Current mood:	tired
Current music:	Feeder - Just A Day
Entry tags:	angst, futurefic, movie spoilers!, roy/ed, smuttish

Longer than usual speedfic!
Love and Other High Stake Games
From the much-neglected Letterverse. And again, it does actually feature a letter ^^
Unbeta'd, written in the last three hours instead of Nano. Whoops!
Rating: R, but with a mature content warning.
Warnings: See the above. Nothing much graphic, but we stray quite far from the fluff waters. Read with caution. Also (almost forgot entirely ^^;) movie spoilers! *flails*
Disclaimer: I own one OC who everyone is *utterly* welcome to do whatever nasty thing they like to. He's being dumped in the bin of no-longer-required OCs with the rest of them after this. Apart from that? Not a single original thought is mine. Look to Hiromu Arakawa for that.

Summary: Written to cheer myself up. Ed receives a proposition it's hard to say no to for all the wrong reasons.



Ed was being good. He hoped Roy was watching.

You see this, Roy? I'm not drunk. I haven't started an argument. I haven't even given anyone a dirty look. When one of your pompous stupid military idiots with so many stars on him I couldn't see his chest began to piss seven different kinds of crap out of me, I came out here to get some air, to cool my head. I did grow up somewhere in the eighteen fucking years you've known me. So your little pep talk in the car was completely unwarranted because I am an adult. Dickwad.

He leaned on the balcony and scowled at the parade ground below. Stupid military parties. Stupid Roy and his stupid obsession with stupid ranks. He already was a general, what was his problem? (Roy looking weary in the car; "There are Generals and there are Generals, Edward.") And Ed was on display as much as Roy was, he knew that, he had to behave. Be a good boy, Edward. Sit. Roll over. Beg. Good boy.

He wanted another drink.

A youth spent nearly getting killed every other day had left him very aware of what was happening at his back, and he knew someone was coming across the balcony towards him, and he knew from their tread that they weren't Roy. His arm muscles tightened a little on the railing. (Edward, stay. Good boy.)

A uniform sighed next to him and leaned on the railing beside him. "It's a beautiful night," the uniform said.

Ed glanced up to the stars, noticed them for the first time, shrugged. "I guess."

"Always good to get some air at these things. It gets awfully muggy in there, all that hot air."

Ed raised an eyebrow, looked across at his companion for the first time. Older than Roy but not yet old, brown hair run through with silver, and a whole lot of shiny things on his chest. Fuck, if he outranked Roy then Ed really would have to be polite to him.

His eyes glittered and grinned at Ed's. Ed just gave him a slow, dubious look and then out at the night again.

"How long do these things usually last?"

"Shorter than they feel, certainly. You're here with Brigadier-General Mustang?"

There were Generals and there were Generals. "Yeah. Edward Elric."

"Dunant. You didn't look like you were having much fun earlier."

"S'not . . . really my thing. Roy's happier here than me."

"There are ways of making it more amusing." Dunant mused. Ed just leaned listlessly on the railing, head propped on a hand. "You were under Mustang's command when you were in the military, weren't you?" Ed's glance flicked back to him. "I have heard of the Fullmetal Alchemist, you know, some of the top brass do notice what happens in the rest of the world. How was he, as a Colonel?"

"He was alright," Ed said guardedly.

"So how long have you two been . . . ?"

Ed's head snapped to Dunant's, and his eyes narrowed. "Not back then, obviously. He was my commanding officer."

"Of course."

"I was a kid, anyway." It had suddenly struck Ed that the man was standing just a bit - just half an inch - too close. Not close enough to warrant taking a step back, but all the same, just subtly too close . . .

"Of course. But you must have been young, all the same."

Ed just kept staring at him. He genuinely didn't know how to react - there was nothing he could legitimately explode at, but all his warning signals were waking up and he really wanted to be somewhere else entirely -

"First love?"

"Think I'll go back indoors," Ed muttered.

A little laugh. "You don't like to play games, do you?"

"Didn't know there was a game on."

