Chapter Fifty-Eight

Riza let herself back into the office almost an hour later at Roy's permission, bringing with her two paper sacks and a disposable drink cup. The cup she passed into Roy's hand, while the largest of the paper sacks she set down on the desk for him. "Sandwich for you, sir."

Roy immediately dived into the paper sack with abandon.

Edward was trying not to laugh at Roy's enthusiasm when Riza spoke again.

"And I got a few office things for you, Edward." Riza had set the remaining paper sack on the desk and was rustling inside of it to begin pulling items out. "Proper pens, since you're apparently helping Roy with paperwork…"

Edward immediately darted through Roy's desk in order to look in eager surprise. "She sprung for fountain pens? For me?"

Roy, for his part, was grinning in happiness for the apparition, and in more than a little surprise at Riza. He hadn't expected she'd take this well to Edward.

"Little postie-tabs – just put those on the ones you do and I'll know that I won't have to double-check anything." Riza continued, ignoring Roy's indignant exclamation. "Keep them away from Roy."

"Lieutenant!" Roy spluttered in offense.

Edward laughed brightly, and Riza ignored him again.

"And ink refills for your pens, of course." She pulled those out as well and cast her gaze around, uncertain of where Edward was but figuring he was close by her. "Just let me know if you need anything else. I'll keep you supplied like I do Mustang."

Edward grinned in delight and immediately picked up one of his new pens, and snatching aside a spare piece of paper off Roy's desk, he quickly wrote his gratitude and offered it out to her.

Riza took the slip of paper with only an initial marked hesitance, yet a smile slipped onto her face as she read the words and nodded, offering that same smile in the direction she now knew Edward to be. "You're welcome." And casting her attention towards Roy, she nodded to him. "Colonel, enjoy your lunch."

It didn't escape Edward or Roy's notice that Riza left while tucking Edward's note of thanks into the breast pocket of her uniform.

"Well now, look who's charming my staff…" Roy drawled with amused delight as he leaned back in his chair with drink in one hand and sandwich in the other.

Edward cast him a look of shy happiness, "she went shopping for me."

"Think she's trying to steal you from me?" Roy queried lightly, eyes glittering in amusement.

"I think she's just grateful I'm trying to keep you safe." Edward scolded him with warm affection, "put such silly ideas out of your head. You're stuck with me."

Roy grinned around his latest bite of food, and knew he'd never stop being grateful to whatever strange twist of fate that had allowed him to be stuck with Edward Elric. Edward had done far much more for him than just show him that he had the capacity to love someone the way he loved the ghost.

After Edward had put away his new things in a drawer of Roy's desk that the man halfway cleared for him, and after Roy had finished the better part of his sandwich and left off holding his drink, the chessboard was pulled out for the first time in, really, far too long.

"You should just admit perpetual defeat, Roy," Edward stated quite loftily, several minutes into the first game, despite the state of the chessboard.

The look Roy turned on the ghost was one of disbelief, but with a dose of uncertainty as well for his continued success thus far. After all, he did lose the majority of the time to Edward. Looking back down he gave a consideration of the board not unlike he might give a real battle scenario. "And just how, exactly, do you think you'll be worming your way out of this one, dearest?"

An amused smirk slipped briefly onto Edward's lips, and he ignored the question as he moved one of his rooks out to tempt Roy. "Your move, dearest." He traded back candidly, unconcerned if Roy took his bait or not. Either way he'd have the man beat in three moves.

Roy snorted, even as a ridiculous part of him warmed at the endearment, mockingly dropped from Edward's lips or not. So, his little love wanted to play coy, he'd soon get Edward to admit it had all been a ruse when he had the ghost in checkmate. "I'll accept your surrender." He offered in an enticing velvet tone.

Edward nearly shivered at the sound of it, and lifted his gaze to glare. "I don't need to. And you'd best not offer surrender to others sounding like that. I think I'd get angry and jealous."

"You're the only one I want in my bed." Roy reassured him with a hint of pleased amusement coloring his voice now. He did not plan to now, or ever, make Edward jealous like that, but in a way it was still heartening to know that Edward could become so.

