[Nov. 13] [Fullmetal Alchemist] The Light of the Moon is the Light of the Sun
Title: The Light of the Moon is the Light of the Sun
Day/Theme: Nov. 13, 2010 "The desert is in the heart of your brother"
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character/Pairing: Kimblee & his brother, various associates
Rating: PG
Kimblee was not exactly a favorite of his coworkers at Shephard Electric. First of all, there was the fact that he was the only person (ostensibly) employed at the shop who both possessed absolutely no training as an electrician and had no interest in gaining any. Second, he was the only alchemist at the shop these days other than Shephard himself and among the other young men there was general suspicion of the activities of the imagined alchemist clique of South City. Third, Kimblee, while exceedingly well mannered around the shop, was an outsider who made no attempt at becoming part of the gang. He had come to South City from some country town (Fern-something) to study with Shephard on the recommendation of his last alchemy instructor. He turned down every invitation from Jim (who was something of an unofficial leader for the current crop of employees) or the others to split the cost of take-out or to go drinking or even to sit during their lunch break and talk about girls. He was a stone cold loner. In Jim's opinion, a guy who didn't try to superficially fit in had a swelled head.
So, whenever anything of a relaxed or comradely nature went on around the shop, this made Kimblee the odd man out. His mismatched ways as opposed to the rest of the group was even shown in the way they spoke to him. Mr. Shephard, the boss, was the only other man at the shop addressed by his last, not his first, name. Of course, Kimblee didn't consider this an insult and, possibly, not even a sign of a lack of intimacy. He liked being called "Kimblee" and reacted unfavorably to anyone who spoke his given name aloud. "Please, "Kimblee" is fine," they had heard him assure regular customers so many times. And because they did not care for his attitude, even this came to seem somewhat snooty.
Because he never stuck around to participate in their extracurricular activities, it was rare that any member of the Shephard Electric gang saw Kimblee after closing time. He didn't stick around the shop to complete any overtime work because finishing his alchemy projects did not rely on actually being in the workshop and utilizing its tools. If he had something he wanted to continue picking at, he rolled up his papers and took it home. This tendency to clean things up and split made his actions on this particular night stand out as especially odd.
Charles, sorting through the key ring in the process of locking up the shop for the night stopped Jim on his way out the door. "Who's got their light on in the back? I thought Davy went home already."
"I'm pretty sure he did. You saw him, right, Tom?" The three remaining part-timers conferred, confirming the departure of the two other members of their group.
"Then, that must be..." The trio came simultaneously to Charles' voiced conclusion, leaning their heads back into the depths of the workshop, eager to see if the last man in the store could really, truly be the man they thought it was (it would be more likely for Shephard to have suddenly turned up again, entering through the backdoor, to take advantage of the quiet afforded by the "Closed" sign in the window).
There he was, his uncovered head dipped low over the pieces spread out on the desk in front of him. The yellow light of the work lamp cast a cozy glow over his intent expression and a bright sheen against his long, dark hair. They were giving no special attention to maintaining silence in the workplace, but he seemed unaware or unconcerned with their presence. Whatever task was occupying his hands and mind was too engrossing to turn aside.
It was fascinating. It was the first time any of them had ever looked at Kimblee and seen him as one of them. His sleeves were rolled up over his elbows and he'd tossed on a grease-stained apron over his pristine shirt and vest ensemble. He was picking at some sort of bit of machinery with the tiniest tools in the kit. It was too difficult to tell in this light and at this distance what it was that he was fixing, but just the idea of it...Kimblee doing technical work for an actual customer! And after their regular hours were long over!
"Would it be rude to talk to him about it?" Charles mused, putting his question to the combined vote of his two colleagues.
"I dunno..." Jim analyzed the situation, "If it were me, I'd say, "Go for it." I mean, I can always regain my concentration. But this is Kimblee. He's kind of fussy."
"And then there's always that 'don't mess with a good thing' idea, right?" Tom chimed in. They barely even glanced at each other throughout the discussion. Kimblee's busy hands were too intriguing.
