Back Together Again: Roy/Maes fic, Chapter 12
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.
Chapter Twelve: Intervention
For how much longer can I howl into this wind?
For how much longer can I cry like this?
A thousand wasted hours a day, just to feel my heart for a second
A thousand hours just thrown away, just to feel my heart for a second
For how much longer can I howl into this wind?
- “A Thousand Hours”, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (the Cure)
On his way out, he felt like everyone was staring at him, like everyone knew what had just happened. Like everyone could see. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt like this, nor was it the first time he’d been stared at - he was a General, after all, and he had an eye patch. But it was far more unsettling than usual.
He was still contemplating this when he walked up his front steps. He was so preoccupied that he barely noticed that when he turned his key in the lock, nothing clicked.
He gasped in shock when he opened the door and was immediately confronted with the faces of the two Elric brothers - one frowning, one smiling, but both looking absolutely determined.
“How the hell…” he stopped that sentence in its tracks. They’re alchemists, he thought. Who don’t need circles. And in Fullmetal’s - Edward’s - case, specialize in transmuting stone and metal and wood … no wonder the door was no obstacle for them. He switched tactics. “Why the hell are you here? At this hour?” He felt a sudden rush of panic. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Edward said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Just fine. And we tried to tell you we were coming to visit, Col - General Mustang. You just couldn’t be bothered to stay on the phone.”
Mustang was at a loss for a moment. What could he be talking about? Belatedly, he remembered his truncated conversation with Alphonse the other night … the one where he’d been a bit preoccupied.
“I … I am sorry about that,” he said, a bit calmer now. “I didn’t mean to be rude. You two are welcome in my home, as I’ve said. And it is good to see you again.” He paused. “But what the hell possessed you to come all the way here so suddenly and wait till this late at night to break into my home instead of … of breaking in in the morning like civilized men?” Even Ed couldn’t help smiling at his last remark, and Alphonse laughed outright.
The moment passed, settled into seriousness again. “What possessed us?” Ed’s mouth thinned, his golden eyes narrowed contemplatively. “Well … it’s more like what possessed Al. And most importantly, what’s possessing you.”
Mustang’s heart plummeted into his stomach. He was a scientist, he berated himself silently; he ought to know that for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction. For every wrong, a restitution. For every day you thought you were getting away with something … a day of reckoning.
He decided to play dumb for as long as possible. He can’t know. “What do you mean, possessing me?”
Ed’s lips drew back in something like a snarl; with a visible effort, he mastered himself. “What do I mean?” he spat. “How about you tell me, Flame Colonel? Is it really true that Maes Hughes is back from the dead?”
“I …”
The two brothers waited silently.
“I …”
No sound but the ticking clock on the mantle.
“Yes. He’s back. Or, perhaps more likely, he never died.” And I was just inside him, he added silently. Maes Hughes is anything but dead.
“Is that so,” Edward said. He rose from where he’d been perched on the sofa arm. With his usual brashness, with no consideration of propriety or dignity or rank, he strode over to Mustang and took the older man’s collar in his automail hand. “Tell me,” he half-growled, “you don’t know how a homunculus is born … do you?” When Roy said nothing, Ed released him. He took a step back, hands clasped tightly together, arms shaking so hard Roy could hear the metallic joints clacking. “Your eye. It all fits. Is that all the Gate took from you? I really hope so.” He laughed humorlessly. His golden gaze never moved from Roy’s onyx one. “See, since I got back, I’ve had a lot of time to think about everything that happened. I even talked to Al about it. Too bad I didn’t listen to his advice till it was almost too late…”
“What advice?” Roy found his voice again.
“He’s been bugging me to come back to Central for months,” Ed said. “He couldn’t tell me why, though …”
“I didn’t know myself, General,” Alphonse said earnestly, wide bronze eyes focused on Mustang. “I just knew we had to get back here. I knew something was wrong.”
“What do you mean, you just knew?” Roy was a little annoyed. “Are you some kind of fortune-teller?”
“I think the Gate did something while I was in there,” Al said without acknowledging the implied insult. “I remembered a little more since talking with Brother. I don’t know how to explain it in words. All I know is, if I do what I feel, things usually turn out okay.” He smiled guilelessly at Roy. “Like the day we got Brother back.”
