((A/N: The usual warnings for this one: gore, violence, etc. Probably some angst... and some paranormalness. Enjoy.))

Damn, it was cold.

The frost on the ground was mucky, coating the street in a layer of wet, icy mud. The winter snows were almost completely melted now that March had finally rolled around and the resulting slush was very unpleasant indeed. It was a brown-gray-black sludge, clotted with dirt and ice crystals that stuck to the cars on the street and to the bottoms of Maes' shoes like a thin layer of frozen shit.

Now Major Maes Hughes loved winter and he loved spring even more... but that transitional period between the two seasons was always both depressing and uncomfortable. The world was frigid and ugly right now, a barren wasteland of sleet and frozen gunk, cast in a dead grey hue as the sun hid itself behind the horizon like a sulky child.

Maes sighed to himself and lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose as he walked down the street. He was just tired and in a bad mood. He hadn't had much sleep lately and it was starting to wear on him.

The baby was sick. She was almost completely better now, but little Elysia had given mommy and daddy quite a scare last week...

Well, mostly daddy was the only one who was scared; Gracia had just calmly called the doctor—who declared the illness to be a bad cold and prescribed her a series of medicinal syrups to make her feel better—while Maes flailed around in a panic every time a cough wracked her tiny little chest. She was barely two months old—he rationed when Gracia informed him that he was over-reacting—a common cold could very well be a life-threatening thing to such a fragile little flower!

But, of course, mommy had been right; Elysia was on her way to a full recovery. This was a relief, not only because Elysia was getting healthier by the day, but because now that she felt better she was sleeping better through the night. Staying up with the baby each night trying to comfort her had taken a toll on Gracia's own health and she'd caught her daughter's cold. Between worrying about the two of them and listening to their intermittent coughing from night till morning, Maes hadn't had a good night's sleep in what seemed like ages.

Long story short, all three members of the Hughes family were a complete wreck at the moment.

He yawned hugely, his jaw popping a little as it stretched open wide. At least it would be Saturday in a few days and he would—hopefully—be able to sleep in a little during the weekend. He felt like he could sleep for years if left to his own devices, but he knew that he should probably get up fairly early Saturday morning and take care of Elysia so that Gracia could get some more rest and get over her cold.

Maes shivered, wondering—not for the first time this evening—why he had decided to walk home instead of allowing Second Lieutenant Havoc to drop him off after he took Lieutenant Colonel Mustang home. Well, no... that wasn't completely true... He knew exactly why he wanted to walk, though the father and husband in him didn't want to admit it:

Maes really just needed a few minutes alone.

Between the office and his house, he felt like he was running all over the place. He was fighting to get promoted at work and Roy was pushing him harder than ever before to make it happen... and then at home with the new baby... and now both Gracia and the baby were sick...

It was just a lot to take at once.

Not that he regretted having a child or helping Roy get to the top. No... no way. Maes was thrilled daily by the joy of being a parent and Roy was his best friend—Maes would do anything for him, and he knew that Roy felt just the same. He didn't regret anything at all... but, damn, he just needed a few minutes to himself, to clear his head and settle his nerves a little with the crisp March air on his walk home.

He took a deep breath of the cold evening into his lungs, feeling it cool his throat and spread through his chest. He let the breath out again in a tired sigh and it puffed from his lips in a white, frosty cloud.

The air wasn't really helping that much, he admitted to himself silently.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and shivered miserably, just wanting to be home. He'd be there in about five minutes at his current pace, but that still seemed like forever.

A sudden loud bang echoed across the near-empty street and Maes jerked his head up. A group of empty metal trashcans overturned and rolled off the sidewalk as a huge black dog came barreling through them. The thing was massive; its legs were long and muscular, supporting a huge torso and a thick, fur-matted neck. Its eyes flashed green and red in the streetlights as it galloped from a side street and onto the main road where Maes was walking. In mere seconds it was close enough for him to see its exposed teeth dripping with slick, iridescent-looking saliva, and to hear its rumbling breaths as it ran.

