Production #5860, [FMA]: "Noesis" (Roy/Ed, slightly...bizarre)
...Proof that I'm easily bunnied. Or something. (Pretend this is news.) Written as a...well, not as anything, really, save a fic for Kyt. ^_____^ My writing inspiration had been a bit down, lately, so she gave me an idea to perk me up, that generous soul. >DDD Also written because I DESPERATELY needed to write some OTP, and because I need to do some more of my 30_romances themes before the comm eats me. Rawr.
Title: { n o e s i s }: we are all just bound by thought and mind
Author: The Demidevimon. (devils_devotion)
Rating: Um, R. Sorry Kyt, but I think that to add graphic detailed smut sort of takes away from the theme of this. ^^;; Still, R for some sexual content and...well, just my writing in general, I guess. O.o
Genre: Why, angst, of course. >D Do I write anything else? This may turn kind of happy at the end, though, so BEWARE.
Pairing: Roy/Ed. *waits patiently to get shot by angels_resolve for writing MORE goddamned FMA!fic*
Summary: He had dated an alchemist once. It had been an exhilarating vortex of dispute and complexity.
For: kytyngurl2, of course, who gave me the idea for this. ^^;; Kyt, I like you very much, and I hope that things start looking up on your RL side, okay? ♥ Until then, just have some slightlytwisted!OTP to fill your gut. ^____^
Comments: Why yes, I DID gank the title of this story from a Gackt song! ^____^ But never fear, the title is also...eerily applicable to this fic, too. In phenomenology, noesis is an act of consciousness. "Thinking", "loving", "hating", "imagining" are all verbs applying to what minds do. This is a bizarre restatement of this fic's theme.
Music: The Beginning and the End from the Xenogears OST. Mmmmm, pretty song. It's got a vaguely eerie mystical quality to it, so. Download, and love. :P
Word Count: 5,974. Hmmmm.
He had dated an alchemist once. Once; just once. It had been an exhilarating vortex of dispute and complexity. Her name had been Helena, and she'd been known as the Dancing Doll Alchemist, due to her uncanny and often unnerving ability to manipulate strings of filament in order to create a deadly trap for an unwary enemy, or to control her many loyal minions of marionettes. Perfect for covert work, to be sure - Roy had actually met her through Hughes, who had been concerned about his multiple female conquests and lack of any serious dating - but in the end, the military hadn't had much use for Ms. Helena Fairfield after the war, and so she'd been dispatched to a recon mission near Drachma, and no one was really surprised when she never returned.
The relationship had been a short one, by all societal standards, but it had startled Roy because it had been longer than all of his other ones, and it had taken him a long time to figure out why. Helena had been an alchemist, albeit a flagging one, and with alchemy had always come...certain idiosyncracies. Helena, for example, had been utterly fascinated with movement; would watch him, ceaselessly, as he prowled around the bedroom during one of his rare restless fits, and would mimic the motion with her hands, as though she were the puppet master pulling on his strings. She'd also talk to her goddamned marionettes, in an indecipherable mutter that was annoying on a tolerable day, and downright terrifying on any other, and she always walked with her hands slightly in front of her, as though feeling for invisible wires.
Still, despite all that, the two of them would stay up early into the morning and take turns brewing the coffee with alchemy (tasted like sludge, but was just a part of who they were) and they would discuss relative theory; would discuss religion as though it were science, and laws of mass as though they were love. The coffee was terrible, but the conversation was heaven, and though she hadn't been that attractive of a woman, Roy had kept calling her, and calling her, until she'd been shipped out that one day and never came back.
He hadn't dated an alchemist since then. Female alchemists were rare in the military - Rosemary Klein and Lilith Lenore were the only two enlisted, with Rosemary being far too old for his tastes and Lilith being far too married - which was unfortunate, as that only left him with men, men who were either his age or much older, and not at all the petite beauties he preferred.
He was far more picky about the types of women that he dated, rather than their professions, so when he sat in his office on a balmy September afternoon and began to see his current companion in a whole new light, he was more than a little surprised.
---
The Edward of seventeen was far more comfortable with himself than the Edward of fifteen had ever pretended to be, and so the blonde was able to enter the office and lounge not on the couch, at a safe distance, but upon the desk, and he was able to do it with the utmost of ease.
"Hey," he started abruptly, rolling his head backwards over his shoulder, then seemed to think better of it and shrugged. His eyes, bizarrely, made Roy think of apple juice, and not of the typical fire or gold - perhaps it was because they were quiet eyes, practically liquid with their ease - and his hair was a thick citrine rope that obscured his neck from view. Strangely enough, age seemed to have given him the elegance and poise that stature could not, or perhaps it was his brother's recent restoration that had mellowed him out. Either way, he was an unsavory creature, annoying with his newfound grace, and Roy often wondered why the young man even bothered to stop by his office at all.
The first time, obviously, had been to drop off his resignation papers, and though the colonel's eyes had kept him pinned to his seat, he hadn't backed down an inch, and the older alchemist had honestly thought that they would be done with each other after that. He had tucked that silver watch away into his desk drawer, seen the almost eerie omniscence of those animal's eyes, and answered that brief quirking of lips with a smile of his own, aware of the energy crackling perceptively between them, a last tension that had hit so achingly close to home.
But Edward had come back, after a week or two, under the pretense of boredom, and though there was boredom plastered as evidence all over his miniature frame, there was still that unidentifiable tension blazing between them, as though they were the cats who were crouched only to pounce. The blonde had seemed to want something, though in an offhand way, and had loitered in Roy's office for nearly an entire day, perching on the desk and swinging his legs idly back and forth.
It was part of their ritual that they rarely spoke. Edward would enter, inquire listlessly as to what what it was Roy just happened to be doing, then take his seat on the couch or the desk or the floor, and stay silent. On occassion he would read, other times he would pace, but mostly he would just sit there, quietly, and watch - sunlit eyes would follow the track of the colonel's pen across typewritten pages, or perhaps observe the medals on the man's chest with indiscernable scrutiny - and though it was uncomfortable, in a sort of detached way, at the same time it was Edward, and so, the man didn't pay him much mind.
But it was on that balmy September day that Roy had been feeling hot and unusually prickly with the Indian summer, and so he'd opened his mouth and snapped, idly, "Stop memorizing my every godforsaken movement, Fullmetal, unless you want me to start calling you Helena", and Edward had stared. Not in shock, as he might have during his younger days, but blandly, curiously, and he quirked his eyebrow.
"Helena...?" he asked tonelessly, swinging his head away smoothly to look away from the older alchemist's face, expression thus unreadable. His rope of hair swirled almost tantalizingly as he moved.
"A woman I used to date," Roy replied stoically, returning his attention to the papers in front of him. He felt rather than saw Edward's bristle, heard the wood creak under a clenched automail hand. The unexpected reaction didn't give him much pause, as it was another thing that seemed characteristic of the blonde - inexplicable anger, though it had admittedly died down over the years. Against his will, the colonel spoke on. "She was an alchemist, though not a very good one. I think I may have looked down on her for that - she could never be as skilled as me, you see - but I ended up dating her for a long time. It was...hmmmm." He stuck the end of his pen into his mouth idly and toyed with it for a moment during the pause, sucking on it for a bit then biting down suddenly on the tip. At the clicking noise, Edward started a bit, and averted his eyes from where he'd been staring with an almost irritated huff. Roy shrugged. "It was a chemistry, I suppose, an attraction that lingered more than pulled, so to speak, and I dated her solely for nearly a month."
