Production #3479, [FMA]: "Metamorphose, part 2" (Elricest)
THE ENTIRE WORD COUNT FOR "METAMORPHOSE" IS 19,750 WORDS. KALTIA, I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY.
Title: ::: M E T A M O R P H O S E ::: - (pleased with his idol, he commends, admires) [part two]
Author: Demidevi, momentarily renamed "Kaltia's Fanfic Bitch"
Rating: NC-17. Since I kind of failed on the porn the last time, WATCH ME DO IT AGAIN. XD;; Hopefully it'll be...I dunno, something this time. Hotter. More descriptive. SOMETHING. Consensual? ^^;;
Genre: The more I think about it, the more this isn't really...angst. O.o It's just WTF?. Oh well, I'll just classify it as angst, anyway, angst with a happy ending and blinding mythological references. *ABUSES GREEK POETRY LIKE WOAH, AHHAHAHAH*
Pairing: Elricest. But I like to think that I win because I write it as Ed/Al. :P I actually think I kind of have a kink for Elricest with seme!Ed. Hmmmm. *ponders*
Summary: There were no ramifications, and there were no regrets, but there didn't seem to be any endearments, either, any promises or sentiments, instead only a solemn acceptance and the noise of the rain, splashing slowly onto their exposed skin.
For: kaltia. Kaltia, don't worry about giving me monetary compensation for writing this, honestly. ^^;; I might've complained to you ceaselessly about it over AIM, but it's just my way of coping with the insane workload. If I had honestly disliked doing it, then I wouldn't have DONE it, believe me. *loves on*
Comments: Mmmm, mostly the same as the first part. AU "Ed restores his brother with the Phil. Stone"! kind of fic, complete with...weird metaphysics and the Pygmalion complex. JESUS CHRIST, I LOSE AT ALL. Also, this part is considerably shorter than the first. ^^;; Don't ask me why, I don't know, either. And features a considerable amount of Roy, too, which is irksome because...this is an Elricest fic. FUCK. >___< Oh, well. He wouldn't stop pestering me about Ed's dubious lack of morals, so he insisted that he be in this fic to straighten the little shorty out.
Music: Don't feel like uploading anything. Check my LJ, as I did a massive music uploading post (MMUP) about four days ago, so the YSI files should still be good. NAB YER MUSIC THERE, YA SPOONS. :P
(::: M E T A M O R P H O S E ::: (pygmalion, loathing their lascvicious life) - [part one] )
10:416 Pygmalion off'ring, first approach'd the shrine,
10:417 And then with pray'rs implor'd the Pow'rs divine:
10:418 Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want,
10:419 If all we can require, be yours to grant;
10:420 Make this fair statue mine, he wou'd have said,
10:421 But chang'd his words for shame; and only pray'd,
10:422 Give me the likeness of my iv'ry maid.
---
In a strange twist of natural bane, the sunlight outside quickly turned to rain, and the two of them, lying naked and still on the exposed edge of a crumbling pew, remained shivering and awake, marveling at the sensation.
There were no ramifications, and there were no regrets, but there didn't seem to be any endearments, either, any promises or sentiments, instead only a solemn acceptance and the noise of the rain, splashing slowly onto their exposed skin. They lay there, quietly, and kept each other warm, but didn't speak of that other heat, of the one that could have fueled a thousand fires and set their nerves to flight, sent the birds soaring from their rafters and kept the sun from growing weak. It seemed strange to speak of it, and somehow ominous, as though the words would shatter their one and only moment of utter omniscence; run a crack down the crystal fault lines of their fraternity, and so, they stayed silent.
For a fact, with the tension in his belly uncoiled like a slithering snake and the itch of his arousal achingly ebbed, even Edward could hardly call it anything more than a fluke; could write off his wandering hands and intrusive cock as nothing more than an act to counterbalance their time spent apart, yet a part of him locked his eyes intently onto the line of his brother's long neck and shapely torso, and wanted to do the entire thing all over again. He could make it better, he knew; could do things to his brother's body even Al probably wouldn't have known he'd wanted, could nip and scratch and dig dents into that body that would be absolutely delightful, if only the other blonde would let him.
But Al lay trusting and faithful in his arms, shaking significantly from the cold and staring with wonderment at his trembling fingertips, and Edward felt himself flush from shame. He'd meant to restore his brother with the purest intent, but the act of restoration itself - (stroking, sucking, sculpting, to the utmost form and fancy) - had soured his intentions somewhat, laid to waste his vision of a peaceful fraternity, and he wondered if the form of that armor hadn't been a part of nature's cruel joke, to save his brother's darling soul from the filthy tangibility of the outside. Al, perfect in mind, was now perfect in body, and Edward...
Well, Edward was pleased with himself, for having made his brother that way.
He heard his brother's heartbeat in his head, and saw the pulsing crimson glow of that heart when he closed his eyes. He saw muscles and veins in perfect diagram, bones bent to an almost elegant degree, as to-the-letter as any alchemical array, the breathing portrait of the flawless man, and disgustingly, the blonde felt his cock begin to stir from it's slumber yet again.
And isn't that appropriate? That the sculptor would fall hopelessly in love with his prize!
"A-Al," he panted suddenly, trying to sit up, "l-let's go somewhere where we're o-out of the rain."
---
He was loathe to do it, but he honestly couldn't think of any place to go but the colonel's house, no other place nearby to run to. He took the back alleys - (Al riding piggyback on his shoulders because his newborn legs hadn't yet been able to take the weight, red coat draped over them both) - and crouched low in the shadows, darting from alley to alley in a dead run. Al kept his face buried into his brother's shoulder, to obscure his features, and Edward followed the sidewalks out of instinct, unsure of where he was going. The man would be home, he knew, since the colonel had the habit of punching out early during rainy days, and he knocked on that broad oak door with resignation, steeling himself for an endless bout of accusations and inquisitions.
Mustang opened the door, and his eyes widened instantly in shock and surprise. "F...Fullmetal."
The expression on the man's face wasn't of curiosity or contempt, it was one of relief, of profound relief, and he clutched the side of the doorframe as a sort of support, breath coming in harried gasps. He stepped forward for a moment, stumbling with an arm half outstretched, but stopped when he saw the burden the blonde carried on his shoulder, and backpedaled warily in a flash.
Al lifted his face and smiled.
"Al... Alphonse?"
Now the colonel seemed conflicted; now he shook his head as though in denial and played out on his face the destruction and all-around disappearance of the city of New Optain, and he swallowed hard, as though he were going to be sick; but at the same time, there was a contradictory gladness to his eyes, and an unmistakeable hitch to his voice as he breathed out, a second time: "Alphonse." He stretched out a hand as though to touch, as though to confirm with his senses that the vision before his eyes was real, but the elder Elric took a sudden step back, snarling soundlessly, and the man narrowed his eyes perceptively, looking closely for a cause of reaction.
Edward shifted uncomfortably at Mustang's stare, and had actually taken half of a step back before he caught himself and took a step forward, impatiently. "Hey, can we come in, or what? It's freezing out here, and the two of us have had a long day, in case you couldn't tell."
Mustang started, and looked at him, unreadably, though he did move from the door to let the two of them in. "And an even longer story to tell," he added significantly, eyes growing as black and as deep as obsidian.
Edward, marching past him from the door into the warmth of the foyer, deigned not to answer.
---
They dressed his brother in an oversized button-down shirt and a pair of baggy cotton boxers, then sprawled in the living room around the fire in an uncomfortable silence, painfully aware of the others' presences. Edward watched in fascination at his brother's fingers drumming nervously on the throw rug on the floor, Al cast anxious glances in the direction of the colonel's face, and Roy himself sat stiff and upright in his chair, staring darkly into the fire.
After a while, Edward stretched out on the floor, and lowered his chin to the carpet, eyes following the other blonde's fingers tapping rhythmically in front of his face, then let out a sigh and closed his eyes. Behind his lids, he saw the bones working, saw ligaments and muscle coiling and unfurling in a delicate dance of motion, blood rushing by the veins in a thunderous applause, and he recalled the digits soft and rolling in his mouth, slightly salty underneath of his tongue. He saw his brother's face, saw the muscles relax and contract as he sighed in pleasure, saw the angle and dip of those golden brows, the parting of those peach-petal lips...and he couldn't get that heat out of his head, especially when he was sitting so close to that goddamned fire.
Edward sat up, suddenly, and caught the colonel staring at Al, and turning slightly to stare at him, all slight fascination and perplexion, and the blonde growled, wordlessly, and slid forward to wrap his arms possessively around his brother, who was wiggling his toes in front of the fire, enthralled by the feeling of warmth that inevitably followed.
Al started, and looked at the elder Elric in confusion. "Brother...? Come on, don't be so clingy..." He crimsoned, and tried to wriggle free, and even at that simple movement, Edward stared at his shoulders, captivated by the capability of the muscle. "We're still wet, and dirty, to boot - "
Almost entirely against his will, Edward nuzzled his cheek against his brother's back, feeling the stretch and pull of the skin against his lips, and would have protested, but Mustang was watching them, carefully - in...in an entirely different light, and the blonde sat up hastily; backed away. "A b-bath, then," he suggested lightly, shrugging and proud that he hardly stuttered, "let's take a bath. Is that okay, colonel?" he asked belatedly, a sneer in his words and an inflection to his tone, mouth curling unpleasantly at the man's presence in what should have been a private moment in their lives.
Mustang stared at him, for an impossibly long time, and smiled not at him, but at Al. "Certainly. The tub's definitely large enough for two, especially since Fullmetal's so - "
"Don't you dare say it!" Edward howled, leaping to his feet with his fists swinging, but Al caught his legs, shouting out something that sounded like an exasperated plea, and the two of them fell to the floor with an almighty crash. The colonel looked at them, amused but still a little worried, and still a little uncertain, and shook his head.
"You two wait here," he said quietly, a smile on his face but solemnity in his eyes, "and I'll go upstairs and draw the bath. I daresay two towels should suffice...Fullmetal?" he asked at the end, and something in his face seemed to harden at Edward's answering nod.
He disappeared into the shadow of the stairs, and honestly, Edward found that he couldn't relax until after the man had gone.
---
Mustang caught his arm just as he'd been about to enter the bathroom after his brother, eyes dark and burning with a small amount of indignation, and an unfathomable amount of intent.
"Only children and fools speak the truth, Fullmetal," he whispered lowly, face half-hidden by the shadow of the hallway, and half-illuminated from the light of the bathroom. "Just what did you do to your brother?"
And Edward, quiet and calm, with an implacity to his tone and an evenness to his eyes, simply replied: "I gave him the life that he wanted...and the body that he deserved."
---
Bathing had never been such an intriguing experience before.
Edward lowered his hand into the whirlpool tub - arrogant bastard didn't need a tub that big if it was only for himself, dammit! - and felt the steam curling against his forearm, felt the water slosh up to his elbow. It was hot, scaldingly hot, and he glowered through the floor towards the direction of the colonel, who had undoubtedly made it that way.
"Fuck you, you aging prick," he muttered, and clapped his hands.
With the water cooled to his satisfaction, he settled against the edge of the tub, until his legs were lifted completely off of the ground, and held out his arms for his brother. "C'mere, Al."
The taller blonde started, and took a step forward with hesitation. He was still awkward on his feet, still unused to his own weight, and Edward watched with worry as he clutched the sink, and tried his hardest not to fall. "Y-You... You want to take a bath together?" he asked dubiously, picking at the edge of his borrowed shirt, and the elder Elric closed his eyes to the feeling of those nails, blunt and square and shaped to satisfaction, scratching desperately down his sides.
"What's so weird about that?" Edward parried in response, opening his eyes and quirking his brow; lowering his hands, slowly. Irrationally, some part of his soul screamed out in panic, in the fear that he had just committed another inalterable sin, but he quelled the thought with effort, and fixed upon his face a smile. "It's your first bath since...since a long while," he pointed out, feeling his smile falter for a fraction of a second, "and it'd be nice if I could share it with you...you know?"
"I...guess," Al relented after a moment, eyes still doubtful, and though his words were aquiescence, his actions spoke of a hesitance to move, and Edward stood hurriedly, deciding to take initiative.
"Here, if it makes it easier - " He raised his shirt over his head, feeling it slip past his tangled and unbound hair - "I'll go first."
He disliked having to expose his marred and martyred skin to the face of his brother's perfection, but knew intrinsically that despite all of his faults, Al would still think him beautiful - curious comparison, that - and so he inhaled, sharply, and shuddered; dropped his hands to the leather of his double belt.
"Let - " Al started, and crimsoned noticeably at having said it, but plowed on bravely despite his discomfort - "Let me. Okay?" His throat worked convulsively, and his hands wrung together out of nervous habit, and his eyes, fuck, his eyes - they wavered and worried in a way that those goddamned lantern lights never could have - and Edward let out a breath.
