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Ed rolled his eyes even as he yanked Roy behind a pillar. “You’re a shit bodyguard. You know that, right?”
“I don’t believe I ever advertised myself as a bodyguard at all, Fullmetal,” Roy replied, tone dry.
“Gross,” Ed retorted. “You can’t call me by my old work name when I don’t work for you. You’re technically working for me, and it’s your own damn fault you decided to escort me personally.”
It was true, and that was possibly the part of this that was bothering Roy the most. He had made the decision to personally ensure that Ed arrived safely to Central from the ruins he’d been studying, assuming—naively, it turned out—that it would be a simple and straightforward journey and that he’d be able to enjoy catching up with the former alchemist in person for a change. He could’ve delegated this to anyone under his command. Several of them would likely have been better suited to the task, since it turned out that Ed had not lost his rare ability to piss off what appeared to be every single person in a five mile radius.
Still, even though he could’ve avoided his own involvement, that hardly absolved Ed of his own role in this. “Pardon me for believing you had fewer mortal enemies these days,” he finally said as he glanced behind them, attempting to gauge just how many people had followed them into this room.
“Wait,” Ed suddenly said, and Roy’s attention snapped back to the blond beside him. “Don’t tell me you thought it was the other kind of escorting.”
“What?”
“I mean given your upbringing it would be an understandable mistake—”
“Ed—”
“And given my status as Amestris’ preeminent researcher into ancient Xerxes I do realize that I’m something of a catch in some circles, but—”
“Ed.”
“Honestly, it’s very flattering of you to try to loop me back into the military this way—”
Roy had finally had enough, and he winced internally as the bite to his voice made the blond flinch. “Edward Elric. We are being shot at.”
Ed recovered quickly, with a broad grin. “So? I’ve had worse dates. So have you, probably.”
What? “This is hardly a date,” he pointed out. “This is the kind of trouble I thought was long since behind you. How does a researcher end up being shot at?”
“Oh, it happens more frequently than you’d think,” Ed replied breezily. “Especially given the various treasures that are down here. Or the ones people think are down here, despite the incredibly slim likelihood of them actually existing. I mean, come on. A spring that grants eternal youth to anyone brave enough to drink from it? A shitty well that gives you food poisoning at best, more like.”
Roy dared another glance behind them, and when he finally returned his attention to his companion Ed was… what was he digging in pockets for? “So what’s your plan to get out of here, exactly?”
The blond’s laugh echoed through the room, free and easy, and in nearly any other circumstance Roy would’ve been delighted to hear it. “Plan, Mustang? Since when did you think I’m the kind of person who plans? We’ll figure something out, I’m sure.”
Ed produced what appeared to be a length of very fine rope from one pocket and busied himself tying it low to the ground between two of the pillars. Roy grimaced. “A trip line? That’s your plan?”
“I already said there’s no plan. Seriously, Roy, get with the program here.”
Roy sighed. “So why the trip line?”
Ed glanced up at him with another grin. “Because it’s funny and because it works way more often than you would think. It’ll buy us a bit more time while we get to phase two.”
“I thought you said there was no plan.”
“There isn’t. But this isn’t the last room we’ll have to get through in order to get out of here. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”
“I’m certainly afraid of why you feel the need to ask,” Roy retorted.
“Oh, it’s probably nothing. Just maybe don’t look down in the next room.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t stutter, Mustang, and it’s not your ears that went bad.”
“Edward, what the hell have you gotten us into?”
Another of those laughs that would’ve been mind-blowing in any other situation rang out. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Safely tucked into my desk back home, where it belongs.”
Ed snorted. “Boring. Live a little, why don’t you?”
The sounds of the men chasing them grew louder, and Ed glanced briefly over his shoulder before grabbing at Roy’s hand. “Ready?”
“For what?” Roy couldn’t help asking.
The blond rolled his eyes, and rather than reply verbally he simply took off running without letting go. Thankfully, despite his latest growth spurt his legs were still shorter than Roy’s—if barely—and so it only took a moment of being off-balance for Roy to catch up.
Sure enough, the next room featured an alarmingly dilapidated bridge over a chasm that appeared to run far deeper than he wanted to think about. “Remind me why I shouldn’t just leave you here and take my chances with whoever’s pursuing you,” he said even as they approached it.
Ed rested a foot—the automail one, Roy couldn’t help noticing—on the first plank, clearly testing it. “Only one way out now,” he said absently. “That trap we set off before they started chasing us made sure of that. Come on, and don’t look down.”
The trip across the bridge was every bit as terrible as Roy could’ve imagined, but thankfully they were across it before any of their pursuers could catch up. “How did you even wind up here, anyway?” he demanded once they had both feet squarely on solid ground again.
“Same way I wind up most places, these days,” Ed replied distractedly, eyes scanning the ceiling for… well, Roy had no idea what for. “Chasing a rumor of someone else’s dream and trying to sort out what’s real from what’s bullshit.”
