Like a Wounded Animal

Hughes was completely taken aback when he walked into the living room to find Roy asleep on the couch – lying in Elysia’s lap. Blinking his amber eyes he walked over and sat on the coffee table, not even getting so much as a warning growl or a tensing from the chimera. He reached over and poked Roy tentatively in the shoulder, and still nothing. Elysia was humming the song that Gracia had been singing when they had walked into the house.

“Elysia, how did you- ?”

“He said he couldn’t sleep, Papa, so I sang to him and he calmed down and fell asleep.”

“Really?”

Elysia nodded. “Uhuh… just like that.”

Hughes nodded. “You want to help me, Elysia-chan? I need to changed Uncle Roy’s bandages and he needs to be asleep to do it, he’ll never let me near him awake.”

“Okay, Papa.”

Maes nodded, getting up and heading off to get the rest of the supplies he had bought to be able to safely clean and rewrap the wounds on his chimera. Poor Roy… I hate having to do this…he sighed as he came back, a load of bandages, antiseptic and restraints in his arms. Looking at the living room, he sighed, knowing it probably wasn’t the best place to do this at all.

“Keep him calm for a few minutes, alright?” He asked Elysia, heading out of the room again and heading down to the basement, as he figured that would be the only place that would really be suitable to bring Roy to have his wounds cleaned. At least down there wasn’t as much for Roy to hurt himself on should he decide to wake up and start fighting against him. It took him a few more trips up and down getting things ready before he knew it was alright to bring the chimera himself. When he was ready, he looked to Elysia before even attempting to pick up the man. “Sing to him, Elysia-chan. We don’t need him to wake up in the middle of moving him.”

She nodded, starting to sing the soothing words to Roy as her father scooped the chimera up into his arms. The man tensed for a moment, but as Elysia kept up with her song, he relaxed again, even semi snuggled against the arms that held him. If the situation weren’t so desperate, I’d almost say that was cute… Hughes thought as he carried his friend down to the basement and laid him down over the nest of pillows and blankets he had constructed for him, using the pillows and bedspread from the bed in the guest room upstairs.

Almost immediately, Roy curled himself up into a tight ball, as if he found himself more comfortable down here than upstairs on the couch, though Hughes couldn’t blame him, he had done it on purpose, knowing Roy might just end up spending a lot of time down here until they got him back to normal. They couldn’t keep him upstairs for long; it was too dangerous for the chimera. So unless they found somewhere else for the man to stay, it had to be that he was down in the basement.

Shaking his head, Hughes stretched Roy out again so he was lying on his side, and took off the shirt he had so graciously given to the chimera the night before, frowning at the sight of the bandages over his wounds. The man looked as if he were in worse shape than yesterday, blood everywhere upon him.

It made Hughes feel even worse about having to restrain him. He looked as if it wouldn’t be capable of a fatal injury, but his concerned friend knew better than that now. It had to be done.

Just wish I had some help doing it…He thought, reaching into the bag he had brought down that had had the restraints for Roy in them.

He head footsteps upstairs, and cast an eye that way. It could just be Gracia, but then he heard the second set, and then the voices.

A few moments later, Riza was sitting almost dangerously close to Roy’s lethal end, holding his cuffed together wrists above his head so Maes wouldn’t have to worry about getting clawed to death. The ‘muzzle’ Maes had bought was in reality no more than a gag that could keep those long fangs busy. It was working too; Roy had awoken a bit ago and was knowing against it as Hughes removed the bandages covering his friends wounds. No amount of Elysia’s singing could put him back to sleep, so she had gone upstairs, but Hawkeye’s presence seemed to sooth just as well.

“What happened to him?” She asked Hughes, looking up at him with distressed brown eyes.

“Haven’t asked… I’ve been trying to take care of him before finding that out. All I know is he’s a chimera and apparently was pretty well brutalized by whoever did this to him.” Hughes told her, gaining muffled howls from the half writhing Alchemist on the floor.

“Calm down, I’m almost done Roy.” He told his friend, then looked up at Riza. “Would you get him to stop moving, please?”

She nodded, reaching one hand into her pocket and producing long strip of dog-jerky, which was probably meant for Hayate once she got home. Waving it in front of Roy’s right side got his attention. “You get it after your bandages are changed if you’re a good boy, Fuhrer.” She told him, which gave an instant calming effect.

