Worlds Collide

A/N:Amethyst-eyed Koneko, I know, the doll thing is strange, but it's explained here. Aideen is definitely in shock at the moment. The tree with the pears, I wanted it to be bad but not too bad, just enough that Fletcher and Aideen could have a good laugh over it. Wrath is definitely snarky, but Russell deserves it. And the teen drama, you'll just have to trust me on that. SadlerGirl, glad you liked it. Wrath and Russell are definitely their own couple in this, very different. And apparently, you're a Fletcher/Aideen fan like some of the ones on lj.

Also, sorry it's kinda short and took so long to get written.

Chapter 46

Broken Doll

Russell had Wrath pinned against the cold tile in one of the stalls. His hands holding the larger ones against the wall, his mouth assaulting the skin around the larger man’s neck.

“You know,” Wrath whispered, “you act as though I never let you do this.” Russell smiled as he heard the massive man gasp. “I give you your fair share of….” There was a very pleased moan. “control.”

“That wasn’t the control I meant,” Russell said as his hands left Wrath’s to unfasten the younger man’s pants. “I date a woman a couple of times and can end it, no attachments, no guilt.” Russell looked up at those remarkable amethyst eyes. “But you…” He rested his forehead against Wrath’s chest, not knowing what more to say. “You are… different.”

Very quickly, the older man freed Wrath’s member from his pants, watching in pleasure as the braided head flew back, a stifled groan escaping his throat. Russell knew he could easily get Wrath to do his bidding in this state, but this wasn’t about his own pleasure. It was about the man he couldn’t seem to shake. Languidly, Russell slid down the long, broad body, hands trailing from chest down to groin as he began to wrap his mouth around the still-impressive member in front of him. Two large hands found their way to Russell’s bound hair. The blond knew by the time he was done it would be a complete mess, but a rather large portion of him simply didn’t care, no more than he cared that his jaw would ache or he was leaving himself completely hard and wanting.

He moved his hands, knowing with no uncertainty he would be unable to take the entire length. He’d tried in the past. Deep throating in general had never been a forte, and Wrath was downright impossible for him.

So, while he tormented the large man by sucking the head of that massive member like a lollipop, one hand was slowly pumping the firm rod, the other massaging the man’s testicles, lightly squeezing, rolling them, enjoying the pleased sounds coming from the man tightly gripping at his hair.

“Oh, Russell,” Wrath moaned, “how was I mad enough… mmmm… not to let you, ah, do this?”

Russell made a noise similar to “I don’t know” against the head of the man’s cock, knowing fully well what it would do to the man as thick fingers tightened in his blond hair, and he exclaimed something that was not quite a howl. Russell had checked the walls and doors before signaling Wrath to come back, knowing he wouldn’t need to warn the man to be quiet, as all were more than thick enough to keep out his vocal lover’s sounds of passion.

It didn’t take long before Russell found himself trying to swallow his lover’s release, and more importantly, not get his dark shirt covered in it. Managing it, except for a few stray drops that landed on his collar, Russell watched as Wrath lost the strength in his legs, and slid down the white tile a few inches, the wall now the only thing keeping him upright.

He stood back up, finding a pair of arms wrapping around him tightly, his face now mashed against a very hard chest.

There was a rapid knocking on the door.

********

“I’m the fuhrer, damn it, let me through!” Roy pushed through the crowd of people, knowing as fuhrer he was supposed to go to his troops and assess the situation, but at the moment, the situation was seated on a bench, Fletcher Tringham holding her face in one hand and pushing her black hair behind her ear, placing a strange flower that had just landed on her lap there with it. All the while, Aideen stared blankly through Fletcher, her face showing absolutely nothing. Roy wasn’t even entirely certain she knew he was even there.

“Aideen,” Roy said, kneeling in front of the bench, not thinking about knees and arthritis. He saw Fletcher relinquishing his hold on the pale face, allowing Roy to move over to grab her shoulders, looking her in the eyes, finding absolutely no recognition there. “Aideen, I’m here. Papa’s here.” He gathered her into his arms and held her as tightly as he could.

There was still no response from her, as though she’d shut down.

“Furher, sir…” a voice said behind him. “Roy?”

“Frank, um, Lieutenant Colonel Archer,” Fletcher said.

“Major?” Frank said. “The colonel’s going to need to question you about what happened.” He put a hand on Roy’s shoulder. “Fuhrer, sir, I’m going to need to analyze the item in question.”

