Happy Mother’s Day to the most wonderful mother in all of Amestris. I love you so much, my beautiful, darling Gracia!

colonel-mustang:

Another twist of his butter knife, and Roy deftly removed another chunk of peel from his orange wedges. Really, he was beginning to think of leaning over the table and swiping one of Maes’ chicken breasts for himself, instead of getting back up again to add more to his plate, but instead, Roy remained watchful, guarding his own food.

He snorted. “It’s no wonder you thought absolutely everyone was in love with you if just eyeballing someone—” Did he just say something about fighting in a corridor? His knife hesitated, and he brought it back down hard on his thumb before he winced and set it down. The blade was no where near sharp enough to break his skin, but he shook out his hand anyways, and ate the orange, chewing to avoid saying anything.

With a swallow, Roy diplomatically remarked, “Black eyes, bruises, head injuries…I try to avoid getting in fights in back alleys.”

“I don’t exactly remember getting into many,” Maes said, wondering if all of the hazy memories percolating under the surface were true, or if some of them were made up, or even dreams, or something else. Some of them didn’t even make sense.”

He eyed Roy’s plate, then snatched up a segment of orange to try for himself — watching Roy eat the last couple pieces had whetted his appetite for them, and citrus made him think of the South. It made him think of Gracia. “Besides, how do you know absolutely everyone wasn’t in love with me?” He raised an eyebrow.

colonel-mustang:

It was amusing enough, and Roy bit back a wry grin, until Maes went and made a pointed comment on the matter. Funny, possibly, dangerous, maybe, and all in all, Roy felt it his duty to frown at Maes. They were in public even if no one was around yet. That was the extent of his reprimand however, given that they had another half hour before anyone actually joined them.

“Maes, you think everything constitutes flirting.” Roy remarked, with a roll of his eyes. He picked up a wedged orange slice, and knifed the juicy pulp away from the rind before he bit down carefully, hands catching stray orange juice spray.

“The right two people breathing in the same room might as well be them shoving each other’s tongues in their mouths to you.” In other words, Maes extrapolated heavily based on limited information. Putting aside the fact that Maes was right, not necessarily about how Hawkeye flirted - but looking at the implication of a relationship - he had never been far off the mark.

Another bite of the orange, and it was gone, leaving Roy to lick off the juices from his lips before the stickiness set in. He continued, after he was done, setting aside his orange slice’s peel on his tray corner. “Incidentally, there is a difference between the two.” He said, droll sarcasm filling his tone. “The line is subtle Maes, but still there.”

“That line could be a myth altogether,” Maes said, cutting his chicken up and stuffing a piece in his mouth, but not ceasing to talk. “The right two people breathing in the same room could just be building sexual tension. You never know. Even looks can be flirtation. Hell, two people coming to blows in an abandoned corridor could lead to—”

Maes suddenly stopped, blinking. Where the hell did that come from? He swallowed and finished his thought, although edited. “Could lead to anything, technically.” Where had he seen that before? Sometime during the academy. Two hot-headed guys arguing over something or other, refusing to let go. It becomes a shoving match that escalates into a full blown fight, tumbling onto the floor with split lips and bloodied noses, gripped hair and throat, foreheads crushed together—

A strange chill rushed over Maes’ skin, and he shuddered. Creepy. Ugh.

colonel-mustang:

Roy snorted, shaking out a napkin to lay out over his lap. Hawkeye, to his knowledge, was not the openly jealous type - certainly not in public, and not quite in private to him either. She knew where she stood with him, and it almost seemed more pertinent to remind her that she did indeed have ownership of a place that meant she could be jealous about these sorts of things if she wanted to.

But Roy’s faux flirtations to all manner of women were hardly competition, hardly worrisome. In fact, he could imagine Hawkeye’s reaction quite well, and it wouldn’t entirely be one of jealousy, that he knew. With a roll of his shoulders, he affected a stiffer, more brisk imitation of his own voice - the business, no-nonsense Hawkeye he dealt with at work — “I see you put as much effort into avoiding lifting your pen as you do lifting your fork, Sir.”

