Al opened the door to Envy's room, cradling something under his arm. Cautious of the men outside, he pulled it shut closely behind him. Turning around, he noticed that Envy had his head cocked to the side. His violet eyes were sparkling with curiosity.
"Who are you hiding me from?"
"How did you know?" Al was unable to avoid blurting out. A smirk crossed Envy's face.
"Please, kid. You're not as sneaky as you think you are, you know that?"
"Great," Al said with a sigh, "hope they didn't notice that too. Soldiers, to answer your question. And if they found you, the consequences probably wouldn't be that great for any of us – so I recommend that you don't cause any trouble."
"You mean the consequences wouldn't be great for you," Envy said. "Remind me why I shouldn't cause trouble?"
"You're a homunculus. A man-made scientific experiment gone wrong. And more than that; your existence is evidence that a crime took place. You really think they'll let you go if they find you?"
"They don't know what I am."
"Uh, hate to break it to you but these ones do. Ed drew a picture of you after Lab 5; and he wasn't shy about showing it around."
To his discomfort, Al realised that Envy still didn't seem distressed. In the back of his mind he wondered if Envy's powers might have come back, but he quickly decided against it. If that had happened, Envy surely would've taken the opportunity to escape already. It had to be something else.
Envy leaned forward and said, in a calm, sing-song voice,
"I know something you don't know."
A light chill beaded down Al's spine, and for a moment he almost asked if Envy somehow knew about Lust and Gluttony. If they already knew where he was. If they were on their way. They had fought off three homunculi at once before, but it had been by the very skin of their teeth. He certainly didn't want to take his chances again if he didn't have to.
He very nearly asked but at the last second, he remembered to shut his mouth. For all he knew, Envy didn't know anything about the other homunculi. This could be bait, a cheap tactic to get Al talking. And if Envy didn't already know that the homunculi were out looking for him, Al didn't want to be the one to tell him. If the news of soldiers was making him consider acting out, Al didn't even want to think about how difficult Envy would become at the news of a search party.
"You want a reason to stay quiet? Fine. We think we know how to save your life. Is that good enough for you?"
The result was instantaneous. The smirk dropped straight off Envy's face like he'd been slapped. He shifted uncomfortably, swallowing. Part of Al felt bad for him; but he had to admit that another part of him was basking in the fact that he'd gotten the upper hand.
"Bullshit."
"Really?"
"You're lying. There's no way."
"You'd bet your life on that?" And Al knew he'd won. Envy had a great many flaws, true; but the one thing Al knew he could count on was survival instinct. As evil and depraved and violent as he was, deep down Envy was still a living creature who didn't want to die. At the very least, whoever had transmuted Envy in the first place had gotten that right.
Sure enough, Envy looked away from him and instead focused his gaze somewhere on the bed sheets.
"Just tell me what you want from me already."
Al lowered himself to the chair near the bed. "I already told you, we're not trying to get anything out of you."
"Bullshit," Envy said again. "You wouldn't be keeping me here if you weren't. We're enemies. The pipsqueak despises me, he makes that pretty clear, so he has to think he's getting something out of it. Equivalent Exchange, right? What, you thought if you saved my ass I'd tell you all our secrets?"
"No," Al stated calmly, "I don't care about any of that. I'm just trying to make sure you don't die."
"And your brother?"
"He wants me to be happy; he'll put up with a lot to get that."
"Pathetic."
"You know it's true. It's the whole reason you knew to target me when you wanted Ed to make a stone. You guys are very good at picking out people's weak points, I'll admit that. I'm Ed's, and you figured that out straight away."
"And it's pathetic," Envy laughed. "You humans are such saps! Hurt one human and a hundred of you start freaking out like it's the end of the world. So weak, so predictable."
Al shook his head, forcing himself to avoid getting angry with Envy's words. He knew that if he was going to get anywhere he needed to stay calm. He was witnessing something incredible; Envy was actually talking to him. Openly, honestly, expressing his opinions – however disturbing they might be – as if he were in normal discourse. And as soon as Al got mad, as soon as it devolved into an argument, the walls Envy had allowed himself to drop would shoot back up and they'd be back at square one. He couldn't let that happen. So he forced himself to silently value and weigh up Envy's opinion just like he would any other person's.
