Exactly How Deep CAN I Dig This Hole?
Roy waited in grim silence while the waitress set down the three coffee mugs, followed by Hawkeye's muffin and the danish Havoc had ordered. The mid-morning coffee break crowd had just begun to wander into the out-of-the-way diner he'd chosen, and already the clinking of spoons and forks against cups and plates was beginning to jar his nerves. When the young woman asked if he and his companions would like anything else – breakfast maybe? – he merely gave his head one abrupt shake. He didn't even feel inclined to flash his smile and try to charm her, as he usually would have. He was that tense.
The waitress moved to the next booth and he leaned forward, laying his arms along the table and cupping his hands around the mug. He stared down into its murky depths for so long that finally he heard Havoc clear his throat from across the table and ask gingerly, "So what's this about, boss?"
Hawkeye, seated beside Havoc, seemed to regard this as her cue to remind her superior officer, "General Schmidt won't appreciate our having cancelled our appointment with him at such short notice. He won't have a very sympathetic ear to our requests after this."
"I couldn't care less about General Schmidt," Roy muttered. "This is much more important."
"Then what exactly is 'this', sir?" the woman inquired.
He set his jaw and finally looked up. He hated moments like this. "You were both right. About everything. About…Alphonse."
Havoc leaned back against the red faux leather of the booth, his lean face sporting a slow, smug smile. "Told you," he said, his voice positively dripping with satisfaction. "It was right there, plain as day; you just didn't want to see it. So what happened after we left last night? You had The Talk, didn't you? Right? You had The Talk?"
"Don't look so happy, Jean, you haven't heard my news yet." Roy retorted sourly.
"Roy, something's happened." Hawkeye, frowning, dropped all pretense of formality. "Al didn't take it well? Or what? What's wrong?"
"I tried to have The Talk, as you both suggested. But it turns out we're so far beyond The Talk now that I…" He paused. The two of them stared anxiously at him, waiting. Even Havoc's smugness had lost a bit of its shine. He sighed. "Alphonse noticed the signs weeks ago, and realized what was starting to happen. So he…" Roy shrugged uncomfortably. "He put a stop to it. With alchemy. He…altered himself, somehow."
"He what??" Havoc shrieked. Heads at the next table turned in their direction.
"Keep it a little quieter, Jean, d'you mind? I don't want this broadcast all over the city. That's why I dragged you out of the office; I don't even want the rest of our people to know."
"Sorry, but – but did you say – do you mean to say – " Havoc couldn't seem to choose between babbling and gaping in horror.
"You heard me. He told me he didn't like the things that were happening to him, the way his body reacted. So he took the medical knowledge he's been gaining, and used it to guide his alchemy. And he…did something, I'm not sure what. Atrophied blood vessels, deadened glands, I just don't know. He said he didn't want to talk about it, and he went to bed."
"But that's – that's alchemical castration!" Havoc cried. People glanced over again, uneasily, as beneath the table he crossed his legs in horrified reaction.
"Keep your voice down, dammit, Jean!" Roy hissed, hunching into his shoulders.
"This is very serious, isn't it?" Hawkeye frowned. "Can it be undone?"
"Yes it's serious – and I don't have a clue what can be done." Roy spoke from the cloud of deep gloom that had settled over him since last night. "I have to talk to him first, before I decide what to do. If there's anything I can do. Why the hell would he pull something like this? It's just not – not normal. What man would ever – ever – " He shuddered, shrinking from the very thought, and fought the urge to cross his legs as Havoc had done. Instead, he took a gulp of coffee, gasping and spluttering as it burned all the way down. It didn't help that he splattered coffee all over his hand as it jerked the cup from his mouth and slammed it on the table.
He needed a strong drink all right, but by god, this wasn't what he had in mind!
Hawkeye leaned over, carefully mopping up the spilled beverage with a napkin. She wisely stopped just short of grabbing his hand to wipe it too. "Listen, you two, just calm down while we – "
"Calm down!" Havoc blurted. "We have to do something. This is unnatural, and we have to fix it. Look, Roy, I bet it's harder than Al thinks, to – to – completely shut things down that way. He probably just needs a little stimulation, to make things, er, wake up again. If you know what I mean. I've got an idea…"
"I'm listening," Roy muttered darkly.
