Chapter Text
Part One
Roy hunkered down deep in his foxhole, sipping slowly at the last cold dregs of the coffee Maes had made before he left that morning. He could have heated it up with a quick burst of alchemic fire from his glove, but he was totally alone in the area until Hughes returned, and had a one-track mind on staying as invisible as possible. He had no reinforcements to back him up, and no ammo for anything but his .45 sidearm: nothing but his pistol and his ignition glove to defend himself with if another detachment of Ishvalan rebels showed up. Granted, the enemy troops they had encountered up ‘til now had mostly been just ragtag poorly-armed groups of rebels, but things had been changing ever since the incident when some Amestrian soldier had shot an Ishvalan child. To the Ishvalans and many onlookers, it appeared to be a shooting in cold blood, but the Amestrian Army, of course, had reported it as a simple accident. Since that fateful day, the mood in the deeply-spiritual country had darkened, and the Ishvalan rebels had been out for blood, their ancient fury for vendetta fully-ignited. In some ways, Roy didn’t blame them.
So until Maes returned from Central in a few days with a transport full of men and ammo, all Roy could really do was lie low and try to draw as little attention to himself as possible. This meant no campfire to ward off the frigid cold that descended as soon as the desert sun went down, and no way to cook anything more complicated than a pot of coffee - he’d have to make do with the meager supply of MRE’s he had left in his pack. And because the desert surrounding him was so flat and visibility such a concern, Roy knew he really shouldn’t leave the foxhole for anything other than taking a dump - and he had to be damned careful when he did that. None of these wonderful prospects did anything to improve Roy’s already-grim mood.
He sighed heavily, pulling his long, thick greatcoat up over him as last sliver of the sun slid below the horizon and the temperature began to plummet. He lay back and looked up at the stars began to wink on in abundance across the vast vault of the desert sky, and was amazed once again by how much clearer the Ishvalan nights were than those in Central. Thinking of Central made the heaviness in his chest feel even more oppressive, prodding painfully at a carefully-hidden clutch of memories he was trying studiously to avoid. Roy Mustang generally was not one at all prone to looking back, and he told himself firmly that any brooding over the time he and Maes had spent together at the Acadamy, and later, during their first assignments in Central, was totally pointless, and only going to make him feel worse.
Roy had been the serious one in their class and Maes the class clown, and they had bonded quickly and naturally, becoming first best friends and then - discreetly, of course – “friends with benefits.” (Roy could never quite bring himself to call them lovers, although he remembered Maes using the term many times in their private conversations.). They had parted reluctantly when their assignments had separated them, sending them to opposite ends of Amestris. It had been a bittersweet surprise many long months later when they had met up again unexpectedly in the middle of the bloody uprising in Ishval – with the Eastern Rebellion gathering momentum, there was little time for them to get re-acquainted, much less further their relationship. Nonetheless, Roy had been very glad to see Maes, and Maes him.
And now, Maes Hughes was gone from his life again. In one very important way, Maes was really gone for good, this time, and Roy was stuck here in this shitty foxhole, alone. He had to accept that this kind of solitude was going to be his status quo, from this point on. This was not exactly the life he had once envisioned for himself as a State Alchemist, Roy groused to himself as he fingered the brand-new Major’s stars on the shoulder-boards of his coat.
He had been forced to say goodbye to Maes Hughes that morning in more ways than one. Maes had broken the news to Roy last night that he had decided to propose to Gracia, and planned to do so as soon as he got back to Central. Neither of them needed to say it out loud, but the unspoken given that came with Maes’ announcement was, of course, the demise of the long-time physical relationship between the two men.
Maes had known Roy would understand that it had to end and why, with no explanations needed. It was one of the reasons he loved him so much, because Mustang was just that kind of honorable guy, despite the scandalous and gruff line of shit he liked to talk. Maes counted on the deep bond between himself and Roy, a bond that far transcended anything physical that had happened between them. He knew that bond would never change, no matter where their lives took them, or how much their paths merged or diverged. He would always have Roy’s back and Roy his, throughout this life and on into the next.
