Close Enough

Close Enough

Disclaimer: FMA is not mine; it’s property of Hiromu Arakawa, Square Enix, etc.

Notes/Warnings: CRACK! Seriously, I don’t think anyone’s done this “pairing” before (of course, I don’t think it counts as a pairing per se; more like character conflict with other stuff involved), or at least not that I’ve seen. If I’m wrong, oh well. This fic contains SPOILERS for episodes toward the end of the series (last disk, most likely), so if you haven’t seen that DVD, read no further. As my final warning, I’m only gonna say this once: NO MINORS (A.K.A., THOSE UNDER EIGHTEEN YEARS OF AGE) ARE ALLOWED TO READ THIS FIC. This warning applies to a great many of my fics, no matter what the range of content, but I’m saying it now because if I don’t, the parents of many under-eighteen delinquents will be out for my blood. To those parents I say, “Put down the pitchforks.” It’s not my fault you don’t have internet safety measures installed, and it certainly isn’t my fault you don’t monitor what your little angels are reading. Kids, be smart. Don’t break the LAW; don’t read things clearly marked as “for those eighteen and up.” All additional warnings should be found on the previous page.

For my legal readers, enjoy the fic and please remember to review! No flames; I think I put in enough warnings to deter anyone who wouldn’t want to read this in the first place.

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It had finished taunting him and left him alone hours ago, so Alphonse had thought he was, if not safe, then at least allowed to gather his thoughts for a little while. And he had, if only to brood on how many times he should have died, and hadn’t. So many lives, gone in a flash of bloody red light…and for what? So that a man who had done nothing but murder people since before Al had met him could save the life of one, insignificant little boy? It wasn’t fair, it didn’t make any sense! Why should he live when so many others had paid the price of death? How many more would be sacrificed so that he could survive? And what was his survival even for? A madwoman’s bid for eternity realized? A clan of monsters given human bodies, only so they too could die? But no, he thought with a bitter sigh, that wouldn’t even happen. Dante had no intentions of keeping her promise to the homunculi. That one knew it very well, and had already professed not to give a damn.

I’m not worth all this suffering! he cried in his mind, even as he berated himself for being a hypocrite. If it were Edward, Alphonse would not deny those sacrifices their value. Ed was worth it, because he was all the younger Elric had left.

The door of his “prison,” a semi-lavish room somewhere in Dante’s underground mansion, creaked open, and Al cringed inwardly. It was back, probably to mock him some more.

Deceptively delicate hands lifted his helmet from where it had landed after the creature had kicked it from Al’s metal shoulders, and placed it back atop them. Now Alphonse could move his “head,” and he did, so he could glare at his captor. The homunculus grinned at him, showing off its sharp teeth, letting them gleam in the dim light from the gas lamps on the walls.

“Still hate me now that you’ve had time to cool off?” Envy asked, its voice fluid and harsh at the same time. The sound was as androgynous as its body, and it grated on Al’s invisible ears.

Rather than give the creature the satisfaction of an answer, the armored boy rolled over as best he could with his arms chained together, so he was facing away from it. He wanted to attack it again, but his last attempt had gotten him nothing.

“Oh, come on,” Envy purred. “I’m not so bad once you get to know me.”

“You’re a monster,” Alphonse bit out before he could stop himself.

The anomalous being chuckled darkly, coming over to rest one foot on the armor’s shoulder, just shy of the spikes. “That’s what they tell me. Of course, I suppose that’s the normal reaction to someone when they’re about to rip out your heart.” It sighed almost dreamily. “So many people…and they all said the same things. It was like a mantra, almost like they were praying to me. Monster, Demon, Beast; they all called me one or the other, but in the end they all cried, they all screamed, they all pleaded, and it was all exactly the same. And in the end, they all died.” It laughed louder this time, and wildly, like it was having a fit. “They all died! And they’ll continue to die, until every human on earth has prayed to this God of Death!” It was shaking with its own mirth, and Alphonse wanted to be sick, wanted to stagger up and somehow escape the sound of its voice and the horrible slew of words coming out of its mouth.

