Chapter Text
Paperwork should be renamed work of the devil . It’s so dull at times Ed wants nothing more than to smash his head against his desk until he gets a concussion followed by a week off in recovery.
Unfortunately, a concussion would mean a visit either to the Central City Infirmary or the military medic bay. Paperwork can be so terribly dull at times. It’s a wonder Roy hasn’t like, banned it yet.
…as that would likely send the country into a state of emergency, Ed is sorta grateful he hasn’t. But, still. Fuck paperwork to every possible depth and crevice of every hell that exists.
There’s a lot of things that makes this day extraordinarily peculiar. First of all, there had already been coffee from his favourite coffee place on his desk when he had clocked in that morning (thanks Roy <3 … eugh). Second, lunch had been edible for once.
Two good things like that (both coincidentally in regard to edible substances) happening right after each other. There is something amiss and something is undoubtedly gonna turn this good weird-ass day into the embodiment of actual shit. Ed’s sure of it.
The office is also eerily quiet. Usually, Ed would have thought the apocalypse to be approaching or something in the same genre, but today he’s determined to enjoy and get the most out of it because he has a date— or something —with Roy. That is, if they both manage to get through the alarming amounts of paperwork that seems to only grow taller every time he looks at it.
It’s a variety of stuff, honestly. One of the perks of being a state alchemist is that occasionally, he gets really fascinating cases that has him thinking and pondering and all that good brain power stuff that’s supposed to prevent, like, Alzheimer’s or something. Most of it is field reports, where the sender is unsure of thing x-y-et-cetera and those are the boring parts. The real treasures come with the rare Xingese-Amestrian translations he gets from his brother when certain parts of the poor poor Investigations department become too overworked.
Ed sighs and looks over at Hawkeye’s desk.
Hawkeye and Falman are usually the ones that sort the documents coming in based on a series of different factors.
His or Roy’s name can be found on some envelopes for documents and so they automatically go into their respective drawer-piles-document-storage-bins that are kept on the spare desk closest to the inner office. If it’s unnamed but translation stuff or anything , really, from Investigations, it goes into his pile as well, and if it turns out to not be his work he can hand it over to whoever will be the quickest with it.
—Anyway, back to the eerie silence. Ed looks up when a hand waves in front of his face. It catches Ed so off-guard he accidentally scribbles over a part of the translation he’s been slaving over since eight that morning.
“Godfuckingdammit,” Ed mutters before looking up to see Havoc standing over him, looking concerned for some reason or another. “You need anythin’?”
Havoc starts talking and then Ed realises why the office has been so quiet the last— hour ? —He stares at Havoc, trying to figure out what he’s saying based on how his mouth moves. He can lip read, and that’s not the issue. The problem is that he’s become so used to having his ears working with his eyes to pick up speech, but now— all of a sudden, it’s gone again .
Why, godfuck-why did his hearing aids have to break today, of all days?
Not that any other day had been more appropriate or fitting or better or anything of that sort. No, the issue is that it happened at all .
“I’ve been trying to get your attention for at least a couple minutes now,” Havoc says, and in his head, where no one else can hear him, Ed swears, hard and viciously at his dumb hearing aids for giving in at eleven on a Tuesday morning.. “You looked really focused on that document. You really get so invested in the translation? ‘Cause it doesn’t look all that interesting to me.”
“Yeah,” Ed says, trying to gauge his loudness by the miniscule twitches in Jean’s face.
God fuck . He hasn’t been in this predicament since … for a while now, considering Winry always insisted on replacing or checking up on his hearing aids every time they met up.
Bless her.
The team doesn’t know he is deaf (even though he isn’t , because there’s a distinct difference between hard of hearing and deaf, something he had only recently found out while digging through the medical part of the state library because he was bored , and perhaps that was for the best, because as of this time, only four people, himself included, knew of the entire thing).
To be entirely honest, the terminology doesn’t matter all that much to Ed, since it’s just someting he lives with and over time, the fact has just fit itself into every nook and cranny of his dumb, miserable life and stuck. ‘Deaf’ is the more commonly known word and while it might not be the more accurate label or erm at all, in an unprofessional environment, it should be more than enough.
