Fic: Nail Polish
Title: Nail Polish
Author: Danielle Anderson
Pairing: Roy/Ed
Summary: The first in a series of follow-up ficlets to Metamorphosis because of popular demand.
Warning: girl!Ed. Don't like, don't read, don't flame
A/N: cryogenia and ceirwy were wondering if girl!Ed would enjoy being feminine so I wrote this back in September but was too lazy to post until now. Many thanks to my beta everydaylove.
After the rain has fallen
After the tears have washed your eyes
You find that I've take nothing, that
Love can't replace in the blink of an eye
Sting, “After the rain”
Roy Mustang has come to look forward to Tuesdays because that’s Ed’s day off (other than the weekend). Ed likes to come visit him during lunchtime and sometimes, they go out somewhere to eat, or if Roy is unlucky, she brings him something she made herself. And after they are done eating, they stay in his office and fool around a bit...or just talk, depending on Ed’s mood. Once Fuery walked in on them while Roy was kissing her neck with her sitting on his lap, and Fuery blushed brilliantly and apologized profusely.
It was after that that he let his staff know that Ed and he were in a relationship now. Everyone, except Hawkeye, stared at him with bulging eyes that made him think of cartoon characters.
He has never taken Ed to the cinema. She prefers to sit with him in a park on a bench, or under a tree because it reminds her of Risembool.
“When I was a kid,” she once told him, “Al and I would spend most of our time outdoors. We either played or watched our mom doing housework. She’d set bed sheets out to dry on sunny days and sometimes, Al and I would get them dirty again.” She had this lost, distant look in her eyes, a look that she always gets when she is remembering something and sometimes, Roy thinks that she dwells on the past more than he does. He listened to her patiently while she leaned against the tree and folded her arms behind her head.
She is doing that right now. They have just had lunch from a hotdog vendor in the park because he just couldn’t take her cooking anymore (he didn’t tell her this directly; as soon as she stepped into his office, he took her in his arms and kissed her until she was dazed...and then he suggested that they eat out).
Roy is sitting beside her as usual and they watch other couples hold hands and walk, or make out in the park. These things always make Ed uncomfortable, being as shy as she is. She scowls at a couple kissing passionately several yards away from them and she determinedly fixes her gaze on a cotton candy vendor on the other side.
Amused, he boldly reaches out and takes her left hand in his. She turns to look at him, startled and then he slowly pulls off her cotton glove and laces their fingers together with a taunting but gentle smile. She looks at their joined hands and turns away, blushing. He chuckles. Ed has never been big on public displays of affection, obvious from the way she frowns at couples kissing. He once told her that they were just in love; she retorted by saying that the whole world doesn’t need to know that they were in love. He wanted to tell her that sometimes, he wants to shout out from rooftops that he is in love with Edward Elric.
She won’t even let him kiss her in public, or even let him put his arm around her. So he contends himself with just holding her hand. It is a simple gesture but it speaks volumes to her, although she doesn’t show it.
“You look nice today,” he says with quiet sincerity.
She turns red again, forehead creasing in embarrassment. Compliments always embarrass her and she is yet to get used to them. “Yeah, you, too,” she says. “But that uniform’s getting kinda boring to look at.”
“Boring?” he echoes in mock offence. “Why, women find nothing more irresistible than a man in uniform.”
“Oh, sure,” she replies cheekily. “That’s because they don’t know that most men in uniform are smug, lazy bastards.” Then she looks at him sharply. “And if this is your way of letting me know that you’ve been cheating on me, then you better say your prayers before I kick your sorry ass.”
Roy laughs. “I would never cheat on you.” He smiles at her.
But it is true. He hasn’t even looked at another woman after he started going out with Ed. Which is saying something because before he fell in love with her, he used to check out other women whenever he got the chance.
“Yeah, well, good,” she huffs and looks away.
He smiles again and looks down on their entwined hands on his knee. Her fingernails are neatly trimmed and their hands fit perfectly together.
Just like their bodies.
Ed’s human hand is warm and surprisingly soft, considering the amount of work she did when she was in the military. He loves touching it, holding it, kissing it, licking it.
She doesn’t really understand the fascination her body holds for him. He spends a considerable amount of time in foreplay adoring her body with his hands and lips until she snaps impatiently, “Will you get on with it?” Of course she enjoys his attentions but she doesn’t quite understand them.
