FicWad

Running Blind

Everything's black when he wakes, and Kimberly feels his stomach lurch, his skin prickle in horror. He reaches out, groping in the dark for anything familiar, and his hands find the jagged roil of power that is Greed. It almost helps. "Turn the fucking lights on," he rasps.

"Can't," Greed says.

"The fuck do you mean, you can't?" Kimberly asks. His fingers dig into Greed's arm, holding on so tight his knuckles ache. "You're not that stupid. I know you've learned how to use a fucking light switch."

"I /mean/," Greed says, and there's a growling edge to its voice, "it's not working." It lays its other hand over Kimberly's, warm and smooth, human-seeming. "The light went out by itself a little while ago, and I tried hitting the switch again, but nothing happened."

"Fuck." Kimberly holds tight to Greed's arm. "Did it make a noise?"

"No." Greed strokes his hand, and Kimberly tries to be annoyed, because it's more fun than thinking about the way his lungs feel taut, squeezed and aching. "It flickered like a candle in a high wind, and then went out."

Kimberly hisses. "Sounds like the power's gone. Probably a storm." He slides closer, leaning into the heat of Greed's body. There's nothing natural about it, the tamed power in its flesh making his skin prickle, but there's comfort in its strangeness -- there was nothing like Greed the first time Kimberly was trapped in the dark.

"You're friendly tonight," Greed says, sliding a hand down to palm Kimberly's ass, making one of those hungry, low purring sounds.

"Don't get any ideas," Kimberly says, tensing as the monster grinds its cock against him. "Not like this. Not in the dark."

Greed laughs. "Kinky." But its grip relaxes all the same, and it rolls over, away from Kimberly. There are quiet shifting noises for a minute, and then it drapes something soft across Kimberly's legs. "Get dressed, then. Let's get out of here."

That's an option he never had in prison. Kimberly squirms into his pants, hearing Greed do the same beside him, then reaches out to find the homunculus again. "Can you see, then?"

"Not when it's like this -- when there's really no light at all." It takes his hand and pulls him up to stand beside it. "I think we'll manage to find our way to the surface anyway, though."

Kimberly manages a harsh little laugh. "If all else fails, I can use you to blow a hole in the fucking wall, right?"

Greed makes the sort of noise that goes along with an exaggerated pout. "Don't do that," it says. "I like this bar."

"Then get me out of here," Kimberly says.

Greed goes first, and Kimberly can hear it turn the doorknob, then pull the door open with a creak. The hallway is just as dark as Kimberly's room, ink-black like the solitary cells at night. It smells different, Kimberly reminds himself; the back rooms at the Nest are musty and stale, but they don't smell damp and moldy like the basement of the Second, and when he reaches out for the wall, the brick under his fingertips is dry.

He can't hear Greed breathing. He's not sure it does.

"Say something," he demands.

"Almost there," Greed says, calm and soothing, and Kimberly hates that he feels so grateful to it.

"I don't need to be fucking coddled," he says, as the door at the end of the hallway swings open with a squeak of badly-maintained hinges.

"My mistake," Greed says, dragging him into the bar's front room. "What I meant was, come on, what's it going to take before you'll put out?"

Kimberly stumbles, bangs his hip on the edge of a table, bites back a curse at the pain. "Get me drunk," he retorts. "Let me top." He edges around the table carefully, trying to head toward the faint light at the far end of the room that must be the exit. "And get me out of this fucking" cell "cave."

Greed laughs. "Wait right there." It lets go of him, and Kimberly can hear it moving away -- the light in here isn't enough for him, but it seems to be enough for Greed to manage, with its cat's eyes; it doesn't crash into anything, and the only sound from the bar is the scrape of glass against wood as it pulls a bottle from the shelf.

"Here," it says when it gets back, pressing the bottle into Kimberly's hand. "That should take care of step one. Sounds like the storm's still going -- you want to head outside anyway?"

"It's better than this," Kimberly says. He can't hear the rain from here, but he'd believe that Greed can. He takes hold of Greed's wrist and lets himself be led outside.

