"I need to stop," I whispered as I added another book my extensive collection of FMA.
"I NEED TO STOP!" I screamed as I watch PewDiePie play a game with many jumpscares.
"I need to stop!" I sang tunelessly to Vocaloid Kaito blaring in the background.
"I need to stop," I whispered as I click on the next episode of Free! Iwatobi Swim Club.
"I need to stop," I whispered as I drew Nullmetal Alchemist (the FMA parody – that 'N' is deliberate) fanart.
Basically the story of my life between updates.
So anyway, I wrote this when I had writers block around chapter 18. It's set just after 'Of Battles and Brutality', when Roy and Claudio had their sparring match. I thought you guys might like to read it, so I'm posting it for your enjoyment!
It's a little bit of mock Shounen Ai or Yaoi or RoyEd or whatever you want to call it. It was written as mock, though you can see it as a pairing if you like to ship these two.
IMPORTANT! It's not meant to insult RoyEd or the fans, just make you guys laugh a little, alright?
Roy and Edward had arrived back in the palace after their day of sparring, Edward still slightly annoyed with his superior.
"I can't believe the Emperor bought all that crap about grudges between the countries," Edward said as they walked into their room.
"Well, that's the plus side to being as likeable as me," Roy stated airily. He had a bandage soaked with some Kambeian herbal dressing wound around his forehead to cover the spots Claudio had whacked him in. "I can be very convincing."
Edward rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Colonel Prettyboy."
Roy scowled.
The evening passed slowly, Edward reading through his books and Roy lazing around on the couch and throwing the occasional paper plane at the back of the boy's head.
After about the seventeenth plane, Edward was over it.
"Alright, Mustang!" he snapped. "If you don't cut it out soon, so help me I'll throw you out that window! I've had it up to my ears with you today!"
In response, he got a plane right in the nose and a poked out tongue.
"YOU'RE ASKING FOR IT NOW, MISTER!" Edward yelled, storming over and grabbing Roy's still raised arm.
"Ouch!" the Colonel yelped, his bored expression disappearing in favour of a cringe.
"'Ouch'…?" Edward echoed, raising an eyebrow and letting go of Roy's arm.
The Colonel drew his wrist back to his chest, rubbing it tenderly and frowning. "'Ouch'," he repeated.
He slid back his sleeve and blinked. "Ah. I see."
Holding it out so that Edward could look at the problem, Roy examined the ceiling.
Edward drew a breath, wincing. "'Ouch' is right. There's a few bad ones there."
The whole way from Roy's elbow right up to his wrist was smattered with bruises from where he'd blocked Claudio's strikes with his arms. Some were small, just discoloured smudges, but right in the centre of his arm was a massive dark bruise which was swollen and had a purple hue.
"My other arm's the same, I suppose." Roy sighed, rolling up his other sleeve. Sure enough, this arm was just as bruised as the other.
"You guys really went all out on each other, didn't you?" Edward remarked.
Roy scowled a little and shifted uncomfortably.
"I wonder…" The Fullmetal Alchemist stood back, raking his superior with an analytic glare. "…are there any more?"
Roy shrugged. "I dunno."
Edward raised an eyebrow. "So, are you going to check?"
Roy shook his head. "Nah. Even if I do have more, they'll just fade."
"At least see how many you've got," the boy countered. "And I'm pretty sure Al packed some ointment in my bag somewhere - you can use that."
Roy rolled his eyes. "I'll be fine. I don't need ointment."
"At least let me take a look!" Edward pressed. "C'mon! Take off your shirt so I can see the rest of you!"
"No!" Roy exclaimed, looking at Edward as if he'd suggested they run down to Claudio's room, pull his pants down and run off again.
"Why not? It's just so we can get a proper scope of the damage!" Edward reached forward and tugged at Roy's collar. "Just take it off."
"Oi! Get away!" The Colonel slapped his subordinate's hand off.
"Fine." Edward turned away and took a couple of steps. His lips twitched into a pensive scowl. He shot a glance back at Roy, who raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"Awlright, off with it!" shouted Edward, throwing himself at Roy and snarling.
"WHAA—?!"
"Take-off-your-shirt!"
"No! G-get the hell off me!"
"Take it off! Let me see your skin!"
"Hey! Don't do that! Get off! Ow!"
"Don't bother resisting! Take your shirt off!"
"Yowch! Don't touch me there!"
"Eep."
The pair stopped wrestling over Roy's shirt. "Eep?" they repeated.
A young maid was standing in the doorway, her hand still raised from knocking. She was staring straight at the pair with wide black eyes and blushing an alarming shade of crimson.
