Unbeknown to most, Central was deeper than it was wide. As the country spread out around them, the Homunculi had delved down, down, like a worm in an apple, into the earth's marrow. Some places were cold underground, but some were hot, so hot the ground itself succumbed to the heat. As far as Envy knew, there was only one use Father had for molten rock: it was the best way to kill a displeasing child. He didn't use it often, but he did use it, and so he maintained easy access to it.
Envy had seen it happen only twice before – the blistering liquid siphoned up, up, through miles of solid rock and steel channels, into a cauldron big enough to hold any sin. And then the screaming began, as life after life burned away…
Envy had been threatened with that same fate more times than it could count. That was why none of the siblings liked venturing down to the lowest depths, where hot wind blew, where their faces were lit with ghastly orange light of the magma.
It was, quite literally, a place for the damned, and that is where Greed found Envy, on a narrow catwalk of stone and iron, with nothing but fifty feet of darkness between it and glowing, fiery doom. Envy was shocked that Greed had followed it. He, above all of them, abhorred this place. The shock didn't stop Envy seizing the nearest large rock and throwing it at Greed with all it's strength.
"Thought you wanted nothing to do with me! So have your way and leave me the hell alone!"
Greed ducked, narrowly avoiding the shot. "You always take things so damn personal. I wanted nothing to do with any of this – this family, this life. This lie."
"You must've burned a lot of bridges if you're turning to me for comfort."
"There's something I gotta say. I came down into this pit, so at least listen. Then I'll leave you alone, if that's what you want."
"Oh, it's about what I want, is it?" Envy sneered. "Go ahead and waste your breath."
"Alright. First of all, you're not angry."
"Oh? Then I'm doing a remarkable imitation."
"You think you're mad, but you're actually scared. You have a lot of experience breaking things, and none at all at making them. Now that you have something you'd like to keep, you're afraid you'll lose it. You've seen too many bad endings now to believe in a good one."
"So it's all in my head, this fear. Based on past experience, and nothing about this situation warrants it."
"Frankly? Yes. The only problem you have right now is yourself."
"That's strange." Envy's eyes were steely as they regarded Greed. "Because it seems to me I'm looking at a pretty big problem right now, and it's not a mirror."
"If the problem is me, why are you being all pissy with your human?"
"I suppose you'd need it explained to you," Envy said, through gritted teeth, "as your relationships are about as disposable as condoms. Fine. I had this crazy notion that what we had was between us. And then he gives you an invitation to come waltzing right in. Not only is the wolf at the door, but the door is open. And for some reason which I'm sure you'll find entirely irrational, that is not okay with me."
Greed rolled his eyes. "Fucking hell, you really do swallow everything Pride feeds you. What if Lotus Flower wanted to give you the satisfaction of turning me down yourself? What if he just didn't want to be our intermediary? Or, what if he wanted to see if you'd chose him over me, like he did for you? What if he has the same doubts?"
"He's not insecure like that."
"But you admit you are." Greed's voice was colored with wry amusement.
"He and I are not the same!" Envy snapped. "If he'd had several lifetimes of living with you, hating you, being fucked over by you again and again, he wouldn't trust a thing you say or do either!"
Greed took a deep breath. "…Alright, I'll give you that. I still say the issue lies with you more than me, but for whatever its worth, you don't need to worry about your human on my account. Like I said, I've wanted him…but I want him for you more than me."
"Bullshit!" Envy spat. "Next you'll tell me you're giving all your shit to charity and taking up a life of the cloth."
"My reasons are selfish, I'm not claiming otherwise. It suits me, the two of you being together. In fact, I gave him a few subtle pushes in the right direction early on."
Envy tilted its head slightly to one side, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Somewhere deep inside, a coil of doubt slithered, snake like, making Envy's skin crawl. "What do you mean?"
"He was already headed towards you, but I might've had a hand in helping him realize it."
"What, are you insane?" Beneath Envy's outrage, the question was in earnest. Either Greed was lying or his version of reality no longer had any similarity to the one in which Envy lived. "You were turning on the charm for him from the moment you met!"
"At first, yes. But he was already stuck on you, for reasons I can't imagine. So I figured if he's that crazy, well, he's right for you if anyone is."
"But-but you made that bet –"
"Because nothing makes someone want something like being told they can't have it. And nothing I told him wasn't true. You were about as unattainable as it was possible to be. I wanted to see if he was up to it, of if he'd do the easy thing."
"'Easy thing' being you?"
"Yeah yeah, laugh it up, I ain't ashamed. And since I know how your mind works – or doesn't work, at times – I know you're going to start freaking the fuck out about all this, now you know I had a hand in it. Don't. As he put it, you're well suited to one another. I had nothing to do with that. I just happened to see it before either of you did."
Envy said nothing for a long time. Its head was spinning. None of this could be true, it just couldn't. Because why…why…
"Why would you do that? If you thought he'd make me happy, I'd have expected you to kill him on the spot if you couldn't seduce him."
It was Greed's turn to be silent for a long time.