The reason is quite simple. Her body fascinates him simply because it is hers.
Roy looks up. The offending couple is not there anymore, probably having left for a place where they can get more privacy. The cotton candy vendor isn’t there, either. So what is Ed looking at now?
He follows her gaze to a bench where a young girl of about nineteen is sitting. She is hunched over, carefully painting her nails the way a painter brushes on a canvas.
This action seems to remind Ed of something, for she now flexes her metal hand and then she looks at her flesh hand and turns away, sadness dimming her golden eyes.
Roy notices this and frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” she shrugs, but she continues looking wistfully at that girl and his curiosity is peaked.
“Tell me,” he insists.
“It’s nothing, all right?” she reiterates irritably and then she looks down, picking at the grass idly.
“Edward,” he says, making her grimace. She knows that he means business when he calls her Edward instead of sweetheart or baby - which infuriates her to no end (who’re you calling so small that she looks like a newborn infant that just crawled of its mother’s womb?).
“Look, it doesn’t matter, okay?” she says stiffly. And then she sighs. “It’s just that...when I was a kid, I used to love wearing nail polish. I think I even broke a few bottles of Mom’s favorite shades. And after she died, I...” she stops and awkwardly gestures towards her automail limbs.
Roy looks at her in quiet observation as the meaning of what she has just said sinks in. “I see,” he says. “But you do know that you can still...”
“There’s no point,” she shakes her head. “I can’t paint the automail. And it’d look pretty ridiculous if I had nail polish on just one hand and one foot.” She smiles wanly upon seeing the consternation on his face. “It’s not a big deal, Roy.”
He doesn’t know what to say to this. Ed has always been proud, too proud to admit a weakness, and not vain enough to indulge in the feminine habits of other young women. Somewhere along her high pride and nonexistent vanity, she has just admitted a weakness for nail polish.
Roy feels something akin to sympathy for her but he keeps his mouth shut and holds her hand tighter instead, squeezing it for comfort. Edward, despite her namesake (and having a much older boyfriend), is still a young girl. It’s only natural that she be interested in such things.
She’s looking at the other girl again, who has just finished painting her nails and is now admiring them. Ed looks a little relieved as the girl gets up and leaves because she can now fully concentrate on him and hide her weakness.
“So,” she smiles brightly. Roy can tell that it is a forced smile because it is too bright. “Has Hughes shown you the newest pictures of Elysia yet? Don’t get me wrong but - ” she is silenced by a pair of warm lips descending on hers.
He smiles against the kiss and pulls away after a moment. She looks slightly dazed for a moment and then she glares at him.
“Did you just kiss me in public?” she threatens in a low voice.
He smirks. Embarrassing Edward has always been fun.
*
When he goes back to work after lunch, Roy watches Hawkeye carefully as she comes to stand beside him and make sure that he does his work, the way parents have to make sure that their children do their homework. He thought that dating Havoc would mellow her down a bit since the other man always seems to have a cool temper, but she is still as strict and professional as ever, and there is no way he can play hooky with the blasted paperwork.
To him, Hawkeye has always been Hawkeye - someone who has sworn to protect him and help him achieve his goals - and he’s never really thought of her as a woman. But now, after his conversation with Ed, he finds himself gazing at her hands, which are almost hidden by the manila folder she holds her to chest.
She looks at him suspiciously. “Is something the matter, sir?” she says in a voice that implies, If you’re staring at my breasts, I’ll shoot you.
Her nails are carefully shaped and manicured and her hands are smooth and ladylike, despite her obsession with guns. She hasn’t used any color of them but they are glossy and shining in the light and he is reminded of Edward.
“Lieutenant,” he decides to explain himself before she shoots him because she is getting a dangerous glint in her eye, which makes him wonder how Havoc can handle her.
Does she tie him up in bed and threaten him with a gun when they make love? he wonders, but he quickly pushes that disturbing image out of his mind because when he dreams, he would rather dream of Edward, or becoming Fuhrer, (or even cauliflowers) and not Havoc and Hawkeye doing bondage.
She quirks an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for him to go on.
He continues. “Do you like wearing nail polish?” The question comes out off-handedly enough and for once, Hawkeye seems genuinely surprised and he imagines giving himself a congratulatory pat on the shoulder because that woman always seems to know everything.
This is proof that Hawkeye is not God.
“Nail polish?” she echoes, her face softening in confusion. “I...I suppose I do like to use it once in a while. Why?”
