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kashiwrites(See Chapter 3)
Maes rapped lightly on the front door, and then after a couple of moments without any answer, pressed the doorbell. He heard it ringing loudly inside Roy’s front hall, and at last an answer came.
“It’s open, Maes!” the man’s voice came hollowly through the door. “Just come in – I’m kind of occupied!”
Maes turned the knob and found that the door was indeed unlocked. (He’d have to speak sternly to his friend about that; couldn’t have him leaving himself too vulnerable with some pyro wandering the streets with possible vengeance on his mind.) Stepping into the front hall – and, incidentally, locking the door behind him – he briefly allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimmer inside light, and then walked further in. It was much warmer in here than in the cooler morning air outside. The sun had only just risen a few minutes ago.
As he passed the wide opening to the living room, he found Roy immediately, and stopped to watch him in astonishment. The man was dressed in loose slacks and a grey t-shirt, sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees. He took a long, deep breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out very slowly. Again, he drew in a breath, holding it again and letting it out gradually. His brows drew together and he took another breath, very differently, sighing as though the effect he’d been trying to create wasn’t working. At last he opened his eyes to look at his friend.
“Good morning,” Roy said. “Sorry I didn’t come to greet you. I thought I might be done before you got here, but I wanted to finish this.”
Maes folded his arms, leaning casually against the door jamb. “And what’s ‘this’?” he wondered.
“I’ve been doing some meditation since I got back from Xing. It’s part of the regime my teacher there set for me.”
“Teacher?” Maes repeated, raising his eyebrows. “And I thought you just went out there for a vacation, and maybe to make some family connections. I didn’t know you were into this sort thing.”
“I haven’t been. I’m still not, at least, not entirely.” Roy straightened his legs before him and leaned back, holding himself up with his hands on the floor. He tilted his head back, contemplating the stippled ceiling. “I kind of ran into Ian Woon when I stopped in at a temple while I was doing the touristy thing.”
The eyebrows shot higher. “Ian Woon? Kind of an odd mix of names, isn’t it?”
Roy’s lips turned up. “Mr. Ian Woon, yes. Odd sort of guy. Apparently his mother was a traveling student from Caledonia, who met his father while visiting the country, and decided to stay. Woon looks like a Xingian, but has a distinctly Caledonian sense of humour, I can tell you. In fact, you and he would get along beautifully. That’s probably why I got along with him myself: he reminded me of you, even if he looks nothing like you.”
“So this Woon guy has a mixed heritage, like you do. And he suddenly became your teacher?”
“Well, we talked for a while, after he got curious why I look Xingian but everything else is pure Amestris. Once I told him about my mother, and we realized we shared that kind of racial mix, one thing led to another. He teaches meditation techniques, and I really had a need to learn to relax, as you might remember.”
“Oh, I remember,” Maes chuckled. “You were so tight a couple of months ago, I was afraid to bump into you in case you snapped like a wire, and sent shrapnel all over the place.”
Roy smiled wryly. “You wouldn’t have had to worry. You know that I’d never let the shrapnel hit you.”
“That’s true – you’d aim it at yourself. So this Ian Woon guy taught you to meditate, then.”
“He taught me a few techniques,” Roy nodded. “I couldn’t stay long enough to get too deeply in, but he thought these might help, at least.”
“And are they? Helping?” Maes wondered.
A pause as Roy frowned, still staring up at the ceiling. “Not as much as I’d like,” he said at last.
“Small wonder, with this pyro business going on.”
Roy’s eyes flew to his face. “’Pyro business’?” he repeated.
“I’ve started using that as a kind of shorthand as I think about it,” Maes augmented. “Because that’s what’s going on, isn’t it? Some pyromaniac who loves fire is out there terrorizing the city with it.”
Roy got to his feet, pursing his lips. If his meditation had helped him relax in any way, Maes really couldn’t see it. The man’s shoulders seemed tight as he reached absently for one of the ignition gloves that sat on the small table beside the arm chair. Tugging it on, he shook his head and said tersely, “It doesn’t have to be that at all. If I’m the target, as you think, it could just be someone trying to taunt me with my own little skill, before he gives me the coup de grace.” He snapped his fingers, and as though to punctuate his point, a small fire leapt into being in the fireplace. He gazed into the flames, the array on the back of his glove still glowing as he shepherded the fire into life.
