Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

White teeth. Grinning maw. Endless blank. Edward…don’t you miss it? Being disassembled molecule by agonizing molecule? Don’t you want to be special again? Poor little Edward, no mommy no daddy no brother no arm no leg no house no nothing. The little state alchemist has a lovely shiny shiny watch so he never forgets. I’ll make him dig up mommy’s bones with his bare hands forever and ever and ever, and at the bottom of the hole there will always be nothing. You’ll never be able to forget the truth.

Edward sits bolt upright in bed, his eyes wild, chest heaving like he’s just sprinted clear across the city. Every inch of his body is soaked with sweat. He leans over to his bedside table, squinting at the clock sitting haphazardly on top of a pile of alchemy texts. 2am. A single hour was a new low.

Ed can still remember the last time since his mom died that he’d gotten more than four hours of sleep.

Al had been discharged from the hospital, and they were both staying at Gracia’s house so Al could keep resting and working his way up to solid foods and Ed could continue working through the massive dose of painkillers for his various injuries. At some point they would have to figure out where the hell to go from there— but not that day. The bed was big enough for the both of them to sleep on with a gap in between, but neither of them really wanted that. Ed’s head was on Al’s chest, listening nervously to his heartbeat. Al was already dozing off, his thin arm looped loosely over Ed’s shoulders.

Elicia’s bedroom was next door to the guest room, and Ed could hear Gracia through the wall singing her daughter a lullaby. Ed still remembered the longing that coursed through his body like a deep muscle ache. Later, he would blame his extremely doped-up state for the way I want my mom kept looping through his brain.

Al was fast asleep when the door creaked open. Ed shut his eyes hurriedly, feigning sleep. He felt the mattress depress as Gracia sat down beside them.

“Good night,” she whispered, kissing them both on the forehead in turn. As she leaned in, Ed caught a whiff of her perfume, all night-blooming jasmine and gardenia. It reminded him of the way his mother smelled, a gentle scent that surrounded him as she carried him to bed. He felt her hand smooth through his hair, and then the sound of Al’s heartbeat and the frail, solid warmth of his brother’s body carried him to sleep.

But that doesn’t happen anymore. The Truth in his dreams is right— Ed can never forget what he’s done. He doesn’t deserve it. 

3am. Still too early to get up. 4am. Ed tosses and turns, trying to find a position that will at least let him get back to his nightmares.

Roy's mouth is on his. They’re kissing hungrily, like they haven’t seen each other for years. Roy's strong hands grip Ed's waist firmly, holding the younger man in place. Ed’s shirt is pushed up to his collarbones, and Ed can feel the softness of the bearskin rug they lie on against the skin of his back. He is hard, so hard, and he whimpers helplessly into Roy's mouth as the older man begins to rut slowly but firmly against him. The friction makes him gasp breathlessly in pleasure. Every purposeful grind of Roy's hips against his brings the younger man closer and closer to climax.

"Please," he begs, his hands fisting tighter in the dark fabric of Roy's button-down shirt.

“I’ve got you,” comes Roy’s breathless answer. Ed can feel the other man’s hot breaths against his cheek, and with one final roll of their hips together-

Ed's eyes snap open in the predawn darkness of his bedroom. The first thing he notices was that the inside of his underwear is sticky.

The second thing he notices was that, for the first time in as long as he could remember, it isn’t a nightmare shocking him awake.

For a second he’s relieved, but then the reality of his situation crushes him like a ton of bricks. His first non-nightmare dream in years is a fucking wet dream starring none other than Roy fucking Mustang, newly minted general of the Amestrian army and asshole extraordinaire. A man he hasn’t seen or spoken to or even thought about in a whole year.

"Fuck...," Ed whispers to his empty room. "Fuck!" he says again louder, but not so loud as to wake up Al, who is hopefully still fast asleep in the next room.

Still, Ed muses sleepily, he wouldn't mind having another dream like that as long as they keep the nightmares away.

As it turns out, Ed's first dream about Mustang is not his last. All of a sudden, his nightmare-to-crazy-sex-dream ratio is one to five on a bad week.  While most of them take place in the same cliché setting as before, his brain is definitely also mining the nasty little repressed parts of his memory for material. Lectures over late paperwork, late nights researching side-by-side, even their fight at the parade ground all those years ago— all recast and refinished with Roy bending him over and fucking him on the nearest surface. Not even repeated reminders that he had been all of fourteen to seventeen for most of these events was enough to shut his stupid horny brain up. Whatever, Ed reasons. It’s not like he’d ever see the stupid bastard again, so his secret fantasies could stay secrets.

——

"I've invited General Mustang over for dinner this week!” Al announces cheerfully over their breakfast of bacon and eggs and the last of summer’s fresh berries from Al's little garden in their backyard.

Ed recoils before he can stop himself, the movement rattling the mug in his hand and spilling several drops of black coffee onto the tabletop. Al frowns at him.

“Why so suddenly?” Ed asks, recovering enough to be faux-casual. “I mean, we haven’t talked to him in a year. ‘Sides, he’s probably too busy putting off paperwork or sleeping around to come see us.”

“Brother, that was rude,” Al admonishes lightly, unruffled. He takes a sip of milky coffee before continuing.

“I called his office the other day to congratulate him on his promotion. It was in the newspaper— did you see it?”

“Yes,” Ed grits out. The photograph the newspaper used had somehow perfectly captured the bastard’s smug little I-deserve-all-this smirk. MILITARY HONORS HEROES ON FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF CENTRAL CITY DISASTER, the headline had read. There had been a train derailment the previous day near Youswell, so Roy’s dumb face had been relegated to the second page of the Amestrian Herald. Ed supposes they should all be grateful for that- a front-page-worthy Mustang holds the kind of ego potential that is liable to destroy Amestris a second time.

He doesn’t know if he was supposed to be there too. He throws away all the mail that comes from the military without opening it. He hopes everyone has already forgotten about him.

“Anyway, we talked a bit and he asked how you were doing and I said we’d love to have him over so he can see what we’ve been up to in person.”

What have I been up to?  Ed thinks, Did you tell him I’ve been busy imagining him fucking me repeatedly over a pile of paperwork in his goddamn office? He’d never expect that.

“I wish you’d be a little more enthusiastic about it, Ed, really. He’s a good man.”

“Yeah, because all the good guys recruit crippled child soldiers into indentured servitude for the pleasure of the military,” Ed snaps back, full of acid. He can see the muscle tightening in Al’s jaw that means he’s pissed. Ed feels a perverse glee at the idea of enraging Al so much he gives up on this whole stupid dinner-with-Roy— no—Mustang— thing.

Al takes a deep breath, exhaling after a beat.

“Look, brother,” his eyes are suddenly weary. “You can’t keep up this shut-in thing forever. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t seen or talked to anybody besides me and the grocer for a whole year. I just haven’t said anything because you’re clearly still dealing with— everything. I understand. I’m just— I’m tired, Ed. I’m tired of waiting for you to decide I’m better and I want to do things again. I mean, we managed to make time to visit Winry in Rush Valley when we were still fighting for our fucking lives!”

“Can’t you do things without involving Mustang, though?” Ed protests weakly, fully aware he’s whining now.

“Just because you always have to be at his throat every time he so much as needles you a little doesn’t make him a bad person,” Al purses his lips. “Really, it makes him better than the rest of us.”

Ed sees red. All his fucking life, people couldn’t stop giving him shit for not being more like Al— too loud, too impulsive, too rude, too easily provoked. And now his own brother of all people started in on him?

“What the fuck is that supposed to fucking mean?” Ed shouts, pushing himself up furiously from his chair. It clatters loudly to the floor behind him, unbalanced by his sudden movement.

He is already storming out the door by the time Al stands up to follow him, shouting, “Ed! Brother! Wait— I didn’t—“

——

My shoes don’t even match, Ed thinks miserably, staring down at his feet. In his haste to be anywhere but home, he shoved one foot in a favorite worn black leather, rubber-soled combat boot, and the other in a brown leather lace-up boot he bought for himself in the naive anticipation of public appearances or teaching opportunities. In the total absence of desire to do any of those things, the shoes became Al’s instead.

He hadn’t even worn a coat, and now he’s shivering slightly in the cool morning air. All he wants is to slink back home and into bed, but there's no way he could avoid Al.

Maybe I should just leave the country. Hop on the next train to Xing, and never come back. Ling would probably let me live in his massive palace somewhere.

“You put on two different shoes,” he hears Al’s voice from behind him. Ed refuses to look up. He watches as Al’s feet walk into view, standing directly in front of him.

“You were right. I’m a problem.” Ed’s voice is hoarse. He doesn’t want to waste time crying over this. 

He hears Al sigh, “I shouldn’t have said that to you. I was—am— frustrated, but that isn’t an excuse.”

He feels Al sit next to him, and then drape a heavy wool garment over his shoulders. He relaxes slightly at the sudden warmth of it.

“You forgot your coat, too.”

A beat of silence. Ed keeps his gaze fixed on the pavement. A tiny black ant marches over the toe of his brown boot, and then down the sidewalk away from him.

“I haven’t been fair to you. I know you’re still dealing with so much of what happened to us.”

Ed would laugh if he wasn’t concentrating so hard on keeping angry tears at bay. What happened to us. A simple and elegant package to store all the horrors inside. What I did to us was probably a better summation.

