Perfect Circle
Cephied Variable

"The gate is like..." Edward breathes in deep, and exhales his words, "The gate was like... dying and being reborn all at once." his fingers smooth down the wrinkles in Roy's shirt, circling buttons and slipping beneath the fold in the fabric, "It's not quite pain, but there's no joy either- the feeling is empty but... but..." he carefully slips the first button open, "But..." the second button, "At the same time, you're full of knowledge- all the knowledge in the entire world- until it feels like you're going to explode."

Roy waits patiently as Edward sits back on his hips, drawing his hands up to rest on Roy's shouldes. The young man lifts his head and stares past him, his tanned skin nearly aquiring a faded pallor in the white moonlight, "That's not quite it either," he mutters, shaking his head slowly, "There's no urgency or violence or... anything, really. Inside of the gate it's like you can see one end of the universe and you can see it connecting to the other end- except that both ends are attatched and it makes a loop, a perfect circle. It's all interconnected and it never ends- kinda like an alchemical array. There's a reason and rhyme to everything, the problem is that no one has broad enough vision to see anything more than a few pieces at a time. When you're in the gate, you see it all. You see the entire array in one snapshot and suddenly it all makes sense."

Roy reaches up to brush Edward's bangs out of his eyes. The blonde blinks as if coming out of a trance and turns his gaze towards the older man curiously, "It sounds..." Roy searched for an appropiate word, "Incredible."

Ed's lips twitch up in wry, sad grin, "No. It's horrible. It's something that people were never meant to see, and something that we most likely should never see."

Roy is aware that this is a delicate situation. Edward is moving slow tonight and honestly is falling from his lips almost unbidden. There is a dark overcast in his eyes, a slight tremble in his hands and something unnervingly even about his tone. It's as this is a dream and Edward is sleepwalking and sleeptalking through the night- Roy is afraid to speak, or to move lest he break the fragile quiet and snap Edward back to reality.

"You wanted to know why I don't use alchemy anymore, didn't you Mustang?" Edward's two hands- one flesh, one metal- slide down his arms, slide up his sides and come to rest beside one another on Roy's chest. The curve of the boy's shoulders make an arch, not quite a loop, but Roy picks up on the unintentional implications anyways . He meets Ed's gaze and dares to cup his hand at the back of the blonde's neck and drag him down into a deep kiss. His hands travel down Edward's back, tracing the line of his spine beneath his shirt and coming to rest lightly on either side of the boy's narrow hips. Edward stifles a noise in his throat and digs his nails into Roy's shoulders, indulging breathlessly before pulling away with a hoarse gasp.

"I saw where alchemy starts." he hisses between his teeth, "I know where it comes from."

Roy has never been one to believe in equivialent trade in a relationship, however there is something in Edward's eyes that sends a shudder through his body. It's a rare sort of raw honesty that he has never asked for and most certainly never expected from Edward Elric of all people. He sits up and the blonde pulls away hesitantly, gold eyes following Roy to the bookshelf where his hands instantly find the old, dog-eared notebook (he's never really forgotten when he put it- those notes have never been far from his mind). He sits on the edge of the bed and tosses the tome to Edward before buttoning the top of his shirt. The silence is beginning to get to him, and honesty is a double edged blade.

Edward leafs through the book wordlessly, the sound and scratch of aged paper filling the room as the blonde's eyes move back and forth, back and forth across the yellowed pages, "You were missing a numeral here," he says finally, passing the book, hanging half open, to Roy, "And your calcium ratios were off by one and a half grams." a pause and Roy lets the book fall close, "You would have died."

"I know." Roy answers too quickly, "I knew." and he doesn't need to say anymore for Edward to catch the undercurrent of that statement. That's what I meant to happen.

There is movement on the bed, and suddenly Edward presses his body against Roy's back, fitting the older man's shoulder beneath his chin. Roy stiffens for a moment because this is very unusual. Edward isn't one for stillness or for closeness. He relaxes when the blonde's arms wind around his waist, joining in the middle of his stomach, a perfect circle.