Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ The Adventures of Roy Mustang: Sex Ed Teacher ❯ Part 15 ( Chapter 15 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: skydark 
Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 04.10.2008 | Pages: 7 | Words: 10.6K | Visits: 515 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 04.10.2008 | Pages: 7 | Words: 10.6K | Visits: 515 | Status: Completed
[Drop the gun!] the man screams in broken Ishbhalan, [Surrender peacefully!] he tries again, [Surrender and no harm!]. He doesn’t know any other words to fling out, ( the army had no time to teach them diplomacy, only orders), to try to make the terror go away, to try and make small shaking hands abandon the weapon they clutched tightly. What they think is their only choice, their only defense.
The Colonel jerked violently in his sleep, catching his lover inadvertently with a heel to his shin.
[Surrender peacefully], he begs again to the shaking, dark-skinned child with the wild red eyes who clutches a carbine to his chest. He can see his own hand outstretched with forefinger and thumb pressed together, the ghastly white material of his gloves reflecting the light of a nearby fire as they shook.
From somewhere within him, the boy finds his courage. (No! the Colonel screams wildly, always the spectator to this scene, trapped and helpless as if behind a glass wall) The boy slams himself back against the wall he is cowering against for leverage and his small hands yank the carbine rifle upward.
[Surrender…], behind his glass wall, the Colonel watches in helpless horror. He snaps his fingers and activates his array. It’s only a matter of seconds, the blacked and charred body arches toward him and he stumbles back wildly, tripping and going down on his ass. There is a sound behind him as he watches the scene play in front of him. He whirls around, tense and ready, and sees a dark-skinned child with wild, red eyes cowering against the walls of his ruined home, a carbine rifle clutched in his shaking hands.
The Colonel opens his mouth. Maybe this time, maybe this time he will listen!
[Drop the gun!] the man screams in broken Ishbhalan, [Surrender peacefully!] he tries again, [Surrender and no harm!]
The Colonel watches in horror, always a spectator to this scene, trapped and helpless as if behind a glass wall. It’s all one never-ending circle.
***
Something struck him across the face and he came up swinging, twisting himself to the side and falling off the side of the bed. He rolled with the impact, on his feet before he finished a breath and clapped his hands hard in front of him. Alchemic energy surged with blue and white fire as his arm melted and reformed into something sharp and brilliant. He bared his teeth like a jackal and crouched to face his opponent who tried to take him unawares.
The Colonel reacted too, but in a much more disorganized way. He flailed and arched up, twisting and slamming into the bedside table, knocking it over and following it down off the side of the bed. Ed felt his jaw drop as his sleep-addled brain tried to assess the situation. He looked wildly around the bedroom, but nothing seemed out of place and he could hear the Colonel panting like he’d run a marathon, muttering things that made no sense. Ed slowly reconstructed his arm again and took a few cautious steps around the foot of the bed to peer beside it.
Black eyes widened at the sight of him and the Colonel screamed again, something Ed couldn’t understand. He wasn’t sure what to say and raised his hand toward the Colonel, but the Colonel thrust his own hand out and snapped, hard and loud, again and again, his breath hitching in terror. Ed stood frozen, not sure of what he was seeing, but then something whispered in his own mind, something that was familiar and sickening, something that waits until he is at his most vulnerable in his sleep to come creeping in like a guilty dog. The Colonel is having a nightmare.
Ed opened his mouth, checking himself at the last moment before shouting Colonel! and instead replacing it with “Roy!”
They were suspended for a few moments, neither moving, as the sound of a name echoed briefly around the room. The Colonel swallowed and jerked his head back and forth. He looked at Ed again and then at his own outstretched hand, forefinger and thumb clenched against each other so hard they were white at the knuckles. He made a half laughing sound that became desperate and looked at Ed again, his eyes moving from confusion, to realization, to fear, to sorrow. He jerked his hand back and opened it, stared at his palm for a moment more, then laughed another thin laugh that was more like a wound opening in his throat, and simply fell over with a horrible thud on the wooden floor.
Ed was startled into action. He took two running steps and fells to his knees, but Roy had not passed out, his eyes were open and he was just lying there, staring off at nothing, making no effort to sit up. Ed reached out and touched his shoulder with his flesh hand, but the Colonel flinched, then subsided, but he did not meet Ed’s eyes and he said nothing.
“Roy,” Ed said bewildered, “get up.” He gave the Colonel’s shoulder a push.
“Leave me alone Ed,” the Colonel’s voice was raw and faint.
“You can’t lay here on the floor,” Ed said and pushed again.
The Colonel made no response, tangled in the bed covers with the bedside table lying against his back.
Ed was at a loss. He could make no sense of why the Colonel wished to lay on the floor next to the bed. He almost wrung his hands, but caught himself before he did it. He needed to think, to work out what was going on. He stood up and stepped over the bastard, setting the bedside table upright. He turned and stepped back over the Colonel-shaped lump on the floor to retrieve the bottle that usually sat there on the table, from where it skittered and rolled to rest on the bedroom door frame. He replaced it, picked the lamp up and switched it on and off. It seemed fine, so he sat it back in its place as well, but the alarm clock’s face was cracked, so he sat it on the floor and clapped his hands to mend it. He understood the workings of this at least, and wished he understood the workings of the mind of his lover who was still lying silent and unmoving on the floor. He got the table back to the way he remembered it looking, order from the chaos. He then sank to his knees again and began untangling the Colonel from the sheet and comforter. Roy didn’t help or hinder as Ed moved his legs about like they were dead weights. Ed straightened the bed clothes out, but left them lying over the man and looked back at his face. His expression hadn’t changed at all.
What should he do? He reached up and caught a lock of his own long blonde hair that was trailing over his shoulder and twisted it, then noticed he is doing it and dropped it, wrinkling his nose in disgust with himself.
Sometimes you will have to be more of the adult than he is.
He’s sulking about something, about something he had dreamt about. When Ed sulked, the Colonel teased him and made him mad, and after Ed was over being mad… he could never quite work back up to the sulk he had going, so he let it go. That was bizarre logic, trading one bad emotion for another, but Ed found he would prefer any response over this thing on the floor that seemed apathetic to everything, even it’s own comfort.
He chewed on his lip, wondering what to say, then leaned over the bastard’s head and planted his hands on either side of it. The Colonel didn’t acknowledge him, it was almost like he was back in that hospital bed, pink and quiet.
“You should practice what you preach,” Ed said, “you’re just a fucking hypocrite.”
No response.
“You think you’re so smart, that you have to teach me all these things you think I need to know,” he tried again, “but then you do stupid shit like lying around on the floor feeling sorry for yourself.”
Still the Colonel said nothing.
“It was just a fucking dream,” Ed said, “I have them too you know, you don’t see me lying around on the floor like a baby.”
That’s a little unfair, I prefer to lie around on the bed like a baby.
The Colonel’s eyebrow twitched and the corner of his mouth pulled down.
“Here’s some of your own advice,” Ed said, then took a deep breath and let his adolescent voice climb to a mocking falsetto, “you should let me in you know,” Ed simpered, being just as insulting as he could manage, “I can’t do nothing if you don’t tell me what is wrong,” he finished. “What a load of crock,” Ed sniffed.
“You ungrateful brat,” the Colonel whispered.
Ed narrowed his eyes, Roy’s hadn’t pried his cheek off the floorboards, but his eye swiveled up to glare at the face hanging over him.
Ed stuck his tongue out.
The Colonel raised his arm and used the ball of his hand to level himself into a semi-sitting position on his hip. His cheek was pink on one side and he looked like he had a bruise forming on his temple, the groove from the hardwood floor had left an impression running horizontally across his cheek. His jaw was set with his lips pulled tight.
“I’m just saying it’s a two way street,” Ed rushed out, “if you want me to do that stuff then you got to do it for me too, it’s…” Ed fumbled, then latched onto the mantra of his life, “equivalent trade.”
“Is that all you think about,” the Colonel spat, “I think we’ve come to the conclusion that not everything in life is fair, how do you apply equivalent trade to that?!”
Ed floundered, sitting back on his heels, surprised at the Colonel’s anger.
“It’s how things work,” he stammered, “you give and you get…”
“What am I getting?!” Roy demanded, “I work hard to make sure you’re taken care of, Ed! I try and see you have the first shot at the best leads, I cover your tracks, I put up with your insubordination and disrespect at the office in front of my other subordinates, I make excuses for your brother, I put my goddamn neck on the line in the name of Elric every fucking day, and what do I get? You can give a blow job now, I’ll give you that, you can eat my food ok, you can wreck my house, my fucking phonograph…,“ Roy stopped a moment, took several deep breaths, “you can perpetuate and believe wild rumors before you ask me the truth, and I KNOW you did that, and then when I think we’re finally understanding each other, you can mock me to my FACE!” Roy rubbed a hand over his eyes, “I have been patient, I have been supportive, I have been concerned. I haven’t asked for much in return, just some of your time and some of your… your… feelings, I won’t say ‘love’, I know you don’t like that,” he spat, “and this is what I get for it! I don’t know who’s the bigger fool, here… no maybe I do know. This is my own goddamn fault, for taking up with a kid!” Roy shook his head, “You’re a fucking kid, and you haven’t changed a bit!”
Then the Colonel looked at the kid, sitting on his knees, naked on the hardwood floor of his bedroom. He never should have looked at him, at the eyes that had gone hollow and the lips that were thin now and bloodless with a slump to his shoulders. He never should have looked and inadvertently committed that sight to his memory, but now it was too late to take back anything he’d said. It was a cruel fucking twist of fate to have him be the one to add this to the Edward Elric list of painful firsts. The truth, even if he believed half of what he said, is that he never should have said any of it, because he’s supposed to be the adult. Even as he made a sound of regret and reached for the boy, he knew that a simple touch would never be enough. Edward’s trust is a fragile thing, and he gave it to Roy in the belief that the Colonel would never hurt him. Yet, here the Colonel had laid his soul bare on the floor between them and practically ground it under his heel. As the boy jerked back from the offered touch and climbed to his feet, Roy felt his own soul settle on the floor between them and prayed that Edward would rend it, but he just rushed silently for his clothes and ran out the bedroom door.
Roy Mustang sat on the floor of his bedroom with his sheet and comforter still spread out straight and lovingly over his legs, listening to the love of his life’s painful hitches of breath in the hallway where he was dragging on his clothes, and he could not get up for the life of him to chase the boy to the doorway. Instead, he lets the front door’s slam signal that it’s final.