There was something wrong with it... It didn't look right. It was too massive, its shoulders too broad and its paws too splayed to be any species of dog that Maes had ever seen before. It was wolfish, but warped—almost ape-like, somehow—and its eyes held a purposeful malice that Maes had only witnessed staring out of a human face.

Distracted by the beast's frightening wrongness, Maes realized a second too late that it was coming right for him. He staggered backward as the shaggy black body hurtled his way, its huge paws striking the pavement and kicking up a dirty spray of slush. He tried to side-step the attack, but his foot slipped on a patch of ice. He fell backward against a light pole, only barely managing to keep upright against the cold metal as the dog loosed a loud, grating bark. It threw itself forward and sank its dripping teeth into his thigh.

Maes shouted a strangled curse and struck it hard in the face with his balled fist until it let go. The dog hit the sidewalk again and crouched, growling low and revealing its teeth again in a blood-daubed snarl of warning.

An earsplitting crash made the dog jump and turn to look back, hackles raised.

"Hey! Get out of here!" someone shouted. Maes looked up and saw an older gentleman standing near the overturned rubbish bins, two trashcan lids clutched in his withered hands. He banged the lids together again and the gigantic dog lowered its head with a menacing growl, ears laid back flat against its narrow skull. It gave Maes one final, threatening look, licked the blood from its shining canines, and then loped off into the night, quickly disappearing down another alleyway.

"Y'all right there, son?"

Maes straightened himself and tried to smile at the old man as he approached, but the minute he put weight on his injured leg he had to clench his jaw in a tight grimace. "Fine. Yes, fine," he managed.

"Boy, I tell you, I've seen bears smaller'n that thing." He walked up to the major and put down the tin lids. He looked the taller man up and down, puffing a powder-white lock of hair from his brow. "He getcha?"

Maes looked down at himself. Even in the growing dimness of the evening he could see blood beginning to darken the pant leg of his uniform. He grimaced again.

"Just a little. I must have scared it into attacking."

"Uh-huh. You scared it.

Maes had to smile at the gently teasing tone of the man's voice. "Yeah, yeah... But thanks for your impeccable use of trashcan lids, my friend. That could have gotten nasty."

"Bah..." he said, waving off his thanks with one calloused hand, "Nothin' a military man like yerself couldn't've handled on his own."

The major laughed and the two men bid each other a fond farewell. The old man went back into the building on the street corner and Maes continued on his way home, limping heavily.

After he'd made it only two blocks though, the stinging pain in his leg had become a sharp, hammering throb and he had to stop and lean against a street-sign, gritting his teeth. He still had six blocks before he got home and it was becoming increasingly apparent that he wasn't going to be able to make it there under his own power. He was cold, tired, frustrated, and his punctured thigh muscles burned with hot points of pain with every step.

He sighed and rubbed his face, his frustration bubbling ever higher. Great. This was the last thing he needed right now, on top of everything else. Fucking dog. People needed to take more responsibility for their goddamn pets. Irresponsible pet owners who let their dogs run the streets needed to be taken out and shot. Seriously.

But then he took another breath, counted to ten, and let it out slowly. As aggravated as he was, standing here and thinking dark thoughts wasn't going to get him home any faster.

He weighed his options for a moment, turning his head to look down another street. And then, with a muffled groan of discomfort as he put his injured leg to work again, he lurched off of the road home and onto the path of a much closer destination.

Roy stood in his doorway bemusedly, having just opened it to reveal his best friend, Maes Hughes, leaning heavily against the jamb.

"Hey, Roy," Maes greeted affably. "Can I use your phone? And your first-aid kit?"

"...Do I want to know?" Roy wondered aloud, taking a sip from the clinking scotch glass in his hand as he stepped back and allowed Maes to enter. Maes limped heavily into the room. His left pant leg was torn and the fabric looked wet.