“Maybe you have a point,” Maes shrugged. “Though there are so many easier ways he could target you.” He pulled at his collar. “Roy, why are you lighting a fire? It’s kind of warm in here already, don’t you think?”
Roy’s startled eyes darted to his face. “What? Oh…I suppose you’re right. I was so preoccupied with what we were talking about that I wasn’t thinking.” He turned back toward the fireplace, the flames making glittering reflections in his eyes for a moment as he gazed into them again. But then the array on his glove glowed once more, and as he made a flat smoothing motion with his hand, the flames snuffed out. He tossed the glove back on the table as he moved toward the living room entrance. “I made a pot of coffee a few minutes ago. Want some?”
“Sure, thanks.” Maes followed his friend down the hall and into the kitchen, where he pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. “So what’s up, Roy?” he wondered. “Why did you want me to drop in here?”
Roy pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard and poured the dark, steaming liquid into them from a pot warming on one of the stove burners over a low flame. “I thought it would be better to chat about your investigation at home before I went in to the office. It’ll be easier if we don’t have to keep being so secretive around my people. Nothing gets their curiosity going more quickly than when we’re obviously trying to keep something quiet.”
“And this way,” Maes put in, eyebrows raised, “Lieutenant Hawkeye gets bypassed too. Right, Roy?”
Roy set the mugs down on the table and sat down. He scowled into his own drink and replied, “Look, Maes, I want to keep her out of this as much as I can. She’ll only beat herself up about that array on her back, when she’s done absolutely nothing wrong. So when we’re just engaging in speculation, I don’t want to aggravate her feelings like that. There’s no point, and it will just hurt her.”
“Well, you know you can’t hide things from her very easily. You’ll just get yelled at if you try. But it’s your ear drums, so never mind,” Maes shrugged. “And anyway, there’s really nothing to ‘keep secret’ to begin with.”
“So you’ve found nothing thus far?”
Maes cradled the mug in his hands. “Nothing more, in the last two weeks.”
“Have the police been patrolling near the potential new targets, as you planned?”
“As many as they can spare. They’ve got their own big investigation going on, so they don’t have as many free people as I’d hoped.”
“Ah yes.” Roy leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table, a lazy smile playing about his lips. “That weird body snatching thing.”
“Isn’t it stupid?” Maes shook his head. “I’m as convinced as they are that it’s some kind of prank thing by medical students. But they just can’t catch them. And there’s no big public uproar because it’s always the grave of some obscure person with no family, or a vagrant, or someone like that. I hate that anyone would treat people with such disrespect, just because they’ve been alone in the world. It’s just not fair. If I could get my hands on those students…” Maes took a sip of coffee. “Nothing we can do about that, unfortunately. But it means the police get stuck expending all their resources on this, and have no reserves for other investigations.”
“So there’s nothing at all on our own case yet? That’s disturbing.” Roy shifted forward in his chair again, the lazy moment gone. “Damn. I wish we could get a break. Something, anything. I hate the thought...”
“...that there’s someone out there, plotting which building to destroy next,” Maes finished for him. “I know. And of course...it’s been two weeks since the last time. Which means...”
The fall of Roy’s hair obscured his eyes as he bent again over his cup, both hands clutching it. “I know,” he whispered. “It’s getting more likely by the day...that it’s going to happen again. Maes...it can’t. This can’t just keep happening. Eight buildings so far...there just can’t be more...” He took a long, slow breath, as though trying to relax himself as he’d been trying when his friend had arrived.
“Roy,” Maes murmured. “Don’t take it on yourself this way. The guy’s crazy. It’s not your fault.”
“How can you know? You’ve as good as told me already that you think it is.”
“Is that what you think? That you’re ‘to blame’ somehow? Roy, you know better than that. The fact that some guy has gotten fixated on you and started using you as an excuse to burn buildings down...that’s a problem with his own warped mind.”
“And if I’m somehow responsible for warping his mind in the first place?” Roy demanded sharply, shoving his chair back and starting to pace beside the table in his agitation. “If this stems from what I did in Ishbal – “
“You said you didn’t think there was any proof of that,” Maes reminded him.
“Yes, well, I know we’d like to believe that – I know I would, at least – but of course you’re probably right. You always are.”
“Even about someone seeing that array on Riza’s back?”
