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“You order a lot of take out.”
Roy’s head snapped up at the comment. He knew that voice, although it was out of its usual context. At his own front door, dressed in his baggy pyjamas, collecting Xingese food, was not where he ever expected to hear that voice. But there was Edward Elric, standing across from him, judging his dinner choices. The kid, who hadn’t really been a kid for years, was leaning against the wall opposite his door; one eyebrow raised at him, with his arms crossed over his uniformed chest, as if he’d come directly from HQ.
“What are you doing here, Fullmetal?” Roy asked, suddenly strangely self-conscious about his starry lounge-pants and old academy T-shirt.
Edward pushed himself off the wall with the grumble of someone who had spent their entire life exercising and had worn out their knees. He took three steps down the hall, and knocked the knuckles of his right hand against the door to number six. Roy still expected the clang of metal, even four years later – but, of course, it didn’t come. Ed’s hand was fully flesh now. He stared for a moment, debating telling Ed that nobody would answer the knock, since number six had been vacant for months. But then Edward rummaged in the pockets of his uniform trousers and produced a key, which he proceeded to unlock the door across the hall with.
“Guess we’re neighbours,” Fullmetal smirked at him over his broad shoulder, and Roy’s usually intelligent mind seemed to splutter and shut down entirely.
“Neighbours?” he repeated. “You live here? In this building?”
“Couldn’t stay in the barracks forever,” Edward shrugged, leaning against the open doorway to his flat. “Especially now I’m a Lieutenant-Colonel. Feel like I’m sayin’ ‘at ease’ every three seconds, just try’na take a leak.” He pointed one accusatory finger at Roy, and a stony look settled on his face. “I ain’t doing that saluting shit here. Didn’t know you lived in this building ‘til after I signed the lease. I ain’t here to kiss your ass!”
Roy held up his hands in his own defence: one of them holding his takeaway container of Xingese and wafting the smell of soy sauce across the hallway. He wanted to argue, but apparently they were neighbours, and neighbours were supposed to be friendly with each other.
“Roy is fine. Here.”
Edward looked at him mistrustfully for a long moment more, but then nodded his head once in recognition. He pushed himself off the door-frame, and rotated a crick in his neck.
“Alright then, now that that’s settled,” he said, waving nonchalantly at Roy’s dinner. “Enjoy your food… Roy.”
Then he disappeared inside number six. Roy stood in his own doorway for a moment, staring at the closed door, wondering why it felt so strange to hear his own name coming from Elric’s mouth.
Strange, but not unpleasant.
Ed was, surprisingly, a quiet neighbour.
He’d painted his front door bright red, which didn’t fit the aesthetic of the rest of the building, but since the apartments were two to a floor nobody had to see the atrocity but Roy. Otherwise, he didn’t see much of his new neighbour outside of work. Roy stayed later at the office than Ed did, and Ed arrived before Roy, so they avoided the nightmare of walking together, attempting stilted small talk. Roy had wondered whether Edward would be the type to play his music loudly, or stomp around on his automail leg, causing a racket. If he did, that was primarily a concern for Mrs Antlerthistle downstairs. Roy had heard nary a peep from the flat across the hall: outside of one particularly loud “FUCKING OUCH” which had sounded three nights after Roy’s dinner had been judged. The next day Edward’s hand had been bandaged, and that had been that.
Then, almost six weeks after their initial meeting, Roy opened his door to collect his take-out for the night, and found Edward in the hallway. His blonde ponytail whipped around at the noise of Roy’s unoiled door hinges, revealing his handsome face.
“Take-out, again?” he asked, judgement evident on his face. “Do you even know how to cook?”
“I’m busy,” Roy defended himself, annoyed at Ed cataloguing his eating habits. He gave the boy a subtle once over: smart trousers, brogues, waistcoat. He looked nice. His next words came out more accusatory than he would have liked. “Where are you going?”
Rather predictably, Edward’s every emotion played out on his face. His cheeks and ears went a bright red, until his embarrassment morphed into annoyance. His brow furrowed, and he looked away, pouting slightly.
“Just returning, actually. I, uh… got stood up.”
Oh. How unfortunate. Roy couldn’t help but think that if Ed’s date had seen the effort he’d put in they would have regretted losing the prize their absence had cost them. Telling Ed that it was ‘their loss’ might come off a bit too strong, given his role as the man’s CO, but condolences were definitely in order. Awkwardly, he held up his take-out container.
“You’re welcome to share this with me, if you’d like.”