"Alright. I'll be blunt." Dunant turned to face him fully and Ed moved his head a little back. "I'd like to see you again. I'd like to see a lot more of you. Because I know Mustang's reputation but the man's not what he was, and you . . ." His eyes flicked down from Ed's face and back again with a broadening grin. ". . . could probably handle a lot more than what he can offer you."

The rage of what did you just say about him? and the fact that Ed thought he might know what this man was getting at but wasn't positive combined to make him confused and furious and even more furious because confused. "What - the hell is your-"

"The rumour is he's the only lover you've ever had." Dunant said, and raised a hand. "And haven't you ever wondered-?"

Ed's automail moved on automatic, smacked the hand to the side before it could touch his jaw, which had tightened until it almost hurt. "I'm going back inside," he spat, because one more second on this balcony and Ed was going to piss all Roy's hard work away by beating one of his bosses to death at a military party, but as he spun a hand caught his wrist and tugged him off-balance.

"I've always quite enjoyed games," Dunant murmured into his hair and Ed wrenched himself back-

"General Dunant. Edward, I've been looking for you."

Roy in the doorway to the balcony, his face and voice both utterly flat, just a slight narrowing to his one eye. Ed gave the General one last look and his expression (if anything, amusement) made the rage flare again before he turned and stalked towards Roy.

"A pleasant evening, Mustang?" Dunant called after him.

"Mm. We're just going to turn in, though. Good night, sir."

"Good night. Goodbye, Edward."

Ed couldn't even hear him through the scream in his ears of Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you and then Roy took his arm just a little too tight and pressed him through the room, down the corridor, downstairs and to Havoc waiting by the car with a puzzled, faintly worried expression.

Dragged away on a leash like a bad dog. Ed could hardly even breathe.

*

The door banged behind Roy. Ed slung his coat onto its hook and kicked his shoes off, and glared back at Roy still standing silent in the doorway. He was impossible to read sometimes. Ed hated him for that.

"What the fuck is your problem?" he snapped. "What're you so mad at me for, what've I done this time? I didn't even punch the fucker."

"Maybe it would have been better if you had." Roy said, very quietly, his eye still hard and still utterly unreadable on Ed's. Ed felt his face go white, breath sucking in hard. He stamped the two steps to put himself right up against Roy and snarled up to his mouth, "Go on, then, say it, you crazy thick bastard, say it if you're thinking it - make this my fault like there isn't enough shit in the world that actually is my fault-"

"I haven't said anything."

"Then start talking."

Ed knew how to just begin to rile Roy, knew how to get too close and keep demanding and keep demanding and keep pushing and pushing and pushing until he would just let out a crack of the wild streak that ran through him, that he'd spent all these years holding down deep inside. And Roy's jaw had tightened, just a fraction, but on him it was a scream. His voice came out between gritted teeth. "What did he say to you?"

Ed hated himself that the flush struck him so obviously, but the rage from that - the man's not what he was -

"Bullshit and lies. Nothing that matters."

"I happen to think it does matter."

"Well, you didn't hear it, so you wouldn't know, would you?"

"I certainly saw enough."

"Saw what, me coming this close to breaking his face? What the hell're you so mad at me for? I didn't do anything, Roy, for the first fucking time in my life I actually didn't do anything wrong-"

Roy's hard drawn-in breath. "I know," he forced out. "I know." He swallowed. "I know. Edward . . ." He had to close his eye to say it. "Forgive me. I only act so insane because - you're the only thing that actually matters in my life."

His eye opened. For a moment, they just stared at one another.

Roy's hand brushed Ed's hair back. Ed felt his muscles begin to relax.

Roy kissed him. Kissed him so well that Ed's legs almost deposited him back onto the stairs.

And within two seconds he knew how Roy was trying to play this and the anger flared again and he caught Roy's wrists, span and slammed the man back into the wall, pinning him in place, kissing back hard. Roy wanted to write property of Roy Mustang across Ed's body but Ed had just been pushed too far too often tonight and he wanted to do this his way.

Roy gazed down at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well." he said. "If that's how you want to play it . . ."

