FIC: Dreaming in Red and Gold ~ Ch 3/11 ~ FMAB ~ Ed/Roy ~ Mature

[batsutousai]

Title: Dreaming in Red and Gold
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Warnings: Ed's potty mouth, canon-typical violence, pile 'o OCs, minor battering of female OC, female-specific slurs, off-screen torture of prisoners, suggestion of past abusive sexual encounters, sexual discussions (including consent-related)
Summary: When Drachma agrees to meet for peace talks at Briggs Fortress, General Roy Mustang is the one sent to represent Amestris. It just so happens that the Drachmans have their own Amestrisan, who is far too skilled at turning the most tedious of discussions into an exciting time.

A/N: This is the chapter of "OMG, Roy, take a fucking hint." XD

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Chapter Three
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His dreams were familiar: flashes of red fabric and the gleam of happiness in gold eyes. And when Roy finally pulled himself out of their grasp, he groaned and rubbed angrily at his eyes, allowing himself a quiet, "Fuck."

The dreams had started after the Promised Day, haunting him with sights that he could no longer see, vivid colours that were so clear, he'd quickly begun to forget that any other colours existed. When Marcoh had given him back his sight, the dreams had all but vanished, coming back to haunt him on the nights bracketing the anniversary, and Roy would stay up as long as he could, avoiding them, because after dreaming in red and gold, the world faded to shades of grey for days, only the colours from his dreams drawing his gaze like a moth to flame.

He snorted and opened his eyes to stare up at the grey ceiling; he didn't suppose it mattered if he had the dreams here, as grey as Briggs already was.

Well, mostly grey, Roy mused, still close enough to sleep that he could let himself acknowledge the origin of the colours he dreamed. Ed can brighten even Briggs' grey halls.

It seemed Ed could do a number of things, including drag those accursed dreams out of whatever hole they usually weathered the year in.

Roy sighed and dragged himself out of bed, setting about the motions of getting himself ready to face the rest of Briggs. He was unsurprised to discover the familiar blue of his uniform washed out, leaving behind the gold of the braid and the rank markings on his shoulders, and the hints of gold and red hidden among the bars denoting his honours.

As he'd requested, someone had left food for Roy on a table bolted to the floor, with the transcription from the meeting, a rough copy of the treaty, and his ignition gloves all sat next to the plate. The familiar arrays on the backs of his gloves were the only spot of colour on the whole table, and he grimaced as he set them aside to eat his cold food and look over the treaty. The language was staid enough that he suspected Falman had been the one to type it up – which was fine, it was a diplomatic document, not leisure reading – but it didn't help much with distracting him from the unappetising grey tones of his breakfast.

The meeting transcription was better reading. It was in Riza's handwriting, and while she'd clearly rewritten it – he knew she took notes in shorthand, which, while he could understand it, it was far from a smooth read – she'd kept in the little symbols that she sometimes drew to denote her amusement or disapproval of something, so it was a little like she was sitting there, reading it to him. He suspected she always left them in the rewritten copies just for him, because she knew how much he hated the dry paperwork that was his life, but he'd not once got her to admit to it one way or the other.

In all, everything looked to be in order, and Roy quickly stacked the papers into two neat piles, then pulled out his watch to check the time. It was far too late/early to expect his team to be up, but Roy had nothing to do in his borrowed room, so he slipped on his gloves and pulled on his coat, then grabbed the treaty papers and his empty dishes, and stepped out into the hallway.

"General Mustang, sir," a voice called from down the hall, in the direction that Roy was fairly certain the mess was in. He looked over to see a soldier standing there, saluting, and quickly saluted him back. "I'm Sergeant Vought, sir. Lieutenant General Armstrong ordered a guard rotation in case one of your party required an escort anywhere."

Roy allowed a faint smile at that. "That is because Lieutenant General Armstrong is far sharper than any of the rest of us."

Vought grinned, relaxing slightly. "She is indeed, sir."

Roy raised his plate slightly. "I'd like to return this to the kitchens."

"Certainly." Vought turned and started down the hall, his pace slow enough that Roy didn't have to rush to catch him up. They paused outside an open room so Vought could wave inside, and Roy saw a group of four men sitting around a table that had once been bolted to the floor, all of them with cards in their hands. "Pass," Vought said, and one of the men let out an irritated sigh before folding his hand and getting up.

They left the soldiers to their cards, continuing on down the hall. Vought took a slightly different path than Falman had, and Roy couldn't begin to guess why, but when they ended up stepping out into an open-air hallway, he suspected it was a bit of fun at his expense; drag the general out into the cold to really get his blood going.

Partway down the walkway, Roy's eyes were drawn to a figure dressed in dark brown, leaning against the railing and staring out over the half-cleared path down to North City.

Vought tensed at Roy's side, and it wasn't until he'd glanced at him, catching sight of the greys of his uniform, that it occurred to him that his colour vision wasn't supposed to be working, not for brown.

"Edward," he called.

The figure at the railing tensed, then let out an audible sigh and turned to face them, undoing their hood as they did so and revealing that familiar, rare shade of blond hair. "General," he replied, no inflection to his voice.

"You're not supposed to leave your hallways unaccompanied!" Vought snapped. "Where is the guard from your hall?"

Ed's expression turned mutinous, and Roy stepped quickly between the two before something could spontaneously explode. "Sergeant Vought was showing me to the kitchen," he said, raising his dirty plate and cutlery. "You should come in with us, take a look at the treaty draft, if you haven't seen it already."

