Production #6066, [FMA]: OMG Ed/Envy fic WTF. *dies*. O.o
Well, this is part of a fic trade-off that I'm doing with Lyko. If I write her OTP (Envy/Ed), then she'll write mine (Roy/Ed). Though I'm certain I can't write this pairing AT ALL, my efforts are worth it knowing that I'll get Lyko to write Roy/Ed fic. ^_____________^
Title: Me Fausto Philos (This title is not Latin, but rather, Greek. I'm fairly sure it means something like "not a friend to Faust". I think. I fail at Greek. I just put the title in as much because I figured Lyko would appreciate it.)
Author: Me, obviously, though I wish someone else was doing it... >.>
(devils_devotion)
Rating: At this point, I have no clue. I'll try for smut, though, for Lyko's sake. XD;; NC-17?
Genre: I guess it's angst. O.o It's not as angsty as how I usually go, though. Watch out for flying philosophical themes and introspect, as well as MODERATELY CONSENSUAL ENVY/ED, WUT. (Oh, and by Envy/Ed I actually mean Ed/Envy, as I absolutely CANNOT do these things in halves and am thus writing this pairing with seme!Ed.)
Pairing: Ed/Envy. No, that is not a typo. ^_____^
Summary: Bold is the endeavor; Splendid the pay! And the soldiers; march away. Are you familiar with the story of Faust?
For: lykomancer. I imagine that this is a bit different from what you wanted, but I hope you like it, anyway. ^^;; I'm rather intimidated by writing for you, as you're blindingly superior to me, and I think that whatever I receive in trade will be SO MUCH BETTER than this crap. *emo*
Comments: Mmmmmmmmm, most definitely AU from the anime. Not BLINDINGLY DISTURBINGLY AU, but let's just pretend the last ten episodes of the anime never happened, okay? -____-;; This story is a thematical retelling of Goethe's Faust, for which a mortal man sells his soul to Mephistopheles, the devil, in order to gain infinite wealth and wisdom. By "thematical retelling" I mean that only the themes of Faust are carried over, and not necessarily the bones of the plot. You'll see what I mean.
Music: Yousei no Shi (The Fairy's Death) by Akino Arai. God, it's such a gorgeous song of mysticism and delight. YOU WILL DOWNLOAD NOW, 'KAY? Also, because the lyrics are weirdly fitting, you can find a translation here.
Enough! What thou hast asked is granted.
Turn off this spirit from his fountain-head;
To trap him, let thy snares be planted,
And him, with thee, be downward led;
Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say:
A good man, through obscurest aspiration,
Has still an instinct of the one true way.
Envy was a creature of honest fun. While he preferred not to think of his narrow escape from the earthly coil - choking, dying, drowning, then a clap and a flash of brilliant light - he was rather entertained by casting himself in the cloak of mortality and observing the antics of man; their molehills masquerading as mountains, the pathetic way they climbed all over one another in their desperate race for the top, and their murmured agreements that were belied only by their dishonest eyes. Often, he wondered why Dante had chosen them as the Sins - homunculi with perfect bodies, disencumbered by that pesky thing known as a soul - when these humans much more accurately fit the bill, but he was forced admit that sometimes observing them was far more entertaining than ending their meager, miserable lives.
Joe Average would spend his days at the office switching business accounts into his personal finances, effectively robbing his company blind with the aid of his intern, who was hiding a criminal record as expansive as Gluttony's gut, then Average would return home to greet his son, who grinned and told him about his victorious basketball game even as the boy hid the shameful secret of parading around the house in his mother's hose and underwear when he thought no one was home, and Joe's Perfect Wife would kiss her husband on the cheek and feed him dinner, even though she was conspiring with her ex-gardener and lover to murder the man in his sleep and run away with his (stolen) fortune. Humans were all the same, so deliciously delved into their sin, and it was a habitual pasttime of the eldest homunculus to spend his days watching them.
Tonight, though, his target was clean, and digustingly, his target of choice: flaxen hair unbound and brushing the paper even as he scritched it with ink, citrine eyes narrowed and directed like beams of the sun, lips mumbling in the scholar's code - made sense to no one but the speaker, and hardly even then - feet tapping out an unconcious rhythm on the floor. The shorty was alone tonight, which was an unexpected delight, as that bodiless brother of his had a tendency to complicate Envy's much more whimsical goals, and as he sat perched atop an opposite rooftop and eyed the blonde, he wondered if heckling the shrimp would ultimately make it worth the blade he was going to get through his chest.
He wanted Shorty to either amuse him or die, like he did all other humans, but the problem was, Envy actually cared whether he got it or not; it actually mattered to him if the Fullmetal Alchemist danced by those strings or otherwise turned to clay, and though the homunculus had accepted it some time ago, it still didn't mean that it didn't rankle, rankle unpleasantly. He wanted blonde hair and golden eyes; eyes, eyes, eyes, not like any seen in the Gate or any other physiological plane, both admirable and annoying with their intensity, liquid fire. He wanted strong limbs and the taste of metal in his mouth, whether from body or blood he didn't know (or care); he wanted that bastard at his mercy, and he honestly didn't know whether he thought of that shrimp then, or of the other bastard that they unfortunately shared.
The shorty had left his window open to let in the breeze, an arrogant invitation, and it wasn't an invitation that Envy was inclined to ignore; he hopped from one rooftop to the next, the motion hardly registering with his otherwordly strength, and landed with grace atop the overhang of the blonde's window.
