Full Metal Alchemist, "Trickle Down Theory," no pairing (Al/Danny), PG
The story behind this story is a bad story so I won't tell it here, but I will say that writing this story makes the story behind this story something I can stand to live with.
I like writing Al and Danny and Roy. It's a neat dynamic.
I hope you like it, too.
~mQ
Trickle-Down Theory
by Mistr3ss Quickly
Human interaction is fluid, like water, like air. It moves in currents, stirs when there are active bodies, moving around within it. It spreads and thins, pools and mixes.
~*Action*~
Roy's proud of his prodigy, the diminutive blonde with big, adorable eyes and a brain that never seems to stop working, never seems to stop coming up with things that are nothing short of awe-inspiring. He's proud of his prodigy, closest thing he's got to a son, and so he makes allowances for Al, ignores the rules and lets Al get away with just about everything short of murder and not eating his vegetables (which are really the same thing, if you look at things the way Roy sees them).
But the higher-ups-the old men with more stars on their jackets than Roy's got on his, the men who still use slang terms for the Xing and the Ishbalan peoples as though they were commonly acceptable-don't really care if Al eats his vegetables.
They do care that Al's research is funded by the Military, however; care that Al's travel expenses and living arrangements and bodyguard all seem to show up on forms that take money away from the Military, and even with all of that, Al still has produced neither a missing State Alchemist nor a Philosopher's Stone.
All Al has given them is a topic to grumble over while they drink their Military-purchased coffee from their Military-purchased cups, glaring at another front-page full-color picture of Roy Mustang doing something that The People Really Seem To Like.
~*Betrayal*~
Al comes to Roy's office sometimes, when his bodyguard has something else to do, and basks in his pseudo-father's pride, telling Roy stories from his travels and the details of his latest theory, secrets about how close he really is to finding a crack in the shell holding their world separate from the world where his brother surely has gone. Roy listens intently and smiles a lot, pets Al's hair and tells him just how proud he is that Al's working so very hard and making so very much progress.
Usually. Usually.
But not today.
Today, Al walks into Roy's office, depressed and looking forward to the lift he gets from being around Roy's feelings towards him, and Roy doesn't smile, not like Roy usually smiles. Roy tells him to have a seat and Al sits, and Roy tells Al that Al can't come by like this, anymore, that it's a waste of his time and a waste of Al's, that Al surely has other things he could be doing.
Of course, he doesn't say it so bluntly, but Al's a genius and Al gets it. Al smiles and nods and makes up an excuse about being mistaken, thinking he needed to check in with his superior.
(Because Edward's journals all mentioned him reporting in to Colonel Mustang, who's now General Mustang, and since Roy knows it's True and Al knows Roy knows it's True, Roy can't argue.)
Then Al makes up an excuse that Danny's waiting for him, and leaves.
Roy doesn't pat him on the head.
Al lies to himself and decides that he doesn't mind.
Danny's gone for another hour, at least, Al knows, and the library's awfully big and cold and dark when Danny's not there to smile and drape his jacket over Al's shoulders, so Al doesn't go back to the library. He slips out of Roy's office with his eyes focused on the floor in front of the toes of his boots, pretends not to hear when Jean Havoc spots him and calls out to him, wanting to know where Al's bodyguard is.
(Jean's smarter than anyone in the office gives him credit for; Al knows that Jean has served as Roy's bodyguard on a few occasions and will spot any lie he can come up with if he has to tell Jean why Danny's not with him.)
Al goes home. Back to the dorm room that smells like coffee and shoe polish, a room with two beds and a table full of books and the box of fruit-flavored candy he and Danny have been snacking out of for the past few days, even though the candy gives both of them headaches. He curls up in bed with his back propped up against the wall and a book propped up in his lap-One Thousand Recipes for Making Magic in The Kitchen-but he can't keep his mind on it, can't get the hurt of Roy telling him to go away to clear well enough for his mind to sort the words from their meanings, the obvious from the hidden.
After thirty-eight minutes, by his brother's Watch, Al closes the book and gives up, opens up a book of maps instead, marking points of Notable Events In The History Of Alchemy in one color and Places Where I've Supposedly Been With Brother in another.
Thirty-one minutes later, his fingers are more blue and red than they are pink, and the map he bought from the store where his friend Fletcher was caught impersonating him looks like a mess, but it's a mess Al can read, so it's an okay mess, and his fingers will come clean eventually, so that's okay too.
