#automailsucker

The mission had been an absolute hell (lately, all of his missions had been hell,) and Ed wanted nothing more than to collapse into his narrow bunk in the military barracks and sleep for an eternity. He’d collected a couple of new cuts that were sure to evolve into more fucking scars, and more than a couple of bruises in some very uncomfortable spots and each halting step up to the check-in point at the entrance of Central Command pulled on every single one of them.

“Good evening, Sir. May I please see your identification?” The bushy-tailed private in the security booth was eyeing him a little warily and Ed was sure he deserved it. He’d ditched the uniform before he’d hopped on the train(he’d grudgingly started wearing it when it became clear to him that some of the behaviors he’d skated by with as a kid weren’t nearly so endearing as an adult,) and was dressed in a rather unimpressive collection of well-worn travel clothes, a few darkening bruises peeking out from under the collar of his shirt with purple smudges under his eyes to match. 

He rifled through the pocket of his overcoat and yanked out his watch, dangling it out for the private to inspect. “This good enough? Otherwise I’m gonna have to dig through this suitcase and we could be here awhile.”

The private’s eyes widened as he took in the glint of the watch and the glint of Ed’s metal hand. “Oh! Major Elric, I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you out of uniform!” He shot Ed a frantic salute.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” Ed said, waving his flesh hand as he stuffed the watch back in his pocket. “Did the mission go well, Sir?” 

Great, a talker. Usually, Ed didn’t mind engaging the new recruits in friendly conversation but he was dead on his feet and hanging on to his fragile sanity by a very, very thin thread. “Went okay,” he grunted. “I gotta be up bright and early to give the Brigadier General my report, actually, and I don’t mean to be rude but…”

“Oh, no, of course! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you, Sir. Although, if I may say, Sir, Brigadier General Mustang hasn’t left yet. You may be able to catch him before he goes.”

That gave Ed a bit of pause. It’d definitely be easier to drag his ass up to Mustang’s office, give him an incredibly brief verbal report, and sleep in and he was actually pretty grateful to the private for cluing him into that possibility. Still, it was almost midnight and he’d never known the lazy bastard to stay any later than absolutely necessary. Even Hawkeye and the business end of her pistol never kept him past ten. 

“That’s a good idea, thanks uh…” Ed squinted through the low light to catch a glimpse of the man’s nametag. “Levy. Take care, okay?”

“You too, Sir, thank you.”

Ed gave him a quick nod and started off for the front doors.

Mustang’s office was dark when Ed pushed his way in and the desk was unoccupied. A lump draped over the sofa caught his attention and a quick inspection revealed the lump to be Mustang himself. He rolled his eyes, the little bubble of concern that had settled in his stomach dissipating when he realized what must’ve happened. 

“Hey asshole, wake up,” Ed said loudly, stomping over to the sofa. “You slept past quitting time, you lazy shit.”

He expected a groan or a curse or at least some kind of movement, but Mustang didn’t even shift. 

“Hey, Mustang!” Ed called again, nudging at the sofa cushion with the toe of his boot. “C’mon, time to go.”

Again, Ed’s interference sparked no reaction and Mustang remained stone-still on the sofa, and in the dark of the room, Ed couldn’t even see the rise and fall of his chest. Something almost like terror spiked through him and his exhaustion all but disappeared, a sharp alertness replacing it as he dropped his suitcase and scrambled to seize one of Mustang’s shoulders and give it a vicious shake.

“Mustang. Mustang! Roy!” 

At that, the bastard’s remaining eye finally cracked open a fraction and a low, pained hiss escaped his lips, mirroring Ed’s relieved exhale of a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Fullmetal.” His voice was low and rough and Ed had to crouch down just to hear him. “Get out.”

“Not a chance. What’s your problem?”

“Just go.” Mustang’s voice had somehow gotten even quieter and rougher.

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong, you stupid asshole,” Ed snapped. “You obviously need some kind of help. Are you hurt? Did someone attack you? D’you need me to get someone from the medical corps?”

Mustang, much to Ed’s eternal shock, let out a quiet whimper. “Nothing like that.” Every word sounded like agony and Ed winced in sympathy. “Just a migraine. I get them, sometimes, since…” he trailed off in favor of another miserable groan, but Ed could fill in the rest on his own. Fucking Archer and that fucking headshot. Wasn’t it bad enough the vain bastard’d lost an eye? 

Ed blew out a long breath and stood up with a wince as the movement bore uncomfortably on a few of his fresher injuries. “Okay, well, you’re not gonna like this, but you need to get home.”

“What I need—“

“We’ll go slow,” Ed promised, and leveraged an arm under Mustang’s shoulders and hoisted him up, ignoring his weak protests as he continued to manhandle him until he was up on his feet. “You’ll be better off in bed than on this lumpy fuckin’ sofa.” He looped his flesh arm around Mustang’s waist and took most of his weight with a grunt as he leaned heavily against him. 

