The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 22: "Vacation" (Mustang x Hughes)
Title: Vacation (The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 22)
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.
Author Note: The story will mostly follow the manga, but it may have both.
Summary: Getting away from it all is sometimes more about who you are with
instead of where you go.
I have the awesome johns_elizabeth as my advisor.
Read all of the chapters so far HERE!
"Mustang, in my office, NOW!"
Roy quickly stood up from his desk, almost knocking the chair behind him to the ground. "Yes sir." Roy saluted and quickly followed behind General Hakuro into his office. The general took a seat and waved his hand, indicating the alchemist to do the same. He did- sitting upright and stiff, nervously tapping his foot on the ground.
Hakuro stood up again, pacing back and forth behind his desk. "Mustang, I know it has been touch since you came back from Ishbal. You are not the only one who has had a rough time." He put his hands behind his back and looked directly at his subordinate officer.
"Your work has been getting steadily worse and worse since you returned. You have take procrastination to a new level. You don't do you work unless you have someone watching over your shoulder to make sure you stay on task. Don't think that your fellow soldiers haven't noticed that you hardly seem to eat or sleep."
Roy stood up, annoyed. "With all due respect, sir." He put special emphasis on the last word. "I don't think that my personal life has any bearing in what I do at- "
"Yes, it does!" General Hakuro snapped back, anger rising in his voice. "If you don't take care of yourself at home, then you won't at work, either." He stopped and took a deep breath, calming down.
"Lt. Colonel Mustang, either you are going to take a short vacation from work, or I will force you to. Whatever you need to do, get your head out of the clouds. You have two weeks, starting today. And I expect that the end of that time that you will be back to your normal self. You are dismissed. Don't bother going back to your desk. I will inform your co-workers." He saluted.
Roy saluted back, unable to keep the jumble of emotions off of his face. As he left the room, he thought about disobeying the general's orders and telling Maes, but he thought better of it and headed out of the building, wandering aimlessly down the road.
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After wandering the streets for a while, trying to figure out where he could go to get away from Central, he eventually wandered back to his small apartment. for the next three days, never left his apartment, doing little more than attempting to sleep, reading the alchemic texts that crowded his bookshelves, and drinking- usually to help him try to get to sleep.
By the fourth day, Maes came over, worried that Roy had done something stupid. "Roy, I know you are mad at me, but please open the door!" He pounded hard on the front door, and cursing. "Damnit. Of all the days to finally decide to lock your door." He banged harder on the door. "Roy!"
The door finally opened, and Roy came out, looking just as disheveled as he when he had been put on leave 5 days before. "Maes." He said, rather coldly.
"Where the hell have you been? I have been worried sick! I had heard that you took some sick leave, and I was just scared that you would do something dumb with all that extra time to just think."
"Don't worry. I'm too much of a coward for that, I think that is already known." Roy turned around and walked back into his apartment, sinking down into the well worn chair. "I'm taking two weeks off. I'm supposed to come back a better man, not this sad, broken, pathetic thing that I am now, but I am not sure that is going to happen. Besides, I have nowhere to go."
"Oh." Maes replied, closing the door behind him and walking back into the room
behind Roy. He flopped onto the couch, deep in thought.
"Just go home to Gracia." Roy waved his hand in a dismissive manner at the man on the couch. "You already asked her to marry you, didn't you?"
Maes shook his head. "No, not yet. I wanted to ask when the time was right, and that night, after I left, it just didn't seem like the correct time. It wasn't how I wanted it to be."
Roy looked at his friend with a mix of confusion and surprise. "It wasn't?"
"No. I want to set things right between us. I know that things are going to change, but I don't want this rift to grow between us. You know I still care for you. I always will, and I don't want to go into this marriage with all of this still simmering with you and I." He sat for a moment, lost in his thoughts before his face lit up.
"Ah, I know where you can go to get away." he said with a smile on his face. "Gracia's family has a house by a lake, and it isn't too far outside of Central City. I am sure they will let us use it."
"Us?"
"Well, I have some time that I can take off. I want to go with you, to help you. I don't want to see you like this, Roy. I know some of it.. " he paused for a moment, "Okay, a lot of it is my fault, and it isn't fair to you. I don't want to lose you as a friend, as my best friend." He stood up and walked over to the chair, softly putting his hand on the alchemist's shoulder.
