(peeks in cautiously) Hello, my loyal readers; long time, no see, huh? (has sharp objects thrown at her) Hey, hey! I'm trying as hard as I can to get these chapters out fast, but still have them be good—my wonderiferous beta, Staehli (Fae Elric) has been a big help with that, so give her a giant hug next time y'all see her, okay?
The next couple of chapters are important, but kind of boring, so please bear with me.
I'll also be introducing some OCs in this chapter; for those of y'all who've already met them, please wade through the introductions and explanations if you don't mind—their pasts may be slightly altered from the ones they have in Family.
Disclaimer: I own them. Yes, I was lying to you all those chapters ago when I said that I didn't. I, Lina of BMF, own the Fullmetal Alchemist characters. (lawyer taps on shoulder and hands over a lawsuit) . . . Aw, shit.
WARNING: There is a sex scene in this chapter. If you don't think that your fragile mind can bear the weight of explicit sex, then please just skip the italicized portion near the middle of the chapter. Because the last thing that I want is for LF to get reported and deleted, I'll also be switching the rating from T to M, despite my reservations on the matter.
"It's about family and life."
-Ozzie Smith
Chapter X: Advent of the Dragon
The loud pounding on his bedroom door rousted Roy Mustang from a fitful slumber perforated by memories that were only really memories in the daylight. He was almost grateful to the person for waking him from the visions of sand, fire and ash, black, peeling flesh, and haunted eyes, even as he glanced over at the clock on his bedside table and caught sight of the time.
2:32am.
Groaning in annoyance, he threw the covers back and stumbled out of bed, accidentally stubbing his toe on the corner of his nightstand in the process. Hissing out a strangled curse in Xingian, Roy hobbled over to the door and threw it open. He blinked blearily down at the disheveled blonde standing there. "Ed?" he asked uncertainly, his voice thick and gravely from sleep.
The teen's hair was down, dingy-looking and clinging to his shoulders and neck, and his face looked somewhat flushed, even in the sparse light. He had his arm raised to knock again and that caused the hem of his black tank to ride up just above the waistband of the pajama pants Hawkeye had supplied him with—Roy thought he caught a glimpse of swollen belly peeking out from beneath the folds of cloth, but the teen had lowered his arm and had self-consciously tugged the hem down before the dark-haired alchemist could be sure.
The boy's eyes were focused intently on one of the buttons of Roy's blue pajama top. The Flame had noticed that Edward had taken to doing that as of late—directing his hormonal ire at something on Roy's person, rather than directly at him. Maybe so that he could get away with glaring at the man without having to actually look him in the eye.
Roy supposed that this sullen, barely-speaking Edward was better than the one who had been living at his house for the first three weeks of their stay together. In that unbearably long amount of time, Ed had refused to speak to or look at him. He had barely tolerated his presence—most of the time, if Roy had entered a room, the blonde would hastily retreat into another.
It had been beginning to grate on Roy's nerves.
After all, it wasn't as though the two of them spent all that much time together anyway. For most of the day, Roy was stuck behind his desk, signing mundane reports (under the promise of a slow, painful death if he didn't, compliments of Hawkeye) and dealing with idiotic soldiers and old generals (most of whom had sticks so far up their asses, he was surprised they didn't spit splinters whenever they spoke to him). And Ed . . .
Well, truth be told, he hadn't been sure what Edward had been doing all day long for the first week of his stay. In fact, it wasn't until Hawkeye had informed him in her usual clipped tones how the blonde alchemist was going off to the public library every day to get research done that he even realized that Ed was leaving the house.
This fact had unnerved and agitated him for a brief time—a pregnant, vulnerable Edward walking around without someone (a fiercely-protective, seven-foot tall suit of armour) to watch his back made Roy worry over his safety. And not only in the physical sense. He didn't want Ed walking around for the whole world to see. The fact was that the teen would eventually gain the tumulous tummy that Antley swore up and down would begin to show soon and Roy didn't want Ed going far from the house and letting that infamous Edwardian temper get him into trouble and god, what if someone saw?
What if they found out?
Neither he nor Edward could afford to let something of this magnitude get out for public consumption. The consequences would be unfathomable.
Not only would he be utterly humiliated and kicked out of the military without the slightest regret of Bradley or anyone else, but he would more than likely be arrested—Edward was only half a year away from being legal, but that mattered little in the eyes of the law. And, even if he wasn't locked away for being a "baby-toucher", the chances of him ever getting another date in his life was considerably low. Finding people who were truly discrete about his . . . personal tastes was hard enough—he was sure that he'd never find someone who could deal with that, on top of the fact that he'd (his stomach plummeted at the thought) seduced his underage subordinate.
