Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist

Chapter fourteen

"Then Fuery found microphones in every room of the house which means that those guys knows about Al too and that they heard the entire conversation yesterday," Ed finished.

Roy looked at him and sighed. Ed was lying with his head on Roy's right arm and his face betrayed just how much this night's events must have stressed him out. Roy pulled him in for a hug and kissed the top of his head. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"About leaving you and Al alone like that. For scaring you."

"Ah shit. I just thought about something," Ed groaned.

"What?"

"The way you've been screaming, the whole team knows now."

"About what?"

"That whole parent thing. I didn't think about that! Fuck."

Roy suddenly felt a bit of fear gripping his heart. He placed his left hand on Ed's cheek and looked down at him, staring into the confused golden eyes. "Ed, what have I been saying?"

"It's not important. I know you were having a nightmare." Ed was looking away, confirming Roy's suspicions.

"You know what I was dreaming, don't you?"

"Uh-huh, but it's okay, you clearly didn't enjoy it. Nightmares show you the stuff you don't want to happen."

"So you've been listening to me for eight hours as I repeatedly killed you, and you say it's okay?"

"Yes. It really is. You didn't want to."

"It isn't, Ed, it isn't one bit. How much did you hear? What did I say?" Roy felt a kind of shameful desperation growing in his voice. He needed to know how much he had said in order to make this right. Otherwise this whole relationship between them would crumble. "Please tell me, Ed."

"It's not important."

"It is, goddammit! Tell me!" Roy was getting desperate which made him sound angry instead.

That wasn't the way to do it. Ed slapped the hand on his cheek away and glared at him angrily, although betraying some hurt as well. "You wanna know what I heard? All of it! I listened as you broke your promise over and over and over again! I heard what you dreamt I said right before you killed me! Or Al! Or both at once! And I heard the snap of your fingers all through the night because I couldn't get you to stop that while also keeping you from hurting yourself! Are you happy now?! Do you feel better?!" Ed began shifting his weight to move away from Roy and get out of the bed. "Why the hell did you have to ruin it with making me tell you?! You should've just left it alone!" Ed sat up and slammed Roy's hand away when he tried to grab Ed's arm. He left the bed and moved over to the door, but Roy was on his feet before he had even taken two shaky steps. He grabbed Ed's right shoulder and turned him around, pulling him into a hug.

"Stop it." Ed wasn't fighting against him, knowing that with the shape that Ed was currently in, he would have no chance of winning.

"No, Ed. I'm not letting you go."

"Why not? When you kept pushing me to tell you something that you knew would only ruin whatever this was, you gave up on it!"

"How? I never said I did."

"Because now when you look at me your eyes are filled with pain and fear because you're bound by a promise you're too afraid of breaking! We can't build anything on that! So I'm just freeing you from that promise so that we can go back to our dysfunctional bickering instead! See! You're free! You don't owe me anything! Now let me go!"

"No, Ed. I don't feel bound by that promise. And I would never let you go in this state."

"That's it! That's the problem right there! You pity me! I thought you understood, but I was wrong! I was just a stupid kid all over again! So stop rubbing it in!"

Roy went quiet, still holding onto him. "Ed, this isn't pity. It's love." Roy said it without thinking. "I pushed you because of love, not out of pity. I didn't want you to carry the burden of hearing my nightmare because I don't want you to misinterpret my fear. My promise to you is a privilege, not a burden." Roy spoke softly. In a sense he was relieved that that was Ed's problem.

It was Ed's turn to go quiet. "Damn you! Damnyoudamnyoudamnyou!" Ed began hitting Roy with his automail fist, although he was too restrained to actually hurt him. "Don't you dare say that if it isn't true!"

"It is true. I love you two." Roy had said a lot of surprising things these last twenty-four hours, but this takes the cake. So this is what came out of his mouth when he stopped thinking practically? When he didn't care about tactics but acted on pure, selfish emotion?

"Dammit! Why can't this just be easy? Why do you have to make it so damn hard?"

Roy was slowly pulling Ed back to the bed. The kid needed rest, especially after the night he had had. Roy reached the bed and sat down slowly, moving his hands up on Ed's shoulders to see how he was doing. Tears were streaming down his face, his left eye still swollen shut. Next moment he had thrown his arms around Roy's neck and was pressing his right cheek against his. Roy just closed his eyes and hugged him back.

"I'm sorry I scared you. I'm so sorry."

"So tell me what you were afraid of if it wasn't about breaking your promise."

"I'm afraid of burning you. I'm afraid that you two would have been better off without me in your lives. I've done some really bad things, Ed. I'm afraid of losing you because of it."

"Oh."

That was all Ed said for a very long time. Then. "Don't get drugged again."

Then they just started laughing.

"I'll try," Roy said, ruffling Ed's hair.

"Good."

"I guess we should go downstairs. We really should move you as quickly as possible. But we need to change your bandages first."

"Hawkeye already did it. They needed redressing after that bastard kneed me in the back."

"They didn't hurt you any further, right?" Roy felt anger surging through him. He never liked it when people hurt his subordinates, but you had to expect some injuries as a military officer. But now, with the way things were between him and Ed, he felt like burning anyone just for slapping him.

