I know that my updates have been very sporadic, and that I haven't been in touch as much as I have been in the past with everyone. I just wanted to assure anyone who still reads my work that I am still very much working on my fics, and I do still very much want to keep in contact with everyone. I've just had a very difficult past five months or so, including being incredibly sick (not Corona, some other asshole virus) for about three of them. Anyway, I'm finally starting to do better and able to devote some mental space to updating my fics. I truly am sorry for the delays that keep happening, it's not something I've liked about myself lately. So to anyone still reading, thank you for sticking with me.
(Oh, and my phone also up and died somewhere in there at one point, so if you'd been one of those texting me and I haven't replied in months? Nudge me or something because I actually have no way of texting you back at the moment, I have basically my immediate family and the people I pay bills to as contacts right now lol)
Chapter Sixty
"If it were me," Roy murmured as he trailed one finger over where they'd taped the blueprints for Laboratory Five and the prison together for reference to position, "I'd have put a secret entrance here."
Edward looked at the spot Roy was indicating on the blueprints with a thoughtful frown as he hovered over them in a sprawled position. "Not where the utility tunnels are?"
"Too dangerous, even for Grand." Roy shook his head, lips pursing a moment in thought as he looked up to meet Edward's gaze. "The utility tunnels are too narrow, and all it would take is one prisoner getting even a foot in the right place, and any guards escorting them could get tossed mere inches into live wires. And Grand's alchemy is too volatile for such an environment, one bullet in the wrong spot would electrocute them all with enough voltage to kill them and crash power to the whole block."
"Point." Edward figured that even Grand wouldn't be so recklessly stupid, the man was dangerous, not dumb.
"So what do you think?" Roy queried as he turned his gaze back down towards the blueprints, a finger resting on the only section of wall that was not reinforced by concrete and steel rebar, or compromised by plumbing, electrical wires, or ventilation.
It wasn't a big section. Only big enough to fit two people standing side-by-side, but unlike the utility tunnels, there would be nothing to compromise safety. And with that section of the adjoining walls having been constructed using just hollow drywall and some brick due to the old prison ventilation system being torn out and redone when Laboratory Five was built, it would have been easy enough to rig a hidden entrance.
When Roy had first taped up the blueprints, so that they could look at where the two facilities adjoined, Edward had wondered for the briefest of moments why a military lab had been built so close to a prison, only to remind himself that the Fuhrer had probably done it intentionally for just this purpose. Based on what his father had told him, and based on what he already had known… all of this had been part of the Fuhrer's plan.
He just hoped they weren't inadvertently playing into that plan.
"How are you going to block it?" Edward asked instead as he motioned to where the main room of the laboratory was – nearly on the opposite side of the building and separated by several walls. "Because if Maes's reports are accurate, and he's not yet led me to believe he's anything but honest with you, there's a high chance Grand will know you're in the Lab the moment you set foot on the grounds."
"He will." Roy agreed and sat back with a pensive expression.
Edward too thought a moment before posing, "is there any way you can get anyone inside the prison to block it from that end before you go into the lab? I don't think he'd expect it. He'd have no chance to get rid of any evidence, or escape himself."
Roy considered the idea, before slowly nodding. "Yes, but…"
"But?" Edward pressed when all Roy did was sit there looking worried and conflicted.
A sigh escaped him as Roy looked back up to meet Edward's questioning gaze. "You're going to think I'm being an idiot."
Edward smiled fondly, "but you're my idiot."
Roy let out a short laugh and nodded in agreement, "it's just… if I choose to now involve my team from the start of this, there's less chance I'll be able to keep them safe."
Edward studied him for a moment, before floating over to sit in a hover in Roy's lap and lay his head over sideways just enough that it merged somewhat with Roy's uniform. "I know," he whispered softly as he closed his eyes, "but they'll get themselves involved if you don't involve them yourself, you know that. You were planning on that. Don't you think they'd be safer if you involve them from the start? So they have a plan or at least an idea of what to expect?"
