Chapter 3: An Unpleasant Revelation

Dinner, was, as usual, excellent. If there was one thing Reg honestly missed about his home, it was the food. But anyway... Greed did show up, about five minutes after everyone else had sat down. He must have climbed down the roof, then gone in the front door and snuck around to the kitchen, because he showed up seemingly out of nowhere with a plate in his hand.

"Where's the Parmesan?"

Without thinking, Envy picked it up and passed the cheesy seasoning over his shoulder back to him, nearly causing an unspeakable catastrophe.

"Thanks, En--"

Reg quickly cleared his throat. "Greg, do you want to join us for dinner? Just for tonight, since we have company and all?"

If Reg hadn't been on the verge of an emotional breakdown, he probably would have wanted a picture of the look on Greed's face when he noticed Elly, a paralyzed mixture of paranoia, surprise, and confusion.

Lust poked him with her fork and hissed, "Greg! Sit!" Greed made a break for it, but the others were a step ahead of him. When the final weapon was sheathed, Greed sat. Tied to the chair.

Counting to make sure all five of them were present, and satisfied that they all were, Reg stood up. "Ok. Last time. Greg, this is Elysia. She's my fiancee. We are engaged. We are getting married. Does everybody have that down? No questions, comments, or snide remarks?" Nobody answered, and he took this as a 'no', and turned to Elly. "Elly, this is my family. The End." Following this outburst, Reg sat back down and took a very long gulp of his wine. (He was quite happy to be legal. Especially tonight, when he needed it.)

Sloth turned to Elly. "So, Reg tells us you majored in Psychology?"

Elly nodded. "Yes. I've got a job lined up with a child psychologist."

"Good. Reg certainly needs all the help he can get."

Reg took another gulp of wine. "Well, it's all due to my poor upbringing and traumatic childhood, you know, Sl-Trish."

"Give me a break, Reg," Envy laughed, "I never kicked you that hard."

If Elly hadn't been there, Reg would have argued that point, but as it was, he took another gulp of wine and watched Lust chewing the nail on her left index finger. She had a horrible time breaking the habit when her nails stopped growing constantly, but she didn't have to worry about this one.

Several Years Earlier-

Little Reg stopped running through the house when he reached the kitchen. "Lust? Is dinner going to be ready soon, or should we go ahead and get take-out again?"

Lust spun away from the sink to face him, her hand held up to her mouth. A little trickle of blood was running down the corner of her mouth.

"Lust? Is something wrong?"

Lust shook her head. "I'll be ok in a few seconds, Puppy," she assured him, turning from him to spit a little more blood into the sink. "God dammit. Why does this hurt so much?" she muttered to herself. That was when Reg looked over at the cutting board, saw the finger, and ran screaming from the room.

"ENVY! LUST IS IN TROUBLE!"

Grumbling, Envy, stumbled into the kitchen. "What is it?"

"It's nothing," Lust mumbled faintly. "I just hurt myself a little. I'll be ok in a second."

Envy turned back to Reg. "Wrath, is this supposed to be funny?"

"No!" Reg knew some form of horrible abuse was coming, so he waved the finger frantically in front of Envy. "She cut her finger off! LOOK!"

"OH MY GOD!"

Envy's shriek brought all of the others running. Not much scared Envy.

"What's the matter?"

"LUST CUT OFF HER FINGER!" Envy shrieked.

"It'll grow back in a second." Lust muttered, then passed out from blood loss.

"What are we going to do?"shrieked Sloth.

"I don't know!" shrieked Envy. There was mass panic. Nobody cared much when they lost Pride, but Lust was the brains behind the operation. They needed Lust.

Gluttony waved his hand in front of Lust's face. "Er... Lust? Are you ok?"

"What's going on?" Greed arrived a little late to the scene.

Reg stared down at the finger in his hand, then at Lust. "Um... maybe I could..." He started to clap his hands together, but Envy slapped him. "ENVY! THAT HURT!"

"DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT ALCHEMY!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's EVIL and she'd never forgive you!"

Greed turned to Sloth, who was hyperventilating. "Do you know the hospital's number?"

"Greed! Can't you ask irrelevant questions when... oh... yeah. We should probably call them, shouldn't we? Where's the phonebook?"

Lust survived, even if the finger did not. The automail hadn't been cheap, but the nail grew out when you pressed a button, and it could be used as a weapon in a pinch, so it was worth it.

