If I am, will you sing for me?” you inquire, pondering whether to shut the door in his face or wait until he gives you the letter. Because you are 100% sure it’s Tony’s doing. The dude looks like a leprechaun, of course Tony would hire a one for you.

“Yes,” the guy replies and you start to shake your head.

“Oh God, please no.”

“Lady, please don’t make it an issue. I was hired to do that.”

“You have a letter for me, right?”

“Yes, I do. But I was paid to sing you first.”

“What’s the song you were asked to sing?”

“Yah Mo Be There,” he says with a grimace and you roll your eyes.

“Just give me the damn letter.”

“Oh, no, I have to sing you a song! What if I get reported?”

“By who? And where? To leprechaun union?” you knit your brows together, watching the man stamp his foot on the floor.

“And to think that I was on Broadway,” he says angrily, taking an envelope from the pocket of his green pants, “on stage with Al fucking Pacino. I’m done with this shit. You want the balloons?”

“No, you can have them,” you say, almost pulling the letter from his hand as he offers you to take it.

When you hold it safely in your grasp, you swing the door closed, shouting a ‘have a nice day!’ at the man. You quickly tear the envelope and slide the folded paper out of it.

“Y/N,

My lovely disco diva, you’re on! Karaoke this month, you know the place. Perform and you might be rewarded. You’ll never know until you go on stage.

P.S. I love you”

“Oh, no, I’m not doing this,” you whine.

“You are, baby,” Tony calls from behind you and you shake your head.

“No, you bastard, I’m not and don’t tell me that ‘yes, I am’.”

“But you are, Y/N, remember last time? It was fun, right?”

______

Tony should’ve been a rock star. Damn, you were pretty sure that in some parallel universe, he must be, considering the way he practically owned the stage every time he walked on it.

And his voice! Deep, hoarse, manly. Women always screamed when he sung, joining him when the chorus came. Add to that his dreamy look and boom! Every girl was his.

The song ended, the crowd clapped generously and, after taking a breath, Tony bore his eyes into yours. Uh-oh, there comes trouble. You never had fun while going out for karaoke and Tony knew it. Unlike Steve, Peggy and Nat, you would just sip on your drink, not even once singing along.

“Thank you very much,” Tony bowed, gaining another round of applause. He cleared his throat and reach for his glass, drinking half of his whiskey.

From your right side, Nat cheered and yelled for Tony to sing one more song.

“Well, I think it’s time to give the stage to someone else. Who wants a shot? You? Huh? Young lady over there?”

There was a chatter rising up and Tony, of course, only encouraged the crowd.

“Come on, don’t be shy. It’ll be fun.”

“What about Y/N?!” out of sudden, Steve exclaimed and you smacked the back of his head, hissing at him to stop it.

Tony heard his friend and gave you a sweet smile, prompting all the heads to turn around and look at you.

“My baby? Naaah, I don’t know about that, Stevie. Y/N’s my wife, you know,” he turned to the crowd, “ and I love her, very very much. But she doesn’t have the guts to do something like this,” he said and finished his drink. You narrowed your eyes at him, shaking your head slowly. He was challenging you, you knew that.

“In fact, she didn’t even want to come here in the first place. She babbled about some long day at the office” he snorted and you heaved a sigh,” nope, she’d never do that,” he bored his gaze into yours, a teasing sparkle lighting up. People clamored and Tony winked at you, grinning like an idiot he was.

“Oh, you think she’d do it? Well, let me tell you something. I bet a hundred dollars she doesn’t go on that stage.”

A collective “Ooooh” rung through the crowd and Nat glanced at you with quirked eyebrow. And you, you took a sip of your drink and stood up. The crowd cheered.

“Make it two, sweetie,” you declared and made your way to the stage, turning your back on the audience when music started to play through the speakers.

You swayed your hips, unbuttoning last few buttons of your shirt and tying it over your now bare stomach. You also undid it higher, exposing a bit of your cleavage. The skirt went a little lower on your hips and when you turned around, the crowd went absolutely crazy.