"By all means," he conceded, and spread his arms out to his sides.
He wasn't very surprised when Al stumbled up to him and started hesitantly to touch, to forgo the act of undress in favor of investigation, fingers shaking and a bit cold, smooth as a statue's and receptive to boot, thin and almost brittle in their longevity.
His hands fell first upon his brother's face, fluttering and awkward like the wings of a bird, shadowing under the chin and cheekbones, stroking along the jaw, eventually coming to cup the sides and thumb the hollow underneath of closed eyelids, brushing the lashes and depths with equal interest, touch quick and strangely ignitive. It was an unintended imitation of Edward's earlier behavior, and honestly, it was absurdly erotic - ironic, as well, and the shorter blonde smiled through his sigh.
There was a bit of uncertainty as the younger Elric stroked his fingers down the elder's chest; the slightest bit of hesitance, and shame, in those amber eyes as he moved, but Edward smiled, drowsily, and tilted his head back, purposefully revealing to his brother his vulnerability. It was an invitation that Al took, slowly, fingers growing bolder and breaths growing short, and both of their eyes watched his fingers as they traveled along their iniquitous path, even if one of them focused more on arousal, and the other on art. Al seemed to both curse and be curious of the automail, expression souring even as he delicately handled the wires, frowning even as he fingered the catch, but at his brother's obvious discomfort he started, murmured an apology with abjection in his eyes, and dutifully went back to marveling at touch.
He seemed particularly fascinated by Edward's scars, though he had been witness to the birth of many of them, and traced their ridged lengths with a reluctant finger, lowering his head to breathe resplendently over their majority, expression regretful yet eerily reverent, as though his brother had been reborn as the lord of war. He hovered close with his body, close enough to warm with his breath, but touched only with his fingertips, stroked only with his thumbs; he murmured under his breath, words too low to catch, and hummed out satisfaction when the shorter blonde would respond, whether it was with instinctive grip or unabashed groan.
It was it's own sort of idol worship, in a way, and Edward found himself wondering, dizzily, as the small of his back was rubbed and one of his calves was toed: Is this... Is this what he feels, too?
"It feels so different from me," Al murmured in fascination, and as though on cue, eyes wide but by no means innocent, almost carnal with his curiosity, with his unshakeable urge to explore, and Edward stood, spread his arms and spread his legs, unsteadily, and offered himself up in obvious invitation.
"It's different because I've sinned, Al," he whispered in return, and shut his eyes to the world, shut his instinct off from ethics. "This is a sinner's body, all metal and marks and mutilation. For you, who lived your life free of fault; a body of perfection, and without peer, was the least I could do for you."
"Or maybe it's just different because people are different, Brother," Al chided him, mockingly reproving, and lowered his face to his brother's neck. "It doesn't make you any less perfect."
The bite that followed was a pleasant thrill, a stinging shock that started from Edward's pulse and tingled straight down to his heart, pumping out with the blood to every other appendage of his body; twitching through his fingertips, curling down to his toes. He shuddered at the thought of those perfect pearls of teeth clamping down on his uneven skin, cutting canyons with their edges and marking their passage with his blood, and he arched up into the feel of it. "Harder."
It was as though some magic compelled the two of them; without inquisition, Al tangled his fingers in his brother's hair and yanked it off to the side, exposing the tendons of the other's neck, and he bit down again, significantly rougher than the first time, and made a strange little noise out of the corner of his mouth. Edward sighed, and tilted his head - offered himself at a better angle - and pulled his brother intrusively close.
"Harder," he ordered again, in a low gasp, fascinated by the frantic flaring of Al's nostrils, enthralled with the almost eerie abandon of the other blonde's eyes, and stroked his hands possessively over the curve of an arched back. "Harder, I said! Make me yours."
He bucked his hips forward unintentionally as Al did it again, bit into his neck as though it was the skin of a pear, and rubbed himself obsessively over every inch of his brother's body, feeling the buttons of that oversized dress shirt scratch teasingly against his nipples, felt the hard press of...something...against the inner edge of his thigh. And Al was breathing, breathing hard into the skin just underneath his ear, and his heartbeat was almost obnoxious from underneath the skin of his chest, and it was something Edward hadn't heard since they were children, and he took a stumbling step backward, his brother in his arms; backwards, back -
He was thoroughly startled when both he and Alphonse fell head-over-heels into the bathtub.
And just like that, the spell was broken.
"A-Agh!" Al cried in dismay, holding his arms out to the side and looking down at the soapy mess of shirt that hung drippingly off of his skin, wringing it out in rivulets and pushing his soaked bangs out of his eyes, color high but gaze kept low, staring as though there were something of great fascination in the depths of that whirlpool tub. "C-Can you believe...? Oh, jeez..."
He didn't look at his brother as he began to unbutton his shirt, but Edward looked at him, all smooth skin and healthy flush; watched the way his shoulders pulled as he shrugged his arms out of that shirt and tossed it sloppily onto the edge of the tub, watched the way his back twisted as he stepped awkwardly out of those boxers, observed with agonizing memorization the line of Al's body as the blonde slid the rest of the length down into the tub, chin touching the surface of the water, and saw those coin-colored eyes looking up at him, uncomfortably.
('What happened? Brother, what happened? Where did everyone in the city go?' he heard in his head again, and nearly choked aloud with the pain.)
They looked at each other, briefly - Al turned away, breath let out in a shuddering sigh - and the mistrust was so evident, evident in his gestures and in his gaze - and Edward shrugged, feeling an impossible stabbing sensation slice through his heart, before slipping out of his own pants and settling down into the lukewarm water.
They sat there, for a while, facing off, and the taller blonde would always quail before the insatiable gaze of the shorter, always color and resume his observation of the water, and eventually drew his knees up to his chest into an involuntary act of protection. It was that instinctive concealment, honestly, that truly irritated Edward, at his core - (why, why the hell are you hiding from me?! his mind screamed out, in volatile abandon) - and he slid forward a bit, ever-wary of Al's uncertain eyes. "Hey," he said softly, and lifted his arms. "Come here."
The younger Elric didn't move, but some of the tension went out of his frame, and for that moment, he returned to what he was meant to be, a set of soft lines immortalized in wax; he finally moved from his stiff stature, and raked his soggy bangs out of his eyes. "Wh... Why?"
Why? Does he even have to ask?
"I'll...I'll wash your back for you," Edward suggested, shrugging with his arms still stretched out, a sort of tame desperation evident in both his words and his gaze, and he rolled the skin of his lower lip past his teeth with unnatural fear. He half-stood, surging forward, but stopped at his brother's unwitting recoil, and let the hurt on his face stand as evidence enough. "C-Come on, Al... Just... Just trust me, okay...? I'd never..."
But it was a lie; a dirty, damnable lie, because he would - could, had, and even believed that he should - and against his will, his arms began to shake, and the water began to drip off of them like tears. "I..."
And Al seemed to shrink into himself, seemed to curl up around himself like a cat, to retreat into the shell of his shapely arms like a tortoise, all innocent eyes staring out from behind their depths, and when he spoke, his voice was shaking, and impossibly small.
"You won't?" he asked, and there was something puzzling in his tone, something unexplainable in his eyes.
Edward swallowed, and wanted to say that no, he wouldn't, wouldn't ever dream of it, but the words dried up in his throat and what came out instead, was, "Not if you don't want me to."
And Al, impossibly, relaxed. He unfurled his arms, he uncoiled his legs, and he put his body uncertainly on display, flushing hard but keeping his eyes at a level with his brother's own, all asquiescence and slight shame. He slid forward boldly, but paused in mid-movement, gripping his hands on the edge of the tub with fingers that were covered with a soap that looked more like sweat. "Brother..."
Edward started, aware of the fact that he'd been staring, that his eyes had dropped devouringly between those lengthy legs, and blinked rapidly in apology. "Yeah?"
Al cleared his throat - trachea humming, Adam's apple bobbing - and gestured down at himself with a wet hand, eyes fluttering up towards the ceiling in unreserved awkwardness. "W-Would you...if the offer still stands, th-that is...maybe...want to...wash my back...?" he proposed quietly, and Edward stared at him, stared at him for a long time, wondering crazily if it was some sort of carefully-constructed trap, a snare for him to carelessly crash into.
('If you give a crap at all about this hulking heap of a brother, Shorty, then you'll do as we say and draw the goddamned array!')
But his fascination eventually won out over his fear, and he nodded, plastering a cheap smile onto his face and getting away with it. "E-Eh, sure."
He held out his arms, and Al floated willingly into them, still uncomfortable from the obvious set of his shoulders but willing to let it slide, all long limbs and elegant muscle, and Edward felt his heart speed up unwittingly from its cage in his chest. Though it was more than likely forbidden, and most definitely feared, he lowered his head close and breathed worshipfully of his brother's skin, smelling soap yet still smelling that unexplainable stone, though perhaps it wasn't such an unexplainable Stone, after all.
Edward sighed, and moved his hands.
He washed first his brother’s shoulders, starting slowly and somewhere safe, and practically salivated at the way at the way the soap slid down his brother’s skin, all circular and clean. He washed gently, with the utmost of care, and kept his eyes tracked on those flexing muscles, watched with attention the dust scrape off of that skin.
He rinsed, and after a fashion slid his hands downward to Al’s sculpted chest, but still bathed those shoulders with his tongue, licking sensually and succinctly, closing his eyes to the sight and tasting only the soap, tasting only the slight salt and inerasable clay of skin. And Al, understandably, was responsive; squirmed a bit, and shuddered under his attentions, and let out noises somewhere between half a groan and half a sigh, a bizarre mix of curiosity and craving. He didn’t actively participate, but rather, seemed content enough to let himself be adored, perhaps the way he was meant to be, and fell back into his brother’s hands as though he were drowning.
Edward, bizarrely, found himself falling into a sort of enchantment; he moved his hands as though sculpting again, as opposed to soaping, and worked hard at his brother’s flesh as though he could make the entire mass move again, make it shape and swell under his sinner’s hands, and perhaps, in a way, he could. Al stiffened, then relaxed, then inhaled sharply; belted out a sigh. He shifted, and tossed his head in a fantastic flare of amber-colored hair, and lifted one of his legs above water. He rubbed at his own arms, as though unused to the sensation, and worked his throat in a series of convulsive swallows, eyes hazy and half-fluttering. When Edward jerked on one of his nipples as though he were raising the entire thing all over again, the taller blonde moaned, and cut off his trembling tone with a snap of his lips.
“Hey, Al,” Edward whispered, drawing his head forward enough to rest his chin near his brother’s ear, to be able to murmur softly yet still move his hands; “that’s good, right? And this is, too, right?” He summoned from his subconscious those sensitive nerve endings, which ones were most responsive to touch and to tongue, and slid his hands underneath of the other’s balls to fondle there, firmly.
“M-Mmmm…mm-hmmm,” Al gasped, almost squeaking in reply, shutting his eyes in an almost inverse reflection of his brother’s satisfaction of seeing, and inadvertently spread his legs wider. More satisfying than his words, of course, was his response - unwitting invitation, a willing objectification - and Edward leaned forward, looking down his brother’s neck to watch his fingers toy with the rosy bud of a nipple, watching the flesh rise and pimple with gooseflesh, feeling the almost rhythmic contraction of his brother’s balls. He watched, carefully; gauged every reaction with utmost attention, used arched brows and parted lips as the weights to test the scale, to see just what areas on those patches of skin would be the right ones to stimulate into satisfaction.
“B-Brother…”
“In a sec, Al…”
It was utterly exquisite to watch the way his brother panted, to watch him attempt to breathe fruitlessly out of his nose, to watch him fidget in the cage of his elder brother’s arms in squirming abandon. Light touches; they were light touches, and Al seemed to enjoy them, so he went a little bit harder, and a great deal slower, wanting to prolong the sensation.
“B-Brother…”
“In a sec, I said…”
Mmmm, an interesting reaction. Flushed skin, and the snarling of teeth -
“Brother!”
- Al’s fist connecting heartily to his side…
“Ow!” Edward yowled, for a moment startled out of his trance, and gripped the younger Elric tightly around the ribs. “Just what’re you trying to pull, Al…?!”
“It’s not what I’m trying to pull,” Al griped sulkily, twisting in his brother’s arms, face flushed a gorgeous shade of rose. “It’s what you’re not pulling, I’ll have you know - “
’Not…pull…’ Oh. Oh.
Edward colored, and tried his best not to look antagonized. “Well, you could’ve just said something…” he mumbled, but kissed his brother’s shoulders in awkward apology, embarrassed at his obvious display of idolatry.
“I did!” Al cried, indignantly, swiveling abruptly in a slosh of swirling water, but stopped short at the expression on his brother’s face, all freakish focus and shadowy intent.
