An Occurrence with a Ghost
Roy blinked at the sight before him, “Maes?”
“Hey, buddy,” Hughes, or what appeared to be Hughes, grinned, waving at him from his spot across Roy’s favorite table. “What took you so long? Did you really think I was going to let you dine here alone on this night? Jeez, Roy, I’m starting to think you’ve been too busy for me.” The image laughed and Roy found himself shaking his head, pulling the chair away to sit in it, right across of Hughes, the stirrings of a smile-a real smile, how long has it been since he had one of those?-on his face.
Hughes looked the same but that can’t be right. He was dead, right? Right? Of course, he was. Roy saw the body, having identified it (though he demanded to see that it was true that Hughes died. He would never forget what he felt as he walked through the hall to the mortuary. When they opened the shelf, he didn’t know what to think, holding his breath. Staring at the sickly pale white body, Roy vomited then and there. Everything he had for dinner-not that there was much since he heard Hughes died-was on the floor, soaking into Roy’s knees and gloves. That couldn’t be his best friend’s body. It just couldn’t. Roy refused to believe it but sooner or later, he had to… Hughes wasn’t coming back.) personally. Yet here he was, sitting in front of him, sipping a cup of coffee.
Hughes waved a hand before his face and Roy blinked again before laughing lightly, “You don’t mind that I ordered dinner for you right? Not that it changes anyway, huh? I mean come on, Roy-boy, don’t you get tired of Clam Chowder in a bread bowl?” Roy grinned at the smile on the other’s face and shakes his head.
“You got me hooked on it, Maes, so shouldn’t you really be blaming yourself? Besides, it’s good,” Roy retorted, looking around for a drink, “You ordered me dinner but no drinks? For shame, Maes. I would have hoped you be that considerate.” He rolls his eye, not caring for the fact that he’s older and has a missing eye, wearing an eye-patch and there are more greys in his hair or even the idea that Hughes was really, honest-to-goodness dead. If Hughes didn’t care about that, well then why should he?
Roy turned around to wave for a server but no one was there, customers, employees, he couldn’t even hear anything from the kitchen. Shrugging, he turned over to Hughes only to find him leaning over the table, hand outstretched. His best friend looked hesitant and Roy cocked an eyebrow. “Something wrong Maes?”
The supposedly-dead man looked sad for a moment before smiling, “It’s nothing, I just staring at you. You grew… well, old, Roy. Jeez, it’s been a while hasn’t it?” Hughes raked a hand through his hair and chuckled. “It’s damn while, I say. Hey did you see how much Elysia grew? I can’t believe I missed so much! If only I had my camera today. It would be~ so great if I could bring some photos with me back to…” Hughes’s mouth clamped shut and Roy stared at the dark expression on his best friend’s face.
“Back to… what?” Roy watched Hughes closely, wondering why the other man was so quiet. It was very unlike the man Roy knew who chattered continuously about anything and everything that caught his fancy: Gracia, Elysia, knives, intelligence, the corruption in the military that he loved to gossip to Roy over whiskey and brandy; and way back in the day, he rambled a lot about his best friend. Roy missed those days; he didn’t like the look on Maes’s face and turned around to wave for drinks.
Still there were no people behind him. He shrugged again and glanced back at Hughes, waiting for an answer. After a moment of silence, Hughes sighed and put on a what seemed to be a forced grin, “Oh it’s nothing, Mustang Sally. Now tell me you stop letting the ladies ride you or what? Finally decided to settle down and get married? Come on, Roy! You know you want to. Don’t you see how much fun I am with Gracia and Elysia? Can’t you even imagine little Roys running around?” They both shared a chuckle at that and Roy reached forward to slap Hughes on the shoulder but the other man danced away.
Roy frowned and glanced questionably into Hughes’s eyes before sighing softly, “Please, like I would ever settle down? I’m not the marrying type, Maes. Never was.” He grinned, “At least not after you left but that’s understandable. Even I can’t seem to get lucky when it counts, huh? At least not when I want it to.” He reached for an empty glass and blinked as his hand passed right through it. When he did it again, he touched the cool surface and stared at it oddly. What just happened?
