A Story Worth Telling

She was his second glass of scotch. Enough to see beauty where there was only plain, but too little a push towards a first move. Oh, he was still a genius, still the master, despite being desperately out of practice. Smiling at her over his empty glass, he paid his tab and, as he stood up from his stool, he made a big show of rummaging through his pockets and peeling on his crisp, white gloves. Alchemistic arrays were sewn onto the backs, but he hardly cared about them anymore. Standing, he shrugged on his coat further and took one step back from the bar.

"Where you headed to, Cowboy?" she said, with not nearly as much sexual confidence as the girls of old. Those girls were blunt with what they wanted from him and how they were going to get it.

He turned his head to look at her and was moved by the smile his absent eye met.

"Not a cowboy. A pirate!" she said with giddy innocence and he wondered if she was even old enough to be in here.

"Stay a while, Pirate," she coaxed. "Keep a lonely lady company."

She wasn't out for the hunt, or for the chase. She just was what she was: A lonely woman looking for company in any form it would appear.

"Why would a lady," he asked, "want anything to do with a pirate?"

"Well, ladies, such as myself, hardly are allowed to see the ways of the world," she teased. "And Pirates, such as yourself, must have hundreds of stories that would entertain me for nights to come."

Remembering why he was there, he answered, "In a horrifying kind of way, or a sexually frustrating way?"

She blinked, blushed, and looked down at her untouched drink. With a sigh, he lowered himself onto the stool beside her. "I'm afraid I've no stories worth telling."

"Liar," she said to her glass.

"Perhaps," he said, "or perhaps I'd rather the lady lose sleep for a good and wonderful reason instead of a horrifying or frustrating one." She looked up at him and he wondered why he pursued, why he wanted this woman in his bed that night, but he did and he would.

"I've never done this before," she whispered.

"Ah, virgin," he mused, finally finding the retreat he needed.

"Um, no, that's not what I meant," she blushed, and he laughed easily for the first time in years.

"It's terribly simple," he said, placing his hand over her on the wooden bar. Even through the cloth, he could feel her soft, smooth skin against his calloused fingers and palms.

"Show me," she whispered, finally meeting his eyes.

~~~

She tasted experience and regret on his skin, which should have told her to stop this nonsense: She was a good girl, don't do it. He also tasted of something sweet and exciting and she just couldn't get enough. She was timid, inexperienced, and at times he had to guide her hands.

They tangoed through the ankle-deep snow and slush, him leading (she hoped) until they reached a door. She didn't know it was there until she found her back pressed against it, his full front pressed against her. They paused, his hands grasping hers, pinning them to the door. For just a moment, a long moment, their breaths made clouds together, mixing before disappearing right before their eyes. Her two eyes searched his one, and every now and again glanced to the black eye patch that covered half his face. He waited for her to stare, to say something about it, to make a move to remove it. Instead she kissed him, murmuring against his lips, "Cold." There was more dancing and he struggled to keep a hold of this woman, because she was real and here and likely to not be if her let go for only an instant, and to dig his keys from his pockets and get that damned door open and oh, her lips were incredibly distracting.

When the door opened, they fell back and if not for his splendid footwork, they would have landed on their asses instead of their feet (Although, he thought to himself, that would have made things a little bit easier.) He kicked the door closed, holding her close to him as possible and their mouths melted together, making it near impossible to pull them apart.

But the clothes had to go, and they had to go NOW. Pushing her further into his small house, he managed to kick off his boots. She was having a bit of difficulty, but once rid of hers he had already lost his trench coat and was unbuttoning his uniform jacket. Along with her coat, they were left in the foyer.

She wore a white sweater. Sweaters are nice enough, comfy, and easy to slide over one's head. She fumbled a little with his buttoned shirt and he took a moment to place his hands on her wrists to calm her nerves. All the while their mouths were aching, opening, reaching for the others.

He cursed her belt, wondering why women even needed to wear them. She intervened and soon the belt and pants were pooled at her feet. She cleverly unhooked his suspenders, but popped the button on his fly. He hardly noticed that because in one big movement, she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and his pants to the ground. Those were left in a trail from the den, past the kitchen, and up to the bedroom.

He discovered her neck, and while he ravaged it, she observed her surroundings. The Pirate has done well for himself, considering he's only an infantryman.

Shortly after her neck, he found she had breasts, held in place by her bra. Taking advantage of this, he breathed heavily over one nipple until the lacey fabric rose, creating a small hill on a mountain. He wasted no time in conquering it, licking it, covering it with his wet, warm mouth. She lost all coherency then, allowing him to push her onto the bed. He stood above her and her breath caught in her throat. Pirates had no business being this sculpted, this pale, this beautiful. She wanted to bury herself beneath the covers, because what was a man that beautiful doing with a plain girl like her?

He was looking at her. His one eye moved up and down, taking in all of her. He quickly shimmied out of his briefs, revealing his very hard erection. She came to the conclusion that he was drunk and thought that she was someone that she wasn't. Oh, what a mess this would be.

Before she could explain, he placed one knee on the bed and leaned over her, resting on his elbows. He was still wearing his gloves, she noticed with glee, and his eye patch. She decided not to dwell on the eye patch anymore and instead looked at his nose. It was a very nice nose, no freckles.

And then he kissed her in the same fashion he had kissed her out in the snow. “Still cold?” he said in a husky sort of way that made her stomach do flips. She shook her head a little and he smiled. He drew himself up and offered her his hands, which she took and sat up. Still shy, still unsure, but wanting to prove that she would be a story worth telling, she leaned forward and kissed the skin he offered her. He flinched, but made no move to stop her. She placed her hands at his waist and kissed anywhere she could reach on his beautiful body. Soon, she began to rise from the bed but, he stopped her, gently pushing her back down. Like the master he was, he had removed her bra without her noticing. Dropping it to the floor, he put one knee back on the bed. She laid back down, watching him finger the band of her panties, lifting her rump so that he could pull them off. She scooted across the bed until her head rested on pillows and he followed, leaving gentle kisses and bites along her body until he reached her chin. Feel his warm precum drip on her bully, she reached and down and stroked his erection, letting her hips rise in reaction to the hiss he breathed against her cheek. Guiding him, his head pressed against her opening, and she bit her lip and buried her face in the crook of his neck. Burying his nose in her hair, he pushed his way inside of her. Slowly, because she was tight and shaking and he should be proud of his restraint.

She arched her back, allowing him to be buried deeper. Her thighs clamped around his hips, her ankles hooking together. One hand was clutching his back, the other tangled in his hair. She mewled softly as he brought himself out and then back in again.

He had forgotten how wonderful a woman could fell and how easy it was to just lose. He was so close to Heaven that he almost didn’t notice that she wasn’t. Well, that just wouldn’t do. Grunting, as men tend to do, he brought himself onto his right elbow and with his teeth pulled off his glove. Letting the glove drop beside her face on the pillow, he slid his arm down between them, searching with his forefinger until she gasped louder and her hands gripped harder. He rubbed in time with his hips, because she needed this just as much as he did.

She closed her eyes, arched her neck, and cried for some nameless deity. Knowing that said deity wasn’t listening no matter how loud they cried, he buried his face in her neck and drowned.

