Fic: Talking (pre-RRE)

[icedark_elf]

I talked to ninkasa about this fic a while back, and now I'm finally posting it. Everyone cheer. Or boo, whatever. Let me know what you think.



For a moment, neither of them spoke. Both of them knew why Riza had called this meeting, but neither wanted to start. Instead, they stared at their coffee.

However, Ed was never the most patient of people, and he finally looked up. “You love him, don’t you?”

Startled by the rather blunt assessment of her feelings, Riza tensed. Almost immediately she forced herself to relax. She looked up, meeting Ed’s eyes. “I care for the Colonel, yes.”

Ed nodded slowly. “And I know he ‘care’ about you.” The emphasis on the word ‘care’ made Riza shift. She had not expected this from Edward when she had invited him to join her for coffee. She had expected him to act in his normal, rather reckless way. The fact that he wasn’t threw her off, and she was never the best at situations like this anyway.

Instead, Ed was calm, acting, strangely enough, like her of all people. He didn’t fidget, or play with the things on the table. One hand was curled around the cup, the other propped up his chin.

But this bluntness…. That was rather like Ed. Taking a sip from her own cup, Riza collected her thoughts.

“The Colonel….”

“Roy.”

“What?” The interruption threw her off again. She was rather nervous about this talk in the first place, and Ed’s unusual behavior was not helping her state of mind any.

Now Ed was rolling his eyes. “We are both with him. Mostly likely both of us are sleeping with him. I think we can call him Roy outside the office.”

Riza sighed. Ed was taking this far too calmly for her liking. “Fine. Roy is dating both of us. I thought it might be best if we took some time to work things out with each other.”

“Work what kind of things out? Taking turns, only getting to stay at his place on days that alternate?” Settling back, Ed abandoned his coffee and let both hands rest on the table. Riza watched his body language with interest. He was tensed, but most of his position declared an open mindedness he wasn’t really expressing verbally.

“I want to know how you feel about this.” She gestured, just a wave to include everything. “About what he’s doing, about having to share him? On if we should change the situation or if we should just leave it alone?”

She fell silent, and for a few moments neither of them spoke. Then Ed chuckled.

“Can I ask that you not shoot me? I get the feeling that either we are going to walk away from here one of two ways. Not happy, but content, or ready to kill each other.” The humor in his eyes looked very harsh for a second before sliding into a more natural amusement. “I’d rather the former, but if the latter happens, I want to make it back to Al.”

He reached for his coffee again. Instead of picking it up, he only pushed the cup around. “Will we be exchanging information, or will I be the only one giving today?”

Somehow, Riza was positive anybody else who knew Ed would be testing him for a fever. Maybe, she thought, watching the boy, he was maturing. She smiled. “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

“All right.” A pause to sip coffee. “How do I feel about this? I can honestly say I’m slightly jealous. You get a side of him I never will. All of this military stuff that drives me insane is the core of your world. That’s something I’ll never be able to touch.”

“You have alchemy,” Riza interjected. “I don’t really understand any of it, really. I’m afraid it bores me to tears,” she admitted, ruefully.

That drew a smile from Ed. “I know. That’s why I’m only a little jealous.”

The smile morphed into a mocking smirk. “When I found out he was dating both of us, though, I didn’t feel jealousy.”

The woman chuckled. “A very strong desire to kill him, right?” At Ed’s laugh and nod, she sighed, amused. “Oh, that I do understand. I was ready to see if he was fast enough to melt bullets.”

A snort escaped Ed. “I have one up on you, there,” he sniggered. “I have Al. He wasn’t sure about Roy and me in the first place. If he thought I was being taken advantage of….”

“Oooh.” Riza winced as the rather messy metal image her brain produced quite willingly. “Ouch.”

“Oh, yes.” Ed’s smirk was definitely more than a little malicious. “Roy would have been in a whole world of ouch.”

That set both of them off, images of Roy running from an upset Al fueling their laughter. It took a few minutes for both blondes to regain control.

Still giggling, a rather rare sound for her, Riza waved the waiter over. “I would like to see a menu, please.” She glanced at Ed. “Edward?”

The smile he gave her before requesting his own menu made her heart melt. Ed was so guarded most of the time it was rare for him to have an honest expression on his face. And the fact that he trusted her enough to be able to smile like that made her very happy for some reason. Even with the situation they had found themselves in.

The conversation meandered for a bit as they ordered their food and waited for its delivery. Riza filled Ed in on what had been happening in the office while he was gone. In return, he shared stories about his trips and the strangeness he and Al almost always found themselves in.

Once the food was delivered, they both dug in. Riza was surprised at how much she was eating. She decided that emotional stress burned calories. Ed, she noted, ate like he normally did. Well, a bit neater than normal, though the food vanished at an astonishing rate.

