Title: Sins of the Father
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Implied NCS
Summary: If she can't have Hohenheim, she'll take what she can get of his son.
Author's Notes: Warnings: Spoilers for later episodes of the anime.

Edward Elric was short enough that there was almost no point in forcing him to kneel, Dante thought.

She paced in a slow, lazy circle, feeling a warm tingle start deep within her body at the sight of the slight, blond figure trapped on his knees in the middle of her floor. gold eyes burned with rage like molten metal, looking up at her through the fall of golden bangs. Manacles around each wrist each connected to a short length of chain, pulling his hands out and down and forcing his arms wide. The chains fused alchemically to the floor after barely a foot of slack; there was no way that he would be able to do alchemy to free himself.

She walked around him again, savoring the view; that lithe, muscled body bent unwillingly to her command, held trapped and fast to her will. His hands clenched on the chains, but he didn't try to twist around to watch her progress. He knew better by now.

Her footsteps echoed hollowly in the bare, stone chamber, no windows offering outlet to the sound, the only door well locked and barred. None of her creations would dare disturb her, not now, not while she was in here with the boy. Coming in front of him again, Dante went on one knee on the hard stone floor, the long heavy fall of her skirt cushioning her from the hard surface. She reached out and took his chin in long-nailed fingers, jerking it firmly upwards.

"You look so much like him," she mused aloud. One corner of his mouth, the side not ragged with a split lip, curled up in a silent snarl, and those golden eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything.

"Yes, you have all of his beauties..." Dante dug her fingers in a little harder, nails splitting skin. "The elegance of his bones, the fineness of his features... this hair..." Her free fingers slid into the tangled golden mess, gripping hard and pulling. "So much like his, even in one so young. It's amazing."

Her hands roamed freely, greedily over his face, picking out the sharp angles of his cheekbones, the stubborn set of the jaw, the like-but-not-like shape of his ears. She frowned, hands coming to a stop plastered over his face, thumbs resting in the corners of his eyes. Those golden orbs burned into hers, still angry, still unafraid.

"Even your eyes are just like his were, when he was this young," she said. She curled her fingers in, pressing down along the indentation of the orbit. "So fine and clear, like precious metals. I want to take them out, and put them in a case on my mantelpiece, where I can look at them every time the clock strikes the hour."

He spoke now, voice hoarse and grating. "You're one sick fuck."

"Silence!" The blow rattled his small frame, rocking him back on his heels until his wrists jerked against the chains. He turned his head to the side and spat blood on the floor, wiped his mouth with a quick swipe against one black-clad shoulder, and glared at her again.

"I didn't give you permission to talk," Dante said primly. Satisfied with her control of the scene once again, she leaned forward and forced his mouth open, invading it with her tongue as she forced the kiss from him.

He tasted sour, mouth dusty and dry, but with an underlying hint of sweetness all the same. Dante thought idly about how she must taste to him; the inside of the cheeks and the tongue were always some of the first parts of the new body to rot, although they held together well enough to serve the purposes of speaking and eating.

She continued to press forward until she felt him start to gag, muscles in his neck twitching as he fought the urge to turn his face away. At least he knew better than to bite. Dante finally let up and withdrew, sinking her teeth into his lip hard on her way out, hard enough to taste the blood. It didn't bleed for long, so she savored the brief taste, sucking it into her mouth and rolling it around on her tongue.

"How is it possible for you to be so like him?" she whispered, nuzzling against his throat. "When your mother was that ugly country dog... With the way she polluted his blood, I'd have expected you to turn out more like your brother, plain and stupid."

He twitched with rage, grinding his teeth; she could feel the motion of his jaw, where her lips pressed against it. "Don't talk about my brother," he said through gritted teeth. "And stop comparing me with him!"

"I already told you not to talk," Dante said, yanking his head sharply to the side by her hold on his hair. "You're ruining it."

She folded her hands together, for a second, then placed them on his shoulders. Alchemical energy buzzed and spat, and cascaded over the stiff black fabric, unraveling the threads and dissolving the shirt into nothingness. He looked away, head resolutely down, as she scraped her nails lightly over his skin.

"Why did he leave me?" she complained, falling into the litany like a well-practiced groove. "He's such a fool. We had everything together; I gave him everything. Youth, life, happiness, eternal life. Knowledge of the deepest mysteries of the universe. Loyalty, yes, hundreds of years of loyalty. What did that woman know about him? Nothing. What could she offer him? Nothing, nothing at all, except for a couple of brats! Why did he leave me for her?"

