The door cracked open slightly, letting a sliver of light penetrate the darkness of the room.
Sad, tired eyes looked at the crib, in which a little girl was tucked in neatly with pink sheets and sound asleep. Her short mousy brown hair splayed over the pillow, her usually sparkling green eyes shut in her slumber. Her arms were stretched out at odd angles, and she was snoring peacefully, her hand still tightened on a ragged stuffed bunny. Her name was Elicia, and she was his precious child.
Softly shutting the door, Maes Hughes turned, and strode down the hall, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
He walked into his room, picking up the packed suitcase on his bed and walked out, down the hall and into the living room, where a blonde-haired girl sat on the couch.
"Thanks for doing this for me, Winry," Maes gave her a tired smile, "I know it's last minute but I really appreciate it."
"Of course, Mr. Hughes!" Winry said, smiling. "I love coming over to stay with Elicia, it's no problem really."
"Elicia is so cute, isn't she?" Maes gushed, despite his fatigue, "I wish I could stay with her longer, but they really need backup in Dublith." Winry nodded understandingly.
"It's fine," Winry reassured him, "She'll be okay. Go take care of whatever you need to."
"Thanks," Maes grinned, "You're a life saver." Waving a hand, he walked out the door, with Winry curled up on the couch sketching out her new automail project.
The trains' whistle blew loudly, and the cabin pushed forward as the civilian train started off, trudging forward into the darkness while the majority of its somnolent passengers slept.
But Maes was awake, more so than he thought he'd be, and lost in thought as he gazed out of the window.
He leaned against the window, his jaw clenching as a hard expression took over his features as his mind traveled to the thoughts that he had been over a hundred, a thousand times, but still couldn't stop thinking about.
The tug in his chest never went away - but it became more obvious whenever he thought of her. Her, his lovely wife, her cute short cut brown hair and her dazzling smile, weighing on his heart every time he remembered the last faint heartbeat he felt from her palm, the last glimmer of life in her eyes before it was gone.
The stars he saw out the window, they glittered like her eyes - her beautiful green eyes, which his deepest fear was to forget. The more time that passed, like the scenery flying by around the train, the more things seemed a blur - the more, as he was scared of, the more he forgot about her. The more she seemed like just a dream, a far off dream where reality was just a fuzzy line and he sometimes thought her life was the fantasy, instead of her death.
A dreary sigh escaped his lips, and he tiredly gazed at the nighttime fields. He wondered if he could ever love again, if he could hold himself together for his darling daughter and if he could ever somehow find a way to live with the guilt and the sadness of his beautiful Gracia's passing away.
Somnolently, quietly, he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.
Ice clinked together in a half empty old-fashioned whisky glass as a hand swirled it around. Bored violet eyes lingered on the strong, dark liquid that sloshed around slightly, and a sigh escaped from the man who sat at the bar of a sketchy-looking pub.
"What's with the sigh, Greed?" A curvy woman with a green tattoo down the side of her neck and shoulder sat next to Greed, waving the bartender over. "You don't usually drink, either."
"Hey, just 'cause alcohol doesn't affect me doesn't mean I don't like it," He mused, "But, Martel, those punks on the south side are really starting to piss me off." The woman known as Martel took the glass of whiskey the bartender handed her, and took a small sip of the pungent liquid as she looked over at him.
"Well, I heard that the military are closing in," She said, "So we won't have to worry all that much so long as we stay out of the picture. The military will take them out quickly, so we won't have to put up with them much longer." Greed nodded, listening to her as he quietly sipped at his own drink.
"So long as they don't bring attention to us," He muttered, "then they'll really be dead."
"Honestly, I'd love to take them out, but the military base in the east has been talking about a new Intelligence officer visiting from Central, and that doesn't sound very appealing." Martel shrugged, "Apparently he's a big shot in his field, so we would be better off looking out for him."
"Hmm…" Greed tilted his glass, staring at it thoughtfully. "Sounds interesting." Martel looked at him suspiciously, trying to figure out what he was thinking. She could see him contemplating something, but she just shrugged off the feeling she got and continued to drink her whiskey, relishing the tingling in her throat.
And so, the tattooed snake chimera and the avaricious homunculus sat at the bar and drank in the grimy bar, hidden inside the pub whose worn sign read, Devil's Nest.
"We have arrived in Dublith - you may begin to gather their things and prepare for arrival." One of the attendants called down the aisle to the passengers, alerting them just as the train started to slow.
Maes rubbed his eyes, brushed off his civilian clothes, and sent a glance over to his suitcase that sat on the leather seat beside him.
He thought with a yawn, I hope Elicia's alright and has a good day today. And with his daughters' sparkling smile fresh in his mind, he got the energy to get himself up off the seat, grab his suitcase and exit the train to stride into the station along with the crowd of other passengers.
After finally making it through all of the people and out of the station, he looked up into the sky. Dawn had colored the sky with its brilliant oranges and majestic reds, the clouds floated over the horizon a fluffy cotton candy pink. He stood there for a moment, admiring the morning sky and rolling his shoulders, pondering what he'd do first.
They shouldn't be expecting me for a few hours, He thought, checking his watch, so I might as well check into the hotel and change… and maybe get some breakfast. He nodded.
Yeah, that sounds good.
Hey guys!
Is it just me or does "the tattooed snake chimera and the avaricious homunculus sat at the bar" sound like the start of a bad joke? Hahaha
So, this might seem a bit of a weird ship, but this is a result of this thing that happened at Anime Boston last weekend.
Okay, so on Saturday at the con there was this Dating Game panel. You know, theres bachelors/bachelorettes and stuff? Well, usually most of them are cosplayers from different animes, but the lil shit who organized it decided to put the only two fma cosplayers in the same round. a Greed cosplayer as the main bachelor and a Maes Hughes cosplayer as one of the other three bachelors. And so, basically the whole round consisted of Greed and Hughes snarking and sassing each other and Hughes and the hosts making painfully funny jokes like, "If you go out with Greed, you might actually live to see Elicia's fourth birthday" and Hughes, being so done with the turn of events, constantly got up and said, "I really want to make a phone call right now" (phone booth ;.;) but in the end Greed picked Hughes and they were the cutest thing and throughout the other rounds Hughes kept running away from Greed around the edges of the room an it was literally killing me and is still killing me and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I've been obsessing over this ship for the past week because those two cosplayers were perfect and charismatic and it fits well
okay I'm sure you're all done with me obsessing over my new found love for singledad!Hughes and Greed ship so I'll just shut up now!
Thanks guys an have a good day/night and sleep well at night knowing I'll update this soon
Aight, follow and review! Thanks!