"No. I need to do this on my own." Roy replied in a low voice.
Maes smiled and patted him on the shoulder gently. "I figured you'd say that. You never make things easy. I'm going to make a couple of phone calls. Just think about it, okay?" He pushed his glasses up on the brim of his nose and walked to the door. "I'll call you later. See you, Roy!"
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"How in the hell did I let you talk me into this?! Didn't I already say no to you a few days ago?"
"Yeah, but I am a persistent bastard! You should know that by now!" Maes flashed a big smile over to the man in the passenger's seat. "Trust me, this will be good for you!"
Roy crossed his arms in a pouting gesture. "I doubt it."
__________________________________________________________________
It was late evening before they finally made it to the lake house. It was hard to see much in the fading twilight, but as they drove up to the house, it looked like a single story brick building with a thatched roof and a few smaller buildings scattered around the grounds as they drove up the rough gravel path from the road to the main house.
They took their bags in and got settled, picking out one of the larger bedrooms for each of them. Maes went to take a shower, and Roy took the opportunity to take a walk around the grounds.
He wasn't really sure where he was going, or even where there was to go. It was too dark to pick out any landmarks, so he just headed in a generally downhill direction, figuring that would eventually get him to the lake.
After a short time, he heard the steady flow of water and followed the small, rippling stream until it met up with the lake. The moonlight shimmered off the mirror flat surface of that water. The night was still and quiet- beautiful.
Someone had thought to put a bench down by the water, and he took a seat, soaking in all of the sights and sounds that were around him. It had been a long time since he had gotten out of the city and back into nature, a place that he had loved as a kid when he lived in a small town in the East that had nature in abundance.
"It's... perfect here." he whispered softly, almost afraid to speak too loudly, for fear of scaring whatever wildlife may be around away and spoiling the beauty of the moment. He sat in silence for a while, watching tiny insects cause ripples on the water, small circles that expanded and spread- met each other and crashed together.
He didn't try to stop the tears that welled up in the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision and causing a lump to form in his throat. This was so different than everything that he knew. It wasn't hot and oppressive and bleak like Ishbal, and it wasn't smoggy and crowded and industrial like Central. It was everything that they were not.
"I, I don't want to leave." He whispered into the darkness.
"I wouldn't want to leave either." Roy yelped in surprise and turned around to see Maes standing behind him. He was wearing his civilian clothes now, a rusty red colored button up shirt and a pair of black slacks. His hands were casually shoved into his pockets, and he had a small smirk on his face.
Roy quickly wiped his face with the back of his hand and sniffled softly, although he was sure that the man who was hoping to become the head of Investigations one day knew what had been going on. But to his credit, he didn't say anything. He just gently scooted Roy to the side and sat down on the bench with a low sigh.
"Ah. Maes." Roy replied to his friend showing up. "It really is nice down here." He paused, his glassy eyes focusing in on the water again. "Thanks for brining me out."
"No problem. Any excuse that I can make to come out here is good enough for me. She had only brought me out here a couple of times, but no matter how I am feeling when I arrive, by the time I leave, everything is okay. I feel happy, refreshed, like for at least a short time, all my problems are gone."
"I can see why." Roy was going to say more, but his breath caught for a moment and his thought left him as Maes laid his arms out on the back of the bench, dropping one hand over the alchemist's shoulder. Roy's face looked troubled for a moment, and Maes quickly sat upright and pulled his hands back to himself.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to- "
"No.. no. It's okay. I don't mind. It just.. surprised me." Roy gave him a soft smile- a smile that he would never show to anyone else under the stone mask that he usually wore on his face. Maes knew this, he saw the vulnerability in that little smile.
Maes smiled back and stretched out again, laying his arm more fully on Roy's
shoulder this time and looked out onto the water. In the distance, ducks were lazily ambling across the lake, in no hurry to go anywhere.
He couldn't help but feel jealous of that at least a little. Maes relaxed a little more, and unintentionally his arm dropped, brushing lightly against Roy's hand. Roy gave him a perplexed look and raised an eyebrow, but made no move to separate their hands.
