[Fic] Interstitial (FMA, Roy/Ed)
Title: Interstitial
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,460ish
Notes: Oh, hey, remember how I used to write for FMA? I've been cleaning off my hard drive and happened upon this. I wrote it about a year ago, and it was originally intended to be a prologue fic for a much longer Roy/Ed/Al story, but since I don't believe I'll ever finish that one and this fic is completed and stands alone, I'm posting it. Alternate timeline, animeverse.
Ed would sail into Roy's office expecting a fight about his latest assignment, about how it cost too much or he went too far or the report was incomplete, and seemed almost disappointed if he didn't get it. He was so unused to having any effort of his pay off that when it did, even in the slightest, he didn't know how to react. He'd find a way to snarl about it somehow, even if it was to ridicule Roy for having a paperweight shaped like a flame.
Ed almost hated it when people agreed with him.
Roy was always more than happy to indulge Ed in his need for challenge. The less his assignments appeared to pertain to his search for the Philosopher's Stone, the harder Ed would look for something of the Stone in them. Desperation is a keen motivator. Ed, with only his brother's assistance, usually ended up accomplishing even more than was ever really expected of him, single-handedly completing missions that probably couldn't have been resolved with a company of men.
Ed's eyes roved around the room when he was figuring something out, when he was putting pieces together that didn't look like they should fit. He lived his life in leaps of logic; leaped over convention. The way Ed's eyes wouldn't quite settle on Roy made him feel like he was a puzzle being worked on.
As Ed got older, he became a little quieter with each year, a little more determined. His eyes held something a bit more like resignation, but they never would settle on Roy.
When he showed up on Roy's doorstep, banging on the door, he went silent when Roy opened it. Roy watched the porch light play harshly over his face. "Let me in," Ed demanded at last, and stood there waiting, fidgeting almost imperceptibly.
"And why should I?" Roy asked, knowing that he would. He wanted to shove him out the door and tell him to stay away, to go back to his brother and his interminable search and leave Roy out of it, but he didn't.
"I guess you probably shouldn't," Ed muttered, and started to turn to go. "Forget it," he said, and he looked so uncertain that Roy relented as Ed said, "I thought that there was something-"
"Edward. Come in."
Ed stopped for a second, eyes wandering past Roy to the inside of his house as if it might be fraught with untold danger before he complied.
"I know you can't, you would never, I don't know why... " Ed didn't seem to know how to finish, and it sounded almost like an apology. Fullmetal? Apologize? Roy had no idea what the boy was talking about, but he decided that he would like to know.
"Would you like some tea?" Roy asked.
It wasn't the first time Ed had been in his house. Ed had come back three times in as many months, always for tea, always that combination of infuriating and amusing. In the hallway, Ed kissed him as if he was handing Roy his comeuppance for every fruitless mission he had ever sent him on, didn't know what to do with his hands and pressed Roy flat against the wall. Roy took control of it and turned the awkward, inexperienced messiness of it into something slick and soft until Ed whimpered into his mouth. Ed tasted like tea, like flint, like distant perilous places.
Roy wanted to tear him down and then build him back up again, take him apart and give something back to him, even if it was only for five minutes. Nothing about it fit exactly right, but Ed did a damn fine job of making it look and feel like it did, even though he trembled and made choked-off noises underneath Roy like there was a deluge of emotion and feeling that he refused to let break loose.
"Stay," Roy said later. Ed went home to his brother.
Ed did stay sometimes, after that. He stayed whenever he could find somewhere that Al wouldn't be alone all night and they were in Central, which, all told, wasn't really that often.
"I have you figured out," Roy said lightly into Ed's ear one night, just to see what Ed had to say about that. He pressed against him, skin to skin. Ed's laugh was nervous and incredulous.
"No one has me figured out except Al," he said. "No one."
Roy's hand snaked through the sheets, over Ed's hip, across his waist, back onto the bed. Ed's skin was hot, the automail cold. He still smelled like the train, coal and cramped quarters, metal and smoke. Smelled like his brother's polishing oil on his cheek as Roy tongued the place where Ed's earlobe met his neck.
