Otouto
Chapter Two
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The next night was when the dreams started.
They made no sense to him, who had experienced nothing other than the same people in the same place for all of his existence so far. So many people he didn't know, emotions he couldn't make sense of or control. Names he couldn't match to the faces they belonged to. Places, so many, many places.
He woke up without sweat and was not breathing heavily. Such things were human, which he was not.
At least, not any more.
He knew that much, and if nothing else he knew what he had been. There had been an overall sense of humanity in the dreams, even though he knew that he had never encountered one before to know even what humanity. . . was.
He was kept awake long enough by his drams that he was still brooding over them by the time his next inspection panel arrived outside his room. He had to force himself not to tense.
"Well," started the sensuous voice. She sounded amused, but for that same reason it worried him. "It seems that Sleeping Beauty has finally awoken, hm?"
There was a short pause before the other spoke.
"So it would appear."
It was a relatively new voice, one that he hadn't heard before while in his room. Yet at the same time remembrance of a sort beat and shouted from the place where his dreams had come from. Even so, something was off. . . but he tried at least not to let his thoughts be visible on his face, if they could see him.
"So – what do ya think, huh?"
Regardless of good intentions, a scowl found its way onto his face for all to see at the voice of the one who had irritated him so... and in the process, given him something which he still didn't entirely understand. Nor was he certain that he wanted to, in fact.
"Oh, he's definitely a feisty one. Makes me wonder what you could have done already to get that kind of reaction so quickly."
"You know me – probably just my enigmatic personality, y'know?"
She laughed, a superficial thing that had no real humour in it.
"Whatever you want me to believe. . . like it or not, I do know you better than that."
He snorted.
"Yeah, yeah. . . whatever. It's your delusion."
With that, the door was wrenched open for the second time. The palm tree headed homunculus grinned in at him before moving aside, and at long last he had faces to put to other voices than his. The sensuous voice – pale skin, round-ish face, waves of jet-black hair and a curvy figure.
The other, the new voice that had caused him to feel as though his dream had not been completely surreal, was more of a traditional beauty. Poised, quiet and dressed in smart office clothes, she looked more like a secretary than the homunculus she must be, from being in the company of the other two. This belief was only strengthened when she raised her head to look at him with violet eyes, strangely wide.
There was an emotion of some kind in that action, he knew. But it was too small, the emotions too complex and conflicted, for an inexperienced learner such as he was to figure out.
Not to mention, it was hard enough to concentrate on anything with a sharp ache of recognition blooming in his chest. His dreams must have known her, of this he was now certain.
In the end, she was the one who broke her gaze first, turning her once more flat expression to the green-haired one, who bent down to look him in the eye.
"Look here, brat. We're gonna do a deal, you and I. You do know what a deal is, right?"
His eyes narrowed as he nodded.
"What sort of . . . deal are we talking about, here?"
The grin grew shark-like, showing a lot of teeth.
"Easy one. You tell me something, I tell you something."
He thought about it for a moment, but although the idea wasn't his idea of a good thing coming from such a person, he didn't really have all that much of a choice. He didn't have anything to base any of his opinions on, either. He nodded again.
"Right – good! Now then, you got a name, brat?"
The other two seemed to await his answer with baited breath just as much as the palm tree guy was. Who was also now tapping his fingers in an unheard rhythm against his hip.
He opened his mouth, but then closed it again. What could he say? That he had never thought it important enough to have something to call himself by, that t hadn't really crossed his mind before? Or that there had already been the idea of one given to him during the madness of dreams? He clutched at his head slightly in confusion and opened his mouth to form the word –
Only to be stopped when the tapping suddenly stopped and the hand made a sharp cutting motion from one side to the other, hidden to the others but perfectly visible to him. The usually smiling face had also gone serious, far more so than he ever remembered seeing or hearing him being before.
His mouth shut. He shook his head silently, not trusting himself to say anything else after that.
"See, told you he turned out fine." Palm Tree turned to face them all and – surprise of all surprises – was grinning from ear to ear in an unnerving way. "How about this, then – I give you one?"
His eyes narrowed, but he made no move to indicate yes or no; evidently the other took this as permission to go on, as he leaned back against the wall languidly and with an easy smile on his face.
"She's Sloth," he stated, waving a hand in the general direction of the half-remembered face. "She's Lust," he continued with a wave at the well-endowed woman. "And me? I'm Envy. Now. . . I wonder what kind of sin you are?"
It was obviously a rhetorical question, but he glared back at Envy all the same.
"Pride."
The word reverberated through his entire being along with a sense of fear, apprehension and thrill. For some reason or other, it just. . .
"Well, it certainly fits," said Lust. "No matter that he wasn't exactly created for it."
He looked between the three of them. Blinked wondered if what had just been said had been complementary or not.