Ed's eyes narrowed at him, but he gave a sharp nod. "Fine."

"Sergeant," Roy requested, motioning for Vought to lead the way.

Vought stepped quickly past him with a disgruntled, "Sir," and Roy and Ed fell in behind him.

It was hard not to watch Ed, the largest spot of colour in an otherwise greyscale world, and Roy had to force himself to look forward, to not watch the turn of Ed's mouth as it drooped with a frown. "How is Alphonse?"

Ed cast him a suspicious look. "Why?"

Roy sighed. "I'm making conversation, Ed. If you'd prefer, I could chide you for ducking the Briggs soldier on your hall."

"Fuck off," Ed muttered, rolling his shoulders forward into a slight hunch. "Al's fine. Wasn't happy that I haven't bothered with post or anything. Handed the phone off to Winry and I got an earful." He kicked at the floor, a petulant motion that seemed out-of-place with his older face. "Only way I could talk her out of rushing up here was to promise to come down for a visit."

Roy nodded. "You're welcome to travel back to Central with us."

Ed huffed. "And Anya? I can't just leave her. Not with only–" he waved a hand in the direction of the Drachman hall "–Fedor."

"You don't trust him," Roy assumed as they returned to the partially heated inner halls of the fort.

Ed shot him a sharp look. "No," he admitted before tilting his head slightly, his eyes glinting with something knowing. "You're good at reading people; what do you think of him?"

Roy shrugged. "I haven't paid him much mind."

Ed snorted. "Don't shit me. You set Havoc to watching him and Vadik for whole meeting, and he and Hawkeye both were watching them during dinner."

Roy wished he could do something with his hands other than hold the papers and dishes in front of himself, because he felt defenceless like this. Or perhaps he just felt defenceless because Ed was proving that he knew more of Roy's tricks than he'd first thought. "When your companions found out about your former title, Major Kozlova translated some of their comments, and it was clear when Vickers vanished that you didn't trust them to protect the Tsesarevna. I don't trust the lieutenant colonel to take clear notes, and I needed to give him something to do, so I had him observe them."

"Really," Ed said flatly, as their guide pushed open the door to the main mess hall. "You decided to take the side of the only Amestrisan in a party of Drachmans? That's horrible foreign policy."

"No," Roy corrected, stopping just outside the door and turning to face Ed, "I decided to take the side of a man I trust, which I have always found to be an excellent personal policy." Ed's eyes went wide, lit a bright shade of gold by the light spilling out of the mess. Roy smiled and nodded towards the mess. "Hungry?" he asked before starting through the open door with a murmured, "Thank you, Sergeant."

The sergeant touched his shoulder, looking troubled. "Sir, I'm going to have to report him wandering on his own," he warned.

Roy glanced over his shoulder to where Ed was quickly gathering himself. "I'm aware. I doubt that whoever is watching the east wing had much hope of keeping an eye on him, and Lieutenant General Armstrong did tell him not to roam the halls alone." He shook his head. "The fault lies with Edward, not Briggs."

Ed snorted from just behind Roy. "Just make sure you pass on that I'm not going to sit politely in a cell this time, if Armstrong decides to shove me in there," he offered, and the sergeant shot Roy a vaguely panicked look. "Oh, also, if you could pass word back to whoever's watching us that I'm stuck in the mess?"

"Yes," Roy agreed drily, mostly for Vought's sake, "we shouldn't let the Tsesarevna think you've run across whatever lays in wait in the corridors of Briggs for those unwary enough to ignore direct orders to keep with a guide."

"Shut up and move," Ed snapped, giving a quick shove to Roy's shoulder.

Roy did so, mostly because they were blocking the door. He led the way towards the tray drop and set his dishes in there, then followed Ed towards where he was already eyeing the offerings and making a face.

The man behind the counter was giving Ed an uncertain look, but he quickly came to attention when he saw Roy. "General Mustang, sir. We weren't expecting any of your party to be up. We can have food sent over to the room set aside for you."

Roy shook his head. "I'm fine with coffee. Ed?"

Ed shook his head and stepped forward to serve himself from the trays. "Fuck you, I don't need specially cooked food. I'm not some poncy-ass general." And he shot a smirk over his shoulder at Roy.

Roy snorted. "I'm fairly certain, were it just myself visiting, Lieutenant General Armstrong wouldn't have bothered with better food."

"Yes, we couldn't let Innokenti starve, could we?" Ed retorted, and Roy could see a glint of humour in his eyes as he snatched a couple of burnt sausage links from the heating tray.

"Only the ambassador?" Roy asked. "What does that say about the fare served at the Imperial Court?"

"That the head chef is Cretan, full of himself, and has a really fucking disturbing thing for chili powder."

Roy startled himself with a laugh, and from the quick, vaguely surprised glance Ed shot him, he hadn't expected it either. "I'll be sure to put that in a formal document somewhere," Roy offered.

Ed grinned at him, his eyes as bright as they'd ever been in Roy's dreams. "Seems an important warning for anyone thinking to serve as Amestris' ambassador to Drachma," he agreed as he led the way to the coffee carafe.

"Yes, I don't suppose you could count," Roy agreed. "If we were to depend on you as Amestris' ambassador, the treaty would probably fall apart before you made it back to the Imperial Court."

"Fuck you," Ed muttered, but his eyes were still bright, and the silence that fell between them as they collected their cups of coffee and navigated the mostly-empty tables was companionable.

