Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There’s a time and place for world-shattering revelations, and ten minutes before you’re about to assassinate someone is neither the time nor fucking place. To be fair, there’s never really a good time to become abruptly aware of the fact that you’re an antagonist of a fantasy series, but Envy thinks that this is some especially ass timing.

“Well fuck,” Envy says, staring down at the gun they stole off the sorry idiot they had planned to use as a scapegoat. They’re already shifting out of the man’s face and into someone else’s. If Father wants this guy dead, he can find someone else to do it, because Envy is very abruptly aware of the fact that there is no way in hell working towards his goals is going to end well for them.

They know where this story is going now, and they were fucked from the beginning.

No way this shit is going to work in the face of the Elrics’ protagonist plot armor.

Envy is doomed by the narrative and a cow with glasses.

“Fuck,” they say again, and some hysterical sound somewhere in the ballpark of a laugh escapes their borrowed vocal chords. What else can they really say? Not every day you learn how you’re going to die.

(What a sorry way to go, pitied and understood by a human pipsqueak. Even worse is that said human and his band of miserable misfits ended up winning, in the end. Isn’t that how stories are supposed to go, afterall? The heroes win and the villains die.

Envy died. They had pulled out their stone like a child throwing a tantrum.

Am I really that pathetic? Envy asks themself, and laughs harder.

Of course they are.

They always have been.)

-:- 

If there’s one thing Envy can do better than anyone else, it’s vanish into a crowd. No one is going to find them if they don’t want to be found, and Envy categorically does not want to be found. They are going to extricate themself from this shitshow before the label of villain can be fully plastered across their being, if it isn’t already too late for that. If it is, then-

Well, they’re just screwed either way, huh?

Damn, it’s really never a good time to become abruptly aware of the genre you’re in. 

Especially when you’re slated to become a major antagonist in a shounen manga.

Envy is suddenly, terribly, horribly aware of the ink and paper their reality was born from. Of the tropes and the hand of the author and the storytelling concepts of a universe theirs was created to entertain. Of the fact that they have seen passed the fourth wall, and they distinctly did not like what they saw there. Envy knows the future in the shape of animation cells and manga panels and information from a universe they were never meant to be aware of, and they are fairly certain it’s already started to crack their sanity.

(They know how the story ends.

They know how their story ends.

Tears and dust and everything they have ever existed for rendered meaningless. Humiliated and laid bare before beings that should’ve been beneath them, that should’ve lost by all rights, that would’ve lost if the nature of stories didn’t demand victory from the protagonists.

Well, fuck that.

Envy finds that they aren’t keen to just let this play out like a good little puppet. Father and his god complex are doomed to fail, and Envy refuses to be doomed with it.

They don’t want to die, they don’t want to lose, they just want to be-)

-:- 

They’re on the first train out of Central by the time they manage to get the first vague impression of a plan together. It takes them a bit to piece their composure back together after realizing they’re a comic book character who is meant to die a miserable little slug. Takes them two hours of a train ride, to be exact. Honestly, Envy is still not exactly composed by the two hour mark, but they’ve managed to kick themself out of the vicious loop of panic and existential hopelessness. Envy is pretty sure this is as good as they’re ever going to get.

(They found out they are a fictional character.

As far as Envy is concerned, they’re handling this like a goddamn champion.)

Once their mind has stopped trying to consider the implications of their existence and random knowledge of the Real World, Envy starts strategizing the best way to avoid being a villain the story deems worth killing. They realize they might already be screwed on that, considering they started the civil war a few years back, but if the tools of the genocide can get protagonist passes, Envy figures they can skate by. 

First order of business is making a mental note to not kill Maes Hughes under any goddamn circumstances. And if they somehow manage to fuck that up, to only fight Mustang near large bodies of water or during the rainy season.

Second order of business is figuring out what the hell to do until the main story starts happening. It’s late into 1903, so they’ve got a little over a decade before important-

Wait a goddamn second.

1903 . Trisha Elric isn’t dead yet, and Hohenheim might not have abandoned his family.If Envy can make themself an ally of Hohenheim, then that might just dig them out of their villain designation. Hell, they might be able to derail the plot entirely.

(It’s not much of a plan.

There’s a lot of hypotheticals that it’s relying on, and Envy doesn’t really have much hope for its chances of success.

Still. Their composure is shot and their brain keeps trying to fall down rabbit holes. Their hands keep fucking shaking, and their mouth must be like a tesla coil from the amount of times they’ve bitten their lips closed around something that might be hysteric laughter or might be the screams of the damned. 

This is as good as Envy is going to get, for the time being.)

So. They need to head to Resembool. A minor problem, because they hopped on a train heading West, but they should probably meander their way to hicksville now that they think about it. Lust and Gluttony will be hard pressed to find them regardless, but that’s no excuse to be sloppy. Besides, Envy can use the time spent zig-zagging across the country to get their shit vaguely more together than it is currently. It’ll make dealing with Hohenheim easier.

Fucking Hohenheim .

They really need to figure out what they’re going to say to the man. They have a feeling that conversation is gonna be a hell of a time, and under normal circumstances, the idea of rolling up to the old man and ruining his disgustingly quaint family life with portents of doom would make them giddy. These are decidedly abnormal circumstances. Envy hates it.

(But not as much as they hate the knowledge that keeps looping in their head.

Animation cells and manga panels.

The culmination of their existence rendered meaningless and pitiful.

The heroes win and the villains die.

Envy hates the pathetic sound of their last words rattling in their ears.)

