FMA -- Heartbeat, Part 1
Title: Heartbeat
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 47,200 (7,300 this part)
Warnings: language; post-BH AU; emetophobic parties beware; depictions of anxiety and depression (including dark intrusive thoughts); very much unwanted touches (see the note)
Summary: Ed makes the mistake of waiting on goddamn tenterhooks for something to change - and then, naturally, something does.
Author's Note: This is part of the demi!Ed series, set after Kindling! Also, LONG NOTE:[Long like a… long thing.]Abandon hope of impartiality ye who enter here: this fic is a particularly poignant example of my habit of writing to myself, about myself, to a certain extent. I'm not sure if I should call it "bad", as far as the habit goes, because it often seems to resonate with people… And so much of the point of writing, of fanfic, of all of fandom for me is to be out here saying I know you think you're fucked up - and maybe you are, but you're a long way yet from broken, and you're definitely not alone.
Elaborating on the warnings above: particularly in the later chapters, there's a lot of material about depression in this fic (including a bit more suicidal ideation and a variety of somewhat disturbing intrusive thoughts); emetophobic parties should proceed with caution; and there's some very non-consensual physical contact. I didn't warn for that in so many words because I feel like it would implicate Roy because of the pairing, but that isn't the case. And that would make a big difference to me as a reader, so I figured it might change things for a lot of you as well!
As far as the song goes, the album came out back when I still had the energy to do the RP blog thing, and something about the tone of this song really captured the essence of demi!Ed for me - the resignation and the sadness and the emptiness and the loneliness all tangled up together in with an old determination.
P.S. Con fever update: I'm going to be at SacAnime on Saturday the 3rd, and then at YaoiCon the 16th through the 18th!
And I'm yours
When it rains, it pours
Stay thirsty as before
Don't you know that the kids aren't all-
Kids aren't all right?
- "The Kids Aren't Alright" - Fall Out Boy -
HEARTBEAT
PART 1
It’s not like it’s ever a surprise when Hawkeye’s right about something, because she’s Hawkeye, but in this particular case-
It’s just… weird. Is all. It’s weird when the worst-case scenario doesn’t unfold right at Ed’s fucking feet.
He expected it to change things. He expected it to make Roy act-different; he expected something to twist, fundamentally. Obviously he’s not stupid enough to have been waiting for, like, significant looks, or meaningful sighs, or little heart-shaped notes tucked into his requisition forms or some shit, but… something. He was waiting for something-a shift in the attitude; an undertone to the ordinary words. An alteration to the established patterns of behavior, now that they both fucking know; now that it’s there between them, dangling like a hanged man in the empty space, turning in the fucking wind, and even when they try not to look, they can smell it, and they know. It casts an unmistakable shadow on their backs, on their faces, on the ground.
At least the weather’s settled way the fuck down.
At least the only fever heat he has to worry about is the shit inside his brain.
At least he’s wrong, this time; at least he’s wrong when it matters, because Roy hasn’t done a damn thing.
He put his guard up as high as it would go, like a fucking castle battlement around him, but the siege and the soldiers never came. Nothing’s changed. Havoc’s soppy, and Breda’s cynical, and Roy and Hawkeye stay late almost every single night talking about all the courses of action that the other generals might take, sorting through the possibilities and trying to figure out who they can count as friends. Nothing’s changed, and sometimes Ed’s commentary comes in useful, and stone walls are so fucking heavy to hold up that he just…
He just wants to sink back into the safety of it like he did before.
Roy’s hopelessly melodramatic and incredibly incisive at turns, and Hawkeye does a lot of the mouth-twitching thing that’s basically a laugh for her, and Ed flips over requisition forms to draw diagrams to explain what he means about interconnectivity between people he’s seen in the training yards and the hallways and what they could be communicating from one department to another. And it’s all right-for once, it’s honestly all right. Because he realizes-after the first few times he sits there with his shoulders tensed to aching, only for no danger of any kind to manifest-that Roy respects him more than Roy…
More than the other thing.
He realizes that this-the job, the life, the quest, the partnership, the input, the collaborative struggle to pull through, the same damn sense of safety and ease of companionship that Ed values so fucking much these days-is more important to Roy than his own personal shit.
Hawkeye was right.
Roy’s not going to ask Ed for anything more.
It’s enough like this-it’s enough to be like this; to trust each other and listen to each other and try to help each other without any ulterior motive bullshit. Without any demands.
Right?
Al tends to spend Friday nights on the phone with Winry, having the kinds of conversations Ed would rather gouge his eardrums out with a rusty spoon than hear, so this week he tags along with Roy and Hawkeye to what Roy says is ‘their’ favorite pub. Hawkeye says ‘they’ don’t have a favorite. Roy says ‘they’ will not be getting an order of garlic fries as a gift from ‘their’ C.O. if ‘they’ insist on belaboring the semantics. Hawkeye says ‘they’ are walking on rather thin ice, sir, and the water is very cold, and would make ‘them’ very useless, and-
Fortunately, they make it to the stupid place before Ed does any lasting damage to his ribcage trying not to laugh.
They sit down at a little round booth table near the back. Ed’s mind drifts to research while Roy and Hawkeye discuss the ideal amount of garlic fries when there are three individuals seated at the table, since apparently it would be unseemly to order the full pound-sized portion, but two smalls wouldn’t be sufficient, and there could be violence as the supply ran low. Ed realizes he’s doodling a complicated array on his napkin with a pen he didn’t know he had when the conversation stutters to a stop, and Roy’s leaning across Hawkeye to look at his work.
“Is that a feedback loop for perpetual combustion?” Roy asks.
Ed looks at it. He was thinking about car engines. This is what he gets for talking to Winry when she calls on nights that Al’s out at the university library writing papers and shit. “I… think so. Yeah.”
And Roy gives him-
The smile again. That smile.
The one like he’s fucking special. Like he could be cherished and feted and praised to the ends of the goddamn planet, and it wouldn’t really sum it up.
The one that lights Ed up on the inside like a forest on fire and leaves a layer of ashen guilt on the back of his tongue and the roof of his mouth and every square centimeter of his fucking lungs.
Nobody should be looking at him like that. He’s never done a damn fucking thing to earn it. He’s never been worth it, and he never will be, and it just feels-
Terrifying.
Thrilling.
Backwards, flipped-over, obviously wrong.
And like a fucking relief.
“Excuse me,” Hawkeye says, pushing Roy-rather gently-back into his seat. “I was promised an inadvisable quantity of garlic fries.”
“So you were,” Roy says, and he slings himself up off of the bench seat and away from the table with more grace than anybody has any right to have in a place like this. “Can I get either of you something to drink?”
“Water, please,” Hawkeye says.
Ed bites back Cyanide. Where the fuck does this shit even come from in his head sometimes? “Yeah, that’d-thanks.”
Roy reaches down to pat Hayate, who’s standing guard just next to their table, and saunters off. Ed painstakingly evens out some of the lines on the array on his napkin instead of looking at his C.O.’s purportedly very highly-rated ass. If he could’ve had one wish granted these last few weeks, unhearing the entire long and detailed conversation two of the secretaries were having about Roy’s musculature in the queue at the sandwich shop would’ve been close to the top of the list.
“So,” he says, glancing over at Hawkeye when it’s probably safe to raise his gaze from the tabletop. “How long has the drinking thing been going on?”
She presses her lips together, and the last traces of mirth go out of her eyes. Fuck. There isn’t a whole lot in the stupid world sadder than that.
“That’s an interesting question,” she says. “I don’t know the answer to it. It’s been several months now since it started to be so pronounced that I couldn’t help paying attention.”
“Yeah,” Ed says. He’s not really sure what else you’re supposed to say about shit like this. It’s like how people used to tell him they were sorry that his mom was dead. Like… yeah? Thanks or whatever? He was sorry too. His feelings were a whole lot bigger than fucking sorriness, and a half-assed apology before they moved back on to their functional, filled-up little lives wasn’t going to fix a goddamn thing.
“Edward,” she says, and there’s a note in her voice that just-stills him. “This… might be a foolish thing to say, and it might be unfair, but… perhaps you’ll indulge me.” She looks at him. Her eyes look darker than Roy’s, some days-cold and fucking empty like starless skies and all the unmet possibilities. “Promise me you won’t.”
He swallows. “Won’t what?”
“Drink,” she says. Her mouth twists, bitterly like he’s never seen. “Most alchemists seem to be-prone to it. Susceptible.”
She doesn’t say weak.
And he remembers, in that instant, that her father was the one who figured out flame alchemy in the first place-that she was alone except for him until Roy came along; and then alone again except for Roy after her father died. There’s Rebecca; she must have other friends, but the only people she’s ever relied on are men who were brilliant and ambitious and destructive and…
Roy returns with a tray, upon which stand a huge basket of garlic fries, three glasses of water, and a bottle of wine. The tray’s balanced expertly, weight distributed on one hand spread wide; the low light gleams just slightly on the thick white scar across the back. The fingers of Roy’s other hand curl loosely around the stem of a large wineglass.
“I promise,” Ed says, because I’m sorry is never going to be enough.
“Promise what?” Roy asks, smoothly setting the tray on the table and sliding in on Hawkeye’s other side.
“That he won’t eat any of my rightful share of the fries,” Hawkeye says. “I expect the same courtesy from you.”
“You can’t ask him that before he’s tried them,” Roy says. “He doesn’t understand what he’s sacrificed.”
“I think I’ll live,” Ed says.
Roy picks up the basket and reaches across the table to wave it just once under Ed’s nose.
