Fic: The Phoney War, Chapter Eight
Title: The Phoney War, Chapter Eight: The Home Front
Setting: Fullmetal Alchemist, mangaverse, post-series, slight ending AU.
Characters: Roy/Ed, Havoc/Rebecca, Riza/Miles, Al, Winry, ensemble.
Rating: NC-17 overall, this chapter light NC-17 for sexing
Word count: 6405
Summary: Two years on from the Promised Day. Amestris is without a Fuhrer, the military is teetering on the brink of civil war, and Team Mustang search urgently for the opposition's secret alchemical weapon. Any day now could be the first day of the war, and everyone is feeling the pressure. So is it any wonder that Ed and Roy's growing friendship just kindasorta combusted on them?
Notes: Direct sequel to No Small Injury. Illustrated by me, betaed and edited by enemytosleep.
Chapter One: Blue Monday | Chapter Two: Make Your Mind Up Time | Chapter Three: Something Stupid | Chapter Four: Two Plus Two
Chapter Five: Inbetween Days | Interlude: Test Drive | Chapter Six: Go the Distance | Chapter Seven: A Grin Without a Cat
On Sunday morning, ten minutes before his alarm clock was set to ring, the telephone woke Roy up. He was still mostly asleep when, having stumbled out to the hall, he picked up the receiver and muttered, “Mustang.”
“Brigadier General?” It was Alphonse Elric, and something was wrong in his voice. Adrenaline shocked Roy instantly awake.
“Bridgewire.”
"I'm fine, he's fine," said Alphonse quickly.
Roy exhaled. There followed a short pause. After a moment, through his singing relief, Roy registered the informal tone and the protocol breach. “Ah,” he managed. “Good. I’m glad to hear it, Major.”
There was another awkward pause. Bustling background noise filtered through from Alphonse’s end of the line. Someone was speaking through a crackling public address system. What were they doing at such a big railway station? Then Roy caught, please report to Bauer Ward, could Dr. Cooper -
“You’re in a hospital?”
“Yes,” said Alphonse. “Don’t w- uh - it’s not serious, sir.”
“What condition are you in?”
“I’m not injured. Brother lost some blood. But that’s all.”
Roy held the phone receiver away from his mouth for a moment while he exhaled, and took another deeper breath in. Then he just said, “Good. For the rest, we need to debrief elsewhere, Bridgewire. Call me there in thirty minutes.” Ed and Al knew which box to call.
He’d have to wait those unpleasant few minutes, until he was on a safe line, to find out how the mission had gone, what had become of Chrysalis and his creature. But he already knew it had not gone well.
***
All that morning, Havoc noted, Fuery seemed to be jogging back and forth from the kitchen with the coffeepot. Everyone seemed to want constant refills. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world for this shit.
“You know,” said Havoc, as Fuery poured him his third refill, “you don’t have to do that now. You got yourself to the dizzy heights of Second Lieutenant. Perks of rank, you get to palm off the crapwork people used to palm off onto you.”
Fuery cast a glance over to the empty desk of Havoc’s secretary, Addison. Back when he’d first rejoined the team, after being assigned a secretary whose specific job it was to do his crapwork, the power had gone slightly to Havoc’s head. Noticing that Addison preferred to get his lunch from a sandwich shop near HQ, Havoc had almost immediately decided that one of Sergeant Addison’s jobs would be to grab him a sandwich while he was there. It had seemed an excellent idea at first: Havoc got to avoid both Central HQ’s impressively vile mess food and the daily irritation of negotiating the packed mess hall in the chair - without dealing with lunch hour street traffic either. The system, however, was quickly abused. Breda and Rebecca were soon giving Addison entire lunch and coffee orders 'since he was going out anyway'. Mustang, never slow to spot an opportunity, soon added his order. This was the cue for a general Team Mustang sandwich ordering free-for-all. Finally, Addison, on the verge of mutiny from spending lunchtimes lugging a sack of sandwiches and a large tray of coffees, managed to find another sandwich shop that would just deliver.
Happy days, huh? Hard to believe it was only eighteen months ago. They’d been aiming to defeat Hakuro and the old guard the civilised way, with close to no bloodshed - and for a while there, it seemed like they’d get that. There’d seemed like so much time to kid around, to sweat the small stuff. Havoc had been riding the high of being back in the army, freshly independent, staying in a plush hotel on the military’s cen while he got his new flat fixed up, and dating a sexy, sophisticated girl who made him laugh. Maybe he had the old rose-tinted glasses on, but it seemed like back then, most of his worries had been more hopeful worries: I need to hire new builders, how do I not screw up this relationship, will the President of Weaver Industries think I’m a hick?
And now? All that good stuff was still there in his own life. But the hope that they could get to the future without blood? That was clean gone. Their options seemed to be bloody revolution or a bloody civil war: and the opposition were toting a weapon that could take out a whole nation if you grew it big enough. If you’ve got it, you can lose it, and the whole country - the whole world, even - could be about to lose.
Fuery hovered with the pot and smiled at Havoc, embarrassed. He leaned in. “To tell you the truth, I’m just keeping busy. I came in when Breda told me, but there isn’t much for me to do 'round here yet.”
“You’re too nice, buddy. You could head home, we could call you in later.”
Fuery just shrugged. “Thanks, really, Captain. But no. I’d rather be here. You know?” With another apologetic grin, he hefted the coffeepot and headed onto the next desk, and the next empty mug.
At eleven hundred hours, Mustang and Havoc were debriefing the details of the Elrics’ mission. The details were not good. “I understand,” Mustang said, “that Bridgewire bullshitted their way to a lift from a farm truck into Amestrian territory. Told the driver they’d been in a train wreck.”
“And they’re fine?”
“Yes. Fullmetal got a blood transfusion, and he’s sleeping it off.”
Havoc nodded slowly.
“Stop that,” Mustang said. “You have nothing to rebuke yourself for. It was a solid piece of intelligence work. Things just went wrong in the field, that’s all.”
Things went wrong in the field. That happened. Havoc scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m not. It’s just -“ He shrugged. Mustang had known Ed and Al as long as he had, it wasn’t like there was a difference there. It was just - he’d watched the Elric brothers grow up. Maybe it was because they were Eastern boys, because they talked like he did and knew how to trap a rabbit and row a boat - but they’d always felt like his smart-ass little cousins.
Mustang filled the silence. “Sending people into danger, into battle. It’s never -“ he shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t like doing it either.”
Havoc grinned at him with one side of his mouth. “Thanks, chief. But I already knew you were a sap.”
1348 hours brought some sorely-needed good news. Breda returned from the records room, pulled a note from the borrowed file he was carrying, rapidly scanned it, then disappeared into the conference room with Mustang. A couple of minutes later, the rest of them were called in.
“So, looks like you got a note-passin’ contact in Investigations, hey, guy?” said Rebecca on the way into the room. Apparently, not even the threat of apocalypse could stop her sniffing out dish.
Breda stuck his hands in his pockets and didn’t reply.
“Half of Investigations are in the office cranking out briefings on the Cretan situation,” Breda said to the room at large. “We’ve got confirmation: Hakuro knows Chrysalis is in Creta, and he’s trying to track him down.”
The anxious half-frown Mustang had been wearing all morning had given place to a small but discernable smirk. “He had his top man in alchemical weapons in hiding on the Cretan border,” Mustang said, “and now he needs the inside scoop on Cretan relations. This is the quality of mind we’re up against.”
“We’ve chased him out of two hideouts now," said Hawkeye. "In Central and on the Aerugan border. We had him on the ropes.” Here was Mustang’s smirk, like always, and here was Hawkeye ignoring the smirk, like always. The tense air of emergency lifted a little. Did they know how much the mood of the team rose and fell with theirs? Probably.
Hawkeye continued. “Aerugo would have welcomed a defector. Creta, on the other hand - they’re thoroughly suspicious of alchemy, and at the moment, they’re getting more isolationist by the month.”
“For instance,” Mustang cut in smoothly, weighing his pen between finger and thumb, “I hear they’ve shut down the telephone exchange with Amestris.”
Havoc leaned forward and propped his chin on one hand, thinking it through. “But,” he said, “we can’t totally close that border, right? It’s in the mountains, it is how it is. All we can do is police the train route.”
