More Than You Know

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MORE THAN YOU KNOW

A Fullmetal Alchemist Fanfiction

R rated! - Published by CHIIKARA

Chapter Two: 13206

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Through thier painful ignorance of Hughes monotone chattering on the ride home, Roy felt relieved to stumble out of the packed car and take a look at his fermilar home. He almost forgot Ed's light pattering behind him, but all in all, the teen's silence made his heard beat faster. After his quick beating and release, the stubborn outlook pasted on his pale face during the auction had now faded into a stoic expression of hopelessness. The auctioneer had mentioned his strong reactions to physical abuse, but to hide so deeply inside of his shell was something the Colonel found unearthly, even revolting in it's own way.

Never the less, in the air of Ed's silence, Roy found himself walking to his house with a choked Ed, who's fingertips were currently wedged in the small space between his collar and flesh, fighting for air. Once the boy's struggle became apparent, Roy stopped and untangled the chain, frowning deeply.

He hesitated before deciding to take more of a leadership role. "Here's your new home, Xiao." he said strongly, turning to continue up the padio. Ed's reaction was bland save a slight flinch at the title dubbed to him.

Xiao. Gunpowder.

"Coming?" he snapped, taking another look back down at Ed, who was standing still, pulling the chain taunt. Ed stuttered softly, looking up at the Colonel with large eyes, and quickly bowed his head and stumbled up the stairs, muttering "Yes, Master."

Roy frowned. In a lighter way, he thought to himself, being called Master by a newcomer like him was on the same scale as him going from Edward to Xiao. But that was necessary, a slave would be more urged to forget about it's past life if it's name was different.

But soon the thought was shaken from his head and he thrust the door open and entered, closely followed by his new yet slightly shaken slave. Roy found himself watching with mixed feelings of impatience and pride as Ed turned large eyes on the estate, taking in every details. 'Probably not used to a clean enviroment.' Roy thought to himself as Ed slowly walked across the marble floor. 'The auction house was elegant enough, but the slaves were treated like animals.'

Ed stared curiously around the room, his fingers twisted together as a sort of nervous reaction, and then, feeling the Colonel's eyes on him, he straitened up, turning his gaze strait ahead so quickly that his hair snapped back into place over his eyes.

"You need to cut your hair." Roy said aloud, scratching the back of his neck.

"Yes, Master." was his stoic reply.

'But then again,' his mind carried on, 'he looks insanely sexy with it wild.'

"Ed's famous for his sexual ranking." the woman had said with a nasty laugh. "Enjoy him." The memory filled him with a sort of deep guilt that stared on the base of his thoughts and spread, but the Colonel found himself shaking his head, trying to brush the thought aside and replace it. Slaves were property. He could do whatever he pleased with Edward, anything his heart desired. And if he wanted Ed's hair to be wild, then so be it.

"Well," he continued his dialouge aloud, "We need to get you in some new clothes. A torn pair of shorts isn't much for you to be wearing in my estate."

"Yes, Master." But something seemed to be creeping back into his eyes. More light, more of a human dignity.

"Hn." he mumbled, stumbling upstairs in search for a decent pair of jeans. He could feel the slave's eyes boreing into his back and did his best to ignore it. After all, it was a new expierence.

For both of them.

---

Edward hesitated once the taller man was out of sight, and then, making sure no flash of those shiny black shoes or crisp uniform were in sight, he ducked down to the lash across his chest, which had been burning in the exposure to air. He put both hands on it, prodding it gently with his fingertips in a sort of vain attempt to check for strong stinging as a warning of infection. He was no docter, but he used the little information he knew to keep himself healthy enough to make it into a good home.

Of course, that all depended. Being healthy would raise his price, and that ment he would end up with someone who had more authority. He'd live in a better house, but there was no telling what his new master would be like. The way Ed saw it, if he didn't take care of himself, he'd end up in a slum with some broke pig who saved up for a good fuck to cheer himself up on bad days. Not that he hadn't had the same type of attitude with his old master. Personally, Ed always found himself inwardly cringing while the auctioneer read off his information. With the promise of hard work and a good night's screwing raising his price to an adverage of 30,000Y, mostly the bidders were richer men. However, he had been turned back twice before under the account of unloyalty and constant disrespect to his master.

Ed scoffed, putting a hand to his forehead at the memories. Both had been abuse, violating him whenever they had a hard day of work and thrashing him to the bone when he refused to play along. Each time the auctioneer said the same thing - doesn't know his manners, uncooperative, the works. But to tell the truth, that was the only part of Ed left that was still human.

