FMA -- Leading the Blind VI: An Eye for an Eye

[tierfal]

Title: Leading the Blind
Chapter: 6. An Eye for an Eye
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed, with bonus Havoc/Rebecca, Hawkeye/Awesome, and Al/Cats
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,646
Warnings: language, MAJOR spoilers for Brotherhood, blind jokes are not very PC are they, eventual explicit sex
Summary: Roy adjusts to a life of legal blindness, and Edward avenges three years of short jokes.
Author's Note: …I hope Ed knows I'm sorry for how I treat him.


VI. AN EYE FOR AN EYE
Roy is uncharacteristically quiet as they get into the car.

Havoc, however, is characteristically un-quiet.

“You have a good time, Boss?”

Ed’s head is swimming. Through molasses. Half-frozen, slushy molasses with gelatin underneath.

“Free booze,” he says.

The engine sounds very loud. “Looks like you had fun with that.”

“’S better than your drain-cleaner shit.”

Havoc takes a corner way too fast, and Ed tips right the fuck over. Fortunately, Roy’s lap is available to break his fall.

Maybe it’s not Havoc’s fault. Maybe the world is just moving at a devastating clip. Maybe everything’s a little bit unstable, and Ed should consider himself lucky that he found somewhere to land.

Roy startles at the intrusion, and Hitomi looks up from where she’s been curled on the floor. Her ears flick back and forth, and then she decides that Ed’s sloshedness is not a threat and lays her head down on her paws again.

“Looks like you had a little too much fun with that.”

“You’re jealous,” Ed says, and he shifts-which is not easy with his seatbelt still fastened-to settle his cheek more comfortably on Roy’s thigh.

“Am I dropping him off at his place or yours, sir?”

Ed wishes he could find sufficient motivation to raise his head, but this is cozy. So he can’t. “Don’t talk like I’m not here!”

“We’re not,” Roy says, and then-and then he’s stroking Ed’s hair, and-and that’s-just about-probably the nicest thing Ed’s ever felt. “You’re not in much of a position to make executive decisions at the moment, that’s all. My house, Lieutenant.”

“Say no more, Colonel.”

Roy cards his fingers through the tangles in Ed’s ponytail. “I’ll thank you not to make any untoward insinuations.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

With Roy’s fingers tugging gently at his hair, Ed understands why cats love Al. And why he…

Shitfuckitycrapdamn.

On the upside, Roy has a really soothing voice. Velvety. “I’ll also thank you not to raise your eyebrows, which I know you are.”

“My forehead itches, and I don’t want to take my hands off the wheel.”

“Your conscientious driving is an inspiration.”

“Gotta warn you, if the boss starts purring, I’m probably going to crash into a lamppost.”

“Not a cat,” Ed mutters. “Will bite you.”

“The colonel has dibs, kid.”

“There goes your tip, Lieutenant,” Roy says.

Ed wakes up slowly and in agony. His head is full of rocks and acid, and his stomach has been turned inside-out on a cell-by-cell basis; all of his blood has metamorphosed into sludge, and his tongue feels like a scrap of carpet, and just for kicks his shoulder still aches.

Pertinently, where the fuck is he?

Lifting his head makes it pirouette, but when the colors stop blurring, shit comes into focus. Namely, Roy comes into focus. Roy has his back to Ed, and the comforter is pulled all the way up to his neck, so Ed can’t tell if he’s clothed or not.

If they got it on and Ed doesn’t even remember, he’s going to be so fucking pissed.

Ed cranes his neck past the pillow-cuddling colonel and his gorgeous fucking morning hair. Hitomi’s lying on the floor; when she hears the bed creak, she sits up and pricks her ears. He waves, and she stares back blankly. Holy fuck, even the dog is judging him.

Bonus: his eyes feel like they’re coated in powdered glass. He scrubs at them and looks down at himself. He’s got his shirt and his boxers on, so that’s probably a no on the riotous sex. Interestingly, it’s a yes on the being undressed while semi-conscious.

He squints until he can read the round-faced clock on Roy’s nightstand, which is ticking far too loud. Apparently it’s a minute to eight. Also apparent is the fact that Roy kept the frangipani from Ed’s lapel, since it’s sitting in a little cup of water next to the clock.

