Fanfic / At Gate's Edge

At Gate's Edge is a Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)/Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood fanfic by Winds of Water.

Edward is a ghost, killed during the attempted resurrection of his mother. Which kinda sucks, but he doesn't know how to move on so he's stuck with it. He's haunting this office in the Central military HQ and can't leave it, which is kind of weird but he's gotten used to it. Things can get lonely since no one can see or hear him.

Edward tries to make the best of his un-life, trying to keep busy and pranking the hell out of Brigadier General Grand until one day his office gets a new occupant. The new occupant is Roy Mustang, who for some reason can see him.

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Tropes:

• And I Must Scream: Edward has been trapped in an office, unable to look outside and unable to be seen or heard by anyone for seven years. It gets better since Roy for some reason is able to see him.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Fuhrer Bradley frees Kimblee from prison on the condition that he kills Roy Mustang otherwise Bradley will kill him if he fails. Not difficult considering how Ax-Crazy Kimblee is.
• Barred from the Afterlife: Edward died to save his brother who was taken by the Gate of Truth in their attempted resurrection of their mother. Edward is unable to move on, he doesn’t know why but he believes he can’t because he committed the sin of human transmutation.
• Beautiful Dreamer: Since Edward doesn’t need to sleep, he sometimes watches Roy sleep. Roy admits that he would have found it creepy for anyone else. Since it’s Edward, who he knows is harmless, he just finds it cute.
• Beer Goggles: Roy would sleep with people who aren’t that attractive but he’s drunk with his beer goggles on and they’re virgins.
• Big Bad: King Bradley, who commands the vile Brigadier General Basque Grand. Although like canon, its implied that Bradley is not the only one.
• Boy Meets Ghoul: Roy meets Edward Elric, a poltergeist that lives in his office. They become good friends and Roy manages to invite the ghost to live with as a roommate.
• Brick Joke:
  • Edward learned how to become a good cook and do housework from his dying mother, who hoped that Edward would take care of Alphonse. Which turned out to be pointless since Edward died early on. When Roy and Ed finally meet Alphonse, he is revealed to be a terrible cook and his house is a mess.
  • When Roy is first showing Ed his pet Hazel's toys, he jokes about showing Ed his toys. Ed tells him to keep his toys to himself. Several chapters later, Roy and Ed are cleaning up the house after Hazel wrecks it. Ed picks up what he thought was a new toy for Hazel in the mess...only for the embarrassed Roy to explain to that's not Hazel's toy.
• Butt-Monkey: Basque Grand is constantly getting injured by Ed’s pranks and generally made to look like a fool in revenge for being a horrible person. The fact that he constantly gets injured puts Grand on thin ice with Bradley, since Grand gets held back and loses his usefulness.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Inverted, Roy flirts with Edward a lot before he grew interested. When Roy falls in love with Edward, his flirtatious and promiscuity with others ceased as he focused it on Edward. A bit of a problem since Edward’s a ghost.
• Catapult Nightmare: Edward has nightmares of his death and the Gate that always jolt him from his sleep. It’s even more annoying to him because he doesn’t need sleep in the first place, meaning he fell asleep on accident.
• Chekhov M.I.A.: The military had been searching for Hohenheim for years for his alchemy expertise and despite their resources could never find him. Roy notes that he would have gone to Reseembool if it weren’t for Ed’s death. Guess who Roy and Ed come across in a café.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Edward gets in the habit of trying to prank Roy’s dates or trying to upstage them.
• Commitment Issues: Roy admits that the idea of settling down and getting married makes him want to cry, much to ire of his married best friend and mother as Roy is having too much fun sleeping around. He believes that settling down will be the end of his fun and would bore him to tears.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Downplayed with Roy, who tends to get irrationally jealous at the idea of anyone else being able to see Edward or taking Edward’s attention. Although he does realize that it’s rather dickish of him to feel this way since he’s Ed’s Only Friend and he shouldn’t treat Ed like a possession.
• Cuteness Proximity: Edward practically squees when he meets Hazel, a once-wild pet squirrel. Roy jokingly justifies his refusal to tell anyone about Hazel with the explanation that he doesn’t want people to steal Hazel from him.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Deconstructed. While Roy and Ed do admit that Hohenheim did have a valid and complex reason for abandoning his family, they do not allow it to excuse the hurt and neglect Hohenheim caused. Edward is still very hurt and despite being angry he wants to know if his father even loves him. Edward and Roy demand that Hohenheim in the very least let Alphonse know that he’s alive since Alphonse is now Hohenheim’s only living relative.
• Declaration of Protection: Edward protects Roy, despite the latter being a war-hardened State Alchemist and despite the latter not wanting Ed to endanger himself. Although Edward does have an advantage in being a ghost that no one can see or hear.
• Dead to Begin With: When the story begins, Edward is a ghost and has already been dead for seven years.
