Wreckage

The flames had shredded him to pieces, but he had only felt his life taken once. Wresting himself from the burning remains of the car moments before the petrol tank exploded in full, King grasped what few sooty possessions he had, his pistol, his shotgun, and the charred remnants of a suit on his back, and once the procession further up the hill had finished, he simply crawled away. He didn't know why or where to. Just that he didn't want to be in that car, with that woman, or even with any form of Drachman. He hoped that Vanity had presumed him dead.

The scalding burns long-since finished, but King's dignity was still dwindling as he scurried through the streets blackened and all but naked. Gunfire blazed and explosions racked Central's foundations; this place was so familiar yet so distant. A pinnacle of his and Jack's childhood; slowly he crawled into the dilapidated remains of a building's fallen shell, and spent a few days near-comatose as his body and mind simultaneously reformatted. Bitter August nights and the day's sweltering heat were of no consequence to Gluttony. The day after the battle had finished, he hoisted clothes from a wayward washing line, and, despite their not exactly suiting his tastes, he pulled them on all the same, gritted his teeth, and, as he had many a time before, just did his best to bear it.

But his statement had been made. That bitch Alena had hung him out to dry, even unknowingly, and King was faulting her for every ounce of razor-sharp pain shredding its way through his heart and body. Fuck her, fuck her lover, and fuck the rest of them. They could all rot in hell. Part of the grey-haired homunculus just wanted to curl up, shut the world out, and slowly die. But seeing as he had another thirty or so lifetimes ahead of him... that was going to be a rather long-winded process.

Fingers danced along the edge of the Automag as, on this particular day, he sat upon a bed in a filthy motel room on the edge of Central with only a pack of cigarettes, a blackened Zippo, some stolen clothes, his two guns and a wad of stolen Cen bills to his name. He'd been in Amestris almost a week now; and as was King's nature, he survived, as he had always done, and as he always would. It was part of his programming, his innate configuration, just to roll with the punches; his stomach gurgled every half-hour, even the man himself surprised at how hungry defection and falsifying his death was making him, but he presumed it was just the nerves. Hot-dogs and beer did wonders to remedy that.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, King didn't really have a lot of choice. Drachma was off-limits; and he was probably still a fugitive in Amestris, so staying around for too long was a very bad idea. Getting back to Gelemorté - more importantly, crossing the Amestrian border this soon after the war had finished - was going to be just as difficult. But there was one idea above all else that had taken precedent time and time again. Defection.

The people of Amestris were sore and seething; RIOTE had once more undermined them and forced them out of their city, and almost crippled their allies. King's knowledge was worth its weight in gold, and then a touch more; they were all the chips he had on the table at the moment. And with every day going past, his animosity for Alena, Drachma, and RIOTE altogether grew stronger and stronger, his enmity and apparent hatred swelling like an angry crimson blister. The only reservation King had was a realistic and analytical one; if an enemy of the state of King's level rolled up on the Chancellor's doorstep and rapped his knuckles on the door announcing that he had information to share, there was a high chance he'd end up in shackles or at the bottom of a river somewhere.

So for now, there wasn't much to do but try and at least stay as subtle and quiet as possible. No credit cards, no phone calls, no identity, no fights, and no police. He thought back to that Security character a few weeks ago; that had been risking it enough on Jack's suggestion of an outing to the Central Tech Exposé, and shit had really hit the fan there. Now that Drachman military and RIOTE members were more wanted than ever in a state of post-war, the jig was well and truly up. King was even trying to cover his face going a few hundred metres down the road to buy food and alcohol; paranoia's cold, clammy grip had taken him once more.

Looking to the door, he ran a pair of calloused fingers against black-grey stubble and sighed, murmuring in his native Cerisian. "Fuck it," Thirty seconds later, the door was locked, a pair of cheap aviators propped upon the bridge of his nose, the veritable hand cannon tucked stealthily into his waistband, cigarettes and lighter in his back pocket, and the last of his cash making a gentle, thin, creased wad in his hand, King made swiftly for the reception and before long was out onto the street, sighing as he paused for a moment, propped himself up against a grey, graffiti-scored wall, and stopped to light up another one of his flattened and slightly bent cigarettes, musing on just how much he wished for a large bottle of Calish whiskey and the ability to just forget the world for a day.