But what Maes Hughes did not know was just how much Roy had come to depend on that physical closeness between the two men. His intimacy with Maes had become an anchor for Roy, a point of stability and sanity for him in the midst of all the mindless violence and questionable politics he was constantly thrust into as a State Alchemist – especially since coming to Ishval. Being the Flame Alchemist had become a much tougher job than Roy had ever expected it to be: it was complicated and trying, simply dealing with the military bureaucracy every day. But it became downright soul-shattering, after the uprising in Ishval started, and Roy was sent in with unconditional orders to “exterminate” all Ishvalan rebels- men, women, and children alike. The goal had been to quell all unrest and bring the Ishvalans to heel, but ever since the shooting incident things had been steadily escalating. Roy could feel the spectre of a full-out civil war looming like an approaching hurricane: he knew it in his bones, and the implications of it sickened and discouraged him. But with Maes’ unfailing common sense and relentless good humor by his side all day, and his warm pliant body next to him at night, Roy had somehow been able to keep going, even through even the worst of it.
Of course, Mustang had no doubt their friendship would endure: he didn’t need Maes to tell him that. Roy assured his friend that he had no doubt he would love Gracia when he met her, and that everything would be fine, nothing would change. Roy could never let his friend know just how large a hole in his life Maes’ departure from his bed was actually going to leave. But Roy felt it growing already, on that first cold desert night, like the palpable phantom pain of a missing limb.
Roy couldn’t help but laugh at the irony, that Maes would not only be clueless as to how much Roy really needed him, but to end up being the one of them to manage to actually land and commit to a woman. God knows, the Army was no help – it seemed to constantly conspire to butcher any attempts at a personal life by its officers. Shit, this whole thing was all probably my own damn fault, Roy thought bitterly as he shivered in the foxhole. With all of his constant braggadocio about women, it probably never even occurred to Maes that the physical side of their relationship might truly be important to Roy, necessary even.
“Nicely done, asshole,” he chided himself out loud. He sighed again. “Well, nothing to be done now,” he grumbled wearily, pouring the dregs of the ice-cold coffee into the sand at the rim of the foxhole. He looked around, making one last survey of his surroundings to assure himself there were no signs of any enemy movement of any kind within his line-of-sight. Seeing nothing, Roy pulled his watch cap down over his eyes and slid down further into the foxhole. “Might as well get a few hours of sleep,” he groaned to himself, “gonna be a long fucking night.”
He was just starting to drift into that dark-grey area where muzzy wakefulness slides effortlessly down into deep sleep when he was suddenly shocked wide-awake by a loud fizzling sound, as the bright blue crackling light of alchemic static filled the foxhole.
“….aaanzoooooo, nooooo!!!!” It was a deep voice, starting out low and quiet, as if very far away, and getting progressively louder, and it seemed to be coming at him from out of nowhere, very quickly. Less than a second later, he heard a loud, aggravated, “SHIT!” barked out by the same voice, as something big landed with a heavy thud in the sand at the other end of the foxhole from Roy. As the crackling blue light faded, Roy could see it was definitely a human body, sitting mostly upright, quite clearly alive, and apparently intact and uninjured. It was definitely a male, long and lanky – almost all arms and legs, it seemed, with long red hair, wearing some sort of silly-looking dun-colored jodhpurs, clunky boots, and a thick blue vest over a white singlet.
The intruder seemed to pretty stunned, and was making no aggressive moves towards him, but Roy pulled his pistol, for intimidation purposes if nothing else, and held his gloved hand at the ready as well, leaving nothing to chance.
“Alright, who the fuck are you? How did you get here? Explain yourself!” he demanded angrily.
The red-headed intruder turned slowly, still shaking his head as if to clear it, and dusting himself off from his ungainly landing in the sand. He looked around the foxhole, obviously puzzled, and grinned lopsidedly at Roy.
“The name’s Sha Gojyo, buddy, and fuck if I know how I got here. Just where the hell am I?”
Roy pulled his small flashlight from his coat pocket and shone it directly at the man. The man squinted from the bright light in his eyes.
“You’re Ishvalan,” Roy hissed as he saw the crimson eyes and deep bronze skin of the intruder. His brain whirred, sifting all the possibilities. Just how the hell did he get here? And if this guy could get here, maybe there are more on their way...
“Since when do Ishvalans use Alchemy?” he growled.
“Ish-what?” Gojyo replied, puzzled. “Alchemy…” he thought a second, slowly realizing what the guy meant. “Alchemy?!” he laughed. “You think I got myself here somehow, on purpose? Like, with some kind of fuckin’ magic? That’s rich, pal. Listen, buddy, if I could’ve somehow ‘genied’ myself away from where I was for some kinda vacation, it sure as fuck wouldn’t’ve been to land on my ass here with you, like this.”
