Number of words: 3,113
Published date: December 23, 2012
Began chapter: December 22, 2012
Finished chapter: December 23, 2012
Chapter 19: Emptiness
After breakfast, Ms. Bradley asked Pride to stay with her at the table in a serious tone that made Lust worry (though not unduly) that her brother was going to have to face another series of awkward questions. There was a part of her that was thankful for the efforts Pride had made for her – no, for all of them – and so she wanted him to have as little difficulty with his step-mother as possible.
On the other hand, she was still struggling to accept that he hadn't been tricking them or lying to them or plotting something, and her anger and disgust with the situation took away most of the sympathy or concern she otherwise might have had. Pride was the one who had put them into this position and he'd known what he was getting into, so it was only fair that he be the one who had to accept the consequences and figure out how to pacify Lily's curiosity.
With an ear open, she joined Gluttony in clearing the table, effecting the disinterested look she more often reserved for desperate men vying for her attention.
Admittedly, the look may have been a bit chillier than normal; Lust couldn't help but be a little irked by Lily's reaction to her name and title. 'Lust the Lascivious' had usually been a badge of honour, something for her to be proud of, and although it made sense that the old-fashioned woman would believe it inappropriate, Lust still disliked her negative response.
The old woman remained seated at the table, meek and mild, wrapped in her light pink shawl despite the season and smiling gently as Pride approached with the faintest hint of trepidation.
Forget her own name; it was completely out of character to see Pride – Pride the Arrogant – looking embarrassed over his title. It was quite clear to Lust that he didn't want her to ask about his name.
"Yes, Mother?" he asked.
Ms. Bradley, Lust decided, was either very good at ignoring things she did not want to see or simply couldn't pick up on them. She gave no notice to her adopted son's reservation, instead smiling in what could only be described as foolishly light-hearted ignorance.
"You remember that Mason will be coming tomorrow?" she began.
Pride looked surprised at the unexpected topic, then frowned for a moment before lighting up in comprehension.
"Oh, that's right! Tomorrow is grocery day, isn't it? I forgot all about it."
Ms. Bradley nodded.
"I'd like to call him later today," she said, "but I'm not sure what I should say. We already increased our order last month and so we have a bit of extra food stored away, but I know we're going to need a lot more. There's no way I can ask him to bring more while claiming that it's still just the two of us. And unless we ask everyone to hide when he comes, he's going to see that we're not the only ones here anymore…"
"Hmm, that's a good point," Pride murmured thoughtfully.
"I just wanted to check with you on what's the best thing to say before calling him."
The oldest Homunculus sat down in the chair beside her, kicking his legs idly as he propped his chin in his hands, his face now quite serious as he considered the problem. To hear better, Lust gave up pretending to gather the dishes – Gluttony was bringing the last few plates in even as she stood there – and paused in the doorway. The pair didn't notice her watching them.
"The people in Dublith think I'm your sister's son and that my 'real' mother and father died in an accident. So we can't say that everyone is related through her…" Pride reasoned out loud. "Did you ever say that you have other relatives?"
Lily shook her head.
"What about saying that you only had one sister? Have you ever said that you definitely don't have any other relatives?" he questioned.
The old woman frowned as she struggled to remember.
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I've tried to avoid the topic, but it's hard. Others worry about the two of us being out here by ourselves. It doesn't come up much anymore, but people are still upset that I don't have any other family to stay here and look after us. But I can't remember if I said I didn't have any other family or if I just said I didn't have anyone who could come…"
"Try to remember," Pride said courteously but with just the tiniest bit of familiar bite that used to accompany his every order. "If you were never specific, we can claim that they're your relatives who have moved here to live with us."
"I think… I don't think I was ever specific," Lily said, though her faltering start made her assertion far from confident. Pride seemed dissatisfied with her answer.
"I suppose if anyone challenges you by claiming that you said otherwise, you can just pretend to not have any idea what they're talking about. People are quick to think they're mistaken about things when someone counters what they thought. If you say you've got other relatives, who are they to challenge you about it?"
Lily gave a small grimace and Lust suspected it had to do with being required to do more lying, but claiming that the Homunculi were her relatives made the most logical sense given the situation.
"But why would they have suddenly moved in with us…?" Pride continued, his legs stopping their kicking as he thought. Lily frowned too, but neither of them jumped at an idea, so Lust decided to interject herself into the conversation. It wasn't, after all, as if the topic had nothing to do with her.
"Why come up with a reason in the first place?" she asked from the doorway. The pair looked up at her, Pride quizzically and Lily somewhat befuddled.
"What do you mean, Lust?" he asked her.
She shook her head lightly, then stepped forward, high heels clicking on the hardwood floor.
"Rather than come up with a cover story, simply say that our reasons for coming here are personal and leave it at that," she elaborated, taking a seat across from them. "Lying will make you look uncomfortable-" This she said to Lily. "-so it's better to use that to your advantage, and no one will press you if you seem embarrassed. Gossip will spread and in a month or so, the citizens will have decided on a believable excuse for our being here without our having to do or say anything."
