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“Save the whales?” Roy asked the young man who walked out of the clinic. He was simultaneously the most beautiful person Roy had ever seen, and the most furious. And Roy knew of furious. He asked people to sign petitions for a living.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You get a lot of traction with your green earth hippy bullshit outside the VA’s physical therapy office?” His voice was as gorgeous as his face. It was faintly accented. Roy couldn’t place it, but could have listened to him talk forever.
“Please forgive my brother,” another young man swept in and grabbed the first by the arm. “He doesn’t know how to interact with people.” He took Roy’s pen and scribbled his name. “Have a good day,” he beamed at Roy as he dragged the vision of fury away.
He watched until they climbed into a red, beat up pick-up before he looked at his clipboard. Alphonse Elric. Elric. Half a name. It was a start.
*
“What, is this your thing? Are you just going to be here, now, lurking?”
It was hot. The late summer sun collided with the lake and made the entire city into some kind of god forsaken bowl of viscous soup. There was a two by two patch of shade where Roy had spent most of his morning, following the barely there shadow as it worked its way across the sidewalk. “What?” He looked up, but the bright light from his paper followed his vision. He blinked, once, twice, and the image resolved to the beautiful man. “Hi.”
The scowl slid off his face and he cocked his head to the side. “How long have you been out here?”
Roy tried to check the time on his smartwatch, but couldn’t make the numbers come into focus. “Huh.” That didn’t seem great.
“Why don’t you sit down? I’ll get you some water.” A hand. The hand of an angel settled into the crook of his elbow and guided him to a bench. It was scorching beneath his thighs. He leaned forward until his arms were resting on his legs and his head hung down. The sun burned at the base of his skull.
“Here you go.” That had was back. This time there was a shockingly cold bottle of water pressed into his hand. “Don’t you know there’s a heat advisory?”
Roy cracked open the bottle with surprisingly shaky hands. He gulped down the water. One, two, three huge swallows. It shredded his throat and stomach with its icy veins. “I don’t feel hot.”
“Shit,” the man grabbed the bottle from Roy and yanked him up. The world swam and spun and them he was leaning over a trash can puking his guts out. “Yeah, I’ve got an idiot here with heat stroke. Yeah. Yeah. Outside the Broad Street VA clinic. Yeah. We’ll be inside.”
The next little bit of Roy’s life was a blur. He was led inside, and then he was in an ambulance, and then Riza was at his bedside, furiously smoothing down his blankets. He didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually the fog cleared and he was sitting in the bed as they processed his discharge paperwork, instead of laid out, waiting for death.
Hughes helped him stand and collected the information packet about how to keep him alive for the next couple of days. He slapped Roy’s clipboard into his hand. “At least one good thing came out of this.”
Despite the fluid that had been pumped into him, the cooling packs tucked around his body, and the pain relievers, Roy still kind of felt like he was on a human time delay. “What?” It was his word of the day, apparently.
“You got a name.”
Edward Elric. There was a messy note scribbled next to the name with a number. Text me so I know you didn’t die.
*
Ed was not just a pretty face. He was funny. And smart. And had as much trouble sleeping as Roy. Most of their text exchanges happened between eleven and three when the rest of the city was quietly dreaming of better things. Ed never said what it was the kept him up, and Roy was too polite to ask. It didn’t take a genius. He was in and out of the VA clinic enough times in a week for Roy to get the general idea.
Roy looked up from his book when his phone vibrated.
Are you watching this? After Hours. It’s garbage.
Roy heaved himself up and wandered from his bedroom down to the living room. He kept the lights off and settled into his couch, turning on the program that had Ed riled up. There was a celebrity, someone Roy almost could name, talking about how excited he was about his new project.
??
Roy wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be offended by the host, the guest, or the show in general.
The tripping lines indicating a text went on an on, but there was no message. Eventually, the lines stopped.
His phone rang.
They’d never called before.