Amestris was a placed that Vlad rarely visited. He had gone once or twice with his mother when she had a film on location. But as of yet, it was not a placed he normally explored. He had planned on visiting it, but it was the RIOTE invasion of Central that really spurred him forward. The rest of the country, with the exception of Fort Briggs, had been left relatively alone during the latest war. Central had been destroyed for the umpteenth time and Vlad decided that this lull, however short, would be the best time to visit. He expected that Central would still hold marvels, despite its destruction. Besides, then he could see the new South City and a variety of other things. So the plan had been made. Luckily, he had been traveling around the desert during the war and did not have the issue of explaining why a Drachman citizen was coming from Drachma to Amestris. Besides, his Amestrian was pretty decent. It was big words that he couldn't get down, but then he could easily switch to Cretan. BUT. He was getting off his focus. He had gotten into Amestris from the desert side with no issue, saying that he had arrived to help with the clean-up of Central. It hadn't been an easy walk over the border, but he had been let through.

He arrived on the outskirts of Central about a week after the war was over. The area he was in seemed relatively undamaged, but he could see open air ahead of him, where he was sure that tall buildings had once stood. The August day was warm and his big, green coat was tucked between himself and rucksack. He was quiet, choosing to forgo his humming. This was a city that was broken and it was struggling to get itself back up. He didn't really want to seem overly cheerful. He paused in what he assumed was a quiet street, looking around. Central had been destroyed a lot in its history; it still managed to pick itself back up. He leaned to one side, murmuring to himself. “I have given a name to my pain, and it is Batman.”* The Joker was right... sort of. More like “Central has given a name to its pain, and it is RIOTE.” But hey, the Joker clearly did not know anything about Central or RIOTE. But the concept was obviously the same.

The streets here were barren of people; he assumed the majority of the people were either not yet home from the evacuation or they were off rebuilding... or doing whatever they needed to do. As he was walking on the street he noticed someone else emerge on a side street. Something tickled at Vlad's memory, but he chose to ignore it. As the man came closer he did nod his head and off a small smile. He called out, “Hello” but kept his distance, as he wasn't sure if this person was feeling friendly. But it would be awfully nice to have someone to chat with.



*The Joker, Batman

“Hello," King knocked his head upwards to see someone addressing him in a light, strange accent. Similar height, orange-brown hair, tinted glasses, fluffy green coat... and a backpack. Seemed about mid-twenties, a few years younger than the homunculus. Smiling, he lowered the cigarette and exhaled gently, trying to place the accent.

"Morning," A mixture of heavy Drachman and Gelemortian tones clung to his words with affection, not making any signs that they'd let go. Ah, what he'd give to be able to speak without the former. Even a pang of bitterness flushed through him for knowing the language. For a moment, King peered up into the sky through the lenses of his aviators and rubbed his nose gently. The sun was out. "Nice day,"

His knowledge of Amestrian was broken at best. And he hadn't used the language properly in coming on six months; basic tourist phrases and a stoic mixture of "umm" and "err" coupled with complex hand motions had really gotten him along just fine thus far, but since bailing out of the burning wreckage of the limousine, he'd not had a proper conversation in coming on a week. "My Amestrian... not so good today," Commenting, he felt himself already sound like a burly Moscovian, wincing beneath the shades and chuckling lightly as he rose the cigarette to take another drag.

Brushing back over memories in his mind and running a hand through unnaturally grey hair, he looked up to the sky and exhaled, the smog rising from his mouth in white tendrils, dancing and swirling around each other as they slowly moved upwards to the sky. He felt the weight of the Automag at the back of his waistband, and then a pang of guilt and stupidity, acting like some lower-class gangster with his skills and his methods. It was pitiful at best.

Calloused fingers slowly clenched as he thought back to Alena, self-fabricated images flickering before his eyes of her laughing, spitting in his face as she danced away with Aurel. Aching within he bitterly puffed out the last of the mouthful of smoke, and rose the cigarette again, ignoring Vlad for a few moments as he allowed himself some time to wallow in despair. King had seen what RIOTE could do. If they knew he was still alive... he could have just signed his own death warrant.

