PAIRING: Roy/Maes
RATING: M for sexuality, angst, and a little blood/gore.
WARNINGS: Besides the sex and blood mentioned above, this fic was ... very hard to write. I see it as very emotional, very hard-hitting, and VERY creepy. It's also a slight AU of the first anime. However, it's my beta's favorite ... and one of mine (go figure).

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or these characters and am not making any profit from this.

It's another dream. That's what I think when it begins. Even though I never notice these kinds of details in dreams. The little swishing whisper of your bare feet on my floor – was that what awoke me? The way my bleary eyes barely register your solid outline blocking out the light of the streetlamps for just a moment as you pass by my window. The flash of your glasses in the darkness.

And why shouldn't it be another dream? I've had so many. Sometimes the dreams are like this. Your warmth. Feeling your lips curve in a smile against mine. The weight of you. The iron strength in the arms that hold me. The gentle touch of those hands, hands that could move me to tears just looking at them sometimes, those hands that stroked my hair or cradled your daughter with equal tenderness, that threw a knife or wielded a pen with equal deadly accuracy. But. Sometimes the dreams are … the other way. It's cold and foggy and I'm back in the woods, miles from anyone who could hear me scream if I fail. The circle is carved in the ground and inked in blood. I lean forward, gather the energy for the last time, activate. And I wake up unable to breathe, clutching the scar tissue that was once my eye. In the good dreams I wake up before I see the thing. But all too often the dreams are not good. Half-blind, blood all over my face and hands, stumbling through the trees. Lost. Knowing my last transmutation in this world was a failure. Dreading the possibility of pursuit, even though my rational mind knows there's no way the thing can pursue me. The pitiful half-life of bloody tissue and protruding bone that I left behind, barely able to breathe on its own. Cursing my lack of courage that I couldn't kill it then and there. Wondering why I ever thought this would work. Sometimes time skips and I'm coming home again. To the dust and emptiness with my bandages and medications. The drop of my stomach when I know. It is no home without you.

But gradually I realize this isn't a dream. Because you're different. If it was a dream, you'd be the same. Even if everyone else has forgotten, I still remember. Your voice, your warmth, your smile. The way you smell. The delicate tip of your tongue caressing my ear. The gentle pressure of your full lips. The way you moan; the way you growl if it's really good. The taste of your come. The sweat slowly drying on your skin, after. The way you snore sometimes if you're lying on your back.

You'd be the same.

You're not the same.

The glasses are still there, you still take them off and lay them aside in the same careful way – you only ever had one pair. Your eyes in the darkness are the same. Your smile is as welcoming as ever. But something – something…

You approach me too boldly, after all this time, with no explanations. You shed your clothes too quickly. You don't talk. And you always talked. Before. Now you just pull back the covers and climb in. Your arms are around me again like a blessing, a prayer answered, your warmth is my heaven. How did you get in? How did you find me?

If it worked, why did I lose so much? Where, where have you been all this time?

If it were a dream. You wouldn't need to explain. And I realize I don't want you to explain. I just want you.

So I pretend. I pretend I'm dreaming. I don't question. I know I'm awake. I know that if I'm awake, this can't be real. I know that if this isn't real, then this has to be bad. I know if this is bad, I could lose a lot more than an eye and my alchemy.

I also know I'd give up a lot more than an eye to be able to see you, to feel you again. Eyes do more than see, you know. Ears do more than hear. These senses, these passages to the soul, they are the way we appreciate the gods' creation. And oh you are. The gods' own creation. All those years you served me, all those years I gladly worshipped at your feet, your body my altar, your voice my holy temple, your soul merging with my soul, time after time, we cried out in pleasure, argued and fought, held each other in a tent in the freezing desert or in a soft warm bed. You can't know. You can't know what it took to let you go. What it took to decide to try to get you back.

You can't know how it felt when I limped into Central hospital. And fell flat on my face.

Alone.

I run my hands through your hair as we kiss. It's shorter. Almost shaven. It's still you, definitely you, the broad strong back and shoulders, the tenderness in those hands. But you always had hair on your chest. It's gone now, too. You are younger somehow. You don't seem to notice I have grown old without you. I don't pause to wonder why. But your skin, slicker without the hair, your heat. You are you. But more than you. You, but shinier, a perfect doll. Perfect. To me, you are like … lust personified.

"The new Lust," you whisper huskily in my ear. The first words you've spoken. I can't puzzle out what you mean by that. "No," I whisper back, wrapping myself even tighter around you. "This is nothing new, Maes. It's just … been too long. I thought you were d –"

You kiss me, stopping my words in their tracks. Your warm wet mouth leaves trails of fire, on my lips, my palms, my wrists, the crooks of my elbows. I writhe and cry out in spite of myself. Gentle teeth on my nipple, the flickering of your tongue. The fire I make is nothing compared to yours, I told you once. You smiled, at the time. And gave me some more.

