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Ed’s not the kind of person to cry.
He’s been through too much in his life to cry, but when he sees Roy standing there at the door to Rockbell automail, he feels the tears gather in his eyes.
“You came back for me. You actually came back for me.”
The past two years have sucked.
It all started at seventeen, up in Baschool.
Being impaled is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him pain-wise. It’s a particularly nauseating feeling to know that your organs have been ruptured and that you’re bleeding out. Bleeding out leaves you cold, but the fear burns you from the inside. He understands how Teacher felt after her own attempt at human transmutation.
But he’d survived.
Being on the run had felt only marginally more manageable than raising himself and Al at five years old. For all that Ed loves travel, he absolutely cannot stand the inconsistency in living rough. At least when he’d been sent all over on the military’s behest, he could rely on every hotel room being approximately the same as his dorms back in East City and later Central. Travelling all over the country while trying not to be caught by the same authoritarian military that he once worked for (had he even been formally discharged?) had left him all kinds of unsettled.
Being away from Al had somehow been worse than the two of them together. Havoc had once said that whole books could be written about their codependency. That it was something more absurd than even the most outrageous fiction. It hadn’t shut him up when Ed had snapped that if almost all of Havoc’s family had died at once, he’d be close to his sister Eleanor, too.
And now this.
The Promised Day is been the scariest thing he’s ever been through, and what a birthday gift it is to have to save the entire world.
Ed’s lost count of how many times he’s attempted human transmutation in his entire short life. His automail is broken to hell and back and he’s stuck to a giant mass of concrete by way of a thick piece of rebar piercing through his arm (because getting impaled once hadn’t been enough, no, it absolutely needed to go right between the radius and the ulna, absolutely shattering at least one of them in the same go).
Al’s stopped responding only minutes earlier. His seal finally must have finally given out on him. And isn’t that just symbolic of the entire day, that Al would … die? … just as they were doing everything they could to save the entire fifty million population of Amestris? In a different world, if Al’s armour and bond had held up any longer, Ed wouldn’t be in doubt that he would have sacrificed himself for … something. Ed can’t even imagine what he would have gotten out of it. Bargaining with Truth never ends well.
Maybe Al has done something to ensure that his soul would return to the plane between dimensions, where Truth resides. The soul knows where it belongs, and maybe it had made it there all on his own. Ed doesn’t know, and the lack of knowledge has always been scary, but now it terrifies him.
Ed’s never tried it before, but if he can do circle-less alchemy with his hands he must be able to do it with his feet. Because his automail arm is broken all the way up to the port— and the port must be fucked —and his flesh arm is impaled by rebar, because apparently being pierced through with a piece of metal once wasn’t enough.
If the blood had been running down to his hand instead of dripping down to the ground below him, he could have used it to draw a transmutation circle. He really only needs the most basic components of a circle; he could have drawn just the circle and probably been fine, even if it’s easier to channel energy through the double triangle circle that he used before he committed the ultimate taboo.
Father’s still rampaging over there, but Roy has him occupied for the moment.
Ed doesn’t exactly know the chemical makeup of the rebar in his arm; last time it had just been pulled out of him, but obviously that won’t work right now. He knows that steel is made up of a million different things, but if he can just get the carbon in it to blend with the oxygen in the air to make carbon dioxide and leave the other elements in some sort of cube he should be set to, what, bleed out?
He can’t think that way. Father’s almost dead and Ed’s about to kill him with his own bare hand because what does he have to lose? Al’s dead and Roy’s blind and it’s either Ed kills him or he dies trying and then they’re all fucked. And where is his piece of shit father when he needs him?
It’s hard to tap into his flexibility when he is as injured as he is, but somehow he manages to tap his legs together to form the jankiest circle he’s ever made. But it works and he draws on the Gate to let the energy to travel up his body and towards his arm. For all that he believes in his ability to make up new circles on the spot, he’s only about 95% sure that this will do what he wants it to do. It’s important to properly isolate the compounds when he splits off the carbon so that the other trace elements in the steel won’t enter his bloodstream and risk poisoning him. He knows that for all that the medical system is advanced, it still struggles to treat heavy metal and trace element poisoning.
But it works and the iron falls to the ground and Ed only gets a little frozen by the endothermic reaction from splitting the molecules in the steel. Good, maybe it’ll slow the bleeding.
