The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 5: "The Palms of His Black Hands" (Mustang x Hughes)
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Title: The Palms of His Black Hands (The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 5)
Author: SeaweedOtter
Pairing: Roy Mustang x Maes Hughes
Rating: PG-13, no sexy stuff, but they are naked!
Disclaimer: AU, Set before the anime started, while Maes and Roy were roommates at the military academy.
Summary: Sometimes a memory can burn hotter and more intense than a fire....
Read all of the chapters so far HERE!
Roy was the first one to wake in the morning. As his brain groggily tried to start working, he rolled over, surprised for a moment at having a man in his bed. It took his mind a few heartbeats to register everything that had happened the night before, but when he did, a broad smile came to his face. He thought, for a moment, about waking Maes, since he was curious- and a bit scared- of how Maes was going to feel 'the morning after', but then he thought that perhaps not being there might make it a little easier.
He rolled away from Maes, trying to be as silent as possible, but unfortunatly, beds in dorm rooms were not meant to be quiet. The springs squeaked and groaned under him, waking Maes from his deep slumber.
"Mmmm?" He said sleepily, rolling towards Roy and sleepily blinking his eyes. His eyes went wide, his mind flashing memories from the past evening. "Oh!" he exclaimed, immediatly sitting up and gathring the sheets around him, pulling all the sheets away from Roy and re-exposing his naked body.
Roy stood up quickly and bent down, gathering a close by t-shirt to cover himself. It took him a moment to realize that it was the shirt that Maes' shirt that he had deposited on the ground the night before. "Umm... Maes, are you okay?"
Maes looked wide eyed, like a deer in the headlights for a moment, while his brain caught up to his body. He blinked a couple of times, rubbing his eyes, then looked at Roy again with a look of embarassment and confusion. "Hmm.. so.. that wasn't just a dream.." he said. His voice was flat, void of emotion, making Roy more than slightly nervous.
"Well, no. It wasn't a dream." he paused for a moment. "Maes... are you okay with this? Beacause if you... never want to talk about it again, I'm good at keeping secrets." Roy felt hot, despite being unclothed. He was sweating, his breath raspy. He knew this time would come, and his sleep had been fitful at best, worrying if his transgressions had alienated a friend as well as a lover.
For a few moments, Maes was deep in thought, playing the events of the night before in his mind. Roy chewed on his lip a little, trying not to press his friend's shirt close to his body in case he wanted it back. He couldn't help but smell Maes on the shirt, and the mere thought of that sent feelings through him that he tried to ignore.
"It... was nice, Roy." he finally answered, with a little, unsure smile. "I mean, I am still new to all this, and I am not sure what to think, but I told you that I didn't regret it last night. I was serious. And I don't regret it this morning, either. I have to admit that waking up next to someone, especially a man, is wierd. It's something that I'll have to get used to. But, what we did, it felt nice. I liked it, and wouldnt mind doing it again." He smiled and blushed.
There was an audible sigh from Roy. "Oh, Maes. You have no idea how glad it makes me to hear you say that." He put down the shirt, guessing that it didnt matter that just being close to something that smelt like Maes had started to stir parts of him to life, and walked over to the man, giving him a little kiss on the cheek. "Stay there just a second, Maes. I'll go get your glasses. I know you are kinda blind without them. It's a miracle you didn't trip over anything last night, or this morning headig to the bathroom." Maes nodded, still trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes, while Roy went to Maes' room and grabbed his glasses off the dresser and came back, handing them to his roommate.
"Thanks." he said, puttting his glasses on and pressing them up the bridge of his nose. He stood up and looked around the room, grinning. "You are right, Roy. I have no idea how I didn't trip. I was blind as a bat! I never admit to anyone how much I need these glasses. One of my eyes is fine, but the other was injured when I was a kid, and without those glasses I am almost blind." He took his glasses off for a moment, took a t-shirt, and cleaned the lenses. "Of course the high ups in the academy know," he continued. "You know about the physicals they put us through. But besides that, most people think I'm farsighted. I'm afraid that if anyone found out, I wouldn't be able to take my knife specialty classes."
Roy smiled and nodded while he looked around for a clean t-shirt and a pair of boxers. He cut a rather humerous figure as he fought the forces of gravity and his own lingering sleepiness, almost falling over several times while trying to put on his clothes.
