Number of words: 5,685
Published date: February 6, 2014
Began chapter: December 24, 2013
Finished chapter: February 6, 2014
Chapter 31: Pathetic
"You have the worst luck," Greed commented, echoing Envy's feelings about the whole situation.
"It has nothing to do with luck," Selim corrected. "Humans get sick. It's to be expected."
His words did absolutely nothing to make Envy feel better.
Not being able to heal was an obvious advantage that the resurrected Homunculi had lost along with their Stone-bestowed powers. Being subject to other human weaknesses, such as the capacity to become sick, however, was something that had been easier to overlook.
It had started with the sneezing, which, in and of itself, had not been remarkable. Breathe in some dust, get something tickling inside their noses, and the Homunculi would sneeze just as much as anybody else. In that respect, they hadn't been any different from humans.
But Envy had sneezed at nothing as far as he could tell, which should have been the first hint that something was wrong. Being stubborn, however, he had disregarded Ms. Bradley's warning. So what if the ground was wet and the air slightly chilly? Such things had never bothered him before. Even when he'd gone out in the winter, he hadn't bothered with clothing to protect himself from the cold, for his true form had been much hardier than his human form would suggest and even if he had suffered from it, he could just use his Stone to heal himself. (This notwithstanding his experience in Ishval; he had had to be concerned about making fires during the chilly Ishvalan nights for appearance's sake, as it would have been suspicious if he had ignored the cold while pretending to be just a regular soldier.) Admitting that he would now need to be concerned about the cold was simply inconceivable to Envy as an option. He was a Homunculus, and Homunculi did not need to care about the petty concerns of weak humans like getting cold or becoming sick.
So, ignoring all signs to the contrary, Envy had refused to acknowledge it when he began to feel unwell, scoffing and wiping his nose with the back of his glove as he watched Ms. Bradley begin the laborious task of cleaning up her garden. And Envy refused to acknowledge it, later in the afternoon, when his throat grew sore, and he spent the rest of the day focusing on not coughing in the hopes of hiding it from the others.
Unfortunately, Envy hadn't counted on his siblings being as observant as they were, nor had he considered that, by being more reticent, he had unwittingly drawn attention to the fact that he wasn't feeling his usual self.
Compared to the others, he still hadn't decided what to do with his time. Pride had his days full with studying, practicing, and seeking attention from his step-mother. Lust spent most of her time reading (plotting and studying alchemy, Envy hoped, though he had seen her with some regular novels too). Gluttony seemed perfectly content to help Ms. Bradley with the daily chores and Envy couldn't help but wonder if that was a sign that Lust had failed to provide him with the mothering that he was now finding in Wrath's wife. Sloth naturally just lazed around, except for the few times Ms. Bradley convinced him to do some more drawings; their hulking brother most likely obliged just to end her pestering. Greed was the only one who also seemed uncertain of how to spend his days, but he at least had something to look forward to: going to Xing to see that bratty prince friend of his. With practice sparring with Pride, browsing some books on Xing and Xingese, flirting with Lust, going for walks, and generally doing whatever struck his fancy, Greed had plenty to occupy himself with.
On the other hand, Envy spent most of his time feeling listless and antsy. He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He knew that, in their old lives, the Homunculi had had lots of free time – some of their plots had taken decades to bring to fruition – but for the life of him, Envy couldn't remember what they had done while waiting for their next move. All he knew for certain was that he had never felt so bored before. He didn't like to read. He didn't like to cook. He had no more interest in art or music than he had in going for walks, all of which felt pointless. The only thing he had to cling to was that Lust was working on a plan and, so long as he was patient, she would figure something out.
And so Envy most often simply joined the others in whatever they were doing. Hating to be left out and having spent far too much of his early life alone (before he'd mastered his abilities enough to be allowed on the surface), Envy much preferred others' company – even though he would never admit it and when all he did was make snide remarks or disparaging comments about humanity.
As the beginnings of sickness took hold, he left off with this usual habit, staying in the same room as his siblings but remaining disengaged, as he was too focused on hiding his body's betrayal and growing misery to join in on conversation. And that, of course, tipped them off that something was wrong with him before they even noticed his symptoms.
Lust first noticed that her brother was being more quiet than usual when she gave a small chuckle at a passage in the book she was reading and he didn't demand that she tell him the joke. She glanced over at him, lying in the couch next to her, his head turned away so that she couldn't see his face and an arm slung across his forehead. He might have been asleep (Lust couldn't see whether his eyes were open or not) except that he occasionally sniffed and swiped at his nose and once gave a small cough, then muttered an imprecation under his breath.