He tries to think. Father’s vulnerable now, and maybe he can actually work on destroying him. It’s hard to think when the blood is pouring down his arm and he’s banged up and he probably has two concussions on top of each other. What would work would be to either try to destroy every single one of the philosopher’s stones inside him á la Scar, but the amount of energy released might cause a fallout that will wipe out all of them. The second theory is somehow even riskier; he could try to hold the human transmutation circle in his mind and drag the entire Father through the Gate of Truth and use that energy to get Al back. He’s not sure how much is left of Father’s philosopher’s stones.
It’s insane, but it might just work.
Father’s still sufficiently distracted by being literally engulfed in flames. Ed needs space to work and draw his transmutation circle. So he rips the rest of his shirt off. His torso is dirty, but there’s enough space for him to draw a circle. He only needs the circle, no more lines or symbols. Anything but the circle is superfluous.
He waits, circle drawn and blood pouring down his arm. The adrenaline that’s pumping through him is doing a fine job of actually hiding the pain of his shattered forearm from him. He’ll undoubtedly need surgery on it, and his automail port is fucked to hell and back, and in general Ed’s just a giant mess at the moment.
But the adrenaline keeps him going and the moment Roy shouts his names and the flames cease, Ed touches his fingers to the circle, imagines the human transmutation circle as hard as he can and runs towards Father, grabbing the first part of him that he can get his hand on, imagining Father as one large philosopher’s stone and nothing else. He needs to carry the energy of them with him.
Then it’s white.
Ed knows they’re in the right place, because there’s a Gate in front of him and a Gate behind him and he’s holding a wispy black creature with one eye in his left hand. Instinctively he knows that this is the base form of what had later gone by the name of Father while cosplaying the slightly more desaturated version of Ed’s good-for-nothing dad.
So you’re back, Truth’s not-voice doesn’t say. And what have you brought me this time?
“Your attempted usurper,” Ed says, thrusting his hand out. His arm isn’t bleeding here, and it allows him to see the wide hole piercing right through him. That’s gonna be a bitch to fix. He wouldn’t be surprised if they need to do a tissue graft to properly heal it. “I’m donating his philosopher’s stone to you.”
And this in exchange for your brother’s body, soul and mind?
“Would it be equivalent?” Ed asks, because he’s not about to take a boon from something that does not know grace. Truth is fair, damningly so, and he’s not about to demand something which would take more from him than he’s already given. Of course Ed would sacrifice anything, his other leg, his other arm, his voice, his vision, his heart, to get his brother back.
But Ed wants to know if this will finally be enough.
You can have him. Truth’s not-voice echoes around him, presses into him so hard that if pain was a sensation that could be felt on this plane of existence, he would have a migraine so bad it would have forced him to his knees. Thank you, alchemist, for bringing this to me.
Ed could collapse to the not-floor of this nothingness and weep even though he doesn’t cry and hasn’t cried since mum died, but instead he flips off the little dusty mass of particles that is Father’s true form and turns to face Al.
The last time he’d seen Al’s body here, it had been occupied by Al’s personal Truth, not the soul of Al itself. Now, he can immediately tell the difference. He’s livelier than Truth could ever be and there’s a distinct warmth in his eyes that Ed’s missed.
“Brother,” Al says warmly, and he tries to get up on his own. Ed rushes over and helps him up even though he only has one arm to work with. “I’ve missed you.”
“Let’s go, Al,” Ed says. “I think we both need some medical attention.”
Al laughs, bright as bells and wonderfully present, no longer echoing within the helmet of his armour. “Will you survive all the needles they’re going to poke into you?”
Ed grits his teeth. “No. I’ll die and then you’ll be all on your own and you’ll have to fend of the nurses all vying for your attention since you’re too damn cute.”
Together they walk out through Al’s gate and Ed immediately realises the mess they’re in.
It had only been the start of it.
He hadn’t been able to see Roy for more than a moment before they’d been both whisked away in each their ambulance. He’d been able to actually hug him, though it had been more of Roy hugging him since the adrenaline had finally drained out of him and he’d realised how much his arm had been killing him. In all his years of being on the right fighting for the military and his own dreams, he’d never once broken a bone.
Ed doesn’t recommend it.
“I’ll find a way around this,” Roy had whispered in his ear, brushing a kiss against Ed’s cheek, so brief it might as well have not happened. “You should go home. I’ll come back for you.”
Ed doesn’t know about that; he loves Roy more than he really wants to admit. Has been in love with him since he was sixteen and randomly kissed Roy underneath a street lamp after a monthly night out with the rest of the office. The small crisis of faith that Roy had had hadn’t stopped them from starting something akin to a relationship, more more being a friends with benefits situation, since neither of them had the time or energy to fully commit to anything.
