mika

Stan never thought that his life would be tied to deaths. He didn't want it and denied it, even when he decided on the future — the army and the air force, even if someone dies, they are there, somewhere below, far away — outside the area of ​​​​his concerns. Xeno always told him that he would feel sorry for him and traumatize his already sore head, but Snyder waved it off — I will endure, everything is fine, I will become stronger, I will protect you, myself, you from myself.

He enters a military academia after school, he runs away and gets lost on train stations and airports, but never leaves Xeno without a message about himself — I'm alive, everything is fine with me, I hope you want to know this, otherwise there is no point in me fighting for my essence. Xeno answers him with angry letters in which he curses his childishness and asks him to get home back sooner.

Stan promises.

He makes friends at academy — three guys, ordinary, cheerful, but each of them has something dark in their eyes, a past that does not want to let go into a happy life. Stan tells Xeno about them with warmth in every line, Wingfield replies that Stan is the same — he found himself foolish-castaway friends, united because he sees himself in them. He speaks so easily and casually, without a drop of jealousy, he knows — Stan needs them if he wants to return alive.

They graduate from academy together — they celebrate with pomp and ovation, promise to stay in touch and go out to the bar together on weekends. Stan is the only one who goes to the air force. Two more go to the ground forces, and the last one to the navy. They are throw in different directions, but they are not sad, they are connected by too much, and going to different units is not enough to forget about each other so easily.

Stan returns home to Xeno, who meets him in the airport lounge, runs up to him with hugs, Snyder barely has time to drop his bags on the floor to catch him — he doesn't care about the people around him, he doesn't care about their opinions and indignant snorts, Wingfield kisses Stan desperately and sensually, whispers that he missed him right into his lips with a smile.

And everything is going great, Xeno now works at NASA, and Stan is sent on missions from which he always returns home. He sees his friends — no one cancels the weekend rendezvous, and Xeno never goes with them, even if Snyder invites.

"These are your friends, Stan, I don't know them, and they don't know me either," he says every Friday night. "You have your own interests and conversations, your own history, I don't want to interfere. You need them, you need time with them. So go, and I'll be waiting at home when you get back, I'll draw you a bath and make you dinner."

This is his life, his everyday life, he loves it to the point of madness, he's delighted — he couldn't even dream of such a thing. He has a beloved man, their shared home and the job he wanted, friends with whom he's been through thick and thin, with whom he's lived side by side for two years, who have as many devils in their bosoms as does he.

But the world is breaking down right in front of his eyes — one call that screws up everything that was built with such difficulty.

Ray calls him, he is silent for an incredibly long half minute — Stan counts every second — and the silence on the line is cut by a sob and a trembling whisper "Jim died." Snyder's phone falls out of his hand, bounces off the floor with a loud thud — Ray has already hang up by then, because he can't stand the questions, can't console when he is inconsolable himself.

Xeno returns in the evening, finds Snyder sitting on the kitchen floor — he still hasn't moved from the spot after the news, recalling every moment spent with his friend, trying to accept that he will no longer be able to hear ringing laughter and feel the ruffle of fingers through his hair — Jim always did this, he was too tactile even from the first meeting, and Snyder did not like it incredibly back then, but now he does not know how he will live without it.

Wingfield sits down next to him, glances at the phone that has cracked from hitting the floor — understands everything without any word. He knows that the army is not safe, that there is no guarantee that you will return alive, and he is terribly worried about Snyder, because he cannot allow him not to return as well. He hugs him, buries his face in his shoulder, lulls him to sleep, whispers something soothing, but understands the futility of these actions — he feels how his shirt gets soaked with moisture somewhere around the collarbones.

Now the three of them — Stan, Ray and Hank — visiting their friend's grave every year without fail, bringing bouquets of white chrysanthemums. Only them, no one else visits — the tombstone is overgrown, covered with dirt and dust, and it seems to Stan that the memories of him are also getting dirty. As if no one wants to remember, except the three of them.

Xeno does not go with them, he just cannot go. This was not his friend, he knew about Jim only from Stan's stories, and he regrets that he still could not get to know him personally. Although it is his own fault when he refused to go to the bar with them, but something should always remain a personal tradition, in which strangers have no access, and Stan does not blame him for this — of course he does not blame him.