Spreading his legs for Ed to force his hips close, letting Ed dominate the kiss - encouraging Ed to dominate the kiss - and when Ed grabbed his hand and marched for the bedroom he simply smiled. Under Ed's hands he shed uniform, eye patch, underwear -

And afterwards, when Ed's panting had settled a little between his shoulder blades, when Ed's nose rubbed at the side of his spine like a cat's, Roy rolled his muscles out for Ed and laughed softly and said, "Tell me I was ridiculous tonight."

"You are ridiculous," Ed said, and kissed up the points of his spine until he could bury his face into his hair and inhale.

*

Roy was brilliant at the morning after. Shutting the alarm clock off before it went off so he could wake Ed by the much more preferable method of kissing, slowly and gently, every inch of his face; running his hands down Ed's sides and up his throat and promising him (kiss) that if he would just get a shower (kiss) and get dressed for work (kiss) then there would be coffee. And more kissing.

The rumour is he's the only lover you've ever had.

Mmm, yes. Because Ed was smart enough to guess that no-one else would be even half as good at this. Because love doesn't work with the clinical rationality of shopping around, love is Cupid's arrow and Ed had been bullseyed. Right in the heart. So what if it had happened the first time?

And because - because -

Sleep with someone else? Even if Ed had wanted to, do that to Roy? Ed maybe didn't understand it but he still knew that it would devastate Roy, would ruin him more finally than anything else ever had. And . . . if he could bear to think about it, the thought of Roy's rage, of Roy being cold and angry and casting him aside and Ed deserving it just made him sick inside. Not to Roy, not to Roy, he could never do that to Roy, to himself. An act against Roy was a betrayal of himself now, just as he knew even when he couldn't help it that hurting himself just hurt Roy. He couldn't do that to either of them.

Anyway, other people's bodily fluids: ew.

So they had breakfast and Roy still seemed determined to kiss every visible inch of his skin and murmured in the doorway, "If you had to lose what I do you would be a jealous paranoid too." and Ed just whispered, clutched with a sudden fear, "Don't."

Roy hugged him so close to himself that Ed's ribs ached.

*

Roy was always in after him, he usually was late. Ed made pre-dinner and ate that, because he would die if he actually had to wait for Roy to come in for dinner proper. He lounged on the sofa with a book and waited for Roy to come in, only half his mind on the book, mostly thinking about initiating some random kitchen sex. Getting Roy inside his mouth, hard tiles under his knees, it had been forever already since . . .

The telephone rang.

He cocked his head, stood and stretched, scratched his stomach through his shirt as he headed through to the hallway and the telephone. He was yawning as he picked it up, stretching out his, "Roy . . . ?"

"Hm. Not quite."

". . . who-?"

"You can't have forgotten me already."

It wasn't the wind getting in around the front door that made Ed feel so suddenly cold. He knew that voice.

"What do you want?" he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. Roy's superior. This man had the power to hurt the both of them.

"I was wondering if you'd thought any more about my proposition from last night."

Blushing like a schoolboy in an empty hallway was just plain embarrassing, and that only made Ed blush all the harder. "No. Actually. It didn't even occur to me."

"Would you like to reconsider it now?"

Reconsider my fist, fucker. "No. I gotta go, Roy'll be in soon-"

Amused laughter. "No, he won't."

"How the hell would you know-?"

"Because I can manipulate his workload." Dunant said, and the worst thing was, in that sentence Ed heard the same silky tone of seduction that Roy used. "You may find he's quite late home tonight."

Ed stared at the front door, stomach beginning to fall. "Why're you doing-?"

"If you don't actually want to have some fun without him - and I'm sure that your faithfulness is utterly charming, by the way - then there are still ways for me to get what I want."

Rage held the blood in his face. "Just come out and say it, you bastard."

"I'm not unaware of your partner's ambitions, you know. And I can make life very difficult for him. You don't even know how difficult . . ."

There was probably some eloquent, contemptuous, lethal put-down in this situation. But all Ed had was a spat, "Fuck you." and hanging up so hard the phone almost broke.

Less than ten minutes later Hawkeye called to say that the General would be late home tonight.

He came home weary and ratty and very, very late and Ed was almost nervous to touch him, but when he did - placing a hand to Roy's back, against his left shoulder blade - he felt Roy sag back into him, and leaned closer to prop his body up, and felt the sort of threat and fear that he hadn't felt for more than a decade now.

