The Edge of Insanity

A/N: I have long been a fan of FMA, ever since the first anime was produced years ago. Recently I finally sat down and read the manga, then began to follow the new anime and I decided that they were even better (Yes, I discovered hot water xD). I admit that back when I watched the first anime, I didn't notice Kimbley (Kymblee? Kimblee? Kymblee? Kymbley? DX) too much because he was a little, erm, manic for my tastes, but after I read the manga I became quite obsessed with his manga self. I have wanted to write a Kimbley/Roy fic for a while now, and I am grateful to Cory for encouraging me and inspiring me to write this. Thank you, hun!

The rations they were served tasted like mud and sand. They looked like that too, as far as Roy was concerned – brownish and thick, with some pieces of what was supposed to be meat floating around in the bowl. Not that he was hungry to begin with. His mouth was constantly full with the taste of blood and the ever present sand, the sight of the meat reminded him of the fact that charred human flesh smelled like burnt bacon. His stomach turned again and he carefully pushed the bowl away.

“You should eat, you know. Killing is more efficient on a full stomach.”

Roy looked up to meet a pair of golden eyes staring at him from an unpleasantly familiar angular face. The other man smiled at him as he tore a piece of bread from his ration with his teeth and swallowed it with a spoonful of the brownish soup. Roy glowered. When had Kimbley managed to sit right across him? He had been so preoccupied with his memories and worries that he hadn’t even noticed him. What a huge lapse on his part.

“What do you want?” he said flatly, not in the mood to deal with his fellow officer’s usual shit.

“Nothing in particular.” The other man shrugged and took another bite. “On the other hand…” he pointed with his spoon “Are you going to eat that?”

Roy pressed his lips together in a thin line before responding.

“No. You can have it.”

Kimbley poured the rest of Roy’s soup in his bowl and continued chewing, looking quite pleased with himself. The younger man stifled a sigh and prepared to leave when the other spoke again.

“I saw your flames today. I was three miles away downtown but I could still see them. Beautiful colours.” He paused for another spoonful and continued. “They gave you a Stone too, didn’t they?”

Roy’s fists curled furiously at his sides, pressing his nails to his palms with enough force that the pain was a distraction from the urge to take out his gloves and fry the smug bastard. He couldn’t stand him.

“So what if they did?” he said, fighting to keep his voice as neutral as before and feeling furious with himself when he failed. “You want that too?” his lips curled mockingly “The soup’s not enough?”

Kimbley smiled thinly at him, just a hint of teeth showing between his otherwise well-shaped lips. He reminded Roy of a viper – graceful and quick and deadly, ready to strike when you least expected it and do so with without remorse. On some level, he envied the other man too.

Something blood-red and twinkling flashed in Kimbley’s hands as he rolled it playfully between his thin and graceful fingers. Roy saw a hint of a tattoo on the palm of his right hand as the other played with his Stone.

“I have all that I need for the moment, thank you very much.” Kimbley responded cheerfully. “And I’ll be well-fed when we begin the night attacks in a few hours. Unlike you, I’m afraid.” He added.

“You don’t need to worry about me.” Roy told him and walked away, shoulders stiff and back ramrod straight.


Part of Roy was glad that his type of alchemy allowed him distant-range attacks. It had taken him some time to develop that, but with experience and the aid of the Stone, he didn’t have to get so close to his victims anymore in order to burn the flesh off their bones. He didn’t have to see their faces as they melted before his very eyes. It didn’t spare him the stench though, nor the screams, but he was still grateful.

The nocturnal attack went well, at least he thought that the brass would consider it so – they cleaned several pockets of resistance within the northern district of the city, meticulously wiping out whatever survivors they could find. The sounds and tremors of explosions and screams rocked the ruined city for hours until they were done, and now eerie silence set in – no more screams and pleas for mercy, no more gunfire or the peculiar ringing sound of alchemy.

Roy turned to his men and gave the sign for retreat. Their work was done. They slowly began to file out, except for those who would be appointed as sentries and patrols, but that was the work of the higher ups.

He saw Hawkeye leaving the ruined tower she had lain in wait for the evening, picking out any fugitives trying to escape under the cover of darkness from the inferno that Roy rained in on them. In the orange light of the flickering fires around him he caught a glimpse of her face – pale and haggard and haunted, but she walked with her head high and shoulders straight.