“We can get people in Papenburg watching out discreetly,” Miles pointed out. “In my opinion, the more immediate worry is what happens if Chrysalis does manage to defect to Creta. He’d be the only national-standard alchemist in the whole country, am I right?” Mustang and Hawkeye both nodded. “The Cretans hardly even have laws against taboo transmutation. They may be suspicious of alchemy, but they also don’t have any real understanding of alchemical crime. They’re not going to recognise the dangerous stuff when they see it. And meanwhile Chrysalis has a long and consistent m.o. of creating highly dangerous alchemical weapons by means of torturing people to death.”
The tension in the room weighed down once more. Mustang said, “That’s true too. The more hopeful angle is that Bridgewire reports that the Homunculus is barely controllable in its current state. He’s a lot less likely to feed it, beyond its daily ration of a few drops of blood.”
“But the less hopeful angle,” Hawkeye said, “is the prospect of war. International war.”
Mustang shifted in his seat. “The bottom line,” he said, “is the limits of our intelligence in Creta. In short: we don’t know.”
There was a silence: an unpleasant silence full of questions no one wanted to be the one to voice. Still, someone had to break it. “So,” asked Havoc, “now what do we do?”
What they did, it seemed, was to plan - or rather, to bolster the plans they had already. A coup in a box, Havoc called it: just add water. They had a complete plan for takeover. They would wait only until the first moment the scales of military support tipped towards Mustang’s faction - or until intelligence of Chrysalis made immediate action necessary. Then, the signal to strike would be fired, and wherever they were, they would move.
There was another signal, of course: the signal to retreat. Plans for that had been made more quietly. Havoc had spent the other half of his weekend working on them. In a way, though, it was good to know they were there.
By halfway through the evening, they had a way forward.
And then the day was over, at least for most of them. Havoc rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to wake himself up for the drive home. “Delivery pizza, bath, bed,” said Rebecca, shouldering her bag and stroking his hairline absently with a thumb. Havoc gave her a half-smile. He felt a momentary, odd burst of gratitude for the everyday details of his life: the slow traffic down Jordan Boulevard, sausage pizza eaten out of cardboard on the sofa, a hot shower, Becky fidgeting against him as she tried to get to sleep. For today, there was this.
“See you tomorrow, bright and early,” said Breda, clapping him on the shoulder.
***
It felt weird.
That was Brosch’s first thought, as he reclined on the patient bench of Atelier Garfiel, when the nerves finally connected. Well, the first thought after a few seconds of owfuckow. Still, it hadn’t been quite as bad as he’d expected. He supposed this must be a hidden advantage of the last few weeks of automail surgery, recovery from automail surgery, and long train journeys while recovering from automail surgery. His pain thresholds had apparently really gone up.
Ms Rockbell politely ignored his hissing and clenched fists as she briskly checked connections and screwed on plates. When his train got in this morning, he’d asked her one last time if she was sure about taking him on. She and Mr Garfiel had both replied at once, before he’d even gotten to the end of the sentence. Of course they knew what they were doing. Of course they knew the risks of taking a military client from Mustang’s faction right now. When he’d opened his mouth to respond, Mr Garfiel had told him sweetly to shut up, and then offered him a cup of jasmine tea. But truthfully, although he’d felt like he had to offer them every chance to back out, he was utterly grateful that they hadn’t. This was the worst time of all for him to be out of the game, with everything going on. He wasn’t kidding himself about how long it would take him to get back up to a hundred per cent, but surely now he was out of a hospital bed and moving, there’d be something he could do?
Brosch stared at the heavy, elaborate chunk of metal newly locked on to his right thigh. He couldn’t exactly say that it felt like his leg yet. He put a hand to the knee, and felt nothing. Sure, his leg felt like it was there, but then, it had felt like it was there ever since they’d taken it off. He could even move the damn thing, could curl phantom toes, kick out a foot that didn’t exist.
It was an odd sight, the metal foot lying next to his own foot. They were the exact same size and shape. Exact. It was as if he was wearing a steel sock. Ms Rockbell had taken about a billion measurements from him, but still, the precision of the match was kind of amazing. There was even that weird little gap he’d always had between his big toe and the rest of his toes. Each automail toe had two little joints to it, and the ankle looked slim and flexible. Despite knowing Major Elric, he’d imagined some clunky, square piece of military hardware. This was so -
His toes curled up.
The automail toes had twitched and curled, right there. The motion looked completely human.
“Great!” said Ms Rockbell.
“I didn’t move it!” said Brosch. “I have no idea what happened.”
“No, no, that was a reflex,” she said. “Great.” She bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet, smiling.
Brosch found himself smiling back. “It looks just like my foot!” he said. Wait, that sounded idiotic.
“It is your foot!” said Ms Rockbell.
“No,” he said, “I mean, you got it all just right. It’s amazing.” She smiled at him and her whole face seemed to go bright and sparkly. “It doesn’t look how I was expecting at all!” It was weird. Just yesterday, he’d been thinking, in the Rush Valley heat, how he was going to miss wearing sandals when he had an automail foot to hide. Now, he was starting to think he kind of wanted to show it to his buddies.
“Okay,” she said. “Now, close your eyes, and point your toes for me. Both pairs.”
Brosch did as he was told. He felt his real foot and his imaginary foot point their toes together, and felt ridiculous feeling it. “Great!” he heard. “You’re doing fine. Now back! Now again!” He did it again, or imagined it again. Maybe she was just humouring him?
Soon Ms Rockbell had him in a weird rhythm, pointing the toes of his good foot up and down, and talking himself into thinking he was doing the same with his missing foot. After a couple of minutes, she stopped him. “Okay, now do the same, and in a moment, I’m going to come around and cover your eyes with my hands.”
He did so. Her hands were small and cool over his eyelids.
“Open your eyes and keep working,” she said. “Up! Point! Up! Point! Good job, keep going!”
Brosch could see nothing at first except vague fragments of the room through the gaps between her fingers. But then, she moved them slightly, and he couldn’t resist trying to look. And there - there was the automail foot, pointing and flexing. Shaky and stiff, for sure, but in the same rhythm as his good foot.
“It’s moving!” said Brosch.
“I know it is,” said Ms Rockbell. She pulled away her hands. Brosch told his foot fiercely to keep going. He concentrated hard on the movement -
The automail foot stopped.
“Oh,” said Brosch.
“You thought about it!” said Ms Rockbell. “Right?” Then she gave him a lovely big smile. “Don’t worry. Everyone goes through this part. You have to learn to use it without thinking about it, just like you do the rest of your body. But you’ve already seen your leg works now, right? All you have to do is get the hang of it.”
“By not thinking about it?” asked Brosch.
“You got it!” She gave him a little finger point.
He stared again at his new leg. This time, he checked out the knee joint, the polished, weighty curve of the cap, and the neat and clever fit of the jointure. He might like it. He might, if one day he ever got over the weirdness, really it. “This leg,” he said, “is just sweet. I bet Major Elric wasn’t kidding about your wait-list.”
For a moment, Ms Rockbell looked almost embarrassed, and Brosch swore she was flushing. Then, “Okay!” she said. “Now, let’s get you on your feet.”
“Today?” Brosch said.
“Sooner the better!” said Ms Rockbell brightly. As she went to retrieve Brosch’s crutches, he swung himself around off the patient bench - and the weight of his new leg very nearly pitched him onto the floor.
When he swung himself up on the crutches, he nearly went down again. The leg, of course, refused to bend when he told it to, refused to straighten either - refused even to plant its foot on the floor. He settled for standing on his good leg and leaning hard on the crutches.
It was a long, embarrassing and painful trip over to the parallel bars. Ms Rockbell just let him make his own way over. Along the way, Brosch changed his mind about the leg for the second time in ten minutes. Right this second, he couldn’t stand the awkward bastard thing.
Here were the parallel bars. He straightened and transferred most of his weight onto his good leg. Ms Rockbell was there to take the crutches from him one at a time: leaving him stranded, nervous and very possibly about to faceplant. He looked at her expectantly.
“Just walk on it,” she said. “You know how to walk, right?” Brosch nodded. “Just do the same as always. You saw before, the trick is not to think about it!”
