After the Fall, Chapter 12 (Roy x Ed)
Title: After the Fall, Chapter 12
Author: SeaweedOtter
Characters: Roy x Ed and some implied Roy x Hughes...
Rating: ?
Warnings: The story goes somewhat AU after the end of episode 25 in the anime. I am still sort of keeping to canon events.
Summary: After the funeral for Maes Hughes, Roy was feeling rather... vulnerable.
Copyrights: The characters obviously belong to their creators, not me.
Author's Note: I know I have been slacking in this fic. The chapters are only averaging about 1500 words. My others fics are averaging almost twice that. I am going to try to write longer chapters, but so far this fic has proven to be tough to write.
Read all the story so far HERE!
"Thank you, Teacher." Al bowed low, getting a return bow from Izumi Curtis. Ed was busy, trying to dig a piece of dirt out from under his fingernail, concentrating with a steely glare. Al elbowed him- Ed let out a quick breath and came back to the present, doing a small bow to his teacher as well.
"We appreciate this, Teacher. There is a lot that we still need to learn in Central. I promise you that we will come back visit you soon, when we can stay longer and learn more." Al bowed again. He grabbed his brother, who had gone back to a detailed examination of his fingernails and pulled him bodily out of the room.
"That was way too easy, Al." Ed said a short time later in the bedroom that they had been sharing, while he was folding his clothes and packing them in his small, weathered leather suitcase. "Why would she let us go after grabbing us and sending us here just less than a week ago?"
Al shrugged, and helped Ed with a few of the alchemy books that he had managed to smuggle along. "I don't know how Teacher thinks, brother. But let's catch a train before she changes her mind." He shut the suitcase and picked it up, walking towards the bedroom door. Ed shrugged his shoulders and stood up from the bed to follow.
"Yeah."
_______________________________________________________________________
It wasn't long before Mason was driving the boys towards the train station. He dropped them off with a box lunch and a warning from Izumi that if either of them ever found out that they tried some kind of human transmutation again, that she wouldn't be as forgiving the next time.
"Don't worry, Mason. We aren't trying to bring our mother back any more." Mason gave him a look. He knew that they weren’t telling him everything, but he didn't say anything about it. He just smiled and shrugged, getting back into the car.
"Be well, you two!" He grinned and waved from the driver's seat as he drove away from the train station. Al grabbed the suitcases and carried them to a bench while Ed bought them a couple of tickets back to Central. He walked back to his brother and handed him a ticket.
"It is gonna be a few hours, Al. I’m sorry. We just missed the last train of the morning. You can just relax here for a while. I am gonna make a phone call. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Okay, brother." Al sounded like he was smiling. He leaned his head up to the sky and watched the flocks of birds that marked the change in seasons.
______________________________________________________________
"Mustang."
"Hey, bastard."
"Fullmetal. So, you aren't dead after all."
"Yeah, I missed you too, asshole."
Roy's voice deepened almost immediately. "Let me give you a more secure line to call, Fullmetal. I have too many prying ears around here."
Edward jotted down the number that he was given, and agreed to give Mustang about 5 minutes to get to the other phone.
As soon as Roy put the phone down, he smiled broadly. Quickly, he got up and went out to the main office, closing his door behind him.
"Lt. Hawkeye, I am going for a walk. I will be back shortly." He hardly broke his stride while telling her his plans. By the time he had finished, he was almost to the door. He grabbed his charcoal grey greatcoat and started to open the outer office door.
"Sir, you still have a lot of paperwork to do."
"I will do it when I get back." His voice was much more stern than usual, and it caused even Hawkeye to back down. Her face soured and he detected the smallest hint of a sigh in her voice.
"Yes, sir."
Roy smiled slightly and walked out the door, closing the door behind him and shrugging on his greatcoat. His pace was quick while he walked through the hallways that were second nature to him, and out of Central Command. He rounded the corner of the huge building, his pace speeding up even more as the phone booth came into view from a distance.
Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. He had used this same phone booth many times before while he had been stationed in Central, until his promotion and move to the East. It was the closest booth to Central Command, and he had set up many dates on that very phone.
But things had changed.
When things had started to blossom between him and Hughes, the phone calls to women halted, and it became quick, secret calls to a lover who already had a wife and child- calls so no one else would know of the love that they shared. He would share 'I love yous' with the man that he knew he loved, but he could never have.
Hughes, his dear lover Hughes- this is where he had fallen. The floor was still stained dark where the blood had stained the ground. The cleanup crew had tried to clean as much of the blood as they could, but there was no way to lift the stain or the memory of what had happened such a short time ago.