And Edward . . . Edward would be placed in a lab and experimented on like the dog he was too young to have ever been. He would be degraded, shamed, and hurt and when (if) his baby was born, they'd rip it away from him to perform test after test on it as well. Roy was sure that the boy wouldn't even get the chance to look at it before they stole it from him. Then, they'd either examine his internal workings to their hearts content and let him bleed out on the table or they'd sew him up, throw him in a cage, and allow him to live out the remainder of his days there, like some sort of animal.
Roy Mustang refused to think about that and was determined to fight tooth and nail to keep anything like that from happening. For both their sakes.
He owed Ed and his baby that much, at least.
And so, the idea of the blonde wandering around by himself in broad daylight wasn't exactly the most appealing to Roy; however, when he had voiced his concerns to Hawkeye (because Edward would rather throw himself under a truck than hear the man's voice at that point), she had helpfully informed him that she had already discussed it with the ex-major.
Edward, much to Roy's surprise, had agreed with the Lieutenant's request for him to stay indoors and out of sight for the last several months of his pregnancy—he had claimed that he wasn't stupid and that he wouldn't run the risk of the military finding out his secrets. Not when he still had so much work to do.
That statement had deeply concerned both Roy and Hawkeye, but Edward hadn't cared to elaborate any further to the blonde lieutenant.
In any case, Edward had promised Hawkeye that he wouldn't be going out in public once his stomach became undeniably obvious, but until that point, he didn't want to be holed up in the (as he so affectionately named him) Bastard's house all day if he could help it. Roy didn't like it much, but what could he do but wait? Wait for Edward to come around, regain his senses, and talk to him about what he needed.
And speaking of Edward . . .
The boy was still standing just outside the threshold of his bedroom, staring pointedly at his shirtfront and shuffling his feet uncomfortably. "Edward?" Roy asked again, reaching up to rub tiredly at his face. "Something wrong?"
It had been one week to the day since Ed had first begun to speak to him again; the Flame had actually been relieved when the blonde had stomped downstairs and passed him in the living room, calling him a "fucking bastard" over his shoulder. He had been relieved. Because, up until that point, despite the boy's whiplash-inducing exits from rooms that Roy happened to be in and the cacophony of slamming doors all throughout the house, Roy hadn't been sure he had existed as a person in Edward's mind. He had been there, yes—but more as an annoyance on the periphery of his conscious. An end table you stubbed your toe on all the time or a rug you were always tripping over. Not a person. Not until that moment.
And after that point, the 'endearments' just kept coming.
Edward would stalk through the house, grumbling and complaining beneath his breath about nothing in particular and calling Roy obscenities. He didn't seek the Flame out and he certainly couldn't hold down a civilized conversation with him (when could he ever?); however, he would sulkily answer yes-or-no questions, throwing in a colourful name here and there for flavour.
This however—this waking him up in the dead of the night—this was something new.
Roy's stomach suddenly lurched at the thought that Ed may be going into labour; however, his better judgment, even in his quasi-awake state, squashed that idea quickly. Even he knew that no human being gave birth after only three months of pregnancy.
Even if they were a sixteen-year-old male alchemist.
Ed was still standing there, staring down at his own mismatched feet now. Roy scowled and was about to encourage him into speaking once again, when the teen loudly cleared his throat—a startling sound in the near-quiet of the huge house.
"I'm hungry."
The voice was so quiet and plaintive that, for a split second, Roy was actually shocked. That voice should have belonged to anyone but Edward Elric. The Flame blinked and swallowed. "H-hungry?" he repeated, uncertain.
There was a pause, then a light nod. "Yeah," the blonde said softly. "You don't have anything to eat."
Roy frowned. Not surprising, he thought to himself somewhat sourly. It was only a few hours into Friday morning and the dark-haired alchemist usually didn't fill his pantry until Saturday afternoon. Ed had been eating him out of house-and-home as of late and, since Roy only kept the bare essentials to begin with, the Flame didn't doubt that his kitchen was now as close to empty as it could possibly get. He sighed and glanced back at his clock.
2:45am. Roy groaned and ran a hand through his hair, mussing it even more than sleep already had. Hawkeye was going to kill him when he fell asleep on his paperwork later.
Ed still wasn't looking at him.
