A human heart can support the body with less than 30 contractions per minute or can accelerate to well over 200 during maximal physical exertion.
---
Roy ran a hand through his hair and reached blindly for his cup. He'd been poring over the files for hours – what time was it, anyway? – they had been investigating for weeks, and he had precisely what he had begun with. No, that wasn't right: he had more information and fewer leads. There was obviously something they were missing, it – Roy choked, grimaced, gagged, just remembered to swallow his mouthful before it got sprayed all over the papers. Perfect.
Throat lined with sludge and sediment, Roy pushed himself harshly away from the desk and stood, feeling all his bones creak and pop inside him. He huffed out a breath as he reached the kitchen, leaned his hip against the bench and watched the fresh coffee drip into the carafe without really seeing it.
Instead, his eyes were hazed with bodies. Or not bodies, they didn't even have that. Men, women, children, teens, boys, girls. Varied occupations, marital status, addresses, social circles, interests. Taken in the day, night, evening, morning. There was no consistency, no similarities, only the growing number of deaths – disappearances. Even if it was merely a coincidental rise in murders – kidnappings – they would have found something, caught someone. Instead, all they had was more missing bodies, a public becoming increasingly agitated, a case that made less and less sense. Add to that essentially sleepless nights, too much coffee, convenient food only when he managed to remember and the mundane tasks of heading the National Alchemist Quarter... well. Roy felt like crap.
Maybe after all this – because they would figure this out, dammit – he would give up coffee altogether. Could anything that colour really be good for you? He frowned at the liquid as he poured it into his cup. Gunpowder, blood soaked dirt, gangrene, charred flesh.
Roy gulped half the drink before he reached his desk, barely felt the burn it left on his tongue. It was supposed to be sharp, bitter, a slap of sensation that temporarily overwhelmed all others. In fact, he wasn't really sure he'd swallowed anything at all – perhaps he hadn't. He lifted the cup to his lips again, held the insipid liquid on his tongue for a moment and then let it slide slowly, dejectedly down his. Nothing. He was drinking rot and compost and bug smears and he couldn't even get the dubious benefits.
He drained the cup reflexively, set it on the desk, stared at the papers strewn across the wood. Photos and typed words and scribbled notes mated together, made a festering orgy of blood and flesh and useless leads. Roy sank into his chair, his single eye moving over the disgusting display as it writhed and spat at him. Another night and another failure and perhaps another disappearance. Was someone else suffering, this very moment? If he could solve this, would he save someone who may die the coming morning? If he could get this, could he prevent the death of another little girl? How long until it was someone he knew? What if it was Elysia? If he knew she would die in the morning, barely three hours from now, would he be sitting here, staring dumbly at the curling mass instead of doing something? If he knew, wouldn't he – couldn't he –
No. There was something here, he just wasn't seeing it. Maes would never forgive him if he let something happen to Elysia. And he wouldn't. Not on his life. Roy sat up straighter, dazed eye sharpening, sparking with fevered life. To save Elysia, he could do this. He would find it, even if he had to –
The shrill ring shattering the still silence nearly broke his neck. The one visible dark eye blinked, blinked again. He needed to sleep. He wasn't doing anyone any good getting half crazed for the lack of it, and working himself into the ground for his own transgressions wasn't going to solve the case. So.
"Mustang."
---
A neglected street, a broken streetlight, a rundown warehouse. The missing victims lay in the middle of the array, a pile of breathing corpses that stared from blank eyes. Some were still bleeding sluggishly where they'd been cut to provide ink for the circle, some looked half decomposed already but not one showed any real sign of pain. Men, women, children, teens, boys, girls.
And one man in particular, innocent eyed and grinning like a child about to receive a gift. He stood on the other side of the array, gaze fixed on the bodies with untainted affection.
Roy's gloved hand was half raised when the man dropped, eyes unwavering, and the night flared violent blue and bitter red.
---
It consists of four chambers, two atria and two ventricles, and the left side is always stronger than the right.
---
One eye blinked against lingering spots of brightness and he held the grimace inside as a sharp pain cut through his skull. It took him a moment to remember the rest of his body – startled to find himself standing – limbs shaking with a strange too-intense awareness. The air was close and thick and empty, the memory of scents lingering without the scents themselves, alchemy and fire and dead flesh against the once-echo of gunshots.
His men were in various degrees of shock, some wavering on their feet and others unconscious, but Roy's attention was fixed to the centre of the room. The basement. The array, the bodies, the alchemist – none of them. Even the blood that had been used to draw the array was gone, leaving cool grey stone and. And.
A figure, where the bodies had been. It – he, it was easy to see from the bare torso – was hunched in on itself, knees drawn up and arms wrapped close and head bent. Every muscle was tensed to shaking and Roy could hear the irregular, scratching breaths that came from beneath a tangle of long blond hair. His gut pulled sharply despite the frantic snap of impossible from his pulse. As impossible as the figure sitting there in the first place, as impossible as that array making a homunculus, as impossible as –
The man slowly raising his head to reveal the hump of blankets in his arms and murmuring, "Hey, Dragon?" in an exertion-rough voice. The bright cloth was peeled back to reveal a mop of dark hair, shorter than the blond but just as dishevelled. "You alright?"