Edward had had his heart broken by life and circumstance and fate, but it is Roy Mustang who had given him his first heartbreak from love.
The Colonel leaned heavily against the side of the bed and wondered if the boy was crying, wondered why he was such a coward, and if he was truly the adult.
***
Edward stood before him, the loudest thing in the office was his silence. The Colonel gave his permission for the boy to run. Edward had come with well-prepared arguments and leads and said nothing when his leave was granted before he even stated them all. He never met the Colonel’s eyes, or those of the others, he just turned and moved by Alphonse and used his younger brother as a shield from the eyes that watched him walk from the office.
It was very hard to concentrate on anything after that, and the Colonel caught one glance in his direction from a certain Second Lieutenant, but he offered nothing in return. He left the office briskly, but he did not go home right away, he spent the night in a café and even then argued with himself when it was time to go. He stood on his walk and glared at his front door, hating the bastard who lives there.
He thought wryly to occurrences not to long ago when he prepared himself for imagined rejection and the nights he spent alone, what irony it seemed to him, that he should be a fortune teller, and in defeat he trudged inside and shut the door behind him.
***
Things have a way of snowballing.
So many things began to happen so fast, it was a wonder he could breathe, but in between one crisis and the next, he thought about the boy, and it would be a lie to say he didn’t think about the him even as he dealt with each crisis. Ed had made his way to Central and as usual chaos had followed him. He got reports belatedly and felt his heart hammer in his chest, calling his old friend and demanding concrete answers. Hughes was withholding information, to what purpose, Roy did not know.
“He couldn’t move his arm!” Roy cried into the receiver, and Hughes made his usual reassuring reply. From his distance, he could not see the Colonel’s ashen countenance and mistook anguish for outrage, but the First Lieutenant watched silently, thinking herself alone in her suspicions. Even though it was ungracious, and maybe a bit something else, she couldn’t help but think that Hughes had done the right thing. This grim Colonel that had replaced the one of not so long ago was a very efficient worker and seemed driven toward his goal. Each day, as things escalated, she saw his inner focus and though it may be painful on a personal level, it was what the Colonel needed. She would always be devoted, despite the man’s obvious indiscretions, because those small parts of him did not make up the whole. When he slammed the phone down and demanded she get them passage to Central, she was not surprised in the least.
***
To say something had been ripped from him was an understatement. He stood before a marker instead of a photograph of a little girl with hair in pig tails and smile so reminiscent of her father’s. Her cries at the service were added to the Colonel’s memories of things he sometimes visited to remind him of what he’s doing, but it’s a two edged sword. They will come to haunt him as surely as burning corpses and a pair of hollow golden eyes. He hoped to catch them there, but they had already moved on, unaware of what was left behind them.
The First Lieutenant’s voice was a solid reminder, her words not a healing balm, but a confirmation of his convictions, and he turned his face to hide his reaction, making a quip about the weather. He did not reach up to remove it because he owed his old friend at least that. They left the gravesite with his resolution screwed tight, there were things he must simply put behind him, and his heart reluctantly agreed to help him. He promised it that once this was over, they would have a long talk, but he couldn’t afford the distractions when all he needed was answers. Once again, the First Lieutenant provided them in the form of a towering Major.
***
Deception, deceit and intrigue became his bedfellows. They are fickle lovers who rob him of his sleep and still, he can’t quite banish the longing for a something else that was both warm and cool at once, his heaven and his hell. Then came the staggering blow and an entire city vanished along with many men who were sacrificed to fate’s discretion. The association with a mad man condemned them, and the Colonel accepted orders to put right the mistakes. He wondered as he talked, practically begging for them, if it was just an excuse to see the boy again. He cursed his heart, he thought they’d made a deal, but he takes his traitorous feelings in pursuit of something he’d given up.
The boy lashed out as expected when they trapped him near his hometown, but it was just so good to see him, the Colonel didn’t think about Ed’s anger, but because the stakes were high, and he couldn’t afford those feelings he made demands he already knew the answers to.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” he heard his own voice shout and it was all he could do to keep focused on the face of the man in front of him, because somehow in the chaos, the boy had been left behind and the person he faced now was different in every way.
I have never stopped…
Ed returned his shout with one of his own, the words registered and he acknowledged them.
Not for a single moment…
Now the others are speaking, information is being exchanged, plans are forming, answers are being given.
Even though I have tried…
The Colonel is forced to offer up painful information of things that were not given as freely as he might have liked, and Edward touches him in anger, grabbing at his collar. Alphonse rushed forward to stave off his brother’s blow…
I have loved you…
Edward screamed his brother’s name as a blinding flash surrounded them and the sound of splashing water brought terror like it shouldn’t. His thoughts halt in his tracks, but a miracle is given to them, and then it was Edward who was hiding information that should be given freely.
But I don’t expect…
They made a trek in silence that was from the brothers’ childhood and met up with unexpected information on the road. He watched Edward’s anger directed at a man who Roy had long sought after and thought to never meet.
Later in the evening, he took the opportunity to speak with the man that had molded his son’s fate, he found he couldn’t dislike him, despite Edward’s feelings and he wondered what it was that made him wander away. Edward was cold and distant, only looking and speaking to the Colonel when he had to. Roy couldn’t blame him and pushed for nothing more. He had already contributed to the look of feral defiance Edward was offering those around him, and excused himself with apologies to find a place to remove his aggravating presence. It was the least he could do for him.
***
He did not sleep, even though he knew he should, the exhaustion could make him slip. He found his way outside and a bit removed from the house, reaching up to tug his collar open and running a hand through his hair.
He is beautiful. Not even your own memories of him in your own bed do him justice.
The flesh and metal of him is a powerful presence. Roy leaned his head back and looked up at the stars above him, a blanket that is not as visible in the city.
He’s gotten a bit taller, even though I’m not close enough to measure with my chin.
The floodgate opened even as he tried to bar it. Laughing eyes and breathless grins, gold and red and black blurs across the private screening room of his mind. The startled yelp of the first love bite before that torturous promise of ‘no biting’ was extracted... So much restraint on the Colonel’s part, he should receive a reward.
Climbing Alphonse like a tree to reach a book on the top shelf of the office, scuffling over a candy bar Breda decided he wanted even though he laid it before Edward on the table, the startled cry of pleasure when the Colonel touched him in just the right way, the look of wide-eyed wonder after his first climax that hadn’t been delivered by his own left hand.
The way he swayed to a record when he thought he wasn’t being watched, and the way he could obviously relax his gullet when the food was to his liking. The look of intensity so bright, you could read by it when a book held his fascination. The soft sobs of sorrow buried against his chest for his little brother, the feel of golden silk dragging between his fingers as soft snores issued from where soft sobs had been, once he’d been comforted.
Roy closed his eyes against the stars.
I was blessed to have you even for the little while I did.
I want to thank you for the places in my mind I like to visit, mostly that you’ve put there.
Maybe someday I can return the favor.
No one was more startled than himself when a silent figure joined him, but said not a word. Golden eyes searched his face for a moment, then the figure turned and walked away, but not towards the house. After a moment, the Colonel followed, hoping he interpreted the look right.
Edward walked ahead of him, carrying something over his arm like a blanket. He led the Colonel over a rise and across a back field. Soon another small farm house came into view with a large barn set back from it, a weather testament to the small farming community. Edward paused at the fence and looked toward the small house, but it was silent and dark. He ducked between the fence rungs and waited for the Colonel to follow his lead. It was not as easy for the taller man and as he grunted with the effort to squeeze through, he thought he saw a fleeting half smile on the moonlit face.
They approached the barn and Edward tried the handles. The doors swung open easily with a bit of a creak, there isn’t much call to secure things in this place and Roy found it oddly touching and peaceful. Edward slipped into the barn and Roy followed, pausing to pull the door closed behind him. The smell of animals and vegetation assaulted him and he wrinkled his nose a moment. Edward proceeded forward, heading towards the back, Roy moved to follow and almost cried out when something soft and curious bumped his elbow, but the cart pony had better manners than to be offended and the Colonel gave a wider berth as he moved further into the barn.
Edward was waiting for him, his foot on the bottom rung of a ladder. When Roy came within a few feet, he started to climb. Roy closed his hands over the rough wooden side railings and followed suit, the smell of hay becoming stronger the further up he went. Edward gained the top well before him (getting old, the Colonel fretted) and was busily spreading out the blanket he had draped over his arm. He chose his corner carefully, like making a critical chess move, sat down, crossed his legs and looked up at the Colonel.
Roy lowered himself slowly on the opposite corner; his legs don’t cross as easily as the young man used to making do when no chairs are available. They faced each other in silence for long seconds.
“I should be furious with you for not telling me the army was developing the red stone,” Edward said, reasonably and evenly, “when you knew all along it might have been the key I was killing myself trying to find.”
“I was not at liberty to discuss it so freely,” the Colonel replied in the same measured tones, “although I would have liked to and I know you won’t think it much of an excuse.”
There was more silence from both parties, then it was the Colonel’s turn to speak.
“You’ve been very busy. I would like to know more about Lab 5, is there any chance you would tell me?” he kept his expression schooled and his eyes on the face before him, “and this business in Lior, I think I deserve some answers.”
“Lab 5 is complicated. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Edward said, “many things are happening right now and I’m not even sure of all the answers. As for Lior, there isn’t much I can tell you. Al was more involved there and I was just the clean up.”
“I think you’re lying,” The Colonel, to his credit, didn’t flinch when the golden eyes turned hard, “but I figure you have your reasons,” he continued, “about Alphonse at the river…”
“Please don’t ask me that,” Edward said and for the first time lowered his eyes, “please just let me keep that for a while. I would ask you to trust me, but I don’t know how you’ll take that.”
“That’s funny,” the Colonel said, “because I could ask you the same thing with the same reservations.”
Then silence reared its head again and Edward shifted on the blanket. The Colonel wondered who would speak first about the selfish thing on his mind; he knew there would be no way he could just leave it without at least some gesture made to make them friends.
“I missed you,” Edward said quietly.
The Colonel’s heart missed a beat, and his vocal chords deserted him for a moment.
“I thought about you a lot,” Edward said shifting again, uncomfortably, but determined.
The Colonel wet his lips and pulled breath with which to speak.
“I thought a lot about the things you said,” Edward continued, “and I’ve had a lot of time away from you to let them sink in.”