"I don't agree with that."
"Well of course you wouldn't-"
"Hey," Al said, his tone warning, and Envy shut up. "We're doing something here that you probably don't do all that often; we're having a normal conversation. And I understand that you're not used to that. But I'm listening to you, alright? I'm taking what you have to say seriously, even though I think it's wrong. Would it kill you to do the same?"
For a moment, Envy looked like he was about to argue, or make a snarky comment. But then his face changed; he looked almost thoughtful.
"Fine, you were saying?"
"I don't agree with the idea that love is a weakness."
Envy visibly scoffed, and Al glared at him.
"Ok, let me adjust that. Love can be a weakness, but it's more than that."
"Oh? How's that?" Said Envy, resting his hand against his chin and staring at the wall.
"Well, think about it. My brother, Ed. He never would've done half the things he's done if not for me. Sure, you were able to use the fact that he cared about me to manipulate him; but that's also the reason he became strong enough to survive Number 48 in the first place. It's the reason he was studying so hard to become a talented alchemist, the reason he sparred every day. Because he was trying to get strong enough to protect me."
"That may be so, but it doesn't change the fact that people do stupid things when they care about someone. They take stupid risks, make stupid mistakes. And besides, you're going to lose them someday anyway so what's the point?"
"When you care about someone, you're always taking the risk that something bad will happen. Equivalent Exchange, after all – you can't get anything worth having without a certain amount of risk. Wouldn't you agree with that, Envy?"
Envy frowned, seeming pensive. "Guess so."
"I understand if you don't want to talk about it, but I'm guessing you're in a similar boat, right? You're taking risks, making dangerous choices, because you feel like you're getting something out of it."
He shrugged. "It's exactly the same thing for us. The things we want are a little different – love, acceptance, understanding – but the basic principle is the same."
Envy fell silent, the atmosphere thickening into discomfort and tension again. Taking a calculated risk, Al got up and threw the object he had brought with him at Envy; a packet of peanuts. It bounced off Envy's chest before he actually caught it, inspecting the package.
Envy raised a delicate eyebrow.
"Try eating something. You might feel better."
Envy opened his mouth to argue.
"Try. You might be surprised."
Envy sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Fine, uh-"
"Alphonse," he said, clarifying when Envy's expression turned back to confusion. "My name?"
"Right," Envy muttered. "I'll give it a shot." He didn't move to start, so Al left him to his own devices and jumped onto the couch at the other end of the room. Flipping open a book he'd been reading on the history of the State Alchemist program, he settled down to read.
A few minutes later, he heard the sound of incredibly reluctant crunching behind him. And smiled to himself.
. . .
What could've been anything from ten minutes to four hours later, Al was startled back into consciousness by the door closing so hard it rattled the wall around it. His body reacting even before his mind was fully awake, he leapt up to see who it was – only to find it was Ed.
Of course.
He slid back down into the couch, yawning. "Brother, can you please learn to open doors like a normal person?"
Ed's voice became apologetic in an instant. "Sorry Al, I didn't realise you were sleeping."
"Why are you even here? How long's it been, two hours?"
"Three."
"Wow, that's honestly longer than I thought you would last without checking on me."
He heard Envy snicker in the background. "Really? I always knew he was overprotective but come on!"
"You give him too much credit," Al sighed as he sat back up to face the others. Ed's body language was radiating discomfort as he glanced between Al and Envy.
"Did you two… just agree with each other?"
"Huh? Oh, I guess we did."
"Don't do that again," Ed said, shuddering a little. "I don't like it."
"Awww, why not?" Envy taunted idly.
"Because it's making me incredibly uncomfortable!" Ed snapped. Al rubbed his forehead.
"Guys, please! Not now…"
Both fell silent, but not before Ed pointed a finger at Envy in warning. "Do not take this as a sign that my brother's weak and easily defeated. He will beat your ass if you try anything, you hear me-"
"ED." Ed's mouth snapped shut at the tone in his brother's voice.
"So I tried out our ideas for Envy's health before."
"Really?" Ed sounded interested now, his eyes flashing. "How did that go?"
"I don't know. Envy, thoughts? Feelings? Anything different?"
Envy's lips pursed a little, as he shifted uncomfortably away from Ed's curious expression. "I don't know, what's it supposed to feel like?"