"It's not just your bed that concerns me." Edward told him with a teasing smile, "I have a feeling a lack of a proper bed never stopped you."

"No," Roy admitted, and moved to avoid intercepting the rook that he was pretty certain was meant to snare him into some scheme. "However you're who I love," he paused as he suddenly considered the chessboard, "even though I'm pretty sure I just fucked myself, didn't I."

"Are you talking about loving me, or about helping me kick your ass?" Edward asked sweetly as promptly opened himself up to bring Roy into check on his next move.

"Would you accept my surrender?" Roy asked as he realized that somehow, Edward had lured him along the chessboard and now had him in a trap.

Edward grinned at him with utter enjoyment at the predicament Roy was now facing, and shook his head slowly. "Oh no, I think not. How unfortunate for you… I'm the only Elric who doesn't accept surrenders."

"Too late to trade you in for Alphonse?" Roy wondered teasingly as he made a last ditch, but admittedly worthless effort to try and avoid his fate on the chessboard.

"I thought I once told you that if you ever even looked at my brother wrong, you'd have my ghostly wrath to deal with?" Edward reminded him sweetly, though with a narrow-eyed look all the same.

Roy huffed out a laugh and nodded, he did recall that actually. Now that he thought about it. He'd just never bothered to give it much thought, given he'd not been remotely interested, so he'd just dismissed the entire thing. "And I still maintain that one of you is enough for me. More than enough."

"How romantic." Edward muttered with a poorly hidden smile, and proceeded to knock Roy's king from the chessboard. "You need to teach me a new game. So for a while at least you have a higher percentage of winning."

"But I'm learning," Roy muttered as he pieced together all the moves Edward had made to trap him so suddenly, "I'm learning that when I'm Fuhrer, if ever there's another war, you're going to be my chief strategist."

Edward laughed quietly and shook his head. "Ah yes, the invisible chief strategist. What will they think of you?"

"That I am brilliant in my madness." Roy determined and started setting the chessboard back up again for another match. "You would do it, wouldn't you?"

"You'd have more trouble stopping me from helping you, than convincing me to." Edward pointed out to him with a faint smile as he considered Roy from across the desk. "And you'd never be able to stop me from being at your side in such times."

How well Roy now knew that to be true… and he was grateful for it. He actually had trouble imagining doing any of this without Edward, despite knowing that he'd find a way. Everything was just so much easier to bear when someone else was there demanding to bear it with him, someone he couldn't pull rank on to get them to leave off.

Although he got the niggling suspicion that Edward wouldn't have given two shits about rank anyway.

He knew he'd be grateful for it still, after all, having an alchemist of Edward's caliber beside him would only be a benefit. Something that was impossible now… and yet… Roy focused in on Edward's face closely as he considered something now that he hadn't given much prolonged thought to in the past.

"What's with the face?" Edward shot Roy a suspicious look as he realized the man had been staring at him with the strangest expression. "Do I need to get you home?"

"And have our first date be bedside?" Roy asked with initial horror at the thought, before a sly smile crept onto his lips as he gave it more consideration. "On second thought – "

"No!" Edward held up a hand laughingly, but with ironclad insistence in his silver gaze as he pinned Roy with a reproving look.

Roy laughed in kind, and held his hands up in surrender. "Only kidding, love." He reassured, half to see that fond and a little bit flustered expression slip onto Edward's features at the endearment. "Actually I was wondering if somewhere in that genius alchemy brain of yours, there's a way to make my gloves better. Last time was a bit too close for comfort, and now knowing I'm eventually going up against a homunculus?"

Edward slowly nodded and extended a hand with concentration lining his features, and a bit of a frown that he hadn't thought of it himself. But then, Roy was frighteningly powerful as he was. When he wasn't being stonewalled by fake philosophers stones.

Roy slipped the glove from his left hand and offered it out. "There stopped being anything the man I eventually trained under could teach me, and while he was a master at his craft, he wasn't you."

