Proportional Offence

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: tiny SPOILER for end of series

Roy was warm. Even drifting on the very edge of sleep he could recognise a good morning. The bed was firm, cradled his body against the mattress like a perfect lover, neither too demanding nor too distant. No old aches or newer, sharper pains interrupted his pleasant, muffled haze. Even his eye had abandoned its strange, invisible tugging and occasional twitch. It was all subdued by the comfortable embrace of the blankets and the mattress and the pillow, the caress of the just-rising sun filtering through the small gap between the curtains.

Still indulging in his half-doze, Roy flexed his muscles, slowly stretched out his limbs. His shoulders rolled in their sockets, his chest and stomach tensed deliciously and the muscles in his arms and legs clenched almost to shaking, moving languidly outward –

connected with another body –

and a crushing grip closed around his forearm, jerked, tumbled him viciously out of his haze and his half-sleep and the bed onto a cool wooden floor. It had been years since Roy had been woken so abruptly but it was always as if no time had passed at all, disorientation choking his nerves and a sudden rush of adrenaline. The General major surged forward, furious terrified, heart pumping too quickly, dark eyes hard shattered. He may not have his gloves he was useless in the rain, he may only have one eye the wound in his leg was aching, burning, he could barely stand up any more, let alone walk, but he wasn't helpless, dammit he didn't want to die.

He rose one inch, maybe two, before a solid hit to his chest thumped him hard into the wood again, bruising his shoulderblades and flashing dark white at the back of his skull. His body tensed to rise again but then there was a weight on top of his gut, knocking wind from him that he barely noticed. It hardly mattered when there was warm, sharp metal pressed into his skin, scratching a line of red over his throat in warning. Roy froze. Blinked.

"Edward?"

The blond stared, golden eyes wide and bright and blank, tumbling over amber and ochre. Roy could feel the shaking-tenseness of the thighs wrapped around his sides, could see the frantic wail of the pulse beneath tan skin, could smell the sharp reek that sliced from their pores. Then the body on his jerked, a tiny spasm, and those wild eyes blinked once, focused.

"... Roy?" the eyebrows drew down. "What..." and the younger caught sight of the blade extending from his arm, the line of blood drawn over pale skin and a scarlet drop tracing the curve.

"Fuck." Ed threw himself off, away, scrambled several paces backward on his arse until he was stopped abruptly by the dresser. He stared with a different type of wildness, now, remained trembling-still and panted harshly like a wounded beast. "Fuck."

Roy sat up slowly, watching the other with only a touch of a frown. He raised two fingers to his wound, lowered his gaze to glance at bright red screaming on the pale digits. This had been a good morning. The General felt like rolling his eyes, or hitting his head on something. He hadn't remembered there was someone else in his bed, but even worse, he hadn't realised it upon waking. He'd been so comfortable that he hadn't heard the sound of the other's breath, hadn't noticed the different set of the mattress or taken note of exactly why it had been so intimately warm. Hadn't noticed the faint scent that was becoming increasingly familiar, hadn't considered that his bedmate would be as susceptible to remembered horrors as the rest of them.

"Good morning, Edward." He said mildly after a time, raising his eyes again. Any longer and the blond would start fuming that he was being coddled. Regardless of the fact that those large eyes, awash with guilt and apology and horror, were just begging to be comforted – no, that wasn't true, was it? On anyone else, they would be a sure cue to move, to wrap warm arms around that body and whisper words of assurance and acceptance. Forgiveness. On anyone else, those eyes would have dimmed and shattered long ago. On Edward Elric, they churned, tore, screamed and flared and then gathered into a firmer mass. A layer of hard ash on lava.

Edward slowly released a breath.

"Sorry." Straightforward, blunt, but no less sincere for its shortness. The golden eyes slipped to the accusing red on translucent white and his mouth tightened a moment. "Old habits." And that was as much explanation as Roy would get for the very nearly successful attempt on his life.

"Understandable." He replied in much the same tone.