Sighing once again, he reached out to prompt Ed into moving with a touch on his shoulder. "C'mon," Roy grudgingly acquiesced. "Let's see if we can't find you something to eat."
He was too tired to be hurt when the blonde jerked away from his touch.
Fuhrer King Bradley moved about his kitchen with silent proficiency, measuring out coffee grounds into the fancy stove-top percolator that some distant relative of his wife had brought them as a wedding present. It was still dark out and his family was sleeping soundly; he, however, had been woken by a strange yet familiar sensation just behind his left eye and couldn't go back to sleep until it was dealt with.
Pouring water from the tap into the silver coffee pot, the dark-haired man set it onto one of the burners of his stove top and turned on the heat. Bradley stood back and sighed. As a homunculus, he didn't need to consume anything other than red stones, but somehow, making and drinking coffee always seemed to calm his agitated nerves.
An odd throw-back to his days as a human, he supposed.
As the percolator croaked and grumbled happily, filling the large room with the refreshing aroma of coffee, it became obvious to Bradley that he was now no longer alone in his kitchen.
"Nice outfit, Pride," a familiar voice purred softly. Sultry. Cat-like.
"Ducky, ducky!" said another quickly after that, high and sharp. Excited. A child's simplistic joy.
Bradley frowned and turned to face his guests, ignoring their comments about the moronic pajamas that his son had picked out for him. Lust was seated on the granite countertop near the sink, her arms crossed under her impressive bust; Gluttony was standing near her feet, grinning idiotically, the sausage-like fingers of his right hand clutching the hem of her dress.
Pride eyed them for a second, then turned back to the gurgling percolator. "What is it that could be so important that you couldn't wait until a reasonable hour of the day to tell me?" he asked evenly, retrieving a bone china cup and saucer from his cupboard.
"What're you complaining for?" asked Lust. "It's not like you actually have to sleep or anything."
The voluptuous Sin was on Pride's blind side, but he didn't turn his head to look at her. "Just get on with it," he told her, a light growl in his voice that sent most political officials running.
". . .Scar's on the move," she said simply, reaching up to tuck an errant lock of hair behind her ear.
The coffee urn growled.
"Oh?" he asked unconcernedly, spooning liberal amounts of powdered creamer into his dark coffee.
"Yes." Lust looked down at her own knees, then away. Several seconds passed in silence—the only sound being the soft clink-clink-clink from Bradley stirring his coffee—before she sardonically offered, "You sound terribly concerned."
The eldest Sin among them didn't respond right away; he finished preparing his cup, and then strolled over into the impressive dining room and took a seat at the table there. He knew that the kitchen staff arrived early to get breakfast started and didn't want his siblings (especially the more voracious of the two) there whenever they showed up—the last thing he needed was trying to explain to his spouse why yet another member of the staff had mysteriously departed in the dead of night.
He waited, sipping on his coffee, until he heard the tell-tale click of high-heeled boots and the lumbering gate of someone far less graceful approaching from the kitchen. "To answer your earlier question," he said as they came up to his side, keeping his voice low, "I'm more concerned about what Master had to say about the development with the Fullmetal brat."
Lust crossed her arms and leant one hip on the side of the table. She didn't look pleased at all. "It doesn't make any sense. She knows that he can't do alchemy anymore—at least the kind that we need him to do—but she insists that we keep an eye on him, regardless. I just don't understand it."
Gluttony made a wet gurgling sound. "Lust, I'm hungry," he whined, pulling on her dress.
She waved him off. "Hush, we'll get you something to eat later."
The large homunculus settled, sucking on the finger he seemed to have permanently lodged in the side of his wide mouth, but didn't look any happier.
"Does Master know why he is suddenly without the ability to perform circle-less alchemy?" Pride asked, turning his head to look at the two of them.
Lust scoffed. "It looks like the idiot tried to bring his brother back from the dead. He opened up the Gate . . . and it took his power and knowledge from him. At least," she shrugged elegantly, "that's what Master said had happened."
"I take it that wasn't part of the plan then."
Lust frowned. "No. Most definitely not."
The Furher turned back to his coffee and hummed thoughtfully. He may have been a creature born of alchemy, but he knew very little about it—either way, he was more than certain that if the Gate took something in exchange for something else, it wasn't likely to give it back. The change in the Elric would be a permanent one unless he willingly re-opened the Gate for a third time and asked it for his ability back. Not likely.
Pride sighed. "So, in other words," he said, more to himself than his cohorts, "Elric is useless to us now. We have to move on to someone else."
