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“Six steps,” Ed says.
“I know,” Roy says.
“Like fuck you do, you lying bastard,” Ed says, and Roy laughs the laugh that’s just for him—the laugh for when Ed cusses at Roy as reflexively as he breathes, because by this point they both know it means If you ever stop being a dick, I’ll kill you, because that’s what I love you for.
Roy takes the stairs more smoothly than most sighted (or, as Ed prefers, not-blind-as-a-bat-in-the-dark-with-sunglasses-on) people would, and Hitomi skips along next to him with just as much dignity. Every now and again, in a moment of silence, Ed will catch a glimpse of Roy standing stock-still and straight-backed in front of a window with Hitomi sitting attentively by his knee. Roy always folds his arms with the right one on top, and he angles his body away from the light so that he’s almost in profile. In those moments, he looks like a king, and in those moments, Ed catches himself thinking maybe monarchy might not be so bad.
It’s not a moment of silence now, though; it’s a moment of low-grade dread and familiar resignation.
“Hitomi told me there were stairs,” Roy says, and it seems more like the fancy doorway pouring light and sound is drawing towards them than it does like they’re climbing up. “I remembered the size of General Forsythe’s home and made an educated guess, which I appreciate that you confirmed.”
Forsythe can go fuck himself. It’s Saturday night, and Ed wants Roy all to himself. Is that really too much to ask?
Well. It’s not. And if he did ask, Roy would blow off the party and pretend not to give it another thought. Which is why Ed can’t ask, and why he wouldn’t; Roy needs to snag these chances when they come. Ed will still be at his fingertips tomorrow; Forsythe and all the other pompous douchebags ripe for the schmoozing will not.
On a related note, fuck Roy for turning Ed all reasonable and shit.
Well, with any luck, they won’t be too tired to follow through with fuck Roy after all this crap is over. So that’s something.
“Normal people just say ‘thank you’,” Ed says.
“You would despair if you woke up one day to find me normal,” Roy says, which unfortunately is true.
“Fucker,” Ed says, and Roy laughs.
It’s about then that they reach the ominous door that’s been spilling snooty party all over the walkway. A porter-type guy takes their coats, and a butler-type guy looks at them with a kind of lifelong boredom worn down to mildness as he asks for their names.
“Brigadier General Roy Mustang and Mr. Edward Elric,” Roy says, and it’s stupid—it’s really stupid—but Ed almost shivers.
Well, fuck, he just took his coat off and sort of got stuck in the sleeve and then awkwardly offered it to porter-type guy all tangled up in itself; he has every right to be a little cold.
…except it’s not that. It’s being Roy goddamn Mustang’s plus-one—it’s always being his plus-one. It’s being the other half of the introduction. It’s the fact that Ed has spent his whole life ducking and weaving and trying not to let all of himself be seen, but Roy is not fucking ashamed of him.
It’s more like the opposite, really. Ed’s a stickler for the science, but Roy has a tendency to go and prove, beyond a shadow of a methodical doubt, that he wants Ed with him. Like right now—he’s setting his hand on Ed’s right shoulder, a weight made familiar by frequency. It’s not like Roy needs it, especially now that he’s apparently graduated from Intermediate to Advanced Canine Telepathy, but it looks to outsiders like maybe it’s a blind thing and not a blindly-adoring thing, and at times like this it comforts Ed more than anything else in the world ever could.
So Ed straightens his tie and sets his jaw, because this is for Roy—for the Roy who needs to mean something, for the Roy who will spend an eternity trying to balance the scales for Ishval, for the Roy who has to become the embodiment of change, for the Roy who wants to ascend in a wave of little gold stars that he can no longer see. This is for those Roys, from among the many Roys, all of which Ed loves so fiercely that it makes his whole body hot and achy, so he’s going to get through this crap if it kills him.
“Some guy is coming over,” Ed mutters rightward. “Has an epic handlebar mustache. We’re talkin’ a don’t worry about homunculi, that is going to take over the world kind of a mustache.”
There’s a second before Roy gets his smile under control—a second when it’s an unfiltered grin of absolute delight. “That will be Lieutenant-General Forsythe. How terribly courteous of him to come greet us.”
“It’d be terribly courteous of him to bring me vodk—”
“General Mustang,” Mustachesythe says in that puffy, jovial, man-of-power voice that sounds tragically normal these days. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
Ed wants to say He’s blind, asshole; he’s still got feet, but. Y’know. Manners and shit.