"Dinner?" she squeaked.
Edward felt himself go red as he realised the awkwardness of his position atop his superior, one knee on either side of his hips and his metal hand pinning Roy's wrist as he struggled to undo the buttons on the man's shirt with his other. Roy's free hand was on the boy's chest as he tried to push him away.
"Aaaaaah…" Edward offered weakly.
"Yes, please," Roy called blandly across the room. To his 'son', he added, "I don't have any preferences, do you?"
"Aaaaaah…"
"No. We'll have whatever you see fit, thanks."
The maid stepped backwards slowly, not taking her eyes off the pair, before closing the door. The squeal of a typical fujoshi could be heard echoing through the halls, followed by the sound of rapidly retreating footsteps as she ran off to find her fellow RoyEd shippers.
"This isn't going to be the talk of the palace maid's quarters for the next three weeks," said Roy sarcastically.
"Aaaaaah…"
Then they continued a silent struggle of shirt-stripping.
"Alright, alright!" Roy yelled, shoving Edward off. "Get the hell away from me! I'll take my damned shirt off…"
Edward sat back victoriously as Roy began to unbutton his white shirt.
The result was worse than Edward had imagined.
Being Edward, the boy had received more than his fair share of bruises and he'd been injured in places he didn't even know existed, but even he hadn't seen so many severe bruises on one person before.
"Damn, Roy!" he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. "How hard did you two have to smash each other?!"
"Hard enough to do this, I guess," Roy said with a gesture at the worst of his bruises, a dark one between his left shoulder and collarbone.
"I didn't think Claudio had it in him to hit that hard…" Edward commented. He shook his head. "You need that ointment. Sure you're not bleeding internally or anything?"
"I'm pretty sure the extent of this is bruises," Roy said, sounding bored. "And this isn't so bad. You should have seen me and Hughes one night after we got drunk and some smart-ass was talking crap about women. I had two black eyes and he couldn't even walk properly, but we beat the living daylights out of about four people…"
Edward noted out all the bad spots he could see. The worst bruises were the one on his collarbone and the two on his arms. There was one just under his ribcage, one in the middle of his back and one on the side of his hip that also looked pretty sore. The rest weren't so bad, it was just the sheer amount that was unnerving.
"Wait here, I'll get the ointment." Edward went off down the hallway to the bedroom and rummaged through his suitcase. He threw a few items over his shoulder in his search, including a sweater, a handkerchief, a can of mints, a spanner, a beach umbrella, a baseball bat, three alarm clocks and a small spare tyre.
Alphonse sometimes had a tendency to over-prepare.
Finally, he found the tube he was looking for and went back down the hall to the main room. He caught Roy looking at his reflection in the mirror and tugging at the bandage around his head.
"Stop that," Edward scolded, slapping his 'father's' wrist. "Leave it on until Tyrell says you can take it off."
"Hmph." Roy folded his arms. "I just wanna see what it looks like."
"You can see it when it comes off," Edward reasoned. "Now let me put this on you."
He unscrewed the cap of the tube and squeezed it slightly. A small amount of white ointment oozed out of the tube and onto his flesh palm. He spread it around a little with his fingertips, avoiding getting it in the nooks and crannies of his auto-mail.
"Hold still," he instructed and Roy shuffled a little, just to be obstinate. He didn't take orders from children, let alone the Fullmetal pipsqueak.
Edward pressed his flesh palm and metal fingertips to the bruise on Roy's back and rubbed the ointment into it roughly. Either he didn't think to consider the pain this would cause Roy, or he did it on purpose. One way or another, the Colonel was in no mood to take it.
"Ow!" he yelped, turning his head to glare at Edward. "Watch it! That hurts and your hands are cold!"
Edward sneered. "Alright then, do it yourself!" He slapped the tube into Roy's hand and turned away.
Roy frowned at him for a few seconds before giving in with a discontented 'humph'. "Okay, come back. You know I can't reach that part of my back."
Edward stomped back over and snatched the ointment away. He squeezed a little more out of the tube and grumbled, "It's not like I can help it. I'm not pressing hard or being cold on purpose. One of my hands is made of metal. It's a little hard to tell sometimes how much pressure I'm putting on, especially for something delicate like this."
Roy put a hand to his neck and moved his head left and right. "Sorry. I forgot about that."
"Meh. No problem," the boy shrugged it off. "Turn around."
Roy obeyed and Edward set about dressing the bruises on his chest. Neither of them stopped to wonder why Roy didn't do this himself. And for whatever reason, it wasn't even awkward. The man just continued talking.