"Fuck you," Ed gasped, and pushed Roy away.
Roy seized his hand and stilled it. "I'm not compelling you to do anything."
Ed's mouth worked in surprise. "I wouldn't come here if I didn't want to."
Roy ran his other hand down Ed's side, and this time Ed closed his eyes and moved into it, pulled Roy down and held him there, shifted against him until it seemed like there was nothing between them.
"I'll help you," Roy said when Ed was leaving.
"You can't," Ed retorted. "You can't risk that much." He tied a bootlace adamantly. "Besides, I'd never ask you to."
There was a night when Ed lay awake and far too still until Roy finally had to ask him what was wrong.
"I figured it out," Ed said with a look of awe on his face, and Roy ran lazy, encouraging fingers over him.
"Tell me," Roy said.
Ed was smart. Too smart. His mind worked in ways Roy didn't understand, and it made Roy angry sometimes, in the futile way one might get angry with a god. Ed was clearly not a god, but he had played one from time to time, and Roy knew he would do it again. Five years and some months after Roy explained to Ed why he had to keep his mouth shut about his brother's unfortunate circumstances, he was reminding Ed why he would have to keep his mouth shut about correcting those circumstances.
"What do you take me for, an idiot?" Ed demanded. "I know. Just stay out of it. I'm only telling you because if something happens - well, you'll know."
Ed was very good about keeping his mouth shut when it served him well. Roy was never able to decide whether the fact that Edward never told his brother about Roy should make him feel offended or relieved.
Ed came to him the next day, almost as if it were an apology. For Al.
Two weeks later, he was with them both, far away from Central, and Alphonse was trying valiantly not to let his armor tremble in the next room. Ed's fingers were cracking from the dryness of the chalk and Roy watched his hand instead of the determined look on Ed's face.
Roy didn't dare to touch him right now. "Are you sure about this, Edward?" he asked instead for the hundredth time.
"Yes," Ed said quietly for the hundredth time. "If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't be going through with it." He stopped, his eyes dark and serious on Roy's. "Are you sure?"
Roy nodded.
Ed nodded back, satisfied. "Right." He stopped sketching on the floor and sat back on his heels, ran his hand through his hair and left a smudge of chalk on his forehead. "How come I didn't figure this out years ago?"
Roy smiled. "Because you didn't have me to goad you into it."
Ed gave him a long, long look, and then muttered "Bastard," before he went back to drawing.
When it was over, for a few moments Ed sat there, blinking and exhausted, as if he was not quite sure what to do next, and then he found the strength to close the distance between him and his brother. His unconscious, but living, breathing, flesh and bone brother.
Alphonse was beautiful. Roy watched Ed gather him up and felt like he shouldn't be there. As if he shouldn't be watching it.
Roy didn't hear from Ed for almost three weeks after that. Really, he didn't expect to.
When Ed walked in Roy's door the next time he closed it behind him softly and gave Roy a radiant smile. Roy closed the distance between them quickly, felt through that space between them, and Ed sank into Roy like he always did, as if he was trying to prove something to himself.
It only lasted a moment.
"We're only here to tie up a few things," Ed informed him coolly. "Al still needs a lot of rest."
Roy considered that space. Roy didn't resent Alphonse for it, not in the slightest.
"You've made a decision about this," he said, and backed away from Ed, expressionless.
Ed smirked at him briefly, but Roy stood in front of him, unwavering, until understanding colored Ed's cheeks in shades of anger and carved lines of disbelief around his eyes while the rest of him went perfectly still. "But-" he started.
"I'm sorry, Edward. Go home to your brother," Roy told him.
"This was all a mistake, wasn't it," Ed said slowly, and he looked too young, spoke in a tone that Roy had only heard a few times, like on a day on the steps of Central Headquarters when Ed had sat fiercely dry-eyed and huddled up. The way only the injustice and sadness of a terrible, unfortunate situation made him look and sound, and Roy couldn't manage to say anything but go home that day either.
Roy couldn't help quirking an eyebrow, shocked. "Was it?" he asked and almost choked on it.
