So just as a note, this is sort of me attempting to mash together '03 and Brotherhood. The homunculi are from '03, the way they're made is... sort of based off '03, but they're led by Father and we can assume it's a similar plan to BH. It is a little dark, but I tried not to let it get darker than the original end of '03. If you haven't seen '03, this is your official spoiler warning!
When I was born, I was nothing more than a shadow.
Yeah, unlike you humans, I can actually remember when I was born. Imagine living an entire life and not even knowing where you came from, how you started your painful trek on this desolate planet. Imagine trying to figure out who you are while never really knowing entirely where you came from. No thank you.
I was there in that dark basement, hearing the screams that felt like they should be my own. Yet somehow, they weren't my screams. I had somehow been detached from that reality, that pain. I had somehow become the shadow on the wall, knowing, judging.
But the problem with shadows is that the Light always manages to find them. That's the only reason I've ever been able to figure he could end up with a name like "Hohenheim of Light," because there was nothing else light-like about him.
He found me and took me away in a small glass vial. I suppose in hindsight he knew how that worked because he had once been in one himself. That was the point where I truly detached and started on my own path, a path different from the screaming boy who was me and I was him. Except we were becoming not each other from there. He was going his way, and I was on a new path. The homunculus path.
A homunculus gaining a true physical form is a complicated thing. There's the first step, the detachment, which I had already been through. That's more painful to the creator than the creation. From there, as is always the case with alchemy, the next step was purification. Burn the impurities away, separate the substance some more, put it back together, burn again. Alchemy is always about taking something apart and putting it back together, only to take it apart again. All in an attempt to make things better than the last time, to keep improving until you manage to come to the "perfect" substance. Except an alchemist could probably never be satisfied anyway, and he would just break it down again in an attempt to get an even more perfect substance. Which, I suppose, is the real reason why people claim the philosopher's stone is a myth.
I can't remember every part of what was done to me in an attempt to purify me. But I do remember slowly coming into consciousness, becoming more aware of myself, of the world around me. And then I realized I was being filtered through red water, this thing that wasn't supposed to exist, this thing that felt dark and... evil.
"Wait," I croaked, and it was the first time I had said words in my new form. The man who felt like my family but not my family seemed intrigued that I was even speaking. "You can't purify me like this. That substance is unclean, it'll make me-"
"You are a homunculus," the man said in a flat tone. "Homunculi don't know anything about alchemy."
It wasn't the last time I ever spoke about alchemy, but I learned fast. In this world, I was reprimanded for speaking as if I knew about alchemy, not praised and rewarded by a loving mother.
While He threw himself deeper into alchemy, I was pushed away from it. Instead I was taught that I was the purification of humanity, that I was better, more than the measly humans I had come from. I was a prince of darkness who would help lead us into a new era. And when I was finally standing on my own two legs, I was finally granted a name of my own.
"What is your primary emotion?" Father asked, pacing in front of me. I stood there quietly, my hands clasped behind my back like the little soldier he had trained me to be. "What pushed your creator to attempt human transmutation? What is the emotion that made you?"
There was silence in the room as I thought on his words. I could feel the other homunculi watching me, waiting to see where it would be declared that I fit into this family, which one of them I would become. If I even did end up fitting. There was always the chance that I wouldn't be good enough, that I would be rejected and broken down, disposed of like any other failed experiment.
"I... hate myself," I said after I had thought on it, looking down at my hands. "I hated feeling alone, like a lost little boy. I hate that I didn't know how to take care of my brother. I hate that I wasn't able to make my mom better. I hate that... That I let her down. I want to be someone else, someone other than me, someone who doesn't make these mistakes."
Father stared at me for a long minute, and I worried that I had messed up somehow. He was always lecturing me on referring to Edward's life as my own, but it felt like my life. I could remember all these things through his eyes, and yet somehow I wasn't supposed to be him.
"Then feel that hatred and let it change you," he finally said.
