Fic: Out (1/2)

[yixsh]

Title: Out 
Pairings/Characters: Edward, Roy; Edward --> Roy
Rating: T
Genre: Drama, Angst
Spoilers: None - Alternate ending, TWT?
Word Count: +/- 9700
Warnings: See author's note.
Summary: Ed's homosexuality and papa!Roy's utter straight-as-an-arrow cluelessness explored.


Author's Note:  In the spirit of October 3rd, House Burning Day, I'm posting this mess that's been sitting on my harddrive for a while.

I've long considered the way that homosexuality is treated in the FMA fandom, and this fic is little more than a very ponderous response to these considerations, so please take all of this with a grain of salt. Mostly, I'm taking some liberties here and relating Amestris more closely to its early 20th century European counterpart - that is to say, I'm making homosexuality illegal, just like it was in Britain contemporaneous to the Amestrian FMA timeline. It's something interesting to think about, right? A lot of authors deal with, perhaps, a stigma on homosexuality in the military, but few deal with a societal stigma, and even fewer deal with the possibility of outright illegality of homosexuality in the military or otherwise, though I can conceive of this being an issue. Especially if there were any remnants of the Christian faith still affecting any aspect of the military (ala first anime canon). For the most part, many fanfics paint a very rosy picture of gay rights in Amestris.

I can conceive of Ed being gay. I can conceive of Roy Mustang, potentially (in manga-verse especially) being bisexual. However, I also am very fond of totally-ignorantly-straight (mostly in first anime canon) Roy. I like to play around with papa!Roy in pretty much all situations, and I very, very, very much like the idea of straight-as-an-arrow Roy trying to deal with just-coming-into-his-sexuality-gay-as-the-hills Ed. Something about it just works for me.

I'm not much of a shounen-ai writer, and this isn't romance. This is me playing around with possibilities. Any expression of bigotry or misunderstanding on behalf of the characters is in no way a reflection of my opinions regarding homosexuality.

Ass thus covered, enjoy this fic. I think it's a fun scenario, if nothing else. And it plays into my angst craving liek whoa. It is utter and complete fanservice for myself, and I'm having fun with it.  I'm liking this fic enough that part two should be coming your way eventually (not that I don't already have one million things to be doing...)

Do beware the utter unbeta'dness, also.  I'm certain there are mistakes lurking -- I didn't have the courage to reread before posting.

Enjoy!

Fullmetal in his office, quiet and pale, his expression somber and unidentifiable. Fullmetal in his office, unmistakably not okay, tight-lipped and apprehensive.

Edward, seventeen years old, in his office on the bright and rainwater-thin Monday morning says, "I think I made a mistake." And Roy thinks - oh god, what sort of mistakes do teenagers generally make? Number one, I tried drugs. Number two, I knocked up a girl. Number three, I skipped out on school to hang out with my friends. Number four, I got in a fight. He knew these things because he was certain his aunt had been concerned about them daily, had created for herself this mental checklist to go over every single time rough little teenaged Roy had come in late and stubborn and stupid.

Fullmetal's list was somewhat shorter and a little bit different, and Roy found himself taking the role of his aunt when the stupid kid came into his office now. Of course, there never was any danger of number three. Fullmetal had no principal to call home and complain about him because Fullmetal was blessed with the contradictory legal status of "adult." It meant he was spared the evils of high school, spared the convoluted social hierarchy, spared the pointless time sink of state-enforced education. But Edward "uneducated" was ten times more intelligent than most normal men after four years in that stink hole, so maybe there was something to that emancipated minor thing.

Number one had never been an issue. Mostly because Ed had, until roughly six months ago, been too concerned with his brother's well-being to even consider doing something so stupid as drugs. The thought would've been unfathomable to him, would have been utterly foreign. Do drugs…? Are you crazy? What's the fucking point? Why would I risk my health for something so meaningless as a little high? Ed got his high at the edge of a transmutation circle, anyway. Ed didn't need more than alchemy and arrays to give him that. No, Edward was far too smart for drugs.

Number two - didn't really bear thinking about. He'd followed Edward enough on his adventures to be aware that he was very much a frustrated virgin. Much like drugs, sex was an unnecessary pleasure, something peripheral and unimportant. Why should I be chasing some woman when I've got more important things to do, he'd think. Why should I? But then Alphonse had been restored and Roy hadn't been following him quite so closely. He seemed less likely to blow something up every five seconds now, and Roy had thought he could grant him the space to go get quietly and thoroughly laid. Though no one had ever really thought to talk to him about protection, had they…?

Number four very much applied to Fullmetal and most aspects of his life, because he was always picking a fight somewhere. Roy was still different from most guardians here, though, because generally, if Edward was getting into fights, Roy was sending him into them. It wasn't something he liked to think about, comparing the schoolyard scraps of most teenagers to the fights with criminals and terrorists that, it seemed sometimes, more often than not landed him in the hospital. But either way, he knew Fullmetal could defend himself, so getting in a fight probably wasn't the issue here. If the mistake had been getting in a fight, then Roy would probably be having this discussion in a hospital room. Unless of course the mistake had been on the other end of the spectrum, and Fullmetal had accidentally killed someone. No, he'd never had standard problems - faced with a variety that fluctuated wildly between having killed someone or having impregnated someone, Roy thought, hell, I'll throw you a fucking baby shower, just please don't let it be -

Long breath, don't let it show - "What is it, Fullmetal?"

He mucks with a joint on his automail finger, bending it and unbending it with his left hand. The shallow squeak of hinges fills the room. "I don't quite know how to say it," he says quietly. "But I think I should tell you first. Before it um. Shows up on your desk later."

