Chapter Ten: Guide
Warning: Contains a spoiler...mwahahah..sorry.
Disclaimer: Yeah...nah, still don't own FMA.
And as quickly as it begun, it has ended. A victim of frictional unemployment, I am. Curse that Economics class for teaching me things...anyway, the new semester has begun. Creative Writing, Algebra 3, Painting and British Literature are what await me...
And for you, new chapters of Homunculus, He Wrote! WHEN WILL IT END? I don't really know.
Happy 2006 (my graduating year, whoo!)
"Envy fancies himself a leader," Dante sighed, taking a cup of tea from Sloth, "when he is merely just a partisan. My partisan. This is the reason why I gave Greed the opportunity to punish him."
Sloth swept a lock of silky brown hair out of her eyes as she peered down at the woman sitting before her. She had only just returned from a fruitless search for her elder brother. Had she been more apt at emotion, Sloth would have found Dante's lack of outrage toward Greed disgruntling. The Sin wasn't surprised that her master had ordered such a thing; truthfully, Envy had been taking control of the reins lately, something that she knew must have angered Dante.
"Master," Sloth bowed forward slightly, "With all due respect, don't you think we should worry more about Greed? He still posesses a fraction of the bone shard."
"I expected as much," Dante answered over her teacup, regarding Sloth with an amused expression. "He does not concern me at the moment, and he should not concern you either."
"And Envy?"
"Wherever he is, I'm sure he is recovering...all he needed was a slap on the wrist."
Sloth bowed again and turned away, her lips set in a thin, grim line. If such torture was Dante's idea of a slap on the wrist, Sloth feared seeing what her master's idea of a true punishment was.
It was a beautiful, cerulean day in Demorest, the kind of day that would have been much better if the townspeople weren't being terrorized by hideous monsters. None of the remaining residents were outside; only three beings dared walk toward the outskirts of the vanquished town.
Edward, Alphonse and Envy traipsed along, the brothers wary against chimera attacks. Envy seemed thouroughly unconcerned however; he strode, perhaps not as quickly as usual, but with an overwhelming lack of interest in everything around him. Edward secretly wondered how Envy managed to be so carefree.
As they approached the craggy surfaces of the nearby cliffs, Edward felt a strange rush of emotions; some kind of chimera mixed from titillation and embarrasment. With a jolt, he remembered these were the very cliffs on which Envy had held him...kissed him...a heated blush appeared on Edward's face. Very aware of it, he looked away, desperately hoping Envy and Alphonse didn't notice.
"Around this side," Envy said with a bored sigh as they reached the foot of the cliff. He pointed toward a sparse cluster of bushes hugging the cliff wall, "this is the route to go if you don't want to bump into any chimeras."
"Right," Ed nodded, still keeping his face turned as much away from the Sin as he could manage. He pushed aside the foliage, ducking into a tunnel that seemed to have already been made there. Alphonse crouched over until his helmet was nearly level with his knees, and followed Edward in. Envy watched them, standing behind.
Honestly, he didn't feel up for this...he was tired and weak, though his wounds had finally healed. Not that he'd ever tell anyone that he was in pain...if he complained about something of the sort, he'd seem weak.
'And I'm not,' Envy snarled within his mind,'weak.'
"Hey!" Edward's voice came muffled from inside the leafy tunnel. "Aren't you coming, Envy?"
'Coming?' Envy thought, a hot blush seeping onto his ivory skin, 'but we haven't even...'
Suddenly it struck the Sin what Edward really meant. Chagrined, he followed the two inside the tunnel, thankful that a seven-foot-tall suit of armor with the girth of a small car was blocking Ed from seeing his crimson face.
"Mmmnnumnh," he mumbled as an answer.
'Mmmnnumnh', roughly translated, is Flustered-Homunculus for: "Fine, I'll follow you, but next time choose a different set of words you idiot-bastard."
Still, Envy couldn't help but have his mind filled with a myriad of fantasies, all he had never even thought of before, all about Edward, and some involving whipped cream. Blushing even harder, the Sin kept his head down.
It only took a small amount of time before the tunnel through the bushes ended, and they found themselves staring at a large doorway carved neatly into the base of the cliff. The door itself lay a few feet away, pulverized.
"This is it?" Edward scoffed as they entered the laboratory. The walls were coated with metal, giving the place a cold, unfeeling look, but with books and equipment scattered everywhere and all the cages empty, their doors flung open, it was much less menacing than it could have been.
"Does it not suit his Highness?" Envy snapped, hands on his hips, "You wanted to know where the chimeras were coming from, and here it is, so don't complain."
Edward shot a glare in his direction, but said nothing. Instead, he began looking through the lab warily.