"You're going to catch a cold if you stay outside like that," Lily's warning from earlier came to mind.
Curious, Lust said nothing but discreetly kept her eye on her brother.
It was more obvious when Greed, who could be described as many things but discreet was not one of them, caught on that something was off with their brother.
"Well, I checked the lines," he called from the foyer, grunting slightly as he tugged off his now mud-covered boots and dropped them by the door before crossing the entry hall to join some of the others in the dining room. "I don't know what to tell you; nothing looks broken to me. Whatever's cut the power must be closer to town." He shrugged out of the black leather vest he'd donned against the day's chill and shook it off before hanging it on the back of a chair and taking a seat, tilting back on two legs.
Ms. Bradley gave a small frown and glanced out the window, giving an absent tug on her shawl.
"I suppose I'll have to call someone then," she thought out loud. "If I wait another day, the food will spoil. I thought for sure the power would be fixed by now; I wonder how extensive the damage was… If the entire town has lost power, we won't be much of a priority." She sighed. "I do hate to be a bother, though. All the same, Greed, thank you for checking for me. I appreciate it. How was the walk?"
He shrugged and tried to sound nonchalant, though he personally felt that the chore had been more effort than it was worth.
"No problem. The driveway's got even more ruts in it now where the rain washed it out and it's pretty muddy, but the woods don't look too bad. It was easier to walk under the trees than on the road. Course, there's still water all over everything." As if to emphasize the point, he squeezed his ponytail, wringing free a fistful of water. Irritated, he let the chair fall back down to all fours, then got up and went into the kitchen to look for something to dry off with.
Ms. Bradley got up as well, but only went as far as the dining room entrance to the desk where the phone was, pulling out a small address book.
"Let me see, who would be the best person to call…?" she murmured as she flipped through the pages. "I could call Patrick, but he probably won't be in, considering everyone's going to be asking for his services after a storm like that… Or maybe I should call Mayor Fallon, though he's probably quite busy too… Oh Greed," she said, looking up. "Please don't use that to dry your hair."
"Why?" he asked, pausing with the towel already on his head.
"Because that's for drying dishes," she explained.
He stared at her blankly.
"… Oh, never mind. I guess it's fine." From the look on his face, it would have taken too long to explain. Lily could remember her parents bickering over the way her father had used her mother's nice dishtowels to wipe grease off his hands or sweat off his face; King had been the same way, but, with dogged determination and sharp scolding, she had eventually won that battle. It had been a long effort, though; she would have to work on it with Greed. For the time being, she chose to ignore it as not a good use of her time and instead picked up the receiver, sat down on the red sofa, and dialled a number.
Greed shrugged and continued with what he'd been doing, walking over to stand behind Gluttony and lean over his shoulder as he dried his hair.
"Whatcha' working on, Glutt?" he asked.
Rare for him, Gluttony appeared to be concentrating quite seriously on what he was doing. The tip of his tongue played at the corner of his mouth as he awkwardly worked on copying the letters Ms. Bradley had given him: F through J, along with the first five letters from yesterday.
"I'm writing," Gluttony replied happily.
Greed chuckled at the notion that ten letters amounted to writing. "Sure you are," he agreed pleasantly, though he could have been sarcastic and Gluttony probably wouldn't have noticed. "And who came up with that brilliant idea?"
Gluttony finished a lopsided G and paused, reaching over to pop a few of the string beans he'd scavenged into his mouth. He had been happy to help Lily with cleaning up her garden, but had been horrified when she plucked some ruined vegetables out of the mud and threw them into the compost bin. Rather than see anything edible go to waste, Gluttony had handled the "composting" by collecting and eating whatever had fallen to the ground, even while Ms. Bradley protested that he would ruin his appetite or make himself sick.
"It was Mother's idea," he said around his chewing. "I'm learning how to read."
It was the first Greed had heard of this and he raised his eyebrows in mild disbelief, a gesture that was wasted because Gluttony couldn't see it and wouldn't have recognized the implied insult and Ms. Bradley wasn't in the room. Then, almost by reflex, he glanced over to where Envy was sitting at the other end of the table, staring out the large windows and listlessly twirling a strand of dark-green hair around his index finger. Greed expected him to make some sort of sarcastic or derogatory comment and he was already mentally preparing a retort but, to his surprise, Envy said nothing, appearing to not be paying any attention to their conversation at all.