Roy looks at him pointedly, and doesn't want to come right out and say, am I going to have to defend you from the police? I do love you Fullmetal, but hiding you from the law isn't exactly something that was on my agenda today -

"I think I like men. Um. To sleep with men."

Roy's brain makes a pop like a soap bubble because, oh. He thinks vaguely, at least that makes pregnancy less of an issue, and says, "I - is that the mistake?"

"I - no. I don't think? Is it?" His eyes flit back and forth, taking in Roy's expression but trying not to look like he is. Roy doesn't really know how to deal with this, and he almost can't stop the flinching internal reaction from gracing his face. Roy possesses no personal bias, aside from a decided lack of understanding (because he very much likes tits and ass and girly parts, what wasn't to like…?), but it's - strange, having this conversation with Fullmetal. It really is like a son turning up with his boyfriend on your front step. Not negative, necessarily, no lingering feeling of where did I go wrong, but rather the unhappy disappointment that your child will always suffer because they are not normal. Just another problem for Fullmetal, just another thing that separates torn and battered Edward from the rest of the world.

"It - is quite illegal, Fullmetal." Ed licks his lips and looks tormented.

And there was that. This shouldn't even be an issue, though. Roy knows that the illegality of homosexual relations is little but an unpleasant carryover from the Bradley regime, which was little more than carryover from an oppressive religion that no one can quite remember. But while there had been little done to combat the law, there had been a bit of external pushing against it, a bit of give in the weight of the crime, and a definite lack of enforcement as of late. However, within the military, there was still a great, yawning stigma, and Ed's face said -

"I didn't mean to let it get so out of hand."

Something inside Roy twinges at that. The sniffling little inflection on "it," as if Fullmetal's sexuality is some sort of disease he has to keep in check.

And Roy suddenly thinks, how long has he been trying to keep this in check?

"Edward," he says, just softly. How long has this been an issue, how long has he been hiding pieces of himself? Edward bears consequences of criminal actions in big and unforgettable hunks of metal attached to his leg and shoulder, and he covers them with gloves and sleeves and pants and spitting, angry defense of his personal space. And even though this seems like something out of sight, Roy knows the physicality of sexuality just from growing up in a whore house. He knows the tangible tension of attraction, especially to a person quite so young as Edward and just now beginning to grow into his sexuality. "What happened exactly?"

"He told me he wanted to - ah. And I wanted to, and I went with him, and how was I meant to know? I just couldn't, I couldn't know, I couldn't. He told me -"

"Wait - who, what?" Roy has a sinking feeling in his gut though, just from that chopped up little half explanation. "Slower. Breathe."

Ed finally can't stand the just fidgeting anymore, it's not enough to be standing there and trying to be cool. He needs to be moving. A sigh erupts from him like a threat, and he starts pacing wildly back and forth. This Edward is something he's more familiar with - agitated Edward. Though not on the prowl, not now. Now, he seems more hunted than anything.

"I was at a bar. And there's - someone told me there's stuff you can do to get guys in a bar. Wear certain things, make certain gestures - and," he pauses. "And please, you've gotta - know. I've tried women, General. I wanted so bad. I tried. "

Roy nods quickly, go on, go on - even though that doesn't express half of what he's feeling and it doesn't seem to be half of what Edward needs from him. Roy just doesn't know quite what to say, still, to make this better, to make this go away… Ed looks at him like he knows he's not saying enough, but doesn't know what else to say.

"And sometimes it's enough to get off, but hell, Mustang, I was horny!" He lets it out as a wail, a massive and unsatisfying release, so loud he's certain that someone in the outer office must hear. And he's right, of course, because nothing escapes Hawkeye's keen hearing, and soon she's poked her head through the door.

She takes in Roy's pale and slack-jawed expression and Ed's panicked blood-flushed face, and she enters the room, closing the door fully behind her with a quiet little click.

Edward says, "Sorry, Colonel," bashfully, still enough of a teenager to be embarrassed in this sort of situation.

"That's alright, Edward," she says calmly. "I was just going to tell you that maybe that isn't the best thing to announce to an office full of sniggering idiots. I'm sure the men will be pleased to confront you with it outside."

Ed's eyes go wide at that, and sounding strangled, he says, "They didn't hear anything else though, right?"

"No," she says, wearily. "Unless their hearing is better than mine, they just heard the last bit. Though that in context with the General is enough to - what's the matter with both of you? Did I miss something?"

Roy is suddenly very thankful that she's here. He feels ill-equipped to handle this, likening himself to the absent and emotionally distant father more and more. He feels dumb with his inability to cope. He says, "Maybe start from the beginning for Riza, hm?" And Ed looks at him like this is the ultimate betrayal.

"I can't! Not while she's here! Do you even know how much I didn't wanna tell you, how much I can't even tell? I can't even tell Al! I want someone to come out of this still respecting me as a person for God's -"

Ed carries on, flushed with defiance and that same teenaged embarrassment. Roy takes the opportunity to fill Hawkeye in with just about as much as she's missed so far. He says, "Edward was just telling me," loud enough to be heard over Edward's miserable rant, "that he's gay." And Ed's flails become truly tremendous then, his eyes near crossed in their wild denial.

"You can't just say it like that, it's not that simple, I'm not meant -"

But Riza says simply, kindly, "It sounds fairly simple to me, Edward," and the flailing stops. Instantly, Hawkeye is capable of giving him the reassurance that he needs, instantly she knows what to say, instantly she cuts through the bullshit and had it come out of anyone else's mouth it might've been an accusation, but from her, simplicity is just easy, simplicity is just something she can accept, simplicity is - "It's not as if it changes anything about you as a person, Edward." Roy thinks, exactly, I was thinking that, I was thinking that just now, where exactly did you find the words…?