"Wow, a whole month," Edward responded dryly, mouth twisted down at the edges, but his expression quickly smoothed out and he went back to being simply inquisitive, eyes bizarrely intense through their placidity. "So, you only liked her because she was an alchemist? That's pretty fucked up, you know." His eyes belied his words - ever curious, shifting a bit back and forth and demanding to know more. "Did you ever tell her that?"
"Of course not," Roy murmured, returning his attention to his desk, the faint scritch of the pen at odds with his voice. "I wasn't even aware of it until she'd been shipped out, and by then it was too late."
There was no pause as Edward asked, damn near greedily: "So, she's dead?"
"Obviously," the colonel replied sardonically, though the words lacked any real bite, "otherwise I'd probably still be dating her, even now."
He could practically see the young man's ears perk up. "Was... Was it really that great, her being an alchemist? So what, you guys had something in common. That doesn't make a...a...well, anything."
The fact that he still lacked the courage to speak of adult relationships was an endearing one, and Roy quickly hid his smile. "It was an adult thing, Fullmetal," he brushed off idly, waving his hand in dismissal. "I doubt you'd understand, or be interested."
"Tell me," the blonde insisted, with sudden vehemence, spinning on the desk to half-sprawl across the stack of documents that was lying there. "I'm not a kid, you know, so just tell me what the hell makes an alchemist so special."
The circularity of the statement made the man look up in perplexion. "I should think, with you being one, that the answer should come naturally to you."
Edward snarled with a frustration that was more typical of his younger days, teeth bared and eyes flashing. "Don't be an ass," he growled, and twisted to plant both of his palms squarely on the smooth wood. "I just want to know. What kind of chemistry was it, you jackass? How come the fact that she wasn't as good as alchemy as you made her somehow more inferior to you? Why the hell do they say that only one alchemist can understand another, anyway?!" His voice was loud, at shouting pitch, and his breathing was harsh, and there seemed to be an unidentifiable anguish buried deep beneath the fury of his face.
"This has been bothering you for a long time, Fullmetal?" But there was no question in the tone of the man's voice, only a quiet acceptance.
"Everyone says it to me," the blonde murmured lowly, miserably, all ease erased now with frustration and despair. "That I hardly seem to connect with anyone except those who are well-versed in science. That my mind's too smart for anyone my age, that my persona's too complex. What the hell does that mean, colonel?!" Edward fixed him with a baleful glare, haughty in it's self-contempt. "Is it really that weird that I think the engravings on your goddamned military medals are interesting? And it's not my fault that I think the other alchemists who work for the state are a bunch of lazy self-bettering brown-nosers, you know!"
For a while, Roy was silent, and he find an ironic amusement in the fact that for everyone one breath he would take, Edward would take two. Then, without coaxing, he spoke.
"...You were studying my medals?"
Edward swiveled and looked at him, slowly. "Yeah..." he replied, with an obvious stare. "What the hell did you think I was doing?"
Roy laughed for a second, uproariously. "H-Helena, you see... She'd... She'd always stare at me, fascinated with how I m-moved... She was into puppetry, and it was her a-alchemical talent..." He broke off into a fit of snickers, shaking his head and snorting into his desk blotter, and after a moment, Edward laughed, too.
The colonel cut his laughter off abruptly, however, as he realized that only Edward would have probably gotten that joke, and his gasps quickly escalated into a coughing fit, upon which the blonde on his desk quieted down and looked at him, strangely.
"It...wasn't that, colonel," Edward said, slightly out of breath, then shook his head. "I always liked the detail on the military uniform, is all. Your office, too." He gestured around, for emphasis. "I just want to...take it apart, you know? And put it back together again." His looked turned sheepish, and irrevocably young. "I guess that is weird."
He bounced off of the desk in a graceful leap of movement, all speed and sinewy muscle, and seemed to have some color high in his cheeks. "Anyway, I'm out of here. Eh...thanks for listening to me, colonel."
He turned to walk away, but Roy half-stood, and called after him. "Fullmetal! Just...why exactly does this irritate you, anyway...?"
Edward turned, slowly, and the look he gave was pathetically dull. "Because if an alchemist like you finds it impossible to keep a date, then what the hell are the chances for an alchemist like me?"
And he left, abruptly, and shut the door, though the older alchemist had honestly opened his mouth with every intention of calling after him again.
---
In short, Roy wasn't at all surprised when Edward returned to his office not two days later, almost pyschopathic with his calm, a hint of insanity nearly peeking out of his friendly smile. Edward, hopelessly, was always going to be unbalanced - even among alchemical standards, his mind was something that was rarely understood, and even less frequently tolerated - and he himself would forever possess a disdain of the average human that also hindered his social advantage, and therefore, Roy was not at all surprised when the blonde entered his office, typically, without knocking.
"I was thinking," Edward began nonchalantly, crossing the room to lounge in his usual stance against the desk, and Roy thought, darkly, Yes, that's the problem. The young man's indifference was so feigned that it was painful. "That maybe...you and I...should spend some time together...away...from the office."
His sidelong glance at the colonel's face was wary, and the heels of his palms kneaded almost reflexively into the wood of the man's desk. Roy stared at him for a long time, flatly, but when the blonde didn't back down, he finally shrugged, gave a small smile, and stood from his chair.
"May I inquire as to the reason, Fullmetal?" he asked politely, though he could very well guess. Edward's answer spilled from the young man's stumbling lips almost in sync with how Roy had imagined them in his own head.
"W-Well, aren't assessments coming up soon...? And... And I figured we could study, or s-something... Ah, hell, I just want to talk to you, you bastard, and hear you lay your mind bare... I...realized that we didn't talk much, when I was a kid, except in insults...maybe I just want to see if you're as brilliant as you say, you j-jackass..."
All down to the letter, stuttering included, but the blonde's sudden smile was something that Roy hadn't been counting on.
"After all," Edward supplied, grinning brashly with just a touch of danger, "they do say that only one alchemist can understand another, don't they...?"
---
Understanding hadn't been the only thing he'd been longing for, Roy realized a few hours later, as both his mind and his body were laid bare under Edward's frantic and almost razoring inquisition, as hungry lips latched onto his own in what seemed to be an attempt to drink out his soul.
Or perhaps it had been...?
---
"I...was thinking," the blonde said afterwards, scooted so far on the opposite side of the bed that he was nearly in danger of falling off.
"I sometimes wish you wouldn't do that," Roy murmured quietly, and rolled to face the other way. Within minutes, he was asleep.
---
Though he'd been initially loathe of their situation - (a boy nearly half his age, taken as a lover?) - even Roy was forced to admit that, after some time...his interaction with Edward was utterly fascinating. They fed off of each other, practically, dining on one another with strange quirks and bad habits, like a pair of dancers in a particular grotesque waltz, meeting occassionally in the center with a set of moves that would wow any audience.
Edward, for example, wasn't comfortable with the bed until he'd both disassembled and reassembled the wood with his alchemy, admiring of the intricate carvings running up and down the sides of the four bedposts, and seeming to take great satisfaction from having reconstructed them so perfectly. He repeated the process with nearly the entire apartment before announcing his satisfaction, but there were still things about him...strange things, really, that oftentimes made Roy wonder.
