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daily writing (FMA)
Roy/Hughes, pre-series, part of Alchemy and other Lies, archived on AO3. 3,003 words.
I am kind of boggled by that number, too.
By the way, does anyone want to make me a Roy icon?
Maes Hughes had brought four photographs with him to the front: three of women, one of a dog. The silver-haired woman, Roy had correctly deduced, was Maes's dear old mother. One of the young women was his sister, Joannie. The dog's name was Fido, and he could catch a stick no matter how far you threw it.
"And her?" Roy asked.
"Oh, Gracie?" Maes said. "She was a childhood sweetheart of mine. I brought her daisies every summer until I was twelve, and now she's seeing some guy named Todd Larsen. She's too good for him, but he popped the question last time he was on leave and now they're engaged."
"So what's the picture of another man's woman doing in your wallet?" Roy asked.
"We're still friends," Maes answered, a little bit defensively. "I mean, she took my crush on Frederich Steiner really well."
Roy blinked.
"That was the summer I was thirteen," Maes babbled on. "He was two years older than me. I didn't want to take him daisies because that seemed like kind of a girly way to approach him, but we'd just gotten Fido from George down the lane whose dog had had a litter back in April, so I went and asked him, Frederich I mean, if he wanted to come and play with my new puppy."
Roy managed to recover his voice. "So why isn't Frederich Steiner's picture in your collection?"
"It was doomed," Maes intoned melodramatically, hand on his heart. "He only loved Fido. He didn't love me. Tragic, really. He had a great ass."
Roy said cautiously, "You're very trusting."
Maes gave him a tolerantly amused look across the bunk. "It's not like I go around telling that story to all the troops," he said. "I've only told you."
"Oh," said Roy. "That's good."
Then he jumped Maes and kissed him silly.
"Finally," said Maes. "You're kind of slow, you know that?"
---
They'd been together a fortnight, and from the way Maes kept seducing him, Roy was pretty sure it wasn't some kind of army fuckbuddy stress relief thing. Something had happened to Roy that didn't happen to him very often, and that he was usually in the habit of avoiding. He was in an actual relationship.
So it probably shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did when, one night, Maes said, "When are you going to start trusting me?"
Roy leaned up on his elbow to look at his bedmate. "I have a confession to make," he replied, deadpan. "I'm gay. I'm a faggot. A cocksucker. I like sucking cock. And fucking men up the ass. And getting fucked up the ass. Maes, is any of this shocking you?"
"The gay bit," Maes said agreeably. "I thought you liked women, too. Or is that just deep cover?"
Roy arched an eyebrow.
"I like women," Maes said. He reached up, molded his hands around something invisible. "Sometimes I could just really go for a nice pair of tits, you know?"
Roy hit him on the shoulder. Even though he'd successfully deflected Maes's question, he was too curious about why he'd asked it to let it go. "What exactly do you want me to entrust you with?"
"You know," said Maes. "Your cunning plan. The one you never talk about." At Roy's incredulous look, he said, "Have you forgotten I'm in Intelligence?"
"No," Roy said crossly. "It's why I didn't want to tell you. You'd probably have to report it or kill me or something."
Maes said, "Do I have to resort to sexual torture to get it out of you?"
Of course not. Roy wouldn't have admitted to having a cunning plan at all if he didn't mean to tell Maes about it. Maes talked enough that Roy had learned his politics in great detail, and Maes wasn't an ordinary dog of the military. He'd gone into Intelligence to try to find the quickest way to end the war, for one thing. Roy said, "I'm going to become Fuhrer. And then reinstate civilian government."
"That's awfully selfless of you," Maes said, "climbing the ranks just to give all your newfound power back to the people."
"Well, if they want to elect me president," Roy suggested, "I wouldn't turn the position down."
"President Mustang," Maes mused. "Has a nice ring to it."
---
Maes shaved diligently every morning, with soap lather and a straight razor and his glasses pushed low on his nose so he could see the mirror clearly. Few soldiers bothered to bathe daily, let alone shave daily, but this was Maes's ritual.
"I'm an officer," he said. "I have to look nice."
Roy was an officer too, but he only shaved every other day. His stubble didn't really grow fast enough for him bother more often. He wasn't sure Maes's did, either; he'd yet to encounter any five o'clock shadow on the man. But he liked watching him shave, watching the razor slide up his throat, down his cheek, clean and smooth.