It smells like fucking heaven. Garlic heaven. With oil and potatoes and oregano and fucking perfection. Which would be exactly what heaven should smell like if it existed outside of pub food.
“Holy shit,” Ed says.
“Precisely,” Roy says, more than a touch smugly. “I think you should have free reign to rescind that promise at this point.”
“You are a terrible influence, Roy,” Hawkeye says.
“I try,” Roy says, and this time he’s not even pretending not to be smug.
The garlic fries taste even better than they smell. The burgers are almost as good, and the bar doesn’t even get all that crowded or loud even though it’s a Friday night. Ed never wants to leave this fucking place. Maybe they can designate a closet for him to sleep in or something. He’d be honored to eat all of the leftover food every night.
Al’d probably be miffed, though. Plus he definitely can’t afford to pay their rent all by himself.
“I think perhaps there’s a special circle of hell,” Hawkeye says, looking at her hands, “where you spend your whole afterlife wandering around covered in grease.”
Roy snorts. “Sexy.”
She elbows him, not lightly. He almost spills the latest glass of wine, but then he rights his glass and scoots off of the bench so that she can get up and stride off towards the restrooms to wash her hands.
Roy sits back down, sighing contentedly, and Ed…
Ed is trying so, so fucking hard not to be-
Afraid.
That’s what it is, isn’t it? He’s fucking scared. He’s fucking scared that Roy’s going to turn the tables now that they’re alone-that he does want more; and that he knows, now, that there’s something in Ed that kind of wants to give it to him, but that Ed just doesn’t fucking know how, and it’s so much fucking safer to leave it be than to try to fumble around for handholds on a cliff he’s never climbed-
Roy puts his glass down on the table and looks at it, running just the tip of his tongue over his upper lip.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Ed’s heartbeat pulses in his throat, in his ears, in his stomach, in his fingertips.
“Edward,” Roy says, looking at him sideways with a thin, almost cautious sort of smile, “could I take you out to dinner sometime?”
It’s getting hard to tell if that sound is Ed’s heart beating, or if it’s fucking gunshots.
“You just did,” Ed says. “Or is this your way of saying you’re not paying after all?”
Roy gives him the Sardonic Eyebrow. “I meant just the two of us. As a date.”
Definitely gunshots. Maybe fucking mortar shells.
It’s a wonder he’s not fucking shaking; he can feel himself coming apart. “Why the fuck would you want to do that?”
The Sardonic Eyebrow drops swiftly and vanishes unmourned. “What do you mean, ‘why’?”
“I mean,” Ed says, and he has to bolster himself with the brashness of the bravado; it’s always worked; it’s always gotten him through; “you know I’m not gonna put out, so what the fuck is the point?”
Roy stares at him for a long, long, long fucking second, and the tremor of his heartbeat just keeps ricocheting around his chest. He has to focus on breathing, which is a huge disadvantage in a game this hard. Even drunk, Roy Mustang’s a more formidable opponent than just about anybody he can think of, except for Al, a-
“It is unspeakably sad,” Roy says, “that our society has convinced you that sexual engagement is the solitary purpose of a relationship.”
“It has nothing to do with society,” Ed says. “It’s evolution.”
The Sardonic Eyebrow is back, and it brought its twin brother this time.
“You may have noticed,” Roy says, “that you and I are not especially reproductively viable in the first place.”
Ed opens his mouth, finds it dryer than any sun-baked ruin he’s ever crawled across, and shuts it again. He attempts to swallow and mostly succeeds on the second try.
“But it’s about-like-long-term-mating c-compatibility, and-”
Roy shifts back in his seat, holding up both hands and lowering his eyes.
“Never mind,” he says. “I’m sorry; I never should have-I’m sorry. Forget it. Please don’t feel-I’m sorry. That was stupid.”
There’s a strange sort of tightness to his face, like he’s holding something up and holding something in.
Swallowing just keeps getting fucking harder. Maybe Ed was allergic to something in those goddamn fries.
“Besides,” he says. “Wouldn’t it-fuck up your reputation to be seen out with a guy?”
Roy’s eyes dart back towards him, and Ed fights the urge to flinch. They’re just so fucking-smart, so fucking interesting, and he just-
Wants to know what else is behind them, sometimes. He can’t help it. He’s always been too fucking curious for his own good. It’s gotten him burned a hundred-thousand times.
“Unless you felt inclined to throw yourself across the table and put your tongue into my mouth,” Roy says, and that does not even fucking compute, except for a tiny part of Ed that almost, almost thinks it’d be an experiment worth trying once- “I don’t suppose most people would even notice. The public can be remarkably shortsighted when it comes to what’s in front of them that they haven’t normalized.”
Over the ambient noise, there’s a sound like a metal sphere falling onto marble in Ed’s brain-a clear, bright, deafeningly distinct sort of ping.
“You’ve got three seconds to rephrase the fuck outta that before I change my mind,” he says.
Roy grins with a flash of teeth like a leopard on the hunt. “If you have to change your mind to say ‘no’,” he says, “is that a ‘yes’ by default?”
No more bullets in Ed’s ribcage: just a fucking jackhammer, and his sternum doesn’t stand a chance. “I-”
“Fuck,” Roy says, so emphatically that Ed startles harder. Roy applies one elegant hand to pinching the bridge of his nose and waves sort of vaguely at the too-small space between them with the other. “Sorry. I’m sorry. God, I shouldn’t have… shit. Ed-I’m not trying to trap you. I swear I’m not. It’s just-instinct. This is how I play the game with other people, but it shouldn’t be a game with you; you’re not a toy; you’re so much more than… I’m sorry. I am. I shouldn’t have said a damn thing. I’m sorry.”
Ed-
Can’t stop thinking-
About the blissed-out fucking expression on Al’s face when he came back after his first real date with Winry.
About how they’re obviously into all that… other shit, sure; but that’s relatively occasional, in the larger timeline. About how most of it is conversations, and laughing a lot, and the really light little touches, and the constant brightness in Al’s eyes.
About how fucking happy they are.
“How about-this,” he says, slowly, so the words don’t tangle up. “How about if… you don’t drink any fucking booze for two full weeks-starting now; this doesn’t count-then… yeah. I mean, we could try. Once.”
Roy looks at him.
And he looks back, and he’s probably going to die from the internal bleeding from the way his heart’s been throwing itself around his whole fucking body over the last five minutes, but maybe if he doesn’t, then…
Then maybe he’ll get to see Roy’s eyes crinkle up at the corners and ignite like this a couple more times.
“That is so absolutely you,” Roy says.
“Good,” Ed says. “I was worried I’d turned into somebody else. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know where I’d be without you,” Roy says.
“Probably right fucking here,” Ed says, “only drunker.”
“Probably,” Roy says, fake-thoughtfully. “I don’t know who I’d be either, at this point.”
He’s way too damn honest when he’s like this.
“Probably still dumbass fucking you,” Ed says. “Only drunker again.”
“Harsh,” Roy says.
Ed makes a point of shrugging.
The show of nonchalance tears his eyes away from Roy for a second, though, which is how he notices that Hawkeye’s standing right in front of the table. He has no fucking clue how long she’s been standing right in front of the table, listening to the pair of them being incredibly fucking dense.
“Ah,” she says. “Shall I come back?”
“No, no,” Roy says before Ed can unknot his tongue. “Ah… by all means.”
He has to slide off of the bench to open up her seat again, which he offers to her with a surprisingly steady sweep of his hand.
Ed needs to-
Not pay as much attention to Roy’s hands. Probably. Just as a guideline or something.
Hawkeye settles in her spot next to Ed again, and she gives him a significant look-one he wishes he didn’t recognize so fucking well.
This is the tried and tested Are you okay? that she’s been shooting him embarrassingly often over the last couple of months.
He’s got to start fighting his own fucking battles here.
So he forces a smile and a slight nod and points at the bar before Roy can sit back down.
“I thought you were gonna pay,” he says.
“I thought you were going to be civilized,” Roy says, dropping onto the bench. “Perhaps we’ll both be disappointed.”
“Would you like me to chip in, sir?” Hawkeye asks calmly.
“No,” Roy says. He follows it up with a deep sigh and heaves himself back up to his feet. “I’ll get it. You had to suffer my miserable company, after all.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘miserable’,” Ed says. “Maybe, like, ‘mediocre’.”
“‘Mildly trying’,” Hawkeye says.
Roy scowls at both of them, and they both beam back.
“Next time I’m ordering caviar,” Roy says, “and leaving you two with the bill.”
“We know where you live,” Ed says.
“And how to get into your bank account,” Hawkeye says.
Roy throws his hands up and stalks off towards the bar.
Hawkeye turns to Ed, eyes softening instantaneously. “You’re really-”
“I’m fine,” he says, and this time he kind of even means it.
The first thing Ed notices when he lets himself into their apartment is that Al’s textbooks seem to be multiplying. He vaguely remembers a pile of them on the coffee table a few nights ago, but at this point, it’s expanded in an amoebic kind of sprawl over the entire tabletop, across the gap of floor to the couch, and all over one of the cushions. Al’s curled up on the other one, sitting cross-legged with a huge book in his lap, a mug of something steaming-hot in one hand, and an expression of grim determination fixed on his features.
Al’s gaze flicks up when the door opens, though, and his whole perfect face lights up like the night sky from a country hill-way out past all of this smoggy shit that dulls the endless spill of stars to just a scattering.
“Hey, Brother,” he says. “How was your night?”