Tony’s mouth fell agape but when Steve patted his shoulder, they both laughed aloud.

You slid the headband off and threw it to Tony who caught it and whirled above his head.

“That’s my wife!” he shouted and you smiled brightly, dancing to the beat of the song.

‘Can I put this in a way so as not to offend or unnerve

There's a rumor goin' all round that u ain't been gettin' served’

You pointed a finger at Tony and bucked your hips, gaining a loud cheer and a smirk from your husband.

‘They say that u ain't u know what

In baby who knows how long

It's hard for me to say what's right

When all I wanna do is wrong’

Moving your body seductively, you sent a kiss Tony’s way and he feigned to faint at that. You gyrated, and shook your shoulders, singing next lines of the song.

‘Gett off,  23 positions in a 1 night stand

Gett off,  I'll only call u after if u say I can

Gett off, let a woman be a woman and a man be a man’

You shook your ass, sliding your hands down your body. At this point, you felt like a star, people were cheering loudly, applauding your incredible performance.

‘Gett off, if u want to, baby, here I am, here-‘

Yet, you didn’t finish the line. Just as you were about to twirl, you stepped on cables, your foot got stuck and you fell spectacularly.

Steve called for an ambulance and Tony and you were taken to ER, where you found out you’d broken your nose and twisted your ankle. You looked terrible and even Tony’s praises about your performance didn’t make it easier. And, obviously, he was the one to blame. He had challenged you, after all.

You hadn’t said a word to him for whole day after that, but nevertheless he had taken care of you.

_____

“I was so stupid. I was such a bitch sometimes!” you say, sitting at the table while your friends took their seats. Steve and Peggy are on your right, Nat on your left and Scott and Wanda are on a hunt for drinks. The urn, of course, is with you, placed safely under the table.

“Sweetie, you were married,” Pegs says calmly, “married people sometimes make each other feel like shit. It’s just that.”

“Besides, Tony knew how crazy you were about him. He told me all the time,” Steve assures and Peggy nods, resting her hand on your shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly.

“I wish I would’ve told him that,” quietly whispering, you lower your gaze onto the table.

“Well, you can tell him now,” Steve gives you a small, warm smile and you nod, unable to find right words to thank them for their support.

Meanwhile, Natasha is shamelessly ogling a guy who at the moment, prepares the karaoke.

“Fuck me, isn’t he delicious? You could serve coffee on that ass,” she states and Steve rolls his eyes.

“That’s why you can’t find a husband, Nat. You have to be so vulgar? He’s not a piece of meat, you know.”

“Oh, sorry, Steve. I keep forgetting how sensitive you are about your flat ass.”

“You act like a man,” Steve continued, untouched by Nat’s comment. You and Peggy share a look but decide to not interfere.

“And then you complain men don’t want you.”

“Oh, is that why? I thought it was something else, thank you for enlightening me,” she says with sarcasm hinting her voice and Steve sighs, “because I was convinced that’s because I deserve the best. And I’m not settling for less than that. I know he’s there, he’s just with all the wrong women,” she finishes and shrugs, “you can laugh at me as much as you want, Steve, but after centuries of dealing with men who look at my boobs instead of my eyes, who pinch my ass instead of shaking my hand, I am now give a divine right to stare at a man’s backside as much as I damn please and comment it as vulgar as I want to. Clear?”

“Crystal,” Steve replies bitterly. You all know better than to argue with Nat – she defends her opinions like a lioness and very rarely any of you can win a fight with her. Also, she has a point.  

“Alright, New York, give a warm welcome to our next singer. Put your hands together for Y/N,” the guy Nat eyed speaks when the mic is set up and you rise from your seat and make your way on the stage, taking a deep breath.

Your friends are watching you, as well as the others. Scott and Wanda finally come with beverages and Wanda gives you a supportive smile and an encouraging nod.

