FMA: Ever the Same: Chapter 1

(This was written not long after 102, but I somehow forgot to post it here. In the same 'verse as Now and Then and Pathetic.)

Just let me hold you while you're falling
apart
Just let me hold you and we'll both fall down

Fall on me
Tell me everything you want me to be
Forever with you forever in me
Ever the same

Rob Thomas, Ever the Same

This part had never been about sight. The press of bodies, the slide of skin against skin, smooth flesh and rough scars under his hands, his lips. The taste of sweat and the smell of desire. Gasping breaths and half-swallowed moans accompany him as his lips and tongue and hands map out familiar terrain. He doesn't need sight to tell him which spots are the most sensitive, and grasping hands and a writhing body say just as much as expressions.

But he misses it. As Ed presses a battered metal tube into his hand he misses the silent affirmation that used to accompany it. When their relationship started they used to have lengthy and somewhat awkward discussions about such things, but gradually the words had fallen away. Intimacy seemed to work best between them with fewer words. He feels a wave of grief for those silent gestures and expressions as he pushes himself up, his hands on either side of his lover with only darkness beneath him.

The sheets rustle as Ed shifts, his legs sliding against Roy's thighs as his hands hook around his neck and pull him down for a kiss. Their mouths linger against each other as Ed's legs hook around his, rubbing their groins together but also wordlessly conveying his desire. As simple as that. He chokes on something between a moan and a sob and clings to his lover for a moment, trying to convey a feeling he's not sure he completely understands.

He sits up and he feels bereft, even with his hand still on his lover's hip. Ed nudges his knee with a foot. He smiles; he can picture him, gold eyes dark and heavy with lust, just a hint of smug arrogance to his lips, not patient so much as momentarily contained as he waited. And trusting. The trust had been hard won. He treasures the memory of the first time he'd realized it was there, and it saddens him that he will never again see it. But as Ed nudges him again, he thinks that, just maybe, he doesn't need to.

This part was always more about touch. His fingers know when to press forward and when to wait, where to stroke and just how much will be right on the edge of too much. He only regrets that he can no longer watch the pleasure play out across his lover's face. Ed was always so beautifully expressive. He leans his face against a warm, familiar knee and listens to the gasping moans and cries, remembering flushed cheeks and grimaces, and brief flashes of wide-eyed ecstasy. Maybe someday the sounds alone would be enough.

Ed's hands are waiting for him as he positions himself. They slide along his shoulders and scratch against his back, and he reads the barley contained impatience almost as easily as he'd once read it by sight. He responds with his usual smile and shifts his weight to let one hand tease its way downward. Ed's frustrated whine and the way he bucks against his palm would be worth it on their own, but this has another purpose. He has to guide himself by feel now, and it shouldn't be so different but he'd never appreciated just how much he'd relied on visual cues. Even in a darkened room there had been shadows and deeper shadows, a flash of metal or the liquid shimmer of hair, angles and lines and the contrast of skin and sheets. Now everything is a uniform darkness, not black so much as a nothingness, and if he lets himself dwell on it he could get overwhelmed all over again.

He shoves such thoughts back into a locked corner of his mind as he finds where he belongs, and he slides home to a chorus of wordless moans and the not-so-subtle tugging of Ed's legs around his hips. Ed clings as if to lock him in place, and Roy breathes out a laugh, wondering just which of them is the needy one right now.

Familiar hands cup his face, drawing him down until their noses bump, and they wait. It's been some time since they'd been able to do this, and Ed's body is taking a while to adjust, almost painfully tight around him and tensing in waves. It forces patience on them both, and he lets his eyes close, sharing breath and feeling Ed's fingers twitch and curl against his cheeks as his body relaxes by measures. After a moment Ed jerks out a small, backwards nod. It's a signal that has developed between them, meaning something between I'm ready and get on with it. Roy swallows thickly and presses his forehead to Ed's, obligingly rocking his hips back and then in.

Finding a rhythm is the same as it ever was. Circumstances may have kept them apart recently, but their bodies haven't forgotten each other. Their joinings had always been about passion, release of stress, and maybe comfort. All that was present, but also relief and an affirmation of being alive, and maybe something more, something neither of them had let themselves look at before, something Roy wasn't sure he was ready to acknowledge now. But at its core it was still the press of bodies, the slide of skin against skin, clutching hands and the wordless sounds that couldn't be contained. Ed nuzzles his cheekbone, the gesture full of an affection that he could never quite bring himself to voice. Roy nudges him so that their lips brush together. The kisses they exchange are soft but no less passionate than the ones that had started the evening, the ones that had tumbled them into bed in a confusion of limbs and hastily-removed clothing.

Their mouths break apart as things get more urgent. Both of them are nearing the tipping point, and Roy ups the pace, stroking his lover inside and out. Ed tosses his head and their noses bump, and then his face is pressed against Roy's throat as he tries to curl in on himself, a moment before he cries out and bucks up violently. Warmth splatters across Roy's stomach and hand, and that along with the shuttering beneath him sends him over the edge.

They lie against each other, pressed full-length to get as much contact as possible. If he's holding onto his small lover a bit more tightly than he used to, neither of them comment on it. Ed burrows into his neck, lazily stroking his side as his breath ghosts out across his chest, leaving prickles of evaporated sweat in its wake. The moment is almost perfect; and yet, he doesn't feel content.

With one hand he traces Ed's shoulder and neck, running strands of hair through his fingers. They're damp with sweat, thick and soft, and he tries to bring to mind their color. Brilliant gold, ruddy in the firelight, almost platinum under the moon. A dozen different shades of blond if one looked closely, blending together to make a unique color he could only think of as Ed. He wonders how long it will be before the images fade, before he can only recall abstract, academic memories of what his lover once looked like.

His fingers trail along a jaw that's strong but only sparsely covered in stubble, a cheek that still retains much of its youthful fullness. Ed tips his head back, and his fingers skim over a wide, expressive mouth, also caught somewhere between the softness of youth and the definition of adulthood. With a pang he realizes that he'll never get to see the man that Ed grows into.

Ed smiles against his fingers, and Roy smiles back despite the ache in his chest. The young man sighs, and his smile falters. Ed has gotten too good at reading him. Ed shifts, shuffling up to press their foreheads together. He cups the back of his neck, his thumb stroking behind his ear in a silent offer of comfort. All Roy can do is wrap his arms around him, and wait for the ache to pass.