OOC: LOG POST
Who: Hohenheim wheresmyhouse and Envy
sexy_and_skorty
What: Hoho confronting Envy about digging up Trisha's remains
Why: WHY DO YOU THINK, HOHO R PISSED
Where: Risembool Cemetary
When: Mother's Day Late Afternoon, Early evening
Anyone who saw Hohenheim this evening would know that something was amiss. His leisurely walks were usually without direction or purpose, he merely ambled, as if in a constant daze. He walked with a clear purpose this evening, a sense of urgency, of anger in his strides. His first stop after getting off the train in Risembool had been his own home, which he expected now to be in shambles. To his surprise, it still stood, nothing out of place. Stunned, He had stopped and wondered if the one he was expecting had even bothered to show up.
No, he realized. He wouldn’t leave such an open threat unanswered. But surely he would have gotten here first.
Then a realization struck; it was the only place Envy would be, the only other place he’d find some twisted sense of satisfaction in his actions. He was at the cemetery, more than likely at Trisha’s own grave.
Hohenheim turned and adjusted his glasses, making his way to the cemetery to confront Envy. He had grown tired of his games.
Envy's fists hadn't grown sore yet as he slammed them into the grave plot over and over. The flowers had been mashed into darkened, soggy pieces. The headstone had been broken into so many parts not even a single letter could be discerned from the stone. The open grave and empty coffin had suffered the most--each strike from an inhumanly strong fist deepened the grave and broke the remaining pieces of coffin into splintered wood. By the time Envy was finished, the grave was going to be far too deep for any human to climb out of.
Axel could take care of himself, he realized. The Nobody was too hard to catch. But if he made a mistake, if he slipped up, Hohenheim would catch him. And that could only happen if Envy let it.
The small homunculus' entire body was trembling with fury as he destroyed the empty grave. How dare that bastard. How dare he? It had been nothing less than Edward had deserved. That fucking piece of shit had lied and he still didn't even realize it. And Hohenheim thought it was all Envy's fault?
With a snarl he drove a fist into one side of the grave and it came apart, spilling into half of the crater. Envy stepped back to watch the dirt crumple in front of him and balled his hands into fists as he surveyed the other half of where he stood inside the deep pit. Hohenheim would be there soon. Envy couldn't kill him. He'd tried. He'd tried so fucking hard and it never worked.
And if the old bastard didn't kill him first, he wasn't ever going to stop trying.
Hohenheim could hear the superhuman blasts as he neared the cemetery, and it only cemented his belief that Envy was right where he expected him to be. He strode up the dirt road without any caution, any fear. His hands were not in his pockets as they always were, but were instead being repeatedly clenched and unclenched in an attempt to get his blood pumping. He knew the chances he was taking when he made that empty threat about Axel. He would never pursue the young man, in fact, he genuinely liked him. He was glad that Envy had his company and would never seek to take it away from him. However, he had to goad him out into the open if he was to ever confront him, to punish him for desecrating Trisha’s grave and remains.
As he came closer, he saw the destruction that was being laid upon Trisha’s final resting place. He wasn’t sure if Envy was too busy causing wanton devastation to hear his approach, but he didn’t care so much either way. He walked up to the edge of gaping crater and stood staring down, fists clenched at his side, knuckles whitened.
“Haven’t you violated this place enough for one day, Envy?” he announced, his voice deep and strong. He refused to tiptoe around Envy anymore.
Envy had heard the sound of someone approaching long before he heard that awful voice. And at the sound of it he whipped around and looked up at the man staring down at him. There was nothing less than absolute hatred in his expression as he regarded Hohenheim. This Hohenheim, or his Hohenheim--it made no difference. Not when he hated them both. And this one he hated even more for being unable to stay dead.
He wasn't letting the Elric family do this to him any longer. Promise that he belonged only to so easily forget he was even there. Hohenheim was only so lucky that Envy hadn't gutted Ed and that bitch while they slept. It would have been too easy.
And now, more than ever, he regretted missing his chance.
The anger Envy had felt before wasn't anything compared to how it exploded with Hohenheim's sudden appearance. In a flash the homunculus had snatched up a piece of splintered wood from the rubble. Using his agility he flipped up the remaining dirt walls of the deep grave, feet barely touching them before leaving again.
Nearly an instant later he was above the ground, in the air, and was swinging the sharpest end of his weapon to tear Hohenheim's throat open. It didn't matter if the wound wouldn't last. It didn't matter if none of them lasted. He would kill the fucking old bastard as many times as it took until his Philosopher's Stone had used its last grain.
If Hohenheim hadn’t been focusing all of his attention on Envy, he never would have caught Envy’s movements in time for the strike. Unfortunately, he was nowhere near as agile as Envy, nowhere near the agility of Edward or even Alphonse for that matter. Regardless, he couldn’t afford to let himself be fatally wounded, at least not too much. He did not want to sacrifice anymore souls than absolutely necessary, though it was his goal to not use any at all.
He stumbled back as Envy near instantaneously closed the gap, his feet catching the loose dirt and sending him tumbling backwards. He felt the rush of air as Envy swiped something at where his head once was as he rolled backward. He had a vague sense of where Envy was, but until he could regain his bearings, Envy had full advantage. He had to create an opening, to disarm him somehow.
As he rolled away, he tapped the ground several time in quick succession with both hands. The ground erupted around Envy, a flurry of stone spikes, solid rock walls, and heaving earth quickly filled the gap between the two of them as he came up in a crouch, his golden eyes focused.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” he spat. It was the one question that had been on his mind for days now, ever since Envy began acting up for seemingly no reason.
He'd missed. That had been disappointing. At least Envy had been given the satisfaction of knowing he'd taken the slow bastard by surprise. That he nearly had removed his head.
The homunculus scowled as he was blocked. Did he think that would work? Did he really think Envy was so weak he couldn't break it all? Envy tossed the wood aside and darted forward. What did he think he was doing, Hohenheim had asked. What was he doing? Making them fucking pay.
One strong roundhouse kick broke the rocks and Envy was through the destroyed structures before they had even finished falling. A piece too large and far too heavy struck ground in front of him, leaving a small impact of its own in the dirt.
And so Envy flipped forward, hands landing on the edges of the broken stone. When he righted on his feet again he brought the block with him and heaved it straight for Hohenheim, using every bit of the inhuman strength he'd been given.
Envy wasn't there to spend some quality fucking time. And he wasn't there to let the old man think he could scold him into submission. He was there to make sure the trainwreck of an alchemist kept away from the only thing that had ever mattered to Envy.
Hohenheim watched Envy clear his obstacles effortlessly, his mind racing, going over possible tactics, choices, split second decisions and outcomes. He didn’t want to kill Envy, hell, he wasn’t even sure he really wanted to hurt him. He didn’t want to undo all the progress he had made with him in one fell swoop, but at the same time, he couldn’t just bend him over his knee and discipline him. This was not the time for his standard indecision. He had to act, and he had to make each word, each motion count.
He watched Envy vault over the stone, his hands at the ready as he sprang up, but he did not expect Envy to use the broken stone as a weapon. He jumped back a few steps to give himself a few moments, his palms outstretched.
“Why would you go this far?! Why to Edward of all people and not to me?!” he yelled out as the stone connected. A split second transmutation he had prepared turned the stone into a cloud of sand, but the impact left the bones in his hands and almost up to his shoulders shattered in various places. They would need a few moments to heal, moments that he knew Envy wasn’t planning on readily giving him.
Using the sand cloud as a bit of cover, he quickly transmuted a hole beneath himself and dropped into it, sealing it above him.
Envy sped forward into the cloud of sand and by the time it settled, Hohenheim was gone. What the fuck?! Was he running away? Was he hiding? Was someone even more immortal than a homunculus really that fucking scared?
Small fists balled so tightly that they trembled and he turned around, expecting to see the man behind him. Instead he was met with the debris he'd just gone through. But the stone had fucking connected. He'd seen it hit before it turned into dust.
Where the fuck had Hohenheim gone? He couldn't have run away. And he couldn't have flown. Was he underground?
Envy flipped back quickly and landed on an angelic gravestone, perching there like a cat and watching the ground with narrowed eyes. If the bastard had gone beneath him, there was no telling where he was now. Suiting, wasn't it? Rodents lived beneath the grass. Pests. Things people wanted dead.
"For every thirty seconds you stay hidden, I'm going to take some poor old fuck out of their grave," he threatened in a sickeningly sweet tone. And it didn't matter if Hohenheim could hear him or not. It wouldn't be anything new if he couldn't; the bastard never heard him.
One arm elongated and slammed into the ground beneath him, driving blindly through the rotting coffin lid to grasp onto skeletal remains. A few seconds more and he would be pulling a ribcage out of the earth.
Hohenheim heard the threat, and he had no intention of letting Envy desecrate any more remains. After a few seconds, he felt his bones knit, the pain subsiding in his arms. He felt the thunderous impact of Envy’s arm plunging into the dirt, he heard the shattering of the wood somewhere to his left several yards away. He focused and pressed his hands to the cold soil.
A moment later, an enormous stone hand erupted from the earth and grabbed Envy’s half buried arm and held it in place. A hole opened up not far from where Hohenheim had disappeared, the old man climbing out of it slowly.
He adjusted his glasses coldly. “Answer my question, Envy. Why do that to Edward. You have some semblance of brotherhood with him though you refuse to admit it.” He sighed, trying to keep his nerves cool. “You’ve never gone to these lengths before, you’ve never done something so twisted to get his attention. So, why? Why him and not me?”
As if to accentuate the point, the stone arm twisted hard enough to shatter bone and dislodge him from the headstone.
“I want you to give me a straight answer for once.”
The snapping bone drew a pained cry from Envy and seconds later he hit the ground hard, having been yanked from his place. But it didn't matter. If Hohenheim thought that he was a stranger to pain after living with Dante for centuries then he was sorely mistaken.
Envy's free arm shifted into a blade and with one swipe he'd removed the broken arm that was in the stone hand's grip. The homunculus rolled to his feet and jumped back and away as his arm returned to normal and his other began to slowly reform.
The smile on his face was far from friendly and he slammed the hand that hadn't been damaged into a nearby headstone, turning it to rubble. "Come on, old man," he taunted, having absolutely no intentions of answering those stupid questions. "Is that the best you can do? Is this what you made me come out for? You've wasted my time again."
He was beginning to think he shouldn't have come at all. If he wasn't going to be a threat to Envy this time, then he'd hardly be a threat to Axel, either. What a waste of a day.
The old man glared his “eldest son” down for a few moments. He had made up his mind before the first blows had been thrown that he could not hold back on Envy just like he wouldn’t hold back on Edward or Alphonse. Hohenheim’s expression grew sullen. He didn’t want to do this, but he couldn’t go back on his oath to himself. If Edward or Alphonse had grown as powerful, he couldn’t afford to be bullied by them. As a father, had had to assert himself, no matter the cost.
A dark laugh escaped his throat. In a way, this was almost like the night they spent at the carnival. A cocky young man goading his father into showing his strength. It was almost a game. Memories of that night flooded back to him, a lump catching in his throat. A lump that he forced back down with grim determination. Envy was his son, and if he had to beat him down, pummel him into the earth to show him, to break him of this delusion and get to the source of it all, he would not hold back any longer.
“Very well,” he grinned blackly. “If that’s what you want, Envy…I won’t deny you any longer.”
He took a deep breath and plunged his hands into the soil, focusing all of his mind on the many transmutations he’d be performing in rapid succession. The earth beneath Envy heaved suddenly, the soil turning to a thick mud, coagulating around and slowly climbing up his legs. The ivy and weeds that had ensnared many of the tombstones sprang to life and thrust themselves around Envy, bind him as tight as they could.