Right, Mustang, because inviting the broken-hearted round for dinner wasn’t too strong.
It didn’t matter though, because Edward screwed up his nose as if the smell of Aerugan offended him, and opened his bright red door. Roy got a very brief look inside the flat, seeing a pile of jackets flung over a four-foot grotesque in the entrance hall, but then his eyes snapped back to Ed.
“No,” He was denied, and then Ed was back in his own apartment, and the door was closed once more.
Just under twenty-four hours later there was a knock at Roy’s door.
He’d been reading a book of Keats’s letters, marvelling at the poetry that flowed throughout his correspondence, and he marked his place before going to answer. He was still half in uniform - his jacket and cavalry skirt taken off and his sleeves rolled up - so he wasn’t unduly worried about a surprise guest. Even so, he still ended up blinking in surprise to see Edward Elric at his door, his arms full of groceries stuffed into paper bags.
“Did you lose your keys?” Roy asked, and got a roll of Ed’s 24-carat gold eyes for his concern.
“I cannot, in good conscience, let you eat any more take-out. Your metabolism isn’t gonna hold out forever, ya know,” he said, as he kicked off his shoes and made his way into the great room without invitation. Roy made a noise of protest regarding how well his metabolism was fairing, but followed Ed into his own home out of curiosity as to where this was leading. He’d moved past the couch and the dining nook, and put his bags down on the kitchen island, before looking around the place with a confused glare. “What the fuck, Mustang?”
“What?” Roy shot back. Ed waved his hands around, gesticulating at Roy’s kitchen.
“This!” he huffed. “This doesn’t make any sense. Riza once told me the only piece of furniture you owned was a couch. A lumpy one. But this place is… nice. Fancy.”
“It’s not that fancy,” Roy heard himself mumble in reply, put out by the idea of Hawkeye and Edward gossiping about him, and the couch that had served as his bed for nearly a decade. It hadn’t been that lumpy.
“Your kitchen has two ovens and a fucking chandelier!”
“So?”
“So? So you don’t even cook!”
“I’m busy!” Roy defended himself again, feeling an uncharacteristic flush come to his cheeks over the opulence. His old place had been dark, narrow, and barren of all furniture but the aforementioned sofa, and he still felt awkward about the new apartment, even four years later: with its boiling water tap, velvet sofas, and marble flooring. He tried for a quieter, calmer conversation, and his next words came out wistful. “Four years ago we saved the world, and I got stabbed through both my hands doing it. Marcoh restored my eyesight, but I still can’t hold a pen for more than ten minutes without pain. If I have my shower too hot it stings them. I… I know I still have a long way to go to make up for Ishval, but maybe I deserve some nice things, so… I upgraded a little.”
It felt damning to say that out loud, but when he looked again Edward was standing at his island with a begrudgingly impressed look on his face.
“Yeah, you do,” he agreed, and Roy’s stomach bubbled with something strangely pleasant. “And that includes a meal that hasn’t been deep-fried,” the boy added, unloading the groceries.
Roy crossed the room and took a seat at the island, as Edward started opening and closing cupboard doors, looking for the things he needed. He seemed to enter a trance as he cooked. Roy watched him measure, chop, sauté and simmer with precision. Twice he offered his services, but Edward didn’t even seem to hear him. It was mesmerising to watch, made more so because Roy had never seen his subordinate looking so very domestic.
But half an hour later Edward was done. He’d found plates in a high cupboard, and Roy had had the singular pleasure of watching him realise he needed to pull over a chair to reach them. And whilst he had grumbled something nasty about where Roy kept his crockery, he’d managed to hook two down without Roy’s help. Moments later he’d placed his cooking in front of Roy with a bit too much force.
“Eat,” he ordered. He plated up his own meal and stood on the other side of the island to eat it, despite the fact that there was a perfectly good barstool next to Roy’s.
“Thank you,” Roy replied, because he wasn’t rude, even though Edward had practically forced this meal sharing on him.
He picked up his fork, sampled the dish, and decided that if all Edward’s cooking was this good, the boy could force it on him as often as he liked.
After, because it would be awkward if he ate the boy’s food and didn’t give anything in return, he made a gesture towards his living area, and saw the moment Ed realised that in his rush to cook, he had completely missed the bookcases. Floor to ceiling shelves, filled to the brim with all the rare volumes Roy had spent his thirty-four years collecting. Alchemical thesis from the most important minds in the field; poetry from the classical writers; history books detailing Amestris's sordid past; and a few political thriller novels, because everybody needs a hobby.
