WEEHEEHEE Finally the last set of character introductions is dooooooooone. And (oh god) 68 chapters later, we have our full set of homunculi swaps!

The full list:

Will – Envy
Alex – Wrath 03
Diana – Lust
Jareth - Greed
King Bradley – Pride 03/Wrath BH
Selim – Pride BH
Zhu Yingtai/Juliet Douglas – Sloth 03
Zhu Huan – Sloth BH
Zhu Bao – Gluttony

And while we haven't confirmed everybody's actual sins so far – Riza, Roy, Ling, Ed, Al, Winry and Scar are the homunculi. C:

Song is by Keane, and this is one of those ones where picking specific lyrics was HARD. (Also, I adore Keane anyway.) But definitely, if you don't listen, at least look up the full lyrics because oooooowwwwwwwwch.

TW: misogyny/sexism, very slight ableism re: developmental disabilities (shows up more later), violence, attempted rape from rapist POV, mental instability/dissociation/identity issues city, alcoholism

~18~

A tell-tale sign
You don't know where to draw the line
And why'd you say
It's just another day, nothing in my way
I don't wanna go, I don't wanna stay
So there's nothing left to say

-Nothing In My Way

Zhu Huan was tired. Of course, he was always tired. Even before this doomed quest, he'd been well into the part of late middle age that involved falling asleep at the most inconvenient times, including whenever he sat down anywhere soft – which was why when his niece had come up to him and sweetly asked to take her training as a guard of the family to the next step, he hadn't said no. Actually, he'd been rather excited.

Finding Yao Ranfan handcuffed to a railing and crying was about the final nail in the coffin for that excitement.

He sighed, kneeling down next to her and examining the handcuffs. Yingtai had probably stolen them from some hapless soldier. They were everywhere in this country. They didn't have police or guards, they had soldiers. They didn't have bureaucrats, they had soldiers. If there was a non-military government somewhere under all of this war machinery, he couldn't see it.

"She's gone, she – I'm going to kill her myself – Huan, please, I tried, she –"

"Hush," he ordered. She did, and he waved Bao over, who'd been standing respectfully back. Bao offered up his thin knife, but Huan stepped back, making it clear that Bao was going to do it. At least this time the boy didn't complain. He just knelt over Ranfan, working at the lock until it gave.

"Tell me what happened," Huan said, not unkindly. Then – so that she wouldn't try hide her secrets from him – he reached forward and took off her mask. His was painted similarly, just with bigger teeth and lines of gold alongside the red to show his experience.

Ranfan exhaled, the tears still running tracks down her cheeks. "Forgive me, Shishu-"

"None of that. Just the facts."

"We found… someone who – their qi was all wrong. Too many people. Too much energy, all in the wrong places. We followed them, because something like that – that has to be the Stone, right?" She wanted validation, but Huan just indicated for her to continue. "And then when we caught up to them, she – grabbed me and handcuffed me to the railing. Said that she could do it alone."

Bao let out a groan of frustration, and Huan shot a glare at him. He quailed under the stare. "Sorry." Huan supposed he was allowed. Bao usually ended up getting in trouble for what his little sister pulled.

"Is she dead?"

Ranfan gulped. "I don't… know. There were two of them. I didn't realize at first because they were standing next to each other, and we'd only been following one of them, but the older one attacked her. Hurt her. And I think – no, I know – she was still alive when she took her away."

Huan sat back on his haunches. He'd suspected, when Yingtai had vanished at the border, that she had her own plans for how their journey was going to go. And he hadn't minded, in theory, how close she and the Yao guardswoman were. But –

"What were your and Yingtai's intentions for the Stone?"

Ranfan went pale at that, avoiding his gaze. Bao released the handcuffs and sat down, playing with the chain, but glanced up at Huan.

"She wanted to be heir instead of me," Bao said plainly. There wasn't any malice in it. That grated even more than the confirmation. It meant Bao didn't care.