He opens his mouth to tell this to Danny when Danny throws open the door and comes inside, cheeks flushed red, the sole of his boot loud against the door when he kicks it shut, but Danny's got other things to say and he's too busy saying them for Al to get a word in edgewise.
"What the hell were you thinking, Alphonse?" Danny says, when the door's closed and he's standing in the middle of the room. "You said you'd stay in the General's office until I was done with my training drills. I went looking for you when I'd finished and got screamed at because you told the General that I was meeting you outside. Why would you lie to him about that? Do you have any idea why they'd assigned me to you? Come on, you're brilliant, aren't you?"
Danny's hair is messy; Al wonders-in the long, thin second before the hurt hits-if it's windy outside.
He doesn't have an answer for Danny.
Roy doesn't want me to come to his office anymore might be true, but it'll lead to questions of why not and Al doesn't want to answer those, not even in the quiet privacy of his own head.
Roy threw me out isn't entirely true, and it'll lead to the same set of questions, and Al's even more certain now than he was before that he doesn't want to answer any of those right now.
I had work to do isn't a lie, but it's too close to the truth that the kind of work he usually does in Roy's office is less book-related and more personal, more selfish, and Al doesn't want Danny to know that, doesn't really want to admit it to himself.
I just had to go is the truth.
Al says I'm sorry and wonders where else he can go to get away from the look he gets from Danny in return.
"Well," says Danny, deflating, "just don't do it ever again. Okay Al?"
Then they spend the rest of the afternoon together in silence.
~*Reaction*~
Al doesn't come by to see Roy anymore.
Roy notices it first when he gets a requisition form to sign which details the cost of Al's last trip-another to Lior, Roy wonders what's going on in that city-but Al doesn't come by to tell him about his findings in the dead city. Roy wonders about it, but not too much. Gets busy and forgets to wonder about it again.
Then later, when Roy's staring out the window, lost in his own thoughts, he sees Sergeant Broche on the Parade Grounds, participating in the hand-to-hand combat exercise drill the higher-ups decided to put all of the lower-ranking soldiers through. He watches for twenty minutes before Riza catches him and tells him to get back to work, but he can't concentrate on the forms he's signing, his mind wandering constantly back to the boy he's not seen in a number of weeks he can't quite keep count of, save that he knows when it started and knows it's his fault.
He sends for Sergeant Broche.
"Central Library, sir," says Danny, when Roy asks why Al's not with him.
"Unguarded?" says Roy.
"No, sir," says Danny. "He's with Lieutenant Ross. She was named in my contract as my second, in event that I could not fulfill my duties as guard."
Roy remembers that, suddenly, and feels foolish. "Thank you, Sergeant," he says. "That will be all."
Danny salutes and leaves the room. Roy watches him go and feels the cold attitude Sergeant Broche has had since the day Roy screamed at him for letting Al sneak away leave the room with him.
It just makes him feel worse.
Two days later, he sends for Al. The boy comes to see him, but he brings his bodyguard with him-doesn't tell Danny to leave the room when Roy asks him to have a seat-and Roy doesn't have the heart to give the order himself.
Danny stands by the door, and Al's eyes flit to him, every so often.
Roy makes one apology, two excuses, three attempts to Smooth Things Over.
Al says he understands, nods twice, glances three times at Danny, standing by the door.
He leaves and doesn't come back when Danny has other things to do, other places to be.
Roy can't say that he blames him.
~*Complication*~
"I'm so sorry I shouted at you, sweetheart. I really didn't mean to seem so angry with you. Really. I'm sorry."
He's said it more times than he can remember, less frequently as time goes on. Today, though, he feels that it's appropriate to say because Roy's brought the issue up again and Al's obviously hurting from it.
"I told you it was fine, Danny," says Al. "Let it go."
But Danny can't stand to let it go, can't stand for Al to look at him like he does, guarded and hurt and scared because he-and Danny, too-now know that they're not equals, know that it's not true that they're just lovers when they lie in bed together, kissing and touching like lovers lucky enough to be together almost all the time.
Even when it's Maria who's spent the day with him, Maria who's stood at the doorway in the room Al uses for his research at the library, her hand resting on the butt of her gun, Danny is Al's bodyguard, and Al is Danny's superior, and it makes them wary of each other, makes Al shrink away when Danny touches him on the shoulder, makes Danny hesitate to close his eyes when Al kisses him on the lips.
Al's quiet until they return to their dorm room, the day slipping into dusk, clouds gathering for the rain promised for the night. He takes off his boots and his red coat and unties his ponytail, sighs when Danny's hip bumps against his backside, accidental because Danny won't touch him there on purpose anymore.
