![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akainagiKataomoi Ch 15: In which we discover the universal appeal of Julia Child
Author: AkaiNagi
Genre: Romance/Angst/Humor (little for everyone)
Pairing: RoyEd
Rating: This part a Conservative NC-17, NC-17 in total
Ed had kissed Roy Mustang and been kissed by Roy Mustang. He had sat in the lap of Roy Mustang, groped and been groped by Roy Mustang. At this very moment he had several hickeys that were, in fact, caused by Roy Mustang.
So why the hell did it bother Ed so much to ask him about Alchemy?
Professional pride, maybe? Ed didn’t like relying on anyone for alchemical knowledge. He’d rather research it himself and get the info straight from the source. Most likely, though, he just didn’t want to owe the man any favors.
Because he had a pretty good idea how Mustang would want him to pay up. The pervert.
Oh, who the hell was he kidding? In the Pervert Society of Central City, of which Mustang was most definitely the President, Ed was probably vice president. Or at least the treasurer. Especially considering this morning’s matinee in the shower.
After carefully weighing his interests, however, he realized it would be far more expeditious just to ask the Colonel than to start pouring over the volumes in Central Library.
Because, it seemed, their Green Earth Alchemist had been dabbling outside his realm of expertise. Namely in flame alchemy.
That was how Ed found himself, well before the appointed hour, standing in front of Mustang’s office, working up the courage to knock.
Just as he was about to, the door swung open, revealing the man himself. A look of surprise graced the Colonel’s features before settling into his customary confident smirk.
“I believe you’re about six hours early, Fullmetal,” Mustang pointed out.
“No shit, Colonel? Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Ed replied sarcastically. “I need to consult with someone about flame alchemy. Trust me, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need something.”
“Flame alchemy?”
“Yeah,” Ed answered. “Looks like Kellig was broadening his horizons. Check it out.” Ed handed him one of Kellig’s notebooks, open to a page featuring several symbols. “Those mean anything to you?”
Mustang looked at the page thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe. I ‘m on my way to a meeting, so I can’t look at it right now. But I’ll have Havoc pick you up at 1730 and take you to the best repository of fire-related alchemical texts in Central. Or probably anywhere else for that matter. I’ll meet you there.”
~*~*~*~
Ed stood in front of the well-to-do looking townhouse with a peeved expression on his face.
Mustang could have at least told him that this grand repository of alchemical knowledge was at the Colonel’s fucking house. Ed was feeling distinctly like the fly who had been invited into the spider’s parlor. Once inside he could well be gobbled up.
“Well, do you plan on looking at it all night, or are you coming in?” asked Mustang as he stood in the doorway of the house. His customary uniform had been exchanged for slacks and a dress shirt.
Ed didn’t budge from the front walk. “I’m just wondering if you’re that much of a pervert in the office, how bad you must be at home,” he said sarcastically.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat you … well not on the front steps anyway.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Ed said warily, but began to make his way to the entrance of the Mustang residence.
The inside of Roy Mustang’s house was tastefully, if minimally decorated. It had the look of a place that wasn’t lived in much. A place that was passed through, a place where nights were spent, but not a place that could ever be described as homey.
He followed Mustang to a door that led off the front hallway. Stairs leading downward revealed it to be a basement. When Ed caught sight of the contents of the basement, his eyes widened with surprise and undisguised awe.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled the room, leaving only room for a small desk sandwiched between the towers of alchemical tomes. Ed whistled in appreciation. The sheer amount of knowledge held in this room was mind-blowing. And to think it was the collection of a single individual was even more impressive.
“Much of it was inherited from my teacher,” Mustang explained. “The rest I’ve accumulated over the years. Most of it is flame-alchemy related, but there’s a fairly good representation of general alchemical texts as well.”
“Uh-huh,” Ed answered, not really listening. He was already perusing the shelves. “Holy Shit,” Ed said quietly. “Beninger … Dusterhoff … Kliener … talk about rare! They don’t even have these in the Central Library.”