Roy looked up at Frank out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t really want that thing out of the tiger pit, not if this was what it did to his usually strong daughter.

“Papa?” her voice croaked, as though strained to speak. Roy slowly lessened his intense hold on her until he was able to look her in the eyes. He expected to see fear, but at first, received only a continuation of that blank expression to be followed by a suddenly angry scowl. She wriggled out of his grip and stood up, a flower falling from her hair and onto the ground.

“Aideen?”

“I would like to see this thing.” Her words were calm, steady.

“I think it might be a bit much for you,” Frank said, putting a hand on the shoulder of the red coat.

She only looked up at him. “It is made to look like me, so why hide it from me?”

“Aideen,” Frank said, “it isn’t exactly pretty. The tigers seem to have had a hold of it for a few hours.”

“So it looks like me and it is scratched up. Is there more I need to know?”

“She’s not going to back down.” Roy could tell that easily enough from the look in her eyes. He might have compared it to any of her parents when they were angry, but there was still more to it. She was determined, angry, curious… he couldn’t begin to pinpoint it all in those hazel eyes.

“Lieutenant Colonel Archer, sir,” one of the younger men yelled out. “The zoologists have brought the item from the pit.”

Before a word or a gesture could be made to signal to Aideen that she could go ahead and see, she was already heading through the crowd, just daring anyone to stop her, frightening them all with a single icy look from her usually fiery eyes. Roy pushed himself to his feet, moving to follow her, knowing full well he should have been leading her, rather than the other way around. Yet, that didn’t seem to be changing, as she was considerably faster than he was with a bit of a headstart.

As the hardened military officers and witnesses who had yet been questioned parted, looking at her in fear, her lithe frame easily twisting and sliding itself among the crowd of people, who moved even more swiftly as he came behind her toward the red-coated thing near the pit.

“Aideen,” Roy said, putting a hand on her shoulder, only to have it shrugged away.

“This is very well done,” she said. “Done with alchemy, I would be almost certain.”

“Aideen?”

“It’s some kind of composite,” she said, kneeling beside the thing. “A softer material over a harder red. The clothing’s very close to my own, and the details of the face are too. Someone put a great deal of work into this.”

“The question is, why?” Frank said.

********

“Damn it, let me through.”

“Who do you think…” one military officer said. “I’m sorry Lieutenant Colonel, sir.”

“Better be,” Ed said, making his way into the zoo. He might have yelled at the man under other circumstances, but he knew better and to be honest, the man wasn’t high up on his list of concerns at the moment.

“Brother, I can see Aideen.”

“I’m not that damned short Al, I can see her too.” Ed continued to walk as he cursed himself for calling himself short. “Aideen!”

The dark head turned toward him, making eye contact for only a moment, her expression cold before she turned back to analyzing the thing at her feet.

Finally he made his way through the crowd, trying to ignore the strange looks from the people around him.

“Ed,” Kain said, “your hair…”

“Is orange, I know.”

He heard Al explaining in more detail while he went to his daughter, that the explosion had turned both their hair orange gradually as the day wore on. But at the moment, all Ed was concerned about was his daughter.

“I don’t know if this is someone’s idea of a sick joke,” he heard Roy saying, “but we aren’t going to stand for this.”

Ed could see Frank in the distance, talking to some of the zoologists, Kain moving to talk to others in the crowd, having heard Al’s summary of Ed’s mistake and the explosion that left them both temporary carrot tops. It seemed Frank was doing the investigation, Kain the interrogation. Though it would never have been true with the older man’s counterpart, these two worked remarkably well as a team.

Immediately, Ed knelt beside his daughter, putting a hand on her right knee. “Sweetie?”

She slowly turned her head and eyed him cautiously. “You look ridiculous.”

“Thank you so much,” Ed said, flatly. Then, with genuine concern, he asked, “How are you?”

“Fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” She stood up. “Why would I care that someone was stupid enough to try something like this? Why would it matter that a tiger just finished gnawing on something that looks exactly like me? Why would I care?” Though her anger was rising, Ed was taken back by the steady calm in her tone.

“We’ll find out who did this.”

“Right,” she scoffed.

“Aideen, they are doing everything they can,” a voice said behind them, coming through the crowd. A scruffy blond head came through, Fletcher grabbing Ed’s daughter by the shoulders, spinning her to face him. He was almost manhandling her as he did, and Ed’s initial reaction was to pound the younger man into the cement floor, and Roy looked to be thinking the same thing. “I know you’re in shock, but you can’t take it out on them.”