-:- 

There is a damn good reason people shouldn’t be able to see the threads that weave together the fabric of reality. There’s a lot of them, actually, but here’s the main one:

Once you know the how’s and why’s of everything, once you know the way everything is meant to go, there’s nothing left. No questions to keep you going, just a set conclusion that, in Envy’s case, is not going to end well for them.

Envy has seen the threads that hold the universe together, and they are wrapped around their neck like a noose. They know how they die, know the themes they exist to exemplify, and the knowledge burns at the back of their throat like bile or the lightning that keeps building in their mouth as they tear through their tongue to keep the screams inside.

They’ve never been one to find much meaning in life, and that was before they knew it was all fake. That the vast majority of their life, and everyone else’s, isn’t worth a damn because it’s not plot-relevant.

It’s hilarious, in a distinctly fucked up kind of way, because Envy knows now that they really are more important than most other humans, and they fucking hate it. They exist to be hated, and to be feared, and to, most importantly, be pitied. What a joke, right?

(The heroes win and the villains die.

They die, and Father dies, and the others die.

Lust dies, and that hurts more than Envy wants to admit. Envy tolerates the others, but they like Lust. She understands them, most of the time. She’s what they imagine a friend is like. She’s the only one of the others they’d consider calling family. 

Lust is going to die too. It’s what she exists to do.

If Envy were less pathetic, maybe they’d try and change that.)

-:- 

Pride doesn’t come looking for them.

Envy isn’t sure how to feel about that, because on the one hand, it’s better not to look gift horses in the mouth. They really don’t want to deal with their oldest brother on a good day, much less when they’ve run away and turned traitor. Envy has plenty of excuses for their behavior should Pride finally deign to break whatever mind game he’s playing by waiting, but the mind game itself is still effective. They keep expecting the shadows to grow mouths, keep expecting every kid they see to be a threat, and the suspense is tugging on their already frayed mental state.

(They don’t want to consider what it means if Pride isn’t looking for them at all.

Sure, he never looked for Greed once he left, but Envy is actually useful.

This all has to be some game, right? To lull them into a false sense of security.)

Envy waits and waits for the brother to find them, but he never does.

It’s pathetic how much that stings.

-:- 

Envy travels across the country at random for about a month before they head East. They’re in Dublith when they make the choice.

They briefly consider finding Greed.

(They hate Greed, because he’s a nuisance and a traitor and got to die a hero, but they don’t like how little resources they have at their disposal at the moment. They’re already figuring out the best way to use Greed’s own nature against him when they realize that he probably hasn’t set up in Dublith yet.)

They decide against it. 

They haven’t sunk low enough to need help from that bastard.

-:- 

It’s raining, when they get to Resembool.

Envy’s wearing a face of their own creation, built from aspects of Father’s but pitched younger. Fifteen is old enough to be traveling alone, but not so old as to make people think they’re a deserter from the civil war they started. It’s also young enough that it might give Hohenheim pause if it comes down to a fight. Hopefully, so will the fact that by looking like Father, they also look like Hohenheim. Humans tend to have hang-ups fighting children, especially children they see as similar to themselves. They’ve tailored their disguise to give them as many advantages as possible, should this half-assed plan of theirs fail.

(Envy hopes it doesn’t fail.

The rain has turned the ground to mud, and they keep fucking sinking .

It’d be a pain in the ass to retreat in this weather.

They still haven’t regained enough composure to make a new plan if this one fails.)

-:- 

There’s lights on in the Elric house, warm orange beacons at the end of the road. Envy’s glad they gave this disguise of theirs boots, because they’ve started to sink well past their ankles with each step. Logically, they know that this could wait until tomorrow, but logic has lost most of its meaning now that Envy knows the world is made of ink on a page.

Besides, this is just the kind of dramatic bullshit that would happen in a story. A figure from the past shows up on a stormy afternoon. Picture perfect, right?

(They can feel the alchemical electricity in their mouth as they bite down laughter.)

They’re almost to the house now.

(This was a horrible idea.)

They’re on the porch.

(They should leave now and fuck off to Xing.)

They knock on the door.

(Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-)

“Now who would…?” Trisha Elric opens the door, her sentence trailing off.  Envy swallows down the blood in their mouth and tries very hard not to laugh at her hair. That really is the hairstyle of dead anime moms, huh? This is a dead woman walking, brown eyes widened in surprise, lips tilting into a confused but welcoming smile.

Envy smiles back, because their composure may be shot, but acting is muscle memory to them. “Sorry to bother you Miss, but does Van Hohenheim live here?”

Suspicion enters her expression. Not enough, because Envy could kill her before she blinked, but there’s no point in killing a woman who will be dead in a year anyways. Besides, killing the protagonist’s mom would definitely put them in villain territory. 

(Kinda defeats the whole purpose of being here at all, if they kill her.)

“May I know who’s asking?”

Envy smiles, edges of it manic as they consider the answer to that question. They have a thousand different lies they could say, but there’s one that’s funniest because it’s effective and technically true if you squint. “His nephew.”

“Oh,” she gasps. Her eyes flick over them, their long gold hair, their golden eyes, their familiar face. Trisha Elric’s expression softens, because humans are so damn predictable like that. She plasters on a cheerful, obviously fake smile as she opens the door wider. “Dinner’s almost ready. Come in out of the weather, and I’ll set you a place.”

Envy swallows down their first, second, and third impulses to be caustic and impatient, and instead wordlessly follows Hohenheim’s wife into the house. The woman is rambling something about beef stew and leads them into a kitchen, when she pauses abruptly and turns another falsely cheerful smile at them.