Once they'd found a seat, Roy passed the copy of the treaty he'd brought along across the table. "Vato typed it up," he warned, "so it's a bit dry."

Ed huffed and pulled it over with his right hand, his left managing his fork. "Yeah, it's a diplomatic document. Pretty sure there's a rule that they're supposed to be dry."

"Government documents in general, I suspect," Roy muttered into his mug, and Ed flashed him a knowing smirk before focussing his attention on the treaty.

Roy found himself with nothing to do but people watch, and it was far too early to effectively be able to do so. Too, his eyes kept being drawn to the singular spot of colour sitting across from him. Even Ed's food had faint hints of colour, as though the objects he made his own were only vaguely affected by whatever greater power – Roy suspected the accursed Gate, as punishment for his circumventing its original punishment – had seen fit to reduce Roy's colour vision to red and gold.

"This looks about right," Ed decided, tapping a finger against the last page of the treaty. "As soon as I get my hands on a typewriter, I'll type up a translation and let Innokenti and Natalia at it."

Roy nodded. "I'll see if you can't use whichever one Vato found." He sat his mostly empty mug down in front of him so he could fold his fingers together in front of his mouth. "How much Amestrisan do they understand? Tsarevna Natalia suggested she was practically fluent."

Ed tilted his head to one side, his eyes as intelligent as ever. "I spent a year teaching Natalia, before she was married to Dmitry. She's fairly fluent, but she was never very secure with speaking it, and she lost a lot of her skill when she didn't have anyone to converse with. So far as I'm aware, neither Fedor nor Vadik understand more than a handful of basic Amestrisan, but Innokenti..." He took a moment to eat a sausage. "I didn't teach him, but I know the man who did, and he's remarkably fluent for a Drachman. I suspect Innokenti understands at least as much as Natalia, and he should be able to speak enough to make himself easily understood, since Tsar Ivan picked him to serve as the ambassador, but..." He shrugged. "I've never heard him converse in Amestrisan."

Roy sighed. "We have a couple of people who can speak Drachman by the west border, and there's always the Kozlovas posted in North City, but it's going to be difficult to get any of them to transfer to Central, and there's no way the brass would agree to finding a civilian to serve as an interpreter."

Ed frowned, his expression strange in a way that Roy couldn't quite decipher. "The alchemist, she's posted in North City?" he asked.

Roy nodded. "It's always been military policy to have one, non-research State Alchemist posted to each command, with any extras tied to Central. You were something of an exception while I was in East City, but, then again..." He shrugged.

"We never stayed in one place for long, and I probably counted as a research alchemist, given all my missions were somehow related to our search," Ed offered, shaking his head. "Okay, I get that, but you and she get on so well. I thought she would be posted to Central."

Roy glanced down at his coffee. "We were friends in Ishval," he admitted quietly.

Ed shifted. "Ah. And because she's half-Drachman, she was posted to North City after."

Roy shrugged and glanced up towards Ed. "She requested the posting, said she wanted to be as far away from that hellhole as she could get." Ed winced. "None of us blamed her, Maes, Riza, and I. And her aunt lives in North City, and her sister was posted here, at Briggs, and, yes, she is half-Drachman; three good reasons for her to be the State Alchemist posted in North City."

Ed wrapped his hands around his mug and took a quick sip, then grimaced before holding it out towards Roy. "Heat this up for me, would you?"

Roy – who had three mugs back in his office in Central with arrays drawn on the bottom to quickly heat back up the sludge the military called coffee, because what was tolerable while warm, was vile cold – snorted and did so with a murmured, "Don't tell the team; they'll all start expecting me to do it for them."

Ed flashed him a grateful smile before he took a sip of the steaming coffee. "Yeah, that's pretty much the same reason I told Havoc I didn't know how to heat water without setting it to boil the first time he asked me to reheat his coffee. Gave some excuse about Al not being able to tell how hot something was to keep anyone from asking him next, because you know Al would have been more than willing, and then he'd have told me off for being a shit and refusing." He rolled his eyes.

Roy folded his hands back in front of his mouth to hide a smile. And a part of him wondered how many times he could get Ed to smile, to turn his eyes that same shade of happy gold that appeared in his dreams, before the blond returned to Drachma. Which then reminded him of Ed's comment about leaving Anastasia to travel back to the Imperial City with only Orlov as a guard, while Ed placated Miss Rockbell by travelling down to Rush Valley. "You know," he said, "should she wish it, Tsesarevna Anastasia is more than welcome to visit in Central City before returning to Drachma. See the accommodations for her country's ambassador."

Ed narrowed his eyes. "To what purpose?"

"A middle ground," Roy explained, "if Miss Rockbell is willing to visit you in Central."

Ed's eyes went wide. "That–" He looked down into his coffee, thoughts flashing lightning-fast behind eyes half-hidden by his bangs as he debated the possibilities. "Tsar Ivan wouldn't like it," he admitted slowly, "but Anya would love the idea, and Natalia will likely want to come along." He shook his head and met Roy's gaze, his eyes hard, even as uncertainty was an unsteady flicker within them. "That attack, the chance that another one might happen, especially while we're travelling, that makes me nervous."

Roy inclined his head, privately marvelling at how much Ed had matured, to be able to admit his uncertainly so bluntly. "You'll be riding on a military supply train, which only makes stops in the five capitols," he explained. "Our party will have the compartment car, and there will be food set aside in there for us in one of the compartments; the only members of the military who will have access to the Tsesarevna or the Tsarevna will be my team." He didn't need to say that Ed could trust his team, that they would go out of their way to keep the Drachmans safe, because Ed already knew that. Instead, he offered, "I can't sleep on trains, and Riza will wake up at the slightest out-of-place noise."

