I'll Love You More, Ch. 4 Pt. 2
Title: I’ll Love You More
Chapter: # 4, Secrets and Celebrations, Part Two
Previous: 1, I, 2, 3, II, 4
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: PG
Spoilers: for the entire series.
Summary: After six years, the brothers are finally reunited, but will Ed be able to adjust to a world that has long since moved on without him? Non-movie AU, pairings for now include Ed/Win, Al/Win, implied Ed/Hei, and just to mix things up a little you might see some Roy/Ed if you squint…
Chapter Summary: Al returns to Central for the annual State Alchemist examinations and Ed gets to see some old friends, and everyone has something to hide…
Chapter Four, Part Two: Celebrations
“Are you done?” Winry asked crossly, jabbing him in the chest with her finger.
“Done what?” Al asked innocently, going over to stand by the window, watching the late afternoon light pull long shadows off the tall buildings of Central.
“Telling secrets,” she accused.
He looked at her, startled, his expression pleading.
“That’s what you were doing, I know you were. Don’t tell me you weren’t.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she interrupted.
“Never mind, I know you’re not going to tell me. Neither of you ever tell me anything.”
Al frowned, hurt flickering behind his eyes. “That’s not true! I tell you all kinds of things, even stuff that’s supposed to be top-secret military information! I’ve answered everything you’ve ever asked me!”
“Ed doesn’t,” she snapped.
Al jerked the plush hotel curtains over the large window, and turned to face her. “Ed doesn’t tell me everything either,” he snapped back. “And anyway, we’re not the same person, so don’t yell at me for something you’re mad at him about.”
“I’m not yelling at you!” she protested, and her expression softened. “I’m not mad at him,” she added, resigned. “I’m just frustrated.”
He raised his eyebrows, his grey eyes turned sympathetic. “I know, so am I. I feel like he’s…” his voice trailed off, uncertain suddenly of what he was trying to say.
“He’s a stranger,” she finished quietly.
“Wow, Boss, I heard you grew-“
Ed grinned, looking down at himself. “I did grow,” he said proudly.
“But you’re still nowhere near as tall as your brother,” Havoc finished, waiting for the upcoming explosion.
Ed puffed up his chest, standing up as straight as possible, willing his vertebrae to stretch enough to add him just a speck more stature. “I am of perfectly average height,” he insisted, looking up at the man he hadn’t seen in ten years. “What kind of greeting is that, anyway?” he complained. “That would be like me asking if you’ve managed to get a date yet!”
“Actually,” Havoc said smugly, exchanging amused glances with Hawkeye, “I did take Riza out the other day.”
Ed did not see Roy flinch at the words, and asked, “Really? Did you have a nice time?”
“No,” Riza said smoothly. “It was a disaster.”
Havoc seemed unphased, and gave him a slap on the back. “So, you grew, but not that much. I got a date, but still no girlfriend. Things haven’t changed too much while you’ve been gone, have they?”
“Oh not that much” Ed said sarcastically. “We just live in a completely different country now, so it seems.”
Havoc waved his hand dismissively, taking a drag from his cigarette. “Oh yes, there is that, but that’s work. Let’s not discuss work while we’re out, all right?”
“Oh, but it’s not work,” Ed protested. “I thought the military and the government were entirely separate now?” He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, kicking his foot up on the low table in front of him. The room they were in was large and square, with a big window leading out to a balcony overlooking the lights of the city.
“If we can’t talk about work,” Roy said lightly, sitting opposite from Ed and mirroring his impulse to put his feet on the table and looking over at General Hawkeye, “May I ask you a question?”
Riza looked at him for a moment, then answered, “I suppose so.”
“Was your disaster of a date on the news broadcast the other day?”
She tried to hide her smile behind her hand, and turned away. “Why? Were you starting to get jealous?”
Roy shrugged. “What if I said yes?” he asked, keeping his voice light, conversational, natural.
“Then I would say you were wasting your time.” She looked up, saw that the conversation in the room was continuing without them, and decided to add, “But, I’ve wanted to tell you: I had a very nice time at that diplomatic banquet last month. Your company at those kinds of events is always a pleasure, especially when we don’t have anything to hide. I haven’t seen you since then, have I?”
Roy shook his head. He would keep this exchange professional, he resolved. “No, I don’t believe so. How do you feel about the government’s move towards friendlier relations with Xing?”
She tapped her chin. “I thought the Xingian diplomats were very cordial. They spoke our language very well; I was impressed with that. However, they seemed very distant, almost as if they were on an entirely different page. I don’t know if it was just a cultural difference, or if they really were hiding something.”
“Everyone’s hiding something,” Roy said seriously.
“To the man who returned from death!” Havoc said, standing up from his seat at the table, raising his half-full glass.
The others reached for theirs as well, but Ed slammed his hand down on the table in protest. “I wasn’t dead!” he said. “Whoever said I was dead?”
“But you have a grave,” Havoc told him, looking down, glass still raised. “Now let me make my toast. To Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist, the man who returned from death!” he repeated, with twice the bravado this time, and glasses were clinked.
Wearily, Ed raised his own. “Shouldn’t this be Al’s day?” he continued once he set it down, still protesting. “He’s the one who’s the star of Central these days, isn’t he? Tomorrow’s paper’s gonna have his antics at the State Examinations all over it, I’m sure.”
Al rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Brother, you know this day is for you,” he told him, gesturing towards the three people in military uniforms. “I see these guys every day at work, they hardly needed to make a special appearance here just to say congratulations to me.” Al frowned a little when he saw his brother blush at the attention. Hadn’t Ed been an attention whore? Hadn’t he always been showing off his alchemy to everyone, or his intelligence, or his fighting skills?
Ed sighed. “Well, Al, I wouldn’t be here without you, so we’ve gotta toast you too.”
“To Alphonse Elric, Soul Alchemist-“
Ed stood, shoving Havoc aside. “Hey, I’m his brother, lemme say the toast,” he said, and Al smiled, seeing that confidence he remembered take hold once more.
“To my little brother, who’s everything I ever hoped he would be and more, who never ceases to delight me, and of whom I could never be prouder.”
Al could feel the grin that lit up his face as the glasses clinked above his head, and could not help but jump up and wrap his arms around his brother, embracing him as tightly as he had when he first encountered him again in the Gate. The others stared at this show of affection, something each one of them never thought they would ever see: both Elrics, in the flesh, and together.
“Such love!” Havoc said finally, breaking the silence with a booming voice, posturing this way and that. “Such brotherly love, makes me want to tear my shirt off and flex my muscles in the Armstrong family way!” he cried, and Riza laughed.
“No one can do Armstrong like Breda,” she said, still laughing, and looking over at Roy, who also seemed greatly amused.
Ed sat down next to his brother, one arm still wrapped around his shoulders.
“That was a good toast, Brother,” Al said, after he had suppressed most of his laugher. “Thank you.”
“I love you too, Al,” Ed answered.
The conversation had traveled from the whereabouts of various military people Ed had known to stories about Al that had made him famous to stories about Al only those who were close to him knew. When Havoc asked Ed to please, share just a little bit about where he had been for six years, Al expected Ed to close everyone off and refuse to say anything, but his brother hesitated just a moment before answering.
“It was somewhere kind of like here, but not really,” he said vaguely, turning his still-full glass in circles on the table. “There’s nothing really exciting to tell. There was no alchemy there, and no automail. Without either one, I’m really pretty boring, aren’t I?”
An Ed without alchemy is just… a foul-mouthed obnoxious brat… who had said that long ago, Al tried to recall. Had it been Havoc, or was it someone else? Was it Colonel Mustang? Brother hadn’t even denied it, he just said he needed to come back to Rizembool to get his arm fixed so he could use his alchemy to fix me… But as soon as he had the memory, it was gone, and Al didn’t know if anything like that had ever actually been said, or if he had imagined it.
Ed was saying something about a job he had once had at a university when Havoc interrupted him. “What were the girls in this other world like, Boss?”
“Eh? The girls? I don’t know, what are all girls like?” Ed asked, puzzled.
“Didya meet any?”
Ed shrugged. “A few. I knew some nice girls,” he answered vaguely.
“Get any dates?”
Ed shrugged again. “No, why would I want to? I was leaving, what would be the point?”
Yes, Ed, what was the point? Do you have any idea how much that other Al must be missing you right now? You must know, if you loved him the way you say you do. Al wondered, not for the first time, how his counterpart was faring on the other side of the Gate.
“I’m not a kid,” Ed was saying stubbornly. “I don’t need to discover the world of women, you’ve got to be kidding if you think you’re going to drag me around to all the bars in Central anyway, I thought I was supposed to be dead?”
I guess Havoc doesn’t know about Brother and Winry. I’m not even sure if General Hawkeye knows. General Mustang probably does, Al mused. Brother probably tells him everything.
“In six years, you never had a date? Not even once? Man, I’m doing better than I thought I was, compared to you!”
Then Winry was squeezing his arm. “Hey, Al, you okay in there?” she asked quietly, while Ed was still arguing stubbornly.
Al shook his head to clear it. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I was just… remembering some things.”
“About the other side?” she guessed.
“Partly.”
“I AM NOT A KID,” Ed said loudly, in response to something that neither of them heard, jumping to his feet and shaking the table.
“Well you certainly are acting like one,” Riza said firmly, but her eyes showed more amusement than disapproval.
He folded his arms. “So what?” Ed demanded. “I never said I was mature, I just said I wasn’t a kid.” He smirked. “He keeps giving me this ‘when I was your age’ crap- Lieutenant, you know how old I am?”
Havoc shrugged. “Well, Al claims to be twenty-one, so I guess you’re twenty two, Boss, and really, when I was twenty-two I never would have admitted to never having been on a date.”
“It’s all right, Ed,” Riza assured him, trying to diffuse the situation. “I didn’t date much until I was older either.”
“I don’t claim to be twenty-one, I am twenty-one,” Al argued in a practiced tone. This conversation, it seemed, had been had many a time.
“But Al,” Roy said with mock-seriousness, “Just the other day you said you were seventeen.”
Al shrugged. “Did I?” he said noncommittally. “well, you know, one of the advantages to having two ages is that neither one is a lie.”
Winry nudged him in the side. “Must be convenient,” she said teasingly.
Al raised his eyebrows once, looked around from his brother to Havoc to Roy and to Riza, and said boldly, “For you,” and she gave him a swat on the shoulder. The group broke out in a fresh round of laughter.
“I think someone told me that Roy’s first time was when he was twelve,” Havoc mused, looking up at the ceiling.
The General shot his friend a glare. “No, I was not twelve,” he said defensively. “Wherever did you hear that one?”
Ed snickered. “He was thirteen,” he said, deciding to re-join the conversation. “He told me so. She was his babysitter.”
Riza’s eyes widened. “You needed a babysitter when you were thirteen?” she asked, her eyebrows raised and her lips twitching up at the corners.
“She wasn’t my babysitter then!” Roy sputtered, looking around at the laughing faces. “Don’t laugh,” he instructed them. “She was beautiful.”
Winry shook her head, twisting her dinner napkin in her hands. “That is so wrong!” she exclaimed, causing a round of laughter to spread across the table. She yelped when Al elbowed her in the side. “What?” she demanded defensively. “You said yourself you were eighteen.”
Al snorted. “Fine time you pick to believe me, then,” he said, smiling at her.