Mustang didn’t say anything else as Ed struggled with him out of the office and down the hall. His body was on fire and protested every single step. It felt like an eternity before they emerged outside. The cobblestones in the yard, nicked and uneven, proved a difficult challenge without the benefit of light and with the added burden of Mustang, who groaned quietly at every little misstep until they finally, finally made it to the motor pool which, mercifully, still appeared to be in service with at least one car to spare. 

“Hey, hi,” he said, approaching the woman who seemed to be in charge of the remaining cars. “The Brigadier General isn’t feeling well. Any chance we can get a car to take him home?”

The woman coordinating the pool gave them an unimpressed once-over and made it clear that she both thought he was lying and didn’t care to hear anymore about it all at the same time. Without a word, she waved over the nearest driver and shoved a clipboard into Ed’s face. He scrawled a signature on the line and she yanked it back, looking over it and, presumably, was satisfied enough with Ed’s chicken-scratch to go stash the form in a overloaded book at the other end of her booth. 

Ed hefted Mustang over to the car and yanked the door open, unloading him into the back seat as carefully as he could manage. He slid in after him and closed the door just a little bit too hard, which pulled another groan from Mustang, and exhaled heavily as he sank against the seat and letting his eyes fall shut.

“Where to, Sir?” The driver’s question snapped Ed’s eyes back open.

“Oh, uh…” Shit. He didn’t actually know where Mustang lived. He nudged him gently in the ribs. “Hey, bastard, what’s your address?” Mustang rattled off a series of numbers and a street name without even raising his head. “Did you get that?”

The driver look scandalized by Ed’s disrespectful address of a senior officer but he nodded and quickly put the car in gear. 

Ed might have nodded off during the drive but the gentle motion of the car coming to a halt jerked him back into awareness. He scrabbled for the door handle and wrenched it open before attempting to maneuver Mustang, who had pretty much devolved into dead weight by that point, out of the car. 

“C’mon asshole, work with me here,” he muttered, looping one of Mustang’s arms over his shoulder and curling his own arm around Mustang’s waist and wrenching him out of the car as gently as he could manage.

“Do you need help with that, Sir?” the driver asked, just as Ed got Mustang back on his feet.

“Think we got it from here, thanks,” he grunted. “You’re good to go.” He pushed the car door closed softly, recalling Mustang’s pained reaction to the earlier slam, and started off up the walk as the car pulled away.

Mustang’s house wasn’t quite what Ed had expected. He’d imagined it’d be something over-large and flashy with perfectly manicured hedges and maybe some a marble sculpture or two thrown in for a bit of flair. Instead, Mustang lived in a cozy little red-brick townhouse with a few sloppy bushes and a tiny lawn that looked like it could’ve used a good mow. 

He managed to get his palms together and alchemized the lock, careful not to let the door slam behind them as he hauled Mustang into his dark entryway. Ed was infinitely curious about the rest of the house, but there’d be time to snoop later.

“Bedroom?”

“Upstairs,” Mustang mumbled into his shoulder and Ed muffled his groaning response to the prospect of lugging him up the stairs but started off towards them anyway.

Ed had climbed mountains more forgiving than Mustang’s fucking stairs but he managed, thanks mostly to the iron grip of his metal hand on the railing (he’d alchemize the dents out of it later,) and to Mustang’s own attempts at careening them forward between miserable little whimpers and outright-moans that he unsuccessfully tried to muffle in the bend of Ed’s neck (and he had not fucking shivered, it was just his ungrateful nerves reacting to the strain, thank you very much,) to haul Mustang up them and into his bedroom which was, thankfully, just across from the top of the staircase. 

He dragged his armful over to the bed and steadied Mustang on his feet with one hand while he stripped off his jacket and waist cape with the other before very, very carefully helping him ease down into the mattress. His back and the automail port on his shoulder were screaming by the time he let him go and he straightened with a grimace. 

“Be right back,” he said after catching his breath through the wave of pain, and worked his way back downstairs and into the kitchen they’d passed on their way up. 

A few minutes of rifling through cabinets produced a glass that he filled from the sink before setting off back upstairs. He tried a few doors before he found the bathroom and a bit more rifling rewarded him with a bottle of painkillers. He distributed a dose for himself and swallowed them dry before tapping out a few more for Mustang, and headed back into the bedroom. 

“I have water and painkillers,” he said, setting the glass and the pills on the nightstand. “C’mon, sit up for a sec.”

“They won’t work,” came Mustang’s quiet response through the density of the pillow his face was currently buried in. “I don’t want them.”

