[fic] "Things Overheard" (Elricest, R)
Title: Things Overheard
Author: cryogenia
Pairing: Elricest
Rating: R
Genre: FLUFF. And humor. But not smut.
Warnings: Uh, absolutely none.
Notes: I AM THE BEST PROCRASTINATOR FOREVER D:
Fluff Versus Angst for elricsexual - Team Fluff: voices carry
Later, looking back, Alphonse Elric thought he could trace the cause of the whole mess to a solitary event. It all came back to the radio, and its untimely demise.
"Aw, SHIT!"
He walked into the bedroom to see his brother staring apologetically at a sorry pile of wood and glass that at one time appeared to have been their radio. He recognized it from the dial - a cheerful, round knob that had always reminded Al of a mousy button nose. The rest of the machine's "face", however, was gone. The glassy front was entirely smashed in, and the casing itself was suddenly concave.
"Shit..." His brother cursed again as he noticed him, apologetic this time. "Sorry, Al." Edward gave him a pained grin. "I kinda bumped it."
"With what, a sledgehammer?!" Al gaped.
"With my elbow!" Ed hastily amended. "I kinda moved my arm wrong, see, and I caught the front of the radio, and I swear I didn't mean to but I seriously couldn't catch it..."
"...brother, the alarm clock used to be on the nightstand. That's on the other side of the room from here."
"...okay, so I was taking a nap and this damn weird commercial came on and woke me up!" Ed snorted. "Have you HEARD the jingle for Wildroot hair oil!? Fucking singer howls like a banshee!"
"That's why I wish you wouldn't leave the stupid thing on twenty-four seven!" Al glared back. It was an old argument. Edward, for whatever reason, craved background noise. "Can't think without it" was how he explained it. Al personally didn't quite get the inability to concentrate except in the presence of distraction, but it didn't particularly bother him. It was just weird, like so many other things about his brother, and whether it was a hold-over from the days when trains and busy cities were constantly part of their landscape or whether it was Ed's innate quirkiness, Al could roll with it. He was good with that.
Then again, he'd had a lot of practice.
"Can it be fixed?" Al asked, trying to switch back into more productive debate.
"I dunno, honestly." Edward sighed. "I found most of the pieces, but I think I'm missing some of the smaller tubes..." He gestured helplessly at the small puddle of scraps. "You think we can guesstimate it?"
"If you have to ask me, then probably not." Al sighed. Ed only asked for help, it seemed, when he wanted someone else to admit defeat for him.
"Well, damn." Ed said. "Looks like we're out another radio then." He didn't seem too overly perturbed.
Al buried the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed, exasperated. As excited as Ed could get about things, he never quite managed to get to the part about "taking care" of treasured possessions.
"Really, brother, I don't see why you bother replacing them. The last one you broke, what, two weeks after you got it?"
"It was longer than that!" Ed protested. "At least two months!"
"Well, as I recall, you threw it against the wall cause the Latter Day Church of Leto came on." Al scowled. "Now it's hair oil. What next, we have to pulverize the machine cause a song you don't like dared to come on the air? Learn to turn the damn thing off!"
"It was a really bad commercial..." Ed protested weakly.
"Money doesn't grow on trees, you know." Al continued, though the look in Edward's eyes made him ramp his tone down. Damn the man, he always looked so sorry even when it was something silly. Like a puppy caught with muddy paws on the rug, thinking it was the end of the world.
"If you want another one, you can wait till you get paid next time, is all I'm saying. I'm sick of buying stuff we're gonna break. It's just not economical."
"Okay." And like a puppy, Ed was always quick to agree when it was something he fully intended to forgot five seconds later. He swept the broken parts up and bounded off toward the dustbin, leaving Al to stare woefully at the empty space the radio had formerly occupied. Dammit, and he'd liked that radio too. It was cute.
Not nearly as cute as his brother, though, coming back to squirm into his arms and 'make up' with him. Al laughed, breathless, as he found himself tipped backward onto the bed in one enthusiastic bound.
"You mad at me?" Ed asked, between nips.
"No," Al said truthfully, and stroked his brother's back. "But I will be, if you don't get out of these clothes."
And so, he thought no more about it. Until the following day.
"Say, who's your lady friend?" Mr. Grayson, their far-left neighbor, asked as Al bounded down the path to their apartment complex's gate.
"Beg pardon?" Al blinked.
The old man, half-shadowed by the building and his own immense hat, gave Al a hideous wink.
"Or was that your brother, a'courtin'? I haven't seen that pretty lass of his around for a while. You make sure to give them my regards. Little blonde gal, carries them wrenches...now that's a fine woman, there. You should find one like that boy, do you some good."
"Er, right." Something about his tone must have tipped the old man off, because suddenly Mr. Grayson's shaggy eyebrows were lifting right into his non-existent hairline.
