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Edward was in a mood that morning, which was obvious when Alfons saw him over breakfast: his hair hung unwashed and loose around his shoulders, and when Alfons met his liquid gold eyes it was clear he had been crying. Edward hated crying, and hated Alfons asking him what was wrong even more, so Alfons looked away politely when Edward scowled and glared back, and took a bite of his dry toast, nothing on it.
“I’m getting tired of toast,” Alfons said, mainly for something to say. Their money had gone to the kachelofen that month — Edward hated to be cold more than anyone Alfons had ever met. Alfons had to be careful in mentioning it, because Edward would layer shirts and sweaters and jackets on top of each other instead, and sit miserably in the kitchen reading and shivering instead of just lighting the fire.
Edward knew how to turn anyone in a room against him without effort, and he was the most stubborn person Alfons knew, but he was oddly submissive when it came to things he suspected might upset Alfons. Unfortunately, Alfons had come to realize that his roommate was also completely and utterly insane.
“It’s my fault.”
“Huh?” Alfons had become used to hearing that sentence, but the knee jerk reaction was to want clarification.
“The…” Edward used his prosthetic hand to gesture stiffly. “That. It’s my fault, Alfons, I’m sorry.”
This was the thing with Edward — you could ask for clarification and only become more confused.
“How is it your fault? It’s toast, Edward.”
“Because…” Edward made that face, the face that looked like he had just swallowed something sharp and was trying to pretend he hadn’t. Alfons privately thought of it as “Edward’s suffering face”, which was in fact quite different from the array of other faces he made when abjectly miserable. “Do you really not understand?”
“You know I don’t.” Alfons sighed a little.
“You let me live with you, and I… use up all the firewood, since I have to turn the heat on. And I eat a lot. And you do my laundry… with the nice soap, even though I don’t ask you to. That’s your soap.” Edward’s posture hunched in, his eyes looked down at the plate in front of him, which contained his own slice of toast that Alfons belatedly realized he hadn’t even picked at, though of course he had bolted down half of his coffee without stopping.
“Edward, we’ve talked about this. I don’t mind.” He didn’t, which Alfons knew was a problem in its own right. Anyone else would have gotten frustrated with Edward at this point. He would be justified for getting frustrated with Edward. But Edward always seemed so…
“You should mind.” Edward looked back up and fixed him with those golden eyes, now set in a sullen glare.
“Why should I mind?” Alfons couldn’t help challenging him, because even though he knew the answer Edward was about to give him already, he felt a flare of wanting to change Edward’s thoughts about it every time.
“The law of equivalent exchange dictates that when something is lost, something of equal value is gained, damn it. You’re not getting enough back.”
How Edward could talk in a way that always led back to his own self-loathing was maddening. He weaponized everything to do it, from theorems to the simple pitch of his voice. Alfons was usually struck by the urge to comfort him, and he gave in sometimes, but more often than that Edward would use it to drive him into arguments, seeming to want anger from it and not pity.
“Newton’s law. It’s thermodynamics here, Edward.”
“It doesn’t matter what it’s called and you know it! It’s the truth!” Edward was perpetually baited to snap when Alfons mentioned that what he considered the sacred law of alchemy was thermodynamics, but he often couldn’t resist.
“And the second law of thermodynamics says that the entropy change of a closed system is equal to the heat added reversibly to it—“
“Divided by the absolute temperature of the system. I know. That’s not the point.”
It was the point, and Edward knew it, but of course he would be difficult and drag it out.
“What I’m saying is that it doesn’t apply here. You can’t apply thermodynamics to this, it’s not a closed system. You won’t be taking anything greater from me next week than you are right now, and I don’t need you to be continually paying me back. I don’t mind helping you.”
It was the truth, but Alfons knew he shouldn’t have said it as soon as it left his mouth.
“And I don’t need you to take care of me!” Edward snapped, and brought his fist down onto the table with a bang. Alfons had hit a nerve again. It was a testament to how much time Alfons has spent with Edward over the last year that he didn’t even jump.
“All right,” Alfons said, voice firm, “So why are you trying to get me to care for you now?”
It had been terrifying to call Edward out on his behavior like this at first, because Edward was liable to bite when riled up enough. But at this point he knew what Edward was doing.
Edward’s eyes came up to meet him again, and they were filled with pain and anger and that animal fear that never seemed to go away. “I’m not! I don’t want your help. I never asked for your help!”
Alfons couldn’t help it. He gave Edward a sympathetic look, eyebrows drawn, mouth quirked unhappily — a look that said “are you sure?” even though he knew that it would—
“And don’t look at me like that!” This time Edward staggered to his feet and both fists hit the table, one flesh, one prosthetic, and Alfons was reminded again of the childishness Edward sometimes seemed unable to control. Edward motioned towards his plate and for a moment it was inevitable that he would swipe it off the table and it would shatter to pieces below them, but instead he took in one long shuddering breath. “I hate you sometimes. I’m going to my room. Don’t bother me.”
He stormed off in a huff, and when Edward was angry he walked far louder than a person of his size and weight should have been able to.
This was the issue with Edward, the thing that Alfons watched without retort, almost a little amused by the sheer ridiculousness of it: for a genius (and he was by far the smartest person Alfons had ever met) he was helpless against the sway of his own emotions. No adult man had ever told Alfons ‘I hate you’ before. If Alfons said it to someone else he would surely be laughed at. But Edward did it without thought, completely certain that he did hate Alfons, until he didn’t a few minutes later. It was, frankly, ludicrous.
Alfons knew he would have been well within his rights to not stand for it. But when Edward said something like that Alfons was aware more than ever that the thing that had happened to him as a child that had stolen his arm and leg and left his body almost horrifically scarred seemed to have also stunted him, if not mentally, then emotionally at far too young an age. You only needed to try to have a conversation with him about sex or girls to prove that.
Alfons slowly ate the rest of his toast, accompanied by milky coffee without sugar, and after only a moment’s thought ate Edward’s toast too. Edward did eat a lot when he was in the mood, but increasingly he was not hungry (said sullenly) or too busy (said coldly). He sometimes thought that Edward wanted Alfons to force him to eat, but Alfons wasn’t his mother, or even his little brother. No matter how many times Edward would shyly, painfully bring it up Alfons wasn’t his little brother.
It seemed all too obvious that Alphonse, the younger Elric brother, was dead. Sometimes Alfons wondered if he had even existed, it was such an improbability (my missing little brother looks just like you, and he has almost your exact name!) but the agony that washed over Edward’s face upon being reminded of him couldn’t be anything but real, and besides, Alfons wanted to trust him on something. It had long ago become apparent that Edward believed everything he told Alfons. It was all real to him.
Sometimes Alfons felt as if he was beginning to read between the lines — orphaned, outcast. Had it been the firebombs in London those years prior, and then a childhood of being shuttled from orphanage to orphanage with only his younger brother? He certainly did not believe Edward’s tale of joining the military at 12 years old while missing two limbs, but maybe some kind of abusively regimented household…
Alphons sighed and shook his head, lost in increasingly inane thought. He was too nice and had been told so before. His own brother (who didn’t look or act anything like Edward Elric, thank God, and was younger than him) had met Edward once and had not been amused by the way Edward had glared daggers at him. He had told Alfons that he was insane for taking in a stray like that, and hadn’t Alfons noticed his hair? He was clearly a—
He had given Edward time to cool down. Alphons stood up and took their plates to the sink, where he washed them both with soap and water and left them neatly to dry. He left his cup on the table, since it still had a lukewarm inch of coffee left and he would most likely need it.
Then he walked to Edward’s door and knocked on it. “Edward?”
No answer, which wasn’t surprising. He tried the doorknob, and of course the door was unlocked. It was such an Edward-ism, that damn unlocked door. If Edward really did want Alfons to stay away, he would have locked it, but he didn’t, so what he wanted was for Alfons to follow him, and had he ever expressed this to Alfons directly? Of course not. It was almost scary that Alfons had picked up on it so fast, and worrying even for him that he played along.
Edward’s room was the smaller of theirs, and he had insisted on filling it with as many books as he possibly could. He had no interest in fiction, but devoured everything else with an intensity that seemed near supernatural. Thick tomes on physics and evolution and chemistry and yes, thermodynamics lay piled haphazardly and strewn across the room in a method that would have looked disrespectful if Alfons didn’t know how they had gotten there: sometimes Edward would get distracted in his incessant reading and pacing (at the same time, something Alfons had never seen before) and drop a book right out of his prosthetic hand and then see another book he had wanted to read and forget about picking the first one up. No wonder Alfons did the laundry.
Edward was bundled up in his quilt, facing the wall, only the spill of his golden hair and the prosthetic hand lying on the pillow beside his face visible. That was all the confirmation that Alfons needed to know that Edward had indeed wanted to be followed: while he did lie down for a mid-day nap depending on the weather, he slept without his arm, and Alfons could count on one hand the amount of times Edward allowed him to really be present while one-armed.
“I’m coming in.” No response, only Edward curling a little tighter into himself. Alfons crossed the splintered wooden flooring and sat on the edge of his bed, which squeaked under his weight. He looked idly at Edward’s desk, stacked high with notebooks dense with his crabbed, dark writing and loose pages of the cheapest paper available decorated with the circles Edward drew almost compulsively when his hands weren’t otherwise busy.
Edward muttered something inaudible. Alfons turned to look at the lump of him, a little amused, because of course Edward knew he couldn’t hear him like that. It was just a noise to get his attention, to say ‘please don’t keep me waiting any longer’. Alfons wondered if he was cruel to drag it out, but it felt nice to be wanted in some way, even by this madman.
Finally, Alfons peeled back the quilt covering Edward and slid underneath it himself until they were parallel, then tucked it back in around himself. It was warm under there, Edward-heated, and quite pleasant, even if he had to put his face in Edward’s hair to share the pillow. He moved closer to Edward and draped his arm over a slender waist that tensed tight before releasing with an almost imperceptible sigh.
Alfons should have said something like ‘don’t say you hate me and then storm away’, but what he actually said was “So what is it?”
“It’s stupid. Really stupid.” Here was the only place Edward was able to talk freely, as if he needed to hide from the world first. Even Edward’s voice was always softer under the quilt, still husky and low but now thoughtful.
“Tell me anyway.” Alfons felt himself relaxing too, Edward’s warmth beside him. When he leaned close enough the harness buckled around Edward’s chest and back bit into his own chest, but it was worth it.
“Promise not to laugh.”
“You know I won’t. I promise.” How childish, but saying no felt unthinkable.
