Chapter Text
Prologue
Selim Bradley was a happy child who grew into a happy, mature, respectful and rather liked young man.
By most people's knowledge, he was a normal human.
He was not human at all, biologically.
But there was not a single living creature that was similar to his nature on that level, and he was welcomed among humanity, even by those few who actually knew who he was. Or more precisely, who he used to be. Considering he had the mind and memories of that being, was it fair to say he used to be that, rather than still was?
Yes. Selim was not the same as the previous roles he played of that name, nor the arrogant, powerful shadows behind the strings. He understood things that he was blind to before, he experienced fulfillments that he thought empty before, he lived. He thrived. He loved his mother very much, and he cared about his friends, regardless of if he kept to only a few and did drift a bit apart by the end of his schooling years. It was difficult, when he aged and grew more rapidly than they did. Still, however impermanent it was, these things were worth it.
It seemed sinful of him to keep that hoarded to himself.
(It seemed unfair to be alone, however loved he was.)
(No creature liked to be completely, forever alone. No creature liked to feel trapped that way.)
Was it so wrong that he would want to give his fellow siblings this same chance? He, of all of them, likely ‘deserved’ it the least. He was the eldest and so had the most time to suddenly grow a conscience and stand up against the frankly horrific things they were doing, yet all that could be said was that he spent that whole time complicit and unrepentant. Every year he had on them was a mark against him. He was the least sensitive to the rights and lives of others, since pride was, so often, entirely egocentric. Fearing him might have even dissuaded some of the younger homunculi from exploring the human side of the world and having the exposure they would need to realize how much more in life mattered than a creator with dreams of being a god and nothing else. Greed left, twice. He wanted more, he wanted everything, he wanted something simple and attainable and human. His hands were far from clean by a human standard, but he benefited the lives of the chimeras he stole away, preferred hoarding over destroying, and his track record included far less mass murdering, blood seals, immoral science horrors, fostering genocide, etcetera. If any of them deserved to be given a second chance, wouldn’t it be him long before it was Pride?
Second chances didn’t make much sense. There were things that couldn’t be walked back. The longer the list of crimes, the more and more chances there already were to step away.
But Edward Elric gave him one. Or he gave Mrs. Bradley one, and the homunculus was just there benefiting unintentionally because she deserved to not completely lose the family she thought she had in one terrible day. Even if the latter was the actual motivation behind his survival, then he could use that same logic here. The homunculi were considered monsters (for good reason) who wouldn’t deserve to live and learn what it was like to feel fulfilled, loved, family, belonging, but Selim was a good lad with too much blind kindness like his mother and he would be happier if he could say he wasn’t alone in having this chance. He’d been trying to save every broken dying stray he came across since he was big enough to walk. Telling him to stand back and let someone suffer would be mean for his sake. The benefit of a second chance for monsters was unintentional, maybe unwanted, but necessary to do good for a good person. Whether the Fullmetal Alchemist did it because he didn’t want to kill, or he believed in second chances for even monsters, or he did it all for Mrs. Bradley’s sake, the reasoning behind each motive could be spun to justify this now.
Besides, he wasn’t Edward.
He was as selfish in this as he was hopeful as he was guilty and ashamed and trying to alleviate that.
Of the homunculi, it didn’t make sense that Pride got to escape punishment and live.
So why couldn’t he fix that?
Why shouldn’t he get to make it right?
By a human standard-
Well, no, there wasn’t a clear rule there. They were individuals and they came in cultures and the differences in how they viewed such topics were too many to rectify. Some were just too forgiving. Some were just too kind.
Some, he hoped, would show a few nonhumans why that mattered.
Even if it was ‘wrong’, he understood intimately where each of the others had come from. Their natures were not so simple to shake off. Their purpose in existing was clear from the start. Their power inside was full of screams that became indistinguishable from one another and grew to be ignored. What measure was a human life? Each was equal in worth. If they were to die, why shouldn’t that unstoppable outcome be used for something useful for someone alive? It was easy.
They were callous from the start.
It wasn’t their role to try to change, and it wasn’t logical to want to learn from what were just insects.
Once, Pride would have killed whoever dared try to say Father was bad at raising them, because that outright said he had faults.
It was a little funny, but…Selim really didn’t mind hearing that at all. He told it to himself often enough. Pride was proud, and went from believing the being to be everything, to being angry that man ever thought himself so much better than his disposable firstborn son- or any of them.