"He can still do alchemy and is apparently continuing his search for the Stone. But, yes. It looks like we'll have to start over with someone else." The female Sin growled in annoyance. "Stupid child," she grumbled, pushing away from the table. "Ruining all of our hard work."
"Stupid! Stupid!" chortled Gluttony, his spirits reignited.
"Scar still looks like our next best bet," Lust spoke, her voice quiet. "With his brother's arm, already filled with all those souls, he stands a much better chance of creating the Stone than any of those other two-bit alchemists we've tried luring in. If Fullmetal is no longer an option for us, then we should focus on him."
Pride nodded. "Is he being followed?"
"Wrath is currently tailing him and Master wants you to send Sloth, as well," the Sin said, sounding skeptical as to her Master's choice of tracker. "And if things start to look bad, Envy will join them—I'm not sure where he is now, though."
"And what about you?" Pride asked, sipping at his brew. He wasn't truly interested. Their Master positioned them as she saw fit; where the pawns ended up was no concern of the king's.
Lust sighed. "Gluttony and I will be keeping an eye on the ex-Fullmetal and reporting back to Master if there's any change. It may interest you to know that he is currently residing with that Flame Colonel you seem to be having so much trouble with."
Bradley swallowed the last bit of his lukewarm coffee and set the empty cup down in its saucer. "Trust me, Lust, you haven't told me anything I don't already know," he said to her with a smile, tapping the patch over his left eye.
The younger Sin curled her lip and started towards the kitchen, calling Gluttony after her. "Coming, Lust," he answered in a sing-song voice, trailing after her. He had just caught up to her and was skipping along merrily at her side when the voice of their brother reached them.
"Oh, Lust?"
She stopped just shy of the kitchen entryway and looked over her shoulder at him. His back was to her. "Which way is Scar heading, might I ask?"
"Northeast," she told him after a moment's stony pause. "Towards Liore."
The kitchen wasn't exactly bare.
When Roy had opened his cabinets, he had expected to find nothing but empty boxes and a few scattered crumbs as testament of the food that had once been there; that, however, was not the case. He found plenty of food.
Just none that Edward would eat.
The blonde in question was currently standing on the other side of his kitchen, leaning against the nearest wall with his arms folded across his chest. Even if Roy hadn't looked at him in the past few minutes, he knew that Edward was glaring at his back. It was one of those sixth sense things that he had picked up in the army—he knew when he was being watched.
The Colonel scowled, but swallowed down any bitter comment he thought might escape his throat and continued to dig through his icebox. He was looking for something that wouldn't reduce the blonde to wordless gagging upon sight or smell—no luck thus far. And he was running out of kitchen to search.
"How about this?" Roy asked patiently, pulling out a frost-encrusted container that he was pretty sure was some home-made stew from the last time his mother had come to visit. He turned a bit and held it out for Ed to examine.
The lift of one dubious golden eyebrow said all there was to say.
Roy sighed and tossed the frozen container back into the icebox. "Ed," he told the blonde levelly, pinching the bridge of his nose in aggravation, "I've searched this kitchen from top to bottom. There's nothing else here for you to eat."
"I know," Edward answered immediately, mumbling. "I told you that."
"Well, what do you want me to do, Edward?" he growled out in frustration. Roy was not only exhausted, but also thoroughly annoyed, and his arm was throbbing painfully—he'd had the cast removed, per doctor's orders, and the barely-mended bones were shrieking their complaint. He had already decided that he'd make anything that the teen wanted if he got to go back to bed. "What am I meant to—?"
The dark-haired alchemist stopped.
He realized too late that it had been a mistake to look up at Edward then. He had looked up and had locked eyes—locked eyes—with the other alchemist for the first time in nearly a month . . . and all the anger, impatience, and fortitude had seeped right out of him and pooled on the tiled floor of his kitchen. In their place, guilt and self-loathing came flooding in.
Edward held his gaze for what felt like an eternity (but what in reality was probably only a couple of minutes), determined gold boring into charcoal black. He forcefully swallowed and took a long, deep breath through his mouth, like a person trying hard not to throw up. Then he spoke:
"I think I want some ice-cream."
Roy blinked and gulped once. "Ice-cream?" he asked and cursed the tremor in his voice.
"Yeah. Ice-cream."
Edward listened to the front door quietly shut and waited until he heard the car engine turn over to let the serpentine grin slither across his face.
Al sighed in his head as the car pulled away from the house, the sound of the engine growing fainter. "Brother," his voice said warningly, letting his sibling know that he wasn't at all pleased with what was going on. "What you're doing is not only incredibly rude, but also quite stupid and pointless."
