Work Text:
This should have been the happiest day of Roy Mustang's life. He stood on a platform in view of the Presidential Palace, in front of the gathered elite of Central City's military establishment, and accepted his promotion to full colonel.
What Roy couldn't explain to anyone was that it felt like he was taking baby steps.
He particularly couldn't explain it to Maes Hughes, who was the first to greet him after the ceremony. For one thing, a metaphor offered to Hughes on the subject of toddling would be sure to elicit a detailed and irrelevant monologue regarding expert opinions on the ideal time for children to begin walking. And, granted, the prospect of baby steps might legitimately be the most exciting thing in your life when you were the parent of a six-month-old. (Eight-month-old? Three-month-old? No, Gracia had gone in the hospital in the middle of that blizzard, which Roy knew because he had missed Maes's call, because he'd been in a meeting at the hydroelectric plant arguing with the head engineer about the application of flame alchemy to emergency snow removal. Major Armstrong had eventually shown up, offered to take on the snow problem himself, and shoved Roy in the direction of a train bound for Central. This not only let Roy see his friends in the hospital, but it got him out of the meeting just in time to keep Hawkeye from having to shoot him. So the kid was five months old. How the hell did parents keep track of these things?)
But, the point was: Baby steps. A fine thing for toddlers. Not so great when you were getting promoted through the military ranks, faster than anyone (not named Armstrong) had ever done before, and you still felt like you were getting absolutely nowhere.
Roy had hoped that Hughes, of all people, would understand this without explanation. But either his old friend was doing an excellent job of faking it, or Hughes genuinely thought Roy's promotion was the greatest thing that had ever happened. He nearly killed Roy with a hug, while saying, "Congratulations! You realize, of course, that I'll have to catch up with you now, to push you further up that ladder."
"You go ahead and try," Roy said. "I'll be keeping my eye on the endgame." The response was automatic, by now, though Roy doubted he was doing any better job than Hughes of keeping up the pretense that they were rivals. Hughes was smiling so hard that Roy had an awful premonition he was going to start handing out snapshots of, My good friend, the full colonel, with the same enthusiasm he devoted to photos of his baby and wife.
What Roy really wanted his eye on right now was a mirror, as he tried to straighten the hair that Hughes's energetic embrace had mussed. Besides, Roy could feel himself smiling, which wasn't at all in keeping with the somber, duty-minded image he had intended to project. It was as though Hughes's enthusiasm was contagious.
It had to be that and not some other side effect of the hug. Although now he couldn't help thinking of the wink Gracia had given as she basically shoved Maes toward Roy. What's that supposed to be about? he wanted to call after her, or, Hey, I haven't fucked your husband for three years. They ought to give medals for that! Though it didn't bear figuring out which of them deserved one.
Gracia was a remarkably understanding partner, which Roy at some point had thought created an ideal situation. But he and Hughes ended up redefining their relationship for reasons that had nothing to do with Maes's wife. "Distance" was the stated reason, when Roy was stationed in East City; that explanation stood in for other things that they had managed not to discuss. Roy suspected that his "other things" and Hughes's were different, and that not discussing them was the reason they were still friends. And really. If you had told Roy back at the Academy that he could have Maes Hughes as a lover, split with him, and still have him for a best friend, that would have been more than he imagined possible.
So Roy put up with awkward meetings like this one. Hughes gamely tried to make small talk about hiring junior staff- – and Roy pretended to have given some thought to the topic beyond 'Surely Hawkeye will take care of that' -- before switching to what clearly interested him, the ceremonial display of baby pictures. Elysia was cute, Roy supposed, by whatever standards people applied to babies. But she always gave Roy this look, as though she knew something about him, and it would be years before she knew enough words for him to question her about what it was. Roy wasn't so sure he trusted babies.
Hughes was narrating the hilarious story behind the second of five pictures (at this rate, they might get through all five within an hour), when a hand tapped his shoulder. "Have you seen Riza?"
Roy tried to turn slowly and project the appropriate hauteur that communicated, One does not approach on officer of the Amestrian Army in that manner. Olivier Armstrong could have pulled it off. Roy was still learning the proper body language, though it turned out not to matter. Before he could administer a withering brushoff, Hughes gave a lopsided grin and told the newcomer, "If you're asking Mustang where Hawkeye is, you're clearly confused about who's in charge of babysitting who."
Now Roy had no choice but to make introductions. "Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, this is Eric Mattingly." He gestured to a slender man with salt-and-pepper hair, who wore a well-cut suit and scholarly spectacles. "Eric's the head civilian engineer in East City. He came on last year to supervise the new hydroelectric plant, --"
"Oh, you're that guy," Hughes said, with his legendary tact.
Roy was then able to make everything better (or worse, but at least to keep Hughes from saying any more), by pointing to someone behind Eric and calling, "Lieutenant Hawkeye! Look who we tracked down for you."
Without acknowledging Roy, Riza stepped beside Eric, took his hand and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. "Becca wants to take us out to dinner," she said.
Eric scowled. "I got dinner reservations already."
"I know."
"Nice reservations, like, a month ago."
"Eric. I know that. But Becca didn't know and I was just communicating what she said in case you were willing to change plans, but --"
"Hey!" Hughes reached over to tap the new stripe on Riza's shoulder. "Congratulations, First Lieutenant." Looking at Eric, he said, "I can't tell you how many times over I owe this woman my life." Turning back to Riza, he said, "Good to see you're moving up in the ranks."
With a strained smile, Riza said, "Not as fast as some."
"Well --" Hughes thudded a hand on Roy's shoulder. "Not everybody has magical powers like my friend the full colonel."
