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Sloth clicks his tongue. Not here. His hand wanders through the bookshelf. Nothing. He traces the next row of books. Nada.
“Ed, what are you doing?” Sloth nearly vanishes on the spot at Winry’s sudden unexpected question.
“I was looking for a scrapbook or something.” Sloth answers, not looking away from the bookshelf. Everything so far has been medical or mechanical textbooks, the occasional mystery novel, and some alchemy books that probably belonged to Edward and Al years ago.
“We don’t have your family’s scrapbook.” Winry informs him. “Remember?”
Sloth holds himself back from giving her a bewildered look. Whatever she was trying to get at must be obvious to the real Edward.
“Right…” He sighs, drawing away from the shelf. He looks at Winry and her slightly agitated yet concerned expression tells him that it’s going to be one of those conversations. Not from Edward’s memories of her, but his own experiences with the woman. He shoots her an annoyed glare. “What?”
“Are you sure that you’re feeling okay?” Sloth frowns at the question.
“I’m fine.”
“You always say that when you’re not.”
“If I pretend to not be fine, will you leave me alone?” Sloth grouches as he stands to meet Winry’s eye level. “The sun’s not even out, why are you up all of a sudden?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Winry accuses. Sloth sighs and looks off to the side. He needed the scrapbook to gather some of Edward’s memories to present to Al, but they always came with strange emotions, and he didn’t want Al or Winry to see him acting odd. Too late for that, apparently.
“I just wanted some quiet while I try to remember everything.” Sloth grumbles. It’s not a lie, but he knows Winry will draw some useful conclusion he can work with.
“About your childhood?”
“It’s been six years.”
Winry sighs. “You should have saved your childhood photos when you burnt your house down.”
He did what? Sloth fails to withhold a startled. “What?”
Winry gives him a funny look and shakes her head. “I had a feeling that decision would come back to bite you in the ass one day. I think I have a few old photos of you two from the Rockbell scrapbook. I can show them to you if you want.”
The offer causes the homunculus to perk up. “Winry, you have no idea how much this means to me. Thank you.”
“Any time.” She says, somewhat weakly. Ever since coming back from Central, Ed’s been… not all there. He’d been reclusive and touchy about telling her anything about his ongoings for years now. So him being touchy about her prying isn’t off, but it’s other little things that tips Winry off that there’s some deeper ongoings. Such as him willingly getting anywhere near a glass of milk or his lack of protest over getting the flu shot. Maybe he’s outgrown some of his pettiness, but he still has that childishly short temper regarding other things. Winry doesn’t know what to make of it.
When Winry returns with her family’s scrapbook, she decides to test her theory. “Hey, Ed, want to look through this over some milk?”
“What, no!” He holds out his hands and tucks his face away in a disgusted yet still embarrassed way. “That stuff’s disgusting!”
“You drank some yesterday.” Winry reminds him.
“Yeah? And once was enough.” Ed protests. Winry sighs, yep, that’s Ed. An idea pops into her head. A bit mean spirited, but she needs to see his reaction.
“But Ed, I thought you loved milk.” She puts on her innocent face. Ed gawks but composes himself quickly enough.
“Well, now I hate it.” He says stubbornly. Aha. So, she was correct.
“And what about orange juice?” Winry continues.
“What is this, twenty questions?” Ed shoots her an annoyed glare.
“Just answer the damn question, Ed.” Winry huffs, resting her fists on her hips. Ed frowns at her. He doesn’t know, does he? Winry sighs. “You can just say it.”
“Say what, exactly?” Sloth folds his arms and taps his fingers impatiently. Struggling to hold up the angry façade hiding the fear that maybe she knows. He’ll take Al and leave before she has the chance to out him. Maybe he can take Al beneath Central? But that would raise too many questions from Al. And the place was only really habitable to the homunculi. He’d have no way of feeding the small human. Not to mention the giant monster living there. Maybe Dublith? It’s where Wrath said he went. But if Wrath found his mom, would she accept the Elrics? Our would she out Sloth herself? If Wrath doesn’t get to it first. No, he’d have to take Al somewhere remote where they won’t run into anyone familiar.
“You don’t remember a thing, do you?”
The question, more a statement phrased as a question, pulls Sloth out of his thoughts. What gave it away? It was that stupid question about milk, wasn’t it? He knew he should have trusted his gut.
“I’m fine.” The homunculus growls. A warning for her to back off.