“As am I, sir,” Roy says smoothly. His hand shifts and, almost imperceptibly, tightens on Ed’s shoulder. “Surely you remember Edward Elric?”
“How could I possibly forget?” Forsythe asks, and he’s smiling, but it’s tough to tell what kind of smile it is behind the surreally gigantic mustache. He offers his hand. Ed shakes. It’s not the worst handshake of Ed’s life, but he still strongly prefers the kind that comes after a long, vicious, sweaty fight. Or the kind that comes after a pact and are sealed with spit. Or any kind other than the diplomatic obligation kind.
“Nice to meet you, sir,” Ed says, making a distinct effort to sound interested.
Roy is going to owe him the best sex ever. With chocolate. And, like, seven blow jobs.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Forsythe says, and Ed manages to swallow Oh, you noticed? “Can I get you some champagne, General? And—I’m sorry, young man, are you old enough to—?”
Eight blow jobs.
“I was old enough to start enforcing the will of the military when I was twelve,” Ed says, sweetly, because one of the great things he learned from Roy is that sometimes that’s meaner. “I think I can handle a little bit of fizz.”
Roy is trying not to laugh, which is an even greater triumph than the insult itself. “I would—very much appreciate champagne, sir; thank you—but please, don’t trouble yourself on our account. Edward, why don’t you lead the way to the refreshments, and I’ll catch up with the Lieutenant-General presentl—”
That’s enough permission; Ed seizes Roy’s elbow and drags him off towards the drinks. Hitomi pads after them, looking around herself idly and sniffing at the air.
Roy has to cough into his fist several times before he’s finished composing his face. “I’m not sure that was entirely appropr—”
“Fuck appropriate; he called me small.”
“He called you ‘young’. That is a different matter entirely.”
It’s worse. ‘Young’ is more of an assessment than an observation. ‘Young’ carries a rank undertone of ‘naïve’ and ‘misplaced’ and ‘inexperienced’.
Ed takes Roy’s hand, uncurls the warm fingers, puts the stem of a champagne flute against the palm, and folds the fingers again. “Fuck him anyway. This party sucks.”
“You’re a bit on-edge tonight,” Roy says, gaze settling and not-quite-focusing on Ed’s mouth. It should piss Ed off that Roy usually looks a little too low, but it doesn’t. “More than usual, I mean; is something wrong?”
“I don’t want to be here,” Ed says.
Roy’s face shifts from subtle concern to subtle disappointment. Ed honestly can’t tell whether it’s that Roy’s inability to see other people’s expressions has made him less careful, or that Ed’s spent way too much time watching him, but Roy just isn’t a wall of marble like he used to be. “Ah. Well, it was kind of you to come. I’m sure there’s a telephone in the back; we can drag Lieutenant Havoc’s lazy rear out of his bed, possibly risking Second Lieutenant Catalina’s wrath, and have him pick you u—”
“No,” Ed says. “I don’t mean that I want to go home; I mean—I mean that you should’ve brought Lieutenant Hawkeye or something.”
Roy blinks. This expression is subtle uncertainty as he tries to creep up on comprehension and catch it unawares. “You’ve accompanied me to several functions of this sort, and I’ve always been very glad to have y—”
“But never an important one,” Ed says. “You said yourself that this guy practically has Parliament in his pocket, and you need him to be on your side and think you’re the best shit since sliced bread met toasters, and I’ve already gotten pissed about something stupid and fucked it up.”
He’s angry because he’s nervous and nervous because he’s angry; when he’s angry is when he ruins stuff, and Roy needs this. God, fuck all of it anyway; it’s too late to fix everything, and now he’s trapped in a room full of fake-smiling politicians who hate him. And he let Roy down. In two seconds, he went from clever banter or whatever and thinking about awesome blow jobs to letting Roy down. It feels like he’s been punched in the chest.
“Ed,” Roy says, holding the champagne glass towards him, “drink this.”
“I don’t w—”
“Chug it. Humor me.”
It’s not like it can make things worse, so Ed takes the glass and takes a sip and then gives in and empties it. It’s not like they ever put more than three teaspoons of bubbly into the stupid things anyway; what an inefficient method of liquid volume containment.
“Listen to me,” Roy says when Ed hands the glass back and gulps in air instead. “Forsythe knew you were going to be here. He knows who you are. I’m sure he knows your reputation for… candor. And, quite honestly, I don’t know if people are anywhere near as scandalized as you and I keep expecting. It’s perfectly possible that they aren’t perturbed in the slightest by the fact that I desperately wish I was at home right now, tangled up in the good sheets and fucking you thoroughly.”
