Hey, look at that, it's my first Ishval fic... what in the ever living hell Roy are you not DONE with my muse yet oh my god... in all seriousness, though, my muse spit out another idea for a many chapter long Parental RoyEd fic. It'd be full of tortured Ed and papa/protective Roy. I don't know if it'll actually get done, but because of that, all you'll be seeing from me is the occasional oneshot for a while. Enjoy!

Maes hadn't known how he had expected Roy to react, after witnessing his fellow State Alchemist be sentenced to life in prison.

But, when Roy had walked straight out after the verdict, said a word to no one, and all but vanished, he had known it was not going to be good.

And he was right.

It wasn't good.

"Roy. I need you to take your glove off."

No response.

"Roy. You need to take your glove off for me. Can you do that? ...Roy?"

Silence.

Maes swallowed nervously.

Taking that glove by force would be a very grave mistake.

"Roy."

But god, if he didn't start responding soon, Maes didn't know what he was going to do...

"Roy."

The little flame flickered gently, but did not die.

Roy's mouth, however, moved.

His heart leapt into his throat at the incomprehensible mumble, and he lowered himself to his knees, trying to stay as still and non-threatening as possible. "What did you say?" he breathed, cautious and terrified.

Pale lips twitched again.

"I knew."

"...What?"

"I knew. What Kimbley was going to do. I knew."

Maes again sat very still.

Touching Roy to comfort him would also be a very grave mistake, but he still dearly wanted to try.

"Roy," he said at last, voice hollow, "you couldn't have known. It's not your fault he-"

"He told me."

"...What?"

"He told me. The night before. He told me what he was going to do. And I let it happen."

...Oh.

The flame flickered gently again, drawing his attention, and Maes had to silence the questions that rose, fighting to surface. Now was not the time. "Roy," he tried again, nodding towards his glove, "please, you've gotta give that to me. We can talk about this later, all right? Everything's fine, just... just give me the glove."

"He told me it would just be Basque Gran. He told me that because he knew I wouldn't say anything, fuck." The flame wavered again on the tail end of gasped laughter. "He knew I wouldn't, not if it was just him. Gran brought us to Ishval, he gave us the rings, he sent us after them, and he loved it all, if we're devils then he is Satan himself, he loved it all every second every minute every death every massacre-"

"Roy! Give me the glove!"

"-and Kimbley knew I wanted him dead, too."

Flame crackled viciously, expanding in a warm blast so strong Maes was blown to hit the floor on his back, and Roy tilted his head back, pale face upturned towards the moonlight.

"I want him dead," Roy whispered, confession hanging in the stagnant air with the smoke.

Maes swallowed, hard.

Treasonous words, those were, far more treasonous than a declaration of ambitions for Fuhrer, and he couldn't stop himself from glancing nervously around him. They were still alone and at this time of night it was likely to stay that way, but this was still dangerous, so very dangerous to say in public...

"Roy, come on... give me your glove, let's get out of here, I'll take you home, come on, just give me your glove..."

But Roy was not listening to him.

Another quick breath, and then the major was babbling again, still staring at nothing, still gloved hand still steady. "And does that make me any more of a horrible person than before? No, of course not. How could it? Is his life worth more than any single Ishvalan? Is his life worth more than an infant's? Is it? Is it? Is it is it is it?! Because he's decked in medals and honor? Because he was born here and not there? Am I to be condemned for one death alone when I am a mass murderer?! You can not tell me I was right to commit genocide but wrong to want him dead!"

Maes opened his mouth and then shut it. He felt sick.

This was, evidently, something Roy needed to say. This sick, horrible, dark desire that he had swallowed since Ishval, since he'd gone from standing one day in a land where murder was ordered and necessary to survive to the next where it was brutal and wrong again. This was something that he needed to tell someone, and no matter how much he wanted to plug his ears and run and pretend this wasn't happening all Maes could do for him now was be the one to witness it, and allow him to say it in a place where it wouldn't be overheard and land him in the cell next to Kimbley's.