"There are some magazines we could give him. You know the kind I mean. Some of them are so steamy, the kid would have to be made of stone not to react to them. There are, oh, at least four different magazines that come out monthly, and I'm sure they'd do it. Give him a pile of those, and the – and he – well, things would get, um, moving again, I'm sure of it." Havoc leaned forward, arms crossed on the table, voice rising as he warmed up to his idea. "I mean, let me tell you – this one magazine? Imported from the Gallic provinces? So hot, it's nothing like the mild stuff Amestris produces. The last couple of issues especially, maybe they got inspired by the hot summer over there or something. You just wouldn't believe the stuff they've got in the last few issues. You've never seen such beauties – that gorgeous dark hair – legs that go forever – the skimpiest little bits of lingerie that hardly cover anything – " he cupped his hands in front of him " – and the biggest – the biggest – "
He froze. Roy and Riza stared at him. An older woman at the next table shook her head, muttering darkly down at her scrambled eggs as she bit harshly into her toast.
The colour rose up Havoc's neck. He sank back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. He muttered, "Well…they're… Breda told me about the magazines. He heard about them from this guy…"
"I wonder," Hawkeye remarked, pouring cream into her coffee, "if it might be time to clean out the desks at the office again."
"They're not in the – " Havoc blurted, then froze again. "All right, never mind," he mumbled, staring at the surface of the table, his high cheekbones dusted a delicate pink. "Bad idea."
"And I don't think it would work anyway, Jean," Roy said. "If Al intended to…shut things down…you can bet he'd do a complete job of it. I doubt he'd be capable of reacting to any of those pictures in the way you, er, intend him to."
"But it's just not natural," the lieutenant grumbled. "There's got to be some way of turning him back on again. Maybe if we got him to spend time with these sexy girls Breda kn – I mean this guy who's a friend of Breda knows – "
"Dammit, Jean, what next, do want us to start pimping for him?" Roy exclaimed.
A couple from the booth behind Havoc quietly got up and moved to a table across the diner, pointedly avoiding looking at the three officers.
Roy buried his face in his hands. "This just gets better and better," he muttered.
"All right," Hawkeye said firmly. "You two are going to shut up now, and I'll tell you what we'll do. When the workday is finished, you, Roy, are going to talk to Alphonse and find out his reasons. Forget the mechanics of what he did, for now. There's some reason he took such a drastic measure, and you can't help him at all if you don't address that first. So when he gets back from his medical seminar this afternoon, you'll go home and talk to him. You, Havoc, are going back to the office, where you will keep your mouth shut about all this – and clean out your desk and Lieutenant Breda's desk for my inspection tomorrow."
"Nothing to clean out," Havoc mumbled unconvincingly, avoiding her eyes. "And what about you? You said 'we', but you're sure giving the rest of us orders. What are you going to do?"
"I," she replied, calmly spreading butter on her muffin, "am going home with Roy to talk to Alphonse."
Roy lifted his head. "I don't know, Riza, that may not be wise. This is…you know…"
"Guy talk," Havoc supplied.
"Right."
"Which is why," Hawkeye looked from one to the other, "you need someone there who is thinking with a rational part of their anatomy. Between you and Jean, and especially Al at the moment, there's not a single rational thought in your…brains. So I'm com – I mean, I'll be there." She fixed those wide, bright eyes on Roy's face, positively daring him to contradict her. At her side, Havoc stifled a high-pitched giggle, at the word she'd almost said.
Roy hated to think she was right, but…well…dammit, he thought, glaring at Havoc, she was right. He pursed his lips and agreed with a resigned nod. "Yes, mom," he answered sourly.
The day's work was nothing but a blur. Roy made a genuine attempt to concentrate on business, but all he could think about was the impending chat with Al later today, which he feared might become unpleasant. The kid had been smiling and cheerful last night as he gave his housemate the brief account of what he had done to himself. But as he dismissed the subject, heading upstairs to bed, there had been a hint of warning in his grey eyes before he turned away. He now considered the subject closed, and was not going to welcome today's delegation. He did have his own streak of that Elric stubbornness, after all.
The one occasion on which Roy managed to concentrate rather intently during the day was when burly General Schmidt stormed into the office, his broad, craggy face suffused with anger, demanding to know why their meeting had been so abruptly cancelled this morning. Roy tried to deflect his ire with smooth replies and deference, and a little charm thrown in, but the General wasn't having any of it. Finally Hawkeye stepped in, and calmly wove a story about getting a phone call from East City involving some little crisis requiring Mustang's intimate knowledge of the region. By the time she was done, Schmidt was not only mollified, but ready to commend Roy for leaping immediately into the fray.
