Cost of a Secret Chapter 17
When Roy finally woke up that morning, he could smell pancakes cooking, along with some sausage, and he heard the sounds of voices. He registered one as Liam, then a woman and a man as well. He fought the sleep that felt somewhat unnatural. He wondered if, after he passed out, he had been drugged. He slowly fought the heavy sleep as he was able to distinguish the sound of Liam’s voice along with that of a man and a woman-both familiar, but in this state, he couldn’t be certain.
He tried to get up, only to realize that he was pinned down. Roy was half on his side with his left leg wrapped around someone’s hip, it felt, while their leg was between Roy’s, curling tightly over his right leg. A heavy arm and shoulder curled over Roy’s torso and warm breath steadily hit his own bare shoulder. Hair tickled beneath Roy’s chin, and he registered that the arm and shoulder he was feeling were not flesh and blood.
Roy opened his eyes fully to look down at the golden hair of his sleeping partner and the young man’s own shirtless state.
Sluggishly, he tried to move, but his arm felt heavy, despite the fact that it wasn’t being held in a death grip by Ed at the moment. However, the younger man seemed to feel the movement and Roy heard the distinctive little grunts and moans that signaled that Ed was waking up.
With a loud groan, Ed pulled himself from Roy. “Shit…” he said slowly as he tried to shift. It didn’t sound like a complaint about how they had woke up, but rather one of pain and ache, much like Roy was beginning to feel throughout his entire back and shoulders.
“I agree,” Roy said. “But why are you complaining?” After all, Ed wasn’t the one who had gotten the tattoo, and he wasn’t the one whose arm was throbbing in pain from being bitten the night before.
Ed looked at Roy with weary eyes and sat up to face him, looking like it was killing him to do so.
“Ed… what did you…?”
Ed shrugged with a wince at the movement and stood, very slowly, running a hand over his hair as though to straighten it. He then pulled out the braid and shook his long hair loose. Roy loved the hair that now went nearly to the teen’s waist, but he kept his thoughts to himself as he watched the young man roll his shoulders and neck.
“How are you feeling?” he asked the older man.
“Like someone ran over me with a car,” Roy replied as he attempted to sit up. He was now immensely grateful that Ed had transformed the floor of the living room into something much more comfortable.
“Well, darn, you caught me,” Ed said as he looked down at Roy. “I needed a way to get revenge, so I hauled your ass outside after you passed out and practiced my driving over top of you.”
Ed held out a hand to him, and as Roy reached up to take his former lover’s hand, he noted the bandages on his arm. He suddenly remembered being in so much pain that he’d bit down until he’d broken the flesh.
“I’m sorry,” Ed said. “Al threw up when the pain got too bad for him, started choking, so I couldn’t be sure what would happen to you. Guess I should have given you something other than your arm.” He gave a tired smile as his hand remained outstretched.
“Is there a reason your shirt is off?” Roy asked. “And what do you mean about Al?”
“We’ll start with Al,” Ed said, lowering the hand and looking down at Roy. “I needed to transfer Ed’s tattoo to someone. Al was willing to take part of it.”
“That’s why you looked so sick when I came in,” Roy said.
“Well, yeah, mostly. It isn’t every day a person is asked to torture people he cares about, you know?” Roy looked at Ed’s eyes, sad and older than they were before, but a part of him hoped that the way Ed had phrased that had been intentional, that he was telling Roy he cared about him. “Besides, those tattoos hurt like hell.” He pulled at the top of his pants and showed Roy something that looked like a circle at his right hip.
“You took…”
“Part of my namesake’s tattoo. Just in case.” He held out his hand to Roy again. “Come on, I smell food and I think Melissa’s making breakfast. She’s a really awesome woman. Riza should be glad that you’re such an idiot when it comes to your relationships.”
Roy knew that particular phrase had been intentional, even if the other wasn’t. He took the hand offered and stood, feeling uncertain on his feet with the soft surface beneath.
“Don’t be a baby about it,” Ed told him. “What happened to the man who all but swore he had the pain tolerance to deal with this?”
“He took a little more of the tattoo than your little circle there,” Roy said with a frown as he stood. “I’d like to check a mirror first.”
“Are you honestly that vain? You know what it looks like. Let it drop.”
Roy raised an eyebrow. Despite his still groggy state, he could sense something suspicious in the other alchemist’s behavior. He took a few steps forward, hearing a resigned sigh from behind him, as though Ed was already giving up on stopping him. Yes, there was definitely something wrong, more than just the break up or the way they had woke up holding one another.
He glanced back at Ed and realized now why the younger man hadn’t wanted him to look in the mirror. The blond was knelt down on the floor, transmuting the soft surface back to carpeting and wood. As the transmutation took place, the blast of energy blew the long blond hair from his back. And that was when Roy saw them. Nearly every piece of the transmutation circle, except for the lettering, decorated the teen’s back. Roy couldn’t believe that he had passed out with only so little done to himself, while Ed had managed to do that to himself.
