Chapter Text
january.
Their bliss cannot last.
It’s two weeks into new year and a cold and windy day in New York City, made even poorer by the sudden shift from moving from the West Coast all the way back to the East Coast.
The entire team has been in a foul mood all day and Roy would have blamed it on the weather, if it weren’t for the particularly pinched expression on Riza’s face. He knows he is in for a dressing down before they even climb out of the car.
The elevator ride up to their hotel rooms is silent, Riza primly holding her briefcase in front of her, her fringe slightly-windswept but otherwise looking immaculate in her pinstripe costume.
He wonders what he did this time, whether he was overly familiar with someone’s wife, whether he made an ill-timed joke or mispronounced some foreign name, but speculation will do him little good. Most of the time, preparing arguments to plead his case will only make everything worse, so the better option is just to bite his tongue and nod along to whatever she says.
She follows him to his room without comment, lets him unlock it and then steps inside first, waiting for him to properly close the door. Then she sets down her briefcase and turns around to face him.
“Senator Hohenheim’s son, Roy?” she asks plainly, and that is so completely unexpected that Roy chokes on his own spit and has to cough for a couple of seconds.
Riza just watches him coolly, obviously quite alright with letting him die like this, if only to save herself the trouble.
“I-” Roy begins when he catches himself, briefly contemplating whether he should try to talk his way out of this. But Riza Hawkeye knows all his tells and, even worse, she knows better than to make baseless accusations.
“How did you find out?” he asks instead, his shoulders slumping.
“You have a photo on your phone,” she says. “And you left the app open. How utterly careless can you be?”
“That is my private phone,” Roy points out. “You had no right to look through it.”
“I’m not just talking about the phone, Roy,” she says and now she is beginning to pace up and down, which is always a bad sign.
“I knew you were seeing someone,” she says and, absurdly, Roy cannot help but compare her tone to that of a jilted wife. “I just appreciated you keeping it quiet. God knows I cannot expect you to completely give up your personal life. But this, Roy? This? I just don't understand you.”
“That’s right,” Roy says. “You don’t understand.”
“Openly bisexual,” she continues, shaking her head. Single strands are coming loose from her sensible updo, brushing against her cheeks. “We thought that would give you a leg-up from the liberals and the younger generations. We thought it might make you an icon for the LGBT community. And now? This stunt is sure to get you labeled as promiscuous at best, and a pedophile at worst.”
“He was already twenty-two when we-”
“As soon as you have to use that argument to defend yourself, you have already lost.” She stops, lifts up her hand, thumb and forefinger held only an inch apart. “We were this close to the White House.”
“We still are,” Roy tries to assure her. “You are making a big deal out of nothing. Edward and I have been very careful. He doesn't want this getting out any more than I do.”
“I just cannot believe you're endangering our campaign like this,” she tells him. “And for what – the occasional fuck on the side?”
Hearing Riza swear is rare. So, somehow, it feels even more jarring to have her demean his relationship with Edward like this.
“Please,” Roy says, lifting a cautious hand. “Don't call it that.”
“What,” she demands. “Are you telling me that you are not fucking him in-between important political appearances?”
“It’s rather more complicated than that.”
“Roy,” Riza insists. “Our sponsors might drop you if they find out you’ve been using their money to play sugar daddy to some barely legal boy toy.”
“First of all, I only ever used my own money and I get to spend it however I want to,” Roy says. His nerves are frayed by now and his patience right along with them. “Second of all, he is not my boytoy.”
“But that is what all the media outlets will be labeling him as, once they get wind of this.” She braces her hands against her hips, staring him down. “How long has this been going on? You first met him in Chicago, right? At the, what was it, prostate cancer thing?”
“Brain tumor patient charity gala,” Roy corrects her.
“Right, brains,” she hums. “Not prostates and penises and too much testosterone.”
“Riza,” he says, pained, closing his eyes so he won’t have to see her disappointment quite so blatantly. “Do you really think so little of me?”
For a long moment, there is silence.
“Roy Mustang, I want you to be completely honest with me now, or else I am going to walk out of this room and never come back,” Riza says, her tone leaving no room for doubt. “Do you love him?”
Roy trembles.
“Yes,” he says. “God help me, but yes, I do. And I know you think he is too young, but he loves me, too, and I believe him, I have no choice but to believe him, and I have never been happier than when he is with me.”
Another pause, this one a little less severe.
“Does anyone else know?” Riza asks.
“His brother,” Roy says, rubbing a hand over his face. “He can be trusted.”
“What about the senator?”
He shakes his head. “They are not particularly close.”
“Will he get disowned over this?”
“I doubt it.”
“Roy, if anyone ill-intentioned makes this public, you better expect the nastiest shitstorm that has ever come your way, and then you can kiss a future in the White House goodbye,” she explains. “Not to mention which consequences he might be faced with. Is he even out yet?”
“To most of his friends, I think. Though…”
“Though what?” Riza asks sharply.
“There was never anyone before me.”
“You are telling me you didn’t just fuck Senator Hohenheim’s son, you actually deflowered him?” she ascertains, her perfectly plucked eyebrows disappearing underneath her fringe. “I am beginning to think the Republican press might not be too far off when it comes to their defamation attempts.”
“If you are quite done with flagellating me, could we please move on to the part of your job where you tell me what the best course of action is?”
“Ideally, I would travel back in time to castrate you before you ever even met that boy,” Riza says tersely. “Or, I would tell you to break up with him before any actual damage is done. However,” she adds, stopping his protests with a raised finger. “I know you would violently object to that.”
She gives a huge sigh, the weight of the world or at least that of Roy Mustang’s follies settled on her shoulders.
“So,” she adds, “I will advise you to be less reckless when meeting with him. To treat him like the prince he is, without unduly spoiling him in a manner that can be held against you. In the meanwhile, I will come up with a plan to turn this into something less dangerous.”
“Riza,” Roy says, “You are an angel.”
“Turning into Lucifer, maybe,” she mutters under her breath. “I will be expecting a raise, just so you know.”
“Anything for my game-winning Queen.”
“Edward,” he says later that evening, holding his phone at an awkward angle because they have a Facetime date but his arms are tired. “Riza found out.”
At once, Edward blanches.
“Oh God,” he says. “How- What- Is everything okay?”
“Relatively speaking, yes,” Roy admits. “She just put me over her knee, so to speak, and told me in great detail what a tremendous idiot I am and that I am risking our entire campaign.”
Edward says nothing in response, his lips pursing, and Roy realizes how he must have sounded.
“Hey,” he says, more gently. “That has nothing to do with you. She would have reacted like that in any case.”
“Roy, I am well aware that I am not the best choice for a discreet liaison, especially not for someone in your position,” Edward says. “I know I am too young and my father’s son to boot, but don’t act as if this were even half as much of a problem if I were a woman.”
It wouldn’t be. There had been enough politicians and even presidents with much larger age differences to their spouses, or with some other questionable relations.
But Edward is a boy, a very pretty boy from an influential family, and those who didn’t know him would call Edward naive and Roy manipulative.
“Your birthday is next week,” Roy points out, not quite a change of topic.
“I know,” Edward says. He looks like he is forcibly trying to smooth out the frown lines on his face; it doesn’t quite work.
“Anything in particular you want?” Roy asks. “I could bring you a souvenir from New York.”
“A dick in a box,” Ed says. “And by ‘a dick’ I mean yours, and by ‘a box’ I mean my ass.”
Roy gives a laugh, a little weak, but still liberating. Somehow, Edward manages to be both high-maintenance and low-maintenance at the same time, and it never fails to amuse Roy.
“I think that can be arranged,” he says. “I’ll be back on the 18th.”
“Then I politely request that you fuck me into the 19th. I can take my morning classes off. We can do brunch or some such shit.”
“No fancy dinner?”
Edward’s grin falls a bit.