The clock in question then proceeds to ring so loudly that Ed’s whole head echoes, and he slams his hands over his ears. Not fair.

By the time he’s emerged from the fetal position and cracked his eyes open, Roy is sitting up on the opposite side of the bed, displaying an extremely posh-looking pair of pajamas in pale green silk, and the infernal ringing has stopped.

“Good morning,” Roy says.

Ed clenches his teeth. “You’re fucking hilarious, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” Roy says.

Ed looks at him-really looks. He always feels kind of guilty even for thinking it, but he secretly likes the way he can look at Roy all he wants now, and he’ll never get caught staring.

And then there’s the fact that it doesn’t matter if he gets called out or not-it kills him when he does it, because when he looks long enough, he sees the changes. Roy is even more guarded and controlled in front of military associates and strangers now, like he’s prepared to be betrayed, like he’s expecting a knife in the back, like they’d all take advantage of him the instant his armor failed. And maybe it’s in reaction to that-maybe he’s just exhausted from holding up those stone walls day in and day out-but when he’s with people he trusts, he’s small, and sad, and vulnerable. Ed can’t stop thinking of that time in the park, when he said he’s always lost. When Roy’s alone, he looks it.

It hurts like a hemorrhaging in Ed’s chest to think that he’s part of the tiny inner circle privy to this Roy. It scares the fuck out of him to think that he might not deserve the privilege.

He clears his throat, which feels shitty. “What happened last night?”

Roy smiles faintly and slides off of the edge of the bed. He pads across the room in his slippers and starts to part the curtains, only to stop abruptly as Ed howls and flings an arm over his eyes.

“Last night you drank your own body weight in champagne,” Roy says. Ed dares to peek. Roy is standing at the window, and the thin line of light from between the curtains illuminates the right side of his face. He’s a little bit flushed and a lot disheveled, and a crease in the pillow made an imprint on his cheek. He looks so drastically different when he’s not Colonel Mustang-when he’s not in the uniform, with its reinforced shoulders and its flashy accoutrements, with all of that extra material making him seem so big. He’s narrower now, and more defined, and softer somehow. “Is it bright enough for you to see? I was going to take a shower. The lieutenant is coming at nine to talk about our options with the assault case.”

Ed vaguely remembers some extremely solemn discussion of fingerprints and criminal records. He also remembers violent nausea, a ridiculously pushy Cretan chick who wanted to jump his bones, chocolate-covered strawberries that tasted like orgasm, Roy petting his hair, and a hug that felt indescribably safe. He has no idea what order those events were originally in.

“Okay,” he says. “Let me take a piss before you turn the bathroom into a sauna.”

Roy smiles thinly. “The model of decorum, as always. Go on, then.”

Ed figures that even Roy can’t shower for eternity, so he sits down to pet the dog while he waits. It still feels like most of his internal organs have been removed, wrung dry, and jammed back in the wrong way, and the throbbing in his head alone might kill a lesser man, but he’s survived more than a few hangovers since quitting the military, and his odds are good with this one. Damn if he isn’t exhausted, though. And damn if Hitomi’s fur doesn’t look like the softest thing this side of clouds.

He wakes up when Roy shakes his shoulder.

And then he throws up.

Ed’s positive his face is still red when he lets Hawkeye in twenty minutes later. It didn’t help that Roy was so stupidly nice about the whole thing-holding Ed’s hair, patting his back, telling him it was all right, the whole shebang. And now he keeps making Ed drink glass upon glass of water, but he hasn’t made a single joke involving a play on ‘upchuck’. Or on ‘spew’. Or ‘hurl’. Or-

“Can I offer you anything, Lieutenant?” Roy asks.

“No, thank you, sir,” Hawkeye says. “Can I offer you a copy of some police records?”

Ed helped Roy carve the illuminating array into a thin sheet of plywood earlier in the week; Roy lays the first piece of paper over it, spreads phosphorous, and starts to read. The light’s so bright that Ed’s stomach flips several times, and he looks studiously at the cabinets.

