RL for Greed;

[ironysoul]

Al had asked for a worldhop on the community. He'd told both Ed and Winry that he was going to Lior, but he could feel the pressure and anger growing inside him. He didn't want to explode again at his father -- Hohenheim was one of the only people left who wasn't pissed at him for something. And he didn't want to be that easy to find

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[material_guy]

Even a hardened gangster would feel his pulse race at a sight like that, looming in the far corner at absurd hours of the night, rustling out from the silence of a place so familiar that a shadow shouldn't have been able to hide without seeming out of place. But, Greed was no ordinary punk; the Devil's Nest was home to not only hulking, occasionally horned men like Roa, to crocodile teethed perverts--besides Greed, to crosses between beast and covert operation specialists, but even to the likes of Shou Tucker, the most terrifying trench coat flasher furry in all of Amestris.

It was the voice alone, the natural, sweet, youthful, and very much human voice that actually made him start. Greed blinked, froze, took a few seconds to process the situation.... and then returned to pouring his drink.

It'd have been sensible to ask how he got here, to ask any number of questions, but the fact that the kid was there probably means that he had something to talk about, so, there was really no need for those little conversation starters or pointless questions. Beyond that momentary hitch, Greed asked as if Al belonged there as much as any other alchemical freak of nature: "'Sup?"

[ironysoul]

Al came over to sit beside him, moving into the light. With no body, there was no way to tell the emotional toll the past few weeks had had on him.

He regarded the alcohol curiously. Except for a few viruses, he had no frame of reference for understanding being drunk. Sure, he could define it, or give a scientific explanation, but what it felt like? The pure, physical sensation was simply beyond him. But, for the first time in his life, he really, really, really wished he could get drunk.

He sat beside the homonculus with his elbows on the bar, and his chin in his hands. "I came to give you the secret of immortality. You said you wanted it, didn't you?"

[material_guy]

Silence so short yet so pregnant with hope and joy and love and such a slew of overwhelmingly positive, open, unGreedlike emotions bled into a single drawn out beat of a laugh as his mouth stretched as if to show off the sharpness of his back molars. "...Heeeeeeeeeeeee."

Drinks be damned. He sat his bottle and his glass aside, smacking the empty armor hardily on the back. "Great! You finally came to yer senses! That desperate for some help on this Promised Day thing, huh? I'm already six steps ahead of ya! It's a deal! Help make me immortal, and I'll use that immortality against whatever little bitch you need to stomp over there! Now, lay it on me!"

All of this was said while preparing to shield, entirely expecting to be spear handed through the chest by Envy, disguised as Alphonse Elric. That excitement, too real to be faked, was more at the prospect of another chance to crush that enemy down again.

[ironysoul]

Stupid Greed. Why was he getting excited?

"I'm dying, okay? That's the big secret!" In a huff, Alphonse pulled back and crossed his arms. "I'm dying! My soul is rejecting the armor, just like you said would never happen. T-ten years. Not even. That's how long your precious transmutation buys you."

The unfairness of it all was making his anger boil back to the surface, even though he'd begun to calm down after his argument with Winry. "One of these days I'm going to pass out again and just not wake up. Big heap of metal lying on the ground. Boom."

[material_guy]

...That really wasn't very exciting news. His guard, along with his hopes, dreams, excitement, and mood, dropped.

Back to the bottle.

"So you didn't do it right... Well, even if you're a genius, there's somethin' to be said for time spend studying and all that, I guess..."

Sure, Alphonse was having his first serious brush with death, that realization of mortality he had been so blessedly spared of for ten years, but Greed had one less lead on one upping someone who had done it right. He needed time to think, to consider whether or not his crew could work with an array that bought ten years, find flaws... but, testing it would take a long time. At least ten years, to see if any improvements worked... He wanted results now. He needed them now.

[ironysoul]

Al felt his anger growing as his hands pulled into fists. "Brother didn't do it wrong!" ...Sure, Al was furious with Edward, but that didn't mean anyone else could attack him. Never mind that an experimental transmutation, done by a panicked, grief-stricken and pain-blitzed adolescent was probably imperfect. "This is what happens, Mr. Greed. It doesn't last. It never lasts. The soul belongs in its own body."

This was hardly Al's first serious brush with death. There was, oh wait, that time when Al had been eaten by the gate as their transmutation lost control. Not to mention when Martel's blood had washed over his own blood seal, bringing back all his memories of the Truth. Al and Death were closer than most people ever got, let alone most almost-17 year olds.

"I'm going to die. I've spent half my life in this stupid tin can, and I can't taste food or hug anyone or feel -- feel anything, even when girls flirt with me, and I'm going to die like this. And no one cares. You don't, and neither do they."

[material_guy]

"He did it wrong," Greed dismissed. Clearly, Al's defensiveness over his brother's transmutation ten years ago--how young would that have made the kid...? Young, anyway. So young it was probably barely a double digit--was egotism rather than ration. That, too, was disappointing. People who were too attached to their research as perfection didn't usually make good scientists. He could say that much of Her; she was painfully, bitterly aware of her shortcomings in alchemy, always looking for the answer, for the answers, to perfect what Hohenheim seemed to have mastered. At any rate, her only problem had been deteriorating human forms, and even those lasted longer than a regular human body should have been capable of... More than ten years, more than a human's life time, easily.

So, Greed was certain that it had just been done wrong. Still. For someone who couldn't do it at all, right or wrong, a lead was a lead. He had other alchemists he could throw their work to, people less attached to delusions of perfection. The question was whether he could trust them. Someone else would have to be the test subject, but giving anybody else immortality was...

