There are very few people who know what Ed did to get his arm and leg or Al his body, and fewer who knew why they'd done it. Winry and Pinako know, and Roy, and a few assorted others with varying degrees of understanding.

Of all the people who know, the only one who doesn't judge them for it is Roy Mustang. There were others, once or twice, but they've since died, or left, or simply hide their responses instead of not having one. Armstrong, for instance, looks at them and tries to figure out a motive: You must have been desperate he rumbles at one point, attempting to discern why two young boys could break the worst taboo. And: You are good boys, loving brothers. That is a judgment in itself.

But Roy doesn't judge, and Ed's not sure how he feels about that.

Roy never asked who or why, though at some point he must have found out, because he knows the details.

(Perhaps, Ed thinks, closing his eyes tight against Roy's gaze, he checked the grave before coming. Perhaps he checked our house after Al had already carried me out, and saw that on the ground there. There are other possibilities but he dismisses them; Roy hadn't seen or talked to either Pinako or Winry long enough to find out from them. And so he must have checked the house or the grave, Ed decides, and he's turned this thought over in his mind before, hasn't found a satisfactory response. He tightens his fingers on Roy's shoulders, tips his head back as Roy's mouth passes down his throat.)

Roy's an alchemist. He should judge them for that, and perhaps that's why it bothers him. There should be something in his eyes except acknowledgement. Disgust that they broke the greatest taboo, or awe that they survived it. He'd been impressed but not awed at their survival, had responded calmly, coolly, inviting them to come be useful to him while they were useful to himself. There had been no disgust.

He's not done human transmutation, Ed knows that much. Roy's not done human transmutation. If he had, he would have been more horrified that they had. He hadn't seen the truth, hadn't looked in its eyes. But.

He understood, somehow, and that was the most disturbing part.

"You're thinking again," Roy says, and his voice is calm despite his nudity. He presses a kiss to the exposed wires under Ed's arm.

"Some of us like to," Ed says, roughly, and tangles one hand in his hair. "Don't touch that."

"Why?"

Ed doesn't have an answer, and so he raises his arm further to allow Roy more access. They're pressed together in hot, slick heat and he shudders, rubs as Roy traces circles of saliva on the cool metal of his arm, midway down, after the wires have disappeared again. He can't feel much from it, not enough to know what circle Roy is making, with his tongue, and on one level it doesn't matter, because a circle made of saliva has no power, it's not visible, and only someone who's touched the truth can make an invisible circle, a human circle like that. That's one level. Still, it matters. He wants to recognize it. He wants to know.

(Knowledge, he thinks vaguely and presses Roy's head away from his arm, back to his chest where Roy kisses scarred and healthy flesh with equal and measured enjoyment, where Roy's belly is pressed maddeningly firmly to his groin and he moves, shifts, gets leverage with one foot on the bed and the other, the automail one, pressing up against Roy's hips, is a dangerous thing. It's not even the using it, it's the knowing it. It's just - something.)

"You studied human transmutation," Ed says, huskily, and Roy raises his head, looks at him, sighs.

"Yes."

Ed presses him further down, urging Roy's mouth down his chest, down his belly, down. "You didn't do it."

"No," Roy agrees, and slides his mouth along the length Ed's cock.

Eyes closing tight, Ed asks, through gritted teeth: "Why?"

Roy's silent a long moment and Ed wants to protest that, wants not to protest that, hangs between two extremes and buries his fingers in Roy's hair.

"Because," Roy murmurs, eventually, breath gusting. "There were too many reasons not to."

And there, he knows, and he knows that Roy knows enough to understand but not to judge. Most people would judge anyway. And that's enough.

"You're talking again," Ed husks. "Stop that."

Roy smiles, and lowers his mouth to Ed again.