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Roy wanted to stand there and harass Ed immediately after the dust settled, but despite watching him explode Ganon with his (new?) hand and (new?) god powers, he still felt they were too exposed in the cratered silence left behind, with the sky and sun so bright. It was summer-hot despite the flowers of spring, the air too humid—Ganon’s final shape was less a corpse now than just tainted matter, but that was still boiling away around them, the air shimmering with the heat haze of thaumochemical sublimation. It was possible that nothing would ever grow here again.
So, they rode. It wasn't good for conversation, but Ed shouted his joy up into Roy’s ear anyway. How bored he got when Ganon wouldn't do charades with him. How sorely he missed his rigged Uno cards and food and sleep and the linearity of time. He had to fight off a wad of his own hair after Roy’s horse darted them over a bush and into the trees, but he didn’t stop talking for a second. If it wasn't for Ed's arms corded around his middle tight enough to make breathing a challenge and for the ringing in his ears, Roy would think he was just another ghost in his head. Ed had also stuffed his feet into the stirrups over Roy's scuffed boots. Ghosts didn't have feet.
The closest settlements had to have heard, if not seen, the destruction that took place. It was barely past noon. He wouldn’t have much of a lie in place beyond adorning his most vapid cow eyed stare with a very flattered who, me? if the terminally curious took one look at the pair of them racing away from smack in the center of Hyrule Field, but a stable would be the closest settlement and really, he wanted to see Ed again, properly. To talk to him. He could at least stand to hide Ed behind his back first.
Once the enormous hideous head sculpture came into view, he pulled the reins back and eased their manic pace to a stop. Ed rose up in the saddle too, squashing Roy’s feet further in the stirrups. "What's the hold up? Do you see something? What the hell is that thing?"
"We're headed towards a stable. Did you want a change of clothes?"
Ed hopped off all at once and marveled at the twigs and rocks beneath his feet. "Yeah, fuck this holy towel. And shoes if ya got ‘em. I lost mine."
Roy slid himself off and turned to dig through his bags. Ed was immediately behind him again, brushing up against his back and trying to peek over his shoulder. Roy dropped his climbing shoes off to the side and pulled out what he was looking for.
"Wow. For little old me?” Ed grimaced, fisting the outfit in one hand, holding it up and away like it carried plague. “After an entire century of only one rag. I'm the luckiest peach on the planet."
"Aren't you? Two rags is quite an upgrade. Besides, they're special. They were waiting for me outside of my healing goo paradise, in little decrepit treasure chests."
"You actually wore these things? The shirt is disintegrating." Ed had already shuffled into his new old shoes and was in the process of trying to untangle his belts from the cloth without having to drop his new old outfit, but seemed to be losing the battle.
Roy handed him a knife. "Not once. I picked them up and dropped them into the slate, and stumbled outside in my special underpants right into your father’s campfire. Then I stole his lunch."
Ed's shrill honk wasn't enough to scare off Roy’s horse, but it did remind him they had somewhere to be. He watched Ed saw through the last piece holding it all together and unceremoniously dump it onto the dirt. He hadn’t changed much, physically, unless you count the way the missing arm and leg were back on again. Not the missing breast, though, Roy couldn’t help but note, which - given Ed presumably restored himself with his now fully accessible divine powers, which probably meant Alphonse also just got poofed back into his body somewhere in Kakariko - was either an interesting choice or an intriguing limitation. “Not finishing the job?”
“Huh?” Ed looked around. Roy gestured. Ed looked down at himself. “ Fuck!”
“You forgot,” Roy said fatalistically.
“Shit! Fuck damn it!”
“You could probably do it again,” Roy suggested, since Ed looked genuinely annoyed at having missed the opportunity to effortlessly rid himself of his one remaining breast while he’d had the chance. “Re… descend, or.”
“I’m not gonna re-vaporize myself back into ghost particles just so I can maybe get a penis,” Ed said disgustedly, yanking on the shirt, which promptly split a few more seams; at least it mostly covered the enormous ceremonial gold neckpiece. The sleeves didn't even reach his wrists, so he shoved them up with prejudice, ceremonial bangles jangling madly. “Not yet, anyway. We’ll see. Later. Got anything to eat?”
The Riverside stables weren't as busy as Roy feared, so he planted Ed on a bench in the shade, with stew he drew from the slate to keep him from wandering off to source his own first meal and went through the motions of setting his horse up for the time being. The pitiful thing was already run ragged from all of the sudden sharp turns and circles he ran around Ganon's attacks, and by the time Ed had torn himself back into physical reality to blast the rest of Ganon to shit, the horse only had a few moments to catch its breath before hauling their combined asses all the way here. It’d worked hard. He might even name it one day.
Roy found out from the little kid working the counter that news hadn’t traveled as fast as he’d imagined. The kid complained animatedly that she hadn’t been able to see whatever the hell had happened over the gentle slopes. It was loud, however, and several of their animals had apparently jumped the fence and bolted. As soon as her family got back from chasing them down, the kid said, she was going to take her donkey and have a look-see for herself.
Roy bought whatever it was this hole considered its premium animal treatment package, wished her luck and bade her farewell. He gave his horse a goodbye treat and let it bonk the side of its massive head into his face as thanks. His nose felt bruised.
