Number of words: 6,205

Published date: July 28, 2013

Began chapter: June 29, 2013

Finished chapter: July 28, 2013

Chapter 25: Father before the Grave

After Mason's delivery, the afternoon proceeded peacefully enough. Ms. Bradley spent some time rearranging things in the kitchen, making space in the refrigerator, freezer, and cupboards. Selim went to his study room to spend the afternoon with his books while Sloth remained seated at the kitchen's corner table, serenely sipping his lemonade. A short while later, Lust and Envy emerged from hiding (now that Mason was gone and they wouldn't be asked to help), and Lust immediately went out to "check up on" (as she put it) Gluttony in the garden. Envy, seeming more cheerful than usual, sidled in beside Sloth and casually stole Greed's half-drunk glass from across the table. Greed, distracted, took a few seconds to respond.

"Get your tentacles off that. It's mine," he growled in warning.

Envy grinned, unimpressed, and began to lift the glass to his lips, drawing the action out so that it was clearly meant to antagonize. A vein in Greed's temple began to throb at the affront to something that was his.

"Keep it up and I'll make it so you have to drink that through a straw."

Of course, the words only egged his brother on.

The glass reached lips and began to tilt, liquid crept toward his mouth, and Greed prepared to lunge across the table, but Ms. Bradley saved the day, for before the fight could escalate to physical, she was there at the table placing a new full glass in front of Greed.

"What, nothing for me?" Envy complained.

"Clearly you wanted the half-full one, dear," Ms. Bradley replied calmly.

He couldn't argue. Greed smirked. Envy scowled back. Ms. Bradley did her best to ignore them both.

"I don't mean to be a bother, but I couldn't help overhearing you and Selim earlier," she said, continuing her chores while talking over her shoulder. "Greed, why so interested in going to Xing?"

"Oh yeah, I forget how much you don't know," Greed replied, scratching the back of his head absently. Her question was a good reminder of how little Ms. Bradley knew about the Homunculi. "I've got a couple friends in Xing," he went on to explain. "A dumbass prince and a few lackeys. The kid's a moron; he's probably getting into tons of trouble without me to haul him out of it, but what can I do? Call me a softie, but I don't have the heart to leave the little pissant all alone when he doesn't even know that I'm alive."

Ms. Bradley frowned at his choice of words, but from Greed's tone, he meant the insults in the nicest way possible. Envy, on the other hand, sniggered.

"Your friend?" he sneered. "As far as I remember, you stole the fool's body, and you think he wants to see you again? He's probably relieved to be rid of you. I know I would be."

"Shows what you know. Ling and I got to understand each other pretty well. We have a lot in common. He came here looking for immortality and that's exactly what he got. He wasn't even willing to give up his body without a fight. He wanted everything, just like me."

Envy rolled his eyes. "Yeah? Then while you're lying about being friends, why don't you say that you don't just want to go to Xing 'cause the brat's emperor now and you want in on the action?"

"I don't lie," Greed protested automatically before grimacing. "At least not unless there's no choice," he muttered under his breath. Like protecting everyone. Or to save Ling. Needing to lie, even for something as necessary as what he'd done with Mason, bugged him to no end, but Greed reasoned that the lie was really more like stretching the truth. It might not be true at the moment, but once he got to Xing, it would be like it was true. What he had said was something that would be half true in the near future, so that wasn't really lying, right?

His family couldn't exactly be praised for their moral virtues, so Greed figured he deserved at least a little wriggle room.

The thought was enough to alleviate some of his bad mood, and he returned to Envy's accusation with a grin.

"And damn straight I want in on the action! The kid and I had a deal: Give me his body and in return he'd get the Stone so he could become emperor. And now I find out he's gone and become emperor anyway! The punk's probably not even abusing his power properly! I mean, the whole point of power is to use it for yourself, and all he could gripe on about was protecting people. I've got to make sure he's living in style, or he learned nothing from me at all."

Envy opened his mouth to retort, but stopped when he caught sight of the stunned – and mildly horrified – look on Ms. Bradley's face.

"What?" Greed asked.

She dazedly shook her head.

