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Greed triple-checks that no-one's following him before he vaults over the stone fence. And then he's gone.
He can't help but feel like he's being allowed to leave. After decades in this place, it's ingrained in him that he has a constant mark while in this country. Everyone and their pet panda seems to know of Greed's whereabouts, always, all the time, as long as he's in Xing.
He misses Amestris something painful.
His best chance to go back is in the middle of the night, while they're asleep.
He looks behind him. More than once.
He keeps looking back until the Palace is out of view.
He misses them already. He bites his tongue.
"I'd like a ticket to Youswell, please."
The lady at the counter looks at him like he's dripping blood from every orifice on his head. She slowly, stiffly, writes down his request.
"W-What time, sir?"
"What's the soonest you have?"
She swallows deeply. "I'm afraid we- we only have-- the next train to Amestris leaves in four hours, sir. I apologize."
Greed misses his home country. Over there he could just scoff and roll his eyes, and any dumb joke he'd make about the timetables would be met with an equal roll of the eyes.
But not here. Not him. Here he's a monster, and everyone knows who he is, and this woman is terrified of him. Even the slightest frown could make her faint, it looks like.
Greed just nods. "I'd like one of those, please. How much?"
The desert is freezing in the night.
It's a twenty-hour trip, which is still a lot faster than what it was when Greed first travelled across the ruins.
He misses Ling.
He leans against the train window.
Youswell is just barely in better shape than last time Greed saw it.
The mines have given ground for smithing businesses to flourish. The mayor is a kind man, the sort of leader who personally visits every single establishment of business at least once per season. The people are still trusting and hospitable, even to a grown-ass man who looks like he can beat all of them up.
"You need a place to stay for the night?"
Greed takes a deep breath. He's missed this country.
"I was actually wondering if there's a house or an apartment or a shack or something I could buy. Or rent? I'd prefer to buy a place."
It's real small, and evidence suggests it's been abandoned for a few years. Greed buys it for about the price he'd charge for a night with a stranger. Frankly he wouldn't mind one.
That's another thing he's missed. Xing might have its own flavor of prostitution, but it never reaches the Palace. In Amestris all Greed has to do is either wave his money or stand at a street corner, depending on what he wants more.
(He wants it all, of course, always, forever. But more than anything right now he wants to tuck his chin over Lan Fan's shoulder and stay like that for as long as she'll let him.)
There's mud caked in some of the corners of the place. Greed finds the source after two days of looking: there's a faint leak in the ceiling. With heavy enough rain, it would turn any amount of dust into mud.
He has more than enough money to hire someone to clean the place. He fixes the roof himself, though. The people here love an honest worker, and he's missed charming entire towns.
(He misses charming his spouses. He misses them charming him back.)
"Greed?"
Greed turns his head.
"I'll be damned - Greed the Avaricious?"
Greed blinks. It takes him a moment to remember who the man calling out is. It's not like he's met him much.
He grins. "Aw, you remembered me? Jean, you flatter me."
The man frowns deep, and recoils.
("Don't call him by his first name," Alphonse had warned Greed. "Of everyone I know, there's only one person who's ever done that, and she was too close to you, for you to do it too.")
(Greed didn't know back then, what he meant. He got more details from Hawkeye later. More from Mustang. Somehow they both seemed to think Lust was in the wrong.)
"Whatchu doing out here?" Greed asks, tucking his thumbs in his pockets.
Havoc crosses his arms. "My family runs a shop a few towns over, I was just visiting them. Been a while since I last saw them, so I'd missed them."
"Aw man, I feel that." Greed rubs the back of his neck. "I've been here for less than a week and I miss mine back in Xing already."
"Shit man, you got it bad," Havoc grins.
He looks like he's about to laugh, so Greed cuts him off. "I know, Jean, that's kind of the point."
(He helped kill her. He helped kill her. He's the one who handed Mustang the lighter. He helped kill her.)
Havoc uncrosses his arms with a shake of his head. "And what about you? How are you all the way out here, if you don't even want to?"
"Nah, I wanna be here. C'mon, do you really think I'd be doing something I didn't want? Don't you know who I am?"
"So? Why here?"
