Disclaimer: I don't own full metal alchemist in any way shape or form or whatever. This includes the characters and anything related.
Warning:…Erm…none, really. This is just a series of short stories. Or long, depending on the subject.
A/N: I started this a long time ago and never continued it. Well, writer's block has ceased so I'm continuing this. This is supposed to be a series of short stories focused on Hughes and Mustang. If I feel like it, I might add more of the other characters depending on the situation of the subject. They don't have a particular chronological order but I'll give you the ages before I begin at the start of each bit.
Maes Hughes: 14
Roy Mustang: 12
"Come onnnnn…" A young boy's lips were put into a full-blown pout.
The pout met it's defeat by an ominous glare. "Go away if you're not going to be quiet."
"Hmph. You're no fun when you're practicing." The boy turned his back to his friend's glare.
Roy Mustang couldn't care less about his friend's antics at the moment. He was busy drawing a complex array on a scrap of paper with a pen, one that had be absolutely precise lest it rebound. His round, pale face was screwed up in anticipation and frustration as he curved the lines meant to combine the pure elements.
Maes Hughes stared pointedly at the pile of dirt with distaste. "You done?"
Roy didn't respond, but suddenly stopped and snapped his head up. "Yeah."
"So," Maes grunted as he pointed at the blue chalk of the array, "What are you going to do?"
"Make some flowers."
Maes raised an eyebrow, his mouth open to ask, but he stopped as gold sparks erupted under his friend's hands and the array, swirling around the dirt. Just as his friend had proclaimed, he transmuted flowers. Sunflowers to be exact.
"What are they for?"
Roy slowly stood up from his crouch and picked up the sunflowers, wrapping them in delicate onion paper as he shoved open the screen door. He snapped his head back to look at Maes. "You coming or not?" Without waiting for an answer, he stepped out, the screen door shutting itself behind his back.
After a short jog, Maes eventually caught up with his rather fast companion. "Where are we going?"
Roy didn't respond, but moved faster with each step. Eventually, he broke into a dead run, cutting across the main path, over Mr. McKinsey's fence, into his vegetable garden, and disappearing into the corn field.
Being able to do nothing to stop his friend, Maes just blinked at the direction of the McKinsey farm. Without understanding the automatic actions of his body, he began to run in the same direction Roy had gone, over the fence, into the garden, and through the corn field. After spitting out the dirt and leaves out of his mouth, he took a better look at his surroundings.
He was in a sea of tall, thin, swaying emeralds as far as the eye could see. A meadow of lush green grass. His jaw hung slack in awe at the hidden meadow. He didn't know it was here. He didn't even know it existed. Snapping out of his stupor, Maes turned his head left and right. There was no sign of Roy anywhere. Maybe he went in the wrong direction…
"You made it."
The voice was sudden, familiar, but it nearly had Maes leaping out of his skin. Goosebumps ran along his arms and he visibly shivered. "You! Don't do that! What's with you and walking around the place like a ghost?"
Roy only shrugged in response and began to walk through the forest of corn. His face was kept blank so even Maes couldn't read his features. His companion betrayed no body movement that would even suggest discomfort. Nothing was wrong, Maes could tell that much, but there was something he felt he should know.
"Hey, Roy, what happened to the flowers?"
They stepped out of the forest of corn and into the meadow of cabbage. "I gave them to someone."
"Who?"
There was no time for an answer.
By now, they were halfway through the garden when someone suddenly began to scream, "George! I think someone's in the garden!"
"What?"
Both boys forgot about the topic at hand automatically and in unison, instantly darted through the rest of the meadow of cabbage, dove headfirst over the wooden fence, and sprinted down the main path to Roy's house, neither daring to stop until they at least made it to the front porch.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The next night, Maes Hughes went to investigate the meadow further. Deciding to go in the middle of the night when most people would be slumbering, including his parents and the McKinseys, he feigned sleep until it was two in the early morning. He quietly snuck out of his room through the window and climbed down the thick vines that had grown up the side of his window and over the roof. Carefully dropping down, he walked along the main path in a lazy slouch without worry of being spotted by passerby or a random person coincidentally looking out of their window.
What was that idiot hiding from him? Sure, they'd only known each other a few years, but shouldn't that have been enough? They'd certainly already been through more than either could've imagined, and neither of them planned on dying anytime soon so they would still go through a lot.
He finally arrived at the McKinseys. He cringed mentally at the thought of being caught. The McKinseys were nice people, if you didn't get on their bad side. Maes hadn't gotten on their bad side yet, but the stories Roy told him about his own journey through their bad side had been enough. Being whacked on the butt by a broomstick was no empty threat.
Maes went through the same routine through the garden, this time more slowly and carefully. Tracing his path through the corn stalks, he came upon the meadow for the second time this week. This time, however, the meadow appeared to be more ominous than beautiful under the moonlight. Perhaps it was just his own fear of being caught reflecting off everything around him.
Not knowing where to begin, he walked straight ahead. This part of town was unfamiliar to him. Roy had never shown him this place before, nor had he ever even made mention of it. Across the corn field was a thin forest. The trees' height made up for their thinness. A path had been cleared through the forest. Shrugging in resolve, Maes bravely marched on, silently wishing he hadn't gone out in the first place.
The cold, autumn air blew through his short, spiked hair and around his neck, making the hairs growing on the back stand up on end. Goosebumps inflicted themselves through the skin of his arms. He felt stupid for wearing his pajamas out in this weather, and regretted not bringing with him a jacket.
