A/N: do you ever have like 600 ongoing fics to write and instead of posting a new chap of one of them you start another fucking ongoing fic because I am sorry. I'm going to finish them all I'm just extremely slow.
also welcome to ot3 central where everyone is poly and the canon doesn't matter.
in terms of the timeline, this is set in the manga/Brotherhood, approximately two years post-canon. Alphonse continues traveling east while Edward alternates between traveling west and semi-living with Winry. I've been wanting to write Ed/Envy for a while (since I'm disappointed with the lack of slow painful buildup fics for those two) but I can't deny that Ed/Winry is the most wonderful thing ever. so I decided to say, well, fuck it, let's make it all three. some relationships are already established in this fic, such as Ed/Winry, Ling/Lan Fan, Mei/Al, and Roy/Riza/Scar. and yeah, don't worry, I'll go into those three later because listen i love them.
anyway I don't plan for these chapters to be long, unlike my other fanfics. this was just an idea I wanted off my chest. also this isn't going to be just from Envy's point of view, one because for story reasons that wouldn't make sense, and two because Envy is annoying as shit to write and also the most unreliable narrator in existence.
Two years ago, the home of recently widowed mother Johanna Emerson became a bloodbath of sorts.
(Of sorts, Envy thought, because there wasn't any blood at all.)
If an investigation had been carried through with, the police would have ruled it a tragic murder-suicide. What sort of mother would kill her only two children? It would have been all over the newspapers, might even have hit the front page. Both young girls, one fourteen and the other twelve, showed signs of minimal struggle.
(A stuffed bear shoved carelessly to the floor, sheets pulled from the edges of the beds. Typical of a human child to feel only confusion and fear when her mother chokes the life out of her, no fury in sight. It was an emotion Envy was still working to understand.)
Underneath their fingernails would likely have been their mother's skin as they tearfully and futily clung to life.
(Bent and faintly red, hand left in the shape of a claw. They didn't resist early enough. They were as good as dead by then.)
Their mother's prints would have been found on their crushed necks.
(Deflated and limp, just like the rest of them.)
And the mother would have later been discovered upstairs and at the very end of the hall, hanging by a poorly made noose hooked from a closet rail in what looked like the guest room. Her eyes were lifeless, but it somehow seemed like they'd been that way even when she was alive. Envy thought that the humans who would have found her probably could have figured that out, too.
I'm one lucky bastard, Envy remembered thinking with a tired and manic grin. Well, it was barely luck. He'd just wandered door to door in the guise of a stray cat, hoping to find an abandoned house to crash in, and instead found a crime scene waiting for a camera crew.
But, that was two years ago.
The body of the old Johanna Emerson and the bodies of her daughters had been buried deep under her backyard. For all the public knew, and for all Envy had set up, a mysterious man had broken into the house and kidnapped Johanna's daughters. Remnants of their bodies were then found strewn about a nearby forest, proving them dead. She was a widow who had only two years ago lost her children and the one responsible hadn't been caught.
Her struggles gained the sympathies of everyone around her and even through her lack of loved ones, she'd still being given all the support in the world.
Envy thought to himself that did the woman a favor, in a way, by creating this story.
The new Johanna tied up her black hair into a bun and stared at her piercing green eyes in the reflection, adjusting her blue jacket and fixing her collar. She'd been assigned some basic paperwork and a job training a recently transferred soldier until the afternoon. A second lieutenant's work really was never done, though, and she'd been scheduled as on-call for the rest of the day.
Envy wasn't really sure when he'd started to take the time in the morning to manually alter his appearance. He could change it easily without much effort, but it gave him a small rewarding feeling whenever he did normal human things. It wasn't as if he had much better to do with his time, anyway, so he kept giving himself the satisfaction.
Perhaps after work, he would stop to pick up groceries from the market. It wasn't as if he'd needed to eat, but finding what he did and didn't like in terms of taste was at least something to keep him busy and entertained.
He also didn't know much of what to do with his money. It was a rather well-paying career, but outside of living expenses, he didn't have much idea of what the hell to spend it all on. Surely there must have been something he'd missed while learning about human customs before he'd first died, because he couldn't for the life of him figure out what exactly a damn hobby was.
