Warning: swearing, sex, and sparkly pink fluff.

Disclaimer: I do not own FMA.

Tanning

"Ah, fuck!" Ed panted, his burning skin pressed flush against the smooth, cool tiles.

Roy waited impatiently at his rear, poised at the entrance while his fingers curled and beckoned.

The blonde's head made a vague shaking motion, sweat-dampened strands of long hair sticking, vein-like, to his flushed forehead as he spread his thighs further apart.

"Shit… ah, Roy, can't you give me a goddamn second to adjust?"

The raven rolled his eyes for the third time, his hand –once gesturing towards the younger alchemist to just get up already –falling back down to his side in defeat.

"Fullmetal," he called, "how long are you planning to lie there like a beached whale?"

Ed wanted to turn and glare, but it put a crick in his neck – because he was currently planted face-down and spread-eagled on the bathroom tiles, relishing in the stinging cold that his turgid blood vessels drank in like it was forbidden nectar.

He settled for a piqued mumble out the side of his mouth: "If you have any common courtesy, kindly leave me alone before I transmute my overheated automail into a giant penis brand and tattoo it onto your fucking forehead."

Leaning against the doorway with one hand on his left hip, Roy seemed unimpressed by the inveterately crude display of humour.

"I have no problems with you trying to cool down, but one –you are in my way, and two –that is totally unhygienic," he said, pertinacious.

"Not –mo –ving," was the immutable reply.

Roy sighed and straightened, carefully stepping into the skerrick space between Ed's outstretched left arm and leg before he precariously reached over to rummage in the overhead cabinet.

"If I lose my balance and slip to my death it'll be your fault," he warned.

The blond glanced up at the movement to find Roy changed out of his usual shirt and slacks –the man wore loose gray shorts and a plain white t-shirt that lightly outlined his lean frame. Ed traced a fingertip around Roy's anklebone, suppressing a grin when the perfectly sculpted leg shivered in response.

"Where are you off to?" he wanted to know, as he mapped out the contours of his lover's foot.

Roy inspected the back label of a slim jar, and then he set it upon the left of the sink.

"I was going to invite you," he said nonchalantly, "but you seem too busy making friends with my bathroom floor."

Ed snorted, pinching his Achilles' tendon and making Roy snap his head around to glower at him. "Pray tell."

The Flame Alchemist hesitated for a moment, the faint blush on his cheeks rousing Ed's curiosity.

"I'm going to tan," Roy announced.

Ed sniggered. "Yourself, or a cow?"

The black haired man crossed his arms, indignant and frowning.

"Now what good would it do to slaughter a poor animal when I can simply buy my leather goods?" he reasoned.

"New customised pants just for me?" Ed suggested hopefully.

It'd be like having his hands run all over my legs and butt and crotch 24/7. Mmm.

"The beach, Fullmetal dear," Roy clarified with a melodramatic sigh. "As much as I would love to see you suffocate in leather pants in midsummer weather –

"I thought you hated water," Ed interrupted, rolling onto his back and sitting up.

"I'm not going there to swim, Ed," he reminded him with a shake of the tall container in his hand –which was labelled 'Clancy's Premium Tanning Oil'.

The blond stood up, about to make some guile comment on Roy's narcissism –but stopped at the sharp glance of dark, narrowed eyes, opting instead for a knowing grin.

Ed winced at the dark blond curl that had stuck to a joint in his automail, gingerly plucking it out and –

"Don't you dare get your pubes anywhere near me –

–flicking it onto the front of Roy's t-shirt.

Roy's normally stoic face warped into one of disgust, and he shook the offending hair back onto the ground.

"God, Ed! You don't have any grasp of basic etiquettes, do you?"

The man crossed his arms, one blond eyebrow perking up mischievously.

"You didn't have any issues with it last night," he argued.

Roy shot him a final glare before he spun around and walked off.

"If the toilet wasn't separate from the bathroom, I would so make you take a shower right now!"

His complaint echoed down the hallway, the acoustics making his voice sound amusingly like that of a nagging housewife. "Hurry up and get packing!"

Ed shrugged, following suit; he'd save the endless teasing for the hot, soporific drive.

Water, water, and more water.

The scent of sun-scorched cotton and salt hit him as soon as they stepped out of the car. The sea was like a giant, gorgeously decadent pool of diamonds and ultramarine crystals, beckoning him to immerse his sizzling automail into that endless, cool bliss.

