(A/N: Watch as I try and be tricky with formatting. You'll see. Also, just as a reminder from chapter seven, Envy masquerades as 'Major Neid' when working in Lab Five.)
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Envy was spared from having to deal the problem of what to do about Kimblee, at least for the time being, due to the more pressing problem of all the work it had neglected during its week-long 'nap' on the wall. Luckily, none of its current duties were of a particularly time-sensitive nature. There had been times in the past where even a few hours of absence might have been a disaster, but those days were behind Envy now. Their control of Amestris was too deep-rooted to require such careful maintenance. Plus, much of the sensitive oversight of government affairs had been handed over to Wrath, along with – in Envy's opinion anyway – an undo amount of authority within the family.
There were bound to be a few tense moments to do with Father's designs in Ishbal, but that wasn't happening quite yet. In the meantime, most of what Envy did involved surveillance. Things were good for the family, and Envy's job was to see that things stayed that way. Dr. Marcoh, for example, required a close watch. He wasn't in a position to defy them, knowing what would happen if he did. However, the tension could manifest itself in more ways than outright rebilion. Envy was a suicide watch where Marcoh was concerned. He would be difficult to replace.
So Envy had invented a little ruse to keep the good doctor alive. Envy knew without understanding, solitary and mistrustful creature that it was, that a human without other humans is usually a dead human. For some reason, social isolation killed them almost as surely as a bullet to the brain. So Envy decided Marcoh needed a bit of 'human' companionship. Envy also happened to know that Marcoh had a longstanding fondness for chess. He had competed in a few tournaments in his college days. From time to time used to invite old friends over for a match, before the stress of his job eroded all personal attachments.
There was a park in which Marcoh liked to walk and feed the birds, after a hard day's work torturing and killing on government orders. Conveniently, said park had several permanent chess tables, made of metal and bolted down to prevent theft. Park-goers could provide their own pieces if they so chose. So, what did the good doctor find one day, but a towheaded, freckled child with a brand-new chess set, puzzling over an instruction book with intense concentration, before moving pieces on both sides in correspondence to what she seemed to be reading. The uncertainty was not feigned; Envy had never had cause to even look at a chess board before that day.
"Hey mister." She said, dangling one sandal-clad foot off the edge of the chair, the other tucked beneath her. "D'you know about chess?"
"I know a thing or two." Marcoh said. So modest. Envy fought not to roll her eyes.
"My dad got me it for Christmas, but he never has time to teach me. I wanna learn so I can surprise him."
So, Envy gained chess lessons, and Marcoh gained a reason to live: little Elizabeth Townsend, who's father was always busy, and who's mother was not busy but neglected her daughter anyway, letting her run wild in the park with messy hair and perpetually skinned knees. The childish act left room to be vague, out of ignorance or shyness, as well as allowing for unannounced hiatuses, which could always be explained away with a simple 'I was grounded' or 'we were on vacation'. Elizabeth Townsend was grounded a lot; the recent week-long absence was nothing new.
"I dented my brother's car." Envy said on a whim, when Marcoh asked what mischief she's gotten into this time. Lacking any pre-established backstory, Envy often found itself speaking in allegories to its real life and family.
"You have an older brother?"
"Yeah, I got four. And a really fat hamster. But they're all jerks – my brothers, not the hamster. The hamster is okay, he just eats, mostly."
"What's your hamster's name?"
"My sister calls him Gluttony. He's more hers than mine."
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Later that evening and on the other side of the city, Envy watched as Leander's wife packed her things and piled the luggage into a friend's truck. Envy had watched their marriage deteriorate ever since Leander had begun to work in Lab Five. Rex Leander was a stoic man, not given to displays of affection or, indeed, much emotion at all. Yet he had become so consumed by the conflict within, between what was ordered of him and what he knew to be right, that he had taken to ignoring his wife entirely, when not lashing out in fits of anger of which she was not the source. Now, it seemed, she had bowed to the inevitable. Her husband was a breaking man, and she was fleeing the destruction before it consumed her too.
Envy recognized what was happening to him, although it did not understand it any better than his wife. It had long ago given up questioning why humans would kill each other so avidly and brutally at times, and at other times treated killing as the worst atrocity.
Do they know so little of themselves?
Envy frowned, as it watched Leander return home, his reaction to his wife's absence. Or, rather, his lack of reaction. Just like his lack of reaction towards her worries, her anger, her confusion, her tears, her despair. And now, finally, her surrender.
Even for one whose immortal life has been dedicated to the physical and mental destruction of humans, it was impossible to know the exact breaking point, to predict to a tee just how much anyone could take. It was an imperfect science, but Envy was as much its master as anyone could be. Envy knew humans, even if they didn't know themselves. It knew this one was nearing his end.
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It was late; long after most humans were at home and asleep, but when it came to work which interested him, Kimblee was as diligent as he was merciless.
They had run through their supply of death row convicts, and now were simply using anyone they could, any person who would not be missed. Drug-addicts were common, as well as the homeless and mentally-ill.
Kimblee had a problem with this. Not with the ethical implications – what did it matter to him, killing one stranger over another? No, his objection was purely utilitarian. These new subjects were less physically sound, even compared to men who had been wasting away in prison cells for years. They often lacked the reserves necessary to handle what was done to them, particularly the process of chimerism, and died even when no error was made on the part of the researchers.
