Title: Royal

By: Strawberry L

Fandom: FMA

Pairing: Roy/Al (mention of Roy/Ed, implied Al/Ed)

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: um... angst?

Disclaimer: Property of Hiromu Arakawa, who is so awsome! I could make a horrible pun right now, but I won't...

AN: This fic is dedicated to Omakase Shimasu who kindly requested some angst. I hope you like it and thank you so much for your suggestions and support!

Also, I appologize for the name. It's such a bad pun off of the pairing and I called thic fic that in my head for so long that it never sounded right to change it. Opps. ;

Al's POV

We came together over someone other than ourselves. Not because I love him or because he loves me, but because we both loved the same person. It was in his death that we had no one to turn to except each other. We were able to share our pain, that all encompasing feeling of loss, together. Somehow that made getting through each new day easier.

Hawkeye complained that our house was too depressing, that because neither of us were ever forced to accept the loss that the feeling hangs in the air and threatens to opress everyone who enters. She stopped coming over, which was just as well. We like to be there by ourselves, remembering him by ourselves. Only we loved him enough to keep him alive in such a way. I would never have accepted the loss of my brother if it meant giving up the feeling of his loss in my home. After all any feeling of him was better than pretending he never existed, or even worse was to forget.

It was Roy's idea that we move in together. He never asked, he just escorted me there the night that brother left us. He knew it would be me that he would be escorting home, and not brother. He knew brother would not survive my restoration. He told me not to blame myself, but he also knows that I do. He hasn't told me to stop since that night.

Sometime between then and now I learned to live with Roy. I learned his behavior and quirks, like how the first thing he does after work is take a bubble bath, or how he smiles just an extra bit when he is reminising about brother. He does that often. I learned all his favorite moments he had spent with brother, and he had learned all mine. It helped keep brother fresh and alive to us both. I leaned all Roy's favorite books and stories, all his favorite places and foods, and even how to prepare them. On Sunday I would wake up before Roy and make fresh omlettes and juice. We would usually spend the day in the library trading stories, theories, and woes. It was our time totally devoted to brother.

At first, Roy told me only military stories. Missions he'd picked specially for brother, fights they'd had in his office, and discussions that had led up to their relationship. As time went on I heard the stories of love, the ones that had taken longer to resurface. Then he told me the stories of passion. His voice told so much of my brother that I felt I knew everything about him. I could picture him laid out before me just as Roy described, sweat shining in a dimly lit room. I knew all of brother. I knew his sensitive spots and I knew the reasons he didn't sleep at night. I knew his favorite parts of Roy, his most sucessful ways of winning the man over, and his favorite places to be claimed. When there were no more stories to tell, he told me of his past thoughts. Thoughts of the first time he had seen brother, and when he has first realized he loved him. Thoughts of the first time he dreamed of brother and all the times he had had to resist his urges. He remembered how hard it had been to resist brother, but it was harder now without him.

There were many nights we cried, but it took until all the stories were through, when there was nothing left to tell, for us to begin to comfort one another. Sometimes we tried to retell certain moments, but mostly it didn't need to be spoken of. We both knew everything about brother and about each other.

Sometime between then and now, on the floor of the library sobbing my eyes out in Roy's embrace, I realized I loved him. Sometime between then and now Roy began holding me like he held brother. Sometime between that night and this moment we came together as more than friends without realizing it. Movements and passions, stories and probelms, it had all become familiar, become home.

We still love brother. We still talk about him all the time. All our stories, all our moments shared with him are still our most treasured. But we have begun creating our own life again. Roy and I have our own favorite moments with each other now. Memories of the places we've traveled, the people we've known and met, and private moments as well. I never expected I would be attracted to Roy. I never realized I was until he kissed me.

He kissed me first in bed, at an unspeakable hour of the morning. I expect at first his mind had thought I was brother, the soft warm body that used to lie with him at night. I expect brother had had his fair share of spontanious sex at such an hour. Roy had rolled onto me, hands planted firmly on either side of me and leaned in. His kiss was soft, loving. He drew it out, his tounge gently coaxing my mouth open and exploring. I had put a hand around his neck, trying to act as I thought brother would have. I knew he was longing for such love, for such an illusion as long as his mind could continue to forget brothers absence. I had thought Roy was simply treating me as my brother for a night. When he pulled away from the kiss he had rested his forehead against mine, eyes closed and breathing deep. My name fell from his lips, whispered and soft. He asked if this was alright with me. I told him it was.

It took some weeks for us to come to terms with the new level of our relationship. It wasn't that either of us were akward with each other, but we were both guilty. In loving each other we felt as though we were in some way betraying brother. I felt like I was stealing Roy from him somehow, now that I too held a place in Roy's heart. What I eventually came to realize was that it wasn't that I had taken space up in Roy's heart that used to belong to brother, I simply made my own space. Love doesn't work like alchemy. There was no such thing as equivalent trade in someone's heart, because like a soul, love is irreplacable.

We still think of brother all the time. We still tell the old stories, but we try to share them now. Our favorite thing is to invite over the old gang, Hawkeye, Fury, Havoc. When we all get together we talk about the war, about Hughes, about brother. We try to remember the best moments, such as Hughes infamous phone calls and brother's tirades about his size. It feels good to remember them happy, to remember us all so happy. It feels good to be happy. I am happy, happy with Roy and the life we've created for ourselves. Sure, we take our time to relive the past, but we're still moving forward. We didn't let brother's death stop us, but we remember it. I remeber his sacrafice for my life to continue, and thinking from brother's point of view I know he only wanted me to be happy. He wanted us both to be happy.

Thank you Nii-san.

Owari.

A.C. – Reviews are love!!