Parting

"You're what?" Roy hissed in disbelief.

"I'm not going, I'm taking a desk job and staying in Central." Hughes repeated calmly, though he couldn't bring himself to look directly at his friend.

"How could you not tell me, Maes? I can't believe you'd do something so stupid. We're on the platform for heaven's sake!"

Hughes glanced up, trying to smile behind his glasses. "I didn't want to give you the time to overreact like this."

"I am not overreacting," Mustang said, his voice low, hard to hear over the noise of the train station. "Until this very moment I thought you were coming on this train with me."

Hughes winced. Roy was so angry he'd let his hurt slip out in his voice. This was not going well. "Look, there's nothing I can do about it now—"

But Mustang was shaking his head, leaning to pick up his bags from the ground. When he straightened, he wore an extremely cold expression, entirely foreign to Hughes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again and disappeared into the crowd of servicemen piling onto the train.

Hughes would always remember the first time he saw that face. He didn't know then that when Roy came back from Ishbal, it was all he would ever see.