Fic: The Phoney War, Chapter Three
Title:The Phoney War, Chapter Three: Something Stupid
Setting: Fullmetal Alchemist, mangaverse, post-series, yet plotted out way last year: this 'verse is AU on a few plot points from 104-108. Details here!
Characters: Roy/Ed, Havoc/Rebecca, Riza/Miles, Al, Winry, ensemble.
Rating: NC-17 for naughty, ooh la la.
Word count: 4331
Summary: two years on from the Promised Day. Amestris is without a Fuhrer. In the military, Mustang's faction of reformers are locked in struggle with General Hakuro's old guard, who are are developing an alchemical weapon that makes the Immortal Army look harmless. Civil war seems inevitable. As the battle lines are drawn up, Team Mustang search urgently for Hakuro's secret weapon and meanwhile, struggle to get from day to day knowing that tomorrow could be the day that everything comes crashing down …
Notes: Direct sequel to No Small Injury. Illustrated fic is illustrated (by me). Betaed and edited by enemytosleep.
Chapter One: Blue Monday
Chapter Two: Make Your Mind Up Time
When the phone call came through, Al had been planning on a long research day with his father's notes. Instead, he'd hurriedly got changed into uniform and headed into headquarters to meet the car.
This meeting had taken forever to arrange. Hakuro's guys had found excuse after excuse to block it: committee meetings, security arrangements, scheduling conflicts - all of it red tape. Now that a chance had come up to get in before the next excuse, they'd had to move fast.
The car turned up the long drive. The house was large and old, and the security impressive but low-key. Out on the front lawn, a tea table was set, and three heavy-set men in suits stood discreet guard. The person they'd come to see was racing toy cars along the rim of a fountain.
Mrs Bradley was exactly as Al remembered her nearly three years ago: sweet, twinkly and slightly loopy. "The sponge cake is a lemon drizzle," she said, "and the other is a banana nut loaf. They're both home-made. The cook teases me for it, but I do love to bake, it's such a calming thing to do of a morning." She poured tea into their cups. "Do help yourself to milk and sugar. And I hope you're not planning to upset Selim?"
"We just have a few questions for him, to see if he can help with Bridgewire's research," said Captain Ross.
"He's a good little boy," said Mrs Bradley, passing her a cup of tea. She turned to Al, and there was a surprising hint of steel to her look. "Whatever he might have been, and whatever else he might be now: he's a little boy and I'm his mother."
"Please don't worry about that," said Al, trying a warm and reassuring smile. "We're not here to hurt him."
"Selim, dear! Put the racecar down and come and have some cake with our guests."
At the word cake, the small boy by the fountain paid considerably more attention. He trotted over. Selim Bradley looked like a smaller version of himself as Al had known him: a sturdy little boy of around three or four with big, dark eyes. The only noticeably odd thing about him was the tattoo-like two concentric circles in the centre of his forehead. That, and the fact that two years ago, he had been a baby the size of a man's thumbnail.
Al quieted his mind and went over his impressions of the boy's qi. Yep, only one soul in there. It felt weird, and you could tell he wasn't quite human - not that that told you much. Chimerae felt weird, and most of the chimerae Al knew were pretty cool people.
With a hand from Mrs Bradley, Selim hopped up onto a chair and swung his legs over the edge, eyeing the cake. Mrs Bradley passed him half a slice of lemon cake and a glass of milk. She watched him meaningfully for a second after he grabbed his cake. "Thank you, Mama," he piped obediently, then stuffed a chunk into his mouth.
At first, he seemed so different from Pride, the cruel little monster who had crawled inside Al's head and used him like a puppet, but then, Al remembered Selim's little boy act, his enthusiasm and silliness and energy. It had been so convincing. It was a disquieting thought.
Al opened his bag. In his peripheral vision, the security guys twitched. He pulled out a sketch and held it in front of Selim. "Do you know who this is?"
Selim frowned at it fiercely. Al and Ross shifted in their seats.
"No," said Selim. He picked up a chunk of cake and started licking the icing off.
"Are you sure?" asked Ross. "Who does he look like to you?"
"Old man with a beard," said Selim through his cake.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, dear," said Mrs Bradley.
Al tried another picture: long tendrils of stringy hair, and a grin that still raised his hackles although he hadn't seen it for years. "What about this man? Have you seen him before?"
"That's not a man," said Selim, sounding offended, "that's a lady."
"Actually -" said Ross. "Well -"
Al shrugged at her. "I never quite worked that one out."
He moved on. Selim grabbed the third picture, delighted. "That lady's got big bosoms!"
Mrs Bradley put a hand to her cheek in mock consternation. "Now, Selim. What did we talk about regarding -"
He levelled a finger at Maria Ross. "This lady's got small bosoms! Why?"
"- personal remarks."
"Why don't you have big bosoms?" Selim waved the card at Ross, happily.
She took it from him. "Well, we're all made differently. We're - good god, Alphonse. This is what she looked like?"
Al pulled a sympathetic face and nodded.
"That explains a lot," Ross muttered.
Then - well, it was worth one last go. "Selim. We need you to help us. I know it's hard, but - do you remember what a homunculus is?"
Selim looked at him, cheerful and blank, and shook his head. "I've got a stick insect," he announced. "Do you want to see my stick insect?"
"Oh well," said Ross in the car on the way back to headquarters, "at least they had nice cake."