Roy turned to give Hughes a withering look, and was going to to tell him that alchemy wasn't magic, when Riza said, "Alchemy isn't magic." Roy needed to have a talk with his friends about not stepping on his withering comebacks. In this case, though, he appreciated it. He was trying to work out a proper expression of congratulations and gratitude toward Riza when she said, "Lieutenant Colonel, if you and Mrs. Hughes would like to join us --" When Eric let out an exasperated breath, she continued, "calm down, honey -- we could get a drink before dinner or --?"
"It's been a long day," Hughes said, apologetically, "and we've already broken up Elysia's routine. So we're going to be homebodies tonight. Now if anyone wants to come by and sit up with us . . ."
Eric started to speak, but before he could say, "Reservations" again, Riza said, "He doesn't mean us, he means the colonel."
Roy was thinking he liked the sound of her saying that -- "The colonel," as though he were self-evidently the only one -- and it took him a moment to realize Hughes was looking at him expectantly.
"Were you, ahh, counting on me coming by?" Roy asked. "I was hoping tomorrow morning would work. We have the morning off before we catch the train back, and I was going to try to make the baseball game tonight."
"Since when do you follow baseball?" said Hughes, with the justly suspicious look of a best friend who had tried for years to interest Roy in team sports of any variety.
"East City's playing at Central," Roy explained. "All the important officers from both command centers will be there."
"And Brendan Collins is pitching," Riza added. If possible, Roy thought, her studied neutrality was even more neutral than usual. Looking up at Eric, she said, "That means East might actually win."
"I hate baseball," said Eric.
"If you change your mind," Roy said, addressing himself pointedly to Riza, "I'm sure I could scare up a couple extra seats in General Hakuro's box."
"We have -- " Eric began.
"Dinner reservations," Riza completed. She looked down at her hand, which Eric had apparently been trying to tug on discreetly. "Good to see you again, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes," she said, saluting. "Give my regards to your wife and lovely daughter. And Colonel. . ." She saluted Roy this time.
He nodded in return, touched two fingers to his forehead to informally return the gesture, and said, "First Lieutenant Hawkeye. Congratulations. I'm proud to serve with you."
He saw the color rise to her cheeks, and a smile play at the corner of her mouth. It was gone in a second, but it was enough. He'd made her happy. It was almost unfair. "Thank you, sir," she said.
They turned to go, Eric's hand still wound around Riza's. Roy called to their backs, "If you change your mind, --"
"Unlikely, sir," said Riza.
Then Eric, speaking too loudly to be accidental, said, "Well, do you want to end up double-dating with Mustang and some prostitute? Again?"
"That only happened once," Riza said, and then, to Roy's delight, she giggled.
When the couple actually was out of earshot, Roy said, "Poor guy."
Hughes looked at Roy, puzzled. "He's kind of a sore winner, I guess."
"Winner? How do you figure that?"
With the pained look of a man explaining the obvious to someone who was very young or very slow, Hughes said, "He got the girl."
"I got the girl," Roy answered. "Poor sap just hasn't admitted it to himself, yet."
Hughes tilted his head and gave Roy a skeptical look. "I have to say this is a remarkable display of self-confidence. Even for you."
"Hawkeye's commission is up for renewal next month. Eric wants her to resign."
"Why?"
Roy shot a glare at the array of snapshots Hughes still held between his fingers. "Something to do with settling down and having babies, I imagine."
"They'd have cute babies," Hughes said, after pretending to think about it.
"They're not having babies," Roy said, with what he thought was admirable decorum. "She doesn't have enough seniority to get maternity leave -- that's not my choice; it's Army policy -- and I know she's re-enlisting. Why would she go through with the promotion if she was about to quit?"
"So she told you?"
"Hawkeye doesn't. . .she and I don't need to communicate like that. It's understood."
"Did you tell her how much you want her to stay?"
The question confused Roy, because he hadn't said anything to Maes about wanting Riza to stay. He was just following the obvious signals telling him that she was going to. "I've told her," Roy said, "that I am putting no pressure on her whatsoever, and I support any choice she is going to make."
"I don't know how or why," Hughes said, "but sometimes I forget what a jerk you can be. And before you pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. . .I can't think of anything more likely to pressure Riza to stay than for you pretend you don't need her."
"Do you think it's in Riza's best interest to quit? You think she'll be happy as a housewife?"
"I think it's her decision."
"That's exactly what I told her!" Roy protested. But he wasn't even kidding himself, much less Hughes.
"It's a little hard to believe in your good faith when you're waiting for her to dump her boyfriend so that you can move in."
"I don't want to date her," Roy said, his virtue now on firmer ground. "I just meant that I get the girl, in the sense she'll be with me a lot longer than with that guy. Not that I care, if it makes her happy. But that whole, 'I made reservations and we'll have a romantic evening, no matter if it's what you want or not' routine. You think that's promising?"
"Well --"
"Do you and Gracia do that?"
"That's different. We're --"
"Happy together." Roy finished with a smug grin.
Hughes rolled his eyes. "Fine. We've established that you are a connoisseur of other people's dysfunction. I'm sure Hawkeye is having a miserable time, and that will make you feel better while you're -- are you seriously going to a baseball game or is that a cover story for Madame Christmas's?"
"I don't see why they have to be mutually exclusive," Roy answered. "Some of those ladies really love baseball."
*
The girls at Madame Christmas's noticed the uniform before they recognized Roy.
"Welcome to Central City, officer," Vanessa purred, sidling up to him. Then he tipped his cap back, and she squeaked and covered her mouth. "Roy! Don't do that!" she said, even while folding him in a hug.
"I'm not exactly incognito. This is my uniform."
"To be fair," said Maya, standing back with amused glint in her dark eyes, "You never wear it in here."
Trina leaned in to touch his shoulder. "It's almost like he has something to show off."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Roy said, casually brushing the gold braid on his shoulder. The girls promptly drowned him in a sea of tiny hands and heady perfume and chatter.
From the end of the bar, a voice boomed out an octave lower than the others. "You never call. Every time you're in Central, I have to hear about it from someone else."