Because his mother didn’t swear very often and he was so soft a child when his container was still adjusting to its truest, weakest form, incapable of housing his memories consciously at that time, Selim had a rather clean (if occasionally familiarly cold instead of his usual sentimental warmth) vocabulary. Still, some situations afforded a bit more emotion and a bit less respect.
So, in regards to Father, the man was a bastard.
Pride easily justified giving a new chance to the other homunculi since he’d gotten, and very much appreciated, his own. The five he could share this prospect with were all horrible monsters by many standards but he was still a homunculus and he knew what their existences were like, while no human could have. To those around him, Selim was a normal young man, after all. To those around him, Selim was a normal human. If asked if he had a soul, they- strangers to acquaintances to friends- would be confused that it was even a question because of course he did. Selim was a homunculus biologically and alchemically but that did not mean he wasn’t human, artificial origins or not. These same people would say he was an exception, that they did not mean him, when they called the homunculi monsters? Ha! This was why the rest would have to be careful to have new identities. They wouldn’t have to live under the shadow of who they were before, if they were smart.
Even though they were all killers, some more heartless than others, and they certainly had vices , Selim was excited to give this actual chance at life to the rest. He couldn’t hate them for what they did without hating himself more, and he was a little nervous- even if all the much older arrogance behind him couldn’t believe that about himself- about them, but he felt they should be able to live free from the rather miserable conditions and natures all of them were born with.
Pride didn’t feel like bothering trying to justify that with Father. A second chance for the bastard? No. He didn’t get the excuses they did. He was the reason they were all like that , and then he was the reason they all stayed that way, encouraged to just get worse and more miserable and less open to the experience of being fulfilled.
He didn’t know the full origin of their originator. Maybe it was something awful. He didn’t care.
This moment wasn’t for Father.
This decision wasn’t about Father.
This night should have had nothing to do with Father.
So someone explain to Selim what he’d done to deserve getting a sixth body when he’d already sacrificed so much to convince people to let him get the five he was after.
It wasn’t as if the body was instantly recognizable. It was little more than the bland, half naked, and half-corpse of a stranger. If not for the way each of the others were identified already, he may have even thought it was just a new form that would belong to one of his siblings.
His next confused guess was that he’d somehow, unintentionally, retrieved Wrath. But that was impossible. He was human, just as much as he held their Father’s wrath and a philosopher’s stone burned its way into his still-human soul. To ‘retrieve’ Wrath would have meant actually reaching far past what any living creature could try to do, involving human transmutation for the purpose of resurrecting the dead- something that Selim knew well enough was impossible when it was humans that were being talked about. The Elrics made that discovery: it didn’t matter how well the alchemy was prepared, it didn’t matter, because even should the human formed be capable of living longer than a few seconds, it would not be the soul they were after.
Homunculi were not human, except for Wrath.
This - second chance- whatever it was called, for the homunculi that died hinged on how they weren’t born humans.
And…
There was something far more like their soul, far, far closer to it than Wrath’s was to the rest of them.
That thought didn’t come to Selim while he dropped down next to the body in panic. It didn’t arrive while he watched the shallow breaths slowly move a bony chest and his hands rose to hover over it and the face and do nothing in indecision.
When he decided against unprepared first aid and went to peel back an eyelid to check their eye, then Selim realized that connection.
The homunculi were a collective. He’d told that to Kimblee once, hadn’t he? Wrath was the odd one out. The rest were far from human: just six little shadows of their father, who once was them, and who they were from and could return to. Six little shadows of one shadow. ‘Father’, after all, was not the true appearance of their creator. He'd just given that look away four hundred odd years ago.
Pride was not the type to laugh very often out of frustration or tasteless irony. So Selim didn’t start laughing now, even though the hysteria almost wanted to.
What a…
What- a-
why?
This was no time for questions. Selim shrugged off his coat and transmuted its material into a square, thinner than the jacket but acceptable as a sheet. He pulled the body to the most cluttered wall. The breathing was weak, but not alarming. Or perhaps he just couldn’t register more alarm than the confusion in him already. He checked for a pulse before pinning down the small knives he’d been taught to use alkahestry with. The eastern variation on alchemy was fascinating, but one purpose that had gained it fame over the rest of its potential was its medical uses.
