Chapter nineteen

"Oh, fuck, Chief! You seriously weren't going to tell anyone about this?!" Havoc asked Ed as he peeled of his boxers for him.

Ed was still embarrassed as hell by all of this. "Of course I'm not telling people that "The Hero of the People" got spanked!"

"Chief, this isn't the results of a spanking. This is the results of torture."

Ed felt some of the bandages being peeled off and there was a waft of iron in the air as he barely repressed a wince. Yeah, Ed was in pain. A hell of a lot of it and it was humiliating. That wasn't really the worst, though, because he had a new problem.

Did I really just call Roy my Dad?

"Chief, I'm going to start cleaning this mess up, so this is going to sting," Havoc said.

"I guessed," Ed replied a bit irritably. This was such a messed up situation. He took a few deep breaths, applying the same technique as he did during the automail surgery, and kind of separated his mind from his body, which was a hell of a lot easier than usual with all this emotional crap buzzing through his head.

I didn't really call him my Dad… I told him to start being my Dad… But he didn't say no, did he? … He just … He began saying something, but he was cut off by Havoc laughing and then I ordered him to buy burgers … And then he laughed and hugged me…

Shit! Does that mean that he's gonna be my Dad now? After all, he did as I told him and stopped being stupid with the guilt shit, so does that mean that he's decided that he's gonna be my Dad for real?

Does he expect me to call him "Dad" now? Is he gonna be hurt if I don't? How much have I messed this stuff up?

"Havoc, I swear I'll find a way to permanently transmute moose horns to your head if you tell anyone about this," Ed said sharply, barely resisting a wince as he suddenly felt the needle pierce his flesh and he was roughly brought back to the present.

"You know, you could have Schiff at least demoted if you'd just report him? There's nobody who's going to look down upon you for it, not when he did this and especially unprovoked. And with you being a State Alchemist, he'd probably end up in jail."

"Yeah, and then they'll take pictures as evidence and then show my ass to the fucking jury, no thanks!" Ed said angrily through clenched teeth. "It's not gonna happen! Now shut up about it!"

"Fine, Ed," Havoc said with a sigh. "So I guess the Boss is done shouting at the curtains?"

Ed rolled his eyes, thinking back to how weird it had been to be around Roy when he was convinced that Ed was dying and comatose. It had been a bit … touching, really, to see how protective Roy was when he thought that Ed wasn't there. When he thought that Ed was somewhere else where he couldn't protect him. He'd even shouted about being taken to the operating theatre so that he could look after him.

Problem was that Ed had been right there to blush as Roy kept repeating his name over and over, demanding of his IV stand to take him to the doctor in charge so that he would be placed in the same room as him. Roy had been in the room a lot longer than he'd thought, but one of the most embarrassing moments was when Roy had straightened up in bed all of a sudden with an "Ed! Oh god, I'm so sorry!" and then proceeded to make sounds like a heart monitor for the next thirty seconds or so.

Basically, Ed had a lot of stuff to use to … inspire Roy to make pancakes for breakfast most of the time.

…Although that was when they got out of the hospital and Roy actually had at least one hand to do so with.

And what was worse was that even so, Roy was a lot more useful than himself at the moment. At least he could actually lie on his back and he could sit down. Ed was basically good for lying on his stomach with his head tilted to the left so that his unbruised right cheek and eye were the ones to be pressed against the mattress. Also, pillows were out of the question because of his nose as they were very fond of pushing on it.

"Oh, and Havoc, if you mention anything about the conversation in the bathroom, I'll kick your ass so that you'll be the one needing stitches, you get me?"

"Fine, Chief. And by the way, you know you're going to need to call your mechanic, right? Alphonse told me to remind you when he phoned to tell us that they'd made the arrest."

Ed winced both because of needle and the way he could only imagine how murderous Winry was going to be when she heard that his automail arm had been crushed beyond repair. "She's gonna kill me…"

"Sounds unpleasant."

