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It was all too much, too fucking much to take, and he'd retreated into one of the bedrooms of this abandoned house to try to shut it out -- dark closing in around the edges of his vision, the voices of the others, his -- kidnappers, rescuers, he wasn't sure yet -- just cacophony with no meaning. Years in the dark, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, and now all this, all at once. Like someone had set off the whole damn world and it wouldn't quit exploding around him and it wasn't him, he didn't do it -- And somebody was trying to get his attention. He lifted his head from his hands, made his face calm as best he could. "Mmm?"
"Those soldiers back there. Called you the Crimson Alchemist. Now my --" half a beat of hesitation -- "people are telling me that means you're military. So why the prison pajamas?"
"Was," Kimberly corrected, staring into Greed's spooky eyes. "I was military. Like your friends were people. Not anymore." Dangerous goddamn ground, talking humanity with the king of the freaks and monsters.
Greed hummed thoughtfully. "I've always thought it was polite to be generous about who counted as people," he said, smiling. He had teeth like a shark's -- every last one jagged and sharp, a mouthful of razors, not even close to human.
Kimberly snorted. "I'd be stupid to argue."
"All too true," Greed nodded. "Not military anymore, then. Still an alchemist?" And now the context was clear, underneath: are you good for anything?
"Yeah." Kimberly flexed his wrists -- still novel to have them free, after fuck knew how long -- remembering the cool crimson glow of all that stone, the soothing feeling of the power coursing through him as he set off that stupid bastard from the prison. "Combat, not research." Not like that walking disaster Tucker.
"Mmm," Greed said, reaching out, ignoring the way it made Kimberly tense to take one hand and turn it palm-up, examining the lunar array. "Pretty serious commitment, these. What do they do?"
Anything I need them to, Kimberly almost said. "They make explosives."
Greed smiled again, if anything more disturbing than the first time. "Show me."
Kimberly raised an eyebrow. "On who?"
Greed took Kimberly's hand, rested it on his own arm.
"The fuck --" Kimberly tried to pull back, but Greed held tight, wouldn't let him. "Are you stupid?"
"Didn't know you cared," Greed said with a smirk.
"I don't." Still tense, still waiting for Greed to let him go, and fuck the weakness that came from half-starving in a cell for years. "But if I kill you, your pets are going to come after me, aren't they?"
Greed didn't answer, just looked down at their hands. Kimberly looked, too, and watched in something midway between awe and horror as the skin of Greed's hands turned a smooth and light-sucking black, fingers lengthening and growing vicious claws.
"Fuck," Kimberly breathed.
"You haven't seen the half of it," Greed assured him. He reached up, smiling, and drew one set of claws across his own face, opening deep gouges --
That healed over in seconds, white alchemical light sparking around the edges of the wounds. "I'm a homunculus." Greed flexed his claws. "I'm not human. You can't kill me." He put Kimberly's hand back on his arm. "Now show me your trick."
Kimberly glared at the contemptuous phrasing, but he reached up and rested his other hand on Greed's arm, above the line where his skin went black. Greed's body felt strange, resistant to restructuring, like the bonds that held him together were stronger than they should be. Still -- anything could be destroyed, if you knew how it was put together. And nobody was better than Kimberly at figuring that out.
Greed was almost built like a human. All the materials were there, even if the proportions were odd -- and there was more energy, more heat at his core than there should have been. But that made sense; more life, enough to let him heal like that from things that should have been devastating. Kimberly closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness into the flesh between his palms, twisting it out of true --
And he pushed back as fast as he could, dizzy with the sudden motion -- and there was a flare of white light edged in crimson, and Greed's arm came off at the elbow.
"Aah -- fuck!" Greed clutched at the stump of his arm, light sparking around the ragged edge, making a low keening noise almost like a moan. Kimberly stared, trying not to shake with the effort he'd just expended, trying to hide the fact that he'd gotten hard doing it.
Greed wasn't helping, either, taking little harsh gasping breaths as his arm knitted back together, the kind of half-swallowed sounds that could be either pleasure or pain. Those years in the dark, in the cell -- unable to even jerk off, the way the restraints trapped his hands away from his body -- those years had to be the only reason he was responding like this now, getting hard as he watched Greed suffer, feeling that ache at the base of his cock. Greed was a freak, was a monster -- he was saying these things aloud, a harsh grating whisper, and Greed had heard him.