However, you hardly notice them. You blink and just like that everyone disappears and at the table you and the rest occupy sits Tony. His elbow is propped on the surface, his head rests on his palm and his beautiful eyes are fixed on you as if you were the only person in the world. And you are well aware that it’s true – in his eyes, you were the only one.

‘I just want to tell you nothing

You don't want to hear.

All I want is for you to say

Ohh.. why don't you just take me

where I've never been before

I know you want to hear me

Catch my breath.

I love you 'till the end...’

You finish, your voice broken, your eyes glassy but Tony is there, smiling and happy and you refuse to believe that he passed away hardly four months ago. How can he when he looks at you with so much love and adoration?

‘I love you ‘till the end…’ you sing once more and wipe at your cheek when a single tear rolls from your eye. People are clapping and you curl your lips into a tight smile, leaving the stage and quickly going straight into Peggy’s embrace.

Nat is at the bar talking to the guy that caught her eye few moments ago and your sister is, as per usual, surrounded by three or four men but she seems pleased. You thank Pegs and go to grab a drink. You take the urn with you and at the bar, you chose your favorite drink. Then, you go to an unoccupied booth and sit the urn on a couch, taking a seat next to it.

“You happy, my dearest husband? I almost cried in front of everyone,” you say quietly, looking around to see if anyone is coming near you. They would think you’re crazy or something for speaking to yourself.

“Hi!” a voice calls from your left and when you look at the intruder, you grin, recognizing Scott.

“Hey,” you greet him and pat a spot on the couch, “sit down. I won’t throw up tonight, I promise.”

“Hello, Tony, you’re looking good. Lost weight, huh?” he sits and tells in the urn’s direction and you chuckle, endeared by his behavior.

“You’re a terrible singer, by the way.”

“You’re right,” you admit sincerely.

“I’d be very embarrassed, if I were you,” Scott says and you giggle.

“Did you take you meds today?” Scott cackles and you give him a toothy grin.

“Nope, I thought I’d come here instead. Y/N, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” you shrug and Scott smiles.

“I’m feeling kinda hungry so maybe you want to go for a bite or a drink with me elsewhere?”

“Oh, Scott,” you say softly, “I’m sorry but no.”

“That’s fine,” he assures and you mouth a ‘thank you’. He stands up and make to go away, making you grimace. He is so sweet and gentle with you and it’s easy to see that he fancies you but you’re not ready for another man to step into your life so soon after Tony passed away.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to throw it at you like that,” Scott stars, speaking fast as he re-takes his seat, “but what do women want? It’s so hard to figure out. They want us to ask. They don’t want us to ask. They want us to make a move, not make a move. It’s so confusing! What do you people want?” you lean in to him with a smile when he ends and Scott focuses his attention on you.

“I will tell you, but you have to promise you won’t tell anyone that I did.”

“I promise,” he says pompously, resting his hand over his heart and you chuckle.

“It’s sacred secret, Scott.”

“Sacred, I get it. No word will come out of my mouth.”

“You ready?”

“Yeah,” he fidgets in his seat, shifting a bit closer to you and your face becomes serious.

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“All right, so the truth is…” you begin, purposely prolonging last word, “we have absolutely no idea what we want.”

“I knew it!” Scott exclaims and you straighten in your seat, looking at him with a wide smile.

“Thank you for sharing the secret with me, I really appreciate it. And, Y/N, if you ever want to go out, to do anything…” he reaches to back pocket of his jeans, fishing out a pen and small notebook. He scribbles something in it and rips the page off, handing the paper to you. “I’ll wait for you call. I promise, I’m not looking for a thing right now. Just flirting in good faith.”  

“That’s very nice of you, Scott,” you say as you briefly glance at the paper, before putting it in your purse.

“We can always start a very weird friendship. Scott and Y/N, joined by self-pity, bitterness and vomit.”

You laugh at his comment and Scott joins you.

“I’d like that,” you say when your laughter dies down and he nods

“Me too.”

“Come on, let’s get you a drink and have a toast to weird friendships.”