"I appreciate that you told me that. We have been roommates for 3 semesters now, and that was something I didn't know about you." He took a deep breath. "I want to show you that I trust you, and I'll tell you something about myself as well- something that I've never told anyone, not even anyone at the academy."
Roy walked over to a drawer and moved some of his clothes aside and pulled out a small photo album. "Most people know very little about my childhood. They know that when I was young, I was sent to live with General Grumman. He was a great man, a skilled general, and the one the best alchemists in all of Amestris. I studied under him for many years, becoming friends with his granddaughter, Riza Hawkeye. She's here too, you know. She's a year behind, so I don't see her much."
Maes nodded, putting his glasses back on, and sitting back on the bed, patting the space behind him. Roy smiled broadly, catching the irony of the small movement. He gathered the book and sat down on the bed next to Maes, spreading the photo album over thier laps. Slowly, while he talked, he flipped through the pages, giving Maes time to study the yellowed photographs.
"I took the state exam when I was young, but I had to wait to join the army. That's well known. What isn't known, by anyone except Gen. Grumman, Riza, and a few close friends of his, is my history before that." He paused, a pained look in his eyes.
"If you can't tell by looking at me, my family doesn't exactly come from around here. My mother was from Xing. You've heard about that country across the desert, right?" Maes nodded. "My dad was from Amestris. He was a pretty good alchemist himself, and a friend of Gen. Grumman. He traveled alot. One of his travels took him to Xing, and that's where he met my mother. After I was born, he stayed for as long as he could- but the road called to him, and he needed to travel again. My mom asked him to take me with him. I was young, but our family was being ostrasized for bringing a half breed into the world." He paused again, and Maes gave him a saddened look.
"If.. you don't want to go on.." Maes started to say, but Roy continued.
"I was only a young child, and the travel was hard. By the time we got to Amestris, I was in bad shape. It took a long time to nurse me back to health, and most of that time was spent with the Grummans and Hawkeyes. The General and his wife took good care of me. I saw more of them as I was growing up than I did of my dad. After a while, he didn't show up at all, and I took to calling them 'grandma' and 'grandpa'- like Riza."
He stopped at one photo of a kindly looking, yet ancient man, and a short and dumpy woman with a big smile on her face standing next to him. Each of them held the hand of a child. The man had the hand of a young boy with thin eyes and black hair, and the woman was next to a girl with lighter hair and big, soft brown eyes.
"Wow, Roy. You had that same intense look you do now, even as a child. Did you ever smile?" His somewhat half-hearted attempt at humor fell short, and he went silent.
Roy started to flip the pages again. "My father was an expert at flame alchemy, as was the general, so naturally that is what I gravatated towards. Riza, for whatever reason, didn't share his love of alchemy, but she was intensely curious about his guns. So about the same time I started to learn alchemy, she started to learn to shoot. I talk to her once in a while, when we meet in the common areas. I have seen her on the range. Hawkeye is a very appropriate name. She may be better at guns than I am at alchemy."
"I didn't have anything else to do- I had no friends, except for Riza, and even that was rocky at times. So I poured all my time into my alchemy, and I honed my skills. Both Riza and I learned alot about the military from the general, and we both decided at a young age that we were going to follow him into service. Riza is two years younger than me, and was able, with his influence to get into the military academy at 16. He pulled some strings for me as well, and I took the state exam right before my 15th birthday, but I had to wait until I was 17 to go into the alchemy program."
"Wow, you really are a prodigy!" Maes exclaimed, truly surprised to know how long ago his friend had devoted his life to the military, and to alchemy. "I just joined because I was tired of regular school. It was boring, and I already knew what they were teaching. I figured the army would give me a better education, and it has." Roy nodded, though his faraway look made Maes wonder if he had even been listning- but Maes didn't press the point.
"I've had to move to a few different dorms because some people don't like my dark hair, and thin eyes, and my skill at alchemy. They seem to think that it just comes naturally, when I have been doing it since I could read and write. All I can say is that I'm glad I found you. I don't think I'll ever be able to tell you how grateful I am." He soflty closed the book, making a puff of old, stale dust rise into the air.