…okay, Ed’s going to need a little more champagne.
Roy smiles thinly and reaches out to graze his fingertips along Ed’s jaw and up to his cheek. “Excellent. That had the desired effect.”
Ed takes half a step back and very gently bats at his hand. “Was there some doubt that you sexing me up in a crowded room full of goddamn politicians was going to make me go red? Fuck. Just—whatever, they’re all as good at hiding shit as you are; we’ll never know if they think it’s gross and—and disgraceful, or if they don’t give a crap.”
“Then why worry about it?” Roy asks. “Come here; I’ll kiss you.”
“No, you won’t,” Ed says, backing up a little more. “I taste like overpriced champagne, and I’m about to taste like whatever hors d’oeuvre this is that smells like pure garlic.”
“Ed,” Roy says. “Relax. You and I—we’re always like this. We always expect the worst. We always anticipate the moment when the things that we love will shatter. And we always believe that we deserve it. What if that’s not true this time? What if we’ve finally stumbled on something sacred, and it’s all right to revel in it?”
“‘What if’ is a useless question,” Ed says, because his head is all warm and gooshy with the things we love, love, love, love— “I’m having this garlic thing. And you’re having pâté.” He picks up Roy’s free hand and puts a laden cracker in it.
Impressively smoothly, Roy tilts his head and raises his eyebrows, which almost stops Ed from noticing that he swings his arm down, and Hitomi devours the foie gras instantly and licks his fingers.
“Lieutenant Hawkeye is going to kill you,” Ed says.
“You wouldn’t rat me out,” Roy says, and his voice is like warm water on tense muscle, or silk sheets on bare skin, or a soft mouth ghosting over Ed’s. How can he be possible? How can he possibly be Ed’s? “You’re far too fond of me to let me die bleeding out of the multiple gunshot wounds and—worse by far—to abandon me to the reprimanding glare of legend.”
“Maybe,” Ed says. “You’re going to make that dog fat, and then she’ll know anyway.”
Hitomi gives Ed a look of unadulterated betrayal.
Roy reaches for the edge of the table with his free hand, finds it, and sets the champagne flute down. Then he reaches for Ed’s arm, and Ed swallows the garlicky thing and shifts the arm up to meet his hand.
Roy smiles. “Can you drop me off with Lieutenant-General Forsythe and his extraordinary mustache? Hitomi’s verbal commands aren’t quite to that level.”
“Not to that level yet, you mean,” Ed says, towing and tugging in the gentle, casual, Roy’s-walking-speed way that makes it hard for outsiders to tell who’s leading.
Roy grins.
So Ed tries. He tries as hard as he’s fucking capable of, because he can’t be the thing that stymies Roy’s trajectory. He can’t be the thing that goes wrong. He just can’t.
And since mostly that means staying out of the damn way, sipping at champagne and picking through the fancy food for stuff that looks edible, it’s not like it’s some huge sacrifice. He wouldn’t care if it was, though. He’d give anything. He’d give over. It scares him, when he thinks about it—how much he’d do. How much of him Roy has; how Roy could have everything if he held out his hands and smiled as he asked. How far gone Ed must be, because sinking into this makes him feel safe instead of suffocated every time.
Huh. This hors d’oeuvre-y thing looks like it might have married into the extended family of those little tiny sausage rolls Mom used to make that Al replicates every other Sunday now. Surely they can’t be toxi—
Oh, holy shit, what did he just put in his mouth?
His head is buzzing a little, and he’s struggling to think of a discreet way to spit out the definitely-not-a-sausage-roll and maybe purge it with fire. Right as he turns to look for a napkin, someone slaps him on the back, and he hacks it out on the table.
Okay, so that’s pretty fucking gross.
“Eew,” Rebecca says cheerfully. “Why were you even eating that?”
Ed could transmute a little bit of this tablecloth into a nasty-glob-of-spit-and-evil-food receptacle in a second if he could still transmute. He turns up some cocktail napkins in the corner and steels his nerves, figuratively for once, in order to collect the remains. “Just… finding shit to do. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Snugglemuffin is running a little bit of a fever,” Rebecca says. “I ordered him to stay in bed with some soup while I babysat you kids for him. At home I outrank him, so here I am.”
Ed sidles over to a fancy trashbin—why does everything have to be so fancy?—and disposes of the faux pas evidence. “Oh. Well, I hope he feels better, I guess.”