“How did we get on this topic?” Ed demanded, looking from face to face.
“I was nineteen,” Riza volunteered. “I, unlike some people, waited until I was at least an adult.”
Roy raised an eyebrow. “Really? Nineteen? I didn’t know that.”
She gave a little shrug. “You don’t know everything about everyone, Roy,” she said, and there was more laughter.
“Apparently not,” he agreed. His single eye settled on Ed, who seemed increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. “Well Fullmetal, how old were you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
Ed drew back, frowning, and shook his head. “I refuse,” he said, in his most mature voice, “to participate in this conversation.”
“I was seventeen. Shawna with the brown eyes,” Havoc said dreamily, and turned to Winry. “You?”
“Twenty,” she said simply, setting her chin on her hands and letting her gaze slide over to Al. Then she said something under her breath that apparently only Al caught, and he gave a light laugh.
“Well Ed?” Roy pressed. “We’re waiting.”
“I said I’m not answering,” he repeated stubbornly.
“Were you younger than fifteen, or older than fifteen?” he continued, refusing to let the subject drop.
“I heard a few stories about his involvement with the thief of Aquaroya,” Riza said wickedly, feeling slightly guilty about causing him discomfort but reminding herself it was all in fun. “Psiren, wasn’t she called?”
“It was nothing like that!” Ed sputtered, setting his glass down with a clatter. “I captured her, she escaped- I don’t see how that can possibly involve sex!”
Roy tapped his chin. “Well…” he said, letting his voice trail off suggestively.
“Oh shut up!” Ed said, glaring at the man.
Winry folded her arms across her chest, sitting back in the chair. “Well, now I’m really curious, Ed,” she said honestly, still laughing. “Is it a secret, or something?”
His gaze swung over to meet her eyes.
“Come on, Ed,” Roy pressed. “How old were you the first time you slept with a woman?”
The blond remained resolutely silent.
“Eighteen?” came Riza’s guess. Ed steeled his gaze and refused to answer.
“Fourteen?” was Roy’s venture. He shook his head, expression almost horrified.
“Twenty one?” Winry offered, taking into account his reaction to the previous suggestion.
He pushed his chair away from the table, standing up. “Twenty six,” he said, his voice flat, and turned to walk away.
Havoc pushed his own chair back with a scrape, and leaned back to watch Ed leave. “C’mon, Boss, come back!” he called. “We didn’t mean to embarrass you that much!” he said, the conversation, in his perception, still friendly. His eyes widened when the door slammed.
“Shut up!” came the yell from out in the hall.
Roy sighed, setting his glass down as well. “Al,” he said patiently. “Do you want to go get your brother, or should I?”
Al frowned. “I’ll get him,” he said. “That wasn’t very nice,” he added over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
“We were just-“ Havoc said, flinching at the second slam of the door, “teasing-“
I ruin everything, Ed thought miserably, staring down at a book he wasn’t reading as he sat on the hotel room couch he intended on sleeping on that night. Havoc was right, they were all just teasing.
He had, of course, let Al coax him back into the room. He would do anything Al asked him to, but his mood never did pick back up. Long before the others were ready to retire for the evening, he had said he was tired, and was going to bed. When Al and Winry returned to the hotel room several hours later, he had pretended he was sleeping and let them turn the lamp off and throw a blanket over him.
I’m not trying to come between Al and Winry, he told himself then, not for the first time, looking over at the closed door to the bedroom. If I haven’t ruined things for them already. He stood up, deciding suddenly that he wanted some air, and grabbed Al’s room key off the coffee table and headed back to the room they had reserved for the evening, pulling the doors to the balcony open with a jerk and letting the chill air assault him as he stepped outside.
This was definitely going to be another sleepless night, just one among many.
Ed suddenly felt eyes on his back, and spun around, looking up to see a dark silhouette on the sloping roof. “What are you doing up there?” he demanded.
“Looking out at the city lights,” came the response. “That’s what you do when you can’t see the stars.”
“Pshh,” Ed said, rolling his eyes. “Nothing is like the night sky in Rizembool. Central’s not that great, it’s nothing I’ve never seen before.”
“Not from above, you haven’t,” Roy protested, crouching down on the roof. “Come see for yourself.”
“I can see fine from here.”
“You have a perfect view of the building next door,” he corrected, laughing. “Come on.”
Ed eyed him hesitantly, contemplating the narrow railing that connected with the wall of the building, halfway between the deck and the edge of the roof. “I’ll fall,” he said doubtfully. “My leg-“
Roy extended a hand. “I wont let you fall,” he said firmly.
Ed stared at the outstretched hand for a moment, then shrugged and took it, climbing slowly onto the rail and letting Roy pull him up onto the roof.
“I’m surprised Miss Rockbell hasn’t talked you into letting her fix you up with new automail,” he said, eyebrows raised. “In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t demanded it.”
Ed groaned. “You know every single person I’ve met up with today has asked me that? Apparently my automail is the first thing everyone thinks of when they remember me!”
“Ed, you’re the Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s part of your title, of course people associate it with you.”
“Do you have any idea how incapacitating surgery like that is?” he continued, with the same frustrated tone. “Believe me, I would love to be able to move normally again, you have no idea how frustrated I get knowing that even though I’m back in a world where automail exists I still get treated like an invalid,” his eyes were darkly accusing here, and Mustang could recall several instances where he was the offending party, “But it would take at least a year to recover, probably even more.”
“You did it before, and you were just a child.”
He sighed. “I know I did. I did it because I thought I had to. But I had Auntie, and Winry, and Al all there to take care of me. Between her business and taking care of the baby, Winry’s really got her hands full, and I’m worried about her. I think she takes on more work than one person can accomplish in a day. Al works in Central for most of the week, so he isn’t always around to help out with the baby, and if I was recovering from surgery I couldn’t ask Winry to take care of me and the baby by herself. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Why don’t you ask Al to ask his commanding officer to put him on leave?” Roy suggested.
Ed leaned back, folding his hands behind his head and stretching his legs out on the roof. “That’s an idea,” he conceded.
“I’m sorry our teasing made you angry earlier,” Roy said after a few minutes of silence.
“I wasn’t angry, I was embarrassed.”
“I’m sorry we embarrassed you then.” Apologies were much easier in the darkness.
“Don’t worry about it,” came the toneless response.
The older man gestured towards the flickering lights below. “Well?” he demanded, clearly expecting him to be impressed.
Ed scoffed. “You were born in a city, weren’t you?” he said haughtily. “Born and raised in one. You had to have been to think this is anything compared to a clear night of stars.”
Roy shook his head. “I’ve been all over the country, Ed, and to a good part of the rest of the world. I know a good sight when I see one. This,” he said, waving towards the expanse of lights again, “is our greatest accomplishment.”
“Electricity?”
He laughed. “Civilization.”
Ed looked over to him. “Are you drunk?”
Roy lifted the small flask in response, giving it a shake so Ed could hear the liquor slosh from side to side.
He rolled his eyes. “Roy, did it ever occur to you that drinking on the roof might not be the best idea?”
The man smiled in the darkness, glancing over and Ed’s small form stretched out on the sloped surface. “I haven’t really had that much,” he said, “it’s mostly full.” He offered the small container to Ed, who promptly waved it away. “What’s the matter, Fullmetal?” he teased. “You don’t like to drink?” Roy recalled suddenly that Ed had not touched the wine all evening.
Ed gave a short laugh. “Not really. Especially not on the top of an eight story building.”
They sat in silence for a moment, each looking out at the lights of the city and lost in his own thoughts. “What are you doing out here?” Roy asked him suddenly. “I thought you were tired.”
Thankful that Roy could not see him blush in the darkness, he said, “Well, ah, I wanted to make sure Al and Winry get some time alone.”
Roy raised an eyebrow.
“I think Kaiya’s finally learned to sleep the whole night through, and, ah, that means that neither of them will have to keep getting up to check on her, so they could do… something else.”
Roy chuckled softly to himself, and knew Ed was glaring at him even if he couldn’t see it in the low light. He rose to his feet on the sloped roof. “Come on,” he said, extending a hand to the younger man. “You’re clearly unimpressed with this remarkable view-“ he gestured towards the lights “-lets go for a drink.”
Ed opened his mouth to protest, but Roy stopped him. “I’m sure they’ll serve you fruit juice without you even asking for it, seeing how you’re so-“
“I”VE GROWN AS YOU CLEARLY HAVE NOT NOTICED,” Ed growled threateningly, refusing Roy’s hand and standing up on his own. “I will NOT drink JUICE from a SIPPY CUP at a BAR,” he added fiercely.
Roy hopped down gracefully from the roof to the railing and the railing to the porch, extending a hand again to Ed, which he again refused. “So that’s a yes, then,” he said smoothly, one charcoal eye gleaming in the dark. “And no one said anything about a sippy cup, calm down,” he added, watching with veiled concern as Ed climbed awkwardly down, landing unsteadily on his feet.
He stood in front of Roy, hands on his hips. “You’re not so tall yourself, Colonel Bastard,” he said fiercely.
Roy was smug. “Ah, but you forget I’m a General now. My rank overpowers my height, which is still considerably taller than yours anyway, I’m afraid.” Ed began to sputter another protest, but Roy simply gave him a slight push at the small of his back, ushering him back into the hotel. “On to that drink,” he said, laughing.
The bar Roy took him to was several blocks from the hotel, one that Roy apparently frequented quite often, seeing how the bartender called him by name. “Two scotch on the rocks,” he ordered promptly, and laughed when Ed stared warily down into the short glass. “Never drank scotch before, Fullmetal?” he teased.
Ed shot him a glare. “Don’t you think,” he said pointedly, “If no one is supposed to recognize me, you had better not call me that?”
Roy simply shrugged. “Edward, then,” he amended. “It’s a habit, you know.”
“I have drunk scotch before,” Ed said, glaring down at the drink, “and it kicked my ass. You’re trying to get me drunk,” he accused.
Raising an eyebrow, he suggested innocently, “Fruit juice?” trying to push his friend to the boiling point.
Ed took a defiant gulp of the golden liquid, like his eyes, Roy thought suddenly, noticing that Ed did not even flinch as he swallowed the fiery drink, as he had expected him to. “You,” the blond said, pointing a finger in the older man’s face, “are one manipulative bastard,” he accused. “You are just waiting for me to throw some kind of temper tantrum over this.” He narrowed his eyes, his expression suddenly gleeful. “You missed those explosions of mine!” he realized suddenly, laughing, taking another sip of scotch.
Roy simply gazed at him, unphased, and drained the glass in one long swig, before the ice could even melt. The bartender replaced it without a word.
Ed quirked one eyebrow up, watching with curiosity. “You always drink this much?” he asked finally.
“Yes,” Roy said evenly, taking a slower sip, draining only half the glass.
Ed shook his head, smiling down at his nowhere near empty drink.
Roy was looking at him with that damnable smirk again, making Ed rise even though he was determined not to.
“What?” he all but snapped, and Roy chuckled. “Quit laughing at me!”
The General shook his head. “You surprise me, Edward,” he said, single eye glinting and the smirk growing. “You’re all grown up now, and you’re nothing like I thought you would be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “What did you think I’d be like?”
Roy leaned back in his chair. Now that they were in a well-lit room, and not the darkness of the rooftop, he had no qualms about continuing to tease. “Well, take the conversation over dinner, for one.”