“You had it worse than I did and you’re doing fine. So what’s wrong with me?” he manages to spit out.

“It’s not a contest, brother. And that’s not the point! The point is that I’m sorry and I didn’t even think that maybe seeing General Mustang upset you because it reminds you too much of— what happened. I can call him and say something’s come up if you want.”

Ed bites his bottom lip, worrying it ragged between his teeth. It’s not that Roy reminds him of before, he wants to say. He’s afraid of what Mustang will think when he sees how much Ed has changed. The preteen-genius Ed, the Ed who could go toe-to-toe with monsters and immortals, is gone. And he’s still not sure what’s been left in its wake. Above all, he’s afraid if Roy sees him, they’ll both realize what’s left isn’t worth anyone’s time.

But he can’t say all that.

So instead, he acquiesces, “It’s all right, Al. I think it’s time we start getting out there again too.”

——

Roy Mustang arrives at the Elric brothers’ little house promptly at 7 o’clock. The little red-brick two-bedroom is sandwiched between two other homes exactly like it in a quiet neighborhood at the west end of Central City. Roy finds himself surprised at the normalcy of the place- it has a little fence bordering the property, with flowerbeds underneath the windows and a neat clover lawn blanketing the yard. There’s little evidence of Ed’s eclectic— and that was putting it kindly—tastes— no gargoyles leering from the eaves or wicked spikes of wrought iron ringing the fence. An ostentatious gilded lion door knocker adorns the front door, its jaw stuck in a perpetual roar around a golden ring. He can imagine what kind of fight Ed put up to be able to keep that.

With a slight smile on his face, Roy walks up the paved path onto the Elrics’ porch and raps the ring sharply against the dark, smooth wood of the door twice.

Almost immediately, the door swings open. Behind it stands Edward. The expression on his face discomfits Roy a little— nervousness was not an emotion he traditionally associates with the elder Elric brother. The closer Roy looks at his face, the more he finds there to unsettle him. Dark circles ring his eyes, and his lips look bitten raw.

Still, even when clearly unwell, he’s still very good-looking. His hair is just as golden blond as Roy remembers, cascading down the back of his neck in a neat ponytail. Gone was his all-leather uniform and worn red coat— Roy guesses Al had succeeded in civilizing Ed enough to get him to wear a deep red button-down shirt that is unbuttoned just enough to show too much of the hollow of his throat. The shirt is sloppily half-tucked into a pair of wrinkled gray pants, and Roy realizes that he’s barefoot. The older man hasn’t ever known Ed to be so cavalier with his automail— the old Edward wore gloves and a jacket even in the heat of summer to avoid anyone catching an accidental glimpse of his metal limbs. He wonders if Ed feels more comfortable now, or if he is simply unused to the company of other humans.

“Are you coming in or what?” Ed demands, moving aside with all the clumsiness of someone habitually unaccustomed to hosting company.

Roy follows him into the house,  taking in the decor of the Elrics’ first permanent home in many years. It’s as cozy on the inside as it appears on the outside, all dark wood and overstuffed chairs. In the living room to his left, Roy can see towering bookshelves stuffed with texts both old and new.

“We’ve got more of ‘em in the library upstairs.” Ed says.

“Pardon?” Roy asks. Very eloquent, he chastises himself.

“Books,” Ed elaborates. “We’ve got lots of those. Had to put most of ‘em upstairs in the library.”

Roy is about to say something more when Al’s voice rings out from somewhere deeper in their home.

“Ed? Is General Mustang here yet?”

“No, I decided to invite the mailman in. What d'you think?”

There is silence for a moment, then Al calls, “Ed, can you come here please?”

“Sure,” Ed replies. Turning to Roy, he motions in the direction of the living room. “You can go wait in there or whatever. Feel free to, you know, make yourself comfortable. Or not. I don’t care.”

With that, Ed turns and walks down the hall towards the kitchen.

‘We’ve got lots of books’? What are you, an idiot? Ed berates himself internally. A few weird dreams about the bastard and you turn into some sort of drooling fool in front of him?

He scrubs a frustrated hand through his bangs and walks into the kitchen.

“What d’you want, Al?” he demands.

Al turns away from the stove, where he’s staring anxiously at the beef roast that's cooking away in the oven.

“I wanted to remind you to be civil,” Al’s tone is light in a way that Ed knows is an affectation. Probably in the hopes of staving off another argument.

Ed rolls his eyes. “Got it, Al. I’ll try not to ruin your party.”

He can see in Al’s face that his younger brother is getting ready to say something else, so he beats a swift retreat out of the kitchen before he has to hear it.

Roy sits in one of the overstuffed armchairs in the Elrics’ living room, thumbing through a book he found at the bottom of a dangerously leaning pile on their coffee table. He's mostly looking at the arrays depicted on the yellowed, dog-eared pages, as the text of the book was entirely in beautifully calligraphed Xingese script. A gift from Emperor Yao or the Chang girl, he surmises.

“Hey,” Ed says. He holds his hands together behind his back in a way he hopes projects casual and suave, but is mostly to hide the way they shake.

“I didn’t know you spoke Xingese,” Roy says, trying to soothe the clearly on-edge older Elric. Roy notices how badly his hands are shaking, and also how badly Ed is trying to hide it.

“I don’t,” he says. “Al’s been learning it. He’s pretty fluent by now- it’s kinda impressive.”

“That must be interesting. I’ve tried learning Xingese before, but I can never get past the writing system. Multiple languages are supposed to be a must for politicians, but I’m terrible at them,” Roy says. He resists the impulse to pat the spot next to him on the couch. Inviting Ed to sit down in his own house would not be an action conducive to maintaining a peaceful atmosphere.

“What have you been up to?” Roy asks instead.

“Nothing much,” Ed mumbles, his head dropping towards the floor. “ANAC asked me to lecture there—”

“The Amestrian National Alchemical College?” Roy exclaims. “Ed, that’s hardly nothing— that’s great news. I had no idea.”

Ed bites his bottom lip. A ragged gash reopens and the taste of iron blooms sharp on his tongue.

“I didn’t exactly. Um. Answer their letters.”

He doesn’t know why he’s admitting any of this. On his long mental list of Things Edward Is Deeply Ashamed About, this was probably top three- right behind Human Transmutation Destroying My Family and Repressed Homosexual Feelings For My Former Boss. Ignoring the offer of a professorial position at the country’s most prestigious alchemical institution wasn’t one of his best moments, but he and alchemy are unlikely to be on speaking terms for the rest of his life. Plus, how could he possibly explain that the smell of ozone produced by alchemy arrays gives him migraines and panic attacks? Ignoring the letters until they stopped coming was the smartest decision for both him and the college.

Roy winces. He’s clearly stepped on a landmine, but it felt as though there had been no way to avoid triggering it. He wonders if Al’s true intention behind this dinner was some kind of intervention for the older Elric. Ed seems more and more like a man on the edge, and Roy doesn’t like what he sees at the bottom of that particular chasm.

“Edward,” he begins, looking up at the younger man.

“I think I should check on Al— see if dinner’s ready!” Ed stammers, backing away out the door.

Roy can only watch after him, equal parts dumbfounded and suspicious.

Soon, mercifully for all parties involved, dinner is indeed ready. It’s nothing fancy- a beef roast, new potatoes, and roasted carrots.

Roy takes a seat at the tiny oak table, which bears, along with the customary place settings, a haphazard pile of papers and texts in one corner that has likely been quickly cleaned off in an effort to seem more organized. He makes sure to be effusive with his compliments towards Al, who seems elated to have another person to test recipes on. He can’t remember the last time he had food like this. He finds it too depressing to cook for one, so he eats more Xingese takeout than is strictly appropriate for a man of his age and military rank.

The meal is accompanied by a bottle of a light yellow floral alcohol that Al identified as elderflower liqueur sent to them from Resembool. Apparently it’s a local tradition for children to gather the flowers in spring and the adults to then brew it in summer. Roy finds out, to his amusement, the tipsier Alphonse gets, the more his accent peeks through his syllables. He wonders if the same is true for Edward, but he's conspicuously abstaining from the alcohol.

Ed seems to be abstaining as well from the conversation, keeping himself too busy eating to contribute. Nevertheless, it flows around him, Roy and Al trading spirited anecdotes back and forth about everything from uncomfortable meetings with foreign dignitaries to the brothers’ weird neighbor who Al swears is hiding from the law to Hawkeye’s recent decision to get a friend for Black Hayate. Somehow, they manage to keep this up for hours, long after dinner is finished. Without something else to occupy him, Ed is reduced to shifting uncomfortably in his chair like a child waiting to be excused. He doesn’t like how easily Mustang has managed to ingratiate himself into Ed's family.

After the dinner dishes are cleared away, they migrate into the living room, where Al puts a record on the phonograph. Ed quickly falls asleep sprawled out on the sofa to the muted sounds of the East City Chamber Orchestra.

Roy listens to the swooping violins appreciatively, nursing another glass of liqueur.

“Y’know,” Al says after a moment, looking over at his sleeping brother, “He really didn’t want me to invite you here.”

Roy doesn’t respond, sensing that Al’s pause was more to collect his thoughts than a request for Roy’s input.