I looked down at myself, my hands still soft and peachy, my golden hair hanging loose around my shoulders. I hated everything about myself, about this form. I hated what it represented, I hated that I looked like this person who I wasn't even allowed to be, I hated that I could remember being loved in this body and yet that was something I was never going to have now. After all, Father had made that much clear. Why would I ever deserve love again after what I'd done? This body, this form, should have died, I shouldn't have to be stuck with it, it wasn't who I was, none of this was me-
It felt like I was swallowed by my hatred and anger, and when I was aware of myself again, I was different. The fleshy pink had been replaced by cold ivory, the blond replaced with black. I was smaller, leaner, curvier.
"You are the sin of Envy," Father said with a nod, and then turned to leave.
"Wait, but that can't be right," I blurted out, and he turned around, his eyes flashing with quiet anger that I knew would come back to bite me later. "I didn't say anything about being jealous! That's not what I was made from, I-"
"A child does not get to choose their name," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You were born from sin; so you shall be named after sin, because that is what you are. A sin."
Funny, how I was supposed to be this bringer of a new era, the betterment of humanity, and yet I was still so despicable, so horrible, so... sinful. It only confirmed to me that my hatred of myself was justified. So I did what so many children do in the face of abuse. I shut down, locked my feelings away, and tried to become what was demanded of me.
I was Envy.
While I was swallowed up by darkness, while I learned to become one with the shadows I was terrified of, Edward Elric pulled himself out of them. While I was given a new name, he was given a new arm and leg to stand on. While he relearned to walk, I relearned how to look at the world. This wasn't the sweet, hopeful world Trisha Elric had taught her boys to believe in. After all, she had died, and nothing could be done about it. Who was she to say the world was full of hope when it hadn't given her that chance?
By the time Father was satisfied enough with my progress on distancing myself from the golden boy I had once shared a life with, he finally started to introduce me to the memories of all the Envys who had come before me. Apparently, I was one of those tricky homunculi. Some of the other homunculi were much more stable states of being. Pride, for example. But when the creator of a homunculus starts to struggle with the emotion that created the homunculus in the first place, the homunculus goes... Well, a little crazy. Lots of people in the past had learned to let go of their jealousy, and with it, Envy had lost stability. I had been different in every single lifetime, but I was always the same at my core. And I was always a shapeshifter.
But Father was absolutely convinced I would be a more stable iteration of Envy than all the ones before me. After all, Edward Elric wasn't going to stop hating himself or stop wanting more any time soon. So Father combined me with all the leftover bits of the Envys before me, to give me a better chance in the midst of rapidly solidifying plans.
With the previous knowledge of myself, I was so much more assured in my own identity. Of course I wasn't that tiny golden twerp. I was so much more. I was everything he wished he could be, or I wouldn't exist. I was all the fire and rage he tried to pretend he didn't have, I was that burning feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he was reminded of his dad. I was so far beyond Edward Elric, he was below me.
I was Envy.
With my old lives integrated into my new life, I was finally allowed to take the next step of my journey and meet my sister. Well, I had met my other sister, Lust, but I had someone else whose fate was even more tied to my own. After all, there had been two humans involved in the human transmutation the night I had been born, and another homunculus had been born right alongside me. Sloth.
Before I even met her, I had braced myself for another one of those moments when my world and the twerp's collided. I couldn't even bring myself to say his name anymore, not when it made me instinctively jerk as if it were still mine. But I knew if Sloth was Al's homunculus, then there was a strong chance she would look like someone I knew, and she wasn't a shapeshifter like me. So while I waited for her to come into the room, I pushed my face into the worst scowl I could imagine. I reminded myself just how much I hated the twerp's life, how much I wanted anything but that, and therefore, some face from his miserable life meant nothing to me.
Still, I could feel my breath catch when I saw her face for the first time, even underneath my furrowed eyebrows and deep scowl. But it was- She was- No. I deepened my scowl, reminding myself how much I detested that life. I sighed and gave her a smirk, trying to play off any reaction I'd had.
"It's a shame you got stuck with that ugly human face," I said, walking around her in a circle as if I were evaluating her fashion choices. "You're not going to be able to do anything without them recognizing you."