"He wasn't an Elric." Edward added of his own accord, but felt the statement truthful. Both he and his brother, for the brief time they'd studied and practiced alchemy, had been in a class of their own and swiping their father's texts on the subject. Texts that a living philosophers stone had used as reference. And Edward wasn't fool enough to think that what his father was had played no part in how easily alchemy had come to he and his brother.

Roy's smile had dipped at the corners in wry acknowledgment, and he sat back in his chair as he watched Edward examine the array on the glove. "You wouldn't have liked him."

"Is he still alive?" Edward asked curiously, his silvery gaze flicking up to meet Roy's dark eyes. "Or have you killed him."

Roy wasn't sure if it should bother him or not, the casual way Edward had asked that question, as if the thought of Roy killing someone was commonplace. And then he remembered the stitches still holding him together. No, it wasn't so farfetched that Edward would assume he'd permanently removed a potential threat. In saying Edward wouldn't have liked the guy, of course the ghost would assume things. "He's been dead for quite some time now, but not from my doing."

Edward nodded, accepting the answer for what it was and not prying. It's not that he wasn't interested in trying to ferret out some details of what he was certain was an interesting story, it was more that Roy clearly didn't remember it fondly. Asking Roy to revisit a less happy time of his past wasn't exactly what he wanted to do, what with their final conflict with the Brigadier General drawing quickly towards a head.

"What's your assessment, O' Edward of the Elrics." Roy asked at length in a hopeful, jaunty tone.

Edward abstained from rolling his eyes. Barely. "The array is solid," he approved and set the glove back on the desk between them. It would need at least a minute before Roy would be able to touch it again. "Although if I'd noticed something off before now, I'd have said."

"But?" Roy prompted, knowing the apparition well enough to know that there was a 'but' there.

"But," Edward conceded with a faint, fond smile directed at Roy, "I have an idea. Along the lines of what you've been working towards in your research journals. And if you'll allow me, I'll take one of your spare gloves and make some modifications."

Roy didn't even have to consider denying the request, and honestly he'd not have minded if Edward hadn't requested at all and just gone ahead and done whatever he was planning. He trusted Edward wholly and completely, with his life, with everything. Although since Edward was asking…"only if you let me watch, so I can learn."

Edward tried to control his smirk, he really did, but it still crept onto his face as he fixed a teasing look on Roy. "I wasn't aware there was anything about that which you still needed to learn."

It took Roy a second longer than it should have to piece together the taunting tone, teasing look, and the words just said between them to realize exactly how Edward had chosen to twist his words. So his easily flustered little love wanted to go there, did he? "Oh I'll always be willing to take direction from you, to ensure I'm doing it exactly the way you like it done."

Edward grinned despite himself and shook his head. "Impossible." And for all the multiple meanings that one word had in consideration of their situation, his heart still felt light.

With just that one word, said so fondly to him, Roy felt all his drive to tease Edward melt away. Now he reached out around the chessboard towards the ghost, who seeing his intentions had already offered out a shimmering incorporeal hand for him. "Yet it still stands true."

"One day." Edward heard himself promising, but he smiled as he realized it for the truth. One day he'd be able to handle being around for such things with Roy, but it definitely was not this day. The mere thought still flustered him.

Roy tipped his head sideways a bit as a somewhat teasing smile lined his lips, "then one day you should join me in the shower."

"A hot one, I hope. Cold ones don't suit you so well." Edward couldn't help but retaliate in flustered amusement.

Roy scowled at the reminder, and suddenly his desire to get Edward into that shower with him was twofold. "Hush, you tyrant." He scolded against the bright laughter escaping the ghost now.

Edward eventually did so, although a smug delight was still glittering in his silver eyes, but leaving off tormenting this ridiculous man he's somehow, somewhere along the line fallen in love with, he gestured to the glove between them. "But yes, if you want to watch, of course you can. I can't guarantee what'll happen, to be honest. It's mostly theory on my part, continuing off of your own theories. But I'm interested in trying."

"We'll go somewhere remote for testing." Roy decided, and then considered Edward with a seriousness that was utterly opposite the teasing banter of just moments ago. "You do know you don't have to push yourself to be around when I – "

"Roy," Edward interrupted with an instant firmness to his tone, and a slight hard glint in his eyes, "you could never make me do anything. You've never been able to make me do anything. If one day I want to be around while you are actively engaging in whatever dirty fantasies you have about me, I'll thank you not to ruin the mood by questioning my decision about whether or not I can handle being present for it."

