The Lady Who Leads, the Lady Who Follows [Fullmetal Alchemist, Kimblee: muscle]
Title: The Lady Who Leads, the Lady Who Follows
Author: seta_suzume
Words: 1,943
Theme: Table 2, #5 muscle
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: FMA doesn't belong to me~ I will put back the toys when I'm done!
Author's comment: As with most of my 10_switched stories, to some extent this story riffs on another (non-gender-bent) fic of mine about Kimblee. In this case, The Sleep of Reason (but is hopefully interesting without knowledge of that).
A blond woman approached the table set just outside the dance floor beside the water cooler where Sol sat in a folding chair, taking a break after several particularly quick and tiring songs. She wore a red dress, that peeked out from underneath her unassuming tan trench coat like a concealed weapon. She wore red heels too that matched.
She reached out and plucked a fresh paper cup off the stack and a pen off the table along with it. That she still wore her coat was a sign she hadn't danced yet, but she as already thirsty, or getting a cup ready in advance. Sol watched as she wrote in a simple but elegant hand: "Irene."
Their eyes met- Sol's pale and gold-ish in the gleaming dancehall light, Irene's deep and green. Irene smiled and shook off her coat, hanging it over the back of the closest chair unoccupied by either a resting dancer or one's personal items. She left her white gloves on. "Have we met before?"
"I've seen you here, but we've never been introduced."
"I have to apologize," Irene shook her head, setting her wavy corn-colored locks bouncing around her shoulders, "I don't recognize you at all, which is funny, considering how lovely you are."
"That's all right." She was fairly sure she liked Irene already. "I try to be somewhat unobtrusive. …And with so many offers to dance from men- not to mention the one that you usually come with- I imagine you hardly have time to spare looking at the women who come here."
"No," Irene shook her head again, a soft, amiable gesture, "I really think I should have noticed you."
She held out one white glove to shake and Sol grasped and shook it with her usual professional care. "Sol J. Kimblee."
"Irene Lovelace."
The tattoos were still new on her hands. She noticed Irene noticing. "…You didn't bring your man along tonight. …Or did you tire of him? Time to trade up?" He was spry, Sol had seen, but older than Irene by a good decade or so.
A tiny, bell-like laugh, the sort that had it come less suddenly Sol would have thought was forced and pre-rehearsed, issued from Irene's red, bright lips. "Oh, that's fun! But not quite the truth of the matter. That's my husband, you know. He's sick at home, but he was adamant, 'Irene, don't let me spoil your fun.'"
"He's not the jealous type."
"Oh," she waved a flippant hand, "Roger knows I only have eyes for him."
Sol took that to mean she didn't. Irene Lovelace knew how to handle her husband well enough. Sol wondered a bit how far Irene would go when she came dancing alone. "The two of you dance well together though. I've seen."
"Yes," Irene agreed, "Roger has always been quite the dancer. I think he learned to impress women. He's much better at dancing with them than speaking to them."
"A man who can't talk to women isn't usually any better at talking to men about anything that matters," Sol offered for Irene's consideration and comment.
"He's a surgeon; a State Alchemist. I have my doubts that any of them are much good at talking."
She should have known in South City that there would be no other Roger Lovelace. Dr. Roger Lovelace. The Cold-Cutting Alchemist. He was the only State Alchemist currently stationed in South City, if the old newsletter Mr. Shephard had given her remained reasonably up-to-date.
"Of course, I've barely met you and I've already come to believe that you are an elegant smith of words, and you're an alchemist yourself, so-" Irene smiled, leaning down slightly to meet Sol's gaze eye-to-eye.
"Maybe female alchemists are different."
"Maybe you could show me."
It was tantalizing, and a very clear invitation. Irene stepped back gracefully as Sol rose and offered her hand again, but in a different manner than before. An invitation not to shake, but to dance. "Would you care to take a spin? I would be honored to dance with such an accomplished partner."
Irene accepted her hand, and, tacitly, her offer. "I'd be happy to make your day, Sol. I hope that you know how to lead with your body as well as you do with your tongue."
Sol led Irene away from the table and out to the dance floor. "I'll be happy to demonstrate, Irene."
It wasn't as if women never danced with other women at this particular establishment (when Sol brought her younger sister, more than anyone else, Lana usually danced with her), and even men occasionally danced with other men (but never the men in uniform), but these weren't any two women kicking up their heels to the rollicking live swing. Irene and Sol were flashy, were regulars, were resplendent in crimson red and silken white, with blond and black hair blending in the air, all skill and spunk and daring.