Roy liked to imagine himself shaving Maes, but he never asked Maes to let him do so. He couldn't expect Maes to allow him to put a blade to his throat. No one was that trusting.
---
The first time Roy asked Maes to use his connections from Intelligence to Roy's benefit (as opposed to all the times when Maes discreetly handed him a sheaf of useful information completely unsolicited), it was not in service of the cunning plan. He'd heard about a mission whose strike team planned to spend a night in the village Marco was hiding in, or had been, the last time Roy had heard anything.
"Reroute them," Roy requested.
"Why?" Maes asked. "What will that do?"
"It will protect a friend," Roy said. At Maes's curious look, he elaborated, "An alchemist," and then, also, "a deserter."
Maes accepted that. He said, "I'll see if I can get Todd Larsen assigned to the team. I can tell the brass I'm just trying to do a favor for a friend, give him a mission that'll earn him more stripes, and then he'll take an alternate map from me, because he knows I've got my hands on the latest information."
Roy nodded. It was a sound plan.
A week later, he heard that the mission had gone bad due to faulty intel. He didn't let it bother him. It didn't even matter in the grand scheme of things, because three weeks later, the war was over.
---
Roy and Maes spent most of the train ride back to Central in the private compartment that his recent promotion afforded him. It was in between kisses pressed to the smooth line of Maes's jaw that he said, "You need a beard," so perhaps it wasn't that surprising when Maes replied:
"Or maybe a twirly moustache. I think I'd look good with one of those."
"Not enough of a villain," Roy disagreed. He paused. "You do know I mean--"
"I know what you mean," Maes interrupted.
He didn't sound happy about it, though. Roy set about convincing him. "It's for your protection," he said. "If anyone found out about my plans, and knew we were sleeping together, they'd assume you were passing me information. But if you're married and we're just friends--"
"I know," Maes repeated. "And I'm sure you've come up with an excellent reason why it should be me and not you, never mind the fact that it's horribly convenient for your commitment-phobia that we can't appear to be together--
"I'm not afraid of commitment," Roy protested.
"Yes, you are," Maes said flatly. "Even a sham marriage would give you hives--"
"It can't be a sham marriage," Roy interrupted. "No one can suspect it's not real for any reason. And it can't be me because I can't afford to trust some woman enough to marry her, but you're in Intelligence, you have an excuse not to talk about things that shouldn't be talked about."
"Of course," said Maes angrily. "You're right. I'll have to bed her every night. And I should probably stop bedding you, because what good's a beard if you get caught having an affair?"
Even though a traitorous little piece of Roy screamed, "You're breaking up with me?", he'd thought this through already and knew that that had to be addressed at some point. "Yes, you're right," he said calmly. "It's too risky. We'll have to pretend we're just friends." He cleared his throat. "Deep cover."
"Just friends," Maes echoed. "I'd better get dressed, then."
---
Maes wouldn't look at Roy as they got off the train together, but Roy couldn't truthfully attribute this to anything but his search for his family in the waiting throng. Roy found himself startled when, after Maes had spotted them, he grabbed Roy's arm and dragged him along.
"Mom!" he yelled. "Joannie!"
Two seconds later, Maes was covered in women. And a dog.
Roy listened to the joyful greetings with half an ear, before realizing there was another woman waiting. She was wearing a black sweater and a dark blue skirt. Roy almost didn't recognize her from the photograph, because she wasn't smiling. "Grace?" he asked. He didn't think he should be so familiar as to call her "Gracie," even though Maes had in all his stories of his childhood.
Maes whirled around, extricating himself from his family's attentions and shoving the elderly Fido down. "Gracie?" he said. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, Maes," Gracie said, "Todd's dead."
And then Maes was holding her, and Joannie was saying, "It's been so horrible," and Maes's mother was saying, "We've been so worried for you, too."
Roy backed away. "I should find my father," he said. "I'm sure he's waiting for me."
Roy's father was dead, and had been for six years.
---
Roy wasn't used to people who could out-think him, so he didn't know what to make of it when all the pieces of Maes's plan fell into place in front of him. It frightened him to paranoia--he began to wonder if Maes was playing a deeper game than he pretended, if Maes was investigating him, if Maes had been assigned to seduce him, if Maes was filing his report on Roy with the Intelligence office as Roy sat in his apartment and shook.
