chaos is good, too
SUCCESS.
I thought I had forgotten how to write pairings altogether, but lo! It is Ed/Roy. I CAN SO WRITE PAIRINGS.
Having proven that, I'll probably just wander back over to my gen corner now. *aimless*
I do not own FMA. No, no.
ETA: opalsong has now done a podfic of the whole Chaos Verse. eeee!
Defying Murphy's Law
"So...is this your idea of a romantic evening? Because if it is, I've totally been the victim of false advertising."
"Sometimes, Edward, I hate you."
"Hey, so? I always hate you, but I agreed to this...completely insane thing...out of the goodness of my heart. And because everybody said you were the most smooth, charming guy alive, and I had to see this in action, because I didn't actually believe it. And I still don't."
"Fullmetal."
"Though, come to think of it, it's not like Hawkeye thinks you're smooth and charming. She thinks you're a big spaz."
"I was aware."
"Hah, I love that you got dumped for my brother."
"Hmm. Big words from someone who got dumped for Havoc."
"If you want any action ever? This is so not the time to be an asshole."
Roy was sufficiently thunderstruck by the idea that there had ever been a possibility of action that he had no response to this. In fact, even in a world where that possibility had existed, it seemed unbelievable that it still could, because if ever there had been a date from hell, this was surely it.
The curious thing was that nothing about the date from hell had been Edward's fault. Maybe that was the problem-he’d been planning so much for Fullmetal damage control that he hadn't planned at all for life damage control. Maybe that was why they were stranded in the middle of random, empty farmland with the car stuck in a mudhole, having fled the nice restaurant after the kitchen caught fire, having settled on that restaurant after Roy's first choice had been closed because the owner had apparently been arrested for running a prostitution ring.
On second thought, all the planning in the world wouldn't have helped.
The date itself had been something of an office joke. Breda had been intermittently harassing them both for most of the past year, suggesting that, since they’d been dumped, they had a veritable lonely hearts club, and it was destiny, destiny!
Ed had finally proposed the date, Roy had felt sure, for no other reason than to shut Breda up. In that spirit, Roy had agreed. If he'd been paying more attention, he would have correctly interpreted the feral gleam in Breda's eye. Checkmate.
“This’ll work out, chief,” Breda had said in a would-be soothing voice. “He’s all grown up now, which makes it worlds less weird than it was when he was a kid and you used to give him those looks. Perv.”
“I did not-” Roy tried to protest.
“You did,” Breda interrupted. “Only reason we didn’t turn your ass in was because you gave Hawkeye the same looks, only more. Got a thing for blondes, huh, sir?”
“General Breda.”
“And the boss only works with us as a sideline. That fixes the problem you and Hawkeye had. You won’t have the freaky work stuff. Trust me, it’s destiny.”
Breda was clearly out of his mind. If it had been destiny, there wouldn’t have been fire and mudholes and prostitution involved. Roy was quite sure of that.
“Anyway,” Fullmetal said, sounding a bit uncomfortable. Which was when Roy realized that he’d been staring blankly for, oh, several minutes. “We should do something about the car.” Pause. “Or I should do something about the car, since I guess you shorted out your brain.” Another pause, then, surprisingly sympathetically, “Sorry it’s been so shit. You’d think the dating gods were out to get you or something. Or me, more like. Seems like lots of gods are out to get me.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in gods, Fullmetal.”
“I don’t, that’s the thing. I think they can tell, and it pisses them off.”
“…Fullmetal.”
“Don’t bother me with whether that made sense. I’m trying to figure out an array, here.”
Roy shut up. Edward might not be evil-minded enough to beat him in a one-on-one fight, but his sheer genius in alchemy put Roy to shame. It was a privilege to watch him work, and Roy felt it only fair that he get some pleasure out of the evening. Because “action” had to be a joke. Had to be.
Edward coaxed the car free. Roy had no idea how he’d done it. Possibly he’d extracted water from the mud, possibly he’d prompted some reaction against the tires, possibly he’d shifted around the heavier elements. It looked like the mud had spontaneously spat out the car. It looked like magic; Ed’s alchemy always did.
“Are you driving,” Ed asked, giving him a dubious look, “or are you too zombie to drive?”
Roy considered that.
“You drive,” he decided. “It would be consistent with my luck if the car exploded when I tried to start it.”
Ed grinned. “Yeah, really. You navigate, then, cuz I don’t know where the hell we’re going.”
“Neither do I,” Roy admitted. “I only had the one backup plan. I’ve never needed two. Maybe you should decide where we’re going and I’ll sit very still and try not to curse anything. How about that?”
Ed, snickering, turned the key. The engine did not so much as turn over.
Of course it didn’t.