It wasn't like he'd really had anything meaningful to accomplish, anyway.
No one to take orders from. No Father to be found.
He shrugged on his bag while sauntering out the door.
If Envy were human, he'd definitely have been sore after work.
Training soldiers was a taxing job, all things considered. Being a second lieutenant meant working with the less than skilled infantry. Still, in a time of peace, it wasn't too terrible. It hadn't been easy for Envy, reading up on proper procedures and the work of each rank, things the original Johanna Emerson would likely have already been fully aware of, but it at least took up his time. Time was really all he had left.
Not helping was the fact that he'd had the misfortune to see Roy Mustang.
Most of his current duty was over in Ishbal. Hell, it practically seemed like a second home, especially with the way he'd dedicated himself so wholly to learning about its customs, and with the way he'd been so attached to that scarred Ishbalan. But the man frequently returned to Amestris for certain work-related reasons, and it always felt incredibly awkward for Envy, for a number of considerations.
The man who hated his existence for murdering his friend, the man who killed him a ridiculous number of times, had stared at him with no visible malice and at least twice politely nodded at him.
At one point, Mustang even offered his condolences to Johanna for her apparent tragedy. It was the longest they'd spoken to each other, and Envy despised every second of it.
But at the very least, they hadn't interacted with each other since, and only occasionally saw one another throughout the halls and in the streets. The worry that he'd be noticed passed by him quickly, because really, that emotional and stupid human wasn't able to recognize Envy even with his eyesight back. And at first, that fact eluded him, but he quickly remembered the philosopher's stones left behind.
Right.
Well, he didn't have to worry about that shit.
Instead, the things he worried about were taxes and bills, managing his job, and buying groceries just for the reason that he would have looked less of a normal human being if he didn't.
That, and he was actually getting used to eating things.
The lengths he went to just for the sake of appearing normal were likely only serving to make him look even more suspicious, but he didn't care. For all the world knew, he was dead, as were the other Homunculi. It wasn't as if anyone who could have possibly considered him a threat, let alone one on the level of reality, would have been taken seriously.
He could have gone around calling others human, could have acted the exact same as he'd wanted to, but as long as he was under the guise of someone else, no one would think that he was actually Envy. Even Mustang or Hawkeye probably wouldn't even consider it as a possibility. They saw him die. He wasn't on their minds at all.
And yet, he was still searching through the market for quick dinners and small snacks. He tried something new every other day. The concepts of cooking and baking still almost entirely eluded him, but there was enough food to prevent him from needing to do any of the work himself. Envy blew a strand of black hair out of his face and analyzed the shelves behind the stall vendor.
A boring life he'd been leading.
Then, something caught his attention in the corner of his eye.
The blonde hair was familiar, and he had a slight moment of internal horror, nearly dropping his already selected products.
At first, he was sure that Edward Elric had somehow invaded his artificial personal bubble, that he'd somehow made his way into the city without the non-human noticing, but that was decidedly unlikely. The former alchemist traveling through Central was actually rather rare, and on those specific occasions, Envy made it his personal mission to both avoid interacting with him like the plague and to monitor his every action right to the point where he'd hopped on the train.
Such precautions didn't make sense, Envy knew. The runt wasn't even an alchemist anymore, so even with physical fighting skills, he was still nowhere on the level of a Homunculus.
He chalked it up to having nothing better to do.
But, then, it would have been more in his nature to bother the human as much as possible. Maybe reveal his identity, maybe only give subtle hints and watch Edward's hope for a normal life of a traveler slowly crumble right before his eyes. He could have at any moment attacked the man, probably kill him, and he could almost certainly get away with it.
And every time he considered doing any of those things, the events of his death replayed over and over in his own head, and he remembered that he absolutely never wanted Edward Elric to see his face ever again.
Fortunately, it wasn't him.
Unfortunately, it was that girl he'd always been with.
Winry Rockbell - that was her name, right? - had her hair tied back and wrapped in a ragged cloth, a dirty white overshirt tied at the front. Her gloves looked new, or at least recently cleaned, and she seemed to be carefully picking out green apples. She was completely oblivious to his existence, as well as to those around her.
He'd never actually seen her in town before, but without a doubt knew it was her.