The three young men were still standing around mumbling like that when a gentle rapping on the glass alerted them to the presence of someone waiting immediately outside the storefront. "Wha- uh, Jim, what should we do?" sputtered Tom, the most junior member of the shop staff. It was rare for anyone to show up to the store unannounced after hours. Occasionally there were pre-arranged pick-ups for busy clients, but they were listed on the schedule calendar by the door. Today the book was blank. And if Shephard had returned for some reason, as he did from time to time, he had a key (and he tended to favor coming in through the back).
"I'll peek," Jim called upon his calm, authoritative nature and seniority to handle the situation.
Through the murky frosted glass, Jim (and Tom and Charles peering out from behind him) spied a wide-eyed man who looked to be roughly the same age as Tom. His dark, messy hair was at odds with his neat style of dress. He clasped a tan fedora tightly between his hands and a black umbrella dangled over his left arm. The mix of mild colors that marked each piece of his ensemble gave the casually clad electricians the impression that he was something of a dandy. "I've never seen him before today," Jim announced.
"So, are we going to let him in? You think he's a customer, or just some fop who got lost on his way somewhere more suited to his type?"
"If he's lost, we can always send him on his way," Charles suggested. "If that's the case, he was probably attracted here because we're the only ones with lights left on on the whole strip."
"I can't imagine he could be much trouble," Jim smirked as he reached for the doorknob, "But there are three of us, so if any trouble starts up, I better be right in thinking you guys've got my back."
"Now I wanna see him try something," Tom snickered.
"You wouldn't say that if you'd ever been clocked by Jim," Charles laughed, bitterly rubbing his jaw in reminiscence of brawls long past.
"Shut up, you morons," was the first thing the guest to Shephard Electric heard as Jim opened the door to him. His hazel brown eyes only widened further in curiosity. If he had been a regular customer, he would not have found this sort of welcome so unexpected.
"Ahem," Jim cleared his throat and smiled. Tom and Charles followed his example, although their looks were considerably more sheepish than that worn by their coworker. "Sorry 'bout that. And, uh, well, sorry, but we're closed, buddy, so if there's something you need, you're going to have to come back tomorrow, unless it's like an emergency where you need a car battery jumped or some such."
"No, no, I'm not a customer," the visitor spoke. His voice was well matched to his looks: gentle, but slightly nervous. Jim found himself thinking that his joke referring to troublemakers and con artists might not be entirely off track. Why was it that this non-customer was so intently focused on the work area behind him? Was he scoping out the place for a robbery? There was nothing to see but Kimblee crouched over a table. Sure, it was an unusual sight, but you had to spend time around here to know that.
"Then what's your business at Shephard Electric, stranger?"
Back in the workshop, a stool scraped loudly against the cold floor. Jim instinctively turned to look. It was Kimblee getting up. The visitor's expression began to alter, warming into a satisfied smile. "I'm here to meet my-" he began to say.
"This is my brother," Kimblee spoke over him, his voice stronger and more commanding of attention. Jim, Charles, and Tom split the focus of their surprise between the brothers.
Kimblee's brother let out an undignified little laugh. "Lon T. Kimblee. Pleased to meet you."
"Kimblee, you have a brother?" Tom asked, letting his jaw hang slightly open after the end of the question. The unspoken followup, "How come none of us ever knew that?" hung silently in the air.
"Indeed," their colleague assured them. Their awkward enthusiasm over the matter left him unfazed. He answered his brother's amused glee with a quirk of his lips that somehow passed for a smile. "Is there something especially interesting about this? I assume some of you have siblings of your own."
"W-well, we just never knew- I mean, I figured you were all alone out here in South City," Charles stuttered, "I never pegged you as the older- you are the older one, right?- brother type."
"It's not like this is exactly what I would've guessed your brother would look like either," Jim agreed, managing to speak his mind more clearly than his friend. At Kimblee's approach, Lon had passed between his brother's coworkers. Now, side-by-side, Jim, Charles, and Tom received the perfect opportunity to visually appraise them.
"No," Tom shook his head, "You don't look alike."
Although Kimblee was throwing them off with the borrowed apron currently over his clothes, there was one consistency between the brothers aside from their dark hair. "You do kind of dress alike though," Charles observed. "Lon's, uh, just a bit more..." He trailed off as he struggled to choose a more neutral word than "flamboyant" and failed.