“You’re not a god!” he yelled at it instead. “You’re not even a devil! You’re a creature created by lowly humans who doesn’t know anything but how to hate!”

Faster than any mortal eye could follow, Envy grabbed Alphonse by the faceplate and slammed him into the ground. Fury and a strange, malicious sort of glee shone bright in its violet, dragon-like eyes, and it bared its teeth like it meant to rend him with them.

“YES, I know how to HATE,” it snarled. “I’ve known how to hate centuries before you were born! I’ve known hatred since the moment of my damned birth, and I will know it for centuries to come! I will NEVER DIE, and neither will that HATE you seem to belittle so much! Hate is stronger than anything in this world, and my hate is stronger than any other! And do you know what that means, you brat? It means I’m the strongest being on earth, and I’ll just keep getting stronger the longer I’m alive!”

“Hate doesn’t make you strong,” Al spat back. “Because if that were true, you’d be a hundred times weaker than I am right now.”

The scowl on the homunculus’s face twisted into a smirk. “You’re that upset at me, hm? And to think, all I did was kidnap you away from your beloved older brother. I wonder how pissed you be if I’d actually killed the tiny bastard.”

“If you touch him—”

“Shut up,” Envy barked. “You still don’t get it, do you? You don’t have any say in things anymore. You’re the Philosopher’s Stone now, and that makes you a tool, not a person.”

“Like you?” the boy retorted.

“Like me,” Envy hissed in agreement, giving the armor’s chest-plate a hard thump with his fist.

“Don’t you dare hurt my brother,” Al growled. “I’ll kill you! I don’t care if I have to die to do it; I’ll make sure you never come back to life!”

“Oh, I’m gonna hurt him,” the creature taunted him. “And I’m gonna make you watch. You’ll be nice and helpless, and you’ll get to see every blood splatter, hear every scream, and you won’t be able to do one single thing about it. Not even when I finally kill him. How’s that, huh? Does that make your blood boil?” It paused, copped a thoughtful expression. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have blood. My bad!” And it dissolved into depraved chuckles once more.

I hate you, Alphonse thought miserably. I won’t let you do it. I’ll stop you, no matter what it takes; I won’t let you kill Ed!

“Anyway,” Envy said, suddenly sounding calm, maybe even bored. “Like I said, kid, don’t make a fuss. That’s years of planning and effort and sacrifice you’re carrying around in you, so behave yourself or you’ll damage it.”

“Maybe I should,” the fourteen-year-old shot back. “If I destroy the Stone, your master won’t get her wish, and neither will you.”

“But then you won’t get your wish, either, right?” Envy replied with a smug grin. “The Stone is what you and your precious brother have been searching for all your lives. If you destroy it, you destroy all hope of the two of you ever returning to your normal bodies.”

“You’re not planning on letting us use it anyway!” Alphonse shouted, incredulous. “So what’s the point of keeping the Stone and letting you use it for your own purposes!?”

“Of course we’re not planning on letting you use it,” was the exasperated response. “But that’s not the point. Humans can’t give up, right? So even when the prize seems out of your reach, you still try for it. I know your kind, Elric. You won’t destroy the Stone, because there’s a chance you might defeat us, and be able to use it yourselves. It’s a slim chance, but it’s there. You can’t risk losing that opportunity, and you won’t.”

Al made a despairing sound, because it was true. He couldn’t risk losing the only way he had to return Edward and himself to their normal bodies, not if there was a chance the two of them might win. They had to win; the only other option was death, and Al couldn’t imagine losing Edward forever. Envy’s words were biting, but logical. In a way, they gave Alphonse hope. Never give up while there’s still a chance for victory; it was almost like something Edward might have said.

“There now,” the Sin cooed. “You agree with me, don’t you? I trust you’ll behave properly from now on.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” the disembodied youth snapped. “I’m still not going to let you get away with this.”