“Ling got it in his head to throw me a party,” he says. “Or, well, just kinda pizza and movies at his place, I guess. I can’t really bail out.”
“That’s alright,” Roy replies. He tries to tell himself that a college party is not his idea of a fun evening anyway, that he does not want to meet any of Edward’s friends. “After all, I have the honor of fucking you into your twenty-third birthday.”
february.
Roy flies out to a debate in Texas and it wouldn’t be much of a problem, apart from it being, well, Texas where Democrats already have a notoriously bad track record. But then he gets out of his coat and unwinds the scarf from around his neck, and Kain gives a mortified yelp.
No one really pays it any heed, because Kain has a habit of walking into tables or biting his tongue when he is not even talking, but then he keeps flailing and starts tugging at Riza’s sleeve.
Riza, slightly more alarmed now, follows his stare – only for her eyes to widen as well.
She gasps and, without saying anything, she is pushes Roy down into one of the chairs, tugging at his collar.
“What?” Roy demands, resisting the urge to elbow her out of his personal space. “What on earth is hap-”
“Hickey,” Riza growls. “You have a hickey the size of Canada and, if it would help, I would cut off your head. I told you to be careful! Vato! Handbag!”
Vato jumps into action, tossing over her handbag before anyone else has even really registered her words, and then she is digging out a case of powder and a tube of bb cream.
She holds it up to Roy’s neck, curses, more of a hiss really.
“Too dark,” she says, probably comparing it to Roy’s skin tone. “Kain! There was a CVS down the road. Go and buy some of the lightest foundation you can find. Ivory or nude. Try it out on your wrist. And a green concealer.”
“What is foundation?” Kain whispers, panicked, but the other men just stare at him just as helplessly, and so he just runs for the door.
“How much time do we have?” Riza demands.
“Five minutes,” Heymans says, checking his watch.
“I have some powder in my briefcase?” Roy offers hesitantly. He hated when he saw pictures of himself online where he had an oily sheen.
But Riza just glares.
“A bit of powder is not going to hide the fact that forty percent of your neck is purple,” she points out.
“We could say you almost got mauled by a cougar,” Jean says in an attempt to lighten the mood.
“Nah, the lobbyists are just going to use that as a pro-gun argument,” Heymans points out and the corners of Jean’s mouth pull down.
“Cougar, my ass,” Riza mutters, just loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Ooh,” Heymans says with a grin. “Younger than you, chief?”
“I don’t see how that is relevant,” Roy says, slightly strangled, though he does blame it on how Riza is still half-choking him with his shirt collar.
“Or maybe not a woman,” Jean throws out.
“Maybe both,” Heymans adds, and the two of them laugh, only to stop very quickly when they see the dour look on Roy’s and Riza’s faces.
“Oh shit,” Jean says. “Seriously?”
“You got balls, chief,” Heymans chuckles, though now he looks a bit uneasy as well. They all know that they are always walking on a minefield; Roy has simply been doing the equivalent of an enthusiastic tapdance.
“We have no time for this,” Riza says impatiently and simply begins to slather a liberal amount of bb cream onto Roy’s neck. “Vato! Briefcase!”
Vato delivers and sets Roy’s mineral powder right into her open palm. She applies it, too, blending and blending, and then pimping Roy’s collar and tightening his tie to near suffocation.
“Do not sweat!” she tells him, and Roy nods frantically. He is much more likely to piss himself anyway.
“I’m sorry,” Edward whispers on the phone that night.
Roy has his tablet propped up against his thighs, scrolling through the headlines. He hums, clicks on a particularly outrageously phrased link and grimaces at the HD picture of his neck that immediately pops up.
“I should have known better,” Edward says. He must have seen the news, too, and without a Riza to save him the trouble, he must have already scolded himself for his carelessness.
“I didn’t exactly stop you either,” Roy notes mildly. He knows Edward has a penchant for biting, but usually it was Roy’s thighs that got all bruised up, a compromise they had agreed on months ago. But their evening together had been good and heady and they had lost track of their usual boundaries.
“The good news is,” Roy adds, “That absolutely no one suspects you,”
The most popular theory was that Roy had been given the hickey by Solaris, wife of his Democratic rival Aharon Shram, as people seemed to misinterpret her glaring daggers at him as violent passion. Rather more down-to-earth, if still untrue, was the speculation that he and Riza had been a thing all along.
They would make such a beautiful couple, a more benevolent article argued. Granddaughter of Maryland’s governor Charles Grumman, with a militaristic yet secular upbringing, she was as smart as she was beautiful, and a man like Roy Mustang needed a strong woman like her by his side.
What would they write about Edward, he wonders? Would they point out how he is fluent in four languages and has been doing martial arts since he was nine? Would they mention his love for children and animals, his hatred for milk and his fear of needles? Would they know that Edward had to grow up too quickly for too many reasons, but that he jumps into puddles like a little kid whenever he gets the chance?
It’s not about how good we look on paper, Roy muses. It is about how much we love.
“I’m going to tell the rest of my team,” he reveals. “I thought I could avoid it, but it’s just as well. Kain can monitor our electronic exchanges and make sure our security is up to his standards. And Vato will be prepared for any legal accusations that might come our way.”
“This is a big ol’ mess, isn’t it?” Edward asks and he sounds more dejected than Roy has ever heard him.
The truth, however, is that he is right.
It’s a mess and there is very little Roy can do about it. His rivals and the media outlets had made allegations about him having a secret affair way before he even met Edward; now they have confirmation, and they wouldn’t stop talking about it any time soon. Each aspect of his life would be scrutinized and, for the first time in his life, Roy understands why so many people in the public eye chose to live in gated communities.
“We’ll muddle through,” he says, hoping to sound if not optimistic then at least confident.
march.
Since the team found out, Jean has been volunteering to pick Edward up from inconspicuous places to drive him over to Roy’s apartment. The car windows are tinted, but Edward has to lie down in the backseat, just to make extra sure that no one spots him.
Edward laughs it off as a minor inconvenience and points out how Jean is at least a better driver than Roy, but Roy cannot help the queasy feeling that sits in his stomach each time.
Jean, in turn, is bemused by Edward’s quirkiness and his foul mouth, but they both bond over being Iowa country bumpkins.
“I get it, I think,” Jean says, after Edward has swept into the apartment, kicked off his boots, pulled Roy down for a kiss, and disappeared in the bathroom because ‘Oh my God, I need to piss like a horse!’ “He makes no demands, huh?”
That’s not quite it, though Roy makes no attempts to try and explain it. Edward Elric makes plenty of demands, and many of them are met easily enough. Then there are the others, quite a bit more difficult, demanding that Roy grow into the best that he can be, that he make good of his promise to change the world for the better.
But the other demands, the ones that Jean means, the ones for status or marriage or monetary compensation, those have never entered the equation.
Ed wants food when Roy is hungry, sleep when he is tired, orgasms when he is horny. Complacent, someone who doesn’t know him might call it, but the truth is that they are just beautifully in tune.
Edward will take what Roy can give, however much or little there is to be had. He also knows when Roy is being a little shit and making mountains out of molehills.
“So here’s the thing,” Edward begins one day and his tone of voice immediately has Roy’s guard up.
“What?” he asks.
“Winry is coming up for spring break and she is staying at our place, obviously, because she and Al are dating now and all that, so she is kinda bound to notice that I am also seeing someone.”
“Yes?”
“So, considering Al is my little brother, and Winry is like a sister, I figured maybe we could tell her, too?”
Roy pulls a grimace. “Riza doesn’t like too many people knowing.”
“Oh, come on,” Ed groans. “Just last month, you told your entire fucking team.”
“Yes, because I know they are trustworthy.”
Edward gapes.
“Roy Mustang,” he begins in a voice that would put Aunt Chris to shame. “Are you telling me your ragtag little gang of mathletes is more trustworthy than the girl I have known my entire life and whose grandmother has literally helped give birth to me?”
