(yes I know, I'm insane, I couldn't sleep)
Because Envy + baby is just too fun.
Also, new poll is up! It's about the possible expansion/continuation of some of the stories from this collection - go vote! I love you all 3
This and the next story are dedicated to Caveman. He knows why :D For everyone else: He is why this collection is getting finished quite so quickly, so you can thank him ^.^
99. Beginnings
It starts - well, it's impossible to say when anything really starts. One could start any story as far back as the creation of the earth, or of Amestris. One could even start the story four hundred years ago, when an alchemist first played with the forces of nature out of love and grief.
But at the end of the day, the story of Edward Elric begins in a cradle in a little house in a small town called Resembool. His mother is sleeping in the bed only a few meters away, his father on the floor next to her with his hand tangled in hers and holding on tight. It's the first time in days either of them have gotten any sleep, and they have taken their chance as quickly as they can, while their child is sleeping.
And then there is a creak of the floorboards, and a squeak of the hinges. The baby stirs a little bit, but doesn't yet wake up - not until the footsteps on the uneven wooden planks come up, up, up all the way to his cradle. Eyes twinkle in the darkness, dark and jealous and hateful.
"So. You're my replacement."
With a soft burble, Ed's eyes open, and he stares up at the new person who has appeared in his tiny world. He reaches up and bats at some of the thick strands of hair falling down into his grasp, tugging on them before the stranger yanks them out of his chubby hands.
"Don't touch me," he growls. "What's so special about you?" He reaches down and pokes the newborn's cheek. "You sure don't look like anything out of the ordinary."
Ed doesn't understand any of it, of course. It's the beginning for him, a new beginning in a world Envy's already spent too long in. For a moment, Envy's jealous not of the baby's blood - not of his home or the life he has ahead of him - but simply of the fact that he has a life ahead of him. Envy is a dead man walking; life makes him sick to his stomach.
He looks up and his pupils suddenly turn into slits as he finally registers who else is sleeping in the room. In complete silence but with a viciousness that expresses a roar of rage nonetheless, he pounces across the room and stands with his legs on either side of Hohenheim's sleeping form, his arm a wickedly sharp blade at his father's throat. And yet, he does nothing.
After a few heavy breaths, Envy walks away from Hohenheim, past the crib, but stops and squats down, staring through the bars and at Edward. "...There's no point, you know. You're not special. Give it a few years and he'll be gone." Envy takes a moment, pretends he doesn't feel his sin choking him with the wish to have his father back, even if it's centuries too late. "...All the same...I wish you the best of luck." He shrugs, and grins brokenly before he leaves just as soundlessly and shadowlike as before.
It's the same way it always is. The world keeps turning, stories begin and begin and keep going and never really end. There's new beginnings everywhere one turns, everywhere one turns, for everybody -
-and perhaps, in a little house in a small town, a new beginning for Envy, too - if he was ever to realize it.