“It’s the weather. I’m sick of it, Alfons, it’s cold and gray and it fucking hurts.”
It had snowed a few days ago, and yes, Munich went gray in the Winter, everything frosted or turned to muddy slush underfoot. And it was cold, but Alfons found after years of withstanding that a hat and coat was perfectly serviceable, and Edward did have those. Plus the snow was pretty, before it all went brown.
“It hurts?” Alfons knew that Edward hated the cold with a passion, but he had never heard that particular complaint before.
“Yeah. My…” Edward stopped and made a low noise in his throat almost like a growl, clearly frustrated. “God. I hate talking about this.”
So it was probably about his prosthetics. Alfons had heard him referring to them as “fucking stupid pieces of shit” in the bathroom that morning, but he had assigned it to Edward’s general mood and not the limbs themselves. Edward rarely let him get close to them, though he sometimes longed to, both for the technological wonder of them and the intimacy it provided.
“You don’t have to.”
Edward shuffled around and made himself smaller. “No, you deserve it. I’ve been awful lately. It’s not your fault, it’s mine.”
Alfons sighed and nuzzled further into the nest of his hair. Even unwashed it smelled nice. “Then tell me already.”
“I am.” Alfons didn’t have to look at Edward’s face to know he was scowling. “The cold makes my arm and leg hurt. Around the… ports. I can take it, but this year it’s been… bad.”
Alfons’s heart sank, a pang of sympathy filling his belly. He had once seen Edward step directly onto a broken shard of glass with his flesh foot while pacing and not realize until Alfons pointed out the trail he had left across the floor of their flat, bloody footsteps back and forth like fingerpaint. It seemed likely that Edward was always in some level of pain, though Edward never complained about it. To hear about it meant that it was worse than bad.
“Has this happened before?” Alfons kept his voice low and soft and soothing. Talking to Edward about his prosthetics felt like a minefield.
“Amestris didn’t get this cold,” Edward replied, sounding miserable. “We barely even got snow.”
Edward, while drunk, had once told Alfons that Amestris was a beautiful place, that he himself had grown up in a rural town surrounded by grassy hills, and everything looked brighter and more colorful than here. The air was fresher, he said, and felt better in your lungs, and people never developed the kind of cough that perpetually plagued Alfons, that low-grade rumble of phlegm that sometimes overwhelmed. Alfons had felt a second-hand longing for the first time.
“What can I do to—“ he almost said ‘to help’, but rethought it, “—make you feel better?”
Another sigh, and Edward curled in tighter on himself. That he hadn’t immediately batted away the offer was a testament to how much pain he was in. “…Dunno.”
There was something on his mind, it was obvious by the hesitant tone of his voice. “Can’t you think of anything?”
“Fuck.” Edward was a miserable little ball of tension, like whatever it was needed to be dragged out on a fish-hook and he hated doing it. “I’m only saying this because it hurts and I’m sick of it. Sometimes Winry would… give me a massage. That helped.”
Massage his limbs, he meant, or what was left of them. That Winry was the one to do so made sense: the girl mechanic (which was a surprising idea, but anything was possible in a fairyland) was Edward’s closest friend after his little brother, and had apparently been the one to fit his prosthetics in the first place. That part was doubtful, but Alfons could imagine Edward turning to putty beneath her hands, blissfully free of pain.
Alfons thought about it, and suddenly he wanted to, he wanted to more than anything. That closeness to Edward, touching parts of his body Alfons had never touched before, seeing him at his most vulnerable. It appealed so sweetly there was an edge of pain to it.
Am I attracted to him? Am I insane? Alfons wondered, and of course the answer was yes, yes. He was thinking about stroking an amputee’s dismembered limbs with the fervor reserved for lovers. He was more certain than ever that Edward’s madness was contagious, as he had suspected it to be from the start, from the first glimpse of those golden eyes.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Alfons breathed. “Massaging you, I mean.”
Edward tensed next to him, muscles locking up beneath the loose embrace of Alfons’s arm. “Don’t be gross.”
“It’s not gross.” Was Alfons asking for a lot? He knew how shy Edward was about his prosthetics, even if he pretended not to be, and while that level of intimacy would be new they were already far too close for two male friends to be, Alfons had accepted that with a grim certainty. But surely Edward wouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t want it. That was how Edward was, even if he doubled back in embarrassment.
“It is gross. You don’t have to pretend.”
“I’m not pretending.” Being close with Edward was synonymous with wanting to shake him. “Look, it doesn’t bother me. I’m already holding you, you know.”
At this Edward turned his head towards Alfons and gave him a look that was supposed to freeze his blood to ice, and might have done so if Alfons hadn’t received at least a hundred of them. “That’s different.”
He knew what Edward meant: lying next to him under the quilt wasn’t the same as touching him intimately, and he always kept his prosthetics on next to Alfons. He knew what Edward meant, but it didn’t change how he felt, that strange quiver of excitement in his belly at the mere idea of touching somewhere he had never touched before.
Alfons decided to change tactics.
“Edward,” he said, and he wondered if it was manipulative to do this, if it mattered in the face of someone like a lunatic, “I want to do it because it’ll make me feel better. I won’t have to worry about you. Plus you’ll be nicer to me.”
At this Edward groaned audibly, turned away again and hid his face. Alfons knew what words compelled him — being worried about was a feeling Edward hated. He had trouble doing things that were beneficial for himself, but would go out of his way to make the few people in his life happy, including begrudgingly allowing them to care for him.
“Fine,” Edward murmured, so quiet Alfons barely caught it. “If it’ll make you feel better. Fine. Whatever.”
Alfons smiled and nuzzled closer to his friend for a moment, allowing their bodies to touch together from shoulder to foot, enjoying the warmth that radiated off of him. He had gotten what he wanted. With Edward, this was a rarity, but increasingly Alfons was discovering that what Edward wanted was the painful choice and for someone to take it away from him.
It took a few hours for Edward to feel up to the massage. After they agreed on it, Edward promptly pushed Alfons out of bed and told him “now leave me alone”. It wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but Alfons knew where it came from. Edward was frightened.
Was it wrong of Alfons to think it was cute? Edward’s fear made him like a blushing maiden waiting. Alfons sat at the table in the kitchen just big enough for two and worked on his off day, staining his fingers with ink and thinking about rockets and space and waving blond hair like a ribbon, a comet’s tail. The kachelofen rattled and hissed and he was glad Edward had taken the time to light the fire. Fat flakes of snow were falling outside the window, turning the sky a smear of gray.
For a moment Alfons found himself wondering if the skies of Amestris would really be brighter than here, then downed the rest of his coffee. Across the table was Edward’s cup, chipped and stained and half-filled with cold coffee both black and sweet. He was forever amused by Edward’s aversion to milk and found himself reaching for the mug.
Where Edward drank from it was a clean circle of white in a stained gradient of brown – he rarely washed his own coffee mug and scoffed at Alfons suggesting it, so Alfons had decided not to wash it for him on principle. Now Alfons could see where he tended to put his mouth, holding the cup’s handle in his left hand.
Alfons was right-handed, but he held it in his left hand to mimic Edward. He remembered that he had once teased Edward lightly for the thorny black scrawl of his handwriting only for him to gesture with his flesh hand holding the pencil and bluntly say “I’m right-handed”. He would be seeing Edward without his right arm soon, closer than ever.
He brought Edward’s coffee cup up to his mouth and sipped at the place where Edward put his own mouth every day. Edward’s coffee was bitter and oversweetened and Alfons felt suddenly flushed and hot but stopped himself at one sip and put it back. He had let his tongue linger at the spot rubbed clean by Edward’s lips, compelled.
“Alfons!”
Edward’s voice made him jump, guilt compressing his ribs, hitching his breath tight. He was at first surprised that Edward had yelled from the other room – he often favored walking in to say Alfons’s name with a stealth that should have been impossible for an amputee – and then realized that he probably couldn’t get up at the moment with a wash of horrible pleasure that was shocking in its intensity.
“Coming!” Alfons yelped, but he had to cough after, chest spasming with a force that made his head spin.
“You’re making me regret this!”
Alfons staggered to his feet and braced himself against a chair to catch the breath that eluded him before he could bear the walk to Edward’s door. He had to take another breath while there, then another, trying to dispel the strange agitation that had begun to build up inside of him.
Finally, when he trusted himself to speak: “Can I come in?”
“Really?” Edward’s voice was flat. Alfons tried the doorknob, and of course it was unlocked.
Edward sat on the bed when he opened the door this time, still surrounded by his quilt but not completely under it. He had lit a candle on his desk (dangerously close to loose papers, of course) and tied back his hair, and when Alfons met his eyes it was Edward that was blushing and turning to look away.
“What the fuck? Don’t stare.”
“Sorry.”
Edward’s lap and legs were covered by the quilt, but his chest was bare, and Alfons was first struck by the sheer number of scars dotting and slashing and marring his torso and then how small he looked, how small Edward really was. The missing arm terminated at the shoulder — he had never quite realized before — and what seemed to be a metal socket was set into where the joint would have once sat.
A moment of fear, of scarring and ugliness, and then Alfons felt the engineer part of his brain take over, the part that built rockets. He saw the thing for what it was and appreciated the shape and usage of it.
“Fuck. Fuck. This was a bad idea.” Edward’s eyes flicked towards him again, and then slid away in what he recognized as fright prompted by pain, a primitive emotion. He shifted uneasily, tried to move back on the bed.
“No it wasn’t. Come on, Edward.” Alfons tried to make his voice soothing and stern. Sound like a younger brother, he thought, and felt guilty for it, perverse. But Alfons was beginning to realize he was perverse, cursed with it, stained by the redness of it.
“No. It’s not that bad. I’m fine.” Edward took in a quick breath. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
Should he leave? But Alfons didn’t want to leave, that was the truth. He wanted to stay and look and touch.
“Just let me sit next to you. Just for a bit.” Alfons stepped closer, trying to keep his movements slow and not alarming. Soothing a spooked animal. He thought of frightened horses on his uncle’s farm and the threat of getting his head kicked in seemed just as real.
Edward tensed and tried to pull the quilt around him further, but Alfons saw him struggle for a moment on his right-hand side, leaving only half tucked in. Even with the stiff movement of his prosthesis it would have been possible, but like this… Alfons pulled the quilt up himself, tucked it around Edward’s hip, and sat down next to him.
Like this, he could see the socket of Edward’s shoulder directly — the port, Edward has called it.
