If you do not know what non-con is, please stop reading now.

The brick ground into his back through his threadbare coat, he inched further into the alley to avoid the curious looks and stares. He tried to hold it in as long as he could but it just kept coming. Like an explosion in his lungs, ripping him raw and leaving him bleeding in it's wake. As the fit past, he could see the evidence in his palms. A fine red mist dotting his flesh and robbing his breath. He sagged there, he wasn't sure how long; but he had to get back. At least there was someone waiting for him now.

At least there was that.

He wiped his hand against the brick, if he couldn't dispel the blood there at least he'd have an excuse to why it was there. His very own plausible denial. This couldn't happen to him, not yet, not when he had so much to do, so much to accomplish.

He pushed away from the wall, giving his mouth a quick swipe against the rough fabric of his sleeve, and half staggered onto the sidewalk. Each breath was icy hell and the weight of his blueprint case of his shoulder tried to drag him down with every step.

This was no way to live and no way to die. It was simple, he would not die.

He sagged into the apartment, leaned on the wall just inside the foyer and managed to push the door shut with his foot. He licked his lips and grimaced at the metallic taste there.

"Oy, finally home are you?" came a voice from the room to his left. He opened his mouth to answer but found he couldn't, not because he didn't want to, but just because all he would manage would be a rasping gurgle.

I will not die.

It was unfair, as damaged as he was, that Edward was still the wholer of the two. Broken and delusional; his only ambitions that of a mad man. Other worlds, other dimensions, places between the stars, not beyond them. This was madness, pure and simple and for all it's illogic he clung to this mantra as if it was part of his very soul.

And yet, for all his lunacy there was brilliance. That shining thing just behind his eyes, it could carry him, carry them so much further if he'd give up this mad dream of living in a place that was like this place, only better. Living in a world that was brighter as this one was drabber; living with another person who shared a name and a face, even though Edward left that unspoken. No longer living in a dream.

But this wasn't a dream Alfons would ever have. Because in his dreams, he does not die.

"Alfons? Why are you fuckin' around in the hall like that? What's wrong?" Edward called again. "I was thinking about those equations you came up with, I think with some tweaking we can make them inter-spacial enough. I mean, if you really don't think the Gate is in the stars, I guess I better be looking down here as well. You listening?"

All the humoring in the world never gets him to shut about it. Alfons thinks, if I play along enough he'll be happy and he'll give me what I need, but no, he's a leech. He's perfectly capable of his own mathematics, why must he warp Alfons work? Doesn't he know that is all he has left to leave? He doesn't want it tied to basket case's prophecy. It's all he has to leave behind to prove he exists.

In case he were to die, but he's not going to die.

"Dammit, what are you doing? You ignoring me?" Edward calls. Alfons can hear the rustling of scratchy stiff sheets. He forces himself away from the wall, swings into the doorway, saying nothing. Edward blinks owlishly at him from behind his glasses. He's almost in for the night, in his nightshirt already and the leg is uncoupled, lying on the floor next to the bed. Discarding your limbs like you take off your slippers. It's unnatural, it should be weakness...why does he wear them like badges of honor?

"Those equations don't need your tweaking," he manages to grit out, the moves into the room, dumping his blueprint case at the foot of the bed. It clunks up against the box there, rattles of all of Edward's spare legs.

"Like hell," Edward says, shifting around some papers. "Kloosterman is writing on linear operators in Hilbert space, I think he might be onto something. I think we need to stop looking at just reaching the stars..."

"Shut up," Alfons snarled. "Don't use my equations for your damn nonsense, I've had enough tonight."

There is awkward silence then and Edward drops his gaze and shuffles notes angrily. Alfons is to tired and to sore to care; he makes it to the bed and sits on the end of it. The toe of his boot rests against the foot of the leg lying carelessly on the floor. He pushes it and it slide away, that is how mass works, something pushes against something else, lift is achieved. Things take flight.

"It's not nonsense," Edward's voice assaults him. "I told you, it's my home! I want to go back and you agreed to help me..."