"Must you always be so reasonable?" Roy asked warmly as he moved his arms around Edward in an approximation of an embrace.
"You're as hot-headed and reckless as your fire sometimes, Flame Alchemist." Edward chided him humorously. "Someone has to be the voice of reason around here."
Roy rolled his eyes, but was smiling as he glanced back to the blueprint thoughtfully. "Then I think Alex Armstrong will soon need to have a private discussion with the last prisoner he got stuck into that prison. I'll let him know I need to speak with him."
"Sounds perfect." Edward praised softly, and turned his head to look towards the blueprints again. "He can ensure nothing, and no one, gets out from there… and the others can help you in the laboratory."
"To an extent," Roy agreed as he traced a finger along the main room of the laboratory, "they'll be useless against Grand. But they can keep me safe from anything else that he, or the Fuhrer, may have put there to guard the project."
"Like chimeras." Edward recalled.
"Like them." Roy lifted his hand from the blueprints to Edward's cheek instead, "now as for your part in all this – "
"I'm staying beside you," Edward cut in sternly, whipping his head around and glaring up at Roy, "you can't make me do anything else, and I won't. We've been over this. I won't let you face him without me."
"I know, my love." Roy smiled fondly as he brushed ineffectively at Edward's silvery hair, "I was merely hoping that you could put a stop to the stones being made. I trust your ability at something like that, more than I trust my own."
"You just worry about killing Grand, and staying alive." Edward told him gently, his ire quickly evaporating at both Roy's words and the way the man was looking at him. "I'll do what I can with everything else, and do what I can to keep you safe."
Roy nodded and looked back to the blueprints, "the first morning I'm free of these stitches, we're doing this. We can't afford to wait any longer."
Edward nodded slowly, and glanced back at the blueprints as well briefly before turning his attention back onto Roy. "Just one thing you've not mentioned… please tell me you have an idea of how to ensure that there's no way Grand can twist this to say that you're the one who was behind it all along?"
Roy gave a slight shrug, but was smiling as he said, "those security cameras that Maes spotted? I don't know if you recall what Fuery did to the traffic grid when I went to fight Kimblee, but he's terrifyingly skilled with electronics. I'm going to have him hack into the footage and save backup copies to hold hostage for a media release if I don't get what I want."
Edward began to grin even as he stared at Roy in delighted amusement, "Roy Mustang, remind me of this moment the next time I call you an idiot."
"Gladly, my dear." Roy chuckled and reached out to begin rolling up the blueprints.
"Team meeting today?" Edward asked, even though the look he pinned Roy with was purely insistent.
Roy nodded and tapped at Edward's incorporeal legs with his rolled blueprints, retaking his feet as soon as Edward floated up and away from him. "Just try not to disrupt it?"
Edward eyed him with an exasperated fondness, casting his gaze upwards a moment as he tried to stifle a smirk before he looked back around at Roy. "You've my word. Unless you actually decide to tell the others about me, and then it's pranks all around."
"Get to the car, you." Roy huffed in amusement, and after gathering what he needed and casting aside what he didn't, he followed Edward outside.
The drive to Headquarters was another new route, although they still arrived within an adequate amount of time. The car was handed off to one of the officers on garage duty, with instructions as to his still needing the vehicle later. Then Roy and Edward were making their way inside and up to the office.
Roy only paused long enough by Riza's desk to say in low tones, "everyone plus Alex in my office – two hours."
Riza didn't make any indication that she'd heard him say anything at all, but then, he didn't need her to. She was astute enough to take a hint, especially given everything that had been happening as of late.
So it was that in two hours, the door to Roy's private office closed as the last person filed in.
Edward had taken a seat midair next to the window and up closer towards the ceiling, which gave him a fairly good vantage point of the room. Everyone else aside from Riza had taken seats at the sofas, all angling themselves to face inwards towards their commanding officer, while Riza stayed near the door.