“It is my car,” Roy said thoughtfully. “Clearly we shouldn’t have taken my car. Clearly nothing associated with me is safe. This is the evening everything I touch goes to shit. It’s lucky we left the office early, before someone spontaneously declared war-“
Roy stopped talking. Edward had pitched over sideways in his seat laughing, and chances seemed good that he wasn’t listening anymore. Instead of talking, Roy let his mind run in aimless circles that didn’t address the fundamental problem of being stuck in a car with a hysterical alchemist in the middle of a field with-cows. Those were definitely cows. On the other side of the fence, staring.
Assuming there hadn’t been a coup in his absence, Roy was the Fuhrer of Amestris. This sort of thing shouldn’t be happening to him. There should be no cows. He should have drivers, bodyguards, minions.
He’d ditched them deliberately, because he’d wanted an evening alone with Edward. Depressingly, Breda had been right about that much.
Wanting things. There was the problem. He’d wanted to be Fuhrer for so long, and he’d finally gotten that; this was probably the universe’s way of saying, “Enough is enough, greedy bastard.”
In Roy’s head, the universe sounded a lot like Edward Elric. Who was still laughing hysterically. Did that mean the universe was laughing hysterically? Or just that Roy had gone insane?
“Your face! Your face!” Ed gasped, and then dissolved into snickering again. Apparently this was going to take a while.
Roy wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from the evening. Not this, of course. Surely he hadn’t been expecting romance? Not from Edward. But something…for Ed to really look at him, perhaps. The frighteningly intent look he gave things that interested him. The soft look that only Al and Winry and, bewilderingly, Riza and Lanfan had earned. Or just the look he’d worn years ago when he’d said, “I’m trusting you to take care of this.” His attention, that’s all Roy had wanted.
Instead, fire, mud, prostitution, cows. And Edward, laughing so hard that his face had turned purple. That would have been fine, of course, if he’d been laughing at anything other than Roy’s misfortune. Then again, Roy’s misfortune was one of Ed’s favorite things, so maybe this evening had been perfect for him after all.
“Oh, oh, don’t go and lose your sense of humor about it, Mustang,” Edward gasped, laughter only marginally under control. “If you forget how funny it is, it’s just gonna suck.”
Roy leaned back in the passenger seat, closed his eyes, and tried to cling to his appreciation for the ridiculous.
“What do you suggest we do, Fullmetal?”
“Well, I mean…how long is it gonna take Havoc to find us? Seriously?”
Roy blinked. Of course. He could tell Havoc not to tail him until he was blue in the face, and Havoc would listen as well as he always did. As well as Edward. Strangely, losing the use of his legs had brought out a rebellious streak a mile wide. “An hour. If that.”
“An hour, huh?” There was something unsettling about Fullmetal’s smile. “That’s a lot of time.”
“Not-” really, he’d have said. It wasn’t much time at all, compared to the walk home he’d been picturing, having forgotten about Havoc.
He didn’t finish the thought. He was abruptly distracted by a lapful of Edward Elric.
“Better make the most of it,” Ed said on a laugh, then set about kissing Roy senseless.
Apparently “action” hadn’t been a joke. Apparently Edward had really seen this as a date, rather than as a chance to shut Breda up, which meant that Roy had been approaching everything from the wrong direction. Ed was serious about this. It was the most terrifying thought.
Once he’d gotten over the shock, Roy didn’t try to resist a bit.
* * *
“What if-Ed, stop that-what if Havoc shows up?”
“Guess he’ll get an eyeful, then. Gosh, think how embarrassing that’ll be.”
“Backseat. Definitely backseat. You’ll throw your back out on the gearshift, otherwise.”
“I’m touched by your concern, Edward.”
“And if you throw your back out, it’s gonna be a boring wait.”
“D’you have condoms? …’Course you do. But given the day, they’re gonna break for sure. You got any diseases?”
“I don’t have any diseases, Ed.”
“Huh. How sure are you about that?”
“Edward. Given the way the luck is running, I should be asking if you have diseases.”
“Please, please tell me that wasn’t Havoc looking in the window.”
“That wasn’t Havoc looking in the window.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Can’t have it both ways, Mustang.”
“Shit. I should-”
“You better keep doing what you were doing, or I’ll kill you, and you won’t have to worry abou-ah.”
“Hey. You can’t sleep. This is no time to sleep, Roy.”
“Roy. This is what I have to do to rate ‘Roy.’”
“I guess. Hey.”
“Mm?”
“This was a pretty good day, right?”
“Mm. You have a problem with schadenfreude.”
“The end was good. Admit it, asshole.”
“The end was good. But it’ll be better in a bed.”
“Oh, will it?”
“Yes. A bed. With dinner beforehand. Maybe conversation. Candles.”
“Candles. Jesus, no wonder Hawkeye dumped you.”
“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind already?”
“Huh? Me? Oh, no. Oh, shit, sorry. Don’t look like that. I didn’t mean…it just doesn’t sound like Hawkeye stuff, is all. She’s too practical, or something. It actually…does sound like me stuff. Or, you know. I’d like all that. Don’t tell anyone.”
“…I won’t.”
