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Ed's life is very different than it used to be, on the outside.
The body knows, the body remembers, and the boy- how old is he again? He's too young to be this old, too old to have done what he did, twenty three if you don't count the other universes and a thousand small deaths- can't sleep at night.
Ed isn't supposed to live in fear anymore, doesn't live on the edge of desperation and adrenaline and terror, but his body doesn't know that.
Ed wakes up in the middle of the night with a jerk, his heart in his throat, sure he's missing something, sure something's gone wrong, that he needs to be awake and looking and ready-
Al sleeps in the other room like the dead. He has years to catch up on.
The adrenaline winds its way out of his veins, slowly, reluctantly, an unwelcome guest who will not put his hat on but instead dallies by the door- are you sure you don't need me? Are you sure you're sure? What if-
Ed paces the upper floors of the townhouse they managed to scrape together- it is shocking how many elderly alchemists, who tend to be lonely and isolated, put Ed and Al in their wills. It's the only thing that kept them afloat, sometimes, and Ed is equally grateful for both the money and the years of research that fall into his lap.
(Mustang had raised an eyebrow and dropped a sheaf of parchment paper wills bequeathing estates and libraries, notes and patents and sometimes just a shelf of test tubes and the last remnants of a retirement fund.
"You're the people's alchemist," he had said simply when Ed had spluttered, wide eyed and confused. "And alchemists don't often have people.")
That's a truth that Ed dwells on when he stalks the bare wood floors- this townhouse, a little ramshackle but fine enough, close to the library- had belonged to a hermit who had made some serious cash off some alchemical innovation and promptly shut himself away for twenty years to work on more. That's the story, anyway.
He had never met Ed or Al, but they had written to him when they were writing to everyone. And that was enough for them to get the library, and the last seven years before the patent expired, and the house, with its slowly warping floors and cavernous fireplaces and soundproof basement.
Ed can understand why alchemists sometimes shut themselves away from the world.
If he didn't have Al, it would be very easy to- to just close yourself off, drown in symbolism and mercury, the whites of your eyes going brown with old blood.
It's because of the fear-
The fear, the fear, the fear, never-ending and all consuming, why won't it let him rest-
Because alchemy is magnifying, awesome in the old sense of the word, and Ed cuts himself on the sharp edges of it till his fingers are thick pads of scar tissue.
Ed seems like a safe repository, for all these old alchemist's secrets.
He doesn't know if he is.
Sometimes the weight of that responsibility- lifetimes of some fruitless pursuit, terrible things scribbled in the margins of notebooks, the Gate yawning ever ceaselessly beneath him- seems too much. Ed thinks he might crack under the pressure of all these secrets, under the fear of them.
Maybe that's another reason he does endless loops of this slowly settling house. Just to check. To make sure they are safe, to make sure that the love and terror soaked into the paper, the books, the walls of this house, doesn't leak out.
("That house is a mausoleum," Mustang says, frowning at him, at the circles under his eyes. "No wonder you can't get any sleep."
"It's a free house," Ed says, rolls his eyes. "Do you know how expensive housing is in Central?"
Mustang's face sours. "Intimately.")
Mustang's mouth gets a pinched look around the corners whenever he's thinking about the house- Ed can now pick that expression out from his mental rolodex of Mustang expressions. It's sandwiched between the 'deeper than normal eyebrow furrow and look left' of true worry, and the 'faintly cocked left eyebrow and mouth twitch' of annoyance.
Ed- sort of gets it.
They've lived here for two months now, desperate for a home, for a den for them to burrow and heal and be safe. The walls loom and are yellowed with nicotine, scorched black at the top with old smoke, and all the wood is twisted.
The less said about that basement, the better.
Ed finds himself thinking about the alchemist who had left them the house- he doesn't know much, just that he was a colleague of the hateful Tucker but had left far before the- the incident. Knows he was experimenting with bio-alchemy and had answered their desperate letters with spidery handwriting and polite apologies.
And then the house. This fucking house.
This house, with the hallways that seem a touch longer than they should from the outside. Every day Ed fights the urge to measure the baseboards with a ruler, sure that they stretch just that little bit.
Maybe he’s mis-remembering. Maybe he’s going crazy. He doesn’t know.
It's hard to leave the house- the sunlight seems brighter and almost violent stepping from the heavy wood door, but it's harder still to go back.
Ed finds himself lingering in the library for hours on end, till the lights are too low to read and even the librarians- who can't seem to decide if they want to kill Ed or adopt him- are asking him to leave.
He drags his feet on the way home, wondering if he should stop for food, if he should head to the office- yeah, he doesn't work there anymore, but it's still the office- and bother Mustang, if he should get on a train out to Resembool and herd goats.
He probably won't do that. He doesn't like goats.
But Al is waiting for him at home, hist hands still too thin and twined together, and Ed needs to get him to eat more and sleep more and out of the fucking house more.
The fucking house.
Ed enters into the house and feels like he's interrupting. He paces its labyrinthine upper floors and counts steps and worries over the fact that he thinks it might be different going down than going up like a dog with a bone. Fourteen down and sixteen up, where are those extra steps coming from- is he mis-counting? Can he not remember that crooked one on the way down? Why can’t he remember? Fourteen-sixteen-fourteen-sixteen-fourte-
Ed catches himself in a Möbius strip of obsessive muttering and clatters the rest of the way down, brain static with confusion and fear and desperation to not count.
Was it fourteen or sixteen?
He sleeps and fear comes in on shadow soft feet and wakes him from sleep, gentle at first, like the tide, and then the sudden shock- the water is at his neck, there is no way out, he is drowning- pushes him to full wakefulness. He is gasping for air in a room that is filled with water and empty of the sea. There is nothing there.
He sits awake at the end of his bed in sheets they bought from some cheap houseware store, the jersey incongruous against the heavy wood of the bed, and tells himself he doesn't see anything in the shadows, nothing in the corners of his eyes.
There is nothing there, there is nothing there, he is safe, he is not crazy, the Gate is not there every time he closes his eyes and there is nothing in the shadows.
Ed wonders if peace time is always like this. If that’s just the reality of living through one too many universe's wars. If he will ever know what it is to live without sweat soaked sheets, a thundering heart, blue lightning on call always always always.
For the first time- was it? The first time? Ed can’t remember- Ed wonders if it’s the-
No.
The house is fine.
…
The fucking house.
"Maybe we should move," Al says out of the blue. They're both in the kitchen- they tend to gravitate towards this room. It's stupid- there's two libraries in this dumb house, one upper and one lower, plus a sitting room and a parlor that Ed actually really hates and-
"Why?" Ed says.
Al's eyes flick to the right, and Ed's immediately on guard. "You haven't been sleeping well," Al says, and Ed gears up for something, because there's a heaviness to Al's tone that says he's been thinking about this for a while, and Ed's not going to like it.
Ed shrugs. "Not used to it, I guess."