His arms drop like a limp doll. "No."

"So what the General says is true then?"

"Yeah." Awkward glance to the side, and now it's really like his parents confronting him about this. Mother, father, son. Gay son. "I think so."

"You think so?"

Twitchy exasperation, "I know so for fuck's sake, I can't - with women. I can with men. I like it with men. I want it with men. That's it." And when he says 'that's it,' that seems to really and truly be it. No argument in his tone, finality and a certain lack of shame that he hadn't had moments ago for Roy. So, fucking men. Very much not Roy's area of expertise. He thinks weakly, tits and ass and girly parts, what's not to want? (And he thinks, briefly, darkly, that maybe what's not to want had been spread all over Edward's basement floor when he was ten years old and bleeding his life away…)

Roy looks down at his desk, shuffling papers around and feeling himself go a little pink around the ears. Riza says, "I'm not sure why you came to the General with this information, it's not as if he'll be of any help to you anyway. I definitely have more experience having sex with men."

Roy - snorts and sends papers flying. Edward looks as if his head might explode with all the blood that's up there. Riza calmly sits on the couch and crosses one leg over the other.

"Well?"

And then Edward gets uncomfortable again. "I went to a bar."

"Aren't you young for a bar?"

"Where else do I go? M'not young for the military, it's not like I was drinking anyway, I was just -"

"Looking to get laid," Mustang puts in smoothly. Both Edward and Hawkeye cut cool glances at him from across the room, and he raises his hands in supplication. But he's looking for common ground here, and he thinks that's a sentiment they can all understand.

"Well - yeah," he admits sullenly. "I guess I was. Looking to get laid. But there was - a. I don't know how to explain it, it just sucks, I really don't know."

Mustang is about to ask what exactly what Ed means by all this intolerable vagueness, when, as if on cue, a knock sounds from the outer office. They all wait with bated breath, because nothing has given any indication that this will implicate Edward in some way, but he just seems to know, and his hackles rise like a cat's. And then there's a gentle knock on the inner office door, and Hawkeye is up on light feet in an instant. The fresh-faced private on the other side is dark in coloring, perhaps five years older than Ed but still so very obviously young. He has brown skin, brown eyes, broad shoulders, and if Roy were any judge of such things, he might say he was handsome.

Might. Might. If not for the upturned sneer when he sets his sights on Edward. If not for the very clear subtext in the way Ed scowls and turns his head away and shifts his automail hand to clench his knee until it hurts him.

"I've got a summons for Major Edward Elric, sir," he says. He seems particularly pleased, like he's landed a big one, and he hadn't even known until he'd reeled it in. "My CO is bringing up charges of sexual deviancy on my behalf."

That is simply too much for Edward, and he lifts his head to shriek, voice breaking, "Deviancy my ass, you weren't complainin' when your tongue was down my fucking throat, you liked it well enough then, where's your sexual deviancy then -"

"Fullmetal," Roy says sharply, and Ed trusts him enough to back down, though the air in the room is still thick with his malice. Ed folds himself miserably into a corner of the sofa, and Roy has to fight to take his eyes away, has to fight to concentrate long enough on this little sonuvabitch to take the summons in hand, nod politely, and make a gentle little shooing motion. He hadn't known how to react to this, hadn't known how to accept this as a straight man until just now, until he'd seen quite exactly what this meant and quite how miserable this made Edward. With the court martial now, things were starting to come together, and everything screamed of entrapment. And now it's not just something that makes him not normal, it's something that can hurt him despite however much it's ingrained in him, and some underlying piece of Roy wants to snap and snarl and bite at the injustice. This very much is, just as Hawkeye said, the boy he all but raised from twelve, and what right, what right, what right -

When the door has been closed behind the private, Ed unfolds a little, looks utterly wretched, and says, "He said he wanted to - to hook up. An' I liked him, an' he was funny an' he was - aw, fuck - cute." He looks to Hawkeye at that, as if to say, Wasn't he? Wouldn't you? "And. I thought he seemed clever, but apparently he was cleverer than I thought, cleverer than me at least, because -"

And oh god, his face just breaks. "There was a whole crowd of them waiting for me back at his dorm. Cameras and all," and there's the truth they'd both been waiting for, they'd both been expecting, and it hit like a sack of bricks. "But he kissed like he meant it. I thought he meant it."

Fullmetal, Roy thought miserably, couldn't even manage a proper affair. Couldn't have a proper teenaged tryst. He managed to muck up everything somehow, managed to always make this difficult for Roy. But no, that wasn't fair. If he'd gone out to have sex with a woman that night, then he'd be fine, it wouldn't even be a question.

Hawkeye says, "Oh, Edward."

Ed ducks down, hiding his face in his hair. "You don't gotta say it like that. I'm not pathetic or anything I just - I should have just started whaling on him, because I got home and I was so angry and I wished I had. But I was scared and I was - fuck, humiliated. There I was so hot and bothered that it took me a couple seconds to realize this wasn't just some - fucked-up kink." He laughs, dryly, humorlessly. "Maybe it was, anyway. Maybe he got off on that, the bastard."

Roy opens the envelope he'd been handed and finds a simple statement, just a little over a paragraph, that sets a court date and outlines Edward Elric, The Fullmetal Alchemist's, crime. He really wished he'd prepared for this better this morning, drank more coffee or something, because now he feels absolutely drained.

