Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Paperwork should be renamed work of the devil . It’s so dull at times Ed wants nothing more than to smash his head against his desk until he gets a concussion followed by a week off in recovery.

Unfortunately, a concussion would mean a visit either to the Central City Infirmary or the military medic bay. Paperwork can be so terribly dull at times. It’s a wonder Roy hasn’t like, banned it yet.

…as that would likely send the country into a state of emergency, Ed is sorta grateful he hasn’t. But, still. Fuck paperwork to every possible depth and crevice of every hell that exists.

There’s a lot of things that makes this day extraordinarily peculiar. First of all, there had already been coffee from his favourite coffee place on his desk when he had clocked in that morning (thanks Roy <3 … eugh). Second, lunch had been edible for once.

Two good things like that (both coincidentally in regard to edible substances) happening right after each other. There is something amiss and something is undoubtedly gonna turn this good weird-ass day into the embodiment of actual shit. Ed’s sure of it.

The office is also eerily quiet. Usually, Ed would have thought the apocalypse to be approaching or something in the same genre, but today he’s determined to enjoy and get the most out of it because he has a date— or something —with Roy. That is, if they both manage to get through the alarming amounts of paperwork that seems to only grow taller every time he looks at it. 

It’s a variety of stuff, honestly. One of the perks of being a state alchemist is that occasionally, he gets really fascinating cases that has him thinking and pondering and all that good brain power stuff that’s supposed to prevent, like, Alzheimer’s or something. Most of it is field reports, where the sender is unsure of thing x-y-et-cetera and those are the boring parts. The real treasures come with the rare Xingese-Amestrian translations he gets from his brother when certain parts of the poor poor Investigations department become too overworked.

Ed sighs and looks over at Hawkeye’s desk.

Hawkeye and Falman are usually the ones that sort the documents coming in based on a series of different factors.

His or Roy’s name can be found on some envelopes for documents and so they automatically go into their respective drawer-piles-document-storage-bins that are kept on the spare desk closest to the inner office. If it’s unnamed but translation stuff or anything , really, from Investigations, it goes into his pile as well, and if it turns out to not be his work he can hand it over to whoever will be the quickest with it. 

—Anyway, back to the eerie silence. Ed looks up when a hand waves in front of his face. It catches Ed so off-guard he accidentally scribbles over a part of the translation he’s been slaving over since eight that morning. 

“Godfuckingdammit,” Ed mutters before looking up to see Havoc standing over him, looking concerned for some reason or another. “You need anythin’?”

Havoc starts talking and then Ed realises why the office has been so quiet the last— hour ? —He stares at Havoc, trying to figure out what he’s saying based on how his mouth moves. He can lip read, and that’s not the issue. The problem is that he’s become so used to having his ears working with his eyes to pick up speech, but now— all of a sudden, it’s gone again .

Why, godfuck-why did his hearing aids have to break today, of all days?

Not that any other day had been more appropriate or fitting or better or anything of that sort. No, the issue is that it happened at all .

“I’ve been trying to get your attention for at least a couple minutes now,” Havoc says, and in his head, where no one else can hear him, Ed swears, hard and viciously at his dumb hearing aids for giving in at eleven on a Tuesday morning.. “You looked really focused on that document. You really get so invested in the translation? ‘Cause it doesn’t look all that interesting to me.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, trying to gauge his loudness by the miniscule twitches in Jean’s face.

God fuck . He hasn’t been in this predicament since … for a while now, considering Winry always insisted on replacing or checking up on his hearing aids every time they met up. 

Bless her. 

The team doesn’t know he is deaf (even though he isn’t , because there’s a distinct difference between hard of hearing and deaf, something he had only recently found out while digging through the medical part of the state library because he was bored , and perhaps that was for the best, because as of this time, only four people, himself included, knew of the entire thing). 

To be entirely honest, the terminology doesn’t matter all that much to Ed, since it’s just someting he lives with and over time, the fact has just fit itself into every nook and cranny of his dumb, miserable life and stuck. ‘Deaf’ is the more commonly known word and while it might not be the more accurate label or erm at all, in an unprofessional environment, it should be more than enough. 

Everyone knows that he is a double amputee, that he doesn’t have a right arm or a left leg below the knee, because it isn’t like he goes around hiding his automail or denying its existence. Besides, and Truth help him if this ever got out to Winry, automail is kinda cool as fuck. Hearing aids aren’t cool. They just show that there’s something wrong with him that’s invisible and that can actively inhibit his effort in being a part of society. 

People would probably just think that the Gate had taken his hearing too, and continue on with their lives, but— but that hadn’t been what had happened. 

It had been an illness. They hadn’t known which at the time, but it had come and gone within the span of a single week. A single week that had changed his life forever.

It was just after he turned six, early in the spring of 1905 and he’d spent all day in the open fields, playing with the other children that inhabited Resembool’s sunflower plains. 

It had started out innocently enough— a small fever, lethargy and no appetite. His mum had thought it to be the flu and had put him to bed after making him drink two big glasses of water. It would wake him up in a few hours, she had said, and it would help wash out the illness from his system.

Even now, Ed isn’t fully sure if that’s a thing. 

Two nights later, Ed had awoken to the worst headache his poor six-year-old brain had ever been subjected to. There seemed to be pressure everywhere, pushing from the back of his head, clamping in from the sides and tonnes upon tonnes of concrete seemed to have magically materialised on top of his head and his forehead to press him down towards the bedsheets.

He had screamed in agony that night, had awoken Al with the noise, and he had stumbled over, on small legs up into his bed and Al had hugged him as best as four-year-old Al could. The thought had been nice, although the hug itself did little to comfort him. 

“Mum!” Ed had called out desperately. “Mum!”

She had run into the room, dressing gown flaring out behind her and then it had happened. The pain had increased to greater levels than Ed thought possible and then there had been a kind of a popping sound, a small odd feeling passing straight between his ears and then— well, then he’d slumped forward onto Al and fainted. 

His hearing had been almost gone after that. The first two months had been hell for the lack of a better word to describe the entire time spent in silence. 

At least he had recovered quickly from the actual mutant-cold-flu-hearing-stealing thing. 

Granny Pinako, along with Mr and Mrs Rockbell, had worked for those two months to make hearing aids for him. At first, Ed had scoffed at the idea, but when he had realised that it would mean life would go almost back to normal again, he’d warmed up to of needing help to be a part of any group of people he’d ever be with. 

The trial period had been the worst, because there was first the fitting of the hearing aid, figuring out the best model for him to give him the best chance at being ‘normal’. The word disgusted Ed. There was nothing ‘normal’ about him now.

But even though Mr and Mrs Rockbell had been quick, Ed, Al and Winry had still spent the days with Trisha learning sign language from a book Granny had gone to East City to buy them.  

Ed shakes his head, forcing the memory along with the emotion. Not that it’d help or anything, since thoughts aren’t physical matter and therefore can’t be moved by the laws of gravity or movement. 

“Xingese is really different from Amestrian,” Ed says. Suddenly speaking is a bit of a challenge because sure , having hearing aids isn’t the same as having normal hearing. Of course it isn’t. There’s only so far machinery can go to replace bits and pieces of the (admittedly flawed) human body. And now, without these dumb things, he can’t hear his own voice. “The sentence structure is different. Some of the words translate differently based on context and, you should’ve realised by now, they use an entirely different set of characters.”

Havoc nods and then something seems to catch his attention and he looks up and towards the door to the hallway. If there’s a Private or something there with another dumb, unreasonably tall unwanted pile of reports Ed might just … vanish into thin air and poof back into existence in Resembool where he can get his damn hearing aids replaced. Then everything can be fine and dandy again. Or something. 

Havoc is talking with someone that’s inside the office now. Currently unknown person is behind Ed, because some brilliant idiot had determined that half of their desks be placed to that the person sitting by them would be back-against-the-door. If they’d cared enough, moving them could be done in a matter of minutes but … that was … effort. And they were already severely backlogged with work. 

So.

The unknown someone taps on his shoulder, slightly off-beat. It’s a telltale sign, something of acknowledgement.

Al.

Ed turns and sure enough, there his brother is, dressed in the military blues he’s only recently started wearing himself. 

He feels a bit dumb now. He knows how to draw from Qi, knows how to sense the presence of other souls and stuff like that from the time he spent on the run with Greeling and the chimeras plus some time spent with Mei Chang after the Promised Day. 

The thing about Qi, the thing that makes it complicated, is that the later in life you start to learn how to use it to your advantage, the more it drains you when you use it to identify your surroundings. And so Ed only really uses it when he has to, usually in times of battle.

Like everything else, it’s a skill in the end. Practice makes perfect and all that shit, but Ed doesn’t really have the time for it. It’s something he should take more time for, perhaps on the weekends so that the after-effect of feeling terribly drained wouldn’t impact anything more important than, like, groceries . 

The expression he sees on Al’s face is basically mostly the same he feels residing on the heart of Al’s sleeve. Reading Al has always been easy, but recently he’s become even more open of his feelings, in particular the positive ones now that the persistent trauma of both being trapped in cold, emotionless metal and the entire Promised Day ordeal is slowly fading to become a part of the constant background noise grating at the back of their minds. 

And Al being here at this time is— perfect. There’s no other word that perfectly encompasses the strange concoction of immense relief, anxiety and some thing that can only be described as a slightly unique-to-this-situation form of ‘existential stress about the unexpected sorta-loss of one of his senses’. 

His brother is a saving grace, no doubt about it, when he comes up from the Investigations department to check on him. 

If there’s ever been a god in this world, the biggest thing the god must have done like ever , is bringing Al to him. 

The team doesn’t know. Tough shit. He needs a bullet-proof way to communicate with Al. Shit’s gone down and he needs to get that across to Al, needs to make him understand that they have a situation™ and that it needs to be addressed like, right now . 

