Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Title: Adventures in Babysitting
Pairing: Hints of future RoyxEd, one-sided (?) MaesxRoy
Rating: PG13 (language)
Timeline: AU
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Roy Mustang has his work cut out for him when he takes a job babysitting the well-known and much-feared local hellions, otherwise known as the Elric brothers.
AN: My first nanowrimo offering (My goal is 50,000 words of fanfiction). Only 46,600 more words to go! (O_o;;)

Spell-checked only.

Adventures in Babysitting
Chapter 10

"Ed. I'm coming in."

Because he had fully expected to find the door locked, Roy was surprised when it turned easily in his grasp. Tightening his clutch on the box of tissues in his left hand, he opened the door and stepped into the bedroom, with only the dim light of a Voltron lamp to guide him.

He found Ed sitting on the floor by the edge of his bed, his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms wrapped firmly around them. His face was a snotty, tear-stained mess and his breathing was the broken and erratic hitching of a child struggling desperately to maintain some semblance of control over his emotions. And failing.

And in that instant, any grudge or ill-will that Roy had been determined to bear over his own hurt feelings vanished without a trace. His heart did not break so much as shatter at the sight of Ed and he offered an unspoken apology to the child for ever thinking that what he had done was of his own volition.

No, something else was wrong here. And he feared that he knew exactly what that something… or rather, someone might be.

Roy made his way across the room and took a seat on the floor beside him, keeping his dark eyes focused on Ed's, which in turn, were focused on his folded arms. He pulled a tissue from the box before setting it down beside him.

"Lift up your head," he said softly.

Keeping his eyes averted, Ed did as he was told. A fresh tear fell from his left eye and Roy dabbed at it gingerly before attending to the rest of his face, giving great care to dry it as best he could. As he had suspected- and hoped- might happen, Ed closed his eyes and let out a shuddering sigh, leaning forward ever so slightly against Roy's touch and gratefully accepting his silent forgiveness.

When he was done, Roy placed the now damp tissue beside him and grabbed another one. "Here," he said, holding it out to him. "Blow your nose."

Ed obediently grabbed the tissue and blew his nose. Roy handed him another one and waited patiently for him to finish. For no particular reason, he raised his hand to Ed's forehead and ran his fingers through the front of the boy's blond hair, letting them twirl around his ever-present cowlick. He then pulled his hand away and placed it back in his lap when he felt Ed's eyes finally fall upon him. Not that he thought Ed necessarily minded what he was doing, and certainly not that he minded doing it, but still…

"Done?" he asked.

Ed nodded and rolled the soggy tissues into a ball before placing them on the ground beside the first one. "Where's Al?" he whispered.

"He's asleep on the couch," Roy answered, touched that even now, in the midst of his own personal dilemma, Ed's first concern was still his little brother.

What he neglected to mention was that Al had literally bawled himself to sleep after Roy brought him downstairs, his angelic face contorted in fear and worry even in his slumber. But there was no point or purpose in mentioning such things. Surely the kid already had enough grief and guilt riding on his tiny shoulders.

"'Kay." Ed nodded again, visibly relieved at the news. He lowered his legs and crossed them, staring down at his wringing hands with a heavy frown. "… I… I… I didn't mean…"

"I know," Roy said. "I'm not mad at you."

He caught the faint yet distinct sound of a soft moan and knew Ed was trying his damnedest not to cry again. "Should be," he muttered.

"Why? Did you mean it?"

Roy thought that Ed's gasp of shock would have been adorably comical if not so horrified.

"No!" the eight-year-old emphatically insisted, appalled by the suggestion.

"Well, there you go," Roy concluded matter-of-factly. "Why would I be mad at you for something you didn't mean to say?" Of course he had been mad. After the hurt, he had been downright infuriated, so much so that it had taken him almost an hour after Al had finally fallen asleep to even bring himself to go to Ed's room.

But none of that seemed to matter anymore.

"Ed... what you said…" Roy took a deep breath and started again. "Did someone call you that?"

Ed's eyes quickly darted to the side and Roy suspected that he was not far off base. Maybe it hadn't been an outright accusation, but it was strong enough to drive him to tears, which was unforgivable enough.