Mustang smiled at Ed’s enthusiasm. “Take as much time as you need. Use the desk. I assume you haven’t eaten yet?”
Ed was already pulling out books to use for reference. “Huh? Uh, no. Why?”
Mustang started up the stairs. “I’ll make us dinner while you get started. Then we’ll go over Kellig’s notes.”
Ed was at a loss for what to say. He didn’t know how to react to this new, generous side of his arch-nemesis cum non-boyfriend. “Uh … okay,” he said lamely.
He was relieved when Mustang disappeared up the stairs, giving him the ability to concentrate again. He picked out a few more volumes that looked useful, refusing to be tempted by the rare but off-topic volumes he saw lining the shelves. Man, if he could just have a week straight in this room, he thought wistfully. Too bad it was located in the lion’s den.
He set to taking notes from the various volumes, jotting down particularly relevant information or symbols in his own precise brand of shorthand. An hour lapsed in the seeming blink of an eye.
It would be a lot easier to concentrate without all the delicious smells wafting down from upstairs. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast this morning, and his hunger was making it hard to concentrate. The hell with it, he thought. Setting aside the book he was working with, he tucked his notes into Kellig’s journal and brought it with him as he climbed the stairs, following the delicious smells. Hopefully after dinner he could finally get Mustang to look at the flame symbols in the journal.
He found the man himself slicing vegetables into a salad bowl in the kitchen. He looked so … domestic. His shirt sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, his stocking feet made no sound as he moved over to stir a couple pots before resuming his chopping.
“Didn’t know you cooked,” Ed said conversationally.
Mustang didn’t look up from his work. “Cooking is like alchemy in a kitchen, Fullmetal. You could probably do it too if you tried. Simply a matter of the right ingredients under the right conditions. Here.” Roy held the knife out, handle-first, to Ed. “Have at it. Finish these up while I tend to the rest,” he said, smiling.
Having a policy of never trusting smiling men with knives, Ed took the blade warily. As Mustang moved over to the pot on the stove, Ed eyed the innocuous looking tomato on the cutting board. How hard could it be? He brought the knife squarely down on the fruit. Rather than slicing cleanly through, the tomato squashed down, spitting juice everywhere. Ed cursed.
Mustang appeared over his shoulder, chuckling.
“What’s so goddamn funny?” Ed groused, scowling at the offending tomato.
Roy took another tomato and placed it on the cutting board. “That’s not how you cut a tomato.”
“Well excuse me for not being Julia-fucking-Child,” Ed snapped.
Roy took Ed’s hand in his own and guided it back to the cutting board. “You pierce the skin with the tip of the blade, then cut through the opening.” He guided Ed’s hand through the motions.
Ed tried to keep the blush from rising to his cheeks. After all they had done, why did the simple act of Mustang’s calloused hands covering his own seem so … intimate? “Fine. Fine. You made your point. I don’t know jack about cooking.” Ed shrugged him off. “Now go and mind your damn pots and keep your hands off my tomato.”
Grinning, Roy obediently went back to the stove to tend to the rest of the meal.
Ed finished the rest of his chopping imagining the Colonel’s face on the cutting board.
But the time they got the finished products to the table, Ed had gone from hungry to ravenous. He wasn’t even going to ask how Mustang had known to make spaghetti with meat sauce, one of Ed’s ranking favorites of all time. The conversation was sparse; Mustang complained about the endlessly boring and boringly endless meetings he had been forced to attend that day. Ed soundly pronounced him a big baby and took another bite of his pasta. Ed, for his part, updated him on the progress of their translation, complaining about the slowness and tediousness of the task he had been handed. Roy soundly pronounced him a big baby. Ed threw a roll at his Commanding Officer. That pretty much ended the conversation.
After dinner they left the dishes in the sink and adjourned to the living room where Roy finally took a look at the journal of Joshua Kellig.
Mustang examined the volume, flipped a few pages, turned it right, left and upside down. Frowned. Flipped back a few pages.
“Well?” Ed asked when his patience finally wore out
“No Clue,” Roy announced proudly.