But he’d nodded, so softly that Roy may not have been able to feel it, and then they’d been pulled away from each other. Al, bundled in Roy’s overcoat to protect his modesty, had looked at him with something like pity in his eyes.
The day after he’d been put into surgery. Ed had tried to fight it; had tried to argue that other needed it more than him, even though his fingers had been swollen and his arm twisted.
Unlike automail surgery, normal surgery can be done under full anaesthesia. Reorienting the bone fragments in his forearm and reattaching them to each other with metal plates and rods had taken the surgeons just over four hours, and when Ed had woken up, the thick bandages covering his arm had taken him by surprise.
“They had to put the IV in your chest,” Al tells him from the other bed, bundled up to keep him warm. “They told me all about your surgery. Would you like to hear about it?”
Ed had. It’s his body and he’s always been morbidly curious.
Eight weeks later, when Al’s no longer on the brink of starving to death nor suffering at the hands of refeeding syndrome, they leave Central in the direction of Resembool.
Al’s still on crutches and Ed’s port is still fucked, and they must make a sorry sight. But someone within the military had been able to pull some strings, and they’re travelling in the officer’s cabin at least on the way to East City. Ed’s not sure if there’s an officer’s cabin on the way to Resembool, but that’s something they will have to figure out.
“How’s your shoulder feeling?” Al asks, stretching out on the bench because his blood pressure is still not stable and it’s better if he spends as much time as possible reclined or laying down so that the blood won’t pool in his legs. “I wonder what Winry will say about it.”
Ed wants to shrug, but he’s lost all kinds of mobility in his shoulder. “She’ll probably hit me with a wrench for daring to outgrow her port.”
Al sighs, as heavy as Ed wants to, if it wouldn’t fuck with his neck. “Yeah. Guess we didn’t think about the downsides to putting shoulder automail on someone so young.”
“Don’t worry about it, Al,” Ed says, and he finds that he means it. “It’s my burden to bear, not yours.”
“We’re in this together, Brother,” Al says admonishingly. “I wish you’d actually rely on me when you’re struggling. Or if not me, someone like the Colonel.”
Ed stares out of the window. The kiss that Roy had brushed against his cheek on the Promised Day burns like a brand on his skin. “He shouldn’t sink so low as to bother with someone like me,” he says, almost quiet enough for it to a whisper. “He accepted the offer from Marcoh. Took my advice too, to actually open the Gate and bargain for his vision back in exchange for the Stone. It was the only way for his vision to be returned.”
The words taste like stomach acid in his mouth. “He’ll forget about me soon enough, when he starts properly working towards his goal. I was only a cog in his grand scheme of machinations.”
Al’s arms wrap around him, and Ed must be missing pieces of time, because he hadn’t actually noticed Al getting up from the bench at all. He immediately grabs onto Al, because Al isn’t that strong yet and also his blood pressure must be killing him from getting up too fast.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk about yourself like this,” Al says quietly, reaching up a hand to brush over Ed’s hair as if to soothe him. “It can’t be nice to feel this way.”
Ed bites back the words.
It’s the truth.
They end up having to completely remove the outer shell of his port.
The surgery hurts like a bitch, and Ed gets another IV in his chest, delivering painkillers and saline straight into his heart so it can be pumped out into the rest of the body. For three days there’s just the port in place, just the part where his nerves are connected, and he’s wrapped up in so much gauze he feels like one of the mummies from Xerxes. Traditionally wrapped and ready for burial.
It’s not as bad as the recovery from the original fitting of the port, both on account of it only being being his shoulder, and not also his leg, and also because it’s only a partial port placement.
Removing the shell and having to have the entire area, including inside of his port, disinfected, had hurt worse than being impaled by rebar, both the first time and the second time. He hadn’t cried for it, because Ed doesn’t cry on principle. But damn, had he been close to it.
It’s a mercy that he hadn’t outgrown the leg port, too, because that would have set him back at least half a year. But it’s a procedure he might have to go through in the next year, if not out of necessity, at least for his own comfort.
He tries not to think about it, tries to not let the feelings of worthlessness wash over him again. Ed feels like he’s eleven all over again, recently traumatised from failing to bring mum back, sitting in the patient recovery room because his own room that he shares with Al has been deemed too contaminated for his exposed port. They can’t risk his port getting infected.
There’s a tinge of regret to this entire event, too. There was more than enough energy in the stone to ask for at least his arm back, but Ed hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time; had been so desperate to get Al back that once again, he’d neglected to consider himself as part of the equation.