It would have been too easy had it been some little bastard at his school. But then again, Roy believed that given all of the other names that they called him, that specific one was most likely on the lower rung of insults that would have affected him so deeply… at least when uttered by a bunch of kids.

So who else would be so bold- and cruel- as to question an eight-year-old's sexuality to his face?

Are you a faggot, Roy?

The same asshole who would question a sixteen-year-old's sexuality to his face, complete with accusations of child molestation as well.

"Did someone call me that?"

Ed's face crumbled under the weight of the truth and his eyes filled with tears again. "He said… he said… he said-!"

"Edward."

The sound of Roy's voice seemed to snap him out of it. He gazed up at him with wide, wet, wondering eyes and somewhere, in the darkest corner of his heart, Roy wanted to burn Hohenheim Elric alive.

"It's alright," he said, gently gripping Ed's left shoulder and urging him on with a nod of his head. "It's alright. Just start from the beginning."

Maes supposed that some guys would consider his present situation a gift from the heavens.

He, most certainly, did not.

He looked around at the roomful of girls, some of whom he'd been intimate with in one form or another, and glared at Riza.

"I'm like the only sausage at a taco party," he griped, polishing off his beer. "Am I the only guy you invited?"

Riza shrugged without empathy. "I'm not the one who did the inviting," she reminded him, glancing at the culprit-

"MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAES-SEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

Unsurprisingly inebriated, Sheska helped herself to his lap and planted a large, bright red kiss on his cheek.

"I love you, man. I reeeeeeally, reeeeeeally love you," she proclaimed, following up with a resounding belch.

"Careful she doesn't yark all over you," Maria warned.

"That's disgusting," Marta added.

"I notgonna puuuuke," Sheska promised, wavering unsteadily in Maes' lap.

"Maes?" Gracia asked, peering over Sheska's shoulder. "Do you want another beer?"

Before he could answer, he caught sight of Riza making faces at him and chucked his empty bottle at her.

"Watch it, asshole-!"

"No thanks, Gracia" he said with a polite smile, trying to ignore her lovelorn gaze.

"Awwwwwwww, you two look soooooo cute together," Sheska announced, pinching Maes' cheeks between hiccups.

"Yeeeeah, I gotta go now." He stood up abruptly and made only a half-hearted attempt to ease Sheska's unceremonious landing on the hard floor.

"OWWWWW my ass!"

"You haven't even tried to get us all naked yet," Maria said with clear disappointment in her voice.

Marta spoke up. "Who's getting naked?"

Right on cue, Sheska's bra whipped into the air and almost hit Maes in the face. How she managed to take it off so quickly without removing her shirt was an admirable feat, especially given her current level of coherency.

"Buck nekkid," she whispered to no one in particular.

"Right." He shook his head and grinned in spite of himself at Sheska's drunken theatrics. "Make sure she gets home in one piece," he said to Riza. "Now all of you are free to do whatever it is that you women do when guys aren't around. Hire a stripper or whatever the fuck..."

"You could always strip for us," Maria offered.

"Yeah, come on," Riza concurred with a smirk. "We could use a good laugh."

Sheska burst into a fit of laughter… although in her present state it was hard to tell if she was even laughing at Riza's comment or something in her own little drunken world. Either was plausible.

"You wish," Maes said, stepping over his shit-faced friend and heading for the door.

"Mm, no. Actually, I don't," Riza shot back.

Maes thought about offering her the finger but, knowing Riza's legendary snarkiness, he was certain that it would only invite a comparison to his penis. Which, of course, would be an under-exaggeration of obscene proportions. And so instead, he shook his head and bowed out gracefully, bidding them all a goodnight and ducking out of the door before Gracia could corner him. He hopped into his car and sped towards home, feeling anxious for reasons he could not begin to understand.

… well, no. He fully understood why he was anxious. It was all he ever felt anymore where Roy was concerned. Aside from horny, that was.

But what did it mean?

Maria was right. There was a time when Maes would not have spared a second thought to worming his way into the collective pants of a roomful of girls or simply stripping naked and let them run with the ball. Or balls, as it were. So what had changed?

… Do you love him?

