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Some days, it wasn’t even worth it to get out of bed. He had such nice beds these days, with smooth sheets in nicely appointed rooms. His beds never asked things of him, never criticized his policy initiatives, never questioned his decisions. His beds were soft and welcoming and so what if he never got to sleep in the same one more than one night in a row? It was a small price to pay to keep Ed from losing his mind.
“Get up, you lazy bastard. You have a country to run and Havoc’ll be here in twenty.”
“I’m pretty sure alarm clock isn’t part of your job description.”
Ed laughed, wicked and fast. “There are a number of things I do that aren’t part of the job description and also aren’t fit for polite company.” He walked to Roy’s side of the bed and pulled the pillow from beneath Roy’s head. “Come on. You can’t be late. I’m going to go tell the kitchen to make something you can take with you and meet with the guards for the day.” Ed peered seriously at Roy as he sat up. “Don’t leave the room until I get back.”
“I think I’m safe in my own home.”
Ed dropped the pillow in Roy’s lap. “I think you’d know our track record well enough not to say that kind of thing out loud.”
As Roy watched Ed leave, he considered the possibility of lying back and catching a couple more minutes of sleep, but the call of duty and country was stronger than sleep, especially since Ed was already out of bed. He sighed. Maybe his meetings wouldn’t run long, maybe some horrible crisis wouldn’t erupt, maybe the country could, just for one day, run. A little voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Ed’s told him that if he didn’t want to work, he shouldn’t have become Prime Minister.
In all his time imagining actually making it to the top, actually being the head of the country, Roy never really thought it would be this much work.
Tailored suits, as smooth and fine as his sheets, had replaced his military blues, but Roy didn’t think for a moment that he wasn’t still in a uniform. Just because he could pick the color of his tie didn’t make it feel like less of uniform. He’d sooner walk out of the house without clothes as he would without a suit.
“Prime Minister!” His door flew open and Roy jumped, his fingers poised to snap and his body ready for violence before his mind had even processed the words. “Sir, Ed’s been hurt.”
The guard held the door open for him and Roy’s first thought was that he wasn’t supposed to leave the room until Ed came back. He shook the thought away and followed the guard from the room, picking up speed as he raced down the hallway. He took the stairs in twos and threes, praying he wouldn’t trip and crack his face against the inlaid wood flooring before he could see Ed.
Out the front door, across the driveway and there. Havoc was on the ground, his body blocking Roy’s line of sight to Ed. He looked wildly at Roy as he approached. “I didn’t see him, he came out of nowhere, I swear, I swear—“
Roy tuned Havoc out, letting the man run at the mouth if it made him feel better. Ed was lying at an awkward angle on the pavement, his eyes closed and a pool of bright blood surrounding him like a gruesome halo. Roy swore and looked over his shoulder at the impassive faces of the men Ed had hired. “Get Al on the phone! Somebody call Al and get him here!”
One of the guards ran off, though the rest remained close, closing ranks against their Prime Minister’s vulnerable position. Havoc jumped up from his crouch and began pacing, sucking at his never-ending supply of cigarettes and muttering to himself. Roy did his best to ignore Havoc and focused his efforts instead on trying to stem some of the blood flow and make sure Ed was still breathing.
“Should we move him? I mean, maybe we should get him inside.” Havoc stopped near Roy, not quite able to meet his eyes.
“Let’s wait for Al.” It killed him, the act of leaving Ed on the unforgiving ground that had done this to him, but he’d been a soldier on the battlefield and knew that sometimes the worst course of action was to move the wounded. Since they weren’t in a combat zone and had the luxury of waiting for help to come to them, Roy would be damned if he would risk it.
Instead, he took off his jacket and pressed the fine material against the wound at Ed’s temple, letting his fingers drift to Ed’s throat to feel his pulse. It was strong, if fast, beneath his fingers and his chest rose with even breaths. God, they couldn’t get a break, not even in their own home. They were supposed to be safe here; the hard things, the dangerous things were supposed to be on the outside. Ed had lost so much blood on Roy’s behalf already; it seemed cosmically unfair that he should lose more right outside his own front door.
One of the guards returned at a run from the Manor. “Sir, Dr. Elric is on his way. He instructed that we not move him until he arrives.”
Roy nodded, but was distracted from a reply when Ed twitched beneath his hands. “Ed? Can you hear me?” Behind him, Havoc knelt again, starting up a litany of worried expletives, the butts of his cigarettes littering the ground.
