Jeux d'envie: return of the ed

[mikkeneko]

Title: Jeux d'envie, part 2
(Envy's Game, or alternatively, Games of Wanting)
Rating: R
Pairing: Envy/Al
Warnings: Envy warning, action, blood, rape, mindfuck.
Author's notes: This fic is a collab between myself, Kalika and Kaltia, written in three parts. Part 1 of Jeux d'Envie can be found at kalikamaxwell's post. Part 3 will follow on.


It's two years, five months, and seven days since Ed last saw his little brother, in the ballroom of a waltzing death trap. Two years, five months, and seven days since he offered up his life and his soul to bring Alphonse back; two years, five months and seven days struggling to get back, to find out if his last desperate transmutation had even worked at all.

After two years, five months and seven days of hardship, Edward Elric expected this part to be easy. Walk into any public building, pick up a phone, call Riesenburg. Failing that, secure a train ticket or some other passage to Riesenburg; failing all else, find his old friends in the military and ask them for re-orientation. Find out where Al is, get back in touch, wait for the reunion. Simple as that.

There's just one little problem: Al isn't here.

A day of frustrating, increasingly tense phone calls and telegrams end with Edward a nervous wreck in a tiny hotel room; the next day he swallows his pride and goes to the military. Nobody there knows any more than he does. With the shift in foreign policy away from aggression, and domestic policy away from alchemy, the government has little interest in keeping track of the amnesiac little brother of a MIA State Alchemist. Only their personal friends have attempted to keep up, and only to the extent of keeping a list of phone numbers and addresses of Alphonse's last known address, in Riesenburg.

Edward's patience, never great, rapidly begins to wear away, as he turns up more and more dead leads for his little brother. Winry's last glimpse of him, getting ready for bed on a normal day, had been the last anyone had seen in over a year. Winry assumed he left in the night to search for Edward, and hadn't set out a search.

And nothing, nowhere, has been heard of him since.

The answers are the same, from all quarters; Winry, Mustang, Pinako, Izumi. They assumed Al had gone off to search for Edward on his own, and hadn't the heart to try and stop him. Edward could shake them for their complacency; what were they thinking, letting his innocent little brother wander off on his own like that? The kid was no more than twelve years old, after all!

A new, unreasonable fear begins to grip him, as each day and each night passes without Al. What will he do if, after five years of struggling to the truth in the Gate and then two and a half more fighting to get home, what if now Alphonse were to attempt to open the Gate -- to fetch him home? What if Al, not knowing he is home and safe and searching for him, sacrifices himself in the very moment that should have been their reunion...

Don't be an idiot, he tells himself ruthlessly. There's no way that Al, operating alone and amnesiac after only two years, could reproduce the knowledge that it took both of them five years of sweat and frustration and danger to uncover.

Still, he has bad dreams; dreams of farce-like timing where his little brother stands with his back to him, cracking open the door to destruction, and no matter how hard Edward screams at him, he will not turn and hear him.



The lead comes unexpectedly, to Armstrong through the intelligence department -- reports of sightings not of Alphonse Elric, but of the Fullmetal Alchemist. A young, blond man with long hair, dressed in the clothes Edward had typically worn during his youth, has been seen passing through troubled towns in the West.

Mustang is inclined to dismiss the reports as fantasies, and Edward likewise, but a comment from Winry confirms that Al had begun, in his last few weeks at home, to grow his hair out long and adopt Edward's look and style. Whether out of some kind of homage, or simply to draw on the Fullmetal Alchemist's reputation to aid his own quest, is one of many things Edward intends to beat out of Alphonse's thick head once he gets done hugging him to death for scaring him so badly.

After such a hopeful break, the endless delays that pile up on each other are infuriating. It takes almost a week for a report to come back from an agent in the area confirming the witnesses' story. Then three more days for Edward to reach the south-western area by train. There are three small villages in the area, each of them just a little under a day's walk apart; so three more days for Edward to travel from one to the next seeking the information he wants.

Nobody in any of the towns recalls anyone matching the description of Edward's brother. Ed controls his disappointment with an effort; no doubt Alphonse has changed, in the missing years.

But he does manage to find the source of the garbled tale of the sighting of the Fullmetal Alchemist. It is tied up, quite confusingly, with some stories of wild animals -- or maybe bandits, the tale varies -- that had attacked one of the three villages some months back.

The distinctive, legendary Alchemist had been seen briefly in the area not long before the bodies were discovered, but could not be found afterwards to ask for help. The unidentifiable killers had vanished not long after, to everyone's relief; the Alchemist was assumed to be the cause.

Edward has to bite back on excitement; surely that was Al's handiwork! His younger brother could never pass up an opportunity to do some good, after all, anywhere and anyway he could. The only puzzling thing was that Alphonse had never introduced himself to the villagers themselves. Is it possible he is still in the area?

Another frustrating delay -- a day of rain -- keeps Ed from going searching the area right away. But as soon as the sky lets up, he is scrambling along gulleys and barely-visible tracks in the woods, searching for the place where his brother has made his safe haven.

==============

Al jerks awake as a noise echoes through his little house, pulling him out of a light doze. Since the cat ran away, it's been difficult for him to maintain his routine of sleepings and wakings, but he's been trying hard.

At first his fuzzy brain can't figure out what the noise had been; after all, nobody knocks at their house. There is only one person who ever comes and Edward doesn't need to knock, ergo there had been no knock. Adrenaline is already filling Al's veins, though, sending him tumbling off the bed and onto the floor on his hands and knees.

Brother is back. Brother is back and it is time for Al to greet him, like a proper dog should. Excitement and eagerness and anticipation and fear all thrill through him at the same time, tightening his body as he focuses hard on the door. Brother will be grumpy after a trip, like he always is and it will take an especially charming performance from Al to cheer him up again.

Al wants his brother to be cheerful and happy. Partly because it makes him proud, that he alone has that power over Ed, to pull him out of his strange funks. Partly because when Ed is happy he is gentler, nicer and takes more time to care for Al during and after sex. When Ed is happy they will cuddle, instead of Ed just growling and shoving Al away onto the floor afterwards. Partly because Ed never stays long, and Al wants to make the time when Ed is with him the best it can be. Partly because when Ed is unhappy, it means a long session of sweat and blood before Al can get him back into a good mood again.

But mostly it is because Al loves his brother, loves him more than anything else in the world, and there is no greater pleasure for him in his life than seeing his brother light up with happiness.

Just thinking about it makes him vibrate, every muscle thrumming with tension, and he stays focused on that door, waiting for it to open, to spill life and love into his world.

It seems to take forever, and Al is just wondering whether he imagined it, that noise that woke him, when the doorknob rattles, then swings slowly open, and that so-familiar, so-beloved face peers cautiously around the doorjamb.

"Brother!"

The door bangs against the wall, hard, flooding the room with light. It makes Al squint, but that's quite all right, because there's no mistaking the figure in the doorway for anyone else. It's Edward, and that alone is enough to fill Al with so much delight that it's no chore at all to scrabble along the floor towards that golden glory on his hands and knees, and leap up to paw adoringly at Edward's chest.

He remembers to bark his adoration, instead of speaking, and stretches upwards to lick Edward's face, hands on Ed's shoulders to steady him. The unusual quality of Edward's clothing, different from when he left, different from almost anything Al knows, is noted but ignored. He revels instead in the reality of Edward, his solid shoulders under Al's hands, his warm salty-smooth skin under Al's tongue.

After a few moments of licks and happy whines, Al remembers his place, and drops back down onto all floors, flattening himself against the floor as he backs away. To let Edward see him, and see that he's being good, as well as to take in the sight of Edward for himself. He braces his feet apart on the floor, legs spread, and pressed his chest and neck against the floor. The collar jingles and scrapes over the stone, cold on his cheek and skin, and he gives another happy, excited bark.

Something's not right. Ed should be laughing, grinning, eyes and teeth flashing with delight. He should be touching Al about now, running his hands through Al's hair, down his back, a tweak and a tug to be sure that Al seated the tail-plug properly. But he's not, he's just standing there, hands raised up halfway from where he hadn't been able to react to Al's mad rush in time.