"I guess I wanted to see what you'd do. We do change, you know. So slowly you might not see it, but we do. Mostly it seems like you'd rather make things worse than make them better. But frankly, you never did have much to work with. None of us have. I wanted to see if you could do something right, given half a chance."
"We still come back to why. Why give me this half-chance now? You were happy enough to give me nothing at all for centuries."
"I said we change. We includes me. I realized a long time ago that there was nothing more to gain from being your enemy. You're right that we've done every horrible thing possible to each other, again and again and again. But I never saw an alternative. I never saw a side of you I'd want anything to do with. I saw nothing in you that I didn't hate…"
Greed stopped himself before he said too much, something that neither he nor Envy needed to hear spoken aloud: that he had seen nothing in Envy but a reflection of himself, his life, his family. He had wondered if Envy didn't have it the worst of all of them, for it seemed to embody all their sins both named and unspoken; a hellish chimera of vice and madness with no capacity for reason or hope for betterment. He had always pitied Envy in a way, but that pity only intensified his disgust. He hated Envy with the passion and vitriol with which he hated everything about his family, their excuse for existence. Envy wretchedness only reminded him of his own.
"Now that I see an alternative, I want it." Greed said, simply. "Anything would be better than what we have. For both of us."
"I still hate you. I hate you more than ever now." Envy's voice was broken, torn between rage and sorrow. "If you had…if even once…you could have been everything, all the difference for me."
Greed was shocked at the naked anguish in Envy's voice. Envy, who was pure lie even to look at, showing something true, something real.
"What good could've come from that?" His own voice was uncharacteristically gentle, although the truth was as harsh as ever. "We'd still've ended up hating each other. I can't save you from what you are, even if I was the type to try, because I'm no better. For the first time, it seems like you might be able to help yourself. I've never seen that in you before."
"It must be nice for you. Treat me like shit and then expect me to change when shit isn't to your liking anymore."
"Have you treated me any better? Don't you have just as much to gain as I do?"
"I don't know. You say you see something new in me. But aren't you still the same as ever? You say your motives are still selfish. So why should I want anything to do with you?"
"You've always wanted to do with me, kid." The typical swagger was back in his voice. "You gonna deny it?"
"Yes, as it's not true."
"It is true."
"Something doesn't become truth just because you say it."
"This isn't an argument you wanna have."
"Because it's ridiculous from the beginning."
"Really? If you don't want me, why do you make a point of playing around with my body on an infrequent but regular basis?"
Envy paled, then subsequently turned a bright shade of red.
"H-h-how do you –" Envy's voice was unnaturally high-pitched.
"Pride."
If one could die of embarrassment, Envy appeared on the brink of that fate.
Greed chuckled. "Don't have an aneurism. I bet anyone would do the same, if they had your abilities. Like looking at a dirty magazine, except you're the picture."
Envy still said nothing, nor reacted in any discernible way.
Greed arched a brow. "You alright?"
"No! I'm not alright! After nearly two hundred years you'd think I'd know what humiliation felt like! But life just keeps fucking surprising me in that regard!"
Envy brought its knees up to its chin and covered its head with its arms, as though trying to hide in itself.
"Yeah, this family does lack certain boundaries, no question there."
"How…how much does Pride watch…?"
"How should I know? My guess is that he has a good idea of what all of us do in the sack, because that information about a person can be useful. But I doubt he watches more than he feels is minimally necessary, considering himself above that sort of thing and all."
"Why did he tell you?!"
"Because he's a vindictive little fucker that likes to cause trouble."
"I wanna die…"
"Well, don't off yourself on my account. Nothing wrong with having a kinky side, so long as you admit it. Hypocrisy's the only thing to be ashamed of."
"I beg to differ."
"Told ya it wasn't an argument you'd win."
"Oh shut up!"
Greed chuckled, getting to his feet and holding one hand out towards Envy.
"Come on." He said. "Let's get out of this hell."
.
It was a long time later, when the free air of the surface touched their faces, that either of them spoke.
"So, what about your answer?" Greed asked.
"Answer to what, exactly?"
"You know what, exactly."
"I don't have an answer about that, although you've given me plenty to think about."
"Right. So what's it going to take, for you to start acting on what you're thinking?"
"I don't know." Envy said. "You're the master at seduction. You tell me."
"Playing hard to get, huh? That's fine, I like a challenge."
"Hard to get, and I'm not playing. Kimblee can tell you that much." Envy added, with a touch of ruefulness in its voice.
What Kimblee had offered had been relatively straightforward, after all. Even so, it had driven Envy to the brink of homicide and despair out of sheer confusion. Suddenly Envy was nostalgic for the violence between itself and Greed. Envy understood that so much better.
Hell, even in a standard, two-person relationship, I have a way of fucking it up…Envy reflected, remembering the way it had left things with Kimblee, the reason it had sought out the solitude of the deepest underground in the first place.
Speaking of which…
"Actually, there's something I'd like to ask of you." Envy said on a sudden whim. "If you want to seduce me…us, you can start now."
Greed grinned. "I'm listening."
.
Like clock-work indeed, that quiet knock upon his door after a fight. Sure enough, Kimblee found a contrite Envy standing outside his door. Right on schedule.