“How do you know we were all mathletes?” Roy demands, shocked.
“It’s in the trivia section of your Wikipedia page!”
“Are you stalking me?”
Edward’s face does something very complicated where it switches between different degrees of outrage, but finally he just settles for bodily throwing himself onto Roy and tackling him down onto the bed.
They wrestle around for a few moments, none too gentle because they know the other can take it, but eventually Edward comes out on top, sitting astride Roy’s lap, bracing his hands on his chest.
“So?” he asks. His braid has come loose and his hair falls around him like a golden swatch.
“So what?” Roy counters.
“Can I tell her?”
“Yes, you can tell her,” Roy sighs. “I’ll even do you one better.”
“How?”
“I’ll personally come to meet her.”
Alphonse goes to pick Winry up from the airport, while Edward busts out some fancy strawberry tarts he bought at a nearby patisserie and Roy helps by setting the table.
The Elrics’ apartment is, in no way, the typical dive of penniless college students, but their dining table is a little rickety, their dishes a bit chipped, and Roy always feels strangely at home.
It is, he realizes with some trepidation, the first official date he and Edward have in front of other people. Alphonse has seen them, every now and then, but he usually leaves them alone, obviously not wanting to intrude on their rare time together. Jean is acting more as a chauffeur than a friend, and he only ever catches glimpses of Roy and Edward saying hello or, more bittersweet, bidding each other goodbye.
Today, the two people who know Edward best are going to have to accept a third into their fold and that is, in its own way, more intimidating than stepping up to the podium in a presidential debate.
In that moment, the key in the front-door lock jiggles and both Edward and Roy hold their breath, exchanging a quick look. The door opens and in waddles a rather broad-shouldered blonde girl that Roy has only seen on photographs so far. Her eyes, however, are obscured by Al’s hand as he marches her forward and into the room, kicking the door shut behind himself.
“Al, this is ridiculous,” she complains, though she makes no move to dislodge his hands, tightly holding on to her duffle bag.
“Brother,” Alphonse whines. “I haven’t told her yet.”
“What?!” Edward yelps, arms flailing. “Why?!”
“Because I wanted to lead up to it slowly so she wouldn’t make me crash the car.”
“Hey!” Winry complains, elbowing him, but gently.
“I tried to mentally prepare her so I told her you were seeing an older Asian American man whom she might have seen on T.V.,” Alphonse explains haltingly. “But now she is convinced you are dating John Cho.”
“I did consider going into acting when I was sixteen,” Roy confesses, nervously adjusting the placement of one of the teacups. “But my aunt told me I was too short and that I should rather become a despot.”
“Wait,” Winry says slowly, her nose scrunching up under Al’s fingers. “I know that voice…”
And finally, Alphonse sighs and lowers his hands while Roy puts on his most debonair smile.
Winry stares, the duffle bag falling from her grip with a low thud.
“Oh my God,” she says. “You’re Roy Mustang.”
“And you are Winry Rockbell,” he offers. “Curious how we already know so much about each other, isn’t it?”
Yet Winry is still staring.
“I would assume this is a prank, if I didn’t think that you probably have no time for anything like that,” she says, her voice hollow. “So does that mean… this is for real?”
“Yes, Win,” Edward says. Roy would have expected him to be gleeful and giddy, but instead he is just weakly leaning against the kitchen counter. “It’s for real.”
Winry throws him a look that says she would probably give him a dressing-down quite similar to the one Roy had received at Riza’s hands, but that she would save it for later, when they were more alone. She’s only a week older than Edward, Roy remembers. Practically twins, and there is so much of an older sister in her stance that it would be endearing if the circumstances weren’t quite so tense.
But still, they have tea and make smalltalk, the brothers inquiring about Winry’s studies and the job offers that have been flung her way. She is an engineering major at the University of Iowa and apparently quite the prodigy in her field. Like Edward, she will graduate in only a few weeks but finds herself inhibited by not wanting to leave her aging grandmother alone.
Their conversation turns toward Edward’s graduation, which had luckily been scheduled for the week after hers, and to the fact that Roy will be holding the commencement speech.
“Isn’t it weird?” Winry asks, sucking a bit of cream from her spoon. “Him being so much older and maybe the future president?”
“Isn’t it weird?” Edward counters, vindictively spearing a strawberry with his fork. “Al and you having grown up like siblings and now sucking face whenever you get the chance?”
“I regret the day you were born, Edward Elric,” she tells him but with that the topic seems to be laid to rest for the time being.
Afterwards, Al and her offer to do the dishes together, standing by the sink, kissing and giggling and oblivious of the world around them. Later, they will go to the art exhibition of one of Al’s friends and then eat out, a proper date, with selfies and held hands and no fear of being spotted by paparazzi.
“Do you think we look like that?” Roy muses from their spot on the couch, his arm slung around Edward’s waist. “So oblivious and in love?”
“I dunno,” Ed hums, apparently not quite comfortable yet with having to witness his brother and his foster sister be all lovey-dovey with each other. “No one ever really sees us.”
A breath lodges itself in Roy’s throat, quite painfully, even though he knows Edward didn’t mean anything with his throwaway comment. So he just pulls him closer, into his side, and buries his face in Edward’s thick hair and the familiar scent of his shampoo.
They are sitting in bed and it is still quite early, but Roy has an appearance on a morning show tomorrow, so he knows better than to stay up too late.
Four weeks until the primaries and he feels it in every fiber of his being. By this point, he cannot afford any more slip-ups, none at all, as Riza had drilled into him again and again. If anything, false security would be his downfall.
The Hickey Affair, as the tabloids had taken to calling the incident in Dallas, had been a bit of a set-back, but he is still the most popular candidate, next to Aharon Shram. Shram is tall, handsome, eloquent and highly devout, if Jewish Orthodox. He has a stellar record from Columbia University where he had met his equally impressive wife Solaris who would doubtlessly make a fine First Lady. New York, in particular, loves them.
According to the polls, Mustang and Shram are currently going neck and neck, something that has inspired more than just one journalist to use obscure horse race metaphors.
“What are you doing?” Edward asks, sticking his head through underneath Roy’s arm like a curious cat, peering down at the small laptop.
“Writing my commencement speech,” Roy says, barely suppressing a yawn as he angles the screen toward him.
Edward blinks. “You write your speeches yourself?”
“Not all of them,” Roy admits. “That'd be too much. Do you know how many events I have to attend? But the big ones, the important ones, I try to do myself, depending on the occasion.”
“You better write something good,” Edward tells him. “The ceremony is gonna take hours and it’s gonna be boring as fuck, for the most part.”
“And what constitutes ‘something good’?” Roy asks, amused.
“I want to hear at least one dick joke,” Edward decides. “More, if you are feeling frisky.”
Roy chuckles. By summer, he might already be the official candidate for the Democratic party. Frank Archer, the Republican favorite, only has a few years on Roy, and he is slick and smooth like Kimblee, yet with none of Roy’s easy charm. But Harvard’s graduation would be live streamed and recorded, and Roy could use the opportunity to engage with younger people, many of whom would be voting for the first time. A bit of juvenile humor might just do the trick.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he promises Edward, typing DICK JOKE??? into his notes in the margins. Maybe Breda could help him with that, too.
april.
I voted for you! Edward texts him the day of the primaries, right along with a photograph of a self-made ballot, obnoxiously drawn with crayons
I vote Mustank! it reads and, A vote for Mustang is a vote for Mustang! , right beside a poorly drawn version of Roy with the head of a horse.
Edward knows better than to desecrate his real ballot like this, or to make photographs of it. Due to his preparations for his finals, he had also already done an absentee vote a few days prior.
Now, it’s nerve-wracking hours of waiting and Roy going over his victory speech and, alternatively, the interview answers that paint him as a graceful loser.