Moments of silence passed between them the two. For the first time in a very long time, it was a comfortable, easy silence. Nothing needed to be said. Maes gave Roy's hand a little squeeze, and Roy smiled back at him. He leaned in, the alchemist resting his head on the man's broad shoulder, which elicited a small chuckle from Maes.
"What?" Roy asked, smiling.
Maes paused for a moment, then leaned his head on top of the alchemist's. "Nothing, really. I was just thinking about how perfect this is."
Roy smiled, but didn't respond. He closed his eyes. His breathing slowed. His whole body relaxed. The older man turned to the alchemist, whose eyes were glassily focused on some point way out on the water, and kissed him softly on the cheek. Roy came back to himself, and looked over at Maes, his face giving away little of how he felt. Maes was trying to test the waters, and he just couldn’t figure out how Roy felt about all of this.
“Roy, a sens for your thoughts?” Maes rubbed his hand up and down his forearm a couple of times.
“Sorry. I don’t know. This is really nice, and I want to try to enjoy this, but I know that this is only temporary. As soon as we go back, it will be back to just being friends, and you will go back to… her.” He sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair.
“Maybe, but why don’t we just enjoy the time that we have now? Don’t worry about the future. It will take care of itself. Just be here, with me, instead of having your mind wander across the pond.”
“Yeah, that would be nice.” Roy smiled and for the first time, showed some affection, giving Maes’ hand a long squeeze. Maes leaned over to give him a kiss again, and Roy turned his direction and leaned in, their lips meeting briefly before Roy broke it and suddenly stood up.
“I… I am going to head to bed. I am tired.” Without another word, he walked back up the path he came, turning the corner and almost immediately falling out of Maes’ vision.
He sighed and pushed his glasses up to the top of his nose. “Roy, why won’t you let me in? I know you are hurting. I just want to help.” He stayed for a while, sitting on the bench and starting at the ever growing ripples of the pond as the creatures of the night came to life, until the wind started to howl and it was too cold to stick around.
He stood up and stretched, and slowly headed back towards the main house, his mind no clearer than it had been several hours ago.
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.
Author Note: The story will mostly follow the manga, but it may have both.
Summary: Getting away from it all is sometimes more about who you are with
instead of where you go.
I have the awesome johns_elizabeth as my advisor.
Read all of the chapters so far HERE!
"Mustang, in my office, NOW!"
Roy quickly stood up from his desk, almost knocking the chair behind him to the ground. "Yes sir." Roy saluted and quickly followed behind General Hakuro into his office. The general took a seat and waved his hand, indicating the alchemist to do the same. He did- sitting upright and stiff, nervously tapping his foot on the ground.
Hakuro stood up again, pacing back and forth behind his desk. "Mustang, I know it has been touch since you came back from Ishbal. You are not the only one who has had a rough time." He put his hands behind his back and looked directly at his subordinate officer.
"Your work has been getting steadily worse and worse since you returned. You have take procrastination to a new level. You don't do you work unless you have someone watching over your shoulder to make sure you stay on task. Don't think that your fellow soldiers haven't noticed that you hardly seem to eat or sleep."
Roy stood up, annoyed. "With all due respect, sir." He put special emphasis on the last word. "I don't think that my personal life has any bearing in what I do at- "
"Yes, it does!" General Hakuro snapped back, anger rising in his voice. "If you don't take care of yourself at home, then you won't at work, either." He stopped and took a deep breath, calming down.
"Lt. Colonel Mustang, either you are going to take a short vacation from work, or I will force you to. Whatever you need to do, get your head out of the clouds. You have two weeks, starting today. And I expect that the end of that time that you will be back to your normal self. You are dismissed. Don't bother going back to your desk. I will inform your co-workers." He saluted.
Roy saluted back, unable to keep the jumble of emotions off of his face. As he left the room, he thought about disobeying the general's orders and telling Maes, but he thought better of it and headed out of the building, wandering aimlessly down the road.
_________________________________________________________________
After wandering the streets for a while, trying to figure out where he could go to get away from Central, he eventually wandered back to his small apartment. for the next three days, never left his apartment, doing little more than attempting to sleep, reading the alchemic texts that crowded his bookshelves, and drinking- usually to help him try to get to sleep.