As a result, he was in the process of drafting a request for stronger "test subjects", carefully refraining from referring to them as human. He knew the document would go to 'Major Neid', and from there might go to Father, but on the other hand it might have to go through different channels entirely. He knew the homunculi pulled a lot of strings in the government, but he didn't know how far their control went, and thus preferred to err on the side of caution.
Focusing on his job was also a good alternative brooding over Envy, which was becoming disturbingly habitual as of late. He must have been focusing a bit too hard, however, for he didn't realize he was not alone until he felt a hand on his shoulder -
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Kimblee was leaning low over the table, pen busily scratching across a piece of paper. He seemed not to notice Leander's presence, so preoccupied with what he was doing. Knowing him, that meant it was something horrible.
Leander silently picked up a scalpel from another table. Its blade was crusted with blood, but it looked sharp nonetheless. He gripped it like a talisman, feeling a hint of fear when he thought he was beyond all emotion. That could not stop him now. As though in a dream, he saw his own hand reach out and touch the white-clad shoulder, breaking his concentration.
Kimblee turned, slower than Leander expected – or maybe things just slowed down in moments when life and death hang in the balance. Light blue eyes widened in shock before Leander plunged the knife into the left one, burying it to the hilt in the soft, liquid-filled tissue; driving through the eye socket and deep into the brain beneath. Kimblee never even screamed, just went limp and fell to the ground in a heap. After so long, it was almost anticlimactic.
"I don't care if they kill me for this." Leander said, standing over Kimblee's crumpled form, although he knew the man was dead and could not hear him. "It'll be worth it, if I take you down with me, you fucking psychopath."
He might have lost everything, his love for his country, his wife, the will to live itself, but at least he would die knowing he had done one good –
The corpse giggled, in a blood-chillingly high-pitched voice. None of the horrors of Lab Five could have prepared Leander for it.
The. Corpse. Giggled.
Then, "You humans are so predictable."
Leander watched, frozen, as Kimblee got to his feet, only that voice wasn't Kimblee's. His face, as he grinned at Leander, wasn't his at all, but changing in waves into…
"M-Major Neid…"
And in such an outfit…
"Among others." Envy pulled the knife out of its eye with little more than a wince. "And if you're going to attack the Red Lotus Alchemist, it's really stupid not take out his hands first. Here, I'll show ya –"
With inhuman speed and strength Envy lunged at Leander and pinned him against the far wall. It yanked both his hands up over his head, and jammed the scalpel through both palms and into the wall beneath, pinning him.
"You filth." Envy growled as Leander screamed and grunted, all traces of a smile gone from its face. "I'll take you apart piece by piece and send you home to your family. Wouldn't you like that, getting to go home?"
"No need to get personal, Invidia." Said Kimblee, stepping out from where he had stood behind a shelf of lab supplies, out of sight but hearing everything.
"He just tried to kill you!"
"And failed spectacularly. Otherwise I might be more upset, but we're short on human subjects, and he's better suited than the vagrants and drug-addicts we've been forced to use lately."
Envy scowled. "I wanted to kill him."
Kimblee held up his hands. "I'm not saying you can't. Just don't do it on my account."
Envy looked between Leander and Kimblee, then shrugged. "Let him die as part of a stone I guess, or as a botched chimera. Both are bound to hurt a lot."
"Especially the chimera option, even if it's successful."
"Let that be my vote then." Envy walked over to a set of drawers and began rummaging around. "Where the hell is the morphine? We'll need to gentle him down before we fix him up and stick him in a cage. Damn it, you guys never put things back in the right places."
"Let me take care of him." Kimblee said, locating the sought-after drug in a cupboard. "I think we can agree I owe it to him."
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Kimblee turned, experiencing a moment of eisoptrophobic shock as he turned to meet his own eyes, and find his own hand on his shoulder.
"Invidia…" he began, one hand over his suddenly racing heart, "may I ask you not to do that ever again?"
"Temporary measures." Envy said, adding to the disorienting effect by not altering its voice.
"What do you mean?"
"Remember that prediction I made about Leander?" Envy gave a wicked grin, not at all out of place on Kimblee's features, as footsteps were heard in the hallway outside. "We're about to see how right I was."
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"I doubt you'll even regain full use of your hands." Kimblee said, as he went about cleaning and binding the holes therein. "On the bright side, however, you probably won't have to live with impaired dexterity for very long."
"…I'm in hell." Leander muttered, too drugged to be capable of true anger, or even much along the lines of coherent thought. "This is my punishment for doing what I did…for not trying to stop it sooner…"
"Hell? Invidia told me you were an atheist." Kimblee said, more to himself than Leander. "Shame, I liked that about you. But if this is a deathbed conversion, feel assured you'll get a place in heaven for your attempt to kill me, even if it came too late and wasn't successful. If God exists, I'm sure he's learned to take what he can get, from us."
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(A/N: I think Envy feels a sadistic, fucked-up attachment to Dr. Marcoh, the way it seems to take such glee in tormenting him. Where Marcoh is concerned, I see Envy as being like a psychotic dog. It might bite you when you move too suddenly, or because it thinks it's fun, or for no reason at all, but its tail still wags when it sees you. And, if you will, a moment of silence for Leander. Who knows how many lives would have been spared, had he succeed? Unfortunately for him, I have no interest in writing about heroes. Thanks for reading!)