Did he do something wrong? Is he doing something wrong even now? Anxiety comes back in a rush, fear. He so wanted this visit to get off to a good start, on the right foot, but he must have done something wrong, now he'll have to work even harder to restore the mood...

He presses himself even further against the floor, groveling abjectly, and creeps forward slowly across the tile. The cold stone makes him shiver, but not half as much as the specter of displeasure; if he could, his ears would droop and his tail would be hanging low. He whines instead, to express his anxiety, his desire to please, and drags his tongue along the top of Edward's boot, sneaking a glance upwards to gauge Edward's reaction.

Still nothing. Edward's face is completely frozen, completely blank, his mouth hanging open, moving in some futile silent attempt to speak words. His hands are beginning to shake.

Fear for Edward, for his strange behavior, finally overcomes fear of Edward, and that gives him the courage to break out of the act. He sidles backwards, and sits up, collar and leash jangling over his chest. "Brother?" he says, voice thin and hesitant. "Bro... Edward? Is... is something wrong?"

"What..." When Edward speaks it's a croak, and he has to stop and swallow before it comes out a little clearer. "what, what... What the hell are you doing, Al? What's got into you?"

Al shrinks, taken aback. He'd feared that he'd displeased Edward somehow, but he hadn't expected this sudden, unprovoked rage. He can't react as Ed storms into the stone cabin like a thundercloud over a village, flashing with lightning and growling thunder. "B-but brother --" he starts, and falters, pressing himself back down flat against the floor.

"Stop! Stop that, get up! What are you doing, cowering on the floor like you're some sort of dog? Get up -- get up --" Ed's hands are on his arm and shoulder, now, half-lifting him off the floor. He's paralyzed in Ed's hands, by Ed's piercing glare, and he couldn't answer even if he wanted to. "Get up, dammit Al, stop it!"

When Al doesn't react, and doesn't seem to want to stand up, Ed begins bundling him towards the bed, cursing furiously under his breath. Al lets him, until Ed tries to seat him firmly on the edge of the bed, and that pushes so uncomfortably on the tail-plug buried within him that Al shoots up again with a faint cry.

Ed's eyes widen at the sound, and his eyes suddenly track over Al's body, the angry heat of his eyes practically making marks on Al's bare skin -- where's the pleasure Ed should be getting from this, from looking at him? Where's the possessive leer, the smugness-tinged lust? Ed's eyes are only growing steadily more outraged, and it chokes tears out of Al's eyes, that he can't fathom what he's done to anger his brother.

"Who did this to you?" Edward demands suddenly, and Al's mouth goes dry. His hands on Al's arms loosen, and Al slides out of his grasp to half-kneel beside the bed. Ed goes with him, gloved hands -- and why is he wearing gloves, anyway, he hasn't in years -- patting carefully and frantically over Al's skin. "Who hurt you, Al? I swear I'll track them down and kill them myself --"

This makes no sense. No sense at all. Al's mind is well on the way to some kind of shutdown.

Al's mind is well on the way to some kind of shutdown. But he's jerked back into life when Ed's hands brush up along his neck, grasp the collar there, and suddenly begins fumbling with the clasp.

"No!" he cries out, bringing his hands up to grab at Ed's. "No, Brother, don't! Please don't!"

"Al, I'm not going to hurt you," Ed growls at him, "I just want to get this fucking collar off you! Give me two minutes and I'll burn the damn thing --"

"No," Al cries frantically, pulling Ed's hands away with all his strength. "Not this -- please don't take it off -- been a good boy, I promise -- "

He can't manage anything more than half-coherent gabble, and he's crying in earnest now. Not the collar, anything but the collar, Edward's first gift to him, his first symbol of affection and possession.

Strong, gloved fingers catch his skin, and turn his face up to meet Ed's. It's even more bewildering, because his brother normally doesn't like him to stare him in the eye -- emphasizes Al's height, and little brothers should be little, below their elders, not eye to eye. Ed's eyes practically blaze with righteous fury, but not, Al can barely make out, directed at him.

"Who did this, Al," Ed asks, with a deadly calm in his voice. "Who put this on you? Tell me!"

"You did, brother!" Al cries out, tears streaming from his eyes. "You did!"

There's a moment of stunned silence, while Al sobs quietly in broken confusion. "No," Edward says, still eerily calm, but it's being shaken. "No, Al, I didn't. I wouldn't, I couldn't have -- not you, not this, I didn't --"

"He's right, you know," a third voice interrupts, and Ed jerks with the speed of his movement as he turns to face the source of it.

Al blinks the tears away from his eyes, brain gone numb with disbelief. His brother has just stepped into the door, familiar black and red clothes, braid, possessive leer and all, and is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.

"He didn't do it," Edward says, smirking faintly as he watches the two of them. "I did."

------

For Edward, the world leaps suddenly into focus. That grin, that mocking tone -- his mind flies back to the night in the underground city, two years ago, when he had broken into another shameful scene to see the same arrogant leer on what should have been a familiar face, to hear those same painful words. Rage, which had been building ever since he had seen his brother's body, had only been temporarily quenched with shock; now it flash-ignites, filling his whole world with red. It rumbles up in his chest, into his throat, changing his spiteful hiss into a growl. "Ennnnvyyyy....."

"But -- " Al whispers, from under his protective arms. His little brother twists around, looking between the Edward on the bed, and the one in the doorway. "But... Br-brother?"

"That's not me, Al," Ed snarls, in a tone inundated with loathing. "That's him. The creature. It's Envy. Why didn't you..."

Realization flashes in on him even over the rage -- Winry's voice, telling him sadly that Al remembered nothing, none of their years of travel together. At the time he'd been uneasy, then relieved -- better for Al to be spared that memory, when he was alone -- but now the horror of it dawned on him. Envy had come to take him, his brother, wearing his face -- and Al hadn't known, Al couldn't have known --

"Al." Alphonse flinches in his arms, as the other Edward -- Envy, it has to be Envy! -- steps away from the door. There's menace in his tone, as he steps slowly and deliberately into the room, and Al cringes from it. "You aren't thinking of turning on me, little brother?"

"Shut up!" Ed snarls, and turns to place himself in between Envy and Al. "He's not your brother, you don't have any right to him! It was you, wasn't it? You did this to him. You put these things on him, you, you, you bastard, you raped my brother, didn't you?"

"But he is my brother," Envy smirks, and Edward's stomach clenches, reminded of the face that lay under all the masks, the tangle of blond hair on the floor, the sharp -- "And I never made him do anything that he didn't want to do. Did I, Alphonse?"

Al is shaking, under Ed's hands, and his eyes are wide with bewildered terror. With a growl, Ed pushes Al down the side of the bed, where hopefully he'll be out of the line of fire, and turns around, facing Envy fully. The homunculus takes another step, seeming to loom larger as he does so -- hell, he probably is larger, just to taunt him, the asshole. "Get out of here, Envy," he says coldly. "Leave my brother alone, and never come back."

"What makes you think Alphonse wants to be left alone?" Envy shoots back, tilting his head with a sneer painted across his stolen face. "He wants to be with me -- refuses to leave my side, even when I offer to let him -- he grows positively frantic when I leave, you know, and he's so pathetically relieved when I come back."

"You -- leave him alone here?" Edward breathes rage, even as his mind surges forward. He has to stay on his toes, not let anger distract him -- Envy is powerful, has always been the strongest of the Sins, the most deadly fighter even without his shapeshifting powers, and nearly impossible to kill.

But Edward has a few tricks up his sleeve, too. He claps his hands, and presses his left to his automail, transforming it onto a blade. With a smirk, Envy mirrors his action, his faux-metal arm morphing and reforming with the illusion of a transmutation.

Still too close to Al, Ed thinks, he might get dragged in and hurt. He leaps forward, bringing his bladed arm in front of him, with quick running steps over the smooth stone to meet Envy head-on.

The Sin is just as strong, stronger, than Ed remembers; his uncanny weight and strength absorb the momentum of Ed's charge without a shiver. The apparently-identical blades meet with a clang, and Ed jerks his head out of the way of a razor edge that slides by his face.

Envy shoves, turning his momentum against him; Ed barely manages to turn the near-fall into a scrambling roll over to Envy's right. Envy turns towards him, laughing, mocking, and Ed sets his jaw, and slaps his hands down on the stone floor.