Ed took a deep, shaky breath and nodded. Roy wasn't sure if he was nodding an affirmative or if there was some other reason. Perhaps another puzzle that had just fit neatly into place in Edward Elric's head. He would never know, because Ed whirled around and fumbled with the doorknob for a moment before he was gone.
"I would have helped you anyway," Roy said to the slamming door.
Alphonse Elric began writing letters to Roy with wispy, delicate handwriting that grew stronger with each one. The first one came a few days later. It promised that he would return the last book he borrowed from Roy when next he came to visit and spilled over with gratitude.
"Brigadier General, as you know, I asked you here today to discuss your release of Major Edward Elric from his obligations."
Roy nodded and smoothed his jacket for the tenth time since he had entered the room. "Yes, sir," he said mildly. It was just a routine questioning, one that he had known was coming. Compared to what it could be this would be nothing more than a hassle. It was at least a chance to get away from his desk for a few minutes.
"General Mustang, based on Major Elric's records, he was honorably discharged - cited as 'convenience to the government' - prior to the end of his commitment with the military. Elric was a valuable asset, as you yourself stated many times during his commission. I can't help but recall the time he intervened on the train." He paused to look at the picture of his wife and children in a dime-store-fancy frame on his desk. "Why did you authorize this?"
Major Elric. It sounded so completely foreign to Roy that he almost couldn't formulate a response. Never in all of the years Roy had known Edward had he ever addressed or even thought of him as Major Elric. Fullmetal, yes, and later, Edward, and later still, on certain occasions, simply Ed. In a way, though, perhaps the formality of Ed's title might make this conversation easier.
Roy summoned an authoritative expression and gazed at the Major General. "It's quite simple," he said. "It turns out that Major Elric wasn't worth the trouble."
Hakuro cocked an eyebrow and smiled at Roy with all the sincerity of a cheerleader. "Oh? Not worth the trouble? It certainly seems that he has been worth the trouble to you for the past five years."
Roy could smile like that too, and he could add undertones that shifted beneath that smile like cool sheets, dark nights. Things that conjured up ease and unrest, longing and disappointment. Hakuro was too simple to see anything but danger there, and Roy knew it.
"Fullmetal was always a handful," Roy replied, "but he served a purpose up to a point." He shrugged and it felt like a betrayal, even though this had always been part of the plan. "He lost his focus. I didn't feel it was in the best interest of either the boy or the military to continue his service."
Hakuro nodded. "I see. So the Fullmetal Alchemist lost his edge, did he?" He curled his lip up in a smirk that Roy wanted to wipe off his face with fire.
Roy settled for wincing inwardly at the abominable, awkward pun and forced himself to chuckle. "You could say that, yes."
Hakuro nodded again and seemed to be satisfied. "He is quite a hellion, isn't he."
Roy sighed. "Oh, you don't know the half of it."
Hakuro snorted. "Indeed, I didn't have the pleasure of his direct command. He did prove himself at his exam. I didn't envy you that day, let me tell you."
Roy laughed again, made it easy and light. "I suppose if he ever does settle down, I could seek him out again. He is rather brilliant, you know. I wouldn't be opposed to reconsidering it some day in the future. And the boy's brother is equally brilliant."
"Brother? The one who was always in the armor?"
Roy nodded. "Yes. He was always a sickly young man. I believe Edward was taking him to Xing to see about a treatment for his illness."
Hakuro's expression sobered. "I can read between the lines, Mustang. I understand what's really going on here."
Roy stiffened on the inside, but willed himself to remain smooth. "Oh? How so?"
"I've read Elric's file. Insubordination, wasting of State resources. I understand why you might want to protect the boy, but a mentor can only allow so much."
"Indeed," Roy said dryly.
"In the end, I think you made the right decision," Hakuro said, his tone turning conspiratorial. "You and I think alike, Mustang. Let's be honest here. We have our ambitions. It really wouldn't do to let a subordinate hamper those goals, now would it? Endanger oneself for the sake of a wayward, headstrong boy? Madness."