Everyone knows that he is a double amputee, that he doesn’t have a right arm or a left leg below the knee, because it isn’t like he goes around hiding his automail or denying its existence. Besides, and Truth help him if this ever got out to Winry, automail is kinda cool as fuck. Hearing aids aren’t cool. They just show that there’s something wrong with him that’s invisible and that can actively inhibit his effort in being a part of society.
People would probably just think that the Gate had taken his hearing too, and continue on with their lives, but— but that hadn’t been what had happened.
It had been an illness. They hadn’t known which at the time, but it had come and gone within the span of a single week. A single week that had changed his life forever.
It was just after he turned six, early in the spring of 1905 and he’d spent all day in the open fields, playing with the other children that inhabited Resembool’s sunflower plains.
It had started out innocently enough— a small fever, lethargy and no appetite. His mum had thought it to be the flu and had put him to bed after making him drink two big glasses of water. It would wake him up in a few hours, she had said, and it would help wash out the illness from his system.
Even now, Ed isn’t fully sure if that’s a thing.
Two nights later, Ed had awoken to the worst headache his poor six-year-old brain had ever been subjected to. There seemed to be pressure everywhere, pushing from the back of his head, clamping in from the sides and tonnes upon tonnes of concrete seemed to have magically materialised on top of his head and his forehead to press him down towards the bedsheets.
He had screamed in agony that night, had awoken Al with the noise, and he had stumbled over, on small legs up into his bed and Al had hugged him as best as four-year-old Al could. The thought had been nice, although the hug itself did little to comfort him.
“Mum!” Ed had called out desperately. “Mum!”
She had run into the room, dressing gown flaring out behind her and then it had happened. The pain had increased to greater levels than Ed thought possible and then there had been a kind of a popping sound, a small odd feeling passing straight between his ears and then— well, then he’d slumped forward onto Al and fainted.
His hearing had been almost gone after that. The first two months had been hell for the lack of a better word to describe the entire time spent in silence.
At least he had recovered quickly from the actual mutant-cold-flu-hearing-stealing thing.
Granny Pinako, along with Mr and Mrs Rockbell, had worked for those two months to make hearing aids for him. At first, Ed had scoffed at the idea, but when he had realised that it would mean life would go almost back to normal again, he’d warmed up to of needing help to be a part of any group of people he’d ever be with.
The trial period had been the worst, because there was first the fitting of the hearing aid, figuring out the best model for him to give him the best chance at being ‘normal’. The word disgusted Ed. There was nothing ‘normal’ about him now.
But even though Mr and Mrs Rockbell had been quick, Ed, Al and Winry had still spent the days with Trisha learning sign language from a book Granny had gone to East City to buy them.
Ed shakes his head, forcing the memory along with the emotion. Not that it’d help or anything, since thoughts aren’t physical matter and therefore can’t be moved by the laws of gravity or movement.
“Xingese is really different from Amestrian,” Ed says. Suddenly speaking is a bit of a challenge because sure , having hearing aids isn’t the same as having normal hearing. Of course it isn’t. There’s only so far machinery can go to replace bits and pieces of the (admittedly flawed) human body. And now, without these dumb things, he can’t hear his own voice. “The sentence structure is different. Some of the words translate differently based on context and, you should’ve realised by now, they use an entirely different set of characters.”
Havoc nods and then something seems to catch his attention and he looks up and towards the door to the hallway. If there’s a Private or something there with another dumb, unreasonably tall unwanted pile of reports Ed might just … vanish into thin air and poof back into existence in Resembool where he can get his damn hearing aids replaced. Then everything can be fine and dandy again. Or something.
Havoc is talking with someone that’s inside the office now. Currently unknown person is behind Ed, because some brilliant idiot had determined that half of their desks be placed to that the person sitting by them would be back-against-the-door. If they’d cared enough, moving them could be done in a matter of minutes but … that was … effort. And they were already severely backlogged with work.
So.
The unknown someone taps on his shoulder, slightly off-beat. It’s a telltale sign, something of acknowledgement.
Al.
Ed turns and sure enough, there his brother is, dressed in the military blues he’s only recently started wearing himself.
He feels a bit dumb now. He knows how to draw from Qi, knows how to sense the presence of other souls and stuff like that from the time he spent on the run with Greeling and the chimeras plus some time spent with Mei Chang after the Promised Day.
The thing about Qi, the thing that makes it complicated, is that the later in life you start to learn how to use it to your advantage, the more it drains you when you use it to identify your surroundings. And so Ed only really uses it when he has to, usually in times of battle.