The shrimp so desperately tried to keep himself pure of sin - "I won't become a murderer, even for his sake! I'll find some other way!" - that even when sin happened to land in his lap, he managed to keep those blasphemer's hands of his clean, managed to bury his foul deeds in good intentions, managed to deny the very failings of his existence by performing all of his abominable acts in the name of love. It was disgusting, but it was a view that Envy could use, and he grinned wickedly at the thought of just how he could finally be able to tease that putridly perfect twit down the path of sin. Of course. It was painfully obvious, once he looked past his initial loathing of the boy and saw what was truly at the blonde's core; all guilt and frustration and denial. For a moment the homuculus paused, and wondered which guise to use in order to fool his prey, until he realized that he needed no guise, that all he would have to do was let that bastard's son and his goddamned devotion lead the way.
After all, he thought, and lowered himself to the window, who better to tempt the mortals than their precious devil?
---
I have not snares around thee cast;
Thyself hast led thyself into the meshes.
Who traps the Devil, hold him fast!
Not soon a second time he'll catch a prey so precious.
Edward had actually been so intent on his work that he hadn't noticed Envy until the homunculus was practically at his back, leaning over his shoulder and inspecting the notes scrawled carelessly onto the paper, eyebrow quirked and smirking boredly, clearly amused.
"I see you're getting desperate, Shorty," he remarked, and unfortunately dodged the blonde's swinging fist without effort. For a moment Envy hung from the ceiling fan, laughing snidely, but he scowled when Edward yanked on his dangling hair and dragged him down, sending him crashing onto the floor with a yowl of outrage. "You'll pay for that, Shorty!" he raged, and started forward, changing the shape of his arm into a blade - Ed clapped, and waited, tense and ready - but just as suddenly, the homunculus stopped, and flipped back to his original perch on the window, out of arm's reach.
It was strange behavior, but Ed was starting to understand that Envy was a strange creature, and though the knowledge didn't put him any less off of his guard, it was enough to make his cease his attack, and he looked at the Sin from over his clapped hands. "What do you want?" he asked, cautiously, and edged back just a step.
Envy, habitually, would flash himself in and out of Edward's life like a photograph; he would switch to his homunculus form from that of a common soldier as he walked by on the street, a transformation so quick that the blonde was forced to wonder if he'd imagined it, and occassionally he would hear a thumping outside of his dorm window that yielded nothing, save a few snarled, mossy hairs; encounters that were unpredictable and untamed, just like the creature that perpetuated them, but also somehow curious in their repetition, in their carelessness.
At the inquiry, Envy's smirk grew, and he held up his hands, palms out. "Just wanted to see how the Fullmetal Shrimp's research was going, that's all." He was crouched like a cat atop the sill, oddly elegant in his ease, and his familiarity with the surroundings made Edward even more ill at ease. "So...how's it goin'? Not well, I'd say." The homunculus laughed, nasal and condescending. "I saw your notes, before you so rudely tried to swipe me away, you know. Already so desperate as to try animal sacrifice, Fullmetal pipsqueak? Tsk, tsk. Bet your walking tin can of a brother wouldn't be too pleased to hear that, eh? Hear he's fond of cats, after all..."
"You shut up!" Edward roared, forgetting their momentary truce and rushing forward, automail already sharpened alchemically and teeth bared in a snarl, only angry at the damned thing for being right; Al would die if he knew, except it wasn't even possible for his brother to die, not really - and he had made him that way.
"Jeez!" Envy looked wholeheartedly surprised for a moment, but then there was a flash of green and he was gone, leaving Ed to overbalance on his own momentum and go tumbling out of the open window.
For a moment he was falling - he was on the second story of a hotel room, after all - but then there was a grip like steel around his ankle, and he found himself held upside-down over the black of the street by the grinning homunculus. Ed swore, red-faced, and tried to swing himself upward, punching empty air with his fists, but the angle was off and he couldn't get the proper leverage, no matter how much he tried. Envy yawned, and held him too far away from the wall to properly transmute anything with his alchemy, and waited almost patiently for him to wear himself out, even swinging the blonde back and forth a bit like a pendulum, snickering wildly at the enraged yowls that followed.
"Now, listen, Shorty," he commanded after a while over Ed's beleagured pants, and gripped the blonde's leg with his other hand. "You can either shut up and entertain me for the evening, or you can kiss this last working leg of yours goodbye."
Against his will, Ed blanched as the homunculus mimicked the snapping motion between his calf and his ankle, and swallowed the smallest fraction of his pride along with the lump that had formed in his throat. "What the hell do you mean, 'entertain'?" he demanded, croaking and red-faced from being held upside down for so long. His palms itched, and he tried one last time to connect them with the outer wall of the hotel.
"While your disproportionate temper's always a laugh riot, I'm a bit more interested in your alchemy today, shrimp," Envy admitted, and swung his captive back and forth a bit more. "Whaddaya say we have a bit of a friendly discussion? 'Studious debate', if you like that better. I imagine there's a lot a squirt like you could learn about alchemy from someone as...experienced...as me."
'Experienced'? What the hell? Ed thought dizzily, watching the pavement beneath him spin in a most alarming manner. Surely he doesn't think I'll believe that a homunculus would know anything about alchemy... But then again...just because they can't perform it, doesn't mean they don't know about it... After all, if they're trying to get alchemists to make them the Philosopher's Stone, then they've got to understand the mechanics of it, at least...
"Well?" Envy asked him again, impatiently this time, and shook him for good measure. "My arm's getting tired, shrimp. If you don't make up your mind soon, I'm just gonna say to hell with you and let you drop."
Ed paused; weighed and considered. His situation now wasn't the most pleasant, after all, and he wanted to be back on solid ground. He could play Envy's game for a while, he could, so long as the stakes were fair. "E-Eh, sure. Let's see what you know." The hitch of his voice was entirely out of his control.
