Better Living Through Alchemy

“FALL BACK! FALL BACK!”

He was screaming but no one could hear him, he could hardly hear himself above the crackle and the gunfire, the screams and the snapping.

Someone grabbed him, to his right and he flinched hard and caught himself before he swung his hand around to snap in their face. Havoc was there, he had him by the arm, he was shouting something and forcing Roy along and the General was shouting back, but he didn't know what.

The men, he couldn't leave the men, what was Havoc doing?

“Getting you out of here! We don't know what we're dealing with!” he heard Havoc shouting, but it seemed far away.

There were men screaming behind him. He tried to pull his arm from Havoc's grip, (damn the man's advantage in height and strength!), but Havoc was having none of it.

“Don't force me to order...,” he got out before something barreled down on them. He hardly had time to glimpse it, in his peripheral vision it looked like a massive black ball. He was knocked to the side, stumbled and hit the wall of an old building before falling to his knees and looking up.

“Alchemist!” the ball chortled merrily, shaking all over.

“GENERAL GET DOWN!” he heard Havoc shout behind it, and then the sound of a rifle lever being pulled. He flatted out, throwing his hands over his head. The rapid ratta-tat of gunfire vibrated through his entire body and the ball, so jolly the moment before, started shrieking high and long and turned from him toward Havoc and his weapon.

“GENERAL RUN,” Havoc was yelling. “GET A FUCKIN' MOVE ON, SIR!”

Roy got to his knees, and then his feet, extended his hand toward the black blob that was advancing on Havoc.

“DON'T DO THAT SARAH LIKES MY EYEBROWS, JUST MOVE, GET SOME DISTANCE, I'LL CATCH UP,” Havoc was screeching as he slowly retreated before this thing, baiting it with gun fire.

Retreat, regroup.
The General turned and ran.

**

He pushed his hair down into the collar of the borrowed uniform. It was too big. It was long in the sleeves and he had to cinch the belt as tight as it would go. His toes came nowhere near the end of the boot and it rubbed his flesh heel. But it would do.

It had to do.

Cain had already loaded the radio equipment into the back of the short truck and Ed was squeezed between he and Breda in the small cab.

“Just let me do the talking,” Breda said, “and keep your head down. Pull that hat over your eyes.”

He could hear the buzz through the half opened window of the truck as they reached the site. Machinery and generators, the glow of artificial light against the gloom, just to stave off the darkness until the approaching morning. He forced himself to keep his eyes glued to his clenched fists in his lap when the truck shuttered to a stop down the block from the old church.

“What is this?” the sentry on duty asked, poking his nose in the window. Another sentry circled to the passenger side of the truck and Cain cracked the window on that side as well.

“What's it look like, radio gear,” Breda snorted. “And for this they drag me out of bed. So what did the brass fuck up this time? We having a war on religion?”

“Who requisitioned this gear?” the sentry on the passenger side said, taking a minute to study Ed and then look again at Cain.

“General Mustang,” Cain said, holding up a few rumpled sheets of paper. “It's special long range gear, we would have gotten it here earlier, but we had to drive to get it...”

The sentry on Breda's side of the truck made an impatient motion with his hand and Breda leaned across Ed and snatched the papers from Cain's grip, then shoved them through the window to the man outside.

The second sentry came back around then, and they both stood, trying to read the papers together. Ed shifted and took a deep breath. Cain bumped knees with him, and Breda rumbled.

“Ok,” the first sentry said, “this seems to check out. Drive your truck down the block past the second barricade and unload there. One of the guys down there will get you to the communications set up,” he pushed the papers back through the window to Breda and stood back, waved his hand to send them through.

They cleared the second barricade and the truck bounced when Breda pulled it over and half up onto the curb. Ed took this as his signal to get out, and he started to climb over Fuery in his quest to escape the truck, but a large hand closed around the back of his neck. The thick fingers where hot against his skin despite being muffled by his hair and Breda growled at him.

“Hang on, boss,” and he gave Ed a little shake, like R.D. worried his chew toys and Ed tried to snarl but really he almost felt like he wanted to curl up.

“Now I know,” the large red-haired man started, “you just wanna run in there. I know, because you know even though I'm not... I mean, you know the General and all, I'm not...,” with his free hand he rubbed his face a moment. “Anyways, I know what you're thinking because I've known you a long time. But you can't do it that way, that's the kids way and you were lucky. You can't think like that anymore, because you aren't that anymore. You got a brain, and you gotta use it, right? So just take it slow. The General, he ain't gonna lay down, curl up and die, so have some faith in him.” Breda slowly relaxed the grip on the nape of Ed's neck.

Ed reached up to rub where Breda's hand had been. He gave the man a half scowl from behind his bangs, then nodded tersely.

“So, what is your plan?” he asked quietly.

“Falman is already here,” Cain said. “He's suppose to meet us, tell us about the operations here and how we might get in,” Cain opened the door of the truck and slid off the seat and stepped back to let Ed follow him out.

Ed dropped to the ground, said nothing and followed Fuery to the back of the truck. There, together with Breda, they loaded themselves down with satchels and cases and all manner of things to make this look official. If you were carrying things the general military consensus was you were doing your duty, and thus, had a right to be there. With Fuery in the lead, the duty-ladened trio set off for the temporary command headquarters stationed in a tent just in front of the church steps.

Edward gazed up at the portal to heaven that was more accurately a portal to hell. It was here the Tringhams led him, here he left everything behind to start Al anew. Far underground though a man-made gateway no less terrifying than the one between worlds. He took a deep breath and came to a stop just outside the tent. Fuery went in and Breda fished around in his pockets and pulled out a crumbled pack of cigarettes. The waiting was interminable. He resisted the urge to poke his head in the tent, to start questioning Breda, to fidget dammit, he wasn't even allowed the luxury to express all the anxiety coiling up his spine and nibbling at the nape of his neck.

A sharp voice broke his near implosion.

“I've been waiting on that, bring it this way!” Ed snapped his head around and raised his eyebrows. He'd never heard Falman so much as raise his voice, let alone give an order. Breda grunted like all the world was upon his shoulders as he leaned down to pick up his cases. Ed hurriedly followed suit, slinging the strap of one over his shoulder.

“Yeah, hold your damn horses, we're coming,” Breda said, spitting his cigarette, still smoldering onto the street. Fuery appeared out of tent and brought up the rear as the trio followed Falman's stiff-backed lead. When they appeared to be far enough away from the real hub-bub, Ed quicken his pace to come up beside the tall, white-haired man.

“What have you heard?” he asked, trying not to sound as antsy as he felt. “How long have they been down there, what was the last communication, how do we get in?”

He needed to know, he needed to know these things so he could go and get Roy. Go and get Roy and take him home.

Falman raised one hand as they walked up a smaller set of stairs and he nodded briefly to the solider at the door. He took them down a small hallway that ran into the side of the church proper, parallel to the main hall and stopped briefly outside a doorway. He knocked once, tersely, mouth pulled down and waited. There was no sound from within the room, so he turned the knob, poked his head inside then stepped in, waving for them to follow.

The room was small and somewhat dim. It had the smell of dust and old books. Nothing adorned it in a way that stood out. Just a scratched desk, a slouched back wooden desk chair and some book shelves listing against the far wall. They sat their cases down and Cain immediately commandeered the desk for his, opening them and starting to unpack equipment.

Falman listened at the door a moment, then nodded briefly to Fuery.

“Ok,” Cain said as he started to situation the radio equipment on the table. “The plan is that you and Breda are going to go down and set up a relay station at the post leading into the underground city. That should get you as far as the first mezzanine.” He looked up at Ed then. “We're hoping that from there you can just...wing it. That seemed to be your modus operandi when you were really one of us.”