"... m'sleepin'." Muffled and mumbled and Roy saw the slight jerk in the man that could have been a choke. The blond head lowered to the other, nuzzled into the dark hair and it was only the dead stillness of the air that let Roy hear, "Alright. Alright, sleep, Dragon," and he'd never heard or dreamed that tone but...
"Edward." The word dropped quiet, soft, deafening from his mouth and startled them both. The blond head jerked up, twisted so fast he should have snapped his spine and – gold. Roy had never seen those eyes before or since, even Alphonse didn't share that startling animal gaze. The man – Edward? Edward? – opened his mouth to speak, to reply, but no sound came out. His lips remained parted, poised in the moment before he drew breath.
Older, yes, face more defined, yes, hair loose and a mess and it was easy to see two flesh arms and two flesh feet beneath loose pants, the right arm and left leg dark with – ink? – yes, but it was Edward Elric, sitting where an array had been, where a pile of bodies had been, holding a child with the instinctive protectiveness of an animal and staring at Roy like – what? Like his whole, overactive brain had switched off completely because the sight was like being hit in the face with a metal bar. Like he hadn't seen him in five years. And probably very much like Roy was staring back at him, actually.
Which reminded Roy to inhale, exhale, inhale again and swallow to cure the dryness of his throat before he repeated "Edward," in a firmer tone that struck the blond like a blow.
"Mustang." Barely a word at all, and Edward cleared his throat, nearly choked. And then barked a laugh. "Are you going to get over here and help me up, or were you planning to stand there all night? It's cold." But he was smiling, grinning, couldn't seem to stop the expression and Roy's lips twitched in reply even as he rolled his eye, moved to oblige.
"I see your manners haven't improved, Edward." Edward, because Fullmetal had been buried with full honours years ago.
"Bastard."
Edward stumbled slightly as he made his feet, but Roy kept his hold steady, let the youth right himself as he turned to his men.
"Get someone to contact Intelligence, and have Oakes called as well." He was pleased to note a mass straightening of spine at his tone. "Those who can't make it on their own can be taken to the dorms, they'll be fine. All of you get some sleep, I expect you for debriefing at half one tomorrow. We're done for tonight."
"Sir." No salutes, but Roy didn't miss them. His words were met with instant action, tired men carrying their unconscious comrades to the cars without hesitation or question, not even a stray glance to the new figure that had appeared.
"You not military any more?" said figure asked when the last of the men had departed. As perceptive as ever, apparently Edward had learned at least something of caution.
"I think you'll find things considerably different than before you... left." Roy offered and – raised an eyebrow – wasn't met with any flailing or indignant yelling at being not-quite-answered. Perhaps Edward had managed to grow up wherever he had been, though maybe that shouldn't have been more of a surprise than the boy's – man's – appearance. The blond just nodded, let Roy support him with mute grace as they headed for the door. His legs shook and tremors ran up his spine but the arm curled around his burden was steady.
"And... Al?"
"Fine." Roy felt a fine layer of tension slide off the other and allowed himself a small smile. "Healthy and well adjusted and far more polite than you."
"Good." And yes, apparently Alphonse still got a facial expression all to himself. "Good."
They made their way outside to the waiting car and Edward all but fell into the seat. Roy turned them toward home and the questions pressed on the air between them but they could wait, now.
---
So. Edward in his bed. Older, taller – Roy had been hard pressed not to laugh at the startled look, standing eye to eye with him in the hallway – exhausted, curled protectively around another body – and Roy had nearly killed himself in the effort not to gape at the soft smile and dancing gold eyes and the quiet offer of my son like he was trying to save Roy an aneurysm even though he clearly wanted to laugh his head off all the same.
Back from the dead and whole and Edward and Roy slept better on the couch than he had in his own bed for weeks.
---
Many scientists and philosophers once rejected the brain in favour of the heart as the source of thought, reason and emotion.
---
Alphonse answered the phone with a smiling "Rockbell Automail," and Roy couldn't help the curl of his own lips. He listened with one ear to the hum of a voice in his kitchen, lower than he remembered, and another, higher and growing more familiar as the morning passed.
"Hello, Alphonse. How are you?"
"Roy." It had been instinctive, easy to suppress the flinch that the warmth in that voice had caused, but it had taken months, more than a year, before the twisting pain stopped lancing through his insides. Now, now, there wasn't even the dull ache in the back of his throat, and Roy hadn't known it was still there until he swallowed and it didn't scratch like broken glass. "Good morning. I'm good. Great. I think I'm finally getting somewhere with the theory I'm working on. Is everything alright?"
"... Why wouldn't it be?" Roy had concluded – he'd had enough years to test his hypothesis so he knew he was correct – that somewhere in the Elric genes, amongst being stubborn and frighteningly intelligent, was the ability to startle, surprise and stun him without even trying.
An exasperated sigh rolled down the line.
"Roy." It's barely past eight in the morning and you expect me to believe you were awake and just happened to think you'd say hello? And Roy never was sure whether to feel flattered or take issue with the fact that Alphonse had used that tone on his brother with long-suffering regularity during the four years of their search.
"Everything is fine." More than fine. "Something came out of the case I've been working on that I thought you'd like to see. This morning, if you're free." A pause.
"I did have an appointment this morning but I can shift it to the afternoon."
