Chapter Text
As they settle in, each on their side of Roy’s sofa, Roy thinks back to his relationship with Maes. It had been much like what he currently has with Ed, without one specific event to consider the start of their relationship. At some point over the course of a few weeks, they’d gone from friends to something more, only broken off because they’d been deployed to Ishval and Maes had fallen head over heels for Gracia.
Even in the time after that, after Ishval, when Roy had hated himself so much he’d taken to the bottle to attempt to cope with it, where he’d secretly donated a significant part of his income to charity in the hopes of maybe atoning for the atrocities he’d committed, he’d been drawn to Maes.
Gracia had accepted it, of course, had seen how codependent her boyfriend and his best friend were, with their blood pact and goals for the future. On the worst nights, when he’d been in the throes of withdrawal, Maes had snuck into the guest room of his own home, where Roy had been sweating and sick in bed, and he’d cuddled him; held him close to his chest to remind Roy that there was someone out there with his best interests in mind.
Ed feels so similar to Maes.
“I—” Roy feels his words fail him in real-time. There is so much he wants to say.
“Al said something to you while I was in the bathroom.” It’s not an accusation so much as it’s just a statement of fact. “And now you’re acting weird. I don’t like it when you act weird. Last time you were weird you were held at gunpoint by the literal Führer.”
“He … implied some things,” Roy finally gets out. “Regarding the nature of our friendship.”
“Oh,” Ed says, more of an exhale than an actual word. “Did he, now.”
Roy looks down at his hands. He’s not brave enough to meet Ed’s eyes, because Roy’s always been a coward. It doesn’t matter that he’s a fantastic politician or that he can bullshit himself out of almost every situation. He’s a wimp. It’s a fact as true as the sky being blue or grass green. The scars on his hands reaffirm this to him.
“I fell for you when you were in Creta,” he says, voice surprisingly steady. “How could I not have? You’re wonderful, Ed. You’ve grown into yourself and you’re … you’re stunning.”
“Is this a joke?” Ed asks, but it doesn’t sound like he believes it. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”
Roy shakes his head, and finally, through something akin to a miracle, he manages to meet Ed’s eyes. They’re wide, showing off the wonderful colour of his irises. The makeup is slightly smudged from a long day at work, but the way they outline his eyes makes Roy want to gather Ed up in his arms and hold him for the rest of their days.
Ed suddenly pinches himself, left hand on right arm, because that’s the arm that’s more sensitive, ever since he got it back. Roy avoids touching it at all, because he doesn’t want to overwhelm Ed. Even when he’d had to hold Ed all those months ago, where Ed had shook in his bed because the memories had taken hold of him, he’d been careful to not get skin on skin contact.
“This has to be a dream, then,” Ed declares. “There’s no way someone like you would fall for someone like me.”
And Roy realises exactly what the issue here is. It’s not about the fact that the attraction isn’t reciprocated. This is a case of Ed’s self-confidence, as good as Roy’s own, attacking him with vicious swipes at every thought that Ed has about the situation they’ve found themselves in.
“It’s not a joke or a dream,” he tells Ed, and suddenly it’s like he can breathe all over again. The fear lets go of his heart, and Roy moves across the span of the three-seater sofa so he can gather Ed into his arms. “There is no universe where I wouldn’t fall for you. What Alphonse said only gave me the strength to actually talk to you about it.”
“So he was meddling?” Ed says, and his laugh is broken, more disbelieving than despairing. “I knew that I talked about you too much in my letters. And here I’d tried to keep it to a minimum.”
“Very little gets past Alphonse, I fear,” Roy says. “He’s much like Riza in that regard. Besides, it wasn’t meddling so much as he was just reaffirming what I’d already noticed. He correctly observed that we were stuck in that murky middle ground between friendship and romance, and gave me the push to actually move us one way or another.”
“Of course,” Ed says, and he seems to sag into Roy’s embrace. “Of course he noticed. I thought I hid it well.”
“I hoped,” Roy says, “ever since we went to buy items for your apartment and you spoke to me in your native language. I hoped that it was something like a confession. And before then, I hoped that you returning my letters with as much enthusiasm as I’d written them, that you at least saw me as someone worth spending time with.”
Ed laughs. “Of course. I got over my weird thing about you years ago. It all clicked when Al got his body back, you know. When I was no longer feeling the emotions for two, or sustaining two bodies. I was so angry and stressed all that time, because I was literally keeping not only me, but also Al alive. I couldn’t think about anything, and you kept me at a distance and I didn’t know how to cope with that. Now I realised that you did it because you tried to shield me from the horrors of the military. I couldn’t appreciate it then, but y’know…”
“I dragged you into the dragon’s den,” Roy says. “I don’t regret it, because ultimately it helped you achieve your goals. But I could have shielded you better from what was happening. I tried to give you the most boring and least threatening missions I could, even if you would bitch at me about it for underestimating you.”
