Rainy Days (Mustang x Hughes) 55Themes- #03, #09, #24, and #52 (original) (raw)

Author: SeaweedOtter
Title: Rainy Days (New Beginnings- Chapter 7)
Theme & #: #03- House, #09- Siblings, #24- Pets and #52-Rain
Genres: Angst, Romance
Warnings: None, really. A Roy/Maes academy fic!
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy Mustang x Maes Hughes
Rating: PG
Summary: The past can both hurt and heal at the same time.

Author's note: The 55 fics are a story arc, starting at the academy. Also, #1 and #2 before aren't a part of the story, they were written before.

Author’s note (part 2): This has fake Roy and Maes back stories about their childhoods, and I think it makes a strong case for Maes as to why he wants so badly later in his life to become a family man.
I didn't mean for this to cover 4 of my prompts, but it just worked out so well. I am not taking the cheap way out, I promise. This should be the only time I use 4 prompts.
The chapter is a little shorter than usual, and I just couldn’t find a better way to end it. Sorry.

Read all of the stories HERE!!

Maes and Roy were very glad for the time they had together during the winter break. They went out to dinner almost every night, and during the evenings they took long, leisurely strolls- linking their hands together as they walked through the deserted pathways of the military college.

That is, until the rains came.

“I hate rain,” Roy grumbled, his face locked into a pout. He poked idly at his warmed over oatmeal with his spoon, more interested in it as a plaything for his mind than as nourishment for his body. He looked out their singular window at the large drops that were falling at an angle, leaving their round imprint before gravity slid them towards the ground, three floors below.

“I know, you get all mopey every time it rains,” Maes put a hand on the alchemist’s shoulder, massaging it lightly. He could feel the knotted, tensed muscles cording under his touch, even through the thick blue fabric of his military issue jacket.

“I got it. Why don’t we chat, and try to get this weather off our minds?” The bespectacled man asked. He thought for a moment, and then grinned goofily. “Why don’t you tell me about your childhood? If we’re going to be roommates… or possibly even more…” he blushed slightly after saying those words, “Then I guess we should know a little more about each other, right?”

Roy hesitated for a moment, a pained expression coming to his face before he put down his spoon and pushed the bowl of food away from him and sighed, resting his chin on his hands.

“There isn’t much to say, really. I had a pretty boring childhood for the most part. If you haven’t figured it out yet, both of my parents weren’t from Amestris. My father had traveled to Xing when he was younger, and met a woman who he eventually married. Her family didn’t like her marrying an outsider, so they came back here and started a family.”

“My father was an alchemist, so he stayed pretty busy helping people around our little village. They would pay us in crops, or a meal at their place, or sometimes whatever little bit of money that they could afford. My mom was a homemaker, and I was a middle child, so I didn’t get much attention. I learned to fend for myself and be strong at a young age.”

“My dad would take me around the town when he was called on to use his alchemy. Even as a small child, I loved it, and I knew that I wanted to be just like him. Alchemy was the only way that I could stand out from my siblings. None of them wanted anything to do with it, and my mom hated the idea of her youngest son following in his dad’s footsteps and doing that ‘devil’s work’, as she called it.”

“But still, I would practice in secret, in a little tool shed behind the house. I think my dad knew, but he never said anything. I think that was to protect both me and himself from the wrath of my mother. She was a small woman, but she packed a mean punch, both literally and figuratively. His specialty was earth alchemy, but I had always been fascinated by fire, and that is what I studied. If my mother had known that, I am sure she would have beaten the desire out of me.”

Maes nodded and stayed quiet, his eyes focused intently on his roommate.

“During a big rainstorm one year, the river on the other side of town swelled. It wasn’t affecting our house directly, but he wanted to help because many others in the village were being threatened by the rising waters. He tried to use alchemy to help block the river off, but he was swept away down the fast moving current. They… never found him.”

Roy’s face went ice cold, and Maes gasped, frowning slightly. “I’m… sorry, Roy. I didn’t know. I promise I’ll never make fun of you hating the rain any more.”

A sad smile made its way onto Roy’s face. “It’s okay. You’re right. You should know my past if we do start… dating… or whatever it is that guys do.”

Maes put his hand on top of Roy’s and gave it a little squeeze, smiling. “Let me tell you a little about my childhood. I’m afraid that there’s less to tell. It wasn’t very interesting.” He sat down and scooted his chair close to Roy.

“I was an only child. My dad wasn’t around, and my mom was pretty busy trying to provide for the both of us- so as I was growing up, I had a seemingly never ending series of pets. They kept me entertained, and I learned a lot about responsibility at a young age.”

Roy wondered what Maes had meant when he said that his father ‘wasn’t around’, but he didn’t want to press, and Maes didn’t seem like he was going to divulge any more information, so he said nothing and listened.

“I always loved to take things apart and learn how they worked. I used to take walks around the countryside where I lived, and in my travels, I would always pick things up- like broken pieces of machinery or twigs or rocks or whatever- and take them home and examine them. I guess I really liked Intelligence and Forensics years before I even knew what they were.”

“A nerd from the start, eh?” Roy started, but an elbow to his ribs cut off anything further that he might have wanted to say.

“When my mom died, I was passed around to different members of her family for a few years, until I was old enough to take care of myself. One of my uncles- my mother’s older brother- had just retired from the Amestrian military. He knew about my interests, and he was the one who suggested that I would do well in the military. So that’s how I arrived here.”

“Hmm. I guess we’ve both had our share of sadness in the past, huh?” Roy asked.

“Yeah, but we’re roommates now, and we have the rest of our lives ahead of us,” Maes replied with a grin. “So we have nothing but good times ahead- right, buddy?” Maes chuckled and clapped him hard on the back.

“Yep, only good times ahead,” Roy replied. He thought about when he was younger, and his mom warned him about all of the atrocities that went on in the military- in an effort to scare him out of joining. And then there was the fact that if they did start a relationship, it was going to have to be hidden from the world. It was a risky proposition at best.

Even as he said it, he wasn’t sure that he believed what he said.