When he had first been taken in as a slave in exchange for his brother's freedom and the promise of keeping his human alchemisy transmutation attempt a secret, he found his best memory was Al's reaction to his giving in. His younger brother had tried to cry, but only ended up in more pain because of the limitations on his body. "Don't go, brother." he had said, clutching those frighteningly cold steel hands to his chest. "I can't loose you now." But with the threat of his brother being taken in as an interesting alchemey result and tested on like an animal, Ed would rather sacrifice his own freedom, no matter how much it hurt Al. Besides, the promise of imprisonment, execution, or torture as punishment for the alchemy attempt in the first place was something he on his own would have to bear. Ed had told himself that living under another's thumb was better than going through goverment torture and living (or dying) with the knowledge that his brother was being treated horribly somewhere far away in a lab. And even now, he felt the same. But under the conditions of slavery, there was no turning back after that first yes. He didn't have a choice at all. And even if, at times, Ed confessed to himself that he'd rather die than work for another, he knew he would never commit suicide or turn himself in. Both would result in his brother being alone, being lost, without a family. And in every way, Ed would rather live under those conditions with the vain hope that he'd eventually see Al again than die knowing he let his only remaining family down.

When he had first been taken in, he swore to himself that he'd take the job as lightly as possible. 'I won't be their dog,' he had thought, 'I'll stand up for myself.' But there was a certain line in Ed's mind that a stranger couldn't cross, and they quickly crossed it. The first time he was given an order and hesitated, the slave trader had smacked him hard enough to see stars. It was a defenent shock for Ed, and while he stood swaying on the spot, the man had taken him by the wrist and led him off to the tests.

The tests themselves were simply to see what he strengths and weaknesses were so they could be read off for the auction. He dimly remembered being given orders around the house and trying his best to do so. That test was vaguely short and frustrating. They had all shaken their heads and marked him low in family skills and house work. The other tests were more his style - labor. He ended up with a decent score, something that gave him mixed feelings of regret for the result it would bear him in the long run. It hadn't lasted long, or at least, not long enough for him to become completely discouraged, but the test that left most of an imprint of him was sexual performance. It had both started and ended with an older man climbing over him and pressing his fist into the small of his back to pin the teen down against the matress. The slave traders had been watching, he remembered, and at first, while the man had taken a good handful of his hair and bent his head back as if he intended to slash open his throat, Ed felt his face grow red with anger. They were watching - sitting there with their legs crossed and actually judging how well he coped with rape. No matter how many times it was done or how many times he was told that that was all he was good for, his mind wouldn't accept the fact that his pride had been forced down so low. He remembered, even now, the first time it had been done. He had cried out and squirmed under the older man, face flushed with humiliation and pain. And afterward, to his surprise, the slave traders had exchanged grins. In the next auction he was horrified to her the auctioneer read of his high score in that perticular area. His face had never felt so hot with shame and self hate, and quickly the bids were raising.

The first dozen month at his new master's house went by in a strange blur. There was sex, oh yes, and there was also hard work from sunset to sunrise. But during the time, it seemed to Ed, he was in a trance. His mind seemed to have fogged over with disbelief and confusion, and, in a way, it seemed that year had gone by in less than an hour. He had gone through every day with a sort of emptyness as his protection, and soon he was being re-sold. "Worthless." His master had said. "Never listens, always struggling, no determination in work at all. But he'll fetch a high wad of yen."

His second master was a woman going by the name of Kami-May, a soft hearted lady who was slow to anger, but when she did cross that line, she was a monster. She had called him Nickolas, he remembered, after her dead son. That had given him nightmares in a way, imagining her working and beating her son had he lived. She seemed kind on the outside, but her interior was something Ed never understood. He lived at her house for a little over a two years, and he remembered every day perfectly. Every morning she'd make him brush her hair, and all the while, her eyes would change. She's whisper about the dreams she had that night, the dreams about Nickolas and about her ex husband. She would cry sometimes, and through the entire thing, Ed found himself in a bland state of horror. Her personality had been unpredictable, and he had never known when to brace himself for a blow or hide during a perticular bad morning. Sometimes, while he had softly ran the tangled brush through her dark locks, she had reached over and wrapped arms around his waist, closing her eyes. He would ignore it every time, though she would talk in a haunted tounge of her husband, and soon she had wrapped her fingers in his long bangs and forced his head down to hers. She never kissed him, never touched him, never talked to him during this, but simply parted her lips in a sort of dozed expression and kept him close to her body. There was something strangely erotic about it that had always made him increasingly uncomfortable, and once she had snapped out of her strange emotional trance, she would question him.

