Thank you all so much for reviewing! As promised, an early update! :D Now- onwards!
The last six weeks had been some of the hardest in Maes' life in a very, very long time.
It had all started, ironically enough, with a very good night. His daughter had had her birthday, and Elicia was still at the age where the party was really more for her family than for her, so already the night had been set for him to gush over and put on a princess pedestal the most precious little girl in the entire world, thank you very much. The night had only gotten that much better when Roy had knocked on his door midway through, materializing all the way out from East City for a surprise visit bearing wine, and his version of a smiling face.
...Okay, so, his best friend for some reason had thought wine was the right thing to bring to a two year old's birthday party, but Roy had never really got the whole gift-giving thing down, and the better present had been his surprise presence, anyway.
Roy had come to the capital a night early for him, an afternoon meeting already scheduled with the Fuhrer for the next day. As was somewhat typical for whenever Roy was in town on business, he'd ended up in Maes' office to kill time, skulking about like a gloomy storm cloud and grumping up the place, to Maes' vast amusement. Meanwhile, Ed and Al had been in town for more research and had crossed paths with the wandering colonel, and- after the inevitable shouting match- had somehow ended up all relaxing in his office, Maes fighting to maintain the peace while Ed and Roy had been busy doing everything they could to usurp him.
And then, out of nowhere, a pair of MPs had marched in, and asked Roy to come with them.
Well, asked had been a pretty loose word. Maes had been there, and to him, it had seemed an awful lot like an order.
In fact, he was pretty damn sure Roy had been under arrest- all that had been missing was the handcuffs.
Roy, he remembered, had realized something was off, too. He'd paled at the mere sight of the MPs and took just a second too long to comply with their orders, sitting stock still and chalk white in his seat like he'd known something was about to happen but couldn't stop it. But, without a single word of protest- indeed, he'd tossed a smirk at Maes and another short joke at Ed- he'd at last gotten to his feet and complied with the command, following the military police out of Maes' office, straight-backed and sure.
That had ended up being the last time Maes had seen him until that terrible day underneath HQ, weeks after.
Roy, it seemed, had just dropped off the face of the earth. Maes had checked, checked, and checked again, once his best friend had just never come back- there was no record of Colonel Mustang leaving the building, there was no record of him ever having been put under arrest, and not a single one of his contacts had seen him in the prison or the holding cells in HQ. His best friend's file had nothing. When he'd inquired about the MPs, he hadn't been able to find any trace or history of their orders concerning Roy, and Hawkeye had been just as stunned as he had been, to hear about how they'd basically arrested Roy- she hadn't been able to think of anything they could've gone after him for.
Much worse, though, was that the Fuhrer had never come asking to find out why Colonel Mustang had shown for his meeting.
Whatever had happened to Roy had been endorsed by the military itself. So high up there wasn't even a paper trail for him to follow, but Bradley himself had known exactly what had happened to him.
Had perhaps even ordered it himself.
And, worst of all, all Maes had had were two clues to go off of:
Scieska, by pure coincidence, had passed by Roy on her way back to his office. She'd confirmed to him that the MPs had been leading Roy down to the basement of the building- or, not to Fuhrer Bradley's office, as they'd first claimed.
Military police had their division identified by their uniform. It had taken Maes a few hours to track down the emblem from their shoulders, as rarely used as it was, but once he'd finally found it, a leaden weight had sunk down into his stomach, and continued to sit there ever since:
The emblem of the research labs.
The MPs that had taken Roy had been sent by the research labs.
Maes had hunted as hard as he could from there on through weeks straight for any hint of his best friend, no matter how small. And Ed had helped, too, the little alchemist and his brother lending their talents more and more with each passing day as it had become more apparent that something was seriously wrong. But they just hadn't found anything. It was as if Roy had been wiped from the face of the earth, and every single attempt of his to open an official investigation had been stymied by his superior, who would say nothing but that orders from the higher ups were that Colonel Mustang's situation had already been taken care of.
The thought of just what taken care of could mean sent shivers down his spine.
The days had passed like that, in steadily increasing horror; by its end, Hawkeye had been all but ready to desert and come down to Central herself, Mustang's men with her, while Maes had been about to risk his very career- possibly his life- to break into the research labs himself. His career didn't matter if Roy wasn't there for him to support, damn it; he would give up a hell of a lot more than the stars on his shoulders to save him-
And then, Roy had answered the question for him by starting to break out himself, and all Maes had had to do was help him along.
The official word so far was an alchemy accident. That was what the papers had said, anyway, when story about an emergency evacuation and lockdown at military HQ had hit the press. Or, at least, that was what Bradley had told them to print, and the editors knew if they wanted to keep their jobs, they'd print what the Fuhrer reported as the word of god. Unofficial word had been hard to come by, especially with Maes trying to stay as under the radar as he could, carefully and calculated disinterested, asking questions that only could've come from just one of the many curious soldiers who'd heard the alarms, and wanted to know why.
Unofficial word that had taken him weeks to glean had been even more troubling.
An escaped chimera that, according to Maes' contacts, had been put down like a rabid dog before he could even get a single breath of fresh air.
This was particularly odd and disconcerting, considering Maes had watched said chimera stagger outside with his own two eyes, and the day after that, had gotten word that Ed and Al had left on the early morning train out east, right on schedule.
Someone wanted Roy gone. Not re-captured, not in the news as an escapee and a traitor, but gone. Either dead, or so thoroughly vanished from the public eye that he might as well have been.
Which, granted, was a better turn of events than Maes had expected, but still was not all that reassuring.
Maes hadn't been all that sure of what was really going on, in the aftermath of it. He'd known he was being watched, and had kept his head down because of it. Done his work dutifully, come home to Gracia and Elicia, and once he'd sensed his investigations were starting to attract attention had shut up and stayed out of it. He'd been desperate and scared, each day more unbearable than the last, but he couldn't help Roy if he was arrested himself, and he's also had his own family to think about.
Turning dutiful and silent, gritting his teeth to bear it, and wordlessly swearing to Roy he'd be there for him the second he could, was just all he could do.
He'd fully been expecting for someone to pull him aside at some point anyway, because while he tended to not be taken seriously, it wasn't exactly a state secret that he and Roy were friends- meanwhile, whatever had happened to Roy was.
But the questions had never come, and instead, all Maes had had to do was bide his time, and wait for a mission out east to come up.
From there, he had promised his family he'd come back soon, packed a bag, and headed straight after Ed and Al.
And now, here he was.
Sitting in a hotel room in Kiel, and learning that evidently, he was meant to just go back home.
"You're... quite sure that's what he said?" he asked, elbows settling on his knees as his hands wrung together, curling so tightly it made them ache. "You're positive, Ed?"
"You'd better believe it." With a sulky, almost aggressive huff, the alchemist flopped onto his stomach, scowling so darkly at it that if looks could kill, Maes imagined the wall would've crumbled right then and there. "I've been over there every day since we got here. Same answer each time."
Something clenched in Maes' stomach, and then, his spirits and hopes fell just a little further.
Same answer.
So- no.
Ed had gone back to Marcoh's home, asking to see Roy. And Marcoh had told him no.
Or, Roy had said no. He'd just said it through Marcoh.
Maes pinched his forehead, trying to chase away the headache he could already feel building. "You're sure," he repeated again, this time somewhat to himself, then shook his head. No, this was really not how today was supposed to have gone. At all. "And that's all Marcoh's told you? Just that Roy doesn't want to see you?"
