Lust held Greed's pants leg with one hand, and his hand with the other while she hid behind him.
"No. Lust obviously doesn't like you, so I can't let you in." Greed glared at his brother, 'Why can't they just leave us alone a few days?' "Go back home."
"Ooh, even if I promise to be nice? I don't want to hurt Lust, or scare her- just be friends."
She saw between her guardian's legs that the man was short and round, with a large mouth and nose below his bald scalp. His voice sounded like comic relief characters tend to in plays, and not a single tooth was smaller than half a thumb. Just out of her view was a box, holding the fruits of an earlier labour.
"You aren't allowed in, unless Lust says it's fine." Greed shut his eyes a moment, contemplating the best way to harm him without Lust seeing. 'What's with you guys? Father's forcing me to do this, it's not a vacation- so why do you keep trying to get in on it?'
"Well, can I?" The odd guy asked Lust, leaning to the side to smile at her. He might've bent over too, if he wasn't so short. "Can I play with you?"
Lust pressed into Greed's legs, but nodded yes.
'Yes? What made you agree to it, Lust?' Greed wondered. Then he shrugged and stepped to the side letting the man in, before closing the door behind him. "Fine, but I'm supervising."
The bald man stretched out a meaty hand, "Hello, Lust. My name is Gluttony!"
Lust came away from Greed and looked at the hand hesitantly, before tapping it and shouting "Tag, you're it!"
"I'm... It?" Gluttony asked, and looked at his palm in confusion as Lust ran through the house, seeking a hiding spot.
"It's a kiddie game she likes. It'd work better with more than two people, but there hasn't been a good opportunity to introduce her to humanity just yet," Greed said, and slapped him on the back. "Well, the rules are simple. 'It' wants to touch someone else, who then becomes 'it' instead, but no one wants to be 'it'. Just," he looked at Gluttony from head to toe, taking in his deformed proportions, "don't run too fast or you'll be frightening, let her win some you could've so her spirits don't fall, and what ever you do don't scare her or I swear I'll rip out your tongue the moment she takes a nap."
Gluttony covered his mouth in horror, "But then, how would I taste people?"
"The heck? It'd come back you dope."
"You mean it'd wriggle and crawl back to me?" Gluttony asked in wonder, and pulled his tongue until it hurt and grew sore, so he let go of it. "It's no use, my tongue isn't made to come off," he said sadly, and rubbed his jaw.
'That's right, he hasn't a chance to regenerate anything, yet.' Greed slapped him on the back again, "Well! Lust will think you left us already if you don't start looking soon. And remember," he gripped Gluttony's head and turned it towards him, "if you do something again, I swear there'll be no chance for a third time."
"Okay," he said through a squished face, "I won't, I promise." Greed let go, and Gluttony stepped away with rapidity, looking back as he left the room to make sure he wasn't about to be preemptively attacked. "Lust, oh where are you?" he called, and realized the game had changed to one of his favorites- hide and seek. Envy always told him, after all, 'time to play hide and seek, Gluttony! There's a human somewhere in these woods, and if you find him you've also found a juicy, delicious snack!' So Gluttony loved hide and seek.
'I want to say sorry, but how can I do that without making her remember?' That was the question he faced, and couldn't find an answer to.
Life was new to him then, even more than now- his entire existence went back only a few hours, and the others tested him to find out how useful he could be, while Father told them his purpose. He was meant to bypass human sacrifice as a catalyst to call down God, through his gate of falsehood, a door opened by rage. None of them realized then that any amount of anger, with no memories of worse anger to use as a watermark, could be equal to an intense fury.
"He's obsessed with food, right?" Greed said, and went out to the city above, returning an hour later with a piece of meat. He waved the juicy, medium-rare steak at his new brother.
Gluttony's mouth opened to drool, while his short legs began to take steps towards Greed before his eyes widened at the sight of the hundred year old homunculus eating the steak himself, making use of his stomach for the first time in decades.
Enraged. Pride later taught him that word, in the context of "Don't become enraged like that again, except when you're told." Gluttony's eyes turned red, and his entire body from the jaw down split open. His ribs turned into long, curved teeth pointed out, and from his center mass watched an eye.
