Work Text:
Missed the last train home.
Birds pass by to tell me that I'm not alone.
Well I'm pushing myself to finish this part;
I can handle a lot,
but one thing I'm missing
is in your eyes, in your eyes, in your eyes, in your eyes, in your eyes.
-"Eyes" by Rogue Wave
His RSVP card says the trip was planned before he knew the wedding date, and a peacemaking tour of Ishval takes priority over personal leave. The truth is that his subordinates’ invitations came a full week before his—did Ed hesitate, putting Roy’s envelope in the mail?—and that’s plenty of advanced warning to adjust his plans.
It’s a winter wedding; Ed’s automail makes cold weather travel hard, so that’s when he sticks around long enough for a ceremony. Just as well. Winter is also the best time to visit the Ishvalan desert, and anyway, Roy hates the cold. His mild treachery is no reason to deprive everyone else of a good time, though, so he arranges a few days of leave for the rest of his team.
Naturally, the last person he expects to see at Central train station is Edward—and yet there he is, standing at the edge of the eastbound platform with hands in his coat pockets, ponytail hanging golden down his back. Even from here Roy can see his cheeks and the tips of his ears are rosy with cold. He’s absolutely beautiful, and it’s absolutely devastating.
Then Ed glances over and their eyes catch.
Roy steels himself, steps forward, and so does Ed. They stop with an awkward distance between them, close enough to speak but too far to casually touch. “Aren’t you getting married tomorrow?”
Ed shrugs. “I thought I’d meet Al’s train here instead of the changeover in East. He and Mei are getting in on the 3:48.”
Roy raises an eyebrow, looks at the big station clock. “It’s ten in the morning.”
“I asked Hawkeye for your itinerary,” Ed admits in a rush. “I just. Thought I’d see you off.”
“Ah. So…Alphonse and Mei are…?”
Ed smiles a little. “Yeah, I guess they’re an item now.”
“Well, give them my best,” Roy replies, and then swallows hard. “And to your fiancée, also.”
The ball is in Ed’s court now, and he fumbles with it, his mouth twisting anxiously. “I understand. Why you’re not coming. It’s okay. It just felt wrong not to…invite you.”
Ed’s never been able to keep his feelings off of his face. Roy loved that about him, but hates it now, the uncertainty around his mouth and the pained tilt of his eyebrows and the endless unspoken apologies on his tongue. And in his eyes, all those things—but behind them, that fire, that glow. There’s love in it. Roy used to warm his weakened hands on that glow, soak it into his skin and let it soothe all his pain away.
Now it leaves him frozen through, and it’s too much.
“Good to know I’m forgiven for my little breach of etiquette,” he says, all ice.
Ed flinches, slumps, a little boy again with the crushing weight of guilt on his shoulders. Roy lets out a slow breath. “I’m sorry. But really, Ed, what are you doing here? You’re standing on a platform with your ex-lover, two trains away from your wife-to-be on the day before your wedding, which I’m not attending in order to avoid this conversation we’re having right now.”
Ed gulps. “I have something to give you.” Then he takes a hand out of his pocket, bringing with it a little red-bound book, and offers it. “I thought…I collected my notes from the times I’ve been in the desert, I came up with some good arrays to compensate for the sand and the heat and things, I know this is a peacekeeping mission, but you never know, and I can’t use them anymore, and you always say the arrays you’ve seen first are easier to visualize—”
Roy takes the book to cut him off, and their fingers brush just barely, like some bad pulp romance novel. Except if this were a novel, Ed would take his hand and keep it, he’d cross that freezing distance between them, he’d kiss Roy and ask him to take him back.
Ed lets his hand drop, shoves it back in his pocket. “I just want you to be safe. Okay? Keep in touch, it doesn’t have to be with me, with Al maybe, just so we know…I know you’re okay.”
“Ed.”
“And stay hydrated, you know? And wear sunscreen, you’re so damn fair—”
“Ed. I fought a war in Ishval. I think I can avoid getting heatstroke or sunburn.”
They both fall silent and Roy thumbs through the little book, trying not to look to hard at the familiar scribbles and remember half-assed reports and grocery lists and awkward, precious love letters. He knows “thank you” is his next line in this script, but he can’t make his voice work over the thick lump in his throat.
He’s saved by his train. It comes chugging into the station and whips Ed’s hair into his face, shielding his eyes from view. “You’d better get aboard, I know you like to get a seat near the dining car.”
Roy nods, tucks the little book into his own pocket, hefts his suitcase. “Tell Riza I’ll contact my office when I arrive, she can check in with them.”
“Sure.”
Roy turns. He’s got one foot on the steps and the other in the train when Ed’s voice stops him.
“I love you,” he says. Roy doesn’t have to look to see his face; he doesn’t have to see his face to know he means it.
“I love you too,” Roy replies, and maybe the rush of steam and the engineer’s boarding call and the train’s horn blot out the sound, and maybe the wind rips the words away from his lips before Ed can hear—but he’s said it enough. He doesn’t want to repeat it. He’s trembling when he steps onto the train, exhausted when he collapses into a window seat. As the train lurches into motion, he can see Ed sitting on a bench with his head in his hands.
A flake at a time, it begins to snow.