Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Völuspá ❯ the First: wider and wider through all worlds I see ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Roy hadn't even had time for his morning coffee before he found out that it was going to be a terrible day. He managed to roll out of bed without conking his head on the metal side of the cot, which was an improvement. It was never good for morale to see one's commanding officer walking around all day with an enormous goose egg, and Roy had treated his immediate staff to that sight far too often lately. Besides that, Lust always had something snarky to say whenever Roy injured himself getting out of bed. So that, at least, was looking up, and he even managed to stagger over to the wash basin at the side of the tent and find his razor to shave without cutting himself or knocking anything over.

Things started to go downhill immediately after that, however.

"Wonder what's going on?" he asked, because the sheer amount of activity going on in the camp around his tent was beginning to sink into his gradually-improving awareness. The question was really rhetorical, because if it was important, someone would come inform him, but he got an answer anyway.

"Mmmm," purred Lust from the corner, and the thing stretched lazily in the corner of Roy's eye. "I hear gunfire in the distance."

That was enough to wake any man up, and Roy hastily finished shaving and reached for his uniform. It was at about that moment that the deferent scratch came from the entry flap of his tent, and a soldier's voice that Roy didn't immediately recognize said, "Sir? Are you awake? Sir, the Lieutenant Colonel requests you to come take a look at something at the north campside lookout post."

Well, someone had come to inform him. It must have been important.

Lust followed him up to the lookout post. Roy ordered the thing to stay behind, but Lust never listened to him and followed anyway. Hawkeye gave the homunculus a withering look as Roy approached, tucking in the flap of his uniform jacket as he walked, but she didn't say anything about Lust this time.

"Sir," she said, and moved aside to make room for him. There were an awful lot of people at the lookout post, far too many uniformed bodies just standing around gaping through binoculars, and Roy frowned.

"What are all these people doing here?" he said, annoyed, and that was all it took to send most of them scattering. Lust smirked at them as they went. It was cold up in the lookout post, built into the crest of a ridge to the north of the camp, just a patched-together claptrap of wood and rope and canvas that would go down in a moment if the enemy were to storm the ridge. It wasn't made to be defended, and it wasn't made to be comfortable; the north wind whistled through the gaps in the boards, unimpeded by either vegetation or the pitiful efforts of humans. Lust leaned out over the front side of the post, peering north, his scanty black clothing and golden hair brushed by the wind.

There was definitely some activity going on to the northeast, and Hawkeye offered her binoculars to Roy. "It started about ten minutes ago, General" she said. "It looks like they're moving, but they don't seem to be coming this way."

With the binoculars, the anthill roiling motion to the northeast resolved into smoke and dust and rolling vehicles. Had it been coming toward the camp, Roy would have been sure it was an attack of some kind ... although whether the Drachmen were attacking or being attacked was not clear. The fact that the formation appeared to be aimed somewhat to the side of the Amestrian camp was puzzling. It was too far away to hear anything, but he trusted Lust's sharper ears ... there was almost certainly a fight going on over there. The dust and smoke obscured any identifying colors that the respective sides might have been flying, and Roy somehow suspected that neither side was flying any colors at all.

"Send out a couple of scouts," he said. "They're fighting someone all right, and we need to know who."

"Right away, sir." Hawkeye turned away, shouting for one of her subordinates. Roy leaned on the edge of the lookout post, much as Lust had been doing earlier, although the cold wind was harsh on his skin, chilling his face and burning his ears. The homunculus behaved as if he felt nothing, and probably the thing didn't.

A morning attack. Not something Roy found completely out of the ordinary, but the fact that his camp wasn't involved was a surprise. Roy didn't like surprises. They were usually nasty ones.

"I can smell the gunpowder," said Lust abruptly. Roy glanced toward his companion, and found that they were alone in the post now, except for a single soldier who looked far too young to be enlisted, and who was probably the regular lookout. The soldier was eyeing Lust, but when he noticed Roy glaring at him, he quickly looked out toward the activity to the northeast. Lust was stretching, languidly like a cat, with hands on the side of the post and compact body extended out behind him, and when he glanced toward Roy, his mud-yellow eyes were seductive.

"Quit it," said Roy, irritated.

"I can smell the gunpowder," said Lust again, and licked one finger to raise it into the wind. "But the wind isn't correct for that. I wonder how I can smell it then?" The thing laughed, and his claws clicked on the board.

