Greed was well on his way of getting more drunk than he'd ever been in at least a century and half.
Since the body of a Homunculus was much more resilient than that of a human, and it possessed the ability to automatically repair any damage inflicted upon it, he needed a lot of booze to get truly and honestly drunk. So Greed was making the owner of the dingy bar he currently resided at a very wealthy man.
The alcohol tasted awful and it was so strong that it made his eyes water when it went down. Just what the doctor ordered.
Greed had been here for hours now, but when he came in and sat in front of the bar, he never made the effort to actually notice the place. He was here for a purpose, and that purpose didn't include staring at the decor. He looked blearily around. Oh, man... This dump looked even worse than the Devil's Nest, and the Devil's Nest had been located in a hick town in the ass end of nowhere.
Or maybe it was the booze that made it seem so bad. He had been quite fond of the Devil's Nest, after all.
The bartender had tried to chat him up, but Greed was not interested in conversation. As far as he was concerned, all the interaction that was needed was when the guy gave him more bottles and Greed gave him more money. The murmur of the other drunkards who polluted the bar with their presence was tiresome, but he was noticing it less and less the more shitfaced he got.
He raised his glass only to find it empty. That wasn't going to do. Greed reached for the bottle and to his horror discovered that it was finished too.
"Hey, pops," he slurred loudly to get the barkeep's attention and showed him the empty bottle. "Bring us annuver one, will ya?"
The man frowned at him and stepped closer. "I think it's best you give it a little rest, buddy," he declared.
Greed just blinked at him, needing a moment to comprehend the oaf's words.
"You're cuttin'me off?" No, no, no, this wasn't good at all. His body needed a constant flow of alcohol to actually stay inebriated, or else the Stone was going to start working its magic and he was going to be sober in no time. Greed growled in irritation as he reached across the bar and fumbled to grasp the guy by the wrist. "D'you have any idea who I am? People don't... cut me off," Greed's vision was blurred and let the barkeep go to rub at his eyes. "People do wha'eer I tell 'em to do. Got it? Now," he glared at the sweaty human, his purple eyes drunk and feverish. "Bring. Me. More."
"Just don't come cryin' when you end up in the hospital," the guy said gruffly and slammed another bottle in front of Greed's face. He immediately lit up. "Or dead in a ditch, more like," he muttered under his breath.
Greed was already ignoring him and filling his glass to the brim with the cheap moonshine. The smell burnt his nostrils as he started gulping it down.
"Problems with the wife or somethin', huh?" A man's voice said next to him and Greed turned to see that one of the human patrons had come closer to him, his nose red and his yellow teeth bared in a drunken smile.
"Or something," Greed finished the glass and poured himself another one. "Get lost."
"Wha', she fuckin' someone else while yer getting fucked up, eh?" The drunkard laughed and clapped Greed's back clumsily. "Hey," he frowned, "Yer not laughin'. She dead or what?"
Greed just growled, got up on his shaky legs, grabbed the guy by the back of the neck and smashed his head against the bar. He heard a satisfying crunch before the bartender yelled something unintelligible.
And then the brawl began.
Eventually Greed found himself stumbling down the narrow streets that littered Central's less presentable neighborhoods as the rain drummed all around him. The storm and the late hour made the city seem empty.
His clothes were soaked but, hey, at least the rain had washed away most of the blood.
You gotta count your blessings, right?
A lightning lit up the stormy clouds above and the grey buildings around him, and the night was back, black and wet, and cold. He had long since sobered up, largely thanks to the fight at that bar, and wished he hadn't.
Because now he could think.
Now he could remember.
He remembered Wrath's impassive face as he told him how Envy hasn't made contact in days. How, by all accounts, they should have reached Asbec long ago and should have encountered the runaways. The last time the Führer had heard of Envy was when they had arrived at the hub at North City and were going to make their way from there.
Wrath had concluded that Envy was likely dead but, hey, Kimblee had used some Drachmans to carve the final Crest of Blood at Briggs so all was well, right?
