The First Eight Days

a Fullmetal Alchemist fic by Suzume

expressly written for catw00man, as part of lj user="fmagiftexchange"

iDay Zero/i

There was devastation there. The news came late. Roy's head did not touch his pillow that night.

Never part in anger, the saying went. Yes, Roy could assure himself that hadn't been the case. But to think his last words to Maes could've been, "I don't want to hear any more about your family!" He didn't want to think about it. He was cold enough now to have that kind of control. He shoved it aside and over-involved himself in the investigation.

iDay One/i

There was really not a lot that could be said to a man who had just lost his best and oldest friend. It was not as if Roy was any stranger to death before this, but it had been a long time since he had been on this side of tragedy. The loss of his parents was mercifully shrouded by the fog of time. Numbly, Roy considered the difficulty of consolation. If his colleagues looked on him with such a painful muteness, how much harder was it for them to find the right words (or any words, actually) for Gracia and Elicia?

The longer Roy dwelt on the subject of family, the stronger he felt that if given the chance he would gladly have switched places with Maes. What were all his ambitions and his lust for living when compared with the charm, talents, family, and future of his friend? What cruel trick of destiny led a man alive out of the bloody storm of Ishval, past bombs and gunfire, snipers and surprised attacks, poisonous scorpions and a punishing desert, only to strike him down from the relative security of a desk job? Well, it wasn't entirely a rhetorical question. Deep in the pit of his stomach, Roy knew what the sickening answer was- delving into dangerous secrets, all because of the political strivings of some conspiracy-happy friend. Some friend.

Roy closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against his knees. He had killed his (the government's) enemies. He had watched allies die. None of their faces had haunted him the way Maes' did. There had been worthy opponents and valiant men- but only Maes had been (more than) his brother.

He was sad and angry all at once. And, in a way, he was lost. He had so many memories of Maes. Too many. They swirled around and sucked him down. The past replayed infinitely in his mind.

i"Your birthday? Oh, it's the twenty-sixth?" Maes reached out and clasped Roy's dog tags in his fingers, turning them to face him so he could confirm this information. "Ha ha," he allowed the metal to fall back with a tinkling to Roy's chest. "That's funny. Mine is the twenty-fifth. That means you better listen to me though. That one day of seniority makes all the difference!"

"What, like I should always let you get your grubby hands on the last quiche?" Roy smirked. The more time he spent around Maes, the more he warmed to him, but that still didn't mean he was going to easily reshape his life to fit the other young man./i

In the end, it turned out that he didn't need to. Not consciously at least. Maes, that cheery splinter, inserted himself so deep and so neatly into Roy's heart that it wasn't long before Roy could barely imagine that he hadn't been there, a part of his life since he was a boy...

There was only one scrap of consolation. Once he met up with Riza, she stayed. She brought cold sandwiches from the deli. Roy supplied the alcohol. He drank more than she did, but even though he was a mess, Riza remained. When he woke up in the morning, stiff, half-dressed, and barely sure where he was (on the floor beside the couch), Riza was there. She made him coffee and eggs.

iDay Two/i

i"Roy...are you awake?"

"Yeah. ...It's not exactly easy to sleep with all that noise." He leaned his head over the edge of the bunk to look at his friend sprawled out in the half dark below him.

"Are we conducting some sort of bombing operation out to the northeast of here? My ears are going to start ringing if they keep this up much longer."

"Bombing, huh? You could say that. It's Kimblee. How he manages that scale of destruction I can't say. For all that he loves nothing more than talking about his "art," he won't tell how he achieves that magnitude of transmutation."

"Ugh," Maes groaned, dressing up his disapproval with a mock shudder for Roy's amusement. "I can't say I don't appreciate you alchemists speeding things up, but does he have to be so...chatty about it? He's a sicko."

"That 'sicko' and I are currently stuck sharing quarters, you know. It's only because he's out there that I can have you in here," Roy pointed out to him.

"Eww!" Maes hopped off the bunk like Roy had told him it was stuffed with snakes. "You mean this is his bunk I'm lying on?"

"Ha ha ha ha ha, no! /i I'mi on his bunk! I wouldn't let you go unknowing into that. ...Anyway, he made a fuss about taking the top. He doesn't like to be looked down on or something like that."

Maes was laughing now too. "Oh, ha ha ha, how can you stand it? Roy, you're so good to me! Who knows what he does up there after lights out!"

"Aargh, don't me think about that! The pressure may not crack me, but that might! If I go crazy, you're the one who'd better pay for my stay at the asylum!"

