This got away from me so badly. And that's all I have to say about that.

19. The Passing of Time

Envy first met Ed when he was a brash fifteen-year-old full of heart and determination, ready to reach his goal no matter how many asses he had to kick to get there.

Envy first talked to Ed when he was a little older, a little wiser, trapped in an endless cavern that stank of blood and decay and death.

Envy first fell for Ed when he fed him one of the last Philosopher's Stones, salvaged from the cannibalistic soldiers that had so ravaged Central Command, allowing him to take the form that gave him some control, some strength, some power of his own destiny instead of being trapped as no more than an insect.

"Why did you stop Mustang from killing me?" he'd asked.

"Because I didn't want to see him lose himself. And," added the blond, squatting down to where Envy lay, still digesting the Stone with the slow metabolism of a starving man, "because I wanted you to find yourself."

He'd laughed at that. "The fuck does that mean? Sounds like a self-help book."

"It means," he said carefully, "that I'm giving you a chance to have all the things you want, that you're envious of."

"How?"

"You're a shapeshifter. You can blend in anywhere. And now, you don't have anyone to obey. You're free."

And then he'd left.

Envy first visited Ed five years after the Promised Day, dressed like a normal person and looking (almost) normal. The blond had been surprised to see him, but they'd chatted and caught up over tea like normal people. And – shocker, shocker, shocker – Ed was married, with a kid (and another on the way!) like a normal person!

"Who is this, Ed?" asked Winry with a guarded cheerfulness that made Envy wonder how many strange visitors he entertained to make his wife this suspicious.

"Oh, this is…Envy," Ed said nervously.

"Envy?" Winry's blue eyes turned on him with shock, her hand tightening on the hand of the small boy next to her.

He decided to take it as a question, and so he'd said in a light tone, blue floral teacup in hand, "Oh, I tried to kill him numerous times a few years ago. I also planned the horrible death of everybody in the country. That's all behind me now, though."

The muffled whimper from Winry, the immediate transition of her hands to the little boy's ears and Ed's vicious glare gave Envy a hint that maybe he'd said something wrong.

With a sheepish chuckle, he took another sip of tea, holding the cup there long enough for his mortified look to subside.

Envy first kissed Ed a week after that, just before he climbed aboard the train that would eventually take him back to the town of Torsten where he'd found a little place for himself in the world.

"So you've figured out the basic points of living?" asked Ed as they waited for the train.

"Yeah, for the most part." Envy scratched the back of his neck. "Still don't understand girls, though."

"Don't hold your breath, that part never comes. No homicides?"

"None…that mattered."

"Envy!" he scolded, and Envy held up his hands in defense.

"Hey, hey, the fucker had a death wish anyway."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Homicide – not a thing normal people do."

It wasn't anything the blond had said, or anything particular that made Envy act at that moment. Maybe it was the way the sun had set his hair and face alight. Or maybe he'd just done it because he could.

Envy took a step closer to Ed, placed a hand on the back of his head and kissed him softly, exerting every bit of his willpower not to devour him the way he wanted to.

After a moment, he stepped back. "I'm…guessing normal people don't do that either," he said quietly.

"No, it's not that…" There was a blush lit in Ed's cheeks, but his eyes held the unspoken apology. "I'm a married man, Envy. That means something, something really important. I'm not going to be my father – I love Winry with everything I have. And –" he gave Envy's hand a squeeze. Envy started. He hadn't even realized that Ed was holding it. When had that happened – when they were kissing? "I think there's…just a little too much history."

Envy nodded, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "Okay, I get it. Let's, uh, let's keep in touch, though."

"Course! Who else is going to remind you not to dismember the guy ahead of you in the checkout line?"

"Nyah. Gimme some credit."

"I am." Ed grinned, trying to dispel the awkwardness.

The train pulled in.

And then he'd left.

Envy first tortured himself over Ed when he got back to Torsten, curling up in a cocoon of sheets and feeling like the small, worthless, powerful creature he really was beneath all the disguises.

Of course he'd never feel that way.

Of course.

You're just a monster – you aren't even human. You're a construct born of a construct, a child of the Gate. You're a murderer, a psychopath, a freak without a heart or a soul.

Of course he'd push you away.

Of course.

You sick fuck. Falling for him.

Of course it would be him of all people you fall for.

Of course.