“Hmm,” he smirks and leans back in his chair, regarding her nails. She looks at him, expecting a reply.
“Edward showed some interest in it today,” he says, looking thoughtful.
“Ah, I see,” she nods understandingly and there’s a brief look of curiosity in her brown eyes before she covers it under a mask of professionalism. “Will that be all, sir?”
He is silent for a moment. “Yes.”
*
Two days later, he accompanies Ed to an open-air market because she has been talking about new gloves. Apparently, she burnt her normal pair in a lab accident (minor one, nothing to worry about) and she doesn’t want to go around showing off her automail hand. Roy doesn’t particularly enjoy shopping - usually he tries to avoid it - but he goes with her because it’s a way of spending more time together. He doesn’t like how women generally spend so much time browsing through stores just for one simple thing, but this is Ed so he guesses that she’ll just grab whatever’s convenient and then they can go off elsewhere.
After entering and exiting glove stores for an hour, Edward finally settles for a pair of plain white linen gloves.
Which makes Roy’s mouth drop open.
“This is what you’re buying?” he cries.
She looks at him, confused. “Uh, yeah.” She pays for them.
“But we saw a pair exactly like these in the first stall!”
“Well...I like these better.”
“Hey, Roy,” a strong hand clamps down on Roy’s shoulder and he shudders, recognizing Hughes’ voice. “What are you two doing here?” the other man continues excitedly. “It’s so great to see you! By the way, have you seen these latest pictures of Elysia? Just wait until you see them! She looks like an angel in that butterfly costume...”
Roy looks helplessly at his sweetheart, who slinks away with a lopsided little smile on her face. Brat. Leaving him alone to endure the products of Hughes’ photography fetish. Some girlfriend you are.
Yes, Elysia does indeed look adorable in the butterfly costume, even more so in a honeybee costume and Roy has to repeat it twenty times until his friend is fully satisfied.
“So,” says the Lieutenant Colonel, finally putting away the (infernal) photos. “What are you doing here with uh...you know who?” he wriggles his eyebrows towards Ed, who has wandered into a cosmetics stall.
Roy is a little surprised and he takes some time to answer. “She’s my girlfriend, Hughes,” he says morosely.
“Oh, so she’s your girlfriend now, huh?” Hughes pokes him in the ribs with his elbows and smiles knowingly. It is quite irritating.
“I’ve had many in the past,” Roy points out coolly. “But if you must know, this one’s here to stay.” He grins briefly.
“Oooh,” the other man exclaims gleefully. “So you’re here shopping for the upcoming wedding, I see...I’m hurt that you didn’t let me know before but I still get to be the best man, right?”
“There’s no wedding!” Roy protests, starting to lose his temper.
Hughes seems unfazed, like he always does. “Well, maybe she’s hinting at something, Roy, I mean, some wedding gowns do come with gloves.” He goes into a rant about how attractive Gracia’s silk white gloves looked on their wedding day but Roy is saved from having to listen when he is distracted by Ed standing at the counter of the cosmetics stall, turning over a bottle of nail polish in her hand. He can’t see the color from this distance but he notices that she is looking at it with the same expression she wore at the park. It is like she has found a long lost childhood friend and now that they are finally together, they don’t know what to say to each other because so much has happened since they parted.
He doesn’t like this. He’s used to seeing determination in Ed’s eyes, and he would rather have her scream at him, insult him, even refuse sex than look so...defeated.
He takes a hasty leave from Hughes, who has to go back to his family waiting in the car, and he goes to Ed’s side to offer a small gesture that he shares her pain. Scowling deeply like a child who has just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she quickly puts the bottle away and follows him out. But she still has that look on her face like she went into a fight and lost.
Something has to be done about this.
*
“Would you like to come and have dinner on Friday night?” Ed asks.
Roy can’t stop a groan. “Are you cooking?”
She fixes him with a death glare. “I’ll order out.”
He tries to hide his relief at this but fails because she is now flushing and glowering at him like she would enjoy nothing better than to punch him in the face but he is happy because at least she doesn’t look defeated.
*
On Friday afternoon, Roy takes off early, telling Hawkeye that he has a date. She, for once, nods understandingly and doesn’t try to stop him probably because she has a rendezvous with Havoc later tonight. He smirks and goes on his way, a bounce in his step giving him the air of a little boy who got permission to leave school early.
