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Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget
Wi' Nae Wee Bairn Ye'll Me Beget
Ed said, "You remember that night?" and Roy knew that it had been wishful thinking on
his part that their not talking about the incident had meant an agreement not to talk
about the incident. Talking was what Ed did, loudly and at length about everything. He'd
invited Roy out for coffee and to 'talk' . . . about this. Of course.
"It hasn't quite slipped my memory yet," Roy said, and put his coffee cup down. "Edward,
we were both very drunk, and-"
"So, I'm pregnant." Ed said, and there was a leaden quality to each word but they still
couldn't quite break into Roy's brain.
Pause.
"What?"
"Pregnant," Ed said, watching him with tight irritation in his eyes from behind the cup of
herbal tea which made so much more sense now. Except it didn't. "Expecting. Gestating.
With child. Bun in the fucking oven. Your bun , Mustang. My oven," he added thoughtfully,
and his eyes trailed over Roy's shoulder for a second, as if he was thinking that through.
"But." Roy's first screeched thought was Why didn't we use a condom? and his second
thought was, But Ed's a b-man. Man. He can't be - and his third thought was, Is this a joke?
Don't look too shocked. This might be a joke.
"But," he said again, and Ed sat back in his chair and watched Roy with an almost
disappointed expression, as if he'd thought this would be more fun. "But." Did Ed think
that anal sex automatically made him pregnant? He was nineteen now, he couldn't be
that naïve or just that stupid -
"Edward," Roy said, and cleared his throat, and decided that this had to be a joke, "you
can't be pregnant. Women get pregnant, Ed, and you're-"
"Not a woman." Ed snapped. " Apparently I have the right tubing, though." Face flushed
dark, he waved a hand as if that illustrated anything, eyes shifting across the room so
they didn't have to meet Roy's. He muttered quickly, "Gate's idea of a joke, I dunno, it
took bits of me and - gave me other stuff." He swallowed. "I didn't know. I mean, how
was I meant to know?"
Apparently, then, this wasn't a joke. Which meant Roy had to actually react . . . what had
Ed said, 'how was he meant to know'? ". . . menstruation?" Roy suggested, and Ed's eyes
flashed to his, for a second he looked like he wanted to punch him-
"Not a woman," he growled, and his hands flexed on his cup like claws.
"But . . ." But . . . "Pregnant?"
Ed glared death at his herbal tea and muttered, "Doctor says the odds of me carrying to
term aren't - well, mathematically you wouldn't bet on 'em, so you probably don't have
to get your butt-skirt in a twist. But. Y'know. You're the - father. One of them. Or.
Something. So you ought to . . . know, even if it probably won't amount to anything."
Roy would have sworn he had a stomach when he left his office this afternoon, but he
had no idea where it was now. He felt as hollow as a coffin. This was - unfair. Horribly
unfair. He'd always been careful, always, maybe not for the same reason with men as
with women but - the only reason they hadn't used a condom was because they'd both
been blind drunk and –
- and Ed folded his arms as if in an effort to make himself smaller, hunching in his chair
and staring at the table. The odds of him carrying to term . . .
"Do you . . ." He swallowed. He couldn't believe he was having this conversation. "Do you
want this baby?"
"I'm not fucking getting rid of it!" Ed spat at him, so viciously Roy nearly spilt his coffee.
"It's not its fault any of this shit-"
"I'm not suggesting that ." Roy snapped back. "You just seem . . ."
"What?" Ed watched him with sharp, sullen eyes, and Roy realised suddenly that he
looked tired , like he hadn't been sleeping properly for weeks. "Confused? Pissed off?
Hormonal ?"
Roy looked him in the eye. He'd never been in the habit of backing down from Ed.
"Scared," he said, and Ed blinked a couple of times and took a tight breath and said, "And
you aren't?"