It was certainly meant as a vote of confidence, as to be perfectly honest his loose cannon ways had served him well in his youth. After all, his true talent wasn't alchemy, it was flying by the seat of his pants.

**

It was easier than it should have been. He just slipped away unnoticed and thanked Breda for his delightfully loud and raunchy mouth.

Down and down and down and down. Over and over and after a while he didn't try to muffle his footsteps. Metal muted by leather on cold stone. He shucked the jacket near the bottom, leaving it lying like a proverbial bread crumb he would follow back. He would follow it back, Roy would be with him. They would have to climb all these fucking stairs to get home and then Roy would indulge him in a nice long hot bath, and wash his hair and grumble about politics.

All he had to do was find him and bring him back to the stairs. It would be as easy as pie, which they would also have, in the hot bath, with the hair washing.

The sight that greeted him would have momentarily suspended the belief of many men. The vast emptiness of the completely filled cavern. The high aqueduct like bridge encircling it for all the gawkers to gather upon. But it was nothing more than a maze, and he was a prize rat and here he was again to run this race; here he was again to find his reason for being. The gloom was a pallor and it hung, just above his head it seemed. But it was never so dense as to deny him light enough to see his way through the streets of a city that gave new breath to nonvocal. A place that exhaled death and dust even as he struggled to breath within it.

He stumbled once, and caught himself. He looked in mild curiosity at the gun lying there in the street, he steadfastly ignored the still clutching hand of the arm that lay near it, draped in blue and all alone, missing it's entirety.

For one absurd second he gripped his own right arm and hurried ahead, listening and then ruefully acknowledging the oxymoron of 'hearing' nothing.

Brother, don't make the same mistake twice.

I will do it, if I have to.

Brother, don't leave us behind again.

What good am I really? I have never learned how to live alone.

Brother, it's not what he would have wanted.

He came to a stop and looked upwards, eyes traveling up the spire of a bell tower, still off in the distance. Everything was so enclosed to be so far away.

“You know what, Al?” he whispered to everything and nothing. “I think I'm tired of thinking about what everyone else would have wanted. I think, just this once, I'll think about what I want.”

He wanted Roy. He wanted his infuriating, exasperating, manipulative, beautiful General, and he wanted to go the fuck home.

“Ok,” he told himself, and gave a small smile that might have not seem quite sane in any other life time. “Let's do that, it's about time I listened to you for once.”

He didn't get another ten feet before something bowled him off his feet and clamped a firm hand over his mouth and dragged him into an alleyway across the street.

**

If only he didn't need to breathe.

Without his breath there would be no noise. There would be absolute stillness.

If only his heart didn't need to beat.

Without his heart, his ears would not be pounding, his ribs would not be aching and he would not be feeling like it might burst at any minute.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” sing songed a childish voice that tricked into his eardrums and swam just at the edge of his brain and made him breathe even faster.

“I can smell you, you smell like smoke and ashes,” the voice continued. “You don't have to be afraid. I need you, I need you and when you are needed you are useful and when you are useful you are alive. I need you alive, so don't be afraid, you can come out. Doesn't that feel better? I need you, you want to come out. It's a mutual agreement. All those others? I didn't need them, I didn't need them. But you, I need you, so you are safe. See? It's logic. I have logic so you don't have to be afraid. Come out. I'm already full.”

He pressed his head against the wall, grinding his cheek against scarred brick and tried to hold his breath and still his stomach.

“Gluttony!”

Innocuous and surreal, the woman's voice lay over the gloom just above Roy's head and he furrowed his brow. Why would a woman be here, calling that things name?

“I'm here!” the sin returned, his voice just as mirthful as if he were truly calling to a lover and wasn't here hunting another morsel to feed his endless maw. “The Alchemist is hiding from me, you come and talk to him, anyone will listen to you.”

“No, come away, let's get out of here while we can. What are you doing causing something like this?” Her voice was even, no vestige of stress or fright. Didn't she know what this was? How could she not know? Who was she? Why was she here?

“But it's for you,” the sin whined. “ You know I need him. I need him so we can go to the old opera house where she once made things happen. He can make things happen, I know he can. He's an alchemist and I have... I have that in me now. I can feel it. I makes me think and I don't like it. I want it to be like before. I want you to have it in you and you do the thinking. I liked it better like that.”

“You make no sense, even if this alchemist is here, why would he help you when all you've done is this? Let's go away from here while we still can.”

She spoke in a way that made sense, even in this senselessness.

“But Lust,” the man whine, his voice high pitched like that of a child being denied a sweet, or a swing in the park, “If we don't make you the way you were, then you might go away. You need to be like you were, so you understand. When you are like that, then we'll be together like before.”

Maybe she was a captive. Maybe she wasn't as willing to this as it seemed and she'd learned to play this thing to her advantage. He heard it call another sin's name, Lust. He knew that for each cardinal sin there was a homuculus. This is perhaps not what the church had intended, but there was no more fitting description to the ersatz beings that seemingly had been brought forth beneath it's very roof. If he could reason with her and her with it...

“I'm coming out,” the General said, pushing himself to his feet. “I'm unarmed.”
“See?” the man called Gluttony chortled. “He's going to help! People listen to you, but don't believe him when he says he is unarmed. He's not a gentleman in those white gloves.”

The General stepped around the corner and stopped, looking at the pair before him. The man, he'd never seen before except in Ed's reports and his halting half whispered memories of him. The woman, too, was no one he recognized. She was tall and dusky with long thick dark hair that fell past her shoulders. She looked him up and down once, then laid her hand on the fat man's shoulder and leaned forward a little.

“How is he going to do what you want him to do?” she asked.

The fat man chuckled a moment, then moved in such a way that made the General think of other impossible things; such as the fact bumblebees were not suppose to fly. He barely had time to blink before his hands disappeared into the meaty fists of the sin before him. He stood there, some horrific parody of two friends, brothers or lovers, clasping hands and the fat man grinned at him.

“You aren't going to make this difficult are you? If you do, I won't be nice. I'm being nice right now, but really, I won't be nice if you are difficult. You don't need your legs to transmute, just your hands!” He gave Roy a savage tug forward and the General pitched and went down on one knee, hands still gripped as if by balls of granite.

“What did they call you?” the man said, grin fading somewhat. “What was the name Pride gave you?” he asked.

“Fuh...Flame,” the General gasped, pulling at his hands a bit.

He nodded once, but said nothing else. He released Roy's hands, but grabbed him by one arm and used his fat fingers to pick off his glove and drop it in the street, he repeated the action on the other hand.

“Now he'll be easier to manage,” the fat man said, light tone returning. “Let's go to the opera!”

Roy looked at the woman, wondering how he could manage a moment or two alone. She regarded him frankly, arms crossed and mouth pulled down on one side. He gasped at the fat man suddenly lifted him off his feet and flung him over his shoulders, like a soldier shouldering his rifle when the watch was to boring.

The woman gave a disapproving snort.

“I told you not to call me that name. This is lunacy, you'll only eat him like everyone else,” she said and turned to walk away.

“I won't,” the jolly fat man huffed, a little bounce to his step that forced Roy to struggle for breath before the next one. “I won't eat this one, help me remember.”

She turned her head to look at Roy again. It was an appraising look; the kind of look where you weighed options and tried to see the big picture. It was funny how the ambitious were always drawn together, even in absurdity like this.

He'd given himself up for nothing.

This woman...she wasn't a captive.

**

Havoc whipped his hand away before he lost any appendages and hissed into Ed's ear.

“Be quite already for fuck's sake, do you always have loud conversations with yourself in the middle of a war zone? No wonder you always got the shit kicked out of you.”

Ed wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and turned to look at Havoc, narrowing his eyes.

“What are you doing here? You are civilian,” Havoc hissed again. “There will be court marshallings upon ass kickings upon court marshallings,” he promised gravely.

