(no subject)
Title: Pieces
Rating: NC-17 to be safe
Pairing: Roy x Ed
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the series
Excerpt: Kneeling between those quivering thighs, what he thought about, strangely enough, was his mother.
For loreamara who inspires me, lets me ramble, and helps me out with those pesky titles. ^_~
Kneeling between those quivering thighs, what he thought about, strangely enough, was his mother.
He imagined the wide-eyed, scandalized look he would get from Alphonse, were his brother there, but Edward was used to it. They were both alchemists, after all, and given to fits of near-illogical tangential introspection. No matter where their conversations started, they ended with alchemy. It was comfortable and right and in terms they both understood so intimately. They'd put everything in terms of their craft, everything including their mother's death. Even that, they'd tried to arrange it in terms of sulfur and carbon and fluids and equivalency.
And when Roy squeezed his eyes tight, let his mouth fall open a bit, and stopped his heartbeat for a count, Edward remembered his mother's death very vividly and was very grateful for Alphonse's absence.
***
Alphonse, his brother, the peacemaker. Alphonse had always been the one to kiss and make it better, to use his prodigal alchemic talent for repair and reconstruction. Edward, on the other hand, preferred the perfect chaos of pure creation. While Alphonse strived for stasis, Edward longed for progress. Always new, better, groundbreaking, now. He had no time for things to stay the same, no time for stability. He needed to forge ahead, head bent into the wind, stomping and screaming a new path. Always forward. But, bent before a headstone, sunlight glowing bright before a brilliant recession, they had found common hallowed ground. Ed could smith something new from the old, he could create, and Al could help return their broken lives to their previous equilibrium. And, thus, Edward had rationalized the metaphysical exhumation of their mother. Alphonse, hungering for the comfort of consistency, was easily convinced.
They had, after all, fixed many things during their short foray into alchemy; broken windows, broken toys, broken vases. They'd broken things on purpose just to be able to chalk an array onto the floor and press their hands to it. They'd even broken some of Winry's toys when she was young and they were foolish, just to flash their grins at her as they held up the formerly broken things. Surely they could fix this broken thing, too.
Though perhaps not as compulsively as Alphonse, Edward too could fix things. Like Roy. Roy, the man who was a leader, a revolutionary, a rock, stability and calm, sturdy in the throes of crackling reaction. Edward, though, had seen a speedy erosion one evening before a backdrop of pink sunset and finality. Over the short duration of a hitched ride, Edward had seen the broken man inside the myth. And he knew that he could fix this, too. The steps were the same, weren't they? He could recite them by heart, without thinking the words, almost: understand, decompose, reconstruct. It was that simple. That simple to fix what was in pieces, shattered and forgotten. Sometimes, his arms and legs - especially the ones that weren't there anymore - would tingle and ache when he looked at the man.
Like all those times he had stumbled into the apartment, tattered suitcase full of goodness-knows-what and careless extra pieces left over from a previous mission in his hand, his red coat dirtied and torn and tossed over his other arm. Just like when he would see Roy sitting on the couch just inside, sitting on one foot, his other leg drawn up to his chest. His arm draped with casual grace over his bent knee, maybe a glass of scotch dangling between downward-facing fingers, Roy wouldn't bother to look up from his newspaper. He never did. Edward would huff once for illustration, for attention and, receiving no response, would haul himself past the bastard and into the bedroom to drop off his load of traveling sundries.
"I would thank you not to bleed on my carpet," the other man might remark. Edward might smirk at the joylessness in the voice. Still, it wouldn't be unfriendly. It just was.
Edward would know that when he reentered the living room, his shirt off and exposing all of his new wounds, exposing his fresh blood, his deep purple bruises, the colonel would merely frown and turn back to his newspaper. Edward knew that no soothing words, or questions of concern would be muttered. He knew also that it was better for both of them if that weakness never passed between them. They needed strength more than they needed comfort. Frailty was unnecessary.
Still, Edward was no stranger to bottling up, to an overabundance of sizzling potential energy. Roy may not see any danger in it - may only see security, in fact - but Edward knew. Roy's stern frown, his unflinching eyes looked far too much like and entirely too different from his mother's to ignore. He would rub at the tingling junction of automail and chest and plop down beside Roy on the couch.
"It wasn't too bad," he would say, patting at some still-glistening blood with his abused coat, "My own fault." It was never "too bad;" it was always "his own fault."
Roy might frown and sigh, like Edward would expected him to. And his shoulders might relax, almost imperceptibly, and that, too, would be expected of the older man.