As she approached, she saluted him and was about to turn away and leave too when a gunshot sounded and his subordinate staggered, dropping her own gun and clutching her side. Roy turned, ready to blow to smithereens whomever had fired that shot, fingers pressed together on the verge of snapping.

Then he saw her. The girl couldn’t have been more than nine years old, dressed in a torn, blood-stained dress, ash blond hair caught in messy pigtails held up by droopy bows on the sides of her small head, soot and congealed blood smudged across her pixie face. She was holding a gun almost as long as she was tall, and that gun was pointed right against Hawkeye's head. The reddish brown eyes were wide and glassy, her tiny form was shaking with emotion and the effort to hold a weapon so heavy for someone so small, but the hands clutching the gun were steady.

“Child.” Roy began, desperate to draw away her attention from Riza, desperate to make her drop the gun. “Drop the weapon.”

Riza said nothing. She didn’t dare to move, didn’t dare to breathe as the girl’s fingers tightened even more.

“Please.” Roy repeated. “Please, drop the gun. It’ll be okay. I won’t hurt you. We won’t hurt you if you do.”

The girl’s pupils narrowed to tiny pinpoints and the finger against the trigger tightened. Roy reacted instinctively, without thinking, without feeling. The flames engulfed her before she could shoot Riza.

The girl dropped the gun and screamed, high-pitched and inhuman, flailing around in agony and horror as the fire consumed her flesh. Both Roy and his subordinate looked on, frozen, as the small body shook and wailed and finally fell to the ground, no longer recognizable as something which was human just less than a minute before.

Riza slowly turned towards him and met his eyes. Her jaw worked but no sound came out.

“Go back to the base.” Roy ordered hoarsely.

Without saluting, still clutching her grazed side, she turned and moved as fast as she could with her injury.

Roy slowly approached the tiny, smoking form crumpled to the ground, staring at in horror. He crouched down and noticed that one of the girl’s bows had dislodged while she flailed and was now on the ground next to her remains, the silken material half-charred and crumpled. He reached for it to touch it, but the sheer monstrosity of what he had just done finally caught up with him and all he could was to roll away so that he wouldn’t throw up over her remains and desecrate her further.

On his hands and knees, he curled in a ball and retched, expelling whatever food was left in his stomach, and when that was gone he dry-heaved and spat stomach acid. A pair of strong hands touched the back of his neck and his waist, rubbing soothing circles against his taut muscles. He jumped when he felt the touch and stiffened even more when he heard the familiar voice.

“Easy, easy, soldier. Breathe.”

When the hell did Kimbley get here? How much had he seen? He tried to get up but another heave rocked him and he coughed helplessly.

“Come now, try to relax.” The voice continued to whisper soothingly as the hand caressed his neck and back. “You’ll be fine.” Kimbley stuck an opened canteen under his nose. “Here, drink.” Roy hesitated. “Drink. It’s not poisoned, I promise.” Humour darkened the voice.

He drank and spat, rinsing his mouth, then drank again. When he was done, he sat down on the ground next to wet spot where he threw up and turned to look at the other man. He was dusty and his ponytail was a bit messy, but otherwise, he looked downright fabulous compared to other soldiers Roy saw today.

“Feeling better now?” the man asked him breezily and when Roy didn’t respond, he added “No, obviously not. Ah, well. You should use your Stone more often. It’ll make thinks easier, I promise.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Roy narrowed his eyes at him.

“What do you mean?”

Kimbley shrugged and picked up his canteen, hanging it onto his belt.

“You’ll see if you try.” He told him and began to pat the dust off his uniform with sweeping gestures. “Now then. Shall we go back to the base?”

Roy still felt suspicious, and nauseated, and disgusted by his actions, but he knew that Kimbley was right. They had to go back to the base. He needed to check on Hawkeye and make sure she was okay, physically at least, because none of them were okay psychologically.

With a huff, he pulled himself up on unsteady feet and silently followed Kimbley into the night.

In the following weeks he tried to forget what happened that awful night, but it was easier said than done. The image of the little girl, burning, melting, screaming, haunted him. The fact that he had to continue the killing didn’t help matters at all. In fact, it was supposed to make it worse, far worse, but as time progressed, he realized that he felt… numb. Like he was swathed in cotton and isolated from the outside world. There was still pain, but it was muted, distant, as if someone else was feeling it, and he was watching from afar as that person experienced it.