"I'm here, aren't I?" Roy extricated himself from the mob and crossed the room toward his foster mother. "I'm here in person," he repeated, kissing her broad cheek. "I'm better than a silly phone call."
"Hmm." Chris Mustang stepped back to take a critical look at him before breaking into a resigned half-smile. It was a routine with them, one that everyone watching recognized.
It was such a routine that it took Roy a second to remember he had a grievance. "I told you I was coming this time. You knew about the promotion. You could have been at the ceremony." He hadn't expected her to attend a military gathering, not really, but it was hard to accept the usual ribbing about his unpredictable flakiness. He'd played the good son, this time, for all the difference it made.
Chris Mustang reached for a bar rag and started to polish a glass. "You didn't want me there," she said. "Even if you think you did, you didn't."
Roy sighed. "Don't I get to make that decision?"
"You do," Chris conceded. "And I get to decide if I'm going."
"Some of us wanted to," Vanessa said, leaning on the bar to get close to Roy. "Not just for you. We love you, but, 'Madame,' I said, 'we love Roy but we know a lot of those guys!'"
Maya laughed. "And I told her. Just like Madame says. I told her, 'Nessa, we know those guys. They don't want to know us, in the daytime, with their wives and kiddies around.'"
Roy knew that Maya, like Chris, was right. Since they were arguing about something they couldn't change now, anyway, he said, "I would have happily had all of you there."
Chris shook her head. "People start noticing you. People start to talk."
"I want people to notice me," Roy said. "I want them to talk."
"Hmm." Chris went back to polishing. She hadn't missed his point, then. She'd just been unimpressed with it. Roy wondered why he ever thought he could be a step ahead of her. Any skilled, persistent, chess player could learn to checkmate his own teacher. Outthinking the woman who raised him, though, was apparently not in the cards.
"I heard you're going to the baseball game tonight?" Trina said, approaching the bar. Before Roy had time to be surprised – and why would he be, really? He knew the Central City gossip networks – she added, "Bernadette who works down at Miss Millie's goes with Captain, sorry, Major Pierce, and she heard that you were going to be in General Hakuro's box, because she's going to be in General Hakuro's box . . ."
"I did promise I'd go," said Roy.
"Baseball's boring," sighed Vanessa. "You could hang around here."
"No way," said Maya. "That's going to be a great game, and I am so bloody jealous. Brendan Collins is the starting pitcher for East City tonight. That man is a tall drink of water, and he has some serious heat on his fastball."
"Who did you promise?" Trina asked, looking at Roy.
"Brendan," said Roy. "I know him from around East City. We'll probably have a drink after."
Maya made an exasperated noise. "Now I really am jealous."
This was the point where Roy ought to magnanimously offer to take Maya with him. That definitely had its upside. It had its complicated side, too. "No need for jealousy," Roy said. "If you want to come to the game with me. . ."
"Oh no no," said Vanessa. "You're going with Bianca. They already flipped a coin."
"Of course," Roy said. He tried to gather an image of Bianca, one of the newer girls, into his mind. Then a sharp whistle sounded at the top of the stairs, and Roy didn't have to imagine. Bianca wore a sporty tweed jacket, a silk blouse, and trousers that emphasized her slim waist and hips as she walked down the stairs. By the time she was close enough for Roy to see that the hair under her beret was copper red, and her eyes piercing blue, he was already persuaded of her advantages as an evening's companion.
Still. He couldn't let it be that easy.
"I wonder what you all think of me," he said, attempting to cast a stern look toward all the girls at once. "I didn't come here to pick up a woman as my accessory."
"Accessory to what?" Chris asked suspiciously. "What kind of shenanigans do you have in mind tonight?"
Roy could never tell when his aunt was joking. She was almost as bad as Riza that way. "Not an accessory to a crime," he said, just to be sure. "Accessory to an outfit. Like a purse, or a hat or --" Or like the crimson ascot that settled under Bianca's chin, pulling the striking ensemble together. He shook his head. "Not that I think of you ladies like that. The point is that I don't."
"Too bad," Bianca said. When she stepped toward him, the other girls moved away, like water parting before the prow of a ship. She touched his shoulder, running her fingers down the gold colonel's braid. "I happen to go perfectly with the summer collection. Smart, sporty companion, female version."
Letting a smile cross his face slowly, Roy met her eyes in silence for a long moment. "All right," he said. "I'm sold." He raised the back of his hand to the side of her neck. "How soon can you get ready?"
"I just need a few things from upstairs." Bianca kept her eyes turned over one shoulder to be sure Roy was watching her walk away.
When the door to her room shut, the girls dispersed as if the show was over. This left Roy to lean over the bar to his aunt and say, "I can pay her usual rate."
"She'll say she's happy to get out. She likes the baseball, it's a pretty night. She maybe doesn't have too much fun in here when the officers all come in from the provinces. Present company excluded of course," she said, taking a deep puff of her cigarette, "They aren't really her crowd."
"Be that as it may," said Roy. "You know how I feel about taking favors from the girls."
"And you know she'll say she's insulted."
Roy took a thick roll of bills from his wallet and handed it over the bar. "I know she'll get over it by payday."
With a smile, Chris took the money and slid it into the front pocket of her blouse. "It's a good thing someone in this house has practical sense."
"I might feel easier about it," Roy said, looking again at the flock of girls, "if I was sure which of us was getting pimped."
Chris smacked his upper arm and he looked at her. "Sorry," he said. "You don't like that word."
"I don't like your mind sometimes. Take a pretty girl to the ballgame with you, or not. You've got a free choice, so don't act like you're the one being bought and sold."