“You want a beer, chief?” Heymans asks, offering Roy a cooled Budweiser, a sandwich in his other hand.
“If I consume anything but air right now, I think I might throw up,” Roy tells him honestly, and Heymans barks out a laugh.
“You texting with Aurum, then?” he asks, more quietly. Aurum, the code name they had given Edward because they couldn’t use his name openly, and because Roy was Platinum and gold stood next to it on the periodic table.
“Yes,” Roy says, inclining his head. His fingers clench around the phone but its screen darkens. “Though I should probably focus on the job.”
“Nothing much to do right now,” Heymans shrugs. “I saw Armstrong skulking around outside, though.”
Roy blanches. “The governor?”
“Of course not,” Heymans rolls his eyes. “Little Armstrong. Or, well, y’know what I mean.”
Olivier Mira Armstrong, Governor of Alaska, is a force to be reckoned with, and Roy would rather pull out his own toenails than make nice with her right now when his nerves are already so frayed. Her younger brother, Alexander Louis Armstrong, however, is a dear friend.
Much less ambitious and vicious than his sister, Alex had been an ardent supporter of Roy’s, the first big sponsor of his career. The Armstrongs are an old family, and there is money and influence behind their name.
“Bring him in then,” Roy tells Heymans. If nothing else, Alex is always good for a laugh, if a little intense at times.
He glances back down at his phone, pulls up the ballot Edward drew for him. He contemplates what he could say in response, something equally witty that will have Edward guffaw with laughter where he is sitting in the library, hunched over his books. But then Heymans is already back with Armstrong in tow, and Roy has to slip his phone away.
“Alex,” Roy says, moving toward him, even though he immediately feels dwarfed by the much larger man. “So good to see you. I didn’t know you had flown in.”
“I am mostly here to express my well-wishes in person,” Alex tells him, squeezing Roy’s hand in his, surprisingly gentle as always. “And to deliver my sister’s greetings and promises of her continued support, no matter the outcome of the election.”
“Really?” Roy asks, his eyebrow twitching, because that does not sound like the Olivier Armstrong who has repeatedly threatened to run him through with one of her many ceremonial swords.
“Well,” Alex amends. “She didn’t say it in quite so many words.”
Roy chuckles. “I figured. In any case, I am happy to have you here. Any words from outside?”
“Nothing new, really,” Alex says. “Shram is too radical for the middle, and you are too unconventional for the right. They keep asking whether Riza will take on the duties of the First Lady, should you get elected.”
“Oh please,” Roy says in disdain. “It’s not as if I were the first unmarried candidate – or even the first unmarried man in the Oval Office.”
“True,” Alex allows. “But the people like seeing a man who knows what he wants in life, who won’t be swayed by temptations on the wayside.”
I know who I want, Roy thinks but bites his tongue against it.
“A divorce always looks worse than bachelorhood,” he points out instead. “For now, I can fully concentrate on the campaign and then, hopefully, on the job. It wouldn’t be fair to bring a spouse into this and have them take a backseat from the beginning.”
“Of course, Roy, and I understand you completely,” Alex agrees. “But I have known you since you were twenty-two years old and never have I seen you do anything out of pure indulgence. You don’t eat or drink in excess. You don’t read books without educational value, and you dance at parties only to get into the good graces of whoever’s toes you are not stepping on.”
Oh, Roy had drunk in excess, right after Maes’ death, but Riza had pulled him out of that funk rather quickly and set him back on his path to the White House.
The memory is a bitter reminder, heavy on Roy’s tongue like the taste of whiskey.
“No rest for the wicked,” he tells Alex and grabs a Budweiser after all.
When the final results are in and the announcement made, Roy walks onto the stage mechanically, waves mechanically, smiles mechanically, shakes Shram’s hand mechanically.
He steps behind the podium, adjusts the microphone, slips his cue cards from his jacket. In front of him stands a sea of blue, loud and roaring, t-shirts with his name on it, little flags, balloons. Green Day’s American Idiot is blasting from the speakers because Roy is a millennial and Heymans thought it would be funny to pick it as his official theme song.
“Well, maybe I’m the faggot America!” Billie Joe Armstrong shouts. “I’m not part of a redneck agenda!”
And then the music fades and Roy puts on a congenial smile, waiting for the bulk of the cheers to calm as well.
“And here we are,” he says. “Weeks and months later. It has been a long journey, one that is not yet over. I am a man of the law, but I am also a man of science. Recently, I was reintroduced to the concept of alchemy.”
A few scattered laughs, from those who know what alchemy is and that it can be considered bonkers.
“Alchemy. The belief that, with the right ingredients and a certain amount of dedication, you can turn anything into gold. Apart from the fact that anything like that would quickly lead to a kind of inflation, I think there is some merit to it, at least on a metaphorical level.”
He pauses, lets the words sink in. Sometimes, it is difficult to remember that the majority of his audience is not just fellow Harvard graduates, but that he is always addressing the average American.
“In order to obtain or create something, something of equal value must be lost, destroyed or traded,” he explains. “That is the rule of equivalent exchange. I believe that what the people do for the country ought to be returned by the country. By the government, by the politicians, by me.”
He places his hands on the sides of the podium, braces his weight on it, leans closer to the microphone.
“You are more than the top one percent! You invest taxes and labor and your children’s future into our great nation! You deserve to be repaid in equal measure!”
Cheers and cries of agreement. The little flags wave happily. Somewhere, a balloon pops.
“A vote for Mustang is a vote for Mustang!” Roy tells them, stills, laughs at his own little mishap. “And a vote for Mustang,” he corrects, “Is a vote for equality in all things!”
The crowd applauds and chants his name, and Roy knows he has to put his money where his mouth is.
There is champagne which tastes quite awful, sharp perfumes that sting his nose as he kisses cheeks, smiles that are whittled into ivory daggers when his gaze is met. Piranhas, the lot of them, just waiting for him to fall into the water.
But Roy talks and smiles and smiles and talks and pretends that he has never been in a better mood.
It’s only toward the end of the night that Aharon Shram apprehends him again.
To Roy, he has always seemed like a stoic man but, according to rumors, he has a tendency to fly into fits of rage. Now, though, he seems very calm.
“I wanted to congratulate you on your win,” Shram says, shaking his hand again, this time without the oppressive glare of the cameras on them. “And promise to support you in the rest of your campaign.”
‘Anything but Archer’ had been the catchphrase among Democrats these past months, and Shram quite obviously shares the sentiment.
“You seem to be taking your loss quite well,” Roy notes, honestly somewhat surprised. He hadn’t expected Shram to be a sore loser, but his lack of reaction is almost disconcerting
“I am,” Shram agrees. “I simply realized I ought to concentrate on my family anyway.”
He glances over at his wife who is talking to some other party members, lowers his voice a little. “We just found out that Solaris is pregnant. She had two miscarriages before; I was worried the stress of the next months would be too much for her.”
The downside of having an election made up entirely of young candidates - none of them are quite done with their family planning yet. Frank Archer has to two daughters, but even those are under six years old.
“I that case, I wish you the best of luck,” Roy smiles. “And who knows, perhaps, in four years, we’ll be facing off against each other again.”
“Perhaps,” Shram nods. “Time flies, after all.
Time, Roy thinks numbly as he sits in the dark of his hotel room. A little more time would have been nice. Time for Edward to grow older, time for them to become more certain of each other, time to announce their relationship to the public.
He hadn’t hoped to lose the primaries but, perhaps, it wouldn’t have been too bad. A minor setback, four years, eight, before he got another shot. Over forty by then, a good age to become president. A good age to settle down. And, he reminds himself, the White House has never had a First Gentlemen.
But that is not where tonight has led him.
He could drag it out, of course, wait to see whether he even ended up as president at all. But that, he knows, wouldn’t be fair. He cannot expect Edward to sit on the backburner, to become a consolation prize in case Roy’s immediate plans don’t work out.
He’ll end it quickly, quietly, he thinks.
Not right now, because Edward is writing his finals, his true finals, and cannot afford any distractions. Not on Commencement Day either, because that would just ruin Ed’s graduation, and Roy does not want to hold his speech with tears stuck in his throat.
June perhaps, when Edward would be moving up in the world and realizing that mooning over a man who aims for the stars and stripes is a waste of his time.
June, he promises himself. Eleven months since their first meeting. A year is nothing, in the grand scheme of things. And Edward is young. A decade from now, he will look back and laugh at it all, maybe write his memoirs about having been blown by President Mustang.
I knew you would win but I am still stupidly proud of you, reads the message that Roy still hasn’t answered. Once you get back, I’ll reward you accordingly. ;)
Roy pulls the comforter over his head and forces himself to fall asleep.
may.
The campus is just as Roy remembers it. He has been here often enough since his own graduation, but he still cannot shake off the nostalgia clinging to his every step.
The sea of black and red regalia filling up Tercentenary Theater looks just like it does every year, just that the banners read Class of ‘28 this time around.
“Congratulations on your win in the primaries,” Edward says and shakes his hand, as though they had not had a celebratory fuck as soon as Roy had been back in Boston. “My father is in attendance today; if you have the time, I am sure he’d like to congratulate you in person.”
Roy knows he should have anticipated the possibility that Edward, thanks to his GPA and overall achievements, would be valedictorian and therefore seated on the stage as well, but it still takes a considerable amount of effort to keep his face in check and his eyes to himself.
No one should look this damn attractive in a set of baggy robes but Edward Elric somehow manages to pull it off anyway.
Edward, in turn, seems to be thinking similar things of Roy, if the way he eyes him hungrily is anything to go by.
“Wonderful!” Roy says with a winning smile. There’s an olive-skinned woman sitting next to Edward who had introduced herself as Rosé Thomas, one of his classmates. She’d perked up the moment Roy had needlessly introduced himself and is still avidly listening to their conversation.
“I’ll be glad to meet him,” Roy adds, his glance sliding back to Edward. “I think I haven’t seen him since that charity gala in Chicago.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Edward says slyly. “What a night that was.”
“Indeed,” Roy says, hoping that Miss Thomas can hear neither the furious thumping of his heart nor the hidden meaning in Edward’s words.
At length, the ceremony is officially opened and Roy’s speech is grandly announced to the audience. There’s a storm of applause as he stands up, walks to the podium and shakes the dean’s hand. He feels his cap slip on his head and pushes it back slightly; then he speaks.
“Veritas,” he begins somberly, letting his gaze sweep over the still eager crowd. He knows, from experience, that their attention would waver as the ordeal went on, so he plans to keep it short and sweet.
“When I first enrolled in Harvard, I was a bit disappointed,” he admits. “Other universities seemed to have better mottos, heftier words. Per aspera ad astra. Lux et Lex. Pro humanitate. - They all seemed so impressive and profound, a much better option for any ill-advised tattoos. Not to mention, they make you sound smart by throwing some hedge Latin around.”
He pauses, lets the polite laughs die down.
“Yet we only got this,” he continues. “Veritas. Truth. But what is truth if not the most powerful tool? It can be a weapon, disarming, cutting, brutal. It can be a pen, to write laws and love letters and little reminders to ourselves to do better. We raise young children to tell no lies and then scold them for their honesty.”
He had been lucky, in that regard. Aunt Chris had never minded his little lies, had respected his privacy and he, in turn, had paid her back by keeping no dire secrets and keeping his teenage rebellion to a minimum. I can trust you if you know to trust me, she had always said, and she had been right.
“Now, I’m not saying that little white lies are the root of all evil,” he admits. “Sometimes we lie about whether we really like someone’s dress. We lie about how our grandmother’s cooking tastes wonderful, and maybe we even lie about our shoe size on whatever dating app we use.”
There, that is as blatant a dick joke as he feels comfortable making. He hopes Edward will be satisfied with it.
“But truth is found in action and in speech, in promise and in deed,” Roy explains wisely. “We should strive for truth in all aspects of life. In science, education and research. In politics and business. In art and media. In all of our relationships.”
He bites the inside of his cheek, wonders whether, behind him, Edward is inwardly snickering at the irony of it all. Then he plows on.
“But if there is one person, we always ought to be honest with, it is oneself,” he knows. “Because the lies we tell ourselves are the ones that take root the deepest and are the hardest to escape from.”
Roy says all this and scolds himself a liar.
Roy had never thought that he might one day be faced with the decision of having to choose between his career and his personal life. But here he is, on this day, the opposing extremes of his desires finally clashing against each other.
People come and ask for autographs, for selfies, for a chance to shake his hand and plant their names in his memory, vague hopes of networking as one face blurs into the other in front of his eyes.
But Senator Hohenheim is there, as is Edward’s quasi-grandmother Doctor Pinako Rockbell. Alphonse and Winry greet Roy politely, as though they hadn’t seen him sneak kisses from Edward as they were doing the dishes just a couple of weeks ago.
After the initial congratulation on his win in the primaries, Roy subtly guides the conversation, letting them know that he does not wish to talk shop. They make idle smalltalk instead, discuss changes on the campus, the professors that have aged well, Edward’s own inspiring speech.
Edward’s other friends are there as well, and Roy does not let on that he recognizes Russel’s Irish accent or Ling’s teasing voice, just wishes them all the best for their future, praises their academic efforts.
“I’m melting in this thing,” Edward complains at length, tugging at his robes. Like Roy, he is wearing a suit underneath, and the weather is positively sweltering. “When can I take it off?”
“Not yet!” Winry exclaims, brandishing a sleek camera. “Photos first!”
Edward groans, but in a way that shows he doesn’t really mean it. So he poses with his friends and his family, in various combinations, and then Winry winks and says, “Hey, Ed, don’t you want a photo with the future president?”
Edward laughs and rolls his eyes at her, but Roy can tell he is secretly pleased, that he had waited for an excuse, that this is Winry’s way of showing her support in one of the few ways she can. What a sad thing to know that it would all go to waste.
“It would be my pleasure,” Roy says easily, even though it stings, because perhaps he is more selfish than he had thought.
“Well then,” Edward says. His cap sits roguishly tilted on his head and he gives a mock little curtsy with the robes.
Roy places his hand on Edward’s shoulder, enough space between them that no one will grow suspicious, and then they smile and smile and smile as Winry rapidly takes a number of pictures.
“Trisha would be so proud,” Roy hears Hohenheim say off to the side, a sad smile perched on his face as talks to Doctor Rockbell.
If only he knew, Roy thinks vaguely. If only he knew that I’ve been fucking his son this whole time.
“You’re quiet today,” Edward notes when the little photo session is over and everything grows a little calmer again, everyone talking in their little groups.
“I already held my speech, I’m out of words,” Roy claims. “Not to mention that it’s your day. I don’t want to steal the spotlight.”
“Pfff,” Edward blows out a breath and the little stubborn strand of hair that always sticks up on top of his head moves with it. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything.
Then-
“You promised me something, remember?”
Roy frowns, caught off guard. “I- am afraid I don’t.”
But Edward just grins up at him.
“You said you’d kiss me behind the bleachers,” he points out and it’s a bittersweet reminder of another time.
“Not many bleachers around, I think,” Roy stalls, glancing around. Helpers have already begun gathering up the white folding chairs and clearing Tercentenary Theater. “Not much privacy either.”
“I know a place,” Edward says, beckoning him along with a nod of his head, heedless of those around them. And Roy knows he shouldn’t but their robes make them nearly indistinguishable from everyone else. This is the least he can do for Edward.