Ed assesses his options spatially and determines with a quick calculation that the most efficient space to clear for his ass is the edge of the table, where he only has to move two books three inches each.
He sits.
“I think I’m going on a date with Mustang,” he says.
Al goes very, very still with the mug of presumably-tea raised most of the way to his mouth-a mouth which, for the record, is currently hanging half-open.
The silence is prickly. It’s funny how individual silences all feel a little different.
“In two weeks,” Ed says, trying to be helpful. “Not, like, right now.”
“Can you contextualize?” Al asks. “You… what happened? You-want to?”
“He asked,” Ed says. “And-I mean-sort of. Yeah. I think so. Maybe.”
Al blinks. “Maybe?”
“Well-” Ed reaches up to rake his hand through his bangs and gets that awkward-stupid shoulder-bar resistance from the structure of the dumbass uniform. “Hang on, I can’t talk about this when I’m dressed like a moron.”
“You mean like a soldier of the Amestrian military?” Al asks as Ed gets up.
Ed unhooks the calvary skirt and slings it onto the coatrack, because… whatever. “That’s what I said.”
“Right,” Al says as Ed ditches the jacket, too. “So-General Mustang asked you out on a date.”
Ed itches at his scalp where the ponytail’s been pulling. “Yeah.”
Al is watching him closely as he kicks off his boots, circles back, and sits down on the table again. “And… you want to go. Maybe. Sort of.”
“Maybe,” Ed says, bringing his right knee up and bracing his heel on the edge of the table, the better to balance his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. “Sort of.”
“You’re not freaking out,” Al says slowly. “That’s a good sign.”
Ed rubs his forehead. “Yeah, it’s kind of weird, right? I think I’m too tired to freak out.”
“I’ll take it,” Al says.
The good news is, forehead-rubbing transitions really smoothly into forehead-smacking. “Fuck. Winry’s gonna be so smug.”
“No, she’s not,” Al says. “She’ll be happy for you.”
“Happy and smug.”
“Maybe the tiniest bit,” Al says. “But from a place of love. Brother, are you sure?”
“Sure what?” he asks.
“That that’s what you want,” Al says. “Not what you feel is expected of you, because it’s what somebody else might do in your place.”
Ed shifts both feet back onto the floor-or, to be more honest than he’d fucking like, lets them dangle, since they don’t quite reach-and knits his hands up in his lap. He looks at the way his fingers line up, alternating flesh and metal.
“I think,” he says, sorting through the weird, half-numb muddle of emotions shifting around in the back of his brain, “that I at least want to give it a try. I mean, I-dunno. I like… talking to him. Mostly. Sometimes it makes me fucking nervous, but not, like, crawly-guts nervous. Okay-nervous. I think.” It’s a really good thing it’s sort of too late for Al to disown him, and also that it’d make the rent situation too complicated even if Al tried it. He scrubs at his face with the softer hand. “And I guess I just sort of… want to get… control of it. If that’s possible. The weird shit-” He gestures to his chest, his guts, his… whatever. “-that I-feel sometimes, depending on how much of an asshole he’s being at any given time. I just sort of-I mean, this is a scientific venue for testing that, right? Data collection.”
“Dating for data,” Al says faintly. “Brother, I love you.”
“You, too,” Ed says, knee-jerk automatic. “Is that weird?”
“Yes,” Al says. “Which is what’s so great about it. And I think that’s a fine idea-testing the waters to see what you think before you really jump in.” His face softens a little, and then he smiles. “And I really do think he’ll… be mindful. You know.”
He knows Al doesn’t mean it in a bad way way-but it knifes through the center of him all the same. “Of what a freak I am, you mean?”
“No,” Al says, scowling instantly. “Of your completely reasonable lack of experience, and of the particulars of your emotional approach.”
“Of what a freak I am, you mean,” Ed says.
Al rolls his eyes. “Quit putting words in my mouth. What I mean is that he knows, all right? And-based on how long he’s been so close with Captain Hawkeye-I’m willing to bet he’ll know exactly how to make you feel comfortable. And that’s great, Ed. Because your first date is supposed to be okay-nervous and exciting-it’s supposed to be safe. And you’ll be safe with him. That’s not a reflection on you being a ‘freak’, or on him, or on anyone. It’s just a convergence of factors that makes me really optimistic about your date data. That’s all.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Ed says. “It’s going to be your catchphrase now.”
“Too darned late,” Al says, with more than a touch of delight.
Somehow the weekend simultaneously crawls and breezes by. Ed musters a bit of scientific curiosity about that phenomenon; is there any way of tracking the purely psychological concept of the variability of the progress of time based on the emotions of the observer, or…?
Sunday night duly arrives. Sleep duly eludes him, because he’s duly unable to avoid thinking about Roy.
The duly part is the bitch of a fucking kicker. He knew this was going to happen. He deliberately spent half of the day today reading complex fucking theory to try to cram some knowledge he’d have to unpack later into his brain, specifically in the hopes of having anything to contemplate but Roy.
Except here he is, sprawled out in bed, eyes wide open, automail aching just enough to ward off the sleepiness while his brain whirrs and churns and meddles with the memories again and again and again.
It’s so fucking hard to tell what’s just scientific curiosity and what he actually wants.
Fucking garlic fries. Fucking gleams of oil on the pads of Roy’s fingertips; at the corner of his mouth-
Does he want Roy to kiss him? Or does he just want to know what kissing’s like?
He rolls over and buries his face in the pillow. Only six and a half more hours before it’d be acceptable to get up.
The question’s actually more complicated than what he wants-or at least than what he wants in a physical, somatic-response kind of way. Some part of him that affects the temperature beneath his skin and somehow spurs a roil of heat in the pit of his stomach definitely wants Roy-wants him close; wants him unreasonably close; wants his hands and his lips and that particular spark in his dark eyes when the lashes swoop low. But Ed can’t tell yet if he likes that-if it’s a good thing; if it makes him feel good; if he enjoys it; if it’s pleasant in the long run-or if it’s just another way of suffering. Maybe the torture has just-transformed, right? Metamorphosed. Deepened. Redoubled. Evolved.
Maybe if Roy actually touches him, he’ll hate it.
And that wouldn’t be-well, “fair” is stupid, but it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be a decent thing to do to someone, let alone someone like Roy, who Ed’s starting to suspect is a hundred times lonelier than he’d ever fucking admit. You can’t set somebody up with an expectation that they’ll get all of the nice, normal things that they’d anticipate on any stupid fucking date, then whip the rug out from underneath them the instant that they lay their hands on you, and you discover that it’s horrible-
Part of him-probably the haywire-temperatures part-keeps insisting that it wouldn’t be. Part of him keeps sighing so softly he can barely hear it in his own head; keeps groaning even softer still-part of him keeps craving it; part of him is slave to sensations he hasn’t ever felt before; part of him is rooted in an absolute conviction that this is good, and it’s only going to get better.
But what if that’s just the echoes of the stories they’ve been telling him his whole fucking life?
He isn’t like the people in those stories. He knows that. He’s known that for a long time, but he tried to pretend-so he wouldn’t scare anybody off; so they’d all have something in common. There’s something almost-inhuman-about it, right? Not wanting to procreate. That’s a cold thing, isn’t it? That makes you cold; that makes you distant; that makes you think you’re pure, but all it really means is that you’ll never mesh with other people right, because they all have this warmth inside them that you don’t.
You can’t make it exist. He’s tried that, too.
But it’s all fucking muddled in his head-as well as in his stupid fucking guts, apparently-because he knows, too, that he feels something unusual when it comes to Roy. When he summons up an image of the stupid bastard’s face, there’s more to it than the little flickers of friend-endorphins; there’s more than just the flares of protective impulses he gets for Al and Winry and pretty much everyone he cares about. There’s more than the gentle little settling sense of relief that he gets when he thinks of Hawkeye, because she makes him feel so safe all the time. All that shit is there, yeah-but that’s not all that there is.
Unknown variables. That’s what it comes down to. So in a way, the whole running joke is absolutely right-he needs more fucking data, and the only way that he can get it is by going on this date.
Shit.
He rolls onto his back, then back around onto his front, then tries to bang his face against the pillow as if it was a wall, which neither works nor makes him feel any better.
Fuck all of this shit.
Maybe if he pretends to feel sick, Al’ll let him have enough cold medicine to knock himself out, right? He should start practicing a fake cough. Maybe he can just never go in to the office again. That’ll totally fucking fly.
He shifts onto his back again and lays his left hand over his eyes. He’s probably down to six more hours now.
If there’s one thing he’s learned over the years-and one thing Roy hasn’t, at least as it pertains to paperwork-it’s that delaying the inevitable only prolongs the fucking misery, and the only person you’re hurting is yourself. It’s a long-ass shot away from wanting to go in, obviously, but it’s enough to propel his ass out the door and over to HQ, so that’s something.
Mondays are usually pretty quiet for the first hour or so; no one’s caffeine has kicked in to wake them up properly, and Roy tends to stroll in closer to nine after checking in with a lot of his friends-slash-informants in other departments on his way up. All of that is ordinary enough, and Ed’s trying with all his fucking might to fucking relax as eight thirty creeps by, and then eight forty-five, and then-
It’s only when the familiar cadence of Roy’s footsteps proceeds down the hall towards the door that it occurs to him, in an instantaneous wash of sheer fucking terror, that he can’t remember how he normally acts when Roy walks in of a morning.
