302Disclaimer: FMA belongs to Arakawa Hiromu.
The title of this chapter sounds awkwardly like the name of a Hannah Montana song or something... but whatever. xD
Recap: After Claire shoots Gilbert, it is quickly revealed that she hadn't really shot Gilbert at all, but rather, shot Envy who was pretending to be Gilbert. Envy knocks her out and departs, leaving Lloyd to bleed on the ground. Eventually, some nonbelievers, including the real Gilbert, find Lloyd and start giving him medical treatment, but Lloyd, now knowing the role Envy is playing in Liore, realizes the futility of trying to win against him. When Claire regains consciousness, she finds herself dwelling on what it felt like to kill Gilbert. After trying and failing to get her mind off of it by herself, she ends up attempting to do so by talking to Envy while he is trying to sleep. Ultimately, she falls asleep in the homunculus' room, and Envy is not particularly pleased about that.
Chapter 17 ~ Almost Like a Normal Teenager
It was strange enough for her to realize that she'd actually manage to fall asleep, but even stranger for her to realize that she'd fallen asleep in Envy's room. But neither of those, believe it or not, was the first thing she woke up to realize.
The first thing she had woken up to realize was that a huge, black, disgusting cockroach moving its tiny little feet, one by one, across her face.
And naturally, she'd shrieked, "OH-MY-GOD-GET-THIS-THING-OFF-OF-ME-OH-MY-GOD-OH-MY-GOD-OH-MY-GOD-IT'S-ON-MY-FACE-GET-IT-OFF-AAAGHHHHHHHHH!" She flailed her hands around frantically, as if that would somehow help while continuing to freak out and scream.
Somewhere through her shrieking, she heard Envy's voice say with disinterest, "Nah, don't feel like it." He was probably picking his ear or something, but she wasn't looking at him. Rather, she was staring, cross-eyed, at the cockroach on her nose.
"JUST-GET-THIS-FREAKING-THING-OFF OF—OH-MY-GOD-IT'S-MOVING-AGAIN-OH-MY-GOD-OH-MY-GOD-OH-MY-GOD!" Her words were sped up and jumbled together as if she was trying to say a tongue-twister and her voice was high-pitched and screechy.
"Hm? Why should I?" the homunculus asked smugly. "Especially when it's so fun to see you flapping your arms like a failed chicken."
She squealed again. "JUST-GET-THIS-FREAKING-THING-OFF!" she repeated loudly.
"Only if you say, pleaaaaaaaaase Envy-sama," he taunted arrogantly.
"NO WAY IN FREAKING HELL AM I SAYING THAT!"
"Then I guess it's staying on you then. Oh look! Soon it's gonna crawl down your neck and then…"
"OH-MY-GOD-EW-THAT'S-SO-DISGUSTING-GET-THIS-THING-OFF-OF-ME-ALREADY!"
"Then all you have to say is 'Pleaaaaaaase, Envy-sama!'" he cooed mockingly.
"NO DAMN WAY!"
"Then I guess that's too – "
"EEK-OH-MY-GOD-EEK-EEK-EEK-EW-IT'S-CRAWLING-DOWN-MY-NECK-YUCK-EW-DISGUSTING-OH-MY-GOD-OH-MY-GOD-OH-MY-FREAKING-GOD!"
"Where's the 'Pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaase, Envy-sama?'"
"OH-MY-GOD-EWWW-PLEASE-ENVY-YOU-JERK-SAMA-I-DON'T-FREAKING-CARE-JUST-GET-THE-GODDAMN-THING-OFF-OF-ME!"
"Cheh," he complained. "That's not a very nice way of saying it."
"WHATEVER-JUST-TAKE-THIS-FREAKING-THING-OFF-OF-ME!"
Envy snickered, holding a hand up to his ear. "What? I can't hear you."
"DAMMIT, ENVY-SAMA, PLEASE GET THIS THING OFF OF ME!"
"My, my…" the homunculus said with pleasure. "I'll think about it."
It took another minute more of Claire's shrieking, kicking, wailing, and screaming before he finally walked over to her with a huge smirk on his face, telling her it was punishment for falling asleep in his room. After he easily removed the cockroach off her neck, he continued to antagonize her for quite some time, but in summary…
… that was her morning.