Maes tried to think of something, anything else to divert the question from his mind. And what he came up with was:

Buck nekkid.

That Sheska… How had he not managed to have sex with her after all this time? Oh, that's right- he didn't sleep with his friends. Except for the one he'd already slept with…. And the one he currently wanted to sleep with. And besides, she really was more like a sister to him than anything else. A kind of hot-librarian-with-nice-tits type of sister, but a sister nevertheless.

He focused on the road ahead of him, wondering if her drunkenness had finally culminated into its usual climatic ending…

"I swear to God I'm never drinking again!" Sheska cried, leaning over the toilet.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Riza growled, holding her hair back. "Hurry up and puke already."

Diplomacy.

It was a word Roy had learned in Government class, one that he remembered rather well.

There were going to be situations in life which called for the utmost diplomacy-

"Your dad is a jackass."

- while others most certainly would not.

On some level, he wasn't surprised by the things that Hohenheim had said. Not at all. But that he would say such things to his own child…

Ed had been terribly embarrassed to recount his father's words and hadn't looked at him the entire time, choosing instead to keep his eyes on his feet and frantically pick at a loose thread on the bottom of his shirt, which had become more and more unraveled as he'd spoken. Now that he was done, Roy leaned over and covered his hand to stop him.

"Look at me."

Ed slowly raised his head and met his eyes. Roy let go of him and rested his elbows on his thighs. His heart ached to see such a normally proud, stubborn, and endearingly pissy face reduced to such fear and fragility, and he realized that he would take the old Ed- kicking, swearing, and all- over this broken spirit any day.

"Sometimes…" he started, carefully considering his words. "Sometimes people… they're afraid of things… of other people… who are different than them… and so, instead of trying to understand those differences, they… decide that they'll hate them. It's not really all that different from the kids who pick on you for having automail, when you think about it…. Right?"

He could almost see Ed's mind trying to piece it all together, wanting to believe…

"But… I don' wanna go to hell," he whispered, as if saying it any louder would somehow invoke the Devil himself.

Roy clenched his teeth and felt another surge of rage course through him. He could have cared less what was said about him, but to willfully cause Ed this sort of mental anguish by threatening jail and hellfire was beyond unacceptable. This was not something an eight-year-old child should even have to think about. Ever. To Roy, what Hohenheim had done was no different than any other type of child abuse and he wasn't about to let him get away with it.

But first…

"I don't either," Roy said, pushing his anger aside for the moment. "All I know, Ed, is that… there are things that we feel, things that we are, that are… just… a part of us. Like your hair or your eyes, they're just… things you're born with. And I don't think that any type of… God or… whatever you want to call it… would say that those things are bad. Even if people say that He says so. People say a lot of stupid shit sometimes."

"Besides," he continued, pulling out his ace-in-the-hole. "If any of that was really true, don't you think your mom would have told you so?"

Ed's eyes lit up with cautious hopefulness and Roy smiled in relief. Even though he didn't have one to speak of, he knew that a mother's word tended to be gospel in the ears of a child. And Trisha was about as close to perfection as a mother could get- Hohenheim couldn't begin to hold a candle to her.

"There is nothing wrong with you," Roy said, overcome with emotion that he could hardly even begin to fathom and blinking against the sudden stinging in his eyes. "Nothing at all. And if you ever start thinking that there is, I want you to come and tell me… so I can knock some sense into you."

For the first time since Hohenheim had warned him about his eternal damnation, Ed smiled. It truly was such a beautiful and lovely thing. Roy cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes with both hands. When he lowered them, he found a tissue waiting for him.

"You do that and I'll kick you right in the woo-woo," Ed promised him, climbing to his knees and wiping away the teen's eyes.

Roy chuckled as Ed tended to him. "You'd have to catch me first." He hissed sharply as an automail finger flicked against his earlobe. "Brat."

"Butthole."

"Whole butt."

Ed tossed the tissue aside and grinned happily. Roy climbed to his feet, purposely ruffling the boy's hair in the process. "Okay, come on," he said, extending his hand. "Let's go check on Al."

Roy felt the cool grasp of metal latch onto him as Ed pulled himself to his feet. And when that coolness was replaced with the warmth of the boy's real hand, he gripped it tightly and led him out of the room and down the stairs, both of them still very much unaware that this defining moment would be the first of many between them over the years to come...