“Yeah. So, now that we’re sorted, how awkward, on a scale of one to ten, are you feeling about Havoc right now?”
“I don’t think ten is a high enough number to express it.”
“If we’re ever leaving here, we kind of need him to jump the car.”
“We could wait until he leaves and then walk.”
“You didn’t mastermind your way to the fuhrership with that kind of planning, Roy.”
“’Roy.’”
“It sounds dirty when I call you Mustang in bed, okay?”
“We’re not in a bed.”
“And we’re not going to get to one either, unless you let me go talk to Havoc. I’ll even tell him to pretend he never saw you, how about that?”
“How is it that you’re not embarrassed by this at all?”
“Cause I’m shameless. How’d you go all these years and not figure that out?”
* * *
Ed walked home in the morning, pondering the state of his relationships past and present. All things considered, he thought he was doing pretty well. He was alive and able to have relationships, for one thing, which was a big improvement over what he’d been expecting for most of his teens. And the relationships themselves-hey, they were better than average.
With Winry, he’d never seen it coming, and then when it’d happened, he hadn’t really expected it to last. It just wasn’t Winry’s job to be the love of his life; that’d be like extra duty. Al’d always been the one who kept him in line, and Winry’d always been the one who taught him how to live. Sometimes it’d seemed like this was one more thing she was teaching him before she cut him loose.
And that was pretty much how it had gone. It hadn’t hurt, though. How could it have?
“Ed, you know I love you to distraction and might actually drive myself crazy with it someday, but…I don’t think we should live together. We fight like siblings. It’s just not worth it in pure cost of furniture.”
This was not a breakup line that smashed your heart. She was right, anyway. Well, they didn’t usually have to buy new furniture because Ed just fixed the broken stuff, but in principle she was right. It’d been fun, but they couldn’t keep it up. It was exhausting.
As for Roy, Ed had seen it coming, but he had no idea where it was going. Roy was the one who’d taught Ed how to scheme. Maybe Ed and life had caught him off-guard last night with a good one-two punch, but he’d be back on his feet in no time. By the time Ed wandered over to the office, he’d be calm again, plotting fifteen ways to get around the entire country starting with Edward Elric, and having fun while he was at it.
Ed wasn’t sure what that said for them, long-term, but it sure as hell ought to be interesting while it lasted.
He hoped it would last for a good, long time. Like, forever might be nice. Roy behind the desk and the title and the masks was interesting, but Roy naked and dazed and still freaking out about Havoc was maybe the most awesome thing Ed had ever seen. He wanted to see more; he wanted to see everything. He was a little worried that he was starting on an obsession, actually. He’d been told he was a bit of an obsessive person, which seemed fair enough, and this Roy fixation might be about to eat his entire life.
He’d better not let on to Roy about that, because if he had any sense, he’d run like hell.
Not that Roy did have any sense. Ed grinned to himself, earning strange looks from people passing on the sidewalk. Ed had kissed him goodbye this morning, because that was just what you did, right? And Roy had blushed.
“Holy shit,” Ed had said. “Have you ever even slept with anyone but Hawkeye?”
Roy’d turned even more red. “Why do you ask?” Bastard never could answer a direct question.
“I don’t know. Because you’re a paranoid freak who doesn’t trust anyone? Because you had a breakdown over Havoc seeing us? Because you blushed when I kissed you just now?”
“I…had….” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “My adolescence was unusual.”
“Unusual?” Ed asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Unusual,” Roy repeated. He was trying to look serious, but it was hard with his hair sticking every which way and his shirt misbuttoned.
“Right,” Ed said, smiling like a person who was going to let it go. Note to self: pry the story of Roy’s teenage years out of him. Sex and alcohol, fair game. “Anyway, I’ve got to go home and change clothes. See you at the office.”
“Oh, are you coming in?” Roy sat further up in the bed and blinked.
“You’re the goddamn Fuhrer,” Ed pointed out. “Don’t you know when you contract shit out?”
“Not if Hawkeye doesn’t think I need to,” Roy said, and how had Ed never noticed how endearing his huffy look was? “It’s called delegation, Fullmetal.”
“Okay, Mustang. I would’ve called it being a lazy jackass. Tomayto tomahto.”
“Get out of my house, Ed.”
“See ya, lover.” Just to see him blush again.
What the hell? Was the cool mask something he didn’t take home with him? No, couldn’t be; he didn’t have much in the way of expression, even at home. Maybe it was just that Ed had never seen him with a reason to blush before. Most people, Roy didn’t care about enough to blush over. And Hawkeye had never embarrassed him in public.
Roy was much better off with Ed, clearly.
* * *
“Hey, Win,” Ed said, drumming automail fingers against the side of the phone booth. “Havoc said you wanted a call. What’s up?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’s up?’” she demanded. “Jean already told me about you two. Like teenagers, Ed! He’s the Fuhrer, for the love of God! You can’t just jump him in the middle of a field!”
