XVII. Fall
-—All of his brothers are dead.


He's told himself over and over again, for decades now, that he doesn't care what happens to his so-called family.

Pride is an ass, and Envy's a bastard, and even if Lust is decent enough, he can't be around Gluttony for too long before he has the strong urge to kill someone. And Sloth's hardly around anyway...why even bother thinking about him?

In short, when he left one hundred years ago, he didn't look back—not for one second. He didn't care who would take the brunt of Father's anger, when he realized his third-born was not returning; he didn't care how this would impact their all-important plans for destroying the country, full of its strange humans and its beautiful sunsets; he only cared (cares) about satisfying the all-consuming desire deep within his core that he is sure will soon eat him alive.

Even now, in this new body, with its strange long hair and its small eyes and its toothy grin...he convinces himself that he is still only working for his own gain. He knows that Lust has fallen, that if he has defected again, he will likely have to aid in the destruction of more of his brethren. (Tomorrow is the Promised Day.) He knows these things and still pretends he does not care—because as he watches the Elric boys fight with everything they have, and the chimeras charge a nigh-indestructible monster whose machinations they cannot hope to understand, and his vessel's companions fight and kill and nearly die just to keep their precious prince safe...

He knows that these humans, these lowly, unimportant humans, are more important to him than his siblings ever were.

(Or so, at least, he tells himself.)

(Maybe he just desperately desires that familial bond the humans seem to share so naturally, but he'd never admit it aloud.)

.

.

Everything has gone to hell.

Lust is long dead. Gluttony is gone—consumed by Pride without a hint of remorse. Wrath is certainly near death, if not succumbed already; after all, his body does not have the restorative capabilities of the rest. (None of them ever thought he would need it.) Sloth, Envy...likely killed in battle, because they would be here otherwise. And if Edward Elric's presence above ground is any indication...Pride is destroyed as well.

(He tells himself he does not care.)

He shouldn't care, because he's lived his entire life with with no affection from his family. They were all so sure they didn't need it, after all. Affection is such a human emotion...and if Father had gone to such great pains to remove his, surely none of them needed theirs, either.

But in the end, he and his brothers were those things so carefully groomed and then cast away, and maybe they all did need such things after all. Lust and Gluttony seemed to have realized as such; Wrath had his wife that he seemed genuinely fond of; Envy and Pride, likely, had been so ingrained in their hatred that they shunned such things just like their Father.

But how could he have been so blind? He lived with those chimeras, yes, but he never saw them as brothers. He never saw them as more than a means to an end (or so he told himself)...and even if, buried deep, he did see them as something like a family, he never had the chance to show it.

(They weren't like him, though. They were different—they had been cast out—but none of them were anything like him...because, at one point, they had all been human. He's never had those shreds of humanity to tie him down...and maybe that's why he's never felt truly whole.)

But his ramshackle, patchwork, never-good-enough family was destroyed all those months ago in Dublith, and now his true (true?) family is gone as well, so he'll never know, now will he? Because now, all that are left of the once-proud Homunculi—the only ones who could understand how he feels, if only they would try—are the deranged father and the prodigal son, long away from home but finally returned. (And he tells himself it doesn't hurt to see his Father fallen so far.)

He tells himself that he felt anything but utter horror at Gluttony's death. He tells himself he does not care that the rest of his family is dead and gone, and he is the only one to remain. He tells himself the way his Father rips into his Stone, pulling out his very lifeblood and claiming it as his own, is not accompanied by an overwhelming sense of betrayal...

(Hohenheim has sons. Hohenheim has sons he would do anything for, whom he would never dream of harming in such a way. So why does the man's blood-brother do such a terrible thing with no remorse? In the end, is he not his Father's son?)

His brothers are dead, and he is dying; this much is clear as he finally convinces Ling to let go, to condemn him to the fate that perhaps he deserves. His family is gone when they once thought themselves invincible, and he can feel himself fading to nothingness as the humans below look on, expressions of utter horror flooding their faces.

They are his soul-brothers, surely, and they are important to him...but none of them can truly understand. He is not human; he has never been human; he does not understand them, and he thinks (as much as he needs that camaraderie) that he doesn't want to. His brothers are gone—the last creatures on this earth who could have ever understood him are gone—and so maybe he's embracing this death with open arms because he wishes to be gone as well. Soul-brothers—the dark and desperate desire for friendship that has burnt him from the inside out—are important and present and comforting, but in the end, he knows he'll never belong.

So when he grins down at Ling Yao and Edward Elric, it's not so much a comfort to them as a comfort to himself...because wherever he's going, maybe he and his brothers will finally understand.

Maybe, wherever he's going, he'll finally feel whole.