He shook his head, looking around and taking in more of his surroundings. He clearly was a long, long way from the Tougenkyou mountainside where he and the rest of the Sanzo Ikkou had been battling a large horde of rampaging youkai. He really hoped the other three were faring ok without him – it had not been going all that well when he had suddenly been yanked away, right in the thick of the battle. The last thing he remembered was hearing Sanzo rushing through his mantra, “om ma ni hatsu me un,” to activate the Maten Sutra, just as he had managed to wrap the chain of his shakujo around the scruffy neck of the demon that stood between them. Gojyo had been in a panic to pull the fucking youkai off of the priest, before those deadly claws sunk into the soft bouzu flesh they were just about to seize. He had guessed, from the absence of reports from the Smith & Wesson, that Sanzo was either out of ammo or had somehow become separated from his pistol, and Gojyo was afraid if he didn’t yank this demon back from the priest right away, the asshole would have made unholy mincemeat of Sanzo in less than a second. It wouldn’t have mattered to him all that much, but he knew Hakkai and the kid would have been pretty broken up if their fearless leader bit the dust, so he had acted on impulse and adrenalin, trying his best to save Sanzo’s sorry skinny butt.
Gojyo gritted his teeth and took a slow, deep breath. So… this was all goddamn Sanzo’s fault, then: he sent me here! It just fucking figures, doesn’t it… Fuck, but he’s gonna pay for this, when I get back, if I have to take it out of his tight cherry ass… Gojyo looked up at the young man in the uniform, aggravation distorting his normally-handsome features.
“Look, Sparky… I really need to get back to where I was…like, now? How’s about I tell you how I got here, and maybe then you can tell me how to get right back where I was, ok?” Gojyo offered reasonably, trying to fight off the creeping panic he felt. It sounded like a fair enough offer to him.
“Hey, I have the weapons - I make the deals. And don’t fucking call me that,” Roy spat, gritting his teeth at the hated nickname, one he had been saddled with off and on throughout his State Alchemist training, much to his chagrin. He told himself it had to be just a coincidence, and continued his interrogation determinedly. “So are you an Ishvalan, or not? You sure as hell look like one.”
Gojyo was starting to get pissed off, but the dude was right: he wasn’t the one with the gun, so he tried hard to suppress both his growing irritation and his natural smartass tendencies as much as he could. Dealing with cranky guys with guns and superior attitudes was something he was not unfamiliar with. Besides, for all he knew, this dude might be his only way to get back to Tougenkyou. He had no doubt that by know Hakkai and the monkey would be worried as hell. He was equally certain that the pissy-assed monk would be totally ballistic, blaming everything on him, when - as far as Gojyo was concerned - Sanzo was the one that had been careless and Scripture-happy and gotten him into this freaky predicament in the first place. He also knew beyond a doubt that Sanzo would flatly refuse any requests by the others to wait around for him to show back up. Merciful Goddess forbid, that they should have to delay the Journey so much as a single day on Gojyo’s account… the rat bastard.
“Holy fuck, but what I wouldn’t give for a smoke and a goddamn shot of whiskey right about now,” Gojyo muttered as he looked up at the endless expanse of the starry desert sky. He noticed with a pang of dismay how completely different the stars looked in this place he’d been so gracelessly dropped into - totally devoid of any familiar astronomical landmarks or constellations.
Unknown to Gojyo, his remark had helped his case with Roy, since it was well-known to the Amestrians that Ishvalans never touched either tobacco or alcohol, believing that both were defilements of the temple of the body, strictly-forbidden in their holy writings. Roy also couldn’t remember ever having encountered one who cursed like a longshoreman like this fellow did, either. Really, he seemed much more like one of the unrulier corporals in his unit than any Ishvalan Roy had ever encountered, and he decided he could probably relax and cut the man some slack, after just one more very necessary procedure. He waved his gun at the stranger and gestured, making his voice as commanding as possible.
“Stand up, bend over, and spread your legs,” he ordered.
Gojyo began to leer and dropped his voice to a low flirtatious growl. This guy was a bit of a looker, after all. Quite the knockout, actually.
“Usually, I like someone to at least buy me a drink first, but if you insist…” He stood up, advancing slowly towards the young officer with a salacious grin.
Roy felt his face heat up and a rush of blood to his groin as the red-headed stranger made the suggestive comments. He was distracted by the blatant come-on, but only for an instant, and he quickly waved the man off with his gun, making his face as cold and disinterested as he could.
“Back up, back up!” he commanded, waving him off again with the pistol. “I need to frisk you, you moron. If we have to share this small space, I need to be sure you aren’t packing, or wired. So just bend over and…” He trailed off, chagrined as he felt his face coloring again. “Look, just do what I said, goddamnit!”