As she followed Envy to the Church, she was still grumbling to herself about Envy's rotten sense of humor and how he was as immature as an elementary school boy. It was a bit funny, but being woken by him in such a childish way had somehow eased her wariness of him.
The ground was still soggy from the previous day's rain, but it wouldn't be for much longer – not with the sun blazing down so hard. Claire knew that if she stayed in this sun much longer, her already sunburnt skin was going to start looking even worse, even if she was wearing a hat. Honestly, the sun was making her feel lethargic.
The particular region of the town that they were traveling through was unoccupied and yet, fairly undamaged. It looked as if people didn't normally come to this area, as the buildings were falling apart naturally rather than due to being actually attacked. There wasn't a lot of broken glass – instead, there were only crumbling bricks and murky windows. Every once in a while she could even hear the call of a desert bird.
Other than that though, the only things she could hear were her and Envy's footsteps in the soft, damp sand. Neither she nor he was speaking, so she was just left to her own thoughts once more. The previous day's events still incessantly invaded her mind, but she was able to at least somewhat concentrate on other things. It would be awhile, though, before she would stop having nightmares of it… To kill someone – it was haunting, truly so.
But it was something that she couldn't overcome.
In any case, though, she still had other things to worry about… For example, the reason why she had returned to Liore in the first place: to find more information on the Philosopher's Stone.
Although she wasn't sure how she was going to go about doing so yet, she needed to find a time to ask Envy what he knew about the red stone that she'd found at Magwar's mansion. Currently, she had the bottle in a small pouch in her bag, but she wasn't sure how to bring the subject up either. It was almost dangerous to bring up because she couldn't guarantee how he'd react. For all she knew, the fact that she knew he had played a role at Magwar's mansion could infuriate him and cause him to attack her and destroy the stone. His personality was unpredictable and explosive, like a bomb waiting to go off at any time.
The amber-eyed girl looked up from her feet as the homunculus stopped, turning to face her with his hands on his hips and an obnoxiously smug look on his face.
"…Yes?" Claire questioned, wondering what he was up to.
"When we get to the Church," he said, "you get the honors of sitting in the Head Priest's office all day long." He shrugged. "That means no digging around, for Lil' Miss Wannabe Detective."
Claire sighed, flipping her long dark hair over her shoulder. "I didn't expect anything else," she stated simply.
"Oh?" he asked in mock approval. "I guess that means you're beginning to understand then. When you do bad things, bad things happen to you."
His sick sense of humor angered her. Life held no meaning for him. "Shut up," she hissed, glaring at him coldly. "You've already proven that to me."
"Heh," the green-haired teen grinned wide, his violet eyes laughing at her. "I kno – "
Suddenly, the light thumping of feet against the sand caught the attention of both the girl and the homunculus. Claire glanced behind her just as a young boy somehow ran into her, knocking her to the ground. Her bag fell along with her, its contents spilling onto the ground.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, but the boy kept running, without even looking back. The fifteen year-old girl scrambled to her feet, brushing herself off irritably. "How dare he," she muttered.
The homunculus stood on the sideline and whistled. "You gonna let him do that to you, Girlie?" he asked amusedly, gesturing towards her bag.
Quickly, her eyes scanned everything that had fallen to the ground, just before the boy turned a corner.
It was gone. The pouch with the red stone.
"Get back here!" the girl shouted, now chasing after him. "I saw that! Give it back!"
"No way!" the boy yelled in response as he kept running. "Finders keepers, losers weepers!"
Dammit, Claire thought as Envy jogged nonchalantly beside her seeming to find the whole thing like a comedy show. This isn't funny! "That little …" she muttered to herself before shouting again, "Get back here!"
"Both you and that kid," the homunculus said smoothly, "you're both such idiots." Suddenly, he jumped into the air with the ease of an acrobat, landing in front of the boy.
"Who are you calling an idiot?" Claire objected haughtily, as she allowed herself to slow down her pace. "He took something from me, and I need it back!" she said through heavy breaths.
The boy glared at Envy as the homunculus studied him with his violet eyes. "I ain't pathetic!" he argued, taking a step back. He had already recovered from the shock of seeing the green-haired teen jump over his head and land in front of him, and his dark eyes were darting around the area searching for a way for him to somehow escape the bind he found himself in. Claire spotted her white pouch dangling from the boy's scrawny fingers.