Ed gave another grumpy nod, head still pillowed against his hands and feet in the air, looking for all the world to be just a petulant teenager. Maes would've been fooled, if he didn't happen to know that so-called petulant teenager had risked everything to save his best friend's life. "That's all he ever fucking says. That Mustang's going to be okay, and that he doesn't want to see us." He kicked for a moment, twisting in a veritable sulk, then suddenly was shoving onto his side instead, glowering to Maes instead of the wall. "It's been weeks, now- fucking weeks! Why is it still just he's going to be okay; shouldn't he be all right by now? Or at least as all right enough for Marcoh to stop talking like he's sick! And why the hell won't he let us see him?!"
A tired vein pulsed in Maes' forehead again. It took a forced, deep breath for him to grit back his irritation at all, and if it hadn't been for Ed rolling about like he was about to lose it over there, he would've just let him flop back onto his own bed to scream.
Quite honestly?
He agreed with Ed.
Maes may not have understood all that much of what was happening, here, but the knowledge that not only had Ed not seen Roy for weeks, now, but that he was apparently still unwell enough to need a room in Marcoh's basement was distressing to say the least. The fact that all Marcoh would tell Ed was he doesn't want to see you was even more so.
With another heavy sigh, Maes pushed his glasses up more securely then just gripped at them leaning to bury his face in his hands. There had to be something here that he wasn't seeing. Just something that would make it all make sense, something...
Roy, damn it, what did they do to you?
Ed remained flopped exhaustedly on his stomach across from him, scowling and petulant and so obviously tired Maes didn't doubt he was stretching at the frailest seams of his patience. He looked like he'd been in a slow, prolonged falling-apart for weeks, and now, caged up in this little town with a stubbornly unhelpful Marcoh and avoidant Roy, was about to start scratching at the walls to tear them down.
Maes could sympathize.
For now, it was just the two of them. From what Maes understood, Ed's old teacher had been here in the beginning, and so had Al, for as long as they could manage it. But while the Elric brothers had exponentially more freedom than officers like him or Hawkeye, the fact of the matter was, they also had things they had to do if they wanted to avoid suspicion, and that included carrying out their missions. Even so, they hadn't wanted to leave Roy all alone, here- seriously, had Maes mentioned how wonderful these two were, yet? So, just a few days prior to Maes' arrival, Al had set out to take care of Ed's mission, and be back at his side as fast as he could.
Ed obviously wasn't happy about it. Maes couldn't see Al to compare, but he doubted the younger alchemist was any more satisfied with the turn of events than him.
But they couldn't get anyone looking into just why Ed and Al had high-tailed it out of Central on a mission just a day after their superior officer had gone missing, and yet no mission had been done.
Which left the matter pretty much as hopeless and despairing as it could get.
No Al, Ed one wrong word away from punching someone, and Roy just...
Gone.
Helpless anguish clenched around Maes' heart, and with one exhausted, groaning sigh, he sank back onto his back to stare in utter hopelessness towards the ceiling.
This wasn't how today was supposed to have gone.
He'd prepared himself for the worst; for so many worsts, because this had been bad from start to end and he'd known it was dangerous only to let himself hope and not be ready to be let down. He'd known there was a very good chance that the message left for him in Dublith, three weeks old and tenuous at best, would prove to be out of date when he got to Kiel and found that the boys had already moved on, and Roy with them. He'd known there was the even smaller chance that it was a trap, and he'd get to Kiel to find the military waiting for him, either with Roy and the Elrics back in their hands or hoping he'd lead them to them.
Part of him had known, and an even smaller part had actually been able to acknowledge it, that he'd get to Kiel, and find Ed and Al waiting for him- but not Roy.
Part of him had been terrified he'd get here too late, and find his best friend dead.
However, none of him had expected to get here, find all three of them alive and at least fairly well... and still be told that he wasn't allowed to see Roy.
Wasn't allowed?!
Weeks' worth of fear culminated into a crushing weight on his chest, forcing the breath and nearly the life out of him as his heart shuddered, sick nerves cresting almost to a breaking point. What was going on? This whole time, nothing had made sense, and just when he'd thought he was finally about to get some answers, this? Roy was his best friend; however Marcoh knew him the doctor had vanished years ago and was an old acquaintance at best. He had no right to stand in between the two of them, because it had to be that, it had to be Marcoh refusing them access and not Roy speaking through him. Because one Maes could handle, tear his way through so he could fix things, make this all better, but the other was-
Was so much worse.
Maes swallowed hard again, overwhelmed and hollow, inside, and hugged himself through another violent shudder.
God, he just wanted to just be able to talk to Roy so badly...
"...meanwhile, we're fucking stuck here- can't do anything," Ed was grumbling on, settled on his side, now, as he ranted on with a flushed face and unfocused eyes blazing on. "We tried doing research but there's not even an alchemy library here, never mind anything about chimeras. And whatever Marcoh knows, he won't fucking say."
Maes sighed heavily, leaning his head back against the wall. Yeah, that sounded like those State Alchemists, all right. Guarded their secrets closer to their chests than anything else in the world... even when it might've done a world of good to divulge them.
Well, at this point, he had half a mind to head off over to find Roy himself right now and make both his voice and Ed's known, whether his friend wanted it or not.
"...Lieutenant Colonel?"
Maes sighed to himself, trying to wrench himself back under control, at least for Ed's sake if not his own. "Yes?"
"This- this Marcoh, guy. He..." Ed hesitated at last, his rambling, emotionally charged speech at last dwindling into fear-tinged upset. His fierce eyes were still turned away, but now he sat there arms wrapped around himself, chewing on his lower lip, but instead of teetering on the edge of punching something indecision and doubt had clouded over to temper blind rage into sincere, sick worry. "We're really, really sure Marcoh actually is on Mustang's side, right?"
"...what do you mean?"
"Well, I've... been thinking about it, actually." Distress clouding across his face once again, the kid seeming to not want to actually think about the words that he was saying but the fear eating away at his tired eyes said otherwise.. "Me and Al haven't actually seen Mustang since we got here. We've only got his word that Mustang's okay. And I know the colonel trusted him, but-." He stopped again, working his jaw as he struggled to find the right words. "But..."
"But you don't trust him," Maes filled in heavily.
Ed shook his head once, gaze still averted to glare sullenly at the adjacent wall, coiled and tense like all the restless energy that had built up since this crisis began was building again towards a breaking point. "Well, yeah. He's not done anything but hide Mustang from us so far. And Al's said I should trust him to help Mustang, but what if he's not?! I'm supposed to just sit here twiddling my thumbs until it's too late?!"
To that, Maes bit his tongue and did not respond. It was part of being a soldier, he wanted to say, but what relevance did that even have? Ed may've sold his skills to the Amestrian military to the time being, but he was no more a real soldier than Maes' secretary, and- Roy wasn't one anymore, either. It ached to acknowledge that, was still so impossible and wrong he couldn't stand to believe it, but it was now true. Roy would never wear a military uniform again.
Just because Maes could remember biting his tongue to sit and wait in restless, ever building tension in Ishval, helpless but to wait for an order to come down that would end it, didn't mean that mattered here.
"Hey, are you listening to me?!" Ed pushed closer like the wild hellcat he was, hot anger split through the fear in an instant. "I'm serious, Hughes! What if we're just wasting time right now? How are you so calm; I thought Mustang was your friend!"
