Archive of Our Own

There was something bothering him about Fullmetal lately. Well, in all honesty Fullmetal was always bothering him in some way or another - but it was a rare day that Roy felt bothered for him. Ever since the kid - though he was getting older now, and that made Roy feel far too old himself - had come into the office that morning, he hadn’t stopped fidgeting. Fullmetal had a whole mountain of paperwork to get through, and since he was so quick to escape it at the drop of a hat, Roy had made him sit in his own office to complete it. Little brat couldn’t run off without him noticing if he was right in front of him. Usually , at least. The one upside of the kid having automail, not that Roy would ever tell him, was that stealth was damn near impossible. Roy wasn't a good enough person not to take advantage of that. If Fullmetal was in his office, he wasn't out in the city causing havoc.

The downside, as Roy was discovering, was that he had just as much paperwork to get through himself, and Fullmetal was more distracting than ever. Could the kid just sit still?   

A sharp thud bounced around the room as the boy dropped his automail hand to the table and groaned, flopping the rest of his body over it. Roy looked up and frowned - he’d wrinkle the documents like that, and Hawkeye would blame Roy for it, like she always did. 

“Suck it up Fullmetal, if you didn’t ignore all your reports, maybe it wouldn’t build up like this.” He said, glancing back down at his own messy scrawl and pretending he wasn’t looking at his subordinate through the corner of his eyes. So what if Roy was bored, court martial him. 

“Fuck off you Bastard, I feel like shit today.” Fullmetal said, his whines muffled by his obnoxious red coat. It would never be anything close to a uniform, but at least it was bright enough to pick out of a crowd, like some lost child. 

Roy snorted. “You always say that when it comes to the end of the month and you have to file everything. Don’t make me get the Lieutenant.” 

Fullmetal glared at him through his hair, and Roy would give it to him, he did look a bit flushed today. He better not have been walking in the rain again, if he got sick it meant Roy had to do something about it. 

“If you say anything to her, I’ll tell her just how many of those documents you’ve actually read.” Fullmetal said, dropping his head back down and screaming into his arm. 

Roy sighed in response, and scribbled his signature on another piece of paper. The boy always was a drama queen. . 

Still. Roy would be lying if he said that he hadn’t felt weirdly uneasy all morning, like his instincts were smacking him around the head for not noticing something crucial. All his windows were closed - it was nearing winter after all - and the air felt stale and sticky in his throat. In fact, the longer he sat there thinking about it, the tighter his collar felt, the heavier his uniform jacket dragged down his shoulders. He took a sip of his water for something to do. 

He read over his document. 

...bravo team has reported sightings of unknown individuals in the forest outside Central, with potential ties to Eastern Command - 

Another thud, sounding suspiciously like a head hitting the wooden desk. 

“You alive over there Fullmetal?” 

There’s no snarky response, and that was genuinely concerning, since Edward Elric did not shut up, even upon threat of death. Roy looked up from his report, which was just starting to get to the actual point, and froze.  A moment later, and he was by Fullmetal, hand automatically reaching for his pulse in his neck as he looked him over for injuries. 

Fullmetal barely flinched when his hand touched the boy's neck but at least the small movement was something. His pulse was rapid and flighty, but it was there, and his heart had to be beating pretty heavy for him to feel it this way. 

“Lieutenant!” Roy called out, and a moment later the door flew open. Hawkeye’s got her gun pointed at him, before she lowers it. 

“Sir?” She asked, already moving in closer. 

“He was complaining about feeling sick, and about five minutes later he just dropped.” 

Roy can’t see anything wrong with him, but his skin was hot to touch, and when he pulls his hand back, it feels slightly wet, sweat building. Now he’s looking, he can see it’s begun to dampen Fullmetal’s clothes. It’s psychosomatic, but Roy felt hotter just seeing it, the brief breeze that had swept the room with Hawkeye's entry being overtaken by the staleness that haunted his lungs.