"It might be better if you clear your day. I imagine you might like to spend a while with this." He could hear the boy's suspicion, not as biting as Fullmetal's had been but just as astute. More so, because Alphonse didn't have obsession and aggression distracting his judgment.
"... Alright." Came the reply, dubious but trusting. "I can be there in half an hour. You're at home?"
"Yes, that's fine." Fine, fine, the world was finally right. "I'll see you shortly."
"Okay."
Alphonse took exactly twenty-eight minutes to knock on his door. Two sets of unique amber eyes looked up from the table and Roy wasn't sure whether he'd ever get used to that – my son – but the oddness of it couldn't stop the smile from making it's way onto his face. By the time he'd gotten to his feet, Edward was looking at him with a constant shift of suspicion and trepidation and a cycle of other emotions as quick as flicking pages in a book.
"Wait here a moment." Against all probability, he did, didn't even seem to realise that Roy had just told him what to do. Roy knew his voice would carry, anyway, as he opened the door, stepped back to allow his visitor over the threshold.
"Alphonse."
"Roy." With a smile, despite very clearly still thinking that something was wrong, that Roy was doing something to be wary of. He opened his mouth to ask but Roy held up a hand, glanced back toward the kitchen – Edward was still obeying him? – and smiled.
"I'm not sure of the details yet," how exactly was he supposed to make 'your brother is back from the dead' sound less than shocking? "but your brother."
... Silence.
"My brother...?"
"In the kitchen." Alphonse frowned, took the breath to tell Roy that he wasn't making any sense and – forgot to exhale. Eyes gone wide, face pale, mouth slightly ajar and Roy had started to think he was just going to keep staring until he suffocated when a soft "Al," reanimated the boy with a violent jerk.
Five years apart and four years before that unable to feel and Alphonse threw himself at his brother like he did it every day of his life. Edward – nearly a full head shorter and grinning like he didn't care, didn't even notice – held onto his brother, with two shaking flesh arms and two white knuckled hands and two sets of nerves to feel the flesh body crushed to his own. Alphonse choked, laughed and sobbed all at once, pressed his face into the elder's shoulder, clutched at the other just as tightly, just as desperately, just as comfortably as if it hadn't been nearly a decade since they'd so much as looked each other in the eye.
Roy slipped past them silently, moved into the kitchen and pretended not to hear the ragged, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry" amidst the wet breaths. He set more coffee to percolate, got tea out of the cupboard for Alphonse and wondered at the last time he had felt this content.
---
The coffee was done when Edward led his brother into the kitchen by the hand, pulled the younger to stand before the little boy with sunlight toffee eyes and honey cinnamon skin and licorice black hair. He grinned, wider and brighter than Roy had ever seen, looking younger than he ever had at twelve, and said, "Al, this is my son, Mathieu Alphonse Elric," with the tone of a man who had just received everything he had ever wanted. "Dragon, this is your Uncle Al."
---
A heart-shaped figure can be expressed by plotting (x2 + y2 − 1)3 = x2y3 or r = 1 − sin(θ) on a graph.
---
A year since Edward's return, now, and in some ways it was like he never left. He wasn't as volatile as he had been, slower to anger but just as dangerous when he got there. More so, because all that flailing energy had been gathered, harnessed, honed into a fine point that struck with the force of a continent-drowning explosion. Roy didn't know how much of that was due to just growing up and how much could be attributed to Mathieu. He did know for certain that Edward's distinctly controlled vocabulary was thanks purely to his son.
Because Edward Elric, the biggest brat Roy had ever known, who couldn't even remember to feed himself, who had seemed asexual for all intents and purposes even at sixteen, had a son. A son.
A year did a lot to dull the incredulous echo whenever Roy saw him – son? As in mother-father-baby? Son? – and now it was just Mathieu, very nearly four and very definitely an Elric. Roy didn't know what his mother had been like – had nearly choked when Edward told him she had been a contortionist in a circus – but Mathieu smiled in a way neither Edward or Alphonse did. He looked at life with an innocent wonder, he laughed just because he was happy and he smiled, grinned, beamed up at his father like he was the best thing, like the world was simple and good and beautiful just because his Papa was there.
Despite everything that had changed, however, Edward remained, stubbornly, unwaveringly, Edward. No red coat, now, no leather pants or thick braid or running halfway across the country on a knife edge. Instead he had slacks, jeans, shorts and dress shirts, t-shirts, vests and a pony-tail or a spiky mess held off his neck with whatever was available (pen, spoon, screwdriver). No sparse military dorm room, either, but a three-bedroom house with a backyard and a fence and a letterbox that he and his son checked every day. And he still, unthinking and unintended, drew people into his orbit and kept, held, trapped them there with oblivious, honest charm.
"Uncle Roy!" Roy caught the boy just before he hit his legs, swung him up over his shoulder in a move made easy with practice.
"Hello, Mathieu." He greeted smoothly as he stepped through the door, ignored the indignant squeals as he toed off his shoes, shrugged his coat off from under his captive, hung it on the hook. "How was your day?"