“You probably noticed this by now, but he’s not doing well,” Al continues. “I remember a doctor saying something about shell shock, but Ed never followed up on it. You know how he is.”

“Mm,” Roy offers in agreement, but says no more.

After another moment, Alphonse speaks again.

“I don’t really know why I’m telling you this. You’ve got enough of your own business to worry about.”

“It’s a lot to deal with, even if you do love him,” Roy replies, placing a comforting hand on Alphonse’s shoulder. “It’s incredibly hard to admit that you can’t fix someone, even if you care for them deeply.”

“Have you ever felt like that?” Al asks, his expression wide and vulnerable. It was easy to forget sometimes that Alphonse is the younger of the two, but times like these betray how much the younger Elric really relies on his brother.

Roy sighs.

“Edward reminds me quite a bit of myself,” he admits. Perhaps he’s being too honest, but the hour is late, and the alcohol seems to be hitting him harder than he expected. He vividly remembers being directionless and angry after coming home from the war in Ishval. Madame Christmas didn’t know what to do with him, and he had no idea how to begin to cope with what he’d done. He remembers the rage he’d felt when people saw him in his military blues on the street and expressed gratitude to him— gratitude for massacring innocent children.

“It’s hard for ordinary people to understand what the military does to you.”

A particularly loud snore from Ed’s corner of the room shatters the delicate moment between the two men like the bursting of a soap bubble.

Al laughs softly at his sleeping brother.

“After all these years, he still sleeps with his stomach out.” Al says, his voice brimming with fond exasperation. He stands up to adjust Ed’s shirt, and Roy takes the moment to pull his pocket watch out and look at the time. Predictably, it’s later than even he expected.

“I should probably take my leave.” He stands, about to make his way towards the coat rack.

“General, before you leave, can I trouble you for a favor?”

“Of course,” Roy replies.

“Would you carry Ed upstairs to his room for me? His back is absolutely terrible, and he’s not supposed to fall asleep on the couch. I hate to wake him when he does because he gets so little sleep, and I’m not strong enough to lift him yet.”

Roy nods in understanding, and crosses the Elrics’ living room to pick Edward up as gently as possible. In this position, it’s hard to ignore his face. His brow creases, and his mouth is slack and slightly open.

“Mmm...Roy....,” the sleeping man mumbles, and Roy almost drops him.

There is absolutely no way that Ed just said his name, much less in that soft tone of voice.

——

That night, Ed’s dreams are even more vivid than they’ve ever been.

Ed opens his eyes to find himself in the same large room, lying on his back on the familiar bearskin.

“You’re beautiful,” says Roy from nearby. Ed shivers in delight at the compliment. A quick, curious glance down at himself reveals that he is completely naked. The Edward he is in his dream doesn’t feel the need to cover himself, even though he knows that Roy is able to see every inch of his scarring- if he hadn’t already. Instead of dwelling on his newfound lack of embarrassment, he spreads his thighs wide, eager to show Roy just how much he’s enjoying himself. His hard cock aches and drips steadily on his stomach, but he keeps his hands still above his head. He wants Roy to be the first to touch him.

“Showing off, are we? “ Roy asks, appearing as if out of nowhere and kneeling on the rug next to him.

“M-hm,” Ed hums, feeling equal parts pleased and mischievous. He squirms a little, planting his feet in the rug and stretching out his flat stomach. He knows Roy can definitely see all of him, the places between his legs that even he’s never seen. He glances up at the older man with hooded eyes. Roy’s own eyes are dark and liquid with arousal.

Ed feels his own arousal grow and crash over him like a wave.

“Please touch me,” he whimpers, losing any remaining thread of patience and grabbing Roy’s wrist, dragging his hand over to touch his naked groin.

Ed awakes rutting sleepily into his mattress. He doesn’t even try to stop- every frantic roll of his hips brings him closer and closer to spilling in the fabric of his underwear. He’s never orgasmed while awake before, and his pleasure-fogged mind decides that he definitely loves it.

“Oh,” he gasps, drooling his words into his pillow, “oh- oh, ahhhh- Roy, oh-“

With a wet, muffled groan, Ed rolls his hips for one final time, orgasming. He lies there, face buried in his pillow, for several long moments, taking deep, gasping breaths of air. A thought about cleaning himself up skitters across his hazy mind, but the cleansing wave of deep, dreamless sleep that is quickly overcoming Ed’s brain sweeps it away.

When Ed awakens again, birds are chirping and the sun is shining directly into his eyes through the gaps in his curtains. His underwear is also glued to his pubic hair.

“Shit,” Ed swears under his breath. He is so fucked.

Chapter Text

Two weeks pass before Roy receives another dinner invitation. He’s still not quite sure why he’s the first port of call for these gatherings— surely the brothers must know people their own age in the city? Regardless, he accepts the invitation, even if it’s mostly because he has an ulterior motive.

“That sounds wonderful, Alphonse. I would also— like to speak to Edward alone at some point. Would you agree to that?”

This idea has been percolating in his mind since the last dinner. He’s not sure Alphonse will be amenable, since no real discussion of Edward’s mental state had actually taken place. Still, he thinks something needs to be done, and he’s reasonably sure Alphonse will welcome the assistance.

Al’s voice bears a tinny quality over the phone, but Roy thinks he hears relief there.

“Of course. I think— thank you.”

——

Dinner that night was probably excellent again— Roy remembers paying further effusive compliments. He doesn’t really taste much of anything. His mind is spinning at a million miles an hour the whole time, preoccupied with looking for an opening where he can get Edward alone and drafting and revising what he’ll say to the younger man when he does. Mercifully, Alphonse is the one to create an opening for him after dinner was finished. Roy is alone in the living room, resisting the impulse to pace a furrow in the carpet. The two brothers are in the kitchen.

“Hey brother, would you go get that copy of Vasiliev’s Theorems that I just picked up from that antiquarian bookstore? I think General Mustang will find it really interesting.”

“Sure, Al.”

He hears Ed clatter up the stairs, and Al peeks out of the kitchen at him.

“The book’s in the library upstairs” he says, his voice low. “Third door on the left. I shelved it pretty well so he’ll be looking for a while.”

“Got it. And thank you, Alphonse. Truly.”

Roy climbs the stairs to the second floor. The last time he was here, he’d seen photos on the walls, but there had been no time to look at them. There still isn’t, but he stops anyway.  He takes them all in— a beaming brown-haired woman and a blond bespectacled man in simple wedding attire he intuits are probably the Elric parents. The same couple, proudly holding up a toddler and an infant. A young couple Roy doesn’t recognize, their arms wrapped around a little blond girl. An adolescent Edward and Alphonse, cheek-to-cheek with the Rockbell girl. The tableau makes Roy’s heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

He shakes his head— there’s really no time to investigate the brothers’ family memories. He makes his way upstairs, looking around. The third door on the left is slightly ajar, and he can see rows of untidy bookshelves inside.

He gently pushes the door open the rest of the way, and sees Edward standing in the corner of the room, searching intently on a shelf for the book.

“Edward,” he begins.

Ed flinches. “Fuck, you scared me!” he exclaims. “What the hell was that about?”

“I wanted to talk to you, and I thought it best to not do it in front of your brother.”

“So this whole book thing was a setup? You’re conspiring with my fucking brother against me now? That’s just perfect.” Ed’s tone is venomous, but his voice wavers. Roy watches his teeth work his lower lip bloody.

Roy notices how Ed is nervously eyeing the exit, gaze jumping frenetically like a caged animal. He surreptitiously steps aside, making sure Ed has a clear path to the door. He never expected to need deescalation techniques, but with Edward he supposes one should always expect the unexpected.

“I don’t need a fucking intervention, Mustang,” he spits, lips curling around the other man’s name like a four-letter word.

“I didn’t intend to hold an intervention. I merely recognized some troubling signs in you that I’ve experienced myself, and I hoped I might be able to…help.”

“Yeah, well, you can’t. In case you’ve noticed, you asshole, I’m nothing like you!”

“Edward— Ed— that’s not—,” Roy tries to get a word in edgewise, but Ed’s fury is incandescent. His eyes are glossed over with unshed angry tears.

“I hate you so fucking much,” Ed cries, and in one impulsive moment, smashes his mouth against Roy’s.

All Roy feels in that moment is shock. Ed’s moods have always been nothing if not mercurial— this he knows intimately. But this level of turmoil was not included in the mental Dealing With Edward Elric handbook he has developed over the years. He can feel the chapped texture of Ed’s mouth on his, and he tastes warm salt as an errant tear tracks down the corner of the other man’s lips. He winces sympathetically- that has to sting. He realizes with a start that his hands hang uselessly by his sides, and he moves to grip Ed’s shoulders and hold the younger man steady against him.

The touch makes Ed startle, and he pulls away.

“I’m so— fucking sorry,” he blurts out, shoulders folding in on themselves protectively. “I think you should— you should go. And please forget about this. I’m so fucking—stupid.”

He can see a smear of his own blood on Roy’s lower lip, and his head spins, dizzy with the overwhelming desire to kiss him again.

“Please go,” he begs, feeling more and more pathetic. Embarrassed heat radiates off him so fiercely he wonders if he has a flame array carved into his forehead. His eyes screw shut, waiting for the other man to laugh at him.

Instead, he feels a cool hand on his burning cheek. He still doesn’t dare open his eyes.

