Life Line

Title: Life Line
Pairing: RoyEd
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Fluff, PWP
A/N: For MB's (belated) birthday gift. She provided a few prompt options. I uh, combined all of them XD;

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Edward Elric interrupted as only Edward Elric did: at the exact moment that somehow managed to be both the best and worst time at once. On one hand, Roy was currently embroiled in a difficult and tricky bit of legal-ese, and the sudden break in the relative silence destroyed his train of thought. On the other hand, he was now no longer having to think in "ergos" and "moreovers". Edward was more than capable of speaking in such language, but he rarely did. For a genius, he could be charmingly down to earth.

"Hey there, bastard."

Or not so charmingly.

"Fullmetal," he acknowledged, tapping his pencil resolutely against the piece of paper in front of him, though nothing came out. The sentence he'd been working on had stopped dead mid "hereto".

"I take it the mission was successful?"

"...the objective was accomplished, yes." Ah, Edward. Always getting by on technicalities. Unfortunately for him, not this time.

Roy laughed. "But not in the way it was meant to, correct?" Silence. Even after all these years, Edward still hadn't learned when to admit when he was wrong. "Let me guess - property damage?"

Edward sighed. "Yeah, a little."

Meaning "catastrophic"; possible buildings leveled.

"Brawls? Assaults?"

"There were only the twenty guys! Who all deserved it."

"Riots? Torches? Farmers chasing you out of town with pitchforks?"

"...okay, so tell me again why the fuck I'm reporting to you? You obviously already know everything that happened! You just want to collect on that stupid bet." Edward accused.

"Are you admitting you lost, then?"

"Would it change anything if I did? 'Sides, shit, I have my honor. You won, fair and square."

Roy's lips tweaked down into a frown. He rapped his pencil harder against the desktop.

"Well, thank you for admitting it. There's just one problem." Roy said.

"Yeah? What?"

"...Fullmetal, where are you?"

The phone connection crackled and hissed a little as Edward shifted, and Roy winced and pulled the receiver away from his ear a little.

"Some hotel in...Nurenburg? Al wanted to stop for the night."

"It's three in the afternoon."

"...okay, so the train conductor wanted us to stop for the night. Some stuff happened."

Normally Roy would be intrigued, but at the moment there were more important questions than what had gotten Edward thrown off the train this time. Even as adults, Edward and Alphonse got themselves thrown off trains on practically a daily basis. People unfortunately tended to think their heated theory debates were going to turn dangerous.

Of course, the brothers' habit of alchemizing each other to train car benches to get each other to listen rarely helped with that.

"Your end of the bargain, Fullmetal," he prompted. "You were to come in here--"

"Uh-uh. I'm fulfilling the terms of your bet to the letter, Colonel." The smirk in Edward's voice was up front and audible now, and Roy cursed himself for not detecting it earlier. "You just said I was to report in. You never specified the medium."

Damn. Well, he had to admit, Edward had him there. He set down the pencil and sighed.

"I suppose that's correct." To the letter of the law; never the intent. That was Edward Elric's motus operandi. "Are you at least wearing it?"

"Yeah, I'm wearing it," Edward huffed. "What do you take me for? I don't reneg!"

Roy made a face, picturing it. In truth, it had seemed like a silly idea at the time - Edward's fault entirely, if it came to that. They had been having one of their typical one-sided arguments, wherein Edward had showed up and promptly used Roy to insult himself, gotten himself worked up and accused Roy of being a bastard pervert who only liked him because he thought Ed looked like a girl. Roy hadn't bothered to correct him - in truth, he would be hard pressed to say he was interested in men that weren't drop-dead gorgeous, as Edward was - but he had been a little offended on his female colleagues' behalf that Edward seemed to find feminine things so upsetting. He certainly didn't appreciate his second-in-command Hawkeye's fierce beauty any less because she did not choose to wear many skirts; nor was he offended by men who felt comfortable doing so. One of the many changes he had made since taking office was creating policies that addressed more things that mattered. He honestly could care less if people wandered around in their underwear on the street, so long as said underwear didn't come from forced Cretian sweatshop labor. Edward would probably have agreed with him, if he'd been calmer.

"I bet you sit there thinking about me in drag! I bet you wanted ME in a miniskirt since day one!" Edward had accused instead, referring to the long held office joke about Roy's first priority as Fuhrer. Roy had simply laughed, amused, and made him an off-hand bet. His first action in his official capacity had actually been freeing some political prisoners, and in truth there were more entertaining things than miniskirts, but he supposed if Edward was offering...

And now, he was confronted with that idle fantasy given reality, albeit removed by wire and distance. The thought of Edward Elric, actually on the other end of the phone in a miniskirt.

