First and foremost, I would like to thank Jai for informing me that some thieving bitch had plagiarized my story—I thought for a second that, maybe, she had just thought up the same plot as me (FMA is a popular anime, it would be understandable if someone had come up with around the same plot) . . . but no. Word for word, same story; even the chapter titles, disclaimers, and summary were the same! Did she think that one of y'all wouldn't notice? She even had the gall to tack "Will update quickly, like everyday!" on the end of the summary.
Yeah, it'll update everyday . . . because it's already been written for you!
(huff) I sent her a politely threatening review and she quickly removed the story.
So, BIG hugs and kisses to Jai, because if she hadn't told me in her review, then I probably wouldn't have realized. Thanks hon!
Disclaimer: Why bother . . . you know . . .
Chapter X: The Confrontation
Roy, hearing the angry crack of the doorknob against the wall—along with Edward's frightened, incoherent sputtering—languidly lifted his head from between the blonde's legs and looked back over his shoulder.
The first thing that he noted was how his father's wedding band stood out in stark contrast to his thick fingers and knuckles as his fist came crashing down against the Flame's cheek. The second was what a lovely grain the stained wood of his bedroom floor had. Funny, he'd never noticed it before . . .
Amid the horrified screams of multiple people, Roy felt himself being hauled off the floor—and off his feet—by his shirt collar, to stare into the purple, livid face of the Major General. Then, another fist connecting solidly to his jaw knocked any remaining sense out of him.
Doing his best to stay on his feet as his father dragged him past his shocked mother and sister, Roy barely noticed through his oncoming concussion that he was being taken downstairs and into the living room.
(Trip . . . trip . . . trip, down the stairs . . . knees hurt, toes hurt, face hurts . . .)
Roy's punch-drunk feet had barely hit the carpeted floor, before he felt himself being dragged further into the living room; it was only when the backs of his calves bumped into one of the sofas and he felt two more crushing blows to his face and stomach that he realized that the Major General had finally come to a stop.
Falling back onto the couch—clutching his stomach and wheezing out a pained breath—by agonizingly slow degrees the colonel looked up through his black fringe into the bulging, blue eyes of his father. The man was red and trembling with rage; his moustache shivering with each breath he forcefully expelled through his nose; his knuckles were white as his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, trying their damnedest to curl into fists.
"My son . . ."
The words were hissed out through gritted teeth, almost as if it hurt the Major General to say them. In his peripheral vision, Roy could see three smaller bodies making their way down the stairs, their horrified faces turned in the direction of the father and son.
"What a wonderful way to find out that my son is a faggot!" he spat out, his voice dripping like venom and liquid fire as it exited his mouth.
"Gerald!" Roy's mother gasped, clutching a hand to her chest in shock.
"No!" the Major General bellowed. His booming voice echoed around the expansive room like a baritone note, causing all bric-a-brac on shelves, tables, and the fireplace mantle to tremble and clink their alarm at the disturbance—not to mention making all present company jump slightly. "Don't you defend him! Don't you dare!" he shouted at Mai Yao, never once letting his cobalt orbs flicker away from the fallen colonel.
"After what he did . . . what he was doing . . . with another man!" The Major General's face contorted in disgust. "It's sickening . . ."
Roy then felt himself being pulled to his feet again, lifted off the couch by the lapel of his shirt to have his father's puce visage shoved uncomfortably close to his own, the man's warm, sickeningly-sweet breath fanning against his cheeks and mouth. "You're sickening," the Major General whispered. "What you're doing is a sin . . . a shameful, deplorable, deliberate transgression of morality! If you continue down this path, you are doomed to hell . . . Don't you know that!"
Roy said nothing and gave no indication that he had even heard the Major General—he merely let his father, lost in some sort of zealous, Tourette's-like stupor, shake him like a rag doll and shout homophobic obscenities at the top of his lungs. The colonel could hear his sister crying, shouting at their father to stop, please Daddy, stop it! and he could see his mother out of the corner of his eye, watching her only son get beaten and being able to do nothing about it. And Ed . . .