Ed wanted to smack him. “What do you mean, ‘No clue’?? You’re supposed to be the expert in this shit!”
“It’s in pieces,” Roy pointed out slightly defensively. “Taken together and in the right formation, it could make an array. But what the array is designed to produce depends entirely upon the arrangement.”
“Do you even have a best guess?” Ed asked desperately.
“It has nothing to do with human transmutation, I can say that for sure,” Mustang replied confidently. “In fact it’s so far from Kellig’s area of study that I can’t fathom what he was doing with these notes,” he thought for a moment. “And you found no arrays in the house?”
Ed shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You searched the whole place?”
Ed gave him a look that asked for at least a little credit as a professional. “All two floors and the basement. Nothing.”
“Attic?”
Ed frowned. “No access that we could find.”
“There has to be access,” Mustang insisted.
Now Ed was getting pissed. “You want to come search that dust factory of a house, go right ahead,” he snapped. “I’m telling you we didn’t find any access. Period.”
Mustang studied him for a moment. Ed’s anger was replaced by a keen sense of self-consciousness. “What?” he growled.
Mustang’s eyes continued to take him in. “I was just noticing how hot you look when you’re angry.”
Ed’s own eyes narrowed. “I was wondering how long it would take for the pervert to rear his ugly head.”
Roy’s smile took on a slightly predatory edge. “If I’m perverted, it’s because you make me that way.”
Ed huffed. “Oh, sure, blame the vi-“
He found himself utterly silenced by now-familiar lips, pressing against his own with a ferocity that was as sudden as it was surprising. Quick to recover and not one to be outdone, he matched Mustang’s enthusiasm with his own, grabbing the front of the older man’s shirt and pulling him closer.
As their tongues met in the now-familiar dance, Ed felt the immediate stirrings of arousal. This had been inevitable, he knew, from the second he had set foot in the Colonel’s house. That’s how predictable, yet uncontrollable this fucking thing between them had become.
Before giving himself a chance to think about it, Ed began pulling the older man’s shirt up and out of his pants, snaking his hands underneath to feel the bare skin of his abdomen. Mustang made a sound of contentment at the contact. Ed allowed his hands to roam.
What would happen this evening, Ed wondered. More of the same? Dry humping on a living room couch this time, instead of a hard office couch? Or would Mustang try to push things further. Did Ed want him to push things further? In his mind’s eye Ed momentarily flashed back to this morning, standing naked in the shower, imagining Mustang’s hand pumping him to completion. He moaned into the older man’s mouth at the memory. Impulsively, and without even breaking contact, he brought himself to straddle the Colonel’s lap. Blossoming erections met and they both groaned into the other’s mouth.
Suddenly Ed felt hands deftly undoing his braid. He broke the kiss to protest. “Hey!”
“Shhhh,” Mustang commanded, undoing the last of the plaits and running his hands through the light-colored mane, letting it fall around Ed’s face and shoulders. “I have wanted to do this for-“ he paused.
“For?”
Mustang’s gaze softened. “Forever,” he said quietly.
Ed blushed crimson. “You bastard. You knew this was going to happen when you invited me over here, didn’t you?”
The glint returned to the older man’s eyes. “Equivalent exchange.”
Ed let out a genuine laugh. “I get your library and you get some ass? You really are a bastard.”
Roy massaged Ed’s scalp with his nails, earning him a satisfied sigh from his partner. “You can use it anytime you like. I’d even give you a key.”
“Hmmmm?” Ed tried to concentrate despite the pleasurable ministration. “Oh yeah? And what’d that cost me?”
Mustang paused, as if deciding an appropriate payment. “One night,” he said finally. “Stay here. All night. No going back to the dorms.”
The comment acted on Ed like a bath of ice-water. Immediately the pleasant haze of sexual tension snapped into nothingness. Amazing. That the King of smooth talking had unwittingly uttered the one thing that could shut Ed down so totally. Fucking amazing.