Roy frowned, his mood suddenly much darker than it been just a few minutes ago on the phone with Edward. He looked around, but there were no other phone booths close by, and besides, he really couldn't ask Edward to call him back yet another time. He didn't know the phone numbers of any other booths by heart, anyways.
He sighed and stood slightly away from the phone box, almost like he was afraid to touch it. He didn't want to get close to it. Just being there sent a shiver down his spine. He felt goose bumps forming on his arms. Even though his thick overcoat and the layers of his uniform, he felt cold- and shivered.
The phone rang. He walked towards the door, but his steps slowed, the closer he got. It was just too strange to him, being there. He swore for a moment that he *felt* Hughes close by. There was some... intangible force surrounding him. He shivered again, wondering if he would do better to just leave.
It rang again. He knew he needed to answer it, but something... someone?.. was stopping him. His breath shortened and his heart pounded. The phone rang a third time. He knew how pissed Edward would be if he didn't answer the phone. As much as he didn't want to deal with the phone booth now, he wanted even less to deal with the wrath of Edward later. The thought of having to calm down a pissed off Edward was the only motivation that moved Roy Mustang to answer the phone halfway through the fourth ring.
"Mustang."
"Geez, bastard. Even at a payphone you are so stiff and formal."
"I just wanted to make sure that it was you, Fullmetal."
"You know, I *DO* have a first name."
"Sorry... Edward. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Edward?"
Ed cringed with the tone and inflection of his voice on the last word. He could just feel the sarcasm dripping from the other side of the phone.
"Is there any way that for five minutes you can not be a bastard, colonel?"
"Yes. Actually, I am glad to hear from you, Edward. The rest of the staff was worried when that.. woman drug you away from the office."
"And let me guess, you didn't care, right?" Ed's voice rose dangerously high on the other side of the line. As much Roy loved baiting Ed, he knew he was playing a dangerous game, walking a thin line. He had given Ed a little line, now it was time to draw him back in.
"To the contrary, Edward. I was very glad to hear from you the other day, even though it was brief. I am guessing that you have a few more minutes to talk this time?"
"Well, yeah. I was actually calling to tell you that Al and I are on our way back to Central. We have a few hours until our train arrives, and it will be a long, boring ride back, but we should be back pretty soon."
Roy pulled the bottom of the phone away from his mouth while he sighed. He tried not to smile while he responded. He knew that even though the person on the other side of the phone couldn't see, they can still tell when you are speaking with a smile on your face. It comes thru in the way one talks. He was afraid of letting on too much, too soon.
"That is good to hear, Fullmetal." He did allow a small smile as he could practically see the young man fuming on the other side of the line. "So, what did you plan to do while you are waiting for the train?" He tried not to laugh when he heard Edward sputtering.
"Well, it is too damn bad that we are both in public places, or else I would remind you about the shower last week, and how you decided to pull your underage subordinate in the shower and have your way with them.."
"And I would remind that underage subordinate that he was the one that walked into the bathroom while his *SUPERIOR*.." and he great emphasized the last word, "..officer was naked in the shower and that the younger officer initiated the conversation."
"And yet it was the *OLDER* officer that pulled me into the shower and started to stroke at the helpless younger man..."
"But the younger man sure didn't object, did he? In fact, I seem to remember that the 'young man' pulled me into a kiss and started to suck on my face."
"Yeah, then you were sucking on my neck. And then it was.. something else.."
Roy gulped audibly. He didn't have to look down to know that his pants were very uncomfortably tight. He felt the low, throbbing ache that came with desire. He wondered if Ed felt the same way. "If this is your weird, sick way of trying to get some phone sex out of me, it isn't going to work, Fullmetal." He tried to sound stern, but there was no hiding the slight waver in his voice, the husky, deep undertone, edged with need.
"You know.. You.. you really are a bastard, you know that?" Roy smiled as Ed exploded over the phone. "I hope you enjoy that raging hard on I gave you, because it's the last one you'll get from me!" Roy pulled the phone away from his ear briefly at the loud noise the phone made when Ed slammed the receiver down.
For the briefest of moments, he wondered if he had finally pushed Ed just a little too far. He really did care for the boy, the young man that he was becoming. Had he just ruined it all with one tiny comment? He sighed and put his end of the receiver down and looked down at himself. He really did have an issue that he had to deal with, and soon.
He looked around. For right now at least, the streets were empty, but he had no intentions of giving anyone a free show if they happened by. He wasn't going to head back to Central Command in this shape either. He knew there was a little cafe close by, so he made a beeline for it, holding his greatcoat over his waist to cover the tenting fabric of the front of his dress blue pants.
A few minutes later, he came back out, feeling much better. He adjusted his greatcoat on his thin shoulders and grabbed a cup of coffee from the cafe before heading back towards Central Command. He had a smile on his face and he whistled a little tune, feeling much better right now than he had in quite a while.