“The one about building bridges with alchemy? Look, I told you before, I’ve been away from alchemy for ten years. Alchemy didn’t work where I was; I had to learn something else. Excuse me if I’m not up to date on the latest theories,” he said defensively, stirring his scotch.
“Oh, not that conversation,” Roy said. “The other one. I never thought you were so shy about things like sex. We’re all adults now, I thought we could have a conversation like that without you leaving the room, but apparently I was wrong.”
Ed banged the glass down on the bar, having emptied it moments before. Roy signaled to the bartender and before Ed could stop him there was a new drink in front of him, and one for Roy as well, causing him to drain the glass he had. Ed glared at him, pointing to the new glass. “First, I am not drinking that,” he said defiantly.
“Ah, you’re a lightweight,” Roy teased. “And second?” he prompted, after watching Ed seethe.
“At least I’m not a lush,” Ed bit back. “Second,” he continued, taking one small sip from the new drink, “I am not shy.”
“You are,” the older man insisted playfully. “I’ve never seen you turn that red.”
Ed frowned. “I just don’t like my personal life being announced to everyone, okay? Is that so hard to understand?”
Roy refused to accept that. “Twenty six is awfully old to be a virgin,” he began tauntingly.
“I WAS NOT A VIRGIN AND WE ARE NOT DISCUSSING THIS!” Ed shouted, his face mere inches from Roy’s, scotch hot on his breath, the commotion causing the pair to be momentarily the center of attention. He slumped back down onto the bar stool and glared at the world for a moment before he took another sharp sip of scotch, his cheeks flushing again from alcohol or embarrassment or both, setting the glass down and dropping his forehead onto his hand. “This is why I didn’t want to drink,” he muttered under his breath. “Especially not with you,” he said accusingly, turning to face Roy but not lifting his head, so his bangs fell over his face, obscuring his eyes. “You always provoke me too damn easily. Keep refilling that glass and you’ll get your tantrum, I guarantee you. And then, General Bastard,” he added, lifting his head and shoving his hair out of his face, eyes narrowed, “we’ll both get kicked out of the bar. How do you like that for the latest round of gossip about the mighty Flame Alchemist?”
“Fine, I won’t say another word,” Roy conceded, realizing that Ed seemed to be speaking from experience. Somehow he had no trouble envisioning him getting kicked out of many a bar.
Ed had picked a fork up, snatched it from somewhere behind the bar, Roy guessed, and gestured at him with it. “You and Al might know all about the best way to transmute a bridge,” he said loftily, “But I know how to build a machine that can fly through the sky.”
Roy frowned. “Why would anyone want to do that?” he asked, accepting the change in subject for the sake of a tantrum-free evening.
Ed shrugged. “Some people are crazy I guess. They want to fly around up there with the clouds.”
The General seemed interested. “Really? Aren’t they afraid that their machine will fall out of the sky?”
“I guess not,” Ed said, “although,” he admitted, “I sure would be.” He took one very small sip from his drink. “They’re good for war, too,” he added. “If you have a flying machine, you can fly over your enemy and drop bombs on them.”
Roy shuddered. “That sounds horrible,” he said, and Ed nodded. “That sounds like the way to annihilate the entire world.”
“They nearly did. They called it the Great War.”
“They?”
“They said if there will never be a war so terrible, or so destructive, because if the entire world ever goes to war like that again, it will be the end.” His eyes had a hollow look to them, Roy saw, and he wanted to take back his earlier statement, that Ed had not grown up the way he thought he would. He had grown up exactly the way he thought he would. Older, wiser, and no less abused by the world as he had been as a child.
Ed stared down at his drink for a while before taking another sip. After draining the glass, he held up the fork, waving it in front of Roy’s face. “Check this out,” he instructed, laying his metal hand flat on the bar and pushing the fingers apart with his flesh hand. “Now,” he said seriously, holding up the fork. “Imagine this is a knife.”
Roy cooperatively agreed, and watched with growing amusement as Ed jabbed the fork down into the bar between each finger in a rapid pattern. Then the younger man drained a good portion of the scotch that had miraculously appeared in what was supposed to remain an empty glass, and held up the fork again. “Remember,” he said with the same seriousness, “this is a knife.” He began the same rapid pattern, jabbing the spaces between his fingers, paused, took another sip, and continued, finally missing a space and stabbing a finger.
Roy jumped involuntarily, and Ed grinned up at him.
“Gotcha,” he said, eyes glinting amber in the low light of the bar. He waved the fork around. “And this isn’t even a knife.” He rapped the back of the fork on his false hand, letting the sound of metal on metal carry across the bar, grinning.
“You are drunk,” Roy realized, shaking his head.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Ed replied, leaning his shoulder into Roy’s and smiling charmingly up at him. “That’s the point of going out for a drink, isn’t it? And then I end up in your bed,” he concluded, not blushing at all, and finishing off the third glass of scotch. He slammed the glass down on the bar and laughed at Roy’s gaping expression. “I’m kidding,” he said, snickering deviously. Then he snatched the empty glass away from the bartender. “No more, thanks, I think I’m flagged,” he told the man.
Roy pulled the glass out of Edward’s hand. “Get him another,” he instructed, handing it to the bartender. “I think I like you like this,” he said, smirking.
Ed plopped his chin onto his hand, staring at the golden liquid. “You’re going to drink that one,” he told Roy, “or it isn’t getting drinked- dranken- drunkend,” he insisted, tripping over the words. “I’m about to get ridiculous,” he said seriously, his voice only slightly slurred.
Roy raised an eyebrow. “I think, Ed, that you are ridiculous.”
Ed tipped his head on his hand, turning the world sideways. “’Member when I kissed you at that party?”
Rolling his eye, Roy stared up at the ceiling. “Yes,” he said to the rafters. “How could I forget that?”
“I was so embarrassed. It was like, that moment that every teenager dreams about, only gone horr’bly wrong,” he said, slurring his words just a little bit. “I always thought Winry would be my first kiss, but it was you. And you know, I think I was drinking that night, too, trying to seem grown up or something. Someb’dy let me have champagne. I always do dumb stuff when I drink.”
When he looked down, Ed was staring into the scotch he swore he would not touch.
He pushed the glass over to occupy the space in front of the older man. “Here, you drink this. I don’t want any more. I’ve prob’ly already embarrassed myself enough and don’t even realize it. Like telling you it was a really good kiss. I prob’ly shouldn’t say that, not now. I should have told you right then.”
“I think you did, Ed,” Roy said, his voice low.
He tilted his head farther to the side, watching the bar spin with the movement. “Did I?” he asked. Then he sighed. “That’s good. Then I called you and told you to forget it happened. You didn’t forget though, did you?”
Roy shook his head silently, but Ed seemed to expect some kind of additional response from him. “Do you want to try it again?” he asked finally, his voice even lower, not even sure if he wanted what he was asking, or if it was the question Ed wanted to hear.
Ed picked up the fork again, stabbing it into the bar so hard that it stuck this time. “No,” he snapped, suddenly defensive. “I’m not a dumb kid anymore.” Not looking up, he pressed down on the handle of the fork, watching it spring back to an upright position. His expression softened, and he settled his chin on his hand. “Besides, it wouldn’t be the same, anyway, would it?” he asked softly, pressing the end of the fork again and following it with his eyes as it flew across the bar and crashed into a row of empty pint glasses. He watched numbly as they rolled across the bar, staring as first one, then a second smashed onto the floor. “Wasn’t me,” he called, feigning innocence when the bartender had spun around to see what had happened.
The man glared at the pair. “That’s going on your tab,” he said crossly. Then he turned to Roy and said, “Sir, I’m not sure you should be letting your son drink so much.”
Roy threw back his head and laughed while Ed grew redder and redder, a vein twitching violently in his forehead. Then he watched with dread as Ed tipped his head back, downing the scotch he had sworn he wouldn’t touch.
He deposited the swaying blond onto the bed, and set to work removing his shoes. Half mumbled, incoherent protests came from under the pillow Ed had shoved over his face, but Roy patiently worked the boots off of first the flesh foot, and then the wooden one.
“Roy?” came the voice from beneath the pillow.
“Yes?” he asked patiently, pulling off the socks next.
“What am I doing here?” He sounded worried, pushing the pillow off his face and half sitting up. “Everything’s spinning…”
“Shhh, Ed, everything’s okay. You just drank too much. You’re going to sleep it off. Here,” he said, pulling him to a sitting position. “Don’t sleep in your clothes, I’ll give you some pajamas.” Roy began to unbutton his shirt, but Ed batted his hand away, scowling.
“I can undress myself,” he mumbled defensively, his fingers fumbling with the buttons, pulling at them in one-handed frustration. “’M not a cripple.”
“I know you’re not,” he said gently, feeling his stomach twist. “But you’re also barely conscious.” His hand closed over Ed’s, pulling it away from his shirt, and he looked up into half open gold eyes. “Don’t worry, you wont even remember this tomorrow.”
“Yes I will,” the younger man said sullenly, but allowed Roy to slide his shirt off his shoulders, and flopped back down on the bed to let him pull his pants off, barely aware of the struggle it took to get them unzipped and over his narrow hips.
“I very much doubt that,” Roy assured him, glancing with concern at the straps that held the wooden leg in place. Almost without realizing it he fingered his eye patch, remembering how the doctor had warned him against sleeping with it on, something about it being bad for circulation to sleep with anything pressing into the skin. He had slept with it on anyway, at first, when he spent his first nights with Riza, but had ended up with painful, raw indentations on his face and forehead. She had assured him that it didn’t bother her to see him without it, and he had abandoned the attempt entirely. “Ed?” he inquired. When there was no response, he repeated himself, a little louder. “Ed?”
“Whaddya want?” he slurred, eyes not even flickering open this time.
He knocked his knuckles lightly against the wooden limb. “You sleep with this on?”
“Huh?” Ed dragged his flesh hand across his face, rubbing at his eyes and finally opening them a crack, looking over at Roy sitting on the edge of the bed, hand hovering over his prosthesis. “No,” he said firmly, sitting up unsteadily. “No, no, defin’ly not,” he repeated, tugging at the buckle with one uncoordinated hand but managing to work it loose, giving the thing a shove and hearing it slide off the bed with a clatter. He grabbed at the blanket and jerked it over his leg and a half, obscuring the reddened stump from sight. “M’sorry I got so drunk,” he mumbled. “Sorry. Sorry I’m gonna pass out in your bed.”
Roy shook his head, feeling a small (very small) stab of guilt. “Well, I should have listened to you when you said you had enough.”
Ed shook his head roughly. “I should have listened to me,” he insisted, falling back once more onto the bed. “Don’t you take advantage of me while I’m drunk, Colonel Bastard,” he added in a slurred voice.
Roy was reaching over to switch off the light, but paused, startled. “I would never-“
“You wait until I’m sober enough to remember everything.”
Roy blinked, smirking, and stood up. “Go to sleep, Ed,” he said softly, turning off the lamp and shaking his head.
Ed woke in the morning to the sight of one General Mustang, dressed casually in blue jeans and a white t-shirt, offering him a glass of water and two white pills. Roy had watched him sleep for a full five minutes, smiling inwardly at the way he clutched the blanket in his flesh hand, holding it to his face in a child-like gesture, his eyebrows drawn together even in his sleep. The first words out of his mouth were an incoherent slur, but he sat up and accepted the water and the aspirin, finishing the glass and setting it on the bedside table. Only then did he fully open his eyes and look around in first confusion and then horror, throwing himself back down into the bed and covering his head with a pillow. “I’m never doing that ever again!” came the muffled cry.
