[ Authors Note: This first chapter does not contain anything particularly explicit but I would like you to know about some things you can expect in future chapters, in case it is not your cup of tea. Firstly, this story does feature a gay couple, Havoc & Mustang, as well as several straight couples, Hughes & Gracia, Breda & OC, Alphonse & OC. And secondly, there will be several sex scenes through out the story that I will do my best to make in the best of taste but still require a warning. There is also violence and some angst, but if you've already seen the show then I think you can handle it. This story is based off the manga & 2009 anime. ]


Amalgamation

Chapter 1

The fluorescent light from the ceiling stung at Roy's tired eyes. It was two in the morning and he should have been in bed. His aching body was begging him for rest but he'd be damned if he was about to oblige it. Who could sleep at a time like this? Certainly not him, nor any of his subordinates.

The entire team sat quietly in a row of poorly cushioned brown chairs in the middle of the vacant hospital lobby. It looked no different from any of the other hospital lobbies Roy had had the misfortune of visiting over the years. Stark white walls & tiled floors surrounding several rows of chairs with two or three hardwood doors tightly shut to keep out the noise from the busy hallways beyond them. The space itself provoked neither feelings of hope nor despair. It was instead the nature of the visit that made the smell of sanitizer make Roy feel sick to his stomach.

Across from the Colonel sat four of his five most trusted subordinates, each one of them looking as broken & bruised as the last. Master Sergeant Kain Fuery, the smallest & youngest member, looked as though he might burst into tears at any moment. He tried to hide his watery eyes behind his shattered glasses, but he was never very good at keeping his emotions to himself. This dreadful waiting had been eating him alive and Roy began to worry that any moment now he might break. It was hard enough just sitting there in the quiet. The alchemist hated trying to imagine how awful it might be to try and keep face with Fuery sobbing just a few feet away.

Next to Fuery sat Warrant Officer Vato Falman, a typically very resigned sort of man. He kept a rigid posture and had barely moved at all in the last hour. His gaze stayed carefully fixed to a tile on the floor as he did his best to keep his expression emotionless. If it had been anyone else assessing him they would have thought he had been unfazed by the situation, even with the blood still dripping from his nose. But Roy could tell he was just as worried as the rest of them, but he was trying to be strong for Fuery's sake. If the younger man did end up bursting into tears, Roy knew he could rely on Falman to attend to him and possibly take Fuery elsewhere if necessary.

Next to Falman and across from Roy sat his most trusted subordinate & personal bodyguard, First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. She too typically kept a very stoic demeanor while on the job. But this wasn't strictly 'on the job' now was it? There was no mission to complete, no paperwork to push, no enemies to protect Roy from. There was only sitting, waiting, hoping, praying. One of her closest friends was somewhere down the hall fighting for his life. This was not a particularly common working experience. And that, Roy judged, had been what afforded Riza the leeway she needed to furrow her brow and frown. The anxiety tightening the muscles across her bandaged face.

And finally there was Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda, who had barely even acknowledged anyone else's presence since they had entered the hospital. Leaning back with his head tilted up towards the ceiling he stared blankly at the tiles, his dark eyes flickering from one to another every so often. Roy gathered Breda had placed himself where he could be most comfortable, deep in thought, a safe place for one with an investigative mind. But judging by the expression written on his brow, this safe place had still been invaded by thoughts of none too pleasant things. Like affairs that he may have to sort. Friends he hoped he wouldn't need to call. A grieving mother he might have to sit next to at funeral he never honestly believed he'd be attending. Breda wasn't nearly as emotional as Fuery, but Roy could see he was just as distraught. He purposefully avoided Roy's gaze in hopes he wouldn't notice the watery glaze over his pupils. Breda did not want his commanding officer to see him cry, if and when the time came. But Roy would not look down at him for it in the least though. Breda was a strong man, but he knew even the strongest of men would always have their moments of weakness.

Why even him, the almighty Colonel Roy Mustang, The Flame Alchemist, The Hero of Ishval. Even he found himself spiraling downwards in emotional crisis over this. Although his feelings towards the situation were a bit more severe than that of his comrades, at least they could place the blame on someone else for this misgiving. Roy was not so lucky.


It was less than a month ago that the Colonel had found out that, at last, his unit would be making a transfer to Central Headquarters. Roy could not have been more ecstatic; this is what he had been working towards for years. It was crucial step in his plan to climb the military's chain of command and achieve his ultimate goal, to become Fuhrer.

The transfer was a quick & easy process. It didn't take long for his subordinates to grow accustomed to the bustle of Central City. Being from Central himself, Roy found it comforting to be back on his home turf. A place he knew like the back of his hand.

It was only a week after the move that he was debriefed on the latest mission his team was to assist with. The reason, Roy assumed, that they had been relocated so quickly. Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes had gathered quite a substantial amount of evidence against a very prominent criminal organization attempting to rule the city from its underbelly. Hughes had hoped that Roy would help him put the final nail in the mafia's coffin by finding their hide out and staging a raid. Ever the opportunist, Roy was more than happy to oblige his old friend and agreed to the mission, hoping it would get him into the Fuhrer's good graces.

Between Hughes & Breda's investigative skills and Fuery's talent for radio surveillance, it was only a matter of days before they had located the mobs whereabouts and outlined a plan to ensnare the criminals into custody.

As per usual Hawkeye insisted that the Colonel stay out of the field and let her & Lieutenant Havoc stand at the forefront of the raid. But being his usually stubborn and protective self Roy insisted that he be there should anything go wrong. He knew that he had a very capable lot of soldiers serving beneath him, but they were also his friends. Friends who if ever got hurt, he would want to be there to protect them.