Roy considered them all in silence. He'd not wanted to involve them at all, hoping that by the time they realized anything was going on, most of the danger would be gone. Now he'd come to accept that there was no way he could do this without their help – all of their help.
"Sometime today," Edward commented wryly from where he hovered unseen and unheard by the others, "before they think you called them in here to tell them you're dying."
Despite that it was that precise scenario that he wished to avoid which had led him to this moment, Roy couldn't help but smile a bit. He dared not die. Not given Edward's feelings on the matter and the ghost's well… ghostliness. "Does anyone want to leave before I proceed to explain a plan that could land us all in military prison for treason if I fail?"
Not a single one of the other occupants in the room moved, if anything, Edward noticed that some of them seemed to settle in with a particular enthusiasm.
Roy smirked, "very well then. Let's begin."
So he began. He began with confirming who he was intending to kill and replace. He continued by explaining how and where this was to take place, along with a vague timeframe on it and a promise to give them a definitive date and time as soon as that day arrived. He branched off into each person's responsibility and the expectations, and followed that up with pausing for questions.
There were none. There never were. He had assembled this team very selectively, they could function on basic premise without hand-holding.
They looked determined, not nervous. They'd been through similar things before, although admittedly nothing near so dangerous… but they trusted him. Armstrong and Havoc even looked a bit excited, although their enthusiasm was nothing on the palpable joy that Fuery was trying to contain at the thought of being able to have hostage security tapes.
When they did leave Roy's office, it was with confirmation that they'd be ready, and waiting.
Only Riza and Maes lingered behind, the former of which shutting the door after Armstrong filed out.
"I'd think you were giving us false information to lead us into a similarly false sense of security about all this, except I know Edward wouldn't have let you." Maes commented as he sat back down. "Morning, Edward!"
"Good morning, Edward." Riza put in as well as she ventured fully into the office now for the first time since the beginning of the initial meeting.
Edward grinned as he came down from where he hovered, "good morning, Maes. Riza."
Roy rolled his eyes, not bothering to relay Edward's words for Maes and Riza. "And still he's the only one who gets lovely little 'good morning' greetings. For all you know, he's over there insulting you both."
"Over where?" Riza queried with a subtle head tilt.
Roy motioned vaguely towards his left side.
"I suspect he insults you plenty, but likely not us," Maes smirked.
"The three of you act like siblings," Edward realized with a grin as he observed them all.
"How dare you!" Roy spluttered, sending Edward into a fit of sniggering laughter, and when pressed by the others as to what Edward had just said, said very adamantly, "it does not deserve to be repeated. In any case, no, I am not misleading any of you on any of this. Edward and I agreed that this was something that would go smoother with everyone's help."
"And I don't want you dying on me." Edward put in with a frown.
"Well," Riza sat across from Maes, "yet another reason for me to be glad you can see him. You honestly have no idea how much relief it gives me that you've finally come around on this."
Maes laughed softly a moment before telling her matter-of-factly, "sometimes husbands go to great lengths to keep their wives happy, Riza."
Edward instantly grew flustered, spluttering, "he's not my husband!"
Roy laughed, both at Maes's explanation and Edward's freak out, grinning over at the ghost as he said, "I told you before, Maes, I'm a bit low on money to be buying him a ring."
"And I recall telling you that it's a cheap excuse." Maes quipped back smugly.
"Boys, please." Riza cut in, actually not too surprised that there was something between her friend and the ghost, "I'm serious, Roy – "
Roy looked over at her with a faint smile.
"I know you told me that part of keeping me in the dark was to keep me at two hundred percent, but," she smiled back with palpable relief, "now I can be that way with an actual target in sight and not worry that I'll miss your signal. You are unpredictable a lot of the time."
"So what's Edward's part in all this?" Maes asked as soon as Riza was done speaking, "I'm assuming he's not sitting this out?"
"Not on Roy's life." Edward muttered with a firm finality.