"I liked the stick insect," said Al. "Did you know they can regrow their legs if they lose them?" Maria shook her head. "Selim seems like a good kid, right? And Mrs Bradley seems okay?"
"They seem like nice people," said Ross, in a very guarded voice. Al dropped the subject.
***
It was 2250 now, and the conversation still flowed on its course. The air between them buzzed. Roy's skin prickled. He was seriously, properly considering yawning theatrically, or maybe just telling Ed bluntly that he had to kick him out and get to bed now. It was too late, really. The conversation was good. He was making too much of this.
"-made me stand there, like all morning, with this bucket of water balanced on my head." Ed's grin filled his whole face. "No kidding. And of course I was thinking what the hell does this have to do with alchemy?"
"You mean you actually restrained yourself from saying what was going through your head at any given moment? I'm going to have to call her up and ask her for hints -"
"You've got no chance of ever being that scary, you know."
Roy threw his head back and laughed. Edward blinked at him, then gave him a slow grin.
"Now, my tutor did have some real exercises, but mostly it was just the tedious household chores. My first week there, he asked me to paint his garden fence. And of course he had no paint and I didn't know which kind to get, and all the time, I was making all these guesses about what philosophical lesson this was going to teach me -"
"Ha, and it turns out the lesson is don't get suckered? How long did it take you to pick that one up? Did you end up repainting the whole house?"
"Drawing a veil over that one. The funny thing was, the man didn't give a damn about housework or domestic tasks. He'd have lived happily in a cobwebbed attic if Riza had let him. I think it was largely about power games, about showing me who was boss -"
"So you did learn a big life lesson, huh?"
The clock in the corner ticked on.
***
Ed hadn't had a good day. The facts were still nasty. He'd spent a lot of time pacing Mustang's study and thinking: about the theoretical problem he was trying to solve, about the war that was probably coming, the future of the country and the fate of his friends. He was trying not to pin too much hope on Al's meeting with Selim Bradley. Part of him wanted - fuck knows why - to see that little shit get a fresh start, but if he really had his fresh start, Selim wouldn't be able to help them at all.
"Any new discoveries?" Mustang was standing in the doorway, freshly home from the office.
"Not today. Sorry. Working out how long we've got, in theory, how we're going to fight it - it's more than a day's work. I was hoping I could get through the first chunk of it today, but it's just not there yet."
"No news. Selim remembers nothing. Or, he's dissembling. Anyway, Bridgewire confirms there's only one soul in there - but nothing we didn't know before."
"Huh," said Ed. Crap. As soon as Mustang said it, he realised that all day he'd been secretly hoping they'd get something out of this.
"Another avenue closed," said Mustang. "Onwards and upwards." His voice was quiet and wry, and he didn't look at Ed. Instead he looked over to the window, arms folded and one shoulder leaning into the wall. Ed realised with a little pang how damn tired Mustang was looking. He had smudges under his eyes and he was kind of thin in the face. The memory came back to Ed, suddenly, of the shock he'd felt three years ago seeing Mustang after he'd got out of hospital that time: this person he had absently considered invincible, moving stiffly from the wound in his side, looking worn down, ill, human.
Mustang finally looked up. Ed met his eyes, and repressed the instinct to duck his head.
Mustang said quietly, "It's late. Don't worry about finishing this up tonight. Just go home, pick up this tomorrow. We can cook up some reason to for you to run an errand out of the office."
Ed said - why did he say it? "Actually, I wanted to run this whole thing by you. I'm kind of" - well, he wasn't stuck, it was just - "I could do with an outside perspective. Something about this theory just seems off."
"Fire away." Mustang's eyes were half closed.
"Uh. Well. I'm actually starving. What I was gonna do was, before you got back, I was gonna pick up some takeout and then ask you about it when you got in. Hate debating on an empty stomach." Mustang's eyes narrowed. Ed felt suddenly conspicuous. "Did you eat yet? How 'bout I go pick up some food and we can talk while we eat? I mean, we both need to eat dinner, right?"
Ed realised he'd got it all out in a single breath. It wasn't a big deal, this, it was just - the boundaries thing. All these barriers that had stood between him and Mustang, all these years. Now they were becoming - well - friends, and he kept expecting to get a shade too close and hit Mustang's defences, or his own, he didn't know which. But the walls all just seemed to slide away when he got near them. He couldn't work it out.
If Mustang was thrown by the invitation, he didn't show it. He mulled it over for a fractional moment, then said, "Where was this food going to come from?"
"The good Cretan place up two blocks - not the nearest one, the next one."
"Ruko? Sounds good." And that was all. Without further debate, he fished a note out of his wallet and asked for the chicken with plums.
***
At 2300, they were still sitting on the sofa. The alchemic textbook they'd been looking at earlier was still set aside on the floor.
"Funnily enough," said Roy, warming to his theme, "we could solve the issue of if a coup would violate constitutional law with a few well-placed bribes. Right now, the judiciary is only a separate power until we lean on them hard enough or slip them a fat enough envelope of cash."
"But you're not going to, right?" Ed leaned forward and gave him that hard stare that meant he was on the verge of one of his rants. "What's the point of -"
"Yes, yes, calm down, Fullmetal. Or you could explain my own political programme to me; I'm sure your insights would be brilliant for helping me work out things I worked out eight years ago -"
Ed snorted and relaxed. "Don't blame me if you look easy to corrupt -"
Roy raised an eyebrow at him and grinned. "All depends on the arena. Purity's excellent in politics, but out of hours -"
"Yeesh, I'll bet," said Ed, waving a dismissive hand.