Ed raises his hands and they’re shaking— surely that’s just a trick of his mind? —and for the first time in front of anyone but the people he considers family, both in blood and not, he signs:

: Al, my hearing aids broke .:

Al’s expression is sort of priceless, but also disturbingly in tune with Ed’s own turbulent emotions. The thing is, Alphonse can also be so amazingly extra because he actually claps his hands over his mouth and lets out a small gasp. At least, that’s what Ed thinks he does judging by his brother’s usual reactions and the way this one in particular is playing out. 

So much for being subtle. 

: Really?! : 

Jeez, Al , Ed thinks. If anyone can make sign language sound panicked and composed at the same time, it’s you .

: You have to go tell Roy to give you some time off to go get them fixed. If you’d like I can go call Winry so that she’s aware and everything. :

One.

Two.

Three.

And there Al’s brain seems to catch onto the fact that he’s just asked Ed to drop the bomb of the century onto poor poor overworked Roy that he was supposed to be going out for coffee with later today to reward themselves for working hard. 

“He doesn’t know,” Al says, a bit dumbly and perhaps a bit … flat. As if he’s only really realised how big this entire thing is. 

Ed is painfully aware of the fact that the whole office (apart from Hawkeye, who is likely at least pretending to do her work, bless her) is watching them intently like it’s the national sport of Amestris or something. This is all very — annoying, there’s no better word for it really — because all Ed wants to do is to get about a billion hugs from Roy because his hugs are really fucking good. After that, pack a bag with the overnight essentials and jump on the first train to Resembool.

There only goes two trains in the general direction of Resembool from Central a day, and that’s the train to East City. From there, there’s a connecting train to Resembool.

The only reason, as far as Ed is aware, for there to be a high-quality, fully functional railroad from East City to a backwater town like Resembool is because since the villagers there are mainly sheep farmers and it’s apparently where the military gets the wool for its uniforms from. 

The brief thought that Ed has potentially met the likely multiple sheep whose wool his uniform is made from flashes through his brain and why the fuck is that something he thinks about when he’s sorta in a moderately major crisis involving something just sort of health related ?

He stands up from his chair, nudges it with his foot until the uncomfortable piece of furniture is at least somewhat pushed in towards his desk and in the process, signs to Al that he should just go back to work before Hughes goes looking for him. 

There— 

There really is no good way to do this. But— 

Rip the bandaid off as fast as possible instead of dragging out the pain.

Isn’t that a saying he’s heard before?

Ed sighs heavily and impatiently tugs out he hair tie keeping his braid (that’s done an excellent job of hiding his hearing aids all these years) intact. Then, while not looking at anything in particular, he pulls up his air in a bun that is sure to reveal the small intricate pieces of technology that is BTE hearing aids. 

He removes them, because it’s not like they’ll do anything at this point. If the team hadn’t gotten it before , then—

Well, then they should certainly understand now. 

Al’s Qi tugs at him for a second, and it’s enough for Ed to look at him. 

: I’m coming with you, Brother ,: Al signs. : If you’ll be a dear and let me go to my office for a few minutes and I’ll pack up some of my work and talk to Colonel Hughes. I’m sure he’ll understand if we explain the circumstances. Come on, let’s go talk to the General .:

It’s funny, Ed thinks, how he up until recently always referred to Roy when signing as ‘bastard’ but now he occasionally slips up and signs ‘sunshine’ instead. Alphonse, who had never even signed the word bastard in his life, had spelt out the name until they’d coined a sign for his name, consisting of the sign for ‘fire’ and the letter r. 

The door to Roy’s office is closed, but Ed opens it (because he’s too nice to kick down the door to his boyfriend’s office right before revealing like, the biggest fucking secret of his life and then asking for sick leave). 

“Hey,” he says when both him and Al have managed to get into the office and Al has closed the door. He strides up to the desk, trying to act like himself even though he’s painfully aware of how little he can hear. It’s just… quiet . He drops his hearing aids on top of the report Roy is reading. Somewhere at the back of his mind, Ed realises that this is one he’s written. “I need a week or so of sick leave. I gotta go back to Resembool and have Winry fix or replace these.”

Ed looks at Roy’s face, gauges his reaction, watches his boyfriend catch onto the evidence in front of him and all the facts attached. He should really get Roy a corkboard, a camera and some red thread for his birthday so that he’d be able to see what goes on inside Roy’s head. 

The thought amuses him for a second. 

“You’re deaf?” Roy asks, and Ed doesn’t blame him for saying that. He has Al at the corner of his eyes, and— and that’s the only reason why he has a guaranteed chance to get what Roy had been saying. That— is a bit sad.

“I’m hard of hearing,” Ed explains, and by now he is actually really uncomfortable with speaking because Ed can’t hear himself and what if his speech is slurred or the volume is off or anything like that? “There’s a difference. Don’t worry too much about it; I don’t. So sure, deaf. But yeah, sick leave.”

Roy just looks at him and there’s a fond smile appearing and oh dear lord , how dare he be so pretty and beautiful and amazing and—

And how is Roy his ?

Al’s moved behind Roy, muttering to Roy what Ed guesses is a brief explanation. Roy caps his pen and stands, out of the way so that Ed still has easy access to Al’s hands. “I think,” he says, and Ed’s heart does a sort of… drop in his chest and it bounces back and forth between his organs until it hits and lands somewhere near his pelvis. “That it might be time for a vacation. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like to come with you.”

They’ve been dating just over three months and sure, they’ve been on a few dates and— kissed. A lot. Just those small pecks of the kind primary school children would because they’d established early on to talk it slow because of a whole filing cabinet of reasons.

Ed only now realised that, perhaps all along, it’s been this holding them back. This forcing Ed to have them take it slow.

Ed leans forward and pecks Roy’s nose. “‘Course, if you don’t mind insane Winry, and all the crazy for like, ages or something until I’m not a fucking cripple anymore.”

: You two are disgusting. : Al declares, but he’s grinning and what a lovely grin it is. Ed flips him off and turns to look at the clock hanging to the right of the door. It’s just before lunch. No wonder Al had come up to see him; he’d likely gone to ask if Ed would want to go to a café or something for lunch.

“I think we can take the train five past four,” Ed says, without turning around. If Al needs him to see, he’ll just make his Qi flare.

That had been something they had worked ridiculously much on after the Promised Day, since it was a pretty decent communication method, and didn’t drain nearly as much as other Qi things had a tendency to do.

There’s a small part of Ed that wants to pump his hands in the air and be visibly elated that he’s a) going back to Resembool, because he really does love the place even if living there is not in his plans like, ever and b) he’ll be spending more time surrounded by his favourite people.

“See ya, bastard,” he says to Roy. “Meet us at the train station at ten to four, will ya?”

He doesn’t hear Roy’s goodbye.

It isn’t before they’re situated at the train, in a private cabin because apparently having a high-ranked officer with them has some advantages, that Ed realises that something about this trip is— odd?

He’s brought with him all the translation documents that had been in his inbox when he had left the office. Partially, it’s because they’re good practice for language and partially it’s because Ed knows , instinctively, that even though this is apparently now a ‘vacation’ and all that crap, Roy has smuggled with him at least half of what had been on his desk.

He’s a helpless workaholic, alright. 

Something nudges him and Ed looks up to see Roy’s fond expression so close to him. Their placement on the same bench had been entirely deliberate, with Al sitting right opposite Ed to allow for easy signing. 

This is … going to be an exercise for both of them. They rarely sign nowadays, and never ever in public. 

Not— not that this private cabin is public or anything but— it was more the entire principle of the thing, that they were trying to keep his disability hidden, even though what made them do it wasn’t because Ed was ashamed or anything. 

They just— they don't really depend on sign nowadays.

‘Sides, Al hadn’t been able to sign in the armour and though it had been a few years since he’d gotten his warm, living, breathing body back, he was still learning. They were always learning. 

: Why didn’t you tell me right away? I understand that you didn’t when you were twelve, but couldn’t you have when we got together? : Al signs, and Ed realises that the vibrations he felt in his chest just a second ago had been Roy talking. He sighs heavily and rubs his face. 

“Shame,” Ed says quietly. “I didn’t want to be disqualified from the State Alchemy testing and I was so used to just passing as a fully hearing person in public since I had my hearing aids.” Ed sees Al’s eye twitch, and so that must mean that his voice is gone to hell again. “Sorry about my voice by the way. ‘S probably crap since I can’t hear it. I don’t like talking, when I can’t hear anything, so this is fucking shitty.”

Ed can feel Roy’s laugh and it sends pleasant vibrations through his entire body. It adds to the sensation of the train moving, lulling him into a sense of security that is almost entirely authentic. 

If Ed had wanted to, he could’ve held an entire conversation with Roy relying solely on lip-reading, but even that had that margin of error Ed is not quite willing to deal with yet. 

: How did you lose your hearing? Was it the Gate that took it? :

“No,” Al answers for him and Ed grins; he loves that kid. He’s such a dear for singing along with talking to Roy because then the both of them can follow the conversation with little issue. “Brother got ill.”

Ed snakes further into Roy’s side because he’s in civvies and he’s gorgeous and handsome as hell and besides, warm . Warm is good. The vibrations from him speaking is just an added bonus to calm down the dumb pseudo-anxiety his brain is so intent on channelling right now. 

Roy’s head leans down to rest on his and Al’s Qi sorta— does that happy-jittery-dancing thing that is both adding to his mood but also resulting in Al getting glared at quite viciously (at least judging by the usual standard of glares directed to his little brother.)