Envy first called Ed almost a year later, when he'd managed to get past the worst of the backlash. He hadn't realized how much he'd piled upon the younger man's head like a crown, hadn't realized how much he'd come to depend on Ed's approval. So he hadn't kept in touch like he'd promised. But now, he figured, it was safe.

The voice over the phone was surprisingly haggard. Even Envy could hear that, under the façade of cheerfulness.

"Oh, hey, Envy! I hadn't heard from you in so long I thought maybe you'd died on me after all."

Envy chuckled, mostly at how badly the joke had failed. "You know I'm hard to kill."

"Yeah, sure, rub it in. So how's life over in Torsten?"

"It's…life. I'm working in a butcher's now. Lots of blood and gore, lots of chopping, minimal homicide."

"The fact that you said minimal is what worries me."

"Oh come on! I haven't killed anyone really badly in ages."

"…really badly? How do you even quantify levels of deadness?"

"By how recognizable their corpse is."

"Envy, you're all kinds of special."

"Why, thank you! Now, what about you? Last time I saw you two Winry was the size of a house."

"Sarah!"

"Who what?"

Ed's voice flooded with fatherly pride. "Her name's Sarah and she is just so bloody gorgeous and wonderful I can't believe it."

"Hey, don't go making the big one jealous."

"Maes? Naw, Maes absolutely dotes on her. They're inseparable, just like me and Al were back in the day." Before we got married. It hung there, unsaid but for how obvious it was, it might as well have been.

"You plan on getting them into alchemy then?"

"Oh, I don't know about that." There was a sly slant to Ed's voice that told Envy that he meant to do exactly that. "Bit young yet. Maes is only three, you know."

"Can I be their uncle Envy?" He'd thought it was obvious he was joking, but Ed's silence sent a spear of sadness through his heartless chest.

"I, uh, I wouldn't mind, but, uh…Winry's not too keen on the idea of you yet."

"Oh. I see. You told her the truth."

"No, you did! Then I had to explain your part in everything, and…yeah. To…to be honest, I don't really blame her…"

Envy's heart sank into his boots as he pulled the phone away from his ear and let it click into the receiver.

Envy first got a visit from Ed five years later. He'd gotten a phone call every year on the anniversary of the Promised Day like clockwork (it was, he supposed, a twisted sort of birthday) but the visit was a surprise.

"Why, if it isn't my favourite anorexic palm-tree."

Envy looked up – and proceeded to accidentally chop off his fingers with the meat cleaver. "OW! Fuck!" The fingers crumbled to dust and he quickly hid his hand under the counter while it regenerated. "What are you doing here?"

Ed growled playfully. "Visiting you, duh. What does it look like?"

"I thought your wife hated me. And would it have KILLED you," said the sin through gritted teeth as his fingers grew back, "to call ahead?"

"Jeez, you sound like Winry."

"Oh, wonderful." Envy rolled his eyes, then checked his fingers. "Alright, I'm all back to normal. So what possessed you to come all the way out here? Not that it's not good to see you."

"Eh, I felt like a trip, and the kids are old enough now that Winry doesn't need me around 24/7."

"You got a hotel room?"

Ed shrugged. "I was gonna find one once I got here."

Envy winced. "Yeah, good luck with that. You can stay with me – it's small, but then again, so are you."

"Oy! That was underhanded! And –" Ed strode over the counter and crossed his arms. "Also, clearly untrue."

Envy looked up, then flicked an eyebrow upwards. "Huh. Never would have expected it. Did you start drinking your milk?"

"Never, damn you, never! I grew without the help of that vile substance – so fucking there."

Envy first made love to Ed that night.

"I love Winry," he whispered. "That hasn't changed. But…I…she doesn't…" Words faltered in his throat.

Envy smiled. "She's not an old soldier like us."

"Even if we were on different sides, you – she never fought. She didn't see what I did."

Ed looked up from his glass of wine, then leant in towards Envy. "It's funny…even Al…even Al doesn't get it sometimes. I don't know why. But you…you're too much like me. It…it scares me. But it…it makes me happy too."

He kissed Envy, rough lips catching on the sin's softer ones. It started off light and feathery, but soon it became more – much more. Their wine glasses toppled onto the floor, forgotten.

It was different, so much different than Envy could ever have imagined. When he'd first realized how much he wanted Edward Elric, the blond had been fifteen, short, feisty, young, impressionable – but now Ed was twenty-eight years old and Envy was the young one, forever eighteen. He'd never imagined the roughness of Ed's stubbly cheeks, or that Ed would be the one to pin him down with his big, callused hands.