Ed, his eyes stony and his face expressionless, pushed the stunned Colonel away, moving off the older man’s lap. “Sorry, Colonel,” he said as he rose calmly from the couch. “That’s a deal I won’t be making anytime soon.” Ed picked up the journal and notes from the coffee table and began making his way to the door.
“Fullmetal-“ the Colonel called after him, rising from the couch, preparing to follow him.
“Thanks for the meal, Colonel,” Ed uttered dispassionately as he collected his coat from the rack in the hall.
Roy reached the hall as Ed was opening the door. Ed paused in the doorway and Roy for a moment was hopeful that maybe whatever had turned the young man so cold so quickly could be remedied. He began to reach out a hand to grasp the young man’s shoulder. His hopes were quickly destroyed.
Ed didn’t even do Roy the courtesy of turning around as he spoke. “You may be my superior, Colonel, and you may want to fuck me. Hell, maybe I want to fuck you too. “
Roy’s eyes widened at both the admission and the brutal frankness of it.
“But at the end of the day, I always go back to my brother,” Ed said stonily. “That’s not going to change. Ever.”
Roy watched, the heavy weight of disappointment like lead in his stomach, as the small figure travelled down the lamp lit street, growing smaller and smaller, and finally disappearing into the darkness.
*~*~*~
By the time Ed made it back to the Kellig house on foot, he was well and truly late. His brother, with his usual tact-beyond-his-years, said nothing about it.
“Well, did you get anything out of the Colonel?” Al made a choked sound. “Information! I mean information-wise! About the journal!”
Ed couldn’t help but laugh at his brother’s embarrassed flailing. And Al couldn’t help but notice, despite his embarrassment, how totally without humor his brother’s laugh seemed.
Author: AkaiNagi
Genre: Romance/Angst/Humor (little for everyone)
Pairing: RoyEd
Rating: This part a Conservative NC-17, NC-17 in total
Ed had kissed Roy Mustang and been kissed by Roy Mustang. He had sat in the lap of Roy Mustang, groped and been groped by Roy Mustang. At this very moment he had several hickeys that were, in fact, caused by Roy Mustang.
So why the hell did it bother Ed so much to ask him about Alchemy?
Professional pride, maybe? Ed didn’t like relying on anyone for alchemical knowledge. He’d rather research it himself and get the info straight from the source. Most likely, though, he just didn’t want to owe the man any favors.
Because he had a pretty good idea how Mustang would want him to pay up. The pervert.
Oh, who the hell was he kidding? In the Pervert Society of Central City, of which Mustang was most definitely the President, Ed was probably vice president. Or at least the treasurer. Especially considering this morning’s matinee in the shower.
After carefully weighing his interests, however, he realized it would be far more expeditious just to ask the Colonel than to start pouring over the volumes in Central Library.
Because, it seemed, their Green Earth Alchemist had been dabbling outside his realm of expertise. Namely in flame alchemy.
That was how Ed found himself, well before the appointed hour, standing in front of Mustang’s office, working up the courage to knock.
Just as he was about to, the door swung open, revealing the man himself. A look of surprise graced the Colonel’s features before settling into his customary confident smirk.
“I believe you’re about six hours early, Fullmetal,” Mustang pointed out.
“No shit, Colonel? Really? I hadn’t noticed,” Ed replied sarcastically. “I need to consult with someone about flame alchemy. Trust me, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need something.”
“Flame alchemy?”
“Yeah,” Ed answered. “Looks like Kellig was broadening his horizons. Check it out.” Ed handed him one of Kellig’s notebooks, open to a page featuring several symbols. “Those mean anything to you?”
Mustang looked at the page thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe. I ‘m on my way to a meeting, so I can’t look at it right now. But I’ll have Havoc pick you up at 1730 and take you to the best repository of fire-related alchemical texts in Central. Or probably anywhere else for that matter. I’ll meet you there.”
~*~*~*~
Ed stood in front of the well-to-do looking townhouse with a peeved expression on his face.