“Actually related to General Edison?” Roy says. “That’s damning. I always said we shouldn’t let that snake write letters from prison.”

“You did,” Hawkeye says. “Often. Vociferously.”

Ed clears his throat loudly. “Why are we acting like this is normal?”

“It is normal,” Roy says. “At the very least, it’s logical, and it’s not unexpected.”

“There is nothing logical about assassins,” Ed says. “Not in any country I want to fucking live in.”

Roy changes out the sheet over the array, rubs at his forehead, and pushes his wet hair back. “As you well know, I don’t have the power to change that yet.”

Every time Ed thinks he knows the bastard, there’s something like this to contend with. “Why are you okay with this? Somebody tried to kill you. Know what happens when somebody kills you? You die. Knows what happens when you’re dead? You stop rising through the ranks.”

Roy’s mouth quirks. “Well, technically-”

“You lose your fucking chance to be Führer,” Ed says. “And you lose your fucking chance to make good. If you’re playing some kind of ass-backwards penance game with yourself, quit it. Been there; done that; it blows. Can we move on to putting this fucker away for life and feeling like we can walk down the street at night again?”

Roy leans back and stretches. His shirt shifts up enough to expose a sliver of skin, and every muscle in Ed’s body wobbles disconcertingly. “First we have to find him. They must not have expected you to be with me, or they would have brought more than one firearm.”

“Especially since you have two firehands,” Ed says.

Roy laughs brightly, and… it kind of helps.

“I’ll talk to Investigations,” Hawkeye says, smiling a bit. “I have a few favors I can call in.”

“It can wait until tomorrow,” Roy says.

Ed stares at him. He wishes Roy could see this one; stark disbelief is one of his strongest suits. “No, it can’t!”

Roy leans down to scratch under Hitomi’s chin. “You’re the one who’s always bitching that I work too hard.”

“I do not bitch. And the work you’re usually doing on weekends isn’t a matter of life and death.”

“It could be for someone,” Roy says.

“You are so fucking obnoxious-”

“The verbal abuse I put up with is astounding.”

“You know what the problem with being a martyr is?” Ed says. “You have to die first.”

“Edward has a point,” Hawkeye says. “Dying would be very ill-advised at this stage of your plan.”

Roy raises both hands in what appears to be surrender. “Ganging up on the disabled man,” he says. “I see how it is.”

Hawkeye looks over at Ed. “That part is your fault,” she says.

Roy’s windows let in too much light. Roy’s orange juice is too thick. Roy’s phone rings too loud.

“Hello? Oh, good afternoon… Yes, he is.”

That’ll be Al.

“Lying on the couch pitying himself, at the moment. Would you like me to send him home?”

“I am entitled to some self-pity,” Ed says.

“Ah. In that case, I’ll have to find some menial labor for him or something.”

“I heard that!”

“I know you did. Pardon? Let me ask him-Edward, are you planning to have dinner here or with your brother tonight?”

Ed lays his forearm over his eyes in another futile attempt to block out all the light. “You say ‘planning’ like my head isn’t trying to explode.”

“He hasn’t decided. I’d be happy to feed him if you don’t have anyt-oh, my God, Alphonse.”

Ed sits up at that, and he’s slung an arm over the back of the couch before his stomach gets the memo and twists itself into a pretzel of misery.

He manages a noise something like “Gggkkkh” and collapses to the couch again.

“I think he may be about to vomit again,” Roy says. “No, it’s-I’ll handle it. Thank you.” And then there is one rather large, very soft hand splayed on his chest and another stroking his hair back from his forehead.

“Don’t do that,” Ed says.

Roy hesitates. “Why not?”

Because I’m already too fucking in love with you. “Just-no reason.”

“Then there’s no reason to stop.”

Ed rolls over and buries his face in the couch cushion. “What did Al say to freak you out like that?”

Roy pauses, and then he runs his hand gently down Ed’s back. It feels too damn good to writhe away from. “It was… I didn’t realize your brother had such an affinity for crude innuendo.”

“Huh?”

“I offered to feed you. He suggested a… part of my anatomy.”

Ed twists to stare at him-not that it matters. “Al told you to get me to blow you?”