The homunculus lifted the boy off the ground by the back of his collar, 'causing him to kick and scream. "And now…" Envy went on calmly, completely ignoring the child, "this little brat is going to tell us some stupid made-up sob story about his equally pathetic old hag to justify his thieving habits." He sighed, as if the boy was completely hopeless. "I'll just have to tell you my reaction before you even start. Boo hoo hoo. How sad. It's so heartbreaking…" He pretended to wipe tears from his eyes before a wolfish smirk spread across his lips and he finished, "Not."
"I wasn' gonna do anythin' stupid like that!" the kid was yelling at him throughout the homunculus' entire speech. His mangled speech was probably because of his lack of his two front teeth. "And don't ya dare bring my mama into this!" he continued. "I bet yo mama's so old that if she walked into an antique store, she'd be the oldest thing there anyways!"
Claire's eyes darted worriedly between the two. Envy had temporarily frozen, just staring at the boy, who was still shouting and kicking as he tried to get the green-haired homunculus to let go of him. Envy didn't speak, or even react at all.
Was he just going to take that? What if he decided to attack the boy? She felt her heartbeat speeding up and her face paling. Sure, the boy had stolen something important from her, but that didn't warrant the homunculus murdering him. "Wait, Envy," she tried. "Don't—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Envy had started to roar with laughter.
All the amber-eyed girl could do was stare dumbly as the homunculus doubled over laughing, even dropping the boy. The boy must have been equally stunned because he didn't even try to run away. It had never struck her before this moment, but the homunculus had always seemed so cynical, so hateful.
But somehow, that yo mama! joke had managed to set him off laughing – honestly, genuinely.
Claire couldn't at all understand what was so funny, but… at that moment, the homunculus almost could have been a normal teenager, guffawing idiotically at something stupid his friend had just said.
It took him awhile, but the homunculus eventually recovered from his laughing attack. Before the thieving boy even realized it, Envy had snatched back the human girl's pouch from him, and he and the human were back on their way to the Church. The whole time they walked though, the girl occasionally glanced at him with a mixture of nervousness and bewilderment in her expression, but Envy ignored her. He assumed her reaction was because of his reaction to the boy, and he felt no need to explain that reaction.
But damn. Although his relationship with her was anything but familial, the next time he saw Dante, he was going to have trouble keeping a straight face.
He had already transformed into Cornello as he took Claire through the double doors of the Church. He smiled genially at the Letoists who very nearly bowed down to him as they swallowed his every word as an absolute command from God. Even his simple greetings were divine and sacred to these gullible humans. He waved at some of them before one of the higher rank clergymen approached him.
"Cornello-sama!" he spoke as he knelt down on one knee and lowered his head in reverence. "I'm glad to see that you're well."
"Raise your head, Alastor," the homunculus said. "It calms me to see that you are still unharmed as well, despite all of the recent violence."
"I'm honored, sir," he said, swelling with pride. Apparently, this human was foolish enough to have his day be made by such a worthless statement. Then, his brown eyes glanced towards the dark-haired girl standing behind the Head Priest. "…Who might she be?" the man asked inquisitively.
"A sad victim…" Cornello-Envy told the man. The human girl was doing well acting her part, as she stared at the floor wordlessly. "She thought to side with the nonbelievers, but she has finally realized the truth. I shall be counseling with her for a good majority of the day, so I'm busy. As such, if you find yourself in need of me, you can find me in my office."
Envy briefly heard the man say, "Yes, Cornello-sama," as he and the human girl continued on towards the stairs leading to his office. Although she kept up the act while they were still in the presence of the believers, the amber-eyed girl frowned at him as they neared the office and Envy pulled out the key to unlock it.
"Hm?" he asked benignly in Cornello's voice, unlocking and opening the doors. "Do you perhaps have some sort of problem with me?"
The girl followed him inside and shut the two wooden doors, closing them behind her, before she answered. "You're even faker than the real Cornello," she said with disgust.
The homunculus transformed back into his cute form. "Why thank you," he sneered obnoxiously, observing the girl glare at him with delight. Then, she haughtily away from him and went to go sit on the window sill. What? Envy thought sulkily. He had been pleased with the first part of her reaction, but this second part was disappointing. You aren't going to object? That's no fun.