As the big man left the office and closed the door behind him, leaving an almost visible empty space where he'd been standing, Roy reached for the phone, smiling wryly at Hawkeye. "Guess I'd better call General Grumman so he can corroborate the story if he's asked."
"Yes, do that," Hawkeye nodded, a mischievous glint in her eye. "He likes to have some forewarning when he has to act as our alibi."
"What would I do without you?"
"You'd collapse, of course."
Meanwhile, on the odd occasion when Roy poked his head into the outer office during the day, he noticed Havoc and Breda huddled together at one or the other of their desks, busily stuffing things into brown envelopes and muttering in Hawkeye's general direction. That, at least, kept him entertained.
But at last, as the afternoon dragged on, he couldn't stand the waiting any longer. He stepped into the main office, carrying a couple of files and locking his door behind him. "Lieutenant Hawkeye," he said briskly, "we have an appointment we'd better keep, remember?" She raised her eyebrows at him – it was only 2:30 – but nodded wordlessly and began putting her own papers away in her desk.
There was time to stop in at her place so she could change into civilian clothes, since they both agreed it would be best to approach Al in as casual a manner as possible. Roy paced out his agitation in Riza's immaculately tidy living room, scowling as he tried to plot how they'd broach today's delicate subject with his young ward when Al returned from his seminar. He peered out the living room window to the flower-lined front walk two levels below in front of the building, then paced the room again and paused at the plant stand near the short hallway leading from the room. He examined without seeing the well-watered, healthy houseplants Riza had cultivated since she'd moved in. Finally, glancing impatiently down the hall, he saw the bedroom door pushed slightly ajar, and inside, just visible in the shadows, caught sight of a bare shoulder as his lieutenant shed her military issue shirt and bent to pick up a more casual blouse.
Roy froze in his tracks. He'd seen her bare shoulder before – seen her entire naked back, in fact, before he'd disfigured it so the array on her skin would be unusable by any other person hoping to learn flame alchemy. He couldn't see the scarring from here – couldn't really see her back and shoulder at all, perceiving merely the tantalizing shape and outline. But imagination and memory supplied the images as he watched her movements through the narrow opening, his breath coming quick and hard: the softness of her skin…the curve of the shoulder that had once fit perfectly into his hand…the firmness of the muscle across her shoulder blades as he'd laid his palm and fingers on it…
Damn. Riza pulled the door open, fastening the top button on a fresh blue blouse, and Roy whirled away, clutching his files at waist level to hide his body's reaction to the erotic recollections. Fighting for control, he suppressed another gasping breath, cursing himself for letting his thoughts wander that way, especially under today's circumstances. This was the last thing he needed to deal with right now.
Or to have Riza see!
He took a long, slow breath, forcing himself back into a normal rhythm, summoning his usual tactic for controlling an inconvenient arousal: he began to construct complicated alchemy arrays in his mind. That always did the trick, almost immediately. While his brain found such things utterly compelling, other parts of his anatomy got bored very easily, and generally went back to sleep.
"Ready to go, sir?" Hawkeye inquired. She stood with the front door half open, casting an inquiring glance back at him.
He turned, maintaining the careful positioning of the files in front of him. Already things were calming down, but he didn't want to take any chances. "Yes, let's go, lieutenant," he responded with a crisp nod, and proceeded past her out the door. By the time he climbed into the car, his involuntary ardour had cooled, though he had to be careful not to watch Hawkeye too closely as she drove; things still felt rather inclined to get…frisky.
Instead he turned his attention to the upcoming talk with Alphonse, and that finally cooled things down permanently, despite the related subject matter. He was really not looking forward to this, even if he had Riza as moral support.
Once at home, he had plenty of time to change out of his own uniform, coming back downstairs in slacks and shirt to find that Riza had the kettle on the stove and the teapot on the counter. Beyond the stove, light streamed in from the afternoon sunlight currently bathing the garden. "I was thinking of a drink," Roy remarked, grabbing the opened wine bottle from last night and reaching into his cupboard for a glass, "but tea wasn't what I had in mind."
She stopped him with a firm hand on his wrist. "That's not a good idea," she admonished quietly. "You need to keep a clear head."
"On the contrary, lieutenant," he muttered, "I'm beginning to think the best way to approach this is to get thoroughly drunk first."
But the chance suddenly vanished, with the sound of the front door opening. Their eyes met. Roy quietly replaced the glass in the cupboard.
By the time Alphonse had dashed up the hall stairs, dropped his books on his desk, rearranged himself in various ways and come downstairs again, the two adults had poured both him and themselves a cup of tea, and awaited him at the table.