[dawnstruck]

dust and devils on my conscience

FMA RoyEd Pacific Rim 'verse. Non-linear story telling. [Read on AO3]

Mankind, like cockroaches, are tenacious little beasts.

i.

A kaiju is a fearsome thing. Vast and vicious and near-on invincible.

But mankind, like cockroaches, are tenacious little beasts.

They thrive, they survive. Even if many of them die. Even if Death, for some, is a promise.

xviii.

The first tentative step a Jaeger takes is always the most exhilarating. Like a roller-coaster ride, only that you are the loop, the sky, and gravity all at once.

Roy used to love this. He thinks he might be able to love it again.

The water crashes around them and then they move forward.

v.

Two truths. Roy wasn't in love with Maes and Maes wasn't in love with Roy.

That doesn't mean it hurts any less.

xiv.

“Revenge?!” Edward snaps. His metal fist beats against the metal wall to his right, just once, but it seems to set the entire room and everything in it ringing. “You honestly think this is about revenge for me?!”

The gleam in his eyes is furious. Roy does not flinch. He has faced down monsters. A mere boy does not intimidate him.

“Al and I have saved millions of lives,” Ed continues, “We've gone out there again and again, just like you and Hughes have, and you dare belittle me by simply calling it revenge?!”

It would be easy to make a quip about Edward's height then, but his rage is a curious thing. It makes him appear larger than he is and yet there is still so much of a child in him.

“If anything,” Ed adds and his voice is merely a whisper now, like the aftershocks of an earthquake, “You should get some revenge yourself.”

vi.

It's a strange feeling, to mesh your mind with someone so intricately and then have it ripped away within what is little more than an exhale. It's hurts and then it heals and then there is still that frayed edge, forever there at the seams of your conscience.

Roy resists the urge to pluck at the lose ends so he doesn't come undone.

xv.

“Sir,” Riza says, “Permission to speak openly?”

“Permission granted, Lieutenant,” Roy says, tiredly.

“Brigadier General Hughes enlisted to protect his family,” she says. She does not pull her punches, but she gives him a moment's notice to brace himself. “You owe it to him to continue doing so.”

Roy knocks back the whiskey and tries to drown the truth. But, like his nightmares, it swims.

viii.

The Elric brothers are the golden boys of the Jaeger program. They are young, handsome, congenial. Their sob story appeals to the public, both of them orphaned when a kaiju attack laid wreckage to the Australian coast line.

Their accents are as broad as their smiles and, all over the world, boys and girls alike collect posters and action figures of them.

Their Jaeger goes down somewhere close to Kyushu and, though official sources report them to be alive and stable, they do not appear in any morning shows for quite a while to come.

vii.

Riza outmatches him in the compatibility test. It's no surprise, really, but Roy cannot find it in himself to be disappointed. He's not sure he wants to let anyone into his head anyway.

It doesn't work with Jean or Heymans either. General Grumman pinches the tips of his mustache but does not concede defeat. He keeps sending other candidates at Roy, new recruits and seasoned pilots, but none of them are Maes, so it doesn't matter anyway.

iv.

Originally, they enlisted because it was the right thing to do and they took the test because they were curious. They hadn't known each other for long, barely enough to really call each other friends instead of comrades, so no one expected them to be drift compatible.

Their Jaeger is called Pyro Polaroid, a beautiful shiny thing, all gold and navy blue. Maes makes a fuzz after every battle, lamenting the scratches in the paint job as one would with a beloved old-timer.

Later, in his more macabre moments Roy thinks that maybe it was a good thing that Maes died because at least this way he didn't have to witness how Roy quite literally single-mindedly dragged Pyro Polaroid back to the shore and let her collapse against the cliffs. He didn't have to see her be decommissioned and ransacked for spare parts. He didn't have to watch Roy break just as efficiently.

ix.

The rumor reaches Roy when its subjects are already there. Then again, it's kind of hard to miss a giant Jaeger being flown into the base.

Roy doesn't have to guess who it is. The flaming red paint and black markings are enough of a giveaway.