Obviously, because all of them are lazy, too-comfortable, borderline-insubordinate shits, nobody ever leaps out of their chair and salutes, but-what the fuck does Ed do most days? Of course he doesn’t chirp “Good to see you, sir!” and beam a fucking smile, but does he look up? Does he say anything? Does he nod acknowledgment, or grind out a reluctant “Hi”? If he alters his habits now, someone could notice the anomaly in his behavioral patterns and know something’s-maybe not amiss, per se, but different; someone could notice that something’s different, and-
The door opens, and he keeps right on staring too-intently at his stupid fucking paperwork while a chilly little bead of sweat winds down the back of his worthless neck.
“Good morning,” Roy says, presumably to the entire assembled company rather than specifically to him, but from this angle he can’t be sure.
“Whoa,” Breda says. “You got a date this weekend, General?”
Roy’s steps click crisply past the table without faltering once. “Why do you say that?”
“Because that’s your ‘Thank God there’s something in this lousy world to look forward to’ face,” Breda says.
“There’s lots of stuff to look forward to,” Havoc says.
“Maybe if you’re the living embodiment of a puppy,” Breda says.
“I think that’s a bit unfair to Hayate,” Roy says, and his voice comes from further down, accompanied by a rustle-Ed sneaks a glance; he’s scratching under the dog’s chin, and Hawkeye appears to be resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m sure he didn’t mean any offense.”
“Jeez,” Havoc says. “Is it Friday yet?”
“He’s going to be insufferable on Friday,” Breda says, sitting back in his chair and waving his pencil like a conductor’s baton. “He hasn’t been on a date in years.”
“Ninety-seven weeks,” Falman says. “If I remember right.”
Fuery’s eyes would probably look huge right now even without the magnification effect from the glasses. “You always remember right. But it can’t have been that long.”
As Roy stands, there’s a second where he looks like he’s been sucking lemons before he clears the emotion off his face.
“Information-dates with the girls from his mom’s place don’t count,” Breda says. “Sounds about right to me. So who’s the lucky lady, General?”
“Work,” Roy says. “We’re married, as you might have noticed. And if you don’t start doing yours, there will be consequences.”
He sweeps right on into his office without looking at Ed even once.
So that’s… good. Probably. At the very least, nobody said anything, and nobody seems to know.
As the week drags on, Roy seems to strive just as hard as Ed does to play this normal. Is he trying to hide it from Hawkeye? Is that the game? That’d be a stupid game if it is, because it’s already painfully obvious to her that something happened, and it’s only a matter of time before she figures it out even if neither of them spills the fucking beans.
Which doesn’t justify Ed being stupid enough to make it agonizingly clear, like he’s doing by Friday night, when he can’t stop looking at Roy’s hands twirling a pen while the three of them shoot the shit about the ambiguous intel that Roy’s contacts have turned up. Ed always gets sort of stupid by the end of the week, because he’s tired, and it’s harder to keep his head in order, but this is pretty much an all-new record fucking low.
It’s just that Roy’s hands are one of the most confusing parts of this whole fucking equation, and motion draws the eye, and he can’t quite stop himself from staring as the pen whirls around and flips over Roy’s knuckles and grazes the thick white scars on the backs of his hands and generally fucking mesmerizes Ed’s stupid fucking brain.
“Hmm,” Hawkeye says the next time Roy pauses for breath in a long treatise about something strategic that Ed should probably have been paying attention to. “Will you excuse me for a moment while I go get a knife?”
Roy’s hands fumble the pen, and it clatters to the tabletop. “I beg your pardon?”
“A knife,” Hawkeye says. “To cut through the sexual tension.”
Roy’s hands go completely still-like every part of Ed’s body except for his blood, which surges through his veins at an unholy speed and rushes even faster to fill his face.
“Ah,” Roy says, delicately. “Well-”
“I don’t mind,” Hawkeye says. “For heaven’s sake, I think it’s-nice, actually. It’s nice, and I’m glad. But the pair of you are hilariously bad at hiding it, and the ongoing effort is just getting in the way of everything else. Is it a week from now that you’re going out?”
Somehow Ed musters the nerve to glance at Roy, who is-unsurprisingly, somehow-glancing right back.
“How’s next Saturday?” Roy asks.
Ed’s heart is a thing alive-a thing contorted; a thing tormented; twisting and seizing and somersaulting in his chest. “I-sure. I guess.”
Roy turns to Hawkeye. “Next Saturday.”
She sighs, but she’s smiling. “The funny thing about it is that I’ve seen you both keep bigger secrets completely under wraps.”
“Those weren’t secrets we were happy about,” Roy says. His face falls, and his cheeks darken, and he fumbles to pick up the pen. “That-I’m happy about, at least; I hope-”
“Are you blushing?” bursts out of Ed out of sheer fucking wonderment even if it’s probably-all right, definitely-kind of rude.
Roy hastily covers his face with both hands. “No,” he says, somewhat muffled by his own palms.
“Oh, Lord,” Hawkeye says. “I think I need a drink. Can we go get a drink?”
“Well, you can,” Roy says. “I can’t. That’s part of the deal.”
Every time Ed thinks they’ve collectively faceplanted on the bottom of the hole, Roy pulls out another spade and frantically starts digging.
It’s weirdly sort of entrancing, which is part of why he can’t turn his frozen tongue around any words of protest.
Hawkeye’s eyebrows are in danger of disappearing behind her bangs, never to be seen again. “The… deal?”
“I’m going to stop talking,” Roy says, peeking past his fingers. “Right now.”
Emphatically, he shuts his mouth. She stares at him. He stares back. She looks over at Ed.
“The deal?” she says again.
Part of him wants to snag Roy’s pen and feign like it’s consuming all of his intellect so that he can’t answer the question. “Uh-I told him-if he didn’t drink for two weeks, I’d… yeah.”
Hawkeye looks at him. Then she looks at Roy. Then she looks at him again.
Hawkeye is smart-damn smart. She doesn’t have Roy’s knack for reading the fine print on people without even having to try, and even if she had the instincts he does, Ed’s not sure she’d have it in her to manipulate people unless lives were on the line.
But she’s smart. And she’s remembering the conversation she and Ed were having that night, and the sequence of events that followed, and she’s stacking a pair of twos together to make four.
There’s no chance she doesn’t know.
“Part of me wishes I was surprised,” she says. “The terrible thing is, with you two, this almost makes sense.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Roy says. “…somehow.”
“Good luck,” Hawkeye says calmly. She turns to Ed again. “And, sincerely-good luck.”
“Ouch,” Roy says. “I’m never buying you garlic fries again.”
“Oh, no,” Hawkeye says, straightening one of the stacks of papers on the table. “I’m crushed. How will I ever survive this indescribable betrayal?”
Roy drapes himself dramatically back against his chair and waves a weary arm. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” he tells her, and his voice says acid, but his eyes say adoration.
Hawkeye just smiles.
And it goes-
Fine.
It goes fine.
He and Al go to the stupid bowling alley with some of Al’s stupid school friends on Saturday night, and it actually turns out to be significantly less stupid all around than Ed was expecting. All of Al’s friends are pretty chill; and none of them try to, like, touch him or anything weird like that; and he says something snarky about taxpayer money, and everybody laughs.
He feels like he sort of-
Fits.
It’s a fucking relief.
He should’ve figured, shouldn’t he, that Al would only be friends with decent people? Al’s good at making friends, and he tends to do it accidentally half the time, but he’s not indiscriminate about who he actually spends his time with. He’s got less time now, what with all the sleeping and meatbag-upkeep business that has to go on. It’s more precious to him. And that means he has to be a little choosier about who gets his attention and when.
Somehow Ed still seems to wind up with a whopping chunk of it, which just goes to show you that Al’s not too smart.
They spend Sunday morning at the library, arguing quietly until they get the Glare of Doom; and then Sunday lunchtime arguing louder at a café until the Glare of Doom possesses a new host behind the counter; and then Sunday afternoon working on theory all over the floor of the apartment and not arguing until Al suddenly realizes that he’s starving sometime after the sun goes down.
Ed lies on his back in his bed that night with his left arm folded underneath his head and thinks-
Maybe this shit can be done.
Maybe, if you play the same old worn-edged cards right-
Maybe if you’re lucky once in a while-
Maybe it doesn’t have to be so bad, and you don’t have to feel so fucking hollow.
And maybe’s a hell of a lot better than absolutely not.
Even the office is fine, or at least not any less-fine than he’s used to. Calculating every single movement was apparently a greater weight on his psyche than he realized; now that it’s not a secret anymore-or not a secret from Hawkeye; the rest of the guys don’t really matter-he feels like the manacles have split, and the chains have dropped away.
Well-most of them.
“Hmm,” Breda says the instant Roy walks in. Ed had eventually decided on glancing up and just not making any special effort to establish eye contact; that seems pretty natural for his and Roy’s business-hours rapport. “You don’t look like a man who got repeatedly laid this weekend. Are you taking your time with this one? Spinning out all of the courtship rituals?”
“Knitting them,” Roy says without breaking his stride. “I have very long needles. And you know exactly where I’m liable to put them if you keep speculating wildly about my personal life.”
“But that’s half the fun of this place,” Breda says. “I’m pretty sure it was in the job description.”
“There wasn’t a job description,” Falman says. “That’s not standard in-”
“How’s your love life, Lieutenant Breda?” Hawkeye asks, voice crystal clear and delightfully fucking cold.
Breda looks at her for a long second, and then he slouches in his seat and mutters something nobody can hear.
“Hey,” Havoc says brightly. “You want me to talk about mine?”
“No,” everyone around the table says at once.
So that’s… gravy.
Well, it’s something, anyway.