“I’m so sorry, I never introduced myself. I’m Trisha Elric, your…well, I suppose I’m your aunt!”

Envy doesn’t sneer at the word, but it’s a close thing. They’re around seven times this human’s age. Besides, homunculi don’t need human things like family .

(They ignore the angry, hollow thing in them that hates Greed for leaving.

They ignore the frightened, grieving thing in them that keeps replaying Lust’s death.

They ignore the fact that they still call the Dwarf in the Flask their Father.

They ignore the fact that they’ve always envied human bonds, and that they are meant to die with that deeply hidden jealousy exposed and pitied.)

There’s a silence, and Envy realizes that Trisha must be waiting for their name. They come up with the first name they can think of that sounds vaguely like their own, and curtly give their fake name. Trisha smiles. She does that a lot; be reflexively agreeable. Envy finds it disgusting. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Henry. Please, take a seat!”

“No thanks,” they say, and take minor satisfaction in the slight flinch of her expression. “Is my uncle here? I need to talk to him.”

That brief glimmer of satisfaction from a second ago disappears as Trisha’s expression twists into something tired and guilty. Envy knows what she’s going to say before she opens her mouth, but that doesn’t make it any easier to hear that, “He left two weeks ago. I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Fuck,” Envy says, and they aren’t quick enough to keep their hysteria locked in their mouth this time around. Their laughter sounds like someone sucker punched it out of them, and it feels a bit like that too. “Of fucking course he is. What a waste of time.”

They turn on the heel of their muddy boots and make for the door, but Trisha’s voice calls out, “Wait a minute!”

“What?!” Envy snaps, because they have had it. Their skull has been spinning with the nature of reality for almost two months and everything they know has collapsed around their ears like a house of cards. They don’t need to be pitied by a dead woman on top of that, they don’t need to be hit in the face with how stupid this plan of theirs was, they don’t need any more reminders of how pathetic they are-

“Just-” Trisha sighs, the exhale leaving her small. “Stay for dinner? At least until the rain lets up. I’m sure my boys would love to meet their cousin.”

The boys. Edward and Alphonse. Their “cousins” whom the world exists for.

Oh, now that’s a thought. 

Not a good one, but it’s there, and it’s more coherent than the rest of their thoughts have been. Hohenheim has already fucked off, and they need a new plan. Xing is still on the cards, theoretically, but they know damn well that the rest of the world doesn’t really exist beyond set dressing. But those boys? Arguably, they’re the most real things in the world. The axis upon which it turns. 

And here is where Envy's second half-assed plan for salvation is born: what better way to drag themself out of their pathetic story role than welding themself to the main protagonist?

(Envy doesn’t laugh, because they know it’ll come out as a scream.)

“Might as well,” Envy says. “It’d be a pain in the ass to go back out in this weather.”

Chapter Text

Trisha loves her husband. Loves him for his kindness, and his intelligence, and his convictions. Van Hohenheim is a good man, and Trisha is proud to be his wife. She knows that he has his secrets, and that there is a veritable graveyard of skeletons in his closet, but Trisha Elric understands the man she married and has done her best not to pry. What happened in his past, whoever he used to be, is not nearly as important as the man he currently is.

But on days like this, Trisha really wishes she had asked more questions about Van.

(And maybe break his jaw for leaving.

She knows he had to, trusts him to come back, but she can’t help just a bit of resentment. 

Especially now.)

Especially now, when the teenager who looks so much like her husband that it’s impossible to deny that he is indeed Van’s nephew sits at her kitchen table, glowering at his stew like it is the source of all his problems. It’d probably be quite the fearsome expression if Henry (Hohenheim? She doesn’t know, he only gave a first name and she doesn’t think she can drag out a last) didn’t look like a half drowned cat, with the personality to match, prickly and scared. 

Oh so very scared.

This boy (her nephew, what the hell Van, she is going to shave him bald when he comes back) is terrified. He treats the stew like it’s a landmine he isn’t sure has been disarmed or not. He looks at the shadows like he expects them to eat him. He looks at her boys, who pester him with question after question that he gives increasingly caustic responses to, like they are wild animals who will bite his throat out if he lets his guard down.

Van Hoheheim has always been a man of many dangerous secrets.

(Trisha thinks one of them is sitting scared at her kitchen table.)

-:- 

For all that Henry has very clearly never interacted with younger children, it does nothing to stop Trisha’s boys from latching onto their cousin. Alphonse likes pretty much everyone, but Edward is a bit of a surprise. Then again, Henry gruffly shoving his barely touched stew onto Ed’s plate had probably gone a long way in winning her older son’s regard. Once dinner is done, Trisha watches with half an eye as the teenager is strong-armed by her toddlers into playing blocks while she does the dishes. Henry is very clearly unimpressed and unenthused, but he still lets it happen.

“What’s even the point of this?” he asks, while still obeying Edward’s command to build the tower higher.

“It's fun!” Al chirps, handing him another block. The tower is nearly as tall as Edward is, much to both her son’s obvious glee.

“That block’s crooked,” Ed points out, and Henry scowls.

“Sorry my skills as an architect aren’t meeting your standards,” he drawls, but he fixes the block. “I still don’t get the point of this.”

“Haven’t you ever played blocks before?” Edward asks, in the tone he uses when he thinks someone is being stupid. It is, unfortunately, a tone he takes very often.

“Nope,” Henry says, popping the ‘p’ before flinching at the startled and outraged exclamations from Trisha’s sons. Both of her boys act like this is blasphemy of the highest order, and Trisha almost wants to laugh when both boys insist that Henry has to be the one to knock the tower down, since he’s never done it before.