Ed smirked. “I did jump him in the middle of a field.” Winry was so satisfying to talk to.
“That’s my point! It was one thing when you did stuff like that with me, I’m nobody. He’s the Fuhrer. What kind of press are you aiming for here, you spectacular idiot?”
“Uh, none?” Ed rolled his eyes. “There was nobody out there, Winry. It was a goddamn cow pasture.”
“And yet my husband is traumatized.”
“Oh, what the fuck ever. On the wheels, he’s pretty low to a car window. He couldn’t have seen enough to actually be traumatized.”
“Apparently he could have. Apparently he did, and now he can’t bring himself to look directly at the car, Ed!”
“Hey, don’t yell at me! I didn’t know he was so freaking delicate!”
“My point is, if Jean saw you, anyone could have seen you.”
“It’s not like I’m planning to make a habit of car sex, okay? There were extraordinary circumstances.”
“I don’t even want to know.”
“You do, actually. It’s pretty hilarious. I thought Roy was going to have a heart attack before I got a chance to jump him.”
“…’Roy?’”
“Don’t you make a big thing.”
“What’s there to make a big thing over? Don’t be so dramatic. So what were your ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ then?”
“Right, so Roy planned all this out because he’s got a planning problem.”
“Of course.”
“But the first place we go to is closed. Because they’d been double dutying with hookers upstairs.”
“Whoops.”
“Right, so the second place, we got halfway through the appetizer-which was damn good-”
“Food obsessed.”
“Shut up. Halfway through, and the fire alarm goes off.”
“No way.”
“Kitchen fire. Huge.”
“Didn’t Roy put it out?”
“Well, yeah, but it was too damn late for the kitchen. He just kept the building from burning down.”
“So you left.”
“And got stuck in a mudhole in the middle of a field.”
“I see where this is going.”
“I got us out of the mud!”
“Right…”
“But then the car wouldn’t start.”
“This is ridiculous. Sabotage?”
“Well, I don’t think Breda would have set the kitchen on fire. That was dangerous. And the hookers had been there for a while, though I guess Breda could have set up the bust. The car, maybe. Not the mud, though.”
“You’re telling me you had the most cursed date ever in the history of dating.”
“I thought I’d better get something out of it before we got struck by lightning.”
“I hate to say this, but…I think I understand how you felt.”
“See? Don’t give me shit.”
“Don’t act like you don’t deserve it ninety percent of the time.”
“Why’d you want me to call, anyway? Was there a point?”
“Before I was sidetracked by your molesting the Fuhrer, I’d just wanted to ask, how are the newlyweds?”
Ed beamed at the phone. “Al’s awesome. Is he ever not awesome?”
“Man, doting big brother! You’re getting out of control, Ed.” He could hear her smile, too.
“Whatever, I tell it like I see it. Al and Hawkeye, they’re good. They’re really good, Winry. And you know I thought he was nuts.”
“I know. You told him he was nuts,” she scoffed. “You told him that in front of Riza.”
“I thought she’d shoot at me and prove my point.”
“You’re so stupid. Why do I put up with you?”
“Huh? You don’t, remember?”
“I do! Just…in small doses.”
“Small doses, right. Hey, I can’t stand here talking to you all day. I gotta get to the office.” Winry knew that ‘the office’ was still Roy’s office. Always had been. Everybody else’s office got a name attached to it.
“Oh? How’s the government contracting working out for you, by the way?”
“Yeah, great. They’ve got me fixing some kind of epic sewer problem. That sound like a good time or what?”
“Oh, wow.”
“Your husband threatened to tie a rope around me and just drop me down there.”
“Ha! I mean, ah, sorry?”
“And Al and Hawkeye are gonna do this thing they do where they stand side by side and laugh at me a lot without ever changing expression.”
“Poor baby.”
“You’re the least sympathetic person I know, though. You win the prize.”
“I’ll remember you said that next time you come for a tune-up.”
“Hey, are you ever gonna visit Al? I can’t believe you’re calling me to ask about him. Jeez, Win, I thought we’d see you more once we were all in the same damn town.”
“I am busy.”
“Yeah, yeah. Busy important whatever.”
“And it’s still technically Al’s honeymoon, even if the workaholics are both working through it. I didn’t want to bombard them with calls and visits.”
“Why not?”
“Because I knew you would, tactless wonder.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Anyway, dinner next Wednesday? All…six of us, if you can drag Roy?”
“Can Havoc handle that? Like, me and him and Roy, all at the table looking at each other?”
“Don’t know until we try.”
“You’re a mean woman. Mean.”
“Bye, Ed.”
“Yeah.”
Ed stepped out of the booth, tipped his face up to the sun. He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and smiled at the light.
It was shaping up to be a pretty worthwhile day. He’d gotten laid. He’d scored points over his best friend. His brother was happy. He was about to walk into the office wearing tight leather pants on purpose, and make the Fuhrer blush like a kid.