For all that she enjoyed the freewheeling feeling of being spun through the air and the power that she felt at allowing a man to think he had that level of control over her, Sol had always ultimately preferred to lead. It was the role she had taken when she and her sister were young and teaching themselves to dance on the back patio when their father wasn't home; it was the position that better suited her subtly domineering personality. If only it had come across better, she would have been just as happy to lead men as women. She would lead men in other ways someday. And what was dancing but practice, a lead-in, for negotiation, for sex, for life?
It was, however, for many of the same reasons that Irene allowed Sol to lead, just as she allowed her husband and all the other men she danced with to. Always holding something back, letting herself be viewed as society wished her to be. Irene wasn't the sort to openly assert herself, not when she could slide her influence in secretly and silently like the roots of a weed breaking through cement.
Sol dipped her so low that her long hair brushed the floor. "I like alchemists," she said.
"For all that you think is wrong with them?" Sol chuckled.
"I never said that I liked things that were good or right for me."
"I like you, Irene Lovelace," her dance partner answered back. She was strong, fascinating, certainly more worth her time than the majority of the men she rendezvoused with here.
The band paused just a moment to catch their breath before launching into the next rollicking tune. "Shall we go another?" Irene suggested.
"I'd love to."
With a good hour and a half of dancing behind her before Irene's arrival, Sol could feel the slightest ache in her muscles, but it wasn't a bad feeling and she was more breathless from the looks that Irene shot her with her clever eyes and sultry lips than the movement of her feet on the wooden floor. Irene wasn't the slip of a girl that many of the women she'd danced with were, but, light as she was on her feet, those curves did nothing to dampen the flow of their movement, serving only to make their performance more beautiful to those looking on.
That they were the loveliest pair on the floor could hardly be contested, Sol thought. Irene responded easily to the slightest pressure of Sol's hand on hers and kept her balance and poise no matter how she was spun.
She was aware of the eyes upon them for that first dance and then the greater number of eyes on them for the second…and then the third…and then, finally, by the fourth, this wonder of style and talent and beauty was accepted as a new and fabulous normality. There were many who hoped this would not end as their single opportunity to have seen it.
"I believe I am ready for some water," Irene concluded then.
For all her bravado, Sol was the weaker one. Did Irene want to stop for her own sake, or for Sol's? She would remain stoic and not inquire. "Yes," she agreed, bemoaning her lack of endurance only internally, "That would be nice." Like a gentleman, she kept Irene's gloved hand on her arm as she walked her off the floor. Irene took a seat in the chair she had hung with her coat and Sol handled filling up cups for both of them.
Sol was impressed. Even the way that Irene sipped her water was lady-like. Compared to Irene, there was nothing of the gentlewoman about her at all. She had never actively desired to be anything but female, but occasionally she thought she might have been better at the social game of being a man.
The tiny butterfly of lipstick Irene left over the rim of her cup was lovely. Enticing. The paler pink of Sol's lipgloss on her own hardly held such charm- of course, she hadn't come that night intending on any gambits or seductions. This time, it appeared, someone with those sort of ends in mind had found her.
"How long have you studied alchemy?"
"Since I was a girl. I was never able to kick my studies into high gear until I moved out of my parents' home though. It was difficult to convince them."
"Well, more power to you," Irene seemed to approve of this. "Mine were similarly interested in hanging onto me until I married."
"Fathers can be…difficult," Sol laughed, remembering her father in his capacity as a man who supposed far more power over his household full of women than he ever truly claimed.
"Mothers can be…tricky," Irene answered.
They laughed, two sets of white, glimmering teeth dancing about behind pretty color-stained lips.
"And the alchemy you favor, would you tell me about it? What sort of thing do you study? Is it something you hope to take one day before the state in search of a rank and a name?"
"You live with an alchemist- you should know that we like our secrets, Irene," Sol teased, tasting the name and finding that she liked it. "But the gist of it I'm happy enough to give. I am…a connoisseur of explosions. Of blasting things to bits. Maybe you could call me a demolitionist," she said it all with a touch of barely bridled pride, "And I have an appointment already to go up to Central and test for the privilege of joining the ranks of those employed by the state."
"…You've practiced this art of yours out here in South City? And this is the first that I've heard of it? My," Irene held a hand before her lips, "You must have been discrete."
"I conduct myself, in all matters, with the utmost professionalism," Sol bowed her head. As a detective, as an alchemist, as an artist. Manners and methods were important things.
"Do you engage in any…freelance at this point? Or, since you'll be headed up to Central so soon, where you'll surely succeed in your goal, have I asked too late?"
It was interesting that she would ask. What need did Irene Lovelace have of a woman of her talents? How could Sol resist, her curiosity having been thus piqued? "No, it's not too late. I'm available all the way until I hop on that train to leave."
"Then how would you feel about going somewhere more private to talk?" Irene proposed.