Had they ever really spoken to each other before? She wasn't exactly the strongest of humans, nor was she the most threatening. He didn't remember if she'd seen him, or if he'd confronted her at any moment. Likely, she knew of his existence, but he was unsure of what extent that was to. He wondered if she would notice him, were they to speak.
But, then, that was assuming that they would actually talk.
He internally sighed at himself.
...Was he really considering talking to her?
Admittedly, he was interested in monitoring the life of Edward Elric, for self-preservation purposes.
And something about speaking with Winry was considerably less intimidating than speaking with the alternative. It had been around five months since he'd last seen the other golden haired brat, and he wondered if he could get some information out of her just by making small talk. Last he knew, she was rather friendly with those in the military.
That meant he had a good chance of gaining her trust with less effort than normal. All he had to do was act charismatic. Charismatic, he repeated in his head at least twice more. He considered imitating the behaviors he'd seen Kimblee once exhibit around normal civilians, then decided against it, because trying to get inspiration from any human was gross.
Instead, he settled on approaching her and tapping two fingers on her shoulder.
"Excuse me," Envy said, voice pitched. "Would you happen to be Winry Rockbell?"
A few seconds passed as Winry turned to look at him, surprised. "Oh...yes, I am. Who are you?"
He held out his hand and gave a long rehearsed polite smile. "Johanna Emerson," he said as she smiled back and gave him a firm handshake. "I'd heard of you; you're the - correct me if I'm wrong - the girlfriend of Edward Elric, yes? The former state alchemist?"
For just a moment, confusion flashed on the blonde's face, then something like recognition, but before he could say anything more, she responded. "Yes. Well, actually, he's my fiance. I didn't imagine that anyone would recognize me. Do you know Ed?"
"Not...personally, no," he replied almost nervously, and tried to quickly change the subject. "I've also heard that you're a rather talented mechanic back in Resembool. What are you doing all the way out west in Central?"
"I'm here to visit a friend," she explained. "That's what I'm here for, actually. I'm picking up a few things so I can make her apple pie. I've been told that my recipe is one of the best."
Apple pie? It was easy for him to come across that sort of sweet, but he'd never tried it himself. He promptly picked up one of the apples and examined it.
His gaze glazed over the green flesh of the fruit, shade much lighter than the one he could see reflecting in his own eyes, and he cocked his head to the side. "I see. Sounds nice. I've never had apple pie, myself. Though, I'm sure that has something to do with the fact that I have no idea of how to make it," he finished, giving a humorless laugh.
"You don't know how? At all?"
A previous story he'd told to another woman came to mind and Envy gave his best sad smile. "Well, I haven't exactly had anyone to teach me. There's only so much a person can learn when they're the only one they cook for. It's hard living alone, sometimes, especially when I don't have much experience with cooking or baking."
It wasn't really a lie. He actually didn't understand the culinary arts. He imagined that it was something like alchemy, but even then, Envy wasn't exactly ever one to learn too much about what he didn't need to know. Sure, he understood the basics, as well as whatever details were most convenient for him to learn, but nothing more.
"Well," Winry started slowly, a strange pain visible on her face, then she confidently asked, "Why don't I come show you? I mean, I get that we just met, but I'm always ready to help out a struggling chef, and I don't have to meet with my friend for another hour or so," Winry paused and looked down for a moment. "And also, I kind of...want to get to know you."
Huh? She was asking him to invite her into his house?
No.
That was...beyond his comfort.
His instincts were telling him to say no. Logic was telling him to say no. Approaching her was one thing. Speaking with her in a public area, one with many other customers passing by, was another. Inviting her into his house was completely outside of the realm of what he'd intended to get out of this conversation. He immediately didn't want to spend any longer in her presence.
There was absolutely no reason for him to have her over.
"It's...been some time since I've had visitors."
Or, alternatively, never. Envy had never had a visitor. But, really, he wasn't too worried about that, because there was another, much more pressing matter at hand.
He'd done an illogical thing. Him, Envy, had done something that didn't make sense by an objective perspective. Actually, he'd done a few illogical things. Approaching a woman he knew for a fact was affiliated with the absolute last person he wanted to see in the universe was the first. The second was actually conversing with her. Then, he'd invited her over for dinner.
