Would You Care To Dance?
Summary: Greed!Ling x Manga!Briggs!Kimbley - Mangaverse - YAOI CONTENT (PG-13 for now, might get higher later on, but I doubt it) Genre: Romance/Drama
Kimbley came to visit the base of the Homunculi in Central once, when Greed caught his eye. Through the step of the waltz and through jealousy, the two quickly fall head-over-heels for each other, but have no clue why or how exactly. That's the beauty of music though, the rhythm tends to guide you without your own intention.
Notes: I guess that there must be comedy in this somewhere, since I can't help but add some sort of joke into everything I write. But then again, they're always the kinds of jokes that you read, but never exactly "laugh out loud," literally, but you still find them funny either way. Oh, and this purposely stretches that the world of Fullmetal Alchemist takes place in the early 20th Century. Also, Envy's a girl.
Spoilers? Probably, I don't know where though. They get as far as the latest chapter (which is Chapter 68, in this case), but most of the spoilers come from Chapter 54 (Ling's body becomes Greed's new body, thusly forming Greed!Ling), and more of this is actually made-up. There might be some OOC-ness, but that always happens in yaoi fics.
This might become a doujinshis someday if I feel like it's good enough to be one. Maybe. Who knows?
Maybe even a sequel if I get enough response.
Chapter 1 - Opening Curtains
Music is a curious thing. The rhythm, balance, and steady flow of orcastraeic music tend to have that awfully bad habit of lifting you off the floor into a spectacular waltz of the mind sometimes. Whether Bach or Beethoven or Mozart was the one that wrote it, it is always curious. Note by note, each instrument at a time, the music unravels the gears and gadgets of the mind, body, and soul, and unwinds it all. Cobweb by cobweb is pulled and brushed away. Memory by memory is unlocked, rejoiced, and remembered. Carefully, the rhythm sways you into moving to the soft melodies. Harpsichords, Cellos, Flutes, Saxophones, Clarinets, Organs, Harps, all wonderfully dazzling the mind into the swirls and amazement of waltz. Step by step, rhythm by beat, it unravels. Music is a curious thing.
Yes, it was music that must have brought them together that one night that fate had strung them to each other. Music, it was, that blessed the two like cherubs in the clouds. Music that guided them, lifted them, told them what to do.
Indeed, it was music that had strung Zolf Kimbley and Greed together that fateful day. No matter how they might have gone to prevent it, they had absolutely fallen in love through the step, rhythm, and beat of waltz.
"So you can come...? Right... Right... That's fine... That's fine... All right...! That's great see you then...! Bye... Bye." Envy hung up the 19th-century telephone to its cable on one of the random desks lying around in the Base of the Seven Homunculi. "Guess what, everybody!" Envy announced, her long block hair swaying in her step.
"What is it, Envy?" Greed said, not exactly listening though. He was reading an odd article in "The Central Times", and not exactly paying that much attention to Envy at all, either way.
"Kimmy's coming over! He should be here tomorrow!" Envy said ecstatically.
Greed looked up at his younger sister from the paper and asked, "Who's Kimmy?"
"Kimmy's my old friend. He's a State Alchemist now - we just released him from jail, actually. He's been a real help in the past..." Envy trailed off.
"Yes, you lost me there. It's a guy? Kimmy is a guy's name?" Greed questioned Envy skeptically.
"Well, yeah. His really name is Zolf J. Kimbley (he's a Major, but no one really mentions that anymore), and I just call him 'Kimmy' because he doesn't mind it, plus it's shorter." Envy explained.
"Oh." Greed attempted to end the conversation, and continued reading the paper. But something else came to mind when he heard that one of Envy's eccentric friends would be over soon: "WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T LET HIM INTO YOUR ROOM."
The very next day, a Saturday in late December, the double-doors to the Base of the Seven Homunculi cracked open slightly. Envy immediately rushed to the door and forced the oversized doors open.
"Kimmy! You came!" Envy exclaimed. She spread her arms, welcomely greeting her guest, but her guest was already welcomed enough.
"No, truly, Envy. No hugs, please." Zolf J. Kimbley was not a strict man. He was not an overly sinful man. He was not too incredibly eccentric as one would expect from an accomplice of Envy herself. He was actually quite a gentleman. He wore a bright, almost-white suit that had a yellowish tint. He wore a top hat of the same shade, with a white stripe. His face was long, and it yearned to see a true smile or a happy day, or something of the like. His golden eyes, though they looked as tired and beat-up as anyone else who was just released form solitary confinement a month or so ago, were shown brightly in the daylight, and had the sheen that spelt his sinister evilness in the moonlight.
"Aww..." Envy whined. She gave Kimbley a look that reminded him of a homeless young dog, lost on the street, soaking in the rain.
"Hey, don't give me that look!" Kimbley said uneasily. He sighed. "Alright, but just one hug!"
Envy gladly wrapped her arms around Kimbley in excitement and glee.
Kimbley shrugged Envy off, and was gladly welcomed as well by Gluttony. The obese-looking homunculus jumped up and down, his scratchy voice squeaking in delight, "Kimbley's here! Kimbley's here!"
Kimbley smiled lightly, and gently tapped his hand on Gluttony's shoulder, as Gluttony came up to him. The homunculus affectionately wrapped his oversized arms around Kimbley. Gluttony wore his usual grin that barely fit his face.
"So you're 'Kimbley'?" Greed asked from the shadows in the corner. He calmly walked up to Kimbley, and looked the alchemist square in the eye. Gluttony unclung himself from Kimbley's legs, and moved out of the way. Greed's piercing violet eyes that hid the pleading Xingian canary-yellow ones underneath met Kimbley's bright golden eyes with the impaling veracity of one thousand sheets of music rolled together to form an eccentric line of pipe wire. Kimbley didn't even flinch at Greed's dirty look. The alchemist simply continued to smile lightly.
Kimbley lifted his hand to his top hat, and raised the brim slightly, then placed it down again. The tip of a hat - a simple greeting gesture. "Nice to meet you as well. You must be Greed, are you not? For I mustn't have met you before." Kimbley kept to staying as polite as he casually was, and stayed chipper no matter what anyone threw at him.
Greed sneered. "Yes, I'm Greed. No, we haven't met. Just stay away from me, okay?" Greed then proceeded to walk off in the other direction. Just walk. Not gently, not harshly, just standardly. He walked off into his room.
The sound of a door slamming was heard from wherever Greed had disappeared to. "Not the brightest bell, is he?" Kimbley commented.
"Nope." Envy replied.
Inside his room, Greed plopped himself onto the wooden-framed bed. Greed stared at the ceiling. Brushing his dark bangs aside, he contemplated for a moment.
What's this feeling I have inside...? Greed asked himself in silence. His stomach was twisting and turning in circles, and they refused to stop. His head fill to the brim of new wants... new needs... new requirements that would allow him to sleep clearly at night. He rolled over onto his side. His eyes squinted, then closed harshly in irritation. What's wrong with me...? Then came a different feeling. Guilt. Greed's eyebrows furrowed further and further down into the skull that didn't belong to him. But no, he wasn't guilty about that. He'd never have to be guilty about taking over the young Xingese prince's body, for Ling Yao himself had stated that he was willing to give up his body for him until the prince found a way to crack him, and set himself free of Greed's clutches. Greed rolled over again. He'd gotten himself back onto that subject again. "Again." He had used that word often, lately, and had begun to wonder why, exactly. Greed slowly let his face loosen out of its tight expression, and he opened his eyes. He took in a deep breath.
He had realized now what the feeling was... and he was so dearly afraid of it.
To Be Continued in Chapter 2 of "Would You Care To Dance?"