Between and Connecting.txt

Between and Connecting from the mpregverse that was never meant to be.
Unbeta'd, written in little chunks over about a three month period.
Rating: R, for non-explicit physical happenings
Warnings: As with most of this universe, evil spoilers for the series. zomg!
Disclaimer: The characters are Hiromu Arakawa's in the same essential way that baby Maes is Ed's.

Summary: If you want the rainbows, you find a way to cope with the rain.




The door does not slam; there's a five year old asleep just down the corridor. The tread down the stairs is no heavier than it would be any other day, if anything it's a little slower . . .

"Alright," Maes says. "So go after him."

Roy still stands by the bed, seems unaware that his hands are clenched, his eyes fixed on the door like it will reopen any second and those steps downstairs were a mere trick of his hearing, Ed is still there and ready to come back in any second and say . . . ?

"Go after him," Maes says again. "Just go downstairs, say you're sorry, you know he'll say it back, and you can talk."

Roy breathes slowly, tightens his hands, glares at the closed door. Maes pushes his glasses up his nose and sighs, sits on the edge of the bed, crosses his legs and taps one foot deliberately and irritably.

"Sometimes I really wish you could hear me, you know that?"

Roy clears his throat and, affecting unconcern, turns from the door and begins unbuttoning his uniform. He hangs the coat in the wardrobe, rolls the cuffs of his shirtsleeves back, rubs his hair to loosen it a little and in a single sharp second bangs both hands off the wardrobe door.

In the silence of the house the noise seems to settle into the background and echo forever.

"Okay," Maes says. "So you had a bad day. Do you think his days are nothing but rainbows? Did you actually check a calendar this morning? Did you even ask him how his day was before you started snarling?"

Roy is still glaring at the wardrobe door as if all of this is its fault.

"I know he's not always instantly sympathetic, you know it doesn't mean he doesn't care, he just always meets other people's aggression head on. You get frustrated and he's going to get frustrated right back, Roy. You've known him almost twenty years now, how is this new to you?"

Roy stiffens slightly, pushes away from the wardrobe door, walks to the bedside cabinet. He sifts through the drawer and pulls out a silver watch, scratched and scuffed and dulled by time, spinning on the end of its chain. He catches it in a palm, clicks it open and it ticks audibly, cutting the silence into seconds. Maes murmurs, "You also know that however much he'll snarl back, it really hurts him when you're sharp with him, Roy. You know that. He's downstairs and he's hurting. What are you going to do about that?"

Roy snaps the watch shut and places it back into the drawer. He walks up and down the room beside the bed twice and then sits next to Maes on the mattress and presses both hands through his hair.

"Idiot," he breathes.

"Yes, you are." Maes affirms. "Always have been, jeez, how do you cope without me . . . ?"

Roy stares at the carpet.

"Don't be so damned stubborn. You're going to break his heart out of sheer bull-headedness one of these days and I am going to haunt seven different sorts of hell out of you for it . . ."

Roy stares at the carpet. And Maes knows Roy, knows how long this can take, sighs and pats his hands off his own knees and stands. "Don't think I'm done with you," he warns, and walks through - through - the door.

He peeks in at little Maes before he goes downstairs, asleep with both a stuffed rabbit and a torch clasped in his arms and a book half-hidden underneath his pillow. Maes tiptoes in, pushes the book out of sight, eases the torch from his grip and tucks it behind the pillow, rearranges the covers a little. "Night night," he whispers cheerfully, and little Maes sleeps on.

Downstairs he checks the study, the kitchen, the living room - and finds Ed sitting, arms and eyebrows folded, glaring at the empty fireplace from the sofa. Maes walks across, silent in the silent room, sits beside him, sighs again. They're both so stubborn.

"You know he's just tired and ratty, you know it's not really you he's mad at. You know it'll all blow over. Just don't - hurt yourself over it, okay?"

Ed is very still. He swallows, and now and then he blinks. That's all.

"You know you're looking after two small children really, you do know that, you have to let him have his tantrums. Hey, maybe one day he'll grow out of them, eh?"

Ed of all people should never be so still.

"It's a hard job, it really is hard, Ed." Maes sighs, leans his head back on the cushions. "Neither of us were ever planning on going for it alone, it's just too much for either of us, I was meant to be there to . . . I'm doing the best I can, you know, it's just a little difficult when you're dead and all." He rolls his head to the side to look at Ed, who swallows again and takes a sharp breath and sits up, reaches for a book on the coffee table, flips to the bookmark and squints at it.