Envy held out a set of keys, while avoiding his eyes.
"Maybe I've been a jerk…but I got you a house, so don't be too mad, alright?"
He just stared at Envy for a long moment.
"Am I to be a 'kept' human?" He asked at length.
"Is that better than being a homeless human?"
"Not necessarily." He reached out and closed the fingers of Envy's extended hand around the keys. "You can't buy me off. Luckily, you don't need to."
"I'm not trying to. It's just…sometimes it seems like I make things worse instead of better. But I can make them better too."
With a sharp tug of their still-clasped hands, he pulled Envy abruptly through the threshold and into his arms.
"Whoever said that is, of course, entitled to his opinion." His voice carried a wry note which told Envy he knew exactly whose opinion it was. "But I don't agree."
"…Really?"
"I do lie, unlike some people, but I wouldn't about that."
He tightened his hold on Envy briefly, before letting go and turning to shut and lock the door.
"Besides," he continued, "I should have just giving him a flat-out 'no' to begin with."
"Yes…but it wasn't worth getting as mad as I did. I just can't think straight where he's concerned."
"I know. That's why I was willing to entertain the possibility for the three of us. It seemed as though your emotions towards him were more complicated than pure hatred."
"…And…if they are?"
His eyes widened slightly in surprise. A complicated relationship, that was plain to see, but he would have never expected Envy to admit it.
"If they are, then why not have something good come of it for a change?" Kimblee said, after a pause.
"More or less what he said."
"And what do you say?"
"…What I just said. I can't think straight about all this, it's driving me insane."
"In the end, it's not all that complex. If the answer isn't yes, then it's no. And I'm not getting much of a 'yes' from anything you've said."
"But…don't you want him too?"
"I would be a poor alchemist indeed, if I couldn't decline something I want in exchange for something I want more."
"Things would be a lot simpler if everyone thought like you did."
He snorted. "Human civilization would come to a screeching end, if everyone thought like I did."
"Exactly." Envy said, with a hint of his usual wickedness, wrapping his arms around Kimblee again. "Nice and simple."
.
"That's one thing that can be said of us;" Kimblee said, a long while later. "However much we fight, the make-up sex is always worth it."
Envy laughed throatily, turning over on his stomach and resting his chin on one hand.
"Hey."
"What?"
"You should stop being proud and accept my offer."
"For the house?"
"Yes. Stay home and cook and have my babies."
He snorted. "The life I've always dreamed of."
"Seriously, though. As one who's come from nothing, does the prospect of material acquisition hold no appeal for you?"
"Some appeal, more repulsion. If I can see the appeal, I'm in danger of falling into the same trap as many, who treat wealth and property as the pinnacle of their existence."
"You would never believe that."
"I used to. At one time I would have sold my soul for what you so casually offer me now, but back then my soul was as useless as the rest of me. I had yet to learn what is truly important."
"And that is?"
"Power, and freedom – two sides of the same coin, really. Attachment to anything else easily becomes a cage."
"Attachment to a person, for instance." There was a note of sullenness in Envy's voice.
"You're part of what makes me free. Isolation is nothing but being trapped in one's self. As I was, until you."
"You have all of this figured out better than I do." Envy said with a sigh. "I still wish you'd take the house though. Live in it as mine if you don't want it as your own. It'd be a shame to let it stand empty after what I did to get it."
"Oh?"
"I…may have…promised to go on a date with Greed in exchange for the keys…"
"Why, you little tart." Kimblee said, laughing.
"...At this point I can't really deny it, can I?"
"Actually you can. The only difference between a respectable woman and a whore is that the former sets a higher price." He frowned slightly. "On the subject of price, how much money does your brother have, if he can give a house as a courtship present? Not that we aren't worth that much, but still…"
Envy snorted. "I can't say how much money he has personally, but, well…when Father doesn't need him to fight, he manages our family's finances. Every source of profit in the country, legitimate or otherwise, Greed finds a way to turn to his advantage. It's quite literally the job he was born for."
"So in the scheme of all that, one house delegated to my use isn't a terribly significant expenditure."
"Right. Father wouldn't let Greed give divvy off chunks of real estate left and right to anyone he fancied, but you work for us anyway. If Father decided to review the financial details, which he usually doesn't bother with, he'd probably just consider it part of your payment. We've given more for less, in the past."
"Then I graciously accept your offer. As to the house. And perhaps the cooking, but as to the babies…"
"Tsk. You humans and your stubbornly fixed gender."
"I know." He lamented. "And we would have made such good parents, too."
This time they both laughed.
.
(A/N: So, there you go. Greed's life isn't all parties and sex. He has a pretty demanding job, as anyone who's dealt with mountains of tax forms and other finance-related paperwork will tell you. Needless to say, it's not an image he likes to cultivate, hahaha.
I'm not going to skimp on the upcoming...er...relations, but I'm getting antsy to start on the Ishbal arc and get some of the other cannon characters involved. Now that Greed and Every aren't providing wanton violence I need to get my fix elsewhere -_-'
Thanks for reading!)