“Edward,” the Colonel said.
“Please let me say this, I’ve practiced it long and hard in the hopes that I’d have the opportunity to do so,” Edward said.
The Colonel closed his mouth.
“Some of the things you said were very painful,” Edward said softly, “but mostly I deserved them. I was selfish and ignorant, blind and arrogant…”
“Edward,” the Colonel said, “I understand…”
“But I didn’t. That was just it, you did understand. I think back on it now and I see so much that I didn’t see then, and that hurts so much more than your words,” the young man said, “that I was so blind to you and your feelings. I thought I was being a good boyfriend,” and he half laughed and gave a sad smile, “but in reality I was being a burden, and one you didn’t deserve.”
“That’s not true!” the Colonel interjected, “you were never a burden to me!”
The Colonel thought he saw gratitude in those golden eyes, and then the young man leaned over on his hands and knees and crossed the expanse of blanket between them.
The Colonel found the air in the hayloft thick now and it was difficult to breath.
“There are some things I want to give you,” Edward said, “while I still can. I hope that you will let me, because no one deserves them more than you.”
“What do you mean while you still can?” the Colonel asked, “What do you think is going to happen?” His heart constricted in his chest. Edward was so close, so touchably in distance of his hands, it was hard to keep them still.
Edward shook his head.
“I can’t tell you, because I don’t know,” he said and he leaned up, his eyes straying from Roy’s eyes to Roy’s lips, “but what I can tell you is that I want you. I want your touch, I need it. I’m willing to beg for it,” and then he kissed the Colonel soft and deep, his tongue gently pressing to Roy’s, then trailing over the roof of his mouth before withdrawing. When he pulled back, he did so just a little, so their lips were still touching, “I hope you still want mine.”
***
There is no word in any spoken language to describe the feeling of a heart that thought it knew love, but realized it had only known the merest beginnings.
Roy pushed his lips against the ones still resting lightly on his in offering, and then moved to push Edward onto his back, fingers tangling in the braid as he did so, pulling at the tie, letting the weight of all that blonde hair fall over his hands. After he laid Edward down, he pushed himself up on his arms and took in the sight, because perfection like this must never be forgotten and every nuance must be committed to memory. These would be the ones he hoarded with a jealousy bordering on insanity, and hoped he could play them through his mind when time in this existence was coming to a close.
Edward reached up to him, just as he had always done before, the yielding in his eyes made Roy gasp out loud. He kissed those fingers, both flesh and metallic, as Edward’s hands stroked his face and then moved downward to his neck. The sound of crickets was a lush accompaniment to the rustling symphony of fabric, each piece singing it’s solo melody before being swept aside, and as he bared his lover and his lover did the same to him, Roy’s mouth sought out the flesh it had once before remembered.
Each breathy sound that fell from Edward’s lips, Roy lashed over his senses. Each twist of his body, Roy mapped in his mind, even the crunch of the hay beneath the blanket played its role in this living tapestry that was Edward’s body, and Roy worshipped it with a zealous fervor that burned him deeper than his namesake element ever could.
He would not be stilled the first time he brought Edward to completion, even though Edward begged him as he arched up with his hips. He savored Edward’s every contour, even to mapping his cock with his tongue, and he held those arched hips captive until he’d had his fill.
Edward flung his arm out and his fingers scrabbled at the clothing piled beside the blanket, and for one soul-wrenching moment, Roy thought that it was over. If this all he could have, then he’d take it and grovel his thanks to heaven, because even just this much was more than he expected.
But Edward dragged over his pants and jammed his hands into its pockets. After a moment, he brought out what looked like a jam jar. He shoved the pants away again and held it up to Roy as it was a trophy worthy of that battle.
When Roy didn’t take it right away, Edward grunted. Roy gave him a puzzled look and leaned down to kiss him.
“Take it,” Edward husked, pressing it against his shoulder.
Edward wanted him to have a jam jar. If that is what he wanted, a jam jar Roy would have. So he plucked it from Edward’s grasp and held it a moment, then set it aside on the blanket and leaned down to kiss him.
“Roy, it’s…” but then his mouth got lost in Roy’s and he squirmed, but acquiesced quickly. After a few moments, Roy pulled back up, jam jar forgotten.
Edward panted, flushed to his roots and reached up to tug at Roy’s shoulders. He arched his hips up as Roy obligingly lowered himself to the pull, and the bump and grind began.
Roy almost laughed out loud, the sheer delight of it making him giddy, he gave Edward a wicked grin and ground down against him.
Edward was working himself into a lather, breath catching with each press of their groins together and Roy’s cock began to complain loudly, demanding some sort of satisfaction, ANY SORT of satisfaction. Roy found his mind straying to a decorative bottle on a bedside and he cursed its very existence for being there and not here when he needed it. He massaged Ed’s hip in agitation, wanting badly do what the bump and grind often heralded for Ed, which was a pleasurable fingering.
Edward latched onto the side of his neck and began to suck hard like a starved leech, his grinds becoming more frantic. It was getting hard to not be caught up in his sudden pitched fever and throw caution to the wind. Even so, Roy found his hand sliding under Edward’s butt and kneading restlessly on a cheek. Edward did his scootch, the scootch that he did when he wanted to leverage himself up on Roy’s lap and give Roy room to work. Roy kissed him again, needy and frustrated, wanting to please him with a desire bordering on mania, but even he wasn’t so far gone to realize that a dry run would be painful.
Edward pulled his mouth free and glared up at him.
“What’s the hold up,” the blonde demanded, and Roy’s head swam with the irony.
“Edward,” Roy panted, “I know what you want, but we don’t have any…”
“What did you think was in that jar?” Edward growled, “jelly for an after shag snack? It’s cooking oil from Granny Pinako’s kitchen, where did you put it?!”
Two sets of hands slapped around the blanket’s edge. They found it at the same time and in urgency, they fought over it.
“What the hell are you doing?” Roy yelped.
“I don’t want you to spill it,” Edward growled, “you’re all jittery.”
“I can hear your automail rattling,” Roy growled back, “give it to me!”
They glared at each other, both with a hand locked around the hapless jam jar, and then Edward threw his head back and he laughed. He laughed like he used to with his whole body and then Roy was laughing too. They laughed and they kissed and a compromised was reached. The jam jar sat on Ed’s naked belly with his hand wrapped around it. Roy unscrewed the cap and dipped his fingers in, shoving as many in as he could. Ed screwed the cap back on and laid it carefully aside, far enough to be out of danger but not so far it wasn’t in easy reach.
Roy sat up on his knees and Ed wiggled, lifted and got himself propped up on them as Roy stroked the inside of his thigh with his unoiled hand. Roy then slipped his other hand between Ed’s legs, under his balls and back, circling the tight ring once and then twice, drawing in a shuddering breath from Ed.
Edward’s body hadn’t forgotten Roy’s touch and he opened with a relaxed ease that spoke of willingness and want and longing. Roy didn’t wait long to introduce a second finger, looking down as he did so, other hand still kneading gently on the inside of Edward’s thigh. Edward shuddered, it starts in his stomach and traveled up to his lips.
“Is it alright?” Roy asked softy.
“Please don’t stop,” his young lover gasped.
Roy worked him slowly, remembering his places, hooking his fingers in just that way that would make Edward tremble. Edward rewarded him with the most beautiful grimaces and tantalizing moans, the inner thigh under Roy’s hand trembling and jumping in time to each of Roy’s slow finger thrusts.
And then Edward said “More.”
Roy though he meant ‘faster’, so he obeyed with a gentle smile, but Edward bit his lip and arched his neck.
“Another finger Roy,” he begged softly.
Roy swallowed and trembled, his cock reminding him again that as exciting as this all was, it was feeling a bit like a third wheel, but he couldn’t deny Edward anything, and so slowly, gently, he began to work a third finger into his lover. Edward grimaced just a bit at first, but he stayed beautifully relaxed and was soon panting heavily and tossing his head.
It was a sight better than a mortal man like Roy Mustang deserved.
Edward tightened rhythmically on Roy’s fingers and weaved his gasps and moans into a song meant only for Roy’s ears. Roy could have stayed in this perfect moment forever, watching the young man he loved enjoy his attentions and look so beautiful while doing it.
“Make love to me,” Edward said softly and Roy thought he might have imagined it.
“I am making love to you,” he said in return, to test his theory.
Edward sucked in his lower lip and shook his head.
“No,” Edward said, and then panted for a moment, “what we are doing is our mutual masturbation club, of which I am a long standing member and you are very definitely the president,” Edward gave a soft laugh.
“At least I’m the president of something,” Roy said in gentle mirth.
“But,” Edward said and then had to moan and pant a bit more before continuing, “I’m bored of this boy’s club. I’m ready for something new.”
“Ready,” Roy whispered.
“This is not your bed,” Edward half sobbed, “where I should have said these words,” and he arched a bit and made the hay crunch as he clenched and unclenched his fingers, “but I want to make love with you, I want you inside me. I want everything that is Roy Mustang, I want you, and I don’t think I would ever want anyone else.”
***
Roy slowly withdrew his fingers and Edward gave a lovely bereft sound, it was very flattering to be so appreciated. The jam jar was again negotiated and just as quickly returned to its resting place of honor, but the oil was pooling in the palm of Edward’s hands instead of his own, Edward having sat up to receive what he called ‘an honor’.
Roy Mustang felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: heat in his cheeks.
“You have a beautiful blush,” Edward crooned to him.
Roy let his eyes dart to the side.
“Thank you,” he said, feeling very silly.
Only Edward Elric could make him feel this way when he was about to have the sexual experience of what he figured would be his lifetime.
Edward was trying not to snicker.
“This is not how I imagined… no wait, I take that back,” Roy said, for some reason still not able to look directly at his lover, “somehow this is ironically appropriate.”
Edward dissolved into giggles for a few moments.
There was much lip smacking and schooling of expressions, and still after two tries, Ed still broke down into giggles when they looked at each other.
Roy’s cock had about enough and warned Roy if it didn’t see action, and soon it was leaping to its death out of the hayloft, and it was taking Roy with it.
Edward seemed to telepathically sense this, because his expression sobered a bit and he reached forward to wrap his hands, both soft and hard, around Roy’s erection.
The night sang to life, Roy’s blood rushed in an abandoned free for all from his brain and directly into his groin, the sound he made caused Edward to look up at him in alarm.
“Don’t you dare cum yet,” Edward hissed, “I’m not even doing any good stuff!”