Ed hadn’t gone far: he was busy playing with a stray dog, bowl clutched protectively to his chest while it jumped at him to try and snag a bite. Ed pet at it between hops and launched a stick for it a few times, trying to get it to catch it midair. Roy never could get dogs to let him pet them and he even shared his food. In jealous revenge, Roy stepped behind Ed and swiped a stray mushroom.
"Don't stick your hands in my food!” Ed tried to headbutt him away.
Roy hmmed at Ed, kissed the side of his head and then snatched the spoon for an actual bite as Ed threw the stick again. Food stored in the slate wouldn't go bad per se, but it inevitably developed a... taste. Maybe it was from all the monster bones and viscera stored within, or a minor side effect of the magic and technology required to keep something he'd prepared months ago from spoiling. It didn’t actually do anything to the food as far as Roy could tell, but it was noticeable.
He could also tell Ed was making a face about it, just behind his bangs. His cheeks always puffed out. "I can make you more whenever you'd like.” Roy slid his arm around Ed’s middle. "The ingredients aren't hard to come by."
“The first thing I eat, after a hundred years in that shitty psychic dungeon,” Ed said, “and you give me cheap food?”
“It's not cheap. It’s organic.”
“So: free?” Ed said. “Because you found it in the dirt?”
“My most celebrated little scientist. That’s where all plants come from,” Roy said, and tapped the slate icon for teleportation to Hateno before Ed could upend the stew bowl on his face.
-o-
He intended to take Ed down to get him fitted for his own new clothes, because he knew the longer Ed spent in his latest, the higher the risk he'd just tear them off at first opportunity and the next article of clothing he liked - whether or not it was something still on Roy's person - would become Ed's for eternity. But just as soon as he registered where they were, Ed began power walking in the opposite direction. Toward his old home.
By the time Roy crossed the bridge after him there was already shouting coming from inside the building. "There’s no doors! Half the walls are missing! Who the fuck takes one step off a staircase? There isn't even a bed. "
Ed was pacing up and down the stairs inside, to the walls and back, shouting at every new horror to be found. It was a generously sized home compared to half the village outside, cubic horrors included, and its beams still felt sturdy, despite much of it having been gutted for parts; Roy wouldn’t exactly call this place ruined , but Ed clearly had other standards. “Half the shacks in the capital still had their beds! Usually with half a skeleton still in ‘em! Why not here? ”
Roy scratched the top of his head. He wasn’t sure if the marks on the walls were holy sigils or demolition instructions. "I don’t know. I did pay them to stop.”
"Paid? Paid who to stop what ?" Ed was behind the stairs ripping up floorboards now, for some reason. The old nails squealed horribly with each yank. "Did you just give strangers tearing my house to shreds free money and a pretty please before skipping town 'til your fancy ass remembered this town existed and trotted back to abuse the textiles shop with your latest whorish skinsuit customization , or what ?"
Roy didn't have a chance to comment on how specific that was, or to defend himself with the fact that it all took place the afternoon before he finally came back to himself, in the middle of a field and trying to catch crickets for some complete stranger in town. He’d leapt through the tall grass, missed the final cricket he’d needed to convince whoever the hell to tell him something or other, and landed in a stagnant pond. He’d realized that despite the sentimentality that clawed at him when he saw Ed’s old place having its walls knocked in, and his own housing situation being reduced to nothing more than the faint outline of its original foundation, he never wanted to live somewhere without plumbing again.
“A ha!” Ed brandished a floorboard at him, before ducking down and scrabbling back under the staircase out of sight. He fell silent.
Stepping around a patch of rot, Roy braced himself on the wall and leaned over Ed's crouched ball form to see what he'd found.
A hole.
It was a sizable one, to be sure. Ed had only removed a single plank, but it clearly extended beyond that. The only thing Roy could see inside was a large but very dead spider.
He placed his palm to the crown of Ed's head, brushing a few dust motes off. His hair still felt soft. He must have stuck his head inside. “Your childhood pet?”
"My FOOD! ” Ed surged up. “I got together a bunch of good stuff to put in the jars, before we set out to do the whole pilgrimage thing - I specifically left it here of all places because they kept getting bitchy at me about trying to create a stash hole at the Castle , which you fucking know just how bullshit that was."
He still had the plank in his hand, using it to emphasize. Roy was captivated. "And I thought, 'no one would've been able to find it, even after so long,' but…" Ed crossed his arms and huffed, volume dying as quickly as it rose. Roy found it impressive that he managed not to drop the plank. "I wanted to finally eat some to celebrate. Or at least show you it. I dunno." He took advantage of Roy's position to clunk his forehead onto his shoulder. "Sucks."
"It might be a good thing it’s gone." Roy felt Ed's brows scrunching through the cloth of his shirt. "You would try it, and then I'd be made to try it, and then we'd both quickly die of dysentery, curled up dead and mummified under these stairs. Just like your poor spider." He pressed his face into the back of Ed's head and sniffed, because he could. Ed snorted and moved out of the corner.