The alchemical charge, preserved and conserved from his earlier clap, crackles into the ground. A line of ripples travels lightning-quick through the stone , and the solid ground under Envy's feet abruptly surges and dissolves, becoming

fine, drowning silt under his feet. Envy staggers, trying to leap away from the unexpected trap, but he can find no leverage against the billowing quicksand. Edward bares his teeth in triumph, and an instant later the floor is hard again, trapping the homunculus to nearly his knees in solid stone.

"Got you!" Ed doesn't stop to gloat, surging up from the floor with his automail blade extended. He has Envy pinned, he aims the blade dead center -- but the homunculus twists like a snake, in ways that no human spine ever could, and the metal barely scrapes the side of his face as Ed goes by.

His momentum carries him for a few feet, and he stumbles almost into the door before he can turn around. His own smirking form shifts, writhes, and even as Edward watches, Envy pulls narrowed, attenuated feet from the entrapping stone and steps back up onto the floor. Gold melts into green, red into black, until finally the familiar array of sharp jagged teeth grins back at him from under gleaming, inhuman slitted eyes.

Ed stiffens, his chest aching with phantom twinges, and he drops into a slightly lower crouch, defensive, readying himself for the next assault. His muscles are already protesting; it's been years since he had to do fighting this serious, and his limbs are aching just from their first clash. If he couldn't beat Envy in a fight when he was in his prime, could he hope to do it now? Envy was too fast, too strong -- he had to think of some way to --

A sound ratcheted across their tableau, like the death-cry of a wounded animal. Both of their gazes were wrenched to the far side of the room, where Al had clambered up to kneel on the bed, hands clenched around the collar on his neck. "You lied to me," he choked out, in a voice that made Ed ache, even when the accusing pain of it was directed at Envy, not at him. "You... you told me..."

Envy's a blur in the corner of Ed's eye, and before he can blink the monster has crossed the room to the bed, far ahead of Ed's belated lurching grab. Envy's hand tangles in the leash trailing from Al's neck, and he jerks the boy up onto his knees, bringing their faces close. "I lied to you?" he repeats, and laughs horribly. "Yes, maybe I did, but you ate it all up! You believed every word that I poured into your stupid, naive ears, didn't you? You never even thought to doubt, or wonder, or check and make sure I was who I said I was. No, you could never doubt your precious big brother, could you? You drank it all down -- swallowed, just like a good boy --"

"Don't you touch him!" Outraged, Ed surges towards the bed -- then jerks to a stop, as Envy snaps Alphonse violently around, pressing the boy's back to his chest with his arm across Al's throat. Al gives a little cry, which trails off into a gurgle as Envy presses harder, and his hands, reach up to pry uselessly at Envy's inhumanly strong grip.

"Oh, it's too late for that," Envy says. A grin slowly widens, spreading across his face even as a change creeps across his arm, transmuting inhuman flesh into a sharp blade like the very one on Ed's automail. "There's no part of your precious little brother I haven't touched by now. No part he hasn't lay down and spread open to me, like an obedient little whore. You never dreamed your little brother would be so compliant, did you Edward? So wholeheartedly willing to obey his older brother's every sick whim."

The tears which had been building in Alphonse's eyes spill over his face, in silent streams; his fingers bled from pressing against the arm-blade. Frustrated and panicked, Ed claps his hands together, then drops to his knees and presses them against the floor. Envy's arm tightens, and a thin line of blood springs across Al's throat, but when Ed makes no further movement, Envy relaxes.

The Sin lowers his face to Al's hair, nuzzling in a mockery of tenderness. "And you liked it, didn't you Al?" he says cruelly. "You crawled and begged for even a scrap of attention, you sucked and swallowed and rode your big brother's dick like a professional. I wonder who's sicker, the big brother who forced himself on his younger sibling, or the little brother who loved it and asked for more? D'you think Ed will treat you right, little Al? Will he give you the pain and humiliation you adore? I wonder."

Edward grits his teeth against the bile that wants to well up in his throat, forcing his concentration back to the stone under his hands. Out of sight, under the thinnest shell of earth, the alchemical charge warps and twists the elemental stone to his will. It's the hardest reaction he'd ever attempted, dragging the carbon atoms out of their compounds, forcing them to twist and spin together, linking tighter and tighter in an interlocking spiral... "Let him go, Envy," he says murderously.

"Let him go, why?" Envy laughs, although his arm doesn't budge at all. "Are you jealous, big brother? Did you want a chance to fuck him yourself?" Envy punctuates the ugly word with a sharp jerk of his knee, against Al's behind, drawing a sharp pained cry out of his throat as the tail is shoved deep within him. "For once, I have something you want, and maybe I don't want to share."

Envy's blade lifts at last from Al's neck, the point where his hand should be drifting lower over Al's chest, drawing a thin line of blood where it passed. Al whimpered, as the sharp edge stopped against his nipple, digging in slightly. "Don't look so horrified, he loves this part," Envy purred, his lips against the back of Al's head.

"NnnnnnDON'T TOUCH ME!" Al screams, unexpectedly, and bashes his head backwards against Envy's jaw. Envy's head snaps back, with a cracking sound as his nose and jaw shatter. Al grabs Envy's arm, blood running down between his fingers, and heaves, throwing the heavy body forward over his shoulder. Envy slams onto the stone floor, limbs sprawling, and Al collapses into a huddle on the bed.

Thank you, Al, Ed thinks fervently, as he finally lets the crackle of transmutation surface. He grabs and yanks, and with a dull clattering sound, the long thin trails spin out from his hands like a whip. They snap over Envy's prone form, twisting around his body like serpents; before the homunculus can recover they've twined their way up to his neck, crossing each other over and over. Ed slaps his hands down onto the chains, binding them to each other, and although it makes him sick to do it, to the flesh beneath. He can't let Envy slip out of this one and get hold of Al again.

Envy twists beneath him, bucking like a beached fish, and Ed can see the corner of his face, the exasperated expression on his face as he rolls his eyes. "You humans never learn, do you?" he drawls, rolling his head back. "This won't hold me. I can snap these like string. You don't have the strength to hold me, or the guts to kill me."

"Want to find out?" Ed growls, even as he climbs to his feet. Envy sneers, and pulls at his arms, pressing them against the chains.

The dull-colored chains stretch slightly and creak, but don't snap. A startled, the consternated expression crosses over Envy's face, and he pulls a little harder. "What the -- you little --"

With no small amount of vicious satisfaction, Ed puts the toe of his boot under Envy's shoulder, and flips Envy up to face him. "Here's news to you," he informs the Sin, "we humans do learn. Remember Greed? I do. Carbon, that's what his shell was made of, but no form of carbon that we had ever seen. Not diamond, or it would have shattered at the first bad landing. It had to be something even tougher, more flexible than diamond. Once I knew it could be done," Ed held up his hands and flexed his fingers, "it was just a matter of figuring out how to reconstruct it.

"Those chains are transmuted carbon atoms, chained together in countless unbreakable tubes. They have a tensile strength of more than fifty times that of steel," Ed tapped his arm for emphasis. "Not even you're going to get out of those anytime soon, Envy."

Envy explodes into rage, real fury at last, not the calculated sadism of before. He thrashes around in a fury, spewing venom and curse words; Edward ignores him, stepping over the body to the bed where Al is still curled in a loose heap.

"Al?" he says uncertainly, reaching out to his brother, but not quite touching. "Al, you okay?"

He could kick himself for the question, as soon as it comes out of his mouth; Al is obviously not okay. He's shaking, and blood is running down from the bare skin of his chest, and from between his fingers where he's covering his face with them. No, Edward realizes with a start, as a pale pink drop slides down Al's wrist and falls onto the bed; a mixture of blood and tears.

"Al, it's okay," Ed promises him desperately, patting carefully at his bare shoulders. "I got him. I still remember the array to kill these things. We'll get him, all right? He'll never hurt you again --"

Al says something, but his voice is so muffled by his hands and garbled by tears that Ed can't understand it. He leans in close, loose hair brushing over Al's skin as he tries to make it out. "What was that you said, Al?"

" -- msodirty --"

With panic well and truly on its way to settling in, Ed tries uselessly to comfort his brother, babbling barely-coherent reassurances and appeals, and not at all sure how much he dares touch Al now. His brother doesn't seem to really register his presence, now, just rocking back and forth on the bed with his hands over his face.

