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There are some things alchemy cannot do. Roy has been making a list in his head. Alchemy cannot restore a lost life. Alchemy cannot bridge the differences between peoples. Alchemy cannot find a humane solution to this conflict. Alchemy cannot provide enough water in the desert for them to get away without rationing.
The dust and smoke and sulfur of the day's patrol clings to him as he makes his way across the camp. He passes his own tent without stopping -- on the nights when he's had a patrol, but he's not in rotation for the showers, the lingering scent of death on his skin makes it almost impossible for him to sleep. He might as well get what distraction he can.
Kimberly likes him better like this anyway.
The alchemists are spread out across the camp, not quartered together. It was one of the regular brass who put that policy in place -- supposedly it's to keep them from being as vulnerable to a suicide attack, but Kimberly says it's because the regulars are scared of them, scared of the destructive potential they represent when they're together. Spreading them out, though, means they're scattered across the camp like the points of an array -- the bitter irony of it is that they're more dangerous like this. It expands their blast radius. Roy's sure Kimberly has come to a similar conclusion.
He needs to stop thinking about what goes on in Kimberly's head.
Only about half the alchemists share tents. The rest are unstable or antisocial enough that they get privacy even out here. Kimberly, of course, is one of those. His tent is at the edge of camp, as close to the perimeter as the regulations allow. When the sandstorms sweep in, they hiss and howl against the canvas, and Kimberly lies on his cot in the dark and hums contentedly while the rest of camp worries about damage or ambush.
Roy tugs up the tent flap. "You home?"
"The doctor is in," Kimberly answers. "What can I do for you, major?"
Answering that one is always awkward. Roy ducks into the tent. The flap's down on the other side so light can come through the screen, but compared to the blazing sun outside, it's still dark. The air smells like copper and sulfur.
"Ugh," Roy says, before he can help himself. "It smells like a slaughterhouse in here."
Kimberly laughs. "That's a few miles further down the road, I think. Weren't you just there?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Roy says. He remembers children screaming, the crisp roasting smell that made his mouth water before the war but now just makes him sick.
"That's your specialty," Kimberly says, "not mine." Roy's eyes are adjusting now, so he can make out Kimberly's face in the dim light, the smooth untroubled expression, the reptile interest. "What should we talk about instead?"
Roy shrugs out of his jacket and drops it by the edge of the tent. It's too hot, and nobody will care about regulations in here. "I don't think I want to talk at all."
Kimberly makes an amused noise, too flat to be a real laugh. "You only love me for my body," he says.
"Don't be perverse," Roy says. He watches Kimberly arch up off his cot and strip out of his undershirt. "I don't love you."
"That's not very kind," Kimberly says. There are dark smudges on his bare arms. Roy hopes they're soot and is glad there isn't enough light to be sure. "I'm your best chance of making it through this war."
"I can watch my own back," Roy says shortly. He unbuttons his shirt, takes that off too.
"That's not what I mean," Kimberly says, "and you know it." He rolls his hips, squirms his way out of his shorts. He looks hungry all the time, his limbs lanky, his stomach concave between his ribs and his hips. It's like whatever's wrong with him is eating him alive, using his body for some slow-burning transmutation of flesh into cruelty. Roy doesn't want to look at him, can't look anywhere else. "You need me. I'm not afraid. I know what you've done. I don't care. I'm enough of a monster to make you a man again by comparison."
"I said I don't want to talk," Roy answers.
Kimberly has the ugliest smile he's ever seen. "You don't have to, then. Come here." He snakes out one bony hand to grab Roy by the waistband of his trousers, and pulls him down onto the cot. There's not really enough room, and they're a tangle of knees and elbows until Kimberly manages to get Roy on his back, straddling his thighs, tugging his pants open with hands almost as merciless now as they were on the battlefield. Roy's not hard. Kimberly handles his cock with the impersonal, focused attention of a surgeon.
"You don't love me," he says. "So are you thinking of someone else? Some pretty girl back home?" He doesn't sound angry, but Roy doesn't trust his voice any more than his smile. "Jerking off over the sweetheart you left behind, and coincidentally up my ass at the same time?"
Roy shifts, makes a half-hearted attempt at getting up. Kimberly doesn't move. "If you don't want to do this," Roy says.
Kimberly's hand tightens until his grip almost hurts, and Roy flinches when that feels almost good. "Answer me."
"No," Roy grits out. "There's no girl." There have been a lot of girls, but remembering any of them, here, now, only makes it worse. "I try not to think at all."
"So I'm the whiskey bottle you're crawling into." The long tail of Kimberly's hair slides forward, slithering over his shoulder like a dying snake.
"Stop," Roy says. His hands clench in the sheets. He hates the days when Kimberly gets in this mood.
Kimberly looks down, spits on his hand, on Roy's cock. "You don't want me to talk either? So picky." The slickness doesn't last long, but it's enough to get Roy hard, stiffening against Kimberly's strokes by the time they grow rough with the drying spit. It's grotesque, in the desert, the waste of fluid. The fact that spit is a luxury at all. Kimberly does it again.
"Come on," Roy says. This was a bad idea, a bad day to come looking for comfort. The same horror that makes him sick makes Kimberly stronger. He needs to do this quickly, get out, go wait in line for the one telephone on base to try to reach Maes in Central if he's hard up for human interaction.