"Nii-san, I see no chimeras here..." Alphonse piped up, picking up an overturned table and setting it back on its legs.
"Me neither...you think all of them have escaped by now?"
"Idiots," Envy sneered, "If your eyes aren't showing you anything, use your ears."
Edward narrowed his eyes slightly, remaing silent as Envy had suggested...after a few moments, the distant sound of growls and screeches was heard, echoing through the cold metal room.
"So they're being kept further in the lab..." he strode to a doorway and entered it, Alphonse and Envy following close behind. Soon they came upon another room, filled with cages, some destroyed and empty, but others intact and holding some of the most disgusting creatures imaginable.
"There," Envy said impatiently, " You found them. Now can we get out of here, the stench is unbearable."
"But I'm supposed to get rid of them!" Edward exclaimed, a hand clamped over his nose to block out the horrible smell. Alphonse bent low and whispered to him.
"Nii-san, perhaps in this situation it would be best to call the military for reinforcements..."
"Why, Al? I can do this alone..."
"But," the armor responded, inclining his helmet ever so slightly toward Envy, "we have other things to take care of."
Edward stood in silence, mulling over Al's words...it was true, it seemed to be a lot to deal with both these chimeras and have to watch over Envy...besides, truthfully, he didn't even know what to do with the chimeras...kill them? That seemed awfully unjust. The ones in town had wreaked havoc, sure, but these in front of him had done nothing wrong so far.
'Even chimeras' he thought, remembering with heartache the sunny, smiling face of Nina, 'deserve to live.'
Alphonse was right...it wasn't in his hands to decide. Besides, he had no way of understand the history of this lab...
"Yeah...we'll leave it to the military. Cmon, I'll go call Mustang..."
When he closed the door and walked away, they followed.
"You want us to come over there and deal with it?" Mustang's voice sounded incredulous over the phone.
"Basically, yeah," Edward said as offhandedly as was possible, "I figured that would be better...seeing as I'm out of money to stay here and I wouldn't know what to do."
"I ordered you to--"
"What's that, sir? I think the line is breaking up...if you can hear me, Al and I are going to be taking the first train out of here! We'll see you later, bye!" He slammed the phone down before the Colonel's outraged yells had a chance to reach his eardrums, "Well, that's that. The Colonel has no choice but to send troops down here now, since we're leaving and all..."
"Or find us and force us back," Alphonse added. His brother gave him what would have been a menacing glare, were his lower lip not sticking out in such a pouty way.
Envy saw it, and from his seat on the bed, gave an involuntary shiver. What the hell was happening to him? Was Ed actually...turning him on?
'Ridiculous,' he thought. He had never, ever been turned on in his life, so far as he could remember, anyway...he definitely knew the human concept of sex, and all the slang and denotation that went along with it; he was far too old not to know. But he himself had never indulged, had never wanted it. To him, there were far too many more fun tasks to carry out. Such as, oh, killing humans. He didn't care if they suffered or not. Truth be told, he often finished the job quickly and went on his way...but his desire to kill seemed to have slipped away, and in its place crept a new, foreign kind of desire...something that he was sure wasn't supposed to be inhabiting him...but it was so pleasing he didn't want to banish it.
Suddenly the Sin was aware of the awkward silence that filled the room...Edward and Alphonse stood a few feet away, looking fastidiously at him. A battle could be seen raging in Edward's beautiful eyes.
Envy was no fool, he knew what they were thinking: 'Should we leave him here or take him with us?'
Frankly, even the Sin didn't know what he wanted himself...
What could he do? Rip up the powerful Contract of Semi-Trust with the Elrics, go on his way, be free again...but he had never really been free in the first place. Dante, with her controlling ways, had been hindering his movements for centuries. She had even, as Greed had so bluntly explained, was the one who was behind all this in the first place...it had been she who had sent Greed there, she who had ordered Envy's punishment...did Dante even care about the horrors Envy had gone through? The pain he had been forced to put up with, the assault unto his body and his pride...? No, Dante didn't care, he was sure of it. To her, Envy was just another pawn; and just as a chef who lost her best spoon, but could easily buy another one, Dante would simply replace him if he were to die.
You'd think a mother would care more for her child.
But it was too much to hope for. Earlier on in his life, Envy had wished Dante would love him like she was supposed to. He never knew why he thought she was supposed to care for him until he learned that he was made in the image of her son...but he had receieved no love and no kindness, and like a plant left in a sunless room, his mind and outlook blackened and shrivelled, causing a lust for blood to be spilt and a psychotic kind of perceptiveness that not even Dante could understand.
And if he didn't go with the Elrics, there was the possibility he'd run into Greed again, alone and defenseless. Envy wasn't afraid of him, he just wasn't ready for such an encounter; especially not while he was weak and vulnerable without red stones to power him.