Greed looks to the direction of the place he bought. He can't see it from here. "Kinda like you. I missed Amestris. Was just passing through the town on my way to Central, then I realized I don't own anything here... Can you imagine? Me?"
"I don't really get it," Havoc shrugs. "But man, I guess all your people are in Xing now, aren't they? What the hell did you miss in this country?"
"Huh? Not all of mine - I have people everywhere, you can guess how easily I call people mine. I even have a c--"
Greed chokes on a violent lump in his throat.
He swallows. He swallows again.
"...Had. I had a crew, in a bar..."
The lump grows into a knot, and he cannot speak.
"You good? ...Greed?"
He cannot speak. He cannot breathe.
Greed digs his claws into his own throat and latches onto the resulting pain as hard as he can. He focuses on healing, and he remembers how to breathe.
"Shit," Havoc mutters, eyes wide. "Damn, you need a hug, or?"
Greed takes it. Of course he takes it.
He makes sure to keep his hands higher than Havoc's as he moves in, so he'll hug the man around the shoulders.
Calling him by his first name is one thing. Touching his lower spine is another.
It had been so painful. To remember. The first time it happened. When Ling was watching, when his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
When Bido was still warm at his feet.
How did he manage to keep them out of his mind for so long? It had been all Greed could think about for weeks after he first remembered and, sometime along that, it had been all Ling could think about, too.
Greed looks at his hands now. He hasn't thought of them since--
When was it? Lan Fan was sparring with a sword in hand, and since she's shorter than Greed, she kept low enough to the ground that she reminded him of how Dolcetto used to move.
That was... four, five weeks... no, two months ago?
How had he not thought of them?
He takes a deep breath, stuffs his hands in his pockets, and gets walking.
It doesn't hurt. Not really. Not anymore. It's been decades.
But there's a spot for them between his ribs and they're still in there.
White, ironically, was the color the Devil's Nest liked the most.
"My cow was white," Roa said. "Had brown spots along one side, and that's how I got these."
He unbuttoned his shirt halfway down and pulled it to the side to show a dark patch on his shoulder.
Greed had seen it before. And the ones on Roa's back, and on his sides. He leans in anyway.
"Whooo, that's so fucking cool, Roa. What about you, Dolcetto?"
"My dog was white, too." He shrugs. "Had black marks on the legs. Little socks. Very cute, the poor thing."
Greed turns to Martel.
She smiles. "What? Come on, snakes don't come in white. Though..." She combs a hand through her hair. "I used to be a brunette, before all this."
"Whoa! For real?"
"Yup."
"Shit, that's about the coolest shit ever! You, Bido?"
Bido laughs, shakes his head. "Just plain grey all over, sorry to disappoint."
Greed puts a hand on Bido's shoulder. "You could never disappoint me, you beautiful son of a gun."
Bido swats his hand off. "Just yesterday you tried to bite my hand because I took a bite of your food."
"That's my food! You get a bite of mine, I get a bite of you. C'mon, guys, I'm a simple guy; don't take my shit and I'll be your best friend."
Greed squats down along the road. There's a piece of marble on the ground. It might have fallen off a cart, or someone's hands. It's broken.
Dozens of little pieces.
Greed picks them all up.
He doesn't have much furniture in the place yet. He sits in one of the two chairs and lines the marble shards along a windowsill.
Bido. Martel. Roa. Dolcetto.
He lines one up for each of them, seventeen total, just barely fitting on the sill.
But from here they'll be able to look outside.
Roa would like Youswell, Greed thinks. The big guy liked heavy things. A mining town sounds just up his alley.
The marble catches the sunlight, white and bright just like those lurking underground used to like.
It would make for a lovely storage spot, Greed decides. So he needs to fill the place up with storage units.
But that can come later. For now, a dining set, a couch, two beds, and that's all he can handle.
It's been ten days, and he's just about choking with homesickness. As soon as that carpet arrives tomorrow, he's jumping on the first train back to Xing.
They're furious. Of course they are. Greed didn't tell them he'd be leaving. He didn't offer an explanation when he came back.
When Greed steps into the hallway leading to their bedroom, Ling is already sliding the door open.
"Greed," he says. "You're back."
"I wasn't gone that long."
"You okay? Did something happen?"
"No, no yeah everything's fine."
Ling blinks. "Then why did you leave?"
