Trying To Be Human
Chapter 8: Cold Feet
A/N: I could have sworn that I mentioned that they buried Pride in the backyard in If You Give A Sin A Soul, but I was reading through it again, and I guess I didn't... oops...
--------------------
"You want how much? For these steaks!.? I would be ashamed to feed these steaks to my dog! When I was growing up, you could have fed a wedding party three times this size a full-course meal for less than you are charging for these steaks!" Sloth admonished the butcher, waving a wrapped package of beef around for emphasis. With two days left until the wedding, the Sins' house, the chosen location, had been transformed into something like a war zone, and there was no doubt in anybody's mind that Sloth was the commander. Her gift for haggling, an instinct she had been created with, had long been admired, and it was thriving under the stress of arranging this wedding. "I could have hired a caterer with the money you're charging!"
"Trisha, you said I could," Gluttony, standing near her at the front door to testify to the quality of the meat order, butted in timidly.
"Of course, but it's the principle of the thing," she assured the chef, returning the butcher, "Do you know children are starving in Ishbal? And you have the audacity to charge this much for steaks?"
Envy walked down the stairs in the background, tripping over the fold-up alter and plunging, head first, into the spools of gauzy netting that were to eventually form an awning in the backyard, where the ceremony would take place. (Sloth had not paid full price for either of these things.) "God dammit!" he shrieked, flailing about and getting more and more tangled, until he had more fabric wrapped around him that the spools. "Someone help me!"
Lust stepped over a series of collapsing chairs, pulling out her metal fingernail. "Don't panic, Connie, I'm coming,"
WHAP! A package of steak hit the would-be-rescuer upside the head.
"Don't you dare cut that, there isn't enough as is!" shrieked Sloth. "Stop fooling around! Connie, you should be picking the Mustangs up at the station already! And Natasha, I thought I asked you to clean up the guest rooms!"
Reg inched through the livingroom, hiding behind the matrimony-related clutter. He had been staying with his family for the past couple of weeks, not to mention dealing with them constantly all year while arranging his wedding, and he knew enough to stay out of sight. Aside from the danger of being put to work by Sloth, Lust, or Gluttony, Envy had found that the best way to relieve stress was still take all his aggression out on Reg in the form of kicking and insults. Not to mention, Roy would be coming soon, if Envy ever got untangled, and, despite his promises to Elly, Mr. Mustang had not gotten any better about being nice.
--------------------
Reg wandered through the huge backyard, admiring the scenery and staying away from the windows. It was a gorgeous yard, beautifully landscaped, and even though it meant more interaction with his folks, he agreed whole-heartedly with Elly's decision to get married there. The landscaping was spectacular, all the plants lovingly cared for, just a little something else that could be attributed to Sloth's hobbies. The roses in the flower garden where in full bloom, mixing with the honeysuckle that climbed up the side of the house and giving the air a wonderfully sweet fragrance. Somebody could make a fortune with a perfume like that, Reg reflected, tiptoeing through the large vegetable garden towards the tiny shade garden that marked the end of the property.
A weeping willow and an assortment of rhododendron bushes cut the little area off from view and kept it in semi-darkness no matter what time of day. It was a peaceful little area, but (or possibly because) Reg didn't spend much time there. However, now it occurred to him that it would make an excellent hiding spot. He pushed through the foliage.
"So, yeah, we've all got our tuxes and stuff... Reggie's pretty nervous, but I think that's because Mustang's still giving him a hard time," Reg halted to better eavesdrop on Greed's conversation with himself. "He'll get over it. We've picked on him enough to toughen him up."
"Talking to yourself, Greg?" Reg asked, breaking his silence and entering the clearing where Greed was sitting, his back against a convenient tree stump.
"Oh, no, no, I was talking to Pride," Greed explained, pointing to the headstone. (Actually, it was a stepping stone they had ordered from a gardening catalog for pet graves, but they figured no one would notice the difference.) "I like to come out here once in a while to let him know how everyone's doing. And to work on my tan."
Reg dismissed this as a very typical Greed Statement. He sat down on the grass next to his (living) relative. "You two were good friends?"
"For lack of a better word," Greed shrugged. "I was just telling him how big you've gotten... At least one of the family babies grew up all right."
"Family babies?"
"You and 'Tasha and Trish, of course. You three were so little and innocent,"
Reg snorted. He loved Lust and Sloth, but "little and innocent" was a bit of a stretch.
Greed ruffled the young man's hair. "Much as I hate to admit when Connie's right, he did always say that you would be the one to break the cycle and become a functional person."
"Connie used to say that?" laughed Reg heartily. Good old Greed with his stand-up comedian humor. "Was this before or after the little green men from outer space raided Central looking for Starbucks coffee?"
"You don't believe me? Can't you think of anything Connie's ever done for you?"