“Are you listening to yourself? Did you hear what you just said? You expect me to be anywhere else? Where's Roy?” Ed pushed himself back to his feet and Havoc stood with him, adjusting the shoulder strap of his rifle.

“I don't know,” he said, not quite meeting Ed's eyes. “When all the chaos started he ordered a retreat, then this...thing came out of nowhere and starting shrieking about alchemists. It made a beeline for him, I drew it off momentarily,” he patted the butt of his rife absently, “but it knocked me into the side of a building, things got fuzzy after that. When I was focused again, everyone was gone. I think a lot of them made it back to the surface, I hope at least they did, but I'm wasn't going to leave the General.”

“Thing?” Ed said. “What thing? I mean, you were shooting it, right?”

“It's a man, but it's large, like a really fat man,” Havoc held his arms out around him in demonstration. “And it's insane, it just keeps spouting this gibberish about the General making lust, I have no idea what it's talking about...”

“Lust?” Ed said faintly.

“I emptied almost a full clip in it and it just kept coming, it didn't even bleed, “ Havoc said, faltering a little as things finally started to sink in.

Ed let his back hit the wall again, slid back into a squatting position, elbows on his knees, hand over his mouth.

Fucking hell, fucking what the hell was he never to be FREE? What did it take? What did it finally fucking take for it to all just go the fuck away and leave him the fuck alone and let him have his damn life back?! Why was this his fucking responsibility? Why was he being made to deal with every last fucking one of them?! Why was he the clean up crew, what his fucking sin that bad?! Was it?! Just because he loved his mother and his brother and he paid with all his bones and blood and flesh but it was never fucking enough? NEVER?!
“Hey...hey boss, you ok?” Havoc said, looking down at him.

“No Havoc, no, it is not fucking ok, it never fucking will be,” he said, muffled through his fingers. “Because obviously I'm the fucking original sinner and I have to pay again and again and again for trying to play fucking god, y'know? I just. Keep. Paying. And I'm sick and fucking damn tired of it. I'm balls busted, flat assed broke of anything left to spew into the maw of never being shit canned free of my past. I never get to pay it forward because I'm still in debt for ever fucking thought I ever had!”

Havoc didn't react for a moment, but the he reached down, grabbed Ed by his collar and yanked the smaller man to his feet.

“Yeah, ok, you done then? You done with your tantrum, maybe we can get down the business that brought your ass where it wasn't suppose to be in the first place?” He growled into Ed's face.

Ed had the grace to look startled.

“Ok, you seem to know what I'm talking about, what I saw back there, so spill your guts Professor, what are we dealing with, how do we find it? How do we kill it? Because between you and me? Maybe the General ain't got time for you to sit around and slam your skull into the wall or fall on your own gawddamn sword, got it?”

Ed licked his lips, and hung by his collar in Havoc's grip.

“It...it's a homunculus,” he said. No one in the world made him feel twelve in quite the way Havoc always did.

“Pretend I don't know what the fuck you're talking about,” Havoc said and gave him a shake by his collar. “Pretend I'm just joe blow on the street, or better yet one of your students and tell me what the hell that word means. And yeah, I sorta know about it, but what does it mean?” He said as he shook Ed some more.

“Ok, it means where in deep shit, that's what it means,” Ed clarified. “Because bullets can't kill it you gun totting lunatic. The only way to kill it is to, hell, I'm not even sure. You gotta have a piece of it's original body and then just shit,” Ed flailed for emphasis despite still hanging in Havoc's hands. “I only killed one, and I had a lot of help even though I didn't know it, what does that make me? An expert?”

I killed two, but really, I'd already killed that one in a way, anyways. So for the record, yeah for that record, it was only one.

“Well shit, can't you just alchemy it away?” Havoc said and snorted.

“What? It doesn't work like that, I can't just alchemy things away. Fuck's sake, let me go already!”

Ed reached up to straighten his collar when Havoc released him.

Havoc looked down at him again, shifted, looked away, looked at him again.

“So, in an advisory, civilian capacity, like a contractor, do you have any suggestions?” he asked.

“Yeah, the civilian said of me says we should run far the fuck away and don't look back,” Ed shrugged. “The 'that fucking thing has my boyfriend' part of me says he better not lay one finger on the bastard or I'll fucking kill him and then the bastard to for letting that fucking thing take him in the first place. The other part of me that is still a half-cocked teenager that will fly off the handle at anything says let's just go fuck it up for the fun of it. Really, I'm clueless.”

Havoc folded his arms and they both stood looking at each other.

“You went and got soft,” Havoc started.

“Oh no you don't! You're the one rubbing my civilianess in my face Dog-breath! So get with the military know how and think or shot us out of this situation, and hurry the fuck up, the rest of my life is riding on it!” Ed snarled.

“Ok, so you good now?” Havoc asked.

“Yeah,” Ed nodded, “thanks. Really, I needed that. Ok, ok,” he rubbed at his face. “The chances of us killing Gluttony are slim. It has to be Gluttony. He had this thing for Lust... I think we all had a thing for Lust. But really, I can't believe he's still alive. But alive is to generous a word for him, let's say he's still existing. Then again, it could be that, since he ate part of Al's armor and Al was the stone at the time...”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up there boss, what and what?” Havoc said.

“I wish I had time to tell you,” Ed said with a small, sort of sad smile, “it's a helluva story. But I don't, I have to find Roy,” Ed sighed. “I have to find Roy and take him home.”

“Well, at least you got some idea of what we're dealing with. I guess if it comes to it, I can always play distraction, that seems all this toy is good for, and I can't do what you do Ed, and if you can't figure out how to make what you do work...” Havoc trailed off.

“I'll think of something,” Ed said, “it's not like I ever really knew what I was doing.”

Havoc peered out of the alley, slipped out and motioned Ed to follow him, they started down the street.

“Maybe we should split up, we can signal each other, you with gunfire, me with alchemy-ing something so you can see it,” Ed said.

“I don't know,” Havoc said, “I'm not all that keen on you wondering around alone.”

“I'm not twelve, Jean,” Ed ground out.

“Alright, alright, but keep an eye out. Alchemy the shit out of something if you even think you see anything.”

**

Roy grunted as he was dumped onto the floor. He blinked against the gloom and pushed himself up slowly onto one hip.

“We need some light,” the woman said, he could hear the strike of her heels on the floor. He craned his head back to look up. Where ever they were it was large and open, but in the hovering darkness it was really impossible to tell just how large and open.

“Bother,” the fat man said, reached down to grab Roy by one arm and started to drag him across the floor. Roy tried to get to his feet, but he was yanked down again. The fat man stopped next to what looked like a pillar and sighed. “We need fire,” he called after the woman.

“Oy then, have him make some, he was making plenty before,” she called back.

“I took away his gloves, and I can't let him just make an array. Can't you find some way to make fire? There are torches,” the fat man said.

“I can make your fire,” Roy tried. “I won't...” he exhaled sharply when the fat man rapped him against the pillar.

“I'm not stupid, really,” the fat man chortled, “I'm just many and one and confused,” he sighed.

Roy got on his knees, one arm still fisted in the fat man's grip. He heard the woman, she sounded like she was mumbling under her breath, and he could hear the rustle of things he couldn't see.

“Where are we?” he tried and then braced himself, if his every word brought a consequence, getting any answers was going to be painful indeed.

“I can't find anything,” the woman said. “This was your grand plan, to come to the dark and beat him against a pillar? That will make me into what you want me to be?”

“I'm sorry,” the fat man whimpered. Roy was spared another slam against the pillar. He looked down at Roy speculatively.

Roy said nothing. What could he say, really? He wasn't exactly helpless without his gloves, but in sheer physical strength this thing was beyond him. It might as well be an ant trying to take on an aardvark. It was no contest, and the General was savvy enough to know that butting your head against a wall eventually hurt. He wished he could teach Ed that.