Hohenheim exhaled slowly and then it began.
The earth beneath Envy rose high into the sky, a spire of living rock and vines. It opened up like a great maw, swallowing him whole. The earthen esophagus erupted in razor thin blades of glass, created from the sediment between the stone and angled upward so that they sliced through Envy cleanly as he descended. The stone tendril thrashed wildly, making sure Envy grinded roughly through the glass blades as he bounced his way down.
At the base of the living stone spire, Hohenheim brought forth the metals in the earth, forcing the molecular structure to vibrate and heat, creating a pit of near molten metal awaiting Envy’s body.
Once Envy connected with the metal, he would cool it and transmute it into a pit of spikes that would close in around Envy. All he had to do was time it properly.
Fuck. Fuck. Envy hadn't expected the old bastard to actually do anything and it took him the time he'd nearly finished for the homunculus to even catch up to what was happening. That son of a bitch.
Envy fell through the earth that had swallowed him and every second another shard of glass sliced into his body and it hurt. They tore open his skin, leaving behind traces of blood on the glass that didn't imbed itself into his body, and creating even more pain for the ones that did.
Hands reached out to blindly grab onto the wall even as his palms were torn open at his attempts. Whatever waited at the bottom was hot--he could feel the warmth from there. And he didn't want to land in it.
Slender hands were coated in a hard, dark material as Envy mimicked Greed's shield. It wasn't quite as strong as his had been, but it was enough. Rock hard fingers dug into the fatal stone, leaving deep grooves as Envy slid down fast. Both of his feet attempted to plant themselves on the moving wall and the homunculus pushed away the pain of glass shoving through them as he fought to keep himself from falling.
Finally he stopped sliding, fingers dug deeply into the wall where he hung not too far above the pit of molten metal. The heat was slowly making his skin ache but that was the least of his concerns. Envy hung there, bleeding, panting, and hurting.
That fucking bastard.
"You always need your alchemy to save you," he laughed through the pain. "You're so weak. Without your pretty magic you'd be nothing. How like you to need to prove your worth by the amount of transmutations you can do. But they only prove how big a fool you really are, don't they? You're a joke. Like your sons."
He listened to Envy’s taunts and let them roll off of his broad shoulders. He wasn’t surprised that Envy had found a foothold and had managed to stop himself. In fact, he seemed to feel an almost twisted sense of pride in him. His tenacity was admirable, but Envy had wanted his best, and Hohenheim was far from done.
He focused and the stone spire collapsed in on itself, the inner walls smashing and grinding together, twisting around Envy like a whirlwind. Hohenheim changed his tactics then as an idea occurred to him. He focused his mind again and the spire sank back into the earth, the soil and rock shifting back into what it had been as it spat the homunculus out onto the ground.
Hohenheim stood and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“If you wish for me to fight you hand-to-hand under my own strength, I will do so.” He grimaced. “I will do whatever is necessary to get the answers I seek tonight.”
The hard impact drove shards of glass deeper into Envy's small body and he gasped in pain and stayed there, knowing Hohenheim wasn't going to kill him. Some of the glass had gone too deep and his body was already healing the wounds, pushing the foreign objects out to fall onto the grass.
Fight him hand-to-hand? Envy laughed again as he pushed himself to his hands and feet, shifting away the rips in his clothing. "Even your own son can't fight me without his alchemy," he spat. "And he has twice the agility and intelligence you do."
The homunculus flexed his fingers as he quickly ran through options in his head. He already knew that his own hand-to-hand combat skills were superior to those of the other homunculi. Even Greed had had a difficult time catching him before he'd died.
Envy set his hands on his hips, lifting his head regally. "I'm leaving."
Hohenheim had little time to think, and he needed something that Envy wouldn’t expect. Envy would expect alchemy, a transmutation of some sort. What wouldn’t Envy expect?
He paused for a second and then without warning, sprung into a run, withdrawing his hands from his pockets and cocking an arm back, balling it into a fist.
Several paces away from Envy, his foot drove into the soil, a small transmutation causing a wave of earth to erupt behind Envy and thrust him forward as hard as it could, propelling him with ferocious intensity into Hohenheim’s fist.
“I’m a man first, and an alchemist second, Envy.” He growled. “I am not above using my fists!”
The instant something hit his back, Envy was thrown forward with a furious snarl. The bastard had cheated!
Quickly he brought his hands up to catch onto the fist aimed for him. The force of his palms connecting with the strong hand hurt enough to make the pain radiate along his arms and into his shoulders, but it was better than his face. He used his grip on that hand and his strength to jump upward and flip himself well over Hohenheim's head.
"Still you use your alchemy!" he mocked as he easily soared over him. " Weak!"
The moment his feet hit the ground he flipped backwards a small distance, landed on his hands, and spun his feet around to slam them into the man's back so he could send him flying.
Hohenheim grinned. He wanted to force Envy into a counterattack where he could directly make contact with him. He feinted falling forward from the inertia of his initial strike, and as soon as Envy’s kick landed, the fabric of his coat wrapped around and snared his leg. Hohenheim indeed flew forward from Envy’s powerful kick, his ribs cracking from the force, but he had managed to spin and snag his quickly unraveling coat to complete the transmutation. He forced the fabric to wrap itself and bind Envy up before he gave one solid yank, his free flying momentum enough to pull the homunculus to him. He clasped his arms around Envy’s torso into a tight bear hug as he grinned.
“I already told you I would do whatever it took to get answers from you tonight, Envy. I’ll use whatever abilities I have, just like you!” he almost laughed as they plowed through another gravestone and hit the ground.
And after Hohenheim had said he would fight Envy with only his fists. He was so good at lying, wasn't he? Envy slammed into the ground with the old bastard on top of him and he emitted a furious snarl. What the fuck did he think he was doing?
If he wanted to use his alchemy, then Envy would, too. He wasn't doing this shit anymore. His hands clapped together, hit the ground, and created a block of stone on either side that would catch the man between him and lift him high into the air.
"Don't fucking touch me!" Envy hissed
Hohenheim laughed as he turned the stone forming between him and Envy to dust just by coming in contact with it.
“This is far from over, but it looks like I have to try my hand at one last tactic. I certainly hope this works.”
He quickly pushed himself off of Envy and slammed his hands to the ground, transmuting three small stone spikes from the earth. They erupted from the ground and plunged deep into the red nodes on Envy’s body; two on the shoulders and one on his spine. Once they pierced the flesh, the expanded like grappling hooks and yanked him to the ground, holding him.
Before Envy had the chance to flip himself up and out of the way, something happened that hadn't happened since Dante and Sloth sealed him. He felt the familiar feeling of something sharp ripping through the sensitive array on his back. The pain of those nodes being torn apart stunned him and he found himself pinned, staring down at the three hooks sprouting from his chest to keep him there.
No matter how hard he tried, he could hardly move, and he felt that familiar fear trickling down his spine that somewhere, beneath the ground he was lying on, Hohenheim had hidden the transmutation circle to destroy him.
And that was why he had wanted to see Envy.
"You-" Envy struggled to find his words and to keep himself composed. And as furious as his expression was it did nothing to hide the fear and betrayal in his violet eyes. "You bastard. Worthless, cowardly, pathetically weak bastard. I'm going to fucking kill you. I'm going to tear every limb from Ed's body and then that bitch's and then I'll kill you after you've watched!"
Hohenheim breathed a sigh of relief and flopped onto his ass on the cold ground next to Envy. He picked up the tattered remains of his coat and looked at it a bit sadly. It was his favorite coat after all. He could fix it later though, he surmised and tossed it aside for the time being.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, trying to remember the last time he had been so winded. Nothing came to mind as he allowed himself to relax a bit.
After a few moments he scooted over nearer to Envy.
“Calm down, Envy. I merely did this to keep you from ripping me from limb to limb at the moment.” He paused briefly. “Now please, tell me why you would do something like this. Why you would dig up Edward’s mother’s remains. This isn’t like you. You’ve never gone to these lengths before. I just want to know why.”
"I hate you!" Envy spat, trying his hardest to get free and hardly moving at all. "I fucking hate you! Seeing you and hearing you and knowing you're still alive makes me sick. You're so fucking disgusting and lazy you can't go a day without using your alchemy. You're weak. And your sons are weak. And your ugly bitch was weak. And when your little shits die and you're still alive, I'll bring you their bones on their birthdays. And on Christmas. And every holiday you'll wake up to see their rotting faces until it's driven you mad and you'll never be able to sleep again." Envy's laugh was a little less than sane and his eyes had glazed from the pain of the bleeding wounds that weren't healing. "I'll make you so miserable you'll wish you'd died before you met Trisha. I'll make you regret being born."
He wasn't going to tell Hohenheim anything. It wasn't his fucking business because the old man had decided on his own that it wasn't important. Let him sit and die trying to figure out the cause. Watching the fumbling idiot trying to solve a problem until the day he finally died would provide Envy with an endless source of amusement.
Hohenheim removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he let Envy rant. With his tirade finally spent, Hohenheim looked at him.
“I am weak, Envy. You’re absolutely right. And don’t think I’m saying this to appease you. I’m saying it because I agree with you.” He sighed. “I was never strong, and compared to you, the only advantage I do have is my alchemy.”
He sighed heavily.
“I don’t know what to say to you or how to properly apologize to you. I want to, but I can’t unless you tell me what I did wrong. The weekend we spent together as a family were the happiest days I’ve had in years. And I would give anything to have you back again, son. Except I don’t want you as the person you were in that delusion, I want you as you are now. As Envy and nothing else.”
Son? Envy laughed bitterly, jarring the hooks sprouting from his bloodied chest.
The old bastard didn't know what he was saying. That he didn't want Envy as that delusion he'd been. The Envy that he was claiming to want was the one who would remove Trisha's remains from her grave again. And he would enjoy it more each time. And he would do whatever he could during his time as a "family" to make each one of them miserable. Whatever the old man thought he knew, he was wrong.
A week ago Envy had honestly believed that he had wanted to be a part of their family. That he really belonged with the pieces of shit that should have been dead years ago. All because of that fucking disaster. And Ed had so easily forgotten everything he'd ever promised no more than a few days later. Fuck him. And fuck Hohenheim for not even noticing.
"I've told you before that I'm sick of your shit, Hohenheim," he hissed. "I don't want to hear your voice. I don't want to even see you. Knowing you're alive is enough. If you aren't going to let me go, then kill me. Fuck you and your made up stories. I'm not a little boy. I don't want to hear your fairy tales before you tuck me in and kiss me goodnight." Violet eyes drifted upward to the face he hated so much and his own twisted into an expression of bitter hatred. "You're not my father. That was nothing but an illusion and you know that. I'm not some happy little fuck that wants nothing more than to spend time with his dear daddy. All I want is your pain."
Hohenheim sighed. Envy had an answer for everything, he questioned and distorted every action until it suited his perception, until it justified his reasoning. He could speak until he was blue in the face, but Envy would never believe him and he wasn’t telling him why he would act out like this.
Either way, it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t Envy’s usual way of doing things and he had to figure out why he would do something like this. He closed his eyes and went about the events that had transpired over the past few days. He remembered speaking with Edward and Envy, as he usually did, but something about one of his more recent conversations with Edward nagged at his consciousness. Something that didn’t sit right.
It must have seemed like an eternity for Envy as Hohenheim sat there, mumbling to himself as if he were just an old man dozing. But then a realization struck Hohenheim. He had been so damn careless, so unfocused that he had made such a critical error. Or rather, failed to correct a critical error.
“I know what this is about” he said in a hushed tone.
Hohenheim rubbed his eyes, sighing.
