Title: He Smiles The Broken Smile.
Pairing(s): Greed(human)/Envy, Greed/Envy.
Beta: None, all mistakes my own.
Rating: R.
Genre: Drama.
Warnings: For Greed and Envy being you-know-who.
Feedback: Very welcome, please!
Word Count: 677.
Summary: He used to have a pretty smile. Too pretty to be human, too perfect to be real. Now he smiles the broken smile, and Envy can't but hate him a little more each time.
Author's Notes: Done for my drabble requests for Christmas, for sacragal, who requested a long-term relationship between Envy and Greed, without the usual violence between them. I hope she doesn't mind I adapted her prompt a little.
He Smiles The Broken Smile.
Her new lover was pretty. Then again, She had always had nothing but the very best, so it was obvious She wouldn't share Her bed with something less than perfect. But perfect died out quickly, and She had had many lovers, as many as the years he had existed. Lovers that bloomed in Spring and died in Winter, forgotten and replaced before a full month was over. She was not meant to mourn, because mourning required loving, and she was not a loving creature.
But this one, this one was lovely.
All pale skin and solid bones, with sharp features and a striking pose. But it was his face what always got Envy wondering. It was a pretty face, tender and harsh and so remarkable, that the shape shifter store it away in his memory. He figured that when Winter was over and this lover was gone, he could play a little with his face. It was a face that shouldn't be forgotten, he assured himself, because it was too perfect to pass on.
But Winter came and went, and for some reason this lover stayed.
His face appeared everywhere, haunting Envy even in the deepest corners of his mind, and in aggravation, the eldest Homunculus decided to figure out what was so special about that face. It wasn't the eyes, of course, because he had seen all types of human eyes and they weren't remarkable at all. They were boring eyes. It wasn't the nose, either, it was too large, too hooked. It was an ugly nose. But then he began watching the tilt of the mouth, that perfectly curved mouth that seemed to never stop smiling. Yes, Envy decided after a month or two of stalking Her lover, it was his mouth that made him special. Or rather, the way it was always turned into a smile, a perfect, pretty smile that drove the shape shifter up a wall.
One night, when She was away seducing another fool into his downfall, Her lover and Her servant found themselves alone in the spacious manor. And after a long afternoon of doing nothing, Envy noted the smile had changed slightly. It was still perfect, still pretty, but it made something hum within him, something daring and bothersome that tasted resentfully like humanity when the boring human eyes stared down at him, mildly obscured by that ugly nose that was not remarkable at all. And then that perfect pretty mouth was kissing him, and it didn't matter anymore. He didn't recoil in disgust, as he had done so many times before. He didn't pulled away hissing and snarling as he usually did. Instead, he let himself be owned by perfection and beauty and that night, he had Her lover in the same way he had never had anyone before.
Next morning, they were once more Her lover and Her servant, and nothing but his own memories assured Envy he had not dreamed the whole thing. Yet, whenever they were alone, whenever She was away doing terrible things, the perfect, pretty smile would change, and the shape shifter would willingly let himself be drown in what he knew was not his, because they were Hers and no one else's.
So perfect and so beautiful Her lover was, that one day She made him into someone like him and Envy felt himself torn when he was forced to kill him in order to redo him again.
But it happened, as it always happened with matters as such, that the new him was not the old him, and he no longer had that perfect, pretty smile that had made Envy shiver and cower and be a submissive little sinner that cared none for his master's threat. This new him made honor to his name and wanted it all, even that which had never been his in the first place.
This new him smiled the broken smile, sharp and twisted and no longer perfect and pretty, and Envy hated him a little more each time.