Jealousy.
It is a wretched thing, to be sure.
And Envy hated it.
Envy the Jealous.
That's how some referred to him. And any time anyone ever called him such, Envy wanted to just rip their vocal chords out and stuff them back down their mouths.
Often, he did.
But for those whom he would have to do over and over again before they would stay silent, he could only fume, tell them to shut up, maybe backhand them into a wall if they got really persistent. With Greed, this was usually the case.
But he couldn't do it to everyone. Certainly not Father. And it would be those times that he would actually lose some of his respect for Father, because Envy had hoped that he, at least, would know the difference.
Sometimes Envy wished he could be jealous. Only briefly of course, and then he'd scoff at the idea, because such petty, human emotions were beneath him. He'd seen Greed get jealous, and his brother always seemed to lose about two centuries of maturity if it ever came up. Not that Greed had any maturity to begin with. Why on Earth would Envy ever want to be that?
But when it came down to it, he wished the two words could be synonymous. Stupid humans, always mixing up words when they were the ones who invented them in the first place! It was hard to believe he could ever be envious of them.
But not jealous.
Never jealous.
"Because if you'd look up the actual definition, there's no way you could ever be jealous," Greed would often cite, his shark teeth bared in a smug grin. "Because—"
"Greed, if you utter one more word, I'm going to write out that definition in your guts!" Envy snarled.
Greet put up his hands. "All right, all right, back down, ugly, I'm just messin' with ya," he said sweetly. "Didn't think it still bothered you anymore."
"It doesn't. Your shit-filled face does." Envy stormed off, down the maze-like underground of their hideout, away from his insufferable brother.
Because…
Out of earshot, out sight, Envy came to a stop in a darkened corridor. Water rushed in the trench besides him, and pipes dripped overhead. His frame trembled, both hands curling into fists as Greed's voice continued in his mind. He'd heard the finished sentence before, and he'd never been able to rid himself of it. And each time he heard it again, his hatred for it, for Greed, for anyone who had ever called him jealous, for the world, for humans, intensified.
...according to the definition of jealousy...
Envy roared, and he lashed out a fist twenty times its usual size. A green, clawed hand smashed into the wall and beyond, reducing the area to rubble.
As the dust and steam settled, Envy stood there, breathing hard. After a few minutes, his hand shrunk down to its pale, lithe form. Sharpening the ends of his nails, he continued to walk forward. He imagined Greed's face spread out over the walls, and dragged his claws against it, tearing through that smug grin again, and again, and again.
…you can't be Jealous of what you don't already have.