"Heartless," Kimberly says. "I like that about you." He doesn't wait, doesn't even spit again, just leans forward and braces his weight on one hand, flat against Roy's chest -- both of his hands on Roy's skin now, and like always the moment of hopeful dread, and then the relieved disappointment when no pain comes -- as he moves. When he gets Roy lined up, he pushes, slow but relentless, his lips curling back from his teeth in a grimace. He's hot, feverish, almost too tight and definitely too dry, enough that it's not really comfortable for Roy and can't feel good for him.
"Kimberly," Roy says, despite himself, when it's clear that Kimberly's not going to be dissuaded by the pain. "You don't have to --"
"You want it to be easy," Kimberly says, and his tone is casual but his voice shakes. "You want things to be easy in all the wrong ways." He rests both of his hands on Roy's chest, his weight bearing down in rhythm as he rocks in Roy's lap, like he's forcing air into Roy's lungs. "You want fucking me to be easy when it's not. You want killing people not to be easy when it is."
"I don't," Roy protests. He tries to breathe against the pressure of Kimberly's hands. The effort aches. "You can stop -- we don't have to -- I'll leave --"
Kimberly's eyes flutter half-shut and he croons, low in his throat. "You don't want to pay the price for anything," he says. He's moving steadily now, barely raising himself up at all, just shifting on Roy's cock. "The price of fucking a man is hurting him. The price of having power is using it. The price of rejecting power is having it used against you."
"No," Roy says. "No, no." He tries to struggle now, too late, and Kimberly snarls, digging his fingers into Roy's skin. "It's not like that. There's -- power isn't always about violence."
"Yes," Kimberly answers. "It is. There's only violence you can see, and violence that hides." He's breaking out in a sweat, either from the heat or the pain. Maybe both. "There's the law, or there's your backward desert tribe's religion, and you believe those things and you live by them. And then one day you don't live by them anymore, and then you get locked up or shot or your stupid savage neighbors throw rocks at you until you die. That's power. That's what it means. That's what it does."
Roy shakes his head, trying to find an answer, trying to find a counter-example, and he knows that a year ago his answer would have been alchemy, but that was before he ever saw combat. "No more," he says. His voice is shaky now, too. "Don't, Kimberly."
Kimberly smiles, the wide lizard smile that makes Roy's stomach churn. "You make such pretty noises." He licks his lips. "Planning to use your power at all, or are you giving it up?"
It's Kimberly's version of kindness, not making anything easier on him but giving him an answer if he'll take it. Roy reaches for Kimberly's cock. "Shut up," he says. "I hate you."
"You hate yourself," Kimberly says, closing his eyes with a faint blissful smile as he rocks into Roy's hand. "You hate the colonel for ordering you into the field. You hate the regulars for needing us to step in. You hate the fucking savages for not surrendering so we can go home."
"I said shut up," Roy pleads. "Stop it, Kimberly." He jerks Kimberly off harder, too hard, his hand rough and moving fast.
Kimberly makes a terrible, animal noise, raw and feral. "There you go. Good military solution, more force." His voice is tight with pain, still -- he can't be having a good time. The skin is sweat-slick where his hands press against Roy's chest. "Shut up, we don't care about your reservations. Shut up, we don't believe in your god. S-sh --" and Roy pushes hard, thrusts more in anger than anything, makes Kimberly lose the thread of his tirade. He snarls, teeth bared, but he doesn't say no, never says no unless Roy has just said stop, and his face is twisted in pain but his cock is still hard in Roy's hand --
And when he comes his whole body flinches inward and he makes a sound like a grieving child, one thin, taut sob. Roy shudders to a stop.
"Get up, Kimberly," he says. He can't go through with this.
Kimberly shakes his head. "Finish," he demands. "Stop being such a coward."
Roy has to close his eyes, has to not think about the way Kimberly flinched, has to try to block out the harsh hissing breaths Kimberly takes as he thrusts. "I don't," he protests. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Still cringing," Kimberly whispers. His fingers flex, digging into the muscle of Roy's chest. "Is it so hard, to let someone else play the victim?"
"It's not that," Roy protests, and he wants to be sure he's telling the truth but oh god, it's so much easier to do this the other way -- and then the air crackles between them with the promise of alchemy, and Kimberly's hands heat against his skin, tingling -- and Roy thrashes, coming, jolted by fear even when he knows Kimberly wouldn't transmute him when the reaction could so easily take them both.
When he dares to open his eyes, Kimberly's smirking at him. "Feel better?"
"No," Roy says. He doesn't know what he's going to do, if even Kimberly won't give him an escape now.
"Pity," Kimberly says. He leans forward, bracing his hands on either side of Roy's head. At first it looks like he's just trying to lift himself off Roy's cock, but then he keeps moving, leaning down, and Roy flinches but not soon enough to keep Kimberly from kissing him, wet tongue swiping across his dry lips. "I did what I could."
Roy turns his head. "I know."
Kimberly slides off him, and shrugs. "We're done, then. You can see yourself out."
"Just like that?" Roy says. He feels numb.
"Just like that," Kimberly says. "You don't come here for love and kindness, remember?"
Roy nods stiffly. "Right," he says. He gets out of Kimberly's bed, and reaches for his clothes.
"See you on the battlefield," Kimberly says.
He's humming to himself, when Roy leaves.