Roy’s face goes scarlet. It’s fucking adorable. Ed needs a lobotomy. “Well-yes. Not in quite so many words, but-that was the gist.”

Shit. Ed’s going warm all over, and Roy’s going to feel it in a minute if he doesn’t move his hand. “I mean, I would, except right now I’d probably puke on you, and that’d put you off sex forever.”

Roy’s eyes widen, and he draws his hand back in a hurry. “I… am going to get you some painkillers.”

“I’ll make sure to save some pain,” Ed says.

Roy stands, bracing himself on the arm of the couch, and then his footsteps head up the stairs. Hitomi raises her head to watch him go-apparently Roy’s allowed to navigate the house by himself sometimes. The floorboards creak just a little as he moves around, and Ed drags himself upright to wait. Hitomi licks at his trailing fingers a bit. In a minute Roy returns with a pill bottle in one hand, veering off into the kitchen to collect a glass of water in the other, and holds both out towards Ed.

“What would you say?” Ed asks. “If I offered to blow you, I mean. Right here, right now, no strings attached.”

Roy’s tongue darts out to wet his upper lip. “I’d say that there’s no such thing as ‘no strings attached’.”

“Whatever. If there was no commitment required.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“Answer the question,” Ed says.

Roy’s eyes narrow. “I would politely decline.”

Maybe when you’ve got well-honed blind-man’s hearing, the shock in any given silence is perfectly audible.

“I respect you more than that,” Roy says. “Until I can give you everything, I won’t ask you for more.”

He pushes the pill bottle at Ed. There are letters carved into the side to identify the contents. Ed takes it, and then he takes the water too.

“You can ask for shit,” he says. “I want you to ask for shit. That’s why I’m here.”

Roy smiles faintly. “Aren’t you tired of following my orders?” Before Ed can tell him where to shove that fallacious association, his fingertips are grazing Ed’s jaw, and he’s leaning in to brush his lips over Ed’s forehead. “All I’m asking now is that you take the pills and get some rest.”

Ed can’t think of something to say that isn’t You don’t understand; I need you to need me, so he doesn’t say anything.

As dinnertime rolls around, Roy makes soup from a can-in the bachelor-cuisine way, not the transmutational way-and serves them both without spilling a drop. Ed’s starving, and his stomach’s finally stable enough for food, so predictably he burns his mouth. When he’s shoveled it all down, Roy packs him up and sends him home in yesterday’s formal clothes. Ed considers asking to keep the frangipani and then decides to leave it. Maybe Roy will knock it over some morning and short-circuit his alarm clock, the stupid, dashing, un-telepathic bastard.

When he steps through the front door at his and Al’s place, Ed realizes that he probably should have thought twice about strolling into their apartment late in the evening after a night at Roy’s, wearing a wrinkled white dress shirt and looking like he didn’t get much sleep.

Al sets aside the thousandth university application form and looks him slowly up and down.

“I think we should set some ground rules,” Al says, folding his hands on the table. “No sex in my room. No sex in front of the cats, unless you want to pay to send them to therapy. Any food items used for sex should be kept in a special part of the pantry and labeled.”

“Al,” Ed says. “No.”

Al frowns at him cutely. “Please tell me that you’ve had the Talk.”

Ed stomps over to the cabinets; he’s dying of thirst again. “Of course I have! Ling and Greed traded off paragraphs explaining things before they tore my pants off and demonstrated.”

He glances over, cheeks aflame, and sees that for once he’s actually left Al speechless. “Is-is that how-?”

“Yeah,” Ed says. “Whoop-de-fucking-do and stuff. Can we please not talk about my sex life ever again?”

“I certainly hope so,” Al says.

Ed pours himself a tall glass of lemonade and starts gulping.

“Was Ling any good?” Al asks.

Ed experiences incredible excruciation as a mouthful of lemonade sprays out his nose.

Al beams despite the fact that there is now snotty lemonade in his hair. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

“You have a nice weekend, Boss?” Havoc asks, doing something unforgivable with his eyebrows.

“Don’t you have sin to peddle?” Ed fires back. “Some of us are here to work, you know.”