He could have left it alone, but it was so jarringly out of character that he couldn't help himself.
"What? No comment about how the Missus is a fool for wasting her time?"
"Hmm?" Envy took several beats before snapping out of his daze and turning to glance at them. He shrugged and turned back toward the window. "Why would I comment? I don't care what she does," he said disinterestedly, trying to end the conversation.
Greed didn't buy it for one second. Insulting people was Envy's favourite hobby.
"You know, you've been acting kind of strange," he said, moving closer and tilting his head to study Envy's face. His brother caught the movement from the corner of his eye and, wrinkling his nose at him unpleasantly, pointedly shifted to turn away from Greed. "You're being awfully quiet."
"You're full of it," he responded. "I'm fine. As hard as it may be to believe, you're not so important that I cling to your every word."
"Now, that sounds more like you, but I think you're lying. And is it just me, or are you looking a little pale? I mean, paler than normal."
"I said I'm fine. Stop pestering me!" Envy growled, but with less force than usual, another hint that he wasn't being honest.
"What's going on?" Selim piped up from the kitchen entryway, having left his studies to get a glass of juice. Internally, Envy groaned. He was already feeling miserable, Greed for some unfathomable reason had picked up on it and didn't want to let it go, and now Pride was going to get involved too.
"Envy's acting strange," Greed declared before Envy could defend himself.
"I am not! Mind your own business!"
"'Strange'?" the child repeated curiously. "Like how?"
"Not sure," Greed replied, folding his arms across his chest, still looking his brother up and down in an appraising manner. "But you know, I feel like I remember something like this…"
Envy tried to respond in the same way he would have if he were feeling his regular self: he returned Greed's appraising look with a glare that said in equal parts 'I hate you' and 'I hope you drop dead'. Unfortunately, glaring that way did nothing for the stuffed up feeling in his head behind his eyes – not quite a full blown headache, but still far from pleasant – so Envy broke off the stare by switching to another tactic that required less energy: huffing and pretending that the two were beneath his notice. The ploy allowed him to rest his eyes, but accomplished nothing else. It definitely didn't make them leave him alone.
"You should remember; it's called trying to pick a fight," he muttered. Greed ignored him.
"I think… I think I had a friend who had this once… Or, hmm…" He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Maybe it was Dolcetto…? Or was it… Martel…? Gah! I hate not being able to remember anything! But I'm sure someone started acting funny, and when I asked what was wrong, they told me… Um… "
"Your friend was sick," Lust offered. She was standing in the entryway. Gluttony looked up and waved her over to look at his work.
Greed started, then burst out triumphantly, "That was it! They were sick!" He turned back and pointed an accusing finger at his brother. "You're sick. Wait." His finger dropped. "You're sick?" he asked incredulously.
Envy only barely kept from wincing at the loud voice. "Of course I'm not sick," he scoffed, willing to accept the brief pain in his head that came from scowling at Lust. She made no apology, instead arching an eyebrow and smirking at him coolly. Bitch, he thought. How long ago did you notice?
"You've been coughing and sniffling and, weirder still, you've been quiet. Care to offer a different explanation?" she challenged.
He fumbled. "I just… got something up my nose," he mumbled defensively, hunching slightly in his chair.
"We can get sick now?" Greed asked Selim over their words.
Selim shrugged, unconcerned, though he had taken to studying Envy in a disconcertingly keen way, like a scientist studying its latest test subject, trying to appraise whether Envy was in fact sick or not. "Sure," he said. "I had classmates who were sick all the time. Humans do get sick, after all."
"I'm not sick," Envy repeated. They ignored him.
"I thought the Missus was just joking about that. Can we really get sick if we go out in the cold? How do humans get sick anyway? I thought it was some type of injury, isn't it?"
Now, an uninvolved bystander might have expected Greed to say this with alarm or at least a bit of concern, but instead, he only sounded curious. And when Selim began to talk about viruses and bacteria and the like, as well as the sheer torture of writing exams in a classroom full of sniffling and coughing children, the looks they gave him were completely devoid of sympathy. Which was fine, because the last thing Envy wanted was sympathy, but did they have to stare at him like he was some kind of damn sideshow attraction? It wasn't interesting; it sucked! He normally didn't mind being a centre of attention, but this type of attention was unpleasant, and he had just decided to stand up and leave (and if he needed to push Greed out of the way to do it, he at least had enough energy left for that), when Ms. Bradley finished her phone call and rejoined them.