Ed hissed with pain as the needle dug particularly deeply into his flesh.

Roy returned to the room together with Hawkeye who was kind enough to carry the tray with the hamburgers for him. They had brought a total of ten burgers, five for Ed who still had that bottomless pit he called a stomach, three for Roy who was damn hungry, one for Havoc and one for Hawkeye as they had eaten about three hours ago and didn't need much. Roy, however, was famished.

He knocked at the door, knowing that returning to the room before Ed was stitched up was going to embarrass him immensely and Ed would probably hate him afterwards for letting anyone else know about the belting.

The door, however, was opened by a grinning Ed, looking expectantly at the tray in Hawkeye's hands. "Yes!" Then he grabbed a burger, obviously ignoring the pain from his wrist and hand in favour of food and shoved it into his mouth.

Roy was caught somewhere between amusement and alarm and put his left hand on his shoulder, flinching slightly at the stinging from his hand, but it was definitely dulled by whatever had been given to him through the tube taped to his upper arm. He had a total of three tubes hooked up to him at the moment, two IVs and the one for the pain meds. Roy knew how it went, had the painkillers been given intravenously, then Roy would have to be hooked up to a heart monitor and be kept under observation. That meant no going anywhere.

That wasn't really something Roy was particularly interested in right now. He wanted to keep Ed close, but Ed would instinctively try to keep as far away as possible and not let himself soften up at all if Roy was kept under observation for hours. He had been shaken as hell by what those drugs made him see because it had been so close to reality. It could have been what had actually happened. That bomb could have killed them both easy as anything.

Ed looked up at him at the touch, slowing down his chewing a bit. "Wha?"

"Ed, don't choke yourself," Roy said.

Ed swallowed and looked at him, not really knowing what to say because Ed became a lot more guarded with the others around.

Roy decided to help him out because he was also very eager to hear about the arrest, so he gave him a small smile and squeezed his shoulder gently, not giving a damn about the pain, before pulling back. "Havoc? Who was it that was arrested?" Roy asked, turning towards him. "Is it a known criminal?"

"Actually, sir, it's an officer by the name of Second Lieutenant Jones. He was the first on the scene, but he was arrested once the MPs discovered him to be hiding the detonator among the rubble."

Roy could have sworn the name rung a bell and he looked at Ed for a kind of brainstorming session, only to find Ed having gone pale and looking like his mind was racing a mile a minute. Roy immediately took his arm, his stomach clenching at the way that Ed was looking. "Hey, Ed, what's wrong?!" Roy demanded.

In response, Ed looked at Roy with fear and nodded towards the bathroom, silently telling Roy that they had to talk about this in private. Roy followed the limping kid, the two other occupants in the room looking worried, but trusting them enough not to ask, knowing that they would be told in due time. Once they were inside the bathroom, Roy closed the door while Ed used his elbow to turn the switch on the shower to make water flow at full strength. Roy got his point and turned on the faucet to max. They may have checked their room for bugs, but that didn't necessarily mean that people couldn't be listening through either the vents or by the door, pretending to be doctors. This way, they were almost completely sure that nobody could hear them talking because of the noise. Then Ed walked right up to him, only standing a foot apart as he looked at Roy. "He works for Schiff. I think that bastard General is behind all of this."

Roy got a nasty feeling at that, because he could tell that Ed was onto something, and his gut was telling him that Ed was right. "Ed, explain," Roy said, putting his hand on his shoulder again.

"Think about it. That bomb went off at half past one in the afternoon, nobody in their right mind's gonna commit an act of terror when the dorms are practically empty. And the bomb went off after we arrived there, while we were certain that the place wasn't bugged just six hours earlier. Jones wasn't in the office when Schiff belted me, he shouldn't have known that we were going to return to the dorms nearly four hours early. I think Schiff had planned this. He had planned to meet us in the hallway that way. He had planned to belt me so much that we weren't going to return to the office... Which is why the bomb went off when it was absolutely certain that we'd be back in the dorms."

