The Coldest Years
Roy's been missing for three years. As the team tries to find him, they may very well uncover another giant military scandal, so soon after the famed Promised Day. How is the team to find him, and how will they fix him when they do? Chimera!Roy. Forced RoyxOC
Disclaimer: Still don't own FMA! :(
*Sigh* Roy is Boss, Ed is Chief. Isn't that right? Good thing it wasn't pertinent last chapter.
To Zen, because you were anonymous: Thank you much! :) I think that tiger-sized is a little big, but take a black panther or so. That should be about right, though a little broader. Thanks again for the review!
All reviews will be answered via PM.
She noticed that he looked particularly uncomfortable. He was digging his claws into the ground and pulling them up, hunched low into a crouch as he watched the door. He'd heard those voices. He'd heard those declarations from above. So had she.
"Do you hope to think that your alchemy can beat mine, which has been passed down the Armstrong family for generations?!" And also, "I'M NOT EVEN SHORT!" That, at least, had drawn something of a snicker out of him, though she didn't know why. She wondered for a moment how many words he recognized; she didn't recognize that many.
There were voices approaching them. They drew closer and closer and closer. She didn't know if she should trust them or not. Actually, she didn't know why she should, when humans had done nothing but hurt them. She glanced sideways to his broken leg and shuddered.
Humans were evil. Humans shouldn't be trusted. There was no doubt about that. Not… not right now.
He glanced back at her. He shifted anxiously, looked to the loft above them, and pushed off from the floor. She heard him clunk up above, feeling safe that he was up there to watch over them. A moment after he leapt up to the loft, the door creaked open loudly. Immediately, her fur puffed up nervously and she bared her teeth.
The first thing to enter was a very human hand. It groped on the wall, found a switch, flicked it, and then allowed the rest of it to shuffle in.
She bared her teeth against the attacking human, tucking her kittens behind her tightly. She heard him shift anxiously above them.
Behind the first human, a second one came quietly. Both of them had guns, pointing them at the two.
The two spoke for a few minutes, saying words that she didn't bother to try to understand. She shifted as they spoke, anxiously. She nearly jumped right out of her fur when the first human yelled something loudly. He, apparently, did jump out of his fur. And onto the ground. With the angriest yowl she'd ever heard.
The second human stopped and slowly turned to face him. It was a woman, he noted, which rarely ever came down here at all. Still, he was nervous. Woman or not, he did not like her.
After a while, he took notice of more humans, though she took no notice of them. He would destroy them if they dared step inside, but they had yet to get within three feet of the door.
The humans started muttering to each other. His ears flicked every time the first human looked away from her and looked at the woman, or he himself. The woman moaned something short, though he couldn't understand it but had the feeling that it meant something. It certainly did to the woman.
Feeling uncomfortable, he drew their attention best he knew how. His throat hurt from a severe lack of use—he never spoke, because he refused to speak to those damn humans, and she and the kittens could understand him without the complicated use of words—but he knew that this was the only way to really unnerve them. After all, what kind of animal talked?
"Get back!"
The woman's eyes were wide when she looked back at him. He could feel the nervousness radiating off of the humans behind him. Just as he had thought, they didn't like it. One of the humans behind him—a young yellow-haired boy that he almost recognized from a few nights ago—muttered some word that he also recognized, causing the woman's eyes to widen all the more. "Chimeras…"
He shuddered a little at the name. Finally, getting frustrated by the lack of attention and the fact that they were not doing anything, he leapt.
The woman didn't take notice of him first, but the human behind her did. The boy grabbed her arms and spun her around so that he was facing him instead.
His eyes widened. His paws clapped on the arm that the boy held up, his claws retracting before they could harm him. After all, this boy was surely a kitten, wasn't he? A little child? For some reason, that logic reigned true, and he wouldn't hurt children.
His teeth were nearly at the boy's throat when he clacked them shut, stopping himself from biting him. He looked at the boy, surprised to see bright metal eyes staring at him in reply, which he was certain that he had seen before… many years ago.
He yelped in surprise when the boy's free arm came up and caught him beneath his chin. He sprawled to the side, away from them all. The surprise left him dazed and confused. What the heck! He'd stopped!
The woman snapped at the boy, apparently just as surprised by the boy's actions as he was. The boy replied with something that he couldn't understand, glaring backwards at her. He sounded very loud, he noted. Why was that so familiar?
The woman released an exasperated huff, sighing heavily. Finally, she turned to look at him. His fur quickly went up, and he bared his teeth at the woman. If she dared try anything…!
The woman crouched. A smile touched her face, soft and, he took a second to realize, for him. Damn, those other humans never smiled at them! If they did, it was only because they were going to do something that he and his family wouldn't like. Why did that have to feel so good? His ears flickered a little when the woman set her strange little weapon—a gun, wasn't it? Why did he know that?—on the ground. He was even more surprised than anyone else when she pushed it toward him.
