Back Together Again: Roy/Maes fic, Chapter Eight
TITLE: “Back Together Again”
GENRE: Yaoi/Drama
RATING: Overall Hard-R to light NC-17 (or just M, if you prefer) for violence, language, sexuality and adult concepts
WARNINGS: Violence. Grief/PTSD. Sexuality (including some borderline non-con). Angst/Darkfic. Hughesmunculus. And finally: THIS FIC MAY CONTAIN HETEROSEXUAL SEX. <-- consider yourself warned!
PAIRING(S): HUGHES/ROY!!!!! (with a dab of Hughes/Gracia and a pinch of Roy/Gracia - sorta)
SUMMARY: A still-grieving Roy Mustang is visited by a ghost made flesh - a ghost in the form of Maes Hughes! Did Roy actually succeed in bringing back his dead best friend using alchemy … or is he being haunted by a homunculus?
DISCLAIMER: All characters belong to Ms. Arakawa, I just take them out to play.
THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS ART by both the lovely darthneko (deviantart site: http://darthneko.deviantart.com/) and the lovely greenfire_mantl (deviantart site: http://solusauroraborealis.deviantart.com/).
Chapter Eight: Torture
I’m in a room without a light, a room without a view
I’m here for one more treacherous night, another night with you
It tortures me to move my hands, to try to move at all
And pulled my skin so tight it screams and screams and screams and pulls some more
Hanging like this, like a vampire bat
Hanging like this, hanging on your back
It’s torture … but I’m almost there
It’s torture … but I’m almost there
It’s torture … it’s torture … but I’m almost there
- “Torture”, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (the Cure)
The days and weeks that followed were some of the most trying in Roy’s life.
He spent almost every night with Hughes, or what passed for Hughes. He had no desire to do anything else. Even as a General he got the occasional invitation to eat or drink with Havoc and the rest; or to formally dine with others who shared his rank. But now, he rarely accepted. Eventually, the invitations dwindled or, in the case of his personal staff, dropped off entirely. He realized early on that he could not help appearing preoccupied, despite his best efforts. He needed some kind of excuse. So he began taking his briefcase home with him, and when asked, said that he was taking paperwork home because he hadn’t finished it all. Technically, this was true. The part he did not report was that he didn’t do the work while he was at home, either.
He also kept getting phone calls from the Elric brothers. At first he was pleasantly surprised, if a little annoyed at being interrupted. He had always had a fondness for the two boys, even when Fullmetal was being an arrogant pissant. He felt a certain amount of responsibility toward them and a paternal affection. And talking to them when they called helped to assuage his guilt at not having called them to check on Edward.
However, the calls became more frequent as time went on, and he became more and more reluctant to talk to the Elrics. Sometimes he wouldn’t even take the calls, telling whomever reported them that he was too busy to talk at the time. He wasn’t sure why he did this, except that hearing from them made them more and more uneasy each time. Alphonse in particular kept asking when they might come visit now that his brother was feeling a little better. Al also tended to ask searching questions for which Mustang didn’t have any easy answers.
He had justified his not getting back to them by telling himself they were probably busy, they had a lot of lost time to make up for, Edward had probably had to endure another automail surgery and recovery, and a host of other reasons they shouldn’t be bothered. But the reality, which he couldn’t bear to admit to himself, was that he just didn’t care. He didn’t care about anyone but Maes.
He rarely slept at night, and as a result was so tired during the day that instead of eating lunch he would sometimes close the door to his office and take a short nap at his desk. He almost always kept his door closed during his lunch breaks, anyway … when he remembered to take a lunch break. Gone were the days of leaving the building and buying something to eat at a nearby café or even going to a restaurant. Hughes was always on his mind. Food was no longer a priority. Unless he smelled it or heard his stomach growling, he rarely noticed hunger now. He could get food anywhere … he could only get what he REALLY craved from one place. His shirts and uniform jackets seemed to fit looser. He had to punch most of his belts another notch or two. Vaguely, he was reminded of the time after he came home from Ishbal.
His performance at Headquarters deteriorated to the point where he knew others were noticing. He could hear their whispers and see heads turn away from him as he walked - not all the time, but sometimes.