He takes a cab to the market where he and Ed went the other day and manages to find the cosmetics stall where she was lingering. He can’t find the shade of nail polish she was looking at, so he flashes his most disarming smile at the attendant, who visibly melts. She reminds him of a girl he slept with last year but he has slept with so many women before he fell in love with Edward that he can’t remember all their faces, let alone their names.
“I came here two or three days ago,” he explains to her, “with a young girl. You must remember her - she was short and blonde.” (Thank God Ed isn’t here to hear him calling her short.)
“Ah, yes,” the woman remembers. “She was looking at a bottle of nail polish here. I remember her.”
“Could you show me the one she was looking at?” he requests. “If you remember it, of course.”
“Certainly, sir,” the woman comes back a moment later with a little glass bottle. The nail polish is a beautiful golden brown shade, pearly and glossy. For some reason, it reminds him of sunshine and trees.
He smirks. “I’ll take it.”
*
Dinner is fairly uneventful. Ed hasn’t ordered out the way she said she would (Roy suspects that she did so to spite him) and she has even taken the trouble to set a table for two in the small dining-room with a candle in the middle.
Roy can’t help being amused. “Candlelight dinner?” he teases her.
Her cheeks color. “Shut up.”
He chuckles and eats, grateful that at least she hasn’t burnt the chicken.
After dinner, they sit together on the couch. Ed is not as stiff as she used to be. She has crossed her legs comfortably on the cushions, barefoot, and she is talking about one of her colleagues at the labs. This colleague is a real bitch, she can’t do any work but she has really nice long nails...Ed trails off.
They regard each other in cautious silence, like two soldiers trying to figure out each other’s next move, and then Roy clears his throat. “I...uh...got you something today.”
“Oh, great. What is it?” her eyes widen like those of a little girl about to receive a surprise gift from her father, and she seems grateful to have a change of topic. “It’s not one of those milk candies, right?” Her face hardens a bit. “’Cause I told you they weren’t funny.”
Roy looks at her and laughs nervously. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little paper packet.
“Open it,” she looks interested. He does so, watching her expression carefully as she sees the nail polish.
“This is what I got you,” he says quietly.
Her cherry lips part in silent shock as she looks at what is in his hand. “Roy,” she begins after an eternity of tense silence, her face pale. “You shouldn’t have...”
And there’s that defeated look in her eyes again. Defeated and beaten, resigned, things that he can accept from anyone but her. “I wanted to,” he insists, earnest gaze resting on her downcast face. “I didn’t want you to look sad all the time whenever you saw nail polish.”
She opens her mouth to say something but he cuts her off, “So I got you this...”
“You know I can’t put this on,” she points out.
“I don’t see why not,” he frowns a little. “Give me your hand...”
“No!”
“Come on, it’s okay, just give me your hand.”
“Like hell I will!”
“Edward.”
“Fine.” With a childish pout, she holds out her flesh hand and looks away deliberately. He sighs in exasperation as he shakes the bottle a few times and carefully starts to apply the color to her fingernails. He has never done this before and although he is skilled at doing other things with his hands, like taking off hair ties and unbuttoning shirts, his hands tremble slightly but he steels himself and applies the polish with smooth, even strokes, though some of it smears on the sides.
Ed refused to look earlier but now she is watching him intently. In a few minutes, he is done with her hand.
“Okay,” he says. “Now give me your foot.”
She complies with a little grimace and he sets to work.
A while later, he draws back and winces at the mess he’s made but he still cradles her foot on his lap. Her golden eyes are wide with wonder and she reminds him of watching his mother and ex-girlfriends put on nail polish. Sure, he thought it was pretty, but he never thought he would be doing this for someone else.
Ed looks down in disbelief at her human nails polished in the pearly brown shade that gleams in the dim light of the room. She slowly looks up at her lover. “You really didn’t have to do this,” she says softly.
“I didn’t have to,” he agrees, his voice equally soft in the semi-darkness. “I wanted to.”
She breaks into a happy smile as she flexes her human hand and wriggles her human toes as though she still cannot believe that she is wearing nail polish. “They look so pretty,” she beams at him, not minding the smudges on the sides at all. He smiles back at her, happy. Then she lunges forward to throw her arms around his neck and he finds himself pushed back on the couch, surprised and laughing as her lips cover his.
And he knows he’ll get it good tonight.
Comments are much-appreciated.
