#can you tell that i stole some plot lines from euphoria

[michaelaftonslefteyelid]

Michael Afton (my beloved) Headcanons

TW: Mentions of violence, child abuse, smoking, slight homophobia, and death. Slight NSFW warning! Read at your own risk!

Born May 6th 1968

* Was William’s golden child until he was 10. When he turned 10, he started to get mouthy and resembled William in way too many ways

* He didn’t know why William didn’t love him anymore once he turned 10. All he wanted was his fathers love again. He wanted to be that golden child again

* After he turned 10, he started acting out. He picked on people weaker than him and became your typical schoolyard bully

* Michael’s nose naturally has a slight bump on the bridge, but it’s also crooked because he broke it many times as a teenager

* Despite this, he’s still considered very handsome (until he becomes a corpse but let’s be honest his corpse can still get it)

* He would get detention often due to his bullying and gum chewing habits

* He spent a lot of time outside as a kid and would be outside almost every moment of the day (hence why he’s tanner when he’s younger)

* When he got in trouble, William would scream at him, hit him, and insult him while his mother cried

* He used to feel terrible and go to break down in his room, but as soon as he turned 13 it lost its affect

* After the accident, it regained its affect

* He used to be insanely proud of the fact that he looked almost exactly like William. Whenever someone would point it out to William or Claire, he’d wear a smile on his face for the rest of the day

* Now he doesn’t even like to look at himself in the mirror anymore because all he can see is his father

* He got diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder when he was 13. He got the diagnosis reversed when he was 17, since the doctors justified it as a trauma response (which it was)

* Started smoking cigarettes at the age of 12

* He was able to quit when he turned 18

* He still chews nicotine gum to this day through

* He and Evan used to get along great.

* Him Evan and Elizabeth would go out to downtown just to hang out and bond

* They would go to all kinds of convenience stores together

* Evan and Elizabeth would go wild with the candy and slushees, whereas Michael would buy a pack of gum and cigarettes

* They put it on Williams tab

* After Elizabeth passed away, they didn’t go out anymore

* Michael would barely speak to his brother

* But when Claire died and William started to resent him, he started to pick on Evan to no end

* Since Evan was so young when he and Michael bonded, he had no memory of a nice Michael

* He never understood why Michael hated him so much

* After the accident, Michael was wrecked

* Being the cause of someone’s death does that to a person

* He missed the first semester of school that year. He came back in the spring. He had to make up the fall in summer school.

* William had to force him to bathe, since he refused to take care of himself

* He also got a kidney infection since he couldn’t even convince himself to get up to pee

* He spent 3 days in the hospital for this

* He has severe PTSD from the accident

* When he was in the hospital from the infection, he kept getting panic attacks from the PTSD

* They were so bad that he had to be subdued

* He to this day will avoid the hospital at all costs

* He constantly had night terrors after the accident (FNAF 4)

* Ages 15-19 were rough for him

* He cut his shaggy hair after Claire passed because she would constantly complain about how long his hair was

* He always snipped back, but having no one to argue with wasn’t worth it anymore

* Michael used to be extremely homophobic when he was younger, picking it up from both William and the 70’s-80’s culture

* This is because he was also deeply closeted

* He realized he was bisexual when he was 15 and accepted it when he was 16

* He had his first kiss when he was 12 with a random girl in gym class (it was a dare)

* He lost his virginity when he had just turned 17 in his dad’s office

* It was with his male coworker who was a few days away from turning 20

* Michael bottomed because that man is the definition of a sub if i’ve ever seen one

* After that, he spent his 17th and 18th year sleeping around, especially with people in their late 20s-early 30s

* Hyper-sexuality was his trauma response

* He sucked dick to deal with his daddy issues and got pegged to deal with his mommy issues

* Freud would have a field day with this man

* Around 19, he was able to calm down and stop sleeping around so much

* At the same age, he found a long term S/O who he loved very much

* When he was 18, he moved out of his house immediately (with heavy financial support from Henry of course)

* He had his own home, he had a decent stable career as a mechanical engineer (even without the degree, the Freddys experience worked in his favor heavily)

* He was friendly with his neighbors and would greet them

* He was finally away from his father. He was free

* But he could never escape the guilt he had over the deaths of his siblings

* Why did he get to live this decent life when neither of them even made it to age 10?

* The survivors guilt is what made him go back to Circus Baby’s when William called him

* Unfortunately, it’s obvious how that turned out

* And to think, he was just a few days away from turning 20

* His post scoop life was undesirable to say the least

* He got fired from his mechanical engineer job

* He lost his house

* He urged his S/O to break up with him, despite their protests

* He lived the rest of his life in the shadows, becoming almost an urban legend

* He had a small apartment that he maintained, but that was about it

* Then he discovered his fathers dark past

* He made it his goal to stop him no matter what

* Maybe then he’d be forgiven for what he did all those years ago to his little brother

* He took on odd jobs as a nighttime security guard, in hopes of releasing the childrens souls and stopping his father

* There, he learned of remnant and how to undo the soul trapping effects

* He became absolutely obsessed

* He knew his father was in that Springtrap suit. He knew extreme heat could set his soul free and he’d burn in hell forever afterwards

* In the ‘20s, there was an ad to start your own Freddys franchise

* He knew it was Henry. He knew what he had to do.