The General laughed softly. “Do you feel sick?” he inquired.
Edward removed the pillow and sat halfway up again and looked down at himself. “Where are my clothes?” he demanded. “Why am I in your bed with no clothes on?”
Roy gestured towards the sloppy pile beside the bed, and said, “Because you passed out before I could give you any pajamas,” and laughed again.
Ed reached over the edge of the bed to collect the pile, shaking out his shirt, and then threw it down, snatching the blanket up over himself. “Don’t watch me get dressed!” he snapped, feeling his cheeks burning. “Go away!”
That damnable smirk spreading across his face again, Roy just shook his head. “Why should I have to go away? This is my room, after all.”
“Well you’re the one who put me here, apparently,” Ed retorted. “Now give me some privacy!”
Roy waved his hand in dismissal, exiting the room, his smirk visible even with his back turned. “Come out when you’re decent, and I’ll take you to breakfast. I don’t know what you’re so shy about, I’ve already seen everything anyway,” he called from the hall.
Damn that Colonel Bastard -General Bastard, he corrected himself mentally- what is he playing at? “I’m not shy!” he shouted at the doorway. “And you didn’t see anything, I’m not stupid, I remember that much!” He was glad Roy was not watching him, because he did not want him to see the flush he knew had crept into his cheeks at the mere suggestion of the man seeing him undressed.
Roy Mustang did not know what to make of the young man upstairs. He didn’t know if Ed even remembered the things he had said to him the night before, and again he felt slightly guilty for making him drink so much when he said he didn’t want to drink at all. But I didn’t make him, he reminded himself. He’s not a kid anymore, he can make his own decisions. I have nothing to feel guilty about.
But still, there was that nagging voice inside him, telling him that even though Ed was an adult, that didn’t mean he had life all figured out. Hell, he had spent ten years in a whole other world, where he said things were completely different than they were in Amestris. Roy never had children, had always told himself that he never wanted children, but he had always thought that he was meant to protect the Elric brothers. Not be their father, not be a substitute parent, hell, he would make a horrible parent, but to… well, to be there for them. And, for the most part, he was. Those boys had next to nobody in the world, and compared to nobody, at least he was somebody, and he tried to take that role seriously.
He remembered the offer he had made Ed, years ago when he was fifteen, the night after the Fuhrer’s birthday party, that if he ever wanted to talk about anything, he would be there, and decided to extend the offer again over breakfast. That way, if Ed wanted to, he could talk about what he had said the night before. And if he didn’t want to, or couldn’t remember, then they were just two friends having breakfast together.
Once inside the diner, Roy listened in awe as Ed ordered fried eggs, bacon, toast, sausage, potatoes, fruit, pancakes, and several cinnamon rolls. He watched the younger man shrug when the waitress asked if he was sure he was going to eat all that, and pounded his stomach. “Yep, I can eat it,” he assured her. She gave him a skeptical look, but moved on to Roy’s ordinary-sized order and a coffee. “Oh!” he interrupted. “Coffee too,” he told her. “And orange juice. A big glass,” he added, and she rolled her eyes as she walked away. Roy was rolling his eye as well. “What?” Ed demanded.
“Are you trying to bankrupt me?”
Ed just shrugged again. “You’re a General now, you can afford to buy me as much breakfast as I can eat.”
Roy just looked at him. “With the way you eat, I’m not sure that I can.” After a moment, he added, “Are you sure you want to eat all that? You’re sure you don’t feel sick from drinking?”
He scowled. “I feel like shit from drinking, thanks for reminding me. But I wont get sick, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Roy ran a hand through his fall of black hair, his fingers skimming over the black straps of his eye patch with a practiced ease, careful-as-always not to disturb it. He took a deep breath, and leaned forward across the table. “Edward, how have things been going for you?” he asked, careful to keep his voice friendly and not overly concerned.
Ed leaned back in the booth of the diner and sighed. “Things have been great. I’m glad to be back,” he said, but the words sounded oddly forced.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” he asked hesitantly.
Ed frowned. “No… not really,” he said, puzzled. “We could talk about the baby,” he suggested. “She’s- she keeps me sane in that house, I swear. I think I’m in love with her.”
Roy raised an eyebrow. “Pardon?” he said, thinking it an odd thing to say.
Ed just shrugged again. “Well… I think about her all the time. Whenever I don’t see her, I miss her. Whenever I do see her,” he paused, and smiled. “I’m happy,” he finished.
Do you think she’s really your daughter? he wanted to ask, but he was sure Ed had been asked that question before, and he had a guess that the answer might be does it really matter?
“I worry about her, though,” he admitted. “I hope she grows up okay. Even with three of us, none of us knows what we’re doing. And I think I might be genetically dispositioned to be a bad father.” Roy opened his mouth to protest that, but Ed kept speaking. “Al always tells me not to say that, but I have to wonder. I guess she’s gonna call Winry mom, of course, and Al dad, since they’re a couple. It’ll just make more sense to her, that way. And she can just call me Ed. And that’s okay,” he added.
Their food arrived then, Ed’s breakfast taking up most of the table, and the conversation was halted as Roy watched in disbelief as the younger man polished off most of what was in front of him, slowing down only when he had half a bowl of fruit salad and a cinnamon roll left. Roy pulled his own roll apart, unwinding it slowly, careful not to get his fingers overly sticky, and ate it section by section. Ed, who had eaten his first two practically whole, began to copy Roy, pulling the roll apart with the fingers of his left hand. Roy noticed then that he had taken the glove off his flesh hand, but not the metal one, and that the metal hand had remained in his lap through the entire meal. Thinking back, he realized that he had done the exact same thing at dinner the night before. Thinking further back, he seemed to recall that Ed had always eaten like that, even when he had had real automail. Odd, he thought.
“What?” Ed demanded when he caught Roy watching him.
“You’re dissecting your roll,” Roy said nonchalantly.
“So’re you,” Ed pointed out. “Another reason,” he said, between bites, “that I worry about Kaiya, is that I remember how the other kids in Rizembool treated me and Al, after dad left. They would whisper about us, mom always told me I was imagining it but I know it was happening, and they would ask us questions we couldn’t answer, and sometimes I’d make things up, like that that Bastard had been struck by lightening and died, and that’s why he didn’t live with us anymore.”
“But that wont happen to her,” Roy protested.
“It will be worse for her!” Ed insisted. “Kids are so mean. Everyone will want to know why she has three parents, why her household isn’t normal. And then there’s all the stories about me, and all the stories about Al, and Al doesn’t even remember which stories are true and which ones aren’t-“
“Fullmetal,” Roy interrupted sharply, the use of Ed’s military name enough to make him pause, “Don’t you worry about Kaiya. Kaiya will get enough love; not every child is lucky enough to grow up with three parents. You worry about yourself. What do you want from life, Edward?”
He shrugged, stirring his fruit around in the bowl. “I have everything I want,” he said finally. “Al’s alive, and human, and whole. That’s all I ever wanted, for fifteen years. Now it’s true.”
Roy looked at him curiously. “So, you’re going to spend the rest of your days staring at your brother with that goofy grin on your face? That might get boring, you know.”
Ed tried to suppress that same expression Roy spoke of, even as he felt it spreading across his face, and looked down. “No it won’t,” he said softly. “I’ll never get tired of seeing Al. And now,” he shrugged again, picking up the last piece of his roll, “now, I have a family. We have a family. I don’t know what more I could want.”
Roy sighed, running his hand through his hair once more. Ed did have a family. Ed had a daughter, biological or otherwise. Who was he to think he could offer him some kind of advice? He, who had ruined the only real relationship he’d ever been in? He, who had ruined his own chances of knowing what it was like to say he was in love with his child?
“Ed, where were you?” Winry demanded when he returned to their hotel. “We thought something happened to you again!”
Ed rubbed the back of his head. “Huh? Nothing happened. I went to get a drink with Roy.”
“But you were gone all night, Brother,” Al said suspiciously. “You didn’t spend the whole night at a bar, did you?”
“No, I got drunk and passed out at his house,” he said, embarrassed. “It sucked. I’m never drinking like that again.”
Al raised his eyebrows, and said, “Well, you’ve missed breakfast, but I could make you some eggs or something.”
Ed strode past him to sit down on the couch. “No thanks,” he said, waving his hand. “I ate breakfast already.
Alphonse stared at him. “The General made you breakfast?” he asked.
“No, he took me to a diner,” Ed said tiredly, falling back into the cushions and closing his eyes. “I think I’m going to go back to sleep.”
Winry and Alphonse exchanged glances. “You spent the night with General Mustang,” Winry said slowly, “and he took you to breakfast?” She giggled.
Ed’s eyes snapped open. “It wasn’t like that,” he said, glaring at her.
Al flopped down next to his brother on the couch and leaned his head on his flesh shoulder. “You know,” he said, his eyes glinting mischievously, “Of all the stories I heard about you, the ones about you and the General were the ones I took the least seriously. Was I wrong?”
Ed frowned. “What stories? What are you talking about?”
Al sat up, looking his brother in the eyes. “The ones about you and Mustang having an affair,” he said evenly.
“What?” Ed nearly shrieked, the pitch of his own voice increasing the pounding in his head. He flinched, and halted his tirade mid-protest. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Al,” he said sourly. “We never had an affair. He was my commanding officer, for god’s sake! When was this affair supposed to have taken place? When I was fifteen?”
Al shrugged. “So it isn’t true then?” he pressed. “Because, even if it is, brother, it’s all right, there are worse people to be involved with than General Mustang-“
Ed raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know about that,” he said haughtily. “Roy’s a pretty manipulative bastard.”
“Since when are you on a first name basis?” Winry cut in.
Since we both went to face our respective deaths, ten years ago, came his silent response.
“We’re friends,” he said finally.
Ed had closed his eyes, leaning his head back into the couch, and but could hear Al and Winry bustling around in the hotel room. “Did you see the paper, Brother?” Al asked after a few minutes.
Ed cracked an eye open. “Is it another article insulting my stature?” he asked tiredly. He didn’t have the energy to protest it even if it was, right then he was more interested in sleeping off his excellent breakfast, which he believed had done its job in soaking up whatever alcohol might have remained in his system.
“Did anyone say anything to you about there having been terrorist attacks here in Central?” Al asked him.
“Huh?” Ed asked. “No, why?”
“There’ve been a few, recently, according to the papers.”
“Terrorists?” Ed said, opening both eyes and reluctantly sitting up. “From where? Who’s attacking us?”
“Apparently it’s a group within Amestris,” Al said, scanning the article. “Trying to start a civil war.”
“You’d better quit the military, Al, before you end up in that war,” Ed warned.
Al just looked at him. “I can’t quit, I have a contract, Brother, you know that.” He sighed. “It’s probably not that big of a deal. General Hawkeye didn’t say anything about it last night, and neither did General Mustang.”
“Yes she did,” Ed said, remembering, and snatched the paper from his brother. “Remember, she said she tried to go on a date with Havoc, and there was an explosion, or something like that? And Roy choked on an olive?” He scanned the article. “Right here, it says he was there,” he said, pointing to the paragraph.
Chapter Five: The Ghost on the Grave
Note: So, there's the rest of it. too long, chapter four, i think...