He shivered and cringed as the air around him felt thick with ice. The trees cast long and slim shadows over the path. They creaked, sounding almost as if they were animate and moving. Maes set his jaw, squared his shoulders, and marched straight ahead, not once looking back or around him. He would not be afraid of the dark, damn it. Definitely not the shadows or the trees or of some kind of monster leaping out of the shadows to devour him bit by bit, tearing his flesh apart…
And that did it. He broke out on a dead run down the leaf-covered path as fast as his legs could carry him, his feet kicking up the dead and rotting leaves behind him. He willed himself not to look back or stray from the path. He really began to regret going out.
Seeing the end of the path, he pushed his strength farther and mustered up enough adrenaline to pump his way over the short, stone barricade just on the edge of the forest. Panting harder than he ever did in his short life, he looked around as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He suddenly began to feel as though he would've been much safer in the forest than where his feet had carried him. He was standing on the edge of a cemetery. A small cemetery. Gravestones that were carved in the forms of angels, carved in the forms of crosses, carved in the traditional way, even unmarked ones stood on the area.
Get a grip, damn it! Your fourteen! You shouldn't be afraid of that kind of crap! There are no such things as zombies or ghosts or vampires or…whatever, he chanted mentally to himself, hoping it would work in some way. It didn't.
Up ahead, he could make out the faint outline of a small gate adjacent to him. As he made his way to the gate, he didn't see the root growing out of the ground just below his feet. His foot went perfectly in the loop, causing him to go flying over one of the gravestones and landing in front of another one. He slowly stood up and brushed himself off. Cleaning his pajamas before his parents found out would be troublesome.
Out of sheer curiosity, he glanced at the headstone he had landed in front of and instead of just glancing, he stared hard at the name engraved on the stone.
Robert Mustang
1855-1886
Caring husband, good friend, and almost a father.
Maes continued to stare at the headstone for a long time. On the ground in front of it, was a pile of gray ash. Still confused and dumbfounded, he looked at the headstone to it's left.
Delia Mustang
1858-1886
Loving wife and wonderful friend whose chance of motherhood had been drastically cut short.
In front of this headstone lay the sunflowers Roy had transmuted yesterday afternoon.
Roy Mustang reluctantly swung his feet out of bed, threw off his pajamas in favor of a pair of gray pants and a red t-shirt, and trudged downstairs in a sleepy haze.
Neither of his grandparents had awoken yet so he had free reign over himself for the time being. Without bothering to eat, he went outside for some air. Being cramped in the attic and reading volume after volume of texts tended to have repercussions, such as inhaling mass amounts of dust. From what he knew, textile lung was not a pleasant experience.
"You're finally up."
Roy froze, his shoulders tensing, then relaxed slowly as he recognized the voice. Turning to the speaker, he replied casually, "Yeah, I am. What is it?"
Maes appeared solemn. "I didn't know your parents passed away. I thought they were just gone for a while, sort of like Lillian's parents. "
Roy blinked in surprise and then cracked a tiny smile. "You went through the woods to the cemetery, didn't you?" When Maes nodded, he chuckled. "You know, I didn't expect you to go that far just to find out where I went."
Maes grinned mirthlessly. "What're friends for." Then he added, "By the way, who put that shortcut there?"
"I did." Roy turned sharply on the heel of his tearing sneakers and leaned against the screen door with an almost amused expression dancing on his features. "Wasn't hard. An array for extracting the dirt and another array for parting the dirt into an actual path."
Maes shifted uncomfortably under Roy's sleepy, almost lazy gaze. "Then what was that ash on your dad's headstone?"
"That," Roy began, "was just some of his belongings that were lying around."
Maes crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against one of the white beams holding up the front porch. "You could've told me." His words had a double meaning.
Roy, having caught on, appeared mildly surprised and sighed, exasperated at the lack of understanding people had these days. It was time to go into explanations. "What's there to tell? Look, not everyone cries about this kind of thing. Nor does everyone complain and whine about it. There isn't any point in all the angst, so why do it at all?" He took a breath and began again, this time more quietly. "I've already been sad about it. I'm tired of that. Nobody wants to live in that kind of shadow. It's time to move on."
As he stepped down the porch, leaving a stunned Maes standing rigidly against the beam of the porch, he added in an undertone, "Besides, I'm surprised you could even see the names on the stones, considering how blind you are about everything…"
Maes, forgetting all about the serious topic he had brought up and now focusing on the taunting jibe, twitched his eyebrows. "Shut up…"
Roy actually seemed to stop and consider that for a moment. Then he turned on his heel and grinned maniacally, all mode of seriousness dissipated. "Make me."
Maes drew himself up to his full height, the morning sun flashing dangerously across his rectangular spectacles. He appeared about as sinister as the schoolmaster when she caught some unfortunate child cheating. Immediately, he leapt off the porch and both boys dashed down the winding path, one chasing and the other escaping, but both were laughing until they were breathless.
They were moving on.
A/N: The taunting bit at the end was added to lighten the mood. After all, I'm trying to focus mainly on humor here.
I like Mustang to angst just as much as the next person, but not many people seem to try something new. Some people make Mustang sound like a whiny teenager and that's just overdoing it. Wanted to try something a little different with him instead of angst.
As usual, give me constructive criticism. I could use it.
