Chapter Text
It's about four and a half months after Greed got his own body that he and Alphonse manage to stagger their way to the Imperial Castle. Ling and Lan Fan only realize because May zooms by outside the room they're in, screaming somewhere between excitement and horror, Shao May running after her at an understandably slower pace, also screaming, but probably in distress at having to run so fast.
Lan Fan drops out of the fighting stance she took on when she heard screaming, and looks at Ling. He shrugs.
A couple of servants pass by the door, failing to keep up with the princess, too out of breath to yell at her to wait for them. Lan Fan is quick to grab one of them and stop him.
He nearly keels over.
"What's going on?" she asks.
The servant wheezes for a few seconds before he realises where he is. He bows and answers to the best of his breathing abilities, "Princess May of the Chang clan is without escort. We couldn't notify her guard in time."
"Where is she going to, in such a hurry?"
"There are visitors who claim bonds with the Royal Family. She is going to the gates."
"Visitors?"
"Two men from Amestris."
Lan Fan whips her head around to Ling, who is already halfway out the door. "That's all", he says. "Lan Fan, come on."
And then they're out. They rush after the servants, passing by those who collapsed sometime during the run, passing by those who did manage to run this long but were still too slow and tired to even approach May.
Lan Fan only slows for the tiniest moment it takes to scoop up Shao May and place her on the inside of her hood.
They catch whiff of May's yelling, now quieter and almost forming words and accompanied by Alphonse's equally enthusiastic yelling. They find them on the floor, tangled up with each other, limbs and hair and sheer joy making the detangling impossible. Making the most of these few precious minutes of free time May secured with her mad sprint and the servant's exhaust.
And there Greed is, his laughter stopped dead in its tracks when Ling and Lan Fan came into view.
Ling runs. Greed almost doesn't react in time, sways heavily with Ling's weight when he crashes on him. Legs tangle around hips and fingers on necks and they are outright shameless in their kiss. It lasts too little.
Ling rests his forehead on Greed's, and that, that, for some reason, is what makes the other three look away.
Alphonse catches Lan Fan's eyes and blinks like he didn't realise he had a lapful of princess on him. He nudges her off. May stays put. Al tries again with a whisper in her ear that makes her nod and stand up with a smile. She untangles her braids from him with care.
Lan Fan turns back to Greed and Ling. Ling stands to the side. Greed opens his arms.
Lan Fan isn't all that mad that she has just enough time to shove her mask up and give Greed the quickest of kisses before the servants catch up.
They all visit Fu's grave. May respectfully kneels and offers a quick prayer. Alphonse clumsily copies her. Lan Fan touches the stone and bows over it.
Greed watches it happen, waits for Ling to make his move. But he doesn't. He stands there, weight shifting left and right, left and again. Lan Fan notices, lifts her head long enough to give him a look before she bows again.
Ling, finally, clasps his hands together. He inclines his head.
And that's that, apparently.
Greed decides any religious rules regarding sinners don't apply to sins and sits on the ground cross-legged, thinks up a proper enough thanks to the old man that it could be considered a prayer.
It's fine. Fu doesn't come to haunt him, so he's probably fine.
They have to teach Greed enough Xingese that he understands what he's saying before he can give the guard oath. It takes too long.
He still acts as a guard in the meantime. He doesn't trust anyone here with his possessions' lives and Lan Fan needs sleep. Greed, less so.
He doesn't swear in, but one day Lan Fan offers him a clay mask with only the rise of her brow as a question.
It wasn't a question, of course. Greed never let it be. Plus, the mask is painted to look like his Shielded face. What gives him pause is the Yang mark on the forehead.
"I can't take this", he says. "That was his- that's his symbol. I can't - I'm not here to-"
His voice isn't shaking, but his hands are. Lan Fan stands on tip toes to tie the ribbon around his head. "You won't", she says. "You can't replace him. But I want you to have this. I want you to wear it."
Greed doesn't stop her, other than a tiny flinch when the clay lays on his face. He lets her fit it on him and she stands down to look at him for a moment.
Have her eyes always been so visible under her mask?
She goes on tip toes again and does the unthinkable. She presses her forehead on Greed's, bringing their masks' symbols together.
Now it's that Greed freaks out. This is Ling's thing, this is Ling's this-- "This is Ling's thing."
"This is a different thing", she says. "His is a thought thing. This is a symbol thing."
Greed is still unnerved, but he takes it. He always takes all he can. He leans down against her.
She sighs. "Share this with me."
It was never a question, for fuck's sake. "I will."
Once he has the mask, no one questions his presence anymore. Not out loud, not like before. Before, he could flash his fangs (on a good day) or show his Shield (if Lan Fan was there) or straight-up take a life (on a bad day, always after consulting with Ling). The people living in and working at the castle can still feel his monster soul or whatever they called it. But no one dares ask for an explanation now.
So the mask is pretty welcome.
The job that comes with it, not so much.
A good chunk of Greed's life - if not all of it - was spent living in figurative shadows, underground cliques, hiding from the right people and escaping daddy's grasp. The literal shadows he's now expected to be in, hidden from view completely, are absolute shit. Before, he could be as flashy as he wanted. Now the only part of him allowed to be visible is the white of his mask.