* That Saturday, Michael finally died for good. He was at peace

* Maybe…

* (I am a firm Glammike believer)

[old-congratzams]

endeavor x fem reader with a Kitty Cheshire quirk (neko with ability to teleport) plot: reader super low Grade villain that love to start trouble and teleport away but endeavor catches her she can’t teleport away and endeavor teaches her a lesson nsfw 😺

aaa, i hope this is good! i feel like it’s a lil bit rushed but maybe it’s just my self criticism kicking in asdhaskfhsf thanks so much for requestingggg

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐰. 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐢 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐢

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: mentions of blood, size difference, smutty smut, blowjob, cum eating, cat girl idk how to tag this one hadhsdhf

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓. I can’t control what you guys choose to read or not but I’d be way more comfortable if minors stayed away from my works. <3

Enji was annoyed. Doing rounds on a night market was always so monotonous because the presence of the number one hero quickly scared the villains and criminals away. But during that night in particular, things escalated quickly and Enji rushed towards the commotion.

"Endeavor, you're here! Do something!"

Chasing a delinquent that stole fish from a nearby stand was nowhere near the number one's ideal job. However, people gathering around and expecting him to do something so simple like going after a low criminal added enough fuel to his irritation and shook his ego.

"Watch this."

He followed the scent of raw fish down the streets and the trail ended in a dark alley. Enji thought he'd seen someone with cat ears and tail but didn't find anyone there, it was like they'd just disappeared right under his nose. And speaking of nose, the scent was back and it was-- behind him!

Enji was quick to grab the criminal by the arm — the first thing his gloved hand could reach. The criminal let out a squeal while in mid-air, a pair of strong hands holding her own behind her back.

"I see. A teleportation quirk, huh?"

Her cat ears twitched by the sound of his deep, dangerous voice. She tried to struggle her way out, free from the arms of the pro hero.

"There's no use, you won't be able to--"

She frenetically fluttered her tail, squirming as anxiety build up in her tummy. It was unfair that a low criminal as her would be caught by the number one himself.

"Tch."

The wiggling tail seemed to annoy Enji even further. Holding the tiny arms in one hand, the other reached for the tail in a firm grasp. The action caused the criminal to inhale deeply and freeze.

Tears gathered on the corner of her dolly eyes and red flushed her cheeks. The hero was oblivious to the fact her tail was very sensitive and any form of rough touch would send waves of warmth to her womb.

"L-Let me go..." Her voice sounded meek and bearing distress. "I'll pay for it-- I promise!!"

The grip on her tail tightened, the incoherent actions increasing Enji's suspicions. "What do you think you’re doing?!"

She gasped when Enji tugged on her tail by accident, instinctively rolling her hips and searching for friction while low moans left her mouth.

The sinful sounds put the hero in alert, his hand securing her arms now reaching for her mouth and his voice now low and threatening. "Do you want people to hear?"

The criminal shook her head even though her mind was clouded with sexual needs. Her nipples were hard as pebbles as seen from her vest.

"S-sir, it's that you're t-touching my tail..."

"Tch. I can't risk you running away."

She breathed heavily, pressed against his chest and her tail still on his hand. A sudden wave of pleasure hit the cat girl, sending shivers all over her body and a loud moan escaping her lips.

Enji pressed the girl against the wall, holding her by her face and squeezing her cheeks. "Are you insane?!? I told you to keep quiet--"

The look of pure lust, gaze lost in heaven and drool dripping from her chin made Enji realize what she meant before. It was impossible for him, a healthy man, to not go hard knowing that he caused that, even if accidentally.

Her tail fluttered, exposing the euphoria she was feeling. Although very embarassed by the situation and quite ashamed, the hero weighted his course of action.

"I'll give you what you want and then you'll turn yourself in," Enji proposed, grabbing the tail and putting it over the line of his cock, stroking both over his hero suit.

The way her eyes rolled to the back of the head and her sharp teeth drew blood from her lips encouraged Enji to continue taking advantage of the criminal. He licked her lips clean from the blood and then pushed his tongue into her small mouth, the size difference adding fuel to the fire.

"Lick it." He pressed the tip of her tail against her lips, to which she complied. "Now touch yourself with it while you suck me off."

She did everything she was told. The wetness from her previous orgasm coated her tail and both her tail and clit were very sensitive to any touch, which sent electrical shocks through her body every time she fluttered it against her small hardened bud.

While she moaned, Enji freed his cock from the suit, pushing it into her mouth. "Watch out for the teeth."

His cock was too big for her mouth so she had to open big and wide to accommodate it. Enji slowly fucked her mouth, not allowing any further than the tip to pass her lips. Her tongue worked hard around it, fluttering against the vein underneath his cock and giving it special attention.

"You probably like milk..." Enji pondered. "If you're a good girl until the end I might reward you with it."

By that suggestion, she licked and sucked eagerly. The tip of her tail fluttered faster on her clit, both sensitive from the filthy pleasure Enji was putting her through. Her tiny hands switched from massaging the base of his cock to toying with his sack.

A disappointed cry left the girl's mouth once Enji pulled his cock out of it. Precum glistened the tip and the girl probably had drunk loads of it. Enji's cock felt sensitive and was ready to shoot cum all over her face but he had other plans for her. It felt decades since he last fucked and the filthy, embarassing situation didn't help at all.

"On your hands and knees, girl."

Her legs were shaking from the heavy stimulus, the ending of her tail covered in her own wetness, but she promptly obeyed the command.