Roy remembered the slender ponytailed figure wending its way through the Liorian crowds, knowing where to go with no guide but his own instinct; remembered Al’s finding the right place with no trouble, touching the circle at just the right instant. He felt gooseflesh raise on his arms.
“Look,” Ed said, “I know you’ve seen someone that looks like Hughes. I know he might … might even have some memories that make it seem like … he’s himself. But he’s not.” The younger alchemist’s voice, the expression on his face, conveyed a message as deadly serious and urgent as Roy had ever heard from him. “Homunculi. They’re real. You remember all that mess from before. Laboratory Five.”
“Well, yes,” Mustang acknowledged. “But this isn’t any of those. I know the homunculus Envy could imitate any form. But he wouldn’t know the things about Maes’ past that … let’s just say even if someone tortured Maes for years and he told them every detail of his life, no one would be able to fake his presence, his memories…” Roy trailed off.
“Homunculi have memories, too,” Ed argued. “There was one that looked exactly like our mom. She - it tried to kill us. It said it remembered us as its children, and was trying to kill us to prove it wasn’t our mother …”
“Because no mother would kill her own sons,” Alphonse finished.
Edward stared at his brother, wondering how much more he was remembering from his time in the armor.
Mustang’s mind was somewhere else entirely.
A homunculus … that looked like their mother…
Their mother. Who they’d tried to bring back to life. To transmute.
Like he’d tried to transmute Maes. Bring him back to life.
He closed his eye. This isn’t real, he thought. This isn’t happening. I didn’t cause this … I didn’t… yes, it’s true I had the thought before - but I was wrong - HAD to be.
When he opened his eye, the brothers were still there, staring at him. Ed’s cross-armed stance was aloof but curious; Al was leaning toward him, his expression all warm concern.
“I didn’t do this,” Roy said. His voice trembled. He was on the edge of a real breakdown, he could feel it. Like the ones he used to have after Maes -
(died)
- after Maes left the first time. He willed the sweet numbness to come in and stop his tears; the numbness that used to bless him, finally, in the deep watches of the night, when he had cried himself swollen and dry, cried himself into that exhaustion that led to the coma that replaced sleep for him.
The numbness didn’t come.
“I didn’t,” he reiterated. “I didn’t do this … I didn’t make - make him - ”
Unbidden, Alphonse sprang toward him from his blind side; Mustang raised an arm to block him, his military training seeing the enemy where there was none. But Al, being Al, wormed his way through Roy’s defenses somehow, faster than Mustang could shove him away, and the younger, smaller man was wrapped completely around Roy, squeezing him with all his might, gripping the General’s shaking body as tightly as he could, as though Roy would fall apart if Al let go.
Time stood still. Alphonse did not let him go.
Roy fell apart anyway.
“So,” Ed said contemplatively, looking into his mug of tea as if it would tell him something, “you saw it too, huh. The Gate. Sucks, doesn’t it?”
Roy nodded. “Yes.” Hi voice was still rough.
“It’s weird, though.” Ed’s tone was still pensive; Roy recognized him entering his logical-analytical-scientific mode. “Eyes are important, it’s true … but it’s so little tissue compared to what we lost - two limbs, an entire body. Compared to what Sensei lost, as well. Not that tissue equals the value of a life, or a soul … sometimes the Gate doesn’t take what seems most important. It’s so random.”
Roy cleared his throat. “That’s not all I lost.”
Ed looked up sharply.
“I can’t do alchemy anymore,” Mustang said gracelessly. To illustrate his point, he held up his hand as though to snap his fingers, then flicked his hand open. “Poof. Gone.”
Ed’s eyes widened. “You can’t …” he stuttered for a moment, then closed his mouth.
Roy shook his head. “Nope. Not a spark. Not since that day.”
Finally, Ed found his voice again. “That day. Right. What did you do to prepare?”
Slowly at first, picking up the rhythm of his own story gradually, Roy recounted what he’d gone through: the painstaking months-long reconstruction of his earlier taboo research; the gathering of the basic elements and chemicals in the appropriate amounts; two smaller transmutations of the base elements to help in the process of protein synthesis before packing up and heading out into the forest. Ed nodded the entire time, going through his own mental checklist.
When Roy finished, Ed said hesitantly, “And what … did you use to trade for … his soul?” Roy noticed that Ed could no longer look him in the eye.