"Great!" Protests forgotten in favour of a mixture of a nearly-four year old's unbridled enthusiasm and an inherited well of bottomless energy. "We had pancakes for breakfast –" Roy tried to stop the laugh, really did, but he'd heard Edward say pancakes like they were the answer to all the world's problems and Mathieu, apparently, had become a devotee of his father's religion, "– and then we played and I can get my feet right over my head now!" Because Mathieu hadn't wanted to stop the game they'd played with his mother, before, and wasn't 'training' always 'playing' for Elrics? "Papa's teaching me how to spar, too, and I'm not very good yet, but he says I'll get better if I practice and then if I get real good he'll show me how to eat swords." Eat – what? What? Eat swords? "And then he squirted me with the hose! And then I got it when he wasn't looking and I squirted him back, and then we were wet and this old lady went past and looked at us and said delinquents and Papa poked his tongue out at her." Edward would, he was always – eat swords? "We had to come inside and get dry and after that I did some drawing because Papa works best when I stay in one place." A tug on the back of his shirt and Roy obediently righted the boy, sat him on his hip as he moved into the kitchen.
Edward stood with Gracia at the bench, talking enthusiastically about a dish he'd learned to make – a new sermon for his faith – as he chopped ingredients for a salad with quick efficiency. Alphonse was bent over some papers at the table with Hughes and Miss Rockbell was rolling her eyes but smiling as she fetched plates and cutlery.
"Sorry I'm late." Roy offered when two conversations paused and ten eyes turned to him. His voice held no trace of the odd jump in his stomach at the five simultaneous smiles he received. "I brought compensation." A proffered bottle of wine and Edward's grin turned sharp as he took it, his eyes dancing with equivalent exchange and some dark humour that Roy hadn't quite figured out, yet.
"At least you don't disappoint, Mustang." The cook approved, reading the label. A moment, barely a pause at all, and he looked up – gave him a look that smiled a secret. "We're almost done in here if you and Dragon want to go into the den." Roy didn't miss the grinning look of gratitude Mathieu directed at his father, twitched an eyebrow upwards. Edward just gave an almost imperceptible shrug, an odd quirk of lips and turned back to his salad.
"So," Roy said, jogging Mathieu up a bit as he turned back to the doorway. "What happened after you did some drawing?"
"Lunch! Papa cut up two bananas and two apples and two oranges and eight strawberries and put all the pieces in a bowl and we sat in the yard and ate it with toothpicks. We did the cleaning after that and I put the dishes away and we did chemical compounds –" another Elric 'game', "while Papa vacuumed and then we had a race to see who could get to the other side of the kitchen first and we won seven each. Then we went to the museum." With the wonder children usually reserve for fairs and arcades. "Did you know that humans have 206 bones as grown ups but 300 when we're babies? And that the air's only 21 percent Oxygen? And there was a lady in the natural science section who knew lots about bones and skeletons and she said if we went back she'd tell us about the fossils." Because she was just very helpful, he was sure. "You should come next time. Papa said you didn't have to work on weekends so you might give yourself some time off –" and Roy knew a direct quote when he heard one, "– if I asked, and that if you weren't working we could kidnap you and go to the park, too. You want to, don't you?"
Edward would rather die than wear a look that pleading, and Roy had found over the past year that he was really quite grateful for that. The boy had been hard enough to say no to as it was.
"I can certainly alter my schedule for a day." Mathieu flashed him a blinding grin and wriggled to be let down. Roy obliged, naturally, watched a little bemused as the boy ran over to the small cabinet at the far side of the room. The top shelf held a fat stack of paper and the second sported pencils, crayons, paint (that he used only with supervision) and ink (which they used to practice arrays, again, only with supervision) and was the result of a three-years-and-four-month-old Mathieu getting the overwhelming urge to draw and finding Ed's research papers first. Now, Mathieu asked permission if there was anything he wanted to use from his Papa's study and Edward asked before using anything out of his son's cabinet.
The boy grabbed a piece of paper off the pile – carefully shut both doors – and scrambled back to stand before Roy, looking up up up at him and trying to stifle his grin rather unsuccessfully. Roy quirked an eyebrow, waited patiently while the boy squirmed, squirmed, thrust the paper towards him.
"Here." His eyes never left Roy's and sometimes it felt like he could see right into him, or was it just the colour...?
"Thank you." It was rather fortunate he'd spoken before he looked down at the paper, because he wasn't sure he could have made anything coherent come out of his mouth otherwise.
A drawing. Him, judging by the dark hair and dark patch, standing with a disproportionate arm raised and a scribble of red dancing around his lumpy blob of a hand. A lizard on the right, with yellow scales and yellow wings and hair as black as Roy's – dragon, he realised, Dragon, mouth open and breathing squiggly flames. In the centre, at the very bottom of the page was a figure, with yellow hair and yellow eyes, sitting above a spiky campfire and roasting spiralling marshmallows on a brown line. And scrawled in red at one corner, To Oncle Uncle Roy From Mathieu.
Roy blinked and the boy was definitely an Elric, even Roy wouldn't have expected to be so stunned because Mathieu had drawn him a picture. Children drew pictures all the time, zig-zags and loops and smudges of colour that were supposed to look like something and you just smiled, tried to see what they saw and hoped they didn't question you too closely. Hell, Elysia had gifted him with one when she was three and he'd been touched, really, but the only reason he knew where it was was because Maes would know if he didn't.
Roy just wasn't made for children, he'd never really understood them or their parents for having them (and it occurred to him he was slowly being surrounded with people that were having them and Uncle Roy was as natural to him as Mustang now) but the regard of this child somehow, maybe, made it make a tiny bit of sense.