Slowly Roy got up and put up the book, then looked down at the palms of his hands. "I remember..." he started, then halted for just a moment before continuing. "I remember the first time I tried to control fire. I burnt the palms of my hands, real bad. Afterwards, I sat there and cried, and looked at the palms of my blackened hands. I didn't want to call for help because I thought the general would be dissapointed that I had failed. I guess I must have passed out. When I woke up, I was in bed with bandaged hands, and I stayed there a couple of weeks before anyone would let me try anything again."
"But... you did better the second time?" Maes asked, curiously.
"Yes. almost perfect, actually. The fire- it lept right at my command. I told it to dance, and it did, before I extinguished it in a puff of white smoke. The general, he was so proud of me that he got me a pair of gloves made of ignition cloth, and he even had my own alchemy circle embroidered on it, the circle that took me months to design to make it work just right. I still use that same circle on my current gloves. When I learn something new I tweak it every so slightly, but it has been mostly unchanged for about ten years. I've gone through alot of pairs of gloves in the years since I first made that fire dance,, but I still keep the original ones- here in the back of this photo album."
He took the photo album that he had been looking at and picked it up again. Gently, like he was handling an egg, he turned the album over to the back, and opened the back cover, and under a thin layer of parchment was a pair of much smaller, yellowed gloves, smudged brown with dirt and black with soot, but red embroidered flame alchemy symbol was as clear as day.
"So, that's it then. Hopefully you don't think less of a halfbreed like me." he said, in a rather contemptable voice, shutting the book closed with a thump.
"Why the hell would I?" Maes snapped back, a bit upset that Roy would think so little of him, to think that the story would change how he felt. "All I feel is pity and hatred, not to you, but to those who couldn't see past your outside and into the person that is the *REAL* Roy Mustang. Those aren't people you need in your life, anyways."
Roy said nothing. He put the book down and walked back over to where Maes was sitting. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around his roommate. Roy held him tight, putting his head on the older man's shoulder. Maes, who thought he might have heard a sob, coming from the man, pulled him close, letting his friend cry for all the times in the past when he couldn't. It was a long time before either of them wanted to move.
Title: The Palms of His Black Hands (The Seed of the Fire- Chapter 5)
Author: SeaweedOtter
Pairing: Roy Mustang x Maes Hughes
Rating: PG-13, no sexy stuff, but they are naked!
Disclaimer: AU, Set before the anime started, while Maes and Roy were roommates at the military academy.
Summary: Sometimes a memory can burn hotter and more intense than a fire....
Read all of the chapters so far HERE!
Roy was the first one to wake in the morning. As his brain groggily tried to start working, he rolled over, surprised for a moment at having a man in his bed. It took his mind a few heartbeats to register everything that had happened the night before, but when he did, a broad smile came to his face. He thought, for a moment, about waking Maes, since he was curious- and a bit scared- of how Maes was going to feel 'the morning after', but then he thought that perhaps not being there might make it a little easier.
He rolled away from Maes, trying to be as silent as possible, but unfortunatly, beds in dorm rooms were not meant to be quiet. The springs squeaked and groaned under him, waking Maes from his deep slumber.
"Mmmm?" He said sleepily, rolling towards Roy and sleepily blinking his eyes. His eyes went wide, his mind flashing memories from the past evening. "Oh!" he exclaimed, immediatly sitting up and gathring the sheets around him, pulling all the sheets away from Roy and re-exposing his naked body.
Roy stood up quickly and bent down, gathering a close by t-shirt to cover himself. It took him a moment to realize that it was the shirt that Maes' shirt that he had deposited on the ground the night before. "Umm... Maes, are you okay?"
Maes looked wide eyed, like a deer in the headlights for a moment, while his brain caught up to his body. He blinked a couple of times, rubbing his eyes, then looked at Roy again with a look of embarassment and confusion. "Hmm.. so.. that wasn't just a dream.." he said. His voice was flat, void of emotion, making Roy more than slightly nervous.
"Well, no. It wasn't a dream." he paused for a moment. "Maes... are you okay with this? Beacause if you... never want to talk about it again, I'm good at keeping secrets." Roy felt hot, despite being unclothed. He was sweating, his breath raspy. He knew this time would come, and his sleep had been fitful at best, worrying if his transgressions had alienated a friend as well as a lover.