"It looks like they're pushing for dishonorable discharge." He flips the page, raises his eyebrow. "And six months in a military prison."

Ed grasps at the hair still hanging heavy over his face and moans. "I need the money now, I need - Dishonorable? Does that mean I lose everything that I got fucking around with this fucking military for - years, now. I - five years 'n what was left of my childhood and all I'll have to show for it…"

"A felony charge." It would be on his records forever, and it would make it impossible to get him another job that even touched the military with a ten foot pole. In a military state like Amestris, that sort of sentence was condemning enough without the added insult of a six month prison stay.

"I gotta pay for - Al."

Alphonse, still, then. The reason he'd come in the first place, the reason he chose to extend his contract two more years when he'd hit sixteen and should have been fucking off forever. Alphonse had medical bills for miles, Alphonse was applying to universities, and the military did have such good benefits and such a good research budget, and what was the harm of two more years anyway?

"Hmm." There's still an underlying current of then you shouldn't have been thinking with your dick that Roy doesn't want to be thinking.

Roy desperately wants to defend Ed. Every cell in him is straining into paternal defense mode, but it's still a very muddled sort of morality, because he still doesn't quite understand. Ed is the same person, Ed is an amazing kid, Ed always has to make things difficult for himself. The world always has to make things difficult for Ed.

"You think I'm weird," says Ed. "That's what you're thinking."

Yes. "No. I'm not - trying to be thinking that, Edward."

"What's that mean? Trying to be thinking?"

"I'm trying to understand!"

"What's to understand? I like fucking men!"

"For god's - "

"Or is it the physical logistics you don't get, Mustang? Tab-A-Slot-B? Cock, ass? It's all pretty -"

"Edward, the General -"

"For god's sake, Edward, we're on your side! Will you shut your mouth for a moment and let me think?"

Edward - does. He'd lifted his head to start that squall, but he goes back to hiding his face with his hair now. Roy forces air in and out of his lungs and feels horrified with the accusation, but knows that it is, at least in some part, true. He thinks Edward is 'weird,' he thinks Edward is 'weird,' but he still loves him so, so much. Weakly now - why can't you just be normal? Why can't you just be…?

"M'sorry. M'sorry. I just - am sorta freaked out."

"I'm sure we all are. That is no reason to start pointing fingers."

Roy has no idea how to begin digging Edward out of this one. He turns hopeful eyes to quiet Riza, who is looking at Ed intensely, who was able to take this in stride so easily, and who knows how to love unequivocally. Come on, Roy, you were raised in a whore house, you saw the sleaziest scum of the earth and the weirdest kinks imaginable when you were younger than Ed is. This shouldn't be weird, this shouldn't be weird -

"Maybe we should tell Alphonse."

Edward groans.

Edward does, though. In a stilted telephone conversation, Edward slouched miserably into Roy's office chair to afford him the privacy from the outside office, Edward does.

And Alphonse is unsurprisingly absolutely fine with it. Roy doesn't catch most of it because he only gets half the conversation - the angry and humiliated half - but he's certain he catches stupid brother at least three times. But truth be told - he had probably known before Edward himself. And toward the end of the conversation, when things are winding down into embarrassed, mumbled endearments, Ed thrusts the phone at him. "Al wants to talk to you."

"Oh?" Ed shrugs and moves toward the couch as Roy takes the receiver and reclaims his seat. "Hello?"

"General?"

"Hello, Alphonse."

"Is he okay?" Right to the point. The suddenness of it reminds him of Ed, and it's strange coming from the other Elric. "No, don't answer that. He's still in there, right? Can he come home? He needs to come home."

"No. I'm afraid with a pending trial, he needs to be here."

"Then I'll come there. I'll come there. Can you - he doesn't have any money right now. Don't let him tell you otherwise, he's broke."

"They'll be suspending his pay until the trial, also."

"Can you bring me there, then? He's scared, I can tell. Can you…? I feel bad asking. Maybe I'll just ask Winry, but then I'll have to explain it to her which would - "

"No, no."

"Don't say it out - "

"I won't. Just don't do it." Because it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Miss Rockbell had feelings for Ed. Couldn't Ed just have a normal…? "I would purchase you one -"

Ed perks up on the other side of the room at that. "Hey! I can buy him whatever he needs, we're not your charity case!"

"-As I said, Edward, I would purchase you one, but I think that by the time you got here, the case would be over. We'll have Edward acquitted soon, don't you worry."

"Is he talking about coming here! Tell him no! Tell him he's too weak just yet, tell him to give it time, damnit!"

"Is he on about me being weak now? Tell him that I can take care of myself."

"Listen, as much as I would love to be the Elric family interpreter, I think it would be more pertinent to develop some sort of plan right now."

"General Mustang, you have to take care of my brother."

"Don't listen to him, Mustang! Don't let him convince you!"

"I will try, Alphonse. If he will let me."

"M'NOT gonna let you, you make him stay there!"

There's crackling static on the line for a moment, and they're universes away from each other just as he and Hawkeye had been. "Do you really think it'll be alright?"

"I will make it be alright."

"Alright." And that was Alphonse trusting him with his brother, as simple as taking a breath and now there really couldn't be any more pressure on him to get this right.

Edward is awkward enough talking about any of this that, two hours into an interrogation and gaining virtually no ground, Roy decides that they need to "investigate the event site." Which, of course, means visiting a dark little hole-in-the-wall dive bar a long, long walk away from headquarters and means getting Ed tipsy enough that he will feel like telling Roy some of the gritty details that he really, really does need to know.