"Dinner's ready." Edward announced with that naturally remarkable timing. Roy looked up in time to see an odd flash of expression in the blond's face before Mathieu said, "Je pense qu'il ne l'aime pas," and he looked back down at the boy. He'd heard the alien language once or twice since Edward had returned and he still couldn't quite get over the sense of disreality whenever he did.
"Il l'aime, Dragon." Especially when Ed replied like every syllable made complete sense. "Go wash up."
"'Kay." The boy tore off, letting the world tilt on its axis and tumble back all on its own.
Edward's eyes shone with that same amused conspiracy as he looked at Roy, and he offered a small, lopsided twitch of lips, tipped his head just slightly – moved back into the kitchen without a word.
---
The stylized heart resembles the shape of a female's breasts, buttocks or vulva and the male prostate gland more readily than an actual human heart.
---
Dinner at Ed's was, as ever, an energetic affair. The brothers had fallen right back into finishing each other's sentences with ease and they couldn't be in the same room for two minutes without discussing some theory at least once. It had always been fascinating to watch them trade thoughts back and forth but now it was amusing, too, without the edge of desperation on every word.
Alphonse's interest in psychology meant, of course, that Hughes had to contribute, Roy was obliged to give his own opinions based on years of observation, and it remained clear that Ed still understood people purely in terms of dangerous/not dangerous. Gracia and Miss Rockbell added real peoples' insight – Hughes, Roy and Edward were far too inclined to expect plots and threats every three paces and therefore bias, apparently – and Mathieu joined the conversation with characteristic enthusiasm.
Without fail, there would be at least one soliloquy from Hughes about his daughter, Winry would listen and look at Mathieu in that way and Roy and Edward would catch the other's eye and try not to laugh. Then Roy would say something that set Edward's teeth to grinding and Edward would come up with something scathingly witty that he could deliver with a smile in lieu of screeching fuck you, bastard like he clearly really really wanted to. Alphonse would sigh, roll his eyes and share an amused smile with the other occupants at the table and Gracia would compliment Ed on the meal, honestly and innocently, and Ed would blush just slightly, scratch the back of his head and shift in his seat like a little boy. It was rather endearing, actually.
And Mathieu would smile and be charming the whole while, apparently never boring of the adults' conversation, and every time Edward's eyes fell on him it was like life had given him the better deal after all.
Roy stood to help their host clear the dishes from the table and received an unimpressed, flat look – no one was ever allowed to lift a finger here, though Roy was still trying to figure out whether it was due to Edward's pride, some notion of equivalent exchange, a strange clause in his religion or some other reason entirely – to which he offered a bland smile and defiantly took the plates to the sink. Alphonse always got around the blond with a don't be difficult, Brother, Miss Rockbell glared right back at her adopted sibling, Maes was likely to start producing photos if someone made eye contact with him and the boy, teen, man simply couldn't argue with Gracia.
Edward never had known when to give up, even when he was outnumbered.
"Dessert." Their host announced – the scriptures read that no meal was complete without dessert – and presented them with an apricot and ginger crumble like he'd never seen a horror in his life.
---
In the card game Bridge, Hearts comes second only to Spades.
---
Coffee after dessert, sitting in the den with late summer sunlight spilling through the open french doors and puddling on the wooden floorboards. Mathieu started drooping, curled up on his father who was curled up on one of the fat chairs, and Maes and Gracia rose just in time to be bid a sleepy farewell before they left to take advantage of a home temporarily free of children.
The conversation continued in low tones, a soft lull that rose and fell in unconscious harmony to the boy's steady breaths. Winry asked Ed about the paper he was writing and he said, "It's dumb, boring, but it's useful, I guess. Gives my brain something to do," because he was at his most unguarded when he was warm and well fed and his son was peaceful, still, trusting in his arms. And likewise, when Edward asked about her new automail designs and she explained with shining enthusiasm about replicating the production of acetylcholine and manipulating the amperes and enhancing the influence of the afferent leg, he listened intently, nodded, was duly impressed and didn't wave her off or utter yeahyeah once.
Then the light was hinting blue and monochrome and they were standing, putting their coats on, waving on their way out the door. And Roy, somehow, ended up directing Edward off to put his son to bed while he gathered empty coffee cups and stray plates and rolled his sleeves up at the kitchen sink.
Ed reappeared when he was halfway through, wordlessly took up a dishtowel and started on the cups.
Six years ago, Roy would have laughed himself sick if someone had suggested this, any of this. That not only would he get along with Fullmetal, but would rather enjoy his company. That he would be invited into Fullmetal's home with his closest family like he belonged there, and be casually trusted with Fullmetal's son, that he would voluntarily stay to wash dishes when, with Fullmetal, it was actually easier to beg off.
Four years ago, Roy probably would have fried anyone who suggested that such a thing may have been possible, skewed depth perception or no. Edward's name had been nearly taboo amongst those that knew him. Recalling memories of the alchemist, saying he was missed, grieving, was too much like admitting he was dead, and wondering where he was, wanting him to be okay, waiting for him to return was too much like having hope.
Just a year ago, now, and Roy would have already been too stunned to really hear what anyone was saying. Who cared how the world revolved, anyway, Fullmetal, Edward, Ed was alive and home and alive. And home. And alive. By the time gold eyes and gold hair and flesh limbs and a son and that smile and that laugh had ceased to strike him blind and daft it was far too late to be surprised, anyway.