*

Roy was late home, and the telephone rang. Ed sat very still on the sofa and let it.

After a grand total of eight rings he couldn't stand it any more and threw himself through into the hallway.

"Good evening."

"No, it's not. Leave. Roy. Alone."

"Or what? Have you honestly failed to notice that I'm holding all the cards? I could have him spending such little time in your presence that it would barely seem like unfaithfulness anymore."

"I will fucking find a way to make you pay for this."

"You seem to misunderstand this situation entirely. You have no power over me. I have power over him, and I want something from you - do you see how the pattern works . . . ?"

Ed breathed slowly. "You don't give him half enough credit. If I tell him you're behind this-"

"Now that, that you don't want to do."

"Oh? Scared?"

"You really don't understand this situation. Do you know what the right rumour in the right place could do to his career? Like the suggestion that he took on an eleven year old subordinate not through thinking of the military's future or that child's good-"

"You-"

"-but for certain reasons of his own?"

"You sick fuck. Everyone knows I'd've broken his neck even back then."

"The only word we have that there was no inappropriate relationship between the two of you when you were under his command and underage is your own."

"And somehow my own word on whether I got - molested isn't good enough?"

"It's well known that he has some strange hold over his subordinates, and it's also well known how besotted you are. A few well-chosen words in a few well-chosen ears -"

"Closest I ever came to someone I didn't want touching me was you you fucking-"

"And yet my word is worth more than yours. Isn't the world a strange place?"

Ed wanted to move the frustration was so alive in him, wanted to kick something to pieces, punch something, but all he had was the telephone and the empty hallway. "What the hell-?"

"There'll be a letter for you tomorrow morning, with a date and place on it. I'll see you there."

"No you fucking won't - anything you've touched comes through that door and it's going in the goddamn fireplace before he even-"

"Please at least try to understand the situation. Do you realise quite how utterly I could ruin him should I decide to? Good evening, Edward . . ."

And the line went dead.

There was a funny rattling noise. Ed realised it was his automail hand on the telephone. He swallowed, and hung up, and stepped away from it like it might go off.

Was he really . . . he struggled hard to understand . . . was he really being blackmailed into . . . why?

The telephone rang. It shot through all of Ed's nerves like electricity. He nearly choked on his own tongue, snatched it up frantic and barked into it, "What? What, what, what the hell do you-?"

"Edward?" Roy said in a confused tone of voice.

Couldn't even speak for at least three seconds. "I - thought - it would be someone else."

"Have you been getting into arguments with telemarketers again? It really is safer for everyone concerned if you just hang up, love-"

"Did you call me for an actual reason or just to snark at me down the phone for once?" Ed snarled.

". . . I'm going to be late."

"Put dinner in the oven late, or don't wait up late?"

"Late."

". . . I'll see you later, I guess."

Roy sighed down the line. "Honestly, Edward, don't wait for me. I don't know when all this will . . . will ever get taken care of."

"Roy?"

"Yes?"

I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. "I love you."

A pause, and the strained sound of the smile behind the words. "I love you too. I'll see you tomorrow now, probably, Ed."

"G'night." Ed whispered. But he knew he wouldn't be sleeping anyway.

*

Eleven o' clock had gone. The house was enormous and silent and still devoid of Roy, as Ed crept up the stairs feeling like he shouldn't be there and curled up in bed and lay on his side, listening.

Listening.

For the eventual sound of the door opening and banging back so hard the walls shook. And Ed stared into the dark with every muscle tight because Roy never raised his voice and never slammed doors and - and now was standing silent in the hall, Ed couldn't hear even a creak. Maybe he'd just realised what he'd done, maybe . . .

Soft tread up the stairs.

Bathroom. Running water flashed across the face, teeth brushed. Another long pause. Then the creak across the hallway, the gentle click of the door, light spilling across the bed and the wall across from Ed's face but he stayed so still. He heard Roy pad in, and the light cut off, and the door clicked closed. The long rustle of Roy getting undressed. And then the raise of the sheets, the dip of the mattress, and Roy's body slithered in alongside his. And Roy's whisper in the dark; "You are awake, aren't you?"

