PLEASE DON'T HATE MEI'm so sorry I've been gone so long but school has really been kicking me in the butt! Please accept a slightly longer chapter as an apology.This is mostly just whump and Roy being a dad because you know I am a SUCKER for that shiz.I hope you all enjoy and please review!
"How are you feeling, kid?"
Roy stood over Ed with a furrowed brow and a slight downturn to his lips, arms crossed over his uniformed chest.
It was still rather early in the morning, the light of dawn casting an almost lavender sort of haze over the half-asleep bundle on his couch, only the tell-tale blond hair sprouting out from underneath the blankets.
It had been a long night last night, especially trying to get Maes to leave after he had spent hours cooing over Edward— bundling him up to his chest in layers of blankets, checking his temperature an excessive amount, and generally just mothering him until even Roy felt like he was being smothered.
After he had finally ushered the man out of his house with a reminder of his wife and kid at home, there was the matter of talking with Ed about just how terrible his view of Roy had been and how shitty a commanding officer he must have been in order to make him feel that way. It was a mostly one-sided conversation, and he wasn't sure if the boy had even been listening for half of it, but he could only hope he had gotten through to him at least somewhat. When it came to Edward's emotions, Roy could never get more than a vague idea no matter how deep he dug.
So, needless to say, neither of them got to bed until far past their bedtimes.
He only got a quiet groan out of the boy in response to his question and Roy just sighed, kneeling next to the couch Ed layed upon and nudging him softly on the shoulder.
"Come on, kid. I know it's early and you're not feeling well but I've got to go to work, and since Alphonse is holed up in the library continuing you boys' research, you have to come with me."
Ed's eyes fluttered open, revealing a sliver of large black pupils rimmed with gold, dilated with sleep. As soon as they were open, they slid closed again, Ed huffing a small irritated and sleepy sigh through his nose before lifting his arms out in a silent gesture to be picked up.
Roy just smiled at how much of a child Ed really was when he wasn't awake enough to hide it, his heart filling with something akin to love as he leaned over the boy, letting the small arms fall around his neck as he snaked his hands behind the boy's back, scooping him up with as much care as possible, trying desperately not to hurt the unbearably tiny and precious bundle in his arms.
Along with Ed came the blanket, which he tucled around him as much as he could to make sure Ed wouldn't be bothered by the chilly morning outside.
As Roy stood up, the small form settled against him, laying his head in the crook of Roy's neck before taking a deep breath, letting out what could have been a sigh of content until it hitched in his throat, the rest of the air in his lungs rushing out with a few sharp and rumbling coughs that Roy could feel reverberating right through the body laid against him as well as his own chest. It sounded incredibly painful— even more so considering he was rattling around a freshly operated on punctured lung and broken ribs.
The arms looped around his neck were suddenly tugging against the back of his coat, hands fisting the fabric in a tight grip, confirming his worries that it did indeed hurt quite a bit and leaving Roy with a growing pit in his stomach.
He felt concern and sympathy tugging his eyebrows together, and all he could do to console the boy was run a hand up and down his quaking back in circles, muttering soothingly.
"Shhhh, I know, kid. Just relax, I have medicine to give you when we get to work, okay? Calm down, now." He murmured, continuing to rub his back as the gut-wrenching coughs tapered off into trembling and a high-pitched pained whine. "I know, I'm sorry."
After making sure Ed had settled down a bit, he headed to the door with him still huddled up in his arms, pocketing his keys and wallet from the side table on the way.
Thankfully, he had already slid on and laced his boots, and he pondered a minute whether or not to grab a pair of shoes for Ed, but quickly decided against it— he wasn't really well enough to walk anywhere requiring shoes anyway, and he had a fluffy sock on to keep his flesh foot warm. Besides, Roy or one of the others on the team would gladly carry him anywhere he needed to go, though Roy didn't doubt the only place he was headed for was the office couch.
He slid out the door, swinging it shut behind him and struggling a bit between the kid in his arms and the key in the lock, but eventually ended in success.
Ed stirred at the sudden chill, every shaking breath puffing up into little clouds. Roy pulled the edges of the blanket tighter around the boy, thanking himself for starting the car beforehand as he set Ed down ever so gently on the passenger seat, who graciously curled into the warm air flooding from the heating vents.
Roy buckled him in and wrapped the covers up over his shoulders, though Ed was none the wiser, his breath rattling with wheezing snores that sounded like they were one speed bump away from another coughing fit.
If he was uncomfortable or in pain though he didn't show it, instead making himself well aquainted with the door, which he ended up haphazardly slumped against. His cheek pressed up against the glass and every breath painted the surface with fog, Roy just smiled to himself, finally beginning to understand Hughes and his camera.
