FicWad

In the Flesh
by Melissa the Sheep

Dedication: For swordage, who made the idea click.

Date: March 16-17, 2005
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Greed should have paid more attention to those science lectures. Greed/Kimbley. Metaphysical erotic alchemy geeking.
Spoilers: Information through episode 34
Disclaimer: Arakawa-sensei, SquareEnix, Funimation, etc. I make no profit and I intend no infringement.



It's only when Dorochet's twitching legs wake him up in the night that Greed realizes his skull is still sitting on the bar. He tries for a moment to remember who he'd told to take it upstairs--Roah? Martel? Bido? It's true that he'd forgotten about it too, but he expects his people to be less distractible than he is. At almost four hundred years old, anybody could expect to have a few memory lapses.

Dorochet kicks again, whimpering in his sleep this time. Greed feels strangely empty now, without the skull in sight--maybe he just got used to it while he was sealed. He gets up and prowls naked out of the room.

The bar is quiet and dark, lit only by a bit of light from the street lamp outside one of the windows. It's enough light, though, to find his skull in its bag on the close end of the bar. Greed stands a few feet away from it, as close to it as he dares, close enough that he can just feel the first hints of its effects. It makes him a little light-headed, makes his limbs feel a little heavy, makes his thoughts slow down. Like being drunk. Like being sealed.

He doesn't understand it. He wishes he had paid a little attention all those years ago, when Dante used to keep jawing about biology and arrays and remains and some merchant who had wanted too much, asked her for too much. He had learned quickly enough that it wasn't worth paying any attention to her. Half the time she was only telling him these things hoping to hurt him, or to make him ignore his desires in favor of what she wanted him to do. Any sane person would have left her, really--he doesn't know why he didn't go sooner.

"Hey there."

He looks up. Kimbley is perched on a stool at the other end of the bar, with a shot of liquor in front of him. Greed knows it's going to get blown up in the end--he hasn't ever seen Kimbley drink.

"You're up late," Greed says, pulling himself away from the skull (why is that so hard, anyway?) and striding slowly down to Kimbley's end of the bar.

"I don't sleep," says Kimbley.

Of course not. Greed doubts sleep would help Kimbley's state of mind at all anyway. After knowing Dante and Hohenheim and now Kimbley, he's beginning to expect all alchemists to be a bit disturbed.

"You're a bad liar," Kimbley says, staring at his liquor. "Telling them you pull steel from the air to make your shield."

Greed shrugs and gives his blandest smile. It's not like the chimeras really cared--they were all swapping exaggerated war stories anyway. He's annoyed as hell to be called on his lies, but damned if he's going to show it.

"Your shield," says Kimbley when Greed doesn't answer verbally, "is made of the carbon already in your body. Your chemical composition is just the same as any human's."

Greed turns to stare at the bottles lining the wall. He picks a few at random, and starts pouring alcohol into a shaker. He can feel Kimbley's eyes on his back, watching for him to react to the goading.

"I didn't know the library had books on homunculus theory," Greed remarks.

"I don't need books." Kimbley is behind him suddenly, one hand sliding under Greed's vest to touch his side. "I can feel what you're made of."

Greed--or his cock, anyway--decides that this conversation is getting to be more interesting than his experimental cocktail. He hums deep in his throat as he turns around to face his alchemist, drops his hands to Kimbley's hips, pulls Kimbley against him.

"And here I was, thinking you liked feeling me /up/."

If Kimbley has an opinion about this, he's not letting it show. His face has the same expression as before, blank except for the intent look in his eyes as he stares at Greed. He has moved readily with Greed's touch, but Greed can feel that Kimbley isn't aroused at all.

"You know nothing about your freak body, do you?"

Greed shrugs, grinds his hips. "Nah. Science always bored the hell out of me."

"You get bored much too easily."

"Do not," he murmurs against the crook of Kimbley's neck, still moving his hips. He ducks his head and bites at Kimbley's collarbone, not quite hard enough to break the skin, and Kimbley's body finally shows some interest. He's sure Kimbley's pissed about that--serves him right for deflating Greed's shield story.

He pushes Kimbley back against the bar, and sinks slowly to his knees, his cheek and one hand sliding down Kimbley's torso on the way. "I'm completely fascinated right now," he purrs against his alchemist's sharp hipbone--he almost wonders if they fed Kimbley at all in that prison. He strokes a few times, then reaches to undo Kimbley's trousers, wraps his lips around the tip of Kimbley's cock.

Kimbley almost manages to stifle a moan. He brings his hands down to Greed's shoulders, pushes away, and, before Greed knows it, is backing away towards the other end of the bar, pants already fastened again.

"You stupid bastard," Greed drawls affectionately, still kneeling on the floor. "Come back here."

Kimbley smirks--glares? No, just smirks. "Make me." He picks up the bag with the skull, and disappears up the stairs.

"Hey," Greed protests half-heartedly. He's not really certain if this is a problem. Kimbley hasn't even been told what's in the bag, so he's probably just trying to get a reaction. He grumbles under his breath, but stands up and follows.