It really aggravated Mustang that he was getting this rattled; worse yet, knowing that it showed in his voice. It just wasn’t like him to lose control like this. But for some reason, this guy was really unnerving Roy. It wasn’t just that he was so obviously attractive, but he just… he had this almost freakily seductive air about him. It was like the guy just exuded vaporized sex into the atmosphere or something, like plants exhaled oxygen. After less than five minutes breathing the same air, he somehow had Roy wanting – and wanting badly - to get into his pants. Roy Mustang liked to fancy himself the world-class stud, with both men and women, but a few minutes with this guy, and he felt outclassed, a rank amateur. He couldn’t figure out if he wanted to just deck his smarmy ass, or fuck it… or maybe both. Either way, it was all putting Roy off-kilter in a way he had never experienced.
Of course, as commanded, Gojyo eagerly turned around and stuck his ass up in the air, aiming it right at Roy’s face. He managed to resist the strong urge to mouth off about just exactly what he was packing and several things he could do with it when Roy brought that up. Despite his somewhat desperate straits at the moment, Gojyo still found himself checking out the young, good-looking brunet, wondering just what fleshly delights might lie inside that forbidding uniform of his, and thinking about just how much fun it could be to unwrap and explore them all.
Gojyo took some measure of comfort in being back on very familiar territory now as he leaned over in front of Roy: he was dangling the old standard bait in front of the mark, and seeing how long it would take to get the sucker to respond. It was almost soothing to his jangled nerves, seeing Roy begin to squirm – it reassured him that at least one very important part of his life was going on about its usual business, regardless of his having been whisked away by Sanzo-sama’s fucking Scripture to some god-forsaken corner of the universe. It looked like, as far as Sha Gojyo was concerned, an erogappa was always an erogappa, regardless of what crazy-ass world he was zapped into, and he silently thanked the Merciful Goddess for at least leaving him that.
“So how’s this,” he grinned lewdly, looking over his shoulder at Roy and waggling his hips wantonly, “this working for ya?”
Roy was grateful for the looseness of his uniform trousers, and how much they camouflaged the growing erection he was sporting thanks to his flirtatious intruder. He schooled his mind to the task at hand, and with the sternest expression as he could muster, stepped up behind Gojyo and began to pat him down. The man’s bronzed arms were bare, and as Roy slid his hands under the vest and up his back, over the thin cotton of the white athletic shirt, he could see tiny gooseflesh rising up on the tanned skin of the muscular arms, even in the pale moonlight. He felt Gojyo’s small nipples rise and grow taut under his hands as he moved them lightly over his chest, and he felt an answering surge from his own cock. Roy scowled as he tried valiantly to ignore his own traitorous body and continue his work. As he patted further down towards the intruder’s trim waist, Mustang was forced to move in closer and lean over Gojyo’s back in order to reach all the way around his front. As his hips brushed against his captive’s rear, Roy heard a soft, happy humming sound from the other as their bodies repeatedly made contact, and Gojyo leaned back towards him, nudging his arse against Roy repeatedly, like a cat insisting on being petted. Roy swallowed hard as his hands felt their way around Gojyo’s hip area, finding his mouth suddenly as dry as the Ishvalan desert wind.
“Down and a little to the right would do nicely,” Gojyo urged in his most suggestive purr as the one of the soldier’s hands lingered while patting the area over the rise of his hipbone.
“Shut it, asshole,” Mustang snapped, with as much vitriole as he could muster. He pulled his hands out and stood looking at them stupidly at them for a moment, stunned that they had seemingly developed a will of their own just a moment ago, and had been wantonly cruising around the man’s crotch, headed on a beeline straight for Gojyo’s cock.
Roy leaned back as far as he could, mortally afraid the stranger would detect the full erection that was now straining quite uncomfortably against the heavy layers of his uniform. As his wandering happy hands had been frisking the area around Gojyo’s crotch, it had been impossible to miss the fact that his visitor, in addition to being every bit as hard as he was at the moment, was also quite well-endowed by nature, thank you very much. Roy stood bolt upright and pulled his hands back sharply, almost as if he had been burned, and shoved them deep in his pockets, for lack of anyplace better to put them. Gojyo craned his neck towards him again and grinned knowingly, waggling his eyebrows for added effect.