:I said it earlier,: Al signs with one hand as he reaches into his bag with one hand and pulls out a folder of paperwork. The signing itself is a bit questionable but Ed’s had enough practice to get his brother’s pseudo-signing at least, like, eighty-five percent of the time. :But you two are disgustingly cute. It’s lovely to see you happy, though, Brother.:

Al hands him the folder and Ed groans. He releases his hands to sign, : Is this all seriously just for me? Is the Investigations department trying to kill me? : He gently elbows Roy. “Your best friend should be convicted with attempted first-degree murder ‘cause I keep getting all their paperwork and it’s ridiculous. The papers I have in my bag alone’s gonna take days to complete and that’s if I do the Amestrian translations in shorthand. Goddammit, Roy — don’t you laugh at me!”

They’re an hour and a half from East City when Al looks up at Roy, all serious or something. 

Ed’s been half asleep on his lap for the better part of an hour or two and Al looks pensive when he meets Roy’s eyes. “He hasn’t told you anything about it,” Al says. It’s not a question. 

“No,” Roy admits. “Would you be able to explain anything? It’s not that I want to impose on his privacy or anything, but I haven’t really—” he gestures with one hand while the other cards absentmindedly through Edward’s loose hair. “I don’t know very much about deafness in itself, nor how it affects people and the community around it.”

“Of course,” Alphonse says, looking hesitant for a moment as he lets his eyes drift out to look at the passing, blurry landscape. “Right after Brother turned six, he fell … ill. We still don’t know what it was, not even today. It behaved like a common case of the flu— he was always tired and didn’t eat properly. Those few first days of Brother’s illness were our last days going to school. After he got better, we started learning on our own at home, since there was no way for the teachers to properly communicate with Brother after he lost his hearing.”

Al sniffs and grabs for something in his jacket. “Sorry,” he says with a weak laugh as he wipes at his eyes. “It’s a bit of a sensitive topic.”

Roy holds up a hand. “Don’t apologise. It’s fully understandable.”

“Anyways.” Al folds the handkerchief back up in a neat little square and tucks it back into his pocket. “One night — it must have been a migraine or something — Brother just woke up screaming his throat hoarse. Then he passed out and didn’t wake up again before dinner the next day, so he was probably out for a good twelve hours. Then— his hearing was more or less gone.”

Ed turns on Roy’s lap and presses his face into Roy’s stomach with a contented sigh. Roy looks down at him fondly and extracts a few stray pieces of hair from their temporary residence in Edward’s mouth. 

“Ed isn’t deaf,” Al says. “He told you that earlier. I suppose you can just use deaf, though. Brother doesn’t really care, but if you want to get the medical terminology for the condition right, it’s not ‘deaf’. Brother is hard of hearing. The difference between the two has something to do with how and how much sound can be picked up in which way. He’s able to hear some things if the sound is loud enough, but without hearing aids, Brother can’t keep up with a conversation unless he has some means of alternative communication in the form of lip reading, sign language or writing.”

“I’m not saying this to sound condescending in any way,” Roy says slowly, cautiously. “But I really do feel like the two of you have been dealt too shitty cards. I—” he stops and wonders how the hell to approach this topic. “I want him to have it better. I want him to be happy and I don’t want him to suffer unnecessarily. I’m scared I’m not going to be enough for him. He’ll tire of me, or my personal demons will end up driving him away from me.”

“You’re good enough for him,” Al promises and something soft flickers over his face before the serious expression is back. “I need to tell you some things, because I know that you and Brother literally haven’t even spent a night together nor have you ever been staying with us in Resembool, and you’d be better off knowing some shit.”

Roy’s gone back to petting Ed’s hair and from the way Ed is moving a bit too much, Roy guesses he’s slowly waking up. “Of course.”

Alphonse’s expression is tense, and oh lord , is it going to be this bad? “Brother and Winry can fight a lot. I suppose, ‘bicker’ is the better way of describing it and usually it’s all good since it mostly revolves around unimportant stuff or the usual ‘you didn’t take care of your automail’ or ‘you never call’ talk. Sometimes, though, it can get a bit out of hand. Winry can— get really mean when she’s angry. She doesn’t mean to and she always apologises, but since the three of us are so close, she knows exactly which points are Brother’s weakest, and when she gets angry, which sometimes is his fault, she deliberately prods at them, you know?”

Roy can’t help but frown and he doesn’t realise he’s knitted his fingers too tightly into Edward’s hair before the victim of his subconscious' actions hisses, sighs and goes back to curling up and burrowing his face into Roy’s stomach. 

He stares down at Ed and can’t help but grin a little, although the frown is soon back in place. “They seem to do alright. A little temperamental, both of them. Is it a Resembool-thing and you just so happen to be an anomaly?”

Al laughs softly. “No, no. They grew up around each other. I think that’s reason enough. And I’m not much of an anomaly. My temperament just— doesn’t appear until need be. I have done my fair share of yelling too, but I tend to choose better times and places than them. I don’t pick half as many fights either, so that might be another major reason. That’s not the thing I wanted to bring to light, though. I suppose you remember how you felt when your sight was taken from you by the Gate during the Promised Day?”

A white nothingness with a — something standing in front of a tall stone gate, smirking at him before being sucked into a whirlwind of sound and images.

His head feeling like it would explode with the knowledge being crammed into it.

Falling and hearing Edward screaming his title. Seeing nothing.

Being hospitalised for two weeks unable to use his hands, and without sight.

Feeling trapped, his world nothing more than the bed he was resting on or Riza’s arm when she led him to the en suite bathroom.

“Lost,” Roy says, voice faint. “I felt like I’d lost the grasp on the world around me, and in a way like I didn’t fit in anywhere. Society values sight too much for a blind person to properly fit.”

“Exactly. Brother gets a bit like that whenever he doesn’t have working hearing aids. In a way, he’s sort of like an orphaned duckling. You need to be aware of that, especially since he’s in Resembool in the first place, Winry will likely want to take a thorough look at Ed’s arm and leg too. I guess you can imagine how hard it’ll be on Ed to be without all three at once, which is likely what will happen because it’s more efficient.”

“We’ll find a way around the issue,” Roy says with the fake confident voice he’s grown to default to whenever uncertainty rules the conversation. “If we can overthrow a government, two missing limbs and a sense must be doable.”

Chapter Text

When they get off the train in Resembool, it’s Al who leads the way up to the Rockbell home. Roy remembers a time one decade ago, when he had first met these two broken boys.

One trapped in armour, another missing two limbs and with dead eyes. 

The same person who is now holding his hand; a tight grasp that under normal circumstances should be considered painful. Now, however, it’s a tight, mutual promise. Roy holding onto Ed, reminding him of the good things and helping him stay anchored to this plane of existence. Edward, in return, carrying him forth with the confirmation that he’s welcome here and not imposing on something too personal for Roy to witness. 

The first thing Roy notices, as they approach the house, is a dog with an automail leg getting up from a spot by the door. It starts barking and Al crouches down and calls for the dog.

“That’s Den,” Edward says quietly. “Granny’s dog. She really, really likes Al.”

Judging by how Al is currently laying on the ground laughing with dog spit covering the better part of his face — yeah, Roy doesn’t doubt Ed in the slightest.

“Edward!” A voice calls and Roy’s eyes are drawn to Winry Rockbell standing on the porch. Roy nudges Ed and he looks up, instantly adapting an expression screaming ‘oh shit’.

She comes down to them and takes an assessing glance over Edward. “This is a surprise. You didn’t say you were coming.” She looks to him. “General Mustang.”

“Ms Rockbell,” he says in return. “Please do feel free to drop the formalities, however; I’m currently off-duty.”

“Brother’s hearing aids broke,” Alphonse says helpfully from where he’s sitting cross-legged scratching Den’s ears. “General Mustang decided to accompany us here since he only got informed of the circumstances a day or so ago. He is dating Brother, after all.”

The expression on Winry’s face is … for the lack of a better word, priceless . It appears that Edward has, in fact, not told miss Rockbell of his current relationship status. 

“Oh,” She says, voice a bit… flat. “Oh. Let’s— let’s go inside so I can take a look at them then.”

Granny meets them at the door with a frown Ed can only call calculating. Right.

: So ,: Winry signs and says, although Ed can’t exactly hear her. : Did they just break or were you out doing stupid things? :

: No stupid things, : Ed promises. He quickly gestures to Roy in a way where Al will see it and likely translate for him, since, honestly, it would be pretty stupid for Winry to just repeat everything he said before responding to it and— yeah. : Unless you count translating shit stupid. I was just sitting in the office doing some work for Investigations since they’re like, super-overworked and I thought for a moment that people were just unusually focused or something or I’d worked myself into that Zone thing again Al keeps going on about. I didn’t notice anything was off until Havoc tried to get my attention and it was just— quiet. :

Winry comes up behind him and pushes his hair away to look at them. He’d put them back in— Ed’s not exactly sure why . Probably some stupid shit about being attached to them. 

For a moment, when she removes them to study them up close, there’s a faint tug in his stomach, but it’s gone too fast for Ed to figure out why the hell it happened. 

: They seem to have just worn out on their own. These are the ones from right after Al got his body back, right? : Winry places them on the table and pulls out a pen and a notebook from some pocket in her working pants. : I’ll just have to make a new pair. Any colour preference? :

Ed looks at Roy from the corner of his eyes. The cat’s out of the bag now — good , it never even deserved to be in there in the first place — so… so what if he chooses something more noticeable? So what if he chooses something he wants, something that he can make a part of himself rather than the plain grey he’s always favoured before because it easily faded into— something and didn’t stand out.

: Red. : he signs. There might just be a grin on his face when he signs and says. : I’ll be badass. Grey’s so boring. Think you can match my coat ?”

Winry glances at it. It’s hanging by the door, black flamel distorted by the way the fabric folds. : I’ll do my best. : She promises, smile present. That’s a… relief? There’s always the chance that behind it, there’s a big, ugly ball of … something he probably should be scared of. : It’ll take a couple days, that’s for sure. I’m sure that if you’d like, Granny can take a look at your leg and we’ll get two out of three done before looking at your arm. It’s the fastest option. :

There’s a fear lodged in the base of Ed’s throat. Something dark and stingy, with claws and potentially fangs telling him that Roy surely will mind, surely will object to actually seeing the recipient of his affections broken down, with pieces missing all over. 