This was banter. It absolutely wasn't flirting.
***
And so Ed stayed for dinner. Roy ordered, and Ed picked it up. They ate aubergine stew and chicken with plums at the kitchen table, and talked theory. At some point while Edward was out getting their order, Roy had a brief, warning instinct about where this evening might be headed. It seemed ridiculous, but he knew what that buzz in the air felt like. Unless he was imagining this? Which was possible. His libido always shot up in times of stress, and it seemed to love inappropriate hypothetical targets. Anyway, if something were to happen, not that that was even likely, it was obvious that he shouldn't. For a moment, he turned the whole stupid, hypothetical situation over in his mind. He considered his escape routes. On second thoughts, I'm busy: the about-face without explanation, which would be rude, and would provoke a fight, then an embarrassing explanation of the refusal. This is inappropriate, which made him look like an idiot for taking up Ed's offer in the first place, and besides being just as rude as the first excuse, was also pretty illogical given the number of hours Ed and Al had spent working in his library recently, at all hours, with good reasons for doing so. Perhaps you'd better not stay: the frank presumption of trouble, which was bound to backfire embarrassingly on him. This is just dinner: the pre-emptive setting of boundaries, ditto. Roy dismissed it all, in the end. He was over-thinking; there was no problem with dinner. After all, they were both hungry.
Again, Roy took the temperature of the day. Their big lead had led them to nothing they didn't already know; a Homunculus could build alchemical weapons. Meanwhile half the brass vacillated, not giving him enough support to act without plunging his whole country into blood and riot. And somewhere in a hospital in Central, another of his men had poured away blood for this future he was trying to get them to. Talking theory with Fullmetal was an odd way to distract himself enough to get a night's sleep - but it seemed to be working. He and Ed were sitting on the sofa, balancing an ancient, oversized textbook between their laps. He watched Ed tracing the path of the diagram with his forefinger. Their heads were close together.
"Now," said Ed triumphantly, challengingly, "tell me that's not elegant."
It was, actually: one of those formulae that cut beautifully through a complex task. "It's elegant." He slipped a bit of teasing into his tone - maybe get a bit of a rise out of Edward.
Admittedly, this array had nothing to do with the problem they were supposed to be discussing. Ed's debate had taken only ten minutes in the end; now they were talking alchemy for pleasure. Worse, they were agreeing. Worse still, it was absorbing. It was twenty-two hundred, and Ed had shown no signs of being about to go home. The more the time slipped on and the further their conversation turned from work - from the reason they'd shared dinner in the kitchen in the first place - the more an irrational feeling of suspense hovered in Roy's stomach. He should make a move to wind things up, tell Ed he was exhausted, thank him for dinner. No, he was being overdramatic. He socialised with his subordinates all the time. Nothing would probably happen anyway, and even if he was wrong about that - well, nothing would happen if he decided it wouldn't happen. So why not?
***
By a quarter to midnight Roy had abandoned his twitchiness, abandoned his caution and anxiety. He couldn't remember when he'd last relaxed this much. Perhaps that was why? He was slouched on the sofa, one arm slung along the back, hand propping up his head. Ed stretched out next to him.
They were talking about The Lemon Tree, a street cafe they'd discovered they both knew, on a little square not too far from Central Headquarters. The Lemon Tree did superb, incredibly fresh coffee, which was something they would both go out of their way for - but the trade-off was that you had to put up with the astoundingly rude waitstaff. Another thing they had in common, apparently, was that on their separate visits they had both come to turn this into a contest of oneupmanship. Ed's opponent of choice there was a middle-aged waiter with a moustache. He was halfway through a story which, judging by the fanged grin on Ed's face, was clearly going to involve some kind of ill-advised but entertaining revenge, and quite possibly the revelation that now Edward couldn't go back to The Lemon Tree any time soon.
"You're banned from there, aren't you? This is how the story finishes, you got banned."
"I did not! Well - sort of, not really. Only when moustache guy's on shift?"
Roy rolled his eyes. "Oho, you see, this is where thinking short-term gets you. Where are you going to get your perfect espresso now?"
He flicked his head around to catch Ed's eye, and was amused and slightly startled to find Ed leaning forward into his space, grinning, full of the story - but before Ed continued, something in his face shifted. The smile softened. Neither of them looked away. By the time Roy realised what was about to happen, they had already begun to kiss.
It took the first few moments for Roy's mind to come back to him. He had no idea which of them had moved first. Through the haze of lust and sensation, he found himself strangely aware of the silence in the room: the ticking of the clock, their heavy breaths, the occasional creak of the sofa springs.
There was almost no pause or hesitation in the kissing. When they first pulled away to lean on each other, breathing hard, Roy expected for sure that Ed would stop there with no need for him to push the matter. His stomach tightened in anticipation of the mortifying scene that was about to follow - and then Ed had moved back in. His fingers were in Roy's hair. Roy returned it all unthinkingly, and then remembered again that this was a terrible, terrible idea, the very thing he'd been trying to avoid - and then he promptly forgot again. He somehow had a hand up the back of Ed's shirt now, and his skin was so very warm. He should have said something. He should have - why the hell hadn't he, then? Now he was breathless, full of sensation and intent; it was getting difficult to think.
It was only when Ed leaned back a little and stripped off his own shirt in one clean movement that Roy found the strength to put a hand to his arm and stop him.
