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In their nearly ten years of knowing each other, Roy had never taken off his gloves in Edward’s presence. At that point, Edward had forgotten that anything existed beneath the fabric, and so, from across the candlelit table, he looked in awe at the sight of neatly trimmed nails and the suggestion of blue veins beneath pale skin.
While often the recipient of praise, in his teenage years especially, Edward rarely felt… dare he say ‘special’. But he did in that moment, overwhelmingly so, with the knowledge that this gift— this great show of trust— was meant for him and him alone. It was nearly enough for Edward to forget how badly his head and stumps ached, just as they always did when a rainstorm loomed on the horizon.
Edward’s head snapped up when a waiter, wearing black leather gloves, appeared beside their table with a basket of bread in hand.
“Excuse my reach,” the man politely said.
As he placed the basket between them, Roy leaned back slightly in his seat, his bare hands swiftly disappearing beneath the table. Making their first date even more awkward, Edward did the same with his own gloved hands, quickly hiding them beneath the white tablecloth. As if amused by the scene, a couple laughed amongst themselves as they entered the restaurant, the woman hiding her smile with her left hand clad in a shiny satin fabric, while her partner, wearing leather driving gloves, continued to hold her right hand in his.
Like everyone else, both in this world and the other, Edward could hold hands with whoever he liked when he was a child. He could hold Alphonse’s hand, Winry’s hand, and even his mother’s. But whenever his mother was around Granny, Winry’s parents, or anyone who wasn’t Hohenheim, she pulled on a pair of brown leather gloves that had a simple floral design embroidered around each wrist. Edward loved the way that they looked on her. He still did, which was why he wore similar ones now… although he’d lost more than one pair at the library (bare hands made it easier to turn the pages).
He had learned alchemy from books, and then later, from Izumi, but in the end, Edward would always consider his mother to be his very first teacher. He remembered the way that she would crouch down before him and take his bare hands in hers. She would command his attention only in the most gentle of ways, her thumbs tenderly rubbing back and forth over his knuckles as she looked him in the eye and spoke to him.
It was in this manner that she explained that in this world, the barriers that separate one soul from another are far thinner than we make them out to be.
Roy and Edward left the restaurant together, a white gloved hand holding open the door for Edward while the hand opposite motioned outside. Despite it being the early hours of the evening, the lamps lining the Central City street were already lit. Their soft yellow glow however did nothing to ward away the storm which continued to brew above.
“After you,” Edward heard Roy say.
Thus far, their date has been an overwhelmingly silent one. Edward could barely think straight, nevermind talk, pain clouding his mind and causing his thoughts to drift.
Drawing in a quiet breath, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and silently slipped past Roy, eyeing his clothed fingers as he went.
Edward barely remembered anything else from the night Roy arrived at the Rockbell house. He didn’t remember the sound of Roy’s voice, the color of his eyes, or his clothes drenched from the downpour. Drifting in and out of consciousness, the only thing Edward remembered was that Roy wore gloves as white as snow. Knowing little else beyond this, Edward then searched for that lack of color as he walked down the halls of Eastern Command for the very first time. Years later, he did the same as he walked down the streets of London and Munich.
From the night that Edward met him, he’d known that Roy was different. Having grown up in Resembool, Edward had never known anyone who wore white gloves, nevermind ones made from ignition cloth. Farmers tended to keep to darker colors, such as black or brown, and preferred more durable materials, such a cowhide or sheepskin.
But even when he was younger, Edward knew that he wanted to stick out from the rest of the crowd.
He wanted someone to notice him.
He wanted someone to care about him.
He wanted someone to love him in the times when there was nothing about him to love in the first place.
And so, when Edward joined the military and was instructed by the higher ups to begin wearing gloves, he made sure that they were white— just like Roy’s.
After the restaurant, Roy walked Edward back to his apartment in the residential district. With the threat of rain, the city streets were long since deserted, but still, they stopped at a street corner and waited for the light to turn. It was then that Edward saw a gloved hand motion toward a wooden bench sitting on the outskirts of the nearby city park.