No point pretending. "Yes."

"I'm sorry if I woke you."

"Wasn't asleep. How . . . did it suck a lot?"

A pause.

Roy's attempt at sounding only amused. "It sucked a lot."

Ed pressed himself up on his arm, reached across almost blind in the dark, and Roy's hand found his clumsily, squeezed. Ed crawled forward to nuzzle into his shoulder like an animal, and Roy wrapped his arms around him, and Ed loved him so much and was the worst thing that had ever happened to this man . . .

Roy pushed his hair back from his face with a palm so he could press his mouth to Ed's hairline and breathe, "Thank god at least I come home to you." and Ed had never loathed himself more.

You remember that time I left you and you dragged me back? I was right all along, idiot, it was for your own good. Because I am the worst thing that ever happened to you. Because I don't know any way out of this that you won't suffer for. Because I always hurt people in direct proportion to how much I love them and Roy I'm going to kill you . . .

He swallowed and swallowed and pressed himself so close to Roy that he couldn't let himself cry, Roy would only feel it on his skin . . .

*

The post dropped through the letterbox like a guillotine falling. Ed stared into his uneaten breakfast and wished it away so hard.

He stood up - the chair scraped - and put his head around the doorway. Letters across the doormat. And one of them might just be the worst kind of metaphorical bomb.

Russian roulette. He took a breath and flipped the first letter. Tax form. Saints be praised and hallelujah he'd never been so relieved to see a tax form before.

That left three more envelopes. He breathed slowly.

Flip. You may have won-! crumpled immediately in a metal fist.

Breathe. Breathe. Flip.

Mr Edward Elric. Plain white envelope. His own name was a punch to the gut. Just to check how much fate hated him, he turned the last envelope. He knew what a library fine looked like by now. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Roy had gone out early ("I may be late in again tonight." Trying to be offhand. And Ed just didn't have a stomach anymore), and he didn't know where to open the letter. The safest place was the bed, burrowed in where it still smelt of Roy, but to use their bed to read these words -

He paced in and out of the kitchen and living room and eventually ripped the fucking thing open right there in the hallway, snatched out the letter and read it quickly.

A date (today). A time. And a hotel by the station, and a room number.

He balled the letter hard and threw it through the doorway into the living room against the fireplace, and tore the envelope to confetti, threw that across the hallway and fell backwards and sat on the stairs and crammed his face into his hands and this wasn't happening.

Please. Please. The universe had never before cut him an inch of slack when he got backed into these black corners. Just this once. This time, please. Please. Please. Because he couldn't live through either outcome -

And then he took in a long, slow breath, and let it out, and raised his face dry-eyed from his hands. The universe would never offer him a get-out clause. But he was Edward Elric; when faced with apocalypse, personal and wider, he stood up and met it in the eye every time and it had never yet broken him.

He stirred the remnants of the envelope with his foot.

*

He left the labs early. He waved and said he'd make up the time next week. He walked through the growing cold of the encroaching winter, and knew that soon it would be automail-squealing weather and Roy would fuss and Ed would hit him with the hot water bottle and they'd have lots of sex just because Ed needed to keep it tuned and supple, didn't he . . . ?

His breath choked out of him white.

Down the streets, between the people heading home, being overtaken by people heading for the station. He didn't seem to be walking as quickly as he usually did. The cold had got lodged in his chest and it hurt.

He walked into the lobby of the hotel, marched past the receptionist and stamped up the stairs. His dramatic entrance got stalled by getting lost in the warren of identical corridors, adding to the churning of his stomach, but he did eventually find the right door and bang on it with an automail fist, and it was opened to a smirking face he'd only knowingly seen once before but he hated before all others.

Dunant held the door for him, watched him enter carefully. "My, how you rage." he murmured. "I'm going to take two things for granted here. One is that you haven't told him - mustn't break the poor man's heart, he's been through so much - and two is that you've realised exactly how little choice you have in this. You can think of it as rape if it will soothe your conscience, but you do know that nothing is keeping you from enjoying this encounter - and to be frank it is closer to prostitution than anything el-"

It was the sight of the bed that froze him and made the decision for him. The bed on which this would happen. The bed on which-

Ed turned and slammed Dunant back into the wall with an automail forearm across his throat.