Roy might suggest that Edward should consider someday stitching and washing that wretched, stinking shred of a coat he still kept. Edward could smirk sideways and duck his head under Roy's arm, sighing when he felt it tighten around his shoulders.
The quiet strength would feel like home. It would feel like the times when his mother would calmly remind him that he was too old to cry, but would nonetheless slide her arm around him, petting his hair a bit to reduce the jerking of his breath. Edward squirmed to think of all the times he'd cried with his head in her lap, letting her comfort him, letting her take on all of his burden as well as her own. That he had never noticed it, that he had never once wondered if there was anything he could offer in return, he added to his heavy list of grand failures. Still, nothing felt quite like a mother's lap and Edward would push away from Roy's embrace.
Like he should have pushed away from his mother when he had been small. If he'd known then what he'd grown to know as he approached adulthood, he would have been stronger. He would have offered a hand in the herb garden. He remembered; he had images that he couldn't banish of her knelt in the dirt, soil on her knees as she tugged up weeds and harvested pungently fragrant bouquets of green. He remembered her grinding them to a paste and a powder and dropping them in her morning tea. He remembered his naivete wondering why she would choose to drink something that made her pretty features contort into such repulsive expressions.
He and Alphonse had come to understand that this had been her medicine, the thief of pain for a few hours as she washed their bedding, made their food, and played their games in the yard. They had never known; she hadn't wanted them to. And, despite his shame, Edward knew that perhaps there had been no point in worrying their young minds. What could they have done anyway?
Through his attempt at human transmutation, Edward had learned that nothing could save a body that had resigned itself to death. Nothing could slow the swinging of a sharpened scythe. But this was different. Though he'd been strong before, he hadn't had the awareness to know that his strength was needed. But this time he knew.
He had seen Roy walk home from the office, dirt on his knees from another disgraceful fall, another humiliating failure in depth perception. He'd never admit it to Edward, but the dirty, bloodied scrape at the heel of his hand gave him away.
That was what made this time different. Ed could see his scrapes, his embarrassment, the way he'd scratch absently at his eyepatch when he thought no one was watching. He could see the way that Roy reached for the light when they would tumble into bed, when he was vulnerable and naked but for the stiff black patch covering half of his face, guarding his expression. Edward had tried to distract him from the light, tried to drive it from his mind with strategic lips and fingers, with soft gasps and flushed skin. But he had yet to win. He had yet to overcome that weakness. (How was he supposed to control his flame, he would ask, if he couldn't even step off a curb?) Roy would always switch off the light, bringing them equal blindness, and they would move together in the dark.
***
Roy would inevitably ask if he would be filling out some more damage reports in the morning, maybe raising his eyebrows and looking through his bangs.
Ed might flop sideways onto the couch, dropping his feet into the colonel's lap. "Dumb place for a church anyway," he might say with a shrug and pretend not to notice as the man's eyes raked briefly over his body, surveying the damage.
"You know, Fullmetal, we have-"
"Soldiers for the rough stuff," Ed would interrupt with a roll of the eyes and a wave of the hand, "I know."
Roy would sigh like he always did. "Not that you don't already cost headquarters enough money."
Ed might stretch, luxurious and cat-like. He'd wink and Roy would frown. The day Roy reacted with verbal concern was the day that Ed would start worrying. Instead, he would try not to sigh too loudly when the colonel's graceful fingers began to knead at the tender spot where automail met thigh. It would be best if he pretended not to notice at all.
It would be best if he maintained the illusion that kisses were being pressed onto his bare shoulder merely out of lust and certainly not out of anything resembling affection. Because, most definitely, the colonel couldn't have missed him or anything. And, of course, that tongue gliding gently over his bottom lip (though he shouldn't admit to the tenderness either) was there because Roy was a manipulative bastard taking advantage of his young subordinate, definitely not because he liked Ed's taste and hadn't had it on his tongue for two uncertain, unbearable weeks.
And as he was pressed backward onto the couch and that familiar body with its puzzle piece curves slid smugly into its usual position atop his, Ed knew that there were some illusions he didn't mind maintaining.
If Roy needed to make believe that he was still in complete control as his fingers urged the undoing of Ed's belt, then so be it. Ed knew that most of the man's strength was only skin-deep anyway and that passionate, roiling blood was so near to the surface that he could almost taste it when he dragged his tongue up Roy's throat. He could almost taste the man's vulnerability there, could almost feel it surge onto his tongue with each throb of pulse where neck curved up to jaw. He could almost know just intuitively that it was there, like he should have known so many times before.