"So then...it was good?" Edward asked quietly, searching the younger blonde's face infinitely for an answer, hands gripping the other's shoulders in a parody of an embrace, fascinated by the way his fingers left dents in that impressionable flesh. His lips murmured into his brother's neck, and his chin rested neatly, yet again, just atop those broad shoulders.
"W-Well, yeah, but..." Al shrugged, rolled his neck, seemed at a loss for how to explain, crimson cheeks and lowered eyes. "I didn't stop you because it didn't feel good, but sort of... Well, it was sort of too good, like scaling a cliff, only I wasn't getting anywhere, w-wasn't reaching the top o-or falling off..." Another shrug, and the roll of his lips under his teeth, and an embarrassed gaze. "Too slow?" he suggested, sheepishly, and offered up a small smile when Edward grinned at him, good-naturedly, and nibbled briefly at the skin of his neck.
"You know, Al..." he murmured lazily, almost disinterestedly, but there was a throatiness to his voice and a throbbing to both his groin and his heart that wouldn't be ignored, and he let the pads of his fingertips drift over his brother's toned chest, let them tweak again at the tip of a sensitive nipple. "There's a right way to do this, a proper way to do this...if you'll let me." The fingers of his other hand found Al's half-hard cock and squeezed, delicately, drawing it up to it's full attention.
Al hitched in a breath, and kicked out reflexively with one of his feet, but there was a shaking good humor in his voice as he laughed, breathlessly: "B-But only if I'll l-let you, r-right?"
Edward, however, didn't even crack a smile.
"...Right."
---
Al balked at their very first kiss; seemed inclined to recall youthful serenity and a shared heritage, but eventually moved his lips with hesitance and desire, groaning softly and letting his eyes sink closed, shutting off that immortal bronze as though shutting off the light of the sun. Edward found that he himself couldn't keep his eyes away, couldn't tear his gaze away from the unearthly vision that was his brother, couldn't help but watch in destructive dispassion as those soft pink lips were swallowed greedily by his own.
It burned, from somewhere deep inside of his mouth to all the way to his toes, as warm and as wet as the water that surrounded them, as rythmic and as rolling as the sea, and they leaned into each other, ravenously, hands finding shoulders and hearts finding hearts. They clutched, and drank from their lips as though the other was a lifeline, all puffed-out breaths and panted desire.
Yet at the same time, it was strange to Edward, who wasn't used to feeling those lips fight back against his own, who wasn't sure he cared for fingertips ghosting uncertainly down his sides, who wondered, frantically, if he preferred his brother when the other was made out of that pliant wax, and the consideration of that fact was enough to make him groan, and grip at his brother's shoulders in despair.
They tangoed around each other like twin snakes, battling for the chance to consecrate and worship, to slather attention fanatically onto the other - (nibbling at each other's necks like herringfish) - and it was a bizarre tirade of love, and affection, and obsession, which they stopped, reluctantly, at the remembrance of the fact that they had to breathe.
They fell down into the water on countless occassions, groaning and grasping at each other with fingertips in much the same manner that Edward grasped at his intentions as though they were straws, and sent waves of inhibited froth splashing to the floor, soaking into the rug. The leverage was bad, but Al's body adjusted just the way it should have, positioning itself on auto-pilot, pivoting on the heels and turning at the waist to stay upright, an excellent example of equilibrium, and Edward felt that skin move taut and tenuous under his hands, almost delicate in it's dignity. Their knees bumped, under the soapy surface of that lukewarm water, and their hips ground together illicitly even as they kissed, and honestly, despite the tremors of pleasure that coiled out from his epicenter at the sensation, Edward was almost irritated with the fact that he and his brother would knock elbows halfway, would click their teeth together painfully as they miscalculated a kiss; with the fact that his brother wouldn't submit, wouldn't just lie there and let himself be idolized.
He remembered fervent adoration and motionless wax, and groaned at the memory of it, and plunged his human hand down into the depths of the water to take the younger blonde's cock roughly with his hand, pulling his teeth back in a lusty snarl.
"U-Um," Al started at the touch, breathing heavily and backing off a bit, something infinitely searching in his amber-colored eyes, but was cut off with a pair of lips insistently covering his own.
"Don't think," Edward instructed fervently, as he broke away; "you should never think. Just feel."
---
A sort of quiet depravity, and the feel of wax at last.
"There's no sin in this," Edward murmured reassuringly, hands sifting possessively through his brother's honey-colored hair, lips pressed up unshakeably against the other blonde's neck, murmuring and monarchal through his unintentional orders. "Only sensation. So don't worry. Don't fight back. Just lay there, and be still, and try your hardest to breathe."
And Al, held fast inside the sanctuary of his brother's arms, simply swallowed through his trembling and said, faithfully: "Okay. I will."
From there, time slowed to a passage of permanence and pleasure.
---
Curiously - cravenly, really, cowardly of that goddamned bastard to even imply! - lying next to the towels was a simple bottle of cedar-scented bath oil, inconspicuous save for it's obvious implications, and though Edward growled lowly to himself as he popped the cap, it didn't stop him from spilling those slippery contents shamelessly over his hands, didn't stop him from using it for it's intended purpose.
Because after all, what else was the colonel, if not practical, and if not perceptive?
---
10:406 Then, from the floor, he rais'd a royal bed,
10:407 With cov'rings of Sydonian purple spread:
10:408 The solemn rites perform'd, he calls her bride,
10:409 With blandishments invites her to his side;
10:410 And as she were with vital sense possess'd,
10:411 Her head did on a plumy pillow rest.
---
The two of them held hands as they reentered the living room, entirely bathed and entirely dressed, held hands as though they were tots again, instead of teens, and though the colonel had to have noticed the way they gripped at each other's fingertips like a lifeline, had to have seen the almost destructive force of their mirrored blushes, he merely spared them a glance, snorted, and resumed his perpetual observance of the fire.
"The two of you can have the bed," he said, quietly and dry, and tapped his fingers out along the armrest of his chair. "I'll take the couch. Tomorrow..." - and here he raised his eyes, and fixed the shorter of the blondes with a firm stare, " - you will be telling me just what in God's name has transpired here, yes?"
Edward looked at him for an impossibly long time.
"Eh, sure," he said at last, and swallowed down his obvious sickness. Al gripped his hand harder in reassurance; bent down to whisper something endearing into his ear - words lost in the face of his brother's imminent exhaustion - and brushed his lips lightly against the exposed junction of skin and an automail shoulder. At the contact, Edward relaxed a bit, but wasn't sure he liked the reappearance of the colonel's considering stare.
"Feel like showing us to our room or what?" he queried rudely, putting his free hand on his hip and summoning up the last of his pretense to form a petulant glare. "Unlike some certain lazy bastards who like to punch out early on thunderstorms, some of us have been working hard today, and are rather tired."
"Working hard!" Mustang barked, in a startling laugh, tossing his head, and his smirk was dark. "Well, I suppose that's not entirely...inaccurate." He stood from his chair gracefully, and turned the two brothers around by their shoulders. "Come on, then, boys - up the stairs here. I suppose you'll need something comfortable to sleep in, Fullmetal...?"
Edward scowled, then shrugged, uncomfortable with the weight of the man's bare hand resting between his shoulderblades - and his brother's. "Whatever."
They were led up the stairs and past the bathroom to the master bedroom, large and ridiculously lavish, with a towering bookcase and canopy bed, even complete with thick drawaround curtains and a feather mattress, with a plush chaise lounge and a window seat, and Edward's scowl deepened considerably. "Don't you think you're trying too hard, you shit...?"
"Nonsense," replied Mustang breezily, with an undercurrent of loathing that probably only the shorter of the blondes could catch, and he practically waltzed over to the mahogany wardrobe to begin rifling through it's drawers. "There's no 'trying' involved, you know, if a young lady and I are already at the stage where she's accepted my invitation to the bedroom."
Alphonse colored, and cast his eyes towards the ceiling. Edward hissed and kicked out with his automail foot. "Stop dicking around, would you, and find me some clothes!" he demanded irritably, face as red as the cloud that obscured his vision. "We're cold, and we're tired, and we don't care about your stupid - "
He was cut off a bundle of cloth connecting directly with his face, a pair of loose boxer shorts and another button-down shirt, an almost perfect imitation of his brother's borrowed clothing, and though he would have liked to hurl something back at the infuriating man, instead he grumbled to himself and began threading his arms through the sleeves of that shirt.
Mustang turned his back politely when the blonde shed his towel to finish dressing, but Al didn't; Al stared, even, and had actually stretched out his hand as though to touch before Edward pushed it away, jerking his head frantically in the colonel's direction and actually coloring, as though in embarrassment. Instead, he caught his brother's hand in his own, and pulled the other close, burying his face for a moment in damp bronze hair and closing his eyes to the rest of the world.
He could hear Al's heartbeat, somewhere near his own, and he could feel the almost brittle warmth of his brother's arms as they curled around his neck, and he could practically taste the other's breath as they rubbed noses, smiling hesitantly but happily. "Let's not be alone anymore, okay, Brother?" Al proposed decisively, determination sketching over the sweetness of his smile, and Edward shifted his eyes to the other side of the room, where he watched the colonel watching them, an impassive look schooled strictly across the man's face.
"Not ever," he swore passionately, though he looked not at Al, but at Mustang.
---
The two of them snuggled languidly under the fluffy weight of the colonel's comforters, curling into each other and tangling their limbs, pressing close to each other's hearts, mumbling their endearments and their goodnights with tired satiation. Al fell asleep almost instantly, clearly exhausted by the trials and tribulations of the day, while Edward stayed awake, making sure his deep respite was simply that - a sleep brought about from uncanny physical exhaustion, and though their breaths mingled and their hands entwined across the bedsheets, and he felt like he'd finally gotten everything he'd ever wanted, Edward still couldn't help but feel...unnerved by the situation.
Perhaps it was Al; Al who clutched at his waist even in sleep and didn't snore, but rather, inhaled deeply to shift into a fluttering exhale, Al who was practically too beautiful for his own good, Al who had gasped in both pleasure and pain at the feel of that very first push in that old abandoned church. A willowly blonde of fifteen, gone from caterpillar to cocoon to cathartic butterfly, brushing by softly and unfurling himself at his brother's touch.
Perhaps it was the colonel; the colonel who smirked ruthlessly and told him to be careful not to make too much of a mess on his bedsheets, the colonel who seemed to know, who accused him soundlessly with obsidian eyes, who would no longer look at him without looking consideringly at his brother - the big bad Flame Alchemist, of whom he'd had absolutely no choice but to go running back to for protection.
Hell, maybe it was New Optain, the city of a thousand citizens and a thousand regrets, the place where it had all began, the last landmark of a fatal mistake. New Optain which had...
Shit, just New Optain.
"Damn it," Edward muttered, and sat up.
He cast a longing look at his brother's sleeping form before sliding out of the bed, attacked instantly by the cold, and slipping silently out into the hall.
Mustang was just where he said he'd be, stretched out on the couch as though in slumber, but Edward knew better, and without even bothering with a prompt, padded quietly into the living room and took a seat on the floor, back against the couch, legs stretched towards the still roaring fire.
"Colonel," he started to say, but the words died in his throat, and he coughed before saying it again, the words too loud in the implacable dead of the night. "Colonel?"
"Yes?" Mustang replied, turning his head slightly to look at the blonde, eyes dancing eerily with the light of the fire. He seemed patient, and curious, and oddly put-upon, but there was sympathy in his face instead of a sermon, and Ed relaxed, letting the strain show visibly on his face, letting himself be the stumbling boy of twelve yet again.
"Colonel...homunculi are real."
If the man was surprised, he gave no indication. He simply nodded, solemnly, and waited for the blonde in front of him to go on.
"They're pretty vindictive beings, actually. They can't use alchemy, so they try to coerce real alchemists into creating Philosopher's Stones for them."
Edward closed his eyes, then opened them again, unwittingly sinking into memory.
"They took my brother. I couldn't protect him from them, and...they took him away. They... They knew what to do, Colonel. They knew how to rid him of his soul."
The youth gnawed on his automail thumb a moment before continuing, quietly distraught.
"They said that if I didn't draw the array, if I didn't take New Optain and make them the Stone, that...that they'd kill my brother."
For a moment, Edward went silent, shaking minutely, and Mustang sat up then, taking the throw he had been using as a blanket and draping it over the blonde's shoulders, rubbing reassuringly, all doubt removed from his eyes with honest understanding, and slowly, Edward felt himself calm down.
"It's all right," the man said then, quietly, still rubbing, and when he shifted from his place to touch the array on one of his gloves sitting on the coffee table, the fire in the hearth blazed stronger, filling the room with even more comforting warmth, "I understand. Everything you did was for your brother, after all. Though I'm not pleased that you lied to me about it - I would have done everything I could have, you know, to prevent any criminal repurcussions from landing on your head - I can understand, Fullmetal, just why you activated that array - "
"What?"