His hand grabbed the tail forcefully, getting it out of his way. The roughness he handled the tail caused the girl's pussy to tighten and dampen the suit even more. Weren't for the piece of clothing, she would be dripping on the alley like she had just wetted herself.

Enji gave each her butt cheeks a light slap, making them jiggle with the impact. He pushed aside the sopping fabric, sighing by the view of her dripping cunt and resisting the urge to plunge in one finger. Instead, he lined up his fat cock against her entrance, responding with a guttural moan by the feeling of her warm velvety pussy sucking him in.

Needless to say, his cock stretched her with ease, the wetness aiding the intrusion. She felt so full while his cock pressed just the right spots, she felt like bursting, she felt--

Enji thrusted in one rapid motion, burying his cock deep into her as soon as he felt her convulsing around him, groaning at how tight she are. He lost control the minute he felt her coming around him, even though he was only halfway through.

Tears gathered at the corner of her eyes and she spilled all over the hero. Thankfully, his suit was impermeable but the concrete underneath their knees was not.

A hand grabbed her hair while the other remained at the base of her tail, holding her in place while he thrusted into the girl. She couldn't discern if she was so high in ecstasy that his violent thrusts didn't hurt her at all or if Enji was taking such a good care of her that it's not even supposed to hurt. Either way, she knew for sure she'd be sore in the morning — in jail, perhaps.

But she didn't want to think about it while being fucked by the number one himself. His girth and length were massive, and opened her whole. The way he thrusted into her got more erratic and she could feel he was holding back.

“N-no, don't... don't hold back--!!" she pleaded, tail fluttering in agitation and her body ready to be ruined.

He let go of her hair and fisted her tail, giving it a harsh tug. Her hips were pulled back in the mean time, the new angle allowing the tip of his cock to line up perfectly with her cervix and she screamed from the sudden burn.

Enji was close to his limit, his voice cracking from pleasure and the threats that left his lips seemed empty. "If... If you keep screaming, I'll have to shut-- shut you up."

She was drenching, losing any focus she regained after coming while Enji played with her tail, but her body reached its limits and started descending from the previous high.

"E-Endeavor-san, I don't think I can come anymore..." she murmured.

He groaned, taking his cock out of her abused hole. It felt heavy, the cum ready to burst any minute. "Come 'ere, open your mouth."

His hand stroked his cock a couple times before he gushed cum all over her tongue. She let some of it spill on the ground, not able to gulp it all down. Enji looked just as wasted as the girl in front of him.

He breathed heavily as if he just won a fight, having used all of his power to win. The criminal waited patiently for him to say anything after the haze dissipated.

"You... You were a very good kitten," he praised after adjusting his suit. "But you still owe the owner some apologies after stealing from him."

She agreed, obediently following Enji from the dark alley back to the food stands. Once there, she bowed apologetically to the owner while Enji kept his arms crossed in front of his chest, trying to look the usual but his eyes betraying the fatigue and indifference towards the present moment.

After everything was settled, Enji ended up paying for the damage she had caused. He grabbed the cat girl by the neck and guided her through the streets, only one thing in his mind.

"Disobedient girls like you should have someone to discipline them. How about that, hm?"

Something in her guts was telling her that she was stuck with the number one for some time — not that she was complaining, though.

[shiftingheart]

(poppy drayton, cis woman, n/a) VIGILANTE has their eye on EVELYN DEVEAUX. SHE is a 27 YEAR-OLD SHAPESHIFTER who lives in THE BUSINESS DISTRICT. according to VIGILANTE’s intel, they work as a CONWOMAN/THIEF and are known for being CLEVER and PETTY. hopefully they don’t give VIGILANTE a reason to strike. (rose, 26, she/her, est, n/a)

Meet Evie, a mischievous shapeshifter who makes a living using her gifts for evil...or at least, not for good. As always, I’m always down for plots and threads, so hit me up if you have any ideas!

Quick Facts:

She’s the result of a faerie mother and a witch father, and she grew up in her father’s coven. Unfortunately, she never really felt like she belonged there. While she can do basic magic, it took her a long time to learn, and the other children weren’t exactly accepting of her.

Though she’d never admit it, Evie and her mother are extremely similar. Evie has the faerie taste for chaos and loves stirring up trouble.

She has a younger half sister, Caprice Valentine, who she constantly claims is the only good thing to come from her faerie mother. She loves Caprice dearly and would do anything for her.

Evie makes good money with her cons and thievery. Some of her schemes are small, some are elaborate.

Usually, she doesn’t leave a trail behind or get caught, but some of her bigger ‘business plans’ recently caught the attention of the slayers. They let her know that if she harmed any humans at all, she’d pay the price. Evie has been purposefully toeing the line between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ for the past few months to tease the slayers after their warning.

She uses her con money to fund a luxurious lifestyle. Her upscale apartment in the Business District costs more than she’ll ever admit. She lives alone, but likes to entertain. She’s constantly throwing parties, both fancy and trashy ones.

Loves to hang out at the Euphoria Lounge. She claims she’s “studying” vampire fangs for shifting purposes, but she may or may not have let a few bloodsuckers take a bite out of her.

Evie isn’t uptight or “proper”, but she is awfully judgy. She’s a total gossip. Any secrets you tell her will be repeated to someone else at least once.

She’s petty as hell. Even slight wrongdoings could end in an elaborate scheme for revenge. She’s not above using her gifts to wreak havoc on someone’s life.