"I would love to," Sol agreed. And if things were not to be professional, perhaps they would do something more than talk. "Let me help you with your coat."
Author: seta_suzume
Words: 1,943
Theme: Table 2, #5 muscle
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: FMA doesn't belong to me~ I will put back the toys when I'm done!
Author's comment: As with most of my 10_switched stories, to some extent this story riffs on another (non-gender-bent) fic of mine about Kimblee. In this case, The Sleep of Reason (but is hopefully interesting without knowledge of that).
A blond woman approached the table set just outside the dance floor beside the water cooler where Sol sat in a folding chair, taking a break after several particularly quick and tiring songs. She wore a red dress, that peeked out from underneath her unassuming tan trench coat like a concealed weapon. She wore red heels too that matched.
She reached out and plucked a fresh paper cup off the stack and a pen off the table along with it. That she still wore her coat was a sign she hadn't danced yet, but she as already thirsty, or getting a cup ready in advance. Sol watched as she wrote in a simple but elegant hand: "Irene."
Their eyes met- Sol's pale and gold-ish in the gleaming dancehall light, Irene's deep and green. Irene smiled and shook off her coat, hanging it over the back of the closest chair unoccupied by either a resting dancer or one's personal items. She left her white gloves on. "Have we met before?"
"I've seen you here, but we've never been introduced."
"I have to apologize," Irene shook her head, setting her wavy corn-colored locks bouncing around her shoulders, "I don't recognize you at all, which is funny, considering how lovely you are."
"That's all right." She was fairly sure she liked Irene already. "I try to be somewhat unobtrusive. …And with so many offers to dance from men- not to mention the one that you usually come with- I imagine you hardly have time to spare looking at the women who come here."
"No," Irene shook her head again, a soft, amiable gesture, "I really think I should have noticed you."
She held out one white glove to shake and Sol grasped and shook it with her usual professional care. "Sol J. Kimblee."
"Irene Lovelace."
The tattoos were still new on her hands. She noticed Irene noticing. "…You didn't bring your man along tonight. …Or did you tire of him? Time to trade up?" He was spry, Sol had seen, but older than Irene by a good decade or so.
A tiny, bell-like laugh, the sort that had it come less suddenly Sol would have thought was forced and pre-rehearsed, issued from Irene's red, bright lips. "Oh, that's fun! But not quite the truth of the matter. That's my husband, you know. He's sick at home, but he was adamant, 'Irene, don't let me spoil your fun.'"
"He's not the jealous type."
"Oh," she waved a flippant hand, "Roger knows I only have eyes for him."
Sol took that to mean she didn't. Irene Lovelace knew how to handle her husband well enough. Sol wondered a bit how far Irene would go when she came dancing alone. "The two of you dance well together though. I've seen."
"Yes," Irene agreed, "Roger has always been quite the dancer. I think he learned to impress women. He's much better at dancing with them than speaking to them."
"A man who can't talk to women isn't usually any better at talking to men about anything that matters," Sol offered for Irene's consideration and comment.
"He's a surgeon; a State Alchemist. I have my doubts that any of them are much good at talking."
She should have known in South City that there would be no other Roger Lovelace. Dr. Roger Lovelace. The Cold-Cutting Alchemist. He was the only State Alchemist currently stationed in South City, if the old newsletter Mr. Shephard had given her remained reasonably up-to-date.
"Of course, I've barely met you and I've already come to believe that you are an elegant smith of words, and you're an alchemist yourself, so-" Irene smiled, leaning down slightly to meet Sol's gaze eye-to-eye.
"Maybe female alchemists are different."
"Maybe you could show me."
It was tantalizing, and a very clear invitation. Irene stepped back gracefully as Sol rose and offered her hand again, but in a different manner than before. An invitation not to shake, but to dance. "Would you care to take a spin? I would be honored to dance with such an accomplished partner."
Irene accepted her hand, and, tacitly, her offer. "I'd be happy to make your day, Sol. I hope that you know how to lead with your body as well as you do with your tongue."
Sol led Irene away from the table and out to the dance floor. "I'll be happy to demonstrate, Irene."
It wasn't as if women never danced with other women at this particular establishment (when Sol brought her younger sister, more than anyone else, Lana usually danced with her), and even men occasionally danced with other men (but never the men in uniform), but these weren't any two women kicking up their heels to the rollicking live swing. Irene and Sol were flashy, were regulars, were resplendent in crimson red and silken white, with blond and black hair blending in the air, all skill and spunk and daring.
For all that she enjoyed the freewheeling feeling of being spun through the air and the power that she felt at allowing a man to think he had that level of control over her, Sol had always ultimately preferred to lead. It was the role she had taken when she and her sister were young and teaching themselves to dance on the back patio when their father wasn't home; it was the position that better suited her subtly domineering personality. If only it had come across better, she would have been just as happy to lead men as women. She would lead men in other ways someday. And what was dancing but practice, a lead-in, for negotiation, for sex, for life?
