Fic - "Echo"
Title: Echo
Author: colonel_bastard
Characters/Fandom: Maes Hughes, Roy Mustang. Fullmetal Alchemist [first anime].
Word Count: 1000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Even he can't bring you back.
Warnings: Spoilers for/takes place after episode 25. Gore.
Notes: A horror story for Halloween 2009, and the prompt "homunculus POV" at fma_fic_contest.
You try to inhale and three of your teeth fall out.
They haven’t been properly attached. No part of you has been. Everything hurts. Bones creak and muscles tremble, while your skin stretches and groans with the strain of trying to hold you together. On your second inhale, your jaw pops, and you exhale blood. You’re lying on your back, but your chin is resting on the floor. Don’t think about it too much. Thinking hurts, too.
Boots, shiny black books standing right in front of your nose. You roll up your eyes and look at him. He’s so tall. You used to be taller. You manage a third inhale and release it in a hissing whimper.
That’s when you sense the memories. You had memories. They slip through your brain like mist, tendrils of remembrance teasing you with humanity. That’s almost thirty years of life, hovering before you in a cloud, and if you can reach it you will know who you are. The man standing before you- he’s the key. If you can figure him out, you are real.
He didn’t always used to look like that. He used to be so handsome. But of course, that’s what the Gate would demand as payment- that pretty face. You remember it- hold onto it- grey eyes, pale skin, elegant features- but the image slips away from you, melting away into what you see now.
One eye, plucked out and eaten. One ear, ripped away and leaving an ugly hole, striping his neck with blood. They even tore off his nose, exposing a hideous crater in the center of what used to be his face. At least he still has all his teeth- the absence of his lips allows you to see all thirty-two of them. They’re especially easy to count because of the bright crimson in all the cracks, giving each tooth a lovely red trim.
What was his name?
He knows your name, and he says it over and over, starting as a low groan and building into something like a scream. You want to ask him who he is, but when you inhale again to speak, your drag is too deep and your chest starts to cave in. Your lungs wrench under the pressure.
Then he’s on his knees, and he pulls your ruined frame into his shaking arms. This feels so familiar, and you’re so close to remembering- except your positions should be reversed. You should be holding him. That’s right. You remember holding him, pulling him close, letting him listen to your heartbeat when it was steady and true, not hammering and scattered like it is now.
One of your eyes is only a distorted blister, but one of them is amber gold and that’s the one he chooses to focus on. He’s looking for something. He’s looking for who you used to be. And you realize that you match, that you each have only one good eye. You know that, once upon a time, you would have made that joke and he would have laughed. You used to make him laugh, all the time. Now you’ve made him weep- you can see silver hot tears on the side of his face that isn’t ruined beyond recognition.
Instinct. Hold him. Touch him. You try to put your arm around him, but the fragile tendons snap and the limb thumps uselessly to the floor like a broken wing. The world ebbs and flows around you, your skull pulsing with yellow green blue black agony. You have no sense of smell but you can hear everything. There are fingernails growing out of your knuckles. You used to be happy and he used to have lips and you used to kiss them and he used to be happy, too. That was a lifetime ago. It was yesterday. It was tomorrow. It was only a dream.
“Goddamn it,” he says, the stranger-lover.
And he throws you off him in disgust. It hurts so much when you hit the floor hard- your ribs are too thin in some places, and that’s where they break. You start to vomit up your tongue but manage to swallow it back. Stranger-lover. That’s what came to you, unbidden. Stranger- stranger- lover.
And you remember.
He steps back, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a blood-stained glove. No- it’s red but it’s not blood. Memories come flooding back, fragments and words pouring into you until you overflow- alchemy, array, transmutation circle, fire, flame, State, soldier, war, together. The remnants of your mouth struggle to form a single syllable.
The glove slides onto his hand. That hand- it used to touch you. That eye- it used to look into yours. That body- your body- heat and color and light. Wait- wait-
He watches you, and you are so ashamed of how ugly you are. You wish you were different. You wish you were how you used to be. How you were when he loved you, and you loved- love- him so much. His name encircles his head like a golden halo, flooding you with joy, and you finally manage to wheeze it with the last of your breath.
Roy.
His eye shoots wide with pain. You’ve hurt him. It’s too much for him to bear, and he brings his fingers together like a sacred sign, warding off the evil of temptation.
Wait- wait-
You tried so hard, traveled so far. You just weren’t strong enough.
Roy.
You can hear everything, the scrape of the ignition cloth, the whisper of your name as he begs you for forgiveness, one last time. Your vision fills with light and you are consumed in flames. For the second time, you feel your life being torn from your body. For the second time, you wish you had more time. For the second time, you draw your last breath and see your last sight.
You think your final thought.
And just like the first time, it’s of him.
The pain stops.