Roy wondered vaguely what could be better than just Edward’s hands on his dick, he wondered if he begged at the top of his lungs Edward would show him just what this ‘good stuff’ was.
“I think you need to cool down a bit,” his lover said, “or this is going to be a very short ride for the Mustang.”
Roy wondered vaguely where Edward had picked up this incredibly mature sexual vocabulary. It must be those bastards in Central again! The same ones that had tried to make him a hair puller during oral sex! Roy vowed grimly that each and every one of them would roast in a pit of his very own making and it would be so horrendous, so awful, that they would beg for hell as a mercy. Every time Edward went to that place, he came back with the most atrocious habits!
He decided that Edward didn’t know what he was talking about. After all, he was the teacher here.
“No,” Edward said, squirming when Roy leaned forward a bit, “lie down with me, just for a bit. Roy, if you do it right now it’s going to be over in a second,” Edward bit his lip, “And you’ll just chalk that up to another way I’ve ruined your reputation,” the blonde wheedled.
He remembered a woman who smelled like cinnamon who had once bestowed upon his ears the most crushing thing that had ever been said to him, and here, Edward, his shining thing, his cherished treasure, his object of undying affection, had just topped it and he did it in such a way that Roy couldn’t even be upset about it.
“I don’t want to lie down,” Roy whined.
“Ok, ok,” Edward placated, sounding all breathless and beautiful, “just remember, take it slow, it’s my first time,” and he bit his lip.
Roy stared at him hard for a long moment and then slowly leaned forward, started and waited. He waited for that excuse he just knew was coming to hold him off again, and then Roy would do the only honorable thing he could think off, he would cry.
But instead of an excuse, Edward gave a low, throaty moan and rubbed his heels on Roy’s back. Roy reached with one trembling hand between his own legs, gave his oil-slicked cock a pull, groaned deeply and lined himself up. Edward took several deep breaths and stretched his arms out to either side of him. Roy looked up at him for a moment, Edward looked very peaceful, very relaxed, very accepting.
He would love this boy who was now this man until the very last breath left his body.
He pushed forward slowly and sank into heaven.
***
There was only a bit of resistance after the head had cleared the ring. Edward had made a half whimper and his face and drawn tight, so Roy stopped and ached and waited. But, it only lasted a few hellish moments and Edward swallowed and smiled at him, nodding his head. Roy moved again, very slowly, hands kneading gently on the sides of two perfect thighs that framed his groin.
It was a hot, tight heaven. Edward groaned and tilted his head back, his heels dug into Roy’s lower back. Roy was shaking and sweat was trickling down the back of his neck and along side of his nose, but he would never think of removing his hands from the smooth skin where they rested.
Heaven drew him a little deeper.
He watched Edward’s chest move up and down in an almost hypnotic fashion, admiring his lover’s chest and toned abdomen, his flat stomach and the golden curls that were pillowing a reawakening erection.
Then he was wholly inside of him and Edward tightened. Roy drew in a frantic lungful of air and gritted his teeth, and then Edward relaxed again and Roy waited, letting him adjust to this invasion, struggling desperately to hold himself in check.
Edward was looking at him, his eyes were still the color of fine scotch.
“Roy,” he said soft and husky, “my Colonel,” he added on a playful note.
It’s useless, you can’t make me love you any more than I do already. Roy thought hazily, No, that’s a total lie.
“We’re making love,” Edward said again, in those same soft, husky tones. The sound of his voice caressed not Roy’s body but his very soul. “I use to think about this,” Edward continued, “I use to dream about it.”
Roy threw his head back savagely and panted for control, he should tell Edward to stop it, to cease this divine torture falling from his lips, but he could no more do that than stop breathing, or pull himself from his body.
“It’s just perfect,” Edward whispered, and turned his head to the side, “just the way I always thought it would be.”
Roy’s hips moved of their own accord, a thrust that for all it’s lack of control was still gentle, as if Roy’s own body knew the delicacy of the moment.
“I am your creature,” the voice between them was not Edward’s and Edward turned his head back to sear Roy’s face with his golden eyes, “and I always have been. I always will be,” Roy licked his lips, “I just want to be, no matter how I fill it, some part of your life. I will always love you.”
Edward threw his head back and arched up to Roy’s body. He could no more resist it than tell his heart not to beat and the rhythm that has moved lovers through the ages began to bring their bodies together.
***
Roy could hear his heart beating louder and louder. Edward’s cries over took it and the night air was thick against his skin and throat. He worried briefly that he as digging his fingers into pale flesh too hard, but as he looked down, he became entranced at the sight in his lap, of his body rocking, his cock moving in and out of Edward.
Edward thrashed and called out to him. He was trying to reach for him like he always had before, and Roy would please him, he would move into those clutching fingers, but he couldn’t from his position. Edward begged and sobbed and Roy tried to croon comfort to him, but it was getting hard to think, and his vision was blurring at the edges.
Somehow his eyes trailed from that flushed face, once again down Edward’s body and rested on his cock, hard and red and bouncing against his own stomach. Roy dragged a hand away from one hip and laid his palm over it, causing Edward’s cries to rise even higher. Edward dropped his arms to his sides, ground the heels of his hands into the blanket and hay beneath them and he arched up to meet Roy’s thrusts.
All of it, heaven, hell, joy, ecstasy, terror, longing, love, faith and trust collided behind Roy’s tight, closed eyelids and he threw his head back so far he thought his neck might break and he screamed his completion, his love to the rafters of the barn. Come what may, he didn’t care, for he had never known a more perfect moment. He struggled for air in his burning lungs, threw his chin down to his chest and tried to choke off a sob, but it escaped him. He opened his eyes slowly and saw his hand still lying over Edward’s cock, his palm felt wet and he trailed his eyes slowly up the young man’s body. Edward was drenched in sweat, but there were distinctive tracks down his cheeks. Roy made a half choked sound, (my god NO, please if there is any mercy in you, anything for me at ALL, tell me I didn’t hurt him) but Edward smiled at him and reached for him again.
“I love you,” Edward sobbed brokenly, “I’ve always loved you, I wanted to tell you, please believe me!” he begged.
Then, at that moment, when everything stilled inside him and the crickets once again singing, only then – Heaven came.
Heaven came.
***
It was so hard to leave him there at the barn doorway.
“We better not go back together,” he said.
Roy was always the voice of reason.
He slipped quietly through the pre-dawn household and up the stairs to the small room he shared with his brother. Alphonse looked over at him as he slipped in the door and shut it quietly.
“Did you talk to him?” Al said softly.
Edward nodded and went over to sit on the floor beside his sibling.
“What did he say?” Al asked again in hushed tones to guard the sleeping.
“What I expected him to,” Ed said just as softly.
“Was that all?” Al prompted gently, “You were gone for quiet a while.”
“That wasn’t all,” Edward said slowly, “we did other things.”
“I know how much you missed him,” Al said, “I know how much you love him,” he stroked his brother’s heart with his soft, simple tones.
“Yes,” Ed said shakily, “and I told him,” his heart felt happy and terrified all at once and his stomach fluttered in a funny way. He was so grateful to have someone he could tell, he felt the sting of tears.
“I’m really glad,” Alphonse said after a moment, “because he’s a good man and he deserves it.”
“He does,” Ed said, “he deserves many things. I hope he makes his goal, he would be a good Fuhrer.”
“He may deserve many good things,” Alphonse said. He started to pat Ed’s knee, but jerked his hand back, remembering that touching brother was not a good thing, “but he deserves you most of all.”
Ed sat back against the wall and looked up at his little brother.
“That’s all he’s really wanted,” Al said in his all knowing way, “I can tell just by looking at him.”
“When we get your body back,” Ed said, “I think I might have to hug you for like an entire day.”
“Well you can hug me most definitely,” Alphonse responded, “but if we do it for an entire day, we’ll get all sweaty and I’ll probably have to go to the bathroom. I sometimes have trouble remembering what that’s like.”
It was all so absurdly wonderful and all so incredibly freeing, that Edward banged himself into the wall, laughing loud enough to earn an irritated thumping on the wall from Winry’s room next door.
***
The next morning brought nothing but new worries. There were soldiers at the station, someone had to send them back. Roy trotted down the front steps of the porch, intent on following the First Lieutenant to the car, when he heard footsteps rushing after him.
“Colonel, wait,” a beloved voice called.
He nodded to Hawkeye and signaled just a moment, turning back to the young alchemist walking toward him.
“I want you to stay out of sight,” he intoned firmly, his black eyes caught gold eyes briefly and Edward gave a nod.
“I might run if I have to,” Edward warned.
“I’m trying to prevent that,” the Colonel said.
Edward got as close as he dared.
“I love you,” he whispered.
A light flashed in the Colonel’s dark eyes.
“I’ll protect you,” Roy promised.
They turned their separate ways and walked out of each other’s lives for the moment.
***
Again there was damnable separation, and every step he took brought him closer to the cliff’s edge.
The Fuhrer was a monster that must be stopped.
He hadn’t seen Edward for quite some time now, he searched every report repeatedly and listened to every bit of intelligence gathered for some trace of his lover, even as he absorbed what he actually needed from it.
The showdown caught him unawares, but the First Lieutenant was beside him. She was comfort, no matter how formal and he was glad they were in it together. He sat in the back seat of a car, wearing clothes made for visiting dignitaries, complete with a hat to make him look respectable. He had smiled without mirth at the image in the mirror and imagined what Edward might say about the hat.
The Colonel rode in silence, going over and over in his mind what had to be done and what the best way was to accomplish it, and suddenly he was there, a flash of gold across the car hood, Hawkeye putting on the brakes.
Roy couldn’t believe it. Edward climbed in the car and they sat on opposite sides of the back seat, both staring straight ahead. What could be said really, the plans were reaching fruition and when he finally asked for Edward’s help, there was no small amount of pain in his eyes when he had to refuse.
Roy wanted to go with him, to see this final terrible battle that Edward was trying to hide from him, but his plans were always bigger than only the two of them, and Edward understood that, because they were in the same position, so they slowed the car down to let him get out.
Roy walked with him a bit, and stood looking at him in the waning sunlight. So beautiful and so golden, only made more so by dusk’s approach. There are no words for the moment you tell the person you love ‘Goodbye’ when you know it might be the last time. He reached his hand out and Edward reached too, but instead of taking it to shake as if it would make these horrible thoughts final, he lightly slapped the back of it and smiled as best he could, because Edward never learned how to give up on a hopeless situation, and in this he was the teacher. Roy could only stand there and watch Edward run. He waited until he couldn’t see anymore and then just a bit longer, before turning to chase the monsters in his path.