Roy felt his stomach clench with both worry and anger as things began to piece themselves together in his head. "So you think that Schiff is in league with the Black Shadows..."

Ed nodded. "Which is why I got reassigned just a few days after you got the case. Schiff doesn't want me for shit. He doesn't want me to be a soldier to earn him promotions, he's just using me as a distraction!" Ed said furiously. "He's been setting me up! He caned my hand so that I had to use the typewriter! Then he slipped in that stupid report from MY case so that I'd get pissed off! He knew that Hawkeye would be able to find that report easy as anything! That bastard Milton planned to use that as an excuse to attack me!"

Roy felt his chest tightening painfully. "And the flogging was just to push me to make you stay with me so that they could attack you while you were too out of it to actually fight back before it was too late. They may not even have been planning to take you back then." Roy looked at Ed shamefully, feeling sick. Then he just stepped forwards and put his arm around him, neither of them giving a damn about the discomfort as Ed put his arm around Roy's back in turn. "Ed, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." Roy said quietly. "This is all my fault. They've been using you to get to me..." There was no denying it. Schiff had taken Ed away to make Roy constantly on edge and unable to fully focus on the case.

"Don't, Roy... Stop it... It's that bastard Schiff's fault," Ed mumbled angrily, but there was some fear in his voice too.

"Ed, what's wrong? There's something you're not telling me," Roy said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. He'd give Ed anything right now to make this right. Schiff had tortured his kid for nearly two weeks now to get to Roy. He could be angry later when Ed wasn't obviously scared and in need of a hug.

"You think they planned for this?" Ed said quietly, and Roy could hear that his voice was shaky like he was nearing tears. It made Roy's already twisted insides take an extra turn to make everything hurt just a bit more.

"What do you mean, Ed?" Roy asked gently. He could tell that this wasn't about the bomb or them reaching this particular conclusion. This was about something else.

"You think they planned for us to get close? You think Schiff's been manipulating us into this? That everything was just... just so that they could hurt you more? Is everything just...?" Ed pressed the unhurt side of his face into Roy's chest as his voice broke slightly. "Roy, did I only get a parent again just so that I could be used as a tool against you?" Ed asked shakily, just as Roy felt a warm wetness where Ed's eye was pressed against his chest.

Roy felt trapped. He didn't know what to say. Ed was in many ways right.

But Roy didn't really care as long as Ed still wanted him. As long as Al did. He bent down and kissed Ed's head before resting his cheek on his head. "Edward, that doesn't matter to me. I don't blame you for this. If you want to stay away from me because of this, then that is up to you."

Ed pulled back and looked up at him, betrayal on his face. "You want me to stay away? Is that what you're saying?" he asked, looking crestfallen. "You don't want me anymore because... because those bastards planned this?"

Roy swore inwardly, feeling panic growing. This was going wrong. He instinctively took a step forwards and brought him close to his chest again. "Edward, I was giving you the choice because they're hurting you to hurt me and that is my fault. And I just..." Roy sighed, bringing him closer. "Ed... I'm scared that you can't forgive me for this, so I'm just... Edward, if you don't want to stay close to me because of this, then I won't force you," Roy told him, thinking about what Ed had said about not being the Colonel, but just acting like his Dad. And Roy wanted to, but if Ed couldn't have a relationship based on the fact that they had in many ways been manipulated into it, then that was something that Roy had to respect. "...Family isn't supposed to be like that," he finished, fear growing that this was how it was going to end.

Ed, however, put his arm around him again instantly and pressed his cheek against his chest. "Fuck that," he said. "Fuck all of them. They can go to hell. So just stop going on about being guilty and shit cos that's what they want. I don't want that, so choose. Me and Al or those Shadow jerks?"

Roy hugged him tightly, chuckling softly. "Elrics, definitely Elrics."

"Then let's find away to get that bastard Schiff in jail."

There was an unspoken "before he kills me," hanging in the air that made Roy hug him even tighter to him.