nestingdevil | ➥ OPEN POST | image, lyrics, prompts, etc

"Work... Work for you?!" Her voice cracks before she lets out a sob, one she doesn't want to let out. She turns away from Greed, hugging herself to contain anything else from escaping. She's getting more frightened as time goes on, but she has no where else to go. She doesn't know where she is and what if he's right, that there's people who would hurt her for what she is? But she doesn't have to tell them...

But Greed hasn't hurt her in the past, and does seem like he's trying to help now. She can't be mad at him or scared of him, just the situation. "...will you help me find them if I stay here?" She looks back at him, wetness in her eyes but she's stubbornly not letting them fall, trying to be strong. The others have to be out there, somewhere.

"Oi, oi, oi .. calm down."

Dipped low, Greed circles around her. So that he can meet her face to face; his lips are contorted, twisting as she braces around herself for comfort. He can never really understand how she feels - what it's like to feel that way. But he can take a gander.

So he slips a hooked-knuckle under her chin. Forcing her to look up at him as a slight smile twists up his face. Even like this, the notion comes off a bit smarmy. It can't really be helped: what he is, what kind of creature he's made to be. But despite the crookedness of his nature, Greed crouches down to meet her.

"I'll try, but I can't promise you anything, kid. It's not like this is normal." Greed releases his finger from her chin and lets his hands sink between his splayed-knees. "But nothing's impossible, right?"

His teeth glint when a stray light above decides to make its presence known. With a shivering-flicker, forcing the electric current through.

The touch under her chin is unexpected, startling her into looking right into Greed's eyes. It's something like her family would do when she's crying or sad, and it's such a familiar gesture that it actually brings some unintentional comfort. She swallows hard, trying to make sure she doesn't cry even if she's afraid of the situation, but she's trying so hard.

"Thank you," she says quietly. If he'll try, since he knows this place, then maybe they stand a chance. "We'll find them if-" she stops sharply when suddenly a bulb comes on above, making her head jerk as she looks up, confused. Why would the light come on in an abandoned place? Does someone know they're here?

Greed waves his hand in front of her face as soon as she jerks in the direction of the light. "Don't worry about it - it's still trying to figure out whether or not it'll work."

The Sin presses his palms into his thighs as he moves to stand. It's true - the 'Nest practically lives as a haunting now. The lights flickering in and out, the slow groans from down below. It's the final resting place for some and a rumor for others. Greed's face lights up when the bulb pulses again; dimming in and out before going dark again.

"C'mon - there are rooms upstairs. Just don't mind some of the stuff that's still there, yeah?" He side-winds her. Jerking around with the buck of a hip, a pull of the torso. It's dodging the obvious questions there, instead pointing to her own predicament. He isn't too keen on opening up that can of worms and it's better than she doesn't know anyway.

"I'll see if anyone's heard anything. Not sure if they're still around, but Dublith's never been shy on secrets."

"Ah, right." A bit disoriented by his constant changing, Kaede lets him lead her upstairs. She can't help but be jumpy, looking around at every creak and groan of the old place. Everything has her on edge right now. This whole place seems like a haunted house; the thought doesn't make it better. Still, she can tell that people had once lived here and tries to imagine it before it became abandoned.

"...tell me about this place when it was still a bar?" She asks. Rather hear him or herself talking than the shudders of wood talking.

He'll have to deal with a little girl holding his hand, though.

Greed's face falls uncharacteristically; when she asks, "...tell me about this place-?" His eyes narrow behind his shades and he slowly edges his fingers open to let her palm sit inside his own. The skin there is rough; calloused when it needs to be and smooth where it shouldn't. He grits his teeth and the bones in his spine go stiff.

What it used to be.

"Eh - not really a story someone like you should hear," the Sin says as he shows her up the stairs. "-but I guess there's no use hiding it."

The feeling is something he's felt only once before. A twinge; like a vice snaring him from the inside. Tightening around his core and begging for a payout: for revenge, though he'll never get it. "They were mine."

Up the stairs is a hallway. Just as gloomy and dank as the rest. Windows had been left open and now they, too, are in pieces. Letting the torn drapes waft as the wind shifted. It's cooler on the second floor; a chill catching through the floorboards.

"Ran into a little bit of trouble. I guess you could say I never really got along with the rest of them." The six others. Sins incarnate with legs to walk, with voices to speak. He was the oddity out of them all; separate from the others and this had been his would-be kingdom. Made in wood, carved in liquor.

In all the things he really wanted.

But that's old history. Older now that things have come and gone. And he's the only one left.

But even that isn't entirely right either.

"...The rest of who?" There's an odd trust in Greed, even if right now everything is a mess and she's honestly afraid. So she stays close to him, her hand feeling very small in his, but she can feel the callouses against the smoothness of her hand.

"Why would that affect your bar?" She jumps a little as a bit of cloth moves, and hisses a little. "Stop that! We're not here to be scared!"

"You didn't think I was the only one, did you?"