"Why are you looking at me so?" she had asked, "I always treated you well! Why are you acting so dark? Will you die on me too, Nickolas, dear? Will you leave me alone, alone to fend for myself?" In the end Ed almost suspected her to be insane, on the brink of breaking, and in the back of his mind, the threat of death began to fill him. Would he die like her son had done - would he, though the idea sent shivers down his spine, be murdered? It had ended quickly on a hot day in October. She had been laying, sleeping in the evening, and when he entered to straiten up the trinkets in her room, she had quickly forced him down on the bed.

He had struggled, determined and driven to not be taken by her greedy fingers, and soon she was beating him with her fists, crying, screaming about how ungrateful and horrible he was. Now that he thought back to the memroy, it seemed she hardly thought of him as a slave more than a replacement son and husband who came, willing to do her bidding. Insanity, he had thought during all those days of being alone in her darkly silent house. She's going to break one day, and I'll be the only one there to witness it. But he never did, because she quickly sold him to the auctioneer for 18,000Y, and there he had ment his worst slave trader.

The auctioneer was violent and dominient, demanding the best and standing watch at every test. He was merciless and harsh with every slave and kept the rules strict and coarse. Ed had ment other slaves during his time there, though, and it had become more and more worth while to retire in his bed at night while the auctioneer traveled to Central for the final sale. He had ment a lovely woman, a girl who had become something like a sister to him. She called herself Winry, and as firey as she was, she ended up becoming an obedient and popular slave in the other's eyes. He had ment a man as well, Seig, and another called Shou. Both were hauntingly kind as well as distant, but he had seen the last of them quickly. No goodbyes, no tears, no nothing. Just an empty look as they were led up to the auction block and sold to the hightest bidder. It was then that Ed found the first pangs of human anger working inside him. The first pangs of rebellion.

It had always been there on his information that he didn't know his manners - that he was rude at times and disobedient at others. But for the first time since he had been brought unto the trade, he knew why. There was a slim shread of humanity left in him, and that was it. Without his own self breaking through in it's own way - denying his master, no matter how harsh he or she was, the obedience they wanted. He had been beaten, tortured, raped, worked to the point of unmoving exhaustion, but never once had he been broken.

At least, not yet.

"Here we are..."

Edward almost jumped at the voice interupting his racing thoughts and found himself quickly jolted back to earth. He hastily straitened up and locked his gaze back ahead of him, trying to give a decent first impression to help him in the long run. Roy walked carefully down the steps with a pair of black jeans thrown over his shoulder, holding a wireless phone on his shoulder and chatting aimlessly.

"No, I didn't get the time to really look into those files." he said, tapping his index finger on his watch with an impatient air. "I'll show you at work tomorrow." He paused, listening, and mumbled something inaudiable and clicked the phone off, placing in tactlessly into his back pocket.

"Here." he said, holding out the jeans to Ed. He stared unblinkingly at them for a moment, and then took them hesitantly in both hands and voiced his thanks.

"Get changed, Xiao." he said, putting a hand to his forehead in an exhausted manner. "Almost dinner time."

He turned to leave.

---

Actually, it wasn't the bad. It wasn't that good, but wasn't that bad either. Roy's jeans were annoyingly tight on him, but they were warm, and in a way, they were comfortable. Or a least, more comfortable then those stupid shorts the slave trader had handed off to him. He felt strangly out of place walking shirtless in Roy's elegant estate, but it was something he was quickly growing used to. There was a tapping from the next room over, and Ed found himself wandering into the kitchen with an growing feeling or uneasyness.

"Hey." Roy greeted, raising one hand, and then sat down at the table, placing two fingers on his temple and rubbing gently as if greatly irritated. Ed hesitated, standing awkwardly next to the hallway. Finally, Roy spoke. "Grab two bowls of ramen noodles and heat them up, would you? I'm starved."

Ed nodded and dug through the bottom cabinet, searching for the ingrediants. Ramen had been one of his favorite dishes shared with Al back when they were young, so it was one of the few things he found easy to heat up and even easier to eat. He pulled out a packet of noodles in blue packaging, and shoved them in the microwave, leaning against the counter to wait for the timer to go off.