And then there was Hawkeye. She knew him far too well not to know something was going on, but Roy was certain she wouldn’t interfere in his personal matters unless she felt it was absolutely necessary. He wanted so badly to be able to tell someone, anyone, and at times he started to say something. Part of him wished that she, or someone, would do something that would force him to confess, rip the secret from his mouth and at the same time purge his heart and mind. But another part of him was reassured when she didn’t interfere. If she didn’t see cause for alarm, the less rational part of him whispered, there must not be anything to be alarmed about. And why should she be alarmed? No one was in danger. No one had gotten hurt. Roy was enjoying himself; more than he had in a very, very long time. He had something to look forward to when he got home. Warm flesh and rough-soft hands and a gentle mouth … because he was sleeping with a homunculus? - Ridiculous … better to think of it as just something he enjoyed on his time off. His personal life. The company of an old friend. So nobody else knew. So what? As long as the two of them were happy, who cared? It wasn’t like they had paraded their private business around back when Maes was still…
(Still alive?)
… back before all that had taken place.
So he endured Hawkeye’s polite queries with equally polite, nondescript responses. He ignored the whispers, such as they were. He attended his meetings and did his paperwork and wrote up his policies and summaries as his duties demanded.
But his mind was not there. His heart was not in it. Even his longstanding goal to become Fuhrer, which had only wavered a bit in the grief following Hughes’ death, seemed far-off and unimportant to him now. Why should he care if he never got promoted? If he were passed over, even, in favor of someone else? He’d get there eventually. Or he wouldn’t. And even if he didn’t, why was that such a bad thing? Being a General was not an unimportant position; it was a place of high honor, and very few people even made it that far. Their country was no longer at war and was even making good progress on improving peaceful relations and trade with cold Drachma and exotic Xing. How much could he really improve things? His ambition, which had been part of his personality as long as he could remember, was on the wane. Far from being another opportunity to prove himself, each day at the office was now merely something to be endured; another ordeal to get through, one crawling hour at a time, until he could get home to Maes at night.
Except Maes wasn’t there every night.
That was the less-pleasant part. The part he didn’t mention in his mind when he was trying to calm himself down with the thought that if he could just make it through this day … Maes didn’t come every night. And he didn’t stick around during the day, whether it was Mustang’s day off or not. And Roy knew where Maes probably was, when he was not with Roy. And felt jealous, in spite of himself. And then felt ashamed of his jealousy.
Weeks dragged by, turning into months. After the first few nights with Maes, Roy thought he could stop questioning why things were happening the way they were. He thought he could just accept it.
It was the oddest thing that had ever happened to him in his life. At night, when Maes was there, he did accept it; when Maes was there, everything was all right. In the daytime, it was different. In the car on the way to HQ; in meetings where he was pretending to take notes; at his desk when he would put his weary head down and even as exhausted as he was, be unable to sleep; at all those times, he was thinking of his questions. They rarely left his mind. His thoughts shifted with lightning speed back and forth. One minute it was images and feelings of Maes, Maes kissing him, Maes embracing him from behind and breathing gently in his ear, Maes murmuring his name, whispering that he loved him, cradling him in his arms like a baby. The next minute it was the other side, the other side of this whole thing: Why did you visit Gracia? Why were you in the room with us that night? Why didn’t you ever explain that? Is that where you go when you aren’t with me?
How did you get back? Did you fake your own death - is that why you can’t go out during the day, because you’re afraid someone will recognize you and think you’re a homunculus? If you’re not a homunculus, why don’t you act like yourself? Why don’t we ever talk about things the way we used to?
Did I succeed? Is that what you meant by your note? Did I … CREATE you, like Edward did? If so, what was the exchange? Why didn’t I lose my life, or go to wherever Edward went? It has to be you, you say things sometimes, you refer to things no one else would know but you, so I know you can remember your life before, and no homunculus would remember you like that … would they? So is that really you? Is that your soul in there? Or is that someone else wearing your body? If my transmutation worked, where the hell have you been all this time? Where were you in the years I spent thinking you were gone and my last transmutation had failed and cost me my alchemy and half my vision and all for NOTHING?
Do you EVER plan on telling me what’s going on? Why don’t I ever ask you these things while we’re together? I don’t want to ruin the moment … yes, I treasure every second I have with you, because I never know when you are going to leave again. But why can’t I seem to bring it up? This is important stuff … your life, your soul … you CAN’T not have a soul. You’re him. Your body, your mind, your SOUL. That’s YOU in there. No one else could touch me the way you do, no one else has ever held me that tenderly or known just how to please me the way you can…
If homunculi have no souls, how do they move and think and talk? Or have free will? Or DO they have free will?