Breathing to match the same flow of life in this- he didn’t want to think about who (why? Why was he here?) -, Selim tried to alter the direction of energy being circulated in the human body. Melatonin production was more than welcome. High brain activity? Less so, right now. No, no, he needed to be able to hide this and come back to the problem later. The idea of the chaos bound to occur outside any minute now was bad enough without the cause of it all walking out the front door practically naked. That would just startle everyone. That would…
Cause so much more chaos than needed. Create far worse complications to a complicated situation.
Edward Elric did not like to kill, but he’d killed someone once before, and that person was laying on the dirty floor of Selim’s temporary basement. Alphonse was- well, Alphonse was Selim’s favorite of those brothers, for various reasons, but the man was not a child trapped in a dirt dome anymore, with childlike idealism untempered by age.
Why not throw this outside for them? He didn’t want him. He’d never intended this to happen.
Maybe that was the biggest problem.
For all the effort, all the years, all the studying, all of himself that he put into this operation, it came with unforeseen consequences? Its conclusion was not intended or desired? He did not see this coming? He did not so much as expect it, yet he thought he’d done oh so much and spent so much time in preparation? It was unthinkable. It was humiliating. He couldn’t stand it.
This was a flaw he was responsible for not foreseeing and avoiding, and he arrogantly did not like to believe in flaws.
Even tempered by a wonderful upbringing, Selim struggled there.
He flicked the sheet out over the body, though he first ensured it would not cover the mouth and air flow would come in through the gaps where crates held parts of its folds up. He didn’t want to be responsible for a death either. Selim Bradley had never liked death. Even knowing it was a natural part of the world, even knowing it was unpreventable and irreversible and this was not a defect of humanity, there was a piece of him that missed having a full philosopher’s stone since before he developed enough to remember he had one. With its presence, taken for granted by homunculi that never lacked them, there was a way to save any little thing that was hurt and dying. The homunculi never used them for that purpose. Selim, without a single conscious memory, would have in a heartbeat to help even an injured mouse get more life when the animal would have only months to a few years anyway.
If he did not like swallowing death for little animals, then it wasn’t like he could stand to watch someone who used to matter so much to him die.
Still-
Why did he have to be alive?
Why??
Selim struggled to maintain composure and actually concentrate on what occurred around him for the remainder of the night. Waking confused, angry siblings up one by one? A fog ruined by an undercurrent of why. Meeting carefully neutral humans at the door and convincing everyone that being outside was better than forcing the way into the basement? It was a surprise he could really convince anyone of anything, when his mind was caught on that whining mantra: why why but why? What did I do to deserve this? Where’d I go wrong? How is it my fault? Why?
Things were taken care of.
Fights were broken apart, realities laid down. The Elrics were far nicer than anyone else from those days would’ve been. It was lucky that enough years passed by that Selim was no longer watched by the Fuhrer’s office, not as closely. (Guards like that were swapped out with a different type of insurance now. Selim followed up on what his past life used to, through boredom, pretend was his starry-eyed, childish dream: he was a state alchemist and that meant they held power over him, even with the alterations to that program made under the regimes following Father’s defeat.) It was equally lucky he’d endeared himself so well to them unintentionally, when he was without memories and a little boy in truth, and that Mrs. Bradley also grew to be a familiar face when hosting them. They supported him to support her- how very human. It did not mean they had to like it.
Although Edward and Greed didn’t act all too mad about having to see each other.
It would’ve been a bit funny to watch that reunion, actually, if he'd been able to really watch it mentally.
A bit rewarding too.
Selim’s mind was trapped in the basement.
Machinations moved as intended. People were moved around. He slipped away with an old, practiced ease, just to see that nothing had changed under the sheet. The basement was locked still when he reached it. The body inside was where he left it. And yet even as he locked the door once more behind him, the paranoia would not let him think it was actually secure, or that its occupant wouldn’t be able to miraculously pop up on the outside like he had miraculously appeared as a body.
It was terrible, how much it was choking him.
Why?
Why- What’s going on- Whyyy
He sounded like a whiny child in his own mind. It was embarrassing and he told himself to stop, but a different wave of anxiety would hit him when he was not expecting it and send him right into another bout of confused horror and growing anger, as if this were a personal attack intended to ruin his moment, as if he couldn’t do a damn thing related to family without having control over it plucked back up by the person that designed them and then flopped so badly at making them a family at all.
Selim didn’t sleep all night, but luckily everything was too chaotic for that to be noticed. It wasn’t until the morning after when things were winding down, cars were being packed, and an Elric came up to talk with him.