Bandages changed successfully, Maes reached over and unhooked the cuffs from each other, though he kept them on Roy’s wrists, just so he wouldn’t have to keep putting the chimera through the stress of putting them on and taking them off every time they had to do this, and removed the gag. Roy sat up, his canine tail wagging behind him, eyes lit with pleasure now and not pain at the promise of the treat, which was handed over, taken into the long fangs as Roy lay down again to get comfortable.

“Why didn’t you ask him?” Riza asked, turning to Hughes as she ran a hand delicately through Roy’s thick raven hair.

“I didn’t want to dredge up anything too unpleasant for him just yet.” He told her in a small voice, watching his friend gnaw on the dog treat. “Besides, I didn’t think he trusted me enough yet… he was having trouble remembering that I was his best friend and he trusted me with everything, so I just left it alone for now.”

Content with Riza’s treat, Roy considered to crunch like he didn’t have a care in the world until her hand traced over a spot that shouldn’t have been touched. The chimera backed away, shivering and looking hurt and fearful, forgetting about his treat and the comfort of his nest until his back was pressed against the wall of the basement.

“Roy?” Maes asked, not understanding what Hawkeye could have done to trigger this. All she had been doing was petting him gently, keeping him calmed and contented.

“Wha-what did I do?” Riza asked, a bit frightened herself.

“It’s alright, this is what he kept doing to me… something keeps scaring him.

Roy was mumbling something, whimpering, hardly able to be understood as far away from him as they were now.

“Please…. Leave me alone… s-stop…. I-I’ll be g-good… stop….” He murmured, bringing his knees up to his chest and burying his face against them. “It’s enough… please… I’ll be a good little mutt… please…” His whimpers had worked their way up to a crying quality, loud and painful to listen to.

Hughes looked over to Riza, seeing the pain reflecting in her eyes. “Go on.” He whispered to her. “You try and reach him, he won’t respond to me,” he put a hand on her shoulder to prompt her into going over to him. She nodded, standing, wanting to calm the chimera’s distress, and walked over.

He stiffened at feeling her approach, putting his hands up over his head as if in defense. His whimpers grew more frantic and his fingers tensed, his claws dragging up blood from his scalp. “Sapphira… please… please… sto-op… no… leave me alone… let me-“ He abandoned the words for just noise as Riza put her arms around him. Tears where ripping their way furiously down his cheeks and reddening his eyes and his throat was becoming soar from all of the whines and yelps that were passing from him.

“Shhhh… Roy. I’m not going to hurt you.” She whispered to him, bringing him to her. “No one is going to hurt you.”

“I… was bad – I broke it. Bad mutt,” Roy had stopped making sense, and was just babbling into his knees.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Roy.” Riza soothed.

“Did… did so… killed, bloody…. I broke it.”

“You didn’t have a choice, Roy, it was war.” She had no idea what he meant by any of this, so she assumed he meant what he always did. He had gone on depressed rants before, on and on and on about the three people he remembered killing during the war – one Ishballan girl, and Winry’s parents.

“No. No war. Now,” His hands dug deeper, blood from the cuts he was giving himself dripping down the sides of his face. “Bad… bad mutt… needs to be punished… deserves it…”

“Roy. You haven’t done anything.”

“No… have… killed…” His voice was soft, pleading. “Bad…” he murmured.

Riza looked down, to see that the chimera hand fallen asleep, still bleeding and crying. Gently, she took his hands away from his head and asked Hughes to help bring him back over to his makeshift nest. The chimera stayed sleeping, but Hughes made the decision to cuff his wrists back together, purely now for his own safety now. If Roy thought he deserved to be punished, then his claws were the perfect tools to use. At least with them bound together, it would be harder for him to do so. He left the gag though, wanting to hear Roy incase he called out something in his sleep. He did, however, attach the chimera’s leash, not wanting him to go and find something to torture himself with down here.

Maes was made glad that he had bought a long chain when he had no choice but to secure it in the basement’s beams. If Roy stood up, he might just be able to reach it, but Hughes doubted he would… he was so ingrained in being part animal that he doubted the man remembered how to properly walk. There was a bunch of chain left over, so Roy could move a few feet away from his nest in every direction, but not far enough to find something to use… Maes made sure there was nothing dangerous around.

“Who is Sapphira?” Riza asked after a moment. While Hughes was doing all of this, she had been running her hands gently through Roy’s hair again, being careful to avoid the place that had seemed to trigger his explosion of pain and regret over whatever it was he had done.

“I don’t know. The person who did this to him, maybe?”

“An alchemist?”

“Well, they didn’t do this by sewing a tail and ears onto him.” Maes told her. “I think we need to make a few phonecalls…”