"I’m sure whatever lucky bitch found my stash had a fucking field day with it at the time, at least. Hundred year old peppers..."
"It may have been Al,” Roy offered. “He… well, essentially he threw a bag of my old things at my head the moment he learned I was passing through Kakariko, with a whole mind. It was full of what I left here, among other things."
Ed spun in a clean 180°, eyelids nonexistent. A silent beam of questioning eye contact attempted to burn through Roy's skull to blast the answer out through the other side to display on the crumbling wall behind him.
"No marked Uno cards included, I'm afraid." Instant deflation. "We could swing by his village today, if you'd like?"
Ed perked up again at that, lowering the plank to consider. "Nah. I think he was cooking? Or something, when I fleshenized him. Lots of swearing. Pretty funny. But I'm sure he'd appreciate time getting used to having a nervous system and connective tissue again, before I show up for him to lambast."
"Hmmm." Fleshenized.
"You know, I don't think anyone's moved in here since me and Al left,” Ed continued, dropping the board and narrowly missing his own foot. Roy wondered if he’d fully realized that both his legs are flesh now. “You think it's ‘cuz the necromancy? There’s like, begone, demon talismans on the walls. I think that one’s in blood.”
Roy considered the talismans. He rapped his knuckles against the banister. "You want to burn it down?"
Ed looked at him. Then he kicked at the loose boards. “You know what? Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
-o-
The town was getting… noisy. Roy could see a group forming on the other side of the gully that separated the ancient Elric farmhouse from the village proper, hands to their brows, straining to see exactly what was happening in broad daylight. Another group was approaching from the only path into town, slowing to a crawl when they crossed through the square buildings. Some of them carried pails.
Roy didn't give a shit whether the old house was a haunted shithole or a sacred site to these people. It was burning, and Ed was shrieking happy. There was a lot of invective being tossed at the flames, though Roy wasn’t sure if it was a sermon against food thieves, Ed’s way of working through the aftereffects of doing time in the shadow realm, or simply rage and hysteria at the passage of time in general. But Ed was on his own two feet, making use of his thoroughly corporeal lungs. That was cause enough to be celebrating.
Though they should maybe go celebrate elsewhere, before the pails turned into pitchforks and they got themselves tagged with a noise ordinance violation. Roy wouldn’t put it past Hateno to still have those.
-o-
They warped together to the shrine point just behind Wetland stables, which was more developed as a trading post compared to Riverside. Its proximity to Hyrule Castle meant it tended to draw in more adventurers and tourists looking to buy ‘authentic’ trinkets pulled from the Castle’s walls, treasure hunting idiots too swayed by the concept of fame, for all that was worth, to be concerned that someone may have already looted the place ages ago. But there were also traders, vendors, snacks - entertainment acts would sometimes set up by the road, even, though half the time it was just some asshole charging 20R to see a half-dead octorok on a rope.
No Marzai the Magnificent Monster Tamer this time, at least. Ed trailed behind Roy through the caravans, picking himself up a honeycomb from somewhere, the little thief. They’d have to be careful: Roy knew a brief description and a painted likeness closer to a plucked Rito than his actual face were pinned to the inside of the main tent, branding him, of all things, a horse rustler. It wasn’t his fault: if you were going to barely even tie up your horse, with all its tack and saddle already on, then somebody who couldn’t waste time and money and skeletal integrity on catching and outfitting feral horses was going to come along and take it.
The point was, they were going to have to do a little finessing to approach the stable. Roy motioned Ed to a halt before the next row of merchant wagons, right around the corner from the main stable entrance. He shook ash from his clothes, swept his hair back as best he could, quickly plucked a kerchief out of the slate, tying it to hide most of his hair. He adjusted the way his tunic sat and - turning briefly to Ed slobbing on his honeycomb, staring at him like a ham hock - declared, "To celebrate."
Then he stepped up to the stable’s front window, leaned forward on the counter and proceeded to humiliate himself in front of Edward.
-o-
Once the transaction was complete - and Ed had stopped rolling on the ground and laughing so hard he inhaled dirt - Roy was brought out his favorite horse, an absolute bastard of an animal he spent an afternoon rolling in the dirt in his stolen Yiga gear for. Consuming stimulants and dodging kicks to the head had been easy enough: trying to convince it to ride and get it outfitted for actual gear was the real bitch. The stablehand he originally brought it to had unapologetically laughed at his pain when Roy had to recapture it the moment he dismounted, and once more when it ripped the post it was tied to from the earth, but it was all worth it - even the disguises he had to wear to show up to the stables, given early on he’d accidentally managed to earn himself a reputation as persona non grata.
But picking up other people’s horses could get you only so far, in terms of quality, and when Roy started needing more horsepower it had been a pure stroke of luck that he’d overheard the traveling band of scientists in Faron: he’d been trying to catch water buffalo to make do as draft oxen, but they were remarkably resistant to training, and he had been very ready to make the trip out to Taobab to see this massive breed of horses himself, lynel infestation or no.
It had paid off: the resulting monster he’d hauled out of there could drag any amount of cargo, no problem, and looked pretty damn impressive doing it. "Here.” Roy bumped his fist into Ed’s chest. Ed was busy ogling Roy's horse, but opened his palms for item deposit. "Your hair's a bit past the ‘fetchingly wind-tousled’ stage of things.”
