Hello all. This is a try at something creepier, and was done for the fma_fic contest on livejournal. Didn't place, but ah well. :)
Enjoy, and please review.
Disclaimer: Do I look like a cow to you? Wait...well, in any case, I don't own.
Betaed by please-knock, as always.
It comes to her in the darkness.
She is waiting, like she always does. Not waiting for it, no, never waiting for it, she insists to herself- but rather waiting to protect him from anything else that could come out of the darkness.
Its eyes glitter in ways that are both familiar and strange to her. It is not the man she once knew, not really. Not anymore.
Its fingers find her arm, and trace up her sleeve, and around her shoulder. She stares straight ahead, saying nothing.
The first day, she had told it to stop, and had even run from it. Not too far, of course, merely going where she could attempt to keep an eye on it while it went about whatever it would do.
But it had followed her. A chase, she should have known, would appeal to it greatly.
Now it traces her jaw line, and she closes her eyes, letting out a slow breath. Still, she does not respond.
She wonders where the man really is, inside of his body. Trapped somewhere? Only able to see and hear but never do, never act on his own?
Sometimes, when she sees its eyes, she sees him again.
He peeks out at her, helpless, silent, tender, and her own words come back to haunt her: "One can sacrifice many things to fulfill one's duty."
It whispers to her, dark, smooth as the silk its wives wear, inching along her skin like many a spider. She opens her eyes, as she always does, because soon she'll see him in its face again. Just like the night before, and the night before that, and on and on.
When its fingers lift up her mask, her expression doesn't change. Long past is the time where she protested, where she fought against it. No one could stop it- not him, and certainly not her.
The mask clatters to the floor, skidding a little along the dark wood.
Now it rolls down her sleeve from the shoulder, looking at her metal arm.
"So loyal…" It whispers, breath fogging up the shining silver surface.
From there its fingers find the fastenings on her back, loosening her armguards and the sash around her waist, removing the daggers and the flash bombs, all of them dropping down by her feet. It peels away at what she almost considers a layer of skin- the black cloth slipping oh-so-easily down to her ankles, where she obediently steps out of the masses.
It peels away at her, anxious to devour her once again.
It presses one finger to her collarbones, drawing a line down her center, to her stomach, as if it's cutting her open. Its finger slips underneath the line of her underwear, pulling the fabric down and away. She steps out of that, too.
She does not have to worry about the physical consequences the average woman would in this sort of instance. At times when she watches it in the meetings, overseeing her people, she pictures its children with his eyes, her fingers gripping whatever she is holding so tightly that the object snaps, just as she does.
Her breathing hitches a little. She cannot help it, really, no matter how many times this has happened before. It is not looking at her face, watching her body, as it traces up her stomach and removes her bra, so gently and slowly as with all of it, the piece of clothing falling to the floor beside everything else that she is dropping for the moment.
It saves her hair for last. It always does.
When it unbinds her tresses, it sweeps low, longer than she would have ever imagined letting it reach a few years ago, just before it came. The black strands brush her face, and both of his hands move over her shoulders and neck, fingers running gently through her hair. It presses closer to her, and it meets her eyes.
And there he is, staring at her with such a tenderness and sadness, that she feels her own eyes tear, and her lips curve in response, giving him a smile along with everything else all over again, a thousand times over.
Everything she does, she does for him.
And she curls her head into him, and his into her, his breath on her neck, her lips on his shoulder. But even as they fall back against his too-large bed, she feels it return. And she closes her eyes, feeling it take from her all over again.
When they are done, it vanishes into the darkness, to rejoin its wives.
~~~~~fin~~~~~