A wicked idea occurred to him as he decided to annoy her further. He pulled out the pouch that he had retrieved from the thieving boy earlier. "Hmm…" he said thoughtfully as he swung it around slightly. "I wonder what's in here…"
Immediately, the girl's head whipped around and upon seeing the pouch, she came right back over to where he was standing. "Give it back!" she told him, holding out her hand for him to give it to her.
Yes, Envy thought, that's a good reaction. "Nah, don't wanna," he said with feigned disinterest, as he looked over in another direction while watching her out of the corner of his eye. "I was the one who got this back, after all. So who's to say that it's not mine now?"
"Me," she told him stubbornly. "Now hand it over!" She tried to snatch it from him.
A wide, playful smirk stretched across his face as he held the small pouch just out of her reach. "Nah."
"Give it!" she exclaimed again, with more frustration this time. She was trying to jump up and get it, but Envy kept moving it away so she still couldn't reach it.
The homunculus chuckled lightly. "I wonder what's in here that you want it so badly…" he said, intrigued by the girl's desperation at retrieving the pouch from him. He had grasped it in his hand before he had started waving it around, so he could tell that there was some cylindrical bottle inside of it, but that wasn't going to stop him from messing with her. A look of mischievous glee lit up his face, a look which could be likened to the modern-day trollface. "Could it be…" he started, raising his free hand to make finger quotes, "'feminine products?'"
The look on her face was priceless. Her face flushed and she moved her mouth to speak several times wordlessly. How he wished he had a camera.
But sadly, it only lasted an instant because a moment later, the girl had recomposed herself. "O-of course not," she stuttered slightly. Then she glared at him again. "Get your mind out of the gutter."
"Aww…" Envy said disappointedly, shaking his head. "Such a shame."
"You're disgusting."
"Yuck, you thought I was serious?" He stuck out his tongue to express his distaste while crinkling his nose. "Now that is disgusting."
"Excuse me?" she asked, frowning at him with her hands on her hips.
"I said that the fact that you thought I was serious was what was truly disgusting," he repeated with disinterest as he shrugged. But now he was bored.
"How dare—"
Envy sighed and tossed the pouch back to the girl. She fumbled clumsily with it before managing to grasp it, and she seemed frankly surprised that he had suddenly returned it so easily as she looked at him with her questioning amber eyes.
"I don't feel like playing with that stupid pouch of yours anymore," he answered the unspoken inquiry.
"…Oh," came a terse, still somewhat puzzled reply. Then she paused for a moment, as if thinking, before asking, "…Do you remember a man called Magwar from Xenotime?"
The question was sudden and caught him off guard, so the homunculus had to think for a moment. "Come to think of it," he eventually said, "yes, I do think I remember someone like that. An old, fat loser. What about him?"
"Hmm…" the girl said quietly, "…so you were the one he mentioned in his journal."
"Journal?" Envy hadn't been aware of any such thing.
The human ignored him and went on. "You… I know you're immortal, but you don't age either, do you?"
At this, the homunculus smirked. "You're just figuring that out now, Girlie?" he sneered.
"Hmph," she said, crossing her arms across her chest. "It's not my fault that no one's ever told me anything about homunculi before. For all I knew, before I met you, they were creatures of myth that didn't actually exist."
"Excuses, excuses," Envy taunted, attempting to rile her up again.
But to his disappointment, all he received was a slightly irritated look before she continued, "Well anyways, since you were at Magwar's mansion, then…" She took the pouch he had returned to her, pulled the draw string, and allowed a transparent glass bottle holding a red stone to slide out of it. "…You ought to know what this is."
An expression of surprise flickered across Envy's face, but he quickly replaced it with his typical smugness. "Oh?" he asked mockingly. The color of this particular red stone was so dull, so murky. Although he knew what it was, he could easily mistake it for a silly red mineral.
The dark-haired girl held up the bottle. "Tell me what the relationship between this and the Philosopher's Stone is."
"I feel no obligation to answer your query, Girlie," he scoffed lightly. "And besides…" He gestured towards the red stone in the bottle. "That impure thing is useless."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said," he told her. Then, grinning obnoxiously, he added, "You know, I could just take that from you right now and crush all your hopes of finding anything about the Philosopher's Stone from it."
He had hoped that the girl would get angry with him again, but instead, she only blinked a moment before smiling. "Nope," she said calmly. "If you were gonna do that, you would have done so already."
