I'm back from vacation! Yay! I'll try for daily updates again but no promises.

So this is kind of mostly EnvyxGreed but there's a good dollop of Edvy as well (Oops. Bad me.) I should do a collection for them after this, there really isn't enough for that couple despite how awesome they are. But this short is more of a character study of Envy than anything, since I love love LOVE his character so much. And besides, I've done enough EdWin ones, Envy gets somebody on the side as well :P

I couldn't remember the exact ages of the homunculi so I went for Pride, Gluttony, Greed, Envy and then the rest. I know Envy's much, much younger in Brotherhood than in the first series, and that Pride's the oldest, but I can't recall how everyone else's ages map out to that.

rockmari: It's a very Envy thing to do XD Ahh, our psychopathic homunculus child, how we love thee despite all common sense. I was trying to make up for my two weeks of no updating – good thing I timed it well ^^

Pen-Name-Kitsune-Chan: Oh, okay, I couldn't remember where I'd heard that and I never actually finished the 2003 anime. And that's exactly what I was going for – Envy's not about to start whacking Ed about the head in a house of the Lord if he's the religious sort. Quiet: I actually didn't think about that until after I'd finished the oneshot, but then it's like 'ohey, this is pretty ironic' XD. Noise: Hehe. It amuses me too, I may use the idea again in a later 'shot. I'm glad you liked these, they're some of my favourites so far :D

Ashling Ivy: Don't get used to it, I had them written and just didn't have any internet XD I'm glad you liked them – and yes! You should work on yours! :D

61. Distractions

It was the rule of being a homunculus, the rule of following Father to the end (the rule Greed had broken, had disobeyed, run away to escape). No distractions. Nothing to steal your attention away from the great plan, the scheme, the machinations of the one you kowtowed to.

(No distractions.)

Envy barely knew the world above the world below. He'd been born in a time of turmoil, of filthy streets and sickness and murder. Some humans rode through the streets in carriages, noses raised and eyes closed, while others bathed in the muck, plucking what they needed from the pockets of whoever was close by. The year had been 1693 and Envy had only seen the outside world for a moment before he was pulled down into the darkness.

(No distractions. That was the rule.)

He didn't care anyway. It was a world full of petty sin, of envy and greed and pride and he had all of that anyway, in his little world. He'd go out on missions and manipulate the sheep into doing this and that, positively shocked that none of them could see through his paltry disguises, and then he'd go back down. It never occurred to him to look around – after all, what could he possibly learn?

(No distractions.)

But there's only so much you can ignore. Only so many times you can see a mother shield her child or two lovers say goodbye before their inevitable deaths or a group of friends share a smoke even after a terrible fight that should have divided them forever – Envy began to wonder, began to be intrigued. There was something he didn't understand, something he hadn't seen, something he was missing.

For the first time, he wondered, the still-young homunculus, he wondered why he was called Envy. Pride was a proud and arrogant being; Gluttony ate everything in his path, Greed wanted everything he could have (as he reminded everybody on a regular basis) and Father was their father. Names had meaning. What, then, was the meaning of his?

(No distractions. It's nothing but a name.)

He watched the humans ever more closely, lingering longer and longer on his missions, observing the closeness and the connection that seemed to be ingrained into their biological makeup. More and more he realized just how much it drove them, how much it defined them – and more and more he realized how much it was lacking between him and his three brothers. More and more, he realized how much he wanted it.

(No distractions, don't let this distract you)

Finally, he found out why he was called Envy. He was doomed to want this, just like Greed was doomed to desire everything. But unlike his grasping older brother, he was doomed to never have it.

So he just took it from everybody else. He severed the connection where he could find it.

If I can't be happy neither can they

(No distractions)

and if they're dead they can't distract me

(No distractions. That was the rule. However he chose to interpret it was up to him.)

They made a seal of blood, him and Greed. It wasn't the first they'd made, but it was the biggest so far, and in the war they'd started and the fire they'd stoked, no one noticed a slight teen in tight black clothes killing people from both sides.

And then it was silent – all silent, and Envy took a deep breath. The anger was subsiding now (oh how it rushed up whenever he saw those damn humans and how they cared for each other) and he felt much better. All their humanity and empathy and love couldn't save them from bleeding out in the end, could it?

Greed slid to the ground next to him, a streak of someone else's blood on his cheekbone and more of it covering his hands and arms up to his elbows.

"How are you?" he asked, and Envy started, a strange shiver going down his spine –

(No distractions no distractions)

at the words.

"Whaddaya mean, how am I? I'm great!" Envy cackled, folding his hands behind his head and falling to the ground. "What, aren't you?"

Greed was silent.

Envy propped himself up on his elbows. "Aren't you?" he asked again, changing the inflection, the tone – everything – to let Greed know (oh, any way he could) not to let himself get distracted –

"These…humans…" Greed opened and closed his blood-stained hand, a few drops falling heavily from it. "There's something about them."

"No, don't –" Envy swallowed. "Don't say it."