He lay many a night in his cot in the tiny tent he shared with a quiet, middle-aged lieutenant, listening to the distant explosions and screams, as well as the moans carried by the wind from the medical camp. They had many wounded. Despite the actions of the State Alchemists, the Ishballians fought to the bitter end, all of them, men, women and children, fanatical in their despair, unwilling to give up, to retreat, to allow fate to wipe them out off the pages of History. And he, like his fellow soldiers, his fellow Alchemists, perpetuated this cycle of violence. He too fought ruthlessly, the Stone in his hand amplifying his Alchemy to an extent that awed even him, despite the circumstances. Or maybe it was because of the circumstances.

It took him several weeks to figure out that the more he used the Stone, the less he felt. As if the cursed object was siphoning his emotions, both good and bad, and the feeling of numbness settled in more and more. He felt like a puppet on strings, and unseen hand was pulling the strings. It disconcerted him, that he could feel anything, that his emotions were fading with each passing day.

He was ready to give up the stone, to go back to the Brass and tell them that he didn’t need one to do his job, although he knew the reaction such a statement would cause. He thought about it and planned it and waited for the suitable moment. He didn’t expect the sudden change when he used the Stone the day he finally made the final decision to give it up.

His squad was trapped in a labyrinth of tiny streets in a poor residential area. It was supposed to have been an easy mission - go in, burn the houses the rebels were holed up in, get out. He didn’t expect the ambush, didn’t expect for their way out to be cut off by heavily armed forces.

Despite the numbness the Stone had induced in him for days, Roy felt a sliver of fear. For all his crimes, for the guilt he no longer felt, he still didn’t want to die here.

The head of the corporal crouching next to him suddenly burst like a melon smashed with a hammer and the senseless body crumpled next to him, blood and bone and brain-matter spraying all over Roy’s face and uniform. His gloved hand tightened around the Stone in his pocket and he called on its power.

The rush of energy feeding his Alchemy to unconceivable levels was expected. The rush of emotion was not. It washed over him, joy greater than anything he had ever felt in his life, pleasure so intense that it left him gasping and swaying on his feet. It was if the Stone was giving him back all that it had taken from him, all at once, only it had transformed the guilt, the pain, the fear into something he could only describe as pure ecstasy, both physical and emotional.

Roy barely noticed as he produced spark after glowing spark, explosions of flames engulfing those who had surrounded them. They screamed in terror and pain but he was deaf to their agony, blind to the sight of their charred bodies. When it was finally over, there was nothing left of the Ishballian forces, his own troopers were staring at him with a mixture of awe and fear, and his cock was throbbing painfully in his dirty uniform pants.

What happened during that day haunted him and Roy tried to forget it, tried to go back to that safe, numb feeling from before, tried to block the memory of the pleasure he felt when he killed with the aid of the Stone.

It wouldn’t let him, of course. In the days that followed there were other battles to fight, other people to burn, and no matter how much he struggled to refrain from using it, it constantly sang to him, at the back of his mind, begging, cajoling, seducing him with promises of pleasure until he caved and curled his fist around it before calling on to its power.

And one day, weeks after the Stone first gave him a taste of what it could do for him, he stood over the blackened, smoking remains of another armed child and stared, waiting for the guilt to come, and the shame, and the fear, but they were absent. His body still throbbed with the pleasure of the kill, the pleasure of using his Alchemy in such an unchecked, unleashed way.

Roy didn’t remember making his way through the camp after dinner, looking for the damn bastard, didn’t remember pushing the flap of his tent open and barking to the lieutenant cohabiting with Kimbley to make himself scarce. He did remember, however, launching himself at the man faster than the other could react and socking him squarely in the face, satisfied when he felt and heard the sharp cracking sound of his knuckles meeting the chiseled cheekbone.

Kimbley stumbled but didn’t fall. Looking unfazed he turned with slick, viperish speed and grabbed the next fist aimed at his face, using his superior height to maneuver them around and twist Roy’s arm behind his back.

“You bastard!” Roy roared and struggled furiously but a booted leg tripped him and they crashed on the sandy floor of the tent. Kimbley sat on him before he could buck him off and twisted his other arm behind his back too, curling his fingers around Roy’s own to prevent him from snapping.

“Easy, Mustang. Now, why did you attack a fellow officer, hmm? Do you want me to report you for such blatant misconduct? What was the punishment for it… Ah, yes, I remembered – 20 lashes.”