Logically, somewhere up in a small crevice in his brain, Ed knows that that is a fat load of bullshit, because this man— his man? —is a fucking romantic with no regard to Ed’s emotional wellbeing. 

Wait.

He is , and that’s the thing. Roy just seems to be obsessed with killing him by using sweet talk and lunch break walks and trips to a cafe and going on yet more walks on the weekends or unnecessarily long talks in his office, discussing whatever the topic(s) of the day happens to be. 

It’s a beautiful kind of demise.

: Sure. I don’t think we can afford to be gone from Central for too long. There’s so much damn work you have no idea. I keep having to pull all-nighters and it’s the fucking worst. :

He can see Al’s grin, which calls for a small kick to his brother’s shin. 

: Hey! : Al signs. : You have no right to kick me! I didn’t do anything. :

: You. : Ed signs flatly. : Were laughing at the workload I have because of your department. It’s all your fault. I didn’t know Hughes was allergic to paperwork but he seems to have caught the allergy from this bastard. : He gestures in Roy’s direction. : I swear some of his paperwork gets into my pile. It’s a conspiracy between those two bastards. :

: So ,: Winry signs tensely as he jumps up and sits down on the workbench she points at. : You and General Mustang. Why didn’t you tell me, Ed? :

Ed looks away, tries to formulate a response that will keep her from being angry — not that she should be, she’s crushing on Alphonse to the point that her heart must be suffering quite some strain but for some reason, he still goes quiet when thinking about it. : It’s not that serious yet. We’ve literally only gone on a few dates and that’s it. Taking it slow or some crap like that. I — well, I guess, I was sort of, in the beginning, waiting for it all to fall apart, I guess? :

: You are an idiot, : Winry signs angrily just as Granny walks into the workshop. : That man has fallen face-first onto concrete hard for you. Don’t you see how he looks at you? :

: Get your face outta my love life, Winry, : He signs with a frown. : I know, okay. I, okay, so I was literally just waiting for the entire ‘so I’m deaf or something’ cat to get out of the damn bag and now that it is, all is fine. Fine, Winry. Can you — please make me a new pair of hearing aids. I hate not hearing shit. :

: Yes, yes, : Winry signs with one hand, already digging into a drawer with the other, looking for something. : Did these bother you at all, or can I make them the same size and fit, just with different casing? : She looks up to see him nodding. : Okay, good. Let Granny take your leg and we’ll try to get it worked out. Go sit in the kitchen. Make yourself some coffee or something. You need it; it looks like you got dragged along by the train rather than sitting in it. :

Removing either of his automail limbs were always a fucking pain, no matter how long he’d dealt with the limb in question. The sharp shock, the weak current of pain racing through the bone marrow all the way up to his hip … it wasn’t something Ed thought he’d ever really get used to. 

Winry snaps her fingers in front of him and Ed looks at her, still biting his lip. : Since it’s only a checkup, I’m sure that you’ll get your leg back tomorrow. Granny knows what she’s doing. :

: I know, : he argues, but he does smile faintly as the replacement is attached to his port. : Want me to bring you anything? :

When she shakes her head he eases himself down off the counter and after taking a second to find the balance when his legs are no longer the same length, he wobbles out of the room in the hunt for the elixir of life. 

A sheet of paper followed by a pencil slides into Ed’s field of vision. He’s sitting at the kitchen table staring at — something. He’s not exactly sure what. He’s not sure it even really matters. He’s trapped in his own mind and body, held hostage by the lack of one sense and now his leg. Sure, he can walk to the other end of Resembool, into the fields where sheep roam, waiting for their eventual demise.

Ed looks at the paper and the perfect, pale hand resting right next to a line of perfect, even cursive. Are you okay?

He glances at Roy, one eyebrow raised. Roy, better referred to as an actual child , nods to the paper and mimics writing. 

i dunno , he scribbles, taking care to at least make it legible. sorta sucks that i can’t hear your voice. it’s actually pretty nice to listen to so long as you don’t go about sprouting actual bullshit.

And there’s truth in that statement. Sometimes — okay , pretty often, he’s made up some excuse with no real merit to it just to be able to sit in Roy’s office listening to his voice. It’s not really eavesdropping since he never really spared it any attention save for picking up the ups and downs of his voice. 

I’ve asked your brother to teach me sign language. I want to learn from you too. Especially name signs, since when I asked Alphonse about it he only smiled and told me to find you. Whatever have you taken to calling me?

Oh. Ed snickers and steals a glance up at Roy, watching the expression turn into one of resigned amusement. He places his right hand over Roy’s before grabbing the pen again with his left. 

when i first started in the military, we had to find a name for you without spending too much time being nice or considerate, since at that time we didn’t really give a fuck about you, so one day i just signed ‘colonel bastard’ and it just sorta stuck? Al refused to ever call you bastard, so he just went around signing ‘colonel’ or some finger-spelt variation of your name until we actually made a proper one. 

Could you teach/show me? I’d like to at least know yours, Alphonse’s and mine, even though in the hopes that it won’t be something I’ll have to use too often. 

Ed can hear the man smirking when he reads the next line— which is impressive, considering that he can’t even hear him. 

Although, it would prove useful to have silent screaming matches in the office. It would certainly do some good to lessen the chance of a formal reprimand from higher-ups.

you’re such a weasel, you bastard . 

But he does grab both of Roy’s hands and slowly makes them form first the sign for the letter ‘r’ and then the sign for fire. ‘Roy’, he mouths, repeating the motions a few times. Then, he follows up with his own sign, followed by Alphonse’s. 

This is — fucking great. Something; a tiny iota of his being is trying to tell him that this is terrible, that he’s letting someone too far in. But this — it brings a peaceful sort of calm over him and then he has to stifle a laugh. He has managed to drag Roy Mustang, City Boy supreme, into the countryside where really few people live and currently they’re sitting in the most stereotypical fucking countryside kitchen ever , what, with the red and white checkered tablecloth and an open window revealing a meadow and the occasional sheep. 

This is beautiful, and perhaps, he doesn’t feel like it’s the end of the world every time this happens. Ed’s never been good at slowing down, never been good at just pausing and sidestepping in the middle of the track to catch his breath and appreciate the view around him. 

The key to survival isn’t to look around and think, it’s to run and hope that you get to a safe place before your energy runs out.

Something comes to mind. They’ve been slow-moving. Stationary, some might say. Paranoid? Stupid. Doomed to fail, just because — what? They hadn’t fucked yet? Was that modern indicator of a successful relationship? If you didn’t fuck someone every-so-often, there was something fundamentally wrong with you, but if you spread your legs too much, too often in the wrong way, with the wrong people or even at the wrong time of the day then you were whatever variation of ‘whore’ best fitting at the time?

since you’re staying here with us , Ed scribbles. we have to figure some stuff out. i’m sure that if you’d rather not share a room with anyone, we can deal with that, like having Winry bunk in our room and have you take hers. that’d be fine. or— 

Ed hesitates, unsure of whether he should even dare to suggest this. if we do some basic transmutation, my bed would easily fit two people. only thing is that you’d also have to deal with Al sleeping in the same room. it’s your choice really and you don’t gotta answer right away. i needed to mention it, s’all. Al told me to take it up with you earlier and yeah. it’s all up to you and Al doesn’t mind either way. like his only comment was— 

Ed drops the pen and blushes furiously. Al had levelled him with a neutral look and said, “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do outside of Roy’s apartment when you two are alone.”

Don’t do anything inappropriate? Don’t worry, darling, that I‘d want to reserve that for another time and place when we’re both ready and consenting. And even then, I’d like to take my sweet time with you and do it properly. 

How the actual fuck does Roy make words look seductive? There has to be something — in the way he slants the words or something — to differentiate it from his usual neat scrawl.

Ed claps and touches the tips of his fingers to the page, smudging the ink beyond legibility before letting the paper twist and flutter into the shape of a paper crane.

“You,” Ed says quietly. “Are a menace to all of society. ‘M gonna go find Al. Lemme know when you’ve decided where you’ll sleep.”

And because he’s a decent human being, he leans forward and kisses Roy, soft and quick before hoisting himself up with the help of the table to leave.

“General,” Alphonse says when Roy knocks on the doorframe to the boys’ shared bedroom. “Did you need anything?”

Roy shakes his head. “Your brother told me to find you in regards to sleeping arrangements. Also, I do believe I have mentioned this, but you don’t have to be formal with me, Al.”

Al laughs and waves a hand around. “Sorry, sorry. I tend to forget every now and then. But anyway, did you and Brother agree on anything?”

“We did, yes,” Roy says. “Or rather, he told me something along the lines of, and I quote, ‘I don’t give a fuck either way, choose what you prefer’.”

“That does sound like something he would say,” Alphonse says, placing a bookmark in between the pages of a book before closing. “I take it you chose to sleep in here, then?” At Roy’s confirming nod, Al continues. “Would you mind helping me out with carrying the mattress in from the other room? It has … a bit of an attitude at the best of days.”

The mattress, Roy finds, is very hard to carry, even with two adults wrestling with it. Eventually, however, it does end up being leant against the side of Alphonse’s bed, if the cat plushie resting near the head is anything to go by.

After that, they take a small trip out behind the house to gather some wood to extend the bed frame.

Watching either of the Elric brothers doing alchemy is always somewhat… Roy, while usually regarding himself as someone capable of utilising a large vocabulary, finds himself at a loss of words. 

Right before Alphonse claps, a sort of serene expression appears on his face and he takes a deep breath breath. Then, when he touches the wood, blue-white light blazes to life, pulsing out from his fingertips. Al’s alchemy has always seemed … mellower than Edward’s, but no less powerful. It flows smoother, curls around itself in a way alchemy usually doesn’t, and when it dims, what used to be a single-bed frame has extended to fit the second mattress. 