~~~

The afterwards always worried him the most because it was filled with awkward silence until one pretended to be asleep. But, for once, the silence was just fine and the conversation easy. He lay on his back, his hands resting on his stomach, and he just watched her. She was on her belly, covered up to her shoulders with a sheet, propped up on her elbows with her feet swinging in the air. In her hand was the glove he had removed earlier.

“It’s really been two years?” she asked and he chuckled. “Because you were such a pro at it.”

“Thank you,” he said, “I’ve have lots of practice. I used to be a pro.”

She wrinkled her nose a little. “What else did you used to be?” She pulled the glove onto her left hand.

“A colonel,” he whispered, watching her raise her eyebrow.

“And an alchemist,” she added, tracing the array on the glove with her right hand.

“Used to be,” he said sadly. “I haven’t practiced it in so long.”

“Why’d you give it up?” she asked innocently.

His one eye narrowed, but not at her. “I fought a monster.”

“But what if there are more monsters?” He didn’t have an answer.

“Tell me your dreams,” he said instead, because he had given and now it was her turn.

“I’m going to Central,” she said, “as soon as I have the money. I’ll marry a military man, or maybe a carpenter, instead of a miner like my mother, and I won’t be stuck in a bar in the snow.”

“It snows in Central,” he said. She changed the subject, because she knew her dreams were going to be dashed but she wasn’t quite ready.

“I bet it’s just like sex,” she said, snapping her gloved fingers, not even knowing what that meant or how his stomach turned. “I’ll bet you’re still a pro at it.”

He smiled his thanks and fell asleep. In the morning, she was gone, along with his glove.

~~~

The walk home in Central was always lonely, even with a woman at his side. These days, he opted for real solitude, so only his own footsteps resounded in his ears. Off to the left, his blind side, the bell to a shop met his ears, but he didn’t bother to look. He didn’t bother to stop until he heard a voice say in a giddy, barely familiar voice, “Pirate!”

He hardly recognized her without the dimmed lights and smoke-heavy air.

“I never did get your name,” she said and he remembered her blush.

“Nor I yours,” he said, smiling for the first time since the Elric brothers disappeared into the sky.

She kept smiling, an easy task for her, but she made no offer of a name. “I have something of yours,” she said, “but it’s back in my hotel room.” She paused, blinked, then looked to the ground. “That’s the second time I’ve hit on you without meaning to.”

He laughed, easily again. “Colonel Roy Mustang,” he said, extending his hand to her.

“Amelia Richards,” she returned, accepting his hand. “You’ve been reinstated?”

“Yes,” he said. “And you were right, about there being more monsters.”

“You remembered!” she exclaimed.

“I also remember you stealing my glove,” he jested, realizing that he had yet to release her hand.

“I just said I was going to give it back!” she defended. She pointed behind her, in what he assumed was the direction of her hotel. “Do you have time? Or do you have someone to go home to?” She slapped her hand over her mouth. “There I go again!”

“No,” he said, withdrawing his hand and stepping beside her and offered her his arm. “There’s no one waiting for me.”

In the morning, it had snowed and Amelia was still there.