Edward looked up at him, suddenly, sharply, before the look on his face crumbled, and he started to shake again, from uncontrolled despair.
"I didn't lie," he whispered miserably, huddling in upon himself. "I didn't use that goddamned array. I drew it, for certain, but I didn't have any intention of using it."
Mustang frowned, perplexed but willing to wait patiently, hands lifting from the blonde's shoulders to rest upon the couch again at last. "Is...that so?"
"Yeah," Edward mumbled, rubbing at his arms and legs as though still cold. "I... I hate thinking about it, but...but I wouldn't sacrifice a thousand innocent people just for my own brother, you know?" His voice rose in pitch and intensity with each syllable, until he was nearly crying, high and broken. "He's my only brother, I know, but I won't kill, not even for him! He wouldn't want me to, for one, and I shouldn't have to, either, because there's gotta be another way - !"
Edward pivoted, and fixed the colonel with a wild stare. "There's an array...an array that can kill a homunculus, I've seen it! When the time came, I was going to set off a reaction that would alter the array for the Philosopher's Stone, and change it into the other one! You've... You've gotta believe me, colonel, when I say that I d-didn't mean for those p-people...to..."
He nearly shrieked, caught up in despair, and grieved, deeply, caught up in memory and in screams, and while no amount of soothing sweet talk would make all of the injustice go away, he knew he was glad when Mustang said, evenly: "I know."
They sat there for a while longer, until Edward had the courage to speak again, though when he did, his voice was hoarse and somewhat raw.
"The problem was...I wasn't smart enough."
He furrowed his brow, intently, as though to speak was an effort, as though to breathe were a chore.
"They anticipated my moves, I guess, or maybe knew that Al and I loved each other enough to understand that we'd sacrifice even each other to do the right thing, if there were no other way, but...I was wrong about that, too."
The blonde pulled the throw around himself tighter, and wriggled his toes together in an action born out of nervous habit.
"They ambushed me, as I came back to get Al, and turned the tables on us. I was held hostage, and they set my brother free. 'If you've got any love at all for brother dearest,' they said, 'then you'll do as we say. Or maybe you really do resent him for sticking you in that worthless scrap heap of a body, and want him to die...?' They kept my jaw clenched shut, but I tried so goddamned hard to relay the message with my eyes: 'shit, don't do it', but..."
Edward shook his head, and past his lips choked free a sob.
"It wasn't me who activated that array, colonel...it was Al."
---
He cried, for a little while after that, and didn't argue when the colonel helped him to his feet and led him upstairs again, an arm around his shoulders and a soothing baritone in his ear, murmuring nonsense, comforting through his immutability.
"He... He doesn't remember," Edward groaned miserably on their trek up the stairs, shaking his head as though to dispel the thought, steps stumbling and unsteady. "He says he w-woke up and f-found the Stone, found the c-city in ruins... I told him that they found someone else to make it, you see...? A-And that though I tr-tried to stop them, it w-was no good..."
"If he ever does find out the truth," the colonel swore solemnly, eyes dark, "it won't be from me."
Edward smiled, hesitantly, but there was an infinite sorrow to his eyes.
"We... We went to that abandoned church off of 34th Street, and there we used the Stone."
"Used it?" Mustang asked, brow furrowed in thought. "How...did you use it?"
The blonde swallowed, noisily, and for a moment his eyes fogged, back at the Gate, back at his ungodly mistake. "I...made Al a new body. Made it like it was made out of clay, made it as best as I could sculpt it, based off of my memories. The... The Philosopher's Stone is...is his heart."
For a long time, the colonel was silent, admiration and abbhorence waging war in his eyes; then, he let out a loud breath, raised his eyebrows for a moment, and shrugged. "Well," was all that the man said.
They reached the bedroom door, and turned to face each other uncomfortably.
"We'll... We'll probably have to go away for a while," Edward admitted, casting his eyes down, toeing the floor awkwardly. "You understand h-how it is, right...? There's... There's really no way to explain what the hell happened to us, and...it's not like Al and I are n-normal brothers, anyway..." He pressed his lips together, and willed his blush to go away, as it was uncharacteristic and childish.
"I see," Mustang said impassively, judgement in neither his tone nor his eyes, and turned the knob. "I'll attempt to sweep this mess under the rug as best as I can, for your sake. I'm happy for the two of you, undoubtedly, since you've worked impossibly hard to reach your goal, yet...still. I'm curious." The door swung open, but the older alchemist never gazed in, instead kept his stare fixed pointedly on the youth's face. "Is that really your brother? Or is it just what you wanted him to be?"
Edward scowled, momentarily, but then his look turned unashamedly proud. "Neither," he said, practically gliding through the bedroom door, a fleeting smile passing across his haggard face. "That's just his soul, as it was meant to be seen on the outside."
And with that, he shut the door on the man's surprised face.
---
Bizarrely, they didn't go away for a while; didn't retreat into the hushed whispers of legend like all famous names had a tendency to do, but instead stayed with the colonel, who would sigh and roll his eyes as he watched two greedy mouths scarf down their breakfast in the morning as though starving, who would simply shrug and light a fire for warmth when he would come across two nude teens sticky and sprawled across his sofa. He seemed to take them in as though they were strays; kept them fed and made sure that they bathed, and seemed ever-wary of their bizarre quirks, tiptoeing around them quietly and always asking with the word 'please'. Not afraid of them, exactly, but understandably distanced from them, as it were, since the two of them seemed to have a bond that wouldn't be broken by any outsider.
They never spoke of New Optain, because there was honestly no need to. The colonel would occassionally resume that considering look of his, especially when his eyes happened to find the line of Al's chest, but nothing was ever said on the subject, and the accursed city was finally allowed to rest in peace. Every now and then, Al would idly sketch the phoenix array atop a tabletop with his fingers, unconscious of his actions, but his expression was always placid, and always peaceful, and therefore, the other two thought nothing of it.
Edward was honestly surprised that, for all of the colonel's indifference to their illicit activities, that the man didn't attempt to, or even expect himself to be allowed to join in, which was puzzling but pleasing, as there was still that traitorous part of himself that would scream, forever, that his brother was his, and that no one else could be allowed to have him; not head or hands or heart, and especially not that untempered heat of his, that heat that occassionally threatened to blaze out of control. But the colonel would only sigh, in that long-suffering way of his, and knock mildly on their door to ask them to keep it down; surrendered the master bedroom to them, even, and bought a bed for another room of the house, which he made his. When asked about it, he would simply eye one or the other of them with perplexion and shake his head as though they were mad, and after a fashion, the both of them just stopped asking.
The exact two-month anniversary of Al's restoration was Christmas day, which the three of them spent together, despite the numerous invitations that Mustang had received to attend other parties - (though Edward would never admit it, he was secretly...pleased...to see that the man piled them up in a stack neatly, and dumped them promptly in the trash) - and they spent the holidays modestly, because they really didn't have much use for a holiday based solely on a discarded religion.
"You know...I've always wondered," Al started hesitantly that morning, the snow falling from the picture window behind him a picturesque compliment to his haloish golden hair, "just why you've agreed to let us stay for this long, colonel. I mean, it's been two months."
Edward, sprawled at the other end of the sofa with his brother's feet in his face, feigned sleep yet secretly perked up his ears in interest, curious as to what the answer would be, as well.
But Mustang only shrugged, expression bland, and took a sip of his coffee. "Why not a couple more, then, eh?" he suggested, deadpan, then gestured over to their somewhat small tree for diversion. "I bought the lot of you presents."
For all of his excellence at faking sleep, Edward's efforts were belied by the instantaneous way he sat up, ponytail flying, and leapt off of the sofa. "No way, you shit! Where?"
Al rolled his eyes and shrugged helplessly from behind his brother's back, but the colonel's laugh was genuine. "Well, naturally, since age and beauty and height all come before you, Fullmetal, I put all of your gifts on the bottom of the - "
A tiny meow made him snap his jaw shut. Edward, glare turning suspicious, swiveled in the direction of the other blonde in the room, who cast looks between the two of them frantically. "U-Um, he was - !"
"Cold?" supplied Edward sarcastically, shoulders hunching slightly.
"Hungry?" added Mustang, lips curling in amusement.
"So pathetically alone?" Edward put in again, annoyance only part exaggerated.
Al colored, and honestly seemed slightly antagonized, which meant that it was time for the other two to shut up, which they did - promptly. "No," the taller of the blondes hissed, "he wasn't those things. He was our Christmas gift, I'll have you know, from Mrs. Hughes - "
For a long time, there was a heavy silence. The colonel was the first to recover.
"Oh," he said mildly.
"Right," agreed Edward weakly, as though on cue.
Al scoffed at the two of them, still affronted, but went around the back of the tree to lift the kitten carrier, clearly concealed by a huge stack of alchemic tomes that were someone's unwrapped gift or another. The kitten itself peered out from the carrier at them, blinking and huddling a bit as though afraid, but perked up visibly at Al's voice, giving the indication that Gracia perhaps hadn't been as alone in picking out their Christmas gift as she ordinarily would have been.
When the door to the carrier was open, the kitten hopped out - a fluffy ginger-colored ball of scrap, it was - and started sniffing around the living room. It puffed up adorably at the sight of Edward holding out his hand grudgingly to it, but cautiously nosed around the colonel's legs when the man made some sort of clucking noise at it, and tapped his fingers on the floor by his feet.
"I think he likes you, colonel!" Al said excitedly, while Edward snorted in the background, obviously snubbed.
"Have you thought of a name, Alphonse?" Roy asked curiously, then cursed when the kitten took his waggling fingers as a scratching post, and left little red stripes running freely down the top of his hand. Edward snickered.
"Oh, I don't know," the taller blonde shrugged, smiling a bit when the kitten came to curl up in his lap, yawn, and sink down into sleep, purring loudly. "He looks sort of like a lion, so I was thinking of the name 'Leo'."
"Leo?" Edward yawned, and stretched out on the couch again, an unconscious imitation of the cat. "You mean, like the constellation?"
"Something like that, yeah."
There was a companionable silence for a while, as Edward dozed, Al rubbed the kitten's ears, and Mustang watched one or the other of them, considering again. After about ten minutes or so, Al spoke up again, and his voice was mild, and carefully quiet.
"Colonel...you never did answer my question, you know."
From his spot on the couch, Edward stirred interestedly, cracking an eye open, and looked up just in time to catch the expression of fleeting awkwardness that passed across the man's face.
"Well, Alphonse..."
('I won't bother to ask how the two of you can drive your bond past that of fraternity,' the colonel said to him one day, as Al was cooking dinner, 'so don't worry. If you two want to have sex with each other like rabbits, then it's your prerogative, and I won't judge you for it. Don't ask, don't tell, and all that. I'm used to keeping your dirty little secrets for you, after all.')
"Hey, Al."
"Hunh?" The taller blonde turned to look at his brother confusedly, and each time he saw that perfect pale-skin face, it took the other's breath away.
"Just...leave him alone about it, all right?" Edward shrugged, aiming for nonchalant and falling just flat of that. "I'm... I'm sure he's got his reasons."
And in Al's eyes was an understanding, a cognizance he wouldn't have been able to have if he were still that living wax, and Edward understood then, finally: this is what I really want. "A-Ah, okay. Sorry, colonel."
"Oh, don't worry about it," Mustang parried, with his usual elegance, but the smile he shot the shorter of the blondes was somewhat grateful, and unbidden, Edward grinned back. "I think I'll go heat up a saucer of milk for our newfound friend. Alphonse, you'll have to give my deepest of thanks to Gracia the next time you see her."
"Yeah, well, I think Al and I are going to stand under the mistletoe for the next fifteen minutes or so," Edward drawled, loudly, and swung to his feet, the portrait of ease. "C'mon, Al."
It was under that mistletoe that he reaffirmed his declaration, that he reassured himself that fervent lips on his own and hot hands pushing themselves underneath his sweater was exactly what he wanted, that it wouldn't kill him to put a lot of effort into something, and to get a little something back. That love was a mutual thing, even, and that it was all right to be a unrepentant fanatic so long as he let his brother love him, in turn. 'No man is an island', the saying went, but it could also be said that no man was an idol, either, and so he led the other up the stairs into the bedroom, and for the first time since it began, let his brother be the one to take him, instead, to lift his legs up and push his arms firmly down.
Down in the parlor, sighing at the repetitive thumps and groans that were issuing from the upstairs and watching amusedly as Leo tried to put his paws on the milk saucer and ended up spilling it all over himself, Roy Mustang swirled the 1896 Pierrot in his stemglass and watched the liquid lap up against the side like blood, smiling ruefully.
"To New Optain," he said, and downed the glass in a single gulp.
Author's Notes Upon Completion: ! FINISHED. Note my crapping out at the end, because RL stuff has been making me too wanky to write, and thus, I can't concentrate enough to pound out a decent ending. STILL. METAMORPHOSE IS FINISHED. HALLELUJAH. *does a dance* And now I've gotta go work for twelve hours, so. LATER.