“Like I give a fuck. Come on, they’ll at least help a little.” He steeled himself for another round of violent protestation from his back and reached down, pushing his arm under Mustang’s shoulders and pulling him up. “I may have carried your sorry ass up here but I’m not gonna shove these pills in your mouth and hold it closed like you’re one of Al’s fuckin’ cats so just take the damn things.” He pushed the glass into Mustang’s hand.

Reluctantly, and more slowly than it seemed possible, Mustang groped for the pills on the nightstand and threw them back with a sip of the water before collapsing back into the pillows with another groan.

“Was that so hard?” Ed set the water back on the nightstand and looked over Mustang’s prone form, finally allowing a bit of the worry he’d been suppressing to seep into him now that his work was done. He’d never seen Mustang so helpless, so fragile and miserable and ill. He’d always been something like a pillar in Ed’s life, an unshakable, stoic pillar and, yeah, he was a fucking nerd and wasn’t anything like half the masks he put on for different people, but he'd never seen this.

He pulled the blanket up over Mustang and tucked it around his shoulders, letting his flesh fingers linger for a moment on the dip of his throat to reassure himself that the pulse there was regular and strong.

“Get some rest, bastard,” he murmured, drawing away. “I’ll stick around until you’re a little less useless.” 

Mustang’s only response was a muffled whine.  

Everything was burning. There was heat on Roy’s face, ash in his mouth, and a pounding, hot orange-red that curled around his limbs and tore through his body and then he was screaming. At first, the only screams he could hear were his own but a chorus of screaming soon overwhelmed him, and with the screaming came the familiar smell of burnt flesh. 

He scrabbled to escape the burning, boots kicking and sliding in the grainy sand beneath his feet, and then there were hands attached to screaming bodies drawing him back into the fire. He fought them, struggling against the pull as the flames began to lick at his heels again, but the fingers were razor-sharp and they dug into him where they grabbed and he couldn’t escape them. 

He was pressed into the ground, then, half-buried in sand that was blurring his eyes and clogging his throat and only then did the screaming stop.

There was only silence, then, punctuated here and then by the crackling of flame and the howling whip of wind kicking the sand up around him, at first pale brown and then gray. Everything was gray, and the sand had turned to ash, cut with shards of the black, ragged bone that the heat of the fires hadn’t been able to burn away from the hands that had been holding him down. He tried to cry out but his throat was still plugged with sand and he could barely even breathe through it.

Don’t you like it, Flame?  It was Maes, his voice higher and more mocking than Roy had ever heard it before, cruelty cutting through every word. 

He was standing, then, facing down Maes and the barrel of a gun.

You should have had the decency to die in the North.

Pain exploded out from his left eye when the bullet struck it. A thick stream of blood cut down his face, caressing his cheek and smoothing over his throat before staining the collar of his shirt. Another stream followed, and then another, and then suddenly there were hands on his face, one flesh, one metal, stroking soothing lines down his cheek.

Maes was gone. The wind had died down, the ash had disappeared, and all Roy could see was gold. At first, it was the gold of desert sand stretched out for miles and miles around him, the gold haze of fire burning hot in the distance clogging up the blue of the sky, but the sand soon turned liquid and melted away to form the molten gold of Edward’s eyes, the gold of his hair, the warm, golden glow of his skin. 

The sand in his throat was gone and he could breathe again. The air was cool like the metal hand against his face and tinted with the taste and scent of machine oil. He was buried again, but this time instead of sand, he was covered by his own comforter in his own bed. 

He blinked to clear his eye and turned towards the warmth at his side only to find Ed propped against his headboard balancing one of Roy’s books in his hands, framed by a halo of pale golden light coming from the lamp on the nightstand that had been covered with a sheet to cut the brightness. Though the sharp, stabbing pains in Roy’s head and calmed considerably, dulled to a miserable throb, he was still in agony and he appreciated the gesture.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Ed said sheepishly. “Sorry for, uh, being here. You were… you kept, um, I think you were having nightmares and I didn’t want to go too far.”

Roy wondered just how much of those hands on him had been a dream. “That’s quite all right, Fullmetal,” he said, and his throat was raw as if it had actually been stuffed with sand, as if he’d actually been screaming. The thought made him grimace, and Ed must have interpreted that as his marching orders. He was shifting over to the side of the bed, preparing to slip out of it while he mumbled another apology. Roy’s hand moved of its own accord, reaching out and just managing to grab Ed’s metal wrist. “It’s all right,” he said again. “Stay.”

Ed stared down at him for long enough that Roy was sure he would refuse, but after a moment he relented and settled back against the headboard once more, stretching out his legs flush against Roy’s side.