"...can anyone confirm you are in fact attired as such?" Roy asked, mouth suddenly dry. Edward might never deign to dress in drag for him in person (this very phone call proved it), but oh, perhaps he could weasel a photograph out of the deal...

"Yeah, sure, HEY AL!" Edward screeched suddenly, and there was a series of muffled noises, like a phone being nudged at someone. Roy wondered what kind of place they were in. A seedy motel room? A suite? He never knew until he got the bills. Knowing the Elrics, they could be anywhere. They led charmed lives; he saw to that personally.

"I'm already said, I'm not getting involved in this, brother!" Alphonse's sweet voice called back from some distance. It sounded like he was across the room. "And hello, sir!"

Roy smiled. "Hello, Alphonse," he replied, though he doubted Alphonse could hear him through the phone; nor would Edward likely remember to relay the conversation. If he knew the elder Elric, he was busy having a furious conversation with his brother using solely his eyebrows.

Apparently his guess must have been correct, because the next thing he heard was the creak of bedsprings and Alphonse's voice rang out, much clearer now, "For the record sir, I find this really disturbing."

"I am not responsible for how your brother chooses to comport himself. We had a deal, and he failed to hold up his end," Roy grinned, cradling the receiver momentarily between his shoulder and ear. There was a picture of Alphonse on his desk he liked to pick up and look at sometimes, especially when they were on the phone. He would never admit it to either of the Elrics, but sometimes it was hard to reconcile his mental image of the tiny voice dwarfed in armor with the handsome, outgoing young man he'd turned out to be.

"If he had managed to survive the mission without creating rampant destruction, he wouldn't be in this situation," Roy laughed.

"With all due respect sir, I have some some amount of culpability as well. If you want, I could-"

Roy briefly worried they both might be sitting there in skirts, but as Alphonse went on he realized what was really happening.

"No, Alphonse," he said gently. "You cannot talk your brother out of trouble this time. Really. And it's not hurting anything but his pride, I don't care what he says. And--" There was a sudden burst of squabbling on the other end and then Edward returned, snarling some unintelligible things that could have been directed at either of them.

"Don't you drag Al into this too!" the words finally resolved, and Roy rolled his eyes.

"Who put him on the line in the first place?" he pointed out, and there was a brief cacophonous moment in which Edward railed and Alphonse warned him to watch his language, or at least his volume.

"ANYway," Alphonse's voice cut in again, sounding as if he were trying to speak into the same receiver his brother was using. "I will talk to you later, sir. I'm going to go find us something to eat. Okay, brother?" he asked pointedly, and Roy waited patiently through a brief negotiation about sandwich toppings.

"I'll be back later," the younger Elric's voice came, sounding like a warning, and even though those piercing eyes were not fixed on him currently, Roy nodded obediently. Alphonse approved of his relationship with Ed the way a pitbull approved of people walking by its junkyard. Very. Cautiously. He sighed and put Alphonse's picture back.

"So, uh, yeah," Edward said eloquently a few seconds later. His was the only voice Roy could hear, and he took it to mean Edward was now completely alone. "Does that prove it for you?"

"I suppose," Roy admitted magnanimously. "That doesn't tell me the other relevant details."

"Like what?"

Roy licked his lips, looked briefly toward the door to his executive suite. Locked. Good. "What exactly are you wearing, Fullmetal? And don't just tell me 'a skirt'."

There was a pause. "...is this a secure line?" Edward asked then, almost on a whisper.

Roy picked up the pencil on his desk and twirled it idly, amused. "Yes, of course. That's one of the perks of the Hexagonal Office. You know that as well as I."

"Abuse of your position," Edward complained, but his breathing picked up.

"Details," Roy prompted again, and snuck a quick look at his day planner while Edward hemmed and hawed. As much as they could joke about it, he didn't want to actually abuse his position. Just take advantage of it a little. He checked the schedule, and thankfully he did in fact have a rare dead hour penciled in here - no one would miss him as long as he were still on time to address the senior generals at four thirty. And he could always finish this, he thought disdainfully, looking at the bill he had been writing, on his own time tonight. He didn't do a lot of socializing with the Elrics out of town, anyway, unless Hawkeye declared he was being "mopey" and took him out.

A little more goading, and then Edward gave in. "It's...a miniskirt, okay? And before you complain I'm hedging, so um...it's made out of leather...it's black...I actually transmuted it out of my pants; see, I figured out a cool way to move the zipper to the side so you can still zip it on and off, only see now there's this cool flap that goes over on top and-"

"'Black' and 'leather' is fine," Roy interrupted, closing his eyes. When Edward got going about his latest transmutation, he could sometimes go on all day. Right now, Roy's brain was busy with other things than hermetic theory.