"Excellent," the homunculus asserted, and dragged Edward in through the open window, letting go of his ankle to leap to the other side of the room, crouched this time on the bed, grinning jovially and waiting. For a moment the blonde simply slumped underneath the window, feeling the blood drain relievedly from his face and the world finally start to revert to normal, taking deep breaths in an effort to still the shaking of his frame. His head was pounding, or perhaps it was his heart that he heard in his ears.
"So...what did your master send you to find out, this time?" the blonde finally asked, hoarsely, and got shakily to his feet. "I won't do your dirty work for you; I've told you time and time again that I won't be the perpetrator of that kind of slaughter." He held his automail against his chest, not wanting to give the creature the option of removing his (only) last line of defense, hearing the gears clank reassuringly as he moved.
But Envy only laughed, loudly and mockingly, and threw his head back towards the ceiling with a whirl of emerald hair. "That bitch? I'm not here on her orders; this is more like...a personal investment, I guess you could say. Heh." When the homunculus' eyes focused on him again, Ed bit back a breath at just how violet they were, crackling like a summer storm, dangerous through their sheer electrical discharge. "I come and go as I please, Shorty, and I have no master. However..."
More frightening than the static, however, was the look on Envy's face as his smile suddenly turned sly. "...I think I could be persuaded to offer up my assistance...if the price is right, of course. It all depends on the offer."
It was happening too fast for the blonde, and he sat down suddenly upon the windowsill, nearly tilting backwards onto the street again, eyes blank and not seeing. His mouth, however, moved of it's own volition as he queried, tonelessly: "Price?"
The Sin scowled, and seemed resentful for having even offered, eyes turning for a moment disgusted, but then the expression slid off of his face like oil on an automail port, and he smirked once more. "I believe you're particularly fond of the phrase "equivalent exchange", aren't you, Shorty? Think of it as something like that. I'm feeling generous, and honestly, whether I kill you now or later doesn't matter that much to me, so long as I'm amused." Envy cracked his knuckles, the epitome of ease, and rolled his head on his shoulders in a boneless, unnatural motion that made Edward's skin crawl. "I think watching you wrestle with your temptation and self-doubt'll be reward enough for telling you a little thing or two about science."
It was such a strange proposition, such an uncharacteristic and amiable offer of assistance that Ed didn't know what to think, had no witty tricks or logical processes other than his automatic reflex of if it'll save Al... "Then lay down your terms, Envy," he suggested, and wished that his voice had come out sounding stronger, instead of numb and anticlimatic.
"Aha!" The homunculus grinned, and held up a finger. "It's easy, shrimp. I'll be something like what the mystics call a 'demon familiar'. You know what that is, don't you? Ahahahah, of course you wouldn't, you're not interested in folk tales." And Envy snickered, and seemed greatly amused by the fact. But Ed listened, and intently, listened for some trap, listened for some snare that he could fall into; also looked for some pitfall that he could trap Envy in, should the need arise, and was thus far finding none. "In short - no offense intended," he drawled, in a manner that implied that that had most definitely been his intention, and the blonde involuntarily bristled - "I'll answer to your beck and call, and answer what you ask of me; whether it's life, death, or alchemy, I'll show you the truth. I'll be the wandering spirit that whispers in your ear; the voice of temptation, the devil on your shoulder, what do you say?"
"Why the hell would I want something like that?" Ed parried, flatly, and stood to pace, though he was careful not to put his back to the other occupant of the room. "I don't need you encouraging me to do evil any more than what you already do, thanks." Internally, he was blazing with questions: what, when why?; Envy, ever a creature of contradiction, had him thoroughly stumped by this turnaround, and he glared at the homunculus mistrustfully.
"Think about it, Shorty." Envy jumped up to hang upside-down from the ceiling fan again, grinning drolly. "What would man have honestly discovered in this world if he hadn't been nudged along by temptation and sin? Who really decides what's good and evil, after all? A god you don't believe in? A society that's shunned both you and your brother as freaks, as chaos against their precious order? You're just grumpy because you realize that you do need my help, after all."
"Liar," Ed hissed, antagonized by the jab to his skill, and balled his hands into fists. "I'll transcend the lot of you; I'll find a different way. I can do it."
"Hmmmm." Envy tilted his head at him, an upside-down shift of green, before dropping to the floor neatly on his cat's feet, making the jump look effortless, as he did everything else. His expression was one of superior amusement, and oddly, of the cat that had just cornered his prey. "You won't do it with animal sacrifice, you know," he said offhandedly, and though Ed recognized it as bait, the pragmatist in him queried, loudly:
"Why?"
"Uh-unh," the homunculus reminded him, shaking his finger in a condescending manner, lilac eyes openly and lazily satisfied. "You're smart; surely you can figure it out for yourself."
He brushed past Edward breezily, hopping into the window, and without turning around the blonde said, dully, "Wait."
He heard, as opposed to saw, Envy's unabashed undertone of pleasure. "Yesssssssssss?"
And though Edward would never forgive himself for it, he was not strong enough to resist the call of the devil. He closed his eyes, and let out, in a ragged sigh, "Tell me what you know."
---
For Devils and for spectres this is law:
Where they have entered in, there also they withdraw.
"There are rules, Shorty, of which even learned alchemists such as yourself must be aware of, and the first of these is that I will not work for free."
Envy was tingling with a strange energy that he rarely felt unless he was regenerating; his grin threatened to split his face in two and he bounced, though only slightly, on the balls of his feet. The little pipsqueak had fallen for it as assuredly as he would have fallen out of that hotel window, and ah, how Envy loved to hold that rapidly beating heart within his hands and know that now, it was entirely within his rights to crush it.