“Whatever.” The shape-shifter waved dismissively.

It toyed with Al’s helmet “feather” for a while, seemingly fascinated by that bit of softness attached to the boy’s metal shell.

“You know,” it said after a bit, “I can touch you, and your brother can’t. The poor idiot can’t even control his alchemy when he’s in contact with you. Some alchemist, eh?”

“Shut up. You can only touch me because you don’t have a soul.”

“Oh, ouch,” Envy replied sarcastically. “I think that one wounded me.”

It traced the lines of Alphonse’s helm with long fingers, poking curiously at an eyehole to see if Al would blink. Of course, having no eyelids, the boy could do no such thing, but he did flinch and mutter a “stop.”

“Why?” Envy snickered. “You can’t feel it.”

“I know, but it’s gross just the same! Don’t do it; don’t touch me at all. Leave me alone.”

“Leave me alone,” the Sin mimicked. “Don’t be such a baby.”

It continued its exploration of Al’s armor, running its slender hands over the metal and prodding occasionally at this or that. Now and then it made “hm” noises and paused to examine something more thoroughly, almost like Winry did when she inspected a piece of automail. Al didn’t want to think of this thing as Winry, particularly not after the trick it had used to capture him.

Finally it stopped and sat back on its heels, letting out a low whistle. “Nice piece of work, this armor of yours. Those ancient Xingese[1] really knew their stuff.”

“So glad you approve,” Alphonse gritted out. “You can leave now.”

“Hmm.” Envy appeared to consider this option, and then shook its head. “No, I don’t think so.”

It reached out and unlatched the armored boy’s chest-plate, opening it to reveal the dull glow of the Stone within. “Interesting thing about us Homunculi,” it told Al, as though it were giving a lecture in a classroom. “We can’t use alchemy, but we can activate an array that’s already ‘on,’ so to speak. Like this one.” It reached into Al’s chest and pressed a finger to the blood seal that anchored him to the armor.

Red light flared and Alphonse gasped loudly, because on some level he could not comprehend, he could feel the creature’s touch when it did that[2].

Envy cackled lowly. “This blood seal of yours is constantly ‘on,’ so it’s possible for me to manipulate it. You didn’t think Lust was the only one who knew alchemy, did you? I was teaching idiots the secrets of the Stone before that haughty bitch was even made.”

Of course, Al thought dizzily; Envy was a very old homunculus, so he would have been around long enough to learn a great deal of alchemy, even if it could not use it per se.

“W-what are you going to do to me?” the boy stammered, more scared than defiant at the moment.

“Nothing permanent,” the Sin assured him. “My master would give me hell if I harmed her newest acquisition.” It smiled wickedly, again displaying its frightening teeth. “I’m just going to play with you a little, since I have nothing else with which to pass the time.”

It did something then that made Alphonse cry out in alarm—in pain!?—and made that lurid crimson glow spike yet again.

“The Stone is a wondrous object,” he heard it say. “Capable of so much humans don’t know or can’t understand.”

And when it brushed its spindly fingers over his metal forehead, Alphonse swore he could feel it.

“What did you do!?” he demanded, confused and alarmed.

“Simple, really,” Envy answered. It closed and latched the chest-plate, and then stroked it gently, and Alphonse gasped again and shivered, causing his metal body to rattle a bit. “What you’re feeling right now is all the souls inside you feeding sensations directly into your soul, through the blood seal. It’s not physical sensation when you think about it, but it’s damn close. Basically, even though you personally can’t feel anything, the Stone can because it’s both ethereal and physical in nature, and through it, so are you.”

“How can you—how do you know all that?” Al demanded. If he’d had eyes, they’d have been very wide right then.