“Choose a couple,” he commanded. “As a thank you.”
Ed didn’t need to be told twice. His eyes scanned the spines for titles and authors, hands tracing the hardback ridges. Roy watched him for a moment with a subtle smile, before collecting the plates. Edward had cooked, after all, and he was pretty sure that meant he was supposed to do the dishes. By the time he was done, Edward would have made his selection, and the evening would be over. Quick goodbyes at the door, never to be spoken of again. They’d be back to colleagues and neighbours, not… whatever domesticity had happened that evening.
Except, when Roy had finished drying the last of the utensils, he turned to see Edward had curled up on his sofa, a heavy tome open on his lap. The spell of domesticity, he realised, was not yet broken. So he trudged over to the sofa himself, picked up his Keats book, shoved Ed’s feet a bit further over, and allowed the magic to continue, for just a little while longer.
It shouldn’t have happened again. It was a one time thing based off of Ed’s frustration at Roy not eating healthily (an ironic take from the boy who spent years inhaling whatever was put in front of him if ever there was one), and Roy’s long-standing inability to say no to even the most inconsequential of Edward Elric’s whims. But it did.
The next few, over a course of as many weeks, were clearly because Edward wanted unfettered access to his rare books. He still lived his life by rule of equivalent exchange, so he exchanged cooking for reading time. It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that should he just ask Roy would have leant him whichever title earned his fancy.
Then the few after, getting more frequent, had come with the excuse that Roy had a much nicer kitchen than Elric’s across the hall. Despite the fact that both apartments had identical layouts. Roy moved the plates to a lower shelf, because by that point they had happily fallen into a routine. Ed cooked, Roy did the dishes, and they spent the rest of the evening sitting next to each other on the sofa, in quiet contemplation, perusing their chosen covers. Edward swayed towards alchemical thesis. Roy, who had read them all before, made his way through biographies of some of the world’s most influential leaders – and the occasional historical romance novel. About ten, Roy made a pot of (decaf) coffee, and poured one for each of them, and by the time his cup was empty, Edward was once more back across the hall.
Then came the day that Edward Elric broke into his home.
It wasn’t unusual for Roy to be the last person to leave the office, and in this particular instance he’d resigned himself that he was taking the project home with him. After a chilly walk home through the rain, he was looking forward to kicking off his boots and sinking into a warm bath. So he let himself in quietly, and then promptly had a damn heart attack.
“What are you doing here?” he managed to ask, once he’d stopped screaming. Ed gave him a look like he thought Roy was stupid.
“Making dinner?” he asked, like he was confused as to why Roy was confused.
“How did you get in?” Roy tried again.
“I used the key under your welcome mat. That’s a cliché, by the way.”
Roy felt a vein throbbing in his forehead. He bent to pick up the papers he had dropped when Ed had frightened the life out of him on entry.
“You broke into my house?” he confirmed, and Ed snorted in amusement, going back to whatever dinner prep he was doing before Roy’s pterodactyl scream had interrupted him.
“I don’t think it counts as breaking in if you use a key,” the boy excused, and that was, apparently, the end of the discussion.
Roy remained mad about it right up until Ed told him he’d taken the liberty of drawing him a bath whilst Roy had been doing the dishes.
Roy quickly realised he would have to get used to finding Edward had invaded his apartment. It was either that or die early of a coronary event, because Ed had evidently decided that Roy’s home was his home too, and there was nothing Roy could do about it.
He’d tried re-hiding his spare key, but somehow Ed always found it. He’d tried having a frank conversation about privacy, but Ed had just stuck a spoonful of the sauce he was making into Roy’s mouth, and all Roy’s protests had melted away. He came home after work and Ed would be cooking. He came home from his weekly catch-ups with Riza, and Ed would be lounging on the couch. Roy brought more work home than ever, attempting to be there before Ed let himself in, but somehow he kept missing the actual breaking and entering.
He hadn’t been able to bring a date home in weeks, because Ed was always there - and the one time he had brought someone home Ed had become withdrawn and upset as he made his excuses to leave. Roy had felt so guilty about it that he realised that, somehow, Ed’s home invasion had put a claim on him.
The good thing about Edward’s hostile takeover, however, was that it came with his home-cheffing. Roy had even started putting in requests, and Edward didn’t seem to care that, since he did all the grocery shopping, Roy hadn’t paid for a meal in months.