Chapter: # 4, Secrets and Celebrations, Part Two
Previous: 1, I, 2, 3, II, 4
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: PG
Spoilers: for the entire series.
Summary: After six years, the brothers are finally reunited, but will Ed be able to adjust to a world that has long since moved on without him? Non-movie AU, pairings for now include Ed/Win, Al/Win, implied Ed/Hei, and just to mix things up a little you might see some Roy/Ed if you squint…
Chapter Summary: Al returns to Central for the annual State Alchemist examinations and Ed gets to see some old friends, and everyone has something to hide…
Chapter Four, Part Two: Celebrations
“Are you done?” Winry asked crossly, jabbing him in the chest with her finger.
“Done what?” Al asked innocently, going over to stand by the window, watching the late afternoon light pull long shadows off the tall buildings of Central.
“Telling secrets,” she accused.
He looked at her, startled, his expression pleading.
“That’s what you were doing, I know you were. Don’t tell me you weren’t.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she interrupted.
“Never mind, I know you’re not going to tell me. Neither of you ever tell me anything.”
Al frowned, hurt flickering behind his eyes. “That’s not true! I tell you all kinds of things, even stuff that’s supposed to be top-secret military information! I’ve answered everything you’ve ever asked me!”
“Ed doesn’t,” she snapped.
Al jerked the plush hotel curtains over the large window, and turned to face her. “Ed doesn’t tell me everything either,” he snapped back. “And anyway, we’re not the same person, so don’t yell at me for something you’re mad at him about.”
“I’m not yelling at you!” she protested, and her expression softened. “I’m not mad at him,” she added, resigned. “I’m just frustrated.”
He raised his eyebrows, his grey eyes turned sympathetic. “I know, so am I. I feel like he’s…” his voice trailed off, uncertain suddenly of what he was trying to say.
“He’s a stranger,” she finished quietly.
“Wow, Boss, I heard you grew-“
Ed grinned, looking down at himself. “I did grow,” he said proudly.
“But you’re still nowhere near as tall as your brother,” Havoc finished, waiting for the upcoming explosion.
Ed puffed up his chest, standing up as straight as possible, willing his vertebrae to stretch enough to add him just a speck more stature. “I am of perfectly average height,” he insisted, looking up at the man he hadn’t seen in ten years. “What kind of greeting is that, anyway?” he complained. “That would be like me asking if you’ve managed to get a date yet!”
“Actually,” Havoc said smugly, exchanging amused glances with Hawkeye, “I did take Riza out the other day.”
Ed did not see Roy flinch at the words, and asked, “Really? Did you have a nice time?”
“No,” Riza said smoothly. “It was a disaster.”
Havoc seemed unphased, and gave him a slap on the back. “So, you grew, but not that much. I got a date, but still no girlfriend. Things haven’t changed too much while you’ve been gone, have they?”
“Oh not that much” Ed said sarcastically. “We just live in a completely different country now, so it seems.”
Havoc waved his hand dismissively, taking a drag from his cigarette. “Oh yes, there is that, but that’s work. Let’s not discuss work while we’re out, all right?”
“Oh, but it’s not work,” Ed protested. “I thought the military and the government were entirely separate now?” He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair, kicking his foot up on the low table in front of him. The room they were in was large and square, with a big window leading out to a balcony overlooking the lights of the city.
“If we can’t talk about work,” Roy said lightly, sitting opposite from Ed and mirroring his impulse to put his feet on the table and looking over at General Hawkeye, “May I ask you a question?”
Riza looked at him for a moment, then answered, “I suppose so.”
“Was your disaster of a date on the news broadcast the other day?”
She tried to hide her smile behind her hand, and turned away. “Why? Were you starting to get jealous?”
Roy shrugged. “What if I said yes?” he asked, keeping his voice light, conversational, natural.
“Then I would say you were wasting your time.” She looked up, saw that the conversation in the room was continuing without them, and decided to add, “But, I’ve wanted to tell you: I had a very nice time at that diplomatic banquet last month. Your company at those kinds of events is always a pleasure, especially when we don’t have anything to hide. I haven’t seen you since then, have I?”
Roy shook his head. He would keep this exchange professional, he resolved. “No, I don’t believe so. How do you feel about the government’s move towards friendlier relations with Xing?”
She tapped her chin. “I thought the Xingian diplomats were very cordial. They spoke our language very well; I was impressed with that. However, they seemed very distant, almost as if they were on an entirely different page. I don’t know if it was just a cultural difference, or if they really were hiding something.”
“Everyone’s hiding something,” Roy said seriously.
“To the man who returned from death!” Havoc said, standing up from his seat at the table, raising his half-full glass.
The others reached for theirs as well, but Ed slammed his hand down on the table in protest. “I wasn’t dead!” he said. “Whoever said I was dead?”
“But you have a grave,” Havoc told him, looking down, glass still raised. “Now let me make my toast. To Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist, the man who returned from death!” he repeated, with twice the bravado this time, and glasses were clinked.
Wearily, Ed raised his own. “Shouldn’t this be Al’s day?” he continued once he set it down, still protesting. “He’s the one who’s the star of Central these days, isn’t he? Tomorrow’s paper’s gonna have his antics at the State Examinations all over it, I’m sure.”
Al rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Brother, you know this day is for you,” he told him, gesturing towards the three people in military uniforms. “I see these guys every day at work, they hardly needed to make a special appearance here just to say congratulations to me.” Al frowned a little when he saw his brother blush at the attention. Hadn’t Ed been an attention whore? Hadn’t he always been showing off his alchemy to everyone, or his intelligence, or his fighting skills?
Ed sighed. “Well, Al, I wouldn’t be here without you, so we’ve gotta toast you too.”
“To Alphonse Elric, Soul Alchemist-“
Ed stood, shoving Havoc aside. “Hey, I’m his brother, lemme say the toast,” he said, and Al smiled, seeing that confidence he remembered take hold once more.
“To my little brother, who’s everything I ever hoped he would be and more, who never ceases to delight me, and of whom I could never be prouder.”
Al could feel the grin that lit up his face as the glasses clinked above his head, and could not help but jump up and wrap his arms around his brother, embracing him as tightly as he had when he first encountered him again in the Gate. The others stared at this show of affection, something each one of them never thought they would ever see: both Elrics, in the flesh, and together.
“Such love!” Havoc said finally, breaking the silence with a booming voice, posturing this way and that. “Such brotherly love, makes me want to tear my shirt off and flex my muscles in the Armstrong family way!” he cried, and Riza laughed.
“No one can do Armstrong like Breda,” she said, still laughing, and looking over at Roy, who also seemed greatly amused.
Ed sat down next to his brother, one arm still wrapped around his shoulders.
“That was a good toast, Brother,” Al said, after he had suppressed most of his laugher. “Thank you.”
“I love you too, Al,” Ed answered.
The conversation had traveled from the whereabouts of various military people Ed had known to stories about Al that had made him famous to stories about Al only those who were close to him knew. When Havoc asked Ed to please, share just a little bit about where he had been for six years, Al expected Ed to close everyone off and refuse to say anything, but his brother hesitated just a moment before answering.
“It was somewhere kind of like here, but not really,” he said vaguely, turning his still-full glass in circles on the table. “There’s nothing really exciting to tell. There was no alchemy there, and no automail. Without either one, I’m really pretty boring, aren’t I?”
An Ed without alchemy is just… a foul-mouthed obnoxious brat… who had said that long ago, Al tried to recall. Had it been Havoc, or was it someone else? Was it Colonel Mustang? Brother hadn’t even denied it, he just said he needed to come back to Rizembool to get his arm fixed so he could use his alchemy to fix me… But as soon as he had the memory, it was gone, and Al didn’t know if anything like that had ever actually been said, or if he had imagined it.
Ed was saying something about a job he had once had at a university when Havoc interrupted him. “What were the girls in this other world like, Boss?”
“Eh? The girls? I don’t know, what are all girls like?” Ed asked, puzzled.
“Didya meet any?”
Ed shrugged. “A few. I knew some nice girls,” he answered vaguely.
“Get any dates?”
Ed shrugged again. “No, why would I want to? I was leaving, what would be the point?”
Yes, Ed, what was the point? Do you have any idea how much that other Al must be missing you right now? You must know, if you loved him the way you say you do. Al wondered, not for the first time, how his counterpart was faring on the other side of the Gate.
“I’m not a kid,” Ed was saying stubbornly. “I don’t need to discover the world of women, you’ve got to be kidding if you think you’re going to drag me around to all the bars in Central anyway, I thought I was supposed to be dead?”
I guess Havoc doesn’t know about Brother and Winry. I’m not even sure if General Hawkeye knows. General Mustang probably does, Al mused. Brother probably tells him everything.
“In six years, you never had a date? Not even once? Man, I’m doing better than I thought I was, compared to you!”
Then Winry was squeezing his arm. “Hey, Al, you okay in there?” she asked quietly, while Ed was still arguing stubbornly.
Al shook his head to clear it. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I was just… remembering some things.”
“About the other side?” she guessed.
“Partly.”
“I AM NOT A KID,” Ed said loudly, in response to something that neither of them heard, jumping to his feet and shaking the table.
“Well you certainly are acting like one,” Riza said firmly, but her eyes showed more amusement than disapproval.
He folded his arms. “So what?” Ed demanded. “I never said I was mature, I just said I wasn’t a kid.” He smirked. “He keeps giving me this ‘when I was your age’ crap- Lieutenant, you know how old I am?”
Havoc shrugged. “Well, Al claims to be twenty-one, so I guess you’re twenty two, Boss, and really, when I was twenty-two I never would have admitted to never having been on a date.”
“It’s all right, Ed,” Riza assured him, trying to diffuse the situation. “I didn’t date much until I was older either.”
“I don’t claim to be twenty-one, I am twenty-one,” Al argued in a practiced tone. This conversation, it seemed, had been had many a time.
“But Al,” Roy said with mock-seriousness, “Just the other day you said you were seventeen.”
Al shrugged. “Did I?” he said noncommittally. “well, you know, one of the advantages to having two ages is that neither one is a lie.”
Winry nudged him in the side. “Must be convenient,” she said teasingly.
Al raised his eyebrows once, looked around from his brother to Havoc to Roy and to Riza, and said boldly, “For you,” and she gave him a swat on the shoulder. The group broke out in a fresh round of laughter.
“I think someone told me that Roy’s first time was when he was twelve,” Havoc mused, looking up at the ceiling.
The General shot his friend a glare. “No, I was not twelve,” he said defensively. “Wherever did you hear that one?”
Ed snickered. “He was thirteen,” he said, deciding to re-join the conversation. “He told me so. She was his babysitter.”
Riza’s eyes widened. “You needed a babysitter when you were thirteen?” she asked, her eyebrows raised and her lips twitching up at the corners.
“She wasn’t my babysitter then!” Roy sputtered, looking around at the laughing faces. “Don’t laugh,” he instructed them. “She was beautiful.”
Winry shook her head, twisting her dinner napkin in her hands. “That is so wrong!” she exclaimed, causing a round of laughter to spread across the table. She yelped when Al elbowed her in the side. “What?” she demanded defensively. “You said yourself you were eighteen.”
Al snorted. “Fine time you pick to believe me, then,” he said, smiling at her.
“How did we get on this topic?” Ed demanded, looking from face to face.