Al doesn't really want him to, anyway.
"It's not Roy's fault," he says, suddenly.
Danny looks at him, jacket half unbuttoned.
"That I ran off like that," says Al. "It's not Roy's fault. I did it because I'm sick to death of all of this, sick of having to be babysat by someone all the time. It's my fault and I’m sorry, and I know it was bad and I’m sorry. Wish everyone would stop bringing it up."
He doesn't sound very sorry to Danny, but it's not wise to pick a fight with Al when Al's already upset.
Danny takes off his jacket and drapes it over the footboard of his bunk, the bed he and Al shared for almost a year before Al started sleeping alone again. He opens his arms and waits, folds them around Al's back when Al steps forward and rests his head on Danny's chest.
"It's okay, sweetheart," he says.
He doesn't mean it.
He wants to tell Al that it's not okay. It's your fault for running off and Roy's fault for making you want to run away. It's your fault for not coming to me when you ran away from Roy's office and Roy's fault for screaming at me when it was you he was mad at.
But he doesn't.
"It's okay sweetheart," he says, again.
Just to be sure.
~*Susceptibility*~
Eventually, it's too much. For all of them.
Roy can't stand it.
Al can't stand it.
Danny can't stand it.
Al signs the form that removes him from the Military's protection (and payroll) and hands it to Roy, who signs on the line beneath Al's signature, relieving Danny of his bodyguarding duties and returning him to being a plain old sergeant in a Military That Has No One Left To Fight.
Danny walks back to the dorm room with Al and helps Al pack.
They barely speak.
They barely touch.
They don't kiss.
Danny takes Al to the station because he wants to (it's no longer his job to, and They Both Know It), and blinks when Al buys a ticket for a train that will take him to Lior, not Rizenbul.
Al holds up the ticket. "Now you know where I'm going," he says, softly. Seriously. "Don't you dare tell Roy."
Danny kisses him on the lips, right there in public, and promises.
~*Reliability*~
One week later, Danny loses his job by keeping his promise.
"I'm sorry," says Roy, handing him his walking papers. "But if you won't tell me where he's gone, then you're guilty of insubordination, and since you've got two strikes of insubordination already, there's nothing I can do but let you go."
He doesn't sound sorry. Danny can't really blame him.
Roy's lost the closest thing he had to a son, after all, and can't find the boy, even though Danny's pretty sure Lior would be one of the first places Roy would look for Al.
He doesn't know, as he leaves the office, that Roy can't go looking for Al in places like Lior and Xenotime, where he knows Al has been, where he knows Al has gone, because No One Else Knows, not among his superiors, anyway, and that Keeps Al Safe.
He doesn't know that Roy knows Al's got to be living somewhere close to the research, that Roy's biding his time, waiting until he can slip under the radar like Alphonse and Edward were always so good at doing and go find the boy, box his ears for scaring him, then hug him 'til Al promises never to run off again.
Roy watches from the window as Citizen Daniel Broche walks down the sidewalk, towards the dormitories, and curses under his breath, almost welcoming the distraction Riza brings him, paperwork and a look that tells him she understands.
~*Adaptation*~
Time passes. Roy begins to receive letters, addressed to his title, not his name.
He's surprised to see that the first is from his former subordinate. Not so surprised when those that follow are signed with the same name.
Danny writes that he's waiting tables in a small city which he does not name. Writes that he has to wear a red-and-white checkered apron around his waist, and it makes him look a bit like a girl, except his hips aren't big enough and his chest's too flat.
Danny writes that the weather is nice, most of the time, and that the library has a courtyard where they allow patrons to read books out in the sunlight. Writes that he's been reading about recipes lately, that the interest might be related to his work.
Danny writes that he misses Central, sometimes, but that he's happy where he is, thank you. Writes that leaving the Military was one of the best things to ever happen to him, hints that he's living with someone, probably a lover.
Danny writes and Roy reads, eager for each neatly scripted word.
The letters make Roy smile.
He wouldn't know Danny's handwriting from any other stranger's, but he'd know Al's handwriting anywhere.
He sits in his office and beams at the letters, then whispers to Riza when they're off-duty and she comes to his apartment for dinner that his little prodigy is close. That any day now, Danny will write and tell Roy to take some time off and come visit him, tell Roy that he's got a visitor already, and Roy needs to come and be a visitor, too.
Riza nods and hands him the onion she's been dicing.
