help help ): ):
Warnings: Needs beta-ing for continuity, and probably grammar. Except that I am brain dead, so please forgive. Sort-of character death.
Rating: Probably an R.
Pairings: Roy/Havoc, implied Roy/Ed
Notes: The result of Martin Amis and exam stress.
Disclaimer: Full Metal Alchemist, its characters and situations, are not my property and you're better off suing somebody who actually has money.
Summary: Linearity
Well, you have been warned. But I can say with absolute certainty that it's interesting, at least.
Second Coming
"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!" -- Hamlet, I.v.188-189
"Après moi le deluge" -- Louis XV
They call him the Flame Alchemist because he consumes fire. He can put his finger to a burning wick and absorb the dancing flame so that it dies down to a spark, down to the faint scent of wax which he consumes, also. He doesn’t feel the heat, or the pain. The candle is very much whole, and it is only evening.
When he wakes up he is lying on top of a bloody pile of corpses. He can’t remember very much, except that there was fighting. There’s as much blood as there is sweat on his skin. There's the acrid tang of burnt flesh in the air.
He remembers the countless times he ends up in the infirmary, patiently waiting for the doctor to break his leg, to maim him, and then return him to the front, where he continues to conquer the flames, one wicked tongue at a time. He’s seen people dead from bullet wounds get up and walk around, and soldiers blown apart by cannons come together. These things are a dime a dozen.
One thing he realises quickly is that shitting is a bitch. There’s no choice but to take it up the ass - and it hurts like nothing you could believe. But then, so does life. And there’s the smell, and the ache. Razors manufacture day-old stubble which sinks into his skin by the end of the day. He has to keep putting it back on.
He’s tired all the time, and his ribs hurt. We’re on the death row, he thinks. They’ve left me behind. When he looks into the mirror he sees himself, gaunt and pale-faced, with dark circles under his eyes. And when he sits down in the mess he sees similar haggard, despairing looks all around him. There are fewer of them, now. It translates into more food, but the cooking hasn't got better. The boy who took the bunk below disappeared last week but he's moved back in. He's scarily cheerful, but then, happiness is relative. It bleeds into the general moroseness, a respite, for awhile. After some time you learn that everything is temporary. Normal rules don't apply. Like how there isn't much of a difference in taste between cardboard and potato.
He meets her the next day in the field. She’s bleeding all over him - his uniform is turning black from all the blood, but as he touches the smouldering circle and the people spring back to life, she gets stronger and stronger until she stands with him, back to back, gripping her gun, facing the enemy. He can feel her heart thumping strongly and for a moment he believes it'll never stop. Brave, loyal Hawkeye. She's the last.
She looks at him and smiles. It’s beatific, she’s found her peace.
“Goodbye”, she says.
“Don’t get yourself killed,” he pleads. Because, he thinks, he’ll be alone.
Havoc dies on a Friday. The following day, they run into each other in the corridor. Havoc is angry, it radiates from him like fire. Havoc stops and stares at him, which isn’t surprising because his fly is open, and the air feels cool on his soft cock.
“Bastard.”
“Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I won’t.”
“Havoc, listen to me.”
The ensuing silence is awkward, and must be broken. “Edward…” he sighs, and this seems to be the magic word, because somehow along the way Havoc ends up on his knees, wetly slurping up his come, while his fingers knead Havoc’s scalp, absorbing the heat, and he bites his lip to stop from crying out. They have hard, desperate sex. He learns that Havoc likes to use his teeth. When Havoc zips him up, he’s hard. And he wants.
“You’re such a cocktease”, he says.
Havoc only smirks.
As the months pass he fattens up. His uniform fits snugly around his shoulders, and he’s moved his belt up two notches. He’s stopped slouching, and moves around with confidence. At night he wanks off to the image of a chain-smoking soldier with sandy brown hair bent over his office desk. He is slightly disturbed when said soldier morphs into a boy with long blond hair and a hot, sweet mouth. Ed, he thinks, the boy is called Edward. His heart constricts painfully. This can't be what betrayal feels like.