“I am working,” Havoc says. “I’m being all subterfugey.”

“Not a word,” Falman says.

Havoc ignores that, presumably because Havoc has a tendency to dislike rational things like correct vocabulary and keeping his fat nose out of people’s personal lives. “This is the legit side of the subterfuge. I’m liaising.”

“No,” Fuery says. “You’re just lazing.”

Breda gives him a high-five, and Fuery looks decidedly smug.

Havoc scowls at the pair of them. “Just for that, neither of you is getting any of the good stuff. It’s just you and me, Falman. Just the real men, getting really drunk at work.”

“Where the hell is Roy?” Ed asks. “I think I’ve got the typewriter ribbon figured out, but I can’t test it without a fucking typewriter.”

“Ribbon-testing, huh?” Havoc asks, smirking at him.

Breda winks. “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”

Ed makes a face. “Fuck both of you. If somebody doesn’t get me a goddamn typewriter, I’ll rat you all out to Lieutenant Hawkeye for slacking off.”

Fuery, who has spent most of this latest exchange sighing feelingly, crosses to one of the cabinets to fetch a machine.

“The colonel and the lieutenant are in a meeting,” Falman says helpfully. “So we’re not really ‘slacking off’ so much as… maximizing our Monday morning leisure time.”

“Bullshit,” Ed says. Fuery sets a serviceable typewriter on the table near him. “Thanks.”

“I don’t seem to recall you being the most dutifully obedient soldier the world had ever seen,” Havoc says, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands behind his head. “You know what they say about people in glass houses.”

“That they fucking suck at engineering?” Ed says. He holds the new spool out to Fuery. “Could you hold this for a second? Watch your fingers; it’s inky as hell.”

“Is hell inky?” Falman asks.

Ed manages to get the platen roll off without anything breaking, which is a decent start. “Honestly, it’s more conceptual than anything else.”

“So have you and Mustang done the dirty yet?” Breda asks.

Ed drops the platen.

On his left foot.

It breaks.

“He’s blushing!” Havoc says. “Damn, that’s the cutest thing I’ve seen all day. Except maybe the colonel falling asleep at his desk, and the dog licking his face to wake him up. That was pretty freakin’ cute.”

“Is that how you get his attention, too?” Breda asks.

“Fuck all of you!” Ed shouts just as the door opens.

Sheska is standing in the doorway with a folder in her arms. “Should I… come back another time?”

“Hell, no!” Breda says. “We’re finally getting to the truth!”

Sheska waves the file folder hesitantly. “Um… do you still need this, then?”

Ed kicks the pieces of the platen out of the way and goes over to take it out of her hands. “What is thi-”

There’s a picture paperclipped to the first page. It’s one of the sons of bitches who jumped them in the street that night.

“Apparently he works in a bakery downtown,” Sheska says, pointing to the address listed. “Lieutenant Hawkeye said I should come by if anyone reported seeing him, and a patrolling officer just called i-”

Ed snaps the folder shut and shoves it at her. “Thanks, catch you later.”

“You’re-welcome? Ed, where are you-”

The door falls shut behind him, and he takes off running.

“Keep the change,” he says, flinging a few bills at the taxi driver as he leaps out. There’s a military policeman standing half a block away, looking nervous, and he hastens over as Ed storms towards his target.

“Aren’t you the Fullmetal Alchemist?” The guy’s green eyes are huge. “Did Colonel Mustang send you?”

“Something like that,” Ed says.

He slams the door open. A little bell tinkles feebly. The goon from the other night-the one who snapped Ed’s shoulder out of its socket and tried to put a bullet in Roy’s head-emerges from the back room, toweling at his hands. He looks up and freezes.

“Good morning, motherfucker,” Ed says.

The asshole has the gall to yell for help and scramble behind the counter-an escape attempt that fails pretty spectacularly when Ed tugs the knife out of the back of his belt and throws. Sleeve pinned, flesh narrowly avoided, face pale, Asshole looks a whole lot less threatening than he did in the dark.