He doesn't even register the thumping, clanking sounds of struggle behind him, interspersed with barely-human grunts, until all at once there's a sliding rattle that sends him whirling around, shielding Alphonse with his body and ready to handle the threat.

The scene that greets his eyes is like the remnants of a massacre; the dull black chains lie on the pocked stone floor in a puddle of blood and gore. There are pieces in the puddle, abandoned slices of skin and muscle and even a twitching abandoned hand. Even as Ed looks at them, they begin to dissolve in a sea of red, cut off from their source of regeneration.

Envy himself is in the doorway, limping and covered in gory slices. He gives Edward a glare that promises long, slow torture and death, but his usual mocking veneer of superiority is gone and banished. "Don't think I won't see you again, little brat," he snarls over his shoulder. "Don't think you can sleep in peace, without a knife at your throat -- don't think you can protect your little fuckbuddy, either!"

Even injured, Envy moves faster than any normal human -- by the time Edward reaches the door, he's gone.


==============


Shock is the word for it, Al thinks, through a certain distant detachment. Thoughts come slowly, as if through glue; it's hard to see or hear much, and he can't feel his body.

That last is a blessing, he realizes. Not because of the pain -- he's borne far worse hurts than these minor nicks and scratches, after all -- but because of his brother's hands. Edward's hands are a stranger's hands, patting carefully and hesitantly over his skin, feeling out unfamiliar territory in the dark.

For a while Ed was talking to him, and Al struggled to try and form a coherent reply, but at last Edward took a long look at him and stopped asking questions. He's just petting Al now, trying to soothe, and Al feels kind of bad that he can barely register the touches through the thick layer of cold rubber that seems to have grown on his skin.

But he's glad again when Ed hesitates, obviously nerving himself up, and his hands slide down Al's back to gingerly touch the puppy tail. Al just hunches further into himself, burying his face in his elbows, and after a moment Ed grows more determined, and slowly begins to work it out.

If he weren't so numb, Al thinks as a side note, it would hurt quite a lot; with all the horseplay Ed and Envy between them have managed, it's gone in quite a bit deeper than it should. As it is, though, Ed's cautious, gentle tugs just leave him feeling hollow and empty inside.

Al doesn't want to think about what that makes him. He doesn't want to think about anything but the thoughts come anyway, lining up and crowding him in the dark behind his eyelids. Everything seems to fall under two headers, two facts and truths that he can't run away and hide from and can't deny no matter how many tears he breaks down and cries.

I've let a stranger fuck me for two years.

Brother never wanted to be with me.

"Um... Al?" Gloved hands are pulling at his shoulder now, trying to uncurl him, and Al blinks dazed at his brother. Ed's trying to put a stern face on, and completely failing; he's blushing, even as his face screws up with unhappiness. "Here, let me at them, and I'll... do the rest."

And then Al wishes for shock back, for numbness, because the sheer humiliation of everything crashes down on him like a waterfall, and he's bruised and battered and crushed and drowned by it.

"No..." Al shuts his eyes tightly, and swallows against bile. "It's... I mean I can get it... you don't have to..." Don't have to look; don't have to touch. Don't have to see the ugly proof of Al's most shameful weakness, that Edward himself never wanted to see. "I can get it myself." Although he's not absolutely sure that he can; he's never tried to undo the clasps and rings himself before. Ed warned him sternly against trying, and he'd never been so desperate for relief -- ever, really -- to go against Ed's interdiction.

He has to try, though, and he rolls back on his sore and aching butt and folds his legs in front of him, reaching into his lap and fumbling around for the clasps.

"Al." Ed's hands close around his, and Al startles badly. The cold rubber is all gone, and he realizes he's trembling. "Your hands are a mess. Let me do it, all right."

"All right," Al chokes out feebly. He puts his hands obediently aside, fingers still smeared with blood, and lands back on his palms as Ed bends to his task. Worse and worse; his body still insists that it knows Ed's touch, is delighted by it after so long an absence; his legs twitch, escaping his control. When the constriction is eased and normal circulation is restored, Al bends over double, mouth agape, and wishes for the numbness back again.

Ed pets his back, awkwardly; it's hard for Al not to thrum in time to the touch. But then Ed's hands move to the collar.

"Please don't --" Al says, and then stops, remembering when he said the same thing earlier. He bites down on his lip, hard.

"Why not?" Ed says, and he doesn't sound happy. "Envy had you collared like a dog. You don't have to wear it any more, you know."

Al just bites harder. How can he explain, without sounding pathetic or outright delusional, that the collar was the first thing 'Edward' gave him, back even before their sexual relationship took its darker, bloodier turn? That he's always treasured it as the gift from the Ed he wanted, the gift of affection and belonging? That so long as the collar's there, Al can still pretend to cherish that he's loved and wanted; when Ed takes the collar away, it'll all be over.

"Well --" The word sounds dragged out of Ed; Al sneaks a glance up at him, and his brother looks like he's thinking fast, and doesn't like what he's coming up with. "All right. If you really want it, I won't make you take it off. I won't," Ed says, and faces Al square on, "force you to do anything you don't want to. Okay?"

Al recognizes instantly what Ed means by that; unlike Envy. His brother still doesn't seem to understand, or believe, that Envy was telling the truth when he boasted about Al rolling over willingly for him.

"I just feel naked without it," Al says by way of excuse, or apology.

"You are naked. Hell --" And the problem seems to have just occurred to Ed, because he suddenly sits back and starts struggling out of his coat, the long, brown one that had so confused Al on first sight. He wonders where Ed got it, what's the story about it; but only in a dull, abstract way. He can ask -- later. Ed will tell him, he knows. Later.

Ed wraps the coat around his shoulders, and it feels strange, heavy and rough and abrasive and warm and soft all at once. The coat smells like Ed, he realizes in a burst of epiphany, and that's enough to flatten any qualms he might have felt about it. Strange. He'd stopped noticing the cold of the house long, long ago, except when he first woke up in the morning, but now suddenly the warmth of the coat makes him realize just how cold his skin is. He huddles into the warm cloth, and begins to shiver.

Ed steps back, and looks at him critically -- sneaking a peek back, Al notices that he's wearing an odd assembly of crisp white and stately brown, in various layers, under the coat. It's very different from his old look, the look that Envy had used -- duller, less daring, more... adult. It also makes him look very, very good, and Al has to duck to hide a blush.

"Hm," Ed grunts, and claps his hands. He presses them on the coat, draped over Al's shoulders, and the alchemical charge crackles through the fabric. It slithers and melts and reforms, and Al frowns as he finds himself wearing something resembling a rough brown jumpsuit. "It's not much, I know," Ed's saying, "but it'll do."

Then Ed grasps him by the arm, pulling him up off the bed and guiding him towards the door. "Brother?" Al says, and is distressed by how much the word... quavers. "Where are we going?"

"Outside," Ed says, eyes narrowed determinedly. "There's still some daylight left, and I'm not going to let you stay in this... cell one minute longer. It's too late now to go back to the village --"

"Back --" Al starts, then chokes on alarm. "Brother, we can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because!" Al digs in his heels, almost frantic at the thought. Back among the villagers, these mysterious people he'd never met -- back about people -- "They're looking for us... they'll find us!"

"Who?" Ed stares at him. "The homunculi? Al, Envy already knows where to find us. If he gets his tail out of his legs any time soon --"

"Not them! The military!" The panic is almost suffocating; two years of conditioned fear. "If they find you, Brother --"

"Al, what makes you thi --" Ed cuts himself off, staring at Al, then his eyes narrow. "I see," he says quietly. "Look, Al, we're not going anywhere just yet. Okay? Just outside for some fresh air, then we'll see about this damn cave."

"Oh." The panic subsides, and Al breathes again. Outside is okay. Ed -- Envy would take him outside sometimes, after all. "Okay then." Though he still has no idea what Ed meant by see about the cave.




The meaning becomes apparent a little later; Ed has planted Al down on a fallen log, ordered him not to move, and headed back towards the stone bungalow. He's circling it now, or at least, circling the front, and Al watches him, struggling to sort through the confusion in his head.

