I Need You

Roy sighed and shut off the steaming water with a flick of his wrist. His headache was finally going away and the urge to vomit had dissipated and last. Roy grabbed a fresh towel and vigorously attacked his hair, drying it as best he could.

As he wrapped the towel around his waist, Roy caught sight of his reflection in the mirror and couldn’t help but grimace. The mass of scarred tissue that now replaced his left eye felt garish and gruesome. Roy tore his gaze from the ugly white-ish scar, immediately placing one of his black eye patches in place. He sighed again, running a hand through his hair and reaching for the handle when he suddenly remembered.

The note… and the gun. He’d left them both out on the desk and while he doubted Ed would be awake already, he shouldn’t have taken the risk. What would happen if the blonde found them? It was bad enough that Roy had broken down in front of the eldest Elric. But what would Ed think of him if he knew?

“Shit!” he spat, twisting the handle and flinging the door open, hoping to shred the note before the inquisitive blonde could find it and discover what he had been planning the night before. He was so distracted that he didn’t register the automail fist flying at him until it hit him square in the chest and sent him sprawling backwards onto the bathroom floor.

Once he was able to breathe again and was certain his sternum was still intact, his gaze shifted up and startled onyx met burning gold as Edward stood, fuming before him. Roy looked down to see the automail still being held in a fist as Ed’s other hand gripped a crumpled piece of paper… the paper Roy had just been worrying about the other man finding.

After looking up again and seeing the fury in those golden eyes, Roy dropped his gaze to the floor, unable to keep looking Ed in the face as the blonde stalked towards him. He couldn’t bring himself to look up, even after several more backhands had been delivered to his face, this time with the human hand.

“How could you do this?! How could you even think about doing something like this?!” Ed growled, trembling with the effort it took to cease hitting the prone alchemist.

He was so angry it was surprising himself, but what surprised him more was the deep hurt he felt. He had felt it last night when he had learned things about the General that the man hadn’t been able to trust him with before. Why was Roy shutting everyone out? Why was he shutting ED out?

From what Ed had learned about his ex-superior, Roy hadn’t had such a bout of depression since the massacre in Ishbal. But that somehow had sounded different… he had been guilty and filled with remorse… but now… it felt like Roy was just giving up. And he hadn’t let anyone in… hadn’t let Ed in, and the blonde was feeling incredibly rejected. Why didn’t the General trust him? He had thought that after everything… maybe they were at least able to consider each other friends.

Ed’s fury rose at the last thought. He had thought they were friends, a fact that apparently meant nothing to the General.

“What… for once in your life you’re not surrounded by people so you just give up? Huh?!” Even now Roy wouldn’t look at him. The man just sat with his head hung in shame, accepting everything Ed dealt out as if expecting a death blow to come from the Fullmetal Alchemist. It was in that moment that Ed realized what was actually driving his anger… fear.

Out of all the chaos that had happened throughout his life, very few things had ever stayed constant. His brother’s love, Winry’s wrench… and Roy’s commanding, if not generally condescending, presence.

The man had always been there, through everything and Ed realized that he had become, well, immortal in his mind. He had gotten a bit of a shock when he’d seen Roy’s eye patch, but even then the General’s mortality had never actually seemed real to the younger alchemist. It had always seemed like something he wouldn’t have to face until they were all old and near death anyway.

But finding that note had changed everything and the proverbial slap in the face had scared Ed shitless. He had never been faced with the possibility that Roy could die so soon, he had never been forced to think about it. But now, he had started imagining what would’ve happened if he hadn’t found Roy last night, the man may very well be dead already, and Ed would’ve never seen him again.

The thought made his eyes burn and he realized that he no longer wanted to hit the raven-haired man.

Roy kept his head down, taking all of Ed’s bombardment in silence, knowing that it was no less than he deserved. The blonde was right… he was weak, and for Ed to have realized it, of all people, made Roy feel unbelievably foolish.

There was a long silence that hung in the air, and Roy just sat, waiting for another punch, maybe even a kick, but what he didn’t expect was for the blonde to drop to his knees and throw his arms around his neck, the offensive note falling to the floor. Roy froze, unsure how to take the embrace and a little unsteady to find himself, once again, in the arms of Edward Elric, only sober this time.

“You moron,” an almost broken sounding voice whispered right in his ear. “How come you didn’t come and ask me for my help first?”

Roy placed his head on Ed’s shoulder, choking on a broken chuckle as his own words were thrown back at him. Hadn’t he said the same thing to Ed after tracking him all the way back to Risembool when the Elric brothers had become fugitives?

“Last night…” Ed started carefully, refusing to blush when the fact that Roy was completely naked except for a towel finally sunk in. “You said that you needed me to stay…”

Roy nodded slightly, uncertain if he should respond or not.

“Did you ever stop to think… that maybe I need you just as much as you need me?”

The words hit Roy like a hammer, leaving something inside feeling bruised but not necessarily in a bad way.

“I figured you didn’t need me anymore,” he forced the words out of his closed throat, wanting more than anything to be honest with Ed. “You had moved on, with your family… and I just thought that the last thing you would want is a call from your ex-superior officer just so he could whine to you.”

Ed chuckled a little before leaning back and looking Roy in the eyes. Old feelings he thought he had long outgrown came rushing back and Ed leaned forward until their faces were mere inches apart.

“Bastard… you really are a moron,” he breathed, the amusement and affection behind it taking the sting from the words. “I would’ve understood. I’ve had my fair share of depression and wanting to give up.”

His next words were whispered nearly against Roy’s lips, both of the alchemists’ heart beats kicking up considerably as Roy watched his approach with a stunned disbelief.

“For you, I would’ve been here in a heartbeat,” Ed confessed, finally leaning that last centimeter forward, and sealing Roy’s lips in a kiss he had longed to steal since he was 15.


Kuragari: ok, so parts of that chapter felt a bit awkward. I wrote most of it at like… 3 in the morning so it may seem a bit jumbled.