Fullmetal Alchemist, despite the extensive damage she must have sustained, was a younger model and had thus been deemed worthy of repair. Similar things can be said for her pilots.

Alphonse Elric is being carted around the uneven floors of the base in a wheelchair, but his handshake is strong and his smile genuine.

“Looking forward to working with you,” he tells Roy as though it weren't unlikely that he'd ever walk again.

“Where on earth has Ed gone?” a young woman behind Al huffs. She has her hands on her hips and grease smears all over. She must be one of Fullmetal Alchemist's engineers.

“Probably making sure his baby is parked correctly,” Al replies, rolling his eyes. To Roy he says, “He's very particular about who gets to touch her.”

Who's going to co-pilot her then, Roy wants to ask but doesn't because the answer sure as hell is not Alphonse.

xi.

Edward fights as though he were participating in an illegal street fight, not looking for a drift partner. He's got his opponents on their backs in a matter of seconds and impatiently taps his bo staff against the floor mats as he waits for his next challenger.

“Come on,” he drawls. His skin glistens with sweat underneath his black tank top but morphs into scar tissue on his right shoulder. Somewhere in the crowd someone mutters how the automail gives him an unfair advantage. But drift compatibility is not about brute strength. It's about chess.

“Was that really it?” Ed asks now. His face is turned toward Grumman but his eyes are on Riza and her neat clipboard. She hesitates.

“There is one,” she says and when her gaze cuts over to Roy, Ed follows.

xxv.

The sunrise is made of seven colors, dyeing the sea and the sky. But the sun, the sun itself is bold and golden and almost bright enough to hurt Roy's eyes.

He does not look away.

xix.

They lose Arctic Briggs in the waves and Greed is rendered useless when Lan Fan is injured.

Ling gets her out, barely, and she survives, barely. Her remaining hand is red with her own blood as she clutches at Doctor Rockbell's bony wrist.

“Automail,” she grits out through the pain, “I can still fight. Give me automail.”

It took three years to get used to automail, one if you were as determined as Edward, but everyone knows that they only have days.

And yet, amid all the chaos and the destruction, it's easy to read Lan Fan's stubborn spite as hope.

“All right,” Doctor Rockbell says and gives a tight nod.

“Set the clock to zero,” Grumman orders and the bleak metal walls of the Shatterdome reflect his words like a mockingbird's song.

xxi.

Ed kisses like their staff fight might make one expect him to. Looking for openings, for weak spots, just this side of dirty. Roy matches him, kiss for kiss, and this is like their fight, too, this feeling of being alive, of being equal, of being in the right place at the right time.

xii.

Izumi Curtis coughs red blood into white handkerchiefs and observes Roy with narrow eyes.

Like him, she had once managed to pilot a Jaeger on her own. Unlike him, she had ended up with physical ruin instead of mental one.

“I found the boys in the rubble, hidden under the corpse of their mother,” she tells Roy what he has already heard on various radio shows, “I saw them grow old enough to enlist and I saw them nearly die at Kyushu. At some point you have to learn how to prioritize the world before your own fear.”

“I'm not afraid,” he says.

“Not of the kaiju,” she agrees.

xiii.

Roy tells himself he is merely embarrassed when he goes down the rabbit hole. He blames it on being unfamiliar with Fullmetal Alchemist and with how long it's been that he's been inside of a Jaeger at all.

He manages to jerk himself free, vaguely aware of the frantic voices breaking through his headset, only Riza's calm and reasonable. He does not look to his left to see Edward's face. He does not want his pity or his scorn. He does not want to think about how that boy has been inside of his head.

“I'm done here,” Roy croaks and runs away once more.

ii.

Roy flirts with show hosts, takes selfies with fans and ruffles little children's hair. He gives autographs and press conferences, wears tailored suits and debonair smiles. He's the bachelor, the playboy, the unattainable dream. Maes is the opposite, the family man, the goofball, the nerd, who makes dad jokes and shows off pictures of his family and his stamp collection.

They work well together, maintaining the perfect equilibrium of what the public wants to see. Dashing heroes, guys next door.