"Colorful," Kimblee finished for him. The sharp coolness in his eyes suggested he had some idea of what alternatives Charles had been debating and did he not approve of them.
"So, I guess now that we know both of you, it's going to be a bit confusing if we're calling you 'Kimblee,'" Jim addressed his coworker hopefully. Maybe this would be a chance for them to get to call him "Solf." Maybe now that they'd stumbled across a bit of humanity in Kimblee it would open up a path to befriending him, to him becoming an ordinary part of the gang.
"Please stick with Kimblee," the man in question answered in a way that would brook no disagreement.
"Solf asks everyone to call him 'Kimblee,'" Lon added. The statement was almost paradoxical in nature. Hearing that name fall so easily from his lips provoked smiles on the faces of the electricians. Apparently someone was allowed to call him that.
"We gotcha," Jim replied, giving a friendly tip of his head to Lon. It wasn't as if this was an in-depth opportunity to get to know him, but even the taste of Lon's nature that this little encounter provided them with was enough to show that he was remarkably different from his brother in character as well as looks. Could Jim simply clean things up in his mind by saying they were opposites? One friendly, one withdrawn. Someone had clearly gotten all the luck in that family.
"Anyway..." Lon gave Kimblee a sideways look, "It looks like you're rather involved in something. Are you sure you can go now? Because I was expecting that you'd be prepared to take off as soon as I showed up...actually, I thought you'd be alone here, but... Well, I can wait if you need some more time."
"It's fine. It's taking longer than I expected. I'll clean up." Kimblee wiped his hands on his apron (they didn't appear to be very dirty though and no visible stains were left behind) and turned back toward the table and whatever project he had been working on so intently.
This left the Shephard employees basically alone with Lon. They had been of one mind before, but now their thoughts had scattered like the wind. Tom pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. "Geez, it's kind of late. Have I really been stalled here this long? I've gotta go, you guys. My mom's gonna wonder what's been keeping me."
"Ah, get outta here, you mama's boy!" Jim ribbed him.
"Shut up, Jim," Tom laughed, lips curling back to reveal a crowded set of crooked, white teeth. He put his watch away and headed out into the dark.
"It was nice meeting you," Lon called after him in a soft enough voice as to be lost in the night air.
Jim and Charles exchanged an amused sort of look with one another behind his back. It was hard to say exactly what they made of Lon. And, ultimately, it was not as easy it had initially seemed to decipher what Lon meant to Kimblee. Kimblee had smiled for his brother, certainly, but it was a strange smile, and it wasn't as if he hadn't smiled many times in their presence before. The cold man had remained cold. The warm one had showed his warm. It was only by reflection that Kimblee seemed to project something more intimate than his practiced charm.
"Say, Lon, can we ask you a couple questions?" Jim put on his most winning expression, the one he always went for when he was trying to pick up girls.
"Uh, please. Go ahead," their guest offered, as accommodating as Kimblee was difficult.
"What's your brother like at home? Is he nice to you? Does he help with the housework? He's always a real drag around here. Does he ever talk about anything but alchemy? Does he bring home girls?"
"Ha ha," Lon laughed, trying to keep all the different inquiries in order in his mind. Would Solf really approve of his answering some of those questions?
"Don't hassle my brother," Kimblee called over his shoulder as he dropped the last of the tools he was using back into its place in the tool kit. His voice snuck up on them like a owl swooping out of the night. He flipped off the work lamp and the room went uncomfortably dark. "I don't appreciate it when people give my brother a hard time."
Jim took the reprimand in stride, but Charles laughed nervously under the pressure of Kimblee's bitter yellow gaze.
Really, Jim reflected, it might not be that Kimblee was concerned about any difficulty being created for his brother, but the troubles that his colleagues learning such things might cause for him. He held out a small hope that Lon might protest against his brother's words or continue to answer anyway, but he only gave a tight-lipped smile of compliance before letting the inquisition slide into the background.