“I’ll order him to,” Rebecca says.
He gives her a proper look now that he’s done expecting someone to call him out for his small-town-barnyard manners and forcibly eject him from this shindig. Rebecca looks nice—wine-purple dress, pearls on, crazy-high heels. He wonders where she’s keeping her sidearm and then decides he’s better off not knowing. Now that he’s examining them, the heels of those shoes are almost definitely disguised knives.
She arches an eyebrow. “Are you okay, jailbait?”
“Yeah,” Ed says. “I don’t know why Roy didn’t bring you as his plus-one. You’re good at this stuff.”
“First of all,” Rebecca says, grinning, “that’s hilarious. You should’ve seen the time I dropped this mink stole I’d borrowed from some posh friend, and General Raven tripped on it and fell on his face. I thought I was dead. Second of all, he brought you because he likes having you around. He wants you close. You make him more comfortable, no matter what the situation is.”
Ed considers her warily. “He’s always comfortable at these things. Why would I make a difference?”
Rebecca rolls her eyes. “Because he’s so in love with you, stupid.”
For maybe the second or third time in his entire life, Ed’s too startled to take umbrage. “But—”
“He is, dummy,” Rebecca says. “And that means you make anything better.”
“Good joke,” Ed says.
Rebecca smacks him on the back of the head—not very hard, but—like, what the fuck?
“Don’t go down that road,” she says. “Look at Jean. He had to lose everything he had—the stars on his shoulder, the city excitement, the high-powered life, his independence, his mobility; everything that he thought made him appealing—before he realized how much he actually had to offer. Don’t let it come to that for you, kiddo. He wants you, or he’d have somebody else, and he wants you exactly the way you are. There’s no such thing as perfect—just perfect for someone. The two of you fit together, so run with it. Just be here, a hundred percent. That’s all it takes.”
Ed swallows. His mouth still tastes like evil-food. Also, it’s kind of dry; he should get more champagne. “But what if—I mean, after a while, what if—”
“Stop right there,” Rebecca says. “Mustang has been my best friend’s C.O. since we weren’t much older than you—which means I’ve been keeping an eye on him for a long time. This is for real. And now I feel friggin’ old, so I hope you’re happy.”
“Not particularly,” Ed says.
Rebecca shifts again, but this time he’s fast enough to duck her hand. “Smartass. Like I said, you two dickheads suit each other. Just be happy, would you? It’s easier than you think.”
Ed makes a face at her.
She makes a face back.
So that’s all right.
Rebecca goes off to talk to some friends before too long, so Ed plays the rather dangerous hors-d’oeuvres-roulette game a few more times and watches the patterns he can make when he swills around the champagne in his glass. He’s started to tune out the fake-jovial fake-laughter, but after another hour or so, he hears a set of long-stride footsteps accompanied by clicking nails.
“She’s a furry angel,” Roy says, stroking Hitomi’s ears. “I think she deserves some more illicit foie gras.”
“Maybe she deserves to go home,” Ed says. “If I concentrate, I can remember home—you know, where we could have had hot chocolate, and you could have read me some sappy light-up poetry, and we could have had sex four times by now.”
“I’ve thought of little else,” Roy says, but before Ed can jump on it, he sighs, genuinely. “I can’t go yet, I’m afraid—there are more Parliamentarians here than were on the original guest list, and I need to make the rounds. I decided that Hitomi and I had both earned a break, but I can only spare a couple minutes. If you’d like, though, I can ask the always charming and obtrusive Second Lieutenant Catalina drive you back now.”
“I’m not just gonna ditch you,” Ed says. “I mean, this is lame, but it’d be lame to be at home by myself, and the food there isn’t technically free.”
Roy smiles. Even tired-eyed and slightly strained and several inches too far out of reach for Ed’s tastes, Roy has a magnificent smile. “I appreciate that.”
Ed scowls, because he’ll be able to hear it. “Yeah, you’d better.”
“Don’t pout,” Roy says. “It’s dreadfully unattractive. Actually, please do pout; if someone else saw you looking so wonderful and swept in to romance you, I’d be more than a little bit put-out.”
“Bastard,” Ed says.
“I lied,” Roy says. “It’s not unattractive. Nothing you do is unattractive. Although I seem to recall that a few of your expressions of defiance and exaggerated boredom were questionable.”
“How the hell do you know I’m attractive?” Ed says. “You can’t see.”