He pushes open the door to Kimbley's bedroom. Such a strange room, he thinks, still bare except for the furniture that came with it. Ever since arriving at the Devil's Nest, the chimeras have been asking Greed for the weapons they prefer to use, the equipment for hobbies they'd enjoyed before the lab, the pillows or tea or books that would make them feel at home here. Their rooms are filled with those things now. And Greed himself has, of course, filled his room with everything he comes across that catches his eye.

Kimbley has asked for nothing. He never even said a word about that maroon suit that Greed bought for him before leaving Central. Martel had been certain it wouldn't suit Kimbley's taste, no matter how much Greed liked the idea of Kimbley wearing it.

Greed doesn't understand. It's as if Kimbley has no desires at all, as if he has not one bit of the constant wanting that drives everything Greed does.


Kimbley is sitting cross-legged on the bed in his strange, empty room, the bagged skull in his lap.

"What's with you?" Greed asks from the doorway, cocking his head. "You know I don't bite unless you want me to."

"I don't care," says Kimbley. He gestures to the skull. "You've never told me about this."

Greed snorts, a little insulted by Kimbley's priorities. "What does that matter to you? It's mine."

Without a word in response, Kimbley unwinds the string from around the top of the bag and lets the fabric slide off to reveal the skull. Greed suddenly feels exposed and vulnerable, as if his shield were gone and he couldn't bring it back up, as if he were suddenly back in that horrible half-formed state he vaguely remembers.

Kimbley presses a palm briefly against the top of the skull. A shudder rolls through Greed's body. His heart pounds, his knees threaten to buckle, and he raises his shield reflexively even though this feels good like red stone sliding down his throat.

"Oh," Kimbley murmurs. "Now this is interesting."

" . . . mine," Greed gasps, shield retreating into his body, legs starting to feel sturdy again. He's confused by what just happened. It's made him hard, and he wants Kimbley to do it again, but he can't figure out right now how to ask without playing right into Kimbley's hands. An he may not be Pride, but he's still far too arrogant to be the plaything of any alchemist ever again.

"You've never told me, because you don't know." Kimbley smiles down, not kindly but not quite maliciously either, at the skull in his lap. He's moving his fingertips along the skull now, stroking the crown and the jaw and the eye sockets.

Greed feels no effect from that now, and wonders why not. "Of course I know," he says. "It's just none of your business."

"You really are a horrible liar." Kimbley's tone is calm, even, and maddening. "You don't understand at all why this skull is so important to you."

Greed scoffs. "Because it belonged to me when I was human, of course." He moves toward the bed, but the skull stops him short with Kimbley barely out of reach.

"You don't ever wonder why it can do this to you?" Kimbley smirks as if this is amusing, and presses his palm against the skull again. Still nothing, even though that's exactly what Kimbley did the first time. Greed is more confused than ever.

Kimbley is dangling the knowledge in front of him like a worm on a fishhook, and he's starting to swallow it in spite of himself. His desire to know what Kimbley knows finally outweighs his desire to save face, and he whispers, "Tell me."

"No."

And before Greed can do or say or think anything about that, he sees a faint alchemical glow under Kimbley's palm, just for an instant before that thing is happening again. This time Kimbley doesn't let up, and Greed is reeling, and reeling, and reeling. It's like electricity pouring through him, and for a moment he can't stand it and he needs for it to stop, then he's moaning and his legs crumple and he feels his body hit the floor. But that doesn't matter because now he's grown desperate for more and more and more and /more/, and it's like suddenly having everything he ever wanted, like suddenly being given the whole fucking world, and he gasps and shudders and cries out as he comes a hundred times harder than he's ever come in his life. And he catches sight of Kimbley's face for just a moment, staring down at him in fascination, before his eyes roll back in his head and everything . . . fades . . . away . . .



When Greed wakes up on Kimbley's floor, the sun is shining through the window and getting into his eyes. He closes his eyes again to block out the light.

What happened last night has left him a little disoriented. He can't tell whether his shield is up on his torso or not, so he runs his hands down his chest to check. He finds his own come on his belly, cold and sticky against unshielded skin. It takes him two tries to get his shield back up. He's tired and hungry, and his body aches.

There's a small explosion nearby. Probably a pebble or a mouse or something.

"Kimbley," he groans. The sunlight is starting to hurt him, even through his eyelids, and rolls onto his side to face away from the window, tucking a hand under his cheek. He opens his eyes, but doesn't see Kimbley--his alchemist must be behind him, by the window. "Where's my skull?"

"I put it on your dresser," says Kimbley. He seems as dispassionate as ever--Greed can't tell what Kimbley thinks about last night, and that makes him a little uneasy.

There's another little explosion, then Kimbley speaks again: "You know I could kill you with that skull."

Greed laughs quietly, but doesn't turn around. "I wouldn't stay dead."

"You would this time," says Kimbley.

Greed offers no argument. He knows Kimbley's a worse liar than he is.



[ END ]



Note: Swordage and I have been discussing Kimbley and Greed a lot lately, so she's probably had some influence on my ideas. . . . Especially when she used the words "skull," "naked," and "molest" in the same comment. Oooh.