Brosch sucked in a breath and nodded. The automail leg still wasn’t co-operating, so he leaned up to one side to plant it on the floor. Then he was standing on it! Standing on two legs! Great, he thought. Then a stab of nerve pain hit right the way through his leg, so harsh that he hissed and grit his teeth. The locked knee jerked and kicked without his permission, and he abruptly lost his balance. He ended up scrabbling for balance with his good foot, while clinging to the bars as if they were saving him from drowning.
He’d been warned, and it was true: automail rehab did a person’s dignity no good.
“I don’t think this is gonna work,” Brosch managed to creak, once the worst of it had passed.
“Yes, it is!” barked Ms Rockbell. “Stay up there, Warrant Officer! You can do it! Don’t let me down!”
Brosch responded reflexively to the rank and the yelling. He locked his arms on the bars, moved his good leg out further and locked his knee too, and somehow managed to stay upright.
Ms Rockbell, who could apparently shift straight from cheerleader to drill sergeant without blinking, gave him a small, approving nod.
***
The train journey home from Papenburg, inevitably, sucked. At least in this direction, though, they got to go the direct route. And it beat lying around in a hospital bed licking his wounds. Ed hated that. Being on the move, going anywhere, felt better.
He was travel-sick half the journey before he finally managed to get to sleep. He awoke, tired and cranky with a crick in his neck, just as the suburbs of Central started to rush past the train window.
Al squeezed his shoulder as they went to disembark; Ed gave him a half-grin in return, aiming for reassuring. It was a setback, Ed thought to himself as they navigated the evening throng on the concourse. All right, so it was a major setback, but they’d just have to find another way. Hadn’t he and Al had enough of these moments, back when they were looking for the Stone?
“I’m bushed. Let’s just get a cab home,” Al said, turning them left towards the taxi rank and not right towards the metro station. The excuse was transparent; he was coddling Ed because he was injured. But still, Ed didn’t exactly love the thought of standing in a packed, airless metro carriage for the twenty minutes it would take to get to their flat in the university quarter. He accepted the gesture without comment.
The line for cabs was long; but as they tramped to its back, something caught Ed’s eye. He stopped short, then grabbed Al’s arm to stop him short too.
Roy’s car was right opposite the taxi rank.
As they crossed the street, Roy looked up from his newspaper and gave them one of his poker-face unreadable looks. Ed’s entire insides slid around a bit. Still travel-sick, he thought reflexively. But, no: it wasn’t that. It was the other thing.
Ed hesitated for a moment between the car’s front passenger door and the back. Then he wrenched open the back, shoved his suitcase in and hopped in after it. Al followed, and as soon as he’d closed the door, Roy started up the car.
“So,” Ed said, “you guessed we’d get a cab, huh?”
Roy’s eyes flicked to his through the rear view mirror. Ed’s insides did that thing again. “I told Bridgewire he should make sure you got a cab. Report?”
Al shifted in his seat, then pulled several sheets of paper from his inside pocket. “We wrote this up on the train, sir.” In Ed’s code, of course. “It’s pretty much what I told you yesterday.”
“I’m sorry,” Ed cut in. “The whole thing sucked.”
“You both did your best.” Roy’s eyes flicked to them both briefly through the rear view mirror.
They talked around the matter a little on the way to the university quarter. Roy asked a bunch of questions about the creature. He was decent enough not to point out that, had he been able to get there himself, he could have fried it into nothing without breaking a sweat.
“Sir, what about the people Chrysalis murdered for this thing?” Al said. “I mean, I know we need to move, but their families don’t even know if they’re alive or not.”
“It goes on the list,” said Roy grimly. He tapped his forehead with a finger. “The disappeared, the murdered, the forgotten. If - when we win, we’ll make sure that all these crimes are brought out into the light.”
The rest of the short journey was quiet. Tuesday was going to be Al’s office day; there’d be time then for planning, debriefing, more questions, and what answers they could surmise.
Roy parked on Palmer Street, a few doors down from Ed and Al’s place. As Al got out of the car, Roy and Ed’s eyes met again in the rear view mirror, just for a moment. Ed looked out of the car and exchanged a glance with Al. Al picked it up instantly, but still hovered. Ed hopped out of the car. He left his suitcase in the footwell.
“I’m okay,” Ed said quickly to Al. “Are you going to be all right?”
Al gave him a slightly embarrassed smile, then he just clapped Ed on the shoulder and nodded. “I’m just going to take an early night.” Fights still left him overstimulated sometimes, Ed knew.
Ed gave him a brief look of gratitude, then opened the car’s front passenger door and slid into the seat next to Roy. Al waved and walked away.
Roy looked at him, and seemed to be considering saying something, then reconsidering it. That was kind of awkward, Ed considered saying, and didn’t.
“Hello,” said Roy. He looked tired. Ed reached over and squeezed his shoulder for a quick moment.
Roy smiled. “Are you hungry?”
Ed asked his body, and got an emphatic yes. “Starving,” he said. He wanted so bad to slide across the seat and bump his leg against Roy’s. He didn’t.
A few blocks later, Roy pulled them up in a side street. Ed gave into himself immediately and slid across to Roy. He went for a shoulder bump, but somehow landed in a kiss.
The kiss turned into kissing, present continuous, with Roy’s hand around his waist and his hands pulling on Roy’s lapels. After a few seconds, they pulled away. Why did touching another person always do this for him: make the bad moments bearable, give him the energy to go on? Ed had never understood it completely, but he felt horribly grateful for it right now.
“Steak,” murmured Roy, pulling away after another long kiss, which had happened as easily as the first. “We have to get out of the car to get steak.” His breath was warm on Ed’s face.
“Steak,” said Ed reverently. They were wading through danger and murder and horror and the prospect of worse - yet still, somehow he couldn’t help but be glad of food and sex and human warmth. “Steak. Fuckin’ A.”
The steakhouse was small. Ed didn’t know it. They didn’t even had a menu: you could have steak and chips or steak and chips. While they waited, Roy hung his suit jacket on the back of his chair and rolled up his sleeves. He looked tired and handsome. Ed had an unbearable itch to reach out and touch his face. He stretched out his right leg instead, tapped his toe against Roy’s instep.
“How’ve you been?” Ed said.
“Working hard. Getting somewhere.” Roy tilted his head.
Ed picked up the signal. “Got it. No shop talk. That’s cool.”
“The prescription for blood loss,” said Roy, “is several days of hearty meals.”
“I know,” Ed said. “A doc told me after the Fifth Lab, I would’ve punched the air if I hadn’t been stuck with hospital food.”
It wasn’t until a waiter was putting two slabs of nearly-raw charred cow in front of them that Ed realised he was kind of on a date. Still, it didn’t matter. He could use this evening, and Roy looked like he could use it. Still, Roy’s timing was kind of amazing. Did a lot of people think, near death experience, steak? Sometimes Roy was weird in precisely the same ways Ed was weird.
In the car afterwards, Roy looked at him before he started the engine. “Shall I drop you home?”
Ed looked down, then up again, surprised. “Can I go to yours?”
Roy said quickly, “You’re tired, you’re injured. The meal was just a meal, it’s not an - obligation thing, there’s never an obligation, you know that, it’s a ground rule -“
“I know that, dumbass!” Ed swatted his arm. “I didn’t think that.”
Roy rubbed a hand across his eyes. He had that caught-out look he got when he looked like a dork in public. “I mean it. The steak was just steak, and you must want to sleep.”
“Do you need to sleep? Is it okay with you to go to yours?” Ed peered at Roy.
Roy looked at him, then he grinned with one side of his mouth. “Yes,” he said. “It really is.”
“Good,” said Ed.
The drive to Roy’s was short. Ed dropped his suitcase in the hall, hung up his coat.
Roy turned to him. “Can I get you a glass of wa-“ But Ed was already kissing him. Mostly, it was fun to kiss Roy while he was trying to talk. This time, though, the kiss seemed to change hands halfway through. Ed found himself held in Roy’s arms, hanging on to his shirtfront rather than pulling at it. It wasn’t bad at all, like this, though.
They pulled away for a moment. Again, Ed wanted to put his hand on Roy’s cheek. He pushed his forehead against it instead.
The cat walked past them, casually, with a paper bag over its head.
Roy blinked against Ed’s forehead. “Does he do this sort of thing a lot?”
“Uh, yes. We should probably …”
“Right. Before he suffocates or knocks into something.” Roy made his way over to the cat, and pulled off the bag. The cat sat down and made a pitiful high-pitched noise. “You don’t get food just for being silly,” Roy said.