“I was nineteen,” Riza volunteered. “I, unlike some people, waited until I was at least an adult.”
Roy raised an eyebrow. “Really? Nineteen? I didn’t know that.”
She gave a little shrug. “You don’t know everything about everyone, Roy,” she said, and there was more laughter.
“Apparently not,” he agreed. His single eye settled on Ed, who seemed increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. “Well Fullmetal, how old were you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
Ed drew back, frowning, and shook his head. “I refuse,” he said, in his most mature voice, “to participate in this conversation.”
“I was seventeen. Shawna with the brown eyes,” Havoc said dreamily, and turned to Winry. “You?”
“Twenty,” she said simply, setting her chin on her hands and letting her gaze slide over to Al. Then she said something under her breath that apparently only Al caught, and he gave a light laugh.
“Well Ed?” Roy pressed. “We’re waiting.”
“I said I’m not answering,” he repeated stubbornly.
“Were you younger than fifteen, or older than fifteen?” he continued, refusing to let the subject drop.
“I heard a few stories about his involvement with the thief of Aquaroya,” Riza said wickedly, feeling slightly guilty about causing him discomfort but reminding herself it was all in fun. “Psiren, wasn’t she called?”
“It was nothing like that!” Ed sputtered, setting his glass down with a clatter. “I captured her, she escaped- I don’t see how that can possibly involve sex!”
Roy tapped his chin. “Well…” he said, letting his voice trail off suggestively.
“Oh shut up!” Ed said, glaring at the man.
Winry folded her arms across her chest, sitting back in the chair. “Well, now I’m really curious, Ed,” she said honestly, still laughing. “Is it a secret, or something?”
His gaze swung over to meet her eyes.
“Come on, Ed,” Roy pressed. “How old were you the first time you slept with a woman?”
The blond remained resolutely silent.
“Eighteen?” came Riza’s guess. Ed steeled his gaze and refused to answer.
“Fourteen?” was Roy’s venture. He shook his head, expression almost horrified.
“Twenty one?” Winry offered, taking into account his reaction to the previous suggestion.
He pushed his chair away from the table, standing up. “Twenty six,” he said, his voice flat, and turned to walk away.
Havoc pushed his own chair back with a scrape, and leaned back to watch Ed leave. “C’mon, Boss, come back!” he called. “We didn’t mean to embarrass you that much!” he said, the conversation, in his perception, still friendly. His eyes widened when the door slammed.
“Shut up!” came the yell from out in the hall.
Roy sighed, setting his glass down as well. “Al,” he said patiently. “Do you want to go get your brother, or should I?”
Al frowned. “I’ll get him,” he said. “That wasn’t very nice,” he added over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
“We were just-“ Havoc said, flinching at the second slam of the door, “teasing-“
I ruin everything, Ed thought miserably, staring down at a book he wasn’t reading as he sat on the hotel room couch he intended on sleeping on that night. Havoc was right, they were all just teasing.
He had, of course, let Al coax him back into the room. He would do anything Al asked him to, but his mood never did pick back up. Long before the others were ready to retire for the evening, he had said he was tired, and was going to bed. When Al and Winry returned to the hotel room several hours later, he had pretended he was sleeping and let them turn the lamp off and throw a blanket over him.
I’m not trying to come between Al and Winry, he told himself then, not for the first time, looking over at the closed door to the bedroom. If I haven’t ruined things for them already. He stood up, deciding suddenly that he wanted some air, and grabbed Al’s room key off the coffee table and headed back to the room they had reserved for the evening, pulling the doors to the balcony open with a jerk and letting the chill air assault him as he stepped outside.
This was definitely going to be another sleepless night, just one among many.
Ed suddenly felt eyes on his back, and spun around, looking up to see a dark silhouette on the sloping roof. “What are you doing up there?” he demanded.
“Looking out at the city lights,” came the response. “That’s what you do when you can’t see the stars.”
“Pshh,” Ed said, rolling his eyes. “Nothing is like the night sky in Rizembool. Central’s not that great, it’s nothing I’ve never seen before.”
“Not from above, you haven’t,” Roy protested, crouching down on the roof. “Come see for yourself.”
“I can see fine from here.”
“You have a perfect view of the building next door,” he corrected, laughing. “Come on.”
Ed eyed him hesitantly, contemplating the narrow railing that connected with the wall of the building, halfway between the deck and the edge of the roof. “I’ll fall,” he said doubtfully. “My leg-“
Roy extended a hand. “I wont let you fall,” he said firmly.
Ed stared at the outstretched hand for a moment, then shrugged and took it, climbing slowly onto the rail and letting Roy pull him up onto the roof.
“I’m surprised Miss Rockbell hasn’t talked you into letting her fix you up with new automail,” he said, eyebrows raised. “In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t demanded it.”
Ed groaned. “You know every single person I’ve met up with today has asked me that? Apparently my automail is the first thing everyone thinks of when they remember me!”
“Ed, you’re the Fullmetal Alchemist. It’s part of your title, of course people associate it with you.”
“Do you have any idea how incapacitating surgery like that is?” he continued, with the same frustrated tone. “Believe me, I would love to be able to move normally again, you have no idea how frustrated I get knowing that even though I’m back in a world where automail exists I still get treated like an invalid,” his eyes were darkly accusing here, and Mustang could recall several instances where he was the offending party, “But it would take at least a year to recover, probably even more.”
“You did it before, and you were just a child.”
He sighed. “I know I did. I did it because I thought I had to. But I had Auntie, and Winry, and Al all there to take care of me. Between her business and taking care of the baby, Winry’s really got her hands full, and I’m worried about her. I think she takes on more work than one person can accomplish in a day. Al works in Central for most of the week, so he isn’t always around to help out with the baby, and if I was recovering from surgery I couldn’t ask Winry to take care of me and the baby by herself. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Why don’t you ask Al to ask his commanding officer to put him on leave?” Roy suggested.
Ed leaned back, folding his hands behind his head and stretching his legs out on the roof. “That’s an idea,” he conceded.
“I’m sorry our teasing made you angry earlier,” Roy said after a few minutes of silence.
“I wasn’t angry, I was embarrassed.”
“I’m sorry we embarrassed you then.” Apologies were much easier in the darkness.
“Don’t worry about it,” came the toneless response.
The older man gestured towards the flickering lights below. “Well?” he demanded, clearly expecting him to be impressed.
Ed scoffed. “You were born in a city, weren’t you?” he said haughtily. “Born and raised in one. You had to have been to think this is anything compared to a clear night of stars.”
Roy shook his head. “I’ve been all over the country, Ed, and to a good part of the rest of the world. I know a good sight when I see one. This,” he said, waving towards the expanse of lights again, “is our greatest accomplishment.”
“Electricity?”
He laughed. “Civilization.”
Ed looked over to him. “Are you drunk?”
Roy lifted the small flask in response, giving it a shake so Ed could hear the liquor slosh from side to side.
He rolled his eyes. “Roy, did it ever occur to you that drinking on the roof might not be the best idea?”
The man smiled in the darkness, glancing over and Ed’s small form stretched out on the sloped surface. “I haven’t really had that much,” he said, “it’s mostly full.” He offered the small container to Ed, who promptly waved it away. “What’s the matter, Fullmetal?” he teased. “You don’t like to drink?” Roy recalled suddenly that Ed had not touched the wine all evening.
Ed gave a short laugh. “Not really. Especially not on the top of an eight story building.”
They sat in silence for a moment, each looking out at the lights of the city and lost in his own thoughts. “What are you doing out here?” Roy asked him suddenly. “I thought you were tired.”
Thankful that Roy could not see him blush in the darkness, he said, “Well, ah, I wanted to make sure Al and Winry get some time alone.”
Roy raised an eyebrow.
“I think Kaiya’s finally learned to sleep the whole night through, and, ah, that means that neither of them will have to keep getting up to check on her, so they could do… something else.”
Roy chuckled softly to himself, and knew Ed was glaring at him even if he couldn’t see it in the low light. He rose to his feet on the sloped roof. “Come on,” he said, extending a hand to the younger man. “You’re clearly unimpressed with this remarkable view-“ he gestured towards the lights “-lets go for a drink.”
Ed opened his mouth to protest, but Roy stopped him. “I’m sure they’ll serve you fruit juice without you even asking for it, seeing how you’re so-“
“I”VE GROWN AS YOU CLEARLY HAVE NOT NOTICED,” Ed growled threateningly, refusing Roy’s hand and standing up on his own. “I will NOT drink JUICE from a SIPPY CUP at a BAR,” he added fiercely.
Roy hopped down gracefully from the roof to the railing and the railing to the porch, extending a hand again to Ed, which he again refused. “So that’s a yes, then,” he said smoothly, one charcoal eye gleaming in the dark. “And no one said anything about a sippy cup, calm down,” he added, watching with veiled concern as Ed climbed awkwardly down, landing unsteadily on his feet.
He stood in front of Roy, hands on his hips. “You’re not so tall yourself, Colonel Bastard,” he said fiercely.
Roy was smug. “Ah, but you forget I’m a General now. My rank overpowers my height, which is still considerably taller than yours anyway, I’m afraid.” Ed began to sputter another protest, but Roy simply gave him a slight push at the small of his back, ushering him back into the hotel. “On to that drink,” he said, laughing.
The bar Roy took him to was several blocks from the hotel, one that Roy apparently frequented quite often, seeing how the bartender called him by name. “Two scotch on the rocks,” he ordered promptly, and laughed when Ed stared warily down into the short glass. “Never drank scotch before, Fullmetal?” he teased.
Ed shot him a glare. “Don’t you think,” he said pointedly, “If no one is supposed to recognize me, you had better not call me that?”
Roy simply shrugged. “Edward, then,” he amended. “It’s a habit, you know.”
“I have drunk scotch before,” Ed said, glaring down at the drink, “and it kicked my ass. You’re trying to get me drunk,” he accused.
Raising an eyebrow, he suggested innocently, “Fruit juice?” trying to push his friend to the boiling point.
Ed took a defiant gulp of the golden liquid, like his eyes, Roy thought suddenly, noticing that Ed did not even flinch as he swallowed the fiery drink, as he had expected him to. “You,” the blond said, pointing a finger in the older man’s face, “are one manipulative bastard,” he accused. “You are just waiting for me to throw some kind of temper tantrum over this.” He narrowed his eyes, his expression suddenly gleeful. “You missed those explosions of mine!” he realized suddenly, laughing, taking another sip of scotch.
Roy simply gazed at him, unphased, and drained the glass in one long swig, before the ice could even melt. The bartender replaced it without a word.
Ed quirked one eyebrow up, watching with curiosity. “You always drink this much?” he asked finally.
“Yes,” Roy said evenly, taking a slower sip, draining only half the glass.
Ed shook his head, smiling down at his nowhere near empty drink.
Roy was looking at him with that damnable smirk again, making Ed rise even though he was determined not to.
“What?” he all but snapped, and Roy chuckled. “Quit laughing at me!”
The General shook his head. “You surprise me, Edward,” he said, single eye glinting and the smirk growing. “You’re all grown up now, and you’re nothing like I thought you would be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. “What did you think I’d be like?”
Roy leaned back in his chair. Now that they were in a well-lit room, and not the darkness of the rooftop, he had no qualms about continuing to tease. “Well, take the conversation over dinner, for one.”