There had even been one memorable night in which Edward had attempted to teach him how to cook for himself, but ever since he had been banned from his own kitchen. The most he was allowed to do was sit at the island bar and get on with his work: which usually didn’t get done, because Roy found himself more and more distracted watching Ed traversing their kitchen.
Despite Edward’s ability to be in Roy’s apartment at any given moment, he did, in fact, go home at night. Always with the same routine; where Roy made decaf coffee at ten, and Edward took it as his cue to leave. Roy left for work from an Edward-free flat each morning, and accepted the fact that Ed would be there when he got home. The routine didn’t change, except on weekends, when there was a suspiciously Edward shaped absence about the place.
So he was surprised when, one Tuesday evening, he swirled the dregs of his coffee around the bottom of his mug and looked up to see his neighbour had not scurried off across the hall. In fact, he was rather obviously conked out. The book he’d been reading was open in his lap, and he was quietly snoring with every inhale. For the first time Roy saw him without pain colouring his brow, and that ease of sleep suited him more than Roy was wont to admit.
It would be cruel to wake him, just to tell him to move across the hall, he decided. So, just for tonight, he could stay.
He’d woken the next morning to find the duvet he’d thrown over Ed the night before in a messy pile at one end of his couch, and Edward completely gone. He might have felt frustrated by that, if he hadn’t already been well aware that, as a morning person, Edward left for the office exceedingly early. Or if the man’s absence wasn’t tempered by a fresh pot of coffee and a plate of blueberry muffins on his kitchen counter; which came with a note reading ‘see you tonight’.
Later, at work, he found Edward focused and diligent, the current of constant pain that haunted his every step firmly back in place. Roy stood in the doorway for a moment, just staring, wondering whether he should thank him for the muffins. So far they hadn’t mentioned their living status at work, but morning muffins felt like a step-up. He realised that he wanted to tell someone what was going on between them, but he didn’t even know what that was. Other than quiet, domestic, and sweet.
Then Breda cleared his throat loudly and gave him the pointed look of someone who knew what was up, so Roy cleared his throat loudly and made his way to his desk, ignoring the weird feeling of intimacy this new development with Edward brought with it.
He had a long-standing weekly appointment with Hawkeye at her apartment across town. He bought expensive wine, she supplied snacks and a much needed space for Roy to get things off his chest. And months after this whole thing with Edward began, the thing that Roy most needed to get off his chest was the quiet intimacy of their sharing space.
So, he allowed Hawkeye to pour him a glass, curled himself into her armchair, and when she gave him the arched-eyebrow look of someone who knew him well enough to know he had something to say, he launched into an explanation about what had been going on.
“And, well, the domestic thing. It’s good,” he finished up. “But I don’t understand him at all.”
Riza had drained her wine in the time it took him to hum and haw his way through his story, and she pointed the empty glass at him.
“You two don’t communicate,” she told him. Roy shrugged his shoulders at her, because that much was obvious. She rolled her pretty brown eyes. “He likes you,” she huffed.
“Okay?” Roy asked.
He’d already accepted that Ed liked him. He liked Ed. They had worked well together for years at that point. But Riza screwed up her nose as if he hadn’t understood her at all, and then tried again.
“He’s courting you. With food,” she explained, unheeding of the way Roy’s jaw dropped open at the absurdity of that idea. Riza smirked. “And it’s working.”
“No it isn’t!” Roy denied quickly, but even he could tell his voice had come out too high pitched to be believable, and his ears suddenly felt very hot.
Several weeks later, Roy still wasn’t over Hawkeye’s assessment, but Edward had apparently decided that Roy’s couch was a better bed than whatever set-up he had across the hall. The routine that had defined the first few months of this charade had been thrown out the window, and now Roy retired to bed each night having tucked his sleeping subordinate in on the sofa. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be annoyed by that, because Edward just looked so peaceful snoring on the couch.
But he had to admit that Edward, in reality, was living with him. Sure, the other man was still paying rent on his apartment, but it was basically an oversized closet at that point. He went there each morning to get changed for work, or shower, but otherwise he lived at Roy’s. His notebooks were littered across Roy’s living space. His boots were always by Roy’s front door. His toothbrush was in the bathroom.
And living together came with a certain amount of trust. So one day, when Ed picked up the notebook containing Roy’s coded notes and waved them at him with one eyebrow raised in askance, Roy swallowed down the panic that usually accompanied an alchemist wanting to look over his work, and instead nodded his head, agreeing to let Ed take a crack at decoding them.