From the street outside, there are whispers in the dark. Barely audible, but enough of a chit-chat to break the silence. Greed clips up to the upper hallway, dodging any belongings that could be in his path. There's a sword sheathed and propped up against the wall, a hammer next to that. "We never saw eye to eye. You could say I left the rest of them back in Central a long time ago."

Greed slips a thumb into his belt loop and lets this fingers spread across the outer edge of his thigh. She wants a story, but it's not the type she's really looking for. "I've been doing this for about two-hundred years remember? Well, it wasn't always like this."

There's a door at the edge of the hallway. Darker than the rest with a faint-line of silvery blue coming from the bottom edge. Greed knocks it with his elbow and it groans open. Slowly swinging wide to a bedroom. It may not be as expected: a bed that's older with stains to match. A dresser that's practically alight with cobwebs.

"I told you before - I'm not exactly a good guy, kid."

Can you see this face? This is a face of do not want. She stares at the dresser certain that a million spiders will attack her from it, and sleeping in that kind of bed does not sit well with her. A shiver passes through her and she longs for a proper bed.

"There's other- um- Homunculi?" Guessing on the plural because Homunculuses sounds stupid. "How many? ...and two hundred years..." The last bit being murmured. She can't imagine the concept of living that long.

"You really don't know, do you?"

Greed slithers on in, passing by each piece of furniture as if it's familiar. And it is; the dresser, the floor. The walls that are slightly stained to the mute-color of coffee. He touches floorboard of a bedpost, gliding his fingers across it with a minimal hum.

"There are seven deadly sins, kid. And each one he cast off." For a moment, his tone turns dangerous. Vile in his throat when he says him. But with his back to Kaede, the snarl's missed. "There are seven in total, but I'm not like the rest."

Or was.

"Doesn't matter. They're all gone now."

Kaede watches him, standing in the doorway with her arms wrapping around herself as soon as he moves away. She listens in silence, trying to remember. Seven deadly sins... she's heard of it, in a vague sense, but it never really mattered to her world as a teenager.

"You're not like the rest because you're not gone. You survived and they didn't." She could understand the context of 'gone' in this sense, her chin coming up a little. "That means you're better than them." She still had his power, and even subtly, it still effects her in a sense.

"I didn't."

His fingers wrap around a drawer to the dresser, pulling it wide open with the spindle-snap of cobwebs. The brass-silver handle knocks back when he drops it and the tips of his fingers are coated. Dusty with the remains.

Greed brushes them across his thigh before snatching a bottle inside. "But it looks like things have changed a bit."

The glass he removes is old. Older than any of the others smashed below. With a rope wrap cinching the neck piece and Greed lowers his head. His teeth find the thick cork bottled at the top and he yanks his neck to pop it open. Before spitting the remnants into a palm just waiting at his side. "I should be with the rest of them. But then again - "

He doesn't need to say it: she already knows.

There's no such thing as no such thing. And his existence here just proved the fact.

"Yet you're here. You're not dead. That's the important part. So you do the best you can with what you've got." She wrinkles her nose at the bottle, pointing at it with a bit of distaste. "Instead of drinking your life away. That stuff isn't good for you, you know."

She walks over to the bed and pokes it, making a face at the dust that comes off of it. "Greed, I can't sleep on this! Seriously, this is disgusting."

He suddenly jerks forward. Snapping from the hip to topple over on himself as a laugh takes hold. When he barks, the noise practically bounces against the walls. Making the old wood shiver and Greed throws himself back. Howling and the liquor in hand sloshes and spins with his jerk-still movement.

"Ha -! That isn't really how it works - it's not like this could do much to me." For emphasis, the Sin rattles his wrist back and forth. "I told you before: I'm built tougher than most."

But when Kaede protests again, Greed closes an eye. As if he's slightly put-off by her voice of protest. But he coils finger after finger around his liquor, edging one foot forward. "It isn't that bad," he trails back to the bed, setting down the bottle on a nearby nightstand. On closer inspection, it's obvious that the linens have collected some dust over his lengthy absence. Greed snatches the end of a sheet, tearing it out from the slip of the bed.

"Tsk - you know out of everything, I figured that'd be the least of your complaints. Fine - " He tosses it aside, letting the fabric slip from his fingers into a pile on the floor. "But it's not like I have a lot left here."

"...I guess not." She doesn't like the idea of sleeping on this creepy old bed. But if she had nothing else, she would manage. Her arms wrap around herself, a breath letting out. "I guess that's what we've got. I guess the idea of a hotel is too much?"

But maybe Greed is in trouble in this place, still. She isn't sure but something isn't quite right. What it is that isn't right, she isn't sure or how to deal with that itch. Maybe she could find something out in the morning.

Greed trails his fingers down the abandoned bottle; touching when it curves and bends. With his back to her, his shoulders rise and those red lines knotting his back move with him. Stretching when his blades fan out, retracting when he settles again. Usually, it's easier.

When they've got nothing left to lose, that is.

But Kaede has plenty to lose: her life, her family. The situation is cruel and Greed makes a small groan of protest. "C'mon," he says as he tosses his head to the side. With bottle in tow, Greed settles down on the bed and his foot notches into the wood frame still holding at the edge. "-a hotel really isn't going to work."

