Lascivious

Chapter Eight

It wasn't the worst case scenario. No, Roy Mustang's imagination was far more practiced than that. And yet somehow, this was more grim of a situation than he ever could allow himself to believe would happen.

Lust retracted the talon and Roy realized, with an eerie disassociation, that he had control of the hands the boy's crumpled body fell into. He wasn't sure how or when he had forced himself into control of his body, it was an action born of necessity and pure adrenaline rather than any conscious determination. Lust screamed and struggled in the darkest recesses of his mind but it was drowned out by the strangely calming rhythmic thud of two heartbeats.

Things seemed to happen very slowly. In his hands, Edward's figure seemed somehow smaller than ever. He heard distantly, as if from a dream, Al scream his brother's name.

Roy thrust the barely breathing alchemist into his brother's giant hands.

"Go, Al," he gasped. Lust's voice was growing louder and his hands clutched at his temple, trying to concentrate. "Get help, I'll hold him off—"

But not for much longer, he realized as his knees buckled from underneath him. The sudden burst of strength could clearly only serve him for so long and his entire body collapsed uselessly against the floor. The hollow thud of Al's footprints sprinted into the distance and Roy stayed there, tense and covered in someone else's blood on the stone floor, and muttered a one word prayer to a god he did not believe in before he faded back into familiar nothingness.

Please...

-

Lust was going to die. Presumably it would have happened eventually, immortality was a less realistic concept for immortals than one might have imagined, but he had hoped to work to at least a few centuries, maybe even millennia, before he met his end. Not two fucking weeks.

He had certainly made some mistakes in his short existence. The blonde lieutenant had escaped from him twice, he had left a witness behind at the hospital, and Mustang had gotten the better of him more than once, but these were forgivable. This was not.

Father sat unblinkingly in his stone chair, seemingly indifferent. But Lust was not so ignorant. His creator's purging of vice had left a cool exterior but no creature could be truly devoid of sin. The traces of greed, pride, gluttony, lust, sloth, envy, and most alarmingly for Lust, wrath, still had their grip on the very core of his being.

"Tell me, Lust," Father began. "Has there been a sudden new trend of human transmutation among alchemists?"

"Uh... no." Lust said flatly.

"Then why did you find our human sacrifices so dispensable that they could simply be disposed of at your every whim?"

Lust gulped. "The Elric brothers trailed me here. When they arrived, they tried to fight me and I determined that the best course of action would be to capture them and hold them here like we did Marcoh until they could be made useful on the Promised Day."

Father looked dubious. "And that involved stabbing them somehow?"

"My plan was to incapacitate them well enough that I could easily take them to you, have them healed, and then keep them here."

"Not a bad plan in itself," Father stroked his chin thoughtfully. "What I'm more curious about is your inability to carry it out."

Father already knew what had happened. Lust could see in the mocking, dangerous look in his eyes.

"Mustang—" he began.

"Ah," Father said. "Mustang. Certainly glad you told me you were able to get that little problem under control. If you hadn't, well Lieutenant Hawkeye escaping, Gluttony's death, this whole little incident would be your fault, wouldn't it?"