Hawkeye's crouched down to look at the boy’s face when something triggers his fight reflex. Roy can’t help it, arm braced and pushing her back. She barely moves, and the only reason she budged at all was because his sudden swipe caught her off guard. He doesn't know why he did it,but Hawkeye's looking at him like she did. 

Her voice was careful and steady, like always. “Sir… you don’t need to protect him from me right now.” 

Protect Fullmetal? From Hawkeye? Why would he ever even do that? Roy adjusted his uniform compulsively, and paused.

When had he slipped on his gloves? 

He shook his head to clear it, and some of the fog is lifted long enough for him to step away, and slide the gloves back off. They’re thrown on the desk for good measure. 

Hawkeye’s watching him, face harsh and severe like she was considering a lot of things at once and wasn’t happy about any of them.  She looked away, tending to Fullmetal and brushing his hair back from his face. Her other hand is pressed gently to his  flesh shoulder. 

Why does he feel like he needed to rip it off? 

“Ed, can you hear me?” She asked, voice soft in a way he never heard, unless she's talking to her pets. 

Fullmetal twitched, nose scrunching before he blearily opened his eyes. Even from his desk, Roy could see they’re wet and clouded, like he was in a daze. Roy sniffed, anything to clear his strangely burning nose. What even was that smell? Had Hawkeye gotten a new perfume? 

“...Lieutenant?” Fullmetal said, head rolling as he pushed himself up. He swayed on the spot, and Roy's hands grip onto the wood of his desk to avoid racing over there to stabilize him.  He doesn’t actually know how much help he’d be. For some reason, he felt like he might keel over himself. 

“Hey Ed. How are you feeling?” Her back wasn’t to Roy, but it’s close, and for the life of him he couldn’t say why that bothered him but it does. 

She’s open to threats. 

But he’s the only one here, he thought, and eyed the closed door. When had Hawkeye closed it?  

A scrap of wood on wood as Fullmetal pushed himself up in his chair, the legs grinding against the floor. Roy flinched at the sound. “Fuzzy. Hot. Told the bastard I felt like shit.” He groaned, bringing his left hand up to rub across his face. “What happened?” 

“You passed out.” Roy cut in. Fullmetal's head jerked up and now that Roy can see, the boy’s face was redder than before. Fever? 

Hawkeye grabs his attention back immediately, and Roy has the urge to rip her throat out for it.

As soon as the thought appeared, he knocked it back down.

What the fuck?

He might be panicking just a bit inside.

“Ed, have you ever felt like this before?” 

Fullmetal shook his head, and then stopped, looking sick. “Don’t think so. I feel hot. My skin hurts.” 

Hawkeye looked down, and even though Roy could only see half her face, those are definitely her ‘I have to say something unpleasant’ shoulders. 

“Ed, I think you’re presenting.” Hawkeye said, perfectly calmly like it’s a sentence and not a grenade she's thrown them. 

Presenting your secondary gender shouldn’t do this, Roy knew. His presentation as an alpha had been rougher than most by Amestrian standards, and he’d only ever felt the telltale flush of hormones running rampant and making him grow about a foot in a month. The aches that had come with it were a related symptom, not directly caused by the presentation itself.  He’d heard Alphas and Omegas had it worse than Betas - but hell Hawkeye was an Alpha too and he’d heard from her that the worst she’d felt was the typical aggression and protective instincts. 

You don’t have to protect him, Hawkeye had said. 

Oh shit. 

Was she implying Fullmetal of all people was making Roy what - Clucky? Well. She was another Alpha, and no sensible adult would ever let an alpha near a presenting - 

Omega. 

You don’t let anyone barring family near a presenting Omega, even if it was seen as old fashioned these days.  

Roy turned his gaze back to his youngest subordinate, and this time he pushed past the instincts to tear Hawkeye limb from limb, and focused on the kid. 