"Not at the expense of my own intelligence, it's a wonder your crack pot lunacy hasn't made us a laughing stock," he felt the tickle then, deep down inside. He snapped his mouth shut, flared his nostrils to pull air.

"What the fuck is with you? You run hot and cold, I can't figure you out," Edward returns. In his voice is the want to bare his teeth, although he does not.

"Have you got your rent money?" Alfons suddenly asks, knowing Edward does not. He always manages last minute miracles, and Alfons doesn't ask questions. But something, anything to drag him away from his precious equations.

The legacy he'll leave behind when he's gone. It will be a long time before he dies.

"Yeah, I got that right here, turn your head while I pull it out of my ass," Edward snaps. "Don't you fret your pretty little Prussian head over it, I'll have it even if I gotta whore it out down at the corner," he's rolling his eyes then, stacking his papers.

Papers littered with his work, his ideas, his dreams. He doesn't want his dreams mixed into the melting pot that is Edward's descent into insanity, so he reaches out and snatches the papers away.

"The fuck?!" Edward snatches at them, the fingers of his false hand snagging the corner, but Alfons is relentless and the paper is not and it tears, half of it going with Alfons, half staying with Edward.

I don't want this to be what I am known for when I die! A lifetime might not be enough to distance me from it, I can't let it start now and worry about it when my hair is gray and I'm ready to die.

"Give me the rest of it," Alfons snarls and lunges forward, books topple to the floor and Edward snatches the paper away, putting it behind his back. It is a stalemate then, and Alfons snatches up the few remaining books on the bed and throws them to the floor, too. A composition book skitters out from between them as they hit the hardwood. This is Edward's cherished notebook, the one he keeps his wildest calculations in, the one that will take him home.

"Don't!" Edward shrieks, but Alfons is off the bed and reaching for it. Edward pushes himself and catches him around the waist, hanging from him and Alfons staggers and almost goes to his knees.

"What about your equivalent exchange, you want to foul my work," Alfons flipped the book open, scrabbled at the first few pages, the rumpled in his hand and he ripped them free. Edward flinched physically at the sound and tried to pull himself up Alfons body, still half on the bed, suspended between Alfons waist and the floor.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Edward screamed. "Don't do that, it's my notes!"

Hanging on him, draining him of his mind and stamina, sucking everything out of him, a opportunistic parasite that will have everything when he's gone because he wants him to die, to die and leave all his work to be perverted and twisted into this demented theory there was a world beyond this one that wasn't his own dream...

Alfons does go down then, the weight dragging him down. His foot hit Edward's leg, left laying there, sending it skittering under the bed. Edward cries out when he hits the floor and Alfons managed to stay on his knees, another handful of paper, useless, meaningless paper leaves the notebook and litters the floor.

"Fucking bastard, stop it!" Edward gets on his hands and one knee and surges forward then reaches to grabs his arm.

"This is my work! You can't take it because you think this is your dream!" He would bite at the book, rip at it with his teeth. He can barely see, barely hear for the pounding of his own heart.

This is my death! Don't you understand me?! I have killed myself and you would squander me and mock me through the offices of anyone who matters! All they will see will be this, that is left that you have seen fit to make ridiculous. I will die and all that will be left is this meaningless drivel!

"It's my work, too!" Edward shrieks and Alfons gasps at the sharp pain in his forearm and he realizes Edward is biting him.

"Can you smell it somehow?! This is how an animal behaves! He will be dead soon, let's devour him while he is still warm! I will not let you have ME, I will not let you take me down! I am STILL ALIVE!" Alfons hurled the book toward the door, intending to get up and chase it, finish destroying it in the hallway and let Edward lay there, only half a man and watch him do it.

"You stupid son of a bitch!" Edward wails, tearing his teeth free. "Give me that, I have to have that, I have to get home to AL!"

Alfons shoves him off then and Edward scrabbles on the floor to get his knee under him again; gaining that he makes a go for the book but Alfons catches him around the waist and hauls him back. Edward can only spare one arm to claw at the restrain around his waist, because he must use the other arm to stay balance on one knee. It's effortless to hold him this way, easy to defeat his might.