Once again, Edward Elric feels like a failure.
He’s still technically part of the military, put on some kind of extended sick leave slash sabbatical leave. Ed still answers to Roy, even if Roy hasn’t made a single attempt to reach out to him since he was discharged from the hospital. It’s not a leap to think that their relationship— or their sorry excuse for one —has dissolved into dust, just like so many things has.
Ed buries the corpse of what wasn’t meant to be on a random Tuesday, in front of the grave that now bears the name of both his parents. He talks about to Roy to mum (and unwillingly, the man that he begrudgingly calls his father) for upwards of an hour, crouched there in front of the flowers they planted on her grave the first week both of them could make it down to the cemetery. It’s not her favourite flower, because you can’t exactly plant a rhododendron flower on a grave and expect it to not take over multiple graves in the span in a couple of years.
Al comes to find him after a while, when Ed’s been sitting there staring into thin air, unable to connect to reality even if he wanted, and he gingerly sits down next to Ed even though he’s going to get grass stains on his perfectly pressed slacks. Alchemy would take care of it in a minute, but it’s the principle of the matter.
Once again Ed is the reason why Al’s inconvenienced.
“Will you go back to work?” Al asks, cane laid over his lap. He will likely always be forced to use that or crutches, and once again Ed feels like he failed. Years of eating and sleeping as much as he possibly could hadn’t been enough to keep Al’s body intact. Logically he knows that the amount of exercise he did would never be able to carry over to where Al’s body was resting on a different plane of existence, but it still feels like a shortcoming.
Ed knows that he could stay here in Resembool forever. The military’s more than happy to sponsor his time off, giving him forty percent of his salary every month and letting him keep half of his research grant. It’s the least they could do after he saved their lives four months earlier. It’s August now and summer is hitting in full on the hills and valleys of Resembool.
“I don’t know,” Ed says eventually. “I don’t think Mustang would want me back.”
He still calls him Roy in his head. Pathetically, Ed’s still not over him. He thinks that he might love him.
“You can’t know that.” Al gently knocks their shoulders together, as if to reassure Ed that he’s there. There in the flesh, that despite all of his shortcomings, that at least he did one thing right.
“I did nothing but inconvenience him.” It’s not the whole truth, but Ed doesn’t think he’s ever told Al about the true nature of what was going on between him and Roy. Al’s painfully perceptive, though, and the kiss on the Promised Day must have given him all the information he could possibly need. “Now that he’s fully capable again, he has to give it his all if he wants to make his goal.”
Ed still has those 520 cenz in his pocket. When Roy makes Führer, he’ll mail them to him without a note attached to it. He doesn’t break his promises.
Al doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. Ed knows exactly what’s at stake if Roy comes back for him.
It’s for the best that he won’t.
He doesn’t want to make it obvious to Winry and Al that he’s … depressed? So after his heart-to-heart with the ghost of his mother, Ed starts doing busy work to at least give the illusion of being functional.
There’s a lot of mess to clean up in the Rockbell basement, and he starts closest to the stairs. There are boxes upon boxes, some of metal, some cardboard, some wooden. He doesn’t touch the ones that read “Yuriy & Sarah” because that’s not his business. It’s mostly spare pieces of metal that need to be remelted into new pieces of automail, a lot of books on medicine and old clothes.
It takes him two weeks to wash through all of the clothing and it’s not hard to realise that a considerable amount belongs to him and Al. When he picks up a shirt that must have belonged to Al, he realises that this is what Al wore on the day mum died, and he spends an indeterminate amount of time next to the wash basin clutching it to his chest as the memories tear him apart. He ends up going back to the cemetery that evening, sitting there until the sun sets and the fireflies come out to dance.
If Al worries about him, he doesn’t mention it. He’s raring to go, to leave Resembool to go see Teacher and generally be independent. Ed doesn’t mind it; he would give his life to see Al’s happiness, and so when Al, on crutches because the cane might not be enough, puts on his backpack in preparation for a trip to Dublith, Ed smiles and waves him off at the train station. He can’t face Teacher. She never forgave him for joining the military and he doesn’t think that saving the world was enough to make it up to her.
Al’s innocent; he’ll be more than fine.
They still share a room, even if there’s a spare room that one of them could have moved into. It’s filled with junk, junk that could be moved to the basement now that there’s actually space for it. Ed’s almost done with it, just missing a couple of metal crates that are sealed with alchemy and so they have to be his father’s. Ed doesn’t think he’s strong enough to look inside them. He’s scared of what he might find.