Ranfan's guilty look just backed up what Bao had said. "I shouldn't have been helping her-"

"What did she promise you? Rule by her side?"

Ranfan shook her head. She thought Huan didn't know – that she adored Yingtai, yes, but also how much it grated on her, being reduced constantly to one of 'those Yaos'. Greedy, underhanded, full of lust for power, still cursed by the selfish choices of a prince centuries beforehand. Ranfan hadn't asked to be a Yao. Yingtai hadn't asked to be born second. Of course they'd strived against the hands of destiny – and of course destiny had struck back.

"…Usually," came the surprised voice from behind them, "when there's a report of a shooting, I don't find you still here the next day."

Huan turned around, nudging Bao to do the same, and found his heart sinking as he faced a group of blue uniforms. At the front was a man with a shock of dandelion-yellow hair, staring at them with some puzzlement. Then –

"It's you!" Ranfan burst in front of Huan, seemingly ignoring the guns at the side of the men in front of them. She fumbled with her Amestrian – "Um – Chaos man!"

"Chaos m-?" Then the man started laughing. "Havoc."

"Same thing," Ranfan mumbled in Xingese, then switched back. "Help? You can help?"

"Somebody got shot last night."

"Yes! My friend, my…" Ranfan stared helplessly up at Huan, who shook his head. His Amestrian was good enough to follow, but even if he'd been any better at it than her, he wasn't helping her dig the hole any deeper. It was part of why Yingtai vanishing had been so frustrating. She'd taken to the language like a fish to water, while the rest of them struggled.

"Hold, hold on. Same girl who was in the holding cells?" Then Havoc squinted at Ranfan. "Did you break her out?"

Ranfan turned a very distinct shade of pink.

"…This is way above my paygrade," he mumbled. "Somebody radio the Colonel? I haven't the foggiest clue what's happening anymore."

Ranfan looked pleased at that. "Colonel… Jareth?"

"God, no. But if Jareth likes you, the Colonel will. Usually."

Ranfan frowned a little at that, then seemed to accept it. On his other side, Bao was glancing up at him in confusion. "Not now," he murmured quietly. Bao didn't understand a word of Amestrian. He hadn't even been able to learn the alphabet without frustrating himself into a migraine.

That was the problem, really. If he could have switched their ages himself, he would have. Bao was a wonderful boy – man, really – who cried when the flowers he picked died in their vases, would accept that the world was flat if you told him sincerely enough, and worshipped the ground his sister walked on. And Yingtai was a fierce, iron-willed beast of a girl who had chained her best friend to a railing rather than risk her getting hurt. And yet, Bao was the heir, and not a force on earth could change that.

Not a force on earth, except, perhaps, the Philosopher's Stone.

Huan decided he was with Ranfan on this one. If she was still alive, he was going to kill Yingtai himself.

Yao Ling hadn't thought about his past in a long time, but for whatever reason, his time with Jareth paired with the short conversation with Pride he'd had last night was bringing a lot of it to mind. He didn't miss Xing. Of course not. It'd been a petty place, obsessed with honor above reason, keeping up the appearance of purity and humility while quietly dismissing anybody who stepped out of line. Of course he'd wanted more.

Zhu Yingtai.

He remembered the Zhus. One of the rich bitch clans, really. Although from the description Pride had passed along to him, they'd fallen somewhat from grace. If their heir was a stripling teenager with not much more than a jian sword to her name, then things really were bad. They deserved it, though. He still remembered the airhead he'd been betrothed to. If the information Dante had brought back from her travels were correct, they'd turned around and married her off to the Sage, which was irony so rich he might choke on it.

He glanced over at Jareth, who was trying to bring some order to his kitchen. The poor man hadn't figured out why it was so hard for him to get back on top of things, to remember to go to work, to remember anything. Every time he so much looked at Lust, he got distracted again. And when he wasn't thinking about sex, he was beating himself up for not being able to get out of it, or feeling the grief of his dead friend all over again.

