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Unravel The Spider’s Web	By : RiekaDeVolka Category: Fullmetal Alchemist > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 675 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Full Metal Alchemist, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Unravel The Spider’s Web
- 1
Title: Unravel The Spider’s Web.

Character(s): Alphonse Elric/Wrath.

Beta: Zoe, aka Pride.

Rating: NC-17.

Genre: Angst.

Warnings: Character death. Suggestions
of barely consensual violent sex. Psychological torture. Mildly explicit
description of sex. Prostitution. Drama. Queerness. Post anime series. Light
Spoilers. Ambivalence regarding movie canon.

Prompt: From 7stages: Set 5. From
fullservicefma: Spiderweb.

Feedback: Very welcome, please!

Word Count: 4 274 total, 3 956 factual.

Quote: “Tears to be hold, truth to
be told, in the unraveling threads of the spider’s web.” From “Last Man
Standing” (original short story) by me.

Lyrics: "Keep your heart broken" by The Rasmus; "Hello" by Evanescence; "Gunning down romance" by Savage Garden; "Hoy" by Morbo; "FRGT/10" by Linkin Park ft. Alchemist and Chali 2na; "Lover I don’t have to love" by Bright Eyes; "Amores que matan" by Jaguares.

Summary: Because two broken things do
not make up a whole.

Author's Notes:
Um, this is
a strange idea. This story was written for the fullservicefma September contest
but also for the 7stages challenge.
Basically, but each scene can be read as a drabble and still make sense. I think it makes sense as a whole, since
it’s a chronological order and there’s consistency in the universe. It is,
however, meant to be ambiguous and slightly confusing. But anyway, hope you
like it, because God knows I’m never writing something like this again. That’s
just too many prompts to coordinate at the same time.

If you want to read each drabble
separately, the prompt table is here.

~*~*~

Unravel
The Spider’s Web.

~*~*~

“Days
go by like the wind

And
this life is too short

It
makes no sense to give in

To
release you from my thoughts.”

~*~*~

I.
Whisper.

There
was a strange silence in the air, buzzing so loudly it was completely void of
emotion. It permeated the house, the town, the children, the townsfolk; the
very rocks over which the young blonde found himself standing. Izumi Curtis had
been a constant in Dublith. Even when the town slowly grew and tried to fit
itself as a city, everyone knew or at least had heard about her. About her
characteristically acid kindness to everyone, her strict delight in children.
Everyone knew of the woman with the dreadlock hair and the sharp eyes; the wife
of the strongest man in Dublith, the Alchemist in disgrace.

Alphonse
stood in front of the new grave, feeling something inside him wail against the
oppressing quiet that seemed to weight down his lungs with every breath he
took. The boy watched the white stone, trailing his eyes over the simple lines,
carved out into a flower he had never seen before, another ghost he would never
really understand. He saw the copious amount of bouquets arranged carefully
around the tomb, a testament to the love friends had for their childless
mother.

He
thought he should cry, give a visible proof of the despair pooling under the
knot in his throat, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have any tears left to cry.

He
had cried when he was told his brother was gone. He had cried when he
understood Edward was not coming back. He had cried bitterly when the memories
he had been denied for so long finally came over him, crushing him under the
knowledge of a hundred lifetimes buried within a suit of armor. He had cried
when he realized that when they gave him that pretty silver watch, when they
smiled at him and praised him for his genius… they were looking at Edward
in him. Not Alphonse. Never Alphonse.

The
wind blew over his hair, ruffling it with the same tenderness of a lover caress
and Alphonse shivered. His hair was long, though loose and not braided. His
clothes were dark and comfortable, though constricting under the weight of
memories. His coat was red and worn, though the Flamel carefully sewed on the
back was a constant burn over his skin, raw and tender and atemporal.
He wondered for a moment if the woman he was supposed to be mourning ever saw
him as himself; if she confused him with the ghost or if she could see him
sobbing to himself under the profile of the brother long gone.