“Hello?” Roy asked, like they both didn’t know exactly who was on the other end. He didn’t have the protocol for this.
“I was gonna text, but it was too long.” He sounded defensive, like he expected Roy to argue with him, or hang up. He sounded exhausted.
Roy swallowed and turned the sound down on his television. “I’m glad you called.”
There was a too-long pause, a half-clearing of his throat. “Whatever,” Ed said, but he didn’t hang up. Instead, he sucked in a huge breath and went on a ten minute rant about the guest and the movie and how it was practically criminal that they were distilling a cultural touchstone into an hour and half movie.
“It was so huge, like. It was just this.” Ed paused and sucked in a breath. “Al and I would get home from school and we’d watch it every afternoon.” The one undeniable fact he’d learned about Edward Elric during their conversations was that if there was a center to the universe, if there was a universal touchstone for Ed, it was his brother Alphonse.
He let Ed go on and on, the room dark, his voice, even in anger, a soothing backdrop. “I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen it,” he said when there was a brief lull. He had a couple years on Ed. He was afraid to ask how many. Afraid it would be a barrier that neither of them wanted to cross.
“Nah, you probably wouldn’t have.” His voice was carefully casual, and Roy sat up, every atom in his body tuned to Ed’s words, his breathing. He wished he could see him. He didn’t think they’d be having the same conversation if they could see each other. “Not unless you were getting programs from Risembool.”
Roy clenched his hand around the phone to keep from dropping it. Risembool. Ed’s age. His accent. The frequent trips to the VA. It all fell into place. The little nation state that imploded, stories of atrocities, devastation, child soldiers. Amestris led the peacekeeping mission, and Roy had never been so thankful to be out of the military.
The residents that sided with the Amestris forces, the ones that helped fight against their neighbors and family and friends were given citizenship, with full access to social services.
Ed never talked about other family. A mom or a dad. It was just Ed and Al.
“Ed--”
“Don’t.”
He swallowed. Swallowed back the questions, the nausea, the sympathy. “Tell me about the show,” he said finally. There was nothing else to say.
Ed was silent for a long time. Finally, he heaved in a deep breath that carried with it every single reason he was awake in the middle of the night. “It was a mess, right? That’s the most important thing to understand. It made absolutely no sense, but we loved it anyway.”
*
“Haven’t seen you out here in a while.”
Roy thanked the woman for her signature and turned with a grin. Ed was leaning against the outside of the building. He was like the sun, so beautiful Roy couldn’t look at him head on. “Staff meetings.” There was a notable lack of Al hovering at Ed’s shoulder. “Where’s Al? Charming the staff?”
Ed huffed out something close to a laugh. He had dark smudges under his eyes and his mouth was drawn tight. “He has an interview this morning with Central U. It’s bullshit. They’re lucky to have him. Anyone’d be lucky to have him, but they want to interview him to make sure he’s a good fit.” He shrugged, and winced. “I told him I didn’t mind waiting till he was done.”
Roy thought, perhaps, that Ed wasn’t leaning against the building to appear cool. “You want a lift home?” he asked before he realized it might be a breach of their somewhat tentative, what? Acquaintance? Friendship?
He wanted more, but, frankly, would take whatever Ed would give him.
Beneath his metal fingers, a bit of the brick flaked away as Ed picked at the surface. He looked at Roy, then away, then down. Roy was almost certain he’d pushed too far, too fast when Ed nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”
After his abrupt lesson on heat stroke, Roy had taken to parking his car on the other side of the lot, under the shade trees. It kept the interior slightly less murderous, and he never minded the walk. With Ed’s halting, shuffling pace at his side, Roy regretted the decision intensely.
“Do you want to wait here? I can come around and pick you up?” He wanted to offer his arm in support, he wanted to ease the suffering on Ed’s face. He wanted to pick him up and carry him to the car.
Ed grunted. “Nah. It’s fine. The walk’s good for me, or something.”