Ed blinked at him, eyes huge. The shirt hung off one arm. Roy couldn't look at him when he looked like that: shirtless, his hair coming undone, breathing hard. Roy screwed his eyes shut and said, through clenched teeth, "I don't know what we're doing."
The silence was weighty and horrible. Roy opened his eyes, and saw that Ed was looking off to one side. He was flushed, frowning furiously. His lips looked dark and wet. Then Ed's head snapped around. "Fuck," he said, "you wanted to do this a minute ago, what?"
"I want to." Roy had said it before he'd thought better. "I really - but look, that's not the point -"
"You could get in trouble? How -"
"No, of course I won't, I'm brass, I mean you -"
"I'm fine -" Ed cut in, rolling his eyes.
"No, I mean, this is just -" For tonight? What was this?
"Yeah, cool, I mean, yeah." Ed nodded vigorously. Maybe Roy was reading this wrong, then. At Ed's age, hadn't Roy occasionally slept with superiors, with people much older than him? Hadn't it been all right? Hadn't he kept good terms with them, been able to look them in the eye the next day? But was Roy just making excuses for himself? Was he letting his dick think for him, then justifying it? Or was he over-thinking?
"No, I mean it, don't do this unless you're sure you won't regret -"
"Yes! Just stop talking about it if you're gonna! Yes!" Ed's hands twitched in the air. His eyes were wide.
"Oh good." All Roy's self-control sighed out of him on the last word. He leaned right into Ed and bowled him straight onto his back on the sofa. Ed's hands were immediately at the back of his shirt, untucking it, and it was almost frightening how much Roy wanted this now, this thing that had been an idle thought, a passing glance, this thing which had had no power over him.
After that, things began to happen very fast.
Roy didn't even manage to get his own shirt off. One minute they were undressing each other, then - Roy managed to yank down Ed's trousers and boxers, and palmed him with one hand. He was hard. Roy curled his fingers, and Ed made a low, grunting sound in his throat, thrust into Roy's hand and pulled him forward convulsively with the automail arm at his back. The motion was shockingly strong and unyielding. Ed worked his other hand into Roy's pants and pulled him out. Roy arched forward, their cocks brushed each other and Roy opened his hand to pull them together.
And that was it. The moment he'd started to pump, there was absolutely no way he could stop. They thrust at each other, half-dressed on the sofa, impeded by their own clothes, both so worked up already. The speed of it all stunned Roy: less than five minutes ago, they'd been having some stupid conversation about coffee, and now they were having sex on the couch? The remaining fragments of his rational brain pointed out to him that Ed was likely to be dressed and leaving in scant minutes: if Roy was going to misbehave, why waste it on a quickie when he could have taken all night about it? But he couldn't hang on to the thought. Ed's teeth were scraping over the side of his neck and he was making ridiculous, grunty little sex noises. Roy couldn't get enough breath to laugh at them.
The angle was awkward and a little uncomfortable. Roy managed to get one foot up onto the sofa cushions to keep his balance. His free arm was pressed into the back of the sofa, half-clutching at Ed's shoulder. The friction was less than ideal, too. There was no possibility of getting up to get something. Roy shifted, and tried to get some of the stickiness on his thumb between them, which wasn't exactly easy.
Ed looked down, then grabbed Roy's hand by the wrist, brought it up and spat liberally in his palm.
Roy wrinkled his nose a bit, and found himself saying, with something of the office sarcasm, "Yes, now that's sexy."
Ed said, "Like you care," and shoved his hand back down again.
A moment later, it turned out that apparently, Roy didn't care. The slickness was delicious, and they got the rhythm back, and it all started getting very good again. It seemed like only a few seconds later that Ed thrust hard, ground his forehead into Roy's neck, spilled, then sagged against him. Roy just kept thrusting through it all. A few moments later Ed seemed to spring to life - he shifted forward, spat on his left hand again, then pulled Roy's hand off their cocks and substituted his own. Roy was balanced awkwardly on the edge of the sofa, pants tangled around his knees, held in place with Ed's right arm at his back. Roy hung on to Ed's waist, and stared vaguely at Ed's bangs plastered to his forehead as he felt himself cascade down.
A few moments later, Roy had his breath back enough to push his hair out of his eyes and look up. Their eyes met. A cushion shifted - and they both flailed, slipped, and landed hard on the floor.
They were still staring and clutching at each other. Ed blinked. Then they both burst out laughing.
***
***
Ed was oversleeping again; he had to be, he always made such a racket when he got up. Al shuffled out of bed, stretched, scratched his butt, and wandered through to the kitchen to make some toast.
"Brother!" he called after the kettle was on the stove and the bread was under the grill. "It's a quarter past nine already." There was no response. Al sighed. Ed's subconscious would do anything to avoid filing - including getting him in a ton of trouble.
"Brother! The house is on fire!" Silence. Al would have to go and prod him again. He should go on strike for a week, so Ed could see what happened when Al wasn't picking take-out containers off the floor and washing the hairs of off the sink. Then again, they already had mice. A week of no cleaning and they'd probably have rats the size of Hayate.
"Hey! Wake up, doofus! Major Miles is going to -" Al stopped in his tracks, hand on the doorknob. Ed's bed was empty. It was in its usual daytime state: blankets rumpled up, pillows strewn about. During a quick tidying session yesterday afternoon, Al had collected a small pile of Ed's books and clothes from around the flat and dropped them onto his bed. The pile was still in exactly the same position.
The bed hadn't been slept in.