The fat man looked between Roy and the woman several times before heaving a sigh of resignation.

“You are going to make the torches burn. If you try anything, even one tiny thing...you will not be happy. I will make you very, very unhappy but leave you alive.”
“I'll just like the torches,” Roy said, licking his dry lips.

He was released, but the fat man stood very close.

“I don't have my gloves, I need to draw an array,” the General said. “Do you have any chalk?”

The fat man squatted beside him, with the fingernail of one swollen hand, the ground a circle into the floor.

“I can see the elements,” the fat man said, “but I don't know where to put them.”

Roy leaned over the circle, putting his finger on it. Slowly he began to draw, the fat man followed along biting into the wooden floor with just his fingernail, until the simple array was drawn. Roy then looked up at him as he slowly lowered his fingertips to the outer edge. The fat man grinned.

When people grinned, it usually conveyed a wide variety of emotions, rarely associated with terror. Roy hastily dropped his eyes, took a deep breath and concentrated.

The torch on the pillar beside them burst into life and the fat man made a high sound of pleasure, a few more around the room similarly flared up, and even more as Roy could see them. In moments they were surrounded by light. The fat man snatched him away from the array then and leaned over. He extended his tongue toward the array, Roy could see a red mark on it, and the fat man swiped his tongue over the markings on the floor. As if acid had touched it, the floor distorted and was eaten away where he had licked. Roy swallowed.

The fat man then dragged him out in the middle of what seemed to be a large ballroom. All round them were balconies filled with row upon row of empty chairs. All silent witness to his chance to be center stage.

What a lark, what complete irony. Here he has craved and crawled and begged and bowed, all with the intention of doing whatever he needed to get to the top. He bent over, he swallowed, he waited and he struck. But still, the spotlight hovered right out of reach. Until here, until now, when he would probably perform his final act before an audience of none and then he would be over. Never got anywhere, never did anything, never saved the world.

Al will take care of Ed.

He hadn't allowed himself to think of it, but now, he couldn't help it.

So this is it? You curl up and die?

The General blinked. He hadn't heard that inner voice in a long time. In a very long time. But oh, how he adored it. It's nuances, it's sneers and mocking. He never realized he'd missed it in the joy of having the real thing by his side.

“No,” he whispered. “But I'm out of options, any suggestions?”

Kick it in the balls and run.
Ah, the inner Ed, so helpful.

“I don't think it has any balls,” Roy muttered and then gasped when he was shoved to the floor.

“Look,” the thing above him simpered. “Here it is, the array! See?”

Roy lifted his head, turned it but could only see a stripe of black from where he lay.

“It made armor into flesh!” the thing cried happily. “Look Lust, look! The array!”

Roy turned to look where the woman was standing. She had her arms folded, her hip jutted out and a scowl on her features. She might have been an attractive woman, in fact, Roy was fairly certain she was, but he was blinded in more ways that just physical. All he could see was gold.

“It's a drawing on the floor, how does that help?” the woman asked, voice dripping with skepticism.

“It's an array,” the fat man all but whined. “It's what we need to make you into you again. Don't worry, the alchemist will know what to do.” He yanked Roy back up onto his knees and Roy looked down again from this little bit of vantage point. He could see a pattern, a huge array stretching out in all directions. It was unlike any he had ever seen.

The fat man released him again, looked down at him in an expectant fashion.

“Wait... you said, armor into flesh?” Roy asked.

The fat man nodded vigorously.

“Yes! All around you, see? It made armor into flesh and the Gate opened wide and all sorts of good and bad spilled in and out! I chased her up in the elevator, because she took Lust away, even if she didn't, she did.”

“I don't understand,” Roy said.

“Neither do I,” the fat man sighed. “But when I did that, I wasn't here yet. I mean, I was, but she had taken from me, the stone gave it back.” He patted his round stomach and grinned. “The stone makes me see more than I did before and it makes me understand sometimes, and sometimes I don't care! I just want Lust to come back, the Gate can have it all, it's in here, it can take that and give me back Lust. That's all I want. You do that.”

“I can't... I mean I can't make her into a homunculus,” Roy said. “I don't know how, I don't think it's possible, I don't know how this array...” but he didn't finish because a fist slammed into the side of his head and his head hit the floor. He lay there gasping and blinking and fighting off the tunnel vision that threatened.

“You can do it,” the thing hummed merrily, as if it hadn't just tried to fracture Roy's skull. “You're an alchemist, you can do anything. I know, because here an alchemist made armor flesh, and if he can do that, then flesh can be made into... into what this is,” and he patted his stomach again. “We're better than humans, Envy always said so.”

Roy pushed himself up slowly to his hands and knees again. When the dizziness stopped he sat back on his knees.

“But... it's not like that. I can't just activate an array I know nothing about. It could do untold amounts of damage uncontrolled. Even kill...” and he cringed backwards, but a hand fell on his head, thick fingers gripped his hair and suddenly his cheek was pressed hard to the floor beneath him. His head was being scrubbed back and forth, as if used to mop up something that had split there.

“You do this! You can do it! I know because I know that alchemy is what makes it work! I was made that way, everyone was made that way! I'll make you do this, you'll do it before it's over,” the sin promised.

“Don't kill him before he does it,” said someone in the distance. Roy could barely hear over the rush in his ears, but the hand on his head let go suddenly. It didn't seem to matter, because at the moment he didn't think he could lift his head anyways.

He saw a figure, blurry in his peripheral vision, come close and stop.

“I'm going out for some air, and to see if we are surrounded yet, don't eat him, don't kill him,” the voice warned in a slightly scolding manner.

“Awwww, don't go far, come back soon!” the fat man sang after her. “If you see any soldiers let me know, I am a little hungry...” he trailed off as she got out of sight and sighed. He looked down at Roy.

“Sometimes I just don't know what she wants from me. I do and I do, but it's never enough,” the fat man plopped down on his fat ass, right there beside the General. “I mean, I can't figure her out. If I do what she wants me to, she's not happy, if I don't do what she wants me to, she's not happy. I'll never understand.”

Roy quirked his only remaining eyebrow.

“Not even the stone can understand,” Gluttony sighed.

And Roy laughed, because he could at least do that. He could then boast at the pearly gates.

He'd laughed in the face of his death.

**

He picked his way over rubbled, ran down alleyways, peered in windows. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream over and over, but Havoc was right. Don't let them know you're coming, why announce you're walking into the trap? Just do it, just stumble in and start shooting. In theory, anyways.

Time moved both swift and slow. It was taking forever to comb though this ruin, but it was moving to quickly because for every slow minute that ticked by, another rushed in Roy's direction.

Find Roy, take him home.

They saw each other simultaneously, and reacted in sync, each gaping then taking a step back.

It was a woman, more a girl, with dark skin and black hair over her shoulders. She wore a fancy silk dress and shoes that were horribly out of place for walking through this mess. She looked quickly over her shoulder, then back to Ed. She widened her eyes and held a finger to her lips as if to shush him and he gave her an askance look. What the fuck? Why was he even here and who the fuck was she?

She beckoned to him, and he stalled, looking back and forth, then, finally, he crossed the few yard over to her. She cupped her hand around her mouth as if to whisper and leaned forward. Ed leaned closer as well.

“He'll hear you, be very quiet,” she whispered.

“Who?” Ed whispered back.

“That think in there,” she nodded toward a building and Ed looked over at it, then up to it's dome and it's spire. His stomach curled in on itself and tried to hide behind his spleen.

Oh, he knew this building.

“You need to get out of here,” Ed said lowly. “That thing in there is a monster, he'll kill you, how did you get here? Did he bring you here?”

She nodded.