"Besides deride and humiliate me? ... no, nothing comes to mind."
"He helped you get into college."
"That was Trisha."
"Oh... didn't he tell you how to ask girls out?"
"That was Natasha."
"Right... um... He was the one who helped you with the Stone,"
"That was YOU, Greg, and that was for all of us,"
Greed furrowed his brow, trying to think of something Envy had done for this kid. He knew there had to be something... Envy, like all the older Sins, had cared very much for the three youngest ones' welfare. Something, sometime... "What about FullMetal?"
"What about him? I don't think he did all that much for me, either," Reg replied sassily. But, the name, unmentioned in the Sin household for years, jogged his memory, just a little... leading to... A FLASHBACK!
He couldn't remember exactly why he and Ed had been fighting, or exactly where they were fighting. He only remembered how it ended.
He had tripped, and the next thing he knew, Ed had him pinned to the ground. He couldn't move, try as he like to escape. He looked around desperately for something, anything, but all he could see was Ed... and Ed's metal arm, which was in sword mode, and had never looked more frightening.
"Now, it's time for me to take back what you've stolen from me," the gold-eyed alchemist hissed. And all of a sudden, Wrath understood. Ed was going to chop off his arm... and that scared him (Wrath...not Ed)... and being scared made him angry.
Terrified, and with no other options, Wrath began screaming every obscenity he knew, and he knew quite a few. This wasn't going to stop Ed, but it couldn't hurt to try...
"Language, Wrath!" admonished a mysterious, silky voice. Ed's head snapped towards it, and Wrath stopped screaming and struggled to get a look at the speaker, who was still talking. "And, shame on you, Edward. Beating up on a little kid?"
"Oh, please," Ed snarled, still trying to hold Wrath in place. "It's not a child. It's not even human."
"Um... Brother?" Al started talking, and Wrath struggled even harder to see what the heck was going on. "Could you try being nicer so he doesn't shoot me?"
"In any case," the voice continued, cutting off Ed's response. "I believe that, and correct me if I'm wrong, the arm you are about to so humanely cut off was the price paid so you could keep your darling brother alive, was it not?" Ed nodded cautiously, and the voice persisted with a dangerous edge to it, "So, by trying to take the arm back, you're telling me that you don't want your little brother anymore, right?" Without waiting for an answer, the voice kept on, "So, you don't object to me putting a bullet through Al's seal, right?"
"No! NO! Oh, God, DON'T HURT HIM!" Ed started panicking, but he still didn't let Wrath up to see what was going on, which was beginning to annoy the boy slightly.
"Let Wrath up," the voice demanded smoothly, and Wrath was free and running towards Sloth (it had to be Sloth, who else would it...)
"Envy?" Wrath squeaked, too surprised to stop himself from jumping towards his rescuer like he had planned to.
Envy tossed aside the gun he had been threatening Al with (rather luckily it didn't go off), and caught the boy with a smile. Carrying Wrath, he turned to go, but not without casually remarking to Ed, "If you're sick of dealing with Al, there's no need to involve Wrath, but you cannot lay a hand on Wrath without us 'involving' Al. Remember that next time you need a small child to pick on." Then, he quietly asked Wrath, "Are you alright? He didn't hurt you, did he?"
Burning bright red, Wrath shook his head and tried to bury his face in Envy's shoulder so he couldn't tell the boy had been crying.
Envy must have noticed, but he didn't mention it. Instead he sighed a little to himself and changed the subject. "Why don't we go get some ice-cream, ok?"
And, now that Reg thought about it, Ed had never bothered him since that incident.
Greed was staring at him, a grin on his lips. Just like he thought, there was something.
Feeling inexplicably lighter, happier, and less nervous, Reg returned to the house, where Sloth was writing the butcher a check for considerably less than he had originally asked. Lust had left to pick up the Mustangs, and Envy was still thrashing around in the decorations. Reg ran to help him.
"I can do it myself!" the humanoid shape under the gauze snapped irately. Reg laughed and kept helping.
------------------------------
"See! No problem!" Envy snarled once free, three-quarters of an hour later. "You were just in the way."
Reg smiled as he wound up the fabric once again. "Hey, Envy, since I'm catching you in a good mood and everything, I was wondering if sometime... you know, when this whole mess is over and everything has calmed down... if you wanted to go get a couple of drinks with me and bitch about what horrible scum our creators were."
Completely caught off guard, Envy stared at him. He hadn't heard Reg use the word "creator" in well over a decade. Ever since they got their souls, in fact, even before that, Wrath had preferred to act as though they were normal everyday humans. The boy had certainly never volunteered to spend time alone with him. And now, out of the blue, he was offering to do something that, deep down, Envy had always wished they could. "You mean that?"
"Yeah. I do," Reg nodded. "It's about time that I stop trying so hard to be human."