Then, as the feelings of inferiority to Ed’s pain tolerance faded, his anger grew.
“You were told to transfer the whole circle onto me,” Roy snapped.
“Yeah, well, that wasn’t going to happen once you fainted,” Ed said as he stood. “I wasn’t going to keep torturing an unconscious man. Besides, it’s off the kid this way.”
“That wasn’t the point,” the older man growled. “This isn’t your responsibility.”
“You didn’t mind when I had the cat’s tattoo on me. What’s so different about this?” Ed asked blandly, putting his arms across his chest defensively.
“I did mind. I mind because what has happened to my son and to that damned cat is my burden to take on. It’s my risk to take, not yours.”
“Yeah, so that the next time you run into your lovely ex, she can blend you with an animal and make a nice little Mustang chimera,” Ed said. “I never had any intention of risking it. I’d have knocked you out if you hadn’t done it on your own.” Roy opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off. “You are all your son has, aside from a psychopathic bitch of a mother.”
“And you think she only holds a grudge against me?” Roy hissed, trying not to let his voice carry so that his son would hear. “You denied her the right to study her projects as much as I did. Her loathing for you is only overshadowed by how much she hates me.”
“So, you’re allowed to protect me from her, but not the other way around?” Ed had managed to keep his tone surprisingly cool, even as Roy quietly raged at him.
“Yes,” Roy said, pointing his finger in the young man’s face. “I’m grateful to have Liam, but she was my mistake.”
“Yeah, and a long time ago, we both more or less accepted to start helping one another with our mistakes.”
“After the way things ended, I seriously doubt that still applies,” Roy answered.
“We’ve been covering one another’s asses long before we started dating, Roy,” Ed said. “Back when we were only friends, we did. I don’t see why things should change now.” And with that, the blond walked by the older man.
“How are you still thinking so straight?” The older man asked, as his own emotions and mind seemed to be lost in the fog from the drugs. “I know you said I passed out, but I feel drugged. So why don’t you seem bothered by it?”
“I let Melissa do that while I was treating your arm.” Ed looked down the bandage a moment before meeting Roy’s eye again. “And I’m not bothered by the drugs because I wasn’t given any. The pain’s worse, but comparable to getting automail installed. I didn’t pass out like you or Al.”
He may not have passed out, but he certainly looked exhausted and in as much aching pain as Roy, himself, was. The older man knew Ed’s tells well enough by now. The way his body seemed to struggle to hold the weight of his automail. That was always a sign of pain and exhaustion in the younger man, even when he was trying very hard not to show it. Before, Roy would have offered the young man a massage, or just gone up behind him to rub his shoulders. He thought that, as a gesture of gratitude, if nothing else, he might have done so by now despite all that had happened between them, but Roy had to admit he was still too sore to do much of anything, let alone do anything more than idly move his hands around on Ed’s shoulders.
Breakfast was a strange affair, as the three men all tried in one breath to let the pregnant woman sit down and in the next let her treat them for their aches and pains. “Just sit down, all of you,” she said. “Stop being so stubborn. My life would be so much simpler without dealing with Elrics and Mustangs.”
“Can I help you?” Liam asked. “I’m not officially a Mustang yet.”
“Of course you can,” Melissa told the boy, ruffling his hair. “Can you help clear the plates? But just take them one or two at a time.” Liam nodded and eagerly helped her. He seemed very pleased that he was finally free of the damned tattoo, and Ed was glad. He might not be able to get rid of the memories of what he went through, but he could at least eliminate the daily reminder.
Ed watched as the boy cleared his dishes, and he quite honestly didn’t have the energy to try to tell him that he was more than capable of clearing them for himself.
Melissa was busy checking Roy’s back, having already done so to Al and Ed when Liam looked up at Ed, the blond’s glass in his hands. “Ed?” he asked, making the younger man look down at the lightly freckled face.
“Hmm?” he asked, surprised to find he didn’t even seem to have the energy for a proper response or even an actual word.
“I know you hurt today, but… if you didn’t, I think I’d have to hug you.” Those brown eyes, so different from Roy’s coal black, twitched as they scanned his face. Ed managed to find the effort to smile and to pat the boy’s arm. He received a smile in return.
“I appreciate the thought. And maybe later, I’ll take you up on that.”
Ed caught Roy looking at them, and he couldn’t help but miss the almost wistful expression on the older man’s face. As gold eyes met black, Ed was practically shouting his thoughts that if Roy wanted to see this so much, he should have trusted him. It seemed that the man got the message because he turned away quickly to look down at the tablecloth.