“I didn't have a choice, he forced me. I would run away, but he has a man in there, I'm afraid if I leave he will kill him.”

Ed eyes snapped back to the building, he nodded tersely.

“Right, you get out of here, I'll take care of this. Just head for the arches,” he turned to point the way. “There are stairs, a lot of them, but climb them. There are people up there, they'll help you.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I'm going to get the General,” Ed said. “Just go, don't worry about me.”

“Be careful,” she said with a light touch on his shoulder. Ed moved past her and she stood watching him as he made his way to the building, he climbed the steps, paused at the door and turned to see her still standing there. He made a motion to wave her on. She lifted her hand as if to wave back, but he moved into the doorway and then cautiously made his way inside.

**

It was mostly dark. Just like he remembered. Even the air smelled the same, thick with the scent of burning torch wick and stale as old bread. He moved lightly, in increments, slowly creeping up on the light just ahead. He strained to listen and held his breath the closer he got. He could hear the murmur of a voice, and then another, answering murmur. He went low to the ground, almost to his knees and found cover in a table with a moldy, dry rotted table cloth situated near the door into the main ballroom. He crouched there, peering between strands of rotten linen and table legs. Two figures sat in the middle of the room, one was blocked mostly by the other.

He knew them both.

The fat one was rocking slowly, back and forth, he had managed to bend his knees and had his ankles crossed, he was gripping his knees.

The General was sitting up, but he was leaning over his lap, head down and Ed couldn't see his face. He looked around to see, if by chance, any of the others where there. But no, they were accounted for; they had all fallen.

He had no idea what had become of Dante; and he really didn't care.

Ed watched as Gluttony lifted his nose to the air and took a deep breath. He held it, released it, and then took another. He tilted his head back and forth, as if he was trying to place something, then he'd shake his head and take another, long, deep breath.

“He can smell you,” said a voice behind him.

Ed startled hard, whirling and coming half to his feet. His shoulder hit the table and rattled it and he gaped at the girl behind him.

“I told you to get out of here,” he half whispered, but why was he bothering, he was heard, he knew it.

“You did,” she said, walking past him, “I just decided not to.” She walked straight to Gluttony, stopped just beside where he sat on the floor. The sin chortled and looked up at her, then he looked over at Ed.

Ed returned the even gazed of the sin; he dare not look at the General who had raised his head. He knew better. But he'd already given himself away.

“This one is here to take your alchemist,” the woman told Gluttony. “He said so to me outside, he called him a General and he said he was coming to get him.”

Gluttony surged to his feet.

“He can't, He's MINE,” the homunculus shrieked. “If he tries he'll be very sorry, but he'll be sorry anyways!”

“You said you were hungry,” the woman told him. “So I brought you this so you wouldn't be thinking of that one,” and she nodded her head at Roy.

“What... what the hell lady! Do you know what that thing is?” Ed yelled across the expanse toward them. “Do you have any idea?”

“No,” she said back, calmly enough. “But does it matter? Does it matter now? I've come all t his way, the least he could do is try. He can try to make it work. I'll take the risk, I've seen the gain,” she looked at Gluttony again.

Ed started to open his mouth, tell them just how full of shit they were and Roy could never work this array, but he caught the slight shake of the General's head, his one eye trained intensely on Ed and Ed swallowed it down, clenched his fists.

Gluttony stood, staring in Ed's direction, tilting his head back and forth, back and forth. He pushed one pudgy digit to the corner of his mouth and then broke into a grin that was all sunshine and homicide.

“I know you!” he squeaked in glee. “I know you! I KNOW YOU!” And he surged forward with speed that could never come from human anatomy.

The General broke then.

“ED RUN,” he screamed, scrabbling to his own feet.

Run? Run where? Run and leave the General here?

It was just that quick, the though had barely strolled across his mind and Gluttony was on him, he backpedaled desperately, his back hitting edge of the door jamb, he tried to throw himself around it, but a hand caught his shoulder, spinning him and then the same hand grabbed the back of his neck.

He twirled again, like a toy ballerina and a fist closed over his automail arm, between the shoulder and the elbow. He was facing Roy, head held stiff by the unbreakable grip around his neck from behind. Fleshy fingers pressed into the sides of his throat and he was marched like a toy toward the center of the room, but not to close to the General who stood there, looking like a ghost in a uniform.

“Fullmetal Alchemist,” Gluttony said with glee. “It's another one!” he called over to Luludja.

“You're mistaken,” Roy said, voice suddenly calm and authoritative. “This man is not part of the military.”

Gluttony looked momentarily confused. He looked at Roy, then pulled Ed back to look down his body. Ed was not in a uniform and Roy hoped, he fucking prayed, he could play off this creatures literal streak.
But whatever else the ingested stone had done to the homunculus, it had made him so eerily sharp and lucent, at least, at the important times.

“Yes it is,” Gluttony said in the voice of a person who has caught on they were being teased, “he never wore uniform before, either. I know what I smell.”

Ed was panting shallowly, his flesh hand reached up to tug at the fingers on the side of his throat and Gluttony gave him a hard shake and Ed dropped his hand way.

The woman cleared her throat and looked at Gluttony.

“We can use this, you can use one of them to make the other obey,” she told him.

“Why are you doing this, what do you think you will gain?” Roy suddenly asked. “What do you see in this creature that is so appealing? It lacks a soul, it lacks a conscience, it lacks all the basic things required to be human. Why would you want to give up what you are to only be a replica and a poorly constructed one at that?”

“What I am? What am I? I'm nothing. I come from a poor family, I was an unwanted burden, another mouth to feed. I would never claw my way up without a man to marry me, to take me away from that, from the drudge and toil and child rearing. I didn't want that, I didn't deserve that, just because I was born to it. He came,” she pointed at Gluttony, “he showed me how I could be different, special, better.”

“He's a murderer, he kills people to get what he wants, you think that makes him better?” Roy asked incredulously. “You think the power to take lives makes you superior? You don't need to be a soulless husk for that, just pick up a gun.”

“Your vision is so narrow,” she said, “you think the only good in the world is human. How do you know this? I know bad, I know humans just as bad if not worse and for less reason! His cause is his cause, who are we to judge what is noble? He's looking for lost love, he's come this far just for that. Love drives us all, how can he be without a soul when he feels so deeply? Who are you to tell me what makes a soul?”

Gluttony kept looking back and forth between them, and though he had seemingly forgotten he hand Ed in his grip, Ed was reminded all to quickly when he suddenly tried to bring his hands together.

“You're a bad alchemist!” Gluttony hissed. “You'll have to do what I say! But I know that you can make the circle like that! I'll just have to make it so you can't!” And the sin tightened his grip on Ed's automail, twisted it sudden and violent and ripped the arm right out of the port. Ed's eyes widened in a look of horrific disbelief and then he screamed.

It had happened so fast, so matter-of-fact that Roy's own cry of denial was already drown in Ed's shriek of pain.

Gluttony lifted the metal arm, sniffed it, then opened his mouth wide and bite off the end of it, the part that had been attached to Ed's shoulder socket. He seemed to chew it thoughtfully and Roy was moving before he knew it.
“Let him go you fuckin'...” but he didn't finish because Gluttony spit out the metal he'd been chewing and winged the automail arm right at Roy's head. The General twisted to get out of the way, but it glanced off his temple on his blind side and he stumbled and feel to his knees, reaching up to cover the spot, seeing sparkles.

“Enough, you, do it!” Gluttony pointed at Roy, pointed at the array. “Do it!”

“I...I don't know...” but Roy's remaining eye widened when Gluttony leaned his open mouth over Ed's shoulder. “I'LL DO IT, DON'T...” he said. Gluttony stopped, hovered there, the pulled his head back and away.

“Don't be...fucking idiot...,” Ed gasped-sobbed, “going to kill us...anyways...”

