Ending in Photographs - Maes/Roy - R
Title: Ending In Photographs
Author: theladyfeylene
Fandom: FMA
Pairing: Maes/Roy, Maes/Gracia
Rating: R (for violence and gore)
Warnings: This fic contains graphic descriptions of violent crimes. You have been warned.
Spoilers: N/A
Word Count: 2511
Summary: Maes' days were filled with murder and death and sobbing victims. Roy's days were filled with reports and surveys and trips to small mining towns. Work and distance and changing lives began to tear them apart...
There was a photograph on Maes Hughes’s desk.
It was generous to call the piece of furniture a desk, as rickety and worn as it was. One leg was shorter than the others, compensated by a stack of thin manuals that rested beneath it. The drawers all stuck, swollen with years of damp and disuse. It looked like something that should have seen the trash heap years ago. But it was Maes’s desk, sitting against the wall of the cramped office he shared with another warrant officer.
The surface was cluttered, scattered about with reports and order forms and candy wrappers. But propped against the lamp was a photograph, encased in a simple but well cared for wooden frame. It depicted Maes at graduation, the final hurrah before leaving the academy to join the ranks of Amestris’s finest. He was grinning, and his arm was slung around the shoulders of his companion - a grinning Roy Mustang.
The picture stayed on the desk. Maes had other, better pictures of Roy at home. But a photograph of a single other man would raise eyebrows, and so Maes was content with the graduation picture - there was no soldier who would question it’s presence on the desk of a young bachelor.
Roy was off being an alchemist. Maes spoke with him on the phone once a week, most of the conversation taken up by relating to each other the details of daily life that were unable to be shared. Maes spoke of following along to crime scene investigations, of recording interrogations, of taking confessions. He spoke of all the things he would speak of at the end of a day, but couldn’t because Roy was a day’s travel away. Roy would speak of mines and minerals and whatever else he was lending his alchemical powers to.
The picture remained, however. A constant reminder of the man who’s presence was only missing in the physical. And only sometimes.
***
When Roy first returned, it was as though he had never been gone. He sauntered into Maes’ office, the chain of his pocket watch buffed and shined until it gleamed. Pleasantries were exchanged. Paperwork was shoved into a pile and ignored. The picture was noted with a sly smile.
They stopped by the bar on the way to Maes’ apartment, drinking and laughing and falling into their old routine as though it had only been a day, rather than a month. Back in Maes’ apartment, they tumbled into bed together and stayed up until dawn, unwinding and talking and making love. They were young and in love and all of the world was before them.
Two weeks later, Roy was sent out again. They said their goodbyes with another all night session of company, and Roy slept on the train while Maes downed cup after cup of coffee and attempted to concentrate on crime scene photos.
There was no time for more than one phone call.
***
The next time Roy came back, he sauntered into Maes’ office and stopped. It was empty save for Maes himself, hunched over his desk and looking as though he hadn’t slept in days. Dark circles smudged rings beneath his eyes, and his hands shook. On his desk, Roy could make out photographs. Grainy pictures who’s details couldn’t be made out from the distance.
“Bad case,” was the only thing he said in explanation. Roy stood, watching, uncomfortable in this sudden tension. Maes scrubbed a hand over his face and pushed what was on his desk aside, hiding it beneath papers. Roy didn’t need to see the crime scene photos, didn’t need to see the blood and the stumps and the red pulp that had once been a human being.
“You don’t want to see,” he explained to Roy, his voice grave and heavy. “They’re weeding out the ones who can’t take it,” Maes went on. “Assigning us to the worst stuff. Mitchell, he’s long gone. Threw in the towel last week.”
“You’re still here.” Roy’s eyes were fixed on the hidden papers.
“Barely. Had to go out and look at… at a crime scene this morning. I had to go and be sick. This… this is hell, Roy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Eh, it’s what I signed up for.” Maes sat back in his chair. “It’s just… not pretty. I mean, you see the pictures and you hear the stories but it’s not the same. It’s not the same as getting out there and…” He shook his head. “Never-mind, you don’t want hear this shit.”
“It’s fine.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Would you like to get a drink?”
“Yeah, I need one.” Maes rose and flicked off his desk light. They went to the bar, they drank, they went home and made love in a muted silence.