Madame had a point. Roy was going to the game because he had promised Brendan he would go. Brendan was the reason Roy was pretending to know or care the least bit about the game of baseball. He'd have to gladhand everyone in the general's box for a while, but he could do that without a girl in his lap. Everybody else would be too drunk to remember anything that happened. Maybe Roy could go watch a man he liked very much toss a ball for a few hours, then go spend the night (or at least a few hours) with Brendan, celebrating their mutual achievements of the day. Maybe they didn't need the rest of this bullshit.
"Ro-oy!" Bianca's voice called from the upper floor. "Can you come zip me up?"
"Just a second!" he called. Then he frowned at Chris. "Wasn't she dressed just a second ago?"
"If you need me to explain women to you now," his aunt said, "It's too late."
"Fine, fine." Roy glanced toward the staircase. "I should go help her out. Look, I'll come by in the morning, when you've got some down time. We can catch up." He vaguely recalled that he'd made a similar offer to Hughes. It sometimes paid not to account for time too precisely. He'd make it work.
He moved to go upstairs, but Chris called him back. "Go easy on Bianca," his aunt said. "She's got a little crush on you."
"She doesn't need a crush on me. I'm --" Paying her for sex, which he might or might not collect on. That kind of exchange was supposed to make these transactions simple, and Madame of all people ought to know that. Then he caught the look on her face and remembered that, however worldly Roy thought he was, in her mind he was still a kid playing games. "I'll keep that in mind," he said. "Thanks."
Upstairs, Bianca's door stood open a crack. Roy gently pushed it further. She stood in front of the mirror, fully clothed and adjusting her hat.
"Does that outfit even have zippers?" he asked.
She turned her head and wrinkled her nose at him. "Details." Lifting the beret, she said, "I could use some help with these hairpins. The style is more complicated than I thought." With Bianca's hair exposed, Roy could see that what he had taken for a fashionably short bob really consisted of long, thick waves of hair, pinned in layers under the hat. "I keep hoping the fashion will change," she said. "Please don't suggest I should cut it."
"I would never," he said, sincerely. His eye followed a curl that had come loose and touched her shoulder.
"Here." She handed him two hairpins and started to twist the hair back onto the top of her head. Then she stopped, frowned, and said, "Maybe I'm headed the wrong direction. Help me?" Bianca bent her head forward. Roy put his hands in her thick hair and helped her take out the pins. She shook her hair loose, smiled up at him, and said, "Your friend pitches for the away team, right?"
"Yes." In more ways than one, Roy refrained from saying. Then she flashed a quick smile that made him wonder if she had meant that exactly the way he heard it. But then it was gone and she said, "So he won't be playing until the bottom of the first inning."
"Very true." Roy stood still as she leaned up to kiss him. This was complicated, he thought, his aunt and the girls on top of everything else in his life. Maybe he ought to approach the situation differently. It might be time to invent a fictitious girlfriend so that he could sort himself out from these entanglements with some kind of dignity.
But, he thought, as Bianca's hand reached below his belt, and Bianca herself sank to her knees in front of him -- it wasn't time to sort everything out. Not quite yet.
*
During the cab ride to the baseball park, Bianca told Roy her story.
"I can't sing," she said. "I'm not much of a dancer. I don't even photograph very well. Can't sit still. Which means I'm not good as an artist's model, and my shoulders are a weird shape -- don't laugh, I've been told by designers -- so no one wants me as a fashion model, either. I came to Central to be on the stage -- because I love the theat-ah, don't you know -- but the directors all told me, after a few euphemistic auditions, that my gestures weren't big enough. I didn't have presence. I might be able to learn if I started out in the chorus, but then we come back to around to how I can't sing."
With a sigh, she turned to the window. Roy watched the glow from rows of brilliant, beautiful gaslights alternate with shadow, flowing over her delicate arm. "If only they made talking pictures here," she said, "like they do in Xing." Looking back at Roy, she smiled. "I keeping thinking I'll go there, when my Xingese is a little better. Just a little. With a little luck, they'll think my Amestrian accent is charmingly exotic."
"Doubtful. The Xingese think we sound like provincial idiots when we speak their language. Believe me." Roy had particularly annoying experience on this front. He had been assigned to babysit foreign diplomatic missions in East City a time or two. Everyone looked at his complexion and assumed he was fluent, even though most ethnic Xingese who lived in Amestris were generations removed from the ancestral tongue. Roy was better than average -- because Xingese was one of the six languages Master Hawkeye had insisted he study, and because Madame always had a few immigrant girls in the rotation -- but that hadn't stopped the diplomats from treating him like a yokel. None of which was actually Bianca's problem.
"Sorry to burst your bubble," he said.
"It's all right." Bianca adjusted her beret. "I'll just have to wait for our film business to catch up with the technology."
Roy couldn't help being charmed by this, her earnest conviction that she would have been a talking movie star if only the country would develop a viable industry. He was tempted to tell her he planned to be president one day. It was an ambition that he had only ever spoken as a pretend-joke between him and Hughes. He thought Bianca might understand.
"Thank you, by the way," she said, "for not telling me to get a real job."
"You have one." His experience of the last hour suggested she was pretty damn good at it, but there was no particularly couth way to point that out.
"I do," she agreed. "I also have a special ability. No crude remarks, please. It's not what you're thinking."
"I wasn't thinking a thing," he said innocently. He had, in fact, been thinking of her apparent lack of a gag reflex. He had been wondering whether it was a genetic mutation that rendered one particularly adept at blow jobs, or a skill that could be learned. Roy was in no way modest about his own sexual ability, but he couldn't give a blow job like that. Still, he wasn't going to ask that. He suspected Bianca's list of professed inadequacy was leading up to something, and he would let her tell it.
"I'm no good at singing," she said. "Not a dancer, not an actress. What I am is absurdly overeducated. For a certain sort of man, who desires intelligent conversation over all else, that's very valuable."
"That sounds --" He thought of the clamor of Madame's bar. "It sounds charming. If unlikely."
"It give me an excuse to read books and newspapers in my spare time, and have it count as work. Would you believe Madame Christmas convinced me to work for her when she offered to pay for my library subscription?"