Roy stopped by his chair, staring down, eyes hard. “No. That part is impossible. Riza would never have let that happen. You know that as well as I do, Maes. She is no part of this, except as a bystander. I won’t let you assign her any part of the blame for this when you and I both know it’s my fault alone. Got that?”
Maes’s eyebrows shot up as he regarded his friend, so taut with tension, glaring down at him. “Gee, Roy,” he remarked, “you really are upset about this, aren’t you? Will you just keep your shirt on and sit down? I’m not ‘blaming’ anybody – certainly not Riza, and especially not you. So calm down and drink your coffee. It’s going to get cold, with you pacing past it and creating such a breeze.”
For a moment longer, Roy continued glaring down at him, but eventually his shoulders slumped and he allowed a faint smile to cross his face. “Like I said, Maes…you’re always right about things.” Instead of sitting down, though, he walked over to the window looking out on his back yard, and contemplated the sunlight creeping across the lawn. “I just wish this was over,” he muttered. “I hoped my vacation in Xing would help me calm down and deal with things better, but...well, all it took was that new fire two weeks ago, and I’m almost back where I started.”
“I wish I could help somehow,” Maes said.
Roy turned and looked at him. “You do help. In all the important ways. Thanks for coming this morning.”
“You just need to ask, Roy, and I’ll always come. No matter what. Now sit down and we’ll talk about something else for a while.” Maes grinned wickedly. “I have some new pictures of Elysia...”
“Elysia versus a firebug,” Roy drawled, returning to the table. “What a choice. Maybe I’ll just get ready to go to the office instead.”
“You know you love it,” Maes taunted, and was heartened to hear Roy’s delighted laughter.
In the end, he didn’t have to resort to the most recent photographs of his perfectly adorable little angelic snuggle bunny. He managed to divert conversation away from the pyro business and into less fraught channels, talking about Roy’s people, and Ed and Al. (For example, he’d seen Havoc with a new date at a restaurant he’d taken Gracia to a couple of evenings ago, and wondered if Roy knew. That might provide an outlet for a bit of entertainment, though he suspected Havoc himself might have a different opinion. Actually...maybe he’d talk about Ed instead. Or no, since Ed was concerned with the investigation, maybe Breda...)
Maes knew he served as a kind of “release valve” for his friend, but he never minded, and he certainly never felt used. If he didn’t know Roy was worth every moment he spent doing this, it might have been different. But they went back a long way, and he knew the true nature of Roy’s soul and heart, and there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to try to ease his troubled friend’s path in life. And he also knew that Roy never took him for granted, and would always find ways of returning the favour somehow.
Once his friend had spiffed himself up for the office, the two of them strolled to headquarters together, enjoying the morning air as the warmth of the sun finally made its influence felt. As they drew closer to the building, they naturally began to encounter other military personnel, offering casual greetings as they passed. And once, unusually, they walked by a general who wasn’t having a car drive him around. Maes and Roy saluted, and nodded to the entourage following behind the man.
They glanced over their shoulders to watch the general walk into a shop followed by two of his people, while four others stationed themselves grimly outside the door as though to prevent attempts at assassination. The shop, it turned out, was a lingerie store.
The two men’s eyes met. And Roy grabbed Maes and pulled him between two buildings just in time, as they collapsed into gales of laughter, leaning on each other’s shoulders.
“That was Borden!” Maes gasped. “Have you heard about him?” Roy shook his head, still chortling. Maes elaborated, “You think you’ve got a reputation as a ladies’ man, Roy – that guy could give you lessons and you’d weep at how amateur you are. And I guarantee – that lingerie he’s buying is not for his wife. He’s gotta have a mistress in pretty much every major city in Amestris.”
Roy leaned against the plain brick wall of the building behind him and wiped his eyes. “I see,” he said. “It seems I’ve got some catching up to do, then.”
By the time they finally reached the main military headquarters and climbed the steps to the front doors, Roy’s tension of earlier in the morning seemed to have vanished. The two men paused just inside the door, preparing to go their separate ways for the day.
“Thanks for the good start to the day, Maes,” Roy said quietly, smiling.
“You’re welcome. I think we should do this more often.”
“We should. Nothing fun ever happens to me when I walk to work by myself.”
“It’s a plan, then. But I guess I’d better get to work now. Have a good day, Roy.”