"Thanks." Which was not to say that Edward didn't still enjoy taking a metaphorical metal fist to his face as often as he could, seeing as he no longer had a real one to do the job.
"... My pleasure." Roy startled himself with the honesty of that, raised one eyebrow to cover it. He got the feeling that Edward knew all the same, but ignored it and drained the sink, used the slack end of the dishtowel to dry his hands. His gaze flicked upwards and – paused.
Ed's eyes on him. Not with any particular emotion, really, just... looking. Using his eyes because that's what you used to see and seeing Roy because he was there, a physical presence with dark hair and pale skin and almond shaped eyes. And Roy had just been glancing away from his hands on the towel, actually, a shift of attention from one object to another without any particular emphasis. Even when what he saw was a pair of captivating chatoyant eyes, he hadn't meant anything but an instinctive catalogue of his environment.
Except... well, Roy wasn't pulling his eyes – eye – away and neither was Edward and they weren't thinking anything, weren't communicating anything, weren't asking or answering anything but the longer they looked the less like nothing it became and the more like something, the less like looking and the more like maybe meeting each others' eyes.
Ed tugged on the towel, once, and his eyes didn't say anything, watched as Roy took a step forward, watched as Roy watched, watched as Roy lowered his head, watched as their lips met – let his eyes drift closed.
If someone had suggested this six years ago, Roy would have choked on his own horrified bile. Now, the only thought he could really muster was what took so long?
His hands were still half tangled in the dishtowel. He unwound them, put them to better use, one to either side of Ed's waist so he could fit them together just – so. The towel made a soft fuh noise as it hit the floor, but it was ignored in favour of the two strong hands that buried themselves in dark hair. Its graceful decent and delicate landing, unaided by an ungainly release, went unappreciated as eight fingers and two thumbs moved in small, flexing circles over Roy's scalp.
Edward's body shivered against him and it tumbled down his spine. Edward's tongue skated across his palette and his legs nearly forgot to hold him upright. Edward's lips moved against his, Edward's heart beat against his, Edward's body pressed along his, Edward's heat, Edward's scent, Edward's, Edward, Edward, Ed, Ed, Ed.
"Okay?" they murmured, breaths mingling and lips brushing and eyes fixed and – smiled, snorted, grinned, panted laughter into each other's mouths.
"Yes." Roy answered first, his amusement jumping behind his voice and his desire held trembling-still in his bones. Another kiss, quickly. "You?"
"Yeah." Ed huffed another gust of laughter, met his lips again, again, grinned sharp and wicked,
"Okay."
---
Anahata, the heart chakra, is linked with the power to take action outside the constraints of karma.
---
They had to close the doors, lock them, close the windows, bar them, because Ed's reckless negligence had only ever extended to his own safety. Turn off the lights and make their way to the back of the house, silent, silent, not even touching, not daring, feeling one another's presence like an uneven scratch on the air, the sch of velvet on velvet. Through the den, down the hallway, silent, past the bathroom, silent, easing a door open, silent, silent, silent.
Ed turned, pulled him close, met him open mouthed. His hands skirted Roy's arms, shoulders, back, and Roy urged him closer, closer, felt firm planes of muscle and hard presence of bone and the steady pump of warm blood, all shifting under soft skin and leaning into him, melting along his body like a wave. An inaudible vibration in Ed's throat and if Roy hadn't had his tongue in his mouth he wouldn't have felt it, wouldn't have known what that tasted like and to think he might have missed it...
Roy ran one hand down the length of Ed's spine, drank in the gasp he received as he reached the blond's tail bone. Back up, slipping beneath the material of his shirt and Roy breathed in sharply against Ed's mouth as his fingers brushed skin.
"Roy," the word was swallowed and he'd never known his name to taste like that, never known it to thread a slow burn through his veins and along his nerves and shiver through his insides. "Roy."
Two hands under material now, skating up dancing muscle and up smooth sides and up over uneven scars and up, bereft as Ed moved away, taking his warmth and his mouth and his breath but lifting his arms so Roy could trace shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, draw the shirt away completely, drop it forgotten to the floor.
Then Ed's mouth was on his again and Ed kissed the same way he did everything else; with a blatant disregard for anything but the task at hand. Ed's fingers worked quickly at the buttons of his shirt and he kissed like the the world didn't, hadn't, would never exist outside this. Ed's hands pushed the material from his shoulders and he kissed like he was still searching for the philosopher's stone, like he had just discovered that this was the way to make it.
Skin on skin, tongue on tongue and heat on heat and what took so long? Edward was moving them, pushing and pulling and stepping like he was going to walk through Roy and Roy breathed Ed through his mouth, his nose, his pores, let him.
The bed at the back of his knees. Roy sat and Ed followed, straddled his thighs, refused to leave his mouth for more than half a panted breath.
And – closer.
The shock of sensation licked up his spine like flame, edged his sharp inhalation with a groan that was echoed against his lips on Ed's breath. God. He slid his hands down, trailed them from flesh to material – hummed his satisfaction that Edward's arse felt as good as it always looked, curved round and firm under his palms – pulled him forward and arched his own hips upward.
