Lost muse
After Ishvara war, now 28 years old Roy Mustang retired to become a professional artist , but when he loses his inspiration, will there be a muse to lift him from the ocean of despair?
Hello people and all the other life forms! nn This is my first fic that I have ever posted so please, don't flame me. If you don't like the fic you can say it, but please tell me WHY you didn't like it, it helps me to improve. The pairing will be RoyxEd which means it's shounen-ai. Slash. If ya don't like that kind of stuff don't read it. Simple, and makes everyones lives so much easier.
Most sincerely yours,
Negai
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Chapter one: Obliviously obvious
"I don't get it" The dark haired man whispered in his empty atelier. " …Why me? Why now?"
He slumped heavily back on his ebony chair, leaning his raven head to his hands. The room was lighted with only candles and the dark red colored curtains had been drawn to cover all the windows. Walls were bare and there was not many furniture, only few chairs, an old cough and paintings. A lots of paintings and color tubes, brushes scattered around the apartment, as if someone had taken out his frustration on them.
Roy Mustang, artist that had just few years ago been the rising star on the world of art, was now desperately trying to make up to his reputation.
Not that he hadn't been as good as the critics said, he had been–and still was- a talented artist, but now… As he had seen happened to many other artists, he had, if you wanted to say it bluntly, lost his inspiration.
When he had started as a an artist, it had began as a therapy. He had been working in the military for about ten years, and just in his third year the civil war had broken.
He had been used as a human weapon, alongside all the other state alchemists. Flame alchemist Roy Mustang. People thought him as a hero that had helped their country win against the isvaran.
But to him it wasn't like that. He was no hero, he was a villain.
Roy couldn't –nor did he want to- recall how many innocent had he killed under orders then. Thousands of innocent, children, women and men that had nothing to do with the whole scuffle. He had just burnt down the cities and citizens with them. Why? 'Cause those were the orders.
If he had then hated himself, after that he had totally loathed himself.
What had broken at the time fragile bridge of his sanity had been that that he had been told to kill two doctors, a couple that had been tending every injured that arrived on their "doorstep." Enemy or friend, it didn't matter to them.
Mustang and them had become friends, he had met them on the train to the battlefield. The Rockbells, which was their surname, were admirable people. He had looked up to them then and still did.
The ghosts of the war had began to affect his daily life so much, that his best friend , Maes Hughes, had anything but kindly suggested him to seek help. Not even weeks of bickering and nor a non-stop picture shows of Hughes's daughter Elysia, had knocked sense to him.
Being a stubborn mule he always was, Mustang had tried to ignore him, attempting to convince everyone that he was just fine. Few weeks went by just like that. All his friends from the military had bought that that he had recovered. All expect Hughes.
He noticed that Mustang was off from the work more than he had ever been. Maes knew his friend was workaholic, fighting to rise on the ranks as fast as he could, so there was no way he'd believe that. And Roys trademark smirk had disappeared, with itself should ring alarm clocks in everyones heads. All the fake smiles that Mustang had used to calm down his co-workers didn't calm Hughes down at all, on the contrary.
His suspicions were confirmed when all his phone calls went to the phones answerer and he went to see Roy.
The door had been locked, but as the head of information gathering unit he let no valuable piece of information could pass by. Not at least something like where his best friend kept his spare key.
So after he had snatched the key (that was in a place, oh so individual as under the carpet) and opened the door, a horrid scene met his eyes.
Roy Mustang, tears brimming in his weary onyx eyes covered with messy raven hair, standing in his once tidy living room with a gun on his hand. Pointed shakily at his own head.
Hughes half spoken and half beat the Flame alchemist out of it, managing to keep his friend from slipping over the edge.
After that, Roy finally gave in.
Maes had phoned the military psychiatrist, Mr Ho, that same day and told him how things were. Ho had just sighed, noted that "It was about the time" and said that Maes should take care of him at least until tomorrow. So he did, and would have done without a request. He wasn't going to lose his friend any time soon.
After that night things started to get better. Though the first therapy sitting didn't go well, Roys depression was too deep to recover that easily, it shoved Mustang a little bit more to the brighter side.