He despised armchairs, for one, and would rather perch on the arm of the sofa or sprawl out on the floor than sit in a chair that he deemed 'confining', as though he were terrified of being impeded, and he refused to sit with his back to any sort of large window, as though he were afraid of being attacked. His fingers would draw out all sorts of alchemy circles on any available surface if he was bored, and he'd often steeple and spread his hands in a clapping motion when he launched into a lecture on alchemical theory in a gesture that was reminiscent of prayer, though it was something one never pointed out. He would often walk around mumbling to himself, as well, though it was a habit frequented by many alchemists, and thus, Roy wasn't horribly disturbed by it. There were other things that Edward did that were far more bizarre, and honestly, they were mostly things that he would do during sex, which was even more odd.
Perhaps it stemmed from from his extensive research performed in order to ressurect his mother, but the blonde had a fascination with the human body that was unparaelleled, and he had no qualms about making it evident.
For example.
"H...Hey," Edward remarked, face flushed and cock hard, but brows furrowed in a way that had nothing to do with desire. "T-Turn over, would you...? There's something I want to see." His hands moved up and down the man's back, fingers ticklish and tentatively explorative, but there was something almost scientific about his focused expression, and it was...alarming.
Roy, far more concerned with the job of thrusting, of keeping the momentum moving forward, could only fix the blonde with a dubious look and shake his head, letting out a groan and grabbing his companion's erection in the hopes to distract the younger man.
It worked, momentarily, but Edward seemed almost sulky as he came - and damn him for managing to make that the sexiest goddamned expression in the goddamned universe - and he stayed tense even afterward, hands fisted even after Roy had pulled out and flopped back down onto the bed, legs still jutting obnoxiously up into the air, and he let out a sort of grumbling sigh.
"I never noticed that you had a dimple on your spine," he remarked, rather peevish, then rolled onto his side. "Let me see."
Pleasantly drained (where the hell did that kid get his energy, anyway?), Roy wasn't in too much of a position to complain, so he flipped over with a satisfied sigh, subjecting himself to scrutiny.
It was then that he noted, rather belatedly, that Edward's fascination with the human body only pertained to the male body; that he had studied the female anatomy so extensively such that it had become such a scientific and unappealing thing, in it's own right, and that was why he had found himself so socially awkward around women, mild alchemical insanity or no. It was fundamentally impossible for him to be attracted to something he had studied so scientifically, but it wasn't impossible for him to study something that he was honestly attracted to, as was evident by his roaming hands, and the knowledge was something of a comfort, as opposed to a cause for alarm.
The blonde's fascination with the male structure stemmed most blatantly from comparison, from the fact that he'd never been able to judge and view the male development from other youths his age, because he was never good at interacting with other youths his age, and so he'd found himself at a rather uncomfortable standstill. It was in his nature to study - he was an alchemist, after all, and the ones who had been crazy enough to attempt human transmutation weren't the most grounded of people to begin with - and honestly, Roy could handle being treated like a research specimen, so long as Edward didn't stop doing...that.
'That' being a vigorous massage, one that was smooth and relentless, with just enough pressure to be painful, the way he liked it. He let his eyes sink closed, and tried his best to follow Edward's factual murmurs, but it was rather difficult in the face of his satiation.
"You've got really broad shoulders, but the blades stick out a lot," the teen was saying lowly, voice somehow thrumming in time with the strokes of his fingers, working vigorously in an attempt to explore rather than please, though Roy couldn't honestly say that he minded. "I can also see your ribs when you breathe, and your hips are too narrow. You really should be taking better care of yourself, colonel," the blonde tacked on at the end idly, combing flesh fingers through dark hair before pausing, briefly. "Looks like you're starting to get some dandruff, too."
Roy scowled. "Get off of me, Fullmetal."
"Oh, don't get pissy," Edward muttered, fingering a jagged scar with obvious interest. "Hey, how did you get this?"
Hardly placated, the older alchemist shifted around irritably as he answered. "A careless mistake. I altered the oxygen content of the building I was destroying by too many degrees, and the entire thing collapsed in on me. Most of my scars are from that accident, actually. The one you've got your finger one was from a falling beam." He tried to lift his legs in an attempt to buck Edward off, but his efforts were fruitless and the blonde didn't notice.
"Hunh." Edward caught his fidgeting, and smacked him carelessly upside the back of his head. "Quit resisting just because I said you had dandruff, you moron. There's a shampoo that'll take care of that, you know, all you have to do is buy it - "
"Would you stop bringing that up?" Roy hissed, aware that he was acting childish, but unable to hide it. The brat was so clinical about everything, without any tact at all! On most days it was just a part of his nature, but today it was irritating, and it needed to stop.
Edward huffed, but slid off of him without another comment, rolling himself up in the bedsheets and retreating to his usual edge of the bed, eyes watchful and wary with the light of the moon shining through the window. "Say..."
"What?" the older alchemist groaned, exasperated, rolling around to face the blonde with an irritated expression on his face. For a moment, Edward looked honestly cowed - 'maybe you really don't understand' written all over his face - and Roy instead felt like a jackass. He moderated his words and his tone. "I'm sorry, Fullmetal; what was it you were going to say?"
"I...just wanted to say that you've got a really...fascinating...body," the youth answered, lowly, and though he looked out cautiously from under the cover of his bangs, he didn't look away.
"'Fascinating'." Roy snorted out a laugh, but good-naturedly. "Leave it to you to tell me in the most offhand way that I'm attractive." And he smirked, to show that all was forgiven - (though he was still sore about that 'dandruff' comment, compliments or no) - and hesitantly, Edward grinned back.
"I was thinking," he started, but a finger on his lips effectively shut him up.
"Put that thought on hold," the colonel instructed amiably, words elongated by an ungraceful yawn. "For now, let's just go to sleep."
Edward's grin melted away into doubt, but at least he nodded. "All right," he agreed solemnly, but instead of retreating back into his usual corner to sleep, he curled up tight against Roy's back, and didn't seem to want to let go.
---
Edward, understandably, had an inalterable fear that the routine of their life would one day be broken, and so he would plead everyday for Roy's understanding with his expressive, puerile eyes; feared rejection more than he feared the cold, and ever since that night with the dandruff, he had taken to asking permission for what had once been an almost daily set of occurances. He would start hesitantly - ("I know this is weird, but...") - and always left an opportunity for escape - ("...so if you don't want to, it's okay...") - but his fascination with minute details did not cease, and he still devoured every aspect of the older man's body with his eyes, his lips, his tongue.
Roy shrugged off his hesitance with typical indifference, because honestly, the very pillars of their relationship were based off of the fact that no one could really understand Edward the way he could, nor be as tolerant of the youth's quirks, and perhaps more truthfully...
Well, truthfully, Edward's incessant obsession with detail carried over to the bedroom, as well - made him both a thorough scientist and a devout lover - and it was utterly mind-blowing to be on the receiving of such ardent attention, to know that without encouragement, every aspect of his body would be noticed and adored. It wasn't an alchemist's credo, it was something that was simply Edward, and perhaps it was that that made it all the more divine.
He liked to give blowjobs, which was downright boggling - seemed to relish the feel of a cock in his mouth, and seemed inclined to memorize every aspect of it with his tongue - and was struck with the urge to give them at entirely random points during the day, including the three times he'd actually woken the older man up in the middle of the night by greedily lapping the man's penis to full attention. Oh, he liked to receive the favor, as well, and wasn't shy about voicing just whose tongue needed to go where, but he was the only one of them who seemed to honestly enjoy the task, and even perversely swallowed the whole mess when he was done, even though it seemed to make him sick. And through gratuitous practice, he was starting to become quite skilled at it, as well, skilled enough at it to make Roy come, and come hard, without any other sort of stimulation at all, and that was almost...frightening.