"Sorry son, I don't mean to embarrass you!" The man took a hardy stride forward and clapped Al hard on the back, with a strength that made him wince. Retired or not, Mr. Grayson still packed a lot of the punch that had made him a fine supply house foreman, back in the day. "We old folk just like to know you young folk are enjoyin' life." Again, horribly, he winked. "My Nelly and I were young once too, you know. I understand how it is. Just try and keep it down if you're gonna be up too late. Us poor old people, it's a bit hard to sleep."
Al's mind reeled.
He thinks...he HEARD...ohhhhhh NO!
"Good day, Mr. Grayson." He heard himself say faintly. "If you don't mind, I think I'll have to excuse myself. I forgot something upstairs."
Forgot to STRANGLE my brother!
The door rattled in its frame with the intensity of Al's entrance. Ed looked up from the couch, surprised; he even deigned to set his book down.
"Oh, hi Al." Ed said. "You're home early."
"NO," Al snapped. "I'm not! Brother, were you aware the neighbors HEARD that little stunt you pulled yesterday!?"
"Huh?"
"YOU were the one who kept saying you wanted to 'hear me'." Al fumed, scarlet red. "Well, from the looks of it the whole neighborhood did, too!"
"Oh, uh...really?"
"Yes, really!" Al huffed. "Mr. Grayson asked me who my 'lady friend' was that had me so worked up."
"Huh." Ed's expression was pensive. Abruptly, he looked up.
"Damn, I'm good!" Ed cackled.
"BROTHER!" Al was at a loss. "This is not funny!" He hissed, outwardly seething. Inwardly, he was terrified. He had always privately worried this day would come...that one day, it would not be enough simply to be a pair of 'bachelor brothers'. He had feared that eventually, someone might realize that neither of them dated - or to the actual nature of their relationship. Now, it seemed, that horror was right there on the horizon.
Seeing Al's face crumple, Ed vaulted off the couch and wrapped around him immediately, almost frantic in his need to keep his brother from being upset.
"Hey there, c'mon, don't be like that - I know. I'm sorry." Ed pressed his head in close, beneath the cleft of Al's chin. "You okay?"
Al took a deep breath, inhaling his brother's scent and musk, the warm spice of his hair conditioner. "Yeah, I'm alright."
"How bad is it?" Ed asked. "Think we'll have to move?"
"No," Al said, calming down as he thought it through. "He didn't seem upset. Totally assumed it was you and Winry, or something."
"People are pretty good about that." Ed agreed. "They don't even think about it, so..." He shrugged.
"Yeah. Still, uh, that was really less than stellar." Al said. "I don't want to have to go through that again."
"Mmm, yeah," Ed said, nuzzling softly at the base of his brother's neck. It made Al want to squirm. "I hear that." Al tilted his head back, distracted, as his brother's teeth began making their way along the curve of his shoulder.
"Wait - what are you doing!?"
"Practicing," Ed said matter-of-factly. He looked up from where he was unbuttoning Al's shirt. "If I can make you loud, I can keep you quiet, too."
Al thought to protest that particularly ego-centric line of reasoning, but a sudden mouthing over his clothed groin took the words right out of his mouth.
The next complaint came from downstairs, in the nervous form of Miss Dunway.
"A-ah, good day, Mr. Elric." The young secretary said, twisting her hands over and over around the strap of her handbag. "How do you do?"
"Fine." Al said, not entirely sure what to think about the woman standing in his doorway. She was dressed, as usual, in full coat and hat, complete with tiny little kid gloves. Ever the lady.
"May I help you with something?"
"Yes! Ah well, that is, if I could trouble you..." She wetted her lips. That was the thing with Miss Dunway; she was cordial to the point of being obtuse. Al wondered perhaps if he was going to have turn another one down already. Usually, he didn't have to reject ladies more than once a week.
"By all means. Go ahead." He offered.
Miss Dunway shrunk a little under his gaze, clutched her purse a little tighter. "Well, I hate to be so silly...but it was just that, last afternoon, when you gentlemen were working on house repairs..."
"House repairs." Repeated Al, blankly. Miss Dunway's eyes widened.
"Oh dear, was that not...? I mean, I heard pounding..." She looked even more flustered.
"Right, oh, that!" Al cried, feeling flustered himself. "That was my brother uh, working on a project. I'll warn him to be more careful next time." Warn him not to hammer me through the damn floor!
"You would? Oh, how very darling of you!" Miss Dunway's discomfort vanished immediately into a smile, leaving Al with the uncomfortable notion that he might be turning a fan down yet.
"It's the least I can do. Good day now, miss." Al said firmly, and shut the door on her beaming face.
"BROTHER!" He bellowed.
