Hello everyone! School has been killing me, and doujinshi has plunged me into the depths of insecurity with all its fabulousness. But sometimes not even death or depression will stop the plotbunnies. shudder
Oh, and does anyone else have trouble with pronouns when writing yaoi? is sheepish
Benediction
by
Mirune Keishiko
"I don't want to lie anymore."
Edward, Roy discovered a long time ago, sheds much more than just his clothes in bed.
They are going slow tonight, much slower perhaps than they ever have. He presses forward into the kiss hungrily, but Ed restrains him, gentle steel fingers in the short hair at his nape. How appropriate—the laughter inside his head is short and dark—considering that their first time had been a fevered thing, a combustion unplanned and unexpected that had consumed them, spent them within minutes; left them a gasping, panting, incredulous mess on the couch in his old office.
Roy doesn't cry, gave that up even before the war; the rebellion simply turned whatever tears he might still have had into a hollow cold stone in the pit of his stomach. He feels its weight keenly at moments like this, even though it doesn't stop him from reacting to Ed's slow, heavy kisses on his chest, doesn't silence the groan that is torn from him when Ed's warm, living hand reaches into his pants and carefully draws him out.
Edward's grip is clumsy, still artless, but firm. As he slicks precome down Roy's shaft the older man's eyes flutter shut despite himself; but then he forces them to open again and look. His stubborn, mulish, insubordinate young lover, once he makes up his mind, he never changes it back. This is probably the last Roy will see of eyes and hair of liquid sun, this close up.
He will have to resign himself to seeing this boy all the way from across his desk again, he thinks, and immediately shuts out the idea. Ed is strong, but Roy is still stronger and bigger, and he rolls the boy over onto his back, ignoring the yelps of protest. This is their last time, and he'll be damned if he's not going to enjoy every single moment of it.
Edward's skin is a satin-smooth boundary between the shapeless, roiling mass of his clothing and the finely crafted muscles tautly corded underneath. Whatever else the Fullmetal one might say, thinks the Flame Alchemist with grim satisfaction, there's no denying the quickening in his breath when Roy nuzzles and exhales softly into his navel just so, and the instinctive buck of his hips when the older man reaches a wet, nimble tongue around his straining cock.
Ed flops back tensely against the pillow, breath coming too fast and shallow now for words. Roy moves up for a kiss; Edward's tongue probes his mouth hesitantly at first, then more aggressively when Roy leans in, and the older man smiles to himself. He taught Ed this, how to take what was freely offered without misplaced guilt or fear, how to reach without shame for what was rightfully his, what had already been given to him. Ed had seemed reluctant to learn at first, but—as Roy mused later—perhaps only because he knew he'd be a very quick study.
He wonders, then, if anything has happened with Alphonse. He hasn't seen the younger Elric since the visit to the hospital weeks ago, right after the younger brother's restoration.
"You're still lying to him." With a lazy tongue he plots the hollow curve of Edward's neck; the boy gasps and arches beneath him, fingers dig into his shoulder.
"I know." This, too, Roy taught him—this refusal to deny the plain, urgent truth any longer, but simply face it, claim it, live it. Ed's voice wavers as Roy's mouth closes over a nipple. "But that I can't do anything about."
Edward had been mulish back then too, and Roy had finally had to resort to such underhanded tricks as alcohol and a conveniently stuffy military ball before he'd been able to get any closer to the boy than arm's length. But even a woozy Ed hadn't shut up about it being wrong and dirty and unnatural and sinful—at least not until Roy kissed him quiet, and then every last nagging doubt he'd had had melted when Edward kissed him back thirstily, odd, strangled pleading whimpers ripping free from deep in his throat, gloved fingers twisting almost painfully in short black hair.
It had all been over fairly quickly, and Roy had poked fun at his little incoherent sex sounds for weeks afterward.
"And you're leaving me for a life of miserably pining away in your unrequited affections?" Roy blunts the truth with a wry smile and a swathe of tongue over satiny cockhead that wrings a cry from Ed. "That must be the most effective insult you've ever made to me in all the years we've known each other, Fullmetal one. Congratulations."
"Don't be stupid," rasps Ed, and though he dimly resents the frank surprise in his superior officer's eyes, he takes advantage of it to scoot down lower on the bed and tease Roy with his own tongue. "And don't act like such a damn victim. It doesn't suit an arrogant perverted bastard like you."
He's rough and inelegant, but that's the way Roy likes it sometimes, and at least Ed doesn't complain when the older man thrusts into his mouth—blindly, once, twice, before he finally catches himself. Edward is thorough, too; for all his discipline, Roy, gasping hard, is almost at the brink when the boy pulls away, a gleaming thread of saliva stretching wetly between lips and beaded skin. As Roy struggles for control propped up on trembling arms, Ed crouches on all fours beneath him and grapples with the little bottle of oil.
The boy himself undoes his braid, or what's still left of it, and looks back at Roy over his shoulder through a river of gold. Ed hates this position, but tonight is for his lover, not for himself. Roy would like to imagine that he taught Ed this as well, but it's always been in him, always been there in every quick, toothy grin, every loving glance toward his brother—this sunshine-bright, spontaneous, unfettered giving of himself to the select few he cherishes.
He really is too kind, too sweet, too honest—this obstinate, trash-talking kid. Roy, burying his nose in Ed's curling hair, finds his throat uncomfortably tight.
He comes so hard, shuddering and breathless inside the tight heat that is Edward, that he only faintly hears the short, strangled yell between them, and then it takes him a moment to realize it was his. Ed follows seconds later, screaming hoarsely, slick cock spurting hot wetness into Roy's palm. As he absent-mindedly licks away the sweat from behind the boy's ear, Roy wonders if Ed also chose that position to better imagine someone else in his place—but he pushes the thought away.
This will be the last he'll see of Edward Elric this close up. The Fullmetal one hates having to turn back.
Tonight was an act of thanksgiving, a noble gesture between true friends, and Roy will not refuse what is freely given—will take back what is rightfully his.
"When are you going to tell him?" asks the newly promoted Major General, as they lie together, catching their breath, and Ed drapes himself over the older man's chest the way he knows Roy would never admit to liking it.
Ed shrugs. "Who says I'm going to have to tell him? Al's always been smart that way."
"And if it doesn't work out?" You know I'll always be waiting, but Roy doesn't add that out loud.
"Doesn't really matter anymore." Ed presses a kiss to Roy's chest, as though an afterthought. "Learned that from you too, don'tchaknow."
Too well, thinks Roy. His thumb traces Edward's cheek, almost of its own volition; distantly he notes the way sleepy golden eyes catch the lamplight. Only too well.
Almost at the same time, on the same impulse, they lean forward to seal their lips together—a last kiss, a parting blessing. Later Roy will realize that they always did have that odd synchrony in bed; he can only suppose that between blood brothers, it must get even better.
He draws a deep breath of Edward as his lover nuzzles his hand wordlessly. He'll be damned if he forgets how Ed smells, how he looks and tastes and moves and makes his eager little noises.
The pain will come later. For now, he holds Ed silently until the boy falls asleep, sprawled heedlessly across him and his bed. Roy goes to turn out the light; the sight of a slumbering Edward awash in moonbeams and burnished hair brings back the chill, hollow heaviness in his gut.
He climbs back into bed, tangles his hand into warm, slack fingers, and settles down to wait for morning.
owari