So many times before. Like when he was young and his small, fleshy fist first wrapped around a stick of chalk. He remembered the way his mother would watch intently over his shoulder as he would draw arrays, shaky lines at first, converging into something stronger and more pronounced. He remembered how she would intently watch his eyes hiding behind his hanging bangs, watching for the flash of his father she was hoping wasn't there. He remembered her soft breath on his face, the slight wrinkle in her brow, her mouth set in a flat line that refused to reveal the apprehension he now knew she had held.
He had done little alchemy since returning from there, hadn't felt the necessity, but when he did Roy watched him, too, though only with curious intent. Something in the set of the older man's mouth was trying to say that he was watching simply to appease Edward's obsession, but something in the crease between his eyebrows was speaking volumes of need. And so Edward drew. He drew with the drive of a mad man in an asylum counting tiles that didn't exist on a plaster ceiling. He drew until his hand was twisted and sore and Roy's back had tensed up so he was curved against the younger man's spine. Until he ran out of parchment and ink and a sated look settled itself over his companion's features. Until it was enough.
***
Ed would hiss into the pillow under his face as a stinging salve was worked into a deep gash on his back. If he'd spun a bit quicker, maybe the blade would have caught his automail instead of flesh and muscle. He should have been faster; it was his own fault.
"You're an alchemist, Ed, not a mercenary."
Ed would moan softly as Roy's fingers abandoned the salve and turned to squeezing at the tenderness around his shoulders. Roy would slide pressure firmly down either side of Ed's spine. Ed might even decide to remain quiet as thumbs began to rub deep circles at the oft-neglected expanse of lower back just above his hips. Sometimes it wasn't worth arguing. When receiving a much-needed rubdown was one of those times. He might allow a happy sigh before he was turned over and lips found his with maybe a bit too much desperation and force.
He might even allow Roy to turn off the light with little protest, just this once, might allow him this one attempt at masking his weakness. It might even be within reason to let the man bring goosebumps to his flesh under the guise of desire rather than affection, carnality rather than romance.
He would allow the illusion, allow the intentional distortion of motives as lonely arms encircled his shoulders and a face was pressed needfully against his neck. As a trembling hand urged his flesh leg to hook about rocking hips and quiet, begging grunts encouraged him to move in time, a delicate, far-too-gentle rise and fall of hips and breaths and want.
Ed might just let Roy cradle his head or let him roam his hands over his body, seeking out new wounds in the stealthy camouflage of lust. There was no good reason for Roy's fingers to travel the length of the same scratch three times - besides committing it to memory - but Edward was willing to allow this one to slide. And when Roy tipped his hips too sharply and Edward would hiss out in pain, he would allow the older man to say he was sorry and to press soothing kisses into his neck. He would allow, just the one night, because equivalent exchange went both ways.
They may both be strong, stubborn men, but neither was above the occasional compromise. It often came silently, masked as circumstance and apathy. It slipped in under the cover of darkness or when the other's back was turned. But still, it was there. For two such showmen, the unassuming nature of their interactions could be alarming. But over the years, they had learned to take what they could get, to be satisfied with the small things.
The small things, like Roy's habit of keeping fresh flowers in the apartment. He liked to frown, but his nose in the air, and pretend that they were just for appearances, but Edward knew better. His mother always kept flowers that reminded her of their father's cologne and she would press her nose gently into the blossoms and inhale. Edward had seen Roy do the same thing when he thought no one was looking. One time the younger man had commented that daisies were particularly inoffensive and the next time he had blessed the colonel's home with his presence, a vase had been filled to overflowing and had been set on a shelf low enough so Edward, too, could indulge in their scent. Roy had denied doing it for any particular reasons, though Edward knew better. His mother would do the same sort of thing. He would never admit it, but he kept one paper-brittle daisy pressed inside a book, hidden beneath garments and automail oil in his traveling suitcase.
***
He had intended to say that it wasn't too bad. Meant to say that it was his own fault, his own clumsiness that had formed the mottled, swollen, purple ring around his left eye. He wanted to tell Roy that it was nothing, wanted to allow his little white lies to stitch up the older man's guilt.
But his eyes settled on his coat, clean and patched, tossed over the arm of the couch beside Roy as the colonel refused to look up from his newspaper. Edward was reminded that he wasn't the only one who knew how to mend.
"It was rough out there this time," he said and Roy smiled.