Ed fetches up in front of the barely-visible entrance to the stone house, half-concealed within the cliff side. He claps, and it's audible and the light visible even from where Al sits.

A moment of panic seizes Al again, at the sudden though that Ed might have decided to collapse the burrow, or seal it off -- with all of Al's worldly possessions, all his memories good and bad, still in there...

But instead, what happens is that the vague stone lump begins to writhe and shimmer, and under his brother's ruthless attention -- the same fierce, determined creating spirit he remembers, remembers from when he was ten and his brother eleven -- begins to reform.

The walls rear upwards, smoothing and flattening. As they begin to approach the height of the small cliff, the smooth face begins to break apart and grow in fragmentary directions. Al blinks watering eyes, and even as he watches under the dancing flashes of alchemy, the shapes resolve themselves into a line of smooth, open arches, supported by sturdy stone columns. The corners of the house sharpen, neaten, turning from an irregular organic bean-shape into a house, even and regular and almost civilized.

By the time Ed's used up all the available stone and stops, stepping back and putting his hands on his hips, the windowless stone cave has transformed almost out of recognition, into a neat two-story stone building, with an arched and open-air second floor, and more windows than wall on the first.

Ed turns, and grins at him, proud and triumphant. Al can only gape, as Ed dusts off his hands and comes over to plop onto the log next to him. "Whew," he said. "I hate limestone, it's a son of a bitch to calcify. Marble's a lot better, so I converted most of it over. What do you think?"

To answer that question would take a year, or at least an essay; instead, Al blurts out, "You transformed without a circle. Like Sensei does."

Ed looks at him startled, then chuckles and grins. "Oh, yeah, I can," he says. "Wow, you really did forget everything, didn't you? I've been able to ever since... well... since we tried to restore Mom, so I guess you wouldn't have known. But yeah. I've been doing it for years."

"How do you do it?" Al straightens up from his curl a little bit, and leans forward with interest. He'd always wanted to know, but had never dared to ask Sensei; seeing what she had done to Ed when he dared to pester her about it was quelling enough. But now it seemed he had an inside source.

"Ah..." Some of the pleasure falls out of Ed's face, and he looks a little distant and sad. "It's... kind of complicated, Al. I guess I should tell you eventually, because it's all wrapped up in what you need to know about me, and yourself, and us, but.... not right away."

"Oh, I already know about us," Al starts to assure him, and then stops in dismay. Ed had told him everything, of course, and it's only just occurred to him that Ed -- or rather, Envy -- might not have been absolutely truthful about everything.

"Yeah?" Ed frowns at him, but not, he thinks, in anger -- although he has to be careful not to read it that way -- but in calculation. "You can't have heard everything, though -- I guess how much you heard, depends on who you asked. Who'd you talk to, mostly? Winry? Armstrong? Mustang?"

"Who?" The third name strikes only a vague chord of recognition in him, and the second none at all. He remembers the name Mustang floating around the house... but only in the early days, before he knew enough to ask.

"Colonel Mustang. Well, I guess he's Brigadier General Mustang now, isn't he?" Ed runs his hands through his hair. "You know. The bastard Colonel?"

Al shakes his head. Ed frowns more. "Not Armstrong either? Well, I guess I can see why Winry and Auntie would keep you away from him at first. What about Ross? Or Scieszka? I guess they wouldn't have known as much, but still..."

Ed trails off as Al continues shaking his head. "Who are all these people?" he asks, baffled.

"Our friends in the military!" Ed looks at him impatiently. "Don't tell me none of them ever bothered to come see you?"

"Friends?" Al looks at him blankly. "We had friends in the military?"

"Yes!" Ed's scowl deepens. "Well, okay, maybe not Mustang. But Lieutenant Hawkeye -- or Lieutenant Ross, Major Armstrong -- Major Hughes --"

"I thought the military --" Al catches himself, and faltered. "I thought the military was our enemy. That if they caught you, they'd take you back, and make you work for them, or maybe take you away as some kind of experiment..."

"Who told you that?!"

Al looks down. Ed takes a deep breath, and runs his hands through his hair. "Okay, never mind. Al, let's get one thing straight. Whatever that bastard told you in the last t - two years, it was a lie. Don't believe anything he said. After we've rested for a little while, we're gonna go back to Riesenburg, and I'm gonna drag people to come see you, and you'll see the truth for yourself."

Al's mouth goes dry, but before he can try and muster his frozen voice, Ed goes on. "Yeah, there were some parts of the military that were rotten like that. A lot of the top brass, like those assholes Gran and Archer especially, didn't care about anything except learning more and better ways to kill people. If they'd found out about you, they would have taken you away into one of their labs.

"But not everyone was like that. Mustang and his guys were okay, really, they helped us keep you a secret. And -- it's a long story, but what it basically comes down to is that he was working hard to make the military a better place. It's kind of complicated, but at just about the time I left and you came back, Mustang helped get rid of those people in the military once and for all. It's not nearly so sinister these days." After a moment, he adds meditatively, "Pretty boring and bureaucratic, in fact."

Al doesn't reply, still struggling with the abrupt inversion of his worldview. "S... so... they're not looking for us?" he stutters out at last.

"Well..." Ed frowns, and looks a little embarrassed. "Actually, when I came back, I couldn't find you. So I asked Mustang for help. Without Major Armstrong's access to intelligence reports, I could have spent another five years wandering around the country and looking for you without any luck. Seven years of that was enough, thanks!" he says fiercely, and without even seeming to notice, he shifts closer to Al and puts an arm over his shoulders.

Al shivers, despite himself, at Ed's nearness.

"It was all for you," Ed says softly, strangely gentle in the air; Al flinches at the reminder, but Ed isn't even looking at him, staring off into the distance. "I did it all for you, Al. To save you, I would have done anything... anything at all..."

"I'm sorry," he says humbly, all too well versed in his place in this drama.

Ed gives him a startled look. "Sorry? What are you sorry for? I'm the one who left you alone for two years while..." He cuts himself off, closing his teeth on whatever he'd been about to say, and shakes his head fiercely.

"But it was all my fault," Al says, puzzled. "If I hadn't been so careless, you wouldn't have to have given up your arm to save me." That loss still hurt, somewhere deep inside, every time he felt Edward's automail. "And then you had to do so much, suffer so much, to try and fix my mistake. I can never make up for that."

Beside him, Ed has gone suddenly, dangerously still. Al gives him a nervous, sideways glance, and wishes he could edge away. "I only wanted to help you," he says meekly. "You made my whole body perfect, but I couldn't even fix your arm and your leg. It's my fault they still bother you. I just wish I could have been less useless all this time."

"Is that..." Ed breathes out, voice strange and strangled, "is that what he told you, Al?"

Al glances at Ed with even more alarm; Edward seems to be struggling with some huge, dangerous rage. No... not just rage, but anger mixed with some other, darker emotions. Al bites his lip, and ducks his head, and doesn't say anything.

After a moment Ed inhales deeply, and clutches his hand to his head. "I already told you, forget everything that bastard told you," he says, his voice harsh and inarguable. "That's not how it was, Al, that's not how it was at all. The accident -- it was all my idea, my fault, you know that. If I hadn't stupidly insisted, you wouldn't have lost your body -- you nearly died, Al, and it was my fault. My fault, Al, not yours. Never yours."

Al frowns; he still clearly remembers the transmutation himself. It was only two years ago, and not exactly a forgettable event. He doesn't think Edward's version of things is quite right, but he doesn't argue the point right now.

"Don't you see, Al," Ed continues urgently. "My arm and leg, they were nothing compared to what happened to you. I could have lived with it, my punishment, but it wasn't fair to you, trapped in a walking metal torture chamber, condemned to -- and it was my fault it happened. I would have done anything to make up for my mistake." Ed broods for a moment, then adds bleakly, "And don't you dare ever say you were useless. Half the time you were the one dragging my sorry useless ass around, and I -- I wouldn't have stayed sane without you, anyway."

Despite himself, Alphonse shivers violently, and brings his arms in a tighter curl around himself. The movement attracts Ed's attention, and he looks over at Al with alarm. "Oh, hell," he groans. "I thought I brought you out here to calm you down. I didn't mean to upset you more."