God, Edward looked absolutely terrified. He was trembling and there were tears dancing around the reddened halos of his golden eyes, threatening to spill over at any second—however, said eyes were also . . . incensed. There was rage there . . . all of it, Roy knew, being directed towards the Major General.
Ed looked like he wanted to take some sort of action to stop what was happening; however, the Flame quickly gave the teen a threatening glare, clearly telling him to back off . . . that he could handle it.
Thankfully, Edward—stubborn and thick-headed as he was—got the message and relaxed his defensive stance.
If only slightly.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" the Major General finally asked, lifting Roy off the ground and glaring daggers up at him. "Hm? Explain yourself, dammit!"
Roy merely stared down at the man, letting the silence stretch. Only when his father appeared as though he may explode as a result from holding his angry breath, did Roy make a move. He casually lifted an arm, running a rumpled sleeve across his mouth . . . and then, he very prominently swallowed . . . and grinned down at his father.
His feet touched the floor and it only took another fist to the left side of his already bruising face to wipe away any traces of the previous smirk.
"You disgust me," his father snapped.
Quickly recovering from both the physical and emotional blows, Roy straightened himself and turned his face to stare at a blank spot above the mantle. "I try," he answered passively.
"Why?" the Major General asked through exhausted breaths. "Why him? There are plenty of beautiful women out there who would kill to be on your arm. Is it just because you held power over him? It was easy to get him to crawl into bed with you!"
The colonel's face snapped back to his father, onyx eyes ablaze. "That's not it!" he near-shouted. Roy was unsure whether or not he was more upset about the fact that his blonde lover had heard the jab . . . or because the Major General was closer to hitting the truth than he—or anyone else in the room—realized. "Edward gave me something that . . . that no woman ever could!"
His father's lip curled. "That much is obvious," he snarled, blue eyes darting over to rest on the Fullmetal for a second.
"That's not what I'm talking about, Father! Do you know how lucky you are? To have found someone who loves you just because that's who you are?" The Flame paused to look pointedly at his own mother, who was standing with one arm around Tamalynn, her other delicate hand covering her own mouth. Eyes snapping back to the major General, Roy pressed on: "Any woman that I ever let into my heart . . . into my past . . . couldn't take it. They were horrified—sickened by the very thought! And they didn't know the half of it!" He shouted the last part, every ounce of vehemence he could muster being expelled from his body in that sentence.
"But with Edward . . ." he continued quietly, eyes softening at the mere mention of his lover's name. "It was different. He knew. He knew my past and my sins . . . and he didn't care. He . . . he saw into the depths of my heart and soul . . . and he loved me the same!"
Roy, suddenly feeling his own nails cutting into his palms and drawing blood, relaxed his hands. But now, his fingers were becoming numb . . . and there was a pressure building in his chest, upsetting his stomach and making his head feel like it wanted to explode. What was it? He could feel it . . . he knew this feeling. It was good, wasn't it? God, what was it?
Expelled from his lungs (his stomach, his heart) . . . creeping up his throat . . . in his mouth, dancing across his teeth and palate . . . God, it was on the tip of his tongue now . . .
"I love him."
The confession hovered about the room for a time, then suddenly sprouted wings and darted out the nearest open window, leaving its shocked audience—including the man who had admitted it, apparently—behind to deal with it as they saw fit.
"W-what?"
The first person to break the silence with this one word was not, surprisingly, the Major General . . . but Edward. He took a tentative step towards the dark-haired man, his bright eyes shining hopefully. "You . . . love me?"
Roy turned slowly to face the blonde, licking his swollen lip as he struggled to make the words come. Had he just said that? Yes . . . it was his voice, he knew. But . . . he had said that he loved Ed. Loved him . . .
But . . . did he?
After Maes, Roy had sworn that he'd never love anyone again . . . It was too hard and he never wanted to hurt like that again. But . . . somewhere along the way, Edward had fallen for him. And, through that love and that devotion, he had likewise burrowed his way into Roy's heart.
So . . . yes.
He did. He loved him . . . He loved Edward Elric. Roy felt his battered face break out into a full-fledged smile and he opened his mouth to answer the blonde's question.