It took a moment for Roy to figure out what the homunculus was trying to say. "Lieutenant Colonel!" he yelled, and Hawkeye, who had not gone very far, came dashing back toward him. Roy stepped down out of the post to meet her halfway. "Mobilize the camp," he told her. "Prepare for an attack. Probably from the west or southwest. Contact the advanced perimeter. Wherever it's coming from, they've probably been killed."

"Yes, sir," she said, and turned away immediately, shouting more orders and running full-tilt toward the communications center. Roy started toward the officers mess, with Lust slinking along at his heels; they had a little while yet, and he'd deal with this much better if he had some coffee.

"I'd love to fuck you in the middle of a battle," the thing whispered in his ear as he walked, and Roy turned and swatted at it.

"Not now, Lust," he said, in his best I-have-better-things-to-worry-about-than-you tone.

"Come on," cooed the homunculus. "It's just going to be a lot of killing and shouting for awhile. Nobody will even notice you're gone."

The thing almost ran into him when Roy stopped short and turned to glare. "I don't need this right now. Thank you for your help, now stop this. Immediately."

All around him, the camp was coming to anxious life, commanders shouting orders, weapons clicking as they were checked and loaded, men running to their posts; in the middle distance, he could hear the roar of tanks as the engines were started. Roy resumed his walk to the officers mess, although now it more resembled a stalk, and Lust pouted behind him but said no more. He got his coffee and drank it slowly in what he suspected would be the last halfway-peaceful moments of the day. Lust lounged across the table on his back, hair dripping down over the side, in the best fuck-me pose Roy had ever seen him adopt that didn't involve actually spreading his legs and taking off his clothes. Roy snarled in disgust and turned away, but a few minutes later was running his hands through that thick golden hair.

It felt like it always had. Like nothing had ever changed.

Then one of Hawkeye's subordinates, a young second lieutenant named Taylor, came into the officers' mess to inform Roy that the Delta-six advanced perimeter group was not reporting in, and that was the doom of Roy's morning coffee.



The attack was an utter rout for the Drachmen. They hadn't sent a very large force, counting on surprise and the distraction of the decoy "attack" going on to the northeast to allow them deep into the Amestrian camp before the alarm went up. They met a fully prepared Amestrian army instead. The decoy division to the northeast turned toward the Amestrian camp as soon as Roy's forces were engaged with the surprise attack, but the battle with the attackers to the south went so decidedly in the favor of the Amestrians that the decoy division diverted course long before hitting the camp advanced perimeter, and returned to their own camp just across the Drachman border.

Prisoners had been taken. They were being interrogated before the night fell on that short winter day.

Roy left the interrogations to others. Once the battle itself had been decided, and the security of the camp ensured for the moment, he decided that he had an urgent need to know just what the hell had happened on the intelligence side, that the Drachmen were able to catch the camp so close to being unprepared. How precisely did one move a substantial amount of men and equipment all the way around a supposedly alert encampment without being noticed?

Dealing with the intelligence corps took several more hours.

He came out of the command center and was unsurprised to find that it was long past dusk; he wasn't even hungry, although he'd eaten almost nothing all day. Lust shadowed him, as always, never entirely out of reach.

Weary as he was, Roy took the time to greet his soldiers as he passed them, and he took the time to take the long way through the camp on his way back to his tent. That was one mistake that he'd learned from Ishbal ... a commander should never seem untouchable, should never be unapproachable. An army should never be asked to die for a commander they had never even seen. Hawkeye, who nominally agreed with this principle, would thin her lips whenever she found out that Roy had been touring the camp. She never said anything, but she never had to. Roy knew what her objection was ... it wasn't so much that putting himself in reach of his soldiers made Roy vulnerable to spies and assassins, although there was that.

Spies and assassins were among the least of Roy's worries, and for precisely the same reason Hawkeye disliked it when he went around the camp.

He stopped for a moment to say hello to a group of wounded enlisted playing poker under the medical tent awning. They invited him into their game, but he only smiled and commended them for their performance today. The medical tent was bustling, so he didn't go inside; later, in the morning probably, he'd have to come and talk to those who had survived the night. In the past, he'd often tried to talk to the ones who wouldn't, but he'd found that he only got in the doctors' way, and it depressed him to see good men and women who were dying. Roy didn't want to be responsible for obstructing medical care to the critically injured, and he told himself that it wasn't cowardice to wait until morning to see the survivors.

