Kimblee loved it when Envy laughed.

The shivers of pure delight that the sound gave him were only comparable to the raucous noise of a collapsing building, or the fine music of a classical symphony- though he supposed it more closely resembled the former than the latter. It was a real laugh- unlike people, who laughed not because they were amused but because it was social convention, a compliment to the speaker, polite titters with no feeling behind them- no, Envy only laughed when they were truly happy, and their joy was so huge and uncontrollable it took over their entire body and still spilled over, filling the air in the room. Kimblee never saw such demonstrations of pure emotion, raw and true and unfiltered, from humans. He wasn't entirely sure if humans were even capable of it- he certainly wasn't. Envy was a creature of terrible emotion, feeling everything so much more strongly than everyone else, and in a way that made them lovely.

Lovely, to Kimblee's tastes at least- and he could acknowledge that most people were incapable of seeing the world the way he did. In fact, Kimblee expected that most people would find Envy's laughter downright hideous. It was loud and high-pitched and cracked around the edges, borderline, strange and wild as it wrenched itself from their play-pretend lungs. Envy's laugh was as wicked and insane as they were, a sound like the hinges on an old door that opened onto nowhere, like the cries of hungry vultures in a desert of corpses, like the shriek of metal being ripped apart in an explosion. In short, the sound of everything terrible in the world. And to Kimblee, the sound of everything beautiful.

The moments preceding such a laugh were wonderful, too. A well-played trick, a mask removed at last, a sudden and bloody murder. Nothing triggered such perfect hysteria in Envy like one-upping a fool, like discovering one person more pathetic and hateful than themself. He had made Envy laugh so much during the Ishvalan war- placing explosions carefully to maximize the length of the building's collapse, making mazes of death for the Ishvalan rats, letting people wriggle out of their hidey holes believing they were safe, only to rip them apart again. In such moments Envy became completely, incredibly, gorgeously deranged; they were a pleasure to look at and listen to, a savage joy, incomparable to anything peace and civilization could produce. Kimblee could remember now the things they would say-

Let her keep going...let her think she'll get away…

Hmm...this time, just the women! Can you target them only?

Amazing! You are amazing!

Blow them all to HELL.

Can you make it so their legs come off, but they keep living?

Teach them to look down on ME! HahahahaHAHAHA-!

Now kiss me.

The silence of the prison cell was all the more empty in Kimblee's ears now, having immersed himself in such pleasant memories. It almost hurt to be here, so alone in the dark, the only sounds the dull and repetitive tap of the guards as they changed shifts and the other prisoners as they murmured to each other, empty words in an empty place, the dull hum that was life without a war.

What Kimblee would do to hear music again. He longed to go back to the podium, hold his arms open to the orchestra of the world, conduct it to the time of his own self-composed song. A special symphony, with magic unlike any other. The wails of broken families were the violins, the groans of the dying the brass, the crash and bang of the falling buildings his percussion. Each beat, each sweep of the sound, directed by the rising and falling of his hands where he stood at the head of it all, the fittest, the survivor, the rightful conductor of the band. The most beautiful music there was to play was the music of life and death.

And overtop it all, the lead singer, the voice of his favourite primadonna, hot and wild and filthy as the desert was itself…

Looking down at the marks on his palms in the moonlight, Kimblee promised himself that such a day would come about again. Even if he waited here for years more, he would hear his song again.

He would make them laugh again.