"I'm coming with you, sir," she says, calm as anything.
And neither one of us will tell anyone where we are going.
I like writing Al and Danny and Roy. It's a neat dynamic.
I hope you like it, too.
~mQ
Trickle-Down Theory
by Mistr3ss Quickly
Human interaction is fluid, like water, like air. It moves in currents, stirs when there are active bodies, moving around within it. It spreads and thins, pools and mixes.
~*Action*~
Roy's proud of his prodigy, the diminutive blonde with big, adorable eyes and a brain that never seems to stop working, never seems to stop coming up with things that are nothing short of awe-inspiring. He's proud of his prodigy, closest thing he's got to a son, and so he makes allowances for Al, ignores the rules and lets Al get away with just about everything short of murder and not eating his vegetables (which are really the same thing, if you look at things the way Roy sees them).
But the higher-ups-the old men with more stars on their jackets than Roy's got on his, the men who still use slang terms for the Xing and the Ishbalan peoples as though they were commonly acceptable-don't really care if Al eats his vegetables.
They do care that Al's research is funded by the Military, however; care that Al's travel expenses and living arrangements and bodyguard all seem to show up on forms that take money away from the Military, and even with all of that, Al still has produced neither a missing State Alchemist nor a Philosopher's Stone.
All Al has given them is a topic to grumble over while they drink their Military-purchased coffee from their Military-purchased cups, glaring at another front-page full-color picture of Roy Mustang doing something that The People Really Seem To Like.
~*Betrayal*~
Al comes to Roy's office sometimes, when his bodyguard has something else to do, and basks in his pseudo-father's pride, telling Roy stories from his travels and the details of his latest theory, secrets about how close he really is to finding a crack in the shell holding their world separate from the world where his brother surely has gone. Roy listens intently and smiles a lot, pets Al's hair and tells him just how proud he is that Al's working so very hard and making so very much progress.
Usually. Usually.
But not today.
Today, Al walks into Roy's office, depressed and looking forward to the lift he gets from being around Roy's feelings towards him, and Roy doesn't smile, not like Roy usually smiles. Roy tells him to have a seat and Al sits, and Roy tells Al that Al can't come by like this, anymore, that it's a waste of his time and a waste of Al's, that Al surely has other things he could be doing.
Of course, he doesn't say it so bluntly, but Al's a genius and Al gets it. Al smiles and nods and makes up an excuse about being mistaken, thinking he needed to check in with his superior.
(Because Edward's journals all mentioned him reporting in to Colonel Mustang, who's now General Mustang, and since Roy knows it's True and Al knows Roy knows it's True, Roy can't argue.)
Then Al makes up an excuse that Danny's waiting for him, and leaves.
Roy doesn't pat him on the head.
Al lies to himself and decides that he doesn't mind.
Danny's gone for another hour, at least, Al knows, and the library's awfully big and cold and dark when Danny's not there to smile and drape his jacket over Al's shoulders, so Al doesn't go back to the library. He slips out of Roy's office with his eyes focused on the floor in front of the toes of his boots, pretends not to hear when Jean Havoc spots him and calls out to him, wanting to know where Al's bodyguard is.
(Jean's smarter than anyone in the office gives him credit for; Al knows that Jean has served as Roy's bodyguard on a few occasions and will spot any lie he can come up with if he has to tell Jean why Danny's not with him.)
Al goes home. Back to the dorm room that smells like coffee and shoe polish, a room with two beds and a table full of books and the box of fruit-flavored candy he and Danny have been snacking out of for the past few days, even though the candy gives both of them headaches. He curls up in bed with his back propped up against the wall and a book propped up in his lap-One Thousand Recipes for Making Magic in The Kitchen-but he can't keep his mind on it, can't get the hurt of Roy telling him to go away to clear well enough for his mind to sort the words from their meanings, the obvious from the hidden.
After thirty-eight minutes, by his brother's Watch, Al closes the book and gives up, opens up a book of maps instead, marking points of Notable Events In The History Of Alchemy in one color and Places Where I've Supposedly Been With Brother in another.
Thirty-one minutes later, his fingers are more blue and red than they are pink, and the map he bought from the store where his friend Fletcher was caught impersonating him looks like a mess, but it's a mess Al can read, so it's an okay mess, and his fingers will come clean eventually, so that's okay too.
He opens his mouth to tell this to Danny when Danny throws open the door and comes inside, cheeks flushed red, the sole of his boot loud against the door when he kicks it shut, but Danny's got other things to say and he's too busy saying them for Al to get a word in edgewise.