Ed poked his head out from the bathroom, where he was finishing up with a legitimate 'house repair'. "What? Can't hear you, you'll have to come in here to talk." Al was all too happy to comply.
"Look, I got the drain unclogged!" Ed said proudly as Al stepped into the room. He waggled five automail fingers, completely unsoiled. "Figured out an array that works, too; I didn't even have to transmute my arm into a snake. I think we could make a completely self-cleaning tub, if we etch this array around the mouth of the drain, and that soap-scum separating thing you figured out on the wall-"
"Brother," Al interrupted. "That was Miss Dunway at the door."
"Yeah?" Ed asked, disinterested. He was busy scraping his masterpiece into the enamel with his automail. "What'd she want?"
"She wanted us to not have sex so loud she could hear it through the floor!"
That got his brother's attention. Ed froze mid-hydrogen.
"...she knew we were having sex?"
"Well, not exactly - she thought it was 'house repairs' - but still. I told you the living room floor was a bad idea! Well, tried to." He amended. Admittedly, he hadn't had the breath to do much of anything but pant.
Ed's shoulders dropped. He looked relieved. "Well, what's the problem then? She's so uptight, I doubt she'd know sex if it jumped up and bit her in the crotch."
"That's not very nice!"
"Well, it's true." Ed grinned. "Come on, you can't tell me it's not true."
Al made a valiant attempt not to smile, then gave up. "Yeah, you're right...I guess, I'm just saying it was a nasty surprise, knowing she's listening." He made a face. "Guess at least it wasn't Mr. Grayson again."
Ed snorted. "Yeah, that old perv probably gets off to it."
Al tried to act affronted on the man's behalf, but solidly failed.
"Just so long as there aren't any more Graysons in this building, I'll be happy. Heaven knows we don't need another person listening in."
Unfortunately, it seemed there WAS another person listening in. Or at the very least, word traveled fast. Al knew he was in for it good when a couple days later he went to greet Winry at the gate, and found her already engaged in conversation with the infamous snoopy Davis spinsters.
"So what's this I hear about me being your girlfriend?" Winry asked him, as soon as she could be pried away.
"Er..." Al wasn't quite sure how to answer that. In truth, he'd always felt vaguely bad about Winry. They both had loved her, once - did still love her, if not in a romantic way - and he knew it had always bothered her that neither of them had asked her, even when they were seemingly available to the rest of the world. She put on a good face, but he'd noticed sometimes that it hurt her. He wished he could say something to make it better, but he really, really couldn't.
Sometimes, it sucked to be just him and his brother against the world.
"Or Ed's girlfriend. I couldn't quite figure out which." Winry continued. She raised an eyebrow at Al.
"Just building gossip." Al lied. "You're here a lot visiting; nosy biddies like that start jumping to conclusions."
"Mm." Said Winry noncommittally. "Well, anyway. How's Demolition Man?"
"I heard that!!!" Ed called down from the landing. He had come out to greet them.
"You scratch up that new stuff, yet?" Winry called back. "If I have to hammer out any dents, you're getting dents on your skull!"
"Like hell you will!"
Al flushed. No matter how many years he was subjected to it, the sheer amount of shit-talking those two did back and forth never failed to amaze him. It was a form of communication that honestly, while he had tried, he had never quite learned to be comfortable with - which of course, meant he failed at it. And it was always a bit strange to realize that he was shut out of this whole thing that his two best friends in the entire universe shared, but over time, he'd adapted. He and his brother had their own special brother-space, too. It was a reasonable trade.
Besides, he really didn't want to communicate via spanner, anyway. Nor so loudly. In the hall.
"Guys--!" He began, holding his hands up, as the two opposing forces began steamrolling toward each other from each side of the hall. "Getting kind of loud, could we keep it down..."
Unfortunately, someone else got between them first.
"Ah, I thought that was you kids!" Mr. Grayson said, appearing suddenly from the mouth of unit 3-B. "What's all the ruckus? Lover's spat?"
Winry briefly ran through six different shades of red, then turned to stare at the old man - completely and utterly composed. Al nearly wanted to clap.
"No sir, just having a bit of friendly dispute."
"Hope it's not as loud as your other 'disputes'." The man leered. Al felt his heart drop out of his chest. Across the way, Ed looked similarly stricken - he blanched visibly, and his eyes darted back and forth between Grayson and Winry nervously.
"Beg pardon?" Winry said, perfectly polite, though there was a hard edge of unhappiness creeping into her tone.
Grayson chortled. "You kids keep us old farts up all night sometimes, you know that? Have mercy on him, girl, a man can only take so much." He leaned forward and leered at her, in a way that made Al horribly glad he had not been born female. And then...oh no...
Please don't wink, please don't wink... Al prayed desperately.
