A/N: And I thought it was going to take me forever to write the next chapter. I wrote this thing in one sitting. For that reason, it is probably in dire need of a grammatical overhaul. Anyway, thanks for your patience. I know it's been a while.
Warning: This chapter contains the f-word, which apparently is a sign of the Apocalypse, so read at your own risk!
XVII. Another Day, Another Siege: This Machine
The installation did not go as well as I would have liked. In fact, I've never had a more terrifying attachment than this. I've certainly had ones that went worse – vomiting and bleeding and defecating – but this was the first one that truly shook me up.
The plug of an automail limb is like a key. The limb has to be specially designed to fit the port. The grooves and tongues on the inside of the port should line up with the tongues and grooves of the plug or the nerve link-ups in the port won't be able to transmit to the limb; I had Edward's port-signature inadvertently memorized. I could design a limb for him in my sleep, but attaching one was a different story. Edward clenched his jaw and dug his fists into the couch as I stuck my fingers gently into the socket, feeling for a specific groove that would help me line up the plug. The alignment of the knee was quite possibly the most important one in the body. Because of that, I just knew I was going to fuck it up.
"I'm sorry," I said as I cringed for him, brushing my fingers as softly as I could against the roof of the port. He made a sharp, slicing gesture with his right hand that I interpreted to mean, "Less talking and more getting your fingers out of me."
I tried not to watch his face, tense and focused and obviously in pain. Instead, I watched the yard and the shadows just beginning to creep out after noon. I should have attached the leg in the morning so he could have all day to recover, but I subconsciously put it off – there were dishes to do and rugs to beat. I never beat the rugs, but that morning, they seemed particularly filthy. I fixed my window by getting it stuck closed. I was tempted to ask Edward for his help again, but opted to avoid him by doing something else domestic and distracting. By noon, he was irritated and told me so. I didn't have a choice after that.
Edward twitched particularly hard as my fingers dipped into the furrow I was searching for. I muttered an apology and held my fingers there. With the foot resting on the floor, I positioned the leg at the mouth of the port, sure to line up the right tongue with the right groove. Edward breathed a long, deep sigh when I took my fingers out.
"How come Aunt Pinako never had to do that?" Edward asked tightly.
I frowned at him. "Because Grandma was a god among engineers," I snapped. "And I'm just a regular old mechanic. Quit whining." I thought, after speaking, that that was a pretty good cover.
It had not occurred to me that my fingers had sensitized him. It had not occurred to me to mention that I had used adapted receptors in this specific design, and that would heighten his ability to feel. It had not occurred to me, having not had a proper installation in his leg socket in years, the shock of the attachment would be greater for him. It had not occurred to me to warn Edward, and that was why I was just another mechanic and nowhere near the god Pinako was.
He turned eggshell white, just like the wall behind him. The moment he yelped, I knew I had done something wrong. He never yelped like that.
"Edward?" I asked. He doubled forward, clutching his thigh.
"Edward?"
He managed to turn his head toward me, tears gathering in his suddenly faded eyes.
I felt myself freeze, rooted to the floor. I wanted to reach out and hold his shoulders in case he fell over, but the message never made it to my arms. I remained riveted to that spot, staring as his eyes rolled back into his head. He crumbled with a heavy thud.
My hands flew to my mouth – I could move now. "Edward!" I cried.
Like he could answer me. God, I was an idiot.
Getting him onto the couch was much harder than I had predicted. For such a small guy, he weighed a lot. I felt awkward moving him like that. Picking him up, touching him all over. As frightened as I was that he was unconscious, it certainly made manhandling him much easier. At least, it made it less embarrassing.
I managed to lay him out on the couch. Once he was down, I sat at the end of the couch and rested his feet in my lap, hoping to revive him.
I didn't know what to do with my hands, sitting like that. Putting my palms on my knees felt awkward, but touching his ankles was intimate enough to make me blush and steal a glance at his tranquil face. I eventually settled on clasping my hands at my chest. I could stand that for only a moment before it felt too much like praying. I wasn't that desperate; Edward would be laughing for days if he thought I had prayed for him.
"Oh, for the love of…" I muttered at my own nervousness. Setting my mouth firm, I made myself rest my hands on him, one on his ankle and another on his shin. I quickly moved my hands over to his metal leg – he would be less able to feel me that way. But the metal was cold under my hands and my sweaty palms against it made me squeamish. Automail had never had that effect on me before.
I looked up at his face, wondering what it was about his automail, what it was about him that made the idea of touching his skin more appealing than touching his metal. He didn't give me an answer, so I gingerly moved my hands back to his flesh.
His skin was cool from his plummeted blood-pressure and incredibly giving under my hands. I was used to feeling his metal, I had forgotten what the rest of him felt like.
I sensed myself light up with a blush. I hadn't touched him that much. Nothing too memorable. In childhood, he hadn't been so avoidant. I could hug him and push him and pull him casually. I never used to think very much of it. Our parents often opted to save time or space or something and toss all three of us into the same bath or bed. There was nothing wrong with that.