Greed shrugs. "Thought I'd go for a little trip."
"...And you didn't think to tell us?"
"You'd have wanted me to stay, though."
"What are you on about-- you can go wherever you want, you know that, right? Why didn't you just tell us?"
"Because I can't," Greed says, breaking eye contact. "I can't, because if I do then you'll ask me to stay, and I want you more than I want to go."
Ling swallows. "Then stay."
Greed tenses up. "That's exactly what I mean!"
"That doesn't make any sense! If you want to go then fine, go! But you can't just leave without telling anyone, Greed, we need to know that you're here!"
"And you always know that, don't you?" Greed tries as hard as he can to project calm. He keeps his voice even. He forces his breathing to stay controlled.
But Ling can read the Dragon's Pulse better than anyone else alive.
"What are you so scared of?" Ling snaps. "What happened, wherever you went?"
"Nothing," Greed says, because nothing did happen. He just remembered something that happened a long, long time ago, and Ling already knows all about that part.
He'd been there the first time Greed remembered, after all.
Lan Fan ducks under Ling's arm on the doorframe and marches over to Greed. "Why are you lying?"
She too can read him.
"I'm not. Nothing happed, seriously. I just went for a trip, I bought a little storehouse, fixed a roof."
"You're shaking inside, love," she snarls. "You can just say that you don't want to tell us."
"I'm telling the truth," Greed says. "You know I don't lie. You know that. Nothing bad happened."
"Then why won't you tell us?" She shows her teeth, tries to find anything to grab him from, but his shirt is the one stuck to his skin, his hair is too short, he's not wearing a jacket.
She grabs him by the neck. "Are y--" She swallows. "Are you running away?"
Greed can't do this. He bends, lowering himself to her height. "I'm not, love, no, no. I'm not. I just..." He holds his breath. "I remembered something I really shouldn't have forgotten."
Their son is almost an adult. Now that he's hitting the last of his growth sprouts, he looks so much like a blend of Ling and Lan Fan. He's grown to be a smart young man, witty like his fathers and a stronger fighter than any of his parents were at his age, proud and loyal to a fault, because Lan Fan's parenting is a lot like Fu's was.
Greed is usually proud of how Mu's turned out. He's the best son a sin could ask for.
But when they dodge questions and grumble excuses about the last few days, Mu stops asking too fast, pretends not to see too easily.
It shouldn't be like that. He shouldn't be accepting that kind of lie that easily.
Greed's self-disappointment quickly turns to dismay when he realizes Mu himself is lying.
It's not that Mu doesn't know better - he knows something is wrong but he makes like he believes their half-truths and not-explanations.
It shouldn't be like that.
Greed wants to be angry. He asks Lan Fan if she noticed it.
"Yes, he's a good liar. But not to us - we know his qi too well for him to be able to lie to us." She blinks. "...Oh." She cups his face in her hands. "Oh, love."
Okay, so Greed can't be angry. He can still be frustrated that he's the only one in the entire Palace that can't read the damn thing, though.
He misses Amestris.
Ling is half on top of Greed and his hair is all over Greed's eyes.
"You know what I've been thinking, love?"
"Mm?"
"It's super unfair that I can't do alchemy or alkahestry or read the Pulse. I mean come on, way to take the fun out of everything. What am I even good for?"
Ling crosses his arms and parks his chin on them, eye contact through the hair he didn't bother to brush out of his face.
He doesn't say anything.
Asking Ling, in particular, what Greed is good for is not a question that needs answering.
Greed looks away.
Why's he feeling guilty all of a sudden? It's not Greed's fault Ling risked life and limb to hunt down the immortality Greed was created with.
And Ling wasn't even the only one, was he? He was just the only one who succeeded. May might have failed but she's still the luckiest of the ones who tried. At least she survived the desert. At least she got to touch a Stone. She got so close. She got on Ling's good graces for her entire clan. She managed the next best thing.
Greed hasn't seen her for a few days. He makes a note to try to meet with her tomorrow.
"Love," Ling starts, and with a gentle touch he turns Greed's head to look at him again. "Why are you sad?"
Greed lets out a long breath. He brushes Ling's hair out of both their faces. "You've been doing that a lot more often, lately. Asking why I'm feeling things. Is it really that annoying?"