Roy looked over at the ghost, his expression softening just a bit from the serious focus of before. "He'll be with me the entire time. The only extra thing I've asked of him is to destroy the stones, whatever it is they're using to create them." He looked back to his friends and comrades, "my history with that stuff is… unpleasant. You know that. And ultimately I trust Edward more than I trust myself to be able to know how to stop it all. He's ridiculously intelligent with alchemy."
With an approving nod, Riza sat back. "Rough estimate on when you're intending all this to go down?"
"The stitch that's on the worst wound should be able to come out in about four more days," Roy estimated, before looking over at Edward, "sexy nurse?"
Edward leveled a withering look at him, and was half tempted to find a bucket of water somewhere in order to dump it over the man's head. "Provided you continue to keep taking it easy, yes."
Roy looked back to the others, "he agrees. Anyway, most of the others should be able to start coming out by the end of the weekend. They're healing quite well so far."
"I'll start sharpening my knives." Maes declared as he clasped his hands to his knees right before he stood. "I'm going to go see what I can eavesdrop around this place. I hear there's a new secretary in a nearby office and she has yet to see pictures of Elysia."
"I hope they run." Riza grumbled, smirking as Maes flounced off with a scoff and a cheery wave before standing up herself and eyeing Roy for a long moment, "thank you, for finally being reasonable about all this."
"Wanting to keep you all safe is not unreasonable." Roy frowned at her, "and don't start beginning to believe that just because I've let you all in on my plans for Grand, that I'm about to let you all in on the Fuhrer. The day I go after him, none of you will have advance warning, and when you do hear of it going down, you and the others are to stay away. Is that clear, Lieutenant?"
Riza wasn't sure just why it was that Roy fighting against the Fuhrer was off limits, when Grand was not. One was just a man who was good with a sword, while the other was a lethal alchemist. But there was something in the way Roy stared her down, something in the finality of his tone that made her suspect that when she learned why, she'd actually be grateful to have listened to him. "Yes, sir."
"Good." Roy's smile was faint and thin, but it was there, and he flapped a hand at her. "Now off you go. I may head out early today if I can get through all these infernal papers in enough time, I promised Edward a date this weekend and I'd like to be rested for it."
Any other individual, Riza probably would have drawn her gun and made her boss think twice about those words, but as things stood she only found herself smiling. Despite the logistics of Edward being a ghost, she honestly couldn't help but feel her heart warm at the thought of the two of them going on a date together. "Sir?"
Roy quirked an eyebrow up at her, pausing in his reach for a pen.
"Have fun," she rested her hand on the door handle, looking back at him, "and treat him well."
Roy nodded, and as Riza slipped from his office, he looked over to where Edward had been hovering silently to see that the ghost was not only looking immensely happy, but a bit smug. "What's got your pride up?"
"I think she may actually shoot you if you didn't treat me right." Edward commented with a laugh, "I always pegged her as the sort to shoot your dates, not the other way around."
"That was before I fell in love with you." Roy smiled as he considered Edward while leaning back in his chair. "She knows that you're a commitment I never thought I'd have, that I'd never wanted to have. Of course she'd shoot me if I fucked up with the one person to change all that for me."
"She wouldn't get the chance, I'd have already killed you." Edward smirked and dropped to the floor to begin walking over to the desk. "Do you need help again today? If you're wanting to get us out of here early?"
"Please." Roy confirmed and swung back around to face his desk and finally grab that pen. "What ever would I do without you?"
"Fortunately you won't ever need to remember what you did without me." Edward remarked and settled in at the edge of the desk, grabbing a file folder for himself and his office supplies courtesy of Riza. "In fact, several of the things you did without me, you are free to forget entirely."
"Yes, dear." Roy laughed and got to work himself, feeling lighter than he expected he would after caving and bringing his entire team up to speed in regards to what he was up to with Grand. He suspected that it had a lot to do with a certain silvery apparition.