Gluttony shook Ed violently and tightened his grip on Ed's throat and Ed gagged and his eyes bulged.

“I won't do it if you kill him!” Roy said. “If you kill him, you might as well kill me! I won't help you if you hurt him any further!”

Gluttony peeled his lips back and pulled Ed back to his chest and hooked his chin over his shoulder.

“I can make him die screaming, cursing your name, slowly, bite by bite,” he cooed.

“You better do what he says,” the dark skinned woman said.

It's not like there was any decision. Roy bowed his head and walked into the giant array that had been burnt on the floor by Edward himself in desperation long ago.

Gluttony shuffled forward excitedly and nodded to Luludja, who looked nervous, but determined. Ed reached up to claw at the fingers around his throat, and in some little act of mercy, Gluttony loosened them enough so he could draw breath to speak.

“You FUCKING MORON, don't give into this, you don't know what you're doing, what if you call the Gate?!” Ed rasped.

What if he did? Would it matter? He only knew the Gate from Ed's story. So to die here or in Ed's tale? Well, he was weak when it came to all things Ed.

“What...what do I do?” Luludja asked, eyes darting back and forth between the two alchemists.

“If you're lucky, you die before the Gate appears,” Ed sneered and Gluttony tightened his grip and shook him again.

“What is this gate?” Luludja asked to Gluttony himself. “Is it as bad as they say?”

“The Gate gives and it takes, is that good or bad? It's equivalent. It will want something to make you into what you were. I have the stone, so it can have that, and I have these alchemists, it can have them, that's more than enough trade.”

“How do you know it will appear?” she asked again.

“Human transmutation,” the General supplied. “Not that I have tried it before, or have ever seen this gate.”

“What about him?” she pointed at Ed.

“He's seen the Gate,” Gluttony hummed merrily. “That's why he needs two hands to make a circle.”

“Well why don't we use him instead?” Luludja reasoned.

“You should have thought of that before you pulled his arm off,” Roy snarled bitterly. “Let's just do this and get it over with, let's all go to hell together.”

“Stand with me,” Luludja said to Gluttony, casting glances at Roy. The sin grinned like all the world was smiling on him and rushed to her side, dragging Ed.

“Is there anything special I need to know as I activate this?” Roy said to his lover, so very close now. “Anything special to get it going?”

“No,” Ed croaked, “just pour yourself into it.” He sucked his lower lip and reached out with his flesh hand toward Roy. “I love you, yeah? I love you, it's ok, do what you have to.”

Ed's fingertips touched his sleeve, but before he could lift his hand to give a reciprocating touch, Gluttony jerked Ed out of reach.

Roy stood for a moment, then he knelt and laid his palms flat on the array. He didn't even try a last chance to reason, he just poured himself into it and it sang to him.

**

A shadow fell across him and he looked, but even in the shadow he had to squint. Everyone was staring upwards, Gluttony released Edward and Roy jumped to his feet and caught Ed as he staggered to the side. Everything around them fell away until there was just this place, bathed in pale light and this giant Gateway, riddled in reliefs of people twisted in agony and a single, monstrous eye carved to look like it was staring out from the doorway.

“Blank your mind,” Ed whispered raggedly, crushed to the General's chest. “Don't think of anything if you can. Whatever it asks you, just ignore it. It's hard, but you can do it, you can do it...” Ed turned his face against Roy's shoulder.

“This is the Gate?” the girl said in a wondrous voice. “What do we do here, do we open it?”

“It will opens, when it's ready,” the sin said slowly. “It will open when it is finished deciding if we have enough to offer.”

“Never enough to offer,” Ed whispered to the side of Roy's neck.

“It will make you one of us,” Gluttony said. “It will make you like me, no one can hurt you, no one can stop you. You are beautiful and terrible and everyone who sees you, wants you. You will be Lust. You will always ache and always hunger and never find satisfaction.”

“Wha..what?” she said, turning to look at the fat man round eyed.

“To embodies Lust is to always be hungry, like me,” the fat man nodded. “That is what makes Lust, the need for something. All we sins, we are interconnected, you and I, we were always together. Lust and Gluttony, between us, we could devour cities.”

“I don't know if I want this,” she said, taking a step back.

“It's to late now,” Gluttony told her cheerfully, “don't be afraid. I'll be with you, we'll have everything you ever wanted. I can help you, I will stay with you, I won't leave you, don't be afraid. You will have power and everyone will curse themselves they aren't you! You will have dominion over this world because you will be better than humans. Always, we are told, we are better than humans, so that makes it true, yes?”

“Everyone will want me? Women will curse themselves that they aren't who I am?” she asked slowly.

“Everything, everyone,” Gluttony purred.

There was the sound of groaning hinges and the doors began to open, slowly, surely, inevitably. Luludja took a few steps forward.

Edwards compassion was always bigger than himself and he could never contain it.

“Don't ask it for anything!” He called after her. “Don't be a fool!”

Roy pulled him down against him again, rocked him.

“Leave idiots to their own dead,” he said in Ed's ear.

Luludja turned a bit to look back at Gluttony, she smiled a little.

“What do I ask of it?” she said and then she was gone, simply gone. A multitude of snapping black ribbons and slight displacement of air and she was no longer there. Gluttony jumped and looked around, turned himself in a circle.

Ed suddenly tensed all over and Roy could hear it then, buzzing in his brain, bees and voices all mixed together. He would try to focus on one, than another, idea after idea pouring into his brain. The possibilities of what he could do, if only he could have this or that and there it was ripe for the picking, all he had to do was ask. But Ed beat him to it, like just about everything else.

“I DON'T WANT ANYTHING,” he screamed to those droning, incessant voices. “NOTHING, I WANT NOTHING. I GIVE NOTHING I TAKE NOTHING.”

“Lu...Lust?” Gluttony said pitifully somewhere near them.

Roy shook hard. Ed could hear his teeth clicking together, grinding together and his arms around Ed tightened to the point of almost pain.

“Give me back my Lust,” Gluttony said to the air around him. “Where is she? Where is Lust?”

The Gate swung open a little wider.

“Lust? Is she there? Do you have her? You have her, give her to me!” and the sin rushed the Gate, arms outstretched and fingers grasping.

And the Gate, promising many things, slammed in Gluttony's face, just as he reached it, proving it was the faster of the two, all said and done.

And the light faded and the room went back to it's glow and the Gate was gone.

**

That is when Ed finally noticed that Roy was slumped against him, unmoving. He looked around for Gluttony and saw him wandering the far end of the ballroom.

“Lust...Lust...LUST,” the sin wailed, stopping to stare up at the balconies. “Lust, come down, I'm down here, LUST!”

Ed got up, then taking Roy by the hand in Ed's only remaining hand, he began to drag him toward the door. He had to get as much distance between them and Gluttony as he could before Gluttony came to his senses. Across the old wooden floor, through the foyer, to the street side just beyond.

“Roy, wake up, Roy, wake up,” Ed stage whispered urgently, glancing back at the opening to the building again. “Roy, you can't fucking lie here, I can't fucking carry you, now get your fucking ass up! ROY!”

The General would wake up. He would wake up and they would go home. Ed forced Roy into a sitting position, leaned him back against his knees and looked around. If there was something he could use as an impromptu sled of sorts? Anything he could lie Roy on and pull?

It was then Gluttony came stumbling out of the doors and Ed tensed. The sin swung his lumbersome form back and forth, his nose tilted to the air, sniffing.

Ed eased Roy over onto his side. He had to distract Gluttony, draw him away and hopefully lose him, come back, find Roy awake, slug him for worrying him and then go the hell home.