Ed showed his teeth, gathering as much of his hair as would submit to being constrained into a tight bun on top of his head. "Yeah, and I bet the whole homeless hick urchin too desolate to make the upgrade to grass skirts and skinned squirrel underpants look isn't doing it any favors, huh.” He came closer to the horse, which swung its head towards him; Ed swiped some fool’s unattended fruit salad off a crate and held out pieces on his palm to try and feed it, with delighted success.
"It has fangs ," Ed whispered, in love. The beast snuffled at Ed's hair. Ed needed healthier survival instincts. Roy was fairly sure it was about to start gnawing on him like a particularly fuzzed coconut. "This horse rules ." Ed held the rest of the bowl up for it to inhale. “What’s its name?”
“Actually, I haven’t had a reason to name it yet, so if you have any suggestions…”
“What! You didn’t even name it?” Ed flicked at Roy's chest when his hands were free again, probably aiming for a nipple. “No wonder it hates you.”
"Why bother? I knew you’d have opinions.” Roy held out his hand. "Climb up, we don't have far to go."
Ed, as usual, deftly pretended the intermediate step of him needing a boost to get up on horseback didn’t exist. The inevitably soon-to-be named horse could carry them both comfortably, which let Ed sit in front and pretend he knew how to steer while loudly pontificating on what kind of name would be worthy of this creature.
Roy hoped it would be something repeatable to the stablehands - (“Coconut Pancake.”
“What? Why coconut pancake?”
“Because he’s big. And satisfying.”
“Why is coconut pancake the most illustrative of… you might as well name him One Million Rupees.”
“One Million Rupee Coconut Pancake.” ) - but the important thing was that the project ought to keep Ed occupied for the ride. The darting from thing to place to topic, the consuming interest in the world around him - Roy recognized it for what it was: a man driven to consider absolutely anything outside of himself lest an unoccupied second give ground to what was inside. It would pass. Ed had won, and while Roy knew well that victory wasn’t everything, it certainly did do a lot for certain wounds of the spirit. And the arson had helped already. Undoubtedly visiting Al would help even more, but Roy was in total accord with giving Al some time to adjust to his dearest brother’s divine gift of a body. The bruise from when Al had hurled Roy’s bag of possessions at him had lasted weeks.
The sun was beginning to set as they turned into Hyrule Field proper, heading for - well, what had been Castletown, and what would be again, now that the threat of further apocalypse was no longer ongoing. Though not totally ready for real estate showings just yet: “Oh,” Ed said, as the walls came into view. “There’s some guys ahead.”
The eternally dilapidated Guardians planted halfway into the ground were spinning lazily in the distance. Roy kissed Ed's nape and said into his ear, "Keep going, straight ahead and through the gate." He reached behind himself and took out his bow.
Ed rose higher in the saddle the closer they got. Roy let out a long echoing whistle to get the sentries’ attention on them, then kicked the horse a little faster. It was too annoying to yank the starters of explosives he hadn’t made himself, so he clamped his legs down on the horse, leaned far enough out of the saddle to not get Ed, spat out a quick spark, and let the first one fly.
Ed was whooping by the second explosion. "You fucking showoff!!"
Roy grinned like a loon, caught. He kicked the horse even faster for the next one, watching Ed who was twisting in his seat now, steering forgotten to watch Roy draw and fire, head whipping to follow it home and back again.
“That one!” Ed pointed, and Roy fired; “Now that one! That one!”
It feels like being at an arcade, throwing axes at painted targets to win the stuffed korok, but at the same time - there’s an edge to Ed’s gleeful laughter, and while he’d certainly never before been averse to good solid violence, there’s a tint of wildness to it now, a dangerously real satisfaction. Ed had mounted an energy weapon on his own arm before he’d even reached elbow height on a man, and his command of spellwork was fairly spectacularly destructive in its own right, but all of it hadn’t been - in him. All of it was just tools, demanded by circumstance. And while the legends spoke of a bow of light, bright death at a distance, a gift of the Goddess to her chosen weapons - if it was out there somewhere like the Sword was, Roy couldn’t say Ed ever heard its call.
Nor needed to, what with how he’d gone for Ganon with bare hands. By now Roy had listened to two straight hours of gabble about all that cavorting Ed had done in the thaumic battle of wills, how it had all been stupid arguing and distracting tricks, but Roy had seen the way he’d burst out of that roiling, suffocating mass, how the second Roy opened a crack Ed had seared out like a comet finally breaking a gravity well - and then, teeth bared, turned right back around.
That too would likely have its cost. Roy was supposed to be the killer here, the end of the equation that bears sword, not shield. But then again - it was always meant to be hinging on Ed anyway, against the Calamity: what good is a sword against something that can’t be killed? An aspect of nature cannot be ended - only challenged, changed, dammed and reformed and brought to heel. And that, Edward Elric - dead-raiser, flesh-changer - was more than equal to. All Roy had ever been meant to do was give him an opening.
