He stared at Ed in front of him, holding the green serpent that was Envy. Ed's gaze never faltered from his own, which was clouded with hate, with anger.
That thing had killed Hughes. His best friend. His only friend.
His family.
Just the thought had his fingers rubbing in his gloves, alchemic energy sparking at his fingertips.
Riza was behind him, gun pointed at his back. He knew she'd shoot him if she had to. He'd told her to, after Ishval. Told her to not let him stray and become a monster.
But right now, he could only focus on Ed, and the thing in his hand.
"Give it to me right now, Fullmetal. That is an order."
"No."
He told him not to kill it. Even though it deserved death for what it had done. It deserved a slow, painful death. And Roy could deliver; he was an expert in slow, painful deaths.
But a part of him had paused. Ed wouldn't have killed. Even now, his own gaze alight with pain and fury over Maes' death, he didn't want to kill. Even if it was deserved. And for a moment it made Roy not want to be that man either. Always the killer, the murderer.
He didn't want Ed to view him that way.
He lowered his hand, and he felt Riza breathe a sigh of relief behind him and lower her gun.
The flicker of pride in Ed's gaze had Roy averting his. He didn't deserve that emotion.
When he looked back up, he saw his living room ceiling. He was sitting on his couch, head resting on the back. His gaze was blurry, blurry with tears and alcohol. He chugged more of the whiskey in his hand, the tears overflowing as he thought of his best friend, cold and dead six feet under.
It was unfair. It was fucking unfair.
Roy stared at his ceiling, his breathing heavy, his stomach in knots. His alarm was ringing, but he was ignoring it.
He was furious.
This was getting ridiculous. The anger caused his chest to constrict, and he had nowhere to target it but Edward Elric.
Throwing the covers off him, he smashed his fist down on the alarm, stopping its shrill sound. Throwing some sweats on, he marched to the hallway, standing right over Ed's mattress. Ed looked up at him like a deer caught in headlights.
"It's not my fault," he said quickly, raising his hands in a placating gesture.
Roy glared at him. He knew it wasn't Ed's fault. He knew there was nothing either of them could do about it. He knew that, technically, it was his fault they were in this situation.
But right now, he was so angry, so embarrassed, he couldn't think straight. Ed had witnessed something so personal to him it had his gut twisting all sorts of ways.
"Why is it always my dreams?"
Ed winced, averting his gaze. He didn't know either. The question hung in the air between them, and it did nothing to ease the rock in Roy's stomach. He couldn't live like this.
"Is it because I activated the array?" he thought out loud.
Ed pursed his lips, craning this neck up and catching his gaze again. "There's no indication that the array would make any distinctions-"
"Then why aren't you dreaming something fucking embarrassing?" he snapped, seething. He was at his wits end, and even as he tried to compose himself his anger was just too prominent. He didn't give a shit if Ed knew it was embarrassing for him to have him witness his dreams. It was obviously embarrassing.
And to make matters worse, he was dreaming more often than usual. Or at least he was remembering his dreams more often than usual.
Ed sighed, giving a one shoulder shrug. "I used to have nightmares, but knowing Al's okay and safe has stopped them mostly. I sleep better now."
Ed had managed to right his wrong. And he had done so according to his morals; no killing. He had done it right. Roy thought no amount of rebuilding the rubble that he left Ishval in would ever stop his nightmares, his guilt.
Agitated at his thoughts, he started descending the stairs. The tug made itself known when Ed didn't immediately follow, followed by a stab of pain that had him even more annoyed. It eased a moment later as Ed joined him in the kitchen.
"Show me your notes," Roy commanded, switching on his coffeemaker. Ed was looking at him warily, his notebook on the kitchen table.
He moved to grab it, holding it against his chest. "If there was something for you to know I would've told you."
"You could've missed something."
Ed looked at him as though Roy had just insulted his intelligence.
Roy was in front of him in two strides, so close Ed had to crane his neck up the slightest bit to catch his gaze. It occurred to Roy how much height Ed had gained in the past year.
They were almost nose to nose. "Now, Fullmetal."
They were breaking this bond, and for that to happen he had to see just how much progress Ed had made. He wasn't even going to flatter himself by thinking he might have a chance of figuring it out himself; he'd seen the Gate, but nowhere near the information Ed and Al had witnessed.
Ed clutched the notebook tighter, his eyes narrowing. "I know it's a shitty situation, but you can't just-"
Roy snatching the notebook out of his hands cut Ed off, and he snapped a protest, arm reaching out to grab it back. Roy moved it out of reach, walking back to his coffeemaker.
He flipped it open and took in Ed's distinctive chicken scratch. In that moment, he was glad he'd been forced to read countless reports of Ed's over the years, otherwise there would've been no chance of him deciphering his atrocious handwriting.
His notes were a mess, a chaos of words, half finished sentences, no grammatical structure. Bits of thoughts, questions, question marks and arrows connecting words to other words. He wasn't even making use of the lines on the paper.