So he follows him, down one of the many paths, past Loeb House and toward Quincy Street. There is a small copse of trees, barely that, really, just enough to hide themselves away behind trunks and shade and canopy.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Edward says. His fingers are on the trimming of Roy’s robes, not pulling them open, just playing with them in a curiously shy manner.
“Well, I was invited by the school board,” Roy says evasively, but Edward just pulls a face.
“I know,” he says. “And what a lucky coincidence that the guest of honor would just so happen to be my very famous boyfriend.”
“I knew it,” Roy laments tragically. “You only want me for my fame.”
“Nah,” Ed smirks. “Your dick’s pretty good, too.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. Did you like my dick joke, too?”
“It was decent,” Edward allows. “Would have preferred an indecent one, but I guess we can’t have everything.”
“No,” Roy murmurs. “We can’t.”
Their time is limited. They would have to return soon, before their absence was noted by anyone.
Roy swallows.
“I got something for you, actually,” he says.
“You did?” Edward asks and his eyes are glowing because he loves getting presents, no matter how big or small.
“Just a little something,” Roy tells him. “To remember me by.”
He reaches inside his robes and pulls the ring from his pocket. It’s almost identical to the one Roy is wearing, save for the year at the side of the ring, right above the three tomes spelling out Veritas – and for the personal engravings on the inside.
He had ordered it custom-made weeks ago already, long before he had made up his mind to let Edward go. The words, however, remain true.
“I don’t think I can return this one,” Roy says, feeling unusually self-conscious. “So I hope you haven't bought one yet.”
Edward shakes his head, for once struck mute. His hand seem to lift between them of its own volition, offering itself to Roy.
Slowly, not wanting the moment to be over too quickly, Roy slips the class ring onto the fourth finger of Edward’s left hand. It fits, perfectly, just as Roy had known it would.
Specks of sunlight fall through the foliage, making the metal glint on their hands, and Roy wishes for an encore, for a miracle, for an answer to the questions that keep boring holes into his guts with every passing day.
On a beautiful day in May, they stand in the shadows and kiss.
june.
June. June, june, june, and Roy postpones the inevitable and muddles through his days.
“You look sad,” Edward tells him on the phone. “You won’t talk to me and you look sad.”
“Just tired,” Roy replies. “The jetlag makes it worse.”
Perhaps, if Roy turns bland and boring, if he has no more time to spare, it will be easier on Edward.
“You should rest some,” Edward says. “Drink some tea – no alcohol! When you come back, I’ll give you a massage, and kiss you until you run out of breath, I’ll-”
“I have to go now,” Roy cuts him off, as rude as he can make it without sounding deliberate. “Duty calls.”
“Oh!” Edward says. “Oh, of course. Text me when you get back.”
“Sure,” Roy says and hangs up. But he does not text, he does not call. He turns his private phone on airplane mode and his heart right along with it.
“Everything alright, chief?” Jean asks, moving an unlit cigarette back and forth between his lips. “You look like you’ve been put through the wringer.”
“How do you get someone to dump you, Jean?” Roy asks, and the cigarette falls from Jean’s mouth.
“Wow, rude,” Jean says, pulling a face at him. “She got an offer to work for CERN, okay, how was I supposed to compete with that?”
“Nevermind.” Roy shakes his head. “Perhaps we should all just concentrate on the job.”
“Easy for you to say,” Jean grumbles. “But some of us would like a nice date every once in a while.”
Roy does not bother to correct him.
After the first weeks of June pass, slow like molasses, each day dragging on in a manner that is almost painful, everything suddenly happens very quickly.
They are scheduled to return to Boston in the morning, and Roy repeatedly picks up his phone and puts it down again before he can bring himself to compose a message.
Edward, he types. Are you free tomorrow?
Of course! Edward writes back at once.
Roy takes a breath. Could I meet you at your place sometime in the afternoon?
Not really, everything here is a mess, Edward replies. I’m in the middle of packing up my stuff and there’s barely any room to sit.
Right. Roy had almost forgotten that Edward had been planning to return to Chicago and work for a non-profit organization over the summer. Edward had apologized about it, too, because it would make it even more difficult for them to meet in those months, while Roy knew that by that time it wouldn’t matter anymore.
My place, then, he allows, biting the side of his thumb. It’s not ideal, but privacy is paramount. Havoc will pick you up.
Sure thing :) Things have been boring here now that school’s out, so I’ve really missed you.
I’ve missed you, too, Roy admits, closes his eyes, contemplates his next words.
At that moment, there is a sharp rap on the hotel door. Roy startles, but stands, walks over to open it. He is surprised to see Breda stand outside, an unusually harried expression on his face.
“Chief,” Breda says, but his gaze drops down to the phone in Roy’s hand as though he knows exactly whom he had been texting with. “Riza wants to see you.”
“My guess is someone saw you, seized the opportunity, whipped out their phone, and then took their time trying to find the highest bidder. They could have gone for blackmail, but this was probably easier.”
Riza’s steps are sharp and soldier-like as she marches up and down in front of Roy. Her heels dig into the carpet.
“This,” she says, “Might well be the scandal of the year.”
The photographs are beautiful, quite artistic and not blurry at all. They really capture the mood of the moment – and the identity of the subjects.
In the picture on the left, Roy is just slipping the class ring onto Ed’s finger. In the other, they stand and kiss with their eyes closed.
Roy can barely breathe around the lump in his throat as he keeps staring down at the accompanying headline.
Caught in the act - Mustang’s Illicit Affair
There’s not much substance to the article itself. It identifies Edward as Senator Hohenheim’s son, points out the obvious that the pictures were taken at graduation day and that Roy held the commencement speech, and they allege that Roy’s infamous Dallas hickey must have been Edward’s work, meaning their relationship has been going on since February at least.
The thing is, there doesn’t need to be substance. They could be making up outrageous lies and people would still buy into it, simply because of those two pictures of a very private moment.
“We… We were so careful,” Roy says faintly. His hands shake but he cannot bring himself to set the tablet down. Riza just shoots him a stern look.
“Not careful enough, obviously,” she says. “Roy, I warned you about this, I told you it was too risky to keep going-”
“I was going to end it,” Roy hears himself say. Vaguely, he registers how Riza comes to a sudden stop, openly staring at him. “I was going to end it tomorrow. And now…”
He trails off, uncertain. He doesn’t know what will happen now.
Riza takes a deep breath.
“Didn’t you tell me, back in January,” she reminds him, “That you love him?”
“I do,” Roy nods. “Of course, I do. That’s why… it wouldn’t be fair to string him along. I just want what’s best for him.”
And that isn’t Roy.
“So let me get this straight,” Riza says. “You’ve been entertaining a very risky relationship for almost a year because you claimed the both of you were in love, but now that you want to break things off to protect him, we’ve got hordes of reporters knocking on our doors because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself during a very public event? Are you fucking kidding me, Roy Mustang?
Silver tongue, he had famously been called after a particularly challenging debate, because Roy always knows what to say, no matter what his rivals throw at him, and he does it with charm and cunning and stupidly good looks.
Now he is out of words and perhaps Riza understands this, too.
“I’m going to need to talk to him,” she tells Roy. “It’s probably long overdue anyway. I never heard his side of everything.”
“Yes,” Roy relents. He feels hollowed out, yet indescribably heavy. The photographs still stare up at him, almost mockingly with how beautiful and happy Edward looks. Roy wonders whether Alphonse or someone else has sent him the article yet. Wonders whether he will have to be the one to do so.
It’s ironic, really. When Roy had been forced to choose between his love and his calling, he had thought it to be the cruelest thing. But now it turns out that he cannot have either, and he is finally proven wrong.
Edward, despite his business casual and the resolute jut of his jaw, looks like a student that has been called into the principal’s office for some stupid prank he pulled.
They hadn’t kissed when Ed had walked in. The atmosphere was not right for that; perhaps, it would never be again.