Four days afterwards Edward let out a little ‘aha!’ and began furiously scribbling in his own notebook, and Roy smiled at the top of his head, because he was proud, and not terrified, that the boy had figured it out. His notes felt safe in Ed’s hands and, he realised with a jolt, he felt safe in Ed’s hands. If this was a courting, Roy thought, he was apparently okay with being courted.
But he had to figure out if his assumptions were correct, so that night he put on his big-boy pants and made a very obvious declaration. Pausing at the entry to his bedroom, looking at where Edward hadn’t yet fallen asleep on the sofa, he chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment.
“You know, if you’re going to stay here, you’d be better off sleeping in the bed, right?”
Ed looked up at him from his scribbles, and then very deliberately put down his pen.
“Right,” he agreed, and got up from the couch with that little groan he made every time he had to bend his knees, and followed Roy into the bedroom.
Now, Roy had thought that asking another man to come to bed was a rather blatant invitation to make whatever this relationship was more physical. So, he stepped into the room with the nervous butterflies he got whenever the idea of sex was on the table, despite the fact he was a man in his thirties and no virgin. He’d stopped by the bathroom before retiring, to make sure he was clean and presentable; feeling a little foolish as he scrubbed his teeth extra hard and spent more minutes than was strictly necessary giving himself a trim downstairs. But when he made it back to the bedroom, shirt off to convey just how interested he was in what was about to happen, he found Ed already snoring.
Fully clothed, on top of the covers, taking up most of Roy’s double, with his abdomen hanging out slightly.
Roy wasn’t a jerk though. Tiredness got the better of them all, and Roy knew that physically Edward dealt with so much more than others. He was often so exhausted in an evening that he conked out on the sofa, after all - and it was late. He wasn’t going to wake the other man up for the sake of his libido. So instead he curled himself up smaller than he normally would, and simply slipped into bed beside him.
He could try again tomorrow.
“Do you think he’s asexual?” Riza asked two weeks later, at their weekly wine and gossip night.
His attempts at finding answers out from his involuntary roommate had not been going well. Tiredness was one thing. Ed seemed to be entirely oblivious. Although Edward slept every night in his bed, they didn’t even cuddle. The boy was out cold the moment his head hit the pillow, often on top of the covers, and it left Roy stranded in the double, dumbfounded and staring down at Ed’s snoring form with no small amount of frustration.
“God, I hope not.”
Riza snorted into her drink, and Roy pouted, annoyed at her. He hadn’t even thought of Edward’s home invasion as a signal for sex until Hawkeye brought it up, after all. She was the root of all his problems: the reason for his blue-balls.
“Well, maybe you need to be less subtle.” She shrugged her shoulders.
Roy wasn’t sure how he could be more obvious than literally inviting the boy to bed, but he nodded his head anyway. Things were getting dire. He was waking from dreams about Ed in increasingly saucy situations. He was willing away boners at work just seeing glimpses of blonde across the office.
He really, really needed to get laid.
Less subtle, Roy decided, would come in the guise of an even more blatant invitation, one that would make it very clear if Ed was interested or not.
So the next day, after he’d done the dishes and Ed was happily tucked up on the sofa doodling on the daily newspaper, he took himself off to the bathroom and turned the shower to just hot enough not to hurt his hands. Afterwards, he made a point not to dry himself. Instead, he wrapped the smallest towel he owned as low and as loose as he dared around his hips, and exited the bathroom still dripping. Back in the living area, when Edward didn’t look up from his artwork, he cleared his throat meaningfully, and then looked away as if he hadn’t been bidding for attention the moment Ed’s eyes slid over to him.
Immediately, Ed jumped to his feet. Yes. Good. That was the direction Roy wanted this to – where the fuck was Ed going?
“I should go!” the younger man practically squeaked, heading towards the front door.
Roy watched him retreat with a dumbfounded expression. Go where? Didn’t they live together?
Edward didn’t show his face in Roy’s apartment for a week.
Roy saw him at work, but given the only person to know about their strange living situation was Hawkeye, he wasn’t comfortable having it out with Ed at the office. Especially given exactly how Edward’s absence had come about. Roy was justifiably mad about the absence – after all, it was Ed who had decided to move in. It was Ed who had practically put a claim on Roy. But, more than anger, he mostly just missed his emotional support squatter.
More and more he wondered if Hawkeye had been wrong about Ed’s affections. He’d almost resolved to knock on his neighbour’s door and apologise for his blatant come-ons, but one evening he came home to find a rather sulky Edward leaning up against the wall outside his flat.
“How long have you been waiting there?” Roy asked. Ed shrugged, pouting down at the floor.