For a few moments, Maes was deep in thought, playing the events of the night before in his mind. Roy chewed on his lip a little, trying not to press his friend's shirt close to his body in case he wanted it back. He couldn't help but smell Maes on the shirt, and the mere thought of that sent feelings through him that he tried to ignore.
"It... was nice, Roy." he finally answered, with a little, unsure smile. "I mean, I am still new to all this, and I am not sure what to think, but I told you that I didn't regret it last night. I was serious. And I don't regret it this morning, either. I have to admit that waking up next to someone, especially a man, is wierd. It's something that I'll have to get used to. But, what we did, it felt nice. I liked it, and wouldnt mind doing it again." He smiled and blushed.
There was an audible sigh from Roy. "Oh, Maes. You have no idea how glad it makes me to hear you say that." He put down the shirt, guessing that it didnt matter that just being close to something that smelt like Maes had started to stir parts of him to life, and walked over to the man, giving him a little kiss on the cheek. "Stay there just a second, Maes. I'll go get your glasses. I know you are kinda blind without them. It's a miracle you didn't trip over anything last night, or this morning headig to the bathroom." Maes nodded, still trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes, while Roy went to Maes' room and grabbed his glasses off the dresser and came back, handing them to his roommate.
"Thanks." he said, puttting his glasses on and pressing them up the bridge of his nose. He stood up and looked around the room, grinning. "You are right, Roy. I have no idea how I didn't trip. I was blind as a bat! I never admit to anyone how much I need these glasses. One of my eyes is fine, but the other was injured when I was a kid, and without those glasses I am almost blind." He took his glasses off for a moment, took a t-shirt, and cleaned the lenses. "Of course the high ups in the academy know," he continued. "You know about the physicals they put us through. But besides that, most people think I'm farsighted. I'm afraid that if anyone found out, I wouldn't be able to take my knife specialty classes."
Roy smiled and nodded while he looked around for a clean t-shirt and a pair of boxers. He cut a rather humerous figure as he fought the forces of gravity and his own lingering sleepiness, almost falling over several times while trying to put on his clothes.
"I appreciate that you told me that. We have been roommates for 3 semesters now, and that was something I didn't know about you." He took a deep breath. "I want to show you that I trust you, and I'll tell you something about myself as well- something that I've never told anyone, not even anyone at the academy."
Roy walked over to a drawer and moved some of his clothes aside and pulled out a small photo album. "Most people know very little about my childhood. They know that when I was young, I was sent to live with General Grumman. He was a great man, a skilled general, and the one the best alchemists in all of Amestris. I studied under him for many years, becoming friends with his granddaughter, Riza Hawkeye. She's here too, you know. She's a year behind, so I don't see her much."
Maes nodded, putting his glasses back on, and sitting back on the bed, patting the space behind him. Roy smiled broadly, catching the irony of the small movement. He gathered the book and sat down on the bed next to Maes, spreading the photo album over thier laps. Slowly, while he talked, he flipped through the pages, giving Maes time to study the yellowed photographs.
"I took the state exam when I was young, but I had to wait to join the army. That's well known. What isn't known, by anyone except Gen. Grumman, Riza, and a few close friends of his, is my history before that." He paused, a pained look in his eyes.
"If you can't tell by looking at me, my family doesn't exactly come from around here. My mother was from Xing. You've heard about that country across the desert, right?" Maes nodded. "My dad was from Amestris. He was a pretty good alchemist himself, and a friend of Gen. Grumman. He traveled alot. One of his travels took him to Xing, and that's where he met my mother. After I was born, he stayed for as long as he could- but the road called to him, and he needed to travel again. My mom asked him to take me with him. I was young, but our family was being ostrasized for bringing a half breed into the world." He paused again, and Maes gave him a saddened look.
"If.. you don't want to go on.." Maes started to say, but Roy continued.
"I was only a young child, and the travel was hard. By the time we got to Amestris, I was in bad shape. It took a long time to nurse me back to health, and most of that time was spent with the Grummans and Hawkeyes. The General and his wife took good care of me. I saw more of them as I was growing up than I did of my dad. After a while, he didn't show up at all, and I took to calling them 'grandma' and 'grandpa'- like Riza."