Ed was slow to respond, though Roy could see him moving his hands and legs, as though checking each part of himself for serious injury. It was minutes too long before Ed actually answered him and they were able to hold something close to a conversation. Then, before he knew what was happening, Al was there, collected and professional, running through a series of tests.
And then Ed was secure on the couch, slowly leaking blood onto the expensive furniture just as predicted and Al, young, charming, shy Al, was kicking him out of the room with enough steel in his voice to give a battle-hardened general pause. Roy hated it when Ed was hurt. It left him twisted inside, wishing Ed’s wounds were his own instead. It was so much easier to be the injured than the family watching the injured. He could do nothing but walk back to his office, trying to ignore the four guards who weren’t Ed following him and doing his best to forget the look on Al’s face that spoke eloquently of blame.
Roy sat at his desk, thinking he should call Hughes to let him know the schedule had just been fucked for the day, when he saw his hands, still covered and sticky with Ed’s blood. During his time as Prime Minister, Roy had been privileged to several perks of the job. The best one, though, was the location of a bathroom adjacent to his office where a convenient ten step sprint allowed him to lose the contents of his stomach in private.
Don’t think. Don’t think. He’s fine. We’re all fine here, now. Don’t think.
He stood after some time on shaking legs and stripped off his bloodied shirt, taking extra care to wash every last fleck of Ed’s blood from his hands before he stepped back into his office. His office, with no windows and the single access point because Ed had insisted. This whole house because Ed had insisted. His whole life because Ed insisted.
He crossed the room and poked his head out to address one of the guards. “Have someone get me a new shirt, will you?” He closed the door before the guard had a chance to reply.
Within moments, Roy had a new shirt, a new coat jacket that he left folded over a chair and a phone call left to make.
“Hughes.” His friend had lost some of his natural playfulness along the campaign trail.
“It’s me.”
“I hope you’re calling from the building, because we have this meeting set to start in three minutes and—“
Roy squeezed his eyes shut and thought for a moment of setting fire to the entire fucking country and just starting over. “You’re going to have to cancel the meeting for me. In fact, you’re going to have to clear the whole fucking day.”
“Roy, we talked about this. I know you’re not really keen on meeting with the Xing ambassadors, but if you cancel, it’ll be seen as a personal affront to their emperor and in case you hadn’t noticed, they’re a bit better equipped than we are at the moment.”
“Then sit in on the meeting with my personal apologies, but I’m not leaving the Manor today, and maybe not tomorrow. Ed—“
“What’s wrong with Ed?” There were reasons this man was his best friend on the planet, because the moment Ed came into the conversation, every ounce of irritation left Hughes’ voice.
“Havoc hit him with the fucking car.” It sounded so ridiculous, so supremely stupid and normal that Roy couldn’t stop the strangled laugh that bubbled up out of him. Only Hughes’ voice on the line kept him from losing it entirely.
“Is he all right? Roy, is Ed okay?”
He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “Would I be on the phone with you if he wasn’t? Al’s with him now, stitching him up and God knows what else. I’m supposed to be catching up on my paperwork.” Al had clearly been spending too much time with Hawkeye. Speaking of… “I think you’re right. I think it’s time I talked to Hawkeye.”
He heard Hughes breathe out a long sigh. “Thank God. He’s going to run himself into the ground without help. Ten to one odds he’s arguing with Al right now about how long he’s going to be off his feet.”
Roy thought about the obvious pain in Ed’s expression, the slow, slurred quality to his speech and how much arguing with Al would take out of him. “You’re probably right.” He blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to get his spinning thoughts to settle into just half a dozen concerns. “So, you’ll take care of the meeting. Tell the ambassadors…hell, I don’t care what you tell them as long as we avoid an international incident. Agree to whatever they want, just don’t, you know, give away the country. I haven’t had it that long.”
“Right. I’ll call later to check in.”
The phone slipped from his fingers to the cradle with a sharp click and Roy sat hunched over his desk for just a moment, trying to gather himself. He needed to have a clear outline, serious counter arguments and a precise plan of how he wanted to precede with Hawkeye if he didn’t want her hanging up on him. Pay scale, compensation, vacation, authority—he needed to know all these things before he got on the phone. But his thoughts were still whirling, and he kept thinking he could smell Ed’s blood on him, though there was none left.
“Fuck it.” He picked up the phone and waited for Hawkeye to answer. “I need your help.”