He paused in the doorway, face lighting up. "Hi, Riza. Roy, what are doing home so early? This is a nice surprise."
For a moment Roy couldn't reply, just admiring the boy's fine, strong, healthy figure in the doorway. He'd come so far since those early days of weakness. Roy allowed himself a brief moment of pleasure and warmth, just thinking of it.
"Oh, we just wanted to get away, it was so stuffy at the office," he finally made an evasive reply, ignoring Riza's reproachful glance across the table. Best to work up to this as gradually as possible. He pulled out the chair beside him, sliding the boy's teacup over as he approached and sat down. "So tell us about your day, Alphonse. How did the seminar go this afternoon?"
Al took a sip of the warm liquid, closing his eyes and savouring it with pleasure as it went down. For extra measure, as he always did, he took a deep breath to fill himself with the spicy aroma. Riza had chosen one of the Xingian teas. "This is so good," he said, then smiled as he cradled the cup, steam curling up between his hands. "The seminar was very interesting. We've been learning about the circulatory system for a couple of weeks, and today we talked about the heart itself. I'm really enjoying it."
"Are you getting any hands on experience yet?" Riza wondered, stirring cream into her own cup, the spoon tinkling against the porcelain.
"Not really; we're just getting started, so we don't qualify for hospital rounds. Though Doctor Yuen promised he's going to bring someone in to do a demonstration. I'm not sure what a person could demonstrate about the circulation system, though. It's not like they can pull their skin off to show us the veins or anything."
"There are some things you could demonstrate, I suppose," Roy mused. "How to do tourniquets, for example."
"Well, we could do those on each other," Al reminded him. "So I think Yuen has something else in mind. We'll see."
Riza set her spoon on the saucer and ran an idle finger around the rim of her cup, studying the ripples on the surface of her tea. "Tell me, Alphonse," she said quietly, "as you've been looking at the circulatory system, did you by any chance study its role in certain functions of the male reproductive system?"
Al froze, cup halfway to his mouth. He stared across the table at the woman for a long, tense moment before lowering his gaze and setting the cup carefully back into its saucer.
Dammit, Roy thought. She shouldn't have sprung it on them without warning. He wasn't at all surprised when the boy flashed him a glance full of accusation. "Not fair, Roy," Al said quietly. "I don't like being ambushed."
In one sharp, scraping movement he pushed his chair back, and had half risen from it when Roy gripped his arm. "Al – stay here," the man urged. "We have to talk about this."
"Maybe you have to talk," the young man answered tightly, "but I don't."
"Yes you do. We can't just leave it like this."
"If you want to talk so much, you can talk to Riza. You've already been doing that anyway." Al turned a very definite Elric glare on his housemate, and Roy's heart sank. This was not going to go well, was it? "Why can't you just mind your own business, Roy?" The young man jerked himself free of the elder's grip, and got to his feet.
The two adults followed suit, standing shoulder to shoulder, Roy thought bitterly, like some kind of military interrogation.
Well, they had to soldier on. "Like it or not, kiddo," Roy reminded his young friend, "this is my business. I'm your legal guardian, and I can't just let you do something to mutilate yourself."
"Who said anything about 'mutilation'?" Al retorted in exasperation. "I'm perfectly fine. I just stopped things where they were, that's all."
"You're deliberately preventing yourself from developing normally. In my book, that's mutilation. It's interference with nature."
The kid actually rolled his eyes, making Roy want to grind his teeth. "Doctors interfere with nature all the time. It's what they do," the boy explained in an exaggeratedly patient tone that his brother would have recognized instantly.
"But only when there's a good reason, like illness or injury. You're preventing something that's healthy."
"It is not heal – " Al broke off and turned away, jaw set.
Roy greeted that outburst with raised eyebrows, but before he could even begin to digest the implication that going through puberty wasn't healthy, Riza interjected, "Alphonse, can you at least explain the reason why you did this?"
"Why should I?" the boy grumbled. "If it's none of Roy's business, it definitely isn't yours. He should have kept his mouth shut."
"On the contrary," she responded, unperturbed, "if you're doing harm to yourself, I'd say it's the business of everyone who cares about you. And we're going to keep asking questions until we understand why you did this."
Al backed against the counter near the stove, crossing his arms over his chest. The sunlight streaked across from the window, brightly illuminating him – in a bizarre fashion, all things considered – from the waist down. "I'm not doing any harm," he insisted, drawing Roy's eyes upward again, to his tight jaw and resentful grey eyes.
