Streams of candle smoke danced through the air. In the darkness, a single flicker illuminated her scowling face, shadowed features taking on some sort of autonomous glow. The eyes were different, but the expression she wore was the same: all seeing and vicious.

She trailed delicate fingers through her short, cropped hair, worrying over a knot she found tucked behind her ear. Smoothing over it, she extracted a bow from her vanity drawer, using it to pull the rebellious strands away from her face. Her lips were pursed. His tongue was dry and useless behind barred teeth.

"You like it, don't you?" She purred: a honey-sweet moan in the impenetrable cold. Her questions were thick and loaded with demands, creeping from her lips in a breath of icy air. "I know you've been watching."

"Of course," he snorted, shrugging, letting nimble feet careen across the room. "It's not like I have much of a choice."

"You always have a choice, Envy, dear. You know that." Whispers made way for venomous retorts, hovering somewhere just above the candle's ginger halo.

"Of course I do, Mother."

But they had danced far too many times for Envy to believe the woman's masquerade. They always took on different roles. Sometimes, she was the master, throwing him down onto the bed, splaying her hands across his chest as she mounted him in one sharp thrust. Sometimes, she was the soothing nurse by his side, easing away his pain with gentle hands, giving herself away with a kiss.

But, just like the woman's very life itself, it was all false. She was neither a dominatrix nor a blushing virgin, hovering somewhere between life and death: fact and fiction. Just like his own life, she was a blurred line. A gray canvas. The disparity between him and her rested only in their pretenses. While Envy knew when he was lying, Dante had managed to convince herself that every part she played was a mere reflection of the life she had once had, brought back to the surface by the probing winds of time.

His bare feet padded closer to the mirror, graceful arms reaching out to wrap themselves loosely around her neck. He was her feather boa, her diamond necklace: the prize she had received in exchange for an egotistic husband and many long, sleepless nights wasted in the corner of her laboratory. It was that knowledge that kept him coming back.

Her sleeves fell down her wrist as she reached to touch his cheek; long fingers that should've felt like icicles against his skin were warm to the touch. There was no contrast between the bodies of the soulless. "I saw him today, Envy." She murmured, leaning back to nuzzle the crook of his neck. "He knows now. I could see the pain burning in his beautiful golden eyes. Perhaps we have some chance of winning him over, after all?"

Envy sucked in a jagged breath, his face twisting up into a glare. Peeking over the woman's shoulder, he was a mere poltergeist in her rusted mirror, hovering in the shadows just beyond the lamp's caress. "It doesn't matter! Why do you need him so much, anyways?"

"It isn't a matter of need, of course. It's a matter of want. Surely you can understand that, Envy. I've seen your face burning with the desire to kill…the only difference is that my desires are a bit more diverse, as any human's emotions are." She licked her lips, moving to capture his frown in silencing osculation. He jerked away. "Surely you won't keep me from my goal this time. You've pushed him away once, and I simply cannot allow that to happen again."

"That wasn't my fault!" He growled, his eyes glaring down at her reflection, his hands clenching around her shoulders. "Fucking bastard."

"Perhaps." Sliding her fingers beneath his sweaty palms, she peeled him off, turning to meet his surprised glare with a grin. "But still, there's something appealing about him, don't you think?" Her hands moved down the small of his back, exploring the expanse of exposed muscle with a curious caress. She had touched him many times before and yet now she moved as if she had reclaimed her virginity. This was the face she had constructed for Ed's demise, and now she was throwing it back on her own son, as well. Envy sneered at her ignorance. "You see it, too, don't you Envy dear? You understand what I'm saying."

Her skin was milky and flawless in the dismal lamplight. She rose from her chair, pressing into his arms, melting into the casual embrace of two lovers meeting under the cloak of night. But for Envy, there was much more to it than that. There was the taboo: the disgust. For centuries it had been the same, and now, with every gesture memorized and every word planned out, he still wasn't quite certain why he let her do it.

When she breathed against his cheek, he fought the urge to cringe. The smell was sickeningly-sweet: bloated like a corpse left too long under the sun. Her scent was the badge of her weakness, and yet, it was also the power she had over him: one faux pas of many marring their history together. "Sometimes I wonder how it would've been…" she chuckled to herself, swaying against his hips as her feet started a minuet across the parquet floor, "if he had accepted you as his child. I wonder where we'd be right now."

"It doesn't matter."