He arrived at the usual time and he parked in his usual spot, but for several minutes, he just sat there, watching the sunlight creep over the horizon and give his passenger's pale skin back a little bit of it's healthy golden hue and wondering if it was at all possible to get Edward inside without waking him.
He just looked so at peace, breathing easier than he could ever hope to be during wakefulness, brows unfurrowed and lips parted slightly with a look as blissful as it could be considering the circumstances. What kind of man would Roy be if he interrupted that? God, the kid had such a hard time already, he needed the rest. It was heart-wrenching to see him so hurt and beaten down, but Roy quickly shut down that train of thought before it festered into fury— he didn't want Stratton to die before he was rotting in jail, no matter how tempting it may be to beat the life out of him at that moment.
With a loathing sigh, he slinked out of the car, easing the door shut behind him as quietly as possible.
He crept around to the passenger side, pulling the door open slowly so as to make sure Ed didn't come toppling out into the parking lot and slid himself in between him and the car door, allowing the boy to lay on his chest instead of the window. There was no doubt it'd be more comfortable, and it seemed like Ed thought so too, as he nestled up close to the new source of warmth.
Very, very carefully, he released the seatbelt and let Ed fall completely into his arms, trying desperately not to rattle the kid too much. Ed shifted, and Roy bit his lip.
Please don't wake up please don't wake up please don't wake up—
He paused, listening intently, finding that although the air seemed to catch in his throat a bit, his breaths were still as even as before.
He let out a sigh of relief and carefully hoisted him up into his arms, finding the weight of the head resting against his chest feeling all too natural.
Ed shifted again, barking a short cough before he was mumbling something incoherent and snuggling his head in the crook of Roy's neck.
Roy winced and tensed slightly, breathing halting— but Ed stayed asleep, settling down rather quickly.
He sighed and smiled, tucking the edges of the blankets back around the boy as he swung the car door closed with his hip and started towards the building, musing over how much better a sleeping Fullmetal was compared to an awake Fullmetal.
Given the early hour, it was quite easy to avoid any prying eyes of stray soldiers wandering HQ, which he was grateful for, and he was sure Ed would be as well, had he been awake.
It was second nature after so many mornings walking through the hallways running on nothing but caffeine and spite, and he found himself standing outside the office before he even had time to think about where he was going.
The aged mahogany, the golden plating, and of course the many scuffs and dings from Fullmetal's unyielding iron foot. He smirked; he was never one for the pristine and fancy look anyway.
He shifted and sat most of Ed's weight- which wasn't much, unsurprisingly - on his hip, freeing one hand just long enough to turn the knob and push the door open.
He was met with relative silence, only the halting of pens on paper letting him know anyone was in the room at all. All eyes swung to him as he slipped inside, and he immediately felt sheepish upon realizing he was the last one to arrive.
Everyone was in their usual spots, Hawkeye hovering with a gun strapped to her hip, Falman straight faced and hardworking, Havoc and Breda leant back in their chairs, the former with an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and Fuery, fiddling with some electronic or another like usual.
"Glad to see you're finally here, sir."
Hawkeye as always was tight lipped and straight postured, not even a shoelace out of place. She was gifted like that, being able to hide in plain sight in a way Roy never could. Regardless, even if her heart wasn't sewn on her sleeve, he had learned to read between the lines. He saw the way her eyes darted immediately to the bundle of blankets and mussed hair in his arms, how her brow softened and something within her hesitated. He smiled softly.
"My apologies, Lieutenant. It proved quite difficult to pry this one off of the couch this morning." He replied in a low voice, dipping his head down in a gesture to Edward.
Her brows lifted in understanding, before furrowing slightly a moment later in thought, then further in discontent.
"Colonel, don't tell me you had Edward sleep on the couch last night. You have a perfectly fine guest room, sleeping like that can't be good for him in his condition."
Roy winced and felt his stomach drop a few notches, offering her a tight and faltering grin— and thus the mask was gone, and she was striding over to Roy to peel back the blanket pooled around Edward's head. With more tenderness than Roy could ever hope to possess, she laid her palm against Edward's forehead— studying his expression intently as if searching for something.
She clearly was not happy with her findings, as she simply clicked her tongue with a shake of her head, ushering Roy further into the office towards the couch.
"How's he doing, boss?" Called Havoc, leaning forward in his seat to get a better look at Edward, eyes squinted slightly. His voice was much softer than usual, both to keep Ed asleep as well as the fact that he had a major soft spot for the kid and was no doubt genuinely worried about him.