Title: ::: M E T A M O R P H O S E ::: - (pleased with his idol, he commends, admires) [part two]
Author: Demidevi, momentarily renamed "Kaltia's Fanfic Bitch"
Rating: NC-17. Since I kind of failed on the porn the last time, WATCH ME DO IT AGAIN. XD;; Hopefully it'll be...I dunno, something this time. Hotter. More descriptive. SOMETHING. Consensual? ^^;;
Genre: The more I think about it, the more this isn't really...angst. O.o It's just WTF?. Oh well, I'll just classify it as angst, anyway, angst with a happy ending and blinding mythological references. *ABUSES GREEK POETRY LIKE WOAH, AHHAHAHAH*
Pairing: Elricest. But I like to think that I win because I write it as Ed/Al. :P I actually think I kind of have a kink for Elricest with seme!Ed. Hmmmm. *ponders*
Summary: There were no ramifications, and there were no regrets, but there didn't seem to be any endearments, either, any promises or sentiments, instead only a solemn acceptance and the noise of the rain, splashing slowly onto their exposed skin.
For: kaltia. Kaltia, don't worry about giving me monetary compensation for writing this, honestly. ^^;; I might've complained to you ceaselessly about it over AIM, but it's just my way of coping with the insane workload. If I had honestly disliked doing it, then I wouldn't have DONE it, believe me. *loves on*
Comments: Mmmm, mostly the same as the first part. AU "Ed restores his brother with the Phil. Stone"! kind of fic, complete with...weird metaphysics and the Pygmalion complex. JESUS CHRIST, I LOSE AT ALL. Also, this part is considerably shorter than the first. ^^;; Don't ask me why, I don't know, either. And features a considerable amount of Roy, too, which is irksome because...this is an Elricest fic. FUCK. >___< Oh, well. He wouldn't stop pestering me about Ed's dubious lack of morals, so he insisted that he be in this fic to straighten the little shorty out.
Music: Don't feel like uploading anything. Check my LJ, as I did a massive music uploading post (MMUP) about four days ago, so the YSI files should still be good. NAB YER MUSIC THERE, YA SPOONS. :P
(::: M E T A M O R P H O S E ::: (pygmalion, loathing their lascvicious life) - [part one] )
10:416 Pygmalion off'ring, first approach'd the shrine,
10:417 And then with pray'rs implor'd the Pow'rs divine:
10:418 Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want,
10:419 If all we can require, be yours to grant;
10:420 Make this fair statue mine, he wou'd have said,
10:421 But chang'd his words for shame; and only pray'd,
10:422 Give me the likeness of my iv'ry maid.
---
In a strange twist of natural bane, the sunlight outside quickly turned to rain, and the two of them, lying naked and still on the exposed edge of a crumbling pew, remained shivering and awake, marveling at the sensation.
There were no ramifications, and there were no regrets, but there didn't seem to be any endearments, either, any promises or sentiments, instead only a solemn acceptance and the noise of the rain, splashing slowly onto their exposed skin. They lay there, quietly, and kept each other warm, but didn't speak of that other heat, of the one that could have fueled a thousand fires and set their nerves to flight, sent the birds soaring from their rafters and kept the sun from growing weak. It seemed strange to speak of it, and somehow ominous, as though the words would shatter their one and only moment of utter omniscence; run a crack down the crystal fault lines of their fraternity, and so, they stayed silent.
For a fact, with the tension in his belly uncoiled like a slithering snake and the itch of his arousal achingly ebbed, even Edward could hardly call it anything more than a fluke; could write off his wandering hands and intrusive cock as nothing more than an act to counterbalance their time spent apart, yet a part of him locked his eyes intently onto the line of his brother's long neck and shapely torso, and wanted to do the entire thing all over again. He could make it better, he knew; could do things to his brother's body even Al probably wouldn't have known he'd wanted, could nip and scratch and dig dents into that body that would be absolutely delightful, if only the other blonde would let him.
But Al lay trusting and faithful in his arms, shaking significantly from the cold and staring with wonderment at his trembling fingertips, and Edward felt himself flush from shame. He'd meant to restore his brother with the purest intent, but the act of restoration itself - (stroking, sucking, sculpting, to the utmost form and fancy) - had soured his intentions somewhat, laid to waste his vision of a peaceful fraternity, and he wondered if the form of that armor hadn't been a part of nature's cruel joke, to save his brother's darling soul from the filthy tangibility of the outside. Al, perfect in mind, was now perfect in body, and Edward...
Well, Edward was pleased with himself, for having made his brother that way.
He heard his brother's heartbeat in his head, and saw the pulsing crimson glow of that heart when he closed his eyes. He saw muscles and veins in perfect diagram, bones bent to an almost elegant degree, as to-the-letter as any alchemical array, the breathing portrait of the flawless man, and disgustingly, the blonde felt his cock begin to stir from it's slumber yet again.
And isn't that appropriate? That the sculptor would fall hopelessly in love with his prize!
"A-Al," he panted suddenly, trying to sit up, "l-let's go somewhere where we're o-out of the rain."
---
He was loathe to do it, but he honestly couldn't think of any place to go but the colonel's house, no other place nearby to run to. He took the back alleys - (Al riding piggyback on his shoulders because his newborn legs hadn't yet been able to take the weight, red coat draped over them both) - and crouched low in the shadows, darting from alley to alley in a dead run. Al kept his face buried into his brother's shoulder, to obscure his features, and Edward followed the sidewalks out of instinct, unsure of where he was going. The man would be home, he knew, since the colonel had the habit of punching out early during rainy days, and he knocked on that broad oak door with resignation, steeling himself for an endless bout of accusations and inquisitions.
Mustang opened the door, and his eyes widened instantly in shock and surprise. "F...Fullmetal."
The expression on the man's face wasn't of curiosity or contempt, it was one of relief, of profound relief, and he clutched the side of the doorframe as a sort of support, breath coming in harried gasps. He stepped forward for a moment, stumbling with an arm half outstretched, but stopped when he saw the burden the blonde carried on his shoulder, and backpedaled warily in a flash.
Al lifted his face and smiled.
"Al... Alphonse?"
Now the colonel seemed conflicted; now he shook his head as though in denial and played out on his face the destruction and all-around disappearance of the city of New Optain, and he swallowed hard, as though he were going to be sick; but at the same time, there was a contradictory gladness to his eyes, and an unmistakeable hitch to his voice as he breathed out, a second time: "Alphonse." He stretched out a hand as though to touch, as though to confirm with his senses that the vision before his eyes was real, but the elder Elric took a sudden step back, snarling soundlessly, and the man narrowed his eyes perceptively, looking closely for a cause of reaction.
Edward shifted uncomfortably at Mustang's stare, and had actually taken half of a step back before he caught himself and took a step forward, impatiently. "Hey, can we come in, or what? It's freezing out here, and the two of us have had a long day, in case you couldn't tell."
Mustang started, and looked at him, unreadably, though he did move from the door to let the two of them in. "And an even longer story to tell," he added significantly, eyes growing as black and as deep as obsidian.
Edward, marching past him from the door into the warmth of the foyer, deigned not to answer.
---
They dressed his brother in an oversized button-down shirt and a pair of baggy cotton boxers, then sprawled in the living room around the fire in an uncomfortable silence, painfully aware of the others' presences. Edward watched in fascination at his brother's fingers drumming nervously on the throw rug on the floor, Al cast anxious glances in the direction of the colonel's face, and Roy himself sat stiff and upright in his chair, staring darkly into the fire.
After a while, Edward stretched out on the floor, and lowered his chin to the carpet, eyes following the other blonde's fingers tapping rhythmically in front of his face, then let out a sigh and closed his eyes. Behind his lids, he saw the bones working, saw ligaments and muscle coiling and unfurling in a delicate dance of motion, blood rushing by the veins in a thunderous applause, and he recalled the digits soft and rolling in his mouth, slightly salty underneath of his tongue. He saw his brother's face, saw the muscles relax and contract as he sighed in pleasure, saw the angle and dip of those golden brows, the parting of those peach-petal lips...and he couldn't get that heat out of his head, especially when he was sitting so close to that goddamned fire.
Edward sat up, suddenly, and caught the colonel staring at Al, and turning slightly to stare at him, all slight fascination and perplexion, and the blonde growled, wordlessly, and slid forward to wrap his arms possessively around his brother, who was wiggling his toes in front of the fire, enthralled by the feeling of warmth that inevitably followed.
Al started, and looked at the elder Elric in confusion. "Brother...? Come on, don't be so clingy..." He crimsoned, and tried to wriggle free, and even at that simple movement, Edward stared at his shoulders, captivated by the capability of the muscle. "We're still wet, and dirty, to boot - "
Almost entirely against his will, Edward nuzzled his cheek against his brother's back, feeling the stretch and pull of the skin against his lips, and would have protested, but Mustang was watching them, carefully - in...in an entirely different light, and the blonde sat up hastily; backed away. "A b-bath, then," he suggested lightly, shrugging and proud that he hardly stuttered, "let's take a bath. Is that okay, colonel?" he asked belatedly, a sneer in his words and an inflection to his tone, mouth curling unpleasantly at the man's presence in what should have been a private moment in their lives.
Mustang stared at him, for an impossibly long time, and smiled not at him, but at Al. "Certainly. The tub's definitely large enough for two, especially since Fullmetal's so - "
"Don't you dare say it!" Edward howled, leaping to his feet with his fists swinging, but Al caught his legs, shouting out something that sounded like an exasperated plea, and the two of them fell to the floor with an almighty crash. The colonel looked at them, amused but still a little worried, and still a little uncertain, and shook his head.
"You two wait here," he said quietly, a smile on his face but solemnity in his eyes, "and I'll go upstairs and draw the bath. I daresay two towels should suffice...Fullmetal?" he asked at the end, and something in his face seemed to harden at Edward's answering nod.
He disappeared into the shadow of the stairs, and honestly, Edward found that he couldn't relax until after the man had gone.
---
Mustang caught his arm just as he'd been about to enter the bathroom after his brother, eyes dark and burning with a small amount of indignation, and an unfathomable amount of intent.
"Only children and fools speak the truth, Fullmetal," he whispered lowly, face half-hidden by the shadow of the hallway, and half-illuminated from the light of the bathroom. "Just what did you do to your brother?"
And Edward, quiet and calm, with an implacity to his tone and an evenness to his eyes, simply replied: "I gave him the life that he wanted...and the body that he deserved."
---
Bathing had never been such an intriguing experience before.
Edward lowered his hand into the whirlpool tub - arrogant bastard didn't need a tub that big if it was only for himself, dammit! - and felt the steam curling against his forearm, felt the water slosh up to his elbow. It was hot, scaldingly hot, and he glowered through the floor towards the direction of the colonel, who had undoubtedly made it that way.
"Fuck you, you aging prick," he muttered, and clapped his hands.
With the water cooled to his satisfaction, he settled against the edge of the tub, until his legs were lifted completely off of the ground, and held out his arms for his brother. "C'mere, Al."
The taller blonde started, and took a step forward with hesitation. He was still awkward on his feet, still unused to his own weight, and Edward watched with worry as he clutched the sink, and tried his hardest not to fall. "Y-You... You want to take a bath together?" he asked dubiously, picking at the edge of his borrowed shirt, and the elder Elric closed his eyes to the feeling of those nails, blunt and square and shaped to satisfaction, scratching desperately down his sides.
"What's so weird about that?" Edward parried in response, opening his eyes and quirking his brow; lowering his hands, slowly. Irrationally, some part of his soul screamed out in panic, in the fear that he had just committed another inalterable sin, but he quelled the thought with effort, and fixed upon his face a smile. "It's your first bath since...since a long while," he pointed out, feeling his smile falter for a fraction of a second, "and it'd be nice if I could share it with you...you know?"
"I...guess," Al relented after a moment, eyes still doubtful, and though his words were aquiescence, his actions spoke of a hesitance to move, and Edward stood hurriedly, deciding to take initiative.
"Here, if it makes it easier - " He raised his shirt over his head, feeling it slip past his tangled and unbound hair - "I'll go first."
He disliked having to expose his marred and martyred skin to the face of his brother's perfection, but knew intrinsically that despite all of his faults, Al would still think him beautiful - curious comparison, that - and so he inhaled, sharply, and shuddered; dropped his hands to the leather of his double belt.
"Let - " Al started, and crimsoned noticeably at having said it, but plowed on bravely despite his discomfort - "Let me. Okay?" His throat worked convulsively, and his hands wrung together out of nervous habit, and his eyes, fuck, his eyes - they wavered and worried in a way that those goddamned lantern lights never could have - and Edward let out a breath.
"By all means," he conceded, and spread his arms out to his sides.
