XII. Refugees
-—Greed meets some interesting people in Dublith.
Greed is almost two hundred years old, now, and he still doesn't know how to fill this emptiness that has plagued him since he was born.
It haunts his dreams, his nightmares, even his waking hours as he moves through the country, never stopping, never settling down, because it has to be here somewhere. This—whatever he is so desperately searching for—it has to exist; it can't be impossible, because if it is then what is he supposed to do? It's not that he wants it—this burning in his very being is so much more than that. It drives him to the brink of insanity, searching searching searching (begging) for the solution to present itself to him.
He finds himself in Dublith, a reasonably-sized place with warm weather and even warmer humans. He's always been fascinated by them, he thinks; he doesn't hate them like Pride and Father and the others; he doesn't even pity them, like Lust. No, he wonders about them; he wants to understand; they make bonds so easily and enjoy the company of their families and he can't understand why. He hates his father; he hates his brothers; he hates everything that reminds him of those bastards still living underground. But he watches as a young child (those are so fascinating, the way they're trusting and innocent and small) grasps her father's hand tightly, beams up at him, follows him everywhere because she believes he will keep her safe…
He can't understand, and he thinks it's driving him mad.
He decides to stay here for a while, holes himself up in a deserted bar on the bad side of town, because that's what he's made for, right? Homunculi are meant to stick to the shadows, stay out of sight, because no one can know we exist and we are superior and humans do not matter, and even if he's doing his best to rid himself of these thoughts (he's wrong Father has to be wrong look at how happy they all are) they still present themselves far too often.
He ventures into town occasionally, grinning genuinely at the children who seem so enthralled by his jacket, his hair, his glasses. He can't help but laugh with them, tell their parents that they're good kids, because those moments are when he feels almost human, like these last vestiges of his Father's horror may finally be falling away.
He frequents the meat shop, too, because steak is delicious and pork is even better. The young couple who own it are kind, if not occasionally violent; he watches as the woman's stomach swells, as her eyes brighten in hope for the new life they have created.
(She's growing paler and paler as her belly grows larger and larger, but this must be normal, because nothing as wonderful as the birth—the true birth—of a child could go wrong, right?)
And when he goes to buy from them one day and sees the door bolted, sees the lights dark and shop deserted, he wonders what has happened. He wonders whether the baby has finally arrived, whether they are at the hospital with glorious new life…but then he sees the assistant come round from the back with bloody towels and a pale, tearstained face, and he knows that the answer is one he does not want to hear.
The man—Mason, he remembers—catches sight of him, recognizes him, but he does not smile. He only nods gravely in his direction as he throws the towels into the bin on the side of the road. And Greed knows that something is terribly wrong…that these humans, the ones who he has put so much faith in to always just be there, are not so strangely immortal as he wishes they were.
Something has gone wrong with the woman, her baby…
(He never goes back to Curtis Meats after that. The agony that he shouldn't be feeling is far too painful.)
(He's immortal—he's supposed to be perfect and unstoppable and above these human emotions. But all he can think is that if he could, he would fix the woman and her child, whatever has happened…he would make everything right for them.)
(But he can't, because Homunculi are created solely for destruction, even if he wishes so desperately he could create things instead.)
He's packing up to leave—he knows he shouldn't get so attached to one place, to the humans and their strange customs and their broken lives… But when he hears the news, that dangerous, volatile State experiments have broken out, are running free…and the place they were being kept is not ten miles south of the city…
(He tells himself the reason he stays is not because he wants to protect these humans he's somehow grown to care for. He tells himself this, but he knows it's not true.)
So he stays in Dublith, stays in the small bar he calls home, and waits and watches and listens for news about these creatures the military are calling so terribly dangerous. Maybe stopping them, saving these humans, will make him feel better; maybe killing these beasts will fill the empty hole in his existence…
(And then maybe he can finally move on to what he wants—to rule the world, to be so much more merciful than his Father plans to be.)
But then a group of people (strange-looking people—are they even human?) burst into the bar one night, breathing heavily and glancing over their shoulders and looking absolutely terrified that someone will see them. When he confronts them, stepping out from the shadows and asking what the hell they think they're doing here…the large one, the huge man with a mane of silver hair and a huge mallet, swings at his head and swipes it clean off his shoulders.
The looks on their faces as he regenerates himself, as the bone and muscle and brain matter grow straight out of his neck, are not the horrified, disgusted ones that he is expecting. He stares at them, fascinated, as their faces transform into expressions of hope, of happiness, almost of…of adoration.
He wonders…he wonders until the woman's arms stretch far longer than they should, when the others turn their bodies into inhuman things that cannot possibly be natural…
And then he realizes that these are the experiments the news is talking about. He realizes that these people, the short man with the nervous eyes and the woman who looks out of breath but ready to fight if need be and the rest of them who are staring at him, waiting for something to happen…
They're not human—or, at least, they're not anymore. And suddenly, it's as if a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders, because they're not human but neither is he and finally—finally!—he isn't alone anymore. So he walks back into the bar, yelling over his shoulder that if they want food then they'd better hurry up, because if they don't he'll eat all of it first…
There is a moment of silence from the front hall before he hears the door close, hears half a dozen sets of footsteps heading toward him. And as they all sit down to eat, enveloped in an awkward silence that gradually relaxes, Greed realizes that this is the happiest he's ever been.
He couldn't save Izumi Curtis—he couldn't save her child and her happiness and the things every being on this earth so desperately strives for. But, he thinks, maybe he can save these lost creatures. They are all so different, yet they are just the same…
Maybe, maybe, this will fill his existence until he can say that he has truly lived.