It had been a long time since Roy had lain so close to someone else, and that was surely the explanation for the way his chest tightened in response to the warm press of Ed’s side against his own. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ed said, still a little uncertain. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. Not completely recovered, but better. My head is still—“ He reached up to press his fingers lightly to his left eye but found only flesh where the patch, likely lost in his fitful sleep, should have been. Panic, cold and clear sank into him and he immediately moved to cover the left side of his face with his hand. Mortification and nausea warred for dominance, both eventually giving way to abject misery and a trembling that he couldn’t quite stop. He had spent years carefully rebuilding himself around his injury, recultivating his image, hiding his failures behind the patch and, as long as no one saw, as long as no one had an inkling of the wasteland that lay beneath it, then Roy was safe. Safe from judgment and safe from himself. 

He wrenched himself away from Ed’s side and turned his back to him, grinding his teeth through the new sparks of cutting pain that tore through his head at the movement. He very nearly whimpered again from the force of it, but then there was a careful, hesitant hand on his back pressing lightly between his shoulder blades.

“Hey,” Ed said softly. “It’s all right, you know. It’s not that bad.”

“It’s a reminder of everything I have ever done wrong,” Roy whispered. He was too tired and too miserable for this, in far too much pain for this. His defenses were shredded enough already. That he was so exposed was almost too much to bear. 

“Yeah, I get that, believe me.” Ed’s hand, warm and solid, still hadn’t strayed from his back and it served as a grounding point for Roy, something that saddled him in reality as images began to bloom behind his eyelids. “I figure everybody loses something eventually, no matter what the goal is. Sometimes it’s body parts, sometimes it’s something you can’t see, but after it’s all said and done, you’re still you.”

“I’m not. I’m not the same.”

“Just because you’re not the same doesn’t mean you’re not you,” Ed pointed out. “Everyone dies once. Some of us die a whole lot more than that. What survives isn’t always nice or neat or soft, but it’s you.”

Who knew that better than Ed? The logic was there, and it should have spoken to him, would have spoken to him if he’d been just a little bit more in control of himself and the wave of self-loathing he usually kept tight behind a floodwall. “I should have died in the North,” Roy whispered. They were words he’d never said out loud. He didn’t delude himself into thinking that no one knew his motives for his self-imposed exile, but saying it gave it power. Made it true. “I wanted to. It would have been fitting, in a way, for the Flame Alchemist to freeze to death. I hoped the cold and the isolation would do what Archer’s bullet didn’t do. I was too much of a coward to do it myself.”

Ed’s hand slipped over his back and curled around his shoulder and yanked. He found himself quite suddenly on his back again, staring up into Ed’s amber eyes through a hazy wave of the pain that shot through him. “People woulda missed you, idiot. I woulda missed you. I didn’t know if you’d lived or died when I got pulled through the Gate and I spent two years wondering if you pulled through ‘cause even though I wasn’t here, I couldn’t imagine this world without you in it. I know we had our differences or whatever but you stuck your neck out a hell of a lot for me n’ Al when we were kids and… I mean, we owe you a lot, y’know? And you had shit to do. You still have shit to do. Good shit. You’re s’posed to change the world, or at least this stupid fuckin’ country. You’re important. And I know me saying that probably doesn’t mean shit to you, but I’m not the only one who thinks so.” 

The spike of pain his rather sudden movement pulled forward had caused most of Ed’s words to be swallowed up in it but he understood enough. He couldn’t deny that seeing Ed again after his absence, older and sharper and wilder, had pushed him to abandon his post in the North and retake his rank and position in Central, that his absence had been a blight on Roy and just another thing he’d managed to get wrong, that he spent nights half afraid that he was, as the military presumed, actually dead even if he couldn’t quite make himself believe it. Ed was a constant weight on his mind, but he hadn’t expected to even register as a blip on his radar in those years he’d been away, wherever it was that he’d gone, and he certainly never expected an open acknowledgment of the hand he’d extended to Ed when he was a child. There was something in his eyes, sometimes, and something in his tone that spoke to his understanding of their history and that had been more than enough for Roy. It was enough to know that Alphonse was whole, body and memory restored, and that he and Ed were safe and well. 

A hand on his forehead startled him out of his thoughts. “You all right?” Ed brushed the sweat-sticky hair that had fallen into Roy’s eye. “I figured I had a few more hours at least ‘till you were with it enough to regret spillin’ your guts like that. Not that I’m gonna use it against you or anything, but I know how much you like to act like nothing bothers you.”

Edward had grown far too perceptive by half. “Forgive me for being so macabre. You’re right in saying that I’m not quite myself. I’m tired, and I’m in pain, and I shouldn’t burden you this way.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Ed’s fingers brushed his forehead again and Roy thought he could feel the hesitation there just before he pushed them into his hair and began carding through it. “Don’t even know why you’re awake at all, you stupid bastard. You should be resting.”

It was difficult to argue when Ed’s hand, surprisingly gentle, was brushing through his hair and soothing him down through the hurt and into a relaxed and quiet calm that soon faded into sleep and, for once, there were no terrors waiting for him on the other side of it.  