Mustang could have at least told him that this grand repository of alchemical knowledge was at the Colonel’s fucking house. Ed was feeling distinctly like the fly who had been invited into the spider’s parlor. Once inside he could well be gobbled up.
“Well, do you plan on looking at it all night, or are you coming in?” asked Mustang as he stood in the doorway of the house. His customary uniform had been exchanged for slacks and a dress shirt.
Ed didn’t budge from the front walk. “I’m just wondering if you’re that much of a pervert in the office, how bad you must be at home,” he said sarcastically.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat you … well not on the front steps anyway.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Ed said warily, but began to make his way to the entrance of the Mustang residence.
The inside of Roy Mustang’s house was tastefully, if minimally decorated. It had the look of a place that wasn’t lived in much. A place that was passed through, a place where nights were spent, but not a place that could ever be described as homey.
He followed Mustang to a door that led off the front hallway. Stairs leading downward revealed it to be a basement. When Ed caught sight of the contents of the basement, his eyes widened with surprise and undisguised awe.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled the room, leaving only room for a small desk sandwiched between the towers of alchemical tomes. Ed whistled in appreciation. The sheer amount of knowledge held in this room was mind-blowing. And to think it was the collection of a single individual was even more impressive.
“Much of it was inherited from my teacher,” Mustang explained. “The rest I’ve accumulated over the years. Most of it is flame-alchemy related, but there’s a fairly good representation of general alchemical texts as well.”
“Uh-huh,” Ed answered, not really listening. He was already perusing the shelves. “Holy Shit,” Ed said quietly. “Beninger … Dusterhoff … Kliener … talk about rare! They don’t even have these in the Central Library.”
Mustang smiled at Ed’s enthusiasm. “Take as much time as you need. Use the desk. I assume you haven’t eaten yet?”
Ed was already pulling out books to use for reference. “Huh? Uh, no. Why?”
Mustang started up the stairs. “I’ll make us dinner while you get started. Then we’ll go over Kellig’s notes.”
Ed was at a loss for what to say. He didn’t know how to react to this new, generous side of his arch-nemesis cum non-boyfriend. “Uh … okay,” he said lamely.
He was relieved when Mustang disappeared up the stairs, giving him the ability to concentrate again. He picked out a few more volumes that looked useful, refusing to be tempted by the rare but off-topic volumes he saw lining the shelves. Man, if he could just have a week straight in this room, he thought wistfully. Too bad it was located in the lion’s den.
He set to taking notes from the various volumes, jotting down particularly relevant information or symbols in his own precise brand of shorthand. An hour lapsed in the seeming blink of an eye.
It would be a lot easier to concentrate without all the delicious smells wafting down from upstairs. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast this morning, and his hunger was making it hard to concentrate. The hell with it, he thought. Setting aside the book he was working with, he tucked his notes into Kellig’s journal and brought it with him as he climbed the stairs, following the delicious smells. Hopefully after dinner he could finally get Mustang to look at the flame symbols in the journal.
He found the man himself slicing vegetables into a salad bowl in the kitchen. He looked so … domestic. His shirt sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, his stocking feet made no sound as he moved over to stir a couple pots before resuming his chopping.
“Didn’t know you cooked,” Ed said conversationally.
Mustang didn’t look up from his work. “Cooking is like alchemy in a kitchen, Fullmetal. You could probably do it too if you tried. Simply a matter of the right ingredients under the right conditions. Here.” Roy held the knife out, handle-first, to Ed. “Have at it. Finish these up while I tend to the rest,” he said, smiling.
Having a policy of never trusting smiling men with knives, Ed took the blade warily. As Mustang moved over to the pot on the stove, Ed eyed the innocuous looking tomato on the cutting board. How hard could it be? He brought the knife squarely down on the fruit. Rather than slicing cleanly through, the tomato squashed down, spitting juice everywhere. Ed cursed.
Mustang appeared over his shoulder, chuckling.
“What’s so goddamn funny?” Ed groused, scowling at the offending tomato.
Roy took another tomato and placed it on the cutting board. “That’s not how you cut a tomato.”