Maes tensed again, a sharp, piercing wave of anger stabbing straight through his throat. "I'm calm because I'm thinking, Ed," he admonished, but the wound hewn straight through him by the accusation alone made his mouth taste like lead and his blood oil. The only reason at all he was able to keep his words steady was because he knew Ed felt just as bad as he did, but just because he wasn't loud and proud about it like Ed hardly meant he was fucking calm. But there wasn't enough here to support the both of them losing it, so with Ed already knee deep in paranoia and worry and rants and Roy- Roy doing whatever the hell he was doing- Maes knew he was just going to have to be the one to keep his head on.
Also, because yelling at Ed to shut up, you unrepentant brat, I've known Roy nearly longer than you've been alive, wouldn't help anything at all. It could get him a startled or somewhat wounded, apologetic Ed, maybe, but nothing helpful.
The alchemist tossed himself back against the pillow with another aggressive huff when he got no further answer than that, so hard it nearly thumped the fluff straight out of the cheap hotel bedding. "You know, I don't even get why you or Mustang are so eager to trust this guy in the first place. Didn't you say he was a State Alchemist, like us? You know- in the military? How do we know he's not still-"
"Ex-military, Ed," he corrected, sighing. "He was a State Alchemist, a long time ago, but he left long before you even joined. He deserted years ago. Calling the military in on us would just get himself arrested."
Surprise flickered across Ed's face, just a little flicker of something else still mired in all that hostility. "So that's why he uses an alias here..."
Maes raised an eyebrow. "Does he? Well, yes, no wonder. To be honest with you, Ed, I didn't even know he was here myself. Roy asked for me to keep an eye out for any reports on this place years ago... that I should divert any reports that came through about AWOL soldiers in Kiel. I know Roy knew Marcoh, during the war, I think, but I never did."
"...he was in the war?"
Once again, Maes sighed. He caught a glimpse of new unease in Ed's eyes, the way he always seemed to be uneasy, being reminded of the civil war. But this was dwarfed, now, by how unsettled the both of them were here in this messy, troubling turn of events, and if Ed had been able to handle Roy and getting him here when he'd evidently been a prickly, suffering chimera, he could handle hearing a little bit about their country's dark history. "Yeah," Maes muttered, meeting his eyes. "Almost all State Alchemists were. People with specialities like Roy in combat roles, but Marcoh was there as a researcher... or at least he was, until he deserted in the middle of the war. People were talking about that for days." Maes sighed again, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Another glance at Ed and he couldn't help but lower his voice, as if it were just a secret, just between the two of them. "It's not really public knowledge, what it was he was doing there, but the rumor's always been that it was something to do with chimeras."
There was a harsh, unsettled silence. Ed stared at him with newly huge eyes, frozen on his bed with a new and shocked understanding, and Maes found the only thing he could do was just give a grim nod of assurance that he was right.
There was a reason that Roy had sought out Marcoh, and Maes was pretty sure that Ed now knew why.
When the uneasy quiet just stretched on between them, Ed at last drew his knees up to his chest, resting his head on them and turning his gaze back down with a nearly oppressive sense of discomfort. The hostile outer shell was gone, now, extinguished away by the hungry fear underneath that made him look so much more like the child he was, and for a moment, all of Maes' own anger washed sickeningly away and he wanted nothing more than to pull him into a hug.
"He'd never talk to us," Ed croaked, guilt and hurt in his eyes. "Not the whole way here. We only wanted to help him, no matter what, and I wanted to but I could never actually get myself to ask him what- what kind of chimera... what animals they... mixed him with." He shuddered hard, lip pulling back into an expression of sheer revulsion. "Whatever it was, it's not like Nina. His head's all there and he actually seemed okay. Or... as okay as possible, I guess. He was trying to hide it but I still managed to see some things, and-..."
"And what, Ed?" Maes pressed. His heart squirmed anxiously again, everything but his own sick fear squeezed out of his chest until it hurt too much to bear. He knew Roy was a chimera, now, that he was half human and half something else, but- god, what was he? What had the military turned him into?! It'd been haunting him for weeks, now, and for the horrible truth to at last come up but like this...
Seeing Ed look that unsettled, was terrifying.
"...and I think they mixed him with a dragon, Hughes."
...Huh.
All right, then.
A dragon.
That, he had not been expecting.
"A- a dragon," he repeated, stunned.
Ed nodded back. "Yep."
...
"All right..." Maes started guardedly, when it became apparent that the alchemist was not going to simply explain the near impossibility of it all without some prompting. Ed thought Roy was half dragon. "I'm not exactly an expert, so tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought for that you'd have to have- you know, a dragon."
Ed gave a second short, grim nod, this one in time with another toss of his hair back over his shoulder. "You should. I think. I'm not really an expert either, it might be possible without, someday, at least, but... I think so."
So...
A vein throbbed in Maes' forehead, and it took about all his self-control not to smack his hand to his forehead.
"Ed," he sighed at last, patience sizzling near vanishingly small, "no one's seen a dragon in decades. The last hunt was- god, when I was a kid. Some people think they're extinct entirely."
This time the kid just scoffed at him, short and abrasive and mocking. "Firstly, Hughes, the only people who think they're extinct are some stuffy scholar who's never done any field work- but. Well, um, yeah. I know that. Not seen in decades. I know."
"Then how-"
"I don't have an explanation as to how, but all I know is that he was breathing fire, Hughes. No array or gloves or anything in sight- just breathing fire right out of his face. So," he said again. "Either you show me another animal that can do that, or somehow, the military made him part dragon."
Maes stared at Ed again, all pretenses thrown aside to evaporate and leave him stricken with disbelief. He blinked several times to the confident alchemist across from him, utterly baffled, and for several moments couldn't speak at all.
Roy was... part dragon.
Um.
...wow.
His best friend was a dragon?
But-
But that wasn't possible. It couldn't be. He couldn't picture it at all in his head; every time he tried to connect Ed's words to the image of Roy in his head it was as if something shorted out, the picture going dark and his mind just blank because there was nothing that he could see. He laughed weakly, first little more than a chuckle but then it went on and suddenly he couldn't stop, a half-hysteria building and tightening in his throat. It wasn't even possible, because the dragons were all but gone, whereas Roy was right here, not gone. Roy was not a dragon! It was impossible, ludicrous, there was no way, it didn't...
Maes frowned.
It didn't make sense.
Roy was already a walking human flamethrower. Just as destructive as any one dragon could be, with his exact command over fire and oxygen and all that that entailed, unquestionably powerful and probably the single most effective soldier the military had. Roy was good.
So, what was the point of putting that single most effective soldier in jeopardy through a uniquely dangerous transmutation, just to... what?
Keep him a flamethrower?
And even if Ed was right, why Roy? Because whether Ed was right or not, Maes was still right as well. If the military had merged him with an unspeakably rare dragon, why waste such a precious resource on the one soldier that it'd be...
Well...
A waste on?
Maes pursed his lips, his skin crawilng like an itch that he couldn't scratch. There was too much about this that didn't make sense, and too much that he was worried about to stand, and too much that just scared him, about all of this. None of this was okay, and because this was about Roy, that meant Roy was not okay. His best friend was not okay, and needed help.