“WHERE'S LUST?!” the sin bellowed into the air, then he seemed to notice Ed there, fixing him with his tiny eyes and clenching his massive fists.
“The...the Gate took her,” Ed said, clearing his throat and backing away. “You were there, you saw it,” he didn't even glance at Roy, he had to keep all of Gluttony's attentions focused on him.

“You took her, didn't you? You did that, you told the Gate to take her,” the fat man sobbed, jiggling up and down in place.

“No,” Ed said, “No I...” but then he turned and ran. He ran the way a deer runs from a wolf, he ran the way a rabbit runs from a fox. He ran for his fucking life.

He could hear the grave thundering behind him.

They ran without words, they both ran to a different kind of desperation. Ed, being smaller, ducked and weaved, squeezed through passageways where the sin couldn't possibly follow. But sins, like bumbelbees are impossibly possible, and Gluttony merely bulldozed his way through these spaces, knocking them aside or slithering through as if boneless.

Ed glanced once toward the overhead bridge, gaged where the stairs might be. The stairs leading up, away, toward the others, but instantly dismissed it. The military had provided Gluttony with enough nourishment as it was, and Ed wasn't one to take his troubles to others.

But he was mortal, so sickeningly human and frail. His lungs burned, his sides ached and his pace became uneven. He felt the brush of fingers on his back, then the grip on his remaining arm.

I'm sorry! I tried, I tried so hard. Please let them find you, take you out, get you someplace safe. Please don't tell Al how it happened.

He was dragged off kilter, whirled and thrown into the side of a building. He gasped and slide down the rough brick wall, instantly getting back on his knees, trying to get back on his feet. But just as he did, the sin would pounce again, grabbing and slinging him like a child with a doll. So effortless it was, to hurl him into the air, and so hard the ground was when he hit it.

Don't let this... don't let this be the end of all of you. Don't let me drag you down to nothing. Be who you were meant to be, who you should have been, despite me. Please Roy, please. I love you.

He tried to get to his knees again, because his body never listened to his head. He could hear the sin's footsteps on the ruin of a street.

“I didn't...” he tried again, “no one can tell the Gate what to do, you know that! I didn't tell it, it just took what it thought it needed.”

“LIES! LIES! ALCHEMIST, ALWAYS THE ALCHEMISTS MAKING IT SO MUCH PAIN AND MISERY!”

You'll take care of us, right? You won't let him sell us.

“I never asked, no one ever asked me, but still, this is all that it is,” Gluttony said in a strange and woeful voice. Ed managed to get to his feet and look at the sin.

Where can we hide, you won't tell on us, will you?

“All I ever wanted was to be...,” and Gluttony came to a lumbering halt, not more than five feet away. Ed shook with exhaustion and anxiety, but he knew to run would be to invite chase again.

“I only did, what I was told to,” Gluttony said, clenching and unclenching his fists. “It's better when no one depends on you.”

You're the only one who cares.

“It's better when you just do, what you are told and you don't try to do anything more, there is no good. You can't change it. I don't know why it was me, I was the worthless one, why was it me? I wish these things would go out of my head.”

“I'm sorry,” Ed said quietly. “I'm sorry you didn't have the choice.”

I'm sorry, I never gave you the choice. I missed you so much, but that's no excuse.

Gluttony looked up at him then, he held out one large hand, palm up.

“Why? Why do they do it? Don't they see what they've done? Was I so bad that this is my punishment? I never wanted this, but here it is, and this is what is made of it. I just wanted her to tell me what to do. Tell me why, at least. You're an alchemist, you know.”

Ed wet his lips, reached up to hold his aching arm socket.

“I did it because I am selfish,” Ed said quietly. “I fool myself into thinking it was for love; but I'm not so sure, anymore.”

The sin nodded in a way that suggested sagely.

“When I can think about it and it let's me have the thoughts, I think that, too. They were selfish and they loved me. Selfish love is still love and any love is better than no love, don't you think so?”

Ed had never heard this thing speak more than perhaps a half dozen words strung together at any one time. The surreality of the situation was catching up to him. Maybe they were all inside the Gate.

“Well, don't you?” Gluttony prompted.

“Sometimes I think the line between love and hate is blurred,” Ed said, because why not? He was dead any way you looked at it, why hold anything back? “It takes a long time to get to that. But it can be done.”

“You're wrong,” the sin said. “You're wrong.”
“Am I? No, I don't think so. I think they stem, ultimately, from the same feeling inside,” Ed nodded. “And if they become blurred enough, then you can lose sight of what is good and evil. You can't tell anymore.”

Gluttony did the funniest thing. He did one of Roy's little circles of confusion. Just like that, that one simple spin. Ed almost felt himself smile and then he remembered where he'd left his lover, unmoving, unresponsive, lying on rubble.

“But am I good or am I evil?” the sin asked. “Does it matter?”

“Not always,” Ed said softly.

“If it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter,” the sin sighed, he stuck his finger into his mouth, “I'm hungry,” he said around it.

Ed staggered back a few steps, that damn sense of self preservation just wouldn't let him do anything gracefully. At least he could ask Gluttony to make sure nothing was left, so there would be nothing to find. Wouldn't that be a mercy in and of itself?

The street around them began to ping and the building across the street began bursting out puffs of dust from the walls. Both Ed and Gluttony watched this curiously for a second, then Gluttony flinched and snarled and Ed noticed bullets lying on the ground all around the sin. They were bouncing off his head and back.

“GET A FUCKING MOVE ON, ED,” Havoc shouted from the cover of a nearby building, “THIS WON'T DISTRACT HIM FOR LONG!”

No, it wouldn't distract him at all. He wanted to shout to Havoc, tell the man to run, to get Roy, to take him home. There was no point in running.

The the wall of flame struck, it came like a tidal wave right down the street. Funny thing that while it hit Gluttony square in the back, it managed to split and leave Ed only in the wake of it's passing heat.

Gluttony howled in anger or pain, Ed wasn't sure which and he turned away. He actually turned away from the easiest meal, to look down the street.

“It was YOU, YOU told the Gate to take her, it was YOU wasn't it?” Gluttony howled at his new attacker and shook, clenching his fists, baring his teeth.

The General said nothing from where he knelt, array scratched into the paving stone at his feet.

And Ed found the will to fight again.

Roy pressed his hands to the array a second time and the fire came again, wrapping and snaking it's way along and the sin opened his mouth and gave a mighty inhale, and this time the flame disappeared into his maw.

More gunfire and Ed's found he could run again, but he didn't run away, he tried to circle around the sin and the gunfire stopped and he heard Havoc's angry shout about hitting him, and to stop being a bonehead.

Gluttony noticed him then, shrieked incoherent rage, but before he could lunge the fire came again, and he couldn't swallow it all this time and he turned from it.

Roy, Roy, Roy

“ED, GET DOWN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” the General shouted above the noise of more gunfire.

“WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE YOU STUPID FUCK, COMING TO SAVE YOUR STUPID ASS,” Ed shouted back, pelting down the street toward him.

Then he was there and the General grabbed him and for a moment it was just the two of them, Ed pressed to Roy's chest. And then Ed was behind him and Roy was kneeling again to touch is array.

This time, as the flames came, the sin raised both of his arms and slammed his fists into the street below them. A slab of the stone there rose up in response, effectively blocked most of the flame before slamming down again. But the damage stone didn't stop there, huge cracks began to zig zag crazily away from the weakened area. One of them came toward them.

Ed pushed around Roy, put his fingertips on the array there. Everything around them was weak and trembling.

“I can use this, I can drop the street out from under him,” Ed said. “With all the shit going around though, it might drop us as well.”

The General gave a short nod, then he shouted.

“Lieutenant Colonel, get to the surface, THAT'S AN ORDER,” he bellowed in the direction of the spotty gunfire. “Tell them to close it!”

“THEN LET'S GO, SIR!” Havoc yelled back.

“How do we do this?” Roy asked, turning to look at Ed.