(Almost, because she sees the way he freezes up when Al hugs him as the tower falls.

Trisha starts to think that there’s a good reason Van never spoke about his family.)

-:- 

Trisha eventually puts the boys to bed. Henry is just as stiff and frozen when Alphonse and Edward give him a hug goodnight as he was with the victory hug, awkwardly standing there and letting it happen. He looks very much like some manner of cornered animal, and she very much does not like what that says about where Henry has come from.

It doesn’t take very long to put the boys to bed; they’ve both been tired out in their quest to teach Henry the sacred art of block building, and they're always sleepier on rainy days. When she comes down, Henry is standing exactly where she left him at the bottom of the stairs, rigid and scowling at the family picture on the wall. He jumps when the third step from the bottom creaks, hands coming up defensively, only to drop when he sees it’s just her.

“The rain’s stopped,” Henry says, something pinched in his expression as he says it. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking everywhere but her face.

“Oh,” she says. Very eloquent, Trisha. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah?” Henry responds, the unspoken obviously heavy in his voice.

“Well, it’s just that it's dark out, and it’s a good mile to the nearest inn.”

“I’m going to the train station.”

“Oh.” Trisha frowns. “Where are you headed?”

Henry shrugs, casual in a very deliberate way. “Not sure yet. Send you a postcard or some shit when I get there, though. It’s cool if I stop by again every once and a while, yeah?”

Trisha bites her lip, and looks at this boy that looks so much like his uncle, so much like his cousins. There’s a tired strain around his eyes, something ragged about the edges that has no place being on a child that young. His frame is filled with tension so tight that it’s a wonder he’s not shaking from it.

( Van , she thinks, what reason did you have for not telling me about your sibling?

Van , she thinks, did you know about this boy?

Van , she thinks, is what you’re trying to fix the same thing he’s running away from?

But in the end, these questions don’t matter, because her husband isn’t here. His nephew is, and he is frightened. He jumps at shadows and cringes at kindness and looks like he’s one wrong move away from snapping like an old rubber band. 

So instead, she asks a different question.)

“Why don’t you stay for a while? If you’re not in a hurry, that is. I could always use some help around the house.”

Henry freezes, just like he did when her sons hugged him, before the same seamlessly polite smile he had first given her at the door covers his face like a mask. If Trisha hadn’t spent the last hour watching this boy sneer and scowl and smirk like his face was made for it, she’d think it was genuine.

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea.” There’s a cold, bitter look in his eyes as his smile stays in place. “My Father might come looking for me.”

“Really,” Trisha replies, very careful to keep her voice neutral. Henry narrows his golden eyes at her, clearly sensing trouble from her tone. He opens his mouth, but Trisha cuts him off. “I take it my husband has a brother.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Well then!” Trisha says, beaming at him. “Isn’t it such a shame that there aren’t any Hohenheims here? No one but the Elrics . Just me, my sons, and my nephew here.”

Henry blinks. Once, twice, thrice, in a way that reminds Trisha of an owl.

And then, lips curving into something sharp and wild, Henry Elric laughs.

-:- 

Trisha sets up in the spare bedroom, sending her nephew to the bathroom with one of the many extra toothbrushes she has because Ed likes to chew on his for some reason and some of Van’s old clothes. Henry doesn’t have anything with him besides the clothes he came with, and it makes something curdle in Trisha’s stomach. 

There is so much about this boy that worries her, makes her worry for him, and the list keeps growing with every passing moment. If Henry is older than fifteen, Trisha would be shocked, and yet there’s this haunted look to him that makes him seem much older. He is frightened and exhausted, and Trisha knows beyond a doubt that this is because of her mysterious brother-in-law. It’s wrong to hate a man you’ve never met, but the more she thinks about the little she knows of Henry, the more she starts to hate Van’s brother.

What kind of man could send his teenage son running scared with nothing to his name?

What kind of man raises a son that flinches at shadows and human contact?

What kind of man teaches his son to fake his smiles so perfectly?

What kind of man doesn’t buy his son blocks to play with?

(Trisha has never pried about Van’s past. Who he was then is not the man he is now, she had told him once, and that remains true. Still, she thinks not holding an interrogation. She should’ve pried every detail about his family that she could have while he was here, because now Van’s past has come to call and her husband isn’t here to deal with it.

Trisha loves her husband, but when he comes home, she is going to break his goddamn jaw. Maybe then, some of his secrets will fall out.

Trisha loves Van, but if he knew about the frightened boy in her bathroom, and did nothing to save him? She’s going to pull out each of his teeth individually and feed them to him.)

-:- 

By the time Henry is out of the bathroom, dressed in too-big pajamas and still wearing the green bandana that does nothing to keep his long hair out of his eyes, Trisha has prepared the tea kettle, apple slices, and some questions. She made a mistake in not prying into Van dangerous secrets, and she is not going to repeat it with Henry. Especially not when the boy’s safety could be at stake.

“If you’re not too tired,” she starts, and wants to rage at the suspicion that pinches his expression, “How about we have some tea?”

“Why.” Trisha is proud of herself for not flinching guiltily at his tone.

“I’d like to know more about my nephew, if that’s alright with you.”

Henry huffs, half a laugh and half a scoff. “If you want to interrogate me, just say so.”

“Alright,” Trisha agrees. “I’d like to ask you questions. For one thing, it’ll make coming up with a backstory easier if we work together. For another, I really would like to know more about you, Henry.”

Her nephew’s face turns completely and utterly blank, like someone flipped off a switch, and Trisha grieves for whatever has happened to this boy that could teach him how to make such an expression. Rage for him too, because he is a child. He is her sons’ cousin, and her husband’s nephew, and Trisha may not know much about him, but she knows that he is family .