And Maes was never going to sit idly by when Roy needed help, and do nothing- whether Roy wanted him to or not.
"Ed?"
Ed lifted his head back up to look at him, eyes overbright on top of that glimmer of fear. He looked small, again, too small and too young for the fierce soldier he was trying so hard to be, and instead of the prickly alchemist mad from weeks of being kept in the dark, instead, Maes saw the child who'd dragged Roy halfway across the country to save his life, and now, no one would even tell him if he was okay.
Pride and gratitude welled in equal parts about his heart, and Maes had to swallow back the lump in his throat to give Ed his strongest smile, instead.
"Let's go try another visit with Roy."
The walk over to Marcoh's was short; the swaying Ed part of the venture was even shorter than that. It was clear the alchemist had been going stir crazy, these past few weeks, and when given the chance to finally act, he'd pounced on it like a moth to a flame. In fact, Maes was almost struggling to keep up with Ed. Despite the kid being little more than a third his size, he was moving so eagerly through the town he outpaced him without even trying.
Maes would've been amused, if he wasn't so infected with toxic worry and fear it made him sick to his stomach.
He'd known all the way back in that dark, bloody lab that it would be the right decision to trust Ed with this, and he was so, so relieved to be proven right. He hadn't wanted to, still, because Roy was his superior but Maes' best friend and he hadn't wanted to just hand him off like an object to anyone else- but if he'd really, really had to, he was just glad it was Ed.
No matter how they bickered like cats and dogs, no matter the fact that Ed would surely never say it, he was loyal to Roy, and Maes knew that meant more to his friend than words could say.
"Gotta say, I'm surprised you're doing this," Ed commented once, just as he was leading the way around a corner to take them to another close to deserted street. By the twitchy way he was searching about, Maes had to guess he and Al had planned this route weeks ago as one that attracted as little attention as possible. "Don't get me wrong, relieved, too- but surprised. I thought you'd side with Al and tell me we should just be more patient."
Maes smiled a little, saying nothing. The look on Ed's face alone was all he had to see to know exactly what the kid thought about being patient, here, and nearly laughed aloud. It was just so very Ed- and Al, too- and right now, Maes just really felt he could use something familiar. "Let me tell you a little secret about Roy Mustang, Ed," he said, settling a hand down on his shoulder. "He's even more stubborn than you."
Ed rolled his eyes, even as his mouth twitched through a restrained smile; Maes squeezed his shoulder again, willing him to keep listening. "He is. I once watched him try and do a handstand on his desk, just because Hawkeye said she didn't believe he could do it."
"He did not."
"-nearly broke his back- anyway, Ed, as nice as being patient might sound, sometimes, being patient just means people like Roy get stuck in a rut and don't have any reason to break out of it. You've been patient with him- hell, you saved his life, Ed." Warm, liquifying relief spread through his chest again, and Maes smiled down at the kid fondly, simply too grateful for words to say. "It's been long enough by now that if he was going to give on his own, he would have. He doesn't need patience, anymore, he needs to know he can trust us." He paused again, reaching down to squeeze the alchemist's shoulder with as much reassurance as he could muster. "Trust me, Ed... you got him this far. Let me get him the rest of the way."
The words, as heartfelt as he could make them, weighed heavily in the quiet between them. But no matter how hard he'd tried, it was clear the alchemist could not be swayed by words alone. Ed was well aware of both the gravity of the situation and Maes' own ditstress, thick and just underneath his words, and no matter how strong he was trying to play it- Maes could see in his eyes that he was every bit as worried as he was.
But he could also see that something about his attempt at confidence had still gotten through to him.
Ed nodded slightly once, setting his , without a single word, he focused back, and kept on leading the way.
It was only when Ed had turned his focus away that Maes allowed his reassuring smile to fade, his insides twisting, and a sense of unease that crawled up the back of his neck like a cold snake.
He'd been worried for weeks already. Getting here at last to find Ed, this anxious ball of upset nerves, and Roy, just... hiding...
Something about it felt extraordinarily wrong, so inherently so he felt down to the very pit of his stomach, and the feeling got ever worse with every step that he took.
At last, Ed got them to Marcoh's house. Sufficiently far from both the train station and the hotel, and utterly nondescript in every way; just one of many houses on the street, blending in right in plain sight. For someone hiding from the military, it was assuredly a good choice, at least. Maes never would've guessed a State Alchemist on the run had hidden himself in there. Or that another State Alchemist and possible chimera, also on the run, was being cared for in his basement.
Somehow, just the sight of it filled him with another sense of trepidation as Ed headed up the stairs to the front door, and with little more than a clap of his hands had finagled his way past the lock, and lead the way inside.
Maes winced.
The room was dark and musty, stale, somehow, as if Ed, Al, and Roy had been the first visitors here in a decade. Shadows and probably cobwebs clung to the corners, dust eating away at the very air, and so suffocatingly lonely it took a great deal of willpower not to step back. The entire house gave off painfully unlived in aura, like whatever it was Marcoh had been doing since the war, it hadn't involved actually starting a life, here, or finding friends or a purpose- hadn't been anything more than just existing.
It reminded him, painfully so, of Roy's existence after the war. That was exactly what it had been- the mechanical going through the motions as a soulless puppet. The way his first apartment in the city had been just like this, dusty and dark and empty, housing little more than a cot and a fridge for weeks that had become months, and Maes had started to be afraid that all his friend was doing was just sitting in some dusty corner to waste away.
It had taken years for Roy to haul himself into being something even approaching a functioning human being.
By the looks of it, Marcoh had never really made it at all.
"Come on," Ed murmured, voice carefully hushed into the stifling quiet. He pointed towards the stairs, all but tip toeing his way there over wood old enough that seemed to be begging to creak and give the away at any point. "The bastard's down there. Marcoh's probably with him, too."
The bastard... Roy.
So there he was, then.
He'd spent weeks searching, hiding, hunting, and now here he was, just down there. Every last thing that the military had done to him would be on display and there'd be no pretending it wasn't real anymore. He was going to see every inhuman thing there was about him and he wouldn't be able to take it back. Roy was- was-
Oh, just shut up, Maes!
And that was how, with Ed leading the way, they at last stepped into the basement.
Which was all it took to scramble everything into chaos.
There were two figures across the equally dark, stale room, one sitting upright in a bed, the other looming over him, obstinately a doctor seeing to a patient in a basement that was even more obstinately a homemade hospital room, shrouded in dim light. Regrettably, Maes didn't have the time to glimpse simply anything more than that, because the instant that Ed had pushed the door open, the scene was shattered straight through.
Roy, because the 'patient' could only be Roy, scrambled backwards, kicking first at sheets to press himself back against the wall before abruptly throwing himself away entirely. Silent and shivering, he hit the floor in a sloppy stagger, little more than a dark shadow as he whirled away to hide his face and cower in what could only be stricken, heart-stopping terror. He huddled away, limping back towards the wall as fast as he could, and the sight alone made Maes' heart stop. He moaned, desperate, horrified, but Maes could do nothing more than reach out to help him before Marcoh was there to stop him.
The doctor moved fast as Roy, but while Roy had flinched back to hide, Marcoh was thereto stand in their way. He slid right in place with his arms thrown out to plant himself firmly in between them and Roy, and in the flickering firelight of the basement his face had transformed so harsh and dangerous, Maes knew that he would shoot them, if he had to.
