Work Text:
Roy was not a fan of leading diplomatic envoys, or maybe just not this one. Aerugo was too hot and its people suspicious. Rightfully so, maybe, but that didn't mean dealing with it was fun. The angry and wary glances were everywhere, from serving staff to security. The diplomats hid it better, but even they weren't thrilled to be talking to him. Or Amestris in general.
It was only the first evening and Roy felt tired. He glanced around the reception, found his expert on all things Aerugo, Lieutenant Colonel Douglas, talking to one of their ministers and his main diplomat, Colonel Vaught, talking to Aerugo's Generalissimo.
And then there was Ed, Ed who looked radiant in his formal get up, who gesticulated as he was talking to someone Roy was pretty sure was a minister for education. Ed was all passion and focused intensity and Roy swallowed, then hastily turned back towards his own conversation partner.
The woman, Maria, was beautiful with sun kissed skin and black hair piled on her head. She was intelligent to boot, or she wouldn't have made it to minister of foreign relation. She also, unfortunately hadn't taken Roy's charm offensive well, so now Roy was stuck playing formal as to not offend her further.
It did not help that unlike most of his staff Roy didn't speak much of the native language and was forced to go through a translator.
He looked around again, noted the subtle signs of tension, not just in their hosts, but also in his people. Breda had integrated with the security, Douglas had moved on to talking to the first lady. Roy's eyes trailed further and his gaze snagged on Ed, who met his eyes squarely and then nodded his head to a balcony entrance.
Roy scanned the rest of the room and noted the people who had taken an interest in the exchange, the aid assigned to them and a guy at the other end of the room who was either a spy or special security, but had never been introduced. "Excuse me for a moment," he told Maria, when a lull in the conversation came up and his translator dutifully relayed the answer.
The woman nodded and smiled the polite smile of a politician. Roy smiled back an equally polite smile, careful not to make it too friendly, finished his drink and ambled over in the direction Ed was already striding.
Chatter washed over him and Roy lamented that his grasp of the language wasn't good enough to pick anything up. Lack of information was always a disadvantage and this diplomatic trip was already fraught enough to make him uneasy.
From the corner of his eye he could tell both the aid and the other guy had started moving in his direction. Right. If Ed wanted privacy he'd have to be quick.
Roy slipped out the balcony door, which helpfully had flowing curtains which would at least obscure the view from inside the ball room. Ed was already there, leaning against the railing, but pushed off and walked to meet Roy with a scowl on his face.
"What can I do for you?" Roy asked, kept his voice and posture easy.
He reconsidered that a moment later when Ed kept walking into his personal space, bringing with him the smell of his aftershave and a close up look right into his eyes. Roy's heart sped up and it took a lot to keep the same relaxed air going, when the rest of him wanted to take the implicit invitation and reach out.
"How attached are you to your womanizing image?" Ed's voice was so low Roy could barely make it out over the chatter spilling out into the night from behind him.
Roy frowned, because a) how was that relevant? And b) he was pretty sure they had more urgent problems, given what he was reading from the tension around the room. But well, Ed was Ed, Roy trusted him, so: "Depends on what you want to replace it with?" he replied just as low.
Ed's gaze shot past Roy and he stepped closer so there was less than a hand width space between them, rose to his toes, a hand landing on Roy's hip to steady himself and Roy's mind blanked for a moment, unsure if Ed was about to kiss him, why Ed would kiss him, what ...
And Ed's face went past him to whisper in his ear: "A personal call would be a much less offensive reason for us to double up in your room."
Roy forced his mind back on track, kept his breath steady. Right. Ed wasn't wrong with that assessment. Thinking they were fucking (don't think about it) would go over better than thinking they didn't trust their hosts enough to stick to the assigned rooms.
The bigger question was what had Ed on edge enough to even suggest it? Sure, no-one was happy, but so far Roy had not read anything on a level of assassination attempt, especially considering that for all their mistrust Aerugo wanted that peace treaty. Badly. So what had Ed so on edge?
Their current position luckily both sold the lovers act they were now apparently going with and put Roy right by Ed's ear to continue the conversation. He settled his hands on Ed's hips while he was at it, implicit permission to keep this going, even as his heart pounded: "A specific threat?"
"Yeah," Ed muttered, "Someone from the staff has a grudge. I already let Breda know."
Good. That meant the rest of their delegation would be on alert. But they were already bunking together. It was Ed and him who'd gotten single rooms.
Ed tensed further and Roy guessed their time was up. That only left: "They'll expect to see at least a hint of our relationship outside the bedroom," Roy whispered. Ed was close, too close to be good for his sanity.
Ed just nodded. "I'll play my part."
Then he stepped back and there was red on his cheeks, the embarrassment Roy had half expected but Ed had sounded so easy and confident. It helped though. Ed being vulnerable pushed Roy to take care of him. In this case by taking the reins.
