Short-ish Greed fic... I don't even know where this came from. I mean surely Greed would have noticed that there was one sin missing?
I apologise for any possible OOCness. First time writing with these characters, so I blame any OOC behaviour purely on that.
When Greed had been born again, given a second chance in life in the body of the 12th Prince of Xing, he'd found himself looking up at the figure known as Father. Almost by instinct he'd known that that tall, mysterious figure was the one from which he was born and he'd somehow known that he wasn't the only homunculus to be brought to life. This was confirmed when he had seen the massive true form of Envy and the round, plump thing that was known as Gluttony.
As well as this, he had known somewhere in the back of his mind that he'd already been alive once before, but unfortunately he no longer had any recollection of those times. It wasn't a disaster though. This was a second chance and he wasn't sure why his former self had come to their end, but he was pretty sure that he didn't need to know. There was something about the way Father had spoken to him. He was… hesitant maybe? Hesitant to entrust Greed with their secrets - their grand plan to turn Amestris upside-down all for their creator's vision.
Maybe that was why all he'd done so far was hang about in that giant storage space where the soulless, empty shells of future soldiers waited patiently for their first battle. Creepy things, they were.
So there Greed the Avaricious was; wandering round by himself and waiting for the end of his guarding duties, trying to avoid bumping into the bodies that hung from the ceiling. This was his second chance so far. Not much, was it? Although he had to chuckle to himself. This was just the beginning. He had plenty of time – forever in fact – to fulfil his insatiable desires. The only thing in his way was Father and possibly his siblings, but they shouldn't prove to be too big an obstacle.
With these thoughts, Greed had sat down and had begun to ponder the five homunculus whom he was expected to refer to as his 'siblings'.
There was Wrath to start off with... The guy was supposedly the youngest homunculus of the six, but looked by far the oldest. Every time Greed looked at the guy he got a strange chill running down his spine for some reason. He got a rather unsettling feeling whenever he was around Wrath.
Then there was Envy - more palm tree than fucking homunculus and the worst fashion sense imaginable. (Not that Greed considered himself an expert on the subject, but whatever Envy had thrown together that morning was not working out for him.) Judging by the way Envy had been behaving around him so far, it was fairly obvious that they hadn't exactly been best buds in his previous life.
Anyway, Gluttony was next on the list. To be honest the ever-hungry Gluttony was a little freaky, but hey, Greed couldn't talk. He'd sent a few running when he'd had his Ultimate Shield up. Slightly whiny and with a child-like air around him, the hungry homunculus wasn't all too bothered by Greed's presence so far.
Other than that there was Sloth, whom Greed had only caught sight of once - he worked for Father most of the time. And there was also Pride in there somewhere. They hadn't met in person as of yet, but apparently Pride was the oldest and most powerful of them all besides Father, so he didn't really know what to expect, although he was incredibly intrigued to see this for himself.
So that was it. The group of sins that their all-powerful, God-like creator had given life to using his own seven sins.
Greed suddenly frowned to himself. Wait... Seven? Wasn't that one short? He did a quick count.
'Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Greed...'
'Six?'
That couldn't be right. Seven homunculus for seven sins, right? That was the idea, so either Father was running short of his last sin or there was yet another sibling that he hadn't heard of.
Curious, Greed had made a mental note to ask one of his brothers about this when he could and continued on with his duty. He didn't get his opportunity to bring this up until a few days later when the group had gathered in Father's underground lair. Walking up to the closest brother - which happened to be Envy - Greed found himself asking the question that he'd come to regret.
"Is there a seventh?"
The palm tree raised an eyebrow and gave his sibling a questioning look, not seeming too interested in starting any sort of conversation. "Huh? The hell are you on about?
"Of us?" he continued, unaware of the surrounding group staring over at him. "There's seven sins, is there not? How come there's only six of us?"
The reaction was not Greed had expected.
Envy clenched his fists and mumbled a few strong curses, Wrath had closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh and in the corner Gluttony had started to wail. It was then that the newly-formed Greed frowned to himself and eyed his siblings in a curious gaze. What had happened?
He concluded that there had to have been a seventh. It was too strange for them all to react in the ways that they did. Hell, even Sloth stopped complaining for a moment to hang his head and bear a somewhat mournful look.
Nothing more was said about it in Father's lair after Envy had spat at him to get back to work and stormed away, stating that what happened before his birth was none of his business.
Unfashionable freak. Of course it was his business.
Making his way back to his work - guarding those lifeless mannequins underneath Central, hardly exciting at all - Greed's mind was left confused, swimming with questions that he knew wouldn't be answered by his brothers anytime soon.
But there was supposed to be one of them for each sin... What was that last sin again? He racked his brain trying to remember and attempted to push the kid from Xing back in his mind so he could think clearly for a moment. The kid wasn't having any of it though and instead decided to push in.
"Seven sins?"
"Dammit kidI'm busy, keep quiet for a minute would ya?"
"Lust."
"Kid what did I just- Wait, what?"
"Lust," Ling said simply, "That's the seventh sin. That's what you were looking for, right?"
Greed didn't reply.
'Lust?'
Immediately the word sent a few bells ringing in his brain.
Lust.
It was familiar, that word. It was strangely comforting, yet confusing. It alternated between icy cold and comfortably warm and from the back of his memory he was sure he heard someone's voice. A woman's voice; sometimes soft and gentle, but other times harsh and unforgiving or smooth and seductive.
Greed's eyes widened.
"Memories?"
He wasn't supposed to have those. This was supposed to be impossible according to Father…
In that moment Greed almost regretted not having any memories from his former life. How could be forget a former sibling of his?
In a moment of desperation he tried to focus on those mental voices in an attempt to hold on to some reminders of his past, but to no avail.
Eventually, Greed sighed and listened closely as Lust's voice faded into nothingness, disappearing amongst the millions of souls that already occupied his body. For a moment there was a still silence until he slowly dragged himself to his feet and continued wandering aimlessly in the underground space.
Maybe next time he saw his siblings, maybe even Father if he was willing to speak, he would ask yet another question, one that he was sure would be responded to with an even bigger reaction than the first.
"Who was Lust?"