". . . I don't know. Not in the same way. I didn't . . . I mean, children -"
"Don't get your hopes up," Ed muttered, arms still folded, shoulders still tightened. Who
was he trying to reassure here? "Even if . . . I mean, they told me it'd have to be a
caesarean, I don't - obviously. It's not very likely we'll even make it that far. The male
body isn't meant to support . . . obviously." Ed seemed to like the word obviously , as if
that word could make this situation any less surreal.
"I." This is insane. This is absurd. "How did you find out?"
Ed shrugged awkwardly. "Been puking for a while. Made the mistake of telling Al , jeez, I
got nagged all the way to the doctor's and then - then they wanted a second, uh, sample,
because that one came up . . . and it shouldn't've, and . . . the second one did too, so . . ."
Ed stared at the tabletop, and his face was blank and exhausted. "So." he said quietly, as
if that was everything.
*
What is the accepted protocol when you accidentally get a male teenager pregnant after
a one night stand? Roy asked if Ed wanted to come over to talk. Ed said there wasn't
anything to talk about. Roy insisted that there was , actually, they had contingencies to
plan for - and Ed caved sulkily because, hell, this was Mustang's problem too, now.
How had this happened? Two months ago, the staff had been celebrating Roy's
promotion - no. Earlier than that. Three years ago when Ed restored his brother, he'd
arrived in Roy's office afterwards looking - tired. Older overnight. He'd said he wanted to
leave the military, and Roy had pointed out the paperwork he'd signed when he'd
enlisted. Ed pointed out that twelve year olds couldn't possibly understand what they
were signing and that they had no right to keep him there now. Roy pointed out that Ed
had known exactly what he was signing, and did he really think he could use the military
as long as it was useful and then drop it as soon as he'd met his own goals?
Ed had just said quietly, "I won't be useful to the military if I hang around much longer
anyway," and Roy had looked into his eyes and that was no sixteen year old looking back.
There was too much of the twelve year old left there, and there was someone far too old
as well, Ed had never in his life had a chance at normality and had never had a chance to
grow up the normal way and now he just looked - exhausted, exhausted of himself and
all that energy Roy had once thought was endless, and Roy wasn't that much of a bastard.
So Ed went back to Riesembool with Al, and Roy had thought about him sometimes, but
not really until he turned up again a year later - looking something like his age again, and
the pony tail made him look less aggressive somehow than the braid. It had been a
purely accidental meeting; Roy had gone to the university for another new
'groundbreaking' text on his own area of alchemy, and he'd bumped into someone in the
library who told him to watch where he was fucking going -
Edward. Apparently he'd been bored out of his skull, eventually ("Al and Winry just-"
and he'd waved his hand with his mouth screwed up with distaste. "Suck face now.
Boring. And gross.") and had headed back to Central with some vague idea of research,
and ended up here. He'd bounced from university lab assistant to research fellow in a
matter of weeks, once the staff realised quite what they were dealing with.
So, Ed was back on Roy's radar, nearly eighteen now and a little softened at his edges by
his 'holiday', not that it made him any easier to get on with. Ed stopped by the office to
meet the staff again, and somehow he'd got reincorporated into their lives. Wouldn't Ed
like some company his own age? He got so frustrated with the students he worked with,
all older than him anyway but from a different planet as far as Ed could work out. Ed had
been surrounded by adults for so long that being a teenager was beyond him.
And then - two months ago. That night. General Mustang now, thank you very much, and
Ed was old enough to drink even if he still said it tasted vile . Celebratory drinks at Roy's,
which turned even more raucous once Hawkeye left the men to themselves, giving up on
trying to keep order and going home to let Hayate out. Fury fell asleep and Falman woke
him up to take him home, and Breda just kept coming up with drinking games until Ed
fell off the armchair and somehow pulled Roy down with him and when he'd laughed his
breath had gusted Roy's hair, and he'd told himself it was the alcohol that made it seem
so intimate.