“Alphonse
Elric.”

The
drawl came from behind him, lazy, serpent like. A tiny whisper of shattered
time that froze his blood and snapped him back into the metal cage he still
dreamt about some nights. Whirling around, he saw the spiderweb first. The thin
lines that hung perfectly from ageless stone, decorating a nameless monument
with the delicate trace of spun silver. But beyond it, hiding in the shadows
behind the strangely iridescent threads, two eerily bright eyes fixed on him
smugly. Alphonse lost his breath somewhere along the lines of that face, as the
mocking amethyst pinned him down as a butterfly, slowly crushing his fluttering
wings with ease.

Wrath
smiled, unlike anything else Alphonse could remember, because it was so full;
of deceit, of hatred, of longing, of sadness. It was Loneliness made lips in
that hollow face, framed by dark hair and high lightened by waxen skin. The
rundown automail was still there, melted in some places, but glinting
temptingly under the last rays of the day.

Snapping
out of his contemplations when the monster came forward, the blonde tensed
visibly, prepared to attack at the smallest provocation. As Wrath slithered –
dark, velvety snake; terribly poisonous and yet so… so… - to him, the
delicate cobweb caught on his shoulder. Silver against pale skin, silver
against black cloth.

“Alphonse
Elric,” The Sin whispered again, rolling the syllables over his tongue as if it
were a delicacy, eyes bright as he closed up against his prey, his master, his
owner, his enemy...

The
broken creature whispered his name. His and not his brother’s, causing
shivers to race up and down his spine as he died a little in each sound. The
smile got smaller, more humane, more pained. Alphonse wondered if Homunculi
could miss their loved ones, then remembered Homunculi had no loved ones.

Wrath
slowly came to him and Alphonse felt the irrational need to run.
Run away from the monster with the child-like façade. Run away from the
memories of betrayal served in sweetened words. Run away from the insufferable
certainty that he really didn’t want to run away at all. It was the start of a
storm, a light gust that would grow into a tempestuous hurricane. And he was
standing here, immobile, staring into inhuman eyes and contemplating the very
ports those traitorous winds blew from.

When
the cold hand wound on his hair, when the dreadful scent of Death filled up his
nostrils, when he tasted the ashen lips with his own… Alphonse decided he
didn’t care. Wrath whined, curling around him, trying to steal the warmth,
desperately trying to shove the emptiness aside. Alchemist and Homunculus swore
off themselves into that kiss, into the whisper of wrong that screamed
at them to stop, the whisper of a raising moon hiding their shared sins under
its pale light.

At
dusk, in the isolated silence of the graveyard, Alphonse Elric sold his soul to
a monster, over a whisper and a spider’s web.

~*~*~

“If
I smile and don't believe

Soon
I know I'll wake from this dream

Don't
try to fix me I'm not broken

Hello
I'm the lie living for you so you can hide.”

~*~*~

II.
Lie.

He
lied.

Alphonse
found it terribly amusing that his new found shadow would be so easy to
conceal. He had never known he could be such a convincing actor, such a great
liar. He could stand in front of Mustang’s desk, with his back straight, his
jaw set, his eyes fixed firmly on the black ones and he could tell his story
without flinching, no matter how slight or how terrible the variations he made
were. After every mission completed effortlessly, every achievement reached
easily, every disaster contained efficiently… the scene would always the same.
He would talk, and Mustang would believe him, because of course, of course,
little, lovely Alphonse Elric could do no wrong.

He
lied, because they wouldn’t understand.

Wrath
never believed his lies. He could always see right through him. When the
Homunculus caught him lying, he would sneer and stab him repeatedly with
memories of who he was. If Alphonse braided his hair on a whim, Wrath would
come and undo it, running his fingers over the long strands in a mockery of concern
that always made the blonde hold back a few tears. If Alphonse stared a bit
longer than necessary at the joints of the automail, Wrath would come and shove
it against his face, forcing his cold – cold, undead, terrible, sinful – body
all over the quivering Alchemist with a cruel demand of release.