“Memory,” Roy says, “and imagination. But perhaps you’re right, and I should reassure myself by running my hands all over you. Would you like to step outside for a moment and humor an old blind man?”
“You’re not that old,” Ed says. “You’re not, like, old. You’re… distinguished.”
Roy blinks, staring at… his nose, but close enough. “My goodness.”
“Shut up,” Ed says. “It’s Al’s word, not mine.” He takes Roy’s hand and sets it on his shoulder. Roy’s fingers curl closer automatically. “C’mon, I’m taking you up on that breather.”
Ed can’t figure out who changed whom and when and exactly how—because they’ve both changed, since the whole loss of sight/loss of alchemy solidarity thing. He’s pretty sure he never saw that look of sort of… amused placidity on Roy’s face before the man was blind. But right now Roy doesn’t seem to mind Ed hauling him out to the furthest, remotest, most hidden part of the patio and then kind of behind a potted plant for good measure. Hitomi looks distinctly unimpressed, but Roy just looks… chill.
Which is funny, ’cause flames, and… maybe Ed’s had a little too much champagne.
Roy leans in to murmur in Ed’s ear, which is enough all by itself to make Ed’s skin prickle all over. “Are we more or less in private?”
Ed wriggles a little—just trying to channel some of the energy humming through his whole body. “About as much as anywhere can be private in a crappy place like… nhn.”
Never mind. No place can be crappy when Roy’s mouth is gliding down the side of Ed’s neck like that, soft heat and a hint of teeth.
Roy’s fingertips drag along the top edge of Ed’s collar, over his throat, and then down his chest so slowly that Ed can’t help arching into them; Roy is such a fucking tease sometimes—
“How much have you had to drink?” he whispers, humid breath in Ed’s ear, and he squirms a little more.
“I dunno, glass or three—”
“Drink just enough to get tipsy—just enough that when we get home, you’ll be the slightest bit hazy. Happy. Suggestible.”
Ed shivers, and Roy’s grip on him tightens. “Should I, uh—should I call Al and tell him to sleep with earplugs in?”
Roy laughs richly. “That might not be a bad idea. But I also enjoy the considerable challenge of trying to keep you quiet.”
To tell the truth, Ed kind of likes that, too. He kind of likes everything they do. Maybe that’s sort of what Rebecca was going on about.
“What time is it?” he manages to ask. “I mean, he’s probably already asleep. Soundly. Covered in cats.”
Roy’s fingers twist into his hair, and Roy’s tongue flicks against his throat. “Quiet it is, then.”
“Ghh,” Ed says.
“Your eloquence is quite the turn-on.”
“Shut up. Sexy son of a b… ahh.”
Roy lets up sucking low on the right side of Ed’s neck just before he would have left a mark. “I like that coinage. You should write that down.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yes, please.” Roy draws back a little, his left hand curled in Ed’s collar, the fingertips of the right tracking slowly over Ed’s face. “Look at me?”
Ed obliges—“Not like it matters.”
“It does,” Roy says. “I can feel it. Would you believe I’m starting to conflate colors with physical sensations now? Like this, for instance.” He smoothes Ed’s bangs back from his forehead. “Your hair’s the color of sunshine on my skin. That’s what yellow feels like. That’s what your yellow feels like, at any rate.”
Ed has to swallow twice before words will come together right. “Are you cutesy-seducing me in public again?”
“Is it working?” Roy asks.
Ed’s heart gets fuller and fuller with every beat. In another minute, it’s just going to explode out of his chest. Which will be a pain in the ass for someone to clean up. “How long a break is this, anyway?”
“I have about fifteen more seconds,” Roy says. “Which I intend to utilize.”
He spreads his right hand on Ed’s jaw and clenches the left one around Ed’s tie and pulls Ed in close and utilizes. And under the spinning, in the warm and perfect dark, all Ed can think is What did I exchange to get this? What do I have to do to keep it?
Roy sighs softly—contentedly—against Ed’s mouth as they part. “Thank you. This was very rejuvenating.”
“Whatever,” Ed says. “Hurry up and finish playing politics. I’ll see you later.”
“Not soon enough,” Roy says. “And don’t discriminate—I’ll touch you later. Everywhere. I’ll leave my fingerprints in your sweat.”
“Don’t you fucking say that and walk awa—”
Roy scratches behind an indescribably patient Hitomi’s ear. “All right, let’s go.”
“Bastard,” Ed says.
Roy saunters off grinning, Hitomi trotting at his side.