He waited for someone to come and arrest him. Alchemists--they would have to send alchemists. They couldn't risk what his resistance could do.
No one came.
He took his leave. He wore civilian clothes for two weeks straight. He went out to bars. He fucked women who wanted big, brave war heroes and felt like a liar.
He received his new orders. He learned he had an office. He had his choice of staff.
He didn't contact a single person he'd recruited to his cause during the war.
During the fourth week, he received a letter from Maes. It was two pages long.
The first page read,
It was very like him, with it babble and the question buried in the middle and his casual and probably entirely thoughtless choice of closing.
The second page, folded within the first, was full of jotted notes from Intelligence. Roy burned it without reading it. After all, Maes had killed Todd Larsen with faulty intel.
---
The reply Roy sent Maes was one sentence long. It said,
To Roy's surprise, Maes's answer was only one sentence long as well. It said,
It did, however, have a postscript, in different handwriting.
The thing which caught Roy's eye was the word "we." We won't get another chance. Not, I won't get another chance to go to a strip club, nor, You won't get another chance to take me to one.
We.
Roy sent back an acceptance, then called up Hawkeye and Havoc to ask if they'd like to work in his office. He had plans to work on.
---
As it so happened, Roy didn't take Maes to a strip club for his bachelor party. There was a respectable restaurant, a handful of men Roy didn't know but whom Maes was happy to introduce him to--"Gracie's brother Hubert, her father Reginald, George (I told you about George, his old dog was Fido's mother), Frederich (don't say a word) who I went to school with, and Eric-Joannie's-boyfriend, you'd better not get fresh when you dance with Joannie at the reception or he'll deck you"--and afterwards, the party broke up, and everyone else went away. Roy and Maes ended up on a hillside with a bottle of wine, watching falling stars.
"I didn't think it would hit you as hard as it did," Maes said.
"What do you mean?" Roy asked. It was hard for him to look at Maes. Maes had grown some scruffy semblance of a beard, and it looked wrong on him. Roy thought he understood what it was supposed to mean, but he wished Maes would just shave it off.
"You were practically paralyzed for a month after," Maes answered. "Sorry. I kept tabs on you. I was worried when you ran off like that. I wasn't expecting Gracie to be at the station."
"You weren't?" Roy asked. He almost laughed. He stopped himself.
Maes gave him a strange look, bemused and troubled.
Roy said, "Let me get this straight. You knew I was going to tell you to get married, so you got her fiancé killed so she'd be available to fall into your arms, but you didn't expect that she'd--"
Maes said, "You think I what?"
Roy just looked at him.
Maes sighed. "It wasn't like that. Yes, you're right. I got Todd killed." His grip on the wine bottle had turned white. "I murdered him. But it wasn't for me. I'm not that much of a bastard, Roy. He was cheating on her. One weekend he proposes to her and the next he's screwing some Ishbalite prostitute. And another the next. He called it 'planting the flag.' It was a joke that he'd claimed more territory than any man in his unit."
They made the same kind of jokes about Roy. He knew that, knew he had a reputation for skirt-chasing. He hadn't been sleeping with (or, more likely, raping) Ishbalite prostitutes, but he wondered if that mattered to Maes.
"I knew I was putting him in danger," Maes said. "I knew he wasn't qualified to go on that mission, and I knew I'd be sabotaging whatever chance he did have with that false map. I was hoping he'd be wounded, maybe come home with an auto-mail arm. I thought he deserved that. I thought that would be fair.
"I didn't really believe he'd die.
"And I didn't do it so I could have Gracie, for myself or because you thought so. So, no, I didn't expect her there at the station." Maes took a breath and stared hard at Roy. "Did you really think I--?"
"I don't know," said Roy. "For a while I wasn't even sure you were on my side, or if you were investigating me."
"You're crazy," Maes said in disbelief. "The thing that worries me about you coming up with a plot like that is that you might've, if you thought you need to. Killed him because it was convenient."
Roy shook his head. "But you did it for her."
"Yeah," Maes agreed.
"Do you love her?" Roy asked, only it wasn't really a question.
"Yes, I love her," said Maes. "I love you, too, you know."
Roy said, "I'm not kissing you with that stupid beard fuzz."
Maes laughed and said, "I'm not kissing you, either. I'm getting married tomorrow."