Life was good.
I thought I had forgotten how to write pairings altogether, but lo! It is Ed/Roy. I CAN SO WRITE PAIRINGS.
Having proven that, I'll probably just wander back over to my gen corner now. *aimless*
I do not own FMA. No, no.
ETA: opalsong has now done a podfic of the whole Chaos Verse. eeee!
Defying Murphy's Law
"So...is this your idea of a romantic evening? Because if it is, I've totally been the victim of false advertising."
"Sometimes, Edward, I hate you."
"Hey, so? I always hate you, but I agreed to this...completely insane thing...out of the goodness of my heart. And because everybody said you were the most smooth, charming guy alive, and I had to see this in action, because I didn't actually believe it. And I still don't."
"Fullmetal."
"Though, come to think of it, it's not like Hawkeye thinks you're smooth and charming. She thinks you're a big spaz."
"I was aware."
"Hah, I love that you got dumped for my brother."
"Hmm. Big words from someone who got dumped for Havoc."
"If you want any action ever? This is so not the time to be an asshole."
Roy was sufficiently thunderstruck by the idea that there had ever been a possibility of action that he had no response to this. In fact, even in a world where that possibility had existed, it seemed unbelievable that it still could, because if ever there had been a date from hell, this was surely it.
The curious thing was that nothing about the date from hell had been Edward's fault. Maybe that was the problem-he’d been planning so much for Fullmetal damage control that he hadn't planned at all for life damage control. Maybe that was why they were stranded in the middle of random, empty farmland with the car stuck in a mudhole, having fled the nice restaurant after the kitchen caught fire, having settled on that restaurant after Roy's first choice had been closed because the owner had apparently been arrested for running a prostitution ring.
On second thought, all the planning in the world wouldn't have helped.
The date itself had been something of an office joke. Breda had been intermittently harassing them both for most of the past year, suggesting that, since they’d been dumped, they had a veritable lonely hearts club, and it was destiny, destiny!
Ed had finally proposed the date, Roy had felt sure, for no other reason than to shut Breda up. In that spirit, Roy had agreed. If he'd been paying more attention, he would have correctly interpreted the feral gleam in Breda's eye. Checkmate.
“This’ll work out, chief,” Breda had said in a would-be soothing voice. “He’s all grown up now, which makes it worlds less weird than it was when he was a kid and you used to give him those looks. Perv.”
“I did not-” Roy tried to protest.
“You did,” Breda interrupted. “Only reason we didn’t turn your ass in was because you gave Hawkeye the same looks, only more. Got a thing for blondes, huh, sir?”
“General Breda.”
“And the boss only works with us as a sideline. That fixes the problem you and Hawkeye had. You won’t have the freaky work stuff. Trust me, it’s destiny.”
Breda was clearly out of his mind. If it had been destiny, there wouldn’t have been fire and mudholes and prostitution involved. Roy was quite sure of that.
“Anyway,” Fullmetal said, sounding a bit uncomfortable. Which was when Roy realized that he’d been staring blankly for, oh, several minutes. “We should do something about the car.” Pause. “Or I should do something about the car, since I guess you shorted out your brain.” Another pause, then, surprisingly sympathetically, “Sorry it’s been so shit. You’d think the dating gods were out to get you or something. Or me, more like. Seems like lots of gods are out to get me.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in gods, Fullmetal.”
“I don’t, that’s the thing. I think they can tell, and it pisses them off.”
“…Fullmetal.”
“Don’t bother me with whether that made sense. I’m trying to figure out an array, here.”
Roy shut up. Edward might not be evil-minded enough to beat him in a one-on-one fight, but his sheer genius in alchemy put Roy to shame. It was a privilege to watch him work, and Roy felt it only fair that he get some pleasure out of the evening. Because “action” had to be a joke. Had to be.
Edward coaxed the car free. Roy had no idea how he’d done it. Possibly he’d extracted water from the mud, possibly he’d prompted some reaction against the tires, possibly he’d shifted around the heavier elements. It looked like the mud had spontaneously spat out the car. It looked like magic; Ed’s alchemy always did.
“Are you driving,” Ed asked, giving him a dubious look, “or are you too zombie to drive?”
Roy considered that.
“You drive,” he decided. “It would be consistent with my luck if the car exploded when I tried to start it.”
Ed grinned. “Yeah, really. You navigate, then, cuz I don’t know where the hell we’re going.”
“Neither do I,” Roy admitted. “I only had the one backup plan. I’ve never needed two. Maybe you should decide where we’re going and I’ll sit very still and try not to curse anything. How about that?”
Ed, snickering, turned the key. The engine did not so much as turn over.
Of course it didn’t.