Ed feels justified loitering around for a little while as he waits for his face and… other parts of his anatomy… to cool down. If he went inside and ran into anyone he knew right now, they’d laugh him out again anyway. Winry laughed at him for, like, hours when he asked her advice on what to get “Y’know… someone… kind of… important” after a promotion. If everybody in the whole world is so fixated on finding love, why do people find it so uproariously funny when you actually succeed?
Whatever. Roy got suspiciously itchy-eyed when Ed gave him a scrapbook of pictures that looked good alchemically backlit, selected from a ton that he got from the Hugheses and the team and Roy’s intimidating mom and pretty much everyone. So Ed won anyway.
He takes a couple deep breaths and pushes his hair back and watches a few little wispy clouds drift back and forth across the half-moon. It’s a nice night. Every night’s a nice night. He’s well-loved, and he has a purpose, and all the other shit is just details.
Maybe he just won’t go back inside. It’s not like anybody’s going to miss him—like, heaven forbid they should have to talk about the complicated Cretan immigration policies without his invaluable input. Which is usually along the lines of, “But you can just walk over borders; they’re conceptual.”
After about twenty minutes of thinking he should go pretend to socialize and then putting it off, a middle-aged woman dressed in silver steps out onto the patio with him. “Mr. Elric?”
Crap, his location has been compromised. “Uh, hi—hello. Good evening. You can call me Ed.”
“You can call me El,” the woman says. “Short for Eleanor.” She extends her hand, smiling. “Eleanor Forsythe.”
Ed manages to bite his tongue after “Oh” and before “shit.” Then he scuttles over and shakes. Wait, did she want him to kiss it or something? Shit. Fuck. Damn it, Roy, I’m sorry; I’m trying, but it doesn’t come easy like it does for you—
Eleanor looks pretty nice, though—sort of harmless, a little bit matronly, all that kind of stuff. “You’re here with Brigadier General Mustang, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah,” Ed says. “Uh, yes. This is a great party—you have such an amazing house. Really classy. These aren’t really my thing, but I can recognize a good one by now.”
Eleanor smiles warmly and genuinely. “Well, thank you, dear. I find them more than a little bit stressful, myself.”
Okay. Kindred spirit, kind of, sort of. Not some stuffy aristocrat, anyway; this Ed can probably handle. “I bet. There’s a heck of a lot to take care of, and no matter how much planning you do, it kind of ends up being out of your hands.”
“Precisely,” Eleanor says. “They likely oughtn’t tempt me with that open bar.”
Yeah, Ed likes this lady. He grins. “That tends to be my only incentive to stick these things out.”
“You’re young yet,” she says. “You can still bounce back from a hangover.”
“I dunno if ‘bounce’ is the word I’d use,” Ed says. “Maybe ‘stagger around a lot avoiding bright lights and bemoaning my fate’.”
Eleanor laughs authentically. “It won’t be long before you’re remembering even those days fondly, my dear.” She pauses, watching the subdued movement of the party ebbing and flowing inside. “It’s interesting,” Eleanor says. “I’ve seen General Mustang at more of these events than I can remember, but I’ve never seen him this… happy.”
Ed hesitates. How much does she know? How much should she find out? “Maybe blindness agrees with him.”
“Oh, but we had a lovely dinner not long after he was released from the hospital, and he seemed very… small. Now he’s rather radiant, wouldn’t you say? Whatever’s changed has been extremely good for him. I doubt that anyone would argue with that.”
She looks at Ed.
Ed looks back.
She smiles. “Why don’t I acquaint you with a few of our younger guests? All of this talk of politics can’t be much fun.”
“Sure,” Ed says slowly, because what else is he going to say?
Eleanor ushers him back into the ballroom and introduces him to a couple officers’ kids who ask about his job and then do a pretty good job of pretending to give a crap about the implications of refraction and doubling if you replace the sun sigil with a moon and don’t change the convergences. It was a nice thought on Eleanor’s part, but Ed hasn’t really had anything in common with people his age since… ever. He tries to look really interested as a couple of them talk about insufferably boring equestrianism shit, and then he excuses himself to get a drink.
It’s got to be late by now. It’s got to be almost time to leave.
Killing time is a whole lot harder when you can’t transmute any and all available objects into awkward shapes, count the double-takes, and try to put the stuff back before anybody who outranks you sees it and busts your ass. Al was the best at that game, not least because the armor gave him a fucking unbeatable poker face.