"You . . ."
The word dropped like a lead weight through the happy air, crushing Roy's confession with the severity of hatred behind it. The colonel glanced back at his father, whose cobalt eyes were now fixed, blazing, on the Fullmetal Alchemist.
"You did this!" he shouted and began making his way towards the blonde.
However, it only took one step in Ed's general direction for Roy to react. He sidestepped and, for the first time that day, swung back at his father. One bare fist connected solidly to the Major General's beefy jaw, stopping him in his tracks and sending him reeling to the right, while the other buried itself in his gut.
The room stopped breathing.
"I don't care how many times you hit me," the Flame hissed out through clenched teeth. "But you will not touch him. Got it?"
Slowly recovering from the assault, the Major General straightened his stance. His breaths were coming in short, staccato cadences, and the spot on his face where Roy had hit him was already darkening into an angry red.
"I'm reporting you," he said quietly—seethingly. "You not only fraternized with and bedded one of your subordinates—and a minor, I might add—but you also hit an officer of higher rank than your own. You'll be court-martialed by the end of the week." Glancing over at his wife and daughter, he stated in a way that left no room for argument, "We're leaving. I refuse to stay under the same roof as a couple of fags for one more night."
Roy bristled at the harsh words, but said nothing to invoke further wrath from the older man as he quickly turned away and started towards the secluded library.
"But Gerald, he's your son!" Mai Yao very nearly shrieked as the Major General neared the doors to the athenaeum.
Without stopping to look back at his wife, the man bellowed, "I have no son!" and then slammed the heavy doors shut behind him. The Flame let out an infuriated huff of a breath, his hands balled into tight fists at his sides, knuckles white; he turned in the opposite direction as his father and stormed off through the dining room and into the kitchen.
Ed, without so much as a glance backwards, followed after his lover almost on instinct, catching the kitchen door before it swung shut and carefully closing it behind him. Mai Yao and Tamalynn, however, stayed rooted to the spot, dancing back and forth in rushed vacillation.
(What'll you choose? Door number one? Or door number two?)
Finally, after a good minute of panicked, headless clucking, the two women came to a silent decision, steeled themselves, and went after the Major General.
God, that sucked so much ass! It felt rushed . . . and I'm sorry that it was so short—I mean, the review responses are longer—but, I do have a reason! I swear! I just knew that this part and the next couldn't be put together. The moods change and . . . they just didn't fit! Sorry again!
Next chapter is the last . . . finally . . . Please review (like I have to ask) and here are reviewer responses:
shylust: Thanks a lot! (laughs) Glad to hear it!
Sakuranbo Nayamu (laughs) Sorry . . . No, your assumptions are probably right. Thanks for the review!
Raven Cactuar: (laughs) 'Caught with his pants down'? Couldn't have said it better myself . . . And it's okay if you didn't read it—another of my reviewers said that she didn't want to read it, either. That's okay! (smiles)
Elion: (laughs) Most definitely. Thanks for the review!
InuYasha+Kagome: Thanks for the review!
fobroks21: (laughs) Makes sense, I guess. Still very random . . . but it makes sense. Glad you liked the lemon enough to glomp me—unfortunately, I can't do any more than one lemon in a story this short. Sorry! Maybe in my Mpreg . . .
Thanks for the review!
anmbcuconnfan (shrugs) Something with his tongue . . . I didn't want anything too lude, so I didn't put specifics . . . plus, I'm poorly inexperienced when it comes to sex and didn't think it appropriate to go into details.
In other words, I would like to know what Roy did, too. (laughs) Thanks for the review!
BlackFire-Dog: That's okay. I forget what I write to you, too. And, yes, you do win the lottery . . . but, you have to split it, like, thirty ways with all the other people who guessed correctly! (laughs)
Thanks for the review!
Anime#1Fan: (laughs) All was revealed, was it not? Thanks for the review!
eeerica: Thanks!
Yumiko Yoshihana: A happy panda? Okay . . .