This world was full of angels and demons, not all that could be seen, but Roy knew he would see both before the night was through.
The Colonel jerked violently in his sleep, catching his lover inadvertently with a heel to his shin.
[Surrender peacefully], he begs again to the shaking, dark-skinned child with the wild red eyes who clutches a carbine to his chest. He can see his own hand outstretched with forefinger and thumb pressed together, the ghastly white material of his gloves reflecting the light of a nearby fire as they shook.
From somewhere within him, the boy finds his courage. (No! the Colonel screams wildly, always the spectator to this scene, trapped and helpless as if behind a glass wall) The boy slams himself back against the wall he is cowering against for leverage and his small hands yank the carbine rifle upward.
[Surrender…], behind his glass wall, the Colonel watches in helpless horror. He snaps his fingers and activates his array. It’s only a matter of seconds, the blacked and charred body arches toward him and he stumbles back wildly, tripping and going down on his ass. There is a sound behind him as he watches the scene play in front of him. He whirls around, tense and ready, and sees a dark-skinned child with wild, red eyes cowering against the walls of his ruined home, a carbine rifle clutched in his shaking hands.
The Colonel opens his mouth. Maybe this time, maybe this time he will listen!
[Drop the gun!] the man screams in broken Ishbhalan, [Surrender peacefully!] he tries again, [Surrender and no harm!]
The Colonel watches in horror, always a spectator to this scene, trapped and helpless as if behind a glass wall. It’s all one never-ending circle.
***
Something struck him across the face and he came up swinging, twisting himself to the side and falling off the side of the bed. He rolled with the impact, on his feet before he finished a breath and clapped his hands hard in front of him. Alchemic energy surged with blue and white fire as his arm melted and reformed into something sharp and brilliant. He bared his teeth like a jackal and crouched to face his opponent who tried to take him unawares.
The Colonel reacted too, but in a much more disorganized way. He flailed and arched up, twisting and slamming into the bedside table, knocking it over and following it down off the side of the bed. Ed felt his jaw drop as his sleep-addled brain tried to assess the situation. He looked wildly around the bedroom, but nothing seemed out of place and he could hear the Colonel panting like he’d run a marathon, muttering things that made no sense. Ed slowly reconstructed his arm again and took a few cautious steps around the foot of the bed to peer beside it.
Black eyes widened at the sight of him and the Colonel screamed again, something Ed couldn’t understand. He wasn’t sure what to say and raised his hand toward the Colonel, but the Colonel thrust his own hand out and snapped, hard and loud, again and again, his breath hitching in terror. Ed stood frozen, not sure of what he was seeing, but then something whispered in his own mind, something that was familiar and sickening, something that waits until he is at his most vulnerable in his sleep to come creeping in like a guilty dog. The Colonel is having a nightmare.
Ed opened his mouth, checking himself at the last moment before shouting Colonel! and instead replacing it with “Roy!”
They were suspended for a few moments, neither moving, as the sound of a name echoed briefly around the room. The Colonel swallowed and jerked his head back and forth. He looked at Ed again and then at his own outstretched hand, forefinger and thumb clenched against each other so hard they were white at the knuckles. He made a half laughing sound that became desperate and looked at Ed again, his eyes moving from confusion, to realization, to fear, to sorrow. He jerked his hand back and opened it, stared at his palm for a moment more, then laughed another thin laugh that was more like a wound opening in his throat, and simply fell over with a horrible thud on the wooden floor.
Ed was startled into action. He took two running steps and fells to his knees, but Roy had not passed out, his eyes were open and he was just lying there, staring off at nothing, making no effort to sit up. Ed reached out and touched his shoulder with his flesh hand, but the Colonel flinched, then subsided, but he did not meet Ed’s eyes and he said nothing.
“Roy,” Ed said bewildered, “get up.” He gave the Colonel’s shoulder a push.
“Leave me alone Ed,” the Colonel’s voice was raw and faint.
“You can’t lay here on the floor,” Ed said and pushed again.
The Colonel made no response, tangled in the bed covers with the bedside table lying against his back.
Ed was at a loss. He could make no sense of why the Colonel wished to lay on the floor next to the bed. He almost wrung his hands, but caught himself before he did it. He needed to think, to work out what was going on. He stood up and stepped over the bastard, setting the bedside table upright. He turned and stepped back over the Colonel-shaped lump on the floor to retrieve the bottle that usually sat there on the table, from where it skittered and rolled to rest on the bedroom door frame. He replaced it, picked the lamp up and switched it on and off. It seemed fine, so he sat it back in its place as well, but the alarm clock’s face was cracked, so he sat it on the floor and clapped his hands to mend it. He understood the workings of this at least, and wished he understood the workings of the mind of his lover who was still lying silent and unmoving on the floor. He got the table back to the way he remembered it looking, order from the chaos. He then sank to his knees again and began untangling the Colonel from the sheet and comforter. Roy didn’t help or hinder as Ed moved his legs about like they were dead weights. Ed straightened the bed clothes out, but left them lying over the man and looked back at his face. His expression hadn’t changed at all.
What should he do? He reached up and caught a lock of his own long blonde hair that was trailing over his shoulder and twisted it, then noticed he is doing it and dropped it, wrinkling his nose in disgust with himself.
Sometimes you will have to be more of the adult than he is.
He’s sulking about something, about something he had dreamt about. When Ed sulked, the Colonel teased him and made him mad, and after Ed was over being mad… he could never quite work back up to the sulk he had going, so he let it go. That was bizarre logic, trading one bad emotion for another, but Ed found he would prefer any response over this thing on the floor that seemed apathetic to everything, even it’s own comfort.
He chewed on his lip, wondering what to say, then leaned over the bastard’s head and planted his hands on either side of it. The Colonel didn’t acknowledge him, it was almost like he was back in that hospital bed, pink and quiet.
“You should practice what you preach,” Ed said, “you’re just a fucking hypocrite.”
No response.
“You think you’re so smart, that you have to teach me all these things you think I need to know,” he tried again, “but then you do stupid shit like lying around on the floor feeling sorry for yourself.”
Still the Colonel said nothing.
“It was just a fucking dream,” Ed said, “I have them too you know, you don’t see me lying around on the floor like a baby.”
That’s a little unfair, I prefer to lie around on the bed like a baby.
The Colonel’s eyebrow twitched and the corner of his mouth pulled down.
“Here’s some of your own advice,” Ed said, then took a deep breath and let his adolescent voice climb to a mocking falsetto, “you should let me in you know,” Ed simpered, being just as insulting as he could manage, “I can’t do nothing if you don’t tell me what is wrong,” he finished. “What a load of crock,” Ed sniffed.
“You ungrateful brat,” the Colonel whispered.
Ed narrowed his eyes, Roy’s hadn’t pried his cheek off the floorboards, but his eye swiveled up to glare at the face hanging over him.
Ed stuck his tongue out.
The Colonel raised his arm and used the ball of his hand to level himself into a semi-sitting position on his hip. His cheek was pink on one side and he looked like he had a bruise forming on his temple, the groove from the hardwood floor had left an impression running horizontally across his cheek. His jaw was set with his lips pulled tight.
“I’m just saying it’s a two way street,” Ed rushed out, “if you want me to do that stuff then you got to do it for me too, it’s…” Ed fumbled, then latched onto the mantra of his life, “equivalent trade.”
“Is that all you think about,” the Colonel spat, “I think we’ve come to the conclusion that not everything in life is fair, how do you apply equivalent trade to that?!”
Ed floundered, sitting back on his heels, surprised at the Colonel’s anger.
“It’s how things work,” he stammered, “you give and you get…”
“What am I getting?!” Roy demanded, “I work hard to make sure you’re taken care of, Ed! I try and see you have the first shot at the best leads, I cover your tracks, I put up with your insubordination and disrespect at the office in front of my other subordinates, I make excuses for your brother, I put my goddamn neck on the line in the name of Elric every fucking day, and what do I get? You can give a blow job now, I’ll give you that, you can eat my food ok, you can wreck my house, my fucking phonograph…,“ Roy stopped a moment, took several deep breaths, “you can perpetuate and believe wild rumors before you ask me the truth, and I KNOW you did that, and then when I think we’re finally understanding each other, you can mock me to my FACE!” Roy rubbed a hand over his eyes, “I have been patient, I have been supportive, I have been concerned. I haven’t asked for much in return, just some of your time and some of your… your… feelings, I won’t say ‘love’, I know you don’t like that,” he spat, “and this is what I get for it! I don’t know who’s the bigger fool, here… no maybe I do know. This is my own goddamn fault, for taking up with a kid!” Roy shook his head, “You’re a fucking kid, and you haven’t changed a bit!”
Then the Colonel looked at the kid, sitting on his knees, naked on the hardwood floor of his bedroom. He never should have looked at him, at the eyes that had gone hollow and the lips that were thin now and bloodless with a slump to his shoulders. He never should have looked and inadvertently committed that sight to his memory, but now it was too late to take back anything he’d said. It was a cruel fucking twist of fate to have him be the one to add this to the Edward Elric list of painful firsts. The truth, even if he believed half of what he said, is that he never should have said any of it, because he’s supposed to be the adult. Even as he made a sound of regret and reached for the boy, he knew that a simple touch would never be enough. Edward’s trust is a fragile thing, and he gave it to Roy in the belief that the Colonel would never hurt him. Yet, here the Colonel had laid his soul bare on the floor between them and practically ground it under his heel. As the boy jerked back from the offered touch and climbed to his feet, Roy felt his own soul settle on the floor between them and prayed that Edward would rend it, but he just rushed silently for his clothes and ran out the bedroom door.
Roy Mustang sat on the floor of his bedroom with his sheet and comforter still spread out straight and lovingly over his legs, listening to the love of his life’s painful hitches of breath in the hallway where he was dragging on his clothes, and he could not get up for the life of him to chase the boy to the doorway. Instead, he lets the front door’s slam signal that it’s final.
Edward had had his heart broken by life and circumstance and fate, but it is Roy Mustang who had given him his first heartbreak from love.
The Colonel leaned heavily against the side of the bed and wondered if the boy was crying, wondered why he was such a coward, and if he was truly the adult.