Like everything else, it’s a skill in the end. Practice makes perfect and all that shit, but Ed doesn’t really have the time for it. It’s something he should take more time for, perhaps on the weekends so that the after-effect of feeling terribly drained wouldn’t impact anything more important than, like, groceries .
The expression he sees on Al’s face is basically mostly the same he feels residing on the heart of Al’s sleeve. Reading Al has always been easy, but recently he’s become even more open of his feelings, in particular the positive ones now that the persistent trauma of both being trapped in cold, emotionless metal and the entire Promised Day ordeal is slowly fading to become a part of the constant background noise grating at the back of their minds.
And Al being here at this time is— perfect. There’s no other word that perfectly encompasses the strange concoction of immense relief, anxiety and some thing that can only be described as a slightly unique-to-this-situation form of ‘existential stress about the unexpected sorta-loss of one of his senses’.
His brother is a saving grace, no doubt about it, when he comes up from the Investigations department to check on him.
If there’s ever been a god in this world, the biggest thing the god must have done like ever , is bringing Al to him.
The team doesn’t know. Tough shit. He needs a bullet-proof way to communicate with Al. Shit’s gone down and he needs to get that across to Al, needs to make him understand that they have a situation™ and that it needs to be addressed like, right now .
Ed raises his hands and they’re shaking— surely that’s just a trick of his mind? —and for the first time in front of anyone but the people he considers family, both in blood and not, he signs:
: Al, my hearing aids broke .:
Al’s expression is sort of priceless, but also disturbingly in tune with Ed’s own turbulent emotions. The thing is, Alphonse can also be so amazingly extra because he actually claps his hands over his mouth and lets out a small gasp. At least, that’s what Ed thinks he does judging by his brother’s usual reactions and the way this one in particular is playing out.
So much for being subtle.
: Really?! :
Jeez, Al , Ed thinks. If anyone can make sign language sound panicked and composed at the same time, it’s you .
: You have to go tell Roy to give you some time off to go get them fixed. If you’d like I can go call Winry so that she’s aware and everything. :
One.
Two.
Three.
And there Al’s brain seems to catch onto the fact that he’s just asked Ed to drop the bomb of the century onto poor poor overworked Roy that he was supposed to be going out for coffee with later today to reward themselves for working hard.
“He doesn’t know,” Al says, a bit dumbly and perhaps a bit … flat. As if he’s only really realised how big this entire thing is.
Ed is painfully aware of the fact that the whole office (apart from Hawkeye, who is likely at least pretending to do her work, bless her) is watching them intently like it’s the national sport of Amestris or something. This is all very — annoying, there’s no better word for it really — because all Ed wants to do is to get about a billion hugs from Roy because his hugs are really fucking good. After that, pack a bag with the overnight essentials and jump on the first train to Resembool.
There only goes two trains in the general direction of Resembool from Central a day, and that’s the train to East City. From there, there’s a connecting train to Resembool.
The only reason, as far as Ed is aware, for there to be a high-quality, fully functional railroad from East City to a backwater town like Resembool is because since the villagers there are mainly sheep farmers and it’s apparently where the military gets the wool for its uniforms from.
The brief thought that Ed has potentially met the likely multiple sheep whose wool his uniform is made from flashes through his brain and why the fuck is that something he thinks about when he’s sorta in a moderately major crisis involving something just sort of health related ?
He stands up from his chair, nudges it with his foot until the uncomfortable piece of furniture is at least somewhat pushed in towards his desk and in the process, signs to Al that he should just go back to work before Hughes goes looking for him.
There—
There really is no good way to do this. But—
Rip the bandaid off as fast as possible instead of dragging out the pain.
Isn’t that a saying he’s heard before?
Ed sighs heavily and impatiently tugs out he hair tie keeping his braid (that’s done an excellent job of hiding his hearing aids all these years) intact. Then, while not looking at anything in particular, he pulls up his air in a bun that is sure to reveal the small intricate pieces of technology that is BTE hearing aids.
He removes them, because it’s not like they’ll do anything at this point. If the team hadn’t gotten it before , then—
Well, then they should certainly understand now.
Al’s Qi tugs at him for a second, and it’s enough for Ed to look at him.
