Buried up to the neck and suffocating.
Characters: Maes Hughes and Roy Mustang.
Location: Training grounds.
Rating: PG? PG-13? You know what, no. Everything's going to be happy. Smack a G on this thing.
Time: August 27th, morning.
Description: A dead man and his old friend Hughes meet again. Not under the planned circumstances.
( For lack of a better thing to say: continue. )
Location: Training grounds.
Rating: PG? PG-13? You know what, no. Everything's going to be happy. Smack a G on this thing.
Time: August 27th, morning.
Description: A dead man and his old friend Hughes meet again. Not under the planned circumstances.
( For lack of a better thing to say: continue. )
He had felt almost normal the other day - forced himself to be, really. Smile, talk, smile. Don't think about ghosts. Don't think about possibilities. Don't think about apologies. Rinse, repeat.
Now he was here on the training grounds, and one of the first to arrive because it was, in fact, too damned early for any of the festivities to really begin. It was better, though, than pretending that he'd actually be able to rest. A fit of honesty, was it? Maybe it was more like he didn't have a choice.
As such, he was sitting on a crate overlooking the area where the adults were supposed to be, working his way through a cigarette, watching the clouds on the skyline, the area for some sort of activity. That old headache was coming back, that quiet pulse of pain just at the back of his head, but it was easy to ignore in favor of nicotine.
It's cold, but maybe he hasn't ever been warm since the 24th - since the day of that post - anyway.
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Physical things-- he'd prided himself on being able to notice those really well (though his pride had recently taken a bad blow), but it didn't take an investigations officer to notice how bad of a state the colonel was in. It almost made Hughes want to loiter a bit, wait until a few more people were around; but maybe that'd be worse, if Mustang lost his cool and therefore dignity in one go before the people he was trying to make friends with. And the other had been trying to get along-- and that was a real positive note, one that Hughes would make sure to remember, especially with the way the man was taking a drag on that cigarette like his life depended on it.
Or just his nerves.
Hughes couldn't blame him.
But waiting had never really been much of an option before, and while he supposed it was one here, that was another odd thing to get used to (next to having to step back from Roy). He made sure to drag his feet, though, make enough noise to get through whatever filter Roy might've worked up on himself. Or just plain exhaustion.
Sadly, he bet he could guess what day Roy started looking like this.
"Hey," was the neutral, casual greeting. Casual enough to make Hughes himself flinch over it, but-- he could imagine it. Imagine living in the same city as a walking ghost (what a thing to think of himself as), the pure nightmare that'd be. Especially when they were standing right behind you, he thought with a twist of something in his mind.
But, it was bound to happen. He'd write mean things about Germany's shrewd tactics later. When this wasn't the immediate present.
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Or the fact that you buried him.
His fingers shook. He dispelled it by bringing that cigarette back up to his lips. As such, he was just steady enough to turn around, and meet with Maes Hughes' gaze.
It did very little for his nerves, though, because no one - no one - was supposed to see a dead man walking, talking and breathing, especially if said man lost his life because of you.
The memories of what it was like to stare at a bloodied phone booth/at a coffin/at a tiny batch of green and brown in a military cemetary and a tombstone with your friend's name on it are still fresh and terrible and sharp, like it was just yesterday when it started to train inside his head.
"...Hey."
Roy turned away again, because he lacked the strength to hold on to that gaze, for the moment. He used to think that he'd burn away everything, if it meant looking at that smile again, hearing that voice again. Now he realized that maybe, he was naive. Maybe he was lying.
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It was the strap that caught his eye, and after a replay of Roy turning toward him, the actual patch.
Widening of his own eyes, before furrowing down in confusion and discouragement. Leveling off into a neutral mask of sorts, though it couldn't be said he was smiling-- no. There was a definite frown on his face, and a light one in his voice.
What happened to you, Roy?
"You're not looking too well." A statement of fact, nothing more, nothing else. Saying anything beyond would bring the fact that it was probably his fault too clear into the light for Hughes to deal with, right then. Mustang-- he'd take it the hardest, and yet he was being spoken to the first. There was something wrong with that, as bad as there being something wrong with how this city worked.
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Haven't been for almost a week, in fact. Yosuke Hanamura had disappeared; Souji had followed soon after. Then Hawkeye had showed up, then Dojima had... and the mission...
And now this.
Should've brought a coat. Too damned cold.
Roy wasn't keeping his gaze away from Hughes on purpose; he just had to watch out for Germany, and whoever else decided to turn up today.
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Not to tick the other off-- an honest question, it was, with the same amount of heartfelt aloof-concern that he'd give no matter who he was talking to. No, that was a lie; Roy got a lot more of it than anyone else, though he was also the one Hughes couldn't just drag off and force into a happier, distracting event. Funny, how that worked out.
The universe had a horrible sense of humor.
Damn good thing they'd both showed up early. He was half thinking on making the other call it quits half-way through, if the training was like what he was expecting it to be. The colonel looked-- horrible. To put it bluntly.
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Back in Amestris - back before anything had ever happened - the appropriate response would have ranged from anywhere between half-meant exasperation, deliberate apathy or a careful, reassuring smile. A change of subject would have been in order too, perhaps. A drink, another cigarette.
Roy was too tired now, though, to consider any of that, or to even attempt at pretending. There was never enough time, it seemed, to sit back and find some way to recover. (A better way to lie.)
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Didn't mean he'd mince words once the pleasantries were out of the way, though.
"How do dinners and lunches look, at least?" Not regular, he'd be willing to bet. Or not enough. You're eating more than tobacco leaves, I hope, Roy.
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...Usually. He hadn't been able to work up much of an appetite, as of late, but living with the Dojimas meant eating three square meals, no matter what. Sure, things were a little sparse with the food shortage, but they were still regular.
"Bad time for newcomers to arrive, with the frog attack."
BREW, though, had never been about good timing for anyone. And it apparently had an odd fascination for spiriting people who were meant to die over for one last service before kicking them back home.
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Or whatever Death City could be considered. Hughes was light with his words - always had been, always would be.
But the food shortage issue went without saying. Just as it went without saying that they were skirting around the main issue at hand, too. So much for not mincing words.
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A light smile of his own would have been appropriate, and he knew this. So why couldn't he bring himself to act on it?
Oh, for shame - his cigarette's out. Time for another one. It does make sure he doesn't get hungry all that often.
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Not actually a condemnation - no, never, not with the amount people in Amestris smoked and the occasional one he himself had - but more of a continued upbeat tone, a fact to state that was neutral. He'd only glimpsed over the warning, after all, and most of the diseases listed went right over his head, anyway.
No comments about the potential for fires or anything like that, though. The alchemy... was a topic Hughes really didn't know how to approach (then again, he never did).
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Like himself, actually.
"...Do you want one?"
It was the polite thing to ask.
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Was it tempting? Somewhat. But he'd never been a big smoker in the first place-- leave that business to Havoc- and right then, the clouds in the sky and in his mind were the only ones needed.
Speaking of which. The topic next to speak of.
... Shortcoming.
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...Damned thing wasn't cooperating with him. What else is new, really? It seemed as though these days, Roy was hitting a point where he couldn't even take care of lighting up his own cigarette, at times.
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... The colonel fumbling instead of immediately getting a response was a bit sadder than Hughes wanted to admit to himself, so he looked off, waited a few seconds, and--
"Would there happen to be any set guideline to how these training times go? Germany seemed to just throw us out there."
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