The journey there had been too long and too tedious: not only had it been airless and hot, Roy had (very rudely) completely disregarded his quite brilliant suggestion of taking a little detour (by foot) to a roadside covert to make themselves a little picnic. A picnic without wine and cheese or tea and cakes, but oh, still with plenty of 'catering'.

However, all of that negativity was soon forgotten when there were acres and acres of free, cold water in front of him, and a broad grin lit Ed's face as he broke into a run and-

"- Ed, be a dear and help me set up the umbrella stand!" came the call of his lover.

"God, do it yourself!" Ed groaned, turning around slowly and stomping back.

"What, you expect me to draw a transmutation circle in the sand?" he complained.

"Uh, yeah," Ed deadpanned. "You can draw it on your face for all I care."

Roy's face smoothly shifted into a petulant pout-frown.

Ah-ha, here comes the ass-licking.

"But Ed," the older man coos, "you could do in five seconds what I couldn't do in an hour!"

The blond crossed his arms, clicking his tongue.

"Keep going."

"Watching you transmute things in the blink of an eye really turns me on."

"And?"

Roy rolled his eyes and decided that he was feeling generous. Wearing a tiny smirk he leaned close, wickedly licking his ear before he whispered: "you make the rules tonight?"

"Ohhh, I kinda like that," Ed grinned, taking the liberty to give his lover's ass a squeeze. He had long ago waved bye-bye to the military, so the two of them liked to indulge in public displays of affection once in a while, partly to gauge reactions from those self-righteous, conceited preachers of social standards and sexual morality.

With the deal done, Ed quickly went about assembling the stand. Seeing as he had only deconstructed the central pole in order to fit it into the boot of the car, it was simply a matter of transmuting the portions back into a whole.

Once finished, he only had the sea in his mind –but Roy made him stay to do stretches. Annoying as it was, Ed admitted that it had been a while since his last military field mission so it would not be a good idea to get cramps in the water, especially with the automail dragging him down.

Ed had been finishing his calf muscle stretches when Roy held out to him the bottle of tanning oil.

The blond looked at him blankly as it was pressed into his palm.

"Wait. Do you seriously want me to facilitate you in frying yourself?"

Roy narrowed his eyes. "We've been through that in the car. Anyway, I thought we had a deal."

"Oh, so this is part of the deal as well?" he scoffed.

Nevertheless, he sat down next to him on the beach towel and poured some of the oil on his palm, rubbing it hastily between his hands before he slopped it onto Roy's back half-heartedly.

It was really such a shame, thought the younger alchemist as he watched all that beautiful, pale skin being tinged a strange sort of aged sienna beneath his fingers. And quite frankly, he felt like he was –

"-so delicate of you, Ed," Roy remarked dryly. "I could season a turkey better than that."

Yes, that was exactly what it felt like.

"Except it would be a little more difficult when it comes to stuffing thyme up your ass," the blond retorted, and then shouting an inner 'whoop' at his really quite witty comeback.

"Even Christmas turkeys deserve a little bit of dignity," the black-haired man said as he recalled the previous year's festive dinner preparations. Behind his back, his young lover had tried to use alchemy to speed up the cooking process just to prove that he could: he ended up overstuffing the poor bird, causing the filling to spurt very grotesquely out of its puckered neck and all over the kitchen bench.

"Aha, that," Ed said with a laugh. "Fond memories, right?"

"I did the cleaning up."

"Whatever… can I go now, by the way? I've finished preparing you for the oven."

Roy rolled his eyes. "Alright. Be careful."

"Yes, mother," Ed teased before he dashed off towards his watery paradise.

The older man smiled at his lover's departing shadow, and then he reached over to grab a paperback novel to occupy himself while he was sunbaking his back.

Roy gave a sated little sigh; perfect weather, him happily in the sun, Ed happily in the water and one lazy day of relaxation. Now if only his arm was long enough to reach over for some chilled juice…

Keeping a wary eye on the shoreline, Ed floated in a haphazard star-shape on his back upon the sparkling ocean surface, his automail glinting in sheens of blinding white and pale blue under the merciless sun. He had found thrill in letting the weight of his prosthetics drag him down to the ocean floor at the shallow end of the beach, wading through silk-like carpets of sand with his four limbs like a hunting lizard. Through the blur of the goggles that he had luckily remembered to bring, the half-buried shards of shell and glass and lost jewellery revived in Ed the instinctive childhood love of treasure hunting. The world seemed timeless and perfect in the calm vastness of the sea, and he let himself soak into it until he couldn't feel himself any more. That was why he loved the ocean- it soothed him, it took him away from himself and let him accept who he was. There was only one person who could really do that for him, and that was Roy.