"You'd be surprised what humans don't see when they'd rather not see it," she said, shooting back a smirk of her own. I bit my lip and nodded. Nice. Definitely not Trisha Elric, not with a dark grin like that.
We circled each other after that, like two predators sizing each other up. She didn't tell me stories to make me feel better about how she hadn't accepted the name Sloth at first the same way I hadn't accepted Envy. We didn't sit and share stories about what we could remember about Resembool or having been brothers once, long ago, in another life. No, we were homunculi, so we sized each other up and moved on. Neither of us wanted to spend much time around the other, not when it brought all those conflicting feelings to the surface. I had an easier time talking with Lust, after all. Once Sloth started baby talking the little slimeball known as Wrath, I knew I had made the smart decision to cast her aside. She was weak, still longing for that semblance of humanity, of having a family. I was better than that. She was one of those homunculi who would eventually go crazy and fall apart. I was the stable kind of homunculus, a homunculus like Lust that would stick around for decades.
I was Envy.
For a brief moment of time, the twerp and I had lives that matched rather than being the opposite of one another. We both were given missions we'd rather not do from the guy we'd rather not follow, and we went out and did them anyway. It wasn't that I minded actually doing the missions - I loved changing shape, loved the look on people's faces when they stammered about me being a monster, loved killing, even. But I hated that I had to move about in such a complicated plan, dancing around this and that and another and trying to make all the damn puzzle pieces fall in their proper places. All I wanted was to go out and show the twerp just how much I really hated him. I wanted to scream insults in his face and wring his neck. But Father pressed the importance of patience on me, explaining that Edward Elric would suffer much more from the plan coming to fruition than simply a random attack.
The other homunculi had caught on to the fact that I always called him Father, the one habit I hadn't been able to destroy. Perhaps it was because it seemed to be the one thing from my previous life he didn't mind, even if he turned out to not actually be Hohenheim. He laughed at it, saying it was fitting for someone who shaped the homunculi into their true potential, raising us like a father, in a sense. The others started calling him Father too, and it stuck.
I can still remember the first time I saw the twerp myself in person. He was all the way across a crowded plaza, standing on a suitcase like an idiot. I felt like my entire body was on fire just watching him. It took everything I had to restrain myself and not go stalking over to rip him apart. At some point, he had become the symbol of my own suffering to me, the reason why I was following stupid commands and putting up with getting called trash every single day. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't exist. Hell, if he stopped existing, I could run away from Father and take the life I'd been denied for myself.
But instead, I behaved, and it was clear I had proven myself to Father with that choice. I was given more complex missions, missions where I had to stay disguised for days or weeks as I slowly nurtured seeds of hatred in the people around me.
My dedication paid off, and I finally got to meet the twerp face-to-face.
It was a last-minute decision, really. Lust happened to get the call that the lab had been broken into, and I happened to be around when she got the call. We didn't know it had been the Elric brothers who had broken in, or I might have been kept away. I was still young, still coping with my own feelings and identity. Even if I felt hundreds of years old after having my memories restored, I was still just a child. I had still been Envy for fewer years than I had once been Edward. I wasn't ready to meet him, and it showed.
Even with all my training, even though I was incredibly stable for such a young homunculus thanks to the intensity of the twerp's feelings, I still couldn't help but beat the living shit out of him. I was so grateful that I wouldn't have to fight him, wouldn't have to make a decision in the middle of battle whether or not to kill him, but I couldn't help myself from getting in a few punches while he was down anyway.
"Don't forget," I said in a low voice to him. "We let you live."
For now. I wanted to add, snarling at him as he passed out. For now. Someday he wouldn't be so vital. Someday he would have suffered as much as I could have made him suffer. Someday, I would get my chance. Someday, he would be mine.
Because I was Envy.
