cHAOsrulesoverall: I'm not really sure why I write so many tear inducing scenes... or feel so pleased with them. I'm sure a psychiatrist would love to get their hands on me... but I'd probably end up making them cry.
Woobatty: Yes! Just because drunkness occurs does not mean fanfics fall to the wayside! If anything, they become more fun. And I think Hazel and Maes need to have their own cartoon show together purely on how to harass Roy the best.
kittyat5261: You wouldn't be the first person I've made miss sleep before an exam. My apologies. I hope you did well! Honestly I sometimes think we do better when we're mostly out of it XD
Sapphire Nymph: The play was roughly modified from an episode of an anime I watch.
Chibiprince-sama: Hopefully you'll feel more affection towards Roy this chapter.
secret25: Don't worry about Hughes dying. I can't put myself through that again, considering I bawl every time he dies in the anime. With tissues and a tub of Ben and Jerrys and everything.
gali-o: Hazel will take a rain check on the food thing. He is asking for cake right now.
Ana Lilly: Roy likes being a difficult little turd, and his muse paid for it while I was writing this chapter.
accident prone: Maybe I shall send Hazel to you. He can scold you every time you don't properly study XD
Kimba Lionheart: Hazel is just adorable.
The Second Hand of Time: Don't worry about me making Roy sound old with an eyepatch. Wait until you watch Brotherhood, I about cried when I saw what they did to Scar. And my Al muse did cry.
Whispers of Silence: I am glad to hear that you didn't burn the kitchen down, and do not worry, I plan for Maes to live a long and fruitful life. I love him too much to kill him this time around.
Blessed24 7: Roy will definitely be calling his mother if I have any say in it... and I usually do. It's not a constant happening in which my muses run off across the page without me. Even if they did... Daphne is a very persistent muse. She'd demand time.
softdreamer: Sometimes there are just not enough labels for one story.
A Single Fragile Rose: Ed deserves more than happiness at this point. He deserves that pony.
Eli: I enjoy torturing everyone... and yes, I would love to have a bowl of Roy soup. Something that sounds vaguely familiar to a topic in the FMA chat last Friday night... one that's giving me disturbing vague images.
cocopower1: It's just pure awesomeness that a squirrel can hold so much control over Roy Mustang. The man is a softie.
foolonthehill: Yes, I know what you mean about getting hooked on an unfinished story... I've been there all too often. But look at it this way, now you get to hang out with all of us crazy people!
mapodoufu: Don't worry, there are always more smiles to be had.
moonstone glows: But Roy needs to be intoxicated! It's how he liiiiives XDD
Koneko: Do I need to come take care of some evil person other than myself who makes you read depressing stories? And Hawkeye really is not a person you want to have attacking you with a gun. She is scary. And brilliant.
Soaha: Aww -pats-
StoriesILike: There's always Maes... but unfortunately the poor man has been left out of the loop on more things than Ed has in some cases.
blame-my-ADD: Your mom wouldn't go for that? That's absurd! A squirrel is so much better in so many ways. And no I haven't had recent discipline troubles with my own cats... XD
I think this has finally uploaded properly... it better have.
At any rate... I am nearly done getting what I need for Phoenix Comicon. My cosplay is almost finished, all that's really left is for me to find a rolling ice chest. I'm just not spending money on food or drink there again. The prices are so inflated and the food is such slop. As of May 24th, Captain Kisuke has a rolling ice chest. And I really shouldn't snicker at that statement.
I also believe I've not celebrated this here... and if I have, you can celebrate with me again but... my laptop is working again! Mine! My precious! My massive screen of awesomeness that just oozes the message of "sit down here and write, Connie!" and I obeeeeey. I love this laptop.
This laptop that helped me write this... and battle with Roy who put up quite the noble fuss almost the entire way. I kept telling him it was his fault, he's the one who wanted to go bar hopping and clubbing. I won out though. Apparently if I dangle Ed in front of him long enough he'll finally see him as the carrot he is and start pulling the plow for me.
But anywho, much belated Valentines love to you all, and hope you enjoy the chapter!
Chapter Forty-Two
Daphne was sitting at her desk going through order forms for wine when the phone beside her began to ring. Glancing at it briefly she checked the clock before reaching over for it. At this hour of the night, it wouldn't be any of her customers, potential or established. Which really meant that she should answer it. Picking it up she quickly answered it with a drawled "hello?"