It was time to try another tactic. Kimblee hung the apron back on its hook and put on his coat and fedora. He was going to leave now and there was a very good chance that this was the last opportunity Jim would ever have to learn a little of the truth about his coworker (he presumed there would never be any chance to learn a lot about him). There was nothing to be done but to jump in and grab at it. "You should bring your brother around here sometime, Kimblee," he said, acting casual, like he spoke to Kimblee this way all the time, "You know, so you're not having to worry about rushing off after work to get home to him. Anyone's brother is certainly invited to join us on our nights out."
"Err," Kimblee raised an eyebrow, looking truly uneasy for the first time in the exchange. Jim wondered what worried him about this. Did he think his brother was going to speak up and push the idea, pressuring him into having to act? It would be a good outcome, but Lon didn't give Jim the impression that he made many decisions that involved the two of them. There was a clear leader in this brotherly dynamic.
"Don't sweat it, Kimblee," Charles said. Although he disliked Kimblee, the same as the rest of the part-timers, he was the kindest one and the most likely to cut Kimblee some slack. It would be bad to make too big of a deal out of it.
"Ah, yes. I'll-" he glanced at Lon, "We'll think about it. Thank you for the offer." He looked from one to the other, "Jim, Charles," he addressed them in his usual uptight manner, "We'll be going now. Goodnight."
"It was nice to meet both of you too," Lon added.
Kimblee held the door, letting his brother pass out into the night ahead of him. It had started to drizzle and the nearest streetlight looked as far away as some heavenly satellite, reflecting its honey-colored glow in the shallow puddles that were growing in each dip in the road. Lon gave his new acquaintances one last, "Goodnight!" as he put on his hat and opened his umbrella, but as Charles and Jim stood in the open space between the counter and workroom, Kimblee turned back to give them a final message while parting. He did not say anything, but from the way his eyes cut into them, peering out from under the shadow of the brim of his fedora, he did not need to use words. Anything he said at that point would be superfluous.
The door closed firmly behind him. Slowly, summoning up the dregs of their courage, Jim and Charles faced one another. "If," Charles whispered, somehow feeling that it would be unwise to breathe the things he wanted to say any louder, "If we ever speak to his brother again, he'll kill us, won't he?"
"I was getting the same impression myself," Jim replied.
Day/Theme: Nov. 13, 2010 "The desert is in the heart of your brother"
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character/Pairing: Kimblee & his brother, various associates
Rating: PG
Kimblee was not exactly a favorite of his coworkers at Shephard Electric. First of all, there was the fact that he was the only person (ostensibly) employed at the shop who both possessed absolutely no training as an electrician and had no interest in gaining any. Second, he was the only alchemist at the shop these days other than Shephard himself and among the other young men there was general suspicion of the activities of the imagined alchemist clique of South City. Third, Kimblee, while exceedingly well mannered around the shop, was an outsider who made no attempt at becoming part of the gang. He had come to South City from some country town (Fern-something) to study with Shephard on the recommendation of his last alchemy instructor. He turned down every invitation from Jim (who was something of an unofficial leader for the current crop of employees) or the others to split the cost of take-out or to go drinking or even to sit during their lunch break and talk about girls. He was a stone cold loner. In Jim's opinion, a guy who didn't try to superficially fit in had a swelled head.
So, whenever anything of a relaxed or comradely nature went on around the shop, this made Kimblee the odd man out. His mismatched ways as opposed to the rest of the group was even shown in the way they spoke to him. Mr. Shephard, the boss, was the only other man at the shop addressed by his last, not his first, name. Of course, Kimblee didn't consider this an insult and, possibly, not even a sign of a lack of intimacy. He liked being called "Kimblee" and reacted unfavorably to anyone who spoke his given name aloud. "Please, "Kimblee" is fine," they had heard him assure regular customers so many times. And because they did not care for his attitude, even this came to seem somewhat snooty.
Because he never stuck around to participate in their extracurricular activities, it was rare that any member of the Shephard Electric gang saw Kimblee after closing time. He didn't stick around the shop to complete any overtime work because finishing his alchemy projects did not rely on actually being in the workshop and utilizing its tools. If he had something he wanted to continue picking at, he rolled up his papers and took it home. This tendency to clean things up and split made his actions on this particular night stand out as especially odd.