Author: Danielle Anderson
Pairing: Roy/Ed
Summary: The first in a series of follow-up ficlets to Metamorphosis because of popular demand.
Warning: girl!Ed. Don't like, don't read, don't flame
A/N: cryogenia and ceirwy were wondering if girl!Ed would enjoy being feminine so I wrote this back in September but was too lazy to post until now. Many thanks to my beta everydaylove.
After the rain has fallen
After the tears have washed your eyes
You find that I've take nothing, that
Love can't replace in the blink of an eye
Sting, “After the rain”
Roy Mustang has come to look forward to Tuesdays because that’s Ed’s day off (other than the weekend). Ed likes to come visit him during lunchtime and sometimes, they go out somewhere to eat, or if Roy is unlucky, she brings him something she made herself. And after they are done eating, they stay in his office and fool around a bit...or just talk, depending on Ed’s mood. Once Fuery walked in on them while Roy was kissing her neck with her sitting on his lap, and Fuery blushed brilliantly and apologized profusely.
It was after that that he let his staff know that Ed and he were in a relationship now. Everyone, except Hawkeye, stared at him with bulging eyes that made him think of cartoon characters.
He has never taken Ed to the cinema. She prefers to sit with him in a park on a bench, or under a tree because it reminds her of Risembool.
“When I was a kid,” she once told him, “Al and I would spend most of our time outdoors. We either played or watched our mom doing housework. She’d set bed sheets out to dry on sunny days and sometimes, Al and I would get them dirty again.” She had this lost, distant look in her eyes, a look that she always gets when she is remembering something and sometimes, Roy thinks that she dwells on the past more than he does. He listened to her patiently while she leaned against the tree and folded her arms behind her head.
She is doing that right now. They have just had lunch from a hotdog vendor in the park because he just couldn’t take her cooking anymore (he didn’t tell her this directly; as soon as she stepped into his office, he took her in his arms and kissed her until she was dazed...and then he suggested that they eat out).
Roy is sitting beside her as usual and they watch other couples hold hands and walk, or make out in the park. These things always make Ed uncomfortable, being as shy as she is. She scowls at a couple kissing passionately several yards away from them and she determinedly fixes her gaze on a cotton candy vendor on the other side.
Amused, he boldly reaches out and takes her left hand in his. She turns to look at him, startled and then he slowly pulls off her cotton glove and laces their fingers together with a taunting but gentle smile. She looks at their joined hands and turns away, blushing. He chuckles. Ed has never been big on public displays of affection, obvious from the way she frowns at couples kissing. He once told her that they were just in love; she retorted by saying that the whole world doesn’t need to know that they were in love. He wanted to tell her that sometimes, he wants to shout out from rooftops that he is in love with Edward Elric.
She won’t even let him kiss her in public, or even let him put his arm around her. So he contends himself with just holding her hand. It is a simple gesture but it speaks volumes to her, although she doesn’t show it.
“You look nice today,” he says with quiet sincerity.
She turns red again, forehead creasing in embarrassment. Compliments always embarrass her and she is yet to get used to them. “Yeah, you, too,” she says. “But that uniform’s getting kinda boring to look at.”
“Boring?” he echoes in mock offence. “Why, women find nothing more irresistible than a man in uniform.”
“Oh, sure,” she replies cheekily. “That’s because they don’t know that most men in uniform are smug, lazy bastards.” Then she looks at him sharply. “And if this is your way of letting me know that you’ve been cheating on me, then you better say your prayers before I kick your sorry ass.”
Roy laughs. “I would never cheat on you.” He smiles at her.
But it is true. He hasn’t even looked at another woman after he started going out with Ed. Which is saying something because before he fell in love with her, he used to check out other women whenever he got the chance.
“Yeah, well, good,” she huffs and looks away.
He smiles again and looks down on their entwined hands on his knee. Her fingernails are neatly trimmed and their hands fit perfectly together.
Just like their bodies.
Ed’s human hand is warm and surprisingly soft, considering the amount of work she did when she was in the military. He loves touching it, holding it, kissing it, licking it.
She doesn’t really understand the fascination her body holds for him. He spends a considerable amount of time in foreplay adoring her body with his hands and lips until she snaps impatiently, “Will you get on with it?” Of course she enjoys his attentions but she doesn’t quite understand them.
The reason is quite simple. Her body fascinates him simply because it is hers.