"Maybe I've misunderstood... I don't know what kind of life you've led... And it's not my place to judge you, Greed – I haven't been above using charm myself sometimes – but there's harmless flirting and then there's totally inappropriate and I don't want to hear about any... any hanky-panky that you've been up to-"

"Whoa, hold on," Greed interrupted, twisting around at the table to face her. "What're you going on about? 'Hanky-panky'? What's that even mean?" Envy looked equally confused.

She hesitated and fidgeted with the tablecloth rather than making eye contact with the two men.

"Well, you just said... I mean..." Her voice dropped in embarrassment. "'Willing to give up his body'... That sounds like... Well, you know..." She trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence.

They figured out her meaning at the same time. Envy immediately began to laugh and Greed grew red in the face and stuttered out a protest.

"NO, that's not what I meant! We weren't-"

"Doing 'hanky-panky'? Come on, Greed, don't lie!"

"Shut your trap! You're just going to confuse her more!"

"You're going to hurt your boyfriend's feelings if you keep denying-"

"Ling is NOT my boyfriend!"

"I always thought you talked about wanting women and sex a bit too much; now I know why! Should I be concerned? I hope you're not going to try to steal my body next-"

"If I was into guys," Greed stated dryly, "you wouldn't count."

"Oh, I'm wounded!" Envy replied, tone dripping with sarcasm as he theatrically brought a hand to his 'wounded' chest. "It's because of my clothes, right? You humans and your hang-ups on gender and all that crap. It makes no sense at all that men and women have to wear different things. This is way comfier than pants-"

"It's not your clothes. It's just that I'd rather do someone who's not butt ugl-"

Envy instantly jumped to his feet, preparing to lunge across the table. Greed looked eager to meet the attack and Ms. Bradley began to fear that she would again have to get the first aid kit (just when Envy's bruise was starting to fade, too!), but Sloth chose that moment to get up. Being the size that he was, his shoulder couldn't help but bump into Envy, who only just managed to keep his forehead from smacking on the table as he fell out of his seat.

"Hey! Sloth, what's the big deal?"

Envy's glare made no impression on his large brother, whose face remained expressionless, and he had little choice but to move out of the way to let Sloth out from the bench. As Sloth left the kitchen, though, Ms. Bradley couldn't help but wonder if he wanted to get away from their bickering, and she turned back to the two men with her hands on her hips.

"Honestly, you two!" she exclaimed in exasperation. "Children are better behaved. If I were younger, why, I'd have half a mind to put you both over my knee!"

They stared at her blankly.

"… I take it that's a punishment somehow, but all I'm coming up with is more hanky-panky," Greed said after a moment.

"Oh my goodness, no! It's-"

At that moment, the phone rang, so she didn't get the chance to explain what "over my knee" meant.

To be fair, though, Greed didn't get the chance to explain what he'd meant about "stealing Ling's body" either.

"Hello?"

Alphonse smiled and gave his brother a thumbs up and Ed shrugged in reply. He had insisted that Al be the one to try calling, thinking that if Envy answered the phone again, the former shape-shifter would be less inclined to fool around with the younger Elric – mainly because, unlike with Ed, Envy had never shown much interest in riling up the level-headed suit of armour.

Although, honestly, it wasn't like he'd had a lot of opportunity to do so anyway.

"Ms. Bradley. Good afternoon. I hope I'm not interrupting you with anything…"

"Oh, Alphonse! Of course not. How are you?"

"I'm well," Al answered politely. "And how are you?"

"As well as can be expected, I suppose," she replied with a small sigh.

"Is everything alright?" he asked with concern. "Has something happened?"

"Oh no, dear, everything is fine. I'm just... tired is all."

The phone, set up on a desk in the hallway outside the dining room, was also right next to a small red sofa. Ms. Bradley gladly sank into it. Admitting she was tired only made the feeling stronger. Ruefully, she thought back to when she had been young and energetic and had carried on hour-long conversations with her friends (mostly other military wives) without once feeling the need to sit down. Clearly those days were long past.

Alphonse, quite skilled at reading her after the three years since they had taken Selim on as a pupil, waited patiently, sensing that Lily would continue without urging.

"I'm not as young as I used to be, Alphonse. It's not that things have been hard, just that change is so draining for me now."

"But they haven't been giving you any trouble?" Al asked. "Everyone has been behaving?"

"Oh yes, they haven't been any trouble..."

