Disclaimer: Tis obvious, really, no?
A/N: For Winds of Water who gave me the prompt Vicolo Baciadonne, and challenged me to actually write a kiss scene. Dunno if I managed fluffy though. I tried!
Piece of the World
words: 2372
The clouds had rolled in without so much as a by-your-leave that left everyone in the area of Central City scrambling like an overturned basket of chicks without their hen-mother. Within seconds the skies had opened up and let forth a nearly torrential downpour that had merely escalated as the time went on. Roy, stuck in his office after hours, found himself cursing internally over the fact that he'd let all his staff go early.
He hadn't been expecting this at all.
Just hours ago the skies had been as clear and blue as he'd ever seen: There hadn't even been a fat white cumulus to be seen for miles. Well, as much of a mile as one could see in the crowded streets of Central.
Standing at his window, hands clasped behind his back, Roy let a whisper of a sigh ghost past his lips. Outside he could see flocks of military uniformed people scampering around the grounds of Headquarters and trying their hardest to leave as quickly as possible; all of them the late-stayers like himself.
Water sluiced down the panes in thick sheets with only a few droplets sticking out from the general waterfall. Roy sighed softly, his breath misting on the cool glass before fading in a slow recede. He turned away and moved back to his desk, gloved fingertips sliding across the slightly nicked wood.
That one, there, a particularly deep little indent on the far side of his desk... That was from the time Fullmetal had been highly displeased over something. Roy couldn't even remember what it was, but it had caused Ed to slam his hands down on his desk hard enough to leave that dent from the blond's automail.
In fact, most of the nicks in the surface were from Fullmetal's temper in one form or another. While he couldn't feel the intricacies of the nicks and notches through the thick, rough material of his gloves he knew them all. From long hours of sitting here and contemplating them when he should be doing other things, to watching them be created by the irate storm that was Edward Elric.
A slow, lavish smirk graced Roy's face; creeping and crawling into place with all the dramatics of a showman at the thought of his temperamental subordinate.
Tilting his head down Roy gave a quiet laugh and stepped away from his desk. His feet led him across his office to the door and he grabbed his coat off a nearby rack to toss around his shoulders. Pausing on the threshold he flicked the light off, leaving the room a study in blacks and grays.
The halls he passed through were lit only by the barest of illumination as most of the lighting was already shut down. Roy hesitated at the edge of the overhang. Before him the wide steps descending into the courtyard between the buildings of Central Headquarters fell away.
The rain water was sloshing down the steps like each was a miniature waterfall in a strange canyon. As the flow reached the flat stonework below it spread out into puddles and thin streams. Raindrops bounced off the ground to form a thin, hissing mist.
Roy stepped down onto the first step and found his hair immediately plastered to his head. Dark clumps stuck to his forehead and temples while the rest of the water slid down the curve of his cheeks, bridge of his nose, and dripped off his chin and jaw line. Cold spills twisted along his neck, sliding slickly beneath his high, stiff collar while the collar itself swiftly became as damp and cool as his overcoat.
Picking up his pace Roy bent his head against the down pour. His boots slapped wetly against the pavement as he made his way across and out of Headquarters gates then started down the sidewalk at a quick clip.
The shops that lined the streets were spillways of inviting warm light and promises of heat. Outdoor stands had been quickly packed away, though in some cases not fast enough. A flower shops outdoor display was bowing low under the run off from the small awning above it.
The steady rush, drip, hiss of water was a strange melody around him and Roy finally picked his pace up into a jog. He again wished he hadn't let his staff go early.
Damn them for begging off for a night out and leaving him to puzzle out the riddles of Fullmetal's latest report.
He didn't know why Edward had suddenly decided that it would be fun to encode his reports. Roy was obviously paying for something he wasn't aware of. The blond alchemist had seemed to be in an uncharacteristic snit today...
Taking a moment Roy ducked under another awning and blew water from his lips. Reaching up he ran his hands up his face, pushing the mass of his sopping fringe back. He ignored the way it stuck up oddly in the front even after he removed his hands in favor of flicking some of the wet from his coat hem like a sodden bird.
A flash of color in his peripheral startled the man to a halt. Roy cranked his head around, peering through the downpour with a curious air. He could have sworn he'd just seen the red of Fullmetal's coat...
Ducking back out into the rain he paced down the sidewalk and passed the front of a rather nondescript building that likely served as some sort of office. It's neighbor appeared to be a mildly run down apartment building. A window slightly open somewhere above him emitted the sounds of a weather report in a bored sounding drawl.
As if we couldn't tell it was raining...
To his side, between those two buildings, was a narrow street. It almost looked as if it were too narrow to admit a human being, but it really wasn't. Water fell thick and fast in between the looming walls. The slight downward slope of the ground there created a tiny rivulet of water. The smell of wet cement and stone assailed him strongly from the close confines before him.
There, just as he'd thought...
Edward stood with his back toward him, his braid wet through and clinging to his back; it partially obscured the black Flamel symbol splashed between his shoulders.
Roy stepped forward, entering the somehow private feeling avenue. The sounds of his military issue boots setting down in the thin wash of rainwater was drowned out by the sound of the fall within the little nook. It wasn't any safer from the falling water here...
In fact it might have been worse thanks to the high, close walls. Those same walls redoubled the sound and made it feel even further apart from the rest of the world. A small, private world....
"Fullmetal?"
He wasn't even sure if Ed would hear him over the rush of the rain.
Edward twisted around like a startled cat. Apparently he had.
Roy could hear his braid thump wetly against his back even here. Though, he realized with a hitch of his breath, they were a lot closer than he'd realized.