“There’s a lot I’m not going to tell you.”

“That’s fine,” Trisha answers, even though part of her is screaming that it isn’t. “You don’t know me, and I don’t expect you to trust me. But I would like as many answers as you can give me, okay?”

Henry looks at her, eyes gold like a predator where Van’s are gold like the sun.

“Okay.”

-:- 

Henry stares at his tea the same way he stared at his stew. Like he expects it to be poison, or explosive. Trisha catalogs it as one more question to ask the boy, though perhaps not tonight. That might be a question that requires more trust than what they have between them, currently.

“So,” Trisha begins, but doesn’t continue.

( Van , she thinks, as she has thought every moment since he left, I wish you were here. )

The silence stretches. Trisha finishes her tea. Henry doesn’t touch his.

“So,” Trisha begins again. “How old are you?”

Henry’s lips purse into a tight line, and Trisha is impressed with her ability to have stumbled onto a sore point one question in.

“I don’t know, exactly.”

“Oh.” What the fuck? No, seriously, what the fuck ? Okay, the boy has been on the run for a bit. No need to jump to conclusions. “Do you know when your birthday is?”

“Nope.”

( Van , she thinks, I’m going to murder your brother if you aren’t going to. )

“Okay. We’ll come up with a date of birth for you later, for the paperwork.” Urey will help her with the forgeries. Between him and Sarah, they have enough connections at Town Hall as Resembool’s main doctors to fabricate both a sibling for Trisha and a birth certificate for Henry. “Where did you grow up, Henry?”

“Central.” He glances at the shadows warily before he adds, “Father and my siblings still live there, for the most part.”

He has siblings. God, she hopes that Henry is the youngest, because the thought that there’s more children being mistreated makes her want to do something unwise. 

“For the most part?” She asks, instead of the fifty other things she’d rather say.

Henry scowls, and nods. “My older brother escaped a while back.”

Escaped . Trisha swallows down more questions, and files the word choice away to turn over later. “Any idea where your brother is now?”

His scowl turns into a snarl as he says, “How should I know where that asshole is? Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.”

And there’s another thing to put a pin in. She sighs, and then looks at Henry. Slumping in his seat, glaring at his tea, Trisha is struck with his resemblance to her eldest. The both of them are prickly as a feral cat when they’re upset, she thinks. The thought is half fond and half pained, because where Edward may be prickly, he at least knows he is loved. He knows he can accept  affection without being harmed. She very much doubts that Henry does.

“Alright, one more hard question, and then we stop, if you want to.” Trisha knows the interrogation was her idea, but she’s already exhausted by it, and asking her nephew questions is like battling a hydra. For each one answer, two more rise in its place.

“Shoot, I guess.”

“Why are you on the run from your Father, Henry?”

Henry flinches like she struck him, and Trisha holds back her first urge to reach out a hand to comfort him. She doubts he’d appreciate the gesture. In fact, looking at him, she very much suspects he’d bite her if she did try to touch him.

And then, he laughs. A horrible, bitter sound that rings out through the kitchen. 

When he finally speaks, his grin is venomous. “Man, where to fucking start with that one, huh? So much to choose from. But I guess the crux of it is that if I stayed, I’d end up dead. That good enough for you, Auntie ?”

Trisha swallows back her emotions. Her joy at the endearment, no matter how mocking Henry’s tone makes it sound. Her grief over this poor boy in front of her and the life he’s led up to this point. Her rage at this mysterious, monstrous brother of Van’s that has hurt her nephew and might still be hurting his siblings. She swallows it all back, because they won’t help her in this moment, then she smiles at this boy who came halfway across the country looking for his uncle for safety and got Trisha instead.

“That’s good enough for me, honey.”

Henry’s face pinches at the term of endearment, eyes narrowing like he’s searching for a trap in the word. It takes everything in her not to grab her dad’s old shotgun and start planning a trip to Central.

“You’re being remarkably calm about this whole situation,” he tells her, blandly. Privately, Trisha is glad that someone has noticed how well she’s been keeping her shit together, because she really wants to be drinking something stronger than tea right now. “You do realize that there is a very high likelihood that Father will kill you and your brats if he finds me here, right? Hell, might kill your neighbors too, depending on how thorough he’s feeling.”

Oh, Trisha was quite aware. Afterall, Van had told her something similar, when he insisted that she give the boys her last name. She hadn’t asked about the shape of the danger then, but now she thinks she knows why Hohenheim is such a perilous name to be associated with. Should the wrong people find them, these boys in Trisha’s care might very well die for it. Van had never stopped telling her what a risk it was to start a family with him.

(The thought of lurking threats terrifies her just as much now as it did then, but still-)

“Well, then I guess we just have to make sure he doesn’t find you then, Henry Elric.”

(-Trisha Elric is willing to take quite a few risks to keep the people she loves safe.)

-:- 

Henry goes up to his new room not long after that, and Trisha sits at the kitchen table. Her hands shake around her empty mug as she stares at the grain of the wood.

“God damnit, Van,” she whispers, voice wet. “Where are you?”

(But Trisha is alone, and so she receives no answer.)

-:- 

She calls the Rockbells. It’s past ten, but she’s never known her best friend to go to bed before midnight. Sure enough, by the third ring, Urey answers the phone.

“Rockbell Automail, how can I help you?”

“Hey, Urey. I need your help with something.”