Ed tries all of the hors d’oeuvres again—even the insidious not-sausage-rolls, in the hopes that his previous sample was a statistical anomaly, and they’re actually good (it wasn’t; they’re not). He drinks his champagne slowly and plays as many notes as he can by running his finger around the rim after every sip. It kind of makes him miss the automail hand—flicking glass with those fingers would get this piercing tone. And then Roy would give him this look like Perhaps we can find a specialist in age-related alchemy, as evidently you’ve become a five-year-old, and Ed would act scandalized and point at Al, who would fake-draw a deep fake-breath and just sigh.
Whatever. Ed’s a genius. He can damn well figure out how to amuse himself for a while.
About an hour later, there’s a bit more champagne swimming through his system, and he’s bent to his work at the dessert table when nails click on the marble, and a few familiar fingers find his shoulder-blade.
“Second Lieutenant Catalina is bringing the car around out front,” Roy says. “Are you ready to go?” He pauses. “That was a stupid question. I apologize.”
“Hold your hand out,” Ed says.
Roy tilts his head—he totally picked that up from the dog—and obliges.
Ed sets his procrastination project into Roy’s palm. Roy blinks a few times and prods it experimentally with his thumb. “What… is this?”
“A paper crane,” Ed says. “Made out of a cocktail napkin. It’s way fucking slower than transmuting, but I folded twenty-four.”
“You,” Roy says, struggling hard to keep a straight face, “are a marvel.”
Ed finishes arranging the stragglers in a neat triangular formation, takes Roy’s elbow gently, and starts off towards the doors. “You’re damn right I am.”
A few people call final goodbyes to Roy as they go, so they have to walk kind of slowly. Hitomi keeps flattening her ears and doing that dog-frown thing; she looks tired as hell. Ed sympathizes. Dogs don’t even have the free champagne to look forward to at stuff like this.
Rebecca salutes sharply and smacks her heels together—those have got to be concealed knives—and then opens the car door for them. Roy orients himself brushing his hand along the curve of the roof and then climbs in first.
“Go on,” Rebecca says to the weary dog gazing up at her. Hitomi dog-frowns a little more and then hops into the car. “Good girl.”
Ed shoots Rebecca a look and climbs in.
“Good boy,” she says.
He remembers the politicians just in time to stop himself from giving her the finger.
When she shuts the door, he turns to Roy. “You owe me twelve blowjobs.”
Roy blinks and then smiles, slowly and with Ed’s absolute favorite edge of wickedness. “Do I indeed?”
“Yup. I counted.”
“Well,” Roy says. “I should hate to violate the principle of equivalent exchange.”
“Alchemists,” Rebecca says loftily as she gets in. “Shall we, sir?”
“Thank you, Second Lieutenant,” Roy says.
Ed tries to settle down, but all the champagne’s made him a little loopy, and he can’t focus on relaxing. “So… huh.”
“Enlightening,” Roy says.
“Shut up. I changed my mind.”
“What about?”
“Asking you how many people you think know about us.”
…wait.
…aw, crap.
“I don’t have a numbered list,” Roy says—and he’s not tapping his index finger on the seat, which means he’s actually calm and not just faking it, “but anyone who doesn’t assume at least suspects. Anyone who doesn’t even suspect is an oblivious imbecile, and I don’t want their support anyway.”
Ed considers speaking for long enough that his mouth just goes for it: “Forsythe’s wife knows. And she approves.”
Roy’s eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t say.”
Ed makes a face at him, for all the good that does. “Just did.”
Roy turns to fake-gaze contemplatively out the window, but Ed can see in his reflection that he’s smiling. “Then I’ve got him.”
“You sound pretty sure.”
“Think of it this way,” Roy says. “If you told me that I could or could not trust an individual, your judgment would influence me a great deal.”
“Oka… wait a fucking second, did you just imply that I’m your wife?”
Roy blinks for a moment and then starts laughing, so Ed strains against the confines of the seatbelt to start whaling on him, and Hitomi looks very confused about whether or not she should be intervening on her master’s behalf.
“You’re lucky my fist isn’t metal anymore, you dick!” Ed says.
“I’m lucky in general,” Roy says. He pauses, and then he beams. “General, get it?”
Ed shoves him.
“Pipe down back there, you crazy kids,” Rebecca says.
“Pipe down up there or risk demotion,” Roy says.
“Are you drunk, sir?” Rebecca sounds delighted.
“I am most certainly not drunk. There is a distinct possibility that I have imbibed slightly more than would have been advisable.”