It being peacetime, he guesses. Whatever that means. Not used to there not actually being anything in the corners. Because there is nothing in the corners. Ed has checked.
A twist to Al's mouth. "It's not just that," Al says, slow. "Brother, do you ever feel like- there's something wrong with the house?"
It lands in the kitchen like a stone in a too small pond. There's a creeping feeling in Ed's shoulders, twisting tender new muscles into knots.
The kitchen, with its dark green tiles and silver etched ceiling, seems quiet and dark and empty, even with the two of them in it.
Ed swallows down- fear fear fear- unease. He stretches, falsely casual. "Nah," he says. "Hey, Al, do you want to get kebabs for dinner?"
Al is frozen in his seat, staring at Ed. All at once it's like he rolls back into motion, tilting his head and smiling. "Ooh," he says. "That sounds good. Should we go to the one place on Morgan?"
"Works for me," Ed says, shoves himself to his feet.
There's a backdoor in the kitchen, with windows set into it. It leads out into the backyard, which is high walled and overgrown but has a little gate that leads into the alley. It takes a solid five or six minutes to walk out of that alley onto the main road that they need to go. It makes no sense for them to leave through the kitchen door.
There is a quiet and serious and maybe not entirely his voice in Ed's gut telling Ed to go out the kitchen door. To leave as soon as possible, to not enter the rest of the house.
Ed thinks of the baseboards stretching and stretching and stretching and his hands ache for a ruler. Or a match and can of gasoline.
Ed walks over to the door, Al behind him, and sets his hand on the handle.
His brain shrieks, what if the door doesn't open, what if it won't open, what if you can't get out, what if you're trapped-
Ed turns the handle.
It sticks for a half a second, enough for Ed's pulse to leap in his throat and his eyesight to sharpen too far, too quick. Then it turns, and both Ed and Al are clattering down the wooden steps just a little too fast, picking their way through long grass and then, the wooden door, the turn, the whine of summer insects too loud and too much in their ears-
And then the door is shut, and they're in an average alleyway, the kind you can find all over Central, standing water in the cracked concrete running down the window.
Ed and Al share a look, and then very carefully mosey down the alley, neither of them speaking, walking too casually.
It's how they used to walk when they were being followed, and Ed can see the shadow of the armor in the way that Al hunches his shoulders and steps toe to heel, to lessen the sharp clank of metal on concrete that is no longer there.
They walk a good four or five blocks, and then Ed pulls Al into a phone booth- swallowing down the usual burst of nausea at being inside one of the damn things- and pushes in coins with slightly numb fingers.
"Hello?"
"Hey," Ed says to Mustang. "The fucking house is haunted."
There's a sort of look that Mustang has, an edge to the flat, worried frown adorning his mouth.
"Shut the fuck up," Ed says peremptorily.
Mustang raises his hands. "I didn't say a word," he protests.
"You were thinking it," Ed says.
"How do they do that?" Havoc says, looking between the two of them like this is some kind of tennis match.
"Years of exposure," Breda offers.
"They share a singular brain cell," Al says calmly.
"I stopped paying attention to the Colonel and Edward's bickering years ago," Hawkeye says.
Mustang makes a wounded noise. "You don't pay attention to me?"
"Whatever you say, sir," Hawkeye says, blank equanimity on her face.
Ed cracks half a smile at that, and Mustang makes complaining noises, but his eyes stay dark and sharp on Ed's face.
They've reconvened the team for this- whatever this is. Ed doesn't want to say haunting but-
Edward Elric is not a superstitious person. He's not a religious one either.
("How can you say that?" Mustang says late one night, the circles under his eyes cavernous in candle light. "After what you've done, where you've been."
"Where we've been," Ed corrects automatically. The Gate does not ever disappear from the back of your mind, and Mustang should know that better than anyone. Does know that. He keeps it a secret though, half hidden away even from himself.
They're at Mustang's office, puzzling over some ridiculous piece of alchemy Ed had ventured into the library to snag. Mustang's face is doing something strange, and Ed knows he's looking at the tightness of his mouth, of the way his cheeks are starting to look like Al's- drawn and gaunt.
But Ed didn't comment on Mustang's eye bags, or the fact that Mustang is at his office at eleven at night and was willing to parse through old alchemical notes instead of going home and going to sleep, and so Mustang doesn't comment on the ache of exhaustion carved into Ed's face.
"Fine," Mustang says. "And so?"
Ed shakes his head, thinks of Rose and a dead bird and a much younger Edward Elric, and sighs. "There's a difference between faith and knowledge," he says. "Religion requires the former, not the latter. That's not the one I have."
It may be too much to say that the Gate is God, anyway. There are things behind it, in the black and in the cold, that even Ed has not seen. There may even be something better, if you can get through the endless desert. Ed does not want to try- this is peace time, and the next time he sees the Gate he better well be fucking dead, or someone's going to hear it.)
The point is, Ed doesn't want to say he believes in ghosts, but he's damn well pragmatic enough to say that the creepy old place that used to house an old alchemist who specialized in bio-alchemy might damn well have ghosts in it.
"So your house is haunted, huh?" Breda says, switches his toothpick to the other side of his mouth.
Ed spares a single, aching though to how much Hughes would've loved that, and then dives into it.
"Yeah," he says. "And I don't know if it's like, a ghost-ghost or some remnants of whatever the hell the bastard who left us the house has just, like, seeped into the walls or whatever, but it's-" he falters for just a moment, grasping for words, and Mustang leans forward a fraction.
"It's nasty," Al says, frowning. "It feels bad, and it feels like it wants us inside."
Silence.
Havoc scrubs a hand over his face and sighs. "Seven hells," he complains. "It never fucking ends with you two. 'It'?"
"Oh, I'm sorry," Ed snaps, "Would you prefer 'it' or 'the slowly creeping sense of unease and unfounded anxiety'?"
"Your vocabulary has improved so much," Mustang says dryly. "Have you been studying the dictionary?"
"Two hours every night, you bastard," Ed says.
"Boys," Al says mildly, and Ed sighs and turns back to him.
"Right," Ed says, and he does not say sorry, because if he said sorry every time he and Mustang got into it he would never say anything but the words "bastard" "Mustang" and "sorry", which would severely limit his vocabulary.
And after all that studying, too.
"I don't know what to do with the house," Ed admits. "But I don't- I don't think it's the best idea if we go back inside, honestly. But I don't want anyone else in there, and I don't have a good enough grasp on what's in the basement to say if it's safe to blow up or what."
"You can't blow up a building in the middle of Central," Havoc says, looking vaguely green. "It's not safe no matter what's in the basement."
Ed waves a hand. "That's what they tell you but you really can if you're motivated enough," he says.
"You’ve lived there for two months and you don't know what's in the basement?" Mustang says, sharp eyed again. The man's a fucking hawk.
Ed shifts from foot to foot. His automail aches. The automail that he no longer has aches. "Not totally." he says.
