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

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?

"It means that they didn't waste it."

Greed didn't bother looking at her. Kids were always trouble - kids always asked too much. Why, how, when: she doesn't need to know and he isn't interesting in telling. A story already dead and gone; Greed's not even sure how it all ended.

"Not that kind of law," the Sin chides back. His smile purses as he slowly bounces a heel off the opposing ankle. There's a low beat coming from down the street - another bar probably. With his already six-feet-under, Greed's not too surprised someone else picked up his usual clientele. "-physical law. You can't gain anything without sacrificing something else first."

Even him and his fall in the category. Gaining life at the sacrifice of thousands - the idea isn't lost on him. Never had been. "Does it really matter?" Greed slides his gaze to her finally. She's a bit closer than he expected, but it shouldn't be a surprise. Alone and lost and he's the only thing tethering her back to a life she knows.

A sigh escapes him. Sounding off like someone who's slightly annoyed. "You going to ask me questions all night, or are you actually going to sleep at some point?"

Kaede just fixes Greed with a glare for that last bit. She looks around, then actually just shoves his leg over a little and hogs part of the bed, curling herself up a bit like a dog. Really, it isn't very comfortable, and this whole situation is the same, but at least she knows most of what she's dealing with when it comes to Greed, and on top of that, she actually trusts him to protect her.

After all, she is 'his'. ~~Maybe he is hers, in his own way.~~

"You're a jerk," she mutters, making sure even if her head is a bit buried in her arms that it's loud enough for him to hear it.

"Ah-?"

When she shoves him, the homunculus budges. He throws the offending leg over the other and makes a sort of 'tsk' when she continues to silently protest. Kids aren't his forte - never were. But they're honest. Her discomfort is easy to read and Greed merely tilts his head back just a bit. "You know, that's not very nice."

It isn't remotely what she's looking for. He knows that even if he doesn't entirely get it. His hand spreads and one arm loosens from the niche behind his skull. A moment later and he's got all five fingers on top of her head.

"Wouldn't be the first time someone's called me that," Greed whispers. His voice is rough, but solid. "-at least you're finally starting to get it." That he wasn't normal, nor was he the hero she's been looking for. But as his fingers spread and those rough pads slide through her hair, he figures it's enough.

Kaede doesn't feel the need to say anything to that, just closing her eyes and letting him touch her hair. It feels a little strange, but at the same time, it feels like the same thing her father does on rare occasion. So she can slowly fall asleep, curled up into a little ball there at Greed's side, as close to safe as she's going to get right now.

Her dreams are far from easy, and her fingers end up clenching the material of his pants through the night, hanging on tightly.

The question is, what will happen come morning? The lights in the bar hadn't gone unnoticed.

It's only when the clutching has stopped does Greed actually leave her. With a slip and slide, tossing himself to the other side of the bed to let her enjoy the well-needed sleep. Unlike him, she'll need the rest; to catch up before the day brings more news to the table.

He knows the 'Nest. All of its quirks, its secrets. The groaning of pipes that haven't been used, the flickering of lights begging for someone to take a look at. It's all a relic of what used to be - who he used to be. Staring back at him, mocking with all of its old promises.

Greed grimaces again and he's thankful he doesn't have the extra company.

He makes sure the entrance is barred and that the rest of the building is clear before heading to his destination. Out of every cranny and crooked corner, it's the last out of the set that he's been doing his best to avoid. Deep down below, where the bar ended and the basement opened up. An exit that had been meant to use when everything else had gone south. An escape, though even that hadn't worked to his liking.

Greed's crouched at an open hatch. The water below isn't running as quickly as it used to. It barely moves, collecting in some places and sloshing in others when something stray flitters across the surface. He narrows his eyes into the dark before lifting himself back up straight.

A second later and he leaps down into the hole.

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

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