Kleptomaniac

Author: shutupandsing

Rating: K+

Comments: This was actually a challenge me and my friend decided to do and I've come up with this tiny little one-shot. I really can't imagine it making sense or even the summary linking to it but it's different and I'm an avid fan of different. Pairing is crack, obviously. Don't blame me if you get a little "high".

Mood Song: Polyamorous by Breaking Benjamin

Disclaimer: I cannot think that I could have come up with a plot like FMA so I leave the rights solely to the original owner.

I had chased him this far. Why was he stopping now?

The old house's grandfather clock chimes in the hallway, but for once I don't pause and count the time, a habit I've possessed since a young age. An eerie sort of light filters in through the large bay windows, illuminating the room in an orange-ish glow. Greed has his back turned towards me, presenting himself as an easy target. The only sounds left in the room are my strained breathing and his violent hacking, the stones falling from his mouth like water.

Red water. Like blood.

My heart unconsciously goes out to him, trying to feel his pain but altogether failing. I can't help but curse Fate for its cruel hand of cards and the heavy blow she's dealt us. Because when it boils down to it, these people aren't even real. Fakes. Imposters.

Brilliant atrocities' born from a failed experiment. A failed hope or dream.

Greed gives one last cough and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. He turns slowly and bores into me with his eyes, eyes that seemed so dull and exhausted. And distant.

I should've been able to put him out of his misery. He was weak; therefore, an easy kill. Unfortunately, the little child within me awoke and I found myself unable to move to finish the job.

Somehow, despite all that I had been through, I still held onto the feeble idea that all people are, in one way or another, good and pure at heart. I mean, he wasn't Envy--pissed at the world and his sole purpose to kill. His greatest sin is what--thievery and murder at best? Murder wasn't really even considered a sin. I, a mere child, even did it. I was in no position to judge him or the way he ran his life.

"Why do you go so far?" I hear him ask quietly.

"I go as far as I should to get my brother's body back and right the wrongs I've committed," I deadpan, the answer coming easily after so many years.

"Is that the only reason?"

He means it as a rhetorical question and I find myself scouring my brain for an alternate purpose. How was some criminal causing me to second-guess my life's ambitions? Everything, everything, that I was doing, was moving towards, was for Alphonse. He was my world and my reason for living.

And staying alive.

Greed smiles an odd sort of smile and holds his arms out, palms up, towards me. "Aren't you going to kill me?" he inquires, taking a step closer.

Although my head is screaming at me to run, my feet stay firmly planted to the ground. There was nothing to fear from him anymore, he was a threat to me no longer. "No," I answer back hoarsely.

Greed was not my problem and if I killed him, it would solve nothing. He wasn't standing in the way of my goal. And he was not Dante's, I know that much. She may have brought him into this world but believe me, he made his own decisions.

"Come on kid, what's the hold up? Take me from this world. Making me wait is just cruel."

I stare at his face, noticing for the first time his sharp, almost hawk-like features. A handsome man, I had to admit.

I turn towards the door and motion for him to follow. I was going to let him go. I don't need to supply you with reasons in doing so. Just believe me when I say he would be more useful to me alive. Perhaps then, fighting these homunculi wouldn't be so damned hard. I lead him to the woods behind the house, waving my fingers in the direction of the trees.

"You are an odd little creature but I am eternally grateful. See you around, kid," he says to me.

I am quietly fuming at his usage of the word "little" when I feel something brush across my lips, my golden eyes widening a fraction. Greed's mouth lingers on mine in a chaste kiss and then he disappears into the trees, his tall figure fading into the dimness.

I touch my lips gingerly, realizing with an ironic pang that he had stolen my first kiss. I giggle slightly at the absurdity of it all. Greedy little bastard.

Always having to steal something.

Author's Note: Aside from Wrath, I would have to say Greed is my favorite homunculi. This is my alternate ending to that scene where he originally met an "unusual" death. I mean, who dies like that!!