"Annoying isn't the word I'd use," Ling says. "It's just that people usually say what they're thinking, and you can more or less guess how they feel based on that, if you even care about what they feel. Suddenly it's the other way around for me and only me, and I'm not sure what to do about it. I know how everyone's feeling, but not what they're thinking - what made them feel the things I read. It's... jarring, that's a word I'd use for it. It's jarring."
Greed leans up and tucks a kiss into the corner of Ling's jaw. "You've been reading the Pulse all your life, haven't you?"
"Not this good. Not this much. This is... maybe five years now. I'm not even sure if asking for clarifications is even helping."
Greed blinks. "Five years? You've been asking after my thoughts since you got crowned, if not earlier."
Ling laughs. He runs his fingers through Greed's hair. "It's different with you." He brings their foreheads together. "It's different with you," he repeats, softer.
...Greed can get behind that. That much, at least, goes two ways.
When he thinks about it like that, it's not as bad. His presence being so loud to any and all who step foot near him.
It's not like everyone can actually take a peek into Greed's heart - all they can do is tell that it's there. Ling, Lan Fan, they can only look inside because they are the masters of the Pulse, and because they know Greed.
It's not that bad. His heart is not exposed.
He's not walking around with his ribcage wide open.
He closes his eyes.
Greed just barely catches May and Alphonse before they leave for May's childhood home for a couple of months. It's good to see them. Greed had missed them.
They are not the only ones Greed misses.
Ah, Central. The city of disaster.
Greed takes a deep breath.
In the back of his mind, he wants to do a quick round checking on everything he's left around here, but at the forefront all he can think is that by now Lan Fan must already have been told that Greed left in the middle of the night again. She's probably already told Ling, too. Maybe Mu, even.
Greed exhales.
He's sure he would not have thought much of killing that guard who caught him sneaking out, before the kids.
Then again, before the kids, he'd never have accepted a fucking job as a royal guard, either.
He'd never have--
(Martel had tried, once, to get a part-time somewhere, apart from working in the Nest. Greed had spoiled her rotten to get her exclusive. She liked that enough that he didn't have to resort to uglier methods of persuasion, but he's not sure now if he'd have hesitated then.
He does remember that he's always thought honey is better than vinegar.)
He tucks his hands in his pockets and takes a stroll around Central's shadier bits.
It wasn't always like this. He didn't always think human life was so precious, far too precious to waste even if it weren't his at the moment. He didn't always think like that.
But a kill can't be undone. It's not like breaking something that can be fixed or replaced. Greed won't cry over a house he set on fire. He can always get another house. He can always rebuild the ruin. It might piss him off to no end to lose something of his, might hurt him even, but he has time. But life--
That's gone once it's gone. Humans aren't good replacements for one another. Greed can't just get a new Roa somewhere, just because he lost the one he had.
So that guard, the one who saw him leaving? The one that's probably already reported to her superior, even though Greed threatened her? He could not have gone through with his threat. He could not have killed her.
She's just some nobody guard. She's barely Lan Fan's, much less Greed's.
But just because she's not his now doesn't mean she can't be his later. Just because she's not his doesn't mean she's not someone else's.
And Greed cannot, will not, stop another's avarice, when it's not in his way.
Not now.
(It wasn't always this way. He didn't cry much when he saw the Nest's crew torn to literal pieces, left to rot in sewage for no good reason. He was angry that his possessions were gone. He wasn't--
He didn't mourn.
Not until his hands started shaking.
Not until he had a human in his head.
Not until he was sharing thoughts with someone who knew grief and was not afraid to infect Greed with it.)
Not broken marble, this time. Greed bought some pebbles he found. They're still white, but they're smooth and rounded.
And it's...
He doesn't want the windows to be empty.
It's not like it actually makes a difference. They're dead. A handful of pebbles doesn't make up for the headstones they never got.
But this country is their home, they were Greed's, these windows are Greed's--
He's not too sure what his thought process is, but he lines the pebbles up on the windowsill.
Angry coil in his stomach.
But no grief in his heart, and no Xingese around to read him, so Greed steps up to the bar anyway.
"Morning, beautiful."
The barmaid looks him up and down. "Bit early to be flirting, isn't it?"