"Aren't we all, though?" Greed asked with a smile, reaching out for him, pulling him close with clawed -- healed -- hands. "Aren't you?" He pulled Kimberly into his lap as if he weighed nothing, as if the instinctive tension in his limbs from being touched weren't there. "Didn't they call you a freak, when they found out what you wanted? Didn't they call you a monster, when they saw what you could do?" His breath was hot in Kimberly's ear. "All those words mean is that you have power, and it frightens people."
Kimberly shuddered, whispered, "Yes," knowing even as he opened his mouth that Greed would take the word as permission and not just affirmation.
"Yes," Greed repeated, low and promising, licking a line up Kimberly's throat. "I don't mind being their bogeyman -- do you?"
"Aaah..." Kimberly swallowed a whimper as Greed's sharp teeth grazed the pulse point in his neck. "F-fuck." He turned, reaching up to clench shaking hands in the fur of Greed's collar, leaning in for a hungry, sloppy kiss. Greed kissed back hard, growling into Kimberly's mouth as their mouths came together, as lips and teeth and tongue clashed. Kimberly tasted blood, maybe his own, and moaned.
Greed's claws shredded his prison uniform right off his back, the flimsy cotton falling from his shoulders in ribbons. He shivered at the cool air and warm hands, and bit at Greed's tongue. He was a freak and Greed was a monster, or maybe the other way around, and Greed was hard for it too, was probably about to fuck him, was the only thing that had made his life worth living again after years of dull empty pain.
"Yes," Kimberly hissed again as Greed tore his prison trousers, wrapped a hand as strong and smooth as diamond around his hard cock. "Yes, I want to," thrusting into that unnatural grip, because it mattered so much that he consent to this thing before Greed did it to him.
"Good," Greed purred. "So do I." He rocked his hips, his cock hard against Kimberly's thigh.
"Next time," Kimberly said, meeting Greed's eyes as he reached down to unbutton his leather trousers, "next time we do this the other way around."
"This time," Greed countered, rocking into Kimberly's hand, "I want you to hurt me more."
Kimberly smiled, shaking his head, sliding his hands over the slick surface of Greed's torso, feeling how it was composed. "Freak," he muttered.
"Monster," Greed replied with a sharp grin, brushing Kimberly's hair back off his face affectionately. He manhandled Kimberly into position effortlessly, spreading Kimberly's legs over his hips.
Kimberly tensed -- too fast, he wanted to say, too soon -- and then his fingertips brushed something on both sides of Greed's ribcage, under the vest, that tingled like an array waiting to be activated. He pressed his fingers to the spots and pushed a little energy through them -- and Greed bucked under him, gasping.
"You -- fuck --"
"What does it feel like?" Kimberly circled the spots with his fingertips, the nodes of Greed's array -- because it couldn't be anything else, reacting to an alchemist's touch like that.
Greed took Kimberly's hands, lifted them to another pair of nodes on his collarbones. "It feels like getting fucked with red stone," he breathed. "Do it again."
Kimberly laughed. "Someday you'll have to tell me how you know." He closed his eyes, let his awareness sink into the nodes. The array had taken so little to activate, like most of the power it needed was already there, barely dormant, like -- he shivered, as he realized what he was touching. These were merely the endpoints of one of the most intricate arrays Kimberly had ever seen, suspended in three dimensions throughout Greed's entire body, twined around a core of brilliant crimson heat. Just a nudge, just the faintest push of power from his hands, and the whole thing sparked to life, and Greed writhed.
"Damn," Kimberly whispered, opening his eyes and meeting Greed's hungry, inhuman stare. "You're a fucking work of art."
"Thank you," Greed purred, and then Kimberly realized where Greed's hands had gone, while he was distracted -- and then Greed pushed one slick finger into him, deep and demanding.
Kimberly moaned, half in shock, and his hands flexed against Greed's array almost without thought. Greed shuddered under him -- inside him -- and he pushed back against the invasion, shaking with need, the years in prison all shattering around him at once as Greed offered him everything he craved. "More," he hissed.
"My thoughts exactly." Greed pushed a second finger in, stretching him open, and Kimberly choked on a little whimper at the burn. He pushed that sharpness back out through his hands, and Greed thrashed like a fish on a line.