Ed huffed. And, since the Bastard wasn't there to hear him talking to himself, he answered Al aloud. "Deserves it."
"How so?" his younger brother asked as Ed left the kitchen, made his way through the dining room, across the small foyer, and into the living room to flop down on the couch. Really, the Bastard's house had the most pointless floorplan that Ed had ever seen in his life—the whole thing was basically a big horseshoe with right angles. Ed frowned. Al was still talking to him. "—nd you said that you didn't blame him, that there were two people involved with what happened, but now you're just being a big hypocrite and I—"
"Alphonse," he said. His voice was soft, but still stern and it cut off his baby brother's tirade. "Yes, I know that I absolved him of all that and yes, I know that the blame doesn't rest solely on his shoulders, but . . ." The blonde trailed off momentarily, seemingly lost in thought, before shrugging his shoulders and lying back on the white sofa. "Bastard still deserves it."
Al made a sound of absolute frustration. "You're so stubborn! Y'know, sometimes I wish that I was still alive and in the armour—that way, I could just pick you up by the collar and shake you!"
The afternoon sun was streaming warm through the ceiling-tall windows, casting pools of flitting light across the floors and walls of Central HQ; young children were just getting out of school for the day and their happy sounds could be heard even through the thick stone walls.
Havoc sighed around his soggy toothpick—new replacement for the unlit cigarette Hawkeye wouldn't allow him to have when indoors—and made his way down the corridor towards the office. God, how he envied those kids. Nothing but ice-cream and lolli-pops and fucking rainbows for as far as they could see into their futures.
He remembered being that way once: totally care-free and innocent. He could remember Sunday afternoons in the park with his mother and the occasional fishing trips with his dad; he could easily recall the family reunions, where the only thing he had to worry about was being cornered and having his cheeks mercilessly squeezed by one or more of his menacing aunts; he could remember his grandmother, smelling like sandalwood and jasmine, reading old fables to him, back when he could sit on her lap and fit easily underneath her chin.
But that was before.
Before the academy and basic training. Before Ishbal and before his military career, a streak of bitter ambiguity stretched out before him as far as the eye could see. It was before his father's heart attack and his mother's gently slipping away in the night; it was before he had turned thirty, a mere lieutenant in the volatile Amestrinian army . . . and all by his damn self.
He sighed again. It was moments like these that he truly regretted the path he had chosen.
Goddamn kids.
Havoc was approaching the office, now feeling more than a little depressed and already planning on hitting the nearest bar as soon as six o'clock rolled around, when he heard voices from within. It sounded like Hawkeye and the Colonel were having a discussion; even though it wasn't especially abnormal for Hawkeye to be speaking to her commanding officer—usually while simultaneously snapping the safety off of her pistol—Havoc pulled up short and stopped just outside the closed office door.
The act of conversation might not have been that unusual, but what was being discussed . . . That was what Havoc found to be truly odd.
"—on't think it would be especially wise, sir, or beneficial to your career if you were to kill Mr. Elric in his sleep."
Well, that was Lieutenant Hawkeye. And the groan that was issued after she had spoken could only have been the Colonel.
"Three times," he said, voice muffled. "I left my goddamn house three different times because the brat kept changing his mind about the flavour of ice-cream he fucking wanted. Do you even know how hard it is to find an ice-cream parlor open at that time of night?"
Havoc quirked his eyebrows up in amused confusion. He didn't often hear the Colonel curse when he was in the office. Of course, he didn't have to be Hawkeye to notice how tense and completely wiped the man had looked when he had come in that morning—he wasn't really surprised to find out that he had been up all night. The fact that it was because he was seeing to the Boss's sudden craving for ice cream . . . Well, that was a little different.
The lieutenant knew in an off-handed sort of way that the young blonde was gonna be staying with Mustang for awhile after his disbanding from the military, at least until he got back on his feet again. He and the other guys had thought this kind of strange, but none of them was quite able to pluck up the courage (or stupidity) to actually ask why this was so.
Breda had scratched his chin and said in a conspiratorial voice that it was probably so that the Boss could stay in Central and get more research done—after all, there were no big libraries back in Rizy-bull. Fuery had sighed and surmised that it was because Ed didn't have a home to go back to in Resembool; Falman had agreed with both of them and thrown in that, even if he did have one, he probably wouldn't have gone back anyway, because without his brother there with him, it wouldn't have felt right.
