This chapter's inspriation came to me when my cat brought a gift for me. How lufferly. ;
Oreo (My cat): You ungrateful bitch.
Me: HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET HERE?
Oreo: I used the door.
Me: BUT YOU'RE A CAT! HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO USE THE DOOR!
Envy: I let him in.
Me: -growls- DAMMIT, IF YOU WEREN'T SO CUTE, I'D KICK YOUR ASS.
Envy: -purrs- I'm flattered.
Oreo: OH FUCK NO! I'M HER CAT, NOT YOU! -tackles Envy-
Envy: BRING IT ON, KITTYCAT!
-the sounds of snarling and yowling can be heard in the background-
Me: -anime sweatdrop- Uhm... on with the chapter...?
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Envy had been put outside for the remainder of the morning, and Winry had been sent to the store. Now, it was just Pinako, Al, and Ed in the house. And Edward was bored.
"Why don't you help?" Al complained, watching Edward and stirring something in a bowl. "I'm sure Pinako can find something for you to do?"
Ed shrugged. "What's there for me to do? I'd just get in the way."
"You could be reading." Al shot back. Ed sighed and heaved himself to his feet. "Yeah...I could." He traipsed off to his room, his shoulders hunched. Why should he have to help that ungrateful animal? It's not like Envy had ever done anything for HIM. He opened up his door and slammed it hard behind him, then picked up a dark green book from the shelf and sat down on his bed to read.
'Of the many arrays used in alchemy, there is few more complicated than this. The chimera is a combination of two living beings, may it be a cat or a dog, or a bird and a fish. It's DNA structure is complicated and unstable. Attempting to seperate a chimera into it's counterparts is difficult and...'
The book droned on and on about chimeras and the different arrays used to construct and deconstruct them. Twenty pages and a pounding headache later, a loud, scraping noise distracted him from his reading. Ed looked up. The sound seemed to be coming from his door. He watched it for a few minutes as though expecting it to sprout eyes and a mouth and call him a munchkin.
"Cat..." Edward muttered, a vein twitching in his forehead and a glare fitting onto his head as he watched the door. "KNOCK IT OFF!" Edward snarled the words and flung the book at the door. It hit with a loud BANG, then toppled to the floor, where a couple pages fluttered out. The scratching noise stopped and pawsteps could be heard scampering away.
Edward got up and opened the door. Long gouge marks set in straight, even rows, lined the door. Ed whistled low. "Pinako's not gonna like that..." Muttered, shaking his head and examining the cuts. "I wonder who let him in, anyways?" He scratched his head, then hurried off down the hallway.
The book's pages fluttered in the wind coming in through the open door. The two pages that had fallen out when the book made contact with the door skittered across the floor, moved by the breeze. One of them skidded to a halt underneath Edward's bed, while the other one slipped under the dresser.
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A few hours later, Winry was hugging Edward to within an inch of his life.
"Winry...I can't breathe!" Ed choked.
"I DON'T BELIEVE YOU GUYS GOT ME A NEW WRENCH! YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!"
"WINRY! I C-CAN'T FEEL MY HEAD!" Ed yelped through his stranglehold. "Lemme go!"
Winry finally released him, and hugged her new wrench instead.
"Glad you like it, Winry." Al said. "We had to go really far away to get it!"
"THAT MAKES IT BETTER!"
Edward was gasping for breath. "I..ugh..whew..." He panted, rubbing his neck and wincing.
Envy was sitting delicately on the back of the couch, his front paws crossed over one another and dangling over the edge. He had was smiling for once, perfectly contented with the day's events. Relaxed and calm, he'd watched the small party ensue without a single mishap. For now.
Pinako got up. "I'm gonna get the cake.." She announced, and left the room.
Ed sat back down on the couch next to Winry, who was holding the wrench in her lap.
"Happy birthday, Winry." Envy purred into her ear. Winry blushed slightly and smiled.
"Thanks, Invidia." She said, reaching up to scratch Envy behind the ears. Envy purred deeply.
"That reminds me..." Envy muttered. "I have somthing for you. But you probably won't like it."
"I'm sure I'd like anything you gave me..." Winry said quietly.
Envy jumped off the couch. "I'll go get it..." He hurried away.
Edward huffed. "You know it's gona be crappy...you realize that, right?" Winry nodded, and said nothing. Envy returned several minutes later, proudly clutching somthing in his mouth.
He dropped it on the couch besides Winry, and grinned. "Happy birthday." Winry jumped away from it with a yelp and ended up in Edward's lap. Even Edward inched away from Envy's gift.