“I know because I’ve snuck peeks at the master’s private journal. She thinks the places she hides it are clever. You see, when she takes over a body, the previous owner’s soul takes off, leaving a dead, empty shell behind. Dead things can’t feel, of course, but through the power of the Stone, Dante can still have the illusion of physical senses. Though really, I don’t know why she’d bother. She’s so ugly, no one would want her regardless of whether or not she can feel.” It grinned so widely the expression nearly reached it ears, and again ran its hand over the steel on which the appendage rested.

The sensation was so overwhelming to someone who had not felt anything for four years that Alphonse would have swooned if he hadn’t already been lying down. Envy smirked triumphantly at the soft moan the boy emitted, and continued to pet him.

“You like this,” it said. “Do you want more?”

The youngest Elric’s first instinct was to answer with a vehement “no.” Why would he want this thing’s hands on him? It was disgusting! His second—and stronger—inclination was a resounding “yes!” Four years without his senses, four years without knowing the warmth of another person’s skin, and now he was being offered those things at a time he’d never thought possible. His body was still cold metal, and yet he could FEEL. Without even being restored to his human flesh, he was experiencing another being’s touch. He said a prayer inside his head for his brother’s forgiveness. He was weak.

“Yes,” he whispered, his bodiless voice quivering with need. “Anything.”

Envy smiled at him, and it was almost happy, almost sane save for that ever-present glint of madness in its amethyst eyes. “Good.”

It moved up to straddle his waist, its slight form no burden on him at all. Yet Al could feel it there, sense its warmth, so much like a human’s. It used both hands now to caress him, and he shuddered beneath it like an especially loud leaf in the wind. It leaned down and licked his steel “cheek,” and that nearly made Alphonse mad with want. He had forgotten what wetness felt like, but now he could recall it, and it was wonderful.

“More,” he pleaded. “Please, more.”

Envy grinned and bent further to bite at the leather strap binding Al’s left shoulder, causing the armored youth to jerk slightly and loose a slight “ah!” of surprise. It tasted the bitter hide with its tongue in slow sweeps, learning him as he was relearning his senses. The shifting of its body over him was driving Al insane, and he squirmed, making scraping sounds on the floor under him.

“I want—” He could have sworn he was panting, even without lungs, as he was gripped by a ludicrous notion. “I want to touch you,” he begged. He could feel those hands on him; he wanted to feel that body under his own hands too.

“Oh, but should I risk unchaining you?” Envy purred. “You might try to escape, and I can’t have that. I’d get into trouble, you know.”

“No, no, I won’t,” Al swore, some part of him hating himself for this desperation that overrode his judgment. He should try to escape; it was what Edward would have done.

But Ed was only missing the feeling in two of his limbs. Ed would not understand this. Al understood it all too well, and unfortunately, so, apparently, did Envy.

“I can give you what you want,” Envy told him. “But you have to promise to be good.”

If he’d been in a position to do so, Al would have hung his head in shame. “I promise,” he said, barely audible even to the Sin’s sharp hearing.

The homunculus gripped the metal grill at Al’s “neck” and pulled up and forward, sitting him up. The sleek creature slid around behind him, and birdlike hands flitted to his chains, deftly loosening and dropping them to the floor. Just as quickly the Sin was at his front again, had climbed into his lap like a feline settling into its master’s. Indeed, it rubbed against him and purred much like a cat, albeit a psychotic one. With shaking gauntlets Al touched it, running his hands through its silky, dark-green hair and down its back. It felt as beautiful as it looked, smooth-skinned, hard muscle in all the right places, yet supple in ways Alphonse had not expected. For an instant, the lack of necessary human traits—like lips and tongue with which to taste this deadly beauty in his arms—made him ache. But what he had was too good to complain, and Al had always been a gracious soul.

