Scalded

Edward Elric, though he would be just as comfortable dumping a cold pail of water over his head in a field, had evolved, in Central and other civilized places, the habit of taking endless, blisteringly hot showers. He'd come in to report from the field stinking of dirt and sweat and blood, hot metal and machine oil, the ozone tang of alchemical battles; then hide himself in the officer's washroom late at night with the water hot as it would go, face full to the blast, until condensation dripped down the walls and soaked his clothes in the corner and grayed the shine of his watch. He never used soap. Just scalded everything away, stepped out with his skin pink and his automail steaming, and scoured himself red with a towel.

Roy Mustang, working late one night at his endless favor-currying, stepped into the steaming washroom with a roll of his eyes, relieved himself, heard a ringing, inhuman screech of metal, and narrowed his eyes. Fullmetal, he knew, was the only one who showered like this--thank goodness, at least, he did it late, leaving the heater to work all night to build up enough hot water for the morning rush. He left the toilet, peeked round the curtain--and the screech, he saw, was metal fingertips clawing, spasming, against the hard tile wall. Ed always showered in the far corner, hiding; he'd turned the head to blast him full in the chest where he was plastered against the wall, right hand twitching on the tile, left fisting his cock, swift and sure and tight.

Roy froze.

Ed, water running down his face and strands of bronze-wet hair sticking to his shoulders, was biting his lip, gasping just a little, almost silent. He caught the screeching through the sluicing of the water, moved his hand with a crease between his eyebrows, never breaking rhythm, so that the metal fingers dug into his thigh instead. His face was flushed pink, his lips red from where he'd bitten them; his breath was quickening, his hips bucking into his hand.

"Flame," he whispered, so quietly Roy almost didn't hear, his breath catching halfway through the word. "Flame," again, a little louder, a little fiercer.

Shallow panting, and he came, and the water washed it all away in an instant, and he slowly melted against the wall, metal hand falling back to the tile, still now, just a soft clatter.

The water was giving out. Roy could tell--the steam dissipated, the room didn't seem quite so hot. Ed began to hunch into himself, looking even smaller now; he shivered, whimpered, slid down the wall with trembling lip, bitten again, to sit and hide his head between his knees with the freezing water pouring down the back of his neck. Not crying, Roy told himself. Not really. Not quite.

After that, every time Ed reported back, Roy would go down to the basement when he left work, pull the lever to refill the mostly empty tank of hot water, and envelope it all in blue-hot flame, warming it up for Ed in a few minutes flat, with eerie shadows dancing over his face.