In reality, she'd been his only anchor to the organisation, his only reason for sticking in Drachma. She'd offered him the job, he'd taken it, and he'd gotten infatuated. But even if she'd not seen his advances, continually playful as she'd been, with all the welcoming embraces and the kisses she could have laced with deadly poison... the clenched, balled-up fist began to tremble. She could have killed him long before Aurel turned him into a homunculus. Hell, part of him wished she had.

"You speak Rouenian, kid?" He still couldn't place the kid's earlier accent, so from here on out, it was hit and miss. "Or... Drachman?" Especially in a place like this at a time like this, he wasn't really going to edge particularly towards Drachman, but he was going delirious from the lack of human contact he'd had over the past few days, and the kid seemed personable enough.

Regardless, he took a last, silky drag from the remainder of the grotesque, horrid-tasting imitation of the cigarette and stubbed it out immediately with a sharp flick of his wrist down to the sidewalk, awaiting an answer. He scanned the kid once more up and down; no immediate threat, though that coat of his would be good for concealing weapons. Approaching him slowly and holding out his hand, he spoke once more, remembering his defiant days in Lior giving the nuns in charge of the orphanage a hard time every day of the week.

And so he uttered that trademark phrase which made or broke every encounter. Despite the circumstances, a sly smile slipped onto the grey-haired man's face as he rose a free hand to remove his aviators and look across towards Vlad. How would the mystery boy take it, he wondered? Just a nickname, yes, but some people were bitter about addressing others with titles of superiority. "King" was just about as superior as you can get. Hell, that's why King and Jack had always been so amusing. The convenience of it all, playing the big brother, King of the castle...

Regardless, that coy, action-hero smile upon his face ready and waiting, he spoke. Despite the maelstrom of hate within for Vanity and any of her affiliates... he could still be personable enough to impress bystanders and have a talk with them. King knew it was time to take advantage of the little things he still had in life. Why? "Call me King." Because King knew that once RIOTE found him, they'd take them away, one by one, as slowly as they could, and break him down into nothing.

"Morning. Nice day." So this gentleman was feeling chatty! That was a good sign. Vlad could tell right away that Amestrian was not this man's first language. Maybe not even his second or third. "My Amestrian... not so good today." Not so good ever, most likely. Which meant he definitely wasn't from Amestrian originally. So that was kind of cool. He just hoped there wouldn't have to be any awkward language moments. “Tarzan. Tar-zan.” “Tarzan. Oh, I see!” “Oh, I see!”* And so on and so forth. Vlad managed a small smile as the quote flew past his mind. Yeah, he really didn't want to play Tarzan and Jane today.

“Vous parlez Rouenian, gamin?” Well... shoot. There might have to be a language game after all. He recognized the language as Rouenian, but had NO idea what he was saying. But he could guess he was asking him if he spoke Rouenian, as the word had appeared in the sentence. Vlad managed a rueful smile, shaking his head. “Or... Drachman?” Vlad brightened up a little, nodding his head. Sweet! A common language! And Vlad's best one, to be sure. Double bonus. The man seemed wary of the language and Vlad could surely understand why. Drachma and RIOTE (although they were practically one and the same these days) had just torn through Amestris... again. He planned on using Amestrian while here, but he also didn't want to miss out on a good conversation.

The man had started to approach Vlad and he closed the distance, clasping the man's hand with his own in a handshake. “Call me King.” Vlad nodded and smiled. “Vladmir. Nice to meet you.” Something about the man was still niggling at Vlad's mind, but he couldn't place it. It was right there on the tip of his tongue, but it decided to allude him a little further. “What brings you here?”



*Tarzan & Jane, Tarzan

“Vladmir. Nice to meet you.” The guy had a firm handshake. King took the last of a draw from his cigarette and flicked it away, letting it spiral out of control on the sidewalk and swiftly extinguish itself, propping up his aviators and slowly exhaling the last of the thick, white smoke. “What brings you here?”

King smirked and responded as quickly as he could. "Trust me, nothing you'd be interested in," That was a blatant lie, unless the guy had been living under a series of rocks in the Ishvallan desert for a few years. The war was on the tip of everyone's tongue at the moment, but the fact that he was an ex-terrorist and possible defector wasn't something he was going to bring up in conversation.

