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As Roy Mustang settled into his new office, stacks of paperwork already awaiting his attention, he couldn’t quite keep the smile from his face. After several more years out East, he’d finally been transferred back to Central as the current Fuhrer began looking for his successor, and despite all the time he’d spent away, returning to Central always felt just a little like coming home. In fact, the bustle of the office and the never-ending stacks of busy work felt so familiar he could almost hear the faint echoes of a long-lost voice shouting—
“You goddamn lying bastard!”
Roy did his best to keep from visibly startling, even though that voice was much louder and much more real than he’d anticipated. If he was right and its owner was in fact in the room, showing as little of a reaction as physically possible would be the only way to retain even a slight advantage as he figured out what the hell was even happening.
Besides, he was reasonably sure that Edward Elric was fully capable of smelling fear.
Sure enough, a single glance upward revealed a familiar restless blond glaring at him through familiar narrowed golden eyes. Another fraction of a second told him that Ed had most likely come here straight from the train station; he was wearing a rumpled overcoat that appeared to have some sort of minor stain near the shoulder, and long hair that had presumably been neatly tied back that morning was in disarray and tumbling around his shoulders. The slight stiffness of his back spoke to both irritation and a long train ride, and the slight paleness not even a flush of anger could fully hide added exhaustion to the list. Whatever it was that had happened, whatever it was Ed had heard, he’d likely come straight here with as few stops as possible.
The only problem was that Roy had no idea what that inciting information or incident was. He’d never flown quite this blind before when dealing with the volatile emotions that usually accompanied Ed wherever he went, and he had to admit he didn’t like it one bit.
Somewhat paradoxically, the safest approach was usually to bait Edward into telling him—or shouting at him, more likely—what was wrong. While it almost inevitably resulted in an explosion of some sort, it was usually preferable to the blond sulking and ignoring them all for days while the rest of his team found new and creative ways to both blame and punish him for it. Five years may have changed quite a bit about Ed—his height, for one, he was nearly as tall as Roy now, and when could that have possibly happened?—but Roy somehow doubted that this was one of them. Best to get it over with.
Decision made, he took a deep breath and said, “Your flattery has always fallen a little bit short of the mark, hasn’t it, Fullmetal?”
Whatever deity had granted Ed the gift of height had apparently also granted him immunity to the height-related jabs that had so tormented him before, because the blond simply kept glaring at him from across the room. “Nice try. Don’t play the fucking idiot with me.”
Well. Never let it be said that Roy Mustang didn’t know when to be judicious with the truth. “I believe I once told you that I only act like I know everything.”
The growl his retort earned was highly predictable. The way Ed shoved his own overcoat off of his shoulders was not, nor was the fact that his hands next went to the buttons on a trim waistcoat.
As the waistcoat was shrugged off and deft fingertips started working at shirt buttons, Roy carefully averted his eyes. “Edward, what the hell—”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ed shrug the shirt off of his own shoulders and turn, the fabric lowered just enough to reveal a scrawled date on the back of his right shoulder, to the right of the scarring where automail had once rested, and—
Oh. Oh. He really should’ve seen this one coming.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Ed demanded. “You must’ve known for years. Probably before it even fucking happened.”
It was true, though he couldn’t have known exactly what was going to happen at the time. Hand semiconsciously covering a similarly-marked spot above his own elbow, he retorted, “In my defense, you were eleven and also had bigger things to worry about.”
Hell, he really should’ve seen this coming. He’d known in an absentminded way that the blond was going to be turning twenty-one soon, the age where everyone woke up one morning with a date marked on them to indicate when they would meet—or had already met—their soulmate. If he’d been smart about it, he’d have had some sort of plan as to how to proceed, how to handle Ed finding out, but…
“I thought it was part of my toll.” The quiet statement cut through his panicked thoughts, the tone oddly flat as though Ed had sawn off all emotion attached to it at the last possible moment. “Just one more thing taken away because of what I’d done, one more thing that made me…”
If he was being completely honest with himself, part of Roy had wondered that as well—if the date they had met would ever appear on Edward too, or if his own fate was to be tied to someone who would never be tied to him in turn. There’d been no way to tell, though, other than waiting it out, and somewhere along the line it had gotten easier to shove to the back of his mind—especially when Ed had left the country, presumably never to return.