“I did bitch a lot, didn’t I?” Ed says. “I was a brat.”
Roy agrees with him. A lot of the time Ed had been infuriating, but it had been helpful. At some point Ed had moved away from actual contempt to something like playing a role. The homunculi had thought him and Ed playing on opposite sides, with them on the third side. They hadn’t suspected anything, and by the time they had discovered that Ed and Roy had been on the same side all along, it had been far too late to do anything about it.
“I didn’t fall for you until you went to Creta,” Roy confesses. “I promise I’m not some kind of creep. I didn’t wait for you to become legal.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Ed says. “Also figured out that your entire flirty thing was a farce, by the way. Wasn’t hard to tell that you used it as code. Nobody at your rank has time to sleep around with so many women. ‘Sides, I think Hawkeye would’ve killed you had you actually wined and dined and slept around with so many women. I love her.”
“You and me both,” Roy says. “They’re all my sisters, with a letter or two changed in their names. I didn’t want to actually put them on the government’s radar, but I suppose that it was common knowledge for the brass that I came from a less than illustrious background.”
“I’m glad that we can actually talk like this,” Ed says. “Feels a bit like pulling teeth, but I suppose that if we’re gonna, what, start an actual relationship? That we need to talk about stuff like this. You’re probably a stickler for communication, aren’t you?”
Roy shrugs and the movement transfers all the way into the way he’s holding Ed. “I don’t suppose I have much experience to draw on. I was only ever in one other relationship.”
Ed turns to look up at him. “Really? I thought it was all a joke. Don’t tell me it was Hawkeye. That’d be super awkward.”
He shakes his head, thinks back to the day where Maes had come to him and confessed that he’d fallen in love with a woman and hadn’t wanted to cheat on him. “No, I doubt she’s interested in men that way. Or in anyone, for that matter. It was Maes.”
Ed makes a noise of almost indignant surprise. “No way.”
“Yes, really.”
“Are we talking about the same Maes Hughes here?” Ed demands, but he sounds almost giddy with it. “Hughes who was absolutely obsessed with his wife and couldn’t shut up for two seconds about her, and then with Elicia. That’s the Hughes you dated?”
“Yes,” Roy says, and he navigates them so that he’s reclined on the sofa with Ed resting on his chest. If Ed finds the position uncomfortable or otherwise awkward, he doesn’t say anything. “It was for around two years around the time we were at the Academy. Towards the end of it he met and fell for Gracia and we amicably broke it off, though for a time it was almost like he was dating both of us.”
“Wild,” Ed says. “You mean that a person can be in a relationship with more than one person at a time?”
“Naturally,” Roy says. “Just because the societal standard is that there are two people in a relationship, and the standard prescribes a woman and a man, doesn’t mean that it has to be that way. When it came to me, Gracia and Maes, I suppose it was the two of them being romantically involved, whereas my relationship with Maes became something akin to queerplatonic — that is, something somewhere between romantic and platonic in nature. We frequently shared a bed and physical affection wasn’t uncommon between us.”
“Huh,” Ed says, and Roy can almost see the gears turning in his head. If there’s one thing he’s learnt about Ed over the years, it’s that he’s famously non-judgmental. His curiosity for learning supersedes everything, and once he’s acquired knowledge on a topic, he internalises it and reforms his worldview around it. “Yeah, I see that making sense.”
There’s a small pause as Ed chews on that new information. “I suppose that’s similar to what me and Greeling— that’s the name we used for Ling and Greed when they were in one body —had. I never want to date the guy, and it’s not like we kissed but. Out there in the wild, it was nice to just have someone there.” Ed exhales heavily. “I don’t know if that makes any sense. I’ve never told anyone else about it. ‘Cept Darius and Heinkel, because they were there with us.”
That small bit of jealously flares up in him again, and Roy bats at it, begging it to calm down. “I see,” he says, “yes I suppose that would make sense. I have had multiple of these queerplatonic relationships in my life — first with Maes, and then with Riza. It becomes hard to form normal relationships when your life is changed so much by—”
“—trauma,” Ed finishes. “Yeah. I get it. You know me.”
Roy holds onto him for a minute; holds him because that means that Ed can’t go anywhere and they can be just the two of them safely together.