“L-letters,” Roy said, stumbling over his words. “I had a couple letters. I spent some time … remembering him. I hoped it would call to him, somehow.” He stopped.
Ed merely nodded, then asked, “What about the array?”
Roy tried three different ways to describe it, but the younger alchemist’s questions became more and more pointed. “Look, do you have a copy of it somewhere?” Ed’s customary impatience was showing through.
Roy replied, “Yes, it should be somewhere in my - my study.” He blanched, remembering that Maes’ letters were probably still piled on the floor and on his writing desk. He hadn’t been in there in months … he couldn’t remember the last time, actually. The study door was always closed these days.
“I’ll go with you.” It was the first time Alphonse had spoken since finishing Ed’s sentence about the homunculus that looked like their mother. He still had an arm around Mustang’s shoulders. Mustang was utterly embarrassed by this, but the truth was without Al’s steadying hand he probably would have come apart again multiple times by now.
“That’s not necess -“
“I’ll. Go. With you.” It was not an offer, but a statement of fact.
Roy looked into the warm metallic eyes of the young man next to him. Somehow he felt that, even if Al saw the letters, it would be okay. Or maybe he just didn’t give a damn anymore. He felt dissected, taken apart by these two youngsters. But who will put me back together again? He thought wildly.
“Ed, wait here,” Roy said absently. “I’m sure I’ll find it pretty quickly.”
Ed nodded. Like most alchemists, Roy knew exactly where his most precious research was hidden, and how it was encoded.
The study door proved to be a bit of an obstacle. It wasn’t locked; it could only be locked from the inside. It was stuck. A warping of the wood, perhaps? The house was old… Alphonse paid no heed to his protests, but quietly knelt and helped him push, lending his strength below while Roy cursed and shoved at the door from above. Finally it flew open with a loud scree and hit the wall behind it with a bang. Roy winced. Al didn’t appear to even notice.
He was humming something, Roy didn’t know what. He stood quietly in the doorway while Roy took three of his research journals from random places in the middle bookshelf and rifled through the first one. He set that one aside and started on the second.
He was about to ask Alphonse to help hold the books while he checked a couple more, when he noticed the young man - when had he learned to move so stealthily? - sitting cross-legged, Ishballan fashion, on his floor, holding up the top few pages from the stack of Maes’ letters. Roy rushed toward him, thinking MinemineMINE HowDAREyou Giveitback, but stopped when he realized that Al’s eyes were unfocused. He wasn’t reading the letters. It was as though he was seeing through them.
“Al?” The young man didn’t respond. “Alphonse?” He leaned down, took Al’s shoulder and shook gently.
“Yes?” Al looked up at Roy, his expression almost irritated. “What is it? Did you find your notes?” He still held the letters, but casually, in his lap, as though he’d forgotten he had them.
“Al,” Roy said, pointing at the papers, “give those back.”
“Oh.” Alphonse blinked at him. “I … I’m sorry.” He handed them to Mustang without a glance. “You should keep those, you know.”
Another wave of unreality washed over Roy. He should keep his best friend’s love letters? Was Al crazy? Nothing could possess him to get rid of them! He opened his mouth to say as much, but Al interrupted him. “I mean … General, keep them with you. I think you’re going to need them.”
Roy looked down at the papers he held in his hands. They were the most precious things he had, he realized. More precious than all his research - useless now that he couldn’t do alchemy; more precious than his house and land, than the stripes on his uniform or all his possessions combined. The creations of Maes’ hands, the work of love, from the man Roy had loved enough to risk his life for.
Then something registered with him. You’re going to need them. “How - what do you m…” He never finished the sentence. Alphonse still wasn’t looking at him, but gazed pensively through him. It was incredibly creepy. It was as though he were somewhere else entirely, and just his body was here.
“Keep them with you,” the youngster breathed again. “You’re going to need them. It’s the last part … the last piece.”
Without another word, Alphonse turned and walked out of the room.
Roy looked at the letters in his hands, at the research journals shoved in the crooks of his arms. He felt there was nothing to do but follow. He set the books down and carefully folded the letters into as small a square as he could manage. Stuffing them in his breast-pocket, he picked the books back up and marched out after Alphonse.
He felt somehow cleansed. When he rejoined Ed and Al at the table, he realized that his hands were no longer trembling.