And so he was staying with the Colonel until he could get a place of his own in Central.
Somehow, even with all of their prophetic reasoning, something about the whole affair just didn't sit right with Havoc.
Hawkeye was talking now. She sounded amused.
"I would expect there to be someplace, sir, for all the other expectant mothers out there."
Havoc blinked.
Deft hands—fingers calloused from pyrotex cloth and a war that he hadn't known—wandered down his sides, finding his naked hips and settling there; a tongue that was not his own was in his mouth, exploring it with almost agonizing thoroughness and he gagged in his inexperienced urge to reciprocate; panted puffs of breath were hot on his face and the feel of bare, sweat-sheened skin clashing against his own, like flint striking steel, sent sparks dancing across his nerves.
Edward moaned into the mouth covering his and bucked experimentally, eager to do something. He was admittedly young and new to matters such as these, but he still wanted to do more in this union than lay there trembling and twisting his fingers in the sheets. He wanted to taste and feel and not think. He wanted to move. He wanted . . .
His partner's lips had left his mouth and traveled across his jaw, scouring a hot trail downwards and finding the fluttering pulse point on his jugular. Ed swallowed.
"Mm- . . . Mustang?" The voice that tore itself from his throat was gravely, desperate, and full of desire. That couldn't have been his voice, could it? He would never let himself sound so raw and vulnerable—not around anyone that wasn't Alphonse, anyway.
Alphonse . . .
No. Edward felt his throat tighten painfully and he swallowed hard to keep the choked sob from escaping past his lips. Please . . . please, not now. I just . . . I can't . . .
"Ed?" came a soft voice from somewhere above him.
The blonde teen opened his eyes—when had he closed them?—and found Roy's flushed face hovering scant inches above his own; this startled him for a brief moment, but then he remembered where they both were and how very naked they were. Roy was settled over him, his forearms resting on either side of the blonde halo on his pillow and supporting a good portion of his weight; however, they were still chest to chest and stomach to stomach. Ed's legs were spread wide and caught up in Roy's, and the man's arousal was pressed against his quivering belly, just below his navel.
And suddenly, Edward's whole face was on fire.
"You okay?" Roy asked, sounding far more amused than he should have. Ed knew that the man was smirking, even if he couldn't work up the gumption to look him in the eyes right now. Instead, he scowled and turned his head to the side, focusing on the older alchemist's bicep. "Ed?" The voice had gone from teasing to concerned, and Edward felt fingers brushing back his bangs and settling on his temple. "Are you all right?"
All right? The blonde closed his golden eyes and leaned his head forward until his forehead was resting against Roy's forearm, feeling the tremors running through the limb—they matched the ones coursing through his own body. Am I all right?
No.
He was currently stripped and spread out beneath his commanding officer—a man who was using him every bit as much as Ed was using him; he was about to give up his virginity to someone that he did not love (did not even like, truth be told) . . . all because he was trying to forget about his guilt and his dead little brother for one night.
No.
He was definitely not 'all right'.
". . . Do you want me to stop?"
The Colonel's voice had turned hushed and almost painful, as though it hurt the man to even think the words, let alone speak them aloud. Edward hesitated, but ended up slowly turning his head to look up at Mustang. His face was beaded with sweat and there was a light blush staining his porcelain cheeks; his dark eyes were heavy-lidded, but still swam with disquiet, regret, and sorrow. The fearful look that had been there earlier in the night was muted now, but still painfully present.
Ed had swallowed and shaken his head before he had really even thought about how he wanted to respond to the man's genuinely concerned question. "No," he answered softly, averting his eyes to rest on one of Roy's clavicles. "No, I . . . I just . . ." Suddenly very awkward, Edward shifted his legs and coughed once, swallowing hard before he tried again. "I just, I don't know really what . . . I read . . . stupid library book . . . that it, um . . . that it hurts?" he murmured.
His golden gaze kept shifting anxiously back and forth between Roy's chin, his dark eyes, and his collarbone . . . but somewhere along the way, he saw the older alchemist blink once and then smile gently. "It can," he told the prone blonde honestly and inclined his head to rest their foreheads together. "But if you're relaxed and your partner knows what they're doing, it can be a very . . . pleasant experience."
When their foreheads had touched, Edward had looked up and his golden eyes had snagged on Roy's onyx ones, locking there. He furrowed his brow and licked his lips, trying to banish the unsure look from his face—he knew that the look was there, because he certainly felt unsure. If he backed out now, would Roy send him away? He really didn't want to be alone tonight.