No wonder it'd looked like Ed had taken so many more notes than Roy; he was making a horrifyingly bad use of the space on each page.
Roy read over the pages carefully. Ed had come up next to him, angry energy flowing from him. He basically snatched the cereal box and a bowl from the top cupboard.
Roy paid him no heed, his eyes zeroing in on a word scribbled on one corner of the page, followed by three question marks. He frowned in confusion.
Kiss ? ? ?
Roy stared and stared, trying to formulate a reason for that word to be in Ed's notes. He found none.
Ed saw the expression on his face and said, "My notes are only meant to be understood by me, and no I'm not explaining shit to you."
Roy ignored him, his mind whirling. If the woman was correct, then their souls were bonded because they were somehow compatible. She also believed their souls had wanted to bond; it was possible that the teenagers and two women perhaps had unresolved feelings for each other and their souls bonded because of that. Roy immediately dismissed the idea that his and Ed's souls had wanted the bond; he and Ed didn't have any unresolved feelings like that towards each other. It did seem likely it had been a mistake.
Yes, he and Ed were soul bonded by mistake. It made sense. And yet the woman had said the bond would be broken once their souls were convinced they wouldn't be denied each other again. But why would their souls care about being denied each other when this had been a mistake?
They needed to find a loophole.
A plan was forming in his mind, so absurd and insane but what if it worked? He was so tired of having his privacy violated, of being on edge in his own house and hyperaware of Ed's presence. They had to do whatever it took to break this bond.
"What if we tried to trick our souls?"
Ed made a vague sound of surprised disbelief. He'd moved to the kitchen table, and was sitting scoffing his cereal. "Uh, you'll have to explain that one."
He explained his reasoning, connecting it to the woman's words, highlighting that the bond had been a mistake, so they had to find a trick to break it. With every word he said out loud he thought he sounded more and more out of his mind. Perhaps that was what desperation did to a man.
Ed was looking at him unsurely, wide-eyed and slightly concerned. "So what you're saying is," he started slowly, "We try convince our souls they're safe so they want to break the bond?"
He could see on his face that Ed was trying really hard not to call him an idiot.
"Yes," Roy said, nodding, "We convince our souls that we'll stay in each other's lives and they won't be denied each other."
He really did sound insane.
"And…how do we do that?" Ed asked cautiously.
Roy paused, remembering the word in Ed's notebook that had triggered his spiral. He threw Ed's notebook down on the table, slight embarrassment creeping up on him. "You're the one who wrote the word 'kiss' in his notes, explain that one."
Ed's face turned a shade pinker. He stared at the page in his notebook, no doubt staring at the word Roy had pointed out. "I dump every weird thought I have in my notes, that's why they're just for me."
"What weird thought accompanied that specific note?"
Ed opened his mouth, only to shut it again, cringing. "Well, I thought…You know how we said…What if the woman-" he cut himself off, huffing at his inability to articulate. "I suck at explaining my notes to people."
"Try."
Ed huffed again, rubbing at his temple. "I thought maybe if we kissed and something happened it would confirm a bunch of other theories, like if this does have something to do with unresolved feelings, and if the woman was right about the souls wanting the bond, and then we would know the souls are in charge of it, so they really would be the way to break it, instead of trying to create a reversal array."
Roy listened to Ed's rambling explanation, his eyes narrowed as he concentrated. He was silent as Ed's words sank in, and at his silence, Ed turned from pink to red. "Some of my theories are dumb but I write them down anyway."
It was slightly far-fetched, yes, but so was Roy's spiral. He was desperate enough to break this bond to keep an open mind.
"Let's try it."
It was a much less life threatening experiment than the one in the park, anyway. What did they have to lose? Their dignity maybe, as Roy wouldn't be caught dead kissing a man, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He doubted Ed would be willing to bring it up ever again either, so it would be like it never happened.
He tried to ignore the way his heart had started pounding in his chest, his throat constricting with nervousness over the prospect of kissing Ed. His body was just freaking out because it was wrong, because he didn't really want to kiss Ed. It was a strictly professional, experimental kiss.
His body just hadn't caught up with his mind.
Ed's eyes widened at his words, his face becoming so red Roy smirked in amusement. "It's just a dumb theory, I don't even know why I wrote it down, I-"
"Couldn't hurt to try. I don't want to kiss you either, but compared to other experiments, it's quite harmless." Roy rationalising this out loud was solidifying the plan in his mind.
Yes, this seemed like a decent idea. Tick off an experiment, see if anything happened. Could give them a lead. It beat aimless reading.
When Ed remained silent, staring at him like he'd seen a ghost, Roy added, "I'm desperate enough to try even the most obscure theories at this point, Fullmetal. We need to do whatever it takes to break this bond."
Ed huffed incredulously, sounding a bit breathless, his eyes still blown wide. "If you have to fuck me to break it you would?"