"Slight mishap."

He staggered over to the couch and dropped onto it heavily, stretching his leg out with a wince. He took off his gloves and shrugged out of his heavy coat. Without a trace of embarrassment, he unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down off of his hips and to his knees, revealing a series of deep punctures on his thigh.

Roy blinked in surprise and put down his scotch on the coffee table. "Damn, what the hell did you do?" he asked, kneeling down beside him to look at the wound.

"Some dog attacked me. Big bastard, too." Maes made a face as he pulled up the blood-stained leg of his boxers, taking in the damage. "Hm. Not as bad as I'd thought, though. I don't think I'll need stitches."

Roy grunted in agreement. He was right; it could pass without stitches, but it was still a pretty nasty bite and it looked dirty. He didn't want Maes leaving here without cleaning and bandaging it at the very least.

He stood and retrieved his modest first-aid kit from under his bathroom sink before returning and handing it to Maes.

"Don't get blood on my couch," Roy warned him, pouring a second glass of scotch. He put the glass on the end table next to Maes before taking up his own scotch again and sipping at it, perching himself on the corner of the coffee table.

"I'll try," Maes said back with a heavy, exhausted-sounding sigh as he opened the little metal kit and soaked a wad of gauze with the tiny bottle of disinfectant therein. He dabbed the antiseptic-soaked gauze at the wound and hissed. He looked hopefully over at the scotch, then picked it up and downed half of it before grudgingly soaking the gauze again and touching it to a bloody puncture just above his knee. He winced again, but hopefully the alcohol would help take the edge off once it started to kick in.

Roy watched him clean the bite for a few moments silently, just looking at him. The man looked beat. He looked tired and irritated and was no doubt in some considerable pain.

That was probably just going to make this news that much more difficult to bear... Roy was originally going to wait until tomorrow to spring the news on him but, really—injury and all—now was as good a time as any.

"You didn't get the promotion, Maes," he said heavily.

Maes looked up from his administrations blankly. "What promotion?"

Roy blinked. "To the head of Treasury. The promotion we've been working to get you for weeks."

"Oh, right. Yeah. Who got it, then?"

"Higgins."

"Higs got it, huh? Good for him!" Maes smiled sincerely as he went back to cleaning the bite. "He really wanted that gig. I'll congratulate him tomorrow."

Roy frowned. Maes certainly didn't seem very upset. Then again, it wasn't as if he'd really been giving his all to get promoted lately... In fact, Major Hughes had been slacking on a lot of things for the past couple of months.

"I thought you wanted that promotion," Roy said, allowing accusation to creep into the words.

Hughes' shoulders tensed a little—whether it was from the pain in his wound or from the tone in his friend's voice, Roy couldn't tell. But then Maes set his jaw. "No," he said without looking up, "You wanted me to want that promotion."

"What, so you don't want to get promoted now? Is that it?" Roy demanded, starting to get angry. He leaned toward him and lowered his voice. "Have you forgotten our goals?"

"No, it's not that... It's just..."

"It's just what?"

Maes sighed, obviously tired. He put down the soaked, bloody swatch of gauze and took up several fresh ones to lay over the wound. "...I don't know, Roy," he said quietly as he started to wrap a length of bandage around his thigh to keep the gauze in place.

Silence took the room for a minute, cradling it in cold hands like an unloving parent.

"...If you want out of this, Maes..." Roy began slowly, regretfully, "then tell me now. As much as I am depending on you to help push me to the top, I can understand having second thoughts. I have other options. I just need to know if you're backing out before we get any deeper together. It's only going to get harder from here, so tell me now."

"I'm not backing out! I just... I need some time. I have more responsibilities than serving you, you know."

"I understand that, but you made commitments to me long before you ever had a wife and child. If you aren't with me one hundred percent, then don't bother being with me at all."

"You can't ask me to choose you over my family. That isn't fair," Maes mumbled as he tried to tie off the bandage, but the angle was awkward and he couldn't get it to knot properly.