They split up, walking in opposite directions along the front hall of the building. But almost immediately, as Maes was congratulating himself about how relaxed Roy finally seemed, a voice interrupted his reverie.
“Hughes! Hey, wait up!”
He backed up a couple of steps, glancing down a side corridor to spot Edward trotting toward him with Alphonse clanking behind.
“Hey, Ed. Hi, Al. What’s up?”
The young man skidded to a stop at Maes’s side. “I just wanted to know if you’ve found anything new at that last burned-out warehouse.”
“Now, Ed, you know I can’t reveal de – “
“Details of an ongoing investigation, yeah yeah.” Ed waved a gloved hand dismissively. “But I’m with Mustang, so I’ve got as much right to know details as he does. So what have you got?”
“’With Mustang’, are you?” Maes chuckled. “So Roy has authorized you to make inquiries, has he?”
Ed paused, a slight flush staining his cheeks. “All right, look, it’s just important that you keep m – keep people informed, because I’ve been poking around there myself – “
“Aw, c’mon, Ed, you know you’re not supposed to interfere with a crime site like that,” Maes complained. “But what am I thinking?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m talking to Edward Elric. Of course you’re going to interfere.”
“Will you get serious for a minute?” Ed blurted. “I’m just saying that Al and I did some analysis of materials in a few spots, and we haven’t found a trace of any kind of fuel or fire starter. So unless you’ve already found something and taken it out of the building so we missed it – there’s no way that fire was started by anyone but an alchemist. Which is why I want to know what you’ve found.”
Maes studied his face, all levity vanished. “You two can do that? Analyze the materials left behind?”
Al put in, “Up to a point, we can. We can start some preliminary transmutations and cancel them before they get going. If we’re trying to do a transmutation that requires certain materials, and those materials aren’t there, then the reaction won’t even get started.”
“So you’ve tried reactions requiring some flammable materials, and they haven’t been there. Pretty impressive. Can I ask you a favour, then?”
Al nodded. “What do you need, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Will you make a list of the materials you were looking for, and bring it to me? It’ll really help.”
“We’ll do that right away.”
“I appreciate it. And thanks for letting me know.” Hughes hunched a little and lowered his voice. “I hope that you’re at least managing to avoid being seen when you go to these buildings.”
“Of course,” Ed snorted. “Nobody ever knows we’re there.”
“Good. Then we’ll keep that our little secret. And now I really have to get to the office to see if there are any new developments.”
The brothers left, heading toward the front door. And only then did Maes notice Roy, standing farther down the hall, standing alone and watching the little conference from a distance. Even from this far away, Maes could see the tension in his body, and the set of his jaw. What the hell was wrong with him?
Tentatively, Maes lifted a hand and waved. Whereupon Roy turned on his heel and strode away down the hall without acknowledgement.
“What a grouch,” Maes shrugged.
There was no new information awaiting him at the Investigations office, except copies of the police reports of the last two nights’ patrols near three of the warehouses he’d guessed might be candidates for the next target to go up in flames. These reports, as they had done every night for the last two weeks, contained nothing of importance.
At mid-morning, Alphonse delivered quite a long list of possible incendiary materials that he and Ed had ruled out at the most recent fire site. As Maes ran his eyes down the list, his heart sank. They had covered all the usual sorts of fuel and triggers, as well as the lesser known ones his own people were already testing for, and even some that his own chemists had never heard of. It was a very thorough list.
And it also gave further credence to what Ed had claimed: that the fires were either being started by some substance or method nobody had discovered yet, or…or that their criminal was an alchemist.
Roy was going to hate this.
So when, two nights later, Maes again heard the phone shrilling in the middle of the night and realized what the call meant, his first thought was for Roy, and what this was going to do to him.
(See chapter 5 part 1)
Maes rapped lightly on the front door, and then after a couple of moments without any answer, pressed the doorbell. He heard it ringing loudly inside Roy’s front hall, and at last an answer came.
“It’s open, Maes!” the man’s voice came hollowly through the door. “Just come in – I’m kind of occupied!”
Maes turned the knob and found that the door was indeed unlocked. (He’d have to speak sternly to his friend about that; couldn’t have him leaving himself too vulnerable with some pyro wandering the streets with possible vengeance on his mind.) Stepping into the front hall – and, incidentally, locking the door behind him – he briefly allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimmer inside light, and then walked further in. It was much warmer in here than in the cooler morning air outside. The sun had only just risen a few minutes ago.