To illustrate his point, Roy walked two fingers across air, fork popped into his mouth again as he mimed Hawkeye walking away, avoiding the nonsense of such a situation entirely.

He sucked on the form for a moment, and then nodded solemnly, removing it from his mouth. “That is what she’d say to me.”

Maes laughed loud and long at that, shaking his head. He actually had to wipe his eyes, it tickled him so much. “That was perfect,” he said with a fond grin. Another couple of bites, and he added, “A man might thing the Major didn’t like you one bit.” He pointed at Roy with his fork. “I think that’s how she flirts.”

He couldn’t help needling Roy. It was his job as his best friend. And he’d been doing it since the beginning, trying to find Roy’s buttons and push them. Like the good best friend Roy was, Roy had been doing the same to Maes. There were times at the beginning, there, that the two of them didn’t exactly know when to stop. Maes glanced at Roy for a moment, more memories bubbling to the surface — ones that were unexpected. And ones he wasn’t exactly sure were true. No, they couldn’t be true. Could they?

colonel-mustang:

Taking an early lunch break was really only an excuse to miss the lunch rush, avoid another wave of Hawkeye’s paperwork, and still have more time in the afternoon to get things moving in Eastern Command. Finding Maes there was really only the added bonus of coming early - Roy hadn’t intentionally caught up with his friend. As much as he would’ve liked to arrange his schedule around socializing, even that didn’t fly with Hawkeye during work hours, and to be honest even to himself, he knew he couldn’t reasonably and responsibly do it.

Roy moved through the line fairly quickly, mentally filing away the names of any new kitchen staff so he could strike up conversation later - all part of his personable General campaign - as he picked up a plate of his own spinach quiche, a bread roll, a fruit bowl, and a cup of coffee that was calling him.

“Turns out,” Roy greeted, sitting down at the table across from Maes. “-that being in charge means I can have my food set aside, if I ask nicely.” He whipped out a fork, and sunk it into the quiche with a definitive stab.

“You may never steal the last of anything from me in the mess again.” Roy said, popping the bite into his mouth with a smug grin. “-Although I don’t suppose it matters. You already know what the difference between the mess and home cooking is like. You don’t remember too much of that, do you? It’ll ruin your appetite for this stuff.” Incidentally, beyond being busy, Roy didn’t often cook for this exact reason. It made the mess hall food all that much more sad in comparison, even if the stuff was filling, and not too bad, considering how much money went into it.

“Oh, I remember,” Maes said wistfully, taking a bite of his own quiche. He shook his head. “Nothing like Gracia’s.” He huffed, but took another bite. He’d grabbed a couple chicken breasts, some bread, and a generous portion of vegetables. He then smirked. “Now that you’re in charge of this place, you’d think you’d get a hot waitress to feed you your lunch.”

He took another bite, and then gestured with his fork, remarking as he chewed, “Though I wonder what Hawkeye would say about that…”

Yes, as far as Maes could remember (now that his memories were falling over themselves back into his consciousness), he’d been giving Roy grief about Hawkeye. It was only recently that Maes had finally started to see things that backed up his long-held beliefs.

Maes had taken a bit of a walk around Eastern Headquarters to clear his head after getting off the phone with Gracia. It had felt like agony to force himself to say, “goodbye,” and it was even harder to hear a tiny voice in the background that he just knew was his daughter and not be able to talk to her. The fact that he now remembered her birth, her first word, her first steps—hell, when Gracia finally found out she was pregnant—was overwhelming. Some of those memories were still vague impressions, but they were there, and they were assailing him to the point where all he wanted to do was sit somewhere and be with them.

The problem was, there was nowhere to sit. And, the more they assailed him, the more achingly homesick Maes became. That would never do.

Maes had decided that a cup of coffee to clear his head would be the ideal thing, so he’d found his way down to the mess hall, where he perused the lunch line being assembled — it was still a bit early, but the soldiers would be coming down soon enough. “Spinach quiche?” he asked one of the mess hall workers setting out the plates.

The worker nodded in the affirmative, and Maes laughed. Roy had, of course, told him the story of their first meeting long ago, but now he remembered it firsthand, and how he’d had his eye on Roy since the beginning of class as one to beat. And the first salvo in that little war had been over quiche, of all things.

