The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 7: "One More Day" (Mustang x Hughes)
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Title: One More Day (The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 7)
Author: SeaweedOtter
Pairing: Roy Mustang x Maes Hughes
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: AU, Set before the anime started, while Maes and Roy were roommates at the military academy.
Summary: Absense makes the heart grow much fonder.
Read all of the chapters so far HERE!
As much as Roy would like to have said that those first thirty days of training drug on endlessly, the actuality of it was that he was so busy from sun up to sun down with the training that the only time he got to think about how much he missed Maes was at night, attempting what could pass as sleep on the bedrocks that the military called bunks.
The man on the bunk above him snored and snorted in his sleep, and another man a couple of bunks over was apparently reliving an evening he had spent in the company of a woman, by the soft moans he was making. Sleep was a fleeting thing, and he was
getting less than most of the men here.
The war in the East worried him. He was more worried that Maes would get shipped over there than he was worried for himself. He was pretty confident that he could handle himself, but Maes wasn't really a fighter. Sure, he had gotten pretty good with those throwing knives that for whatever reason he seemed to favor, but it was a lot easier for Roy to snap his fingers at a man 100 yards away and roast him like a turkey than it was to fight a person with knives in hand to hand combat.
Roy sighed and rolled over, sacrificing his only pillow to cover his ears to the various sounds from around the dorm room that drowned out the silence of the night. "Just one more day" he kept telling himself, like a man who counts sheep to get to sleep, he counted the hours, the minutes, the seconds that he had left before he would get to see the big, goofy, bespectacled man who had wormed his way inside his body, straight to his heart.
"One more day."
_______________________________________________________________________________
Maes, on the other hand, had little problem getting to sleep that night. The first part of his training was normal infantry, and they had just completed a 10 mile run with a full pack. He was sore in more places than he thought was humanly possible.
It wasn't that he didn't think of Roy- and the fact that they had less then 24 hours before they would finally be able to meet again, but his body was refusing to let him concentrate on anything but resting every single weary bone in his body.
Part of him was pissed- at the military in general, and his current commanding officer specifically, for working them so hard the day before their away time. He knew that he was going to be sore for the next few days, and that would make it tougher when he was with Roy. But he was going to be *WITH* Roy, and that was all that mattered, sore muscles or not.
Those thoughts, and many others lazily wandered through Maes' mind as he drifted off to a quick sleep, they last conscious thought entering his mind was, "One more day."
________________________________________________________________________________
Breakfast was, as usual, bland and tasteless- as gray as the sky above. Roy tried to choke a little of it down, but it stuck in his throat, feeling heavy and lumpy, close to the concrete that it resembled. After a couple of attempts, he put the fork down and shoved the plate away from him.
"Not hungry, Mustang?" a deep voice rumbled from beside him. Roy pasted a smile on his face- something he had been practicing to mask how he really felt. He knew that weakness was the downfall of a solider, and he was determined to show no weakness to
anyone.
"Oh, not really, Armstrong. You want it?"
"No, thanks. I only eat as much as I have to. I'm looking forward to a nice big steak dinner tonight. A group of us are going. You have any plans tonight? Do you want to come with us?"
Roy's breath hitched for just a second, his mind racing to come up with something, some quick lie to tell this giant slab of a man.
Armstrong just smiled, seemingly oblivious to the conflict that was racing through Roy's mind. "Ah, sounds like you have a date tonight." He winked, the first traces of what was going to become a blonde mustache over his lips twitching. "Don't think your reputation with women from the Academy has been forgotten. Whoever the lucky girl is, I am sure she'll have a fun time with you."
Roy just smiled and thanked some higher power that Armstrong seemed to be as thick as he looked. "Yeah. I'm looking forward to tonight." Roy admitted, smiling as he stood up and took his still full tray to the trashcans. He was glad that no one could feel his heart racing, or seemed to notice the tightness in his uniform pants that he got from just thinking about his meeting this evening.
_____________________________________________________________________________
At exactly 1700 hours, when the commanding officer yelled "DISMISSED!" and their 24 hours of leave started, Roy bolted back to the dorms, where he already had a bag of clothes and toiletries packed. He didn't even bother to change out of his uniform, knowing that Maes would probably be dressed the same anyways.