The way her voice trailed off spoke volumes.

"But...?" he prompted.

Ms. Bradley paused for a moment, shifting in her seat to look both ways down the hallway. From where she sat, she could see into the living room and part of the dining room. Both rooms were empty. She heard the door in the kitchen close and, when neither Greed nor Envy emerged from the room, guessed that they had both gone outside – hopefully not to continue needling each other.

Well, she couldn't help what they did, and she at least felt satisfied that her conversation with Alphonse wouldn't be overheard.

"They haven't been any trouble, really, but Envy constantly bickers and picks fights with Greed and Greed seems only too happy to oblige. I'm not sure what to do about the two of them," she confessed. "I have no idea why they're fighting so much."

Alphonse hummed in sympathy. "I don't know. Maybe they have some history we don't know about."

The old woman huffed at that. Though he couldn't see her face, Alphonse had no doubt she was adopting a stern expression as she spoke even though her words were meant more as a joke. "It makes me wish King were still here. There's no way he would put up with such behaviour. He'd have those two in line in a second!"

Alphonse chuckled in agreement, though he would not have placed bets on that, knowing what he did about the Fuhrer's true identity. Perhaps if King Bradley had been an ordinary human, he would have wielded enough authority to make his new family members behave. Alphonse didn't know for sure where Wrath fell in the Homunculi's hierarchy of age and power, however, and he suspected that the prior relationship with the others would only have made the other Homunculi less inclined to obey him, not more.

And if Wrath had somehow survived, I bet the others wouldn't be happy about it, Alphonse mused. They all died trying to fulfill their father's goal; I can't imagine they'd take it kindly if Wrath, once their father was dead, simply abandoned the plan and adopted life as a human. He was hesitant to discard the possibility, though, remembering how the Fuhrer had spoken at their first visit with the Bradleys six years ago. He had declared rather fiercely that he had a family too, and although the statement had been meant as a reminder that he held the Elrics' own family as hostages, Alphonse suspected the Fuhrer had not been thinking of the Homunculi at all when he'd said it. After all, Selim had admitted outright that he had enjoyed his time "playing house"; perhaps the Fuhrer too had longed for their act to be real and would have welcomed the chance for it to be so.

"- Selim's siblings wouldn't be here."

Alphonse started and realized that Ms. Bradley had continued talking and he hadn't caught a word of it.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. I kind of got lost in thought there. What were you saying?"

"Oh, I was just thinking out loud. I suppose if King were still alive, I wouldn't be in this situation at all, because Selim's siblings wouldn't even be here. For one thing, we would still be living in Central and he would probably still be working, although maybe by now I could have convinced him to retire. Heaven knows that man wanted to work himself ragged!" She laughed, exasperated by how stubborn her husband had been when it came to his work. "And I'm sure he would have figured something out with Selim so that he didn't need to be a secret."

There was nothing for Alphonse to say in reply, and Ms. Bradley suddenly realized that the topic was probably uncomfortable for the younger Elric brother. Al hadn't known King other than as his brother's boss's boss, and how could he discuss something as personal as a deceased loved one with a woman who was almost old enough to be his grandmother?

"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear! I've barely let you say anything at all."

"Really, Ma'am, it's fine."

"No, no, I'm sure you called for a reason other than to listen to me ramble on about such silly fancies!"

"No, I was just calling to check up on how things are going," Al reassured her. "You know, make sure there haven't been any problems. I'm sure you would have called if anything happened, but..."

"No, I completely understand, Alphonse. I'm glad you're checking up on us."

"So other than Envy and Greed bickering, has anything else happened?" Al asked.

Lily paused, thinking back over the week. Small incidences came to mind, such as Envy and Greed's fight over their drawings and the subsequent revelation of Selim's true age, Gluttony's knack for cooking and Sloth's artistic ability, Mason's visit and Greed's slip-up over claiming to be from Xing, and the fact that their names held specific meanings. After some consideration, she chose one of the easier topics.

"Is it really necessary for Greed to train Selim? He's been doing what you asked, but I can't stand seeing the two of them fighting like that, even if it is just for training…"

"Yes," Alphonse responded firmly. "A few bumps and scratches never hurt us; they won't hurt Selim either. You'll be glad when he's older that he can take care of himself. He doesn't have the same short temper that Ed does, so he won't be picking fights everywhere either."

