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Ed feels like a proper idiot lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and thinking about Mustang instead of sleeping, but the records will show that it’s not even remotely his fault.
They’re friends now—him and Mustang. Him and Roy. He didn’t ask for it, and he never would have guessed it, but life’s bizarre like that. They grab coffee, they get lunch, they argue about alchemy, they argue less about other stuff, and they lend each other books. Friends. Undeniably.
And that’s fine—it’s great, actually. Ed’s surprised at how all right it is to be friends with someone whose nose he used to fantasize about breaking on a regular basis. Nowadays, he barely ever wants to punch Roy at all.
Which is nice. It’s nice being friends with Roy—it’s nice being friends with anyone, but there’s something extra satisfying about working your way up to it. And they really have worked.
It wasn’t as bad as he expected, though, and he likes it. He likes Roy.
Which is the problem.
Because Roy’s still Roy—still flippant and condescending and annoying and strangely admirable. He still talks out of his ass and then says stuff he means; he still teases, and he still plans circles around other people, and he still looks half-resigned and half-offended every time that Ed proves him wrong.
And he’s still… hot. Ed has had to accept that he’s just like that—he just drapes himself over chairs in a way that elongates his legs and his torso; he just tips his head in a way that makes his hair flitter into his eyes and then slide away. He just naturally turns so that the nearest light source kisses every angle of his face, and Ed can’t help it if he’s fucking jealous of the lamps that get to touch his skin; it’s not Ed’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just how Roy is. He’s just gorgeous without any effort. He’s not trying to tangle Ed’s guts into impossible knots.
Or—
Wait.
Hang on.
Hang the fuck on.
Ed blinks at the ceiling, which hasn’t changed, but might as well be spinning, because he’s thinking so fast—
There is data. There is data in his brain; all he has to do is extract it and analyze it, and then he can draw conclusions that are supported by evidence instead of by emotion, and then—
Roy’s behavior has changed, in terms of both individual actions and body language. He smiles at Ed—directly at Ed—statistically more frequently than he used to. He stretches more: arms over his head, back arched, legs extended; he draws attention to himself and guides Ed’s eyes down the arc of his body. He does it significantly more often when they’re alone in his living room or library than he does when they’re out. He leans forward a lot—he regularly positions himself several inches closer than he ever did before. He lowers his voice, in register and in volume, so that Ed shivers, first, and then has to lean towards him to be able to hear. He tilts his head all the time, like he knows something that Ed doesn’t, and he’s feeling smug about it, and he wants Ed to ask. He does even weirder shit with his eyebrows lately. He toys with saltshakers and bookmarks and any damn thing that he can get his too-pretty fingers on, and he routinely keeps at it until Ed’s blood heats, and Ed’s skin prickles, and Ed’s breath steams in his throat.
And it’s all—more. More often, more pronouncedly; all of the recollections that Ed can call up feed the same hypothesis that instinct led him to. Roy has changed. Roy’s actions have changed. Roy’s tactics have changed. A hundred-thousand specific movements have added up.
Roy is just like that. Roy always has been.
But not that much like that. Not like this. This isn’t accidental or incidental anymore. This is concentrated; this is deliberate; this is directed.
Roy has been trying to put the moves on him. For… a while.
That part’s a little hazier. Ed can’t pinpoint exactly when it went from Roy just being a little sexy in his natural state of existence to Roy actively trying to seduce Ed, in particular, on purpose.
That’s it. That has to be it. It can’t be anything else, because nothing else explains the series of observed phenomena, and…
And what the fuck? Was Roy planning on saying something, or was he just going to keep doing weird eyebrow shit and fondling the salt and hoping for the best until they both went fucking gray?
That does it.
Ed slings himself up out of bed and stomps over to the door, throws it open, directs the ongoing stomping down the—
“Brother?” Al calls, blearily.
“Sorry,” Ed says. He pauses in the stomping to tap his knuckles against Al’s door. “I’m just gonna make a phone call.”
Al groans. “At two in the morning?”
“It’s important,” Ed says. He taps again, more gently. “Go back to sleep.”
Al mumbles something that probably isn’t flattering, but at least doesn’t sound too distressed, so Ed tiptoes the rest of the way down the hall to their kitchen. He picks up the phone, glares at it for a second, and then dials.
It only rings twice before the line catches.
“Mustang,” Roy says, and Ed can hear the interrupted sleep in every single letter—low and slightly rough, and the electricity that travels up his spine—
Well, that’s the whole damn point of this, actually.
“Hi,” Ed says.
“Ed,” Roy says. He sounds a little bit relieved, and a little bit like he’s going to ‘accidentally’ tip the entire hot sauce bottle onto Ed’s food the next time that they’re out and dare Ed to eat it anyway. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yeah,” Ed says. “Al told me. Hey, I need to ask you something.”
He didn’t plan it this way, but this is an incredible opportunity—Roy’s probably too sleep-muddled right now to lie.
Apparently he’s not too sleep-muddled to sigh really, really loudly, though. “And what’s that?”
In a way, that response kind of… confirms it. Doesn’t it? Nobody would let Ed call them at two in the goddamn morning, apropos of absolutely nothing, and then humor him unless their brain was full of romance weevils. It’s the only plausible scenario.
Ed must be taking a little longer to process this revelation than he realized, because Roy clears his throat—which is a shame, actually, because it smoothes some of the huskiness out of his voice, and that was hot as fuck.
“Ed?” Roy says. “Is everything all right?”
“You tell me,” Ed says. “Have you been flirting with me?”
The pause continues for long enough that he starts to think—
That he starts to wonder—
If maybe, this time, just this once—just because the universe has to kick his sorry ass—the scientific method has failed him.
His heart drops, and a humiliated heat rushes into his cheeks. Maybe Roy won’t remember in the morning. Maybe—
“It’s been something like six months,” Roy says, somewhat dryly. “Good of you to finally notice.”
“Shut up,” Ed chokes out. It’s the most reliable knee-jerk reaction that he’s yet found. “So—well—okay. Are you free tomorrow?”
The little half-laugh has a bit more of that sleep-coarseness in it. Good. “Do you mean ‘today’?”
“Whatever,” Ed says. “Is that a yes?”
This one is closer to three-quarters of a laugh. “Did you think that I would flirt with you for six months and then say no?”
“How should I know?” Ed says. “You do all kinds of stupid shit.”
This one is a whole laugh. Ed hopes that he gets to go out with Roy fucking Mustang at least once before the neighbors murder him in cold blood. “I think that that particular maneuver would depart the realm of stupid shit and waltz directly into… something… much worse. So, in so many words: yes.”
“Okay,” Ed says. It feels like his head is floating somewhere near the tops of the cabinets. He found out that cabinets have tops the other day; Al made him get up on a chair to dust. “Great. I’ll see you later, then.”
“You will,” Roy says, softly. “Go get some sleep.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Ed says.
He can hear the return of the smile. “Please go get some sleep, if you personally find that to be a reasonable proposition.”
“I’ll think about it,” Ed says.
“Goodnight,” Roy says. “Or… morning. Or… something.”
“Or something,” Ed says. “’Bye.” He hangs up the phone and fucking grins, and—
“Brother,” Al calls. “Go to sleep.”
“All right, all right,” Ed calls back, because it is, and because the neighbors can’t kill him unless they catch him first.