---
Gracie's bouquet was composed of lavendar daylilies and cattleya orchids. Roy wore an orchid in his buttonhole. Gracie and Maes were both wearing white. Roy and Joannie and Gracie's father Reginald, who walked her down the aisle, wore dark grey. Joannie's dress had a shine to it, though, as if it would have been silver if it were just a little bit lighter. Roy's suit was just dark.
Gracie's mother had said it made him look terribly handsome. Maes's mother had pinched him on the ass. Apparently widows were allowed to do that, even though matrons had to keep to expressing their appreciation verbally. But it was nice that the two old ladies were agreeing on something.
When Roy toasted Maes and Gracie at the reception, he was as sincere as he knew how to be. He didn't say Maes would kill for her, because it wouldn't have been polite, and because he didn't know how true it was, and was rather ashamed that he'd been so convinced. But he did say Maes would do anything for Gracie.
That, he believed.
I am kind of boggled by that number, too.
By the way, does anyone want to make me a Roy icon?
Maes Hughes had brought four photographs with him to the front: three of women, one of a dog. The silver-haired woman, Roy had correctly deduced, was Maes's dear old mother. One of the young women was his sister, Joannie. The dog's name was Fido, and he could catch a stick no matter how far you threw it.
"And her?" Roy asked.
"Oh, Gracie?" Maes said. "She was a childhood sweetheart of mine. I brought her daisies every summer until I was twelve, and now she's seeing some guy named Todd Larsen. She's too good for him, but he popped the question last time he was on leave and now they're engaged."
"So what's the picture of another man's woman doing in your wallet?" Roy asked.
"We're still friends," Maes answered, a little bit defensively. "I mean, she took my crush on Frederich Steiner really well."
Roy blinked.
"That was the summer I was thirteen," Maes babbled on. "He was two years older than me. I didn't want to take him daisies because that seemed like kind of a girly way to approach him, but we'd just gotten Fido from George down the lane whose dog had had a litter back in April, so I went and asked him, Frederich I mean, if he wanted to come and play with my new puppy."
Roy managed to recover his voice. "So why isn't Frederich Steiner's picture in your collection?"
"It was doomed," Maes intoned melodramatically, hand on his heart. "He only loved Fido. He didn't love me. Tragic, really. He had a great ass."
Roy said cautiously, "You're very trusting."
Maes gave him a tolerantly amused look across the bunk. "It's not like I go around telling that story to all the troops," he said. "I've only told you."
"Oh," said Roy. "That's good."
Then he jumped Maes and kissed him silly.
"Finally," said Maes. "You're kind of slow, you know that?"
---
They'd been together a fortnight, and from the way Maes kept seducing him, Roy was pretty sure it wasn't some kind of army fuckbuddy stress relief thing. Something had happened to Roy that didn't happen to him very often, and that he was usually in the habit of avoiding. He was in an actual relationship.
So it probably shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did when, one night, Maes said, "When are you going to start trusting me?"
Roy leaned up on his elbow to look at his bedmate. "I have a confession to make," he replied, deadpan. "I'm gay. I'm a faggot. A cocksucker. I like sucking cock. And fucking men up the ass. And getting fucked up the ass. Maes, is any of this shocking you?"
"The gay bit," Maes said agreeably. "I thought you liked women, too. Or is that just deep cover?"
Roy arched an eyebrow.
"I like women," Maes said. He reached up, molded his hands around something invisible. "Sometimes I could just really go for a nice pair of tits, you know?"
Roy hit him on the shoulder. Even though he'd successfully deflected Maes's question, he was too curious about why he'd asked it to let it go. "What exactly do you want me to entrust you with?"
"You know," said Maes. "Your cunning plan. The one you never talk about." At Roy's incredulous look, he said, "Have you forgotten I'm in Intelligence?"
"No," Roy said crossly. "It's why I didn't want to tell you. You'd probably have to report it or kill me or something."
Maes said, "Do I have to resort to sexual torture to get it out of you?"
Of course not. Roy wouldn't have admitted to having a cunning plan at all if he didn't mean to tell Maes about it. Maes talked enough that Roy had learned his politics in great detail, and Maes wasn't an ordinary dog of the military. He'd gone into Intelligence to try to find the quickest way to end the war, for one thing. Roy said, "I'm going to become Fuhrer. And then reinstate civilian government."