And if only he could get that fucking glove off, he would've been content to do just that.

"Roy," he gasped in a weak, choked off, and desperate stammer, "come on. You need to give me your glove. Please. You can keep talking, we'll stay here if you want, and I'll keep it safe for you, I promise. Just give me your glove. Please."

The flame wavered unsteadily, both the element and the man, but he never moved to take the thing off. Words suddenly tumbled out again, speech slurred and broken like he was drunk or half-awake or crying. "I swear to god he told me just Iron Blood. He said Iron Blood will die, and I believed him, because he was crazy but Zolf was normal when he came to Ishval. He was fucking normal and then he... he went mad. Because of Ishval. Because of Iron Blood. He said he'd kill just Iron Blood and I never realized he was lying."

Roy was suddenly desperate now, no longer adamant and confident but shaking and scared, not justifying horror any longer but begging for redemption instead. "I swear to god if I'd known he was going to go after others I'd have stopped him!" he gasped, trembling and choking on grief. "There were privates there, oh god, he killed them before they'd fired a single bullet in that desert, oh, god... one of them was just fucking eighteen..."

Flames sparked again but died almost as quickly. The blaze was no longer so intense it kept Maes back on his heels, and he crawled forward a few inches even though his mind screamed for him to run just to stop hearing the proof for what, in his heart, he'd already known: Roy was broken in Ishval.

God, if a car backfired right now, Roy would kill him and possibly himself in the blast, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The thought didn't even come close to scaring him. Not when he was already so terrified he could barely breathe but for the fear of what he'd smell.

"Give me your glove, give me your glove, Roy. Come on. You're safe here. You don't need it on. Come on... give it to me, Roy..."

The stench of burning flesh was so thick this close to him Maes had to stop himself from covering his nose.

"Zolf laughed at me when he told me." Roy blinked several times, guilt fading in dark, unfocused eyes, voice cooling from frenzied terror to reality again. "He said he knew I wanted Iron Blood dead, but that I'd never do it. I'm too much of a coward. And he's right, you know. I couldn't take it if everyone, from Ishval to Amestris, from the children I killed to Riza and Chris and Maes saw me a monster. That's what they're saying about him, he's crazy, insane, a psychopath, a monster... and I'm too much of a coward to face that. What they're saying is true and it'd be just as true about me. But I can't... I can't... take it from everyone. If even they say it... if even Riza thinks it, if even Maes says it, then there's... there's really nothing left, and that's all I am... that's... that's all I am..."

Flame hissed, viciously hot. It sizzled against flesh and the smell had Maes coughing and turning his head away from the smoke but he still didn't pull back, desperately focusing only on the glove and not what Roy was saying. "God damn it, give me the glove!" he hissed, shaking hard, squinting as his eyes started to water. "Roy!"

"...all that I am..."

"Roy, please!"

Roy paused, and then, sickeningly, he laughed. "Ishval really is a magical place," he said, and then, he smiled. He shut his eyes, bowing his head deeply, letting light cast upon the grey skin, the deep shadows under his eyes, the gaunt and hollowness that haunted his face like a dead man's. "Sane men go there and it makes monsters out of us."

The flame wavered once more, and then, it died.

His body wasted no time, even while his mind remained sputtering and broken.

Maes darted forward, moving only as fast as he dared, and gently, he wrapped a hand around Roy's wrist. The major did not respond at all, his arm completely limp as Maes lifted it and started tugging at the still hot glove, gently pulling it off his unresponsive hand.

His other arm, the one Roy had burned so deeply the smell of roasted, cooked flesh hung in the air, was just as still.

Maes had not breathed easy since he'd found Roy, but he finally did again, when at last the white glove was off Roy's hand and safely put away in his pocket.

He shut his eyes, breathing deeply and shakily again, feeling the rough and bloodied fabric stain the inside of his coat. He was so relieved he was shaking, trembling in the exhilarating rush and still so scared, god, he was falling apart... Gasping weakly, Maes steeled himself to open his eyes and face his friend again. he could shake and fear and break later. Right now, he had to get Roy out of here. "Okay, buddy, come on. I'm taking you home. You're okay, everything's fine. We're just going home... we're just going-"

Maes stopped dead.