He
lied, because only the inhuman eyes told him the truth anymore.

Alphonse
always knew when Wrath lied. He could always tell when the monster was trying
to escape reality. When the young Alchemist caught him lying, he would cage and
trap him into the small confines of his inexistence. If Wrath grew distracted
and started doodling Flamels all over the small apartment, Alphonse would go
and scratch them, blurring the clear lines with the endless patience of a
saint, crushing the forged memories until the Homunculus had to flee or submit
himself like a willing sacrifice. If Wrath plucked the petals off those strange
blue flowers he seemed to get out of nowhere, Alphonse would come and touch him
with the velvety – velvety, lost, tender, unwanted – shred leaves until he
couldn’t deny the fact he craved the touch of something warm.

He
lied, because he was alive.

Every
time Alphonse found a cobweb in a corner, he remembered the graveyard and the
silence, the loneliness and the kiss. It was the blind leading the blind, lying
their way through life, bumping constantly with the sharp corners of Truth they
wanted nothing to do with. Every time Wrath found a spider web in a corner, he
remembered the weakness and the need, the submission and the desire.

They
lied… because they could.

~*~*~

“I’m
gunning down romance

It
never did a thing for me

But
heartache and misery

Ain’t
nothing but a tragedy

Love
don’t leave me

Take
these broken wings

I’m
going to take these broken wings

And
learn to fly

And
learn to fly away.”

~*~*~

III.
Broken.

Sometimes,
he wondered if he had gone insane. It was a very rational explanation for a
very irrational situation, and Alphonse thought it would be oddly accurate. It
could certainly explain his strange need to tame the wild purple hair – so
dark, at first he had always thought it was black, pooling like midnight over
the white linens of his bed – or his insatiable craving for the taste of
cheated death, sweet and putrid all over his tongue.

After
all, wasn’t everyone always telling him he was insane for having followed his
brother’s footsteps?

Yes,
Alphonse decided as he watched Wrath arch onto him, insanity was a nice tag to
put to his condition. It had a lovely ring to it, one that made him groan as he
gave another thrust into that entirely too tempting cold, feeling the
body underneath clench in desperation. Wrath made the most beautiful noises
when Alphonse was lodged deep within him, fulfilling his need to be submitted.
Wrath looked up at him through unfocused eyes, lips parted in invitation. It
was a strangely arousing sensation, the corpse-like rawness of such a
responsive body that always wanted more. More speed, more force, more
violence, more Alphonse.

He
was a Sin. A horrible, terrible, shameful monster that Alphonse should have
been killing, rather than fucking, but he was his Sin. His, and no
one else’s. No one else was allowed to touch the monster that came from beyond
the Gate. No one else was allowed to listen to those pleading gasps that
promised the world and more for a little taste of ecstasy. Thrown carelessly
over his
bed; a broken rag doll to be done with as he pleased; with that strangely smooth
hair that drew a somber halo around the most wicked need of them all… gleaming
under the sickly yellow light of an old lamp, Wrath was his, solely
his.

It
was always too much and never nearly enough, but for those precious moments, in
the dawn of an earth shattering climax, he could ignore the sting of his
fractured dreams and pretend he too was hanging from a spider’s thread,
hovering above the desolated reality they often ignored together.

They
were fragments of greater things, incomplete failures that were simply unfit to
succeed. They were Sin and Sinner, but for Alphonse, whose only desire was to
own himself, that was all that mattered.

~*~*~

“Se que no siempre tengo la razón

Pero no he olvidado hacia donde voy

Ya no siento algún temor

Porque nunca olvido hacia donde voy.”

~*~*~

IV.
Forgotten.

Alphonse
liked walking through the graveyards.

It
sounded morbid and he generally got more than a few risen eyebrows whenever the
topic came up, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed. He liked the
respectful silence that fell over the graves, the sinuous paths that held a
thousand stories behind the polished stones. It was cathartic, to stand amidst
the land of death and let their forgotten cries inspire him when he needed to
solve a riddle.