He and Edward talked for a long time. The three of them moved to the larger of Roy’s couches, their tea cold on the dining-table. Alphonse seemed content to be once more in his brother’s shadow. He smiled serenely no matter how grim or how heated the conversation became. He seemed perfectly at ease.
“Look, it’s not like you’re the first person to ever make a mistake like this.” Ed’s was as frank as he’d always been and as humble as Mustang had ever seen him. “According to what Dante said, it happens all the damn time.”
“We knew of Dante’s existence after talking with Rose,” Mustang commented. “But Rose seemed to think she was dead. Eaten by her own - by Gluttony.”
“Yeah, I know.” Ed frowned. “But Fuhrer Bradley - I mean, Pride - he escaped before you could kill him, right? It would only make sense that he’d go back to Dante.”
“So, an alchemist tries to bring a person back to life … fails … and then Dante nurtures the - the result?”
“I think she feeds them those red stones,” Ed replied. “Lust threw them all up before she died, if what I heard was right. Hmm. And Sloth … she was the one who looked like our mom. The Fuhrer’s secretary, my ass.” He brooded for another minute, then continued. “Say - there’s something I’ve been wondering. This homunculus who looks like Hughes. Has he displayed any kind of … I don’t know, special power?”
“What?” Mustang was caught by surprise.
“I mean, if you shoot him or stab him, does he regenerate? All the others did.”
“I - I haven’t exactly - he was my best friend, Ed!” Roy sputtered. “I didn’t go trying to kill him! I just thought he must have faked his death before, and he was hiding out because he’d had some good reason.” He blushed scarlet as he realized how silly that must sound. “How would I know? How would I even - suspect?” But I did, he thought. I did. Why didn’t I try to kill him? He shuddered at the thought of harming the man. He could no more do so, he thought hopelessly, than he could cut his own arm off.
Ignoring Roy’s sudden outburst of emotion, Ed asked quietly: “What was his explanation? Where’d he say he’s been all this time?”
“He - I never thought to ask, Ed. I was glad to have him back.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but it would do.
“So I guess you only saw him, what, once? Twice? Didn’t have time to question him?”
“No … I saw him more than that. It was over the last few months. We - we were so busy catching up, I was so glad to see him, it just - never occurred to me to ask him about that.”
“Not even once? In all the times you were around him?”
“No.” Roy tried to maintain his composure, but he was embarrassed, like a child caught at a forbidden game.
“Hm. You’re not the type to let something like that go, Col- ah, General Mustang. I can’t picture you being in his presence more than once and not asking questions, no matter how good you felt seeing your best friend. Maybe … I don’t know. Some kind of hypnotism? Did you feel funny when you were around him? Like you couldn’t think clearly?”
“Ah …” Roy couldn’t answer.
“Look - Roy, listen to me. Listen.” Roy looked into Edward’s frighteningly intense gaze. “Think hard. The others all had some kind of power.” He raised his hand and started ticking them off on his fingers. “Envy: shapeshifter. Sloth: could turn liquid and come back together. Gluttony: could eat anything. Lust: fingers turned into daggers. Greed: body was the ultimate shield. Wrath: could do alchemy. And keep in mind, even though they looked human, if they knew someone was on to them, they’d have no reason to hide. He’d’ve tried to kill you. He had to know you knew about the homunculi. You saw him over a period of … a few months? But you never asked, not once … it makes no sense. He was controlling you! Had to be!”
Roy heard nothing past the word Lust. Lust … that first night, Maes had whispered three words into his ear, the only three words he’d spoken the entire time. “The new Lust.”
The new Lust … to replace the old Lust.
The new Lust. Irresistible, insatiable, carnal desire incarnate.
It fell into place, then, everything. This homunculus … could he read minds? Roy thought of all the times he’d started to ask one of his burning questions only to have Hughes make some remark that seemed to satisfy Roy at the moment. Or else take Roy in his arms and distract him another way.
In fact … looking back, he believed that was what had happened every time. Even when he wrote the questions down, had them in his hand when he walked through the door, he never managed to ask a single one. Hours and hours of exhausting sex or conversation with the man, night after night, and never once questioning. And then the thing that had happened with Gracia. And then at the opera, earlier that very night. Would Roy ever have done things like that of his own volition? Maybe … he and Maes had been pretty wild in their youth. But not so easily. Not without some pushback, some questioning. Not even with large amounts of alcohol involved.