Roy looks up. The offending couple is not there anymore, probably having left for a place where they can get more privacy. The cotton candy vendor isn’t there, either. So what is Ed looking at now?
He follows her gaze to a bench where a young girl of about nineteen is sitting. She is hunched over, carefully painting her nails the way a painter brushes on a canvas.
This action seems to remind Ed of something, for she now flexes her metal hand and then she looks at her flesh hand and turns away, sadness dimming her golden eyes.
Roy notices this and frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” she shrugs, but she continues looking wistfully at that girl and his curiosity is peaked.
“Tell me,” he insists.
“It’s nothing, all right?” she reiterates irritably and then she looks down, picking at the grass idly.
“Edward,” he says, making her grimace. She knows that he means business when he calls her Edward instead of sweetheart or baby - which infuriates her to no end (who’re you calling so small that she looks like a newborn infant that just crawled of its mother’s womb?).
“Look, it doesn’t matter, okay?” she says stiffly. And then she sighs. “It’s just that...when I was a kid, I used to love wearing nail polish. I think I even broke a few bottles of Mom’s favorite shades. And after she died, I...” she stops and awkwardly gestures towards her automail limbs.
Roy looks at her in quiet observation as the meaning of what she has just said sinks in. “I see,” he says. “But you do know that you can still...”
“There’s no point,” she shakes her head. “I can’t paint the automail. And it’d look pretty ridiculous if I had nail polish on just one hand and one foot.” She smiles wanly upon seeing the consternation on his face. “It’s not a big deal, Roy.”
He doesn’t know what to say to this. Ed has always been proud, too proud to admit a weakness, and not vain enough to indulge in the feminine habits of other young women. Somewhere along her high pride and nonexistent vanity, she has just admitted a weakness for nail polish.
Roy feels something akin to sympathy for her but he keeps his mouth shut and holds her hand tighter instead, squeezing it for comfort. Edward, despite her namesake (and having a much older boyfriend), is still a young girl. It’s only natural that she be interested in such things.
She’s looking at the other girl again, who has just finished painting her nails and is now admiring them. Ed looks a little relieved as the girl gets up and leaves because she can now fully concentrate on him and hide her weakness.
“So,” she smiles brightly. Roy can tell that it is a forced smile because it is too bright. “Has Hughes shown you the newest pictures of Elysia yet? Don’t get me wrong but - ” she is silenced by a pair of warm lips descending on hers.
He smiles against the kiss and pulls away after a moment. She looks slightly dazed for a moment and then she glares at him.
“Did you just kiss me in public?” she threatens in a low voice.
He smirks. Embarrassing Edward has always been fun.
*
When he goes back to work after lunch, Roy watches Hawkeye carefully as she comes to stand beside him and make sure that he does his work, the way parents have to make sure that their children do their homework. He thought that dating Havoc would mellow her down a bit since the other man always seems to have a cool temper, but she is still as strict and professional as ever, and there is no way he can play hooky with the blasted paperwork.
To him, Hawkeye has always been Hawkeye - someone who has sworn to protect him and help him achieve his goals - and he’s never really thought of her as a woman. But now, after his conversation with Ed, he finds himself gazing at her hands, which are almost hidden by the manila folder she holds her to chest.
She looks at him suspiciously. “Is something the matter, sir?” she says in a voice that implies, If you’re staring at my breasts, I’ll shoot you.
Her nails are carefully shaped and manicured and her hands are smooth and ladylike, despite her obsession with guns. She hasn’t used any color of them but they are glossy and shining in the light and he is reminded of Edward.
“Lieutenant,” he decides to explain himself before she shoots him because she is getting a dangerous glint in her eye, which makes him wonder how Havoc can handle her.
Does she tie him up in bed and threaten him with a gun when they make love? he wonders, but he quickly pushes that disturbing image out of his mind because when he dreams, he would rather dream of Edward, or becoming Fuhrer, (or even cauliflowers) and not Havoc and Hawkeye doing bondage.
She quirks an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for him to go on.
He continues. “Do you like wearing nail polish?” The question comes out off-handedly enough and for once, Hawkeye seems genuinely surprised and he imagines giving himself a congratulatory pat on the shoulder because that woman always seems to know everything.
This is proof that Hawkeye is not God.
“Nail polish?” she echoes, her face softening in confusion. “I...I suppose I do like to use it once in a while. Why?”