“I did,” Ed said.
“You didn’t,” Roy said. He didn’t elaborate on why Ed had gotten food.
In the bedroom, they undressed straight away, like the done deal it was, and looked at each other as they did so. Ed slipped his shirt off gingerly around his sore left arm. Roy came up to him, and without saying anything, took his arm up carefully, one hand on his upper arm, one on his wrist. He looked over the dressing on the crook of Ed’s elbow. Then he let go gently and put his hands to Ed’s hips, rubbing his thumbs against Ed’s hipbones while he looked him up and down.
“It’s not that bad,” Ed said, feeling off-kilter. “It’s just a little puncture wound, hardly gonna scar at all. The rest of it’s just scratches. You know how it is in a fight.”
“You lost some blood,” Roy said. He ran his hands lightly over Ed’s shoulder and back. There was something in his eyes Ed had seen there before.
“You worry about everyone,” Ed said. “Sap.”
It was different than usual. Ed was tired after all. Roy was careful and attentive of his injured and uninjured parts alike, and it somehow wasn’t as annoying as Ed would expect that to be. Roy arranged him on the bed, and Ed grinned and wriggled and let himself be arranged. Roy teased him mercilessly, and Ed growled and writhed around and did nothing. Roy relented and sucked him off hard, and Ed curled his toes and wriggled his hips and made noises at the ceiling.
He drifted back down, vaguely headachey, with Roy lying alongside him giving him the smuggest of looks. Ed smiled, then looked down as his hip butted against Roy’s very hard dick. “Can I do something about that?” he said.
Roy smiled and shrugged. “Doesn’t your arm hurt?” he said. “I mean, I can just - I don’t want to -“
“Ugh,” said Ed, “stop it.” He squirmed his way upside down on the bed, leaned over Roy, and stroked and licked him the rest of the way there.
Afterwards, Ed flipped himself around again, and they leaned into each other, breathing deep. “Thanks,” said Roy. “I needed that.”
“Me too,” said Ed.
“You know,” Roy said slowly, “the political situation now, it’s not necessarily as bad as it seems. We have an opportunity. The next few weeks are going to be …” He closed his eyes for a moment, head flopped on Ed’s shoulder. A few seconds later, Ed realised he was already asleep.
In under a minute, Ed followed him.
***
The waiter had leather pants and a full tray of drinks. He sashayed around the table, deposited them person by person, and was gone.
Breda raised his glass. “What a fucking week.”
“That’s the toast?” asked Becky.
“Good toast,” said Havoc.
Miles snorted.
It had, indeed, been a real killer of a week. The provisional government had begun the process of tearing itself apart. Fence-sitters were becoming side-choosers. Throughout the military, schemers were scheming, panickers were panicking, and ordinary joes were wading through enormous piles of paperwork. It said a lot that the Amestrian military couldn’t even fall to pieces without generating a ton of bureaucracy.
And now, on Friday night, when they’d miraculously escaped the office, Breda got to sit at the couple table, alone, sourly watching the newly-minted and the practically-married canoodle. All because he’d managed to start dating a girl who was spying for Team Mustang. Sciezka told him Investigations was practically under lockdown. The two of them were communicating via library books: excellent for secrecy, but a crappy way of catching up with one’s girlfriend. Sort-of girlfriend.
“Now, everyone behave tonight,” said Ross, turning around from the next table. “Remember this is my local. Or it used to be, back when I had a social life.”
Havoc grinned and saluted. At the same time, Rebecca put her hand on her heart and exclaimed, mock-offended, “Who, us?”
The lights in the bar lowered. One by one, on the stage, three spotlights winked on. Heels clicking, a figure walked onstage.
***
The woman on the stage wore a bowler hat jammed onto the back of her head, with an extravagant black quiff in front, curling like a comma. Her tailcoat was worn, her shirt was pristine, and her age impossible to determine.
“Good evening, children,” she purred into the microphone.
“Harry Valentina!” exclaimed Fuery in a whisper. He waved his hands discreetly. “Oh my god! I had no idea she was in this! I have all her records!”
“She’s even better live,” Maria whispered back. She hadn’t known that Harry Valentina was hosting this thing either. She was getting woefully behind with cultural goings on.
“Welcome,” said Harry, “to the Little Cat Cabaret! I can see a lot of new faces tonight. Our little show is really drawing the crowds. But that’s all right, though. We like your money. Those of you who haven’t been here before, our cabaret is ordinarily a little … avant-garde.” She paused for effect. A few regulars whooped and clapped. “But just for you, though, we’ve kept it cheerful, clean, and patriotic!” She winked at the audience. Her spotlights went out, and at the same time another lit at the back of the stage. Dress uniform, eyepatch, moustache: the figure was smaller, but it was unmistakably King Bradley himself.
There was a whooshing noise: the audience, collectively, sucking in a breath. Maria felt the shock of it herself. You did not do hilarious skits about the Fuhrer. Not unless you were keen on vanishing without trace. You mocked him privately, among your most trusted people. But Bradley was dead. His replacement was dead. There was no standing Fuhrer.
The silence in the audience was crisp.
Into the quiet, the bar’s piano briskly tumbled out the first few bars of the national anthem, then shifted into a jaunty tune.
“Pardon me, sir -” a woman’s voice sang from offstage.
“What?” called Bradley. His voice was a couple of octaves higher than the original, but the boom was right.
“- but your ass is show-ing,” continued the singer.
“What?” called the Bradley impersonator. He leapt around - and his coat skirts twirled in the air to show that the ass of his pants had been neatly cut out.
The piano paused. For a moment, the audience didn’t react. Then, into the silence, Maria started to chuckle. She didn’t mean to be the first. But she couldn’t help herself.
Someone else joined in. A low rumble of laughter travelled around the audience. Someone applauded. Then another someone, and another someone -
The audience was exploding with laughter and applause. Maria still couldn’t stop herself grinning. The joke hadn’t even been that good. It felt like - what was it? It felt like the last day of high school. In her parents’ back garden, when Maria and her friends had made a trashcan bonfire of their schoolbooks and danced around it in a ring. It felt like that.
Maria suddenly realised - she recognised Bradley. She was positive that under the moustache and the blues, he was Claire Borchert, a regular singer here. Well, good for her.
As the applause slowly died down, stage-Bradley did a perfect imitation of the signature regal wave, the jaunty grin. The crowd erupted again, briefly. As the laughter calmed again, the piano started back up.
“Pardon me, sir -” the voice sang again.
***
Well, Breda thought, so far they’d had a takedown of Bradley’s supposed senile years, a skit about the Aerugan border war ceasefire, and a song about the Central Times taking bribes. The latter had involved a bunch of chorus boys in shorts made out of fake hundred cen bills. Now a chorus of Joe and Jane Averages were harmonising about rumours of the old regime’s dabblings with taboo alchemy.
The producers of this show must be insane. Commendably insane, but still.
“… And no one knows what the hell is going onnnn -“ sung the chorus. Then an offstage drumroll cut them off.
“Fear not!” A loud voice rang out. A spotlight swung around. And onto the stage strode a figure in blue.
A very small figure.
They were up close enough to see that she must have been five foot nothing in her socks. She was wearing a sexified version of military blues: knee-high black boots, tight trousers, cavalry skirt and jacket. Over it all was a long black coat, shrugged over her shoulders like a cape, and billowing out behind her dramatically with every stride.
Two paces behind, strode a beautiful, big-eyed blonde girl, in the same sexy-army get up, hair scraped back into a high bun.
Hand on one hip, stage-Roy struck a heroic pose, fingers poised to snap. “Fear not, citizens! The revolution is here! Well, nearly here.” He turned to the girl behind him and stage-whispered. “Lieutenant, how’s my hair?”
There was a moderate burst of laughter and applause from around the audience, a few stray whistles.
Team Mustang, on the other hand, were utterly helpless. Havoc cackled, Miles chuckled, Fuery turned red as a beet and snickered uncontrollably. Riza’s poker face held out for a few moments, but then even she started silently giggling.
“What’s so funny?” called stage-Roy, waving a hand to their tables.
Through his guffaws, Breda attempted to croak something like “jacket - cape," but nobody else sitting there was in any condition to respond.
