A/N: Thanks again for last drabble's reviews, and sorry, but I need more time for the next Christmas installment; now, here, if you blink, you might miss a little Greed/Martel action; although, Envy's first visit to the Devil's Nest will be perfectly clear. (To Hebi R.--I've tried my hand at drawing that hilarious pic idea of yours; still working on it, but when I get it on I'll let you know, and anyone else who's interested too.)

Disclaimer: Don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.

Drabble 11: A Case Of Mistaken Sex

Dorchet and Roah out shopping at the market, Tucker absorbed in labwork, Kimbley...well, hopefully not committing more acts of arson, Martel stuck stumbling upon a little scuffle between Greed and this girl with wild ivy hair--all in all, an almost typical day for the Devil's Nest crew. Now, this scuffle wasn't necessarily an actual scuffle...scuffles tend to be small fights, not blown-out wars which caused various damage to the surroundings, namely the bar in this case. The snake chimera did notice that Greed was trying to protect his property and take the battle outside, but this palm-tree girl was really giving him a hard time. Before Martel could move in and join the conflict, it escalated upwards, i.e. palm-tree girl nailed Greed in the chin with an impossibly flexible kick, sending him sailing through the roof, and she swiftly hopped after him through the resulting hole.

Martel ran the stairs in no time at all, barely wasting a breath as she skidded onto the roof's exterior, witnessing a bit of conversation between Greed and his opponent that revealed 1) they knew each other from before the seal and 2) that was because they were both Homunculi.

"So, what," began the snake chimera as she calmly leaned against the dome-like passageway to the tavern's roof, grabbing the Homunculi's attention. Greed looked a little concerned, yet happy to see her, while the other--Envy, she had been called--gazed at her with a predatory interest that almost made Martel take a step back; the snake chimera knew that under the circumstances, she could handle herself and Greed wouldn't let anything happen to her... Quietly, she marveled at the unknown sensation of feeling protected by someone else, and couldn't remember the last time she felt this way, or if it ever even happened before.

"You guys come off a bad relationship 100+ years ago? Is she your ex-girlfriend Greed, or just a persistent one-timer?" Martel looked at her friend curiously as he actually started to look extremely sick, and so did Envy, but that woman seemed also to be trembling with seething rage; obviously, her last comment/joke had unwittingly struck a serious chord.

"Martel, Envy's a guy." Half a beat of silence later in which somewhere crickets started to chirp, Martel burst out into a fit of laughter, tears actually beginning to stream down her face, and she bent in on herself, holding a recently opened stitch in her side. The woman cut off her laughter once catching the dead-serious looks on the Homunculi's face, and all she could muster was a "Oh, you were serious?"

Somehow, Greed had managed to fend off Envy, which truly was a feat in itself, due to the male Homunculus's largest fit of rage yet in a long course of rages, and he told this little fact to Martel as she massaged his back. Honestly, Greed had not initiated this little massage session; he hadn't learned until now that the snake chimera knew how to even do it. He had been well aware though of how stubborn she could be; Martel had insisted she massage his back, to deal with the Envy-inflicted bruises, and he was reminded of how hard that palm tree bitch can hit.

Thus, late at night, Dorchet and Roah returned with brown-paper bags laden with goods, Tucker emerged from his lab, Kimbley looked waaay too happy with gray cinders in his hair, and they all gawked at the scene of Martel having fallen asleep while massaging Greed, lying flat onto his back, the Homunculus himself actually starting to snooze earlier, having felt the overly-comfortable effects of a snake chimera massage job.

A/N: Meh, this was a manifestation over my own gender-confused feelings over Envy; for the longest time, I thought he was a "she", and when I finally found out otherwise, I didn't...handle it very well. ("WTF! Envy's a guy! OMG, this happens too much in anime! You get this apparently fascinating girl, then turns out she's actually a guy, and to me it always expresses a sexist-cheat...I mean, male characters already seem to have the majority of appearances, and probably about half of them look perfectly like woman, but they're not, but they could be, if the writers made them so, they could be so easily!" ...My inner-feminist overreacts. Should be ignored. In retrospect, Envy's gender-confusion makes sense, with his shapeshifting powers and all--it's appropriate he can pass for a girl or a guy; also, could be logically categorized as a cross-dresser...) And honestly, Martel's my favorite romantic partner for Greed; must do more drabbles with them later... Promise, next time will be more Christmas cheer!