There was no help for it. Grayson winked.
"Ah, young love..."
Winry got very quiet.
Eventually, even Mr. Grayson recognized something was amiss. He offered them a quick, pained look and withdrew back through his door again.
Like a turtle, Al thought bitterly. A big, ugly turtle with ugly bushy eyebrows. He didn't care if it was uncharitable. Right now, the guilt was knifing him in the gut just as hard as it ever had, and he was in no mood to worry about the feelings of tactless, lewd old retirees.
Ed definitely seemed to share the sentiment. He stepped forward with one arm outstretched, hanging, like he didn't quite know what to do with it.
"Winry..." Ed began.
Winry shook herself once, visibly. Al cringed at the thought of her face when she looked up, but surprisingly, there was no disappointment. There were no tears. He could see it hurt in her eyes, for a moment, but then it was gone - replaced instead by a firm sort of resolve that gave Alphonse pause.
"Come on, you dorks!" She said, in a tone so falsely cheerful it momentarily fooled all three of them. "What are we standing around outside for?" Blustering forward, she swept up to their door and began picking the lock, prompting Ed to snap out of it and yap at her that he would transmute it open, could she wait five minutes, she didn't have to make it look like she was a cat burglar.
Al shook his head. She was a stronger person than any of them. But still...
This is going to end, so help me. Al swore to himself. And I'm also going to have a little talk with Mr. Grayson.
Actually, Al discovered, going without noise was easy. The problem was having to go without sex. Cowed into submission after his close brush with Winry's spanner (in addition to the guilt, she'd expressed extreme and very physical disapproval when Ed refused to dish about his new "girlfriend"), Ed had in fact agreed not to touch Al for a while. Unfortunately, this also meant Al had to agree not to touch Ed, which meant that in relatively short order neither of them were fit to live with. After they'd nearly come to blows over something as innocuous as washing dishes, then snapped and wound up making out drenched half to death with dish water, Al had been forced to admit that abstinence, as great as it looked on paper, was really not all it was cracked up to be.
Which landed them right back where they'd started.
And rather worse off than before. The noise complaints increased again, as did the funny looks from various neighbors; Al found himself scanning the hallway for life before going out just to avoid any awkward conversations. Mr. Grayson said nothing to him anymore, excepting one memorable occasion after a particularly hard session in the bathtub -
"Look, kid, I don't mind if you're having fun in the shower, but the walls are pretty thin. You could at least have the decency to pretend you're singing, or something."
Hell. It wasn't HIS fault his brother was so vocal when you went down on him. Nor, really, was it Ed's fault that Al whimpered when his nipples were pinched. At least they sounded enough alike that so far no one had caught on to the fact that sometimes there were two voices, that actually it was not always the same man - but unfortunately, Al had the niggling suspicion that some of the smarter ones had started to wonder why they never heard the girl's voice. Thoughts like that, before long, would give rise to the question "why hasn't anyone ever seen this girl go in and out", lead to nosey people like the Davis twins watching them 24/7, watching their visitors... It just wasn't fair. They'd pick an obscure building in Central for exactly this reason, and this was what they got.
Should have bought a house. Al thought darkly. As much as they didn't want to care for one, at least then there wouldn't be anyone to listen in on their showers.
Listening in on showers... Could at least have the decency to pretend you're singing, Mr. Grayson's voice just kept echoing at the back of his head, made him think. Pretense. That was really what this was about, wasn't it, keeping up appearances. It wasn't like he couldn't hear Mr. Grayson mucking about moving his furniture, or his upstairs neighbor practicing opera. It was all about appearances, and making it so people didn't have to think, didn't have to question. Miss Dunway, for example, had readily admitted that she'd sometimes heard his brother's radio programs blaring so loud, she hadn't needed to turn on her own set. It was all about--
Radio.
Belatedly, the pieces came together, and it made so much sense that Al wanted to smack himself. His brother's constant need for background noise had landed them radios in the bedroom, conveniently helping to mask low grunts, springs... But would that really help, now that it would be so obvious what the music was meant to cover up?
Well, it couldn't hurt to try.
"Hey brother," he called into the living room. "Changed my mind. You wanna come pick out a new radio?"
"!!!"
One thing was sure. Ed's reaction was so enthusiastic, they were going to have plenty of thank-you sex to test this plan on.
Several hours later, sweaty, sticky, and extremely satisfied, Al was curled up on top of his brother on top of the sheets, staring up into darkness. A nameless singer was crooning down at them softly, pouring forth words of love. There had not been a single broom handle hammering against the floor or any knocks on the wall all evening.
Al was completely, and utterly, content.
"Finally think the radio's a good investment?" Ed teased, nibbling at an earlobe.
"No," Al sighed, "but I'm certain the neighbors do."