Since she had insisted that Roy learn piano and chess, and had handpicked his very talented instructors from the ranks of her girls, he had no problem believing that at all. "The woman has layers," he said. "It sounds as though you like your job."
"In a way. Not always. You may have noticed," she said, shifting her weight to lie against his shoulder, "Central City isn't exactly the court of Ancient Xerxes in the Golden Age of learning. The men who come to the bar looking for a smart girl don't so much care how much I know as want me to help them feel like I care what they know."
"Ahh. So you laugh in the right places. Understand their references. Look impressed by how well-read they are.." When she nodded, Roy said, "I get it. Sounds a lot like trying to get promoted in the Army."
"I hate it sometimes. And please don't tell me I should just go to graduate school. If it's anything like university, I'd still be surrounded by old men trying to impress me so they could fuck me, and I'd be the one paying." She shook her head. "This way isn't perfect, but I live with it." Her fingers slid down Roy's arm and stroked the top of his hand.
"Mmm-hmm." He looked down at her busy hand. "Just out of curiosity. In addition to all these awful, shallow, arrogant men -- how many of us get the version where you confide what you hate about the job and what those other men are really like?"
A smile played at her lips. "Fewer than you think, Roy Mustang," she said. "I only treat a man like he's special if he earns it."
"You barely know me."
"I hear things. Anyway, it doesn't matter. One day I'll find a nice man with a rescue complex who wants to take me away from all this, and all I have to do is show him how smart I think he is. Not you," she added.
"Good, because that doesn't sound like me at all. I know someone who might fit the bill, though."
"I'm listening."
"Good job, nice enough looks, brains and just enough altruism to think he's saving you, and enough ego to think you're really into him? Sure. He has to break up with my friend, first, but it's just a matter of time." That might not be completely fair to Eric Mattingly, but Roy couldn't bring himself to feel bad about it. "Of course, he hates baseball. Or he claims to. Is that a deal breaker?"
"If he makes enough money, I'll go to games on my own."
"That's the spirit. Now, do you really know a lot about this sport?"
"My knowledge is encyclopedic. You would not believe how many times I've sat through an idiot explaining the infield fly rule incorrectly."
"Infield fly rule," Roy said. "How does that work, exactly?"
"You want to take advantage of my extensive knowledge?"
"Sure. I want to hear you talk about something you know. Besides," Roy said, crossing his hands behind his head. "If I learn this, I can impress Brendan."
*
By the time they got to the park, it was the middle of the second inning. Bianca's calculations weren't to blame. They could have been in their seats before the game started, probably, but Roy had insisted on stretching out their time in Bianca's room. Running out as soon as he got off violated his sense of chivalry. He had a feeling that he might need some chivalry points to burn by the end of the night.
"To be fair," Roy said, looking at his pocketwatch as they walked through the stadium gates, "They must have gotten through the first inning fast. Nobody scored, so at least we didn't miss much."
Bianca looked pained. "You really don't understand this game."
"How so?"
"Your friend is a pitcher. A short inning and a shutout side is good. You missed him doing well."
"Given the choice, I'm sure he'd prefer knowing I was supporting him in hard times?" Roy tried out the rationalization on Bianca, but it didn't sound very convincing. He could also have pointed out that she hadn't complained about how late it would make them when he'd had his mouth between her legs, but nobody was going to come out of that conversation feeling happier.
They stepped into the grandstand just as Brendan was walking back to the mound. General Hakuro's box was only yards from the field, so Roy could easily make eye contact and give a casual wave. Brendan froze for a second, then touched his cap in a salute, which seemed to be directed at the entire military party. This created a confused reaction in the crowd: cheers from people who approved of both the Army and the visiting pitcher, a chorus of boos and murmurs from the (far larger) group with mixed feelings about either.
Brendan nodded and went to the mound, while Roy and Bianca found their seats.
"Mustang," General Hakuro grunted as Roy had to clamber over him. "Good of you to join us."
"Sir," Roy saluted. "Meet my lifelong friend Bianca."
"Hmm." The general clearly didn't approve of the company Roy kept, but then, the possibility of Hakuro approving of anything Roy did was a ship that had sailed. Just as well to confuse the issue and let Hakuro disapprove of a hard-partying womanizer, rather than an ambitious officer who intended to supplant him as regional commander.
"Good thing he didn't ask you what your lifelong friend's last name was," Bianca stage whispered.
"You say that like I couldn't make one up. Now, please, some quiet so I can watch my friend play baseball. Well, quiet, except when I need you tell me what's going on. Which will be most of the time."
Brendan kept the no-hitter going into the sixth inning, which, Bianca ensured Roy, was impressive. He got in trouble with a few runners, then, and was pulled for a string of relief pitchers. The game quickly turned into a blowout in favor of Central.
"That manager is an idiot," said Bianca. "Collins is the only reason East City doesn't get killed in every single game."
"I know, right?" said Major Pierce. "Some smarter team is going to pick him up when his contract runs out, and pay him twice the money." Pierce and his chorus girl date Bernadette had ended up next to Roy and Bianca "so that the ladies could talk." Roy suspected Bianca of advertising herself to the major, who was permanently stationed in Central, as a future client. But if Bernadette didn't object -- and she didn't seem to -- Roy supposed he shouldn't either. And hell, maybe Bianca just liked talking about baseball.
Roy stood up and stretched. "Well, we're done here, right? I suppose I could watch another hour of this game that my friend isn't playing in, or I could stake out a space in the hotel bar until the team gets done with this nonsense."
"You're going to make me miss all the scoring," Bianca grumbled.
"Depends on your perspective," Roy said, raising an eyebrow.
They left, to the general's obvious satisfaction, with Pierce and Bernadette. Roy had gotten through several whiskeys at the bar when the postgame crowd started to filter in, but the team didn't. "Come on," he told Bianca. "You know what backstage passes are? This is better."