[Part 2]
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 47,200 (7,300 this part)
Warnings: language; post-BH AU; emetophobic parties beware; depictions of anxiety and depression (including dark intrusive thoughts); very much unwanted touches (see the note)
Summary: Ed makes the mistake of waiting on goddamn tenterhooks for something to change - and then, naturally, something does.
Author's Note: This is part of the demi!Ed series, set after Kindling! Also, LONG NOTE:[Long like a… long thing.]Abandon hope of impartiality ye who enter here: this fic is a particularly poignant example of my habit of writing to myself, about myself, to a certain extent. I'm not sure if I should call it "bad", as far as the habit goes, because it often seems to resonate with people… And so much of the point of writing, of fanfic, of all of fandom for me is to be out here saying I know you think you're fucked up - and maybe you are, but you're a long way yet from broken, and you're definitely not alone.
Elaborating on the warnings above: particularly in the later chapters, there's a lot of material about depression in this fic (including a bit more suicidal ideation and a variety of somewhat disturbing intrusive thoughts); emetophobic parties should proceed with caution; and there's some very non-consensual physical contact. I didn't warn for that in so many words because I feel like it would implicate Roy because of the pairing, but that isn't the case. And that would make a big difference to me as a reader, so I figured it might change things for a lot of you as well!
As far as the song goes, the album came out back when I still had the energy to do the RP blog thing, and something about the tone of this song really captured the essence of demi!Ed for me - the resignation and the sadness and the emptiness and the loneliness all tangled up together in with an old determination.
P.S. Con fever update: I'm going to be at SacAnime on Saturday the 3rd, and then at YaoiCon the 16th through the 18th!
And I'm yours
When it rains, it pours
Stay thirsty as before
Don't you know that the kids aren't all-
Kids aren't all right?
- "The Kids Aren't Alright" - Fall Out Boy -
HEARTBEAT
PART 1
It’s not like it’s ever a surprise when Hawkeye’s right about something, because she’s Hawkeye, but in this particular case-
It’s just… weird. Is all. It’s weird when the worst-case scenario doesn’t unfold right at Ed’s fucking feet.
He expected it to change things. He expected it to make Roy act-different; he expected something to twist, fundamentally. Obviously he’s not stupid enough to have been waiting for, like, significant looks, or meaningful sighs, or little heart-shaped notes tucked into his requisition forms or some shit, but… something. He was waiting for something-a shift in the attitude; an undertone to the ordinary words. An alteration to the established patterns of behavior, now that they both fucking know; now that it’s there between them, dangling like a hanged man in the empty space, turning in the fucking wind, and even when they try not to look, they can smell it, and they know. It casts an unmistakable shadow on their backs, on their faces, on the ground.
At least the weather’s settled way the fuck down.
At least the only fever heat he has to worry about is the shit inside his brain.
At least he’s wrong, this time; at least he’s wrong when it matters, because Roy hasn’t done a damn thing.
He put his guard up as high as it would go, like a fucking castle battlement around him, but the siege and the soldiers never came. Nothing’s changed. Havoc’s soppy, and Breda’s cynical, and Roy and Hawkeye stay late almost every single night talking about all the courses of action that the other generals might take, sorting through the possibilities and trying to figure out who they can count as friends. Nothing’s changed, and sometimes Ed’s commentary comes in useful, and stone walls are so fucking heavy to hold up that he just…
He just wants to sink back into the safety of it like he did before.
Roy’s hopelessly melodramatic and incredibly incisive at turns, and Hawkeye does a lot of the mouth-twitching thing that’s basically a laugh for her, and Ed flips over requisition forms to draw diagrams to explain what he means about interconnectivity between people he’s seen in the training yards and the hallways and what they could be communicating from one department to another. And it’s all right-for once, it’s honestly all right. Because he realizes-after the first few times he sits there with his shoulders tensed to aching, only for no danger of any kind to manifest-that Roy respects him more than Roy…
More than the other thing.
He realizes that this-the job, the life, the quest, the partnership, the input, the collaborative struggle to pull through, the same damn sense of safety and ease of companionship that Ed values so fucking much these days-is more important to Roy than his own personal shit.
Hawkeye was right.
Roy’s not going to ask Ed for anything more.
It’s enough like this-it’s enough to be like this; to trust each other and listen to each other and try to help each other without any ulterior motive bullshit. Without any demands.
Right?
Al tends to spend Friday nights on the phone with Winry, having the kinds of conversations Ed would rather gouge his eardrums out with a rusty spoon than hear, so this week he tags along with Roy and Hawkeye to what Roy says is ‘their’ favorite pub. Hawkeye says ‘they’ don’t have a favorite. Roy says ‘they’ will not be getting an order of garlic fries as a gift from ‘their’ C.O. if ‘they’ insist on belaboring the semantics. Hawkeye says ‘they’ are walking on rather thin ice, sir, and the water is very cold, and would make ‘them’ very useless, and-
Fortunately, they make it to the stupid place before Ed does any lasting damage to his ribcage trying not to laugh.
They sit down at a little round booth table near the back. Ed’s mind drifts to research while Roy and Hawkeye discuss the ideal amount of garlic fries when there are three individuals seated at the table, since apparently it would be unseemly to order the full pound-sized portion, but two smalls wouldn’t be sufficient, and there could be violence as the supply ran low. Ed realizes he’s doodling a complicated array on his napkin with a pen he didn’t know he had when the conversation stutters to a stop, and Roy’s leaning across Hawkeye to look at his work.
“Is that a feedback loop for perpetual combustion?” Roy asks.
Ed looks at it. He was thinking about car engines. This is what he gets for talking to Winry when she calls on nights that Al’s out at the university library writing papers and shit. “I… think so. Yeah.”
And Roy gives him-
The smile again. That smile.
The one like he’s fucking special. Like he could be cherished and feted and praised to the ends of the goddamn planet, and it wouldn’t really sum it up.
The one that lights Ed up on the inside like a forest on fire and leaves a layer of ashen guilt on the back of his tongue and the roof of his mouth and every square centimeter of his fucking lungs.
Nobody should be looking at him like that. He’s never done a damn fucking thing to earn it. He’s never been worth it, and he never will be, and it just feels-
Terrifying.
Thrilling.
Backwards, flipped-over, obviously wrong.
And like a fucking relief.
“Excuse me,” Hawkeye says, pushing Roy-rather gently-back into his seat. “I was promised an inadvisable quantity of garlic fries.”
“So you were,” Roy says, and he slings himself up off of the bench seat and away from the table with more grace than anybody has any right to have in a place like this. “Can I get either of you something to drink?”
“Water, please,” Hawkeye says.
Ed bites back Cyanide. Where the fuck does this shit even come from in his head sometimes? “Yeah, that’d-thanks.”
Roy reaches down to pat Hayate, who’s standing guard just next to their table, and saunters off. Ed painstakingly evens out some of the lines on the array on his napkin instead of looking at his C.O.’s purportedly very highly-rated ass. If he could’ve had one wish granted these last few weeks, unhearing the entire long and detailed conversation two of the secretaries were having about Roy’s musculature in the queue at the sandwich shop would’ve been close to the top of the list.
“So,” he says, glancing over at Hawkeye when it’s probably safe to raise his gaze from the tabletop. “How long has the drinking thing been going on?”
She presses her lips together, and the last traces of mirth go out of her eyes. Fuck. There isn’t a whole lot in the stupid world sadder than that.
“That’s an interesting question,” she says. “I don’t know the answer to it. It’s been several months now since it started to be so pronounced that I couldn’t help paying attention.”
“Yeah,” Ed says. He’s not really sure what else you’re supposed to say about shit like this. It’s like how people used to tell him they were sorry that his mom was dead. Like… yeah? Thanks or whatever? He was sorry too. His feelings were a whole lot bigger than fucking sorriness, and a half-assed apology before they moved back on to their functional, filled-up little lives wasn’t going to fix a goddamn thing.
“Edward,” she says, and there’s a note in her voice that just-stills him. “This… might be a foolish thing to say, and it might be unfair, but… perhaps you’ll indulge me.” She looks at him. Her eyes look darker than Roy’s, some days-cold and fucking empty like starless skies and all the unmet possibilities. “Promise me you won’t.”
He swallows. “Won’t what?”
“Drink,” she says. Her mouth twists, bitterly like he’s never seen. “Most alchemists seem to be-prone to it. Susceptible.”
She doesn’t say weak.
And he remembers, in that instant, that her father was the one who figured out flame alchemy in the first place-that she was alone except for him until Roy came along; and then alone again except for Roy after her father died. There’s Rebecca; she must have other friends, but the only people she’s ever relied on are men who were brilliant and ambitious and destructive and…
Roy returns with a tray, upon which stand a huge basket of garlic fries, three glasses of water, and a bottle of wine. The tray’s balanced expertly, weight distributed on one hand spread wide; the low light gleams just slightly on the thick white scar across the back. The fingers of Roy’s other hand curl loosely around the stem of a large wineglass.
“I promise,” Ed says, because I’m sorry is never going to be enough.
“Promise what?” Roy asks, smoothly setting the tray on the table and sliding in on Hawkeye’s other side.
“That he won’t eat any of my rightful share of the fries,” Hawkeye says. “I expect the same courtesy from you.”
“You can’t ask him that before he’s tried them,” Roy says. “He doesn’t understand what he’s sacrificed.”
“I think I’ll live,” Ed says.
Roy picks up the basket and reaches across the table to wave it just once under Ed’s nose.