How did I manage to get so fucking lucky? Ed thought with a grin as he righted himself in the water. The man had turned from a royal pain in the ass to a royal pain in the ass that he really couldn't live without, and Ed liked to let him know that. He wasn't one to speak his mind in such matters, so naturally he told Roy in the only ways he knew: little things like having his towel and home clothes laid out for him every day before he comes home from work, notes in the liquor cabinet when Ed was away on a long trip to remind him not to drink too much and that he'd call... and of course, showing him in bed. Roy, flushed and panting beneath him, getting undone like those endless, stubborn buttons of his shirts, begging please although he was the one being worshipped from head to toe. That pink bloom of arousal on his lover's porcelain skin was one of the many things he could never resist, which was why he was more than a bit sceptical about the possible results of Roy's tanning endeavours.

Ed rolled his eyes and started to swim back to the shore. He had been gone for a while, and if even his own skin had noticeably darkened a few shades from being in the water, then he couldn't picture what Roy looked like...

The weight of gravity was heavy on his calves as he rose out of the water, dragging his feet through damp gray-brown sand. His lover was still lying at the same place albeit he had switched to baking his front, with the novel perched open on his forehead. Ed sniggered, tip-toed to his prostrate form and shook out his frigid, wet hair over him, expecting a spectacular response.

He waited, counting the passing seconds and his grin dying slowly like kelp washed ashore.

"Roy?"

He waited a bit more.

"Hey, Roy!"

Ed was starting to get worried by then –he knelt down and brushed the novel aside, and found Roy looking less like he was relaxing than having been baked unconscious.

The man groaned quietly and squinted at his lover at the third, fourth call of his name, muttering, "is that you, Ed?"

"Who'd you think?"

"Great, pass me some water while you here, could you... why is it so dry?"

"Fuckin' idiot!" Ed hissed, hooking his arms beneath the man's armpits and dragging him back beneath the shade of the umbrella.

The ice in the cooler had already half melted to a pool. He warmed it briefly with a clap and dunk in a towel, which he then wrung and laid over Roy's forehead.

"What're you doing?" the raven muttered in what was supposed to be a cross voice.

"You got yourself heatstroke, dumbass!" he snapped, "What kind of idiot lies in the blazing sun for two hours without moving?"

"That's sunbathing, isn't it?" he retorted weakly as Ed propped him up on his lap.

"Shut up and drink this," Ed said as he held a bottle to his lover's parched lips. "You'd think a freakin' Flame alchemist would have some common sense about sun safety!"

"The," Roy corrected. "The Flame alchemist."

"You need to stop talking and drink," his lover said sharply, "once we get you in better shape we're going straight home, you got that?"

The raven was about to give him more lip, but seeing the dangerous glint in Ed's eyes he glumly did as he was told.

Ed was the one who drove them all the way back to central, since he forbid the still-drowsy Roy to sit behind the wheel. Being a relatively new driver, the blond was still getting used to controlling the steering and acceleration with his mismatched limbs. Horns blared, curses flew and tempers flared in the midsummer heat, and Roy was glad that he was too tired to offer any more input to the road rage. It was a great relief when Ed finally parked the car at the sidewalk and helped him out of the scorching backseat.

"Fucking crazy idiots!" Ed was raging, "I fucking indicated right! What'd they want me to do, stick half my body out the fucking window?"

Roy was going to say, "no, it's not your fault that your arm is too short", but he didn't want to risk his life for a moment of minor glory.

"And that officer who made me pull over on the highway to check my fucking license? If he didn't look like he was about to piss himself when I told him I was the Fullmetal alchemist I would've transmuted his uniform off him and dumped him into the fucking desert!"

Yes, it's also a pity that the driver's seat doesn't have a height adjustment knob, thought Roy with a smirk.

He watched the delightful flush of anger creeping up his lover's ears as the young man grinded his teeth, shutting the front door with unnecessary force.

"What?" Ed growled as he spun around to glare at the raven.

"You're so cute, that's all," he replied smoothly.

"You wouldn't dare voice what you're thinking," the blond warned in a low rumble. "Now go take a shower and then come straight to the bedroom-

"-so early?" he teased.

"With lukewarm water at most, got it?" Ed finished, ignoring him.