"But he's only a chi-" She cut off mid-word. No, she thought soberly. He's not a child. He's older than me.

"Ma'am?"

She shook her head, though of course Alphonse couldn't see it. "I- The others told me. About Selim's age, I mean. Did you… know how old he is?"

Alphonse hesitated a moment before answering. "… I don't know the exact number, but we had a general idea." He sounded guilty. "I'm sorry; maybe we should have told you…"

"No, I'm not blaming you. It's just so hard to wrap my head around! My 400-year old son!"

"Four…" Al repeated the number under his breath in disbelief. He and Ed had known that Pride, as the oldest Homunculus, had to be near the same age as Amestris's founding, but the number was still a high one to swallow. "But remember that he's still a child too, Ms. Bradley. I don't think you should start treating him differently."

"That's right; he is still a child," she exclaimed playfully, trying to steer the conversation on to more pleasant things. "Which is why I don't like to see him fighting, but I suppose life is all about compromise. After all, I wouldn't let you put him on that island, so I should at least let him do this. Isn't it like the 'equal exchange' thing you alchemists always talk about?"

Al chuckled. "Equivalent Exchange," he corrected. "And I guess that's one way of looking at it, but remember: Ed and I are trying to disprove that theory. A lot of alchemists use Equivalent Exchange to get favours out of people, but we don't want to hold people to it when we have our own theory to prove. That's just bad form."

"Of course," Lily laughed lightly. "Have you decided on a name for it yet?"

"No." She could almost hear Alphonse pouting on the other end of the line. "I had a suggestion, but someone didn't like it."

The comment was clearly being directed at that someone, for she heard Ed's voice faintly in the background, "That's because it was a dumb suggestion!"

"You haven't come up with anything better and we need a name!"

This time she couldn't make out Edward's reply, but the exchange still made her smile.

"Sorry about that," Al apologized when he returned to their conversation. "I was meaning to ask, how have Selim's studies been going?"

"Now Alphonse, you know very well all of that alchemy he's learning is over my head. It might as well be Xingese for all I understand it. Selim stopped bothering me with his lessons a long time ago. He's in his study room right now; would you like me to get him?"

"No, that's all right. Actually, we were planning on coming out this weekend just to check up on everyone."

Considering she rarely left the house, there was no issue with that. They took a few more minutes settling plans and making pleasantries, and then she hung up the phone and paused on the couch. Even if the topics hadn't all been pleasant, airing her frustrations about Envy and Greed's bickering and admitting that she missed King made her feel better just by sharing them, even though it didn't do anything to solve or change those things.

Voices drifting down the stairs brought her back to the present.

They sounded angry.

Curious, Ms. Bradley followed the sounds to the second floor. As she reached the landing, she distinctly heard Envy's voice shout even from all the way down the hall:

"No, we don't! You can't tell us what to do anymore, Pride!"

With foreboding, she moved down the hall.

"Oh, Alphonse! Of course not. How are you? … As well as can be expected, I suppose… Oh no, dear, everything is fine. I'm just... tired is all."

Left to themselves in the kitchen, Greed and Envy had no intention of spending any more time together than was necessary. Envy had already been standing when the phone rang, but Greed was closer to the door and so beat him to it. Naturally, Envy didn't want to seem like he was following Greed, so his only option was to remain in the kitchen or go elsewhere.

A part of him – a small part that he'd die before admitting! – was actually thankful that Greed was there with them; he would have been bored out of his mind without someone around to argue with. As it was, Envy remained where he stood, trying to decide what he felt like doing, when his ears perked up at the sound of his name.

"… Envy constantly bickers and..."

I think I feel like some more eavesdropping, he thought with a grin. Let's hear what the old hag thinks of me.

Sneaking into position was laughably easy. Envy had always been rather conscious of his footsteps. He had needed to be; before he'd reached enough skill to modify his weight while wearing a human body (which took so much concentration that he often lost it in tense situations), his steps had been horribly loud and heavy. Envy couldn't count the number of times people had given him funny looks or been suspicious because of it. Now, that awareness had an upside: except for Selim, he was the lightest of the household, and that meant he barely made a sound.