Roy never did see the pictures that had been on Maes’ desk.
***
The next time, Maes left Central. His superior officer took him to the countryside, on the trail of a criminal dubbed the Central River Killer. Six bodies had been found in the river, dismembered and gutted with a blunt object. All were young women between 16 and 25, all of them born in large town out in the country. And two days before, a body had been found in a small stream just outside of it’s borders.
Roy saw him off at the station.
Maes listened half-heartedly to his superior officer’s explanations of dehumanization and what clues the bodies gave to the murder’s identity. He nodded absently after each explanation and rationalization, agreeing with the idea that they were dealing with a young man, who most likely lived alone and couldn’t hold down a job. He killed often and quickly, meaning he would spend a good amount of time on the run. The bodies were mutilated after death - showing guilt for the act. A gutted and dismembered human corpse was just meat, no longer identifiable as a human. Maes added nothing, simply agreeing to the statements.
An easy catch, his superior officer said. Maes hoped that he was right.
The ride to town was two days. Maes was exhausted by the time they saw the body - or what was left of it. Maes tried to focus as they went over wounds, and debated over what weapons had been used. Maes fought not to look away as the mortician shined a light into the gaping wound where the girl’s stomach had been. The smell of flesh and death and meat made him gag. His hand shook when he was asked to hold back a flap of skin, and his mind was elsewhere, back in Central.
Maes forced himself to remain calm and professional when they questioned family and friends of the victims. He fought not to vomit when the dead girl’s mother showed him photographs of the girl, alive and smiling and happy. There were photos of the girl everywhere. Maes thought it was morbid. The mother, seeing his stricken gaze, explained that photographs were all that they had left.
That first night there was another murder. Maes did his duty, finding it easier not to gag as he inspected the fresh remains. Another girl, face down in the water. But this time they found her limbs, half-buried about a mile away. And all the while, Maes could only think about Roy, and wonder what Roy was doing back in Central without him.
***
It was over a week in that isolated town, waiting for more clues. There was no visiting of the burial sight, and no further murders. Eventually, through questioning and observation, an arrest was made and a confession was given. Maes was promoted. Promises of a larger salary and a better office and hours were quick and plentiful on the train ride home.
When Maes got back to Central, Roy was already gone.
***
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be in.”
Maes Hughes’s new office as larger and brighter than the first, shared with a few other lieutenants. His desk was solid wood and stood on four even legs, and still maintained it’s clutter. Now Maes didn’t bother to brush away the photographs of corpses and severed limbs, used to the sight. He averted his eyes when Roy gagged.
“Just got in. Thought you were coming back… geeze, next week.” Maes ran a hand through his hair. It was awkward now. So much time apart, so many different things between them. There were no pats on the shoulder and warm words of welcome. There was only stilted conversation.
“No, this week,” Roy said, nodding. “Are you finished for the day…?”
“Yeah, just got to drop off a profile to the boss. Give me two minutes.” Maes smiled and pulled a folder off of his desk. He dropped it off and grabbed his coat, knowing full well where they were headed. It was inevitable.
But they went to the bar and made idle conversation and they drank and they went back to Roy’s apartment this time, and they made love awkwardly and quietly, as though they hadn’t quite grown familiar with one another.
Maes didn’t stay the night, pleading an early morning.
***
Days dragged into weeks. Roy left again, and this time there was no long night to say goodbye. There was a shaking of hands in the hallway at Headquarters, and promises to be safe and well. And that was all.
Maes turned his mind away from Roy, and the strange apathy their relationship had fallen into. The time apart, the need to hide it from their fellow officers, the long hours all took a toll. And Maes was tired of it, and he knew Roy was tired of it, but neither one of them were willing to do what needed to be done.
While out to get lunch for the office, Maes wasn’t watching where he was going. He stumbled, falling into a pedestrian coming the other way.
“Geeze… I’m sorry!” Maes flung out a hand to steady the poor civilian he’d collided with. The hand that grabbed his was small and soft. Maes looked up and found himself met by the most beautiful pair of aquamarine eyes he’d ever seen.
“Are you alright?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” Maes dusted himself off and grinned sheepishly. “I’m really sorry, ma’am, my mind was a million miles away.”
