FicWad

"I don't think you understand the full impact of our...situation." Roy muttered, somewhat at a loss in the face of Edward's rather cavalier attitude towards the whole thing.

"Why the hell do you insist on trying to give me this talk, Mustang? I understand the damn complications involved in us fucking." Ed snarled, glaring down at his coffee.

"Ed." Roy snapped, not at all liking how casually Ed appeared to be about it all. "You don't understand. My position as well as yours is at risk. You lose the watch; you lose the research, the funding, and the backing. Good luck achieving your goals then."

"Bastard." Ed howled, surging to his feet, upsetting the mugs on the table with the violent motion. "Are you so damn attached to the upper hand you have to mess with me first thing in the damn morning?" Ed slammed his automail hand down onto the table. "Ya know what I think, Colonel? I think you just feel the fucking need to pretend you're still controlling the situation."

Ed was leaning far too close...was far too angry...

Was far too right.

Roy could almost see control of the situation sliding away with every heated breath Ed drew, with every fascinated glance he caught himself casting towards Ed's heaving chest...

It wasn't the risk...the risk was exhilarating, a challenge to sneak by, a threat to overcome...it was the feeling he was heading downhill on loose pebbles. On his ass. No control. No control....

"Not going to argue, huh? Just going to sit there? Hell, the one time I wouldn't mind a good fight." Ed leaned in close, his lips almost brushing Roy's as he spoke, breath sweet with toothpaste. "Take it or leave it, Roy."

A shock of something jolted down Roy's spine at the sound of his name, pronounced with pure, appallingly sincere, derision. His name. Not Mustang, not Colonel, not any sort of insulting string of words or even grudging, lackluster formality.

"Do not treat me like some fucking kid, Roy." Ed's lips did brush along Roy's in a derisive imitation of an affectionate kiss. "I damn well understand my fucking position in the military. I don't need some ass of a colonel to remind me." Ed bit down rather viciously on Roy's lower lip. "I don't need you to fucking remind me."

There was a desperate sort of edge to Ed's voice which drew Roy's attention out of his personal angst. He looked, actually looked, into Ed's eyes...

And landed himself right in the middle of Ed's own conflict. Of course the alchemist realized what he had to risk. He was quite the genius when he wasn't thinking about it...and yet...he was willing to risk it. For him. It was humbling. And more than a little...frightening.

"Shit...don't do that, you ass." Ed muttered, pulling away, embarrassed as Roy's epiphany became glaringly obvious in his narrowed black eyes.

Wincing a bit as he brushed blood from his slightly mangled lower lip, "Do what?"

"Look at me like that. Like I am some sort of starving cat or something. Just stop it. I don't need pity."

"It isn't pity, Edward. It's respect." Roy settled back. "I don't know how you do it sometimes...hold it all together through everything."

"Could say the same to you." Ed muttered, refusing to look at anything but his clenched hands.

"We're a sorry pair, aren't we?" Roy sighed. "Bastard colonel and spastic alchemist."

Ed's eyes gleamed. "They call me what?"

"You have to admit you do have a...knack for overreacting." Roy fingered his swollen lower lip.

"If you so much as start to ask me to kiss that and make it better I am kicking you in the balls. With the metal foot." Ed hissed.

"Then I won't ask."

Ed had about enough time to jerk back in surprise, but not near enough to defend or flee, before Roy's lips were pressing insistently against his own. Roy expected Ed to fuss, to fight, to bite again...and was rather pleased when he only froze for a few irregular heartbeats before deciding to kiss back, secure, perhaps, in the fact that Roy wasn't teasing, wasn't taunting.

"I'm sorry I treated you like a child." Roy sighed against Ed's mouth.

"You didn't...not really. I....I might have overreacted a bit."

Something dangerously close to happiness tickled its way through Roy in response to Ed's quiet concession. Walls down...they both had their walls down...there was still the persistent corner of his mind that screamed at him to push Ed away, to regain and maintain the upper hand as securely as before. It was the same part that howled about rank and court martial, the part he told to sod off as he smiled gently, affectionately at Ed. "You didn't overreact. I was being an ass."

Ed eyed his watch for a moment, and then turned a thoughtful eye Roy's way. "You could make it up to me."

"Oh" Roy raised one eyebrow.

"Not THAT you perverted old bastard!" Ed blushed furiously. "I was going to demand you cook some breakfast."

"Ed...no one willingly braves my cooking. Even Havoc think it's horrendous and he will eat anything."

"That's a shame. Guess this will have to do." Ed almost bounded from his chair, a terrifyingly pleased sort of look on his face. Within seconds he was behind Roy's chair, face pressed to the back of the seated mans neck, arms firmly around his torso.

Roy help perfectly still, not quite sure what prompted the action, but aware from the way Ed's arms clenched and his breathing shuddered unsteadily, that the young man was struggling with some emotion or another.

Struggling with his own inability to deal with insecurity.

"Edward..." Roy started, wanting to reassure him.

"Shut up. Just shut up." Ed growled, irritation foiled by a hint of tears. "We don't have to be at the office for a bit. So just shut up, ok?"

"Ok." Roy whispered, leaning back into the press of Ed's face, closing his eyes as he soaked in the feel of Ed's arms around him.

Of being held.