"Oh," Edward said, sounding slightly disappointed. Roy bet he had that adorable little pout on his face right now, the one that Edward swore didn't make him look sixteen again but Roy knew did, and felt like a cradle robber for appreciating. "Well, I made it myself. So it's awesome."

"Is it short?" Roy asked instead. That was the more important part.

"HEY!" Ed yelped, and then, "Oh. Yeah, the skirt's kind of, um. I didn't think they covered much, but they REALLY don't cover much. I don't know how girls sit in these things."

Roy hissed, feeling the first stirrings below the belt. It was hard sometimes to tell whether Edward was being purposefully seductive or not, and that made it all the hotter. "Are you sitting down right now?"

"Yes," Edward breathed, and his voice dropped just a little. "Are you?"

Roy ignored the question for the time being. He was far more interested in hearing about Edward and what he was (apparently barely) wearing. "Are your legs bare, or are you wearing stockings?"

"Stockings?" Unfortunately that seemed to break Edward out of it. "Why would I be wearing stockings? I've got automail, moron."

"It's for the fantasy of it, Fullmetal," Roy said. "Or you could pretend you're wearing some."

"What? Then why not just pretend I'm wearing this damn skirt, too?" Bedsprings creaked faintly and Roy could just picture what Edward looked like, fidgeting back and forth at the edge of the motel bed. Roy snorted. Edward did have a point.

"Never mind that, then," he said smoothly. As long as Edward existed in a skimpy skirt somewhere, he was going to try and take full advantage of this. "My hands are on your knees," he said, waiting a second for Edward to protest what, no they aren't! Edward was brilliant, but sometimes his brains unfortunately just enabled him to overthink things.

When it was clear no protest was forecoming, he continued. "I'm running them up along the inside of your thighs now," he said.

"Okay..." Edward said shakily, and there was a brief silence punctuated by shallow breathing. Roy adjusted himself a little through his pants, feeling the room heat up by degrees as his arousal increased.

"What are you wearing on top?" he asked, breathing a little faster himself now. He knew what Edward looked like with nails tickling up the sides of his legs. He claimed it was "annoying", but Roy knew that alone would have Edward hard. He licked his lips.

"My tank top..." Edward said, a hint of strain evident in his voice.

"Take it off," Roy said, adjusting himself again. "I want to lick your nipples."

"Wait - how?" Ed asked, and Roy clenched his jaw briefly. He didn't like having to break the fantasy if avoidable.

"Correction. I slip a finger in my mouth and get it wet, then run that over your nipples."

"Oh, okay," Ed said, not nearly breathlessly enough, and there was a brief slurping sound across the line. Damn, that was a sensitive receiver. Roy groaned and slipped one of his own fingers into his mouth briefly, imagining it was Edward's. Imagining it was Edward's mouth creating that tingling sensation down his own hand into his arm.

The sucking noises subsided and then there was a brief gasp, telling him Edward had found his goal. That was another thing Edward was touchy about, how sensitive his nipples were. He considered that was another thing about himself that was too "girly", though Roy cynically noted he hadn't started bitching about it until Roy had expressed that his own were not as responsive. He wished he could convince his partner not to be so self-conscious all the time. Everyone was different, that was all.

Well, maybe this would help.

"A little harder on the nipple," Roy directed, and this time there was a little hiss, and the sound of the phone being shuffled around. Edward was probably relocating it to hold it between his ear and shoulder, the way Roy had it. "I'm squeezing one of your thighs again now, too." Squeezing his own tight erection through the front of his pants, actually, but who was counting? "Are you wearing underwear?"

"No--oh," the word came out on a croon, and Roy gasped and massaged himself harder. He had planned on waiting until he could get to a restroom, but he was starting to consider just unzipping his fly now and getting it over with. "Boxers...showed under the skirt..."

You don't WEAR boxers underneath a skirt, Ed! Roy thought, exasperated, but the thought of Edward naked and hard under a little flap of fabric was even more appealing than the thought of Edward bound in some kind of lingerie. Skirts were already so naughty. He could just slide his hand up, touch Edward anywhere...

"You're hard, aren't you? You want me to touch you," he crooned, and when Edward groaned a wordless reply he decided to say "to hell with it" and unzipped his uniform pants. He had a handkerchief in the top drawer of his desk. He could do this and still be clean enough for his meeting. And if he wasn't, he still wasn't sure he cared.

"I've got my hand up your skirt now," he announced. "I'm playing with your balls." Ed groaned again, louder this time, and Roy could just imagine what his face looked like. When he was really getting into it, Ed's eyebrows lifted up until it looked like they were trying to lift right off his head.