"It doesn't?" Her hands tightened and relaxed compulsively, digging into his inhuman flesh. He threw her off, marching away towards the window, staring out across the dusty skeleton of a city he had once called home. The streets below her window were completely empty. Everything was always empty. "It certainly used to matter to you. I wonder when that changed?"

Her belittling words sparked hatred in the base of his spine, his whole body bubbling over with the fire of emotions he never should have felt. But still, he stayed silent. The spicy taste of human lives swelled in his throat, his saliva drying on his tongue. "I don't know. It just did."

With a few hollow footfalls, she was on him, pressing her face into his back. Straining up onto high-heeled feet, she reached to encircle his waist, murmuring into the hollow of his neck like a mother cooing a sick child to sleep. But her words, though sweet on his tingling skin, were anything but comforting. "Is something wrong, Envy dear? You just don't seem yourself tonight. You aren't satisfied with my new body? I'll be getting another soon enough."

"The girl from the desert?" He supplied effortlessly, his cat-like eyes unwavering and cold as they swept around to meet her gaze. "And I wonder why you'd choose a girl like her this time, Mother? I'm sure the Elric brat's little crush has absolutely nothing to do with it."

She snickered in response, but Envy wasn't amused. "Don't tell me this is about him again? Jealousy is very unbecoming of a nice young man such as yourself, you know." Her whispers tickled his lips as she moved closer, little gasps drifting between their mouths. "If you'd smile a bit more, I'm sure you'd have quite a few admirers. Maybe I should be thankful you've stayed so unpleasant all these years."

"I can't help it, Mother. It's just the way I was made."

The catty retort had barely left his mouth when she clamped down around him, seizing control of his words with her own probing tongue. He hit the wall, the molding digging into his back as she pinned him down. "Is that so?" She groaned, grinding her hips against the top of his leg. The skirt he wore rolled up slightly, exposing even more of his flesh to her greedy hands. "Hmmm, then I guess it's up to the person who created you to save you, right?" She snickered, the sound lingering unpleasantly in the air. "But why would I do something like that?"

The taffeta exterior of her gown was uneven and harsh, swallowing his legs like a bramble bush crawling up bare ankles and knees. The weight of her body was almost stifling; the stale air around him dulled his mind, driving him down into a world of subservience. He gave in because he had long ago forgotten how to resist.

"You remember, don't you Envy?" She seemed to sense something in his unfocused gaze, letting her own eyes narrow in response. Pausing for a moment, she regarded him thoughtfully, almost affably, before turning him away from the wall and back towards her dusty mirror. "You remember what it was like in the basement, all alone, waiting for him to come back. Do you remember asking me what you had done wrong and why he hated you so much? I do."

Of course Envy remembered. He remembered it as if it had just happened hours before. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the chill of the floor beneath his misshapen body, his mind summoning up the awful stench of death as it had smelled on his gurgling flesh. She had reached for him time and time again, reassuring him, promising to make him better. Back then he hadn't been able to understand her words, but the simple touch of a hand against his monstrous body was all he needed to believe.

Even now, he found it difficult to pull away, never quite letting go of the hand that had raised him up to something vaguely resembling mortality. They had a history together: a collection of snapshots locked away in the back of Envy's mind. Some were painful, but others were almost heartening. "Of course I remember." He hissed under his breath, allowing her to drag him down onto her cushioned seat. "How could I forget?"

She circled around to the other side of the chair, Envy's eyes trailing after her skirt in the darkness. "Hmm, I suppose you're right." With a sigh, she clutched the edge of the vanity, swinging up onto the wooden counter. Her taffeta-clad figure completely eclipsed Envy's view of his own reflection. "But when you're being brazen like this, I can't help but doubt your loyalty. You understand that, don't you?"

The candlelight danced every time she moved her hands, flickering and then returning even stronger than before. Envy watched it with fascination, thinking back on the many times he had seen this woman regenerate after old age had threatened to take its toll on her immortal existence. She moved, instead, like a Homunculus, her course following an endless circle rather than a line with a stop and an end. She had outlasted countless husbands, and yet Envy still remained by her side. For that, at least, he had earned a little of her respect.

Unfortunately, she never saw it that way. So instead, he resorted to reaffirmation, proving his devotion by besting the men who had come before him. His lips against her rotten skin were the final step in their dance; his forced groans became the only language to which she would ever listen. "I'm still here, aren't I?" His hands, once clenched behind his back, parted her legs with a single swift jerk of the wrist. "I'm the one who keeps coming back. Not him!"

