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Roy didn’t realize how late it had gotten until the silence finally registered.
The bullpen outside his office had long since emptied, the constant shuffle of paperwork and muttered complaints fading hours ago. Even Hawkeye had gone home after reminding him– twice– that tomorrow’s schedule started at eight hundred sharp. The only sound left was the faint ticking of the clock on the wall and the distant rattle of a passing car somewhere beyond the building.
Roy gathered the last of the unfinished reports into a neat stack on the desk corner and rose from his chair, rolling his shoulders to ease the stiffness that had settled there. Another night of paperwork survived. He shrugged into his coat, extinguished the lamp on his desk, and stepped out into the darkened bullpen.
He stopped short.
One lamp was still on.
At the far end of the room, Edward Elric sat slumped over his desk, the small pool of lamplight glistening in the pale gold of his hair. His head rested sideways on his folded arms, long ponytail draped across the papers beneath him like spilled sunlight. The glow softened the sharp edges Roy had grown used to over the years– smoothed the stubborn tilt of his brow, the faint lines of concentration that never quite left his face anymore.
Roy glanced around the empty room out of habit.
Everyone else had gone home hours ago.
Of course Edward hadn’t.
Roy leaned against the edge of a nearby desk, studying him with a faint crease between his brows. Edward was twenty-two now– no longer the furious, undersized prodigy who had once stormed through these halls picking fights with anyone who looked at him wrong. The difference was pretty subtle if you didn’t know him well: only slightly taller (to his chagrin), a little broader in the shoulders, the once restless anger tempered into something quieter and sharper.
But moments like this still betrayed him.
Fast asleep at his desk, cheek pressed into the crook of his arm, Edward looked impossibly young.
Roy hesitated.
He could wake him. The kid– no, the man, he corrected himself– would grumble and rub his eyes and insist he’d only been resting his eyes. Then he’d probably stalk out into the night without his overcoat and catch a cold out of sheer stubbornness.
Or Roy could leave him.
The building was secure. Edward had certainly slept in worse places than a military office chair. He probably hadn’t been sleeping well, as he insisted on staying in the dorms for some reason (again, stubborn), and at the moment he looked… peaceful.
Roy pushed himself upright and took a few quiet steps closer.
The desk was littered with research notes and half-finished calculations. Edward had been working on something complicated if the cramped handwriting and overlapping diagrams were any indication. His pen still rested loosely in his hand, his ink-smudged fingers slack with sleep.
Roy reached out before he’d fully decided to.
The pen slid easily from Edward’s grasp.
He shifted slightly but didn’t wake, only breathing out a quiet sigh that stirred a loose strand of hair across his face. Roy stood there for a moment longer than necessary, pen in hand, watching the steady rise and fall of his shoulders.
A strange warmth settled in Roy’s chest.
It was absurd, really.
Edward had stayed in the military for years now, adamantly refusing every opportunity to leave for one flimsy excuse or another. He claimed it was temporary– just to give him something to do, just until the country stabilized, just until there was nothing left to fix.
Roy had accepted the explanation without looking too closely at it.
But standing here in the dim quiet of the office, watching Edward sleep beneath the soft glow of that lamp, something shifted quietly into place. A whisper of hope in the back of his mind that still dared to dream wondered if, perhaps, Edward had stayed for him. Whether it be, like the other members of his team, to see Roy to the top, or for more personal, selfish reasons– he would take it, if it meant Edward would stay.
He liked the friendship they had recently settled into. At first, it had taken him by surprise: the easy way conversation flowed between them, the unguarded laughter that escaped him in Edward’s presence, the way Ed seemed to know him implicitly– and almost better than Riza in some regards. The more time he spent with Ed, the more intrigued he found himself with him. Somehow, he managed to make Roy feel at ease in a way he hadn’t felt in a very long time… settled, in a way a person can only feel when they allow their walls to completely drop.
He couldn’t quite sum it up into words, nor would he ever say aloud, but Edward was quickly becoming the person closest to him. Did that make him his best friend? Oh, Edward would never let him live that down– Roy could already hear the merciless, gremlin laughter that would follow him to his grave if that thought ever made it past his own head.
Roy set the pen down on the desk and draped his own coat across Edward’s shoulders, the heavy wool settling over him like a thick blanket.
Edward stirred, just enough to mumble something against his sleeve.
Roy froze, hands still hovering about Ed’s shoulders. Surely he’d misheard?
“... Roy,” Edward murmured again, voice thick with sleep. Then he relaxed into sleep once more, breath evening out as if nothing had happened.
Roy stared at him for a long moment and slowly, a helpless sort of realization settled over him. A fond smile spread across his face before he could help it.
Ah. So this is how it begins.
And somehow, feeling the familiar warmth spreading through his chest, Roy suspected it had started long before tonight.