Originally published on aff 2009-02-01 - 2009-07-12

I.

The sound of gunfire rattles in the distance. It's a steady stream, a Gatling gun maybe, or a semi-automatic submachine gun. He lay awake in his makeshift bed, trying to identify the sound. It was still far away, so there was no need to panic just yet. But he couldn't sleep, struck with insomnia at the idea that someone could be sneaking up on him at this very moment to blow his brains out. His hands wrapped around the butt of his rifle as if the weapon would save him. It had in the past, taking out soldiers that would have otherwise killed him if given the chance. He wanted nothing more than to run away, to desert this godforsaken place and find a quiet, far away place to hide. But fighting was on in full, with this side fighting that side and killing anything that got in the way. It was a vicious cycle, but it was kept propagating by the sound of that gunfire in the distance.

A boot scuffed above his head and Edward froze. He kept as still as possible, focusing on keeping his breathing - hell, his heartbeat - from being too loud. He couldn't afford to be found, not when casualties were already so high here.

The boot scuffed again, and was gone. Edward let out the breath he'd been holding and let his head drop back against the rubble he'd been hiding in. In the dark, he couldn't differentiate between friend and foe, so he couldn't afford to shoot whatever came across him unless it tried to shoot him first. All he wanted to do was go home.

He'd been enlisted the moment he'd graduated, plucked from his home and tossed into the fray, all because of his skills of being able to shoot tin cans off a fence at three hundred yards. It wasn't formal training by any means, and he hadn't received much of that in the field. His commanding officer had simply said "Shoot them before they shoot you."

Of his entire company, only Edward and a handful of others survived, running away from the men they should be killing, hiding in bombed out villages and hoping that the enemy just passed them by. Edward's knuckles turned white suddenly as he gripped his rifle, hearing and feeling the familiar rumble of a tank. It was coming right over his head and he knew that the rubble he was hiding under would provide nothing of shelter against that powerful metal shell. He had to run and he had to do it now. He sighted out a building about ten yards from his current position, and figured he could make it if he moved now and kept low. He listened for anything other than that foreboding rumble, took a breath, said a prayer he didn't believe in, and bolted.

Gunfire erupted behind him, strafing the ground behind him and before him. He grit his teeth to keep from screaming and just kept running, taking a running leap. He crashed through the glass window and skidded on his shoulder, fetching up hard against a table. Something fragile rocked and toppled, the sound of it sending Edward's heart into fierce palpitations as it rolled, teetered on the edge of the table, crashed onto the ground. The sound of the shattering ceramic echoed and reechoed in Edward's ears. Even the sound of his own panting sounded too loud. He was on his feet before the lights shone into the place, hightailing it up the stairs to the second floor. He just kept moving, not knowing if anyone was following him, not knowing if they were planting claymores or grenades. He found a back staircase by pure luck and hurried down it, out of the building. He bolted across the street into an alley before the building he had just been in went up in flames.

The blonde could feel the heat of the flames against his back and hunkered down behind some shielding rubble, hand clapped over his mouth to keep his breathing from being heard. He closed his eyes tight and prayed, pretended he was back at home and he was just playing war with his brother and the neighbour girl. Then there was shouting from his left, down the street, and gunfire erupted again. There were screams, men cursing each other out as they shot at each other, all trying to stay alive. Edward had only one thought - he had to get to high ground. He counted to ten before he started moving again, taking the back streets to a higher vantage point. He found cover, stretched out, and propped up his rifle. Even in the dark he could see his allies, throwing grenades and setting up claymores as they moved from one street to another. He could see the enemy, numbers clearly more than his side's own, systematically shooting down whatever they could get at. Edward loaded a bullet into his rifle's chamber and lined up his shot.

He barely registered pulling the trigger, but his target fell, and he snapped out the used cartridge and loaded another bullet, mind blank as he systematically and robotically took out the soldiers firing upon his comrades. He fired five times and five men dropped, and Edward was up and moving, changing his position before the tank or the enemy's own sniper could get a shot at him. Maybe it was that tactic that had kept him alive all this time. Whatever it was, he wasn't going to question his good luck now. The blonde soldier lay down again and loaded another bullet, sighted, and took the shot. Another man fell. He just kept shooting, not thinking about what he was doing. He didn't think that that man he'd just put down might have had a family waiting for him to return from this brutal war, or maybe a lover, maybe children. He didn't think that he was doing something right or wrong - Edward was just doing.

He was doing what anyone else would in his situation. He wanted to stay alive.

Five more men lay dead in the street and Edward changed his position again, and found himself staring into the eyes of the enemy. They'd manipulated the survivors, showing them a rabbit force and circling around behind. And Edward had just walked right into their midst. They hadn't spotted him yet, so the blonde hunkered down in the bushes and tried not to breathe, watching with wide eyes as the well dressed, better-trained soldiers passed him by. There wasn't any doubt that whoever was alive down in that ruined village was going to die, and Edward was suddenly afraid that they knew he was here too, watching them march. He was afraid that someone was going to come up behind him and put a bullet in his head before he'd even registered that he was in danger.

No such thing happened, but the blonde soldier didn't relax, every muscle in his body poised to either fight or flee, with the latter being the much more likely reaction. He just wanted to go home.

He watched as the soldiers before him continued to march, disappearing into the distance, down into that village that lit up with fire. When he was sure the road was clear, Edward stepped from his hiding place and watched that forsaken village and the men within her become nothing more than a smear on a map and names on paper. He could run right now, just turn around and get the hell out of here, but he didn't. He found he was rooted to this spot and found the flames mesmerized him. He didn't even feel the barrel of the gun until the hammer was cocked.