Greed looked at him, purple eyes sparking with a fierce lightning. It scared him – no it didn't, he wasn't afraid of anything – but this wasn't what he wanted. "So you've seen it too, Envy?"

"No I haven't! I dunno what you're talking 'bout so shuddup. Bastard."

"They feel. Not just for themselves. For each other." Greed grinned suddenly, baring his sharp teeth in a hungry smile. "I want that."

"No, you don't!" Envy leapt to his feet, gripped by a sudden desire to run.

"Why not? They support each other, they care about each other, they protect each other…" He shrugged. "Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me."

"We're homunculi. We're better that that. We don't need to act like those shitty little ants."

Greed's face fell, but his grin returned a moment later, even wider than before. "Why, Envy," he said in almost a purr, "sounding a bit envious there, aren't you?"

Envy froze. He glared down at Greed, his smirk, his glasses. He felt his face begin to twist, and the anger rush out from wherever it hid. With a shriek, he struck out, feeling the glasses break under his fist, the smirk disappear, Greed go tumbling across the ground.

"FINE then! Go live with your precious little SHEEP! See if I care!" he screamed, hearing the petulance in his own voice and hating it.

Greed got to his feet in a sizzle of red sparks, picking up his twisted and shattered sunglasses and sliding them into his pocket. "Son of a bitch, you hit me…" Envy's words processed, and he looked into the distance with interest. "Huh. I might just."

The bottom dropped out of his stomach. What had he done?

Greed didn't leave right away. Instead, they headed back to Central, Greed chattering on about meaningless things while Envy agonized. At one point, Envy felt the older homunculus's hand on his bare thigh, callused thumb stroking in a circular motion. He ignored it as best as he could, and it disappeared a few moments later. The reflection in the train window seemed disappointed.

(Just a distraction. Everything about Greed was a distraction, so really, it would be better when)

The days passed like a dream. Envy held his breath. There seemed to be no change, none at all – Father seemed not to know the blasphemous thoughts that Greed had uttered out on the plain, and that in itself was eye-opening because he was supposed to know all – and everybody went about their usual routines and machinations, completely unaware of the static charge building.

And then one day, between heartbeat and heartbeat, Greed was gone.

(it would be better with him gone)

Envy found it so much easier to concentrate now. Even if he did his missions alone now, he did them faster, and he did them without glancing at his companion constantly or having to listen to Greed's rants about women or gold or whatever else he'd decided to possess.

Everything was so much easier. And if sometimes when he was riding an empty train or walking under a midnight sky, he turned to speak and there was no one there, well, that didn't matter. If sometimes he wondered if he should have gone with him, that didn't matter. He couldn't have (even if the hand on his thigh had been an invitation; even if they'd always done everything together) because it was Greed's job to have; his was only to want.

And so life passed, without distractions.

Until the year 1914. Things were starting to come together. The great machine was starting to click into place; the plan to unfold; the circle to come to completion. He had new siblings now, in addition to Pride and Gluttony – a sister with ivory skin called Lust, a brutish worker called Sloth, and a wretched hybrid brat in the shape of a man called Wrath. (They didn't get along. For some reason Father didn't understand why.)

The sacrifices were getting restless; antsy. For some reason they insisted on investigating. Envy didn't know much about these two – the Eric brothers or something. But they were getting into their lab and he and Lust had to do something about it.

At first he was no better than any other human – reckless, stupid, impulsive. Envy taunted him, teased him, discovered his button (height? Of all the things to be sensitive about! Envy chose to be the height he was and he wasn't much taller than the so-called 'shrimp') and eventually laughed gleefully when he broke his automail. Unfortunately, since the alchemist was a sacrifice, Envy wasn't actually allowed to kill him, so he drew the unfortunate lot of carrying the knocked-out shorty out of the building.

And that was (should have been) that. But there was just something.

(No distractions.)

He asked Lust about the deal with the automail and empty armour (just like their guards. Funny that!) and snarled at the answer. Same fucking thing he'd always seen. That goddamn connection.

(No distractions.)

but this was so much stronger

(no)

and so much deeper

(distractions)

and because of it, or despite of it, or something, Edward Elric went out of his way for everyone. He'd seen it with the Slicer Brothers (so idiotically heroic, trying to save murderers!) and then came Scar, and then – oh god then

(no no no)

Greed.

And Greed was melted down and Envy laughed and turned his head right at the end so he wouldn't cry, and he watched as Edward and his brother mourned the chimeras. Chimeras. Talk about abominations. Fuck.

He killed a man who knew too much and Edward mourned him, and for the first time, he felt guilty, and he wondered what on earth had happened. He was getting distracted, and he needed to stop, because they were so damn close.

Lust was killed. Destroyed, and reduced to a pile of ugly ashes. Envy screamed, and watched tears well up in Gluttony's piggish eyes, and curled his lip because they weren't human. No way. This was just – frustration. And the way Gluttony cried out for Lust at night when there was no one to stroke his head anymore, Envy hadn't heard that a thousand times before from lost children. No.