Roy's head was still down on the table, but he looked up when Ed placed the two steaming bowls of soup before him and backed off behind the table. Roy took a spoon and quickly dug in, his head bowed and untidy hair looking surprisingly dark from his new angle. Ed stood silently behind him, laceing his fingertips together and waiting for his next order.

After half a minute Roy leg go of his utencil with a sharp clacking sound and gave Edward a stern look. He hesitated, golden irises becomin hidden beneath wild bangs as he lowered his head, and then Roy softly asked, "Arn't you hungry?"

"Erm -"

"Come on, Xiao." he said, his voice sounding surprisingly motherly. "Why do you think I asked you to cook two bowls?"

Ed stared blandly at him for a moment, and before he could take a decent self control or manners into his own hands, he crossed over to the table next to Roy and simply stood there, waiting.

"Well, sit down." Roy said impatiently.

Ed tactfully lowered himself into the chair oposite him.

"You're so careful." Roy said in a voice that sounded both annoyed and fond, "Lighten up a bit." He took his spoon in one hand again and continued feeding himself, and after a moment's hesitation, he saw Ed do the same.

I guess it's no surprise, Roy thought, watching him through his spare shreds of hair that had fallen over his forehead during the light snack. He did grow up under the influence that any wrong move would be the death of him. 'Reacts strongly to physical correction', the auctioneer had said. And damn, had he been right.

Heavy eyes fell on him, and Roy glanced up to see Ed simply gawking at him, his mouth slightly ajar. In one hand he held a spoon halfway to his face and completely forgetten in spite of himself. The Colonel watched him awkwardly, wondering what on earth could be that matter. Almost a half a minute had passed before he realized he had spoken aloud.

"Wha -" Ed stuttered finally, and then his eyes widened even more and he bowed his head back down to go back to eating and simply pretend nothing had happened. But Roy watched him with interest, leaning his head on the back of one hand. He had already brought up the subject, and a piece of him knew that he wouldn't be satisfied until such a thing was finished.

"The auctioneer mentioned your reacting strongly to physical correction." Roy continued, waiting patiently for Ed to put down his spoon and raise his eyes to him. "In other words, you become obedient when beaten." He gestured to the slowly healing whiplash running across Ed's unclothed chest. "If I may say so, your eyes looked awfully empty on the drive back to my home."

Ed placed down his spoon with the sound clacking noise of steel against wood. There was something in this curt motion that sent an uncomfortable shiver down Roy's spine. He had the teen's attention now, but maybe, he thought, too much if it. His eyes at the moment were anything but empty. They were blazing with anger and full of the painful self control.

"Yes, Master." he whispered, but the words, although quiet, were harsh and churlish, giving Roy a shudder and bad aftertaste of his unsurpressed personality.

Roy laced his fingertips together, resting his chin on them thoughtfully. 'I will not touch this boy,' he thought, locking his eyes on the teen's head. 'If anything, the result will be increasingly interesting.'

The room remained silent save Ed's now slightly heavy breath and Roy's ocassional tapping of his index finger on the curved edge of his soup bowl.

---

"Welcome back."

She found the corners of her painted lips lifting slightly in a sadistic smile as the siloette of a young man strutted steadily toward her, his exterior changing from that of a young woman to that of a slender and strangely dressed male. Envy pressed one hand to his forehead and ran his fingertips thoughtlessly through his wild, slackened locks of emerald hair, taking a deep breath and knotting his hands together in a bored antic.

"Howdy." he said casually, giving her a small nod of his head as acknowlegement. "Not a damn thing in sight, not even Lt. Hughes seems to be going anywhere."

"Interesting." Lust commented thickly, leaning her head back a little and exposing her pale neck to the other. "You would think he'd be more dedicated when it came to matters like the Philosopher's stone."

"True." Envy mumbled, folding his bare legs beneath him. "But we all know he's a complete moron. With a new slave, too."

"Slave." Lust mumbled, turning half-hidden irises in his direction.

"Yep." Envy said, shaking his head slowly. "Winry Rockbell. And the Colonel, of all men, just got his filthy hands on the shrimp."

She stared blankly at her companion for a moment, jaw slightly slack, and then she promptly threw her head back and filled the room with the sound of her high-pitched laugher, shrill and unsettling. The other cocked an eyebrow, waiting for her to finish, but when Lust rested her elbows on her knees and revealed her blazingly dangerous eyes in the moment before she spoke, Envy's impatience began to turn over to satisfaction.

"Perfect." She whispered. "We'll be killing two birds with one stone. Oh, Envy, dear, I just can't wait."