By the time they reached Roy’s car, Ed’s hands were clenched at his sides. He’d lost some of the color in his face and his breathing had that deeply purposeful draw of someone trying to block out pain.
Roy unlocked the door and resisted the urge to help Ed into the car. He took the walk around the back to the driver’s side to get himself together. When he got in, Ed had his eyes closed and his head tipped back. It made Roy want to wrap his arm around Ed’s shoulders and hold him close. It made him want to kiss Ed’s throat.
He dug out his phone and hooked it up to the car. “Hang on just another minute okay? Give me your address, and then you can relax.” He put the air on max and pointed all the vents at Ed.
It was a short drive to the address Ed gave him, even with Roy taking extra care to avoid potholes, road work, and anything else that might jostle his passenger. He kept glancing at Ed, who never moved, never shifted until Roy pulled the car to a stop and killed the engine.
The apartment building is plain, utilitarian, and squeezed between three others that look exactly the same. Some residents tried to make their mark with colorful curtains, or posters in their windows, but nothing could mask the uniformly depressing nature of quickly built government housing.
“You want to come up? I’ve got like, juice and shit. Beer, probably. Al’s pretentious microbrew collection.” He opened the door and heaved himself out into the world, then took a moment to just stand and breathe. “Fucking elevator better be working.”
When he struck out across the narrow parking lot, Roy followed gamely behind him, like a ducking, like a magnet, like a moth.
“Was it a hard day,” Roy finally got up the nerve to ask as the elevator doors closed them into the square space and it was either say something or listen with growing horror to the metallic shriek of the machinery.
Ed kicked his foot back against the wall of the elevator. “They’re all hard days,” was all he said for the rest of the ride.
The hallway to Ed’s apartment was clean and a few of the doors were open. Ed waved at his neighbors and stopped to help a little girl with a broken toy. He set it on the ground, knelt with the exaggerated movements of constant pain, and then clapped his hands. Alchemy flared to life and Roy took an involuntary step back. His hand raised for a snap before he could stop himself. But instead of an attack, or the second flash of an explosion, there was a small, exquisitely controlled circle that faded as the broken wheel righted itself.
“Third time this week, kiddo,” Ed tussled the girl’s hair and pushed himself upright with a grunt. His smile faded when he saw Roy. “Are you okay?”
Roy realized he still hand his hand half raised. His heart was pounding painfully, and it was hard to breathe.
“Oh, jeez. Come on.” He hooked his hand through Roy’s elbow and pulled him down the hall. As the only other alternative was to collapse on the floor of the hallway, Roy allowed himself to be led while he tried to convince his body to knock it the fuck off.
Inside Ed’s apartment it was clear someone had gone to a great deal of effort to make it homey. There was art on the walls--quiet pastoral scenes featuring quaint farmhouses and livestock. The couch was covered in a collection of handmade blankets and quilts. In the kitchen, the refrigerator was covered in photographs and postcards. Every wall that could hold a bookcase did, and shoved in among the thick academic volumes were tiny potted plants, shot glasses with increasingly bad puns, and ceramic kittens.
Ed shoved a glass of water into his hand and guided him to one of the chairs in the kitchen/eating area, right under a cat wall calendar. “Al,” he said by way of explanation. “He’s nuts for cats.” He crossed his arms and stared down at Roy. “You okay? Need a paper bag, or anything?”
The glass trembled in his grip, so he set it on the table. “Sorry.”
“No, fuck, I’m sorry. Didn’t even think. Most everybody here knows I can do that. It’s okay if you need to go, or you know. Not ever talk to me again. I get it.” He was going to hurt himself if he held himself any tighter.
“It would be a bit hypocritical of me.” He smiled, grim. “I’d give you a demonstration of my own prowess, but,” he shrugged. The combined scent of fire, smoke, and the electric tang of alchemy still had him dry heaving most days. Best not to repeat that indignity. “It’s a little irresponsible to go starting fires indoors.”
“Huh.” Ed eased himself into the chair at Roy’s side. “How’s that work?”