Ed's mouth broke from Roy's as his body jerked into a sudden arch, hips forward and head back and
"Hah!"
like an explosion in his lungs.
The taut curve of Ed's throat, the throb of his pulse beneath his jaw, the bump of his adam's apple and it had to be one of the most inspiring things Roy had ever seen. If he was an artist, he could draw pornographic sketches for the rest of his life and never need another muse.
Save for the fact that his mouth was not as impressed. It felt cold and bare and abandoned and Roy's eyes looked at Ed all the time, had seen him and seen him and his mouth had never had the opportunity to taste before and why was it still made to wait, it wasn't fair. Roy commiserated, set it to the dip between two tan collarbones to appease it, rocked up and urged down and sucked hard with a hint of teeth. Ed's breath hitched, stopped, tumbled out of him as a moan.
"Bastard."
"Brat." Roy smiled against Ed's skin and felt the jumping, breathless laugh against his own chest.
"Guess so." Ed grinned as he straightened, moved his hands from Roy's shoulders to thread into his hair, silked his fingers through the strands and urged Roy to tip his head back just slightly. Sharing breath, like this, and he could feel the heat from Ed's skin, smell the scent from Ed's pores and he couldn't see anything but gold, was covered and submerged and lost in it. It should be uncomfortable, awkward, terrifying, too close and too intimate and too honest, but Edward already knew all the worst things Roy had ever done and what else could he see, anyway?
"Avete occhi bei." Ed murmured with a glint of mischief and a slow roll of hips, the words sinking smooth and hot into Roy's bones and seeming very little like gibberish in that tone, actually.
He met the movement, watched the shift and flare of Edward's eyes and said, "Nín tīngqĭlai kěkŏu, biănxiăoér," with a smirk that used to throw Ed into fits.
Ed just grinned and his breath huffed amusement against Roy's mouth before their lips touched, too quick, touched, too soft, touched, too chaste, touched, teased between bursts of air. And Roy growled, caught the blond's jaw on either side, set about drawing the air from his lungs. Edward let him, encouraged him, dared him, opened his mouth and took Roy's tongue inside with shameless relish, rocked again and moaned low in his throat as he ground them together.
Roy knew that there were moments in life when a person is granted a sudden, temporary clarity of thought. He'd discovered it when he was seven years old, after his grandmother died. She didn't turn up to have tea with his mother on Sunday morning, nearly a week after the funeral, and he had stopped at the entry to the dining room and realised – dead meant gone. Dead meant not coming back. Dead meant dead.
It had happened again after Ishbal. One second, the world was hopeless, disgusting, shadows lurked always at the edges of his vision with blood and fire and burnt flesh, and in the next there was the bright blue sky and rich brown dirt and sleek green grass and I will be Fuhrer, as simple as that.
And once more, now, as Ed leaned his weight into him, pressed him into the mattress, now, to the crinkle of sheets and the hush of fabric as they moved and the wet gasp of their kisses and the rumble of their pleasure, now, Ed's hands at his belt and his own hands pushing Ed's pants down over hips, now, he was hit over the head by an abrupt realisation.
Roy wanted to have sex with Ed.
Ed, Edward Elric, once the Fullmetal alchemist, once his subordinate, once a loud, brash, spastic boy half his age. And now a man, now a father, now a friend, now far more dangerous than he'd ever been in his youth. Roy wanted to have sex with him, was going to have sex with him, was doing his very best to get them both naked enough so he could have sex with him.
Okay. So.
Ed's pants hit the floor and at that moment Roy would have taken that sound over ever hearing your eye's going to be fine. As long as it came with this, wicked amber eyes caught on his and two mismatched flesh hands hooking into the waist of his pants and the arch of his own hips off the bed and the slide of fabric as the garment was finally, finally, tossed from his body.
"Fuck, Roy." And Ed, crawling back up his body with hands and mouth and tongue and teeth and gold hair come loose, trailing over his skin like sunlight in the faded dark. Ed, who never could keep anything out of his eyes and looking at him with such sharp satisfaction, like Roy had just proven him right about something and it was very, very good. Ed, lowering his mouth over his cock like he couldn't not, Ed, Edward, Fullmetal, Ed.
Still a brat. He breathed over him, nuzzled him with his nose, pressed random, closed mouthed kisses to his skin, lapped at him with only enough pressure to send straining shivers through his body. He rested his lips on the head but didn't lick, eased his mouth over the shaft but didn't suck, pressed him to the back of his throat but didn't swallow and nonono don't stop –
Ed resumed his meandering path up Roy's body – a kiss to a shuddering belly, a lick below the ribcage, a gentle scrape of teeth against one nipple – until they were face to face and eye to eye again and Ed could rock them together while they kissed, kissed, rocked, kissed...
Roy grasped the firm waist, pulled and twisted and Ed moved against him like liquid, rolled with him and relaxed under him and watched him with half lidded eyes. And he barely remembered to take his next breath because... Edward was... stunning. Hair, eyes, lips, jaw, neck, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, chest, waist, pelvis, cock, balls, thighs, knees, shins, calves, ankles, feet, toes, gently undulating beneath him and smoothing hands down his arms and and and.
And.