Roy moved back a bit and tilted his head to one side slightly, most certainly catching the look that Edward was trying to hide, if what he said next was any indication. "We can stop, if you want. I mean . . . sex isn't something that you can take back later, if you're not sure—so I want you to be sure."
The blonde bit his lower lip and asked suddenly, "I'm . . . I guess I'm not, really. But, um, you know what you're doing, right? I mean, you said that, um, if . . . if the partner knows what he's doing, then it won't hurt. So . . . do you know what you're doing?" Edward immediately regretted asking the question—a big part of him didn't want to know whether or not the Colonel had done this with other men before.
Roy studied his face for a short moment, then smiled lightly and nodded. "I do. I would never hurt you, Edward. I promise."
". . . Okay then," said Edward in a falsely cheery voice. He leant up and, because bastard's chin was the closest thing to him, he kissed him there and then flopped back down into the pillows, blushing. "So I have nothing to worry about."
Roy started at the chaste kiss applied to his chin, but quickly recovered and smiled down at his partner; cupping a blushing cheek in one hand, he leant down to claim his lips again.
After that, the world dissolved into a blur of colours and sensations to Edward.
There were fingers tangling in his hair and a hot mouth was trailing down his chest and stomach and . . . oh! . . . The back of his knee was resting on Roy's sweat-soaked shoulder, his flesh heel beating out a faint pattern against the man's shoulder blade, and he had no idea how it had gotten there . . . He grimaced and whimpered as slicked fingers twisted inside him, searching and finding a spot that made him shudder and writhe and . . . And then Roy was gripping his thighs, pressing forward and, suddenly, he was inside of him.
Edward's chest heaved and he gripped the sheets and he was filled—filled and whole, but not complete. Never complete. Not with this man or with anyone else in this world . . .
But, as Edward lay there—tangled in sheets that smelt of sandalwood, sweat, and ignition powder, his ankles locked against the small of his lover's back, Roy's thumbs pressing into his false pelvis and his cock fully seated inside him—he drew a shuddering breath and thought that this might be the closest he'd ever come in a long while.
Roy stayed pressed against him like that, buried to the hilt, for several unbearable minutes and Ed's head swam with the desire for the bastard to move. The blonde alchemist knew that the man must have been giving him and his unaccustomed muscles time to adjust to the intrusion; he appreciated it, really he did, but right now, he was already horny, hard as a rock, and dripping pre-come onto his own belly and he wanted some fucking satisfaction.
"Roy," he growled out.
And just like that—just like the elusive magic word used to open the secret cave in the Ishballan tale told to him as a child or like the missing rune from an array—Roy began to move. Ed gasped out loud and clutched at the fitted sheets, his body arching up with each of the colonel's (surprisingly gentle) thrusts. It felt . . . well, weird, actually.
That was the only word Edward could use to describe it—the feel of someone else's dick moving fluidly in and out of him. It did hurt a little, burnt in all the wrong places, but that sensation was almost secondary to the tingling jolt of pleasure that lanced his spine every time Roy brushed up against his prostate; that feeling that made his toes curl, made his head snap back, and transmuted his stomach into a useless puddle of fluttering butterflies. The younger alchemist clawed at the sheets and listened in humiliation as his own wanton groans filled the room and mingled with his partner's heavy breaths and throaty moans—though, it wasn't until he felt one of Roy's hands leave his hip and settle over his pulsing cock that he let a half-choked wail escape his throat.
Edward was riding a wave. It roiled in the pit of his stomach and swept down into his groin, slowly surging upwards and intent on dragging him with it. Each pump of Roy's fist and each thrust brought him closer to the precipice, closer to cresting that wave and seeing the golden rays of morning on the horizon. And then, quite suddenly . . . Edward gasped aloud as his whole body tightened around a single point and lifted itself off the bed in a graceful arch . . . The wave he was riding came crashing down right on top of him and then . . . then . . .
Edward heaved a sigh into the hand he was using to prop up his face and watched as the rain trailed its way down his bedroom window in fat, serpentine bands. Running a metal hand over the light swelling at his midsection, he groaned and didn't bother fighting back a blush as he thought back over the events of that night, just eleven weeks previous.
It had been almost two months since he had last brought the incident to mind, tending to push the act of sex into the darker corners of his subconscious and focusing instead on the eternity of five minutes in which he had lost both his masculinity and the last of his hope. Somehow, that made him feel better.
Somehow, that made it easier.
But now . . . now he was nearing the beginning of his second trimester.