Envy lifted his not-so-unwilling prisoner’s helmet and reached in to touch the blood seal again. The red explosion of light was accompanied this time by a full-bodied groan from the armored boy, and Al’s arms went tight around the shape-shifter’s slender waist. The pressure might have crushed a human, but Envy was far from that. It laughed delightedly and arched in his grasp, inviting touch. The youngest Elric brother could not deny, or resist, and he ran rough, leather hands more boldly over the offered flesh. He stroked the audacious creature’s pale neck, traced the planes of its narrow chest, marveled slightly at the strength in its arms; it was so easy to forget that this being could kill. He moved his hands slowly down its sides, strangely pleased with the way it yielded to his touch, and finally dared to slide his fingers down its white, nearly bare thighs. Honestly, it was wearing so little, it was practically running around naked. The thought of this lethal, lovely thing completely nude against him sent a thrill to the young man’s very core.

He reached up and pushed the Sin’s headband off its head, letting the exotically-colored hair free of its sorely ineffective confines. The wild strands draped a little lower about Envy’s face without anything to bolster them up, and the effect was just about breathtaking. It looked less like a tree now, at any rate, and more like something one expected to find beckoning to them from a dark street corner, speaking words of desire to lure the deviant in. Alphonse took Envy’s lack of protest as a sign to continue, and so he took one of its wrists in one hand and slipped off its black semi-glove with the other. The homunculus tilted its head to one side and smirked softly, the expression seductive and challenging all at once. Go on, that look said. Take the rest, if you’re man enough. Al wanted to be man enough more than most people wanted to breathe.

He thought he must have gone completely mad as he stripped the lily-skinned being with slow, methodical movements. With the souls of thousands milling inside him, perhaps he had.

Envy sighed when the last of its slinky black outfit lay on the floor, stretching as though this was the first time in years it had known the pleasure of free air against its skin. Its body was far too perfect to be human; there were no flaws, no scars or birthmarks, not even a freckle, just alabaster all over except for its eyes and hair. Yet its unnatural perfection was no less attractive for that. The fact that its coloring reminded Alphonse of a cross between some fierce, jungle beast and death itself did absolutely nothing to detract from his desire for it.

It lifted his hand and bit playfully at the fingers, taking one leather digit between its soft lips and sucking. It worried gently at the leather like a semi-tame wolf-cub, licking between nibbles until Al was trembling again. It seemed to love using its teeth, and the armored boy was glad of his inhuman state. It couldn’t truly hurt him like this.

He stroked its tongue softly with a finger, marveling at the feel of it, pliable but strong. Envy “hmmmed” encouragingly, suckling the leather harder and biting down, scraping with his teeth. Alphonse was possessed of a sudden devastating need to make the undead creature cry out, moan out loud, preferably for him. He wasn’t sure how to go about this, but touching it somewhere he had never dared touch anyone seemed like a good start. He tugged his hand free, wrapped it around the homunculus’s waist, and moved the other hand between the Sin’s legs. Envy snarled, arching and throwing its head back, teeth sharp in the lamplight. It was such a gorgeous, animal reaction that Alphonse groaned at the sight. He moved his hand, stroking roughly, and Envy was panting and bucking against him deliciously, pale skin scraping against gray steel, creating friction where before there had been none. Equivalent Exchange, Al thought hazily. He made the homunculus feel good, and it made him feel good in return.

When it grazed a knee against his loincloth and the metal “skin” beneath, Al gasped and on pure, brutish instinct shoved it to the floor, pinning it with his hands and the full weight of his steel body above them. It gawked at him, its eyes wide and almost frightened, and something inside the gentle young man snapped. He shoved a spiked knee between its thighs and forced them apart; he wanted to HURT it, make it bleed, make it scream, like it had hurt and made to bleed and made to scream all those people it had killed. And at the same time he wanted to caress it, make it feel, make it burn with desire like he burned now. Hurt it and pleasure it, pleasure himself; he wanted, needed this, and his need transformed into substance.

He wasn’t sure where the loincloth went, and he didn’t give a damn. Envy’s violet eyes were huge, the elliptical, dragon-like pupils dilated almost to perfect circles, giving them the illusion of human shape. Al ignored the pang of guilt that stark, almost panicky face induced in him. He grabbed it by the backs of its knees, his large hands nearly going all the way around its legs, and shoved up and back, spreading the inhuman creature open, making it vulnerable. Envy twisted in his grip, its breath coming hard and fast, fighting him and what he wanted to do. He did it anyway.

