1Ashes and Flames
D M Evans
Disclaimer - not mine, all characters belong to Hiromu Arakawa et al, Square Enix and funimition. I don't make a profit
Rating - PG-13
Pairing - Maes/Roy
Time Line - Ishbal, manga-verse (with hints of anime)
Summary - Maes tries to help Roy work his way through his pain over using alchemy to kill for the first time.
Author's Note - This was supposed to be a drabble for a song title challenge but hmmm, at nearly 1500 words it's a full fledged story. This was written for Mjules and the song title was Ashes and Flame by John Mark McMillian
Maes hesitated at the door flap to his friend's private tent; one of the privileges of being a State Alchemist. Maes did wonder if it had more to do with the fact that no one wanted to bunk with the freaks than with alchemic privilege. Maes kept the 'freak' comments to himself lately. Roy had become very sensitive about them. He had planned to ask Roy if he wanted some coffee but he heard strange, soft noises coming from the tent. Maes peered in cautiously. "Roy?"
Roy didn't look at him. He sat hunched up on the bed, his shoulders shaking. Maes couldn't help wondering what had reduced the alchemist to tears. "Roy, are you all right?"
Roy's face canted up, covered with ash except where his tears had cut runnels. "I'm a monster."
Maes sat next to Roy, having never heard such brittle, broken words coming from his friend. His tones usually alternated between Mustang's low deep voice and the brash braying one but never fragile. "Roy, what happened?"
Mustang looked at his gloved hands. A ring glinted like a fine ruby on his finger. "They ordered a fire storm," he said, so quietly Maes barely heard him but the torment came through loud and clear. "They were screaming and there was nowhere for them to go. I saw a mother toss her baby out of a second story window to save him from the flames. Our soldiers gunned down the man who caught the child...killed the baby, too. What are we, Maes?" Roy's voice broke and Maes couldn't even find his own. He hadn't been on the front lines like that. He was sent on more covert operations. "Bones like burnt kindling poked through the ash. Skulls exploded from the heat, brains boiling out. I thought...I wanted to get sick but all I could think was, how would that look to the men? I can't appear weak. That's what was going through my head. What am I? I can't do this, Maes. I can't kill like this."
Maes slipped an arm around his friend, at a loss as to what to say. Words rarely failed him but there was nothing to say to this. His friend was now a human weapon and there was no coming back from the place Mustang now occupied. Even if Roy was discharged tomorrow with shell shock, this would be with him for the rest of his life. Roy would never forget what he had done. This was only the beginning. Mustang needed to inure himself to the violence he created or his military career was over and something told Maes that would be a wound too deep to heal.
Hughes had an uncanny ability to find people who needed a friend. During cadet training, he came across a scrawny, intense boy - and Roy was a boy, barely sixteen, so much younger than the other cadets - who really needed a friend. Maes had joked and annoyed his way into the friendship, finding Roy had a wicked sense of humor, a sharp mind and loyalty a hound would envy. He was a person worth befriending.
Maes' other ability was to know who had talent and ambition. Hughes had the former in spades but precious little of the latter. His joy was in seeing friends succeed. He preferred the shadows to the limelight. He didn't know Roy's true ambition yet but anyone becoming a State Alchemist at such a young age had something to prove. Mustang was going somewhere. Maes wanted to be there to help push his friend to achieve his dreams. Right now he was at a loss as to how to help. "Roy, I'm so sorry."
"They made me a monster," Roy sobbed again, running a hand over his face, smearing the ash.
"You're not a monster." Maes pulled Roy closer, rubbing his back.
"Flames destroyed those people, burned them alive...flames that I made. You didn't see it, Maes. If I'm not a monster, what am I?" Roy asked plaintively.
"A soldier, forced into what soldiers do. We kill to defend out country," Maes said, wishing he had more conviction to give to his voice. He had his doubts as to why they were in Ishbal.
"Is that what we're doing here?" Roy's head drooped.
"Damned if I know." Maes kept up the soothing movement on Roy's back. It seemed to be calming the alchemist a little.
"I know I have to stop this," Roy said softly and Maes didn't know if he meant his tears or the war. "I have to be strong."
"And you are, Roy. You are very strong but this is not what you wanted to do with your alchemy. You knew it could happen but only in the abstract. Who would have imagined this?" Maes tried not to shudder. He had seen the flames on the horizon and had tried not to think about it, wondering at the time if it had been Roy's doing. He felt a little sick himself to know that it was.
Roy extended his hand, wiggling the finger with the red-stone ring on it. "This ring makes it worse, so much worse. I feel like a god and it feels too good in spite of it all. Too much power...I can't handle it."
"You can. You're not like some of them," Maes said. He had jokingly called Roy a freak in the past but he had to wonder now, if deep down that wasn't how he saw alchemists? Seeing them kill like this threatened to bring that fear to the surface and he hated that of himself. "Like the Crimson Alchemist, who enjoys this all too well."
Roy inhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. He leaned heavily on Maes. Hughes just let there be silence. Finally after several long minutes, Roy wiped his eyes, "Thanks," he muttered, his lips so close Maes could feel his breath.
Before he knew what he was doing, Maes leaned in and kissed Roy. He'd never kissed a man before, male relatives at holiday time aside. He had never even wanted to. Roy's lips were moist, salty with captured tear-runoff. Roy stiffened momentarily then relaxed into it. Maes hesitantly slipped the tip of his tongue into Roy's mouth, touching the tip of his friend's tongue. It was electric, shocking them apart.
Roy's onyx eyes met his, wide and surprised then he turned away sharply but softened the rejection by leaning into Maes more. "What are we doing?" Mustang whispered, his body shaking.
"Something I've never done before," Maes replied, stroking Roy's grimy cheek, making the alchemist look at him. He leaned back in to kiss Mustang again.
Roy pulled away, shaking his head. "I don't...not tonight. I need to feel bad right now. I need to hurt so I don't learn to enjoy this power. You make me...it's too good, too dangerous, please, not tonight."
Maes nodded. It was a strange sort of logic, tragic but it made sense. "Do you want this, though? This isn't what either of us have ever sought before."
Roy thought for a moment. "I know. You're the best friend I've ever had. I want to know where this is going. Just not tonight. I'd tell the same to Riza if she weren't out on a mission."
Maes smiled gently. "You're still hung up on her bad. Subordinates aren't good for you." Maes stroked Roy's gritty cheek again. "But she is, isn't she?"
"As good as your civilian girl is to you," Roy replied with a soft smile.
"She's great." Maes grinned, thinking he didn't want one or the other. He wanted both Gracia and Roy but that was a detail to work out another night. "Do you need me to stay or do you want me to go, Roy?"
Roy's eyes raked over him then closed tightly. "I wish I knew." Maes leaned in and kissed Roy's tear-swollen eyes. Roy shifted so their lips met against briefly. "Go," Roy whispered. "Before I forget to feel bad."
Maes buried his fingers in Roy's ash-coated hair, pulling him in so he could kiss his forehead. "If you start feeling too bad, Roy, you come find me."
Roy sighed, seeming to shrink. "I will. Thank you, Maes, for everything."
"That's what friends are for." Maes hesitated only a moment in the doorway, looking back at Roy who was now fighting a knot in his combat boots long laces. The worst of the misery storm was over. Maes left, shaken. He didn't know about the line they had just crossed but like Roy, he wanted to know where it would lead. He couldn't wait for that discovery.