If you had no soul, then how could you love me? You do love me. There’s no question of that.
If you had no soul … how would I KNOW?
But even though Roy thought about these questions all day, he never asked them by night. Sometimes he even wrote them down, and took them home with him, intending to ask them; but somehow those little pieces of paper always ended up in the fire, or in a trash can, or just scattered underfoot and forgotten while Maes artfully stripped him of his uniform and went to work with his skillful mouth.
Yes … at night, when he got home, it was a different world. It was a world where logic didn’t work; or it worked, but not perfectly, and not for very long periods of time. It was a world of the senses, of the flesh. It was a world where the only emotions were euphoria and lust and love, love expressed in touches and whispers and groans and screams. It was a world where all was as it should be, and at its center was Maes. It was a world of soft skin and hard bone and bone-hard cock, and warm lips and wet tongues, a world of beautiful talented hands that knew just where to touch, a world of unbearably, achingly slow sensual seduction, climaxes that seemed to bleed out slowly and last for a decade; or at the same time, a world of amazingly quick, wild thrusting and bucking, climaxes that shot out like cannon fire.
Or, if Maes was absent - which, Roy had to admit, happened as often as not - it was still a different world. It was, then, a world of worry, of regret and pain, of Mustang questioning his own sanity. Over and over again, he would pick up the phone, intending to call - who? Hawkeye? Hakuro? Gracia? Someone? - and unburden himself. Over and over again, he would hang up without turning the dial even once. He would pace uncontrollably, a quick, measured tread from one bedroom to the other, from the washroom to the kitchen to the sitting room and back down the hall to the bedrooms again. For whatever reason, his route never led him to the study anymore; that door was almost always closed. He would talk to himself, more gibber really, and finally grab his coat with the intention of going - somewhere - that wasn’t here. But where would he go? Sometimes he would reach for the whiskey or wine, but he would be afraid to drink too much - afraid he would miss Maes’ coming in late, afraid to miss even one moment with the only reason for living he had left. Sometimes he gave in and drank himself into oblivion anyway. Ironically, he slept even less on the nights Maes didn’t come to him.
As far as Gracia went, he talked with her as frequently as he dared. As much as possible via telephone, he tried to make sure she was all right. She sounded normal on the phone and never gave him reason to believe she was in danger or extremely unhappy - unhappy with him, or otherwise. He had no idea whether she felt the same way he did when (if?) she was visited by Hughes, for her voice betrayed nothing, and he dared not bring up that subject on the phone. Neither did he dare visit her again, for fear of what might happen if he did. He was glad she didn’t seem to be angry at him for what had happened, and equally glad he had made the on-the-spot decision not to tell her they were being watched. Even so. He did not want to repeat that experience. The degree to which he already knew he was out of control where Hughes was involved was frightening; the thought that he might be out of control with Hughes’ wife was nigh unbearable.
He would question her, obliquely, trying to find out whether she needed help. His personal concerns aside, if he thought she was in danger or distress he would have come to her, or sent aid to her, in a Drachman minute. Thankfully, her answers were always mild enough to keep his worry at bay.
All this changed the night he got the phone call.
It promised to be a night just like any other night … just like any other night where Maes was waiting for him, that is.
Roy approached his door and saw that there were lights on inside. How does he get in? That was another item on his list of questions … he’d have to remember to ask that. He couldn’t admit to himself that this was one more item that would be gone from his mind the minute he saw his best friend’s face.
This time, Hughes greeted him at the door rather than waiting for him to come back toward the bedrooms. Greeted him very enthusiastically. Roy was rock-hard and pinned to the wall next to the coat-rack before he’d had a chance to even take off his boots.