"Ok, let's try something different." Ed's hand moved out towards Envy, and the homunculus flinched. Al felt a wave of sympathy for the creature.
Sighing impatiently, Ed held his hand still until Envy's eyes slowly crept back up. When he realised what was happening, he scoffed.
"Please. I can stand up by myself."
"Okay," was all Ed said as he took a step back to give Envy room. For all his insistence, when actually presented with the opportunity to get up Envy chose to sit still for several minutes.
Ed's eyebrow quirked upwards as a slight smirk played across his lips; noticing this, Envy scowled at him. "Shut your mouth and give me a second, Pipsqueak!" Ed's face turned red, and his mouth immediately clamped shut in what was a clear effort to avoid going into a rant.
Finally taking a deep breath, Envy swung his lean frame over the side of the bed and paused for another moment, seemingly steeling himself for whatever might come next, before standing up.
Ed waited with his arms slightly extended, ready to catch Envy if anything went wrong. Al watched curiously from his spot on the couch.
They were weak, shaky from days of disuse; but miraculously, Envy's legs were able to hold his weight. Even so, the signs of strain were still present. His sharp teeth drew blood from his lower lip, his eyes closed in concentration as he fought to keep himself from succumbing to gravity. Finally, Ed tapped him once on the shoulder.
"Aaaand that's enough for now."
"What? No! I can do this!"
Ed sighed and pushed Envy back into the bed with that same air of impatience; but Al couldn't help but notice that Ed's expression held a touch more understanding than it had before. "Trust me, you don't want to push yourself too far all at once. The fact that you can stand up is good; it means our theory is probably right. But it looks like it's still gonna take some time before you're back up to snuff, unfortunately for everyone involved."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Envy scoffed. Al rolled his eyes.
"Actually, he does. You're not the only one around here with a masculinity complex," he said, pointedly ignoring Ed's sharp glare. Muttering under his breath, Ed stomped out of the room.
Envy shook his head, readjusting his position.
"Peach of a brother you got there."
"He cares, really he does. He's just… emotionally stunted."
Envy made a strangled sound, freaking Al out; and it took almost a full minute for him to realise what was happening and calm down.
"Are you… laughing?"
"No…" Envy choked, still trying to get himself back under control. But Al wasn't fooled at all, and he couldn't help but smile just a little at the Homunculus.
"Sure, fine."
. . .
Lust frowned a little. They had been wandering the streets of Central for hours, and Gluttony still hadn't entirely managed to pinpoint Envy's location. They had managed to narrow it down to the city centre, but that was still a huge area. There was plenty of work still to be done, it seemed.
"I'm sorry, Lust." She directed her attention towards her downcast colleague.
"What for?"
"I really am trying. But it's so hard; his scent's so faint."
Faint, the word echoed around her mind. Did that mean something? Was it good? Bad? Should she be worried?
"Don't apologise," she chose to say instead, her face remaining cautiously blank despite her reassuring words, "you're doing the best you can, right? We'll find him, and we'll take him home."
"And then I can eat?" His stomach grumbled, and he looked down at it sadly. "I'm so hungry, Lust."
"Yes, as soon as we find him you can eat." If Envy was being held captive, which she still somehow doubted (though she had to admit it was the more pleasant possibility), Gluttony could eat the captors. If something else was the reason for Envy's disappearance… well, she'd think of something. Who knew, perhaps Dante would order that Envy himself become the meal – though Lust wasn't entirely sure she could go through with that. She knew Envy sure as hell wouldn't just lie down and die – he wasn't the type to give up.
Gluttony sniffed the air again, and grimaced.
"I can smell those stinky Elrics, too. Can we please stay away from them, Lust? They make me hurt every time we see them!"
Lust's ears pricked up. "The Elrics?"
"Well, one of them. The one with metal limbs, I think. I can't smell the armour one…"
"That doesn't matter, I'm sure he's close by." Now she was concerned. The disappearance of Envy by itself was strange, and could mean only a short number of things. But the fact that his location had been narrowed down to a particular area, and Gluttony was now sensing the famous Elric brothers in the same area? Could it be a coincidence? She wasn't so sure.