Because, when he'd finally managed to make himself look up again, it was to Roy staring at him.

Roy hadn't once looked at him until now.

"...Maes?" he stumbled, dead eyes wide and staring in disbelief. He inched back, breathing shakily, withdrawing the suddenly trembling hand from his. "When... when did you get here?"

Maes' heart sank.

He'd been here for at least ten minutes, talking to him the entire time. Sure, Roy had not been exactly responsive, but he'd not been so dazed or out of it for Maes to think he was that unaware...

Fear glimmered in dark eyes, a fear Maes had never seen before Ishval, and somehow, he answered without his voice sounding as sick as he felt.

"I've been here the whole time, Roy." He reached forward again hesitantly, experimentally taking the recently ungloved hand into his own. "Remember? You- you talked to me," at least I thought you were talking to me, "Roy... don't you remember?"

Roy still stared at him, unblinking and clearly horrified. Slowly, he shook his head. "N-no," he stammered. "No, I..."

Abruptly, his eyes widened.

This time, when he gasped, sheer terror lit in black eyes, and the hand in his was yanked back as if he'd been burned.

"I was talking?" he whispered, and he pushed himself back further with one hand, other arm held close to his chest. "What... what did I say...?"

The look on Roy's face, however, said that the major knew exactly what he had said.

The look on his face said that he was not afraid of what he'd said.

He was afraid of what the reaction would be.

The bloody glove weighed heavily in his pocket, and the smell of burned flesh made him want to throw up.

"You told me about Kimbley," he said cautiously. Roy's face contorted, and it took all his strength to keep going. "You told me... everything, Roy."

White features turned almost green, and Roy tore away from him, face wrecked with a heartstopping fear so real it made Maes' blood run cold. "Oh, god, no," the major moaned, pulling his knees up to his chest in a singular move to get further away from him. "No, no... I told you- no... then you know what I..." He buried his face in his hand, shoulders trembling, what little of his face he could still see shifting in despair. "You know what I did..."

His breaths came in short and fast, so short he couldn't possibly be getting any air, and then he was hyperventilating, curled in on himself and panicking. He was gasping too hard to speak, red eyes watering with desperation, entire body shaking so hard it was frightening.

"Oh, Roy," he moaned, and before the major could fight him, he pulled the shaking form close, folding an arm around tense shoulders like he was a lost child and resting his chin on dark hair, listening to the harsh gasps against his chest and feeling his heart break. "Roy, I told you. I'll never look down on you for anything you had to do there. You were scared and stupid; I can't judge you for anything you did like that... what matters is now. You wouldn't ever let something like that happen now, Roy, and that's all that matters to me."

Never mind that there was that little voice in Maes' head that wanted Basque Gran dead, too.

Roy said nothing to him, but the eventual choked gasp of a sob told him his friend was probably beyond words, anyway.

Blood from Roy's arm wept slowly down to his pants, sluggish enough that Maes wasn't truly scared but so plentiful he knew he needed to be concerned. Already, his mind spun, clambering for excuses he could give if he had to take Roy to a hospital; cooking accident, training accident, car accident, anything ACCIDENT...

Carefully, trying both to hide his intentions from Roy and not to hurt him, Maes shifted, tilting his head to get a better look at his arm. He needed to see how deep the burns were and how far they extended before he could decide on any course action.

When Maes finally saw what his friend had done, his breath caught.

Roy heard it. "M sorry..." he mumbled, and the deathly pale arm shifted a little, as if he was trying to hide it.

But it didn't matter, because those few seconds of staring had been enough to cement the sight in his head forever.

Because, on Roy's arm, burned by his own hand so deep that it curled through muscle tissue and bit to bone in a wound that would scar him for life, was a single word.

M-O-N-S-T-E-R