"Thank you, Envy...a... dead bird." Winry said shakily, swallowing hard and staring at the corpse on the couch. It was a headless sparrow, still bleeding slightly, most of it's feathers pulled off.
"Your welcome." Envy purred, leaping back up onto the couch and curling up into the ball. "Do with it what you want."
"I'll put it outside for now, Winry..." Al stood up and, taking the bird with two fingers, hurried outside.
"That was mean." Edward said, looking up at Envy with distaste. Envy grinned, and flicked his tail, but said nothing, because Pinako had just entered the room with the cake. It was a magnificent creation. Vanilla, with strawberry icing. 17 candles surrounded the words, "Happy Birthday", written in thin frosting letters.
Envy rasped his tongue around his lips, his eyes wide as he stared at the baked concotion.
"Happy birthday, Winry." Pinako said, placing the cake on the coffee table. She produced a knife from nowhere and began to cut it. "Where's Al?
"He went to go throw something away." Ed answered.
Winry looked glanced back to see Envy staring at the cake, drool sliding down from his mouth to the couch. "Grandma..." She began.
"Yeah?" Pinako handed Ed a piece of cake, who muttered "Thanks."
"We only have four people here...can Invidia have a chunk of cake? Just a little bit. He looks so hungry...all you gave him for breakfast today was milk." Winry pleaded, petting Envy under the chin to audible purrs.
Pinako eyed Envy incredulously for a minute. "Eh...fine."
Envy could have kissed her. Instead, Envy eased himself off of the couch back and onto Winry's shoulders, and started licking her chin. Winry giggled as his whiskers tickled her face.
Pinako put a plate on the floor. He immediately scrambled for it, and it was gone before Winry had even recieved her slice.
"My God...this cat can really eat!" Pinako exclaimed, shaking her head and watching Envy suck up the crumbs like a vaccuum cleaner. He rasped his tongue over his lips and stepped back from the very clean plate, looking up at Pinako expectantly.
"Yeah...let's just hope he doesn't get fat." Edward sneered. Envy turned his head sharply around and glared at the boy, before turning back to Pinako. But she was gone, haven taking everything back to the kitchen.
"Damn you." Envy wheezed, and leapt up on the back of the couch again.
"Be careful, Invidia..." Al said. Envy jumped- he hadn't seen Al come back in. "You don't want Auntie Pinako to notice you talking."
Envy huffed. "Yeah...whatever." He said snottily.
For the rest of the day, Winry worked on automail, and Ed and Al went out. Envy hung around with Winry and spent hours on end draped over her shoulders like a large, furry green boa. He contented himself for a few hours by batting at her hair. She didn't seem to mind, but spent a lot of time pushing his green mane out of her face.
He was loosing control and he knew it. The homunculus in him strained and cried to be free of this sinful (no pun intended) body. But his feline counterpart was taking over. He was acting more and more like a cat every day. He needed to talk to Edward and make him hurry up with the research. He was sick of licking himself clean and eating out of a bowl, and curling up outside someone's door every night. It sickened him to the bone.
Later that night, Winry was laying on her bed, reading a book, with Envy rolled up into a ball next to her, his head resting on her stomach. He was snoring gently in his sleep.
Winry glanced at the snoozing chimera. She reached out a hand and rubbed under his pointed ears with a finger. She felt him vibrating gently and knew he was purring. She had always feared and despised Envy. He was the one who had killed Brigadier General Hughes and spread a disease that wiped out a whole city. ((A/N: This is referring to the "fossil disease"; the one that turned the people into stone-like material...I forget which episode it's from. XP)) But now that Envy was at their mercy, he was bearable, even nice to be around. He was affectionate and, even though Winry hated to admit it, this new Envy was absolutely adorable.
She ran a finger along the tiny, delicate hairs that lined the outside of his ear. His ear twitched rather violently. She tried to supress a giggle as she gently poked the inside of his ear. It twitched again.
"If you've nothing better to do than play with my ear, I suggest you do it in a way that doesn't tickle." Came Envy's voice. One of his eyes was cracked open, and he watched Winry with dilated pupils.
"Sorry Envy-chan." Winry said quietly, now slowly running a finger up his muzzle and between his eyes. "They're so soft."
"I prefer not to think of myself as soft or fluffy." Envy mewed.
"But you are..."
"Yeah...I know..."
Footsteps thundered down the hallway, and the door burst open. It was Edward, looking pale and panicky.
"Envy! We've got a problem!"
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Auri's Notes: ATTENTION- From here on out, the story will take a MUCH more dramatic turn...and I'm sorry this chapter is so short.. I lost my inspiration after my last chapter.