• Desperately Craves Affection: The thing Ed missed most about being alive was being with people and is overjoyed with the fact that Roy can see him and is willing to be his friend.
• Driving Question: Why is Edward a ghost and why was he haunting an office in a place he had never been to in life?
• Everyone Can See It: Although Roy’s friends don’t know about Edward, they can tell that Roy has gotten serious about someone despite his denials and his own obliviousness. They approve because Roy has changed for the better.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite Roy sleeping with anyone attractive he finds regardless of gender, he will not sleep with closeted men.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: Despite not being able to see or hear Edward, Hazel, Roy Mustang’s pet squirrel can sense Ed’s presence and tell that he’s a good person. Other animals tend to bark and hiss when Edward is nearby since Edward doesn’t interact with them.
• Fearless Undead: Edward constantly notes that as a ghost he can’t be harmed nor get into any physical danger despite Roy trying to keep him safe. Although he does have something to fear, the Gate can cause him pain and being near a Homunculus puts him in agony. He still tries anyway because he wants to keep Roy safe.
• Fee Fi Faux Pas: Edward keeps trying to get Roy to tell him his age and weight, both topics Roy is sensitive about.
• Flashback: Edward often dreams of when he made the decision to resurrect their mother with Alphonse and the transmutation that took his life.
• The Food Poisoning Incident: Edward warns Roy not to eat anything in the military cafeteria as anything that goes in comes in both ways. Then he tells Roy to be grateful that Edward warned him to replace the furniture.
• For Want Of A Nail: What if Edward succeeded in getting Alphonse back during that faithful human transmutation at the cost of his own life?
• Friendly Ghost: Despite Edward’s mischievous nature and hot temper, Roy finds him to be too harmless and helpful to be scary.
• Ghostly Chill: Discussed, Hughes and Edward are sitting next to each other, Roy asks Hughes if he feels a chill. Hughes says he doesn’t feel anything. Edward further proves the point by walking through Hughes, which gets no reaction from him.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Played for Laughs with Edward as he starts to jealous of Roy’s suitors to the point of pranking them or one-upping them in their gifts.
• Groin Attack: When Ed drops a coat rack on Grand, he was so dazed that he didn’t notice the door open and accidentally got hit in the crotch by Hawkeye.
• Haunted Headquarters: Literally, Central HQ is haunted by Edward. Then Roy’s home is “haunted” by Edward when the latter is invited to move in with him.
• Hell: Where Edward believes he will go for the sin of committing human transmutation.
• Honey Trap: Roy is barhopping and sleeping around when a man tries to pick him up. He goes with the man to a secluded and quickly subdues him as he recognizes him as one of Grand’s spies.
• I Choose to Stay: Despite Roy taking him to Resembool and given a chance to stay there with Alphonse, Edward decides to stay with Roy.
• Ignore the Fanservice: Despite the fact Edward forced Roy to strip naked and bathe in front of him, Edward’s eyes remain on his face much to Roy’s disappointment. Edward is too rattled by the fact that Roy was nearly assassinated and had to cover it up.
• I Need to Iron My Dog: When Hughes needs to explain to Bradley to why he was near Laboratory 5, he says that he went for a walk after having a fight with Gracia and wasn’t paying attention. He later uses this as an explanation to explain why Gracia and Elysia are going to stay with relatives.
• Insistent Terminology: Roy is not a manwhore, he just has a healthy sexual appetite!
• Insult of Endearment: Edward calls Roy “his idiot.”
• Invisible to Normals: Besides Roy, no one can see Edward.
• I Resemble That Remark!: After having a night out with Roy, Edward calls Roy a manwhore who treats virgins wanting a happy ending like meat. Roy replies those people are the easiest to seduce.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: As much as it breaks Edward’s heart, he tries to accept Roy’s promiscuity and encourage it because he doesn’t want to further intrude on Roy’s life after the latter already gave him so much and because he is incapable of having sex due to his intangibility. Fortunately for him, Roy wises up to this and stops sleeping around.
• Jacob Marley Apparel: Edward is stuck wearing the clothes he died when he was eleven. Which sucks for him, since despite being a ghost he grows. Luckily for him, his clothes grow with him but he’s still eighteen wearing children’s clothing. Although he can wear things over his clothes.
• Ladykiller in Love: Roy Mustang, a major Casanova who would take multiple lovers in a single night and for years would cry at the idea of a committed relationship and only being with one person. He finds himself falling hard for Edward, someone he can’t even touch due to the latter being a ghost! He realized how serious his feelings were when he realizes that he doesn’t want to sleep with someone and doing so made him feel awful.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Roy makes sure that Edward doesn't know that the military is still searching for Hohenheim. He implies that the military lost interest in Hohenheim and presents his interest as personal.