He looked into Ed’s open face, his eye burning a hole in its socket. “Ed. I think he’s the new Lust.”
Edward blinked a bit; Roy could tell that he was used to thinking of Lust as a female. But his flexible mind soon recovered. “Ah. Um, can he do that dagger thing with his fingernails?”
“No. But he did refer to himself Lust once. I just didn’t know what he meant. …Ed, I think you may be right about the mind control. It just doesn’t make any sense that I wouldn’t ask him about his past.”
“Hm. Well… hell. How the hell do we combat something that can maybe read minds and certainly influence them?” Ed was all thought and logic at the moment; he was still in scientist-alchemist-problem-solver mode, and this was just another problem to solve. When he saw the homunculus’s face, it might be another matter entirely, Roy couldn’t help thinking. “Does he have the Ouroboros mark on his chest, like the other Lust?” Almost to himself, he muttered, “I’m sure Dante had to put her signature on all of them.”
“He doesn’t have a tattoo the way you described the others. But he has a - a strange … piercing, like some people get their ears pierced. The ring he wears through the piercing is shaped like an Ouroboros.”
“So he has an Ouroboros earring?” Ed seemed incredulous. “Um, I can’t imagine anyone wearing jewelry of that symbol unless they were a homunculus, but still - ”
“No, not an earring.” Mustang fought another blush and lost. “It’s - it’s through a body part that I don’t think people usually pierce. I’ve - never seen anything like it. I think I knew they existed, but …” he trailed off at Ed’s expression.
The silence was nothing short of profound. Ed’s cat-gold eyes widened until Roy thought they would fall out of his head.
He recovered quickly, though. “Ah … okay. How big is the ring?”
“About like this.” Roy described a circle in the air with his forefinger.
“Well.” Ed cleared his throat, looking down at the carpet. “In my mind, a … piercing-ring that size, that’s as good a branding as any tattoo. It seems Dante has gotten a bit more creative.” He snorted and looked back up at Roy. “Reminds me of a ring through a bull’s nose. Didn’t the ancient Xingians used to pierce the ears of their servants with a really large ring? Even if they escaped, their ears would never heal right and everyone would know.”
“Perhaps.” Roy wanted very badly to move past this topic. “But - Ed. Do we have to kill him?”
Ed sprang up, looking at Roy like he had a chicken roosting on his head. “Roy, are you insane? Of course we have to kill him. He’s a homunculus, probably in Dante’s employ. He’s artificial. He doesn’t have a fucking soul! He’s impersonating your best friend, for crying out loud! You gonna let that - that thing walk around and talk wearing Maes Hughes’ body? Fouling up his memory? By all the gods and demons! What if the thing goes after Gracia?”
“He already has,” Roy all but whispered. “I know he’s visited her. I’m pretty sure when he wasn’t with me … he was with her.”
All the high color in Ed’s cheeks that had built up from his shouting and flailing and gesticulating drained right back out.
“Come on,” he said. He dragged a startled Roy up from the couch and shoved him in the direction of the front door. “Come on. You helped make him, and you’re gonna take him out. We need to finish this right n - ”
“No, Brother.” Alphonse hadn’t moved an inch. His voice was eerily serene. “Not tonight. It’s too soon.”
Edward froze. He slowly turned to face his brother, then turned back toward Roy. He said nothing.
“Besides,” Al continued, “how are you gonna find him?”
Ed scuffed his feet and looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. I just can’t stand to do nothing.”
Mustang took that opportunity to walk back toward the bathroom. “Gentlemen, I do agree that we should come up with a plan. But it’s three o’clock in the goddamn morning. I need to wash up and get in bed. Ed, go hunt him if you want to, but in my opinion and your brother’s, tonight is no time to take action.” He laughed humorlessly. As if one more day would hurt, he thought ironically.
“Fine,” Ed groused. “Have it your way, both of you.” He called to Mustang’s retreating back, “you mind if I raid your icebox?”
Roy waved a hand magnanimously as he walked. “Go right ahead.”
He should have remembered about Ed’s appetite, he thought bemusedly as he shut the bathroom door.
Onward to Chapter Thirteen
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