Oh, yes, I'd like the link, thank you very much! I love any and all phenomenal RoyEd fics! (throws hands up in jubilation) You think I'm the master! Woot! Oh, and I read your reviews to 'Visitor' after I finished reading it. (gives big hug) You said such nice things and you plugged my work! I loves you muches for that!
(laughs) No, I didn't die, silly. Just been sorta busy lately. But, I thank you for caring!
Roy is a bad boy . . . and I think it would serve him right if it were he who was pregnant in my Mpreg. Unfortunately, the plot won't allow for that . . .
But, if you want Roy pregnant, check out my friend Kara (Neo Diji's) work 'Unexpected Surprises' . . . Though it only has two chapters thus far, it's still very enjoyable.
Thanks for the review!
GlorysGirl4ever: Thank you for the review!
Prozacfairy: Who indeed . . . (laughs) Thanks for the review, hon!
Kari: 'Full Throttle'? (quirks curious eyebrow) I'm almost afraid to ask, but . . . what's that?
Thanks for the review!
xX Konoha Ninja Xx You and me both, sister! (laughs) Thanks for the review!
magikphoenix: (laughs) Sorry . . .? Hope this chappie helped. Thanks for the review!
Worsel: Thanks for the review!
J-chan Hagane No Chibisan (laughs) Glad you enjoyed it . . . And I probably will change it to M once the last chapter is out and read. Thanks for your concern . . . and review!
inuyashabooklover5188 Glad you liked! And I'm happy that you liked Roy's mother as a torturer, even if you don't know why! (laughs)
Thanks for the review!
Midori-Jester: (scratches head) Maybe you see him in red and gold because he wears red all the time and his hair and eyes are golden . . . therefore, it's what you're comfortable seeing him in.
Understand? I hope so . . .
(laughs) Ah . . . if I see anymore tasteless HPxFMA crossovers, I think I'll scream. I mean, there are admittedly some good ones out there, but come on! Enough is enough! (huff)
Thanks for the review!
In True Meanings: Oops . . . Thanks for the review!
Bunnicula: Thank you for all your kind words! And I will most likely move it to M rating once the last chapter is out and read. Thanks for the review!
Freak0515: Wow. A death threat . . . Awesome! And I get cookies! Yay! Thanks for the review!
Aemi-Kaishima Hm . . . yet another threat of bodily harm for a speedy update . . . I'm glad that you guys like me! (laughs) Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the review!
Beboots: (laughs) You check for updates like I check for reviews! Thank you so much for your kind, ego-boosting words! (laughs)
littlefiction: Yay! You're back! Thanks so much for the . . . (counts) seven reviews! (laughs) I told my sister your favourite words and she was like, "'Cheese'? One of her favourite words is cheese?" Then she said that you were kinda weird . . . (laughs) Just kidding!
Thanks for the reviews!
silver windflame: Thank you!
tohmaXshuichi: (laughs) Die-ish-ness? I don't think that that's a word, but okay! Thanks for the review!
hyperdude: Sorry. Not Winry . . . Thanks, though! And thanks for the review!
Neo Diji: Hey Kara! Glad you're back! Heh . . . seems like you had a stressful Christmas. Are your mom and sister okay? And what about Oscar? I can't believe that he actually at tinsel . . . (suddenly remembers how her dog ate beer cans, crawfish shells, and moth balls) Actually, yeah, I can . . .
I hope everyone is all right, anyway!
Well, I'm glad that you've always liked Roy's dad . . . though, I don't know how you feel know . . . Yes, you told me about Stardust—and, yes, I am all of those things! (laughs) Especially friend! (smiles) And I do hope that inspiration strikes you to continuing your Mpreg—Roy pregnant is so good!
I'm sorry that Santa didn't bring you either of the happy couple—though, if you think about it, if he brought you one, then they would both be sad because they would be separated. And we can't have that!
Next review!
(giggles) Thanks a lot! Glad you liked it! And I do understand your aversion to the F word . . . I don't use it myself when speaking (unless I'm very, very, very, very upset and not around my parents—but, no, definitely not in reference to sex), only in writing—but I had the feeling that Roy would use it (just because they were both caught up in the moment) . . . so that's what I put. I'm sorry . . .