“Don’t stare,” Edward repeated softly, turning his head to look at the wall as if something very interesting was there. Alfons could see a heated blush creeping up his neck, dying his ears pink, and was suddenly endeared almost to the point of tears. He wanted to throw his arms around Edward, hold him closer than he ever had before, filled by the desire to, oh, he had to think it just once, press their lips together, yes, like he had with the spot marked by Edward’s mouth on the coffee cup again and again.
You look like his brother, came the opposing thought, heavy as a bucket of cold water thrown over his head. Like all things having to do with Edward, dizzying joy could be followed by pitch black despair just as quick. He doesn’t want you to kiss him. You look like his brother.
He licked his lips, still faintly tasting sweetened overbrewed coffee, throat dry. “Can I…?”
“Shit!” Edward yelped suddenly, a strangled exclamation of frustration. He curled into himself for a moment, took a deep breath. “Fuck. This is so stupid. Yeah. Just… go ahead and look. Just get it over with.”
The flickering light of the candle on Edward’s desk cast dancing shadows in chiaroscuro across the both of them, the gray Munich sky weak and watery through a crack in the near-perpetually drawn shades by his bed. Still Edward refused to turn towards Alfons, head ducked, only his mouth set in a firm scowl visible under the curtain of his long bangs.
And yet Alfons saw some of the tension leave Edward as he slumped and allowed Alfons the angle he needed to look directly at the place his prosthetic arm was meant to join his body. Was he this obedient with anyone else? It was pleasurable to think that it could only be for him, this side of Edward.
The port set in Edward’s right shoulder was made of a kind of metal plating that supported what looked almost like the bolt a screw would thread into, serving as the joint of the shoulder itself. He was surprised to realize that within the plating sat heavy screws that seemed to drill directly into the bones of the clavicle and scapula and the ribs below, fixing the structure in place rigidly. It was certainly not a style of prosthetic he had seen before. Within the bolt-like structure was a nest of bristling short wires that, he knew, was meant to connect to his nervous system directly, which had seemed like near futuristic technology until Edward had also told him bitterly that “that rat bastard hasn’t even figured it out right yet, I still can’t do fine motor manipulation”.
It looked painful. The skin underneath the metal plating was mottled in ugly purples and red-raw where it bit continually into his flesh. Jagged keloid scars formed radiating lightning bolts out into his chest and ran almost to his left shoulder, and like a latticework, newer, thinner scars criss-crossed here and there randomly, without order.
Alfons was surprised to find that it didn’t disgust him, didn’t even upset him. It looked painful and frightening in the complexity of the contraption bolted to his friend and all Alfons could think was it’s Edward. Edward without his shirt, Edward close to him.
“Okay,” Edward said, after the silence stretched so long even Alfons realized he was being strange, “Now you’re definitely staring.”
“It’s really not so bad.” Alfons reached out before he could stop himself, let the ink-stained tips of his fingers hover over the seam that split his shoulder, where metal and flesh met. He was compelled by the thought of touching Edward somewhere only a few people had ever touched before.
At this Edward’s head turned towards Alfons, finally meeting his gaze. Edward was glowering, frowning, glinting golden eyes flicking from his face to the hand he was proffering. “It’s not so bad? ”
Now Alfons was the one to blush, feeling heat creep up the back of neck like sunburn. “It isn’t. I…” He swallowed dryly. “I know this is weird. Sorry.”
And then, after a moment where Edward stared at him like he had two heads: “Can I touch you?”
A sharp breath in, a soft breath out. Edward shifted a little in his quilt but didn’t move away. His eyes were downcast, face becoming something approaching timid, cheeks reddened. He looked, Alfons thought, for all the world like a girl about to lose her virginity, and it was disgusting of him to see Edward like that but he couldn’t help it. He was watching someone so capable of being loud and brash and hurtful become a sweet and tender thing.
“Yeah,” Edward said finally, voice quiet. “Just… be gentle.”
At the first touch of his fingers, just the tips, as soft as he could, Edward flinched and Alfons could feel the full-body shudder that rolled through him like thunder. Before he could apologize Edward steeled himself and took in another breath. “Not that fucking gentle. That just feels weird. I’m not made of glass.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Alfons felt foolish even as he said it. Despite his size and lack of coordination he had seen Edward pummel raucous drunk men who thought he would be an easy target into the ground.
Edward looked at him strangely, half smiling, eyes wistful. He was sure the other world was on his mind. “You could never hurt me.”
While some part of him stung at the idea the younger brother was what Edward was thinking of his heart clenched tightly, a throbbing fist, and Alfons let his thumb fall into the dip of Edward’s trapezius muscle, above the ridge of his clavicle. He curled his fingers over the mound of what remained of his right shoulder, pinky splaying to his scapula, and pressed in gently. The flesh was tender and gave under his fingers even though it was scarred and meeting metal.
Edward made a noise Alfons had never heard from him before, a strangled little groan like he wasn’t sure if it hurt, and they both froze. Suddenly the silence in the room was very, very loud.
“It’s okay,” Alfons said, because even though his heart was pounding he was now sure that if he stopped what he was doing he might die right there. He didn’t remove his hand and the skin underneath was warm and soft. “Tell me if you don’t like it. But it’s okay, really.”
Edward laughed dryly, ducked his head and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I know it’s okay. Are you okay?”
“Uh huh.” The answer was automatic.
Alfons used his thumb to push down into Edward’s trapezius muscle again, realizing that below a scar that ran down the slope of Edward’s throat and under the edge of metal was a knotted mass of tension. Edward flinched again as he pressed at the center of it, both shoulders coming up protectively for a moment before he forced them back down.
“Oh, shit.”
When Alfons glanced back up to check Edward’s eyebrows were creased in what he first thought was discomfort but then melted into mild annoyance as he lingered too lightly. He kept applying pressure, finding the trigger point of the knot and rocking his thumb into it.
The crease between his eyebrows came back, but Edward’s eyes drifted closed in what seemed to be bliss. His eyelashes were long, Alfons realized for the first time, able to study his expression while working into the muscle. Very long and blond and fine in a way that caught the flickering light of the candle like spun gold. Suddenly it seemed dreadfully important to commit the architecture of his face to memory: what Edward’s face looked like in the soft embrace of pleasure mapped to the back of his eyelids so there would be an afterimage when he finally slipped away into the space between worlds.
Alfons thought about leaning forward and kissing him then and there, damn the resemblance to his possibly-fake-possibly-dead little brother, damn his own brother who had at first made Alfons feel embarrassed about Edward’s beautiful hair, damn the man at work who had seen him fix Edward’s rumpled collar after lunch and given him a look meant to kill.
Edward’s golden eyes opened slowly, blinked at him. “What?”
His hands were sweating, Alfons realized, and felt a blind stab of panic before he noticed the light moistness of Edward’s skin. Edward was beginning to sweat too.
“Nothing.”
He eased up on the pressure and wondered, not for the first time, what in God’s name went wrong with him around Edward, who was eyeing him suspiciously. Alfons followed the curve of his collarbone and began to stroke firmly along where it anchored his trapezius. The port itself had been set underneath the clavicle, he realized, and fitted around his scapula, and it was easy to imagine that the added weight would strain the muscles in his neck and shoulder awfully.
Touching another knot near the wing of his shoulderblade drew a hiss out of him, and this time when Alfons pressed down with more pressure than he had dared to use before Edward made a noise of sheer bliss and let his head loll to the left, fully exposing the slim line of his neck, eyelids fluttering shut again.
“Don’t stop,” he groaned, and Alfons felt delirious for a moment, heady with fever. Edward liked it when he focused on a trigger point in the muscle, worked the ball of his thumb into it and held it there for half a minute at a time. It was like he was starting to melt, and Alfons realized he had never seen Edward without tension drawing every line in his body as tight as possible. He pressed out the snags in Edward’s muscles patiently, firmly, Edward getting a little more relaxed with each one.
It was a knot in the levator scapulae that got the greatest reaction out of him: Alfons used his pointer and index finger for better reach, thumb sitting on his scalene muscles, and Edward moaned. He was too lost in pleasure-pain to be self-conscious, simply rolled his head further to the side so Alfons could better work the snarled fibers under his mottled skin. Alfons had noticed his posture before, which tended towards hunched, head drawn forward, curled in by the weight of the metal in his chest and the hours he spent leaned over draftwork. It made sense that the delicate band of muscle that connected the cervical vertebrae to the scapula would be bearing the brunt of it.
His heartbeat echoing in his ears, Alfons ghosted his fingertips over the knot, trying to find the very center of it — and yes, touching Edward, wanting to draw out touching Edward as much as he could. Edward’s skin had gone hot and yielding under his fingers, and it didn’t matter in the least that it was scarred, that he could so easily look into the ugly join where metal interfaced with flesh. He wanted with an absurd sort of clarity to lean forward and sniff at the sweat-dampened column of his throat, lick a stripe down it.
“Oh fuck.” Edward’s voice was a strangled whimper that bit off into a groan when Alfons began to knead at the snarl in his levator scapulae, applying more pressure, following the line from his shoulderblade up. He realized that Edward’s breathing had gotten deeper, rougher, falling under some kind of spell, mouth falling open just a little.
“Does it feel okay?” Alfons knew the answer was yes just looking at him, but wanted to hear his voice. He felt guilty for it but more than anything he wanted to hear Edward’s voice choked with pleasure and just for him.
“Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God.” Edward sounded like it was hard for him to speak, like what was happening to his body was so good that it was all he could feel or think about. His eyes were still closed and his face was flushed and Alfons could see where the strands of his ponytail were now sticking to his sweaty skin.
Alfons finally used his other hand: he cupped the swell of Edward’s throat in a way that was meant to brace while Alfons worked on his shoulder, and without question Edward leaned into the touch, let Alfons bear the weight of him. He realized with a jolt of startled pleasure that Edward’s pulse was fluttering against his fingers, thrumming so quick it felt like the heartbeat of a rabbit or a little bird.
With the brace of Alfons’s hand it was as if Edward had finally completely let go. He allowed Alfons to turn his head, angle his neck so that the band of muscle under his fingers was straight and taut. And again when pressure was applied to his liking he made a contented noise, stretching further to give more access, to let Alfons do whatever he pleased with the soft flesh of his body.
Alfons could feel the knot begin to give under his fingertips. Edward felt it too — he started squirming as Alfons kneaded and coaxed the fibers into smoothness, biting his lip as if holding back the noises that threatened to spill out.
“Too much?” Alfons asked, voice hoarse, mouth suddenly very dry.