Three illogical things! The fuck was he thinking? Right, he wasn't thinking at all. He was - he was acting like a human, and he hated himself for it. Yes, it was part of his disguise to act human, but it wasn't necessary to feel human, too.
His original plan to learn more about Edward Elric's life was quickly falling apart. It wasn't like he could get much information from this woman just from...baking with her. Really, how long could it take? She was likely to be there for, what? Ten minutes? He didn't really know how long it would take to cook or bake anything, but he couldn't imagine it would be too much of an extensive process.
He'd thought that originally, but he was wrong.
Despite that fact, it was decidedly not a disaster.
The amount of time and effort he had to put into making a simple treat was ludicrous. And even after the preparation, the actual baking time made him even more skeptical of her apparent instructions.
"Thirty minutes?"he asked incredulously.
"Good things come to those who wait," she said in a sing-song voice, waving her finger and closing her eyes in such a way that made it obvious she was quoting something or someone, but he didn't care enough to ask from who or what.
They both sat across from each other at his dinner table, waiting for the timer to go off, and he wondered just how she could consider the dessert worth everything, especially the expense. Was it really that good? Envy had tasted good food, but none of it had ever felt worth that amount of energy. Then again, he hadn't really made much of anything himself, and didn't even need food to survive, but his point still stood.
Only a couple of minutes passed before they began small talk. She'd taken a look at his untouched shelves and found tea that he'd never bothered to make or to even look at.
He knew people needed water to survive, but it had barely occurred to him that they'd concoct good-tasting beverages the same way that they'd experimented so much with food. He knew that tea existed, but he hadn't even taken a second glance at the different types and flavors. It intrigued him. Another pastime to add to the list, he supposed.
This one in particular was favorable. A quick glance at the package told him that the type was "Tie Guan Yin," and it had a particularly Xing-looking design. Perhaps the original Johanna Emerson was quite the tea expert. That, or humans just really fucking loved to flavor their drinks. He didn't know.
What he did know was that Winry Rockbell had a hard time keeping quiet for more than two minutes.
"...not to mention, working on his leg still keeps me occupied. Not that I really need it. I spend a lot of my time in Rush Valley, now. I've even opened up shop there, so I get a lot of people who want me to make some automail for them, or to work on theirs."
It was hard to tune Winry out entirely, even though he'd tried. She spoke a lot, but said everything with such interest and enthusiasm that it was difficult to find her uninteresting, let alone to ignore her. That, and she would regularly bring up the Elric brothers, which always caught Envy's attention. Time usually passed by rather quickly, but for some reason, it seemed extremely slow at the moment.
She went on about her life, Envy only briefly encouraging her to continue and asking short questions. Anytime Winry herself would ask a question, he remembered a time he'd answered something similar and went on the same track. It was as if he'd been roleplaying, or something.
Eventually, Winry began talking about her current fiance, and it was irritating just how genuinely invested he suddenly felt.
"I love him," she said off-handedly, which surprised him. Sure, he hadn't really talked to her personally, but did the runt actually have this casually deep of a romantic relationship with this girl? He figured he'd have noticed that, but before he could berate himself, she continued. "Even though he's not a state alchemist anymore, he's still just as hard-working as he's always been. I'm sort of jealous, you know?"
The word jealous made Envy's head perk up. What was that?
"You're jealous of him?"
"Huh?" she'd asked, apparently surprised that he'd latch onto that specific part of her rambling. Maybe to someone else, that might have given him away, but he didn't think about that. "Well, yeah. I mean, I work hard, too. But he's always able to keep such a strong face, no matter what, and he never stops moving forward. I like to think I'm a little bit like that, but I don't think I'm as...tenacious as he is."
He didn't know why this was such a surprise. Envy was the literal embodiment of the human sin. Human sin, he reminded himself. As in, every single human in the world felt envy.
Even this girl.
Trying not to show his puzzlement too openly, he leaned toward her and asked, "Doesn't that make you hate him?"
The blonde looked at him as if he were from another planet and shook her head. "No - no, not at all. I don't hate him just because of that. Sure, I wish I could be stronger sometimes, but I know what kind of a toll it takes for him to be so...emotionally detached, I guess, even if that sounds kind of rude," her eyes traveled to the side in shame, but she then smiled at Envy. "I mean, even so, I could never hate him just because of jealousy. If anything, it makes me love him more."