“I could tell.” She smiled, and it was as though her whole face lit up. Maes felt a stirring of something he hadn’t felt in almost a year. She was looking at him expectantly, and he realized he was staring.
“Uh… hey, let me make it up to you!” he announced, suddenly. His mouth was acting without instruction from his mind. “Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night.”
“I’m very flattered,” she said. “But I don’t accept dates from strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger,” Maes said, a gnawing in his gut telling him not to do this. “I’m Maes, the guy that ran into you on the sidewalk.”
“You’re a soldier.”
“Second lieutenant,” Maes said, proudly.
“My mother told me never to get involved with a soldier. She said ‘soldier’s wife’ is just another term for widow’.” But there was a hint of flirtation in her voice.
“I’m not that kind of soldier,” Maes explained. “I’m in investigations - criminal justice and all that. Uh, I didn’t get your name…”
“Gracia. And I can’t have dinner with you tomorrow, but I could meet you for lunch.” She smiled. “To get to know you. But it isn’t a date.”
“Name the place,” Maes said, eagerly. She did and he beamed and he watched her walk away.
It was only when he’d returned to his office that he wondered what he would tell Roy.
***
Roy's phone calls were less frequent. Maes met Gracia for lunch, then took her to dinner, then went dancing. She smiled and he felt alive again, and he didn't think about Roy. He held her hand and kissed her cheek and his stomach twisted with a mix of young love and guilt. But still he continued, and the phone calls were more and more distant...
***
It was almost two months before Roy came home, earlier than scheduled. He telephoned beforehand.
“I’ll be in Central tomorrow,” was the first thing he told Maes.
“So soon?”
“With the conflict escalating in Ishbal, the Fuhrer wants the State Alchemists on hand.”
“He’s gonna send in you guys?”
“Perhaps. I’ll see you in the afternoon.”
“Yeah… uh, Roy…”
“Yes?”
“Nevermind. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow.”
Maes wasn’t able to sleep that night.
***
There were two photographs on Maes Hughes’s desk. There was the wooden framed graduation picture, still well cared for and clean and propped against the lamp. But beside it, in a metal frame, was a photograph of a lovely young woman with wheat colored hair and aquamarine eyes. She was smiling, her round cheeks pink and flushed. There was a square of paper tucked into the frame, a note of some sort.
Roy’s eyes fell on the picture as soon as he entered the office. Maes followed the path of his eyes and wet his lips, fear and guilt seizing him. He hadn’t wanted it to happen this way, but he had been too much of a coward.
“That’s what I wanted to talk you about,” Maes said, not bothering with greetings. They would be trite and unwelcome now.
“I see.” Roy’s tone was clipped.
“Her name’s Gracia,” Maes said, desperately. “I met her a few months ago. Roy, look. I… I know I fucked up, but…” He found himself struggling with words, stricken in the line of Roy’s calm and blank gaze. “You and I, we…”
“There’s no need to explain.” Roy’s words were still clipped.
“I was going to tell you.”
“No. You weren’t.”
Maes sighed. He sank down into his chair and ran his hands through his hair and avoided looking at Roy.
“Roy, the last time it actually felt like we were together was…”
“I told you that you didn’t need to explain yourself. I understand.”
And Roy did, and Maes knew it, but it didn’t make anything better. It had been stretched out between them for so long, and they both had turned their eyes away and pretended to ignore it. But then it had broken, and Maes hadn’t bothered to tell Roy and now it withered between them.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“Want to get a drink?” It was a hopeful, desperate question. Roy shook his head.
“No. Not now. Perhaps in a few days.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Maes nodded. “You just let me know when.”
“I will. I’ll let you get back to work now.”
Maes nodded and Roy left, and silence swallowed the office in his wake. Maes cast his eyes to the two photographs, side by side on his desk. He knew he’d been in the wrong, that he had gone about this improperly, but what was done was done. And it was over now, and Roy would be alright because Roy was always alright. They would return to being friends, and the years of something more would fade and diminish to a pleasant memory. But that was in the future. For now it was still raw and withered and painful and broken, and a photograph was all that he had left.
Maes inhaled deeply and turned the graduation photograph face down on the desk. After a few moments, he returned to his work.