What she did know was that the Elrics had mysteriously dropped off the face of the earth almost a year before, after she and Envy had orchestrated the death of that meddling Maes Hughes. At the time Dante had been disappointed, but had simply assumed they had turned away from their pursuit of the Stone to grieve. It was logical enough, sure; she was aware that they had been close.
Was it possible that they had returned, fresh and ready to continue their search – and potentially, had decided to take the fight to the homunculi rather than hiding in the shadows? Perhaps they were interrogating Envy at this very moment, trying to learn what he knew about the Stone? Worse still, perhaps they had learned of Envy's secret, the one he had kept hidden from everyone except Dante and herself. The one he had only admitted to her in secret, when she had caught him at his lowest moment.
Lust stood, trying not to think about the various possibilities. Well at the very least, Dante would want to hear about this. Lust had no doubt she would be very interested to hear that the Elrics had crawled back out of whatever pit they had disappeared into – she always had taken such an interest in Hohenheim's sons. She would bring this news back and let her leader decide what to do. She could worry about everything else later.
. . .
Al stood at the ready, his arms by his sides but slightly tensed. Envy scoffed, rolling his eyes at him.
"Have I fallen yet?"
"No, but you never know."
"And if I do, what do you think's going to happen? I'm a homunculus; I'm not going to crack my skull open and bleed out on the floor."
Al raised an eyebrow.
"You can barely stand up; it's probably not the smartest move to rely on your healing powers right now. We don't even know if you'll ever get those back."
Envy paused. "What do you mean?"
"Well let me put it this way. Your normal food source is red stones. We're feeding you something that, while you can clearly survive on it, isn't what you're supposed to be eating. Humans can survive on only cake, sure-"
"Again with the damn cake metaphor."
"That's basically what it is for you. As I was saying, humans can survive on only cake, but it's not good for them. Someone eating only cake isn't going to be as healthy as someone who's eating plenty of fruit and vegetables."
Envy yawned dramatically, but Al didn't miss the interested and somewhat worried glint in his eyes. "So the point is…"
"For all we know, you might spend the rest of your life on very limited functionality. You might never be able to shape shift or use any of your healing abilities again."
His eyes widened a little, and Al hastened to correct himself.
"I'm not saying that's definitely what's going to happen. We just don't know. It's too early to say."
With that, the very thing Al had been worried about this whole time finally happened. Envy's legs collapsed underneath his weight, and he fell. Luckily, he had been standing right in front of the bed, and simply fell back onto it instead of hitting the floor.
Envy took several shaky breaths, leaning forward a little. Al couldn't help but feel a twinge of empathy.
"That can't happen. I'm going to get my powers back, it'll just take a while."
"Envy…"
"It can't!"
"Shh!" Al said, all too aware of the guards outside.
"Why?! Why should I be quiet? I don't care about them! Nothing matters anymore anyway!"
"Envy, calm down. Don't you think maybe you're overreacting a little? I understand that this is a shock for you, but you can learn to live without your powers."
"You don't understand…"
Al sank to the bed next to him. "So help me understand."
Envy ran his hands through his hair, before rubbing his sweaty palms on his skort.
"Do you have any idea what she's going to do to me?! Without my powers, I'm useless! Do you really think she'll keep me around, out of the kindness of her heart?! No! If I'm lucky she'll kick me to the curb just like He did! More likely, she's going to feed me to Gluttony so she can at least reuse some of the resources she wasted on me. There's no use keeping me around, so why not?"
"She… Lust?" Even as Al asked, he could tell that wasn't right. His eyes widened as a realisation hit him.
"Your master."
He didn't speak, but Al could tell from the terrified look in Envy's eyes that he had struck upon the right answer.
The door slammed open, and Ed entered with a frustrated expression. "Anyone want to tell me what's going on in here?" He asked in a harsh whisper. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to convince our escort that nothing's wrong?"
He stopped, seemingly noticing the situation for the first time, and threw a questioning glance at Al.
"I told him about our theory that he might not get his powers back… he's not taking it well."
"No kidding," Ed said as he came further into the room and crossed his arms. "Dramatic much?"
"I said the same thing, but no. He keeps talking about their leader, Ed. The leader of all the Homunculi. It actually sounds like he has a real reason to be worried."