"I find it strange that an abomination of alchemy such as yourself would adhere so firmly to it's laws," Edward replied, loftily, and for a moment, the homunculus seriously had to restrain the desire to kill. Abomination? Hardly! He quelled the annoyance at how outspoken the pipsqueak was being, now that he had ground to stand upon, and instead smirked, an audible grating of his teeth.
"I only do this because it amuses me," he asserted clearly, and willed himself to stop that gleeful bouncing. "It's funny to watch you try so futilely to fight against your fate, and this is just another way for me to be witness to that."
"Hmmmmm." But the blonde didn't look convinced, he instead looked contemplative, which Envy was practical enough to know was not a positive thing. For him, at least. "So, then. What's your price? What would you ask of me, in return?"
Envy's grin returned to his face, and he glided over to where the shorty sat, perched neatly on the windowsill with a tentative expression on his face. "In all the folk tales, the alchemist sold the devil his soul," he purred, and put his palms down on the cool wood, caging in the blonde with his arms, leaning forward with his face. "How far would you go, Fullmetal Pipsqueak? Would you surrender everything to me, all for the sake of your recycling bin of a brother? Mind, will...body?" He quirked up an eyebrow, for amusement's sake, and took sadistic glee in the way that Edward swallowed, pulse visible through his skinny neck. "Ah, well. The only use I have for your body isn't the one you would think." And, smirking and leaning back, Envy lifted the alchemist's deadweight hands and brought them together in a clap.
The sound startled his companion back into sense, and the blonde glared, throwing out his palms with the intent to do some damage, but Envy was easily able to dodge, and he tsked and shook his finger mockingly.
"Now, now," he said, and slid forward again, making the movement as liquid and as sensuous as possible, if only to the rise of color on the shrimp's cheeks, until the brat had become as red as a lobster. "That's hardly any way to treat your mentor, now is it?" He snickered. "Perhaps I'll have you call me 'Teacher'...though admittedly, I prefer the ring of 'Master' better..."
"Don't even!" Edward snarled, bent on his knees and ready to attack, a bristling ball of fire that threatened to blaze onward towards eternity. "Just tell me what the hell you want and get out of here!"
"Well," Envy scoffed haughtily, "there's nothing of any worth to me in a beggar's soul, so I suppose I'll just take the last of your free will. The fraction that isn't dominated by your overwhelming concern for that brother of yours - no, that's not good enough." He shook his head irritably. "I can't be your familiar; can't be that devil on your shoulder with that angel of a brother in the way. Get rid of him."
When Edward gaped at him, soundlessly, Envy made a noise of disgust and gestured impatiently with his hands. "You don't have to kill him, God. Just...send him away somewhere. Any excuse you can think of. I won't take second place to that tin can."
"Stop insulting him," the blonde hissed, but at the homunculus' impassive stare, he eventually snorted and crossed his arms, looking away. "Fine. I'll see what I can do. How long is this going to take, anyway?"
Envy smiled, temptingly. "It both starts and ends at your behest, shrimp," he replied, spreading his hands. "I've got an eternity to waste playing games with you; you, however, clearly can't be afforded that luxury. You'll find that I'm a most useful sort of devil, you'll see."
He honestly didn't think himself a devil, nor a monster, but hell, sometimes it was just far more convenient to play the part. Edward, from his curt nod, seemed to think so, too.
"Then I'll call you," he said, shortly, "after Al's left. How..." And he scowled, and seemed resentful that he had to ask. "How should I call you, anyway?"
"Oh, I'll always be here," Envy assured him, smiling ferally, "you have no doubt of that. When you've finally reached the end of your rope, all you'll have to do is call my name."
"And all I have to do," the blonde asked, though it didn't come out as a question, "is do everything it is that you say, right." He shook his head. "You should know that there are some things I won't do."
"I'm not asking for that, Shorty," Envy told him, exasperated. "All I'm asking is that you let me hang over your shoulder. You're hilarious when you're trying to do what's right, after all, and I'll love nothing more than to see you fail, and have to come crawling to me."
"Ah," and Ed's face was irritatingly unreadable, as he nodded. "Well then, without deceit..." He extended his hand as though to be shook, but quickly retracted it, shaking his head and muttering to himself about his folly. Envy smirked, and tossed some errant strands of hair over his shoulder.
"I just want a chance to tease you, Fullmetal Shorty, without getting a limb or two blown off in the process," he clarified, smugly, and started for the window. His companion hastily cleared the space, moving to flatten himself against the wall. "That's my own prerogative, and not the jurisdiction of anyone's orders. We'll see just how long you can hold out against the temptation of sin." He paused, a foot hanging out of the window. "Remember, the choice is up to you, to make that call." And, still smirking, he transformed himself into a yipping poodle, the perfect guise with which to escape down the street unnoticed, and leapt down from the rooftop.
The pipsqueak would call him, he knew it. Humans were skilled at masking their expressions, Envy had learned over the years, however, the one thing that they absolutely could not hide was their shameless desire. It burned in the shorty's eyes, too, and his lust for knowledge would either lead him to call the homunculus, or it would devour him from the inside.
Author's Notes Upon Completion: FUCK YOU, ED/ENVY WIP. JUST...FUCK YOU. Anyway, Lyko, this TOTALLY WASN'T SUPPOSED TO TURN INTO A WIP, but hey, look, it has. *shot in the face* I've got some pretty strong inspiration running for this, but eh. You know comments are always good to get my ball rolling again. ^^;; Ah, I severely hope that this idea isn't wonky or overused or out-of-character, but holy God, it's my first time writing this pairing and.............argheffluvium. >.< MORE COMING UP...SOMEDAY. I HOPE. LYKO, YOU'D BETTER APPRECIATE THIS.