Normally, he would not have an issue having a calm conversation with Alphonse Elric. Despite the difference in age, the man tended to treat him like a peer these days (Selim didn’t mention that, ever since regaining his memories, the difference in age technically went the other direction by a long shot).
Now, it was bad enough that he needed to make an excuse for staying behind when this building’s use had seemingly run its course and he had so many reasons to instead leave. The homunculi, namely.
He couldn’t just stay, but he would need to return quickly, before that body would die. The family reunion would be cut short and he would look like he was dodging responsibilities…Not if, first, they could find a local place to be put up, perhaps, but even then, what if the chi that the Elrics could sense gave this house away-? His mind was rambling in worry.
It wasn’t unjustified.
“It feels so strange in there,” Alphonse said while they stood on an old porch in the brisk morning air. (It was old, too. The fencing was made of wood that might give way if they leaned on it to relax with a hot drink. This house wasn’t a wreck, but it was unkempt and the weather up in Eqtied was often wet. Maybe this could be an excuse for rushing them all out? But he needed an excuse to come back, too. It was his. A fixer-upper, but he could fix it. Well. Technically, it was an abandoned house whos tenants either left it during a bad time of economic upheaval- the blood crest carved nearby in the 1550s may have been long ago by human standards, but these things left scars on their microsocieties- or died without a realtor taking up the building after. The salary of a state alchemist wasn’t enough to waltz around buying houses, and mother was left with a large sum of money by Grumman’s government yearly but that was hers . Still, taken together, this could be seen as the rash and foolish act of a young man that just had to learn economic decisions through hard experience. He could make this work.)
(Or he could if he was not too busy with alarm and confusion and fears at every little hint that someone knew he’d messed something up with the retrieval of those artificial souls.)
Selim nearly panicked. He was balancing far too many things and barely keeping them together.
“It does,” he agreed quickly. “I think it must be the arrays I used. There were a lot of new theories put into play and the energy coming from that floor is very weird to me too.”
For a tense second, he thought the man would point out that the specific life energy he was talking about came from a person when all the ones that should've been there were accounted for. What would Selim say? The truth? Would he get blamed? Would it be assumed he intended this secretly all along and used those who gave him a second chance, like they were tools?
Would they go inside and kill him?
Likely not. The Elrics remained soft people in regards to killing, really.
And he shouldn't care if the man down there died.
Selim shivered a bit and rubbed down his arms. The shirt there kept the breeze out, but not the cold. Alphonse glanced at him with curious concern.
“Where’s your coat? You shouldn’t be out here without it, if you’re cold,” the older man pointed out the absolute obvious.
It’s hiding a sixth human body, he didn’t say. Hiding from the others that actually were meant to be dragged into human forms, hiding from Alphonse, hiding from the cold of the basement in general-
Hiding as protection.
When- and here he went back to it- he shouldn’t care.
He shouldn't be protecting him.
Selim, as it were, was too soft of a person as well.
And Pride couldn't help but care about him. So he was conflicted. He was unhappy. He didn't want the first homunculus here. And he never wanted the bastard dead either to start with, so there was some measure of relief that he'd need to unpack later.
Later.
He so hated procrastination. And the reunion was soured by the sense that it was.
He wanted to put on a happy face.
(He wanted to have answers now.
But later.
It had to wait til later.
He dreaded that it wouldn’t matter when- he would not be getting an explanation for why this had to happen to him. For where he’d messed up in his formulations. For how the hell there was enough mass to make six bodies instead of the five pre-prepared for. It was so unexpected that he couldn’t help but think that, perhaps, there was no mistake on his end aside from having the arrogance to ever think he could pull this off without issue: the arrogant were punished when they thought themselves above the laws of the universe, Father had said, and Pride learned years later that the man exemplified that truth in the end.
Maybe he was here to exemplify such on the part of the younger homunculus.)
The house creaked. Just walking across its lower floor set off a reaction in the framework, and something upstairs groaned. Selim reminded himself that this was natural and these sounds always seemed louder when no one else was inside. The noises didn’t mean anyone else was stepping around up there.
Despite being better than fear, he lost a quick mental debate and found himself taking the stairs that followed up the wall that the front doors belonged on, before turning with that wall to climb a few more feet until they could level out into the second story. Its hallway was more of a balcony above part of the sitting room, complete with a railing that Selim could trust only slightly more than those outside. There was a single bedroom on the first floor and its wall stretched up to the ceiling to contain the second upstairs bed and bath as well. Selim crossed the loft part of the hallway until he came to that corner and opened its door.