If the house was bad, with it's too long corridors and aching walls and too deep corners, the basement wasn't so much worse as it was-
It was bad.
It was really bad.
"Really, really, bad." Ed says out loud, and gives a short, sharp shake of his head.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Mustang says, looks like he bit into a lemon. "That is- we could've helped you."
Ed shrugs a little helplessly. "What was there to say?" he says. "That I had a bad feeling about the basement? That I hate it down there? That the stairs are longer on the way up than down? That the shadows-"
That the shadows seemed to fucking breathe, or pulse, that they had physical weight, that Ed had to keep it secret, keep it safe, that the secrets that oozed out of the walls were Ed's weight to bear alone, if only he could fucking remember them.
"Brother," Al says, and he sounds nearly heartbroken, eyes wide in his thin face.
That's the problem- Al's thin face and yeah, he's not gaunt anymore and he's not an invalid but they're god damned lucky he can walk, lucky that his limbs weren't atrophied into nothingness after so many years at the Gate. Lucky that his brain didn't come back and just short out.
Mustang looks at Al's big eyes and open, chapped mouth and then looks back at Ed. Mustang's mouth thins a little, but he gives a short nod. Mustang gets it.
Ed'll give that to him. Mustang usually gets it.
"Al," Mustang says. "I think you should head out to Resembool for a while."
"I beg your pardon," Al says, suddenly icy and his shoulders stiff as boards.
"Mustang's right," Ed says, and the words drag out of his mouth like they cause him physical pain.
Hawkeye blinks.
Havoc lets out a low whistle. "Someone owes me money, I think," he says out loud.
Ed sighs. "Al. Please. I am begging you here. You're not an indestructible suit of armor anymore, and if it were six months from now-"
If you didn't get winded climbing up a flight of stairs. If you didn't need to wrap a blanket around your legs to ward off an ever present chill, even on the warm summer days. If you didn't sleep sixteen hours out of the day like a cat, your body desperate for true rest at long last.
Al's mouth turns in on itself, and Ed could deal with it if Al were angry at him, but Al's angry at himself, and Ed's heart breaks. "Al, please," he says, and he wishes he were alone, that even though he trusts the people in here with his life, he doesn't know if he wants them to hear his voice break.
"We're going to deal with it," Mustang says, authority in his voice. "I promise you, Al, I'll keep your brother safe."
He sounds so- sure, so calm, that some of the tight muscles in between Ed's shoulders uncoil. The fact that the corners of Al's mouth aren't so pinched helps too.
At the end of the day, Ed does trust Mustang. Mostly.
With things like this, sort of- absolutely.
Which is a scary thought in and of itself, and Ed would rather go into the fucking basement than follow that track, leading into the dark and thorny and soft areas of his mind, where Roy Mustang has semi-permanent residence, there in a house at the end of a drive that is lined with things that Ed feels he can't have, good intentions and red flames.
And so Al goes to Resembool, set up in a first class train car courtesy of Brigadier General Roy Mustang with Winry waiting for him at the other end.
And Ed is alone in Central, alone in the townhouse. Alone with the shadows and the hallway and the basement and the fear.
Metaphorically, that is.
"Like hell you're going to keep staying at that house," Mustang says, his eyes narrowed.
Ed sets his jaw and prepares for a fight.
From the way Mustang is lounging in his chair, deceptively draped like some sort of big cat, Mustang's also gearing up to dig in his heels. It's the way his eyes go so sharp and bright. Dead giveaway.
"Someone has to figure out what the fuck is up with the house," Ed argues. "Who knows if it's haunted, or just had some bad alchemy in the basement, or what the fuck ever- what if it starts leaking, what if some kids break in, what if something gets out-"
"Do you want to go back to the house?" Mustang asks, softly.
"No." Ed says.
It punches out of him like a gunshot. Visceral and painful, like he’s a little kid again, desperate for his mom.
Mustang’s mouth goes soft in surprise, and he swallows.
“Edward,” he says, and Ed cannot fucking deal with whatever’s about to come out of his mouth. Absolutely cannot.
“No, I don’t want to go back to that fucking house,” he says, sand in his mouth, cracking beneath his teeth, confession. “I hate it. I can’t fucking sleep and I count the floorboards and my steps and the number of shadows in the bedroom and they’re never the same. I can’t remember half of what’s in the basement and I can’t remember if it’s because I didn’t look or- But there’s nothing to fight there- there’s nothing there. Every time I pull out a ruler or turn out the lights or- there’s nothing fucking there.”
It’s Ed’s turn to swallow. “Maybe I’m just going crazy.”
“No,” Mustang says instantly. Same surety. “You’re not crazy, Ed.”
“How would I know?” Ed asks. “How would you know? You’re just as cracked as I am. Maybe the wars finally caught up to us and we should just go retire somewhere on a beach and say fuck all to politics and alchemy. It’s never fucking done us any good.”
They land like a stone in the warm pool of Mustang’s office- a safe space, where the shadows don’t move and Mustang is there and Ed knows where all the spare ignition gloves are hiding.
Mustang’s eyes have widened out of their glare, and he looks- pleased, right around the two degree uptick of the left side of his mouth and the way his crows feet are creased. This pisses Ed off for two reasons, because one, what the fuck does Mustang have to be pleased about, Ed’s going fucking crazy and his house may or may not be haunted, and two-
Well, the simple fact that Eds got Mustang’s “surprised and pleased” micro expression memorized.
(Ed has a collection of Roy Mustang's expressions, a rare catalog that Ed is the sole librarian of. It's not something he is proud of, but the upkeep of said collection is one of his few, secret pleasures.)
“What?” Ed snaps.
“You want to go retire on a beach together, Ed?” Mustang says. That uptick of his mouth is becoming more of a real grin.
Considering it’s midnight in the office- why are they still in the fucking office- and they’re the only ones there, Ed supposed he can forgive this break in Mustang’s perpetual mask.
“Fuck you,” Ed says, automatic. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did,” Mustang says, smug and unrepentant. “I would’ve thought the sand would irritate your auto mail.”
“It does,” Ed scowls. “But beaches are warm. Cold is worse than sand.”
Sand will occasionally gum up the works if he isn’t careful, and it leaves micro abrasions that bring Winry into rages, but the cold-
The cold is worse.
The basement is always cold.
Ed gives an involuntary shiver and Mustang’s grin fades. “Tropical destinations only, then,” he says lightly. “It’s late. Come home with me.”
Ed’s heart does something traitorous and unexpected-expected-unexpected- it skips. He wonders for a brief, panicked moment if he’s having a heart attack- if his cortisol levels are so shot that his body is just giving up, the adrenaline that has sustained him for years dried up.
It subsides, however, leaving Ed with a dry mouth and a furious blush slowly creeping up his neck.