Sometimes, he felt so light that he'd swear his feet weren't touching the floor. And now that he was used to it, it kind of felt nice to not be stuffed into a body thirty times too small. He hadn't realized before that his transformations had been the equivalent of tensing a muscle and now he finally had the chance to relax it.

Envy wasn't particularly concerned about being discovered eavesdropping (After all, the only thing Pride could do was reprimand him), but he was curious to hear what Ms. Bradley would say when she thought no one was listening, so he tiptoed as quickly and quietly as he could from the kitchen to the dining room so that she wouldn't know he was there. Because the phone was right outside the dining room doorway, he crossed around the other side of the big table until he could press his back against the wall immediately separating him from the widowed matron. If he had wanted to, Envy was close enough that he could have reached around the corner and yanked the phone out of her hands.

Initially, the snooping sounded like it would be a wasted effort. Complaining about his and Greed's arguing was hardly interesting or revealing.

"I have no idea why they're fighting so much."

Boooring, he thought. And it's none of her business anyway why we don't get along.

"It makes me wish King were still here. There's no way he would put up with such behaviour. He'd have those two in line in a second!"

It took Envy a second to remember who she was talking about, for 'King' had just been an alias and the Homunculi had rarely referred to Wrath by his human name, it being easier to use his title of Fuhrer instead. And honestly, Envy hadn't thought of Wrath at all since their resurrection; he hadn't liked Wrath, had chaffed at having to obey the man (who held top position with any military schemes), had resented the way he'd kept his sin under tight control (He'd made it look so easy! It wasn't fair!), and had hated that Wrath, who barely counted as a real Homunculus, had had his whole life nicely laid out for him.

Ms. Bradley's words struck him as queer, and it wasn't just because she referred to Wrath by his human name, but Envy couldn't place what was throwing him off. Frowning, he kept listening.

"… I'm sure he would have figured something out with Selim so that he didn't need to be a secret."

She's talking about Wrath like she doesn't know…

Impossible. How could she not know? If they told her what Pride is, they had to tell her about Wrath too. Or even if they didn't, she's had to have figured it out by now…

The thought disturbed him. So much so that when the conversation steered onto Greed and Pride's training sessions, Envy slipped away rather than continue listening.

He had to check something.

The phone really wasn't set up in a smart location; the kitchen and dining room were heavily trafficked areas and unless a person went outside, there was no way to the rest of the house except past the phone, denying the user any reasonable expectation of privacy. Not wanting Ms. Bradley to see him, Envy slipped back to the kitchen, out the door, and around the side of the mansion to the front of the house, then made a beeline for the living room.

It didn't take him long to find the thing that proved his suspicions.

He didn't make enough noise going up the stairs for Ms. Bradley to hear him, but he wouldn't have cared even if she had.

Envy found Pride in his study room, sitting at the desk and absently gnawing on the end of his pencil as he flipped through one of his textbooks. The desk was so large that his eldest brother appeared dwarfed in comparison; the cushion he needed to sit on to reach the desktop only added to how ridiculous he looked.

Envy didn't hesitate, didn't call for Pride's attention first, and didn't wait to be noticed. Instead, he strode across the room with single-minded determination and slammed the object in his hand down on the book right under his brother's nose.

"Explain this," he demanded.

Pride, to his credit, didn't jump or start at Envy's sudden intrusion. He merely looked up, brows furrowed in clear irritation, before glancing down at the table and the item Envy had put there.

"… What do you mean, 'explain this'?" he asked, confused. "It's clear what it is."

'It' was a picture: a photograph in a simple wooden frame. Pride could very easily remember the day the picture had been taken. There they were, the three members of the Bradley family, sitting in the living room of the Fuhrer's residence at Central Command. Selim was in the middle of the couch, Ms. Bradley and King on either side of him. King, rare for him, was wearing civilian clothes, and Selim and his mother were dressed up in their nicest, too. Lily had hired a photographer to take the picture and so had insisted that they all look their best; all Pride remembered was that he had hated the bowtie (which felt like it was choking him) and that his freshly pressed pants had been incredibly itchy. The picture was one of his mother's most cherished possessions; she had a lot of photographs of King in his role as Fuhrer, but few of all three of them together as a family.

"I know what it is!" Envy responded indignantly. "I'm not asking what it is, I'm asking what it's doing here!"