By the fourth day, Maes came over, worried that Roy had done something stupid. "Roy, I know you are mad at me, but please open the door!" He pounded hard on the front door, and cursing. "Damnit. Of all the days to finally decide to lock your door." He banged harder on the door. "Roy!"
The door finally opened, and Roy came out, looking just as disheveled as he when he had been put on leave 5 days before. "Maes." He said, rather coldly.
"Where the hell have you been? I have been worried sick! I had heard that you took some sick leave, and I was just scared that you would do something dumb with all that extra time to just think."
"Don't worry. I'm too much of a coward for that, I think that is already known." Roy turned around and walked back into his apartment, sinking down into the well worn chair. "I'm taking two weeks off. I'm supposed to come back a better man, not this sad, broken, pathetic thing that I am now, but I am not sure that is going to happen. Besides, I have nowhere to go."
"Oh." Maes replied, closing the door behind him and walking back into the room
behind Roy. He flopped onto the couch, deep in thought.
"Just go home to Gracia." Roy waved his hand in a dismissive manner at the man on the couch. "You already asked her to marry you, didn't you?"
Maes shook his head. "No, not yet. I wanted to ask when the time was right, and that night, after I left, it just didn't seem like the correct time. It wasn't how I wanted it to be."
Roy looked at his friend with a mix of confusion and surprise. "It wasn't?"
"No. I want to set things right between us. I know that things are going to change, but I don't want this rift to grow between us. You know I still care for you. I always will, and I don't want to go into this marriage with all of this still simmering with you and I." He sat for a moment, lost in his thoughts before his face lit up.
"Ah, I know where you can go to get away." he said with a smile on his face. "Gracia's family has a house by a lake, and it isn't too far outside of Central City. I am sure they will let us use it."
"Us?"
"Well, I have some time that I can take off. I want to go with you, to help you. I don't want to see you like this, Roy. I know some of it.. " he paused for a moment, "Okay, a lot of it is my fault, and it isn't fair to you. I don't want to lose you as a friend, as my best friend." He stood up and walked over to the chair, softly putting his hand on the alchemist's shoulder.
"No. I need to do this on my own." Roy replied in a low voice.
Maes smiled and patted him on the shoulder gently. "I figured you'd say that. You never make things easy. I'm going to make a couple of phone calls. Just think about it, okay?" He pushed his glasses up on the brim of his nose and walked to the door. "I'll call you later. See you, Roy!"
____________________________________________________________________
"How in the hell did I let you talk me into this?! Didn't I already say no to you a few days ago?"
"Yeah, but I am a persistent bastard! You should know that by now!" Maes flashed a big smile over to the man in the passenger's seat. "Trust me, this will be good for you!"
Roy crossed his arms in a pouting gesture. "I doubt it."
__________________________________________________________________
It was late evening before they finally made it to the lake house. It was hard to see much in the fading twilight, but as they drove up to the house, it looked like a single story brick building with a thatched roof and a few smaller buildings scattered around the grounds as they drove up the rough gravel path from the road to the main house.
They took their bags in and got settled, picking out one of the larger bedrooms for each of them. Maes went to take a shower, and Roy took the opportunity to take a walk around the grounds.
He wasn't really sure where he was going, or even where there was to go. It was too dark to pick out any landmarks, so he just headed in a generally downhill direction, figuring that would eventually get him to the lake.
After a short time, he heard the steady flow of water and followed the small, rippling stream until it met up with the lake. The moonlight shimmered off the mirror flat surface of that water. The night was still and quiet- beautiful.
Someone had thought to put a bench down by the water, and he took a seat, soaking in all of the sights and sounds that were around him. It had been a long time since he had gotten out of the city and back into nature, a place that he had loved as a kid when he lived in a small town in the East that had nature in abundance.
"It's... perfect here." he whispered softly, almost afraid to speak too loudly, for fear of scaring whatever wildlife may be around away and spoiling the beauty of the moment. He sat in silence for a while, watching tiny insects cause ripples on the water, small circles that expanded and spread- met each other and crashed together.