He wasn't very surprised when Al stumbled up to him and started hesitantly to touch, to forgo the act of undress in favor of investigation, fingers shaking and a bit cold, smooth as a statue's and receptive to boot, thin and almost brittle in their longevity.
His hands fell first upon his brother's face, fluttering and awkward like the wings of a bird, shadowing under the chin and cheekbones, stroking along the jaw, eventually coming to cup the sides and thumb the hollow underneath of closed eyelids, brushing the lashes and depths with equal interest, touch quick and strangely ignitive. It was an unintended imitation of Edward's earlier behavior, and honestly, it was absurdly erotic - ironic, as well, and the shorter blonde smiled through his sigh.
There was a bit of uncertainty as the younger Elric stroked his fingers down the elder's chest; the slightest bit of hesitance, and shame, in those amber eyes as he moved, but Edward smiled, drowsily, and tilted his head back, purposefully revealing to his brother his vulnerability. It was an invitation that Al took, slowly, fingers growing bolder and breaths growing short, and both of their eyes watched his fingers as they traveled along their iniquitous path, even if one of them focused more on arousal, and the other on art. Al seemed to both curse and be curious of the automail, expression souring even as he delicately handled the wires, frowning even as he fingered the catch, but at his brother's obvious discomfort he started, murmured an apology with abjection in his eyes, and dutifully went back to marveling at touch.
He seemed particularly fascinated by Edward's scars, though he had been witness to the birth of many of them, and traced their ridged lengths with a reluctant finger, lowering his head to breathe resplendently over their majority, expression regretful yet eerily reverent, as though his brother had been reborn as the lord of war. He hovered close with his body, close enough to warm with his breath, but touched only with his fingertips, stroked only with his thumbs; he murmured under his breath, words too low to catch, and hummed out satisfaction when the shorter blonde would respond, whether it was with instinctive grip or unabashed groan.
It was it's own sort of idol worship, in a way, and Edward found himself wondering, dizzily, as the small of his back was rubbed and one of his calves was toed: Is this... Is this what he feels, too?
"It feels so different from me," Al murmured in fascination, and as though on cue, eyes wide but by no means innocent, almost carnal with his curiosity, with his unshakeable urge to explore, and Edward stood, spread his arms and spread his legs, unsteadily, and offered himself up in obvious invitation.
"It's different because I've sinned, Al," he whispered in return, and shut his eyes to the world, shut his instinct off from ethics. "This is a sinner's body, all metal and marks and mutilation. For you, who lived your life free of fault; a body of perfection, and without peer, was the least I could do for you."
"Or maybe it's just different because people are different, Brother," Al chided him, mockingly reproving, and lowered his face to his brother's neck. "It doesn't make you any less perfect."
The bite that followed was a pleasant thrill, a stinging shock that started from Edward's pulse and tingled straight down to his heart, pumping out with the blood to every other appendage of his body; twitching through his fingertips, curling down to his toes. He shuddered at the thought of those perfect pearls of teeth clamping down on his uneven skin, cutting canyons with their edges and marking their passage with his blood, and he arched up into the feel of it. "Harder."
It was as though some magic compelled the two of them; without inquisition, Al tangled his fingers in his brother's hair and yanked it off to the side, exposing the tendons of the other's neck, and he bit down again, significantly rougher than the first time, and made a strange little noise out of the corner of his mouth. Edward sighed, and tilted his head - offered himself at a better angle - and pulled his brother intrusively close.
"Harder," he ordered again, in a low gasp, fascinated by the frantic flaring of Al's nostrils, enthralled with the almost eerie abandon of the other blonde's eyes, and stroked his hands possessively over the curve of an arched back. "Harder, I said! Make me yours."
He bucked his hips forward unintentionally as Al did it again, bit into his neck as though it was the skin of a pear, and rubbed himself obsessively over every inch of his brother's body, feeling the buttons of that oversized dress shirt scratch teasingly against his nipples, felt the hard press of...something...against the inner edge of his thigh. And Al was breathing, breathing hard into the skin just underneath his ear, and his heartbeat was almost obnoxious from underneath the skin of his chest, and it was something Edward hadn't heard since they were children, and he took a stumbling step backward, his brother in his arms; backwards, back -
He was thoroughly startled when both he and Alphonse fell head-over-heels into the bathtub.
And just like that, the spell was broken.
"A-Agh!" Al cried in dismay, holding his arms out to the side and looking down at the soapy mess of shirt that hung drippingly off of his skin, wringing it out in rivulets and pushing his soaked bangs out of his eyes, color high but gaze kept low, staring as though there were something of great fascination in the depths of that whirlpool tub. "C-Can you believe...? Oh, jeez..."
He didn't look at his brother as he began to unbutton his shirt, but Edward looked at him, all smooth skin and healthy flush; watched the way his shoulders pulled as he shrugged his arms out of that shirt and tossed it sloppily onto the edge of the tub, watched the way his back twisted as he stepped awkwardly out of those boxers, observed with agonizing memorization the line of Al's body as the blonde slid the rest of the length down into the tub, chin touching the surface of the water, and saw those coin-colored eyes looking up at him, uncomfortably.
('What happened? Brother, what happened? Where did everyone in the city go?' he heard in his head again, and nearly choked aloud with the pain.)
They looked at each other, briefly - Al turned away, breath let out in a shuddering sigh - and the mistrust was so evident, evident in his gestures and in his gaze - and Edward shrugged, feeling an impossible stabbing sensation slice through his heart, before slipping out of his own pants and settling down into the lukewarm water.
They sat there, for a while, facing off, and the taller blonde would always quail before the insatiable gaze of the shorter, always color and resume his observation of the water, and eventually drew his knees up to his chest into an involuntary act of protection. It was that instinctive concealment, honestly, that truly irritated Edward, at his core - (why, why the hell are you hiding from me?! his mind screamed out, in volatile abandon) - and he slid forward a bit, ever-wary of Al's uncertain eyes. "Hey," he said softly, and lifted his arms. "Come here."
The younger Elric didn't move, but some of the tension went out of his frame, and for that moment, he returned to what he was meant to be, a set of soft lines immortalized in wax; he finally moved from his stiff stature, and raked his soggy bangs out of his eyes. "Wh... Why?"
Why? Does he even have to ask?
"I'll...I'll wash your back for you," Edward suggested, shrugging with his arms still stretched out, a sort of tame desperation evident in both his words and his gaze, and he rolled the skin of his lower lip past his teeth with unnatural fear. He half-stood, surging forward, but stopped at his brother's unwitting recoil, and let the hurt on his face stand as evidence enough. "C-Come on, Al... Just... Just trust me, okay...? I'd never..."
But it was a lie; a dirty, damnable lie, because he would - could, had, and even believed that he should - and against his will, his arms began to shake, and the water began to drip off of them like tears. "I..."
And Al seemed to shrink into himself, seemed to curl up around himself like a cat, to retreat into the shell of his shapely arms like a tortoise, all innocent eyes staring out from behind their depths, and when he spoke, his voice was shaking, and impossibly small.
"You won't?" he asked, and there was something puzzling in his tone, something unexplainable in his eyes.
Edward swallowed, and wanted to say that no, he wouldn't, wouldn't ever dream of it, but the words dried up in his throat and what came out instead, was, "Not if you don't want me to."
And Al, impossibly, relaxed. He unfurled his arms, he uncoiled his legs, and he put his body uncertainly on display, flushing hard but keeping his eyes at a level with his brother's own, all asquiescence and slight shame. He slid forward boldly, but paused in mid-movement, gripping his hands on the edge of the tub with fingers that were covered with a soap that looked more like sweat. "Brother..."
Edward started, aware of the fact that he'd been staring, that his eyes had dropped devouringly between those lengthy legs, and blinked rapidly in apology. "Yeah?"
Al cleared his throat - trachea humming, Adam's apple bobbing - and gestured down at himself with a wet hand, eyes fluttering up towards the ceiling in unreserved awkwardness. "W-Would you...if the offer still stands, th-that is...maybe...want to...wash my back...?" he proposed quietly, and Edward stared at him, stared at him for a long time, wondering crazily if it was some sort of carefully-constructed trap, a snare for him to carelessly crash into.
('If you give a crap at all about this hulking heap of a brother, Shorty, then you'll do as we say and draw the goddamned array!')
But his fascination eventually won out over his fear, and he nodded, plastering a cheap smile onto his face and getting away with it. "E-Eh, sure."
He held out his arms, and Al floated willingly into them, still uncomfortable from the obvious set of his shoulders but willing to let it slide, all long limbs and elegant muscle, and Edward felt his heart speed up unwittingly from its cage in his chest. Though it was more than likely forbidden, and most definitely feared, he lowered his head close and breathed worshipfully of his brother's skin, smelling soap yet still smelling that unexplainable stone, though perhaps it wasn't such an unexplainable Stone, after all.
Edward sighed, and moved his hands.
He washed first his brother’s shoulders, starting slowly and somewhere safe, and practically salivated at the way at the way the soap slid down his brother’s skin, all circular and clean. He washed gently, with the utmost of care, and kept his eyes tracked on those flexing muscles, watched with attention the dust scrape off of that skin.
He rinsed, and after a fashion slid his hands downward to Al’s sculpted chest, but still bathed those shoulders with his tongue, licking sensually and succinctly, closing his eyes to the sight and tasting only the soap, tasting only the slight salt and inerasable clay of skin. And Al, understandably, was responsive; squirmed a bit, and shuddered under his attentions, and let out noises somewhere between half a groan and half a sigh, a bizarre mix of curiosity and craving. He didn’t actively participate, but rather, seemed content enough to let himself be adored, perhaps the way he was meant to be, and fell back into his brother’s hands as though he were drowning.
Edward, bizarrely, found himself falling into a sort of enchantment; he moved his hands as though sculpting again, as opposed to soaping, and worked hard at his brother’s flesh as though he could make the entire mass move again, make it shape and swell under his sinner’s hands, and perhaps, in a way, he could. Al stiffened, then relaxed, then inhaled sharply; belted out a sigh. He shifted, and tossed his head in a fantastic flare of amber-colored hair, and lifted one of his legs above water. He rubbed at his own arms, as though unused to the sensation, and worked his throat in a series of convulsive swallows, eyes hazy and half-fluttering. When Edward jerked on one of his nipples as though he were raising the entire thing all over again, the taller blonde moaned, and cut off his trembling tone with a snap of his lips.
“Hey, Al,” Edward whispered, drawing his head forward enough to rest his chin near his brother’s ear, to be able to murmur softly yet still move his hands; “that’s good, right? And this is, too, right?” He summoned from his subconscious those sensitive nerve endings, which ones were most responsive to touch and to tongue, and slid his hands underneath of the other’s balls to fondle there, firmly.
“M-Mmmm…mm-hmmm,” Al gasped, almost squeaking in reply, shutting his eyes in an almost inverse reflection of his brother’s satisfaction of seeing, and inadvertently spread his legs wider. More satisfying than his words, of course, was his response - unwitting invitation, a willing objectification - and Edward leaned forward, looking down his brother’s neck to watch his fingers toy with the rosy bud of a nipple, watching the flesh rise and pimple with gooseflesh, feeling the almost rhythmic contraction of his brother’s balls. He watched, carefully; gauged every reaction with utmost attention, used arched brows and parted lips as the weights to test the scale, to see just what areas on those patches of skin would be the right ones to stimulate into satisfaction.
“B-Brother…”
“In a sec, Al…”
It was utterly exquisite to watch the way his brother panted, to watch him attempt to breathe fruitlessly out of his nose, to watch him fidget in the cage of his elder brother’s arms in squirming abandon. Light touches; they were light touches, and Al seemed to enjoy them, so he went a little bit harder, and a great deal slower, wanting to prolong the sensation.
“B-Brother…”
“In a sec, I said…”
Mmmm, an interesting reaction. Flushed skin, and the snarling of teeth -
“Brother!”
- Al’s fist connecting heartily to his side…
“Ow!” Edward yowled, for a moment startled out of his trance, and gripped the younger Elric tightly around the ribs. “Just what’re you trying to pull, Al…?!”
“It’s not what I’m trying to pull,” Al griped sulkily, twisting in his brother’s arms, face flushed a gorgeous shade of rose. “It’s what you’re not pulling, I’ll have you know - “
’Not…pull…’ Oh. Oh.
Edward colored, and tried his best not to look antagonized. “Well, you could’ve just said something…” he mumbled, but kissed his brother’s shoulders in awkward apology, embarrassed at his obvious display of idolatry.
“I did!” Al cried, indignantly, swiveling abruptly in a slosh of swirling water, but stopped short at the expression on his brother’s face, all freakish focus and shadowy intent.
"So then...it was good?" Edward asked quietly, searching the younger blonde's face infinitely for an answer, hands gripping the other's shoulders in a parody of an embrace, fascinated by the way his fingers left dents in that impressionable flesh. His lips murmured into his brother's neck, and his chin rested neatly, yet again, just atop those broad shoulders.