Roy didn't notice Ed take one of his hands, at first, too preoccupied with trying to make more of those sounds come from the blond's throat. Choked, strangled, breathless exclamations and moans and gasps and teeth-clenched, stifled, swallowed rumbles and growls and purrs and Roy tried to stop the noises rising from his own throat just so he could listen, just so he could feel the vibrations sink from the air to his body to his groin, just so he...
... could...
Roy's fingers disappeared between Edward's lips.
Roy's fingers disappeared between Edward's lips and Edward's tongue curled around them, dragged down the length of them, flicked at the pads of them. Roy's fingers disappeared between Edward's lips and Roy knew Ed was watching him but he couldn't get his eye to shift an inch, couldn't summon enough awareness to realise his mouth had fallen open, couldn't feel his own heart beating anymore and... couldn't even find it in himself to care, actually.
"Ed."
His fingers were released and Ed shifted, bent his legs so his knees skated Roy's sides and – tensed, relaxed, shuddered at the first touch.
...what took so long?
One finger, two, three, and Edward lay with his head tipped back and eyes closed, intent, panting soft, quick breaths through his mouth. His muscles convulsed in frantic spasms around Roy's fingers as he slowly, slowly made his body accept the violation. And Roy waited, pressed his lips to a sun dusted jaw, throat, chest, waited, pumped the digits steadily inside Ed, waited, gradually felt the tight ring loosen.
"Roy." There was a sheen of sweat on Ed's skin. "Roy." It made Ed glimmer, shine, glow in the half light, turned hard bone and defined planes into inconceivable beauty and added a hint of salt wherever Roy put his tongue. "Roy." Ed arched and he was washed in brilliance. Ed twisted and he was formless, ethereal. Ed rocked back against Roy's hand and he was inhuman, some young deity that had somehow agreed to gift Roy a hint of a heaven he'd never believed in –
"Roy. Fucking – fuck, goddammit, Roy, bastard –"
Some young, impatient, horny deity, jerking upright, pushing at Roy's shoulders with frustrated strength, growling low and constant in his throat, but a deity nonetheless. Shoving Roy back off his knees and scrambling after, legs spread wide over Roy's lap and body pressed up to Roy's and one hand still tight on his shoulder while the other reached behind. Ed's eyes flickered only a hint of whiskey at the edge of the dilated pupils but it was blinding and a slick hand – slick? – wrapped around Roy's cock, stroked twice, positioned him at the entrance to Ed's body and ohgodohgod Ed lowered himself, impaled himself, took Roy inside himself with a long moan caught on a breath.
Roy's hands were probably bruising Ed's hips – Ed's hands were most definitely bruising his shoulders – but he couldn't quite remember how to loosen his grip. He shook with not moving, waited, tried to focus on anything but the heat massaging his cock with startled contractions. Ed panting harsh on his collarbone, Ed's chest passing small shivers into his own body, Ed's hair brushing too-sensitive skin and Roy strained his muscles keeping still, ached, waited, waited, he was a goddamn saint, waited.
And Ed lifted his head, straightened in Roy's lap and yes oh fuck god yes finally moved.
He met each fall of Ed's hips with a smooth, sharp thrust, sealed his mouth over Ed's in an effort to muffle them both, tried to recall how to get air into his lungs and back out again. He burned wherever Ed touched him, memory blistered over his nerves and skin melted until he was naked, vulnerable, raw, felt every shift of air through his body like drinking hot oil. His lungs stuttered, his stomach clenched, his groin throbbed, his heart beat Ed, Ed, Ed through his veins, his liver, his brain, and he couldn't get close enough, deep enough, enough.
A wordless cry from a hoarse throat and Roy wasn't even sure who it belonged to anymore. Each movement shocked fire, lightning, liquid steel through him, up his torso and back and down his legs and into a sinking, roiling pool in his belly. It surged through his body, dragged his organs taut, coiled around his guts, squeezed and bit and licked and yes, yes, yes, yes, yesyesyesyes.
Ed pulled back from his mouth with a ragged gasp thrust and Roy's saliva glinted startling bright on his bottom lip. Roy knew it was his saliva, thrust knew it with a possessive certainty that growled up from his stomach, thrust made his teeth itch, thrust poured flames under his skin. Ed covered him more surely than his own flesh did thrust but maybe in return he could fill Ed, thrust his tongue and his cock and his spit and his cum and thrust maybe thrust maybe thrust he could just thrust breathe, thrust surround himself with Ed and thrust smell Ed and thrust feel Ed and thrust just thrust Ed thrust Ed thrust Ed thrustthrustthrust –
And everything flared, ruptured, disappeared from existence for a moment.
They moved through the shocks together, jerking and erratic and too much, too much, yes, yes. Ed's breath kept hitching on the tortured keen writhing in his throat and Roy couldn't make any noise at all. Each slowing twitch and roll of hips startled his body a little further back to awareness, thin silk blades shivering through his limbs, organs, skin, until he was still, tangible and naked and sitting on a bed again.
And Ed draped over Roy like he didn't have a single bone to support him, with "You can stay, if you want," in a husky whisper that was barely audible at all.
"Nn."
A small puff of air curled chill over the sweat on his collarbone.
"Ha."
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The human heart is a muscular organ, responsible for pumping blood through the body. The right side takes de-oxygenated blood from the body into the lungs and the left circulates oxygenated blood from the lungs to the rest of the body. This cycle begins 21 days after conception and will occur an average of 100800 times every day until the body dies.