"Are you actually going to pretend that you can read that without your glasses?"

He rubs his eye, and then his entire face tightens into a snarl and he raises the book as if he's going to put it through the coffee table - and his hands hesitate, and droop, and he puts the book down quietly. He wraps his arms around his stomach and sits very small on the sofa, his hanging hair hiding his face. "Hey," Maes says softly. "It will be alright, it's just a fight. You know you have them all the time, all couples do, Gracia used to smack me upside the skull when it really was my fault, it doesn't mean . . ."

Ed's arms tighten slightly around his stomach and then there's a weak noise from high up the stairs. His head jolts up as Maes glances to the door, Ed's face pale, and he sits up straighter, doesn't know what to do with his hands as the creaks get lower, reaches for the book, pauses, sits back as if frightened-

He's forgotten he still has one arm wrapped around his stomach.

The door opens and Ed doesn't look up, stares at the fire with his mouth a tight flat line and says nothing.

For a second Roy just stares at his head, at his slightly hunched pose, and Maes mutters, "You took your time." and stands, backs away so Roy can take his place, so he can sit in silence next to Ed.

And now they're both staring at the fireplace.

"I'm sorry," Maes prompts. "Two words, three syllables. I don't care which mouth it comes out of first but one of you . . ."

Ed's eyes trail along the floor, over the coffee table, creep up the legs of the sofa and up Roy's body very, very slowly, to meet his eyes. So they're staring at each other now, a small improvement, but still in silence.

"Come on," Maes mutters, "I do have other people to haunt, you know . . ."

Ed looks away but Roy touches his hand on the sofa cushion, rubs the back of it with his thumb, cautious and questioning. Ed's eyes flick back up, cautious, questioning, and Roy's face is soft and open and sorry as he rubs the back of Ed's hand a little more and then slides his fingers underneath Ed's. Ed looks down again at their hands settling into each other, the comfortable grip of years but new again now after the argument like a hurricane had darkened the sky and struck the land bare, this small contact, this touch a ray of sunlight.

So they sit hand in hand and Ed looks down and Roy looks across at the fireplace. Maes resists the urge to tap his foot.

Ed raises his face as Roy lowers his so they're too close all at once, nose to nose and Ed tries to duck back again but Roy touches his jaw with his free hand, holds him in place. And Ed swallows and tries to be angry - the fire flickers up in his eyes for a second - but Roy's thumb strokes his jaw and he settles a little, relaxes a little, waits to see what happens next.

"Give me an S," Maes whispers. "Give me an O -"

Roy leans across the mere centimetres between them and kisses Ed, who doesn't move. Roy looks up into his eyes again, closes his eyes, kisses him again, a third time on the edge of his mouth and Ed's eyes close, he leans with him a little. A fourth time and it's not one kissing another, they're just kissing.

Their heads raise again, their eyes open unshielded and searching. Roy brushes the hair out of Ed's face and Ed smiles, and his eyes close but the smile stays when they kiss again.

"Okay," Maes says. "Non-verbal communication. I see. Funny thing, you know, I'd never have thought of that . . ."

Roy's hand slides around the back of Ed's neck and Ed's arms pull Roy in a little closer, chest to chest. The kisses lengthen, deepen, the argument flutters behind them like a beleaguered candle flame and flits right out. They're just kissing, it's nice, and Maes pushes his glasses further up his nose in some satisfaction. They're over it already. He'd like it if they actually talked more but this will do. His job here-

Ed makes a low muffled noise into the kiss. Roy, eerily skilled in these matters, has undone his belt without Maes noticing and has his hand down the front of Ed's trousers.

"Oh-kay. I guess that's my cue to just get going -"

Ed tilts his head back and laughs softly, rough and rumbling, and Roy's mouth is on his throat.

"- and haunt Gracia for a bit, don't mind me letting myself out-"

Roy's body is forcing Ed's back on the sofa cushions, not that Ed's complaining, concerned as he is with unbuttoning Roy's shirt.

"Bye," Maes says, a little too high, and as Roy gets Ed flat on his back underneath him, belt open, and sits back to peel his own shirt off - Maes flees into the hallway and forgets and opens, slams the front door behind ...