"The experiment failed." Father had said that, he remembered, but didn't realize until later it referred to him. The original homunculus could tell the eye saw for someone else, not the god he'd called down centuries earlier "Gluttony, close the gate." The youngest homunculus, 'enraged' by Greed, ignored this command and reached his new teeth for the brother who had angered him, when she came got in the way.
Lust had been pacing, considering how to make use of him. 'Could he be taught to frighten people without causing harm? No, not with his appetite.' She was so deep into planning how he might be used, Lust failed to even notice his advance towards Greed, and paced between the two.
The tusks extended, moving nearly as fast as Sloth could. At the last moment Lust turned her head, feeling something wrong, and had time enough only to focus on his eyes, the three of them, then the ribs reaching out to meet her. Her own eyes widened, and the bones closed.
Greed stared in shock as Gluttony reverted to his calmer, childlike self, apparently ignorant of what he'd just done- until he looked at his work. Lust's body had been halved, and looked as if it'd been standing beneath a guillotine. Her front side went into the false gate, while the other stood a moment before falling forward onto the dirt ground.
Gluttony ran to a wall of the cavern, and buried his head under his arms when her vocal chords regenerated, and Lust began screaming. The others watched, unmoved. 'This hasn't happened to a homunculus before, has it?.' 'I knew she should've been given some violent missions- a lack of bloodshed can't lead to anything but this... Weakness. Having her be nothing but a manipulator was a mistake.' 'What will we do about this?'
All eyes turned to Father, and watched as he descended his throne to walk were Lust laid on the ground, screaming. His arm was thrust into her back, and the near veins were visible as the stone liquefied and flowed back into the homunculus it came from. The screams of the homunculus, powered by thousands of Xerxians who wished their own cries might be heard, ceased. The body disintegrated into dust and disappeared.
"Greed, you caused this, and you'll end it," Father said, returning to his throne. "Lust will be recreated, in the form of a child; children are more malleable. Raise- no, train her to be a competent homunculus, capable of fulfilling orders violent and diplomatic alike."
"Hey! Gluttony did this, not-"
"She will not retain memories of her past self. She will not instinctively be able to activate her powers, except regeneration, until shown how. She will be returned her memories and body once you've sufficiently prepared her. These orders are not negotiable."
Gluttony stayed by the wall the entire discussion, covering his head while Greed argued against Father, and didn't move until Pride took Lust away.
'Is there a way to say sorry, without reminding her?' Gluttony's head began to hurt from thinking too deeply, so he gave up.
Lust sat at the kitchen table drawing with pastels on a small, square plank of wood. Gluttony posed for it and did his best to remain still, aside from eating every few minutes from a box of stolen vegetables he brought in from the front stoop. Greed watched with mild amusement.
Outside, clock rang thrice. "I'm going out for awhile," Greed said, putting on his tinted spectacles. "Will you two be fine alone for an hour or two?"
"Huh? Where are you going?" Lust asked, and rested her chin on the table. "You've never gone any place before."
"I'm just going to visit some friends, that's all."
"The rough ones? Ooh, Father won't like that, Greed," Gluttony told him.
"Father? Are you talking about your daddy Gluttony?" Lust asked him, and Greed covered his face.
'Why'd he need to bring up Father?'
"Not just my father, but Greed's as well!"
Lust's head came back up with the face lit up, "Than he's my Grandfather!"
Greed coughed, holding back an outburst of laughter. He straightened his face and told Lust "No, that's not quite the way it is. I'm his son, and so's Gluttony, but you're his only daughter." As he explained, Greed pointed to the people he mentioned. "If you ever hear from him directly, do as he says, but don't blindly trust someone claiming to tell you what he said. Understand?"
Lust nodded, and thought about how she'd never considered her parents before. "Where's my mother and father, Greed? Are they in this city too?"
'How do I explain this to her? Later, that's how,' Greed thought. "I'll tell you when I get home." He turned to Gluttony and said "Could I see you in the living room a moment, hmm?"
The little big man got up and followed him, so Lust dropped her chin on the table again with a thud and rolled it back and forth as she waited for him to come back so she could finish the portrait.