They leave Hawkeye at headquarters. She can't seem to stop touching Ed though, she touches his hair and his face and worries over him and fusses with him and hell - mothers him into talking, and it's the most obscenely out of character thing he's ever seen and it definitely is not helping, because having someone around acting like his mother definitely isn't going to make Ed want to talk about his sex life.

So. Ed leads the way through a series of dark alleys, a convoluted and well-practiced path that speaks of the shame and repetition inherent in the action. And once there, it's only a few drinks before Edward is splendidly drunk. It's Roy's fault. Ed shakes so hard coming into the bar that Roy can't not buy him a couple drinks to accompany the first, if only to stop that scared trembling. Edward is seventeen though, and he should be able to do this if he's done half the things Roy's put him through, so he lets him down the second drink, and then the third (and they're a bit like Fullmetal, because they are so very small - as Edward points out when he downs the third shot - but they pack a spectacular whollop). He stops him after the fourth because he remembers that Ed's body weight is actually a lot less than they all think - the automail doesn't do his alcohol tolerance any favors. By then it's too late, though. He's just past tipsy and edging into unable-to-stand territory, and Roy nurses a gin and tonic, and he should've known that Ed wouldn't be a very good drunk.

"Fucked up - again. Made Al worry - again…" he drones a list of the people he'd disappointed in a continuous mantra. Depressing drunk. Right.

He lets his eyes travel around the bar as Ed stops to contemplate his fourth (and final) empty shot glass, nudging it along the table with gloved automail fingertips. He thinks about what Ed had said, about the certain things that gay men do to attract others, and he has a brief moment of paranoia. Was he doing something incriminating, just sitting here with Ed? He smoothes a hand back through his hair, looks for anything unusual. But there's just men and women drinking, just the same haze of cigarette smoke that he'd see in any bar, anywhere.

Ed rolls his head in a lazy circle and says, "What'm I gonna do, General?"

Roy's eyes come back to him, pretty gold eyes and a smooth, hairless face. Was there something he should have noticed, something he should have done…? He should have made more of an effort to teach Ed discretion, that's what he should have done. If not for this, for his own sanity.

Roy didn't have an answer for that, though. So he thought - well, maybe now that he's pliant, it's a good time to delve a bit deeper into all this. Try to understand.

What comes out is, "Do you use condoms, Edward?"

Ed's automail fingers stop their tablewalking quite abruptly, and he squints warily through the dim bar lighting. "Wh-a-at?" He drags it out long and slow, drunk and obviously relatively new to it. Roy feels a bit tipsy himself, better able to have this conversation now that they're not in his office and it's just the two of them. Two of them, two men, talking about sex. Sex with men.

"You heard me. Condoms."

Ed doesn't color like he would have in the office. He lifts an alcohol stained glove to his nose and scratches along the side of it as he says, "Well, yeah. M'not stupid."

"I know. I know you're not. It's just. Well. Ed, this seems so - out of character."

"What?" he says, tipping the empty shot glass up to drip the last drop onto his tongue. "Taking it up the ass?"

Roy - doesn't spit gin and tonic all over the table. He manages a graceful gurgle back into the cup before he pounds himself in the chest to rid himself of any residual what.

"Edward -"

"S'what most guys think when they see me like, if they know me t'all - s'like, oh 'course he wants to be on top and I'm like shit, can't be in control all the time. S'alright every once in a while but I like it tha' way, like it from the bottom. C'n I get another of…?"

Urgently, Roy says, "No, no." Because if this is how loose his tongue is after four drinks, what'll he do after five…? Until now, Roy had managed to avoid considering the exact ordering of the tab-A slot-B in relation to his subordinate. Thinking about it wasn't necessarily something Roy really wanted right now. "No. I think you've had enough." Ed pooches his lip out but seems to accept it. He resigns himself to lapping gently at the rim of the glass, then sucking in the air until his cheeks cave and the glass sticks to his mouth like a duck's bill. Roy smiles helplessly despite himself. "What I meant was - it's strange for you to. Ah. Listen to your libido, as it were."

There's a comical pop, then a thunk as the glass crashes to the table. "Think with my dick, you mean?" He frowns, but the dark red ring around his lips where the glass had been dampens the effect.

"Yes. Think with your dick."

Ed sighs, eyes on the table, flickering back and forth. "I didn't have time before. There wasn't the space to think about it either - I think, I think I might've like, been a bit stunted. Restrained how fuckin' horny I was with like. Sheer force of will. I only noticed - things. There were certain people." His eyes flicker briefly up to Roy in a way that Roy doesn't quite know how to read. "And I'd think, what the fuck. 'Cause it was mostly men. Even then."

"Your pretty friend in Resembool? Miss Rockbell?" Ed's cheeks do darken then.

"Everyone likes to tell me how pretty she is," he says, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

"And you don't think so? Not at all?" It's unfathomable. She's absolute jailbait.

"I mean - she grew up nice. Objectively I think sure, she's a pretty girl. Subjectively I think - I think shit. Nothing kills a boner like some of the shit she did to me during automail surgery." Lightly, curiously. "You ever had a catheter?" Roy shakes his head. "How about - ah whatzit. Bone drill. Bone saw. Cauterized leg stump, burning flesh smell. I see her face and s'like. She had a sorta sex face, all sweaty and concentrated. I can't. Even - even if I weren't - gay. I don't think I could ever fuck Winry. S'my sister, anyway. Couldn't ever fuck Winry."

He's run out of things to play with and Roy just tries not to gape. It's sort of interesting to be granted this look into his subordinate's psyche.