It screamed just like he wanted it to when he rammed in the blunt, rounded spike his need had produced from the groin-guard of his armor. The unintentional alchemy made the red light of the Stone pulse, but it did not steal a significant amount of the Stone’s energy, relying on Al’s own for the most part. He did not notice this, nor did he care, too wrapped up in the intense sensations being inside another body gave him. Envy was shuddering, a grimace locked into its countenance, sounds of pain escaping from between its clenched teeth. Alphonse petted its front and sides, a belated attempt to soothe it after his barbaric actions. Its breath hitched beautifully when he touched its sex again, so he did it more as his hips rocked forward of their own accord. And oh, OH, that was better than anything he’d ever imagined, that tight, clenching heat around him, and he couldn’t help thrusting harder. He heard the shape-shifter gasp and whine softly, saw it shivering in what had to be pain. He didn’t know how to make what he was doing hurt less, other than the gentle rubbing of his hands over the smaller being’s taut frame. Surprisingly, it appeared he didn’t have to do anything more than that, because Envy gradually began to move with him instead of trying to move away.

It grabbed his hand and guided it back to the place between its milky thighs, and Al obliged the wordless command, wrapping thick fingers around the homunculus and sliding his hand back and forth on its arousal. It writhed and licked its lips and wrapped its legs around his broad middle so it could better match his thrusts, and he knew his brutal movements would have been tearing it apart if it were human. It wasn’t, so although it bled, although it trembled, it moaned more in pleasure than in pain, and it did not ask him to stop. Quite the opposite, actually.

“More,” it growled, bucking into his next thrust. “Give me more!”

And in the interests of his own ecstasy, Alphonse could only obey. He pounded into that lithe body harder, faster, and if it had been anything less than what it was Al wouldn’t have dared, but it was Envy, and Envy wanted everything Al had to give him.

“Ah, AH, please,” it cried, and he hadn’t even known “please” was in its vocabulary, but the word made him groan and thrust even harder nonetheless.

It threw its arms around his armored neck, scraped monstrously sharp nails over his back, and Al all but screamed at the feel of it, so good, so bad, so perfect he had no words for it. He grabbed its wrists and pinned them to the floor, laying into the slender creature with all the strength he could summon, and at some point he must have done something very right, because the shriek that Envy loosed was definitely not of pain. He angled for that spot again, something from his days of reading biology books offering the label “prostate,” and he wondered at just how similar homunculi truly were to the humans they emulated.

He didn’t know when, he didn’t know how, but eventually all that sensation and all those sounds the Sin was making, god, just the sight of that beautiful, boy-shaped demon totally at his mercy, accumulated into one roiling mass of heat and energy. Alphonse heard himself crying out louder and louder until his voice emerged as a hoarse, full-throated shout, and then he was shuddering slowly back down to earth. Envy was right there with him, shaking and breathing so harshly it sounded suspiciously like sobbing.

It made a sound like “ngk” and flinched when Alphonse withdrew, the shaft of metal returning to its original state now that it was no longer needed. The armored youth petted its hair (damp with sweat, he noted; could homunculi even sweat?[3]) and just basked in the soft warmth that had settled into his metal “skin.”

It took a long while before Alphonse remembered where he was and how much trouble he was in, and he did feel horribly ashamed that he had succumbed to temptation when Edward was walking into a vile trap. But even now that “soul-sense” was still active; he could feel long-fingered hands caressing him in return, and Envy was smiling in a uniquely soft way in comparison to its repertoire of normal expressions. It looked content for once, even a little peaceful, lying there under him with its eyes half closed and its lips curled upward just slightly. Al felt a stirring of something almost affectionate, and though he quelled it with a quick self-reminder of just what he was dealing with, he could not entirely forget it just yet.