Title: Me Fausto Philos (This title is not Latin, but rather, Greek. I'm fairly sure it means something like "not a friend to Faust". I think. I fail at Greek. I just put the title in as much because I figured Lyko would appreciate it.)
Author: Me, obviously, though I wish someone else was doing it... >.>
(devils_devotion)
Rating: At this point, I have no clue. I'll try for smut, though, for Lyko's sake. XD;; NC-17?
Genre: I guess it's angst. O.o It's not as angsty as how I usually go, though. Watch out for flying philosophical themes and introspect, as well as MODERATELY CONSENSUAL ENVY/ED, WUT. (Oh, and by Envy/Ed I actually mean Ed/Envy, as I absolutely CANNOT do these things in halves and am thus writing this pairing with seme!Ed.)
Pairing: Ed/Envy. No, that is not a typo. ^_____^
Summary: Bold is the endeavor; Splendid the pay! And the soldiers; march away. Are you familiar with the story of Faust?
For: lykomancer. I imagine that this is a bit different from what you wanted, but I hope you like it, anyway. ^^;; I'm rather intimidated by writing for you, as you're blindingly superior to me, and I think that whatever I receive in trade will be SO MUCH BETTER than this crap. *emo*
Comments: Mmmmmmmmm, most definitely AU from the anime. Not BLINDINGLY DISTURBINGLY AU, but let's just pretend the last ten episodes of the anime never happened, okay? -____-;; This story is a thematical retelling of Goethe's Faust, for which a mortal man sells his soul to Mephistopheles, the devil, in order to gain infinite wealth and wisdom. By "thematical retelling" I mean that only the themes of Faust are carried over, and not necessarily the bones of the plot. You'll see what I mean.
Music: Yousei no Shi (The Fairy's Death) by Akino Arai. God, it's such a gorgeous song of mysticism and delight. YOU WILL DOWNLOAD NOW, 'KAY? Also, because the lyrics are weirdly fitting, you can find a translation here.
Enough! What thou hast asked is granted.
Turn off this spirit from his fountain-head;
To trap him, let thy snares be planted,
And him, with thee, be downward led;
Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say:
A good man, through obscurest aspiration,
Has still an instinct of the one true way.
Envy was a creature of honest fun. While he preferred not to think of his narrow escape from the earthly coil - choking, dying, drowning, then a clap and a flash of brilliant light - he was rather entertained by casting himself in the cloak of mortality and observing the antics of man; their molehills masquerading as mountains, the pathetic way they climbed all over one another in their desperate race for the top, and their murmured agreements that were belied only by their dishonest eyes. Often, he wondered why Dante had chosen them as the Sins - homunculi with perfect bodies, disencumbered by that pesky thing known as a soul - when these humans much more accurately fit the bill, but he was forced admit that sometimes observing them was far more entertaining than ending their meager, miserable lives.
Joe Average would spend his days at the office switching business accounts into his personal finances, effectively robbing his company blind with the aid of his intern, who was hiding a criminal record as expansive as Gluttony's gut, then Average would return home to greet his son, who grinned and told him about his victorious basketball game even as the boy hid the shameful secret of parading around the house in his mother's hose and underwear when he thought no one was home, and Joe's Perfect Wife would kiss her husband on the cheek and feed him dinner, even though she was conspiring with her ex-gardener and lover to murder the man in his sleep and run away with his (stolen) fortune. Humans were all the same, so deliciously delved into their sin, and it was a habitual pasttime of the eldest homunculus to spend his days watching them.
Tonight, though, his target was clean, and digustingly, his target of choice: flaxen hair unbound and brushing the paper even as he scritched it with ink, citrine eyes narrowed and directed like beams of the sun, lips mumbling in the scholar's code - made sense to no one but the speaker, and hardly even then - feet tapping out an unconcious rhythm on the floor. The shorty was alone tonight, which was an unexpected delight, as that bodiless brother of his had a tendency to complicate Envy's much more whimsical goals, and as he sat perched atop an opposite rooftop and eyed the blonde, he wondered if heckling the shrimp would ultimately make it worth the blade he was going to get through his chest.
He wanted Shorty to either amuse him or die, like he did all other humans, but the problem was, Envy actually cared whether he got it or not; it actually mattered to him if the Fullmetal Alchemist danced by those strings or otherwise turned to clay, and though the homunculus had accepted it some time ago, it still didn't mean that it didn't rankle, rankle unpleasantly. He wanted blonde hair and golden eyes; eyes, eyes, eyes, not like any seen in the Gate or any other physiological plane, both admirable and annoying with their intensity, liquid fire. He wanted strong limbs and the taste of metal in his mouth, whether from body or blood he didn't know (or care); he wanted that bastard at his mercy, and he honestly didn't know whether he thought of that shrimp then, or of the other bastard that they unfortunately shared.
The shorty had left his window open to let in the breeze, an arrogant invitation, and it wasn't an invitation that Envy was inclined to ignore; he hopped from one rooftop to the next, the motion hardly registering with his otherwordly strength, and landed with grace atop the overhang of the blonde's window.