“Keep going, don’t stop,” Edward grunted, and when Alfons put more strength into it he could feel the knot release at the same time Edward gasped loudly in what sounded like pain but could have just as easily been pleasure. A full-body spasm rolled through him and then he sagged deeper into Alfons’s hands as if he was boneless. He was panting, the pink tip of his tongue just visible between his parted lips, his reddened cheeks now glossy with sweat.
Edward looked, Alfons thought, like he had just been fucked. It was a shockingly perverse idea and yet what else could it have been? He was like a maiden laid out after deflowering. When Alfons began to more delicately soothe the muscles that had been bunched tightly for so long he moaned again, quieter, a noise of exhausted bliss.
It was the prettiest thing he could imagine: the massage had turned Edward’s body loose and languid and his hair had begun to work its way free of his normal high ponytail, framing his face with wisps of blond. Edward finally opened his eyes again and when he turned them to Alfons they were soft and liquid, wet pools of gold. Eyes without the pain that Edward seemed to wear as a shroud, his ever-constant companion.
“Feeling better? Is that enough?” Alfons asked him quietly, because even though he thought he might be able to keep going forever, memorizing the map of Edward’s body with his hands, Edward looked contently exhausted. He pulled his sweaty hands away and shook them out, realizing that at some point the right one had begun to cramp up.
“Nghh,” Edward replied, very articulate, and promptly flopped over onto his back. He sprawled in a way Alfons had never seen before, comfortable and sleepy and open to Alfons’s eyes without self-consciousness. A cat laid out in the warmth of a sunbeam. “Felt so good.”
And well, the pleasure of knowing he could make Edward feel good was almost better than being able to touch him intimately had been. There was a smile on Edward’s face, a gentle little thing that he didn’t even seem to be aware of. Alfons had taken his pain away.
“I’m glad,” Alfons said, smiling too. He stood up from the bed, a bit surprised to find his legs had gone numb while spellbound. Edward’s eyes were drifting closed again, and he let out a sweet soft sigh as he nuzzled back into his quilt, a sound of peace.
“Thanks,” Edward mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear.
“It was no problem,” Alfons said, and it really wasn’t. He looked at Edward’s recumbent form for another moment, listening to his breathing even out into the deep and slow sleep of the truly exhausted. Edward deserved the sleep, deserved being able to rest in a body that was pain-free.
He left Edward’s room and quietly closed the door behind him, then walked into his own room and locked it.
As soon as Alfons was alone he fell onto his bed and was unbuttoning his trousers with a need so strong it was impossible to disobey. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, so loud he could hear nothing else, and when he rucked up his shirt as well he realized that it hadn’t only been his hands sweating: he was soaked in his own desperate perspiration.
He couldn’t control himself, he was like an animal in heat. He could think of nothing but Edward, he had used his right hand to massage Edward, he brought it up to his mouth and lapped at his fingers and thought he could taste the salt tang of his skin still lingering. He had imagined pushing Edward into his own bed and licking the pale column of his throat and covering Edward’s body with his own, pressing him down, kissing and licking into his mouth with a fervor near religious.
Alfons wanted to — he wanted to — he just wanted. He wanted so badly it was frightening, the mouth of an abyss he was sure would swallow him whole. He had never wanted anything so badly in his entire life and wasn’t sure if he ever would again.
It was his right hand, the hand that had touched Edward the most, that found his cock first, wrestling it desperately out of the confines of his trousers. He was already hard and leaking precum and now it was him that was moaning, nothing like the innocent sounds of pleasure that had left his friend.
He thought about how Edward had looked freshly fucked by the end. Would his moans of lust sound similar to the noises he had let out in blissful contentment? He thought about, God, he was the sinner, the madman, he thought about pressing in to the tight secret heat of Edward’s body and forcing more out of him to compare. He wanted to fuck Edward like a woman, like Edward was his woman. He wanted to let Edward’s hair down and tug on it while he fucked Edward like a woman, and bite his shoulders and the nape of his neck, and oh, he wanted to leave a lovebite there especially, he wanted to leave a mark—
Only a couple pumps of his hand and Alfons was cumming harder than he ever had in his life, biting his left hand to keep from howling as he arched up, up like a bowstring before spilling into his fist. He had never had an orgasm like that before, it put every prior one to shame, made them a pale shadow in the glory of this. The tension had snapped and drained out of him and Alfons was exhausted too.
The comedown hit about thirty seconds later and suddenly Alfons was mortified.
What was he doing?
Before his mother had died he had sat at her bedside and promised her that he would give his daughter her name. She had died with her cold damp hand grasped within his and that would never happen now, could never happen now, because surely him wanting Edward could only lead to someone outside of their apartment finding out and Alfons’s life would be ruined, he would be forced out of the rocketry program and out of the factory and probably die of the consumption that took her life or because of — oh God, tension was brewing in Munich and now was not the time for him to be having feelings for someone of the same sex. He had to stop lying in bed with Edward, had to stop doing things like buttoning the shirt sleeve on his left side because Edward’s prosthetic couldn’t handle the fine motor movement. No more sharing Edward’s pillow and feeling the warmth of his body.
Alfons wiped the cooling semen off his hand onto his shirt and threw it to the floor, along with the rest of his clothes, which all felt disgusting now. He had crossed a line, and not only had he soiled himself but he had taken advantage of his insane invalid apartmentmate’s state of misery and pain to dirty him too.
Edward had only agreed to a massage because he was half out of his mind at the moment, or maybe three quarters, ha ha, but really, Alfons was the crazy one. He had convinced himself that Edward was the source of the poison but here he was poisoning Edward instead.
He didn’t feel well.
Alfons got up and washed his face and hands in the cold water of the sink. He took his time and stubbornly numbed his hands and neck and face, and when the flush that had left him feeling so feverish left him he was sick and clammy instead. Phlegm rumbled in his chest like a far-off thunderstorm and, though he very much wanted to not take it as such, it lingered ominously, an albatross around his neck.
The next few weeks passed with weather warm enough to melt the snow, though the sky didn’t budge from its shade of murky gray and the mood in the apartment hardly improved. Alfons was annoyed that Edward had ever pointed out any kind of sky could be superior to the one he looked up at every day. It was just like him to make things uglier in comparison.
Edward was in one of his wistful phases again, which was all well and good except that he was needed to do his job and he kept wandering off instead, sighing about who knew what, probably thinking about wizards and dragons or whatever it was. When he was in a mood like that he didn’t care about rockets and it was obvious in a way that was almost embarrassing, and what was worst of all was that Alfons was the one expected to rein him in again.
He had been doing the circle drawing thing again in the little notebook he carried with him often. Edward treated the circles in the book like they were a secret to be kept but as far as Alfons or any other German citizen would have been able to tell they were just circles with lines through them. Alfons had already been tremendously frustrated with the chemistry involved in the liquid fuel they would be using for their engines and when Edward wanted to take a break to step outside into the cold air and brown slush footing that he knew made him hurt for the third time that day to, presumably, draw circles, Alfons had exploded at him.
He followed Edward outside on his third trip and when Edward whirled around to ask what he thought he was doing Alfons asked where he was going. Edward said in that dry, bleak tone “I don’t know, does it matter?” and Alfons couldn’t take it anymore.
He told Edward that it was fine if Edward didn’t care about rockets or this world or him but Alfons did and when Edward didn’t care it fell on him. They were now behind on schedule and it was Edward’s fault and Alfons would have to work twice as hard to make up for his mistakes and why were they even living together, if Edward didn’t care about him, was it just because he had the face of his brother? And as a matter of fact, had it ever occurred to Edward that Alfons wasn’t his brother? It wasn’t fair to put that on him, he had his hands full, he hadn’t asked for it, couldn’t Edward see that the real world was more than enough? It was already too much without him adding to it.
To which Edward said: you asked me to live with you.
And he had, but in Alfons’s defense that was before the damn brother and the stories of the other world and Edward had just been a wet stray university student who walked with a limp and had been caught in a storm when they first met and he had looked at Alfons so strangely, first joyful, then so sad Alfons immediately felt the urge to comfort him. Edward had been a cat rubbing against his legs and he was a sucker.
He suddenly felt very tired and his chest was heavy and clogged and instead of telling Edward any of this said “Just go home if you don’t want to be here,” and went back inside to work. They were in a time crunch and he told himself he didn’t care when Edward didn’t walk in after him. He was too busy to think about anything that wasn’t rockets, the shape of rockets, the material of rockets, and really getting lost in his work was what he needed. He took a detour from fuel development and threw himself into one of the new potential designs for the hull instead, and when one of the foremen asked where Mr. Elric was he said he didn’t know, which was technically the truth.
Actually, it felt sort of good to be getting away from Edward. When he was nearby it was as if Alfons became defined by him, it could become distracting.
Alfons wasn’t the one with a savant-like knowledge of chemistry, he was an engineer, and that was where his talent lay. He was a simple engineer, a post-university student, nothing more. Being a normal person felt good. A smart, normal person, not plagued with delusions of another world, not hiding anything in particular except the normal anxieties of life. He felt like an engineer when he worked on rockets, and a German citizen, which these days he was losing the importance of.
He had to take an early lunch due to a coughing fit that had been — well, worrying, but he wasn’t worrying about anything then, he didn’t want to. Other than a few painful minutes where it felt like his lungs wanted to go inside out and he couldn’t stop hacking up yellow-tinged slime, the day ended rather successfully. It was refreshing to be reminded that he was capable of being clever and talented without his apartmentmate hanging over him, being more clever and more talented but infuriatingly reluctant to put it to any use but daydreaming.
It had begun to snow by the time he left, and when he got home he noticed that Edward’s boots were haphazardly strewn by the door, same as always, and he had neglected to clean them of ice and muck before stepping inside. He put his own boots to the side neatly but left Edward’s, feeling vindicated.
Alfons went to bed without trying his doorknob. Edward was at least technically an adult, and if he wanted something he could always ask for it.
That night it snowed harder than it had in years, and when Alfons woke up to an early morning on his day off there was a fluffy white blanket outside and the sounds of passing cars and trains were all muffled to nothing. It was hard to get out of bed that morning, the cold was so oppressive, he just wanted to curl up in his quilt and sleep again, but Alfons’s stomach was rumbling and his ears were beginning to freeze. He went and lit the kachelofen, noting that they were almost out of wood, but they had enough for the day and a few days more. Without the heat on it was frigid in the apartment and Alfons could see his breath in little white clouds as he stacked split logs into the heater and packed crumpled newspaper into the gaps.