“Care to sit?” Roy asked.
Having been distracted, Edward let out a questioning hum.
Thankfully, Roy was patient with him. He simply repeated himself in the same calm voice. “I asked if you'd like to sit down for a moment.”
Edward quickly blinked his eyes, forcing himself to focus. “Oh. Um… sure.”
Before Edward knew it, they were at the bench, Roy was taking the right side while Edward took the left. There wasn't much of a view, with the bench facing the street and a row of cars parked against the curb, but even so, Edward was grateful for even the negligible amount of privacy the location afforded. While he hid the pain well, or at least he thought, he didn't want anyone to see as, with head bowed, he grit his teeth and gripped the seat’s edge hard.
With what little space pain left in his mind, Edward counted down the seconds until he could return home, collapse into bed, and wallow in the fact that, much like the date itself, he could only ever provide Roy with something less than perfect.
Despite having been seventeen at the time, Edward left this world, and Roy, while possessing little understanding of either one. He would try though; oh, how he would try… In he and Alfons’ apartment, he would spend hours laying awake in bed, struggling to make sense of his dreams, make sense of Roy’s feelings, and make sense of his own. But even now, nearly two years later, Edward felt as lost as ever. Despite all his best efforts, he couldn’t imagine what convinced Roy to go out with him. He couldn’t imagine what led Roy to stay.
Could it have been pity? Obligation? A sense of intrigue that had long since been quelled?
Edward's mind was still unsure. And so, he couldn’t help the way his eyes went wide, and his breath caught in his throat when, amid the distant roll of thunder, Roy once again removed his gloves and set them aside.
“I know that you’re feeling under the weather,” Roy admitted. “If you want, I could help...”
For the thousandth time that evening, Edward was reminded of the rule which applied both this world and the one beyond the Gate: Upon reaching puberty, touching the hand of another, who has also reached puberty, results in the instantaneous and uncontrollable exchange of souls between two different bodies. As soon as contact is broken, the souls begin their slow return to their original vessels.
“...I could hold your hand,” Roy said.
As expected of the impossible, it had taken time for Edward to process it. But in that moment, he looked at the hand extended out to him and understood that Roy intended to take his body— take his pain— and in return, give him his soul.
Their hands were not yet touching, and not having thought to take them off, Edward was still wearing his gloves. And yet, when he hesitantly lifted his left hand and reached out toward Roy’s, he already felt as if his body were not his own. It moved as if by its own volition, as if it recognized even before his mind did, that what he searched for all his life was finally within reach. In the same way that his lungs craved air, in his heart there existed a need, which, like the clouds, overshadowed all else: his fear… and for a moment, even the world itself.
Slowly but surely, Edward’s hand continued forward, until suddenly, he felt the gentle pat of a raindrop against his cheek. The rain was so light that, for a moment, he believed it to have been a figment of his imagination. Still, it was enough for Edward to pause— to metaphorically bring him back into his body— and eventually draw his hand away.
With eyes cast downward, Edward gently damped his lips. “If… if it gets to be too much… you can let go whenever,” he whispered.
The last thing he wanted was to hurt Roy, although the sentiment wasn’t entirely altruistic. A selfish part of Edward worried that if he did this, Roy would change his mind. Roy would decide that this was more than he was willing to handle, and he would leave Edward… but that being said, everyone left anyway, whether it was by Edward’s doing or not.
Still, a part of him was relieved when Roy eventually nodded in agreement.
“Alright,” Roy answered.
Instilled with newfound courage, Edward carefully slid off his right glove and set it upon his lap. Automail glinted in a streetlamp’s yellow glow as, with the same hesitance, he removed the one opposite, the evening air startlingly cool against his skin.
Edward then remained still, watching intently as Roy hesitantly reached out and rested a hand upon his forearm. Roy stayed there for a moment, allowing Edward to become used to his weight and the sensation before his fingertips crept slightly downward, warm but foreign against Edward’s bare wrist. Only after a long stretch of stillness did Roy’s hand shift downward and finally come to rest upon Edward’s.