It’s late, he argues to himself, and Ed’s nerves are shot and he hasn’t slept well in weeks and really, anyone’s mouth would go dry at Roy Mustang, tired and rumpled, cheekbones carved out by low gas lights, saying quiet and sincere-
“That is,” Mustang says. “You will be sleeping at my house. You’re not going back to that crypt at midnight by yourself.”
Ed opens his mouth- to argue, to acquiesce, he doesn’t know- and Mustang’s mouth tightens. “For once in your life,” he says, “please listen to me.”
Ed sighs. “Fine,” he says. “But you better make good coffee.”
"Only the best," Mustang says, stands. Stretches his arms above his head.
Ed stands too, and wonders if he imagines the for you that seems to hang unsaid in the air.
Mustang's house is- is nice.
It's a townhouse too, but in a quieter area, a little farther out. A little greener, the streets a little sleepier.
"This isn't...quite what I was expecting," Ed admits. It's nearing one am by the time they arrive, and Mustang locks the car doors with a sort of care that Ed doesn't know why he's surprised by. Mustang has always taken care of his things- his gloves, his country, his team.
"I gave up my bachelor pad long ago," Mustang says, fatigue making the creases by his mouth when he smiles deeper.
"Gettin' old," Ed says, clambering up the stairs after him. His foot clanks once, loud in the still night air.
"Distinguished," Mustang corrects.
He unlocks the door with both a key and a neat bit of alchemy, pressing his fingertips to a small circle hidden under the handle.
Ed's hands are sweaty, he notes somewhat absently. There's a weird creeping feeling coming up his spine, and he feels almost- nauseous. Maybe from the lack of sleep.
Mustang opens the door and crosses the threshold.
Ed stays on the steps.
Mustang has his coat half off his shoulders, hanging round his elbows, before he turns and looks at Ed. "Are you alright?" he says, quiet.
Ed stares into the hallway of Mustang's foyer. It's not big, leads into a longer hallway toward the back of the house and up a set of stairs.
There's a set of double doors to the left, half open. A thin rectangle of moonlight inches its way through said doors, leaves Mustang's boots limmed in it.
None of the shadows move. Mustang flicks a switch, and more warm light floods the space.
Gold on his head, silver on his feet.
Ed takes a breath. "Yeah," he says, crosses the threshold. "Still considering the crazy thing, but, you know."
Mustang shuts and locks the door behind him, and after Ed's brief spat of- fear- unease at entering a townhouse, he can focus on how weird-not-weird it feels.
Mustang's pulling off his gloves, folding them into his pants pocket, toeing off his shoes with the sort of carelessness born of late hours.
It's quiet in the house, a clock ticking somewhere, and even their voices are lowered as if in deference to the hour.
It feels strangely intimate. Like coming home. Not in a gross, cheesy way- just- normal. Like routine. Like something safe, like Mustang's office.
(Like refuge, something longing says in him, right where his lungs sit. It feels like shelter from the storm, like a house that Ed would not be scared to go back to. Like somewhere safe, something he could trust.
The question behind that is, of course: is it the house or the man currently pushing his bangs off his face with fingers made clumsy by exhaustion, blinking sleepy black eyes at Ed?
Ed knows the answer. He knows.)
"The library's through there," Mustang says, nodding toward the double doors. "I'm tempted to let you sleep in there- heaven knows I found you passed out in the stacks often enough."
"Hah," Ed says. "I'll take a bed, thanks. I'm too damn old to be sleeping on tables."
Mustang laughs, soft. "I suppose you are. Would you like a cane, or perhaps to talk about the good ole days?"
"Kids," Ed grumbles. "You've got no fucking respect."
"At least I'm your elder, if not your better," Mustang says, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean. "Let me show you to the guest room."
The guest room is- nice. Again. It's simple and small but the sheets are worn soft linen, the wooden floors cool under Ed's one bare foot, his toes butting up against a blue woolen carpet.
"Do you need anything?" Mustang says, standing in the doorway. "I'm usually a better host, but I'm afraid I'm falling asleep standing up, and I imagine you're worse."
Ed breaks his longing, dead eyed stare at the bed and turns to look at him. "Nah," Ed says, weariness wearing his sharp edges soft at last. "This is- thank you."
Mustang's shoulders drop a fraction. "Thank you," he says quietly. "For listening to me."
Soft, and quiet, and the carpet stretches like an ocean between them, and the space feels heavy, suddenly, with something there that Ed's strung thin mind cannot wrap around.
"Good night, Roy." Ed says.
Mustang blinks, and he says, just as soft, "Good night, Ed." and then he's closing the door and Ed is left alone in the bedroom, where the lamp burns bronze and the walls do not loom, and a suddenly hard-beating heart.
He wakes hours or minutes later on half a scream, a hand on his shoulder, and alchemy flaring to life in his fingertips.
(Sometimes Ed thinks that if you cut him blue light would spill out- all his blood dried up in the lightning strike of creation, a frankenstein's monster of a man creaking around the world, animated by something not of this universe, a receptacle for whatever is left when it all goes quiet.)
There’s a bitten off swear and the hand is gone and a second later there's a terse, calm voice saying, “Ed. It’s me. You’re okay.”
Ed blinks past black spots, past the water draining from the high tide line of his eyes.
Roy is half sitting on the bed, one hand still reaching for him like you would with a scared animal.
“Wh-“ Ed says, breathless and hoarse.
“You’re okay,” Roy repeats, eyes locked on his face. “You had- a nightmare.”
Ed sucks in a breath, hard, lungs expanding for the first time in what feels like years. His legs feel weak, cold, and his movements are twitchy, erratic, even as he swings himself half out of bed to sit on the edge.
"I feel like I'm going insane," Ed admits. He digs his hands into his hair, elbows on his knees, like he can physically keep his head intact. "I feel like my brain is leaking out my ears, and I can't- I can't remember, I can't-"
There's a roaring in his head, in the empty spot of his ribcage.
"Ed," Roy says, and he's suddenly right there, crouched in front of Ed. His eyes are wide, and this close even in the hazy dark of the room Ed can see they're actually a very dark gray-blue, not black.
Ed notes, somewhat distantly, that he's shaking.
"You're okay," Roy says. Why does he keep saying that, Ed is not fucking okay-
"Ed, you're okay. It's," and he breaks eye contact to flip open the hated silver watch, "it's 3:15am, and you're in my house in Central. Al is staying with Winry out East, and they're both safe. Probably- probably asleep, or watching cows, whatever you people do out in the country."
Ed lets out an unsteady breath. "Cows," he says in half a croak. "Your city boy is showing, Roy."
"I should hope so," Roy says gravely. "I would hate to be mistaken for anything else."
“I can’t believe you had your watch with you,” Ed says.
"It stays on the nightstand," Roy says.
"With the gloves," Ed says, with a surety he has no right to. What does Ed know of the contents of Roy Mustang's nightstand, of Roy Mustang's bed?
But he is sure he is right anyway, would put blood or money on it.
Roy nods, face still. "With the gloves."