Roy keeps back the ‘wow’ threatening to spill from his lips because even though he’s been an alchemist for so many years; can barely remember a time where he hasn’t been interested in it, his speciality is destruction and misery. Seeing something being created, so long after he’s still lost the ability to do it himself, never ceases to amaze him.

He mutely shakes his hands, forcing feeling back into them as he helps Alphonse move the mattress, the faint taste alchemy brings to the air lingering on his tongue. 

“Brother’s showering,” Al says when Roy walks into the bedroom he’ll be sharing with the Elric brothers for the next few days after talking with Riza on the phone. “He always showers after he’s been on a train. He keeps going on about just feeling Wrong.” Alphonse laughs from where he’s sitting in the smaller bed next to the wall on Roy’s right. “Somehow he manages to express capital letters while talking — or signing, he does it just as well either way.”

“I believe I understand how Ed feels,” Roy says. “I admit, for having been a soldier and now being a ranked officer, my dislike of trains is most unfortunate, especially considering how it’s much preferable to taking to the road for every inspection I have to conduct.”

He’s packed light for this trip, realising that if need be, one of the brothers can show him an array for cleaning clothes.

“I can turn around or leave the room if you want to change. Winry’s probably in the downstairs bathroom and Brother is occupying the upstairs one, so there isn’t anywhere else you can change, unfortunately. Of course, if you don’t mind, you can wait for Brother to finish up, but there's no telling when he might be done.”

Roy starts unbuttoning first his waistcoat and then the button-up. “No, it’s all right, Alphonse. I stayed at the military academy long enough for the awkwardness of changing in front of others to vaporise.”

Buttons have, after the Promised Day, become an unwanted struggle. At seemingly random times, flares of pain bloom in the palms of his hands and render them little more than useless until it subsides. 

There's a book in Alphonse’s hands when he turns back around. Something old and undoubtedly complex that would take Roy months to comprehend, but is likely little more than a bedtime story of sorts for Al. These are the sorts of things he’s been raised on after all.

“What are you reading?” Roy asks him, his pants folded and placed back into the small suitcase filled with some of his personal belongings. “Anything alchemy related?”

“It’s physics, actually,” Alphonse says thoughtfully. “I know it’s not really a science being used much, but as far as anyone knows, it might be possible to combine it with alchemy in some way we haven’t thought about before, like how they’re doing at the Central Public Infirmary right now. They’re trying to combine biology and alchemy in an attempt to find better treatments for various ailments.”

Roy shakes his head and climbs into bed. “You two really are something else, aren’t you? Reading advanced theoretical musings in bed because it might bring some ground to a theory. I—” Roy hesitates and sighs, looking at the scars adorning his palms. “You— never mind, it’s nothing.”

“If you say so, sir,” Alphonse says, turning a page in his book. “I feel like I should warn you. Brother’s automail will sap all and any kind of body heat from the limb it’s resting against, so be careful about that. To make matters worse, he also hogs all the blankets if the opportunity presents itself.”

Roy raises an eyebrow. “Okay? Would you mind elaborating as to why this is essential? It’s not that late in the year, yet. It’s still plenty warm enough for that to not be a problem.”

Al turns to him then. “The house gets really cold at night. It would be quite unfortunate if you were to accidentally fall ill while you were here due to my brother having zero bed etiquette whatsoever.”

“Ah,” Roy says, and that reaction seems to be enough for Al to turn back to his book. There is paperwork burning in his suitcase, waiting to be read and signed. Is it worth digging them up to work until Edward comes back? Or should he just sit here, glancing at the thick, white scars on his palms?

The urge to do something is stronger and so he gets out of bed again to look for the reports he’d put into a one-inch binder. It’s not quite full — that’d be horrifying — but he wouldn’t put it past the military to give him that much.

Maybe he’s just lucky.

He almost manages to get through two reports before the door to the bedroom slams open and Edward stumbles into the room, towelling his hair dry.

“Hey,” Roy says before mentally kicking himself: Ed can’t hear him. What a moron he’s become.

But Ed seems to catch the movement of his mouth and replies with a cheeky grin and, “Hey, yourself.”

He hobbles over, chucks the towel onto the back of the desk chair and sits down on the bed, bending to remove the replacement leg Winry had given him earlier in the day. And oh , Roy wants to reach out and touch his back, hold this beautiful, perfect man in his arms until he’s fallen asleep and all the tension has faded from his body.

“Wha’?” Ed says, letting the leg lean against the nightstand before moving closer to Roy, in a sort of hesitant way that is adorable . “Can I—?”

Roy pulls the covers back and gestures for Ed to join him. Gratefully, Ed does so and after a few minutes, the tension bleeds out of him and he leans into Roy’s embrace. 

“What are you doing?” Ed asks quietly, leaning over to peer at the report. “Transfer orders? Isn’t the responsible officer supposed to do that?”

Roy pulls out an empty sheet of paper form his supporting stack and scribbles at the top, one of the other generals are currently on extended health leave and I was asked to take over some of his responsibilities. 

Ed grabs his pen out of his hand and then leans over Roy’s lap to scribble, aren’t we, like, horribly overworked already? there should be someone else with less work that could’ve taken it. and if we’re doing admin for two fucking offices at once, then why are you here with me??? won’t the office go down in shambles or something while we’re gone?

Roy shakes his head and presses a kiss to the tip of Ed’s nose, making him blush. We’ll be fine. None of it is terribly urgent, and if anything major were to happen, I’m sure Riza would contact me and have me put on the soonest train back to Central. She has the number to this house, so I’m certain it won’t be a problem. It’s all sorted, my dearest love.

eugh , Ed scribbles and Roy looks at him, takes in the curls caused by the water and tucks a few of the golden locks to see the light from the night light reflect off spun gold. 

Then Edward yawns and Roy has the brief desire to push a finger into the open space because apparently, his mind has now reverted back to its two-year-old form — which had been the time where Roy had deemed it smart to poke and prod at everything . He had gotten electrocuted once from that, but yet hadn’t seemed to properly learn the lesson until he was close to approaching four years old.

It’s interesting, how being with Ed sort of constantly delivers an electric shock to his heart, his brain, to his very being and how it’s so pleasant Roy’s not sure he could ever live without it. 

Sleep? He writes onto the page, followed by a heart, for which Ed pushes his side. But then Ed gives up and seems to just let down all his walls, all the barriers, all the warning signs of what’s ahead and just shows Roy the true, raw feelings the man experiences. He sees the exhaustion lining his feature in what might turn out to be premature wrinkles, although he hopes they won’t be. Some sick part of him likes how much younger than him Ed looks. 

Roy takes all the papers, earmarks the report he’s currently working through and places them on the nightstand. It’s a bit of a task, considering that he is the one further away from the small table, but he manages. 

While at that, he looks over at Alphonse, only to find him succumbed to the pull of sleep, with the book resting on the floor right next to the bed. Roy hadn’t heard the book being put down nor the rustle of the sheets as Al pulled them over himself, but then again, he had been a little bit preoccupied with the scrawl-conversation with Ed to really pay much attention to anything else. 

When Roy lays back down, Ed’s there immediately, pressed into his side with his hair smothering Roy’s face. He spits some of it out and then spends probably too long (but who could blame him?) carding his fingers through and making it fan out on the mattress behind Ed. 

Then, his hand moves, down Ed’s neck, to his back where Roy can trace out figures on the man’s back. There are muscles there, strong and lean and — and Roy, well, he’s only a man, can only resist his boyfriend’s beauty so much. And he wants to take this man, because that is what Ed is , he’s nineteen and an adult and paying his own bills and — and the point is , he wants to take this man, spoil him absolutely rotten and tell him everything about him that is great and immaculate and perfect and really really make an imprint somewhere in Ed’s brain that will remind the man how loved he is, how much Roy cares for him and wants him to be happy. But, of course, other thoughts do come to the forefront every so often — wanting to do things to the man, worship his body, really get to know every part of Ed. 

But right now, when he wants to whisper all those sweet nothing’s into Ed’s hair and pull him close and just appreciate the intimacy plain old cuddling brings, he falls short. There’s no good way for the two of them to communicate until Ed has his hearing aids back, and as well as sign language works if both parties speak it — or, figuratively speak it — it’s still rather useless in pitch-black darkness.

Is this scary to Ed? Now that there’s no light to draw from, and no sound for him to make out his surroundings, how trapped does Ed feel ? Or is the warmth from Roy’s embrace enough to ground him, enough for Ed to feel like he isn’t completely lost in the big, dark world, even though the only place that matters to them now is the perhaps 2.5 square metres of the mattress they share. 

“I can almost hear you thinking,” Ed whispers against his collar bone. “Will you do me a fucking favour for once and just sleep ?”

Roy flattens his hand over Ed’s back, right where his heart is just a few centimetres away and for a moment, turns the pseudo-hug into a tight embrace Roy can only hope transmits all the feelings and thoughts he wants to tell Ed about but can’t due to the circumstances. 

Roy has no idea what time it is when he’s woken up by a distressed cry and the blankets on his bed rustling as someone tries to get out of it and— 

Roy blinks the sleep from his eyes and tries to find the mental awareness to turn on the bedside light. Apparently, however, it seems to be a touch too late as Ed lets out a string of what sounds like creative invented-on-the-spot curse words. And then Roy remembers. 

The book. 

His heart is racing too; it always has after his time spent in arid areas making stale air dryer and more putrid with the stench of charred corpses and blood.

“Al! Fuck, ow, Al, it’s okay. It’s okay, Al, just breathe — you can do it, it was just a dream — you’re safe — we’re in Resembool fixing stuff and it’s okay , Alphonse. Just breathe for me — you’ll be okay once you breathe — it’s okay, just breathe.”