He’s waiting for the day where Al will formally declare his independence and wish for Ed to move into the spare room. It’s only logical that Ed moves; Al’s half of the room is lived-in, warm and inviting and so Al. Ed’s half would pass any military dorm inspection with no demerits. He even makes his bed with exacting precision. Figures that he’d finally internalise military habits when he’s on indefinite sick leave (because the depression is a sickness, isn’t it?) rather than any other time in the four years he’s been with them. Roy would weep with joy.
Ed often lays awake late at night thinking about nothing and everything all at once. It usually ends up circling back to Roy. It’s been almost six months and soon the military will send him a letter that announces the end of their payments to him. He’ll get an honourable discharge because of course he will. They might be kind to give him something akin to a severance payment. It’s too much to hope for to get a military pension of any kind. They owe him, but not that much.
Roy still hasn’t reached out, and it’s not like Ed can either. To Roy he was the thorn in the side who happened to be a good enough lay and understood the horrors of waking up from nightmares multiple times a night. He’s probably forgotten about him by now.
It’s better that way.
Al makes a detour in East City to meet up with Team Mustang. Ed gives him his blessings and when he hangs up the phone, he goes to bed without dinner, tossing and turning all night. When morning comes he hasn’t slept a wink.
In his sleep-deprived stupor he goes down into the basement, past the wooden boxes with freshly washed clothes packed in silk tissue paper for when Al inevitably settles down with Mei to have three beautiful children and a cat and a dog and a house with a white picket fence, and back into the corner furthest from the stairs. He stares the sealed metal crates down. One of them stands free on the ground, whereas the others are stacked on top of each other. It must be the work of his father.
Ed hasn’t done any alchemy since the Promised Day. The thought of it leaves a sour taste in his mouth and he feels sick at the thought of relying on the craft that Father had brought with him after annihilating his people in one fell swoop. He wasn’t old enough to serve in the Ishval war, but he’s heard enough from Hawkeye and Roy when they got into … reminiscing? Is it reminiscing when the memories clog up your throat so much that you have to talk or you’ll choke?
It takes him some time, sat on the cold stone floor of the basement, before he finds himself able to press his hands together. Even then, he lets the alchemical power build up in him, the array for slicing metal so clear in his mind he can almost see it in front of him. Eventually he finds the strength to touch his hands to the crate and with the most sedate flash of icy blue he’s ever seen, the lid detaches itself from the rest.
He picks it up, entirely unsure of what he’s expecting.
It’s a bunch of paper. Envelopes and sheets, each layer separated with a thin layer of wood and silk tissue paper. He picks up the first note, the one all the way on the top and notes how new it seems to be in comparison to everything else. It’s still white and folded, with a singular phrase written in neat cursive.
My boys.
His fuck-up shit excuse for a dad must have known that one day they would go through the basement and be intrigued by sealed metal boxes.
I’ve seen too much in my long life to trust anything fully. Even your mother, who is the most perfect human I’ve ever had the honour of meeting — I couldn’t tell her absolutely everything. She knew everything that was most important, knew the truth of everything that happened, but some words never formed in my mouth.
I have to leave her now, to save the world. I couldn’t save my own people, but I can save hers. I can save you boys, even if you’ll never forgive me for any of it. You are both so young, and I fear you will never understand. Especially not you, Edward. You’ve always been so much like me.
I leave these notes in the hope that they’ll bring you closer to whatever goal you’re currently pursuing. I’ve written down everything I know, every theory I’ve had in the past few hundred years, every event I could think to put to paper.
I’m sorry.
- Van Hohenheim, June 23rd 1904
It’s been thirteen years since he’d left them behind.
Ed ends up staying there on the floor, uncaring and unhearing when Winry calls him up for lunch. He doesn’t go through the rest of the box, doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything. His mind is blank save for the apology he never thought he’d get.
It doesn’t fix anything, by far not. Mum still died and knowing what he now knows, Ed has no doubt that Hohenheim could have saved her using some of his philosopher’s stone. He thinks back to the little girl in Xenotime that Marcoh had healed. Maybe the philosopher’s stone could have done that for mum, too.
It’s easy to blame him for everything, but Ed’s exhausted by the hatred. He will never forgive the man, but burning in rage at the mere mention of him takes too much energy. There’s not enough to spare for someone like Hohenheim, especially now that he’s dead. Ed can’t be waged in a war against the spirits from the beyond, because he’ll lose every single time.