“And those men are pissed off because…?”
Ed shifted his weight from foot to foot, chagrin creeping across his face. “I might have beaten them to a relic here, and they might have wanted to keep it for themselves instead of treating it with the respect it deserves.”
“So you deliberately antagonized them.”
“I wouldn’t call it deliberate antagonizing. But I did make sure they couldn’t have it, so…”
Roy sighed, and then blinked as Ed opened a pouch strapped to his thigh and pulled out— “Is that a gun? You had a gun strapped to your thigh.”
Ed rolled his eyes, but couldn’t entirely hide his smirk. “No, Mustang, I’m just happy to see you.”
“Why do you have a—”
“Less talking, more escaping. I’m making sure they can’t follow us this way.”
A well-placed shot through a fraying rope—could Riza have made that shot? Roy wasn’t sure—sent a chandelier crashing down onto the bridge they had just crossed, and the resulting collapse ensured that anyone who made it here would have a difficult time making it back out. Roy did his best to ignore the thrill that shot through him at the sight and instead focus on the blond holstering the gun beside him. “How?”
“It’s really all basic math, if you think about it enough,” Ed replied as he started feeling around what appeared to be a solid brick wall.
“I thought you hated guns.”
“I don’t like killing people, Mustang. I learned somewhere along the way that sometimes there’s a difference. Like right now, when knowing how to use one might just have saved our lives.”
Roy frowned. “What happened to being a researcher?”
“I am a researcher,” Ed retorted. “Just a little more… hands-on than I might’ve implied.”
With a soft sound of triumph, Ed pressed both hands against a brick and grinned as a door slid open. “There’s our way out,” he said as he turned back to look at Roy.
Whatever the blond saw on Roy’s face made him frown and take a hesitant step back, golden eyes wide with concern. Roy did his best to school his features into a neutral expression and asked, “What is it?”
Ed took a deep breath and glanced down at his feet, ears turning pink. “This isn’t… a problem, is it?”
Roy had only heard that tone a small handful of times previously, across the two phone calls they’d managed in the past six months or so. The faint traces of hesitation, the uncertainty, it only ever seemed to come out when the usual updates were out of the way and the only thing left was them.
It hadn’t always been that way, not by a long shot. When Ed had decided to reopen contact with Roy’s office a couple of years back, everything had been light and friendly. But infrequent updates had become frequent letters exchanged back and forth somewhere along the way, and when Roy had written a letter that carried one implication too many Ed had called him far too late at night and—
Well. Now there was a them, or they both wanted there to be, and all that was left was figuring out how that shift fit in with the lives they had chosen long before any of this.
Even though the life Ed had apparently chosen was very different from what Roy had been led to believe, he could only answer, “It’s not. This doesn’t change anything except for my newfound respect for whatever may be in your pockets.”
Ed grinned, and if they hadn’t been actively trying to escape these ruins Roy wouldn’t have been able to resist reaching out and touching the curve of those lips. “Good. Let’s get going, then.”
The rest of their path through the ruins was mercifully easier to navigate, and soon the harsh sunlight of their desert surroundings was once again visible. Roy allowed himself a sigh of relief as Ed looked around for an exit, then stilled with a frown as Ed muttered, “Shit.”
“What is it now?” Roy asked, genuinely not sure he wanted to know the answer.
Ed gestured out of the door he’d found. “I must’ve missed a turn somewhere.”
Roy shifted closer and grimaced when he realized the problem—the door opened onto a ledge or balcony of some sort, with the sands of the desert a full story below them. “So what now?”
Ed opened his mouth to reply, only to grimace as the sounds of men chasing them grew louder. “Do you trust me?”
“I don’t like that question very much.”
“You don’t have to like it. Do you trust me?”
Roy sighed. “You know that I do.”
“Good. That makes this easier.”
“Makes what—”
Before he could finish forming his question, any remaining breath was knocked out of him as the blond at his side threw both of them off of the ledge. He had just enough time to close his eyes against the sand before they landed, rolling in a tangle of limbs in a last-ditch effort to minimize the impact that knocked the air from his lungs nonetheless.
He gasped, only to wheeze as an elbow dug into his ribcage and rendered him breathless once more. From the vicinity of his hip, he heard a loud and vaguely pained groan—Ed, presumably as winded as he was. “Shit,” the blond muttered as he struggled to right himself. “I’m getting too old for that. Fuck, are you okay? If I’m too old for that, I can’t imagine how you feel right now.”
Roy’s ankle was throbbing, his breath had yet to fully return, and his mind was still struggling to register how exactly he’d gotten here. “I suspect I’ll live,” he said instead.
The breathless laugh he got in return was well worth it, and the kiss—their first, he couldn’t help but register—was sweeter than anything.
He supposed Ed was right, just as he usually was. Roy had certainly had worse dates.