kashiwrites | NaNoWriMo - Fullmetal Alchemist Fanfic

(See Chapter 7)

Major Vanova, when she arrived, paused in the doorway at the sight of Roy Mustang lounging all over Maes Hughes’s chair while Maes himself sat on a corner of the desk, arms folded across his chest and ankles crossed as he stretched his legs out before him.

He gave her a wan smile as she appeared. “We’ve got an extra passenger,” he said apologetically.

The woman’s brown eyes moved between the two men before finally focusing on Roy in disapproval. “I didn’t get clearance for you, Colonel Mustang,” she informed him.

He smiled. “Doesn’t matter. Hughes goes, I go. It’s as simple as that, Major Vanova. And if you try to go without me, I have a car waiting outside in which I will follow you right to the prison gates.”

“Well then,” the woman replied with a deceptively mild smile. “It would seem our visit is cancelled.” And she turned as if to go.

“No!” Maes cried, leaping to his feet. “I mean...please. This is very important to our investigation. Surely you understand that.”

“I’m fully aware of that. But I don’t appreciate being manipulated like this,” she retorted.

“Oh, calm down,” Roy breezed, waving a hand and favoring her with his most endearing smile. (Maes wanted to snicker; he was sure this woman wouldn’t buy his friend’s charm for a second. He’d have to engage in more complex tactics if he planned to win this game.) “Or if you’re going to blame someone,” Roy continued, “don’t take it out on Hughes. He had no idea I was coming until he arrived here a couple of minutes ago.”

"You aren’t com – "

“Yes I am, Major, and I’ll tell you why.” Roy pulled his feet off the desk, and leaned over it, staring at her. (And here we go, though Maes. Cue opening move: Earnest Explanation.) “It’s one thing for you to go in there and talk to Kimbley yourself. He doesn’t see you as a threat, and it entertains him to watch you try and figure him out. But Maes Hughes is an entirely different matter. Hughes, he’ll see as a threat, especially under the current circumstances. And he’ll also see him as a means of hurting me. You may not have gotten to that little tidbit in your conversations with him as yet, but I assure you that Kimbley would take extreme pleasure in trying to strike at me through Hughes. And I will not risk Lieutenant Colonel Hughes’s life like that. Therefore,” he sat back in the chair, smiling again, “I’m coming with you.”

He might have undone himself with the smug smile, Maes thought. Looking with great interest from Roy to Vanova, he wondered what her counter move would be. Roy was going to win, of course, but it was always entertaining to watch the game.

She used what Maes had come to call people’s Standard Fallback move. Otherwise known as Appeal to Procedure. Sometimes people used the stronger version, Appeal to Authority, but that was usually saved as a moved to be used later in the game.

“Colonel Mustang,” Vanova bristled, "there are proper channels – "

Maes winced, waiting for his friend to pull out the Big Guns. And sure enough…

“Yes, yes.” Roy’s voice took on a tinge of condescension. “If you really have to cross all the t’s and dot the i’s, then I’ll make some calls while you wait, and get all the right big shots to personally tell you to let me go. I have a feeling that will look worse for you than it does for me.”

And that was the tricky part, about the Appeal to Authority. Whoever used it first had a distinct advantage. And the countermove was usually very strong. Meaning that in this particular case the next move of the opponent, of course, would be Outrage. And sometimes it also involved Pulling Rank, but that move could be used in reverse and sometimes be quite effective.

Vanova’s eyes virtually snapped with anger. “Listen here, Mustang, you may outrank me, but when it comes to the psychological wellbeing of my patients, my word carries the day. How dare you try that threat on me!"

Maes wanted to whistle in appreciation. She used the Pulling of Rank and its reverse at the same time. Nice double whammy.

Meaning Roy’s Appeal to Authority was in jeopardy. He sensed his precarious position, and instantly pulled out his classic Conciliate and Mollify move.

Again he leaned forward, his dark hair fringing his face like a halo. "Major. Please. I’m not trying to threaten or intimidate you." (Oh shut up, Roy, you are too, Maes thought.) "But the one thing that could prompt Zolf Kimbley to make extra effort to try to escape, or at least do some serious damage, would be the sight of Maes Hughes standing in his cell. I know my presence will make him worse – and I’m sure that will make your own job more difficult next time you talk to him, for which I’m very sorry – " (Oh good one, Maes nodded. Throwing in the empathy now) " – but even without me there, he’s likely to try whatever he can. And I promise you, neither of you would survive if he succeeds. And I’m the only person with a hope of stopping him. You need me there. I’m going to protect both of you. Won’t you let me do that, Major?"

Wow. He didn’t always use the Lifesaving finishing move. Of course, it wasn’t always appropriate to the situation either. Still, he mustn’t be as confident of automatic victory as he usually was. Maes watched Vanova, who remained in the doorway staring at Roy with narrowed eyes, and wondered if there would need to be a second round.

There rarely was. The woman’s jaw tightened but she took a deep breath, reluctance positively emanating from her.

Straightening her glasses, she gave in. “I’m going to lodge a complaint about this, Colonel,” she said, “but all right. If you insist, and you obviously will, it seems I have no choice.” And she turned without another word and launched herself out of the office.