Ed's mouth quirked up at one side, his eyes glinting with gratitude. "Seats too hard for your old bones, Mustang?"

Roy was saved from having to find a response to that by a woman's voice shouting, "Edward Elric!" before continuing to shout in Drachman.

As Ed winced and slouched slightly in his seat, Roy and everyone else in the mess turned to watch as Tsesarevna Anastasia stormed across the room, a figurative storm cloud raging over her head and her expression twisted with – Roy couldn't help but notice – more concern than actual anger. Beyond her, the soldier who'd probably been the one to lead her to the mess looked a little pale, but was grinning vindictively, and Roy suspected he was the man whom Ed had managed to sneak past.

By the time Anastasia reached their table, she was clearly beginning to wind down, but Ed still flinched when she suddenly stopped talking and wrapped him in a hug. "You," she said in Amestrisan, "are an idiot." Then she stole his half-full coffee, took a large swallow, made a face, and turned to Roy. "Good morning, General Mustang. I apologise for Edward."

Roy shrugged. "I'm used to it," he said, and she laughed as she slid into the seat next to Ed, still holding his mug. "I would have been more concerned if he hadn't tried breaking a few rules."

"Fuck you," was Ed's contribution to the conversation, before he snatched his mug back from Anastasia, grabbed Roy's, and shoved away from the table.

Roy stared after him for a moment before looking at Anastasia and asking, "How did you train him?"

She snorted and shook her head. "He only does things for me as an apology."

"Ah." Roy nodded. "Good. I was beginning to suspect something far more devious."

There were two specks of gold in Anastasia's left eye, which Roy never would have noticed had he been able to see colours, and they brightened when she smiled, the same way as Ed's eyes did when he was honestly happy, and it erased much of the suggestion of age the harsh weather of her home had left. "Not for this," Anastasia offered cryptically, before her eyes glanced behind Roy, heralding Ed's return with three mugs. "We missed you at dinner," she said as Ed sat and began passing out the fresh mugs.

Roy wrapped his hands around the warm mug. "Thank you, Edward," he offered to the blond, and Ed let out a grunt in response, taking a long drink of his coffee. To Anastasia, Roy explained, "As I was just telling Ed, I don't sleep well on trains; I decided we would all be better off if I got some sleep in a bed, rather than chance my doing so over dinner."

"Hawkeye wouldn't have let you fall asleep in your food," Ed offered into his coffee, and his eyes glinted over the rim.

"No," Roy agreed drily, "she would have made sure I was well on my way to the infirmary before I could sleep."

Ed broke out in peals of laughter, his whole face lighting up, and Roy hid his responding smile in his coffee.

Anastasia glanced between them, her expression somewhere between amused and confused, before she requested, "Explain."

Roy cleared his throat, because Ed was still snickering, and offered, "Colonel Hawkeye finds the easiest way to keep order in my office is by threatening to shoot anyone who steps out of line."

"Or spends their afternoon cleaning their window for the hundredth time, rather than doing their paperwork," Ed added.

"Be quiet," Roy ordered, and Ed snickered, while Anastasia's mouth curled into a more honest smile. "The colonel has yet to actually shoot anyone, but we're billed every time we move offices for the bullet holes in the walls."

Anastasia looked over at Ed. "I am beginning to see why you are so fond of her. Though," she added, her tone turning thoughtful, "it makes me wonder why you never mentioned her."

"Sure I did." Ed frowned. "Didn't I?"

"Perhaps once," Anastasia allowed before pinning Roy with sharp eyes. "You I had heard about."

"Anya," Ed hissed, and Roy felt his eyebrows raising.

"Oh?" he asked, forcing his voice to remain neutral. "And you still agreed to sit across from me at the treaty tale?"

The gold glints in Anastasia's eye seemed to sparkle. "You believe he thinks so little of you?"

"Anastasia," Ed snarled, before saying something in Drachman.

Anastasia turned to him and spoke what was very obviously an order. When Ed replied in the negative, she firmed her voice, repeating her order and adding something else. Ed snarled what Roy suspected was a rude response before getting up and stalking towards the short queue that had developed before the food counter.

"I told him," Anastasia said, and Roy looked back towards her, "that he owed me food for making me rush out of bed because he had vanished."

"Ah. And the thing you want to say to me without giving him the chance to interrupt?"

She offered him a faint, knowing sort of smile. "You think he hates you," she assumed.

"No," Roy replied honestly, and she looked surprised. "When he was younger, before–" He shrugged, uncertain how much of the events surrounding the Promised Day she knew, and having neither the time nor the inclination to get into it. "I had him on a leash and he knew it, bore it because it served him as much as it did me. When things turned sour, we reached an accord, and I suspect he respects me as much as I always have him." He shook his head and it was a struggle to keep holding her piercing gaze, as aware as Maes' had always been when Roy finally gave in and told him the truth he'd managed to hide from everyone else. "Edward knows me, knows how far I'll go, how little I won't do, for something I want; if he'd known I would be here, he would have warned you off, and rightfully so."

"You are far harder on yourself than he is," Anastasia murmured, her gaze turning thoughtful. "He said to me, once, that you are ambitious, yes, but always fair. And, after that man attacked Natalia, he said to me – to the both of us – when I said we would be better off returning to the Imperial City, that we should give you a chance, because you would treat with us fairly, as another would not." Her mouth curled with a smile while Roy was left reeling; Edward had advocated for him? "Natalia took his side. She said you are a kind man, and I have always trusted her judgement of people."