He didn't mind bottoming, either, though for as often as they had sex, they did occassionally have to switch. Still, Edward would relax and open up for him like Pandora's box, all damnable curiosity and pyscopathic smiles, shifting as though trying to find an angle that would make them fit, that would make them go together like two perfect pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and he was a professional at even that. He knew just how to clench in time with the thrusts, and just when to let go to slide back out, only to start all over again; would act not on instinct, as most lovers tended to do, but instead on experience, judging carefully the older man's expression, studying his face as though searching for clues. He was patient - nefarious of him, really, and uncharacteristic for a boy his age - and open for new experiences; a strangely devoted lover, someone on the outside might have said, had they not known. Utterly perfect.
Still...there was something unsettling about the entire thing.
Maybe it was in the way the blonde outsilenced him, never breaking into moans despite Roy's best efforts, instead panting softly and speaking through his obvious shaking, trembling like a kitten left out in the cold. Or perhaps it was the fact that sex seemed like more of a scientific study to Edward than any other thing, made clear through his furrowed brow and determined eyes. They, fortunately, expected nothing more out of the relationship than a quiet cohabitation - (Edward's clothes and books now strewn haphazardly over the colonel's apartment) - and mutual pleasure, but oftentimes Roy would try to curl up with the boy, or stroke his fingers through Edward's hair, and find himself disconcerted at how the blonde would always wiggle out of his grasp and turn that same attention back on him, eyes narrowed eerily in intent.
Occassionally, he would wonder if he was Edward's only gate into the human world, the only anchor into an otherwise unfathomable society; if, perhaps, the young man was simply using him, simply attempting to prove or disprove that damnable theory of 'only one alchemist can understand another', and on those days he would scowl, consider on the walk home a gentle let-down for the blonde, and remind himself sternly that it wasn't his job to assure that Edward was socially well-adjusted, but then he would step inside the door and be greeted with a warm body pressed up against his own, and mismatched arms flung around his neck, and he would think, simply, to hell with it.
After all, if an alchemist like him couldn't understand an alchemist like Edward, then what the hell was an alchemist like Edward supposed to do, anyway?
---
In all honesty, Roy kept counting down, kept waiting for the day when Edward would wake up, grin at him, broadly, and proclaim exuberantly: "I've got it!", only to sit up and get dressed, and walk out of their bedroom for the absolute last time. It was bitter of him, not to mention cruel, to think that the blonde was only spending time with him in order to puzzle out the mysteries of human interaction in an attempt to find himself a somewhat more...desireable...mate, but still, he found himself unable to stop. Edward was a scientific creature, at heart, and it would be fitting of his nature to test the waters, so to speak, before actually going out into the world and hoping to have any sort of normal human interaction.
It had honestly never occurred to him that perhaps Edward's behavior was his form of 'normal' human interaction, and that perhaps his unhesitance to expose his quirky and alchemical unbalances was simply his way of saying that, if the man would have him, that he wanted to stay.
And in that manner, fall faded away into winter.
---
"I was thinking," Edward said quietly, stretched out on the couch comfortably with his head in Roy's lap.
It was, unwittingly, the day the older alchemist had been waiting for, the day when their bizarre little affair finally came to a stop, and so he dropped his arms from the back of the couch, let out a sigh, and brushed his fingers through that burnished gold hair for the last time. "...Yes?"
'I've been thinking that we probably don't need to see each other anymore', he had been so certain that Edward was going to say, so he was rather startled when the blonde answered, instead: "I think that...we should go out to dinner someplace...okay?"
He twisted and gnawed on his lower lip and seemed downright anxious, and all Roy could do was stare at him.
"All we do is stay inside and have sex... Oh, a-and while that's great, don't get me wrong, just... Well, I've been thinking about what it was that everyone used to say to me when this first started. About how it takes one alchemist to be able to understand another."
From somewhere within himself, Roy found the ability to speak. "And...?" he croaked, a cotton-mouthed prompt and came out weaker than he would have liked it to have been, and his mouth twisted in a frown.
Edward shook his head frantically, misinterpreting the frown, and waved his hands in front of his face. "I know, I know, you said it was just a stupid myth made up by a bunch of military assholes, but... But." He took a deep breath, and his eyes were serious; solemn and grave. "Don't you think that it's sort of true? I think about how much I...I like being here, and like just...sitting with you and shit, and I think that I probably couldn't be as comfortable around...well, around anyone else, really, except my brother." A weak laugh. "But hey, it'd be kind of weird if I had sex with him, wouldn't it?"
Dry and unbidden, Roy also laughed. "Well, he's also an alchemist," he pointed out, feeling the past months' worth of tension seeping out of his frame, feeling the smile come easily to his face in the face of his newfound clarity. "I think he's better at understanding you than I am, though."
"Hey, that's not true," the blonde protested, clamboring into a sitting position. "You understand all sorts of weird shit about me - how I eat in a clockwise order around my plate, and how I'll only take showers, not baths - and...what I really appreciate...is..." He looked away, and gathered his courage. "How you don't bother me about it, how you don't annoy me by asking just why I do the things that I do, how you just sort of take it, take it at face value... It's nice." And his smile then was dazzling. "I don't think anyone else except you could do that. And that's not necessarily because you're an alchemist."
Still feeling as though he'd been hit with a sledgehammer, Roy smiled back. "So...dinner, was it? Did you have any place in mind?"
"Not...really. Anywhere's fine. I just...wanted to prove to people that just because we're alchemists, that doesn't mean that we're not normal."
"We're not," Roy said flatly, feeling his fingertips itch against his will, "but it's not important. What's important is that you are one, and that there's someone out there who'll accept for that, whether they're the same or not."
"Hmmmm."
There was a silence after that, but it was a comfortable one - (their silences always were, really, even if their situation wasn't) - and the only noise was the sound of the colonel's fingers combing through Edward's golden strands, a delicate whisper of silk on silk. Then:
"Uh... I was also thinking..."
"Yes, Fullmetal?"
Edward sat up, and wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing briskly. "That it's kind of cold in here. Jeez, it's winter, colonel! What does a guy gotta do to keep warm around here, shit?"
For a moment, Roy froze, and his gaze drifted unpleasantly to his fireplace, which he'd been meaning to remove ever since... Well, ever since 'ever', really. He looked back at Edward, who was looking at him expectantly, and thought to himself: Of course. He wouldn't understand, why a man with the title 'The Flame Alchemist' would utterly detest fire... and tapped his fingers on the edge of the couch nervously. "A-Ah, Fullmetal... I could start a fire, if you'd like, but I'd really rather not... The smoke, you see, not to mention the - "
He was cut off with Edward's hand cupping abruptly over his mouth, but the touch was gentle and the blonde's eyes were soft.
"Hey, colonel," he said, softly and reassuringly, "it's okay. I understand."
And who knew? Maybe he did. Roy smirked, and decided to quit obssessing over things so goddamned much - it was one of his bad habits as an alchemist, after all.
"Who says you need a fire to keep warm, anyway?" he teased, but the look on Edward's face was anything but teasing.
He leaned forward, and caught the older man by the jaw.
"Jeez," he said, prying the man's jaw open and peering interestedly inside, "you've got some really nice teeth, do you know that...? I've been thinking..."
"Fullmetal?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't."
