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Chapter fourteen

"He fell asleep," Maes stated, looking down at the sleeping child in his arms. He was horrified by what he had heard. The kid was only thirteen for god's sakes!

Maes suddenly got a bad feeling. "Roy, did he get any sleep last night?"

Roy was looking just a bit uncomfortable. "No, he wouldn't go to sleep... I'm beginning to understand why."

Nobody in the room needed to voice the thought that it was probably because of nightmares. There was no way the kid didn't have them after what he had been through.

Maes hugged the small body in his arms tighter. The boy had been through too much hell for too long. He turned to Mrs. Rockbell. "You know him best, do you recommend we take him up to his bed or lay him down on the sofa here? If he hasn't slept all night, we really shouldn't wake him." The kid needed to rest. He'd been through hell yesterday, then had surgery, then he had been in constant pain ever since and he hadn't slept all night.

"I suggest we keep him here, he's an exceptionally heavy sleeper," Mrs. Rockbell told him. "And let me warn you now, if you know what's good for you, the only other person you'll tell what Ed just said to is your wife."

Maes could tell that this was not a woman he wanted to mess with, but there was no way he'd choose to tell the military anything that would get Ed arrested anyways. "Of course I won't tell anyone other than Gracia, you have my word, Mrs. Rockbell," Maes said and lifted the small child in his arms carefully. Ed was breathing evenly, and Maes felt his chest constrict. He was really just too small a child for this. Every single thing he'd been through... And now he had lost his sight and his brother as well.

Maes carefully laid him down on the couch as Mrs. Rockbell gently took Alphonse from Hawkeye. Maes then took one of the pillows and placed it behind his head, gently lifting it to do so, while Roy pulled a blanket over him.

Roy wished the Rockbells good night at seven that evening. Everyone needed sleep. Maes and Gracia had had two babies crying on shifts, Roy had done an all-nighter with reading mind-numbingly idiotic tales about a stupid puppy and had for instance lost two hours of his life reading through Wally's quest for his missing rubber duck. And problem was that this was supposed to be used for teaching people to read braille, meaning that they had thrown in as many ridiculous places as possible like the train station and the bowling hall, only for Wally to find it hidden behind the shower curtain back home because, despite being a dog, he obviously had no sense of smell.

So yes, Roy was exhausted, Pinako Rockbell had chewed him out and given him the guilt trip of a lifetime, and Ed had been sleeping like a rock ever since he fell asleep in Maes's arms.

And the Rockbells too seemed to have got very little sleep themselves, and so he was highly grateful that Hawkeye offered to drive them to their hotel before going back to her dorm.

Roy went over to the couch in the living room where Ed was still sleeping under his blanket. Roy pulled it off, revealing the kid to be sleeping with his tummy out, his remaining hand resting on top of it while his chest went up and down in steady motions. This was going to be an odd life, this. Looking after the Elrics of all people. And he tried to act all responsible and calm, but reality was that he was scared shitless by this whole thing. He didn't know what to do with these boys and then there was the fact that Edward was just starting puberty. Roy did not want to start his guardianship with some very awkward conversations, but he couldn't really ask Maes to do that too. So he would just start building trust and then see where it went from there.

"Come on, let's get you into bed," Roy said and picked the small kid up in his arms. The boy really looked just like an innocent child when he was asleep. In fact, he had been looking much more like a child ever since they found him yesterday. Roy had a nasty feeling that he had let those fiery eyes fool him for much too long. They had been the eyes of someone much older and Roy had treated him as such. The eyes were said to be mirrors of their owner's soul. If so, then that meant that this boy's soul belonged to someone who was far older. Someone who had seen a lot more pain than any child should.

He felt his stomach clench.

Because that didn't mean that he wasn't a child who had lost his childhood and needed all those things that had been denied him for much too long. He might have been forced to grow up too soon, but that didn't make the need for something as basic as a hug go away. That didn't make him a grownup.

"Fuck, Edward, how long has it been since someone even hugged you before yesterday?" Roy said quietly.

Edward responded with a slight snore, unconscious of the fact that he was pressing his head to Roy's chest in his sleep.