"… 'What it's doing here?'" the child repeated slowly, only more confused.

"What is what doing here?" Lust asked, crossing the room. Greed sauntered in behind her.

"How'd you know-"

"It's kinda' obvious you're up to something when we see you skulking around the side of the house," Greed responded, rolling his eyes. "You know, I was just gonna' make a move on her, too." He walked over to the table and snatched up the picture before Envy or Pride could object, then raised an eyebrow, clearly not understanding what the deal was any more than Pride.

Lust sniffed. "Funny. I was just wishing I had my heels on so I could stab them into your shin." She held her hand out for the picture.

Greed chuckled and handed it over. "That's okay. I like a woman with some friskiness to her."

Lust didn't dignify that with a response, merely glancing at the photo in her hands before looking up at Envy.

"What are you so upset about?" she asked. "It's just a picture."

At the dismissive tone in his sister's voice, Envy bristled angrily. "I overheard her on the phone, Lust, and this picture only proves it: She doesn't know! She doesn't know that Wrath was a Homunculus!"

"Of course Mother doesn't know!" Pride exclaimed, almost scandalized. "How could we possibly tell her?"

Lust looked at him and shook her head in dismay. "You're only figuring this out now, Envy? It should have been obvious from the beginning."

"It's bad enough that I was lying, but to have her husband – her marriage – be a lie too?" Pride continued in the background. "Mother would be devastated!"

"I'm not saying that I didn't realize it before! Stop treating me like I'm an idiot!" Envy growled, too insulted to affect the haughty, know-it-all attitude that they would be adopting if in his place. "That's not what I mean! And I couldn't care less about how devastated she'd be!" he snapped at Pride. "She can go and cry herself into a hole for all I care, but if the fool woman is that stupid, she's going to get us all killed by accident!"

The mood in the room instantly changed. Pride, who had looked flustered and upset, stiffened as if he'd just had ice dropped down the back of his shirt. Lust looked startled and Envy was pleased to see that she hadn't considered it, that for once he'd thought of something that she hadn't. Greed just looked nonplussed.

"Mother isn't stupid," Pride declared after a moment.

"It's been six years and she hasn't figured this out yet," Envy said, placing his hands on his hips. "What else do you want to call it? You mean to tell me that there's been nothing to at least make her suspicious? What about the fact that you were supposedly adopted from Wrath's side of the family? Isn't it kind of obvious that he was in on the lie too then, or does she think that he was an idiot just as much as she was? We shouldn't have to put our lives in the hands of someone so dense."

As he spoke, Pride's face only grew darker until it seemed the shadows in the room would surge forward through sheer willpower.

"Mother is not stupid," he hissed. "She has lied and risked her life for me and she would never do anything to put us in danger. I won't allow you to talk about her like that."

"I didn't say she'd do it on purpose-"

"I said to stop talking about it, Envy."

For a moment, Envy bit his tongue, internally seething. And no one could blame him. His concerns, dismissed with no consideration at all. Lust did it a lot too; they never listened to him. The older Homunculi thought they knew everything, thought that they couldn't possibly miss anything. Forget Pride the Arrogant; they were all conceited, and just because Envy happened to get emotional and overreact sometimes, they didn't take anything he thought of seriously.

But then he realized something, and he couldn't keep the hint of a smile from turning up his lips.

"I guess you're right, Pride. If you're confident that she won't give us away, then I'll take your word for it," he said, trying to sound reasonable.

To say they looked surprised that he was meekly backing down was an understatement.

"I'm just saying this because I'm worried, is all. I mean, she's got to find out eventually. Are you sure she'll be so… devoted… when she finds out that Wrath was lying too? You don't think she'd be just a little mad? Maybe want revenge? I know that if I were in her place and held so much power over the ones who had tricked me, well…"

Finally, he saw some doubt on his brother's face. He'd always wished he could see Pride hesitant and uncertain for once and now there it was. The child stared at him, mouth working silently for a few moments before he finally recovered enough to answer.

"Mother's not like you, Envy. She wouldn't try to hurt us no matter what she found out, but it doesn't matter, because she won't find out about Wrath. The officers who know are under tight orders to keep it a secret and Big Brother and Teacher won't tell because it would just hurt her. The only way she'd find out is if one of us told her – and none of you will."