“Hmm,” he smirks and leans back in his chair, regarding her nails. She looks at him, expecting a reply.
“Edward showed some interest in it today,” he says, looking thoughtful.
“Ah, I see,” she nods understandingly and there’s a brief look of curiosity in her brown eyes before she covers it under a mask of professionalism. “Will that be all, sir?”
He is silent for a moment. “Yes.”
*
Two days later, he accompanies Ed to an open-air market because she has been talking about new gloves. Apparently, she burnt her normal pair in a lab accident (minor one, nothing to worry about) and she doesn’t want to go around showing off her automail hand. Roy doesn’t particularly enjoy shopping - usually he tries to avoid it - but he goes with her because it’s a way of spending more time together. He doesn’t like how women generally spend so much time browsing through stores just for one simple thing, but this is Ed so he guesses that she’ll just grab whatever’s convenient and then they can go off elsewhere.
After entering and exiting glove stores for an hour, Edward finally settles for a pair of plain white linen gloves.
Which makes Roy’s mouth drop open.
“This is what you’re buying?” he cries.
She looks at him, confused. “Uh, yeah.” She pays for them.
“But we saw a pair exactly like these in the first stall!”
“Well...I like these better.”
“Hey, Roy,” a strong hand clamps down on Roy’s shoulder and he shudders, recognizing Hughes’ voice. “What are you two doing here?” the other man continues excitedly. “It’s so great to see you! By the way, have you seen these latest pictures of Elysia? Just wait until you see them! She looks like an angel in that butterfly costume...”
Roy looks helplessly at his sweetheart, who slinks away with a lopsided little smile on her face. Brat. Leaving him alone to endure the products of Hughes’ photography fetish. Some girlfriend you are.
Yes, Elysia does indeed look adorable in the butterfly costume, even more so in a honeybee costume and Roy has to repeat it twenty times until his friend is fully satisfied.
“So,” says the Lieutenant Colonel, finally putting away the (infernal) photos. “What are you doing here with uh...you know who?” he wriggles his eyebrows towards Ed, who has wandered into a cosmetics stall.
Roy is a little surprised and he takes some time to answer. “She’s my girlfriend, Hughes,” he says morosely.
“Oh, so she’s your girlfriend now, huh?” Hughes pokes him in the ribs with his elbows and smiles knowingly. It is quite irritating.
“I’ve had many in the past,” Roy points out coolly. “But if you must know, this one’s here to stay.” He grins briefly.
“Oooh,” the other man exclaims gleefully. “So you’re here shopping for the upcoming wedding, I see...I’m hurt that you didn’t let me know before but I still get to be the best man, right?”
“There’s no wedding!” Roy protests, starting to lose his temper.
Hughes seems unfazed, like he always does. “Well, maybe she’s hinting at something, Roy, I mean, some wedding gowns do come with gloves.” He goes into a rant about how attractive Gracia’s silk white gloves looked on their wedding day but Roy is saved from having to listen when he is distracted by Ed standing at the counter of the cosmetics stall, turning over a bottle of nail polish in her hand. He can’t see the color from this distance but he notices that she is looking at it with the same expression she wore at the park. It is like she has found a long lost childhood friend and now that they are finally together, they don’t know what to say to each other because so much has happened since they parted.
He doesn’t like this. He’s used to seeing determination in Ed’s eyes, and he would rather have her scream at him, insult him, even refuse sex than look so...defeated.
He takes a hasty leave from Hughes, who has to go back to his family waiting in the car, and he goes to Ed’s side to offer a small gesture that he shares her pain. Scowling deeply like a child who has just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she quickly puts the bottle away and follows him out. But she still has that look on her face like she went into a fight and lost.
Something has to be done about this.
*
“Would you like to come and have dinner on Friday night?” Ed asks.
Roy can’t stop a groan. “Are you cooking?”
She fixes him with a death glare. “I’ll order out.”
He tries to hide his relief at this but fails because she is now flushing and glowering at him like she would enjoy nothing better than to punch him in the face but he is happy because at least she doesn’t look defeated.
*
On Friday afternoon, Roy takes off early, telling Hawkeye that he has a date. She, for once, nods understandingly and doesn’t try to stop him probably because she has a rendezvous with Havoc later tonight. He smirks and goes on his way, a bounce in his step giving him the air of a little boy who got permission to leave school early.