Unfortunately though, Roy would end up doing much more harm than good.

The attack on the criminal enterprise was going according to plan. They had been caught completely off guard by the military, a good portion of the gang finding themselves with no other option than to surrender. There were still a descent amount of criminals eager to give the soldiers a run for their money though.

They had attempted to escape through the sewers beneath their den and Mustang's unit did not hesitate to pursue. But the outlaws' knowledge of the underground as well as the low light of the tunnels gave them an unforeseen advantage. They split up and came at the team from all sides. Fuery ended up getting tossed into a cement wall, Falman was slapped in the face with the butt of a rifle, and Breda tackled a man to the ground and ended up breaking his hand. In the end it was the two blonde sharp shooters and Roy's own trusty fire alchemy that ended up saving the squads asses.

But Roy ended up making one very crucial mistake, he got cocky. He felt untouchable by these lowlifes. What match were they for him and his fire alchemy? He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as carefully as he should have been. He wasn't aware that several of the young men creeping in the darkness in front of him were merely a distraction while a few other members of their gang had circled around to come at him from the side.

Roy hadn't even noticed their presence until he heard gun shots and turned. He took note of the three bodies on the ground first, then looked up to see Jean Havoc standing there with his back to him. Roy smiled and thanked Havoc for watching his back, expecting some sarcastic quip about how he should be more careful next time. But he instead received only a strangled groan from the lieutenant, the first sign that something was wrong. Roy stood there for a moment and called the other man's name, waiting for him to turn around. Hoping that maybe that sound didn't mean what he thought it meant.

Slowly the younger man turned to him and Roy could feel his arms go limp as he took in the sight before him. Havoc was bleeding, and badly. He hadn't even removed the two knives lodged into his abdomen and already he was losing a copious amount of blood. Roy had to run to catch him as he fell unconscious from shock.

Everything after that was a blur to Roy. He remembered very few details aside from the actual events of hauling Jean out of the sewer. Then escorting him into an ambulance, following it to the hospital and finally being ushered to the emergency room lobby where he had now been waiting with his team for nearly two hours.


'This is your fault.' Roy slumped over, his head getting closer to his knees with each passing minute.

'If he dies, it's your fault.' He felt as though he was going to be sick.

'He trusted you, he protected you. And what did he get in return?' He was going to puke all over this nice, white tile floor in front of his men.

"Sir..." A voice called faintly in the distance, but the sound of Roy's abysmal thoughts blocked it out.

'A knife in his gut.' His mind still continued criticizing him, answering its own questions 'No wait, two knives actually.' It corrected, as if Roy didn't feel horrible enough. So horrible in fact the he clasped a gloved hand over his mouth to hold the vomit back, because he really did feel like he was going to be sick.

"Sir…" The feminine voice called again, breaching Roy's senses but not his mind. He heard the voice but did not process it.

'How could you let this happen!' His mind screamed with a sense of urgency.

"Colonel!" The forceful feminine voice and a firm hand on his shoulder finally managed to break through Roy's sickening delirium, pulling him from his guilt ridden mental abuses and back into reality.

The Colonel straightened and looked around nervously, noticing how each of his subordinates gave him a concerned and somehow impatient stare. Oh god, he hadn't actually puked, had he? Roy looked at his hands and then down to the floor where he saw nothing but pristine white tile. He couldn't help but sigh a little in relief.

"Colonel…" Hawkeye called again, arresting his attention this time. He noticed how her amber eyes hesitantly gave him a quick once, as if they were searching for something in his features. The lieutenant quickly gave up on the endeavor though and brought her face back to its standard stony appearance. "The doctor is here to speak with you now."She calmly told him as she turned away to the door.

Roy followed her gaze to a man in green scrubs standing pensively a few feet away with his hands clasped behind his back. It took him a moment to realize it but this was one of the surgeons that had been working on Havoc. He had come out to tell them how the procedure had gone.

At first Roy was nothing but relieved, at last the waiting was over. But as he rose from his chair and took that first step towards the other man he realized that this did not necessarily mean good news. It could mean a number of things.

'It could mean he's dead.'

The very thought brought a tightness into Roy's chest that he hadn't felt for many years but still found so terribly familiar. It brought back memories that Roy did not care to relive, and people he did not care to remember right now. The man did his best to push images of his parents & Master Hawkeye to the back of his mind as he continued walking up to the doctor. He should not have let his psyche jump to such horrible conclusions, he should have some hope. Suddenly he felt guilty for trying to bury Havoc before he had even heard a word of his condition. But that was just Roy's mind trying to protect him, and it was right in doing so.

"Well…" Roy began weakly "How is he?"

The other man took a deep breath and looked Roy dead in the eyes. He was a younger man, possibly in his late twenties, but already he had developed a masterful poker face rivaling Roy's own. His dark eyes gave away nothing behind their fine sheen of serenity. He had done this before and would have to do it a hundred times over throughout the course of his career. He had learned the skills necessary for dealing with these types of situations. But those skills were more for the patient's family's sake rather than his own. Nothing could ever make him feel okay with having to do this. To utter those few precious words that would steal light from the eyes of the strongest of men. It still made him feel sick.

The surgeon hands tighten around themselves as he opened his mouth to speak. And with a calm and quiet voice he told Roy "We did everything we could, but it wasn't enough. I'm sorry to be the one telling you this, sir, but Jean Havoc is dead."

Had an explosive just gone off nearby? Had Armstrong punched him in the chest? Was Fullmetal tearing up the city again? Because could have sworn he felt himself reverberate from some sort of impact. Or perhaps that was just his heart dropping to the floor.


[A/N: Thank you for reading. Please review if you have the opportunity, critiques are also more than welcome.]