Evie cycles through friendships and relationships like seasonal fashion trends. Most of her relationships are superficial. She’d never admit it, but she’s terrified to get close to anyone and have them not accept her once they see her for who she really is. When it’s all said and done, she’s sure no one will stick around for the long haul. She’s never had a serious romantic relationship, and it would take a lot of trust to get her to even consider it.

As a shapeshifter, she always felt she was part of multiple worlds, but never really fit into any of them. Although she loves her gifts and uses them to her advantage, she does feel like she might never belong anywhere.

Connection Ideas:

Click here to see the connections Evie has so far. I have a few starting point ideas below, but these are not by any means the only plots I’m open to or want. Never be afraid to reach out to me for plots! Even if an idea doesn’t work right off the bat, I’m always happy to brainstorm something that will.

Human She Exposed to the Supernatural World: Check out the wanted connection on the main!

People She’s Wronged: There are a lot. Seriously. Whether she conned them, straight up stole from them, or did something petty that seriously impacted their life, I’m down to hear ideas and for Evie to deal with the consequences!

Slayers: The Slayers have been keeping tabs on her businesses dealings, and Evie has been toeing the line of rule breaking to tease them the past few months. It’s a cat and mouse game that she might very well regret playing.

Friends: Evie only has a few true friends. Because it takes so much time to earn her trust, these are people she would have known for a while and who have seen her at her worst and best.

Lovers: Mostly friends with benefits and one-night stand situations.

Witches: Evie isn’t exactly kind to witches, despite her father being one. She’ll never forget what an outcast she was in a coven as a child. She loves to mess with them, even if they don’t necessarily deserve it.

[setaripendragon]

Never Simple - Chapter 1

Okay! This is... this one is kind of ridiculous. So, I watched Venom a couple of weeks ago, figuring, you know, I was already neck-deep in the soul-bond tentacle-porn on Ao3, I ought to at least see the source material, even if I expected to find it kind of cringey. (Given that everyone also raved about Ragnarok, and I actually couldn’t watch it because of the cringe, I had reason to worry, but) I absolutely loved it. There was only one moment of genuine cringe, right at the beginning, and from there on, it was, as the internet had assured me, a beautiful, ridiculous rom-com XD Why am I talking about Venom on a story tagged with FMA? Because I’ve spent the last two weeks crossing Venom over with everything. Skyfall, Torchwood, Elementary, Teen Wolf, and, thanks to @furisca, FullMetal Alchemist. So yeah, I have plans for this story (so many fix-it style plans), but I have no idea if I’m going to manage to write them all, where this story is actually going, or how I’m going to end it, but... have the first insane 5K I wrote in an inspired delirium anyway. (Warnings: Character death, severe illness and seizures, sort of body horror? I tried not to make it too gory, but I also had some fun trying to evoke that skin-crawly horror feel, so, yeah.)

Teacher had called it making a deal with the devil, but Ed didn’t believe in any sort of god or devil or anything like that. Alchemy was science, and it was simple. Knowledge was power. The more you knew, the more you could do. If you knew how the pieces fit together, you could twist them and shape them into anything you liked. That was how alchemy worked.

And, sure, the human body was complicated – massively, incredibly, bewilderingly complicated – but it wasn’t unknowable. The knowledge was there, in the very fact that those molecules, those atoms had come together in that way, in that form. The entire equation was there, written into their very existence. Which meant that with enough knowledge, they could fix their mum.

The doctors didn’t know what was wrong. Mum had been sick for years, and no one could tell her what was wrong. She’d tried to hide it at first, but that hadn’t lasted. They might have been young, but they weren’t stupid. They were actually pretty fucking smart, if Ed did say so himself.

It had taken them years of study, of plumbing the depths of alchemy and human biology, but Ed was pretty sure they had their answer at last. Ed had found it in a footnote in one of their deadbeat dad’s journals. In the one explaining the very basics of alchemy. Jotted in the margin of the basic explanation that Ed could recite by heart; Alchemy is the science of understanding the structure of matter, breaking it down, then reconstructing it as something else.

Always, always, they’d been taught, understanding had to come first.

The note in dad’s journal said otherwise.

Deconstruction came first. Understanding only came from taking a thing and pulling it apart to see how it worked.

It was dangerous, of course. Ed understood that. Physically, you could pull a thing apart, and the only negative consequence would be not being able to put it back together again. Pulling a thing apart with alchemy? If you couldn’t understand it quickly enough, thoroughly enough, the backlash would be devastating. They certainly weren’t going to try in on Mum without testing it first.

At least, that was the plan, until Ed sent Al to get them a few drops of Mum’s blood while he double checked their array, and before a minute had gone by, Al screamed; “BROTHER!” Ed dropped the book he was holding, uncaring as to its fate as he rushed upstairs, a horrible sort of anticipatory dread coiling slow and sickening inside him.

Sure enough, when he joined Al in their mum’s room, it wasn’t hard to see why Al had screamed. Mum was- Ed couldn’t think the word, but she was perfectly still, sprawled limply with her eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, glassy and empty, one arm flung out like she’d been trying to reach for something on the night-stand, and just… switched off half way through the motion.