Ed waited until Mustang was deep asleep, and then waited just a little bit longer after that just to be sure no more nightmares would follow, before slipping out of the bed and padding down to Mustang’s kitchen, his shoulder and the new bruises twinging as he moved. He didn’t think he’d sleep as long as he had the first time, and if all he was gonna do was sit around and wait for him to wake then he might as well do something helpful.

He poked around for a few minutes and came up with a pitcher which he then filled with water and set aside in favor of scrounging up something to take back upstairs for Mustang to eat when he woke up again. He’d been out for most of the night and a good portion of the morning so he was sure to be half-starved when he finally came to.It was nice to feel useful again. The missions were fine and provided Ed with at least a temporary goal to focus on, but he’d never quite managed to find purpose in the years since his return from the other side of the Gate. He’d spent most of his life chasing lofty goals; bringing mom back, getting Al’s body back, getting home. Now, he wasn’t pushing for anything. Al was completely recovered and had taken up a research grant in Xing, strong and capable and finally living the life they’d fought so hard to win back for him, but Ed had stayed behind. The military, at least, gave him purpose, even if only for a little while. Even if the missions got worse and worse every time because he was an adult and he was capable, and Mustang couldn’t shield him from the worst anymore. There was always another asshole piecing together chimeras. There was always another asshole trying to alchemize an army. There was always another asshole cutting up kids or blowing up passenger trains or murdering families, and he would always be there to take them down, because he couldn’t do anything else. He didn’t know how to do anything but fight.

Coming home was always a different kind of fight. He was useless again from the moment he stepped on the train. The days, sometimes the weeks, in between assignments stretched out into an uninterrupted haze of endless repetition interposed now and then with a beacon in the form of a letter from Al or a call from Winry. At least now, helping Mustang served as a worthy distraction from the inevitable downward slide. 

Ed managed to find a can of chicken soup buried deep in the back of Roy’s pantry and retrieved it somewhat triumphantly. The subsequent struggle between his metal fingers and the slippery fucking knob on the can opener resulted in the thing being pitched across the room and the can being alchemized open somewhat more furiously than necessary.

He dumped the soup into a bowl and swiped a piece of chalk off of the little chalk board that hung next to the door (and filed away the information that Roy Mustang made grocery lists on chalkboards in his kitchen, honestly,) and sketched out a heating array on the wooden tray he’d found tucked away in a cabinet. The bowl of soup went on the array and the pitcher of water went on the opposite corner of the tray for balance and Ed crept upstairs with it as quietly as he could manage. 

Mustang was still sleeping peacefully when Ed edged into the bedroom. He set the tray down carefully on the nightstand and, for a moment, just stood and watched. It wasn’t fair that the bastard managed to be fucking attractive even with sick-sweaty, messy hair plastered to his face and those deep, dark circles under his eyes. It had taken Ed a long time after his trip back through the Gate to reconcile the fact that he found Roy Fucking Mustang attractive. On those rare occasions he was completely honest with himself, he had found the bastard attractive a long time before that and maybe his fixation on him during his years on Earth had been less about concern and more about actual pining. Not that it mattered. Not that he ever intended to act on what was probably just a hang-over from a stupid teenage crush. Mustang was still his CO, still a fucking bastard, and even if laying next to him and feeling the warmth of his skin radiating through his clothes did weird shit to his chest, even if his heart had nearly leapt out of his throat when Mustang’s fingers locked around his metal wrist and he’d asked him to stay, it didn’t matter.

He retrieved the book he’d been reading from the opposite side of the bed and settled back in, resting his flesh leg against Mustang’s side as he propped himself back up against the headboard and willed away yet another wave of the exhaustion he’d been fighting since he’d gotten off the train. 

Mustang stirred again a few hours later. Ed set the book aside just as he was cracking his eye open and peering up at him. “You’re still here.”

As if he’d be anywhere else. “Yeah, well, had to make sure you weren’t gonna kick off. Takes too long to break in a new CO and I just don’t have the time. How’re you feeling?”

Mustang took a moment and seemed to assess himself before nodding once. “Much better. I think the worst of it has passed. How long was I asleep?”

“Not counting the little intermission, you’ve been out for about sixteen hours.” Ed gestured to the steaming soup on the nightstand. “I figured you’d be hungry when you woke up.”

Mustang was still a little shaky as he hauled himself up into a sitting position. “Thank you,” he said earnestly. “For the soup, and for bringing me back here.”

“’S no problem.” Ed’s shrug sent a ripple through his body and, in turn, through Mustang’s. “I figure you’d’ve done the same for me. Besides, I’ve slept on that sofa before. It’s not the best place to recuperate.”

“Is that an admission of dereliction of duty, Fullmetal?”