“Well, the only thing that I can recommend for the three of you is plenty of rest and that you call me if anything changes,” Melissa said. “I want to see all four of you at the end of the week to see how you are doing.” Three heads bobbed up and then down. “It’s time for someone to get ready for school. The bus should be coming any time now.”
Liam, who was already dressed, nodded and went to grab his bookbag, coat and shoes.
“You’re a natural mother,” Roy told her.
“Let’s hope so,” she replied as she rested her hand on her stomach. Ed had noticed her doing that quite a bit, particularly when Liam would talk about how things had been with his mother. There were times over the night, as she helped Ed deal with Roy and check on Al, Ed questioned just what it was that had made Roy dump her.
“We just didn’t work,” she said quietly as she gave Al some medicine that would let him sleep. The blond looked up at her in surprise. “I can tell. You’ve been watching me all night with this… look.”
“I thought maybe it was because you were, you know, more interested in women.” His voice was hoarse from screaming over the night, and his speech was slurred with his need for sleep that he wouldn’t allow to come until everyone else had been sorted.
“No,” Melissa said. “Roy is at once an easy man to love and a very difficult man to love.” Ed rolled his eyes, despite the fact that it hurt to do so. He knew that about the man all too well. “For all of his confidence and smug attitude, he is not a very confident man. He holds very strongly in the Xingian beliefs in karma, and I think he feels he only deserves very bad karma for what he’s done in the past.”
“Yeah, as though losing an eye and having limited range of movement in his shoulder isn’t that,” Ed scoffed.
“He’s only smug when he isn’t happy, if you will notice,” she said. “Riza pointed it out to me. The worse things go in his personal life, the more that he feels the world is in order and he can be at peace. He gets unsettled, nervous when things go right for him.”
“Like he expects them to be taken away,” Ed said with a faint nod. He’d noticed that.
“Imagine how he’d react to falling in love,” she said. “I imagine he’d be distant and try not to get himself invested emotionally. He’d be waiting and watching for the moment when it all fell apart, just as he knew it would. A self-fulfilling prophecy.”
It had given Ed something to think about. It didn’t make what Roy had done right, but it was some food for thought. A part of Ed wanted to be vindictive and let Roy have his self-fulfilling prophecy, but there was yet another part of him that wanted to prove him wrong. He could show Roy that the age difference, the fact that he had a damaged eye, that he had a son, none of that mattered to Ed.
And truly, it didn’t.
What mattered were the lying and the fact that Roy was so terrified to invest himself in their relationship. Those were Ed’s stumbling blocks when it came to what he and Roy had, and he honestly wasn’t sure he could get past them. He did love the man. Like Melissa had said, that was a remarkably easy thing to do, but staying with him and forcing the man to lower his defenses… Ed had faced certain death, homunculi and battle, but this seemed the most daunting task he’d ever come across.
A voice, that sounded annoyingly like Al, in the back of his mind asked him if he thought it was worth it.
As he watched the boy head out for school and both Ed and Al prepared to leave to recover at the apartment, Ed still didn’t know that he had an answer to that question.
“I’m sure that Jean will be worried about you, spending two nights in a row here,” Roy said.
“Maybe. He’s a good enough friend to do that,” Ed said. He knew that whether or not it was worth it, the lies on his end of things at least needed to stop. “Good enough of a friend to let his boss assume the wrong things about both of us because he wanted to protect me and irritate the hell out of said boss.”
Roy stared at him blankly as Ed put on his coat. “You two aren’t…”
“I’m not a slut and Jean plays for the wrong team for that to happen,” Ed’s raspy voice snapped.
“I didn’t mean to suggest-”
“I don’t care what you meant to do,” Ed said, anger dissipating and fading. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow, I guess.”
Roy nodded numbly as he watched Ed leave, waiting on the porch just to be away from him. He saw the younger brother, still in the foyer of the house, seated on the bench and tying his shoes.
“I really didn’t mean it that way.”
“Unfortunately, Roy,” Al said as he tied his shoes not far from where they stood. “That’s exactly what you did. You are very good at making assumptions. Like, for instance, that I still have any desire to be a state alchemist. I have a life in Risembool now, and while I’m upset that you and my brother made that decision for me instead of leaving me to do it, I’m happy with my life as it was.”
“You were talking to Noolan.”
Al sighed as he stood. “Noolan was talking to me. He cornered me and has been trying to get me to talk with him for months. He’s been sending so many letters out, Winry doesn’t know what to do with them all.”
He walked to the front door, pausing as his hand gripped the knob. “You also assume that this thing between you and Ed isn’t repairable. I believe it is. With some work on your part. If you can manage to treat him a little better, I might even give my blessing for it because I want my brother happy. He deserves it, and you might too if you can redeem yourself to him.”
And with that, Al was gone, walking down the front sidewalk with Ed and Roy continued to watch from the window even after they turned a corner and vanished from his view.