“The one about building bridges with alchemy? Look, I told you before, I’ve been away from alchemy for ten years. Alchemy didn’t work where I was; I had to learn something else. Excuse me if I’m not up to date on the latest theories,” he said defensively, stirring his scotch.
“Oh, not that conversation,” Roy said. “The other one. I never thought you were so shy about things like sex. We’re all adults now, I thought we could have a conversation like that without you leaving the room, but apparently I was wrong.”
Ed banged the glass down on the bar, having emptied it moments before. Roy signaled to the bartender and before Ed could stop him there was a new drink in front of him, and one for Roy as well, causing him to drain the glass he had. Ed glared at him, pointing to the new glass. “First, I am not drinking that,” he said defiantly.
“Ah, you’re a lightweight,” Roy teased. “And second?” he prompted, after watching Ed seethe.
“At least I’m not a lush,” Ed bit back. “Second,” he continued, taking one small sip from the new drink, “I am not shy.”
“You are,” the older man insisted playfully. “I’ve never seen you turn that red.”
Ed frowned. “I just don’t like my personal life being announced to everyone, okay? Is that so hard to understand?”
Roy refused to accept that. “Twenty six is awfully old to be a virgin,” he began tauntingly.
“I WAS NOT A VIRGIN AND WE ARE NOT DISCUSSING THIS!” Ed shouted, his face mere inches from Roy’s, scotch hot on his breath, the commotion causing the pair to be momentarily the center of attention. He slumped back down onto the bar stool and glared at the world for a moment before he took another sharp sip of scotch, his cheeks flushing again from alcohol or embarrassment or both, setting the glass down and dropping his forehead onto his hand. “This is why I didn’t want to drink,” he muttered under his breath. “Especially not with you,” he said accusingly, turning to face Roy but not lifting his head, so his bangs fell over his face, obscuring his eyes. “You always provoke me too damn easily. Keep refilling that glass and you’ll get your tantrum, I guarantee you. And then, General Bastard,” he added, lifting his head and shoving his hair out of his face, eyes narrowed, “we’ll both get kicked out of the bar. How do you like that for the latest round of gossip about the mighty Flame Alchemist?”
“Fine, I won’t say another word,” Roy conceded, realizing that Ed seemed to be speaking from experience. Somehow he had no trouble envisioning him getting kicked out of many a bar.
Ed had picked a fork up, snatched it from somewhere behind the bar, Roy guessed, and gestured at him with it. “You and Al might know all about the best way to transmute a bridge,” he said loftily, “But I know how to build a machine that can fly through the sky.”
Roy frowned. “Why would anyone want to do that?” he asked, accepting the change in subject for the sake of a tantrum-free evening.
Ed shrugged. “Some people are crazy I guess. They want to fly around up there with the clouds.”
The General seemed interested. “Really? Aren’t they afraid that their machine will fall out of the sky?”
“I guess not,” Ed said, “although,” he admitted, “I sure would be.” He took one very small sip from his drink. “They’re good for war, too,” he added. “If you have a flying machine, you can fly over your enemy and drop bombs on them.”
Roy shuddered. “That sounds horrible,” he said, and Ed nodded. “That sounds like the way to annihilate the entire world.”
“They nearly did. They called it the Great War.”
“They?”
“They said if there will never be a war so terrible, or so destructive, because if the entire world ever goes to war like that again, it will be the end.” His eyes had a hollow look to them, Roy saw, and he wanted to take back his earlier statement, that Ed had not grown up the way he thought he would. He had grown up exactly the way he thought he would. Older, wiser, and no less abused by the world as he had been as a child.
Ed stared down at his drink for a while before taking another sip. After draining the glass, he held up the fork, waving it in front of Roy’s face. “Check this out,” he instructed, laying his metal hand flat on the bar and pushing the fingers apart with his flesh hand. “Now,” he said seriously, holding up the fork. “Imagine this is a knife.”
Roy cooperatively agreed, and watched with growing amusement as Ed jabbed the fork down into the bar between each finger in a rapid pattern. Then the younger man drained a good portion of the scotch that had miraculously appeared in what was supposed to remain an empty glass, and held up the fork again. “Remember,” he said with the same seriousness, “this is a knife.” He began the same rapid pattern, jabbing the spaces between his fingers, paused, took another sip, and continued, finally missing a space and stabbing a finger.
Roy jumped involuntarily, and Ed grinned up at him.
“Gotcha,” he said, eyes glinting amber in the low light of the bar. He waved the fork around. “And this isn’t even a knife.” He rapped the back of the fork on his false hand, letting the sound of metal on metal carry across the bar, grinning.
“You are drunk,” Roy realized, shaking his head.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Ed replied, leaning his shoulder into Roy’s and smiling charmingly up at him. “That’s the point of going out for a drink, isn’t it? And then I end up in your bed,” he concluded, not blushing at all, and finishing off the third glass of scotch. He slammed the glass down on the bar and laughed at Roy’s gaping expression. “I’m kidding,” he said, snickering deviously. Then he snatched the empty glass away from the bartender. “No more, thanks, I think I’m flagged,” he told the man.
Roy pulled the glass out of Edward’s hand. “Get him another,” he instructed, handing it to the bartender. “I think I like you like this,” he said, smirking.
Ed plopped his chin onto his hand, staring at the golden liquid. “You’re going to drink that one,” he told Roy, “or it isn’t getting drinked- dranken- drunkend,” he insisted, tripping over the words. “I’m about to get ridiculous,” he said seriously, his voice only slightly slurred.
Roy raised an eyebrow. “I think, Ed, that you are ridiculous.”
Ed tipped his head on his hand, turning the world sideways. “’Member when I kissed you at that party?”
Rolling his eye, Roy stared up at the ceiling. “Yes,” he said to the rafters. “How could I forget that?”
“I was so embarrassed. It was like, that moment that every teenager dreams about, only gone horr’bly wrong,” he said, slurring his words just a little bit. “I always thought Winry would be my first kiss, but it was you. And you know, I think I was drinking that night, too, trying to seem grown up or something. Someb’dy let me have champagne. I always do dumb stuff when I drink.”
When he looked down, Ed was staring into the scotch he swore he would not touch.
He pushed the glass over to occupy the space in front of the older man. “Here, you drink this. I don’t want any more. I’ve prob’ly already embarrassed myself enough and don’t even realize it. Like telling you it was a really good kiss. I prob’ly shouldn’t say that, not now. I should have told you right then.”
“I think you did, Ed,” Roy said, his voice low.
He tilted his head farther to the side, watching the bar spin with the movement. “Did I?” he asked. Then he sighed. “That’s good. Then I called you and told you to forget it happened. You didn’t forget though, did you?”
Roy shook his head silently, but Ed seemed to expect some kind of additional response from him. “Do you want to try it again?” he asked finally, his voice even lower, not even sure if he wanted what he was asking, or if it was the question Ed wanted to hear.
Ed picked up the fork again, stabbing it into the bar so hard that it stuck this time. “No,” he snapped, suddenly defensive. “I’m not a dumb kid anymore.” Not looking up, he pressed down on the handle of the fork, watching it spring back to an upright position. His expression softened, and he settled his chin on his hand. “Besides, it wouldn’t be the same, anyway, would it?” he asked softly, pressing the end of the fork again and following it with his eyes as it flew across the bar and crashed into a row of empty pint glasses. He watched numbly as they rolled across the bar, staring as first one, then a second smashed onto the floor. “Wasn’t me,” he called, feigning innocence when the bartender had spun around to see what had happened.
The man glared at the pair. “That’s going on your tab,” he said crossly. Then he turned to Roy and said, “Sir, I’m not sure you should be letting your son drink so much.”
Roy threw back his head and laughed while Ed grew redder and redder, a vein twitching violently in his forehead. Then he watched with dread as Ed tipped his head back, downing the scotch he had sworn he wouldn’t touch.
He deposited the swaying blond onto the bed, and set to work removing his shoes. Half mumbled, incoherent protests came from under the pillow Ed had shoved over his face, but Roy patiently worked the boots off of first the flesh foot, and then the wooden one.
“Roy?” came the voice from beneath the pillow.
“Yes?” he asked patiently, pulling off the socks next.
“What am I doing here?” He sounded worried, pushing the pillow off his face and half sitting up. “Everything’s spinning…”
“Shhh, Ed, everything’s okay. You just drank too much. You’re going to sleep it off. Here,” he said, pulling him to a sitting position. “Don’t sleep in your clothes, I’ll give you some pajamas.” Roy began to unbutton his shirt, but Ed batted his hand away, scowling.
“I can undress myself,” he mumbled defensively, his fingers fumbling with the buttons, pulling at them in one-handed frustration. “’M not a cripple.”
“I know you’re not,” he said gently, feeling his stomach twist. “But you’re also barely conscious.” His hand closed over Ed’s, pulling it away from his shirt, and he looked up into half open gold eyes. “Don’t worry, you wont even remember this tomorrow.”
“Yes I will,” the younger man said sullenly, but allowed Roy to slide his shirt off his shoulders, and flopped back down on the bed to let him pull his pants off, barely aware of the struggle it took to get them unzipped and over his narrow hips.
“I very much doubt that,” Roy assured him, glancing with concern at the straps that held the wooden leg in place. Almost without realizing it he fingered his eye patch, remembering how the doctor had warned him against sleeping with it on, something about it being bad for circulation to sleep with anything pressing into the skin. He had slept with it on anyway, at first, when he spent his first nights with Riza, but had ended up with painful, raw indentations on his face and forehead. She had assured him that it didn’t bother her to see him without it, and he had abandoned the attempt entirely. “Ed?” he inquired. When there was no response, he repeated himself, a little louder. “Ed?”
“Whaddya want?” he slurred, eyes not even flickering open this time.
He knocked his knuckles lightly against the wooden limb. “You sleep with this on?”
“Huh?” Ed dragged his flesh hand across his face, rubbing at his eyes and finally opening them a crack, looking over at Roy sitting on the edge of the bed, hand hovering over his prosthesis. “No,” he said firmly, sitting up unsteadily. “No, no, defin’ly not,” he repeated, tugging at the buckle with one uncoordinated hand but managing to work it loose, giving the thing a shove and hearing it slide off the bed with a clatter. He grabbed at the blanket and jerked it over his leg and a half, obscuring the reddened stump from sight. “M’sorry I got so drunk,” he mumbled. “Sorry. Sorry I’m gonna pass out in your bed.”
Roy shook his head, feeling a small (very small) stab of guilt. “Well, I should have listened to you when you said you had enough.”
Ed shook his head roughly. “I should have listened to me,” he insisted, falling back once more onto the bed. “Don’t you take advantage of me while I’m drunk, Colonel Bastard,” he added in a slurred voice.
Roy was reaching over to switch off the light, but paused, startled. “I would never-“
“You wait until I’m sober enough to remember everything.”
Roy blinked, smirking, and stood up. “Go to sleep, Ed,” he said softly, turning off the lamp and shaking his head.
Ed woke in the morning to the sight of one General Mustang, dressed casually in blue jeans and a white t-shirt, offering him a glass of water and two white pills. Roy had watched him sleep for a full five minutes, smiling inwardly at the way he clutched the blanket in his flesh hand, holding it to his face in a child-like gesture, his eyebrows drawn together even in his sleep. The first words out of his mouth were an incoherent slur, but he sat up and accepted the water and the aspirin, finishing the glass and setting it on the bedside table. Only then did he fully open his eyes and look around in first confusion and then horror, throwing himself back down into the bed and covering his head with a pillow. “I’m never doing that ever again!” came the muffled cry.