Author's Notes Upon Completion: LOLFLUFF!FICWTF*SHOOTSSELFINHEAD* Anyway, this fic went for disturbing and ended up being anything but. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT PISSES ME OFF? HONESTLY? >___< It really does. I fucking lose at life. Anyway, Kyt, I'm terribly sorry that this wasn't...what you had in mind. At all. I AM A WORM. *throws self at your feet*
Title: { n o e s i s }: we are all just bound by thought and mind
Author: The Demidevimon. (devils_devotion)
Rating: Um, R. Sorry Kyt, but I think that to add graphic detailed smut sort of takes away from the theme of this. ^^;; Still, R for some sexual content and...well, just my writing in general, I guess. O.o
Genre: Why, angst, of course. >D Do I write anything else? This may turn kind of happy at the end, though, so BEWARE.
Pairing: Roy/Ed. *waits patiently to get shot by angels_resolve for writing MORE goddamned FMA!fic*
Summary: He had dated an alchemist once. It had been an exhilarating vortex of dispute and complexity.
For: kytyngurl2, of course, who gave me the idea for this. ^^;; Kyt, I like you very much, and I hope that things start looking up on your RL side, okay? ♥ Until then, just have some slightlytwisted!OTP to fill your gut. ^____^
Comments: Why yes, I DID gank the title of this story from a Gackt song! ^____^ But never fear, the title is also...eerily applicable to this fic, too. In phenomenology, noesis is an act of consciousness. "Thinking", "loving", "hating", "imagining" are all verbs applying to what minds do. This is a bizarre restatement of this fic's theme.
Music: The Beginning and the End from the Xenogears OST. Mmmmm, pretty song. It's got a vaguely eerie mystical quality to it, so. Download, and love. :P
Word Count: 5,974. Hmmmm.
He had dated an alchemist once. Once; just once. It had been an exhilarating vortex of dispute and complexity. Her name had been Helena, and she'd been known as the Dancing Doll Alchemist, due to her uncanny and often unnerving ability to manipulate strings of filament in order to create a deadly trap for an unwary enemy, or to control her many loyal minions of marionettes. Perfect for covert work, to be sure - Roy had actually met her through Hughes, who had been concerned about his multiple female conquests and lack of any serious dating - but in the end, the military hadn't had much use for Ms. Helena Fairfield after the war, and so she'd been dispatched to a recon mission near Drachma, and no one was really surprised when she never returned.
The relationship had been a short one, by all societal standards, but it had startled Roy because it had been longer than all of his other ones, and it had taken him a long time to figure out why. Helena had been an alchemist, albeit a flagging one, and with alchemy had always come...certain idiosyncracies. Helena, for example, had been utterly fascinated with movement; would watch him, ceaselessly, as he prowled around the bedroom during one of his rare restless fits, and would mimic the motion with her hands, as though she were the puppet master pulling on his strings. She'd also talk to her goddamned marionettes, in an indecipherable mutter that was annoying on a tolerable day, and downright terrifying on any other, and she always walked with her hands slightly in front of her, as though feeling for invisible wires.
Still, despite all that, the two of them would stay up early into the morning and take turns brewing the coffee with alchemy (tasted like sludge, but was just a part of who they were) and they would discuss relative theory; would discuss religion as though it were science, and laws of mass as though they were love. The coffee was terrible, but the conversation was heaven, and though she hadn't been that attractive of a woman, Roy had kept calling her, and calling her, until she'd been shipped out that one day and never came back.
He hadn't dated an alchemist since then. Female alchemists were rare in the military - Rosemary Klein and Lilith Lenore were the only two enlisted, with Rosemary being far too old for his tastes and Lilith being far too married - which was unfortunate, as that only left him with men, men who were either his age or much older, and not at all the petite beauties he preferred.
He was far more picky about the types of women that he dated, rather than their professions, so when he sat in his office on a balmy September afternoon and began to see his current companion in a whole new light, he was more than a little surprised.
---
The Edward of seventeen was far more comfortable with himself than the Edward of fifteen had ever pretended to be, and so the blonde was able to enter the office and lounge not on the couch, at a safe distance, but upon the desk, and he was able to do it with the utmost of ease.
"Hey," he started abruptly, rolling his head backwards over his shoulder, then seemed to think better of it and shrugged. His eyes, bizarrely, made Roy think of apple juice, and not of the typical fire or gold - perhaps it was because they were quiet eyes, practically liquid with their ease - and his hair was a thick citrine rope that obscured his neck from view. Strangely enough, age seemed to have given him the elegance and poise that stature could not, or perhaps it was his brother's recent restoration that had mellowed him out. Either way, he was an unsavory creature, annoying with his newfound grace, and Roy often wondered why the young man even bothered to stop by his office at all.
The first time, obviously, had been to drop off his resignation papers, and though the colonel's eyes had kept him pinned to his seat, he hadn't backed down an inch, and the older alchemist had honestly thought that they would be done with each other after that. He had tucked that silver watch away into his desk drawer, seen the almost eerie omniscence of those animal's eyes, and answered that brief quirking of lips with a smile of his own, aware of the energy crackling perceptively between them, a last tension that had hit so achingly close to home.
But Edward had come back, after a week or two, under the pretense of boredom, and though there was boredom plastered as evidence all over his miniature frame, there was still that unidentifiable tension blazing between them, as though they were the cats who were crouched only to pounce. The blonde had seemed to want something, though in an offhand way, and had loitered in Roy's office for nearly an entire day, perching on the desk and swinging his legs idly back and forth.
It was part of their ritual that they rarely spoke. Edward would enter, inquire listlessly as to what what it was Roy just happened to be doing, then take his seat on the couch or the desk or the floor, and stay silent. On occassion he would read, other times he would pace, but mostly he would just sit there, quietly, and watch - sunlit eyes would follow the track of the colonel's pen across typewritten pages, or perhaps observe the medals on the man's chest with indiscernable scrutiny - and though it was uncomfortable, in a sort of detached way, at the same time it was Edward, and so, the man didn't pay him much mind.
But it was on that balmy September day that Roy had been feeling hot and unusually prickly with the Indian summer, and so he'd opened his mouth and snapped, idly, "Stop memorizing my every godforsaken movement, Fullmetal, unless you want me to start calling you Helena", and Edward had stared. Not in shock, as he might have during his younger days, but blandly, curiously, and he quirked his eyebrow.
"Helena...?" he asked tonelessly, swinging his head away smoothly to look away from the older alchemist's face, expression thus unreadable. His rope of hair swirled almost tantalizingly as he moved.
"A woman I used to date," Roy replied stoically, returning his attention to the papers in front of him. He felt rather than saw Edward's bristle, heard the wood creak under a clenched automail hand. The unexpected reaction didn't give him much pause, as it was another thing that seemed characteristic of the blonde - inexplicable anger, though it had admittedly died down over the years. Against his will, the colonel spoke on. "She was an alchemist, though not a very good one. I think I may have looked down on her for that - she could never be as skilled as me, you see - but I ended up dating her for a long time. It was...hmmmm." He stuck the end of his pen into his mouth idly and toyed with it for a moment during the pause, sucking on it for a bit then biting down suddenly on the tip. At the clicking noise, Edward started a bit, and averted his eyes from where he'd been staring with an almost irritated huff. Roy shrugged. "It was a chemistry, I suppose, an attraction that lingered more than pulled, so to speak, and I dated her solely for nearly a month."
"Wow, a whole month," Edward responded dryly, mouth twisted down at the edges, but his expression quickly smoothed out and he went back to being simply inquisitive, eyes bizarrely intense through their placidity. "So, you only liked her because she was an alchemist? That's pretty fucked up, you know." His eyes belied his words - ever curious, shifting a bit back and forth and demanding to know more. "Did you ever tell her that?"