"Okay," he snarled through the hair that fell forward across his face. "I'm gonna explain your options to you. 'cause you're running low on them, you fucker."

Dunant scrambled at his arm and hacked non-breaths at the air and his eyes bulged.

"Here's option number one. I kill you, here and now, because you deserve it. Because if you've pulled this shit with me there's no reason to believe you haven't done it with anyone else. Young soldiers, right? Do as I say or your career will suffer, just do as I say- and I wouldn't even mind going to prison if it was for finishing off your sorry arse you sick fuck."

Dunant gagged.

"Here's option number two. I let you go and you make life hell for Roy Mustang. Only that would be really bad thinking on your part because General-" Ed banged him against the wall by his throat. Dunant made a noise like a wounded hiccup, cheeks round and maroon. "-if he loses everything, then I really do lose everything. An' you don't know the sort of stuff I'm capable of when I got nothing left to lose, General, when I got nothing left to lose how long do you really think you've got?"

Dunant fish-mouthed at him, glazed fish-eyes desperate on him, but Ed knew human beings can go without breathing just a little longer than this.

"Here's option number three. This is the sensible option, an' it is the one you'll be taking when you walk out that door. You never come within ten feet of me again. You never so much as look the wrong way at someone under your command again. You never so much as think one bad thought about Roy Mustang again. In fact, he'll find you blessedly accommodating in the future, you will be his good fucking fairy in the future, you will wave a magic wand and make things alright for him every time. Because if anything goes wrong for him at the office now, fuckface, I know who to blame. I know who to come looking for. And nothing in the world. Nothing on any world. Will stop me finding you and making you pay for everything you've done. So be a sensible man and don't make me do something I won't regret."

Dunant's cheeks were wet.

"And just for the record, General -" His lip curled. "All of this just to get a shag? And you seriously think that you're even a fraction of the man he is?"

Ed stepped back and Dunant dropped like a stack of books, knocked in half and coughing crumpled at the floor. He wheezed desperately for each breath; Ed looked down at him like he'd just thrown up on his shoes, which with a gulping retch he almost did.

"You never were gonna win, you retard. You're outnumbered, it was always two against one. What did you think would've happened if I'd just shut up and spread? D'you think he wouldn't know?" He crouched down; Dunant scrabbled into the wall to get away from him. "Have you ever even seen him mad? You think I'm scary? Shit. He wouldn't even have to touch you."

He stood up, shook his coat straight on his shoulders, and called, "Option number three, General, you think hard about it." and banged the door behind himself.

*

Ed closed the front door behind himself and leaned his head back, eyes closed at the ceiling. Home and safe. Home. Home. Safe . . .

Movement in the living room, Roy looking tired in the doorway. "I didn't know where you were, I thought-"

"Sorry." Ed held his arms out and just felt so helplessly happy. "Figured you'd be later than this, thought I'd get some stuff done at the labs. Sorry."

Roy's broad back, Roy's arms around him. Ed closed his eyes to his throat and sighed there and Roy gave a little amused breath. "I can feel the tip of your nose. You're freezing."

"So warm me up," Ed said, smirking up at him, playing his fingertips over his chest. "You're home sooner than I thought."

"I just . . . couldn't face the rest of it. Monday morning is going to be hell, though."

"Maybe it just won't be," Ed said, as Roy's hands slid down to rub at his lower back. "Maybe . . ."

"I would quite like to spend the weekend pretending that Monday just isn't going to happen."

Ed's hand slid down to stroke, fingers webbed out wide, down Roy's thigh. "Maybe I can distract you from that thought for a little bit." Maybe if I can blow you hard enough you'll forget that Mondays even exist.

Roy tilted his face up and just smiled over his mouth before he kissed him. "It's been a hell of a week. I'm sorry. I've been in a bad mood for the last three days, haven't I . . . ?"

"So make it up to me," Ed said, and closed his eyes as Roy's laugh gusted over his grin.