Truly
By Any Unborn Child
He truly loved Maes Hughes.
Not as just a friend.
More than that, actually.
There was something deeper, something visceral involved.
They had seen some crazy shit together. They had seen some horrible things together. They had gone insane together. They had been through so much. And yet they stayed comrades…
They stayed as they were. They did not know any other way than what they were used to.
They adapted, yes.
Roy changed his childish goals of the past, and decided to rise up through the ranks. He decided to become the Fuhrer, and to finally make some changes in this country, this damned country of Amestris.
Maes rose through the ranks as well. He slowly became Lieutenant Colonel of the State Military of Amestris, and following in Roy's shadow, encouraging him along the way.
Roy was always the one looking towards the future.
Maes was too, but in his own way.
Roy was more active, more charged in his actions, determined to do whatever it took to achieve his goals. He was strong, mentally and physically. Emotionally…perhaps, perhaps not. Even after everything.
By pursuing this, he raised his own hell. He did not have a physical demise – no, not yet.
Maes was active, but lesser so. He was strong, but in a subtle light. Even after everything, he had a family to take care of. He had his family to come back to, to welcome him home.
Soon afterwards, he too raised his own hell. This is what started his demise, but not what finished it.
The days after Maes' death had been indescribable. Even though he did not say anything, Roy felt as if his heart had been torn out of his chest, thrown in different directions – towards the gravelly dirt of the ground below, towards the disputed heavens of the sky above, towards the country where so much had been destroyed and taken away.
Was this what it was like…to truly experience death? To experience grief?
Before, back in Ishval, he had not truly experienced death.
Yes, it had rained all around him by means of the blood, the tears of the innocent as well as of the guilty.
Yes, he had been one to deal it to the unsuspecting citizens of such a hallowed country, many times in fact.
Yes, the looks in the eyes of those he killed, those he saw being killed, would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Yes, all of that had happened.
No one close to him had ever died, not before Maes. His death left him crushed, defeated, unfeeling. It had left him a shell, a sculpture of what he was once – hollowed, scraped inside out.
He did move on, eventually.
He still remembered.
He still kept Maes in his mind, in his body, in his heart.
No Thing, No One, would ever forge such a bond like the bond he had shared with him.
There was something deeper, something visceral involved.
More than that, actually.
Not as just a friend.
He truly loved Maes Hughes.