"Where is the equivalent exchange in this?" Alfons says from behind him. "I am the ideal, Herr Hitler says so, you are the burden that is holding down all of society. Useless and incomplete; it will be the mad house for you. I have been here for you. Without me, you would be starving on the street, cast off by your own father. Without me you would still just be the figure haunting the fringes of the university library, without me you would have nothing. But what have I gotten in return? You've added me to your dementia; you continually seek me even when I am right in front of you. There is no dream, Edward, for someone who has seemingly suffered you know nothing of pain."

"Don't you fuckin' compare yourself with Al," Edward hissed, trying again to free himself from the arm around his waist. "You're e nothing like him. If you didn't want me here you should have said so, but you were so fuckin' insistent." Edward dropped to a mocking tone, "It would be my pleasure, Herr Elric, if you stayed with me until you find a better situation," Edward looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes. "So fuckin' proper, you'd almost think you were honey-mouthing for a girl."

Edward was unprepared and when the shove came to the back of his head his chin hit the floor with a crack..

"So you say you don't have your rent money, but you could whore it out?" Alfons said brightly, "I think that can be arranged, Herr Elric. After all, with your looks, I'm sure you'd get a good price."

Edward made a choked sound of disbelief as his nightshirt was shoved up over his back and fingers dug into the waistband of his boxers. He scrabbled at the floor beneath him, but there were no fingers holes in the worn wood. He reached back to beat on the arm around his waist as his boxers were dragged down over his hips to pool in the crease of his knee.

Because I will die and this does not matter. You take what you wanted from me, I take what I have wanted from you. You can never see me for seeing through me, because I am only a dream. So, this should not matter, in the end, dreams do not matter.

There is no sufficient lubrication, so he wets his fingers and Edward shrieks garbled nonsense at the first touch in the cleft of his ass. He presses the tight ring of his anus and Edward strains trying to pull forward.

"FUCK ALFONS WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, LET GO," he cries. And it's almost a plea, but Edward pleads for nothing. He works his first finger in and Edward clenches on it so tightly it's almost delicious and he can't help but wet his lips and press his clothed and hardening cock against Edward's upturned ass.

Edward tries a new tactic, he drops to the floor and tries to curl up, pushing hard to expel Alfons finger, but he can't. It's easy for Alfons to keep him off balance, all he has to do is grab one of Edward's wrists and twists his arm behind his back.

"Don't, don't," Edward repeats over and over, like a phonograph stuck and he whines when Alfons bends his arm up to far. His voice is garbled from his cheek being pressed to the floor, Alfons would take pity, but he doesn't have to worry, this is only a dream, after all.

He sits up on his knees a little, reaches to undo his pants and free himself. At first he presses his cock between Edward's butt cheeks and enjoys the frenzy of motion this creates. Edward's attempt to free himself cause all sorts of enticing friction.

It takes a moment to line up; Edward is making it difficult, and he pushes up on his arm hard, this holds him still long enough for Alfons to get the head of his cock against Edward's anus and press forward. But as he does so Edward slides forward, because there is no resisting force; Edward is not pressing back. Alfons reaches up and grips the back of the nightshirt, pulling it toward himself, forcing Edward's head up and back, he hears the other man gag, but the distraction and leverage is enough to get him in. He sinks the head of his erection into Edward. This is not the way he imagined this to happen, but it will do because this is what he can take.

Equivalent exchange is give and take and Edward is whoring himself out for equations.

"ALFONS," Edward tries again, managing to lift his head from the floor, "stop! DAMNIT, stop, that fuckin' hurts!"

Pain in dreams is an illusion, Edward lives in an illusion, so pain doesn't matter.

So he does not stop, but he keeps pushing forward, until he is deep and warm. It's tight and good and the thrashing only makes it better. He releases Edward's arm now and Edward jerks it away. He keeps his grip on the nightshirt, he draws his hips back and then shoves forward again, he hauls back on the nightshirt to pull Edward back to meet his thrust.