_____end.
Author: colonel_bastard
Characters/Fandom: Maes Hughes, Roy Mustang. Fullmetal Alchemist [first anime].
Word Count: 1000
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Even he can't bring you back.
Warnings: Spoilers for/takes place after episode 25. Gore.
Notes: A horror story for Halloween 2009, and the prompt "homunculus POV" at fma_fic_contest.
You try to inhale and three of your teeth fall out.
They haven’t been properly attached. No part of you has been. Everything hurts. Bones creak and muscles tremble, while your skin stretches and groans with the strain of trying to hold you together. On your second inhale, your jaw pops, and you exhale blood. You’re lying on your back, but your chin is resting on the floor. Don’t think about it too much. Thinking hurts, too.
Boots, shiny black books standing right in front of your nose. You roll up your eyes and look at him. He’s so tall. You used to be taller. You manage a third inhale and release it in a hissing whimper.
That’s when you sense the memories. You had memories. They slip through your brain like mist, tendrils of remembrance teasing you with humanity. That’s almost thirty years of life, hovering before you in a cloud, and if you can reach it you will know who you are. The man standing before you- he’s the key. If you can figure him out, you are real.
He didn’t always used to look like that. He used to be so handsome. But of course, that’s what the Gate would demand as payment- that pretty face. You remember it- hold onto it- grey eyes, pale skin, elegant features- but the image slips away from you, melting away into what you see now.
One eye, plucked out and eaten. One ear, ripped away and leaving an ugly hole, striping his neck with blood. They even tore off his nose, exposing a hideous crater in the center of what used to be his face. At least he still has all his teeth- the absence of his lips allows you to see all thirty-two of them. They’re especially easy to count because of the bright crimson in all the cracks, giving each tooth a lovely red trim.
What was his name?
He knows your name, and he says it over and over, starting as a low groan and building into something like a scream. You want to ask him who he is, but when you inhale again to speak, your drag is too deep and your chest starts to cave in. Your lungs wrench under the pressure.
Then he’s on his knees, and he pulls your ruined frame into his shaking arms. This feels so familiar, and you’re so close to remembering- except your positions should be reversed. You should be holding him. That’s right. You remember holding him, pulling him close, letting him listen to your heartbeat when it was steady and true, not hammering and scattered like it is now.
One of your eyes is only a distorted blister, but one of them is amber gold and that’s the one he chooses to focus on. He’s looking for something. He’s looking for who you used to be. And you realize that you match, that you each have only one good eye. You know that, once upon a time, you would have made that joke and he would have laughed. You used to make him laugh, all the time. Now you’ve made him weep- you can see silver hot tears on the side of his face that isn’t ruined beyond recognition.
Instinct. Hold him. Touch him. You try to put your arm around him, but the fragile tendons snap and the limb thumps uselessly to the floor like a broken wing. The world ebbs and flows around you, your skull pulsing with yellow green blue black agony. You have no sense of smell but you can hear everything. There are fingernails growing out of your knuckles. You used to be happy and he used to have lips and you used to kiss them and he used to be happy, too. That was a lifetime ago. It was yesterday. It was tomorrow. It was only a dream.
“Goddamn it,” he says, the stranger-lover.
And he throws you off him in disgust. It hurts so much when you hit the floor hard- your ribs are too thin in some places, and that’s where they break. You start to vomit up your tongue but manage to swallow it back. Stranger-lover. That’s what came to you, unbidden. Stranger- stranger- lover.
And you remember.
He steps back, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out a blood-stained glove. No- it’s red but it’s not blood. Memories come flooding back, fragments and words pouring into you until you overflow- alchemy, array, transmutation circle, fire, flame, State, soldier, war, together. The remnants of your mouth struggle to form a single syllable.
The glove slides onto his hand. That hand- it used to touch you. That eye- it used to look into yours. That body- your body- heat and color and light. Wait- wait-
He watches you, and you are so ashamed of how ugly you are. You wish you were different. You wish you were how you used to be. How you were when he loved you, and you loved- love- him so much. His name encircles his head like a golden halo, flooding you with joy, and you finally manage to wheeze it with the last of your breath.
Roy.
His eye shoots wide with pain. You’ve hurt him. It’s too much for him to bear, and he brings his fingers together like a sacred sign, warding off the evil of temptation.
Wait- wait-
You tried so hard, traveled so far. You just weren’t strong enough.
Roy.
You can hear everything, the scrape of the ignition cloth, the whisper of your name as he begs you for forgiveness, one last time. Your vision fills with light and you are consumed in flames. For the second time, you feel your life being torn from your body. For the second time, you wish you had more time. For the second time, you draw your last breath and see your last sight.
You think your final thought.
And just like the first time, it’s of him.
The pain stops.
_____end.