After

by scribblemoose

Ed looked down between them, where their hands joined, fingers laced together. It was curious: it didn't feel real. He couldn't be holding hands with the Col- ... with Roy, it didn't make sense.

He couldn't be lying naked in bed with Roy, either. He especially couldn't be lying naked in bed with Roy temporarily paralysed in the aftermath of sex.

At least he hoped it was temporary.

He remembered a year ago, lying in this exact same spot, with a similar sense of disbelief. Easy to dismiss then, a one-off, a slip of the... well, an accident, anyway. Heat of the moment.

But now, after all that had happened...

It still didn't feel like his hand. It looked like his hand. It was attached to his arm in the usual way. But it wasn't listening to him. It was having its own soft, squirmy fun with Roy's hand and there was nothing Ed could do about it.

"You alright?" Roy's voice purred at him. "You look a bit out of it."

Ed felt his cheeks flush pink and hot. "I'm fine."

He knew exactly what the smug expression on Roy's face would be like without looking. But he looked anyway.

Ed didn't seem to have any control over anything any more.

"I thought I'd lost you," said Roy. And Ed shut his eyes quick, swallowed over the choking feeling in his throat, and his hand squeezed Roy's, hard.

"Don't be an idiot," he said, quietly. "I'm indestructable."

"You died."

"Not exactly. It was complicated."

Yes, he'd died. He'd given his life for Al's, only Al wouldn't take it, and then his damn father had got involved and apparently what was left of him counted double to the Gate, because the next Ed knew he was back and breathing and Al was warm and naked in his arms and smelt like skin and blood and breath, and-

"Ed..."

Roy scooped him into his arms, and Ed pressed his face into Roy's chest and choked back the tears.

"Ed, it's okay."

Ed nodded his head, his forehead scrubbing against Roy's skin. It was okay. Of course it was. It just felt weird.

It all felt weird.

"It's bound to feel a bit strange," Roy said, doing that annoying mind-reading thing he did sometimes. "You've been through so much." A hand, long fingers surprisingly soft (must be all that paperwork), brushed the hair from Ed's eyes. "You should rest."

"Not yet," Ed said. "Too wired."

"Okay. Hungry?"

Ed shook his head.

"Thirsty? I could get you a drink, brandy maybe, or-"

"Just..." hold me. Ed's sank back onto the pillows on Roy's bed, pulling his lover down with him.

His lover? All this had happened and now he'd ended up with a lover as well?

Ed laughed weakly.

"You should try to sleep," said Roy.

"Al might need me."

"He's fine. Winry's watching him. He told you to rest, remember?"

Ed did remember, very well. Al may not be armour any more but it made him no less persuasive.

"Yes."

"Just get a few hours sleep."

The idea sounded wonderful, to curl up here in Roy's arms and drift, but it wouldn't be like that, it wouldn't, the memory of the Gate was too vivid still in Edward's mind, and the serpent that had devoured his father whole, and he couldn't trust himself enough, couldn't let himself live through that again.

"Will you be Fuhrer now?" Ed said.

"I hadn't really-"

"Bullshit. You're not telling me that the thought didn't occur to you already? This is what you've been waiting for all this time."

"Yes," Roy said softly. He lay back at Ed's side, their hands still joined. Roy's thumb moved over Ed's, stroking gently back and forth. "And no."

"No?"

"I won't be Fuhrer."

"Because you killed the old one? I'm sure they'll overlook that when they find out what he was."

"No, Fullmetal, not because of that."

"Then why? It's what you've worked for for years. Hawkeye won't let you not be Fuhrer. All that power. Right up your street."

"I didn't just want the power for the sake of it. I wanted to make things different."

"So?"

"So things are different now. Just not in the way I'd thought."

Ed sighed. "You're making no sense, you crazy bastard."

There was a silence, and for once Ed didn't feel moved to fill it. He just lay staring at the ceiling, and his hand insisted on squeezing Roy's hand, until Roy spoke again.

"What do you think happened tonight, Edward?"

Ed closed his eyes for a moment. I brought Al and Winry here because they were driving me crazy at Headquarters, everyone was fussing and it was upsetting Al, I couldn't think and I haven't slept in days and you hadn't come to see us, you bastard, and then when I was here and they were in bed and we were sitting on that stupid leather couch something weird happened and next I knew I was kissing you, and you were acting surprised, and then...

...and then I was lying here on the bed and you touched my skin and brought fire and the fire made me clean and whole and everything was good again and now...

"You made a mistake?" Ed whispered.

"No," said Roy, smug bastard smile on his face again, Ed could hear it in his voice, "you changed the world."

That was the last straw for Ed's overloaded brain; he squinted up at Roy in confusion and maybe a sort of recognition and his heart went weird, and then he gave up and finally, finally, just like that, funny, Al used to say Ed could fall alseep in the middle of a war zone, never mind a conversation, he felt warm and good and finally...

... Roy covered him with the sheets and blankets, and kissed his hair, and while Ed slept without dreams Roy lay beside him and never once let go his hand until he woke to spring and sunshine...

... and a new world.

~ owari ~