They worked tirelessly through the paperwork, their day only broken up by bathroom breaks or the arrival of Maes with lunch and an update that Falman and Armstrong were back in position. It had been risky to remove them for an hour, but it would have been far riskier for Roy to go speak to them in person.
The paperwork was finished mid-afternoon between the two of them working at it tirelessly, and when they left the office it was with no indication from any of those about – Havoc, Fuery, Breda, or even Riza – that they'd had any sort of morning meeting at all. The only thing that was different was that this time when Roy slapped a pile of finished file folders on Riza's desk, she didn't even question that they were correct.
"Don't call me if you need me." Roy said in parting to the office in general, before exiting it to their echoes of goodbye.
When Roy and Edward finally got downstairs and the military sedan had been retrieved for them, Roy got in gracefully enough to any watching eyes and headed the vehicle out of the Headquarters compound. He drove several blocks before pulling the vehicle into a dingy and narrow alleyway surrounded on all sides by towering brick walls of commercial warehouses.
"Why are you showing me the eventual scene of a murder?" Edward asked as he looked around with a frown at their surroundings.
Roy shifted the car into park before beginning to carefully shuck off his military jacket. "Because, this thing is bothering the fuck out of the stitches on my arm and I am not waiting another moment to be free of this infernal contraption."
Edward raised his eyebrows in amusement, and soon enough Roy was shifting the car back into gear and they were continuing through the alleyway. He sat back again and watched as Roy guided the vehicle back out onto the road once they reached the end of the alley.
Now they were traveling away from Headquarters again at a fairly good pace, heading back towards home.
They arrived in good time, yet after they both got out of the car, Roy didn't make his way to the front door, instead continuing around the side of the house with a small smile beginning to play on his lips.
"Uh, Roy? Door's this way?" Edward called after him in frowning confusion, and hopped off the front stoop to float after the man.
"Uh-hum" Roy agreed as he continued walking into the backyard. "Grab that, I'm going to open the backseat door of the car for you."
Edward caught up to see what Roy was pointing at, and began to grin. His bicycle. "Really?!"
"Yes." Roy chuckled at the almost childish delight that Edward had exclaimed with, and let it do its best to try and chase away the stab of guilt that he hadn't made time for this sooner. "We're going on a little trip for the rest of the day, you and I."
"Okay!" Edward launched forward with delight, grabbing up his bike effortlessly and whirling around with it to bounce happily through the air after Roy.
Within minutes they had loaded the bicycle, Roy utterly uncaring if anyone happened to see the bike floating around in midair – he knew anyone seeing would just attribute it to some weird alchemy, his neighbors weren't exactly the alchemically inclined sort. Then they were off, with Roy driving a direction that Edward faintly recognized, but wasn't able to figure it out until they pulled onto the next street.
"We're going to Maes's house?" Edward asked curiously.
Roy nodded and guided the car up the street a bit, before pulling it alongside the curb just in front of the Hughes family home. "His backyard has a paved mini court area that he uses for volleyball and badminton and stuff with the girls. You can ride your bike there and I can actually have a conversation with you."
"He doesn't mind, does he?" Edward questioned, even as he began to float back into the backseat in preparation to get the bicycle.
"No, he's never minded me coming over. He'll actually probably be really happy we're here once he gets his ass home." Roy assured as he pocketed the car keys and got out carefully.
Edward could only go on faith that Roy was correct in that, and wrestled the bicycle free of the backseat area. As soon as the car was closed up, they made their way up to the Hughes' home and then around the side to enter the backyard where sure enough, there was a paved mini courtyard.
After Edward took down the net that stretched across the center of the court, he clambered onto his bicycle again.
"Now you remember how to get started?" Roy asked as he stood next to Edward. "Where do your feet go?"
Edward looked down at his feet, adjusting one onto the pedal and one onto the pavement. "And then I just push off."
"That's right." Roy nodded, "and keep pedaling, and steer."
Edward looked up at Roy with a beaming grin, "okay, stand back. I'm going to try."
