Ed lay awake for the fourth night in a row and felt the tiredness sink into his bones. Al and Winry were moving around downstairs, getting ready for bed and talking in low murmurs that vibrated up through the floor in a soft thrum – and Ed didn't have to fight the teeth-gritting urge to press his face into the mattress, to pull the pillow over his head to try and drown out their peace with the sound of his own scathing pulse.
He'd been so caught up in – his own failure, his own impotence, that he hadn't been able to appreciate that they'd achieved everything they'd set out to do; all I ever wanted. Every time he'd jerked awake not-screaming in the night it had reminded him that he was selfish, irredeemable, broken, and every time Al had screamed himself up from the nightmares Ed had barely heard it for the accusation, the silent, inescapable you did this to me. And the guilt had wound tighter, squeezed so tense inside him that sometimes he couldn't breathe, and – he hadn't known what to do. What could he do, when he was suffocating himself and all he wanted to do was escape his own body and all he could do was not?
Did you think we'd stop being your friends simply because you left the military, Ed?
Well, he could have gone to his friends, could have – said something, asked something, begged something, if only it would ease the pressure building up behind his skin like a scream. Except he couldn't have, could he, because he hadn't known they'd been friends in the first place.
They'd come back to Central and – of course Ed had thought about the office, everyone, and he'd known that Al had as well, but. But. Al didn't insist on contacting them, on going to see them at all, had just looked at Ed ("What did he do?") and silently gave over the decision over to him – who hadn't been able to meet his little brother's eyes and hadn't said a word, had let almost a whole year slip by while his insides broke apart and his heart scraped over the pieces.
It was just – he'd been a kid. A stupid, reckless, arrogant kid, and he'd despised his own company; it only made sense that the rest of them would be relieved to be rid of him. And he'd been so afraid – that he might be right, yes, but he'd been even more afraid that he'd be wrong, that maybe they'd cared for him and still cared for him and would take one look at him now and say, Oh. Is that it?
Turns out he hadn't changed all that much (at all); he was still stupid.
Because with that first startled look, Mustang had reminded him, and made him forget. The man had known all of Ed's worst sins before they'd even truly met – and had accepted them like they were just another part of Ed, as insignificant and as important as the sound of his voice.
Ed sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side. Exhaustion still dragged at his bones and his joints still ached like he'd been old for years already, but – he could feel the edge of cold on the air as it brushed against his arms, could feel the hard chill of the floor under both his feet, could feel the beat of his heart steadily constant inside his ribs. He was alive.
---
("'m – breathin'. Bastard."
"Do you want me to stop?"
"No."
"Then you need to relax, Ed. Breathe. Trust me, Ed. Breathe..."
Ed gulped in air, exhaled jaggedly out through his nose, gulped in some more, was surrounded by skin and heat and Roy and finally found his breath, let himself be smothered.)
---
Mustang opened his door and – blinked.
"Ed?"
"Yeah." Ed curled his hands tight in the pockets of his coat and couldn't quite help ducking his head, feeling the heat of his pulse slowly beat outwards into his skin. "C'n I come in?"
"I – yes, of course." Mustang took a step back, opened the door wider in invitation. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah." Ed said again, stepping just far enough inside for the door to shut behind him and turning to face Mustang in the narrow hallway. He'd exchanged his work clothes (a dark blue suit that had brought out the glint in his eye and made it all the more unfathomable for having a colour) for a pair of loose drawstring pants and a well-worn white t-shirt that followed the lean line of his body in a way completely unlike the suit but no less captivating. The eyepatch was a stark shadow on the right side of his face – and maybe Ed could have talked himself out of this, before, but he was struck by the sudden desire to take it off, to run his lips over the ruined skin and feel Roy's breath shudder against his throat.
"Ed-?"
Two quick strides and he was in front of Mustang,
"Ed –"
standing so close he could feel the heat of his body, feel the shift of air as he breathed.
"I'm sorry." Ed said, heart stopped broken and bright with blood in his throat, and kissed him.
(Simple touch of lips on lips and Ed's breath was gone, lost into Mustang's startled-sharp inhalation and lost into Mustang's mouth and lost into oh god Mustang's body, but he didn't care, it didn't matter, because there was the simple touch of lips on lips and as much as he'd tried not to imagine – Mustang – he'd never not-dreamed this, the simple touch of lips on lips and his whole being lost to the awareness of Roy and, god, the pulse-thumping intimacy of it, being so close he could smell and taste and, fuck, feel him, simple touch of lips on lips and simple closing of his eyes and simple surrender of all of him, everything.)