Roy couldn't help but feel sufficiently scolded, and he offered Edward an apologetic smile as he nodded in ascent. Yet scolded or not, it didn't stop him from cheekily asking, "you think I fantasize about you?"

Edward gave him a deadpan look, "I don't think, I know. Because I know you."

Conceding that Edward had a more than valid point, Roy grinned. "Come on, one more chess match and then back to work. I have a first date I want to take you on."

Edward could hardly say no to either of those things, didn't want to say no. "I best trounce you quickly then, so we can get back to it."

The trouncing, while it did happen, was not immediate. And did not conclude the way that Edward had thought it would, with Roy managing to pull out a narrow victory over him. After Roy had sufficiently delighted in his comeback win, they got the pieces and the chessboard put away and Roy finally pulled back on his glove that had been lying on the desk between them since Edward had put it there.

Afterwards they resumed working through the paperwork that remained, with Edward continuing to use the little postie-tabs that Riza had bought for him to signify which ones she didn't need to worry about. Something that Roy would huff about childishly every so often. Here and there they would pass over each other's current report to mention something or get an opinion, but for the most part they worked in a comfortable silence.

They were nearly through it, only a few folders remaining for each of them, when a knock sounded at the office door.

Riza poked her head through without waiting for permission, "Greg's back. Want me to send him in?"

"Please." Roy allowed with a faint smile that slipped from his face in favor of an expression carefully blank as his Lieutenant's head removed itself from his office.

Edward had set his pen down and sat himself on the edge of the desk, and as they heard murmurings outside the door, he glanced aside at Roy. "Just let me know if you want me to spook him to prove anything."

"I don't think spooking is necessary," Roy replied in a low, quiet tone as the door began to swing open, "they already know you exist. I don't think they'd believe they'd win any favors from you by claiming to doubt it."

Edward tipped his head in wry acknowledgment, but said nothing.

Greg had reentered the office.

"Your decision?" Roy asked simply, but tone final and commanding all the same.

Greg took a cursory look around before settling his gaze on the Colonel, "we'll do it." He stated despite the nerves he still had about the entire affair, because in truth, Colonel Mustang was the safest option.

Despite the Colonel's reassurance that should any of them refuse, they would receive no backlash from the ghost, none of them were willing to test that. He had asked, and everyone had agreed that if the ghost was invested in protecting Colonel Mustang, so too should they be. They had never wanted to cross the ghost before, they were hardly about to start going against the supernatural entity now.

"Good." Roy approved of with the same reserved manner he'd adopted from the moment Greg had reentered his office. "Remember, you're just lingering. Maybe a little bit of extra cleaning here and there. That's all."

"Believe me, Colonel," Greg told him with blunt honesty, "that's all any of us are willing to do. We're not military, or spies, and we want no part of the games you all play with each other's lives."

"Then expect extra checks in the mail." Roy concluded with a note of finality in his tone, "if you need to contact me, leave me a note in here after hours saying you need to talk, and I will find you. Otherwise for your own safety it is best if you do not contact me in person until the matter is settled."

Greg nodded, and made to leave before hesitantly turning back to the Colonel, "how exactly is this going to help you? Us just hanging around more often where the Fuhrer is?"

"It will," Roy told him dismissively, "that's all you need to know."

Greg gave another nod, glancing around the office with a different sort of nervousness as he asked, "and you'll tell the ghost we're helping?"

Edward raised his hand, "right here." Yet he smiled at the head janitor, "he's probably going to lose the rest of his hair because of all this."

Roy thought it best not to comment one way or the other on that one, especially not in front of Greg. "He knows," he replied with a hint of something darker, warning in his tone, "he's watching you right now."

Perhaps a bit unfair to use Edward as a veiled threat and reminder to not double cross him, but he used it all the same.

Greg felt something icy descend to his stomach, clench its claws into him, and he was certain he paled several shades as he managed to get out as steadily as he could, "thank you, Colonel Mustang."