"What?" the black haired being asked, "How?"
Winry shrugged and raised an eyebrow. "He helps me grow as a person, I think. I have a lot of great qualities myself, so I help him grow, too. Equivalent exchange," she said with a laugh, and he imagined that the former alchemist had probably said something just like that before. "But really, being around him gives me the motivation to be everything about him that I'd like to be."
Motivation?
He didn't really get it. Where was the loathing? The anger and frustration that came from every time she looked at him and saw what she wanted for herself, but didn't have? It must have just been a human thing, or perhaps it was a Winry thing, or just a thing for anyone who associated with the former Fullmetal Alchemist.
Too many thoughts were swimming through his mind as he searched for a reply, trying to find something else to bring up, because he really did not want to think about any of what she'd just said. Winry envied Edward, but she didn't hate him for it. She even said that it made her feel the opposite. But, why? It didn't make sense to him at all.
That, or he didn't really want it to make sense.
No, more like it just didn't. Why would he not want to understand something? He shook his head, because he was a Homunculus, and a Homunculus really shouldn't have been giving themselves a damn headache.
He looked to the timer and frowned. Eighteen minutes still left. Could he really handle talking to this girl for that long?
Before he decided on that question, she spoke up again.
"...Johanna Emerson," Winry set the cup down on the table and adjusted her sleeve. "I...recognized your name, and I remembered why. A while back, I heard from a few people in the military what happened to your family."
Ah, Envy thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Here it comes.
He was, at that point, rather used to people bringing it up and attempting to console him about some family death that never happened for him, but they were always soft words of sympathy from people he'd never had extended interactions with.
Obligations, because humans aren't comfortable with acknowledging the tragedies of others in depth, but feel like they'd be terrible people by ignoring it outright, so they give the bare minimum to both validate themselves and to keep away from long emotional encounters. It was simple human nature, a self-fulfilling cycle.
This time, however, should have been rather interesting, considering the person he was talking to.
"Word travels fast about lost family members," Winry said, her voice cracking and shoulders shrugging in attempted humor. Then, she looked to the side. "Everyone I've talked to thinks you haven't been the same since it happened - like - like your personality has just flipped. You've become...colder, is what some people said. A lot more distant. And...I understand why."
It was hard to describe just how detached from the situation Envy felt in that moment. Really, it was almost uncomfortable, as if he were intruding on an intimate moment between Winry and the vessel of the woman he'd been impersonating.
And yet, even then, it didn't make sense. The woman originally in that form had murdered her own daughters. If she knew anything of personal loss, it may have come from her widowed nature. Still, the original Johanna likely wouldn't have had Winry's sympathies. Winry didn't seem much like the type of person to want anything to do with a ruthless murderer.
Well, that probably applied to him as well, but whatever.
Somehow interpreting his dejected nature as disbelief, she leaned forward and furrowed her brows. "I do understand. I've - I've lost family, too. Maybe I don't really get what it's like to lose a child, but I at least know what it's like to lose someone important to you. When...my parents died, I thought I was alone. No one could possibly know how I felt, and I avoided the only other people I considered family for as long as I felt that way."
Listening to the girl speak was much like reading an autobiography. Or, listening to one. It was fascinating, nonetheless.
Envy stared blankly at her, then in a quiet breath let out, "Really?"
The woman huffed with a smile and nodded.
"But, you want to know the funny thing? It was horrible. I hated it. I hated bottling up my emotions, I hated not letting anyone in, because it made me feel stagnant. I couldn't move when I didn't let my emotions out. Some people can and, even though I sort of understand why, I can't do it myself. So, I let myself cry and yell as much as I needed to, and...it helped," when she reached over and put a hand over Envy's, he momentarily tensed up. "All I'm saying is, it sometimes helps to let your feelings out."
The raw emotion displayed on Winry was indescribable. It wasn't at all directed towards Envy, but it was, but it definitely wasn't. She had no idea that she was preaching and empathizing with one who had initiated countless wars, who manipulated humans on a regular basis, who took the form of a woman who'd killed her own children and used her tragedy to his advantage. She had no idea, and no way of knowing.
