"Wait, let me get this straight..."
Envy huffed. Stupid Greed. When had he managed to grow a brain so he would accept Father's olive branch, Envy would never know. All he had been good for before was fighting and fucking.
Apparently now he also was very good at asking questions. Annoying, redundant and obtuse questions. The two of them were alone for the first time in a century and he was asking stupid questions about the goddamned plan.
"So this guy... Hughes, right? So he goes and finds out this and that about the plan, so you and Lust just killed him?"
Envy rolled their eyes at their big brother. Greed's brow was furrowed in confusion. What was he so worried about anyways? "Lust got herself shanked in the head," they informed Greed, "Turns out the shitbag was real good at throwing knives. Yeah," they smirked when Greed's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, "So when he went outside to call Mustang for help I pretended to be his wife and I shot him. Bam!" They made a gun-like gesture with their slender fingers, "Right in the fucking lungs," they cackled gleefully. "Wrath said that the guy's brat daughter bawled and squealed like a little animal during his funeral! He was so pissed," Envy laughed again.
Weird. Greed wasn't joining in.
"Get it?" Envy wheedled. It wasn't Greed's fault, he was always a little slow because he was so self-obsessed, "It's funny cause humans are ani..."
"Sweet cheeks," Greed bit out the word angrily, "Shut up, will ya?"
Envy narrowed their purple eyes. "Since when do you think that murdering humans is not funny?" They asked. They didn't even want to know what sort of crap Greed had been involved in during the past hundred years or so. He had lived among the humans, for God's sake! Who knew what sort of dumb ideas and ridiculous notions had taken root inside his handsome, empty head?
"Oh, it's hilarious," Greed deadpanned. "Also it's the stupidest thing you guys could have done. Geez, I turn my back for a mere century and..." He didn't finish and just shook his head, moving slightly away from Envy.
Envy bristled. How dare he?! "Say that again?" they prodded, voice low and dangerous.
And then, in less than a heartbeat, Greed was in their space, bending his bulk down to look Envy dead in the eye. Envy didn't step back. They had spent a century without their brother's proximity, after all. "It's the stupidest thing you could have done," Greed repeated himself, "Literally."
"And what would have Greed the Avaricious done, huh?" Envy grimaced.
"For starters, I wouldn't have panicked!" Greed yelled as he straightened up. "How much this idiot could have uncovered anyway? Probably not much deeper than Ishval. For God's sake, Envy, it's not like there's any record of the old man in Central's archives. But nooo!" He waved his hands around, getting more worked up as he went on, "You had to turn a minor annoyance into a major problem."
Envy snarled and reached up to grab the fur lapels of Greed's little sleeveless jacket into their dainty fists. "Don't you condescend to me!" They shouted, "I took care of it and now everything's fine!"
"Fine? How is it fine?"
"The guy is dead and failed to tell anything to anyone. How is it not?!"
Greed just looked at them and said, very slowly, as if he was speaking to some mentally retarded human child, "Mustang, Envy. We now have a fucking loose end."
"Oh for... Mustang's just some stupid State Alchemist!"
"Yeah," Greed shrugged and his lips curled in disgust, "A State Alchemist whose best friend turned up murdered just when he was calling him about some emergency. Fuck, Envy, I knew you were an ugly freak but I didn't think you're dumb too. Mustang is going to dig into this."
Envy's anger finally boiled over. They have had enough. Greed should have been humbled. He should have groveled to thank Father for the mercy he had shown him. And he absolutely should have groveled before Envy if he wanted to get back into their good graces after disappearing for a fucking century and leaving them!
Instead he was strutting around like it was still the old days, like he still was the one in charge.
Envy punched him. Right in his stupid face. Not with all their superhuman power... but close enough. The fight in Dublith had taken its toll on Greed, and Father had decreed that for now his strength would not be replenished. A penance for Greed's insubordination.
Greed stumbled sideways and fell on one knee. The alchemical red light of his Stone started sizzling around his face and throat as his body began repairing itself. He coughed – or laughed, it was hard to tell – and looked up at Envy with a smirk.
"That's the spirit, freakshow," he mocked.
How could it still sting when Greed insulted them?
With a snarl Envy moved to kick him down so he could learn his proper place, but this time their older brother was ready.
The grey sheen of his Ultimate Shield slithered around his hands and forearms as he gripped Envy's bare leg in his claws. His smirk had turned into a full grin, his shark-like fangs shining triumphantly.
And then, suddenly, Envy found themselves on the hard floor of the labyrinthine tunnels, Greed looming above them. If a passer-by happened to glance their way, it might have looked like a desperate tryst, a ridiculous affair hidden in the comforting underground darkness.