Lighting up a few mechanical sentries was hardly going to make a difference now, in any case. The last Guardian sentry died, a sizzling shower of sparks and shrapnel, lurid blue arcs of internal fluid spewing their last across the dirt. Ed dropped the reins to throw both arms in the air, encouraging anything in the vicinity to come try them and so on in an expletive-filled victory yodel. Roy hooked the bow back in place, dropping down to the saddle and wrapping an arm around Ed’s middle - he hardly noticed, busy swinging his head around on excitable lookout for any more explodable enemies.
They were coming up on the first turn into what had been the capitol. The horse knew the way without being led, but Roy still pinched at Ed’s side so he wouldn’t send them both cartwheeling off the side in surprise; he laughed into Ed's back when Ed panic-grabbed for the reins again, sitting upright. They rounded the corner through the high walls, weaving between ancient chunks of long-crumbled buildings, and Ed squawked at the bounce when the horse hopped over a fallen piece of scorched wall - the first of many, on the boulevard that had once boasted flowering apple trees, three lanes of traffic in each direction, the Zoran and Gerudo embassies. The bakery that everyone complained was overpriced but made Roy absolutely unbeatable salmon roe omelets every morning.
Roy would get around to moving all the rubble eventually. They were heading toward the only standing stone building in sight: unlike Edward’s haunted remains of a farmhouse, this one had all four walls - even a door - but the roof was ever so slightly on fire.
"Oh, son of a bitch." Roy jumped to dismount before the horse had come to a full stop, then hauled himself rapidly up the side and onto the roof of the house. "Goddamn it. You fucker. No the hell you don’t -“
Physically beating the smaller spreading fires out with an ugly blanket yanked from the slate, he shouted, “Climb that tree, Ed - see if the bastard’s still nearby,” and, just in case, “The Guardians don't usually fire at this place. Unless they catch me inside.”
Ed’s sharp barks of manic glee met his ears in response. Roy looked over his shoulder. Ed had already made it to the top of the tree - it seemed a hundred years of sitting around keeping a demon in parlor game hell hadn't done anything to decrease muscle tone, and his divinely resupplied arm seemed just as good as his other one. "You - you really," Ed wheezed, as Roy suffocated the rest of the burn with a spell under his breath, "You really saw this blown to shit abandoned crater, thought 'gee, how come no one's resettled HERE yet?' and just-"
"Rebuilt my home," Roy said pointedly. He gently toed at the charred patches of roof shingles. He really didn't want to spend the rest of today stress-testing it; if it came down on his head, so be it. He’d rebuild it again. He might, however, tear his hair out if the blast knocked his water supply system out of whack - the cistern was pure copper, hard to get these days, and the piping was a bitch and a half to set up, but like hell was he giving up his shower. The world might have ended but that didn’t mean he had to live like an animal.
"Can't see nothin' but rubble.” Ed was still huffing laughs at him under his breath as he shimmied back down the tree. "Maybe it got bored waiting for you to come out screeching on all fours to play. Probably scuttled back to the castle. Are they still climbing out of those giant fucking pillar things? Damn. We should probably do something about that.”
Roy puffed out his cheeks and considered the still-lit obelisks in the near distance, hopping off the roof to stand on the edge of his porch. “Not tonight.”
“Pshh, lazy .” Ed was approaching him, hands held suspiciously away from his body. “What happened to all that horseback dickflexing, grab your light sword and show me what it does .” Then he wiped his sap hands on Roy's trousers, front and back. Of course.
“Excuse you.” Roy gripped Ed by the bun and shook him like a root vegetable. “I’ll have you know I’ve been clearing land here every weekend practically since I woke up. Another few weeks and we’ll be able to start selling land plots.”
"Wow," Ed sneered. "Now I know why you left my house for dead." He pinched Roy’s side, freeing himself of root vegetablehood, and pushed past him into the house, flinging off his shoes as he went.
The ensuing lack of various clatterings meant he didn't appear to be snooping as usual, only wandering into rooms briefly before padding over to swing open the next closed door; Roy figured it would be better to let him find whatever he was hunting for while he unstrapped his swordbelt and quiver and unstrung his bow, mounting it on the wall rack. The sword itself went into the umbrella stand - his attempts to make an umbrella were so far relegated to the distant rubbish heaps, but he was sure that one day soon he’d figure out how to get the octorok hide not to smell like a thousand dead baboons - and lined up his and Ed’s shoes by the door. He flexed his feet on the rug and snapped his fingers for a pilot light, walking around lighting the rooms with a fingertip. The pressed paper lanterns gave a decent diffuse glow, but maybe setting up some kind of centralized system, like the old Sheikah labs had, could be his next project.
The house was looking pleasantly livable - charred spots on the ceiling aside - by the time there was a muffled shriek from the back. Ed must have found the shower. Roy changed trajectory. There wouldn’t be any hot water, either, but a little cold never hurt anyone, and besides, Ed clearly hadn’t let that stop him: he was already naked under the spray, inspecting the showerhead Roy had rigged - after some trial and error - out of casting a lotus pod in some of the surprisingly fortifying fluids that leaked out of hacked-up Guardians.
