Dreams
AN: Dripping with angst, maybe a bit sad, I don't know. Random idea at two in the morning.
"Half of my time spent working on my writing is spent playing Tetris and waiting for my mind to do something brilliant." ~Anonymous
During the day Greed would patrol the halls of his Fathers lair, coming across an intruder every now and then, and quickly dispatching them, if the Chimera's didn't first. Homunculus, being more resilient than humans, could go almost two weeks without sleep. But, when they crashed, they crashed hard, passing out for a few days. One of the only times Envy had been social towards him was when he was telling the rumor about Pride trying to go months without sleep, and eventually passing out for two weeks in a row.
Apparently, the only one of them alive at the time had been Lust, the second born. The reminder of their only sister's absence made Envy sober quickly, and the other homunculus stormed off soon after.
Greed really didn't mind.
Every week and a half or so, Greed would stagger in to the main room, mumble something about sleep to Father, and then wander off to bed.
During the day the Xingese kid would stay pretty quiet, occasionally sparking up a conversation when things got too boring, but his soul mostly seemed to fade in and out of consciousness.
But during the night, Greed dreamed.
One of the few memories he still had of the old Greed was of Lust gently explaining that homunculus couldn't dream, which must have been sometime around his first creation. Pride had briefly told him the same thing, before ejecting his younger brother out of his room with his shadows.
By now he had decided that it was a load of bull.
The first time he slept in his new body, he woke up in a sweat after a few hours rest, completely surprised by a rather vivid dream of some old ruins in the desert. At the time, fatigue was still painfully obvious, so he scribbled a note to himself about asking Wrath about this sort of thing.
When he fell back to sleep, he dreamt of a pretty young woman with dark hair, neatly tied up to be out of her way, and the woman's grandfather, an elderly man with gray-ish white hair and a mustache of the same shade. For some reason, Greed woke up afterwards feeling a strange rush of love towards them. Greed ignored it, and continued on with his life.
Two weeks later he staggered back off to bed.
That night he dreamt of a beautiful palace sprawling along the slope of a mountain, and a young girl dressed in pink with her long black hair in fancy braids.
This time he woke up feeling regret, mixed in with concern.
A few months passed. Greed got used to the strange dreams, and emotions that he most certainly did not feel normally.
One time he dreamed he was himself, but with his body looking to be about the age of twelve. As his body moved through the dream, he realized what was causing them.
Damn prince.
Greed let out a mental sigh, resigning himself to experiencing someone else's memories.
Although the brat had a pretty cool garden. Greed was enjoying the kids memory, when suddenly something silver glinted from a rooftop.
Feeling nervous, the brats memory turned and went inside, slipping down a side corridor to avoid annoying nobles.
Suddenly there was a burst of pain from his ribs. Looking down as he stumbled, the brat saw a knife sticking out of his chest, from about an inch below the heart.
A masked figure appeared, looked over the boy, and then pulled the knife out before vanishing again,.
Greed woke up with a start, hyperventilating to his great annoyance.
Damn prince.
That week Greed encountered his old lackey on patrol, and the kid convinced him to run for it.
Greed ran.
He didn't look back.
After attacking Wrath, Ling managed to take over, quickly steering the body towards a forest to sleep in.
That night Ling dreamed about life as a homunculus, before the Promised Day showed any sign of arriving.
He dreamed about Pride's cold, unapproachable exterior that only Lust was able to chip away at, and about Lust's motherly tendency to try and take care of all of them. He dreamed about Greed and Envy getting in to a rather explosive fight that destroyed an entire hallway, and about how heartbroken Envy was upon learning that he was too heavy to be able to swim. He dreamed about Gluttony's habit of acting like a perpetual five year old, and about Sloth's little obsession with Pride. And he dreamed about the sheer blinding terror Greed had felt while battling his little brother Wrath, and the quiet conversation they had held on the way back to Central in one of Greed's rare moments of consciousness.
Ling bolted awake, unconsciously swiping at the moistness around his eyes.
The kid never talked about his opinions on Greed's brothers and late sister again.
In return, Greed made a point of a occasionally asking about Xingese history or politics, or art.
During the day, Greed dreamed about controlling to world and all its riches.
During the night he dreamt of Xing and all of it's treasures.
Ling really didn't mind Greed thinking about the former.
Greed sort of enjoyed dreaming about the latter.
Not that he'd ever admit it.
AN: Yeah, the ending could have been better. Anyways, review I guess.