Shaking his head, he glanced over at Hughes before looking down at his filled glass. There was whiskey inside. “And don’t you go off singing that damn song, too, Maes. Just because it’s called Mustang Sally, doesn’t give you the right to sing it every single time we happen to be out of the office and out of uniform.” Roy pointedly stared at the man’s salmon suit which was just bordering on the good side of pink men’s clothing. He wasn’t vomiting, was he?
“But~, Roy! It fits you so much! ‘Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down.’ Yeah, Roy! Slow your mustang down, God damn it, you know that one-nighters ain’t just right, right?” Hughes grinned and attempted to reach for Roy again but stopping himself in time, “Sooner or later the girls are going to stop trying to flock to you. Heck, maybe they’ll start going after Havoc or something. You do look like you’re aging wrong.”
“I age just fine,” Roy twitched, sipping the whiskey that just happened to taste more like iced tea. “Maes…? Is there something wrong here or what? I don’t know but this is whiskey in my hand right?”
Hughes nodded briskly and smiled, drinking a glass of what looked like brandy, “Think so, you sure you’re alright, Roy? I mean ‘You been running all over the town now’ and well, damn, Roy. You sure you don’t want to slow down? Pride’s dead and your reinstated as a Major General, wow Roy. Major General. That’s two more until Fuhrer. Think you’ll hold out long enough? I mean… I’m not there anymore and well…”
Roy smiled at Hughes and reached for the other man, this time grabbing Hughes’s hand, noting how icy cold it was but not caring one bit about that. “You’re there, Hughes, and you’re here now, aren’t you? Isn’t that enough and well… Thanks for the congrats, how small they might be. Are you really my best friend or what? And where is our dinner? I’m hungry, God damn it. It’s been some time since I had a good bowl of soup.”
“Still think of it as better than sex?” Hughes wiggled his eyebrows, taking Roy’s hand and twining their fingers, squeezing tightly. His best friend’s hand didn’t warm up in Roy’s, remaining the same freezing temperature that spilled into the alchemist’s body, chilling his heart. He waved the idiotic ideas that flattered through his mind at the touch. Hughes was here and now, why should he go off and curse it? “How the hell can soup be better than sex, anyway?”
Scoffing, Roy shook his head and tightened the grip he had on Hughes, not wanting to let go, “It’s been a while since I had good sex. I think the last time we had sex was the best there was, or was that the first time? The hell I knew. Don’t think I remember really.”
Hughes had the decency to look appalled at that, “What?! But I was the one that took your cherry, though we were drunk but still! You had to remember that! Tell me you’re lying, please? Please?!” Roy snickered as Hughes pouted at him before leaning across the table and kissed him hard and deeply.
Ice water cascaded down his throat as he nibbled the other’s lower lip, eye closed in pleasure. The taste, the taste he had hoped to have, was dimmed and diluted. He sighed softly against Hughes’s mouth before he was pushed away. Staring at Hughes’s sad face, Roy looked away and moved to let go of his best friend’s hand but Hughes just held on to him tighter. “Maes… I’m sorry.”
“It’s… not that,” Hughes sighed, “You know as much as I want to, Roy… I just can’t. Not anymore anyway. There’s Gracia, Elysia-“
“The fact you’re dead,” Roy finished, glancing at Hughes in the eye, “Maes. I know. I understand. I told you before… I’m just not lucky when I want to be and I accept that. As much as I do love you, I don’t want you to feel guilty.” He stood up and walked over to Hughes, moving to sit on the other’s lap. “Maes… Just give me tonight. You know what tonight is? It’s the first time you and I dated and you brought me here for a bowl of soup. We had sex just a year after that, coming back from this bistro for our anniversary dinner. I don’t want to settle down if I can’t have you.”
He pressed his forehead against the other’s, sighing softly, staring into Hughes’s eyes. “Let’s just have dinner like old times, go out with a bang and go separate ways. I’m a big boy now, Maes. I don’t need you overbearing me like usual.” Roy kissed the other man lightly before turning around, not at all surprised to find a bowl of soup on the plate in front of Hughes.