"What does it feel like?" he prodded, wanting a real answer, wanting to see what he could suss out. He had his own hand down his pants now and was stroking vigorously; the sound of Ed's breathing just inflamed him more.

"Nice," Edward choked out. "Tingles..." In a perverse way it was fun to know that the more the man's words failed him, the more turned on he was. Edward was normally so articulate; he only lost that ability when his body was tensing up too much to allow him to care about speech.

"You're touching your cock before I told you to," Roy observed, breaking character suddenly, and Edward made a brief startled noise. "Come on, I know you are."

"F-fuck you," Edward gasped at him. "I'm horny-"

Ah, the indignity of youth. Roy stroked himself harder to prove his own point, gritted his teeth a little but managed to keep thinking. Unlike his partner. "You're hard up, aren't you?" he asked, knowing already that it was true.

"Yessss," Edward hissed, and for a second Roy thought he might have even come, but the labored breathing continued. "B-bastard, it's me and...m'brother..." And nobody to distract either of them. Other guys might use an extended business trip as an excuse to screw around on their sweetheart, or at the very least, figure they would be forgiven; Edward was so faithful that Roy wasn't even sure he trusted him to jack off. He had quickly learned NEVER to send the Elrics on any mission longer than six weeks; the amount of incidental damage increased exponentially.

"I've missed you too," Roy rasped, and shuddered a little at the effort of not just coming right then. He wanted to eke this out a little longer. "Miss touching you. I want to see you in that skirt...out of that skirt...can you feel my hands on you? Can you hear how much I want you?" There was nothing but the sound of hard breathing and faint wet noises on the other end. He kept going.

"I bet you are so hot in that skirt...you are always hot, it drives me crazy. You drive me crazy just listening to you, the way you breathe." A high wordless keen. "Feels good, doesn't it? I want you to feel good -- want you to come for me -- come for me," he growled and closed his eyes, taking in the minute noises, the hitches in Edward's breath, playing out in his mind those few final minutes. Even sight unseen, he did not miss the moment when Edward's breath caught hard, and he came. He followed after, hard enough to make his head spin.

They sat there and just panted at each other for a few minutes, Roy slumped over in his chair, sweat dripping down his forehead. He thought about wiping it, then realized his only handkerchief was still wrapped firmly around his cock, already wet with a much more embarrassing substance. He laughed a little, breathlessly.

"What's so funny?" Ed accused. He sounded less breathless, Roy noted with a tad bit of annoyance, but he made up for it by sounding more exhausted. Maybe Al really had wanted them to stop traveling early. Maybe it was because of Edward.

"Us," Roy said by way of explanation. "I'm sitting here at the office, for crying out loud...how are you?"

"Mm. I needed that," Edward yawned, sleepily. "Think I'm gonna take a nap."

"I bet you are," Roy said, though the sentiment was fond. He could picture Edward flopping bonelessly back onto a nondescript mattress, not even bothering to get underneath the covers. He always left it up to someone else to put a blanket on him. I can take care of myself, Edward's mouth always snapped, but his actions never failed to betray him.

"You implying I have no stamina?" Edward growled into the phone, and Roy chuckled.

"No, I'm implying you don't take care of yourself," he said. "When was the last time you got a full night's sleep?"

"Last night!" Edward said, too quickly.

"Bullshit," Roy said, at the same time tucking himself neatly back into his pants. The clock was ticking on, he was going to have to cut this off soon. Unfortunately. He really had missed the sound of Edward's voice.

"Last, last night?" Edward tried, though again, a yawn betrayed him. "Ah, hell."

"Just get some sleep," Roy said quietly. "You two kick your heels back for a while. Don't worry about getting home right away."

The phone crackled a little, and Roy figured Edward was cleaning himself up or something. "Rather push on for Central," Edward complained half-heartedly. "Can't wait to sleep in my own bed." Roy's bed.

"I miss you," Edward said finally, very softly, and Roy ground the receiver into his ear, wishing he could pretend the hard surface were Edward's shoulder. Equivalent exchange there, Roy thought, but did not say. The phrase was a touchy one for the Elrics now.

The concept though, always held true - for I miss yous and I love yous both.

There was no more conversation after that. Edward made a few brief noises that approximated attempts, but Roy just let it go, just sat there and listened as his breathing slowed down into the steady hiss of sleep. He tossed his soiled handkerchief into the trash, straightened his uniform up, tidied up his desk and even started back on that neglected legal document, all the while listening to Edward sleep.

When Hawkeye finally came for him, he held up one finger and pushed the mouthpiece of the phone close in to his lips.

"Take care," he said softly, just before he hung up. "And when you do return, I expect to see you in that new uniform for a full and complete 'debriefing'."