Title: The Prevailing State of Things
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed/Al
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,005
Warnings: language; everyone involved is obsessed with sex (especially Tierfal); major spoilers for CoS
Prompt: hairbrush
Summary: Morning at the Mustang household.
Author's Note: If you don't like completely unrepentant flufftastic fixers, this is your final warning to close the window. XD If you do, proceed to mediocre OT3 schmoop for
icequeenrex! Merry Christmas, beautiful. ♥ I miss youuuuuuuu *sobs*
THE PREVAILING STATE OF THINGS
Roy wakes to the dulcet tones of Alphonse Elric crying, “Dibs on the shower!”
“You can’t dibs the shower!” Ed says.
“I just did!”
“Illicitly!”
Alphonse scrambles out of the nest of wrinkled sheets. “Well, I’m going to get there first, which is dibs by physical prese-”
Ed throws both arms around his waist and drags him yelping back to the mattress.
Roy shifts over to the warm spot Alphonse left and snuggles in against the pillow, which smells deliciously of silky cinnamon-brown hair and young sweat and extremely good sex. “Why don’t you both just share the shower?” he asks.
“I think we’d end up dirtier if we did that,” Alphonse says.
“If anybody gets dibs,” Ed says, “it should be me, ’cause I had practically no hot water in Germany for two fucking years.”
“Brother,” Alphonse says, dragging the vowels out into a whine, “that’s your excuse for everything.”
“It’s not an excuse if it’s valid,” Ed says.
“Yes, it i-”
“Fine. If anybody gets dibs, it should be the general, because he’s going to get up and go to work and save Amestris from the forces of tyranny now. Aren’t you?”
“Mmm,” Roy says, rubbing his cheek against the pillowcase. “Amestris can cope with the forces of tyranny for five more minutes.”
“It’s tough to argue you’re the worst candidate for Führer that the country’s ever had,” Ed says, “but you’ve got to be the laziest.”
“I’m worn out,” Roy says, rolling onto his back and stretching, which feels luxurious. “Administering two successive blowjobs of superior quality is quite tiring, and I am getting on in years, you know.”
“I think you’re aging fairly gracefully,” Alphonse says, at the same time that Ed says, “Don’t start that shit-and, for your information, your blowjobs are middling at best.”
“Wretches,” Roy says. “The pair of you.”
“We’ll make it up to you later,” Alphonse says sweetly.
Roy gauges the distance-it’s funny, the things you take for granted; the things like depth perception, without which the world is a reeling, shifting course of obstacles-and reaches up to run his fingertips through Alphonse’s smooth hair. It was cut short when the Elric brothers first tumbled back into Amestris from the ‘other side’, with its Europe and its doubles and its death toll so staggering that Ed’s mouth still tightens when he thinks of it too much, but now he seems to be growing it out again. Roy isn’t particularly bothered either way; both of the brats always look magnificent, and they have installed themselves in his home, and surely this is paradise. The length of Alphonse Elric’s hair makes no material difference when the prevailing state of things is perfection.
Alphonse beams at him, and, as is often the case, Roy wishes he had both eyes to see this with. If only he was more; if only he had an eye for each of them; a heart for each; a soul; a lifetime-the Elrics are the most extraordinary human beings he has ever known, and both of them deserve everything. They shouldn’t have to settle for the spare moments of a scarred workaholic who wakes up thrashing at three in the morning, who knows how to scheme and how to kill and how to love and how to grieve but not yet how to nurture. Who usually burns the toast. Who takes up more than his share of the bed. Who tries to make the adulation show in the books he buys and the food he brings and the soft words and the softer kisses and the sexual favors which are, in fact, glorious, and Ed knows it.
But when he thinks about it, he remembers the principle equivalency, and he realizes that he has given the Elrics the one thing that two universes and years of trudging travel could not provide.
He’s given them a home.
He’s opened his door and his arms and his heart, and the latter resisted mightily; trust is a trial for a man who sleeps with his solitary eye half-open and his gloves on the nightstand. The Elric brothers have owned him since they were children, yes, but recognizing the chain around his throat and acknowledging the tug of it are two entirely different things. Admitting defeat, even when surrender is so merciful… well, he’s always known that pride might be the end of him.
But not this time. Not today. He’s not so stupid as to let this go, whatever sacrifices it requires.
“Make it up to me now,” Roy says. “Experience teaches that the shower is big enough for three.”
In all honesty, it’s a bit of a squeeze-and in all honesty, Roy prefers it that way. Ed and Alphonse aren’t complaining about the slick collisions until they all figure out how to navigate the close quarters; they don’t seem to mind huddling together to share the shower stream, or that Roy starts soaping both of them up simultaneously because he can’t decide which stunning body to touch first. Ed kneads shampoo into Alphonse’s hair, over-cautious in his desperation to keep the suds out of his brother’s eyes; Alphonse slides an arm around Roy’s waist and lets out tiny kitten noises that make Roy’s spine contract; twists of steam dance around the three of them where their wet limbs intertwine; the mirrors fog; the room warms; and everything that came before was worth it just for this.
Afterwards, Alphonse stands patiently still, and Edward fidgets, and Roy slowly and meticulously brushes out their hair.
“I’m starving,” Ed says.
“What you are is melodramatic, Brother,” Alphonse says.
“What you are is sexy,” Roy says, drawing his damp hair aside and kissing down along his neck.
Ed wriggles and clutches his towel a little tighter to his chest. “You’re gonna be late for work, dumbass.”
In the half-obscured mirror, Roy meets Alphonse’s dark eyes and then Ed’s bright ones.
“I don’t care,” he says. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”