The shrimp so desperately tried to keep himself pure of sin - "I won't become a murderer, even for his sake! I'll find some other way!" - that even when sin happened to land in his lap, he managed to keep those blasphemer's hands of his clean, managed to bury his foul deeds in good intentions, managed to deny the very failings of his existence by performing all of his abominable acts in the name of love. It was disgusting, but it was a view that Envy could use, and he grinned wickedly at the thought of just how he could finally be able to tease that putridly perfect twit down the path of sin. Of course. It was painfully obvious, once he looked past his initial loathing of the boy and saw what was truly at the blonde's core; all guilt and frustration and denial. For a moment the homuculus paused, and wondered which guise to use in order to fool his prey, until he realized that he needed no guise, that all he would have to do was let that bastard's son and his goddamned devotion lead the way.
After all, he thought, and lowered himself to the window, who better to tempt the mortals than their precious devil?
---
I have not snares around thee cast;
Thyself hast led thyself into the meshes.
Who traps the Devil, hold him fast!
Not soon a second time he'll catch a prey so precious.
Edward had actually been so intent on his work that he hadn't noticed Envy until the homunculus was practically at his back, leaning over his shoulder and inspecting the notes scrawled carelessly onto the paper, eyebrow quirked and smirking boredly, clearly amused.
"I see you're getting desperate, Shorty," he remarked, and unfortunately dodged the blonde's swinging fist without effort. For a moment Envy hung from the ceiling fan, laughing snidely, but he scowled when Edward yanked on his dangling hair and dragged him down, sending him crashing onto the floor with a yowl of outrage. "You'll pay for that, Shorty!" he raged, and started forward, changing the shape of his arm into a blade - Ed clapped, and waited, tense and ready - but just as suddenly, the homunculus stopped, and flipped back to his original perch on the window, out of arm's reach.
It was strange behavior, but Ed was starting to understand that Envy was a strange creature, and though the knowledge didn't put him any less off of his guard, it was enough to make his cease his attack, and he looked at the Sin from over his clapped hands. "What do you want?" he asked, cautiously, and edged back just a step.
Envy, habitually, would flash himself in and out of Edward's life like a photograph; he would switch to his homunculus form from that of a common soldier as he walked by on the street, a transformation so quick that the blonde was forced to wonder if he'd imagined it, and occassionally he would hear a thumping outside of his dorm window that yielded nothing, save a few snarled, mossy hairs; encounters that were unpredictable and untamed, just like the creature that perpetuated them, but also somehow curious in their repetition, in their carelessness.
At the inquiry, Envy's smirk grew, and he held up his hands, palms out. "Just wanted to see how the Fullmetal Shrimp's research was going, that's all." He was crouched like a cat atop the sill, oddly elegant in his ease, and his familiarity with the surroundings made Edward even more ill at ease. "So...how's it goin'? Not well, I'd say." The homunculus laughed, nasal and condescending. "I saw your notes, before you so rudely tried to swipe me away, you know. Already so desperate as to try animal sacrifice, Fullmetal pipsqueak? Tsk, tsk. Bet your walking tin can of a brother wouldn't be too pleased to hear that, eh? Hear he's fond of cats, after all..."
"You shut up!" Edward roared, forgetting their momentary truce and rushing forward, automail already sharpened alchemically and teeth bared in a snarl, only angry at the damned thing for being right; Al would die if he knew, except it wasn't even possible for his brother to die, not really - and he had made him that way.
"Jeez!" Envy looked wholeheartedly surprised for a moment, but then there was a flash of green and he was gone, leaving Ed to overbalance on his own momentum and go tumbling out of the open window.
For a moment he was falling - he was on the second story of a hotel room, after all - but then there was a grip like steel around his ankle, and he found himself held upside-down over the black of the street by the grinning homunculus. Ed swore, red-faced, and tried to swing himself upward, punching empty air with his fists, but the angle was off and he couldn't get the proper leverage, no matter how much he tried. Envy yawned, and held him too far away from the wall to properly transmute anything with his alchemy, and waited almost patiently for him to wear himself out, even swinging the blonde back and forth a bit like a pendulum, snickering wildly at the enraged yowls that followed.
"Now, listen, Shorty," he commanded after a while over Ed's beleagured pants, and gripped the blonde's leg with his other hand. "You can either shut up and entertain me for the evening, or you can kiss this last working leg of yours goodbye."
Against his will, Ed blanched as the homunculus mimicked the snapping motion between his calf and his ankle, and swallowed the smallest fraction of his pride along with the lump that had formed in his throat. "What the hell do you mean, 'entertain'?" he demanded, croaking and red-faced from being held upside down for so long. His palms itched, and he tried one last time to connect them with the outer wall of the hotel.
"While your disproportionate temper's always a laugh riot, I'm a bit more interested in your alchemy today, shrimp," Envy admitted, and swung his captive back and forth a bit more. "Whaddaya say we have a bit of a friendly discussion? 'Studious debate', if you like that better. I imagine there's a lot a squirt like you could learn about alchemy from someone as...experienced...as me."
'Experienced'? What the hell? Ed thought dizzily, watching the pavement beneath him spin in a most alarming manner. Surely he doesn't think I'll believe that a homunculus would know anything about alchemy... But then again...just because they can't perform it, doesn't mean they don't know about it... After all, if they're trying to get alchemists to make them the Philosopher's Stone, then they've got to understand the mechanics of it, at least...
"Well?" Envy asked him again, impatiently this time, and shook him for good measure. "My arm's getting tired, shrimp. If you don't make up your mind soon, I'm just gonna say to hell with you and let you drop."
Ed paused; weighed and considered. His situation now wasn't the most pleasant, after all, and he wanted to be back on solid ground. He could play Envy's game for a while, he could, so long as the stakes were fair. "E-Eh, sure. Let's see what you know." The hitch of his voice was entirely out of his control.