***
Edward stood before him, the loudest thing in the office was his silence. The Colonel gave his permission for the boy to run. Edward had come with well-prepared arguments and leads and said nothing when his leave was granted before he even stated them all. He never met the Colonel’s eyes, or those of the others, he just turned and moved by Alphonse and used his younger brother as a shield from the eyes that watched him walk from the office.
It was very hard to concentrate on anything after that, and the Colonel caught one glance in his direction from a certain Second Lieutenant, but he offered nothing in return. He left the office briskly, but he did not go home right away, he spent the night in a café and even then argued with himself when it was time to go. He stood on his walk and glared at his front door, hating the bastard who lives there.
He thought wryly to occurrences not to long ago when he prepared himself for imagined rejection and the nights he spent alone, what irony it seemed to him, that he should be a fortune teller, and in defeat he trudged inside and shut the door behind him.
***
Things have a way of snowballing.
So many things began to happen so fast, it was a wonder he could breathe, but in between one crisis and the next, he thought about the boy, and it would be a lie to say he didn’t think about the him even as he dealt with each crisis. Ed had made his way to Central and as usual chaos had followed him. He got reports belatedly and felt his heart hammer in his chest, calling his old friend and demanding concrete answers. Hughes was withholding information, to what purpose, Roy did not know.
“He couldn’t move his arm!” Roy cried into the receiver, and Hughes made his usual reassuring reply. From his distance, he could not see the Colonel’s ashen countenance and mistook anguish for outrage, but the First Lieutenant watched silently, thinking herself alone in her suspicions. Even though it was ungracious, and maybe a bit something else, she couldn’t help but think that Hughes had done the right thing. This grim Colonel that had replaced the one of not so long ago was a very efficient worker and seemed driven toward his goal. Each day, as things escalated, she saw his inner focus and though it may be painful on a personal level, it was what the Colonel needed. She would always be devoted, despite the man’s obvious indiscretions, because those small parts of him did not make up the whole. When he slammed the phone down and demanded she get them passage to Central, she was not surprised in the least.
***
To say something had been ripped from him was an understatement. He stood before a marker instead of a photograph of a little girl with hair in pig tails and smile so reminiscent of her father’s. Her cries at the service were added to the Colonel’s memories of things he sometimes visited to remind him of what he’s doing, but it’s a two edged sword. They will come to haunt him as surely as burning corpses and a pair of hollow golden eyes. He hoped to catch them there, but they had already moved on, unaware of what was left behind them.
The First Lieutenant’s voice was a solid reminder, her words not a healing balm, but a confirmation of his convictions, and he turned his face to hide his reaction, making a quip about the weather. He did not reach up to remove it because he owed his old friend at least that. They left the gravesite with his resolution screwed tight, there were things he must simply put behind him, and his heart reluctantly agreed to help him. He promised it that once this was over, they would have a long talk, but he couldn’t afford the distractions when all he needed was answers. Once again, the First Lieutenant provided them in the form of a towering Major.
***
Deception, deceit and intrigue became his bedfellows. They are fickle lovers who rob him of his sleep and still, he can’t quite banish the longing for a something else that was both warm and cool at once, his heaven and his hell. Then came the staggering blow and an entire city vanished along with many men who were sacrificed to fate’s discretion. The association with a mad man condemned them, and the Colonel accepted orders to put right the mistakes. He wondered as he talked, practically begging for them, if it was just an excuse to see the boy again. He cursed his heart, he thought they’d made a deal, but he takes his traitorous feelings in pursuit of something he’d given up.
The boy lashed out as expected when they trapped him near his hometown, but it was just so good to see him, the Colonel didn’t think about Ed’s anger, but because the stakes were high, and he couldn’t afford those feelings he made demands he already knew the answers to.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” he heard his own voice shout and it was all he could do to keep focused on the face of the man in front of him, because somehow in the chaos, the boy had been left behind and the person he faced now was different in every way.
I have never stopped…
Ed returned his shout with one of his own, the words registered and he acknowledged them.
Not for a single moment…
Now the others are speaking, information is being exchanged, plans are forming, answers are being given.
Even though I have tried…
The Colonel is forced to offer up painful information of things that were not given as freely as he might have liked, and Edward touches him in anger, grabbing at his collar. Alphonse rushed forward to stave off his brother’s blow…
I have loved you…
Edward screamed his brother’s name as a blinding flash surrounded them and the sound of splashing water brought terror like it shouldn’t. His thoughts halt in his tracks, but a miracle is given to them, and then it was Edward who was hiding information that should be given freely.
But I don’t expect…
They made a trek in silence that was from the brothers’ childhood and met up with unexpected information on the road. He watched Edward’s anger directed at a man who Roy had long sought after and thought to never meet.
Later in the evening, he took the opportunity to speak with the man that had molded his son’s fate, he found he couldn’t dislike him, despite Edward’s feelings and he wondered what it was that made him wander away. Edward was cold and distant, only looking and speaking to the Colonel when he had to. Roy couldn’t blame him and pushed for nothing more. He had already contributed to the look of feral defiance Edward was offering those around him, and excused himself with apologies to find a place to remove his aggravating presence. It was the least he could do for him.
***
He did not sleep, even though he knew he should, the exhaustion could make him slip. He found his way outside and a bit removed from the house, reaching up to tug his collar open and running a hand through his hair.
He is beautiful. Not even your own memories of him in your own bed do him justice.
The flesh and metal of him is a powerful presence. Roy leaned his head back and looked up at the stars above him, a blanket that is not as visible in the city.
He’s gotten a bit taller, even though I’m not close enough to measure with my chin.
The floodgate opened even as he tried to bar it. Laughing eyes and breathless grins, gold and red and black blurs across the private screening room of his mind. The startled yelp of the first love bite before that torturous promise of ‘no biting’ was extracted... So much restraint on the Colonel’s part, he should receive a reward.
Climbing Alphonse like a tree to reach a book on the top shelf of the office, scuffling over a candy bar Breda decided he wanted even though he laid it before Edward on the table, the startled cry of pleasure when the Colonel touched him in just the right way, the look of wide-eyed wonder after his first climax that hadn’t been delivered by his own left hand.
The way he swayed to a record when he thought he wasn’t being watched, and the way he could obviously relax his gullet when the food was to his liking. The look of intensity so bright, you could read by it when a book held his fascination. The soft sobs of sorrow buried against his chest for his little brother, the feel of golden silk dragging between his fingers as soft snores issued from where soft sobs had been, once he’d been comforted.
Roy closed his eyes against the stars.
I was blessed to have you even for the little while I did.
I want to thank you for the places in my mind I like to visit, mostly that you’ve put there.
Maybe someday I can return the favor.
No one was more startled than himself when a silent figure joined him, but said not a word. Golden eyes searched his face for a moment, then the figure turned and walked away, but not towards the house. After a moment, the Colonel followed, hoping he interpreted the look right.
Edward walked ahead of him, carrying something over his arm like a blanket. He led the Colonel over a rise and across a back field. Soon another small farm house came into view with a large barn set back from it, a weather testament to the small farming community. Edward paused at the fence and looked toward the small house, but it was silent and dark. He ducked between the fence rungs and waited for the Colonel to follow his lead. It was not as easy for the taller man and as he grunted with the effort to squeeze through, he thought he saw a fleeting half smile on the moonlit face.
They approached the barn and Edward tried the handles. The doors swung open easily with a bit of a creak, there isn’t much call to secure things in this place and Roy found it oddly touching and peaceful. Edward slipped into the barn and Roy followed, pausing to pull the door closed behind him. The smell of animals and vegetation assaulted him and he wrinkled his nose a moment. Edward proceeded forward, heading towards the back, Roy moved to follow and almost cried out when something soft and curious bumped his elbow, but the cart pony had better manners than to be offended and the Colonel gave a wider berth as he moved further into the barn.
Edward was waiting for him, his foot on the bottom rung of a ladder. When Roy came within a few feet, he started to climb. Roy closed his hands over the rough wooden side railings and followed suit, the smell of hay becoming stronger the further up he went. Edward gained the top well before him (getting old, the Colonel fretted) and was busily spreading out the blanket he had draped over his arm. He chose his corner carefully, like making a critical chess move, sat down, crossed his legs and looked up at the Colonel.
Roy lowered himself slowly on the opposite corner; his legs don’t cross as easily as the young man used to making do when no chairs are available. They faced each other in silence for long seconds.
“I should be furious with you for not telling me the army was developing the red stone,” Edward said, reasonably and evenly, “when you knew all along it might have been the key I was killing myself trying to find.”
“I was not at liberty to discuss it so freely,” the Colonel replied in the same measured tones, “although I would have liked to and I know you won’t think it much of an excuse.”
There was more silence from both parties, then it was the Colonel’s turn to speak.
“You’ve been very busy. I would like to know more about Lab 5, is there any chance you would tell me?” he kept his expression schooled and his eyes on the face before him, “and this business in Lior, I think I deserve some answers.”
“Lab 5 is complicated. It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Edward said, “many things are happening right now and I’m not even sure of all the answers. As for Lior, there isn’t much I can tell you. Al was more involved there and I was just the clean up.”
“I think you’re lying,” The Colonel, to his credit, didn’t flinch when the golden eyes turned hard, “but I figure you have your reasons,” he continued, “about Alphonse at the river…”
“Please don’t ask me that,” Edward said and for the first time lowered his eyes, “please just let me keep that for a while. I would ask you to trust me, but I don’t know how you’ll take that.”
“That’s funny,” the Colonel said, “because I could ask you the same thing with the same reservations.”
Then silence reared its head again and Edward shifted on the blanket. The Colonel wondered who would speak first about the selfish thing on his mind; he knew there would be no way he could just leave it without at least some gesture made to make them friends.
“I missed you,” Edward said quietly.
The Colonel’s heart missed a beat, and his vocal chords deserted him for a moment.
“I thought about you a lot,” Edward said shifting again, uncomfortably, but determined.
The Colonel wet his lips and pulled breath with which to speak.
“I thought a lot about the things you said,” Edward continued, “and I’ve had a lot of time away from you to let them sink in.”
“Edward,” the Colonel said.
“Please let me say this, I’ve practiced it long and hard in the hopes that I’d have the opportunity to do so,” Edward said.
The Colonel closed his mouth.