“I’m sorry, Envy. I’m sorry that I didn’t correct Edward when I should have.” He paused.
“I could give you excuses now, I could explain why I didn’t think to correct him, but you wouldn’t believe them anyway. All I can do is apologize. And I realize now that you acted out because you had felt that we had forgotten about you. It’s not the truth. I don’t forget about you even though sometimes it seems like I do.”
He scratched his beard thoughtfully.
“I want to let you up,” he began “but you’ll just attack me or run away. I don’t want that anymore. This game of cat and mouse has to end, Envy. So, there’s only one thing I can think of doing to bring you down to a more reasonable level.”
He sighed as the hooks holding Envy shifted and flipped him over so that he laid face down on the cool grass.
The movement sent a wave of pain through his body and Envy hissed, gritting his teeth and waiting for the burning to pass. What the fuck was he doing? Was he going to bury him alive? If he was going to let him up then why he was still toying with him? The hooks were still there, aggravating the wounds further as he was moved.
It wasn't fair. Homunculi were so powerful and perfect and yet he couldn't do anything when he was pinned through that array. It was no better than the threat of his human remains. Paralyzing a homunculus was the only way to catch them and destroy them and it wasn't fair.
"Alphonse is home, isn't he?" The smile was clear in Envy's voice. "The instant you let me up, I'll be there to pay a visit to poor, useless Al. And when I destroy that bloodseal of his, you'll have lost both your sons at once. I won't even need to see that midget's face again to kill him. The only one I'll see is yours as you realize I've taken everything from you. I'll never forget the picture your ugly face will make. It'll be in my memories forever. Because I never forget anything about you. I still remember when you left."
The last word was hissed with so much hatred that it made Envy's own throat tighten. That fucking bastard.
Envy was already imagining it. He'd use his enhanced speed to make it to the house where he would find that scrap of metal. It was too easy to overpower the youngest Elric brother. And all it would take was the removal or breakage of that seal--that was a true weakness.
When the seal was gone, Edward would fall dead wherever he was. And it would be such a fucking pity that Envy wouldn't get to see the face of Edward Elric as he died once and for all.
A long bout of silence proceeded Hohenheim’s next words.
“No. You won’t.”
Hohenheim pressed his palms gently to Envy’s back and closed his eyes. He focused on source of Envy’s power, the red tincture, the powerful stone composed of countless souls. He listened and slowly began his work of removing the “stone,” like blood from Envy’s body. He forced it out through the numerous wounds, let it seep out and away from his son. His brow furrowed and he began to sweat as the cacophony of voices rose in pitch and ferocity. He listened until the cries of those lost souls grew quiet, until there was silence.
He pulled his hands away, not wanting to drain the life from his son, and placed them on the ground, quickly retracting the small stone grapples.
The moment Envy felt hands on his back he knew what was happening. That the power of the stones was being taken out of his body so that he'd be as weak as he'd been the moment he'd been born. The stones were what gave them all their power and without them they'd be nothing more than human. Like Wrath had been, with the exception of his stolen limbs that kept him from being weak.
Envy felt a cold chill run down his spine. Hohenheim was taking away what gave him the ability to regenerate. What helped to separate him from the humans. What gave him his fucking shapeshifting.
"Stop!" he nearly screamed. It was being taken from him. His identity was being stolen from him. "HOHENHEIM!"
Those red markings that spread from shoulder-to-shoulder vanished as the last of the red stones were forced out of him. The absence of them suddenly made the pain worse. And he was overcome with sudden dizziness as he felt what he hadn't for so long.
Weakness. Powerlessness.
The grapples were yanked from his body and the blood flowed quicker and he didn't care. Now he could move. And that was what he did. He dragged himself across the grass to the nearest headstone, gasping and panting, and fighting so hard to keep his form as it was.
With the absence of what gave Envy every source of his power, there was nothing he could do. He'd managed to make it half-behind a large gravestone before everything began to change. The small, slender, and pretty form began to change, starting from his toes and upward.
Envy made a small, choked sound as he felt the forced transformation and he could hear the shift in his voice with even that much. He'd rather die than let that bastard ever see this.
Hohenheim watched as Envy crawled away, but he made no move to help right away. He saw the trail of blood in the grass and realized that without his powers, he couldn’t heal.
“Envy,” he began quietly as he stood and followed his son, “I have to heal you or you’ll bleed out and die.”
He walked slowly, cautiously around the tombstone to Envy’s huddled form. He calmly placed his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Come now, let me heal those wounds…” he offered, as comfortingly as possible.
It felt wrong being unable to control what he looked like. Being unable to get rid of one thing and create another. Envy's hands fisted in his thick hair as he fought to remember how to even breathe. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't fucking be happening.
The strong hand on his shoulder startled him and he launched himself forward to scramble behind another stone. The thick, wild texture of his hair changed into something softer and a shudder ran down his body. The comforting feeling of long hair to his thighs was gone to be replaced with an all-too-light feeling of hair that settled just beneath his shoulders.
When Envy covered his face he could feel the difference in his features. They'd become more masculine. The face of a handsome young man who had been eighteen--an new adult--before his death. Golden hair fell over his hands as he hunched his back to hide his head between his thighs.
This couldn't be happening! It was one thing to let Edward see it and it was something else so different to let the bastard who had created him see it. He was Envy and he was a homunculus and he controlled his appearance. He controlled what he did. He'd given himself the perfect form so that nothing would ever resemble the face he'd been born with. Dante had hated that face. Envy had hated that face. He hadn't even been able to look into a mirror until he'd changed it. Now he'd been forced to wear it again and his mind was clouded with memories that weren't even supposed to be his.
"Keep away from me!" The voice that normally would have been a cold, mocking snarl had been forced into a deeper tone that made it harder to hide the hurt. "Don't look at me!"
Hohenheim stood, stunned at the voice he was hearing. It certainly wasn’t Envy’s though there was a tinge of familiarity in it. He moved to the side a bit, enough to catch a glimpse of golden blonde hair.
Realization crept over his face. He had remembered what Edward had told him about Envy’s true face. It caused him to hesitate now and he could feel a cold sweat on his skin.
Nevertheless, Envy was still bleeding and badly. He had to heal him and he had to do so now. He walked over slowly, and placed both of his hands on Envy’s shoulders again from behind. This time though, he kept a firm grip despite the fact that his hands were shaking. He held him in place as best he could and began to close his wounds.
“Calm down, Envy…” he almost whispered in a shaky voice. “You don’t have to look at me, I just don’t want you to die. I’ll be done in a moment.”
Envy threw himself forward when those hands touched him and found himself being held in place. He wasn't supposed to be touching him or standing near him or even speaking to him. Why was it so fucking hard for Hohenheim to listen to him?! He didn't want to be helped and he didn't want to be helped by him.
This wasn't a face he'd ever wanted the man to see. Hohenheim had no fucking right to even hear his voice. The human he'd transmuted had been dead for centuries and he wasn't ever coming back. The face Envy had been born with wasn't his. It was a borrowed face that belonged to some poor fuck whose own father had likely been the cause of his death. He was a homunculus with his own face and his own body and his own fucking memories.
He whirled around in a fury, bright amber eyes possessing the same cold, bitter expression Envy's eyes usually held. One fist swung for Hohenheim's jaw before he'd even had to think about it. All he knew was that he needed to get out of there and fast. He was going to pound the man's face into something so unrecognizable not even dental records in the modern world would help because he'd destroy every last bit of him with his bare hands, power or no power.
"I SAID TO KEEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!"
Hohenheim’s eyes widened and his head snapped back as the punch connected, but he refused to let go. Even as Envy struggled he had begun to heal the grievous wounds and he would not let go until he was done.
Edward was right. He himself couldn’t believe just how much Envy’s true face looked like his own so many centuries ago. But as jarring as the revelation was, it’s not what he truly wanted to see. The young man he wanted to call his son didn’t have a face like that. He was different.
He slowly turned his head back to Envy, glasses cracked and hanging precariously from his face, a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth.
Even so, there was a smile on his face. Not a mocking smile, nor was it one of glee. It was kind, his eyes brimming over with tears.
He finished healing Envy, a lump in his throat.
“You were right, Envy.” His voice barely above a whisper. “This face that you have isn’t the face of the one I want to call ‘son.’”
He wrapped Envy in a stiff embrace, unable to help himself.
“I’m sorry…I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted you to think I forgot about you. You are Envy, and no one else. My eldest son. And I will take as many punches as you want to dish out so that I can learn to be a better father for you”
It wasn't supposed to go like this. Hohenheim was supposed to call him an abomination. He was supposed to turn his back and walk away like he'd done before. Even if he'd been nothing but a steaming pile of flesh and bones and organs when he'd been born, Envy could still see the look on Hohenheim's face as he stared in horror at the monstrosity he'd made. And he remembered watching him leave him there in that transmutation circle with words that that monster wasn't his son.
But Hohenheim hadn't even waited long enough to see the face he'd have once he'd eaten the red stones. He'd just left him there to die. So why wasn't he doing it again? It didn't matter if this was a Hohenheim not from his continuity, because it was Hohenheim. The heartless bastard who walked away from his family. The same man whose blood had run through the human Envy had been created from.
If he'd just fucking stayed then he wouldn't have had to spend all those centuries alone with no one but mediocre homunculi and Dante to talk to. It could have been different if his father had just fucking cared.
The same hand that Envy had struck Hohenheim with gripped onto the back of the man's vest where his fingers held it tightly enough so there'd be wrinkles there when he released it.
Envy didn't want to be William. He'd thrown that face away for good the day he had created his own appearance. He just wanted to be Envy and he wanted to die as Envy. Not someone he wasn't.
He blamed the weakness of being so mortal for the growing lump in his throat and the burning in his eyes. Being accepted as Envy was what he wanted. And Hohenheim had always refused to do just that.
Hohenheim felt a similar lump in his throat, and he felt warm tears trickling down his aged cheeks. He hugged Envy tightly now, not wanting to let him go. He wasn’t sure if Envy was hugging back or if he was just trying to keep his emotions from bursting out.
“I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry. If I have to tear my throat raw with apologies, I will. I won’t forget you. I won’t turn away from you. I won’t let you look at my back any longer.”
“I just want you to talk to me. I want to hear your feelings. Everything. I want to be there.”
That wasn't something he wanted to do. Envy wasn't going to sit and talk to anyone like he was some normal human boy who wanted nothing more than to chat. All he wanted was to gut every human he possibly could. This didn't change anything. It didn't change that he would erase the humans from every surface. It didn't change his bloodlust and it wouldn't make him enjoy it any less.
One Hohenheim had rejected him for four centuries and another was suddenly accepting him. Envy wasn't going to trust him so easily. Not when it had been so simple for him to pass over what Ed has done.
"I want them back. I don't want this fucking face on." If Hohenheim didn't have any spare incomplete Philosopher's Stones, or anything that compared to it, then he couldn't go home. He wasn't going anywhere looking like this. "I want them now." Fingers twisted a little harder in the vest and he tried to swallow past the hard lump. "Give them to me. I can't look like this."
Hohenheim pulled away a bit and held Envy out at arm’s length. He was about to ask, to confirm what Envy was saying, but thought better. Of course he couldn’t use any of his powers. Not like that. But he didn’t want Envy to think he was keeping him like that because it’s who he wanted him to be. He thought for a second.
“I don’t…I don’t have anything that would substitute for a stone, Envy. I would offer my blood if I thought it would do the trick, but that is not the true essence of the stone. I would offer you my soul if I could if it meant giving you some of the power, but I cannot do that either. But I can offer you your room back home. I can offer you a roof over your head and a warm bed, even if you don’t even want to leave it until Axel comes to retrieve you.”