A shower sounded pretty good, actually. Roy started taking out his earrings. Ed’s jewelry was already on the rim of the sink - earrings, the jangly ceremonial neckpiece, enough bangles to turn any punch into a crash. It had all managed to come back out of the aether with Ed, Roy supposed, though that was probably less about Goddess powers imbued in the royal jewelry and more Ed’s absentmindedly dropping back down to earth in the same digs he departed in. Roy wondered vaguely if they could sell it all for its appropriate value: genuine holy relics, contact with every kind of sacred mud, blood, sweat and spit guaranteed.
"You really built this shit yourself, huh."
Ed’s voice echoed a bit against the tiles. Roy glanced up from unlacing his trousers; Ed was picking at the tiles, fingers leaving soapy trails over the painted designs. “Of course I did,” Roy said, stepping into the shower behind him. “How many interior designers do you imagine were left after the apocalypse?”
Ed snickered. “You’re such a fruit,” he said, though his eyes widened and his tune changed quick enough when Roy held the almond blossom milksoap bar under his nose to sniff. His attention immediately turned on the lines of glass and ceramic jars, many of them also painted or shaped. “Wow. How many soaps does a guy need? Are you alchemizing your own shampoo from scratch in here every time?” He picked up one of the frog ones. “Is this - did you steal this from the Yiga hideout?”
Roy rolled his eyes. “It’s not stealing if they try to kill me.”
“No, then it’s looting,” Ed agreed, groping greedily at the other frog jars. “Which is bad also. Fuck, is this jade? Damn. They had some pretty sweet stuff.”
“Kohga wasn’t exactly an ascetic,” Roy said, soaping his underarms. “They’d been raiding the whole southwest since before we were even born.”
“Yeah. Lucky for you, huh, that you two have the same taste,” Ed said, to which the only response was to press him against the wall and bully him until he cried mercy.
Of course, Ed had never cried mercy for any reason ever in his life, so it worked out splendidly for everyone. Roy took his time feeling him up, groping lazily up Ed’s stomach and arms until he was huffing and squirming: he’d never admit it, but Roy knew that sleazy jackasses got him hot.
His patience hadn’t improved any, though, and he decided it was Roy's turn in fairly short order, groping behind him and half-turning until he found Roy’s cock. Roy pushed into his grip. Ed's new hand was still smooth - he’d forgotten to magic himself calluses too, it seemed. Roy was accustomed to mismatched hand textures, but Ed’s old prosthetic, as amazing as it was, hadn’t had quite the minute motor control required to not crush his dick into a million billion pieces; this soft, warm touch was entirely new. He opened his eyes to see that Ed was apparently as fascinated with this as he was, staring down at Roy’s cock; he changed his grip so he could slide his new palm down the length of it, reaching further between Roy’s legs to squeeze carefully at his balls.
"That tickles.”
Roy’s voice came out rougher than he intended, but Ed’s eyes shot back up, visibly remembering the rest of Roy was there too. He suddenly let go, bracing himself on the wall and Roy's hip, and sunk to his knees.
Ed’s mouth was shockingly hot, a shuddering counterpoint to the cold water. Roy gasped and had to lean on the wall in front of him to keep from slipping, Ed’s smooth hand coming up to stroke at what his mouth couldn't fit. Roy couldn’t get his breathing to settle. He hadn’t been fool enough to just lose himself in his projects and the wilds completely, abandon what was left of his mind like Ed’s father had, but it wasn’t like he’d gotten especially close with any one survivor of Hyrule. To be touched, to be familiar -
Ed's other hand slithered around Roy's hip to grab at his ass. He jumped when Ed pinched the seam where it met his thigh, accidentally shoving his way into Ed's throat - and he gagged around Roy for a moment, but recovered smoothly, bobbing his head a little before pinching Roy again.
The little rat was messing with him. Well, alright. Roy thumbed Ed’s cheek with one hand, took the back of his skull with the other and gave him something to gag about. He did mean to stop after a while, collect himself and drag Ed off to bed, but Ed was noising happily and Roy’s stomach was jumping, little zings shooting all the way to his toes, so it took the water running out with a sad little gurgle for them to pause.
Ed made a noise. “Cistern’s empty,” Roy answered, ragged, blinking water out of his eyes. He took a shuddering breath and looked down at Ed, who was looking entirely too smug for his own good, chest heaving.
Roy let him go, and Ed eased back with a shaky laugh. He practically climbed Roy to stand, using him as a handhold until he could steady himself on his own. Roy crowded him again, kissing Ed's throat, following it down with his teeth to bite curiously at the meat of Ed's new shoulder scar.
Ed arched into it, croaking out a strangled sound, his hands sliding up Roy's sides, squeezing. "Um.”
Roy dug his teeth in more. He wanted to try and leave a mark on the thick tissue, the curiously regular patterns whorled into the skin. He brought his hand to grind his knuckles into Ed's clit, getting fun sounds, but eventually Ed started sliding down the tile, until he was essentially hanging off of Roy's shoulders - gasping like a fish, eyes blown out.
"Uh, leg. New knee. Forgot."
“Oh dear.” Roy leaned in, hauling Ed up by the ass and hefting him over his shoulder like a particularly slippery carp. “Let me help.”
“Hey!”