"It's okay." He doesn't sound convincing, and indeed Ed doesn't look convinced, so Al tries a little harder. "It's... it's not a bad kind of upset." He's not entirely sure that's true, but he knows it must be, somewhere inside. No matter how wretched he feels right now, surely this is the start of something new, something better. Fundamentally better by virtue of being the truth, not a lie, not a cruel chimeric cage...

He's suddenly afraid he might cry.

"Al?" Ed says worriedly, and he looks up, blinking hard, to see his brother's worried face barely inches from his own. Al has to spend several seconds reigning in the fierce desire to kiss him, then blinks hard and manages to meet his eyes. He twitches a wobbly smile, and gets a fierce one in return, that threatens a meltdown in his chest. To his dismay, he feels a pair of tears drip down onto his cheeks despite himself.

"Hey," Ed says, resting one hand on Al's head, petting his hair. "Uh, what was the last time you ate? You always got sniffly and wobbly when you were hungry, you cry-baby. Low blood sugar. I bet you'll feel more steady after you eat something."

"I..." don't know, Al was about to say, but then he remembers: he had some breakfast this morning, the sunrise a distinct event that reminded him to stick to his schedule. It's going on sunset now, with rays of honey and rose touching on the top of Edward's new house. Instead, he avoids the question. "There's some food inside. Or there should be, if your transmutation didn't mess it up."

"Well, even if it did. We can find something around here to make edible." Ed nods firmly, with a plan in mind.

Ed starts to get up, then hesitates. It's obvious he's struggling with something he wants to say. "Al," he begins, then shakes his head. "No, never mind."

"What is it, Brother?"

Ed sighs, and runs his human hand through his hair again, a nervous gesture that's new to Al. "Al, why didn't you ever notice that Envy wasn't me? I mean, he couldn't even do alchemy. Didn't you ever wonder why he -- why I'd suddenly stop?"

Al sat silent for a moment, before finally offering, "He'd transmute his automail, sometimes." No need to explain to Edward under just what conditions Envy would do so, or for just what purpose he'd modify his metal limb.

"Yeah, that would be something he could do," Ed nods distractedly, "since it was part of his body and all. But, Al -- nothing else, was there? You didn't wonder?"

To be honest, he hadn't. Ed had always delegated the alchemical work to him; he'd built the bungalow himself, while Ed 'kept watch' nearby. He'd "allowed" Al to transmute all the furniture and food himself. Even when they'd gotten to some of the more physical stages of their sexual relationship, it was always Al who'd transmuted the toys, under his brother's strict supervision. All the while, Envy had made it seem like he was doing Al a favor, or some kind of honor, by foisting off all the alchemical work on him and none on himself.

Envy was right; he really was a gullible idiot. "No," he whispers, to Ed's question. "No, I didn't."

Ed pulls at a strand of his hair, distracted. "And of course he never let you talk to anyone else -- I suppose -- but dammit Al," Ed bursts out finally, emotion vibrant in his tone, "how could you possibly think that I'd -- do that to you? How could you even imagine that I'd want to hurt you, humiliate you, r... use you like that... take you away from all your friends and family, lock you up in a prison cell, again... For fuck's sake, Al, what did I ever do that made you think I could be that cruel!"

"What was I supposed to think?" Al's guilt and anguish at the question flare, suddenly, into temper. "You weren't here! You'd vanished and nobody would tell me anything! All they'd ever tell me when I asked was that you'd changed, you were different, it had been five years and you weren't the brother I remembered any longer. Nobody would say how! Just that you'd got.... colder... and meaner, with what the military made you do! With what you made yourself do, for me!"

Anger wavers over the perilously thin age into misery, and to his shame Al finds himself sobbing again. "What was I supposed to do, when you showed up in the middle of the night and begged me to come with you, so you wouldn't be alone any more? How was I supposed to... know about Envy, how was I supposed to know... when nobody ever told me... Nobody ever told me that you'd be just the same!"

Almost as soon as the words are out, he wishes he could take them back; lacking that ability, he just buries his face in his knees and wraps his arms over them. He has no right to yell at Ed, or try and shove the blame off onto Winry or Auntie or Rose. It's his own stupidity he has to blame, his unquestioning gullibility; and behind that, the ugly possibility that he didn't want to learn the truth, that he didn't want to have his happiness, conditional as it might have been, taken away.

If they find us, Ed would whisper to him in the dark, they'll separate us, and we'll never be together again. If it was shameful of him to have ever started having sex with his brother, how much more shameful to want to continue, even when their sexual relationship was exposed as the hideous charade that it truly was?

"Al..." Such a wealth of unhappiness in that voice, guilt and remorse, that makes Al's heart pang. "I'm... I'm..."

Hands on Al's forearms, tugging them away from their protective curl, and then Ed's fingers squirm under his chin, levering his tear-stained face up. "I'm sorry. It isn't your fault. If anything, it's mine, for leaving -- But either way, I shouldn't have said all that. Not now. It's only been a few hours, you're still a mess. I'm such a lousy older brother."

Al automatically shakes his head in denial, and sniffles. Ed sighs. "Let's go inside, okay? I'll get something for you to eat, and then we can both go to bed. Things will be better in the morning."



Things might be better in the morning, Al thinks, but only if he survives the night.

Maybe Ed had been right, about low blood sugar, because Al's world did seem to stabilize and calm a lot more once they'd scraped together dinner. Then he'd been distracted by exploring the new house, which Ed had made, and finding ways to rearrange or re-form the furniture and his possessions in the new space. The house had several rooms, not just one wide space, and it lifted his spirits just to be in there.

At least until bedtime. When Ed had bundled him into a new -framed bed, in one of the small chambers, with new sheets and blankets broken down and re-formed from the ones on their large, single bed.

And gone off to sleep on his own, somewhere else in the house.

Alone in the narrow, clean bed, Al rolls onto his side, away from the dim moonlight coming in the window, and bites down on the fresh, clean pillow. It's no chore for him to sleep alone, he's done it plenty of nights for the last two years -- but never when Ed was here. Only out of necessity, never out of choice, either his or Ed's. Being sent off to sleep alone, banished from the comfort of his brother's embrace, is about as thorough an indictment of his behavior as Al can imagine Ed letting show.

He's already cried too much today, he tells himself firmly, over an event which ought to have been joyous -- reunion with Ed, the real Ed, at last. He's not ten, he's not a crybaby any more. But in the cool loneliness of the dark, that kind of logic doesn't seem to be able to stop the tears from coming.

And although he tries his hardest to keep it quiet, it's no more than twenty minutes before the door to the little room opens, and a shadow drifts quietly in. Al gasps, and holds his breath; wiping his face hastily against the pillowcase, he tries frantically to feign sleep.

There's a long, low sigh -- of exasperation? Resignation? Al can't tell exactly what, but a moment later, Ed is climbing into the bed beside him. It's much, much too narrow to fit too comfortably, and Al finds himself nearly squashed up against the stone wall.

But Ed's arms go around his waist, and Ed's breath sighs in his ear, and almost before Al can remember rolling over and burrowing into Ed's loose white shirt, he's asleep.







tbc: bug kaltia

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[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry," Ed says, quietly, and Alphonse sobs despite himself. His older brother's face practically crumples, and Ed's hand, which had been raising tentatively towards him, falls back to the ground.

There's a heavy, painful silence, punctuated only by the sound of Al's small, half-suppressed sniffles, and Ed's heavy breathing. It's Ed who finally breaks the silence, as expected.

"I... I didn't mean to scare you," Ed says awkwardly, and Al can hear the unsurety in his voice. "I didn't realize... that it would frighten you so much... being touched. I... won't try to again, okay?"

Alphonse hiccups suddenly, as the sniffles threaten to turn into hysterical laughter that would never, he thinks, come under control again. Ed thinks he is scared of him? He thinks his touch is frightening? It is so ludicrously far from the truth that the very absurdity of the thought loosens the twisting knots in his stomach just a bit; lets him push himself into a sitting position of the floor.

And now he can see Ed's face and his older brother looks so lost, and so guilty for his mistaken thoughts, that Al kicks himself even harder. He's the one who's made Ed feel like that, because of his selfish, stupid, sickening needs, and is he ever going to stop being such a trial to his brother?