"Kind?" Roy heard himself repeating, feeling a bit like he'd stepped into an alternate universe.

Anastasia's smile widened. "She was correct, I think."

Ed dropped a tray in front of Anastasia with a clatter, snapping Roy out of his shock, and fell heavily into his chair across from Roy. "General Bastard," he bit out, sounding irritated, "suggested that you might like to see Central City."

Anastasia eyed Ed for a moment, then Roy, before looking back at Ed and agreeing, "Yes, but Batya made you swear you would not let me sneak off."

Roy hid a smile with his mug; he was beginning to see why these two were friends.

Ed huffed. "You're not sneaking off, you're being invited by a ranking member of the military." He turned a scowl on Roy. "Invite her."

Roy forced his smile away as he turned to Anastasia, then offered, "Tsesarevna, it would be my pleasure to escort you and your party to Central City. After all," he couldn't resist adding, because he was still a little off kilter, clearly, "we can't have you believing all of Amestris is just a slightly warmer version of Drachma."

Anastasia laughed. "I think," she said, "I should like to show you the Imperial City. You Amestrisans believe too much that Drachma is as cold and bland as this fortress."

Roy couldn't help but look to Ed, who snorted into his coffee and lowered it before admitting, "Yeah, it's pretty cold most of the time, but they've got summer up there, too, and the desert borders them on the east, same as it does us. Away from the mountains, it's actually pretty nice. Not the Aerugo coast, but nice enough."

Roy shook his head. "I've never been to Aerugo, Ed."

"I'm sure the half-naked women are heart-broken," Ed retorted.

"Oh?" Roy leant forward over the table, amusement warring with something heavy in his gut. "Did you finally discover–"

"Fuck off," Ed ordered, pink dusting along his cheekbones. "Leave me out of your perversions, you bastard." His eyes took on a decidedly nasty glint and he leant forward across the table himself. "Who am I kidding, all that water? You can't go to the beach, you'd be useless."

Roy snorted. "Not any more," he pointed out.

"Aw, damn." Ed sat back, glancing down at his mug. "I forgot about that. Fuck me."

"Well–"

"That was not a fucking offer!" Ed shouted, and Roy couldn't have kept from laughing to save his life.

Anastasia let out a laugh of her own, then said something in Drachman. Ed turned such a bright red, Roy couldn't help but wonder if his face would have matched his old coat, then snarled something back at her in the same language before jumping to his feet and grabbing the treaty. "I am going to hunt down a typewriter," he snapped and stalked off.

Roy raised his eyebrows at Anastasia and she offered a knowing smile before asking, "This offer to come to Central City, it is to do with Ed's promise to his mechanic?"

Roy shrugged. "He seemed discontent to allow you and your sister to travel back to the Imperial City with only one guard."

"That is a very pretty way to say he and Fedor despise each other," Anastasia retorted. When Roy raised an eyebrow at her in a silent inquiry for an explanation, since Ed had dodged it earlier, she sighed and wiggled her fork at him in a very un-princessly fashion. "Ed and Fedor met in a brawl in the lower Imperial City, on opposite sides." She snorted. "Well, in truth, everyone was on the opposite side from Ed."

"Yes," Roy offered drily, "that happens to him a lot. I expect he won."

The gold specks in her eye fairly sparkled. "Yes. Fedor was unlucky enough to meet Ed's left foot–" Roy couldn't stop a wince "–and spent a month in hospital. When they met again, not quite a week after, it was to find Ed and myself...arguing."

"He was being insulting, Orlov took offence, Ed put him back in hospital," Roy guessed, and Anastasia laughed. "That also happens to him a lot."

Anastasia shook her head. "Fedor was most displeased to discover that Ed was Amestrisan. He had attempted to get my father to ban Ed from the Imperial Court, which I would not allow, then tried courting me, in hopes that sharing my bed would give him power over my choices, I believe."

Roy closed his eyes, seeing where this would end, and understanding a bit better why Ed didn't want to send the princesses back home with only Orlov as a guard. "Ed put him in hospital again, didn't he?"

"Ed broke his nose, gave him two bruised eyes, and kicked him between the legs. With his left foot."

Roy rubbed at his eyes, extremely glad that he was no longer Ed's commanding officer, because that was one international incident that he wanted absolutely zero part in. "Of course he did."

Anastasia snorted. "Yes. He has provided a similar service to other of my courters that he did not approve of. I gave up ordering him to stop the third time."

"Edward is very...passionate about protecting those he cares for," Roy managed, finally opening his eyes again. "And orders tend to sound more like suggestions to him."

Anastasia was watching him, her lips curled with a smile. "I had noticed," she agreed before waving her fork at him again. "The mechanic, Winry, we will meet her?"

"Very likely," Roy agreed. "And Alphonse."

"Good," Anastasia decided. "Then I will have met the three people Ed always speaks of." Her smile widened.

It took Roy a minute, but he recalled her earlier comment and got her implication: Ed spoke often of Al, Miss Rockbell, and Roy himself.

He cleared his throat, uncertain how to respond to that. "If you're coming to Central City, we should have the treaty signing there, with Führer Grumman."

Anastasia considered that. "Your Führer, he is a good man? Do you respect him?"

