To The Letter.txt

To The Letter
Rating: R, for pottymouth and mentions of sex.
Unbeta'd, so be nice if I typo'd or was just really stupid ;)
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters or the world, though I'm forced to admit to the situations.

Spoilers: Yep. If you haven't seen the movie, why not?

Summary: Post-movie: Ed has a bright idea, Roy disagrees, and Al and Winry bred demon-children, as we all knew they would.


Notes: I don't often write older!Ed though here he mostly behaves just like common garden-variety overemotional!Ed anyway. While this does contain movie spoilers, it's also set in some vague future where Ed and Al magically popped back onto Amestris. Can I be bothered to write the how? You have no idea how many times I already have, but I *need* all those 'how's for other fics, so here you can just use your imaginations ;) Hopefully, enjoy ^^;

Music prompts for this, for anyone interested, were James Morrison's 'This Boy' (quite a cute little album, that) and Aretha Franklin's 'Prove It', because it came on random while I was writing and immediately took over.



Winry answered the door, and her eyebrows raised with no surprise whatsoever. "He's in the back," she said, stepping aside. "What took you so long?"


Roy inclined his head slightly, stepping inside the kitchen. "Miss Rockbell. My apologies. I've been slightly . . . confused by recent events."


"Haven't we all." she muttered, then shouted, "Hey, Ed, you have a guest!"


And the most familiar voice of them all called, "Who-?" and Ed appeared in the doorway, a blonde toddler balanced on his shoulders, and he didn't even seem surprised to see Roy for a second before the horror froze his face ice-pale and rigid.


"Edward." Roy said calmly, and Ed's pony tail flicked behind him as he fled. "Again," Roy muttered, and walked after him.


He heard the yelp and scuffle and met Alphonse in the corridor, daughter caught clumsily in his arms. "He went that way, General." Al said, gesturing over his shoulder. The little girl called, "Uncle Roy, I made an array!"


"I'll be very glad to see it later, Trisha." Roy said, pausing to ruffle the little girl's hair, then giving Al a wry smile and continuing to follow Ed's trail. Through the workshop, upstairs - where one bedroom door had vanished entirely. Roy knocked where it should have been and said, "I know you're in there, Edward."


"Go away! Go away, Roy!"


"No, I don't think so." Roy checked the floorboards for stray crayons as well as screwdrivers, a side-effect of the addition of children to the Rockbell-Elric house, and sat down with his back to the wall, smoothing out his uniform. "I followed you all the way from Central, I'm not about to turn back now."


"Roy, go home!"


"At the risk of sounding cheesy, Edward, it really isn't home without you."


"Go away!"


"Why?"


"Because - because - Roy, just fuck off, you're not meant to be here, I didn't tell you to come here-"


"I wasn't aware I took orders from you."


"Just this one, this is the only one I'll ever need you to listen to ever again, Roy, just go - I can't do this with you here, you have to go away right now-"


"You can't do what with me here, live without me? What exactly are you planning on doing here?"


"I - I - just go home!"


"No. Not without you."


"I'm not coming back," Ed choked through the wall. "I'm not, I'm not, so you have to go back and just - just go back, Roy, just go back and -"


"And what? What kind of life do you have planned out for me without you there?" Roy flexed his back against the wall, folded his arms and stretched out his ankles, getting comfortable. He knew how long fights with Ed could take, and this one had already stretched out for a week, from the day Ed had disappeared to the moment Roy sat down outside this wall in Riesembool. "The last time I tried it I found I really didn't like it very much, so I'm taking you home with me again, I think. If you won't go, I'll stay here. It's peaceful, very relaxing, and I'm sure your brother and Miss Rockbell could always use help with the children."


"No! You're meant to- what do you mean I'm taking you home with me? You arrogant bastard, don't I get a say in this?"


"No. You had your say, it's my turn now. It was a very uninformative note, by the way."


A pause. There was some shuffling from the other side of the wall - Ed sitting down, so his voice was muffled and miserable at Roy's ear-height. "Roy, go home."


"If I can quote - and I do have the whole thing memorised, just so you know, not that it was exactly an epic confession - 'I'm not doing this anymore, I'll be with Al and Winry, don't try and call.' Which I didn't, you'll notice. I followed your instructions to the letter."