"Excellent," the homunculus asserted, and dragged Edward in through the open window, letting go of his ankle to leap to the other side of the room, crouched this time on the bed, grinning jovially and waiting. For a moment the blonde simply slumped underneath the window, feeling the blood drain relievedly from his face and the world finally start to revert to normal, taking deep breaths in an effort to still the shaking of his frame. His head was pounding, or perhaps it was his heart that he heard in his ears.
"So...what did your master send you to find out, this time?" the blonde finally asked, hoarsely, and got shakily to his feet. "I won't do your dirty work for you; I've told you time and time again that I won't be the perpetrator of that kind of slaughter." He held his automail against his chest, not wanting to give the creature the option of removing his (only) last line of defense, hearing the gears clank reassuringly as he moved.
But Envy only laughed, loudly and mockingly, and threw his head back towards the ceiling with a whirl of emerald hair. "That bitch? I'm not here on her orders; this is more like...a personal investment, I guess you could say. Heh." When the homunculus' eyes focused on him again, Ed bit back a breath at just how violet they were, crackling like a summer storm, dangerous through their sheer electrical discharge. "I come and go as I please, Shorty, and I have no master. However..."
More frightening than the static, however, was the look on Envy's face as his smile suddenly turned sly. "...I think I could be persuaded to offer up my assistance...if the price is right, of course. It all depends on the offer."
It was happening too fast for the blonde, and he sat down suddenly upon the windowsill, nearly tilting backwards onto the street again, eyes blank and not seeing. His mouth, however, moved of it's own volition as he queried, tonelessly: "Price?"
The Sin scowled, and seemed resentful for having even offered, eyes turning for a moment disgusted, but then the expression slid off of his face like oil on an automail port, and he smirked once more. "I believe you're particularly fond of the phrase "equivalent exchange", aren't you, Shorty? Think of it as something like that. I'm feeling generous, and honestly, whether I kill you now or later doesn't matter that much to me, so long as I'm amused." Envy cracked his knuckles, the epitome of ease, and rolled his head on his shoulders in a boneless, unnatural motion that made Edward's skin crawl. "I think watching you wrestle with your temptation and self-doubt'll be reward enough for telling you a little thing or two about science."
It was such a strange proposition, such an uncharacteristic and amiable offer of assistance that Ed didn't know what to think, had no witty tricks or logical processes other than his automatic reflex of if it'll save Al... "Then lay down your terms, Envy," he suggested, and wished that his voice had come out sounding stronger, instead of numb and anticlimatic.
"Aha!" The homunculus grinned, and held up a finger. "It's easy, shrimp. I'll be something like what the mystics call a 'demon familiar'. You know what that is, don't you? Ahahahah, of course you wouldn't, you're not interested in folk tales." And Envy snickered, and seemed greatly amused by the fact. But Ed listened, and intently, listened for some trap, listened for some snare that he could fall into; also looked for some pitfall that he could trap Envy in, should the need arise, and was thus far finding none. "In short - no offense intended," he drawled, in a manner that implied that that had most definitely been his intention, and the blonde involuntarily bristled - "I'll answer to your beck and call, and answer what you ask of me; whether it's life, death, or alchemy, I'll show you the truth. I'll be the wandering spirit that whispers in your ear; the voice of temptation, the devil on your shoulder, what do you say?"
"Why the hell would I want something like that?" Ed parried, flatly, and stood to pace, though he was careful not to put his back to the other occupant of the room. "I don't need you encouraging me to do evil any more than what you already do, thanks." Internally, he was blazing with questions: what, when why?; Envy, ever a creature of contradiction, had him thoroughly stumped by this turnaround, and he glared at the homunculus mistrustfully.
"Think about it, Shorty." Envy jumped up to hang upside-down from the ceiling fan again, grinning drolly. "What would man have honestly discovered in this world if he hadn't been nudged along by temptation and sin? Who really decides what's good and evil, after all? A god you don't believe in? A society that's shunned both you and your brother as freaks, as chaos against their precious order? You're just grumpy because you realize that you do need my help, after all."
"Liar," Ed hissed, antagonized by the jab to his skill, and balled his hands into fists. "I'll transcend the lot of you; I'll find a different way. I can do it."
"Hmmmm." Envy tilted his head at him, an upside-down shift of green, before dropping to the floor neatly on his cat's feet, making the jump look effortless, as he did everything else. His expression was one of superior amusement, and oddly, of the cat that had just cornered his prey. "You won't do it with animal sacrifice, you know," he said offhandedly, and though Ed recognized it as bait, the pragmatist in him queried, loudly:
"Why?"
"Uh-unh," the homunculus reminded him, shaking his finger in a condescending manner, lilac eyes openly and lazily satisfied. "You're smart; surely you can figure it out for yourself."
He brushed past Edward breezily, hopping into the window, and without turning around the blonde said, dully, "Wait."
He heard, as opposed to saw, Envy's unabashed undertone of pleasure. "Yesssssssssss?"
And though Edward would never forgive himself for it, he was not strong enough to resist the call of the devil. He closed his eyes, and let out, in a ragged sigh, "Tell me what you know."
---
For Devils and for spectres this is law:
Where they have entered in, there also they withdraw.
"There are rules, Shorty, of which even learned alchemists such as yourself must be aware of, and the first of these is that I will not work for free."
Envy was tingling with a strange energy that he rarely felt unless he was regenerating; his grin threatened to split his face in two and he bounced, though only slightly, on the balls of his feet. The little pipsqueak had fallen for it as assuredly as he would have fallen out of that hotel window, and ah, how Envy loved to hold that rapidly beating heart within his hands and know that now, it was entirely within his rights to crush it.
