Warning: Contains mentions of male/male sex.
Sometimes Roy is willing to admit things have gone way beyond simply wanting Ed. Sometimes, he can admit that it's a matter of needing, craving the feel of him beneath his fingers, heated flesh and cool steel, the warmth of his body beside him in bed, the sound of his breathing slowly easing from ragged gasps to the soft, even rhythm of sleep. For all his complaints about paperwork, not all the papers that crosses his desk are requisitions forms to be filed in triplicate, and other such bureaucratic nonsense. Sometimes they're vital orders, hard decisions and reports on events so terrible they'd make the most optimistic of men hang his head in despair and cry.
Once, this would have been cause to reach for the bottle and the temporary oblivion that vast quantities of alcohol could bring. Now he reaches for Ed, instead.
Part of him is disturbed by how quickly the boy has become such an integral part of his life, by how he's come to mean so much in such a short time. He's not used to letting someone so close, and a wary part of him is thinking just how bad it would be for Ed to know everything about him, or even enough for his agile mind to guess at other things. He still keeps secrets, and so does Ed, a careful barrier of not-quite-ready-for-this between them. And it doesn't seem to make any difference when he comes home after a long day, tired and frustrated, or when he wakes in the middle of the night, old nightmares mixing with new ones, and Ed is there.
And he hates the worrying. Worrying if people will find out, if Ed will come back from the next mission alive and uninjured. Worrying if it will last, if he means as much to Ed as Ed does to him. Especially as when Roy's hands and mouth move so desperately over Ed, the blond is usually snarling and growling and muttering things like "bastard" and "pervert" even as he presses closer. Some part of Roy wonders if Ed is right, if he is a pervert to want someone so much younger than him so badly.
But sometimes it will be Ed who comes home late at night and wakes Roy. Back from another mission, with hunger and despair written on his face. Ed is the one to do the touching, to make desperate demands for more; more contact, more unspoken reassurance that he's not alone. And Roy wants to ask, "What's wrong? What happened?" but he waits. Because tomorrow Ed will be in the office to give his report, and as usual, Roy will have to drag each word and detail out of him, and it will be life as normal, neither of them giving a hint that there's anything to their relationship but superior officer and unruly subordinate.
And for now it's enough to hold him, touch him back and bask in the warmth that comes from knowing sometimes, Ed needs him, too.