“A while,” he muttered. “You work too much.”
“Don’t I know it,” Roy responded as jovially as he could, letting the awkwardness that had stretched between them go. He dug his key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. “Come on, waiting has probably made you all stiff, right?”
The wince of pain that flashed across Ed’s face as he followed Roy was enough evidence that it had. Roy frowned at the thought that this idiot had been standing outside when he knew damn well where the key was. Roy hadn’t bothered moving it in months. So he stopped the other man as Ed made a move towards the kitchen, and redirected him to the couch.
“Ordering in once isn’t going to kill you,” he explained. “I’d offer to cook but we both know that’s a bad idea.”
Ed’s answering smirk told Roy he remembered exactly how disastrous their foray into teaching Roy to cook had been. But, other than the smirk, he simply sat on the couch looking exhausted, as Roy went over to the phone and relayed his normal order, plus some dishes he knew Ed liked. When he got back Edward was looking at him curiously.
“You notice things, don’t you?” he asked, and Roy shrugged his shoulders.
“About the people I care about,” he responded, deciding to be honest in this conversation, but cautious. He didn’t want Ed running away again, and this week had taught him to be more careful about his assumptions.
“You notice things about me,” Ed said, as if Roy hadn’t understood him the first time. “The things I like. How… how it hurts, a lot of the time.”
Roy nodded, wondering where this was going.
“Of course I do.”
Ed looked down at his lap, his right leg was jumping up and down, but his automail leg remained still – too heavy for nerves.
“Sorry I ran away,” he finally told his knees. “Riza said you’d been miserable.”
“Hawkeye can butt out,” Roy muttered darkly, wondering just what else she’d been whispering in the kid’s ear. How much she might have said about Roy’s emotions regarding Edward. “You’re entitled to deal with your feelings however you want.”
Edward’s golden eyes shot up to his, and a flush alighted across his tanned cheeks.
“I wasn’t feeling anything,” he denied, which Roy didn’t believe for a second. People didn't run away from blatant come-ons if they felt nothing.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Now, roll up your pant-leg,” he ordered. And when Ed gave him a look like he’d asked him to strip naked, he rolled his eyes and explained. “You’re in pain, and I can help. I did grow up in a ‘massage parlour’ after all.”
“That’s a front for a brothel,” Ed corrected him without hesitation, not bothering with exposing his leg.
“In turn a front for an intelligence network,” Roy rebutted right back. “Leg.”
It took a moment longer of clear deliberation, before Edward bent to roll up his trousers, exposing his port and letting Roy see the hairy, paler skin of his thigh. Delicately, like he was trying to take some of the weight out of the heavy metal, Ed lifted his leg and allowed it to drape across Roy’s lap, looking as if he was expecting Roy to suddenly pour cold water over him. But all Roy did was rearrange himself slightly to account for the extra weight on his thighs, and got to work.
Sex might be off the table for the time being, but by the soft sighs of pleasure that escaped Ed as Roy massaged into his tissue, the boy wasn’t completely disinterested in physical intimacy.
Perhaps inviting Edward to bed had, in retrospect, been skipping a few steps. Although Roy had assumed that Edward would be fine with skipping a few steps, since he’d skipped the step involving asking Roy if he could move in. But nevermind, Roy was nothing if not adaptable.
Against Hawkeye’s advice, if he wanted to find out the depth of Edward’s apparent claim on Roy’s space, and Roy himself, he was probably going to have to be more subtle. The kid was skittish otherwise. So, a few days after he had massaged some of the tension out of Ed’s thigh port, and been rewarded with the sweetest, sleepiest smiles he had ever seen, he set about his plan.
He set an alarm to wake up before Edward left for the day. It was still too late to see him up before Ed, who Roy found in the kitchen mixing pancake batter, but much earlier than he normally arose. From there, he padded across the tiled floor on his bare feet, hooked one arm around Ed’s waist and put his chin on his shoulder to get a good look at what Ed was making. Edward’s back stiffened, but Roy tried not to pay any mind to that, since he relaxed again soon after with Roy’s arm still slung around his toned stomach.
“Smells good,” he mumbled, replacing his chin with his forehead.
“S’not even cookin’ yet,” the other man replied with a chuckle. “You’re cuddly in the morning, huh?”
Roy shrugged his shoulders, as if he hadn’t been wanting to put his hands on Ed for weeks at that point. As if Ed didn’t wake him up every night at one in the morning, when he rolled over in bed and pulled Roy to him like a teddy bear. He watched as Edward ladled the batter into the frying pan, and backed off a little to wait patiently at the island bar, glad he hadn’t been rejected.