As if. The trysts between Envy and Greed had always been way too passionate and violent and glorious to be contained beneath Central's streets and boulevards.
But that was in the past. Greed had thrown it away, more than a hundred years ago. That was then.
This is now.
"Get off me, stupid!" Envy bit out through clenched teeth as they elongated and sharpened their fingernails into talons, raking them across their brother's face.
Vain dumbass. He still preferred not to cover his head with the Ultimate Shield.
Greed hissed but didn't let them go. He grabbed Envy's arms and pinned them above their head as the cuts on his cheek healed.
There were so many ways for Envy to escape from his clutches. It wasn't like there was a limit of the forms they could assume at any given moment. Envy's talent was constrained only by their imagination, and they were extremely imaginative. At the very least they could take their true form, that of the giant, lumbering green monster, and just brush Greed off like a gnat.
The thought was almost physically repulsive.
Greed already knew they were ugly. No point in showcasing it.
Dammit!
A century later, and they still were panting after Greed's approval. His desire.
Envy looked up and met their big brother's plum-colored eyes.
Oh.
Greed certainly looked full of desire. He looked at them almost... hungrily. It sent a pleasant shiver up Envy's spine. So Greed had missed them too, after all...
Stupid Greed.
Envy brought their face up just as Greed lowered his. When their lips met, it wasn't sweet or gentle.
His kisses had always been possessive and devouring. Predatory. He lightly bit Envy's lower lip and they couldn't help it. They had gone a century without.
A strangled moan escaped them. Which was exactly what Greed apparently wanted because less than a second later his tongue forced its way inside their mouth. Probing. Swirling.
Greed was good at this. Envy couldn't deny it. Nor did they want to, in that moment.
Envy felt his hands, the sharp edges of the Ultimate Shield gone, worming their way under the black skort. Their hips buckled up at him, sparks of arousal dancing wantonly inside.
Finally the kiss was broken and Greed lifted his head a little so he could grin down at them, his eyes gone dark and wild. For a second, Envy allowed themselves to feel content. Their big brother was back and things were right again.
"That's the good stuff, sweet cheeks," he purred, "Human girls have nothing on you."
Envy's insides suddenly felt frozen and raw.
They should have seen it coming. Of course they should have. It's not like monogamy was to be expected from a piece of scum who boasted that he owned the entire world and everything in it.
It's not like he had been faithful before.
But it still hurt.
The excitement and the lust that had filled them just moments ago were completely gone. All they could feel was cold revulsion. They had fallen for his tricks again.
Again. Again, again, he had made a fool out of them, he had humiliated them again.
They didn't even trigger the transformation consciously. The white-hot outrage that filled them was mind-numbing.
Next thing they knew, the walls of the underground tunnel around them were nothing but piles of steaming rubble and Greed's small, human-like body was pinned beneath an enormous green hand.
"I should rip you limb from limb," they growled down at Greed who was staring at them with an incredulous expression on his pale, soot-stained face. Even their voice sounded wrong in their real form, booming and filled with the wailing echoes of the Xerxian souls. God, how Envy hated it.
Almost as much as they hated Greed.
"Ah, don't be like that," Greed breathed out with difficulty because one of Envy's clawed fingers was pressing down on his chest and windpipe. Hard. He gave them what he seemed to think was a charming smile. "We were just getting reacquainted."
With a snarl Envy grabbed him and slammed his body into the rubble, the sickening crash echoing in the ruined tunnel. Greed grunted with pain as his Stone desperately began reversing the internal damage.
Envy forced themselves to assume their preferred form and the tunnel suddenly grew bigger, and the groaning souls that littered their skin like boils were reabsorbed back into their insides.
"You're not worth it," they spat at Greed who was still lying in the rubble, and walked away from him.
They heard him get up but they didn't turn to look at him.
"Hostages," he croaked behind them.
That was odd. What was he on about? They stopped, waiting for him to continue.
"You asked me, remember? What would I have done about Hughes? I would have taken his family hostage. Scare him into silence. Pride could have nabbed them in minutes. Problem solved and no nosy State Alchemists."
"Kidnapping, eh?" Envy finally turned and gave them a glare full of loathing. "The way Wrath tells it, that didn't turn out so well for you with the Elric brats, didn't it?"
And then they left.
"Do you know what happened to the tunnel on the west end?" Lust asked Envy later that night when they went to visit her at the chimera pens. "It's collapsed. The whole thing."
"No clue," Envy lied, thankful that they couldn't blush involuntarily. "Have Gluttony clear it out," they shrugged.
I DID say they were dysfunctional, after all...
In my mind this is set (obviously, duh!) after Episode 14, but before they tried to frame Ross. So probably around the time the Elrics met Ling?
Peace!