::uh-oh, here we go, turn up the radio::
Author: cryogenia
Pairing: Elricest
Rating: R
Genre: FLUFF. And humor. But not smut.
Warnings: Uh, absolutely none.
Notes: I AM THE BEST PROCRASTINATOR FOREVER D:
Fluff Versus Angst for elricsexual - Team Fluff: voices carry
Later, looking back, Alphonse Elric thought he could trace the cause of the whole mess to a solitary event. It all came back to the radio, and its untimely demise.
"Aw, SHIT!"
He walked into the bedroom to see his brother staring apologetically at a sorry pile of wood and glass that at one time appeared to have been their radio. He recognized it from the dial - a cheerful, round knob that had always reminded Al of a mousy button nose. The rest of the machine's "face", however, was gone. The glassy front was entirely smashed in, and the casing itself was suddenly concave.
"Shit..." His brother cursed again as he noticed him, apologetic this time. "Sorry, Al." Edward gave him a pained grin. "I kinda bumped it."
"With what, a sledgehammer?!" Al gaped.
"With my elbow!" Ed hastily amended. "I kinda moved my arm wrong, see, and I caught the front of the radio, and I swear I didn't mean to but I seriously couldn't catch it..."
"...brother, the alarm clock used to be on the nightstand. That's on the other side of the room from here."
"...okay, so I was taking a nap and this damn weird commercial came on and woke me up!" Ed snorted. "Have you HEARD the jingle for Wildroot hair oil!? Fucking singer howls like a banshee!"
"That's why I wish you wouldn't leave the stupid thing on twenty-four seven!" Al glared back. It was an old argument. Edward, for whatever reason, craved background noise. "Can't think without it" was how he explained it. Al personally didn't quite get the inability to concentrate except in the presence of distraction, but it didn't particularly bother him. It was just weird, like so many other things about his brother, and whether it was a hold-over from the days when trains and busy cities were constantly part of their landscape or whether it was Ed's innate quirkiness, Al could roll with it. He was good with that.
Then again, he'd had a lot of practice.
"Can it be fixed?" Al asked, trying to switch back into more productive debate.
"I dunno, honestly." Edward sighed. "I found most of the pieces, but I think I'm missing some of the smaller tubes..." He gestured helplessly at the small puddle of scraps. "You think we can guesstimate it?"
"If you have to ask me, then probably not." Al sighed. Ed only asked for help, it seemed, when he wanted someone else to admit defeat for him.
"Well, damn." Ed said. "Looks like we're out another radio then." He didn't seem too overly perturbed.
Al buried the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed, exasperated. As excited as Ed could get about things, he never quite managed to get to the part about "taking care" of treasured possessions.
"Really, brother, I don't see why you bother replacing them. The last one you broke, what, two weeks after you got it?"
"It was longer than that!" Ed protested. "At least two months!"
"Well, as I recall, you threw it against the wall cause the Latter Day Church of Leto came on." Al scowled. "Now it's hair oil. What next, we have to pulverize the machine cause a song you don't like dared to come on the air? Learn to turn the damn thing off!"
"It was a really bad commercial..." Ed protested weakly.
"Money doesn't grow on trees, you know." Al continued, though the look in Edward's eyes made him ramp his tone down. Damn the man, he always looked so sorry even when it was something silly. Like a puppy caught with muddy paws on the rug, thinking it was the end of the world.
"If you want another one, you can wait till you get paid next time, is all I'm saying. I'm sick of buying stuff we're gonna break. It's just not economical."
"Okay." And like a puppy, Ed was always quick to agree when it was something he fully intended to forgot five seconds later. He swept the broken parts up and bounded off toward the dustbin, leaving Al to stare woefully at the empty space the radio had formerly occupied. Dammit, and he'd liked that radio too. It was cute.
Not nearly as cute as his brother, though, coming back to squirm into his arms and 'make up' with him. Al laughed, breathless, as he found himself tipped backward onto the bed in one enthusiastic bound.
"You mad at me?" Ed asked, between nips.
"No," Al said truthfully, and stroked his brother's back. "But I will be, if you don't get out of these clothes."
And so, he thought no more about it. Until the following day.
"Say, who's your lady friend?" Mr. Grayson, their far-left neighbor, asked as Al bounded down the path to their apartment complex's gate.
"Beg pardon?" Al blinked.
The old man, half-shadowed by the building and his own immense hat, gave Al a hideous wink.
"Or was that your brother, a'courtin'? I haven't seen that pretty lass of his around for a while. You make sure to give them my regards. Little blonde gal, carries them wrenches...now that's a fine woman, there. You should find one like that boy, do you some good."
"Er, right." Something about his tone must have tipped the old man off, because suddenly Mr. Grayson's shaggy eyebrows were lifting right into his non-existent hairline.