He paused for a second, wiping his eyes.
“Though I’m sure you won’t accept, that room is yours and will always be yours. You will always have a home with us…should you choose to stay. I would never chase my sons out. I can’t apologize enough for forgetting what I did, for not paying enough attention.”
Envy's expression darkened and for a moment he forgot he wasn't even in his own body. Stay there? His only home hardly included any of them. It didn't matter what he was or if Hohenheim was his father and the Elric boys his brothers. It didn't matter if Hohenheim and Edward wanted him to live there. Homunculi didn't have families. They didn't live together with humans. Envy had only ever lived in the same location as the rest of the homunculi because of Dante. And he had tolerated them at most, using many of them for target practice.
"This doesn't change anything." And the different tone hardly hid Envy's own personality. "I don't belong here and I'll never belong here. I'm not some fucking little boy. I'm not going to sit around and play house with you."
It was something that made him feel filthy to even imagine. Living beneath the same roof as the Elric family? Envy? He'd sought to kill them all for years and now Hohenheim thought that he could live so easily with them?
"I'd never let any of you have any peace," he replied, a thinly veiled threat in his tone. It was William's face, but it was Envy who was wearing it, and the twisted grin he wore matched the homunculus' own. "You think being my father changes anything?"
Hohenheim pulled away and knelt in front of his son.
“I don’t think of you as a little boy. You’re as old as I am. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a man. But just because you’re a man, it doesn’t mean that I will stop loving you as my son.”
He smiled a bit. “And I know this doesn’t change anything. But to be honest, I wouldn’t want to change you. I wouldn’t want peace and quiet. Just you. Anything after that is meaningless.”
He stood slowly and offered his hand to his son. “Come on now.”
Was he doing it on purpose now? Did he want Envy to laugh at him? He slapped that hand away and stood on his own. In this form he was far taller than his preferred and he could more easily glare directly into the man's eyes.
"Is that what you want?" he laughed bitterly. "You want me to dig up that dead woman of yours for Mother's Day every year? You want me to beat Edward within an inch of his life? You want me to destroy your home? To make you and your family so miserable you'll want to kill me? Is that what you're asking for, Hohenheim? Because that I can do."
He cocked his head, making the movement for William's body look a little unnatural. But it hardly matter since this body belonged to Envy now and he'd do whatever he pleased with it.
"You don't know what it is you're asking for. You couldn't even follow through with your threats. You told the shrimp that you were going to severely hurt me for what I did. You've done worse before."
“I didn’t follow through with my threats because, quite frankly, it would only prove to you more that I hated you, when I don’t.” Hohenheim was indeed surprised. He was unaccustomed to seeing someone who looked so much like himself match his height. In the back of his mind, he realized just how grown Envy was.
“But I do know what I want, Envy. And what I want is for you to stop this endless cycle of retribution. You’re better than this. I know you can be. I might not deserve it, but Edward does.”
He stepped over to his tattered coat and scooped it up, transmuting it into something more fitting of Envy’s size. He walked over and draped it about his son’s form, whether he liked it or not.
“The fact of the matter is, I believe now, more than ever, that I would want nothing more than to be the father you want. You say ‘your kind’ don’t have families, but all manners of beings have families. They just have different interpretations. But I won’t bore you with my opinion.”
He sighed.
“Just know that I love you, son. And I won’t turn my back on you. I won’t forget you anymore. Never again.”
As the coat was draped over his shoulders, Envy scowled and turned his face away. He hated being so ugly. He hated this fucking face. The hair. The eyes. The height. Everything about it was so unappealing and everything about it screamed Hohenheim. It was the face of what his own Hohenheim had fathered. And that wasn't Envy. It made his skin crawl.
Out of habit he tried shifting forms and his scowl deepened when nothing happened. This wasn't fucking natural. Him standing there, looking so human, with the bastard who had created and then left him. Trying to kill him again wasn't going to do any good. He was even more immortal than the homunculi were and he wouldn't ever stay dead.
It wasn't so easy to accept it all. Even if Envy thought there might be some sincerity in the man's words, it didn't make a difference. He'd taken care of himself for centuries, only pretending to depend on Dante because sticking with her meant playing with more human lives.
Envy shoved by him, fists clenched inside the coat that was hanging from his shoulders as he walked away. "Better than this? What would you know? I don't give a shit about what the shorty deserves. I come first. Me. And if what I want makes him miserable, then that makes it better. Fuck you and your ideas of a family. I don't need one."
“I know because everyone has the capacity for good, just as everyone has the capacity for bad. I’m prone to mistakes just like you are, just like Edward is. And I won’t lie, I make plenty of them. But please…I don’t want you to just act out when I hurt you. Even if you don’t forgive me…even if you scream and holler at me, even if you attack me…please…speak with me.”
He followed the young man, with each step slowly transmuting the ground back to the way it was before their skirmish took place. Each step slowly mending the toppled and shattered tombstones.
“Whether you need it or not, you have a family. I don’t expect you to come live with us. To play house and to try and be the picture-perfect family. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be a family in another sense. You’re old enough, intelligent enough to be on your own. To live on your own and make your own choices. I respect that and I respect you for that fact. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be civil. That we can’t spend time together.”
Spending time together and pretending they had anything in common. Envy's idea of spending time with another person, when it didn't include their death, included death and destruction of others. And Kimbley was perfectly suited for that part of Envy. Which was something Hohenheim could never do.
There wasn't any way for them to spend time together. Not unless Hohenheim would enjoy complete silence until Envy grew bored and broke everything in sight. Envy could hear Hohenheim following him and he glanced over his shoulder to glare.
"Spend time together?" he snapped. "And do what? Talk? Talk about our differences? You already know those: everything. How about our fucking similarities? Nothing. My hobbies?"
The twisted grin didn't fit with William's features. He hadn't ever been the son Envy was. His face hadn't been made for cruelty gained out of the suffering of others. That was Envy's face.
"I enjoy making humans suffer. I don't need to cut them into pieces to hurt them. If I wear the right face and use the right words, I can make them hurt themselves. Now where does that leave us, Hohenheim? You've already come to learn everything about me in a matter of seconds. Now what do we do? Play some cards? Chess? Watch a movie? Or why don't you sit in on one of Kimbley's experiments with me? There's some fun."
Hands settled on hips and Envy rolled his shoulders in an attempt to relax the tense muscles there. Maybe Hohenheim was right. This was kind of enjoyable.
"Oh, my, I've forgotten. You're a coward. You can't sit and watch an innocent die, can you? You can barely stand the thought of hurting someone who deserves it. What does a coward do when he isn't hiding from his mistakes? Create new ones?"
Hohenheim ignored Envy’s taunts and tried his best to lighten the mood. For some reason, he began to feel a bit at ease. Not because Envy had been stripped of his powers, not because he felt he had won or accomplished anything, but merely because they were talking. Something he had wanted so badly as of late.
“You know, just because you don’t have many hobbies now, that does not mean you never will.” He quipped. “In fact, with your talents, you could say that acting is a hobby of yours. You know how to get into character better than anyone in the world. That in itself is impressive. Besides, no one knows what will happen tomorrow…” he trailed off as he smiled, closing the gap between himself and Envy.
Acting?
Envy sneered. His skill wasn't for the amusement of others. It was used to infiltrate to find information he needed. And when he wasn't using it for that, he used it to hurt however many people he could. Taking on the appearance of a loved one before killing them was a favorite. Dear dead Hughes knew that.
"Don't fucking insult me," he snapped with an expression angrier than his tone. "You think you're so funny, don't you? I'm leaving. There's nothing worth my time here. You've already wasted enough of it."
He yanked the coat off and threw it onto the ground, not even bothering to hand it back to Hohenheim. The old bastard would clean it using his alchemy since he was too fucking useless to clean it without his little big of magic.
Hohenheim scooped up his coat quickly and snagged Envy’s arm, his face and tone equally serious.
“I wasn’t trying to insult you, Envy nor was I trying to make a joke. Really, it’s a talent no matter how you look at it, and really, I was just trying to make conversation.”
After a moment his face softened. “I’m just trying to talk with you. I don’t care about what, but you don’t provide me with many conversational topics. But I’m trying nonetheless for you.” He placed the coat back over Envy’s shoulders. “Right now, you don’t have your powers, so please, I’d rather you didn’t catch cold, even if it’s for a single night. Let’s go home for the time being. There you can contact Axel and he can come get you. I don’t expect you to stay, I don’t even expect you to leave your room. I’m just offering you a room for the night.”
He kept his hands on Envy’s shoulders firmly but not angrily. He just wanted Envy to sense how serious he was about this, how true his feelings and concern were. He wanted Envy to see just how hard he was trying. All for his sake.
Sleep there, under the roof of humans? Where Roy Mustang would easily locate him? It wouldn't matter had he his powers, but without those stones, he could be killed in one go. Like a fucking human. Envy tried to shrug out of the hands on his shoulders and took a large step back.
"I can teleport myself out of here."
Even if it meant walking through the Darkness corridors without any means of protecting himself from the Heartless that lingered there. All he knew was he wasn't staying there. If it meant sitting outside somewhere in the woods until he waited for Axel, it would be preferable.
"Don't touch me. Don't offer me anything. Go bury your dead bitch and then run back to your son who can't do anything without being coddled by some idiot who pities him. I'm not him and I don't need your help."
Hohenheim was about to question the fact that he could teleport in his state, but quickly held his tongue. If he could have teleported out at any point, then why wait until now? Why not run away immediately after Hohenheim had let him up from the ground? He decided these questions were best left unasked. Perhaps Envy had stayed to hear him out, to speak with him in his own way. He decided to let that be the case for now. He wanted to look positively on this outcome for the time being.
He slid his hands into his pockets and looked at Envy with a warm, but solemn look.
“Very well. If that’s what you want, then I won’t stop you now. Just be safe, son.” He spoke softly, the beginnings of a warm smile creasing his face.
The portal swirled in a vortex of darkness behind Envy and he regarded Hohenheim for a moment more. Why hadn't he torn him into tiny pieces for what he'd done to Trisha's remains? Why hadn't he sworn to cast Envy aside like had been done to him centuries ago? He'd let him get away with it so easily?
Envy turned his back on him and stepped into the shadows. He would need to find his stones as quickly as possible before Axel spotted him. This disgusting, weak form wasn't something he wanted anyone else to see him in. At least inside the quiet corridor with no one but Axel's Nobodies following him he was left alone.
When he was certain that he couldn't be seen from outside the portal any longer, he slid his hands through the arms of the coat and stuck them into the pockets where his fingers curled.
Envy promised himself he'd burn the fucking thing when he had his body back. Even though a voice in the back of his head pointed out it would only end up tucked away with Edward's original watch.
Hohenheim watched as Envy faded into the darkness and waited for the void to slowly close itself off. He stood there silently, staring at the same spot for several minutes, almost as if paying his respects to a departing soul. He turned to face the cemetery, which for the most part, had been repaired. He silently walked over to Trisha’s ruined grave, carefully sculpting the tombstone into what he remembered it to be. His mind began to wander as he did so, remembering everything about her, her face, her voice, her smile. Tears welled up in his eyes. He had lost so much in his centuries of life. He did not want to lose anything more. He did not want to lose Envy to anymore careless mistakes. He blinked the tears away as he transmuted the grave to look like it had before it was disturbed, except in front of the stone, he created a small patch of beautiful flowers. He adjusted his broken glasses, transmuting them fixed in the single fluid motion, and whispered an almost inaudible ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ to, what he hoped, was the woman who watched over him.