Rating: NC-17 to be safe
Pairing: Roy x Ed
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the series
Excerpt: Kneeling between those quivering thighs, what he thought about, strangely enough, was his mother.
For loreamara who inspires me, lets me ramble, and helps me out with those pesky titles. ^_~
Kneeling between those quivering thighs, what he thought about, strangely enough, was his mother.
He imagined the wide-eyed, scandalized look he would get from Alphonse, were his brother there, but Edward was used to it. They were both alchemists, after all, and given to fits of near-illogical tangential introspection. No matter where their conversations started, they ended with alchemy. It was comfortable and right and in terms they both understood so intimately. They'd put everything in terms of their craft, everything including their mother's death. Even that, they'd tried to arrange it in terms of sulfur and carbon and fluids and equivalency.
And when Roy squeezed his eyes tight, let his mouth fall open a bit, and stopped his heartbeat for a count, Edward remembered his mother's death very vividly and was very grateful for Alphonse's absence.
***
Alphonse, his brother, the peacemaker. Alphonse had always been the one to kiss and make it better, to use his prodigal alchemic talent for repair and reconstruction. Edward, on the other hand, preferred the perfect chaos of pure creation. While Alphonse strived for stasis, Edward longed for progress. Always new, better, groundbreaking, now. He had no time for things to stay the same, no time for stability. He needed to forge ahead, head bent into the wind, stomping and screaming a new path. Always forward. But, bent before a headstone, sunlight glowing bright before a brilliant recession, they had found common hallowed ground. Ed could smith something new from the old, he could create, and Al could help return their broken lives to their previous equilibrium. And, thus, Edward had rationalized the metaphysical exhumation of their mother. Alphonse, hungering for the comfort of consistency, was easily convinced.
They had, after all, fixed many things during their short foray into alchemy; broken windows, broken toys, broken vases. They'd broken things on purpose just to be able to chalk an array onto the floor and press their hands to it. They'd even broken some of Winry's toys when she was young and they were foolish, just to flash their grins at her as they held up the formerly broken things. Surely they could fix this broken thing, too.
Though perhaps not as compulsively as Alphonse, Edward too could fix things. Like Roy. Roy, the man who was a leader, a revolutionary, a rock, stability and calm, sturdy in the throes of crackling reaction. Edward, though, had seen a speedy erosion one evening before a backdrop of pink sunset and finality. Over the short duration of a hitched ride, Edward had seen the broken man inside the myth. And he knew that he could fix this, too. The steps were the same, weren't they? He could recite them by heart, without thinking the words, almost: understand, decompose, reconstruct. It was that simple. That simple to fix what was in pieces, shattered and forgotten. Sometimes, his arms and legs - especially the ones that weren't there anymore - would tingle and ache when he looked at the man.
Like all those times he had stumbled into the apartment, tattered suitcase full of goodness-knows-what and careless extra pieces left over from a previous mission in his hand, his red coat dirtied and torn and tossed over his other arm. Just like when he would see Roy sitting on the couch just inside, sitting on one foot, his other leg drawn up to his chest. His arm draped with casual grace over his bent knee, maybe a glass of scotch dangling between downward-facing fingers, Roy wouldn't bother to look up from his newspaper. He never did. Edward would huff once for illustration, for attention and, receiving no response, would haul himself past the bastard and into the bedroom to drop off his load of traveling sundries.
"I would thank you not to bleed on my carpet," the other man might remark. Edward might smirk at the joylessness in the voice. Still, it wouldn't be unfriendly. It just was.
Edward would know that when he reentered the living room, his shirt off and exposing all of his new wounds, exposing his fresh blood, his deep purple bruises, the colonel would merely frown and turn back to his newspaper. Edward knew that no soothing words, or questions of concern would be muttered. He knew also that it was better for both of them if that weakness never passed between them. They needed strength more than they needed comfort. Frailty was unnecessary.
Still, Edward was no stranger to bottling up, to an overabundance of sizzling potential energy. Roy may not see any danger in it - may only see security, in fact - but Edward knew. Roy's stern frown, his unflinching eyes looked far too much like and entirely too different from his mother's to ignore. He would rub at the tingling junction of automail and chest and plop down beside Roy on the couch.
"It wasn't too bad," he would say, patting at some still-glistening blood with his abused coat, "My own fault." It was never "too bad;" it was always "his own fault."
Roy might frown and sigh, like Edward would expected him to. And his shoulders might relax, almost imperceptibly, and that, too, would be expected of the older man.