: I’m coming with you, Brother ,: Al signs. : If you’ll be a dear and let me go to my office for a few minutes and I’ll pack up some of my work and talk to Colonel Hughes. I’m sure he’ll understand if we explain the circumstances. Come on, let’s go talk to the General .:
It’s funny, Ed thinks, how he up until recently always referred to Roy when signing as ‘bastard’ but now he occasionally slips up and signs ‘sunshine’ instead. Alphonse, who had never even signed the word bastard in his life, had spelt out the name until they’d coined a sign for his name, consisting of the sign for ‘fire’ and the letter r.
The door to Roy’s office is closed, but Ed opens it (because he’s too nice to kick down the door to his boyfriend’s office right before revealing like, the biggest fucking secret of his life and then asking for sick leave).
“Hey,” he says when both him and Al have managed to get into the office and Al has closed the door. He strides up to the desk, trying to act like himself even though he’s painfully aware of how little he can hear. It’s just… quiet . He drops his hearing aids on top of the report Roy is reading. Somewhere at the back of his mind, Ed realises that this is one he’s written. “I need a week or so of sick leave. I gotta go back to Resembool and have Winry fix or replace these.”
Ed looks at Roy’s face, gauges his reaction, watches his boyfriend catch onto the evidence in front of him and all the facts attached. He should really get Roy a corkboard, a camera and some red thread for his birthday so that he’d be able to see what goes on inside Roy’s head.
The thought amuses him for a second.
“You’re deaf?” Roy asks, and Ed doesn’t blame him for saying that. He has Al at the corner of his eyes, and— and that’s the only reason why he has a guaranteed chance to get what Roy had been saying. That— is a bit sad.
“I’m hard of hearing,” Ed explains, and by now he is actually really uncomfortable with speaking because Ed can’t hear himself and what if his speech is slurred or the volume is off or anything like that? “There’s a difference. Don’t worry too much about it; I don’t. So sure, deaf. But yeah, sick leave.”
Roy just looks at him and there’s a fond smile appearing and oh dear lord , how dare he be so pretty and beautiful and amazing and—
And how is Roy his ?
Al’s moved behind Roy, muttering to Roy what Ed guesses is a brief explanation. Roy caps his pen and stands, out of the way so that Ed still has easy access to Al’s hands. “I think,” he says, and Ed’s heart does a sort of… drop in his chest and it bounces back and forth between his organs until it hits and lands somewhere near his pelvis. “That it might be time for a vacation. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to come with you.”
They’ve been dating just over three months and sure, they’ve been on a few dates and— kissed. A lot. Just those small pecks of the kind primary school children would because they’d established early on to talk it slow because of a whole filing cabinet of reasons.
Ed only now realised that, perhaps all along, it’s been this holding them back. This forcing Ed to have them take it slow.
Ed leans forward and pecks Roy’s nose. “‘Course, if you don’t mind insane Winry, and all the crazy for like, ages or something until I’m not a fucking cripple anymore.”
: You two are disgusting. : Al declares, but he’s grinning and what a lovely grin it is. Ed flips him off and turns to look at the clock hanging to the right of the door. It’s just before lunch. No wonder Al had come up to see him; he’d likely gone to ask if Ed would want to go to a café or something for lunch.
“I think we can take the train five past four,” Ed says, without turning around. If Al needs him to see, he’ll just make his Qi flare.
That had been something they had worked ridiculously much on after the Promised Day, since it was a pretty decent communication method, and didn’t drain nearly as much as other Qi things had a tendency to do.
There’s a small part of Ed that wants to pump his hands in the air and be visibly elated that he’s a) going back to Resembool, because he really does love the place even if living there is not in his plans like, ever and b) he’ll be spending more time surrounded by his favourite people.
“See ya, bastard,” he says to Roy. “Meet us at the train station at ten to four, will ya?”
He doesn’t hear Roy’s goodbye.
It isn’t before they’re situated at the train, in a private cabin because apparently having a high-ranked officer with them has some advantages, that Ed realises that something about this trip is— odd?
He’s brought with him all the translation documents that had been in his inbox when he had left the office. Partially, it’s because they’re good practice for language and partially it’s because Ed knows , instinctively, that even though this is apparently now a ‘vacation’ and all that crap, Roy has smuggled with him at least half of what had been on his desk.
He’s a helpless workaholic, alright.