Roy flushed a bright hot red, feeling like a three-year-old caught with his hand in Mama Christmas’ biscuit tin. Unable to escape the enticing spectacle of Gojyo’s ass still bent-over right in front of him, Mustang suddenly found himself in a rush to get the frisking over with as quickly as possible. He gritted his teeth and in a brisk, businesslike manner patted down the intruder’s muscular behind – eliciting another sound, this time a luxurious soft breathy humming, from Gojyo. Roy pretended to ignore the exaggeratedly-sensuous vocalization and continued on, moving swiftly down his captive’s legs, but even then, he couldn’t help but be impressed with how long and well-muscled the man’s limbs were, despite the ridiculous baggy pants.
Gojyo voluntarily toed off his clunky boots, and stood grinning impishly while Roy checked them for contraband. He felt sorry for the young officer. After some of the tricks they had had youkai pull on them, he knew all too well that you really couldn’t be too careful - but it did feel kind of strange to be on the other side of the fence, to be the intruder, the interloper, the one not to be trusted. After all his time with the Ikkou, Gojyo had finally started to be able to think of himself as “one of the good guys,” and not just some low-down barfly loser of a half-breed. He couldn’t help but chuckle softly to himself at the irony of this seemingly-thorough search of Mustang’s. After such a thorough frisking, he knew the poor Major would probably shit a ring around himself if he had any idea how easy it would be for his guest to instantly materialize his deadly twin-bladed shakujo right about now.
Roy threw his hands up in the air, immensely relieved to finally have the pat-down over and done with. He did feel safer, in the sense that he knew he wasn’t going to get shot or knifed by the guy at any moment, but for some reason, he was even more unhinged now than he had been before the search, he felt even more vulnerable…
Suddenly he found himself in desperate need of the familiar, warm comfort of a good strong shot of whiskey. Of course, he told himself, it wasn’t every day that someone – alien? – suddenly, just literally, dropped right out of thin air into your foxhole, and in the middle of enemy territory, too. So who wouldn’t feel the need for a little shot of extra fortitude… or two or three? Roy also was more than ready to just sit down in the sand again so he could hide his rather indelicate problem, before Gojyo had a chance to notice the embarrassing way his body was responding to his antics. He slumped quickly back into his former spot in the foxhole, knees bent and greatcoat pulled over his lap, before giving Gojyo leave to change his position.
“Ok, fine, down. You… clean. Down… sit… done.” He sighed softly, frustrated at his sudden inability to put together a simple English sentence, and pointed at the sand in front of him. “Enough. Sit.”
He realized he sounded more than a tad unhinged, definitely not like his usual dry, cool self, and cursed himself for it. He tried to write it off as foxhole fatigue: nothing a good night’s sleep, after a little medicinal booze, couldn’t cure. His cheeks felt flaming hot, and he began scrounging around in his coat and backpack, ostensibly looking for a drink and a smoke, but mostly as an excuse to look anywhere but at that handsome face and those deep red eyes.
In his peripheral vision, Roy noticed the man making a flagrant adjustment of his genitalia through the fabric of his breeches, which apparently had become uncomfortably confining, for some reason. Gojyo caught Mustang’s eye as he was finishing his maneuver, and gave his package an extra little squeeze, winking saucily, as if to say “all this can be yours…” Or at least that’s what it looked like to the disgruntled Mustang. Smug fucking bastard, he thought angrily. He swallowed hard against the walnut-sized dry lump that seemed lodged in his windpipe and conspiring to choke him.
Gojyo folded his long angular frame back into his spot opposite Roy and sat with his knees bent and wide apart, the faint shadow of the large ridge of his erection visible down the inside of one thigh of his jodhpurs. Once again, it was supremely comforting to Gojyo to find that at least this facet of his life was still functioning precisely as it was supposed to. Even after he’d been somehow sling-shotted by the Sutra, through some weird-ass gate off to only the gods knew where, in that supremely important way, no matter where he was, he was still definitely, without a doubt, the one and only Sha Fucking Gojyo. Damn straight.
“Well that was fun, yeah?” he grinned. “What do we do next?”
“Nothing,” Roy growled. “We do nothing.” He wondered to himself just how long he could hold to that resolve, left alone in the night with this red-headed version of sex-on-legs. He’d never told anyone, even Maes, but Roy had a deep and long-held fetish for redheads, especially red-headed men. And yet another kink for men with long hair. Both were traits one so rarely encountered in Amestris or the outlying provinces, so it just rarely came up, so to speak. He groaned silently to himself and tried hard not to think about it.
Mustang pulled out the pack of cigarettes he found deep in his greatcoat and offered the stranger a smoke before pulling one out for himself. The man’s crimson eyes danced with gratitude, and he inhaled happily after tossing Roy back his lighter.