She shrugged goodbye to the others, and came along with Roy. The strategy of getting to Brendan Collins's hotel room involved a combination of, "Did I mention I've just been made a full colonel?" ;"Brendan will really want to meet this girl, trust me," and, finally, "I'm his very good friend, Roy Mustang, he's expecting me, just ask him."
Brendan answered the door in a robe and a smile, which didn't make sense until Roy remembered that the part about being a good friend whose visit was expected was actually true. "Hey," Brendan said, and Roy was almost caught up in appreciating the deep voice and dark eyes, when he remembered to pull Bianca in behind him and shut the door.
So much for the smile. "Seriously?" said Brendan. He turned to Bianca. "I'm sure you're very nice." Then he looked back at Roy. "Seriously?"
"Bianca wanted to meet you," Roy said, feeling defensive.
"Bianca, I'm Brendan. I've had a really long day, and this is my room, and you are not invited to be in it." He frowned at Roy. "You I haven't made up my mind about yet."
"I just thought there might be a thing," said Roy. "I didn't want to send her home until I knew. . ."
"It's fine," Bianca said. "You stay. I'll go. Bernie and the major are still down in the bar and if they're not." She shrugged. "I'm a big girl. Nice to meet you, Brendan, sorry about, well --" She opened the door and backed out, then raised her voice. "I don't know what you think I came here for, but that is not what I came here for. I swear to fucking God, Roy Mustang!" Before she slammed the door in his face, she winked at him.
Roy collapsed against the wall, laughing.
"That's hilarious," said Brendan. "Is this supposed to help my reputation?"
"Your reputation could use a little sullying. You're too squeaky clean, and people start wondering."
"Start wondering what? If I'm queer? I guess that would be such a terrible thing for people to think, that it's better for you to tell the security staff that you're buying girls for me."
"I didn't tell anybody that. I won't take any responsibility for what they assumed --" Brendan let out an exasperated sigh, and Roy said, "Listen. She's a fun girl, she wanted to meet you, and I thought you might want to hang out."
"Translation," said Brendan. "You brought some hooker to watch us fuck so you could get off on her getting off on it."
"Bianca's not some hooker. She's a fan. She knows way more about your sport than I do."
"Do you think that saying this is helping you in some way?" Brendan turned his back to Roy and, leaning forward, braced against the wall with his hands. "Remind me why I wanted you to come see me?"
"That should be easy enough." Roy put his hand on the back of Brendan's neck. The baseball player's height made him look deceptively lean, from a distance, but Roy knew how much of that body was solid muscle. He pulled down the collar of Brendan's bathrobe and started to kiss the junction of neck and shoulder. With one hand, Roy felt through the terry cloth for the other man's hipbone, then slid his fingers down and forward. "For one thing, you're already hard."
It was a guess -- the loose robe hadn't shown him anything, and he didn't have anything in his hand yet -- but the sharp intake of Brendan's breath told Roy he had guessed correctly. With both hands, Roy untied the robe's belt. Then, he slid the flat of one palm down Brendan's abdomen, and gently gripped the top of his cock. "You hate that you want me this much," Roy said.
"No." Brendan turned his head to say, over his shoulder, "I like that I want you. I hate when you take advantage of that to act like a jerk."
There was nothing to say to that, really. When you literally had a guy by the balls and he pointed out that you had him by the balls, there was no way to press that advantage without proving him right. So Roy just smiled, let go long enough for Brendan to turn around, and got on his knees.
Brendan had a good cock -- long and thick and reliably hard -- and Roy had been thinking about sucking it for hours, since Bianca had done the same to him. He had been thinking about Bianca sucking it, too, though that apparently wasn't going to happen. This was reasonable, considering that Brendan had consistently told Roy he wasn't attracted to women. Roy would have to indulge his threesome fantasies elsewhere. Then again, having sex with an attractive man and woman within the same evening put a guy into lucky territory. There was no point in being too picky about the circumstances.
For now, Roy let his jaw fall and slid his lips along several inches of Brendan's cock, teasing up and down the shaft with his tongue. Brendan's long fingers played over Roy's hair, then moved down to stroke the underside of his chin. That tickled, which made Roy gasp for breath. He opened his mouth and let go for a second.
Brendan's hand dropped to the new stripes on Roy's jacket. "I just remembered. This was your big day. It's not fair for you to do all the work."
Roy smiled, sliding his fingertips against Brendan's balls. "I like this work."
"I do, too. It's just -"
Roy rocked back on his heels. "You'd like to bend me over something right about now. I get it."
They scrambled toward the bed, Roy shedding his clothes as he went. He put a hand on his own erection, which had gotten off to a lazy start. Still, it was a relief to feel himself harden so easily, after the workout Bianca had put him through. There was nothing in the terms of their relationship that explicitly said fucking a paid escort on the same night you had arranged to spend together was off limits, but still. . .Roy stroked himself, thankful to be avoiding that conversation.
He knelt on the mattress, and Brendan sat behind him. He had stopped long enough to pick up a jar of something, and with delicate care, slipped two well-lubed fingers into Roy's ass. Brendan knew where to apply the right pressure. It almost wasn't fair how quickly Roy felt the stimulation. He had to work hard to control his breathing, had to touch himself slowly to keep from coming right away. Brendan was almost inhumanly patient (a quality Roy lacked and which, quite aside from how Roy liked what was happening to him right here, might be the real reason he'd never been much good as a top) but finally his cock was inside Roy -- a little, then a lot -- and then they were fucking with real abandon.
Roy had a rule about not ranking his sexual experiences, beyond the very utilitarian method of figuring out how he wanted to spend an evening. Still, he hadn't had all that much that was better than Brendan.