Roy’s found the light switch and flicks it, holding his right hand over his eyes to shield them from the harsh, artificial light — shouldn’t night lights be made with the sole purpose of not being hell for their owner in case of any nighttime escapades to the bathroom? — as he takes in the scene in front of him. 

Al is sitting up in his bed, one hand rubbing furiously at his eyes while the other is frantically grasping Ed’s shirt as if to reassure himself that this plane of existence is real. Roy is suddenly hit with the realisation that Alphonse isn’t more than a mere eighteen years of age. And now — now that he’s barely awake and distressed and clutching his brother’s pyjamas, he looks so staggeringly much like a child that Roy has to remind himself that it’s 1918 and not another year where this event would have been just as likely, just perhaps without him there as a spectator.

He should stay out of this one, Roy decides; it’s not his place to interrupt something so personal without an explicit invitation. He has his own body to calm down, his own brain to regain control. That is, until he hears Al speaking and it dawns on him that Alphonse likely isn’t awake enough to realise that Ed can’t hear a word of what his brother is saying.

“It was the G-Gate, Brother. Truth taunting me and telling me how I-I’d be stuck in the limbo of life and death. How my body would constantly hang in the precipice b-between life and death while my … while my soul dealt with the constant strain put on it from w-wanting to go back to the body it belonged to — and, h-how — Brother , I honestly—”

Roy looks up just as Al’s voice breaks and he’s pulled into a tight hug by Ed, who runs his fingers through his brother’s hair, trying to calm him down. Ed looks at him, still blinking the sleep from his eyes and he seems kind of desperate and like — Roy might be good at telling what people feel and want, but at— he checks the clock hanging on the wall above the desk —two am, his ability to do more than the bare minimum is not quite up to par. 

‘Sorry about this,’ Ed’s eyes seem to say and Roy only smiles sleepily, tries to locate his feet from under the uncountable amount of blankets located on his and Ed’s bed (and why does calling it ‘theirs’ ignite something like red and golden fireworks in his chest?) and stands, albeit a bit wobbly. 

“Hey, Al,” Ed then says, quietly and groggily. “If you’d like, we can push the beds together so that you won’t feel lonely?”

Ed meets Roy’s eyes as he says it, likely trying to judge his expression, trying to see if he’s just walked straight into a wall with his so-called lack of tact. And Roy — as mentioned, is still half-asleep and not in the least ready to deal with complicated matters even if he’s a goddamn military veteran that should know better than to suddenly be woken up and still be tired. 

“Yeah,” Al mumbles faintly, weakly even, like a child — which isn’t to insult him. Roy files away the thought that once they’re back in Central, he should really force the two brothers to see a damn good psychologist.  “‘M sorry General. Didn’ mean t’ bother you ‘n’ Brother ‘n—”

And now that Al is no longer in the clutches of his nightmare, the Eastern drawl they had worked so hard to repel during their stay in both East City and Central is seeping into Alphonse’s voice.

“It’s okay, Al,” Roy says reassuringly. “Do you think you can grab your comforter and we’ll push our bed closer to yours after we relocate the night tables?”

He knows Ed is staring at his lips, but the moment he seems to get the message of what they’re going to do, he makes a grab for the replacement leg to put it on. 

“So,” Ed says quietly. “How’re we doing this? Move the nightstands into the corner by the door and then push our bed over to Al’s? I’m sorry ‘bout this, but he does sleep easier when there’s someone else there, ‘cause like, physical contact is still really big for him ‘n shit after, y’know, not feeling shit for half a decade.”

“I completely understand,” Roy says as he wrestles the first table away from its place by AL’s bed. Ed takes the other one, but not before flicking the ceiling light on ( thankfully , since Roy is too tired to play russian roulette with his toes and various pieces of furniture.)

When the bed has been shoved as quietly as humanly possible to avoid waking the other inhabitants of the house, Roy gestures for Ed to take off his leg again and get into bed while he gets the light. The two weeks spent spent plus a quick critical look of the floor to gauge the amount of steps needed to get from the door to the bed has him better suited to the task than either of the Elrics.

He flicks the switch and starts taking cautious steps towards the bed. When his knees hit the mattress, a hand is there to help him onto the bed. Roy lets himself be guided by his boyfriend’s touch until he can lay down under heavy blankets with Ed’s body pressed close to his, one hand holding his. 

Roy’s almost certain he can hear Ed’s voice whispering, “Thank you.” as he falls asleep.

“Tell me one thing, General,” Pinako asks him when Roy walks into the kitchen in the morning. “How did Edward keep this from the military for so long?”

“To be entirely honest, I think I must credit your granddaughter with it. The hearing aids she designed for him really made it seem like there was nothing off. Of course, now when I think back on it, certain times do mark themselves suspicious, but it wasn’t ever obvious. He never used sign in front of us, he seemed to be fully able to understand everyone and, naturally, he does have that slight eastern drawl masking any traces of a speech difficulty. It was never mentioned in any medical files either, although I must ask you, as his guardian, why that is.”

“He told me not to,” Pinako says bluntly. “Now pour yourself a cup of coffee and sit down.” 

He does and after a few sips, she looks at him again. “You’re dating him, then. Did it never come up in conversation?”

Roy shakes his head. “We’ve taken this very slowly. To be fair, we both have our … ah, issues to work through when it comes to trusting and letting people in close, but I believe we’re past the hardest challenges now.”

“And you care for him?”

“Yes,” Roy says honestly. “Alphonse already gave me some vaguely colourful threats as to what he would do to me if I didn’t treat his brother right. Trust me, I will do my utmost best to make him as happy and as content as I can.”

“Good,” she says before pointing to the counter where two mugs are standing, waiting to be poured coffee into. “I suggest you fill those and go upstairs with them. I’m not sure if you’ve ever encountered Alphonse before coffee, but it ain’t a pretty sight. Do us all a favour and prevent that, will ya.” 

Ed watches Al slump down on the dining table chair opposite him, a stack of papers under one arm and a pen in the other.

: Jeez, : he signs once he’s put the pen down in a way that will hopefully not make it want to roll of the table. Of course, however, it does and Ed bites back a swear. : You really weren’t kidding when you said that Investigations were overworked, did you? Turns out we got some crap from another member of the brass and now that Roy ‘n’ I are here doing jack shit apart from what we managed to bring with us. The militray as a whole is really fucking itself over, isn’t it? :

: Well, yes, : Al signs with one hand, thumbing through his reports on the look for a specific one. : But that is just a good excuse to do as much as possible now without killing ourselves here so that the moment we’re back in Central, we can deposit a bunch of finished work into the system. :

Ed feels something bump into his leg and he looks up to find Roy looking at him with a smile. ‘What?’ he mouths, jolting when Roy’s foot collides with his again. ‘Are you seriously trying to play footsie with me to distract me from my work?’

He is confident that Roy hadn’t understood a single word of his mouthing, so he only delivers a not-too-hard kick to Roy’s shin before leaning back over his translation work to continue it. Since it’s Cretan, it proves a bit harder than the work he’s used to doing, and so it isn’t long before he does have to crack open the dictionary he’d brought with him. 

The work flows smoothly after that, since here, there aren’t many auditory or visual distractions to deter him from his work. Not that— not that he can hear much anyway. Huh, guess the hearing aid issue was good for something after all: allowing him to better focus on his work.

Maybe that was why, even before they had started dating, Ed had taken to sit on the sofa in Roy’s office when he was short on time to hand in translated reports. The only sounds that ever interrupted the calm atmosphere of the inner office were the occasional phone call or Lieutenant Hawkeye coming to inform Roy of something.

Ed’s sure that it had also been about being close to Roy, too; that in some sense he had given off the focusing presence Alphonse also brought to the room and they’d end up sitting up late at the kitchen table discussing outrageously complicated alchemy.

And now — with both of the people that were able to fully ground him, make him slow down and not feel unsafe doing it — allows him to enter the Zone Winry and Al had talked about at some point an undefined amount of years ago. The reports that just needs his confirmation from an alchemical point of view seems to take less than a second to complete; longer translations seemed to flow smoother; seemed to have the vocabulary easily agreeing with his brain.

And slowly, the stack of sheets on his right begins to diminish.

When someone taps his shoulder some time later, Ed blinks blearily, forcing his eyes to do their damn job of seeing stuff further than a foot away.

Winry’s standing next to him, holding an automail leg, looking at him expectantly; like she’s saying, ‘Well, what are you waiting for, alchemy freak?’

Ed turns his chair to face away from Roy and bends down to remove the replacement from his port. Winry places the leg on the floor and signs, with a concerned expression. : I heard some commotion last night coming from your guys’ room. Is everything okay? :

: Al had a nightmare, : Ed signs as she lines up the leg. : We figured it’d be better to push the beds together and sleep like that. :

He flinches as the nerves tconnect and a warm hand, firm hand touches his left shoulder. Ed can’t help but to feel a smile tug at his lips at the concern Roy has for himb fore looking back at Winry. : The leg was all okay? :

: Yes, : she answers, still crouched on the floor. What she’s waiting for, Ed doesn’t have the faintest clue. : I should be done with your hearing aids either tonight or early tomorrow morning. Can you deal until then? :

Ed raises an eyebrow at her; she knows he’s gone longer without them, he’ll be fine . Hopefully. : Yeah sure, don’t stress it. :

: Okay, : Winry agrees before picking up the replacement and standing. Then, she waves her fingers in a noncommittal gesture he interprets as, ‘see you later.’

When he wrestles the chair back to face the table, there’s a note laying on top of his latest report, this time in more of a pseudo-cursive Ed has come to know as Roy’s report handwriting. While it is still neat, it has the distinctive traits of being written faster, with a couple stray miniscule drops of ink around the letters.

Are you okay? You looked like you were in pain for a moment there.