The storm is still going, outside -- the heaviest of the rain seems to have passed already, but it's still drizzling and there's a distant growl of thunder as they step out onto the street. But most importantly, there's light, and clear air. It's dim light, yeah, but it's enough to see by, and the rain's not even all that cold. Kimberly unscrews the cap on the bottle -- gin, it looks like, the same stuff he's been favoring for most of the last week. He's not sure whether it's charming or creepy that Greed has apparently been paying attention.

It's still good, the bright cool tang that evaporates as soon as it hits the back of his throat, and he takes a second pull almost before the burn has faded from the first time. Before the war, he's pretty sure he used to have to drink a lot more to feel it, but it seems like his body hasn't ever remembered how to cope with liquor.

"Helping?" Greed asks, as Kimberly leans back against the wall, tilting his face up to the sky.

"Fuck off," Kimberly says, even though it is. He takes another drink, and breathes in the scent of rain, and waits for the intoxication to set in. The brick's rough against his back, and the pavement's cold and wet under his feet -- it's good, this moment; he feels alive.

Greed comes closer -- comes close enough that Kimberly can feel it there, its flesh humming with the energy that circulates through its array -- and takes the bottle from his hand. When Kimberly cracks an eye open, he sees Greed's head tilted back to drink, its throat working as it swallows.

"You can't get drunk," he says. "Can you?"

"No," Greed says. It sounds regretful. "Can't even remember what it felt like." It smiles, its teeth bright in the dark. "Still like the taste, though."

Kimberly snorts. "Is there anything you don't like?"

Silence, for a second, the monster taking him seriously. "Not the way you mean that, I don't think." It passes back the gin. "Anything I can feel, anything I can have...all of that is good. You know. I'm Greed."

Thunder rumbles, a little louder than the first time, like there's another wave of storm coming in. "You don't like nothing," Kimberly says. The gin tingles on his tongue, against the soft tissue in his mouth; the alcohol seeps into his bloodstream, making his head spin, making him feel his heartbeat pulsing in his fingertips.

"Sounds about right," Greed agrees. Kimberly can't remember if he's heard its voice be this soft, this calm, before now; the sound is smooth and low, just audible over the hush of rain. "I don't like nothing. You drunk enough for something yet?"

Kimberly shrugs. "Try me." The cell was a lot like nothing, so he supposes he doesn't care much for it either. Greed leans in, pressing him up against the wall, and kisses him -- hungrily, the only way it knows how. Its mouth tastes like a storm coming in, and it hasn't raised its shield again, so its bare skin is hot against Kimberly's. The rain should sizzle and steam off it, Kimberly thinks. It would look interesting, inhuman, like a clear warning. He raises his right hand, presses the sun in his palm against the crimson node below Greed's ribs -- it's not visible when the monster's shield is retracted, but it's impossible not to feel it there, and Kimberly wonders if it's being drunk that makes him notice the way its array has a pulse, just like his.

Greed runs its hands down his sides, and they come to rest at his hips, curved over jutting bone, as it presses its mouth to the soft skin beneath his jaw. Its sharp teeth scrape his skin, and the bottle slips from Kimberly's fingers -- fortunately, the glass is heavy, and it just bounces twice with a hollow ringing sound and rolls away.

"Three conditions," Kimberly says, pressing the moon to Greed's other side. It purrs against his throat, and he makes the array pulse to his rhythm for a moment, to make sure he has its attention. "Getting fucked is better than nothing, yeah?"

"Of course it is," Greed laughs, and then makes a gorgeous little hurt sound when Kimberly fucks with its array again.

Kimberly hums contentedly. "How about getting killed?"

Greed shakes its head. "You're never satisfied either, are you?" Change ripples through one of its hands, and it strokes a claw over the line of his hip. "Too close to nothing. Not tonight."

"Tch." Kimberly licks at Greed's collarbone, tasting rain, then bites down to feel the way energy seethes under the monster's skin. "You're so picky." He reaches for the buttons on Greed's trousers, his fingers barely clumsy with the gin. The monster's already -- possibly always -- hard. "Next thing you're going to tell me you plan on holding out for lube."

"Mm, I wouldn't want to spoil all your fun," Greed reassures him, running its claws delicately up his back. Kimberly shivers, remembering how being drunk always makes him too sensitive to /everything/, unable to ignore sensations the way he could normally. If he were the sort of person to feel sympathy for monsters, he'd feel sorry that Greed can't get drunk, because he's pretty sure it would like this.