Ed rolled his eyes. “Jeez, even half-dead you can still find time to hound me. They ought to promote you.”

“Can I have that in writing?” 

“Why, so you can bitch about my handwriting?”

“So that I can take great exception to your handwriting with the magisterial grace befitting my rank, thank you. ”

Ed rolled his eyes again. “You’re such a fuckin’ nerd. You must be feeling better if you’re throwing around that kind of vocabulary.”

“I am,” Roy agreed, reaching for the tray and carefully balancing it on his lap. He scooted the bowl aside and took a moment to study the array before speaking again. “The rest did me quite a bit of good. It looks to me like you could benefit from a bit of rest yourself, Fullmetal. When was the last time you slept?”

“’M fine.” Ed had stayed up longer for worse causes. “Got a few hours before I finished up my assignment and then hopped on the first train back.”

Mustang looked like he was doing some serious mental math as he tried to figure out exactly how long Ed had gone without sleeping and the answer seemed to horrify him. “Why don’t you go home? You’ve done more than enough for me. I’ll be fine on my own.”

“I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you’re okay. I had to carry you up here, do you remember that? You’re not just magically fine after bein’ so sick you gotta be carried up a flight of steps.” The idea of going back to the barracks, even for the sleep he so desperately needed, was furiously off-putting. He’d be alone again, purposeless again, and he had to see for himself that Mustang was better. “I can do more good here than I can do in the dorms, at least until you’re back at one hundred percent.”

“I assure you, I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.” He swallowed down a few spoonfuls of soup as if to make his point.

“Is that why you were gonna ride out your migraine on the sofa in your office?” Ed snorted inelegantly. “Yeah, seems like you’re real capable.”

“You look like you’re going to collapse.”

“You look like you’re gonna end up with a face full of soup if you don’t stop tryin’ to argue me back to my bunk.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Why not? You need a shower anyway after all that fevered sweating you’ve been doing. Y’know, because you’re fuckin’ sick?” 

Mustang stared at him for a hard second before finishing off the last of the soup and setting the tray and the empty bowl back on the night stand. “I’m not sick anymore, and now you’ve got nothing to throw.”

Bastard. “Yeah, well, you still need a shower,” Ed huffed.

“If I can manage a shower on my own, will you concede that I am recovered enough to be left alone and get some rest?”

Mustang just wasn’t going to leave this alone, was he? 

“I’ll think about it.”Mustang heaved a sigh and began to work himself out of bed. He was very obviously unsteady on his feet and Ed almost snapped himself up to help steady him, but he managed to regain his composure and walked easily to the dresser and then into the adjoining bathroom, casting Ed one final hard look before shutting the door firmly.

Ed scowled at it and reached for the book again.

Most of Roy’s unsteadiness had come from laying down for so long, and he managed the shower without much trouble. He dallied in the bathroom for a little bit longer than was strictly necessary in the hopes that when he emerged, Ed would have fallen asleep.

Of course, Ed was still very much awake when Roy emerged from the bathroom. He’d thrown the sheet off of the lamp and the curtains were open, and in the new light Roy could see just how run down he looked. His hair was loose and flying everywhere, either fallen from the braid or freed from it by Ed’s own hand, and there were dark purple smears under each of his eyes, so severe that for a moment, Roy wondered if he was actually just nursing two black eyes in the aftermath of his assignment. He looked pale and drawn, and Roy thought he could detect a slight tremor in his flesh hand when he moved to turn the page of the book he was still reading. By his calculations, Ed had been awake for a little over two days. By all rights, he should’ve succumbed to the pull of sleep by now and that he hadn’t was troubling.

It was troubling, too, that despite his haggard appearance, Edward was still the most beautiful thing Roy had ever seen. It wasn’t news to him that the years had been kind to Ed; he still had one good, working eye after all, and a very vivid imagination. That imagination had plagued his sleep, mercifully free of nightmares the second time, with unending flashes of gold and silver and the echoes of soft caresses against his face that he was certain he hadn’t dreamed up the first time around. He’d seen those flashes in his dreams in the north, too, except in those dreams Edward had been dying over and over again and Roy could only scream and reach out for him as he fell.

“Are you satisfied that I’m no longer in danger of kicking off?”

Ed’s head jerked up from the book as if he had only just then realized that Roy was there. He gave him an appraising once-over and shrugged. “I dunno, I’m not a fucking doctor.”

“And thank heavens for that. Your bedside manner could use quite a bit of work.” Roy moved the tray from its precarious perch on the nightstand to the dresser before settling on the edge of the bed, angling himself towards Ed. “You need to get some rest, Edward.”

Ed let his head fall back against the headboard with an audible thud, sending a cascade of gold over his shoulders. “Fuckin’ told you, I’m fine and I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re gonna be okay.”