Roy waved him off, and nearly just as soon as Greg had departed, had Riza taken his place in the office.

"He just left looking like he'd seen a ghost." Riza couldn't help but mention, her lips quirking a bit in humor at the statement, despite her worry that all this had just backfired.

Edward huffed out, shooting Roy a rather wryly amused look. "Wonder why that could be."

"That he did not, but I may have reminded him of Edward all the same." Roy offered out in explanation.

Riza couldn't exactly find it in herself to blame him for playing that card. "Well?" She asked as she came forward to where her friend sat behind his desk with a wholly unreadable look on his face. "Do we have babysitters?"

Roy finally let slip a satisfied smile as he inclined his head once in a brief nod. "Hopefully they'll remain invisible to Bradley, just for the sole fact of their employment here, because I honestly doubt any of them are any good as a true spy."

Riza hoped so as well.

Edward and Roy were left alone again after Riza had caught them both up on the status reports of Armstrong, Maes, and now Falman. It seemed that there had been no changes in the Brigadier General's position, the man was still apparently in the laboratory.

Roy had sent Riza off with an unconcerned expression, but he knew she wasn't fooled by it. Neither was Edward.

"How much longer do you think we have?" Edward asked of him quietly, ignoring his remaining pile of paperwork he was assisting on in favor of watching Roy's face closely.

Honestly, Roy wasn't sure, but the fact that Grand seemed immovable from the facility was beginning to worry him. Either the man was under a literal gun to finish, and quickly, or he was already dead. An ingredient. "We've probably never had all that long." He admitted quietly as he met the concerned silver gaze. "But whether he's finished it or not, I'll still kill him."

"Either you do, or I will." Edward reassured him with a steely edge to his voice, and a determined glint in his eyes. "I won't see you brought to harm if I can do anything to prevent it."

Roy knew it for the truth, accepted it for the truth, and now he knew better than to try and argue Edward against it. "We'll assess an entry plan tomorrow morning, and I'll take a good look at my stitches tonight."

"I don't trust you not to try and remove them before they're ready," Edward frowned at him suspiciously, "so I'll be checking them too."

Roy couldn't help but chuckle at Edward's decision. "I promise I'd not make you worry like that. But really, dearest, there are easier ways to see me shirtless."

"All that pale skin? I'll be blind as well as dead!" Edward declared wickedly, and turned primly back to the report he'd been examining as Roy spluttered indignantly.

Roy tried not to notice that as he got back to his own share of the paperwork with a grumble, his scowl had melted into a smile. In all honesty, he did enjoy Edward teasing him, and those rare moments where the ghost tried to fluster him.

Together they fell back into their comfortable working silence, with Edward having to swat Roy's hand away every so often when the man tried to steal his postie-notes. They did finish though, and Roy sat back in his chair with a tired but satisfied groan and tried to work a muscle kink out of his hand.

"Call to requisition a car until after the weekend is over." Edward reminded him as he floated over to perch on the desk directly in front of Roy, his legs merging through Roy's.

"Am I taking you places?" Roy asked teasingly as he stopped leaning back in order to roll the chair forward and rest his hands on the desk at each side of the ghost's hips. The position caused him to have to crane his head back and up to meet Edward's gaze, but he was hardly complaining about the proximity it put them in.

"I believe there was something on our schedule, yes." Amusement danced in Edward's eyes as he let one of his hands fall to rest through one of Roy's. The man was barely inches from him, but he wasn't at all inclined to move. If anything, he was fighting the desire to move closer. "Something about a zoo trip, so I can see all sorts of fun new animals to ask you for as pets."

Roy chuckled quietly and raised the hand that remained free of Edward's to trace the shining line of the ghost's neck. "l believe I still owe you a pony first."

"You do," Edward agreed. "I also might want one of those rhinoceros things you were talking about."

Roy actually could affirm for Edward right this moment that the ghost would indeed want one, but he was holding out hope nonetheless. "I am not buying you a rhinoceros, dearest. That's all I need, a rhino chasing you about the yard because it senses you."