"Of course not," Roy murmured, returning his attention to his desk, the faint scritch of the pen at odds with his voice. "I wasn't even aware of it until she'd been shipped out, and by then it was too late."
There was no pause as Edward asked, damn near greedily: "So, she's dead?"
"Obviously," the colonel replied sardonically, though the words lacked any real bite, "otherwise I'd probably still be dating her, even now."
He could practically see the young man's ears perk up. "Was... Was it really that great, her being an alchemist? So what, you guys had something in common. That doesn't make a...a...well, anything."
The fact that he still lacked the courage to speak of adult relationships was an endearing one, and Roy quickly hid his smile. "It was an adult thing, Fullmetal," he brushed off idly, waving his hand in dismissal. "I doubt you'd understand, or be interested."
"Tell me," the blonde insisted, with sudden vehemence, spinning on the desk to half-sprawl across the stack of documents that was lying there. "I'm not a kid, you know, so just tell me what the hell makes an alchemist so special."
The circularity of the statement made the man look up in perplexion. "I should think, with you being one, that the answer should come naturally to you."
Edward snarled with a frustration that was more typical of his younger days, teeth bared and eyes flashing. "Don't be an ass," he growled, and twisted to plant both of his palms squarely on the smooth wood. "I just want to know. What kind of chemistry was it, you jackass? How come the fact that she wasn't as good as alchemy as you made her somehow more inferior to you? Why the hell do they say that only one alchemist can understand another, anyway?!" His voice was loud, at shouting pitch, and his breathing was harsh, and there seemed to be an unidentifiable anguish buried deep beneath the fury of his face.
"This has been bothering you for a long time, Fullmetal?" But there was no question in the tone of the man's voice, only a quiet acceptance.
"Everyone says it to me," the blonde murmured lowly, miserably, all ease erased now with frustration and despair. "That I hardly seem to connect with anyone except those who are well-versed in science. That my mind's too smart for anyone my age, that my persona's too complex. What the hell does that mean, colonel?!" Edward fixed him with a baleful glare, haughty in it's self-contempt. "Is it really that weird that I think the engravings on your goddamned military medals are interesting? And it's not my fault that I think the other alchemists who work for the state are a bunch of lazy self-bettering brown-nosers, you know!"
For a while, Roy was silent, and he find an ironic amusement in the fact that for everyone one breath he would take, Edward would take two. Then, without coaxing, he spoke.
"...You were studying my medals?"
Edward swiveled and looked at him, slowly. "Yeah..." he replied, with an obvious stare. "What the hell did you think I was doing?"
Roy laughed for a second, uproariously. "H-Helena, you see... She'd... She'd always stare at me, fascinated with how I m-moved... She was into puppetry, and it was her a-alchemical talent..." He broke off into a fit of snickers, shaking his head and snorting into his desk blotter, and after a moment, Edward laughed, too.
The colonel cut his laughter off abruptly, however, as he realized that only Edward would have probably gotten that joke, and his gasps quickly escalated into a coughing fit, upon which the blonde on his desk quieted down and looked at him, strangely.
"It...wasn't that, colonel," Edward said, slightly out of breath, then shook his head. "I always liked the detail on the military uniform, is all. Your office, too." He gestured around, for emphasis. "I just want to...take it apart, you know? And put it back together again." His looked turned sheepish, and irrevocably young. "I guess that is weird."
He bounced off of the desk in a graceful leap of movement, all speed and sinewy muscle, and seemed to have some color high in his cheeks. "Anyway, I'm out of here. Eh...thanks for listening to me, colonel."
He turned to walk away, but Roy half-stood, and called after him. "Fullmetal! Just...why exactly does this irritate you, anyway...?"
Edward turned, slowly, and the look he gave was pathetically dull. "Because if an alchemist like you finds it impossible to keep a date, then what the hell are the chances for an alchemist like me?"
And he left, abruptly, and shut the door, though the older alchemist had honestly opened his mouth with every intention of calling after him again.
---
In short, Roy wasn't at all surprised when Edward returned to his office not two days later, almost pyschopathic with his calm, a hint of insanity nearly peeking out of his friendly smile. Edward, hopelessly, was always going to be unbalanced - even among alchemical standards, his mind was something that was rarely understood, and even less frequently tolerated - and he himself would forever possess a disdain of the average human that also hindered his social advantage, and therefore, Roy was not at all surprised when the blonde entered his office, typically, without knocking.
"I was thinking," Edward began nonchalantly, crossing the room to lounge in his usual stance against the desk, and Roy thought, darkly, Yes, that's the problem. The young man's indifference was so feigned that it was painful. "That maybe...you and I...should spend some time together...away...from the office."
His sidelong glance at the colonel's face was wary, and the heels of his palms kneaded almost reflexively into the wood of the man's desk. Roy stared at him for a long time, flatly, but when the blonde didn't back down, he finally shrugged, gave a small smile, and stood from his chair.
"May I inquire as to the reason, Fullmetal?" he asked politely, though he could very well guess. Edward's answer spilled from the young man's stumbling lips almost in sync with how Roy had imagined them in his own head.
"W-Well, aren't assessments coming up soon...? And... And I figured we could study, or s-something... Ah, hell, I just want to talk to you, you bastard, and hear you lay your mind bare... I...realized that we didn't talk much, when I was a kid, except in insults...maybe I just want to see if you're as brilliant as you say, you j-jackass..."
All down to the letter, stuttering included, but the blonde's sudden smile was something that Roy hadn't been counting on.
"After all," Edward supplied, grinning brashly with just a touch of danger, "they do say that only one alchemist can understand another, don't they...?"
---
Understanding hadn't been the only thing he'd been longing for, Roy realized a few hours later, as both his mind and his body were laid bare under Edward's frantic and almost razoring inquisition, as hungry lips latched onto his own in what seemed to be an attempt to drink out his soul.
Or perhaps it had been...?
---
"I...was thinking," the blonde said afterwards, scooted so far on the opposite side of the bed that he was nearly in danger of falling off.
"I sometimes wish you wouldn't do that," Roy murmured quietly, and rolled to face the other way. Within minutes, he was asleep.
---
Though he'd been initially loathe of their situation - (a boy nearly half his age, taken as a lover?) - even Roy was forced to admit that, after some time...his interaction with Edward was utterly fascinating. They fed off of each other, practically, dining on one another with strange quirks and bad habits, like a pair of dancers in a particular grotesque waltz, meeting occassionally in the center with a set of moves that would wow any audience.
Edward, for example, wasn't comfortable with the bed until he'd both disassembled and reassembled the wood with his alchemy, admiring of the intricate carvings running up and down the sides of the four bedposts, and seeming to take great satisfaction from having reconstructed them so perfectly. He repeated the process with nearly the entire apartment before announcing his satisfaction, but there were still things about him...strange things, really, that oftentimes made Roy wonder.
He despised armchairs, for one, and would rather perch on the arm of the sofa or sprawl out on the floor than sit in a chair that he deemed 'confining', as though he were terrified of being impeded, and he refused to sit with his back to any sort of large window, as though he were afraid of being attacked. His fingers would draw out all sorts of alchemy circles on any available surface if he was bored, and he'd often steeple and spread his hands in a clapping motion when he launched into a lecture on alchemical theory in a gesture that was reminiscent of prayer, though it was something one never pointed out. He would often walk around mumbling to himself, as well, though it was a habit frequented by many alchemists, and thus, Roy wasn't horribly disturbed by it. There were other things that Edward did that were far more bizarre, and honestly, they were mostly things that he would do during sex, which was even more odd.