Ed’s head filled with a litany of denial, and he just stood there, dumbfounded with horror and the terrible creeping certainty that they were too late. Beside him, Al let out a wretched sob, almost a wail, and Ed snapped back into the present. “No.” He said, but this time, it was full of determination and ferocity. “We can still do this.” He announced, startling Al. “Get some chalk, we’re going to have to redraw the array up here.” Ed didn’t think he could handle trying to carry Mum down to the basement like this.

“B-Brother?” Al stammered.

“Chalk!” Ed repeated, and finally saw understanding, hope, and then determination fill his brother’s eyes, too. With a nod, Al bolted out of the room. Ed took the moments he was gone to go and… and check. He tentatively wrapped his hand around Mum’s wrist and pressed his fingers to her pulse. She was still warm, but there was no movement under his fingertips, no pulse.

That knowledge nearly broke him, would have broken him if it hadn’t been for the array all planned out and plotted in the back of his mind. They could do this. They had to. Al returned, breathless and brandishing a whole box of chalks, and they set to work. It took them a while, because the array was so stupidly complicated, and every minute that slipped by was another minute that dragged their mother further and further away from them.

They had to push the bed out of the way to finish it, and then, once it was done, they were forced to face the fact that they needed to move their mother into the center of the array. After sharing a dismayed look with Al, Ed set his jaw, and set to it, stubbornly ignoring the horrible fact of how lifeless the body in his arms was. It wouldn’t be that way for long.

And then it was ready.

“This is going to work, Al.” Ed asserted. Al nodded, eyes burning just as fiercely as Ed’s, and grabbed Ed’s hand, gripping tightly, desperately. Ed squeezed back reassuringly, then let go so he could kneel beside their array. Al followed his lead and, in unison, they reached out and pressed their hands to the edge of the circle, activating their array. Actinic light spilled out as energy crackled through the lines they’d etched painstakingly across the floor of the basement, the force of it whipping their hair about their heads and tugging at their clothes.

The world came apart at the seems.

“Foolish little alchemist.”

Ed jumped, looking around, but there was nothing. Just an endless expanse of pristine white nothingness, stretching out into infinity. He turned around again, and jumped again, because he could have sworn there was nothing there, before, but now? Now he found himself looking up at a huge stone door, etched with a strangely branching tree. “Who- who’s there? Where are you? Where am I?!” Ed blurted out, peering around the sides of the great stone door, but there was only more nothingness beyond it.

“I’m so glad you asked!” The voice responded, but it didn’t sound glad. It sounded bitter. It sounded like Ed did, when he was forced to talk about dad. “I am nothing, and everything. The universe, and the void. I am, and so you are. I am Truth.” Ed spun around again, as the voice seemed to coalesce behind him, and he saw-

He stumbled backwards until his back hit the stone door, incomprehension sending him recoiling. The thing in front of him looked almost human. Two arms, two legs, a head, all in the right places, but wrong. There was no definition, no features, no solidity, just a writhing, amorphous mass of white-on-white that was only barely managing a paltry attempt at a human form. It grinned at him, showing off teeth that would have looked more at home on a piranha than a human, and waved a not-hand at the nothingness around them. “And this, little alchemist, is me.”

A deep, groaning crack reverberated out from behind Ed, and terror seized him. Every fibre of his being was telling him to run, to run and not look back for a second, but he couldn’t help it, he had to know what was there, so he turned, slowly, forcing himself to move one inch at a time, until he could see, out of the corner of his eye, what was behind the door.

Ed screamed.

He tried to scramble backwards, all the while keep his eyes on the incomprehensible writhing mass of strangely geometric viscera teeming and seething within the stone archway. Before he had gone more than two steps, though, his back hit something solid, with just a hint of give to it. Like flesh, but not, too slick, too fluid. He froze. Even the air in his lungs froze.

Two not-hands came up beside his head. He could see them moving just on the edges of his vision, curling round, closing in, and panic stole all rational thought from his mind. “I thought this was what you wanted, you arrogant little shit.” The not human thing behind him crooned, as those hands pressed over his face.

This time, it was Ed that came apart at the seams.

The worst part? The worst part was that he could feel it. He could taste it. Every molecule that broke away from the whole, every atom that was wrenched out of alignment. He knew by taste-feel-weight-texture-vibration what they were and what they did and how they fit. Right down to the plasma in his blood and the bacteria in his intestines, the bile in his liver and the mucous in his lungs. The electricity in his brain and all the little chemicals that strung the whole lot together into a functioning whole. He could feel membranes he hadn’t even known were there, knew the entire topographical structure of his lungs, felt every synapse in his brain as it was taken apart and shown to him. As he was vivisected all the way down to his atoms, until he was nothing more than biological mush. Just a puddle of writhing ooze on a blank white canvas.

And then he was whole again. Whole and gasping for breath as every nerve in his body tingled with visceral euphoria at being together and coherent again. “W-w-wha…” He tried to speak, to ask, to understand, but he couldn’t stop shaking long enough to get the words out.

“Equivalent exchange, little alchemist.” The voice said right into Ed’s ear from where it was standing directly behind him, breathing on his neck. All the hair on his body stood up on end, and he lurched away and around, wanting that thing and it’s teeth where he could see them-

It looked like Alphonse.

Al’s golden hair and Al’s hazel eyes and Al’s button nose and a mouth full of razors in a jagged crescent, splitting his face in two. “You opened the gate. You came here, in your arrogance, to take something from me, and you thought there wouldn’t be consequences?” It demanded, furious and vicious and smug.