And while the gesture is a silent one, sometimes silence speaks more volumes. "I told you, didn't I? I don't let anyone take what's mine." The homunculus leans his back into the worn mattress; it feels familiar under his back, even if the smell isn't exactly the same. "And I always take care of my own, Kaede."

Kaede raises an eyebrow at Greed and feels the need to point out, "I'm not yours. We're just-" Now those brows come together as she thinks about it, trying to come up with the right word, before a smirk comes to her lips.

"We're partners." Right. She can live with that idea. Still, as he unfolds himself onto the bed, right now she wants to poke her nose into the rest of this place and see if she can manage to find something that isn't so unnerving. Considering how long it looks abandoned, she isn't sure that's possible.

Ug, it's going to be a long night. "If we're staying here, can we clean it in the morning?"

Greed opens one of his eyes a bit lazily. He's got his arm shoved behind his head for a make-shift pillow and his fingers sprawl out. Holding the bottle of liquor with haphazard abandon.

"Partners, huh." The last one who had called him a partner was a little older. Not by much and still a kid in any sort of comparison. But she and him did share a lot: wanting, needing. Defiant but true to their own set of moral codes. Greed's lower lip purses out a bit and he locks his ankles together.

Finally, and not without an elongated sigh, he says: "Sure. But there are some paces you're not allowed to go to." With an index out, he points to the floorboards. "There's an exit leading down. It's off limits until I say otherwise."

...

"Don't give me that look." Kaede shakes her finger at Greed. Really, she has no fear of him. Fear of stupid things he does, like jumping off of a moving train, but none of him. No, not when she can match him and he's done not only nothing to hurt her, but has tried to protect her.

But of course, if you tell a child 'no', they're going to get curious. Her expression changes to match. "Why? What's down there?"

Greed places the end of the bottle to his lips, but pauses when she chides him. A close of his eyes has his brows falling, his lip churning upward. She's right - she can take it from him whenever she wants.

Then again, he also isn't the type for violence. Especially against a woman.

But when she presses more, the homunculus goes in for the kill. Swallowing down the liquor until half the bottle is drained. A breath of a sigh escapes him soon after. Noxious and toxic just like the booze he's pounding.

"Just do me the favor. It isn't something for someone like you."

It's like telling Adam and Eve don't touch that tree- you know it'll happen. Kaede shifts a little, already silently making plans to do exactly the opposite of what he's telling her. After all, if he's going to drag her to the dump, she wants to know about it.

"Can we go out in the morning? I need to find the others and like, know where we even are. My power isn't that obvious, and I don't even know who I'm supposed to be worried about! Some dudes in blue uniforms. Janitors wear blue uniforms."

"Ah-?"

Greed pauses. With his lower lip pursed out and the bottle hangs just in front of his face. He gives a slight roll of his eyes, setting the butt-end of the glass to his chest. "Yeah, we can. Right now just isn't the best time."

When she continues, he leans over to put the bottle on the nightstand. There's more people outside. Lingering conversations that catch his ear before he folds both arms behind his head. "State Alchemists," the homunculus says and his eyes wander to the ceiling. The crooked wood has held up pretty well, all things considered.

"-though they probably won't care too much about you."

Edited 2014-05-07 23:08 (UTC)

"What's an alchemist?" Now he has her interest off the unknown below them, and she ends up sitting on the edge of the bed, leaning a little on his legs. She's familiar with him, enough, that she lost the fear of touching him like she does with some others. Better, she understands the power that will come from him and the fact she can control it is a form of power.

There is also the inherit being of his nature that is leeching into her personality. That's why she wants more. greedy.

When she crawls on his legs, Greed slowly brings his arm away from his head. Alchemists aren't really a threat, but her ability would be something that would pique a wandering eye. Especially since she's feeding off of him like a leech - it isn't a normal thing and it certainly doesn't fall under Central's book of guided techniques.

Still, maybe things had changed. Maybe they hadn't. It would take more than a few hours to figure it all out. "Military," Greed says, his voice more hushed now. The dark outside turns his skin a little whiter. As the moon sends a soft glow into the room. It looks haunting this way, but somehow it's comfortable. "-they practice the laws of alchemy. Remember what I told you?"

The homunculus gives two small taps to his temple. "Equivalent exchange - can't make something without giving something up. That's their law anyway." A glint of his teeth in the dark could give the crescent a run for its money. "But I've been gone a while. I'm not sure what's happening now that the world hasn't ended."

"...world hasn't ended?" Kaede questions, making herself comfortable on him, stretching out a little as she leans her head back against the wall. Her eyes close, a little bit of exhaustion crawling across her. "What do you mean by that?"

She still really isn't sure what an alchemist is, but military is something she can understand. "What does it mean to practice alchemy? And doesn't a law mean people break it all the time?" Villains do that.

And what are you, in this world? Are you a hero? A villain like you claim?

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I realize I don't know if you play Greed from Brotherhood or the 2003 FMA.

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