"You sound just like him sometimes, when you answer the phone."
Daphne smiled, recognizing the voice instantly. "Of course I do, he is my son. How are you Maes?" She asked conversationally, before adding with a slight frown, "Roy's okay, isn't he?"
Plenty could go wrong with that man, but now she had Edward to worry about as well. If something happened to Roy, she feared what might happen to Edward. The two of them were, in many respects, inseparably close.
"He's fine." Maes's voice reassured her, and she managed to breathe a silent sigh of relief before he added with a hint of confusion to his voice, "too fine. If that makes any sense at all."
Daphne smiled again in amusement. "I'm glad of that." Yes, it did make sense. She'd noticed something much the same when Roy had come to visit her, before he'd given in and told her about Edward. That ghost… he gave Roy some sort of strength and peace she'd not noticed in him before. As Roy's best friend, nearly a brother to him, she wasn't surprised that Maes had noticed it as well.
"How much do you know about what he's up to?"
Daphne knew he was fishing, and expected that if he were, he'd been told as much as Roy had wanted to tell him, but not everything Maes had wanted to be told. So, with an amused look in her eyes answered honestly, "everything."
"I had a feeling you'd say that…"
She smiled in sympathy, knowing it must be hard on him to be struggling with the knowledge that he was missing parts of the picture Roy was creating, but she knew that if her son hadn't told him, it was not her place to. But she could at least try and settle the man's mind a bit.
"I know you're worried about him… by all rights you deserve to be. But he'll be okay, trust me. He's…" she thought back to that first day, that first hour in which her son had stood there so calmly and told her what he was doing. It had been so unlike him… just when she'd believed her son couldn't become any stronger of a man, Edward had made him one. "He's not the man he once was. He surprised me, having such a resolve. He's got something he cares enough about not to do anything to fail with Grand."
"A guy, right? The guy who's been tipping him off and helping with intelligence. Roy said you know him, and that I shouldn't worry about who it is anymore and whether or not they're trustworthy."
Daphne cracked a wry smile at the thought of Edward ever leading Roy wrong purposely. "I do know him, and my son's right, you shouldn't worry. He's very loyal to Roy." She expected to be pestered for a name immediately… so the silence on the other end of the line was puzzling to her. "Maes?"
"Roy loves him, whoever it is, doesn't he."
Daphne was taken aback by the resolute statement. Maes didn't doubt at all the conclusion he'd come to. And slowly a lopsided, almost sad smile appeared on her face as she looked toward the picture of Roy that was framed on her desk. "Yes. I think Roy's been in love with him for a long time now."
"I thought as much. He didn't know I was watching him… but he looked so much happier."
"They're good for each other. Just be patient, Roy will tell you about him when he's ready. Even I have to admit that things are a bit complicated for them right now."
"Can you at least tell me his name? Or where Roy met him?"
Daphne laughed softly, shaking her head at the man's persistence. It was just like him, but she dared not engage her son's wrath… she wanted to be told when he finally got over himself and admitted to Edward that he loved him. She got the strong feeling that if Maes didn't know about Edward, Edward didn't know that Roy was in love with him. "Sorry, you know that I can't. He may be my son, but I have a healthy respect for him."
"He has a healthy respect for you." Maes put in dryly.
Daphne grinned a bit wider at that, "as he should. But this really is his own business to handle with you, as I'm sure he has told you. I can't say anything about it until he does."
"I admit I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that he fell for someone. But with you confirming what I concluded… just who the hell is this mystery guy? Seriously. He must be one hell of a guy."
Daphne laughed softly, the corners of her eyes crinkling in her amusement and happiness. "Yes… he is. When you finally meet him, you'll understand the reason for all the cloak and dagger business. But yes…" she leaned back in her chair to gaze up at the ceiling thoughtfully. "He's quite special, and I don't think Roy ever had a chance at avoiding falling in love with him."
"But how long until he actually does something about it." Maes stated pointedly.
Daphne had been wondering the same thing herself. It seemed like it was taking her son an inordinately long amount of time to realize that he was in love with Edward, much less to confess to the ghost of his feelings. She had a feeling she knew all the whys as well. But she had to pacify herself with the knowledge that, in fact, Edward hadn't been in Roy's life for even a month yet. Considering her son's past history, this was shockingly fast progress. "That's why I'm glad he has you for a best friend. You can harry him about settling down when I can't."