Lust, thankfully, said nothing, although Roy could see the thing's smirk out of the corner of his eye as he left the area.

After making a full circuit of the camp, Roy entered his own tent and collapsed, fully-clothed, onto the cot without bothering to turn on the lamp.

Gentle fingers were on his back and shoulders immediately. "Let me take this off," purred Lust, stroking the braid on the epaulets and tugging on the back of his collar. "Let me make you comfortable, Colonel."

The voice was his voice, the rank the one he always used, and Roy moaned.

"Stop it, Lust," he said weakly. He was so tired.

"You know you don't want me to stop. Come on, let me take this off of you." Those skilled, spidery fingers plucked at his jacket, and Roy rolled over to let them unfasten it, moved to assist them in taking it off. He could barely see the homunculus' silhouette in the darkness, against a patch of dim, diffuse light coming from somewhere and hitting the roof of the tent. His shirt was opened next, and cool fingers were stroking his skin.

"Stop it," he said again, but when the creature bowed his head to kiss Roy's sternum, wetly browse Roy's nipple, he moaned softly once more. The thing smelled like Edward, sounded like Edward. His hair had the same weight and texture as Edward's, his body had Edward's neat and narrow shape. Although the homunculus didn't really talk the way Edward used to, in the darkness, it was hard to tell the difference.

"You don't really want me to stop, Colonel," purred Lust, and Roy gave a small, pained whimper, because that was exactly something that Edward would say, when he was at his most minxish and teasing. Roy buried his fingers in that mane of long, thick hair and, feeling the encouragement, Lust settled in for an easy seduction.

It wasn't as if Roy wanted this creature around him. Particularly when he was trying to fight a war, there were so many ways that it was unwise to have Lust in his company. The homunculus' name was Lust for starters, and refused to leave Roy's side, going from his tent at night to his consultations with his brigade commanders by day. The number of rumors about his sexual involvement with the homunculus were exceeded only by the rumors of Lust's involvement as a spy for the other side. If Roy had been able to exert any actual control over his companion, he would have driven the creature away from him long before now.

That fight, however, was one that, while Roy was reasonably certain he could win, would cost him so much that not even the considerable benefit of having Lust away from him could induce him to try.

"Tell me something that you remember," he whispered, as that wet mouth moved up toward his throat. Not as warm as Edward's - the Sin's flesh was always slightly cool to the touch - but warm enough, warm enough.

"Mmmm." Lapping like an eager cat at Roy's throat and jaw, Lust considered the question. When the homunculus lay like this, settled lazily atop Roy's body with his near-perpetual erection grinding slowly against Roy's groin, it was easy, so easy to pretend that it was his lost young lover with him and not a distorted reflection. Exhausted as he was, Roy wanted the illusion. He needed the illusion.

"I remember ... a river," said Lust finally. "I went there ... looking for someone. The sun was dark and red in the sky, and he was sitting by the river. I said, 'Let's go,' and he came with me. I cared about him."

The memory was offered the way Lust always offered his fragments of memory - in a low tone, almost wistful as he dredged through the shattered remains of his personality - and Roy wrapped his arms around the thing's shoulders, held him close.

"Edward," he whispered. It had been such a horrible day.

"Mmmm." There was no discernable emotion in the homunculus' voice as he resumed stroking and licking Roy's skin.

Eventually Roy sat up on the edge of the cot and let Lust undress him, and then kneel before him. He didn't even have to close his eyes, really, to pretend that it was Edward's head between his legs ... the creature had Edward's shape, Edward's bright hair, and it was dark enough. Clever fingers teased the insides of his thighs as the homunculus took his erection down to the root, swallowing him eagerly, and made soft, needy noises whenever Roy wasn't halfway down his throat. Leaning back, half-sprawled across the cot, Roy bit down on his moans as that agile tongue worked the head and shaft of his cock, and his inhuman lover did things with his mouth that felt impossible. When he came, he came hard, and the world drifted for a moment; strong hands turned him sideways, laid him back down on the cot and drew the musty, rough blanket up to his chest.

"Edward," he murmured. "I loved you, I know I never told you, but you knew I loved you, didn't you?"

"Go to sleep," whispered Lust, and kissed his cheek beside his nose. The voice was Edward's, but the tone was smug, and self-satisfied.