Huh.
***
On to Chapter Four!
Setting: Fullmetal Alchemist, mangaverse, post-series, yet plotted out way last year: this 'verse is AU on a few plot points from 104-108. Details here!
Characters: Roy/Ed, Havoc/Rebecca, Riza/Miles, Al, Winry, ensemble.
Rating: NC-17 for naughty, ooh la la.
Word count: 4331
Summary: two years on from the Promised Day. Amestris is without a Fuhrer. In the military, Mustang's faction of reformers are locked in struggle with General Hakuro's old guard, who are are developing an alchemical weapon that makes the Immortal Army look harmless. Civil war seems inevitable. As the battle lines are drawn up, Team Mustang search urgently for Hakuro's secret weapon and meanwhile, struggle to get from day to day knowing that tomorrow could be the day that everything comes crashing down …
Notes: Direct sequel to No Small Injury. Illustrated fic is illustrated (by me). Betaed and edited by enemytosleep.
Chapter One: Blue Monday
Chapter Two: Make Your Mind Up Time
When the phone call came through, Al had been planning on a long research day with his father's notes. Instead, he'd hurriedly got changed into uniform and headed into headquarters to meet the car.
This meeting had taken forever to arrange. Hakuro's guys had found excuse after excuse to block it: committee meetings, security arrangements, scheduling conflicts - all of it red tape. Now that a chance had come up to get in before the next excuse, they'd had to move fast.
The car turned up the long drive. The house was large and old, and the security impressive but low-key. Out on the front lawn, a tea table was set, and three heavy-set men in suits stood discreet guard. The person they'd come to see was racing toy cars along the rim of a fountain.
Mrs Bradley was exactly as Al remembered her nearly three years ago: sweet, twinkly and slightly loopy. "The sponge cake is a lemon drizzle," she said, "and the other is a banana nut loaf. They're both home-made. The cook teases me for it, but I do love to bake, it's such a calming thing to do of a morning." She poured tea into their cups. "Do help yourself to milk and sugar. And I hope you're not planning to upset Selim?"
"We just have a few questions for him, to see if he can help with Bridgewire's research," said Captain Ross.
"He's a good little boy," said Mrs Bradley, passing her a cup of tea. She turned to Al, and there was a surprising hint of steel to her look. "Whatever he might have been, and whatever else he might be now: he's a little boy and I'm his mother."
"Please don't worry about that," said Al, trying a warm and reassuring smile. "We're not here to hurt him."
"Selim, dear! Put the racecar down and come and have some cake with our guests."
At the word cake, the small boy by the fountain paid considerably more attention. He trotted over. Selim Bradley looked like a smaller version of himself as Al had known him: a sturdy little boy of around three or four with big, dark eyes. The only noticeably odd thing about him was the tattoo-like two concentric circles in the centre of his forehead. That, and the fact that two years ago, he had been a baby the size of a man's thumbnail.
Al quieted his mind and went over his impressions of the boy's qi. Yep, only one soul in there. It felt weird, and you could tell he wasn't quite human - not that that told you much. Chimerae felt weird, and most of the chimerae Al knew were pretty cool people.
With a hand from Mrs Bradley, Selim hopped up onto a chair and swung his legs over the edge, eyeing the cake. Mrs Bradley passed him half a slice of lemon cake and a glass of milk. She watched him meaningfully for a second after he grabbed his cake. "Thank you, Mama," he piped obediently, then stuffed a chunk into his mouth.
At first, he seemed so different from Pride, the cruel little monster who had crawled inside Al's head and used him like a puppet, but then, Al remembered Selim's little boy act, his enthusiasm and silliness and energy. It had been so convincing. It was a disquieting thought.
Al opened his bag. In his peripheral vision, the security guys twitched. He pulled out a sketch and held it in front of Selim. "Do you know who this is?"
Selim frowned at it fiercely. Al and Ross shifted in their seats.
"No," said Selim. He picked up a chunk of cake and started licking the icing off.
"Are you sure?" asked Ross. "Who does he look like to you?"
"Old man with a beard," said Selim through his cake.
"Don't talk with your mouth full, dear," said Mrs Bradley.
Al tried another picture: long tendrils of stringy hair, and a grin that still raised his hackles although he hadn't seen it for years. "What about this man? Have you seen him before?"
"That's not a man," said Selim, sounding offended, "that's a lady."
"Actually -" said Ross. "Well -"
Al shrugged at her. "I never quite worked that one out."
He moved on. Selim grabbed the third picture, delighted. "That lady's got big bosoms!"
Mrs Bradley put a hand to her cheek in mock consternation. "Now, Selim. What did we talk about regarding -"
He levelled a finger at Maria Ross. "This lady's got small bosoms! Why?"
"- personal remarks."
"Why don't you have big bosoms?" Selim waved the card at Ross, happily.
She took it from him. "Well, we're all made differently. We're - good god, Alphonse. This is what she looked like?"
Al pulled a sympathetic face and nodded.
"That explains a lot," Ross muttered.
Then - well, it was worth one last go. "Selim. We need you to help us. I know it's hard, but - do you remember what a homunculus is?"
Selim looked at him, cheerful and blank, and shook his head. "I've got a stick insect," he announced. "Do you want to see my stick insect?"
"Oh well," said Ross in the car on the way back to headquarters, "at least they had nice cake."
"I liked the stick insect," said Al. "Did you know they can regrow their legs if they lose them?" Maria shook her head. "Selim seems like a good kid, right? And Mrs Bradley seems okay?"