“It is my car,” Roy said thoughtfully. “Clearly we shouldn’t have taken my car. Clearly nothing associated with me is safe. This is the evening everything I touch goes to shit. It’s lucky we left the office early, before someone spontaneously declared war-“
Roy stopped talking. Edward had pitched over sideways in his seat laughing, and chances seemed good that he wasn’t listening anymore. Instead of talking, Roy let his mind run in aimless circles that didn’t address the fundamental problem of being stuck in a car with a hysterical alchemist in the middle of a field with-cows. Those were definitely cows. On the other side of the fence, staring.
Assuming there hadn’t been a coup in his absence, Roy was the Fuhrer of Amestris. This sort of thing shouldn’t be happening to him. There should be no cows. He should have drivers, bodyguards, minions.
He’d ditched them deliberately, because he’d wanted an evening alone with Edward. Depressingly, Breda had been right about that much.
Wanting things. There was the problem. He’d wanted to be Fuhrer for so long, and he’d finally gotten that; this was probably the universe’s way of saying, “Enough is enough, greedy bastard.”
In Roy’s head, the universe sounded a lot like Edward Elric. Who was still laughing hysterically. Did that mean the universe was laughing hysterically? Or just that Roy had gone insane?
“Your face! Your face!” Ed gasped, and then dissolved into snickering again. Apparently this was going to take a while.
Roy wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from the evening. Not this, of course. Surely he hadn’t been expecting romance? Not from Edward. But something…for Ed to really look at him, perhaps. The frighteningly intent look he gave things that interested him. The soft look that only Al and Winry and, bewilderingly, Riza and Lanfan had earned. Or just the look he’d worn years ago when he’d said, “I’m trusting you to take care of this.” His attention, that’s all Roy had wanted.
Instead, fire, mud, prostitution, cows. And Edward, laughing so hard that his face had turned purple. That would have been fine, of course, if he’d been laughing at anything other than Roy’s misfortune. Then again, Roy’s misfortune was one of Ed’s favorite things, so maybe this evening had been perfect for him after all.
“Oh, oh, don’t go and lose your sense of humor about it, Mustang,” Edward gasped, laughter only marginally under control. “If you forget how funny it is, it’s just gonna suck.”
Roy leaned back in the passenger seat, closed his eyes, and tried to cling to his appreciation for the ridiculous.
“What do you suggest we do, Fullmetal?”
“Well, I mean…how long is it gonna take Havoc to find us? Seriously?”
Roy blinked. Of course. He could tell Havoc not to tail him until he was blue in the face, and Havoc would listen as well as he always did. As well as Edward. Strangely, losing the use of his legs had brought out a rebellious streak a mile wide. “An hour. If that.”
“An hour, huh?” There was something unsettling about Fullmetal’s smile. “That’s a lot of time.”
“Not-” really, he’d have said. It wasn’t much time at all, compared to the walk home he’d been picturing, having forgotten about Havoc.
He didn’t finish the thought. He was abruptly distracted by a lapful of Edward Elric.
“Better make the most of it,” Ed said on a laugh, then set about kissing Roy senseless.
Apparently “action” hadn’t been a joke. Apparently Edward had really seen this as a date, rather than as a chance to shut Breda up, which meant that Roy had been approaching everything from the wrong direction. Ed was serious about this. It was the most terrifying thought.
Once he’d gotten over the shock, Roy didn’t try to resist a bit.
* * *
“What if-Ed, stop that-what if Havoc shows up?”
“Guess he’ll get an eyeful, then. Gosh, think how embarrassing that’ll be.”
“Backseat. Definitely backseat. You’ll throw your back out on the gearshift, otherwise.”
“I’m touched by your concern, Edward.”
“And if you throw your back out, it’s gonna be a boring wait.”
“D’you have condoms? …’Course you do. But given the day, they’re gonna break for sure. You got any diseases?”
“I don’t have any diseases, Ed.”
“Huh. How sure are you about that?”
“Edward. Given the way the luck is running, I should be asking if you have diseases.”
“Please, please tell me that wasn’t Havoc looking in the window.”
“That wasn’t Havoc looking in the window.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Can’t have it both ways, Mustang.”
“Shit. I should-”
“You better keep doing what you were doing, or I’ll kill you, and you won’t have to worry abou-ah.”
“Hey. You can’t sleep. This is no time to sleep, Roy.”
“Roy. This is what I have to do to rate ‘Roy.’”
“I guess. Hey.”
“Mm?”
“This was a pretty good day, right?”
“Mm. You have a problem with schadenfreude.”
“The end was good. Admit it, asshole.”
“The end was good. But it’ll be better in a bed.”
“Oh, will it?”
“Yes. A bed. With dinner beforehand. Maybe conversation. Candles.”
“Candles. Jesus, no wonder Hawkeye dumped you.”
“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind already?”
“Huh? Me? Oh, no. Oh, shit, sorry. Don’t look like that. I didn’t mean…it just doesn’t sound like Hawkeye stuff, is all. She’s too practical, or something. It actually…does sound like me stuff. Or, you know. I’d like all that. Don’t tell anyone.”
“…I won’t.”
