OUR LIVES, CHAPTER 37: "LIAR, LIAR"

By The Binary Alchemist, 2014

The guard on point this morning, Charley, let him in, shaking his head as Alphonse signed his clipboard. "At this hour? You got a death wish or something?"

Alphonse slapped the side of the crate strapped into the side car of his nephew's motorcycle. "No. I've got a telegram for the President…and breakfast from Il Gattina. Enough for everybody, and more ice for the coolers."

"You wouldn't happen to have any beer in there, would you?"

The younger Elric grinned innocently. "I didn't want the ice and sandwich stuff to get lonely. How are they holding up?"

Charley, who had fought for and beside Roy Mustang since Ishbal, tapped the side of his pointed nose and smothered a grin. "Loud."

"As in…breaking chairs over each other's head…or….?"

"—oh, they're breaking furniture in there, all right. We're using the busted bed slats for kindling." Charley whistled softly in admiration. "I mean, he's fifty years old. How does he-?"

Alphonse tossed Charley a mock salute. "That, as they say, is a military secret!" Chuckling, he gunned his engine and roared up the muddy trail to the cabin where, no doubt, his older brother and his brother in law were giving the mattress another gleeful pounding…..

"I can't move."

"I can't breathe. Goddamn it, you're heavy. Shift over or something."

Roy groaned in protest. "I said I can't move." From this angle, face pressed into the pillows, Ed couldn't see the smirk on his husband's face. "The technical term for this condition is A.F. O-all fucked out. I can't move—in fact, I don't believe I can even muster up the stamina to pull out."

"And of course this is somehow my fault?"

"The swing was your idea, wasn't it?" A trickle of sweat rolled off the end of Roy's nose and dripped annoyingly into Ed's right ear. "I had to do all the work."

"Well…technically. Yeah. But—"

"—but nothing! You should have thought up some counter-weight system to keep the damn thing moving, instead of making me-"

"—quit bitching! You were getting off on it. And I think—I think—I could rig something up for the house-"

"That officially counts as an attempted presidential assassination. Don't even think about it."

"Ah, get off my back!"

Roy raised himself up on his elbows and considered his options. It was daybreak. He was hungry. And there were a couple of aspirins in the first aid kit that would do his strained muscles a world of good, washed down with a mug of fresh brewed coffee.

On the other hand…he was still lodged deeply into somewhere so maddeningly warm and tight that he might—possibly—have enough stamina to get things going one more time, provided Ed was-

"Whoa! Are you—?"

"Mmmm….maybe."

"Well," Ed cautioned, "if I don't get my face out of this pile of pillows, you're gonna be fuckin' a dead man."

"Running into a dead end, you mean?"

"You're such a smartass. Hang on. I'm gonna flip us over."

"Wait! I—"

"I said hang on! Urrrufffff!" Roy was now flat on his back with Ed's full weight on his chest. Struggling, Ed managed to haul himself into a sitting position without disengaging, and while he'd much rather be gazing into his husband's face instead of staring at Roy's feet, the shift in angle inside him sent bright sparks across his visual field and made him shudder. "Uhhh…damn!" He squirmed down, swiveling his hips. "That's good."

"You…nearly…broke it..off, you idiot." Sore muscles momentarily forgotten, Roy's strong hands gripped Ed's hips and he spread his thighs, planted his feet on the mattress for better traction and began to arch up into paradise. "Stroke it for me…I can't reach you."

Hooking one arm around Roy's upraised knee for support, Ed's free hand clenched and squeezed. Some small corner of his brain, not half melted with pleasure as he stroked and rocked, recognized that things are changing. Since the startling rediscovery of his alchemy he had become keenly aware that he was awake again, as if he had spent the intervening years since the Promised Day sleep walking, dazed and numb. He hadn't felt this alert and energetic in years—but this wasn't the living-on-the-nerve's-edge of his boyhood. No, this was different—colors and sound seemed more vivid, his mind was sharper than ever-even his food tasted different. He was ravenous and, holy shit, whenever Roy touched him-

BANG! BANGBANG! "Hey, you guys! It's me, Alphonse!"

Ed squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the distraction. Roy's hands were caressing his sweaty back and making him shiver, and the hard cock inside him was churning Ed's brains to pudding. He was close and judging from the primal growls he could hear behind him Roy was shifting into overdrive. If he hadn't had his husband pinned down in this position Roy would be driving Ed's back into the mattress , ankles over shoulders. The flimsy slats supporting the camp bed would crack and splinter, and the thin pad would buckle and they would finish each other once again in an undignified tangle on the cabin floor, bruised and laughing-

"Breakfast time!" Al sang out from the porch. BANG! BANG! "Hey, come on, guys! You two have to come up for air sometime!"

Ed was about to snarl out a death threat to his little brother when Alphonse shouted the three words that probably spared his life:

"I've got bacon."

"Ed, don't eat the enamel off the tinware. There's more food where that came for." Roy glanced over at Alphonse, who nodded, pouring fresh batter on the griddle over the campfire and plopped another egg into the bacon grease in his skillet. "Nice of you to cater breakfast, Al."

"Nice of you," Ed mumbled around a mouthful of pancake, "to show up at the fuckin' crack of dawn and wake a guy up—"

"C'mon, Ed—you were already up—"

"—literally," Roy affirmed.

"—and I knew you wouldn't want to wait for this, Roy." Reaching into his shirt pocket, he handed the older man a sealed telegram. "I had strict instructions from the Colonel not to hold this until you guys came home."

Ed and Roy exchanged glances. Ed frowned. "Do we need to go into hiding?"

Roy snatched the flimsy envelope out of Al's hand. "Shut up, Ed!" He studied it for a moment, then stuffed it in his pocket before turning to Alphonse. "Borrowing your bike." He nodded to Edward. "Don't drink all the beer. I might need one when I get back…or six…or more, if…."

Ed touched his arm. "Hey…if you—"

Roy nodded again. "Yeah. Thanks."

And he was gone….

####

` "Hughes. Been awhile, huh?"

Settling his back against a tree, Roy stared off, his eyes focused on nothing in particular. He knew that some cultures—in Xing, for example—people constructed elaborate shrines and burned incense when invoking their honored dead. Roy never bothered. At the most, he might poor a shot of whiskey on the ground, but it usually did him more good just to toss it down his own throat if he wanted to talk to his best friend.

"I'm an asshole. You know it, I know it…hell, Ed's known it since the day we met. Always thinking I know what's best for others—always pulling the damn strings. And, y'know….most of the time I've been right." He pulled the crumpled telegram out of his pocket and stared at it. "And when I'm wrong…"

He tore the envelope open. He stared at the three lines that must have cost a small fortune to send from the ass-end of rural Drachma—what was that place? Komarovo? Ed had said they didn't even have flushable toilets and there was only one telephone in the whole damn village…but that had been fifteen years ago. Still, somebody had pulled some strings to get this message to Roy Mustang.

He took a deep breath and unfolded the telegram:

"Sir:

With respect, you are a shitty liar. Nice try, though. You can foot the bill for our reception when we get home.

—Mr. and Mrs. Jean Havoc"

…TO BE CONTINUED….