It smells like fucking heaven. Garlic heaven. With oil and potatoes and oregano and fucking perfection. Which would be exactly what heaven should smell like if it existed outside of pub food.
“Holy shit,” Ed says.
“Precisely,” Roy says, more than a touch smugly. “I think you should have free reign to rescind that promise at this point.”
“You are a terrible influence, Roy,” Hawkeye says.
“I try,” Roy says, and this time he’s not even pretending not to be smug.
The garlic fries taste even better than they smell. The burgers are almost as good, and the bar doesn’t even get all that crowded or loud even though it’s a Friday night. Ed never wants to leave this fucking place. Maybe they can designate a closet for him to sleep in or something. He’d be honored to eat all of the leftover food every night.
Al’d probably be miffed, though. Plus he definitely can’t afford to pay their rent all by himself.
“I think perhaps there’s a special circle of hell,” Hawkeye says, looking at her hands, “where you spend your whole afterlife wandering around covered in grease.”
Roy snorts. “Sexy.”
She elbows him, not lightly. He almost spills the latest glass of wine, but then he rights his glass and scoots off of the bench so that she can get up and stride off towards the restrooms to wash her hands.
Roy sits back down, sighing contentedly, and Ed…
Ed is trying so, so fucking hard not to be-
Afraid.
That’s what it is, isn’t it? He’s fucking scared. He’s fucking scared that Roy’s going to turn the tables now that they’re alone-that he does want more; and that he knows, now, that there’s something in Ed that kind of wants to give it to him, but that Ed just doesn’t fucking know how, and it’s so much fucking safer to leave it be than to try to fumble around for handholds on a cliff he’s never climbed-
Roy puts his glass down on the table and looks at it, running just the tip of his tongue over his upper lip.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Ed’s heartbeat pulses in his throat, in his ears, in his stomach, in his fingertips.
“Edward,” Roy says, looking at him sideways with a thin, almost cautious sort of smile, “could I take you out to dinner sometime?”
It’s getting hard to tell if that sound is Ed’s heart beating, or if it’s fucking gunshots.
“You just did,” Ed says. “Or is this your way of saying you’re not paying after all?”
Roy gives him the Sardonic Eyebrow. “I meant just the two of us. As a date.”
Definitely gunshots. Maybe fucking mortar shells.
It’s a wonder he’s not fucking shaking; he can feel himself coming apart. “Why the fuck would you want to do that?”
The Sardonic Eyebrow drops swiftly and vanishes unmourned. “What do you mean, ‘why’?”
“I mean,” Ed says, and he has to bolster himself with the brashness of the bravado; it’s always worked; it’s always gotten him through; “you know I’m not gonna put out, so what the fuck is the point?”
Roy stares at him for a long, long, long fucking second, and the tremor of his heartbeat just keeps ricocheting around his chest. He has to focus on breathing, which is a huge disadvantage in a game this hard. Even drunk, Roy Mustang’s a more formidable opponent than just about anybody he can think of, except for Al, a-
“It is unspeakably sad,” Roy says, “that our society has convinced you that sexual engagement is the solitary purpose of a relationship.”
“It has nothing to do with society,” Ed says. “It’s evolution.”
The Sardonic Eyebrow is back, and it brought its twin brother this time.
“You may have noticed,” Roy says, “that you and I are not especially reproductively viable in the first place.”
Ed opens his mouth, finds it dryer than any sun-baked ruin he’s ever crawled across, and shuts it again. He attempts to swallow and mostly succeeds on the second try.
“But it’s about-like-long-term-mating c-compatibility, and-”
Roy shifts back in his seat, holding up both hands and lowering his eyes.
“Never mind,” he says. “I’m sorry; I never should have-I’m sorry. Forget it. Please don’t feel-I’m sorry. That was stupid.”
There’s a strange sort of tightness to his face, like he’s holding something up and holding something in.
Swallowing just keeps getting fucking harder. Maybe Ed was allergic to something in those goddamn fries.
“Besides,” he says. “Wouldn’t it-fuck up your reputation to be seen out with a guy?”
Roy’s eyes dart back towards him, and Ed fights the urge to flinch. They’re just so fucking-smart, so fucking interesting, and he just-
Wants to know what else is behind them, sometimes. He can’t help it. He’s always been too fucking curious for his own good. It’s gotten him burned a hundred-thousand times.
“Unless you felt inclined to throw yourself across the table and put your tongue into my mouth,” Roy says, and that does not even fucking compute, except for a tiny part of Ed that almost, almost thinks it’d be an experiment worth trying once- “I don’t suppose most people would even notice. The public can be remarkably shortsighted when it comes to what’s in front of them that they haven’t normalized.”
Over the ambient noise, there’s a sound like a metal sphere falling onto marble in Ed’s brain-a clear, bright, deafeningly distinct sort of ping.
“You’ve got three seconds to rephrase the fuck outta that before I change my mind,” he says.
Roy grins with a flash of teeth like a leopard on the hunt. “If you have to change your mind to say ‘no’,” he says, “is that a ‘yes’ by default?”
No more bullets in Ed’s ribcage: just a fucking jackhammer, and his sternum doesn’t stand a chance. “I-”
“Fuck,” Roy says, so emphatically that Ed startles harder. Roy applies one elegant hand to pinching the bridge of his nose and waves sort of vaguely at the too-small space between them with the other. “Sorry. I’m sorry. God, I shouldn’t have… shit. Ed-I’m not trying to trap you. I swear I’m not. It’s just-instinct. This is how I play the game with other people, but it shouldn’t be a game with you; you’re not a toy; you’re so much more than… I’m sorry. I am. I shouldn’t have said a damn thing. I’m sorry.”
Ed-
Can’t stop thinking-
About the blissed-out fucking expression on Al’s face when he came back after his first real date with Winry.
About how they’re obviously into all that… other shit, sure; but that’s relatively occasional, in the larger timeline. About how most of it is conversations, and laughing a lot, and the really light little touches, and the constant brightness in Al’s eyes.
About how fucking happy they are.
“How about-this,” he says, slowly, so the words don’t tangle up. “How about if… you don’t drink any fucking booze for two full weeks-starting now; this doesn’t count-then… yeah. I mean, we could try. Once.”
Roy looks at him.
And he looks back, and he’s probably going to die from the internal bleeding from the way his heart’s been throwing itself around his whole fucking body over the last five minutes, but maybe if he doesn’t, then…
Then maybe he’ll get to see Roy’s eyes crinkle up at the corners and ignite like this a couple more times.
“That is so absolutely you,” Roy says.
“Good,” Ed says. “I was worried I’d turned into somebody else. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know where I’d be without you,” Roy says.
“Probably right fucking here,” Ed says, “only drunker.”
“Probably,” Roy says, fake-thoughtfully. “I don’t know who I’d be either, at this point.”
He’s way too damn honest when he’s like this.
“Probably still dumbass fucking you,” Ed says. “Only drunker again.”
“Harsh,” Roy says.
Ed makes a point of shrugging.
The show of nonchalance tears his eyes away from Roy for a second, though, which is how he notices that Hawkeye’s standing right in front of the table. He has no fucking clue how long she’s been standing right in front of the table, listening to the pair of them being incredibly fucking dense.
“Ah,” she says. “Shall I come back?”
“No, no,” Roy says before Ed can unknot his tongue. “Ah… by all means.”
He has to slide off of the bench to open up her seat again, which he offers to her with a surprisingly steady sweep of his hand.
Ed needs to-
Not pay as much attention to Roy’s hands. Probably. Just as a guideline or something.
Hawkeye settles in her spot next to Ed again, and she gives him a significant look-one he wishes he didn’t recognize so fucking well.
This is the tried and tested Are you okay? that she’s been shooting him embarrassingly often over the last couple of months.
He’s got to start fighting his own fucking battles here.
So he forces a smile and a slight nod and points at the bar before Roy can sit back down.
“I thought you were gonna pay,” he says.
“I thought you were going to be civilized,” Roy says, dropping onto the bench. “Perhaps we’ll both be disappointed.”
“Would you like me to chip in, sir?” Hawkeye asks calmly.
“No,” Roy says. He follows it up with a deep sigh and heaves himself back up to his feet. “I’ll get it. You had to suffer my miserable company, after all.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘miserable’,” Ed says. “Maybe, like, ‘mediocre’.”
“‘Mildly trying’,” Hawkeye says.
Roy scowls at both of them, and they both beam back.
“Next time I’m ordering caviar,” Roy says, “and leaving you two with the bill.”
“We know where you live,” Ed says.
“And how to get into your bank account,” Hawkeye says.
Roy throws his hands up and stalks off towards the bar.
Hawkeye turns to Ed, eyes softening instantaneously. “You’re really-”
“I’m fine,” he says, and this time he kind of even means it.
The first thing Ed notices when he lets himself into their apartment is that Al’s textbooks seem to be multiplying. He vaguely remembers a pile of them on the coffee table a few nights ago, but at this point, it’s expanded in an amoebic kind of sprawl over the entire tabletop, across the gap of floor to the couch, and all over one of the cushions. Al’s curled up on the other one, sitting cross-legged with a huge book in his lap, a mug of something steaming-hot in one hand, and an expression of grim determination fixed on his features.
Al’s gaze flicks up when the door opens, though, and his whole perfect face lights up like the night sky from a country hill-way out past all of this smoggy shit that dulls the endless spill of stars to just a scattering.
“Hey, Brother,” he says. “How was your night?”
Ed assesses his options spatially and determines with a quick calculation that the most efficient space to clear for his ass is the edge of the table, where he only has to move two books three inches each.