"Sorry son, I don't mean to embarrass you!" The man took a hardy stride forward and clapped Al hard on the back, with a strength that made him wince. Retired or not, Mr. Grayson still packed a lot of the punch that had made him a fine supply house foreman, back in the day. "We old folk just like to know you young folk are enjoyin' life." Again, horribly, he winked. "My Nelly and I were young once too, you know. I understand how it is. Just try and keep it down if you're gonna be up too late. Us poor old people, it's a bit hard to sleep."
Al's mind reeled.
He thinks...he HEARD...ohhhhhh NO!
"Good day, Mr. Grayson." He heard himself say faintly. "If you don't mind, I think I'll have to excuse myself. I forgot something upstairs."
Forgot to STRANGLE my brother!
The door rattled in its frame with the intensity of Al's entrance. Ed looked up from the couch, surprised; he even deigned to set his book down.
"Oh, hi Al." Ed said. "You're home early."
"NO," Al snapped. "I'm not! Brother, were you aware the neighbors HEARD that little stunt you pulled yesterday!?"
"Huh?"
"YOU were the one who kept saying you wanted to 'hear me'." Al fumed, scarlet red. "Well, from the looks of it the whole neighborhood did, too!"
"Oh, uh...really?"
"Yes, really!" Al huffed. "Mr. Grayson asked me who my 'lady friend' was that had me so worked up."
"Huh." Ed's expression was pensive. Abruptly, he looked up.
"Damn, I'm good!" Ed cackled.
"BROTHER!" Al was at a loss. "This is not funny!" He hissed, outwardly seething. Inwardly, he was terrified. He had always privately worried this day would come...that one day, it would not be enough simply to be a pair of 'bachelor brothers'. He had feared that eventually, someone might realize that neither of them dated - or to the actual nature of their relationship. Now, it seemed, that horror was right there on the horizon.
Seeing Al's face crumple, Ed vaulted off the couch and wrapped around him immediately, almost frantic in his need to keep his brother from being upset.
"Hey there, c'mon, don't be like that - I know. I'm sorry." Ed pressed his head in close, beneath the cleft of Al's chin. "You okay?"
Al took a deep breath, inhaling his brother's scent and musk, the warm spice of his hair conditioner. "Yeah, I'm alright."
"How bad is it?" Ed asked. "Think we'll have to move?"
"No," Al said, calming down as he thought it through. "He didn't seem upset. Totally assumed it was you and Winry, or something."
"People are pretty good about that." Ed agreed. "They don't even think about it, so..." He shrugged.
"Yeah. Still, uh, that was really less than stellar." Al said. "I don't want to have to go through that again."
"Mmm, yeah," Ed said, nuzzling softly at the base of his brother's neck. It made Al want to squirm. "I hear that." Al tilted his head back, distracted, as his brother's teeth began making their way along the curve of his shoulder.
"Wait - what are you doing!?"
"Practicing," Ed said matter-of-factly. He looked up from where he was unbuttoning Al's shirt. "If I can make you loud, I can keep you quiet, too."
Al thought to protest that particularly ego-centric line of reasoning, but a sudden mouthing over his clothed groin took the words right out of his mouth.
The next complaint came from downstairs, in the nervous form of Miss Dunway.
"A-ah, good day, Mr. Elric." The young secretary said, twisting her hands over and over around the strap of her handbag. "How do you do?"
"Fine." Al said, not entirely sure what to think about the woman standing in his doorway. She was dressed, as usual, in full coat and hat, complete with tiny little kid gloves. Ever the lady.
"May I help you with something?"
"Yes! Ah well, that is, if I could trouble you..." She wetted her lips. That was the thing with Miss Dunway; she was cordial to the point of being obtuse. Al wondered perhaps if he was going to have turn another one down already. Usually, he didn't have to reject ladies more than once a week.
"By all means. Go ahead." He offered.
Miss Dunway shrunk a little under his gaze, clutched her purse a little tighter. "Well, I hate to be so silly...but it was just that, last afternoon, when you gentlemen were working on house repairs..."
"House repairs." Repeated Al, blankly. Miss Dunway's eyes widened.
"Oh dear, was that not...? I mean, I heard pounding..." She looked even more flustered.
"Right, oh, that!" Al cried, feeling flustered himself. "That was my brother uh, working on a project. I'll warn him to be more careful next time." Warn him not to hammer me through the damn floor!
"You would? Oh, how very darling of you!" Miss Dunway's discomfort vanished immediately into a smile, leaving Al with the uncomfortable notion that he might be turning a fan down yet.
"It's the least I can do. Good day now, miss." Al said firmly, and shut the door on her beaming face.
"BROTHER!" He bellowed.