Maes does not talk about how Gracia silently cries whenever she has to watch him leave. Roy does not admit that maybe sometimes he drinks a little too much whiskey to forget the last trampled city and the corpses that came with it.

Instead, they are invited to dinner parties at the White House and appear on a sports car commercial. They are living the life, only that there is a lot of death involved, too.

xxii.

“We will pilot Greed,” Izumi announces. Sig is a mountain beside her, steady and silent.

“What?” Alphonse bursts out, “But you can't! Pinako said if you ever step foot into a Jaeger again, it's gonna kill you.”

Izumi smiles, fondly.

“Look around, kid,” she says, indicating the listless disarray of the Shatterdome, “If I don't do this, we are all going to die anyway.”

She looks over to Ed, catches his eye. His teeth are clenched and his arms crossed, but he holds her gaze. Then he gives a nod.

“Brother!” Alphonse protests. He looks very pale in the lights of his lab and it makes the red veins in his eyes even more glaring, “You can't-”

He breaks off, doesn't finish. It's the moment in which he realizes that he is not only going to lose his mentor but his brother, too.

“Oh,” he says, his voice tight with tears. But he must know that, one way or another, this was always going to happen.

x.

“Don't,” Doctor Rockbell says evenly, never even looking up from her newspaper. Smoking is not allowed in the base but no one seems to have told her that and so she is puffing away on her pipe.

Edward, who had been feeding Den scraps under the table, sends her a withering look.

“It's the end of the world,” he says, “The least we can do is die fat and happy.” It's says it easily, evasively. They all know it might be over soon. He says it as someone who knows better than others. Better than most.

“Why are you still fighting,” Roy asks, not sure if he even wants to know the answer, “If you think it's the end?”

Ed's eyes, even in the harsh fluorescent lights of the base, are as golden as few living things should be.

“Because if I don't,” Ed tells him, “It's gonna be game over either way.”

xvi.

Drift compatibility, generally speaking, makes sense.

Olivier Armstong and Artyom Buccaneer make sense because he has been serving under her for years. Ling and Lan Fan make sense because they grew up together. Sig and Izumi Curtis make sense because they are married and still madly in love.

Roy and Ed, on the other hand, should not make sense.

Ed's mind is a flurry of contradictions. Smiles tucked into the corners of his loved ones, Alphonse, their mother, Winry, Pinako. Izumi with a halo of the morning sun, a dead kaiju at her feet and a defunct Jaeger at her back, Izumi pale and with coughs shaking her asunder. Snippets of Al's mind interwoven with his own. Brandings of the precise moment in which Al lost feeling in his legs, of when Ed felt nothing but the absence of his own limbs. Metal grinding against kaiju scales, metal grinding into Ed's flesh and bone, fusing with his skin. Weeks and weeks of sitting by Al's bedside, waiting for him to wake up. Months and months of being useless, useless, useless. Day after day of dreadful news, broken walls, broken bodies.

And watching, always watching, as Winry and the rest of the team sew Fullmetal Alchemist back into her former glory, some uneven stitches here, some scars there, and Ed knows that you are never just piloting with your partner but with your Jaeger as well. He'll brave the oceans with her yet again and even the idea of doing it without Al doesn't hurt as much as it ought to.

Revenge, Roy had thought, when it had always been so much more than that.

xx.

“Oi,” Ed says, flicking an automail finger against Roy's wrist. The impact reverberates through Roy's bone marrow. “I'm not fucking piloting with you if you're hungover.”

“We share our minds, not our actual brains,” Roy tells him from experience. Maes had never complained about sympathy headaches the morning after Roy had drunk himself into a stupor again. But he had given Roy steady looks, not necessarily disappointed, but lingering a little too long for comfort. Ed is doing the same now, though his eyebrows are pinched, his eyes somber.

“What would you like me to do instead?” Roy says, offering a skeleton of a smile. He and Olivier had never gotten along but she had been Alex's sister and Roy blames himself for his failure. Without her and Buccaneer piloting Arctic Briggs, humanity is one, two, a dozen steps closer to extinction.

