A/N: Taking advantage of a loophole because of exams. I'd like to work on the next chapter tomorrow and Monday so everything's back to normal and I can get back to my usual updating, but I have another exam on Tuesday so that wouldn't be a good idea. So next chapter will probably be up late next week, and the ninth early the following week to even everything out. Hopefully.
In the meantime, here's this rather late but just under the wire chapter to enjoy. :D
Flame and Fullmetal
Chapter 7
Wrapping Up an Opening
Roy wasn't quite sure what he was expecting when he arrived back at Eastern Command, but his boss not being there was not it.
'He'll be back in a couple of days,' Havoc shrugged. 'He's just making a trip to the library.' An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth.
A trip to the library that takes three days? Roy wondered to himself. He also wondered if he should offer to light the cigarette for the second Lieutenant – and decided against it. It was one thing when Berthold Hawkeye lit his own cigarettes with alchemy, and quite another when lighting somebody else's.
'Did he leave instructions for me?' Roy asked instead.
Havoc chewed on the end of his cigarette. 'Nope,' he said finally. 'Don't think so. There's stuff on your desk though. You can always tackle those.'
Roy blinked. Fullmetal had pointed out his desk initially, but there'd been a lot of books and papers there already, and there were a lot of both there now.
Havoc followed his eyes, and chuckled. 'Not all of that. Though you may need to dig a bit.'
"A bit" turned out to be an understatement. Luckily, most of them said "ATTN: Lt. Colonel Elric" and could be put aside. And there were a few that said "ATTN: Major Mustang" and those were his. And a few anyone ranked Major or higher could apparently check off – after some cross-matching, and Roy couldn't be sure who those were meant for.
He had to tackle the ones addressed to him first anyway.
.
They turned out to be mostly administrative things. He'd received his watch and title before he'd been assigned to Fullmetal's team, as well as the rulebook and uniform, but now were the more subtle things. Application and lodging of a firearms, application for a dorms room – he put that one aside, seeing as he had a perfectly good apartment close by, and a few other such things. Some only took a few phone calls – and Fuery pointed him to the pay phones (since the office line wasn't technically to be used for anything personal) to take care of those.
Still, they took the entire morning, and getting firearms would take up the afternoon so he took a break in the mess hall.
And that was his first re-meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes.
'Yo,' the man said, sliding into an empty seat. 'No-one's sitting here, right?'
'No,' said Roy, though he thought it would have been more prudent to ask before taking the seat. Then, as the man took a big bite of bread without more of a greeting, Roy asked: 'Maes Hughes?' Maybe he had the wrong person. Or maybe the other had forgotten.
The man raised an eyebrow at him, before he grinned in recognition and clapped the other on the back. 'Roy Mustard, right?'
'Mustang,' Roy corrected with a grimace. What was with that man and his food references?
Then again, they'd fought over food at the military academy many a time. And other silly things.
'Yes, Mustang, right…' There was a pause. 'Gracia and I are married, you know.'
'Congratulations?' He didn't remember anything about a Gracia. Nor had Maes been married five years ago.
'she's just the most beautiful woman that's ever walked…'
And Roy trudged through his bowl of soup with pictures of a young woman with short, sandy-brown hair until Maes ran out of them and the conversation returned to the present time.
'And I see you've got your blues, now.' Maes clapped him on the back again. They hadn't seen each other since the older man had graduated from the academy, but he was exuberant as ever. He would fit right in with Fullmetal's team, Roy found himself thinking. 'What took so long? Or did you transfer from South or West, or maybe North? I know you weren't at Central...'
'Alchemy training,' Roy sighed. 'I'm still on the first week.'
Though he'd gotten quite a bit done in that week, including a mission from start to end, including the –
Actually, he realised, it was excluding the report. He knew the bare bones of writing one up, but not the details. It would only take a few times, maybe less, before he got the hang of it. But the first time at least he'd need to be told or shown.
Hadn't Fullmetal said something about Sergeant Fuery showing him? He hadn't mentioned anything when he'd asked for the phone.