“Some of the things you said were very painful,” Edward said softly, “but mostly I deserved them. I was selfish and ignorant, blind and arrogant…”
“Edward,” the Colonel said, “I understand…”
“But I didn’t. That was just it, you did understand. I think back on it now and I see so much that I didn’t see then, and that hurts so much more than your words,” the young man said, “that I was so blind to you and your feelings. I thought I was being a good boyfriend,” and he half laughed and gave a sad smile, “but in reality I was being a burden, and one you didn’t deserve.”
“That’s not true!” the Colonel interjected, “you were never a burden to me!”
The Colonel thought he saw gratitude in those golden eyes, and then the young man leaned over on his hands and knees and crossed the expanse of blanket between them.
The Colonel found the air in the hayloft thick now and it was difficult to breath.
“There are some things I want to give you,” Edward said, “while I still can. I hope that you will let me, because no one deserves them more than you.”
“What do you mean while you still can?” the Colonel asked, “What do you think is going to happen?” His heart constricted in his chest. Edward was so close, so touchably in distance of his hands, it was hard to keep them still.
Edward shook his head.
“I can’t tell you, because I don’t know,” he said and he leaned up, his eyes straying from Roy’s eyes to Roy’s lips, “but what I can tell you is that I want you. I want your touch, I need it. I’m willing to beg for it,” and then he kissed the Colonel soft and deep, his tongue gently pressing to Roy’s, then trailing over the roof of his mouth before withdrawing. When he pulled back, he did so just a little, so their lips were still touching, “I hope you still want mine.”
***
There is no word in any spoken language to describe the feeling of a heart that thought it knew love, but realized it had only known the merest beginnings.
Roy pushed his lips against the ones still resting lightly on his in offering, and then moved to push Edward onto his back, fingers tangling in the braid as he did so, pulling at the tie, letting the weight of all that blonde hair fall over his hands. After he laid Edward down, he pushed himself up on his arms and took in the sight, because perfection like this must never be forgotten and every nuance must be committed to memory. These would be the ones he hoarded with a jealousy bordering on insanity, and hoped he could play them through his mind when time in this existence was coming to a close.
Edward reached up to him, just as he had always done before, the yielding in his eyes made Roy gasp out loud. He kissed those fingers, both flesh and metallic, as Edward’s hands stroked his face and then moved downward to his neck. The sound of crickets was a lush accompaniment to the rustling symphony of fabric, each piece singing it’s solo melody before being swept aside, and as he bared his lover and his lover did the same to him, Roy’s mouth sought out the flesh it had once before remembered.
Each breathy sound that fell from Edward’s lips, Roy lashed over his senses. Each twist of his body, Roy mapped in his mind, even the crunch of the hay beneath the blanket played its role in this living tapestry that was Edward’s body, and Roy worshipped it with a zealous fervor that burned him deeper than his namesake element ever could.
He would not be stilled the first time he brought Edward to completion, even though Edward begged him as he arched up with his hips. He savored Edward’s every contour, even to mapping his cock with his tongue, and he held those arched hips captive until he’d had his fill.
Edward flung his arm out and his fingers scrabbled at the clothing piled beside the blanket, and for one soul-wrenching moment, Roy thought that it was over. If this all he could have, then he’d take it and grovel his thanks to heaven, because even just this much was more than he expected.
But Edward dragged over his pants and jammed his hands into its pockets. After a moment, he brought out what looked like a jam jar. He shoved the pants away again and held it up to Roy as it was a trophy worthy of that battle.
When Roy didn’t take it right away, Edward grunted. Roy gave him a puzzled look and leaned down to kiss him.
“Take it,” Edward husked, pressing it against his shoulder.
Edward wanted him to have a jam jar. If that is what he wanted, a jam jar Roy would have. So he plucked it from Edward’s grasp and held it a moment, then set it aside on the blanket and leaned down to kiss him.
“Roy, it’s…” but then his mouth got lost in Roy’s and he squirmed, but acquiesced quickly. After a few moments, Roy pulled back up, jam jar forgotten.
Edward panted, flushed to his roots and reached up to tug at Roy’s shoulders. He arched his hips up as Roy obligingly lowered himself to the pull, and the bump and grind began.
Roy almost laughed out loud, the sheer delight of it making him giddy, he gave Edward a wicked grin and ground down against him.
Edward was working himself into a lather, breath catching with each press of their groins together and Roy’s cock began to complain loudly, demanding some sort of satisfaction, ANY SORT of satisfaction. Roy found his mind straying to a decorative bottle on a bedside and he cursed its very existence for being there and not here when he needed it. He massaged Ed’s hip in agitation, wanting badly do what the bump and grind often heralded for Ed, which was a pleasurable fingering.
Edward latched onto the side of his neck and began to suck hard like a starved leech, his grinds becoming more frantic. It was getting hard to not be caught up in his sudden pitched fever and throw caution to the wind. Even so, Roy found his hand sliding under Edward’s butt and kneading restlessly on a cheek. Edward did his scootch, the scootch that he did when he wanted to leverage himself up on Roy’s lap and give Roy room to work. Roy kissed him again, needy and frustrated, wanting to please him with a desire bordering on mania, but even he wasn’t so far gone to realize that a dry run would be painful.
Edward pulled his mouth free and glared up at him.
“What’s the hold up,” the blonde demanded, and Roy’s head swam with the irony.
“Edward,” Roy panted, “I know what you want, but we don’t have any…”
“What did you think was in that jar?” Edward growled, “jelly for an after shag snack? It’s cooking oil from Granny Pinako’s kitchen, where did you put it?!”
Two sets of hands slapped around the blanket’s edge. They found it at the same time and in urgency, they fought over it.
“What the hell are you doing?” Roy yelped.
“I don’t want you to spill it,” Edward growled, “you’re all jittery.”
“I can hear your automail rattling,” Roy growled back, “give it to me!”
They glared at each other, both with a hand locked around the hapless jam jar, and then Edward threw his head back and he laughed. He laughed like he used to with his whole body and then Roy was laughing too. They laughed and they kissed and a compromised was reached. The jam jar sat on Ed’s naked belly with his hand wrapped around it. Roy unscrewed the cap and dipped his fingers in, shoving as many in as he could. Ed screwed the cap back on and laid it carefully aside, far enough to be out of danger but not so far it wasn’t in easy reach.
Roy sat up on his knees and Ed wiggled, lifted and got himself propped up on them as Roy stroked the inside of his thigh with his unoiled hand. Roy then slipped his other hand between Ed’s legs, under his balls and back, circling the tight ring once and then twice, drawing in a shuddering breath from Ed.
Edward’s body hadn’t forgotten Roy’s touch and he opened with a relaxed ease that spoke of willingness and want and longing. Roy didn’t wait long to introduce a second finger, looking down as he did so, other hand still kneading gently on the inside of Edward’s thigh. Edward shuddered, it starts in his stomach and traveled up to his lips.
“Is it alright?” Roy asked softy.
“Please don’t stop,” his young lover gasped.
Roy worked him slowly, remembering his places, hooking his fingers in just that way that would make Edward tremble. Edward rewarded him with the most beautiful grimaces and tantalizing moans, the inner thigh under Roy’s hand trembling and jumping in time to each of Roy’s slow finger thrusts.
And then Edward said “More.”
Roy though he meant ‘faster’, so he obeyed with a gentle smile, but Edward bit his lip and arched his neck.
“Another finger Roy,” he begged softly.
Roy swallowed and trembled, his cock reminding him again that as exciting as this all was, it was feeling a bit like a third wheel, but he couldn’t deny Edward anything, and so slowly, gently, he began to work a third finger into his lover. Edward grimaced just a bit at first, but he stayed beautifully relaxed and was soon panting heavily and tossing his head.
It was a sight better than a mortal man like Roy Mustang deserved.
Edward tightened rhythmically on Roy’s fingers and weaved his gasps and moans into a song meant only for Roy’s ears. Roy could have stayed in this perfect moment forever, watching the young man he loved enjoy his attentions and look so beautiful while doing it.
“Make love to me,” Edward said softly and Roy thought he might have imagined it.
“I am making love to you,” he said in return, to test his theory.
Edward sucked in his lower lip and shook his head.
“No,” Edward said, and then panted for a moment, “what we are doing is our mutual masturbation club, of which I am a long standing member and you are very definitely the president,” Edward gave a soft laugh.
“At least I’m the president of something,” Roy said in gentle mirth.
“But,” Edward said and then had to moan and pant a bit more before continuing, “I’m bored of this boy’s club. I’m ready for something new.”
“Ready,” Roy whispered.
“This is not your bed,” Edward half sobbed, “where I should have said these words,” and he arched a bit and made the hay crunch as he clenched and unclenched his fingers, “but I want to make love with you, I want you inside me. I want everything that is Roy Mustang, I want you, and I don’t think I would ever want anyone else.”
***
Roy slowly withdrew his fingers and Edward gave a lovely bereft sound, it was very flattering to be so appreciated. The jam jar was again negotiated and just as quickly returned to its resting place of honor, but the oil was pooling in the palm of Edward’s hands instead of his own, Edward having sat up to receive what he called ‘an honor’.
Roy Mustang felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: heat in his cheeks.
“You have a beautiful blush,” Edward crooned to him.
Roy let his eyes dart to the side.
“Thank you,” he said, feeling very silly.
Only Edward Elric could make him feel this way when he was about to have the sexual experience of what he figured would be his lifetime.
Edward was trying not to snicker.
“This is not how I imagined… no wait, I take that back,” Roy said, for some reason still not able to look directly at his lover, “somehow this is ironically appropriate.”
Edward dissolved into giggles for a few moments.
There was much lip smacking and schooling of expressions, and still after two tries, Ed still broke down into giggles when they looked at each other.
Roy’s cock had about enough and warned Roy if it didn’t see action, and soon it was leaping to its death out of the hayloft, and it was taking Roy with it.
Edward seemed to telepathically sense this, because his expression sobered a bit and he reached forward to wrap his hands, both soft and hard, around Roy’s erection.
The night sang to life, Roy’s blood rushed in an abandoned free for all from his brain and directly into his groin, the sound he made caused Edward to look up at him in alarm.
“Don’t you dare cum yet,” Edward hissed, “I’m not even doing any good stuff!”
Roy wondered vaguely what could be better than just Edward’s hands on his dick, he wondered if he begged at the top of his lungs Edward would show him just what this ‘good stuff’ was.
“I think you need to cool down a bit,” his lover said, “or this is going to be a very short ride for the Mustang.”