That didn't mean he enjoyed it any less.

Envy first had his heart broken by Ed – really, truly broken, not just bruised or rejected – roughly ten hours later.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be home soon. I love you too. Yeah, tell the kids I'll be back tomorrow evening." Ed ran his hands through his loose hair, apparently unaware that what he was saying was tearing Envy apart.

The voice on the other end on the phone would have been unintelligible to regular human hearing, but Envy heard every word.

"I can't believe you're gallivanting around with a supposedly-reformed psychopath instead of being at home with your children!...Come home…Come home, Ed, please. It was bad enough when you were a teenager and never home, but you're my husband now, how about you act like it?"

Ed hung up after a few minutes and turned to Envy, a tired smile on his face. "Sorry, En, I've gotta go. Turns out five and seven isn't quite old enough to leave Mummy all alone."

Envy laughed, realizing even as he did so how hollow it sounded. "That's…alright. I'm glad you came."

"Keep doing your thing, alright? I'm glad things are working out for you."

Except they're not. The only thing I've ever truly, honestly, desired is walking away again.

Ed stood with his hand on the doorknob, then turned back again. "Listen…Envy…about last night, I'm sorry –"

Envy pinned Ed to the door, silencing him with a deep and passionate kiss. Ed responded – in fact, he responded so ardently that Envy thought for a moment he might not leave –

-then, in what seemed close to panic, he broke away, wrenched open the door and disappeared.

Envy left Torsten that night, jumping on the back of a train that was just leaving and leaving behind everything he'd worked on in the eleven years since the Promised Day.

He wasn't a 'normal person'.

He wasn't even human.

He never would be.

Envy next saw Ed nine years later, when his travels brought him to Rizenbul purely by chance. He hadn't meant to come anywhere near the town again, but it had changed since he'd last been there, changed enough that he hadn't recognized it until it was too late.

"Woah, dude, I like, love your hair."

"What?" Envy turned around – and forgot to breathe.

It couldn't be Ed. His eyes were blue, for one, and he was too skinny – and dear lord, Ed would never wear a shirt that proudly declared the wearer to be 'Awesome Beyond Belief'…actually, no, he would. Chances were, he'd bought it for the sixteen-year-old currently standing in front of him.

"You're Maes, aren't you?" asked Envy, still unsure.

The sixteen-year-old blinked, then grinned. "Yeah, that's me, Maes Elric. I bet you know my dad, huh?"

Shit. "Uh, yeah. We…knew each other back in the day, yeah."

"Back in the day meaning saving Amestris from danger?"

"Something like that."

Much to his horror, Maes turned on his heel and yelled through cupped hands, "Hey, Pops! Found another of your old war-buddies!"

Even worse was the reply. "Agh, who is it now? If it's the freaking Fuhrer here to lord it over me again…" Ed stopped dead at the sight of Envy, then – sending a shiver that was half-delight, half-misery down the homunculus's spine – he broke into an ear-to-ear grin.

"I haven't seen you in a dick-year! What, you finally got your butt down from Torsten? Took you long enough!"

"Oh, I'm…" Envy rolled his shoulders awkwardly. "I haven't lived in Torsten for a while, actually."

"Oh, really?" There was a hint of nervousness in Ed's voice. "How come? And where are you living now?"

Envy shrugged. "I travel. I like to keep moving."

"Oh, alright. Yeah, I know the feeling. Winry got me to settle down, though." Ed threw his arms around Envy's shoulder with a lackadaisical grace, not seeming to notice how Envy stiffened under him. "Tell you what, come on up to our place for dinner tonight."

"Won't Winry –" but Ed interrupted before Envy could reveal to Maes just how much the mechanic distrusted him.

"She's out of town right now, but Sarah's a fantastic cook!" Ed practically dragged him up the hill, chattering away all the while and squeezing his arm hard enough that Envy couldn't just slip away.

Envy first watched Ed sleep that night, curled up beside him and watching the dappled moonlight play off of the strands of silver that had started to appear in the man's hair. Even at forty years old, he was still gorgeous beyond belief, taking the sin's breath away. He'd tried to say no, tried to save himself from further heartbreak, but then he was falling, falling deeper..

"What are you doing in Dad's bed?"

Envy turned – and suppressed a yelp as he saw the teenage boy standing in the door, almost ghostly. Maes's hair was shaggy, falling half in front of his face. He swept it back, closing his eyes for a split second and making Envy's heart hiccup for a second. Maes looked very much like his father.

