(A/N: It's...been...so...long! *Keels over* Whatever delays may beset it, however, I will not abandon this story. I have too many cool things planned for it! XD)

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Upon returning from his assignment, Kimblee discovered an eviction noticed taped to his door, and Greed once again on his couch waiting for him, cigar in one hand and bottle of whiskey in the other.

Kimblee sighed. Here we go…"Hello again."

"I've lost it." Greed said, staring at the ceiling despondently.

"Lost what?"

"My talent. My art. My life – no, the thing that makes life worth living."

"You lost your money?"

"What? Hell no! You think I'm that materialistic?"

"Yes…"

Greed shook his head impatiently. "Money can be lost and regained. Same as most things in life. What I've lost goes much deeper."

"And what is that?" Kimblee asked, hanging up his coat and dropping his suitcase on the floor beneath it. It seemed unpacking would have to wait.

"The ability to get what I want. I've gone dry. Drawing a blank."

"Not sure I follow."

"Envy."

"You've lost Envy?"

"No, I've lost...it. My charm, my mojo, whatever you wanna call it! I've never had anyone I've wanted that I just…couldn't… get." Greed raised one arm, grasping at the air as though it was the thing which evaded him. "Until now."

"In defense of your, uh, 'mojo', it doesn't seem like you've been making much of an effort."

"Until now I've never cared to. But now that I do,I just…" He trailed off and sighed, then held out an unlit cigar. "Want?"

"Sure." Kimblee didn't habitually smoke, but he had been known to accept what was offered. Particularly in this case, as he knew Greed would have the best of everything, including tobacco.

"How the hell did you manage it anyway?" Greed said, as their twin trails of smoke met and coiled around each other in the air. "Counsel me, Oh family counselor."

"I don't know…" Kimblee said, taking a seat in the armchair across from the couch. "Patience and nerve, I suppose." He took a long drag off the cigar, savoring the rich flavor. "But it's not all in what I did. Envy and I are well-suited to one another. Were we less so, things may have played out differently."

"No shit." Greed said with a laugh. "In all earnestness, did the thought ever cross your mind that Envy might kill you?"

A slow smile spread across Kimblee's face. "You speak of that as though it's a deterrent. To me, life is meaningless without death nipping at its heels. I would never have been so attracted without that element of risk." He shook his head. "But that's neither here not there. Whatever your problem is, fear of death doesn't seem to be it."

"It isn't fear in any form. It's simply that I can't see any path from where I am now, to where I want to get, with Envy."

"And where is that?"

"Uh...bed, couch, hot-tub, closet, back seat of a car - I'm not so picky on location."

"I mean, is that your only aim? Just another body to fuck, albeit more malleable than most?"

"When you put it that way I'd love to say yes. Nice and simple."

"If I know anything about your family, it's that nothing is nice and nothing is simple."

Greed laughed again, although it was bitter this time. "Exactly. As for what I want, why, I want a lot of things. I want Envy, and I want you, but most of all I want the two of you together. I want to be a part of what the two of you are, to experience what you do."

"Which is...?"

"Love." Greed raised one eyebrow. "Didn't you know that's what it is?"

"I have no use for that term." There was a touch of impatience in his voice. "It is a poetic abstraction which has little or nothing to do with reality."

"It's the word for what you have if there is one. Now, my opinion of love is that it's great. Totally worth having if you can, but not worth more than everything else. And therein lies my dilemma: the nature of love is that it precedes everything else in the life of it's subject. You don't own love, love owns you."

Kimblee had to think about that one for a moment. Did Envy precede every other thing in his life? It was a difficult question to answer, as Envy was intertwined with everything his life had become; the proverbial white rabbit he had pursued into this dark wonderland. But what about the work he did, using his alchemy towards the disruption of the world as he knew it? He was doing that with Envy, not for Envy per se. It was a large part of the bond between them, but he had taken this path with naught but his own interest in mind.

And yet, what meaning would that path have, without Envy walking it beside him? Solitude he could have in any world, old or new - in Father's kingdom or the realm of humanity alike. But isolation was not true freedom. Not for a human, at any rate, and he was apparently just human enough to see it that way. One's own mind and personal identity could be as much a prison as any four walls of stone, if one was trapped therein. Envy had given him the one thing no one else had, a way out of himself. The freedom to exist honestly, if only in the eyes of just one person.