"Are you suuure?"

"Envy, enough," Lust interjected, fed up with the word games. She brought her hand up to his shoulder, hoping to pacify him. "What's the matter with you? There's absolutely no reason to make such a threat. Revealing Wrath's identity doesn't do anything for us. And it's not like you to challenge-"

He shrugged her off. "Oh, it's not a threat. I'm not gonna' say anything, even if her expression would be amazing. What I'm saying is that there's nothing he-" He jabbed his finger at Pride. "-can do to stop us from telling her if we want to."

The child Homunculus brought himself up to his full height.

"You have to do what I say!" he protested shrilly, barely able to believe what he was hearing. It was a golden rule, a law of nature, that Pride had to be obeyed. He was the oldest. He was the strongest. He held their lives in his Stone-

"No, we don't! You can't tell us what to do anymore, Pride!"

"Stop calling me that!"

"What are you going to do to make me, huh?"

There was of course no way to respond. Pride didn't have his shadows anymore and it would be a long time before he was large and skilled enough to hold his own in a fight. All he had over the others was alchemy and that would only be useful when they didn't see it coming. He had no way to force obedience.

He'd never felt so pathetic in his life.

Even worse, his eyes were stinging. He couldn't cry in front of them! Anything but that!

"Alright, you've had your say, Envy," Greed spoke up, breaking the stalemate. He'd been so quiet that the other three had almost forgotten he was there. "What do you want?"

Trust Greed to get straight to the point. "I want him to get off his high horse," Envy said. "You've been acting all high and mighty 'cause you brought us back, as if we should scrape your boots out of gratitude. Well, guess what? It's a two-way street and you'd better start appreciating that I'm willing to cooperate with your little game. We're all equals now. You can't keep saying, 'I'm a human, call me Selim,' and then trot out Pride whenever you feel like it."

Envy felt rather pleased with himself. The argument was well articulated and made sense, and Pride's eyes were wide, as if the words had really struck home. He was sick of being the butt end of teasing, of constantly being reprimanded and treated like he was lower than the others. It was high time his brother – no, all his siblings – realized that he was fully capable of bringing their fragile world down on them if he felt like it.

But then he noticed that Pride was not staring at him at all, but was looking past his right hip.

He turned and heard Lust and Greed do the same.

Ms. Bradley was standing just outside the doorway.

Envy swore silently under his breath. How long has she been there? How much did she hear? He would never live it down if, once again, his love of running his mouth off had accidentally revealed the thing he'd just threatened, but definitely not intended, to say.

But the first thing she asked was not a question about her late husband, so it was probably safe to assume she hadn't heard very much.

"… Is… Is everything alright…?"

The old woman was wringing her hands anxiously, so she clearly knew the answer to her question, but it was just as clear that she was hoping for someone to say that nothing was wrong.

Dense. Absolutely clueless. Living in a happy little daydream with no idea that everything in her life was fake. His mind went back to the picture of the happy, smiling family. God, it'd be so much fun to take it away from her.

"Everything's fine, Mother," Pride said, trying for convincing and not quite making it. "Envy was just…" He faltered, uncertain of what to say.

"Just practicing my communication skills, Ms. B. Nothing to get in a tizzy over," he said, smiling in as friendly a manner as he could.

She didn't look at all satisfied, but it wasn't like he cared anyway. When he moved to leave, she seemed more than eager to get out of his way.

The atmosphere the next day was tense.

Envy noticed that the photograph had not been returned to its place on the mantel in the living room, and he realized that that was likely Pride's doing. His brother probably thought the picture had set him off because he was jealous of what Pride and Wrath had had in their playing at being human.

And, well, after what Edward had said to him, Envy supposed he was a little bothered by it.

But only a little!

Author's Notes:

Another delayed chapter, but this one's pretty long. I'm quite happy with the opening joke with Greed, Envy, and Ms. Bradley because it just came out as I was writing; I hadn't planned it beforehand. The chapter's name refers to Wrath and how the truth of his death is a secret, though I realize that Wrath doesn't truly fall under the label of "father" even to Selim.

I really want to upload a new chapter on August 7, which will be the one-year anniversary for Phylactery, but that's probably way too optimistic.