There are more people in the mess, he notices. The bunks are full to bursting and when he does his rounds he has to be careful not to trip over the soldiers sleeping on the floor. Some of the new soldiers are too young - they can't be nineteen. Some of them will have died even before they reach their eighteenth birthday. Havoc too, makes a welcome reappearance. He watches during dinner as Havoc’s cigarette gets longer, and then snaps gloved fingers at it to put it out. He gets a sloe-eyed look for his efforts. “Got a light?” Havoc says, before he puts the stick back into its packet and walks - no, saunters, away. He doesn’t seem angry, not anymore.
Three weeks more and he's standing at the railway station, car exhaust blowing into his face, the offending vehicle disappearing in the distance. His bag is beside him on the floor. There isn't much in it, just a few spare uniforms and toothbrush. Dogtags, check. Gun, check. Nothing in the way of personal possessions. There are other soldiers up on the platform too, fresh-faced, uniforms well-ironed, milling around, talking loudly. They're excited, anybody can see that. He just doesn't understand why. He stands with Hawkeye and Havoc, the three of them bunched up with each other, faces grim. He's waiting for the train that'll take him home.
He remembers walking into an office - brown leather couches, the sharp smell of shoe polish - and handing over his conscription papers. The secretary looks at him - his eye patch, his limp, and purses his lips. He’s suddenly afraid; afraid of life, because he has too much to lose, now. And as he is driven back to the officer’s dormitory he notices the shops that line the street where there was only rubble a few months before. There’s a strange ache growing in his heart, and something like anticipation, or premonition, but he doesn’t know why, and it's not something he wants to think about. It feels familiar, like he's finally come home, to lukewarm coffee and soggy biscuits, and the picture of himself and a scowling blond boy in a red cloak which he keeps hidden behind his books on alchemy. He still cries, sometimes.
It takes a year of hopeless waiting and loving, and then he is standing in the square, loss still bitter in his mouth, hand raised in a salute. Watching the small black speck in the sky getting larger and larger, and knowing, that when Ed comes to him, hello means goodbye.
END
Comments make my day (:
Rating: Probably an R.
Pairings: Roy/Havoc, implied Roy/Ed
Notes: The result of Martin Amis and exam stress.
Disclaimer: Full Metal Alchemist, its characters and situations, are not my property and you're better off suing somebody who actually has money.
Summary: Linearity
Well, you have been warned. But I can say with absolute certainty that it's interesting, at least.
Second Coming
"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!" -- Hamlet, I.v.188-189
"Après moi le deluge" -- Louis XV
They call him the Flame Alchemist because he consumes fire. He can put his finger to a burning wick and absorb the dancing flame so that it dies down to a spark, down to the faint scent of wax which he consumes, also. He doesn’t feel the heat, or the pain. The candle is very much whole, and it is only evening.
When he wakes up he is lying on top of a bloody pile of corpses. He can’t remember very much, except that there was fighting. There’s as much blood as there is sweat on his skin. There's the acrid tang of burnt flesh in the air.
He remembers the countless times he ends up in the infirmary, patiently waiting for the doctor to break his leg, to maim him, and then return him to the front, where he continues to conquer the flames, one wicked tongue at a time. He’s seen people dead from bullet wounds get up and walk around, and soldiers blown apart by cannons come together. These things are a dime a dozen.
One thing he realises quickly is that shitting is a bitch. There’s no choice but to take it up the ass - and it hurts like nothing you could believe. But then, so does life. And there’s the smell, and the ache. Razors manufacture day-old stubble which sinks into his skin by the end of the day. He has to keep putting it back on.
He’s tired all the time, and his ribs hurt. We’re on the death row, he thinks. They’ve left me behind. When he looks into the mirror he sees himself, gaunt and pale-faced, with dark circles under his eyes. And when he sits down in the mess he sees similar haggard, despairing looks all around him. There are fewer of them, now. It translates into more food, but the cooking hasn't got better. The boy who took the bunk below disappeared last week but he's moved back in. He's scarily cheerful, but then, happiness is relative. It bleeds into the general moroseness, a respite, for awhile. After some time you learn that everything is temporary. Normal rules don't apply. Like how there isn't much of a difference in taste between cardboard and potato.