“Well, if nothing else, I am happy to finally make your acquaintance,” Riza says pleasantly enough, but Edward is having none of it.
“Can we please just get to the part where you chew me out for being an irresponsible menace who seduced someone very inappropriate?” he asks, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
Riza smiles.
“I already did that with Roy yesterday. Today is for strategy.”
Edward gives a suspicious frown. “Okay?”
“We have to figure out how we are going to handle the press. And this entire thing, to be honest.”
Thing, as thought weren’t a year of their lives. As though it could have been their future, if circumstances had only been a little kinder.
“What, other than you kicking me to the curb and telling me to never get close to him again?” Edward huffs. His gaze cuts over to Roy and away again. They both know this is no longer just about them.
Riza, however, surprises them both.
“That would definitely be the worst approach to be taken right now,” she says, carefully folding her hands on the conference table. “When you get accused of murder, you don’t silence the rumors by very publicly discarding the weapon you used. You convince everyone that you never committed a crime to begin with.”
“Uh, what?” Ed says.
“We will not deny that you and Roy have been involved,” she elaborates. “Instead, we will play into it.”
“We will?” Edward asks. This is obviously not what he had been expecting when he had been brought here.
“Yes,” Riza nods. “How committed are you, Edward?”
“Committed? I don’t-”
“To Roy.”
“Riza,” Roy interrupts because he has a terrible suspicion where this is going. “That’s not quite what we discussed.”
“But it’s the best option, this close to the elections,” she points out. “Archer has been gaining support, and you will never recover from a personal scandal quickly enough to still come out on top.”
“And how long is this spiel meant to continue?” he asks. He feels very brittle, very exhausted. “Say I win the elections. Should I just string him along for the next four to eight years? I cannot do that.”
A decade of Edward’s life, wasted on Roy Mustang and his poor decisions. Roy has already asked too much of him. He would not let it continue.
“You're pretty damn sure of yourself to think that you'd get re-elected after the first term.”
The tone of Edward’s voice, more so than the words itself, make Roy look over at him. Edward has his lips pursed and is glaring at him.
“Pardon?” Roy says because this is not quite the reaction he had been expecting.
“If you wanna break up with me, just fucking say so,” Edward scoffs. “But don’t go all martyr on me to save yourself some of the guilt.”
In the span of just twelve hours since the article was published, even more evidence has popped up all over the place.
A selfie of a middle-aged woman at a park with two men holding hands in the background, Roy in his mouth mask only identified by Edward’s presence by his side. A movie-goer who claims to have seen them meet outside the theater. A nosy neighbor who allegedly knows all about it. Even a picture of Roy standing at the podium as he holds his speech, with Edward grinning off to the side, suddenly holds a myriad of accusations.
This is just the beginning. This is a foretaste of how their lives would be picked apart as soon as Edward became anything more permanent in Roy’s life than what he has already been.
So yes, Roy would become a martyr. Yes, Roy would flagellate himself and be crucified by the public. But he would not let Edward be felled for Roy’s sins.
But Ed knows how to read Roy and he has never taken any of his bullshit.
“What’s on the inside of my class ring?” he asks, and Roy’s shoulders tense. There are many things he had expected from Edward, tears and insults and even empty threats of violence, but this is not it.
“I don’t quite see how that is-”
“What does the engraving on the inside of my class ring say, you bastard?!” Edward demands angrily, too impatient for Roy’s evasiveness.
So Roy bows his head in surrender.
“Love always,” he says, “R.M.”
“Exactly,” Edward hisses. “Was that a lie then?”
“No,” Roy says, his hands clenching around each other. With mortification he can hear himself choke up. “Edward, you have to believe me, none of it was ever a lie.”
Christmas last year, he had given Edward a pocket watch to measure their time together. For graduation he had given him a ring that promised forever.
“Well, there you have it,” Edward says and abruptly stands up. He grabs his phone off the table and stuffs it back into the pocket of his blazer.
“I’m in,” he tells Riza, as though that explained anything. “And you,” he adds, twirling around and pointing a finger at Roy, “Better pull your head out of your ass!”
And then he is out the door without sparing them a backward glance.
“Hm,” Riza says, just a small surprised noise high in her throat. “I think I like him.”
July.
And that is how Operation Alloy begins.
It had been Vato who came up with it, a play on Roy and Edward’s codenames Platinum and Aurum. A mix of two precious metals. A union.
They drop some hints here and there, schedule appointments, move on with business as usual. Roy gets a stern phone call from Aunt Chris and a more sympathetic one from Gracia, and Edward goes back to Chicago.
They still text, still talk on the phone, the tone of it a bit terse. Edward is still angry and Roy unconvinced. The outside world has eaten its way into the core of their relationship and is destroying it from within.
Finally, they publish the article. It is nicely written, smooth and unassuming in a way that makes everything look a bit better. Suddenly, all their small stolen moments come in handy, the little tokens of affections they’ve kept between each other for the past months.
Fight fire with fire, Riza had said with a truly dangerous smile and then gone to raze the ground.
So there is the picture that Winry took on graduation day, with Roy and Edward side by side, looking proper and accomplished in their Harvard robes. Another one from when she had visited them over spring break, quite domestic, of Edward, Alphonse and Roy laughing in the kitchen as they prepare dinner. And then there is the selfie, the one that was never meant to be seen by anyone, from those precious days in San Diego, of Roy pressing a kiss to Edward’s sweat-salted temple.
Would people see the truth in those pictures or would they simply write them off as a desperate attempt of the Democrats trying to save their asses? And would it even make a difference anymore or was it already too late?
Questions, questions and, once more, Roy has none of the answers.
Mustang confirms relationship
Democratic candidate Roy Mustang, who has been named the most eligible bachelor of 2027 by People magazine, was spotted in a private moment with senator son Edward Elric after holding the commencement speech at Harvard’s graduation ceremony. The photographs sparked speculation over the nature of his relationship to the twenty-three year old. Mustang initially declined commentary on the matter but now issued an official statement. “To quench any more outrageous rumors, our office would like to announce that Roy Mustang is indeed romantically involved with Edward Elric,” said Mustang’s campaign manager Elisabeth Hawkeye, going on to explain that the two had met at a cancer charity gala back in summer and struck up a conversation.
A lot of objection comes from Mustang’s opposition, especially in the form of Republican candidate Frank Archer who implied that the relationship was proof that Mustang was too easily “distracted by pretty things but not tough enough for the job.”
“I don’t quite see how that is relevant to the matter at hand,” noted Aharom Shram, who lost against Mustang in the primaries. “Mustang still has my full support. Throughout his campaign, people have been holding it against him that he had no partner – now it turns out that he does, but it isn’t the right one. There will always be complaints. If he does become our president, he deserves to have someone worthy by his side.”
And worthy Edward Elric seems to be. Recently graduated summa cum laude from Harvard Law, the eldest son of Illinois senator Van Hohenheim and the late nurse Trisha Elric has been leaving his footprints during his time at Harvard Law, an active member of the student council and several humanitarian organisations. “One of my best students,” praised Izumi Curtis, Elric’s professor from when he had taken additional courses in Bioengineering “just cuz”.
“Yes, I did know about him and Mustang,” says Russell Tringham, fellow Harvard graduate and close friend of Elric. “He’s never tried to keep it a secret.”
Allegations of Mustang having seduced Elric in order to gain his father’s favor have turned out to be nothing but attempts to hurt his image in the eyes of the public, while Senator Hohenheim himself shows himself unconcerned about his eldest’s love life. “Roy is a good man. I trust him with this country, and I trust him with my son. Not to mention that Edward’s mother had been even younger when we first met, and our age difference was greater.”
Neither Mustang nor Elric have spoken out on the matter yet, though it is to be expected that they will make some form of address as the Democratic campaign moves along. Mustang, whose open acknowledgment of his sexuality had earned him praise from the LGBT community before, has received outpouring support from all over the world in the form of #Voteforlove on assorted social media platforms.
