A/N: Yay, chapter 2! The last chapter will probably be up in a few days, depending on how far I get with my many other stories (and yes there are many!), so until then, enjoy this one!

Disclaimer: It's possible that one of my alter egos owns FMA, but if they do, they certainly aren't telling me...at least not in English.

II.

Roy remembers their first – well, he wouldn't call it a date. Not really. He supposes it was pity, rather than romance, that made him speak that day. Another girl had refused him, walked away with her hand in someone else's, and he sat at his desk all day, vacant and dejected. He did not cry, but he clung to his cigarette as if it were all that was keeping him alive. So Roy walked up and offered to take him to the bar, after work, and help him pick up a girl, just to kill that look of quiet desperation on his face.

Part of him is still surprised that he said yes. Even if it was just a simple, friendly offer, nothing more, Roy didn't really expect to find himself, an hour later, sitting on a barstool with a beer in his hand, trying to decide on a girl for him.

The evening did not go well. Roy gave advice, he gave directions, he even stood up and showed him by example, but it made no difference. At midnight bottles piled up around them, clouds of blue smoke filled the air, and he still hadn't found a woman who wouldn't say no. It was no different that any other night, Roy knows, but there had been so many. He looked broken.

Roy kissed him, without knowing why.

It wasn't something he'd thought about doing before. He just didn't want him to be broken anymore. Maybe he thought it would help. It wasn't a long kiss; he broke it off quickly and walked out of the bar, head down, muttering something about seeing him at work tomorrow.

For a long time after Roy sat there and thought that he had been right. The blunt taste of smoke lingered on his tongue.

He didn't say anything, the next day. Roy stayed in his office and he stayed outside, and neither said a word about what happened. No one else seemed to notice; they didn't talk often anyway. Not talking at all didn't seem so extraordinary. Roy was glad they weren't talking; he didn't know what to say. A very large part of him hoped that they could pretend it never happened, forget about it entirely. A much smaller part of him was disappointed, even hurt, but he did his best to ignore it.

They didn't talk for a week. On Friday, he stretched lazily in his chair, took a drag of his cigarette, and asked Roy if he was up for another night of seducing the ladies. Roy still doesn't understand how he could have said yes, but he did. They didn't go back to the same bar, and Roy didn't ask why.

The second time it still wasn't a date, but it was different from the first. Roy could tell by the way he smoked; lazily, casually, naturally, like it was a long-accustomed part of him, so completely different from the ravenous, needy, desolate way he had smoked before. When he pursued women this time, it was not with the single-minded hunger of loneliness; he treated it more like a game, and he smiled while he did it. He smiled when he was refused, too, because it was just a game, and the outcome didn't matter. Somehow the smile made Roy sad; it reminded him too much of himself, because he plays the game as well.

There was less drinking the second time, and more talking. Roy found that he likes talking to him more than he thought he would. There is a feeling of comfort, understanding, easy companionship that he isn't used to feeling around anyone. He learned a lot about him that night, small things, like that he prefers beer to whiskey, that he loves strawberries, that he likes dogs more than he would admit to Fuery. As he sat there, Roy wondered when he had last had a conversation with someone that wasn't about work. He wondered why it made him so happy to just sit there and talk to him.

The second time Roy didn't kiss him, because he didn't know how. But when they both reached for the tab, he took the opportunity to touch his hand, just for a moment. Roy didn't understand why he smiled when he didn't pull away, but he did.

There was a third time, and a fourth, and soon it was office tradition for the two of them to go out girl hunting together several times a week. And that was not a lie, not really; they did hit on girls, and that he always got turned down, and Roy always turned them down, didn't have to mean anything. But Roy noticed that each time he tried less, seemed to care less, until the effort barely existed for either of them.

Roy isn't sure when they both knew that it was a façade. He doesn't know when they knew that the girls had become an excuse, not a reason, for going out. He can't remember when he knew that they hit on girls only long enough to convince themselves and everyone else that that was why they were there.

On the day he realized that, Roy asked him if he wanted to go out that night, just as he usually did. It was a formality that everyone was used to; no one looked up at his words, except for him. He looked up in surprise, because Roy had left off the words that completed the sentence, the words that reaffirmed the purpose of these evenings.

Roy did not ask if he wanted to pick up girls, or find a date, or meet a young woman. He only asked if he wanted to go out. The difference in meaning in the absence of those words was small, but profound.

He still said yes, and Roy smiled, but no more than he usually did.

Roy thinks of that as their first date. They did not go to a bar that night, but to a restaurant. It was not fancy or expensive, because neither of them could afford it, but it was small, quiet, and pleasant. Roy thinks it was romantic, but that may just have been the circumstances. They talked, and he smoked, and neither one really admitted that it was a date, but they both knew that it was.

At the end of the evening, before they stood to leave, Roy kissed him for the second time.

This time he did not pull back in shock, did not walk away; instead he moved into the kiss like he had longed for it, and his hands reached out for Roy's and clasped them tightly, like he was afraid of sinking. They both kept their eyes open as they kissed, and Roy saw that his eyes were blue, like water.

Roy wondered as he kissed him if he was burning. He was so close that he could smell the smoke on his skin. The flavor of smoke hung heavy on his tongue, and he could feel its warmth filling his lungs as he inhaled it. And it must have been the smoke in the air that made his eyes sting and water, because he couldn't have been crying.

Roy knows that everything began to change that night.