The homunculus began to muse for a moment. Why was he here? He was here, in that particular spot, because he wanted to be. He was in this part of Amestris because he had nowhere else to go. He was still in Amestris with such a volatile status and collection of luggage because his brother hadn't come to pick him up yet. But in reality, he had only come to the country in the first place for a singular reason. A singular reason that he'd forsaken and left behind as fire lifted his flesh from his form as he sat in the car and burned. Alena.

He would never had come to Amestris if he'd never had joined RIOTE or the Drachman military at her whim. He would never have become her puppet and toyboy if she hadn't twisted him around her finger with that bodyguard job. A bodyguard job he never would have taken if it wasn't for his brother. In a way, every last step he made, every trip he took, every goddamn walk down the street... they could all be traced back to Jack. Without the fast, smooth-talking bastard at the helm of it all, comatose or not, these past ten years would have been VERY different. And he wouldn't have changed his efforts or movements for all the money, women, or power in the world.

Nothing meant more to him than his brother, the man he'd lost to alchemy all those years ago. And now that Alena had hung him out to dry with that bastard Aurelius and left him with no real occupation, even if it was his choice, his jaded prior views of the world had been shattered and he'd seen that as much trouble as his brother did get him into, King had silent apologies to make. That he'd ignored him and left him to his own devices to go off and play terrorist in Drachma. That he hadn't been there for every step of the recovery. The bar dragged in enough money. The job as Left Rook was purely an exotic breath of fresh air - and, to the homunculus' subconscious, a chance to get with the woman he'd thought to be of his dreams.

That was when he knew that he'd be on the next flight to Gelemorté as soon as he could get in contact with Jack. God, the kid was agitating at the best of times, but he was just as much his brother. King had to play protector. It was his job. And whilst he'd been the big brother so far, it seemed it was time to stop being so goddamn stubborn, hand that mantle over to his sibling, even for a fleeting moment, and let Jack drag him out of the shit for the first time since he'd woken up.

Because that was the only way he was getting out of Amestris. "You?"

"Trust me, nothing you'd be interested in.” Vlad was a naturally curious person, but obviously King didn't want to talk about it. Which was entirely his own decision. So Vlad shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “Fair enough.” Vlad felt a kind of awkward pause as King seemed to get lost in his own mind. The fact that he was wearing sunglasses made it more difficult for Vlad to catch his expression. But even the curl of his lips suggested that King wasn't here on a pleasure trip. Then again, Vlad doubted many people came to a war-torn country for pleasure. Just didn't seem like a very wise idea. As King mused his musings, Vlad pondered a little bit himself. Damn it all, but he looked SO familiar. He began to scope out the reaches of his mind. His Drachman seemed very good, so maybe it was Drachman born. Or at the least, he lived in Drachma. Maybe Vlad had seen him on the streets of Moscow when he went to visit Ivanka?

Behind his own sunglasses, Vlad's eyes widened a fraction. AH HA! Suddenly, it all made sense. This guy was... oh. Shit. This guy was the Sekretar's bodyguard. Mama had told him about the new bodyguard, last time they had talked. Well, he certainly didn't seem to be doing his guarding duties right now. He knew that Sekretar Alena was back in Drachma. So was he here for nefarious purposes? Vlad kind of doubted that, since he suspected King wouldn't be having idle chatter if he had some secret mission to complete. Either way, Vlad would have to be a little more careful. And he definitely wasn't going to let on he knew exactly who he was. That would end badly, obviously. It always did in the movies.

"You?" Vlad shrugged his shoulders again with a friendly smile. “I've never been to Central before. Thought I would come and see if I could lend a hand, putting it back together.” A little hard work never hurt anyone. A silly little melody began to roll around Vlad's head. “Whistle while you work!”* Vlad whistled the second part of the line offhandedly with a lopsided smile. “Is this your first time here?”



*Snow White, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

“I've never been to Central before. Thought I would come and see if I could lend a hand, putting it back together.” King nodded, smiling down to Vladmir. It was a noble notion. Though he'd come here for one exactly the opposite. On Alena's orders, they were bringing the city to its knees - rather than helping rebuild. Though considering King's change of heart... he found himself stubbornly indifferent.