“Thanks, man,” Gojyo said sincerely, his body relaxing as the long-overdue hit of nicotine hit his system. He decided he might as well go ahead and try his best to answer some of the guy’s questions – at this point they seemed to be on pretty much equal footing, and he needed to figure some things out himself, as much or more than the soldier needed the information from him.
“So, look, man, fact is, I really don’t have a fuckin’ clue how the hell I got here. That’s the damn truth, dude. Last thing I knew, I was balls-deep in a battle on some mountain, back in… well, back where I come from, and the next thing I know, I’m on my ass here in this hole in the sand with you.”
Roy knew there was more to it than that, that the man was withholding something.
“But what happened,” he persisted, “how did you get here?”
Gojyo studied him for a minute as he considered how best to answer. The guy seemed like a straight-shooter. He had absolutely no reason to believe the man was one of Kougaiji’s assasins or anything like that. For one thing, he was clearly not wearing anything that looked like a demonic power limiter, and all of Gojyo’s usually-reliable senses told him the guy was 100% human. Besides, he couldn’t see why anyone would have any reason at all to fucking kidnap him, of all people – Sanzo or Goku, maybe, or possibly even Hakkai, since the Three Aspects did have some investment in his welfare at this point, but certainly not him. And when it came to the Journey West and their mission, Gojyo had no illusions: he was just a damn half-breed, along for the ride. The gods knew, the shitty monk certainly never missed an opportunity to make that point abundantly clear. What had happened to him had to have just been an accident, because of some freaky-ass fluke with the Sutra. So, all things considered, Gojyo decided to risk sounding completely batshit crazy, and just come clean with his host about what little he did know.
“Ok… look, here’s the gods’ honest truth, man, all of it. I, well, I’ve been on this road trip lately with these three other guys, to … well, to try to stop this… sort of really bad shit from happening back where I live, yeah? So the leader is, well, he’s basically just an uptight asshole, but he’s also this super-important kind of priest-asshole, and he carries this really powerful… shit, I guess you could call it sort of a sacred scroll, kinda. So when things are going really bad in one of these fights we keep getting into on this trip, see, this priest-asshole, he can just chant all this hokey-pokey shit, and this scroll, well it sort of just swallows all the bad guys up – sort of like a cosmic garbage disposal for evil shit.”
“So he’s an alchemist,” Roy supplied quickly, undisturbed by what he’d heard so far.
As he processed Roy’s response, a grin pulled at the corner of Gojyo’s mouth.
“He would so totally hate to hear himself called that, but I suppose so, in a way, yeah.” He took a long drag on his smoke, and continued.
“So, anyway, we were in the middle of a big battle with these…creeps we keep running into on this trip of ours… and this priest-asshole used the…scroll. Well, apparently I musta been too close to it or something when he used it. I hollered at him, but it was too late, and I felt myself getting sort of sucked into it or something. It felt kind of like I was being pulled into big black whirlwind. Next thing I know, I’m standing in front of this really creepy thing that looks like some sort of a fuckin’ ginormous weird-ass stone door…”
“You came through The Gate?” Roy hardly dared to say it. He had learned of The Gate of Truth during his Alchemy training more than once, but had always assumed it was just part of the ancient mythology, more of a symbol than something that actually existed.
Gojyo narrowed his eyes, wondering if the fact that the guy seemed to recognize it meant that he might actually have some idea about how the fuck to get him home. “Ok, yeah, I guess you could say it was a gate. It opened towards me, and there was this ginormous eye, and all these freaky black hands coming out of it – and the whole damn thing was just floating in the middle of… well, like, literally, just nowhere, like just floating in space, or something.”
He shuddered as he remembered the gigantic carved stone Gate, with its enormous terrifying singular eye, glaring intently at him as the doors slowly opened, and all the dark pulling, plucking hands hauling him towards The Gate, no matter how hard he tried to resist. It was definitely not an experience he cared to ever repeat, if he could help it. He still had too many strange things whirling around in his head that had seeped into his brain while he was standing in front of The Gate, but he hadn’t begun to understand them, and had no desire to try to share them - he knew then he’d get pegged as a lunatic for sure.
“So I only stood in front of this Gate thing for just a minute, less probably, when it starts tugging me in, with all those fucking creepy hands, and the next thing I know, I’m spit out here on my ass into this freakin’ sand pit with you. And that’s all I know, man - for real. I know it sounds crazy as shit, but that’s the truth.” He shook his head and exhaled a slow plume of smoke, looking Roy dead in the eye. “Now, care to tell me just where the hell I am?”
“You’re in Ishval, where, if I am not mistaken, a civil war is about to break out.”
