Power of Words
Full Metal Alchemist
by SylverIce2

For Roy, the wedding day was the strangest day of his life. He'd never expected it; hadn't really seen it coming, though Maes spent most of his time talking about the girl. Deep down, Roy had thought that he was enough, that Maes wouldn't need more.

He hadn't expected to be proven wrong quite so spectacularly.

It was, however, one of the reasons that he'd chosen a transfer to a different department, to a different city. He didn't want to be around the happy couple, didn't want to see what he was missing, what was missing from his life. Not just marriage and a house and a happy home; but Maes Hughes, with his silly grin and over-the-top expressions of joy.

Roy was the only one who knew what was hiding behind the man's banter. Roy was the only one who knew who Maes was really working for. Roy was the only one who knew the taste of that skin, the feel of those hands - or at least, he had been.

Now there was another, between them, always between them. And Roy Mustang found himself hating. He didn't want to; the idea of disliking any female sat poorly in his mind, worried him slightly, made him remember what it had been like during the wars. He balked at admitting openly that he didn't like Maes' wife, that he was jealous in any way, or that he wished things were different. Anyone who came too close to the truth got a patented Mustang speech about pretty women and searching for the perfect miniskirt; no one was ever privy to the tears that Roy shed in the dark for the lives he'd taken, or for the pain that Maes' leaving had caused.

So he transferred. And then Maes was following him, dragging along the wife, and getting into a department that gave him access to some of the largest secrets of the government...all so that he could pass information on to Roy. To keep Roy informed, in the hopes of furthering Roy's dreams.

Everything for each other, they had once promised. Anything for each other. They had lived that for so many years, that it was a part of their souls, a bond that couldn't be broken. So no matter how Roy snarled at Maes when he rattled on about his little family, no matter that sometimes Maes' eyes would be cold and hard as he reported to 'Mustang', no matter what words were spoken in public or private in those days - it didn't matter.

Because Roy remembered the words they had spoken long ago, and those were all the words that he needed.

When he met the Elric brothers, he was harsher with them; harder on Ed than he otherwise might have been. But he had seen that same desperate togetherness in those boys, and he wanted to be sure that they would each survive without the other, should something happen. So that they did not have to walk the path that he trode every day, where guilt and jealousy warred with love and pride.

All Roy had ever wanted was to have enough power to keep people safe.

And then the day came when he was unable to do even that.

And Maes died for him, in the rain, in the street, alone. Unable to fight back, distracted from his own safety, his voice a fading echo over a phone line.

And all Roy could hear was his own voice, screaming Maes Hughes' name into the void.