At that statement, he felt mildly compelled just to prove her wrong, but he shrugged, deciding against it. It would be more interesting, in his opinion, to watch her try desperately to search for answers about it. "My, my," he said nastily, "so confident, aren't you?" He turned and walked towards the Head Priest's desk, deciding that he didn't feel like standing anymore. "I'll let you keep that," he went on coolly, "but in exchange, you have to figure out everything about it yourself."
"That doesn't tell me anything!" the girl complained.
"Too bad, so sad," he said sarcastically as he sat down in the cushioned chair behind the desk.
"Fine," she pouted. "Be that way."
"Yes, I will."
She glared at him once more. "Don't you have something better to do?" she asked. "Isn't Cornello-sama supposed to be preaching or something?"
"Ah, so Girlie's trying to get rid of me now 'cause she can't win against me in a verbal battle, hm?" the homunculus snickered.
"Well?" she asked again, more crossly.
"The dearest Cornello-sama is currently counseling with a pitiful victim of the civil war who has finally realized the truth that the nonbelievers are all heretics," Envy told her. "So no, it's perfectly okay for him to stay in his office all day." He grinned.
"So basically," she said with an accusing tone, "you used me as a reason to skip work."
"Why of course, Girlie. That's exactly it."
One look at her expression at that moment told him that she wanted to strangle him, but instead of trying to do something that was completely futile, she let out a deep breath. "Anyways…" she groaned with frustration, "…if I'm stuck with you for the rest of the day, you can at least answer a few of my questions."
The homunculus raised an eyebrow. "Eh, maybe."
She disregarded his response. "You're not the only homunculus, are you? There ought to be at least two more of you."
The question surprised him mildly, but he decided to answer. "Yeah," he said boredly as he yawned. "Each of us is named after one of the seven sins." He paused, before looking at her more seriously. Now that he thought about it, this was probably something he should go over with her if he wanted to make good use of her. "The two you're thinking of are probably the two you heard talking to me the last time you were in Liore, correct?"
"Yup."
"The woman is Lust and the dumb fat one is Gluttony," he explained. "There are more of us than just us three though."
The girl thought it over for a moment, resting her hand on her chin as her amber eyes stared at the ceiling. "I see…" she said. "And none of you age or die?"
"Duh," he stated bluntly. "I thought that was obvious."
"Hmph," she huffed. "Well then do you guys have a leader?"
Envy's violet eyes narrowed dangerously at this question. The human girl didn't flinch, but he could see a slight fear in her eyes at his reaction. There was no reason for him to tell her a word about Dante; she was sticking her nose in too deep. "Girlie, do you have a death wish?" he hissed icily.
She shook her head.
"Then you should shut up," he snarled, suddenly standing up. This time, he succeeded in making her flinch. He pointed to the tattoo on his left thigh. "See this?"
She nodded slowly.
"The Ouroboros Tattoo is the mark of a homunculus," he told her. "Perhaps I won't kill you, but one of the other homunculi will. So if you see someone else with one…" He made a slicing motion at his neck. "You're dead. Got it?"
The girl was silent, but she nodded again. Her amber eyes told him that she knew he was serious. It was true: the more she knew, the more likely she would get killed.
It was also true, however, that if Dante knew he was conspiring with a human that she would kill her, regardless of how much she knew.
Author's note: Oh yes, I do dare to make yo mama! jokes at Dante. Heh. (Dang, I think there was even more trolling in this chapter than in the last one. Although much more lighthearted trolling in this one lol.)
...Writer's block is evil. EVIL. I had so much trouble with this chapter because of it. I spent more than a week attempting to write one paragraph. Agh. So frustrating.
But eventually I did manage to write the whole thing in time, so I suppose all is well ;D
Lorelei Rinoa: Did you get your proper dosage of fluff this time? xD
I know it's been somewhat difficult to see how I'm going to work this out as a romance story, but are you starting to see a tiny bit of chemistry for this pairing now?
By the way, would it be weird to mesh the Xerxes plot of FMAB (mostly just the legend about its prowess in alchemy) into my story? Naturally, there are portions of it (the parts about Father (who will not exist at all in my plot) and Hohenheim (who is from that underground city in 2003)) that would have to be changed in order to be worked into the 2003 anime plot.
*Since the login area keeps having technical difficulties, I would like you guys to know that I do accept anonymous reviews*
Thanks for reading/alerting/favoriting/reviewing/etc~ Hope you enjoyed the chapter!