As if Maes had read his mind, he chuckled and kissed his way down Roy’s still-fully-clothed front until he was crouched on the floor in front of Mustang. Hughes looked up at Roy, his eyes cat-green and full of mischief, and held out his hands until Roy placed one foot into them. Another of those old, never-spoken-but-always-agreed-on signals. Thus, Maes pulled off first one boot, then the other; then one sock, then the other. He somehow slid up inside Roy’s still-buttoned military greatcoat and expertly removed the skirtlike overchaps of Roy’s uniform, pausing to rub Roy’s erection gently through his clothes. This drew a helpless, mewling cry from Mustang’s throat. Somehow it was even more enticing, even more arousing, that Roy couldn’t see what Maes was doing but could feel it… oh …
He felt a tug at the top button of his fly. He leaned into Maes’ hands, trembling in anticipation -
And at that moment, the phone rang.
And rang. And rang.
Maes didn’t stop what he was doing. After another torturous half a minute, Roy’s fly was almost all the way unbuttoned (though his belt remained untouched). The phone continued to ring. Finally, through a monumental effort of will, Mustang pulled away from Maes and bade him stand.
“Go.” Roy gestured toward the bedrooms. “Wait for me, back there,” he said gruffly, far too aroused and annoyed at the distraction to be tactful.
Maes pressed his lips into a thin line and looked as though he would object.
“It’s probably work,” Roy said, a bit gentler. “They wouldn’t be calling unless they needed me.” This was certainly true; since Roy’s association with - his newer association with Maes, his mind stuttered - he could count on both hands the number of times he’d been called at home.
He strode briskly to the phone, which was on an end-table on the couch facing the fireplace, and picked up the handset. “Hello.”
“General?” The voice was familiar, young and full of emotion. “General Mustang? Is that you?”
“Alphonse.” Roy’s mood went from trepidation and irritation, to just plain irritation. Why in all the hells was Alphonse Elric calling him at home? Then he felt ashamed. Talk about contempt prior to investigation, he admonished himself. See what the boy wants… he wouldn’t call you, either, if it wasn’t important…
“General, I’m sorry to call you at home like this…”
Unexpectedly, Roy’s mood swung back the other way again. “Ah, Alphonse, speaking of which, how did you get this number?”
There was a silence that lasted several seconds. In a voice that seemed to shrink, the young man replied, “Er, we have our sources.”
Mustang bit back a sharp reply. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t usually so impatient…
He gasped as he felt strong arms encircle him from behind, deft fingers working open the buttons of his greatcoat.
“General?” Roy’s gasp had not escaped notice. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, Al, everything is fine,” Roy all but snapped. “It’s just - this isn’t a good time. I’m - in the middle of something at this moment.” The hands were done with the greatcoat and were now opening his jacket clasps and buttons with surprising speed; an almost-imperceptibly quiet chuckle breathed in his ear, the one not occupied by the phone. Roy shivered violently when one of Maes’ hands grazed a nipple - even through two layers of fabric, he could feel it. He suppressed another sharp intake of breath just in time.
“Oh - General - I understand. Sorry to interrupt. We just wanted to know, when would be a good time to - ”
“I will call you back tomorrow,” Roy promised, voice verging on hysteria; Hughes’ hands had somehow, in those few brief moments, all but divested him of both jacket and coat and were now reaching for the buttons on his shirt-collar. “I’m sure we can work it out then.” He heard Alphonse pause, drawing breath as if to say something; but Roy struck first. “Good night, Alphonse,” he said formally, and set the phone back into its cradle.
He turned on Hughes, grabbing him by his collar and half-shaking him. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Why not?” That curved smile, so familiar and wicked, melted Roy’s heart and his resolve. He forgot his anger for just a moment. Maes drew close to Roy, leaning in. “You didn’t seem to object.” This was spoken softly into the shell of Roy’s ear; Maes’ voice, deep and thrilling, resonated in the base of Roy’s spine. Roy shivered again. The craving to be in Hughes’ arms overwhelmed him, but somehow he managed to push back long enough to say, “That call could have been important, Maes. I can’t concentrate when you’re …” Rather than finishing the sentence, Roy took a firm hold on the other man’s shirt-front. Still glaring at him, he half-dragged Maes back toward his bed.
Alphonse carefully set the telephone down, supporting himself on the table with the other hand. He tried to just take a step back, but his legs wouldn’t obey him. He staggered and would have collapsed but for his brother’s catlike reflexes.
“Alphonse! Al!” Not bothering to wait and see whether Alphonse could walk with support, Edward swept his little brother into his arms and carried him over to the nearest couch. Laying him down as gently as he could, he proceeded to shake Al ferociously by the shoulders. “Al! AL! Can you hear me?” Under his breath, he muttered, “I knew this was a bad idea…”
“I’m … fine, brother,” Al mumbled. “Just gimme… a minute.”