"W-Well, yeah, but..." Al shrugged, rolled his neck, seemed at a loss for how to explain, crimson cheeks and lowered eyes. "I didn't stop you because it didn't feel good, but sort of... Well, it was sort of too good, like scaling a cliff, only I wasn't getting anywhere, w-wasn't reaching the top o-or falling off..." Another shrug, and the roll of his lips under his teeth, and an embarrassed gaze. "Too slow?" he suggested, sheepishly, and offered up a small smile when Edward grinned at him, good-naturedly, and nibbled briefly at the skin of his neck.
"You know, Al..." he murmured lazily, almost disinterestedly, but there was a throatiness to his voice and a throbbing to both his groin and his heart that wouldn't be ignored, and he let the pads of his fingertips drift over his brother's toned chest, let them tweak again at the tip of a sensitive nipple. "There's a right way to do this, a proper way to do this...if you'll let me." The fingers of his other hand found Al's half-hard cock and squeezed, delicately, drawing it up to it's full attention.
Al hitched in a breath, and kicked out reflexively with one of his feet, but there was a shaking good humor in his voice as he laughed, breathlessly: "B-But only if I'll l-let you, r-right?"
Edward, however, didn't even crack a smile.
"...Right."
---
Al balked at their very first kiss; seemed inclined to recall youthful serenity and a shared heritage, but eventually moved his lips with hesitance and desire, groaning softly and letting his eyes sink closed, shutting off that immortal bronze as though shutting off the light of the sun. Edward found that he himself couldn't keep his eyes away, couldn't tear his gaze away from the unearthly vision that was his brother, couldn't help but watch in destructive dispassion as those soft pink lips were swallowed greedily by his own.
It burned, from somewhere deep inside of his mouth to all the way to his toes, as warm and as wet as the water that surrounded them, as rythmic and as rolling as the sea, and they leaned into each other, ravenously, hands finding shoulders and hearts finding hearts. They clutched, and drank from their lips as though the other was a lifeline, all puffed-out breaths and panted desire.
Yet at the same time, it was strange to Edward, who wasn't used to feeling those lips fight back against his own, who wasn't sure he cared for fingertips ghosting uncertainly down his sides, who wondered, frantically, if he preferred his brother when the other was made out of that pliant wax, and the consideration of that fact was enough to make him groan, and grip at his brother's shoulders in despair.
They tangoed around each other like twin snakes, battling for the chance to consecrate and worship, to slather attention fanatically onto the other - (nibbling at each other's necks like herringfish) - and it was a bizarre tirade of love, and affection, and obsession, which they stopped, reluctantly, at the remembrance of the fact that they had to breathe.
They fell down into the water on countless occassions, groaning and grasping at each other with fingertips in much the same manner that Edward grasped at his intentions as though they were straws, and sent waves of inhibited froth splashing to the floor, soaking into the rug. The leverage was bad, but Al's body adjusted just the way it should have, positioning itself on auto-pilot, pivoting on the heels and turning at the waist to stay upright, an excellent example of equilibrium, and Edward felt that skin move taut and tenuous under his hands, almost delicate in it's dignity. Their knees bumped, under the soapy surface of that lukewarm water, and their hips ground together illicitly even as they kissed, and honestly, despite the tremors of pleasure that coiled out from his epicenter at the sensation, Edward was almost irritated with the fact that he and his brother would knock elbows halfway, would click their teeth together painfully as they miscalculated a kiss; with the fact that his brother wouldn't submit, wouldn't just lie there and let himself be idolized.
He remembered fervent adoration and motionless wax, and groaned at the memory of it, and plunged his human hand down into the depths of the water to take the younger blonde's cock roughly with his hand, pulling his teeth back in a lusty snarl.
"U-Um," Al started at the touch, breathing heavily and backing off a bit, something infinitely searching in his amber-colored eyes, but was cut off with a pair of lips insistently covering his own.
"Don't think," Edward instructed fervently, as he broke away; "you should never think. Just feel."
---
A sort of quiet depravity, and the feel of wax at last.
"There's no sin in this," Edward murmured reassuringly, hands sifting possessively through his brother's honey-colored hair, lips pressed up unshakeably against the other blonde's neck, murmuring and monarchal through his unintentional orders. "Only sensation. So don't worry. Don't fight back. Just lay there, and be still, and try your hardest to breathe."
And Al, held fast inside the sanctuary of his brother's arms, simply swallowed through his trembling and said, faithfully: "Okay. I will."
From there, time slowed to a passage of permanence and pleasure.
---
Curiously - cravenly, really, cowardly of that goddamned bastard to even imply! - lying next to the towels was a simple bottle of cedar-scented bath oil, inconspicuous save for it's obvious implications, and though Edward growled lowly to himself as he popped the cap, it didn't stop him from spilling those slippery contents shamelessly over his hands, didn't stop him from using it for it's intended purpose.
Because after all, what else was the colonel, if not practical, and if not perceptive?
---
10:406 Then, from the floor, he rais'd a royal bed,
10:407 With cov'rings of Sydonian purple spread:
10:408 The solemn rites perform'd, he calls her bride,
10:409 With blandishments invites her to his side;
10:410 And as she were with vital sense possess'd,
10:411 Her head did on a plumy pillow rest.
---
The two of them held hands as they reentered the living room, entirely bathed and entirely dressed, held hands as though they were tots again, instead of teens, and though the colonel had to have noticed the way they gripped at each other's fingertips like a lifeline, had to have seen the almost destructive force of their mirrored blushes, he merely spared them a glance, snorted, and resumed his perpetual observance of the fire.
"The two of you can have the bed," he said, quietly and dry, and tapped his fingers out along the armrest of his chair. "I'll take the couch. Tomorrow..." - and here he raised his eyes, and fixed the shorter of the blondes with a firm stare, " - you will be telling me just what in God's name has transpired here, yes?"
Edward looked at him for an impossibly long time.
"Eh, sure," he said at last, and swallowed down his obvious sickness. Al gripped his hand harder in reassurance; bent down to whisper something endearing into his ear - words lost in the face of his brother's imminent exhaustion - and brushed his lips lightly against the exposed junction of skin and an automail shoulder. At the contact, Edward relaxed a bit, but wasn't sure he liked the reappearance of the colonel's considering stare.
"Feel like showing us to our room or what?" he queried rudely, putting his free hand on his hip and summoning up the last of his pretense to form a petulant glare. "Unlike some certain lazy bastards who like to punch out early on thunderstorms, some of us have been working hard today, and are rather tired."
"Working hard!" Mustang barked, in a startling laugh, tossing his head, and his smirk was dark. "Well, I suppose that's not entirely...inaccurate." He stood from his chair gracefully, and turned the two brothers around by their shoulders. "Come on, then, boys - up the stairs here. I suppose you'll need something comfortable to sleep in, Fullmetal...?"
Edward scowled, then shrugged, uncomfortable with the weight of the man's bare hand resting between his shoulderblades - and his brother's. "Whatever."
They were led up the stairs and past the bathroom to the master bedroom, large and ridiculously lavish, with a towering bookcase and canopy bed, even complete with thick drawaround curtains and a feather mattress, with a plush chaise lounge and a window seat, and Edward's scowl deepened considerably. "Don't you think you're trying too hard, you shit...?"
"Nonsense," replied Mustang breezily, with an undercurrent of loathing that probably only the shorter of the blondes could catch, and he practically waltzed over to the mahogany wardrobe to begin rifling through it's drawers. "There's no 'trying' involved, you know, if a young lady and I are already at the stage where she's accepted my invitation to the bedroom."
Alphonse colored, and cast his eyes towards the ceiling. Edward hissed and kicked out with his automail foot. "Stop dicking around, would you, and find me some clothes!" he demanded irritably, face as red as the cloud that obscured his vision. "We're cold, and we're tired, and we don't care about your stupid - "
He was cut off a bundle of cloth connecting directly with his face, a pair of loose boxer shorts and another button-down shirt, an almost perfect imitation of his brother's borrowed clothing, and though he would have liked to hurl something back at the infuriating man, instead he grumbled to himself and began threading his arms through the sleeves of that shirt.
Mustang turned his back politely when the blonde shed his towel to finish dressing, but Al didn't; Al stared, even, and had actually stretched out his hand as though to touch before Edward pushed it away, jerking his head frantically in the colonel's direction and actually coloring, as though in embarrassment. Instead, he caught his brother's hand in his own, and pulled the other close, burying his face for a moment in damp bronze hair and closing his eyes to the rest of the world.
He could hear Al's heartbeat, somewhere near his own, and he could feel the almost brittle warmth of his brother's arms as they curled around his neck, and he could practically taste the other's breath as they rubbed noses, smiling hesitantly but happily. "Let's not be alone anymore, okay, Brother?" Al proposed decisively, determination sketching over the sweetness of his smile, and Edward shifted his eyes to the other side of the room, where he watched the colonel watching them, an impassive look schooled strictly across the man's face.
"Not ever," he swore passionately, though he looked not at Al, but at Mustang.
---
The two of them snuggled languidly under the fluffy weight of the colonel's comforters, curling into each other and tangling their limbs, pressing close to each other's hearts, mumbling their endearments and their goodnights with tired satiation. Al fell asleep almost instantly, clearly exhausted by the trials and tribulations of the day, while Edward stayed awake, making sure his deep respite was simply that - a sleep brought about from uncanny physical exhaustion, and though their breaths mingled and their hands entwined across the bedsheets, and he felt like he'd finally gotten everything he'd ever wanted, Edward still couldn't help but feel...unnerved by the situation.
Perhaps it was Al; Al who clutched at his waist even in sleep and didn't snore, but rather, inhaled deeply to shift into a fluttering exhale, Al who was practically too beautiful for his own good, Al who had gasped in both pleasure and pain at the feel of that very first push in that old abandoned church. A willowly blonde of fifteen, gone from caterpillar to cocoon to cathartic butterfly, brushing by softly and unfurling himself at his brother's touch.
Perhaps it was the colonel; the colonel who smirked ruthlessly and told him to be careful not to make too much of a mess on his bedsheets, the colonel who seemed to know, who accused him soundlessly with obsidian eyes, who would no longer look at him without looking consideringly at his brother - the big bad Flame Alchemist, of whom he'd had absolutely no choice but to go running back to for protection.
Hell, maybe it was New Optain, the city of a thousand citizens and a thousand regrets, the place where it had all began, the last landmark of a fatal mistake. New Optain which had...
Shit, just New Optain.
"Damn it," Edward muttered, and sat up.
He cast a longing look at his brother's sleeping form before sliding out of the bed, attacked instantly by the cold, and slipping silently out into the hall.
Mustang was just where he said he'd be, stretched out on the couch as though in slumber, but Edward knew better, and without even bothering with a prompt, padded quietly into the living room and took a seat on the floor, back against the couch, legs stretched towards the still roaring fire.
"Colonel," he started to say, but the words died in his throat, and he coughed before saying it again, the words too loud in the implacable dead of the night. "Colonel?"
"Yes?" Mustang replied, turning his head slightly to look at the blonde, eyes dancing eerily with the light of the fire. He seemed patient, and curious, and oddly put-upon, but there was sympathy in his face instead of a sermon, and Ed relaxed, letting the strain show visibly on his face, letting himself be the stumbling boy of twelve yet again.
"Colonel...homunculi are real."
If the man was surprised, he gave no indication. He simply nodded, solemnly, and waited for the blonde in front of him to go on.
"They're pretty vindictive beings, actually. They can't use alchemy, so they try to coerce real alchemists into creating Philosopher's Stones for them."
Edward closed his eyes, then opened them again, unwittingly sinking into memory.
"They took my brother. I couldn't protect him from them, and...they took him away. They... They knew what to do, Colonel. They knew how to rid him of his soul."
The youth gnawed on his automail thumb a moment before continuing, quietly distraught.
"They said that if I didn't draw the array, if I didn't take New Optain and make them the Stone, that...that they'd kill my brother."
For a moment, Edward went silent, shaking minutely, and Mustang sat up then, taking the throw he had been using as a blanket and draping it over the blonde's shoulders, rubbing reassuringly, all doubt removed from his eyes with honest understanding, and slowly, Edward felt himself calm down.
"It's all right," the man said then, quietly, still rubbing, and when he shifted from his place to touch the array on one of his gloves sitting on the coffee table, the fire in the hearth blazed stronger, filling the room with even more comforting warmth, "I understand. Everything you did was for your brother, after all. Though I'm not pleased that you lied to me about it - I would have done everything I could have, you know, to prevent any criminal repurcussions from landing on your head - I can understand, Fullmetal, just why you activated that array - "
"What?"
Edward looked up at him, suddenly, sharply, before the look on his face crumbled, and he started to shake again, from uncontrolled despair.