I remembered when touching became a problem, though. Whether it was the transmutation or puberty or his determination – or a combination of the three – I wasn't sure. Whatever the reason, Edward did not want anyone's hands on him, and it seemed he wanted mine the least. Or maybe that was my imagination. It probably was.
My fingers betrayed me. They held their own little mutiny and began moving on their own. I wanted them to stop but didn't have the strength when I noticed the tight tendons in the back of Edward's foot. I traced them out to his toes, palpated the bumps of bones and the curves of joints. He felt like a machine, an expertly made, fully functional, perfectly efficient machine.
I was so embarrassed. I couldn't stop.
The short hairs on his shin felt soft as I brushed over them one way then the other. The muscle was hard even when relaxed, but still so pliable and growing warmer. My fingers crawled up to the back of his knee. I followed the hard ridge of one taut tendon, then the other. I went rigid and jerked my hands away when my knuckles brushed the hem of his boxers.
"Oh my god," I muttered, mortified with myself. I could just imagine him accusing me of molesting him in his sleep. Except he probably would not say, "molested." I assailed him, that's what he'd say.
I made my hands sit still, one laying over the other on his foot. I ignored the complicated mechanism of his ankle under my hands. I want to prod and palpate, but I just knew my investigation would dissolve into some kind of massage, stroking and rubbing and…
"Stop it," I snarled at myself. Edward was practically dead, and I couldn't stop thinking about touching him? Of all the times to melt into perversion!
I forced my eyes closed and calmed my fluttering heart. I felt my mind swept clean, but when I opened my eyes, my treacherous body had turned my treacherous head to look at his face.
And he was impossibly attractive. He was all those stupid, girlish things my friends had called him when asking why I hadn't jumped his bones when we were younger. I had laughed awkwardly and said he was like a brother.
Yeah. That was bull.
He was beginning to look like his father, all hard, masculine angles, scruffy but still sophisticated. The flesh hand I had placed on his stomach looked huge and sturdy and calloused like it had been working hard for all twenty years is had been in use, like a man's. Somewhere in the blur of passing days, he had grown up.
And I found myself floundering around at the same conclusion I always reached when I thought about him: somehow, he had grown up, and I had not. Our experiences weren't too terribly different, were they? We both survived losses and loneliness and abandonment. He wasn't that much older than me. We were both tough kids, determined and sometimes a little coarse because of it. What was it that kept me stuck? I hated being stuck.
Maybe I was just stupid, I reminded myself. That was always an option.
I turned back to his feet and plopped my hands down harder than I had intended.
"Ow," Edward said, his voice a bit strangled.
I gasped and jerked my hands away. "I'm so sorry!" I blurted.
"It's fine," he replied in the same tense voice.
I suddenly took his feet off my lap and moved to crouch by his head. "I'm really sorry, Edward," I said quietly. "I should have warned you that it might hurt more. I didn't…" I looked away shamefully. "It didn't even occur to me that you would be more sensitive."
"Don't worry about it."
"I didn't do my job right, Ed."
He lolled his head over to look at me. He gave me a face that said he was entirely unimpressed by my guilt. "I'm not dead. You obviously didn't screw up that badly." He winced as he turned his head back. "It still hurt like a motherfucker, though."
I laughed and looked down at my hands, my traitorous hands. I suddenly wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed touching him, how wonderful he felt. I hoped I wasn't blushing too vibrantly. Luckily, Edward had his eyes closed.
I tried to keep my mouth shut tight, but it somehow opened itself. Thankfully, I didn't spill about my hands all over him. Instead, I blurted, "I almost started praying."
He let out a curt laugh. "I must have really scared you," he said. "It would have been a waste anyway. God hates alchemists. He wouldn't let us perform alchemy if He didn't."
That made something in my chest pinch. I couldn't say why; Edward had never believed in any of that. It wasn't like he had lost something. It was sad, though, to think that he only had faith in the punishment. I had never really believed it all either, but somehow, after my brief exploration of him, I felt like there might be something. I mean, Edward fit together so well. Just his foot, his wonderful foot felt so complicated and intricate. If there was a God, She was a mechanic. And a damn good one, too.
I felt myself brushing Edward's bangs away from his clammy forehead. I felt myself standing up, sitting on the couch, lifting Edward's head, and laying it on my thigh.
His brow furrowed before he opened his eyes and stared up at me. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"You looked tense," I replied absently. I ran my hand through his bangs again.
"I don't think that's going to help."
I shrugged. "I might. You don't know that."
As I dragged my fingernails across his scalp, I understood why Edward's automail felt odd under my fingers. All along, under my desire to just be around him, was this silly, girlish urge to touch him unabashedly. That's why he had felt so wonderful. I must have been starving for it. I supposed that meant I was lusting or something, and that was never good. Then again, if God really were a mechanic, She would understand entirely the beauty of a really well made machine.