"Go home," Ed whispered, and Roy tilted his head back against the wall.


"Not without you. I did spend a lot of time trying to work out the meaning of your little letter-"


"Roy, please, go home-"


"Not 'I don't want to do this anymore', not 'I can't do this anymore', just 'I'm not doing this anymore'. Which does beg the question-"


"Roy-"


"-of why not? Is it too stupid a question to ask what it was I did?"


"-go home."


"You missed so much out. If you actually intend to leave me, Ed, I would like to know why. I would like to know if you just don't love me anymore, which I will accept even though I've seen no evidence of that."


"Please."


"You seemed to still be in love with me last week. We woke up together every day, went to bed together every night. We ordered in pizza when a quickie before dinner turned into far too long to care to cook."


"Please."


"You indulged me with a trip to the theatre and even if you fell asleep in the second act at least you didn't snore loudly enough to disturb the entire cast. I bought you chocolate mousse on the way home. I don't even need to remind you what happened to that."


"Please go away, please-"


"We had our weekly argument before work but you managed to restrain yourself from throwing anything at my head, which I did appreciate. You even came to the office at lunchtime to apologise. Have you ever realised even a fraction of how much those little things from you mean to me? When someone knocks on my office door and it's you-"


"Roy, please, please go-"


"-do you have any idea what that makes me feel? I really think that you're just my favourite thing in the world. Do you know what it's like trying to sleep in a bed without you?"


A thump on the other side of the wall made it shake. "I can't do this Roy, I can't have this argument with you, just fuck off-"


"No. Why did you leave?"


"Leave me alone!"


"No. Do you still love me?"


Ed groaned like he was in physical pain and Roy heard something scrape down the wall; he guessed Ed's automail hand. "Go away, Roy, go home-"


"If you can tell me that then I'll go. Just tell me you're not in love with me anymore and I'll go, Ed, and you need never see my face again if you don't want."


A long, long pause. The longest silence Roy felt he'd ever endured in his life, even through the years of white snow and nothing without Ed.


And finally Ed said in a stilted, strange voice, "I don't love you anymore."


"I don't believe you."


The thump of Ed's head hitting the wall. "You said - you lying bastard, you're always so full of shit - go away, Roy, fuck off home and leave me alone-"


"Why, Ed?"


"Just - I just -" Ed's voice hiccupped; twenty-eight years old and he still couldn't keep from crying when he was just too upset. "Leave me alone, Roy, please go home, I can't-"


"Come out here," Roy said softly, putting his hand to the wall. "I won't drag you out, Ed, love, but please, please come out."


"No," Ed choked. "I'm not- if I come out-"


"If you come out what?"


"If I come out you'll look at me. An' you'll touch me and - and that'll be it, you fucking bastard, I know it, I'll come home with you and all of this'll be for nothing and I fucking won't, I fucking won't-"


"Why, Ed? What is all this for?"


"It's for you, you stupid shit." Ed sobbed. "What the hell did you think? Did you think I thought I could do better? You're the stupid one in this partnership, not me-"


"It's for me," Roy croaked, honestly blanked by that. "This is for me. You walked out of my life leaving possibly the world's shortest letter of rejection and somehow, somehow, you're doing this for me. Well, god knows I must be the stupid one, Ed, because I can't see for the fucking life of me how you thought this is the better thing for me."


"I shouldn't be there," Ed whispered, and Roy turned to bang the wall with his fist.


"Put the door back right now, Ed. Put it back or I'm finding some chalk and coming in there after you. What the hell are you playing at? What the hell are you thinking, if you are thinking at all? In what fucking universe is my life better without you in it?"


"You fucking - bastard - wanker-" Ed sobbed against the wall. "Leave me alone, go on, if I piss you off so much-"


"Not before I get to hit you with something!" Roy roared, and heard something breaking downstairs - he'd shocked someone into dropping something, well, they rarely heard him shout; Alphonse could fix it anyway. "Get out here now!"


"Fuck you!"


"Then tell me in what way this is meant to be for my good, you self-centred little brat, if you're going to leave me like this then you fucking well owe me that!"


He heard the almighty choke of Ed stifling his sobs and punching the wall, and Ed spitting out, "Everyone talks about us."


"Well, we're too attractive together for people to not notice-"


"Roy, I'm not fucking joking! They - people look! Whe...