Ed flushes ever so slightly — blood taking a brief detour to appreciate his cheekbones, that’s all, surely. He glances up at Al, who’s watching too. Jeez, automail isn’t that big a deal, why are they treating it like it is?

fine. just a small sting , Ed scribbles on the note before shoving it back to Roy. As a side thought appears, he snatches it back to add, stop procrastinating, bastard. i was planning on taking you on a walk once you finished. you need fresh air. 

Then he turns his attention back to the stack of papers in front of him.

Chapter Text

Ed’s almost dozed off, head resting on Roy’s chest reading a book when Winry barges into their room with a big smile Ed thinks is slightly too much— until he realises what she’s holding in her hands. 

He snaps awake instantly, puts the book down and is on his feet in seconds. She laughs — but he can’t hear it, yet — and points to the desk chair. Ed slumps down into it, trying to deal with the two polar opposites that is semi-consciousness and excitement. 

She hands him the small, intricate pieces of machinery and Ed looks at them, regards the red parts that had previously been grey to hide them. Now, he doesn’t want to anymore.

It’s always a bit foreign at first; they’re new and there’s always a brief adjustment period whenever he puts in hearing aids. 

Once they’re both in however, Winry steps back and he’s left to turn them on. At the back of his mind, Ed hopes Winry has told Roy that he should be quiet at first to not shock his shitty-ass, sort-of-traumatised brain into thinking D-A-N-G-E-R, in big, red, ugly, capital letters.

There are small switches at the back, and at the same time, he reaches up and flicks both. 

It’s… surprisingly more quiet than Ed expected; there’s no wind or anything outside, and Ed reaches out his automail hand to tap the knuckles on the wooden desk. It makes a sound. It makes a sound .

It’s always peculiar, how when he’s been without a sense for days, how amazing it feels to have it returned. It’s … well, it’s not magic, because magic is dumb, doesn’t exist and besides, is something for kids . But it sparks a sort of amazement in him, how something so small, so complicated , can aid the fucking faulty human body with something it’s lost. 

“Hey Winry,” he says, voice a bit thick. He hasn’t used it for long, has been too busy half-napping in Roy’s warm embrace, that’s all. “Thanks. You’re a fucking saviour, you know?”

“Yes, yes,” she says. “Now gimme your arm so I can check that one pressure plate you always seem so intent on breaking. What do you do to mess it up so fast?”

Ed shrugs, stands and stretches while casting a glance at Roy, who is, predictably, still in the same spot Ed had left him. Lazy, comfortable bastard. He raises an eyebrow but can’t keep the grin from his face. “ What ?”

“Oh, nothing. Just stunned by your overwhelming beauty,” Roy says, holding the stoic mask for approximately half a second before smirking. And oh god, that expression is deadly , spellbinds Ed (magic is not real, fuck you) and makes him unable to look away. Winry cackles.

“Oh my god, Ed, please keep him! He’s perfect.”

“Was planning on it,” Ed mutters, too quietly for anyone to hear. Then, louder, while rubbing his left hand at his cheeks to dispel the blush: “Shut up. And you—” he points to Roy, who’s only moments from laughing too, the bastard . “You’re dead to me, Roy. Dead. To. Me.”

Roy’s smirk only widens then and Ed has half a mind to just walk straight out the door until Roy’s topped teaming up with his sister-in-everything-but-blood to mortify him. “Oh, surely not, sweetheart.”

Ed shakes his head, frowns at the stray piece of hair falling into his face. Is his braid coming loose? He reaches up with a discontented sigh, irritably rakes his fingers through the braid to disentangle it before drawing the golden mess up into a bun. “Oh, barf.”

“Gimme your arm,” Winry says again. “Really, Ed. The faster I can get to it, the faster you’ll get it back and you can go back to work. You can’t stay here for ages; I need to go back to Rush Valley, you three just caught me at a lucky time. And besides, you probably have stacks and stacks of paperwork on your desk and the longer you don’t go into the office, the longer Al will bitch about your crap attitude after work on the phone.”

“You don’t mind,” Ed mutters. “You just love talking to Al, no matter the topic.”

But he does reach up to shrug off his jacket and bares his automail arm to Winry so that she can remove it. It comes off with a dull thunk and for just a second, Ed thinks he might just topple over in the change of balance and weight distribution. 

“Go back to cuddling with your boyfriend,” she says, patting his shoulder. “I won’t take long. Also, Granny suggested you go visit, y’know, your mum’s grave while you’re here. Al’s already been, so you don’t have to take him with you.”

Ed looks down. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

The thing is, he really wants to go visit his mum; wants to lay down a bouquet of flowers even though flowers are stupid, but she had liked them; had always made a point to have at least one vase in every room except for his and Al’s because of how they constantly bumped into things. But, he’s not yet sure if it would be appropriate to take Roy with him to see, because that is something really personal to him. And if he had wanted to, would going to a graveyard just remind Roy of Ishval? 

These petty concerns flock through his mind and when Ed sits back down, Roy seems to have sensed that something is wrong, because strong arms wrap around him and pulls him in close, until Ed can feel Roy’s chest rising and sinking with every breath. 

“You can go if you want,” Roy says softly. “I don’t mind.”

Ed bites the inside of his cheek, blinks once, twice and then says, tentatively, “You wanna come with me?”

“It’s really peaceful out here,” Roy comments as they step out on the porch and close the door behind them.”

“Yeah,” Ed says, grabbing his hand to lead him down from the porch. “Come on, let’s go.”

It’s a clear night and out here, in the middle of the countryside, faw away from any major light pollution sources, the stars are blinking down at them. He’s missed this: missed going out at night in the summer when the air is fresh and clear, but it’s still early enough in the night to hear the grasshoppers hiding on either side of the dirt road they follow down to the graveyard.

Ed’s never been one to believe in ghosts, has always found solace and stability in his ability to do alchemy or been too haunted by his own personal demons to put much stock into anything paranormal or superstitious. But now, as he opens the gate to the cemetary, he can’t help but feel like something is different tonight. There are fireflies hanging around the graves, tiny specks of illlumination in the dark, yet somehow bright summer night.

“Here we are,” Ed says, stopping in front of his mum’s gravestone. “That’s her. My mum.”

He kneels down, and with a small clap, wills the dust and mess on the headstone down onto the ground around the stone. There’s something stuck in his throat; a thought he wants to voice. He wishes that Roy would have been able to meet his mum. It’s a stupid thought; wanting his mother’s approval for dating choices. 

But.

She’s dead, and technically her opinion of whoever he decides to share his time and bed with shouldn’t matter. But it does, to him. Ed wants her to be proud of him; hopes that she wouldn’t have been disappointed with the fact that he’s dating a man that used to be his superior and besides, is older than him rather than someone like Winry. 

He knows better.

She’d have been proud of him either way. 

“She was the best mum in the world,” Ed says quietly, rubbing at the inscribed letters on the stone. They’re uneven and different depths, but it had been him and Al who had sat up the night before the funeral drawing circle after circle to make the letters and numbers. “She was so kind and caring and she never raised her voice, even when we had messed up and done something bad. Instead, she told us what we did wrong and how to correct it in the future. She always approved of our wish to learn alchemy and it made her smile, which was one of the biggest reasons why I stuck with it so fervently after she died. I miss her.”

He clears his throat and looks up. “Al’s already been here and left flowers. He’s better with that than me. I don’t do dead plants, no matter how pretty they look or how much she liked them.”

Ed entertains the idea of his mum sitting on her grave looking at him, holding the bouquet Al had laid to rest in front of it, looking at him talk about her. 

“I’m scared sometimes,” he admits quietly. “Of forgetting her. I can’t remember what she smells like anymore or how her voice sounded. One day I’m scared that I just … won’t remember who she was to me anymore. We have pictures— not a whole lot, but some —but it’s not the same y’know, she won’t ever come back, and at some point, all the clear memories I have of her will fade into the background and deteriorate until there’s little left but the rubble and dust.” 

“I don’t remember my own parents,” Roy says, sitting down next to him and reaching out a hand to rest on his knee. “They died when I was really young, and my aunt took to raising me. I don’t have pictures, only her account of what happened to them. I think — sometimes, having some memories are worse than having no memories, because when you have them, you will always strive to remember more and you’ll fear that you’re painting the person in the wrong light as time goes on, but when there’s nothing, you don’t have anything to mess up, and in a way, it’s easier. Tougher in other ways, but easier than the fear of forgetting.”

Ed looks up, sees the constellation resting right above them, stars trembling. A Latin phrase that had been painted beautifully by his mom that had rested on the fireplace mantel. “Ad Astra per Aspera,” he says quietly. “To the stars, through difficulty.”

Scars are something that defines a person. Naturally, it’s not the entirety of their being, but rather unspoken proofs of a person’s experiences and trials through life. 

Roy’s noticed them before, briefly, but now they’re laying in bed, just him and Ed, resting. It’s not even that late — barely past nine, but Al had given up on sleep an hour earlier and shuffled out of bed to take a shower and get coffee. 

“What are these?” He asks carefully, ghosting his fingers over too-aligned, barely visible scars on Ed’s wrist. “Are you okay, my love?”

Ed doesn’t look away, but he slumps in a way that only Ed can do while laying down. “Don’t tell Al, kay? I don’t think he’s noticed and— I’m not ready. For a while — right after we transmuted mom, I really really really felt bad, so I started to — well, I didn’t really feel , and that was the thing, ya know — my stumps obviously felt like shit and hurt like shit but, that wasn’t pain I could control and I was stuck in one room and — and I wanted to be in control again, so, I just started doing it when I was alone and I guess it was because that was the only way I could think of which would let me take back some control and. I became addicted I guess, and I felt so hopeless, so fucking lost y’know, because, you can imagine, I was like, eleven, an orphan dealing with the guilt of severely fucking up his brother because of a dumb decision I made. Also deaf or hard of hearing or whatever, missing half of my limbs. It does something to you, ya know.” Ed tries to laugh and Roy — wants to rip the sound from his mouth because it sounds fake and tarnished and he’s tempted to polish it until the sound is no longer like dull silver but bright and shining and vibrant like every part of Edward should be. “It became like smoking — which, for the record — is fucking disgusting. It just became a mindless tool to calm my brain.”