Then it was just a lit match to the paper and in an hour or two they would have heat, heavenly heat. It really was freezing — Alfons rubbed his hands together and blew between them, trying to warm himself up and get his circulation going. Coffee would do him good.
The scent of brewing coffee improved his mood twofold, and as Alfons found some sausages in the fridge to fry up with his bread (Gracia had brought them over, how nice. She was always telling Alfons that he needed to put some meat on their bones, the two boys weren’t eating enough) he wondered if Edward was all right.
It had been very cold last night.
He was still annoyed with his friend, but it was dissipating with the new snow. Alfons properly opened the curtains in their kitchen and looked out at the skyline, some unknown tension easing with the view. Now the sky was the pulp-tinted cream of good paper and the squat brown buildings of Munich were all dressed in white. It was a peaceful and familiar sight, one that he could appreciate for the simplicity of itself: here is the city without expectation.
Over sausages and toast and fresh coffee Alfons picked up a book Edward had left on the table, and realized with some surprise that it was Robert Goddard’s A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, which they had both studied under Dr. Oberth but he had never owned a copy of. Alfons’s English wasn’t anywhere as good as Edward’s, who he had heard switch into the language seemingly near flawlessly while talking to (and then screaming at) his father on the phone in Gracia’s parlor more than once, but he was interested anyway. Goddard was one of the first to really reach for space, and Alfons knew Edward thought of it highly.
By the second page he realized that Edward had also left emphatic notes in the margins, and scrawled over some passages with a certainty that could only belong to someone who was convinced he knew all, at least where chemistry was concerned. And he had also underlined sentences here and there and written the translations in German on the sidelines, as if to convey here, this is what you should be paying attention to, you simpleton. It was his thoughts on the superior chemical makeup for liquid fuel rockets. Though they had never had a discussion about it it was clear to both of them that Edward was the one who inherently understood the makeup of the world and Alfons was the one who could envision draftwork in his mind quite cleanly.
He wondered if he should be insulted that Edward had picked up on where he was having trouble so easily, but the emotion he felt was touched – he was touched that Edward had noticed something about him and, really, given him a gift. Edward had given him a gift. The image of him sitting at a table and writing in the book with his neatest penmanship and thinking about how to help Alfons understand something was wonderfully appealing. A sorry for my behavior gift, too, it had to be.
Once he was done with his simple breakfast Alfons washed himself up a little, pleased with the heat now warming the apartment. He combed wet fingers through his hair and changed into clean clothes, it really was nice how small things like that could help, he felt much better. Then he went and knocked on Edward’s door. Even if he still thought he was right he had been very mean the previous day, and was now eager to talk to Edward.
“Edward,” he said, “Are you awake?”
He was half expecting no answer, but after a beat he heard Edward’s low voice from inside his room.
“You can come in.”
The door was unlocked after all. Edward was curled up under the quilt, only the very top of his golden head visible. Alfons went and sat down next to him, noticing as he did so that Edward’s clothing was strewn around more haphazardly than normal, and some of it looked wet and muddy.
“You don’t look that much like my brother.”
He was taken by surprise — he had expected to be the one to break the silence first, and the words didn’t register with him. “What?”
Edward pulled down the quilt until his face poked out. His hair was loose and hung messily over his forehead and around his cheeks, which seemed oddly pale and set very seriously. “I said you don’t look that much like my brother. You have blond hair and blue eyes, but Al’s hair was brown and his eyes were… bronze. Sometimes they looked gray.”
Was. Were. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” There were dark circles under Edward’s eyes, but he looked solemn, gaze meeting Alfons’s face. “Your nose is bigger, too. If Al grew up his nose would have been smaller. But his chin would have been bigger, I think. And you act very differently. Al let me get away with more, but you never do.”
Alfons suddenly felt very thrown off guard. “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?”
“Don’t say that.” Edward’s hand reached out of the blanket and grabbed Alfons’s hand without hesitation, eyes never leaving his face. “Are you mad at me?”
They had never held hands before, and Alfons looked down at where Edward’s was covering his. For the first time he realized how much smaller Edward’s hand was, how his skin was paler and while his fingers were calloused at the tips the palm was soft and – hot, actually. Very hot and damp.
Alfons frowned. “Are you sick?”
“Answer me.” Edward looked desperate, imploring. It was an expression Alfons had never seen before, a little scary.
“No, I’m not mad at you.” Alfons answered, automatic and truthful, and reached out to lay his palm across Edward’s forehead. It was hot too, and he was sweating. “Oh, you are sick!”
“You’re really not mad?”
Alfons tugged the quilt from around Edward’s neck, revealing the flushed and sweaty expanse of his neck and shoulders. He was shirtless and his hair was a mess, sticking to his bare skin everywhere. “I’m really not mad. I’m sorry too. Thank you for the book, but what on Earth happened?”
Edward shuddered when the cold air touched his flesh, groaned and tried to worm back into safety. He seemed tired though, movements sluggish. He had taken off his prosthetics but they lay carelessly on the floor near his bed which was definitely unlike him, because Edward was usually pretty careful when it came to taking them off before sleep: there was only a certain supply until his father decided to send more.
“You were right, I shouldn’t have put everything on you. I wanted to make it up to you and I got–” he tried to sit up and winced, falling back on his elbow. “Ow. I went to the library to work and got caught in the storm going home.”
Alfons’s heart sank. “Did you get hurt?”
He could imagine Edward nestling down between the stacks of the university library with a pencil and losing track of time writing in the margins of his copy of A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. Not out of any willful lack of regard for himself but because it was so easy for him to get lost in knowledge, when he was fully immersed in learning nothing could break him from the spell. Alfons had spent a week’s worth of cramming for a final practicing physics by making paper airplanes and hitting him in the back of the head.
“When I left it was dark out and my…” Edward made a frustrated noise. “My damn leg slipped in a puddle the snow was covering. So stupid. Everything got soaked but that book.”
“I care more about you,” Alfons said, and it was true even if the words hung in the air strangely. “Is your leg okay? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” Edward’s answer was automatic but then he sighed and looked a little embarrassed, shifted and turned his head away. “Well. I’m just telling you because I don’t want you to worry. I got really cold walking home and uh. My leg hurts.”
Because I don’t want you to worry. Alfons felt a guilty mixture of concern and pleasure. Edward looked like he was in pain, mouth tight, feverish with it. He trusted Alfons enough to tell him when it hurt. It wasn’t seeing him suffer that made his stomach clench and chest flutter but that Alfons was who he would turn to and, yes, part of it was that Alfons looked like the little brother he adored but Edward had said it himself, they weren’t even that similar.
And then, timidly, because Alfons was quiet for too long: “Do you think maybe you could…”
“I don’t mind,” Alfons said, a bit too fast from the mildly surprised look Edward gave him, like he had expected more waffling about it, maybe Alfons not knowing what he meant. Then Edward looked very shyly pleased, still cautious.
Unlike the first time it was Alfons who needed to compose himself. He told Edward he would wet a towel for him and bring it over to help cool him off if Edward wanted to make himself comfortable or anything. Really though it was Alfons who needed to make himself comfortable, because as soon as he thought about what he was going to do he began to feel extremely anxious.
He stood in the bathroom and looked in the mirror, lit by the gaslamp. He looked normal, he wasn’t flushed or sweating, he had blue eyes and not another color like bronze-gray which he could barely imagine anyway. Edward was in pain and he was going to help him and there would be nothing uncomfortable about it. He wasn’t going to be weird over it.
It had been about two weeks since he had last joined Edward in bed and he had hardly thought about the last time he had touched Edward, partially because he was just too busy and tired and partially because he was terrified to, childishly abjectly terrified to. Not thinking about it had seemed like the best way to move on but now he was thinking about it again and he was still terrified.
Alfons took a deep breath in, and let it out slowly, then repeated the pattern as he took a clean dishtowel and wet it with cold water. It would be fine and they would be closer for it and Edward would start taking his share of work again because he would have an outlet, that was the plan, it seemed logical enough. They would go no further than that.
He still had to stand in front of Edward’s door and give himself a moment of composure, but he didn’t knock, just let himself in.
Edward hadn’t lit a candle this time, just drawn back the shades above his bed, casting the room in the pale watery light of the white sky. He had put on a shirt, which was actually a relief, just a simple black tank top, though he hadn’t bothered to attach his arm. And his hair was still loose but he had pushed it back from his shoulders and straightened out his bangs, presumably by combing it with his fingers.
Other than that he was just Edward, sitting on top of the quilt this time instead of below it, leaning against the wall. He was wearing a pair of blue boxer shorts that Alfons had seen before, they were both men and sometimes brushed their teeth together in the mornings when Edward was awake enough to wear his prosthetics but still too lazy to get dressed. And he was missing his left leg above the knee, thigh capped with a round of metal, looking very vulnerable already.
“Hey,” Edward said, voice weak. He really was so small, Alfons always thought of him as larger until he saw the proof again, his personality was just too big to be contained. He never thought to tease Edward about his height, he wasn’t in the least bit lacking. But without the prosthetics Edward was just a handful of a thing.
Alfons sat with him again, keeping his eyes away from where Edward lacked limbs and looking at his face. He wanted to be soothing and was still worried about being strange and besides, there was still wiping Edward’s sweaty forehead and red cheeks and neck with a cool towel to be done, which he took gratefully, eyes closing, leaning into Alfons’s touch like a nuzzling cat.
“Feels good,” he murmured. “Don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Alfons wondered if Edward had any idea of what he was doing at all. He seemed to enjoy being nursed tremendously, so desperate for a relief from pain, anyone offering would do. But then there was the struggle of getting close to him even if he looked so similar to someone else. He still worked for it.
“Don’t go so far I can’t care for you,” Alfons said suddenly, barely aware it was leaving his mouth until he said it. He paused his movement, lingered at the pulse of Edward’s neck.
Edward opened his eyes and looked very sad, then smiled at him. “You know I can’t promise that.”
“I know.” He did know. Edward was a transient, he had no home, it was inevitable that he would one day disappear. His existence had always seemed conditional. “But I can still ask. I can make you feel guilty about it.”
He resumed wiping Edward’s flushed skin cool, bringing the towel around to the nape of his neck, running it under his hair. Edward sighed and leaned his head forward, sounding tired.
“If I could accept staying here,” Edward said, “I think I could be very happy.”
It wasn’t an answer, which was its own kind of answer. Alfons felt like he was on the precipice of an overwhelming gloom and suddenly wanted to move on very badly before he fell. “Are you feeling less feverish?”