Roy sighed and carried him upstairs after wishing the Hugheses good night and once again thanking them for their help.

He reached his bedroom and found that there was a camp bed with a spare mattress on it standing a couple of metres away from the footboard of Roy's own large double one. It was so that Roy could keep an eye on the kid while still giving Edward a feeling of having some space, because otherwise, Ed would feel like Roy had basically trapped him between Roy and the wall with only about a metre of space between their beds. Roy knew, however, from personal experience, that that spare mattress wasn't actually thick enough, even if Maes didn't, and Roy had neglected to tell him so. And so he lay Ed gently on the left side of his own bed, before taking one of the two mattresses on the right side of the bed and removing it. It took him a couple of minutes, but soon enough, the extra mattress was placed under the other one, making the camp bed nice and soft and comfortable for the kid. And so he picked Edward up again, gently lay him down on the newly prepared bed, and pulled the duvet over him.

Then Roy stripped to his boxers and pulled on an undershirt from one of the drawers and landed sideways onto his bed, not even bothering with brushing his teeth just for tonight.

He was out like a light before he got to turning off the lamp on the nightstand.

Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-kack.

"Ouch."

Roy woke up immediately, finding Ed standing by the footboard of Roy's bed while leaning down, rubbing what Roy guessed was his right knee, frowning. "Edward, for fuck's sake!" Roy said, throwing off his duvet and getting to his feet, grabbing Ed's left shoulder. "What are you doing out of bed?"

Ed batted his hand away. "I was in need of a toilet, you were snoring, and I wasn't gonna waste time asking you to guide me as I know that it is probably down the hallway to the left," he said grumpily. "And I'm hungry."

Roy sighed. "Edward, you should have woken me up! Especially as you were planning to go downstairs!"

"Fuck that. I have two legs and an arm, that's plenty!" he said, before pushing Roy away and walking straight forwards, his hand outstretched as he made his way towards the closet, nearly tripping with each step of his prosthetic leg because he was so unused to it. Roy walked over, grabbed his left elbow, and turned him towards the door. "Ed, stop being so stubborn. You're asking for an accident if you keep this up."

"I didn't ask for your help! I don't want it! I don't want anyone's help! So get off!"

Roy sighed. Edward was understandably very emotionally unstable because of what happened, and his mood very much reflected that. He was fighting an intense inner struggle and having fallen asleep in someone's arms after having been helped earlier probably made him adamant that he had to restore his honour now.

Which was utter bullshit in Roy's opinion, but acting like it wasn't what was happening was going to be counterproductive. Patronising denial was probably going to result in one or both of them falling down the stairs by accident.

Roy was going to have to transmute the stairs to make a fence just for safety in case Ed loses his balance. He should have done that earlier. Made a gate connected to the stairs, but with some kind of bolt or other locking mechanism to keep it in place should Ed crash into it.

Roy tightened his hold on Edward's elbow as he tried to shake him off. "Edward, it's for your own safety. Now I'm going to guide you to the bathroom so that you don't fall because of the new leg and that's non-negotiable. And don't protest it because you're going to end up waking the Hugheses and probably cause either Elicia or Alphonse to start crying, and you don't want cranky babies, believe me."

"Cos you're such a family man that you know that..." Edward mumbled irritably.

"I have had the Hugheses visiting for four days already, and I have a very clear idea what it is like," Roy said.

"Bastard," Ed mumbled. "But let go of my arm. If you're gonna keep there cos you're so afraid of me falling, then keep your hand near my right port instead, otherwise you're keeping me from actually learning how to walk on the new leg. I won't be getting the feel of it correctly if you constantly put me off balance. And I don't want you hovering there every damn second I wanna go somewhere before I get my new automail, which is what will happen if you keep me from getting used to the leg."

Roy had to say that he could see his point. "Fine," he said, let go of his elbow and instead walked around him and left his left hand hovering over his shoulder port. "Now it's about two metres straight forwards to the door, I'll tell you when you have to step right so as not to walk into the wall."

Ed grunted.

Roy had a feeling that this was going to end with the babies crying no matter what because of raised voices.