Perhaps it stemmed from from his extensive research performed in order to ressurect his mother, but the blonde had a fascination with the human body that was unparaelleled, and he had no qualms about making it evident.
For example.
"H...Hey," Edward remarked, face flushed and cock hard, but brows furrowed in a way that had nothing to do with desire. "T-Turn over, would you...? There's something I want to see." His hands moved up and down the man's back, fingers ticklish and tentatively explorative, but there was something almost scientific about his focused expression, and it was...alarming.
Roy, far more concerned with the job of thrusting, of keeping the momentum moving forward, could only fix the blonde with a dubious look and shake his head, letting out a groan and grabbing his companion's erection in the hopes to distract the younger man.
It worked, momentarily, but Edward seemed almost sulky as he came - and damn him for managing to make that the sexiest goddamned expression in the goddamned universe - and he stayed tense even afterward, hands fisted even after Roy had pulled out and flopped back down onto the bed, legs still jutting obnoxiously up into the air, and he let out a sort of grumbling sigh.
"I never noticed that you had a dimple on your spine," he remarked, rather peevish, then rolled onto his side. "Let me see."
Pleasantly drained (where the hell did that kid get his energy, anyway?), Roy wasn't in too much of a position to complain, so he flipped over with a satisfied sigh, subjecting himself to scrutiny.
It was then that he noted, rather belatedly, that Edward's fascination with the human body only pertained to the male body; that he had studied the female anatomy so extensively such that it had become such a scientific and unappealing thing, in it's own right, and that was why he had found himself so socially awkward around women, mild alchemical insanity or no. It was fundamentally impossible for him to be attracted to something he had studied so scientifically, but it wasn't impossible for him to study something that he was honestly attracted to, as was evident by his roaming hands, and the knowledge was something of a comfort, as opposed to a cause for alarm.
The blonde's fascination with the male structure stemmed most blatantly from comparison, from the fact that he'd never been able to judge and view the male development from other youths his age, because he was never good at interacting with other youths his age, and so he'd found himself at a rather uncomfortable standstill. It was in his nature to study - he was an alchemist, after all, and the ones who had been crazy enough to attempt human transmutation weren't the most grounded of people to begin with - and honestly, Roy could handle being treated like a research specimen, so long as Edward didn't stop doing...that.
'That' being a vigorous massage, one that was smooth and relentless, with just enough pressure to be painful, the way he liked it. He let his eyes sink closed, and tried his best to follow Edward's factual murmurs, but it was rather difficult in the face of his satiation.
"You've got really broad shoulders, but the blades stick out a lot," the teen was saying lowly, voice somehow thrumming in time with the strokes of his fingers, working vigorously in an attempt to explore rather than please, though Roy couldn't honestly say that he minded. "I can also see your ribs when you breathe, and your hips are too narrow. You really should be taking better care of yourself, colonel," the blonde tacked on at the end idly, combing flesh fingers through dark hair before pausing, briefly. "Looks like you're starting to get some dandruff, too."
Roy scowled. "Get off of me, Fullmetal."
"Oh, don't get pissy," Edward muttered, fingering a jagged scar with obvious interest. "Hey, how did you get this?"
Hardly placated, the older alchemist shifted around irritably as he answered. "A careless mistake. I altered the oxygen content of the building I was destroying by too many degrees, and the entire thing collapsed in on me. Most of my scars are from that accident, actually. The one you've got your finger one was from a falling beam." He tried to lift his legs in an attempt to buck Edward off, but his efforts were fruitless and the blonde didn't notice.
"Hunh." Edward caught his fidgeting, and smacked him carelessly upside the back of his head. "Quit resisting just because I said you had dandruff, you moron. There's a shampoo that'll take care of that, you know, all you have to do is buy it - "
"Would you stop bringing that up?" Roy hissed, aware that he was acting childish, but unable to hide it. The brat was so clinical about everything, without any tact at all! On most days it was just a part of his nature, but today it was irritating, and it needed to stop.
Edward huffed, but slid off of him without another comment, rolling himself up in the bedsheets and retreating to his usual edge of the bed, eyes watchful and wary with the light of the moon shining through the window. "Say..."
"What?" the older alchemist groaned, exasperated, rolling around to face the blonde with an irritated expression on his face. For a moment, Edward looked honestly cowed - 'maybe you really don't understand' written all over his face - and Roy instead felt like a jackass. He moderated his words and his tone. "I'm sorry, Fullmetal; what was it you were going to say?"
"I...just wanted to say that you've got a really...fascinating...body," the youth answered, lowly, and though he looked out cautiously from under the cover of his bangs, he didn't look away.
"'Fascinating'." Roy snorted out a laugh, but good-naturedly. "Leave it to you to tell me in the most offhand way that I'm attractive." And he smirked, to show that all was forgiven - (though he was still sore about that 'dandruff' comment, compliments or no) - and hesitantly, Edward grinned back.
"I was thinking," he started, but a finger on his lips effectively shut him up.
"Put that thought on hold," the colonel instructed amiably, words elongated by an ungraceful yawn. "For now, let's just go to sleep."
Edward's grin melted away into doubt, but at least he nodded. "All right," he agreed solemnly, but instead of retreating back into his usual corner to sleep, he curled up tight against Roy's back, and didn't seem to want to let go.
---
Edward, understandably, had an inalterable fear that the routine of their life would one day be broken, and so he would plead everyday for Roy's understanding with his expressive, puerile eyes; feared rejection more than he feared the cold, and ever since that night with the dandruff, he had taken to asking permission for what had once been an almost daily set of occurances. He would start hesitantly - ("I know this is weird, but...") - and always left an opportunity for escape - ("...so if you don't want to, it's okay...") - but his fascination with minute details did not cease, and he still devoured every aspect of the older man's body with his eyes, his lips, his tongue.
Roy shrugged off his hesitance with typical indifference, because honestly, the very pillars of their relationship were based off of the fact that no one could really understand Edward the way he could, nor be as tolerant of the youth's quirks, and perhaps more truthfully...
Well, truthfully, Edward's incessant obsession with detail carried over to the bedroom, as well - made him both a thorough scientist and a devout lover - and it was utterly mind-blowing to be on the receiving of such ardent attention, to know that without encouragement, every aspect of his body would be noticed and adored. It wasn't an alchemist's credo, it was something that was simply Edward, and perhaps it was that that made it all the more divine.
He liked to give blowjobs, which was downright boggling - seemed to relish the feel of a cock in his mouth, and seemed inclined to memorize every aspect of it with his tongue - and was struck with the urge to give them at entirely random points during the day, including the three times he'd actually woken the older man up in the middle of the night by greedily lapping the man's penis to full attention. Oh, he liked to receive the favor, as well, and wasn't shy about voicing just whose tongue needed to go where, but he was the only one of them who seemed to honestly enjoy the task, and even perversely swallowed the whole mess when he was done, even though it seemed to make him sick. And through gratuitous practice, he was starting to become quite skilled at it, as well, skilled enough at it to make Roy come, and come hard, without any other sort of stimulation at all, and that was almost...frightening.