Lily looked impressed. Pride merely considered and then nodded, acquiescing that her idea was a good one.
"Should we say that you're from somewhere in Amestris, or would Aerugo or Creta be safer?" he asked, quite magnanimously considering he had rarely, if ever, asked for someone else's opinion when his ideas were always the best.
Lust thought about it for a moment, tapping her fingers lightly on her arm.
"Claiming to be from another country carries the risk of someone happening to have visited the same place and uncovering the lie," she rationalized. "Even claiming that we're from an Amestrian town carries some risk. It would be better to remain as vague as possible. You can say that we've moved around a lot and that we were out of the country for the past few years. That will explain why we've only showed up now, and you can just claim to not remember the names of the places we've been."
Lily looked slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of answering questions with such an unclear cover story in place and Lust didn't feel entirely happy leaving the lie in her hands, but Pride looked perfectly happy with it.
"It'll be fine, Mother. Mason probably won't even ask for details. You don't need to be worried."
"That's easy for you to say!" she exclaimed before sighing and rising from her seat. "But I guess it would be better to not put it off." She headed for the dining room entryway, then paused as if changing her mind. By way of explanation, she murmured something about making out a list of extra food before calling and then headed for the library, probably to find a pen and paper.
"Who is this Mason person?" Lust asked once Ms. Bradley was gone.
Pride shrugged, following his step-mother's example and rising from his chair.
"Just a regular man from Dublith. He works at Mrs. Curtis's shop. That's Big Brother and Teacher's teacher. They asked if he wouldn't mind delivering groceries for us and he was fine with it. I think he even refused to take payment for the delivery. Something about being happy to do us a favour, since the Elrics knew us and I'm their apprentice. And Mother being old and still taking care of a child at her age makes people want to help us when they can. Call it pity points."
Her brother looked conflicted for a moment, likely resenting even the suggestion of pity while forced to recognize its value to them at the same time.
"Greed said we would train after breakfast, so I'll see you later."
He gave her a short wave, then trotted off into the kitchen for the door to the backyard. She heard him say something to Gluttony, who was still in the room – it sounded like a suggestion – and a few moments later, her tubby brother came to the entryway, giving her a hopeful look.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Pride said you would help me?"
So the little brat thought he could offload his chores onto her? Gluttony hadn't minded helping Lily when she'd asked and he'd pretty much adopted it as a routine (help make the meals and help clean up after), but Lust was quite certain Pride had been responsible for doing the dishes before they'd come along and, whether or not it was fair, Lust didn't like the idea that he'd expect them to pitch in and share responsibilities now. That was not a part of the deal that she'd agreed upon!
Well, not that she'd agreed to anything or had any choice in the matter, but still!
On the other hand, it felt wrong to leave Gluttony to do something entirely on his own. He didn't like to be alone and he wasn't confident enough to do things without someone to guide him.
Trying not to sigh, Lust rose and followed him back into the kitchen.
"Remember," she spoke gently, "he wants us to call him 'Selim' now."
Gluttony blinked, then nodded.
"Sorry, Lust. I forgot," he said. "But I don't understand. Why does Pride want to be called that?"
How could she explain it? Gluttony had little understanding when it came to things even mildly metaphysical and so would have no ability to follow her explanation that Pride was no longer the same person, that a combination of his Stone being rendered soulless and his experiences in the years since their passing had caused their arrogant eldest brother to change. That he wanted to be called by a different name as a sign of his 'adopted humanity' also would make no sense to Gluttony, for he had never really embraced the reality that Homunculi and humans were two different species, with the Homunculi being superior. All Gluttony knew was that he wasn't to eat his siblings and that humans tasted good, but seeing them as individual species – and that Pride was trying to move from one to the other – was certainly beyond him.
Without being able to give the proper reasons, Lust fell on her old pattern of giving Gluttony a half-truth that would satisfy him without requiring a complicated or frustrating lecture.
"Ms. Bradley prefers for Pride to be called that," she told him, "so Pride uses the name 'Selim' to please her. It is like when Father told you not to eat someone; you wanted to eat them, but you didn't because Father didn't want you to."
It was a simple explanation and Gluttony accepted it without difficulty.
Lust had never handled any kind of household chores before, but the task didn't seem that complicated. There were the dishes stacked on the counter and there was the towel for drying them and there was the soap and she distinctly remembered Lily asking Pride which task he preferred, so she knew that one person washed and one person dried and put away. Simple, really.
She had no way to know which task was easier, but she figured that Gluttony knew where the dishes went, so it would be better to let him dry them and put them away. With that in mind, she approached the sink and experimented with the taps until the water's temperature was comfortable. Then, having no idea how much detergent to use, she gave the bottle a firm squeeze. In no time at all, the sink filled with bubbles and foam and a flowery scent that she couldn't identify but which was quite pleasant. And the hot water felt nice on her hands. Why had Pride loaded this off onto her? It was actually kind of enjoyable.