Roy just couldn't encompass that thought. Resolutely shoving aside a brief memory of Havoc crossing his legs under the diner table, he demanded, "How can you even say you're not doing harm, Al? You're interfering with your body's natural, healthy processes. You're preventing yourself from growing up properly. You're tampering with – you're actually daring to do harm to – " He couldn't even bring himself to utter the words, and once again his eyes fell, to rest on the boy's unfortunately lit lower limbs. Where no natural, male reaction would ever take place again, if the kid had his way.
This really was pathetic, Roy thought, and he himself was more pathetic than anyone. Swallowing his instinctive horror and trying to keep his eyes focussed where they should be, he finished lamely, "Well, you're shutting down something that's pretty fundamental. An awfully important part of a man's anatomy. I'd say that's pretty harmful."
"But it's my own body. I can do what I want with it." And every line of the young man's body – upper and lower – rigidly reinforced his stubborn assertion, from the clenched fists and tightly crossed arms, to the defiant lift of his chin, to the challenge in his dark eyes.
Dammit – he still looked so young. Roy thought, fleetingly, how much he'd wanted to keep the kid that way, just a little longer. He'd loved being the strong guardian, sheltering the youngster through all the difficulties of getting used to the world again.
"But – but – how can you possibly want to keep yourself from growing up and enjoying the company of women?" Roy knew he'd begun to sound like Havoc, but he couldn't help himself. This was something far beyond what he could imagine a man doing to himself. He added, as another thought occurred to him. "Or men, if that's the way you lean. Is that what's going on, Al?"
"No, I'm not interested in men that way. I'd never do this just because of that. And anyway, I can enjoy the company of both of them, without having all that other mess interfering. In fact – " now Al averted his gaze " – I can probably enjoy them better without it getting in the way."
"But think of it," Roy tried to press his point. "I mean, really think. You're only seventeen. How can you possibly decide that you want to live without a loving companion for the entire rest of your life? It's not normal for a man to expect to do that."
"Why not?" Al shot back. "You do."
Which stopped Roy dead in his tracks. Damn him, the kid was clever. Mind racing, the older man hunted for a good explanation of his own choices. He didn't dare look at Riza after that low blow. "That…that's different and you know it," was all he managed. Brilliant, he thought in self-derision. That would convince him for sure.
"Alphonse," Riza stepped into the fray again. "You talked about puberty as a 'mess'. What did you mean?"
Bless her, thought Roy, as he watched the colour creep into the boy's cheeks, and saw the way he shifted uncomfortably. Maybe she was on to something here.
"Well…" It was Al's turn to falter evasively, sounding more like himself and less like Ed. "It…it just is. It's so…messy. It interferes with everything. It…"
"How does it interfere?"
The boy flashed the woman an incredulous glance, as though he couldn't believe she even needed to ask. He looked ready to bolt the room at any moment. "I…It…the way you…respond…when you see a girl…"
Riza and Jean had been right all along, Roy realized bleakly. It had been happening right under his nose, and he hadn't wanted to see it. So poor Al had been introduced to this daunting physical experience – probably the most overwhelming experience of them all, in the months since he'd returned to his body – all by himself. While his guardian squeamishly turned a blind eye and gave him no adult help whatsoever.
Well, that had to change, and quickly. "It's okay, Al," Roy said softly. "I should have talked to you about that; it's my fault for not realizing. I know it's strange when that starts happening, even when you expect it."
"It's not strange," Al muttered, hair falling over his eyes as he lowered his head. "It's disgusting."
"It can be inconvenient, I know, but – "
"It's not just inconvenient!" the boy burst out. His cheeks were positively flaming now, and he couldn't seem to lift his eyes from the floor. "It's disgusting. It – it's disrespectful. To have a girl talking to you about something important, and all you can do is think about – about that – and react like that – it's disrespectful. No wonder girls get so upset about it."
"It doesn't have to be disgusting," Roy assured him. "Once you learn to control it, and you get used to things, it can be managed. And Al," he added gently, "girls don't always get upset, believe me. In the right situation, when your body reacts like that to a woman, it can be the highest possible sign of respect. And the woman even welcomes it."
And suddenly, without warning, Al looked up, a spark of anger igniting in his grey eyes as he launched his deadliest counterattack. "Oh really," he said sarcastically. "So I suppose Riza welcomes it every time you react like that when you look at her." With a final glare of derision, he escaped at last, stomping out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Leaving Roy and Riza standing stiffly side by side in the kitchen, not looking at each other.