jarnsaxa

Beta&Co-Author: Ca11iope ^^ Thank you, dear :D

-_-_-_-

The Bet of the Year

Chapter 23: Interrogation

If there was one thing Maes Hughes prided himself on – aside from his excellent taste in women and his superb parenting skills – it was his expertise in information gathering and interrogation. He had been assigned to the Investigations Division of the Amestrian military straight out of the academy, handpicked by his department head, Major General Schnuffeln, and had long been acknowledged as one of its finest officers. His track record, a long list of sucessful investigations, spoke for itself. Maes Hughes knew how to find things out. Big or small, no secret was safe. And that’s what made this current self-assigned investigation so intriguing. It was a challenge.

An unexpected challenge.

When Maes had invited himself along to Edward’s accidental job interview, he had expected to quickly and easily harvest the information he needed from Ed, and then formulate a tentative plan of action to relay to his bet partners based on what he learned. Amazingly, Edward had thwarted Hughes’ every effort to gain insight into the young alchemist’s current relationship with Roy, effectively stonewalling the Intelligence officer at every turn.

It wasn’t as if Hughes hadn’t gained any information. He had managed to get the young man to admit that he and Roy were on better terms than in the past, but that was something Maes had already known thanks to the surveillance team covering Roy. For such a seasoned expert, Maes hadn’t been able to glean any useful new intelligence at all.

In fact, he’d gotten even less from Ed than he likely could have weaseled out of Roy himself, now that the two old friends were at odds because of this bet. For a moment, Maes regretted the rift this wager had created, but quickly dismissed the thought. This was just a friendly game, a way to finally hook his best friend up with a decent woman, and would have no great influence on their friendship once it was over. And whatever Roy might have told Maes would likely have been a variation of what the dark haired Don Juan always said about any sexual quarry he currently had his eye on, any time he felt sufficiently challenged by an attractive temptation to mention her.

But this time Edward Eric was that temptation.

To be honest, Maes had found the explicit lecture centered around Edward that Roy had given his office staff quite disturbing. The Hughes, Maes and Gracia both, had always regarded both Elric brothers with a parental fondness, and the Investigations officer still saw Ed as the young boy whose birthday matched that of his daughter, who wore a red coat like a challenge, and who exploded into histrionics at every perceived mention of his height, or lack thereof. Maes had to remind himself that Ed was now of legal age, no longer a child by any stretch of the means. The older man had to get over his memories of the child Ed was, and move into the present, where Edward was, quite frankly, a stunning young man.

The surprise dinner meeting certainly helped Maes with that particular problem. He no longer saw Edward as a child, nor even as the teen who had returned from wherever he had been. What Maes now saw was a person perfectly suited to Roy Mustang’s pattern of predation, and it worried him. Ed had never seemed to be the type of person who would only be interested in having a bit of fun and then moving on. He didn´t act like Roy did. But on the other hand, Maes couldn’t be sure. The blond had definitely changed. The way he had so efficiently managed to derail Maes’ artfully disguised interrogation was proof enough of that.

Using small talk to put the young man at ease, Maes had gradually guided the dinner conversation in the direction he wanted to go, but the moment he had attempted to gently probe for information, the behavior of his dinner guest had changed. It was strange, and should have been impossible, but Hughes got the distinct impression that Edward knew exactly what the older man was doing, what strategies he was using, and when to be on the alert.

Maes had never formally interrogated the young alchemist before. All he’d ever had to do was ask a few pointed questions and observe the teen as he answered, a basic technique Maes used on everyone, an occupational habit. And back in the day, Ed had always fallen for this basic technique, his eyes and demeanor telling so much more that his spoken answers.

Yesterday however, the young man’s secrets had not been so easy to ascertain. He had avoided Maes efforts to gain the information he required, forcing the older man to greater efforts, to the use of more sophisticated strategies. The more Ed dodged, the more Maes pressed, but to no avail. The whole experience had been frustrating and inspiring at the same time. Maes felt as if Edward was reading him like a book, aware of the older man’s expressions, his tone of voice, his smallest gesture, and could tell when the topic was just a course of distraction to get him to relax, and when it was suddenly serious.

To date, only two people were able to read Maes so easily. Gracia, and Roy Mustang.

Ed should not have been able to do that. And he should not have been able to resist Maes interrogational efforts. The prodigy had never been very good at reading people, and had always carried his heart on his sleeve. Yet incredibly, he had resisted, to the point that Maes would have had better luck luring information out of an unwilling Roy Mustang. And his friend was an incredibly hard nut to crack.

And Ed’s resistance to his interrogation wasn’t the only thing that was bothering Hughes. At one point during the dinner fiasco, the interrogations specialist had decided to try to get Ed’s guard down using Alphonse as the key. That strategy had had the opposite effect, and the young alchemist had closed off even more. Shortly after Ed’s return, the Elrics and Winry had stayed with the Hughes for a few days. Everything had seemed fine, apart from some initial difficulties the brothers had adjusting to the situation. Winry had stepped in and done her best to pour oil on those troubled waters, and Hughes had been sure that any further problems should have been solved by now.

But if that was the case, why had Al visited Roy and not his brother? And where had Roy disappeared to with the younger Elric while Maes had systematically worked further away from any information with each attempt to gain it? Where had Ed learned to read people so well, with no experience in interrogation?

Maes slammed on his mental breaks. Wait a minute. Edward had been missing for nearly two years – plenty of time for the young genius to develop a few new skills. And now that Maes thought about it, the young man has never actually said just where he had been. So he might have come in contact with an interrogation specialist wherever he was. Maes turned the possibilities, situations, and likely scenarios over in his mind, testing this theory.