Roy folded his fingers together. "I've worked under Führer Grumman for most of my career," he offered, "and I've always found him to be an excellent commander, if slightly extravagant, but, yes, I respect him."

"Extravagant how?" Anastasia asked.

Roy felt his mouth twitch and quashed it because he wasn't certain if it was more likely to turn into a smile or a grimace. "When I used back channels to request he meet me during certain events, he dressed as an elderly woman to do so. From what his son-in-law, who taught me alchemy, said, outrageous disguises are something of a habit of his."

"You know him personally, then?"

Roy shrugged. "I didn't meet him until after I'd enlisted, so it's difficult to say how personally I know him, but it was my aunt who got me in contact with him, and Colonel Hawkeye is his granddaughter."

Anastasia's eyebrows raised. "Your second?" Roy nodded, taking a sip of the last of his cold coffee. "That is a powerful alliance."

"Perhaps, but not one I've ever actively used, and not one that most people are aware of." He sighed and shook his head. "Under our previous Führer, it wasn't uncommon to erase any records of your family, to keep them safe, especially if you had an eye on his seat. For some of us, that still holds true; it's a hard habit to break, protecting the people you love."

"And for you?" Anastasia asked, watching him with that too-sharp gaze. "Who are those people you protect with silence?"

Roy considered lying – it really was a hard habit to break, especially with the reminder of Bradley stripping his team from him, using them as hostages to ensure his good behaviour, standing as a grim spectre over his shoulder – but he'd already given in to her once, so he took a quick glance around them, checking that the Briggs soldiers had maintained a respectful distance from their table, and admitted, "My aunt and my goddaughter."

"God...daughter?" Anastasia repeated, clearly unfamiliar with the word.

Roy frowned, trying to find the best way to explain the concept. "It's a holdover from the religion that dominated the region where Central City currently is, before it became a part of Amestris. It gives someone who is a friend of the parents, but not blood related, a claim to the child if both parents should die. After my best friend died, his widow hunted down the specifics and talked me into it. She didn't want Elicia to be left alone if something happened to her."

"Elicia Hughes?" Anastasia asked.

Roy smiled, somehow unsurprised that Ed would have mentioned her. "Yes."

Anastasia offered a smile that was somehow sad. "Ed uses pictures of her as place markers in his travel journals. She looks like a happy child, but he always looks so heartbroken when he looks at them. I got him to tell me her name, but nothing else; I was afraid she was dead."

"No," Roy was quick to assure her. "Far from it; she and her mother live in Central, if you'd like to meet them?"

"I would love to," Anastasia agreed. "But... You say her father, he died? Is that why Ed–?"

"Edward and Alphonse blame themselves for his death," Roy admitted, and it hurt to get the words out, because they weren't the only ones; if Roy hadn't asked Maes to keep an eye on the boys while they were in Central, if he'd come to Elicia's birthday party like Maes had always begged, a thousand 'if's. Gracia had looked like she'd wanted to smack him when he'd apologised to her, but, instead, she'd said that the best way for him to atone, if he really felt he was at fault, was to do everything he possibly could for Elicia, so he had, would always do. He hadn't missed a birthday yet, and he'd spent his years in Ishval driving to Resembool every Sunday to use a phone, checking in so Elicia knew he was still okay and listening to her rattle on about every little thing for hours.

"This blame, it is something you share," Anastasia guessed.

Roy sighed and shrugged. "A surprising number of people blame themselves for Maes' death. In the end, the one who killed him took his own life."

Anastasia nodded. "Thank you," she said, and Roy shot her a confused glance. "For explaining. Ed...how do I say this? He has always seemed, to me, to smile so he would not cry. I have seen the darkness in his eyes, when he wanders for fear of what comes in dreams, but he holds close those hurts. I can push, and sometimes he will tell me things, little ones that do not hurt him as much, I think, but never the ones that weigh him down. Never how he lost his leg, or that he was ever an alchemist, why he is not now." She sighed. "I have one last question for you."

Roy hid a frown behind his fingers, woven together so tightly they hurt. "You can ask, but I can't promise to answer," he allowed.

She smiled at him, for that, and the gold in her dark eye glinted with approval. "You are not attached? Not married?"

Roy blinked. "Why? Were you interested?" He shot her his most charming smile, hiding his discomfort behind it.

She snorted. "I do not think Ed would forgive either of us–"

Roy winced. "Excellent point."

"–though you are a far better sort than my usual courters."

Roy stared at her for a moment, then snorted and leant back from the table. "It must be a low bar."

"It is a different bar, I think," Anastasia mused. "You have not the need to marry me for the power you would seek. For too many of my people, I am a prize to be won, the way to my father's throne."

"They think, because you're female, you're little better than a tool," Roy murmured, because he knew those sorts of men, met them too often in the military, especially with a female adjunct. He sighed. "I begin to understand why Ed took to kicking so many of your suitors."

" 'Suitors'?"

"What you've been calling 'courters'."

Anastasia nodded, and he could see her filing that word away into her mental dictionary. "Yes," she agreed. "It does not stop all of them, but it works on many, and serves as a deterrent for many others." She sighed and stood from the table. "Will you walk with me? I should like to see the top of this fortress, but I do not think it will be allowed with only one soldier as accompaniment."

"Certainly," Roy agreed as he collected all of their dishes to leave in the tray drop. "I, too, have a vague interest in seeing the battlements."

"Battlements," Anastasia repeated quietly, and Roy suspected he would be serving as a translator of military terminology for so long as he remained in her company. Which...wasn't as daunting a concept to him now as it might have been before sharing breakfast with her.