• Love Epiphany: Roy realizes his feelings for Edward when he interrogates a Honey Trap attempting to assassinate him. He goes on a rant on why the Honey Trap failed, only to realize it boils down to “not being Edward.”
• Magic Pants: Despite being a ghost and stuck in the outfit he died in, Edward still grows and became 18 in the clothes he worn since he was 11. Thankfully for him, his clothes can grow with him.
• Manchild: Edward is mature enough to keep up with Roy and keep him in line and worldly due to growing up in a military office by himself. But he has a childlike enthusiasm for the outside world and is somewhat naïve due to spending his formative years in isolation.
• Man of Kryptonite: Being near a homunculous can cause Edward severe agony, despite being incapable of feeling pain otherwise.
• Men Can't Keep House: Averted with Roy, his house is only messy because he just moved in because he just moved in.
  • Edward was taught by his mother and is pretty good as a roommate in keeping the house clean, but he doesn't like to help.
  • Played straight with Alphonse whose house is noted to be messy, but justified since he was never taught how to since his mother and brother died.
• Monochrome Apparition: Edward is described as being a ghostly silver.
• Monster Roommate: Edward Elric, who died during the attempted resurrection of his mother, is taken in by Roy as a roommate despite being a ghost.
• Mundane Object Amazement: After being trapped in an office so long, Edward is pretty amazed at seeing a picture of the outside. Not to mention his reaction to finally being able to leave and go outside.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Roy makes glass sculptures and bottle art with his fire alchemy as a form of art therapy.
  • Since Edward is a ghost, he can stare at the sun without fear of going blind or hurting his eyes.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Ghosts and homunculi cause each other debilitating pain when they are near each other despite ghosts having no body and homunculi being Nigh-Invulnerable.
• Mystical White Hair: Edward has silver hair due being a ghost.
• Mythology Gag: Alphonse states that with the terrible memories of his father abandoning his family, his mother dying, his older brother dying violently that he would rather burn down the house.
• Nature Adores a Virgin: Roy loves sleeping virgins and always sleeps with any he can find. Edward mocks him for this tendency.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Roy is not a manwhore, he just has a healthy sexual appetite.
• Of Corsets Funny: Edward accuses Roy of wearing a corset when he notices that Roy looks a lot slimmer out of military uniform. Roy says that the uniform is not flattering at all.
• Old Shame: In-Universe. Roy is very embarrassed of the glass sculpture he made for the State Alchemist certification exam.
• Open-Minded Parent: As a child, Roy would steal matches and lighters to start small fires to watch them burn. As opposed to most parents who would have their child stop, Daphne Mustang had Roy learn alchemy to turn his pyromania into a healthy outlet.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Edward is ghost who died violently at age 11 to save his brother and after Alphonse was taken by the Gate. Despite being dead, he has aged into an eighteen year old physically and mentally. Edward can easily interact with the physical world but is incapable of touching living things like people, animals or plants. He could leave the office, he saw a white void when he tried to look outside. After meeting Roy, he could go outside but limited to places Roy has been to. No one else besides Roy can see or hear him.
• Patchwork Fic: At Gate’s Edge takes a lot from the first anime such as Basque Grand’s characterization, the Ishval War and Roy Mustang’s backstory. Also, unlike the Brotherhood anime, Roy has an alternate background: he was raised by his widowed mother who lives in the countryside. The homunculi follow the characterizations and backstory of the first anime, but Father is their leader.
• Pet the Dog: Despite only knowing Edward for a few days, Roy gets him a photo for him of Central at sunrise because he knows how much Edward misses being outside.
• Poltergeist: The ghostly Edward can do this quite easily, interacting with the physical world is no effort. Although he mostly uses it to prank people like sabotaging Basque Grand’s office and intimidating the janitors to not skive off work.
• Porn Stash: Edward accidentally comes across Roy’s stash of sex toys when his pet squirrel trashed Roy’s room. He was rather mortified when Roy told what he picked up.
• Pyromaniac: Roy loved fire ever since he was a child. His mother had learn alchemy to give his pyromania a healthy outlet.
• Really Gets Around: Roy in a nutshell. When he has the time to go out, he goes from one person to the next in the same night. He went through 4 lovers in one night! Edward calls him a manwhore, Roy says that he has a “healthy appetite.”
• Real Men Wear Pink: Roy Mustang is a feared veteran alchemist and highly respected military officer. He also owns an adorable pet squirrel and enjoys theater.
• Saying Too Much: Hohenheim is extremely confused when he meets Roy, he keeps talking about his mistreatment of his sons and is extremely angry on their behalf. Then Roy reveals to him how Edward died and how he got the idea to commit human transmutation. Hohenheim correct guesses that Edward is somehow with Roy.