Author: SeaweedOtter
Characters: Roy x Ed and some implied Roy x Hughes...
Rating: ?
Warnings: The story goes somewhat AU after the end of episode 25 in the anime. I am still sort of keeping to canon events.
Summary: After the funeral for Maes Hughes, Roy was feeling rather... vulnerable.
Copyrights: The characters obviously belong to their creators, not me.
Author's Note: I know I have been slacking in this fic. The chapters are only averaging about 1500 words. My others fics are averaging almost twice that. I am going to try to write longer chapters, but so far this fic has proven to be tough to write.
Read all the story so far HERE!
"Thank you, Teacher." Al bowed low, getting a return bow from Izumi Curtis. Ed was busy, trying to dig a piece of dirt out from under his fingernail, concentrating with a steely glare. Al elbowed him- Ed let out a quick breath and came back to the present, doing a small bow to his teacher as well.
"We appreciate this, Teacher. There is a lot that we still need to learn in Central. I promise you that we will come back visit you soon, when we can stay longer and learn more." Al bowed again. He grabbed his brother, who had gone back to a detailed examination of his fingernails and pulled him bodily out of the room.
"That was way too easy, Al." Ed said a short time later in the bedroom that they had been sharing, while he was folding his clothes and packing them in his small, weathered leather suitcase. "Why would she let us go after grabbing us and sending us here just less than a week ago?"
Al shrugged, and helped Ed with a few of the alchemy books that he had managed to smuggle along. "I don't know how Teacher thinks, brother. But let's catch a train before she changes her mind." He shut the suitcase and picked it up, walking towards the bedroom door. Ed shrugged his shoulders and stood up from the bed to follow.
"Yeah."
_______________________________________________________________________
It wasn't long before Mason was driving the boys towards the train station. He dropped them off with a box lunch and a warning from Izumi that if either of them ever found out that they tried some kind of human transmutation again, that she wouldn't be as forgiving the next time.
"Don't worry, Mason. We aren't trying to bring our mother back any more." Mason gave him a look. He knew that they weren’t telling him everything, but he didn't say anything about it. He just smiled and shrugged, getting back into the car.
"Be well, you two!" He grinned and waved from the driver's seat as he drove away from the train station. Al grabbed the suitcases and carried them to a bench while Ed bought them a couple of tickets back to Central. He walked back to his brother and handed him a ticket.
"It is gonna be a few hours, Al. I’m sorry. We just missed the last train of the morning. You can just relax here for a while. I am gonna make a phone call. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Okay, brother." Al sounded like he was smiling. He leaned his head up to the sky and watched the flocks of birds that marked the change in seasons.
______________________________________________________________
"Mustang."
"Hey, bastard."
"Fullmetal. So, you aren't dead after all."
"Yeah, I missed you too, asshole."
Roy's voice deepened almost immediately. "Let me give you a more secure line to call, Fullmetal. I have too many prying ears around here."
Edward jotted down the number that he was given, and agreed to give Mustang about 5 minutes to get to the other phone.
As soon as Roy put the phone down, he smiled broadly. Quickly, he got up and went out to the main office, closing his door behind him.
"Lt. Hawkeye, I am going for a walk. I will be back shortly." He hardly broke his stride while telling her his plans. By the time he had finished, he was almost to the door. He grabbed his charcoal grey greatcoat and started to open the outer office door.
"Sir, you still have a lot of paperwork to do."
"I will do it when I get back." His voice was much more stern than usual, and it caused even Hawkeye to back down. Her face soured and he detected the smallest hint of a sigh in her voice.
"Yes, sir."
Roy smiled slightly and walked out the door, closing the door behind him and shrugging on his greatcoat. His pace was quick while he walked through the hallways that were second nature to him, and out of Central Command. He rounded the corner of the huge building, his pace speeding up even more as the phone booth came into view from a distance.
Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. He had used this same phone booth many times before while he had been stationed in Central, until his promotion and move to the East. It was the closest booth to Central Command, and he had set up many dates on that very phone.
But things had changed.
When things had started to blossom between him and Hughes, the phone calls to women halted, and it became quick, secret calls to a lover who already had a wife and child- calls so no one else would know of the love that they shared. He would share 'I love yous' with the man that he knew he loved, but he could never have.
Hughes, his dear lover Hughes- this is where he had fallen. The floor was still stained dark where the blood had stained the ground. The cleanup crew had tried to clean as much of the blood as they could, but there was no way to lift the stain or the memory of what had happened such a short time ago.
Roy frowned, his mood suddenly much darker than it been just a few minutes ago on the phone with Edward. He looked around, but there were no other phone booths close by, and besides, he really couldn't ask Edward to call him back yet another time. He didn't know the phone numbers of any other booths by heart, anyways.