Roy retreated over to one of the garden benches of the Hughes' backyard and sat down to observe as well as take pressure off of the worst stitched wound which resided in his leg. Relaxing back with a faint groan that he'd never admit to – Edward would just call him old – he settled in with a smile to watch as Edward began.
The ghost managed to wobble all of two tire rotations before with a shriek, he was tipping sideways.
Roy snickered at the shriek, but smiled to see that Edward had managed to catch himself, and was soon off again with determination. Yeah… this was definitely worth pushing through the last of his work for the week to allow them to leave early. He wanted to give Edward as much time to have some fun before the seriousness of what would await them next week.
His stitches had already been in for five days now, they would not need to remain for much longer.
Edward was pedaling so determinedly around the mini courtyard, so focused on catching himself and determining where his center of balance was in all this in spite of his lack of weight and the art of steering – not too sharp or too slow! – that he entirely missed when the backdoor of the Hughes' home opened and Maes slipped out to join them.
"He's… improving?" Maes offered out hopefully as he took a seat next to Roy, offering over a beer even as his gaze stayed on the wobbling bicycle.
Roy chuckled and took the beer with a murmur of gratitude as he popped the lid free and took a drink before saying, "he is. You should have seen him when he first started, he was a disaster."
Maes huffed out a laugh as he opened his own beer, still watching the bicycle wheel about seemingly on its own. "Elysia was the same when she was first learning. It made for some hilarious pictures for the album."
Roy vaguely recalled those exact pictures being shoved in his face a few years ago. "He wants permission to ride my motorcycle around, and I told him that he had to learn this first. Given his ass of a father never taught him, he's a long way to go yet."
Maes pursed his lips as he considered the weaving bicycle, "a ghost on a motorcycle… all the terrifying shit he could do with that? Doesn't surprise me he wants to ride it."
"Try not to give him any ideas, Maes." Roy snorted and took another long drink from his beer.
Maes smirked, but honestly felt he could make no promises. With a low groan he leaned back against the bench, "you know," he began thoughtfully as he continued to watch the odd sight in front of him over the rim of his beer bottle, "it really sucks."
Roy grunted in question.
"That you can't even touch him, and you love him." Maes said softly, his gaze growing a bit distant. "I can't imagine not being able to touch Gracia. It hurts just even thinking about it."
"It does hurt." Roy admitted softly, although he was smiling as he watched Edward ride around with a blindingly happy grin on his face – it seemed the ghost had finally had a bracing amount of success. "But it doesn't make me any less ridiculously happy, because I love him, and by some miracle he loves me."
"Miracle is right." Maes agreed wryly, snickering into his beer when Roy elbowed him sharply.
"Roy! Roy, did you see?!" Edward called as he completed an entire circuit of the courtyard without so much as tipping over, and he chanced a look over only to cry in happy surprise, "Maes!"
Roy laughed and nodded, "of course I saw. You're doing good!"
Maes sat back and watched as the bicycle began to move towards them now. "Looking good there, Edward! You'll be a pro in no time."
Edward was beaming as he came to a stop in front of the two seated men, and he looked down at Roy happily. "I can ride the motorcycle when?"
Roy laughed and stood back up to take the step forward that separated them and put the tip of his finger to Edward's nose. "You may ride the motorcycle when you are able to do twenty circuits in both directions, fast, along with very small figure eights. Only then will I let you start destroying my motorcycle."
Edward stared down consideringly at Roy's finger, before he swatted at the man's hand. "Okay… I guess that's reasonable."
"I am reasonable now and then." Roy smirked, then leaned forward with his back to Maes to whisper into Edward's ear, "and perhaps join me in the shower afterwards? I'll need one."
Edward stared at Roy in blank confusion as the man drew away, still smirking, before suddenly it dawned on him. "You… really? Just from watching me try and ride the motorcycle? You'd…"
Roy nodded with a chuckle and took a step back. "Fantasy come to life there, Edward."