“NO!” Ed screamed. He lunged forwards, grabbing the thing that was wearing his brother by the shoulders and shaking it. “GIVE HIM BACK! ALPHONSE!”

The world slipped away and slid back into place, a moment of vertigo and the nothingness was filled in. Ed wasn’t standing, he was half-lying, half-kneeling over Alphonse’s limp form sprawled across their basement floor. He looked like he was sleeping, no sign of those awful teeth or the horror sealed behind a huge stone door except for the way Ed could still half remember what his own brain tasted like.

“A-Al?” Ed breathed, unable to make his voice any louder with the horrible, terrible fear surging through him. Al’s shoulders shifted beneath his hands, moving with the suddenly rapid rise and fall of his chest. “Al?!” Ed called, stronger, more urgent, but the only response he got was not from Al.

There was a gurgling gasp from the center of the array. Ed’s head snapped up, breath caught somewhere in his throat, to stare at Mum. She was moving. She shuddered and arched until her back cleared the floor. “Mum?!” Ed called, not quite willing to let go of Al just yet, but still desperately wanting confirmation that all that horror had been worth it.

Instead, what he got was discordant, reverberating laughter spilling out of his mother’s mouth. Jagged fangs bloomed behind her open lips, and when her eyes opened, they were opalescent white from lid to lid, and getting larger. They spilled out over the edges of her eyelids, while crystalline blue oozed out of her pores, crawling over her skin.

“No…!” Ed breathed, hope turning sour in a heartbeat.

The thing that wasn’t really his mother zeroed in on him, head twisting too far to be natural, and whole body contorting in ways that made Ed want to vomit. “Yes!” She – it – crooned, and the worst part was Ed thought he could almost hear his mother’s voice under the distortion. The monster laughed again, and lunged. Ed didn’t even see it coming, just registered that it was starting to move, and then the next thing he knew, he was pinned to the floor with a monster that used to be his mother looming over him, maw gaping wide and getting closer. “Mum?” Ed begged, even though he had no idea if his mum was even still alive – alive again – in there. “Mum, p-please don’t-!”

The monster paused, jerked forwards – making Ed flinch – only to suddenly fling itself backwards, back into the array. “No.” That was Mum’s voice, ragged and hoarse, but entirely and only Mum’s voice. Ed sobbed before he could stop himself. “You won’t have my boys-! Will. Hungry-! Over my dead body!”

Ed flinched at the words, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the way Mum screamed next, thrashing and convulsing in jerky, jittering motions. There was a crack, followed by another, and then several more in quick succession as Mum’s limbs twisted themselves into unnatural shapes, bones splintering and tearing skin, spilling blood. One last, violent flail was cut short when her head hit the ground with a terrible crunch, and she – it – went still, the blue sinking away back under the skin as the red spilled out, leaving Mum looking like a contortionist’s nightmare, and entirely lifeless once again.

Ed choked on a sob, but his grief was put on hold when Al let out a pained, confused groan. He couldn’t stand – his legs were shaking too much to support his weight, so he half-crawled, half-shuffled back over to his brother’s side, and patted his cheek. Al’s face screwed up, even as his mouth opened on panting breaths. A mouth full of normal, boring, perfectly human teeth.

He cast half a glance over his shoulder towards the… thing in the middle of the array, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at it head on before a shudder overtook him and he looked away. Al didn’t need those nightmares as well, he decided, and carefully pulled his brother up and around so his back was towards the middle of the room and they were facing the door.

Al lurched, and for a moment Ed was afraid he was going to fall, but all he did was lean over and throw up weakly onto the floor, one hand slapping down to support himself on an arm that shook violently. “Shit, Al-” Ed choked out, throwing an arm around Al’s shoulders just in time to keep him from collapsing face-first into the pool of his own vomit. Al made an unhappy noise, and dropped his head onto Ed’s shoulder. Ed flinched, because the bare skin of Al’s cheek was burning to the touch, and he could feel that even through his t-shirt. “Oh, fuck-” Ed didn’t need the echoes of everything Truth had shown him to know that that? Wasn’t a good sign.

“B-broth…” Al mumbled weakly, sounding just as tired and pained as Mum did- used to- That was not a comparison Ed wanted to make right now, so he shut that thought down hard. He also tried not to think about how what he desperately wanted to do right now was scream for his mum and have her come soothe them and fix everything, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because she was dead, and- He shook the thoughts off with a hiccuped back sob, and focused on getting Al out of the room before he came to enough to notice-

Al managed to coordinate his feet enough to be moderately helpful in walking to their bedroom, where Ed tucked him into bed, and Al promptly passed out. Which was good, because Ed knew he couldn’t hold it together much longer. He half stumbled down the stairs and called the only other person he could think of to turn to for help.

“Rockbell Automail.”

“G-granny? Al’s sick.” Ed said, and then choked. It was hard to keep the desperate, panicked sobs in now that he’d said it out loud.

“Edward?” Granny asked sharply.

Ed sobbed once, and then forced it back down, because he needed to be strong, for fuck’s sake. Needed to keep his shit together long enough to get Al the help he needed. “Al’s sick.” He said again, because he couldn’t manage more than that. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll be right there.” Granny promised, and then hung up.

Ed put the phone down with a clatter, and went to check on Al again, only to find him peering blearily at Ed from under the arm he’d flung over his face. “Al?” Ed breathed, relief tinged with desperation. “Al, are you okay?”