"Madness," Roy agreed, and tried not to snap his fingers.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,460ish
Notes: Oh, hey, remember how I used to write for FMA? I've been cleaning off my hard drive and happened upon this. I wrote it about a year ago, and it was originally intended to be a prologue fic for a much longer Roy/Ed/Al story, but since I don't believe I'll ever finish that one and this fic is completed and stands alone, I'm posting it. Alternate timeline, animeverse.
Ed would sail into Roy's office expecting a fight about his latest assignment, about how it cost too much or he went too far or the report was incomplete, and seemed almost disappointed if he didn't get it. He was so unused to having any effort of his pay off that when it did, even in the slightest, he didn't know how to react. He'd find a way to snarl about it somehow, even if it was to ridicule Roy for having a paperweight shaped like a flame.
Ed almost hated it when people agreed with him.
Roy was always more than happy to indulge Ed in his need for challenge. The less his assignments appeared to pertain to his search for the Philosopher's Stone, the harder Ed would look for something of the Stone in them. Desperation is a keen motivator. Ed, with only his brother's assistance, usually ended up accomplishing even more than was ever really expected of him, single-handedly completing missions that probably couldn't have been resolved with a company of men.
Ed's eyes roved around the room when he was figuring something out, when he was putting pieces together that didn't look like they should fit. He lived his life in leaps of logic; leaped over convention. The way Ed's eyes wouldn't quite settle on Roy made him feel like he was a puzzle being worked on.
As Ed got older, he became a little quieter with each year, a little more determined. His eyes held something a bit more like resignation, but they never would settle on Roy.
When he showed up on Roy's doorstep, banging on the door, he went silent when Roy opened it. Roy watched the porch light play harshly over his face. "Let me in," Ed demanded at last, and stood there waiting, fidgeting almost imperceptibly.
"And why should I?" Roy asked, knowing that he would. He wanted to shove him out the door and tell him to stay away, to go back to his brother and his interminable search and leave Roy out of it, but he didn't.
"I guess you probably shouldn't," Ed muttered, and started to turn to go. "Forget it," he said, and he looked so uncertain that Roy relented as Ed said, "I thought that there was something-"
"Edward. Come in."
Ed stopped for a second, eyes wandering past Roy to the inside of his house as if it might be fraught with untold danger before he complied.
"I know you can't, you would never, I don't know why... " Ed didn't seem to know how to finish, and it sounded almost like an apology. Fullmetal? Apologize? Roy had no idea what the boy was talking about, but he decided that he would like to know.
"Would you like some tea?" Roy asked.
It wasn't the first time Ed had been in his house. Ed had come back three times in as many months, always for tea, always that combination of infuriating and amusing. In the hallway, Ed kissed him as if he was handing Roy his comeuppance for every fruitless mission he had ever sent him on, didn't know what to do with his hands and pressed Roy flat against the wall. Roy took control of it and turned the awkward, inexperienced messiness of it into something slick and soft until Ed whimpered into his mouth. Ed tasted like tea, like flint, like distant perilous places.
Roy wanted to tear him down and then build him back up again, take him apart and give something back to him, even if it was only for five minutes. Nothing about it fit exactly right, but Ed did a damn fine job of making it look and feel like it did, even though he trembled and made choked-off noises underneath Roy like there was a deluge of emotion and feeling that he refused to let break loose.
"Stay," Roy said later. Ed went home to his brother.
Ed did stay sometimes, after that. He stayed whenever he could find somewhere that Al wouldn't be alone all night and they were in Central, which, all told, wasn't really that often.
"I have you figured out," Roy said lightly into Ed's ear one night, just to see what Ed had to say about that. He pressed against him, skin to skin. Ed's laugh was nervous and incredulous.
"No one has me figured out except Al," he said. "No one."
Roy's hand snaked through the sheets, over Ed's hip, across his waist, back onto the bed. Ed's skin was hot, the automail cold. He still smelled like the train, coal and cramped quarters, metal and smoke. Smelled like his brother's polishing oil on his cheek as Roy tongued the place where Ed's earlobe met his neck.