"They seem like nice people," said Ross, in a very guarded voice. Al dropped the subject.
***
It was 2250 now, and the conversation still flowed on its course. The air between them buzzed. Roy's skin prickled. He was seriously, properly considering yawning theatrically, or maybe just telling Ed bluntly that he had to kick him out and get to bed now. It was too late, really. The conversation was good. He was making too much of this.
"-made me stand there, like all morning, with this bucket of water balanced on my head." Ed's grin filled his whole face. "No kidding. And of course I was thinking what the hell does this have to do with alchemy?"
"You mean you actually restrained yourself from saying what was going through your head at any given moment? I'm going to have to call her up and ask her for hints -"
"You've got no chance of ever being that scary, you know."
Roy threw his head back and laughed. Edward blinked at him, then gave him a slow grin.
"Now, my tutor did have some real exercises, but mostly it was just the tedious household chores. My first week there, he asked me to paint his garden fence. And of course he had no paint and I didn't know which kind to get, and all the time, I was making all these guesses about what philosophical lesson this was going to teach me -"
"Ha, and it turns out the lesson is don't get suckered? How long did it take you to pick that one up? Did you end up repainting the whole house?"
"Drawing a veil over that one. The funny thing was, the man didn't give a damn about housework or domestic tasks. He'd have lived happily in a cobwebbed attic if Riza had let him. I think it was largely about power games, about showing me who was boss -"
"So you did learn a big life lesson, huh?"
The clock in the corner ticked on.
***
Ed hadn't had a good day. The facts were still nasty. He'd spent a lot of time pacing Mustang's study and thinking: about the theoretical problem he was trying to solve, about the war that was probably coming, the future of the country and the fate of his friends. He was trying not to pin too much hope on Al's meeting with Selim Bradley. Part of him wanted - fuck knows why - to see that little shit get a fresh start, but if he really had his fresh start, Selim wouldn't be able to help them at all.
"Any new discoveries?" Mustang was standing in the doorway, freshly home from the office.
"Not today. Sorry. Working out how long we've got, in theory, how we're going to fight it - it's more than a day's work. I was hoping I could get through the first chunk of it today, but it's just not there yet."
"No news. Selim remembers nothing. Or, he's dissembling. Anyway, Bridgewire confirms there's only one soul in there - but nothing we didn't know before."
"Huh," said Ed. Crap. As soon as Mustang said it, he realised that all day he'd been secretly hoping they'd get something out of this.
"Another avenue closed," said Mustang. "Onwards and upwards." His voice was quiet and wry, and he didn't look at Ed. Instead he looked over to the window, arms folded and one shoulder leaning into the wall. Ed realised with a little pang how damn tired Mustang was looking. He had smudges under his eyes and he was kind of thin in the face. The memory came back to Ed, suddenly, of the shock he'd felt three years ago seeing Mustang after he'd got out of hospital that time: this person he had absently considered invincible, moving stiffly from the wound in his side, looking worn down, ill, human.
Mustang finally looked up. Ed met his eyes, and repressed the instinct to duck his head.
Mustang said quietly, "It's late. Don't worry about finishing this up tonight. Just go home, pick up this tomorrow. We can cook up some reason to for you to run an errand out of the office."
Ed said - why did he say it? "Actually, I wanted to run this whole thing by you. I'm kind of" - well, he wasn't stuck, it was just - "I could do with an outside perspective. Something about this theory just seems off."
"Fire away." Mustang's eyes were half closed.
"Uh. Well. I'm actually starving. What I was gonna do was, before you got back, I was gonna pick up some takeout and then ask you about it when you got in. Hate debating on an empty stomach." Mustang's eyes narrowed. Ed felt suddenly conspicuous. "Did you eat yet? How 'bout I go pick up some food and we can talk while we eat? I mean, we both need to eat dinner, right?"
Ed realised he'd got it all out in a single breath. It wasn't a big deal, this, it was just - the boundaries thing. All these barriers that had stood between him and Mustang, all these years. Now they were becoming - well - friends, and he kept expecting to get a shade too close and hit Mustang's defences, or his own, he didn't know which. But the walls all just seemed to slide away when he got near them. He couldn't work it out.
If Mustang was thrown by the invitation, he didn't show it. He mulled it over for a fractional moment, then said, "Where was this food going to come from?"
"The good Cretan place up two blocks - not the nearest one, the next one."
"Ruko? Sounds good." And that was all. Without further debate, he fished a note out of his wallet and asked for the chicken with plums.
***
At 2300, they were still sitting on the sofa. The alchemic textbook they'd been looking at earlier was still set aside on the floor.
"Funnily enough," said Roy, warming to his theme, "we could solve the issue of if a coup would violate constitutional law with a few well-placed bribes. Right now, the judiciary is only a separate power until we lean on them hard enough or slip them a fat enough envelope of cash."
"But you're not going to, right?" Ed leaned forward and gave him that hard stare that meant he was on the verge of one of his rants. "What's the point of -"
"Yes, yes, calm down, Fullmetal. Or you could explain my own political programme to me; I'm sure your insights would be brilliant for helping me work out things I worked out eight years ago -"
Ed snorted and relaxed. "Don't blame me if you look easy to corrupt -"
Roy raised an eyebrow at him and grinned. "All depends on the arena. Purity's excellent in politics, but out of hours -"
"Yeesh, I'll bet," said Ed, waving a dismissive hand.