The General laughed softly. “Do you feel sick?” he inquired.
Edward removed the pillow and sat halfway up again and looked down at himself. “Where are my clothes?” he demanded. “Why am I in your bed with no clothes on?”
Roy gestured towards the sloppy pile beside the bed, and said, “Because you passed out before I could give you any pajamas,” and laughed again.
Ed reached over the edge of the bed to collect the pile, shaking out his shirt, and then threw it down, snatching the blanket up over himself. “Don’t watch me get dressed!” he snapped, feeling his cheeks burning. “Go away!”
That damnable smirk spreading across his face again, Roy just shook his head. “Why should I have to go away? This is my room, after all.”
“Well you’re the one who put me here, apparently,” Ed retorted. “Now give me some privacy!”
Roy waved his hand in dismissal, exiting the room, his smirk visible even with his back turned. “Come out when you’re decent, and I’ll take you to breakfast. I don’t know what you’re so shy about, I’ve already seen everything anyway,” he called from the hall.
Damn that Colonel Bastard -General Bastard, he corrected himself mentally- what is he playing at? “I’m not shy!” he shouted at the doorway. “And you didn’t see anything, I’m not stupid, I remember that much!” He was glad Roy was not watching him, because he did not want him to see the flush he knew had crept into his cheeks at the mere suggestion of the man seeing him undressed.
Roy Mustang did not know what to make of the young man upstairs. He didn’t know if Ed even remembered the things he had said to him the night before, and again he felt slightly guilty for making him drink so much when he said he didn’t want to drink at all. But I didn’t make him, he reminded himself. He’s not a kid anymore, he can make his own decisions. I have nothing to feel guilty about.
But still, there was that nagging voice inside him, telling him that even though Ed was an adult, that didn’t mean he had life all figured out. Hell, he had spent ten years in a whole other world, where he said things were completely different than they were in Amestris. Roy never had children, had always told himself that he never wanted children, but he had always thought that he was meant to protect the Elric brothers. Not be their father, not be a substitute parent, hell, he would make a horrible parent, but to… well, to be there for them. And, for the most part, he was. Those boys had next to nobody in the world, and compared to nobody, at least he was somebody, and he tried to take that role seriously.
He remembered the offer he had made Ed, years ago when he was fifteen, the night after the Fuhrer’s birthday party, that if he ever wanted to talk about anything, he would be there, and decided to extend the offer again over breakfast. That way, if Ed wanted to, he could talk about what he had said the night before. And if he didn’t want to, or couldn’t remember, then they were just two friends having breakfast together.
Once inside the diner, Roy listened in awe as Ed ordered fried eggs, bacon, toast, sausage, potatoes, fruit, pancakes, and several cinnamon rolls. He watched the younger man shrug when the waitress asked if he was sure he was going to eat all that, and pounded his stomach. “Yep, I can eat it,” he assured her. She gave him a skeptical look, but moved on to Roy’s ordinary-sized order and a coffee. “Oh!” he interrupted. “Coffee too,” he told her. “And orange juice. A big glass,” he added, and she rolled her eyes as she walked away. Roy was rolling his eye as well. “What?” Ed demanded.
“Are you trying to bankrupt me?”
Ed just shrugged again. “You’re a General now, you can afford to buy me as much breakfast as I can eat.”
Roy just looked at him. “With the way you eat, I’m not sure that I can.” After a moment, he added, “Are you sure you want to eat all that? You’re sure you don’t feel sick from drinking?”
He scowled. “I feel like shit from drinking, thanks for reminding me. But I wont get sick, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Roy ran a hand through his fall of black hair, his fingers skimming over the black straps of his eye patch with a practiced ease, careful-as-always not to disturb it. He took a deep breath, and leaned forward across the table. “Edward, how have things been going for you?” he asked, careful to keep his voice friendly and not overly concerned.
Ed leaned back in the booth of the diner and sighed. “Things have been great. I’m glad to be back,” he said, but the words sounded oddly forced.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” he asked hesitantly.
Ed frowned. “No… not really,” he said, puzzled. “We could talk about the baby,” he suggested. “She’s- she keeps me sane in that house, I swear. I think I’m in love with her.”
Roy raised an eyebrow. “Pardon?” he said, thinking it an odd thing to say.
Ed just shrugged again. “Well… I think about her all the time. Whenever I don’t see her, I miss her. Whenever I do see her,” he paused, and smiled. “I’m happy,” he finished.
Do you think she’s really your daughter? he wanted to ask, but he was sure Ed had been asked that question before, and he had a guess that the answer might be does it really matter?
“I worry about her, though,” he admitted. “I hope she grows up okay. Even with three of us, none of us knows what we’re doing. And I think I might be genetically dispositioned to be a bad father.” Roy opened his mouth to protest that, but Ed kept speaking. “Al always tells me not to say that, but I have to wonder. I guess she’s gonna call Winry mom, of course, and Al dad, since they’re a couple. It’ll just make more sense to her, that way. And she can just call me Ed. And that’s okay,” he added.
Their food arrived then, Ed’s breakfast taking up most of the table, and the conversation was halted as Roy watched in disbelief as the younger man polished off most of what was in front of him, slowing down only when he had half a bowl of fruit salad and a cinnamon roll left. Roy pulled his own roll apart, unwinding it slowly, careful not to get his fingers overly sticky, and ate it section by section. Ed, who had eaten his first two practically whole, began to copy Roy, pulling the roll apart with the fingers of his left hand. Roy noticed then that he had taken the glove off his flesh hand, but not the metal one, and that the metal hand had remained in his lap through the entire meal. Thinking back, he realized that he had done the exact same thing at dinner the night before. Thinking further back, he seemed to recall that Ed had always eaten like that, even when he had had real automail. Odd, he thought.
“What?” Ed demanded when he caught Roy watching him.
“You’re dissecting your roll,” Roy said nonchalantly.
“So’re you,” Ed pointed out. “Another reason,” he said, between bites, “that I worry about Kaiya, is that I remember how the other kids in Rizembool treated me and Al, after dad left. They would whisper about us, mom always told me I was imagining it but I know it was happening, and they would ask us questions we couldn’t answer, and sometimes I’d make things up, like that that Bastard had been struck by lightening and died, and that’s why he didn’t live with us anymore.”
“But that wont happen to her,” Roy protested.
“It will be worse for her!” Ed insisted. “Kids are so mean. Everyone will want to know why she has three parents, why her household isn’t normal. And then there’s all the stories about me, and all the stories about Al, and Al doesn’t even remember which stories are true and which ones aren’t-“
“Fullmetal,” Roy interrupted sharply, the use of Ed’s military name enough to make him pause, “Don’t you worry about Kaiya. Kaiya will get enough love; not every child is lucky enough to grow up with three parents. You worry about yourself. What do you want from life, Edward?”
He shrugged, stirring his fruit around in the bowl. “I have everything I want,” he said finally. “Al’s alive, and human, and whole. That’s all I ever wanted, for fifteen years. Now it’s true.”
Roy looked at him curiously. “So, you’re going to spend the rest of your days staring at your brother with that goofy grin on your face? That might get boring, you know.”
Ed tried to suppress that same expression Roy spoke of, even as he felt it spreading across his face, and looked down. “No it won’t,” he said softly. “I’ll never get tired of seeing Al. And now,” he shrugged again, picking up the last piece of his roll, “now, I have a family. We have a family. I don’t know what more I could want.”
Roy sighed, running his hand through his hair once more. Ed did have a family. Ed had a daughter, biological or otherwise. Who was he to think he could offer him some kind of advice? He, who had ruined the only real relationship he’d ever been in? He, who had ruined his own chances of knowing what it was like to say he was in love with his child?
“Ed, where were you?” Winry demanded when he returned to their hotel. “We thought something happened to you again!”
Ed rubbed the back of his head. “Huh? Nothing happened. I went to get a drink with Roy.”
“But you were gone all night, Brother,” Al said suspiciously. “You didn’t spend the whole night at a bar, did you?”
“No, I got drunk and passed out at his house,” he said, embarrassed. “It sucked. I’m never drinking like that again.”
Al raised his eyebrows, and said, “Well, you’ve missed breakfast, but I could make you some eggs or something.”
Ed strode past him to sit down on the couch. “No thanks,” he said, waving his hand. “I ate breakfast already.
Alphonse stared at him. “The General made you breakfast?” he asked.
“No, he took me to a diner,” Ed said tiredly, falling back into the cushions and closing his eyes. “I think I’m going to go back to sleep.”
Winry and Alphonse exchanged glances. “You spent the night with General Mustang,” Winry said slowly, “and he took you to breakfast?” She giggled.
Ed’s eyes snapped open. “It wasn’t like that,” he said, glaring at her.
Al flopped down next to his brother on the couch and leaned his head on his flesh shoulder. “You know,” he said, his eyes glinting mischievously, “Of all the stories I heard about you, the ones about you and the General were the ones I took the least seriously. Was I wrong?”
Ed frowned. “What stories? What are you talking about?”
Al sat up, looking his brother in the eyes. “The ones about you and Mustang having an affair,” he said evenly.
“What?” Ed nearly shrieked, the pitch of his own voice increasing the pounding in his head. He flinched, and halted his tirade mid-protest. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Al,” he said sourly. “We never had an affair. He was my commanding officer, for god’s sake! When was this affair supposed to have taken place? When I was fifteen?”
Al shrugged. “So it isn’t true then?” he pressed. “Because, even if it is, brother, it’s all right, there are worse people to be involved with than General Mustang-“
Ed raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know about that,” he said haughtily. “Roy’s a pretty manipulative bastard.”
“Since when are you on a first name basis?” Winry cut in.
Since we both went to face our respective deaths, ten years ago, came his silent response.
“We’re friends,” he said finally.
Ed had closed his eyes, leaning his head back into the couch, and but could hear Al and Winry bustling around in the hotel room. “Did you see the paper, Brother?” Al asked after a few minutes.
Ed cracked an eye open. “Is it another article insulting my stature?” he asked tiredly. He didn’t have the energy to protest it even if it was, right then he was more interested in sleeping off his excellent breakfast, which he believed had done its job in soaking up whatever alcohol might have remained in his system.
“Did anyone say anything to you about there having been terrorist attacks here in Central?” Al asked him.
“Huh?” Ed asked. “No, why?”
“There’ve been a few, recently, according to the papers.”
“Terrorists?” Ed said, opening both eyes and reluctantly sitting up. “From where? Who’s attacking us?”
“Apparently it’s a group within Amestris,” Al said, scanning the article. “Trying to start a civil war.”
“You’d better quit the military, Al, before you end up in that war,” Ed warned.
Al just looked at him. “I can’t quit, I have a contract, Brother, you know that.” He sighed. “It’s probably not that big of a deal. General Hawkeye didn’t say anything about it last night, and neither did General Mustang.”
“Yes she did,” Ed said, remembering, and snatched the paper from his brother. “Remember, she said she tried to go on a date with Havoc, and there was an explosion, or something like that? And Roy choked on an olive?” He scanned the article. “Right here, it says he was there,” he said, pointing to the paragraph.
Chapter Five: The Ghost on the Grave
Note: So, there's the rest of it. too long, chapter four, i think...