And again he watched Edward, followed him, wondered how this happened – and then they were trapped together in the hell that was Gluttony's stomach, and there was nothing but distraction. Things came spilling out. Parts of the plan (the precious plan) and the story of Ishbal, accompanied with his laughter, and he cursed the precious blond boy for driving him to revealing it.

Greed came back with no memories, and Envy kept away. It was so tempting, every time he heard that voice, those words, to tell him that he'd been right. But it was a different Greed, and he was a blasted hybrid now, and Envy wanted nothing to do with him now. (If he kept saying it maybe it would be true.)

And over and over, driven to distraction by Edward and Greed and the things that kept going wrong, and the thoughts that kept invading, and the plain and simple fact that every time he turned his head the humans were bonding and connecting and loving, and sometimes hating each other and working together anyway, and Edward was leading them, and they – were – going – to – win.

Just before he left them again, after he'd assaulted Wrath, Greed came to him wearing his new body. "Hey, bakemono," he said in that old, familiar voice.

Envy didn't jump, or run. "You got your memories back." He'd known (feared) it was a possibility.

"I'm going again."

"I figured that would happen if you did." He kept his voice controlled, he didn't look at him (this way he could pretend it was still the old Greed) and he didn't betray a single hint of emotion. (He thought.)

"You coming?"

He looked up, and Greed (the new Greed) was right there, so close he could almost (don't think it) and he really didn't look all that different. It was the same grin, and the same eyes, and his hair was still dark and his face was only a little differently shaped.

"Are you kidding? And live with humans?"

"I'm part human now, ya know. I could get offended."

"Then get offended." Envy sat down and crossed his arms and legs. It was petulant, it was silly, and above all it was ridiculous, and he hated being ridiculous. But Greed didn't laugh. Smart man.

Instead, he began to walk away, and Envy rose again, almost calling out to him. "What – what should I do?" he asked, voice quavering with uncertainty.

Greed turned back. "You don't know?" he asked in turn, sounding honestly curious and surprised.

Envy scowled by way of answer, and Greed chuckled a little bit. It wasn't at him, he knew, just the situation.

"You haven't seen it," he said finally. "Don't even start about our missions. Those don't count. You never really looked. There's forests where the trees are miles high, soaring up so far you can't see the tops. There's places where men wear women's clothes and dance and sing so well that it's almost impossible to tell. There's places where water falls and crashes on the rocks, and it roars as loud as a lion. There's places where the rocks get so hot you could cook an egg on them, and the snakes come out in droves to warm their blood."

Envy was so captivated, he didn't notice Greed getting closer – or perhaps he did and just didn't want to move away. Suddenly his older brother's mouth was next to his ear and his hands on his arms. His breath was hot, and Envy's spine tingled. "Don't you want to see it? Feel the sun, without Father telling us what to do? Don't you want to do what you want?" At that, Greed nipped at Envy's lobe – and in a moment of panic immediately following the rush of feeling, Envy tore himself away.

"You're lucky I don't kill you myself, deserter. We've already lost Lust."

"And what do you think is going to happen?" Greed looked hurt, but Envy didn't let it affect him. "Father's losing, brother dear. And you are all going to die."

He left, and Envy sat down, unable to stop shuddering and shaking at the memory of Greed's teeth on his ear.

(No distractions.)

And god help him, Greed's prediction came true. Even after saving his own skin once (deceiving the idiotic princess had been embarrassingly easy) he was back in his pathetic, weak form, cringing under the boot of a puny human he'd pushed too far.

"I don't want to die!" he heard himself cry out. Greed! Greed, help me, please – but Greed couldn't hear him, or maybe he could and just didn't care anymore.

Someone else saved him instead – and looking up, he found himself in the hands of Edward Elric. His distraction. His human distraction. The pitiful, puny human who was defeating Father and still saving everybody he could.

Edward had stood up for chimeras, bodiless souls, murderers, soldiers – everyone imaginable.

And now Edward Elric was standing up for him. He was saving him. He. Was saving. Him.

Oh, Greed, why do you have to be right all the time?

His beautiful distraction, so fucking flawlessly heroic, so perfectly human and inhumanly perfect, and now he had the nerve to save him too.

Envy hissed out his hatred – tried to incite violence where his powers couldn't, tried to start a war from an automail hand.

And instead, Edward looked into his eyes and spoke out loud his secret. His horrible, awful secret, which only Greed had known and never, never dared to speak out loud.

(No distractions)

But this had been the distraction all along. The plan, the machine, the circle, the neverending need to stay on task and he'd never seen, never imagined.

Greed. Him and Greed.

Gluttony's childlike tears.

Greed.

The hand on his thigh. "You coming?"

Lust, playing with his hair when she got bored and cracking jokes about his fashion sense –

Greed.

"You're envious of humans," said Edward Elric. And Envy broke, because that wasn't just it, that wasn't just it, but he'd been too distracted to see that he'd had what he'd wanted all along.