"What do you think- that I'm made of money? Don't go crazy, come cuddle up down here with me and I can tell you more about that last letter I received from Gracia!"/i

Roy lifted his head and looked out the window. In a world of betrayal and conspiracy, the pastoral scenery felt like a lie.

He wondered how long it would be before he laughed again.

iDay Three/i

After a solitary dinner, Roy hopped into the loaner car and drove aimlessly around the city. He had come by train to attend the funeral, but couldn't stand being without a set of wheels for long. It was the freedom that mattered to him.

The move to Central was coming soon, so it might be useful to acclimate himself to the place, but with so many stray feelings tugging at the corners of his mind, he was unable to do much more than look at his surroundings.

Gradually he became aware that a certain destination was pulling at his consciousness. What reason was there for Roy to deny the urge? There was nothing waiting for him back in the temporary quarters he was making use of while visiting Central. He had picked up a local paper with the intention of browsing its real estate section later, not about to go back to living in a dormitory just because he was moving to a new city, but for now the apartment listings were sprawled sloppily across the back seat.

His wanderlust brought him to a quiet neighborhood. Under a streetlight he slowed to a stop, pulling over and parking just across the street from Maes' home. He got out of the car, tightening his scarf and putting on his hat against the cold, but as long as he gazed at the warm light twinkling through the windows of that house in mourning he could bring himself to take that first step toward crossing the street.

After half an hour, he got back in the car. Eventually, he drove away. He never told Gracia that he'd come by. ...Why would he? She was a kind woman, but she already had the burden of her own and Elicia's pain to bear. He would not impose upon her, though someday, someday when the feelings were not so raw, it might be nice for the two of them to talk.

iDay Four/i

On his first day back in the office following their (his) loss, he bummed a cigarette off Havoc. He'd never been a very serious smoker, but for once he was finding his break to the most difficult part of his day. Usually the breaks were what he worked for. He would pick anything over losing himself to his somber thoughts again.

Havoc's presence was a consolation, even if they were merely standing together breathing in one another's smoke. "Looks like it might rain. What do you think, Colonel?"

It was overcast, but somehow he doubted it. When did the weather ever manage to suit his feelings so well? It certainly hadn't been obliging on the day of the funeral. "I don't think so." There was no need for actual rain to fall now. The downpour had never ceased in his mind. The first drop had streaked down Maes' cheek. Who had that tear fallen for?

He finished smoking and went back into the office. He would efface himself in his work. Riza's steady gaze and guiding hand would prevent him from stopping to look up a forbidden formula. He had confided in her more than anyone else about the feelings springing up to overflow from within him, but even Riza hadn't heard everything... How could a pain so deep be expressed in words? Riza had lost both parents, the same as he had. She had lost comrades, and probably friends, in Ishval. In theory, he felt that if anyone could relate, it was she. In practice, he selfishly thought that she had not xzknown- had not loved- Maes like Roy had. She could not understand the resounding depths of his loss.

But that was unfair. There was no member of his circle who was not moved in some fashion; not a man or woman among them who, when it came to his mourning and matters of empathy, was not trying. Riza most of all. If only he could stop feeling so ragged around the edges, perhaps he could give her the credit she deserved.

The thing about Riza was, she didn't need the acknowledgment. Whatever she was doing, she chose to do on her own.

Riza, Roy realized, might be much stronger than him.

iDay Five/i

There was a letter Maes had written him just before his wedding that Roy kept in the drawer beside his bed. He held the page against his face after reading it again for the sixth and seventh times since his death. The first time he had been forced to stop for fear of his tears dripping down across the ink and destroying the words. The second and third times were not much better.

He had taken the letter with him to Central and back. If he had felt it was safe enough, he would carry it on his person at all times, but with both the hobbies and the business he indulged in, he could not count on himself to keep it secure.

He needed it now more than ever- a talisman, a token, a tiny bit of Maes left behind to keep him safe.

It was little wonder that in a missive penned two days before his marriage that Maes had spoken of love, but what he said was not as simple as his choice of subject. His love of Gracia and his love of Roy. Just these short words in Maes' hand were enough to bring Roy to the brink of tears again and again. The ones he wanted to protect the most he could find no way to save.

iDay Six/i

He had been getting so little sleep that once he found himself with extra time to allot to lounging about in bed, he imagined rest might be a blessing. He was overly hasty. What were the untamed wilds of the subconscious but a curse?