Nothing.
Of course not. This house just creaked. Now that he was up here, he could hear the effects of his weight in the groans of downstairs walls. Still, he looked in the washroom and his imagination ran with the idea that the basement’s door would open while he was occupied in here, giving its occupant a headstart to go to the exit.
What was he worried about? The Elrics weren’t outside anymore. If the new human got out, he’d be faced with rural land and the elements. The nearest neighbor was miles away. And it wasn’t like he would have a target painted on his back. The average Amestrian wouldn’t even think to guess that the strange man was involved in what happened seventeen years ago, let alone that he was responsible for ripping their souls from their bodies and for conflict, corruption, and bloodshed marking their history. Nothing about his appearance would mean anything to them.
No one else would have felt the startling thought that they were looking into a mirror when peeling skin back to check his pupils.
Selim sighed and left for the stairs once more. It was convenient that he’d already cleaned up this room, and the rest of the house, the week prior. He began before his teachers-wardens arrived and was glad that he had, in hindsight, but previously, he’d thought to offer them the home to stay the night. The couches in the sitting room could be used for extra beds, there was a small workroom attached to the outside of the house that could likewise be slept in, and Selim didn’t mind giving luxuries up to people he respected so much. Pride respected very, very few, and there was a greater sense of importance placed on those Selim considered so highly, even though he was raised to see value in everyone.
Getting everyone out was almost more effort than was worth it, but, on the unintentional bright side, renting a better place to board from an elderly couple down the road (still outside town, because bringing in the five of them anywhere was a disaster waiting to happen until things were situated to. Such as: they’d died. Father lost. They weren’t going to be repeating any of that. No blood seals, no murder, no chaos just for the fun of it) meant everyone got a degree of privacy that night and fights were prevented. Mostly. Pride had forgotten how much of a problem his siblings could be, with the exception of Lust. Sloth was in no mood to get up and move to start with, let alone fit his still-hulking-as-a-human body into one of the cars, let alone get out after a drive and go to a nice cozy bed- …It was fine. Selim didn’t like to see anyone hurt. Sloth made him think of a slow animal but he wasn’t impatient when it was a pet who was being so lacking in the intellectual department, so he should be nice here too. At least Sloth was not being intentional in slowing them all down and making him irritated. And, well, Gluttony was not quite smart enough to be acting out intentionally either. But Envy and Greed…Selim should have been more braced for.
At least he was calm and well rested today.
Dealing with his f- well, with the bastard below, would be a trial in and of its own.
He’d signed up for dealing with problems related to the other homunculi. This, he’d no intentions of facing, and yet he couldn’t leave to anyone else. He’d rather hide any mistake he made until the day he died, to be frank. He was acting the part of the martyr, taking on this new weight and refusing the suggestion of help from anyone.
He didn’t believe anyone was more capable than he was. He could turn this around into some form of positive. Then and only then would anyone even find out it was occurring all along.
Selim gathered water and a straw from the kitchen, a washcloth, and then went into the pantry where the basement door was hidden away.
He braced himself.
It was still locked, just as it was a day previously when he’d run an ‘errand’ and came here to make sure the body containing his former father stayed alive, and the day before that, so on and so forth.
He took a deep breath and then stepped down into the musty darkness.
There were all of four steps until the ‘stairs’ turned into a cracked concrete ground. It seemed like a sorry excuse for the word, at least compared to those carpeted, creaking ones up in the house proper. All the better, though. It meant there were fewer to drag a body up. And that was still possibly on the table.
Selim sat and softly peeled his makeshift blanket back. Laying it out, he pulled the limp form out of its curled pose to get a better look at him. At least the sheet was keeping his bare back from touching the ground. It was colder than the air was.
A cursory investigation revealed little more than yesterday. Surely, his fa- he’d need to use the washrooms and start eating meals, but so long as he’d been kept like this, the body maintained its subdued homeostasis well enough. Selim propped the man half upright against his side so that he could open his mouth. Using his thumb to seal the vacuum of the straw full of water, he maneuvered the paper in, bent it to fit against the tongue and down past the back of the throat as best he could, and released. It was tedious work to repeat, but he had the feeling that father wouldn’t just wake up, alive again, human now, and confronted by an unrepentant traitor of a child, and feel like listening to calm, rational instructions about drinking water.