"Drop the rifle,"

Edward's fingers released his weapon, little by little, until the thing fell into the mud at his feet. It made an odd, 'splick' sort of sound, but Edward didn't care about that. No, what he cared about was the cold metal pressed at the back of his head.

"Turn around. Slowly."

Swallowing, Edward obeyed, pivoting on one heel as he turned to face the man behind him, staring up into the black eyes of the enemy. The other soldier barely had any mud on him, or blood for that matter, and it hadn't even seemed like he'd seen combat. His dark uniform was well pressed, his boots nicely shined, and he held an air of authority around him like Edward had never felt or seen. Black hair fell over those black eyes as they narrowed, his lip curling in disgust.

"They're sending kids against us now?" the man asked, more to himself than the boy he held at gunpoint. His eyes raked over Edward's body, his messy, torn uniform, his scuffed and muddy and bloody boots, even the bandage that had been haphazardly placed over the blonde's left cheek. He studied the dirty blonde hair that fell in a limp braid under the helmet the kid wore, and frowned even more. "How old are you?"

Edward jumped a little at the question. "I'll be sixteen in two months."

"Christ." The hammer of the gun was released, the black-haired soldier holstering his weapon before promptly punching a lightning fast fist into Edward's diaphragm. Edward coughed up something that looked like breakfast before dropping to his knees, trying to keep his vision from swimming. No use, and he fell to the side in the mud, seeing the enemy lean over him with horrible, calculating black eyes.

He knew he could very well get court-martialed for this, letting one of the rebels live when he had him dead to rights, but he couldn't in good conscience kill the little brat. Of course, this kid probably was the sniper that had been causing his men such a pain. One bullet per person. Roy shook his head and dropped the report on his desk, turning to stare at the sleeping boy in his bunk. They were using kids. Fucking KIDS. What did they expect? Roy knew the rebels were running out of able-bodied men, but he hadn't thought they'd resort to using children. It would take time for those kids to become unfeeling killers like the rebels wanted, but the time for that wasn't on the rebels' side. In fact, the Amestris military had gone and eaten up pretty much everything, leaving only a few more long stretching miles to be conquered. And that kid, he'd seen a boy just like him in a village they'd occupied a few months back. Same blonde hair, same golden eyes that weren't filled with fear or hate but resignation, as if he'd known there was no choice but to submit to Amestris. Ironically, Resembool might have been the only village where no shot had been fired in the take-over.

The people hadn't been hospitable, but that was understandable. Eventually, they'd warm up to the soldiers or the soldiers would be pulled out. One way or another, that podunk little crapshoot wasn't going to be a bloody mess. What were going to be a bloody mess were the other cities they'd taken and were still fighting to keep. They really had no idea how many the rebels numbered, but it had to be less than the military after all. But now they were using kids.

Roy was no fool. He didn't hold any illusions at all that other soldiers would be so merciful as he was. He couldn't kill kids, but there were plenty of people who would. Or wound the little brats in order to do something that should never be spoken of. It wasn't like Roy was completely innocent; he'd massacred hundreds of people when they resisted. Yes, it left a bad taste in his mouth, and maybe he drank a little too much to make the memories softer, but orders were orders. Orders warring with conscience often led a man to get hanged by his own people. Which was why he was going to have to, eventually, explain the presence of this blonde kid in his bed.

He couldn't write him off as some common whore he'd picked up somewhere because his unit had been traveling the countryside for the better part of three weeks and hadn't been to a village that hadn't gotten the crap bombed out of it. He could possibly tell his superiors that the kid was just wandering lost in the woods, but he'd have to explain the sudden acquirement of a rebel uniform and rifle. Maybe he could embellish the truth a little, say the kid was actually a rebel but had severe amnesia. The Lieutenant Colonel snorted and rubbed at his forehead. They'd kill the brat just to be safe if he said something like that. So what were the options left to him? Bury the crap the kid had on him and hope no one questioned the boy's presence as anything other than something to warm the bed of a depraved man was one. Killing the kid was another option. But, shit, Roy couldn't do anything like that. Morals wouldn't allow it. Which was why he was stuck on this trip in the first place instead of relaxing back in one of the "safer" towns where his original unit had been left.

And if Riza found out what he was doing, she'd kick his ass for him. Roy Mustang hadn't gotten to where he was by being merciful, she'd say. Roy Mustang wouldn't get anywhere further than this if he chose to spare everything he came across and defy orders.

In fact, they'd had this conversation before he left for the front lines. He'd called her a bitch. She'd punched him and punched him again for getting punched in the first place.

Roy turned to look at the kid when the boy began to stir, watching the fifteen-going on-sixteen year old wake up in an unfamiliar tent dressed in unfamiliar clothes and devoid of mud. The blonde sat up, hand at the bruise on his chest from Roy's punch, eyes closed as pain arced through his muscles. The black haired man didn't move, rather watching the kid put himself through all kinds of pains and getting some perverse sort of enjoyment from it.

"Good news is," Roy stated, watching with a smirk as the blonde jumped on the bunk, "you're not dead. Bad news is you belong to me now."

The blonde turned to look at him frowning. "Aren't you the dog?"

"Aren't you?" Roy shot back. He rose then, grinning rather too gaily and was pleased to see the boy pale a bit. "If you're a good boy and lay back down, I'll bring you something to eat."

"And if I'm not?"

"You can starve. I'll give you enough water so that you won't die, so don't worry."

Those golden eyes burned with anger, but the boy settled back down on the cot and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at the Lieutenant Colonel. Roy could only smile, reach out to pat the boy on the head like a dog, and against all better judgment, left the kid alone to go get him the promised meal. Roy heaved a sigh. He was so screwed.