"Bite your lips," Roy said quietly, even as he did the same, then he stepped closer again and Ed let him, didn't give him more than a mild scowl when Roy messed with his braid.
Reddened lips, hair just slightly in disarray and Ed's pupils were blown. For a moment Roy let himself believe it was because Ed was actually affected, then dismissed the thought, because it was dark outside and Ed was twenty-two and brilliant and way out of Roy's league.
He turned away before he could do something stupid like actually try to kiss Ed, and strode back into the reception, past the potential security guy trying to look as if he had been standing right next to that door all evening and the aid waiting a step back, who's eyes widened when she caught sight of him.
So far so good.
Ed showed up in his room about ten minutes after Roy, bag slung over his shoulder. He took a look at the bed, king sized, but still the only bed, scowled at it like it had personally offended him, then proceeded to search the room for bugs.
"It's clean," Roy said.
That only served to turn Ed's scowl on him though, before returning to his search.
Roy rolled his eyes, but left him to it and focused on the real problem. "All right. We need a plan."
"The plan is to fuse the doors and windows," Ed shot back, "Anyone wants to come in past that, will have to be willing to wake the dead."
"Unfortunately, we have to take them out too or they'll keep trying. Here we can turn a fight to our advantage. If they try outside of these rooms it'll have to be more creative and that's much harder to predict."
Ed scowled harder. "So what's the plan then?"
"Make sure their entrance wakes us, then we'll incapacitate whoever tried."
"Next you're telling me we'll use fake bodies in the bed, while we're sleeping under it."
Roy blinked, because he hadn't used that since he was seven, then checked if staying under the bed was an actual feasible plan. There was more than enough space there and the blanket even reached most of the way to the floor, which would hide them rather perfectly.
"I was joking," Ed growled.
"I'm not," Roy replied.
A beat of silence and then: "Fucking fine, let's do this." Ed strode forwards, grabbing pillows from the couch and threw them at Roy.
Roy caught them and then contemplated the bed. They'd need material to form bodies, but also enough to sleep somewhat comfortably on the ground.
Ed solved that problem a moment later when he clapped and the couch devolved into a thick duvet.
"Make yourself useful," Ed growled and threw it at him too.
Roy caught it in favor of the pillows, which Ed promptly scooped up and arranged in the middle of the bed under the blanket. Roy thought about protesting, realized that Ed doing the decoys would be much faster, and resigned himself to look undignified while crawling under the bed.
He spread out Ed's improvised mattress, even as he heard a clap from above. Roy was curious, but finished his own task, before getting back to his feet.
And then blinked at the sight, because that ... that was a fairly good impression of them curled together, Ed's face hidden under Roy's chin, Roy's arm resting over him, pulling him in. Roy kinda wanted to keep staring because ... because he wanted that. Instead he tore his eyes away to the real Ed, who looked up from the bed and at him and then ... blushed.
"Good work," Roy managed to get out.
A tiny part of his brain marveled how Ed had transmuted not just their forms, but also added colors, which Roy would have a hard time trying to replicate. The main part of his brain was still stuck on the image, even now that he wasn't actively looking at it.
That and Ed's slightly dilated pupils when he'd turned to Roy afterwards. Roy dismissed that observation as wishful thinking.
Ed strode over to the door, scooped up the parts of the couch that hadn't ended up part of the mattress and then contemplated the door, before clapping and balancing a sphere with some very thin strings of something on top of it.
"It'll fall if the door moves," Ed supplied, and then moved on to the windows.
"Good call."
Ed didn't deign that with an answer. Roy watched him work, the slight line between his brows, right before he clapped. That half smile when he surveyed his work.
"What?" Ed demanded, once he was done.
"Nothing," Roy said.
Ed rolled his eyes at him.
"Right. I'm beat, I'm gonna prepare for sleep," Ed said and vanished in the bathroom with his pack.
Once done with his own nightly routine Roy switched off the light, then felt his way to the bed to join Ed under it. That was not what he'd expected when he'd gone on this trip. Ed helpfully clapped and then let a blue glow sparkle around his hands so Roy could find where he was going.
"Thanks," Roy said quietly, as he settled down on the formerly-a-couch mattress. It was surprisingly comfortable and made Roy wonder how often Ed had needed to improvise a mattress.
He looked over and found Ed looking at him, eyes dark, color on his cheeks. Roy dismissed it due to the heat and low lighting and then the light from Ed's hands died down so Roy couldn't see him at all. Still ... "How did you even do that?" It was somewhat impolite to ask alchemists after their tricks, but Ed had always been free with his knowledge and this did not actually look like it was too dangerous to spread.
"Stop before deconstruction," Ed said, "Draw on the energy, just don't use it, keep it circling," Ed said, "This is literally just the transmutation circle, no other symbols."
Only Ed would come up with something like this. Roy couldn't see him in the dark, at least not more than his outline. Could hear the faint rustling of his clothes when he moved.