"But I expect you to keep coming back," she said, a smirk playing on her lips. "After all, it's not like you have much of a choice." Her hands fell to her lap, pulling at the hem of her skirt until it rolled up around her waist. Envy paused, staring down as she revealed herself to him. After four centuries of living by Dante's side, no amount of rash immodesty would ever shock him. He was sinful by nature, and, as an outcast of human morality, hedonism came naturally and with little guilt attached. It was his lack of reluctance, not the act itself, which bothered him more than anything else, for it served as a constant reminder of his willingness to give in without a fight. He was weak. There was no denying it.

Her fingers hooked around his wrist, pressing his hand against her thigh. Following her lead, he ascended graying curves of tender muscle and bone, pausing when he felt her rotting skin grow flushed and slick beneath him, smiling a triumphant smile as he watched her hips twitch with need. "You like this, Mother?" He whispered, mimicking her honey-sweet tone. His lips dipped forward, pulling her down into a kiss. "I know you do."

That was it. The trade-off. One moment, she was his master, and the next, she was at his mercy. It was equivalent exchange in the rawest sense, though Envy never put much stock in the superstitions of alchemists. He instead stuck to his own devices, moving with cold calculation as well as a twisted sense of duty. He was forced to kneel before his mother; at least he could do it on his own terms.

His lips replaced his hands on her legs, his tongue flicking out like a snake moving in for the kill. She was Cleopatra and he would deliver her, sinking his teeth down into the wilting flesh of her inner thigh with a blind hunger that had long ago forgotten how to taste or feel. Her face contorted with pleasure. "Did you ever think that maybe he left because of you, you filthy bitch?" His words were muffled between her legs, but audible nonetheless. She kicked at him, but the nails sinking into her hips held her in place. "You rotten, disgusting whore."

"Shut up." She growled, throwing back her head as a moan escaped her lips. "Don't you remember who I am, Envy? I saved you!" She sounded upset, desperate, but he knew it was all part of her game. They had been through this dance so many times before and yet every time they ended with the exact same fight. Tuning her out, Envy dipped forward once again, this time pressing his tongue against the glistening folds of flesh, parting them, nuzzling a soft mat of curls dusting her lower abdomen.

His touch softened her cries, her voice falling to a husky whisper. "You're disgusting." She mimicked him, though her sighs rendered her accusations worthless. He smiled in response, using his tongue to stimulate her opening as he rubbed two fingers in sporadic rhythm against her clitoris. Her hips jerked and swayed, nearly sliding off her seat. But he held her in place, taking his time knowing he had plenty of it to spare. They had an eternity of each other's company to look forward to, after all.

"I don't know why you do it, Mother." Envy's hiss vibrated on her engorged skin. "Why you keep living knowing he'll never come back? Certainly you don't think he'd want this filthy body of yours, right?"

"He still loves me."

"Oh, really?" Chuckling, he wrapped his arms around her legs, flipping her over so that she stood hunched down in front of him, her back pressed against his chest. "Somehow I never got that impression, or maybe that's just because I'm a stupid, soulless monster who has to take commands to survive. What do you think, Mother?"

His hands slithered down her spine, caressing two lobes of youthful flesh before descending to her dry, puckered opening. She didn't resist, instead pushing back into his touch, groaning as he jammed his finger inside. Her body pulled him down into her heat, so tight it was almost painful around his knuckles. "Oh, I see. Another virgin's body for me to violate." He used his other hand to press into her other, moister orifice, testing his theory.

"You really must enjoy pain. Right, Mother? Is that why you love it when I fuck you like this?" He added a second finger, the bulge in his skirt twitching as he watched her legs writhe in discomfort. He started to loosen the leather fabric, sliding it down his hips as his hand moved to stimulate his hardening erection. Positioning himself between her parted legs, he slammed down into her, reaching around to knead her wilting breasts with the palms of his hands. "Hmm, good thing I enjoy seeing you cry or I might've stopped doing this long ago."

She said nothing in response, her desperate groans becoming the only language to which he would listen. All other words were lost as he savored her muscles clamping down around his erection, massaging him with perfect caresses her hands could never master. He thrust into her again and again, and she swung back to meet him with full force, screaming even as tears licked at the corners of her eyes.

He had won. When they finished everything would be back to normal, and Dante would steal the body of the desert girl to seduce a child of the man she would always love, forcing Envy to carry out her orders without offering him even an ounce of gratitude. In a few moments, his world would plunge back into hell. But at least for a moment, he had won.