He meets her the next day in the field. She’s bleeding all over him - his uniform is turning black from all the blood, but as he touches the smouldering circle and the people spring back to life, she gets stronger and stronger until she stands with him, back to back, gripping her gun, facing the enemy. He can feel her heart thumping strongly and for a moment he believes it'll never stop. Brave, loyal Hawkeye. She's the last.
She looks at him and smiles. It’s beatific, she’s found her peace.
“Goodbye”, she says.
“Don’t get yourself killed,” he pleads. Because, he thinks, he’ll be alone.
Havoc dies on a Friday. The following day, they run into each other in the corridor. Havoc is angry, it radiates from him like fire. Havoc stops and stares at him, which isn’t surprising because his fly is open, and the air feels cool on his soft cock.
“Bastard.”
“Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I won’t.”
“Havoc, listen to me.”
The ensuing silence is awkward, and must be broken. “Edward…” he sighs, and this seems to be the magic word, because somehow along the way Havoc ends up on his knees, wetly slurping up his come, while his fingers knead Havoc’s scalp, absorbing the heat, and he bites his lip to stop from crying out. They have hard, desperate sex. He learns that Havoc likes to use his teeth. When Havoc zips him up, he’s hard. And he wants.
“You’re such a cocktease”, he says.
Havoc only smirks.
As the months pass he fattens up. His uniform fits snugly around his shoulders, and he’s moved his belt up two notches. He’s stopped slouching, and moves around with confidence. At night he wanks off to the image of a chain-smoking soldier with sandy brown hair bent over his office desk. He is slightly disturbed when said soldier morphs into a boy with long blond hair and a hot, sweet mouth. Ed, he thinks, the boy is called Edward. His heart constricts painfully. This can't be what betrayal feels like.
There are more people in the mess, he notices. The bunks are full to bursting and when he does his rounds he has to be careful not to trip over the soldiers sleeping on the floor. Some of the new soldiers are too young - they can't be nineteen. Some of them will have died even before they reach their eighteenth birthday. Havoc too, makes a welcome reappearance. He watches during dinner as Havoc’s cigarette gets longer, and then snaps gloved fingers at it to put it out. He gets a sloe-eyed look for his efforts. “Got a light?” Havoc says, before he puts the stick back into its packet and walks - no, saunters, away. He doesn’t seem angry, not anymore.
Three weeks more and he's standing at the railway station, car exhaust blowing into his face, the offending vehicle disappearing in the distance. His bag is beside him on the floor. There isn't much in it, just a few spare uniforms and toothbrush. Dogtags, check. Gun, check. Nothing in the way of personal possessions. There are other soldiers up on the platform too, fresh-faced, uniforms well-ironed, milling around, talking loudly. They're excited, anybody can see that. He just doesn't understand why. He stands with Hawkeye and Havoc, the three of them bunched up with each other, faces grim. He's waiting for the train that'll take him home.
He remembers walking into an office - brown leather couches, the sharp smell of shoe polish - and handing over his conscription papers. The secretary looks at him - his eye patch, his limp, and purses his lips. He’s suddenly afraid; afraid of life, because he has too much to lose, now. And as he is driven back to the officer’s dormitory he notices the shops that line the street where there was only rubble a few months before. There’s a strange ache growing in his heart, and something like anticipation, or premonition, but he doesn’t know why, and it's not something he wants to think about. It feels familiar, like he's finally come home, to lukewarm coffee and soggy biscuits, and the picture of himself and a scowling blond boy in a red cloak which he keeps hidden behind his books on alchemy. He still cries, sometimes.
It takes a year of hopeless waiting and loving, and then he is standing in the square, loss still bitter in his mouth, hand raised in a salute. Watching the small black speck in the sky getting larger and larger, and knowing, that when Ed comes to him, hello means goodbye.
END
Comments make my day (: