For Her. For Him.

A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews. Yeah, I had to bring Archer back. I'm getting ready to meet back up with canon again, and he was a good introduction.

Chapter 23

Past

Roy didn’t move from his spot, and remained glaring at the slightly taller man.

“I’m afraid I don’t have to allow you anything here. This is my home.”

“Yes. I have to admit I was surprised that as a colonel and state alchemist, you didn’t merit a larger place,” Archer said, darting a head inside and looking around.

“It is more than large enough, and this is mine, not the military’s.”

Archer still stood on the front stoop, still holding the present by its ribbon. “You know, there’s a rumor that you are about to become a father as well.” Roy’s carefully made stone-like façade cracked just a bit. “The military all knows. You can’t go out in public on a date and expect no one to figure it out.”

“What concern is it if I am going to be a father? There are many fathers in the military, including the fuhrer.” Roy folded his arms across his chest. “Or is it you’re jealous?”

“Jealous that you don’t know how to use birth control?” Archer said. He pushed Roy aside and stepped into the hallway, swaggering into the kitchen. “From outside, it sounded like you had a party going on. I’m almost hurt that I wasn’t invited. After all, I’m the only one of your friends from the academy you have left.” The smug man ran his hand along the icebox, as Roy fought off a shiver at the memory of being slammed against the one in his dorm on the night that very nearly ruined his military career.

Glancing at the window, Roy saw a pair of yellow eyes under a spray of blond bangs looking through the space between the curtain and the windowsill, obviously worried and confused.

Once again, Roy found the door opening seemingly on its own. “Uncle Roy?” Elysia stepped through the doorway.

“Uncle?” Archer said, a tight smile on his face. “And who is this little one?”

“This is Maes’s daughter.” Archer stepped forward, arm outstretched as though to pat the girl on the head. With lightning-fast reflexes, Havoc, who had been standing within sight of Elysia, darted into the kitchen and snatched her out from under the pale hand. Those hazy blue eyes stared down the taller superior officer.

“What really is your business here?” Roy watched as Archer postured himself.

“I suppose you heard about my recent attack on the Devil’s Nest pub and the recovery of numerous chimeras?”

Roy’s eyes darted down to the box, certain he’d seen it move. He looked back up and signaled to Havoc to take Elysia back outside. “If you can call senseless slaughter a recovery effort.”

“It seems today was a momentous day for more than one of us.” Archer straightened his back, shifting his shoulders as he did, forcing Roy to pay attention to the insignia there. “I thought I would let you notice rather than pointing out your mistake when you addressed me as Lieutenant Colonel.”

“They promoted you?” Roy met the man in the eye.

“Imagine that. We’re equals now.”

“Hardly.” Roy eyed the now colonel as Archer placed the box on the table. The man then stepped closer to Roy, the hope that the thirty-year-old would back down obvious in his eyes, and just as obviously dashed as Roy never gave an inch. “Well, congratulations, Archer, you got a promotion for being a sadist. You should be proud.”

“I must also be a bit of a masochist, too,” Archer said, grabbing Roy by the head and trying to pull him into a kiss. Roy hadn’t been shocked and had expected this the moment that Archer first told him that they were now equal in rank. Though Archer’s lips had made contact before Roy could punch him in the face, Roy made it very clear to the man in front of him and the teen looking in from the porch that this was not what he wanted.

He could see Ed’s eyes glowering outside. He could also see Breda and Falman behind him, holding the teen down. Apparently, even the fear of getting caught wasn’t enough to make the blond reconsider charging after the new colonel for kissing the younger one. At the doorway, Fuery entered, timidly, as though he was being forced into the house to pacify Ed.

“Colonel,” the young man said.

Archer turned toward the young master sergeant, rubbing his jaw, and smiled. “Do you keep the short ones just to make yourself look taller, Roy?”

“You need to leave, Archer.”

“But you haven’t opened my gift.” He shoved the box across the table, the contents shifting and making the box veer a bit from its course. Grabbing the ribbon at the top, Roy opened it, doing so as quickly as he could to get rid of the man standing in his home. As he pulled open the flaps at the top of the box, he could see two strange red eyes looking up at him. Below him was the most grotesque sight he’d seen in his life. The creature inside the box looked like an unholy mesh between a bat and a snake. It was a chimera, and not even a good one, as it seemed to be in sheer agony.

“What the hell is this?”

“Just a little way of showing you that I have acquired a particular alchemist under my command.”

“Shou Tucker,” Roy hissed.

“He’s been re-instated into the military as a major, along with my newest subordinate. I believe he was a compatriot of yours during the war in Ishbal. Zolf Kimblee.”

“Tucker is a sick and twisted man, but do you honestly think you can control a crazed Major Kimblee?”

“It’s Lieutenant Colonel. And yes, I think I can. As long as I provide him with battle, he’ll be happy, and I think I will be able to find enough for him to do. I’ve never backed down from war.” He looked at Roy’s repulsed face, glaring into the box. “You don’t like my gift?” Archer re-packaged the creature. “Even though you hit me, I’m still willing to dispose of it.” He moved back to the icebox looking up to Carlida, who had moved from her curled position to a stance of attack. “Wouldn’t Tucker like to get a cute little thing like you?”

At that, the cat leapt onto Archer’s shoulder and scratched him across the left side of his face. “You little--” He tossed the kitten toward the wall, as Fuery darted out to catch the young cat, earning some scratches on his arms as he rescued it from certain injury.

“Get the hell out of my home.” Roy grabbed Archer by the arm and forcibly dragged him from the kitchen. “If I find out that kitten has been injured in any way, I swear to you that even Kimblee won’t be able to stop me.”

Literally, Roy threw Archer out of the front door, smiling to himself as the man hit his knee on the dirty sidewalk, soiling that precious uniform. Roy slammed the door behind him and made his way back out to the porch with the rest of his men. Havoc held Elysia, one arm supporting her and another holding onto her back; she was sobbing and couldn’t understand why the “mean man” had thrown the nice kitten. Gracia wasn’t with her daughter, as she was treating Fuery’s scratch marks. Ed was still standing in his corner, cradling the kitten as Black Hayate stood, feet planted firmly, on the wooden table, licking furiously at the ball of fur in Ed’s arms.

“You okay there, Fuery?” Breda shouted from one end of the yard. “And how’s the cat?”

“Kain’s scratches will be okay and the kitten’s just shocked,” Ed yelled back, “but you’d know that if you weren’t being such a big baby about the dog.”

“I don’t like those drooling beasts, and he won't leave the cat, so leave leave me alone.”

Roy walked by Fuery and patted him on the shoulder, then he stepped on the empty bench seat and onto the floor of the porch in front of Ed. Large gold eyes looked up at him. “I don’t care if they’re comfortable with it. Just kiss me. Please.” Roy leaned down, one hand behind the blond’s neck, another between them, rubbing the cat’s head as Ed’s metal hand laced its way into the dark hair at the nape of Roy’s head. Their lips met, Roy’s tongue darting out and silently asking Ed to part his lips. He didn’t care if he tasted like pickles, or if the cat between them had encircled Roy’s arm with all four of its paws. He just wanted to replace the image of that bastard trying to once again dominate him like he was a teenager.

Ed’s mouth willingly complied, and though the teen had shut his eyes for the kiss, Roy’s remained open, wanting only to see that soft, still young face before him, slightly tanned from work out in the real world. He wanted only to imagine that metal hand that clasped so tightly to his hair, trying to be gentle as it did, not wanting to accidentally catch the jet-colored strands in its hinges. He wanted only that feeling of the bumps of a satiny braid beneath his own hand.

He wanted only Edward, his Fullmetal.

When the kiss broke, Ed’s hand lingered, trying to loosen each joint before moving it from the taller man’s hair. They were still very close, and Ed moved to Roy’s ear. “Not that I’m complaining, but what did he do to you?” he asked, somewhat breathlessly.

Roy was breathing heavily, not realizing that for much of the kiss he’d hardly been breathing at all. “Later.” They pulled apart, looking down at the cat which still held onto his arm, nuzzling its nose on the gloved hand. “I knew I liked that cat.”

********

Later that night, after the others had gone home, Roy and Ed sat on the sofa in the study, listening to the radio, Ed resting his head on Roy‘s lap, while the older man pulled out the braid and combed a hand through the unbound hair.

“Want to talk about what happened today?” Ed asked, looking up at the man above him. He received only a grunt. He shifted onto his back, looking directly up at the man, who only stared off ahead of him. “I don’t think you get it. That wasn’t a question, Roy. Start talking.”

Roy sighed. “You wanted to know why I was so upset about your first kiss, about not regretting it.”

“Right.” Ed scanned over that light-skinned face. “So what first was he?” Ed asked this, but prayed that it wasn’t the first that he thought it was. “Was he your first…time?”

Roy still didn’t make eye contact. “My first time was with my girlfriend at school before I joined the academy at sixteen. No, after a drunk night with him and Maes, he became my first time with another man.”

“How drunk were you, exactly? How could you… With him?” Ed couldn’t fight the shudder.

“Frank and I were once friends.” Those soft hands rubbed against Ed’s equally smooth face. “You know how Maes likes to befriend angry, ambitious loners, right?” Roy smiled down at Ed, who knew this wasn‘t an insult directed toward himself as much as a statement of both of their personalities. “While he was in the military academy, he made friends with Frank. They were in the same classes, same year. So when I joined Maes there two years later, the two of them were already friends and the bastard became part of my own incredibly small circle. Back then, I thought of him as an older version of myself, so even after we’d woken up like that, we were able to come to an agreement.”

Ed cringed. “So it wasn’t a one-time thing?”

“Afraid not. It was just an agreement that at seventeen and nineteen, we were growing frustrated in that area and could go to one another for relief.” Ed couldn’t help the disgust in his face, though he tried to hide it when saw Roy’s eyes down on him, finally. “That was the reason I didn’t want to tell you, Ed.”

Ed shifted off of the colonel’s lap, watching the older man’s face intently. It was as though he had resigned himself for Ed to be revolted by him and his past.

It was a struggle, but Ed shifted himself onto his knees, facing Roy on the couch. “Look at me.” Roy looked in Ed’s direction, but didn’t really seem to be looking at him. “Colonel Bastard, look at me.”

Ed watched as the eyes focused on his own. “I’m not happy to know that of all the people in the world you could have been with, he was one of them, but considering that at the time, I was only about five, I don’t exactly have the right to get angry, do I? And it isn’t as though I don’t have a past myself.” He shifted his right hand on the older man’s cheek. “One you managed to forgive.”

He watched as Roy swallowed.

“Ed, I…”

Ed placed his lips to Roy’s, then gently kissed along the man’s jaw, feeling the faint stubble beneath his lips as he worked his way to the man’s ear. He gently nibbled on the earlobe in front of him. “Roy, you’ve had a dark past. I know that. If the asshole Archer is a part of that, I have to accept it.”

Roy turned to Ed, his strong arms enveloping the smaller alchemist. Ed’s hands began fumbling for Roy’s shirt, tugging at the bottom of the black shirt and sliding it up over the man’s body, hoping there wasn’t going to be any resistance.

“Are you sure, Ed?”

“I didn’t say that we were going to do anything. I just want your shirt off, Mustang,” Ed said, almost commandingly. He pulled the black shirt up over a stomach just beginning to show the signs of the toning muscles beneath. Ed let his hands roam over the pecs. Ed moved his down to the newly revealed chest as he continued to pull Roy’s shirt off of his body, and began kissing and sucking each inch of skin bared to him. He heard the older man moan, his chest rumbling. Ed’s hands grasped onto the man’s chest, hearing him gasp.

“Right hand… cold.”

Ed decided to move himself to warm Roy up, moving his mouth to the left nipple, taking his tongue around the tiny nub, and as it stood on end, he placed it between his teeth, hearing the man above him hiss then feeling him curl his fingers in the long hair, which remained wavy from the braid. Releasing the little bump, Ed moved back to the man’s sternum, licking from the top of his stomach to the collarbone.

“Mmm, Edward.”

Ed moved over to the other nipple, working to get it to stand on end just as much as its twin. Roy began moving his own hands to Ed’s shirt. “Ed, can I?” Roy asked.

Ed felt his face grow warm. “I look like a bloated whale.”

“Not to me.”

Roy pulled the oversized shirt up, moving it over Ed’s swollen belly, over the bra that the teen reluctantly wore when he was going to be around company, then over the head and mismatched arms. The shirt gone, Roy tossed it to the side and began kissing Ed’s neck. His strong arms wrapped around the teen, moving to the bra, gradually unhooking it.

Though Ed was thoroughly enjoying each move of Roy’s mouth on his neck, he pulled back slightly. “Roy, they don’t look normal.”

“Don’t care.”

Ed helped the older man slip the bra over his shoulders and down onto the floor. The man’s skilled mouth moved down to Ed’s chest, making the teen squirm, goosebumps rising all over his body. The swollen chest was incredibly sensitive and each touch of his the rough tongue swirling all over each breast nearly made Ed cry out in pleasure. Unfortunately, the older man’s attentions were causing Ed’s nether regions to strain harder against the stretchy brown pants. Those soft hands moved along his bare stomach as Roy’s head continued above.

“Roy, unh,” Ed couldn’t form the words, couldn’t tell the man that if he didn’t soon stop, the sensitivity and the hormones were going to bring him over the edge without the slightest touch below. Rather than making the older man stop, he shifted closer, his knee coming into contact with Ed’s crotch as he continued to kiss and lick around the nipples. Roy’s efforts above made his leg shift below, continuing to rub along Ed's still clothed member. “Aaah!” Ed said, as he felt himself release.

He turned his head away, scooting back on the leather sofa. Roy glanced down at the damp knee of his jeans, then smiled at the blond, who was wrapping his left arm around his chest while the right reached down for the discarded shirt. Ed felt humiliated, ashamed. “Roy, I’m sorry. They are so sensitive.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of, Ed.” Roy shifted and moved to pull Ed beside him. “But you are going to need to get cleaned up.”

“But that’s not right. I didn’t want it to happen so fast.”

Roy nuzzled his face into Ed’s hair. “It’s probably better that it did. We might have done something that neither of us are ready for if it hadn’t.”

Ed held the shirt to the front of his body, enjoying the warmth of Roy’s body for a moment before heading to the upstairs bathroom.

“Ed, if you’d like to,” Roy said before Ed was completely in the hallway, "you can spend the night with me tonight.”