Greed made sure Lust couldn't hear them, before saying "Bring up Father again, or try to explain anything about the nature of homunculi, and I'll make sure you never eat again. Don't, and you'll probably get food, from someone, some day. Maybe. Is that a good deal?"
"No! You've already picked on me enough, Greed- acting like I'm dumb or like I'm not trying hard enough to keep Lust from getting hurt or scared. Just let me be!"
'I've been picking on him? Hmm, I don't think I treated him different from how I treat most people, despite his freakishness.' Greed thought about it a moment, "Fine, don't mention or explain anything like that and I'll treat you more like I treat Lust- is that to your satisfaction?"
"Ooh, yes!" Gluttony smiled, imagining how nice it must be to be Lust, and have Greed act nice to you.
'Since that means ignorant and annoying, I guess that means I won't need to change a thing I do around him.' He opened the door, "I'm heading out now, see you later Lust!"
"Bye bye!" She called from the kitchen. Greed closed the door and left.
The two had played for over an hour, changing between peaceful and rambunctious and back again, when they heard a window shatter.
"What was that?" Lust asked. Gluttony saw her eyes were wide, and her breathing was fast; both were signs of fear, Envy taught him.
"It was... the milkman!" He said the first thing that came to mind, and led Lust to where the sound had come from to prove it was nothing to worry about, making sure Lust stayed near. 'I must keep Lust safe, I must keep Lust unafraid.'
They entered the kitchen and saw him. A thief had broken the window above the counter and came in, stepping on the pastel portrait they'd laid there to display.
"My, drawing..." Lust began to sniffle, and Gluttony looked at him with hatred.
"You broke in, and made Lust cry!" He lunged forward to eat him, but stopped. The hungry homunculus thought of Lust, and held back the urge to open his gate, or even eat the man. 'I can't do that anymore, not around her.' Gluttony did his best to calm down, and grabbed the terrified robber with a tight hug.
"Wha, what are you? What's wrong with your body and face- no, what's wrong with your mind?" He cried, and tried shouting for help, but Gluttony crushed him just enough to cause a fear of death, and the man blacked out.
The smell of a terrified human was overwhelming, and Gluttony's mouth watered. 'No, I can't eat humans near Lust!' he reminded himself, but it was a difficult task to keep from at least nibbling on his head.
He took a step to turn around, so the man wasn't facing Lust, but too much momentum caused him to stumble, and to stay upright his only choice was to spin. 'This way, she won't be able to see him!' Gluttony thought, and decided he was a genius.
The spinning first bewildered Lust, but she soon found it hilarious and started laughing as she danced around the two, unaware the man wasn't conscious. In her fit of giggles she didn't hear the front door open. And that was the scene Greed saw when he came to the kitchen doorway.
"What the heck is going on in here? Who're you? Why're you spinning, Gluttony? What's so... Aw, forget it." Greed walked in and picked up Lust to keep her from getting hit by the man's flailing legs, "Thanks for watching her, Gluttony, but I think it's time for you to go; take whoever that guy is with you."
Gluttony nodded, though it was hard to tell, and spun through the kitchen, living room, and out the door onto the stoop. Greed shut the door behind him, and put down Lust.
"I don't suppose you can explain any of that?" He asked her.
"Nope."
Greed sighed and brushed the dusting of snow he had been covered with returning from his 'rough friends'. 'I hope he didn't break our agreement,' he thought, before remembering a question he'd had since Gluttony first came in. "What made you change your mind, Lust?"
"When?" Lust turned around- she'd been going downstairs to practice her 'nailing' skills.
"When Gluttony came earlier. You didn't seem to like him much, but decided to let him in anyway." Greed hung up his coat, meant as a disguise from wandering homunculi when he was outside. "Was there a reason?"
She tilted her head a bit, and thought hard. "Well, it was cold out," Lust said "But, when I saw him, I thought I recognized him from somewhere, somewhere bad. And then I got over it!"
Greed began to ask another question, but she went down the stairs before he could finish. Instead he walking to the couch and sat down, worried.
'Is she beginning to remember?'
Running through the streets, sometimes sliding on the layer of snow, Gluttony cradled the man, now awake and terrified, until a suitable alley presented itself. Inside, he relieved his hunger for a fraction of a moment, as the white ground turned red.