In Dante’s hideout, in the last few milliseconds of consciousness that Edward had after Envy stabbed him through the heart, he remembered having felt so very afraid. While he’d always been willing to sacrifice his life for his brother’s, Edward had still been afraid of dying. He had expected to be afraid when he died... But what he didn’t expect was what came after that fear.
After Edward was killed, his soul was ripped from his body and sent to stand before the Gate. And it was in that world of white that Edward had the same feelings and realizations that he was having right now while Roy's hand was touching his. He had the feeling that this was what his soul was meant for. He remembered himself crying after Alphonse managed to return his soul back into his body. Edward's heart had been Roy’s before he knew it, and similarly, his soul belonged at the Gate before he fully understood what 'the Gate' was. But before that, while having been separated from his body, there was also this overwhelming weightlessness that he had never felt before, and haven’t felt since, until now.
Edward didn’t know much about the world. But he did find that you don’t understand the amount of love you have for someone until that someone is gone. And similarly, you don’t understand the weight that you hold until it is lifted. To this day, he didn’t know how to describe what it was like to feel such an immense sort of freedom, such an immense sort of relief.
But if he had to try, he’d say that he was okay. And he was happy.
Even in the present moment, Edward couldn’t help but smile to himself as he caught his breath and took notice of the things he wasn’t able to before.
With the sudden appearance of an eyepatch over Edward’s eye, the left side of his vision had suddenly gone dark, but with his left, he was able to see how he and Roy had seemingly switched places on the park bench. Without remembering them having moved, Roy was now on the left side of the bench, and Edward was on the right, no longer facing the restaurant they'd come from, but rather, the row of shops in the direction opposite. Their hands had changed positions as well. Edward’s hand was on top of Roy’s— he felt the warmth of his skin beneath his palm. However, when Edward looked down at where their hands met, they were positioned just the same as they had been before they touched.
Edward’s thoughts turned inward, and he took notice of a different taste on his tongue: the sweet caramel of Roy’s creme brulee rather than that of his own lemon sorbet he had for dessert. His clothes too felt different against his skin: different clothes, made of a different fabric, with a different fit. Edward had also been nearsighted. He had been meaning to get glasses for a long while, but for the first time since childhood, the world appeared crystal clear.
And with this newfound clarity, he could not help but lift his eyes… lift Roy’s eyes… and for the first time that evening, meet his own.
In some ways, it was akin to looking at oneself in a mirror. Edward supposed that his brain had no other way to process the sight of himself sitting before him. And yet, his reflection’s eyes blinked, and its lips parted, and its chest rose and fell, lungs breathed breaths that Edward had never taken. Again, it was as if Edward’s body had a mind of its own… which he supposed it did.
It had Roy’s mind.
And Roy’s soul.
Again, thunder rolled across the sky, and the slight tremor of the ground beneath their feet snapped Edward back to reality. With his arm and his leg back… with Roy’s arm and leg… Edward felt noticeably lighter than before. And being the person he was, his mind then leapt to the thought of where that heaviness had gone. Upon finding his answer, he looked at his reflection with eyes blown wide.
Words flew out of Edward, and in his panic, he overlooked how odd they sounded coming from Roy’s mouth.
“Roy, you can let go now!”
To Edward’s surprise, his reflection didn’t move. After a few moments of stillness, it calmly maneuvered its hand on top of his and gave it a gentle squeeze. As a thumb began to reassuringly rub back and forth over his knuckles, Edward saw the way his own expression softened, golden eyes looking at himself in a way they never had before.
Edward’s reflection smiled, and in his voice, it gently answered.
“I know.”
Edward waited, and waited, until eventually, it seemed as if Roy would hold on forever. He held on as Edward lifted his free hand, as fingertips slid beneath golden bangs to cup his cheek… and as Edward leaned forward and pressed a kiss against the smile which felt as if it were his own.