He stood silently and placed his hands back into his pockets, slowly turning and making his way back home. He would return later to commit Trisha’s remains to their final resting place once more, hopefully to never be disturbed again.
sexy_and_skorty
What: Hoho confronting Envy about digging up Trisha's remains
Why: WHY DO YOU THINK, HOHO R PISSED
Where: Risembool Cemetary
When: Mother's Day Late Afternoon, Early evening
Anyone who saw Hohenheim this evening would know that something was amiss. His leisurely walks were usually without direction or purpose, he merely ambled, as if in a constant daze. He walked with a clear purpose this evening, a sense of urgency, of anger in his strides. His first stop after getting off the train in Risembool had been his own home, which he expected now to be in shambles. To his surprise, it still stood, nothing out of place. Stunned, He had stopped and wondered if the one he was expecting had even bothered to show up.
No, he realized. He wouldn’t leave such an open threat unanswered. But surely he would have gotten here first.
Then a realization struck; it was the only place Envy would be, the only other place he’d find some twisted sense of satisfaction in his actions. He was at the cemetery, more than likely at Trisha’s own grave.
Hohenheim turned and adjusted his glasses, making his way to the cemetery to confront Envy. He had grown tired of his games.
Envy's fists hadn't grown sore yet as he slammed them into the grave plot over and over. The flowers had been mashed into darkened, soggy pieces. The headstone had been broken into so many parts not even a single letter could be discerned from the stone. The open grave and empty coffin had suffered the most--each strike from an inhumanly strong fist deepened the grave and broke the remaining pieces of coffin into splintered wood. By the time Envy was finished, the grave was going to be far too deep for any human to climb out of.
Axel could take care of himself, he realized. The Nobody was too hard to catch. But if he made a mistake, if he slipped up, Hohenheim would catch him. And that could only happen if Envy let it.
The small homunculus' entire body was trembling with fury as he destroyed the empty grave. How dare that bastard. How dare he? It had been nothing less than Edward had deserved. That fucking piece of shit had lied and he still didn't even realize it. And Hohenheim thought it was all Envy's fault?
With a snarl he drove a fist into one side of the grave and it came apart, spilling into half of the crater. Envy stepped back to watch the dirt crumple in front of him and balled his hands into fists as he surveyed the other half of where he stood inside the deep pit. Hohenheim would be there soon. Envy couldn't kill him. He'd tried. He'd tried so fucking hard and it never worked.
And if the old bastard didn't kill him first, he wasn't ever going to stop trying.
Hohenheim could hear the superhuman blasts as he neared the cemetery, and it only cemented his belief that Envy was right where he expected him to be. He strode up the dirt road without any caution, any fear. His hands were not in his pockets as they always were, but were instead being repeatedly clenched and unclenched in an attempt to get his blood pumping. He knew the chances he was taking when he made that empty threat about Axel. He would never pursue the young man, in fact, he genuinely liked him. He was glad that Envy had his company and would never seek to take it away from him. However, he had to goad him out into the open if he was to ever confront him, to punish him for desecrating Trisha’s grave and remains.
As he came closer, he saw the destruction that was being laid upon Trisha’s final resting place. He wasn’t sure if Envy was too busy causing wanton devastation to hear his approach, but he didn’t care so much either way. He walked up to the edge of gaping crater and stood staring down, fists clenched at his side, knuckles whitened.
“Haven’t you violated this place enough for one day, Envy?” he announced, his voice deep and strong. He refused to tiptoe around Envy anymore.
Envy had heard the sound of someone approaching long before he heard that awful voice. And at the sound of it he whipped around and looked up at the man staring down at him. There was nothing less than absolute hatred in his expression as he regarded Hohenheim. This Hohenheim, or his Hohenheim--it made no difference. Not when he hated them both. And this one he hated even more for being unable to stay dead.
He wasn't letting the Elric family do this to him any longer. Promise that he belonged only to so easily forget he was even there. Hohenheim was only so lucky that Envy hadn't gutted Ed and that bitch while they slept. It would have been too easy.
And now, more than ever, he regretted missing his chance.
The anger Envy had felt before wasn't anything compared to how it exploded with Hohenheim's sudden appearance. In a flash the homunculus had snatched up a piece of splintered wood from the rubble. Using his agility he flipped up the remaining dirt walls of the deep grave, feet barely touching them before leaving again.
Nearly an instant later he was above the ground, in the air, and was swinging the sharpest end of his weapon to tear Hohenheim's throat open. It didn't matter if the wound wouldn't last. It didn't matter if none of them lasted. He would kill the fucking old bastard as many times as it took until his Philosopher's Stone had used its last grain.
If Hohenheim hadn’t been focusing all of his attention on Envy, he never would have caught Envy’s movements in time for the strike. Unfortunately, he was nowhere near as agile as Envy, nowhere near the agility of Edward or even Alphonse for that matter. Regardless, he couldn’t afford to let himself be fatally wounded, at least not too much. He did not want to sacrifice anymore souls than absolutely necessary, though it was his goal to not use any at all.
He stumbled back as Envy near instantaneously closed the gap, his feet catching the loose dirt and sending him tumbling backwards. He felt the rush of air as Envy swiped something at where his head once was as he rolled backward. He had a vague sense of where Envy was, but until he could regain his bearings, Envy had full advantage. He had to create an opening, to disarm him somehow.
As he rolled away, he tapped the ground several time in quick succession with both hands. The ground erupted around Envy, a flurry of stone spikes, solid rock walls, and heaving earth quickly filled the gap between the two of them as he came up in a crouch, his golden eyes focused.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” he spat. It was the one question that had been on his mind for days now, ever since Envy began acting up for seemingly no reason.
He'd missed. That had been disappointing. At least Envy had been given the satisfaction of knowing he'd taken the slow bastard by surprise. That he nearly had removed his head.
The homunculus scowled as he was blocked. Did he think that would work? Did he really think Envy was so weak he couldn't break it all? Envy tossed the wood aside and darted forward. What did he think he was doing, Hohenheim had asked. What was he doing? Making them fucking pay.
One strong roundhouse kick broke the rocks and Envy was through the destroyed structures before they had even finished falling. A piece too large and far too heavy struck ground in front of him, leaving a small impact of its own in the dirt.
And so Envy flipped forward, hands landing on the edges of the broken stone. When he righted on his feet again he brought the block with him and heaved it straight for Hohenheim, using every bit of the inhuman strength he'd been given.
Envy wasn't there to spend some quality fucking time. And he wasn't there to let the old man think he could scold him into submission. He was there to make sure the trainwreck of an alchemist kept away from the only thing that had ever mattered to Envy.
Hohenheim watched Envy clear his obstacles effortlessly, his mind racing, going over possible tactics, choices, split second decisions and outcomes. He didn’t want to kill Envy, hell, he wasn’t even sure he really wanted to hurt him. He didn’t want to undo all the progress he had made with him in one fell swoop, but at the same time, he couldn’t just bend him over his knee and discipline him. This was not the time for his standard indecision. He had to act, and he had to make each word, each motion count.
He watched Envy vault over the stone, his hands at the ready as he sprang up, but he did not expect Envy to use the broken stone as a weapon. He jumped back a few steps to give himself a few moments, his palms outstretched.
“Why would you go this far?! Why to Edward of all people and not to me?!” he yelled out as the stone connected. A split second transmutation he had prepared turned the stone into a cloud of sand, but the impact left the bones in his hands and almost up to his shoulders shattered in various places. They would need a few moments to heal, moments that he knew Envy wasn’t planning on readily giving him.
Using the sand cloud as a bit of cover, he quickly transmuted a hole beneath himself and dropped into it, sealing it above him.
Envy sped forward into the cloud of sand and by the time it settled, Hohenheim was gone. What the fuck?! Was he running away? Was he hiding? Was someone even more immortal than a homunculus really that fucking scared?
Small fists balled so tightly that they trembled and he turned around, expecting to see the man behind him. Instead he was met with the debris he'd just gone through. But the stone had fucking connected. He'd seen it hit before it turned into dust.
Where the fuck had Hohenheim gone? He couldn't have run away. And he couldn't have flown. Was he underground?
Envy flipped back quickly and landed on an angelic gravestone, perching there like a cat and watching the ground with narrowed eyes. If the bastard had gone beneath him, there was no telling where he was now. Suiting, wasn't it? Rodents lived beneath the grass. Pests. Things people wanted dead.
"For every thirty seconds you stay hidden, I'm going to take some poor old fuck out of their grave," he threatened in a sickeningly sweet tone. And it didn't matter if Hohenheim could hear him or not. It wouldn't be anything new if he couldn't; the bastard never heard him.
One arm elongated and slammed into the ground beneath him, driving blindly through the rotting coffin lid to grasp onto skeletal remains. A few seconds more and he would be pulling a ribcage out of the earth.
Hohenheim heard the threat, and he had no intention of letting Envy desecrate any more remains. After a few seconds, he felt his bones knit, the pain subsiding in his arms. He felt the thunderous impact of Envy’s arm plunging into the dirt, he heard the shattering of the wood somewhere to his left several yards away. He focused and pressed his hands to the cold soil.
A moment later, an enormous stone hand erupted from the earth and grabbed Envy’s half buried arm and held it in place. A hole opened up not far from where Hohenheim had disappeared, the old man climbing out of it slowly.
He adjusted his glasses coldly. “Answer my question, Envy. Why do that to Edward. You have some semblance of brotherhood with him though you refuse to admit it.” He sighed, trying to keep his nerves cool. “You’ve never gone to these lengths before, you’ve never done something so twisted to get his attention. So, why? Why him and not me?”
As if to accentuate the point, the stone arm twisted hard enough to shatter bone and dislodge him from the headstone.
“I want you to give me a straight answer for once.”
The snapping bone drew a pained cry from Envy and seconds later he hit the ground hard, having been yanked from his place. But it didn't matter. If Hohenheim thought that he was a stranger to pain after living with Dante for centuries then he was sorely mistaken.
Envy's free arm shifted into a blade and with one swipe he'd removed the broken arm that was in the stone hand's grip. The homunculus rolled to his feet and jumped back and away as his arm returned to normal and his other began to slowly reform.
The smile on his face was far from friendly and he slammed the hand that hadn't been damaged into a nearby headstone, turning it to rubble. "Come on, old man," he taunted, having absolutely no intentions of answering those stupid questions. "Is that the best you can do? Is this what you made me come out for? You've wasted my time again."
He was beginning to think he shouldn't have come at all. If he wasn't going to be a threat to Envy this time, then he'd hardly be a threat to Axel, either. What a waste of a day.
The old man glared his “eldest son” down for a few moments. He had made up his mind before the first blows had been thrown that he could not hold back on Envy just like he wouldn’t hold back on Edward or Alphonse. Hohenheim’s expression grew sullen. He didn’t want to do this, but he couldn’t go back on his oath to himself. If Edward or Alphonse had grown as powerful, he couldn’t afford to be bullied by them. As a father, had had to assert himself, no matter the cost.
A dark laugh escaped his throat. In a way, this was almost like the night they spent at the carnival. A cocky young man goading his father into showing his strength. It was almost a game. Memories of that night flooded back to him, a lump catching in his throat. A lump that he forced back down with grim determination. Envy was his son, and if he had to beat him down, pummel him into the earth to show him, to break him of this delusion and get to the source of it all, he would not hold back any longer.
“Very well,” he grinned blackly. “If that’s what you want, Envy…I won’t deny you any longer.”
He took a deep breath and plunged his hands into the soil, focusing all of his mind on the many transmutations he’d be performing in rapid succession. The earth beneath Envy heaved suddenly, the soil turning to a thick mud, coagulating around and slowly climbing up his legs. The ivy and weeds that had ensnared many of the tombstones sprang to life and thrust themselves around Envy, bind him as tight as they could.