Something nudges him and Ed looks up to see Roy’s fond expression so close to him. Their placement on the same bench had been entirely deliberate, with Al sitting right opposite Ed to allow for easy signing.
This is … going to be an exercise for both of them. They rarely sign nowadays, and never ever in public.
Not— not that this private cabin is public or anything but— it was more the entire principle of the thing, that they were trying to keep his disability hidden, even though what made them do it wasn’t because Ed was ashamed or anything.
They just— they don't really depend on sign nowadays.
‘Sides, Al hadn’t been able to sign in the armour and though it had been a few years since he’d gotten his warm, living, breathing body back, he was still learning. They were always learning.
: Why didn’t you tell me right away? I understand that you didn’t when you were twelve, but couldn’t you have when we got together? : Al signs, and Ed realises that the vibrations he felt in his chest just a second ago had been Roy talking. He sighs heavily and rubs his face.
“Shame,” Ed says quietly. “I didn’t want to be disqualified from the State Alchemy testing and I was so used to just passing as a fully hearing person in public since I had my hearing aids.” Ed sees Al’s eye twitch, and so that must mean that his voice is gone to hell again. “Sorry about my voice by the way. ‘S probably crap since I can’t hear it. I don’t like talking, when I can’t hear anything, so this is fucking shitty.”
Ed can feel Roy’s laugh and it sends pleasant vibrations through his entire body. It adds to the sensation of the train moving, lulling him into a sense of security that is almost entirely authentic.
If Ed had wanted to, he could’ve held an entire conversation with Roy relying solely on lip-reading, but even that had that margin of error Ed is not quite willing to deal with yet.
: How did you lose your hearing? Was it the Gate that took it? :
“No,” Al answers for him and Ed grins; he loves that kid. He’s such a dear for singing along with talking to Roy because then the both of them can follow the conversation with little issue. “Brother got ill.”
Ed snakes further into Roy’s side because he’s in civvies and he’s gorgeous and handsome as hell and besides, warm . Warm is good. The vibrations from him speaking is just an added bonus to calm down the dumb pseudo-anxiety his brain is so intent on channelling right now.
Roy’s head leans down to rest on his and Al’s Qi sorta— does that happy-jittery-dancing thing that is both adding to his mood but also resulting in Al getting glared at quite viciously (at least judging by the usual standard of glares directed to his little brother.)
:I said it earlier,: Al signs with one hand as he reaches into his bag with one hand and pulls out a folder of paperwork. The signing itself is a bit questionable but Ed’s had enough practice to get his brother’s pseudo-signing at least, like, eighty-five percent of the time. :But you two are disgustingly cute. It’s lovely to see you happy, though, Brother.:
Al hands him the folder and Ed groans. He releases his hands to sign, : Is this all seriously just for me? Is the Investigations department trying to kill me? : He gently elbows Roy. “Your best friend should be convicted with attempted first-degree murder ‘cause I keep getting all their paperwork and it’s ridiculous. The papers I have in my bag alone’s gonna take days to complete and that’s if I do the Amestrian translations in shorthand. Goddammit, Roy — don’t you laugh at me!”
They’re an hour and a half from East City when Al looks up at Roy, all serious or something.
Ed’s been half asleep on his lap for the better part of an hour or two and Al looks pensive when he meets Roy’s eyes. “He hasn’t told you anything about it,” Al says. It’s not a question.
“No,” Roy admits. “Would you be able to explain anything? It’s not that I want to impose on his privacy or anything, but I haven’t really—” he gestures with one hand while the other cards absentmindedly through Edward’s loose hair. “I don’t know very much about deafness in itself, nor how it affects people and the community around it.”
“Of course,” Alphonse says, looking hesitant for a moment as he lets his eyes drift out to look at the passing, blurry landscape. “Right after Brother turned six, he fell … ill. We still don’t know what it was, not even today. It behaved like a common case of the flu— he was always tired and didn’t eat properly. Those few first days of Brother’s illness were our last days going to school. After he got better, we started learning on our own at home, since there was no way for the teachers to properly communicate with Brother after he lost his hearing.”
Al sniffs and grabs for something in his jacket. “Sorry,” he says with a weak laugh as he wipes at his eyes. “It’s a bit of a sensitive topic.”
Roy holds up a hand. “Don’t apologise. It’s fully understandable.”