At first, they worked in silence. Lust discovered, once they got started, that the actual washing was more difficult than she'd thought. The dishes slipped out of her hands and she wished she had her Ultimate Spear for no more reason than that it would have given her a better grip. Food stuck and it took an inordinate effort to get it off. (Another thing her Ultimate Spear would have helped with!) Maybe next time, she'd take the drying instead.
But once she fell into the parody of a rhythm, her mind went back to the explanation she'd just given Gluttony.
When she thought about it, it seemed odd that being physically capable of satiety would have any effect on her food-loving younger brother. Gluttony had never been bothered by pesky little details like edible and non-edible before. In his book, everything was fair game. He had enjoyed eating so much, so why should suddenly being able to become full hinder him? There were plenty of humans who ate too much and didn't let it bother them, or at least didn't let it bother them enough to change their overindulgent habits.
"Gluttony?" she said suddenly. He looked up from the dish and towel in his hands. "Are you happy like this?"
He stared at her with his beady eyes and clearly didn't know what she meant.
"Like what?" he asked.
"We are human now," Lust said, elaborating the painful truth for him because it had only just occurred to her that he too had suffered a loss. "I no longer have my Ultimate Spear. Envy can no longer shape-shift. And you can no longer eat anything and everything you want. Are you happy this way? Or would you rather be the way you were before?"
It wasn't often that he was asked for his opinion and it took him some time to think about it.
"Always being hungry wasn't nice," he said eventually. "I didn't know that I could not be hungry. It's nice to not be hungry. But food doesn't taste as good anymore. I wish food still tasted as good."
That's odd, Lust thought. Why would his sense of taste change? Taste was never one of his powers…
"I didn't know that. Why didn't you mention it before?" she asked.
Gluttony would have twiddled his thumbs, but with his hands full, he could only look down with an abashed look.
"I didn't want to hurt Mother's feelings," he admitted. "and Pride said I can't eat humans anymore, but they were the tastiest…"
Lust knew that couldn't be the reason for the difference, but before she could figure it out on her own, Gluttony gave her the key.
"And I miss my nose," he continued.
It took her a moment to understand what he meant.
"You mean… your sense of smell?" she asked. He nodded and elaborated for her.
"I can't smell things anymore. I miss it. Especially you, Lust. You don't smell anymore. I can't smell you."
From any other person, those words would have been gravely offensive, but in this case, Lust knew that she was not being told that she smelled bad. Far from it. With his non-discerning tongue, no scents had been good or bad to Gluttony, but even so, he'd preferred his sister's scent above all others. Maybe there were subconscious reasons for it: He already had a preference for female flesh and she was the only woman in their group. Maybe he liked the smell of her Philosopher's Stone. Or maybe, considering it was just she and Envy he was most frequently with, she smelled more human than Envy's shape-shifted human disguise (which certainly couldn't fool Gluttony's nose), and so he'd been attracted to her because of the reminder of his favourite food.
The reasons ultimately didn't matter: Gluttony hadn't just lost his function as a failed Portal of Truth.
He had lost his enhanced sense of smell.
And there was the problem. The faculties of smell and taste were intricately linked. If a person couldn't smell, they also couldn't taste.
To go from being a bloodhound, able to smell one individual in a city full of people, to having the regular senses of a human, for Gluttony it was quite reasonable to feel like he'd lost his nose entirely. And before, perhaps his voraciousness had partly been a product of that nose. Perhaps food had really tasted much better to him than to the normal person.
How disgraceful that it had never occurred to her before!
Lust wasn't really sure how to respond to his assertion that he missed her scent, but sympathy was probably what Gluttony was hoping for and remembering that he'd had no one to comfort him upon her death, Lust focused on the acting that she'd used to manipulate men.
"I'm sorry that you can't smell me anymore," she said, injecting her voice with as much warmth as she could, "but I expect you'll find that, once you get used to it, you can still smell quite a lot. Not being hungry is better, right?"
Gluttony nodded and seemed quite reassured, happily returning his attention to the dishes.
And Lust spent the rest of the task realizing that her words had just scraped on being the sort of kind thing that a mother said to comfort her child.
She wanted to shudder, but the water in the sink was still too warm for it.
Author's Notes:
Ms. Bradley being 'ignorant' or 'insensitive': Notice how Ms. Bradley does not realize how uncomfortable the Elric brothers are when Wrath comes home while they're visiting her and Selim? Notice how she gives no notice to Hawkeye's fearful disbelief when she reveals that Selim is 'from King Bradley's side of the family'? Not to fault her as a character, but Ms. Bradley is not the most observant person if Wrath and Pride were able to trick her without giving any hint of suspicion. I just wanted to add this comment to support how I'm treating her character development.
Dish detergent: I looked it up and apparently dishwashing liquid was invented in the 1910s but wasn't in common use until the 1950s. The year in the story is 1921, but I don't care. I'm making Amestris historically divergent from the real world on this ONE point and giving them a 'historically slightly advanced' cleaning product.