Roy tried to buck him off again but the man was pressed even harder, leaning forward to whisper in his ear:

“Unless you seize struggling right now, you WILL feel the bite of the whip. I promise you that. So, be a good boy and stay still.”

“You knew this would happen!” Roy accused furiously, even if he stopped struggling.

“I knew you’d come here begging for punishment?” Kimbley asked lightly.

“You knew how the Stone worked!” he clarified, almost choking on his anger.

“Ah, yes. Didn’t you like it?” he paused, and when he spoke again his voice dripped with honeyed poison: “Or perhaps you liked it too much it didn’t fit with the self-righteous, goody-two-shoes image you have of yourself. And now you need someone to blame?”

Roy growled gutturally underneath Kimbley and went still.

“That’s a good boy.” The other praised him. “And I was right, wasn’t I? About you liking it too much?”

“Why didn’t you warn me?” Roy asked softly.

“Now, where would be the fun of that? Besides, aren’t you pleased? You’re no longer in pain.”

“Pleased?” Roy spat. “How could I be pleased? I am becoming… you.”

There was a lengthly, tense pause.

“You’re saying it like it’s a bad thing.” Kimbley muttered unhappily.

“You’re a monster.”

“And yet you came here, to me, looking for answers.” Kimbley leaned forward again and Roy realized that his long brown hair was undone when the soft tresses fell like a curtain before his eyes. “And perhaps you came looking for support too, Roy.” He nestled his chin in the crook of Roy’s shoulder and continued “I understand what is happening to you, with you. Your friends wouldn’t, would they? The ice queen would try to knock what she thinks is sense into you and the other… what was his name, Hughes? He’d be disgusted. He’d abandon you. You can’t tell them that every time you use the Stone, you want to come so badly that you curse the fact that you’re not alone in the battlefield, that you’re surrounded by soldiers and you just can’t...” he sniffed his hair and his hips rocked suggestively against Roy’s ass “finish the way you want to.”

“Yes…” Roy whimpered softly, going slack under the other man.

A soft, hot, wet tongue traced the throbbing line of his jugular and he went completely boneless under the older man, tensing again and crying out when sharp teeth closed over the flesh Kimbley had just been licking. The pain shot through Roy like a shockwave and his first instinct was to try and throw off the man on top of him again, but Kimbley tenderly blew over the abused flesh and kissed it again, soothing the sting with his tongue. The mixture of pleasure and pain confused him initially and he remained tense when the man moved onto the other side of his throat, sniffing and mouthing and nibbling. Heat began to pool in his groin and he groaned with frustration.

Was such treatment supposed to feel this good? Roy was hardly a virgin, having had lovers from both genders – growing up in a brothel and having a pimp for a mother opened a wide range of possibilities for an adventurous young man – but he had never had a partner who was this forceful and aggressive. The vice-like grip on his fingers and wrists didn’t loosen until he suddenly heard the distinct ringing sound of Alchemic reaction as well as saw the faint reddish glow of Kimbley’s ability. His first thought was that the creep had turned him into yet another of his human bombs and raw fear rushed through until he tugged his hands and realized that the other had simply Alchemized his uniform sleeves together and tightened them around his wrists, effectively tying him up with his own clothes. Relief chased on the heels of fear and his arousal burned even more intense at that realization.

Not that he had much to be relieved about. He was lying on the sandy floor of the tent of a man who was little more than a sociopath, tied up and ridiculously aroused, and the aforementioned sociopath was meticulously removing Roy’s seal-marked gloves and dropping them onto the low table nearby, but still way out of Roy’s reach. He was helpless now, completely helpless, at the mercy of someone who terrified and infuriated and intrigued him at the same time. Roy certainly didn’t expect this helplessness to make him throb even more painfully in his own pants. He was leaking already, he was sure of it, soaking through his underwear and soon to stain his uniform.

Kimbley got off him and circled him like a stalking shark, then a booted foot turned him over and made him lie on his back in the sand. Roy looked down and for his mortification noticed that some of it was stuck on the wet spot on the crotch of his pants, a stain that just grew as Kimbley regarded him mercilessly with those odd reptilian golden eyes of his.

The booted foot pressed roughly between Roy’s legs and massaged him cruelly, carefully skirting the line that separated pleasure and pain.