As you can see from above, no, I did not tease you—it's exactly like everyone guessed! (laughs) And it was a very good observation with the clothes and stuff. You're actually the only one to say something . . . I made Ed discard clothes in such a manner because I didn't know how else to get the Major General upstairs . . . I hope that this chapter cleared that up for you! (smiles)
(laughs) I didn't take it as a flame, so don't worry—I don't (and could never) hate you. Thanks for both reviews! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's!
Bye Kara!
new moongirl: (laughs) Yep, they did! Thanks for the review!
Jai: I can not thank you enough for telling me about phoenixalchemist's story . . . I probably wouldn't have known otherwise. I didn't mention up above, but I reported the abuse and I hope that her account gets deleted . . . But I'm just getting mad again. (sigh)
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
dragon shadows: (laughs) The fingertip rule states that when standing up and arms are dangling straight at your sides, if your fingertips go past the hem of the skirt, it is too short. The finger tip rule! Hope that helps; if not, I can try to explain better next time! (smiles)
(scratches head) I guess that that makes sense . . . if I think about it really hard. (thinks hard, gets headache, gives up, shrugs)
(laughs) We used to save the cookies just for that. I mean, we'd eat most of them . . . but, if we didn't eat some boxes, we'd put them in the freezer or cabinet and save them for our GS cookie house contest. Didn't I mention that? Yeah: we'd only make the house for the yearly Christmas cookie house contest. Though, I am glad that we never tried to eat it . . .
We probably all would have died.
It's hot? How hot? (remembers you live in Australia) Is it hot all year around there? Right now, it's a simply divine 73 degrees here in southern Louisiana . . . (huff) By the time it gets cold, it'll be time to get hot again. I hate it here . . .
So, Roy was sixteen in the war . . . and because he had to join the military before that . . . that means that he himself was fairly young when he became a state alchemist. At the most he was fifteen . . . Interesting. He certainly didn't look it, lucky bastard. (laughs) No, I don't think that Ed has much of a prayer . . .
Thanks for the review!
Daga: (laughs) Sorry. Love you, too . . .
Oh . . . a cookie . . . (reaches for cookie) Wait . . . a bribe! (huff) What do you take me for? A whore!
(storms away) . . . (comes back steals cookie) Hope you liked this chapter . . . and happy New Year. Thanks for the review!
Different Child: That's okay, hon. If bad things are happening, then don't feel the need to come on and review. And I don't know if I'm the person you'd want to tell, but if you need someone to talk to, I'm always here! (smiles)
Thanks for the review and I hope you feel better . . .
imyourvillian: (laughs) Glad you liked it! Yes, I suppose that you could compare it to meeting your girlfriend's father . . . Although, I wouldn't know what that's like . . . I wouldn't know what it's like to meet my boyfriend's father, either. I'm just so sad!
(scratches head) Your bio doesn't say anything and I was just wondering if you're a guy or a girl. (holds up hands defensively) You don't have to answer if you don't want to! I was just curious—I like to know my reviewers, after all . . .
Shutting up now . . . Next review!
(laughs) Glad you enjoyed it so much! And, for the thousandth time for this chapter, I am sorry that I made such an evil cliffhanger . . .
Oh well . . . y'all will get over it. Thanks for the reviews!
Buried Fairy Tale: Don't feel the need to apologize, hon. If you were out of town, then there was no getting around it—I'm just glad that you were finally able to get on and read the new chappies! And yes, I had a great holiday and I hope that yours was good, too!
Glad you like Roy's father better now and, once again, I'm sorry for the evil cliffhanger. (laughs) I don't know why I made his mom an interrogator . . . it just seemed like a good idea . . . (shrugs)
Thanks for the two reviews!
Trespasser1307: Thanks a bunch for the vote of confidence! And don't sweat not reviewing earlier—as long as you get to do it eventually, I don't mind! Hope the storms clear up and a very Happy Belated New Year's to you, too!
Thanks for the review!