Roy wondered vaguely where Edward had picked up this incredibly mature sexual vocabulary. It must be those bastards in Central again! The same ones that had tried to make him a hair puller during oral sex! Roy vowed grimly that each and every one of them would roast in a pit of his very own making and it would be so horrendous, so awful, that they would beg for hell as a mercy. Every time Edward went to that place, he came back with the most atrocious habits!
He decided that Edward didn’t know what he was talking about. After all, he was the teacher here.
“No,” Edward said, squirming when Roy leaned forward a bit, “lie down with me, just for a bit. Roy, if you do it right now it’s going to be over in a second,” Edward bit his lip, “And you’ll just chalk that up to another way I’ve ruined your reputation,” the blonde wheedled.
He remembered a woman who smelled like cinnamon who had once bestowed upon his ears the most crushing thing that had ever been said to him, and here, Edward, his shining thing, his cherished treasure, his object of undying affection, had just topped it and he did it in such a way that Roy couldn’t even be upset about it.
“I don’t want to lie down,” Roy whined.
“Ok, ok,” Edward placated, sounding all breathless and beautiful, “just remember, take it slow, it’s my first time,” and he bit his lip.
Roy stared at him hard for a long moment and then slowly leaned forward, started and waited. He waited for that excuse he just knew was coming to hold him off again, and then Roy would do the only honorable thing he could think off, he would cry.
But instead of an excuse, Edward gave a low, throaty moan and rubbed his heels on Roy’s back. Roy reached with one trembling hand between his own legs, gave his oil-slicked cock a pull, groaned deeply and lined himself up. Edward took several deep breaths and stretched his arms out to either side of him. Roy looked up at him for a moment, Edward looked very peaceful, very relaxed, very accepting.
He would love this boy who was now this man until the very last breath left his body.
He pushed forward slowly and sank into heaven.
***
There was only a bit of resistance after the head had cleared the ring. Edward had made a half whimper and his face and drawn tight, so Roy stopped and ached and waited. But, it only lasted a few hellish moments and Edward swallowed and smiled at him, nodding his head. Roy moved again, very slowly, hands kneading gently on the sides of two perfect thighs that framed his groin.
It was a hot, tight heaven. Edward groaned and tilted his head back, his heels dug into Roy’s lower back. Roy was shaking and sweat was trickling down the back of his neck and along side of his nose, but he would never think of removing his hands from the smooth skin where they rested.
Heaven drew him a little deeper.
He watched Edward’s chest move up and down in an almost hypnotic fashion, admiring his lover’s chest and toned abdomen, his flat stomach and the golden curls that were pillowing a reawakening erection.
Then he was wholly inside of him and Edward tightened. Roy drew in a frantic lungful of air and gritted his teeth, and then Edward relaxed again and Roy waited, letting him adjust to this invasion, struggling desperately to hold himself in check.
Edward was looking at him, his eyes were still the color of fine scotch.
“Roy,” he said soft and husky, “my Colonel,” he added on a playful note.
It’s useless, you can’t make me love you any more than I do already. Roy thought hazily, No, that’s a total lie.
“We’re making love,” Edward said again, in those same soft, husky tones. The sound of his voice caressed not Roy’s body but his very soul. “I use to think about this,” Edward continued, “I use to dream about it.”
Roy threw his head back savagely and panted for control, he should tell Edward to stop it, to cease this divine torture falling from his lips, but he could no more do that than stop breathing, or pull himself from his body.
“It’s just perfect,” Edward whispered, and turned his head to the side, “just the way I always thought it would be.”
Roy’s hips moved of their own accord, a thrust that for all it’s lack of control was still gentle, as if Roy’s own body knew the delicacy of the moment.
“I am your creature,” the voice between them was not Edward’s and Edward turned his head back to sear Roy’s face with his golden eyes, “and I always have been. I always will be,” Roy licked his lips, “I just want to be, no matter how I fill it, some part of your life. I will always love you.”
Edward threw his head back and arched up to Roy’s body. He could no more resist it than tell his heart not to beat and the rhythm that has moved lovers through the ages began to bring their bodies together.
***
Roy could hear his heart beating louder and louder. Edward’s cries over took it and the night air was thick against his skin and throat. He worried briefly that he as digging his fingers into pale flesh too hard, but as he looked down, he became entranced at the sight in his lap, of his body rocking, his cock moving in and out of Edward.
Edward thrashed and called out to him. He was trying to reach for him like he always had before, and Roy would please him, he would move into those clutching fingers, but he couldn’t from his position. Edward begged and sobbed and Roy tried to croon comfort to him, but it was getting hard to think, and his vision was blurring at the edges.
Somehow his eyes trailed from that flushed face, once again down Edward’s body and rested on his cock, hard and red and bouncing against his own stomach. Roy dragged a hand away from one hip and laid his palm over it, causing Edward’s cries to rise even higher. Edward dropped his arms to his sides, ground the heels of his hands into the blanket and hay beneath them and he arched up to meet Roy’s thrusts.
All of it, heaven, hell, joy, ecstasy, terror, longing, love, faith and trust collided behind Roy’s tight, closed eyelids and he threw his head back so far he thought his neck might break and he screamed his completion, his love to the rafters of the barn. Come what may, he didn’t care, for he had never known a more perfect moment. He struggled for air in his burning lungs, threw his chin down to his chest and tried to choke off a sob, but it escaped him. He opened his eyes slowly and saw his hand still lying over Edward’s cock, his palm felt wet and he trailed his eyes slowly up the young man’s body. Edward was drenched in sweat, but there were distinctive tracks down his cheeks. Roy made a half choked sound, (my god NO, please if there is any mercy in you, anything for me at ALL, tell me I didn’t hurt him) but Edward smiled at him and reached for him again.
“I love you,” Edward sobbed brokenly, “I’ve always loved you, I wanted to tell you, please believe me!” he begged.
Then, at that moment, when everything stilled inside him and the crickets once again singing, only then – Heaven came.
Heaven came.
***
It was so hard to leave him there at the barn doorway.
“We better not go back together,” he said.
Roy was always the voice of reason.
He slipped quietly through the pre-dawn household and up the stairs to the small room he shared with his brother. Alphonse looked over at him as he slipped in the door and shut it quietly.
“Did you talk to him?” Al said softly.
Edward nodded and went over to sit on the floor beside his sibling.
“What did he say?” Al asked again in hushed tones to guard the sleeping.
“What I expected him to,” Ed said just as softly.
“Was that all?” Al prompted gently, “You were gone for quiet a while.”
“That wasn’t all,” Edward said slowly, “we did other things.”
“I know how much you missed him,” Al said, “I know how much you love him,” he stroked his brother’s heart with his soft, simple tones.
“Yes,” Ed said shakily, “and I told him,” his heart felt happy and terrified all at once and his stomach fluttered in a funny way. He was so grateful to have someone he could tell, he felt the sting of tears.
“I’m really glad,” Alphonse said after a moment, “because he’s a good man and he deserves it.”
“He does,” Ed said, “he deserves many things. I hope he makes his goal, he would be a good Fuhrer.”
“He may deserve many good things,” Alphonse said. He started to pat Ed’s knee, but jerked his hand back, remembering that touching brother was not a good thing, “but he deserves you most of all.”
Ed sat back against the wall and looked up at his little brother.
“That’s all he’s really wanted,” Al said in his all knowing way, “I can tell just by looking at him.”
“When we get your body back,” Ed said, “I think I might have to hug you for like an entire day.”
“Well you can hug me most definitely,” Alphonse responded, “but if we do it for an entire day, we’ll get all sweaty and I’ll probably have to go to the bathroom. I sometimes have trouble remembering what that’s like.”
It was all so absurdly wonderful and all so incredibly freeing, that Edward banged himself into the wall, laughing loud enough to earn an irritated thumping on the wall from Winry’s room next door.
***
The next morning brought nothing but new worries. There were soldiers at the station, someone had to send them back. Roy trotted down the front steps of the porch, intent on following the First Lieutenant to the car, when he heard footsteps rushing after him.
“Colonel, wait,” a beloved voice called.
He nodded to Hawkeye and signaled just a moment, turning back to the young alchemist walking toward him.
“I want you to stay out of sight,” he intoned firmly, his black eyes caught gold eyes briefly and Edward gave a nod.
“I might run if I have to,” Edward warned.
“I’m trying to prevent that,” the Colonel said.
Edward got as close as he dared.
“I love you,” he whispered.
A light flashed in the Colonel’s dark eyes.
“I’ll protect you,” Roy promised.
They turned their separate ways and walked out of each other’s lives for the moment.
***
Again there was damnable separation, and every step he took brought him closer to the cliff’s edge.
The Fuhrer was a monster that must be stopped.
He hadn’t seen Edward for quite some time now, he searched every report repeatedly and listened to every bit of intelligence gathered for some trace of his lover, even as he absorbed what he actually needed from it.
The showdown caught him unawares, but the First Lieutenant was beside him. She was comfort, no matter how formal and he was glad they were in it together. He sat in the back seat of a car, wearing clothes made for visiting dignitaries, complete with a hat to make him look respectable. He had smiled without mirth at the image in the mirror and imagined what Edward might say about the hat.
The Colonel rode in silence, going over and over in his mind what had to be done and what the best way was to accomplish it, and suddenly he was there, a flash of gold across the car hood, Hawkeye putting on the brakes.
Roy couldn’t believe it. Edward climbed in the car and they sat on opposite sides of the back seat, both staring straight ahead. What could be said really, the plans were reaching fruition and when he finally asked for Edward’s help, there was no small amount of pain in his eyes when he had to refuse.
Roy wanted to go with him, to see this final terrible battle that Edward was trying to hide from him, but his plans were always bigger than only the two of them, and Edward understood that, because they were in the same position, so they slowed the car down to let him get out.
Roy walked with him a bit, and stood looking at him in the waning sunlight. So beautiful and so golden, only made more so by dusk’s approach. There are no words for the moment you tell the person you love ‘Goodbye’ when you know it might be the last time. He reached his hand out and Edward reached too, but instead of taking it to shake as if it would make these horrible thoughts final, he lightly slapped the back of it and smiled as best he could, because Edward never learned how to give up on a hopeless situation, and in this he was the teacher. Roy could only stand there and watch Edward run. He waited until he couldn’t see anymore and then just a bit longer, before turning to chase the monsters in his path.
This world was full of angels and demons, not all that could be seen, but Roy knew he would see both before the night was through.