Hohenheim exhaled slowly and then it began.
The earth beneath Envy rose high into the sky, a spire of living rock and vines. It opened up like a great maw, swallowing him whole. The earthen esophagus erupted in razor thin blades of glass, created from the sediment between the stone and angled upward so that they sliced through Envy cleanly as he descended. The stone tendril thrashed wildly, making sure Envy grinded roughly through the glass blades as he bounced his way down.
At the base of the living stone spire, Hohenheim brought forth the metals in the earth, forcing the molecular structure to vibrate and heat, creating a pit of near molten metal awaiting Envy’s body.
Once Envy connected with the metal, he would cool it and transmute it into a pit of spikes that would close in around Envy. All he had to do was time it properly.
Fuck. Fuck. Envy hadn't expected the old bastard to actually do anything and it took him the time he'd nearly finished for the homunculus to even catch up to what was happening. That son of a bitch.
Envy fell through the earth that had swallowed him and every second another shard of glass sliced into his body and it hurt. They tore open his skin, leaving behind traces of blood on the glass that didn't imbed itself into his body, and creating even more pain for the ones that did.
Hands reached out to blindly grab onto the wall even as his palms were torn open at his attempts. Whatever waited at the bottom was hot--he could feel the warmth from there. And he didn't want to land in it.
Slender hands were coated in a hard, dark material as Envy mimicked Greed's shield. It wasn't quite as strong as his had been, but it was enough. Rock hard fingers dug into the fatal stone, leaving deep grooves as Envy slid down fast. Both of his feet attempted to plant themselves on the moving wall and the homunculus pushed away the pain of glass shoving through them as he fought to keep himself from falling.
Finally he stopped sliding, fingers dug deeply into the wall where he hung not too far above the pit of molten metal. The heat was slowly making his skin ache but that was the least of his concerns. Envy hung there, bleeding, panting, and hurting.
That fucking bastard.
"You always need your alchemy to save you," he laughed through the pain. "You're so weak. Without your pretty magic you'd be nothing. How like you to need to prove your worth by the amount of transmutations you can do. But they only prove how big a fool you really are, don't they? You're a joke. Like your sons."
He listened to Envy’s taunts and let them roll off of his broad shoulders. He wasn’t surprised that Envy had found a foothold and had managed to stop himself. In fact, he seemed to feel an almost twisted sense of pride in him. His tenacity was admirable, but Envy had wanted his best, and Hohenheim was far from done.
He focused and the stone spire collapsed in on itself, the inner walls smashing and grinding together, twisting around Envy like a whirlwind. Hohenheim changed his tactics then as an idea occurred to him. He focused his mind again and the spire sank back into the earth, the soil and rock shifting back into what it had been as it spat the homunculus out onto the ground.
Hohenheim stood and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“If you wish for me to fight you hand-to-hand under my own strength, I will do so.” He grimaced. “I will do whatever is necessary to get the answers I seek tonight.”
The hard impact drove shards of glass deeper into Envy's small body and he gasped in pain and stayed there, knowing Hohenheim wasn't going to kill him. Some of the glass had gone too deep and his body was already healing the wounds, pushing the foreign objects out to fall onto the grass.
Fight him hand-to-hand? Envy laughed again as he pushed himself to his hands and feet, shifting away the rips in his clothing. "Even your own son can't fight me without his alchemy," he spat. "And he has twice the agility and intelligence you do."
The homunculus flexed his fingers as he quickly ran through options in his head. He already knew that his own hand-to-hand combat skills were superior to those of the other homunculi. Even Greed had had a difficult time catching him before he'd died.
Envy set his hands on his hips, lifting his head regally. "I'm leaving."
Hohenheim had little time to think, and he needed something that Envy wouldn’t expect. Envy would expect alchemy, a transmutation of some sort. What wouldn’t Envy expect?
He paused for a second and then without warning, sprung into a run, withdrawing his hands from his pockets and cocking an arm back, balling it into a fist.
Several paces away from Envy, his foot drove into the soil, a small transmutation causing a wave of earth to erupt behind Envy and thrust him forward as hard as it could, propelling him with ferocious intensity into Hohenheim’s fist.
“I’m a man first, and an alchemist second, Envy.” He growled. “I am not above using my fists!”
The instant something hit his back, Envy was thrown forward with a furious snarl. The bastard had cheated!
Quickly he brought his hands up to catch onto the fist aimed for him. The force of his palms connecting with the strong hand hurt enough to make the pain radiate along his arms and into his shoulders, but it was better than his face. He used his grip on that hand and his strength to jump upward and flip himself well over Hohenheim's head.
"Still you use your alchemy!" he mocked as he easily soared over him. " Weak!"
The moment his feet hit the ground he flipped backwards a small distance, landed on his hands, and spun his feet around to slam them into the man's back so he could send him flying.
Hohenheim grinned. He wanted to force Envy into a counterattack where he could directly make contact with him. He feinted falling forward from the inertia of his initial strike, and as soon as Envy’s kick landed, the fabric of his coat wrapped around and snared his leg. Hohenheim indeed flew forward from Envy’s powerful kick, his ribs cracking from the force, but he had managed to spin and snag his quickly unraveling coat to complete the transmutation. He forced the fabric to wrap itself and bind Envy up before he gave one solid yank, his free flying momentum enough to pull the homunculus to him. He clasped his arms around Envy’s torso into a tight bear hug as he grinned.
“I already told you I would do whatever it took to get answers from you tonight, Envy. I’ll use whatever abilities I have, just like you!” he almost laughed as they plowed through another gravestone and hit the ground.
And after Hohenheim had said he would fight Envy with only his fists. He was so good at lying, wasn't he? Envy slammed into the ground with the old bastard on top of him and he emitted a furious snarl. What the fuck did he think he was doing?
If he wanted to use his alchemy, then Envy would, too. He wasn't doing this shit anymore. His hands clapped together, hit the ground, and created a block of stone on either side that would catch the man between him and lift him high into the air.
"Don't fucking touch me!" Envy hissed
Hohenheim laughed as he turned the stone forming between him and Envy to dust just by coming in contact with it.
“This is far from over, but it looks like I have to try my hand at one last tactic. I certainly hope this works.”
He quickly pushed himself off of Envy and slammed his hands to the ground, transmuting three small stone spikes from the earth. They erupted from the ground and plunged deep into the red nodes on Envy’s body; two on the shoulders and one on his spine. Once they pierced the flesh, the expanded like grappling hooks and yanked him to the ground, holding him.
Before Envy had the chance to flip himself up and out of the way, something happened that hadn't happened since Dante and Sloth sealed him. He felt the familiar feeling of something sharp ripping through the sensitive array on his back. The pain of those nodes being torn apart stunned him and he found himself pinned, staring down at the three hooks sprouting from his chest to keep him there.
No matter how hard he tried, he could hardly move, and he felt that familiar fear trickling down his spine that somewhere, beneath the ground he was lying on, Hohenheim had hidden the transmutation circle to destroy him.
And that was why he had wanted to see Envy.
"You-" Envy struggled to find his words and to keep himself composed. And as furious as his expression was it did nothing to hide the fear and betrayal in his violet eyes. "You bastard. Worthless, cowardly, pathetically weak bastard. I'm going to fucking kill you. I'm going to tear every limb from Ed's body and then that bitch's and then I'll kill you after you've watched!"
Hohenheim breathed a sigh of relief and flopped onto his ass on the cold ground next to Envy. He picked up the tattered remains of his coat and looked at it a bit sadly. It was his favorite coat after all. He could fix it later though, he surmised and tossed it aside for the time being.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, trying to remember the last time he had been so winded. Nothing came to mind as he allowed himself to relax a bit.
After a few moments he scooted over nearer to Envy.
“Calm down, Envy. I merely did this to keep you from ripping me from limb to limb at the moment.” He paused briefly. “Now please, tell me why you would do something like this. Why you would dig up Edward’s mother’s remains. This isn’t like you. You’ve never gone to these lengths before. I just want to know why.”
"I hate you!" Envy spat, trying his hardest to get free and hardly moving at all. "I fucking hate you! Seeing you and hearing you and knowing you're still alive makes me sick. You're so fucking disgusting and lazy you can't go a day without using your alchemy. You're weak. And your sons are weak. And your ugly bitch was weak. And when your little shits die and you're still alive, I'll bring you their bones on their birthdays. And on Christmas. And every holiday you'll wake up to see their rotting faces until it's driven you mad and you'll never be able to sleep again." Envy's laugh was a little less than sane and his eyes had glazed from the pain of the bleeding wounds that weren't healing. "I'll make you so miserable you'll wish you'd died before you met Trisha. I'll make you regret being born."
He wasn't going to tell Hohenheim anything. It wasn't his fucking business because the old man had decided on his own that it wasn't important. Let him sit and die trying to figure out the cause. Watching the fumbling idiot trying to solve a problem until the day he finally died would provide Envy with an endless source of amusement.
Hohenheim removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose as he let Envy rant. With his tirade finally spent, Hohenheim looked at him.
“I am weak, Envy. You’re absolutely right. And don’t think I’m saying this to appease you. I’m saying it because I agree with you.” He sighed. “I was never strong, and compared to you, the only advantage I do have is my alchemy.”
He sighed heavily.
“I don’t know what to say to you or how to properly apologize to you. I want to, but I can’t unless you tell me what I did wrong. The weekend we spent together as a family were the happiest days I’ve had in years. And I would give anything to have you back again, son. Except I don’t want you as the person you were in that delusion, I want you as you are now. As Envy and nothing else.”
Son? Envy laughed bitterly, jarring the hooks sprouting from his bloodied chest.
The old bastard didn't know what he was saying. That he didn't want Envy as that delusion he'd been. The Envy that he was claiming to want was the one who would remove Trisha's remains from her grave again. And he would enjoy it more each time. And he would do whatever he could during his time as a "family" to make each one of them miserable. Whatever the old man thought he knew, he was wrong.
A week ago Envy had honestly believed that he had wanted to be a part of their family. That he really belonged with the pieces of shit that should have been dead years ago. All because of that fucking disaster. And Ed had so easily forgotten everything he'd ever promised no more than a few days later. Fuck him. And fuck Hohenheim for not even noticing.
"I've told you before that I'm sick of your shit, Hohenheim," he hissed. "I don't want to hear your voice. I don't want to even see you. Knowing you're alive is enough. If you aren't going to let me go, then kill me. Fuck you and your made up stories. I'm not a little boy. I don't want to hear your fairy tales before you tuck me in and kiss me goodnight." Violet eyes drifted upward to the face he hated so much and his own twisted into an expression of bitter hatred. "You're not my father. That was nothing but an illusion and you know that. I'm not some happy little fuck that wants nothing more than to spend time with his dear daddy. All I want is your pain."
Hohenheim sighed. Envy had an answer for everything, he questioned and distorted every action until it suited his perception, until it justified his reasoning. He could speak until he was blue in the face, but Envy would never believe him and he wasn’t telling him why he would act out like this.
Either way, it wasn’t normal. It wasn’t Envy’s usual way of doing things and he had to figure out why he would do something like this. He closed his eyes and went about the events that had transpired over the past few days. He remembered speaking with Edward and Envy, as he usually did, but something about one of his more recent conversations with Edward nagged at his consciousness. Something that didn’t sit right.
It must have seemed like an eternity for Envy as Hohenheim sat there, mumbling to himself as if he were just an old man dozing. But then a realization struck Hohenheim. He had been so damn careless, so unfocused that he had made such a critical error. Or rather, failed to correct a critical error.
“I know what this is about” he said in a hushed tone.
Hohenheim rubbed his eyes, sighing.
“I’m sorry, Envy. I’m sorry that I didn’t correct Edward when I should have.” He paused.