Anastasia walked with him to the tray drop without complaint, then out into the hall, where two soldiers – both privates – awaited them. They saluted Roy crispy, and Roy returned the salute before requesting, "Tsesarevna Anastasia and I were wondering if we might walk along the battlements."

The two men traded uncertain looks, before the one on the right said, "I...don't think it would be a problem for you, General, but–"

"I will take full responsibility for the Tsesarevna," Roy offered, before adding, "If she's awake, we're willing to enquire of Lieutenant General Armstrong."

"There's a phone around the corner," the private on the left said, before hurrying off.

It didn't take them long to get permission, though the private's expression when he relayed the okay suggested that Olivier had been rather more longwinded than the private had passed on, and Roy could only assume his libido had been brought into it, and his sense questioned; he didn't mind, actually suspected that Olivier knew his reputation was half fabrication, half stretching the truth, given the good-natured ribbing on his arrival.

Both privates came with as escorts, and they suffered a vaguely uncomfortable silence in the lift to the top of Briggs. Once up there, Roy grimaced at the bite of the wind and wrapped his coat a little tighter around himself before shoving his hands into the pockets. Anastasia looked in her element, in the chill, and Roy caught himself smiling in spite of himself as the first thing she did was hurry over to the northern-facing wall to look over the Drachman side of the border.

"This is an impressive construction," she said once Roy had joined her. "We do not build things so tall in Drachma, so we have none of these views."

Roy leant against the cold stone, looking down on the small shapes of the vehicles the Drachman party had ridden to Briggs. "This is the tallest human-built structure in Amestris," he offered. "Central Command is the next tallest, I'm fairly certain, though the compound itself sits on top of a base that's ten storeys, so it's difficult to judge."

Anastasia glanced over at him curiously. "What use is a base that high?"

"The car park is in there," Roy replied carefully.

Anastasia shook her head. "Just the car park?"

"No." Roy pushed away from the wall, having as much interest in discussing the dark secrets of Amestris that had been laid bare on the Promised Day up here, as he had in the mess. "It's clear enough; we may be able to see North City," he commented, starting towards the southern side of the wall.

Anastasia joined him after a moment, looking along the track to the road, and along that to the hints of chimney smoke and the tops of the tallest buildings. "I asked after Amestrisan secrets," she assumed.

"No," Roy admitted quietly, staring into the shades of grey laid out before him and wishing for a hint of colour; he had thought this would be easier in Briggs, with the grey walls, but it wasn't, not with Ed teasing him with his splash of colour. "You asked after the darkness Ed keeps to himself."

She sighed and stepped back from the wall. "Walk with me," she requested.

Roy followed her lead with a murmured, "Of course," desperate to leave behind those shadows and wishing he could do the same with his colour-blindness.

They were both quiet for a few steps, their escort trailing at a polite distance. Eventually, Anastasia began to speak, her voice pitched quiet enough to stay between them, despite the howl of the mountain wind: "When Ed and I first met, I was pretending to be normal, a person of the lower streets in the Imperial City, where they do not know the faces of the Tsarevnas, and we became friends without him being aware who I was. After I learned that Ed had known who I was for many months and never changed how he treated me, I thought 'I have found the man to marry'–"

Roy cleared his throat, discomfort writhing in his stomach; as interested as he was in learning about the four years Ed had spent outside of Amestris' borders, he didn't have any interest in his romantic exploits. "I think, Tsesarevna, that–"

"You will remain, and you will listen, General Roy Mustang," Anastasia ordered, and there was the heir to the Drachman Empire, used to being obeyed and afraid of no man; Roy swallowed and resigned himself to the uncomfortable conversation. She eyed him for a moment, as though making sure he wasn't about to follow his better sense and run for it, before continuing, "I had thought he would be perfect. He did not care about my gender or my station, he did not care one way or the other about the power that he would have the right to at my side. He was nothing like the suitors that so often came asking after me.

"My father had disliked him, then, found him disrespectful and hovered too often on the cusp of ordering Ed from the city." Roy knew he should smile here, because that was very like Ed, but he couldn't dredge up a smile under the layer of discomfort. "That was the only reason I did not ask Ed to be more than my friend. I had thought, once Batya learned to see past his rudeness, then I would ask Ed. But..." She shook her head, and Roy glanced towards her, curious in spite of himself. "The longer Ed stayed in the palace, the more he deigned to tell me stories of his travels, of the people who made him, and the more I realised that were I to ask him to marry me, he would, because he is a good man, but he could never love me, not the way a husband is supposed to love a wife; his heart had already been set on another."

"Miss Rockbell," Roy murmured, studiously ignoring the taste of ash her name left on his tongue.

Anastasia nodded, then shook her head. "That was my thought too, for there was love in his eyes when he spoke of her, but I realised that it is the same love as he has for his brother. He told me–" she turned her eyes up towards the sky, and her words weren't much more that a whisper "–that when he left her this last time, that he had asked her to marry him, and she agreed."

Roy almost stopped, the burn on his side making it hard to breathe, and his eyes burned in the wind. "Did he," he heard himself say, and his voice was flat, too flat; what was wrong with him?