"Hey hey, Mustang! Another hot date, eh!" was one of the many calls he heard as he gathered his bag and headed out. He just smiled and nodded to most of them. 'Let them think what they will,' he thought. 'I don't care. I am going to see the one I love, and screw the rest of the world!'
_______________________________________________________________________________
Roy coughed a couple of times. The seedy bar that they had arranged to meet at was smoky, even for his standards- and he set fire to things for a living. Anxiously, he tapped his watch. 1830 hours. He was 30 minutes late. He knew that Maes had a longer ride to the bar than he did, but he thought 1800 hours would have been enough time.
What if he had gotten in a car wreck, or gotten injured at boot camp? A million horrible things went thru his mind, each more gruesome and gory than the last. He was glad he had been too anxious to eat much breakfast or lunch, or else his stomach would be churning even worse than it already was.
Every time the squeaky door opened, Roy nervously looked up from his quickly diminishing beer to see who it was. He knew he had to keep up the facade, this was just a friend whom he was meeting for some darts and beers. He tried to convince himself of that, so no one would see the sweat forming on his brow, his chest rising and falling quickly. His shaky hands ordered a second beer, and then a third and eventually a fourth.
By the time that 1930 hours had rolled around, Roy was a mess. He was well on his way to being drunk, his head listed softly from side to side. All the colors and sounds and noises in the bar seemed to roll into one cacophony of head splitting ache.
He stood up shakily and put what he was sure was plenty enough money down on the table for the beers that he had drank, then unsteadily swaggered towards the slightly rocking front door.
He didn't really have a plan as to what he was going to do. Even if, for some reason, he made it the 20 miles to where the other base was that Maes had been assigned to, he couldn't get in simply because he was a solider, and even an alchemist didn't have that kind of pull. He would have to have a reason- and even in his drunken state, he knew that 'looking for my missing lover' wasn't going to cut it.
Still he staggered outside, the cool air felt good on his sweaty skin, As he exited, he brushed past a tall, lanky guy with dark hair. "Oh.... sorry.." he slurred, continuing forward a few steps.
"Roy?"
Roy turned around and looked at the man that he had brushed past.
"M- Maes?"
Somewhere deep in the back of his inebriated mind, Roy had the foresight to push down the urge to run back to Maes and plant kisses all over him. It took every ounce of willpower that he had left inside of him to fight it.
"Roy. It is good to see you, buddy." Maes walked back to the man who was seemingly glued into place, swaying a little and blinking, like he really didn't believe who or what it was he was seeing. "It's been too long..." Maes looked more than a little concerned. "Are you alright, Roy? You don't look too well."
"You too so long, and I was worried, and I started to drink, so I worried more, and then I was just going to leave, but I dunno what I was going to do, I was just wandering.." Roy babbled on, leaning his head on his friend's shoulder for support,
his knees getting wobbly.
"I think we need to find you a place to rest, Roy." Secretly, Maes was glad that this gave him an excuse to find a motel room for them without arousing too much suspicion. His friend really did need a place to sleep, but that also most likely meant that the shorter man was out for the night. Maes sighed, more than slightly upset that he was going to lose precious time with his lover to him sleeping the drunkenness off.
After asking around to a couple of bar patrons, they found a motel just a short walk (or stumble, in Roy's case) away that had some rooms left. It wasn't cheap, but cost was about the last thing on Maes's mind as he took the rusty key from the attendant and awkwardly propped his mostly asleep friend up and prodded him towards their room.
The door had no sooner opened than Roy stumbled and lost his footing, falling unceremoniously face first onto the carpet. Maes sighed, not sure whether to laugh or cry at his lover who had started to snore despite the blood that was dripping from his nose from where he fell.
He closed the door and threw the keys on a table, then grabbed some toilet paper and after some wrestling was able to roll Roy onto his back and address the blood that had dribbled down over his lips and down his chin and stained his undershirt and dress jacket.
"I sure am glad that I won't have to explain that to my commanding officer tomorrow." Maes said, eliciting a sleepy grunt from the man below him. Maes pressed the toilet paper to his nose and waited, glad that it didn't look to be too bad of a nosebleed.
A few minutes later, the bleeding had stopped and Roy was once again snoring with his head in Maes' lap. Maes had no idea how he was going to get the shorter and heavier man to bed. He contemplated letting him sleep on the floor, then his conscience got the better of him.