Ed knows that Roy would keep his gloves and his watch on the nightstand, that he's probably got another set under his pillow, that there's probably more blankets on the bed than you would expect- Roy runs cold, unexpected for the flame alchemist. Maybe that's the real reason for the gloves. His hands are always like ice.
They don't feel like ice now, settling on his knee, warm and grounding and the shadows in this room are simply that, shadows, and Ed counts his breaths and counts Roy's breaths and counts the number of floorboards to the bathroom three times and they do not change and finally, finally, his shoulders unwind.
“Do you want-“ Roy says, stops. “I can stay,” he says again. Olive branch.
Ed, god help him, wants him to stay. Wants the one person in the world he- begrudgingly, mind you, of course- trusts almost or as much as Al to stay with him, wants someone else to keep the nightmares away, wants- he cannot have this.
“You need to sleep,” Ed says, unwilling to admit that yes he does want Roy to stay, no he doesn’t want to be alone. “More than me, anyway- don’t you have a country to run or something?”
“What is a country compared to Edward Elric getting a good night's sleep?” Roy says, and it should’ve been light, should’ve been teasing or broke the tension but it’s not, it’s not, Roy doesn’t manage it because it’s too late and they’re both too tired and the walls are as down as they can be with both of them still straining to put any brick they can on top, it’s said with too much sincerity and Roy fucking-
Roy means it.
Ed-
Ed really fucking can’t handle this right now, even as things he has done his almighty best to avoid thinking about, to avoid even tangentially realizing are rearing their ugly head.
(What a lie. Even here at the end with poison seeping into his brain, Ed's always been pretty good at knowing the contents of his own head. That's why the gaps in his memory, the forgetting, the un-knowing are so god damn scary.)
God. God.
Ed can't fucking say it. If he opens his mouth right now he honestly doesn't know what's going to start pouring out, saltwater or blood or something worse.
He swallows instead, nods without looking at Roy, stares at his two flesh and blood hands. The gate looms before him as it ever does, because once something is lost you cannot get it back, unless you can-
And so Edward Elric has two flesh and blood arms and a brother and his alchemy, and he also has his nightmares and a foot that clanks with every step like it has since he was thirteen.
He is unimaginably grateful.
Roy stands up- his knee cracks when he does, and Ed has the grace to not comment on it. "Right," he says, turns toward the door, "do you think-"
Ed stands up, gets a hand in the worn through t-shirt Roy apparently wears to bed, and Roy freezes, his back still to Ed.
Ed just stays there for a moment, just breathing, sucking in air through his teeth. After a long moment, Roy so still Ed would've thought he wasn't breathing if it weren't for the careful movement of his shoulders, Ed lets his forehead thunk in between Roy's shoulder blades.
Closes his eyes, just breathes.
He doesn't wind his arms around Roy's solid waist, doesn't press his cheek into the shadowed line of a shoulder blade, doesn't say a word.
Just holds on with one too-tight fist till the fabric is crumpled and will hold the lines of his palm long after he lets go.
Roy reaches around and sets an almost tentative hand on Ed's hip. It's awkward, must be pulling at his bad shoulder, but he doesn't move it.
"I'll come with you," Ed says.
"Alright," Roy says.
It could've been awkward. It should've been awkward.
But Ed is so god damn tired- he is tired of being in pain, he is tired of waking up screaming, he is tired the nightmares and shadows and he is tired of the lack of fucking sleep.
So when he enters Roy's room- dark and shadowy in a way that isn't scary, is just the dark of three am, excepting the slice of light cutting through the gap in the curtains- he just sort of flops onto the side of the bed that doesn't have rumpled sheets and a dented pillow.
There's no sound or motion behind him, and Ed flops around like a fish till he's on his side and can look at Roy. Roy, who is motionless in the doorway and staring at Ed with a strange expression on his face.
"Don't tell me this is your side of the bed," Ed says. His voice sounds hoarse. Screaming and sleep, probably.
"No," Roy says, still with that queer look. "No. Just-"
He stops, shakes his head with an almost confused expression, blinks hard. "I'm very tired," he says, and it sounds like he's admitting to something.
"Go to sleep," Ed croaks out, and shuffles himself under the sheets with all the grace of a beached whale.
The bed is big. There is no reason for them to touch.
They don't. Roy comes around and climbs into the side with the sheets thrown back, rolls on his back and lets out a quiet, soft sigh.
And then Ed is closing his eyes, thinking of opening his mouth and saying something, saying anything, but the blackness of exhaustion is sucking him down again and he doesn't say a damn thing.
The morning, however, is a different story.
Ed wakes slow and easy with sunlight in his eyes, and he is warm and he can breathe. This makes him freeze still, terror in his veins for a few brief moments for the fact that he is not scared, that he is not hurt.
When he blinks his eyes open, Roy is laying on his back next time, his breaths long and slow.
He is beautiful and split open and Ed is- Ed is so fucking gone, for this, a shining moment of peace, something that he cannot have and has anyway, the Edward Elric story, and now, this new chapter-
Roy Mustang in his bed with the gold coming in through the curtains, sleep warm skin inches from Ed's flat fingertips.
How Ed can want something so fiercely, with the sting of nostalgia already overlaid, to something that's happening to him at the same moment is a mystery to even him.
God. He's so fucked. And it's really, really not the time, Ed says sternly to himself, and shakes himself like a dog waking from a nightmare.
Roy is still splayed on his back, one arm tossed over his eyes as though to shield them from the sun. He's awake. The neckline of his shirt is a little stretched out, and his collarbones are showing. They're strangely delicate, almost vulnerable.
Ed wonders if it's the sharp cut of the bone that makes them that way, or if it's the fact that they're shown so rarely.
Ed props himself up on one hand, looks down at Roy, who does not move. "Hey," Ed says.
"Good morning," Roy says after a moment. He still doesn't move.
"You promised me good coffee," Ed needles.
Roy slides his arm down an inch or two, just so one dark eye can look at Ed. "I didn't realize I was promising breakfast in bed," he says.
"Well now that you've said it," Ed says.
They stare at each other for another moment. In the morning sun, right from sleep, the crow's feet by Roy's eyes are a little deeper, but the purple under his eyes has already faded to a more acceptable gray bruise.
Ed can feel a crease from the sheets in his cheek, sure that his face is flushed like a child's, and rubs at his face self-consciously with the heel of his hand.
"How did you sleep?" Roy says.
Ed pauses. "...I slept," he says. Blinks. "Holy shit, I actually- I slept."
"That fucking house," Roy says, and it's the politest, blandest tone Ed really only hears when Roy's talking to politicians he doesn't like but-
"You swore," Ed says, almost more shocked by this than the fact that he got four entire hours of uninterrupted sleep. "Holy shit, I didn't think you did that."
"When the occasion calls for it," Roy says, though there's a little curve to the corner of his mouth that shows he's more pleased by Ed's reaction than he's letting on. He pushes himself upright after that, and Ed swallows at how much- how much nearer it brings him and his collarbones and the soft fall of his hair over his forehead. "Coffee?"