“Are you feeling all right?” The concern saturating every word makes Ed crave the agony of being taken apart piece by piece.

“Probably not,” Ed manages to choke out. “I don’t know if kissing my straight ex-boss counts as a decision a healthy person would make.”

“There are several issues I’d like to address here,” Roy says, a hint of bemusement tinging the syllables. “But I’ll go for the easiest one first— what makes you think I’m straight?”

“Are you serious right now? Did you dissociate every time you started telling us all about your dates? I don’t think there was a single week you weren’t bloviating about how great your latest conquest was.”

The blood begins recirculating in Ed’s brain again, and with it returns some of his ability to parry Roy’s verbal sparring.

“I will admit most of the dates I talked about at the office were in fact clandestine meetings to exchange information, but I do in fact date in my personal life. And not exclusively women.”

Ed’s eyes open in surprise at that admission.

He remembered being seventeen, and coming into Mustang’s office one warm afternoon to deliver a report. His automail hand stilled on the doorknob as he heard Roy’s voice.

“Oh, it was wonderful. I took them to that Cretan place you recommended on Seventh. They really enjoyed it— the atmosphere was really intimate. We ordered that lamb dish you told me about, and you were right— it was easily the best I’ve ever had.”

A pause. The other person’s reply was too muffled to hear what they were saying. He could hear Roy’s answering laugh as if he was right there in the room with him.

“You know I never kiss and tell. I’m more of a gentleman than that.”

Ed’s face burned. A sick, angry feeling boiled deep in his belly. He told himself he was just angry the country was in peril, and all that bastard could think about was getting his dick wet.

He threw the report to the ground, storming away. He knew Roy would find it there later, and then he’d be in for another lecture about maturity or time management or personal responsibility, but he can’t bring himself to care.

He did’t dare explore who he was jealous of— did he want to be the older man’s confidante or in the place of the nameless person he found attractive enough to spend his personal time with?

“What was the second thing? You said there were several things,” he asks, his voice hesitant.

“The second is that you seem to think I’m not interested in you— disgusted, even.”

“But you— you met me when I was just a kid,” Ed protests weakly.

“Edward, I’m going to do you the favor of ignoring your penchant for self-sabotage and instead say this. I wasn’t attracted to you when you were a child. However, one would have to be totally devoid of all five senses to not see what a beautiful man you’ve become.” Ed watches, fascinated, as spots of pink bloom high on Roy’s cheekbones.

“I— what?” Ed stutters. His head is spinning, and he wonders if he was hit by a car this morning and this is in fact the afterlife. He thinks he might pass out.

“You heard me,” the bemusement in Roy’s voice grows stronger. “Don’t go fishing for more compliments. You know exactly how handsome you are.”

The little part of Ed’s brain where he stores his self-doubt wants to retort that no, he really doesn’t, but he manages to keep it silent for now.

“So…what now?” Ed tries not to sound hopeful. The ‘but’ was coming, he just knows it. It always does.

“Well, I think lunch is always an excellent first date. How does this Wednesday sound?”

“That sounds— great.”

The rest of the evening passes by in a blur. Ed vaguely remembers the sensation of a brief kiss on his cheek, and hearing Roy apologize downstairs to Al for leaving so early.

He finally comes back into his body as he’s getting into the bath. He covers his face with wet hands, his cheeks burning. He still can’t make heads or tails of the sequence of events that had led to a— date with Mustang. With Roy. What the hell is going on with his life?

——

Roy chooses a Xingese restaurant for their first date. It’s the happy medium— fancy enough that it feels special, but just casual enough there’s no dress code. He doesn’t want to burden Alphonse with the responsibility of stuffing Ed into a suit jacket. He also remembers one of Ed’s chief hobbies being eating, and he’s betting that hasn’t changed.

He watches from the driver’s seat of his car as Ed emerges from his house. He’s wearing a soft-looking dark green sweater, black pants, and a pair of brown leather lace-up boots Roy has never seen before. Not that he’s overly familiar with the contents of Ed’s wardrobe. Yet.

“You look nice,” he remarks as Ed opened the car door and slid in the passenger seat next to him. With a closer view of Ed’s face, he notices a white bandage on his lower lip.

“Al says it brings out my eyes or whatever,” Ed mumbles, avoiding Roy’s gaze.

“So where are we going?”

“I hope you like Xingese. It’s called Wisteria and it’s gotten some great reviews in the newspaper recently. Apparently they have roast spiced duck that’s to die for.”

“Sounds good,” Ed says. There’s nothing in his voice to indicate whether he likes it or not. Roy finds himself unable to figure out what to make of it.

The atmosphere lapses into uncomfortable silence as Roy drives. Ed is absorbed by the thought of how uninteresting he’s become. What kind of person has literally nothing happen to them in a whole year to make small talk about? It’s also not as if there are any fond moments between them he can bring up to reminisce about.

Hey, do you remember the time we were imprisoned by homunculi and almost died? Didn’t you have a blast being mutilated and blinded? 

Yeah, not exactly great first date conversation.

The anxious pressure of his self-loathing makes his head hurt. his body needs something else to focus on. He starts to chew on his bottom lip, but feels the rough surface of the bandage and stops. In the last few days, he’s tried to switch to biting his nails hoping to let the ever-present wounds on his mouth heal a little, but he chewed them all down past the quick within a day. Now, his hands ache raw in time with his heartbeat.

Bringing thumbnail to mouth, he tears a hangnail off with his teeth. A bright line of blood blooms in his cuticle, and the sting of it joins the rest of the pain in his hands in throbbing concert.

——

He’s gotta hand it to Roy— this place is nice. They have reservations, and the hostess leads them to a cozy little table in an alcove. Murals depicting Xingese fables are painted in series on the walls— thanks to Al borrowing so many storybooks from the library as part of his language immersion efforts, Ed recognizes the fisherman and the sea turtle, the crane-wife, and the monkey king. Their table is right in front of the forbidden lovers. He’s not sure he appreciates the symbolism.

He orders the first type of soup he sees on the menu, figuring it’ll be easiest to eat. His anxiety has left him equal parts ravenous and not hungry at all.

He’s not sure how he’s going to survive this without Al as a buffer between the two of them. The realization that Roy is paying full attention to him is terrifying, sure, but so is the reverse. Despite all the little-kid crushing he’s done, he doesn’t really know anything about Roy. Now is the time he has to learn.

He watches the way Roy smiles at the waitress after ordering, laugh lines creasing at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

The other man catches him staring, and then the smile is turned towards him.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asks, reaching a hand across the table and placing it on top of Ed’s. “I promise I don’t bite.”

He curls his fingers reflexively towards his palm, hoping to hide the disparity between Roy’s neatly-manicured nails and his own, bitten ragged. Just one more thing to be ashamed about. Still, the comforting weight of Roy’s hand on his is soothing.

He wonders idly if the weight of Roy’s whole body on top of his could crush the anxiety out of him. He wants to find out.

The other man’s fingers curl under to grasp his palm, and the movement draws his gaze back to their entwined hands. Anxiety crashes back over him like a wave as he catches a glimpse of the scarred flame array on the back of Roy’s hand. It’s faint, white, but still undeniable— carved too deep to ever really fade.

He hates it— no matter how much he’s trying to enjoy himself, the past is always there, its hands around his neck. He pulls his hand into his lap, and Roy withdraws. There’s no change in his expression, but Ed imagines he’s disappointed in him. The other man's smile seems to suddenly not reach his eyes. 

Their food comes quickly, and Ed is grateful to have something to do with his hands again. He’s not hungry, so he spends most of the time halfheartedly stirring his soup and watching Roy eat. Even though the other man is so neat about it, it still feels perverse to so closely observe him consume bites of duck breast. Ed watches his teeth bite down, and imagines the way they would feel in the side of his neck. 

When the check comes, Roy pays— of course he does, Ed thinks, because he’s nothing if not a perfect gentleman to his dates. He catches a glimpse of the number on the receipt, and it makes him feel sick. He didn’t even finish the stupid soup. They put on their coats and leave the restaurant, standing on the sidewalk outside. It’s late afternoon, and the air is chilly. Ed shoves his hands in his pockets, awkward.

He knows Roy is disappointed. How could he not be? First dates are supposed to be enjoyable, had with people who are interesting or good conversationalists or even just attractive. Ed is none of those things. He owes it to Roy to do something to fix this.

Roy is finding himself dealing with an emotion he’s become unaccustomed to— nervousness. Edward seemed uncomfortable the whole time, and he’s not sure why. Was it the shock of getting used to being around other people? Was he tired? Was he disappointed the idea and reality of dating a man who has a decade on him didn’t match up?

God, Roy hopes it isn’t the last one. The strength at which the thought hits him makes him feel ridiculous— he’s barely become reacquainted with Ed and he’s already so infatuated with him. There has to be something he can do to bring Ed out of his shell.

“Would you be interested in— I got my hands on some advance copies of upcoming research publications out of the military’s alchemy lab. A lot of it’s beyond me, but— I thought you might understand it better.”

He hopes this will work. He’s perfectly happy to let Ed curl up on his couch and make him tea as he reads. He’s mostly sure of where the kettle might be.

“Sure,” Ed says, scuffing a toe on the brick sidewalk. “None of it's classified, right?”