He didn't mind bottoming, either, though for as often as they had sex, they did occassionally have to switch. Still, Edward would relax and open up for him like Pandora's box, all damnable curiosity and pyscopathic smiles, shifting as though trying to find an angle that would make them fit, that would make them go together like two perfect pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and he was a professional at even that. He knew just how to clench in time with the thrusts, and just when to let go to slide back out, only to start all over again; would act not on instinct, as most lovers tended to do, but instead on experience, judging carefully the older man's expression, studying his face as though searching for clues. He was patient - nefarious of him, really, and uncharacteristic for a boy his age - and open for new experiences; a strangely devoted lover, someone on the outside might have said, had they not known. Utterly perfect.
Still...there was something unsettling about the entire thing.
Maybe it was in the way the blonde outsilenced him, never breaking into moans despite Roy's best efforts, instead panting softly and speaking through his obvious shaking, trembling like a kitten left out in the cold. Or perhaps it was the fact that sex seemed like more of a scientific study to Edward than any other thing, made clear through his furrowed brow and determined eyes. They, fortunately, expected nothing more out of the relationship than a quiet cohabitation - (Edward's clothes and books now strewn haphazardly over the colonel's apartment) - and mutual pleasure, but oftentimes Roy would try to curl up with the boy, or stroke his fingers through Edward's hair, and find himself disconcerted at how the blonde would always wiggle out of his grasp and turn that same attention back on him, eyes narrowed eerily in intent.
Occassionally, he would wonder if he was Edward's only gate into the human world, the only anchor into an otherwise unfathomable society; if, perhaps, the young man was simply using him, simply attempting to prove or disprove that damnable theory of 'only one alchemist can understand another', and on those days he would scowl, consider on the walk home a gentle let-down for the blonde, and remind himself sternly that it wasn't his job to assure that Edward was socially well-adjusted, but then he would step inside the door and be greeted with a warm body pressed up against his own, and mismatched arms flung around his neck, and he would think, simply, to hell with it.
After all, if an alchemist like him couldn't understand an alchemist like Edward, then what the hell was an alchemist like Edward supposed to do, anyway?
---
In all honesty, Roy kept counting down, kept waiting for the day when Edward would wake up, grin at him, broadly, and proclaim exuberantly: "I've got it!", only to sit up and get dressed, and walk out of their bedroom for the absolute last time. It was bitter of him, not to mention cruel, to think that the blonde was only spending time with him in order to puzzle out the mysteries of human interaction in an attempt to find himself a somewhat more...desireable...mate, but still, he found himself unable to stop. Edward was a scientific creature, at heart, and it would be fitting of his nature to test the waters, so to speak, before actually going out into the world and hoping to have any sort of normal human interaction.
It had honestly never occurred to him that perhaps Edward's behavior was his form of 'normal' human interaction, and that perhaps his unhesitance to expose his quirky and alchemical unbalances was simply his way of saying that, if the man would have him, that he wanted to stay.
And in that manner, fall faded away into winter.
---
"I was thinking," Edward said quietly, stretched out on the couch comfortably with his head in Roy's lap.
It was, unwittingly, the day the older alchemist had been waiting for, the day when their bizarre little affair finally came to a stop, and so he dropped his arms from the back of the couch, let out a sigh, and brushed his fingers through that burnished gold hair for the last time. "...Yes?"
'I've been thinking that we probably don't need to see each other anymore', he had been so certain that Edward was going to say, so he was rather startled when the blonde answered, instead: "I think that...we should go out to dinner someplace...okay?"
He twisted and gnawed on his lower lip and seemed downright anxious, and all Roy could do was stare at him.
"All we do is stay inside and have sex... Oh, a-and while that's great, don't get me wrong, just... Well, I've been thinking about what it was that everyone used to say to me when this first started. About how it takes one alchemist to be able to understand another."
From somewhere within himself, Roy found the ability to speak. "And...?" he croaked, a cotton-mouthed prompt and came out weaker than he would have liked it to have been, and his mouth twisted in a frown.
Edward shook his head frantically, misinterpreting the frown, and waved his hands in front of his face. "I know, I know, you said it was just a stupid myth made up by a bunch of military assholes, but... But." He took a deep breath, and his eyes were serious; solemn and grave. "Don't you think that it's sort of true? I think about how much I...I like being here, and like just...sitting with you and shit, and I think that I probably couldn't be as comfortable around...well, around anyone else, really, except my brother." A weak laugh. "But hey, it'd be kind of weird if I had sex with him, wouldn't it?"
Dry and unbidden, Roy also laughed. "Well, he's also an alchemist," he pointed out, feeling the past months' worth of tension seeping out of his frame, feeling the smile come easily to his face in the face of his newfound clarity. "I think he's better at understanding you than I am, though."
"Hey, that's not true," the blonde protested, clamboring into a sitting position. "You understand all sorts of weird shit about me - how I eat in a clockwise order around my plate, and how I'll only take showers, not baths - and...what I really appreciate...is..." He looked away, and gathered his courage. "How you don't bother me about it, how you don't annoy me by asking just why I do the things that I do, how you just sort of take it, take it at face value... It's nice." And his smile then was dazzling. "I don't think anyone else except you could do that. And that's not necessarily because you're an alchemist."
Still feeling as though he'd been hit with a sledgehammer, Roy smiled back. "So...dinner, was it? Did you have any place in mind?"
"Not...really. Anywhere's fine. I just...wanted to prove to people that just because we're alchemists, that doesn't mean that we're not normal."
"We're not," Roy said flatly, feeling his fingertips itch against his will, "but it's not important. What's important is that you are one, and that there's someone out there who'll accept for that, whether they're the same or not."
"Hmmmm."
There was a silence after that, but it was a comfortable one - (their silences always were, really, even if their situation wasn't) - and the only noise was the sound of the colonel's fingers combing through Edward's golden strands, a delicate whisper of silk on silk. Then:
"Uh... I was also thinking..."
"Yes, Fullmetal?"
Edward sat up, and wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing briskly. "That it's kind of cold in here. Jeez, it's winter, colonel! What does a guy gotta do to keep warm around here, shit?"
For a moment, Roy froze, and his gaze drifted unpleasantly to his fireplace, which he'd been meaning to remove ever since... Well, ever since 'ever', really. He looked back at Edward, who was looking at him expectantly, and thought to himself: Of course. He wouldn't understand, why a man with the title 'The Flame Alchemist' would utterly detest fire... and tapped his fingers on the edge of the couch nervously. "A-Ah, Fullmetal... I could start a fire, if you'd like, but I'd really rather not... The smoke, you see, not to mention the - "
He was cut off with Edward's hand cupping abruptly over his mouth, but the touch was gentle and the blonde's eyes were soft.
"Hey, colonel," he said, softly and reassuringly, "it's okay. I understand."
And who knew? Maybe he did. Roy smirked, and decided to quit obssessing over things so goddamned much - it was one of his bad habits as an alchemist, after all.
"Who says you need a fire to keep warm, anyway?" he teased, but the look on Edward's face was anything but teasing.
He leaned forward, and caught the older man by the jaw.
"Jeez," he said, prying the man's jaw open and peering interestedly inside, "you've got some really nice teeth, do you know that...? I've been thinking..."
"Fullmetal?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't."
Author's Notes Upon Completion: LOLFLUFF!FICWTF*SHOOTSSELFINHEAD* Anyway, this fic went for disturbing and ended up being anything but. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT PISSES ME OFF? HONESTLY? >___< It really does. I fucking lose at life. Anyway, Kyt, I'm terribly sorry that this wasn't...what you had in mind. At all. I AM A WORM. *throws self at your feet*