"Don't think so." Ed did however seem to hide his left hand from him. Roy grabbed his arm, revealing that the wrist was swollen and bruised.

"They did that?"

"It's nothing, it's just a sprain. It hardly hurts."

Roy immediately looked at the kid's ankle too, but apart from the purple handprint, it looked fine. Ed's wrist did not. In fact it looked like it hurt like hell and that Ed was being stubborn again.

Roy sighed and stood up, placing a hand on Ed's shoulder in order to steady the boy. "Come on, we're finding the compression bandage. That's not a mild sprain and you know it, Ed."

"I don't need –"

"It's not optional." Roy put his hand under Ed's elbow in order to support him over to the bathroom where he led him to the toilet seat and ordered him to sit. He then opened the drawer under the sink containing medical supplies and found the compression bandage neatly rolled up. He went over to Ed and gestured towards his flesh hand. Ed raised it and soon enough he had a neatly bandaged wrist.

Roy then had an idea. Ed looked dead on his feet and hardly in the mood for a change of clothes. "I'll be back in a minute."

He went back into his room, finding the old box of clothes from his childhood and dug until he found what he was looking for. He returned to the bathroom and folded out the old, black dressing gown. The chest pocket had RM embroidered in gold lettering on the left side of the chest. "Come on, stand up."

Ed did as he was told and was soon wearing the dressing gown that fitted the boy perfectly. Roy didn't say anything about it being from when he was ten. Roy then picked the larger one from where it lay neatly folded in the shelf to the right. He had just had it cleaned and had left it there ever since. Roy pulled it on before he looked at himself and a curious Ed in the mirror.

"Why do you have two? And one that fits me perfectly no less?"

"Actually, I have six. My adoptive mother has given them to me at regular intervals ever since the one that you're wearing. She buys them from a special tailor. They're actually high quality garments."

"But we can't go downstairs looking like this! What will the others think?"

"Edward, they've heard me shouting all night, I hardly think that it will surprise them that much."

"But matching bathrobes?"

"Or we could wait for you to shower, wash your hair, dry your automail, and basically postpone breakfast for another hour?"

"You know, you may be a lot more okay now, but you're still a manipulative bastard." Ed was looking up at him with a dissatisfied smirk.

"Yes. And you're still my stubborn brat." Roy smirked as he ruffled his hair and pulled him in for a hug which Ed returned with a grunt and a "you're doing it again."

"I know, it's intentional."

"Bastard," Ed said and hugged him tighter.

They stood there like that for at least five minutes before Roy sighed deeply. "I think we have to get moving. The sooner we get you moved to a safer location, the better."

"Nuh." Ed didn't let go.

"Your rhetorical gifts never cease to amaze me." Roy smiled and put a hand behind Ed's head, gently stroking his hair. It was funny how things that would usually just have annoyed him before, now just made him smile. Probably because there was a level of vulnerability to the kid that hadn't been there before.

"Damn right."

They kept standing there for another five minutes before Ed's stomach growled loudly. "Right, we need to feed you," Roy concluded, pulling out of the hug, but holding Ed around his shoulder so that he was pressed against Roy's side. He really didn't want to let him go. Roy was still shaken by tonight's nightmares and wanted to just hold onto Ed and keep him safe from harm after watching him die so many times.

Because tonight had been hell, absolute hell.

The interesting thing now would be to see how Ed would react around him and the rest of the team after what had happened between the two of them.

And so Roy led him slowly down the stairs and into the kitchen, Ed still pressed against his side. They found the rest of the team sitting at the kitchen table, apart from Alphonse, who was standing in order to save some space.

Roy saw the others look up questioningly at them and Ed blushed, instinctively starting to move away from Roy, but Roy just held him tighter. "Support for his dizziness," he explained, looking at the others as if daring them to contradict him.

Havoc and Breda smirked and Falman was … Falman, although he seemed to be smiling just a teensy bit, but that could just be a trick of the light. Hawkeye looked as professional as ever, but unlike the others, Roy was able to actually have full conversations with her just by looking into her eyes.

"Good to see that you've sorted things out."

"I know."

Roy looked down at Ed with a little smile. "Come on, kid, let's get you some breakfast."

"Actually, sir, Fuery is out getting some Xingese take away for lunch," Hawkeye said.

Ed seemed to light up. Roy sighed. "Take away three times in one week isn't good for you, Ed, so you better not get used to it. When we're back you'll be eating healthy food, you understand?"

"Aw, come on, Roy! Not even once a week?" Ed was looking up at him pleadingly.

"Once a month. My house, my rules."

Ed got ready to retort something, but then his cheeks reddened and his eyes widened in horror. As did Roy's.

Then came the sniggers from Havoc and Breda.

Ed bowed his head in shame. Roy pulled Ed towards him and let the kid hide his face by pressing it against his chest. He then looked at Havoc and Breda who were looking frightened, but still unable to hide their laughter.

"The next person who laughs has to work two hours overtime every day for a month," Roy said sternly.

The two Second Lieutenants went quiet immediately.

"I'm ruined. My reputation as a bad ass tough guy is ruined," Ed moaned, slightly muffled by Roy's dressing gown. "Fourteen years. Ruined."