He winced when it touched his exposed belly. He watched it for a few seconds, waiting for it to go off and kill him, but it didn't. He looked up at the woman, noted how soft and sad she looked. She repeated one of those words from earlier, the one that she had moaned.
Why did he feel like he should know that word? He couldn't think of what it meant. He couldn't think of why it was hurting the woman so much to say it and him so much just to think about it.
Finally, he chose to copy her. Maybe she would know? Maybe she could tell him what it meant? He cleared his throat best as he could, and muttered, "R-R-Roy…"
The woman turned away momentarily, bobbing her head. She muttered something else, mostly to herself, and then turned back to the other humans.
There was a tall, heavily muscled man in the back of the group who took charge of them. He started pointing around, pointing to yet another yellow-haired man and then at him, and then at a brown haired man, and at her. The man pointed once at the kittens, and immediately he started growling menacingly.
The woman almost looked amused as she watched him. She spoke again, saying a few words that he recognized. He struggled to follow her, since most of what she said was an unrecognizable buzz in his ears, but god how soft was her voice? No one spoke to them like that, ever! How nice was it to hear?
"Home." That was the first word that he recognized. It was a place that someone lived, right? No, not quite… home…
"Help you," she said, and also, "Central". He wasn't certain of their meanings, but they stirred in him. After all, help was a good thing… right? Help was definitely a good thing. But Central? Why did he know that?
Those two boys from before—the two that he thought he might recognize—stepped forward. They looked to him, to each other, and then to the kittens. Slowly, they approached her and the kittens. She didn't do anything to stop them, though her fur did rise a little.
The one that hadn't decked him started speaking soothingly to her. The words were working, because she wasn't moving. Why wasn't she moving?
The one that had decked him reached out and took his youngest son in his arms. As soon as he touched him, he snarled. And dammit, why wasn't she stopping them?!
The other boy glanced his way, looking relieved when she stepped closer and pressed her nose to his flank. The boy dipped and scooped up both his daughter and his oldest son into his arms. The two both nipped at the cloth covering his skin playfully. His daughter yawned and set her head on the boy's chest, looking comfortable on him.
He looked desperately at her, who shook her head and slumped beside him. She wanted to trust them, that much was obvious. But… why? They were humans, and all that they'd done yet to them was hurt them. The fact was proven by his throbbing jaw.
But that woman had said 'help you'… and what kind of a person would say that, if they didn't want to help them?
The two boys, still watching them, started moving toward the door. His eyes never left them, not once. If they did, he was afraid that they might just run off with his kittens, and he wouldn't let that happen.
He looked at she, who was looking back at him. He heaved himself to his paws cautiously, but his hind leg couldn't support him. He crashed to the ground disastrously, crying out quietly. She didn't even try, she just limped over to him, dragging her broken paw on the ground. She licked his ear affectionately and looked up at the humans.
The yellow haired man sighed and stepped up to the woman, crouching. The man offered the woman a smile and started speaking with her in soft tones, pausing every once in a while to listen to what the woman had to say.
The woman, looking thoroughly shaken, stood and backed away from them, watching the yellow-haired man.
The man looked at them and tipped a smile his way, making both cats recoil. From the boys' grip, the kittens mewled at them encouragingly.
A large brown-haired man crouched on her side, offering a comforting smile. The man cautiously held out his arms and, after a few moments of anxious growling, she gave in and let the man take her.
He snarled at the man for touching her, wincing when her tail flicked his nose. He snorted and shook his head, drawing a relieved smile from all of them.
The brown man stood and wobbled a little, still with her in his arms. He received support from one of the others, taking his elbow and steadying him. He started to leave, but turned around to watch the scene before him.
The yellow-haired man continued watching him, deciding after a few moments to, much like the brown man had done, hold his arms out for him.
He released yet another deep growl, not liking at all the man's trust. He didn't want to trust the man, he wanted to maul him but he could hardly move! He would have skinned alive everyone but the boys (who were surely only kittens) if he could still move.
The yellow man did not look happy with him. He sighed and glared hard at the ground. He said some words that he couldn't understand, but then one stood out from the rest and, for one reason or another, he liked it. The yellow man said "Boss". He liked that. Something... something about it hurt him, but in a good way. He quickly copied the word like he had that 'r' word, Roy. The humans watched him, as though they weren't expecting that. Probably not.
"Please, Boss," said the yellow man, stopping his glaring and looking up at him.
He hurt from the gaze. Whatever the man was doing, it was making his belly ache. He could no longer ignore the man, or the fact that his kittens seemed happy to play with the two boys and that she was purring in the brown man's arms. He relaxed a little, and the man looked relieved. He opened his arms wide, and he felt warmth-real warmth-sprout in his belly like he had never felt before when the man careful stood, with him safely in his arms.