As he passed the wide opening to the living room, he found Roy immediately, and stopped to watch him in astonishment. The man was dressed in loose slacks and a grey t-shirt, sitting cross-legged on the floor by the fireplace, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees. He took a long, deep breath, holding it for a moment before letting it out very slowly. Again, he drew in a breath, holding it again and letting it out gradually. His brows drew together and he took another breath, very differently, sighing as though the effect he’d been trying to create wasn’t working. At last he opened his eyes to look at his friend.
“Good morning,” Roy said. “Sorry I didn’t come to greet you. I thought I might be done before you got here, but I wanted to finish this.”
Maes folded his arms, leaning casually against the door jamb. “And what’s ‘this’?” he wondered.
“I’ve been doing some meditation since I got back from Xing. It’s part of the regime my teacher there set for me.”
“Teacher?” Maes repeated, raising his eyebrows. “And I thought you just went out there for a vacation, and maybe to make some family connections. I didn’t know you were into this sort thing.”
“I haven’t been. I’m still not, at least, not entirely.” Roy straightened his legs before him and leaned back, holding himself up with his hands on the floor. He tilted his head back, contemplating the stippled ceiling. “I kind of ran into Ian Woon when I stopped in at a temple while I was doing the touristy thing.”
The eyebrows shot higher. “Ian Woon? Kind of an odd mix of names, isn’t it?”
Roy’s lips turned up. “Mr. Ian Woon, yes. Odd sort of guy. Apparently his mother was a traveling student from Caledonia, who met his father while visiting the country, and decided to stay. Woon looks like a Xingian, but has a distinctly Caledonian sense of humour, I can tell you. In fact, you and he would get along beautifully. That’s probably why I got along with him myself: he reminded me of you, even if he looks nothing like you.”
“So this Woon guy has a mixed heritage, like you do. And he suddenly became your teacher?”
“Well, we talked for a while, after he got curious why I look Xingian but everything else is pure Amestris. Once I told him about my mother, and we realized we shared that kind of racial mix, one thing led to another. He teaches meditation techniques, and I really had a need to learn to relax, as you might remember.”
“Oh, I remember,” Maes chuckled. “You were so tight a couple of months ago, I was afraid to bump into you in case you snapped like a wire, and sent shrapnel all over the place.”
Roy smiled wryly. “You wouldn’t have had to worry. You know that I’d never let the shrapnel hit you.”
“That’s true – you’d aim it at yourself. So this Ian Woon guy taught you to meditate, then.”
“He taught me a few techniques,” Roy nodded. “I couldn’t stay long enough to get too deeply in, but he thought these might help, at least.”
“And are they? Helping?” Maes wondered.
A pause as Roy frowned, still staring up at the ceiling. “Not as much as I’d like,” he said at last.
“Small wonder, with this pyro business going on.”
Roy’s eyes flew to his face. “’Pyro business’?” he repeated.
“I’ve started using that as a kind of shorthand as I think about it,” Maes augmented. “Because that’s what’s going on, isn’t it? Some pyromaniac who loves fire is out there terrorizing the city with it.”
Roy got to his feet, pursing his lips. If his meditation had helped him relax in any way, Maes really couldn’t see it. The man’s shoulders seemed tight as he reached absently for one of the ignition gloves that sat on the small table beside the arm chair. Tugging it on, he shook his head and said tersely, “It doesn’t have to be that at all. If I’m the target, as you think, it could just be someone trying to taunt me with my own little skill, before he gives me the coup de grace.” He snapped his fingers, and as though to punctuate his point, a small fire leapt into being in the fireplace. He gazed into the flames, the array on the back of his glove still glowing as he shepherded the fire into life.
“Maybe you have a point,” Maes shrugged. “Though there are so many easier ways he could target you.” He pulled at his collar. “Roy, why are you lighting a fire? It’s kind of warm in here already, don’t you think?”
Roy’s startled eyes darted to his face. “What? Oh…I suppose you’re right. I was so preoccupied with what we were talking about that I wasn’t thinking.” He turned back toward the fireplace, the flames making glittering reflections in his eyes for a moment as he gazed into them again. But then the array on his glove glowed once more, and as he made a flat smoothing motion with his hand, the flames snuffed out. He tossed the glove back on the table as he moved toward the living room entrance. “I made a pot of coffee a few minutes ago. Want some?”