The question was, thought Lust with a frown, was why he hadn't done any research. He was clearly an alchemist, even if he hid it well. He'd seen the designs on his back, and Lust didn't care for the art himself, but he knew that nobody would get themselves tattooed with alchemic information if they weren't involved with it. But in all of his grieving, all of his drunken insanity, his thoughts hadn't wandered once to revival.

Mustang hadn't asked about that, of course. Mustang didn't need to know that there was another sacrifice potential. As far as Lust was concerned, Mustang could take a long walk off a short bridge and nobody would grieve, except perhaps the poor little puppy he'd made out of Wrath.

Still, it was frustrating. And when Lust got frustrated, he wanted to do more than he could get away with. He needed to get it out of his system.

"I'm going to bed," Jareth growled, looking ready to break something. He'd tried to get the beer cans away, and then ended up stomping on them, throwing them into a corner so he didn't have to see them. Nobody liked being reminded of just how much they'd been leaning on alcohol to cope. Or how long they'd been doing it.

"Sleep well," Lust said lightly. "I'll join you in a bit."

He slid off of the couch, wondering if he could get away with going out for long enough to find… somebody. Something. Maybe several somebodies. People who didn't matter, at least to the Plan. He'd thought having somebody dedicated to him – somebody he was slowly, surely enslaving – would be enough, but he should have learned by now. It was never enough.

A key clicked in the door, and Lust glanced upwards, tensing up immediately. He turned all the focus, all the attention, away from himself. If somebody looked directly at him, they'd see him… but their eyes wouldn't want to. He'd be like part of the furniture.

A small woman crept into the apartment. She looked nervous, like she wasn't supposed to be there, and she wasn't. Lust had seen her through the keyhole a few times. Mousy, brown thatch of hair, glasses that made her look even smaller and dumpier than she was, and – ahh. He'd missed this detail. She had a little pendant on, and he had a funny feeling that Jareth – poor, lonely, angry Jareth – hadn't seen it, or realized that there was a reason she had her own little lucky die around her neck. Whether or not she'd actually swiped it from him was besides the point.

"Um… Are you asleep?" she whispered, so quietly that even Jareth had been awake, he probably wouldn't have heard it. "I just… Sorry! Sorry, I'm… I'm worried."

If you're worried now, Lust thought with a growing smile, wait until I give him somebody else to grieve. If the death of Maes Hughes alone wasn't pushing him to desperation enough – maybe the loss of his sweet little bitch would do it.

He came up behind her, footfalls silent, and with the door still open behind him, wrapped an arm around her waist and stuck his hand over her mouth. "Don't scream, sweetheart. You'll cause trouble."

Her startled squeal against his hand was plenty to get him going. This was what he'd needed – a struggle, a fight. He dragged her out of the apartment, away from Jareth, and slammed her against the wall of the hallway. Nobody else would react, or do anything. He knew human nature well enough for that. Besides –

"If you stay quiet," he murmured against her ear, watching her little throat gulp with desperation, "I won't kill him."

Her chest heaved at that, and he slid his hands up her sides. This was fun. This was fun. The way she was leaning into his touch without realizing it, the way fear for the man she loved was keeping her silent –

"-JARETH!"

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he had misjudged her- and in that moment of shock, Sheska drove her elbow back into his solar plexus. He staggered backwards, caught off guard, and she turned around, fists up in an unwieldy but determined fighting pose.

"I'm a woman in the military, you idiot! You think I don't know how to fend off a rapist?"

There was every chance he wouldn't hear her. And the bloodlust was in him now, fury mixing with sexual desire. (bitch bitch bitch) He had everything. She had nothing.

"Shut up," he hissed, slamming his hand back over her mouth – then shoving his fingers into his mouth, "you filthy stupid-"

A sound broke the air. His vision went red, then black, then white. Then he was staring at the baseboards of the wall, and his head hurt –

-what do you want more than anything else in the world, Ling? If you could have one wish?-

-his head hurt because Sheska was screaming, and there was another voice –

-the person who made me immortal lives in the city of Riviere, across the desert, a million miles away. If you want to keep the life you have now – the things you cherish – I suggest you stay away from her –

-her?-

"Sorry. I'm sorry – shit – you're a mess. C'mere. He can't hurt you now."