"Is that permission?" Came Maes's curiously amused voice.
Daphne smiled and glanced towards the window to look out over the vineyard cloaked in darkness. "Unofficial."
"Roy in love… I feared I'd never see the day."
"Don't tell me about fear, I'm his mother." Daphne pointed out with a wry grin. "I may not be getting grandbabies after all… but at least I'll live to see the day he settles down."
"Are you kidding? Now that I know he's in love with this guy I'm not going to be satisfied until I can pay him back the favor of being his best man at the wedding."
Daphne gave a small smile at the thought, and after a moment of considering it circumstantially, came to believe that Edward's lack of a corporeal form wouldn't prevent him from wearing a wedding ring if it came to that. Such a thing just wasn't something she could see standing in their way.
For a time longer they talked back and forth on the matter, Maes never truly giving up in his wheedling to learn more about this mystery man than he already had, but Daphne fended him off with amused expertise. Only once Maes had temporarily given up did they both hang up their respective phone lines, and as Daphne took her hand away from the receiver she picked up the photo frame containing the picture of her son.
She studied it in silence for a few moments, shifting it subtly this way and that as the low lamp light caught on the glass, before setting it down again with a smile. "Your father would be proud of you…" she murmured before slumping forward over her desk propped up on her elbows with her chin in her hands as she looked across to the wall where the largest photograph she owned of her late husband hung. "He's finally becoming the man you were."
The order forms she'd been working on went forgotten as she lost herself in bittersweet memory, and hoped that wherever Roy was right now, that he was doing right by Edward.
Back in Central, Roy had only just managed to convince himself that he was.
It had only taken a few minutes since he'd sat himself down on a barstool with a beer in hand before a young redheaded woman who was most certainly just legal enough slipped up to him, inserting herself between the bar stools so that her skirt brushed up against Roy's knees.
"I was sorry to hear about what happened last night. I'm sure it must be hard for someone like you to always be in the media eye." She opened the conversation with a sympathetic smile and a sultry tone.
Roy regarded her impassively for a moment before shrugging with a carefree smirk. "It has its uses. Like helping me weed out those who can't handle being in my life."
"You deserve someone who can be, who wouldn't be scared off by your popularity. Or the reality that being in a relationship with you isn't entirely a private matter." The girl agreed with a flirting smile and took another sip of her wine that didn't keep her from continuing to make eye contact.
Roy rolled the bottom edge of his beer bottle against the counter a moment before giving her a pointed frown, "just how old are you."
"Old enough to handle myself." She answered easily with a challenging gleam in her green eyes as she clinked her wineglass to the bar counter in a subconscious effort to display herself for full view.
For Roy, the answer was good enough. Besides, she'd not have been able to get through the doors of this particular bar without being over a certain age. She met every criteria he required, and by the looks of her, he'd have a few fun-filled rounds of sex awaiting him before he'd cut her loose. "Want to go somewhere else to discuss my media fame?" He asked solicitously.
After all, he hadn't come here to talk.
Within the minute he was escorting her out of the bar, their drinks left unfinished on the counter. In reality it wasn't too long of a walk back to her place, but to Roy, it felt interminable. Every coy look she gave him made the fragile cage he'd shoved his guilt into grow weaker, every word she said cracked away at his resolve, and every time she smiled… it wasn't the smile he wanted to see. All in all, it was all coalescing together to make him feel on edge and irritable.
But he had to do this. He had to.
"Are you okay?" The girl asked as they reached her studio apartment at long last.
"More than." Roy graced her with an appreciative look, gathering his mask about him firmly as he helped her open the door by pressing her into it before shutting it behind them and spinning her around to press her up against it once more, firmly. And keeping her pinned with both body and a hand, he trailed the other seductively into her wavy hair. "Now what do you say you lock that door and we'll discuss me."
She smirked with satisfaction and reached over blindly to turn the deadbolt. "Don't worry, I'll make you forget about whoever decided not to join you last night."
Roy wasted no time in dragging her across the small apartment and tumbling her to her bed, and with a desperation he'd not admit to he applied himself to his mission. It was as much a mission to prove to himself that he could still do this, as it was to escape the silver eyes that haunted him from behind pleasure-drugged green ones.