This seemed to intrigue Ed, his brow furrowing just a little in the way it so often did when he was researching a new theory. He joined Al on the bed.
"Your leader?"
Envy's posture was easily the least confident Ed or Al had ever seen him. He was practically curled into a ball, his arms wrapped around himself.
"What the hell, I'm doomed anyway." Al looked over at Ed with an empathetic expression, and Ed sighed.
"Maybe not."
Envy's eyes snapped up to meet his.
"Look, I made a promise that I wasn't going to kill anyone else. That includes causing someone's death through inaction. If you're in danger, real danger, we can help you. But not if we don't know where the threat's coming from."
The Homunculus bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. Then, slowly, it seemed as though his sense of self preservation won out.
"Fine, my leader. She… She's the one who sent us out after you all those times."
Ed sat back a little.
"Does it surprise you to hear we weren't working alone?"
"Not really; based on what we know of Homunculi, someone had to have created you. We figured there must be someone pulling the strings. I'm more surprised to hear that she's so fixated on us. Why is that? After all, if she's hunting down Homunculi, surely she has a big enough pool to pull from by now. She shouldn't need us specifically."
Envy flinched. "I can't answer that."
"Envy, you can't seriously still be-"
"I'm not protecting her," he growled. "I just- I can't. Not right now. That conversation opens a whole bag of worms."
"Fine. We'll talk about that later. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that your powers are really important to her?"
"They're about the only reason she keeps me around," Envy admitted. "Surprise, I can be a little… difficult to get along with."
"No, really?"
"But I've always been useful to her. More useful than any of the others, because of the shape shifting. She could slot me into pretty much any job she needed me for. She couldn't do that with most of the others. I always liked to think I was her favourite for that reason."
"And now that you might not be able to do that anymore…"
"She'll throw me away like she does every useless tool," he finished. Ed cocked his head to the side.
"Why can't she just fix it though? You said the Homunculi normally feed on red stones; logically that must mean she has a stash somewhere, if she's keeping a whole team of you around. But I get the feeling if that was the case, you wouldn't be sticking around to talk to us."
"No, she used to have a stash of red stones. She used the last of them on-" he cut himself off sharply, glancing quickly between the boys. "The most recent Homunculus."
Ed knew what he was talking about, even without the clarification. The quick glance had been enough.
"So why the panic? Just go somewhere else. Start a new life somewhere. I know that's scary if working for her is all you've ever known, but it has to be better than going back at this point."
"It's not that simple. I'm her favourite, remember? At this point she'll have sent the others out to search for me."
Ed and Al shared a look.
"Yeah, we know. Lust and Gluttony are in town. We figured they were probably looking for you, but it's nice to actually have confirmation."
This information almost sent Envy into another full-blown panic attack. Al put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Calm. It's not over yet; they don't know you're here or they would have come for you already."
But they're going to," Envy insisted. "Gluttony can probably smell me from miles away! It's only a matter of time."
"And what do you think will happen when they do? We're not going to just let them take you, Envy. Not if we have reason to believe they're going to kill you."
"So what are you going to do against two homunculi? Especially without access to my powers?"
"We'll figure it out; we've held our ground against more than two of you at once, remember."
A knock sounded at the door, and the brothers jumped. Ed got up, throwing Envy and Al a warning glance before answering. He made sure to keep the door close to his body, so that the visitor couldn't see past him.
It was Havoc; he could actually tell a split second before he saw the man, the thick waft of smoke giving it away. Coughing a little, Ed raised his sleeve to his mouth and nose as a makeshift air filter. Noticing his discomfort, Havoc immediately dropped the cigarette and put it out under his boot.
"Sorry, Chief. I gotta pay more attention to which way the wind's blowing."
"What do you want? I thought you guys said you were going to stay out of our way."
"I know, but something came up." It was then that Ed noticed the guilty look in Havoc's eyes.
"What came up?" The authoritative growl in his tone almost made Havoc jump.
"You're not gonna like it."
"Just tell me!"
Havoc sighed.
"The Colonel just showed up."
. . .
Well, that's it for this chapter! If you liked it please let me know what you think. If you think it's trash, please tell me I suck so I know I need to work harder (I genuinely can't tell, I just always think everything I write is trash haha). And look out for the next chapter; see you guys then~~