It was over in an eternity of three seconds that passed in less than a blink and he broke back with not-a-gasp, stared up at Mustang from too-close not-close-enough and felt raw like his whole body was new.
"Mustang –" He gasped, meaning to say – something, anything, I'm sorry or please don't hate me or I know I shouldn't but oh god I was going to die and I think I love you, but –
Mustang was kissing him. Mustang was kissing him, sliding a hand into his hair and fanning a hand out over the small of his back and kissing him, closing his mouth over his and coaxing his lips apart and oh god licking inside his mouth.
It was everything and nothing like the first kiss. That had been – quick, chaste, devastating, and this was. Anything but quick; this went on and on and on until Ed couldn't remember having ever done anything else, couldn't remember not arching up into Mustang's body or not – oh – moaning into Roy's mouth at the feel of Roy's pleasure rumbling in his chest like a slow roll of thunder. This reached all the way inside him, stroked down his throat and over his heart and into his guts until it was anything but chaste, until there wasn't a single part of his body that wasn't throbbing with the desperate ache of his heart(beat). This – if the first had been devastating then the second destroyed him; it sunk to the core of him and burst outward like a star exploding, seared him to stark, blinding white-nothing before he was rebuilt under Roy's hands, Roy's mouth, Roy.
And then Roy was pulling back and it was somehow more, standing close enough to feel the heat from Roy's skin and Roy's dark eye on his like he could see inside him.
"Ed." Roy said, and stopped. His fingers threaded just lightly through Ed's hair, traced over the curve of an ear, and Ed thought he should say something about not being delicate and not breaking, but the words wouldn't come and he didn't want Mustang to stop, anyway.
Because no one had ever touched him like that, like maybe he could but was worth not breaking, like maybe Mustang just wanted to touch him – and even through the years and the sick-hot nights and the heavy, aching want, Ed had never thought even once that maybe Mustang (could) might want him, too.
And Mustang asked, soft like a touch in the silence, "Ed?" and Ed realised he was trembling, was feeling his own tremors pass back into him where he shook against Roy.
He opened his mouth to reply, to say something – and choked on the gasp of his own breath.
He was standing eye to eye, chest to chest, hip to hip with Mustang, the man's taste still lingered on his lips and in his mouth and slid deeper whenever he swallowed, he hadn't slept in nearly four days – and he'd wanted this so much and so damn long that he just couldn't stop the laugh surging up and out of him, like drowning.
Mustang didn't say anything. He held Ed, one hand running up and down his spine and the other cupped around the base of his skull (like he could hold him together like that), and let Ed twist his hands into fists in his shirt, sob laughter into his neck.
And Ed let himself cling, let himself be held, let all the fear and the anger and the tightly knotted self-hatred spill out of him and finally, finally, shudder away from his skin.
"Alright?" Mustang murmured, right next to his ear, and Ed leaned on him, nodded against his shoulder.
"Sorry." He whispered, feeling young, and stupid, and young. Mustang made a sound in the back of his throat that might have been a sigh, might have been a laugh, and he tipped his head against Ed's, pressed his lips to Ed's temple – and just rested there, a moment.
"Tired?"
"Yeah." And he was; the sleep that had eluded him for the last small forever was too close, now, seeped into the core of him and weighting his blood with sandbags.
"Does Alphonse know where you are?"
Mustang smelled like whiskey and flint and the dusky warmth of his skin. "Mm."
"Ed?" Ed couldn't quite stop himself from rubbing his forehead against Mustang's shoulder (didn't try) just to feel the bone, skin, muscle hidden beneath his shirt.
"Prob'ly knew b'fore I did, the little shit. Gave me a look."
"Did he?" Mustang asked, and Ed summoned enough energy to poke him in the ribs. He took a certain tired satisfaction from the startled jerk of Mustang's body, and a certain other satisfaction from the feel of the startled jerk of Mustang's body against his own.
"'s not funny."
"After being confronted by and surviving a righteously vengeful Alphonse, I think I have earned the right to be amused if I wish, thank you very much."
"Y' talk all formal when y're tired." Ed mumbled. "An' I already said I w's sorry f' that."