“Mustang,” Maes grumbled as the two men walked down the hall after her, “sometimes you are a real rat.”

“Relax, Maes,” Roy smiled his most untrustworthy smile. “By the time this is done, Major Vanova will be grateful.”

Maes lowered his voice. “And by the way,” he said, “how did you know she was taking me to talk to Kimbley? You starting to spy on me now?”

Roy looked at him in astonishment, before answering softly, “No, I’d never do that to you. As a matter of fact, I’m spying on him. I’ve got someone inside the prison, watching everything that involves him. Who visits, what happens with his case, everything. Once he was caught and stuck inside, I was determined to keep as much of an eye on him as I could. Because I wasn’t lying: I’m probably the only person with a hope of stopping him if he gets loose. So if he ever did, I wanted to know the instant it happened, so I’d have a head start on getting him back in there. Or…whatever else I might have to do.”

“Well, I’ll be. You surprise me all the time. And I guess your informant told you as soon as the visit was arranged?”

“He called me this morning.” Roy flung one of those sidelong, teasing smiles. “So just relax, Maes. Your babysitter is right here.”

Maes snorted, rolling his eyes. “Don’t pretend this isn’t also a little bit of revenge for my putting a guard on you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roy smirked, the slightest glint of pleasurable malice in his smile.

Their bantering mood began to fade, around about the time the three of them got into the car that was to take them to the maximum security prison. Major Vanova sat silently in the front seat, still radiating disapproval, and Maes and Roy didn’t feel quite so inclined to joke once they were on their way. Maes might have sustained it a little longer, but the smile disappeared quickly from Roy’s face and he spent most of the ride staring out the window, brows drawn together in a small frown.

Maes sighed inwardly, realizing it was probably best, anyway, to get down to preparing himself for the interview to come. He wasn’t even sure yet, what he should ask, or talk about. Thank goodness Major Vanova was here, to help navigate the perilous passage through Kimbley’s tumultuous mind. And...he had to admit...he was awfully glad Roy was here too, despite all the drama surrounding his inclusion. The very thought of being in the same room with someone that insane, who could blow him to quivering chunks in an instant, and enjoy it too...it was unnerving, to say the least.

Roy had been wearing his gloves already, when Maes arrived at the office, and he was showing no inclination to remove them.

The streets of Central rolled by as they drove, calm and self-absorbed as the morning moved along, people shopping at markets or walking babies in prams, or striding along in military uniform on their way to some supposedly important meeting. The sun moved in and out of patches of light cloud, gradually climbing toward its height as the noon hour began its approach.

When they arrived at the high stone walls of the prison, the heavy metal gates opened slowly, almost grudgingly, once Major Vanova stepped out of the car and showed her pass to the guards outside. But the approvals they needed to get, once inside the actual building, were considerably more involved than what they’d encountered at the gate. All three of the visitors were used to the protocols and official procedures of the military, but the number of officials they had to go through before they could get anywhere near their objective was staggering. Vanova, who did this sort of thing on a regular basis, endured it with stoic patience. But Maes’s nerves, already unsettled, were getting more and more ragged, the longer they hate to wait and the more stages they had to go through.

Roy said nothing through the whole thing, standing like a statue and waiting in his own column of unapproachable silence as each phase of their entry was completed. Maes couldn’t tell if he, too, had begun to dread the coming interview, or if he was gathering his inner resources to face this threatening spectre from the past, this dramatic reminder of his own deeds in Ishbal.

At last they received the final approval, and were escorted – by six guards, guns at the ready – down a stairway to the deepest level of the prison, and down a long hallway with reinforced walls, toward a doorway at the far end that looked more like the door of a bank vault than of a prison cell. It even had a big wheel that needed two men to turn, rather than a padlock or a key. There was no window.

Maes favoured Roy with a wide-eyed glance at the sight of it, as they stopped to wait while two of the guards began to roll the great wheel that would release the door.

Roy murmured in response, eyes narrowed, “Wouldn’t stop him at all if his hands were free.”

Vanova looked at him thoughtfully over her shoulder, as she waited for the guards to finish.

Maes wondered, “How do they get food to him? Do they do this with the door every time?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “And they have to feed him too, and help with his other needs.”

Roy asked, “Does he get out at all? Get any exercise?”

“They weren’t doing that at first, but I managed to arrange an hour a day for him, out in the open compound, when all the other prisoners are inside.” She shook her head. “Terrible way to live. I’m trying to think of ways we could be more humane, but it isn’t easy when he’s so dangerous.”

“No,” Roy whispered. “I imagine you can’t afford to treat him humanely when he’s got so much destructive power in his hands.” Maes saw his friend’s own right hand twitch, very slightly, hanging at his side. The man’s frown had deepened, his eyes staring in rapt fascination at the monstrous vault door. And when at last it began to open, slowly, laboriously, Roy’s lips parted and he stood still as stone, watching the dark crack between door and wall start to widen.

Maes thought of Edward, and his stomach took a swooping dive. The moment of the big reveal had arrived. Let him not be there, he breathed to himself. Let us have our answer. Let it be him...

But he was there.

(See Chapter 9)