No. It just wasn’t plausible. Even for a genius, and assuming two years of in-depth training with an interrogation specialist, it still just amounted to a crash course in basic interview techniques. Every interrogation worked differently. It took many years of practical experience to develop the expertise necessary to effectively conduct one, and many more to learn to thoroughly and successfully deflect one. And Ed had been able to elude a seasoned master.

This was mildly disturbing. Something was not right here.

And Roy was right in the middle of it.

Maes turned to Riza. “When you call Roy, tell him to come see me in my office. And tell him it´s urgent.”

He definitely needed to talk to his friend.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Trust Al to spoil his fun. Well okay, to be fair, the young man didn’t actually know he was spoiling Roy’s fun, but he had just the same.

After finally getting the promise of some answers, the younger Elric had done the last thing that the Flame Alchemist expected.

He sent Ed away.

Well, not exactly away, just out of the kitchen. Roy and Alphonse had come knocking in the middle of the night, and it was now early morning. Ed had to get ready for his day, that routine including a shower and change of clothes.

Damn it.

Roy had been enjoying the view of Edward in his choice of sleepwear. Now he would likely be denied the tantalizing view of the half-naked blond, since Roy doubted very much that the man would return dressed in anything at all revealing. Not with his little brother present.

And speaking of that little brother, Al has been giving Roy these … looks...ever since Ed had left the room. Speculative, narrow-eyed, guarded looks. Looks that made Roy feel strange to receive. The older man decided that he probably should have kept that remark about getting Ed drunk to himself, though it had served the purpose of calming Edward´s struggles. And he probably should have tried harder not to let his gaze linger on Ed’s legs and barely covered backside when the former Fullmetal had left the kitchen. Roy took a seat at the kitchen table and tried to not squirm under the younger Elric’s intense scrutiny from across the table.

“Roy,” Al began, and the older man took it as a good sign that the youngster was using his first name at last, though he wondered if this could be the beginning of another kind of confrontation. The kind of confrontation that would start with a request for the details of Roy’s interest in Edward, and could end with friendly advice to forget Ed and move on, or not so friendly advice to keep his hands off Al’s brother, or death threats. And Roy realized that he needed Al’s approval if he was going to get anywhere with Ed. Without Alphonse Elric’s blessing, Roy was beyond doomed. Roy braced himself, waiting for the ax to fall.

“You spoke with brother about our… situation, didn`t you?”

What?

Oh.

Trying to regain his coolness, Roy just blinked. This was not what he had expected. Not a word about Roy’s staring at his brother’s ass. With a mental sigh of relief, Roy guessed that with everything else going on, Alphonse hadn´t noticed where Roy’s eyes were lingering.

“I notice that Ed looked at you, just before he agreed to talk to me about...everything,” the blond elaborated with a smile.

And he had. Roy dared to hope that was a good sign, that perhaps Edward had seen the necessity of Roy’s deception, and still trusted him.

And this was turning into the perfect opportunity to gain Al’s blessing. Roy could get into Alphonse’s good graces by acknowledging that he was the one who had changed Edward’s mind about speaking of their shared past. And yes, this was also a good opportunity for Roy to get his ego stroked a bit, too. Considering how much he and his ego had put up with for the last few weeks, they deserved it.

With all of that in mind, Roy looked into Al’s grateful eyes, opened his mouth and said, “It was your brother’s decision.”

What. The. Hell. Why wasn’t his damn brain cooperating with him when it came to Ed lately? First he had blown it by asking Ed if he was engaged in the middle of their first time making out, and now this. Wherever these sudden attacks of conscience were coming from, they had best crawl back there and never show their mutinous faces again, because they had just wasted a perfect opportunity to gain a trump card.

But while Roy’s answer came as a surprise to himself, Al just smiled knowingly, clearly having heard just what he had expected. Great. An Elric could predict him better than he could predict himself. Roy was just glad it was Al and not Ed with the sudden insight into his motives. At least sweet little Alphonse wouldn´t notice how badly Roy wanted to screw his brother.

“Sooooo,” The stretched word brought Roy’s attention back to the blond in front of him. “Just what are your intentions towards my brother? Are you the one he lost his virginity to?”

Roy blinked.

“I´m sorry?” At least he managed to word it more elegantly than with a stupid ‘what?”.

Al smiled. But it was not a typically kind, gentle Alphonse smile. This smile reminded Roy of Maes Hughes when he was up to something. This was the smile of a snake just before it struck, the kind of smile a predator treated its prey to just before the end. So much for ‘sweet little Alphonse’. The boy in front of him was a devil in disguise.

This was not good.

“Sir, it´s pretty obvious you´re interested in Ed,” the devil said, deceptively polite.

And really, even Ed had noticed Roy´s attraction to his ... assets. Al had always been the more observant of the two brothers. Roy should have expected this, but he still found it impossible to immediately form an answer.

And Alphonse was becoming impatient. “Have you and brother… done anything?” Roy’s lack of response had the frightening effect of giving the teenager the same look Riza Hawkeye gave him. The look that was usually followed by the click of her pistol’s safety, and then the sound of a few rounds being fired at targets dangerously close to his cowering body.

Mustang had no desire to answer the question, but the intensity of Alphonse’ gaze told Roy that he was nowhere near to dropping the matter.

“Just what exactly do you want from my brother, Roy?” the younger alchemist tried again.

Part 2