“Roy… I love you and I miss you,” Hughes nuzzled the other’s neck, “A little too much sometimes but I can’t help it. It’s lonely up there but I don’t want to see you anytime soon. Let’s have dinner now. But you are not getting out of my lap until much later.” Roy could feel Hughes grinning against his skin and laughed as cold arms wrapped around his waist tightly. He leaned into the other’s hold and took a sip of the soup, letting the warmth drive away the cold.
They alternated sips of soup and kisses and Roy grinned happily at Hughes, not caring that his body seemed to grow even colder despite the warmth of the soup going down in his throat. None of that mattered when he smelled and breathed the other man who held him firmly. Roy leaned his head on the other’s shoulder and chuckled softly at a joke Hughes made, wishing for the moment to last forever. He wanted to stay in Hughes’s arms forever but he knew he couldn’t.
It was a nice dream but he still had reality to go and look forward to. He vowed to be Fuhrer for Hughes and for everyone else he lost or killed. “I have a country to clean up, Maes.”
“I know,” the other man said briskly, “You’ll do it. You’ll clean up Amestris and be the best Fuhrer there was. Makes me jealous that I won’t be there with you, really, at your inauguration.”
Roy kissed Hughes hard on the mouth, pushing the soup bowl away, “You’re here with me, no matter where you really are and vice versa. I don’t need you physically to know that you’re there with me mentally and emotionally. I love you, Maes. I would give anything for you but Amestris is important. It’s our home.”
Hughes returned the kiss, “I know. Say Gracia and Elysia I said hi, okay? I want to do that myself but… Well,” he shook his head lightly, “I think our time is up now, Roy.”
The alchemist nodded and held tighter to Hughes. “Yeah, I think you’re right. You’re fading. I just… don’t want you to go.”
“Roy… Let go.”
“…Alright.”
And so he did and he watched with his heart in his throat as Hughes disappeared completely, leaving him in alone in an empty bistro and a glass of whiskey that tasted like iced tea. Swallowing the drink, he stood up and grabbed his hat, tucking it over his head before he left the bistro with his head held high and conviction heavy in his heart.
Two more ranks until he was Fuhrer. Yeah, he can do it. He could already hear Hughes’s voice telling him he could do it in his ears.
Roy grinned and stepped out.
The End
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“Hey, buddy,” Hughes, or what appeared to be Hughes, grinned, waving at him from his spot across Roy’s favorite table. “What took you so long? Did you really think I was going to let you dine here alone on this night? Jeez, Roy, I’m starting to think you’ve been too busy for me.” The image laughed and Roy found himself shaking his head, pulling the chair away to sit in it, right across of Hughes, the stirrings of a smile-a real smile, how long has it been since he had one of those?-on his face.
Hughes looked the same but that can’t be right. He was dead, right? Right? Of course, he was. Roy saw the body, having identified it (though he demanded to see that it was true that Hughes died. He would never forget what he felt as he walked through the hall to the mortuary. When they opened the shelf, he didn’t know what to think, holding his breath. Staring at the sickly pale white body, Roy vomited then and there. Everything he had for dinner-not that there was much since he heard Hughes died-was on the floor, soaking into Roy’s knees and gloves. That couldn’t be his best friend’s body. It just couldn’t. Roy refused to believe it but sooner or later, he had to… Hughes wasn’t coming back.) personally. Yet here he was, sitting in front of him, sipping a cup of coffee.
Hughes waved a hand before his face and Roy blinked again before laughing lightly, “You don’t mind that I ordered dinner for you right? Not that it changes anyway, huh? I mean come on, Roy-boy, don’t you get tired of Clam Chowder in a bread bowl?” Roy grinned at the smile on the other’s face and shakes his head.
“You got me hooked on it, Maes, so shouldn’t you really be blaming yourself? Besides, it’s good,” Roy retorted, looking around for a drink, “You ordered me dinner but no drinks? For shame, Maes. I would have hoped you be that considerate.” He rolls his eye, not caring for the fact that he’s older and has a missing eye, wearing an eye-patch and there are more greys in his hair or even the idea that Hughes was really, honest-to-goodness dead. If Hughes didn’t care about that, well then why should he?
Roy turned around to wave for a server but no one was there, customers, employees, he couldn’t even hear anything from the kitchen. Shrugging, he turned over to Hughes only to find him leaning over the table, hand outstretched. His best friend looked hesitant and Roy cocked an eyebrow. “Something wrong Maes?”