"That's awfully selfless of you," Maes said, "climbing the ranks just to give all your newfound power back to the people."
"Well, if they want to elect me president," Roy suggested, "I wouldn't turn the position down."
"President Mustang," Maes mused. "Has a nice ring to it."
---
Maes shaved diligently every morning, with soap lather and a straight razor and his glasses pushed low on his nose so he could see the mirror clearly. Few soldiers bothered to bathe daily, let alone shave daily, but this was Maes's ritual.
"I'm an officer," he said. "I have to look nice."
Roy was an officer too, but he only shaved every other day. His stubble didn't really grow fast enough for him bother more often. He wasn't sure Maes's did, either; he'd yet to encounter any five o'clock shadow on the man. But he liked watching him shave, watching the razor slide up his throat, down his cheek, clean and smooth.
Roy liked to imagine himself shaving Maes, but he never asked Maes to let him do so. He couldn't expect Maes to allow him to put a blade to his throat. No one was that trusting.
---
The first time Roy asked Maes to use his connections from Intelligence to Roy's benefit (as opposed to all the times when Maes discreetly handed him a sheaf of useful information completely unsolicited), it was not in service of the cunning plan. He'd heard about a mission whose strike team planned to spend a night in the village Marco was hiding in, or had been, the last time Roy had heard anything.
"Reroute them," Roy requested.
"Why?" Maes asked. "What will that do?"
"It will protect a friend," Roy said. At Maes's curious look, he elaborated, "An alchemist," and then, also, "a deserter."
Maes accepted that. He said, "I'll see if I can get Todd Larsen assigned to the team. I can tell the brass I'm just trying to do a favor for a friend, give him a mission that'll earn him more stripes, and then he'll take an alternate map from me, because he knows I've got my hands on the latest information."
Roy nodded. It was a sound plan.
A week later, he heard that the mission had gone bad due to faulty intel. He didn't let it bother him. It didn't even matter in the grand scheme of things, because three weeks later, the war was over.
---
Roy and Maes spent most of the train ride back to Central in the private compartment that his recent promotion afforded him. It was in between kisses pressed to the smooth line of Maes's jaw that he said, "You need a beard," so perhaps it wasn't that surprising when Maes replied:
"Or maybe a twirly moustache. I think I'd look good with one of those."
"Not enough of a villain," Roy disagreed. He paused. "You do know I mean--"
"I know what you mean," Maes interrupted.
He didn't sound happy about it, though. Roy set about convincing him. "It's for your protection," he said. "If anyone found out about my plans, and knew we were sleeping together, they'd assume you were passing me information. But if you're married and we're just friends--"
"I know," Maes repeated. "And I'm sure you've come up with an excellent reason why it should be me and not you, never mind the fact that it's horribly convenient for your commitment-phobia that we can't appear to be together--
"I'm not afraid of commitment," Roy protested.
"Yes, you are," Maes said flatly. "Even a sham marriage would give you hives--"
"It can't be a sham marriage," Roy interrupted. "No one can suspect it's not real for any reason. And it can't be me because I can't afford to trust some woman enough to marry her, but you're in Intelligence, you have an excuse not to talk about things that shouldn't be talked about."
"Of course," said Maes angrily. "You're right. I'll have to bed her every night. And I should probably stop bedding you, because what good's a beard if you get caught having an affair?"
Even though a traitorous little piece of Roy screamed, "You're breaking up with me?", he'd thought this through already and knew that that had to be addressed at some point. "Yes, you're right," he said calmly. "It's too risky. We'll have to pretend we're just friends." He cleared his throat. "Deep cover."
"Just friends," Maes echoed. "I'd better get dressed, then."
---
Maes wouldn't look at Roy as they got off the train together, but Roy couldn't truthfully attribute this to anything but his search for his family in the waiting throng. Roy found himself startled when, after Maes had spotted them, he grabbed Roy's arm and dragged him along.
"Mom!" he yelled. "Joannie!"
Two seconds later, Maes was covered in women. And a dog.
Roy listened to the joyful greetings with half an ear, before realizing there was another woman waiting. She was wearing a black sweater and a dark blue skirt. Roy almost didn't recognize her from the photograph, because she wasn't smiling. "Grace?" he asked. He didn't think he should be so familiar as to call her "Gracie," even though Maes had in all his stories of his childhood.