***
***
On to Chapter Nine!
Setting: Fullmetal Alchemist, mangaverse, post-series, slight ending AU.
Characters: Roy/Ed, Havoc/Rebecca, Riza/Miles, Al, Winry, ensemble.
Rating: NC-17 overall, this chapter light NC-17 for sexing
Word count: 6405
Summary: Two years on from the Promised Day. Amestris is without a Fuhrer, the military is teetering on the brink of civil war, and Team Mustang search urgently for the opposition's secret alchemical weapon. Any day now could be the first day of the war, and everyone is feeling the pressure. So is it any wonder that Ed and Roy's growing friendship just kindasorta combusted on them?
Notes: Direct sequel to No Small Injury. Illustrated by me, betaed and edited by enemytosleep.
Chapter One: Blue Monday | Chapter Two: Make Your Mind Up Time | Chapter Three: Something Stupid | Chapter Four: Two Plus Two
Chapter Five: Inbetween Days | Interlude: Test Drive | Chapter Six: Go the Distance | Chapter Seven: A Grin Without a Cat
On Sunday morning, ten minutes before his alarm clock was set to ring, the telephone woke Roy up. He was still mostly asleep when, having stumbled out to the hall, he picked up the receiver and muttered, “Mustang.”
“Brigadier General?” It was Alphonse Elric, and something was wrong in his voice. Adrenaline shocked Roy instantly awake.
“Bridgewire.”
"I'm fine, he's fine," said Alphonse quickly.
Roy exhaled. There followed a short pause. After a moment, through his singing relief, Roy registered the informal tone and the protocol breach. “Ah,” he managed. “Good. I’m glad to hear it, Major.”
There was another awkward pause. Bustling background noise filtered through from Alphonse’s end of the line. Someone was speaking through a crackling public address system. What were they doing at such a big railway station? Then Roy caught, please report to Bauer Ward, could Dr. Cooper -
“You’re in a hospital?”
“Yes,” said Alphonse. “Don’t w- uh - it’s not serious, sir.”
“What condition are you in?”
“I’m not injured. Brother lost some blood. But that’s all.”
Roy held the phone receiver away from his mouth for a moment while he exhaled, and took another deeper breath in. Then he just said, “Good. For the rest, we need to debrief elsewhere, Bridgewire. Call me there in thirty minutes.” Ed and Al knew which box to call.
He’d have to wait those unpleasant few minutes, until he was on a safe line, to find out how the mission had gone, what had become of Chrysalis and his creature. But he already knew it had not gone well.
***
All that morning, Havoc noted, Fuery seemed to be jogging back and forth from the kitchen with the coffeepot. Everyone seemed to want constant refills. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world for this shit.
“You know,” said Havoc, as Fuery poured him his third refill, “you don’t have to do that now. You got yourself to the dizzy heights of Second Lieutenant. Perks of rank, you get to palm off the crapwork people used to palm off onto you.”
Fuery cast a glance over to the empty desk of Havoc’s secretary, Addison. Back when he’d first rejoined the team, after being assigned a secretary whose specific job it was to do his crapwork, the power had gone slightly to Havoc’s head. Noticing that Addison preferred to get his lunch from a sandwich shop near HQ, Havoc had almost immediately decided that one of Sergeant Addison’s jobs would be to grab him a sandwich while he was there. It had seemed an excellent idea at first: Havoc got to avoid both Central HQ’s impressively vile mess food and the daily irritation of negotiating the packed mess hall in the chair - without dealing with lunch hour street traffic either. The system, however, was quickly abused. Breda and Rebecca were soon giving Addison entire lunch and coffee orders 'since he was going out anyway'. Mustang, never slow to spot an opportunity, soon added his order. This was the cue for a general Team Mustang sandwich ordering free-for-all. Finally, Addison, on the verge of mutiny from spending lunchtimes lugging a sack of sandwiches and a large tray of coffees, managed to find another sandwich shop that would just deliver.
Happy days, huh? Hard to believe it was only eighteen months ago. They’d been aiming to defeat Hakuro and the old guard the civilised way, with close to no bloodshed - and for a while there, it seemed like they’d get that. There’d seemed like so much time to kid around, to sweat the small stuff. Havoc had been riding the high of being back in the army, freshly independent, staying in a plush hotel on the military’s cen while he got his new flat fixed up, and dating a sexy, sophisticated girl who made him laugh. Maybe he had the old rose-tinted glasses on, but it seemed like back then, most of his worries had been more hopeful worries: I need to hire new builders, how do I not screw up this relationship, will the President of Weaver Industries think I’m a hick?
And now? All that good stuff was still there in his own life. But the hope that they could get to the future without blood? That was clean gone. Their options seemed to be bloody revolution or a bloody civil war: and the opposition were toting a weapon that could take out a whole nation if you grew it big enough. If you’ve got it, you can lose it, and the whole country - the whole world, even - could be about to lose.
Fuery hovered with the pot and smiled at Havoc, embarrassed. He leaned in. “To tell you the truth, I’m just keeping busy. I came in when Breda told me, but there isn’t much for me to do 'round here yet.”
“You’re too nice, buddy. You could head home, we could call you in later.”
Fuery just shrugged. “Thanks, really, Captain. But no. I’d rather be here. You know?” With another apologetic grin, he hefted the coffeepot and headed onto the next desk, and the next empty mug.
At eleven hundred hours, Mustang and Havoc were debriefing the details of the Elrics’ mission. The details were not good. “I understand,” Mustang said, “that Bridgewire bullshitted their way to a lift from a farm truck into Amestrian territory. Told the driver they’d been in a train wreck.”
“And they’re fine?”
“Yes. Fullmetal got a blood transfusion, and he’s sleeping it off.”
Havoc nodded slowly.
“Stop that,” Mustang said. “You have nothing to rebuke yourself for. It was a solid piece of intelligence work. Things just went wrong in the field, that’s all.”
Things went wrong in the field. That happened. Havoc scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m not. It’s just -“ He shrugged. Mustang had known Ed and Al as long as he had, it wasn’t like there was a difference there. It was just - he’d watched the Elric brothers grow up. Maybe it was because they were Eastern boys, because they talked like he did and knew how to trap a rabbit and row a boat - but they’d always felt like his smart-ass little cousins.
Mustang filled the silence. “Sending people into danger, into battle. It’s never -“ he shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t like doing it either.”
Havoc grinned at him with one side of his mouth. “Thanks, chief. But I already knew you were a sap.”
1348 hours brought some sorely-needed good news. Breda returned from the records room, pulled a note from the borrowed file he was carrying, rapidly scanned it, then disappeared into the conference room with Mustang. A couple of minutes later, the rest of them were called in.
“So, looks like you got a note-passin’ contact in Investigations, hey, guy?” said Rebecca on the way into the room. Apparently, not even the threat of apocalypse could stop her sniffing out dish.
Breda stuck his hands in his pockets and didn’t reply.
“Half of Investigations are in the office cranking out briefings on the Cretan situation,” Breda said to the room at large. “We’ve got confirmation: Hakuro knows Chrysalis is in Creta, and he’s trying to track him down.”
The anxious half-frown Mustang had been wearing all morning had given place to a small but discernable smirk. “He had his top man in alchemical weapons in hiding on the Cretan border,” Mustang said, “and now he needs the inside scoop on Cretan relations. This is the quality of mind we’re up against.”
“We’ve chased him out of two hideouts now," said Hawkeye. "In Central and on the Aerugan border. We had him on the ropes.” Here was Mustang’s smirk, like always, and here was Hawkeye ignoring the smirk, like always. The tense air of emergency lifted a little. Did they know how much the mood of the team rose and fell with theirs? Probably.
Hawkeye continued. “Aerugo would have welcomed a defector. Creta, on the other hand - they’re thoroughly suspicious of alchemy, and at the moment, they’re getting more isolationist by the month.”
“For instance,” Mustang cut in smoothly, weighing his pen between finger and thumb, “I hear they’ve shut down the telephone exchange with Amestris.”
Havoc leaned forward and propped his chin on one hand, thinking it through. “But,” he said, “we can’t totally close that border, right? It’s in the mountains, it is how it is. All we can do is police the train route.”
