Accidental

Roy cautiously poked the . . . things on his chest. They were soft, bouncy, and . . . well, there. Precisely where they shouldn’t be. On him, anyway. And those definitely weren’t his legs. Having known Fullmetal for a fair number of years now, Roy was used to unusual situations popping up without notice. He supposed that was the reason he was keeping so calm about everything – which was probably a good thing, as the other option was shock, and he really didn’t feel like dealing with a doctor at the moment so he’d damn well better not be in shock. Raising his head, Roy quickly analysed his surroundings. There was the array he’d been working on, and – ah, he remembered now! Lieutenant Hawkeye had fallen backwards into the room, apparently tripped by a combination of Breda and Fury, and – shit. Landed in the middle of the array just as Roy activated it. Well, that went some way to explaining why his body was slumped at the edge of the array, when he was sitting in the middle of it. And why he had breasts. Climbing cautiously to his feet, Roy made his way over to his body. Despite the small distance between them, he nearly lost his balance twice – Hawkeye’s body, no matter how physically fit, still had a different centre of gravity to his and made it difficult for him to walk properly. Crouching beside his body, he poked it in the shoulder. His suspicions were confirmed when his body groaned a little, and rolled over. “Lieutenant?” he asked, and tried not to jump when his voice came out far too high. His body’s eyes opened, looking around quizzically before widening as they landed on him. “Colonel?” he – she – damn, this was confusing – asked. Roy sighed, then got momentarily distracted by the way it pushed Hawkeye’s breasts against her shirt. “Something went wrong with the array when you landed in it,” he said, breathing deeply to examine the feeling further. “I think we should just feel lucky that I wasn’t experimenting with anything to do with fire.” Even more bizarre than the feeling of breasts and a lack of – well, anything – in between his legs was watching his own body sit up and give him a look that was pure Hawkeye. “Can you fix it?” she asked. “Er . . . probably,” Roy replied, attempting to act blasé. “Probably?” Hawkeye asked. Roy reflected that it was a good thing that she hadn’t been born a man, because Hawkeye using that particular dangerous tone of voice was even scarier when it was deeper than usual. “It . . . might take me a while to figure out what went wrong.” Roy’s body stood up and folded his – her – argh! – arms. “Then you’d better get to it, hadn’t you?” Roy pouted. “Can’t I stay in this body for a—” “No.” Roy shrugged. “It was worth a try.” The door slammed open, making both Roy and Hawkeye jump. Fullmetal charged into the room, panting and flushed. “What happened?” he said. “Breda and Fury came and got me after the Lieutenant fell in the—” He stopped. Looked at the array. Looked at the very Hawkeye expression on Roy’s face. Looked at the way Hawkeye was breathing ever-so-slightly too deeply, and twitching slightly every time she did so. Looked at the array again. Burst out laughing. Roy cast his eyes upwards and sighed again, then winced as that made Fullmetal laugh louder. He supposed that in a way he should be thankful for Fullmetal’s intellect, as it spared them embarrassing explanations, but unless Fullmetal had worked out a way to reverse what he’d done in addition to the purpose of the array, the little blond maniac was going to be on the receiving end of a very fiery retort. Once he got his gloves back from Hawkeye, of course. “Are you quite done, Fullmetal?” he snapped. Fullmetal straightened, wiping tears from his eyes. “I – hehe! – think so,” he said. “So, Colonel, I wonder how much it’s going to cost you to keep me quiet about this.” “The same price as a bullet, I should imagine,” Hawkeye said. Fullmetal froze for an instant, apparently realising that if he told he’d be making the Lieutenant’s life a living hell too, before forcing a grin. “Kidding, just kidding,” he said. “You need any help reversing it?” Roy raised an eyebrow. “If you would be so kind,” he replied. “I haven’t had much of a chance to study the array and work out what went wrong as of yet.” Fullmetal stared at him – her. Him. “You made the array, and you don’t know what went wrong with it to make you and the Lieutenant switch bodies?” “Lieutenant Hawkeye fell into the middle of the array, and it wasn’t precisely carved into the floor,” Roy replied testily, just barely restraining himself from a number of comments that would send Fullmetal into a blinding rage and possibly make him forgo any efforts to help them. “Any number of things could have changed.” Fullmetal grinned. “So you need my help now, is that it?” “Fullmetal. . . .” Roy growled warningly. Or tried to, at any rate – it came out a little too high to be menacing. “All right, all right. Just stay where you are.” With that, Fullmetal clapped his hands together and slammed them into the floor, rapidly changing then reactivating the array. Roy stayed where he was by dint of sheer will, bracing himself for whatever it was that would happen next. Luckily for him, Fullmetal’s reversal of the bodyswitch didn’t knock him out the way Hawkeye landing in the array had done. In fact, the change was relatively painless – one moment he was sitting on the floor in a distinctly female body, and the next he was standing and – yes! – had his genitals back in the correct place. Except. . . . Roy frowned, and cautiously poked the . . . things on his chest. “Fullmetal,” he said, “why do I have breasts?” He paused. “Still?” Fullmetal grinned at him. “Because they look good on you, sir!” he said, and ran.

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