"What's this? Envy, you're not feeling well?" she asked with that trademark human expression of worry stamped on her face. When he saw it, his lips twisted, an instinct that was hard to curb even though he had already decided that having someone concerned about him wasn't as unpleasant a thing as he had been expecting.
"You tell us," Greed said. "Is he sick? Cause he keeps denying it, but Lust says he's got the symptoms and hell if we can tell for sure. You would know better than us what to look for."
Ms. Bradley looked from the older siblings to Selim and then to Envy with a befuddled look that said she really didn't understand what Greed was talking about.
"What… do you mean, I would know best?" she asked hesitantly.
"Well, it's not like we've ever been sick before," Greed clarified as if it were obvious.
"Really? My, wouldn't that be nice!"
Greed shrugged. "Hard to tell if you don't know what it's like to get sick. So, what do you think?" he asked, jerking his head at Envy.
Their brother bristled.
"I already told you, I'm not sick! I'm not some weak, pathetic human that-"
"Getting sick has nothing to do with being weak; it's just something that happens," Lily interrupted calmly. "There's no shame in it."
"That's easy for you to say!"
"Ah, come now," Greed laughed, planting an elbow on his brother's head and leaning on him. "It's becoming tradition for you to be the first one to get this human stuff. First that nice shiner, then dreaming, and now this. What other stuff have we not thought of? The way your luck's running, it's kinda' like you're our guinea pig, so you've got a duty to tell us what it's like."
"Greed, don't do that," Lily scolded. "You aren't being very nice. When someone isn't feeling well, you're supposed to try to make them feel better, not tease them."
"Ah, is that how it goes?" he asked innocently, pulling back as Envy took a swipe at him, which provided Ms. Bradley with an opening. She reached out and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead while he had his back turned to her. Startled and without even thinking about it, Envy grabbed her wrist in an iron grip, immediately changing the mood in the room. The others went from joking curiosity to tense concern.
He revelled in the feeling for a moment, enjoying the knowledge that he could easily break her wrist before any of the others could do anything about it, but the old woman, unlike the others, remained calm, not even trying to pull away. He found himself grudgingly impressed that she was showing a backbone and relaxed his grip slightly, especially when he caught a glimpse of the bruises on her forearm that he had caused the few nights before.
"You do have a bit of a fever," she said, sedately ignoring his hand on her wrist.
"Is that so?" he intoned, trying to combine scepticism with the hint of a warning. "Then fine, let's pretend you're right and I'm not feeling well. What do you suggest I do about it, hmm?"
Oddly, she hesitated, clearly mulling over how to answer the question. Then, completely unexpected, she smiled at him.
"The best cure for something like this is to work it out of your system," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.
That wasn't the type of cure he'd anticipated.
"… Really? I figured you'd say I should get lots of rest or something…"
She continued to smile. "Oh no, rest is the last thing you should do. And you shouldn't drink very much either. The best way to get over a cold is to just power through it."
"Mother," Selim said, tugging on her sleeve, "I'm pretty sure you have that wrong… Isn't it the opposite?"
She turned to him, pressed the index finger of her free hand against her lips in the universal sign of hush, then gave him a wink.
"You're right, dear," she said in a conspiratorial whisper that was still clearly audible to them all, "but you know how contrary he is. I figured the best way to make him feel better is to give the opposite advice."
Envy stared at her for a moment then, with a chuckle and a grin, released her wrist.
"Heh, 'contrary', is it? You think you have me all figured out now, do you?" he asked.
"Well," she reasoned matter-of-factly, "if I had told you you needed to rest, what would your first reaction have been?"
Envy didn't even need to think about it. "To ignore you and do everything except rest," he replied. "Fine, fine, I get it. That was a clever ruse, Ms. B. Clever, but next time, try not to make it so obvious."
She merely smiled at him in return and, deciding to reward her for the tiny attempt at deception (and he was getting ready to truly admit to not feeling well by this time), he let himself take her advice. And going to lie down served a second purpose: It meant the others would stop pestering him.
Or so he hoped.
Envy quickly decided that being sick was an absolutely miserable experience. Though he did occasionally doze, when he was awake, he was bored out of his mind.
"Don't you even have a radio?" he complained when Ms. Bradley came in to see how he was doing and to bring him a glass of water.
"No, we don't. I never really listened to the radio very much," she replied. "But that's a good idea. We'll have to pick one up the next time someone goes to Dublith."
"That doesn't help me now," he glumly pointed out. She didn't bother arguing with him.