He sits.
“I think I’m going on a date with Mustang,” he says.
Al goes very, very still with the mug of presumably-tea raised most of the way to his mouth-a mouth which, for the record, is currently hanging half-open.
The silence is prickly. It’s funny how individual silences all feel a little different.
“In two weeks,” Ed says, trying to be helpful. “Not, like, right now.”
“Can you contextualize?” Al asks. “You… what happened? You-want to?”
“He asked,” Ed says. “And-I mean-sort of. Yeah. I think so. Maybe.”
Al blinks. “Maybe?”
“Well-” Ed reaches up to rake his hand through his bangs and gets that awkward-stupid shoulder-bar resistance from the structure of the dumbass uniform. “Hang on, I can’t talk about this when I’m dressed like a moron.”
“You mean like a soldier of the Amestrian military?” Al asks as Ed gets up.
Ed unhooks the calvary skirt and slings it onto the coatrack, because… whatever. “That’s what I said.”
“Right,” Al says as Ed ditches the jacket, too. “So-General Mustang asked you out on a date.”
Ed itches at his scalp where the ponytail’s been pulling. “Yeah.”
Al is watching him closely as he kicks off his boots, circles back, and sits down on the table again. “And… you want to go. Maybe. Sort of.”
“Maybe,” Ed says, bringing his right knee up and bracing his heel on the edge of the table, the better to balance his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. “Sort of.”
“You’re not freaking out,” Al says slowly. “That’s a good sign.”
Ed rubs his forehead. “Yeah, it’s kind of weird, right? I think I’m too tired to freak out.”
“I’ll take it,” Al says.
The good news is, forehead-rubbing transitions really smoothly into forehead-smacking. “Fuck. Winry’s gonna be so smug.”
“No, she’s not,” Al says. “She’ll be happy for you.”
“Happy and smug.”
“Maybe the tiniest bit,” Al says. “But from a place of love. Brother, are you sure?”
“Sure what?” he asks.
“That that’s what you want,” Al says. “Not what you feel is expected of you, because it’s what somebody else might do in your place.”
Ed shifts both feet back onto the floor-or, to be more honest than he’d fucking like, lets them dangle, since they don’t quite reach-and knits his hands up in his lap. He looks at the way his fingers line up, alternating flesh and metal.
“I think,” he says, sorting through the weird, half-numb muddle of emotions shifting around in the back of his brain, “that I at least want to give it a try. I mean, I-dunno. I like… talking to him. Mostly. Sometimes it makes me fucking nervous, but not, like, crawly-guts nervous. Okay-nervous. I think.” It’s a really good thing it’s sort of too late for Al to disown him, and also that it’d make the rent situation too complicated even if Al tried it. He scrubs at his face with the softer hand. “And I guess I just sort of… want to get… control of it. If that’s possible. The weird shit-” He gestures to his chest, his guts, his… whatever. “-that I-feel sometimes, depending on how much of an asshole he’s being at any given time. I just sort of-I mean, this is a scientific venue for testing that, right? Data collection.”
“Dating for data,” Al says faintly. “Brother, I love you.”
“You, too,” Ed says, knee-jerk automatic. “Is that weird?”
“Yes,” Al says. “Which is what’s so great about it. And I think that’s a fine idea-testing the waters to see what you think before you really jump in.” His face softens a little, and then he smiles. “And I really do think he’ll… be mindful. You know.”
He knows Al doesn’t mean it in a bad way way-but it knifes through the center of him all the same. “Of what a freak I am, you mean?”
“No,” Al says, scowling instantly. “Of your completely reasonable lack of experience, and of the particulars of your emotional approach.”
“Of what a freak I am, you mean,” Ed says.
Al rolls his eyes. “Quit putting words in my mouth. What I mean is that he knows, all right? And-based on how long he’s been so close with Captain Hawkeye-I’m willing to bet he’ll know exactly how to make you feel comfortable. And that’s great, Ed. Because your first date is supposed to be okay-nervous and exciting-it’s supposed to be safe. And you’ll be safe with him. That’s not a reflection on you being a ‘freak’, or on him, or on anyone. It’s just a convergence of factors that makes me really optimistic about your date data. That’s all.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Ed says. “It’s going to be your catchphrase now.”
“Too darned late,” Al says, with more than a touch of delight.
Somehow the weekend simultaneously crawls and breezes by. Ed musters a bit of scientific curiosity about that phenomenon; is there any way of tracking the purely psychological concept of the variability of the progress of time based on the emotions of the observer, or…?
Sunday night duly arrives. Sleep duly eludes him, because he’s duly unable to avoid thinking about Roy.
The duly part is the bitch of a fucking kicker. He knew this was going to happen. He deliberately spent half of the day today reading complex fucking theory to try to cram some knowledge he’d have to unpack later into his brain, specifically in the hopes of having anything to contemplate but Roy.
Except here he is, sprawled out in bed, eyes wide open, automail aching just enough to ward off the sleepiness while his brain whirrs and churns and meddles with the memories again and again and again.
It’s so fucking hard to tell what’s just scientific curiosity and what he actually wants.
Fucking garlic fries. Fucking gleams of oil on the pads of Roy’s fingertips; at the corner of his mouth-
Does he want Roy to kiss him? Or does he just want to know what kissing’s like?
He rolls over and buries his face in the pillow. Only six and a half more hours before it’d be acceptable to get up.
The question’s actually more complicated than what he wants-or at least than what he wants in a physical, somatic-response kind of way. Some part of him that affects the temperature beneath his skin and somehow spurs a roil of heat in the pit of his stomach definitely wants Roy-wants him close; wants him unreasonably close; wants his hands and his lips and that particular spark in his dark eyes when the lashes swoop low. But Ed can’t tell yet if he likes that-if it’s a good thing; if it makes him feel good; if he enjoys it; if it’s pleasant in the long run-or if it’s just another way of suffering. Maybe the torture has just-transformed, right? Metamorphosed. Deepened. Redoubled. Evolved.
Maybe if Roy actually touches him, he’ll hate it.
And that wouldn’t be-well, “fair” is stupid, but it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be a decent thing to do to someone, let alone someone like Roy, who Ed’s starting to suspect is a hundred times lonelier than he’d ever fucking admit. You can’t set somebody up with an expectation that they’ll get all of the nice, normal things that they’d anticipate on any stupid fucking date, then whip the rug out from underneath them the instant that they lay their hands on you, and you discover that it’s horrible-
Part of him-probably the haywire-temperatures part-keeps insisting that it wouldn’t be. Part of him keeps sighing so softly he can barely hear it in his own head; keeps groaning even softer still-part of him keeps craving it; part of him is slave to sensations he hasn’t ever felt before; part of him is rooted in an absolute conviction that this is good, and it’s only going to get better.
But what if that’s just the echoes of the stories they’ve been telling him his whole fucking life?
He isn’t like the people in those stories. He knows that. He’s known that for a long time, but he tried to pretend-so he wouldn’t scare anybody off; so they’d all have something in common. There’s something almost-inhuman-about it, right? Not wanting to procreate. That’s a cold thing, isn’t it? That makes you cold; that makes you distant; that makes you think you’re pure, but all it really means is that you’ll never mesh with other people right, because they all have this warmth inside them that you don’t.
You can’t make it exist. He’s tried that, too.
But it’s all fucking muddled in his head-as well as in his stupid fucking guts, apparently-because he knows, too, that he feels something unusual when it comes to Roy. When he summons up an image of the stupid bastard’s face, there’s more to it than the little flickers of friend-endorphins; there’s more than just the flares of protective impulses he gets for Al and Winry and pretty much everyone he cares about. There’s more than the gentle little settling sense of relief that he gets when he thinks of Hawkeye, because she makes him feel so safe all the time. All that shit is there, yeah-but that’s not all that there is.
Unknown variables. That’s what it comes down to. So in a way, the whole running joke is absolutely right-he needs more fucking data, and the only way that he can get it is by going on this date.
Shit.
He rolls onto his back, then back around onto his front, then tries to bang his face against the pillow as if it was a wall, which neither works nor makes him feel any better.
Fuck all of this shit.
Maybe if he pretends to feel sick, Al’ll let him have enough cold medicine to knock himself out, right? He should start practicing a fake cough. Maybe he can just never go in to the office again. That’ll totally fucking fly.
He shifts onto his back again and lays his left hand over his eyes. He’s probably down to six more hours now.
If there’s one thing he’s learned over the years-and one thing Roy hasn’t, at least as it pertains to paperwork-it’s that delaying the inevitable only prolongs the fucking misery, and the only person you’re hurting is yourself. It’s a long-ass shot away from wanting to go in, obviously, but it’s enough to propel his ass out the door and over to HQ, so that’s something.
Mondays are usually pretty quiet for the first hour or so; no one’s caffeine has kicked in to wake them up properly, and Roy tends to stroll in closer to nine after checking in with a lot of his friends-slash-informants in other departments on his way up. All of that is ordinary enough, and Ed’s trying with all his fucking might to fucking relax as eight thirty creeps by, and then eight forty-five, and then-
It’s only when the familiar cadence of Roy’s footsteps proceeds down the hall towards the door that it occurs to him, in an instantaneous wash of sheer fucking terror, that he can’t remember how he normally acts when Roy walks in of a morning.