"A nice place," King bobbed his head and looked up into the pale August sky, pondering another cigarette, but quickly shooting the idea down. Enough people knew him as a chain-smoker already. Vladmir didn't have to be added to that list; Gluttony was changing in more than just ideals. One urge he couldn't knock, however, became unfortunately rather present as the homunculus' stomach howled in an ugly gurgle, and ravenous hunger surged through him. "I'm starved..." He groaned. "What I'd give for a hot dog..." Mm... Amestrian hot-dogs...

“Is this your first time here?” Memories flickered back in front of the homunculus' deep emerald pools. The orphanage in Lior... many a time had the nuns taken the children on trips to Central, King still remembering it from those ancient days long-since archived as menial moments in the man's history. The city had seemed sprawling, huge, titanic, and intimidating... just absolutely massive. And that still rung true.

Then came another memory, flitting through and past like a scrap-book of photographs his mind had unintentionally snapped, he and Jack clutching comically large backpacks and rushing to the train station, letter from their grandmother clenched, creased as it was, in his hand as they dove through labyrinthine alleyways and barrelled down the sprawling streets trying desperately to make their way there on time. Good times. Times when it had just been him and Jack. No-one else.

King's brow furrowed and his eyes focused back on Vladmir as he smiled for once. "Yeah." He nodded vigorously, a little more life seemingly having flowed back into the man. "Know it almost as well as Moscow and Vaingloria." His two favourite places in the entire world... well, the former was out of the question. A pang of misery surged up from within as he realised; no more going to Olva's bakery, where the bread was fluffy and the pastry sweet. No more visiting Piotr in the harsh winters and drinking away his sorrows. No more conversing idly with Damyan, the butcher, and his little ten-year-old daughter, as he picked up the meat for a particularly large meal at Alena's estate. As much as he hated the woman now, he realised that he would miss her; and he would miss everything, all the opportunities, all the moments, all the memories fastened steady and carved for eternity in the halls of his mind that had come along with it. It was a lifetime ago now; a lifetime squandered, and alas, it was now out of the homunculus' reach. He could do naught but stand and reminisce.

And not even that, he realised, Vladmir still very much there. A sweeping look from side to side. He grimaced and his stomach gurgled loudly once more. "Apparently not good enough..." Smiling back at the traveller in the coat, hopefully not quite as clueless as he was, he posed another question. "You see any fast food joints or hot dog stands on your way up here?" King jerked a thumb towards his stomach. "I dunno about you, but I'm hungry."

A smile as he looked upwards once more and waited for a reply. Hunger, he guessed, came with the territory. After all, that was all he had to show for his life so far. A snarky brother who'd been comatose for eleven years, and a heart that didn't beat in the form of a little red gem coming pre-packaged with a single title. Gluttony.

It was a slow kind of day--the kind of day where you just want to stare off into space for a while. Disconnected. Lost. Lethargic. There was nothing but grey skies and a dash of humid rain. Too lazy for a CD or iPod, the radio sufficed, choosing a dull rock beat by Temple of the Dog. Hunger Strike was a mulling kind of song, sending Jack's mind into a drawl of empty space. The tires of the rental car turned, bright blue eyes far in the distance where the lights happened to turn all green, unfazing his descent into a reverie. "I'm goin' hungryyyyy..." his voice escaped into the still wind breathing by. The rental was an old Porsche they had lying in back. White. Not his style. Still, he wanted nothing but the best make to drive. Through the settling dust of war, the car clunked over cracks in the freeway, roaring into the horizon. The GPS on the dashboard was a simple machine--took him a couple minutes to take it apart and put it back together. He could have made it out of parts from the junkyard if he had known how it functioned beforehand, but that hadn't been the case. Fifty-six seventy-nine plus tax and their joint bank account was a blonde in Vegas, griping for cash.