Edward was quite certain he'd never been as flustered as he was right now at both that knowledge and Roy's offer.
Maes, who'd been a bit curious about whatever Roy had been whispering, suddenly pulled a face with a groan. "Oh gross, if you two are going to start flirting like that, I'm going to go get the grill ready. You're staying for dinner, Roy."
It wasn't a question, and Roy didn't deny it.
Edward fled back to his bike riding practice to Roy's knowing smile, suddenly unable to keep holding the man's gaze. Unfortunately the damage to his equilibrium was already done, and it took him quite a few tries to get his pedaling and balance right again given the thoughts that Roy had put into his head.
Roy was still smiling as he went to get the grill lit for Maes, keeping half an eye on Edward and thoroughly enjoying watching the ghost flounder around for a while.
An hour later, Maes and Roy sat down to dinner, and Edward gave up his bike riding practice in order to join them.
"Do you think Grand suspects you're about to come after him?" Maes asked as he poked a glob of mustard back into his hotdog bun.
"No," Roy denied after a moment of consideration, "the Fuhrer knows, undoubtedly. I'm not sure if he knows just how close I am to doing it but… Grand doesn't know. The pressure and stress he's under? He's not even sparing a thought to me right now. And for some reason I really doubt that Bradley will tell him. Why I don't think he will I'm not sure, but he doesn't seem to care that I'm about to go after his brigadier general. I think if he did, he'd have come after me himself instead of sending Kimblee."
Edward frowned at him from where he sat midair watching the two best friends. "Don't worry about the Fuhrer right now, worry about Grand. And worry about keeping yourself alive in the immediate aftermath."
"Better you than me going after all this." Maes muttered, "that last run in I had with the Fuhrer was more than I'd ever wanted to have."
"I'm a stronger constitution than you, Maes." Roy couldn't help but smirk at his best friend, before looking over at Edward. "You know I will, you know I don't want you to have to help me disable him so I can escape."
"Wait…" Maes suddenly held a hand up, managing words somehow despite the fact he had the hot dog halfway inside his mouth, "didn't you tell me the Fuhrer attacked Edward? How?!"
Edward looked away with a faint grimace that had nothing at all to do with Maes's table manners, and everything to do with how it had felt every time the Fuhrer had looked at him.
"That would be giving you far too much information about both of them. Information that you really are better off not knowing, trust me." Roy told his friend firmly, "do not dig into it. Believe me when I say you'll only get yourself killed, and I want no part of going to your funeral before you're anything less than seventy."
Maes groaned as his hand not managing his food came up to worry at his forehead. "I didn't get even a full twenty-four hours to feel relief at you not hiding things for once, before I realize I fucking forgot you're in deeper than I think even you know."
"Oh I know," Roy told him with a thin smile and a shrug, "there's even stuff Edward is refusing to tell me. I just keep trusting that he'll tell me when he thinks I'm ready to handle it."
Edward said nothing. It wasn't at all what Roy was probably thinking anyway. There was only one thing that he truly didn't wish Roy to know, and he never planned to tell the man. Honestly, the one hiding the most was Hohenheim.
"Shit…" Maes determined, before sighing and eating the last bite of his hot dog.
Roy couldn't help but silently agree. It didn't bother him though, as much as it once may have, that things weren't being said to him. There was a difference between the military concealing things, and Edward not wanting to talk about something.
Thereafter the conversation steered towards what Gracia and Elysia were up to while staying with Daphne. Apparently Gracia, understanding of the situation and concerned for her husband's safety, was at the same time greatly enjoying this impromptu vacation with their daughter. Elysia was more often than not found playing in the vineyard, while Gracia and Daphne watched over her and chatted over wine and hors d'oeuvres. Maes was beginning to be concerned that his girls wouldn't want to come home once it was safe.
After Roy and Edward had helped Maes clean up after dinner, they lingered only long enough for Edward to get in a last ten minutes of bicycle riding practice. By then dusk was beginning to fall, and Roy begged off a poker game by way of explaining he and Edward had a date the next day and he wanted to actually be rested for it.