"Fuck you," Ed gasped, and pushed Roy away.
Roy seized his hand and stilled it. "I'm not compelling you to do anything."
Ed's mouth worked in surprise. "I wouldn't come here if I didn't want to."
Roy ran his other hand down Ed's side, and this time Ed closed his eyes and moved into it, pulled Roy down and held him there, shifted against him until it seemed like there was nothing between them.
"I'll help you," Roy said when Ed was leaving.
"You can't," Ed retorted. "You can't risk that much." He tied a bootlace adamantly. "Besides, I'd never ask you to."
There was a night when Ed lay awake and far too still until Roy finally had to ask him what was wrong.
"I figured it out," Ed said with a look of awe on his face, and Roy ran lazy, encouraging fingers over him.
"Tell me," Roy said.
Ed was smart. Too smart. His mind worked in ways Roy didn't understand, and it made Roy angry sometimes, in the futile way one might get angry with a god. Ed was clearly not a god, but he had played one from time to time, and Roy knew he would do it again. Five years and some months after Roy explained to Ed why he had to keep his mouth shut about his brother's unfortunate circumstances, he was reminding Ed why he would have to keep his mouth shut about correcting those circumstances.
"What do you take me for, an idiot?" Ed demanded. "I know. Just stay out of it. I'm only telling you because if something happens - well, you'll know."
Ed was very good about keeping his mouth shut when it served him well. Roy was never able to decide whether the fact that Edward never told his brother about Roy should make him feel offended or relieved.
Ed came to him the next day, almost as if it were an apology. For Al.
Two weeks later, he was with them both, far away from Central, and Alphonse was trying valiantly not to let his armor tremble in the next room. Ed's fingers were cracking from the dryness of the chalk and Roy watched his hand instead of the determined look on Ed's face.
Roy didn't dare to touch him right now. "Are you sure about this, Edward?" he asked instead for the hundredth time.
"Yes," Ed said quietly for the hundredth time. "If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't be going through with it." He stopped, his eyes dark and serious on Roy's. "Are you sure?"
Roy nodded.
Ed nodded back, satisfied. "Right." He stopped sketching on the floor and sat back on his heels, ran his hand through his hair and left a smudge of chalk on his forehead. "How come I didn't figure this out years ago?"
Roy smiled. "Because you didn't have me to goad you into it."
Ed gave him a long, long look, and then muttered "Bastard," before he went back to drawing.
When it was over, for a few moments Ed sat there, blinking and exhausted, as if he was not quite sure what to do next, and then he found the strength to close the distance between him and his brother. His unconscious, but living, breathing, flesh and bone brother.
Alphonse was beautiful. Roy watched Ed gather him up and felt like he shouldn't be there. As if he shouldn't be watching it.
Roy didn't hear from Ed for almost three weeks after that. Really, he didn't expect to.
When Ed walked in Roy's door the next time he closed it behind him softly and gave Roy a radiant smile. Roy closed the distance between them quickly, felt through that space between them, and Ed sank into Roy like he always did, as if he was trying to prove something to himself.
It only lasted a moment.
"We're only here to tie up a few things," Ed informed him coolly. "Al still needs a lot of rest."
Roy considered that space. Roy didn't resent Alphonse for it, not in the slightest.
"You've made a decision about this," he said, and backed away from Ed, expressionless.
Ed smirked at him briefly, but Roy stood in front of him, unwavering, until understanding colored Ed's cheeks in shades of anger and carved lines of disbelief around his eyes while the rest of him went perfectly still. "But-" he started.
"I'm sorry, Edward. Go home to your brother," Roy told him.
"This was all a mistake, wasn't it," Ed said slowly, and he looked too young, spoke in a tone that Roy had only heard a few times, like on a day on the steps of Central Headquarters when Ed had sat fiercely dry-eyed and huddled up. The way only the injustice and sadness of a terrible, unfortunate situation made him look and sound, and Roy couldn't manage to say anything but go home that day either.
Roy couldn't help quirking an eyebrow, shocked. "Was it?" he asked and almost choked on it.