"I didn't lie," he whispered miserably, huddling in upon himself. "I didn't use that goddamned array. I drew it, for certain, but I didn't have any intention of using it."
Mustang frowned, perplexed but willing to wait patiently, hands lifting from the blonde's shoulders to rest upon the couch again at last. "Is...that so?"
"Yeah," Edward mumbled, rubbing at his arms and legs as though still cold. "I... I hate thinking about it, but...but I wouldn't sacrifice a thousand innocent people just for my own brother, you know?" His voice rose in pitch and intensity with each syllable, until he was nearly crying, high and broken. "He's my only brother, I know, but I won't kill, not even for him! He wouldn't want me to, for one, and I shouldn't have to, either, because there's gotta be another way - !"
Edward pivoted, and fixed the colonel with a wild stare. "There's an array...an array that can kill a homunculus, I've seen it! When the time came, I was going to set off a reaction that would alter the array for the Philosopher's Stone, and change it into the other one! You've... You've gotta believe me, colonel, when I say that I d-didn't mean for those p-people...to..."
He nearly shrieked, caught up in despair, and grieved, deeply, caught up in memory and in screams, and while no amount of soothing sweet talk would make all of the injustice go away, he knew he was glad when Mustang said, evenly: "I know."
They sat there for a while longer, until Edward had the courage to speak again, though when he did, his voice was hoarse and somewhat raw.
"The problem was...I wasn't smart enough."
He furrowed his brow, intently, as though to speak was an effort, as though to breathe were a chore.
"They anticipated my moves, I guess, or maybe knew that Al and I loved each other enough to understand that we'd sacrifice even each other to do the right thing, if there were no other way, but...I was wrong about that, too."
The blonde pulled the throw around himself tighter, and wriggled his toes together in an action born out of nervous habit.
"They ambushed me, as I came back to get Al, and turned the tables on us. I was held hostage, and they set my brother free. 'If you've got any love at all for brother dearest,' they said, 'then you'll do as we say. Or maybe you really do resent him for sticking you in that worthless scrap heap of a body, and want him to die...?' They kept my jaw clenched shut, but I tried so goddamned hard to relay the message with my eyes: 'shit, don't do it', but..."
Edward shook his head, and past his lips choked free a sob.
"It wasn't me who activated that array, colonel...it was Al."
---
He cried, for a little while after that, and didn't argue when the colonel helped him to his feet and led him upstairs again, an arm around his shoulders and a soothing baritone in his ear, murmuring nonsense, comforting through his immutability.
"He... He doesn't remember," Edward groaned miserably on their trek up the stairs, shaking his head as though to dispel the thought, steps stumbling and unsteady. "He says he w-woke up and f-found the Stone, found the c-city in ruins... I told him that they found someone else to make it, you see...? A-And that though I tr-tried to stop them, it w-was no good..."
"If he ever does find out the truth," the colonel swore solemnly, eyes dark, "it won't be from me."
Edward smiled, hesitantly, but there was an infinite sorrow to his eyes.
"We... We went to that abandoned church off of 34th Street, and there we used the Stone."
"Used it?" Mustang asked, brow furrowed in thought. "How...did you use it?"
The blonde swallowed, noisily, and for a moment his eyes fogged, back at the Gate, back at his ungodly mistake. "I...made Al a new body. Made it like it was made out of clay, made it as best as I could sculpt it, based off of my memories. The... The Philosopher's Stone is...is his heart."
For a long time, the colonel was silent, admiration and abbhorence waging war in his eyes; then, he let out a loud breath, raised his eyebrows for a moment, and shrugged. "Well," was all that the man said.
They reached the bedroom door, and turned to face each other uncomfortably.
"We'll... We'll probably have to go away for a while," Edward admitted, casting his eyes down, toeing the floor awkwardly. "You understand h-how it is, right...? There's... There's really no way to explain what the hell happened to us, and...it's not like Al and I are n-normal brothers, anyway..." He pressed his lips together, and willed his blush to go away, as it was uncharacteristic and childish.
"I see," Mustang said impassively, judgement in neither his tone nor his eyes, and turned the knob. "I'll attempt to sweep this mess under the rug as best as I can, for your sake. I'm happy for the two of you, undoubtedly, since you've worked impossibly hard to reach your goal, yet...still. I'm curious." The door swung open, but the older alchemist never gazed in, instead kept his stare fixed pointedly on the youth's face. "Is that really your brother? Or is it just what you wanted him to be?"
Edward scowled, momentarily, but then his look turned unashamedly proud. "Neither," he said, practically gliding through the bedroom door, a fleeting smile passing across his haggard face. "That's just his soul, as it was meant to be seen on the outside."
And with that, he shut the door on the man's surprised face.
---
Bizarrely, they didn't go away for a while; didn't retreat into the hushed whispers of legend like all famous names had a tendency to do, but instead stayed with the colonel, who would sigh and roll his eyes as he watched two greedy mouths scarf down their breakfast in the morning as though starving, who would simply shrug and light a fire for warmth when he would come across two nude teens sticky and sprawled across his sofa. He seemed to take them in as though they were strays; kept them fed and made sure that they bathed, and seemed ever-wary of their bizarre quirks, tiptoeing around them quietly and always asking with the word 'please'. Not afraid of them, exactly, but understandably distanced from them, as it were, since the two of them seemed to have a bond that wouldn't be broken by any outsider.
They never spoke of New Optain, because there was honestly no need to. The colonel would occassionally resume that considering look of his, especially when his eyes happened to find the line of Al's chest, but nothing was ever said on the subject, and the accursed city was finally allowed to rest in peace. Every now and then, Al would idly sketch the phoenix array atop a tabletop with his fingers, unconscious of his actions, but his expression was always placid, and always peaceful, and therefore, the other two thought nothing of it.
Edward was honestly surprised that, for all of the colonel's indifference to their illicit activities, that the man didn't attempt to, or even expect himself to be allowed to join in, which was puzzling but pleasing, as there was still that traitorous part of himself that would scream, forever, that his brother was his, and that no one else could be allowed to have him; not head or hands or heart, and especially not that untempered heat of his, that heat that occassionally threatened to blaze out of control. But the colonel would only sigh, in that long-suffering way of his, and knock mildly on their door to ask them to keep it down; surrendered the master bedroom to them, even, and bought a bed for another room of the house, which he made his. When asked about it, he would simply eye one or the other of them with perplexion and shake his head as though they were mad, and after a fashion, the both of them just stopped asking.
The exact two-month anniversary of Al's restoration was Christmas day, which the three of them spent together, despite the numerous invitations that Mustang had received to attend other parties - (though Edward would never admit it, he was secretly...pleased...to see that the man piled them up in a stack neatly, and dumped them promptly in the trash) - and they spent the holidays modestly, because they really didn't have much use for a holiday based solely on a discarded religion.
"You know...I've always wondered," Al started hesitantly that morning, the snow falling from the picture window behind him a picturesque compliment to his haloish golden hair, "just why you've agreed to let us stay for this long, colonel. I mean, it's been two months."
Edward, sprawled at the other end of the sofa with his brother's feet in his face, feigned sleep yet secretly perked up his ears in interest, curious as to what the answer would be, as well.
But Mustang only shrugged, expression bland, and took a sip of his coffee. "Why not a couple more, then, eh?" he suggested, deadpan, then gestured over to their somewhat small tree for diversion. "I bought the lot of you presents."
For all of his excellence at faking sleep, Edward's efforts were belied by the instantaneous way he sat up, ponytail flying, and leapt off of the sofa. "No way, you shit! Where?"
Al rolled his eyes and shrugged helplessly from behind his brother's back, but the colonel's laugh was genuine. "Well, naturally, since age and beauty and height all come before you, Fullmetal, I put all of your gifts on the bottom of the - "
A tiny meow made him snap his jaw shut. Edward, glare turning suspicious, swiveled in the direction of the other blonde in the room, who cast looks between the two of them frantically. "U-Um, he was - !"
"Cold?" supplied Edward sarcastically, shoulders hunching slightly.
"Hungry?" added Mustang, lips curling in amusement.
"So pathetically alone?" Edward put in again, annoyance only part exaggerated.
Al colored, and honestly seemed slightly antagonized, which meant that it was time for the other two to shut up, which they did - promptly. "No," the taller of the blondes hissed, "he wasn't those things. He was our Christmas gift, I'll have you know, from Mrs. Hughes - "
For a long time, there was a heavy silence. The colonel was the first to recover.
"Oh," he said mildly.
"Right," agreed Edward weakly, as though on cue.
Al scoffed at the two of them, still affronted, but went around the back of the tree to lift the kitten carrier, clearly concealed by a huge stack of alchemic tomes that were someone's unwrapped gift or another. The kitten itself peered out from the carrier at them, blinking and huddling a bit as though afraid, but perked up visibly at Al's voice, giving the indication that Gracia perhaps hadn't been as alone in picking out their Christmas gift as she ordinarily would have been.
When the door to the carrier was open, the kitten hopped out - a fluffy ginger-colored ball of scrap, it was - and started sniffing around the living room. It puffed up adorably at the sight of Edward holding out his hand grudgingly to it, but cautiously nosed around the colonel's legs when the man made some sort of clucking noise at it, and tapped his fingers on the floor by his feet.
"I think he likes you, colonel!" Al said excitedly, while Edward snorted in the background, obviously snubbed.
"Have you thought of a name, Alphonse?" Roy asked curiously, then cursed when the kitten took his waggling fingers as a scratching post, and left little red stripes running freely down the top of his hand. Edward snickered.
"Oh, I don't know," the taller blonde shrugged, smiling a bit when the kitten came to curl up in his lap, yawn, and sink down into sleep, purring loudly. "He looks sort of like a lion, so I was thinking of the name 'Leo'."
"Leo?" Edward yawned, and stretched out on the couch again, an unconscious imitation of the cat. "You mean, like the constellation?"
"Something like that, yeah."
There was a companionable silence for a while, as Edward dozed, Al rubbed the kitten's ears, and Mustang watched one or the other of them, considering again. After about ten minutes or so, Al spoke up again, and his voice was mild, and carefully quiet.
"Colonel...you never did answer my question, you know."
From his spot on the couch, Edward stirred interestedly, cracking an eye open, and looked up just in time to catch the expression of fleeting awkwardness that passed across the man's face.
"Well, Alphonse..."
('I won't bother to ask how the two of you can drive your bond past that of fraternity,' the colonel said to him one day, as Al was cooking dinner, 'so don't worry. If you two want to have sex with each other like rabbits, then it's your prerogative, and I won't judge you for it. Don't ask, don't tell, and all that. I'm used to keeping your dirty little secrets for you, after all.')
"Hey, Al."
"Hunh?" The taller blonde turned to look at his brother confusedly, and each time he saw that perfect pale-skin face, it took the other's breath away.
"Just...leave him alone about it, all right?" Edward shrugged, aiming for nonchalant and falling just flat of that. "I'm... I'm sure he's got his reasons."
And in Al's eyes was an understanding, a cognizance he wouldn't have been able to have if he were still that living wax, and Edward understood then, finally: this is what I really want. "A-Ah, okay. Sorry, colonel."
"Oh, don't worry about it," Mustang parried, with his usual elegance, but the smile he shot the shorter of the blondes was somewhat grateful, and unbidden, Edward grinned back. "I think I'll go heat up a saucer of milk for our newfound friend. Alphonse, you'll have to give my deepest of thanks to Gracia the next time you see her."
"Yeah, well, I think Al and I are going to stand under the mistletoe for the next fifteen minutes or so," Edward drawled, loudly, and swung to his feet, the portrait of ease. "C'mon, Al."
It was under that mistletoe that he reaffirmed his declaration, that he reassured himself that fervent lips on his own and hot hands pushing themselves underneath his sweater was exactly what he wanted, that it wouldn't kill him to put a lot of effort into something, and to get a little something back. That love was a mutual thing, even, and that it was all right to be a unrepentant fanatic so long as he let his brother love him, in turn. 'No man is an island', the saying went, but it could also be said that no man was an idol, either, and so he led the other up the stairs into the bedroom, and for the first time since it began, let his brother be the one to take him, instead, to lift his legs up and push his arms firmly down.
Down in the parlor, sighing at the repetitive thumps and groans that were issuing from the upstairs and watching amusedly as Leo tried to put his paws on the milk saucer and ended up spilling it all over himself, Roy Mustang swirled the 1896 Pierrot in his stemglass and watched the liquid lap up against the side like blood, smiling ruefully.
"To New Optain," he said, and downed the glass in a single gulp.
Author's Notes Upon Completion: ! FINISHED. Note my crapping out at the end, because RL stuff has been making me too wanky to write, and thus, I can't concentrate enough to pound out a decent ending. STILL. METAMORPHOSE IS FINISHED. HALLELUJAH. *does a dance* And now I've gotta go work for twelve hours, so. LATER.