One day, about a half an year later, Maes came to pick up Roy from Mr Ho's, he couldn't believe his eyes.
Mustang was sitting on the doorstep with a large plastic bag on his left side and a large, long packet on his lap. And he was smiling slightly, yet sincerely.
Hughes had stared his jaw eloquently hanging open as Mustang had rose his dark eyes to him, gotten up, picked up his stuff and walked to the car almost grinning. He had opened the backbench door, shoved his stuffs there and plopped then himself next to them almost grinning.
"What's with the idiotic face Maes? Is there something on my face?" He had beamed. " Look, we went shopping with Waer (1), know what it is?" Roy shoved the packet on his hand.
After examining the packet for a while, Hughes gave it back smiling slightly at his friends newfound enthusiasm. " It's a… painting stand?" "Yes!" Roy exclaimed.
"About a month ago, Mr Ho suggested that we'd test the paint therapy. At first I was cynical about if it would work, but actually that was the best thing that he has ever suggested to me." He opened the car door, shoved his stuffs inside and plopped himself with them on the back bench "It opened a whole new world for me."
Maes looked at his friend in awe from the front seat. Mustang didn't get this excited easily (if it wasn't for the promotion or miniskirts) and hadn't been this happy for so long time that he didn't even want to remember.
A month or so after that, Roy Mustang held a party that worked as an art exhibition as well as a welcome party to the old Mustang. All his dearest friends came to his mansion like home to congratulate him.
Later that night, Mustang had requested for silence, 'cause he had something important to say. None of them had seen coming what Roy was going to tell them, everyone had waited for a lecture of why all women should wear miniskirt or how he was now going to work harder to become a Fuhrer, not this.
Roy had told them that he was going to resign from the military and find a way to interfere from behind the curtains. He said that he didn't accept what military's leader characters were doing, and wanted nothing to do with them anymore.
At the point all of his friends had started to protest at the same time, but he silenced them with so little as risen hand and a determined "Let me finish".
He had stated it was true that the best way to get to the top was to keep stumbling forward the Fuhrers post, but he also pointed out that losing the oh-so-cherished Flame alchemist would damage military's ego and the people would maybe start to lose their already fragile faith in military.
Then those people would start to seek for different leader, someone who wouldn't lead the country with just weapons, but their head. "And you mean that's where you come to the picture from behind the curtains?" Hawkeye, blonde lieutenant Hawkeye then noted.
Mustang had smirked and nodded. " Yes. Before that I'll keep lower profile, yet not too low. People have to know me when the time comes… So, few of you know I have started to paint, hmm?" Nods all around.
"Few of critics have been interested in my work, I have talked on phone with many of them and I will send them some of my newer works. Central times and many other newspapers and magazines are going to publish criticism of my art on them. They'll hopefully make me known as a painter that has gone through all the hell as I have, as someone who doesn't want that to be repeated on anyone else. Someone who doesn't approve military's ways of doing things…"
"But how can you be sure you won't be harmed, assassinate or something, by the military's leaders from getting them in the "bad side" of people? You know it wouldn't be the first time." Hughes asked, worried for his friend.
" You listened to me right? I have sent my works, not asked them to come here as normally is done. I have changed my voice in the phone everytime, and they came up with a nickname that fits. Though it's kind of revealing, no one can proof it's me." He shrugged. " And I can defend myself it depends on that. I will move away too, to some more quieter and remote area – maybe to outskirts of central. I'll keep 'living' on this house too, I'm rich enough to afford it easily" He smirked at Havoc who rolled his eyes " I'll visit here once in a while, and my trustworthy butler will keep the house in a condition that won't give my secret away. If there will be someone to ask where I'm, he can easily say I'm on a date or something. If someone will want to stay there and wait for my return, he can just call me and I'll be there soon."
"So… what's that name you go by?" Asked Breda, looking rather nervous about the big plan. It would affect to their life too. When colonel wouldn't be around, they would be placed under someone else.
" Flame artist." Roy said simply. Everyone gaped in choir.
"That is way too revealing!" "It's impossible for them to not notice the connection." " Mustang, are you insane?" " What do we have for food tomorrow?" "There is no way they'll buy that." " Actually, it has a kind of nice ring innit." Havoc noted.