Finally, though, the conversation turned back to Roy Mustang.

“I was going to kill him,” Riza admitted. “I was so ready to strangle that smirk right off his face. He didn’t even have the decency to tell me. I found out from a rumor. But there had been rumors of you two for years, and I didn’t want to believe this one. And I didn’t, not until you….” She trailed off.

“Came home nearly dead and he threw that fit,” Ed finished for her. One hand crept up and absently rubbed his chest. “He over reacted, I think.”

Barely resisting the urge to smack Ed upside the head, Hawkeye sighed. “Edward, you had taken two bullets to the chest. From the medical reports, you coded twice at the hospital. You were damn lucky you were in a town big enough to have a real hospital. I think the Colonel….”

“Roy.”

”Roy had a perfectly legitimate reason to ‘throw a fit’”

“If it was so legitimate, why did you finally believe the rumors?”

“Because you let him throw the fit. At first, it was because you were unconscious, but later, you let him do it again. And the only person you let coddle you the way he did was Al.”

Ed looked down. “Oh.”

“Let me guess,” Riza continued. “You found out the same way.”

“Kind of,” Ed still didn’t look up. “Havoc was bemoaning your ‘cave in’ to Roy’s ‘charms’.” A snort of laughter. “Then he described those charms in terms I won’t use in polite company.”

Riza sighed. “I feel sorry for him. It would have never worked between us.”

Quiet again, then Ed growled. “I think we need to smack him in the head with something hard.”

“Havoc?”

“No. That bastard who was dating both of us and never bothered to mention it.” Then some of the anger died in Ed’s eyes. “Though he was very forward about it after I asked.”

Silence. “So that,” Riza said, breaking the quiet, “was what made him come to me and try to explain.” Ed only shrugged, his eyes on the plate before him.

Neither encouraged nor discouraged, Riza continued. “He was very blunt. About the fact he was sleeping with you. I think he was scared. Roy does not do happy very well, an the few times I’ve seen him come close to that state, he sabotages himself.”

“Like sleeping with two people at the same time.” Ed snorted. Then his eyes darkened. “But he does love you. I can see it whenever you come into the room, or you’re mentioned by someone. He gets this glow around him.” A slightly bitter look crossed Ed’s face.

“The only time he has that look around me,” he continued, “is when he’s about to dress me down.”

Riza was watching Ed closely, and she thought she saw something behind the bitterness. It was hard to tell. Ed had shifted to a more defensive body language. Instead of the laid back, open sprawl he had been in earlier, he was hunched in on himself. Back curled forward, elbows tucked in, and shoulders tight with an unspoken tension.

She wondered what Ed was hiding.

“He loves you,” repeated Ed, slowly, as if tasting each word before it fell from his mouth. “And it would kill him if he lost you.” Golden eyes finally lifted from the empty plate. “And don’t think I’m so much of an idiot that I can’t see that you love him.”

Now he was absently fiddling with a crumpled napkin, eyes distant. Riza wondered if he was even seeing the table anymore. But she stayed silent. It seemed ad if Ed was forcing the words out by sheer willpower alone, and she needed to hear what he was about to say.

“You’re someone who cared about me and Al, and I can never repay that. But I can step aside. If you want, I’ll stop seeing Roy.”

She had it. With an almost mind-numbing jolt of realization, Riza knew what was creeping around in the back of Ed’s eyes.

“Ed….” She really didn’t know what to say. This boy, no, this man had just offered to walk away from someone he loved. Something twisted inside her chest as she watched sadness darken Ed’s eyes.

He smiled at her, a smile just as bright as any other she had seen him give. It made her wonder just how many of those smiles were faked.

“No, seriously. I don’t know how that crappy Colonel and I got together, but it should be easy to break it off.”

He stood and reached into his pockets before pulling out his wallet. Dropping some bills on the table, he grinned at Riza. “That should cover the food. Let me know if I owe you more.”

Riza tried again. Once more, all she got out was Ed’s name.

That seemed to prompt Ed to stop at her side of the table. His left hand reached out to curl around her wrist in a rare physical display of affection. Then he bend down, close enough that his bangs brushed the side of her face as he whispered into her ear.

“You make him happy,” Ed said in an almost cheerful voice. “Be there to make him happy.”

Before she could respond, her infamous cool calm shattered by a few actions of someone who should have been her rival, Ed was gone. Only the plate across from hers and the money on the table let her know he had been there at all.

Riza cradled her head in her hands. “Damnit,” she muttered.

Things had not gone as she planned. Not at all.



Crossposted at fma_7sins and royedriza

Btw, if you don't hear from me for a bit, it's because I'm pretending to be a boiled egg in an effort to show why it's bad to make writers boiled eggs.