Cash. It was why King kept vanishing across seas. It was why Jack was behind the wheel of a rental car in Central City, Amestris. It was why Jack was going 35 over the speed limit. And why Jack tracked King's cellphone. Drachma his fucking ass. The silver-haired bastard either lied or was dragged off to another country without informing him. Not like he cared, but it would be nice if his source of income wasn't a corpse being taken across boarders by some maniacal criminal. He needed his brother. As much as he hated a reason for needing something, it was inevitable now. King saved his life. Not his life--he had been living, but...saved his consciousness from fucking la la land. Hardly could call that living by his standards. Still... The facts stood as they were. King was his brother who sacrificed his humanity to save him. Living as a bartender and a bodyguard in Drachma, King wasn't one to vanish off to Amestris without a phone call of any sort. Not only that, but he hadn't heard from the homunculus idiot in far too long to keep his cool. There was something off. If it was nothing, good. He'd take the repercussions and happily attend a car show tomorrow in Rodenkirchen square at 5pm, but if it was... Honestly, Jack didn't know what the fuck he was doing. He was no body guard. He could track down pretty much anyone by wiring their cellphone signal into a GPS, but lifting a finger against someone? Ehhh... He got in a fist fight...once? It kinda hurt. That was really all he remembered of it. So it if it came down to that, he had the cops on speed dial. The police were still 110, yeah? He hoped. Or he was fucked.

Progress was still progress. His left arm was fashioned out of a new innovative technology he created on a whim. After spending the last few months glued to hacked information about various top-of-the-line automails, he came up with a conclusion of his own. Using cells that have devoured gold titanium alloy then died, leaving the metal compound behind, he constructed an under skeleton for an arm. Piecing together the layout of a typical human nerve and vein system, he built on that a type of skin of processed cells much like human skin. Yeah, it was a little weird, but the end result was a high-tech arm capable of much more than the typical human arm. Best of all, it was disguised and indistinguishable. If he found King alive (hopefully) he'd be curious to see if he noticed. 'Oh hey, your arm grew back?' Not quite. He smiled to himself, turning his head against the picked up breeze as he sped up. Orange hair spilled over his face, getting caught in the corner of his lips and through his eyelashes. Shaking it away, he slowed to a stop.

If he couldn't find parking on the damn city streets with everyone moving back home after the war, he'd park in a doughnut store parking lot, dammit. No one would have anything to say about it if he bought a Cretan Cream and called it a day. Springing in through the door, the cacophony of the bell drove him out of his thoughts and to the counter. He pointed, payed, left, and found himself on the sidewalks, holding his phone in one hand and motioning towards the direction it told him to go with another. That way, really? It looked like it was taking him right into the side of that burned building resembling the Leaning Tower of Pizza Pisa. He took a large bite of the doughnut, swallowing it like a pig, and moaning like a child. Why did he have to walk so far? Screw parking.

Two blocks later landed him right in the zone of King's cellphone. "fh sfksa sjkdfh djfhfwe, eiw fhw jsdfhka." Yep, found him. Damn, he was still alive. Jack dug his hands into his pockets and slunk over with a thin smile on his face.

"Hey." Wave.

Vladmir nodded at King with a friendly smile. So he knew Central pretty well... or at least he hoped so. He had mentioned Moscow, which Vlad knew very well, and Vaingloria... which Vlad knew not at all. But clearly he wouldn't name some cities in reference to the fact that he didn't know them. He was kind of giving off a weird impression... King kept falling into these musings. It was kind of strange. First he said that it was his first time in Central, but then that he knew it. Vlad wasn't going to dwell on the strange facts. Primarily, it was King's last comment... that Vlad understood. King was HUNGRY. Vlad would appreciate some food himself. But he shrugged, giving King a puzzled look. “Sadly, no. I would suspect if we move more towards the main part of the city, we might find a little something.”

Vlad was going to suggest that they continue on together so he could learn more about this Drachman important man hiding out in Central. Not that he'd let on anything of course. But Vlad could NOT help his curiosity now. It was going to be nice... making a new friend. Maybe. Too bad the blonde man moving towards them seemed to want to... change that. Vladmir was kind of confused, especially when a language he didn't know came out of the man's mouth. It must have been a greeting, since a wave accompanied it. He was SURE he didn't know him. Therefore, King must've known him. Vlad stood for a moment, trying to decide how to handle this. “Ten oughta do it, don't you think?” … “You think we need one more?” … “You think we need one more.” … “All right, we'll get one more.”* Well played, Danny Ocean. Go with the flow. Vlad gave a small, polite wave in return. “King, I think he's here to see you. Not me.”