Charles, sorting through the key ring in the process of locking up the shop for the night stopped Jim on his way out the door. "Who's got their light on in the back? I thought Davy went home already."
"I'm pretty sure he did. You saw him, right, Tom?" The three remaining part-timers conferred, confirming the departure of the two other members of their group.
"Then, that must be..." The trio came simultaneously to Charles' voiced conclusion, leaning their heads back into the depths of the workshop, eager to see if the last man in the store could really, truly be the man they thought it was (it would be more likely for Shephard to have suddenly turned up again, entering through the backdoor, to take advantage of the quiet afforded by the "Closed" sign in the window).
There he was, his uncovered head dipped low over the pieces spread out on the desk in front of him. The yellow light of the work lamp cast a cozy glow over his intent expression and a bright sheen against his long, dark hair. They were giving no special attention to maintaining silence in the workplace, but he seemed unaware or unconcerned with their presence. Whatever task was occupying his hands and mind was too engrossing to turn aside.
It was fascinating. It was the first time any of them had ever looked at Kimblee and seen him as one of them. His sleeves were rolled up over his elbows and he'd tossed on a grease-stained apron over his pristine shirt and vest ensemble. He was picking at some sort of bit of machinery with the tiniest tools in the kit. It was too difficult to tell in this light and at this distance what it was that he was fixing, but just the idea of it...Kimblee doing technical work for an actual customer! And after their regular hours were long over!
"Would it be rude to talk to him about it?" Charles mused, putting his question to the combined vote of his two colleagues.
"I dunno..." Jim analyzed the situation, "If it were me, I'd say, "Go for it." I mean, I can always regain my concentration. But this is Kimblee. He's kind of fussy."
"And then there's always that 'don't mess with a good thing' idea, right?" Tom chimed in. They barely even glanced at each other throughout the discussion. Kimblee's busy hands were too intriguing.
The three young men were still standing around mumbling like that when a gentle rapping on the glass alerted them to the presence of someone waiting immediately outside the storefront. "Wha- uh, Jim, what should we do?" sputtered Tom, the most junior member of the shop staff. It was rare for anyone to show up to the store unannounced after hours. Occasionally there were pre-arranged pick-ups for busy clients, but they were listed on the schedule calendar by the door. Today the book was blank. And if Shephard had returned for some reason, as he did from time to time, he had a key (and he tended to favor coming in through the back).
"I'll peek," Jim called upon his calm, authoritative nature and seniority to handle the situation.
Through the murky frosted glass, Jim (and Tom and Charles peering out from behind him) spied a wide-eyed man who looked to be roughly the same age as Tom. His dark, messy hair was at odds with his neat style of dress. He clasped a tan fedora tightly between his hands and a black umbrella dangled over his left arm. The mix of mild colors that marked each piece of his ensemble gave the casually clad electricians the impression that he was something of a dandy. "I've never seen him before today," Jim announced.
"So, are we going to let him in? You think he's a customer, or just some fop who got lost on his way somewhere more suited to his type?"
"If he's lost, we can always send him on his way," Charles suggested. "If that's the case, he was probably attracted here because we're the only ones with lights left on on the whole strip."
"I can't imagine he could be much trouble," Jim smirked as he reached for the doorknob, "But there are three of us, so if any trouble starts up, I better be right in thinking you guys've got my back."
"Now I wanna see him try something," Tom snickered.
"You wouldn't say that if you'd ever been clocked by Jim," Charles laughed, bitterly rubbing his jaw in reminiscence of brawls long past.
"Shut up, you morons," was the first thing the guest to Shephard Electric heard as Jim opened the door to him. His hazel brown eyes only widened further in curiosity. If he had been a regular customer, he would not have found this sort of welcome so unexpected.
"Ahem," Jim cleared his throat and smiled. Tom and Charles followed his example, although their looks were considerably more sheepish than that worn by their coworker. "Sorry 'bout that. And, uh, well, sorry, but we're closed, buddy, so if there's something you need, you're going to have to come back tomorrow, unless it's like an emergency where you need a car battery jumped or some such."
