Being Old You Can (Fullmetal Alchamest Fanfic)

Being Old You Can

In turning to speak with Maes Hughes he remembered.

Roy stood there, looking at the blank spot where Maes was not, and remembered the man was no longer there. The remembrance felt like some kind of foreign lie lingering in the back of his head, an untruth that really was the truth that he simply didn't want to be true.

After all, he should have been the one to die first, the thought haunting him as much as the memory of Maes smiling face, the way the man laughed, let alone the way the man brought sunshine into the room. Something was missing from the room that Roy couldn't place his finger on, but he'd stand there for what felt like minutes which were in reality only mere seconds taking in the fact his old friend was gone.

"You said we'd grow old together."

It wasn't meant as lovers, but two good friends watching each other grow old along with watching their wives grow old let alone their children, though in the back of his mind the very idea of marrying seemed just as foreign to Roy, the memory of the war rattling around in that brain of his making him constantly busy yet not feeling he could have the normal kind of life that Maes had.

"Of course you can!" he remembered Maes replying cheerfully, just as cheerfully as he did when he suggested they, their wives, and children grow old together. If felt at the time like a lie, a lie that he would be the reason it didn't end up coming about because he would be the one who would die young because he was the one who was so close to everything that ended up being such a mess in the political scheme of things.

"Always the fool," and yet, in the back of his head Maes was the most sensible of all of them, the most normal, his foolishness purposefully there to push back everything going on around them, but it hit home how much he did around the place once he was gone. Roy let out a sigh before getting back to work.