The guilt, anger, and sadness he had felt all through the first three months of his pregnancy hadn't lessened any, but there were now other, more lascivious thoughts beginning to take root. And Edward knew that he was a terrible person for letting it happen, but his hormones were all shot to hell and he just couldn't stop the image of the Colonel—his body tight and lithe under his uniform; pale, scarred skin slick and salty with sweat—from clawing its way unbidden into his mind's eye.
Logically, Ed knew why it was happening. It was because—aside from the odd occasion with his own hand, a locked bathroom door firmly between himself and his baby brother—his night with the Bastard had been the only sexual experience he'd ever had and damn the man for being so good at it. It was the most erotic thing he had ever done and the horny part of his mind didn't care how completely fucked up it was to be using it as a frame of reference for his traitorous libido.
Ed just wanted to cry from the unfairness of it all.
God, he hated hormones.
The blonde sighed again and was beginning to consider hurling himself out of the window, if only to give himself something else to think about, when he suddenly heard voices quietly filtering up from downstairs. This was somewhat surprising to him, since, insofar as he could ascertain, the Bastard didn't have people over—Hawkeye and Antley seemed to be the only exceptions to this rule, as far as Ed could tell. But those two were normally there to tend to his and the fetus's needs, not converse with the Bastard.
Besides, these voices didn't sound familiar.
His curiosity sufficiently piqued, Edward clambered awkwardly off of his bed and padded over to the bedroom door. Opening it and stepping out onto the second-floor landing that was jutting out above the living room, Ed began to hear the voices more clearly. There were two or three people; one of them was most definitely the Bastard—Ed could tell his smirking voice anywhere—and the others sounded like women.
No big surprise there, Ed thought rather sourly. Pulling his shirt down self-consciously over his tummy, the young man walked over to the landing banister and looked down into the living room. The voices were emanating from just inside the foyer, right beneath his feet, and Ed could now hear clearly what was being said:
"—oyce, darling, what happened to your arm? Who did this to you?" It was a woman speaking, her voice thick with an accent, and laced with concern and a hidden fierceness that Ed recognized, but couldn't place.
"No one, Mother," the Colonel's voice answered her convincingly. "It was an accident. I don't even know how you can tell, honestly—the bones are completely mended by now . . . mostly."
"The bones?" the woman asked, putting emphasis on the plural. "What did you do to yourself?"
"Nothing, I told you it was an accident."
"An accident?"
"Yes, Mother, an accident. I promise. And I don't want to hear anything from you, Tamalynn."
"Hm? I didn't say anything." The third voice belonged to another woman, light and without an accent that Edward could tell.
"But you were going to," the Bastard stated sulkily. "Maybe something like, 'As someone who controls fire, I think you'd learn to be a little less clumsy.' Was that it?"
"Actually, I was gonna say that now that you've broken your leg, we're gonna have to shoot you."
Hm. Edward decided that he liked this girl.
The Bastard huffed. "All right, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."
"I'm sure."
"I'm serious," he answered her bluff, smirk apparent in his voice.
"Ugh! Mother."
"Royce, you cannot possibly expect for your sister to sleep on your couch," his mother told him, her voice low. "And it's uncivilized of you to suggest it."
"Oh, Mother," Tamalynn said loftily. "What can you expect? Brother is hardly civilized."
"Now Tamalynn, don't speak like that about your brother when he's standing right there."
There was a short pause, before the Colonel spoke again. "Hm . . . I should be insulted, but I really can't find the strength."
"See?" Tamalynn said. "Brother agrees with me."
"Hn. In truth Tamalynn, you'll have to room with Mother this time. I currently have a house guest and he's staying in your room."
"What?"
There was the quick beat of heels from below and Edward was suddenly looking over the railing at who could have only been the Bastard's sister, Tamalynn. Even if he hadn't just overheard the conversation between the three people in the foyer, the chances that he would have mistaken her for anyone other than a Mustang were slim. Same basic facial structure, same pale skin, same black hair . . . and she was scowling up at him with the same slanted, onyx eyes.
"So, are you the half-pint who took over my room?" she asked and Edward immediately took back what he said about liking her.
Eh, not exactly how I wanted to end it, but what can ya do, huh?
Anyway guys, thanks for reading! I'm not sure how much I'll get done over the summer, since I'll be taking Photography and Art & the Computer at school and hopefully have a job with Nana. (sighs) I'm sorry that this is taking so long to get out, but I promise y'all that I will never abandon this fic and beg of you to have some patience with me.