"Why are you asking me?" the boy hissed, resentment boiling furiously in his tone. "I don't know what that bastard thinks either."

"No talking." This time, a hank of hair ripped out in her hand, causing him to wince. She stared at it for a moment, lying golden in her palm, before closing her hand around it as it dissolved into glittering sparks.

"You're his son," she purred at last, bringing her arms to encircle his chest, resting her chin on his shoulder. He was almost too small to support her, but she liked the feeling; it allowed her to overwhelm him, control him in a way she could never dream of doing with Hohenheim himself. "So much like him, even having come from her... almost as though he were born again, and returned to me..."

Her dress was stifling, the long and thick fabrics that she favored to cover up the decay lying hot and heavy against her flesh. With a body that had already started to rot, it took a lot for the spirit to arouse it once again, to ignite the flames of passion in flesh already growing cold. But it could be done, and this was the way.

Shifting a little, to press herself more fully against the body under hers, she let her hands move lower, across his chest and stomach and further down. He tensed, and she saw his chest drop and shoulders hunch as though steeling himself to bear her touch. That was fine; he didn't have to enjoy it. He just had to stay like this, young and golden and beautiful, helpless and vulnerable. She itched to possess him, to mark him, to devour him, to punish him.

"The sins of the father..." Her lips brushed over his back, teeth counting down the vertebrae. "Passed down to the son..."

She crouched over him fully, now, her hips aligned with his buttocks, her belly and chest pressed against his back. Passion flared to life within her, and she gave life to it in its rawest physical form; touching her hands together underneath him, the alchemical power produced heat, sudden and searing, delighting her senses with the smell and sound of cooking flesh where she pressed her palms to his skin.

He yelled, and his spine snapped back to an impossible angle, with such sudden force that Dante was thrust away, tumbling backwards to land in a painful heap on her tailbone. The small, golden body bucked and rippled in its chains, hands suddenly attenuating, turning so long and thin that the manacles slipped over the wrists and fell to the floor, then shifting back.

He sprang forward, the rippling change continuing to crawl up his arms and covering his body even as he vaulted forward, flipping lightly over his hands to land on his feet facing her, several feet away. Healthy, flushed skin went dead-pale; golden eyes and hair turned the color of rusted copper, corroded silver.

"What the fuck are you doing? You crazy psycho bitch!" Envy yelled at her, crossing his hands over his chest where the burn marks the size and shape of her palms still smoked and steamed. Almost at once, they started to heal back into nothingness, much to her disappointment. "I never agreed to go this far!"

Scowling coldly, she picked herself up off the floor, straightening her skirts. The spark had gone out, and she knew how hard it would be to get it back again. "I never asked you to agree," she said icily. "I expect you to obey."

"To hell with that, and to hell with you!" Envy snarled, hands twitching towards her as though itching to do violence. "I hate when you compare me to that Bastard, and I hate that little brat! If you want him so much, why don't you go out and get him? If you want to break him that badly then do it! I'll help! But leave me out of your perverted little fantasies!"

"Edward is useful for other things," Dante snapped. "I can't afford to break him yet. He's too good a tool in the search for the Philosopher's Stone."

Envy started to say something again, eyes flashing, jagged teeth bared in a furious snarl, but Dante was not in the mood to listen. She clapped once, and held her hands out, and the array built into the floor and ceiling of the chamber sprang to life.

The homunculus fell back, choking, eyes showing whites all around. Dante advanced on him, implacably, hands outstretched and palms outward. The array hummed and its light increased as she moved, the threat plain in her set face and her eyes. "I won't tolerate disobedience from you," she said. "You do as I say, or else you'll be punished. Do you want to be sealed into the floor for the next hundred years? Then keep up this temper tantrum."

Envy glowered murderously, hands clenched and teeth set, but the spark of rebellion subsided out of him even as Dante watched. His eyes fell, and the change arced over him again, leaving him once more small and tanned and scarred, golden hair falling into golden eyes.

Moving stiffly, jerking like a puppet controlled by invisible strings, Envy stumbled forward to the center of the array again. He fell to his knees, and picked up the manacles, transforming his hands and arms into them one and then the other. Hunching his shoulders again and letting his head drop, he balanced his weight over his spread knees and waited.

"Good boy," Dante said softly, lips curving into a smile. She reached down -- her child's head barely reached her waist, at this height -- and ruffled her hands through his hair, almost affectionately. "Now, let's start over."

~end.