He
seemed to be solving too many riddles of the late.

As
a field agent and with the war brewing on all four corners, he was expected to
be everywhere at once. He was, after all, Alphonse Elric, the notorious younger
brother to the Alchemist of Legend, the shadow of the Fullmetal. Most of the time,
he liked fitting into the stereotype, being the incredible genius who had
nearly all the answers, the untouchable figure always three steps ahead. On the
quiet afternoons after a mission, though, or when he was frustrated by a
particularly trying case, it was nice to be reminded who
he was. The reminders, of course, weren’t always nice on their own,
but it was usually the deliverer that made Alphonse realize he had a purpose
after all.

Walking
the paths of worn grass in a graveyard, however, he was stripped of his title,
his fame and recognition. He was just a young man with a lot on his mind and
not nearly enough time to be done with it. He could feel the shadow blanketing
him, mimicking each step in a testing symphony of discordant notes that somehow
managed a precarious harmony time and time again.

That
day, the reminder had been particularly nasty, as it had been for both,
something that had never happened before. Alphonse tended to forget who
he was, but Wrath was always there to remind him of what he was. But
they, it seemed, had forgotten that only one of them was immortal, truly
untouchable. And as it turned out, the strongest was the most vulnerable in the
end. Alphonse sighed – hoped, wished, longed, thought – and
kicked a small pebble, watching it bounce down the path until it got lost among
the yellowish grass.

“There’s
a spider on your shoulder,” He said jovially, looking up at Wrath with a mild
smile.

The
Homunculus thought the blonde looked far too calm for someone who had almost
been killed twice the same day.

“Yeah?”
Purple eyes glinted like jewels in the late afternoon sun, “Well, there’s
cobwebs on your brain, but I don’t complain.”

Alphonse
laughed and Wrath found himself enraptured by the sudden sound. It was a pretty
laugh, he guessed, very rich, very… human. It was the type of sound that
told each Elric apart, and Wrath could tell, because he had known them both.
Edward’s laughter had always been harsh, bordering on cynical. Alphonse could
never laugh and not be truly happy whilst he did.

Sometimes,
Wrath wanted to forget: the laughter, the smiles, the kisses, the hands, the
eyes… He wanted to forget, sometimes, when he didn’t know where they were going
anymore. But then, when he did remember, he was thankful he
couldn’t forget at all.

~*~*~

“And
the figure inside could bear anybody's name

The
memories I keep are from a time like then

I
put on my paper so I could come back to them

Someday
I'm hopin’ to close my eyes and pretend

That
this crumpled up paper can be perfect again.”

~*~*~

V.
Pretense.

Weddings
were a loud affair in Rizembul. There was incessant chatter left and right,
bright decorations and pleasant smiles everywhere. There was also a consistent
lack of shadows, as if the whole town conspired against Night and her children,
annihilating every dark corner with bright lights and painful shows of
fireworks. It was a time for celebration, for cheer and good will, and Alphonse
found himself drowning in the need to flee.

He
couldn’t of course, because that wouldn’t be polite, and he owed
Winry. He owed her for the loneliness after he went away, for the scarce
letters in the past few years, for the icy heartbreak of saying no
to the offering of this day. He owed her the show of being well and happy and there,
because otherwise she would not walk down the aisle and recite empty vows to a
man whose name Alphonse couldn’t really remember.

Wrath
was not there, anywhere, and Alphonse resented him for it. Resented his lack of
obligation with anything, his ability to abscond himself from the perpetual
call of humanity. He walked through the streets, taken by a carnival-like fever
that seemed to contain the mighty war cries echoing just outside their door.
Alphonse was known and loved by all, and he found it inconveniently tiring to
spend all his time dodging inquiries about his life – not that he had
much of a life, at least not the kind those people would like to hear about.