Trisha Elric really was about as perfect as mothers came. But as it turned out, she was also equally as frightening.

"M-Mrs. Elric?" Roy didn't think there was another human being alive who could still manage to come across so sweet while emanating such indescribable fury.

They sat at the kitchen table discussing the events of the evening while Jean entertained Al in the living room. After he had woken up and Ed managed to convince him that everything was alright (a mother's word may have been gospel, but to Al, Ed's was pretty damn close), the three of them were able to salvage the little time they had remaining and camped out on the sofa watching television. But Ed had finally succumbed to the exhaustion wrought by his emotional crisis and went to bed without bathing, sleeping peacefully for the first night since Hohenheim had given his ridiculous sermon. Al, on the other hand, was relieved, rested, and wide awake; sleeping was the last thing on his mind.

"I'm so sorry that you got caught in the middle of our little family squabble," she said, sounding as polite as ever.

"Did I… say the right thing?" he asked.

"Yes, of course you did. I suppose I should have had this talk with Edward myself when I first realized it… but then again, it never occurred to me that my husband would take it upon himself to do what he did." She let out a small titter and took a sip of coffee. "Oh well. What's done is done."

"I-Is there anything else I can do?"

"Oh, no, no sweetheart. You've done more than enough." Trisha pushed the cup away and folded her hands on the tabletop. She leaned forward as if she was about to divulge the most secret of secrets and Roy had the distinct feeling that he was witnessing firsthand exactly why hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Especially mothers, it would seem.

She tilted her head and smiled kindly, but in no way, shape, or form did it even come close to touching her eyes.

"I'll deal with Hohenheim myself."

Later, Roy leaned against the back of the door, grateful to finally be home. He ran his hands through his hair stood there for a minute, trying to process everything that had happened over the past few hours.

Fuck it.

He didn't want to try and process it. He didn't even want to think about it anymore. He had saved the day as much as he could and now… he just wanted to burn something. A roaring fire and a stiff drink- those were the only things he wanted at that moment.

But first, he needed food.

He trudged into the kitchen and found Maes rummaging around in the fridge. Maes, who would never judge him, who would always accept him, and who would rather die than hurt him or allow him to be hurt.

Roy knew that his life was far from perfect. But he had him, which made him goddamn luckier than most.

He slowly walked over to him with no real understanding of why he was about to do what he was about to do. But he didn't want to think about that, either… It was what he wanted, even more than food, fire, or drink.

That alone was reason enough.

"You want a sandwich?" Maes asked, sniffing a bag of salami and trying to determine its edibility. He tossed it back into the fridge and closed the door. "Or I could cook something... What's wrong?"

Maes frowned as he stared down at Roy. Something else must have happened at Ed's house. So help him if that kid's father said some bullshit to him again…

"Roy?"

"Don't say anything," Roy quietly ordered, moving in front of Maes and resting his head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around Maes' waist and squeezed him tightly. "Just… give me a minute… please."

Maes didn't move, didn't even breathe for fear of breaking whatever spell had prompted such a rare, unsolicited, and sober show of emotion. He didn't sense any real cause for concern; if that had been the case, Roy would have most likely gone for the nearest bottle right away.

No, it wasn't anything that serious. At least, as far as he could tell, not anymore.

"Hey, take as long as you want," Maes assured him. "I won't even get a hard-on," he added cheekily, feeling the bloom of a smile against his chest.

"That would be a miracle," Roy muttered into his shirt.

"Pretty much," Maes concurred, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of Roy's hair. He leaned back against the refrigerator and returned the teen's embrace, shutting his mind off to everything else, save for the body that he held in his arms. There would be plenty of time to question it later; for now, he just wanted to treasure it for what it was.

Amazingly enough, he actually didn't get a hard-on. Apparently, some things were entirely more enjoyable than sex, after all.

… Do you love him?

Yes.

Yes, he did.

Now what on earth was he supposed to do about it?

TBC

AN: MaesxRoy, Future RoyxEd, gah! I love them both!!!

I'll be updating next week. See you then.

xoxo