Ah. The armor was still talking. How annoying. He had to come over and make him think of business when he was trying to wind down from business, when his most vital business partners were asleep, when he wanted to just storm into their rooms, plop down on their beds with a note book of fresh research and tell them to get cracking!

Even more annoying, he had to go and say something even more stupid, still! Greed could feel a throbbing in his temple, a corresponding twitch in his brow. No one cared? They? They being that family unit of his? Maybe that shit spewing excuse for an old man didn't care, but just wondering how anyone could be so stupid about the kid, the chick and the chief was like trying to put together a puzzle made by some sadist, where there wasn't actually one coherent picture, and half of the pieces didn't have another one they were even capable of locking into. He could claim ignorance enough on alchemy to see how someone could really think something wrong was right, there. Science was weird like that. Blue flames were hotter than orange ones and it all defied common sense, but this kind of stupidity...

"Geniuses are such fucking idiots when they're not being geniuses..."

[ironysoul]

"The transmutation requires separating soul from body. Soul and body are always going to want to become one again. My body is beyond the Gate."

These were the simple truths of Alphonse's life. Nothing to do with right or wrong. And it hadn't even been a full ten years -- coming up on 8, now. Ed had been 10 at the time.

But Al snorts. "Right. They love me so much, they'd do anything for me -- maybe once, but... it's been eight years I've been like this. I'm just a burden, now." After all, a ten year old with no one but his brother was a lot more invested in that brother than an adult with sex and a career and a world to save. It had been made increasingly clear to Al that he was an imposition, a drain on their resources. And hardly worth the time, when he would be dead soon anyway.

[material_guy]

Greed wanted to argue the science, wanted to stick to that, wanted to demand his research and offer to prove him wrong, because he knew better, knew better, damn it! Someone could do it better. He literally knew better! Not the exact way to do it better, but...!!

But if he was going to sit there and say such stupid things, he couldn't even focus on immortality! He was pretty sure this kid was so damned stupid right now he wouldn't even understand how stupid something had to be to be so stupid he couldn't even focus on that one life long dream of a life so long the word life long lost all meaning!

So he could only stare, increasingly enraged over the rim of his glass, which he had finally sat down to keep from shattering in his grip. If it was taken as anger over anything else, it couldn't be helped.

[ironysoul]

Al laughed a little, but it wasn't a happy sound.

"It's okay if you don't agree, Mr. Homonculus. You're... not there... you don't see how things are."

He looked down at the table again, his eyes dimming. "Brother's got Winry now and she'd rather be with him, and Naoto has Kanji plus Brother... And having to take care of me when they'd rather be with each other is... They all have other things to be doing." Christmas had only been one example, but in the day to day shuffle Al still got left behind.

"Besides, who'd want to waste all their time on someone who's gonna die soon, anyway?"

[material_guy]

"You can't feel this," Greed allowed, shaking his hand out once to loosen a cramp from gripping a glass and trying not to break it before clenching a fist. "But you need it."

With that, he reared back, letting the other see the punch coming and going right for the helmet, aiming to knock it off and putting enough force behind it to earnestly try to blow through whatever raised arms or defense he might try.

Okay. It was true: a part of his motive may have been to actually see inside the armor, in person, for the first time. But he really did believe the stupid kid needed to be punched in the face, as if that'd really put some sense back into him even without feeling it. Greed was just a painfully opportunistic sort.

[ironysoul]

Al wasn't expecting it, and the blow came straight at him. If Greed wanted weird? Al's face registered shock even AFTER it has been knocked from his shoulders. And then his empty, headless body lurched toward Greed.

"What was that for?! Give my head back!"

He puts his hands on his hips, frowning.

[material_guy]

Watching the head knocked from the armor's form, letting the annoyance fade only slightly from his features, vindicated, he took the initial lurch to be the armor losing its balance without the soul connected to control it. This Greed wasn't entirely aware of how, exactly, the bloodseal worked. He put out a hand absently on Al's chest, to keep the husk from collapsing noisily and waking anybody up, expecting to be talking now to the dismembered head on the floor. "I---"

And then the voice was coming from the headless armor. Which was moving. "---Geh?! What... the..."

Greed pointed to Al. Greed pointed to Al's head. Greed pointed back to Al.

Finally understanding, he nodded, keeping his finger pointed at the actual base, where the other did indeed sit, however headless.

"That's right. That array's right there, which means..."

[ironysoul]

Yup. Al could "see", and move, without his head. Sighing in disgust, he stalked over to grab his head, setting it firmly back on his shoulders.

"You know, Mr. Homonculus, it's not very polite to knock someone's head off." There was a particularly passive aggressive tone that only Al could master -- but my, did he do a good job with it.

Strangely, he wasn't quite angry enough to punch back. Maybe that had helped focus him.

[material_guy]

"It's fine since you ain't using it." Greed wasn't sure if he meant that he wasn't using his head figuratively or literally as if seemed he has no real need of it to function, either. Maybe he was making a pun. Unintentionally witty? He'd believe it of himself.

Still, he had a point to make. Snorting and taking up his drink again, he clarified: "Think a little bit and I won't have to do that shit.

If you're not gonna give me even what you know on immortality so far, you're just an idiotic eye soar like this. Smart up or scram."

[ironysoul]

"Oh, it figures," Al spat, crossing his arms. "I forgot. Since you're best friends with Brother now, of course you'd take his side."

But the irony wasn't lost on him. He'd just told Greed about he was too troublesome for anyone to want him around, and here the Homonculus was, telling him to get out. The armor hesitated, then made a sound that Greed probably hadn't heard before. It started as a quiet keen, but gained volume as it reverberated inside the empty shell of his body. Al might not have tear ducts or excess moisture in his body, but his soul could still cry.

"I'm going to die. Probably in a few more months, a-and everyone's forgotten about me."