Wandering
around the living party, however, he ran across a small alley, abandoned and
untouched by the glee that was palpable in the air all round town. Inside, he
saw the cowering shapes of those who were forsaken from the merriment. Sickly
thin children, pale and bony, destined to wither away to nothing under the hard
gaze of a society that cared none for them. One of them wore black rags that
made Alphonse long for his secluded corner of deceit back in Central, but the
dirty creature before him had human eyes; green, weakened, broken human eyes.

When
he leaned against the sodden walls, hands wound into raspy hair that had too
many crusts of dirt in it, Alphonse looked up at the sky, framed by the
buildings housing him and his poor substitute for sin. There were cobwebs in
the corners, not silver, like in the graveyard of hopes back home, but grey,
dull and fake. He arched to inexperienced hands that were too warm to be truly
arousing, and closed his eyes, remembering a particular smile that would fit
the moment so perfectly. Nothing was more beautiful than that smile. So
transparent, he could see the hatred lurking behind; so entirely sordid, he
couldn’t ignore the lust stirring in his bones. The smile Wrath had given him
in the graveyard, overflowing with so much and offering so little. The smile
Wrath gave him, when he was just hands and lips and tongue and wanting.

Alphonse’s
soft gasps got lost in the riot of sound from the rejoicing city, and the name
that passed his lips was ignored by the world at large.

He
had pretended to be honored by walking Winry down the aisle, by being given the
bright red ribbon that entitled him as godfather for the firstborn child. He
had pretended to be hesitant to pay the little outcast kneeling before him,
when his blood was already boiling.

Alphonse
fixed his vacant eyes on the spider’s web right above his head, and decided he
could keep the pretense for a little longer.

~*~*~

“I
want a lover I don't have to love

I
want a boy who's so drunk he doesn't talk

And
where's the kid with the chemicals?

I
got a hunger and I can't seem to get full

I
need some meaning I can memorize

The
kind I have always seems to slip my mind.”

~*~*~

VI.
Obsession.

I
love you.

Wrath
hated him. Hated his stupid blank stare. Hated his monotonous gestures. Hated
the perpetual frown. Hated the empty feeling telling he had somehow managed to
kill the butterfly after all. Hated the stupid tears that simply wouldn’t come,
because his eyes were just too dry to cry them. Hated the condescending tone
that slowly killed him again – again, again, again, again – when he tried
to steal a kiss and make things playful.

I
love you.

He
should have kept his mouth shut. He always fucked up things, Dante had said so,
Envy, even Sloth, on occasion, told him his mouth would get him killed. Wrath
wanted to grin at that. Not killed – too late for that – but certainly numb. He
shouldn’t have said anything. Everything was fine before. Not perfect, but he
was broken and Alphonse shattered, so there couldn’t be that much perfection
among them. But it had been nice, before.

I
love you.

Why
was he defective? He had been defective that sliver of time he had been alive
and he was defective now. A big, defective Homunculus that was too human to be
truly immortal and too unnatural to be truly human. Wrath sneered at the mirror
hanging listlessly from the bathroom wall. He had aged, gotten older and
stronger, but not a bit wiser. Alphonse had aged, too, beautifully at that, but
he was still in pieces, and Wrath didn’t know how to put the puzzle back
together so he could get his smile in return.

I
love you.

Could
something soulless love? Truly love? Wrath was starting to doubt it. One
protected the ones one loved, right? Love was supposed to make sure people were
happy and sheltered and safe. But all he did was hurt Alphonse.
Hurt,
hurt, hurt, hurt. Everything he did,
everything he said, it was just salt into the wound. When he touched him, he
didn’t flinch – Alphonse was too kind to him to actually flinch away from him –
but his eyes grew distant, glassy.

I
love you.