“Probably not,” Roy replies, noncommittal. “But if it is, I trust you the most.”

This casual admission makes Ed smile despite himself, and he follows Roy back to the car.

His happiness doesn’t last long. Ed still has to fix the disaster he’s created, and he steels himself for what he’s about to do. He’s never driven a car before, but he feels distinctly like he’s getting behind the wheel of a vehicle he can’t stop.

If there’s one thing he knows about normal men, it’s that they love sex. It was all he ever heard the lower-ranking military recruits talking about— how many girls they’d slept with over the weekend, how good it was, and especially what a problem it was when they didn’t put out. And Roy especially loves it— Ed has been subjected to his long-winded rhapsodizing about his dates more times than he cares to remember. It stands to reason that Roy slept with some of those people— most of them, probably. He’s attractive enough that they were probably falling all over themselves to fuck him.

Roy probably doesn’t really want to look at books, anyway. Ed knows he’s picked up on the older man's hint, and he has to be ready.

Ed also knows he doesn’t have much going for him at this point. He’s seen his face in the mirror— fatigued circles cave-dark under his eyes and a mouth more gash than skin. And that's not even getting into his terrible attitude. He can disguise the most unsightly parts of himself all he likes, but he isn’t under any sort of delusion they really hide anything. It’s immediately obvious how worthless he is.

At the very least the rest of his body retains some of its desirability in a purely aesthetic way. He’s still somewhat muscular despite a year of sedentary living, and below the neck is probably what Roy is mostly interested in anyway. He can work with that.

“Ed?”

He realizes with a start that he’s sitting stock-still in the passenger seat, and Roy is standing on the sidewalk, holding the door open and looking at him strangely.

“Are you feeling all right? Should I take you home? I don’t mind cutting it short if you’re feeling ill.”

“I don’t want to go home. And I don’t want to look at any papers,” Ed says, hoping the quiver in his voice could be mistaken for sensuality. “I want you to fuck me.”

Roy’s dark eyes narrow at this, half-lidded in a way that’s almost catlike.

“That can certainly be arranged.”

Despite the pit of nervousness coming to a rolling boil in his stomach, the way Roy’s voice drops several octaves sends a hot shiver up his spine.

Maybe this won’t be so awful after all. Roy wouldn’t make it bad, and he will learn to like it.

As soon as the door closes behind them, Roy is pinning him to the solid oak and kissing him, all hands and mouth and teeth and tongue. He moves down Ed’s body, mouthing at the pulse points on his neck.

Ed is terrified Roy can feel the way his heart is hammering through his tongue alone. The mixture of arousal and fear curdles in his stomach, making him feel a bit like he’s going to throw up.

His head is full of fog, and he lets it carry him away.

Roy’s thigh is between his legs, and Ed thrusts himself against it, moaning at the way it feels.

Fingers fumble at the catch of his pants, and they’re suddenly around his knees. The fog in his head abruptly crystallizes, and Ed is no longer lost.

He is here, and so is Roy, and he can’t do this.

He feels halfway out of his body. Watches his hands shove Roy off of him. Feels the bite of cold wood floor on the backs of his thighs. Hears his own ragged breathing. Tastes iron seeping from his bitten tongue.

Roy is already backing away, alarm plain on his face, when Ed stammers frantically, “No— wait— I just panicked a little. I can still do this.”  He has to fix this. Has to.

“We’re not doing anything,” Roy corrects him. “I’m not having sex with somebody who’s trying not to have a fucking panic attack, Ed. What kind of person do you think I am?”

For once in his life, Ed doesn’t have a retort ready. Instead, he re-dresses himself and doesn’t argue as Roy motions him into the backseat of the car and takes him home. He rests a cheek on the cold window glass, watching the streetlights rush by in a daze. All he feels is hollow.

Ed spends the entirety of the drive hoping against hope that Al won’t still be awake. When the car pulls up in front of his house and he sees the warm lamp glow shining out of the living room window, he knows he’s out of luck.

Without a word, he gets out of the car, shoulders hunched. He’s just going to have to make a run for it.

“How’d it go, brother? You’re back early!” Al calls from the sofa. Ed ignores him, kicking his shoes off and hurrying upstairs to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

He burrows under the blankets, not even bothering to change out of his clothes. He just needs to sleep for a week or two and then everything will be okay.

However, even his body seems to be intent on punishing him. He lays there, wide awake, for hours before giving up and walking as quietly as possible to the library. He can hear the soft sound of violins from downstairs, and he doesn’t want to alert Al to his movements. He sits down on the library’s window seat, picking up an abandoned copy of Heinlein’s Treatise on Alchemical Botany and halfheartedly leafing through it. Reading usually helps distract him, but not this time.

Instead, he stares out at the dusky sky, remembering.

He was nineteen, and in the hospital. Every part of his body ached from a laundry list of injuries—concussion, broken ribs, and assorted cuts and abrasions are what he was able to hear the nurse listing from deep inside his painkiller-fueled fog. The doctors had begrudgingly allowed him off bed rest, mostly because none of the nurses could keep him in bed. He spent most of his time by Al’s bedside, watching him sleep. It turns out years of being separated from your malnourished, atrophied body makes you need a lot of rest.

Today, though, he was wandering the hospital corridors. Al had kicked him out, proclaiming Ed needed to stop hovering and let him nap in peace. He felt dazed and aimless, unsure of what to do with himself.

Several rooms down was Mustang’s. Ed had seen him out and about a few times that week, led at the hand by Hawkeye. Ed couldn’t look at him— the older man’s clouded blind stare made him sick to his stomach with guilt.

Right now, though, Mustang was asleep, his chest rising and falling gently. One of his bandaged hands was resting on top of the thin blue hospital blanket.

Ed felt the desire to be there next to him pull like a magnet, but he resisted. The aborted movement made his automail knee creak, and Mustang startled awake at the sound.

“Hello?” he called out, and Ed didn’t answer.

He stood there silently in the doorway for several long moments, staring, chest aching with an emotion he couldn’t— didn’t want to—identify.

He hears the door creak behind him. he waits for Al to be the first to speak.

“Are you all right? You seemed upset when you came in. Mustang didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

Leave it to Al to be concerned about Ed first, even when he’s the one in the wrong.

“He didn’t do anything to me. I’m the one who fucked it up,” Ed’s voice is small, barely audible. “I think I should probably give up on dating forever. For everybody’s benefit.”

Sighing, Alphonse sits down beside him.

“I’m not going to pry into what exactly happened. But I know Mustang likes you a lot. So I know whatever happened is fixable, Ed.”

And oh, how Ed wishes he could believe in his own ability to salvage the mess he’s made as much as Al believes in him.

“Not this time,” he replies, mournful. Al leans against him, head resting on his shoulder.

“Maybe,” Al allows. “But you don’t lose anything if you try again. I think you owe it to yourself to try.”

He doesn’t say I see the way he keeps looking at you, you big idiot, and I don’t want you to waste the first thing that might make you happy because that wouldn’t be helpful.

But he definitely thinks it.

——

In his own home across town, Roy has his head in his hands. He pours himself a glass of whiskey hoping a buzz might help dull the edge off his unpleasant afternoon, but it’s just giving him a headache. Then he just feels pathetic for day-drinking.

Stupid, he thinks.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Roy,” he castigates himself aloud.

He thought Ed was moving too fast, and he should have stopped himself. He knows that. But is it any wonder he was helpless to give Ed exactly what he seemed to want?

He told Ed he wasn’t attracted to him when he was growing up. And that was true, in a strictly sexual sense.

But—he would challenge anyone who watched the older Elric’s transformation into young adulthood to see all that and not develop an attraction to him. He’d sworn never to act on it, because even in Amestris a 10-year age gap is a bit of a stretch.

You’re a cradle robber, Roy, he imagines the little Maes inside his head scolding him. He hates how, even dead, his friend is always right about him.

Fullmetal was acting strangely. Everybody in the office had already remarked about it. Roy initially brushed it off, because the kid’s seventeen, for god’s sake. Weren’t all teenagers strange by nature?

The closer he paid attention, though, the more he noticed the strangeness was solely focused on one person—him. Fullmetal was able to act completely normally around Hawkeye, who Roy would be the first to admit was a very beautiful and intimidating woman. The same was true for all the pretty young female recruits, who were much closer to Edward in age. He never saw Edward so much as stumble over his words around them.

With him, it was a different story. Where before he couldn’t wait to leave Roy’s office as soon as he was dismissed, he was inventing excuses to stay. Every time Fullmetal handed in a report, there was a moment where their hands touched. Simple things— innocent, maybe, until the pattern started adding up.

Fullmetal was probably gay, then. Roy was sympathetic— just because homosexuality hadn’t been punishable under the law for more than fifty years doesn’t mean it was an easy realization to have.

He spared a rueful thought to his own teenage epiphany that it wasn’t just the girls he was looking at, and remembered all the ill-advised crushes on confident older men that followed. He was grateful now that none of them had taken advantage of him.

Silently, he resolved not to say anything to Fullmetal. The kid has enough problems without him complicating the tenuous mentor-mentee relationship they’ve managed to form.

Still, he thinks, only a little disgusted with himself, maybe someday.

He leans his head back on the couch, staring up despondently at the ceiling, There’s a cobweb in the right corner of the room he’s never noticed before. He really needs to clean in here. 