"Aah --" Kimberly moaned as the convulsions drove Greed's fingers in deep. He tossed his hair back out of his eyes, grinning ferally. "Hurting you enough yet?"
"Mmm," Greed smiled. "Don't fucking stop." He twisted his fingers brutally, making Kimberly writhe. "What about you? Am I hurting you enough?"
Kimberly bared his teeth, panting for breath. "Almost," he growled. "Fuck me, you bastard."
"Come take it," Greed challenged, pulling his fingers out and lining up, the head of his cock pressed blunt and slick against Kimberly's ass.
It was too much and it had been too long, and Kimberly forced himself down on it anyway, trembling with the effort of taking Greed in, breath hissing between clenched teeth.
"Better?" Greed asked with a snarl, thrusting in roughly. "Like this?"
"Hh -- h-hurts," Kimberly gasped, swallowing hard. "Like this." He forced energy through the array again, making it burn like he did. Greed bucked and thrashed under him, fucking him hard and keening at the pain.
Greed's hands slid on Kimberly's skin, sheened with sweat from the exertion and pain. "More," Greed demanded, "hurt me more. So fucking good."
"Then jerk me off," Kimberly snarled back. "If I'm doing this," and he could almost feel the energy that powered Greed uncoiling for him to shape it, "I don't have a free hand."
Greed smiled, sharp and feral, and Kimberly wiped the look off his face with another jolt of pain. But it must have been the right kind of pain, because as his mouth fell open on a moan, his hand closed around Kimberly's cock.
The rhythm they fell into was stuttering, jagged, sharp thrusts and flares of power and rough strokes. Kimberly felt used, overwhelmed, raw from Greed's cock and Greed's hand and the effort of choking out gasps and growls as Greed fucked him hard. He could barely move, all his strength diverted into the array, into making Greed hurt and moan and writhe --
-- and come, he could feel it -- Greed's cock pulsing inside him, unnatural heat spreading -- and Greed slumped back against the wall, gasping, spent --
"Fuck you, no," Kimberly growled. "I'm not done yet." He reached into the array and lit it up with all the strength he had left. Greed convulsed, driving deep and choking out broken, animal sounds as he stroked Kimberly's cock desperately. Kimberly held on, kept pushing it, refusing to let Greed stop moving when he was so close, so fucking close --
And then it hit and his concentration snapped and it felt like the reaction rebounded into him, blazing through his veins, spreading from Greed's cock and Greed's hand -- he could hear the noises he was making, lost and feral, but he couldn't stop them -- and he had to reach down and grab Greed's wrist at last, when it got to be too much -- "Stop," he managed, "stop, I -- god."
He was shaking so hard he could barely hold himself up as Greed reached up between them and began to lick Kimberly's come off his fingers. "I don't know about you," Greed said, smiling, "but I'm one happy monster right now."
Kimberly laughed breathlessly, collapsing forward, his head on Greed's shoulder. "I should fucking hope so. Me, I just want to go to bed."
Greed purred, stroking Kimberly's hair. "Fortunate that we have one of those right here, isn't it?" He wrapped both hands around Kimberly's waist and lifted, pulling Kimberly up off his cock and then supporting him as they both got to their feet.
"Fuck," Kimberly said appreciatively as Greed helped him to the bed. It was dusty and smelled faintly stale, but it was soft and there was a lot of it -- it was nothing like the horrible little bench in the prison cell at all. "Haven't been in a real bed in years."
"You think that's something," Greed smiled, kicking his boots off, stripping out of his clothes. "I haven't been in a real bed in over a century." He pulled the quilt back and slid into bed, pulling Kimberly close.
"I meant it, about next time," Kimberly said, lying very still, trying to will the shaking to stop.
"Mmm." Greed pressed his lips to Kimberly's shoulder, where the bone lay just under the skin. "Next time I get fucked, and you get hurt."
Kimberly opened his mouth, not quite sure what he was about to say, and Greed leaned in and kissed him, slow and deep and warm. "Yeah," Kimberly said when Greed pulled back at last. "Yeah, okay." He closed his eyes, exhaustion catching up with him at last, and drifted off to sleep -- a freak and a monster, and a free man.