.
'Report?' Fuery repeated, when he asked the next morning. 'Sure, I can show you.'
It sounded like he hadn't known he would be doing the job, but was more than happy to do so. And it was rather simple, on the whole. A few sections tended to chronically require embellishment – which Fuery claimed was a problem Fullmetal always seemed to have with his reports, but Roy managed to get a decent one written up that day.
It had taken far longer than he would have liked though. Maybe part of the reason was because it was a boring thing to do.
And, ironically, he finished just as Fullmetal walked through the door with a suitcase. 'Oh,' he said, staring at Roy at his desk. 'You're back.'
'I've been back for a few days,' Roy said, staring the boy over. He looked the same as when they'd first met: in his black leather and red coat, with the chain of his state watch visible on his belt. He looked more tired though. Worn out from the travelling probably.
'Really.' It sounded more like a statement than a question. 'Did you make any headway with your research?'
'Uh – ' Honestly, that was the last thing Roy had been thinking about. 'Not really. I got a lighter for backup and got my firearms documentation lodged and a few ideas that were disproven straight away, but that's about it.'
'A lighter,' Fullmetal repeated, with a nod to himself. 'Since its Flame alchemy, it works.' He fished through his suitcase for a key and unlocked the interior office. 'You'll have to wait until tomorrow for a new assignment. I need a nap first.'
And he marched into his office and closed the door, and Roy wondered why he wasn't napping at home – and why he could hear voices, or one voice at least, in the interior office when the door closed.
.
Dinner was supposed to be a nice and quiet affair. He'd planned to catch up with Riza again, just the two of them in one of the small cafes at the edge of town, but two things happened to derail that. Riza was accompanying one of the other officers in her team on a mission, and Maes had intercepted him and all but forced him into dinner with him instead.
And there was no way that was going to be quiet, Roy lamented. The office had laughed rather loudly when they discovered his new dinner plans. 'Have fun with all the Gracia photos,' they called to him.
Roy remembered the photos from lunch, and hoped they wouldn't be a regular occurrence.
They were. Maes showed him the photos all the way home, and Roy wondered how many more times he could endure them before he burned them to a crisp. And whether that would count as assaulting a superior officer, seeing as the man was a rank above him.
But photos aside, the man was friendly, far friendlier than at the Academy – but maybe that was only because they didn't have that childish quarrel about food that had degraded into attempts to best each other going on. But they'd gotten over that before Maes graduated. They'd become somewhat like friends. If they'd been in the same year at the Academy, they'd have become even closer. But Maes was gone to the Military proper and Roy was still there, climbing up the grades, and then he was studying alchemy and that put a few years between him and all his Academy friends.
.
The two of them sipped at a glass of wine apiece after dinner. 'So…' Maes said. 'You're under Lieutenant Colonel Elric, huh. That's one interesting assignment.'
'Yeah,' Roy agreed. 'Interesting.'
Maes chuckled. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'I know the kid, and I know interesting's a bit of an understatement.'
'Can't say I know him yet,' Roy pointed out. 'I spent the better part of this week outside of his office, and he hadn't been in the last few days.'
'Central Library has a far larger collection of books than any of the branches,' Maes explained. 'I'm stationed in Central, actually, but was shipped out here for a couple of weeks on assignment. Poor Gracia has to man the fort by herself, and we've barely been married a few months too.' He sighed.
'You've done quite well for yourself,' Roy remarked. 'A Lieutenant Colonel in five years, and married to boot.'
Maes face darkened a tad. 'Well…the rank is more due to Ishbal.'
Ishbal again, Roy thought.
'Twenty-seventh Infantry Battalion,' Maes continued. 'Went from Sergeant to Captain in less than a year because a lot of spots higher up were opening. Kind of surprising looking back, considering how they were totalled at the end.' He paused, then shrugged and sighed. 'It's what we signed up for, when we became dogs of the Military. 'Gracia, on the other hand…'
And the topic of Ishbal didn't come up again.