He didn't try to stop the tears that welled up in the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision and causing a lump to form in his throat. This was so different than everything that he knew. It wasn't hot and oppressive and bleak like Ishbal, and it wasn't smoggy and crowded and industrial like Central. It was everything that they were not.
"I, I don't want to leave." He whispered into the darkness.
"I wouldn't want to leave either." Roy yelped in surprise and turned around to see Maes standing behind him. He was wearing his civilian clothes now, a rusty red colored button up shirt and a pair of black slacks. His hands were casually shoved into his pockets, and he had a small smirk on his face.
Roy quickly wiped his face with the back of his hand and sniffled softly, although he was sure that the man who was hoping to become the head of Investigations one day knew what had been going on. But to his credit, he didn't say anything. He just gently scooted Roy to the side and sat down on the bench with a low sigh.
"Ah. Maes." Roy replied to his friend showing up. "It really is nice down here." He paused, his glassy eyes focusing in on the water again. "Thanks for brining me out."
"No problem. Any excuse that I can make to come out here is good enough for me. She had only brought me out here a couple of times, but no matter how I am feeling when I arrive, by the time I leave, everything is okay. I feel happy, refreshed, like for at least a short time, all my problems are gone."
"I can see why." Roy was going to say more, but his breath caught for a moment and his thought left him as Maes laid his arms out on the back of the bench, dropping one hand over the alchemist's shoulder. Roy's face looked troubled for a moment, and Maes quickly sat upright and pulled his hands back to himself.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to- "
"No.. no. It's okay. I don't mind. It just.. surprised me." Roy gave him a soft smile- a smile that he would never show to anyone else under the stone mask that he usually wore on his face. Maes knew this, he saw the vulnerability in that little smile.
Maes smiled back and stretched out again, laying his arm more fully on Roy's
shoulder this time and looked out onto the water. In the distance, ducks were lazily ambling across the lake, in no hurry to go anywhere.
He couldn't help but feel jealous of that at least a little. Maes relaxed a little more, and unintentionally his arm dropped, brushing lightly against Roy's hand. Roy gave him a perplexed look and raised an eyebrow, but made no move to separate their hands.
Moments of silence passed between them the two. For the first time in a very long time, it was a comfortable, easy silence. Nothing needed to be said. Maes gave Roy's hand a little squeeze, and Roy smiled back at him. He leaned in, the alchemist resting his head on the man's broad shoulder, which elicited a small chuckle from Maes.
"What?" Roy asked, smiling.
Maes paused for a moment, then leaned his head on top of the alchemist's. "Nothing, really. I was just thinking about how perfect this is."
Roy smiled, but didn't respond. He closed his eyes. His breathing slowed. His whole body relaxed. The older man turned to the alchemist, whose eyes were glassily focused on some point way out on the water, and kissed him softly on the cheek. Roy came back to himself, and looked over at Maes, his face giving away little of how he felt. Maes was trying to test the waters, and he just couldn’t figure out how Roy felt about all of this.
“Roy, a sens for your thoughts?” Maes rubbed his hand up and down his forearm a couple of times.
“Sorry. I don’t know. This is really nice, and I want to try to enjoy this, but I know that this is only temporary. As soon as we go back, it will be back to just being friends, and you will go back to… her.” He sighed and rubbed his hand through his hair.
“Maybe, but why don’t we just enjoy the time that we have now? Don’t worry about the future. It will take care of itself. Just be here, with me, instead of having your mind wander across the pond.”
“Yeah, that would be nice.” Roy smiled and for the first time, showed some affection, giving Maes’ hand a long squeeze. Maes leaned over to give him a kiss again, and Roy turned his direction and leaned in, their lips meeting briefly before Roy broke it and suddenly stood up.
“I… I am going to head to bed. I am tired.” Without another word, he walked back up the path he came, turning the corner and almost immediately falling out of Maes’ vision.
He sighed and pushed his glasses up to the top of his nose. “Roy, why won’t you let me in? I know you are hurting. I just want to help.” He stayed for a while, sitting on the bench and starting at the ever growing ripples of the pond as the creatures of the night came to life, until the wind started to howl and it was too cold to stick around.
He stood up and stretched, and slowly headed back towards the main house, his mind no clearer than it had been several hours ago.