“Ish-vall? What the blue fuck is an Ish-vall?”
“It’s a where, not a what. Ishval is a country that borders Amestris, to the south. Amestris is where I’m from. We’re trying to keep that war from happening, theoretically.”
“Hmm. So far, that doesn’t tell me much.”
“Amestris is between Creta and Xing.”
Gojyo blinked at him. “I think I’m in real trouble here,” he said slowly after a second or two of trying to digest what Roy was saying. He was clearly a very long way from home, if he was even on the same… planet? His stomach flip-flopped at the mind-boggling thought.
“Shit,” he said slowly as he slumped back against the wall of the foxhole opposite Roy. “Now I really wish I had that drink.”
His face fell as he pictured the familiar faces of his traveling companions, and realized the more he learned, the less likely it seemed that he would ever see them again. As difficult as it all had been so far, he had nonetheless gotten strangely attached to all of them, on their bizarre little field trip through hell. Goku had become the little brother he’d never had, and he’d had a feeling that Hakkai was probably going to be his best, lifelong friend since the moment he’d shoved his bloody guts back into his belly on that rainy night way back when. And then there was Sanzo…
Hell, he’d wanted to fuck the beautiful priest since the very first second he’d seen him, but that in and of itself didn’t mean a damned thing. Gojyo wanted to fuck lots of people as he meandered through his days, which, ironically, was the very crux of Sanzo’s reasoning for treating him like the dirt beneath the worms beneath his feet. But as the Journey wore on, Gojyo got to know the stiff-necked, pissy-assed monk, and he watched Sanzo just living his life, as their leader on the Journey west, and in his grudging roles as Sanzo Priest and Goku’s father figure. Gojyo had actually – although he would die before he would let him know it - developed a profound respect for the man beneath the arrogant and sarcastic exterior, and in turn, his desire for Sanzo had grown, and developed actual depth. It was far more now than just the perverse urge to deflower and dethrone the iconic priest-asshole that it had been in the beginning.
Of course, he covered it up this change by ramping up his verbal hectoring of Sanzo: his taunting sexual innuendo became far less oblique and more brazen. Gojyo figured there was a certain safety in hiding his desire in plain sight - if he was bold enough, no one, not even his best friend Hakkai, would suspect how enamored he was of the monk. He even used the teasing and taunts as a ruse to get physically nearer to the porcelain-skinned god of wrath every now and then, a way to get close enough to touch and smell him, even if it meant risking the swift and punishing retribution of the fan and gun. He always nurtured this dogged hope that if he could just look at Sanzo long enough and close enough, he just might to find that tiny flaw, that one weakness that could make the perfect marble surface of Sanzo’s sentiment crack. Maybe then he could manage to slip in, ghostlike, behind that perfect façade, even if just for a short instant, and somehow attain his goal. Gojyo was firmly-convinced that if just once he could get Sanzo to crack, he might find out that Sanzo wanted and needed him, too.
He thought he saw flashes of desire in those hooded violet eyes every now and then, behind the anger and the venom. Once in a while, he would even catching Sanzo looking at him when the monk thought he wasn’t looking, but Sanzo would look away so fast, Gojyo was never entirely sure he wasn’t just imagining the hunger lurking in Sanzo’s eyes, simply because he wanted so badly to see it there. But now, to think he might never see those drooping purple eyes, those delicate chiseled features, or that lean, dangerous body again… Gojyo felt a hollow, burning ache in his chest at the thought. He looked up at the unfamiliar night sky again, and tried to empty his mind in self-defense, to just think about absolutely nothing for a little while. It was too much all of a sudden, just too much, and it washed over him in a swelling, crashing wave of sadness, threatening to pull him under.
Roy Mustang looked at the color draining from the handsome face of the stranger and imagined what he must be thinking. What a kick in the head for the poor guy… to suddenly face losing his whole life as he knew it in one fell swoop. Maes’ image flickered in Roy’s head, and he remembered with a bittersweet pang the last time they had been together.
Gah… he thought, mentally smacking himself in the face. Enough! He could not afford to lose it now, not while he was stuck in an Ishvalan foxhole in the middle of the fucking desert, with no reinforcements or ammo. And besides, he was known for not being the sentimental type, right? He and this Sha Gojyo both were in severe need of a stiff drink, he decided firmly. He rifled around in his pack and pulled out the battered metal flask he had stashed in there – it was strictly contraband, but who cared? He was so far from Central right now, it was hardly a concern. He dug up the grubby coffee cup and swiped out the dregs with the tail of his coat, poured a generous shot, and set it in the sand beside him. He filled the silver shotglass that served as the cap for the flask to the rim and handed it off to his guest.