Searingly bright golden eyes turned on him once more, and something pained slipped into Ed’s voice as he said, “But you knew. You knew that I hadn’t lost everything. So why didn’t you tell me?”
Roy sighed. “How would you have reacted if I had? You barely tolerated your connection with me. You gave the impression of utter resentment of the fact that you needed the resources I could offer. You fled the country as soon as you could be free of me.”
Ed snorted. “I waited two damn years before I left for Creta.”
“Semantics at best. My point is that I had no indication that you would’ve welcomed this information.”
“You knew I wasn’t completely broken,” Ed hissed. “Do you have any idea—”
“You were a child.”
“You know as well as I do that there are provisions for—”
“None that would preserve my own conscience. Besides, you aren’t the only one who wondered if you had paid some invisible toll.”
That admission stopped Ed in his tracks, at least. “What?”
Roy rolled his sleeve just high enough to reveal his own mark. “When I went to Resembool that day, I didn’t know what to expect. I was… excited? Nervous? Perhaps both. Then I saw the blood on the floor, and met someone who had obviously interfered in something nobody should. I knew immediately that of everyone in that room, it was you I was meant to meet, though I’m still not sure how. And…”
“And what, bastard?”
“And I knew that the last thing you needed was one more expectation tying you down and holding you back,” Roy admitted. “Whether or not you’d given this up to save your brother, what mattered was that you had the freedom you needed to get him back.”
It was perfectly all right, Roy reasoned, to be understandably nervous as he was pinned in place by burning golden eyes—eyes that were suspiciously a little too bright, though Roy knew it would be akin to signing his own death warrant to comment on the matter. After all, being given Edward Elric’s complete and total attention had always been a heady thing for how rare it was, even before any of this had been forced into the open.
What would not do, however, was to show his own nerves. Roy met that gaze head-on, silently daring the blond to do… whatever it was he would do next. Might as well get it over with, honestly.
“You’re a bastard.” Ed’s voice was hoarse as he repeated the insult, and his eyes never left Roy’s face even as he stepped closer. “You should’ve fucking said something, I would never have left if—”
“We’ve already established that I refuse to be what holds you back,” Roy reminded him.
Ed snorted. “I’m not asking to be held back, dipshit. I’m asking…”
Well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Roy dared to stand and close the distance between them. “What are you asking, Edward?”
Those searing eyes finally left his face in favor of glaring at a perfectly innocent potted plant in the corner of the office, and cheeks that were still tanned despite the height of summer having passed months ago flushed a distracting shade of pink. The blond mumbled something unintelligible in answer, and Roy couldn’t quite help his grin. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite catch that.”
He probably deserved the bite to his lower lip that he got in answer, but he was so distracted by the kiss that followed that it was difficult to acknowledge. Instead he slid his hands to Ed’s waist, pulling him closer even as he glared up at him again. “Asshole,” Ed muttered. “You know damn well what I meant.”
Roy smiled. “That hardly precludes me wanting to hear you say it.”
“Ugh. Fuck this, I’m going back to Creta.” There was no bite to the statement, though, not like there would be if Ed was in any way seriously considering such a move.
Roy hummed. “Counteroffer. Come home with me instead. I guarantee even my worst guest bed is more comfortable than whatever hotel you considered booking, and we can discuss this further after you’ve had a chance to recover from your travels.”
The gaze Ed leveled him with was much less angry and much more considering than it had been at any other point this day. “Throw in a shower and I’m sold.”
There was only one way Roy could respond to that. “Whatever you would like, dearest.”
The enraged spluttering that followed him down the hall was a refreshing return to form, even if he was suddenly very much looking forward to discovering just how much this familiar dynamic could shift given enough time.