"Yeah," Ed says. "I think I need it."
He doesn't make Roy bring him coffee. That feels- weird. Instead, he follows Roy down to his kitchen, hisses at the cold tile.
Roy makes coffee in a press, sets a bright orange kettle to boil and measures grounds with a little crease between his eyebrows. Ed stares at the strange sight of his pale, bare feet against the dark wood cabinets, and then rips his gaze away when he realizes he's the one that's being weird and staring at Roy's feet.
The rest of the kitchen is bright- there's a skylight right by the back door, and there are copper pans gleaming above the wooden table. But none of the dishtowels match, and the table itself has one too many circular ash marks and drink rings to be nice.
It feels like someone actually lives here, at least until Ed spies the layer of dust on the wine glasses, on the big dinner plates in the open cabinet.
"When's the last time you ate dinner at home, huh?" he says. Perches himself on the table- it's a big, sturdy thing, if it can handle Havoc's cigarettes it can handle him.
"When's the last time you slept through the night?" Roy returns, pouring boiling water into the press.
Ed rolls his eyes. Roy turns around, and his eyes drop down to where Ed’s knees are exposed. One scarred and knobby, the other gleaming metal, sheets flush in a marvel of Winry's peerless engineering.
Ed fights the urge to cross his legs. Or bring his knees up to his chest. He usually sleeps in just his boxers but had thrown on a t-shirt last night, in deference to being in someone else’s house. He’s extra glad of it now, in the light of Roy’s kitchen, something brighter and more exposing than regular sunlight floating down from the skylight.
“When Al was- armor.”
Roy blinks. “What?”
“The last time I slept through the night.”
Roy’s brow furrows. “Ed, that was-“
Ed shakes his head, stares at the still settling grounds. “I know. I don’t think- I don’t think my body knows what to do. Maybe I was giving Al all my sleep when he was- there.”
Roy's face creases, and then he turns, presses down on the coffee with too careful hands. "That's not good, Ed."
"Yeah, I fucking know," Ed snaps. "I am deeply aware. What the hell d'you want me to do?"
Roy stays silent, and Ed watches the tense line of his shoulders. He's struck by the memory of the warmth of that back from last night, the nonsensical protection offered by Roy's shoulder blades, the careful hand on his hip. Wonders what Roy would say if he went and did the same thing, if he would his hands around his waist, pressed his palms flat to where the breath moved in and out of him, closed his eyes to whatever's outside.
Ed takes a deep breath through his nose, and folds his hands tightly in his lap. It's not- this isn't the time.
The rest of breakfast is spent quietly, and the steam from the coffee curls up in the thick sunlight and Ed thinks about nightmares, and being hushed in the night, and the way he wants to lay his hand on the side of Roy's neck, his cheek, when he tilts his head to look at the clock.
It's as good a way as any to begin the end.
Later, when Ed thinks about the house, he will not be able to do so without that same feeling of weak-kneed nausea, a ghostly echo.
He remembers the house more in feelings and clicks of teeth than in thought and sight, something akin to the Gate, a dark flash of pain and confusion.
In the end, there's something in the basement after all.
The house is dark, and Ed almost wishes the windows looked like eyes, or the temperature dropped as they walked up the path, or something outwardly sinister happened as they approached the front door.
Instead, it just looks like- an empty house, where the owners aren't home.
Ed rolls his shoulders. Nausea is creeping up from his belly the closer they get to the door- what if he is crazy, what if the house is fine, what if there isn't anything in the basement, what if there never has been-
But Roy is staring narrow eyed at the house, his fingertips rubbing together as they approach, and Ed is thankful, thankful, thankful that he's taking this seriously.
They walk up the steps- one two three, Ed counts and hates it- and he fishes the big silver key out of his pocket and unlocks the door.
It does not creak when it swings open, and Ed almost wishes it did.
They walk into the front hallway silently, and the creeping unease that Ed had been living with for the past two months hits him like a freight train.
It's like a good day after weeks and weeks of chronic pain- you get used to it, after a while. You can get used to anything.
But take it away, give the body a break-
The body remembers. That's true.
But the body also forgets.
Ed doubles over like someone's punched him in the stomach, dry heaves onto the thick patterned carpet in the hallway, one hand scrabbling for purchase on the wall.
"Good god," Roy says, fear and revulsion in his voice in equal measure, and then there's a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him upright.
No time for false reassurances, no time for Ed to fall apart. He takes comfort in the fact that Roy treats him like a soldier, here, gets him upright and moving again.
"Was it this bad-" Roy starts, and Ed cuts him off.
"No," he says. "I think it's- it's very, very angry with us."
He doesn't want to walk further into the house. The door to the basement is at the end of this hallway, and it stretches on forever, baseboards strangely curving and the wood knots spiralling off into infinity.
Roy's rubbing his middle finger and thumb together anxiously, and the soft shh shh shh of ignition fabric is making Ed's nerves twist up even tighter.
They walk.
They walk, and they walk, and they walk, and Ed grits his teeth and keeps fucking walking, because there is nothing left to do.
When they first moved in, it took them about thirty seconds to walk from the front door to the basement.
Ed and Roy walk for almost an hour.
Doors keep popping up on either side of them, like they've been there for years, like they've been there all along. Maybe they have.
Some of them have different door knobs, or chipped and peeling paint. Some look older than the house itself, with huge iron locks and water stained wood. Sometimes there is noise, coming from behind them.
Sometimes there is whispering, or screaming. Sometimes it is still and silent and waiting and Ed is so god damn sure there is something on the other side of the door, pressed against the wood and waiting, listening, hungry-
They walk on.
When they finally see the basement door, Ed freezes.
It's like a mirage. He doesn't know if it's real, if they've actually reached the end of this fucking hallway, or if they open this door they'll be swallowed whole, eaten by the house to keep it alive for another ten years.
A brief touch to his elbow, and a glance to his right to see Roy staring straight ahead, mouth a thin line.
His gloves go shh shh shh.
The door opens without incident, and the stairs that loom before them descend into pure shadow, oily and thick.
Ed takes a deep breath and wades in.
The stairs are short- they are the nine steps that Ed remembers, and he wonders if there'll be eleven on the way up- if they get back up.
The house wants them down there, and Ed finds that the scariest god damn thing yet.
When they reach the bottom of the stairs, Roy makes a soft noise at the bare floor, and the circle painted upon it.
The circle is broad and carved in with black paint, and not neatly either- the alchemist, the scientist in the back of Ed's brain is peeved, ticks over every splattered drop of paint, every wavering line drawn by an old hand and dried out brush.
Ed will give the old bastard this- it's got a couple of things in there that Ed hasn't ever thought of.
(He'd say he'd never even seen some of this shit before, but- In the basement of his mind, where the Gate lives, it hums in recognition. That, more than anything, is what makes Ed's blood run cold.)