Roy might suggest that Edward should consider someday stitching and washing that wretched, stinking shred of a coat he still kept. Edward could smirk sideways and duck his head under Roy's arm, sighing when he felt it tighten around his shoulders.
The quiet strength would feel like home. It would feel like the times when his mother would calmly remind him that he was too old to cry, but would nonetheless slide her arm around him, petting his hair a bit to reduce the jerking of his breath. Edward squirmed to think of all the times he'd cried with his head in her lap, letting her comfort him, letting her take on all of his burden as well as her own. That he had never noticed it, that he had never once wondered if there was anything he could offer in return, he added to his heavy list of grand failures. Still, nothing felt quite like a mother's lap and Edward would push away from Roy's embrace.
Like he should have pushed away from his mother when he had been small. If he'd known then what he'd grown to know as he approached adulthood, he would have been stronger. He would have offered a hand in the herb garden. He remembered; he had images that he couldn't banish of her knelt in the dirt, soil on her knees as she tugged up weeds and harvested pungently fragrant bouquets of green. He remembered her grinding them to a paste and a powder and dropping them in her morning tea. He remembered his naivete wondering why she would choose to drink something that made her pretty features contort into such repulsive expressions.
He and Alphonse had come to understand that this had been her medicine, the thief of pain for a few hours as she washed their bedding, made their food, and played their games in the yard. They had never known; she hadn't wanted them to. And, despite his shame, Edward knew that perhaps there had been no point in worrying their young minds. What could they have done anyway?
Through his attempt at human transmutation, Edward had learned that nothing could save a body that had resigned itself to death. Nothing could slow the swinging of a sharpened scythe. But this was different. Though he'd been strong before, he hadn't had the awareness to know that his strength was needed. But this time he knew.
He had seen Roy walk home from the office, dirt on his knees from another disgraceful fall, another humiliating failure in depth perception. He'd never admit it to Edward, but the dirty, bloodied scrape at the heel of his hand gave him away.
That was what made this time different. Ed could see his scrapes, his embarrassment, the way he'd scratch absently at his eyepatch when he thought no one was watching. He could see the way that Roy reached for the light when they would tumble into bed, when he was vulnerable and naked but for the stiff black patch covering half of his face, guarding his expression. Edward had tried to distract him from the light, tried to drive it from his mind with strategic lips and fingers, with soft gasps and flushed skin. But he had yet to win. He had yet to overcome that weakness. (How was he supposed to control his flame, he would ask, if he couldn't even step off a curb?) Roy would always switch off the light, bringing them equal blindness, and they would move together in the dark.
***
Roy would inevitably ask if he would be filling out some more damage reports in the morning, maybe raising his eyebrows and looking through his bangs.
Ed might flop sideways onto the couch, dropping his feet into the colonel's lap. "Dumb place for a church anyway," he might say with a shrug and pretend not to notice as the man's eyes raked briefly over his body, surveying the damage.
"You know, Fullmetal, we have-"
"Soldiers for the rough stuff," Ed would interrupt with a roll of the eyes and a wave of the hand, "I know."
Roy would sigh like he always did. "Not that you don't already cost headquarters enough money."
Ed might stretch, luxurious and cat-like. He'd wink and Roy would frown. The day Roy reacted with verbal concern was the day that Ed would start worrying. Instead, he would try not to sigh too loudly when the colonel's graceful fingers began to knead at the tender spot where automail met thigh. It would be best if he pretended not to notice at all.
It would be best if he maintained the illusion that kisses were being pressed onto his bare shoulder merely out of lust and certainly not out of anything resembling affection. Because, most definitely, the colonel couldn't have missed him or anything. And, of course, that tongue gliding gently over his bottom lip (though he shouldn't admit to the tenderness either) was there because Roy was a manipulative bastard taking advantage of his young subordinate, definitely not because he liked Ed's taste and hadn't had it on his tongue for two uncertain, unbearable weeks.
And as he was pressed backward onto the couch and that familiar body with its puzzle piece curves slid smugly into its usual position atop his, Ed knew that there were some illusions he didn't mind maintaining.
If Roy needed to make believe that he was still in complete control as his fingers urged the undoing of Ed's belt, then so be it. Ed knew that most of the man's strength was only skin-deep anyway and that passionate, roiling blood was so near to the surface that he could almost taste it when he dragged his tongue up Roy's throat. He could almost taste the man's vulnerability there, could almost feel it surge onto his tongue with each throb of pulse where neck curved up to jaw. He could almost know just intuitively that it was there, like he should have known so many times before.