This was banter. It absolutely wasn't flirting.
***
And so Ed stayed for dinner. Roy ordered, and Ed picked it up. They ate aubergine stew and chicken with plums at the kitchen table, and talked theory. At some point while Edward was out getting their order, Roy had a brief, warning instinct about where this evening might be headed. It seemed ridiculous, but he knew what that buzz in the air felt like. Unless he was imagining this? Which was possible. His libido always shot up in times of stress, and it seemed to love inappropriate hypothetical targets. Anyway, if something were to happen, not that that was even likely, it was obvious that he shouldn't. For a moment, he turned the whole stupid, hypothetical situation over in his mind. He considered his escape routes. On second thoughts, I'm busy: the about-face without explanation, which would be rude, and would provoke a fight, then an embarrassing explanation of the refusal. This is inappropriate, which made him look like an idiot for taking up Ed's offer in the first place, and besides being just as rude as the first excuse, was also pretty illogical given the number of hours Ed and Al had spent working in his library recently, at all hours, with good reasons for doing so. Perhaps you'd better not stay: the frank presumption of trouble, which was bound to backfire embarrassingly on him. This is just dinner: the pre-emptive setting of boundaries, ditto. Roy dismissed it all, in the end. He was over-thinking; there was no problem with dinner. After all, they were both hungry.
Again, Roy took the temperature of the day. Their big lead had led them to nothing they didn't already know; a Homunculus could build alchemical weapons. Meanwhile half the brass vacillated, not giving him enough support to act without plunging his whole country into blood and riot. And somewhere in a hospital in Central, another of his men had poured away blood for this future he was trying to get them to. Talking theory with Fullmetal was an odd way to distract himself enough to get a night's sleep - but it seemed to be working. He and Ed were sitting on the sofa, balancing an ancient, oversized textbook between their laps. He watched Ed tracing the path of the diagram with his forefinger. Their heads were close together.
"Now," said Ed triumphantly, challengingly, "tell me that's not elegant."
It was, actually: one of those formulae that cut beautifully through a complex task. "It's elegant." He slipped a bit of teasing into his tone - maybe get a bit of a rise out of Edward.
Admittedly, this array had nothing to do with the problem they were supposed to be discussing. Ed's debate had taken only ten minutes in the end; now they were talking alchemy for pleasure. Worse, they were agreeing. Worse still, it was absorbing. It was twenty-two hundred, and Ed had shown no signs of being about to go home. The more the time slipped on and the further their conversation turned from work - from the reason they'd shared dinner in the kitchen in the first place - the more an irrational feeling of suspense hovered in Roy's stomach. He should make a move to wind things up, tell Ed he was exhausted, thank him for dinner. No, he was being overdramatic. He socialised with his subordinates all the time. Nothing would probably happen anyway, and even if he was wrong about that - well, nothing would happen if he decided it wouldn't happen. So why not?
***
By a quarter to midnight Roy had abandoned his twitchiness, abandoned his caution and anxiety. He couldn't remember when he'd last relaxed this much. Perhaps that was why? He was slouched on the sofa, one arm slung along the back, hand propping up his head. Ed stretched out next to him.
They were talking about The Lemon Tree, a street cafe they'd discovered they both knew, on a little square not too far from Central Headquarters. The Lemon Tree did superb, incredibly fresh coffee, which was something they would both go out of their way for - but the trade-off was that you had to put up with the astoundingly rude waitstaff. Another thing they had in common, apparently, was that on their separate visits they had both come to turn this into a contest of oneupmanship. Ed's opponent of choice there was a middle-aged waiter with a moustache. He was halfway through a story which, judging by the fanged grin on Ed's face, was clearly going to involve some kind of ill-advised but entertaining revenge, and quite possibly the revelation that now Edward couldn't go back to The Lemon Tree any time soon.
"You're banned from there, aren't you? This is how the story finishes, you got banned."
"I did not! Well - sort of, not really. Only when moustache guy's on shift?"
Roy rolled his eyes. "Oho, you see, this is where thinking short-term gets you. Where are you going to get your perfect espresso now?"
He flicked his head around to catch Ed's eye, and was amused and slightly startled to find Ed leaning forward into his space, grinning, full of the story - but before Ed continued, something in his face shifted. The smile softened. Neither of them looked away. By the time Roy realised what was about to happen, they had already begun to kiss.
It took the first few moments for Roy's mind to come back to him. He had no idea which of them had moved first. Through the haze of lust and sensation, he found himself strangely aware of the silence in the room: the ticking of the clock, their heavy breaths, the occasional creak of the sofa springs.
There was almost no pause or hesitation in the kissing. When they first pulled away to lean on each other, breathing hard, Roy expected for sure that Ed would stop there with no need for him to push the matter. His stomach tightened in anticipation of the mortifying scene that was about to follow - and then Ed had moved back in. His fingers were in Roy's hair. Roy returned it all unthinkingly, and then remembered again that this was a terrible, terrible idea, the very thing he'd been trying to avoid - and then he promptly forgot again. He somehow had a hand up the back of Ed's shirt now, and his skin was so very warm. He should have said something. He should have - why the hell hadn't he, then? Now he was breathless, full of sensation and intent; it was getting difficult to think.
It was only when Ed leaned back a little and stripped off his own shirt in one clean movement that Roy found the strength to put a hand to his arm and stop him.