"I'm not asking you to do that," Roy shot back, a little hurt, "I just need to know that I can depend on you to do everything you can to get more power in the military so that you can better support me... and lately, I can't say that you've been trying very hard."

Maes looked up at him again, wounded, and the tentative knot in his bandage came loose again. "I have been trying!"

"Not hard enough. You didn't even care about that promotion. You're distracted, tired."

"I have a baby at home! I'm going to be distracted and tired for a while! You're just going to have to deal with that for a few months if you want me to keep serving you." He took the ends of the bandaged and started trying to tie it again. "Besides, why the hell would I want to be in the Treasury department? How would that help either of us?"

"You'd raise a rank. A Lieutenant Colonel has a lot more power than a Major, no matter the department."

"Yeah, but this isn't just your career on the line; it's mine too. I don't want to be a damn treasurer. I have enough desk work as it is."

"Fine. Then what do you want?"

Maes cursed under his breath and gave up trying to tie the bandage. Roy snorted in dry amusement and knelt to tie it for him.

"Well, first off I want you to lay off me for a while," Maes said, watching him work. "I don't have the energy to do everything you're expecting of me, on top of my actual job and taking care of my family. Secondly... I'd like to move further up in Investigations."

"Really?" Roy asked, surprised and pleased. He looked up at his friend. "I was working under the assumption that you wanted a less hazardous line of work, because of your wife and the baby..."

"Gracia knew what line of work I was interested in when she married me. She supports me."

"Maes, that's fantastic!" he said, tying the knot perhaps a little more enthusiastically than he should have. Maes yelped in pain. "Sorry. But this is great. Investigations is a prestigious sect and they have high-ranking openings every year or so. It also means that you can be out in the field with me on occasion instead of stuck behind a desk. It's perfect."

"Glad I have your blessing," Maes groaned, running a careful hand over his bandaged thigh before pulling his pants back on. "But, for the time being, just go easy on me. I have a lot going on right now and I need a fucking break."

That didn't sit very well with Roy, but he grudgingly supposed that Maes deserved a little rest and nodded in agreement. He got to his feet and seated himself on the couch next to his friend.

"...How's the family, then?" he ventured, more at ease now. "Still sick?"

"Yeah..." He took the half-empty scotch glass and drained it, then took Roy's out of his hand and drained a good two-thirds of that too before handing it back. Roy glared at him, but didn't complain. "Elysia's getting better, but Gracia's still pretty sick. I just hope I don't catch it... As if I need another difficulty in my life right now."

"Is it really that bad?"

He rubbed his temples. "I don't know... I'm just really stressed out. I hate going to work, I hate being at home... I just wish I could get away from everything for a while, you know?"

Roy looked at him, taken a little off guard by how... un-Maes that statement was. He must really be overwhelmed if even home and family held no solace for him. Now that he thought about it, though, Maes had been kind of twitchy since Elysia's birth. He was constantly tired and snapped more than he typically did. Poor Gracia had suffered some bad infections directly after giving birth, which had lowered her immune system and left her open to other sicknesses, so Maes was frequently running the household on his own. From the pictures that he shoved in Roy's face and the near-nightly phone calls where he gushed about how the baby could lift up her head all by herself now however, it seemed to Roy that Maes welcomed this new life...

Hm. Whatever the case, Roy silently decided to watch his friend a little more closely and observe him. Maybe something was up that Maes just didn't want to talk about. Maybe he was hiding something.

"Perhaps you should take a vacation."

Maes swallowed and then, with what Roy could tell was a great effort, he smiled. "No, I'm fine. I'm just grumpy. I need sleep."

"I'll call you a cab, then," he said, standing, "And I want you to go to the clinic tomorrow to have them look at that bite."

"Yes, Mother."

Roy gave him a dirty look and went to the phone. He dialed a number and looked back at his friend. Maes' head was leaning against the back of the couch, his weary eyes closed.