"I suppose. . ." stated Sloth, "that this would make him somewhat akin to being our younger brother?"
Lust snorted in amusement. Envy smirked.
"Good idea. Heh. Otouto, eh?"
The last was aimed at him – Pride, now – and he reacted with almost scarily predictable ease.
"Like hell I am, and who're you calling –!"
He was cut off by suddenly not being on the bed, but instead being held up against the wall of his room by a hand on his collar.
"Just you dare try and talk that way even once more, and so help me, I'll. . ."
Pride swallowed hard, attempting to keep the fear and nerves off his face – and failing spectacularly.
With a snarl, Envy dropped him hard to the floor and turned slightly to face the others.
"I think that Pride here needs a short lesson in manners."
The woman named Sloth nodded demurely and left without a word, as if this were a natural or normal occurrence. Lust's eyes hardened just before she followed the other woman out, sending a calculating look Envy's way. She didn't even spare Pride, still recovering from the impromptu attack, a glance.
The door slammed shut behind them, but neither of the two inside moved so much as a muscle until both sets of footsteps had faded away completely. Once they had, Envy turned back to him with thunder written on his face.
"What are you – a bloody imbecile?! You have a second death wish or something? Because you're sure acting like it!"
Pride blinked in shock. What had happened to the Envy that had been furious with him for speaking out of turn? But that wasn't the first thing to come out of his mouth.
". . . 'Second' death?"
Envy put a hand to his head in a mild show of irritation.
"Sheesh, you really don't know anything, do you? You were killed, and someone tried to bring you back. Look in the mirror next time you're let near one. Did a rather good job of it too – you look pretty much like you always did."
His eyes widened with the implications he saw and he leaned forward intently.
"You . . . who. . . ?" Envy tensed, narrowing his eyes, but Pride couldn't discern a reason why. "You knew who I am. Was. Who am I?"
The on-guard look on the other's face instantly disappeared, to be replaced by a scowl of irritation.
"I've already told you the only thing you never knew, idiot. There's no point saying anything else – not if you're going to remember everything anyway. That'd be damn near useless."
Pride's memory sparked, but it was such a small and faint thing that he passed it by without thought. He shook his head.
"Do I look like I care? I want to know."
"Look at this face. You see this face? It's a face that ain't tellin' anything. You figure it all out."
"Why you little- !"
Envy started to chuckle.
"Shouldn't that go the other way around, shrimp?"
The following rant was only just quiet enough not to reach all the way down the hall and into the rooms and corridors beyond. Envy watched in fascinated humour right to the end.
". . . so just shove that up your backside and tell me something, damn it!"
For a while after that there was silence. They stared at each other, Pride hating himself for the desperation that had to be evident on his face. At first, Envy didn't seem to have reacted at all. In a rare display of defeat, Pride hung his head and turned his face away.
"Fine!"
Envy's outburst caught them both by surprise, a shout in still air.
"You want to know something? Then tell me what it was that you were gonna say before, when I stopped you."
Pride turned back so quickly that he was sure he'd have gotten whiplash if he'd been human still. His vacant eyes widened, fists clenching on fabric.
". . . What?"
Envy lapped a hand on the top of his forehead, eyes closed.
"Your name, stupid. What was it you almost said?"
Pride's eyes went wide for a moment before he closed them in an attempt to remember what had been going through his mind at that time. Mostly, it was all a mess of mangled memory that he had to put in some semblance of order for it to be useful at all.
Faces – so many faces. Some eh recognised either from his current life or from his dreams and other repressed memories that were now making themselves known. Others still he did not recognise at all.
All of them were calling him. He couldn't always tell what they were saying, only hat it was definitely him who they were calling out for. They always said the same few things. A word. A string of words.
One word, sometimes two. One word.
A dark-haired man, a suit of armour, a blond boy, a blond girl who was older than the boy, a big man, a man with a beard, a woman with dreadlocks, a woman who looked just – just – like Sloth. A man, who had golden hair and eyes, so very much like his own.
For each face there was a vague feeling of familiarity, but no true recognition.
All the same, they were all saying that one word. Disjointed, but in stereo.
His mouth opened to speak, to form it. It was new, yet at the same time an old friend to his newly created body and amnesiac mind.
"E. . . d. Ed. . . war. . . d."
That was it. That was it – his name. . .
"Edward."
He opened his eyes with a grin, but by that point the room was empty once more, Envy gone. He leaned back against the wall with a smile on his face.
Edward. . .
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AN: I think that by now at least, you can tell that it's completely different from any and all BBI based Pride!Ed fics out there. I even recently read a transcript of the game.... and found it monumentaly boring. As you can see, I much prefer my version. Which has fun and games and starts with Ed waking up a homunculus. ^_^