And not for the first time, Ed wonders what it would be like had he joined them.
Al comes back, glowing and healthy and announces to all of them at the table that he didn’t have a single medical emergency while he was gone.
It’s a sign that he’s recovering, but Ed still wishes that Al didn’t have to live the same kind of existence that he does, stuck in a body that doesn’t seem to work.
In the evening, when they’re both bundled up under their blankets to chase away the chill of the late autumn, Al tells Ed about his trip to Eastern Command to talk to Mustang’s team.
“They all miss you,” Al tells him. “They kept asking about you, wondering when you’d come back?”
Ed can’t look at him. “And the Colonel?”
“He’s a Brigadier General now,” Al says. “He was promoted for his work during the Promised Day. He didn’t say anything, but he looks tired. Worn.”
It’s silent for a moment. “He looks like you, Brother.”
Ed doesn’t cry. He hasn’t cried since mum’s death and he’s not about to start now.
But once again, and not for the first time recently, he’s come close.
All because of Roy.
The first of December hits and with it comes first snow. It feels like only yesterday that he was sitting at his mother’s grave talking to her about the person he’s come to be utterly, irrefutably in love with Roy Mustang.
Ed can’t believe how fast the time has passed. It’s been almost eight months since he brought down a false god.
He hasn’t gone anywhere since then, has stagnated entirely.
At least Al’s thriving.
Winter Fest is on the twenty-first, on the day of the solstice, when the world turns towards the summer with open arms. There’s almost a metre of snow outside, not an unusual amount for Resembool, but the world outside is horrifying in the way that the snow dances about as if welcoming in the apocalypse.
Ed’s had quite enough of ends of the world.
Everyone’s been almost funny the entire day. Al keeps looking at Winry like they know something Ed doesn’t. If it had been before the Promised Day, he would have been upset and curious, would have stared them down and demanded they tell him.
As it stands, he doesn’t have the energy for it.
He can no longer hide his depression from them. The notes from Hohenheim had kept him occupied for a while, but they’d also left him missing his mum more than ever. A lot of the notes were about her; detailing her growing up, writing down memories of a Resembool that no longer is. Of a bustling society with their own culture, until the military had come in and declared the fields fit for sheep.
Now it’s this, a sedate but still tightly-connected community that lives on military money and tries to remember the old traditions.
They’ve just sat down at the dinner table with the Winter Fest stew (which wouldn’t be traditional anywhere but Resembool) when there’s a loud and solid knock on the door.
“You should get it, Ed,” Granny Pinako says. “You’re the closest to the door, after all.”
Ed was barely conscious for any of it, but this almost feels like the night they’d tried to bring mum back; when Al had carried him all the way from their house to the Rockbell home in the hopes of saving his life.
This might just be another automail customer.
Opening the door sends him reeling, because Ed’s not the kind of person to cry.
He’s been through too much in his life to cry, but when he sees Roy standing there at the door to Rockbell automail, covered in snow and wearing the stupid fur-lined overcoat he’d once borrowed to Ed, he feels the tears gather in his eyes.
Roy looks different now. Older, more serious. He has a stupid tiny moustache that Ed has to resist the urge to alchemise right off him. There are a pair of silver glasses perched on his nose which tells Ed that Marcoh’s work must not have been impeccable. But it’s good enough. Because it’s clear that Roy can see.
Wordlessly, he steps back so Roy can come inside. He shuts the storm out behind Roy, lets him stand there dripping on the doormat.
Suddenly the whispers and looks between the rest of his family makes sense to him. They’ve planned this, which means that Roy can’t be coming bearing bad news. They wouldn’t spring bad news on him like this, would they?
Ed knows Al’s scheming like the back of his hands. He’s never told his brother about his true feelings for Roy, but Al seems to know before Ed’s even come to terms with anything. It suddenly becomes entirely clear who Al has spent all the time on the phone with over the past few weeks, shutting up the moment Ed was in the vicinity.
Roy’s sopping wet from the snow flurry outside, but when he opens up his arms to welcome Ed into a hug, Ed doesn’t hesitate for a moment. He moves as fast as his irritated leg port will allow him too, and he doesn’t care if this will leave him damp and uncomfortable. He hasn’t seen Roy properly and been in his presence for over a year. Sue him, he’s deficient. And depressed.
He presses into the embrace and Roy’s ever-strong arms come to rest around him. He’ll never live this down from his family. But as he stands there, happy for the first time since he defected, he allows himself to whisper, “You came back for me. You actually came back for me.”