Lan Fan can try all she wants, she won't convince him to wear the combat sleeves she offered. Sun's out gun's out, and there's always sun somewhere on the world.
He hides his skin in carbon if he needs. Hand-to-hand combat is hilarious.
Ling and Lan Fan explain with confusion the attempts at the (not-yet) Emperor's life are so few it's honestly remarkable. They explain how often it is that dying Emperors choose heirs too young to take the throne immediately, the laws in place and the council that helps the Emperor-to-be until he's old enough to rule. They explain the grace period between one Emperor's death and the next one's coronation is usually packed with assassination attempts, a lot of which being successful.
Greed laughs. "I'm here", he says. "If anyone was dumb enough to approach you, they'd have to deal with me. And your people are smart enough not to."
Hell.
Lan Fan could deal better with assassins - she knew their tricks, she'd been with Ling all her life. But it didn't hurt that Greed was warding them off by virtue of existing.
Ling is crowned Emperor a few weeks after his twentieth birthday. There are a few bits still controlled or at least influenced by the council, but Ling is now the Emperor of Xing, even without full control.
The same night (after an exhausting eight-hour dinner) Ling kneels in front of Lan Fan and touches his forehead on her knees.
She panics. Drops. Rushes to get her head lower than her Emperor's.
"My Emperor please, don't do this."
"I'll do whatever I want. Whose eyes are you afraid of? No one's watching."
Greed is watching. Lan Fan cups Ling's jaw instead of commenting, tilts it up as she tilts her head down to bring Ling's higher. "Do not bow."
"Lan Fan."
"Anything else, literally anything else you ask of me, I will accept. Not this."
"I ask that you not die for me."
"Fuck you, Ling."
Ling laughs. "Is that what it takes to get the guarding out of you?"
"You can't take that", Lan Fan says as she takes off her mask. "I'm sorry I swore at you."
"Aw come on, none of that. I'm not somehow above or more for this."
Lan Fan frowns at him.
"Okay, true", he concedes. "But you can't ask me not to treat you with respect."
"Not this kind of respect."
"All kinds of respect. I do what I want. Who the absolute fuck will stop me?"
Lan Fan sighs and finally lets her hands drop, lets Ling's head fall and nestle under her chin.
Greed thinks this is a good moment to butt in, if any, but he doesn't. He stays up in his corner of the ceiling instead, weirdly happy that the kids let him stay there while they solve their own issues.
Lan Fan sleeps a solid twelve hours in Ling's arms that night. Not one of them can remember when that last happened.
With the train rails over the desert in progress, and Alphonse's unending love for everyone he knows, he travels back and forth often enough that the gate guards and a number of servants learnt to recognise him and allow him proper access to the Palace. When Edward first comes along, it's a whole nother mess, because Alphonse still isn't trusted enough to bring in people of his own.
Greed sneaks out to the gates to solve the issue, 'sneaking' here meaning 'parading over with his shield down and his mask hung over his back', of course, because his whereabouts are always obvious to everyone.
"Yo", he says, helpfully, when he sees the brothers arguing with the gate guards.
"Greed, you fuck!" Edward smiles. "Man, have I missed you! It's been years! Tell these shitheads to let me through."
"Now that's just rude. What if one or both of them could speak Amestrian, huh? They'd really not let you in."
"They don't, because if they did, I'd have told them myself instead of dragging Al to translate. Tell them!"
Greed snorts and says, in Xingese, "That man is Alphonse's elder brother, and a good friend of the Emperor's. He is trustworthy."
"How can we know?" one of the guards asks with a frown.
"Because I said so", Greed says, "And my word is worth more than yours." He considers, for a moment, putting on the shield for emphasis, but the guards just exchange a look and bow, letting the brothers in.
"Thanks", says Alphonse to the guards. He then gives Greed a Look(tm).
"What."
"That was oddly proper of you."
"Proper how?" Edward asks.
Greed whips his head around. "Did you hear what just came out of my mouth? I don't know what country you're learning Xingese from, Al, but they, at least, learnt it in this country, and took it as a threat. As they should've."
"How was that a threat?" Alphonse asks, throwing his head back.
"Because I'm a bodyguard. My word shouldn't have been worth shit, but it is, and that scares them. Ling trusts me so whatever shit I say passes over whatever shit those guys say, because Ling - you may have noticed - is the Emperor."
"But you said it so politely. How the hell did what you said translate to that?"
Greed rolls his eyes with a groan. "They teach me Palace talk. I don't know how to make that casual."
"That's weird", Alphonse frowns. "May teaches me a lot of variations for the same thing."
"That's not weird. They just don't trust me to not swear up a storm in important people's faces."
"You wouldn't do that."
Edward and Greed laugh at the same time.
Edward can't throw knives for his life. Alphonse isn't too good at it, but he can hit a target, or at least miss it by a tiny bit. Edward can barely get a knife halfway to the distance it needs to go.
May, of course, finds it hilarious.
Edward, less so.
To his credit, Alphonse tries to help despite his giggles.
"Brother you have two dominant hands, you literally don't have an excuse."
And that's the story of how Princess May of the Chang clan had to pause an alkahestry lesson to detangle two wrestling brothers from each other, the floor, and a curtain they had somehow rolled into.