*Danny (and Rusty), Ocean's Eleven

King ignored the archaic Porsche pulling up behind him for the most part, flashing it an idle glance, wondering what a wreck that old was doing cruising around Central. It wasn't til he turned back to Vladmir that he heard the voice. “King, I think he's here to see you. Not me.” Single word, single syllable, and the only voice he'd wanted to hear for some time. "Hey." The voice of Jackyll Gauner Krow. His brother.

"Yeah," King murmured, spinning around and staring through the wound-down window of the rental car. "He's here for me." Perhaps Murphy's law had been the only law pertaining to him for the past couple of weeks, but his luck had struck gold just when he'd needed it to. And for once, it was Jack riding along on a metal steed - as much of a rustbucket as it was - to come along and save the day, playing taxi. King supposed they were around even, now. Jack had come from Gelemorté to Amestris, he'd held the blonde's soul inside his gut for eight months.

Eh. Even enough.

"How did you..." King stopped himself. "Wait. I don't want to know. And even if it isn't a total violation of my privacy, then the techy talk will probably confuse the living fuck out of me anyway." The grey-haired homunculus grinned down towards his blonde little brother and shook his head. "I can't believe this..." Gluttony sighed. "It's good to see you, ya' beautiful little bastard."

Suddenly, he remembered Vladmir's presence like a lingering thought in the back of his mind. Shit. What colour of rude was he coming off as? "Vladmir, this my brother, Jack," His Amestrian was still painfully broken, the smell of last night's stale booze not helping to give it any more flow than a river of tar. "He is very good brother who has... come to pick me up," God, he sounded like a Soviet criminal. For a moment, he switched back to Drachman. "I... he surprised me." King explained flatly.

Slowly, he turned back to Jack and pushed his aviators proper onto his face with that trademark grin that King always flashed. "You got some sweet music in that little rustbucket?" The homunculus had never been a Porsche man. Always had more of a penchant for muscle cars over sports cars; though the old 911 was a sexy piece of kit, undoubtedly. With a grin, the man finally turned back to Vladmir; he'd been stuck between the two of them for too long, and he ached for the leather seat of a car and some good old rock music. "Vlad, it was a pleasure to meetcha," King extended his hand, waiting for the man to shake before he finally skirted around the back of the car, sidled into the front, waving as he tucked himself down and slumped backwards with a grin.

"Y'know, Jack," King grinned, slowly removing the aviators and folding them back in onto themselves. "I used to think that I was the guardian, the one picking up all the pieces..." The homunculus whistled, looking from side-to-side with a grin. "...I dunno." His gaze focused on his brother proper as he rose his hand for the greatest sibling high-five of the month. "I guess this means you get a shot at the title too, eh?"

With a smile, he gestured to the next left turning. "Lead the way, Batman. Gotta go grab some of my stuff at the motel before we bounce." King sighed. "I'm happy to see you, Jack, but... we've got a lot of shit to talk about."

The opposing stranger raised his hand in a reflective greeting of his own; however, that wave had not been intended for him. Shrug. Whatever. People made miscalculations all the time...just he didn't. Jack looked on at the fellow orange-haired man, though his own color was much more saturated than the man's. Too much sun maybe? He'd spent, you know, only about 1/3 of his life unconscious indoors and the other 2/3 working on calibrations for a new concoction of his own invention. It made sense. In the long run. Kinda. Or he just had his asshole of a father's hair and it just so happened to be a bit brighter than it should be. He wouldn't know; he'd never seen his fucking father. Speaking of look-a-likes though, King didn't resemble him in the slightest, with his silvery old man hair that was all too similar to their runaway mother's. He did look happy to see him though, surprisingly. He'd half expected to be eaten alive by the gluttonous monster that was he elusive bodyguard of a brother for coming all the way to Amestris on their slimming monetary supply. Whoops.

"How did you..." he began.

"Well, it was simple. I just had to rec--"

"Wait." Damn it all. "I don't want to know. And even if it isn't a total violation of my privacy, then the techy talk will probably confuse the living fuck out of me anyway." His brother knew him too well. It was almost sickening. Jack made a face in response, crossing his arms over his broad chest in violation of his superb explanation he had been practicing on his way over. Too bad it's never be heard. So disheartening. And "It's good to see you, ya' beautiful little bastard" didn't help.