"He was experimenting with human transmutation," Ed says, and it lands in the room funny, no echo, flat like the sound is coming out wrong.
Roy nods, and the skin around his eyes is tight. "Yes," he says, and Ed remembers, as he always does, that Roy has seen the Gate too.
Ed paces the circumference of the circle, catalogues sigil and turn and every angle, till he comes to stand next to Roy.
There's an uncomfortable feeling in the room, like they are being watched. Ed feels like he can feel the shadows breathe, long slow inhale-exhales, like the dark is licking at his shoes like an unusually high tide.
"Well?" Roy says.
Ed tilts his head, fights the urge to go crouch in the middle of the circle to take a better look at some of the cramped work.
"Here," he says instead, points to the edge, "for energy- and this array encircling, to siphon- to pull from-"
He stops short.
"Roy," he says, slowly. "How old was the alchemist who left us this house?"
"Old," Roy says.
"And how long did he- did his family live here before?"
Understanding is dawning in his eyes, along with the corner of his lip, pulled down in disgust. "A very long time," Roy says, and looks at the dark cracked edges of the circle once more.
When you really look at it, ignore the array and the sigils and everything, it looks like blood, painted over and over and over.
"What about the-"
What about the creeping feeling, the sucking away of thought and memory, the way Ed has been in this fucking basement before and this is the first time he's seen this circle- or maybe just the first time he remembers it- the way the floorboards stretch and hum and the way that there is something coming out of the shadows right fucking now-
Ed's got a hand in the front of Roy's shirt before he can think about it, before he can breathe or blink, yanking him forward right as something reaches out with too long fingers and caresses the back of Roy's neck, snatching at where his collar was a moment ago.
Roy's eyes go wide and then they go black and blank and furious, spinning on his heel and the shadows are fucking everywhere, long tendrils of fingers and feathers and things that the mind refuses to think about.
They don't tell you how hard it is to fight, when there's nothing there. When your brain refuses to accept what your eyes are telling you.
There's a horrible choking noise out of Roy, and Ed thinks wildly, is this what fighting blind, is like? Is this what Roy knows?
And then Ed's slapping his hands together and in the unnatural blue light of alchemy that crackles for that split second, Ed sees the things from beyond the Gate.
Silence. An arch of stone and grasping hands, pure white beings with pure black eyes, and then, a smile-
A crescent moon of pleasure and something too malevolent to be elation-
There is a roaring heat above him, outside this brief shining moment of purgatory, a forest fire, a nuclear explosion-
And yet Ed is still there with the thing with no eyes and forever grin, and it says,
You've always fed us so well, Edward Elric-
And then the ceiling is caving in with the way that Roy has sucked all the air oxygen out of the basement to burn through the floor, and the alchemical life that Ed has pulled in between his hands is being forced down, into the stone floors of the basement and bedrock beneath, and they're raising up on pillars, the horrible circle of black dried blood cracking into flakes of former life as they shoot up, up, up-
And out of the basement.
The house is on fire.
This isn't entirely unexpected, seeing as how Roy basically let out a bomb to get them out of there, but it is still unpleasant.
"I thought we weren't going to blow up the building?" Ed yells over the crackle of flame. The hated floorboards are shrinking away from the fire, and Ed feels a vicious stab of pleasure.
"Change of plans," Roy yells back, and his voice is already rough with smoke. His eyes, usually dark and narrowed, are wide, whites showing round like a spooked horse, though he moves steady, with purpose.
Roy has a lot of experience with walking through walls of flame.
The house is on fire, and Ed's gut is roiling so bad it's a miracle he can keep upright, let alone keep moving through the inferno the house is swiftly turning into.
There's a hissing sound, like water touching a hot pan, and it grows steadily in volume as they sprint down the hallway.
The hallway-
The hallway-
The hallway is ending, and the front door is right ahead, and they are so fucking close and Ed slams his hands together and blasts it apart with alchemy, no finesse, no creation, just destruction and a sort of animal fear-
They get stuck in the doorway.
One moment they're sprinting full throttle and the next it's like they've hit a glass wall.
The door is gone, and through the bright haze of fire and smoke Ed can see the stone steps, can see the half-overgrown yard, can see the street of Central.
It is very far away.
The door is gone and yet they can't get through, this last threshold, the house and whatever lives inside it, whatever it is, holding on with tooth and nail even as the foundations start to crumble around them.
"Ed," Roy says, and his face is streaked with soot and his eyes still have that awful wide look.
Ed hates that look. He thinks he'd like to never see it again.
He thinks he'd never like to be scared again- Ed thinks that he's fucking tired of all this bad shit happening to him. He's tired of the nightmares and the pain and the fact that all the horrible malformed shit that lives in the depths of people's souls- all their sins and thick oily transgressions- seem to coalesce around him.
He is tired of children sacrificed for the father's sake. He is tired of knowing what old blood looks like. He is tired of never sleeping.
Ed is fucking exhausted.
"Enough," Ed says in a shaking voice. "This is- this is enough."
Ed claps his hands together and reaches beyond the Gate, and white lightning arcs between his hands.
What are you scared of?
"A lot," Ed says honestly. Silver sand shifts beneath his feet, and there are not-stars in the black sky.
They look like holes poked in black paper, not so much emanating light as light shining through something else. The horizon is vast and endless, and does not shimmer as there is no heat.
You've always been a strange one, Edward Elric.
Ed winces. "Yeah," he says. "Not exactly what you want to hear when you're- am I dead? I don't think I'm dead."
No, and god-God-g-d- help him but it's amused.
You're not dead. You're not alive, either.
"What?"
To be honest, we've never seen what you are, and Ed gets the sense of a shrug, though he's unsure if it even has the concept of shoulders. You've come in and out of this place too much to be fully whatever you once were.
"...What?"
You're smarter than this, it chides. You must know that there is always a price.
Of course, of course, of course. There is always a price. Equivalent exchange.
Sometimes Ed feels thankful- that in the life that he has lived, the lives he has lived and broken and taken and put back together, that there is this one constant.
Sometimes, like now, he wants to kick it in the fucking teeth.
"So what," he says flatly. "I'm not human?"
'Anymore' hangs in the air.
'Was I ever?' hangs next to it.
Ed is the son of a Philosopher's Stone. Maybe it was stupid to think he would even be allowed to die in peace.
Think bigger, Edward Elric, it says. What do you want?
What are you scared of? What do you want? What do you want from me? Ed could fucking scream with all these fucking questions, all these things that lay inside him, his guts coiled up like snakes, his eyes dry with unshed tears and sleepless nights and his back still aching with phantom heat.
"I want to go home," Ed says. "I want to try and have a life. I want to stop being scared, I want to stop seeing things in the shadows, I never want to see this fucking desert or the Gate again unless I'm actually dead. No one- no one should see this shit. It's not good for you."
When you die, it says, you'll come back here.
It is not a question.