Ed poked his head out from the bathroom, where he was finishing up with a legitimate 'house repair'. "What? Can't hear you, you'll have to come in here to talk." Al was all too happy to comply.
"Look, I got the drain unclogged!" Ed said proudly as Al stepped into the room. He waggled five automail fingers, completely unsoiled. "Figured out an array that works, too; I didn't even have to transmute my arm into a snake. I think we could make a completely self-cleaning tub, if we etch this array around the mouth of the drain, and that soap-scum separating thing you figured out on the wall-"
"Brother," Al interrupted. "That was Miss Dunway at the door."
"Yeah?" Ed asked, disinterested. He was busy scraping his masterpiece into the enamel with his automail. "What'd she want?"
"She wanted us to not have sex so loud she could hear it through the floor!"
That got his brother's attention. Ed froze mid-hydrogen.
"...she knew we were having sex?"
"Well, not exactly - she thought it was 'house repairs' - but still. I told you the living room floor was a bad idea! Well, tried to." He amended. Admittedly, he hadn't had the breath to do much of anything but pant.
Ed's shoulders dropped. He looked relieved. "Well, what's the problem then? She's so uptight, I doubt she'd know sex if it jumped up and bit her in the crotch."
"That's not very nice!"
"Well, it's true." Ed grinned. "Come on, you can't tell me it's not true."
Al made a valiant attempt not to smile, then gave up. "Yeah, you're right...I guess, I'm just saying it was a nasty surprise, knowing she's listening." He made a face. "Guess at least it wasn't Mr. Grayson again."
Ed snorted. "Yeah, that old perv probably gets off to it."
Al tried to act affronted on the man's behalf, but solidly failed.
"Just so long as there aren't any more Graysons in this building, I'll be happy. Heaven knows we don't need another person listening in."
Unfortunately, it seemed there WAS another person listening in. Or at the very least, word traveled fast. Al knew he was in for it good when a couple days later he went to greet Winry at the gate, and found her already engaged in conversation with the infamous snoopy Davis spinsters.
"So what's this I hear about me being your girlfriend?" Winry asked him, as soon as she could be pried away.
"Er..." Al wasn't quite sure how to answer that. In truth, he'd always felt vaguely bad about Winry. They both had loved her, once - did still love her, if not in a romantic way - and he knew it had always bothered her that neither of them had asked her, even when they were seemingly available to the rest of the world. She put on a good face, but he'd noticed sometimes that it hurt her. He wished he could say something to make it better, but he really, really couldn't.
Sometimes, it sucked to be just him and his brother against the world.
"Or Ed's girlfriend. I couldn't quite figure out which." Winry continued. She raised an eyebrow at Al.
"Just building gossip." Al lied. "You're here a lot visiting; nosy biddies like that start jumping to conclusions."
"Mm." Said Winry noncommittally. "Well, anyway. How's Demolition Man?"
"I heard that!!!" Ed called down from the landing. He had come out to greet them.
"You scratch up that new stuff, yet?" Winry called back. "If I have to hammer out any dents, you're getting dents on your skull!"
"Like hell you will!"
Al flushed. No matter how many years he was subjected to it, the sheer amount of shit-talking those two did back and forth never failed to amaze him. It was a form of communication that honestly, while he had tried, he had never quite learned to be comfortable with - which of course, meant he failed at it. And it was always a bit strange to realize that he was shut out of this whole thing that his two best friends in the entire universe shared, but over time, he'd adapted. He and his brother had their own special brother-space, too. It was a reasonable trade.
Besides, he really didn't want to communicate via spanner, anyway. Nor so loudly. In the hall.
"Guys--!" He began, holding his hands up, as the two opposing forces began steamrolling toward each other from each side of the hall. "Getting kind of loud, could we keep it down..."
Unfortunately, someone else got between them first.
"Ah, I thought that was you kids!" Mr. Grayson said, appearing suddenly from the mouth of unit 3-B. "What's all the ruckus? Lover's spat?"
Winry briefly ran through six different shades of red, then turned to stare at the old man - completely and utterly composed. Al nearly wanted to clap.
"No sir, just having a bit of friendly dispute."
"Hope it's not as loud as your other 'disputes'." The man leered. Al felt his heart drop out of his chest. Across the way, Ed looked similarly stricken - he blanched visibly, and his eyes darted back and forth between Grayson and Winry nervously.
"Beg pardon?" Winry said, perfectly polite, though there was a hard edge of unhappiness creeping into her tone.
Grayson chortled. "You kids keep us old farts up all night sometimes, you know that? Have mercy on him, girl, a man can only take so much." He leaned forward and leered at her, in a way that made Al horribly glad he had not been born female. And then...oh no...
Please don't wink, please don't wink... Al prayed desperately.
There was no help for it. Grayson winked.