He sighed and stood slightly away from the phone box, almost like he was afraid to touch it. He didn't want to get close to it. Just being there sent a shiver down his spine. He felt goose bumps forming on his arms. Even though his thick overcoat and the layers of his uniform, he felt cold- and shivered.
The phone rang. He walked towards the door, but his steps slowed, the closer he got. It was just too strange to him, being there. He swore for a moment that he *felt* Hughes close by. There was some... intangible force surrounding him. He shivered again, wondering if he would do better to just leave.
It rang again. He knew he needed to answer it, but something... someone?.. was stopping him. His breath shortened and his heart pounded. The phone rang a third time. He knew how pissed Edward would be if he didn't answer the phone. As much as he didn't want to deal with the phone booth now, he wanted even less to deal with the wrath of Edward later. The thought of having to calm down a pissed off Edward was the only motivation that moved Roy Mustang to answer the phone halfway through the fourth ring.
"Mustang."
"Geez, bastard. Even at a payphone you are so stiff and formal."
"I just wanted to make sure that it was you, Fullmetal."
"You know, I *DO* have a first name."
"Sorry... Edward. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call, Edward?"
Ed cringed with the tone and inflection of his voice on the last word. He could just feel the sarcasm dripping from the other side of the phone.
"Is there any way that for five minutes you can not be a bastard, colonel?"
"Yes. Actually, I am glad to hear from you, Edward. The rest of the staff was worried when that.. woman drug you away from the office."
"And let me guess, you didn't care, right?" Ed's voice rose dangerously high on the other side of the line. As much Roy loved baiting Ed, he knew he was playing a dangerous game, walking a thin line. He had given Ed a little line, now it was time to draw him back in.
"To the contrary, Edward. I was very glad to hear from you the other day, even though it was brief. I am guessing that you have a few more minutes to talk this time?"
"Well, yeah. I was actually calling to tell you that Al and I are on our way back to Central. We have a few hours until our train arrives, and it will be a long, boring ride back, but we should be back pretty soon."
Roy pulled the bottom of the phone away from his mouth while he sighed. He tried not to smile while he responded. He knew that even though the person on the other side of the phone couldn't see, they can still tell when you are speaking with a smile on your face. It comes thru in the way one talks. He was afraid of letting on too much, too soon.
"That is good to hear, Fullmetal." He did allow a small smile as he could practically see the young man fuming on the other side of the line. "So, what did you plan to do while you are waiting for the train?" He tried not to laugh when he heard Edward sputtering.
"Well, it is too damn bad that we are both in public places, or else I would remind you about the shower last week, and how you decided to pull your underage subordinate in the shower and have your way with them.."
"And I would remind that underage subordinate that he was the one that walked into the bathroom while his *SUPERIOR*.." and he great emphasized the last word, "..officer was naked in the shower and that the younger officer initiated the conversation."
"And yet it was the *OLDER* officer that pulled me into the shower and started to stroke at the helpless younger man..."
"But the younger man sure didn't object, did he? In fact, I seem to remember that the 'young man' pulled me into a kiss and started to suck on my face."
"Yeah, then you were sucking on my neck. And then it was.. something else.."
Roy gulped audibly. He didn't have to look down to know that his pants were very uncomfortably tight. He felt the low, throbbing ache that came with desire. He wondered if Ed felt the same way. "If this is your weird, sick way of trying to get some phone sex out of me, it isn't going to work, Fullmetal." He tried to sound stern, but there was no hiding the slight waver in his voice, the husky, deep undertone, edged with need.
"You know.. You.. you really are a bastard, you know that?" Roy smiled as Ed exploded over the phone. "I hope you enjoy that raging hard on I gave you, because it's the last one you'll get from me!" Roy pulled the phone away from his ear briefly at the loud noise the phone made when Ed slammed the receiver down.
For the briefest of moments, he wondered if he had finally pushed Ed just a little too far. He really did care for the boy, the young man that he was becoming. Had he just ruined it all with one tiny comment? He sighed and put his end of the receiver down and looked down at himself. He really did have an issue that he had to deal with, and soon.
He looked around. For right now at least, the streets were empty, but he had no intentions of giving anyone a free show if they happened by. He wasn't going to head back to Central Command in this shape either. He knew there was a little cafe close by, so he made a beeline for it, holding his greatcoat over his waist to cover the tenting fabric of the front of his dress blue pants.
A few minutes later, he came back out, feeling much better. He adjusted his greatcoat on his thin shoulders and grabbed a cup of coffee from the cafe before heading back towards Central Command. He had a smile on his face and he whistled a little tune, feeling much better right now than he had in quite a while.