“I could give you excuses now, I could explain why I didn’t think to correct him, but you wouldn’t believe them anyway. All I can do is apologize. And I realize now that you acted out because you had felt that we had forgotten about you. It’s not the truth. I don’t forget about you even though sometimes it seems like I do.”
He scratched his beard thoughtfully.
“I want to let you up,” he began “but you’ll just attack me or run away. I don’t want that anymore. This game of cat and mouse has to end, Envy. So, there’s only one thing I can think of doing to bring you down to a more reasonable level.”
He sighed as the hooks holding Envy shifted and flipped him over so that he laid face down on the cool grass.
The movement sent a wave of pain through his body and Envy hissed, gritting his teeth and waiting for the burning to pass. What the fuck was he doing? Was he going to bury him alive? If he was going to let him up then why he was still toying with him? The hooks were still there, aggravating the wounds further as he was moved.
It wasn't fair. Homunculi were so powerful and perfect and yet he couldn't do anything when he was pinned through that array. It was no better than the threat of his human remains. Paralyzing a homunculus was the only way to catch them and destroy them and it wasn't fair.
"Alphonse is home, isn't he?" The smile was clear in Envy's voice. "The instant you let me up, I'll be there to pay a visit to poor, useless Al. And when I destroy that bloodseal of his, you'll have lost both your sons at once. I won't even need to see that midget's face again to kill him. The only one I'll see is yours as you realize I've taken everything from you. I'll never forget the picture your ugly face will make. It'll be in my memories forever. Because I never forget anything about you. I still remember when you left."
The last word was hissed with so much hatred that it made Envy's own throat tighten. That fucking bastard.
Envy was already imagining it. He'd use his enhanced speed to make it to the house where he would find that scrap of metal. It was too easy to overpower the youngest Elric brother. And all it would take was the removal or breakage of that seal--that was a true weakness.
When the seal was gone, Edward would fall dead wherever he was. And it would be such a fucking pity that Envy wouldn't get to see the face of Edward Elric as he died once and for all.
A long bout of silence proceeded Hohenheim’s next words.
“No. You won’t.”
Hohenheim pressed his palms gently to Envy’s back and closed his eyes. He focused on source of Envy’s power, the red tincture, the powerful stone composed of countless souls. He listened and slowly began his work of removing the “stone,” like blood from Envy’s body. He forced it out through the numerous wounds, let it seep out and away from his son. His brow furrowed and he began to sweat as the cacophony of voices rose in pitch and ferocity. He listened until the cries of those lost souls grew quiet, until there was silence.
He pulled his hands away, not wanting to drain the life from his son, and placed them on the ground, quickly retracting the small stone grapples.
The moment Envy felt hands on his back he knew what was happening. That the power of the stones was being taken out of his body so that he'd be as weak as he'd been the moment he'd been born. The stones were what gave them all their power and without them they'd be nothing more than human. Like Wrath had been, with the exception of his stolen limbs that kept him from being weak.
Envy felt a cold chill run down his spine. Hohenheim was taking away what gave him the ability to regenerate. What helped to separate him from the humans. What gave him his fucking shapeshifting.
"Stop!" he nearly screamed. It was being taken from him. His identity was being stolen from him. "HOHENHEIM!"
Those red markings that spread from shoulder-to-shoulder vanished as the last of the red stones were forced out of him. The absence of them suddenly made the pain worse. And he was overcome with sudden dizziness as he felt what he hadn't for so long.
Weakness. Powerlessness.
The grapples were yanked from his body and the blood flowed quicker and he didn't care. Now he could move. And that was what he did. He dragged himself across the grass to the nearest headstone, gasping and panting, and fighting so hard to keep his form as it was.
With the absence of what gave Envy every source of his power, there was nothing he could do. He'd managed to make it half-behind a large gravestone before everything began to change. The small, slender, and pretty form began to change, starting from his toes and upward.
Envy made a small, choked sound as he felt the forced transformation and he could hear the shift in his voice with even that much. He'd rather die than let that bastard ever see this.
Hohenheim watched as Envy crawled away, but he made no move to help right away. He saw the trail of blood in the grass and realized that without his powers, he couldn’t heal.
“Envy,” he began quietly as he stood and followed his son, “I have to heal you or you’ll bleed out and die.”
He walked slowly, cautiously around the tombstone to Envy’s huddled form. He calmly placed his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Come now, let me heal those wounds…” he offered, as comfortingly as possible.
It felt wrong being unable to control what he looked like. Being unable to get rid of one thing and create another. Envy's hands fisted in his thick hair as he fought to remember how to even breathe. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't fucking be happening.
The strong hand on his shoulder startled him and he launched himself forward to scramble behind another stone. The thick, wild texture of his hair changed into something softer and a shudder ran down his body. The comforting feeling of long hair to his thighs was gone to be replaced with an all-too-light feeling of hair that settled just beneath his shoulders.
When Envy covered his face he could feel the difference in his features. They'd become more masculine. The face of a handsome young man who had been eighteen--an new adult--before his death. Golden hair fell over his hands as he hunched his back to hide his head between his thighs.
This couldn't be happening! It was one thing to let Edward see it and it was something else so different to let the bastard who had created him see it. He was Envy and he was a homunculus and he controlled his appearance. He controlled what he did. He'd given himself the perfect form so that nothing would ever resemble the face he'd been born with. Dante had hated that face. Envy had hated that face. He hadn't even been able to look into a mirror until he'd changed it. Now he'd been forced to wear it again and his mind was clouded with memories that weren't even supposed to be his.
"Keep away from me!" The voice that normally would have been a cold, mocking snarl had been forced into a deeper tone that made it harder to hide the hurt. "Don't look at me!"
Hohenheim stood, stunned at the voice he was hearing. It certainly wasn’t Envy’s though there was a tinge of familiarity in it. He moved to the side a bit, enough to catch a glimpse of golden blonde hair.
Realization crept over his face. He had remembered what Edward had told him about Envy’s true face. It caused him to hesitate now and he could feel a cold sweat on his skin.
Nevertheless, Envy was still bleeding and badly. He had to heal him and he had to do so now. He walked over slowly, and placed both of his hands on Envy’s shoulders again from behind. This time though, he kept a firm grip despite the fact that his hands were shaking. He held him in place as best he could and began to close his wounds.
“Calm down, Envy…” he almost whispered in a shaky voice. “You don’t have to look at me, I just don’t want you to die. I’ll be done in a moment.”
Envy threw himself forward when those hands touched him and found himself being held in place. He wasn't supposed to be touching him or standing near him or even speaking to him. Why was it so fucking hard for Hohenheim to listen to him?! He didn't want to be helped and he didn't want to be helped by him.
This wasn't a face he'd ever wanted the man to see. Hohenheim had no fucking right to even hear his voice. The human he'd transmuted had been dead for centuries and he wasn't ever coming back. The face Envy had been born with wasn't his. It was a borrowed face that belonged to some poor fuck whose own father had likely been the cause of his death. He was a homunculus with his own face and his own body and his own fucking memories.
He whirled around in a fury, bright amber eyes possessing the same cold, bitter expression Envy's eyes usually held. One fist swung for Hohenheim's jaw before he'd even had to think about it. All he knew was that he needed to get out of there and fast. He was going to pound the man's face into something so unrecognizable not even dental records in the modern world would help because he'd destroy every last bit of him with his bare hands, power or no power.
"I SAID TO KEEP THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!"
Hohenheim’s eyes widened and his head snapped back as the punch connected, but he refused to let go. Even as Envy struggled he had begun to heal the grievous wounds and he would not let go until he was done.
Edward was right. He himself couldn’t believe just how much Envy’s true face looked like his own so many centuries ago. But as jarring as the revelation was, it’s not what he truly wanted to see. The young man he wanted to call his son didn’t have a face like that. He was different.
He slowly turned his head back to Envy, glasses cracked and hanging precariously from his face, a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth.
Even so, there was a smile on his face. Not a mocking smile, nor was it one of glee. It was kind, his eyes brimming over with tears.
He finished healing Envy, a lump in his throat.
“You were right, Envy.” His voice barely above a whisper. “This face that you have isn’t the face of the one I want to call ‘son.’”
He wrapped Envy in a stiff embrace, unable to help himself.
“I’m sorry…I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted you to think I forgot about you. You are Envy, and no one else. My eldest son. And I will take as many punches as you want to dish out so that I can learn to be a better father for you”
It wasn't supposed to go like this. Hohenheim was supposed to call him an abomination. He was supposed to turn his back and walk away like he'd done before. Even if he'd been nothing but a steaming pile of flesh and bones and organs when he'd been born, Envy could still see the look on Hohenheim's face as he stared in horror at the monstrosity he'd made. And he remembered watching him leave him there in that transmutation circle with words that that monster wasn't his son.
But Hohenheim hadn't even waited long enough to see the face he'd have once he'd eaten the red stones. He'd just left him there to die. So why wasn't he doing it again? It didn't matter if this was a Hohenheim not from his continuity, because it was Hohenheim. The heartless bastard who walked away from his family. The same man whose blood had run through the human Envy had been created from.
If he'd just fucking stayed then he wouldn't have had to spend all those centuries alone with no one but mediocre homunculi and Dante to talk to. It could have been different if his father had just fucking cared.
The same hand that Envy had struck Hohenheim with gripped onto the back of the man's vest where his fingers held it tightly enough so there'd be wrinkles there when he released it.
Envy didn't want to be William. He'd thrown that face away for good the day he had created his own appearance. He just wanted to be Envy and he wanted to die as Envy. Not someone he wasn't.
He blamed the weakness of being so mortal for the growing lump in his throat and the burning in his eyes. Being accepted as Envy was what he wanted. And Hohenheim had always refused to do just that.
Hohenheim felt a similar lump in his throat, and he felt warm tears trickling down his aged cheeks. He hugged Envy tightly now, not wanting to let him go. He wasn’t sure if Envy was hugging back or if he was just trying to keep his emotions from bursting out.
“I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry. If I have to tear my throat raw with apologies, I will. I won’t forget you. I won’t turn away from you. I won’t let you look at my back any longer.”
“I just want you to talk to me. I want to hear your feelings. Everything. I want to be there.”
That wasn't something he wanted to do. Envy wasn't going to sit and talk to anyone like he was some normal human boy who wanted nothing more than to chat. All he wanted was to gut every human he possibly could. This didn't change anything. It didn't change that he would erase the humans from every surface. It didn't change his bloodlust and it wouldn't make him enjoy it any less.
One Hohenheim had rejected him for four centuries and another was suddenly accepting him. Envy wasn't going to trust him so easily. Not when it had been so simple for him to pass over what Ed has done.
"I want them back. I don't want this fucking face on." If Hohenheim didn't have any spare incomplete Philosopher's Stones, or anything that compared to it, then he couldn't go home. He wasn't going anywhere looking like this. "I want them now." Fingers twisted a little harder in the vest and he tried to swallow past the hard lump. "Give them to me. I can't look like this."
Hohenheim pulled away a bit and held Envy out at arm’s length. He was about to ask, to confirm what Envy was saying, but thought better. Of course he couldn’t use any of his powers. Not like that. But he didn’t want Envy to think he was keeping him like that because it’s who he wanted him to be. He thought for a second.
“I don’t…I don’t have anything that would substitute for a stone, Envy. I would offer my blood if I thought it would do the trick, but that is not the true essence of the stone. I would offer you my soul if I could if it meant giving you some of the power, but I cannot do that either. But I can offer you your room back home. I can offer you a roof over your head and a warm bed, even if you don’t even want to leave it until Axel comes to retrieve you.”
He paused for a second, wiping his eyes.