“This is nice,” Ed commented later, when they were sitting at the bar eating their pancakes together. Roy hummed his agreement, even though he wasn’t a morning person , and before Ed he had always skipped breakfast.
Before Ed felt like a lifetime ago, now.
Roy became more convinced that Ed was warming up to the idea of them being an actual couple a few days later, on one of the many Saturdays that found them doing chores together at home. Ed was using Roy’s built in washer-dryer to do his laundry, as had been his habit for months, stating how it was easier than heading to the laundromat. As Roy came into the bedroom he realised that this time Ed had clearly waited too long, resulting in him doing the laundry wearing only a pair of underwear and one of Roy’s T-shirts. He had to stop short in the doorway and wrestle his mind back from X-rated on seeing it.
“You look cute,” he commented, and the compliment had Ed’s entire face going a bright red.
“Shut up, you’re cute!” he grumbled, throwing one of his now clean socks at Roy. “Come help me fold.”
And Roy did just that, smiling when all the clothes were folded and Ed subtly put them away in the drawer Roy had cleared out for him weeks ago.
Whether Edward knew it or not, and despite the lack of sex, there was no denying that they were together. They ate all their meals together, discussed current affairs until their opinions merged, ran errands and did chores side by side, worked and made fun of their colleagues together. Neither of them had been on a date in months, and for his part Roy had no desire to. Although Edward wasn’t exactly taking him out, the boy had still managed an excellent job of wining and dining him, and their quiet evenings together felt like some of the best dates Roy had been on in years.
Without realising it, Roy’s curiosity over Edward’s claim on his house and his heart had morphed into a quiet certainty that not only was he Edward’s, but that Edward was his. To the point that when one of the girls from the secretary pool had caught him in the corridor a few days prior and blushed her way through asking him on a date, he’d instinctively told her that he was with someone.
And with someone he was - in the way Ed put his feet up on Roy’s lap in an evening, or left notes on the mirror to remind him to get milk, or how when Roy handed the other man coffee their fingers would linger together for slightly too long. Roy tried saying it out loud to himself when he thought he was alone: “I have a boyfriend.” - “Edward Elric is my partner.” - “I live with my boyfriend, Ed.”
And the more he said it, the more it felt like the inevitable conclusion of what Ed had started.
One morning, as Ed was leaving for work many weeks later, Roy found himself hanging about by the entrance hall, watching him lace up his boots. When he straightened up again it became obvious that the epaulette on his right shoulder was crooked, so Roy instinctively stepped forwards and straightened it for him. Ed turned to him just as he was finishing and they were so close Roy thought for a second they were going to kiss. But Ed just smiled at him.
“Thanks.”
Roy took a step back, feeling tender in the quiet intimacy of the moment.
“Have a good day at work,” he breathed into the space between them, since the other man was on loan to General Montgomery, and they wouldn’t see each other during the day. Ed reached for Roy’s fingers and gave them a little squeeze of appreciation.
“How’s curry sound tonight?” he asked, already turning towards the door, and thus missing Roy nodding his head.
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“Alright, see you tonight,” Ed said, half way out the apartment and down the corridor.
“See you then. Love you!” Roy called after him, and only realised that it was the first time he’d actually said that out loud when Ed paused and tensed.
Roy thought for a moment he was going to turn back around and question him on the confession, but he didn’t. After a small pause, he just carried on down the stairs and away from their shared home.
And, well… shit.
That evening Roy let himself into his apartment expecting to find it empty. The last time he had come on too strong the kid had run away for a week, after all. He knew that if Ed was across the hall then he had to give him space, and Roy probably needed some space too, because he’d confessed he loved Ed that morning, and Ed had ignored it entirely.
He toed off his boots in the hallway and drifted through to the great room following his nose and the scents of curried vegetables wafting towards him from his kitchen. For if there was one thing he could say about Edward Elric it was that the man who had chosen him would never willfully let him suffer for long. He made it to the island just as Edward presented the curry down at his usual spot. Silently, Roy sank into his chair, and looked at Ed, who was blushing profusely, but hadn’t run away.
“I didn’t know,” he said, before Roy could even thank him for a meal. He’d clearly put a lot more effort into it than he usually did, but Roy’s stomach was too unsettled to eat.
“That I love you?” Roy asked, sounding more confident than he felt. Stiffly, Ed nodded. Roy sighed.