"Cut me some slack - I haven't seen your face in like a decade. I forgot your name."
She squints. "I don't remember you at all."
"Yeah," Greed nods, parking his cheek on his knuckles. "I usually spoke with Chris."
The coil tightens in his stomach, but it remains angry.
Chris wasn't his. He liked her, and she was the best informant alive, but she wasn't his. He has no reason to mourn her.
The barmaid blinks. Her eyebrows climb up. "I... see. Sorry, I really don't remember you, and I doubt you actually know who I am, if you think you saw me here ten years ago."
"Not here-here," Greed says. "Outside. Roy dropped you off all the time."
She presses her lips together. She nods, at least, glad he didn't say his last name. "Okay."
"Is she..." Greed frowns. "Or was she, I don't fucking know. Did she leave you in charge? You're kinda young. I'd have thought one of the other girls would've inherited the place."
"Oh, no no, Tina's in charge, I just run the bar. I got pretty good at mixing, not long after I started driving myself here."
Greed nods. "That's fair."
She takes a deep breath. "Madame Christmas isn't... she hasn't been doing well, lately. But she's still around."
Relief slams into Greed, uncurls the coil in his stomach, for a moment he's sure his intestines will drop out of him and onto his lap.
He's not even remotely ashamed of the sound that pulls itself out of his throat.
"She's alive," he laughs. "Oh, thank fuck."
The barmaid laughs back, a little awkwardly. "Yeah. She's tough - you can't get rid of her that easily."
Greed grins. "I know."
"You again!?"
"The fuck you mean again?" Greed snaps, turning around to whoever called.
Edward is marching up to him.
Greed fights a grin. "I've been gone for years, asshole, you can at least pretend you missed me!"
Edward punches him in the arm. Hard. "Like hell, you've a menace!"
"And yet your first instinct was still to come up to me and touch me to make sure I was real," Greed says, grinning with a little too many teeth. "Aw, honeybunch, I missed you too."
"Disgusting," Edward says, but he's grinning back. "Why're you here?"
"Can't a sin visit his home country? Leave me alone."
Edward quirks a single eyebrow.
Greed shrugs. "No, seriously, I didn't have any real reason. Just missed the place. Figured I should touch base with my things over here too. So how are you?"
"Oh, I'm your thing now?"
"You've been my thing since you fed Ling in that empty house or what was it," Greed says. "Fair enough, if you ask me, considering I've been yours--"
"I know-- I know," Edward hisses, hands coming up to Greed's face while those gold eyes dart every which way. "Don't fucking-- say it, out loud, shit, let it be an understood thing."
Greed grins under Edward's hands. "So how have you been."
Edward rubs the back of his neck. "Yuriy and Leah had a baby."
Greed's face slowly splits into a grin.
"Shut up," Edward grumbles.
"You're a fucking grandpa, I will not shut up."
"Shut. Up."
"No, seriously, when? How'd that even happen?"
"Around the end of summer, and I am not explaining the birds and the fucking bees to you, you have a kid."
Greed laughs. Edward tries, but he can't keep pretending to be annoyed when he talks about his family.
He's never been able to.
"Awww, look at you," Greed coos into the crib. "You're a tiny little one, aren't you? Gonna grow big and strong and golden like everyone else in your family tree? Yes you are, yes you are?"
"How," Winry says slowly, "do you manage to make baby talk sound so creepy?"
"It's not my fault daddy Hoho got genes strong enough to throttle the entire rest of the pool," Greed says, because yeah, that had been thoroughly terrifying when Alphonse and May started having kids. Greed's been around a while, alright? Dark hair is the kind of thing that wins, usually. It had been unsettling to have so many little ones come out golden.
Well, it's been decades and decades, and Greed can only find it amusing, now.
Winry shakes her head. She comes up to the crib to look for herself, and she too is a soft fool, so she beams at her granddaughter.
The baby kicks her legs up, blinking at them.
"Aw," Greed goes again. "I can't, she's too baby. I'm gonna have cavities." He takes one last look before he steps away. "She got your eyes."
Winry shakes her head. "They all start with pale eyes. Somehow they keep ending up gold."
Greed nods. "Good for them."