Ed plants both hands on the counter and vaults over, swinging his legs to avoid the cash register; flour poofs around his feet as his boots land on the floor again. Asshole is staring slack-jawed, and then he musters the brains to wrench at Ed’s knife and jerk it free from the wall-too late, though, because Ed’s got the second knife out, and he’s shoving his prey up against the pricing sign, forearm pressed to the bastard’s throat.

There’s a second where Ed actually thinks about killing him. This piece of shit swindled his way into a gun, recruited a buddy, and went after Roy in the dark-Roy, who is hopeful and hurting; Roy, who has never been so defenseless; Roy, who is the embodiment of all the things Amestris needs. This piece of shit was either going to end Roy’s life or hold it for ransom to avenge the imprisonment of a pompous dick who tried to throw the country and its entire populace to the wolves. Ed could show him what vengeance means. Ed could cut his throat open with this gleaming blade and watch all of the hate pour out and splash down his front. Ed could make damn sure that this fuckhead never gets the chance to pick his next victim.

Except that he couldn’t. He can’t. Murder isn’t in him. Kimblee said that makes him weak, and Kimblee was probably right. Then again, the rules Kimblee played by destroyed him, in the end, and Ed’s still here.

This man is a human being. He’s squirming, and pleading, and there’s sweat on his forehead and a desperate gleam in his eye. After what Ed did to Al-after what he couldn’t do for Nina, after what he indirectly did to Hughes-he cannot deny another human being a second chance.

“Sir!” the policeman says. “I’m supposed to arrest him now that I have backup, sir!”

Ed digs his elbow into Asshole’s collarbone and then steps back. Asshole gasps for air, unsure whether to focus on Ed’s retreat or the cop’s drawn revolver, and Ed picks up his knife and climbs back over the countertop.

“You don’t have to call me that,” Ed says. “I’m not military anymore.”

The cop blinks at him. “You’re… not? But you’re so famo-”

Ed slides the knives back into their places. “Just cuff him or whatever. Roy’s gonna be pissed.”

“Am I indeed?” a very familiar voice asks from the door.

Hitomi is right beside him, and Hawkeye is right behind him. There’s a little bit of flour dust still drifting in the air, and he’s backlit in the doorway.

“I figure,” Ed says. He takes a deep breath and cuts to the chase, moving directly towards them. “Which is why I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Not until you’ve been debriefed and cleared of the charge of battering a civilian,” Roy says, and there’s a cold tone to his voice that Ed despises-a layer of condescension and disappointment, like he has any right to judge.

“Fuck your debriefing,” Ed says. “He’s not a civilian; he’s a criminal, and I didn’t hurt him anyway. Get out of my way.”

He tries to shoulder past, and Roy grabs his arm and almost-almost-looks into his eyes.

“Edward.” His voice is low and flat now, and his eyes are like obsidian whether or not they’re any good for seeing. “That was reckless, irresponsible, dangerous, and illegal. Do you understand me?”

“I dunno,” Ed says. “Are you trying to say that you worry about me?”

Roy’s eyes narrow, and his mouth tenses into a thin line. His grip on Ed’s arm tightens until it starts to pinch. “Of course I do, you twit.”

“Don’t,” Ed says. “You don’t have time. Do me a favor and worry about yourself.”

Three very long seconds pass, and then Roy uncurls his fingers and steps past Ed. “This conversation is far from finished.”

Ed can hear his heart in his ears with every stride as he ducks past Hawkeye and walks the two miles home.

The problem, Ed thinks as he lies on top of his bed deflecting Al’s attempts to determine why he’s pouting, is that Roy is too good. The problem is that Roy evokes a suffocating abundance of complicated feelings, and he makes Ed feel warm and wanted and deeply content, and at the same time small and undeserving and destabilized. The problem is that Ed likes this too much, which means he’s waiting for it to go to shit, and he resents it for keeping him in suspense.

Roy makes his lungs burn and his ribs ache. Ed has been drowning in the mind-numbing day-to-day minutiae ever since they all scraped together a victory, and every moment with Roy is a gasp of air.

The problem is that Roy gives him meaning. And the power that Roy has over him is terrifying.

The problem is that now it’s all or nothing.

[Chapter V] [Chapter VII]