“How was I supposed to know?” Ed huffed, clearly taking offence.
“We live together!” Roy finally exploded, all of his pent up frustration coming out in one upset exclamation. Ed looked at him as if he hadn’t even known that much, and then he rubbed at the back of his neck, looking away like he was embarrassed.
“Y-yeah, I guess we do.”
“Are you serious right now?” Roy heard himself ask, and Ed only seemed to blush harder. “We share a home, a bed, a life… I don’t know how this comes as a surprise to you. I thought…”
Ed finally managed to look him in the eyes.
“You thought what?”
Then it was Roy’s turn to look away, embarrassed by his own assumptions.
“I thought we were already together. I thought you were mine.”
It felt so damning to say it out loud, now, knowing that all this time he had been thinking they were partners, and Ed had thought they were just… roommates. He realised now that he had been nothing more than a convenience for the other man, and he wanted to hit himself for getting so wrapped up in his own delusions. But then there was a bronzed finger on his chin and Ed had forced him into looking up into golden eyes. Eyes that were swimming with sincerity.
“Hey, you are mine.”
“But you’re not mine,” Roy whispered, feeling his heart breaking in his chest. Edward rolled his eyes, looking very put out by the whole conversation. He took his hand back off of Roy’s face so that he could throw it up in the air exasperatedly.
“Of course I’m yours!” he finally confessed. “Jeez, you really need me to say it?”
“I need you to say something!” Roy admitted, confusion mixing with hope inside of him. “You’ve been living with me for the best part of a year. I invited you into my bed. I… I told you ‘I love you’. I need… I need something in return. Some proof I’m not going crazy.”
“Equivalent Exchange,” Ed murmured, and Roy glared at him, because now really wasn’t the time.
But then Ed leant over the island counter, over the curry he’d prepared, and yanked Roy to him by his uniform collar, until they were in each other’s faces, and Ed could tilt his chin. And then they were kissing. Forcibly, aggressively, leaving Roy feeling light-headed as his eyes slipped closed and his shoulders relaxed into it, and his hands came up to cradle at Ed’s elbows. A moment later Ed was back on his side of the island, rosy-cheeked, with a bit of curry sauce on his shirt where he’d leant too far and accidentally dipped his clothes into Roy’s dinner.
“You’re not going crazy,” he admitted, and Roy felt a stupid grin forming on his face that he couldn’t have squashed for the Fuhrership handed to him on a plate.
Later, curled up around each other in bed, with Ed having proven to Roy exactly how not-crazy he was, Roy ran a hand down the muscles on Ed’s stomach and couldn’t help a small chuckle as he thought about the strange series of events that had led up to that moment. Edward was snoozing peacefully next to him, but at the sound his hand in Roy’s hair twitched slightly, and he made a disgruntled noise as he shook himself from slumber.
“Wha’?” he asked, voice hoarse from sleep and… other reasons.
“Did you genuinely not realise we lived together?” Roy asked, head still nestled against Ed’s shoulder and his breath coming out dewy against the bronzed skin there. Ed grunted in the epitome of manliness.
“Thought you were jus’ being… generous.”
“I think you’re the one who’s generous,” Roy smiled down at his partner’s naked chest, able to be amused by Edward’s obliviousness now that everything was out in the open. Then, when he glanced up to get a look at the other man’s face, he saw Ed giving him a salacious grin that suggested he had read an entirely different meaning to Roy’s words. Not that Ed hadn’t been generous in that aspect of things too. “I mean, with the cooking.”
Edward made the noise he made before he was about to do something strenuous, and a moment later had rolled over so that he was on top of Roy, with a thigh nestled on either side of Roy’s. He looked down at his captive partner with his long hair cascading down over his shoulders. The small furrow in his brow was more pronounced than usual.
“Would you have preferred me to… I dunno, ask you out on a date, all those months ago? Take you to a museum or something?”
“It is the more traditional route,” Roy replied neutrally, ever the politician. But Edward gave him a deadpan look of being unimpressed, so he shook his head and tried again, running his hands up Ed’s naked back and loving the shiver of desire it elicited. “I think you did this in the most Edward Elric way possible. And I think it was perfect. Especially since if you had asked me on a museum date back then I likely would have said no.”
A look of disappointment flitted across his partner’s face.
“Oh.”
“Yes,” Roy admitted, feigning melancholy. “I abhor museums.”
And Ed picked up one of the pillows - one of their pillows, from their shared bed, in their shared apartment - and promptly used it to try and smother him.