Ed snorts. “Drunk as a skunk.”
“I find it extremely difficult to believe that skunks become intoxicated frequently enough to merit that association.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“Figurative meaning conceded; literal denotation taken offense to.”
Ed can see Rebecca’s grin as she glances over her shoulder and turns the car. “You two are disgustingly cute.”
Roy pauses. “Edward, I think you should feel the second lieutenant’s forehead. She seems to be very ill.”
“She probably caught it from Havoc,” Ed says.
“Very likely.”
“Sick in the head.”
“Quite.”
“No cure.”
“Terrible tragedy.”
Rebecca’s snickering for the rest of the drive.
They make an effort to sneak in, but a kid with a metal foot, a blind guy who’s imbibed more than would have been advisable, and a guide dog aren’t exactly anybody’s ninja dream team.
Fortunately, Al’s passed out on the couch anyway and proves completely insensible to the staggering and muffled laughter. There’s a huge textbook open on his chest and a notebook on the floor under his dangling arm. The ginger kitten he acquired a couple weeks ago is curled up in the crook of his other arm, and the really fat cat is on his thigh, probably cutting off his circulation, which serves him right.
Ed goes over to Fatso the Fantastic (which should be his official name but isn’t), scoops the giant mass up with some difficulty, and relocates it to the floor. He extricates the book, too, and marks Al’s place before he sets it on the coffee table. Then he fetches one of the nice, fleecy blankets from the linen cabinet that Roy organized meticulously despite being blind and whatnot, and he lays it over an unconscious Al and the yawning kitten.
Al shifts, snuggles into it a little, and mumbles “Nitroglycerine.”
“Well,” Roy says. “That’s the single scariest thing I’ve ever borne auditory witness to, including the narrow aversion of the Apocalypse.”
“Whatever,” Ed says. “I think it’s adorable.”
“You’re a bit biased.”
“Maybe,” Ed says. He strokes Al’s hair back a little and then pets the kitten, because it looks so pitifully jealous.
“There’s no ‘maybe’ about it,” Roy says. “Come on, now; I’m so exhausted I can’t see straight.”
“I don’t think that’s because of the exhaustion.”
“No? Come lie in bed with me and diagnose me properly.”
“Even by your standards, that’s a shitty euphemism for sex.”
“I’m too tired for sex. Instead I’ll wake you with one of your allotted ten blowjobs.”
“Twelve.”
“One of your allotted twelve blowjobs.”
“Deal,” Ed says.
So he takes Roy’s hand and, avoiding cats and other obstacles, takes him over to their room, so they can strip off all of the starchy formal clothing and then go brush their teeth, and Roy can get toothpaste all over his face and then stand there looking forlorn while Ed wipes it off of him. It’s not long before they’ve collapsed onto the bed, and Ed’s nestled in against Roy’s chest, and Roy’s carding his fingers slowly through Ed’s hair.
“I’d make a list of your fetishes,” Ed mumbles into his nest of Roy-warm and Roy-smell and Roy-safe, “but I don’t have time to write an encyclopedia.”
“No encyclopedia necessary,” Roy says. “It’s just you, dear heart.”
“Nngh. I don’t have antlers, dumbass.”
“Not deer hart, you brat.”
“Ha.”
“Cretin.”
Ed closes his eyes and nuzzles in a little closer. “’S… kinda… cute, though.”
“‘Dear heart’, do you mean?”
“Nnh.”
“Was that an affirmative ‘nnh’?”
“Nnh.”
“Wretch.” Roy shifts around and settles with an arm slung over Ed’s waist. “I wasn’t aiming for cuteness so much as… accuracy.”
“Nnh?”
“Battered as it may be,” Roy says, “my heart doesn’t come cheap.” He brushes his lips over Ed’s forehead. “I suppose I wrapped it up, rather tightly, in part to hold it together and in part just to make it more presentable, but somewhere down the line I forgot that it wasn’t a present, and I gave it to you. And since you refuse to recognize that it’s not worth having… you own it now—and all of me with it. It’s yours. It’s you, really. You are my dear heart.”
“Gnh… not… biologically viable.”
“And now you are going to be the corpse in my bed that I have smothered with a pillow.”
“…fight you.”
“Go to sleep.”
Ed yawns, grabs a fistful of Roy’s pajama shirt, tucks his head up under Roy’s chin, and gets comfortable. “Love you, dumbass.”
He can hear Roy’s smile as the warm darkness starts to draw in around him. “And you.”