"Bastard, BASTARD," Edward howls and sobs, and he tries to pull away, stretches one arm toward the leg of the desk, but he can't reach it and he slams his fist onto the floor. It's then that Alfons feels that tale tell tickle in his throat, that his next intake of air sounds wet and raspy and he huffs it out in a wheeze.

He doubles over Edward's back, hand instinctively coming up to cover his mouth and he coughs. Wet and raw, and it makes him jerk against Edward with no grace and his grip on Edward's nightshirt goes lax. Edward is use to fighting for his life and he can smell an opening a mile away, he swings an arm back and slams his palm on Alfons side, uses it to try and shove free. Alfons is forced to remove his hand from his mouth and seek a firmer hold. He closes his fingers tightly in trailing blond hair and jerks it back, the strands cutting into his flesh between his fingers and Edward half shrieks and reaches up to close his hand around the wrist of the hand yanking his hair.

With each thrust now is a cough; pronounced and ragged. His work and pleasure both drive him toward the grave. It doesn't matter now, it's all a dream. Just like the man beneath him, it will all fade away when he wakes up. If he wakes up, maybe he is already dead and this is his personal hell. Edward would be insulted if he knew he were in hell, because Edward does not believe in god; and without god there is no satan. And without satan there is no sin.

No accountability in dreams.

He focuses then on his hand locked in Edward's hair. He can see crimson in the blond strands, and he knows it is not Edward's, but his own. He is leaving his mark, this is what he will leave behind for Edward. Edward will never forget him now, Alfons will no longer be a dream. He can see the flecks of bloody spittle dotting along the white linen nightshirt that is hiked over Edward's waist, he can feel the liquid hanging on his lips, gathering in the corner of his mouth. His thrusts are growing shorter and quicker and Edward is no longer fighting, just grunting and keeping himself balanced with both hands flat on the floor.

Alfons knows resignation when he sees it. He's no stranger to the feeling himself, after all, he's going to die.

And then it's over, he even coughs through his orgasm and comes up with a shaky, rattling laugh at the end.

"Done?" Edward sneers, "Then get the fuck off of me."

Alfons nods, fair is fair, equivalent exchange.

He releases Edward's hair and puts his hands on Edward's ass and shoves back. Edward gasps as the exit as much as he did at the entrance, then he drops to the floor and curls up. He doesn't look at Alfons, only drags at his boxers and pushes at his nightshirt to get them back in place.

Alfons stays on his knees, trying to get air through his nose. It takes a bit of time before he can manage to get up to the bed and sit. He picks up the sheet and wipes his mouth; he then drops it, ignoring the red stain left behind.

Edward pushes himself up on his hip, he cautiously slides toward the composition book still lying near the door. Alfons makes no move to stop him. Edward has paid his price, if Alfons were to destroy the book now he would be in Edward's debt and he can't have that.

He watches Edward grab the book, pull it close then scoot around retrieving the pages. His silence is strange and glaring; Edward always has an opinion. But once he's gathered the pages of his book, he moves to lean against the desk on his hip so he can straighten them out and put them back in the order they originally were bound. Alfons tries to stand but has to sit again; mobility requires more oxygen than he can take in at the moment.

"I'll get the fuck out of your way," Edward finally says. "And if you touch me again I'll fuckin' kill you," he adds.

"You have nowhere to go," Alfons finally returns and this time he does get to his feet. "Besides, your rent is all paid to the end of the month now, might as well stay."

He saw the painful twist of Edward's features; the truth hurts.

I am going to die.

"I mean it," Edward says shakily, he can hear the tremble in his voice, the fight with his emotions, " you ever try that shit again, I'll rip your throat out... you fuckin' son of a bitch..."

Offering him a hand up was probably not going to be appreciated, so Alfons made his way to the door, he paused in the hallway outside.

"I never wanted to be in your dreams, remember it was you who invited me in," Alfons said, before disappearing down the hall.