He's got to salvage this somehow. He can't possibly explain it to Ed -- not the truth -- but he can't let Ed go on thinking what he's thinking, either. "It's not --" He sounds like he has a bad cold, and he has to sniff hard and scrub his hands with his face before he can go on. "It's not... not what you're thinking, Brother," he finally manages to get out, wobbly.

"Oh yeah?" Ed gives him a sideways sceptical glance, cynical and disbelieving under the misery, yet containing a glimmer of hope. "So if it's not being touched that bothers you, then how come you were screaming to get away from me a minute ago?"

"It's not you -- not your fault -- it's mine," Al says all in a rush; and that's the truth. He really has no-one to blame for his current predicament but himself. "I... I was..." Can't tell him can't tell him can't. "I was having a nightmare about... you know... and... and it just... stayed with me, for a little while..."

"Oh," Ed says, and he looks so vastly relieved, hidden so quickly under concern, that Al immediately knows he's done the right thing in lying. "Oh shit, Al, are you okay now? Is there anything I can do?"

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"I - I'm fine," Al murmurs, squeezing his eyes shut. He does not want to talk about this. "I think I might... I think I might just be hungry again, brother."

"All right," Ed says, though a little doubt still shows in his expression. He stands up, brushes his clothes off with the palms of his hands. He starts to reach down to Al, to pull him up by the elbow, but then suddenly aborts the movement, unbalancing himself as he pulls his hand back. "Sorry, Al, I forgot, if you don't want me to touch you --"

"No, NO!" Al said, panicking a little. "I do still want you to touch me, Niisan, I... want it very much." More of that lying by telling the truth; he wants it so much, too much, that to have it at all is a torment. But Ed's face brightens, and he holds out a hand to raise Al up from the floor.

Almost shyly, Al takes it, hot and dry and tough-skinned against his own, and he is pulled to his feet in a swift, easy motion. The next moment Ed has caught him in a powerful hug; and Al melts into it for one swift moment before he realizes that his lingering erection is pressed tight against Ed's hip, and in just one second Ed will notice it. He recoils, tearing free of Ed's embrace with some difficulty, and blurts out "But not just yet!" to Ed's shocked face.

For a moment, Ed looks like he's going to say something, concerned; but then he stops, and nods as if deciding something. "I'm going to go start breakfast, Al," he says, voice calm and soothing. "Come in when you're ready, okay?"

Al nods wordlessly, and Ed smiles at him before turning and going into the next room. Only once his brother is out of sight, though within hearing, will Al let himself slump against the wall, and inhale the sharp, shuddering breaths that his body demands.
He's got to get control of himself, he thinks, feeling the insistent throbbing in his groin; before he snaps and starts humping Ed's leg, or something. Where did this sudden ache and burn come from, anyway? He can't ever remember being this needy before. But then, he'd never needed to be the aggressive one in his and Ed's... in his relationship before. Envy was always asking for more, any time he was ready for it, even if he wasn't. There has never been a time before when Al wanted sex, and Envy didn't.

But then... he can't say he's never been needy, either. He casts his mind back, remembering some days and times when Envy would scold him about his 'self-control,' and complain about his lack of endurance. They'd practice making Al hold onto his release while Envy teased him or fucked him, for hours or a day. Sometimes Envy would use the cock ring, but sometimes he'd demand Al hold it without that, and Al drags his hands over his face and breathes in and out through his nose as he tries to remember how he did it.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

Eventually, his heartbeat slows, and his ragged breathing evens out, and he can stand up straight again. A heavy warmth still lingers insistently in his stomach and groin, but he feels a little more sure of himself now. He takes a deep breath, and neatens his hair and his clothes as best he can without a reflection to look in, and he thinks he's ready to face breakfast.

Ed watches him when he comes in, hovering cautiously over the table - which has a lovely plaid tablecloth thrown over it, decorated with artistic swirls. The patterns remind Al of something, he doesn't say anything; slides awkwardly into one of the chairs and watches his brother bustle around the kitchen, checking cupboards hopefully.

It feels odd, sitting at a table decorated with a cloth - and a little vase, too, containing a pair of presumably transmuted daffodils - wearing clothes, in a kitchen filled with light. It feels a bit like a dream, really; feels like a vague memory of being back in Risenbourg, warm and soft and gentle.

"Is there anything to eat at all?" Ed grouses, banging one of the cupboards shut and turning to face Al, putting his hands on his hips. He looks concerned; Alphonse starts and looks away, biting his lip. There is something to eat, in the cupboard under the sink, next to the tins of cat food; a large sack of bone-shaped dog kibble.

"N-no..." he says softly, scratching at the back of his neck; Ed gives him a funny look and says, "So what did you live on? Envy didn't need to eat, but you did."

"I..." Al swallows and ducks his face as low to the table as he can, attempt to shield his head with his arms. He's vaguely aware of Ed starting to love around the table, then changing his mind and drawing the opposite chair back.

"Alphonse?" he queries, gently, leaning forward a little on the table but nowhere near close enough to invade Al's personal space. "What's the matter?"

"B-brother..." Al closes his eyes and swallows, and then, stomach roiling, whispers, "Under the sink."

His brother cocks his head to the side slightly, and then pushes himself off his chair in one sharp motion, moving so fluidly Alphonse can't help but admire his older brother's body. He squats on his haunches to open the cupboard door; glances around and then reaches out for the sack of kibble. Al can see his shoulders tense; is thankful he can't see the expression on his elder brother's face, and buries his head in his arms again with a muffled squeak.

"Al..." Ed says, after a few minutes, "This is..."

"I'm sorry," Al whispers, eyes screwed shut; hears the rustle of cloth as Ed stands up and shuts the cupboard doors.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

"That motherfucker," Ed says, sharply and sighs. "That motherfucker." He dumps the bag on the table, making Al jump back; blinks down at his little brother, and then looks away, guilty. "Al, I... I... So help me, if I encounter him again I'll rip him apart for you, the sick fuck."

He throws himself into the other seat, glaring at the bag of kibble; Al bites his lip, and looks away. "... Thank you," he whispers, and clasps his hands together tightly.

"Until then," his brother says, frowning in a way that Alphonse was too used to associating with an exceptionally nasty session of pain, "There's nothing in this house except cat food and dog kibble."

"I -" Alphonse begins, but Ed snorts; shakes his head and says, grumpily, "You are not eating dog kibble, Al. Maybe I can transmute it into something else... what're the main ingredients?" He hauls the bag towards him, peering intently at the table of ingredients on one side; Alphonse gulps, and smiles a little.

"Thank you," he says, and Ed peers at him over the top of the packet.

"It's fine," he says, softly. "More than fine. Er, anyway, looks like carbohydrates, mainly, and a little bit of protein... I should be able to make some cereal and a few sausages, but they'll taste odd, and you'll have to eat the cereal without milk. Is that okay?"

Alphonse just gives him a look. He hasn't eaten anything other than dog food for the past year; cereal sounds fine.

He watches his brother make the transmutation with wide eyes; Envy, of course, couldn't do anything like this, and it's weird watching his brother do the inexplicable array-less alchemy their master had utilised. Ed's expression is intense, focused; by the time he's finished, the packaging has become two bowls, each holding an equal amount of cereal. Alphonse leans forward cautiously, and Ed wipes one of his bangs out of his face; thrusts the bowl with the most cereal in it towards him and says 'here' rather roughly.

Al realises why when he looks down and sees that the cereal appears to be heart-shaped. He bites his lip, shocked; glances up at Ed to see his brother cautiously picking up one of the little hearts and putting it in his mouth, brows furrowed as he chews. "It's not brilliant," he allows, "but it's edible."

Alphonse takes a deep breath, and glances down at the bowl. He kind of doesn't really want to destroy the little hearts, but Ed is watching him, worried, and so he slowly reaches out and selects one, chewing on it briefly. He pauses, after swallowing; beams at his older brother. "They're delicious!" he enthuses, and Ed blinks, startled.

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"It's not..." he begins to say, and pauses. Smiles, slowly, the corners of his lips quirking up smoothly. "Geez, Al, you're such a dork," he says affectionately, leaning forward. "It's just cereal - transmuted kibble, no less -"

"It's wonderful," Al says firmly, and sticks out his tongue, putting a heart on it to show his older brother what he thinks. Ed chuckles, his eyebrows - so expressive, always had been, even when they were just kids - raising slightly.