Edward nodded. “Uh huh. Would you…”
It was cute that he was embarrassed about asking for a massage. Alfons wanted to focus on anything but the inherent dread that followed Edward like a ticking clock and that was a perfect distraction. So easy, in fact, to notice how cute Edward was and focus on it instead, he was just radiating with it. Alfons shifted back on the bed so that he could fit between Edward’s legs and looked at his left one.
Edward’s left thigh terminated a few inches above the kneecap. The end of the limb had been cut flat and fitted into a cap of metal like a base, and beneath the rim the flesh was jaggedly scarred and reddened by the pressure of standing, inflamed due to the fall yesterday and the walk home after. The cap was seamed so that a prosthetic could be slotted into it, but what was most surprising was the short peg of metal emerging in the middle, anchored, Alfons suspected, into his femur bone. His leg was simpler than his arm, it just clicked in place and didn’t require the fine motor movement to operate that Edward was always complaining about not being able to achieve. Both legs were sticking out from the hem of his blue cotton boxer shorts and both thighs were surprisingly slender, spreading open so he could fit between. Edward was petite, almost.
“Uh.” Edward’s voice was muffled. Alfons looked up and he was covering his mouth with his hand, looking away. His cheeks were bright red. It was a different expression than the normal shyness he had spent the last massage displaying.
“What?”
“This pose.” Edward still wouldn’t look at him. “It’s kinda embarrassing.”
“I…” Alfons down looked at what was happening: Edward was wearing only underwear and Alfons was sitting between his spread legs, looking down on him. He was soft and blushing and meek. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well.” Now Alfons was blushing too, and his heart was beginning to pound, he had been doing so well not letting his perversion taint this. “I don’t know how else to do this.”
Edward squeezed his eyes closed and sighed. “I don’t think there’s any other way. I just… nhh. Give me a second.”
He was steeling himself and Alfons cursed him internally, did he have to make a cute little frustrated noise like that, did he have to look so hopeless? It was terrible but there was something erotic, he had to admit it, about Edward accepting his fate, to be touched and caressed in an embarrassing pose like this.
Then Edward opened his golden eyes and shot Alfons a sharp look that made his heart throb with endearment instead. So like Edward, to want to face it head-on, even in acceptance. “I’m ready.”
“Okay.” Alfons swallowed and tried to focus all of his attention on the task at hand. It was what Edward deserved, he would do a good job and make him feel better and not do anything — God, he was worried about touching Edward somewhere he shouldn’t, what was wrong with him? Surely he wasn’t that weak and helpless in the thrall of his own desire. He couldn’t be.
It was easy to use two hands like this, it seemed logical. Very carefully Alfons reached forward and took what remained of Edward’s left leg between his hands, cupping where the lateralis and medialis of his quadriceps muscles ran, the sides of his thigh, thumbs meeting in the middle. The skin felt hot immediately, inflamed, though soft and yielding under his fingers. Edward flinched.
“Too much?” Alfons frowned and looked at his face, but he didn’t seem to be in greater pain even if he looked uneasy.
“Uhh… no.” He squirmed a bit, looked away. “It’s just really sensitive.”
Oh. Alfons swallowed, licked his lips, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry. “Just tell me if I…”
“Yeah. Of course.” Edward nodded, expression softening. “I trust you.”
I trust you. He couldn’t betray that trust, it was so hard-won. Alfons nodded back, he wanted to say I trust you too but the spell seemed easily broken. He began to massage instead, very gently, just feeling the muscles that remained in the stump of his limb and gauging what condition they were in. Edward’s legs really were slender and he realized for the first time that he did have body hair, it was just fine gold and so downy it couldn’t be seen unless you were this close. Alfons was also a blond but the hair on his body had always been darker, coarser, more visible. He had to shave his jaw every few days and had never seen Edward doing so before, though he had to be, surely.
It occurred to him again that Edward was very pretty. He knew his stomach was tight and his remaining limbs were corded with muscle and surprisingly powerful. But the hair, he barely even saw hair like that on a woman, it was a beautiful golden mane when loose and his eyes were the same shade, unique and catlike and always so expressive. And his face was shaped so sweetly, chin small, nose upturned.
He needed to focus. Alfons ran his fingers softly above where the limb terminated and was capped in metal and found that the muscles were stiff. Soaked in frigid water and then continually exposed to the cold, it was like they had all locked up angrily, continually at the highest point of tension. Would they yield to pressure? Experimentally he began to massage Edward’s quadriceps, working the balls of his thumbs into the long muscles that ran on either side of the femoris.
Edward quivered, limb twitching and fluttering in Alfons’s hands. He made a soft little startled noise and Alfons glanced up to see that he looked surprised.
“It’s just really sensitive,” Edward repeated, sounding uneasy, a little embarrassed.
“It’s all right. I don’t mind if you… make noise, you know.”
“Uh huh.” He didn’t seem convinced, but he did at least relax marginally, let his leg settle back into Alfons’s palms.
I don’t mind if you make noise? God, he wasn’t subtle, what was wrong with him? It was a blessing that Edward trusted him, that he was letting anyone touch him at all. But it was real, painful and raw. He didn’t mind if Edward made noise. He wanted to hear all the kinds of noises Edward could make, wanted to draw them out and out until Edward was helpless to resist against it, lost in the swell of it.
It struck Alfons then, with the stump of his friend’s leg between his hands, that he was in fact sicker than Edward could ever be: Edward’s delusions manifested internally, he thought himself to be an alchemist from another world, half the people he saw were mirror images of their real selves, Alfons included. But Alfons was ill in a way that made him want to take it out on Edward, he wanted to touch him more, not ask Edward’s permission for it. Wanted to see him caught in ecstasy and unable to fight back. He wanted Edward to surrender himself to Alfons, that was the truth of it.
Gentler massage seemed to be the method to go. Edward’s thigh really was so sensitive. When he had massaged his shoulder Edward was nervous and shy but this felt different in some way, maybe a way Edward wasn’t even aware of. He kept trembling underneath Alfons’s fingertips, muscles attempting to clench and unclench unconsciously, he could feel them. Alfons began rubbing circles into those poor stiff muscles, trying to coax them into relaxation.
“Nghh.” Edward made another of those noises, clearly trying to hold it back, his hand coming up again to cover his mouth. Alfons didn’t say anything, didn’t want to spook him any further than he already was. He had to trust that Edward would tell him if he went too far.
He kept his touch slow and careful, taking his time. Unlike his shoulder it seemed like Edward’s thigh was less scarred and physically maimed but the fall and, he had to assume, the pressure of his prosthetics on the long cold walk home from the library had done damage. Was Edward in pain from just wearing the prosthetic at all? Injuries like this would need days to heal and Edward never took a day off, was always up on his feet. Alfons thought of the times he had seen Edward stand and wince and rub at his thigh when he thought no one was looking. He wanted to tell Edward he didn’t always have to wear his leg at home, but there was no way to say it that didn’t seem — weird. Like he was saying “I want you to be vulnerable”.
Which was the truth. He wanted Edward to be vulnerable with him.
At least the massage was beginning to work. Edward was starting to relax, his other leg softening from its stiff, awkward position of spread far enough to keep out of Alfons’s way. Instead he shifted a little and let it make contact with Alfons’s clothed knee, leaving it there, a more comfortable pose. For him, at least, not Alfons, who was now hyper-aware of the new point of contact. Edward seemed so casual about it, he couldn’t read into it, it was just easier for him.
There was a spot in his femoris muscle, running vertically up his thigh, where he could feel a hard knot in the fibers and when he began to ease it out Edward gasped and his leg spasmed wildly, almost jumping out of Alfons’s grasp. “Oh!”
“Did that hurt?” Alfons asked, because it was just such a reaction, and Edward’s eyes were wide.
Edward frowned and shook his head and let his thigh fall back into the cradle of Alfons’s hands. “No,” he said, but he didn’t sound sure. “Uhh. It’s just…” he trailed off, shaking his head.
“Should I stop for now?” He didn’t want to stop, but if Edward didn't like it of course he would, he wasn’t a monster, he could control himself.
“No!” Edward shook his head again, quicker this time. “No, don’t stop. It’s just. Dad would rub my shoulder sometimes but… not there, is all.”
And then, sheepishly, as if embarrassed by his own reaction Edward added: “I already said it was sensitive.”
God, he was so cute, did he understand how cute he was? Alfons was sure Edward would deny it if anyone suggested such a thing, probably be vehemently offended even, but it was the truth and not in the least bit connected to his height or stature. It was his reactions, how earnest his body seemed. He wanted Alfons to massage him even through his self-consciousness. He now knew Alfons could make him feel good and wanted more.
“All right, then.” Alfons began to work at the knot again, and when he went slightly gentler it seemed to feel better for Edward. He let out a soft groan and allowed his head to fall back, resting against the wall and closing his eyes. Really all he was doing was teasing at it and Edward was so sensitive. Alfons’s hands were sweating already but Edward had been sweating too, was still damp with fever-sweat and so he wouldn’t notice, it was fine.
The muscle was beginning to unclench under his fingertips. Alfons was starting to understand how even the simple socket that attached to his prosthetic leg could put tremendous strain on his body. Considering the way his hips would compensate for his lack of limb Edward’s gait was understandably out of pace, which he had noticed last year while trying to sleep and hearing Edward pace neurotically in the hallway until the sound of his footsteps was worn into his brain.
“Does your back hurt?”
“Uh?” Edward opened his eyes, looked curiously at him. “I guess so, always. Why?”
“I bet it does,” Afons said, because now that he was thinking about the physics involved it was all quite simple. He was still massaging Edward’s leg, keeping up the soothing movements but thoughtfully on autopilot. “You get less torque on your left leg so your hip joint is destabilized. And I bet you shift your center of gravity over to your right leg to protect your left without realizing. You do know your gait is uneven, right? When you walk you favor the left and swing the right one out further. Your hips and back must hurt terribly.”
Edward was staring at him, golden eyes owlish with a kind of baffled amusement he had never seen before. “You noticed that about me?”
“Yes,” Alfons said, and then felt heat rise to his cheeks as an afterthought. It all made sense, and was he not supposed to know a sound he heard every day by memory? “Is that bad?”
“No, it’s just…” Edward smiled and looked somewhat pleased and something else, like the wistful look he sometimes got but still here. “You’re very strange.”
“I’m strange? You’re one to talk!” Alfons let Edward’s thigh go and gaped at him.