With nothing to do, his mind most easily latched on to observing his body, for focusing on the internal physical reactions was natural to him because of his old powers, but it unfortunately only emphasized the unpleasantness. He had quickly become used to not having to pay attention to his form or suppress his weight (a fact which, if he were honest, frightened him - Envy didn't want to get used to the change in such a short frame of time), but the way his body seemed to be betraying him was entirely new and hard to ignore. The lethargy in particular just felt so... odd. Sure, they had needed to sleep and eat, but the Stone had always been in the background, pulsing away, offering its energy and strength. Like Alphonse in the armour, an enemy could not have hoped to wear them down by prolonging a battle; Envy might have gotten bored or irritated enough to have it affect his fighting skill, but it wouldn't have had any impact on his physical ability to fight. They had never known exhaustion before.
I'm bored, Envy thought, staring at the ceiling, but I don't feel like doing anything. It's like my body is actually forcing me to rest. This is so pathetic… Humans are so pathetic. They're not even injured and they're out of commission! I feel so… sluggish.
Sluggishness was at least familiar to one of them.
I wonder if this is something like how Sloth always felt, he wondered, turning an eye to study his brother. Feels like, he then amended to the present tense, seeing as how Sloth was doing nothing more than what Envy was currently doing, hunched slightly in the red chair beside Envy's bed and blowing sleep bubbles. He hadn't yet decided what Sloth had been thinking when he'd come into the room and settled down with him, but then, Sloth's thought process had always been a mystery to them. At least the big man wasn't bothering him, so Envy didn't protest the company.
Another thing Envy discovered was that human bodies took a few days, not a few hours, to recover from illness. Instead of feeling better when he woke up the next morning, he felt substantially worse.
"I feel like I'm dying," he moaned pathetically, no longer caring if the others thought of him as weak. Lust and Greed, with Gluttony in tow, had come in to check on his status, Greed lounging against the dresser in the corner and Lust settling down in the desk chair due to Sloth still occupying the one by the bed. Gluttony, with nowhere to sit, had plunked down on the floor.
"Oh, please," Lust snapped impatiently. "You do not feel like you're dying. You've died before! It can't possibly be that bad."
"Shut up! How would you know? You have no idea what this is like!" he whined. "My throat hurts, my head hurts, my nose is like a damn facet, and I'm cold and sweating at the same time. This isn't fair!"
As before, his words earned him no pity. Having nothing in their histories or memories to go on, his siblings didn't understand what he was going through and had never been compassionate types anyway.
"Hush now," Ms. Bradley said, slipping into the room with a little bottle in her hands and Selim trailing behind her. "Fussing never made anyone feel better. And I'm sure you'll be feeling right as rain in no time once we get some medicine into you."
"What is that?" Envy asked, eying the bottle she held with a suspicion that was only augmented by the way Selim was staring around his step-mother with an expression of mixed horror and sympathy. Even though he knew Ms. Bradley was too much of a bleeding heart to want anything other than to make him feel better, Selim's reaction, Envy felt certain, bode nothing but ill for him.
"Is it food?" Gluttony asked, perking up at the sight of the spoon she removed from her pocket.
"No, it's not food. It's medicine," Ms. Bradley answered, but Gluttony didn't follow her.
"Medicine?" he repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. "Can I eat it?" he asked hopefully. "I've never tasted medicine before."
"This is for Envy. You're not the one who's sick," Ms. Bradley said, but at the pathetic disappointment on Gluttony's face, she relented. "Oh, all right. I guess it won't hurt anything. You can have a taste."
She measured out a small spoonful of what turned out to be, once it oozed out of the bottle, a dark green liquid almost the same colour as Envy's hair. To the others, it did not look at all appetizing, but Gluttony's palate was far less discerning and he took the proffered spoon and stuck it in his mouth without any hesitation.
For a few seconds, he seemed perfectly fine.
Then the taste kicked in.
Gluttony's beady eyes widened, tears sprang up at their corners, and his face went an unhealthy shade of purple-blue. Quickly, but apparently not quickly enough, he spat out the spoon and stuck his tongue out, scraping at it to try to get rid of the taste.
"Yuck," he exclaimed, wrinkling his big button nose. "That didn't taste good. Not at all. I don't like medicine." He sniffed at the bottle in Ms. Bradley's hand with a hurt look, as if it had betrayed him, then waddled off in search of a glass of water or something else to get rid of the potent flavour coating his throat.