Edward, feeling helpless and cursing himself for agreeing to let Alphonse try a soul transfer of this kind, sprang up and stalked into the kitchen to pour Al a glass of water. It might not do any good, but he couldn’t just do nothing. Ed knew he himself wasn’t the best convalescent. He hated being sick or hurt. Even so, he’d become convinced long ago that it was still far easier to suffer himself, than to watch someone he loved be in pain.
By the time he got back, Alphonse appeared to be asleep. With a bemused expression, Ed set the glass of water on the end-table and settled in on the floor next to Al’s head.
Just as he was debating with himself whether he should leave long enough to get a book so he would have something to stare at besides Al’s face, the younger man stirred and opened his eyes.
“I’m assuming it worked?” Edward’s mouth was pressed into a thin line.
“How’d you know?” Al smiled and sipped at the water Edward had pressed into his hands. “Brother, you don’t have to worry so much. I would have just sat down on the floor…”
“Sat down? More like fell on your ass,” Ed snorted. “Do you HAVE to pass out like that when you do one of those?” Edward frowned. “You usually don’t. So why this time?”
“It was a little different. I’ve only transferred my soul using electricity one other time, and that was by accident. I just - wanted to be sure I put as much in as I could. Concentrating on something like that is very difficult, you know,” he said, frowning back.
“How do you know your soul comes back?” Edward asked. They’d been over this a hundred times, but he still wasn’t sure he understood.
Al shrugged. “Equivalent exchange? I really don’t know, Brother. I just know that I’ve never felt like I had less of a soul afterward.” He laughed, and his elder brother’s concerned expression softened. “Maybe it isn’t my soul at all, but part of my consciousness. But either way, I really don’t care, as long as it works.” He sighed and took another drink.
“Yeah.” Ed was quiet. Al could read his face like a book. His elder brother knew all about bonding soul to matter… and yet couldn’t figure out how Al did what he did, almost without thinking, since coming back through the gate.
Ed’s eyes, sharp as ever and gleaming gold, bored into Alphonse’s equally metallic bronze ones. “So. It worked … tell me what you saw?”
Al hesitated before he spoke. “It’s less like … seeing? And more like … knowing. But either way … General Mustang seems to be safe. I couldn’t see anything dangerous going on.”
“Hmm. Okay. Well, that’s good,” Edward said. He could see there was more to be told, and he wanted to press Alphonse, but he held his breath and waited.
“There was someone there with him,” Al continued. His eyes were dreamy, unfocused. “A friend. I think … I feel like I know this person.”
“Very likely,” Edward said dryly. “You mean, from when you were in the armor?”
“Yeah. Well, let’s put it this way, I know I haven’t met him since the armor. I’d remember him. He was really distinctive-looking. He was sort of tall, taller than the General, and he had these square glasses and his hair was really short. His eyes were light-colored, maybe green or blue? I remember thinking how black the General’s eye is by comparison… brother? Brother, what’s the matter?”
Edward’s skin was a ghastly shade of sickly-pale. Alphonse thought he looked like he usually did after Winry did a particularly painful adjustment to his automail. His golden eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open. Several times he tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“Brother?” Al was almost panicking. “What is it?” Somewhere in Alphonse’s head a vague connection was made between Ed’s expression now and Mustang’s expression when they were talking about the Gate.
The Gate?
Oh, no…
“Al,” Edward said slowly, as if speaking through a dream, “what … what was this man doing? Did he say anything?”
“He walked up behind the General while he was on the phone and kind of gave him a hug, and I think he caught the General by surprise,” Al said. “I heard it in Mustang’s voice on the phone, too. Anyway, his friend started helping the General out of his coat and his uniform jacket. I could tell he was really distracting Mr. Mustang and that was why he was so impatient on the telephone. It reminded me of when we were kids, how you used to sneak up behind me and tickle me when I was trying to ask Mom something … Anyway, after Mr. Mustang put down the phone, I could still ‘see’ for a minute, maybe less. He turned around and grabbed his friend by the collar, and he said something harsh. I think he was berating him. He didn’t seem too happy.” Alphonse paused, tilting his head quizzically. “But then, if he was mad at his friend for interrupting the phone call, why did he tell me I was interrupting something when I called?”
