Part One

Roy Mustang’s visitor was finally leaving, something for which Ed was profoundly grateful. The man had been underfoot for days, making bad jokes, getting dire glares from Hawkeye, and poking into everything. He didn’t seem to be attached to the military. Or to anyone within the military except Mustang. How he had managed to collect the entire command staff, plus Ed, to see him off was a mystery.

“Oh, and I almost forgot, Carl finally got back to me about your request!”

“And?” Mustang inquired.

“He says he doesn’t think they have the right food for gyrfalcons in his area, but he’ll keep looking.”

Mustang nodded.

Ed assuaged his irritation with the reflection that the man had mangled the pronunciation of “gyrfalcon”. It didn’t help a great deal. Fortunately, they managed to edge him out the door without too much further conversation. Ed heaved a sigh of relief.

Gyrfalcon… Ed wondered, idly, where had he learned how to pronounce that word. He remembered hearing it spoken. Who…?

“… my hawk… my fractious, cross-grained gyrfalcon.”

Ed stopped dead in the middle of the hall.

What had the man said?

“…food for gyrfalcons…”

And where he had read the word…

“…the king may fly a gyrfalcon…”

“Taisa,” Ed whispered, and then took a breath and almost shouted. “Taisa!“

Mustang turned, brows raised.

Ed strode through the other officers and caught Mustang’s arm. His voice was barely audible. “Taisa, what are you doing?”

Mustang’s eyes narrowed, and Ed was aware of sharp glances being exchanged around him. His eyes never left the Colonel’s. It was a long moment before Mustang spoke, almost as quietly as Ed had whispered.

“Not here.”

They were arrayed in Mustang’s office before anyone spoke again. Mustang stood at the window, one hand on the glass. “Why do you ask now, Edward-kun?”

Ed, practically vibrating between the need to pace and the need to wring an answer out of his commander, spoke between his teeth. “Gyrfalcon. The bird a king flies.”

Mustang bowed his head briefly, smile wry. “I should have known you’d remember that.”

“Taisa…!” Edward reached out a hand, useless as that was with three meters of space between them.

Mustang sighed and straightened.

“This nation is broken, Edward-kun,” he said, even and cool. “Surely you’ve noticed it. How many uprisings and civil wars have we had in the past twenty years? No country so troubled over its government should have lasted. Yet we have. Each time there’s a rift it’s patched over, each time the citizens rise the military puts them down. Successfully. Because of us.”

He turned to look full at Ed, and Ed swallowed hard at the coldness in his eyes.

“The military succeeds because of the State Alchemists within its ranks.”

Mustang turned away again and Ed found himself shaking from the force of the gaze now withdrawn.

“It cannot continue. It must not continue.”

“Then why,” Ed hesitated, then forged on, “why do you stay?”

Mustang was silent a moment, and then let out a breath that sounded pained. “Because,” he replied, voice low, “only a military officer of the highest rank who is also an alchemist of considerable power could come close enough to Dai-Soutou Bradley to remove him and still hope to control the military through the upheaval afterward.”

“…remove…?” Ed whispered.

Mustang leaned his forehead against the glass. “Kill. Most likely.”

Ed was shaking again, fighting to breathe past his shock.

“I hadn’t intended you to know any of this,” Mustang continued, quietly. “You have a long history of doing things your own way without regard for politics of any kind. They would believe your innocence, and your power is too much a prize for them to kill you just as an example. If I fail.”

“Then what am I in this?” Ed wanted to know. “Why have you kept me in your command? Everyone else knows about this, don’t they?” He waved at Hawkeye and Havoc, who both nodded soberly.

“Long before you arrived,” Hawkeye confirmed. “He chose us as his staff because we agree that something needs to be done. Soon.”

“Told you that first day,” Havoc reminded him. “If it was just ambition for more rank we wouldn’t follow him.”

Mustang looked over his shoulder, smiling at Ed. For some reason that made the shaking worse.

“Ah, Edward. You are my hunter. Wherever you go you have a remarkable knack for turning up the secrets and breaks, for stirring things up, for setting people in motion. And then, too…” Mustang turned away again. “You are my example. I didn’t want to tell you this. I didn’t want to darken you.”