"Edward!" Marcoh shouted, unforgiving and even more unyielding. "What are- you? What are you doing here?!"
"Long time, no see, Doctor," Maes murmured testily. He barely found enough scraps of patience to direct an ounce of attention towards him, gaze still magnetized right over his shoulder to the horrific, unbelievable sight of his best friend, still cowering against the wall.
It was dark and Roy was all but trying to melt into the wall, certainly not trying to make himself part of the conversation in any way, but the instant Maes spoke he saw his friend stiffen as if he'd just been struck. He lifted his head, still turned away, then dropped it again with a violent, almost agonized moan. "Maes?" he gasped. "Maes?! You- no... what are you doing here, Maes..."
Maes' eyes narrowed. What?! A sharp, deep hurt prickled around his heart and he stepped forwards again, sick anger caught into a crumbling betrayal. "What am I doing here?! Of course I'm here, you idiot! You're really surprised I came, Roy? Or did you forget that we're friends?!"
But Roy only shook his head, still pressed away and shaking, now; either because he wasn't meant to be on his feet or the emotional turmoil of the situation, Maes could not tell. He wished neither were true; wished none of this was true at all. But idle, hopeless wishes would not be granted, and instead Maes simply steeled himself to step closer again. He desperately wanted to reach him, to help him sit down, get it through his stupidly thick skull that whatever it was he was so scared of, to just stop-
But this time, once again, it was Marcoh who stopped him.
"Captain Hughes," he warned. Arms still held out, the doctor only pinned him in place with his hard gaze alone, but his eyes were so dark and cold that the force of it was enough to drive him silent. "Like I've told Edward, Roy is unwell and does not want to see you. Go-"
"Back upstairs, and let you proceed to not give us any answers?" Maes shot back, glowering. "Ed already told me. Sorry, but I'm not very interested in sitting around helpless when someone I care about is hurt." He stopped for a heartbeat, glancing back at his friend's turned back in the hopes those words had drawn something out of him- but still, nothing. "And it's Lieutenant Colonel now, Marcoh."
But the doctor did not waver. He didn't even come close, still positioned right in between him and Ed and Roy, a harmless doctor in the middle of a brutal, deadly alchemist, a potentially inhuman, dangerous chimera, and Maes might've been comparatively normal but he knew he could disarm and pin the man in a matter of seconds. But it did not seem to matter to him, because Marcoh still held in place and Roy with him, trembling across the dim room with a bowed head, and pressed to the wall like it was the only safety in the world.
Maes tensed again, and his heart clenched at the sight, so violently it hurt.
Roy wouldn't even look at them.
Roy... PLEASE...
Marcoh sighed, long and heavy. His eyes still flashed, and his arms stayed up, but there was just the faintest flicker of sympathy on his worn face, and when he spoke again, Maes could hear it there, too. Just that one wavering flicker, hovering underneath the words. "If you hadn't noticed, the only reason I want you to leave is because Roy wants you to leave. He's hurt, and needs to rest. You're hurting him by doing this, not helping him, unless you want to make it worse you have got to leave." He stepped closer again and forced Maes back with it, even if Ed stayed glued in place, staring past his arm towards where the colonel was still trembling and hiding his face like his life depended on it. "You can't force him to see you!"
The words made his stomach tighten like he'd just been struck. Force him? This wasn't about forcing anyone, this was about helping him, for god's sake! They shouldn't have to force him at all- after all they'd already done for Roy, surely they'd proven themselves to him by now? How could Roy possibly doubt them now after Maes had found him cowering in a pool of blood that wasn't his own in that godforsaken lab but had still come for him, now, still wanted to be there for him no matter what the military had done? How could Roy possible doubt either of them now?!
The lump in his throat ached, drawn and dry and hurt, and Maes couldn't help but moan again, hand still reached out and to no avail. "Roy," he begged again, straight past Marcoh to the shadow of his best friend, "Roy, listen to us, please," but the colonel said and did nothing.
No matter how badly he wanted for Marcoh to just disappear and to be able to just get to Roy- touch him, talk to him, fix this the only way he knew how-
For the first time, Maes had to at last confront that maybe there was no fixing this.
Roy wouldn't so much as face them. Roy was so unsettled- genuinely frightened- by them being here that he'd thrown himself back and was trembling and all but cowering against the back wall when it was painfully evident he was sick and needed to be back in bed.
Roy wasn't human.
His legs felt weak underneath him, and for a moment, Maes was so sickly helpless he actually did want to retreat back from the insufferably heavy, unbearable reality he had walked into down here, and leave Roy back shivering by himself.
And then, for the first time, Ed stepped forwards.
"Hey! Bastard, listen to me! You listening?!"
Roy flinched again, and badly at that. He pressed further away, one hand grappling unsteadily at the wall for support- a hand, that Maes realized with a sharp jolt, even underneath the overlong sleeves of his shirt, was misshapen.
His stomach dropped.
But Ed did not care what his hands looked like. Ed had seen worse, both from the world and probably from Mustang himself, and Ed stalked forward again without so much as a flinch. Marcoh tried to stop him but the kid shoved his arm down in a spastic jerk that could've sent the old doctor to the floor if it had been any harder, eyes bright and flashing in the dark and the low light gleaming off his automail in the keen edge of violence. "You can't hide down here forever, Mustang! What, you think we're going to give up eventually, just go away if you wait us out? That this'll all just magically go away?!"
Even from across the room, Maes could see Roy's shoulders trembling again, and worse than before. His heart lurched,, and he nearly pulled Ed back with that alone, because yelling usually didn't work, not with Roy; Roy would just shut down-
But Ed was not stopping.
"Hey, I'm talking to you! And so is Hughes- he came all the way fuck out here and probably risked a lot; he's your friend, you asshole! You can try and ignore me and Al, but you can't just ignore him, too!"
Roy stiffened again, a slight, new set of his shoulders. His head jerked back and forth once, and at that Marcoh actually did pull forwards again, reaching for Ed.
This time, Maes was the one to stop him.
He wasn't sure what he was really thinking, when he grabbed Marcoh by the arm the very instant he reached for Ed and yanked him backwards to keep him silent and out of the way. He wanted to help Roy, Roy who was now flinched back into the corner and trembling while Ed shouted at him- Roy who it was becoming increasingly obvious was too hurt and scared and violated to handle this now.
Roy who Maes had badly misjudged as ready for this, when he so clearly was not.
But the fact of the matter was, Ed was at least trying.
Either Ed would get through to him, or he wouldn't, but one thing that Maes knew for dead certainty wouldn't help was letting Marcoh stop him in his tracks.
Ed tried again, when Roy still did not respond, advancing forwards another precarious step. He was at the bed now, and soon would be close enough to touch him. "Do I need to just come out and say it, now? All right, bastard, I'll say it- you're a chimera. Okay? We know! We know you're a chimera now, bastard!"
Roy's head jerked again, another almost pathetic attempt at a denial as he curled even worse against the wall. "You don't know anything," he rasped.
"Don't know anything?! Don't know anything?!"
"F-Full- Fullm-"
"You think I don't know what a chimera is, Mustang? That I've never seen one before? That we don't get it's still you in there no matter what you fucking look like?!" Ed threw his hands up in the air and this time when Roy flinched, it was the violent cower of one afraid of being struck "You think any of us could really give a shit what you look like, Mustang?! That that could matter to either of us?! You're a chimera- yeah! We got it! But you're still the same bastard you always were in there; why would anything beyond that even matter?! It obviously doesn't to us, or why would we even be here to help you at all?!"