The shape-shifter rubbed his side with its foot, causing him to shiver. He was still sensitive after the act, and the knowledge that he could be that sensitive was pure bliss. He shook off the lingering pleasure and took stock of the damage he had caused. Envy’s blood had made a small pool beneath it, though the stream had already ceased due to the homunculus’s incredible healing powers. Bruises, scrapes, all the signs of Al’s unfettered passion were slowly fading, though many would be there for a while yet. The marks were almost a stamp of ownership, and Al sighed contentedly and slipped his arms under the Sin’s back and held it for little while.

When he next looked it in the eyes, its mouth stretched into a perfectly hideous grin. It coiled its arms around his neck again—and shifted.

Alphonse gasped in horror and tried to let go, but the wicked thing would not let him. Golden eyes locked gleefully with his, and it tossed golden hair, still sweat-dampened and disheveled, out of its face, now sun-kissed rather than ashen. Its arms and legs, two flesh, two automail, held Alphonse fast, and “Edward” laughed right in his face.

“Did you like it, little brother?” it said in Edward’s voice, yet with a vicious edge Ed’s tone never held.

Al let out a sob and pried it off him, not an easy task when it was so strong. He flung it away from him; it flipped and landed gracefully in its own body, throwing its head back and howling like it had just made the funniest joke in the world.

“You stupid little bastard!” it chortled. “Oh god, that was too good! I don’t even know how you managed that look on your face, but it’s gonna keep me laughing for years!”

Violated, knowing he’d be sick if he could, Alphonse scrambled to his feet and made a run for it. A violent kick to his back sent him off balance and into the unforgiving floor, and Envy crouched hear his head, grinning like the maniac it was.

“Holy shit, if I’d known it was going to be that good, I’d have done this a long time ago,” it claimed, toying with Al’s “feather” just like it had the first time. “Not only are you a decent fuck—and take that as a compliment kid; you’re fourteen measly years old—but you overreact right on cue! Ahhh, the last time I had this much fun with anyone[4]…well, never you mind.” It chuckled and patted him on the helmet. “You’re a riot. Let’s do this again sometime, hm?”

Al was just glad he had no real eyes, because he could stifle his whimpers, but he doubted he could have stopped his tears. How could anything in the world exist that was as cruel as this being?

It cleaned itself with the sheet from the bed nearby, dressed, and left him alone. He cursed the tiny part of himself that was sorry to see it go. For a moment, he had thought it just wanted him, not wanted to hurt him. But Envy did not know how not to hurt someone, because all it had been created to do was hate.

If I never become human again, he begged the silence around him, Then at least never let me become like that.

He was a soul without a body. Envy was a body without a soul. Many had died so Alphonse could live. Because Envy lived, many had died. In some ways, that made them similar. Not the same, but perhaps close enough. Alphonse prayed the lines never merged, because the day that happened…was the day he truly lost it all.

“Brother,” he whispered. “Don’t die because of me. And don’t die because of them.”

The silence did not answer.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The end, people!

[1] The armor Al wears is supposedly of Xingese (or Xingian, if the fans prefer) origin, according to the manga. You blink and you’ll miss that reference.
[2] In the anime, Al “feels” Lust touch his blood seal, as indicated by the way he gasps when she does it. Also, (in an episode with the chimeras who follow Greed) while Alphonse can’t actually feel Martel (a chimera woman in both manga and anime) when she’s inside the armor, he still seems able to “sense” her in there. Or maybe it’s just that he knows she’s there, and the thought is what grosses him out.
[3] Both Lust and Greed sweat after ralphing up their red stones in the show, so why the hell wouldn’t Envy sweat a little during sex?
[4] I’ll give you three guesses who the freak is talking about here, and the first two don’t count. n_~

All other details that seem “off” to you are my artistic license in action. Fack off. XD

Please remember to review (NO FLAMES); it feeds my brain and lets me churn out more awful PWP (along with the occasional good fic) like this one!