A long time later, after the still nameless girl had slipped into a sexually exhausted unconsciousness, Roy climbed off of her to sit on the edge of the bed with his forehead resting against the palm of one hand.
Over and over he'd taken his frustrations out on the eager girl who he doubted would awaken again any time soon, not after that last purely physical ravishing. Over and over he'd tried to see only her as he pleasured her to the peaks of ecstasy and back again. And now, sitting here at the end of it, he didn't feel any better. He'd gone through periods of sexual distance before, always by choice… but never had it been so difficult to get back into it.
He'd never felt guilt over it.
Closing his eyes not from weariness, he let out a small sigh before dropping his hand and looking to the illuminated clock on her bedside table. It was still well before midnight and he felt exhausted. Not physically… but mentally.
He was doing the right thing… wasn't he? What and how he felt for Edward… he couldn't…
Roy ground his teeth together in a sudden scowl as he forced himself away from those thoughts. The longer he stayed here, the longer he risked her waking up and being forced to tumble her again, so dragging himself to his feet he pulled his clothes back on mechanically before letting himself out her front door without a second look back. He forced himself to start walking back to the busiest bar district, intending to keep going until he felt better.
The girl hadn't at all accomplished what he'd hoped she would.
So he threw himself in recklessly, not even waiting with the next person to get to a bed, much less get somewhere more private than the public restroom inside the club. He didn't even wait for the person to recover their senses for a second round before he slipped away into the throng of closely dancing bodies, alcohol, and pulsing music. There was hardly a chance that his tryst would be able to find him again easily in this mess. Especially since he wasn't planning on staying long.
Especially not after he caught the eye of two girls who were dancing with each other, and very closely at that. Not being a man who was at all adverse to two lovely girls all to himself, he bought them both cursory drinks which were downed while they were moving against him in their little dance. Shortly after the current song ended, Roy moved them both outside for a little air whereupon he reapplied his skills at being able to thoroughly kiss two people at once.
After that it was a quick trip to the college district of Central to tumble the two girls who were more than a little wasted as it turned out, followed by a college boy who he just so happened to run across on his way out.
Afterwards he set out once more, aiming for yet another bar as he tried to ignore the fact that his earlier guilt had been replaced with a hollow emptiness. At least… something was different. Even if it still hurt.
At this next club he didn't even bother to order a drink. Just leaned up against the wall to watch some of the other patrons do their best attempts at dancing with each other while clearly having had one too many. It was almost amusing enough to make him crack a real smile, almost. As it was, the one he had on now was a fake he'd perfected over many years in the Military. One altered to lure in his nightly prey.
Prey that came to him complete with a drink that was passed into his hands with a hopeful smile.
Roy took a prolonged drink of the offered margarita as his eyes closely studied the man with pale blond hair over its salted rim. Finally he took the drink away, licking his lips for the flavor of the salt, even as with an internal smugness he watched the man shiver at the sight. "Just the right amount of tequila, how did you know?"
"I've admired you for a while now." The man admitted, words made bold by his own drink in his hand.
Roy chuckled, his eyes narrowing in a predatory interest. "And you're looking to admire more of me?"
A pleasing flush crossed the man's features, but his gaze remained steady. "There's no one better than me for the task. I'm dedicated to learning you in a way no one else in here could ever be."
Roy smirked, and suddenly, without even sloshing his margarita, had snagged the man by his forearm and whirled him around into the wall, pressing up against him bodily in a way that allowed him to feel every contour of the man. "Are you now?" Roy purred, slipping his free hand up under this man's shirt to caress his side.
The man looked rather rattled by the change in position, but not displeased. "Y-yes."
Roy smirked, and keeping his eyes firmly on the man, kept sliding his hand upward as he quickly finished off his drink in a rush of tequila that made his senses temporarily spin. "That's 'yes, Colonel Mustang'." He corrected before sliding his tongue along the rim of his emptied margarita glass in order to gather all the salt, watching with superior smugness as the man under his thrall quaked at the sight.
He then shoved the empty glass into the man's other free hand to best keep him occupied. "Try saying it. If you can't get it right, I'm leaving here without you."
The man flushed, ducking his head in slight embarrassment before uttering, "yes, Colonel Mustang."
"Sir?" Roy prompted with a verging-on-evil grin.