Ed blinked at him, eyes huge. The shirt hung off one arm. Roy couldn't look at him when he looked like that: shirtless, his hair coming undone, breathing hard. Roy screwed his eyes shut and said, through clenched teeth, "I don't know what we're doing."
The silence was weighty and horrible. Roy opened his eyes, and saw that Ed was looking off to one side. He was flushed, frowning furiously. His lips looked dark and wet. Then Ed's head snapped around. "Fuck," he said, "you wanted to do this a minute ago, what?"
"I want to." Roy had said it before he'd thought better. "I really - but look, that's not the point -"
"You could get in trouble? How -"
"No, of course I won't, I'm brass, I mean you -"
"I'm fine -" Ed cut in, rolling his eyes.
"No, I mean, this is just -" For tonight? What was this?
"Yeah, cool, I mean, yeah." Ed nodded vigorously. Maybe Roy was reading this wrong, then. At Ed's age, hadn't Roy occasionally slept with superiors, with people much older than him? Hadn't it been all right? Hadn't he kept good terms with them, been able to look them in the eye the next day? But was Roy just making excuses for himself? Was he letting his dick think for him, then justifying it? Or was he over-thinking?
"No, I mean it, don't do this unless you're sure you won't regret -"
"Yes! Just stop talking about it if you're gonna! Yes!" Ed's hands twitched in the air. His eyes were wide.
"Oh good." All Roy's self-control sighed out of him on the last word. He leaned right into Ed and bowled him straight onto his back on the sofa. Ed's hands were immediately at the back of his shirt, untucking it, and it was almost frightening how much Roy wanted this now, this thing that had been an idle thought, a passing glance, this thing which had had no power over him.
After that, things began to happen very fast.
Roy didn't even manage to get his own shirt off. One minute they were undressing each other, then - Roy managed to yank down Ed's trousers and boxers, and palmed him with one hand. He was hard. Roy curled his fingers, and Ed made a low, grunting sound in his throat, thrust into Roy's hand and pulled him forward convulsively with the automail arm at his back. The motion was shockingly strong and unyielding. Ed worked his other hand into Roy's pants and pulled him out. Roy arched forward, their cocks brushed each other and Roy opened his hand to pull them together.
And that was it. The moment he'd started to pump, there was absolutely no way he could stop. They thrust at each other, half-dressed on the sofa, impeded by their own clothes, both so worked up already. The speed of it all stunned Roy: less than five minutes ago, they'd been having some stupid conversation about coffee, and now they were having sex on the couch? The remaining fragments of his rational brain pointed out to him that Ed was likely to be dressed and leaving in scant minutes: if Roy was going to misbehave, why waste it on a quickie when he could have taken all night about it? But he couldn't hang on to the thought. Ed's teeth were scraping over the side of his neck and he was making ridiculous, grunty little sex noises. Roy couldn't get enough breath to laugh at them.
The angle was awkward and a little uncomfortable. Roy managed to get one foot up onto the sofa cushions to keep his balance. His free arm was pressed into the back of the sofa, half-clutching at Ed's shoulder. The friction was less than ideal, too. There was no possibility of getting up to get something. Roy shifted, and tried to get some of the stickiness on his thumb between them, which wasn't exactly easy.
Ed looked down, then grabbed Roy's hand by the wrist, brought it up and spat liberally in his palm.
Roy wrinkled his nose a bit, and found himself saying, with something of the office sarcasm, "Yes, now that's sexy."
Ed said, "Like you care," and shoved his hand back down again.
A moment later, it turned out that apparently, Roy didn't care. The slickness was delicious, and they got the rhythm back, and it all started getting very good again. It seemed like only a few seconds later that Ed thrust hard, ground his forehead into Roy's neck, spilled, then sagged against him. Roy just kept thrusting through it all. A few moments later Ed seemed to spring to life - he shifted forward, spat on his left hand again, then pulled Roy's hand off their cocks and substituted his own. Roy was balanced awkwardly on the edge of the sofa, pants tangled around his knees, held in place with Ed's right arm at his back. Roy hung on to Ed's waist, and stared vaguely at Ed's bangs plastered to his forehead as he felt himself cascade down.
A few moments later, Roy had his breath back enough to push his hair out of his eyes and look up. Their eyes met. A cushion shifted - and they both flailed, slipped, and landed hard on the floor.
They were still staring and clutching at each other. Ed blinked. Then they both burst out laughing.
***
***
Ed was oversleeping again; he had to be, he always made such a racket when he got up. Al shuffled out of bed, stretched, scratched his butt, and wandered through to the kitchen to make some toast.
"Brother!" he called after the kettle was on the stove and the bread was under the grill. "It's a quarter past nine already." There was no response. Al sighed. Ed's subconscious would do anything to avoid filing - including getting him in a ton of trouble.
"Brother! The house is on fire!" Silence. Al would have to go and prod him again. He should go on strike for a week, so Ed could see what happened when Al wasn't picking take-out containers off the floor and washing the hairs of off the sink. Then again, they already had mice. A week of no cleaning and they'd probably have rats the size of Hayate.
"Hey! Wake up, doofus! Major Miles is going to -" Al stopped in his tracks, hand on the doorknob. Ed's bed was empty. It was in its usual daytime state: blankets rumpled up, pillows strewn about. During a quick tidying session yesterday afternoon, Al had collected a small pile of Ed's books and clothes from around the flat and dropped them onto his bed. The pile was still in exactly the same position.
The bed hadn't been slept in.
Huh.
***
On to Chapter Four!