"I find it strange that an abomination of alchemy such as yourself would adhere so firmly to it's laws," Edward replied, loftily, and for a moment, the homunculus seriously had to restrain the desire to kill. Abomination? Hardly! He quelled the annoyance at how outspoken the pipsqueak was being, now that he had ground to stand upon, and instead smirked, an audible grating of his teeth.
"I only do this because it amuses me," he asserted clearly, and willed himself to stop that gleeful bouncing. "It's funny to watch you try so futilely to fight against your fate, and this is just another way for me to be witness to that."
"Hmmmmm." But the blonde didn't look convinced, he instead looked contemplative, which Envy was practical enough to know was not a positive thing. For him, at least. "So, then. What's your price? What would you ask of me, in return?"
Envy's grin returned to his face, and he glided over to where the shorty sat, perched neatly on the windowsill with a tentative expression on his face. "In all the folk tales, the alchemist sold the devil his soul," he purred, and put his palms down on the cool wood, caging in the blonde with his arms, leaning forward with his face. "How far would you go, Fullmetal Pipsqueak? Would you surrender everything to me, all for the sake of your recycling bin of a brother? Mind, will...body?" He quirked up an eyebrow, for amusement's sake, and took sadistic glee in the way that Edward swallowed, pulse visible through his skinny neck. "Ah, well. The only use I have for your body isn't the one you would think." And, smirking and leaning back, Envy lifted the alchemist's deadweight hands and brought them together in a clap.
The sound startled his companion back into sense, and the blonde glared, throwing out his palms with the intent to do some damage, but Envy was easily able to dodge, and he tsked and shook his finger mockingly.
"Now, now," he said, and slid forward again, making the movement as liquid and as sensuous as possible, if only to the rise of color on the shrimp's cheeks, until the brat had become as red as a lobster. "That's hardly any way to treat your mentor, now is it?" He snickered. "Perhaps I'll have you call me 'Teacher'...though admittedly, I prefer the ring of 'Master' better..."
"Don't even!" Edward snarled, bent on his knees and ready to attack, a bristling ball of fire that threatened to blaze onward towards eternity. "Just tell me what the hell you want and get out of here!"
"Well," Envy scoffed haughtily, "there's nothing of any worth to me in a beggar's soul, so I suppose I'll just take the last of your free will. The fraction that isn't dominated by your overwhelming concern for that brother of yours - no, that's not good enough." He shook his head irritably. "I can't be your familiar; can't be that devil on your shoulder with that angel of a brother in the way. Get rid of him."
When Edward gaped at him, soundlessly, Envy made a noise of disgust and gestured impatiently with his hands. "You don't have to kill him, God. Just...send him away somewhere. Any excuse you can think of. I won't take second place to that tin can."
"Stop insulting him," the blonde hissed, but at the homunculus' impassive stare, he eventually snorted and crossed his arms, looking away. "Fine. I'll see what I can do. How long is this going to take, anyway?"
Envy smiled, temptingly. "It both starts and ends at your behest, shrimp," he replied, spreading his hands. "I've got an eternity to waste playing games with you; you, however, clearly can't be afforded that luxury. You'll find that I'm a most useful sort of devil, you'll see."
He honestly didn't think himself a devil, nor a monster, but hell, sometimes it was just far more convenient to play the part. Edward, from his curt nod, seemed to think so, too.
"Then I'll call you," he said, shortly, "after Al's left. How..." And he scowled, and seemed resentful that he had to ask. "How should I call you, anyway?"
"Oh, I'll always be here," Envy assured him, smiling ferally, "you have no doubt of that. When you've finally reached the end of your rope, all you'll have to do is call my name."
"And all I have to do," the blonde asked, though it didn't come out as a question, "is do everything it is that you say, right." He shook his head. "You should know that there are some things I won't do."
"I'm not asking for that, Shorty," Envy told him, exasperated. "All I'm asking is that you let me hang over your shoulder. You're hilarious when you're trying to do what's right, after all, and I'll love nothing more than to see you fail, and have to come crawling to me."
"Ah," and Ed's face was irritatingly unreadable, as he nodded. "Well then, without deceit..." He extended his hand as though to be shook, but quickly retracted it, shaking his head and muttering to himself about his folly. Envy smirked, and tossed some errant strands of hair over his shoulder.
"I just want a chance to tease you, Fullmetal Shorty, without getting a limb or two blown off in the process," he clarified, smugly, and started for the window. His companion hastily cleared the space, moving to flatten himself against the wall. "That's my own prerogative, and not the jurisdiction of anyone's orders. We'll see just how long you can hold out against the temptation of sin." He paused, a foot hanging out of the window. "Remember, the choice is up to you, to make that call." And, still smirking, he transformed himself into a yipping poodle, the perfect guise with which to escape down the street unnoticed, and leapt down from the rooftop.
The pipsqueak would call him, he knew it. Humans were skilled at masking their expressions, Envy had learned over the years, however, the one thing that they absolutely could not hide was their shameless desire. It burned in the shorty's eyes, too, and his lust for knowledge would either lead him to call the homunculus, or it would devour him from the inside.
Author's Notes Upon Completion: FUCK YOU, ED/ENVY WIP. JUST...FUCK YOU. Anyway, Lyko, this TOTALLY WASN'T SUPPOSED TO TURN INTO A WIP, but hey, look, it has. *shot in the face* I've got some pretty strong inspiration running for this, but eh. You know comments are always good to get my ball rolling again. ^^;; Ah, I severely hope that this idea isn't wonky or overused or out-of-character, but holy God, it's my first time writing this pairing and.............argheffluvium. >.< MORE COMING UP...SOMEDAY. I HOPE. LYKO, YOU'D BETTER APPRECIATE THIS.