“Then rest here, I don’t care, just as long as you do. You look terrible. You can’t keep burning the candle at both ends just because you’re worried for me. I’m much better now, you don’t need to keep vigil.”

“You seem fine now but what happens if the migraine comes back?”

“Then I will deal with it the way that I always deal with it. This is hardly a new hell for me. I’ve been dealing with these headaches for years. The doctors assure me they are harmless, that they’re just an unfortunate side-effect of being shot in the head.” His eye caught the strap of the eye patch poking through a tangle of sheets and he reached out for it. “One of the side-effects, anyway. I appreciate your concern, and I am eternally grateful for everything you’ve done to help me, but I’m not in any danger and wouldn’t be even if the headache were to recur.” He went to slip the patch back over his head but Ed leaned over and his hand shot out lightning fast, faster than he had any business being after being awake for so long, and stopped him.

“You don’t have to do that. This is your house, for fuck’s sake. You shouldn’t have to wear that thing here. Is it even comfortable?” He reached with his free hand, the automail, and plucked the patch out of Roy’s fingers. “Besides, it’s not like you’re not fuckin’ gorgeous, even without the damn thing.”Ed’s mouth snapped shut and his face flushed a deep and fetching shade of red as soon as he realized what he’d said. “I… I mean—“

“Edward,” Roy murmured through the shock, twisting his wrist under Ed’s hand and catching it to lace their fingers together. “If either of us is worthy of the word, it would certainly be you.”

Roy wasn’t sure which of them moved first, but suddenly they were kissing, Ed’s mouth hot against his own. The angle was terrible, with Roy’s hips twisted sideways and Ed stretched halfway across the mattress, but it was transcendent. 

Roy reached out and caught Ed around the waist, hauling him closer and finally, finally maneuvering him into a position that allowed him to curl a hand around the back of Ed’s head, fingers buried in soft gold, and tilt him down to fit their mouths together more completely. Ed hummed in approval and scraped his teeth across Roy’s bottom lip and soothed it with his tongue, and Roy was lost. He nipped at Ed’s lip in return and licked his way into his mouth, tasting and learning every little dip and the curve of his teeth and the shape of his jaw. It was perfect, bombastic, electric, everything that he’d never dared to dream of or think of wanting in fear of what denial would cost him. 

He let go of Ed’s hand and drew him even closer until Ed was nearly on his lap. Just the weight of him, heavier than he looked because of the automail but warm and solid and Ed, was enough to work Roy into a frenzy. He trailed his hand down the curve of Ed’s spine and brushed the pads of his fingers lightly against the skin of his lower back just under the hem of his shirt. Ed gasped and broke out of the kiss, panting, and Roy took the opportunity to trail kisses down the length of his throat, tasting his skin.

“Fuck,” Ed hissed, letting his head fall back as Roy laved his tongue over the place where Ed’s neck and shoulder met. “Shit. I knew you’d be like this. Knew you would.”

“Like what?” Roy murmured, ghosting warm breath over the damp spots he’d left on Ed’s throat. 

“Good. Intense.”

“You’ve been thinking about this.” Roy scraped his teeth lightly over Ed’s pulse and soothed it with his tongue before he straightened to meet Ed’s golden eyes.

“Yeah,” Ed breathed, flushing red again. “For… for a long time.”

“So have I,” Roy confessed. He leaned in and kissed him softly, still hardly daring to believe he would be allowed.

“You never said anything, you bastard,” Ed complained against his lips.

Roy trailed kisses up Ed’s cheek before pressing his lips lightly to each of the dark circles under Ed’s eyes in turn. “You’re my subordinate. You’re young. You’re whole.” That drew an inelegant snort from Ed but Roy barreled on. “I never had any right to ask this of you.”

Ed’s fingers curled in his shirt and hauled him down until Ed was flat on his back and Roy was pressing down on top of him. “Ask me now. Anything you want.”

Roy seized his chance, slotting his legs on either side of Ed’s hips and rocking against the hardness he found there. He swallowed down Ed’s gasp with another warm kiss. “I want you, Edward.”

“Fuckin’ have me, then.”

Roy didn’t need further invitation. He captured Ed’s lips again, kissing him deeply as he allowed his hands to roam over the expanse of Ed’s chest and sides. His fingers quickly found the hem of Ed’s shirt and, without bothering with the buttons, he broke the kiss to lift it off over his head. Ed’s tan chest was marked with a combination of old scars and nicks, and fresh cuts and bruises, no doubt from his latest assignment, and the automail port was ringed with thick, jagged tissue but he was nothing but beautiful in Roy’s eyes. He inhaled sharply and bent to press kisses against the place where Ed’s automail joined his arm, memorizing the topography of the scars under his lips. 