"Stop looking at me like that," Ed growled, despite it clearly being too dark for him to see Roy make any kind of expression.
"Like what?" Roy replied anyway, because, well, he had been looking.
"That, I'm-figuring-out-how-your-brain-works look," Ed said.
That was a look? Arguably Ed did the casual disregard for alchemy standards often enough to warrant it.
"Sorry." He did not actually mean to make Ed uncomfortable. Especially not while they were about to share a mattress. It was a wide mattress, but still.
"Whatever," Ed said, and then: "Good night, Bastard."
"Good night, Ed."
Roy woke, arm pressed against something solid, the bed about a hand width from his face and also it was way too warm. There was dim light to see by, meaning they'd gotten through the night without an assassination attempt.
Roy looked to the side to find Ed still sleeping, sprawled wide over the duvet. The something solid against him was Ed's automail arm, which was probably why Ed hadn't woken yet from the contact. Then again it was too warm for contact with anything but the automail, no matter how tempting Ed was.
Roy blinked at his own thought process, then shook the thought off and regretfully scooted away just enough to no longer be in contact, then turned over so he could look at Ed a little more comfortably.
Ed's tank top had ridden up, baring his belly and a stripe of golden hair leading down temptingly into his boxers. Roy pulled his gaze away and further down instead, let his eyes trail a scar on Ed's thigh, then further down to the angry scarring around the automail port. Usually Ed was covered head to toe, so Roy had never gotten a good look at it.
His fingers itched to reach out and touch. Roy shook that thought off. He didn't even really have permission to look, never mind reach out. But he wasn't going to stop looking. Not yet. He let his eyes trail up again, to the other automail port, fastened with bolts that made Roy wince in sympathy. Roy wasn't sure he could go through automail surgery and come out intact on the other side. He sometimes wondered if Ed had nightmares about it. If that was why he disliked hospitals.
Roy looked further up to Ed's face. Eyes still closed, nose twitching a little. Ed moved, a full body kind of wiggle, made an unhappy noise, then slowly blinked his eyes open.
Roy took that as his cue to look away and crawl out from under the bed.
A moment later he heard Ed crawling out too, quietly grumbling all the while.
"Good morning," Roy said, made sure he sounded more chipper than he really was, if only to see if it would annoy Ed, who didn't seem to be a morning person.
"Morning'," Ed muttered, but then shook his head and actually looked at Roy. And promptly blushed. Hard.
"What?" Roy asked, even as he looked down on himself. He wore boxers and nothing else. It was too warm for more really.
"Hmpf," Ed got out and then hastily walked past Roy into the bathroom and shut the door.
Roy blinked after him, heart beat picking up. That ... was not something he'd expected. He thought back over their interactions here. There had been signs of interest, hadn't there? Roy had just dismissed them, because what would Ed even want with him?
But now that the thought was there, Roy couldn't let it go. He should maybe, Ed certainly deserved better, but he still wouldn't.
He looked at the bed, at the decoys curled together. Remembered the way Ed had blushed. Wondered if Ed would let Roy hold him the way he'd depicted them. The idea made him feel dangerously light headed.
He took a breath. Right. He'd have to do this right.
Ed made it out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, fully dressed and eyes anywhere but on Roy. "All yours."
Roy ignored the unspoken suggestion to get dressed and looked at Ed instead, again fully covered.
"No assassination," Roy started carefully testing out the waters, "I guess you'll have to spend another night with me."
"Don't make it sound like that!" Ed said, voice going higher, red spreading on his cheeks, but also meeting Roy's eyes again, which was a start.
"Like what?" Roy replied easily, let his smile spread.
"Like this is some stupid romance novel or something," Ed growled.
Roy laughed. "Well, we certainly hit a few tropes. And I think I wouldn't mind playing your prince charming."
Ed stilled. "Are you messing with me?" he demanded.
Roy sobered. "I was actually serious. But I'll drop it if you want me to." Attraction wasn't the same as interest and maybe he had interpreted too much into things after all. He also should get dressed.
Ed scowled at him, "You are unbelievable. Proposition me with some fairy tale, probably put me in the role of the damn princess in your head or something. And you do it now, when we can't afford the distraction and have to be at breakfast in ten minutes. What the hell, Roy!"
Roy blinked because that wasn't quite a no, but it also wasn't a yes. "Is that a yes to dating?"
"Yes, for fuck's sake," Ed growled, then strode forward and kissed him, hard, then pushed him back before Roy could deepen the kiss. "Ten minutes. We literally have ten minutes, you bastard." But Roy was too happy to care. Well, much.
"I'm going, I'm going," he said and then stole another kiss, just because he could now and Ed let him. So what if his timing was bad. It was worth it for the butterflies now nestled in his stomach. For the happy grin Ed gave him, when Roy walked out of the bathroom nine minutes later.
And when Roy held out his hand Ed took it, no hesitation and let Roy pull him along out of the door.