The temperature in the room dropped by a few degrees.
Roy's thinking ability had come to a complete halt as he stared wide eyed at Ed, who also looked like he might just die on the spot. He looked absolutely mortified by what had just come out of his mouth.
He could just never think before he spoke, could he?
Roy wasn't sure he was breathing, his heart pounding so hard he felt it in his ears, his chest so tight he struggled to identify which was his emotion from Ed's. They were both equally strong right now.
After a long, shuddering breath, he said, "Don't be ridiculous, Fullmetal." It came out a bit more breathless than he'd intended.
His words hung in the air between them, the tension so thick he was struggling to take a deep breath.
Ed, smartly, decided to keep his mouth shut. He was staring a hole into his notebook, pretending to read it but failing as he wasn't turning any pages.
Roy decided in that moment to pour his coffee into his mug, and to start gulping it a bit faster than usual. He momentarily thought to switch to whiskey instead. At 10AM.
Edward would be the death of him.
He could feel Ed's mortification through the bond, but he identified something else too, something which had his heart hammering in his chest, his brain scrambling to push away - to ignore.
Desire.
It had been a few hours, and the tension between them had eased ever so slightly. At least Roy thought it had.
They hadn't spoken at all, not even a single word. And every time Roy raised his gaze anywhere near Ed's general vicinity Ed made sure to avoid it like the plague.
But Roy was determined to break this bond and, despite Ed's colossal fuckup of a mouth that made everything awkward, he still wanted to try the experiment.
He wasn't expecting anything major to happen. But even a very small change in the bond's energy could indicate something much bigger. It would indeed confirm that the way out of this bond could be a romantic connection - which was not the case between them, but it could provide valuable insight into possible loopholes.
Roy decided to be the bigger man and break the awkward silence that had stretched on for about three hours.
"We're still trying the theory, Fullmetal."
Ed cringed, his gaze still adamantly on his book.
Perhaps he should've phrased it differently; even if the kiss was a professional experiment he still needed consent, really. He wouldn't kiss him if he really didn't want to.
Finally, Ed sighed and looked up. He was still quite flushed, and looked hesitant. To ease his discomfort, Roy added, "And I promise to never, ever mention it again. It'll be like it never happened. No jokes, no nothing." Perhaps Ed had been worried about Roy teasing him about it.
Ed gulped, and Roy felt his discomfort through the bond. Finally, he nodded. "O-Okay, we can try it."
Neither of them moved. Roy wondered if Ed was expecting him to lean over the table and peck him on the lips.
Roy Mustang didn't get nervous about kissing. Ever. He quickly racked his brain trying to remember a time he felt nervous to kiss a woman and came up empty. If anything, that confidence of his had always been part of his appeal. To him, it was just something he did, something that was expected of him, even. He knew women liked kissing.
But right now, as he stared at Ed's wide and unsure golden eyes, his flushed skin, his heart was going a mile a minute and his hands had gone clammy.
Clearing his throat, he stood, walking over to Ed's side of the table. Ed remained frozen in his seat, but his eyes followed him like a hawk as Roy moved to stand next to him. He craned his neck up to catch Roy's gaze, and if possible turned even redder.
Perhaps Ed's nervousness was rubbing off on him. Maybe the bond had taken Ed's emotion and replicated it in Roy's body. There was no other explanation for why he couldn't breathe at the thought of kissing Edward Elric.
He needed to get this over with. Like ripping off a bandaid.
Placing one hand on the back of Ed's chair and one on the table, he leaned forward, until his mouth was inches away from Ed's. He felt Ed's breath hitch against his lips, and something stirred inside of him.
Ed was his subordinate. Ed was male. Ed was Ed. This was so wrong.
Ed surprised him by leaning forward that last inch, closing the gap between their lips.
The first thing Roy realised was that Ed's lips were surprisingly soft.
The second thing Roy realised was that he was trembling, the hand resting on the table almost giving up as Ed's warm lips touched his.
The third thing Roy realised was that nothing happened. As he pulled back, Ed's lips leaving his with a soft sound, he felt nothing from the bond.
And the forth thing Roy realised, the thing that had a flash of panic run through him, was that he was semi-hard, his heart pounding as desire jolted through his veins. His body hummed as he pulled back further, the pull to reconnect their lips stronger than he thought it should be.
He wordlessly made his way back to his side of the table, returning to his seat. Avoiding Ed's gaze like the plague, he said, "Now we know." It came out raspier than he anticipated.
"Reversal array it is," Ed said, sounding almost completely breathless.
Roy refused to look at him, too preoccupied with his sudden panic over what had happened. His brain scrambled to rationalise it. It was a natural bodily response to a very emotionally charged interaction, his brain soothed him. Nervousness had that effect sometimes. It didn't mean anything.
He kept repeating placating words in his mind until he could breathe again, until looking at Ed didn't cause his lips to tingle where they'd touched his.