“C’n I… food?” He asked plaintively, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow again. “M’hungry.”

“Yeah! Yeah, sure.” Ed agreed. Honestly, he would have agreed to just about anything Al asked for, right now. He hurried down to the kitchen and frantically searched for something healthy that wouldn’t need a lot of preparation time. He settled on grabbing an apple for now, and filling a jug with water, and brought them up to Al. “Got you some water as well.” He explained, unnecessarily, as he put them on the bedside table. He poured a glass of water, and helped Al drink it, because his hands were shaking too badly to hold it steady by himself.

Truthfully, Ed’s hands weren’t doing much better, but between them, they managed to get more of the water into Al than on him. Then Ed offered him the apple. Al just about snatched it and sank his teeth into it with alarming voracity. He didn’t stop until the whole thing was gone, core and all. “Al…?” Ed asked tentatively, holding himself very still, uncomfortable visions of a different set of teeth swimming hazily in his mind.

“Brother?” Al echoed, a touch of a tremor in his voice.

Shit. Ed needed to pull himself together, before his freak out made Al freak out. He tried for a smile, and knew it must have fell miles short when Al’s face crumpled. “I guess you’d like another one, huh?” He asked, pulling bravado over the top of his uncertainty.

Al licked his lips. “Somethin’…” He began hopefully. “Some… some of the… th’meat stew?”

“Sure.” Ed agreed. Reheating the stew didn’t take very long, and soon he was back at Al’s side, helping him sit up so he could eat. He got half way through it before his eyes widened and he shoved the bowl towards Ed, turning where he sat so that when he threw up, it ended up on the floor instead of in his lap. “Shit.” Ed said, because what the hell else could he say?

Al looked up, distress writ large across his face, his eyes pleading as they found Ed. “What’s- what’s wrong with m-me?” He asked desperately.

“I don’t know.” Ed admitted, even though he didn’t want to. He now knew exactly how fragile the human body was, what a delicate balance it hung in. There were just too many ways for it to go wrong, and it wasn’t as if the remnants of his knowledge of his own internal workings meant he had any hope of figuring out what was wrong with Al’s.

“What happened?” Al asked next, which wasn’t a very reassuring question.

“I don’t know.” Ed said again, a little more desperately.

Al looked at him with wide, tentative eyes. “Did- Did we- Is Mum…?” He stammered, not quite daring to hope.

It broke Ed’s heart, and his face crumpled up before he could stop it, his whole body shaking with suppressed sobs. It was awful, to watch that barely-there hope drain out of Al’s face to be replaced by the agony of grief. He started to cry, weak but unstoppable, and that just set Ed off, too, years of anxious grief pouring out of them all at once.

Ed pulled himself together first, when he heard Granny open the door and come stomping up the stairs. Al didn’t bother. Granny stopped in the doorway to take them in, and Ed looked over at her with a mixture of desperation and defiance. Granny just clicked her tongue at him. “Go get a mop, pipsqueak.” She  ordered, stepping inside and depositing her doctor’s bag on the end of Al’s bed.

Ed hopped up, glad for something to do. “He- he threw up twice.” He said, just before he left. “And he’s got a fever.”

“It’s probably just a bad stomach bug.” Granny assured him.

It could be that, or an infection, or the flu, or any number of his organs could be fucking up, like his appendix or his kidney or his pancreas. Maybe he hit his head and Ed didn’t notice and now he’s bleeding in his brain. Ed stared at her for a long moment, knowing that she could see just how not reassured he was by his expression, before he went to go get the mop.

He cleaned up their room, but even though he knew he ought to, he just couldn’t bring himself to go clean up Mum’s room, too. The memory of what she’d looked like after that- that thing was done with her flashed through his mind and he shuddered on a belated wave of horror, curling his arms around himself and focusing, desperately, on Granny fussing over Al. She was frowning, though, which only made Ed feel worse. “Granny?” He asked, wanting some answers, instead of this nameless, shapeless terror.

Granny glanced at him, then pursed her lips. “I think it’d be best if you boys came to stay at the clinic for a little while, so I can keep an eye on Al. It looks like an infection, which means antibiotics should clear it up, but just to be on the safe side.”

“Okay.” Ed agreed, even though he didn’t like the way Granny said it. He did actually kind of like the idea of not being in this house anymore, with the prickling awareness of what had happened in the other room constantly looming over his head. So he went to bundle Al out of bed and coax him into walking down to Winry’s house, while Granny bustled about getting a few clothes and their over-night stuff together for them.

“Ed…?” Granny called from upstairs once Ed had gotten Al to the front door. She sounded perturbed, but like she was trying to hide it so as not to upset him.

“Yeah?” Ed called back.

“Where’s your mother?”

Ed flinched, memory replaying, and no, no stop it. “In-” He choked, swallowed down the sob. “In her room.”

“No. She’s not.” Granny informed him, tone going sharp.

Ed jolted, looked to Al. Al looked back, frightened and bewildered, but he nodded hesitantly, and let go of the grip he had on Ed’s arm so that Ed could bolt back up the stairs. Granny moved out of his way, and he shoved into Mum’s room even though he really, really didn’t want to. The array was still there, half obscured by a few puddles of half-congealed- something. Not blood. It didn’t smell clean enough to be blood. Just… dead tissue. decomposing biological matter.