They were sent off to Maes's well wishes and with half of the leftovers – according to Maes he was having trouble adjusting to only cooking for one, or even just two people in the case of company.
When they arrived back home, Edward unloaded his bike from the sedan and hauled it back to the backyard once more after making Roy promise that the man would go straight inside and not worry about trying to manage the bag of food that Maes had sent home with them. He went back and got it himself before going inside and making his way to the kitchen where Roy was already organizing room for the new food containers.
"I need to look at your stitches before bed." Edward commented as he carefully folded the paper bag before depositing it into the kitchen recycle bin. "How are they feeling?"
"Again, you could just ask to see me shirtless." Roy reminded him wickedly, already moving to head upstairs.
Edward followed him with lips pursed in enjoyment and humor. "How about you just control your imagination? Now how do they feel?"
Roy shrugged as best he could, given the aforementioned stitches and not wanting to snag them on his shirt. "Honestly, for nearly all of them? Like they're getting in the way. And not in the sense of 'I really want to go murder Grand all ready and not have to worry about them.'"
While Edward had never actually managed to hurt himself enough as a child to merit stitches, and the Gate ripping him apart hadn't left anything that stitches could have fixed, he didn't entirely understand, but he trusted that Roy knew what he was talking about. "So what happens when you take them out?" He asked curiously as he followed Roy into their bedroom. "How does that work? I've never actually seen anything like that."
Roy flipped on their bedroom light, ignoring Hazel scampering underneath the bed in search of continued darkness, and began peeling off his shirt. "I snip with scissors where Maes tied them off, and pull them out of my skin. It'll just thread out like a loose thread on a shirt."
Edward made a face, "does it… hurt?"
"No," Roy chuckled and shucked his shirt into his laundry hamper before going for his belt, "it tugs and feels a bit odd, but it won't hurt. It'll leave tiny holes in my skin, but nothing that will really bleed or hurt. It seals over fast enough."
A considering hum emitted from Edward as he floated around to begin inspecting the stitches as Roy finished undressing for bed. Even following after him as Roy walked over to the bed to grab his pajamas. "They do look good," he had to admit, "I don't even see that much irritation any more."
"I'll take all but the one on my calf out by the end of this weekend." Roy said through a half-yawn as he dressed for bed. "That one will have to stay in a few more days."
Edward settled down onto the bed to gaze up at the man, "and then we go after Grand?"
Roy nodded and leaned over, bracing himself with one hand on the bed as he reached the other out to stroke unfelt at the side of Edward's neck. "And then we go after Grand," he agreed softly, "and when it's all over, I'm just going to stay up all night looking at you."
Both of Edward's eyebrows darted up towards his hairline, "why, exactly, do you intend to do that?"
"Because I'm going to feel immensely grateful that I'm still alive and able to see you." Roy admitted and drew away. "I can kill him… but it doesn't mean it's going to be easy."
"At this point?" Edward's expression pulled grimly, "I wouldn't trust it if it were easy."
Roy couldn't help but silently share that opinion, and after a brief sojourn to the bathroom to take care of things in there, he climbed into bed next to the silvery ghost. "We'll leave for the zoo early tomorrow morning. That way I at least might stand a chance of seeing something up close. If it looks like I'm about to sleep in past eight, screech at me like you're so good at or something."
"Oh, I'll 'or something' you all right." Edward informed him with a mild glare.
Snickering, Roy settled in underneath his covers, immediately feeling his body relax against the slight tension that had seeped into him throughout the day. It was slightly earlier than he normally went to bed, even now that he always was home with Edward, but he did want to have an early start tomorrow and be well rested. "Goodnight, my sweet ghost."
"We'll see how you feel about me in the morning, after I've 'or something'd' you." Edward commented a bit waspishly, but he was smiling as Roy snickered again. "Goodnight," he then whispered as he lay down contently next to Roy.