I wasn't there when Sloth was killed, but I couldn't say I was surprised. She had always been weak to begin with, clinging to bits of her human life. I still hated Father with everything I had in me to hate him, but I had gained a new respect for how much he had hammered into me to forget the twerp's life. Sloth hadn't been able to do it as much as I had been, and it had exposed her, made her weak, and eventually gotten her killed. Al had learned to step up and take command of a situation, and she had slowly lost her sanity the more he found his voice. I grinned when I heard she was gone, because I knew the twerp would never be able to do the same to me. It felt like I was only growing stronger with every passing day. I'd considered keeping him alive at times, like some sort of power generator. At times. I never actually adopted the idea. I knew killing him would be too satisfying.
The last time I saw Edward Elric was deep underground. His eyes were wide and panicked, like a frightened animal caught in a trap. He knew the secret behind the homunculi now. He had seen what it had taken to destroy Sloth, and even though he was trying desperately to deny it, he knew that one of us was his own personal hell. But I could tell, he didn't know which one of us it was, the way his eyes kept flicking between us, calculating. Or at least, he didn't want to confirm what he was feeling. I almost wanted to step forward and dare him not to see himself in me right then and there, but I remembered Father's lessons about patience. I would have my moment.
He was too easy to fight. He had always been too easy to fight, what with me knowing every single one of his moves while still being able to move faster and land harder blows. I didn't get winded and tired from a few knocks to the head like him, and after just a few minutes of fighting, it felt like I was fighting a 60-year-old drunkard instead of someone who was supposed to pose any kind of threat to me. His eyes were still wild, still calculating even as he fought. Which one is it, which one is it?
"Would you like a hint, Fullmetal?" I crooned at him while sidestepping one of his sloppy punches. His eyes got wild at that, like an animal that suddenly knows it's being hunted.
"A hint for what, you bastard?" His voice was raw and cracked as he lunged at me. I sidestepped him again, sweeping his feet and then knocking his head into the stone foundation for good measure.
"Which homunculus you created, of course," I said with a laugh. "I can see you thinking about it, trying to figure it out. Would you like me to tell you? We know everything about your life, after all." He lunged at me with a scream at that, and I knew I wanted to push him to his absolute breaking point, and then to tell him the truth and watch him shatter. Then I would have my satisfaction.
"We know all about the little chimera girl you couldn't save." I practically sang as I shifted, and I could see him shake even as he tried to keep the flow of his fight going uninterrupted. "We know all about Hughes and how you fed him the information that got him killed." I shifted again, though the twerp managed to get a chokehold on me.
"Don't underestimate me," he growled in my ear. "I managed to kill Sloth even when she had the face of my mother."
I shifted again and turned to look at him with that dark smirk I always remembered Sloth having. "And that makes, what, three times you've killed me now, big man?"
He made a choked sound at the old nickname as he stumbled backward, letting go of me. The next scream he let out was almost feral, clearly thinking I knew these things because I had been spying on him even during the happiest moments of his life. I suppose, in a sense, I was. I let him pin me, grinning up at those golden eyes that looked absolutely tormented. I knew he couldn't kill me with the first minute he still had an advantage, even if killing me would have done anything. He was too scared, too desperate to get that morsel of information he knew I had. I knew him far too well.
"Well, would you like to know?" I said, licking my lips. He frowned, hesitating, his blade-arm shaking. I let out a low chuckle. "Let me make it easier for you then. Let me show you my true form."
I let myself shift again, to that form I hated, to the form I tried to resist constantly. I had always wanted to believe that it would be hard to shift back after so many years of trying to avoid taking that form, but it was still as easy as breathing. My usual shape fell away like clothes at the end of a long day. Ed's scream wasn't the only one this time, and I could hear Al from the other side of the room as he came in to desperately try and save his brother.
Too late, I thought to myself with a smirk.
"No, no, you're lying!" Ed said, shaking his head. "You can take any form! You're not- I'm not-!"
"You know exactly what happened," I said, leaning my face into his. I could see Al running towards us from the other side of the room. Well, time to wrap up. "You've known since Sloth that I was your sin, you just haven't wanted to face what that means. That you were bringing your mom back because you were jealous."