But back to the present...

"So, how long do you think you'll be staying?" asked Greed, out of the sincere need to know how many dinners he was going to have to spend tied up like this.

Reg tried to swallow his noddles quickly so he could tell her they were leaving in the morning, but Elly beat him to it. "We haven't really decided yet. We don't have any real plans, but we do want to stop at Mummy's before the week's out."

"Really? Where does she live?"

---

Reg went to take a gulp of wine, but realized he had finished off his glass, so he discreetly excused himself to the kitchen to pour himself another goblet full and curl up in a fetal position on the floor.

He barely sat down when someone tapped his shoulder. He looked up and saw that person was Gluttony.

"Hi."

Reg buried his face down in his knees again. "Hi."

"Reg, I'm taking this wine from you. You've had enough to drink for one night." In the others' minds, Reg would never be old enough to hold his liquor.

"The pasta's really good." mumbled Reg pointlessly.

"Thanks. Don't worry so much, Reg. We really like Elly. And she doesn't seem too frightened of us, get off the floor."

---

By the time Reg had recovered enough to return to the table, Elly had somehow gotten onto a subject Reg was really looking forward to avoiding. Her family.

"If you want to get technical, my mother shot him. She was almost arrested for it, too, but some evidence surfaced, and she got off."

Reg began to wish he had put up more of a fight when Gluttony had tried to take his wine.

"What did you say your father's name was, Elly?" asked a slightly suspicious Sloth.

"Maes Hughes."

Envy choked on a piece of chicken, but nobody noticed. They were all staring, open-mouthed, at Elysia Hughes. Envy turned blue.

"Trisha," Reg asked, "Could you pound Connie on the back a little?" Sloth didn't respond to her 'name'. "Trisha?" Envy was on his knees now. "TRISHA!" Sloth was obviously out of it, and Greed, sitting on Envy's other side, was in no condition to be doing the Heimlich, so Reg grabbed a pea off his plate and flicked it at her. That got her attention, well, a little of it. "Pound him on the back, will you?"

A few thumps later, and Envy was breathing again. Well, he was able to breath again.

"Did they ever find out who really killed him?" Greed asked. Elly's eye twitched. She didn't like talking about her father's untimely demise.

"A homunculus. Envy."

It was fortunate that Elly picked that moment to pick at her food, because everyone at the table turned to Envy. Another lock of his hair sproinged free from the pony tail.

"Reg, darling," Elly pushed back her chair and stood up. "I'm going to use the bathroom, ok? I'll be back in a second."

Her footsteps faded down the hall a little ways, and then Reg knew he was going to have to have a little chat with his family. He braced himself for the screaming...

"Puppy," Lust asked in a quiet, tense voice. "Did you know you're getting married to Maes Hughes' daughter?"

Reg nodded unhappily.

Lust's eye twitched menacingly. "Is that why you didn't tell her about us?"

"Yes."

"Ok." Lust paused, trying to decide what to say next, but her turn was over.

"Wrath, have you lost your mind? ELYSIA HUGHES? What on earth is wrong with you? Do you have any idea who she is?"

"Yes, Envy, I have an idea who she is. And she's the one I found out from. You could have at least had the courtesy to tell me."

"You didn't need to know."

"Didn't need to know? I didn't need to know?" Reg lost control and threw his plate at Envy, who ducked, just in time for the platter to shatter harmlessly on the floor. "You have no idea how it feels to have someone telling you about her father's murder and suddenly realize that his killers paid your allowance!"

"Well, it's all in the past," Envy started.

Reg picked up his fork and and prepared to stab Envy. Not to be outdone, and knowing how Reg got, Envy grabbed his own fork. Lust pulled out her metal fingernail. Gluttony grabbed the nearest utensil, which happened to be the pasta tongs. Sloth picked up a butter knife. Greed tried to scoot his chair out of the disaster zone and fell over. Reg seemed unaware of the danger around him. "She almost lost BOTH of her parents! It's all past for you, maybe, but..."

Footsteps in the hall. Everybody turned to the doorway apprehensively.

---

Elly smiled as she walked in the door. Everything was perfectly in order. Reg was laughing heartily at some joke Connie had just told him. She liked Connie, and she was glad Reg was enjoying his visit, after all that fuss. Reg could be so nervous sometimes. She loved him to death.