03. family
The difference between a spy and an intelligence officer, said the first manual Maes ever picked up for his classes, breathing in the fresh-inked pages, is that one of them is employed by your side.
That was the first and only justification when he began his training. As a teenager, Maes's hands grew faster than the rest of him, leaving knobbly wrists and thin fingers that liked to dance coins over tables and snap handkerchiefs as dramatic flags. Older, and he learned how to slip pocketbooks out of people's jackets while he was walking by, building the steps towards the deft acquisitions of orders out of briefcases and sealed envelopes from the glove compartments of cars.
Maes has a special relationship with sensitive information: he touches it, and it disappears.
He wasn't the best in his class. That honor belonged to a boy named Jim Farrell, who won by dint of being able to keep his prizes once he'd caught them. Jim ended up with everyone's house keys, homework lists, and locker combinations. No one could figure out where he was hiding them, not even the bicycle that had disappeared wholesale from its chain at the flagpole.
The lessons worked. Within a year, all the students learned that possessions were transitory, exchanging objects through the chain-connections of theft. Intelligence officers -- that was what the classes were meant to develop, but no one was fooled after the first year except for the rows of bleakly optimistic parents. Jim Farrell was the best, until he disappeared inexplicably just before graduation and the teachers didn't bat an eye.
While they were all growing up together and Jim was still on the prowl, Maes began to carry photographs in his pockets while hiding his lunch money in his shoes. Jim stole the pictures instead, but occasionally returned them when they didn't appear to be useful. Maes's earliest defense against theft was sentimentalism. He learned that memories were only valuable to their original owners.
It stays that way as he gets older.
As a full-fledged intelligence officer of Amestris, Maes likes to think of himself as a magician when he's off-duty. The description makes it easier to go home and touch his wife and daughter with the same hands that pass knives as neatly as pocket change.
Magic. Maes likes to work it. Flowers out of nowhere to surprise Gracia and send her mouth shaped round in a surprised 'O'; sparkling barrettes for Elysia, plucked from behind his daughter's ear and laughingly displayed before he tucks them in her hair. With just a little effort, Maes can turn the world beautiful, just like that, making mysteries innocent again instead of something to fear.
Hands are multi-purpose tools. They can cosset and they can kill -- just like Maes can, changing roles as needed while he works undercover. They take away, but they can also give back.
Maes keeps himself in practice on his own fellow soldiers. An intelligence officer, he reminds himself with a jaunty, jaded laugh -- acceptable because he is on the payroll. Even though he has no real need, Maes searches the military jackets that pass him by, identical blue wrappings that are only made unique through the contents of their wallets. He keeps himself stocked with pencils this way, occasionally reproducing the exact implement that another officer misplaced earlier. By the end of the day when he is winding down, Maes goes back and reshuffles everything into other people's clothes, returning the pilfered objects with a careless nonchalance.
Afterwards, he likes to stand by the window and relax, sleek hands up, interlaced behind his head. Proud. Accomplished. That's when he indulges in stealing from himself, replacing pragmatic reality with dreams, just like a conjurer believing in his own smoke and mirrors. He likes to think about what else is left to him, the impossible prize that can someday be accomplished through a pinch of intelligence and even more art. The last magic he can work on the one who needs it most.
The particulars change every time. When days are sunny, Maes thinks about alchemical discoveries, tomes unearthed by accident on a mission that will give Roy the edge he needs to barrel all the way to the top. On rainy days, it's politics.
Maes loves his assignments. They take him away from his wife and child, but he waits for the day when he will be able to say, with a warm bellyful of satisfaction, I've found something new for you, Roy. The very best trick of all.
He imagines the look that will dawn upon his friend's face, the slow glow of shock filling Roy's eyes upon the realization of freedom.
Roy has enslaved himself to life through the trappings of guilt. Maes can't complain about the principle; anything that keeps Roy breathing is acceptable to him, whether the means is vice or virtue. In the meantime, the spy sifts through the detritus of life, collecting the valuable tokens that will someday buy Roy's conscience back for him.
Notecards. Reports. Interesting pens bearing the maker's mark on a dozen different nibs.
And silverware.
Maes instantly recognizes the spoon that he lifts from Fury's pocket when the Sergeant-Major bumbles by, arms full of paper folders. It's a Second Crossing piece. The bevel of the edge is familiar; it brings back memories that smell like steamed plastic and jelly. Looking at the spoon reminds Maes of the times he'd sat with Roy when they were both students, rattling off cram notes together, drowning in homework assignments. Counting packets of emptied creamer, rolling used sugar packets into pink and white tubes. Second Crossing's booths were green-lined when they'd both been in the academy; a puce that, many joked, accidental food spills could only improve.
Maes has a strong conviction in the worth of memories. They are impossible to steal. His pictures are always there, endless amounts, each one ready and waiting on even the coldest day when his breath has frozen in his throat and he's chafing fingers to keep the circulation flowing.
Photographs are reminders of why you keep going, of why you reload. No one can take the past away, not even the best of spies.
When he finally delivers the news, Maes will have a camera ready so he can snap a picture of the shock of Roy's face, and immortalize it forever. On holidays, he will have extra prints made and included in gift cards. Look, he'll say to Elysia each year, eyes up and watching the silent indignation of the Flame Alchemist sitting by the tinsel-decked fir, here's a picture of mister Roy, caught completely off-guard.
Maes knows he'll want to remember the exact way Roy's features will shift on that day, moving from confusion into shock. Into fear, maybe -- Maes knows his old friend too well and he knows how Roy has clung to his own self-damnation -- but maybe, eventually, into relief.
Maes also knows that Roy will forget that moment all too easily in the future, as the years will go by and they will both grow old and grey while Elysia discovers that Gracia's high-heels finally fit along with short-skirt dresses. Elysia will become an adult. They will all grow old, and with that will come forgetting.
So Maes will record it. Just as he documents everything else, because life moves much too fast. Photographs remain the only objects he keeps retention of, tucked away by hands that rearrange the location of everything else -- coins, keyrings, grocery shopping lists. Material objects can pass away. Memories won't.
Unworried about Fury's dining options and the status of Second Crossing's supplies, Maes flips the spoon over his knuckles while he listens to the closing sounds of the nearby offices. Everyone's going home. Maes should do the same, whistling with his hands tucked against his belt-loops, pushing open the front door to be greeted with a waft of Gracia's lilac perfume, his legs attacked by the eager grabby arms of his daughter.
Instead, Maes uses the spoon to prop up the window, fresh air trickling past the stigma of memory. It catches the sun like a lick of silver, and Maes smiles at the glint of metal. Somewhere, two ghosts are sitting at a green-skinned booth and haggling over battered library books. The teenage Roy is scowling. He's taking bites of Maes's toast without realizing he's eating from the wrong plate, but the specter of Maes doesn't mind; he only watches, and smiles, and keeps the afternoon alive forever in his mind.
Leaving the window open, the spy packs his papers for home while the breeze wafts in behind him.