Roy explained the ignition gloves, his years of study. “You think it’s about fire, but the further you get into it--”
“It’s really about the oxygen.” Ed nodded along, eyes a little distant. He shook his head. “Gloves, huh? And you what,” he waved a hand.
Roy obligingly snapped, only feeling a little foolish. When Ed laughed, delighted, the feeling went away entirely.
“You flash bastard.”
Despite himself, Roy smiled. “Right on more counts than you know.” His hands were steady as he sipped at the water and tried very hard not to feel uncomfortably aware of the lull in their conversation.
“Do you want to stick around for lunch? I usually order something on days after appointments. S’like a reward for being a fucking adult or some shit.” He grabbed a stack of menus and set them before Roy. “You can pick, I like everything. Unless,” he tilted his head to the side. “You have to get back to work. Or whatever it is you call harassing people who are just trying to mind their own business.”
Roy flipped through the menus idly. He lived on the other side of the city, and wasn’t familiar with the names. “It is work, and I’m very good at it. If more people cared enough to take five seconds out of their day to sign our petitions, we’d be able to get a lot more done.”
“Yeah? How’s that working out for you?” No one as young as Ed had the right to sound so cynical.
“It’s not as bad as all that.” Most days. Some days. Occasionally.
“You should learn to lie better. It might make your job easier.” He picked up a sheet of paper and waved it around. “Sign here to win a free trip. Sign here to win a free car. Sign here to win a free massage.’ And then if someone asks you if they won, you tell them it was someone else. Easy. Loads of signatures.”
“Sounds like a job interview.” He tried to imagine Ed standing outside markets and malls asking people to sign and couldn't fathom it.
Ed made a rude sound. “Please. I have a real job.”
“You do?” He didn’t mean to sound so surprised. It was just that Ed never meantioned work.
Ed studied him over the menus. “Well, you know,” his voice was overly casual. Practiced. “You can only be a child soldier until you’re not a child anymore. I write articles for alchemy journals.”
Roy swallowed, and swallowed again until he was sure he could speak. “Freelance? I don’t know that I’d call that a real job, or that you should be so derisive about mine.”
The laugh that cracked out of Ed wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was close enough. “Just pick something. I’m starving.”
*
The heat from summer was slowly bleeding into a more palatable fall. It was the sweet spot in canvassing, when people were more likely to linger because they weren’t about to die from the sun, and weren’t freezing in the snow. Roy’s numbers were the highest they’d been all summer.
It was the end of his shift, in just a few minutes he’d be able to pack in and head home. Maybe stop somewhere and pick up a sandwich on his way. The fridge was empty because some weeks shopping felt like too much of a task.
Behind him, a car door slammed and he spun to see Ed stomping across the parking lot toward him. Al sat behind the wheel with a suspiciously wide grin.
He stopped just in front of Roy. “So, do you, uh,” Ed crossed his arms over his chest, seemed to realize he looked overly aggressive and let them drop. “D’you want to go out with me? Sometime?” He swallowed and looked away. “Like dinner, or something. Whatever you want.”
It was the most challenging invitation he’s ever been given. Ed threw it between them like he expected Roy to argue. As if there could be an ounce of Roy that was not deeply thrilled. “Do you want to go now?”
“What?”
“I know a great place on the other side of the river.”
Ed squinted at him. “I didn’t,” he huffed out a breath. “I didn’t expect you to say yes.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “Or really anything at all. I kind of didn’t think I’d actually ask.”
“Well,” Roy took a breath, took a chance, took a step. For all that Ed seemed larger than life with his big thoughts and wide hand gestures, Roy had to duck his head down to whisper in Ed’s ear. “I’m so glad you did.”
A shiver ran through Ed, then he swallowed and pushed Roy away with a playful shove. “Dial it down, hotshot. You’ve got to buy me dinner, first.”
There was a more than even chance that Roy would do absolutely anything Ed asked. “It would be an absolute pleasure.”