"Come on Roy, damnit." he grunted, grabbing Roy through each underarm and dragging him bodily to the edge of the bed. He half drug and half pulled Roy up and somehow managed- sweating and grunting, to get him to one of the twin beds. He unbuttoned Roy's dress jacket, button up shirt, and pulled his boots off with relative ease, It was a bit tougher to get his pants off, but he wiggled them off his body after a short wrestling match with the offending garment.
Maes couldn't help but shake his head and smile at his lover- clad only in his dark socks, sleeveless undershirt, and boxer shorts. As much as he would have liked to have slept with a totally naked Roy, his muscles were still aching from the march the day before which had been compounded with the struggle he had to get Roy to this point, and he seriously doubted his ability to stay awake much longer.
He quickly stripped down to only his undershirt and boxers and pulled the sheets that he had previously forgotten to pull down before he got Roy on the bed out from under the snoring man to tuck them both in.
He snuggled up behind the man, spooning in close to him and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Night Roy." he said sadly, then closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Some author's notes for this story arc... (sorry I took so long to finally post them)
*Some of the dates are canon and some I had to make up for the story.
Maes born in early 1885, Roy born in late 1885, Riza born in late 1887. 1901- Ishbal Rebellion starts. 1902- Roy enters the academy at age 17. Maes enters the academy at age 18. 1903-Riza enters the academy at age 16. late 1905- Roy graduates the academy at age 20. Maes graduates the academy at age 20. 1906- Riza graduates the academy at age 19. 1908- State Alchemists and other military are sent to quell the Ishbal Rebellion.
*Also, I went back and cleaned up the first 6 chapters so they flow a little better and I fixed some minor mistakes. A couple of chapters dont have any comments on them at all, and I am really interested to see what people think, because I would like this to be an ongoing story. As of right now, it doesnt have a specific end, so as long as people like it, I will continue. I already have ideas for the next couple of chapters, so I hope to post those soon (though finals week at college may delay that for a week or so.)
So PLEASE feel free to comment on any or all of the chapters so far, or read my journal for my many other stories!
Title: One More Day (The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 7)
Author: SeaweedOtter
Pairing: Roy Mustang x Maes Hughes
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: AU, Set before the anime started, while Maes and Roy were roommates at the military academy.
Summary: Absense makes the heart grow much fonder.
Read all of the chapters so far HERE!
As much as Roy would like to have said that those first thirty days of training drug on endlessly, the actuality of it was that he was so busy from sun up to sun down with the training that the only time he got to think about how much he missed Maes was at night, attempting what could pass as sleep on the bedrocks that the military called bunks.
The man on the bunk above him snored and snorted in his sleep, and another man a couple of bunks over was apparently reliving an evening he had spent in the company of a woman, by the soft moans he was making. Sleep was a fleeting thing, and he was
getting less than most of the men here.
The war in the East worried him. He was more worried that Maes would get shipped over there than he was worried for himself. He was pretty confident that he could handle himself, but Maes wasn't really a fighter. Sure, he had gotten pretty good with those throwing knives that for whatever reason he seemed to favor, but it was a lot easier for Roy to snap his fingers at a man 100 yards away and roast him like a turkey than it was to fight a person with knives in hand to hand combat.
Roy sighed and rolled over, sacrificing his only pillow to cover his ears to the various sounds from around the dorm room that drowned out the silence of the night. "Just one more day" he kept telling himself, like a man who counts sheep to get to sleep, he counted the hours, the minutes, the seconds that he had left before he would get to see the big, goofy, bespectacled man who had wormed his way inside his body, straight to his heart.
"One more day."
_______________________________________________________________________________
Maes, on the other hand, had little problem getting to sleep that night. The first part of his training was normal infantry, and they had just completed a 10 mile run with a full pack. He was sore in more places than he thought was humanly possible.
It wasn't that he didn't think of Roy- and the fact that they had less then 24 hours before they would finally be able to meet again, but his body was refusing to let him concentrate on anything but resting every single weary bone in his body.
Part of him was pissed- at the military in general, and his current commanding officer specifically, for working them so hard the day before their away time. He knew that he was going to be sore for the next few days, and that would make it tougher when he was with Roy. But he was going to be *WITH* Roy, and that was all that mattered, sore muscles or not.