Everyone turned to stare at him, their mouths hanging open. "What?" He puffed frustratedly. "I just said how I felt like sayin'. Someone gotta somethin' against that?" Yes would have been an truthful answer, but before anyone had time to say anything Mustang spoke up again.
"Not actually. You see-" Everyone glared at him (expect for Havoc who was lighting his cigarette), but he ignored them "It makes sense when you have seen my work. There is fire in every work, 'cause they are my memories of the vileness of war, of what… happened there." He swallowed and looked proudly at his friends. "Of course no details of it's grossness, but I hope the color scale and the mood of my paintings tells enough."
"It does." Maes stated, his tone leaving no doubt of his opinion.
"Maybe it is too daring, but you have to take big risks to get even little happen. And plus to this, I will be doing different kinds of other things to get the Fuhrer down from his throne." He smiled predatorily. " Will you be with me?"
"Of course." Came the automatic, yet meant answer, to his question. They were his friends, they approved his way of thinking and he was a born leader with a vision burnt in his mind so heatedly, that you could still see the flame shine from his eyes. The determination gave his comrades hope and strenght to press on when they felt like nothing that they did helped.
They believed him, they always would trust him. And his plans, how strange or with fire playing would it be, they knew he could handle it. After this they had all called it a day and left home, with a new born excitement rising it's head in their hearts.
Tomorrow had been a day that would be remembered in Amestris for a long, long time. Like a lighting from a clear sky, had the Flame alchemist, colonel Roy Mustang resigned from his post without a warning. Fuhrer suspiciously signed the resigning papers, cause he had no choice. It wouldn't have passed the public knowledge if he wouldn't have had let Flame go.
The day after that, it was on every magazines front page. Many tried to get a interview from Mustang who politely declined the pleas, saying " It is not time for that yet. Let's just say that I don't want to be in any contact with military anymore." That bore even more questions.
In the next weeks, and even months they presented thousands of different theories of why had he resigned. Some thought that Roy Mustang, the womaniser, had finally settled down with someone who didn't like the military and had forced him resign (this rose very many scuffles around the Amestris) and some that he had gotten fed up of staring straightly at the Fuhrers ugly face and finally spat on it. (" Oh, I should have done that " Roy once joked, but when Riza pointed her gun meaningfully for that he gulped and said "Or maybe not.")
From that on the things had rolled on their own weight, many people that had been on the side of military had started to doubt it's ways and the once that had already hated military –for one reason or another- were now openly loathing it. Especially the women.
Roys plan had had a better effect than he had even dared to wish.
That had been few years ago.
Now the things had quieted down a little, but his little coups through the years and many other things had grown steady roots of doubt in the hearts of people.
His art had became known to tha public and the critics had praised the works of the great "Flame artist" through the years.
Few times had Fuhrer or some other high ranking tried to catch him from making those paintings, sometimes it had been quite close too, yet none had
succeed. Mustang had always been few steps ahead of them. Once they had even raided his mansion, hoping to find something that would proof that he was the
artist that had been spitting on the military's face for so long.
Of course Roy and his gang had been waiting for this. Maes had managed attach a tapper on Fuhrers phone without him noticing (When they had asked from him how
the hell did he do it, he had just smiled slyly and said, 'profession secrets aren't meant to anyone's ears mates') and he had heard Fuhrers call to the military's strike
forces. Immediately after that he had called Mustang, who had driven from his atelier to his mansion. He had arrived just in time to open the door and look surprised as
he was pushed aside by the soldiers that began to run around his house, attempting to dig up every skeleton hidden in the many closets of the house.
They had found nothing indicating that Mustang would be taking part in some military opposing acts, and Roys smug trademark smirk had made them even angrier. Their
leader, a mousy, thin man named Rastov, had looked as if he had been hit with a burning baseball bat on the face when he found Roys old uniform; neatly folded and ironed as if ready for use.
Newspaper had of course been chiming from joy when they 'accidentally' found out and Mustang been pulled to the spotlights behind from the curtains. He had
been questioned about how he felt about being mistook as the famous other Flame, and he had answered with a secretive smile and " I don't mind being with such
a great guy as long as they don't claim that his looks are better than mine!"