“Sure, thanks.” Maes followed his friend down the hall and into the kitchen, where he pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. “So what’s up, Roy?” he wondered. “Why did you want me to drop in here?”
Roy pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard and poured the dark, steaming liquid into them from a pot warming on one of the stove burners over a low flame. “I thought it would be better to chat about your investigation at home before I went in to the office. It’ll be easier if we don’t have to keep being so secretive around my people. Nothing gets their curiosity going more quickly than when we’re obviously trying to keep something quiet.”
“And this way,” Maes put in, eyebrows raised, “Lieutenant Hawkeye gets bypassed too. Right, Roy?”
Roy set the mugs down on the table and sat down. He scowled into his own drink and replied, “Look, Maes, I want to keep her out of this as much as I can. She’ll only beat herself up about that array on her back, when she’s done absolutely nothing wrong. So when we’re just engaging in speculation, I don’t want to aggravate her feelings like that. There’s no point, and it will just hurt her.”
“Well, you know you can’t hide things from her very easily. You’ll just get yelled at if you try. But it’s your ear drums, so never mind,” Maes shrugged. “And anyway, there’s really nothing to ‘keep secret’ to begin with.”
“So you’ve found nothing thus far?”
Maes cradled the mug in his hands. “Nothing more, in the last two weeks.”
“Have the police been patrolling near the potential new targets, as you planned?”
“As many as they can spare. They’ve got their own big investigation going on, so they don’t have as many free people as I’d hoped.”
“Ah yes.” Roy leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table, a lazy smile playing about his lips. “That weird body snatching thing.”
“Isn’t it stupid?” Maes shook his head. “I’m as convinced as they are that it’s some kind of prank thing by medical students. But they just can’t catch them. And there’s no big public uproar because it’s always the grave of some obscure person with no family, or a vagrant, or someone like that. I hate that anyone would treat people with such disrespect, just because they’ve been alone in the world. It’s just not fair. If I could get my hands on those students…” Maes took a sip of coffee. “Nothing we can do about that, unfortunately. But it means the police get stuck expending all their resources on this, and have no reserves for other investigations.”
“So there’s nothing at all on our own case yet? That’s disturbing.” Roy shifted forward in his chair again, the lazy moment gone. “Damn. I wish we could get a break. Something, anything. I hate the thought...”
“...that there’s someone out there, plotting which building to destroy next,” Maes finished for him. “I know. And of course...it’s been two weeks since the last time. Which means...”
The fall of Roy’s hair obscured his eyes as he bent again over his cup, both hands clutching it. “I know,” he whispered. “It’s getting more likely by the day...that it’s going to happen again. Maes...it can’t. This can’t just keep happening. Eight buildings so far...there just can’t be more...” He took a long, slow breath, as though trying to relax himself as he’d been trying when his friend had arrived.
“Roy,” Maes murmured. “Don’t take it on yourself this way. The guy’s crazy. It’s not your fault.”
“How can you know? You’ve as good as told me already that you think it is.”
“Is that what you think? That you’re ‘to blame’ somehow? Roy, you know better than that. The fact that some guy has gotten fixated on you and started using you as an excuse to burn buildings down...that’s a problem with his own warped mind.”
“And if I’m somehow responsible for warping his mind in the first place?” Roy demanded sharply, shoving his chair back and starting to pace beside the table in his agitation. “If this stems from what I did in Ishbal – “
“You said you didn’t think there was any proof of that,” Maes reminded him.
“Yes, well, I know we’d like to believe that – I know I would, at least – but of course you’re probably right. You always are.”
“Even about someone seeing that array on Riza’s back?”
Roy stopped by his chair, staring down, eyes hard. “No. That part is impossible. Riza would never have let that happen. You know that as well as I do, Maes. She is no part of this, except as a bystander. I won’t let you assign her any part of the blame for this when you and I both know it’s my fault alone. Got that?”