Ed immediately started fighting, hands sliding around Roy's back looking for purchase; Roy smacked the back of Ed's thighs with his free hand, stepping out of the shower, then out of the bathroom entirely. "Stop flailing so much or I'll throw you out the window."
Predictably, the threat had the opposite effect, and Ed really started trying to thrash enough to fall off, but Roy only had to lock his arms behind Ed's knees and over his middle, and all Ed could do was slap at his back. He did throw Ed onto the bed, though, as a consolation prize for trying, and tossed himself down on top of him.
Almost unconsciously, they slid back into the habits of the pilgrimage, of all those stops to every shrine and holy site on the way to each sacred spring - Ed laid back on his elbows, Roy upright between his knees - but here in his own bed it had a practicality to it that he didn’t like: they’d just killed a god, after all, or possibly become one. Surely they could do better than some functional anal.
Roy smiled with teeth and slid his palms back behind Ed's knees, moving to squeeze at the seam on his left thigh briefly. He shoved them up toward Ed’s chest, effectively tumbling him back onto the pillow. “I do feel lazy today, actually.”
Roy started working his hands under Ed’s wiggling back, around his biceps, and Ed’s snickering giggles were hot in Roy’s ear - he was trying to bite, but couldn’t stop laughing or coordinate himself enough to connect, his teeth clicking fruitlessly and then producing even more snorting giggling. Roy locked his hands to his own forearms and heaved the both of them backwards, following the arc of his knees into a bizarre half-suplex onto the other side of the bed; Ed immediately started mauling the side of Roy's neck until he was released, scooching back on Roy’s abdomen, struggling to catch his breath.
They’d done it like this before, a few times, but Ed usually got tired, or Roy’s spine would start complaining about the surface, or they had to hurry it the fuck up. Ed seemed like he would appreciate a tiring out, though. Roy realized with a little thrill that he was hard again, and rocked up against Ed’s ass.
Ed pushed Roy's hand between his legs, groaning when his fingers slipped inside. He watched him grind into the heel of his palm, until he slid back to take hold of Roy's dick. Ed paused, eyebrows scrunching at it briefly before resolving into something closer to how he’d look at a freshly toasted mushroom-chive crostini, pulling it forward just enough to guide it to his cunt, letting his weight sink him the rest of the way to meet Roy at the bottom.
They certainly haven't done it like this before.
Roy found his hands gripping Ed’s hips, tighter than he perhaps intended. Ed's thighs twitched, and he lifted himself up, apparently just to watch himself sink down again. It pushed a noise out of Roy, rough on the exhale, and Ed's attention shot back up to him. Roy brought his hand up to his face and licked his own still wet fingers. Ed always thought it was stupid, but it got him back to setting pace all the same, and Roy let his hand wander back to Ed’s hip. It was loosely coordinated, but the clenching drag upward, feeling Ed's muscles working to lift before shuttering back down forced Roy's eyes shut. It felt different, wetter, tighter, and it struck Roy truly that - they’d done it, they’d completed what they’d set out for. No more trekking from shrine to shrine to sacred spring, no more trying every obscure ritual and fed-up blasphemy they could think of to trigger the goddess’ power. Victory, despite the losses. Relief was as bittersweet as it was heady.
But they had won, and now he had back someone he could trust to be in his corner no matter what they chose to do next, finally absolved of divine obligation. A sensation almost brighter than the feeling of Ed, who was here, completely wrapped around him. Something like a laugh bubbled its way up through Roy’s diaphragm, tickling his lungs. He was powerless to redirect it, at real risk of laughing in Ed’s face like a donkey the very first time they try vaginal.
“You got freckles,” Ed said, sounding drunk. That sounded like Roy’s face was about to be smothered, so his eyes shot open right as Ed heaved all his weight onto Roy’s chest, whapped a hand on each of his pecs and squeezed . Roy let out a terrible sound, all the manic laughter escaping in one hoarse exhale.
“All that time outside.” Ed pinched his nipples and Roy let out a better sound. His hips jumped up and Ed let out a gasp, clenching all at once. He gave Roy’s pecs another lecherous grope.
Oh, well. Roy puffed his chest out to let him have his fun. Ed was starting to slow down now anyway, focusing more on the angle than friction, mouth open as he squeezed at Roy’s chest. It really was different inside him like this, getting wetter the more they moved, soft points of contact suddenly becoming tighter, and as Ed sped up again in a determined burst Roy felt the shudder in him as Ed began to orgasm - tipping forward with a choked off noise, a wave of heat tangibly pulsing its way over Roy’s cock.
Habit had him moving to pull himself out, and he groaned when Ed, panting but still upright, jerked a hand down to stroke him through it. His eyes were greedy on Roy’s face now, watching him writhe and pant, and the attention overwhelmed as much as the heat - the orgasm hit all at once, sweeping through him like a physical thing.
Ed kissed him then, his damp hair curling and tickling, then broke off and leaned down further to gnaw at Roy’s chest. He certainly had a fixation. Roy unlatched his other hand from Ed’s hip to brush some hair back, letting him do it, his head dropping back with a sigh.