Still, going with the two brothers wasn't going to make him much safer. After all, Edward and Alphonse didn't carry around red stones in their pockets and offer them to random Homunculi...but if he went back to Dante, would she even consider nourishing him?
It was all too confusing. The Sin flopped backwards on the bed, staring up at the memorized patterns on the ceiling.
"You coming, Envy?" Edward's voice echoed softly in the room. And without thinking, without even being ready for it, Envy's lips parted and the word sprang from his mouth like a frog leaping into the cool water.
"Yes."
Envy had been so shocked by his own eagerness to go along with Edward that the next few hours happened in a complete daze; he never knew quite what was happening at one given moment. There was the inn, Edward talking to some people, who seemed overjoyed...there was a platform, then there was...motion?
"Something's moving," Envy said blankly as he finally began to snap out of it.
"We're on a train, Envy..." Alphonse said softly as though he were a nurse speaking to a mental patient.
"Train?" he looked about, and as Alphonse was said, he was sitting in a train carriage with the the brothers sitting in front of him, the landscape outside sweeping past.
"Are you sure you feel okay?" Edward asked, arms crossed and looking at Envy suspiciously.
"I'm fine!" he flared, dramatically swivelling his head to stare out the window. Unfortunately, this rebellious movement turned out to be a mite too dramatic, as he suddenly felt very dizzy, "Where...thehell'rewegoing...?" he asked, swaying where he sat.
Edward and Alphonse exchanged worried glances, then looked at Envy.
"We're going back to Central."
"Whythehell'rewegoingthere...?" he slurred, shaking his head to get rid of the dizziness. It wasn't a very effective method.
"To report back to the Colonel," Edward explained, "He'll be pissed, but we owe him a better explanation."
"You don't owe that bastard anything!" Envy snarled, his indigo eyes burning. Edward and Alphonse just stared at him.
"What the hell do you have against the Colonel? Do you have some kind of weird grudge against him too? I mean sure, he's a prat and all, but..."
Envy just crossed his arms and lay down on the uncomfortably hard seat, his bare feet pressed against the glass of the window.
He didn't really have anything against Roy Mustang...except that Mustang was a human, of course...so what had caused that little outburst?
'Am I...jealous?' he thought, frowning deeply. It was his namesake after all...but jealous of what? What possible quality of that dark-haired human could he be yearning for?
Admittedly, the power to blow stuff up with a snap of the fingers was tempting, but...
Envy's eyes suddenly went wide.
'He spends time with Ed,' his mind whispered, panic-stricken in its realization. Then the horrifying thought that maybe Edward and the Colonel were a bit more than military boss and subordinate snuck into his subconscious.
"Hey...Envy? You okay?" he heard Ed's voice, seeming to come from miles away. Envy shot up like a rocket, staring with a frenzy at the alchemist.
"I don't care! I'll never care! That guy is a pedophile anyway, you can tell by looking at him!"
"Uh...Envy?" Alphonse asked timidly. Envy, tangled in a headlong somersault down a hill, couldn't seem to stop himself.
"Who does he think he is! I'll tell you; he thinks he's a god or something, but he's not! Why doesn't he go back to his native country!"
Edward sat, wide-eyed, and confusedly mouthed the words "native-country", wondering exactly what the hell Envy was going on about.
"Envy," Alphonse said, trying to be helpful, "Thisis Mustang's native--"
"No, Al," Edward placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, still staring in a shocked but curious way at Envy, "Just...no."
The rest of the train ride wasn't exactly enjoyed in silence; not with Envy swearing up and down, cursing Mustang's name...Edward learned that Envy's fuse didn't exactly blow out quickly. Still, Envy's incessant ranting kept the Sin from seeing Ed's eyes travelling intently to Envy's thighs; in Envy's acerbity, the alchemized gown had bunched further around his meager waist, exposing the deep red of the Ourobouros tattoo and a considerable amount of smooth, pearly skin...
Not that he wasn't used to seeing it...after all, Envy had long displayed a fair amount of his body, and now Ed understood why...where before he just though the Sin was incredibly peculiar-looking, he had realized just how beautiful Envy truly was.
The train chugged along, and Edward found himself swept into fantasies of his own.
You like? Not much content in this one...but the next one will be better, as I usually say. Poor Ed, Envy really is a sexy biz-natch, isn't he? He won't be able to resist for long... XD The lovin will start soon, believe you me...
My stove is still on fire (you'd think the fire department would have come by now) , but I sent Wrath to the bakery...so...cookies for everyone!
PS. The whole "Mustang's native country" thing is an inside joke between me and my cousin...heheh...disregard completely.