“Oh shit, you have your murder voice on.” There’s some rustling and clanging and cursing over the line, and Trisha laughs, despite herself. “Fuck, okay, do you need me to help you hide a body? Because if you do, then I need to go wake up Sarah.”

She pauses for a moment, considering. 

“Trisha? Fuck, we do have to hide a body, don’t we?”

“Not yet, but put a pin in that.”

“Trisha, buddy, pal, my sister from another mister, that is really not comforting in the slightest. You know that right? What am I saying, of course you do. Okay. Shit, what’s the situation? Are the boys okay?”

“Ed and Al are fine.” Trisha sighs. “My nephew is another story. Entirely unrelated, but if anyone asks, I’ve always had a brother and my nephew’s resemblance to Van is a coincidence.”

“...I’m waking Sarah up.” 

“Yeah,” Trisha sighs, knocking her head against the wall. “That’s probably a good call.”

Chapter Text

Envy will never understand humans, and Trisha Elric is no exception. As a matter of fact, she exemplifies what Envy understands the least about humans: their bonds. Logic would dictate that a mother of two young children would attempt to keep dangerous individuals out of their lives at all costs. Hell, if it were Envy in her position, they’d have kicked their sorry ass out as soon as they started asking after Hohenheim.

Trisha Elric is either stupid, a sucker, or batshit insane, because she lets Envy move in.

She asked all of five questions, and that was after she had already made up her mind.

Envy seriously doesn’t get it, but at least it’s working in their favor.

If Trisha Elric wants to play the doting aunt to a security risk, who the hell is Envy to stop her? It doesn’t matter if Envy understands her reasons or not. It doesn’t matter how much it twisted up their insides to hear her say she wanted to get to know them. It doesn’t matter that this is the first time Envy has been on the receiving end of a human’s need to forge bonds with other lifeforms as themself rather than play-acting someone else.

It doesn’t matter. Why should it? Envy doesn’t care, so long as it keeps benefiting them.

(It doesn’t matter, and Envy really doesn’t care, but they try to puzzle out the why of it anyways. It frustrates Envy, how little they understand Trisha’s reasoning for taking them in, but they spend the rest of the night thinking about it because it’s easier to ignore the ink and paper of reality when they’re focused on simpler problems. Trisha Elric’s lack of logic is an easier thing to think in circles about compared to literally everything else in their life, at the moment, no matter how frustrating it is or how little progress they make.

It’s easier than thinking about their own death, at least.

It’s easier than thinking about Lust dying in flames.)

-:- 

If adult humans are hard to understand, then the ones whose brains aren’t fully formed yet are downright incomprehensible. Sticky and loud and overly emotional, Envy has no idea how to act around them. If their designation in the story didn’t hinge on it, they would’ve smacked the Elric brats last night as the two forced them to play with rectangular hunks of wood. They still have no idea what the purpose of that was, but at least it made the toddlers happy. Envy doesn’t fancy getting murdered by the whims of the plot, and so they have to make their peace about playing nice with the brats. 

(Alphonse keeps hugging them, which makes their skin crawl every time it happens.

Edward had cheered when he realized Envy had stayed the night, and would be staying.

Over breakfast, both of them demand that Envy be introduced to the baby automail mechanic, and that given a tour of the house, and play games with them later. Envy gives the most unenthusiastic agreement in history, but it’s apparently enough cause for celebration. Trisha smiles at all three of them like they’re adorable, and it’s so patronizing that Envy wants to gag. Honestly, how humiliating.

Lust would make fun of them if she saw, as if she doesn't coddle Gluttony.)

Kids make no sense to Envy. They’re disgusting and loud and Envy does not have the energy to pretend to be anything but weirded out by them. They know that they should be trying harder to get the future protagonists to get attached to them so that Envy can claw their way out of being the villain, but it honestly sounds like much too tall an order for their current level of fucks to give. The bare minimum is all Envy can manage, so that’s what the brats will get.

(Humans make no sense to Envy at all, because for all their lackluster reactions, Ed and Al still seem to like them. Envy just doesn’t get it. They really wish they did.)

-:- 

When Trisha said that they’d be going over to meet the Rockbells, Envy didn’t really know what to expect. More little kid grossness from Winry, maybe some suspicion from the tiny old hag, definitely some annoyance as they tried and failed to get their shit together enough to put on a more pleasant personality than their own.

They had no idea what to expect from Winry’s soon-to-be-tragically-dead parents.

If Envy was being honest, they were expecting bland, stereotypical caricatures of good doctors. Mr. and Mrs. Rockbell were just Dead Parents, who were kind and compassionate and dead to prove a point about the cycles of revenge or some shit. Sarah and Urey Rockbell were hypothetically people, just like all the countries that weren’t Amestris hypothetically existed.

(If Envy was being honest, they hadn’t thought the Rockbells would be people at all.

What he gets is Urey Rockbell who talks to Trisha and the brats like he’s getting paid by how many words he can say per second and who grins with the mania of someone who subsists off of espresso, spite, and perhaps a cocaine habit.

What he gets is Sarah Rockbell, who glances at the customer the old hag is tending to, makes dead eye contact with Envy, winks at them, and then theatrically says, “Henry, look how big you’ve gotten! I haven’t seen you since you were a baby! Such a shame that your father is constantly on the run from loan sharks. Oh, you probably don’t remember me, huh? You can call me Auntie Sarah, and this is your Uncle Urey.”)

Urey and Sarah Rockbell may be plot device side characters, but this was a series built off of it’s likeable side characters and humor. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re funny, even if they do only exist to die in a few years; it’s just good writing. Either way, the pair put Envy in a good mood, for hypothetical people.