Aideen initially glared at him, but soon, the glare melted and something much more raw came across in her eyes. “Don’t I have the right to be angry? This shit keeps happening, and I’m tired of it.” And it really sounded like she meant it. Her voice sounded weary, and even a bit weak. “I’m just so damned tired of it all.”

At those words, Fletcher seemed to realize the two fathers needed to comfort their daughter, even though Ed was aware it was something needed more for their sake than for hers. The young man slowly began relinquishing her to their waiting arms.

********

Frank stood talking to two men in his investigative team, glancing over his shoulder at the teenager he had grown so attached to, the one he wanted to defend nearly as fiercely as her parents.

“Sir, we’ve found additional doll parts in other pens. It looks as though something was training the animals to attack.”

“Were the other dolls recognizable… and did you say parts?” Frank asked.

“Yes sir, arms, legs, heads, all ripped to near shreds.”

“Completely unrecognizable.”

“Though, there were pieces that easily could have been either the Wrath or Strong Arm alchemists just by their size.”

“Are they training them to attack only military?” Frank asked, keeping his voice as calm as possible.

“There were civilians as well. Whoever made it didn’t seem to discriminate about who they were.”

“The zoologists are looking over the others now. They said something about the markings didn’t match the pens and cages where they were found. They are looking over the dolls now.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, lieutenant,” Frank said, looking at the younger of the two men.

“I’m from the east, originally, and I can tell you that the hawks in the one cage couldn’t have possibly made the marks on one fake arm. I’m not entirely sure any animal from the east could have made it. None I know. It actually resembled ones I had seen on Sergeant Michael’s body during the…” The soldier, still no more than twenty-five shook his head. “the chimera attack two years ago.”

“Lieutenant,” Frank said, a commanding tone in his voice, “though you might suspect that, I would ask you to keep such suspicions to yourself. There were many of us who lost people we knew or cared about in that attack. Such a theory could cause a lot of headaches we don’t need right now.”

“I understand, sir,” the lieutenant said. “It was just something I felt was worth mentioning to you.”

“Thank you, lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.”

Frank again glanced back over at the young girl, remembering the change that had occurred in her after that initial attack. They really didn’t need another, she really didn’t need another.

********

Wrath pulled Russell behind him, wanting to find out more about that cryptic message they’d received at the restaurant from their highly embarrassed waitress. All they’d been told was that something happened involving the fuhrer’s daughter, which meant that most likely Fletcher was involved as well, as the two had been together. Though Wrath had intended to keep things just a bit cold for a while, he knew his… lover, yes that was the word, was concerned about his little brother, just as Wrath was concerned about him as a friend and Aideen as what amounted to his extended family.

So, rather than remaining distant, Wrath moved through the crowd, his own massive hand encircling Russell’s, squeezing it reassuringly as they went. Fletcher and Aideen would be okay. They had to be.

From his height, Wrath could see the mussed head of the younger Tringham, talking with Roy about something. At the corner, a very bright orange head belonging to Ed of all people was talking to Aideen on the bench, their knees touching lightly as they were angled to look at one another, Ed with his automail arm around her shoulders, her looking over at him as though she wasn’t entirely sure how to carry on this conversation. Then, Wrath spotted the cause of the whole disturbance, what looked like a second Aideen on the floor, clothing shredded, cuts all over her body.

“What the hell?” he said as he reached Fletcher and Roy. Fletcher only glanced down for a moment at Wrath and Russell’s clasped hands before explaining everything that had happened. It was strange to see the younger man taking control of a situation like this, but it wasn't a secret that the normally timid blond become something else entirely when his former student was involved. Sometimes, it made Wrath wonder if it went beyond his own feelings of family with Nicholas and to some extent, Aideen.

“Wrath,” Roy said, his official tone of voice betrayed by the concerned glanced he made at his daughter and husband on the bench, “I was hoping you’d be able to analyze the doll.”

He nodded, kneeling beside the thing that looked like Aideen, watching as Russell was pulled away to look at what appeared to be others like this one.

In the distance, he could hear the voices of several teenage boys, Nicholas and Phillip Armstrong among the group. Almost immediately, Nicholas went to his sister, Phillip looking over at her with a bit of longing in his eyes before turning to Roy.

“Fuhrer, sir, I know I am not yet a cadet, but I hope there is something I can do to help in this.” He rigidly saluted the father of his ex-girlfriend.

“I can use your help here as I test the materials used in this thing.”

Phillip nodded and knelt beside Wrath.