“Well excuse me for not being Julia-fucking-Child,” Ed snapped.
Roy took Ed’s hand in his own and guided it back to the cutting board. “You pierce the skin with the tip of the blade, then cut through the opening.” He guided Ed’s hand through the motions.
Ed tried to keep the blush from rising to his cheeks. After all they had done, why did the simple act of Mustang’s calloused hands covering his own seem so … intimate? “Fine. Fine. You made your point. I don’t know jack about cooking.” Ed shrugged him off. “Now go and mind your damn pots and keep your hands off my tomato.”
Grinning, Roy obediently went back to the stove to tend to the rest of the meal.
Ed finished the rest of his chopping imagining the Colonel’s face on the cutting board.
But the time they got the finished products to the table, Ed had gone from hungry to ravenous. He wasn’t even going to ask how Mustang had known to make spaghetti with meat sauce, one of Ed’s ranking favorites of all time. The conversation was sparse; Mustang complained about the endlessly boring and boringly endless meetings he had been forced to attend that day. Ed soundly pronounced him a big baby and took another bite of his pasta. Ed, for his part, updated him on the progress of their translation, complaining about the slowness and tediousness of the task he had been handed. Roy soundly pronounced him a big baby. Ed threw a roll at his Commanding Officer. That pretty much ended the conversation.
After dinner they left the dishes in the sink and adjourned to the living room where Roy finally took a look at the journal of Joshua Kellig.
Mustang examined the volume, flipped a few pages, turned it right, left and upside down. Frowned. Flipped back a few pages.
“Well?” Ed asked when his patience finally wore out
“No Clue,” Roy announced proudly.
Ed wanted to smack him. “What do you mean, ‘No clue’?? You’re supposed to be the expert in this shit!”
“It’s in pieces,” Roy pointed out slightly defensively. “Taken together and in the right formation, it could make an array. But what the array is designed to produce depends entirely upon the arrangement.”
“Do you even have a best guess?” Ed asked desperately.
“It has nothing to do with human transmutation, I can say that for sure,” Mustang replied confidently. “In fact it’s so far from Kellig’s area of study that I can’t fathom what he was doing with these notes,” he thought for a moment. “And you found no arrays in the house?”
Ed shook his head. “Nothing.”
“You searched the whole place?”
Ed gave him a look that asked for at least a little credit as a professional. “All two floors and the basement. Nothing.”
“Attic?”
Ed frowned. “No access that we could find.”
“There has to be access,” Mustang insisted.
Now Ed was getting pissed. “You want to come search that dust factory of a house, go right ahead,” he snapped. “I’m telling you we didn’t find any access. Period.”
Mustang studied him for a moment. Ed’s anger was replaced by a keen sense of self-consciousness. “What?” he growled.
Mustang’s eyes continued to take him in. “I was just noticing how hot you look when you’re angry.”
Ed’s own eyes narrowed. “I was wondering how long it would take for the pervert to rear his ugly head.”
Roy’s smile took on a slightly predatory edge. “If I’m perverted, it’s because you make me that way.”
Ed huffed. “Oh, sure, blame the vi-“
He found himself utterly silenced by now-familiar lips, pressing against his own with a ferocity that was as sudden as it was surprising. Quick to recover and not one to be outdone, he matched Mustang’s enthusiasm with his own, grabbing the front of the older man’s shirt and pulling him closer.
As their tongues met in the now-familiar dance, Ed felt the immediate stirrings of arousal. This had been inevitable, he knew, from the second he had set foot in the Colonel’s house. That’s how predictable, yet uncontrollable this fucking thing between them had become.
Before giving himself a chance to think about it, Ed began pulling the older man’s shirt up and out of his pants, snaking his hands underneath to feel the bare skin of his abdomen. Mustang made a sound of contentment at the contact. Ed allowed his hands to roam.