Roy smiled and retreated to the bathroom. Stripping down, he braced himself at the sink before he checked out his reflection –oh, no. His skin looked… old. That was really the only word for it. There were uneven patches of not-quite-golden-brown on his abdomen, and the parts where he didn't apply enough oil were flushed pink. Shrinking away from the mirror, he escaped into the shower and turned on the taps. He suspected that by the time he washed off all of the leftover oil most of him would be rather pink. The cool water gave him temporary relief, but once he got out again and dried himself, his skin started to feel uncomfortably tight, and hot to the touch. The blood in his bloated veins pumped angrily beneath the upper flesh like earthworms that had overindulged on soil, as if eager to reprimand him for his thoughtless self-abuse. A peek in the glass told him that he wasn't just sunburnt –he was quite badly sunburnt.

Roy traipsed back to the bedroom, scrubbing his hair dry with a groan. The depressing prospect of having no choice but to sweat all over again on top of his ruined complexion distracted him enough to not notice that the door was closed until he almost walked right into it.

One eyebrow raised, he slid the moist towel over one shoulder and knocked twice on the polished wood.

"Wait a moment!" came the voice of his younger lover.

There was a clap, a faint sizzle of alchemy, before golden brown eyes peeked out from the tiny gap between the open door.

"Come in, hurry," he urged.

Perplexed, Roy allowed himself to be ushered in and made his way towards the bed. Ed had shut the door again with a sharp snap, and once more pressed his palms against the hinges. A flash of cobalt blue briefly illuminated the adjoining walls like a quick-dry glaze, leaving an abrupt metallic tang in its wake.

Sliding onto the cool cotton sheets, Roy noticed that there was something distinctly different about the atmosphere of the interior –it was significantly cooler, comfortably humid, in contrast to the dry and scorching temperature that permeated the rest of the house.

"Ed, what did you do?" he asked, his eyes wide with awe.

The blond grinned and jerked his thumb over his shoulder, to indicate the metal bucket of water at the corner of the room.

"When you were in the shower, I hermetically sealed the room. Then it was simply a matter of zapping enough energy out of the water molecules to cool them down, and then redistributing them into the air," he answered. "The weather report said that the temperature would pike towards late afternoon, but it'll probably get cooler towards evening. Until then, I guess we'd have to make do with this."

Roy repressed the urge to let his mouth fall open at the casually delivered explanation of what must have been an exceedingly precise and arduous alchemical process.

The law of equivalent exchange would have allowed Ed to recycle the energy he took from the water particles to use in his transfer of the cooled moisture back into the atmosphere. However, the amount of power required for said transfer would quite likely leave the room chilling to the bone –and yet, it had been perfectly adjusted. Which meant that the man had probably used up a fair bit of his own energy to prepare this.

If Ed was tired, he didn't show it –nonetheless Roy made a mental note to make him an especially large and scrumptious meal tonight.

"What did I do to deserve the fruits of your genius?" wondered Roy as he was gently pushed onto his back.

Ed's mouth quirked into a too-familiar smirk as he replied smoothly, "Am I not allowed to show you how much I love you, once in a while?"

The raven chuckled –someone was evidently rubbing off on him.

He reached up to caress the blond ponytail as Ed busied himself by squirting some after-sun gel onto his hand, rubbing it between his fingertips to warm it slightly.

"You don't have to show me; I know it well," Roy murmured, not to be beaten at his own game.

"Consider it a rare opportunity to be spoiled rotten by Edward Elric the great," the younger man countered with a grin, wiping wet, dark bangs back from his lover's face.

Roy 'hmmed' in content as a gentle flesh hand spread the gel onto his forehead and nose, rubbing delicate circles on his cheeks before finishing at his chin.

"So," Ed said cautiously, "what prompted this tanning thing?"

"Well," Roy said slowly, then leaving it at that with a thoughtful frown at his brows.

"I mean, it's not a trend, what's more you don't follow trends anyway," Ed pressed. "And if it was a personal phase you would've tried it a long time ago and sworn to yourself never to do it again. So what is it?"

"I see you've put a lot of thought into this," Roy mused.

"The only other explanation is that you've lost your mind. Otherwise I'm stumped. Tell me."

The raven paused for an awkward moment, staring at a spot on Ed's shirt before mumbling: "I thought you'd like it better if I looked a shade darker."

It was Ed's turn to pause –and then he barked a laugh. "Whatever gave you the impression that I would like it better if you looked more like a glazed smoked ham? Roy, that's absolutely ridiculous!"

"You read enough to know that even ancient societies depicted the ideal male with darker skin," Roy argued.