Ed pressed a hand hard against his mouth, staring sightlessly ahead of him.

“If you don’t wish to be involved in such a thing I can transfer you to someone else’s command.” Hawkeye stirred, and Mustang waved her back. “Even if he leaves us I don’t believe Edward-kun will say anything.”

Memories returned to Ed, fragmented. The distant look in Ryla’s eyes as she attacked unarmed men for raising their hands to a corrupt officer; the matter-of-fact insanity of a man who had lost everything at the hands of a State Alchemist; Gran’s eyes; Rose’s eyes; Al’s eyes, so long ago.

Roy Mustang, urbane and mocking and careless; surrounded in flames; smiling, knowing, as he sent Ed off with another lead; shadowed, troubled, as he turned away from Ed’s questions; strange and distant as he spoke of Ed’s brightness; laughing as he called Ed his hawk and named himself Ed’s falconer.

Standing at the window, straight and calm, waiting.

Ed came to him, stood in front of him looking up intently.

“I will fly for you. Taisa.”

Over Mustang’s shoulder he saw Hawkeye and Havoc exchanging puzzled looks. It didn’t matter. Mustang sighed, laying his hands on Ed’s shoulders.

“Thank you, Edward.”

Ed nodded, saluted, and walked out of the office and down the hall to one of the spare rooms where he collapsed into a chair and sat, shaking, for a long time.

Part Two

It had been a very long day by the time Roy trudged home, but he couldn’t quite face the idea of staying at headquarters tonight. Not with the echoes of his confrontation with Edward lingering there. Home meant peace and quiet, however temporary.

He left a trail of uniform pieces down the upstairs hallway, and was down to shirt and pants by the time he reached his bedroom. He leaned in the doorway to pull off his socks.

When he straightened up, though, he had to stop and blink at the bed a few times.

The image of Edward Elric sitting shirtless and cross legged on his bed did not go away.

Roy crossed the room slowly and looked down at him. “Edward?” It took a moment to dredge up an appropriate remark. “Was there a notice from That Author that I somehow missed?”

Edward’s voice was low and clear. “We’re off script. You know that. Forget the excuses.” He unfolded himself to kneel upright, took Roy’s face between his hands, kissed him. There was strangeness in the kiss, utterly focused yet somehow not demanding anything at all.

Edward let him go, caught up his hands, kissed them as well.

“Edward?” Roy was entirely bemused.

Ed took Roy’s fingers in his mouth, one by one, tasting them, sucking lightly on the fingertips. He turned Roy’s hands over, and Roy felt his tongue moving across the palms. Roy’s breath started to get uneven.

When Edward looked up his mouth was very serious, and there was an entreaty in the gold eyes at odds with his evident aggressiveness. He pulled gently on Roy’s wrists until Roy sat on the bed beside him.

Edward straddled his legs and undid Roy’s shirt, paying great attention to each button, and brushed it off his shoulders. He leaned into Roy, and Roy, now very curious, in a slightly light-headed way, to see where this was going, let Edward press him down.

Edward’s head bowed over Roy’s chest, and Roy sighed a bit under the open-mouthed kisses and gentle nips that tracked down his body. Edward undid the button at Roy’s waist and paused. Roy looked down just in time to catch Ed’s wicked smile before he took Roy’s zipper in his teeth to pull it down.

The heat of his mouth so close pulled a harsh breath from Roy.

The last of the clothing dispensed with, Edward stroked the inside of Roy’s knee, and Roy, after a thoughtful moment, opened his legs for him. Edward bent over him and took Roy’s cock in his mouth, toying with him as he had with Roy’s hands earlier.

Roy sank down into the heat with a moan.

Before too long, though, Edward drew back and stretched himself beside Roy, pressing more of those strange kisses to his neck. At some point in the proceedings he’d managed to get off the rest of his own clothes. Roy was impressed.

“Taisa.”

“Mmm?”

“Roy.”

The intensity of Ed’s voice pulled Roy’s eyes open. Edward’s fingers brushed his lips.

“…what do you want?”

Roy knew, looking in Edward’s eyes, that whatever he wanted Edward would do tonight. That this was the point of the apparent seduction. That was the strangeness in his kisses. A gift Ed had chosen to give him.

Anything he wanted. What did he want?

Well… the way Edward had been going had a certain appeal. It had been a long time, certainly, but it was something he’d enjoyed in the right mood.

Roy laughed, and pulled Edward into his arms. “I want to feel the touch of another human being. Everywhere.”

It took Edward a moment to unravel that, and then he stiffened, staring down at Roy. “You really…?”

Roy smiled lazily up at him. “Yes.”

He half expected to see that spark of challenge that sometimes lit Edward’s eye around him, but the serious intentness never flickered. Roy’s own expression softened. “Edward,” he whispered, drawing a thumb over Edward’s lower lip. His voice deepened.

“Kiss me.”

Ed shivered and came to him.

After a few breathless minutes, he glanced over at the nightstand and then back at Roy. “Where?”

“Second drawer.”

“What,” Edward muttered, rummaging, “not the first?”

Roy chuckled. “I never expected to have you in this bed, Impatience.”

Ed, leaning back over him, offered a sly smile. “Are you now?” he breathed against Roy’s mouth.

“Ask me again after,” Roy replied, just as soft.

Edward knelt between Roy’s legs and reached under him.

“Mmmmm.”

Roy lay back as warmth rippled out from Edward’s slow fingers. It took a little while for him to relax, but Edward, possibly from his own nervousness, didn’t rush. His touch was remarkably gentle, and Roy spread his legs wider to encourage him.

And then he felt something cool, hard. It took a shocked second to identify it.

The fingers of Edward’s right hand.

Roy arched up off the bed as they pressed into him, an icy tingle shooting down his nerves. “Ha…! … Ed…” The heat of Ed’s mouth closed over his cock again, and the contrast drowned his senses. “Ed…”

Finally Edward drew back for a moment, laying a hand on Roy’s chest. “Taisa?”

Roy’s voice came from deep in his chest. “Oh yes.”

Ed’s eyes burned, and Roy suspected they only reflected his own.

Edward shifted and his cock pressed against Roy, and Roy’s hands closed hard on the sheets. Slowly, slowly warmth and hardness pushed in, and he could hear Edward’s breath hissing through clenched teeth, and then the strange moment of release and capture, and Edward gasped.

Sliding heat. Roy stretched back with a long breath, disconnected shivers dancing over him. He opened his eyes and smiled, because Edward’s expression was that of someone who had just completed a complex calculation to his satisfaction.

The calculation was apparently one of angles and forces, because Edward shifted inside him and fire plunged up Roy’s spine. Ed’s hand wrapped around him, and Roy shuddered.

Ed’s touches were slick and hard, and Roy let himself stretch open into them, let them fire his body, let them drive him beyond himself and release him into surging brilliance.

As he caught his breath again afterward Roy pulled Edward down to him before he collapsed. They lay, legs tangled, pressed against each other.

“Was there any particular reason for this?” Roy asked at last.

Ed shrugged one shoulder, glancing up from Roy’s chest. It seemed that however their lovemaking went that was Edward’s favored pillow after. “I said that I would fly for you,” he answered slowly, “but it wasn’t… enough. For what you’re doing. For what you’ve given. It wasn’t enough.” He tucked his chin down. “You said I might understand later. Maybe it’s later.”

Roy remembered his words to Edward one especially bad-tempered day in his office. “My hawk…” When Edward looked up Roy kissed him as if he meant to inhale Edward’s breath and soul.

“Thank you, Edward, for a magnificent gift,” he whispered.

If Edward saw the gleam of wetness in Roy’s eyes before he turned his face into Edward’s hair he gave no indication of it then or later.

End

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Branch: *fans self* Wow! Maybe we should try that another time, hey guys?

Roy: *insufferably smug*

Ed: *panting* You’ve got to be joking! He’s twice as demanding like this!

Branch: *wheedling* Ah, come on, Ed, wasn’t it fun?

Ed: *grumpy* Well, yes, I suppose. Maybe.

Roy: So, Edward-kun, what do you think? Did I have you?

Ed: *pointedly not answering*