"Um…" Envy struggled with how to explain his weakness, Ed's weakness –

"How can you be one of his old friends from the Promised Day? You can't be much older than me." Maes kept his voice low, conscious of his father's presence in the room. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of pyjama pants that hung low on his adolescent hips.

"I…don't age." Envy couldn't help but wince a bit at the boy's questioning look. "Come on, let's go outside." Envy crawled out of the bed, giving Ed one last, lingering glance.

Envy first admitted his feelings for Ed to another living person that night, twenty years after he first discovered them.

"So…you're in love with my dad?" asked Maes slowly, picking at the grass. It was completely silent out in the fields other than their voices.

Envy scowled. "Don't make it sound so fucking sappy."

"It is. But, what I don't understand is…" Maes's voice suddenly got very quiet. "Why would he…he cheat on Mum?"

The homunculus snorted. "Fuck if I know. It's not like I wanted this."

"Why wouldn't you?" When that question didn't merit an answer, Maes tried a different one. "I mean – he's going to…" He seemed to choke on it, but bravely continued. "If he's going to leave Mum…leave us…to be with…with you?"

Startled, Envy stared at the boy, trying to digest his words. "You think he'd ever –" He laughed, but it faded quickly as he looked up at the sky, a strange stinging at his eyes. "Maes…why do you think I'm called Envy?"

The sixteen-year-old was silent, although it seemed to satisfy him. Then – "Is that why you never came back, Uncle Envy?"

Envy last kissed Ed as the blond woke up, whispering an apology between their lips.

"You're a fucking bastard, you know that, Ed?

"You saved me, gave me a life I could only ever have dreamed of, treated me like a sentient being and gave me…gave me hope. And you expected me not to fall in love with you.

"Well, guess what. Envy the homicidal maniac loves you."

Envy kissed Ed one last time, gripping his hands tightly in his own. "Maes found out. And it's tearing him apart. You have a family, Ed. You have Winry. So stop trying to have me, too."

He tried to walk away, but Ed refused to let go, gold eyes old and imploring.

"Don't go…" said the man who had been an alchemist almost plaintively. "I…" He swallowed. "I love you."

"Bit late for that, don't you think?"

Envy left before Ed could say anything more.

Maes was leaning by the doorway, skinny, gangly frame distinctive even against the light of the morning sun. "Sarah, Trisha and Will are still asleep, but I'll tell them you had important business and stuff. They like you, even if you have stupid hair."

He gave Maes a thwack on the shoulder. "Shut up. You're one to talk."

"…For what it's worth…I'm glad I got to see you again. Even if I found out some things I'd, well, rather not know."

Envy smiled despite himself. "You're not too bad…for being the pipsqueak's kid."

He set off down the road, a thick haze settling down over everything. It was easier to operate in this kind of mist, when he didn't have to think.

Some capricious force made him look back.

Ed stood ramrod straight on the balcony of the Rizenbul house, long hair spilling over his bare shoulders. He didn't move – not a wave, or a wink, or even a slouch – but his fists were clenched, and it might have been the trick of the eyes, but Envy thought he might have been shaking.

The haze lifted, and there was a terrible, terrible emptiness.

He didn't care who was watching this time. With a jolt of red lightning, he willed it and he became a wolf, fur thick and shaggy and jaws slavering, and began to run down the road.

Envy last saw Ed twenty-five years later.

"Hello?"

"Uncle Envy?"

The green-haired teenager frowned. "Maes? Is that you?" It certainly didn't sound like the easy-mannered sixteen-year-old, but it had been a long time.

"Yeah, it's me. Listen, I know when you left way back when, you said you would never come back, but…"

Envy leant back in his chair, propping his feet up on his desk (much to the horror of the Lieutenant nearby) and adjusting the photo of Ed he kept amidst the jumble. "What's the matter, kid? Is something wrong?"

"We…Dad…He isn't well."

"Isn't well? What the hell does that mean? With him, that could mean anything from the common cold to the entire world falling apart at the seams."

"Uncle Envy, he's getting old. He's turning sixty-five, and his memory's not what it used to be. He's started forgetting things, thinking he's young again…" There was a deep sigh that echoed across the line. "We don't know what to do. He…forgets who we are sometimes."

"Why do you need me?"

"You've known him almost as long as Mum, and you've been there for more of it. More of the tough bits."