He stopped at one photo of a kindly looking, yet ancient man, and a short and dumpy woman with a big smile on her face standing next to him. Each of them held the hand of a child. The man had the hand of a young boy with thin eyes and black hair, and the woman was next to a girl with lighter hair and big, soft brown eyes.
"Wow, Roy. You had that same intense look you do now, even as a child. Did you ever smile?" His somewhat half-hearted attempt at humor fell short, and he went silent.
Roy started to flip the pages again. "My father was an expert at flame alchemy, as was the general, so naturally that is what I gravatated towards. Riza, for whatever reason, didn't share his love of alchemy, but she was intensely curious about his guns. So about the same time I started to learn alchemy, she started to learn to shoot. I talk to her once in a while, when we meet in the common areas. I have seen her on the range. Hawkeye is a very appropriate name. She may be better at guns than I am at alchemy."
"I didn't have anything else to do- I had no friends, except for Riza, and even that was rocky at times. So I poured all my time into my alchemy, and I honed my skills. Both Riza and I learned alot about the military from the general, and we both decided at a young age that we were going to follow him into service. Riza is two years younger than me, and was able, with his influence to get into the military academy at 16. He pulled some strings for me as well, and I took the state exam right before my 15th birthday, but I had to wait until I was 17 to go into the alchemy program."
"Wow, you really are a prodigy!" Maes exclaimed, truly surprised to know how long ago his friend had devoted his life to the military, and to alchemy. "I just joined because I was tired of regular school. It was boring, and I already knew what they were teaching. I figured the army would give me a better education, and it has." Roy nodded, though his faraway look made Maes wonder if he had even been listning- but Maes didn't press the point.
"I've had to move to a few different dorms because some people don't like my dark hair, and thin eyes, and my skill at alchemy. They seem to think that it just comes naturally, when I have been doing it since I could read and write. All I can say is that I'm glad I found you. I don't think I'll ever be able to tell you how grateful I am." He soflty closed the book, making a puff of old, stale dust rise into the air.
Slowly Roy got up and put up the book, then looked down at the palms of his hands. "I remember..." he started, then halted for just a moment before continuing. "I remember the first time I tried to control fire. I burnt the palms of my hands, real bad. Afterwards, I sat there and cried, and looked at the palms of my blackened hands. I didn't want to call for help because I thought the general would be dissapointed that I had failed. I guess I must have passed out. When I woke up, I was in bed with bandaged hands, and I stayed there a couple of weeks before anyone would let me try anything again."
"But... you did better the second time?" Maes asked, curiously.
"Yes. almost perfect, actually. The fire- it lept right at my command. I told it to dance, and it did, before I extinguished it in a puff of white smoke. The general, he was so proud of me that he got me a pair of gloves made of ignition cloth, and he even had my own alchemy circle embroidered on it, the circle that took me months to design to make it work just right. I still use that same circle on my current gloves. When I learn something new I tweak it every so slightly, but it has been mostly unchanged for about ten years. I've gone through alot of pairs of gloves in the years since I first made that fire dance,, but I still keep the original ones- here in the back of this photo album."
He took the photo album that he had been looking at and picked it up again. Gently, like he was handling an egg, he turned the album over to the back, and opened the back cover, and under a thin layer of parchment was a pair of much smaller, yellowed gloves, smudged brown with dirt and black with soot, but red embroidered flame alchemy symbol was as clear as day.
"So, that's it then. Hopefully you don't think less of a halfbreed like me." he said, in a rather contemptable voice, shutting the book closed with a thump.
"Why the hell would I?" Maes snapped back, a bit upset that Roy would think so little of him, to think that the story would change how he felt. "All I feel is pity and hatred, not to you, but to those who couldn't see past your outside and into the person that is the *REAL* Roy Mustang. Those aren't people you need in your life, anyways."
Roy said nothing. He put the book down and walked back over to where Maes was sitting. He leaned down and wrapped his arms around his roommate. Roy held him tight, putting his head on the older man's shoulder. Maes, who thought he might have heard a sob, coming from the man, pulled him close, letting his friend cry for all the times in the past when he couldn't. It was a long time before either of them wanted to move.