“This better be worth it,” Edward groans over the phone. He sounds like he has just come home after a stressful day and is kicking off his shoes now. Roy smiles at the familiar mental image.
“Do you know how much cajoling it took for Russell to play into this?” Ed asks because of course that is the worst thing about this whole situation. “I practically owe him my firstborn now.”
“It’s okay, we can always adopt,” Roy cannot help but quip, only to hold his breath to await Edward’s reaction. This is, perhaps, the first offhand comment he has made in regards to their possible future.
“I don’t know whether I want kids,” Edward drawls, though there is a careful edge in his tone. “Always seemed like a lot of work.”
“True,” Roy admits. “I don’t want to become the kind of parent who just hands their child off to a horde of nannies and is barely ever home.”
“Exactly!” Edward agrees. “Though I bet there are a lot of awesome hiding places in the White House.”
“I’ll play hide and seek with you,” Roy promises. “You know, when we move there next year.”
A beat of silence. Roy almost regrets that he has said anything.
“Edward-” he begins, only to be cut off.
“Getting cocky again, huh?” Edward says. “Think you can beat Archer?”
“In a fist fight? No,” Roy admits. “In this, though? Probably.”
“He’s taller than you,” Edward points out.
“Obviously.”
“Handsomer, too.”
“That’s quite subjective,” Roy deflects.
“Richer.”
“Old money.”
“Married,” Edward says and Roy’s breath hitches.
“Edward,” he says again. “There has been a lot going on and I know you might be pressured into-”
“Shut up,” Edward huffs. “You’re really gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”
“I-”
“Will you fucking marry me, you bastard,” Edward says, not a question even, just his heart laid bare on a random Monday afternoon in July.
No, not random. Exactly a year ago they had met on a balcony during a sweltering summer night and gone one to change each other’s life.
“That’s not very romantic,” Roy says. “Over the phone and everything.”
His attempt at humor is slightly ruined by how strangled he sounds.
“Want me to get down on one knee?” Edward asks. “Because, fine, I’ll do it.”
There’s a bit of a shuffle, Edward getting down on the floor, and Roy laughs and presses his mouth into the palm of his empty hand.
“There,” Edward says. “Genuflecting and everything, just as Your Majesty likes it. So?”
“Ask me again,” Roy tells him, closing his eyes and trying to imagine Edward brazen and beautiful as he is.
A huff of exasperation before Edward gives in.
“Roy Mustang,” he says. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” Roy says because nothing in life is certain, neither the weather nor the elections. But this, this he can finally have. “Yes.”
“So,” Alphonse says chirpily. “Does being the brother-in-law of the president come with any responsibilities?”
“Maybe no racist remarks where anyone can hear,” Roy muses. “But no worries, with your career plans and everything, people are going to love you.”
At that, Alphonse grins proudly. He still has a year ahead of him but he has already announced that he will be joining Doctors Without Borders to see where he is needed most.
Alphonse, just like the rest of Edward’s family, had taken the news of their engagement with surprising ease. Perhaps, to him, it had been obvious from the start.
“My brother does not love easily,” he had said wisely. “But when he does, he does it fully.”
Now they are here, still being slaughtered by summer, about to make their first public appearance together.
“Ugh, finally,” Edward groans when he emerges from the backroom at the venue where the stylists had been swarming around him, plucking his eyebrows, moisturizing his skin.
“They put makeup on me,” Edward simply complains. His long hair has been woven into a thick braid, with artful strands sticking out here and there.
“That’s just for the cameras,” Roy knows. When he leans in, the thick smell of hairspray is near deafening, but he ignores it and presses a kiss to Edward’s mouth.
“Don’t,” Edward mutters, even as he kisses back. “You’re gonna mess up… the powder… and shit.”
“They’re going to touch you up again before we actually go on stage,” Roy assures him. “So it’s fine.”
Edward still grumbles, but keeps playing with the buttons of Roy’s waistcoat.
“You look handsome and shit,” he says.
“So eloquent,” Roy sighs. “Snatched myself a prime example for a Harvard specimen right there.”
“Cute,” Edward says. “Thinking that you were doing the snatching.”
“Oh?” Roy cocks an eyebrow. There are still more than a handful of press outlets that insist that their relationship is improper for a number of reasons, that there must be a terrible power imbalance between the two of them, that Edward is either a victim or a siren casting his spell.
Roy thinks that, as soon as they see Edward Elric in all his glory, with his sharp wit and brazen attitude, they would very quickly change their tune.
“Alright,” Riza tells them, after a short confirmation from the backstage director. She fusses over Roy’s shirt collar and Edward’s cufflinks, giving them last-minute instructions. “No improper jokes, no references to your sex life. Graduation day was totally your engagement and you planned on going public soon enough. You are saddened the decision was taken from you in such a manner, but it’s just as well.”
“We know,” Edward reminds her, slightly exasperated. He and Riza have struck up a rapport that is made up of mutual respect for each other and vague annoyance over Roy’s childish moods, and Roy idly wonders how that will impact his future.
Riza sighs, her shoulders lifting with it. Then she gives them a steady look.
“Go and fucking disarm them,” she says and Edward grins toothily as though he had just been waiting for her permission.
Roy smiles to himself.
“Shall we?” he asks and offers Edward his arm.
“Sure,” Ed says. He must be wearing insoles or perhaps it’s just his pride that makes him stand a little taller. Perhaps he has grown this much in the span of the past year.
Under furious applause, they step outside and onto the stage.
Coda.
In November of 2028, Roy Phillip Mustang is elected the 48th President of the United States of America, winning against Republican candidate Frank Archer by a landslide. In his victory speech, he thanks his dedicated campaign team, led by his confidante Riza Hawkeye, his adoptive mother Christine Mustang, his late friend Maes Hughes – and his fiancé Edward Willem Elric.
“I'm afraid we'll be the bane of most publishers' existence,“ he jokes. “You'll be wasting quite some ink on us because we have decided to hyphenate.“
They'll have a Christmas wedding, a calculated move to keep the event between only them and a handful of their closest friends and family. A photo of their kiss will enter the run for a Pulitzer prize. Their honeymoon lasts a scarce three days and then they go on their first joint business trip together.
When they move into the White House, Edward has just turned twenty-four, still a scandalously young age by most people's standards. He bears the burden well, though, and simply points to the fact that, by the time Roy retires, they'll be thirty-two and forty-four at most. A good age to still get a lot of shit done.
“How many people do you think have fucked in here?“ Edward asks as he looks around the Oval Office.
“Ask me that again in thirty minutes,“ Roy tells him.
“How many people do you think have fucked in here?“ Edward asks thirty minutes later, when he is naked and spread out on the quaint little sofa.
“At least two,“ Roy says and barely even grimaces when Ed kicks him in the shin.
“Promise me to never start a war,“ Edward tells him later that night, with more seriousness than when they had spoken their wedding vows.
“I promise,“ Roy says with equal sincerity.
That year, Edward is invited to hold the Harvard Commencement speech at his brother’s graduation. He makes three dick jokes, one of them in regards to his husband.
Together, they'll be good for this country. Soon enough the papers begin to joke that, once Roy's eight years are over, they could take a short break and then Edward should campaign for the 2040 elections.
“President Edward Elric-Mustang,“ Edward muses. “I like the sound of that.“
“That would make me the second First Gentlemen,“ Roy points out, and Edward smirks.
“No,“ he corrects. “That would make you my trophy husband.“
“I'll put it on my resumé,“ Roy says and smiles.
His hair will start to gray three years into his first term in office and the furrows on his brow will deepen, but so will the laughter lines around his eyes.
It’s not quite the life he had in mind when he envisioned himself as Head of State, but perhaps he simply lacked imagination.
But then again, who needs dreams when the truth of reality is so much better?