A/N: This was a request I got on Tumblr the other day that I decided to fill because the prompt was interesting, and also because I used it as a little writing exercise! The prompt was:
Muse A is kidnapped by scientists to be experimented on. Turns out these scientists were people Muse B used to work for and are trying to get back at Muse B for leaving. Now, Muse B knows what is going to happen and they muse race against time in order to save Muse A before it's too late.
Twist #1: Muse B is too late and has to watch as Muse A dies.
Twist #2: Muse B gets there just in time to watch Muse A turn into an emotionless killer like the scientists wanted.
I have a few chapters planned out for the future, but am currently focusing on updating 'Engraved' (which is coming soon) and 'Hellbound' (because its anniversary is coming up and I want to get a chapter out!). Thank you for your patience with those and my other fics if you are reading them. All of them are drafted and being written. It's been busy, but I appreciate it! So without further ado, please enjoy!
How, he wondered idly as the blood from his slashed throat continued to spill onto the ground, had he been so blind…?
The signs had all been there. Spelled out for him in the weeks before they had taken her. A break-in here or there, always a different combination of chemicals and drugs taken. But amongst them all, he realized after it had been too late, were a particular set that he only recognized after he had found her apartment ransacked. Signs of a struggle. Blood on the walls.
They had been violent. They had been needing. And combined with the string of laboratory robberies and the chemicals taken, their motives had become clear.
After the Promised Day, when she had nearly been taken from him, he grew voracious for knowledge on the doctor who had nearly succeeded. Richard Valkin, he learned through his research, had been the alias of the doctor he had first known as the one with the golden tooth. And with him as a starting point, he was able to trace back to the time when Fuhrer King Bradley had been born. And, more importantly, he was able to learn about the fates of those who had been less fortunate when it came down to it. Bradley had succeeded where they might have otherwise failed. But rather than 'waste' them, the gold-toothed man had successfully devised a way to still keep them within his grasp.
Numbers instead of names. Orders instead of requests.
Hours upon hours upon hours of 'treatments' and chemicals and mind-warping drugs that took every last ounce of their free will and chained it down. Took every emotion – happiness, fear, grief, love – and tore them to shreds. Emotions were something the doctor did not desire.
Because if a bond were to be formed with their victim, even momentarily, their resolve would falter and weaken.
And they couldn't have that.
How far their will ran, the corrupt doctor never knew. He didn't care. Because who wouldwant to challenge their complacency? As long as they obeyed, he would not question it.
How deep their memories and emotions ran, he never cared. It seemed unlikely they remained intact, Roy had previously determined from reading the reports. And now, with the position he had found himself in, he knew that his prior thought had been correct.
Roy pressed his fingers harder against the torn remains of his jugular, feeling the warm, dark blood as it continued to trickle out and around his fingers and onto the ground to be soaked up. He momentarily wondered if it had been done strictly for the irony, or if it had been instructed.
Trained.
Implanted.
His eyes wandered up to his adversary–
Subordinate.
Murderer.
Lover—
To find her standing in the same position. Clouded eyes focused intently on him.
No signs of light.
None of recognition.
No movement whatsoever, save for her grip tightening on the cold, blood-covered steel blade they had equipped her with. The best way he could describe it in his incoherent, disheveled thoughts was eerie. Unsettling. Because even though she made it look so natural, her former words still rang out loud in his head:
"I like guns. Because unlike swords and knives, you don't have to feel your victim die."
He wondered if she could feel him dying at that moment. Or maybe that too had been stripped from her after she had been taken.
Roy briefly tore his eyes away from the blade to look up at her eyes. How impassive they were. How cold and lightless and dull. It was incredible how a month's time could completely drain the light and love from a person's eyes.
His vision blurred momentarily, and to prevent himself from taking the path he knew would leave one way the moment his sight vanished he squeezed his fingers down hard on the ruptured vessel, staunching its flow just a little more.
He licked his parched lips, and silently, finally, damned her creators… And his foolishness. Their names were still a mystery to him – and now he would never know what they were. But he should have known. Should have searched harder to trace the gold-toothed doctor's web of corruption to them to have prevented this entirely - or to discover that their resentment toward him had stemmed from his actions on the Promised Day. They had not been brought to justice then, and now he feared they never would.
He had gone to find her on a hunch alone, failing to disclose his whereabouts to anyone for fear of losing her. It was a foolish mistake. A month without much sleep would do that to anyone, though – give them grandiose thoughts of a favorable outcome.
Roy refused to allow himself to regret his decision, however. He had begun to dig his own grave the moment he left his home to pursue it.
Now, it would seem, she would bury him in it.
The last time he whispered her name, it left his lips like a prayer – honest, sincere, and full of love. Because if there was an iota of her somewhere in there, he wanted her to know that it wasn't her fault. That he still loved her.
But even so, he hoped that nothing of her remained. That the Riza Hawkeye he had known and loved and cherished above himself was gone and dead. Because if there was even a fraction of her left, he feared she would mourn. And he wouldn't have that.
Her name meant nothing to her now, and he didn't expect it to. He just needed to say it… Just one last time…
In his fleeting moments before the darkness grasped him and took over, he had willed himself to look up and into her eyes one last time.
It would be his final regret in life – having to look up and search and find that eyes once clouded had changed. To see just in time a single tear escape the corner of her eye and roll down her cheek.