"What the hell were you thinking, Alphonse?" Danny says, when the door's closed and he's standing in the middle of the room. "You said you'd stay in the General's office until I was done with my training drills. I went looking for you when I'd finished and got screamed at because you told the General that I was meeting you outside. Why would you lie to him about that? Do you have any idea why they'd assigned me to you? Come on, you're brilliant, aren't you?"
Danny's hair is messy; Al wonders-in the long, thin second before the hurt hits-if it's windy outside.
He doesn't have an answer for Danny.
Roy doesn't want me to come to his office anymore might be true, but it'll lead to questions of why not and Al doesn't want to answer those, not even in the quiet privacy of his own head.
Roy threw me out isn't entirely true, and it'll lead to the same set of questions, and Al's even more certain now than he was before that he doesn't want to answer any of those right now.
I had work to do isn't a lie, but it's too close to the truth that the kind of work he usually does in Roy's office is less book-related and more personal, more selfish, and Al doesn't want Danny to know that, doesn't really want to admit it to himself.
I just had to go is the truth.
Al says I'm sorry and wonders where else he can go to get away from the look he gets from Danny in return.
"Well," says Danny, deflating, "just don't do it ever again. Okay Al?"
Then they spend the rest of the afternoon together in silence.
~*Reaction*~
Al doesn't come by to see Roy anymore.
Roy notices it first when he gets a requisition form to sign which details the cost of Al's last trip-another to Lior, Roy wonders what's going on in that city-but Al doesn't come by to tell him about his findings in the dead city. Roy wonders about it, but not too much. Gets busy and forgets to wonder about it again.
Then later, when Roy's staring out the window, lost in his own thoughts, he sees Sergeant Broche on the Parade Grounds, participating in the hand-to-hand combat exercise drill the higher-ups decided to put all of the lower-ranking soldiers through. He watches for twenty minutes before Riza catches him and tells him to get back to work, but he can't concentrate on the forms he's signing, his mind wandering constantly back to the boy he's not seen in a number of weeks he can't quite keep count of, save that he knows when it started and knows it's his fault.
He sends for Sergeant Broche.
"Central Library, sir," says Danny, when Roy asks why Al's not with him.
"Unguarded?" says Roy.
"No, sir," says Danny. "He's with Lieutenant Ross. She was named in my contract as my second, in event that I could not fulfill my duties as guard."
Roy remembers that, suddenly, and feels foolish. "Thank you, Sergeant," he says. "That will be all."
Danny salutes and leaves the room. Roy watches him go and feels the cold attitude Sergeant Broche has had since the day Roy screamed at him for letting Al sneak away leave the room with him.
It just makes him feel worse.
Two days later, he sends for Al. The boy comes to see him, but he brings his bodyguard with him-doesn't tell Danny to leave the room when Roy asks him to have a seat-and Roy doesn't have the heart to give the order himself.
Danny stands by the door, and Al's eyes flit to him, every so often.
Roy makes one apology, two excuses, three attempts to Smooth Things Over.
Al says he understands, nods twice, glances three times at Danny, standing by the door.
He leaves and doesn't come back when Danny has other things to do, other places to be.
Roy can't say that he blames him.
~*Complication*~
"I'm so sorry I shouted at you, sweetheart. I really didn't mean to seem so angry with you. Really. I'm sorry."
He's said it more times than he can remember, less frequently as time goes on. Today, though, he feels that it's appropriate to say because Roy's brought the issue up again and Al's obviously hurting from it.
"I told you it was fine, Danny," says Al. "Let it go."
But Danny can't stand to let it go, can't stand for Al to look at him like he does, guarded and hurt and scared because he-and Danny, too-now know that they're not equals, know that it's not true that they're just lovers when they lie in bed together, kissing and touching like lovers lucky enough to be together almost all the time.
Even when it's Maria who's spent the day with him, Maria who's stood at the doorway in the room Al uses for his research at the library, her hand resting on the butt of her gun, Danny is Al's bodyguard, and Al is Danny's superior, and it makes them wary of each other, makes Al shrink away when Danny touches him on the shoulder, makes Danny hesitate to close his eyes when Al kisses him on the lips.
Al's quiet until they return to their dorm room, the day slipping into dusk, clouds gathering for the rain promised for the night. He takes off his boots and his red coat and unties his ponytail, sighs when Danny's hip bumps against his backside, accidental because Danny won't touch him there on purpose anymore.