A sigh, though it wasn't one of any of the usual sighs Ed recognised from Mustang; it sounded like the ache from Ed's chest. "It wasn't an accusation, Ed. You have nothing to be sorry for." Ed would have snarled at the man for the blatant lie (he'd seen bad shit when he was a kid and he'd seen worse shit when he was older and he didn't need or want anyone to feed him bullshit like it's alright,least of all Mustang –), but he was just tired, exhausted right to his bones, and... maybe Roy made it sound almost true, somehow. And maybe in just that moment, Ed could let himself believe, a little, that it was.
The hands on him shifted, then, from holding him to urging him to move, and Mustang's voice came, low and smooth and everywhere; "Come on, you can't go to sleep there, Ed."
"S'comfy."
"Ed."
"M'st'ng."
Another sigh, this one familiarly, dryly amused. "You can call me Roy, you know. I should think we've known each other long enough, discounting your penchant for late night phone calls and erotically charged surprise visits, of course."
There was a silence while Ed pried the words apart from one another and then sifted through them to find the point.
"Roy, th'n." He said finally, and then, "Roy." again, because he liked the way it felt in his mouth, on his tongue, slipping out between his lips.
"Alright, let's get you to bed." Mustang – Roy – said after a pause, a momentary absence of movement and breath and pulse that Ed felt. "I'll make up the couch and we can discuss this in the morning, when we can both think with a modicum of sense."
"M'dic'm." Ed murmured. "We c'd share."
"I." M-Roy inhaled very carefully – and then exhaled, very carefully; his chest rose and fell against Ed's and his shiver rose goosebumps on Ed's skin. "I don't think that would be a good idea, Ed. We're both tired and – neither of us should be making irrevocable decisions after four days of little to no sleep."
"Three'n a h'f."
"If you're too tired to use full words, Ed, you should be too tired to be pedantic."
"Sh'ws w' you know."
"I suppose it does." Ed could hear the smile in Roy's voice; he smiled tiredly back even though Roy couldn't see it, followed the silent instructions of Roy's hands without opening his eyes. "Here," MustangRoy said, lowering him down onto something soft with a light pressure on his shoulders. The touch lingered for a moment after he sat, after he lay down, after his awareness started to slip away from everything else. "Sleep well, Ed."
"Nm."
And (finally), he slept.
---
"-ou awake?"
"Mm."
"Ed?"
"Uhn."
"I have to go to work, Ed, but we can talk tonight."
"Nn."
Ghost of an amused breath, of a touch. "Help yourself to breakfast, Ed. I'll call you later."
"Rn."
---
Ed spent the day – doing something, probably, though he couldn't remember what that something might have been. He'd woken to the bright cut of midday light across his face and stumbled halfway into the kitchen after the faint scent of coffee before he realised – he'd woken up on MustangRoy's couch to the bright cut of midday light from Roy's windows across his face which Roy had kissed last night andoh fuck –
He must have made his way home at some point because he remembered slinking past Winry on his way up the stairs, and he must have managed to co-ordinate himself into a shower because he couldn't forget remembering (as the water sluiced down his body and his hand slid inexorably down with it) Roy's tongue in his mouth and accidentally biting into the flesh of his palm as he came.
And at some point the phone must have rung and he must have picked it up, because the first memory he had of the day that wasn't seeped in distraction like a dream was the press of evening-chilled bakelite against his ear (the one Mus- Roy had touched, the one that still felt shivering-hot at the memory) and Roy's voice, smooth-deep and stroking all the way through him.
"Ed."
---
("Ed – fuck –"
"H-ah– Roy –")
---
Ed shuffled past Roy into the hallway (and fisted his hands very carefully not-touching-Mustang in his pockets and god he hoped twice didn't make it a habit), felt the draw of the man's body like the glintof (ha) aflame in the middle of a frozen nowhere.
"Coffee?"
Roy's carpet was mottled granite-grey, like a sidewalk torn up in the rain.
"Yeah."
Ed sat on the couch (the one he'd slept on, the one he'd dreamed on, the one he'd woken up on this morning surrounded by the scent of Roy –) while Roy went to the kitchen and made coffee, poured it, sugared one with a(n anal) pattern of three spoon-on-cup clicks, and he sat on the couch while Roy brought them in, while Roy handed him his, while Roy sat in the armchair too close too far from him across the coffee table.
