FIC: A House We Can Decorate || The RoyEd Christmas Drabbles 10/10
Banner courtesy of hpfangirl71
Title: A House We Can Decorate
Author: drummerdancer
Verse: None
Characters/Pairings: Roy/Ed
Word Count: 1000 total (500:400:100)
Rating: T
Summary: Nobody decorated their offices for Christmas...except for Roy.
A/N: Picture of the light fixture featured below.
Of all the things Edward could be doing at the moment…he groaned. Decorating Roy’s office was not one of them.
“Roy, this is ridiculous!” he exhaled for the thousandth time that evening. He had a cord of garland wrapped around one arm, a festive bear in his hand, and a red hat with a white ball attached to the end on his head. Foolish was an understatement to how he felt.
Roy, meanwhile, was standing on a chair in the center of the room replacing the light fixture with what looked like a medley of colored bulbs randomly glued together to look ‘festive’. Again, rather ridiculous in Ed’s opinion.
“It’s called ‘getting into the holiday spirit’, Edward,” Roy scolded lightly, his concentration directed at the now lopsided-looking piece of art. Even with the added height of the chair, Roy was still struggling to reach around to attach the other end.
Edward walked over, his hands outstretched. “Where do you want this stuff?”
“Um…” Roy looked down, his hands still placed on the light. “How about…,” Roy nodded his head to the left, “over there?”
“Yeah, okay.” Edward sulked over to the bookshelf Roy had pointed to, dropping the bear and garland down roughly as figured out how to make a shelving unit look ‘festive’.
He first tried pooling the leafy green stuff around the bear’s neck like a scarf since it was cold out, but abandoned the idea when it appeared the bear was suffocating. Then he tried roping the garland between the books but rejected that idea, too, when he realized the green stuff was bending the loose pages down. Finally, he tried hanging the garland down from the top of the bookshelf but quickly realized that he wasn’t quite…tall enough to reach.
“Ugh, Roy! Can you ge-”
A loud crash echoed behind him. Ed turned around, then-
“Oh my god, Roy! Are you okay?!”
Roy had obviously fallen by the looks of it. Pieces of shattered glass were littered around the upturned chair, their various colors a mosaic against the plain carpet floor. Half of the remaining light structure was dangling from the ceiling wildly, dangerously close to flying off like its other half.
Edward, however, only had eyes for the man clutching his bleeding fingertips together. He couldn’t tell how deep some of the shards were, but Ed imagined it must be painful. Roy tried to put his hands on the ground to stand, but Edward quickly intercepted him.
“Don’t do that, idiot. You’ll just get more glass in your hands.”
Edward swatted Roy’s fingers away and clapped his own gloved hands. Instantly, the pieces of broken glass were picked up and transmuted into a glass ball (since Edward had absolutely no clue how to create the ‘masterpiece’ Roy had earlier) and rolled out of the way. Roy said a quick ‘thanks’ before getting to his feet and heading for the men’s bathroom to wash up.
Edward followed, closing the door behind them quickly.
***
The tiny glass shards hadn’t been all that deep. Transmuting his automail index finger and thumb into thinly shaped tweezers, Edward held Roy’s hands face-up as he picked out pieces and threw them in the trash.
“This is just God’s way of telling you decorating the office is a bad idea,” he droned on, his lecture lost as he concentrated on his task. “Nobody in the entire world decorates their military office besides you.”
“Nobody likes Christmas as much as I do!” Roy replied in a rebuttal, though his defense was somewhat muted as he cringed when a deeper piece of glass was tugged on. “Besides, why shouldn’t I decorate the office?”
“Oh gee I don’t know…because this might happen!” Edward yanked another piece out, relishing only slightly in the pained look that crossed Roy’s face. “And seriously, isn’t the apartment enough for you? It looks like the inside of Santa’s workshop or something!”
Roy grinned, earning him another harsh yank as another piece of bloodied glass fell into the waste basket. “Just wait until we get a house. It’ll put the entire North Pole to shame.”
Edward paused. A house? Did that mean what he thought that meant?
Roy seemed to realize his slip-up, too, as he quickly backpedaled. “Uh, that is…when the time is right. Er, I mean, if the time comes around…”
“Ah…so the bastard wants to get serious, eh?” Edward gave him his best cocky-smirk face that he could, but inside, his heart was beating rapidly against his ribs. He had always hoped Roy would want to make their arrangement permanent, but to hear him talk about getting an actual house…well. He just really wanted it to happen now that he knew it could happen.
“Uh…well…do you?” Roy asked, his expression suddenly very cautious and guarded, like he was equally afraid that Edward would reject the idea.
But Edward wouldn’t reject this for all the Christmas presents in the world. Rather than give him a verbal answer, Edward simply tugged Roy’s hands towards him, leaning up to give him a chaste kiss on the side of the neck, then higher until he reached a pair of warm lips eager for his own.
The kiss was brief, for there was no way to know when somebody would suddenly pop in.
But for them, the kiss said it all.
***
Years later, Edward would fondly look back on that moment as he sat by the roaring fireplace in the living room, drinking hot chocolate and reading a new book Roy had gotten him for Christmas that year. And he’d look around the house and smile at all the ridiculous decorations, mentally preparing himself for the long weekend in which they’d have to take them all down.
But it was worth it, he reminded himself, as he sipped another mouthful and turned the page, the fire’s light dancing across the text.
Roy was worth it, no matter how ridiculous that was.
Fake cut @ fandomwords100 & steelandsparks