“Now all I need is Mustang,” he chuckled.

asliceofspinachquiche:

It was only a matter of time. There was reason she’d given him the number to start with, after all, and she fully expected him to use it. As long as it was safe to do so, she’d even admit that she hoped he would.

Something about knowing that she could hear his voice even if it was through a telephone receiver just felt nice.

That was what kept that lonely pang at bay. That, and of course, the joy of their daughter being her usual delightful self. So far they’d colored no less than three fabulous pictures that would be tucked and mailed in those envelopes over the course of his stay in Ishval. She’d kept it a surprise to date, but it was getting harder and harder not to write him just to tell him there’d be something in the mail soon. Funny how that worked.

Needless to say, when the phone rang, she picked it up before it even hit the second jingle of the bell. “Hello?” And though she was trying desperately not to give herself away, there was just a sliver of hopefulness in the tone that maybe - just maybe - it would be you-know-who.

Maes lost his voice the moment he heard Gracia’s voice. She sounded so tinny, so far away. The little garden behind their home on Mayflower was probably just beginning to sprout, and everything was lush and green. Here, everything seemed to be dying, as the green faded into desert. 

Everything except Maes. He was just starting to live again.

“The morning of our wedding, it was pouring rain,” Maes said breathlessly, without even a ‘hello.’ “It was 6 a.m., and I was sleeping at the house on Mayflower, and you were at the hotel with your parents. And the sun came up, and it wouldn’t stop raining. And I sat at the window of our bedroom and bargained with God like I had never bargained with Him. Never.”

Not even in Ishval, he thought, although he didn’t say the words.

“Finally I put a coat on and traipsed through the rain to the church. And I actually went up to the altar, and I crossed my arms, and I told God that I wasn’t leaving until the rain stopped.” He laughed a little. “About an hour or so later, the rain stopped. And I turned to leave, and there was the preacher, the guy who married us, holding a mop. He told me later that if he’d ever doubted God’s existence, I’d proven it to him that morning.”

A pause for a sheepish smirk became drawn out as memories from that day flashed like camera flashes through his mind, of a furious Roy hunting him down to go pick up their tuxes, his parents arriving half an hour before the ceremony began because his father wasn’t convinced Maes was going to go through with it, the looks Maes swore Roy was sharing with Riza while they were waiting for the bride, and then… then… that first glimpse of Gracia when she appeared in the doorway. Maes still didn’t remember much beyond that, but he had a feeling that wasn’t a product of his gunshot trauma as much as that he was completely overwhelmed by her beauty and the moment.

“So that’s why you got that phone call that morning asking if you’d seen me. I think Roy thought I’d snuck in to your hotel room for a quickie or something… he hadn’t met your father yet.” Maes finally paused to breathe, reveling in the vividness of his memories, of the feeling of being— him.

jean-havoc-rp:

Ooc: I hate Pottermore.

I hate this.

What the actual fuck.

This is bullshit.

How fucking.

God dammit. Harry had a choice, why the fuck didn’t I?

I FUCKING HATE HUFFLEPUFF.

I DON’T LIKE THIS.

[[ I was one of the pre-release beta tester people. I quit the moment it put me in Slytherin and I’ve never looked back. ]]

Maes was in a strange state of stupor as he walked with Roy toward Eastern Command. Roy had agreed to Maes’ insistent plea to accompany him to East City in order to make use of their long-distance telephone system — such a system had yet to be installed in the Ishval camp, although Maes had made a note to talk to Sgt. Fuery about perhaps establishing a direct radio link between Maes’ apartment and a certain house on Mayflower Street.

He looked around, pulling up the cowl of his cloak so as to be as inconspicuous as possible, and slipped into the small, empty office adjoining Roy’s that he could only imagine was intended to be Major Hawkeye’s. Locking the door that opened onto the hallway, Maes sat down and picked up the phone, dialing the long-distance operator without even needing to be reminded. It was only when the tinny, distant sound of a phone ringing came through after a long pause that Maes realized with a smile that he hadn’t even had to look at the telephone number that Gracia had written down for him. This was a very, very good sign.