He doesn't even make it to the Palace before the uncomfortable feeling settles deep into his bones. Some loud intuition yelling at Greed that something is wrong and he's about to either be really hurt or really upset.
Greed kind of hates his own gut feeling. Bitch is vague as fuck.
He grabs the first servant he sees once he steps into the Palace proper. "What happened?"
Greed lies by Ling's side, listening to his hitching breath, ragged and raspy.
It's dark, but Greed has the image of Ling's injuries imprinted on the inside of his eyelids. Eye. Leg. Left side. A solid covering of burn marks. Shrapnel. The terrifying effect debris tends to have on mortal skin.
Ling had lost his arm once. Gluttony had opened his fat mouth and swallowed Ling's arm whole. Greed had been the one using it at the time, but despite his best protests, it never stopped being Ling's.
Ling had lost his arm, and Greed had grown him a new one in three seconds flat.
Greed has yet to work up the courage to ask what lies under the bandages on Ling's thigh.
"Please," Greed pleads.
Alphonse is silent on the other end of the phone.
"Please, I'll do anything," Greed chokes out. "Alphonse-- I'll never ask you for anything else, ever again. Help me with this and I'll owe you more than I've ever owed anything to anyone, Al, please, my soul brother, I beg you."
It hurts. Every single word hurts. Alphonse does not interrupt.
There's a cackle of static, a slow breath. "...We're coming over," Alphonse says, at last. "If May can't heal him, if... If there's nothing she and the other healers can do, even when they work together and I- I can't help them, if nothing works..."
He doesn't finish his sentence.
"Thank you," Greed rasps. He hangs up, and lets himself collapse on the floor by the phone, struggling to count his own breaths.
They take turns by Ling's side. They'd sit by him all the time if they could, but the mortals need to sleep, and if Greed stays alone with Ling for too long he starts getting stupid ideas.
Like opening a hole into his own side, lying directly next to Ling, and trying to heal him through the spots where their blood mixes together. That doesn't sound completely impossible, right?
"I can see the cogs turning in your head," Ling rasps.
Greed drags his eyes up from where he'd been eyeing Ling's ribs.
"It won't work," Ling says. "We've tried before."
"You weren't hurt this much before," Greed argues, as if his own desperation would factor.
Ling shakes his head as much as he can, which isn't much. "The sparks tingle."
Greed swallows, nodding. He knows. He's healed close enough for the sparks to touch mortals, before. He's been told they tingle.
That harmless tingle would be hell on Ling's hurt skin.
So no, Greed isn't allowed to stay alone by Ling's side too long.
When Mu steps out from Ling's room to give Lan Fan some time alone with him, Greed is waiting.
"Your old man needs a favour," Greed starts, going for sheepish and probably hitting closer to scared.
Mu gives him a look. He's a bright kid, and his hold on the Pulse is strong. He can probably tell Greed a tangled knot of nerves, even with everyone's qi going haywire since the attack. "Yes?"
"When it's my turn tomorrow - I'll have uncle Alphonse with me, don't worry - I need you to make sure your mother doesn't come in."
Mu is instantly on edge. "Why?"
"Uncle Al is going to help me heal Dad."
"Dad!" Mu gasps, the Amestrian word still accented on his tongue. He grabs at Greed's clothes. "You said you couldn't!"
"Not by myself," Greed says, taking his son's wrists and prying them away, leaning down so they're closer to eye level. "When your Dad had me in his body the second time, it was Alphonse who made me the body you see now and pulled me out of Dad, safely and securely, without hurting either of us. He can do it again."
Mu shakes his head. "But why do you have to hide it from mom then?"
"Aw, buddy," Greed says, putting both of Mu's hands in one of his own so he can ruffle his hair. "We'll tell mom, but later. She'll worry about your dads getting hurt, just like you are now."
"So there is reason to worry! If mom worries then we all should worry--"
"No, little bean, no. Mom worries about everything. It was her job for so long she's forgotten how to do anything else."
Mu frowns, pulling his hands away. "It's because she wants you both safe."
Greed takes a slow breath. "I understand. But your other father isn't safe right now, and this father can't stop thinking about the infinite healing I have inside of me. There was a time in the past where I could share it easily with him. I can't stop thinking about it." He hangs his head, deflating. "I can't stop thinking about it."