Hawkeye hadn't approved.
That had been few years ago.
For few months now, Roy hadn't been able to paint anything. He didn't just feel like it.
'This sucks' Mustang noted in his thoughts 'Why could it be that anything I try to paint can never come finished? And if I manage to finish something,
the colors look dull and the composition doesn't just work!' He groaned and
massaged his temples tiredly.
He had been trying to get something ready for his second exhibition for weeks and weeks. The final deadline would be in just couple months, for he had Already
changed it for twice and couldn't afford third. He was sick of this lack of inspiration, that kept him from painting. He was sick of it to death and bored to boot.
Bored of sitting here, instead of being on the field, chasing criminals or something. Anything.
He sighed. Of course this had been for the best. Mr Ho had warned him from returning to the military too soon, told him to keep few years break or something. Ho though he was a doctor, working to military, didn't understand that taking a longer holiday would be the same as resigning. Things changed quickly through the years
and Fuhrer wouldn't have just wasted the opportunity to extinguish the Flame off his tail.
Then he'd came up with this madness of a plan. It worked, yes, but if he had just known how boring it would be...
Bored?
Mustang rose his head from his hands and stared for a moment at his unfinished painting. The fire from the candles mirrored in his eyes, giving them golden, distant glow.
That was it! He had started painting when he was mentally down. Hadn't someone said that from the pain sprouts
inspiration or something? That had been that
artist with that weird hat, yes. He had met her once, in some party a long time ago.
Nothing tragic nor happy had happened in his life for a long time. Actually his life had been even more boring than watching the same bad movie over and over
again.
He jumped out of his chair, his thoughts running around from one place to another, from some person to someone else…
Why the hell hadn't he thought that before? His boredom had became obvious to him, that it had become oblivious. Can't see the forest for the trees.
He stopped in the middle of the room.
Tomorrow would be a whole new day. He would go walk through the town, for a start, and look for inspiration. He was already fed of this dark room, that smelled like turpentine and old wood. And people, he had noticed, were a good source of inspiration, and there was none but himself in this room.
'I could as well go for a walk now too' Mustang pondered turning his gaze to the front door. ' I could probably grab a drink while I'm at it, I haven't done that for a long time neither. And maybe I would meet some nice woman…' He smirked. He hadn't even gone for a date for… what, two months?
He took his coat and stuffed his ignition gloves on it's pocket (you never knew when you needed them), grabbed his keys from the near door table, opened the door and stoop in to the cold, short corridor that lead to the stairs that would get him to the street level.
His apartment was on the attic. He loved it, 'cause there lived no one on the two next corridors below it, so no loud voices would bother him when he painted. On the first two floors there lived few families and some people that lived alone.
He walked down the stairs, sliding his hand down the plastic railing on the left side of the stairs. It was quiet, only his lonely, soft steps echoed on the bare white walls of the stairway.
Mustang reached the first floor and walked the last stairs to the door. He opened it, stepping out in to the cool night air.
He drew in the sweet scent of rain, still lingering on the streets and brushed few strands of hair off from his eyes.
Whistling, coat casually hanging from his shoulder Roy started walking.
He easily avoided all the pools of water, wind ruffling his short hair. It was autumn, a dark and rainy one. Just as Mustang loved it.
Roy felt good, it wasn't too cold nor to warm, it was a beautiful crescent moon, he was on his way to his favorite bar and probably he would find some company to at least talk to. Who knows?
If he had just known…
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So how was it? puppy eying everyone
I know I know, Mustang's plan is crazy. I can't but wonder how he ever came up with something as stupid as that! (Negais inner voice: Yeah, no wonder it's idiotic, my twisted imagination made it up.) I wish you'll live it. I'm aching to continue this, I have lots of ideas, good or not, but I love writing so I'll keep posting my trash here.
Oh and the ending was such a cliché that I'm shamed of myself. Boo hoo hoo. snort
Really, I think it will take time for me to update, school and such, but rewievers always fasten it 3 So sweeties, sing your comments with your keyboard!
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