He returned to the kitchen, put the cup in the sink, washed his hands once more, and then returned to stand on the lowest step of the basement and look down on the one who used to be the absolute center of the universe for Pride- yes, somehow even above himself, for all his arrogance and ego.
He would have expected to feel more of … something. Some passion. Maybe the panic and distress and anger from before when the discovery was raw and it all felt so, so unfair.
All that he knew instead was that he didn’t want to be here.
For once, he could see a missing wisdom in Sloth’s favorite words. What a bother. He should be anywhere else with anyone else right now.
It was with this attitude that he planted the blades, activated the alkahestry, and mentally accepted his one life wouldn’t be what he wanted it to be.
This resulted in his feelings curdling. What lacked in passion and energy came instead with the deceptive easy speed of an unconcerned snake, and the poison left behind was full of embitterment. He stared down at the unimpressive, unremarkable, and weak human body slowly stirring on the sheet and was more disgusted than anything.
This?
This was who he thought would be god someday? Who he thought deserved to be god?
This? His father?
It made the skin on his nose scrunch.
That was really not nice of him. Neither was looming like this, as if he were a being that could pass judgment. (Well. He could, and he did. He judged that father was terrible at living up to that name, and he refused to claim him as a real parent. That went to his mother. Hell, it would have gone to Wrath, before it went to this emotionless, haughty creature that wouldn’t have come back to save Pride, give a hand to Pride, keep Pride, wouldn’t have cared that Edward had every chance to kill him, wouldn’t, wouldn’t, all the things Edward Elric said he wouldn’t do that Pride couldn’t help but want from him.)
He should help, he kept thinking while he watched the new human cough and splutter, twist around on its front awkwardly, fail to get its limbs under it properly, struggle to push up onto its arms at all. He should go help.
The man coughed again as soon as he was sitting. His hair was long and unkempt and fell to curtain his downturned face. Father’s hair was always perfectly held in place while the human that looked like him- Hohenheim, Van Hohenheim, the stranger who father ate before Pride got down to the heart of their base after dealing with Mustang, the one who introduced himself to Pride in the tunnel of Liore as Slave 23 - had to tie his own up in a thin ponytail rather like Edward’s (and occasionally Alphonse over the years Selim saw him, though his alchemy and alkahestry teacher wouldn’t resist cutting his short again soon after making it to ponytail length every time) and even then, hairs came loose out of it to be imperfect annoyances. Father didn’t often move from the seat that he controlled much of Amestris from, so for weeks and months and sometimes years at a time, there was no movement to make that hair change its permanent position on his shoulders. It could have been that of a statue’s. How artificial. How fake. They’d really all fawned over that as perfection?
Selim must have moved or made a sound, because that sad curtain of hair shifted as the man’s head lifted. Even with so much of it falling over his face, Selim could see the hidden eyes glaring.
For a moment, he wondered what Gluttony had felt in the seconds before his death. Piercing eyes and piercing shadows, unrelenting, if not sadistic in the prospect of snapping him in half and licking up the remains.
But that was hardly comparable. Pride was weakened in that moment (hence the reasoning for devouring his own, though Selim was no longer purely a homunculus that took cold logical rationalization as legitimate justification), but very much held the advantage over his practically-dying brother anyway. What Gluttony felt was not relatable to this. Father was a human in a basement with an ugly attitude and shaking limbs. Selim was in no danger now.
One more deep breath.
He put on a polite voice.
“Take it easy-” he tried to say in a tone of reassurance that could not have gone to a less deserving person (the process may have been reversed, and he may not remember it occurring very well considering what happened to him soon after, but this man had killed everyone - had ripped their souls out to join a painful maelstrom- every human that Selim knew and owed so much to had to suffer and choke and die, because his father thought he should be god) (take a breath, take a breath, it wasn’t as if Selim had a right to be so upset on their behalf considering what Pride had done ). All he earned for it was being cut off and spoken over.
“What-”
The human went to get onto one knee and tripped over it with his other leg. There was a hapless rage to the following attempt. When Selim spoke and revealed himself, he was instantly faced with eyes that may have been the wrong shape and color, but still looked very much held the right amount of hate to be his former idol. Pride was never the reason behind that expression, but the occasional human pawn or bad news was and Pride saw very, very much, even if he wasn’t everywhere at once.