Afterwards, it occurred to him they hadn't kissed. He couldn't remember if that was unusual for them or not, but he liked curling up in bed together. They might as well do it face to face.
"Now you want to kiss me?" Brendan said. But he smiled, and he kissed back.
"I always want to kiss you," Roy said. "Sometimes we're just busy doing other things."
"All right," Brendan said with a laugh. They kissed and held each other for a while. It embarrassed Roy a little, how much he liked this part, and he suspected he was being indulged. But he didn't mind. Indulgence meant someone thought you were worth at least a bit of trouble.
Or, Roy thought, as Brendan pulled away and sat up, it might mean something totally different.
Brendan sighed, hugging his arms around his knees. "Now I feel shitty. No. I don't. I shouldn't. I --Look, I have to talk to you about something. I was going to wait, but I shouldn't wait."
"What did I do?" Roy said warily. There were plenty of obvious things he had done, including some in the last few hours. Brendan wouldn't have to manufacture grievances. Roy just felt like he ought to know what, in particular, they were.
"It isn't you. Well, not exactly. It's -- Roy, East City sucks. It's nowhere near my hometown and family, and even if it was. The team and the management are making me miserable. My contract runs out at the end of the year, and I'd be a chump to sign there again."
"Oh," Roy said, relieved. Brendan was talking about moving. That was nothing. Roy was hoping for a transfer back to Central soon, anyway.
"Plus, Central is a bigger media market. My agent says -- well, a lot more exposure."
"Sure. Endorsements, et cetera. I get it. Look, the thing is, I like this. I like you. I like the way this is with us. We both travel a lot anyway. You moving wouldn't change that much, really."
"God, Roy," said Brendan. "I was going to say that. I meant to say that. I like you, too. I like that you came tonight and -- we argue about stuff, whatever. At the end of the day, you've done a lot for me. I am way more confident -- personally, sexually -- than I was before I met you. Knowing you has made me think a lot about what I want and. . ." He swallowed, then said quickly. "Also what I don't want."
"I don't like the direction this is going."
Brendan breathed in deeply. "You are the first person I'm telling this to. The thing is, it's pretty much in the bag I'm signing with Central at the end of this season. I've already started talking to a reporter about doing a feature story -- an extensive feature -- about my life. And the more I've thought about it, the more I realize. It needs to be about every aspect of my life."
Roy stared for a second, processing, and then he said, "You're coming out." It was only in the past generation that the Amestrian language even had a term for that concept. The tides of cultural acceptance were turning fast, in a lot of areas. Professional team sports wasn't one of them, though. And the Army sure as hell wasn't. "You can't -- do you understand what this means, dragging me into this?"
"I'm not," Brendan said. "I want to be honest about my life. I'm not going to involve anybody else against their will. It'll be a few months before the story is published. That should give you enough time to back away from me in public."
"Just in public? That seems a bit hypocritical."
"No." Brendan spoke with the exaggerated patience that, in an unfortunate flash of association, reminded Roy of Maes Hughes. "In public is where you might need to spend a month doing damage control about our pretty obvious friendship. The rest of this -- I'm sorry, Roy. I like you but this is over."
"Wow." Roy rolled his head back against the bedframe. "I like how you just assumed I wouldn't stand by you."
"Would you?" Brendan demanded. "Can you? Because I need to be committed to this decision. I can't do it when I'm with someone as ambivalent as you are."
"I'm not -- I'm --" Roy wasn't sure he'd ever used this word, in relation to himself, but it was hard to deny it applied. "I'm bisexual. I'm not confused, and I'm not having an identity crisis. I'm old enough, and I've done enough to know what it is I like doing."
"I don't mean you're ambivalent because of the women. I mean, you can't decide who you want to be. You don't know who you want people to see when they look at you."
"I know exactly what I want to be," Roy snapped. "I want to be in charge of this goddamn country, and I need to do it through this goddamn Army. Which happens to be an Army in which the one thing you can't do is tell them you're queer. Don't get me wrong, you can be as fucking queer as you want to. You just can't tell anybody. The whole point is that the last thing anybody wants to talk about is what anybody else is doing in bed. Because they're all scared to death of somebody looking into what they are doing. To be honest about the whole thing, Brendan. If the biggest problem that I had with my employer is that they hypothetically give a shit about who I'm fucking -- well, let's just say I wish that was the biggest problem I have with my employer."
Brendan spoke slowly, evenly, but without a hint of compromise. "That's not such a good sales pitch, you know. Reminding me that, besides being homophobic, your Army also murders a lot of innocent people. Assuming that's what you're getting at. It's not really leading with your best hand."
"I don't -- I don't have a better hand."
"Nope," Brendan agreed. "You are, really, the last person I should have been fucking all this time. And I'm truly sorry for that. Because I did really like it."
Roy shut his eyes and exhaled. "This is the part where I get all my clothes on and leave."
"Yeah," Brendan said. "Sorry. Maybe your girls are still in the bar."
They weren't. Roy could have gotten a room of his own. For that matter, he could have gone to HQ and stayed in the barracks overnight.
He got in a cab, and he gave an address, and he only realized after he'd said it that it belonged to Maes and Gracia Hughes.
*
Roy wasn't sure about the etiquette of showing up late at night, uninvited, at the home of someone who had an infant child. New parents always talked about how they didn't get any sleep. So, theoretically, knocking or ringing the bell couldn't be that much of an intrusion. On the other hand, there seemed to be something particularly egregious about 'waking the baby' if she had gotten to sleep. He settled for a quiet, dignified knock.
Maes opened the door right away. "You're lucky I was awake," he said, in a theatrical whisper that Roy didn't understand until he saw the tiny child sleeping against Hughes's shoulder. "Come in. Sit. Talk normal but not loud. I was just putting her down."
"I probably should have called," Roy said. He stepped through the foyer, and sideways into the kitchen where he started to lay his jacket on a chair.