“We can get people in Papenburg watching out discreetly,” Miles pointed out. “In my opinion, the more immediate worry is what happens if Chrysalis does manage to defect to Creta. He’d be the only national-standard alchemist in the whole country, am I right?” Mustang and Hawkeye both nodded. “The Cretans hardly even have laws against taboo transmutation. They may be suspicious of alchemy, but they also don’t have any real understanding of alchemical crime. They’re not going to recognise the dangerous stuff when they see it. And meanwhile Chrysalis has a long and consistent m.o. of creating highly dangerous alchemical weapons by means of torturing people to death.”
The tension in the room weighed down once more. Mustang said, “That’s true too. The more hopeful angle is that Bridgewire reports that the Homunculus is barely controllable in its current state. He’s a lot less likely to feed it, beyond its daily ration of a few drops of blood.”
“But the less hopeful angle,” Hawkeye said, “is the prospect of war. International war.”
Mustang shifted in his seat. “The bottom line,” he said, “is the limits of our intelligence in Creta. In short: we don’t know.”
There was a silence: an unpleasant silence full of questions no one wanted to be the one to voice. Still, someone had to break it. “So,” asked Havoc, “now what do we do?”
What they did, it seemed, was to plan - or rather, to bolster the plans they had already. A coup in a box, Havoc called it: just add water. They had a complete plan for takeover. They would wait only until the first moment the scales of military support tipped towards Mustang’s faction - or until intelligence of Chrysalis made immediate action necessary. Then, the signal to strike would be fired, and wherever they were, they would move.
There was another signal, of course: the signal to retreat. Plans for that had been made more quietly. Havoc had spent the other half of his weekend working on them. In a way, though, it was good to know they were there.
By halfway through the evening, they had a way forward.
And then the day was over, at least for most of them. Havoc rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to wake himself up for the drive home. “Delivery pizza, bath, bed,” said Rebecca, shouldering her bag and stroking his hairline absently with a thumb. Havoc gave her a half-smile. He felt a momentary, odd burst of gratitude for the everyday details of his life: the slow traffic down Jordan Boulevard, sausage pizza eaten out of cardboard on the sofa, a hot shower, Becky fidgeting against him as she tried to get to sleep. For today, there was this.
“See you tomorrow, bright and early,” said Breda, clapping him on the shoulder.
***
It felt weird.
That was Brosch’s first thought, as he reclined on the patient bench of Atelier Garfiel, when the nerves finally connected. Well, the first thought after a few seconds of owfuckow. Still, it hadn’t been quite as bad as he’d expected. He supposed this must be a hidden advantage of the last few weeks of automail surgery, recovery from automail surgery, and long train journeys while recovering from automail surgery. His pain thresholds had apparently really gone up.
Ms Rockbell politely ignored his hissing and clenched fists as she briskly checked connections and screwed on plates. When his train got in this morning, he’d asked her one last time if she was sure about taking him on. She and Mr Garfiel had both replied at once, before he’d even gotten to the end of the sentence. Of course they knew what they were doing. Of course they knew the risks of taking a military client from Mustang’s faction right now. When he’d opened his mouth to respond, Mr Garfiel had told him sweetly to shut up, and then offered him a cup of jasmine tea. But truthfully, although he’d felt like he had to offer them every chance to back out, he was utterly grateful that they hadn’t. This was the worst time of all for him to be out of the game, with everything going on. He wasn’t kidding himself about how long it would take him to get back up to a hundred per cent, but surely now he was out of a hospital bed and moving, there’d be something he could do?
Brosch stared at the heavy, elaborate chunk of metal newly locked on to his right thigh. He couldn’t exactly say that it felt like his leg yet. He put a hand to the knee, and felt nothing. Sure, his leg felt like it was there, but then, it had felt like it was there ever since they’d taken it off. He could even move the damn thing, could curl phantom toes, kick out a foot that didn’t exist.
It was an odd sight, the metal foot lying next to his own foot. They were the exact same size and shape. Exact. It was as if he was wearing a steel sock. Ms Rockbell had taken about a billion measurements from him, but still, the precision of the match was kind of amazing. There was even that weird little gap he’d always had between his big toe and the rest of his toes. Each automail toe had two little joints to it, and the ankle looked slim and flexible. Despite knowing Major Elric, he’d imagined some clunky, square piece of military hardware. This was so -
His toes curled up.
The automail toes had twitched and curled, right there. The motion looked completely human.
“Great!” said Ms Rockbell.
“I didn’t move it!” said Brosch. “I have no idea what happened.”
“No, no, that was a reflex,” she said. “Great.” She bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet, smiling.
Brosch found himself smiling back. “It looks just like my foot!” he said. Wait, that sounded idiotic.
“It is your foot!” said Ms Rockbell.
“No,” he said, “I mean, you got it all just right. It’s amazing.” She smiled at him and her whole face seemed to go bright and sparkly. “It doesn’t look how I was expecting at all!” It was weird. Just yesterday, he’d been thinking, in the Rush Valley heat, how he was going to miss wearing sandals when he had an automail foot to hide. Now, he was starting to think he kind of wanted to show it to his buddies.
“Okay,” she said. “Now, close your eyes, and point your toes for me. Both pairs.”
Brosch did as he was told. He felt his real foot and his imaginary foot point their toes together, and felt ridiculous feeling it. “Great!” he heard. “You’re doing fine. Now back! Now again!” He did it again, or imagined it again. Maybe she was just humouring him?
Soon Ms Rockbell had him in a weird rhythm, pointing the toes of his good foot up and down, and talking himself into thinking he was doing the same with his missing foot. After a couple of minutes, she stopped him. “Okay, now do the same, and in a moment, I’m going to come around and cover your eyes with my hands.”
He did so. Her hands were small and cool over his eyelids.
“Open your eyes and keep working,” she said. “Up! Point! Up! Point! Good job, keep going!”
Brosch could see nothing at first except vague fragments of the room through the gaps between her fingers. But then, she moved them slightly, and he couldn’t resist trying to look. And there - there was the automail foot, pointing and flexing. Shaky and stiff, for sure, but in the same rhythm as his good foot.
“It’s moving!” said Brosch.
“I know it is,” said Ms Rockbell. She pulled away her hands. Brosch told his foot fiercely to keep going. He concentrated hard on the movement -
The automail foot stopped.
“Oh,” said Brosch.
“You thought about it!” said Ms Rockbell. “Right?” Then she gave him a lovely big smile. “Don’t worry. Everyone goes through this part. You have to learn to use it without thinking about it, just like you do the rest of your body. But you’ve already seen your leg works now, right? All you have to do is get the hang of it.”
“By not thinking about it?” asked Brosch.
“You got it!” She gave him a little finger point.
He stared again at his new leg. This time, he checked out the knee joint, the polished, weighty curve of the cap, and the neat and clever fit of the jointure. He might like it. He might, if one day he ever got over the weirdness, really it. “This leg,” he said, “is just sweet. I bet Major Elric wasn’t kidding about your wait-list.”
For a moment, Ms Rockbell looked almost embarrassed, and Brosch swore she was flushing. Then, “Okay!” she said. “Now, let’s get you on your feet.”
“Today?” Brosch said.
“Sooner the better!” said Ms Rockbell brightly. As she went to retrieve Brosch’s crutches, he swung himself around off the patient bench - and the weight of his new leg very nearly pitched him onto the floor.
When he swung himself up on the crutches, he nearly went down again. The leg, of course, refused to bend when he told it to, refused to straighten either - refused even to plant its foot on the floor. He settled for standing on his good leg and leaning hard on the crutches.
It was a long, embarrassing and painful trip over to the parallel bars. Ms Rockbell just let him make his own way over. Along the way, Brosch changed his mind about the leg for the second time in ten minutes. Right this second, he couldn’t stand the awkward bastard thing.
Here were the parallel bars. He straightened and transferred most of his weight onto his good leg. Ms Rockbell was there to take the crutches from him one at a time: leaving him stranded, nervous and very possibly about to faceplant. He looked at her expectantly.
“Just walk on it,” she said. “You know how to walk, right?” Brosch nodded. “Just do the same as always. You saw before, the trick is not to think about it!”