"No, no, I'm not a customer," the visitor spoke. His voice was well matched to his looks: gentle, but slightly nervous. Jim found himself thinking that his joke referring to troublemakers and con artists might not be entirely off track. Why was it that this non-customer was so intently focused on the work area behind him? Was he scoping out the place for a robbery? There was nothing to see but Kimblee crouched over a table. Sure, it was an unusual sight, but you had to spend time around here to know that.
"Then what's your business at Shephard Electric, stranger?"
Back in the workshop, a stool scraped loudly against the cold floor. Jim instinctively turned to look. It was Kimblee getting up. The visitor's expression began to alter, warming into a satisfied smile. "I'm here to meet my-" he began to say.
"This is my brother," Kimblee spoke over him, his voice stronger and more commanding of attention. Jim, Charles, and Tom split the focus of their surprise between the brothers.
Kimblee's brother let out an undignified little laugh. "Lon T. Kimblee. Pleased to meet you."
"Kimblee, you have a brother?" Tom asked, letting his jaw hang slightly open after the end of the question. The unspoken followup, "How come none of us ever knew that?" hung silently in the air.
"Indeed," their colleague assured them. Their awkward enthusiasm over the matter left him unfazed. He answered his brother's amused glee with a quirk of his lips that somehow passed for a smile. "Is there something especially interesting about this? I assume some of you have siblings of your own."
"W-well, we just never knew- I mean, I figured you were all alone out here in South City," Charles stuttered, "I never pegged you as the older- you are the older one, right?- brother type."
"It's not like this is exactly what I would've guessed your brother would look like either," Jim agreed, managing to speak his mind more clearly than his friend. At Kimblee's approach, Lon had passed between his brother's coworkers. Now, side-by-side, Jim, Charles, and Tom received the perfect opportunity to visually appraise them.
"No," Tom shook his head, "You don't look alike."
Although Kimblee was throwing them off with the borrowed apron currently over his clothes, there was one consistency between the brothers aside from their dark hair. "You do kind of dress alike though," Charles observed. "Lon's, uh, just a bit more..." He trailed off as he struggled to choose a more neutral word than "flamboyant" and failed.
"Colorful," Kimblee finished for him. The sharp coolness in his eyes suggested he had some idea of what alternatives Charles had been debating and did he not approve of them.
"So, I guess now that we know both of you, it's going to be a bit confusing if we're calling you 'Kimblee,'" Jim addressed his coworker hopefully. Maybe this would be a chance for them to get to call him "Solf." Maybe now that they'd stumbled across a bit of humanity in Kimblee it would open up a path to befriending him, to him becoming an ordinary part of the gang.
"Please stick with Kimblee," the man in question answered in a way that would brook no disagreement.
"Solf asks everyone to call him 'Kimblee,'" Lon added. The statement was almost paradoxical in nature. Hearing that name fall so easily from his lips provoked smiles on the faces of the electricians. Apparently someone was allowed to call him that.
"We gotcha," Jim replied, giving a friendly tip of his head to Lon. It wasn't as if this was an in-depth opportunity to get to know him, but even the taste of Lon's nature that this little encounter provided them with was enough to show that he was remarkably different from his brother in character as well as looks. Could Jim simply clean things up in his mind by saying they were opposites? One friendly, one withdrawn. Someone had clearly gotten all the luck in that family.
"Anyway..." Lon gave Kimblee a sideways look, "It looks like you're rather involved in something. Are you sure you can go now? Because I was expecting that you'd be prepared to take off as soon as I showed up...actually, I thought you'd be alone here, but... Well, I can wait if you need some more time."
"It's fine. It's taking longer than I expected. I'll clean up." Kimblee wiped his hands on his apron (they didn't appear to be very dirty though and no visible stains were left behind) and turned back toward the table and whatever project he had been working on so intently.
This left the Shephard employees basically alone with Lon. They had been of one mind before, but now their thoughts had scattered like the wind. Tom pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. "Geez, it's kind of late. Have I really been stalled here this long? I've gotta go, you guys. My mom's gonna wonder what's been keeping me."
"Ah, get outta here, you mama's boy!" Jim ribbed him.