********

Munich

“Well, Mr. Schmidt, I am rather happy to have you to add to my studies,” the woman said to Hohenheim. “And I am sure we can find some place for your grandson to work.”

Phllip Reid, who in the last few months Hohenheim had been teaching alchemy, had very little skill in the area to begin with, but the young man’s heart and determination more than made up for it. No one was going to tell this young man he wasn’t going to find and save his father.

Hohenheim had finally convinced this woman that he would be an asset, though he kept just how much of one as close to his chest as he could. He didn’t want to take the risk of having them discover that in this world where alchemy is nothing more than an innate talent that largely goes unused. It was too great of a risk if they knew that he was capable of higher level alchemy, that he was probably worth more than four or five of the people the Thules had collected together.

“I look forward to the addition that you two will make within our group.”

Hohenheim nodded, Phillip taking his lead. Hohenheim didn’t trust this woman, and he would constantly look for signs if she knew who he truly was. After all, if she had managed to gather the state alchemists' doubles from this world, who could say she didn’t know who he was. Not only that, but he had to find ways to prove himself useful while continuing to sabotage their work. He was trapped on this side of the gate. He’d accepted that, but he wasn’t about to allow these people on their crazed quest for Shamballa harm the family he’d left behind.

He’d gotten the message from Al through Wrath and Edward, and it sounded as though his sons were happy in their current lives. If that was true, then Hohenheim wasn’t going to let anything ruin that. He’d already done more than enough to hurt his boys, and far too much of his own past had affected their lives.

His only concern at the moment was ensuring that neither Phillip nor his step-father let off any signals to the other that could be perceived by the Thules. It was too much of a risk. Hohenheim’s only hope in that regard was that he would be the first to talk to Alex Armstrong, rather than Phillip. Because, while Phillip might be capable of controlling himself, after countless lectures and warnings on the older man’s part, Alex had received no warnings, and might simple be excited at the prospect of seeing his son again.

Though he truly didn’t deserve to, Hohenheim knew that given the opportunity, he would do almost anything to see his own boys again. He laughed to himself as the group’s leader gave them a brief tour of the underground compound. His sons were hardly boys anymore. Both were past thirty, their children, if Al had any, would possibly still be considered children, though Ed’s twins were teenagers by now.

Still, as he looked at the weapons around him, the ones Eckhart planned to take through the Gate if she ever got it open, he realized that perhaps there were some things he wouldn’t do to see them again, not if it meant their lives would be at stake.

********

Amestris

“You know, Mr. Tucker, originally I was very angry with you for leaving those dolls in the zoo,” Dante said as she meandered around the cages containing the chimeras, scratching their heads and offering them affection. She’d learned by now that by being kind to them, she could get them to protect her from anything. “However, it seems there was a method to your madness.”

“I had hoped the military would react the way that they have,” Tucker hissed.

“Yes, they suspect this was a stunt done by an alchemist to frighten the little Mustang brood.” She walked to his little doll, nothing more than a mixture of animal parts in the shape of a human. “I wonder how long, though, until they realize they were training devices for my little pets here?”

“Well, I seriously doubt that even if they suspect they will ever anticipate that they are being housed directly below the fuhrer’s mansion.”

“That was a stroke of genius on my part,” she said, looking over at the strange creature she’d aligned herself too. “How goes the research?”

“Very well. Though I believe you are still holding out portions of it.”

“Well, I must ensure the Gate is opened, first, Mr. Tucker, or at the very least that I am closer to my goals.” Dante smiled at the man, trying to evoke some charm in the recesses of her old, rotted soul. “And learning how to make a proper homunculi, one that will behave more like a human is not a task that can be rushed. It is better that you understand all aspects that go into creating one before you attempt it.”

The large chimera nodded his upturned head as Dante prepared to leave for the surface. “Please feel free to contact me should you need anything.”

********

Nicholas glanced at his sister’s door when he awoke early the next morning, very rare for him. There was a dark feeling eating away at his gut that things would never be the same. The look in his sister’s eyes yesterday shook him more than he’d ever be able to express. Aideen may have been an “ice princess” before, but the simple fact was that he didn’t know how much more she could take.

He flexed his automail. Yes, he’d lost a lot, but the fact was that it was all affecting his sister on a more emotional level. He had been studying Dante, and he wondered just how much his sister knew—she always knew more than he did. Nicholas looked over the frame of the door, smiling at the spot where he’d measured them both when he finally surpassed her. Things were changing, and he could sense it.

He only hoped they weren’t permanent.