"Yes, Colonel Mustang, sir."
"Good." Roy grinned wider, and stroking the man's hair pulled away with a last pet up the man's side. "Now go set those drinks down and we'll leave."
The man practically ran to the nearest table to rid himself of the drinks before making his way back to Roy who had continued to watch him with a feral look in his dark eyes. As soon as he reached the Colonel, he was pulled from the club and out onto the dark but still somewhat busy sidewalk.
"I have a destination in mind." Roy declared in a tone that promised all forms of depraved things, and tugged the blond-haired man down a much quieter street. His captive having little choice but to follow or protest, and the latter was not done.
At least… not until Roy tugged him into an eerie and ramshackle building that had condemned signs mounted to the front door.
"Hey, what're you –" but his words were cut off as he was flung further into the darkness and tripped over a fallen something on the floor, causing him to topple over into a thumping heap.
Roy snapped, causing a desk that remained propped up by only one leg to ignite into flame causing a steady pulse of light in the room that had once clearly been a waiting room of some sort. Most likely an office. Just in enough time to see the man he'd thrown reach for something at his side… underneath his shirt.
He smirked.
"Looking for this?" He asked, and holding his hand up to the light of the fire, he watched the blond man's eyes widen as he followed the rocking path of the pistol that Roy had dangling from one finger.
Roy gave a harsh, bitter laugh as he turned his gaze briefly to the gun in question, looking at it with a detached disdain. "If you think I don't know all the spies Grand uses, civilian and military, you've vastly overestimated your own covertness."
And then he looked to the still-sprawled and decidedly angry man with a bright smile. "You didn't seriously think I actually wanted to touch you, did you? I really had you going there, didn't I. I admit, had I had at least two more drinks even I would have had myself going. You were so easy to fool, so easy to play with."
"Bastard!" The man bit out, struggling to his feet with flashing eyes.
"You didn't even notice that I was relieving you of your weapons." Roy added with a weighted hint of glee. "Grand really knows how to pick them… although I'll gladly take credit for my own charms. It was truly flattering of you to fall so handily into my arms."
"I said shut up!" The man shouted, fairly shaking in his anger.
Roy tilted his head in mocking confusion, "did not. You called me a bastard."
"I swear, when I get my hands on you –"
"You won't." Roy interrupted smoothly, and his eyes began to narrow in a different sort of predation. "Because you see, I just can't forgive you for this." And he lifted the gun, flicking the safety off as absently as Hawkeye might have. "Not only are you a pathetic excuse for a blond –"
A scream nearly as loud as the gunshot it had followed rang out in the abandoned building, and the man crumpled to the floor again, clutching his profusely bleeding knee with curses and pained noises.
"– only one person is allowed to call me a bastard and tell me to shut up in the same conversation –"
Another scream from another gunshot, and the second knee had fairly exploded from the force.
"– and his hands are the only ones I want on me, not yours –"
The man was flung back from the force of another gunshot, this time to the shoulder, and the crack of the shot as it split the air was only barely louder than the snapping of the bones or the punctuated scream.
"– and since he's not here right now," Roy's eyes narrowed in a deadly anger as he stalked forward, the flames casting him into devilish light and shadow as he moved, "there's nothing keeping me from torturing you until even hell won't accept your ugly soul."
"Please, I – I can get you near Grand! I can –"
Roy emptied the fourth shot into the hands that were raised pleadingly up to him, not noticing, nor really caring, when most of the man's fingers went missing in a bloody spray, or the fact that the bullet had gone on to shallowly impact in the man's collarbone region. "I don't need your help for that, you pitiful excuse for a human. Grand always picks the weakest humans… my own people would never blubber and beg."
"I'll tell you anything!" The man cried out, practically seizing from the pain lancing through his body.
"We'll see if you know anything, don't worry." Roy smiled sweetly, and reached down to yank the man up while planting the gun and its remaining two shots against the man's temple as he drug him across the floor on those crippled knees towards the fire that was still steadily consuming the desk. "Just after I make you pay for ruining my shirt."
It was edging close to an hour later that Roy was walking away from the condemned building that now was engulfed in swirling fire and pouring clouds of thick, putrid smoke. He couldn't even hear sirens yet in the distance, not that it would matter. The building was past saving, if that last booming collapse was anything to go on.