"I called," said a woman's voice, and Roy jumped to see Riza Hawkeye seated on the counter.
"Stay there," said Hughes, with a smile that said he was enjoying this way too much. He walked upstairs with Elysia, and left Roy and Riza facing each other.
"Is, ahh -- " Roy looked around. "Is Mr. I-Got-Us-Nice-Reservations here?"
"No," Riza said, with a thin smile. Roy registered that she had changed her uniform for an off-the-shoulder dress of the same deep blue. She slid off the counter and limped toward the kitchen table, in a pair of strappy stiletto pumps that some of Madame Christmas's girls would have fought to the death over.
"If he bought you those shoes," Roy said, "No wonder it didn't work out."
Angling her chair to avoid flashing her underwear at him, Riza lifted one of the shoes to rest on another chair and started to undo the straps. "Who says it didn't work out?"
"I shouldn't jump to conclusions. Maybe you had a wonderful romantic evening and then decided to walk thirty blocks to your old Army buddy's house in shoes that were originally designed as torture devices." She threw the shoe at Roy, and he caught it. Turning it over, he said, "This is an extremely nice shoe, by the way. It just might as well come from a boutique called, 'Not for Riza Hawkeye.' I could say that about a lot of things regarding Eric Mattingly, by the way."
"What happened to, 'Oh, do whatever you want. It's your choice. I'll get on fine without you, no matter what.'?"
"You believed that?" said an amused voice from the doorway.
"Of course not," Riza said, smiling at Hughes. "One of these days, the colonel will learn that I already know what he's thinking, so he might as well say it." Roy rolled his eyes, and Riza said. "I guess I should follow my own advice and be honest. Yes, Eric and I broke up. It was less than fun, but it wasn't that dramatic. Basically, the hundred and twenty first time that I told him the Army is my career, and I have no plans to change, it occurred to him that I meant it." She looked up at Roy. "How was your night?"
"Not great," he said. "Brendan left the game early, and East City gave up a lot of runs. But I guess it doesn't hurt his personal record because he didn't walk the batters, or something? According to Bianca, anyway."
"And Bianca is --?" Hughes raised an eyebrow, in a way that suggested he had a pretty good idea. "The sports analyst for the Central City Times?"
"No," Roy snapped, suddenly annoyed at the teasing, and at other things he wasn't ready to think about. "Bianca is a whore who I fucked, all right? Or, no, technically, I wouldn't say that we fucked because I didn't actually --" Hughes and Riza were both staring. It occurred to him that what he was saying might be particularly painful to both of them. But that was assuming some melodramatic bullshit, the kind of possessive jealous bullshit that Roy theoretically didn't even believe in, about both of them wanting Roy but knowing it could never be. Maybe that was just a story Roy told himself to help all their lives make more sense. "Should I go on? Because everybody says they want honesty, but then it turns out, most of what's true they don't really want to hear."
"I think a few boundaries are all right," Hughes said dryly.
Riza was staring at the tabletop now. She had one bare foot in her lap and was massaging it. "How is Brendan doing?" she asked.
"I don't think we're friends anymore," Roy said. She looked up, surprised, and there went another thing that she had understood without Roy ever explaining it. Maybe she had a point, but whether that was an argument for speaking up or shutting up, he didn't know.
"Lieutenant," Roy said. "You wouldn't quit the Army for Mattingly. That's a sensible decision that I entirely endorse. Can you imagine anyone you would quit for?"
"No, sir. There isn't anyone. And before you get a big head about how devoted I am to you, it isn't about one person. It's a mission. It's bigger than we are. We'd find a way to do it if you weren't here." She looked up at Hughes. "Right?"
"Sure," Hughes said, though he said it with the look of a man who wasn't entirely certain what he was agreeing to.
"All right, then," Roy said. "Let's say it's not a person. What if it's a different mission?"
"A bigger one?" Riza said. "Bigger than fixing the whole country and making up for what we did in the war?"
This startled Roy, and he met Hughes's eyes. It was what they both thought, but it was surprising to hear Riza boil it down into such stark words.
"Maybe not," Roy said. "What if it's a smaller one. But different, because it's one you know you'll actually be able to do." He imagined it then. The hero of the Ishbalan War, Flame Alchemist, boyfriend of a celebrity athlete, telling the Army what they could do with their hypocritical policy. That wasn't some theoretical change that he could achieve in the distant future, provided that he was extremely good and extremely lucky. It was a choice he could see the results of now, not an excuse to go on conducting business as usual.
"I can't think of anything," Riza said. "I'm not saying it would never happen, I just can't imagine what it would be. My life isn't that interesting."
"I'd quit for my kid," Hughes said. "For my wife. I can't imagine a situation where I'd have to, but that's my boring answer, and you should change the subject before I start showing you more baby pictures."
"What about you, sir?" Riza asked.
"No," Roy said. "Of course not. There is no other goal, there is nothing else, and where I am right now is where I need to be." It shocked him a little to see the looks on their faces, the obvious relief Hughes and Riza felt to have Roy confirm that he wasn't doubting the mission. "What?" he said. "You guys are just expecting me to flake out on you."
"Of course not," said Riza.
"Any day now," said Hughes.
"Very funny," said Roy. "But it's a good thing to reaffirm what we're about, every once in a while. We're on this long road, we know the endgame, but sometimes it feels like we're taking baby steps."
"Oh!" Hughes said. "Speaking of baby steps. It's a little early, even though Elysia is precocious, but Gracia and I have been looking at these little walkers they have and -- You guys should see how precious they are. I'm just going to go get the catalog."
Hughes left the room, and Riza looked at Roy. "You had to bring that up?"
Roy smiled. "You know we wouldn't want him any other way."
He stepped toward Riza and put a hand on her shoulder. She touched it and looked up at him with a smile.
This is the right mission, Roy thought. Where I am is where I need to be.
For now, that would have to be enough.