Leo: I'm doing this because I can X3 This poor pairing is sucking for air, and is in need of more attention. GreedxEnvy is actually my favorite FMA pairing.

Not so different

As it would seem, one was not particularly anchored to the notion of a single mistake, nor were they to a single sin. Humans, in general, could create complete worlds delved in sin. Of Lust. Of Pride. Of Wrath. Of Laziness. Of Envy. Of Greed. Humans were mortal, they knew no better, because they learned best from their own mistakes. Even the ones that cost the most. Like telling a child a hot coal will blister his tender hands should he touch them. It's not that the child does not belive, but more so he has a need to feel if for himself. To experience.

Humans explored the world of sin in this very manner. As a result, pain entered the picture along side the perfect paradise. Paralleling perfection with mishap and misfortune. Tainting a world that, before the dirty touch of vile hands, had been clean a pure, devoid of any true flaws.

Enter the story of Adam and Eve. A fictitious tale, in the eyes of Alchemists, to sway children from the idea of doing things that was considered un-holy. God said unto Adam and Eve, do not eat the forbidden friut. But a slithery creature, a solidified being of sin, convinced other wise. And curiosity peaked in the woman, and she bit into God's forbidden fruit, and bade her husband do as well. For thier vice they were punished. Such a familiar moral.

Alchemists...Scientists who believe that they could figure out the world. That they could decompose all matter and recontruct it with complete knowledge of it's workings. That they could play god. Toying with human life like a mold, that when left in the sun, would dry into a completed state. This, human transmutation in the scientific terminology, was also a forbidden fruit of Alchemy. Yes, like the tale of god's first creations, humans trespassed on territory that was not theirs.

And when they failed they realized the vastness of their foolish mistake. For from their mistake they spawn what they call their sins. One can not recreate life. But that doesn't stop them from trying. The result? The mass of tangled flesh, bones and internal organs jutting in directions unnatural. The putrid stench of the pouring blood and the motion of tissue mass as it desperately tries to function in it's distorted state, enough to bring forth a retching feeling and the sudden need to vomit.

Realization? Oh yes, that too follows. Then abondonment. What would one want with a human form that was no longer human? Unable to survive in such a form, what life could it possibly have?

The stones. Made from human life in experiments to optain a condensed power to combat with the rules of equivalent trade. Another foolish creation spawning from the sin known to humans a greed. Greed: The selfish desire for more than one needs or deserves. That's what calls for a single object with a much power as the one called the philosopher's stone.

Then there's the subject of pure human jealousy. Envy: A feeling of discontent or resentment for someone else's possessions or advantages. In order to obtain such an enormous power one would have to take it from another. And envious action of wanting what another has.

Envy and Greed. Linked together closer than the remaining sins. For on the subject of power, the two near complete each other.

Two human appearing personas. Yet composed of the red stones, that give them shape. That give them the power they need to continue sinning for their namesake. They understood each other in ways that humans, nor their brother and sister sins, or even their creators, could.

Sins. They're the mishaps of human curiosity and dire need to make mistakes for themselves.

The two eldest sins. Envy and Greed understood well what that meant. They were mistakes. On an even higher degree of a child being born into the hateful world on accident. They knew better than to belive they would ever be accepted into the mortal society. Or to believe they would ever be human. Humans had souls after all. They watched patiently waiting in the gallows for the next being to be executed. There would always be sins to add.

Yet they remained. The two. Strongly attached. Patiently waiting. Planning. To over turn 'that person' and be free of the heavy guilt that so falsely rested on the shoulders of the woman whom both could rightfully call mother.

Their attachment to each other wasn't unnoticed. Mother was not pleased. She noticed the two straying furthur from her. Her desire to have the philosophers stone was great now. She was greedy for eternal life. She would need her percious 'children'. But her jealousy, of how they were so alomst content with each other, like lowers cuddled by a fire place, ate at her.

Another ironic twist of nature. Another display of Greed and Envy.

She took him away. Forcing Greed into a solitary confinement below the musky corridors of the Central City Prison. Leaving Envy, shrouded in anger. Feeling torn, as if his other half was missing. And forced to comply with mother's wishes should he ever wish to be reunited with his counterpart.

Steadily his rage toward his mother, turned into hate toward the one of which he was so close and connected to. His reasoning wasn't clear as to why. His feeling of loss slowly became madness. But then one would never be able to tell the difference. He was always mad to the outside world. The world that didn't know below his outer shell.

Nearly a century and a half. Such time lost. And such waning of mental stength to keep the facade that the two wouldn't be torn apart, and they would, together, separate themselves from everything else. But they had been ripped from each other. As one delved into an unconscious world of misery, the other lay dormant, waiting for his other to find him and release him for his sealed prison.

But It was not Envy who released him. It was another. An accident. But he was free to say the least. He could feel his presence...But it was not the same. This person, or rather human like figure, Greed was sensing was not the same. This Envy was shooken. Not noticably, but mentally to a sense that Greed did not need to come face to face do realize the woman's damage had been set in with him.

He felt a heavy sensation fall over him and tighten in his chest. It was his turn to feel the loss. To feel the true pain of having one snatched from you. One you'd once been so attached to, a crowbar might be necessary to pry you apart.

The rules of alchemy state, in order for one to gain, something of equal value must be presented. This was said to be the one truth of the world, as well as just the field of vast alchemical sciences.

But what had the two gained? They'd given their mortality, their humanity, their souls...And even their own loyalty towards each other...And they gained nothing. Nothing but bitter resentment from one side, and the thick feeling of sour hurt from the other.

They mocked each other when they met face to face for the first time in more than 130 years. A tiny pang of guilt stung at Envy as he came face to face with the one he could have once called his lover in human terms. His anger was unjustified, but he felt he needed to hold on to it...For some reason or another.

After so long, being trapped in an unmovable state, Greed knew things wouldn't be the same, when he was free. However, he never anticipated the scowling looked he'd receive, or the hateful words that would be spout at him. With difficulty he hid the disappointment.

All seven sins had walked the earth, for the first time in centuries. This made him curl his nose in belated anger. Damn Humans. His distaste for the foolish creatures was more kept to himself than publically displayed. They'd been the ones to make them what they were...And it was a human who tore them apart.

He smiled an ironic grin as he revealed the secrets of the homunculi to the alchemist known as Edward Elric. His greedy nature had been what killed him. Not the Elric boy's serated auto mail blade. His desire to have Envy again...as his, and only this was what caused him to submit to a final death. Envy belonged to 'her' now...Her little brainwashed puppet on a string. The irony? He was envious of her...She had taken from him what he had truely treasured as more than just a material posession.

He'd died because of Envy...In two separate aspects.

Envy had seen what had taken place. His hatred shattered off him as he realized what he'd done. His own act of detachment had taken his other half away again...

His feelings...Alien as a word...were so close to human that one might now know the differece. An emotion toward Greed, he'd been unable to describe. Love.

From humans come sins, from sins, breed more. But no matter how inhuman they are in strength or in general mortality, the homunculus, the bodiment of sins, were not so different then the humans that sinned to create them.

They were not human, but they WERE living creatures.

And just as a human would sorrow was going to bear heavily on the remaining sin...

Leo: Okay that was a bit angsty. And I actually managed to do this WITHOUT any dialogue! Go me! Don't ask what I was thinking when I wrote this...hell I'm not really even sure.