Before long, Ed continues, "Anyway. When I moved back here all alone it was like - shit. I could touch my dick any time I wanted to." He smiles drunkenly, and Roy resolves to not torment him about this tomorrow because masturbation is sacred and he won't make Edward ashamed of it, but hell if he knew half the things he was saying- "Masturbated a lot. A lot. Tried to fuck some girl. She was a fan, I think. She followed me around like I was some demigod 'n I was like wasstoppin' me now?" He chuckles, drily. "Turns out it was my dick stopping me. Humiliatin'. Anyway. Then I had sex with a guy. And it was great. And then I freaked out, 'cause what the fuck, seriously? S'not what I was supposed to be. Thought maybe the first time was nerves. Thought maybe - lots of variables."

The blatant oversimplification of what had to be - weeks considering this was evident here. 'Freaking out'? Edward's admission to 'freaking out' was equivalent to nothing short of a mental breakdown for most normal human beings. "Tried a couple of girls again, n'dya know what it's like when they're all - lookin' at your dick? Like - willin' it to be hard. And your dick is havin' none of it?" He looks thoughtfully at the ceiling for a moment. "The girl with the dark eyes, dark hair did get me off. I did brunette and blonde and red and black." He ticks them off on his fingers and Roy thinks, of course he had. "Black hair got me off. She might've just had a really clever tongue though." His eyes flicker briefly to Roy again, and the very first feeling of dawning dread that Roy had felt this morning overtakes him again. A very brief flicker of - oh. No. "Nothin' compared to the orgasm even the very first time with the guy. Anyway. Finally gave in and did it again with a guy, and then I guess I did it one too many times. 'N here we are."

Roy scrutinizes him carefully over the rim of his glass before downing the rest of his gin and tonic. The world goes a bit warm around the edges. Ed looks at Roy expectantly and says, "Les hear about your virginity then, eh Mustang?" And then he snorts out a laugh like he's told some particularly funny joke. Roy thinks - teenager, big tits, blow job. I finished in five seconds flat and she got mad when I came on her dress. Because I can manage a normal teenage experience, Edward. But then he thinks that his first actual intercourse had been with a woman fifteen years older than him (oh god, she'd smelled so good and she knew what she wanted and then it was older women only until he came to match the older women in age), and maybe that wasn't normal for everyone, anyway. Maybe normal was entirely relative when it came to sex, because it was strange and mildly disgusting for pretty much everyone.

"I'm sorry for prying, Edward. I just - I want to help you." He slumps against his arm and just gives Roy a look.

"I know."

"We'll find a way out of this."

"S'what you keep sayin'."

"Do you not believe me?"

"Well I've yet to hear any sort of plan. Jus' tellin' me it's gonna happen."

"I'm afraid we haven't gotten much further than that. We'll speak to you attorney tomorrow. Perhaps he will have some thoughts."

"We should," his head lolls forward like he's lost all muscle control. "Punch 'em or something."

"Valuable input, Edward."

"Shutup."

"Edward -" He pauses for a moment, and Roy notices that the bar has almost emptied. There's just two men talking softly at the bar, and Roy has another vague, guilty moment of are they…?

Ed follows his line of sight across the bar. "They're not gay. They're just drinkin'." Roy straightens and turns his eyes back to Ed in a hurry. "Well, hell. Maybe they are. Right now they're just drinking. Like me 'n you."

"I'm trying to understand."

"S'not as if it matters. You're - a good man. N'you can't even… What chance do I stand with a military tribunal?"

Roy cuts another discreet glance across the bar. "We're not making very much progress here, Ed. Maybe we should get you home. Busy day tomorrow."

And Roy shouldn't still be thinking this, shouldn't still have this lurking paranoia, but he keeps Ed's hand very firmly slung around his waist, gently chastising every time it drunkenly slips into more personal territory.

Ed's state-appointed defense lawyer is named Hall. He's a round-faced man with a dour expression, and he gives Ed a once-over on Roy's couch that says he really couldn't give a damn how this ends up for him. Ed responds with a look that says he really couldn't give a damn if his fist goes straight through his face. Roy tries to think of how Alphonse would handle Ed almost killing someone, and he sits himself on the couch next to him, a very flimsy shield against Ed's rage.

He'd had Roy retrieve Ed's file earlier, and Ed was high profile enough that it took him a good half hour of cutting through red tape to do so. As his commanding officer, he had his own version of Ed's file, of course. It was filled with all the alchemically copied expense records and mission reports. But the file in the belly of the beast had intense records of every disciplinary action, every renewed contract, every denied promotion, every commendation for excellence. It was one of the fattest and most contradictory files in all of Central Headquarters, and Ed's legal representative ignores the red RESTRICTED stamp on the cover as he opens it to thumb through the sordid contents.

Two minutes later he says, "Well. We're not going to be heroes."

Roy says, "What?"

"I said, I hope you didn't expect to be heroes going into this. I hope you're not intending to make some grand, sweeping gesture about the validity of queers in the military." He slides his glasses to the end of his bulbous red nose, and looks at Edward over the golden rims. "We will have a very standard defense. All we need do is convince the panel that Edward Elric is worth more to the military within it, regardless of the fact that he may or may not be homosexual." Hall's fingers tighten on the document he's been looking at, and brings his glasses again into a reading position. From behind the paper, he continues, "Considering his military history, this could either be very, very easy," he flips the paper he's been observing around to let Roy and Ed see a hefty-looking, red pen flecked expense report, "Or very, very, very difficult."

Ed fumbles beside him, and Roy can only imagine how the needles on his moral compass must be twitching. Ed mumbles, "But what about the other guy?"