And as for the only occupant inside it?
It would hardly be recognizable that what was inside had ever been human.
Roy sighed as he walked along the now quite emptier streets, keeping to the shadows as he went. His clothes were absolutely ruined, and he needed a shower for more than the fact that Grand clearly knew enough about his clubbing habits to send a spy in that form.
And after that little side affair, the thought of hooking up with someone else was furthest from his mind. Besides… he needed some time to think.
So he only spared an idle thought as to how he ended up sitting in the park he'd first brought Edward to, rocking slowly back and forth on a swing as his ash-covered boots created divots in the sand. The creaking of the chains as he slowly swung back and forth was soothing to his mind, and he leaned his head against the cool chain with a labored exhale.
This was not at all how he'd pictured his night ending. In some ways, it was highly inconvenient, and only made him want to kill Grand all the more. In others… it had been resolutely affirming.
He'd spent the entire night trying to run from his feelings. Spent it trying to forget and leave behind the desire he felt. Spent it trying to ignore his guilt, and tell himself it was okay. And then it had all been brought to an abrupt about-face… he had happened, and he had wrenched the repressed truth out of him.
Roy closed his eyes, and kicked the swing back higher into the air, enjoying the calming rush of cool wind against his face. "It's hopeless… it just had to be Edward…" he murmured to the quiet night air, and let the swing rock back to stillness on its own.
Absently he realized that he was taking the loss of a life-held mantra rather calmly. Far more calmly than he might have ever imagined. And he had never imagined that this would happen, or that if it did, it should at least come to pass by him drinking himself into unconsciousness. But then… he'd not imagined a lot of things before Edward had come into his life.
And it wasn't as if he hadn't tried to stay true to what he'd believed. He had tried… he really had. And now, feeling more than exhausted in every way, and having had his evening come to a bloody end, he now only believed he wanted nothing more than to go home.
Home to Edward.
And so he hopped from the swing before it had truly come to a stop and began to make his way back home, with each step feeling a sense of lightness steal over him that there hadn't been before. A sense of eagerness at the thought of the silvery ghost who waited for him. And a sense of urgency upon remembering how disappointed Edward had been when he'd announced his plans to go out for the evening.
"I'm such a damn fool." Roy breathed out, and barely registered that he'd broken into a run.
All such awareness had been overcome by this relief and need to be back where he belonged. So he ran.
Yet when he reached his house, still dark as he'd left it save for the singular light on in his bedroom, he hesitated at the gate. He was barely out of breath, but he stood there a moment even so, looking up at that light as a fond smile caused his gaze to soften.
"He's going to be so mad at me." Roy chuckled helplessly, and let himself through the gate.
Mad, he would soon come to learn, hardly covered it.
Edward heard the front door close and lock, so he immediately abandoned the book he'd been reading onto the bed and fell down through the floor to pop out on the downstairs level before moving to the entry way. "You better not have brought anyone back with you, you're early."
Roy grimaced at the thought, but didn't answer it as he braced himself for all the explaining he was about to be doing, and reached for the light switch. "No. But promise me you won't freak out too badly? I'm okay, I swear."
Edward stopped next to the man, barely able to see him in the darkness, and a shadow of uncertainty creeping at him. "Freak out?" He repeated, and a flicker of panic began to edge into his mind. "What happened?"
Roy turned on the light switch.
Edward actually fell back through the air several paces as his silver eyes went wide at the sight of the man. "I'm not promising that!" He screeched, panic alighting his silver eyes as he frantically looked the man over.
Roy was covered from face to boots in blood spatters and ash. His clothes had been completely ruined by the amount of blood that had soaked them, and flecks of other organic material that was decidedly not blood were stuck here and there.
"I'm not hurt, I swear!" Roy quickly appeased, holding his hands up quickly.
Edward felt he might have been ill, for the fact he couldn't be. "Not yet you're not!" He exclaimed with growing distress.
At this point, Hazel had raced downstairs, intent on chastising his human, before catching sight and probably smell of him. With widened rodent eyes and a spooked look he raced back up the stairs with a squeal.
Neither noticed him.
"What the fuck happened to you?" Edward demanded weakly, though with no less panic.
Roy grimaced as he looked down at himself. It looked so much worse in actual proper lighting. "I'll tell you after I clean up. You don't really want me to stay looking like this, do you?" He pointed out, and began to move towards the stairs.