Brosch sucked in a breath and nodded. The automail leg still wasn’t co-operating, so he leaned up to one side to plant it on the floor. Then he was standing on it! Standing on two legs! Great, he thought. Then a stab of nerve pain hit right the way through his leg, so harsh that he hissed and grit his teeth. The locked knee jerked and kicked without his permission, and he abruptly lost his balance. He ended up scrabbling for balance with his good foot, while clinging to the bars as if they were saving him from drowning.
He’d been warned, and it was true: automail rehab did a person’s dignity no good.
“I don’t think this is gonna work,” Brosch managed to creak, once the worst of it had passed.
“Yes, it is!” barked Ms Rockbell. “Stay up there, Warrant Officer! You can do it! Don’t let me down!”
Brosch responded reflexively to the rank and the yelling. He locked his arms on the bars, moved his good leg out further and locked his knee too, and somehow managed to stay upright.
Ms Rockbell, who could apparently shift straight from cheerleader to drill sergeant without blinking, gave him a small, approving nod.
***
The train journey home from Papenburg, inevitably, sucked. At least in this direction, though, they got to go the direct route. And it beat lying around in a hospital bed licking his wounds. Ed hated that. Being on the move, going anywhere, felt better.
He was travel-sick half the journey before he finally managed to get to sleep. He awoke, tired and cranky with a crick in his neck, just as the suburbs of Central started to rush past the train window.
Al squeezed his shoulder as they went to disembark; Ed gave him a half-grin in return, aiming for reassuring. It was a setback, Ed thought to himself as they navigated the evening throng on the concourse. All right, so it was a major setback, but they’d just have to find another way. Hadn’t he and Al had enough of these moments, back when they were looking for the Stone?
“I’m bushed. Let’s just get a cab home,” Al said, turning them left towards the taxi rank and not right towards the metro station. The excuse was transparent; he was coddling Ed because he was injured. But still, Ed didn’t exactly love the thought of standing in a packed, airless metro carriage for the twenty minutes it would take to get to their flat in the university quarter. He accepted the gesture without comment.
The line for cabs was long; but as they tramped to its back, something caught Ed’s eye. He stopped short, then grabbed Al’s arm to stop him short too.
Roy’s car was right opposite the taxi rank.
As they crossed the street, Roy looked up from his newspaper and gave them one of his poker-face unreadable looks. Ed’s entire insides slid around a bit. Still travel-sick, he thought reflexively. But, no: it wasn’t that. It was the other thing.
Ed hesitated for a moment between the car’s front passenger door and the back. Then he wrenched open the back, shoved his suitcase in and hopped in after it. Al followed, and as soon as he’d closed the door, Roy started up the car.
“So,” Ed said, “you guessed we’d get a cab, huh?”
Roy’s eyes flicked to his through the rear view mirror. Ed’s insides did that thing again. “I told Bridgewire he should make sure you got a cab. Report?”
Al shifted in his seat, then pulled several sheets of paper from his inside pocket. “We wrote this up on the train, sir.” In Ed’s code, of course. “It’s pretty much what I told you yesterday.”
“I’m sorry,” Ed cut in. “The whole thing sucked.”
“You both did your best.” Roy’s eyes flicked to them both briefly through the rear view mirror.
They talked around the matter a little on the way to the university quarter. Roy asked a bunch of questions about the creature. He was decent enough not to point out that, had he been able to get there himself, he could have fried it into nothing without breaking a sweat.
“Sir, what about the people Chrysalis murdered for this thing?” Al said. “I mean, I know we need to move, but their families don’t even know if they’re alive or not.”
“It goes on the list,” said Roy grimly. He tapped his forehead with a finger. “The disappeared, the murdered, the forgotten. If - when we win, we’ll make sure that all these crimes are brought out into the light.”
The rest of the short journey was quiet. Tuesday was going to be Al’s office day; there’d be time then for planning, debriefing, more questions, and what answers they could surmise.
Roy parked on Palmer Street, a few doors down from Ed and Al’s place. As Al got out of the car, Roy and Ed’s eyes met again in the rear view mirror, just for a moment. Ed looked out of the car and exchanged a glance with Al. Al picked it up instantly, but still hovered. Ed hopped out of the car. He left his suitcase in the footwell.
“I’m okay,” Ed said quickly to Al. “Are you going to be all right?”
Al gave him a slightly embarrassed smile, then he just clapped Ed on the shoulder and nodded. “I’m just going to take an early night.” Fights still left him overstimulated sometimes, Ed knew.
Ed gave him a brief look of gratitude, then opened the car’s front passenger door and slid into the seat next to Roy. Al waved and walked away.
Roy looked at him, and seemed to be considering saying something, then reconsidering it. That was kind of awkward, Ed considered saying, and didn’t.
“Hello,” said Roy. He looked tired. Ed reached over and squeezed his shoulder for a quick moment.
Roy smiled. “Are you hungry?”
Ed asked his body, and got an emphatic yes. “Starving,” he said. He wanted so bad to slide across the seat and bump his leg against Roy’s. He didn’t.
A few blocks later, Roy pulled them up in a side street. Ed gave into himself immediately and slid across to Roy. He went for a shoulder bump, but somehow landed in a kiss.
The kiss turned into kissing, present continuous, with Roy’s hand around his waist and his hands pulling on Roy’s lapels. After a few seconds, they pulled away. Why did touching another person always do this for him: make the bad moments bearable, give him the energy to go on? Ed had never understood it completely, but he felt horribly grateful for it right now.
“Steak,” murmured Roy, pulling away after another long kiss, which had happened as easily as the first. “We have to get out of the car to get steak.” His breath was warm on Ed’s face.
“Steak,” said Ed reverently. They were wading through danger and murder and horror and the prospect of worse - yet still, somehow he couldn’t help but be glad of food and sex and human warmth. “Steak. Fuckin’ A.”
The steakhouse was small. Ed didn’t know it. They didn’t even had a menu: you could have steak and chips or steak and chips. While they waited, Roy hung his suit jacket on the back of his chair and rolled up his sleeves. He looked tired and handsome. Ed had an unbearable itch to reach out and touch his face. He stretched out his right leg instead, tapped his toe against Roy’s instep.
“How’ve you been?” Ed said.
“Working hard. Getting somewhere.” Roy tilted his head.
Ed picked up the signal. “Got it. No shop talk. That’s cool.”
“The prescription for blood loss,” said Roy, “is several days of hearty meals.”
“I know,” Ed said. “A doc told me after the Fifth Lab, I would’ve punched the air if I hadn’t been stuck with hospital food.”
It wasn’t until a waiter was putting two slabs of nearly-raw charred cow in front of them that Ed realised he was kind of on a date. Still, it didn’t matter. He could use this evening, and Roy looked like he could use it. Still, Roy’s timing was kind of amazing. Did a lot of people think, near death experience, steak? Sometimes Roy was weird in precisely the same ways Ed was weird.
In the car afterwards, Roy looked at him before he started the engine. “Shall I drop you home?”
Ed looked down, then up again, surprised. “Can I go to yours?”
Roy said quickly, “You’re tired, you’re injured. The meal was just a meal, it’s not an - obligation thing, there’s never an obligation, you know that, it’s a ground rule -“
“I know that, dumbass!” Ed swatted his arm. “I didn’t think that.”
Roy rubbed a hand across his eyes. He had that caught-out look he got when he looked like a dork in public. “I mean it. The steak was just steak, and you must want to sleep.”
“Do you need to sleep? Is it okay with you to go to yours?” Ed peered at Roy.
Roy looked at him, then he grinned with one side of his mouth. “Yes,” he said. “It really is.”
“Good,” said Ed.
The drive to Roy’s was short. Ed dropped his suitcase in the hall, hung up his coat.
Roy turned to him. “Can I get you a glass of wa-“ But Ed was already kissing him. Mostly, it was fun to kiss Roy while he was trying to talk. This time, though, the kiss seemed to change hands halfway through. Ed found himself held in Roy’s arms, hanging on to his shirtfront rather than pulling at it. It wasn’t bad at all, like this, though.
They pulled away for a moment. Again, Ed wanted to put his hand on Roy’s cheek. He pushed his forehead against it instead.
The cat walked past them, casually, with a paper bag over its head.
Roy blinked against Ed’s forehead. “Does he do this sort of thing a lot?”
“Uh, yes. We should probably …”
“Right. Before he suffocates or knocks into something.” Roy made his way over to the cat, and pulled off the bag. The cat sat down and made a pitiful high-pitched noise. “You don’t get food just for being silly,” Roy said.