“Yeah. So, now that we’re sorted, how awkward, on a scale of one to ten, are you feeling about Havoc right now?”
“I don’t think ten is a high enough number to express it.”
“If we’re ever leaving here, we kind of need him to jump the car.”
“We could wait until he leaves and then walk.”
“You didn’t mastermind your way to the fuhrership with that kind of planning, Roy.”
“’Roy.’”
“It sounds dirty when I call you Mustang in bed, okay?”
“We’re not in a bed.”
“And we’re not going to get to one either, unless you let me go talk to Havoc. I’ll even tell him to pretend he never saw you, how about that?”
“How is it that you’re not embarrassed by this at all?”
“Cause I’m shameless. How’d you go all these years and not figure that out?”
* * *
Ed walked home in the morning, pondering the state of his relationships past and present. All things considered, he thought he was doing pretty well. He was alive and able to have relationships, for one thing, which was a big improvement over what he’d been expecting for most of his teens. And the relationships themselves-hey, they were better than average.
With Winry, he’d never seen it coming, and then when it’d happened, he hadn’t really expected it to last. It just wasn’t Winry’s job to be the love of his life; that’d be like extra duty. Al’d always been the one who kept him in line, and Winry’d always been the one who taught him how to live. Sometimes it’d seemed like this was one more thing she was teaching him before she cut him loose.
And that was pretty much how it had gone. It hadn’t hurt, though. How could it have?
“Ed, you know I love you to distraction and might actually drive myself crazy with it someday, but…I don’t think we should live together. We fight like siblings. It’s just not worth it in pure cost of furniture.”
This was not a breakup line that smashed your heart. She was right, anyway. Well, they didn’t usually have to buy new furniture because Ed just fixed the broken stuff, but in principle she was right. It’d been fun, but they couldn’t keep it up. It was exhausting.
As for Roy, Ed had seen it coming, but he had no idea where it was going. Roy was the one who’d taught Ed how to scheme. Maybe Ed and life had caught him off-guard last night with a good one-two punch, but he’d be back on his feet in no time. By the time Ed wandered over to the office, he’d be calm again, plotting fifteen ways to get around the entire country starting with Edward Elric, and having fun while he was at it.
Ed wasn’t sure what that said for them, long-term, but it sure as hell ought to be interesting while it lasted.
He hoped it would last for a good, long time. Like, forever might be nice. Roy behind the desk and the title and the masks was interesting, but Roy naked and dazed and still freaking out about Havoc was maybe the most awesome thing Ed had ever seen. He wanted to see more; he wanted to see everything. He was a little worried that he was starting on an obsession, actually. He’d been told he was a bit of an obsessive person, which seemed fair enough, and this Roy fixation might be about to eat his entire life.
He’d better not let on to Roy about that, because if he had any sense, he’d run like hell.
Not that Roy did have any sense. Ed grinned to himself, earning strange looks from people passing on the sidewalk. Ed had kissed him goodbye this morning, because that was just what you did, right? And Roy had blushed.
“Holy shit,” Ed had said. “Have you ever even slept with anyone but Hawkeye?”
Roy’d turned even more red. “Why do you ask?” Bastard never could answer a direct question.
“I don’t know. Because you’re a paranoid freak who doesn’t trust anyone? Because you had a breakdown over Havoc seeing us? Because you blushed when I kissed you just now?”
“I…had….” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “My adolescence was unusual.”
“Unusual?” Ed asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Unusual,” Roy repeated. He was trying to look serious, but it was hard with his hair sticking every which way and his shirt misbuttoned.
“Right,” Ed said, smiling like a person who was going to let it go. Note to self: pry the story of Roy’s teenage years out of him. Sex and alcohol, fair game. “Anyway, I’ve got to go home and change clothes. See you at the office.”
“Oh, are you coming in?” Roy sat further up in the bed and blinked.
“You’re the goddamn Fuhrer,” Ed pointed out. “Don’t you know when you contract shit out?”
“Not if Hawkeye doesn’t think I need to,” Roy said, and how had Ed never noticed how endearing his huffy look was? “It’s called delegation, Fullmetal.”
“Okay, Mustang. I would’ve called it being a lazy jackass. Tomayto tomahto.”
“Get out of my house, Ed.”
“See ya, lover.” Just to see him blush again.
What the hell? Was the cool mask something he didn’t take home with him? No, couldn’t be; he didn’t have much in the way of expression, even at home. Maybe it was just that Ed had never seen him with a reason to blush before. Most people, Roy didn’t care about enough to blush over. And Hawkeye had never embarrassed him in public.
Roy was much better off with Ed, clearly.
* * *
“Hey, Win,” Ed said, drumming automail fingers against the side of the phone booth. “Havoc said you wanted a call. What’s up?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’s up?’” she demanded. “Jean already told me about you two. Like teenagers, Ed! He’s the Fuhrer, for the love of God! You can’t just jump him in the middle of a field!”