So many times before. Like when he was young and his small, fleshy fist first wrapped around a stick of chalk. He remembered the way his mother would watch intently over his shoulder as he would draw arrays, shaky lines at first, converging into something stronger and more pronounced. He remembered how she would intently watch his eyes hiding behind his hanging bangs, watching for the flash of his father she was hoping wasn't there. He remembered her soft breath on his face, the slight wrinkle in her brow, her mouth set in a flat line that refused to reveal the apprehension he now knew she had held.
He had done little alchemy since returning from there, hadn't felt the necessity, but when he did Roy watched him, too, though only with curious intent. Something in the set of the older man's mouth was trying to say that he was watching simply to appease Edward's obsession, but something in the crease between his eyebrows was speaking volumes of need. And so Edward drew. He drew with the drive of a mad man in an asylum counting tiles that didn't exist on a plaster ceiling. He drew until his hand was twisted and sore and Roy's back had tensed up so he was curved against the younger man's spine. Until he ran out of parchment and ink and a sated look settled itself over his companion's features. Until it was enough.
***
Ed would hiss into the pillow under his face as a stinging salve was worked into a deep gash on his back. If he'd spun a bit quicker, maybe the blade would have caught his automail instead of flesh and muscle. He should have been faster; it was his own fault.
"You're an alchemist, Ed, not a mercenary."
Ed would moan softly as Roy's fingers abandoned the salve and turned to squeezing at the tenderness around his shoulders. Roy would slide pressure firmly down either side of Ed's spine. Ed might even decide to remain quiet as thumbs began to rub deep circles at the oft-neglected expanse of lower back just above his hips. Sometimes it wasn't worth arguing. When receiving a much-needed rubdown was one of those times. He might allow a happy sigh before he was turned over and lips found his with maybe a bit too much desperation and force.
He might even allow Roy to turn off the light with little protest, just this once, might allow him this one attempt at masking his weakness. It might even be within reason to let the man bring goosebumps to his flesh under the guise of desire rather than affection, carnality rather than romance.
He would allow the illusion, allow the intentional distortion of motives as lonely arms encircled his shoulders and a face was pressed needfully against his neck. As a trembling hand urged his flesh leg to hook about rocking hips and quiet, begging grunts encouraged him to move in time, a delicate, far-too-gentle rise and fall of hips and breaths and want.
Ed might just let Roy cradle his head or let him roam his hands over his body, seeking out new wounds in the stealthy camouflage of lust. There was no good reason for Roy's fingers to travel the length of the same scratch three times - besides committing it to memory - but Edward was willing to allow this one to slide. And when Roy tipped his hips too sharply and Edward would hiss out in pain, he would allow the older man to say he was sorry and to press soothing kisses into his neck. He would allow, just the one night, because equivalent exchange went both ways.
They may both be strong, stubborn men, but neither was above the occasional compromise. It often came silently, masked as circumstance and apathy. It slipped in under the cover of darkness or when the other's back was turned. But still, it was there. For two such showmen, the unassuming nature of their interactions could be alarming. But over the years, they had learned to take what they could get, to be satisfied with the small things.
The small things, like Roy's habit of keeping fresh flowers in the apartment. He liked to frown, but his nose in the air, and pretend that they were just for appearances, but Edward knew better. His mother always kept flowers that reminded her of their father's cologne and she would press her nose gently into the blossoms and inhale. Edward had seen Roy do the same thing when he thought no one was looking. One time the younger man had commented that daisies were particularly inoffensive and the next time he had blessed the colonel's home with his presence, a vase had been filled to overflowing and had been set on a shelf low enough so Edward, too, could indulge in their scent. Roy had denied doing it for any particular reasons, though Edward knew better. His mother would do the same sort of thing. He would never admit it, but he kept one paper-brittle daisy pressed inside a book, hidden beneath garments and automail oil in his traveling suitcase.
***
He had intended to say that it wasn't too bad. Meant to say that it was his own fault, his own clumsiness that had formed the mottled, swollen, purple ring around his left eye. He wanted to tell Roy that it was nothing, wanted to allow his little white lies to stitch up the older man's guilt.
But his eyes settled on his coat, clean and patched, tossed over the arm of the couch beside Roy as the colonel refused to look up from his newspaper. Edward was reminded that he wasn't the only one who knew how to mend.
"It was rough out there this time," he said and Roy smiled.