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When Kimblee was eight years old, the munitions factory by his parents’ house had exploded in a bright orange bang.
The memory hangs clear in his mind, a framed photograph he likes to revisit: silver plumes of smoke billowing into the air and a sky full of fireworks. And as Ilona Kimblee had barrelled through the roiling streets, charging blindly for cover and cradling her only son in her arms, she’d mistaken his wide-eyed reverence for fear.
Thirty years gone, and he’s never outgrown the taste of ash. Leaning against the hammered-straight railing on the overlook at Fort Briggs, Kimblee sucks hot nicotine into his mouth. It’s not his most gentlemanly habit, but cigarettes are about the only warm thing in this wretched fortress, where the soldiers huddle in their fur-lined coats even indoors. Delightfully familiar, the smoky taste rasps down his throat, settling deep inside his lungs.
Ishval had been hot as a blacksmith’s bellows, the heat carrying the taste of smoke and gunpowder and blood through a dull march beneath the beating sun. On humid days, the stench of death had been inescapable, suffocating the senses like a sandstorm. And although the desert nights were cold, it was easy to keep warm enough in the tents full of sleeping men, leaking heat into the crowded mass of bodies with their exhalations, their sweat. Their incandescence had crawled over Kimblee like a heavy blanket, and deep into the night, their listless mutterings and weeping nightmares had woven into a singular soothing lullaby, lulling him to sleep.
Kimblee had loved it.
By comparison, Fort Briggs is a frozen wasteland, a bleached landscape of snow and gunmetal and unbearable cold. Seldom does anything move out beyond the walls of the fort, and within, it’s a regimented march to General Armstrong’s routine, dogged obedience to her every order. As it should be.
He taps his gloved fingers on the railing just for something to listen to, some tune he'd heard long ago, before prison, before even Ishval, before he'd mattered at all.
“Kimblee!”
The voice that cuts through his reverie is low and disgruntled and easily recognisable as Major Miles, his unenthusiastic escort. The soldier appears on the overlook beside him, eyebrows drawn together in a deep scowl. “What are you doing out here?”
Kimblee should've thought it was obvious. He offers the pack of cigarettes to the major, who leans back as if the alchemist had tried to hand him a headless rat. “Want one?”
“It's dangerous out here,” Miles says, completely ignoring his offer. “There's a storm coming from the north. So I suggest you come back inside, unless you’d like to freeze to death.”
From what Kimblee can tell, Miles would quite happily watch him freeze to death. He’d probably bring beer and snacks. Despite the Fuhrer’s orders that the alchemist be treated with due deference, Miles’ scarlet eyes burn with an undisguised hatred whenever he looks upon him. Unlike the rest of the insignificant herd of faceless soldiers at Briggs, he doesn’t bother trying to mask his disdain.
Now, there's a fire to stoke.
“I’d thought that would be preferable to you,” Kimblee says, turning to face Miles and stubbing out his cigarette, now he's got something hotter to play with. “You don't seem to like me very much, Major.”
One step closer. Miles steps back.
“Like you or not, you're a guest here,” Miles replies, and Kimblee doesn't miss the way his mouth twists around the word guest, as if he's spitting out a broken tooth. “My personal feelings have no place in it.”
Always professional, always composed. Kimblee can respect that. But he’d gotten close to breaking it earlier, before General Raven had gone missing, before they'd been so impolitely interrupted, and Miles had bared his teeth and snapped at him to shut up!
He wants to see his fangs again, wants to feel them poised to tear out his throat.
“But they do,” Kimblee pushes and prods. “I think you hate me because of the extermination campaign, right?”
“That's enough,” the Major warns. Kimblee ignores him.
“I did my job, no more and no less. I didn't kill out of hatred, but I won't deny taking pride in my work." He meets Miles’ eyes and smiles, raising his palms in front of him in a mimicry of placation. Despite the fact he’s wearing his gloves, he swears he sees Miles swallow down a breath, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Oh, yes. Kimblee continues; “Does that bother you, Major? Tell me, do you hate the jaguar for hunting the rabbit? What is it you do here at Briggs, exactly?”
“It’s not comparable,” Miles snarls through gritted teeth, and Kimblee doesn’t miss his hands curling into fists. “Out here it’s kill or be killed. We don't do it for fun.”
It rings of a conversation Kimblee had a lifetime ago, in a desert in the east. “Then why don the uniform? Why, do you take no pride in your work? You were on active duty during the war, right? So tell me this - where were you?”
Six years in prison have left his reflexes shoddy and slow, because Miles is flying at him as swift as a falcon, and he's caught beneath his talons before he can pounce away. Two gloved hands fist in his coat lapels, and Kimblee is pressed back against the railing, his eyes meeting the opaque lenses of the major’s snow glasses.
That’s it.
The drop behind him is so steep that Kimblee can feel the call of the void, the itch within him to jump, icy fingers reaching up from the snow to clutch at him and pull him over. He shudders with something that is not quite fear as he envisions himself falling - or Miles pushing him - a blazing comet in the moment of his death, before he hits the ground and his neck snaps like a matchstick.
“Something I don't understand, Kimblee,” Miles’ speech is slow and controlled, yet burning like hot coals. “They say you're clever. Dangerously clever. But look where you are. So deep into the mountains, with a storm nearly upon us, do you think it would be hard to make your death look like an accident?” He leans in, and Kimblee can see his own eyes reflected in the goggles, see his own wide, white grin. “We lose dozens of men a year to the cold, men much better adapted than you. Survival of the fittest, Red Lotus.”
Oh. Kimblee sucks a breath in, savours the heat radiating from Miles’ body and the rage rocking his voice like a rowboat at sea despite his carefully chosen words. In a fort full of tin soldiers bowing to his orders with carefully masked hostility, this, this is something he can enjoy.
Maybe Ishvalan blood really does run hot, or maybe Miles is just hyper-aware of the fact he's threatening a superior officer, because despite the resolution in his icy voice, beads of moisture are forming on the brown skin of his neck.
Kimblee leans in and licks the sweat from his throat.
For a brief second, it's exquisite, salty and bitter and Miles’ pulse thrumming beneath his tongue, a hummingbird’s heart, chest rising as he gasps a sharp inhale- and then he's dropping Kimblee like the alchemist is on fire.
“What the- what the hell, Kimblee?” Miles all but throws himself backwards, a look of abject horror on his face and his hand twitching by his utility belt, just inches from his gun.
Kimblee straightens up, dusts off his coat. The bitterness tingles on his tongue as Miles’ warmth spreads down his nerves, fizzing along his synapses, until his whole body sparks with it. He shudders in delight at the intrusive warmth, tilting his head back as if to bask in the white, ethereal glow of the mountain sun.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Miles demands, scrubbing at his neck with a gloved hand. “Why did you do that?!”
Kimblee smiles beatifically at him.
“Because I wanted to,” he sees no reason to lie. He once again steps into the soldier’s space, where Miles’ back is against the wall, and places a hand over his chest, where it beats beneath his palm, hot and defiant and determined. Survival of the fittest, indeed.
Miles shoves his hand away, and Kimblee simply shrugs, turning to go back inside. He pauses in the doorway, but doesn’t bother glancing over his shoulder. He can feel Miles watching him, the intensity of his gaze practically burning through his coat.
“I'll be leaving my door unlocked until midnight,” Kimblee says. “You can stop by, if you’d like. You can demonstrate just how hot the blood of Ishval runs.”
And with his invitation hanging in the air, he lets the door slam behind him, leaving the soldier alone beneath the looming storm.