Maes whirled around, extricating himself from his family's attentions and shoving the elderly Fido down. "Gracie?" he said. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, Maes," Gracie said, "Todd's dead."
And then Maes was holding her, and Joannie was saying, "It's been so horrible," and Maes's mother was saying, "We've been so worried for you, too."
Roy backed away. "I should find my father," he said. "I'm sure he's waiting for me."
Roy's father was dead, and had been for six years.
---
Roy wasn't used to people who could out-think him, so he didn't know what to make of it when all the pieces of Maes's plan fell into place in front of him. It frightened him to paranoia--he began to wonder if Maes was playing a deeper game than he pretended, if Maes was investigating him, if Maes had been assigned to seduce him, if Maes was filing his report on Roy with the Intelligence office as Roy sat in his apartment and shook.
He waited for someone to come and arrest him. Alchemists--they would have to send alchemists. They couldn't risk what his resistance could do.
No one came.
He took his leave. He wore civilian clothes for two weeks straight. He went out to bars. He fucked women who wanted big, brave war heroes and felt like a liar.
He received his new orders. He learned he had an office. He had his choice of staff.
He didn't contact a single person he'd recruited to his cause during the war.
During the fourth week, he received a letter from Maes. It was two pages long.
The first page read,
Roy,
Gracie and I are getting married. We've set a date for next summer--we feel any sooner would be disrespectful of the dead. Also, apparently weddings take a lot of planning. My mother and Gracie's are very excited. I suggested daisies as our flower since, I'm sure you remember, I used to take them to her when we were children. Gracie thought that was a nice idea but both our mothers declared it far too simple. They are fighting over tiger lilies (my mother's idea) and orchids (Gracie's). Alas, they would clash, or we'd suggest both as a compromise.
For your sake, I hope Gracie's mother wins. You'd look much better with an orchid in your buttonhole than a tiger lily. You will be my best man, won't you? Only, Joannie's going to be Gracie's maid of honor, and you'll have to dance with her, so you might want to consider platform shoes.
Are you allergic to anything? Mother's working on the menu. Duck à l'orange is the current main course, although that's sure to change after shefightstalks with Gracie's mother.
Love,
Maes
It was very like him, with it babble and the question buried in the middle and his casual and probably entirely thoughtless choice of closing.
The second page, folded within the first, was full of jotted notes from Intelligence. Roy burned it without reading it. After all, Maes had killed Todd Larsen with faulty intel.
---
The reply Roy sent Maes was one sentence long. It said,
What does Grace say?
To Roy's surprise, Maes's answer was only one sentence long as well. It said,
Gracie says you'd better take me to a strip club for my bachelor party, because we won't get another chance.
It did, however, have a postscript, in different handwriting.
P.S. You might as well just call me Gracie; with Maes around, everyone will.
The thing which caught Roy's eye was the word "we." We won't get another chance. Not, I won't get another chance to go to a strip club, nor, You won't get another chance to take me to one.
We.
Roy sent back an acceptance, then called up Hawkeye and Havoc to ask if they'd like to work in his office. He had plans to work on.
---
As it so happened, Roy didn't take Maes to a strip club for his bachelor party. There was a respectable restaurant, a handful of men Roy didn't know but whom Maes was happy to introduce him to--"Gracie's brother Hubert, her father Reginald, George (I told you about George, his old dog was Fido's mother), Frederich (don't say a word) who I went to school with, and Eric-Joannie's-boyfriend, you'd better not get fresh when you dance with Joannie at the reception or he'll deck you"--and afterwards, the party broke up, and everyone else went away. Roy and Maes ended up on a hillside with a bottle of wine, watching falling stars.
"I didn't think it would hit you as hard as it did," Maes said.
"What do you mean?" Roy asked. It was hard for him to look at Maes. Maes had grown some scruffy semblance of a beard, and it looked wrong on him. Roy thought he understood what it was supposed to mean, but he wished Maes would just shave it off.
"You were practically paralyzed for a month after," Maes answered. "Sorry. I kept tabs on you. I was worried when you ran off like that. I wasn't expecting Gracie to be at the station."
"You weren't?" Roy asked. He almost laughed. He stopped himself.
Maes gave him a strange look, bemused and troubled.
Roy said, "Let me get this straight. You knew I was going to tell you to get married, so you got her fiancé killed so she'd be available to fall into your arms, but you didn't expect that she'd--"
Maes said, "You think I what?"