The space behind his left eye throbs in time with his breaths.

So what happens now?

——

Almost a week passes before Ed works up the nerve to call. He’s tried every morning since the…incident, but keeps chickening out before he can dial even a single number. The phone rings twice, and then—   

“You’ve reached the office of General Roy Mustang, Hawkeye speaking,”

His stomach sinks as he realizes he’s dialed Roy’s office number instead of his home. If he remembers correctly, the other man is almost never at work before noon. But it was too late for him to abort mission— he needs to do it now.

“Can you— tell Roy I’m sorry?” he says hesitantly into the receiver.

“Can I ask who—“ Click.

——

The first thing Roy notices upon arriving at the office bright and early at 11:30 is that Riza is eyeing him with more exasperation than usual. Everyone else is already out to lunch, so they’re the only two in the room.

“You found out I haven’t signed off on any of the expense reports that were due yesterday, didn’t you?” he sighs theatrically, throwing himself into his chair.

“No, I didn’t know that. I’ll get to scolding you about that in a minute. I just received a very interesting anonymous phone call requesting, and I quote, tell Roy I’m sorry. I am very pointedly not going to ask you what the hell is going on in your personal life. I am, however, going to stand right here until you spontaneously decide to address it.” Roy knows she’ll follow through with it. Her world-record time for glaring at him until he does what she wants is two hours.

“All right,” he sighs, flashing her a rueful smile, “I owe you one.”

“What else is new?” she smirks, turning neatly on her heel and returning to her desk.

Roy’s fingers spin out the numbers on the dial almost by muscle memory. One ring, and—

“Elric residence.” The voice on the other end is unmistakable.

“You know, apologies are traditionally delivered to the person you’re apologizing to rather than a representative.”

“Well, I forgot you’re not awake before noon, bastard,” Ed grouses. “I didn’t want you to think I was pranking you with hangup calls.”

Ed’s surliness releases a weight from Roy’s chest he didn’t even realize was there. If the younger man is acting normally, then there’s a chance they can fix this. He didn’t realize before how badly he wanted them to continue seeing each other.

“I’m sorry,” Ed continues, noticeably quieter this time. “I tried to make you do something I wasn’t ready for. That was— wrong.”

Roy is about to reply, before Ed shushes him over the line.

“I know you’re about to interrupt me. I can feel it. Just— let me get this out before I lose my nerve. In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m really bad at…relationships with other people. But I want to keep trying—with you. If that’s okay.”

Ed falls silent on the other end. Roy can hear him breathing, and he imagines the tense little crease between his eyebrows. He thinks about how much he’d like to smooth it over with his thumb.

“I’d like to see where this goes as well,” he says finally, “but I think we need to take it much slower. I need to be able to trust that you want the things you ask for, Edward. That’s non-negotiable for me.” 

“That sounds—okay. I understand.”

Roy hears the door open behind him, and the sounds of his team returning from lunch. Time to get back to work.

“I have to go, Ed, but— thank you for calling.”

Chapter Text

Reluctantly, Ed goes back to the doctor for the first time since he was discharged from the hospital and manages to get some pills prescribed that are supposed to alleviate his anxiety. He feels like maybe he’s taking too many of them, but he reasons the increased dizziness and drowsiness are worth it if they help him actually enjoy things. Roy keeps bothering him about seeing a psychotherapist, but Ed stubbornly maintains he doesn’t need it.   

All things considered, Ed’s life is going well for the first time in…ever.

Except.

Except Roy won’t kiss him. Or really touch him at all. He can barely even convince him to hold hands most of the time.

And Ed gets it. He does. The older man feels a responsibility to not cross his boundaries. And Ed doesn’t want to move too fast and repeat his same mistakes.

The problem is he’s still having those fucking dreams. And the problem with sex dreams, as he’s finding out, is that having the subject of them right in front of him yet refusing to do anything is quite possibly the worst feeling in the world. 

About a month and many dates after their big misunderstanding, Roy takes Ed to see his first silent film; a murder mystery produced by a small studio out in West City. The theater is dark; everyone around them is transfixed by the black-and-white movements of the actors onscreen. He decides to take the chance and tentatively puts a hand on Roy's knee. Gently, without even looking at him, the other man brushes him away.

Neither of them bring it up afterwards, and the bright light of day outside the theater makes Ed even more embarrassed about his rejected advance. They see more films after this, but Ed doesn’t try that again. Not even if he really, really wants to. 

At some point, they start a semi-weekly tradition of picking a random restaurant neither has ever been to. A little hole-in-the-wall Drachman place hidden on a side street near the main branch of the Central City Library becomes their go-to whenever Ed is in the area and Roy has time to step out for lunch. He almost starts dreading these lunches— he’s so distracted by Roy's mouth most of the time he can barely eat. He starts to make excuses to get out of any further lunch dates after he has to physically restrain himself from leaning across the table and licking a path from Roy’s cheek to his lips.

It feels like a divine punishment when his vivid dreams develop a recurring plotline where Roy pins him to the table at a restaurant and kisses him with tongue. 

Winter gradually thaws into spring, and suddenly it seems like there are nothing but couples everywhere he goes. He can't help but hate the way everyone else in the world seems to have no problem being blissfully happy and affectionate.

He's walking with Roy in the park near military command, making the most of the time before Roy has to go back to the office. Roy is walking slightly ahead of him, making sure there's no temptation to hold hands. Ed is studiously pretending he's not sulking. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a couple about his age making out on a park bench, totally oblivious to the world around them. The way they're holding each other so tenderly makes Ed ache. 

He doesn't want Roy to kiss him like that in public; he's not that kind of person. He just— wants something. Anything. 

More than just anything, he realizes, he wants Roy to stop seeing him as merely traumatized; someone who will break at the slightest touch. He wants to be equal; he wants to be desirable. But— he's at a loss about how to convince Roy that it's okay to desire him. Or if the older man even wants to at this point. 

Well, he resolves, there's only one way to test that. He just hopes it doesn't blow up in his face again. 

——

On Saturday, he goes with Roy to see a play at the theater downtown. Apparently it’s a famous Cretan production, and Roy promised it contains enough sword fights and murder to keep Ed interested. Too bad there’s only one thing Ed is interested in at the moment— his dreams were particularly vivid in the past week and he’s so pent up he could scream.

Fuck it, he decides. He’s ready to revisit the idea of sex, whether or not Roy knows what’s coming. If everything goes right, they both will be.

Roy picks him up at 4:30 on the dot, giving them plenty of time to make it to the early show and have dinner after.

“I think we should have sex,” Ed announces as he slides into the passenger seat. Subtlety has never really been his forte— why start now?

Roy chokes a little, involuntarily. This particular kind of boldness is new. He isn’t sure he dislikes it.

“No, listen— we’ve been doing this for months. And you’ve been real gentlemanly. But I’m going crazy here, Roy, please.”

Roy makes the mistake of glancing over at him, and he nearly crashed the car. Ed’s face is beet red from forehead all the way down his neck. All the blood drains out of his brain and he thinks how badly he suddenly wants to explore how far down Ed can blush using nothing but his mouth.

Mentally grasping at the crumbling shreds of his composure, he manages,  “That sounds…agreeable. But I’m not going to make it easy for you.”

“Bring it on,” Ed grins, “I can take any damn thing you wanna dish out.”

——

The play is as good as Roy promised. Maybe even better.

Not that Ed can describe a single plot point or even name the damn thing, because Roy’s hand hasn’t left his inner thigh for the entire two-hour runtime- including intermission.  The feeling of Roy’s fingers gently stroking over skin, even over Ed’s pants, sends little electric shocks up his spine. The worst part is Roy doesn’t even look at him— he pays studious attention to the whole show. Ed can’t believe how horrible it is to have somebody mere centimeters away from giving him a handjob delivering whispered commentary on the quality of a scene’s fucking choreography right in his ear. Thankfully, Roy has standing reservations for a box in the theater— and of course he does, Roy is exactly the kind of guy who has his own goddamn box— so Ed doesn’t have to worry about some unsuspecting theatergoer seeing this whole display and having them both arrested for a violation of the penal code forbidding public indecency.

Finally, finally, finally, the actors take their last curtain call and the play is over. Roy’s warm hand pulls away from Ed’s thigh and Ed takes several deep breaths in an effort to calm down for the walk to the cloakroom.

“You fucking tease,” he grouses. “I would say I can’t fucking believe you but I bet you do this to all the girls.”

Roy beams, “Oh no, that one was just for you. Did you enjoy the play? It’s one of my favorites.”

“Well, I wouldn’t fucking know thanks to you!”

“Oh, Ed,” he says, leaning over to whisper into Ed’s ear, “I thought you said you could take ‘any damn thing I could dish out’? You’ll have to do better than that.”

Ed trembles at the sensation of hot breath ghosting over delicate cartilage. This isn’t doing anything to help him compose himself enough to walk out, and he scowls at Roy.

“Stop it!” he hisses. “I’m trying to not get us both arrested, you asshole. You can’t be Fuhrer if you’re in a jail cell serving a sentence for public sex.”

After a few long moments spent doing mutual deep breathing exercises while facing away from each other, the two men follow the rest of the crowd to the coatroom and then exited the theater. Outside, dusk is just arriving, the sunset sky peeking out from behind ominous clouds.