"What 'other guy'?" Sniggering quotations around Edward's words.

"The jackass who set me up."

Roy clarifies, "Edward was tricked into the incriminating situation by the young man who accused him."

The lawyer looks a bit disbelieving and says, deadpan, "Tricked."

Edward cuts in, "Lured, more like. Fucking siren's what that bastard is."

And then the lawyer - smiles. Shakes his head slowly as if about to explain something to someone especially slow. "Major Elric, maybe you misunderstood me. I do not care if you are homosexual. I need little more than a cursory knowledge of the case at hand. It is not my intention to prove homosexuality a - a valid state of mind. Or even appropriate for this working environment. I do not intend to deny or enforce your attraction to men. You trial will be speedy and single-minded, but the best way to have you acquitted is certainly not by pointing out that you were willingly following another male with the intent of sexual intercourse."

"But he's in the military too!"

"Then perhaps, Major Elric, you should have beat him to the punch."

"What, you mean like - accuse him first? Like hell! I'm not so much of a fuckwit as him!"

"I hope you don't intend to use language like that on the stand -"

Edward roared to his feet, "I'll use any fucking language I want to! Especially with some asswipe who could care less if I get off!"

The lawyer stayed mercilessly calm, and his eyes just twinkled before he said, "We'd all be a lot happier if you cared a bit less about getting. Off. Now. Major Elric. Sit down before you commanding officer is forced to write you up for disorderly conduct on top of everything else."

But Roy just clears his throat and crosses one leg over the other, discreetly jerking his head toward the couch when Edward looked back to him for reinforcement.

Edward sits. Roy says, "Edward was deceived, shamed, and publicly humiliated. Does that have no bearing on the case?"

Hall pulls a handkerchief from his front pocket and sops at his brow, looking airily at yet another red-flecked paper from Ed's file. "None whatsoever."

"I see. Well. If I could point out the bright spots on Major Elric's record, I'm sure that would be of help to you." As Roy moves to stand, Ed tugs on his sleeve. Roy looks down from his standing vantage to see the bright top of Ed's head, his automail arm curled tight around his belly.

"I don't understand. Why wouldn't he…? I can't - deny it."

Roy's heart pangs a bittersweet refrain. "He's right about one thing, Ed, if nothing else. You really can't always be the hero. This might be the best we can do."

Ed raises his eyes. "S'not. Heroic. Just - not lyin' to yourself. What's heroic about not lyin' to yourself?"

It's almost funny how that sets off a little click like an old bullet lodged in Roy's brain, how every little thought that comes from it is like a gunpowder explosion. Everything, Edward, for god's sake, I wake up every morning aching with the need to do what you've done so easily, it only pains me that this whole situation has made it difficult for you to carry on with that easy straightforwardness you've always had. For god's sake, I wake every morning and wish I didn't have to lie about who I am to make it through the day. He wakes telling himself that he wants the right things, telling himself, you are a good man. You are a good man. And maybe someday it won't be a lie.

"I don't want to see you in jail, Edward." Military prison is very likely a special kind of hell for people like Ed. And hell, for people like Roy. Ed let the play of his humanity perform across his face constantly, and that sort of openness never did anyone any favors there. And Roy was still enough of an idealist that a prison full of the dregs of society might just tear his remaining fortitude to shreds.

As Roy disentangles himself from Ed's tenacious hold on his sleeve, moving toward Hall's haphazard study of Edward's file on his desk, he reflects on Ed's attachment to this - fact. Fact. About himself. After a night of drunken self-reflection a bit more sure of himself in this, but no less tormented. Roy had pondered previously how long Ed had endeavored to keep all this hidden, and now that things were coming out, it was easily apparent how very much the secrecy had been wearing on him. He had, after all, even kept the secret from his closest confidant for the longest time. And while Alphonse's reassurance was no doubt comforting, there was little solace to be had in anyone else - Roy himself included, albeit with hurting, hopeless guilt. Conflict bubbles torturously in his belly, and concern for Ed wars with a blatant lack of understanding.

Edward twitches on the sofa as Roy makes an effort to scale the sheer butt-headed, magnificent rock face that is Ed's military history with a wheezing Hall in tow. Hall takes particular interest in things not even in the file - in newspaper clippings that Roy pulls from his desk drawer on a whim. They outline Ed's deeds in far more civilian terms, and they paint his involvement in a much more positive light because they bother very little with what exactly Ed's selflessness will cost the military. Roy had started clipping them because they reflect so well on him, and he found that even when they didn't mention his name, he couldn't really stop.

They are refreshing after the cold, clinical contents of Ed's file. They stray away from the numbers and figures that actually sort of frighten Roy, now - especially, Roy thinks, the horrifying medical files, which Roy had signed off before without too much thought. Particularly terrifying thought - Ed had been under one hundred pounds without his automail when he first joined the military. Scrawny little boy, and no one had known or cared about his sexuality then. The newspapers painted him brilliant gold and no one cared about his sexuality then.

Awful thought. This would be in the tabloids. Ed's face plastered everywhere beside the smirking image of the man who had deceived him. Roy should have thought to do more damage control earlier, but it's - unavoidable, now.

Hall leaves with the binder full of clippings to prepare for the case in private. He promises Ed that he'll return with a script for his testimony, which makes Ed go a bit pale and clammy, but he nods anyway. It is after noon and Ed has disrupted his daily schedule entirely. The military panel for Ed's hearing will, with any luck, be announced the next day, and then it would only be a matter of time until they were all called to trial. The moment the door closes behind Hall, Ed blurts, "I don't want him anymore."