Author: theladyfeylene
Fandom: FMA
Pairing: Maes/Roy, Maes/Gracia
Rating: R (for violence and gore)
Warnings: This fic contains graphic descriptions of violent crimes. You have been warned.
Spoilers: N/A
Word Count: 2511
Summary: Maes' days were filled with murder and death and sobbing victims. Roy's days were filled with reports and surveys and trips to small mining towns. Work and distance and changing lives began to tear them apart...
There was a photograph on Maes Hughes’s desk.
It was generous to call the piece of furniture a desk, as rickety and worn as it was. One leg was shorter than the others, compensated by a stack of thin manuals that rested beneath it. The drawers all stuck, swollen with years of damp and disuse. It looked like something that should have seen the trash heap years ago. But it was Maes’s desk, sitting against the wall of the cramped office he shared with another warrant officer.
The surface was cluttered, scattered about with reports and order forms and candy wrappers. But propped against the lamp was a photograph, encased in a simple but well cared for wooden frame. It depicted Maes at graduation, the final hurrah before leaving the academy to join the ranks of Amestris’s finest. He was grinning, and his arm was slung around the shoulders of his companion - a grinning Roy Mustang.
The picture stayed on the desk. Maes had other, better pictures of Roy at home. But a photograph of a single other man would raise eyebrows, and so Maes was content with the graduation picture - there was no soldier who would question it’s presence on the desk of a young bachelor.
Roy was off being an alchemist. Maes spoke with him on the phone once a week, most of the conversation taken up by relating to each other the details of daily life that were unable to be shared. Maes spoke of following along to crime scene investigations, of recording interrogations, of taking confessions. He spoke of all the things he would speak of at the end of a day, but couldn’t because Roy was a day’s travel away. Roy would speak of mines and minerals and whatever else he was lending his alchemical powers to.
The picture remained, however. A constant reminder of the man who’s presence was only missing in the physical. And only sometimes.
***
When Roy first returned, it was as though he had never been gone. He sauntered into Maes’ office, the chain of his pocket watch buffed and shined until it gleamed. Pleasantries were exchanged. Paperwork was shoved into a pile and ignored. The picture was noted with a sly smile.
They stopped by the bar on the way to Maes’ apartment, drinking and laughing and falling into their old routine as though it had only been a day, rather than a month. Back in Maes’ apartment, they tumbled into bed together and stayed up until dawn, unwinding and talking and making love. They were young and in love and all of the world was before them.
Two weeks later, Roy was sent out again. They said their goodbyes with another all night session of company, and Roy slept on the train while Maes downed cup after cup of coffee and attempted to concentrate on crime scene photos.
There was no time for more than one phone call.
***
The next time Roy came back, he sauntered into Maes’ office and stopped. It was empty save for Maes himself, hunched over his desk and looking as though he hadn’t slept in days. Dark circles smudged rings beneath his eyes, and his hands shook. On his desk, Roy could make out photographs. Grainy pictures who’s details couldn’t be made out from the distance.
“Bad case,” was the only thing he said in explanation. Roy stood, watching, uncomfortable in this sudden tension. Maes scrubbed a hand over his face and pushed what was on his desk aside, hiding it beneath papers. Roy didn’t need to see the crime scene photos, didn’t need to see the blood and the stumps and the red pulp that had once been a human being.
“You don’t want to see,” he explained to Roy, his voice grave and heavy. “They’re weeding out the ones who can’t take it,” Maes went on. “Assigning us to the worst stuff. Mitchell, he’s long gone. Threw in the towel last week.”
“You’re still here.” Roy’s eyes were fixed on the hidden papers.
“Barely. Had to go out and look at… at a crime scene this morning. I had to go and be sick. This… this is hell, Roy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Eh, it’s what I signed up for.” Maes sat back in his chair. “It’s just… not pretty. I mean, you see the pictures and you hear the stories but it’s not the same. It’s not the same as getting out there and…” He shook his head. “Never-mind, you don’t want hear this shit.”
“It’s fine.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Would you like to get a drink?”
“Yeah, I need one.” Maes rose and flicked off his desk light. They went to the bar, they drank, they went home and made love in a muted silence.
Roy never did see the pictures that had been on Maes’ desk.