Mu steps forward and hugs him around the shoulders as well as he can. Even after his last growth sprout, he never reached Greed's height. He's barely Ling's.
"Okay," Mu says, voice thick. "Okay, dad."
Twenty minutes pass before Lan Fan descends onto Greed like hands out the Gate. So much for Mu keeping quiet.
"You want Alphonse to do what?"
Greed puts his hands up. "I was going to tell you! I'm sorry, I--"
Lan Fan grabs him by the wrists. "Tell me exactly what you want Alphonse to do."
Greed blinks. "...Fuse me into Ling."
"How? What of this body? Be specific, I know nothing of alchemy."
"You're not-- you're not mad?"
Her hands tremble where she squeezes his wrists.
"Lan Fan?"
"My entire life," she says, bowing her head to his chest. "My entire life to avoid exactly this, to keep exactly this from happening. And in the end there's nothing I can do."
"That's not true," Greed hurries to say. He lets his hands go slack in her hold. "You've kept him safe in more ways than I can count. It's me who can't do anything to keep him from getting hurt."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I mean it. All I can do is heal him. Not even that - all I can do is heal myself, and him only if we're the same." He bows his head over hers, speaking into her hair. "I don't know where the attacks are coming from like you do. I can't read intent like he can. The most prevention I can do for anyone is stand around and be scary."
Lan Fan lowers his hands to his sides. She lets them go, and hugs him around the waist. "That's more than enough. Do you get it? You left, and he got hurt. Do you understand why we need you to tell us when you go?"
Greed couldn't have pretended he wasn't crying if his life depended on it. "Yeah," he chokes out. "Yeah, I get it."
"No."
"Ling--"
"No, Greed. Your Stone isn't what it used to be. If you do this, it'll just be some healing for me, but it's your entire lifeforce for you."
"Ling," Lan Fan cuts in, "Alphonse is the one who developed the theory that's keeping Greed alive. If anyone can pull it off, it's him."
Ling turns to Alphonse, next. "And how sure is he that he can pull it off?"
"...Pretty sure," Alphonse says.
"Pretty sure," Ling repeats. "Pretty sure. Like you're eyeballing ingredients for a pie, not messing my husband's life and mine?"
"I'm positive," Alphonse says, firmer this time.
Lan Fan lays her hand on the sheet. "Ling. Love. If nothing else, do it for me. There's nothing I want more than for you to be safe and healthy and happy."
Ling frowns. "There are things that you want more."
"There are," Lan Fan says, "but I won't say them, because I have them right now. If I jinx myself into losing even one of them, I'll never forgive myself."
Alphonse looks confused, but Greed gets it.
After all, they were lucky that it was Ling who got hurt. They were lucky, because Mu doesn't have a scratch on him.
Greed clasps his hands together. "Do you remember, my love, the only lie of my life?"
And this, this is just between the two of them. Lan Fan and Alphonse are not confused at the words, because they know the gist of it. But they don't know the details, the betrayal, the heart-wrenching pain.
They all know what it feels like to walk to your own death.
But Greed is the only one who had the gall to inflict it on Ling.
Payback for teaching Greed how to mourn, he guesses.
"I remember," Ling rasps. "I could never forget."
"You wouldn't let me go," Greed reminds him. "You would've died trying to keep me with you."
He desperately wants to take Ling's hand, to hold him, to squeeze him close. But there's nowhere Greed can touch that won't hurt Ling.
"I refuse to let you die," he says instead.
"I'm not going to die," Ling argues. But it's weak, and he's not meeting anyone's eyes.
"Neither am I," Greed insists. "Ling. Please."
Lan Fan takes Greed's hand. Ling's eyes follow the movement.
"Okay," he says, eventually. "Okay."
Lan Fan steps back. Alphonse steps forward.
Greed's headache is going strong for the second continuous week.
Being in Ling's body for only a handful of minutes before returning to his own was almost as disorienting as death itself. The hours-long blackout was a new experience, and one Greed is looking forward to never repeating. He can deal with a few days of exhaustion and sluggish responses from what feels like every single nerve of his body.
The healing went well. Ling woke up from his three-day coma nap with only mild nausea.
So Greed has been trying to downplay every bit of discomfort while the alkahestrists look over Ling's recovery.