"Well, if you insist..." he agrees smoothly, and dips a hand into his own bowl without taking his eyes off Al. He doesn't stop watching, all throughout breakfast; Al finds he doesn't mind, so much, likes the open, warm smile on his (real) brother's face.

Ed tosses the bowls away when they're both finished, standing and pushes his chair in; sighs, and says, "I'm going to need to get more food for lunch." Al digs his fingers into the plaid tablecloth, eyes on the daffodils, and says nothing. "And clothes, too, I can't dress you out of bed sheets and curtains." His older brother sighs, running his hands through his hair and rubbing his temples slightly, lips thinning with worry.

"Brother?" Al asks softly, tilting his head to the side, and Ed smiles for him; sighs and glances out the kitchen window. "What do you mean?"

"I've got to go out, Al," Ed replies, with a sigh. "I don't want to, but I have to - don't look at me like that, please, I'll be right back... I'll make the house more secure before I go, you know I will."

Al trails after his brother as Ed strides around the house, examining all the windows and muttering. "Wish I hadn't made so many now," he says under his breath. One by one, he claps his hands at each one and closes it into the wall. He gathers up the strange, heavy, dull-coloured chains that he'd used to bind Envy, and transmutes onto the hinges, locks, and deadbolts on the door.

"Don't open the door for anyone until I get back," Ed says. "Not even me. Envy can look like anything, remember. You'll know it's me if I can transmute something, right?"

"Okay," Al says. The thought of Ed's leaving fills him with muted dismay, but he stamps down on it with the ease of long practice.

Something must have shown on his face, though, because Ed starts to get distressed and agitated. "I won't be more than an hour, I swear," Ed says. "I'm really sorry about this, Al. I'm a shitty brother, I know. I bitched about Envy leaving you alone in the dark, and now I'm doing the same thing. But I need to go and get us food, and more clothes for you, and candles and everything. I promise I won't be long. Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

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It's obvious that Ed wants him to say yes, and Al almost does; but the thought of leaving, of going out into a place filled with strangers and enemies, freezes his veins and stops his breath until he can't even speak his assent. Ed can read the look on his face, though, because he hurries to say "If you can't, that's fine, Al. I'll be right back. I promise. Okay?"

Al nods, mutely, and with many more such promises and reassurances, Ed finally leaves. Al watches him scrambling down the rocky gully under their house; there is no path, still. He stands and watches his brother go until Edward, climbing up onto the bank on the other side, turns and sees him there. Ed flails his arms, and shouts something; Al cannot hear the words, as Ed is too far away, but the meaning is clear, and he quickly shuts and locks the door.

Left alone once more, he tries to find something to occupy himself. Ed has promised that he will only be gone for an hour; but Al is too jittery and on edge to fall back into his old patient, time-consuming sleepiness. Instead he finds himself puttering around the new little house, cleaning up the breakfast dishes, neatening and straightening everything else.

He goes up into the bedroom, thinking he'll straighten the covers that he and Ed made such a mess of this morning -- and stops, as his eyes trip over something in the corner.

It's the one trunk that he didn't go through last night -- the one he didn't dare open in Ed's presence, for fear of another outburst of protective anger. It's his toy chest, the one where he keeps the sex toys that Ed deems -- that Envy deemed good enough to use again. The ones that made him scream the loudest, or come the hardest, and he hasn't even opened the chest yet, but just looking at it is making his arousal spike to painful levels again.

The resurgence of arousal catches his breath, and then in a sudden burst of daring and determination he makes up his mind. He has to do something to relieve this built-up sexual energy; a week of waiting on edge has built the fire too high to be put out. Maybe if he can... get himself off, then he will be able to act appropriately towards his brother again, and not have to flinch away any more.

Despite his noble rationalizations, though, the thought still fills him with a guilty, furtive feeling near terror. He shouldn't... he's not allowed to... but Envy is gone, he reminded himself firmly, and Ed won't know. Doesn't need to know. And Ed loves him, he knows, so surely... surely he wouldn't mind, even if he knew, not when Al needs this so badly...

He eases himself down to sit on the narrow bed, perched on the edge of the mattress, and gingerly spreads his legs apart. He's never tried to get himself off before -- there's never been any pressing need, except during the times when Envy had strictly forbidden it -- and he isn't quite sure how to begin. The cloth of his transmuted pants, still unaccustomed, drags at his legs and scrapes uncomfortably over his erection.

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Biting his lip, Al pushes himself up on one hand and wiggles the pants down off his hips with his other. Now his erection is exposed to the air, but his legs are hobbled together by the cloth tangled around his knees. Despite himself, he can feel his breath begin to come faster, and the air seems to grow hotter around his face.

He reaches down and strokes his hand over his erection, jumping a little at the shock of sensation. This can't be that hard, can it? Like giving a handjob, only to himself. Tentatively he closes his hand around himself, tries to figure out which way to pull.

A few more minutes of experimentation finally finds an angle that feels good, and Al closes his eyes and concentrates on breathing as the sensations writhe up through his belly from his groin. Unconsciously he tries to spread his legs further apart, only to be brought up short by the hindering cloth. He huffs in frustration as he opens his eyes, and eventually has to use both hands to untangle the pants from his knees enough to kick them to the floor.

That done, he spreads his knees apart and tries to find the rhythm he'd had before; but in the frustrating little details he seems to have lost it, and after a day with clothes on again, the air feels bitingly cold on his skin. A small whimper escapes his throat, as the feeling of urgency recedes back into the background of incessant, throbbing need. He needs, he needs something, but it isn't this...

Without meaning too, he clenches his hand hard, and his nails dig into the too-sensitive skin on his penis; it sends a spike of sensation up through his spine that makes him thrash suddenly. The back of his head meets the stone wall, and he yelps with startlement as he sees stars, and falls off the edge of the bed onto the floor.

The stone floor meets his skin with a hard shock, and the pain and discomfort do for his erection what his own hand was not able to; the need and pleasure leap to the forefront of his mind again, overriding any thoughts of anything else. Before he really knows what he's doing, he's rubbing his bare crotch against the stone floor, both palms braced against the stone for leverage, and little gasps and whimpers of urgency slip past his lips into the empty room.

This is what he needs; and as he spreads his knees further, grinding against the slight roughness of the stone, he can feel his limbs trembling with the approach of orgasm.

Almost he can feel a body above him, as hot and hard and frenzied as his own; and he groans aloud imagining the feeling of a phantom cock filling him, driving him hard into the floor. He hears the harsh pants of his brother's voice, groaning in ecstasy of his own. Imagines his brother's hands roving all over his body, stroking his back and shoulders and scraping over his chest; he hardly notices his own hand moving to scratch over his nipple, and shudders in ecstasy when the nails draw blood.

"You're mine," a lust-roughened voice purrs in his ear, and Al gasps in surprise as red and gold flutters in the corner of his vision. "I'll never let you go." No, no, he doesn't want that! That wasn't his brother, that was Envy, and he shrinks away from those memories.

He squeezes his eyes closed, and forces the fluttering cloth in the corners of his imagination to change colour, from red to brown; forces the voice in his ears to lighten, to gentle. Now it's his brother above him, face flushed and hair coming out of its braid, falling over his face like it did this morning. His layers of white and brown are opened, rolled back and undone, revealing the beautiful, war-scarred body beneath; and it's all right again.

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"Alphonse," the Edward in his imagination groans, thrusting into him, filling him, fucking him against the cold hard stone. "Al, I'm the one who really loves you."

A shudder runs down his spine, and with a little cry Al arches as he comes, spilling his semen on the bedroom floor.

He pants for a short while afterwards, feeling restless; glances dully at the come on the floor, and licks his lips. That felt... alarmingly good, he thinks; leans back against the bed, and draws his knees up to his chest. He feels ashamed, despite the pleasure; his brother would be revolted if he knew, if he knew Al still had just imagined Ed fucking him.

Envy taught him restraint, and he knows he should be using it. He should not be touching himself, imagining something like that, and yet he is...

... and he can't help but wonder how frequently he's going to be able to do it again, even though the thought fills him with humiliation.