The memory of what Truth had done to him came back to him so vividly, so viscerally, that for a moment, Ed was half convinced he was going to simply collapse into his component parts and ooze away through the floorboards. “I-” He choked, unable to shape words through the guilt strangling his insides. “I th-think she dis-dissolved.”

“Dissolved?”

“She was- She wasn’t- We were just trying to- to bring her back, to fix it, but-” Ed shook his head, not wanting to go anywhere near the memory of what had happened.

Granny sighed, long and slow, heavy with her own grief. “Alright, back downstairs with you. Come on. I’ll come back to clean this all up later.” She continued to ramble a stream of reassuring nonsense at him as she chivvied him back downstairs and out of the house. Ed stuck close to Al’s side the whole way, but now that Al was moving, he seemed to be a little better.

Right up until they were standing on the Rockbell’s front porch, and Al just crumpled. Ed didn’t manage to grab him in time, but fell to his knees beside his brother as Al convulsed where he was lying, twitching and spasming like- like- Ed reached out to grab hold of Al in a desperate, useless attempt to try and help, but Granny barked “Don’t!” at him, and he recoiled.

“Why not? He’s-”

“He’s having a seizure, don’t try to hold him still.” Granny informed him briskly. She leaned over and tucked her balled up apron under Al’s head, and then, just… waited.

“There has to be something-!” Ed choked out. Granny just shook her head, leaving Ed to stew in terrified helplessness until Al stopped convulsing and went limp.

“Winry!” Granny called. “Come on, let’s get him inside.” She instructed, and Ed leapt to help pick Al up. Winry appeared in the doorway and gasped, but then her expression set and she moved to help without a single moment of hesitation or distress. Ed was absurdly grateful, because he didn’t think he could handle her upset on top of his own.

They carried Al into the patient room on the ground floor, and then Ed parked himself by his brother’s bedside and refused to be moved. Granny tried to convince him to take one of the guest beds that were semi-permanently reserved for him and Al anyway, but Ed just glared at her, mulish and silent, until she threw her hands in the air and stalked off to get some antibiotics for Al.

Sitting vigil by Al’s bedside was awful, but Ed couldn’t bring himself to move. It was quiet, especially when Winry gave up keeping him company and went to bed, which gave Ed’s brain plenty of space to spin over everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong in such a short space of time. He thought he might have slept at some point, folded over with his head on his arms on the side of Al’s bed, because that was the only explanation for why he jolted awake in a panic some time later.

The night blurred into the next day. Al woke up enough to eat, which was good, because he was clearly starving, going by how much he ate, but he didn’t seem to be fully aware of where he was or what was going on, and then he went right back to sleep. His fever went up even higher, and Granny made noises about maybe trying a different – stronger – antibiotic.

Maybe if Ed had slept better, he would have thought better of it, but in his wound up state of sleep-deprived anxiety, he threw caution to the winds. He knew, at least in theory, what was supposed to be in the human body, and what wasn’t. It shouldn’t be too hard to draw out an array that would kill the infection without doing Al any real harm.

He snuck out of the patient room and found a spare bit of chalk he or Al must have left lying around the last time they were here, and snuck back into Al’s room. He hovered for a moment by the bed, eyeing the available space, and then turned to crouch down. Before he could, though, a hand shot out and caught his wrist in a bruising grip. Ed yelped and turned to stare at Al, who was glaring at him in uncharacteristic anger.

“Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?!” The thing that was wearing Al’s face demanded.

Ed choked, wrenching his arm out of it’s grip. Or trying to, because no matter how he wrenched or twisted, he couldn’t get free. “So it is you!” Ed snarled, glaring right back. “Leave him alone! Let him go!” He demanded, furious and despairing.

“We cannot.”

Ed felt as if his chest was caving in under the weight of that simple statement. He sobbed once, twice, and bowed his head over where Al’s – not Al’s – hand was still wrapped around his arm. “Why?” He asked wretchedly. “Why- We did it together, we- it was my idea, so why are you punishing him but not me? Why didn’t you take me instead? You should have taken me instead!” He wailed, begged.

Truth yanked him down, so brutal and sudden that Ed stumbled and fell against the side of the bed, finding himself staring into familiar eyes made alien by the burning ferocity behind them. “Do you mean that?” It demanded, sharp and desperate.

Ed blinked at Al – at Truth – utterly bewildered by the sudden shift from coldly indifferent to blazing intensity. “Of course! He’s my brother, I’d do anything to keep him safe.” He swore. “You can take everything from me, so long as Al’s okay.”

“We cannot reverse all the damage, but without me, he will recover in time.” It informed him, which was so much better than the alternative that Ed didn’t even hesitate to nod. Something moved against his wrist, and when he looked, he saw tendrils, white and writhing and entirely too reminiscent of that place, spilling out of Al’s skin and seeping into Ed’s. The moment the last tendril detached from Al, he went boneless. Ed yelped in horror and scrambled to catch Al’s hand and check his pulse.

It was still there, and when Ed held very still and quiet, he could hear Al breathing, soft and steady. He slumped, all the way down to the floor, and pressed his head against the side of the mattress, trying not to cry and failing.

We need food.

Ed jumped, and looked around, but Truth hadn’t manifested anywhere, except… except inside him. “Fuck you. I’m not leaving Al.” He muttered to himself, relaxing again. And then something other than himself rolled his eyes. “Fuck. You.” Ed growled again, trembling finely and not relaxed at all anymore. If that thing could move his body without his permission…

Deal with the devil, indeed.