The only reason why Greed hadn't ripped Wrath's head off right there and then was because Pride was slithering, shapeless and ominous, in the shadows around the old man's underground throne and Father himself was staring expectantly at his children as he listened to Wrath's report.
The old man was much more interested in hearing about the Crest of Blood than he was in wondering about Envy's fate.
What a shocker.
A thunder echoed in the sky as Greed kept repeating to himself that Envy wasn't dead. They couldn't be. They might be in trouble, or they might be too busy chasing the Elrics across the country to give Wrath a call, or something – anything – like that, but they weren't dead. No, sir. Not dead.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he never even registered the dark, cloaked figure that leapt from rooftop to rooftop in the rain, following him.
Was it foolish that Greed thought that he'd somehow feel it if Envy had died?
Yes. Yes, it was. He hadn't felt a thing when Mustang killed Lust, he found out about it hours after it had already happened. The Homunculi had many powers, but sensing their own kind's demise was not one of them.
Then again, this was different. Envy was different.
He remembered how their huge purple eyes had lit up the first time he kissed them. It was so long ago... They had been inexperienced, and clumsy, and had no confidence in their abilities as a lover at all despite all the loud bravado, but none of that had mattered. Not to him. To be the first one to pick this fruit, so sweet and so forbidden, to be given something that nobody else in the whole world had ever been given before, was a reward of its own for Greed the Avaricious.
Greed also remembered how they had stiffened, their whole body growing still and cold, whenever they found out how he'd had fun somewhere else.
With someone else.
The first few times it happened, they fled from him and sulked for days, sometimes weeks. Then they would leave the lair in secret and, no matter how well Greed had managed to hide his tracks, they always got to his latest conquest and took their vengeance.
Always on the girls. Never on Greed.
That used to make him so angry.
Now it just made him sick. If Envy was sadistic and psychotic in their payback, what did that made him when he continued to feed human girls into that bottomless pit of jealousy and revenge, never stopping to think about what was going to happen to them once he had received his pleasure?
Eventually, or so he used to tell himself, Envy grew more stable about it. They became more likely to confront Greed instead of hiding away to boil in their own pain, sometimes even turning their rage into physical violence against him. Which was fine.
But they never stopped coming after those Greed cheated with.
Wind the clock a century forward, and they hadn't even been angry when they brought Bido to "Crown" and caught Greed in the act.
Had he finally broken Envy? Was there a limit of how much infidelity could the personification of jealousy take?
Greed supposed that a human in his predicament, if he felt the same way, might wonder about his own nature. Why am I like this?, or some other drivel in that vein.
Greed knew why he was like this. It was in the name, after all. His vice was demanding and all-consuming. There was a part of him that had wished it could be faithful to Envy, that had never really felt good about betraying them and that had wanted them to be enough.
But enough simply wasn't possible for him. Enough was an antithesis to his very being. Greed wanted more. Always. More power, more money, more pleasure, more fun, more women, more life. He couldn't help it. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't ignore it. He was addicted to the act of wanting itself. It was what drove him. What made him get up from the proverbial bed every morning.
Two hundred plus years of wanting and taking... and Greed felt as empty as the day the old man created him.
He stopped in front of a drain and watched as the streams of water disappeared into the blackness below.
"I fucking hate you," he whispered, rain falling around him and his voice thick with emotion, "Why did you make me?"
He heard the splash of wet footsteps coming from behind a second before he felt the tip of the blade at his side.
"We meet again, Greed."
"Hey, kid," Greed sighed without turning to look at his future assailant. "Wish I could say that I missed your company, but in all honesty, I haven't even thought about you in weeks."
"Move," he felt Ling Yao's hand pushing him forward. "The alley. I'd rather not do this in the open."
"I'd rather you won't bother me at all," Greed grumbled but did as the Xingese princeling wanted.
It made no difference if he was going to kill the kid in the street or in a dark alley.
It was going to be a welcome distraction either way.