***
Al had taken the time to wash up as well. With his sleeves rolled to his elbows, he looked more like a student than a full doctor. “He’s cracked some ribs and he’ll be one big bruise for a while, but the real issue is the concussion. He can’t keep getting hurt this way. Repeated head injuries, particularly of this kind, can have long-term effects.”
It took a moment for the words to process properly, for Roy to hear anything beyond ‘long-term effects’. “Are you saying he’s brain damaged?” Ed was so many things, so many amazing and wonderful things, but if something happened to his mind…Ed’s mind was everything to him.
“Not yet. But,” Al sighed and looked for all the world like a little boy worried about his big brother. “You have how many guards? He’s the only one who gets hurt. I know you want him with you, I know he can’t stand not having something to do, but this can’t go on. If for no other reason than I’m going to have a heart attack one of these days and then there’ll be no one left to treat him properly.”
“I’m already on it. If Hawkeye says yes, that is.”
“Riza? What are you—“ Al sat forward suddenly, reminding Roy that Al could be just as fierce, if not more so, than his brother. “Are you trying to get everyone I care about killed?”
“Who else would you trust with your brother’s life?” It was a low blow. He knew it, and he could see from Al’s expression that Al knew it as well, but the truth of the matter was that he’d do anything, absolutely anything, to make life easier for Ed. And since Ed insisted on being his bodyguard, insisted on throwing himself in front of danger and moving cars, Roy wasn’t above using everything at his disposal to make it a little safer.
Al swore and leaned back in his chair, looking boneless and tired. “How much longer are you going to be Prime Minister?”
“We’re just getting started.”
“Sometimes,” Al paused and pinned Roy with a feral glance. “Sometimes I think we’d be better off if we’d never met you. Except brother’s never been as happy as he is with you.” He stood. “Wake him every hour to check for the usual signs. Make him eat with the medication I’ve left, and don’t let him climb stairs or even really walk on his own. He needs to rest. I’ll be back tomorrow to check in.”
***
In his sleep, Ed twitched against the sheets, his fingers moving ever so slightly and his breathing hitched as though he were speaking. Had Roy not been sharing a bed with him for years now, he might have thought Ed was restless in his sleep, that he was close to waking, but he knew it was just Ed. Even in sleep, Ed couldn’t quite be still; he couldn’t quiet his mind.
The number of times Roy had been woken in the middle of the night to a full-fledged, detailed and brilliant solution to some problem Ed had been working on wasn’t worth counting. It happened too often. It was as though his body slept out of sheer exhaustion and his mind stayed active through sheer stubbornness.
It could have been so much worse. And it could have been preventable. Ed was battered but alive, in good spirits and able to resume his duties when he was healed. It could have just as easily gone the other way, and that was the thought that Roy couldn’t make stop circling his brain.
He couldn’t do this without Ed. Without Ed, there was no point to this anymore. Roy wasn’t sure when that had happened, when his own ambition had become so twisted and entwined with Ed’s very existence, but it settled itself so deeply in Roy that he knew he’d never be able to part from it. It was terrifying at times to think that the fate of Amestris rested in the hands of a man whose fate rested in the hands of another man. It made Roy wonder if all leaders were the same or if his obsession was one of a kind.
Sometimes, Roy loved him so much it made him stupid. Some days, it felt as though he walked the world in a haze, dimmed by his love for Ed. Hours could pass and he’d have no memory of them other than the light refracting off Ed’s eyes, of the tiny twitch in Ed’s jaw that meant he was irritated. It was like being drunk and exhausted and on fire. Three things Roy had an intimate acquaintance with.
“Roy?”
Roy reached out to smooth his hand over the unbruised portion of Ed’s face before he was even aware of the action. “I’m here.” He leaned in a little closer to see Ed in the faint light, but Ed’s eyes were still closed and his breathing was deep enough to signify sleep.
He kept his hand in place, letting the cool skin beneath his fingertips remind him that they were fine. That they would be fine, soon enough. And once Amestris was stable, once she could run on her own without careening into a crisis every other week, he could step down and turn the office over to someone—if not better suited, at least someone better prepared—and they could retire to a nice quiet house in the country somewhere.
Of course, they’d have to take Al and Riza with them, and Hughes and his family as well. Come to think of it, Roy imagined they’d need to pack up the whole fan club to keep everyone happy, which might take some doing, as Roy didn’t think Havoc would fare well outside the city. But Ed deserved a rest. He deserved better than the life Roy was giving him, the life Roy was too selfish to leave just yet.
Only a few more years.
Roy wasn’t sure what life would be like without some far-reaching purpose, but he was sure he’d like to find out.