What would happen this evening, Ed wondered. More of the same? Dry humping on a living room couch this time, instead of a hard office couch? Or would Mustang try to push things further. Did Ed want him to push things further? In his mind’s eye Ed momentarily flashed back to this morning, standing naked in the shower, imagining Mustang’s hand pumping him to completion. He moaned into the older man’s mouth at the memory. Impulsively, and without even breaking contact, he brought himself to straddle the Colonel’s lap. Blossoming erections met and they both groaned into the other’s mouth.
Suddenly Ed felt hands deftly undoing his braid. He broke the kiss to protest. “Hey!”
“Shhhh,” Mustang commanded, undoing the last of the plaits and running his hands through the light-colored mane, letting it fall around Ed’s face and shoulders. “I have wanted to do this for-“ he paused.
“For?”
Mustang’s gaze softened. “Forever,” he said quietly.
Ed blushed crimson. “You bastard. You knew this was going to happen when you invited me over here, didn’t you?”
The glint returned to the older man’s eyes. “Equivalent exchange.”
Ed let out a genuine laugh. “I get your library and you get some ass? You really are a bastard.”
Roy massaged Ed’s scalp with his nails, earning him a satisfied sigh from his partner. “You can use it anytime you like. I’d even give you a key.”
“Hmmmm?” Ed tried to concentrate despite the pleasurable ministration. “Oh yeah? And what’d that cost me?”
Mustang paused, as if deciding an appropriate payment. “One night,” he said finally. “Stay here. All night. No going back to the dorms.”
The comment acted on Ed like a bath of ice-water. Immediately the pleasant haze of sexual tension snapped into nothingness. Amazing. That the King of smooth talking had unwittingly uttered the one thing that could shut Ed down so totally. Fucking amazing.
Ed, his eyes stony and his face expressionless, pushed the stunned Colonel away, moving off the older man’s lap. “Sorry, Colonel,” he said as he rose calmly from the couch. “That’s a deal I won’t be making anytime soon.” Ed picked up the journal and notes from the coffee table and began making his way to the door.
“Fullmetal-“ the Colonel called after him, rising from the couch, preparing to follow him.
“Thanks for the meal, Colonel,” Ed uttered dispassionately as he collected his coat from the rack in the hall.
Roy reached the hall as Ed was opening the door. Ed paused in the doorway and Roy for a moment was hopeful that maybe whatever had turned the young man so cold so quickly could be remedied. He began to reach out a hand to grasp the young man’s shoulder. His hopes were quickly destroyed.
Ed didn’t even do Roy the courtesy of turning around as he spoke. “You may be my superior, Colonel, and you may want to fuck me. Hell, maybe I want to fuck you too. “
Roy’s eyes widened at both the admission and the brutal frankness of it.
“But at the end of the day, I always go back to my brother,” Ed said stonily. “That’s not going to change. Ever.”
Roy watched, the heavy weight of disappointment like lead in his stomach, as the small figure travelled down the lamp lit street, growing smaller and smaller, and finally disappearing into the darkness.
*~*~*~
By the time Ed made it back to the Kellig house on foot, he was well and truly late. His brother, with his usual tact-beyond-his-years, said nothing about it.
“Well, did you get anything out of the Colonel?” Al made a choked sound. “Information! I mean information-wise! About the journal!”
Ed couldn’t help but laugh at his brother’s embarrassed flailing. And Al couldn’t help but notice, despite his embarrassment, how totally without humor his brother’s laugh seemed.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 01:29 am (UTC)I just love Ed's reaction to Roy, and Al's comment, a bit of humor for a much more serious chapter.
You portray Ed's desire and wants versus Al so well, the things he wants often push each other away...
I'm waiting eagerly for another chapter!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 02:24 am (UTC)amazing update!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-06-28 04:38 am (UTC)"Ever" Ed? Really? Jeez. Did you have to make it sounds so final? Like you were about to break up or something? :( You're breaking my heart over here! :) I wonder how Al would react if he knew why Ed's laugh sounded so hollow, if he knew that, yet again, Ed was sacrificing himself for Al's benefit.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-23 04:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-03 08:22 pm (UTC)