He wasn’t as young as he used to be, had to be what? Sixteen now? Shit. Kids presented around there alright, and while Fullmetal was stunted in a lot of ways, he’d seemed to be hitting his hormonal marks like any other teen. He was short, as always, and Fullmetal had always hated attention being drawn to his small size. Roy liked to poke fun, but he’d always expected the kid to shoot up when the Alpha hormones kicked in, because what else could the Fullmetal fucking Alchemist be? 

Looking for it now though, Roy could see the softer shape of his face, the leaner build he’d always had to fight to shove muscle onto. Fullmetal moved quickly and had skills like a damn gymnast, it made sense he’d develop skill sets that suited his smaller stature as a twelve year old. But now that he thought about it, he’d always been nimble in a way that most people just couldn’t achieve. Omegas were known for their slender frames and flexible movements - there was a reason Xing trained them as assassins, even though Amestris had always sought to keep them off the front lines and in the home.  Hell, Roy didn’t even know if Omegas were allowed in the military. 

What protocol was there for an officer to be signed on before presenting anyway? It wasn’t like there was a standard for children to be conscripted, and Fullmetal had always been a special case. Now, in more ways than one. Male Omegas were even less common than female Omegas. The numbers of Omega’s had dropped down over the decades, the genes for presentation growing rarer and rarer. If he wasn’t witnessing it with his own two eyes, with his own instincts going haywire, he’d be skeptical that it was happening at all.

But then, it would explain a lot of things. 

Fullmetal seemed to disagree. 

“What? No way. I’ve read about all that shit - it’s not meant to be like this.” Fullmetal stated, like he was the worldwide authority on secondary presentations. To his credit, Roy had to admit, that was just how he spoke about everything and normally, unfortunately, he’s usually right. 

Not this time, not with how Roy could finally put a name to the staleness in the air of stagnant pheromones. Certainly not with how Hawkeye’s looking at him like she can see all of his secrets. Alphas did always have a stupidly good nose for those things. 

Roy still wanted to tear her away from the boy, not a threat be damned. 

Was he going to have to tell Alphonse? The boy didn't have a human body to sense with, which explained how Fullmetal got to the office in the first place. Roy was sure had Alphonse known, Fullmetal would be under lock and key, wrapped up in a pile of blankets.
And it was Roy that had to inform him that he'd let his brother walk around smelling like...

God help him. 

“Ed,” Hawkeye started, like she's talking to a startled bird. “You’re the right age, and you’re drowning in pheromones. I’d say it probably started last night, and you slept through the start of it.” 

“But - I’m - I can’t. “ Fullmetal couldn't get words out, and whether it was due to shock, or the daze that was still haunting his eyes and clearly fogging his brain, Roy couldn’t tell.  “But I feel…” Fullmetal glanced down at his pants, almost tellingly so, his words cutting off. 

Fullmetal grew redder, if it’s at all possible, and slumped into his chair. There's a moment of stillness, right before the boy clapped and slammed his hands onto the table. Hawkeye’s moving back instantly, barely missing the wood that’s flying out to form a small box around Fullmetal. 

It does little to muffle the screams of frustration that follow. 

Roy turned to Hawkeye. “You call Alphonse, I’ll wait the brat out.” 

She gave  him a strange, almost wary look, but eventually nodded. The door closed behind her with a sharp snap. 

“You done throwing a tantrum, Fullmetal?” Roy said casually, looking at his nails. Now that the boy was blocked in by his own creation, the air was beginning to clear. Just to be safe, Roy shoved the window open and the cold air was like a bucket of water to the face. 

Speaking of. 

“You’re gonna run out of air soon Fullmetal.” For the scent to be so thoroughly blocked, the brat had to have made that thing airtight. 

“Fuck off Bastard, let me die.” 

So dramatic. 

That, it seemed, wouldn’t change. Roy sighed and dropped back down to his desk. He still had paperwork to do.