Curious dark eyes met surprised gold, and the two stared at each other for several seconds in silence. The rain poured all around them, on them, down them. From the cracked window above the pair a melody and words floated as the radio station slid seamlessly from weather report into music.
~Find me here, speak to me....~
Ed's features crafted easily from their state of shock into a faint scowl. "What are you doing here?"
Roy blinked, then did it again as droplets of water clogging his eyelashes obscured his vision. "I..."
Words failed him.
Water dripped off the stubborn jut of Ed's chin, and played past his nose where his nostrils were flared in restrained temper. His brows were a near perfect guide for the raindrops that arced down his nose, or slid along his cheeks. His bangs clung to his temples; the vivid golden colored soaked to a memory of its usual glow.
Yet, somehow... Somehow he still looked radiant and Roy found himself transfixed. How long had he been sneaking peeks at the young man from beneath lazy lids? How many times had he wondered what Edward would do were he to stop his ranting with a kiss? How many days had he wondered what he, himself, was thinking? How long had it been since he'd cast of denial and realized...
The air was cool against his skin, and despite it he felt a certain something clinging to him more closely than the soaking folds of his drenched coat. Some awareness that prickled at the base of his skill and made his lips part. His tongue flicked out, wetting them and tasting rain.
Edward's brows drew down more sharply. Roy recognized the action as an expression of confusion by the millimeter tilt of Ed's head.
"I thought..." Roy started, then trailed off again.
Ed's cheeks puffed out in a show of aggravation before he bit out, "If you're not going to spit it out then get lost, Mustang."
The blond made to whirl away and Roy took several quick steps forward, his boots splashing noisily in the run off. The sound echoed against the high walls around them as his hand shot out to catch Edward's elbow. The young man looked back at him with that confused tilt back in the way he held his head.
Roy decided he liked it better than when Edward would tilt his head up to put his nose in the air. That usually meant he was snubbing him and it always made something twinge and snap within him.
"Edward..."
Before he even realized he'd been thinking it Roy leaned in and stole a kiss. His lips pressing down in gentle insistence against the slick, wet ones of the young man. Ed jerked back a fraction and Roy, cursing himself mentally for his folly made to pull away. But, then, Ed pressed back a fraction of a moment later.
The world fractured and came together again. Roy breathed.
A wet gloved hand rose to fist in the front of his uniform where it peeked out between the lapels of his heavy black coat, holding him there insistently. Roy shuffled in closer, pressed closer. Roy loosened his hold on Ed's elbow and slid his hand upward feeling the play of warm muscle beneath cloth and skin. Edward seemed almost to radiate an inner warmth. Roy's palm glided along the slope of Edward's shoulder and cupped the back of his neck. A little pressure and Ed happily tilted his head back to change the angle of the kiss.
Lips parted, slick with rain. Tongues tangled in a slow leisurely dance.
Time was all relative. It happened to other people, out there, beyond this little piece of the world that was, for the moment, theirs and theirs alone...
Kissing Edward was an experience. That was perhaps the only way to describe it. Ed's kiss was just as fierce and unpredictable as the young man himself. Roy may have had Ed pinned well enough to predict sometimes, but there was always that 33.3 variable. Do this, do that, do something else...
His other hand came up, ghosting behind the blond to capture the tie near the tassel of his braid. He released the hair from its confines with a single slow tug. The hair tie disappeared up his sleeve, finding a home around his wrist.
Roy pulled back from the kiss and Edward hissed in annoyance his hand flying up to catch Roy by the back of the neck and haul him in for more.
Roy managed a soft chuckle just before he was silenced by more important matters.
His fingers combed through sodden tresses, splitting them from their tangle into a loosened fall. His hand tunneled into it, catching against the curve of Edward's skull as the tendrils tangled around his fingers and caught on his gloves. Roy wished he'd taken them off and not for the fact that the rain ruined his ability to create a spark.
A warm, solid body pressed up against him and Roy gave voice to a pleased hum. A tilt of his head changed the angle and press of their lips again. Edward sighed into him.
The falling rain no longer seemed to matter: It all fell away in the mystique and privacy of those high walls, and narrow street.
They broke apart, breathes puffing warmly against each others cheeks. Water pattered on the crowns of their heads.
"What was that for?" Ed asked. His voice was just this side of breathless and it made Roy smirk.
"I've been wanting to do that for awhile." Roy admitted, voice barely more than a whisper as he pressed a languid, affection kiss to the side of Ed's head, just before his ear.
The rain hissed by them and Edward looked up at him with glowing eyes. The day didn't seem so gray anymore.
Slowly, fractionally, Ed's lips curved upward into an amused smile. "You're such a slow bastard."
Roy blinked lazily, smirk widening. "I apologize. Let me make it up to you."
Another step and Roy was pressed against him, arms surrounding him, lips possessing him.
Edward clutched at him, and demanded right back. Bright, and fierce, and unstoppable.
The walls embraced them, close and nearly suffocating but in a good way. This was a space for privacy, for lovers, for stolen kisses and embraces. This was as close to perfection as they could reach in the rainfall. Shadowed and close, pressing them together like they were the only two that existed, but not enough. Closer was a need that clawed from the inside out and burned their skin and nerves with desire.
A slight break, a whispered set of words in Roy's ear, "There'd better be more."
"Yes. Whatever you want."
"Only for me?"
Roy grinned against Edward's cheek. His smile as unstoppable as the young man he was pressed against. "If you want me."
Edward laughed and it was like the sun coming out.
~Find me here, speak to me....~ = Song lyrics from Everything by Lifehouse