***
The next time, Maes left Central. His superior officer took him to the countryside, on the trail of a criminal dubbed the Central River Killer. Six bodies had been found in the river, dismembered and gutted with a blunt object. All were young women between 16 and 25, all of them born in large town out in the country. And two days before, a body had been found in a small stream just outside of it’s borders.
Roy saw him off at the station.
Maes listened half-heartedly to his superior officer’s explanations of dehumanization and what clues the bodies gave to the murder’s identity. He nodded absently after each explanation and rationalization, agreeing with the idea that they were dealing with a young man, who most likely lived alone and couldn’t hold down a job. He killed often and quickly, meaning he would spend a good amount of time on the run. The bodies were mutilated after death - showing guilt for the act. A gutted and dismembered human corpse was just meat, no longer identifiable as a human. Maes added nothing, simply agreeing to the statements.
An easy catch, his superior officer said. Maes hoped that he was right.
The ride to town was two days. Maes was exhausted by the time they saw the body - or what was left of it. Maes tried to focus as they went over wounds, and debated over what weapons had been used. Maes fought not to look away as the mortician shined a light into the gaping wound where the girl’s stomach had been. The smell of flesh and death and meat made him gag. His hand shook when he was asked to hold back a flap of skin, and his mind was elsewhere, back in Central.
Maes forced himself to remain calm and professional when they questioned family and friends of the victims. He fought not to vomit when the dead girl’s mother showed him photographs of the girl, alive and smiling and happy. There were photos of the girl everywhere. Maes thought it was morbid. The mother, seeing his stricken gaze, explained that photographs were all that they had left.
That first night there was another murder. Maes did his duty, finding it easier not to gag as he inspected the fresh remains. Another girl, face down in the water. But this time they found her limbs, half-buried about a mile away. And all the while, Maes could only think about Roy, and wonder what Roy was doing back in Central without him.
***
It was over a week in that isolated town, waiting for more clues. There was no visiting of the burial sight, and no further murders. Eventually, through questioning and observation, an arrest was made and a confession was given. Maes was promoted. Promises of a larger salary and a better office and hours were quick and plentiful on the train ride home.
When Maes got back to Central, Roy was already gone.
***
“I wasn’t sure if you’d be in.”
Maes Hughes’s new office as larger and brighter than the first, shared with a few other lieutenants. His desk was solid wood and stood on four even legs, and still maintained it’s clutter. Now Maes didn’t bother to brush away the photographs of corpses and severed limbs, used to the sight. He averted his eyes when Roy gagged.
“Just got in. Thought you were coming back… geeze, next week.” Maes ran a hand through his hair. It was awkward now. So much time apart, so many different things between them. There were no pats on the shoulder and warm words of welcome. There was only stilted conversation.
“No, this week,” Roy said, nodding. “Are you finished for the day…?”
“Yeah, just got to drop off a profile to the boss. Give me two minutes.” Maes smiled and pulled a folder off of his desk. He dropped it off and grabbed his coat, knowing full well where they were headed. It was inevitable.
But they went to the bar and made idle conversation and they drank and they went back to Roy’s apartment this time, and they made love awkwardly and quietly, as though they hadn’t quite grown familiar with one another.
Maes didn’t stay the night, pleading an early morning.
***
Days dragged into weeks. Roy left again, and this time there was no long night to say goodbye. There was a shaking of hands in the hallway at Headquarters, and promises to be safe and well. And that was all.
Maes turned his mind away from Roy, and the strange apathy their relationship had fallen into. The time apart, the need to hide it from their fellow officers, the long hours all took a toll. And Maes was tired of it, and he knew Roy was tired of it, but neither one of them were willing to do what needed to be done.
While out to get lunch for the office, Maes wasn’t watching where he was going. He stumbled, falling into a pedestrian coming the other way.
“Geeze… I’m sorry!” Maes flung out a hand to steady the poor civilian he’d collided with. The hand that grabbed his was small and soft. Maes looked up and found himself met by the most beautiful pair of aquamarine eyes he’d ever seen.
“Are you alright?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” Maes dusted himself off and grinned sheepishly. “I’m really sorry, ma’am, my mind was a million miles away.”