Could that be what love was, being freer with someone than you would be without them? It was, he imagined, the closest he could come to reconciling hypothetical absolutes with subjective and ever-ambiguous reality. A kind of love in which even he could find meaning.

"Suppose what we have could be called love, then." He said after a pause, still finding that world strange on his tongue. "I can see how it would run counter to your nature."

"And yet my nature is to want everything."

"Okay, so you want to experience love vicariously. Why does it have to be ours?"

"I don't have a lot of options in that regard. It's a damn rare thing."

"You must be joking. Humans do nothing but carry on about love morning, noon and night. I've had people profess to love me, when they've seen only my blandest and most banal mask."

"That's the point, Lotus Flower, there are a lot of cheap knock-offs. The truth is, humans rarely love each other. Your kind love the idea of love - the poetic abstraction, as you put it. They're so stuck on that ideal they'll pin it on anyone and everyone they can. You know how little that's worth. They're just reciting lines in a play."

"What about your kind?" Kimblee asked, eager to explore this unexpectedly insightful side of Greed. "What ideals do your kind hold dear?"

"We don't believe in ideals. We don't believe in anything outside ourselves. That's why you get along so well with us, you have no illusions left."

"...You're a lot more complicated than you let on."

"Yeah, I can think with my head as well as with my dick, if that's what you mean." He said with a wry smile. "Older I get, the less I see the point though. Past, future - all these things people think are so damn important - they're just more of your so-called poetic abstractions. They'll weigh you down, get in the way of the moment. Now is the only thing with any real value."

There was a note of surprising melancholy in the homunculus's voice. It stirred a memory of something Envy had said about Greed, what seemed like a hundred years ago, soon after Kimblee had been introduced to all of them.

Greed…well, I don't have to tell you how he is. And Father has some pretty high ambitions of his own. They can't both own the world.

Your Father must know this. Kimblee had said, still relatively naive as to their family dynamic.

He knows. And Greed knows he knows. We all know it's just a matter of time.

Small wonder Greed didn't love to dwell on the future, didn't place any value in it. He had no future. The roaring flames of his own avarice would consume him.

For the first time, he thought he saw what was so enticing about Greed - beyond his looks or his physique, his confidence or power. He was doomed. Tragically, irrevocably doomed. Knowingly condemned, unrepentant, with a smile on his face even as the noose tightened around his neck. Very few lives were worth saving in Kimblee's opinion, and yet Greed's was undoubtedly one of those few. Who could resist the urge to try and save this man, flawed as a priceless diamond? Even Kimblee might be tempted to try, if he were not already bound to another.

As if conjured by thought, there came the sound of footsteps in the hall, and the apartment door being opened.

"There's an eviction notice on your door if you didn't see it." Envy said, coming into the room. "Want me to stop by the office and rough them up or - " It stopped dead as the scene registered.

"It's not what it looks like." Greed said, sitting up, already bracing for an attack.

"It's pretty much exactly what it looks like." Kimblee remarked, wondering idly how much would get broken this time.

Envy ignored Greed entirely, walking over to stand in front of Kimblee's chair, planting one foot upon it in a domineering manner. It snatched the cigar from between his fingers, and without so much as a wince, crushed the live ember in it's hand.

"Smoking is bad for humans."

Envy's voice was heavy with quiet threat. It looked so intimidating towering over him, Kimblee suddenly regretted that Envy hadn't just attacked Greed as per usual. Perhaps that was a potential benefit in including Greed in their relationship. He was the Ultimate Shield, after all, why not make good on his name?

"I'll just being going then..." Greed said, apparently holding the opposite opinion. He was already edging towards the door.

"Oh why?" Envy said with feigned lightness, turning its venomous glare onto Greed. "We so love your company. Maybe you ought to stay for dinner?"

"I'd like to, but whenever I look at your face I loose my appetite." Fuck my life, why can't I think of anything but insults?! - was the gist of Greed's thoughts as Envy chased him from the apartment.

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(A/N: Just when you think a lecture on the philosophical nature of freedom is dry, you find ways to reference it in your slash fanfiction -_-' Shame I'll be dropping that class. Thanks for reading!)