"Ah, young love..."
Winry got very quiet.
Eventually, even Mr. Grayson recognized something was amiss. He offered them a quick, pained look and withdrew back through his door again.
Like a turtle, Al thought bitterly. A big, ugly turtle with ugly bushy eyebrows. He didn't care if it was uncharitable. Right now, the guilt was knifing him in the gut just as hard as it ever had, and he was in no mood to worry about the feelings of tactless, lewd old retirees.
Ed definitely seemed to share the sentiment. He stepped forward with one arm outstretched, hanging, like he didn't quite know what to do with it.
"Winry..." Ed began.
Winry shook herself once, visibly. Al cringed at the thought of her face when she looked up, but surprisingly, there was no disappointment. There were no tears. He could see it hurt in her eyes, for a moment, but then it was gone - replaced instead by a firm sort of resolve that gave Alphonse pause.
"Come on, you dorks!" She said, in a tone so falsely cheerful it momentarily fooled all three of them. "What are we standing around outside for?" Blustering forward, she swept up to their door and began picking the lock, prompting Ed to snap out of it and yap at her that he would transmute it open, could she wait five minutes, she didn't have to make it look like she was a cat burglar.
Al shook his head. She was a stronger person than any of them. But still...
This is going to end, so help me. Al swore to himself. And I'm also going to have a little talk with Mr. Grayson.
Actually, Al discovered, going without noise was easy. The problem was having to go without sex. Cowed into submission after his close brush with Winry's spanner (in addition to the guilt, she'd expressed extreme and very physical disapproval when Ed refused to dish about his new "girlfriend"), Ed had in fact agreed not to touch Al for a while. Unfortunately, this also meant Al had to agree not to touch Ed, which meant that in relatively short order neither of them were fit to live with. After they'd nearly come to blows over something as innocuous as washing dishes, then snapped and wound up making out drenched half to death with dish water, Al had been forced to admit that abstinence, as great as it looked on paper, was really not all it was cracked up to be.
Which landed them right back where they'd started.
And rather worse off than before. The noise complaints increased again, as did the funny looks from various neighbors; Al found himself scanning the hallway for life before going out just to avoid any awkward conversations. Mr. Grayson said nothing to him anymore, excepting one memorable occasion after a particularly hard session in the bathtub -
"Look, kid, I don't mind if you're having fun in the shower, but the walls are pretty thin. You could at least have the decency to pretend you're singing, or something."
Hell. It wasn't HIS fault his brother was so vocal when you went down on him. Nor, really, was it Ed's fault that Al whimpered when his nipples were pinched. At least they sounded enough alike that so far no one had caught on to the fact that sometimes there were two voices, that actually it was not always the same man - but unfortunately, Al had the niggling suspicion that some of the smarter ones had started to wonder why they never heard the girl's voice. Thoughts like that, before long, would give rise to the question "why hasn't anyone ever seen this girl go in and out", lead to nosey people like the Davis twins watching them 24/7, watching their visitors... It just wasn't fair. They'd pick an obscure building in Central for exactly this reason, and this was what they got.
Should have bought a house. Al thought darkly. As much as they didn't want to care for one, at least then there wouldn't be anyone to listen in on their showers.
Listening in on showers... Could at least have the decency to pretend you're singing, Mr. Grayson's voice just kept echoing at the back of his head, made him think. Pretense. That was really what this was about, wasn't it, keeping up appearances. It wasn't like he couldn't hear Mr. Grayson mucking about moving his furniture, or his upstairs neighbor practicing opera. It was all about appearances, and making it so people didn't have to think, didn't have to question. Miss Dunway, for example, had readily admitted that she'd sometimes heard his brother's radio programs blaring so loud, she hadn't needed to turn on her own set. It was all about--
Radio.
Belatedly, the pieces came together, and it made so much sense that Al wanted to smack himself. His brother's constant need for background noise had landed them radios in the bedroom, conveniently helping to mask low grunts, springs... But would that really help, now that it would be so obvious what the music was meant to cover up?
Well, it couldn't hurt to try.
"Hey brother," he called into the living room. "Changed my mind. You wanna come pick out a new radio?"
"!!!"
One thing was sure. Ed's reaction was so enthusiastic, they were going to have plenty of thank-you sex to test this plan on.
Several hours later, sweaty, sticky, and extremely satisfied, Al was curled up on top of his brother on top of the sheets, staring up into darkness. A nameless singer was crooning down at them softly, pouring forth words of love. There had not been a single broom handle hammering against the floor or any knocks on the wall all evening.
Al was completely, and utterly, content.
"Finally think the radio's a good investment?" Ed teased, nibbling at an earlobe.
"No," Al sighed, "but I'm certain the neighbors do."
::uh-oh, here we go, turn up the radio::