Obviously, because all of them are lazy, too-comfortable, borderline-insubordinate shits, nobody ever leaps out of their chair and salutes, but-what the fuck does Ed do most days? Of course he doesn’t chirp “Good to see you, sir!” and beam a fucking smile, but does he look up? Does he say anything? Does he nod acknowledgment, or grind out a reluctant “Hi”? If he alters his habits now, someone could notice the anomaly in his behavioral patterns and know something’s-maybe not amiss, per se, but different; someone could notice that something’s different, and-
The door opens, and he keeps right on staring too-intently at his stupid fucking paperwork while a chilly little bead of sweat winds down the back of his worthless neck.
“Good morning,” Roy says, presumably to the entire assembled company rather than specifically to him, but from this angle he can’t be sure.
“Whoa,” Breda says. “You got a date this weekend, General?”
Roy’s steps click crisply past the table without faltering once. “Why do you say that?”
“Because that’s your ‘Thank God there’s something in this lousy world to look forward to’ face,” Breda says.
“There’s lots of stuff to look forward to,” Havoc says.
“Maybe if you’re the living embodiment of a puppy,” Breda says.
“I think that’s a bit unfair to Hayate,” Roy says, and his voice comes from further down, accompanied by a rustle-Ed sneaks a glance; he’s scratching under the dog’s chin, and Hawkeye appears to be resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m sure he didn’t mean any offense.”
“Jeez,” Havoc says. “Is it Friday yet?”
“He’s going to be insufferable on Friday,” Breda says, sitting back in his chair and waving his pencil like a conductor’s baton. “He hasn’t been on a date in years.”
“Ninety-seven weeks,” Falman says. “If I remember right.”
Fuery’s eyes would probably look huge right now even without the magnification effect from the glasses. “You always remember right. But it can’t have been that long.”
As Roy stands, there’s a second where he looks like he’s been sucking lemons before he clears the emotion off his face.
“Information-dates with the girls from his mom’s place don’t count,” Breda says. “Sounds about right to me. So who’s the lucky lady, General?”
“Work,” Roy says. “We’re married, as you might have noticed. And if you don’t start doing yours, there will be consequences.”
He sweeps right on into his office without looking at Ed even once.
So that’s… good. Probably. At the very least, nobody said anything, and nobody seems to know.
As the week drags on, Roy seems to strive just as hard as Ed does to play this normal. Is he trying to hide it from Hawkeye? Is that the game? That’d be a stupid game if it is, because it’s already painfully obvious to her that something happened, and it’s only a matter of time before she figures it out even if neither of them spills the fucking beans.
Which doesn’t justify Ed being stupid enough to make it agonizingly clear, like he’s doing by Friday night, when he can’t stop looking at Roy’s hands twirling a pen while the three of them shoot the shit about the ambiguous intel that Roy’s contacts have turned up. Ed always gets sort of stupid by the end of the week, because he’s tired, and it’s harder to keep his head in order, but this is pretty much an all-new record fucking low.
It’s just that Roy’s hands are one of the most confusing parts of this whole fucking equation, and motion draws the eye, and he can’t quite stop himself from staring as the pen whirls around and flips over Roy’s knuckles and grazes the thick white scars on the backs of his hands and generally fucking mesmerizes Ed’s stupid fucking brain.
“Hmm,” Hawkeye says the next time Roy pauses for breath in a long treatise about something strategic that Ed should probably have been paying attention to. “Will you excuse me for a moment while I go get a knife?”
Roy’s hands fumble the pen, and it clatters to the tabletop. “I beg your pardon?”
“A knife,” Hawkeye says. “To cut through the sexual tension.”
Roy’s hands go completely still-like every part of Ed’s body except for his blood, which surges through his veins at an unholy speed and rushes even faster to fill his face.
“Ah,” Roy says, delicately. “Well-”
“I don’t mind,” Hawkeye says. “For heaven’s sake, I think it’s-nice, actually. It’s nice, and I’m glad. But the pair of you are hilariously bad at hiding it, and the ongoing effort is just getting in the way of everything else. Is it a week from now that you’re going out?”
Somehow Ed musters the nerve to glance at Roy, who is-unsurprisingly, somehow-glancing right back.
“How’s next Saturday?” Roy asks.
Ed’s heart is a thing alive-a thing contorted; a thing tormented; twisting and seizing and somersaulting in his chest. “I-sure. I guess.”
Roy turns to Hawkeye. “Next Saturday.”
She sighs, but she’s smiling. “The funny thing about it is that I’ve seen you both keep bigger secrets completely under wraps.”
“Those weren’t secrets we were happy about,” Roy says. His face falls, and his cheeks darken, and he fumbles to pick up the pen. “That-I’m happy about, at least; I hope-”
“Are you blushing?” bursts out of Ed out of sheer fucking wonderment even if it’s probably-all right, definitely-kind of rude.
Roy hastily covers his face with both hands. “No,” he says, somewhat muffled by his own palms.
“Oh, Lord,” Hawkeye says. “I think I need a drink. Can we go get a drink?”
“Well, you can,” Roy says. “I can’t. That’s part of the deal.”
Every time Ed thinks they’ve collectively faceplanted on the bottom of the hole, Roy pulls out another spade and frantically starts digging.
It’s weirdly sort of entrancing, which is part of why he can’t turn his frozen tongue around any words of protest.
Hawkeye’s eyebrows are in danger of disappearing behind her bangs, never to be seen again. “The… deal?”
“I’m going to stop talking,” Roy says, peeking past his fingers. “Right now.”
Emphatically, he shuts his mouth. She stares at him. He stares back. She looks over at Ed.
“The deal?” she says again.
Part of him wants to snag Roy’s pen and feign like it’s consuming all of his intellect so that he can’t answer the question. “Uh-I told him-if he didn’t drink for two weeks, I’d… yeah.”
Hawkeye looks at him. Then she looks at Roy. Then she looks at him again.
Hawkeye is smart-damn smart. She doesn’t have Roy’s knack for reading the fine print on people without even having to try, and even if she had the instincts he does, Ed’s not sure she’d have it in her to manipulate people unless lives were on the line.
But she’s smart. And she’s remembering the conversation she and Ed were having that night, and the sequence of events that followed, and she’s stacking a pair of twos together to make four.
There’s no chance she doesn’t know.
“Part of me wishes I was surprised,” she says. “The terrible thing is, with you two, this almost makes sense.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment,” Roy says. “…somehow.”
“Good luck,” Hawkeye says calmly. She turns to Ed again. “And, sincerely-good luck.”
“Ouch,” Roy says. “I’m never buying you garlic fries again.”
“Oh, no,” Hawkeye says, straightening one of the stacks of papers on the table. “I’m crushed. How will I ever survive this indescribable betrayal?”
Roy drapes himself dramatically back against his chair and waves a weary arm. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” he tells her, and his voice says acid, but his eyes say adoration.
Hawkeye just smiles.
And it goes-
Fine.
It goes fine.
He and Al go to the stupid bowling alley with some of Al’s stupid school friends on Saturday night, and it actually turns out to be significantly less stupid all around than Ed was expecting. All of Al’s friends are pretty chill; and none of them try to, like, touch him or anything weird like that; and he says something snarky about taxpayer money, and everybody laughs.
He feels like he sort of-
Fits.
It’s a fucking relief.
He should’ve figured, shouldn’t he, that Al would only be friends with decent people? Al’s good at making friends, and he tends to do it accidentally half the time, but he’s not indiscriminate about who he actually spends his time with. He’s got less time now, what with all the sleeping and meatbag-upkeep business that has to go on. It’s more precious to him. And that means he has to be a little choosier about who gets his attention and when.
Somehow Ed still seems to wind up with a whopping chunk of it, which just goes to show you that Al’s not too smart.
They spend Sunday morning at the library, arguing quietly until they get the Glare of Doom; and then Sunday lunchtime arguing louder at a café until the Glare of Doom possesses a new host behind the counter; and then Sunday afternoon working on theory all over the floor of the apartment and not arguing until Al suddenly realizes that he’s starving sometime after the sun goes down.
Ed lies on his back in his bed that night with his left arm folded underneath his head and thinks-
Maybe this shit can be done.
Maybe, if you play the same old worn-edged cards right-
Maybe if you’re lucky once in a while-
Maybe it doesn’t have to be so bad, and you don’t have to feel so fucking hollow.
And maybe’s a hell of a lot better than absolutely not.
Even the office is fine, or at least not any less-fine than he’s used to. Calculating every single movement was apparently a greater weight on his psyche than he realized; now that it’s not a secret anymore-or not a secret from Hawkeye; the rest of the guys don’t really matter-he feels like the manacles have split, and the chains have dropped away.
Well-most of them.
“Hmm,” Breda says the instant Roy walks in. Ed had eventually decided on glancing up and just not making any special effort to establish eye contact; that seems pretty natural for his and Roy’s business-hours rapport. “You don’t look like a man who got repeatedly laid this weekend. Are you taking your time with this one? Spinning out all of the courtship rituals?”
“Knitting them,” Roy says without breaking his stride. “I have very long needles. And you know exactly where I’m liable to put them if you keep speculating wildly about my personal life.”
“But that’s half the fun of this place,” Breda says. “I’m pretty sure it was in the job description.”
“There wasn’t a job description,” Falman says. “That’s not standard in-”
“How’s your love life, Lieutenant Breda?” Hawkeye asks, voice crystal clear and delightfully fucking cold.
Breda looks at her for a long second, and then he slouches in his seat and mutters something nobody can hear.
“Hey,” Havoc says brightly. “You want me to talk about mine?”
“No,” everyone around the table says at once.
So that’s… gravy.
Well, it’s something, anyway.
[Part 2]