The
nights were the most ironic, when the corpse fucked the living, and the living
seemed the corpse and the corpse didn’t know and couldn’t know and it was all
so, so terribly wrong. Alphonse was the one that was supposed to dominate
him. He was supposed to be strong and powerful and his, not sit back
and take it like a lamb to slaughter. Alphonse was the one who took his mind
away from stupid Flamels that did no good, not go around searching for cobwebs
in every corner.

I
love you.

Wrath
hated himself the most, though. Hated himself when he started to feel eager for
the next assignment, hoping the words would be lost in their memories by the
time Alphonse came back. But to no avail, and Wrath knew it and hated himself
when he finally admitted he had destroyed the only thing he truly cherished
anymore. Late at night, after Alphonse was asleep and tired and dying,
Wrath realized the only adventure left was finding themselves. Find the last
shade of individuals lost into the sea of cacophonic lies they had wrapped so
tightly around them they were killing each other without knowing.

I
love you.

“I’ll
make you love me,” The whisper, even smaller than the first he uttered, years
before, got lost under the regular breathing and unwelcome innocence that made
Wrath curl tightly around himself.

Staring
blankly at the corners, still looking for that perfect pattern of spun silver,
Alphonse shivered and tried to remember what color his own eyes were.

~*~*~

“Hay amores que lloran su dicha

Hay
amores que niegan su nacimiento

Pero
hay uno que es letal

Y
es el tuyo

Hay
amores que matan

Hay
amor el tuyo mata

Hay
amores que matan

Pero
el mío no resucita.”

~*~*~

VII.
Free.

Homunculus
were not supposed to get drunk. Wrath was starting to think they couldn’t
get drunk. Nevertheless, he kept drinking and drinking and drinking, until the
liquid tasted like nothing and he lost count of the bottles thrown carelessly
around him. He muttered nonsense under his breath, words slurred as he grinned
something between wicked and blessed, eyes fixing tiredly on Alphonse’s pensive
ones. He raised another bottle, laughing quietly and grinning madly, toasting
to the unknown. Alphonse thought that grin was more fitting for something crude
like Envy than for Wrath. Lonely, sad, whimpering Wrath. The Homunculus
muttered a song to the depths of his sorrows, tongue tainted with enough
alcohol to be raw.

Alphonse
accepted the kiss graciously, even though it was sloppy and the stench of
digested scotch made him fight his stomach’s urge to wrench terribly. The whole
place reeked of something rotten, but then again, the ruins of Xerxes had never
been a cheerful place. The blonde Alchemist wanted nothing more than grab his
temporally insane – wasn’t Wrath insane all the time? – companion and make his
way back to his apartment, where hopefully no one would see them and he could
exorcise the strange notion out of the Sin’s mind.

He
had no need for iridescent threads set into a trap to catch the weakened
butterfly. He was standing, despite it all, he was standing. He didn’t need
someone else to love to sink him back into the depths of past mistakes. Love
hadn’t done anything good for him, ever. It had taken his mother away. It had
sent his brother away. It had broken a creature that was supposed to be
perfect.

“I’m
gonna make you free,” Wrath laughed hysterically, letting him go and stumbling
over to the side.

Alphonse
wasn’t expecting the light, or the array, or Gluttony – he thought
that was Gluttony, but he couldn’t really be sure. He hadn’t expected the cold
that settled into his bones as the Gate was summoned. The hated Gate, the one
thing Wrath had never really gotten over with. The very same Gate he was
walking to.

I’ll
make you love me.

Alphonse
had a second, perhaps less, to realize what was going on before the saw the
small, clawed hands reaching out for him. He didn’t react, too engrossed by the
screech as the Homunculi offered were destroyed, taken, consumed.
The tunnel and the hands and the wish and all he could think about was that
stupid tune and the wrenched image of a cobweb behind his eyelids and those
stupid, stupid words he should have said.

Wrath ceased to exist.

I
love you too.

Alphonse
crossed the threshold, and promised himself he wouldn’t cry.

~*~*~

“Tears
to be hold, truth to be told, in the unraveling threads of the spider’s web.”

~*~*~
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