In fact-
Oh.
Hah!
Actually, he saw that enough times to fill in missing dots: this narrowed, piercing, hateful glare accompanied alchemy, nearly always. His creator was far more powerful than even he, and so the being was capable of alchemy with a single thought . Pride’s container started falling apart just by doing that one round with Mustang. The realization was almost enough to make him take a step back unconsciously, but the mere fact that father looked so wrong, coupled with the lack of any pain accompanying the glare, was enough to fight that terror.
Still…
“Stay there,” Selim recommended, raising his hands placatingly. “Try to take it easy. I’m not an enemy.”
It wasn’t listened to, again.
“You know me.” Fine, make me spell it out, ‘father’. He got closer to keep in the man’s field of view. It may not have been doing much good. At this angle, he couldn’t see past the hair to where the eyes were, and didn’t know what he was looking at. “I’m Selim.” He put a hand on his chest. “I’m Pride.”
He wouldn’t look much like either, sure, but who else would know those names belonged together?
The man craned back to see him at that. To Selim’s surprise, his lips had parted slightly. It might as well be his jaw hanging open comically, for as alien as it was on its owner. In the centuries that Pride lived, his creator did not lose his composure, and never once did he open his mouth even a sliver in shock.
Maybe-
He’d been about to think that perhaps this was a good sign and he’d finally gotten full attention from his creator. Instead, he almost tripped himself again in a graceless motion. Selim watched him grit his teeth.
(It was painful in a way.
Even considering who it was, suffering was hard to watch. He was too soft, he really was.)
“You’ve been dead,” Selim spoke into the silence, this time with the level of gentleness he’d used on his siblings just days before. “And…I’m not sure why you aren’t anymore. But it’s my fault.”
Fault. This bastard was likely thrilled to be alive again. Was death kind to creatures like him? Selim did not know. No one returned from death to even talk about if there was something more than the white and the Gate and the Eye of Truth. His siblings were recent exceptions but they did not seem able to say anything, really, in confirmation of an afterlife that a mind could be stable and aware of.
Still, he doubted that the… Truth he heard about (eventually) from the Elrics would have been very nice after getting briefly eaten.
So, since it was his fault that the now-human was just that, then it was to him that the thank you should be getting directed.
Selim wouldn’t hold his breath on that.
Not based on the type of expressions he was earning. To a degree, it was confusion and panic. But when days passed and everyone was more calm and everything understood in full, what precisely could he expect to hear but disgust in how human he had chosen to become?
Selim Bradley was the homunculus Pride and not a human, if technicalities were going to be considered. So this humanity of his was indeed a choice.
And he would not be shamed for embracing it.
Especially not by someone who didn’t just die, but got them all (aside from Pride yet not by any effort from father) killed too because he refused to take on human influence and experience their side of life.
“You need to stay calm. I’ll explain if you do. And…please stop trying to kill me, or whatever it is you are imagining,” Selim added. There. He'd even been polite!
The man went so far as to grimace and then clap. Yet even spitting on his pride like this and attempting something he’d never needed for alchemy before did not result in any reward.
If it was needed in order for him to stay still and listen, then Selim would hand him some chalk to try simple circles too. While he didn’t know why there was no alchemy being produced in the clap by someone who had long ago passed through those doorways required for sacrifice candidates to do their alchemy without having a circle or array, his mind already spun with a variety of ideas and most of those explanations wouldn't eliminate the effectiveness of doing alchemy the base way. It was not this body itself that ever went through the Gate. This body wasn't a body at all until a few days ago. Maybe that was not mixing well with an established, old …not-quite-soul-but-that-was-still-the-best-word. He'd hoped it would integrate naturally, seamlessly, rather than this being a biologically based container with a soul binding, no different than the experiments or Alphonse Elric. Hm. He could-
-Think about this later, was what he could do. Being swept up in theories and fascination was currently inappropriate.
The man on the ground slammed his palms down so hard that it must have hurt. It was lucky there wasn't enough force behind the arms to end up with broken bones. Concrete was unforgiving.
And while no alchemy followed and there might have been a yelp of pain, it was impossible to say for certain over the sound of yelling.
Pride didn't really recognize the voice either. He was used to the one presumably based on the same origin as the body. The Elric’s father. Van Hohenheim. It was not so distorted as the one he heard down in the place of ascension when that familiar human appearance was shed for one covered in eyes like his own.