"I read enough to also know that in Xingese legends, black hair combined with white skin is the epitome of divine beauty," Ed retorted.

"But I'm not a delicate Xingese maiden with hundreds of suitors falling over themselves for my hand in marriage."

"Roy, you have a dick and two balls! What more proof do you want that you're a dude?"

Roy winced. "Do you ever stop to reflect on what comes out of your mouth?"

Ed ignored the question. "Let's backtrack to the part where you suggested that I'd like it better if you looked like a baked potato. When did I ever tell you something like that?"

"Um…"

"I never said such a thing."

"That's…"

"And I know I tease a lot, but only about your vanity in general."

Roy rolled onto his front and pressed his face into the pillow in what he thought was an inconspicuous attempt to hide his sulk. "Fine… it was actually my penalty for losing in a competition."

If Ed's hands weren't occupied with massaging the gel onto Roy's forearm, he would be rubbing them together in glee. "Oho, you lost in a competition? I gotta hear some of this. Go on, spill."

Roy heaved a sigh. "Havoc and I held a competition on who could first seduce their partner under certain circumstances. If he lost he had to shave off that moppy fringe of his, and if I lost I had to tan."

"I'm going to kick your ass later for involving me in a competition without my consent… but you shouldn't have lost to Havoc in your own field of expertise."

Seeing the first hint of a smirk on Roy's lips, Ed added flatly: "that wasn't a compliment, by the way. So, what were these circumstances?"

"Havoc had to convince Hawkeye to have a quickie with him during work."

"Well, pigs really can fly… and what about your end?"

"I had to convince you to have sex with me against our front door… right after I get home from work. Inside, of course."

Roy turned his head slightly to gauge his partner's reaction –but he didn't quite expect the soft smile that was currently directed at the back of his head.

"That's what I thought. Otherwise you wouldn't make a whole show of undoing all your shirt buttons first thing coming home."

The younger man suppressed a snigger at Roy's look of mild embarrassment.

"I guess I made a fool of myself, then?" the raven muttered.

Slightly lifting Roy's right leg that he had just been lathering with gel, Ed pressed his lips lovingly against his anklebone.

"The only reason I didn't react was because I didn't want the heat from my automail to bother you," he explained. "After being caged up in a sweltering office then jostled through thirty-five degree streets, the last thing you want is my sizzling body all over you."

Ed cried out in surprise when his elder grabbed him by the forearm to pull him down at his side, to seal his lips with a fiery kiss. Thoroughly distracted by Roy's questing tongue, the blond hummed in content and hooked his leg over Roy's to pull himself closer.

"If I had failed to notice that you were only thinking of me all along, then I really did make a complete fool of myself," Roy said in a hush against Ed's mouth.

The blond made a face at the mawkish confession, but a dusting of pink nevertheless spread over his cheekbones.

He playfully ran his finger along the ridges of Roy's sun-kissed ear as he replied: "Not that your little doorway exhibitions were totally ineffective…"

Roy swept the golden hair over the younger man's shoulder and pressed soft kisses down the scarred line between flesh and prosthetic, eliciting a delighted gasp from Ed with just a touch of tongue.

I love and accept you, every single part of you. Your automail, your scars, and all the shadows they carry.

That was what Roy would always be telling him in his natural, unhesitating touches that ignited and fed the once dilapidated hearth inside his heart.

"I got your message," murmured Ed whilst feeling slightly light-headed due to the skilful mouth that was currently teasing the pulse point below his ear.

"And what is that?" enquired Roy in a husky tenor that sent ripples of pleasure down his spine.

"Once you're all better… the first thing I'll do when you come home from work is slam you against our door and fuck the living daylights out of you until we both see stars, okay?"

Roy chuckled.

"Remind me to put that into my after-hours schedule book…"

Knowing that sex (which was eventual at this rate) would be counterproductive to all of Ed's hard work, Roy reluctantly pulled back to simply admire the gorgeous young man.

The fact that he would be sporting the conspicuous evidence of a botched attempt to sunbathe did little to abate the soft bloom of elation inside him: because he knew that whether he looked like a peeling turnip or not, there was somebody who truly loved him.

Fin

Sap, much? Within a few days of that little distraction piece (Nine in the Morning) I managed to churn out the rest of this fic which is almost a year old, now. The creative fairy must have been sprinkling magic dust into my brain during my sleep. That means I have to work extra hard to finish one more FMA fic! Please click the button below and give me some feedback… you know which one I'm talking about!