“Just to make absolutely, painfully clear,” Ed starts. Roy looks down at him and he can’t resist lifting a hand to pull Ed’s bangs away from his face. He’d only recently learnt that Ed cuts them on his own; that he’s been doing it since he was five years old and nobody but him and his mother could do it quite right. If the way he’d found out was because of the stray hairs left in his sink, well, he’s never gotten particularly upset about such matters, not after being raised with a gaggle of sisters. “We’re dating now, right? That’s how this works?”
“I don’t think there are any rules,” Roy says, and he can feel his heartbeat speeding up. Based on how Ed almost nuzzles into his chest, he bets that Ed can feel it, too. “We don’t have to change anything if we don’t want to. We can keep at it just like we have over the past few months. With the dinners and the hanging out. Sleeping in the same bed and all that.”
“But this means that we can kiss, right?” Ed asks. “I kissed Ling once, and he was absolutely terrible at it. I hope you’re better.”
Roy laughs, and it’s enough to knock away any anxiety he might have been feeling. “Yes, darling, we can kiss now. There was nothing stopping us from kissing earlier, but if this is the permission you needed, you have it now. There are no rules telling us what we can or cannot do. There are, naturally, legal limits, such as the tax deductions that come with being married, but at this point and far into the future, they are irrelevant.”
“Yeah, no.” Ed scrunches his nose up. “Marriage sounds like a giant pain. I remember the one wedding we had in Resembool back before I joined the military. It makes more sense to do one giant wedding once a year than doing individual ceremonies for each couple. It’s still special for everyone, and it’s a lot of fun. But it sounds like such a pain. In Resembool it’s fine, ‘cause it’s not like you’re gonna invite out-of-towners. But we have social circles all over and if you’re gonna invite Amstrong you kind of have to invite Olivier, and if she comes she’s going to try stabbing you with her rapier.”
“It’s a risk I’m more than willing to take,” Roy says truthfully. “General Armstrong doesn’t scare me.”
Ed pokes him. “Sure she does. You can’t even say her first name without shuddering. I think she’s wonderful. Reminds me a lot of Riza, now that I think about it. I think they’d get on like a house on fire.”
Roy can’t help but actually shudder then. “If the two of them ever meet, I think the event we’ll be planning will be my funeral rather than my wedding. I don’t trust the two of them around each other.”
“Who knows,” Ed says, and it’s really astounding how quickly he internalises new information and learns how to use it to his advantage, “they might just get along the way we do. They could kiss, too, you know.”
That forces another laugh out of him. He’s laughed more in the past few months, since Ed returned to him, than he had in all the three years before it. Ed’s doing wonderful things to him, and Ed doesn’t even know, because if Roy tells him he’s going to get an automail knee to the crotch for ‘embarrassing him’.
“Perhaps,” he allows. A yawn escapes him. “I know that it’s still early, but I wonder if you’d be amenable to coming to bed with me? As you may have noticed, I give decent cuddles. I’ll brush your hair for you and give you a scalp massage, too.”
“Where the hell did you learn all that?” Ed asks, before he seems to get to the answer himself. “Stupid question, I know the answer to that. Your five million sisters.”
“Now that’s an exaggeration,” Roy says, playing along. “I believe I have twenty of them, but at some point I’ve almost lost count. There were about eight directly involved in raising me, and in later years girls younger than me have been brought into their midst. I’ll admit that I’m not as close to them as I am, for example, to Vanessa.”
“Vanessa features in your research,” Ed says. “I saw it on one of your notes like a billion years ago. She has to mean something really important. Is she oxygen?”
The brilliance of his young lover (and what a novelty it is to be able to call him that now) astounds Roy. “Yes,” he says. “She is. She was the one who raised me even if she’s only five years older than me. She wants to start her own branch now, moving into West City so that she can help monitor the border.”
“West City’s really far away,” Ed says. “You think you’ll be able to handle the distance to her?”
“Well, I handled being far away from you for years, so I think I’ll manage,” Roy says. “What’s the difference between West City and Creta, when you really think about it?”
He pulls Ed closer then, and drops a kiss onto the top of his head. “You’re wonderful,” he says, apropos of nothing. “Come with me to bed?”
“You already asked, asshole.” Ed’s tone is affectionate. “’Course I’ll come to bed with you. I have high expectations for your scalp massage and braiding technique. Nobody ‘cept for Al and Winry get the tightness right.”