There was the slightest, uneasy sense he'd heard this before at least once, when dreaming or in a similarly unreal state, while his ears never took the sounds in. Like deja vu, in a sense. Was that how it could be put? He was not sure. Even with that considered, he could call it the voice of a stranger.
That also helped to minimize the beating of his heart and tension uncomfortably holding every muscle in a vice grip.
Selim did not like father, but having the being’s voice turned upon him in a negative tone would go against so much of his past and of his security that it would be unpleasant.
“What is this? Why?” this stranger yelled instead.
Selim came closer still to stop him.
He explained and explained and thought he wasn't being heard at all.
The other man slapped his arm away when he did try to steady his shoulder, before snapping as if he were the famous flame alchemist himself. He bared his teeth again at the failure and then clawed out at his eldest offspring. Selim’s shirt kept the scraping from doing too much damage, but he still backed away before he would get even more scratches on the skin underneath.
“What is happening?” Well, he'd been being told, so if he'd only been listening…
Selim already raced through basics: who he was, where they were, how the other was dead until now, the fact he lost to the humans resisting him, the way those people were doing well now, thanks for asking, and Selim was glad that they were. It wasn't for lack of trying, that the man was still seemingly as lost as ever. Selim’s arm itched already. A part of him understood that the pain was not all that intentional- it was frantic grasping and it just happened that human arm skin was sensitive. The yelling was not with the aim of being irritating either, but carried the same type of scrambling for security.
On the ground, he returned to his frenetic alchemy motions. Pathetic. “What have you done to me?”
He'd said!
He answered this already!
He hadn't even meant this to happen! He hadn't wanted him alive.
“I don't know,” Selim snapped, then composed himself. “But let's go upstairs. We can talk through everything. If you cannot do alchemy, then stop wasting time on the impossible, and quit already.”
(So maybe he wasn't that composed.)
Finally, the new human went still. He folded his hands down over his knees and stared, appraising, up and down Selim. With his chin raised and the frantic energy withheld enough, he could do so with disdain, and it was with that disdain that he spoke. A simple: “Pride.”
He sighed in relief.
“It's me,” he confirmed. “Though I use Selim more commonly.”
Fath- He probably didn't care.
Names never really seemed to matter to him.
“What have you done to block my alchemy?” the man asked. It didn't even sound mad anymore. If anything, perhaps curiosity, or begrudging respect like he was impressed-
(he didn't need any of that from him)
(it didn't matter, it shouldn't matter, it doesn't matter)
“Nothing,” Selim said. “But it's not important right now.”
The positivity left the other’s demeanor. “I need that, you inept child.”
His arm was stinging in tracks under the sleeve. His head hurt. He wanted to be at home.
Why? Why him? Why did this have to happen to him?
Selim drew his hands down his face with a groan that he couldn’t help.
“Why?” Nor could he help the comment that slipped out. “The child that killed you doesn’t!”
Now he was the one being looked at like he was acting oddly.
Shadowed eyes narrowed behind unkempt hair.
“What?” he was asked.
At least Selim was steeled for this. He’d known well enough that coming back here alone would mean it was all up to him to explain everything, and the story was an unfortunately long one. They could be doing this up on one of the old couches in the empty house, but that offer kept getting rejected, so if the one that thought he could be a god would rather sit on a sheet on the cold ground of a storage room, that was his choice to make in all that infinite, godly wisdom.
With one last, restrained sigh, he tried again.
“Seventeen years ago, after he killed you, Edward Elric paid the toll by giving away alchemy to get his brother his body back. So congratulations. You’re on the same level as your killer. I wanted to follow his lead in a way, and give my siblings a chance to be human too. You’re as human as he is now.”
The very insects they used for centuries, with the distant separation of perceived superiority, the rationalization that the species lived and died quickly anyway and their souls might as well serve a use instead of just disappearing, the things they thought themselves above, hungered after, wanted, hated, envied, fed on, and ultimately planned to kill en masse to start a new world for homunculi instead. Well, good luck maintaining that attitude. Selim was the only known homunculus in the world.
This man before him was just that: a man.
No better than any of the other ants.
Unlike Selim, who was raised to think of humans more highly than that and respect them no matter who they were, the first homunculus must have been disgusted by this turn of events.
(Well, then at least Selim wasn’t about to be suffering alone from this unwanted consequence of his actions.)