They lay quiet for a while, Roy with his eyes closed, Ed first gnawing at him, then petting his chest some more, then rolling off and onto his own back beside Roy, not quite fidgeting.
Roy made a questioning noise.
“Nothing.” Ed shifted some more, then stilled, then shifted again. Seemed like the tiring out hadn’t quite taken. Then he did stop. There was some snickering.
Roy opened his eyes warily. “What.”
“Nothing. Nothing! We did it!” Ed was laughing a little, rolling side to side as if the laughter was less sound and more bees crawling all over his body. “We did it. Fuck, that was so fucked up,” he said, and for a second Roy was about to say what, vaginal? We did pull out - but then Ed was gesturing, emphatic, encompassing the whole of the last… however many years.
“We did it.” Ed let his arm drop and smack the bed, the mattress shaking. He did it again - it was his new arm, Roy realized. “We did it. Fuck! We fucking did it! That was so fucking hard,” unexpectedly vehement, and Roy thought of holes in his memory and underground lights and said, “Yeah. Yes, it was,” and, “I had to eat frogs,” and then they were both laughing, the mattress he had to make himself shaking, juddering. It tipped him into Ed’s shoulder, and from there it was easy to tug him closer again, until Roy could get his arms around Ed's back again, and the laughter was dying down but the mattress was still shuddering. Roy shut his eyes and tightened his grip until it slowed, until Ed was lying still with a slow heartbeat and had wormed his own arm around Roy’s hip. He was warm.
They stayed like that for a while, listening to the crickets outside, blissfully absent in thought, until Ed finally heaved a big, thorough sigh and said, “Okay. Tell me about your plans to rebuild government.”
Roy blinked his eyes open. Then he smiled, broader than he’d known his face could stand. “Well, first of all -“
-o-
"Roy. Wake up. Your neighbor’s outside."
Roy’s head shot up. His eyes narrowed, coming alight with a gleam that was notably more malevolent than the ominous red orb of the Guardian stalker glaring down at them through the hole in the roof. "You."
They could both hear the high-pitched beep of the guardian’s targeting system ratcheting higher. "You want me to uhhh..."
Ed flopped his right arm around as shorthand for, presumably, blow it the fuck up.
Like he did Ganon. Which decimated a larger portion of the field than the demon had. Roy gently kissed Ed’s forehead. "My explosive little sunbaked gourd, don't lift a finger."
Then he flew into his pants, shoved the slate in the back pocket, and, guided by the kind of elevated rage one could only access when living in the kind of neighborhood where the imported hand-carved Lurelin driftwood roof shingle are regularly torched by lasers, kicked his own front door out of its frame.
-o-
Ed watched Roy sprint outside in his bare feet. He could hear him whistling at the Guardian to lead it away, its segmented feet lifting off Roy’s house, taking a bit more of the roof with it. He worked through a full body stretch before rolling out of bed and shuffling towards the door to see what Roy would do next.
It hadn’t always been a clear view from whatever spirit void unreality he’d trapped himself and Ganon in, but when he could ghost-spy on Roy, it was a riot. Ed was dying to hear what version of the story Roy would tell him of climbing Mount Lanayru to scrape the malice off Naydra. Ed had seen him. Bare chested in his little blue shorts, all hopped up on potions, sprinting up the cliffs in a straight line. He’d nearly blasted himself off the edge trying to bomb a chuchu in his warpath. It had taken its revenge as soon as he’d stood up, with a well-timed tackle that sent him flying off the side - six hundred feet, yelling and sliding and rolling and bouncing. Watching a screeching Roy beat that poor chuchu to pieces with a shield the second he made it back up had kept Ed going for weeks, or whatever passed for weeks in the hole he’d grappled Ganon in.
The thought of it started the itch up his spine again, the crawling pressure he'd only just managed to shed in Roy’s bed, so Ed snagged the first nice-looking thing from Roy’s hall closet and stepped outside. One Million Rupees Coconut Pancake Bloodmoon Starfighter was untethered and passively munching away on the small patches of flowers shooting up through the grass, entirely unbothered by Roy -
Not chopping the shit out of the Guardian, shockingly. Sure, he was tossing a bomb or two, rocking it back, but he was mostly just dodging, skipping around and occasionally vaulting over a segmented leg. Ed watched the Guardian chase Roy across the field, splashing through the broad swathes of shallow water by the road, and was just starting to wonder if maybe Roy had just forgotten all his weapons in the house when the Guardian abruptly tilted, shot an angry beam into the sky, scrabbled and then dropped out of sight.
Huh.
Roy slowed his jog in the distance and stopped, putting his hands on his hips. Ed wandered over. “Huh,” he said aloud. The Guardian was still visible, if not clearly - the water was not so shallow after all, it turns out. Not here: there was a pit that had to be several hundred feet deep, the water not muddy but the view muddled by the thrashing of - Ed realized - a pile of many, many Guardians.
“Did you dig this?”
“Took ages,” Roy said. “But now -“
The latest Guardian fired its laser. It did not make it to the surface. It did, however, make the water boil.
“- instant water heater,” Roy said. More Guardians fired, triggered by the first; the water began to glow blue and red, a lightshow of impotence from the deeps.
“Want another shower?” Roy said.