"They can't fit inside a house?" Edward frowned in curiosity, and a flash of even greater interest in potentially having one. "Is it the size of a pony?"

"Oh, my sweet, sweet country-raised ghost." Roy teased with a broad grin. "You know so much and yet so very little."

"I'm going to find something to hit you with." Edward told him frankly, a smirk on his lips.

Roy chuckled and drew back in order to get to his feet and grab his keys from his desk, "maybe later. Come on, let's get out of here and get home."

Edward floated up off the desk to trail after Roy. "I don't get a first date with you in uniform?" He couldn't help but ask with a wide grin. "What if I have a thing for it?"

"Do you?" Roy asked humorously, already knowing the answer.

"Fuck no, they're hideous things." Edward case the uniform in question a dubious expression. "I could kiss whoever made it flame retardant though."

Roy instantly felt something dark and protective surge up inside him at the mere idea of Edward, his Edward, kissing anyone but him. Not that it could happen anyway, but his jealousy where Edward was concerned was rarely ever logical. "Be satisfied with knowing that she was well compensated."

Edward couldn't help but feel a spark of warmth envelope him at the tightness of Roy's tone, and smiled fondly at this clearly jealous man that he had come to love. "I think I can manage that, you possessive bastard."

Roy didn't make any attempt to argue it, in fact it was more of an embrace of the words that happened instead and he nodded once in firm agreement. His piece said on the matter, he let them out of the office and went directly to Riza's desk where she looked up at him attentively. "Have a car sent around for me. I'm on strict restrictions regarding how I travel until Monday."

"Good." Riza approved as she reached for her desk phone receiver, not needing to ask who had insisted that Roy take a car until Monday. In fact she felt her approval of Edward grow tenfold.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Roy offered out in parting as he made to leave.

The goodnights of the staff who still remained in the room followed Roy and Edward out into the hallway. Once again Edward bullied Roy into taking the elevator down to the ground floor, and by the time they exited the main building there was a car idling for them.

Within minutes they were pulling out of the facility and onto the public roads to make the journey home – one made so much shorter with the use of a vehicle.

Once home, with the front door shut and locked behind them, Roy immediately began unbuttoning his uniform jacket with a huff of distress that he'd only ever give in the privacy of his own home.

"Stitches?" Edward asked in concern as he floated alongside Roy as they made their way up the stairs.

"Yeah," Roy shrugged the jacket off in relief to be free of the stiff fabric. "One of the first things I'm doing when I'm Fuhrer, is having a uniform properly tailored to me, and made with cotton. Not whatever burlap knockoff this one is made out of."

Edward's face screwed up in distaste, and he followed Roy into their bedroom to watch as the man hung the jacket up and began to carefully strip off his shirt as well. The part of him that was flowering to life with his acceptance of how he felt for Roy was inclined to enjoy the sight on a level that stirred something hot inside him, but the knowledge that Roy was in discomfort had a look of concern written on his face as he dropped to the floor at Roy's side to peer at the stitches.

"How are they looking, my sexy nurse?" Roy asked with affection suffusing his tone as he watched the top of Edward's head.

"Again, the sexy nurse will order another cold shower." Edward replied without hesitation, but with a smile all the same as he raised a hand to trace his fingers through the line of stitches. "There's definitely irritation." And he darted his gaze up to Roy's, his hand not moving from where it rested slightly through Roy's skin. "Do you own any shirts that aren't three sizes too small?"

"They are not that small!" Roy protested, and not for the first time if memory served, "I just prefer to spend my money on clothes that actually fit me properly."

"So that's a no?" Edward arched an eyebrow up at him.

Roy rolled his eyes, "not exactly. I have some clothes that are a larger size, just so I can layer when it gets cold. I can pull something out that'll fit looser." Although he made no move to do so, quite content to remain with Edward so close to him as he glanced down from Edward's gaze to inspect the stitches as well.

Edward was right, the skin did look irritated. Luckily not infected. He wanted these things removed as soon as was feasible, given he had a Brigadier General to kill. Not that he couldn't do it with the stitches in, but he would prefer not to, and he knew Edward would prefer the same.