"Oh no you don't!" Edward darted through the air to block his path with arms outstretched. "There is no fucking way I am letting you upstairs into our bedroom covered in that! You are turning yourself right back around, Roy Mustang, going out that front door and around back where you will take those things off, incinerate them, and then shower with the garden hose!"
Roy felt he deserved any and all harassment that Edward would send his way, and he meekly nodded and moved to do as told. "Bring me a towel and some more clothes then?"
"And soap." Edward growled as he looked the man over. "I'd bring you bleach if it wouldn't kill you. And by the way, you're cleaning everything you touched on your way in. You'll do it before you go to bed tonight or I swear that you will regret not doing it."
"Whatever you want." Roy agreed easily and quickly, hoping to temper some of the anger he knew was building. Right before he let himself back outside to go start doing as he'd been told. Starting with burning all his offending clothes.
Edward meanwhile had gone up to the bathroom, his earlier panic still quite present as he quickly gathered the soap and shampoo into a towel and then ransacked Roy's closet for pajamas. Once he had everything he exited the house through the outer wall to go down to where Roy was currently rinsing himself off with the garden hose, a smoking section of charred ground not too far away.
Edward set the clothes and towel on the grass far enough way so they'd not get wet before walking over to the drenched man with the shampoo and soap, not even caring that the man was utterly naked. He was too upset to even register it as he shoved the items at the man. "You will scrub every inch of you at least twice."
Roy barely had time to feel flustered at his nakedness in front of Edward before he was forced to grab onto the items. Then he couldn't decide whether or not he was disappointed that Edward didn't seem inclined to look. "Mind holding this then?" He asked, waving the hose about.
Edward eyed it distastefully before grabbing onto it anyway, "you're washing this too. Now scrub!"
Roy scrubbed. First with shampoo, then with the soap, and then twice more with the soap in respect to Edward's pointed looks. Looks which were always kept above the neckline… much to Roy's hidden disappointment.
Then Edward was agreeing to turning off the water, so he did and walked off a ways into the backyard with his back turned to the man as Roy toweled off and got dressed. And he stood there in the grass, his arms wrapped around himself as he stared hard up at the moon.
It brought him no comfort right now.
Finally Roy was dressed, and slinging the towel over his shoulder looked over to where the ghost stood with his shoulders set in a hard line. Feeling understandably uneasy, he made his way over to the ghost. "Edward…" he began softly, and reached out a hand towards the spirit.
Edward whirled away, his silver eyes flashing in anger. "What the – what happened to you!" He demanded to know.
Roy didn't even care about where they were enough to ask that they go back inside. Besides, he wasn't planning on raising his voice, and it was too late an hour for any of his neighbors to be awake and about. Right now, all he cared about was the troubled ghost standing before him… knowing that Edward's anger only stemmed from the panic he'd been in earlier. "I'm sorry, Edward, that you had to see that."
"Shut up!" Edward snapped.
Roy barely kept from smiling at the irony.
"Tell me the truth, did you go after Grand alone tonight? I know that you think you've an idea as to where that lab is!"
Roy shook his head, his eyes never leaving Edward's. "No, but he sent someone after me. Someone to one of the clubs. I had no choice but to take care of it and…" he trailed off there, his gaze falling at last to the side in hesitance.
"And?" Edward prompted firmly, even as his mind raced with the knowledge that Roy had been in danger tonight. Danger that he hadn't been there to help protect him from.
"I tortured him… and not like you saw me do before. Back then I had held back because of you, because I didn't want you to see me like that... and then I had to scare you like this." Roy added regretfully. "I'm sorry, Edward. I'm sorry for scaring you."
Edward glared at him a few moments longer, before his hardened posture shifted into something more helpless as Roy's words finally got to him, and the panic and anger began to melt away leaving him with only exhausted relief. "You idiot…" he murmured, and nudged the heel of his hand against the pressure he could feel behind his eyes. A pressure he knew would never release anyway.
Roy smiled fondly then, and reaching a hand out, stroked it against the face he knew could not feel him. "I'm so sorry…"
"You're really okay? You're not hurt?" Edward asked in a choked voice, turning over-bright silver eyes up onto the man. And his hands reached out to the man's shirt, as if to cling to it.