You give me more. Your mouth is on me, on me, your arms wrapped around my legs, your hands cupping my ass, gripping me, thrusting me inside your mouth, hard and fast. I can't think. I just feel. I have been without you for years. For an eternity. Without water, without air. Suddenly I wish you had never come back. Because if you're here. That means you might go again. If you go again. If you leave me again. If I never see you – again. Then I will die. Like I wished I had died. That day in the cold and the mist. But this is not then. This is heat and blood rushing to my head, this is the pressure – building – constricting – how do you know to stop just before – before –

With no thought but to please you. To keep you. Now that you are here. I pin you down with a snarl and kiss you until you twist for breath. I am savage, you are mine, you will not escape again. I run my nails over your hard-muscled back, the way you like it. I bare my teeth and clamp down on the join of your neck and shoulder. You cry out as if in pain. I reach possessively between your legs.

I freeze.

There is no hair here either. But that's the least of it. What I feel makes me gasp in surprise.

There is a metal circle, like a giant hoop earring, interrupting the familiarity, coming out the tip and piercing back through the side. At least. I assume it's a full circle. If it is a circle, most of it is inside you. Where I can't see.

I touch it gingerly. Its surface is not completely smooth, nor is its shape perfectly round. It is engraved with something. The metal is warm. Hot. Like your skin.

It doesn't seem to hurt you. I wonder how this could be.

I may have heard of something like this, once or twice. I have never seen one.

This is almost enough to make me stop. To make me question.

But when I touch it again, when I squeeze experimentally, you moan like you always did. It's you. It's still you. It's still me. I can't help myself. I am yours. I was never anything but yours.

You move, pushing against my hand. But my hand is not where I want it. You know this already.

I take you in my mouth first. I can feel the metal, taste it, feel its strange irregularity on my tongue. But that is only a momentary distraction. I taste you. I hear you groan.

I can't get over it. Without the hair, you are smoother, slicker. With that thought comes another. Suddenly I am so ready. I can't wait.

I've waited too long. I need you inside me.

Did I say it? Did I think it? Did you just know? I don't care.

I bare myself to you, I am open, I am yours, the pain when you enter brings tears to my eyes, but you are so gentle. I cannot feel the metal inside me. What I feel is you. So tender at first, waiting, waiting for me to be ready. Giving me more. One inch at a time. Finding that place. Deep inside. Making me shiver and press back, taking you deeper. Your hand around me, your body a hot shuddering pressure on my back and ass. Your legs on my legs. Your voice. The ecstasy in your breath.

So good, so good. Nothing is this good. Nothing. I have starved without you. I feast on you now.

You, complete, completing me, filling me up, I am hollow without you, I am a shadow, a ghost. Did I tell you all this? My sobbed confessions. After you were gone.

I am a shadow no more.

Pressure constricting, building – building – I climax with a scream I can't choke back. I feel you slow down, hear you murmur, feel your arms wrap around me. You pick up the pace again, thrusting harder, harder, making me wish I could manage a second time, then the hot pulsing, I hear your ragged cries, feel your body trembling against mine. We both collapse, sticky, exhausted. Panting.

I swear to myself I won't fall asleep. How can I fall asleep in a dream?

But I sleep. I dream. When I wake up, I am alone.

Alone. Curled in a ball for warmth.

The sheets are sticky and crusted over. The covers are tangled. I am sore. I can feel where your hands were, where you were inside me. There is no question.

I call out. I call your name. I know you won't answer. I call again. Louder. I scream. Into the silence. I start weeping, one stream of tears. Just one. The other half of my tears, that was my sacrifice. That was what I lost. And gained nothing in return.

I cry out again and again, nonsensical, like a broken toy. I hope. I wait. Like a child. I pray. Please let you be. Let you be here. There is no answer.

Through my tears, I spot something odd. A gleam in the morning sun. On the night-table. A circle. A circle of metal.

My heart shrieks to a stop in my chest.

I scramble over. Pick it up. Turn it over and over in my hand.

A not-quite perfect circle. The circle that was inside you. The curves and irregularities forming a shape. A head, a mouth. The snake devouring its own tail.

The ouroboros.

The metal falls. From nerveless fingers.

I thought I had nothing more to lose. I was wrong.

The eye, the alchemy. A pittance. What you have is my soul.

I cannot have yours in return.

Author's Note: I had "Glass Skin" by Dir En Grey in my head when I wrote this, so in a way it's the soundtrack.