It was ironic. It was hilarious. He wanted to laugh in her face.
Scratch that - he was laughing in her face. He was laughing hard.
His free hand traveled to cover his eyes, head upturned as he gave a loud and shrill cackle. His shoulders shook in empty humor, in the cruel amusement he found from her apparent attempts to relate to him. No, she wasn't relating to him. She wasn't even relating to the woman he was pretending to be. She was relating to no one. And it was funny.
Then, he looked at her, and immediately stopped. His grin fell.
Winry's brows were still furrowed, eyes narrow on him, lips tight and turned downward. Her hand was still loosely gripping his, and she didn't seem at all offended by his outburst like he'd originally intended for her to be. Instead, on her face was...
...Understanding. Pity.
Damn it. His mind was racing, but that phrase, damn it, damn it, damn it, was very clearly there.
The only emotion missing was deep contempt, but the expression was still a near perfect replica of his.
Edward Elric's.
It was the exact same face Envy had once died staring at. One of Edward Elric's last expressions, the one he'd made just as he stated all of Envy's own personal shortcomings and all of his very nature. The one he'd made when he proved to Envy that a human, even a lower-than-dirt human, could understand him. The context was different, she wasn't even really understanding him, without a doubt, but that didn't change the fact that Winry was making that particular face right then.
It didn't change how the shape of her face and her eyes and hair were so familiar, how it was such a perfect mirror image.
He didn't understand how he felt about that. He didn't know what to do. It had felt as if he was frozen in time and space, as if she were frozen with him, and then her face suddenly shifted.
For just a moment, he wondered why she would suddenly look at him with sad surprise, then realized just how blurry his vision had become.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck.
Well, okay. He wasn't crying, not just yet, but his eyes were definitely watering, and it sent a wave of panic and frustration and shame through him. Was he really about to cry in front of another human? Genuinely? Not a fake human cry to gain sympathy, but a real breakdown. He'd tried to wipe the tears away, but they began to fall, to his complete dismay.
It only made him angrier. He began shaking with rage, and it only made him look more pathetic.
He wanted to punch something. He wanted to destroy the house they were both sitting in. Most importantly, he wanted nothing more than to rip this woman to shreds, to tear away every inch of evidence that he'd actually let himself show such raw emotion in front of yet another human. He wanted her gone. No, he wanted her dead.
The fingers around his own gripped harder.
"It's alright," the blonde woman soothed. "I cry all the time. You're not wrong for crying."
Just as a strange warmth flooded his ribcage and he lightly squeezed her hand back, Envy decided that he absolutely hated Winry Rockbell.
By the time the pie was finished baking, Winry realized that she needed to hurry to visit her friend.
They were quick to say their goodbyes, as she'd completely forgotten what a long trek it was to get to her apparent destination. Envy had long since composed himself, and could thankfully hold himself back from lunging his arm straight through her diaphragm every time she sent a kind smile his way. The urge was still there, but only faintly.
The satisfaction he'd get from murdering her probably wasn't worth the risk of having to hide her body and possibly jump cities. There wasn't much of a chance that he'd have been able to get as lucky as he first did, finding the Emerson household and all.
Just before he closed the door on her, Winry turned around and held out a hand to stop him.
"You...said that you didn't know Ed personally?" she asked carefully.
Envy frowned, then nodded.
"Well," as she spoke, Winry shrugged. "I'm sure he'd like to formally meet you. His brother Al, too. I feel like you'd all get along. If you ever happen to pass by Rush Valley or Resembool," she pulled out a piece of paper, then grabbed one of about four pens from her side, held in place by her tied shirt. Eventually, she handed the slip to him. On it appeared to be a few phone numbers. "Give me a call; I'll be happy to show you my shops."
When he looked up at her, she winked. He felt manic laughter bubble in his stomach yet again, but repressed it.
Instead, he smiled and said, "Thanks."
Maybe the money, effort, and time put into the pie weren't quite worth it. Even the information he'd been given probably didn't make up for it all. Still, he decided that he'd liked the taste. And about a week afterward, he'd stopped by one of the baked goods stalls in the market and randomly picked out a pre-made apple pie.
No matter how many he'd tried in the following few months, none were quite as sweet as Winry's.