Roy gently laid Edward down on the couch and immediately began to rub out the knot tying up the muscles in his back, smiling slightly in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.
"Tired, apparently– considering how much he's been sleeping." Roy sighed, the corners of his mouth twitching up into a humorless smile.
Jean smiled back, offering him a quiet chuckle. The lines around his eyes seemed deeper than normal and they were tighter as well, giving a whole new persona to the man who usually seemed so carefree, and Roy had to say that he empathized with the man.
The kid really would end up putting them all in an early grave, huh?
"The chief's a teenager, that's all they do. When I was his age, I ran around for hours, ate a boatload, and then crashed until the afternoon of the next day." He laughed, a bitter look on his face that he was failing pass off as mirth.
The levity of it all was welcomed, though it felt quite out of place and fruitless to the point where it seemed as if they would have better luck trying to melt a glacier with a hairdryer.
No one mentioned the fragile state Edward was in, in fact, they danced around it as much as they could. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
"Yeah, I bet I was the same. Can't quite remember those days anymore..." He sighed, his voice trailing off as he began tucking the edges of the comforter around Edward's sleeping form, gently lifting his upper half as Riza slid a pillow underneath him.
Havoc just hummed, his eyes lingering on Edward a few moments longer before they were drifting back to his paperwork and his pen began to twirl again. Roy didn't doubt he traced the lines of aimless doodles in lieu of actual work, but he said nothing about the matter.
Roy shook his head to himself and made to stand, stopping midway when Ed finally stirred.
His brow furrowed and his eyes squeezed shut before he was heaving, startling the whole office out of their boots in the process. His hands wormed their way around his abdomen and he coughed so hard he all but gagged, the apples of his cheeks flushed with both the fever and the strain.
Roy felt a pang of alarm at the sudden outburst before it was settling into a wave of worry, and he quickly snaked his arms around Ed's back and sat him up slightly in hopes to ease his breathing.
Sitting back on his heels, he laid his hand on the boy's retching chest, running his palm in circles in hopes of soothing him.
"Woah there, easy, kid. Just relax, you're fine." The words flowed out of him without thought or planning, like they did whenever he found himself speaking with Edward. He was running on some kind of unknown intuition he didn't understand, but in the end, it felt right, almost natural.
His hand covered almost the majority of the kid's tiny chest, and he was half worried with how hard Ed was coughing that his rib cage would simply cave under the pressure.
"Take it easy, kiddo. You're gonna make yourself sick at this rate." He crooned, brows pinched together as he continued rubbing lazy circles over his sternum.
Gradually, he began to calm, but by then there were tears pooled in his eyes and his flesh hand was gripping the front of his t-shirt so hard it was white-knuckled and trembling.
His breathing was a hair away from just plain whimpering as he gasped and cringed in obvious agony. It was silent apart from Ed's struggling, pens stilling on papers and every eye in the room locked on the boy's shivering form.
"That's it, you've got it. Relax." Roy murmured, gently easing Ed back down to the couch. "You alright now, kid?"
Ed just nodded, breathing shallow but much under much better control than before. He let his eyes slip shut as he melted into the couch, and Roy could still see a shimmer of tears from under his lashes.
Havoc let out a low whistle, finally gaining the nerve to break his stupor. "Damn, chief, that's one hell of a cough you've got there." He remarked, screwing his face up in a grimace.
Ed just groaned in response, not even bothering to open his eyes.
Roy sighed, digging in the inner pockets of his jacket before pulling out a small cup and a bottle filled with a dark syrup.
This would not be easy.
XxxxXxxXxxXxXxx
He watched the colours and lights swirl languidly against the void of his closed eyes, idly wondering if it was at all possible for him to have swallowed a cat sometime in the past few days, because it certainly felt like one of those little bastards was trying valiantly to claw it's way out of his chest, and he swore he could feel the tickle of fur lining his sore throat.
Everything hurt and he was tired everywhere, his limbs feeling the heavy weight of lactic acid as if someone had taken a cheese grater to every muscle and tendon stringing him together. He was sure he couldn't move even if he tried, and although he downright despised the hospital, he was really beginning to miss whatever they injected into him that made him forget he was quite literally falling apart from the inside.
Wasn't it supposed to be getting better?
He did the whole doctor thing, he let them poke and prod, and he actually listened to what they told him for once, so why was everything still spiralling? The pain was becoming a bit bothersome, and the inability to take a deep breath without hacking up a lung and a half was just plain annoying.
He shifted in discomfort. No matter what position he lay in, nothing alleviated the bone-deep ache that settled deep within his chest, and it only spiked with every choppy breath.
To sum it up, he was just downright miserable.