Roy, this time, did not move at all. Still hunched and head bowed, pressed safely back against the wall, only his back visible. Maes, like him, hardly dared to even breathe.
Come on, Roy... please, just listen to him...
"Fuck you, look at us, Mustang!" With an angry snarl, Ed suddenly grabbed at his collar and buttons, ripping at buttons to shove off his shoulder and reveal his metal arm all the way up to the grotesque, severe ring of scars hewn right around where his arm had once been torn straight off. Discolored and ugly and malformed against his skin, and now, revealed to everyone in the room except for Roy himself, because Roy still was not looking. "I'm half metal! I stuck my brother in a fucking tin can! You know that! How could you think that we could ever give a shit what you looked like?! You're still human in your head, that's what counts, you-"
"NO, I'M NOT!"
Ed froze.
For the very, very first time, the young alchemist froze in place, not five paces away from Roy- and Roy, still crouched there against the wall, face hidden and bowed, tensed through a roar so guttural and wrong-
It was not human.
It was the same roar that Maes remembered from back in the lab. The roar when Roy had howled at them both that he couldn't see.
It was the same roar that had been haunting his nightmares for weeks now, but only now, after talking with Ed, did Maes hear it for what it actually was.
It was a dragon's roar.
His heart dropped like a stone, and his arms, previously occupied with pinning Marcoh, fell limply straight after it.
He's... he's actually... a dragon.
He actually is.
...oh my god...
Roy...
"You... y-you are," Ed rasped into the silence. He sounded shellshocked, just as stricken by the sound as Maes, but still he stood there, candlelight gleaming off his cold metal arm in a display that there was no way even Roy could ignore. "You're no less human than Al is. Just because you may look different-"
"Edward."
Another chilling silence fell.
Roy, with a deep, steadying breath, drew himself back up to his full height. Back still turned to them all but now, shoulders straight, arms loose by his sides, and head finally up instead of hunched downwards to cower like a frightened child. He breathed deeply again, so heavy that Maes could see it from still across the dark, claustrophobic room.
And then, he turned around.
"Do you think I'm human, Fullmetal?" he asked, voice flat and cold like winter. Finger by finger, button by button, he lifted a hand up towards his collar, undoing his shirt just like Ed had undone his own to face them all with the undeniable truth. "Can you really look at me, through all of this, and say that I'm human?"
Everything lurched to a horrifying halt.
Cold, pale eyes flickered at them from across the room, a light and sickly blue that was not at all the warm black Maes remembered so well. It was too dark and Roy was too far away for him to be sure, but staring at him there those blue eyes almost looked to be the wrong shape, too- too narrow, somehow... almost... reptilian. They looked weirdly out of place, unsettling so in a face that wasn't quite right to begin with; the cheekbones too high, the skin too dry and flakey, like a snake shedding its skin, around a mouth with lips pulled back just enough to reveal the gentle point of fangs.
It would've been a startling let down, perhaps- because after all that it had been built up, now, with how hard Roy had tried to stop them from seeing his face, with how suspicious Marcoh had been acting, with how Roy had turned around to show it to them now, even- well, it was not that bad. He wouldn't have passed for human, not really, but he also wasn't some grotesque monster. Maes could very clearly see his friend in that face, and the idea that Roy had thought that that would've been enough to scare them off was as insulting as it was heartbreaking.
But then, with a slow, obscene, almost dramatic flair, Roy loosed the last button on his shirt, and without any care whatsoever, let it fall to the floor.
Maes choked.
His skin was patterned a dark, unhealthy blue, ropes of leathery, lizard-like scales twisting about his torso, his arms, his shoulders like some kind of macabre painting. Half of him human while the rest looked like he was being eaten at from within by some sort of disease, crawling around his stomach to clutch at his pale skin, morphing him into some sort of half-human monstrosity. His hands were even worse- if they could even be called hands at all anymore. Gnarled and stiff, scaly and thick all the way around but fingers seeming clenched and hardening...
Like they were solidifying into claws.
Oh my god...
"I'm not human, Ed," Roy said quietly, his unnatural eyes gleaming in the low light. "Not out here-" he splayed a hand over his chest, half scaly and blue, half pale, fragile skin, "and not-" he tapped a stiff finger at his head, "in here."
Ed stood limp and blank in front of him, staring at Roy with such open shock Maes would've winced, if he'd looked any better himself. It took the kid more than several seconds to shake his head at last, stammering out a first attempt at speech, then dropping into a cough, obviously stricken. "...of course you are," he said at last, but his voice was weak, and almost immediately overrun by another chilling laugh.
"I told you. I told both of you, you don't understand." Roy smiled again, or maybe it was just baring his teeth, his sharp, inhuman, dangerous teeth. "I'm not human, Ed. Maes. I'm not-"
"Yes, you are! I- I told you, we don't care what you look like- just because they mixed you with a dragon, that's n-"
Roy laughed a second time, so cold and abrasive it ran Ed's speech into silence before it ever got off the ground. "You still don't get it, do you? You figured out which animals I am, but you still don't get it." He shook his head coldly, dragging a hand through his rough, shaggy hair and smiling so sickly it nearly made Maes' heart stop. "They didn't mix me with a dragon, Ed. They mixed me with a human."
Once again, everything lurched to an unsettling halt.
...uh...
What?
Another startled blink later, and it became clear that Maes wasn't the only one dizzying lost. Ed stared vacantly at Roy like he'd just sprouted a second head. He worked his jaw for several moments, trying to talk; in the end, Maes really couldn't judge him at all for managing nothing more eloquent than a blank, "Huh?"
Roy's newly pale, reptilian eyes narrowed.
"They mixed me," he repeated, slow and long, like he thought the both of them were incredibly stupid, "with a human. I'm not human. Not because I look like this- because I wasn't born one."
Maes blinked dumbly.
Huh?
"C- Colonel...?"
Roy shook his head shortly, turning his face away to shield it again behind the tangled fall of his hair. He smiled again, but it was weak and cruel and like he was laughing at himself, pointed teeth that looked perfectly in place in that mix of blue scales and skin.
It looked nothing at all like his best friend.
It looked nothing at all, in fact, like anything he could ever recognize as Roy, or anything that he could ever understand.
He just knew that the look on Roy's face was perhaps the most bitterly resigned, defeated thing he'd ever seen in his life, and all he wanted to do was pull Roy into his arms and make it go away.
"...he's telling the truth," Marcoh said.
Maes jumped, flinching back to reel in another wave of disbelief tinged with shock. He stared back down at Marcoh, desperately hopeful for someone to make this make sense, but the instant he turned back towards him was the instant in which his fledging hopes smashed straight back down to die.
He looked just as defeated as Roy.
Defeated... and so sick with guilt the look on his face was as if he just wanted to keel over and give up right then and there.
"Twenty years ago," Marcoh said heavily, "the military set out to create a chimera from a dragon and a human. They desperately wanted to control the power of fire, they had seen how destructive it could be, but experiments on that front had gone... poorly. They had all but given up on mastering flame-related alchemy on any sort of reasonable time-frame, but biological alchemy and chimera experiments were improving much faster, and so, they realized if they could just harness the dragons' ability to control fire, there would be no need to master flame alchemy. So they hunted dragon cubs, and experimented on them one by one. Roy was the youngest, and, twenty years ago, was the only one to survive."