The supposedly-dead man looked sad for a moment before smiling, “It’s nothing, I just staring at you. You grew… well, old, Roy. Jeez, it’s been a while hasn’t it?” Hughes raked a hand through his hair and chuckled. “It’s damn while, I say. Hey did you see how much Elysia grew? I can’t believe I missed so much! If only I had my camera today. It would be~ so great if I could bring some photos with me back to…” Hughes’s mouth clamped shut and Roy stared at the dark expression on his best friend’s face.
“Back to… what?” Roy watched Hughes closely, wondering why the other man was so quiet. It was very unlike the man Roy knew who chattered continuously about anything and everything that caught his fancy: Gracia, Elysia, knives, intelligence, the corruption in the military that he loved to gossip to Roy over whiskey and brandy; and way back in the day, he rambled a lot about his best friend. Roy missed those days; he didn’t like the look on Maes’s face and turned around to wave for drinks.
Still there were no people behind him. He shrugged again and glanced back at Hughes, waiting for an answer. After a moment of silence, Hughes sighed and put on a what seemed to be a forced grin, “Oh it’s nothing, Mustang Sally. Now tell me you stop letting the ladies ride you or what? Finally decided to settle down and get married? Come on, Roy! You know you want to. Don’t you see how much fun I am with Gracia and Elysia? Can’t you even imagine little Roys running around?” They both shared a chuckle at that and Roy reached forward to slap Hughes on the shoulder but the other man danced away.
Roy frowned and glanced questionably into Hughes’s eyes before sighing softly, “Please, like I would ever settle down? I’m not the marrying type, Maes. Never was.” He grinned, “At least not after you left but that’s understandable. Even I can’t seem to get lucky when it counts, huh? At least not when I want it to.” He reached for an empty glass and blinked as his hand passed right through it. When he did it again, he touched the cool surface and stared at it oddly. What just happened?
Shaking his head, he glanced over at Hughes before looking down at his filled glass. There was whiskey inside. “And don’t you go off singing that damn song, too, Maes. Just because it’s called Mustang Sally, doesn’t give you the right to sing it every single time we happen to be out of the office and out of uniform.” Roy pointedly stared at the man’s salmon suit which was just bordering on the good side of pink men’s clothing. He wasn’t vomiting, was he?
“But~, Roy! It fits you so much! ‘Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down.’ Yeah, Roy! Slow your mustang down, God damn it, you know that one-nighters ain’t just right, right?” Hughes grinned and attempted to reach for Roy again but stopping himself in time, “Sooner or later the girls are going to stop trying to flock to you. Heck, maybe they’ll start going after Havoc or something. You do look like you’re aging wrong.”
“I age just fine,” Roy twitched, sipping the whiskey that just happened to taste more like iced tea. “Maes…? Is there something wrong here or what? I don’t know but this is whiskey in my hand right?”
Hughes nodded briskly and smiled, drinking a glass of what looked like brandy, “Think so, you sure you’re alright, Roy? I mean ‘You been running all over the town now’ and well, damn, Roy. You sure you don’t want to slow down? Pride’s dead and your reinstated as a Major General, wow Roy. Major General. That’s two more until Fuhrer. Think you’ll hold out long enough? I mean… I’m not there anymore and well…”
Roy smiled at Hughes and reached for the other man, this time grabbing Hughes’s hand, noting how icy cold it was but not caring one bit about that. “You’re there, Hughes, and you’re here now, aren’t you? Isn’t that enough and well… Thanks for the congrats, how small they might be. Are you really my best friend or what? And where is our dinner? I’m hungry, God damn it. It’s been some time since I had a good bowl of soup.”
“Still think of it as better than sex?” Hughes wiggled his eyebrows, taking Roy’s hand and twining their fingers, squeezing tightly. His best friend’s hand didn’t warm up in Roy’s, remaining the same freezing temperature that spilled into the alchemist’s body, chilling his heart. He waved the idiotic ideas that flattered through his mind at the touch. Hughes was here and now, why should he go off and curse it? “How the hell can soup be better than sex, anyway?”