“Dunno,” Ed says. He scuffs the heel of his boot against the floor, shivering slightly. He's wearing an oversized sweater to fend of the perpetual cold of the Shatterdome. Does he miss the Australian heat? Does he miss his arm and leg underneath the phantom pain? Does he miss his mother like Roy misses Maes?

“Dunno,” Ed repeats, “But grief's gonna fuck you over if you don't fuck it back.”

“And how do you...,” Roy says, tilting his head to the side in mildly drunk curiosity, “Fuck grief back?”

Edward grins, boyish and brave and full of bad ideas.

“You fight,” he says as though it were a gospel.

A moment of enlightenment and then Roy sets his glass aside. He prays.

xvi.

Roy, to his chagrin, estimated the Elrics. Not just Edward, but Alphonse, too.

There is more to them than sun tanned skin and the lucky coincidence of being drift compatible.

“I had to do something,” Alphonse says with red bleeding into his hazel eyes. Roy wrinkles his nose against the invasive smell of the kaiju brain on the slab, but Edward doesn't even seem to notice, fuzzing over his younger brother like a nervous bird.

“What did you see?” Grumman wants to know.

“Their world,” Alphonse says and then he explains.

xxiii. Sex, in its many forms, is a form of survival. On the one hand, there is procreation. On the other, there is the instinct to affirm life, the urgency of one's last moments.

Cheap whiskey, Roy knows, does not compare to orgasm, but Edward's eyes have the same color.

The boy has not done this often, Roy thinks. Too earnest to bed one of his many groupies, too busy to bother with anyone else. On the surface, Edward seems to consist of little but Jaeger, kaiju, and his pickpocketed family. Underneath that, however, sits a deep-rooted fear of pain and loneliness and abandonment.

So he lets Roy fuck him in the face of death and destruction, and Roy fucks him in spite of it. He puts no promises into his kisses, no reassurances, because he doesn't have any. Instead, he weaves solace into Edward's hair, gentle reminders that for now – for now – they are here and alive and in each others' arms instead of each others' heads. It's little and lacking, but it's all they have and that makes it precious.

Roy does not dream that night.

iii.

“Ah,” Maes says, when they are playing cards without any gambles, “What will you do? When it's done, I mean.”

He never seems to doubt that it would be done, eventually. That humanity would win the fight and that life would return to how it was before the first kaiju appeared.

Roy thinks of how Maes himself would probably leave the military and take up a desk job somewhere else, something that allows him to be with Gracia and Elysia, something that doesn't count down his days like the war clock at the Shatterdome. Tick tick. Reset. Tick tick. Reset.

Roy, however, is not like that. Roy sees the horizon only when there is a new monster appearing on it. Roy never plans beyond that.

“I'd like to watch the sunrise,” he says and reveals his hand.

xxvi.

Mankind, like cockroaches, are tenacious little beasts.

xxiv.

“You mad cunt,” Edward yells against the wind. His hair is already wavy with sea salt, even though it can't have been more than a few minutes. Logically, Roy knows it can't have been more than a few minutes, even though it felt like eternity.

The memories of passing through the portal are both hazy and knife-sharp at the same time. He entered another world, another planet. And, what's more, he almost died. But he didn't.

“Are you all right?” he asks, somewhat numbly. There are voices coming from out of the escape pod, questions on whether everything worked out on their end, promises to come get them soon. He thinks he can hear helicopters in the distance.

“All right?” Edward repeats as though the definition of the word had just been fundamentally altered. The combination of his accent and adrenaline slur the words until he sounds almost drunk on elation. “All right?”

His fingers are on the collar of Roy's suit, a tether that is tender and terrible at the same time. His clammy forehead presses against Roy's.

“This is General Grumman,” Grumman's voice drones out of the pod. He sounds tinny and far away. The moment remains untouchable.

“The breach is sealed,” he announces, “Stop the clock!”

Roy kisses Ed.