It was, however, for many of the same reasons that Irene allowed Sol to lead, just as she allowed her husband and all the other men she danced with to. Always holding something back, letting herself be viewed as society wished her to be. Irene wasn't the sort to openly assert herself, not when she could slide her influence in secretly and silently like the roots of a weed breaking through cement.
Sol dipped her so low that her long hair brushed the floor. "I like alchemists," she said.
"For all that you think is wrong with them?" Sol chuckled.
"I never said that I liked things that were good or right for me."
"I like you, Irene Lovelace," her dance partner answered back. She was strong, fascinating, certainly more worth her time than the majority of the men she rendezvoused with here.
The band paused just a moment to catch their breath before launching into the next rollicking tune. "Shall we go another?" Irene suggested.
"I'd love to."
With a good hour and a half of dancing behind her before Irene's arrival, Sol could feel the slightest ache in her muscles, but it wasn't a bad feeling and she was more breathless from the looks that Irene shot her with her clever eyes and sultry lips than the movement of her feet on the wooden floor. Irene wasn't the slip of a girl that many of the women she'd danced with were, but, light as she was on her feet, those curves did nothing to dampen the flow of their movement, serving only to make their performance more beautiful to those looking on.
That they were the loveliest pair on the floor could hardly be contested, Sol thought. Irene responded easily to the slightest pressure of Sol's hand on hers and kept her balance and poise no matter how she was spun.
She was aware of the eyes upon them for that first dance and then the greater number of eyes on them for the second…and then the third…and then, finally, by the fourth, this wonder of style and talent and beauty was accepted as a new and fabulous normality. There were many who hoped this would not end as their single opportunity to have seen it.
"I believe I am ready for some water," Irene concluded then.
For all her bravado, Sol was the weaker one. Did Irene want to stop for her own sake, or for Sol's? She would remain stoic and not inquire. "Yes," she agreed, bemoaning her lack of endurance only internally, "That would be nice." Like a gentleman, she kept Irene's gloved hand on her arm as she walked her off the floor. Irene took a seat in the chair she had hung with her coat and Sol handled filling up cups for both of them.
Sol was impressed. Even the way that Irene sipped her water was lady-like. Compared to Irene, there was nothing of the gentlewoman about her at all. She had never actively desired to be anything but female, but occasionally she thought she might have been better at the social game of being a man.
The tiny butterfly of lipstick Irene left over the rim of her cup was lovely. Enticing. The paler pink of Sol's lipgloss on her own hardly held such charm- of course, she hadn't come that night intending on any gambits or seductions. This time, it appeared, someone with those sort of ends in mind had found her.
"How long have you studied alchemy?"
"Since I was a girl. I was never able to kick my studies into high gear until I moved out of my parents' home though. It was difficult to convince them."
"Well, more power to you," Irene seemed to approve of this. "Mine were similarly interested in hanging onto me until I married."
"Fathers can be…difficult," Sol laughed, remembering her father in his capacity as a man who supposed far more power over his household full of women than he ever truly claimed.
"Mothers can be…tricky," Irene answered.
They laughed, two sets of white, glimmering teeth dancing about behind pretty color-stained lips.
"And the alchemy you favor, would you tell me about it? What sort of thing do you study? Is it something you hope to take one day before the state in search of a rank and a name?"
"You live with an alchemist- you should know that we like our secrets, Irene," Sol teased, tasting the name and finding that she liked it. "But the gist of it I'm happy enough to give. I am…a connoisseur of explosions. Of blasting things to bits. Maybe you could call me a demolitionist," she said it all with a touch of barely bridled pride, "And I have an appointment already to go up to Central and test for the privilege of joining the ranks of those employed by the state."
"…You've practiced this art of yours out here in South City? And this is the first that I've heard of it? My," Irene held a hand before her lips, "You must have been discrete."
"I conduct myself, in all matters, with the utmost professionalism," Sol bowed her head. As a detective, as an alchemist, as an artist. Manners and methods were important things.
"Do you engage in any…freelance at this point? Or, since you'll be headed up to Central so soon, where you'll surely succeed in your goal, have I asked too late?"
It was interesting that she would ask. What need did Irene Lovelace have of a woman of her talents? How could Sol resist, her curiosity having been thus piqued? "No, it's not too late. I'm available all the way until I hop on that train to leave."
"Then how would you feel about going somewhere more private to talk?" Irene proposed.
"I would love to," Sol agreed. And if things were not to be professional, perhaps they would do something more than talk. "Let me help you with your coat."