Maes' head swam. A heartbeat after that, his legs shook, he almost fell with it.
What?
Roy stayed, silent and utterly still, back against the wall. His shirt still hung open for the pattern of lizard-like scales to catch the light, the hide of of a genuine, real-life dragon, and his angled, scarred face was just as alien and unrecognizable as the rest of him. The hostile anger and misery had both bled away to leave him sitting there like a soulless husk, dead on the inside and out.
He did not say a single word in his own defense.
Not even the slightest stammer that none of this was true.
At last, in that oppressive, sickening darkness, Marcoh pulled away from them all. He sat down on the bed himself, not looking at them, not looking at any of them, broken as if infected by every bit of emotion that Roy had cast off to be slumped and bowed like a man condemned to die.
"He's not human, Edward, Hughes," he murmured. "He never was."
Roy spat out a disparaging laugh again, the noise laced with self-loathing that pierced through unfamiliar eyes and a fanged smile "I don't know how, but a few weeks ago, Bradley got wind of what we were planning. That we wanted to usurp him. I don't think he had figured out who else was involved, but he knew I was, and I guess he decided he was tired of letting the lab rat run on such a loose leash. So he decided that the liberties I'd been given wouldn't be extended to any future subjects, and that my time in the project had come to an end."
The project. The project, Maes heard, so faint it felt like he was going to pass out.
Roy's existence was a project.
"I don't still speak with any of the scientists on that team," Marcoh went on when Roy stopped, the colonel's pale eyes still averted and shoulders hunched again, as if he still wanted to hide himself. "But I do have a friend who works in the libraries. He told me several years ago that they had found a way to unmake chimeras... or had at least found something that they wanted to try. I didn't know if they'd ever use it on Roy, but I was prepared in the event that they were."
Maes stared numbly, first at Marcoh, then back to his withdrawn, dejected friend. His legs suddenly felt weak and he desperately wished to sit down, but to do that he would've had to move, and that felt just beyond him as he stared at Roy, so stunned he couldn't think. The blue skin, the fangs, the misshapen claws. His snake-like skin and eyes. Roy was- was-
This whole time...?
"...what...?"
It was Ed'd who spoken, again. A half-glance at the alchemist showed him to be just as stunned as Maes. Wide-eyed and gone all but limp. His shirt was still wrestled half-off, revealing the scar about his shoulder and the metal limb, but while it had looked glaring and obvious before, now, next to the twisted, inhuman creation across from them, it looked almost pathetic.
The two weren't even comparable.
"That's why I was sick," Roy said. "They used that on me, a few weeks ago. They... just wanted to see what would happen, and figured there was no better way than to get rid of their experiment but with one last test. It would've killed me, and even if by some miracle it hadn't, they were going to kill me anyway. Dr. Marcoh, luckily, was able to reverse it for me. This..." He gestured one stiff hand down at himself, the scales, the discoloration, the fangs, still averting his eyes severely away. "This isn't always what I look like. I had to pass for human and I- usually do, with the uniform. I look worse now because they nearly turned me back into a dragon, and Dr. Marcoh couldn't just flip a switch and make me turn me back. Some of this will go away."
"..some of this," Maes repeated, dazed.
Then instantly regretted it, when Roy's pale eyes flickered back over to him, and for perhaps the first time some of that unfailing, familiar confidence crumbled away to reveal a fragile vulnerability underneath.
A fragility that Maes had never once seen from him before, but looking at him now, he was starting to realize had been there this entire time.
"But-" Ed stammered, then broke off with another harsh, wavering intake of breath. "But. Y-you... you're... Mustang," he said, like that was all he could do. "That's not- possible, y-you-"
Roy's gaze turned to him, fading from vulnerable to merely wounded instead. He gave another slight and unnatural smile, almost sympathetic, and shook his head. "I was a chimera long before any of you ever met me. Before you were even born, Ed." He paused for a moment, searching over the alchemist, then something else came over his face again. With another deep, shuddering breath, Roy straightened himself up again, this time dropping his stiff hands back down to his sides.
"See for yourselves," he said quietly, and then, slowly turned his back again.
Except this time, it wasn't to hide from them, but show them.
His back was patterned leathery and blue just like the rest of him, stretches of vulnerable pale skin criss-crossed by a rough and leathery hide that seemed to only get worse the further down Roy he looked. What wasn't outright deformed to look like a snake was often red and inflamed, the skin raw and almost certainly painful, irritated from weeks of being outright poisoned. His entire back itself seemed wrong, somehow, just like his face had, the proportions just not quite right- like his spine and shoulders were still shifting and settling back where they were meant to be after Marcoh had saved his life.
It would've been horrifying enough, if that had been what Roy was trying to show them.
It wasn't.
There were two long, twin scars stretching down the length of his back, one on each shoulder that curved downwards all the way to his waist. Each one was easily was as long as Maes' arm, the skin gnarled and twisted and the scars so deep it made his stomach lurch and his own back crawl with sympathetic pain. Those scars were bad. Over a foot long and so deep and twisted he blinked and could see Roy's entire back dripping with blood. They would've nearly killed him.
"The first transmutation was successful, but only to a degree," Roy explained quietly, his voice as monotonous and drained as the dead. "I still had my wings. I... don't think I could've flown with them anyway, but it didn't matter. They were too big to hide. That meant they had to go."
Maes stiffened again. For several seconds nothing filtered through at all, the words running into a brick wall in his head because there was no understanding to be had or sense to be made. At first he really couldn't manage anything beyond just staring blankly at his best friend's scarred back, the world whizzing around him while his mind sat dumbly at a dead halt.
And then, he understood.
They'd cut his wings off.
His- his wings. Roy, his best friend, his obstinately human for as long as he'd known him best friend, had had wings.
And the military that Maes belonged to had chopped them off.
They'd... chopped them off years ago. Because that, truly, was what Roy was showing them. Not just the existence of the scars, but the scars themselves- they were not days or weeks or even months old. They were massive and terrible but completely, utterly healed.
There was simply no feasible way those scars could be anything but years old.
Long before that group of MPs had found Roy in Maes' office, and forced him to come with them.
Maes' head swam. If it hadn't been for the wall right by his side, he might've fallen straight to the floor.
Roy and Marcoh were telling the truth. He wasn't human. He...
He'd been best friends for almost ten years, now, with a lab experiment.
Maes clutched at the wall for support, and simply stared, dumbstruck, at the scarred, scaly back.
He was too stunned to do anything else.
At very long last, his friend finally began to swivel back around, retrieving his shirt with an awkward stiffness and his face still turned firmly away to shrug it back on. Maes had never been more relieved just to see someone but their clothes on; even when in the next instant, he felt intensely guilty for it, almost wanting to throw up. "Marcoh-" Roy said waveringly, then broke off, voice failing him like wet paper.
Marcoh, somehow, seemed to be the only person left remotely functioning in the room at all. While Maes was left to stand numbly back, still staring at his best friend in speechless, grating shock, the doctor pushed to his feet again, approaching Roy where both Maes and Ed had failed to. He touched at Roy's discolored, unnatural face and neck, feeling for fever and Maes didn't really want to know what else.