Edward laughed, leaning forward a little and snickering behind his hand and looking happy, and Alfons felt a kind of indignant annoyance but was simultaneously pacified. How often did he see this kind of soft and intimate laughter from him?
“It’s good! It’s not bad, Alfons, I like it.” He grinned easily and openly. “Strange is good. You’re like no one I’ve met before.”
Alfons very suddenly wanted to throw his arms around Edward and not let go, he wanted to kiss him or begin to cry. Edward had to know what he was saying, it was so targeted. I like it. You’re like no one I’ve met before.
The barrier of the missing younger brother dissolved inside him like cheap paper exposed to water and Alfons wanted to tell Edward: I like you. I think I’m sick and I’m terrified of what it could mean and I like you even if you’ll disappear. Even if I’m sick and you’ll disappear, I like you.
“You’re not like anyone I’ve met before either.” Alfons smiled at him, mouth soft, and returned his attention to Edward’s leg. “Sorry to interrupt.”
This time when he began to massage Edward was able to withstand more. He shivered as the knot that had made him flinch and jerk away in his femoris muscle was tended to again but didn’t seem quite as reactive. It meant Alfons could apply more pressure, and Edward let out a very pleased noise when it began to release. He lolled like a cat and stretched out his other leg to full length, calf and foot flexing, and Alfons was almost surprised he didn’t start kneading the bed with his fingers.
Alfons worked out the tension across the front of his leg and followed the sweep of his quadriceps to where it began traveling up the inseam of Edward’s thigh, and when he touched the realm of his adductor muscles he squirmed sharply.
“Ohh.” Edward trembled but didn’t try to pull away, eased when Alfons paused and gave him a moment to adjust. It seemed like a particularly sensitive area, especially tense, and Alfons leaned over him more, letting Edward’s leg fall further between his legs as he scooted closer. He gripped the top of Edward’s thigh with his right hand in order to better use his thumbs, bracing it against the bed.
He was holding Edward’s leg and touching the inside of his thigh.
He couldn’t look up at Edward’s face, his heart was pounding, he was touching the inside of Edward’s thigh. He was massaging the inside of Edward’s thigh and his legs were spread to give him access, to go closer if he wanted. The skin there was very soft and warm and silky with fine blond hair. He stubbornly, slowly worked from the bottom up, Edward’s adductor muscles really were horrifically tense.
Edward kept trembling though, and he kept making little noises that seemed forced out of him, unlike the easy sighs of content from before. He didn’t want to look at Edward’s face. He wanted to keep touching, he wasn’t even at the hem of his boxer shorts yet and truthfully they were a little big on him and not much remained to poke out. Edward was beginning to heat up under his hands, beginning to sweat again too, no longer cooled by the cold wet towel from earlier.
Another spot of tension on the inside of his thigh and Alfons was able to use a little more force. Edward’s muscles spasmed under his touch but he wasn’t jerking away, he seemed like he was stubbornly staying in place despite the intensity of it. Like he liked it.
Finally he got to the beginning of his underwear and stopped moving but kept his hands there, he didn’t want to let go. He should have been shy but it felt almost like a dream, all he could think about or see was Edward and nothing else mattered.
He still didn’t look up. “Can I…?”
“You are such a bastard,” Edward said, voice choked, and then Alfons did look up.
Edward’s hair was a mess and his face was bright red, he had never seen him that red. The flush extended from his ears down his neck to his shoulders even, and his chest was heaving, taking in quick panting breaths. His eyes were glossy and his pupils were dilated with fever-lust and sweat glistened on his face and he licked his lips with his wet pink tongue, apparently almost beyond speech. “You know what you’re doing, you bastard!”
Alfons looked to the right and realized for the first time that Edward’s cock was hard and straining against the crotch of his boxer shorts. He had even left a dark spot of precum on the fabric.
“Oh,” he said, voice very small.
“Oh?! What the hell, Alfons!” Edward’s face began to change from ‘sex-drunk’ to ‘furious’. “You did this the first time too, what are you doing? Get out of your head already!”
“You were like this the first time too?” It was the first thing he thought to grab onto. He had massaged Edward for the first time and then fucked his hand into a coma and felt exceedingly guilty for it. It was actually almost funny if Edward had felt something similar, in a numb sort of way.
“You didn’t notice? I thought you were, I don’t know, playing me, I was so annoyed after, how did you not notice!” Edward was scowling now, and began looking slightly amused too, though mostly still very angry.
“I didn’t notice!” Alfons felt beside himself, he felt truly mad, how did he not notice? He had been so enraptured in his own thoughts of Edward that he had missed something blatant, clearly. “I was focused on your shoulder. I was massaging your shoulder.”
“You are so stupid.” Edward stared at him and then shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. “I regret ever bringing up my brother at all, you’re nothing like him, Al isn’t this dense! I know you like me, you idiot. You’re so blatant about it that even someone like me could pick it up.”
“I…” He didn’t know what to say.
“You’re always sulking and mooning when I don’t do what you want, do you know that? You think you hide it but you really don’t at all.” Edward was kind of smiling now. He actually looked a little fond.
“I don’t sulk and moon.” Alfons couldn’t resist, even though he knew it was childish.
“Stop it, just come here,” Edward said, and he was pulling himself forward and grabbing Alfons’s shirt by the collar and then they were kissing.
Edward was kissing him first, and then Alfons was kissing him, he was kissing Edward back, they were devouring each other. Edward’s mouth was soft and wet and Alfons was putting his arms around Edward like he had wanted to, it felt good. Without one arm Edward felt small and so easy to hold and he needed to hold him, he was holding him.
“You’re right. I like you,” Alfons said into his mouth. “I like you, I like you, I like you.”
He was feverish with it, he didn’t want to stop kissing Edward, he couldn’t. He hugged Edward as close as possible and began licking at his lips, he needed to taste him.
“Alfons, hold on,” Edward murmured, and Alfons used the opportunity to lick into his mouth like he had wanted to for weeks. Edward shifted in his arms and sighed a little but he didn’t push Alfons away, he just let his jaw fall open to better allow him access and his head tipped back.
Edward’s mouth tasted good, Alfons liked it. He liked being able to overpower Edward, that was the truth of it, he should have felt guilty but he didn’t. Edward was weak and vulnerable and able to be overpowered only by him, only with him.
“Edward,” Alfons mumbled, simply because he wanted to say it. “I like you.”
“I know, you idiot.” Edward snorted and squirmed in his arms, trying to get air, but he was smiling. “Me too, okay? Do you really think I’d let anyone else touch me like this?”
Of course the answer was no, Edward was so quick and wily, a clever thing, if he wanted to escape Alfons would already be bleeding. He was letting Alfons hold him so tightly he could barely breathe because — me too, he had said. I like you too. Alfons was on him again, he couldn’t help it. He was bigger than Edward but he still lay Edward down on the bed and fell between his legs and kissed him, arms coming around his shoulders.
He couldn’t leave Edward’s mouth alone. He had such a pretty mouth even when scowling and he loved how Edward’s canine teeth seemed to stick out just a little, it added to the slight animal edge to him, Alfons had always thought so. He licked at Edward’s canine teeth to show his appreciation and Edward’s mouth fell open for him again. He thought of all the times Edward had been oddly submissive for him and thrilled at the state of him now, this was the real him even if he hissed and swiped claws at others. Edward was letting Alfons do what he pleased to his mouth, so obedient.
“I liked that you showed me you were in pain,” he confessed, it just fell out of him. “I liked that you let me touch you where it hurt.”
“You are so strange,” Edward said for the second time that night, but this time he reached out and put his hand in Alfons’s hair, pulling him closer until they were cheek to cheek. “You think I’m the crazy one.”
“You made me strange,” Alfons replied, but he knew it wasn’t quite true even as he said it. There had been something germinating inside of him for a long time and Edward may have hastened its arrival but that was all he did.
“I think you were already strange,” Edward said, confirming his fears, though it didn’t really sting.
“I need to touch you.” Alfons sat up and began removing his clothing, unbuttoning the first two buttons of his shirt before taking it off over his head, impatient, dropping it on the floor. He unbuttoned his trousers next and wriggled out of them, kicking them off and leaving himself in just his underwear. It was a relief to be out of his clothing, he had gotten so hot.
Then, looking down at Edward, who was gazing up at him and seemed to be enjoying the view: “Can you take your shirt off?”
“Don’t wanna be polite and give me a hand?” Edward asked, but Alfons shook his head, and Edward frowned and narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him.
Then he sighed and looked to the side as he sat up and awkwardly pulled his shirt off one-handed, getting his head stuck at one point before shaking loose. It was a little clumsy and very endearing and he dropped it off his bed too, into the pile of clothes they were making. He frowned and still didn’t meet Alfons’s eyes and his face was redder than ever.
“Satisfied? You’re taking off everything else, you pervert.”
And Alfons was sick for it, but he was satisfied. Edward had done something embarrassing for him. He liked seeing him ungainly and caught off guard. He fell upon him again and kissed him on the mouth and then the jaw and the neck, he had wanted to kiss Edward’s neck so badly.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed into the tender skin below Edward’s ear. “You’re right, I’m a pervert, I can’t help it with you.”
Oh, Edward liked it when he kissed right there. He squirmed and whined, a sharp noise of need, and he hooked his good leg around Alfons’s hips and Alfons realized he was rocking his erection against his belly, seeking friction, humping him.
The desire that hit him was so strong he could barely breathe and he gave in, pushing his own clothed cock down into Edward and grinding against him and the sound Edward made in response was this time a squeak, something small and sweet, his hips were rolling back as best as he could.
Then he pulled away and sat up and looked down at Edward. He was a mess, sweaty and flushed down his chest and hair was sticking to his forehead and cheeks and when Alfons began tugging on his boxer shorts he trembled a little but brought his knee up so that Alfons could slip them entirely off. And then he was looking at Edward’s naked body, entirely nude, just him.
He was so — if Alfons had said it out loud he would have been more than hit but Edward was so dainty. His stomach was tight and hard with muscle but he had begun to soften from a lack of the kind of exercise he had been doing before, it was clear looking at him now and even that was a little exciting to Alfons, ill as he was, he wondered if he could really overpower him… and he knew the answer was still no, Edward would bite out his jugular if he tried. His hips were narrow and when Alfons’s eyes traveled down his thighs fell open, twitched nervously like he was thinking of clamping them shut but he didn’t, the contradictory desires were so obvious. Edward’s body was really so honest even when he couldn’t be.