Edward nodded in glad approval, still not moving his hand. Moving instead to come around in front of Roy and rest his other hand similarly just slightly through Roy's side as he looked up into the clear affection shining in the darkness of Roy's eyes. "And just where were you planning to take me tonight?"

"That would be a secret, my love." Roy avoided with a showy indifference that had Edward scowling up at him – he took pleasure in that scowl, took pleasure in the interest it meant. Had he been able to, he'd have kissed that lovely scowl from Edward's face, but instead he settled for raising a hand to the ghost's softly glowing cheek to say softly, "I'll get changed and we'll be off."

Edward was fairly sure that he would be content to spend the rest of the night here, just as they were, touching each other in their own way and sharing each other's space. It did things to him – wonderful, shaky things that made him doubt his own ability to float. "You're doing it again." The whispered words were out of his mouth before he realized he was saying them, or that he was drifting ever so slightly nearer.

"Doing what?" The words were soft, a caress of their own as Roy dared not move. Dared not break whatever spell was on this moment.

Edward felt a shiver run through him as he let the heat in Roy's gaze wash through him, "making me feel like I might still have a beating heart."

"How many times must I tell you that you're alive to me," Roy whispered in heavy fondness as his gaze searched Edward's, "before you begin to believe me?"

"I'm not sure I ever will." Edward confessed quietly as he dropped his gaze in order to rest his forehead where Roy's chest began, illuminating the already pale skin with his own muted silvery glow. "But keep telling me anyway."

"You know I will." Roy's voice was gentle, promising, as he gazed down at Edward's head resting against him as best it could. For several minutes they just stood there together as they were, with Roy unconcerned about the burn in his muscles from maintaining a pose of holding someone he couldn't actually touch. It was worth it, would always be worth it.

Eventually Edward drew away, trying to summon back some steadiness as a smile flitted across his lips. "I'm never going to get my first date this way, get changed so we can go."

Roy accepted the demand with a backwards step towards his closet and a wicked grin. "You know," he began with an ominous teasing note to his voice, "you're the first sexy nurse I've ever taken on a date."

"And I'll be the last, Roy Mustang." Edward dictated with a firm note of finality, and not an insignificant amount of possessiveness seeping into him. "Now take those hideous uniform trousers off. You're not taking me anywhere looking as you are."

Again, Roy could never let it be said that he would not deliver when the one he loved, the only one he'd ever loved, requested he lose clothing. Unfortunately more clothing would be immediately required, but he took his enjoyment where he could.

It was with great care and caution of his stitches that he redressed into looser fitting clothing. All of it being done under Edward's watchful eye – something that he would have enjoyed more if he weren't so focused on ensuring the fabric didn't catch and rip at his stitches as he was pulling the clothing on.

"You're sure you're good to stay out late tonight?" Edward couldn't help but ask as Roy turned off their bedroom light so they could leave. "We don't have to do this tonight. You are still recovering."

Roy shook his head and started off down the hallway, heading for the stairs. "Edward, I've been waiting for this moment for what seems like eternity. Believe me, right now, tonight, I want nothing more than to be with you like this."

Edward gave a nod of ascent, but as they reached the last stair he floated around to place a hand up towards Roy's chest to stop him. "Have me home by midnight?" He asked with a teasing smile and a pure, true happiness shining in his eyes.

"Are you giving me your own warnings about the rules of dating you?" Roy grinned at the notion and stepped around the ghost to grab the car keys from where he'd tossed them just inside the doorway.

"Someone has to." Edward grinned as he floated back up to Roy's side with a short laugh. "I'm still a pure innocent virgin, someone has to look out for my honor."

Roy snorted in disbelief and reached for the front door handle, "my love, you are many things, but I'm not so sure that innocent is one of them."

Edward scoffed, but his disagreement held little weight in his mind, not as he followed Roy out their front door. That was when the excitement and nervousness hit him. That was when the ridiculous amount of happiness that Roy would never again leave him to go on dates rushed through him.

He'd never be left alone again, waiting at night for the man he hadn't realized he'd been in love with to come home to him.