Once they started walking towards the narrow gap between the buildings, Greed lightly tilted his head sideways and back to throw a glance at Ling. The prince's slanty eyes shone with foolish determination.
"What did you do with my car, by the by?" Greed asked, "You better not have crashed it somewhere."
Ling smirked, "No, last time I saw it, it seemed fine. Should be somewhere in the desert by now."
"Oh come on," Greed's shoulders sloped slightly.
"Alright, stop," Ling commanded him. "Turn around."
"If you're trying to rob me, you're doing it all wrong," Greed said dryly as he turned and faced the kid.
The kid gave him a weird look. "I'm not here to rob you, Greed," he said seriously.
Greed shrugged and said, "It was a joke, kiddo," and he leaned his back against the wall of the building behind him. "But it does beg the question of what are you doing. You know you can't kill me, and that little knife of yours won't do you much good in a fight."
"You're right," Ling nodded. "I can't kill you. That's what I want to talk about."
Greed merely raised an eyebrow at him.
"I came in Amestris to search for immortality," the kid said. "To find the Philosopher's Stone."
Greed couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Life is full of irony, isn't it?" He spread his arms wide, staring right at Ling's eyes. "Well, you just found one. Now what?"
"Now you tell me how to create it."
"And why the hell would I do that?"
Ling took a deep breath. "Lan Fan lost her arm because of your brother Wrath. Some in Xing would say that your family owes mine a blood debt."
Greed burst out laughing, nearly doubling over. He needed almost half a minute to compose himself. "Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you," Greed had to stop talking because another fit cracked him up. "It's just... heh... where do you think you are and who do you think you're talking to?"
The Xingese boy scowled at him and opened his mouth to retort, but Greed interrupted him angrily, all the merriment he felt a moment before gone, as if the rain had washed it away. "You are not in Xing anymore," Greed sneered, "And I am not a human. I don't give a shit about what you think Wrath owes you. I hate Wrath and I'm going to kill him one day. I am Greed, kid. Avarice embodied. I don't owe you a damn thing. If you want something from me," he pushed himself from the wall he was leaning against and looked down at Ling, "you have to learn to speak my language. Now," Greed clapped his hands in front of the kid's face, casually covering his skin with the Ultimate Shield, "Why do you want the Stone?"
Ling gulped, unsure. "Because it's the only way to win my father's throne."
"Ah!" Greed grinned. "Now we're talking. Ambition. Hunger for power. I can work with those."
That made the princeling angry, for some reason. He roughly pushed Greed back into the wall and grabbed the collar of his sleeveless jacket as another thunder hit the furious sky above.
"Power?" He hissed in Greed's face. "You think I'm doing this for power? I'm doing it because this is the only way for my clan to survive. I'm doing it because Lan Fan nearly died for it," his youthful face was twisted by such utter anger that it gave Greed pause. "I can't return empty-handed. I can't!" Ling exhaled heavily, visibly trying to compose himself, "When I fought Wrath, he told me that the people don't matter. That's the kind of king your brother is. But not every human is as ugly as you Homunculi. Lan Fan trusted me, and I won't let her down."
He let Greed go and took a step back. The haunted look on his face shook something in Greed.
"You want power," he whispered, "You want a throne... but you have a purpose..." He sighed and lowered his head. "I'm sorry, kid."
"What for?" Ling sounded tired all of a sudden.
"You want the Philosopher's Stone to save your people," Greed smiled. Ling's predicament seemed perversely sadistic even to him. "But in order to create one, you have to sacrifice them."
Greed is not feeling well in this one.
In canon, when he was reborn, Ling had a huge influence on him, whether he realized it or not. Greed's existential problem, IMO and all, is that he's a dog that's chasing cars. He can catch one, but has no idea what to do with it. Hence everything he gets by taking it (whether by force or by charm) is only superficial. In the show, sharing a body with Ling really helped him mature and change for the better.
Obviously, here he'll have to take the longer and harder road to get there.
But I feel like you can't really have a Greed fic without Ling in it, in one form or another.