• Shame If Something Happened: Bradley gives Hughes a lift from Lab 5 and tells him that it would be a shame if something happened to Hughes’ wife and daughter.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Before her death, Trisha taught Edward how to keep a household, such as cleaning and cooking in the hopes that Edward would take care of Alphonse. Which turned out to be pointless since Edward ended up dying young leaving Alphonse to fend for himself,
  • After meeting Alphonse, Roy tries to be nice to Edward by visiting his friend Winry so Edward could see her and see how she's been since Edward died. To Roy's horror, Winry is the child of the doctors he had killed in Ishval and Edward figures it out when Roy's too genuine in his condolences for Winry's loss. Horrified that the man that he's grateful to had murdered his best friend's parents, Edward leaves Roy.
• Small, Secluded World: Edward’s world is limited to the office, unable to leave and unable to look outside. With Roy, he can leave and go anywhere as long as Roy went there first. Edward points out that while it’s an improvement, his world is still limited.
• Solar and Lunar: Edward is associated with both aspects, being associated with the Sun when he was alive and the Moon when he’s a ghost.
• STD Immunity: After finding out the extent of Roy’s promiscuity, Edward becomes legitimately concerned for Roy’s health. Roy assures him that he’s careful and uses condoms to protect himself.
• Supreme Chef: Edward is a really good cook and baker, so Roy always looks forward to Ed’s cooking. Which is impressive since Edward can’t smell or taste food as a ghost and has completely forgotten what tasting is like.
• The Dragon: Grand serves as one to Fuhrer Bradley, trying to recreate the Philosopher’s Stone.
• The Gunslinger: Roy’s mom, Daphne is a pretty good sniper. Which she demonstrates on the assassins trying to kill her to get to Roy.
• The Needless: Edward doesn’t need to eat or sleep. He mostly does it out of boredom.
• The Outside World: Edward wants to see the outside after being stuck haunting an office for seven years. He finally gets to leave with the help of Roy Mustang, the office’s new occupant.
• The Prankster: Edward tends to play pranks on people for a laugh or in the case of Basque Grand, to torment them for their misdeeds. Being a ghost no one can see helps.
• The Promise: Roy promises Edward that he stay with him as long as he is able.
• The Tease: Edward and Roy mutually tease and flirt with each other to fluster and irritate each other.
• Three-Way Sex: Roy frequently engages in threesomes, often sleeping with people who attended bars with their friends.
• Top-Heavy Guy: Ed jokes that Roy is one due to his uniform making his chest look much bigger than it actually is. Roy resents the implication that he’s disproportionate.
• Torture Always Works: Both the spies Roy tortures for information don’t have any information from Grand so they don't give anything away to Roy when he does capture them. The Honey Trap tries to say that he knows where Grand’s secret lab is but Roy knows he’s lying in order to save his skin due to having already receiving information about it.
• True Love is Exceptional: Roy Mustang, a consummate manwhore, falls in love and becomes committed to Edward, who he can’t even touch due to Edward being a ghost and believes that love should be a commitment.
• Unfinished Business: Roy brings this up as a possibility to why Edward hasn’t moved on, but Edward shoots it down: he was perfectly fine with how he died.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Edward reveals to Roy that he got the idea of attempting human transmutation from his father’s book, which was left on his desk. Roy notes that a lot of tragedy could have averted if Hohenheim had child-proofed his study.
• Weirdness Magnet: Roy’s life gets strange after he transfers to Central: he meets a ghost, finds out the man he dislikes is running unethical experiments, meets an immortal and finds out that his boss is a homunculus.
• Wham Episode: Roy and Edward finally come across Hohenheim in Central, who reveals the truth of the homunculi and their leader, Father.
• Wham Line:
  Edward: I don’t understand these feelings. But I wonder…if you could touch me. I want it so badly sometimes.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Since Edward died when he was eleven and was trapped in an office for seven years, he has adult emotions but an eleven-year old’s understanding of them. He has an idea of what love is supposed to look like, but his feelings for Roy baffle him. He notes that he feels happy and contented when Roy choses to spend time with him and that he would do anything to make Roy happy. He is very confused when he starts feeling jealous and upset at Roy’s promiscuity when he was previously amused and a bit annoyed by it.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Although Edward hasn’t been a ghost for very long, he does realize that he’s functionally immortal and will have to watch Roy grow old and die. Not helped by the fact no one else can see Ed.
• Work Hard, Play Hard: Since Roy adopted this since he stopped procrastinating to spend more time with Edward, surprising his friends with his new work ethic. He plays just as hard, going clubbing til dawn and sleeping with multiple people in the same night.
• Worth It: Despite hating the lonely existence of a ghost, Edward believes it to be completely worth it since Alphonse survived because of his sacrifice.
• You Can See Me?: Edward and Roy are both equally shocked when Roy can see Ed, when no one has seen Ed in the last seven years of haunting an office.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Bradley makes it clear that he will gladly feed Grand to the Stone if Grand keeps messing up and getting injured.

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