"And then what?" Ed asks.
It is very quiet in the desert. There is a faint whisper of wind against the curve of Ed's cheek.
There is a crescent sickle smile in the back of Ed's mind.
Live your life, Edward Elric. Do not see us when you close your eyes. Be with your brother. Fall in love. Do not worry. We will see you soon.
"Oh, fuck you," Ed says.
And then the phantom heat on his back is very real, and there is a solid hand on his collar, and he and Roy are stumbling into the yard as the house roars up into an inferno behind them, whatever was left in it screaming all the while.
The mission report is...very bad. Ed never wants to see that look on Hawkeye's face again.
There's not much else to say.
"Where did you go?" Roy asks. He's got a white bandage on his forehead, stark against his hair. He'd gotten beaned by some falling debris. Ed hadn't even noticed. They're back in Roy's kitchen, safe harbor and home and there is advice echoing in the back of Ed's mind accompanied by a smile.
"Whaddya mean?" Ed says.
"When we were at the threshold," Roy says, his eyes steady. "You went- somewhere else."
Ed looks down at his hands. "Beyond the Gate," he says, honest and quiet even in the silence of Roy's house.
A beat.
Roy doesn't say anything.
"You know when- when you do circleless alchemy," Ed says, halting. "You're at the Gate, there. It's because you have the knowing, you've seen- you understand."
"And you reached-"
"Beyond that," Ed says. "Into it. Had a little conversation with God, you know how it goes."
"Ed," Roy says. "What did you-"
Ed grins at him, tremulous. "I have no fucking clue."
The Gate, for all its faults, doesn't lie. There is always a price, with the Gate, and you have to be willing to pay.
Ed has no idea what the price was for what he did.
No one knows what happens when you die, but Ed really, really doesn't know now.
Ed rests his head in his hand, one elbow on the table. Roy stands, takes a step forward, like he's going to make tea, or find a drink, something he's done a thousand times before.
Instead, he lays a hand on Ed's cheek, thumb smoothing away soot streaked hair. "I'm sorry," Roy says, and his face is doing something complicated, and that in combination with the horrible softness of his voice, and the-
Ed is so god damn tired.
"What did you- what do you want from me? What do you want me to do?" Ed asks, quiet, just as he did before they left for the house. Roy turns toward the counter, takes a quiet breath.
"I wanted you to get out of that house," Roy says, still with his back turned. "I didn't care if it was haunted, or if there was bad alchemy, or if you just hated it. I wanted you to stop looking like you're going to fall apart. I want you to go and get some sleep, and I want you to stop performing miracles." An audible swallow, and then, too honest, "I want you to be happy, even if it's just a little bit."
"I told them I wanted to go home and this is where I ended up." It comes out raw, truth ripping open his throat, like Ed's been crying. "I want to be done- I want to never see a circle again, some days, and I can't imagine living without it. I want to- I want to wake up with you again- I want- I don't know what I want. I want you-" he chokes himself off, because, god, it's true, and he hates it, but it's true.
Roy whips around, eyes wide. "What?" he says.
Ed buries his head in his hands. "I'm sorry," he says miserably. "I do, I'm sorry. You're too good to me, I think."
"Ed," Roy says, and it comes out of his mouth like it's the only word he knows. Like a prayer.
When Ed looks up, Roy is kneeling in front of his chair, eyebrows drawn together, tentative hand on his arm. "Ed," he says again, and Ed closes his eyes, because if he doesn't, he's really going to lose it and kiss him, and he- he can't. Not now.
"Will you come get some sleep?"
Ed opens his eyes. "Yeah," he says, quiet. "I think I can do that."
Ed sleeps for sixteen hours in Roy Mustang's bed, drifts in and out of half dozes when Roy leaves with a murmur, now and again, wakes up once more to sun pushing its way through the glass.
The curtains are fully open this time, and the sun has the warmer quality of late morning. Ed's curled up half on his side, legs flat to accommodate the automail but the rest of him twisted around to where Roy sits up in bed, like a sunflower towards light.
Roy is doing paperwork, frowning at what looks like as bad a mission report as Ed ever turned in.
"Morning," Ed croaks.
Roy looks over and his face softens. The edges of his hair catch the sunlight, and it burnishes the black bright white. "Morning," Roy says.
His voice is low from sleep and smoke.
"You slept," Roy says.
"Yeah," Ed says. "I did."
What else is there to say?
When Ed kisses him, Roy just- lets him. Ed gets up on his knees none too gracefully, sheets crumple beneath him, kisses him with one hand braced on Roy's shoulder, over his paperwork.
Roy's hand goes to his hip in that gentle, tentative hold again, like he's afraid that he's not allowed. Like he thinks Ed, after all of this, might be breakable.
Ed breaks it after a moment, sits back on his heels. His knee is pressed up against Roy's thigh. He's still in those dumb pajama bottoms. Roy reaches out and rubs a strand of Ed's hair between his middle finger and thumb, face quiet and contemplative.
"What do you want me to do?" Ed asks. Third time's the charm.
"Stay," Roy says, quietly. "Here. With me. I think I'm too tired to ask you to go, and I'm not a good enough man to push you away."
"Thank god," Ed says. "I don't think I have the energy anymore for something dramatic and drawn out."
"You don't think this was dramatic and drawn out?" Roy asks, raising one eyebrow.
Ed thinks back onto midnights in Roy's study, onto dropping off lunch and dragging Roy by the collar out of the office, onto every late night and dragging afternoon and ink stain and singed circle. "Maybe," he says. "But Al says I'm emotionally obtuse, so I have an excuse."
"Ah," Roy's face does another thing. "You'll be wanting to call him soon."
"Fuck, you didn't tell him what-"
"No," Roy says. "I am not that brave, Ed. You can tell him. I was more concerned with- well-"
"What?"
"Before he left, I was very neatly threatened about your heart, and your, ah, reputation," Roy says delicately.
"Fucking a," Ed says, pinches his nose. That he knows he picked up from Roy. "He is- he's something alright." Even to himself, he sounds unutterably fond.
"As is his brother," Roy says, and his eyes crinkle as he smiles at Ed, real and genuine and a little crooked at the corner, and Ed is so, so gone, and this time it doesn't matter.
"I think I am, right now." Ed says.
"Am- are what?" Roy asks.
"Happy." Ed says. "Even if just a little bit."
Roy's face sort of- breaks open, and he closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he leans forward and kisses Ed, harder and fiercer and almost proving something, a prayer of thanksgiving and sheer relief.
The Gate looms beneath them both, and Ed's fingers are tingling with phantom white sparks, something inhuman and coldly smiling in the heart of him, even now. But here, in the washed out sunlight and old linen sheets, they're invisible, and the only thing he can feel under his hands is Roy, and if this is all there is, for the rest of his life- then it will have to be enough.
Safe harbor, the only honor- the place of greatest safety- how can home not be enough, when it's all Ed's ever wanted?