His cock was so hard it was hitting his belly and dripping precum and it was, oh, he shouldn’t have thought it but it was cute, that was a good word for it. He was bigger than Edward even here and he couldn’t stop looking, admiring the golden curls that dusted the base and traveled up to his navel, only really visible so close. A shiver rolled through Edward and his dick twitched, his hips rocking up a little. He wanted to be held so badly.
“Stop teasing me,” Edward whined, putting his arm over his eyes, he couldn’t even look at him. “Stop looking and just touch me. I need you.”
It was ‘I need you’ that did it. Alfons was pulling down his own underwear almost before he was aware of it, he was taking his aching cock in his hand and it felt so good to touch after waiting so long. I need you. It was what he had wanted to hear since the beginning, since he had taken Edward into his home. He wanted to be needed, it was that simple. All the push and pull and arguing and running away boiled down to I need you.
He was on Edward again like a starving man, he wanted to devour his mouth and body and mind, he wanted to be needed by the madman who had captured him so effortlessly. Because that was the truth of it, it had been his face that had lured Edward but Edward was the one who owned him, there could be no mistaking it. No one else could have trained Alfons to know that an unlocked door was an invitation.
With his mouth full of Edward he rubbed their bodies together and took Edward’s cock into the same hand he was using on himself and it felt so good. Edward’s back arched and he keened, he really was so sensitive, he could tell it wouldn’t take long. They were both wet with precum and sweat and it was easy to roll his hips in time with the heartbeat pounding in his ears, he could feel Edward’s heartbeat against his chest too, they were in sync and together and alive.
“Edward,” he whispered into his ear, licked at the shell of it, “I need you too. I need you too.”
Edward’s nails clawed at his back and he was beginning to come undone, he was starting to lose the timing of it already. Alfons thought about pulling back to see his face but Edward was holding him so tight, it was amazing the strength he had with one arm and one leg. His breath had become quick panting gasps and Alfons felt it against his skin, the humidity of it, even the air inside Edward’s body was boiling hot. Alfons tightened his fist, just a little, and Edward made another high animal noise and then it was Alfons’s name on his lips.
“Alfons,” he whimpered, and he was biting down on the crook of Alfons’s neck with surprising force and his whole body tensed and quivered in Alfons’s arms and he was cumming, he could feel Edward painting their stomachs with wet heat. His orgasm rolled through him and Alfons dragged it out, kept moving his hand slowly, squeezing out everything left until he was squirming with overstimulation.
Finally his body went limp and his head tipped back and he sighed, sweetly content and Alfons had to pull back, had to look at the whole of him.
Now Edward looked fucked out. He had thought it before after the first massage but it wasn’t true, there had been no full-body flush or swirls of milky cum pooling in the hollow of his stomach, his eyes hadn’t been so soft and docile. This was what Edward looked like after sex. If he had paper and a pen he would have wanted to draw it, he had never seen anything more alluring.
“You didn’t…” Edward sounded very tired but tried to reach between them anyway, he wanted to take Alfons into his hand, it was very kind, but actually, if he was thinking about the first massage…
“It’s okay,” Alfons breathed, and he shifted back a little. When Edward squinted at him, looking confused, Alfons smiled reassuringly (as best he could, it might have been slightly manic) and took Edward’s legs into his hands, pushing them up until both thighs were vertical. “I wanted to try this. Just hold your thighs together.”
Edward seemed curious and did so as best as he could, and Alfons realized with a little jolt of guilt and desire that even though Edward really was strong it wasn’t an easy pose to hold with only a single arm and one and a half legs, or one and a third, actually, especially right after orgasm. The muscles of his abdomen were trembling almost immediately but he was using his arm to hold both thighs up in the air and honestly, it was quite the lewd pose, everything was on display for him.
Alfons thought again about how sweet Edward really was, how he could be so obedient and good, and he felt very lucky. This was a side of Edward only for him and no one else. Not even the younger brother had or could see this, and was it bad to feel a sense of smug superiority over it? The answer was probably yes, but Alfons was beginning to realize that he was quite selfish.
He reached around Edward’s legs and scooped up the wetness of his cum and used it to slick his own cock, skin tingling with thrill as he did so — he was touching Edward’s semen, his stomach, his legs. Then he was rubbing the head of it between the seam of Edward’s thighs and fucking in and yes, this is what he wanted, the tight heat of him, he was helping Edward hold his legs up and squeeze them together and thrusting between his thighs. He could gaze down at Edward easily like this and he looked so beautiful, his blond hair was like a halo dripping with sunlight across his pillow, his golden eyes were wet and gentle and just for him. He was sliding along Edward’s cock with each thrust and even though Edward quivered and flexed with the stimulation, it must have been near painful so soon after cumming, he didn’t complain.
Alfons leaned down and pushed Edward’s thighs up until they were folded against his chest, thank God he was so flexible. He could kiss Edward like this and he did so with abandon, putting his weight on him to get closer, deeper however he could. It was what he had wanted so badly: to fuck Edward like a woman. The thought thrilled him to the core, he was gasping into Edward’s mouth. Mine, he thought, Edward is my woman. Mine, mine.
Edward let go of his thighs, they were held firmly between their two bodies, and wrapped his arm around Alfons’s neck so Alfons could kiss him better. He nuzzled their faces together, he was gasping too, not going to cum again but carried away by the desire of it, like Alfons’s fever was infectious. They had infected each other with their own brands of madness, he realized, it didn’t matter who had been the seed if both of them were in full bloom with it.
“Be mine,” he was saying, first into Edward’s mouth and then he was hugging him tighter, tighter, both arms and legs wrapped around his lover’s body, whispering into his ear. “Be mine, please, be mine.”
Edward sighed blissfully and held him back as best he could, one arm, finally worming one leg out from between them so he could wrap it around Alfons’s hips and draw him closer, it didn’t matter that the tight press of his thighs disappeared since there was not one centimeter of space between them and Alfons was rutting against his cock, his belly.
“I’m yours,” Edward murmured back, and that was what drove Alfons over the edge, reaching the peak of pleasure so quickly it was like a great wave crashing over him, he was lost in the surf of it. He kept rocking against Edward as he came, flooding between them and it felt endless. He didn’t want it to end. He mouthed his love into Edward’s neck, he knew he couldn’t speak it but again and again he mouthed “I love you, I love you, I love you”.
Then he was exhausted, completely boneless, and he rolled off Edward and flopped onto the bed beside him. He was panting with exertion and soaked in sweat and the mix of their seed painted both of their bellies. He could hear Edward’s breathing too, just as rough, then slowing down in time with his. It was nice.
“Wow,” Alfons said, because he felt like he ought to say something but he was too tired, really. Now he was the one who was fucked out. He wondered what he looked like from outside, if Edward enjoyed what he saw.
He turned his head and Edward was lying next to him, smiling. It was a sweet and simple smile directed his way. He was just happy.
“I really do like you, Alfons,” Edward said, and reached out with his one hand to caress Alfons’s cheek. His palm was soft and hot and Alfons leaned into it gratefully. It felt like joy, like acceptance. “You can’t hide how you feel at all.”
“Like you can,” Alfons muttered, but he was smiling too, he couldn’t help it. “You’re the most emotional person I know. No one else here is like you.”
“No one else is like you,” Edward countered, and his hand stroked at his face gently, moved into his hair, played with it. “You wanted me so badly.”
“I still want you.” It was the truth.
Edward moved closer, leaned his forehead against Alfons’s. This was intimacy. Seeing Edward this happy and open and honest was worth it, was worth everything. “Okay,” he said. “I belong to you until further notice. Please take good care of me.”
And Alfons knew what he meant by that, what “until further notice” meant, but even with that his heart was full of joy so bright it was painful. It was in Edward’s nature, there was no helping it. He was Wechselkind, a changeling — the closer Alfons got to him the closer he came to accepting it. It wasn’t his fault he had been orphaned in this world, and it was inevitable that if he found a hole in it he would slip away again.
But many things could slip away at any time and every day felt more precarious. Germany was changing, the world was changing, he didn’t know if it was for better or worse. Alfons himself was changing, it had been so easy for obsession to grow within him it was frightening and there was the tickle in his throat that never went away. Edward was changing too, he seemed to be shedding some of his misery, and when he looked at Alfons now there was no reflection of a younger brother in his eyes. Maybe he had been honest when he said you’re nothing alike.
He sat up and picked up the damp towel dropped by the bedside and when he wiped Edward’s stomach clean of their mess he made a grateful noise and relaxed under Alfons’s hand. It was nice, to be able to soothe his friend and lover with just a touch.
“Thank you,” Edward sighed, and curled up in his quilt again, closed his eyes. He looked wonderfully content. Alfons wiped himself down as well and went to get the copy of A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes Edward had annotated for him.
When he returned Edward had fallen asleep in the exact same position he had left him in. Edward could fall asleep faster than anyone Alfons had ever met and when he was fully out he slept like the dead, it was impossible to wake him until his body decided it was enough. Alfons settled down next to him, pulling the quilt over himself as well, and gently wiped at his mouth. Edward had begun drooling in his sleep. Like a child, Alfons thought, endeared.
He looked out at the Munich skyline. Big flakes of snow had started coming down again, but the kachelofen had had plenty of time to warm up, and now the apartment was wonderfully toasty. Perfect weather to read to.
That night Alfons had a dream: there were two of him, two Alfonses, and they looked similar but not entirely alike. In the dream Edward was there and he was trying to pick between them, who was the real and who was the fake?
Whichever Alfons had the taste of blood in his mouth was the fake one, that seemed to be the logical answer. And he had been coughing, his mouth was thick with the taste of iron. Alfons had to act quickly — Edward had no room in his heart for a fake.
He hit the other Alfons in the mouth when Edward turned his back, and even though it was a cruel thing to do he felt satisfied. Now they both had the taste of blood in their mouths, Alfons from coughing, the other Alfons from biting his tongue.
Edward first kissed the other Alfons, and then him, or maybe it was the other way around. He stood on tiptoes to kiss them both and was surprised to find they both tasted like blood.
What could he do? They were both Alfons. He could only decide to love both of them, a precarious position. They were both Alfons, both similar, but not entirely alike. They acted differently, they spoke differently, even the color of their hair and eyes was different. Alfons accepted that the other Alfons was in Edward’s heart, and the other Alfons had to accept that he was sharing. And the bottom could fall out at any moment, it surely wouldn’t last forever. Something so precarious could never last. But while it was there, it was lovely, and Edward was smiling too.