“Though I’m sure you won’t accept, that room is yours and will always be yours. You will always have a home with us…should you choose to stay. I would never chase my sons out. I can’t apologize enough for forgetting what I did, for not paying enough attention.”
Envy's expression darkened and for a moment he forgot he wasn't even in his own body. Stay there? His only home hardly included any of them. It didn't matter what he was or if Hohenheim was his father and the Elric boys his brothers. It didn't matter if Hohenheim and Edward wanted him to live there. Homunculi didn't have families. They didn't live together with humans. Envy had only ever lived in the same location as the rest of the homunculi because of Dante. And he had tolerated them at most, using many of them for target practice.
"This doesn't change anything." And the different tone hardly hid Envy's own personality. "I don't belong here and I'll never belong here. I'm not some fucking little boy. I'm not going to sit around and play house with you."
It was something that made him feel filthy to even imagine. Living beneath the same roof as the Elric family? Envy? He'd sought to kill them all for years and now Hohenheim thought that he could live so easily with them?
"I'd never let any of you have any peace," he replied, a thinly veiled threat in his tone. It was William's face, but it was Envy who was wearing it, and the twisted grin he wore matched the homunculus' own. "You think being my father changes anything?"
Hohenheim pulled away and knelt in front of his son.
“I don’t think of you as a little boy. You’re as old as I am. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a man. But just because you’re a man, it doesn’t mean that I will stop loving you as my son.”
He smiled a bit. “And I know this doesn’t change anything. But to be honest, I wouldn’t want to change you. I wouldn’t want peace and quiet. Just you. Anything after that is meaningless.”
He stood slowly and offered his hand to his son. “Come on now.”
Was he doing it on purpose now? Did he want Envy to laugh at him? He slapped that hand away and stood on his own. In this form he was far taller than his preferred and he could more easily glare directly into the man's eyes.
"Is that what you want?" he laughed bitterly. "You want me to dig up that dead woman of yours for Mother's Day every year? You want me to beat Edward within an inch of his life? You want me to destroy your home? To make you and your family so miserable you'll want to kill me? Is that what you're asking for, Hohenheim? Because that I can do."
He cocked his head, making the movement for William's body look a little unnatural. But it hardly matter since this body belonged to Envy now and he'd do whatever he pleased with it.
"You don't know what it is you're asking for. You couldn't even follow through with your threats. You told the shrimp that you were going to severely hurt me for what I did. You've done worse before."
“I didn’t follow through with my threats because, quite frankly, it would only prove to you more that I hated you, when I don’t.” Hohenheim was indeed surprised. He was unaccustomed to seeing someone who looked so much like himself match his height. In the back of his mind, he realized just how grown Envy was.
“But I do know what I want, Envy. And what I want is for you to stop this endless cycle of retribution. You’re better than this. I know you can be. I might not deserve it, but Edward does.”
He stepped over to his tattered coat and scooped it up, transmuting it into something more fitting of Envy’s size. He walked over and draped it about his son’s form, whether he liked it or not.
“The fact of the matter is, I believe now, more than ever, that I would want nothing more than to be the father you want. You say ‘your kind’ don’t have families, but all manners of beings have families. They just have different interpretations. But I won’t bore you with my opinion.”
He sighed.
“Just know that I love you, son. And I won’t turn my back on you. I won’t forget you anymore. Never again.”
As the coat was draped over his shoulders, Envy scowled and turned his face away. He hated being so ugly. He hated this fucking face. The hair. The eyes. The height. Everything about it was so unappealing and everything about it screamed Hohenheim. It was the face of what his own Hohenheim had fathered. And that wasn't Envy. It made his skin crawl.
Out of habit he tried shifting forms and his scowl deepened when nothing happened. This wasn't fucking natural. Him standing there, looking so human, with the bastard who had created and then left him. Trying to kill him again wasn't going to do any good. He was even more immortal than the homunculi were and he wouldn't ever stay dead.
It wasn't so easy to accept it all. Even if Envy thought there might be some sincerity in the man's words, it didn't make a difference. He'd taken care of himself for centuries, only pretending to depend on Dante because sticking with her meant playing with more human lives.
Envy shoved by him, fists clenched inside the coat that was hanging from his shoulders as he walked away. "Better than this? What would you know? I don't give a shit about what the shorty deserves. I come first. Me. And if what I want makes him miserable, then that makes it better. Fuck you and your ideas of a family. I don't need one."
“I know because everyone has the capacity for good, just as everyone has the capacity for bad. I’m prone to mistakes just like you are, just like Edward is. And I won’t lie, I make plenty of them. But please…I don’t want you to just act out when I hurt you. Even if you don’t forgive me…even if you scream and holler at me, even if you attack me…please…speak with me.”
He followed the young man, with each step slowly transmuting the ground back to the way it was before their skirmish took place. Each step slowly mending the toppled and shattered tombstones.
“Whether you need it or not, you have a family. I don’t expect you to come live with us. To play house and to try and be the picture-perfect family. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be a family in another sense. You’re old enough, intelligent enough to be on your own. To live on your own and make your own choices. I respect that and I respect you for that fact. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be civil. That we can’t spend time together.”
Spending time together and pretending they had anything in common. Envy's idea of spending time with another person, when it didn't include their death, included death and destruction of others. And Kimbley was perfectly suited for that part of Envy. Which was something Hohenheim could never do.
There wasn't any way for them to spend time together. Not unless Hohenheim would enjoy complete silence until Envy grew bored and broke everything in sight. Envy could hear Hohenheim following him and he glanced over his shoulder to glare.
"Spend time together?" he snapped. "And do what? Talk? Talk about our differences? You already know those: everything. How about our fucking similarities? Nothing. My hobbies?"
The twisted grin didn't fit with William's features. He hadn't ever been the son Envy was. His face hadn't been made for cruelty gained out of the suffering of others. That was Envy's face.
"I enjoy making humans suffer. I don't need to cut them into pieces to hurt them. If I wear the right face and use the right words, I can make them hurt themselves. Now where does that leave us, Hohenheim? You've already come to learn everything about me in a matter of seconds. Now what do we do? Play some cards? Chess? Watch a movie? Or why don't you sit in on one of Kimbley's experiments with me? There's some fun."
Hands settled on hips and Envy rolled his shoulders in an attempt to relax the tense muscles there. Maybe Hohenheim was right. This was kind of enjoyable.
"Oh, my, I've forgotten. You're a coward. You can't sit and watch an innocent die, can you? You can barely stand the thought of hurting someone who deserves it. What does a coward do when he isn't hiding from his mistakes? Create new ones?"
Hohenheim ignored Envy’s taunts and tried his best to lighten the mood. For some reason, he began to feel a bit at ease. Not because Envy had been stripped of his powers, not because he felt he had won or accomplished anything, but merely because they were talking. Something he had wanted so badly as of late.
“You know, just because you don’t have many hobbies now, that does not mean you never will.” He quipped. “In fact, with your talents, you could say that acting is a hobby of yours. You know how to get into character better than anyone in the world. That in itself is impressive. Besides, no one knows what will happen tomorrow…” he trailed off as he smiled, closing the gap between himself and Envy.
Acting?
Envy sneered. His skill wasn't for the amusement of others. It was used to infiltrate to find information he needed. And when he wasn't using it for that, he used it to hurt however many people he could. Taking on the appearance of a loved one before killing them was a favorite. Dear dead Hughes knew that.
"Don't fucking insult me," he snapped with an expression angrier than his tone. "You think you're so funny, don't you? I'm leaving. There's nothing worth my time here. You've already wasted enough of it."
He yanked the coat off and threw it onto the ground, not even bothering to hand it back to Hohenheim. The old bastard would clean it using his alchemy since he was too fucking useless to clean it without his little big of magic.
Hohenheim scooped up his coat quickly and snagged Envy’s arm, his face and tone equally serious.
“I wasn’t trying to insult you, Envy nor was I trying to make a joke. Really, it’s a talent no matter how you look at it, and really, I was just trying to make conversation.”
After a moment his face softened. “I’m just trying to talk with you. I don’t care about what, but you don’t provide me with many conversational topics. But I’m trying nonetheless for you.” He placed the coat back over Envy’s shoulders. “Right now, you don’t have your powers, so please, I’d rather you didn’t catch cold, even if it’s for a single night. Let’s go home for the time being. There you can contact Axel and he can come get you. I don’t expect you to stay, I don’t even expect you to leave your room. I’m just offering you a room for the night.”
He kept his hands on Envy’s shoulders firmly but not angrily. He just wanted Envy to sense how serious he was about this, how true his feelings and concern were. He wanted Envy to see just how hard he was trying. All for his sake.
Sleep there, under the roof of humans? Where Roy Mustang would easily locate him? It wouldn't matter had he his powers, but without those stones, he could be killed in one go. Like a fucking human. Envy tried to shrug out of the hands on his shoulders and took a large step back.
"I can teleport myself out of here."
Even if it meant walking through the Darkness corridors without any means of protecting himself from the Heartless that lingered there. All he knew was he wasn't staying there. If it meant sitting outside somewhere in the woods until he waited for Axel, it would be preferable.
"Don't touch me. Don't offer me anything. Go bury your dead bitch and then run back to your son who can't do anything without being coddled by some idiot who pities him. I'm not him and I don't need your help."
Hohenheim was about to question the fact that he could teleport in his state, but quickly held his tongue. If he could have teleported out at any point, then why wait until now? Why not run away immediately after Hohenheim had let him up from the ground? He decided these questions were best left unasked. Perhaps Envy had stayed to hear him out, to speak with him in his own way. He decided to let that be the case for now. He wanted to look positively on this outcome for the time being.
He slid his hands into his pockets and looked at Envy with a warm, but solemn look.
“Very well. If that’s what you want, then I won’t stop you now. Just be safe, son.” He spoke softly, the beginnings of a warm smile creasing his face.
The portal swirled in a vortex of darkness behind Envy and he regarded Hohenheim for a moment more. Why hadn't he torn him into tiny pieces for what he'd done to Trisha's remains? Why hadn't he sworn to cast Envy aside like had been done to him centuries ago? He'd let him get away with it so easily?
Envy turned his back on him and stepped into the shadows. He would need to find his stones as quickly as possible before Axel spotted him. This disgusting, weak form wasn't something he wanted anyone else to see him in. At least inside the quiet corridor with no one but Axel's Nobodies following him he was left alone.
When he was certain that he couldn't be seen from outside the portal any longer, he slid his hands through the arms of the coat and stuck them into the pockets where his fingers curled.
Envy promised himself he'd burn the fucking thing when he had his body back. Even though a voice in the back of his head pointed out it would only end up tucked away with Edward's original watch.
Hohenheim watched as Envy faded into the darkness and waited for the void to slowly close itself off. He stood there silently, staring at the same spot for several minutes, almost as if paying his respects to a departing soul. He turned to face the cemetery, which for the most part, had been repaired. He silently walked over to Trisha’s ruined grave, carefully sculpting the tombstone into what he remembered it to be. His mind began to wander as he did so, remembering everything about her, her face, her voice, her smile. Tears welled up in his eyes. He had lost so much in his centuries of life. He did not want to lose anything more. He did not want to lose Envy to anymore careless mistakes. He blinked the tears away as he transmuted the grave to look like it had before it was disturbed, except in front of the stone, he created a small patch of beautiful flowers. He adjusted his broken glasses, transmuting them fixed in the single fluid motion, and whispered an almost inaudible ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ to, what he hoped, was the woman who watched over him.
He stood silently and placed his hands back into his pockets, slowly turning and making his way back home. He would return later to commit Trisha’s remains to their final resting place once more, hopefully to never be disturbed again.