“I did,” Ed said.
“You didn’t,” Roy said. He didn’t elaborate on why Ed had gotten food.
In the bedroom, they undressed straight away, like the done deal it was, and looked at each other as they did so. Ed slipped his shirt off gingerly around his sore left arm. Roy came up to him, and without saying anything, took his arm up carefully, one hand on his upper arm, one on his wrist. He looked over the dressing on the crook of Ed’s elbow. Then he let go gently and put his hands to Ed’s hips, rubbing his thumbs against Ed’s hipbones while he looked him up and down.
“It’s not that bad,” Ed said, feeling off-kilter. “It’s just a little puncture wound, hardly gonna scar at all. The rest of it’s just scratches. You know how it is in a fight.”
“You lost some blood,” Roy said. He ran his hands lightly over Ed’s shoulder and back. There was something in his eyes Ed had seen there before.
“You worry about everyone,” Ed said. “Sap.”
It was different than usual. Ed was tired after all. Roy was careful and attentive of his injured and uninjured parts alike, and it somehow wasn’t as annoying as Ed would expect that to be. Roy arranged him on the bed, and Ed grinned and wriggled and let himself be arranged. Roy teased him mercilessly, and Ed growled and writhed around and did nothing. Roy relented and sucked him off hard, and Ed curled his toes and wriggled his hips and made noises at the ceiling.
He drifted back down, vaguely headachey, with Roy lying alongside him giving him the smuggest of looks. Ed smiled, then looked down as his hip butted against Roy’s very hard dick. “Can I do something about that?” he said.
Roy smiled and shrugged. “Doesn’t your arm hurt?” he said. “I mean, I can just - I don’t want to -“
“Ugh,” said Ed, “stop it.” He squirmed his way upside down on the bed, leaned over Roy, and stroked and licked him the rest of the way there.
Afterwards, Ed flipped himself around again, and they leaned into each other, breathing deep. “Thanks,” said Roy. “I needed that.”
“Me too,” said Ed.
“You know,” Roy said slowly, “the political situation now, it’s not necessarily as bad as it seems. We have an opportunity. The next few weeks are going to be …” He closed his eyes for a moment, head flopped on Ed’s shoulder. A few seconds later, Ed realised he was already asleep.
In under a minute, Ed followed him.
***
The waiter had leather pants and a full tray of drinks. He sashayed around the table, deposited them person by person, and was gone.
Breda raised his glass. “What a fucking week.”
“That’s the toast?” asked Becky.
“Good toast,” said Havoc.
Miles snorted.
It had, indeed, been a real killer of a week. The provisional government had begun the process of tearing itself apart. Fence-sitters were becoming side-choosers. Throughout the military, schemers were scheming, panickers were panicking, and ordinary joes were wading through enormous piles of paperwork. It said a lot that the Amestrian military couldn’t even fall to pieces without generating a ton of bureaucracy.
And now, on Friday night, when they’d miraculously escaped the office, Breda got to sit at the couple table, alone, sourly watching the newly-minted and the practically-married canoodle. All because he’d managed to start dating a girl who was spying for Team Mustang. Sciezka told him Investigations was practically under lockdown. The two of them were communicating via library books: excellent for secrecy, but a crappy way of catching up with one’s girlfriend. Sort-of girlfriend.
“Now, everyone behave tonight,” said Ross, turning around from the next table. “Remember this is my local. Or it used to be, back when I had a social life.”
Havoc grinned and saluted. At the same time, Rebecca put her hand on her heart and exclaimed, mock-offended, “Who, us?”
The lights in the bar lowered. One by one, on the stage, three spotlights winked on. Heels clicking, a figure walked onstage.
***
The woman on the stage wore a bowler hat jammed onto the back of her head, with an extravagant black quiff in front, curling like a comma. Her tailcoat was worn, her shirt was pristine, and her age impossible to determine.
“Good evening, children,” she purred into the microphone.
“Harry Valentina!” exclaimed Fuery in a whisper. He waved his hands discreetly. “Oh my god! I had no idea she was in this! I have all her records!”
“She’s even better live,” Maria whispered back. She hadn’t known that Harry Valentina was hosting this thing either. She was getting woefully behind with cultural goings on.
“Welcome,” said Harry, “to the Little Cat Cabaret! I can see a lot of new faces tonight. Our little show is really drawing the crowds. But that’s all right, though. We like your money. Those of you who haven’t been here before, our cabaret is ordinarily a little … avant-garde.” She paused for effect. A few regulars whooped and clapped. “But just for you, though, we’ve kept it cheerful, clean, and patriotic!” She winked at the audience. Her spotlights went out, and at the same time another lit at the back of the stage. Dress uniform, eyepatch, moustache: the figure was smaller, but it was unmistakably King Bradley himself.
There was a whooshing noise: the audience, collectively, sucking in a breath. Maria felt the shock of it herself. You did not do hilarious skits about the Fuhrer. Not unless you were keen on vanishing without trace. You mocked him privately, among your most trusted people. But Bradley was dead. His replacement was dead. There was no standing Fuhrer.
The silence in the audience was crisp.
Into the quiet, the bar’s piano briskly tumbled out the first few bars of the national anthem, then shifted into a jaunty tune.
“Pardon me, sir -” a woman’s voice sang from offstage.
“What?” called Bradley. His voice was a couple of octaves higher than the original, but the boom was right.
“- but your ass is show-ing,” continued the singer.
“What?” called the Bradley impersonator. He leapt around - and his coat skirts twirled in the air to show that the ass of his pants had been neatly cut out.
The piano paused. For a moment, the audience didn’t react. Then, into the silence, Maria started to chuckle. She didn’t mean to be the first. But she couldn’t help herself.
Someone else joined in. A low rumble of laughter travelled around the audience. Someone applauded. Then another someone, and another someone -
The audience was exploding with laughter and applause. Maria still couldn’t stop herself grinning. The joke hadn’t even been that good. It felt like - what was it? It felt like the last day of high school. In her parents’ back garden, when Maria and her friends had made a trashcan bonfire of their schoolbooks and danced around it in a ring. It felt like that.
Maria suddenly realised - she recognised Bradley. She was positive that under the moustache and the blues, he was Claire Borchert, a regular singer here. Well, good for her.
As the applause slowly died down, stage-Bradley did a perfect imitation of the signature regal wave, the jaunty grin. The crowd erupted again, briefly. As the laughter calmed again, the piano started back up.
“Pardon me, sir -” the voice sang again.
***
Well, Breda thought, so far they’d had a takedown of Bradley’s supposed senile years, a skit about the Aerugan border war ceasefire, and a song about the Central Times taking bribes. The latter had involved a bunch of chorus boys in shorts made out of fake hundred cen bills. Now a chorus of Joe and Jane Averages were harmonising about rumours of the old regime’s dabblings with taboo alchemy.
The producers of this show must be insane. Commendably insane, but still.
“… And no one knows what the hell is going onnnn -“ sung the chorus. Then an offstage drumroll cut them off.
“Fear not!” A loud voice rang out. A spotlight swung around. And onto the stage strode a figure in blue.
A very small figure.
They were up close enough to see that she must have been five foot nothing in her socks. She was wearing a sexified version of military blues: knee-high black boots, tight trousers, cavalry skirt and jacket. Over it all was a long black coat, shrugged over her shoulders like a cape, and billowing out behind her dramatically with every stride.
Two paces behind, strode a beautiful, big-eyed blonde girl, in the same sexy-army get up, hair scraped back into a high bun.
Hand on one hip, stage-Roy struck a heroic pose, fingers poised to snap. “Fear not, citizens! The revolution is here! Well, nearly here.” He turned to the girl behind him and stage-whispered. “Lieutenant, how’s my hair?”
There was a moderate burst of laughter and applause from around the audience, a few stray whistles.
Team Mustang, on the other hand, were utterly helpless. Havoc cackled, Miles chuckled, Fuery turned red as a beet and snickered uncontrollably. Riza’s poker face held out for a few moments, but then even she started silently giggling.
“What’s so funny?” called stage-Roy, waving a hand to their tables.
Through his guffaws, Breda attempted to croak something like “jacket - cape," but nobody else sitting there was in any condition to respond.
***
***
On to Chapter Nine!