FMA "Changed For Good" ficlet

[swordage]

Title: Sleep, Child, Sleep
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
For miss_arel, whose story Changed For Good has long inspired me to take chances with ideas that I know are awesome. Yes, this is fanfic for a fanfic.

At first it was the homunculi that kept him awake, creeping by his locked door all hours of the night. The sound of Gluttony shuffling by made him shiver in fear, imagining in detail those bunt teeth sliding through the door as though it were a stick of butter. The short clip of Lust's heels made him clench his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep and uninteresting - but worst of all was no sound. Envy made no sound when he chose to slide inside, sometimes seeming to simply melt through the locked door, waking Tucker the moment he had settled into restless dreams. Silence was far worse than any noise, because silence could hold anything.

It was only later that he lay awake but deaf long into the pale morning hours. He had stopped listening, because anything he heard wouldn't hurt him badly enough to kill him, and anything he couldn't hear would do as it pleased. He would curl under the covers and take up only a tiny part of the bed and settle down to rest as much as he could, and just as he was drifting off that sound would jerk him awake.

Metal. Bearings shifting, servos humming, every involuntary twitch of his finger setting off a chain reaction of machine noise. He could never get used to it, the metal not-limbs that were not his own. Flesh was flesh, a body was a body, but this automail... It was no part of him. And he was never allowed to forget who he'd stolen the precious machines from, who he'd taken years of lifespan from for his own use, whose hard-worked body he'd stepped into. But Envy took those things from him, those pale and dirty benefits of his sins. Envy held what life he'd stolen hostage; Envy would pry off the automail and clip it back on just to hear him scream with borrowed pain; Envy kept him caged until his muscles grew slack. It was only what he deserved. He hated it.

He couldn't sleep, and so he'd lie awake and think of what he should have done and not what he will do.

Comments

[miss-arel.livejournal.com]

*sputters, thrashes, flails, flals over and is dead*

I -- nnngh -- just -- no words. NO WORDS.

[swordage]

Hee hee hee! Spelling errors means you like it. You do like it? I know it's short and not very good, so I won't blame you if you don't.

[miss-arel.livejournal.com]

Yes, when brain-breaking squee comes in, good HTML goes right out the window.

I love it! I think you did a great job with his charcter, he's behaving exactly as I imagine he would, and the fact that you wrote fic for something I developed is so flattering I can hardly stand it. You're wonderful. And Shou needs hugs.

[swordage]

I actually can't believe I haven't written fic for Changed For Good before this - the characters and situations have always grabbed at me. So there might be more ficlets coming your way. ^_^ Don't you worry, we'll get everyone to read CFG before long!

[miss-arel.livejournal.com]

*SQUEE!* I cannot waaaait! *sparkles delightedly*

Don't you worry, we'll get everyone to read CFG before long!

...Guess that means I should go write more of it, huh? ^^;

[swordage]

Hee! Eventually. Take your time, hun. I'm patient. XD I believe in waiting until the time is right, and taking more time for a better product.

[spacehussy.livejournal.com]

This was seriously creepy, and in my world, that's one of the highest compliments I think I can give. *loves teh creepy* >D


Silence was far worse than any noise, because silence could hold anything.

Ohhyes. *purr*

[swordage]

Whoa, it is so weird to see you comment. *glee* Stalk stalk! Ahem. Anyway.

I should have run with the creepy things-that-go-bump theme. Eh, I can do that next time. XD Yeah, that line was my favorite, just because of the implications of it - silence can hold anything, yes, but there's also the vague hinting that in silence Envy can take any shape. Which is cool. And stuff.

[gribouille.livejournal.com]

Gn. I have nothing else to say. Gn.

It also means : Nya. Guh. Wow. Gah.

[swordage]

Wheee! Incoherent feedback! ♥ That makes me so happy.

[allegratheneko.livejournal.com]

AWSOME job!! THat describes him so well, I love the way your messed up brain works *analyzes brain*

[empty-geas.livejournal.com]

A lovely story. It touches on so many interesting ideas that are related to the body switch. The price, which Tucker admittedly seems to be paying more then Ed, the sheer difference, not being able to get used to the automail, and the potential long-term effects. It's nice to see the changes they put their forms through/have them put through brought so much into the forefront. We already know Ed grew his hair out and got Tucker's body in shape, bringing it closer to what his own was. Tucker, on the other hand, has lost much of the original advantage of Ed's form. He is again, pale, weak, trapped in the employ of those stronger then he. Just as he was before. It fits in with the theory about bodies reacting to/reflecting the spirits they house. As when it was put forth that Hohenheim's forms always end up resembling his original one. Though this begs the question of whether either of the two may have to deal with the patches of necrotizing flesh the original two body-hoppers do.

[swordage]

I believe the necrosis set in after a few hundred years and many transfers, so they should be alright. But yeah, the flesh reflects the person inside; maybe there are limits, like Ed being older now and Tucker being small physically as well as mentally, but generally speaking it's true.

I think Hoho just picked out select descendants and took their bodies. He did have a kid, after all, who died at a reasonable age - it would certainly help explain why the gold-eye gene is present in the population at all. It's a triple recessive, so very rare and technically not human, blah blah chimeras blah crossbreeding blah Devil's Nest blah blah segment of the population with recessives blah. You see where I'm going with this? Yeah, human-form chimera breeds with human, there's inbreeding down the line to keep that gene pure, gold eyes are unusual but not particularly shocking to the general populace.

[allegratheneko.livejournal.com]

Brain... hurts... 0.- Ouch I'm gonna have to read through that a few more times to get it. Wow that is a REALLY good story!! Not quite done reading it but it rules. It's really interesting seeing how they would react, being stuck in the body of someone you hate. Heehee, Winry killed Barry XD SOrry I find that very amusing.