Disclaimer: If I owned FMA, Envy in particular would have an adverse encounter with a chandelier. No further comment.

Chapter 3

Ever since he had called on the promise he had managed to puppy-eye from Breda – namely that he could have the keyhole next time something interesting happened in Roy's office – there had been speculation as to what the heck Fullmetal had been talking about when he stormed into said office uninvited. Fullmetal didn't like that office. What's more, he had been deliberately cryptic, which the office in general thought was rather mean-hearted of him.

It had, however, made Fuery popular; everyone kept coming back to ask exactly what Elric the Elder had said. Not that hearing it again made it any clearer, which was why they had sent Fuery to Hughes.

Fuery knocked on the door to Hughes' office and waited. Then he tried the handle. Unsurprisingly, it was open, and Hughes was not in. Everyone knew the only thing he stored in his office were astoundingly numerous albums of Elysia, which no one could possibly want, so he never locked his door. And he rarely spent more than five minutes a day in his office; he was too busy popping in on people. So the next step was to think where he would be least welcome but most needed at the moment. Fuery drew a blank, so he tried the mess hall.

Unsurprisingly, that, too, was vacant. Well, more or less; it was midmorning, so the people who kept Different Hours were having breakfast still. Hughes kept Regular Hours, so he could get home and play with Elysia in the evenings.

There was only one other place Hughes tended to be, so Fuery headed back toward his desk. At the last minute, he swerved and peeked through the door to Roy's office. Roy, ever glad of an interruption, looked up.

"Yes, Sergeant Fuery?"

"Just looking for Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, sir."

"Oh - right here." The way Roy smiled, Fuery knew that he was getting a lecture from Hughes. Still, the older man amiably got up and allowed Fuery to walk him out of the room and to the semi-privacy of Fuery's desk - people usually avoided it, but once his peers saw he had lured Hughes there, they dived.

"I need your help." Fuery told him. "We, um… gained knowledge that Edward Elric visited Roy Mustang…"

Hughes snorted. Fuery stopped to look at him. "Go on."

"The thing is, it was a really cryptic message, and not even the Colonel understood it. He said…" Fuery paused and collected himself. " 'Don't you even think of hurting my brother. Don't you dare do anything to make him unhappy, you hear me? Because if you do, what I will do to you will make the Leore incident look like a farce.'"

"You have a good memory." Hughes commented speculatively. Breda, Falman, and Havoc hushed him.

"Then Mustang said, 'Fullmetal, I have no idea what you're talking about.' So Ed said, 'Good. Good. Keep it that way - or if you can't, you'd better darnwell not do anythingto make Alphonse unhappy.' Then he left."

"Mustang had the script transcribed and he wasn't so detailed." Hughes murmured thoughtfully. Fuery wondered where Hughes had gotten this information. "So you want me to tell you what Edward was talking about?"

Four heads bobbed.

"I'll have to get back to you on that one. Mustang wants to tell me what the two of them were doing action-wise first, but once I've got it together, I'll tell all of you. Promise." Hughes assured them.

"And no Elysia?" A tactless Havoc confirmed.

"Well…"

"No Elysia." Breda demanded.

"No Elysia." Hughes reluctantly agreed. "She's just grown so much!" He protested as they shoved him back in with the Colonel.

(0.0)

The incident could have gone better. Obviously, Elric was more observant than Envy had thought he was. He had not only noticed he was being stalked, but had hit just the person Envy had been five minutes before. Envy hadn't realized that he'd taken the form of this person; it was just another of his repertoire of boring, inconspicuous people. Envy hadn't really realized the man existed.

And Wrath would be such a crawling baby. This had started out being the best news Envy had ever heard. But now Wrath kept talking about stones, or else trying to get on that subject he'd been whining about for the first few months they'd been together: Mommy. Mommy this, Mommy that, let's find Mommy, I miss Mommy, Mommy wouldn't do this, Mommy wouldn't want me to do this, I want the stones but Mommy wouldn't want me to eat them, Mommy doesn't like you, why did you take me away from Mommy, I want Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Envy wanted to just stab the boy and get it over with. He had, once, and Wrath had tried not to speak to him for days, even though Envy had assured him he wouldn't have done that if Wrath were mortal.

So Envy sat, or rather, sprawled sulkily across his chair. Lust was cooking tonight - it looked like spaghetti and red stone sauce again. Lust wasn't a very good cook. Gluttony liked it, though. Still, Gluttony liked the taste of walls better than candy, and as Wrath said, this showed Gluttony had absolutely no taste.

"Envy?" Wrath asked.

"Yes?" Envy asked through his teeth.

"You wanna play…" The younger sin checked the box. "The game of outrageous fortune?"

"It's called Pirateer, Wrath. The big word is the title. And no, I don't."

"But I saved your life!"

"One of them. Believe me, I would have been just fine if you hadn't interfered."

"But I bet you'd have told him something. Anyway, you owe me. C'mon, it'll be fun. Greed said he'd come play, and I think I can get Sloth to, too. You know it's most fun with more players."

Envy choked. "You think you can get Sloth to move from her chair and play with you?" He asked incredulously.

"Will you play if I can?" Wrath asked cunningly.

The odds were infinitely in Envy's favor. He nodded, after making sure Wrath would pay him five stones if he couldn't, and watched gloatingly as the other sin crossed the room. He didn't hear what Wrath said, or see what he did - he just knew it wasn't the pointy-toothed Wrath - but, a few moments later, to Envy's considerable disbelief, Sloth oozed off the chair and pooled on the floor, ready to play. Greed quickly joined them.

"Well…" He had promised, and he'd been told to keep promises he made to other sins. It had been a painful lesson.

A few minutes later…

Dante entered the gathering room to brief her sins and stopped short. Envy, the most talented minion she had, sprang up from the floor and bared teeth that were currently almost as pointy as Wrath's could be.

"Booyah! Take that, Wrath! In your face! I've got the treasure and your last ship. Oh, yeah! I'm good! Woot! Woot!"