“Anyways.” Al folds the handkerchief back up in a neat little square and tucks it back into his pocket. “One night — it must have been a migraine or something — Brother just woke up screaming his throat hoarse. Then he passed out and didn’t wake up again before dinner the next day, so he was probably out for a good twelve hours. Then— his hearing was more or less gone.”
Ed turns on Roy’s lap and presses his face into Roy’s stomach with a contented sigh. Roy looks down at him fondly and extracts a few stray pieces of hair from their temporary residence in Edward’s mouth.
“Ed isn’t deaf,” Al says. “He told you that earlier. I suppose you can just use deaf, though. Brother doesn’t really care, but if you want to get the medical terminology for the condition right, it’s not ‘deaf’. Brother is hard of hearing. The difference between the two has something to do with how and how much sound can be picked up in which way. He’s able to hear some things if the sound is loud enough, but without hearing aids, Brother can’t keep up with a conversation unless he has some means of alternative communication in the form of lip reading, sign language or writing.”
“I’m not saying this to sound condescending in any way,” Roy says slowly, cautiously. “But I really do feel like the two of you have been dealt too shitty cards. I—” he stops and wonders how the hell to approach this topic. “I want him to have it better. I want him to be happy and I don’t want him to suffer unnecessarily. I’m scared I’m not going to be enough for him. He’ll tire of me, or my personal demons will end up driving him away from me.”
“You’re good enough for him,” Al promises and something soft flickers over his face before the serious expression is back. “I need to tell you some things, because I know that you and Brother literally haven’t even spent a night together nor have you ever been staying with us in Resembool, and you’d be better off knowing some shit.”
Roy’s gone back to petting Ed’s hair and from the way Ed is moving a bit too much, Roy guesses he’s slowly waking up. “Of course.”
Alphonse’s expression is tense, and oh lord , is it going to be this bad? “Brother and Winry can fight a lot. I suppose, ‘bicker’ is the better way of describing it and usually it’s all good since it mostly revolves around unimportant stuff or the usual ‘you didn’t take care of your automail’ or ‘you never call’ talk. Sometimes, though, it can get a bit out of hand. Winry can— get really mean when she’s angry. She doesn’t mean to and she always apologises, but since the three of us are so close, she knows exactly which points are Brother’s weakest, and when she gets angry, which sometimes is his fault, she deliberately prods at them, you know?”
Roy can’t help but frown and he doesn’t realise he’s knitted his fingers too tightly into Edward’s hair before the victim of his subconscious' actions hisses, sighs and goes back to curling up and burrowing his face into Roy’s stomach.
He stares down at Ed and can’t help but grin a little, although the frown is soon back in place. “They seem to do alright. A little temperamental, both of them. Is it a Resembool-thing and you just so happen to be an anomaly?”
Al laughs softly. “No, no. They grew up around each other. I think that’s reason enough. And I’m not much of an anomaly. My temperament just— doesn’t appear until need be. I have done my fair share of yelling too, but I tend to choose better times and places than them. I don’t pick half as many fights either, so that might be another major reason. That’s not the thing I wanted to bring to light, though. I suppose you remember how you felt when your sight was taken from you by the Gate during the Promised Day?”
A white nothingness with a — something standing in front of a tall stone gate, smirking at him before being sucked into a whirlwind of sound and images.
His head feeling like it would explode with the knowledge being crammed into it.
Falling and hearing Edward screaming his title. Seeing nothing.
Being hospitalised for two weeks unable to use his hands, and without sight.
Feeling trapped, his world nothing more than the bed he was resting on or Riza’s arm when she led him to the en suite bathroom.
“Lost,” Roy says, voice faint. “I felt like I’d lost the grasp on the world around me, and in a way like I didn’t fit in anywhere. Society values sight too much for a blind person to properly fit.”
“Exactly. Brother gets a bit like that whenever he doesn’t have working hearing aids. In a way, he’s sort of like an orphaned duckling. You need to be aware of that, especially since he’s in Resembool in the first place, Winry will likely want to take a thorough look at Ed’s arm and leg too. I guess you can imagine how hard it’ll be on Ed to be without all three at once, which is likely what will happen because it’s more efficient.”
“We’ll find a way around the issue,” Roy says with the fake confident voice he’s grown to default to whenever uncertainty rules the conversation. “If we can overthrow a government, two missing limbs and a sense must be doable.”