It only took him the briefest of inspections to sigh, shaking his head again. He muttered something to Roy, too low for them to hear, then turned back around to face them. "I told you both to keep out for more reasons than Roy asked me to. It's too soon. I'm going to have to ask you both to leave, and come back tomorrow. ...this time, I hope you'll listen."
Maes laughed hoarsely though not much was funny at all, head still spinning, and soon found himself clutching at the wall for support. Leave? He could barely think straight. It felt like every bit of solid footing he'd ever known was crumbling before his eyes to leave him adrift in a chaotic sea, and every word Roy said pulled solid ground even further away.
But Marcoh was not waiting around for them to catch up, and instead was already helping an increasingly unsteady Roy to sit down. He wavered on his feet, each step measured and awkward and precarious, and this time, Maes couldn't help but stare down at them instead of Roy's unnatural face. Were they like his hands? Was the reason he could barely walk because they were- what? A dragon's paws? Another weak laugh caught in his throat and he swayed, abruptly lightheaded. He was- a dragon...
Marcoh brusquely ignored Ed outright while Maes was left standing numbly back, brushing the alchemist aside as he started to sit Roy back down on the bed. His friend looked dizzy and barely upright at all, sagging against Marcoh's supportive hand and the slices of human skin on his face faded to an unhealthy grey pallor that made him look deathly ill. He swayed still, eyes roaming anywhere at all but on them, and Maes' heart shuddered.
He didn't realize that he was the only one still too stunned to think until Ed, after minutes of almost perfect silence, spoke up.
"Marcoh?"
Marcoh did not even turn around at the question, his focus still only for Roy. "I believe I asked you both to leave," he muttered dispassionately, roughly pressing the back of his hnd to Roy's neck again, but Marcoh did not know Ed like Maes did, and he certainly did not know him like Roy did.
He did not hear the slow, creeping sense of anger roiling underneath Ed's voice, and he did not see the hostility that gleamed in his eyes, sharp and bloody as broken glass.
But Maes heard it, and Maes saw it.
And Roy, when Roy narrowed his eyes at his subordinate's voice, apprehension slipping onto his scaled face, Roy heard it and saw it too.
Ed stood stock still, hands curled in the earliest beginnings of fists at his sides, and spoke again.
"Why did Mustang know that you would be able to help him?"
For a moment, there was nothing but stillness. Marcoh remained only focused helping Roy, his back turned and attention directed completely elsewhere.
And then, even from behind and in the dark, Maes could see it hit him.
"Ed," Roy murmured. He shook his head once, a silent warning toback off, and when Ed did not he brushed the hand on his face back to shift Marcoh to the side and behind him, pale eyes only for Ed.
But the alchemist clearly was not in the mood to be soothed.
"Hughes said you were an alchemist that specialized in chimeras." Ed jerked backwards, tensing like a wild animal to breathe in one ragged breath, hands clenched and dangerous by his sides and whole form radiating such violence it stole Maes' breath away. "Is that true?"
Maes' heart skipped another beat. Disbelief coupled with horror tightened in a thick band around his heart, and in the shock that followed, he slowly found himself turned to stare at Marcoh's back.
Marcoh was, in fact, an alchemist who specialized in chimeras.
He seemed to know absolutely everything that had happened to Roy. Everything that even Maes, after ten years of friendship and to his view, the closet friend that Roy had, had had no idea about.
He had been there all the way back to the very beginning, even... Roy's shadow that Maes had recognized as nearly always present all the way back to when they'd met in Ishval.
He'd been there then- and he was here again now.
And with that, Maes at last understood.
He was here because, for Roy, he'd been there the whole time.
Marcoh's the one who did this to him.
Something important in Maes' brain fizzled, then snapped. The shock that knotted his stomach and emptied his mind froze, to twist and distort straight from a lost, stunned disbelief into white-hot rage.
And once again, it was Ed who reacted the fastest.
"How COULD YOU?!"
"Ed-"
"You did this! It was you!"
"Fullmetal, st-"
The alchemist brought his arm back, and socked Marcoh right in the face with with a solid metal fist. The blow sent Marcoh crumbling and Maes hated himself for liking it, relishing the almost sickening crunch of bone because he'd done this to Roy, and when Ed pulled back his fist again he had absolutely no inclination to stop him.
"Fullmetal, stand down!"
"You piece of-"
And Roy brought his head back, and breathed fire.
It was a sharp explosion of hot flame, a red and white plume that burst out from his throat and lit the room alight in a shockwave of heat. Maes flinched backwards in shock, covering his face from the hot burst but as soon as it was there, it was over; light and heat extinguished out as little more than an instantaneous blast of fire for smokey heat to ring outwards around them all- and Roy's head still tilted back and teeth bared to do it again.
It was, ironically, nothing that Maes had never seen before. Because he'd always known Roy as the Dragon Alchemist, and this was nothing more than the skill he was so good at it- he'd even done this before; spitting fire to stop an argument, get attention on him. But this-
This time, there was no dramatic flair from a snap of his fingers. A snap with spark gloves that Maes now realized was completely unnecessary, and that Roy had only ever used them to begin with to make people think his skill was with alchemy. But there were no gloves in sight now and it hadn't mattered, because he'd just spat fire like-
Well.
Like a dragon.
"Fullmetal," Roy snarled again, and this time there was no doubt about it; that was the noise of a dragon. "Yes. Marcoh is one of the original alchemists who turned me into this. However, he also saved my life many times since then, all the way up to the day you brought me here. So unless you're going to take up a chimera focus in your own alchemy and figure it all out for yourself, you're going to need to take your anger out on something else, preferably an inanimate object, and leave him alone."
"But-!" Ed yanked away like, all but stomping his foot with his red face twisted, eyes blazing with righteous fury that begged again to be let loose. "But he- Mustang-"
"This is not up for debate. Either you help me in his place, or you go punch a tree instead of him." His snake-like eyes flickered again, then turned back off of Ed to meet Maes' for one of the first times in this entire conversation. "That goes for you as well. No one is to touch Marcoh."
Maes recoiled, stepping back yet again in another wave of disbelief. He hadn't even touched Marcoh- nor had he been going to! He wasn't an idiot; he could look at Roy now and see how badly his best friend still needed a doctor-
Even if said doctor was the one who'd... done this to him in the first place...
Another sick wave of revulsion settled in his stomach like a lead rock, and in that moment, Maes found himself wanting to punch the bastard, too.
Ed stared between them all, clearly still caught in a panting, undeniable rage, fists clenched and desperate. He opened his mouth again and even took another step forward, but one solid, icy glare back from Roy had cowed him more effectively than a parent yelling at a child. Another warm flush washed over his face in the dim light, the young alchemist gritting his teeth and trembling on the spot, and for a moment, Maes thought Ed really wasn't going to be able to listen.
Marcoh, he noticed, still wasn't making even the slightest move to defend himself. Hadn't even wiped the blood off his lip from the first blow.
At last, with another angry snarl, Ed whipped around to turn his back, and ran for the stairs as fast as he could. Not even a full second later, Maes heard the door slam open and shut back upstairs, and with that, he was gone.
Once again, there was another dizzying, nearly unbearable stretch of silence.
And then, with a quiet little laugh that was so cold and self-loathing it felt like ice, Roy flopped back down to the bed, tilted his scaly head back, and smiled. "I knew it was a bad idea to tell them," he murmured to Marcoh.
He remained the only one to be smiling, and Maes felt so sick he wanted to throw up.