"But what if it is a problem?" he wondered aloud, folding his arms. "I know it was a mistake that time but…I seriously need to stop going too far sometimes. I swear, one of these days, I'm going to say something unforgiveable when I'm teasing and somebody's going to get hurt."
Edward raised an eyebrow. "Did you hit your head?" he asked absent-mindedly, forgetting the bandage Roy was wearing.
The man snickered. "Actually, yeah. Claudio knife-handed me in the forehead, remember? And he elbowed me. And stuck his knee in there too. There's a bandage on my head."
"Tch." Edward closed his eyes and said sarcastically, "I am a genius."
Roy yawned contentedly as Edward screwed the ointment closed. "Okay, done," the boy said. "You're free to go."
Roy stretched his arms above his head. "Thanks, Edward. I owe you half a tube of ointment."
"It's fine," Edward told him with a flick of his wrist. "I don't like the stuff anyway."
Roy sat back down and pulled his shirt over his back. He didn't button it, instead just laid back and closed his eyes. "Yeah… I gotta cut back on the sharp tongue sometimes… We both do."
Edward rolled his eyes. "You're tired. Go to sleep."
"Maybe stop teasing Havoc about his love life."
"You'd never."
"Stop giving Hughes death threats over the phone."
"Good luck with that."
"I should stop calling you shortie too…"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"
"I wonder what would happen if I stopped teasing people altogether?"
Edward frowned. "No, don't do that."
"Mm?" Roy opened one lazy eye.
"That's a part of your persona," Edward elaborated. "The way you're mean to people. As annoying as it is, you only seem to jibe like that at people you like. With others, you're all polite and suck-up or whatever. I don't want you to act the same to me as you do to all those snobbish generals. At least when you tease me I know you actually like me."
Both of them stopped and looked at each other.
"O-o-okay." Edward frowned at the air and nodded. "I must be tired too. I'm going to shut up."
Roy looked mildly surprised. "Huh. I guess… I guess I do only like teasing my friends. Except Hawkeye. She's different. And if I go too far with her…"
He shuddered.
There was a knock on the door.
"Ah." Edward looked up. "That'll be dinner."
Roy nodded as his subordinate opened the door for the waitress.
As they tucked in to another Kambeian delicacy, Edward remained blissfully unaware that Roy had just realised that the person he liked to tease the most was sitting right across from him.
And that was that! Hope you liked it, everyone!
Now, before I rainbow off for the final time on this story, there's a few things I want to say…
NUMBER ONE!
"Regarding Claudio!" shouted Zakuro. "I'm really sorry again about how OOC Claudio is in this. I really don't know much about him, so I'm guilty of making up a little bit. Claudio, I'm really sorry bro—"
SMACK!
"That's for all the indignity of it," muttered said prince, rubbing his fist as the author lay in a twitching blob in the corner.
NUMBER TWO!
"Also," Zakuro began, rubbing a new bruise. "I want you all to know, I've never been shot or been in a war or had a panic attack or PTSD or anything like what the characters have had in this story, so I just want to apologise if there were any inaccuracies in the way I portrayed these events."
NUMBER THREE!
Zakuro shuffled some papers. "Now, in regards to the sequel (which will probably be called 'Red and Blue'); that I will post as soon as I can. Give me a few weeks to write the first few chapters. And the updates might have a little more time between them, since I'm finally getting to work on my original story, and trying to actually focus schoolwork for once in my life…"
Zakuro frowns at a stack of papers. "That's right, maths homework. I might actually do you! In the meantime, I have some other fics written I can post while you wait, and some already posted you can read if you miss me, haha!"
NUMBER FOUR!
"Thank you for reading!" Zakuro chimed. "My story would be nothing without you guys! Everyone who reviewed, followed, favourited or even just read and disappeared forever – thank you all so much! I love you guys!"
Hands thrown up in the air, Zakuro shouted, "Now, brofists or hi-fives or peace fingers or secret handshakes or hugs or whatever y'all do out there! Thank you so much!"
Now I'm nervous! This is the end of the fic! I hope you enjoyed it! I worked really hard, and I'm so thankful for everyone's support!
Special thanks to:
My little sister for her listening this (and her criticism)
Spidey and Grave (and all my other friends)
My parents for not scolding me for spending so much time writing this
Hiromu Arakawa for Fullmetal Alchemist
KuroiYukiUsagi for the actual idea for this story
Everyone and everything else who gave me ideas
AND YOU!
ZAKURO AWAAAAAAAAAY! *Thanks so much, everybody! See you soon!*