"He had said it was a mistake," Anastasia offered, her voice gentle, and the ache of Roy's side eased. "I think, at first, that was why he did not find a way to contact her, why he kept travelling when he could have returned to Amestris, because he could not face her, could not say, 'I made a mistake, I should not have asked that of you'. But, eventually, he came to me, and he found..." She snorted, shaking her head. "I did not realise it at first, he found in me someone familiar, someone on the cusp of power, yet faced with such odds, such opposition. He gravitates towards power, I think, not because he craves it, but because he wishes to make it good." She looked over at him, a smile curving her mouth. "There is something disheartening, being the first female heir to a throne, and there were times when it seemed too much, when I thought I should marry just so people would stop talking, would look at my husband instead of me. But Ed–"

"Pushes you to be better," Roy murmured, remembering a promise made over pocket change, and a moment in a dark tunnel, when revenge clouded his mind. "He refuses to stand back and watch you make the worst mistakes."

"Yes. He dragged me to meet the people who needed a strong leader, who needed someone who was not just a figurehead. He showed to me, in all the ways he could, that my future is worth fighting for. And I–" She sighed, shook her head, and stopped to stare up at the grey, grey sky, Roy stopping beside her. "There is such darkness, such sorrow, in him, and I cannot ever hope to touch it, to know more than a glance. I could ask him to marry me, but it would only kill him, I think, in the end. But you–" she turned her stare on Roy, the gold glints reflecting sunlight like pinpoints of fire "–you live with that same darkness, speak between you both a thousand words in silences and insults."

Roy swallowed, shook his head, turned away from that hint of a familiar colour in her eyes, back towards the grey of the battlements and the sky. "What does that–"

"I told you, did I not? There are three people Ed speaks most of. Two are like siblings to him, and the last–"

A finger pushed hard against Roy's chest, and he looked back into those too-knowing eyes and their specks of gold.

"–is the person he loves."

"You must be–" Roy tried, the words scraping along his throat and tongue on the way up.

"I do not lie," Anastasia interrupted, her voice firm. "I would not lie, and I am not mistaken. I have known Edward Elric two years, and never have I seen him so full of life, so full of smiles, as when he sits across from you at a table and you insult each other. He is happy here, with you, in a way I have not ever seen in him."

"It's not–"

"It is. I told no lie, that you were missed at dinner. You might ask your people. That blond man, Havoc, he commented on it, on how Ed was more fun when you were there."

'I like you better when Ed's around,' Havoc had told him after the meeting, when Roy had escaped to his room.

"He loves you," Anastasia repeated, as though she believed that, the more she said it, the more likely Roy was to believe her. "And you, I would not have told, if you did not feel the same." She tilted her head as the breath caught in Roy's chest. "Do you deny this also?"

Every time his body had betrayed him at the hint that Ed could have belonged to someone else, the colours of his dreams, the way only Ed could all unknowingly deny his colour-blindness, shading even his food in colours. And, too, his own disinclination to find a bedmate since the Promised Day, the dozen little excuses – his scars, Ishval coming first, and so on – that had sounded hollow even as he'd made them to himself. "No," he whispered, and the wind swallowed the admittance.

Anastasia nodded, as though she had never once doubted it. "You will tell him. You will give him a reason to stay."

The smile that curled Roy's mouth was not a happy one, because he knew Ed. "No," he said, and when Anastasia's eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to, no doubt, say something scathing, Roy continued, "Ed doesn't stay, and I won't be the thing to tie him down."

She swallowed and stared at him for a moment. "No," she agreed at last, the wind tugging hard at her words, "but you can give him a reason to come home." Then she stepped forward, into Roy's space, and shoved a finger hard against his chest, over his heart, and he almost stumbled with the force of it. "You will tell him, or I will sign nothing."

"You would–" Roy started, shocked.

"I would start a hundred wars for his happiness," Anastasia declared. "He will never do it himself, so I must fight for him, the way he has fought for me. He is my greatest friend, and I would pull the world open–"

"Don't," Roy snapped, grabbing her wrist and staring into startled eyes. "To you, those are just words, but to him, they are nightmares. Ed won't thank you for pointless death, would be horrified to hear that you would go so far for him, because, to him, there is nothing so precious as a life. I'll talk to him, but if you want him happy, all you need to do is sign that treaty." He let her go and stepped back, looked at the inkling of horrified understanding that was starting to bloom in her eyes and tried a smile that felt like it was cracking at the edges. "I'm afraid this is about as much of the cold as I can take. If you'll come back inside with me, Tsesarevna?"

"Yes," she agreed faintly, and followed Roy as he led the way back inside.

The ride back down in the lift was heavy with silence, and Anastasia spent the entirety of it staring at the ground, her face half hidden behind the collar of her coat.

As they stepped back out onto the fourteenth floor, Roy pulled out his pocket watch to check the time. "I'd like to try and find my team, if any of them are awake," he said to their escort, before turning to Anastasia. "Tsesarevna?"

She looked up, then, and there was a fire in her eyes that reminded him startlingly of Ed. She held out a hand. "Anya," she said.

Roy blinked, confused. "I don't–"

"My friends call me Anya," she explained, raising her hand a bit higher.

Roy got it, then, and took her hand with a faint smile. "Roy. It's nice to meet you, Anya."

She smiled back at him, and there was a sadness in her eyes, barely visible to his greyscale vision, but there was happiness there, too, which was much clearer. "Likewise, Roy," she agreed before pulling away and turning towards the east wing. "I must tell my party that we will be travelling to your Central City together."

Roy nodded, then motioned for his escort to show the way to the mess, leaving Anastasia and her escort to head in the other direction.

Chapters:
01 || 02 || 03 || 04 || 05 || 06
07 || 08 || 09 || 10 || 11

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