Those thoughts, and many others lazily wandered through Maes' mind as he drifted off to a quick sleep, they last conscious thought entering his mind was, "One more day."
________________________________________________________________________________
Breakfast was, as usual, bland and tasteless- as gray as the sky above. Roy tried to choke a little of it down, but it stuck in his throat, feeling heavy and lumpy, close to the concrete that it resembled. After a couple of attempts, he put the fork down and shoved the plate away from him.
"Not hungry, Mustang?" a deep voice rumbled from beside him. Roy pasted a smile on his face- something he had been practicing to mask how he really felt. He knew that weakness was the downfall of a solider, and he was determined to show no weakness to
anyone.
"Oh, not really, Armstrong. You want it?"
"No, thanks. I only eat as much as I have to. I'm looking forward to a nice big steak dinner tonight. A group of us are going. You have any plans tonight? Do you want to come with us?"
Roy's breath hitched for just a second, his mind racing to come up with something, some quick lie to tell this giant slab of a man.
Armstrong just smiled, seemingly oblivious to the conflict that was racing through Roy's mind. "Ah, sounds like you have a date tonight." He winked, the first traces of what was going to become a blonde mustache over his lips twitching. "Don't think your reputation with women from the Academy has been forgotten. Whoever the lucky girl is, I am sure she'll have a fun time with you."
Roy just smiled and thanked some higher power that Armstrong seemed to be as thick as he looked. "Yeah. I'm looking forward to tonight." Roy admitted, smiling as he stood up and took his still full tray to the trashcans. He was glad that no one could feel his heart racing, or seemed to notice the tightness in his uniform pants that he got from just thinking about his meeting this evening.
_____________________________________________________________________________
At exactly 1700 hours, when the commanding officer yelled "DISMISSED!" and their 24 hours of leave started, Roy bolted back to the dorms, where he already had a bag of clothes and toiletries packed. He didn't even bother to change out of his uniform, knowing that Maes would probably be dressed the same anyways.
"Hey hey, Mustang! Another hot date, eh!" was one of the many calls he heard as he gathered his bag and headed out. He just smiled and nodded to most of them. 'Let them think what they will,' he thought. 'I don't care. I am going to see the one I love, and screw the rest of the world!'
_______________________________________________________________________________
Roy coughed a couple of times. The seedy bar that they had arranged to meet at was smoky, even for his standards- and he set fire to things for a living. Anxiously, he tapped his watch. 1830 hours. He was 30 minutes late. He knew that Maes had a longer ride to the bar than he did, but he thought 1800 hours would have been enough time.
What if he had gotten in a car wreck, or gotten injured at boot camp? A million horrible things went thru his mind, each more gruesome and gory than the last. He was glad he had been too anxious to eat much breakfast or lunch, or else his stomach would be churning even worse than it already was.
Every time the squeaky door opened, Roy nervously looked up from his quickly diminishing beer to see who it was. He knew he had to keep up the facade, this was just a friend whom he was meeting for some darts and beers. He tried to convince himself of that, so no one would see the sweat forming on his brow, his chest rising and falling quickly. His shaky hands ordered a second beer, and then a third and eventually a fourth.
By the time that 1930 hours had rolled around, Roy was a mess. He was well on his way to being drunk, his head listed softly from side to side. All the colors and sounds and noises in the bar seemed to roll into one cacophony of head splitting ache.
He stood up shakily and put what he was sure was plenty enough money down on the table for the beers that he had drank, then unsteadily swaggered towards the slightly rocking front door.
He didn't really have a plan as to what he was going to do. Even if, for some reason, he made it the 20 miles to where the other base was that Maes had been assigned to, he couldn't get in simply because he was a solider, and even an alchemist didn't have that kind of pull. He would have to have a reason- and even in his drunken state, he knew that 'looking for my missing lover' wasn't going to cut it.
Still he staggered outside, the cool air felt good on his sweaty skin, As he exited, he brushed past a tall, lanky guy with dark hair. "Oh.... sorry.." he slurred, continuing forward a few steps.
"Roy?"
Roy turned around and looked at the man that he had brushed past.
"M- Maes?"