He's a homonculous, for fuck's sake. He has innate healing strong enough to rebuild his own body from nothing but his Stone. He can deal with a headache.
A splitting, disorienting headache, that makes his vision swim and his ears ring.
For twelve days straight.
And he's been telling people he's just tired. Which isn't a lie - he hasn't been able to sleep since he blacked out. He's exhausted.
But short of Ling himself calling Greed out on his bullshit, there's no force in this Palace that could make Greed take medical attention away from Ling.
Predictably, May slaps him when she finds out.
Then she transmutes his head - which did feel like it did a full 360 when May slapped him - and the Greed's vision clears.
The headache is still there, but it eases up enough for Greed to string two sentences together.
Bitter taste in Greed's mouth.
Mu and his fiancée walk along the gardens arm-in-arm, murmuring gently to each other in the sun.
Greed had hoped leaving the final word to Ling and Lan Fan would've been enough. That even if Lan Fan did the same, Ling would take a stand for all three of them. That someone, anyone, could get it through to Mu that a reminder of their own mortality shouldn't rush their son into marriage.
He needn't have bothered.
Mu is as stubborn as all of them combined. He proposed. He insisted until he got everyone's blessing.
He shouldn't have had to.
"...I was thinking of going back to Amestris."
"Were you?" Lan Fan says rolling onto her side to face Greed. "When?"
Ling is on top of her, so he rolls with her. He ends up on Greed's chest.
"Sometime this month," Greed mumbles, sliding his hands down Ling's sides. "This week, maybe. Maybe next."
Ling pulls Lan Fan closer so he can continue kissing down her neck. "If you're going next, we can come with you."
"Take us with you," Lan Fan says before Greed can open his mouth. "It's been a long time since we've gone back. I want to see what all you have picked up."
"So many things," Greed grins. He rolls to his side in turn, slotting Ling between them. "Ohhh, so many things, and places, and people. I can't wait to show them all to you."
Ling looks up from Lan Fan's tum. "I can't wait to see them."
Lan Fan combs her hand through his hair.
They lay cooling pads on Lan Fan's automail on the train.
She still shifts with discomfort, nerves touching heated metal in the ports and pulling painfully with each movement.
Greed finds some ice packs.
"This is yours?"
"All mine, baby," Greed grins.
God, he missed this. Showing off his possessions to someone he actually gives a shit about? Ah, it feels so good. And he's so proud of this one, too.
"Tables here, booths, bar, kitchen behind," Greed says, pointing to each feature with the hand of the arm he's slung over Ling's shoulders. "That chandelier? Almost a perfect copy of the one on the other side. I wanted them symmetric. You'd never guess they're brass, right?"
"Not while they're lit," Ling says, squinting up at them. He's smiling so wide, Greed can barely keep his eyes off him. "You got this one custom made?"
"Yup! I demand the finer things in life!"
"You sure got them," Lan Fan says, tucked under Greed's other arm. "Is there an upstairs area?"
"Yes! It's all booths - it's a smaller floor - but the balcony has a bar itself!"
"I want to see."
Greed unhooks his arms from around them to take them both by the hands and lead them upstairs. He shoots a grinning nod at the barman as he goes, gets one in return.
The balcony has few seats and they're all occupied, but they're not here to sit. Lan Fan leans against the railing. The air is clear with the breeze blowing through just enough to not pick up ash from the ashtrays.
Ling drapes himself against Lan Fan at the railing, dropping a kiss at the top of her head. She laughs, turning around, bracing both hands at her sides.
She bends her knees.
"Nope, nope nope nope," Ling laughs, picking her up and spinning her away from the railing. "You are not sitting there."
"I've sat in worse places!" Lan Fan says, letting herself get carried.
"Yeah, when you were twenty, love, not in your late forties."
Greed follows them back inside, laughing after them. He glances away just a moment, just to check if the pebbles are still on the window where he left them.
Someone's put a flowerpot there. The dirt goes up to its brim, and the pebbles are lined up along its edge. No one could knock them over by accident, but they're still high enough to look out the window.
He smiles. He starts after his spouses.
They've stopped at the top of the stairs to let him catch up.
If they noticed him looking, they don't mention it.