Roy moves the wrist closer to his face and kisses the scars. The texture — sorta rough, sorta smooth — tickles his lips. He’s almost scared to ask his next question. “Have you stopped?”

Ed sits up and the way his sleepshirt pools on his torso is fucking adorable. The new hearing aids — red — glint behind his ears, encompassed by golden strands of hair. “I,” Ed says slowly, “I don’t think it’s the question of ‘have you stopped’, because I guess — well, I guess it’s not a thing that just — stops, if you know what I mean.”

Roy sits up with him and moves to sit on Ed’s thighs, effectively trapping him. Ed flushes and Roy sits there, holding Ed’s hand, holding him because deep inside, he’s scared of losing Ed. “Yes. I understand. But — are you okay? Now, I mean. Will you tell me if things ever become less okay?”

“Yeah,” Ed says, and he does sound honest. That — that’s okay. “Kiss me?”

“Of course, my dear,” Roy says, gently trapping his fingers in the golden bedhead before drawing Ed closer, which is — interesting, considering how Roy is basically sitting on the man’s lap and if he’s not careful, he might just end up pulling a muscle in the poor man’s back or something.

Ed’s lips are soft, plump and Roy can’t seem to get enough of it so he pulls away for a second, breathes, leans back in and catches Ed’s bottom lip between his teeth, worrying it until it garners a response from Ed in the form of a gasp.

It’s intoxicating and one of his hands wander down Ed’s jawn, down his left arm until he can lace their fingers together.

Ed leans up, cranes his neck, eager to deepen the kiss and he learns so quickly it’s devastating . 

Their relationship ever since they had boarded the first train for Resembool seemed to finally have lost the tension, had allowed them to find the key that allowed them to unlock yet another door, let them have a further destination in mind and more room to move around. 

Ed gasps into his mouth and he pulls away, panting ever so slightly before leaning in again with renewed fervour.

Roy tightens his grip on Ed’s hair, drinking in the breathy moan it produces. At the back of his mind, the brief thought that they shouldn’t get ahead of themselves, shouldn’t do this in a place where people can walk in on them appears. A second later, it dies.  

He chases this feeling: Ed’s mouth against his, fingers clutching his hand, Ed’s strong thighs underneath him. 

And oh , Roy could do this forever — kissing has always been one of his favourite pastimes. It’s so versatile; it can be the soft and gentle exchange of affection, short kisses on the cheek when passing by, intense slow kisses on the couch or this — hungry, desperate for more sensation to thrum along his nerves and allowing it to ignite something like fire right beneath his ribs.

And Ed — so receptive and eager and oh , Roy can only imagine how vocal he’ll be when he can finally take Ed to bed and truly show him what pleasure can be. 

“Ah— s-stop, Roy,” Ed whispers against his lips, but it sounds more desperate than anything. “W-We can’t—”

Roy reluctantly pulls away and brushes a thumb over Ed’s lip. “I’m sorry, dear, I got a bit carried away. Would you like to take a shower and cool down some before you grace your brother with your presence?”

Because Roy’s not oblivious; he can feel something straining in Ed’s pants and while he would love to take care of the problem for Ed, he has more respect than to do so in the room and bed they share with Al.

Ed flushes but doesn’t look away. “Yeah,” he says, eventually. “Will you make me a cup of coffee?”

Roy pecks his nose and climbs off Ed. “Of course, my sun.”

Ed cracks one eye open to see the morning sun peeking in through the curtains. He’s resting on Roy’s chest, feeling his chest rise and fall with each steady breath. He stretches a bit and leans up to kiss Roy, laughing when the other man sleepily swats him away and turns to press his face into the pillow.

“It’s no use, Brother,” Al says from behind him. “He’s just like you when you sleep: aggressive and utterly uninterested in waking up.”

“Hey,” Ed complains, clearing his throat as he turns over. “You don’t have any right to talk. Who is it that usually sleeps in and make us late for work?”

Al shrugs. “What can I say? Sleeping becomes something of a blessing when you go without it for five years. I just love it.”

Ed knows this; knows that if Al can find a warm spot on a mattress or a couch, he will curl into it and nap there, which is why both his bed and their living room couch are placed very strategically to get light for as long as possible during the day. It’s kinda cute.

“You ready to leave?” he yawns. “Winry said she’ll be done with my arm today, so that’s something.” He looks down at the mattress, pushes a finger into it. “What should we do with the bed? Leave it as is or try to split the wood back into planks and a single-bed frame?”

“I think we should leave it,” Al says after some consideration. “We never know if we’ll come back here with Roy again, so it might just be easier to leave it.”

The body behind Ed moves and Ed hears a sleepy, “Someone say m’name?”

He snorts and promptly elbows Roy straight in the rib, making him groan softly. “You’re such a self-absorbed bastard,” Ed tells him, looking over his shoulder to see Roy dramatically clutch his ribcage. “Oh come on, you’ll be fine. I barely even put any force behind it.”

Roy stares at him with one of the most childlike-pouty-betrayed expression Ed has ever seen. “How could you hurt me like this, Edward? Me, your precious boyfriend?”

“Oh shush, you big baby,” Ed says, but he does lean up to kiss Roy again. 

“Brother!” Al exclaims, sounding not in the least scandalised but rather amused. “There are other people here!”

“As if you care,” Ed mutters. “C’mon, we gotta get up. Get this fucking show on the road.”

“Come here, Ed,” Winry says when he steps into the kitchen. “I got your arm. It’s all fine. You didn’t even manage to wear out the one pressure plate that always seems to go first.”

Ed shrugs. “Yeah. I’ve been doing a lot of desk work and even that’s just paperwork ninety-nine percent of the time. Haven’t been out in the field all that much, though I expect that to change. I heard through the grapevine somewhere that a bigger mission might launch soon to catch some underground criminal operation in Central in a couple of weeks. Our office might end up getting roped into it, so we’ll see.”

Winry holds up the arm and Ed shrugs off the backpack and his jacket to bare the port. “But you will stay safe, won’t you? Don’t go and get yourself just because I gave your automail the all-clear. It’s not an invitation to be a dumbass.”

Ed clenches his teeth but manages to not flinch as she pushes the arm in and connects it to the port. “Didn’ say I was gonna be.”

She steps back, wiping her hands on her pants, looking over the arm with a critical eye. Then she seems to brighten and smiles. “Also! I’m coming to Central in about two months and it’d be great if you and Al could put me up. It’s this automail thing at the university and they’ll be talking about some new alloy that’s supposed to be, like, really great and I’d hate to miss it. Not that paying for a hotel is a problem or anything, but you know—”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Ed says. “Just don’t forget to tell Al, too. He likes to be in the loop about shit too, y’know.”

She nods and looks over his shoulder. “Your general is right behind you.”

Ed raises an eyebrow and spins around to face Roy. “My general, huh? All I see is a smarmy bastard.”

Roy merely raises an eyebrow back at him.

What a bastard.

“We’re in the slight danger of missing our train, so we’d better hurry up,” Roy says. “Want me to take your bag?”

Ed drops his backpack by the door, walks into the living room and slumps down on the couch back first. The light from the window is glaring into his eyes and so he closes them and covers the upper part of his face with his jacket sleeve for good measure. 

“Are you okay, Brother?” Alphonse says from somewhere above him and Ed shrugs, because he’s not sure. Scratch that. He doesn’t have a single flying fucking clue. There’s an odd feeling in his chest and a weird sort of warm-tingly-pressure-y feeling in his head. He moves his hand a fraction to free and open his right eye. “I dunno, Al, I—”

The realisation hits him as gently as a sledgehammer aimed straight at his vital organs. “I — shit , Al, I think I might be. In love?”

Alphonse throws his head back and laughs, the little shit . “Congrats on being the last one to know, Brother. It’s great that you finally figured it out. I’m happy for you, Brother, I really am.”

Ed gives him the strongest glare he can muster, despite the undoubtedly dorky-ass grin on his face right now. “Oh shut up, you.”

“Only if you get up and come with me to the market to buy some food,” Al says cheerfully. “It should still be open despite it being a Sunday. Oh, I do hope that older lady that sells bread is there today. The walnut bread she makes is absolutely delightful.”

Ed shakes his head at Al’s antics but doesn’t comment further. He feels jittery in a way; almost unbalanced, like he’s gone into Roy-withdrawal. He craves more — wants to feel Roy’s hands in his hair, Roy’s lips against his, Roy’s body pressed up against— 

Ed jumps up from the couch like he’s been electrocuted and Al sticks his head out from the kitchen at the sound of the poor springs. “Everything alright?”

“Fine!” Edward says quickly and maybe a little bit desperate. “I’m just— gonna go unpack. Yeah. You just holler when you’re ready to go.”

He speedwalks to the front door to grab his backpack and then back towards his bedroom, chucking the bag onto his bed while closing the door.

He’ll be the next champion of multitasking, alright.

Ed grips his hair with one hand and— that sorta stings, but Ed can’t really bring himself to care because … because … something.

He stares out of the window, one hand clenched in his hair, the other hanging limply at his side. He must be stupid; you don’t miss someone after saying ‘goodbye’ and ‘see you tomorrow’ only an hour earlier. You're not supposed to get that feeling in your chest that somethings’ been simultaneously ripped out and filled with gas at the same time to the point where the organ in question may just decide to break out through the chest wall and rib cage. 

“I’m in love,” he whispers to himself. “Oh god, I’m in love .”