Ed smirked. “I did jump him in the middle of a field.” Winry was so satisfying to talk to.
“That’s my point! It was one thing when you did stuff like that with me, I’m nobody. He’s the Fuhrer. What kind of press are you aiming for here, you spectacular idiot?”
“Uh, none?” Ed rolled his eyes. “There was nobody out there, Winry. It was a goddamn cow pasture.”
“And yet my husband is traumatized.”
“Oh, what the fuck ever. On the wheels, he’s pretty low to a car window. He couldn’t have seen enough to actually be traumatized.”
“Apparently he could have. Apparently he did, and now he can’t bring himself to look directly at the car, Ed!”
“Hey, don’t yell at me! I didn’t know he was so freaking delicate!”
“My point is, if Jean saw you, anyone could have seen you.”
“It’s not like I’m planning to make a habit of car sex, okay? There were extraordinary circumstances.”
“I don’t even want to know.”
“You do, actually. It’s pretty hilarious. I thought Roy was going to have a heart attack before I got a chance to jump him.”
“…’Roy?’”
“Don’t you make a big thing.”
“What’s there to make a big thing over? Don’t be so dramatic. So what were your ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ then?”
“Right, so Roy planned all this out because he’s got a planning problem.”
“Of course.”
“But the first place we go to is closed. Because they’d been double dutying with hookers upstairs.”
“Whoops.”
“Right, so the second place, we got halfway through the appetizer-which was damn good-”
“Food obsessed.”
“Shut up. Halfway through, and the fire alarm goes off.”
“No way.”
“Kitchen fire. Huge.”
“Didn’t Roy put it out?”
“Well, yeah, but it was too damn late for the kitchen. He just kept the building from burning down.”
“So you left.”
“And got stuck in a mudhole in the middle of a field.”
“I see where this is going.”
“I got us out of the mud!”
“Right…”
“But then the car wouldn’t start.”
“This is ridiculous. Sabotage?”
“Well, I don’t think Breda would have set the kitchen on fire. That was dangerous. And the hookers had been there for a while, though I guess Breda could have set up the bust. The car, maybe. Not the mud, though.”
“You’re telling me you had the most cursed date ever in the history of dating.”
“I thought I’d better get something out of it before we got struck by lightning.”
“I hate to say this, but…I think I understand how you felt.”
“See? Don’t give me shit.”
“Don’t act like you don’t deserve it ninety percent of the time.”
“Why’d you want me to call, anyway? Was there a point?”
“Before I was sidetracked by your molesting the Fuhrer, I’d just wanted to ask, how are the newlyweds?”
Ed beamed at the phone. “Al’s awesome. Is he ever not awesome?”
“Man, doting big brother! You’re getting out of control, Ed.” He could hear her smile, too.
“Whatever, I tell it like I see it. Al and Hawkeye, they’re good. They’re really good, Winry. And you know I thought he was nuts.”
“I know. You told him he was nuts,” she scoffed. “You told him that in front of Riza.”
“I thought she’d shoot at me and prove my point.”
“You’re so stupid. Why do I put up with you?”
“Huh? You don’t, remember?”
“I do! Just…in small doses.”
“Small doses, right. Hey, I can’t stand here talking to you all day. I gotta get to the office.” Winry knew that ‘the office’ was still Roy’s office. Always had been. Everybody else’s office got a name attached to it.
“Oh? How’s the government contracting working out for you, by the way?”
“Yeah, great. They’ve got me fixing some kind of epic sewer problem. That sound like a good time or what?”
“Oh, wow.”
“Your husband threatened to tie a rope around me and just drop me down there.”
“Ha! I mean, ah, sorry?”
“And Al and Hawkeye are gonna do this thing they do where they stand side by side and laugh at me a lot without ever changing expression.”
“Poor baby.”
“You’re the least sympathetic person I know, though. You win the prize.”
“I’ll remember you said that next time you come for a tune-up.”
“Hey, are you ever gonna visit Al? I can’t believe you’re calling me to ask about him. Jeez, Win, I thought we’d see you more once we were all in the same damn town.”
“I am busy.”
“Yeah, yeah. Busy important whatever.”
“And it’s still technically Al’s honeymoon, even if the workaholics are both working through it. I didn’t want to bombard them with calls and visits.”
“Why not?”
“Because I knew you would, tactless wonder.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Anyway, dinner next Wednesday? All…six of us, if you can drag Roy?”
“Can Havoc handle that? Like, me and him and Roy, all at the table looking at each other?”
“Don’t know until we try.”
“You’re a mean woman. Mean.”
“Bye, Ed.”
“Yeah.”
Ed stepped out of the booth, tipped his face up to the sun. He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and smiled at the light.
It was shaping up to be a pretty worthwhile day. He’d gotten laid. He’d scored points over his best friend. His brother was happy. He was about to walk into the office wearing tight leather pants on purpose, and make the Fuhrer blush like a kid.
Life was good.