“You’re enjoying this, boy.” Kimbley remarked as Roy’s thighs drew up instinctively and tried to hold his boot in place as he moved to pull back. “You’re enjoying it that I am treating you like this – like a common whore. I heard that your mommy had a brothel…” he paused and the smile that lit his face was positively manic “Is that where you learned his behaviour? Did you make money for your mommy?”

Roy’s mind cleared enough at the insult for him to see red and he growled furiously, trying to get up, wanting nothing more but to hurt the man making such outrageous, disgusting claims, but the boot pressed painfully close and he squealed helplessly when he felt his balls and cock squishing under the heavy sole.

“No? You didn’t?” the voice lost it’s viciousness and became honey-sweet again. “My mistake, Roy. I apologize.” He removed his leg and Roy tried to curl up, eager to protect his sensitive parts from more abuse but Kimbley was already kneeling next to him, keeping him open and vulnerable, his deft Alchemist fingers already undoing his uniform pants.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked sweetly as he pulled his pants and underwear down to his knees, his still aroused cock springing up, the engorged head deep purple in colour, wet and dripping onto Roy’s flat belly. “Not too much, I see.” Kimbley muttered joyfully. “Ah, well, still, let me show you how well I can make up for it.”

Kimbley’s mouth was unexpectedly soft and wet and hot and very, very experienced. He worked him like the most practiced whores Roy had been with in his life, employing everything he had to pleasure him – lips, tongue, teeth and throat. Roy was drowning in pleasure, his entire body aflame with need and ecstasy. He chanced to look down and met cold golden eyes, looking up at him with an odd, vicious intensity that had little to do with sex and everything to do with contol. It was the calm, calculating coldness of that gaze that drove him over the edge and he finished in Kimbley’s mouth, shaking and shivering, hips trying to drive his cock even deeper into the warm passage.

The other sucked and licked him clean and then carefully pulled his pants back up and tucked him in, putting him back in order. Roy just lay there, boneless with satisfaction, mind black and sated, even if his bound hands underneath him had long lost sensation.

Despite the discomfort in his arms he would’ve fallen asleep there, on the floor, but the damn booted leg poked him in the ribs.

“Oi, don’t fall asleep in here.”

Fingers turned him over again and he sprawled exhaustedly on his front, legs splayed wide. He felt Kimbley kneel between them and those long, bony fingers tenderly ran possessively over his sides, slid down and came to rest onto his upturned ass. Fingers grabbed his asscheeks through his pants, squeezed and massaged him hungrily and Roy moaned again but did not protest.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Roy?” the man behind him asked, the silken hiss sliding over him like oil over water. “Put my hard cock in that tight little ass of yours?”

The question was rewarded with another whimper.

“Or is it not so tight? Being who you are, I’m guessing that pretty behind of yours must’ve got a lot of action over the years.”

“You’re mistaking me for yourself, Kimbley.” Roy said, ignoring that his mouth filled with dirty sand as he spoke with his face pressed in the ground.

The hands on his ass tightened threateningly, to the point of bruising and he heard the man’s breath come out with a furious hiss. Had he hit a sore spot? Despite his situation, he couldn’t help but be glad.

“You DO want me to fuck you, Roy.” Kimbley told him flatly and pressed himself against him, letting him feel just how aroused he was, rubbing his own engorged cock against Roy’s behind through both their uniforms. He rocked slowly, torturously as he continued to speak.

“However, since you’re being such a little bitch, I won’t. Not tonight. Not until you beg me to.”

“Like hell I would.”

Kimbley gave an especially sharp, forceful thrust and fisted his fingers in Roy’s hair:

“Oh, you will.”

With that, he withdrew and actually had the grace to release Roy’s hands from the uniform. The younger man scrambled to get up and grab his gloves, quickly slipping them over his fingers.

“Whatever makes you think I won’t fry you for what you just did?” he asked, voice cold and hard like steel.

Kimbley smiled at him, shrugging delicately, seating himself on the little table he had put Roy’s gloves on earlier. The rickety piece of furniture creaked ominously under him but didn’t break. He was clearly still aroused if the prominent bulge in his pants was any indication.

“Because” he began “you can’t be sure I wouldn’t blow you to bits first. And more importantly, because you liked it. You want more and I am the only one who can give it to you without judging you. And I will give it to you, once you learn to ask properly.”

Roy’s jaw worked. His fingers itched to snap, to burn that leering smile off the bastard’s face, but he knew it would be a bad idea.

“We’ll see.” He said, turned on his heel and left without looking back.”