"...Beautiful? Did you just...?" Nothing more creative? Beautiful was something you'd call a woman in a gown adorned with red lipstick, hours with a curling iron, and make up so thick their face was lost. Not his definition, mind you. But King must be so damn thrilled to resort to language of that kind. In turn, he got a weird look from his younger brother and a question that trailed off into the netherworld. Sorry, can't finish it. Too embarrassing. It'd be better to forget those words were ever exchanged. But what the fuck happened to extort such a verbal flaw in his hardass brother who was usually nitpicking something instead of being glad to see him. Jack was worried now.

"Vladmir, this my brother, Jack." He winced. Amestrian through the blender? Made a terrible smoothie. He forgot his worry and traded it with a look directed at the stranger now known to him as Vladmir, a name so foreign its supreme greatness coincided with the band. He was surrounded...by fail.

"Name's Jackyll Krow. Call me Jack." He extended a hand with a friendly smile that lacked heart. What? He didn't know this guy and this guy didn't know him. He didn't owe him anything so why fake it? Acquaintance of his brother? So what. He had no obligations. Best get to know someone before you start throwing real smiles around.

"He is very good brother who has... come to pick me up." Wait. What? He came to pick him up? Not exactly. Blue eyes narrowed intensely at King, trying to gauge if it was just a vocabulary misuse or a wrong assumption. More like he was here to see if his brother was alive maybe? That was somewhat important if not really important. Especially considering he himself wasn't making any money of any kind. He was a leech. And he hated being a leech. Therefore, he played along.

"Sweet ride for a rental car, wouldn't you say? Let's scram before another war decides to wreck some countries."

"You got some sweet music in that little rustbucket?"

"Always." Except there was no rust in sight, so calling it that was terribly inaccurate and bridging on brutal. He gave King a look describing this feeling and took the final bite of his Cretan cream doughnut, licking his fingers. More Drachman gibberish was exchanged and King shook what's his name's hand and that was the end of that. Okay then. King headed off in the direction of the car and helped himself to getting inside. Jack stood there for a second with a sheepish smile. Bastard was looking for a way out this entire time. Well, it was alright with him. He turned mid-walk and gave a curt wave at the receding man. This time it was intended for him. "Nice meeting you." Common courtesy. Made him sick sometimes, but right now it made him feel a little better about his manners. Plus, the spiky, blue sunglasses guy wasn't intentionally disrupting his rescue mission; he was just kinda there. Wasn't his fault. Jack got in the driver's seat and started the already heated car, blasting the AC like it was nobody's business.

"Y'know, Jack..."

"Probably."

"I used to think that I was the guardian, the one picking up all the pieces..." WHAT FUCKING PIECES?! Just because he could find him King just assumed he knew everything? He couldn't read his damn mind. Jackyll stared at the raised high five before slowly returning it with hesitation. "I guess this means you get a shot at the title too, eh?"

"No way in hell I'd ever want to be called King."

"Lead the way, Batman. Gotta go grab some of my stuff at the motel before we bounce." ...

"Okay, two things wrong. First of all how can I lead the way without knowing where your motel is? Second, Batman, what?"

"I'm happy to see you, Jack, but... we've got a lot of shit to talk about."

"Yes, I've gathered that."

Vladmir was right to make the assumption that the blonde-haired man was there to see King. King decided to switch to his poor Amestrian to introduce the man as his brother. Wow... yeah. They didn't really LOOK like siblings. But he doubted King would lie about blood. After all, Ivanka and Vladmir were brothers and they looked nothing alike. Not really, anyway. But they were only half-brothers. Vlad broke away from his musing to realize that the brothers were talking in... Gelemortian? He had heard the language once or twice in a couple films, but he could honestly say he knew nothing of the language.

Apparently they had come to some sort of agreement because King and his brother Jack were making very quick farewells. Vladmir called out, “See yah around!” The two guys had already moved on and were gone from the moment. Talk about strange. He'd been talking to King for all of ten minutes. Apparently hunger and new friends were forgotten when brother arrived? Whatever. Vladmir didn't really feel affronted. He turned his feet towards downtown Central, ready to see what he could do to lend a hand. There were always new friends to make, after all! He allowed himself a silly grin. “Let's turn on the juice and see what shakes loose.”*




*Betelguese, Beetle Juice