Gojyo smiled gratefully, and held the large thimbleful of whiskey up towards his host.
“Hey, thanks, man. To better days…” He stopped suddenly. “Hey, I don’t even know your name, dude.”
Roy smiled broadly, for the first time since Maes had told him about Gracia.
“Roy, Roy Mustang. Major.”
“Well, to better days, Roy Mustang, Major,” Gojyo grinned, and clicked his small cup lightly against Roy’s larger one before downing his shot all at once, in one happy gulp. He shivered as the strong whiskey burned a path down through his middle, and looked up at the brunet, waving slightly with his empty shot for emphasis. “Extra points for the cool name, by the way. Sure beats the hell outta ‘Sha-fucking-Gojyo.’”
“Oh, I took my share of shit about it when I was a kid, believe me,” Roy said with a wry smile. “I couldn’t walk down the street with someone, without hearing, ‘hey, so-and-so, you gonna “ride the mustang?”’ Or if I was with a group of kids, it was ‘hey, who’s gonna “break that mustang” tonight, Roy?’ You know, dumb shit like that. Kids can be so fucking stupid. And cruel.”
“Hey, tell me about it,” Gojyo empathized, nodding. His voice grew soft and tinged with bitterness as pent-up memories of a sad, tough, half-breed child struggling to survive were unloosed in his head. “To say I was unwelcome in my neighborhood would be a massive understatement – this red hair and these eyes made me fair game for everybody.” He looked at his empty cup ruefully. “Even my own mother…” he muttered softly.
“That’s rough,” Mustang sympathized. “Here, lemme refill that for you.”
“Thanks, man,” Gojyo said, holding out his glass with a grateful grin. He shrugged. ”Wasn’t all bad. Luckily, I had one helluva big brother. He looked out for me, as best he could. Things coulda’ been a whole lot worse without him.”
Mustang studied the red-headed stranger as he refilled the small silver cup. This Gojyo really was an incredibly good-looking man. Roy couldn’t help but wonder how the guy had gotten those wicked scars on his cheek - if it had something to do with childhood fights, or maybe even that mother, but he didn’t dare ask. The man was leaner and more muscular than Maes, taller, narrow-hipped and broad-shouldered. Based on the musculature Roy had couldn’t help but notice while patting him down, the guy either worked-out a helluva lot, or his daily life was incredibly demanding. But unlike some musclemen who just seemed like big bulky piles of tightly coiled springs, this guy’s long lanky arms and legs gave him a loose-limbed sensuality that Roy found very appealing. And after years of living around men with short military haircuts, the long hair was a definite turn-on, and the rich crimson color was evident even in the dim moonlight. Just thinking about running his fingers through that silky red hair got Roy’s dick twitching again in response.
He halted that train of thought abruptly, mortified and a little ashamed as he realized just how hot he really was for this most inappropriate person, and with Maes having just left that morning. He was an officer on patrol in a potential combat zone, and besides, he still didn’t even really know who this guy was. That story about how he got here really was pretty far-fetched, after all… a fuckup with some magic scroll, that had somehow sent him through The Gate of Truth, all the way from a whole other world, or another universe even? But then Roy had studied enough alchemy to know that more strange things were possible in this world than most people would ever imagine, and Riza Hawkeye’s father had told him some arcane, little-known tidbits about The Gate that went far beyond anything he’d ever read in his Alchemy texts in the Academy. Roy’s brain was in a muddle, and his body was being singularly uncooperative and unhelpful, as he tried to sort it all out.
Gojyo forced himself to sip the second shot Mustang gave him, as much as he would have liked to belt right down a quick second and then a third shot, followed immediately by whatever else remained in Roy’s flask. Much to his disappointment, he saw the flask was pitifully small, and held little prospect for a decent drunk for one person, much less for the both of them, even though the whiskey it held was impressive in its strength and quality.
He caught the young officer studying him, and flashed him his best licentious smile as he slid a little lower down in the foxhole, stretching one leg out towards Roy. His leg came to rest against Mustang’s wool-clad knee where he sat cross-legged across from the grinning kappa.
“Shit! S-s-sorry!” Roy stuttered awkwardly, flinching as their bodies touched. He hated like hell being unnerved like this, and he tried to cover his embarrassment by focusing all his attention on his cup, and taking a long slow pull on his whiskey.
“Don’t be. I’m not,” Gojyo purred, his small smile slowly blooming into one of his patented high-octane seductive grins.
~tbc~