Ed took a deep, shaky breath and nodded. Roy wasn't sure if he was nodding an affirmative or if there was some other reason. Perhaps another puzzle that had just fit neatly into place in Edward Elric's head. He would never know, because Ed whirled around and fumbled with the doorknob for a moment before he was gone.
"I would have helped you anyway," Roy said to the slamming door.
Alphonse Elric began writing letters to Roy with wispy, delicate handwriting that grew stronger with each one. The first one came a few days later. It promised that he would return the last book he borrowed from Roy when next he came to visit and spilled over with gratitude.
"Brigadier General, as you know, I asked you here today to discuss your release of Major Edward Elric from his obligations."
Roy nodded and smoothed his jacket for the tenth time since he had entered the room. "Yes, sir," he said mildly. It was just a routine questioning, one that he had known was coming. Compared to what it could be this would be nothing more than a hassle. It was at least a chance to get away from his desk for a few minutes.
"General Mustang, based on Major Elric's records, he was honorably discharged - cited as 'convenience to the government' - prior to the end of his commitment with the military. Elric was a valuable asset, as you yourself stated many times during his commission. I can't help but recall the time he intervened on the train." He paused to look at the picture of his wife and children in a dime-store-fancy frame on his desk. "Why did you authorize this?"
Major Elric. It sounded so completely foreign to Roy that he almost couldn't formulate a response. Never in all of the years Roy had known Edward had he ever addressed or even thought of him as Major Elric. Fullmetal, yes, and later, Edward, and later still, on certain occasions, simply Ed. In a way, though, perhaps the formality of Ed's title might make this conversation easier.
Roy summoned an authoritative expression and gazed at the Major General. "It's quite simple," he said. "It turns out that Major Elric wasn't worth the trouble."
Hakuro cocked an eyebrow and smiled at Roy with all the sincerity of a cheerleader. "Oh? Not worth the trouble? It certainly seems that he has been worth the trouble to you for the past five years."
Roy could smile like that too, and he could add undertones that shifted beneath that smile like cool sheets, dark nights. Things that conjured up ease and unrest, longing and disappointment. Hakuro was too simple to see anything but danger there, and Roy knew it.
"Fullmetal was always a handful," Roy replied, "but he served a purpose up to a point." He shrugged and it felt like a betrayal, even though this had always been part of the plan. "He lost his focus. I didn't feel it was in the best interest of either the boy or the military to continue his service."
Hakuro nodded. "I see. So the Fullmetal Alchemist lost his edge, did he?" He curled his lip up in a smirk that Roy wanted to wipe off his face with fire.
Roy settled for wincing inwardly at the abominable, awkward pun and forced himself to chuckle. "You could say that, yes."
Hakuro nodded again and seemed to be satisfied. "He is quite a hellion, isn't he."
Roy sighed. "Oh, you don't know the half of it."
Hakuro snorted. "Indeed, I didn't have the pleasure of his direct command. He did prove himself at his exam. I didn't envy you that day, let me tell you."
Roy laughed again, made it easy and light. "I suppose if he ever does settle down, I could seek him out again. He is rather brilliant, you know. I wouldn't be opposed to reconsidering it some day in the future. And the boy's brother is equally brilliant."
"Brother? The one who was always in the armor?"
Roy nodded. "Yes. He was always a sickly young man. I believe Edward was taking him to Xing to see about a treatment for his illness."
Hakuro's expression sobered. "I can read between the lines, Mustang. I understand what's really going on here."
Roy stiffened on the inside, but willed himself to remain smooth. "Oh? How so?"
"I've read Elric's file. Insubordination, wasting of State resources. I understand why you might want to protect the boy, but a mentor can only allow so much."
"Indeed," Roy said dryly.
"In the end, I think you made the right decision," Hakuro said, his tone turning conspiratorial. "You and I think alike, Mustang. Let's be honest here. We have our ambitions. It really wouldn't do to let a subordinate hamper those goals, now would it? Endanger oneself for the sake of a wayward, headstrong boy? Madness."
"Madness," Roy agreed, and tried not to snap his fingers.