“Who knows what was going on before we called him,” Ed said, brushing that aside. “Maybe they were in the middle of a conversation or a game of chess or something.”
“Could be,” Alphonse said thoughtfully. “Not chess though … the General still had his greatcoat on. But you’re right, the phone did ring for a long time. And while it was ringing I couldn’t ‘see’ much - I wasn’t really pushing. I just saw that I was in - no, I knew I was in Mustang’s house.”
“OK - back to Mustang’s friend,” Ed said. Al noticed that Ed’s words seemed mild enough, but Ed was still sick-pale, and he still wore an expression of shock. “You said he was tall, had square glasses … the glasses, did they have a wire frame, like Granny Pinako’s?”
“No,” Al replied. “At least - I don’t think so.” He concentrated, trying to remember.
“Don’t do that,” Ed said sharply.
Al looked up. “Do what?”
“Don’t think about it,” Ed said. “I know you. If you try to remember, you won’t. Just answer me with the first thing that comes to mind, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Green eyes or blue?”
“Green. Lighter.”
“Black hair?”
“Yes. Or dark brown.”
“Built like Armstrong or Fuery?”
“Neither. Just normal.”
“Uniform?”
“No. Civilian clothes.”
“Long face, like a horse? Or short and round?”
“Long face. Long neck, long hands. Big hands. Like Dad’s.”
Edward paused, then whispered: “Any tattoos?”
“Couldn’t see any,” Al replied.
At this, Edward exhaled. He couldn’t think of anything else to ask. He knew that as a scientist he shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but a leaden certainty was already weighing his stomach down. He shakily got to his feet. “Al, I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” Al gazed pensively at his water glass.
He hadn’t moved a muscle when Edward came back, holding two photographs. Ed took Al’s water glass away and placed the pictures in his hands. “Was this the guy?”
Alphonse stared at the first photograph. A tall, dark-haired man stood close to a slight woman with light brown hair. In the man’s arms was a baby girl who was reaching toward the camera as if to hug the photographer. Both the man and the woman seemed to be laughing at the baby’s enthusiasm. Al couldn’t help noticing that though the man’s eyes were gold-green, the woman and the little girl had eyes of brighter, almost emerald green. The three of them looked blissfully happy.
The second photograph was of the man and the little girl; she looked a bit older, her baby curls now styled in pigtails. He was holding her up high so she could touch the leaves of a flowering tree. Even through the photograph, both the man and the girl exuded energy and joy.
Al blinked. He knew this lady through Mr. Mustang, and the little girl, though she was much older now. Al had no memory of meeting the man in the photos, but these were far from the first pictures Al had seen of him.
Alphonse looked up into his brother’s eyes. Through the bright gold he saw fresh pain, old sorrow, and a swiftly dying hope that Alphonse would deny having seen this man at the General’s house not even an hour ago.
But lying would do no good. “Yeah,” he replied, and it hurt his heart to see Edward’s gaze drop, his fists clench. “Yeah, that was him. His hair was … shorter, I think, almost shaven. But that was him.”
Ed’s teeth were clenched, but he asked: “Alphonse, are you sure?”
Alphonse waited until his brother met his eyes again. “Yes, Edward. I’m sure.”
With that, Ed stood up decisively, punching his open flesh hand with his automail fist. “Al, you were right. Let’s get packing. We’re going to Central.”
Alphonse blinked. After all the fuss Ed had put up … “Brother - what changed your mind? You’re not still worried about the military questioning you, and whether my sixth sense is right, or - ”
“Al, we’re scientists,” Ed cut him off. “You and I both know we can’t afford to ignore proof.”
“Proof of what?” Alphonse asked, but he already knew the answer. His brother had told him everything he could remember from Al’s time in the armor, as many times as Al wanted to hear. Alphonse knew what was coming. “I just want to hear you say it,” he said more gently, seeing Ed’s hesitation.
“Come on; less talk, more preparation,” Ed said, not unkindly. He was already heading for the bedroom they shared at the Rockbells’. “We need to catch a train out tonight, if we can.” He looked back at his little brother until he saw him get up and start to follow. “I’ll fill you in while we’re getting ready.”
Onward to Chapter Nine
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