Kimberly drags Greed's trousers down, sucking on the array point under his mouth, the bright slippery energy in the homunculus's body making him hard, too. Alcohol's okay, but there's nothing else he could poison himself with that matches the pure thrill of alchemy. "You're too kind," he says, making himself let go of Greed long enough to fumble his own pants open. "Turn around."

Greed smirks, turning and bracing one arm against the wall, arching its back. "Come on," it purrs. "Before the storm hits again." Kimberly's about to ask how it can tell, but then he feels it, too, the way the air around them seems to tighten in anticipation. Lightning flickers through the clouds, almost right above them, and the thunder that follows is loud, growling, ominous.

"You're so impatient," Kimberly says. He spits in his hand, reaching down to slick his cock. "Maybe I want to be here when it hits." He steps closer, and Greed leans back into him, making a low needy sound as Kimberly lines up, a little whine that turns into a snarl as Kimberly pushes in.

The storm cooperates perfectly, the second wave of heavy rain sweeping down the street to overtake them as Kimberly buries his cock in Greed's ass. It's sharp and cold, stinging against Kimberly's bare back -- the contrast between that and Greed's heat threatens to take his breath away. He rocks his hips, and there's barely enough give to Greed's flesh to let him move -- his hands slide on its rain-slick skin, and he digs his fingers into the hollow of its hip to give him something to hold on to.

"More," Greed says, pushing back, and there's a grating noise as it flexes the hand braced against the wall, claws digging into the brick. "Come on, harder."

Kimberly laughs breathlessly, thrusting harder, sliding one hand up to find the spot where Greed's array surfaces. "You should let me kill you." He speeds up a little, matching his thrusts to the pulse of energy through the array. "Just once."

Greed shakes its head. "Next time," it says, reaching down with its other hand to jerk off. "You're, mm, almost as demanding as I am."

"Can't, ah, blame me for trying," Kimberly says, grinning almost despite himself. Everywhere he touches Greed, his skin prickles, and the air feels charged between them.

"No," Greed agrees, "I can't," just a slight emphasis on the pronoun, just enough to make its meaning clear -- this is something it has in common with Kimberly, another way that they're the same -- and tonight, in the storm, up against the fucking wall with Greed's pulse in his hands and his cock deep in Greed's ass, just for this moment, that's okay.

And that -- that kinship? is it possible for him to feel kinship with something like Greed? -- if it's possible for any human, it'd be one as fucked-up as he is -- is what makes him bother to ask, as the noises Greed makes grow ragged: "You, fuck, getting close?"

Greed nods. "Can be," it says, pushing back harder. "You ready?"

For a second Kimberly wonders what would happen if he demanded that it wait, tried to insist that it just didn't get off, but he's pretty sure he's tried its patience enough tonight already -- "Yeah," he says, "go on, come," and he gets in about two more thrusts before Greed's back arches and its claws gouge deep raw wounds in the brick wall and it clenches down hard around his cock -- and even the pulse in its array stutters, energy spiking for a second and tingling down Kimberly's arm -- "Fuck," he gasps, "fuck --" and it's almost as good as an explosion, almost as intense, and he barely recognizes the noise he makes when he loses it -- his eyes squeezed shut and the /light/, bright silvered red, behind his eyes almost more than he can stand.

He slumps against Greed's back, leaning against it for support. The rain has eased off to a gentle shower, and it occurs to Kimberly that his pants are soaked through, fabric clinging heavily to his legs. He's cold, everywhere he's not touching Greed. "Get what you wanted?" he asks.

"Something I wanted," Greed says. It sounds pleased. Kimberly makes a mental note to kill it at some point tomorrow, just so it doesn't get the wrong idea.

"Too cold out here," Kimberly says, pulling out, once he's sure he can stand. "There has to be a lantern or something in the bar, right? Or we could rig one with some of the crappy liquor."

Greed shrugs. "Sure. You're clever." It tugs its trousers back up, turning and leaning against the wall to watch him.

Down at the end of the alley, a streetlight flickers to life. Kimberly smiles.

"Or," he says, "luck could be on my side tonight. I'm going back to bed." He can see Greed moving to follow him as he turns to head for the door, and he knows it's going to crawl back into bed with him if he doesn't stop it.

He doesn't.