“You push, I'll drive,” Ed replied with a lop sided grin.

The General placed his palms on the array just as the sin hurled himself in their direction. Ed pressed his fingers as it to embed them in the stone and the alchemic reaction lit up the street, a dazzling dancing combination of red and blue, winding around each other.

The street below them seemed to sigh, groan, pop and then heave upwards, splitting neatly along the cracks already made.

The reaction abruptly died as Roy and Ed were thrown off balance, all of their hands leaving the array, but the destruction had already begun and chaos only grudgingly gave up what was offered into it's clutches. The sin pitched back and forth like a small ship in high seas and Ed hit the pavement and rolled downwards. He felt a grab on his sleeve, fingers there and gone. He came up against another stone, surging up from below like a mountain being raised and then the General's body hit him.

There was scrabbling, no words, the General managed to roll over, grab Ed's remaining arm as the world disintegrated below them. No time for words, only time for actions.

Roy kissed him as the bottom opened up and they fell.

**

His mother smiled down at him. He felt the warmth of her hand on top of his head. She stood back up and wiped her hands on her apron.

“When you're bigger, you're going to be an alchemist, just like your father,” she said.

No, not like his father.

She turned to the wash hanging on the line, straightened the sheet there before clothes pining it to keep the spring breeze from snatching it away.

Do you forgive me for robbing you of your choice?

Now she was there in a gown that hung to the ground, and gloves that masked her arms to the elbows.

“You really are, just like your father,” she said, picking up another sheet to hang on the line. Doing it in an absurdly formal manner. She smiled over her shoulder at him.

Do you forgive me?

“Is it really my place?” she asked.

And he stood there in his younger self and twisted his fingers as she continued to hang wash on the line.

If you won't, then who will?

“The man you will become,” she said, the smile never leaving her face.

The breeze lifted his bangs, bringing with it the smell of sunshine and linen.

But will he?

**

Ed opened his eyes slowly. For a few moments he just lay, surrounded all in white. It took several moments for him to realize that all this white wasn't the nothingness he presumed it was and, in fact, he was not dead. Even little twitch of muscle sent painfully shocking message of the disbelief of his undeadness directly into his brain. And would he stop trying to fucking move, please?

“He's awake!” Al appeared from nowhere, from nothing, right into his line of vision, as if by magic. He made a small inquisitive sound and his brother smiled down at him.

Then there was Riza, comforting in her uniform, she stood beside Al and gave Ed a look of scrutiny.

Ed licked his lips, but couldn't quite form words yet. Al's hand touched his forehead, lay softly there and stroked back once, over his head.

“Professor Elric, you're going to give me a full report why you were in a restricted military zone,” Colonel Hawkeye said. “I will grant you recovery time, however, before you are debriefed.”

She was being so generous. Maybe he wasn't dead but he was dying. Yeah, that's why she was being so nice.

Al leaned over, kissed his brother's forehead and then stood back up.

Ed had a thought, maybe...maybe there was another reason they were being so nice. Maybe it was because he wasn't dead or dying...maybe it was because...

“He's fine! He's fine, he's right over there,” his brother, his beautiful perceptive to the point of frightening brother said. “He's asleep, but he was awake earlier, he's very worried about you.”

He left everything go then, all the tension, all his breath and felt like he flatted out, like road kill after a particularly large truck had passed by. Like Al, that one time, in the armor. He gave a small, half laugh.

“It's late, and you need more rest,” Al said gently. “We'll be back in the morning, I'll bring you breakfast.”

Al really did love him; he wouldn't have to eat hospital food.

When they left they dimmed the lights to a blissful level and Ed could just float. He turned his head slowly, but the curtain between him and the next bed was half way drawn, and all he could see were some blanket covered legs.

So he studied the pattern of the ceiling tiles for a while. Then he wondered how pissed off at him Winry was going to be; and then he wished the General was awake.

And that to happened, if by magic, because he was just suddenly there.

The General's hand smoothed over his face, his fingers threaded through his bangs and Ed smiled in a dopey, dream like way. Because even if this wasn't really the General? This was one hell of a kick ass dream.

Roy leaned over him then and he eagerly parted his lips. The kiss was warm and salty, and the General pushed himself back to sitting and just kept smiling.

He looked different somehow, and Ed couldn't quite place it. There was something about him, niggling there in the back of his brain. Something was off and the more he tried to focus on it, the more it slipped away.

“Tired?” Roy asked and Ed shook his head a tiny, tiny bit. The General made himself more comfortable there on the bedside.

Dammit, what was so different about him?

“We made it,” the General said. “I think I'm the one to thank for it, a really wise man always told me I was one lucky bastard,” he grinned.

Ed found his voice, it was a scratchy barely audible thing.

“He got the bastard part right,” Ed croaked out.

The General laughed a little, and then leaned over to kiss him again. Ed preferred the kissing to words. He preferred feeling Roy warm and alive against his lips.

When he let Ed breath again, he reached up to toy with his bangs, keeping his face close.

“I'm amazed they go us out, Havoc's doing, we owe him,” the General said softly.

Ed nodded, moved his flesh hand in slow, agonizing inches to press it to the General's hip, where it rested on the bed.

The General kept touching his face, his forehead and his hair.

“When I woke up, I couldn't find you right away. And when I did, you wouldn't... you didn't wake up and I couldn't make you,” the General touched his forehead to Ed's.

“ Sorry,” Ed grunted, “ you know... I make things difficult.”

“You can't leave me behind, never again,” the General said in a way that made Ed really move, turn his body toward the man, reach up and rest his hand on the General's chest.

Roy covered Ed's hand there, held it against him.

“I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, keep that thing from hurting you,” the General said.

“Don't be an idiot,” Ed grated out.

“But I promised, don't you remember? Before you left that first time,” Roy said.
“Yeah, and I promised first, or have you forgotten? Back when I was still jail bait and you were a raging pervert?” Ed grumbled.

Roy gently rubbed up and down his hand, keeping where it was, he nodded once.

“See? Equivalent, even though we know that's a load of shit,” Ed sighed.

“I don't know,” the General said. “I don't know about that. Because I would have given anything. I thought... I thought you had left me,” the General tensed up all over. “I thought you had gone ahead again and were going to leave me behind. I can't do that again, Ed, I can't. I can't do this alone. I can't even conceive of being alone.”

“But you aren't...” Ed started.

“No, you don't get it. There is no one else. You are everything inside of me. You aren't just my lover, you are everything everyone has ever meant to me. Ed, all there is for me is you. I can never be what I was before you, and I don't ever want to be like that again. Because now? You have made me so much more than what I was, and I will die before I give that up, before I give you up. Never again.”

Ed, for once, was at a loss for words. His throat was thick and all these things he wanted to tell the General, they just wouldn't come. He made a helpless sound, curling the fingers of the hand Roy was holding into the man's hospital gown.

“All that I am, you have given me, and it's all I could ever want. So, no dying with me, alright? Promise,” the General insisted.

“That's fucking absurd, how can I promise something like that,” Ed said, trying to moderate the ragged edge to his voice.

They were interrupted by the room door swinging open and a young nurse who was coming in halted a bit in confusion in the doorway.

“General Mustang, you shouldn't be out of bed,” she said in a mildly scolding tone.

“Ah, sorry,” the General said. He smiled down at Ed, lifted the hand that was previously held to his chest and kissed Ed's fingers. “I'm keeping him awake.”

“Don't care,” Ed said, looking up into the General's face.

Roy eased Ed's hand back down, and slid off the side of the bed and stood up. And Ed, lying there so sore it hurt even to breath suddenly lunged. He grabbed a fist full of Roy's hospital gown and yanked it savagely.

“Look at me!” he ordered his lover.

The General turned to smile down at Ed.

He had two eyes.