Greed found the whole thing incredibly funny and ended up grasping Envy's dresser for support as laughter bent him almost double, though by that point he was laughing hard enough that he couldn't breathe and so was making no sound at all.
"So our Ultimate Stomach has been bested," Lust said, almost sounding impressed.
"Selim, be a dear and get me another spoon," Lily asked, bending down to pick up the one Gluttony had dropped to the floor. The boy gave Envy an apologetic glance, then darted off to do as bidden.
"No way," Envy stated flatly. "No way in hell. I am not eating something that Gluttony couldn't stomach. It's poison, isn't it? You're trying to poison me! You know I'm a goner, so you're trying to put me out of my misery!"
"Don't be sill-"
"Well, I'm not falling for it! I'm not going to take any of your damn 'medicine'. You'll have to force it down my throat!"
"Oh, for crying out loud- Envy, you were just complaining that you feel like you're dying, so what does it matter if it's poison or not? She's trying to make you feel better. You're making us all look bad."
"Not that bad," Lily corrected. "Selim refused to take this after the first time he got sick, too. I'll admit, it's pretty awful tasting, but they say the worse the medicine is going down, the more effective it is too." Which helped explain their eldest brother's apparent pity when he returned with a clean spoon.
"Sorry," the little boy said, sounding quite genuine. "I'm glad I'm not you right now, but you should still take it. It will make you feel better."
Envy continued being obstinate. Ms. Bradley got a dangerous look in her eyes.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, young man. You can either take this of your own free will, or I will be forced to use drastic measures."
"Hmph, what kind of 'drastic measures' does an old biddy like you have?" he challenged.
She gave him a forced smile. "I will have Sloth sit on you until you cooperate."
Envy didn't take the threat seriously. That was, not until, at her bidding, Sloth obediently stood up and approached the bedside, his stony face saying that pleading would garner no mercy from him.
Over the sounds that followed – of the Missus still trying to coax him into cooperating and Envy protesting and then swearing as Sloth got involved – Selim thoughtfully consulted with Lust and Greed.
"I just realized, I may have to ask Big Brother and Teacher about this," he mused out loud to them. "I think we missed this. We made your immune systems to be normal, but your bodies are new, so you haven't had the contact with germs or the chance to develop antibodies yet that you normally would at your age. You should be prepared to get sick too."
Lust's lips twisted in displeasure, but she nodded in acknowledgement. Greed frowned.
"I thought you said people get sick from bacteria and stuff, so how did Envy catch anything in the first place?"
"I said bacteria and viruses may be a cause; there are other ways to get sick. But it's possible Mason brought it with him and passed it on-"
"Bleah! Nasty! What was that?" Envy interrupted, making a horrible face to show that he had been bested by Ms. Bradley and Sloth's combined attack. "'Passed it on'? Does that mean I can make you guys sick too?"
Selim nodded and a wicked grin split across Envy's face.
"Oh Greeeed!" he called in a sing-song voice, sitting up and waving one hand in Greed's direction. "Come here for a minute."
Greed snorted. "Yeah right. You're so transparent, you know that?"
"Who, me?" he asked, adopting the innocent and yet all-too-guilty expression of a cat with a feather in its mouth, hand on his chest and eyes wide. "I just want to tell you something."
"... And what's that?"
"It's a secret. You have to come over here first."
His brother remained unmoved. Envy glanced over at Selim and asked in a stage whisper, "So what do I have to do to make him catch this?"
"If it can be passed on," Selim replied, "the germs have to get in by the mouth or nose, I think."
Lust laughed.
"What's so funny?" Greed asked, while Selim said over him, "What is it, Lust?"
"You mean you want them to kiss?" she asked.
Selim made a face and Greed whirled around on her. "Excuse me?" She shrugged demurely and pursed her lips at him, and when Greed turned back to see what Envy's reaction was, he was surprised to find that Envy was grinning along with their sister, enjoying finally having someone else be the target of teasing.
"If it means giving this to you, I'd kiss you," he said, laughing outright at the look on Greed's face. "Hell, what do I care? If it guarantees it, I'll even kiss you with tongue!"
His brother's upper lip curled and he headed for the door. "Thanks but no thanks. I may be Greed, but that's something I can do without."
"At least let me cough on you!" Envy called after him.
"You see?" Ms. Bradley laughed lightly. "Looks like you're feeling better already."
It was hard for Envy to deny the point.
Author's Notes:
This chapter gave me incredible writer's block. I must have spent two whole weekends staring at my computer screen and putting out one page, if that. Gah! Apologies for the tardiness.