He takes a cab to the market where he and Ed went the other day and manages to find the cosmetics stall where she was lingering. He can’t find the shade of nail polish she was looking at, so he flashes his most disarming smile at the attendant, who visibly melts. She reminds him of a girl he slept with last year but he has slept with so many women before he fell in love with Edward that he can’t remember all their faces, let alone their names.
“I came here two or three days ago,” he explains to her, “with a young girl. You must remember her - she was short and blonde.” (Thank God Ed isn’t here to hear him calling her short.)
“Ah, yes,” the woman remembers. “She was looking at a bottle of nail polish here. I remember her.”
“Could you show me the one she was looking at?” he requests. “If you remember it, of course.”
“Certainly, sir,” the woman comes back a moment later with a little glass bottle. The nail polish is a beautiful golden brown shade, pearly and glossy. For some reason, it reminds him of sunshine and trees.
He smirks. “I’ll take it.”
*
Dinner is fairly uneventful. Ed hasn’t ordered out the way she said she would (Roy suspects that she did so to spite him) and she has even taken the trouble to set a table for two in the small dining-room with a candle in the middle.
Roy can’t help being amused. “Candlelight dinner?” he teases her.
Her cheeks color. “Shut up.”
He chuckles and eats, grateful that at least she hasn’t burnt the chicken.
After dinner, they sit together on the couch. Ed is not as stiff as she used to be. She has crossed her legs comfortably on the cushions, barefoot, and she is talking about one of her colleagues at the labs. This colleague is a real bitch, she can’t do any work but she has really nice long nails...Ed trails off.
They regard each other in cautious silence, like two soldiers trying to figure out each other’s next move, and then Roy clears his throat. “I...uh...got you something today.”
“Oh, great. What is it?” her eyes widen like those of a little girl about to receive a surprise gift from her father, and she seems grateful to have a change of topic. “It’s not one of those milk candies, right?” Her face hardens a bit. “’Cause I told you they weren’t funny.”
Roy looks at her and laughs nervously. “No, it’s nothing like that.” He slowly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little paper packet.
“Open it,” she looks interested. He does so, watching her expression carefully as she sees the nail polish.
“This is what I got you,” he says quietly.
Her cherry lips part in silent shock as she looks at what is in his hand. “Roy,” she begins after an eternity of tense silence, her face pale. “You shouldn’t have...”
And there’s that defeated look in her eyes again. Defeated and beaten, resigned, things that he can accept from anyone but her. “I wanted to,” he insists, earnest gaze resting on her downcast face. “I didn’t want you to look sad all the time whenever you saw nail polish.”
She opens her mouth to say something but he cuts her off, “So I got you this...”
“You know I can’t put this on,” she points out.
“I don’t see why not,” he frowns a little. “Give me your hand...”
“No!”
“Come on, it’s okay, just give me your hand.”
“Like hell I will!”
“Edward.”
“Fine.” With a childish pout, she holds out her flesh hand and looks away deliberately. He sighs in exasperation as he shakes the bottle a few times and carefully starts to apply the color to her fingernails. He has never done this before and although he is skilled at doing other things with his hands, like taking off hair ties and unbuttoning shirts, his hands tremble slightly but he steels himself and applies the polish with smooth, even strokes, though some of it smears on the sides.
Ed refused to look earlier but now she is watching him intently. In a few minutes, he is done with her hand.
“Okay,” he says. “Now give me your foot.”
She complies with a little grimace and he sets to work.
A while later, he draws back and winces at the mess he’s made but he still cradles her foot on his lap. Her golden eyes are wide with wonder and she reminds him of watching his mother and ex-girlfriends put on nail polish. Sure, he thought it was pretty, but he never thought he would be doing this for someone else.
Ed looks down in disbelief at her human nails polished in the pearly brown shade that gleams in the dim light of the room. She slowly looks up at her lover. “You really didn’t have to do this,” she says softly.
“I didn’t have to,” he agrees, his voice equally soft in the semi-darkness. “I wanted to.”
She breaks into a happy smile as she flexes her human hand and wriggles her human toes as though she still cannot believe that she is wearing nail polish. “They look so pretty,” she beams at him, not minding the smudges on the sides at all. He smiles back at her, happy. Then she lunges forward to throw her arms around his neck and he finds himself pushed back on the couch, surprised and laughing as her lips cover his.
And he knows he’ll get it good tonight.
Comments are much-appreciated.