There was a light tap on his cheek, startling him so much that his eyes shot open, revealing a bright white void of light that sent spikes of pain through his eyesockets. He winced and blinked a few times, and slowly the white began to wash out into splotches of watercolour until eventually he was staring into the face of none other than Roy Mustang— who was holding a tiny cup filled with a suspicious-looking gunk.
"You need to take this, Ed. It'll help with your cough." He said, slipping a hand just under the small of his neck and tipping his head up slightly, holding the cup up to his lips.
The liquid was dark and viscous and appeared more like molasses than medicine, turning his stomach at just at the sight of it
He moaned his displeasure and turned his head away, but it was quickly held in place by a firm but careful hand against his jaw.
"I know you don't want it, but it's better than that cough, isn't it?" Mustang coaxed, pressing the cup back to his mouth. "C'mon, kid. It'll make you feel better."
Ed eyed the medicinal sludge warily, finding the notion of less coughing rather appealing. He really did like the idea of feeling better, and he would do practically anything to ease the tightness in his chest at that point. He squinted, eyes darting between Mustang and the plastic shot glass he was holding, remembering just how much it hurt...
He squeezed his eyes shut and pried his mouth open, feeling the cough syrup coat his throat as he swallowed it down in one gulp.
"There. That wasn't so bad, right?"
The only thing he could do was scrunch up his face in utter repulsion as he swallowed down the residue of what could only be described as the taste of battery acid, leaving behind the cool wave of menthol in it's wake.
Now, he had never actually tasted battery acid before, but he was willing to bet that whatever was in that cup was the next best thing.
Mustang just laughed at the look on his face, only increasing Ed's urge to sock him.
"Get some rest, kid. You look like you need it."
He didn't bother to argue with the man. After all, he felt like he needed it as well. It wasn't long before he found himself away into a feverish sleep.
He didn't dream.
-xXxXxXxXxXxXx-
Roy was restless the whole day.
His desk was filled with endless piles of paperwork as always, but he worked through them at half the speed he usually did. Hawkeye surely noticed, but she said nothing.
His eyes spent more time studying Edward than on his desk top, his gaze darting over to the couch every time he sniffled, stirred, or coughed, though he had yet to wake up completely. The medicine he had taken earlier was noticeably easing his breathing, so he seemed to be even deeper in sleep than before. It was a small comfort.
On the bright side of things, the court martial they had so painstakingly arranged was quickly approaching, and it couldn't come soon enough. He would not rest until Stratton was rotting in a cell where he belonged.
He'd much rather curb-stomp the man a few times if he were being honest, but he had things to do and ranks to climb, and he could hardly get there dragging around a criminal record.
That's not to say it wasn't tempting.
"Coming to lunch, sir?"
His eyes darted up towards the voice.
He had been so lost in thought that he didn't notice everyone slipping out the door for their break, nor did he realize Hawkeye had approached.
He eyed Edward warily for a split second before his gaze returned to his Lieutenant, offering her a small shake of his head.
"Not today, I'm afraid." He admitted. "I've got to finish this paperwork sometime."
Riza saw right through the flimsy excuse, and Roy could see the faintest smile hinting at her lips.
"Very well, sir. I expect you'll keep to your work in my absence." She turned away, halting just shy of the door. "I'll bring you and Edward back something."
She was gone before Roy could get another word in, leaving him grinning to himself like a madman.
What had he done to deserve her?
He tried his best not to worry about how wheezy Edward was sounding as he dug his nose back into his work, idly wondering if he had any vapour rub at home and if it might help.
He settled into a steady rhythm, signing and scribbling and skimming over the fine print. One good thing about paperwork was that it really didn't require much brain power, but ur was just so damn tedious that it made Roy want to rip his hair out.
He didn't dare stop, though. Not as long as Hawkeye possessed a gun. He shuddered and worked on.
In fact, he was so entranced with the hope of not getting a head full of lead that he may have missed the door swinging open, that is, had it not been for the fact that it was thrown open so violently it ricocheted off the adjacent wall with a resounding bang.
He wasn't so worried about the paperwork anymore.
He nearly snapped his neck with how fast his head shot up, and his hand was instinctually poised to snap before he even had time to think about it.
Dread pooled in his gut as he watched Edward's face scrunch up at the sudden noise, his eyes quickly darting to discover the threat and how to counteract it when his gaze fell upon—
Disheveled black hair, wiry glasses to match the man's own wiry frame sitting in front of eyes so green they seemed to glow.
The anxiety lessened, but did not dissipate.
"Maes, what—" He started, feeling a headache coming on already. He was cut off the second the words left his mouth.
"We have a problem."