Roy just looked at him.
Maes sighed. "It wasn't like that. Yes, you're right. I got Todd killed." His grip on the wine bottle had turned white. "I murdered him. But it wasn't for me. I'm not that much of a bastard, Roy. He was cheating on her. One weekend he proposes to her and the next he's screwing some Ishbalite prostitute. And another the next. He called it 'planting the flag.' It was a joke that he'd claimed more territory than any man in his unit."
They made the same kind of jokes about Roy. He knew that, knew he had a reputation for skirt-chasing. He hadn't been sleeping with (or, more likely, raping) Ishbalite prostitutes, but he wondered if that mattered to Maes.
"I knew I was putting him in danger," Maes said. "I knew he wasn't qualified to go on that mission, and I knew I'd be sabotaging whatever chance he did have with that false map. I was hoping he'd be wounded, maybe come home with an auto-mail arm. I thought he deserved that. I thought that would be fair.
"I didn't really believe he'd die.
"And I didn't do it so I could have Gracie, for myself or because you thought so. So, no, I didn't expect her there at the station." Maes took a breath and stared hard at Roy. "Did you really think I--?"
"I don't know," said Roy. "For a while I wasn't even sure you were on my side, or if you were investigating me."
"You're crazy," Maes said in disbelief. "The thing that worries me about you coming up with a plot like that is that you might've, if you thought you need to. Killed him because it was convenient."
Roy shook his head. "But you did it for her."
"Yeah," Maes agreed.
"Do you love her?" Roy asked, only it wasn't really a question.
"Yes, I love her," said Maes. "I love you, too, you know."
Roy said, "I'm not kissing you with that stupid beard fuzz."
Maes laughed and said, "I'm not kissing you, either. I'm getting married tomorrow."
---
Gracie's bouquet was composed of lavendar daylilies and cattleya orchids. Roy wore an orchid in his buttonhole. Gracie and Maes were both wearing white. Roy and Joannie and Gracie's father Reginald, who walked her down the aisle, wore dark grey. Joannie's dress had a shine to it, though, as if it would have been silver if it were just a little bit lighter. Roy's suit was just dark.
Gracie's mother had said it made him look terribly handsome. Maes's mother had pinched him on the ass. Apparently widows were allowed to do that, even though matrons had to keep to expressing their appreciation verbally. But it was nice that the two old ladies were agreeing on something.
When Roy toasted Maes and Gracie at the reception, he was as sincere as he knew how to be. He didn't say Maes would kill for her, because it wouldn't have been polite, and because he didn't know how true it was, and was rather ashamed that he'd been so convinced. But he did say Maes would do anything for Gracie.
That, he believed.
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No appropriate icon, so here's a funny one.
Re: No appropriate icon, so here's a funny one.
Re: No appropriate icon, so here's a funny one.
Re: No appropriate icon, so here's a funny one.
go ahead and steal this one
love the fic, even if i feel it's terribly sad. and now you've left me wondering if roy is actually gay or bi...
Re: go ahead and steal this one
even if i feel it's terribly sad.
It would be less sad if Roy were less of an idiot. *G* But some things there's no helping.
and now you've left me wondering if roy is actually gay or bi...
Ha! I didn't mean for it to be quite that ambiguous, but it actually works for the story, so I'll leave it the way it is. *amused*
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I adore Maes and Roy together but apart.
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*has unfortunate penchant for tragedy*
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I love the characterization, and all the little details that show how much thought you put into them, like the idea that Hughes has to push his glasses down his nose to see clearly to shave. I love the way you're treating the concept of polyamory seriously and making it flow naturally from the characterization so it doesn't feel like a plot device or an idea you think is crack. I love the complexity of motivation and speculation and paranoia which is nonetheless clear and easy to follow and understand and sympathize with.
I'll be friending you, and then heading off to read more of this.
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Awwww. Hughes! *sniffle*
*grins* A lot of those details come from personal experience--not that I shave, but I do wear glasses, and I was in a polyamorous relationship for a little over a year. Actually, the next parts of this, the story 2 stuff, I wrote a lot of in the wake of our third breaking it off with us, which made me very sad.
I'll be friending you, and then heading off to read more of this
*friends back*
If I start writing story 3 anytime soon, which I keep meaning to, you probably want to wait til you've seen the whole thing. Just sayin'.