"No-!" He protested, his bladed arm lowering as he started shaking his head. I grabbed his braid and stabbed him through the gut with an automail blade just like his.
"You made me," I hissed at him as he sank to his knees with a shocked expression on his face. Oh, how long I had waited for that expression. I snarled and let him fall to the floor. "And I'm the better model."
Truthfully, I had expected it to end there. I expected him to die, and I expected the burning feeling in my gut to go away, or at least to lessen. But just as I was beginning to realize that the feeling was still there, still burning me from the inside, I heard a clap. I looked down just in time to see two bloody hands wrap around my ankle before the world faded to white.
Even after my eyes had a minute to adjust, the world was still white, and I was still in my stupid twerp shape. No matter how much I tried to shift and go back to my usual shape, I couldn't seem to change at all. I spun on who I assumed must be the cause of this, the only other blond currently in all existence.
"What have you done?" I screeched at him. "Where are we?"
"The Gate." His voice was oddly calm, like a sigh. It only made me angrier.
"Well, get us out of here!"
He turned to look me in the eyes then, his own eyes suddenly looking a lot older and wearier than I remembered from just minutes ago. He had just been wild, terrified even, and all because of me. Now all that was gone and he just looked... resigned?
"You don't leave the Gate," he sighed. "You're sent away."
"What the hell are you-"
Well, Alchemist, this is quite the pickle you've gotten yourself into.
I spun around at the new voice, both familiar and terrifying all at once. It felt like it was coming from something... humanoid? But at the same time, my eyes couldn't seem to focus on the being, sliding over it and blurring it as if it was heat in the air.
"Can I use him as payment?" Ed said, jerking a thumb at me. I spluttered and called him every bad name I could think of. "He is my sin, after all."
Nice try, Alchemist, but you can't use something you want to lose as payment. I'm not going to take away the part of yourself you hate as payment. The weird being paused and did something that almost seemed like... it was tilting its head to the side? The entire experience felt so weird I wanted to rip my own skin off.
The good parts of your personality, maybe. Perhaps your kindness, or maybe your generosity? It would depend on what you wanted in return.
The twerp paused, looking between the oil spill of a creature and me, as if he were thinking.
"I want to fix what I've done wrong," he said softly when our eyes were connected. I scoffed and looked away from him. "How do I help Envy?"
I looked back at him with a frown. I had expected him to lay his life down for Al, to leave me here in this between place to rot. I figured that was what he would think I deserved, because that was what I had always thought he deserved. My hands shook. Oh god. My hands were shaking. I looked down at myself with wide eyes, suddenly realizing what this feeling was. Ed was... Forgiving me. He was letting go of everything that made my existence possible. I was going to go crazy and fade away. Just like Sloth.
You know the stages of alchemy, Alchemist. If Separation is no longer serving you...
"Conjugation," Ed said softly, glancing back at me. I scoffed. It had been years since I had indulged the alchemy knowledge in my brain, but I could vaguely remember the concept. Conjugation. Opposite elements are reunited.
It seems both of you only have half a life left as you are. If you were to come back together... the two halves might make a whole.
I looked up, letting my eyes meet Ed's and feeling like I was going to heave. This couldn't be the only solution. There was no way I was going to have to pick between being him and staying alive.
"It's okay, Envy," Ed whispered. "There's so much more to life besides... hating me."
I stared back at him for a long minute. His eyes were so clear, so sincere, and I knew he meant everything he said. He was the stupid twerp, after all. He always believed in the best in people, even when they had literally stabbed him in the back. Or the stomach. Details. I knew him like I knew myself. He wasn't lying, because he was the part of us that wouldn't lie. He honestly believed he could help me, honestly wanted to show me a better life.
And goddammit, I wanted that chance. I closed my eyes and let out a long huff, my face tensing into a scowl as I felt my own resistance cracking.
"Fuck."
Two people disappeared into the Gate and one came back among the cries and screams of Alphonse Elric.
I was Envy.
But now I was going to be Edward Elric too.