“Of course, dearest,” Roy says, wiggling in the hope that it might help dislodge Ed so he can get up. It seems to work, and Ed sits up, taking a moment to let his blood pressure readjust to suddenly being in a sitting position. Roy recalls learning from Ed that both of the Elric brothers’ blood pressure issues had been exacerbated following the Promised Day.
Automail’s like free blood pressure medication, Ed’s voice echoes in his mind. Since I’ve lost one of the limbs, it doesn’t do as much for me as it used to do. I get dizzy, sometimes. But you don’t gotta worry about that. I’m fine.
“Are these pet names gonna be part of the deal with you?” Ed asks, standing and holding out a hand to help him up from the couch. Roy realises with a start that it’s the right one, the more sensitive one. That feels significant.
“I don’t know,” Roy says honestly. “With Maes, I didn’t. But with you, it feels almost natural. If it makes you uncomfortable, I will of course stop.”
Ed shrugs, an elegant movement that ripples across both of his shoulders and torso and Roy now feels like it’s within his rights to properly appreciate Ed’s body for what it is; impressive, strong, lithe and flexible. “I don’t mind.”
Roy holds out a hand for Ed to take. “Come on. I believe I promised you a hair-brushing.”
The trek upstairs is quick and before settling down into bed, Ed vanishes into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Roy takes the time to investigate the bedroom. It’s almost unnaturally clean, another part of his almost compulsive routine to keep stuff in order, a far cry from the dump of a place his old apartment had been. The Roy back then had been a slave to the bottle, and so to ward off the temptation of his old captor, Roy keeps his house in order.
It’s irrational, and Roy’s never really talked about it with anyone else. They might just see him as insane, and it’s already enough that he committed atrocities in Ishval.
“You’ve got that face again,” Ed declares as he enters the room. “You’re thinking too hard again.”
“I don’t have a ‘face’,” Roy says. “I only have my face, and I rather think that’s sufficient. Don’t you think?”
Ed throws himself down on the bed and bends down to take off his socks. “You’ve got the most faces of anyone I’ve ever met. You’ve got one face for work, one for each of the people you talk to, one for when you’re talking shit and terrible flirting with girls.”
Roy makes a face, then. “I’m very popular with the ladies, I’ll have you know.”
“Sure, sure, yeah,” Ed says. It’s clear he doesn’t believe him. “Did you forget already that you told me you’ve only ever had one relationship before and that more than half the people you go on dates with are your sisters? I don’t believe you for a second.”
“I’ll be right back, lovely,” Roy says, and he dips into the bathroom to gather up Ed’s hairbrush. He takes a moment to look at himself in the mirror. There’s a dopey smile on his face and Roy finds that he looks completely like an idiot. An idiot in love, to be fair, but an idiot nonetheless.
He returns to the bedroom to find Ed sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, taking the tie out of his hair and shaking it out. It must be freshly washed, fluffing up wonderfully and leaving it almost like a halo around his head, only made more radiant by the bedside lamp he’s turned on. He’s all precious materials, all silver and gold and diamond and amber, but Roy doesn’t think he’s ever seen Ed so willingly soft.
“It’s a good look seeing you in my bed,” Roy says, leaning across the door frame for a moment, content to observe Ed. “Would you like me to do your hair now?”
“Are you trying to woo me like a girl?” Ed asks, but there’s something odd in his tone when he says it. “You don’t have to woo me now that you’ve got me.”
“I’d like to do this right, even if we’re doing it our way,” Roy says, and he settles down on the bed behind Ed. He takes the brush to Ed’s hair and he’s surprised that it’s not all tangled and knotted despite being in a ponytail all day. “If you’d like me to woo you like a girl, I will. If you’d rather I keep it casual, I’d be delighted. Your happiness is most important after all.”
Roy lifts Ed’s hair and is delighted to see the flush appearing on the back of his neck. “Oh?”
“Shut up,” Ed says, and the flush darkens.
“It sounds like you might want to be wooed, then,” Roy says. He puts the hairbrush down on the sheets, and after being handed the hair tie, he starts dividing Ed’s hair into the parts he’d seen back when Ed had been younger. It takes a bit of trial and error, but eventually his muscle memory comes back into play, and he’s able to plait it with the same efficiency he’d done his sisters’ hair when he’d been younger.
“Absolutely not,” Ed says. “Like I said, I’m not a girl.”
“Of course, dear,” Roy says. “All you have to be is mine.”
Ed turns and gently pushes Roy back towards the pillows at the head of the bed. He settles in on Roy’s chest, much like he’d done on the sofa earlier. “Yeah, ‘course. ‘S long as you’ll have me.”
Roy’s arms come to rest around Ed. “A long time it is.”