And it's not that Roy hadn't been expecting it - he had. He just doesn't know if he can deal with all his normal workload on top of this increased load of absolute shit. He sighs wearily and says, "Edward, I'm not giving you a choice in the matter. Hall is respected enough. His approach to the case is sound."

"He's a dickwit."

"He's your ticket out of poverty and jail time, Fullmetal, and I suggest you deal with it."

"I'll tell the truth!"

"You will do as he says."

"You know he's an asshole, why are you going along with this?"

And that is the question, isn't it? But he couldn't very well tell Edward that his delicate and self-inflicted situation is very far beyond Roy's area of expertise, is very much something awkward and difficult for him to treat objectively. Because as a straight man raised and conditioned in this environment, he thinks things that he doesn't mean to think pretty much constantly, and he has absolutely no semblance of a plan that would help Ed. He always has a plan, but he doesn't now, and the more he learns, the more he thinks that total avoidance is a very, very practical solution, regardless of how that affects Edward's self-righteousness or self-perception. Regrettable, yes, but which is more important in the long run?

Simply, he says, "Because I do not have anything better. Nor do you."

"I've got the truth!"

"Your truth means very little to a military tribunal, Edward! Your truth is little more than a passing phase in perversion! Little more than a flawed mental tic that weakens you and harms the performance of yourself and those around you. You will keep your truth to yourself."

"My truth? The fuck does that mean, I thought you were on my side! My truth isn't any different than the truth! S'not as if I can stop this, it's a phase s'much as my missing arm is a phase! S'not as if I can just sprout that back so much as I can make myself want to fuck women -"

Roy rubs at his temples. "If you want to spend six months in a military prison, by all means, do be a hero! I'm sure you'll make fast friends in the showers there -"

Too far. The back of Roy's leather sofa cracks audibly as Ed's automail fist crashes into it from above.

"You're just like the whole lot of them! You'd just as soon I lie back and think of Amestris!"

I only want what's best for you, don't do this to me. I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying. Why can't you just be…?

"Fullmetal."

"Fuck you!" Roy sees the splintering of any confidence Ed had acquired the night before right before his eyes. He sees the hurt and it pains him physically, that he can't quite fathom the depth of it. He lets him pant out his fury for a moment before he concludes the meeting.

"You will report tomorrow to rehearse your testimony. There will be no unnecessary admissions, unless you are counseled to do so. Am I clear?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Dismissed."

Edward breaks the frosted glass in the doorway on his way out, and Roy can see Riza's displeased expression quite clearly as she follows Edward out the door.

A list of the panel members for Ed's trial shows up on Roy's desk early the next day. All three are generals, all three people Roy works with on a regular basis. None of them are people he would expect to have sympathies with the plight of the homosexuals. Two are men, which immediately strikes Roy as some sort of automatic bias, because if they have any of the same lingering feelings Roy does, if either of them get the same internal flinch when they think about sex with a man…

The final member is a woman - older, but not traditional. She possesses very little clout on base though, given the fact that she is absent more often than not now following some sort of dog show circuit. Everyone is familiar with Fullmetal's work, but he is not certain that any of them are immediately associated with him -

Oh. He eyes the thumbnail photograph of the first General again, remembers four years ago, Edward thirteen and moody generally all the time, Alphonse absent for some unfathomable reason. Roy approaching the mess with dread in a gut knowing that there was a decorated general in there that was currently decorated with Ed's lunch. Now-Roy tilts his head and barely recognized him without the gravy. It might've been some sort of height slight; it might've been Ed's utterly insane hormones. Whatever it was, it had almost been a disciplinary hearing in itself, had Roy not stepped in to take up for sulky, panting Edward, only thirteen, sir, and so very delicate for the things he had to endure. He was only acting out, it won't happen again.

Well. He wonders vaguely if the General will have the gall to call his bluff.

Hall arrives before Edward and looks especially disgruntled about it. He nods when Roy asks if he'd seen the list. "They can all be traced to the commanding officer of Major Elric's beloved accuser. But they've all been in the military long enough to know of his good deeds intimately. They're good enough people for our purposes, I suppose."

Roy nods absently and reminds himself of Edward when he begins to fiddle with things on his desk. Eventually he has to blurt, "Is there any other way to approach this case?" or just burst with it.

Hall, writing something in a notebook, cuts him a sidelong glance. "There's the stupid way," he says, "The martyr way. And there's my way. My way is the one that wins." He sniffs his disdain aloud, and Roy might've said something to combat that intolerable haughtiness, but Ed chooses that moment to kick in the door. The glass is still broken from yesterday's incident, and another little piece of it dislodges itself and falls dolefully to the ground at his entrance.

Ed does not say hello.

Rather, he does just as Roy had told him to do. He rehearses the material he's given in a quiet and disinterested monotone, letting his eyes slide to Roy every few moments with a slanted and pinch-faced animosity. He quietly declares himself guilty to the office at large, and looks toward Roy with venomous insincerity when he says, I regret my actions and vow to never repeat them.

And what is Roy meant to do? It obviously sounds wrong coming from his mouth. The words themselves are so stilted and scripted that he can't very well imagine Edward formulating them, and nevermind the intent. If he continues with that delivery, he'll be convicted on the spot. He's challenging Roy, he's trying to make him cave and do something ridiculously stupid.

But Roy is stronger than him. Roy knows what's best for him. Roy will not cave. Roy will.

Roy will.

Ed just looks at him again, and his eyes are filled with malice and pain and.

Oh hell.

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