Hank is the second to leave. Three years after Jim, after three long years, during which Snyder begins to believe that everything may not be so bad again. Spontaneously and also unexpectedly — and again he is notified by Ray. Stan does not even know how to react this time — he just drinks. A lot and for a long time, does not dilute bitter whiskey even with ice, switches to vodka and falls asleep in the bathtub with a revolver in his hand.

Xeno is scared when he finds him like that — firstly, he checks the cartrige-clip. The bullet is still in the barrel, and the blood is not smeared on the wall. Xeno helps Stan to get dressed and puts him to bed, covers him with a blanket and listens to a quiet voice on the edge of audibility, telling him about the loss of his second friend, about how dear he was to him. Stan passes out from the stress of an hour of incoherent mumbling, and Xeno strokes his hair — he does not sleep all night himself, fights with Snyder's demons, drives everyone away, does not allow his sleep to be disturbed.

When Ray leaves, Stan destroys the room — breaks the table, chair, bed, smashes his fists against the wall until they bleed, breaks the window and floods the light carpet with scarlet. Xeno says nothing when he sees the ruins — he gently takes his hands, pulls the shards out of the reddened skin, treats the broken parts with alcohol, from which Stan does not even wince, bandages them and kisses each palm. Books a room at a nearby hotel, takes Snyder there, who only gives in to the scam because he's devastated.

He doesn't go to the funeral, can't bring himself to — Xeno doesn't insist, but asks if he's sure. Stan just nods and stares blankly at the wall of the room, which had to be extended indefinitely while Xeno hires repairmen.

A week later, Wingfield doesn't find Snyder at home — he's scared out of his wits, calling Stan's phone incessantly, only to hear beeps and an answering machine. He curses himself, curses him — doesn't know what to do, what to do with himself. He sees a photograph on the kitchen table — picks it up, runs his thumb over the reflections of their faces — all four of them, all alive and carefree, bright in the sunlight of that summer day. But the brain itself colors the picture in black and white, leaving only Snyder as a colorful spot for now. An empty vodka glass is lying next to the frame, and Wingfield calls a taxi.

Stan is lying on someone else's grave with a bottle of vodka — Antonio? Andre? He didn't even read who he joined as a viewer — he looks in front of him at three marble slabs in a row. He thinks that maybe he will become the fourth, just as empty and forgotten, cracked from time of carefree seconds.

They went to Jim's three, to Hank's two. He left Ray alone and only now was able to force himself to appear in his eyes — ironically, but in response to him only the years of life playfully beckon with them. Stan looks at the sky — the clouds are gathering and mercilessly threatening to pour out unshed tears for the departed, and Snyder hopes that the rain will hide his weakness in itself.

The first drops of rain break on Ray's grave, Stan is grateful to it — cry with me, I can't do it alone. He doesn't care if he gets sick, as long as he lies like this, takes another acrid sip of vodka, closes his eyes. He doesn't notice that the rain no longer hits his face, hears rustling next to him and a hot shoulder pressing against his. He turns his head, sees Xeno in front of him, who has also laid down, holding an umbrella over their heads, looking at three tombstones in a row.

and then what if its set in fma-1 where homunculus are the alchemist's mistake in human transmutation.

xeno is going to use all the knowledge he's gained over the years of studying alchemy, despite the ban on transmuting the dead, the gate takes away his memories of stan, and he basically doesn't understand what he was trying to do and why, so he just leaves his lab, where a new homunculus was born.

"father" finds stan, feeds him red stones and orders him to encourage people to create a real philosopher's stone, stan carries out this task, not paying attention to anything, because he believes that this is his direct purpose - to use people for his own purposes, because people are stupid and selfish, and he believes that "father" is right when he calls a person expendable material

by chance he meets xeno, who does not recognize him, but memories of him flash through stan's head - he knows that he was created because of the stupidity of the alchemist, but does not know who exactly, and he does not like that his memories of his life begin to fill his head, he begins to hate xeno, because he became the reason why he had memories, but xeno does not remember stan and believes that he is simply confusing him with someone else. stan first wants to kill xeno, thinking that his memory will die with him, but he can't bring himself to raise his hand against him, so he just stands there and tries to understand why everything is exactly like this, and since xeno is the same alchemist who created him, why doesn't he recognize him now. he tells xeno about his memories, but it doesn't work, xeno's memory is lost forever and wanders somewhere in the gate, but if stan is telling the truth, xeno thinks, then stan is his sin, which means xeno is the one who has to kill him.