Jack's Approval

"See ya tomorrow!" Ashes yelled from her doorway as Roy walked to the corner and turned out of sight...Then appeared and turned the opposite direction with his face tinted red as he smiled sheepishly up the street at her before disappearing once more.

Jack grabbed Ashes' sleeve and dragged her back inside with a whine and she obeyed, smiling as she shut the door and locked it.

"SO?" Jack's intelligent blue eyes seemed to say as she collapsed on her bed with her hands behind her head, he jumped up beside her and licked her cheek to get her attention and she only go a laugh as she pulled him over on her while she sat up and started messing with his pointed wolf's ears.

"He's nice...he's really nervous and a little lacking in confidence but...He's nice, and you didn't scare him...he a Keeper?"

Jack gave a doggish smile as he lolled out his tongue and she hugged him, burying her face in his sweet smelling mane of red and black fur.

Meanwhile Roy was still walking home, taking the long way to avoid any ally's he walked the busy, still crowded streets and didn't even stop at the bar for a bottle of gin on the rocks, as was his usual custom after a date.

"So Roy, how'd it go?" Maes asked his room mate when he returned, and Roy just shrugged. "It was OK."

"Finally! I was beginning to think you'd never find a girl friend you'd like Roy!" Maes spoke in a spastic bought of happiness that Roy merely rolled his eyes to and pulled off his shirt, throwing it into the pile of other shirts and falling face first into his unmade bed.

Maes often claimed that his room had a weird smell to it, but when this subject arose Roy would merely tell Maes that it smelled like him... In which case Maes would tell him that that must be the reason he didn't ever have a girlfriend. Because he smelled like Gin, Cigarette smoke, and Body Odor.

Roy just laid like that for a few minutes, thinking before rolling over, crab-crawling to the top of the bed, and picking up his advanced alchemy vol. III ninth addition. and started where he'd left off the night before.

He kept his face buried in the book as he kicked off his shoes and continued undressing until he was in only his boxer. (Which were red. Just red.)

He pulled the sheets over his legs and turned the page. On this page was a transmutation circle, about forty times more elaborate and precise then his own that controlled the oxygen density in the air.

It was an array to control the element water...which meant it controlled all the chemicals that formed water.

Maes came in an hour or so later and looked at Roy, who had the book laying on his chest,. one leg fallen straight and his hands still on the book. He turned off the light and walked off to the phone, deciding to check up on Gracia, and picked up the receiver.

"Jack! Lemme up!" Ashes said as she tugged at her arm, which was unceremoniously pinned beneath his strong, sleeping, wolfish body.

He opened his eyes for a moment as if to say sarcastically, "Well good morning to you too girlfriend."

He stood up, stretched, and leapt off the bed.

Ashes poured some left overs into his bowl and he pounced on it as if he where staving. Ashes on the other hand, ate nothing.

Instead she took the time to pull off her sleep clothes, which were boxers and a baggy shirt, and sink down into the hot water that now filled her bath tub.

Now gnawing on a bone while laying on the bed, it was Jack that heard the knock on the door.

Not that it really mattered, he had to investigate anyone on the doorstep before he'd let Ashes open the door.

He bit the towel and pulled the the right, which slid a large piece of the lower half of the door out of place, and stepped out to see none other then Wolfe Kimblee, The Crimson Alchemist.

Jack didn't like this man, and his intelligent eyes narrowed into a glare as he showed his teeth to this tall man.

he smelled highly of gun powder, which Jack had known as a puppy back in Ashes home town by the sea. He remembered it was the scent that took the leader of Ashes pack away when that scent had come and a loud noise had made him snarl.

"Hey there, Pete isn't it? Where's Ashes?" Kimblee said bending low so he could be eye to eye with the dog. He reached to pet his head but Jack snarled at it and turned tail, walking in, shutting his door, and licking the small hook and eye lock that would hold it shut.

In his eyes, Kimblee was no different then the man in camouflage who made Ashes cry.

And he hated anyone or anything that hurt Ashes. Actually, he hated most men, because it had been a man who had beaten him everyday as a pup before Ashes saved him. He remembered biting her the first time she tried to pet him, but all she did was put some food on the ground for him.

"Ashes!" Kimblee shouted as he pounded on the door.

"Why are you here Kimblee?" Roy asked as he made his way up the pathway, his voice giving no sign of trying to cover up the bitterness in his voice. Kimblee liked killing, and in Roy's eyes, that made him a murderer.

"I'm here to walk Ashes to work, make sure she's safe. What would a scrawny white-boy like yourself be able to do if someone attacked her, scream like a girl?"

"Uhh...why are you standing on my front porch?" Ashes asked in a surprised voice, in her uniform her hair only mostly dry. Her bright hazel eyes gleaming with that laughter, and yet still hinted confusion as she held her head to one side.

"I came to walk to work with you, but he-" they said at the same time before Jack ran out to Roy and Kimblee said as Roy lifted his hand to pet Jack. "Watch out, that dogs a mean son of a bitch."

'maybe he just doesn't like you." Roy said as he patted Jack's head and Jack ran, grabbed Ashes' sleeve, and dragged her towards him.

"Sorry Kimblee, Jack and I are gonna walk with Roy-Careful, Jack might bite you."

Kimblee tried again to put his hand on the wolf-hybrid, which snarled and snapped at it.

Kimblee walked away towards a bar when Ashes and Roy and Jack rounded to corner and, laughing, Ashes said to Roy with a smile.

"Congratulations, your the first guy to ever get Jack's stamp of approval."

Jack hated most men, but as he looked at Roy he lolled his tongue out in laughter. "But anyone he didn't scare away the first date was good...but he still wasn't allowed to took Ashes, because if he did."

Jack might be tempted to kill him, just like how he had killed the men in camouflage who had hurt Ashes when he was little.

Because no one was aloud to hurt the one who saved him.

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