The way Maes said 'tough bits' sent a prickle up his spine. But he couldn't refuse.

"I'll be there soon."

The last time Envy saw Ed, Ed tried to kill him.

"Where's Al?" Ed demanded in the foghorn voice that Envy recognized from the old days. "Dammit, where is he?"

The blade of the knife clutched in the old man's hand quivered, edge nicking Envy's throat. A single drop of blood escaped before the wound sealed up, flickering with light.

"Ed, you need to sleep." Winry gently took his shoulders and tried to pull him back.

"Winry, stay away from him! He's a monster – he's one of the people behind this Philosopher's Stone bullshit!"

She shook her head, then stroked his silver hair. "No, no, Envy's a friend now. The Promised Day is over. It's all over. He's a friend now." Slowly, she guided him back to his armchair. "Do you remember?"

Ed blinked, then stared up at her. "I can't find Al," he said in a quavering voice. "Win, I can't find him!" He buried his face in his hands and began to cry the tears of an old man.

Envy stood rooted to the spot, frozen in shock. He turned his head to look at Maes, who bit his lip.

"I should leave."

"Wait –" Maes tried to stop him.

"This was a bad idea – no, this was a terrible idea." Envy turned savagely on Maes. He was in his early forties now, but still as lanky and overgrown as he'd been in his teenage years. "In the past, I'm his enemy," he hissed.

"But –"

"I'm a monster, Maes! In the past, I'm the one who was trying to kill him and his brother at every turn." Envy's stomach flipped unpleasantly at the reminder. "This is why I had to leave. I'm immortal. Falling in love is the universe's little punishment. I live forever, unless somebody remembers how to kill my kind. And I get to watch…this."

The look of desolation of Maes's face was more than Envy could stand. With a growl of frustration, Envy stormed out, crawling, climbing and flying through Central until he stood on top of the tallest building. There, he screamed.

Envy last spoke to Ed about six months later.

The funeral was the biggest one Envy had ever been to, even in the forty-five years since he'd tried living like a human. Brigadier-General Hughes was there – Edward had been part of her life since she was very young. General Mustang and his younger brother Niels Mustang were there as well, their parents long since passed. Zheng Elric-Chang, the younger and less respectable cousin of Maes, Sarah, Trisha and Will, was there with his mother Mei Chang, and the Emperor and his bodyguard (although in disguise as they preferred).

And behind the crowds, perched in the branches of a low-hanging tree, was Envy, blending in almost seamlessly with the dark-green foliage.

Only after the service was done did he drop to the ground and walk over to the gravestone and the freshly turned earth.

"I…oh bloody hell." Envy swallowed. "I knew this day was coming. I knew no matter whether you loved me, hated me or couldn't care less, I was gonna stand here one day and have nothing left to say. But you can know about something your whole damn life and never be prepared."

He dug his toe into the ground. He was dressed in his old clothes today of all days. It seemed only fitting. No military outfits today. Not for Envy.

"You're a damn fool, Ed, for ever letting me near you. And I'm a damn fool for letting you.

"I'd trade places with you in an instant. Your kids might be grown up, but they still need you. And Winry still needs you." He shrugged. "Who the hell needs me? And…I need you."

Suddenly there were tears running down his face.

Envy first cried over Ed on an overcast day in 1965.

The world was turning and blurring. He didn't cry. It wasn't something he did. But he was crying now.

And now there were arms around him, circling his shoulders and a scent surrounding him. He inhaled it – the scent of grease and machinery, and faded flowers.

Winry, hair grey and face wrinkled and tear-stained, stroked his hair. She didn't say anything – about their years of passive enmity and distrust, or the fact that she knew exactly what had happened between this man and her husband – but she didn't need to.

"What's your name?"

"Lily!" She grinned, clapping her hands.

"Lily? That's a nice name." Envy picked her up and hoisted the little girl onto his shoulders. "How about we go pick some lilies and give them to Grandma and Grandpa?"

She nodded, banging on Envy's head. He winced slightly, but otherwise ignored it.

A few moments later, she laid the flowers on the twin graves – Edward and Winry Elric. "There we go! Did they like flowers, Envy?"

"Yeah, they liked flowers a lot. There was one time when your grandpa made flowers to pass a test…"

The unlikely pair – the immortal and the little girl – walked down the dirt road, bare feet padding against the ground in a heartbeat rhythm. In the distance, from the balcony of the place they both called home, a lantern flickered on and off.