Somewhere deep in the back of his inebriated mind, Roy had the foresight to push down the urge to run back to Maes and plant kisses all over him. It took every ounce of willpower that he had left inside of him to fight it.
"Roy. It is good to see you, buddy." Maes walked back to the man who was seemingly glued into place, swaying a little and blinking, like he really didn't believe who or what it was he was seeing. "It's been too long..." Maes looked more than a little concerned. "Are you alright, Roy? You don't look too well."
"You too so long, and I was worried, and I started to drink, so I worried more, and then I was just going to leave, but I dunno what I was going to do, I was just wandering.." Roy babbled on, leaning his head on his friend's shoulder for support,
his knees getting wobbly.
"I think we need to find you a place to rest, Roy." Secretly, Maes was glad that this gave him an excuse to find a motel room for them without arousing too much suspicion. His friend really did need a place to sleep, but that also most likely meant that the shorter man was out for the night. Maes sighed, more than slightly upset that he was going to lose precious time with his lover to him sleeping the drunkenness off.
After asking around to a couple of bar patrons, they found a motel just a short walk (or stumble, in Roy's case) away that had some rooms left. It wasn't cheap, but cost was about the last thing on Maes's mind as he took the rusty key from the attendant and awkwardly propped his mostly asleep friend up and prodded him towards their room.
The door had no sooner opened than Roy stumbled and lost his footing, falling unceremoniously face first onto the carpet. Maes sighed, not sure whether to laugh or cry at his lover who had started to snore despite the blood that was dripping from his nose from where he fell.
He closed the door and threw the keys on a table, then grabbed some toilet paper and after some wrestling was able to roll Roy onto his back and address the blood that had dribbled down over his lips and down his chin and stained his undershirt and dress jacket.
"I sure am glad that I won't have to explain that to my commanding officer tomorrow." Maes said, eliciting a sleepy grunt from the man below him. Maes pressed the toilet paper to his nose and waited, glad that it didn't look to be too bad of a nosebleed.
A few minutes later, the bleeding had stopped and Roy was once again snoring with his head in Maes' lap. Maes had no idea how he was going to get the shorter and heavier man to bed. He contemplated letting him sleep on the floor, then his conscience got the better of him.
"Come on Roy, damnit." he grunted, grabbing Roy through each underarm and dragging him bodily to the edge of the bed. He half drug and half pulled Roy up and somehow managed- sweating and grunting, to get him to one of the twin beds. He unbuttoned Roy's dress jacket, button up shirt, and pulled his boots off with relative ease, It was a bit tougher to get his pants off, but he wiggled them off his body after a short wrestling match with the offending garment.
Maes couldn't help but shake his head and smile at his lover- clad only in his dark socks, sleeveless undershirt, and boxer shorts. As much as he would have liked to have slept with a totally naked Roy, his muscles were still aching from the march the day before which had been compounded with the struggle he had to get Roy to this point, and he seriously doubted his ability to stay awake much longer.
He quickly stripped down to only his undershirt and boxers and pulled the sheets that he had previously forgotten to pull down before he got Roy on the bed out from under the snoring man to tuck them both in.
He snuggled up behind the man, spooning in close to him and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead. "Night Roy." he said sadly, then closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Some author's notes for this story arc... (sorry I took so long to finally post them)
*Some of the dates are canon and some I had to make up for the story.
Maes born in early 1885, Roy born in late 1885, Riza born in late 1887. 1901- Ishbal Rebellion starts. 1902- Roy enters the academy at age 17. Maes enters the academy at age 18. 1903-Riza enters the academy at age 16. late 1905- Roy graduates the academy at age 20. Maes graduates the academy at age 20. 1906- Riza graduates the academy at age 19. 1908- State Alchemists and other military are sent to quell the Ishbal Rebellion.
*Also, I went back and cleaned up the first 6 chapters so they flow a little better and I fixed some minor mistakes. A couple of chapters dont have any comments on them at all, and I am really interested to see what people think, because I would like this to be an ongoing story. As of right now, it doesnt have a specific end, so as long as people like it, I will continue. I already have ideas for the next couple of chapters, so I hope to post those soon (though finals week at college may delay that for a week or so.)
So PLEASE feel free to comment on any or all of the chapters so far, or read my journal for my many other stories!