Title: In the Middle
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/manga
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: Teen
Pairings: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Warnings: Modern AU, referenced child abuse
Summary: 'I'll let nothing in the middle, in the middle of us'

Disclaim Her: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by Arakawa Hiromu and various publishers. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Lyrics in the summary and the title are from the song In the Middle, by The Wanted. All theirs, etc.

A/N: Idea came to me while listening to In the Middle.
I was gonna play video games so I'd keep myself up long enough to feed kitties breakfast before sleeping, and then this happened. XP

-0-

Chris Mustang was the queen of her domain, managing drunks, prostitutes, former pimps, and desperate clients with the same immobile stare.

And Roy, well, everyone knew he was the prince of his auntie's domain, because what else would he be?

His sisters – not really sisters, but that's what he called them, because Auntie Chris took care of them too, and 'cousins' had never tasted right – liked to tell him fairy tales about 'Prince Roy' vanquishing dragons, battling knights, and doing all manner of rescuing people in trouble.

Roy loved those stories, held them close until the day he went to war, and realised battle was far from glorious, and princes didn't always win.

-0-

Roy'd met Edward Elric when he was just fourteen, a half-starved runaway crouched in an alley over his sick brother, snarling threats that chilled the spine and biting at any hands that got in range of his mouth. Maes had been the one to talk him down, got him to let the paramedics take his brother to hospital. Roy would never know how, but he'd also been far too cross about somehow getting stuck taking care of the wild creature's poor hygiene.

Cleaned up, he'd been beautiful, shades of gold that Roy had never seen in humans, and he couldn't help thinking, 'I'd have a drink with him'.

And then he'd backpedalled, got snarled at and insulted when the wild thing caught him staring, and determined looks were nothing when the personality was shite.

-0-

Maes and Gracia were too kind, and had taken in the wild thing and his brother, because the elder had actually started screaming and breaking things when it was suggested they go back to the foster system, and the younger had gone pale and quiet in a way that made Roy want to cock his gun and fire it at whoever had driven these golden boys to hiding in sewers.

Roy had feared for Elicia, right up until the moment she and the wild thing had met: He'd crouched down when he spotted her hiding behind Gracia's legs, and tried a smile that made him look more human, but still a little too broken for the age in his files, then said, "Hello, there, princess," in a gentle voice that was so at odds with his usual manner, Roy thought he was hallucinating for a moment.

But, no. The wild thing was always gentle with Elicia and his brother, and with other children, too, unless they were bullies. Those, he tore into, animalistic, until Maes finally managed to persuade him to use words instead of violence. (Because there was no way the wild thing would ever trust adults in authority, not even Maes and Gracia.)

-0-

Over time, the wild thing became more human, became Ed. His words were ever dripping with profanity, and he seemed to have nothing but insults for anyone over twenty, but Roy somehow won him over by being dogged in his pursuit of imprisoning the man who had nearly broken the Elrics. Kept after the list of former caretakers that Ed and Al had haltingly supplied, stood at Ed's shoulder with Maes while he testified in court, kept Al out of everything at Ed's request.

And Ed was...

He was brilliant, diamond-sharp intelligence hiding behind the wild gold of impossible eyes. He argued complicated scientific theories and did high-level arithmetic in his head with the same ease that as he snarled insults. He could recite clause and paragraph of every rule as he broke them, grinning razor-edged and dancing circles around arresting officers so he walked free on a technicality.

He was beautiful, gleaming gold as the sun. Self-assured and protective and still just that slight edge of the wild that Roy wished would put him off, but only drew him in further.

He was the prince of Roy's childhood, twisted slightly by the cruelties of reality, and Roy was so utterly in love, his heart ached at the very sight.

-0-

For his eighteenth birthday, in the middle of his party, Ed ordered Roy to close his eyes and stand still. And Roy, a lot wary, but helpless against the brilliant gold watching him, closed his eyes and awaited whatever horrors the young man had in store.

The kiss, he had to admit, had been the last thing he'd have expected.

But Ed was brilliant and too aware, had been so even when Roy thought he was still just a wild animal in human form, and he'd been watching Roy watch him. And, when Roy would have held himself back because of the age difference, Ed took what he wanted. Always had.

Always would.

-0-

Ed snarled and threw insults and whatever objects were close to hand – never the ones that would hurt, Roy knew, recognised even while he was raging back, grabbing equally soft object to throw – and kept Roy up all night babbling about his research or whatever interesting fact he'd come across that day or how Al was with the hoard of children and cats he fostered (which Ed always got talked into helping out with and complained about for hours, but Roy knew the elder Elric loved helping his brother and those children, found healing in the children's bright smiles) or make-up/celebratory/'just fuck me, already, you bastard' sex.

But still, when Roy opened his eyes every morning to the sun sneaking in through the drapes of their bedroom and painting Ed in the shades he'd been born to, he fell in love all over again, and pulled Ed so close, there wasn't even space for air between them.

And then Ed would open his own eyes, still sleepy and utterly unguarded, and smile up at him, like Roy was as much his world, and Ed had become his.

And Roy knew they were meant to be.

.