"Shut up, Jim," Tom laughed, lips curling back to reveal a crowded set of crooked, white teeth. He put his watch away and headed out into the dark.
"It was nice meeting you," Lon called after him in a soft enough voice as to be lost in the night air.
Jim and Charles exchanged an amused sort of look with one another behind his back. It was hard to say exactly what they made of Lon. And, ultimately, it was not as easy it had initially seemed to decipher what Lon meant to Kimblee. Kimblee had smiled for his brother, certainly, but it was a strange smile, and it wasn't as if he hadn't smiled many times in their presence before. The cold man had remained cold. The warm one had showed his warm. It was only by reflection that Kimblee seemed to project something more intimate than his practiced charm.
"Say, Lon, can we ask you a couple questions?" Jim put on his most winning expression, the one he always went for when he was trying to pick up girls.
"Uh, please. Go ahead," their guest offered, as accommodating as Kimblee was difficult.
"What's your brother like at home? Is he nice to you? Does he help with the housework? He's always a real drag around here. Does he ever talk about anything but alchemy? Does he bring home girls?"
"Ha ha," Lon laughed, trying to keep all the different inquiries in order in his mind. Would Solf really approve of his answering some of those questions?
"Don't hassle my brother," Kimblee called over his shoulder as he dropped the last of the tools he was using back into its place in the tool kit. His voice snuck up on them like a owl swooping out of the night. He flipped off the work lamp and the room went uncomfortably dark. "I don't appreciate it when people give my brother a hard time."
Jim took the reprimand in stride, but Charles laughed nervously under the pressure of Kimblee's bitter yellow gaze.
Really, Jim reflected, it might not be that Kimblee was concerned about any difficulty being created for his brother, but the troubles that his colleagues learning such things might cause for him. He held out a small hope that Lon might protest against his brother's words or continue to answer anyway, but he only gave a tight-lipped smile of compliance before letting the inquisition slide into the background.
It was time to try another tactic. Kimblee hung the apron back on its hook and put on his coat and fedora. He was going to leave now and there was a very good chance that this was the last opportunity Jim would ever have to learn a little of the truth about his coworker (he presumed there would never be any chance to learn a lot about him). There was nothing to be done but to jump in and grab at it. "You should bring your brother around here sometime, Kimblee," he said, acting casual, like he spoke to Kimblee this way all the time, "You know, so you're not having to worry about rushing off after work to get home to him. Anyone's brother is certainly invited to join us on our nights out."
"Err," Kimblee raised an eyebrow, looking truly uneasy for the first time in the exchange. Jim wondered what worried him about this. Did he think his brother was going to speak up and push the idea, pressuring him into having to act? It would be a good outcome, but Lon didn't give Jim the impression that he made many decisions that involved the two of them. There was a clear leader in this brotherly dynamic.
"Don't sweat it, Kimblee," Charles said. Although he disliked Kimblee, the same as the rest of the part-timers, he was the kindest one and the most likely to cut Kimblee some slack. It would be bad to make too big of a deal out of it.
"Ah, yes. I'll-" he glanced at Lon, "We'll think about it. Thank you for the offer." He looked from one to the other, "Jim, Charles," he addressed them in his usual uptight manner, "We'll be going now. Goodnight."
"It was nice to meet both of you too," Lon added.
Kimblee held the door, letting his brother pass out into the night ahead of him. It had started to drizzle and the nearest streetlight looked as far away as some heavenly satellite, reflecting its honey-colored glow in the shallow puddles that were growing in each dip in the road. Lon gave his new acquaintances one last, "Goodnight!" as he put on his hat and opened his umbrella, but as Charles and Jim stood in the open space between the counter and workroom, Kimblee turned back to give them a final message while parting. He did not say anything, but from the way his eyes cut into them, peering out from under the shadow of the brim of his fedora, he did not need to use words. Anything he said at that point would be superfluous.
The door closed firmly behind him. Slowly, summoning up the dregs of their courage, Jim and Charles faced one another. "If," Charles whispered, somehow feeling that it would be unwise to breathe the things he wanted to say any louder, "If we ever speak to his brother again, he'll kill us, won't he?"
"I was getting the same impression myself," Jim replied.