Maes’s eyebrows shot up as he regarded his friend, so taut with tension, glaring down at him. “Gee, Roy,” he remarked, “you really are upset about this, aren’t you? Will you just keep your shirt on and sit down? I’m not ‘blaming’ anybody – certainly not Riza, and especially not you. So calm down and drink your coffee. It’s going to get cold, with you pacing past it and creating such a breeze.”
For a moment longer, Roy continued glaring down at him, but eventually his shoulders slumped and he allowed a faint smile to cross his face. “Like I said, Maes…you’re always right about things.” Instead of sitting down, though, he walked over to the window looking out on his back yard, and contemplated the sunlight creeping across the lawn. “I just wish this was over,” he muttered. “I hoped my vacation in Xing would help me calm down and deal with things better, but...well, all it took was that new fire two weeks ago, and I’m almost back where I started.”
“I wish I could help somehow,” Maes said.
Roy turned and looked at him. “You do help. In all the important ways. Thanks for coming this morning.”
“You just need to ask, Roy, and I’ll always come. No matter what. Now sit down and we’ll talk about something else for a while.” Maes grinned wickedly. “I have some new pictures of Elysia...”
“Elysia versus a firebug,” Roy drawled, returning to the table. “What a choice. Maybe I’ll just get ready to go to the office instead.”
“You know you love it,” Maes taunted, and was heartened to hear Roy’s delighted laughter.
In the end, he didn’t have to resort to the most recent photographs of his perfectly adorable little angelic snuggle bunny. He managed to divert conversation away from the pyro business and into less fraught channels, talking about Roy’s people, and Ed and Al. (For example, he’d seen Havoc with a new date at a restaurant he’d taken Gracia to a couple of evenings ago, and wondered if Roy knew. That might provide an outlet for a bit of entertainment, though he suspected Havoc himself might have a different opinion. Actually...maybe he’d talk about Ed instead. Or no, since Ed was concerned with the investigation, maybe Breda...)
Maes knew he served as a kind of “release valve” for his friend, but he never minded, and he certainly never felt used. If he didn’t know Roy was worth every moment he spent doing this, it might have been different. But they went back a long way, and he knew the true nature of Roy’s soul and heart, and there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to try to ease his troubled friend’s path in life. And he also knew that Roy never took him for granted, and would always find ways of returning the favour somehow.
Once his friend had spiffed himself up for the office, the two of them strolled to headquarters together, enjoying the morning air as the warmth of the sun finally made its influence felt. As they drew closer to the building, they naturally began to encounter other military personnel, offering casual greetings as they passed. And once, unusually, they walked by a general who wasn’t having a car drive him around. Maes and Roy saluted, and nodded to the entourage following behind the man.
They glanced over their shoulders to watch the general walk into a shop followed by two of his people, while four others stationed themselves grimly outside the door as though to prevent attempts at assassination. The shop, it turned out, was a lingerie store.
The two men’s eyes met. And Roy grabbed Maes and pulled him between two buildings just in time, as they collapsed into gales of laughter, leaning on each other’s shoulders.
“That was Borden!” Maes gasped. “Have you heard about him?” Roy shook his head, still chortling. Maes elaborated, “You think you’ve got a reputation as a ladies’ man, Roy – that guy could give you lessons and you’d weep at how amateur you are. And I guarantee – that lingerie he’s buying is not for his wife. He’s gotta have a mistress in pretty much every major city in Amestris.”
Roy leaned against the plain brick wall of the building behind him and wiped his eyes. “I see,” he said. “It seems I’ve got some catching up to do, then.”
By the time they finally reached the main military headquarters and climbed the steps to the front doors, Roy’s tension of earlier in the morning seemed to have vanished. The two men paused just inside the door, preparing to go their separate ways for the day.
“Thanks for the good start to the day, Maes,” Roy said quietly, smiling.
“You’re welcome. I think we should do this more often.”
“We should. Nothing fun ever happens to me when I walk to work by myself.”
“It’s a plan, then. But I guess I’d better get to work now. Have a good day, Roy.”
They split up, walking in opposite directions along the front hall of the building. But almost immediately, as Maes was congratulating himself about how relaxed Roy finally seemed, a voice interrupted his reverie.
“Hughes! Hey, wait up!”
He backed up a couple of steps, glancing down a side corridor to spot Edward trotting toward him with Alphonse clanking behind.
“Hey, Ed. Hi, Al. What’s up?”