Al doesn't really want him to, anyway.
"It's not Roy's fault," he says, suddenly.
Danny looks at him, jacket half unbuttoned.
"That I ran off like that," says Al. "It's not Roy's fault. I did it because I'm sick to death of all of this, sick of having to be babysat by someone all the time. It's my fault and I’m sorry, and I know it was bad and I’m sorry. Wish everyone would stop bringing it up."
He doesn't sound very sorry to Danny, but it's not wise to pick a fight with Al when Al's already upset.
Danny takes off his jacket and drapes it over the footboard of his bunk, the bed he and Al shared for almost a year before Al started sleeping alone again. He opens his arms and waits, folds them around Al's back when Al steps forward and rests his head on Danny's chest.
"It's okay, sweetheart," he says.
He doesn't mean it.
He wants to tell Al that it's not okay. It's your fault for running off and Roy's fault for making you want to run away. It's your fault for not coming to me when you ran away from Roy's office and Roy's fault for screaming at me when it was you he was mad at.
But he doesn't.
"It's okay sweetheart," he says, again.
Just to be sure.
~*Susceptibility*~
Eventually, it's too much. For all of them.
Roy can't stand it.
Al can't stand it.
Danny can't stand it.
Al signs the form that removes him from the Military's protection (and payroll) and hands it to Roy, who signs on the line beneath Al's signature, relieving Danny of his bodyguarding duties and returning him to being a plain old sergeant in a Military That Has No One Left To Fight.
Danny walks back to the dorm room with Al and helps Al pack.
They barely speak.
They barely touch.
They don't kiss.
Danny takes Al to the station because he wants to (it's no longer his job to, and They Both Know It), and blinks when Al buys a ticket for a train that will take him to Lior, not Rizenbul.
Al holds up the ticket. "Now you know where I'm going," he says, softly. Seriously. "Don't you dare tell Roy."
Danny kisses him on the lips, right there in public, and promises.
~*Reliability*~
One week later, Danny loses his job by keeping his promise.
"I'm sorry," says Roy, handing him his walking papers. "But if you won't tell me where he's gone, then you're guilty of insubordination, and since you've got two strikes of insubordination already, there's nothing I can do but let you go."
He doesn't sound sorry. Danny can't really blame him.
Roy's lost the closest thing he had to a son, after all, and can't find the boy, even though Danny's pretty sure Lior would be one of the first places Roy would look for Al.
He doesn't know, as he leaves the office, that Roy can't go looking for Al in places like Lior and Xenotime, where he knows Al has been, where he knows Al has gone, because No One Else Knows, not among his superiors, anyway, and that Keeps Al Safe.
He doesn't know that Roy knows Al's got to be living somewhere close to the research, that Roy's biding his time, waiting until he can slip under the radar like Alphonse and Edward were always so good at doing and go find the boy, box his ears for scaring him, then hug him 'til Al promises never to run off again.
Roy watches from the window as Citizen Daniel Broche walks down the sidewalk, towards the dormitories, and curses under his breath, almost welcoming the distraction Riza brings him, paperwork and a look that tells him she understands.
~*Adaptation*~
Time passes. Roy begins to receive letters, addressed to his title, not his name.
He's surprised to see that the first is from his former subordinate. Not so surprised when those that follow are signed with the same name.
Danny writes that he's waiting tables in a small city which he does not name. Writes that he has to wear a red-and-white checkered apron around his waist, and it makes him look a bit like a girl, except his hips aren't big enough and his chest's too flat.
Danny writes that the weather is nice, most of the time, and that the library has a courtyard where they allow patrons to read books out in the sunlight. Writes that he's been reading about recipes lately, that the interest might be related to his work.
Danny writes that he misses Central, sometimes, but that he's happy where he is, thank you. Writes that leaving the Military was one of the best things to ever happen to him, hints that he's living with someone, probably a lover.
Danny writes and Roy reads, eager for each neatly scripted word.
The letters make Roy smile.
He wouldn't know Danny's handwriting from any other stranger's, but he'd know Al's handwriting anywhere.
He sits in his office and beams at the letters, then whispers to Riza when they're off-duty and she comes to his apartment for dinner that his little prodigy is close. That any day now, Danny will write and tell Roy to take some time off and come visit him, tell Roy that he's got a visitor already, and Roy needs to come and be a visitor, too.
Riza nods and hands him the onion she's been dicing.
"I'm coming with you, sir," she says, calm as anything.
And neither one of us will tell anyone where we are going.