Gunshot to the head. It was taking him a few moments to die properly. These bodies were like that sometimes. But then he saw the light, at the corner of his eyes, and more importantly – he heard their feet against the ground, moving backwards, away from him. Horrified, probably. Terrified.

-tell me, Ling, and I'll give it to you. Because I think I already know.-

His cover was blown, he realized, as he straightened up. And everything still looked… wrong. Off. The colours weren't staying in the lines. But he could see the grim certainty in Jareth's face.

WE SHOULD KILL HIM, whispered the voice he hadn't heard on its own for a very long time. They were one being, most of the time. One and the same. But –

I don't want to, Ling whispered, and for half a second, he was a scared, stupid kid again. Jareth didn't look anything like Pride. But he –

"You're a fucking mess." The man stood in front of the jail cell, smirking.

Ling just raised an eyebrow. He'd picked up more Amestrian than he was going to let on, but that didn't mean he understood this man.

"So," he said, "what brought you here? The last time I saw refugees from Xing was, shit, seventy years ago?"

The country wasn't even that old, but that wasn't what Ling reacted to. There was no way the casual, slouching teenager in front of him was that old. Except –

Except he looked an awful lot like the Sage.

"You could try kill me if you want," Pride said, and he hadn't known his name was Pride yet, "but it won't work. So, what are you after?"

You. What you are. Who you are. I want that.

The past and present kept blending. Pride had warned him about this, he remembered. Healing wasn't a perfect process. Him, Wrath, Pride – they hadn't been perfected yet.

Jareth was pointing a gun at him again, herding Sheska behind him. Jareth didn't look anything like Pride. Like Edward. "Who sent you?"

So simple. All their focus on him. So he just switched it off. Watched them blink, look around, try to find him in the hallway, figure out where he'd disappeared to, when he was still standing right there.

He could leave now. Leave, regroup, mark this one a failure.

"Ling-"

He'd given Jareth his real name. He'd forgotten he'd done that. Ling quailed away, suddenly horrified, I was going to hurt her, how many people have gotten hurt, where am I – and Lust dove forward, burying the tips of his fingers into Jareth's stomach. They rammed through flesh and tendon, stopping just short of his organs.

"That's not my name," he whispered, yanking his blood-covered hand free and watching the man who looked nothing like Pride stumble to his knees. And then – only then – he left.

Diana was out of alcohol again. She hadn't realized it until she opened the bottom drawer of her desk and realized that her decanter of whiskey – which she'd refilled a day or two ago – was empty again.

That was probably fine. She could afford it. What she couldn't afford was the hangover that was going to set in before she could actually make time to go get some. She could go out now, perhaps –

A knock sounded at the door. She bit her lip to stop herself from screaming a curse at them. "What?" She cleared her throat. "What is it?"

"Havoc called. Said something about Xingese foreign nationals? Said it was relevant to you."

…The little bitch. When Diana had seen the empty cell, she'd known it wasn't the last she'd see of her. "Where are they?"

"Corner of Parkway and Arnstein. On the roof, apparently?"

Parkway and Arnstein. That wasn't far. Maybe she could buy some on the way-

No. That was stupid. Then she'd have a bottle of whiskey on her while doing things. She'd do it on the way back.

Or you could not do it at all, came the whisper that kept, irritatingly, popping up. She'd told it, a number of times, that unless it had any better suggestions it could get fucked. The alcohol was keeping her functional. Unlike her idiot Lieutenant who had apparently decided to ignore the world. (And her. Not that that mattered.)

She stumbled, just a little, while leaving her office. Nobody noticed. Nobody had noticed. She was fine-

Silently, Breda and Falman put their coats on and followed her. She hadn't asked them. She was sure they had other work to do. But she didn't tell them not to, either, and kept the sting of humiliation to herself.