If this plan fails, maybe Envy can run away to a hypothetical country after all.)

-:- 

The Rockbells have customers to deal with, so the brats take the opportunity to make good on their promises to introduce them to their little friend. Envy isn’t sure what face they make, but it’s enough to make Sarah laugh and tell him, “Winry doesn’t bite, I promise.”

“That's a lie!” Ed shouts, with all the wholehearted outrage his four year old body can fit. “She bit me last week!”

“Ed bit Winnie first,” Al pipes up, causing his older brother to pout mutinously and causing Sarah to laugh and correct, “Winry doesn’t bite first .”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Envy mutters sarcastically, before they’re letting themself be dragged away by two children under the age of five. They do not have high hopes for Winry being any less gross or loud than their so-called cousins, but it’s probably best to make a vague attempt to get her to like them too, considering she’s the main character’s love interest and all. The girl is outside, playing with a black and white puppy that currently is in possession of all its limbs. The puppy sniffs the air, looks at them, and then immediately starts barking at them. 

Ed runs ahead to her, leaving Al with the task of pulling Envy along towards their destination. They roll their eyes, because honestly, kids are so strange. Do they think Envy’s going to get lost in the fifteen feet between them and Winry Rockbell?

“Henry, this is Winry! She’s my best friend!” Ed announces with a grin once he deems them and Al close enough. Al immediately frowns at his brother, announcing that “Winnie” is his best friend, and soon enough the two of them are fighting. Envy’s money is on Al, despite the kid being all of three years old. Little shit goes for the cheap shots.

“Honestly, boys are so dumb,” Winry huffs, before craning her neck up to look at Envy. In a very practiced tone, she says, “Hello. I’m Winry Rockbell, and it’s very nice to meet you.”

“Henry Elric,” Envy lies. “Nice to meet you, squirt.”

The dog barks at them, and Winry frowns as severely as any five-year-old can at it, bopping it on the nose. “Stop it, Den! Bad girl! You’re being rude!”

Envy snorts. “Animals don’t like me much.”

Winry looks at them consideringly, then nods. “They don’t like Uncle Van, either. You look a lot like Uncle Van, so that’s probably why.” 

That said, she picks up the puppy, moves closer to Envy, and then grabs at their hand, putting it in front of Den’s nose. The dog growls, but Winry bops it again, glaring it down even when it turns back to her with a deeply betrayed expression. “Be nice, Den. This is Henry, and he’s Ed and Al’s big cousin, and his hair is really pretty, so that means he’s our friend. We gotta be nice to friends.”

Huh. Maybe this kid isn’t half bad, afterall. Always nice to have someone appreciate their efforts in creating such a young and cute body.

“So, are we gonna do anything about those two?” Envy asks. 

“Hm?” The girl looks up at him, her arms shaking from holding up the puppy to Envy’s hand. “Oh, nah. They’ll figure it out, eventually.”

Envy grunts, then sits down, because why waste the energy standing? Winry sits down next to him, plopping the puppy between them, much to the creature’s distress. Envy watches as Al tries to feed his older brother dirt, and Ed counters by tickling him. Their attention is taken off the violent battle between brothers by Winry tapping on their knee. “Can I braid your hair?”

Envy looks at her hands. They look…relatively clean. Envy sighs. “Knock yourself out.”

(Winry beams at them, gap toothed and pleased as her hands start to clumsily attack their hair. Seriously, Envy doesn’t understand children at all.)

-:- 

By the time the boys are done fighting for the title of Winry’s best friend, Envy has several braids in their hair, as well as a somewhat wilty flower crown. Much to their surprise, hanging out with the girl isn’t as annoying as Envy thought it’d be, and it’s very entertaining to watch two toddlers kick the shit out of each other.

“Ha!” Al says, triumphant. “I’m Winnie’s best friend!”

Winry looks up from the second flower crown she’s making for herself, then huffs archly. “Henry’s my best friend now!”

“Huh?! Why?!” Al exclaims, looking devastated as Ed stands up and spits out grass. Envy watches as the brat looks at the mud in front of him, looks at his younger brother’s unsuspecting back, then grins with malicious intent. Oho, this’ll be fun.

 Winry shouts back at Al, “Because he doesn’t get into dumb fights instead of playing with me!”

“But he’s my cousin!” Al argues, like that has anything to do with anything. Ed creeps closer, hands covered in mud and cupped together. He makes eye contact with Envy from behind his brother’s back, and Envy just smirks at him. The brat, correctly, takes this as approval and grins with truly tangible bloodlust.

“So what?” Winry asks with endless derision. “He’s my best friend!”

Al opens his mouth to argue, but Ed then drops a handful of mud down his brother’s shirt.

Pandemonium erupts.

(Envy laughs, loud and harsh, as the kids all start shouting at each other.

It is the first time in months that Envy has laughed without it tasting bitter with fear.

Ency really doesn’t get humans at all, but damn if they aren’t entertaining sometimes.)

-:- 

The sounds of chaos bring the adults outside. Envy is still snickering at what has turned into the dog chasing Winry, who is chasing Al, who is chasing Ed. Clothes are torn, knees are bleeding, threats are being thrown. They have no idea how it got to this point, but they feel like they should grab some popcorn and start charging admission. This shit is hilarious.

Of course it is. This world is a story . These are characters created to be entertaining.

“What in the hell do you kids think you’re doing?!” comes a voice like a creaky hinge. Envy glances away from the murderous game of tag being played to see a tiny old hag who must be Pinako Rockbell, flanked by Urey, who is visibly shaking from suppressed laughter, and Trisha, who looks like she’s about to have an aneurysm. The kids, notably, have not stopped at the sound of Pinako’s voice.