His darkest memories mixed with the worst excesses of imagination. The botched efforts of his attempt at human transmutation clawed at the floor, an amorphous mass, black and bloody, reaching out to him, calling for him: "Roooooy..." It was Maes, but it was not Maes. Horrific as it appeared, it knew him. It needed him. How could he have thought he could succeed where generations had failed? "Hero," "prodigy," when had he started believing his own hype? He chastised the Elrics in the privacy of his own heart, but still been unable to learn from their mistakes.

There was only one thing he could do for this ill-begotten creature. It would not cleanse him of his sin, but it would free his creation from its suffering. With a snap of his fingers, he would incinerate it. "I'll make this quick," he promised, and began to raise his arm. It felt unexpectedly light and when he tried to snap, there was no rush of fire to greet him. He looked down at his arms. Beyond the elbow, he had no arms. He had used the strength and skill of his arms and hands to destroy the nation of Ishval. He was using them now in an effort to build a new Amestris. Blood was pouring from the twin stumps. This was the payment the Truth must have demanded of him. Roy felt faint. He fell to his knees. How long would it take him to die?

The creature, the would-be Maes, was still crying for him. He could neither comfort it nor kill it. He fell forward onto his face into a growing pool of his own blood. "Lieutenant..." he murmured, coughing. She was the only one who knew where he was. She was the only one who could save him.

"Lieutenant!" Roy yelled into the darkness of his room. Despite the cold of the atmosphere, there was a clammy layer of sweat covering his entire body. He carefully reached out and touched his hands and arms, reassuring himself that he remained in one piece. It was a dream. A nightmare. He didn't often remember any of his dreams, good or bad. He thought it would stay that way (it had taken a long time for the war dreams to reside). He had thought one night of company was enough. Apparently he had been wrong on both counts.

He squinted through the dark at the folded piece of paper on his side table. Riza's phonenumber. She had told him he could call anytime... He picked up the note. It was comfortingly solid in his hand. It was only a string of numbers, labeled "Hawkeye" in the lieutenant's precise, professional writing, but it felt worth much more. It was support. It was a promise.

He flipped on the light and wrapped himself in a robe before heading to the phone. Would he call, or wouldn't he? He touched the phone and his hand recoiled. How many thousands of innocent phone calls had he made over the years? How many scores of them had been with Maes? Just because he had been holding the phone when his best friend had been killed didn't make the telephone a murder weapon. It wasn't about to blow up in his hand, it wasn't made of poison.

Deep breaths. It was three o'clock in the morning. He wasn't a little boy crying to his aunt. He could handle this pain. He shouldn't wake Hawkeye. What did he plan on saying to her anyway? What did he want her to say to him?

He picked up the receiver again. It didn't matter what she said. It would be good enough just to hear another person's voice. He dialed her number. "Hello...Lieutenant?"

"Colonel, do you need me to come over?"

"I don't know about 'need,' but..." He wanted to see her. Was he weak enough to break down and ask?

"I'll come. I'm leaving as soon as I get some proper clothes on." That was the wonder of the Riza Hawkeye- she knew without him even having to ask.

iDay Seven/i

Before lunch, he thought about someone other than himself or Maes' family. Maes had plenty of friends- if you were a half-decent person (or perhaps, even if you were just the kind of person who'd listen to his gushing about his family), he had been willing to befriend you. And certain friends- close ones, young ones, vulnerable ones- he made into something more, something close to family.

The Elrics were like this. They didn't know yet, but they were tough. They'd been through misfortunes aplenty. They could last through this. The mechanic girl he wasn't so sure about. She knew the Elrics. She was probably strong too. But he didn't know her well enough to tell.

"You interested, Colonel?" Havoc turned around in his chair and offered Roy a cigarette. The offer was tempting...Hawkeye was out of the office...it was just about time for his lunch break...he could go outside and shock himself into wakefulness with the brisk air... But he was going to Central, right? There were preparations to be made. Maes would be disappointed in him- what kind of leader would he even be? -if he allowed this setback, deep and personal as it was, derail his career.

"Not today, thank you." He squeezed his pen between his fingers and continued to write. Work was a salve. Investigating the death would be his therapy. He would skip the break and eat his lunch over his desk.

iDay Eight/i

On the eighth day, he chose deliberately to stop counting the days. Maes Hughes was dead. Time could only move forward, not back. There was no amount of carefully counted days that could change that. The pain would shrink, but one hard kernel could never be ground to dust.

There was the entirety of his past at his back, but he thought Maes would've been the first to remind him- there was also the future to think of.