Ed’s resulting mewl almost sent Roy over the edge then and there and it took everything he had to regain his composure. “Ed,” he breathed, mouthing gently over a new bruise. “You are radiance personified. After all I have ever done in my miserable life, I’ve never done anything nearly good enough to deserve this.”

“Shut the fuck up, you sap,” Ed said, curling his flesh fingers in Roy’s hair and tugging on it gently. “Take your shirt off.”

Roy laughed at Ed’s forwardness but, honestly, expected nothing less. He kissed Ed’s chest again before rising up off of him to quickly shrug off his shirt. He leaned back down, hissing quietly when flesh made contact with flesh. The edge of the automail was cold where it touched him, but it was nothing compared to the heated flush of his skin. 

He trailed hot, open-mouthed kisses over the curve of Ed’s throat as he began to work at the fly of his trousers, sucking gently over his pulse as he flicked the button open and began pushing the offending garment and the underwear beneath them out of his way. Ed whimpered and shifted his hips beneath Roy’s hands, complicating the removal of his trousers and nearly landing a kick with the automail foot against the side of Roy’s head in the process.

“Mustang, Roy, shit,” Ed hissed when Roy’s fingers finally made contact with his heated erection. He could feel him trembling under his hand and, if he was even half as keyed up as Roy was, this was sure to be brief. 

Roy quickly shed the rest of his own clothing and didn’t bother muffling his moans when he pressed his cock against Ed’s and wrapped his fingers around them both. “Is this all right?” It was messy and inelegant and Roy could do so much better but he was cognizant of both Ed’s state of exhaustion and his own state of urgent need and he couldn’t begin to entertain the idea of anything more involved. 

He allowed himself, for just a brief moment, to entertain the idea that he would be allowed to do this again, and properly.

Ed’s only answer was a furious roll of his hips that sent both of them crying out in incoherency, and Roy took that as a resounding ‘yes.’ He leaned up to catch Ed’s lips again, swallowing down all of Ed’s soft little whimpers and cries as they settled into a breathless rhythm. 

The heated slide of Ed’s flesh against his own was better than he’d ever allowed himself to dream of, and it didn’t take long at all for him to reach his peak. Ed seemed to be in a similar state, if his desperate gasps and the way his head thrashed back and forth on the sheets, sending splays of golden strands shifting over the linen, was anything to go by. 

With his free hand, Roy grabbed Ed’s chin and stilled him. “Edward,” he gasped. “Ed, look at me.”

Ed seemed to struggle with the request but finally managed to pry his eyes open. They were blown wide, black pupils just barely ringed by gold. His face was red, his hair in complete disarray, and he looked completely and utterly debauched. 

Roy tipped over the edge with a cry, the cadence of his hips losing their rhythm, and vaguely he heard Ed’s muffled swear as he followed close behind. He collapsed just off to Ed’s side, breathing hard, and as soon as the white cleared from his vision he looked over to Ed, who was a vision on his own. His flesh arm was thrown over his eyes, lengthening and tightening his body into a collection of fine and elegant lines, and just a hint of the flush on his cheeks was visible from the cover his arm provided. He was breathing hard, little breaths catching in his throat as he struggled to regain the air. He was absolutely beautiful, and Roy couldn’t resist leaning over to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

Ed shifted his arm and cracked an eye open. “Fuck,” he said emphatically.

“Quite,” Roy agreed, smiling. He brushed another kiss to the corner of Ed’s mouth before willing his watery muscles into submission and rolling to retrieve his shirt where it had been tossed on the bed. He cleaned Ed’s stomach gently before turning his attention to himself, and then threw the shirt in the vague direction of the laundry hamper. 

“Thanks,” Ed murmured, letting his arm fall off of his face and turning to regard Roy with something like uncertainty. “So, um, d’you still want me to… go?”

Roy reached out and curled his arms around Ed, dragging him close and burying his face in his mussed hair. “I didn’t want you to go. I wanted you to sleep.”

Ed pressed his face into the curve of Roy’s neck and he swore he could feel his heart stopping. “”Mh gonna sleep, don’t worry. Just wanna make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine, Edward,” Roy murmured, stroking a light hand down Ed’s spine. “How could I be anything but, with you in my arms?”

“F’kin sap,” Ed mumbled, nuzzling closer. “Makes me sick.”

“If you’re sick, then I suppose it’s my turn to take care of you.”

“Mmh, you can try, bastard.” 

Roy smiled into Ed’s hair, tightening his arms around him and pulling him impossibly closer. “Go to sleep, Ed. If I need you, you’ll be right here.”

“You always need me.” Ed nosed at Roy’s neck and blew out a long breath, and, god, if it wasn’t absolutely true. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m sure.”

Ed muttered a vague response and Roy drew the blanket up over them. Within a few minutes, Ed was out like a light, breathing evenly against Roy’s shoulder.