Scoffing, Roy shook his head and tightened the grip he had on Hughes, not wanting to let go, “It’s been a while since I had good sex. I think the last time we had sex was the best there was, or was that the first time? The hell I knew. Don’t think I remember really.”
Hughes had the decency to look appalled at that, “What?! But I was the one that took your cherry, though we were drunk but still! You had to remember that! Tell me you’re lying, please? Please?!” Roy snickered as Hughes pouted at him before leaning across the table and kissed him hard and deeply.
Ice water cascaded down his throat as he nibbled the other’s lower lip, eye closed in pleasure. The taste, the taste he had hoped to have, was dimmed and diluted. He sighed softly against Hughes’s mouth before he was pushed away. Staring at Hughes’s sad face, Roy looked away and moved to let go of his best friend’s hand but Hughes just held on to him tighter. “Maes… I’m sorry.”
“It’s… not that,” Hughes sighed, “You know as much as I want to, Roy… I just can’t. Not anymore anyway. There’s Gracia, Elysia-“
“The fact you’re dead,” Roy finished, glancing at Hughes in the eye, “Maes. I know. I understand. I told you before… I’m just not lucky when I want to be and I accept that. As much as I do love you, I don’t want you to feel guilty.” He stood up and walked over to Hughes, moving to sit on the other’s lap. “Maes… Just give me tonight. You know what tonight is? It’s the first time you and I dated and you brought me here for a bowl of soup. We had sex just a year after that, coming back from this bistro for our anniversary dinner. I don’t want to settle down if I can’t have you.”
He pressed his forehead against the other’s, sighing softly, staring into Hughes’s eyes. “Let’s just have dinner like old times, go out with a bang and go separate ways. I’m a big boy now, Maes. I don’t need you overbearing me like usual.” Roy kissed the other man lightly before turning around, not at all surprised to find a bowl of soup on the plate in front of Hughes.
“Roy… I love you and I miss you,” Hughes nuzzled the other’s neck, “A little too much sometimes but I can’t help it. It’s lonely up there but I don’t want to see you anytime soon. Let’s have dinner now. But you are not getting out of my lap until much later.” Roy could feel Hughes grinning against his skin and laughed as cold arms wrapped around his waist tightly. He leaned into the other’s hold and took a sip of the soup, letting the warmth drive away the cold.
They alternated sips of soup and kisses and Roy grinned happily at Hughes, not caring that his body seemed to grow even colder despite the warmth of the soup going down in his throat. None of that mattered when he smelled and breathed the other man who held him firmly. Roy leaned his head on the other’s shoulder and chuckled softly at a joke Hughes made, wishing for the moment to last forever. He wanted to stay in Hughes’s arms forever but he knew he couldn’t.
It was a nice dream but he still had reality to go and look forward to. He vowed to be Fuhrer for Hughes and for everyone else he lost or killed. “I have a country to clean up, Maes.”
“I know,” the other man said briskly, “You’ll do it. You’ll clean up Amestris and be the best Fuhrer there was. Makes me jealous that I won’t be there with you, really, at your inauguration.”
Roy kissed Hughes hard on the mouth, pushing the soup bowl away, “You’re here with me, no matter where you really are and vice versa. I don’t need you physically to know that you’re there with me mentally and emotionally. I love you, Maes. I would give anything for you but Amestris is important. It’s our home.”
Hughes returned the kiss, “I know. Say Gracia and Elysia I said hi, okay? I want to do that myself but… Well,” he shook his head lightly, “I think our time is up now, Roy.”
The alchemist nodded and held tighter to Hughes. “Yeah, I think you’re right. You’re fading. I just… don’t want you to go.”
“Roy… Let go.”
“…Alright.”
And so he did and he watched with his heart in his throat as Hughes disappeared completely, leaving him in alone in an empty bistro and a glass of whiskey that tasted like iced tea. Swallowing the drink, he stood up and grabbed his hat, tucking it over his head before he left the bistro with his head held high and conviction heavy in his heart.
Two more ranks until he was Fuhrer. Yeah, he can do it. He could already hear Hughes’s voice telling him he could do it in his ears.
Roy grinned and stepped out.
The End
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