The young man skidded to a stop at Maes’s side. “I just wanted to know if you’ve found anything new at that last burned-out warehouse.”
“Now, Ed, you know I can’t reveal de – “
“Details of an ongoing investigation, yeah yeah.” Ed waved a gloved hand dismissively. “But I’m with Mustang, so I’ve got as much right to know details as he does. So what have you got?”
“’With Mustang’, are you?” Maes chuckled. “So Roy has authorized you to make inquiries, has he?”
Ed paused, a slight flush staining his cheeks. “All right, look, it’s just important that you keep m – keep people informed, because I’ve been poking around there myself – “
“Aw, c’mon, Ed, you know you’re not supposed to interfere with a crime site like that,” Maes complained. “But what am I thinking?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m talking to Edward Elric. Of course you’re going to interfere.”
“Will you get serious for a minute?” Ed blurted. “I’m just saying that Al and I did some analysis of materials in a few spots, and we haven’t found a trace of any kind of fuel or fire starter. So unless you’ve already found something and taken it out of the building so we missed it – there’s no way that fire was started by anyone but an alchemist. Which is why I want to know what you’ve found.”
Maes studied his face, all levity vanished. “You two can do that? Analyze the materials left behind?”
Al put in, “Up to a point, we can. We can start some preliminary transmutations and cancel them before they get going. If we’re trying to do a transmutation that requires certain materials, and those materials aren’t there, then the reaction won’t even get started.”
“So you’ve tried reactions requiring some flammable materials, and they haven’t been there. Pretty impressive. Can I ask you a favour, then?”
Al nodded. “What do you need, Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Will you make a list of the materials you were looking for, and bring it to me? It’ll really help.”
“We’ll do that right away.”
“I appreciate it. And thanks for letting me know.” Hughes hunched a little and lowered his voice. “I hope that you’re at least managing to avoid being seen when you go to these buildings.”
“Of course,” Ed snorted. “Nobody ever knows we’re there.”
“Good. Then we’ll keep that our little secret. And now I really have to get to the office to see if there are any new developments.”
The brothers left, heading toward the front door. And only then did Maes notice Roy, standing farther down the hall, standing alone and watching the little conference from a distance. Even from this far away, Maes could see the tension in his body, and the set of his jaw. What the hell was wrong with him?
Tentatively, Maes lifted a hand and waved. Whereupon Roy turned on his heel and strode away down the hall without acknowledgement.
“What a grouch,” Maes shrugged.
There was no new information awaiting him at the Investigations office, except copies of the police reports of the last two nights’ patrols near three of the warehouses he’d guessed might be candidates for the next target to go up in flames. These reports, as they had done every night for the last two weeks, contained nothing of importance.
At mid-morning, Alphonse delivered quite a long list of possible incendiary materials that he and Ed had ruled out at the most recent fire site. As Maes ran his eyes down the list, his heart sank. They had covered all the usual sorts of fuel and triggers, as well as the lesser known ones his own people were already testing for, and even some that his own chemists had never heard of. It was a very thorough list.
And it also gave further credence to what Ed had claimed: that the fires were either being started by some substance or method nobody had discovered yet, or…or that their criminal was an alchemist.
Roy was going to hate this.
So when, two nights later, Maes again heard the phone shrilling in the middle of the night and realized what the call meant, his first thought was for Roy, and what this was going to do to him.
(See chapter 5 part 1)
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-07 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-07 03:07 am (UTC)I love the description you have of the motion Roy uses to put the flames out. It's very similar to the one I had imagined. You say it's like smoothing the flames out, and I agree with that (the sort of motion you'd use to smooth a cloth or a wrinkle in your clothing, ne?), but I think more of it as covering/smothering the flames in that sort of motion. It's the same thing visually, but it has a different mental implication, I think. Still similar :3
It's the small details of a story that make it more than just one big plot, and start shaping it into a proper world: the little things, like the stories about General Borden's reputation. Nice touch, thar!
Looks like we're getting into a bit more of the action, now - instead of "This has happened", it's become "This is happening." I'm looking forward to new developments!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 12:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-11 06:43 pm (UTC)The devil is in the details and you've got them.
Ed and Al's application of alchemy in the investigation was brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-11 06:56 pm (UTC)And I'm even more convinced that Roy's guilty, now, though I don't know what his ultimate plan is (beyond self annihilation, that is).