“How do you feel about something simple tonight?” Roy asks. “There’s a great diner just around the corner from here.”

Ed is just about to open his mouth and deliver a retort about how on Earth Roy could be thinking about eating after the performance he just gave, when the sky opens up and dumps sheets of freezing rain on the city. Everyone outside is instantly soaked to the skin— hairdos flattened and shoes filled with rainwater. Ed can barely see a foot in front of him.

“This way!”

Ed feels a cold hand grip his wrist and pull him forward, making him slip and stumble in a puddle. He hopes Roy is leading them back to his car, but he’s willing to take refuge just about anywhere right now.

Somehow, mercifully, they make it back to the side street where the car is parked. Roy throws open the back door, practically shoving Ed onto the leather bench seat and following after him.

“So I guess dinner’s out of the question,” Ed snarks, turning to look at Roy, “Oh my god. You look—“

Ed can barely produce the rest of the sentence, he’s laughing too hard.

“You look— like a drowned rat! This is the— the— worst you’ve ever looked!!”

Gone is the carefully slicked back style Roy spent more time on than he’d ever admit. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead, streaming rainwater down his cheeks. His waterlogged suit clings to his skin, and his shoes are most definitely ruined. Ed leans back against the seat, head tipped back and shoulders spasming in mirth.

“Oh, shut up,” Roy says, kissing him. When he replays this moment days later, he will cringe at how unintelligent this comeback is. In the moment, though, it does what it’s supposed to do.

Gently, he pushes Ed backwards until he’s laying across the seat, Roy above him, caging him in with his arms, still kissing him. Roy swallows the laughter still bubbling helplessly from Ed’s lips as he clumsily tries to peel off his soaked overcoat and suit jacket with cold, uncoordinated fingers. The offending garments are tossed unceremoniously in a drenched heap somewhere in the front seat, and Roy sets to work freeing Ed from his own clothing.

Now that Ed can see exactly how Roy’s white shirt clings translucent to his chest, everything starts seeming a bit more serious. His laughter dries up, and he frantically shoves off his own sopping wet coat. Roy’s tongue traces a searing hot path across his slightly chapped lips, and Ed opens his mouth hesitantly.

Ed also realizes that the freezing rain has chased his earlier problem away, but it was swiftly making a reappearance. Ed squirms, unsure of what the usual etiquette for please stick your hand down my pants is.

Roy’s hips roll down to meet his, and Ed realizes they are both in the same predicament. A spark zings down his spine as he thought, that’s because of me. He wants me.

“Please,” he pants into the other man’s searching mouth, feeling blindly for the button on his suit pants.

“Mmm,” Roy hums, undoing Ed’s fly and shoving his pants down to mismatched knees in one impatient movement. Ed manages to spare a neuron to think how impressive it was Roy could do that without their mouths separating.

That thought is swiftly chased away as Roy’s cold palm meets the blood-hot skin of Ed’s erection.

Ed hisses, and he feels Roy murmur “Sorry, sorry,” against his tongue. Roy’s hand began to move, his hand slicked by Ed’s fluids and the rainwater saturating him all the way down to his underwear.

“Roy, Roy-“ Ed gasps, his head lolling back to expose the soft underside of his chin, “you too, please— please—“

Instead of wasting breath on a verbal response, Roy sucks on Ed’s tongue and roughly guides his hand to the front of his pants, using the other man’s hand to blindly shove them down just enough.

Ed’s fingers meets the soft, slick skin of Roy’s cock and he thinks, only slightly hysterically, that’s a dick in my hand. That’s Roy’s dick in my hand. He begins moving his cupped hand up and down, and is rewarded with Roy exhaling hot and breathy against his mouth.

“Roy,” he sobs, feeling an orgasm building at the base of his spine. “I need you to fuck me— please—“

“Yeah,” Roy gasps, his mouth sliding uncoordinated and wet across Ed’s cheek. “Whatever you want, baby—“

A stroke of Roy’s fingers on the head of Ed’s cock sends him over the edge, the tight feeling in the back of his stomach unspooling.

“Uh— mmmm—“ Ed moans as he cums, spilling over the cage of Roy’s fingers. With a few more uncoordinated hand movements, Roy follows closely behind.

Outside, the rain slows from a downpour to a gentle patter.

“Did you really mean that?” Roy asks, once the two of them are sitting upright and have recovered their breath somewhat. “It’s all right if you don’t want— penetrative sex. I really don’t mind if you just want to leave it here for today.”

By here, Ed assumes he means the mutual exchange of handjobs.

“No, I— I meant what I said earlier. And I mean it now too,” Ed says, focusing all his attention on rebuttoning his pants. If he never looks up, he never has to see Roy looking at him with that expression that says you’re still too fragile for me to trust you want this. 

Instead, he feels Roy’s hand on his face, tilting his chin up between thumb and forefinger. His expression reads I thought you’d never ask.

“I’d love nothing more,” he replies, before leaning them back and kissing him again.

Ed resolves to try more open communication after this.

——

The rain is still falling gently as Roy’s car pulls up outside his house.

Coats and jackets are once again forgotten as the two men hurry up the front walk. Roy fumbles his keys out of his pants pocket, unsteady fingers unlocking the door. He swings it open, motioning for Ed to go in before him.

Standing there in the entryway, Ed kicks off his soaked shoes and socks. With a stroke of boldness, his cold fingers start on his shirt buttons. The shirt too falls in a damp heap on Roy’s hallway carpet. The pièce de résistance, his dark grey pants and underwear, join it unceremoniously.

Ed is left standing there— naked, naked, naked—

He can feel Roy’s gaze on him like a physical weight, taking in every scarred and skin and metal inch of him. Their eyes meet, and Ed flushes delicious red all the way down his shoulders and back. Roy’s earlier to explore the other man’s blush with his tongue comes roaring back, and he shivers.

“Like what you see?” Ed says, hoping he looks more confident than he feels.

“How could I not?” Roy answers, following Ed’s lead.

His hands deftly unfasten the white buttons of his shirt. He pulls it away from his shoulders, and tosses it to the floor with a wet slap. Shoes, socks, pants, underwear— and then glorious nakedness.

“ What about you? Like what you see?” Roy laughs, cocking his hip and posing before Ed in the dim light of the hallway with all the masculine grace of a marble statue.

“Yeah,” Ed says, his tongue suddenly thick in his mouth. He wants to kiss him again. He wants to put his mouth on the tight mass of scar tissue on Roy’s side. He wants Roy to fuck him. He wants, he wants, he wants.

For the second time that night, Roy takes Ed by the wrist and leads him. Ed’s head is spinning, but he’s trying as hard as he can to commit everything to memory just in case Roy decides never to do this again. The feeling of the stairway carpet on his bare feet, the temperature of the air against his clammy skin, the sound of his and Roy’s breaths in the dim light, the warmth of skin against skin. He decides to take his bravado off like his clothes, abandoning them both downstairs.

They enter a room that Ed guesses is Roy’s bedroom; all dark wood, clothes on chairs, and unmade bedsheets. Roy pushes him gently backwards onto the bed, and he hits the mattress with a soft bounce. His erection, which has been slowly reintroducing itself, is suddenly fully and achingly interested in the current proceedings.

He barely has time to wish Roy’s mouth was on his again before it’s happening.

“I want you in me,” he whines, breaking his mouth away after a moment. He’s not sure he can wait, not when he’s this close.

“Haven’t you ever heard of foreplay?” Roy admonishes him, playfully. “This isn’t easy, and I want you good and relaxed first.”

The obstinate expression that crosses Ed's features says it all. Roy sighs, helpless to Ed’s desires. He decides to compromise and speed things up just a little.

“Hips up,” he says, punctuating the instruction with a few sharpish taps to the area. Ed obeys, for once wordless, and Roy slides a pillow under him. 

Ed watches, transfixed, as Roy reaches over him and pulls a bottle of amber oil out of his bedside table. He opens it, and a musky smell blooms from its mouth. Roy pours a generous amount over one hand, then sets the bottle aside. He rubs his hands together, then begins stroking Ed’s cock again. The oil makes the slide of Roy’s hand against him so much better, and Ed gasps at the feeling. He’s so distracted by the sensations and the heady smell filling the air that he almost misses Roy’s slick finger at his hole.

Once Roy presses in, though, it’s impossible to miss. It doesn’t feel bad— just weird. Ed squirms against the feeling, suddenly unsure of what to do with his body.

“Relax,” Roy breathes, circling the finger. Ed tries, but the sensation feels like it’s filling every inch of him, crowding everything else out. It's the strangest thing he's ever felt and he doesn't want it to stop. 

Just as he’s getting used to the stretch, Roy works another finger in, spreading them slightly. This time, he hits something inside Ed just right and his back arches up off the bed as he gasps. He can’t decide which source of stimulation to chase after, so instead he just shakes between them, overwhelmed. The tight feeling in his stomach is getting stronger, but he can’t find the words to warn Roy.

With a sharp cry, he cums for the second time that night. Almost immediately, he feels embarrassed. He’s pretty sure he’s supposed to last longer than that.

Roy notices the discomfort written across Ed’s features, and he correctly surmises the reason why.

“You’re doing great,” he reassures. “You’re enjoying yourself— that’s what’s supposed to happen.”