Trisha Elric clears her throat loudly, arms crossed over her chest, and all three kids freeze.

Envy claps softly, because damn . That’s a helluva trick. It reminds them of Lust, when Gluttony is acting up. Pinako sends them a look that’d probably be intimidating if they weren’t at least double her age and couldn’t crush her like an insect, while Urey is openly cackling as he makes his way over to Envy. 

“C’mon, kid. Let’s get you inside before Trisha decides you’re guilty by proxy and starts reading you the riot act.” He pauses, eyes catching on Envy’s head, before his smile softens in a way that makes Envy want to gag. Leave it to a human to get all gooey over a bad hairstyle just because their kid did it. To be spared looking at that sickeningly fond expression a second longer, Envy gets up and heads into the house.

(They ignore that Urey’s expression is the same as Lust’s when Envy deigns to give Gluttony snacks, because Lust doesn’t deserve to be compared to a human .)

-:- 

“Alright,” Urey says, after Envy has sat down at the table across from a smiling Sarah. In front of her is an open folder and a notebook, and they have a good idea of where this conversation is headed. Ah, the joys of forging a new identity that you’re going to use for longer than a week. “Let’s get down to business! Trisha said you don’t know your birthdate or age, so I’ve put you down as fourteen, and your birthday is the first of January. Of course, we can change that if you want, but it seemed like a good day for new beginnings to me.”

Urey pauses, briefly, looking for a confirmation from them. Envy nods, because why should they care what day is chosen? They don’t get why humans care so much about marking how fast their fragile little lives are going by to begin with. Sarah marks something on her notepad, and Urey continues, “So, parent names. We can come up with new ones, but if people are nosey around here, so we can use your parents real names if you think you might slip up.”

Envy is very proud of themself for not laughing outright at the idea, because what names? Father’s name is Father, or perhaps the Dwarf in the Flask if you want to get killed for your insolence. They wonder, somewhat hysterically, if Hiromu Arakawa counts as their mother.

“Nah,” Envy says, swallowing down the acidic laugh burning the back of their throat at the thought. “I’ll remember whatever you come up with.”

The Rockbells share a look, but even though they definitely noticed Envy’s psyche cracking with that last question, they’re polite enough not to mention it.

“Alright. How about Patrick Elric and Sophie Gallagher? I knew a Patrick Gallagher when I went to medical school in East City. Man , what a dick. Hated that guy.”

This time, Envy can’t keep the laughter in, because yeah, that’s exactly the energy for their Father. What a dick, indeed. (It doesn’t taste as bitter as they were expecting it to.)

-:- 

They iron out the backstory for about twenty minutes before Sarah smiles and announces, “Well, that should be good enough to start from. Now, how about a check-up?”

“How about no?” Envy answers immediately and harshly, because there is no way a check-up is going to do anything but reveal that they are decidedly not human. They aren’t entirely sure what even happens during a check-up, but they’re pretty sure getting weighed is involved, and that is a bit of a problem for obvious reasons. Getting outed as an inhuman monster this early on will put a damper on their plans to glue themself to the protagonists and hopefully coast their way through to be alive by the end of the story.

Urey frowns, glancing at his wife before looking back at Envy. In a tone that’s so patronizingly reassuring that it makes Envy want to punch him, he says, “It won’t be much. Just checking your vitals, checking that you’re a healthy weight for your height-”

“I’m fine .” They glare the man down, despite being shorter than him. They’ll need to read up on human development to make sure they shift convincingly through appropriate growth spurts and other milestones. “I don’t get sick.”

Sarah tries this time, beginning with and equally patronizing, “Henry, honey-”

Envy doesn’t get the chance to cut her off, because a familiar creaky-hinge voice cuts in, “Leave him be, you two.”

All three of them turn to the doorway, where Pinako has entered the kitchen. If the very thought of it didn’t make them want to rip their skin off, Envy would say that he was grateful for the interruption. The tiny old lady looks at him, puffs on her pipe, then asks, “I take it you and your uncle have more in common than your looks?”

Ah, shit. 

The old hag knows there’s something screwy about Hohenheim, doesn’t she? 

That’s a bit of a problem. But, then again, maybe it isn’t. She had never asked questions about it in the story, despite having never seen the man age in the decades she knew him. Maybe she’ll keep her mouth shut about Envy, too. Eyes narrowed in suspicion at the old hag, they decide they might as well chance it.

“You could say that, yeah.”

Pinako Rockbell meets their gaze, and her eyes are as blue as her son’s, but much sharper. Envy isn’t sure why, but there’s something in them that they don’t like as she sizes them up. It makes them feel like she’s dissecting them, like if she stares at them for long enough she’ll cut them open and then all their secrets will come bleeding out.

(It’s a stupid, illogical feeling.

Pinako Rockbell is tiny, and decrepit, and human .

There is no good reason to be made so uneasy by her.

So why does the way she looks at them make Envy want to run?)

“Never seen Van get sick,” she remarks, directed at her son for all she’s still sizing up Envy. “The boy’ll be fine. Why don’t you and Sarah finish up that paperwork while I get to know Henry?”

Urey and Sarah Rockbell share a look, but don’t disagree. Envy thinks they hate them for it, but that would be stupid, because Pinako Rockbell is just a decrepit human woman and they are not afraid of her.

(But they really don’t have any other plans besides this one.

If Pinako decides to be difficult, Envy’s one and only plan goes to shit.

Envy isn’t scared, but they really regret their life choices as they follow behind Pinako.)