And the silence thickened between them (like blood, like chimera shit, like alchemy) – but Ed had spent too long running away from (hating himself for) this already. And he'dgiven up any attempt at dignity when he'd turned up half-lost to exhaustion and kissed the man, anyway.
Ed grit his teeth against the pull of his own cowardice, forced his gaze up away from coffee not quite the right shade of dark.
"D'you want –" (Roy's lips on his like breathing and Roy'sbreath on his like laughing and) his breath caught in his throat "– this?"
And Roy said, "This?" with blank eyes and lips slightly parted in incomprehension, and – and Ed's hands tightened to white on his cup. (Not moon-bright white like something impossible but sick green-white like the start of an infection.) Because, fuck, he still didn't know any better than he had a day, a week, a decade ago, did he? He was still just a stupid, desperate kid, and he was still chasing after something that he barely understood and didn't even really know existed.
Stupid.
"I barge into your house in the middle of the night and kiss you an' you're gonna pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about?" He hated the bastard, he hated him and the words felt like glass ripping up through his throat. "If you don't want – just say, don't. Don't play games with me, don't pretend like I didn't –" didn't kiss you, didn't come here and offer you everything, didn't think you might want it.
Silence, crushing like the press of cold metal, and then:
"Ed, I would never –" Roy's eye was matte black and his face had gone bone-white but he stared straight into Ed's eyes with a fierceness that pierced them both right through, and Ed felt sick and shredded and couldn't move. "I would never play games with you. Not with this."
"... This." Ed repeated, so quietly it was barely a sound, and it burned sour like bile at the back of his throat. This: Ed's heart dumped messily between them and slowly staining the carpet. This: the air crackling between their eyes and their bodies and their mutual memories. This: Ed defensive and terrified and hurting Roy with the same oblivious ease that he always managed to hurt the people he loved.
"Yes." Roy said, almost softly, watching Ed. "Whatever you and I are: this. I have no intention of pretending it away, Ed, but. I need to know that you know what you're talking about, because even if it's just sex, it's not something either of us can take back. And..." his eye still didn't leave Ed's but something changed in it, something... "It's not something I ever want to take back. If you recall, I did kiss you as well." Oh. Something.
Something like maybe how now Ed looked, he could see that the mess between them was too big to have been caused byjust one heart. Ed forgot to breathe.
"I." His voice was a cracked little whisper and it floated helplessly up on the silence. "I don't –" He'd lost his arm and his leg and his little brother, he'd been inside the Gate three times, he'd seen blood and alchemy and the worst things done by the worst people; this shouldn't feel like one of the most terrifying things he'd ever done. "I just – want. You."
A pause. When Roy's voice came, it was laden with all the things that had been suffocating Ed inside his own chest for two years; "Then I'm yours."
And the world opened up, stunning and new, beneath him.
---
(Roy's eye on him and Roy moving ohgod inside him and Roy, everywhere, everything he'd ever not-dared to want and – "Ah-!")
---
They kissed – and kissed, and kissed, standing in the middle of the room with their still-full coffee cups sitting forgotten on the coffee table not-between them. Ed didn't know whether this counted as just their third kiss or – or their more-than-third kiss, because technically they'd only been this close to each other (simple touch of lips on lips) three times, but it felt like they'd been doing it forever, like there'd never been anything else, and their mouths (tongues, teeth, saliva) kept parting and coming back together again (in a new kiss?). And even though that minute separation felt like miles, felt like years, felt like Ed's soul being pulled out of his body every time, he didn't want to stop doing that, either, because he was getting addicted to the sliding wet sounds they made pulling apart together and the tiny puff of Roy's breath on his lips.
"Ed." Roy spoke straight into him and Ed groaned, a near-pained rumblethathe hadn't even known he could make, and he couldn't help pressing closer, pulling closer, needing closer, because Roy said his name like he was – like he was amazing, not just fine or alright or good enough but actually amazing, like Ed was even more than he'd ever dared to want, too, ever dared to hope for –
And Ed's hands were in Roy's hair, and Roy's hands were on Ed's waist, and Ed felt like maybe he was. His pulse beat deep in his belly and throbbed outward into his skin, and his whole body felt seared with lightning, raced with energy like the building spark of an array. It crackled through him from Roy's mouth, Roy's hands, Roy's body wherever it pressed against his, and he felt like he'd been transmuted, like he could be anything if only Roy was touching him and oh god he never wanted it to stop –
It didn't. Not even when Roy drew back and stayed there, when he panted warmwet breath into Ed's warmwet breath and stilled the restless shifting of their bodies. The sensation stayed; the sparks of near-violent pleasure simply melted together, pooled thick into a molten wonder that thrummed out from the very centre of him.