“I could tell.” She smiled, and it was as though her whole face lit up. Maes felt a stirring of something he hadn’t felt in almost a year. She was looking at him expectantly, and he realized he was staring.
“Uh… hey, let me make it up to you!” he announced, suddenly. His mouth was acting without instruction from his mind. “Let me take you out to dinner tomorrow night.”
“I’m very flattered,” she said. “But I don’t accept dates from strangers.”
“I’m not a stranger,” Maes said, a gnawing in his gut telling him not to do this. “I’m Maes, the guy that ran into you on the sidewalk.”
“You’re a soldier.”
“Second lieutenant,” Maes said, proudly.
“My mother told me never to get involved with a soldier. She said ‘soldier’s wife’ is just another term for widow’.” But there was a hint of flirtation in her voice.
“I’m not that kind of soldier,” Maes explained. “I’m in investigations - criminal justice and all that. Uh, I didn’t get your name…”
“Gracia. And I can’t have dinner with you tomorrow, but I could meet you for lunch.” She smiled. “To get to know you. But it isn’t a date.”
“Name the place,” Maes said, eagerly. She did and he beamed and he watched her walk away.
It was only when he’d returned to his office that he wondered what he would tell Roy.
***
Roy's phone calls were less frequent. Maes met Gracia for lunch, then took her to dinner, then went dancing. She smiled and he felt alive again, and he didn't think about Roy. He held her hand and kissed her cheek and his stomach twisted with a mix of young love and guilt. But still he continued, and the phone calls were more and more distant...
***
It was almost two months before Roy came home, earlier than scheduled. He telephoned beforehand.
“I’ll be in Central tomorrow,” was the first thing he told Maes.
“So soon?”
“With the conflict escalating in Ishbal, the Fuhrer wants the State Alchemists on hand.”
“He’s gonna send in you guys?”
“Perhaps. I’ll see you in the afternoon.”
“Yeah… uh, Roy…”
“Yes?”
“Nevermind. I’ll talk to you about it tomorrow.”
Maes wasn’t able to sleep that night.
***
There were two photographs on Maes Hughes’s desk. There was the wooden framed graduation picture, still well cared for and clean and propped against the lamp. But beside it, in a metal frame, was a photograph of a lovely young woman with wheat colored hair and aquamarine eyes. She was smiling, her round cheeks pink and flushed. There was a square of paper tucked into the frame, a note of some sort.
Roy’s eyes fell on the picture as soon as he entered the office. Maes followed the path of his eyes and wet his lips, fear and guilt seizing him. He hadn’t wanted it to happen this way, but he had been too much of a coward.
“That’s what I wanted to talk you about,” Maes said, not bothering with greetings. They would be trite and unwelcome now.
“I see.” Roy’s tone was clipped.
“Her name’s Gracia,” Maes said, desperately. “I met her a few months ago. Roy, look. I… I know I fucked up, but…” He found himself struggling with words, stricken in the line of Roy’s calm and blank gaze. “You and I, we…”
“There’s no need to explain.” Roy’s words were still clipped.
“I was going to tell you.”
“No. You weren’t.”
Maes sighed. He sank down into his chair and ran his hands through his hair and avoided looking at Roy.
“Roy, the last time it actually felt like we were together was…”
“I told you that you didn’t need to explain yourself. I understand.”
And Roy did, and Maes knew it, but it didn’t make anything better. It had been stretched out between them for so long, and they both had turned their eyes away and pretended to ignore it. But then it had broken, and Maes hadn’t bothered to tell Roy and now it withered between them.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
“Want to get a drink?” It was a hopeful, desperate question. Roy shook his head.
“No. Not now. Perhaps in a few days.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Maes nodded. “You just let me know when.”
“I will. I’ll let you get back to work now.”
Maes nodded and Roy left, and silence swallowed the office in his wake. Maes cast his eyes to the two photographs, side by side on his desk. He knew he’d been in the wrong, that he had gone about this improperly, but what was done was done. And it was over now, and Roy would be alright because Roy was always alright. They would return to being friends, and the years of something more would fade and diminish to a pleasant memory. But that was in the future. For now it was still raw and withered and painful and broken, and a photograph was all that he had left.
Maes inhaled deeply and turned the graduation photograph face down on the desk. After a few moments, he returned to his work.