"Not a scratch, I promise." Roy soothed, lowering his hand to cover one of the incorporeal ones. "You could check me over, if you like?"
Edward gave a watery-sounding chuckle that was supposed to have come out as something outraged. "Idiot." He repeated quietly and gave a halting breath of air he didn't need. "If you ever scare me like that again you will need to be checked over."
Roy smiled happily, ignoring Edward's weak scowl as he did. "I knew you'd be mad at me, but I also knew you'd be worried."
"Go clean everything you touched, you bastard!" Edward flared up, jabbing a finger towards the house. "And then I want you in bed, no arguments!"
Roy grinned at the orders, and tried to ignore the way his body wanted to react to the last one. For fucks sake, he'd spent his entire night sleeping around, he'd have thought even his libido had limits. But that didn't prevent him from answering with a smug: "I would never argue you wanting me in bed."
Edward knew that if he were capable of it, he'd have turned several shades of red. But all he could really do was squeak a "now!" and point towards the house again.
Edward kept a close eye on Roy's cleaning activities. Even going so far as to order Roy to scrub something again, and this time to put some more effort into it. He didn't care that the man must be tired, and probably under the effects of more alcohol than was healthy. He wanted their house clean.
Only once he was satisfied at the spotless and sanitary state of the house and anything Roy might have touched did he allow the man to get up off his knees and go upstairs to bed. When the man went without complaint, Edward went into the kitchen where he began to mix up some more hot chocolate.
He knew it helped the man after a long night like he'd had… and he knew it would help Roy sleep. Something that he worried the man might not be able to do restfully after having killed someone just hours ago.
He knew how death sometimes weighed on the man, even if it didn't seem that Roy particularly cared about the death of those involved with Basque Grand.
He mixed the hot chocolate slowly, not rushing the process as some nights he'd done. Tonight he found his own sense of comfort in the act of what he was doing, each measured sweep of the whisk through the creamy mixture helping him put some order to his frenzied thoughts.
By the time he had a steaming mug full of hot chocolate, Edward felt a bit better, and he made his way upstairs to Roy.
Just as he'd ordered, the man was abed.
Edward paused a moment as Roy's unreadable gaze found his, but when the man lifted up the covers in invitation, he hesitated no longer. Floating over he climbed into the bed and passed the man the mug as the blankets fell back over them both.
"Thanks." Roy murmured in pleasant surprise, and began to drink.
Looking over at Roy as the man happily drank, he smiled sadly before twisting his hands in the covers and staring down at them. "When I saw you covered in all that blood… I thought it was yours." He began softly. "I thought the worst. And I know how stubborn you are, you'd haul yourself in acting fine just because that's you."
Roy lifted the mug of hot chocolate away, his dark eyes resting on the silvery apparition at his side. "I know."
"I'm so damn scared of losing you, Roy. And I…" Edward trailed off, as if reliving a bitter memory, and in truth, he was. "There are things worse than death, Roy. I should know… and I know I'd do anything to keep you alive."
Roy felt himself soften at the words, felt his fondness for the ghost at his side only grow… just when he thought he couldn't care any more than he already did for Edward, he was always proven wrong. "Tonight I realized something I should have a long time ago… and you should know that the entire time I was subduing that spy, all I could think of was you… and how wrong it was that the spy should tell me to shut up and call me a bastard when that's solely your privilege."
Edward looked at him in puzzlement for a moment, before a shy expression crossed his face. "Shut up." He murmured, and flopped down onto his back as he turned towards Roy.
Roy smiled tenderly, and reached out to brush his hand through the silvery hair next to his leg, his attentions going unnoticed by Edward. After a moment of hesitation where his heart seemed to race too fast, he opened his mouth again, ready to confess the rest of what he'd hidden behind that sentence, only to close it again with a brief flicker of regret in his eyes.
Edward had been through enough tonight because of him.
Slowly he released the sigh that had built inside him, and he resumed drinking his hot chocolate once more, trying to tell himself that it wasn't because he was scared to know what Edward would say.
That it wasn't because he was scared to know what Edward would do.
Lowering his mug of hot chocolate, nearly gone now, he smiled down gently at the head of silvery hair that his fingers still passed through in stroking motions, feeling the truth of what he finally had accepted somewhere along the way tonight glowing warmly inside of him despite his fears.
He had fallen in love with Edward.