“Besides,” he continues, rubbing a teasing hand over Ed’s pubic bone. His cock jumps, already reinterested. “I’m hoping to wring a few orgasms out of you yet.”

Roy’s fingers continue to move inside him, and he presses firmly against Ed’s prostate again. He judges somehow that Ed is ready for another, and the faint stretch and burn returns. He’s ready for it this time, though. He breathes through it, waiting for the discomfort to pass and for it to start feeling good again. He doesn’t have to wait long; Roy has already figured out exactly how to press his proverbial and very literal buttons. 

“Roy, Roy—“ he chants; it feels like a prayer. “I’m ready, please—“

“Anything you want,” Roy pants back. Fingers withdraw and he barely has time to mourn the loss of sensation before he’s transfixed again by the sight of Roy slicking himself up with an oiled hand.

He spares a thought to all the versions of himself that came before— all the anxious, lovesick boys he used to be. How he pities them; living their whole lives not knowing that someday, they’d be naked in Roy’s bed watching this.

He stops caring about the past and is brought back to the present by the skin-hot pressure of Roy’s cock at his hole.

The burn of it makes him gasp; it’s nothing like fingers. Roy goes slow, but this intrusion is still sweetly torturous. He focuses on anything else— the path of a bead of sweat rolling down Roy’s neck and chest; the low sounds spilling from his mouth. Ed feels dazed, hypnotic. He lays there for what seems like an eternity, watching Roy bottom out inside him. He can feel Roy’s bodily tremble when it happens, and he pats the other man’s bicep in an uncoordinated way he hopes conveys keep going.

A gasp tears its way out of him as Roy begins to move in earnest. He was right— it's nothing like before. It's so much more. The thrusts begin testing, gentle—but gradually Roy begins to move faster, firmer, deeper into him. Ed instinctively rolls back against the motion of Roy’s cock inside him, clinging desperately to his shoulders. He feels gratified at the way Roy exhales at the answering movement of his body. 

Roy rewards him by rhythmically fucking a string of wet little “uh-uh-uh”s out of Ed’s mouth. Later he'll be embarrassed about the incoherent sounds he's producing, but right now he's too overstimulated to do anything else. Ed’s head is almost tucked in the curve of Roy’s neck; he can smell the other man’s cologne and sweat and the scent of the oil on his heated skin. The heady smell of it all and the feeling of sweaty-sticky skin on his and the  sight of Roy’s sweaty, flushed face through half-lidded, unfocused eyes and the call-and-response of their gasps and moans are driving him closer and closer to the edge. 

The ball of sensation in his stomach is drawing tighter and hotter and he knows he’s about to cum but he can’t muster the words to say anything so he settles for another frantic little moan as he spends himself. Panting, he feels Roy pull out and finish warm on his stomach, adding to the mess he’s made there.

Roy rolls over to lay down next to him and draws their sweaty bodies close, his arm slung over Ed’s chest. Ed listens to the sounds of their breath even out together and thinks, he just fucked me. It happened.

After a few moments, Roy gets up and leaves the bedroom, returning with a wet washcloth.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as he gently wipes Ed off, not making eye contact. Even in the low light, Ed can see the pink on his cheeks and the nervous press of lips. Roy hasn’t felt this way in a long time, wanting to ask did you like it? Was it good? like he’s nineteen again and sneaking his first time in the military barracks while his roommates are out. But he’s not nineteen, he’s thirty; and he’s not sure that kind of desperation is attractive anymore.

“It was everything I dreamed it would be,” Ed says honestly. Neither of them comment on how that isn’t an answer to the question that was asked. Reading subtext is practically part of the job description in Roy’s office— he can’t complain when his gets read so easily. 

Ed thinks for another moment about the dreams. I should really tell him. It could be fun.

Then- Later, though.

But— there’s still something he wants. He rolls over and pushes a hand against Roy’s shoulder.

“Can you—“, he hesitates, still a little embarrassed. “Can you lay on top of me?”

The other man looks at him, quizzical.

“Are you sure? It’ll be heavy.”

Ed nods. “Yeah.”

Slowly, a little gingerly, Roy positions himself over Ed’s body, suspended for a moment in a sort of push-up position. Then he lowers himself down in one motion, blanketing Ed in the full weight of his body.

“Good?” he murmurs hot into the side of Ed’s neck.

Ed can barely form a response. He was right— this is blissful.

“Yeeeahhh,” he moans. He might be getting hard again; he can’t really tell. All he wants right now is to stay right here forever.

He drifts until the hungry animals in both their stomachs grow too loud to ignore. Roy lifts himself up, and Ed immediately misses the pressure of body-against-body.

“I have leftovers in the fridge,” Roy says. His feet swing over the side of the bed, preparing to stand up.

“I love you,” Ed says, helplessly. It’s not an answer, but it’s the only thing he can say.

Roy’s eyebrow quirks and his lips press together and quirk up at the side the way they do when he’s trying to hold back laughter.

“If I’d known cold takeout was the thing that got you confessing, I think I would’ve seduced you earlier,” he grins. It’s not a response, but somehow it means I love you too more than anything.

“Bastard,” Ed laughs back.

Again, again, again Roy takes his hand and pulls him up. He finds being led by the hand is as easy as breathing. He thinks there might be a ‘dog of the military’ joke there, but he’s not going to be the one to bring it up.

“Come on,” he says, “We’ve got to find something in my closet that fits you before we go eat.”

“Who’re you calling too short to fit into your clothes?” Ed demands, but there’s no teeth there.

“Mmm, no,” Roy answers, kissing him. “I think you’re broader in the shoulders than me now. I need to find a shirt that’s loose enough to hide it, otherwise I fear we won’t make it out of this room.”

“What if I’m okay with that?” Ed asks, kissing back.

Later, it will be time to go downstairs and pick up their still-wet clothes off the floor to put into the wash. It will be time to warm up the leftovers on the stove and eat dinner together on Roy’s living room floor wearing nothing but their underwear. It will be time to call Alphonse and say, don’t worry, but I won’t be home until tomorrow, pointedly ignoring the knowing way Al says okay; like he’s saying I wasn’t worried and congratulations and should I start writing the wedding invitations all at once. Even later, it will be time for them to climb into bed, Ed’s head tucked securely into the curve of Roy’s neck, savoring the feeling of warm skin. It will be time to sleep, not remembering the last time he had a nightmare.

But this moment is not any of those times. In this moment, there is only mouth against mouth, hand against hand, body against body.

——

The day is warm, promising the first tentative heat of summer. The main campus of the hospital is only a ten-minute walk away from Central military command, so Ed impulsively decides today will be the day he’s going to visit Roy at work. On the way, he picks up their usual order from their favorite deli near the command. Ham and Emmental with fig jam for Roy, roast beef and vegetables with spicy horseradish dressing for himself.

He slings the paper bag over his shoulders and finds himself honest-to-god whistling.

He only has a little trouble finding the group of offices that belongs to Roy’s team. Nobody has to know that he ended up asking directions from a woman whose uniform bore the signs of a newly enlisted. As he turns the doorknob, a burst of raucous laughter sounded from the room beyond.

Six heads swivel to look at him as he enters the room. Roy jumps to his feet.

“Boss!” “Ed!” say Havoc and Roy simultaneously.

“Hi,” Ed replies, giving an embarrassed little wave.

Roy walks over to him, shielding him slightly from the rest of the people in the room. “What are you doing here? It’s a pleasure, of course.”

“I brought you lunch,” Ed grins.

Roy swoons, perennially theatrical. “My hero.”

He drops his voice to a murmur, mindful of all the ears that were definitely listening.

“How was your appointment with the psychotherapist this morning?”

“Good,” Ed flushes lightly. “She— you were right. It’s easier to talk to someone who understands. Plus, the new medication is working. It’s nice to not feel so anxious I’m chewing my face off anymore.”

He gestures proudly to his mouth, which Roy notices indeed bears the tight, shiny pinkness of healing skin.

“That’s wonderful, Ed. Oh, and the interview with ANAC last week— I never had a chance to ask you how it went.”

The pink glow of embarrassment adorning Ed’s face grows brighter. “I— told them I was dealing with shell shock and I— hadn’t been in a place to respond before now. The dean was really understanding about it. And they offered me the position!” His voice rose several octaves in his excitement, and Roy can see curious necks craning over Ed’s shoulder.

He wants nothing more than to embrace Ed as hard as he can, but he’s mindful that Ed might not want to reveal that much about their relationship to his team just yet. The fact that they’ve been talking for five minutes and an international incident hasn’t broken out is probably strange enough. So he settles for another superlative.

“That’s great news!”

“Ooh, that reminds me— I’m supposed to meet the dean to sign paperwork in—an hour,” Ed sucks air through his teeth, looking at his watch. “I don’t think I can stay for lunch after all.”

He sets the paper bag down on Roy’s desk and looks at him. Impulsively, he leans his head up slightly and kisses Roy. Quick, gentle— but undeniably a kiss.

“Bye,” he laughs, moving away too quickly for the other man to react. The embarrassed blush reignites and he can feel it spreading down his neck.

Once outside the door, he pauses. The scene feels familiar, yet entirely new. 

He listens.

“So, you and the Boss?” he hears Havoc ask.

“Yes,” he hears Roy reply, and he smiles despite himself. “Edward and I.”