Breda lugged Havoc off eventually, so so late and they'd been drunk, and-
No. Roy knew he was lying to himself there. Yes, they'd been drunk, he didn't know how
they'd been physically able to go through with it they'd both been so drunk - but it
hadn't exactly been a case of rolling on top of each other in a swirl of alcohol. They'd
talked. Ed sitting on the floor because the sofa was far too high up for him with his head
spinning like that, and Roy had joined him eventually because it was too distracting
talking to the top of someone's head. They'd talked. At some point Roy had noticed anew
how very large, how very unusual Ed's eyes were, molten gold and soft and sharp all at
once, and how there was a husky edge on his voice like good whisky. At some point birds
starting singing outside. At some point Roy kissed him.
They had sex at six o' clock in the morning. Exactly six o' clock, Roy knew because he'd
heard the chimes from the clock in the hallway as Ed's hands tightened painfully on his
back. It hadn't lasted long but it hadn't exactly been a drunk bump-and-roll, they were
half-sober again and tired and there was something lazy and tender about it, though
they'd woken again in a tangled, sweaty bed two hours later and Ed had stumbled off to
the bathroom to throw up (hangover instead of morning sickness, that time) and got
dressed and been so horribly embarrassed that Roy hadn't known what to do. What did
Ed want from him? He knew Ed had no idea what he'd done, he'd kept close enough tabs
on Ed over the years to know he hadn't - experimented, as it were, before he left the
military, and it became obvious in the act that Ed had had other things on his mind while
in Riesembool. So that was Ed's virginity, and he seemed to want Roy to know what to
do next.
But Roy didn't really know what to say, didn't know what Ed wanted from him and that
seemed to infuriate Ed, who'd cursed him continuously and fiercely as he shrugged his
coat on and slammed the door behind himself. He hadn't contacted Roy since, hadn't
popped into the office to say hi to everyone, he'd hidden himself away in the university
until he called Roy out for coffee and a casual life-changing chat.
If he thought Roy knew what to do in this situation too, he really was very mistaken,
actually.
*
"I'll keep working at the university." Ed said with a shrug, and took another gulp of soup
from his mug. Roy ate out, mostly - he'd found this tin of soup at the very back of a
cupboard when Ed had insisted Roy feed him if he was going to make him go through
this stupid talk. Faced with soup or nothing, Ed chose soup. "I know what fumes could be
harmful, so I know what to keep away from, and it's not like there's any heavy lifting or
anything. I guess . . ." He fell silent for a second. "I can't if it. Starts showing. That's just . . .
fucking embarrassing." he finished in a mutter.
"I don't think anyone would particularly question you putting a little weight on,
considering how much you eat." Roy murmured, and Ed gave him a knife-blade glare and
gulped back soup.
"Thanks to you I'm eating for two, Colonel Shit. Oh, sorry , General Shit. Fuck, I have your
genetic material floating inside me now." Ed glared at Roy over his mug. "Poor embryo,
half you ."
Roy just sighed. He couldn't say he wasn't used to this, if not quite in this context.
"Where do you live?"
"What? My flat. There's nothing wrong with my flat, why can't I live there?"
"Well, where is it?"
"Top floor of-"
"The top floor? How many flights of steps?"
Ed stared at him. "What?"
"Edward-" Roy rubbed his forehead. God. "There may come a time when multiple flights
of stairs are beyond you, do you realise that?"
"Don't be a freak," Ed said, rolling his eyes. "I told you, it's too unlikely I'll - it'll - we'll get
to that point, so there's no point planning for-"
"I'm slightly confused, Edward. Are you having this baby or not?"
Ed's face darkened and he lowered his eyebrows again, lowering his head slightly. "In
terms of probability-"
"I don't care about the damned probability . Fuck the probability. Are you or are you not
having this baby?"
Ed stared at him so still for a long moment, then lowered his head a little more and
muttered, "Yeah."
"So we plan for every contingency. Of course you don't have to move now , but at some
point in the future you'll have to."
He looked lost, finally. "But where do I go?"
"Well . . . I'm saying this in the full knowledge of how you will probably react, by the way,
but - you are right, Edward, this situation is my making as much as yours. That child will
be half mine. And I do have a guest room."
Ed stared at him.
"What makes you think you know how I'll 'probably react'?"

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