"Ed." Roy said, hushed against him, lips brushing lips and – a question in just his eye, so close and so open to Ed's own. And, oh, Ed wanted –
"I –" He gasped through the stop of his own breath, feeling broken all the way through and amazing. "I've never –"
"I know." Roy murmured, stroking his thumb up... and down over the hard jut of Ed's hipbone through his pants, and oh god – "It's alright;" (Up again, and Ed barely heard the words, lost mesmerised in that touch and that voice and that eye.) "I fully intend to make up for lost time." And Roy bent down again, closed the vast inch of space between them, kissed him (again, again, oh yes, again).
---
("Roy –")
---
Maybe they should have stopped there, standing fully clothed in the loungeroom with their mouths locked together and their clothes still separating them, but – but. This was the first thing Ed had ever wanted just for himself, and he'd known he wanted it (this: Roy) for two years already. He hadn't known he'd wanted this for years before that, when he hadn't been allowed to want and hadn't been able to want and had woken from dreams of blood and black doors and Mustang with bile in his throat and an ache between his legs like a wound.
So they didn't stop; they swayed toward the stairs like they were dancing and they stumbled their way up like they were drunk and they fell into the wall, the bedroom, the bed like they were exactly what they were, like they were lost andaliveanddrawing breath through one another. And – god – how had Ed gone so long without doing this, without knowing...?
Roy's hands were impossibly soft (slipping up under Ed's shirt and – oh – touching, the tentative flutter of just fingertips like Ed was delicateandbreakable and amazing and then – then the stunning slide of whole palms, abraded to silk by the rough flint of Roy's gloves and easing up either side of Ed, searing his body between them) and Roy's skin was smooth, pale all over in a way that Ed couldn't quite (fathom)stop staring at, that made Ed think things like perfectimpossible and oh fuck.
They were essentially the same, organic and human, adult and male, head and chest and cock and legs, but Roy was – Ed felt like he'd never seen a man before. Roy's shoulders were slightly narrower than his and Roy's waist was slightly wider than his and Roy's body was just longer (taller. The fucker) than his, with long, preciselimbs and long, (oh) elegant fingers and long, sleek muscles hidden under his skin but no less strong. And Ed had never actually realised –
Naked, stretched out so close over him and edged in moonlight, Roy was flawless. Ed had known he'd wanted him, yes, had wanted him with a gut-deep ache that had felt like it was eating him from the inside, but he hadn't known to want this, the shadows rippling stark over Roy's skin and the twisting furrows of Roy's scars bared to (him) the harsh not-light and Roy, Mustang, Roy, like a creature of myth and snow and the night, like the most incredible thing Ed had ever seen.
"Yes." Ed said, and instantly felt stupid, because Roy hadn't spoken, hadn't asked him anything. He just couldn't help it; he'd never been that great at keeping his mouth shut even when he probably (definitely) should have, and he'd always been downright shit at it around Mustang – and Mustang (Roy) was looking at him, eye bright and dark and heavy like the night, and Ed's whole body pulsed with it: yes yes yes yes yesyesyes –
"Ed." Roy, Mustang, RoyRoyRoy said, so close Ed could taste it as it slid from his tongue. "Breathe."
---
("I." Ed whispered, his voice cracked to nothing and his heart still singing inside him. "I –")
---
Roy brushed his hair back after the first time (after Ed had come in Roy's mouth with Roy's fingers pressing sparks and lights up inside him), and kissed him, chaste and wet and bitter-tasting. "Okay?"
Ed panted, "Don't stop." and didn't care that none of the air was making it to his lungs.
---
("I know." Roy said into his skin. "I know, Ed, I know, always.")
---
Ed jerked awake from a dream about fire and meltingdrowning and scorch-dark books like doors and – oh.
The room was hidden by the thick blue of just-morning, but he could feel where he was sprawled half over another body (Roy), arm and leg and hips thrown over and holding down like a possession. His spine ached from the strange position and his skin itched at the slick slide of sweat where they were skin to skin (everywhere) and he was too hot, burning all over – and he settled carefully back into the curve and angle of Roy's body, pressed his eyes closed to the swell of Roy's ribs, slept.