“Is that why it took you six weeks to come home?” Winry asks. She sounds less angry, but Sloth doesn’t budge. “Look, Ed, I know it must be hard, but Al’s going through the same thing. You don’t have to hide it from us.”
Sloth shakes his head. It’s not that simple. If it was, maybe he’d have said something. But he can’t tell his family that he’s the walking corpse of Al’s dead brother. The homunculus tenses.
“Winry, listen to me.” The homunculus warns, one more time between gritted teeth. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I remember everything perfectly fine.”
“Prove it.”
“I’m not in the mood for your stupid games.” He tries his damnedest not to look petrified. Sloth attempts to grab the scrapbook from Winry’s hands, but she’s too quick and jerks back right as he touches the cover.
“I’m worried about you!” Winry shouts. The homunculus shuts his mouth when he notices the tears in his friend’s eyes. “Do you think keeping me out will somehow make it better? And Al too? Why do you always hide these things from us? We care about you! We want to be here for you if you’ll just let us!”
“…Fine.” Sloth relents. Did she really have to cry like that?
“So, you’ll tell me what’s happening?” Winry asks, hopeful.
“Yeah.” Sloth grumbles. Winry can’t know he’s a homunculus, no matter what. But he supposes if it will make her worry about him less, he can tell her that he only remembers vague flashes of Edward’s life. Maybe she’ll help him give Al some peace of mind over his brother.
Sloth sits at the dining table in the kitchen and watches Winry brew coffee.
“Would you like some?”
Sloth shakes his head. “I’m good.”
He watches the woman carefully. From her small nod to her methodical brewing of the coffee, as if trying to draw out each moment as long as possible. If she’s that scared to know the truth, then she shouldn’t be dragging it out of him. The homunculus thinks bitterly.
When she finishes, Winry sits across from the homunculus and blows her on her coffee. Sloth sighs, there’s no getting out of this.
“You’re right. I didn’t want to upset you and Al, so I didn’t say anything.” He forces out. “I know you’re both important to me, but that’s about it.”
Winry nods slowly. Given the state Al came back in, it was foolish to believe Ed didn’t lose anything either. Especially with his returned appendages. She should have scrutinized him more. Of course Ed would hide something like this.
“It must be scary.” Winry says quietly. “We’re basically strangers to you, right?”
“What? No!” Sloth lies. “I already told you, I knew the moment I saw you that I was supposed to care about both of you!”
Winry frowns, unsure whether to accept Ed’s words as truth. If he is lying, she chooses not to call him out on it. “Even so, you didn’t know us.”
“I did not.” Sloth admits. Damnit. He’d rather be anywhere else right now. If he wasn’t terrified of scaring the girl, he’d vanish on the spot and leave without further explanation. But even if he did get over himself, Edward’s stupid coat would just give away his position. And he can’t leave Al. He just can’t.
Winry curls her fingers. How hadn’t she noticed? “So, what are we to you?”
Sloth hitches on the response. He knows what she’s hoping to hear, that she’s his childhood friend and Al’s his brother. But he doesn’t… know. “It’s complicated.”
Winry decides to drop the matter. “So, the scrapbook?”
She opens the book so that Ed can see. He wanted to remember, after all. She flips through until she finds an image of a young Ed and Al. Ed was maybe five and Al was four. They’re standing beside Winry. The child version of herself is beaming. Al is to the left with a confused frown while Ed is to the right looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. She smiles at the memory before looking at Ed. He’s staring at the image angrily, as if trying to conger up the moment through sheer force of will.
“This was right before our first day of school.” Winry tells him. Ed looks at her, blankly. “My parents wanted to take a picture of the three of us together.”
“…I thought I was supposed to be a year older than Al?” Sloth says, after mulling over the image. His eyes sweep over the scene, trying to discern every detail. Normally these flashes would take very little provocation, but no matter how he tries, nothing happens. He can only be left to speculate which kid is supposed to be Edward and which one is Al.
Winry shakes her head and smiles. “You are, but when you heard that you wouldn’t be in the same classes as your brother, you threw a year-long tantrum and had to be held back a grade. Looking back on it, I’m not even sure how it’s possible that you managed to fail kindergarten, Ed.”
“Spite’s a powerful thing, Win.” Sloth smiles at the thought of a tiny Edward sabotaging himself for his brother. He never really grew out of that, did he? Sloth himself was evidence enough of that fact.
“You were quite the menace.” Winry laughs. Sloth smiles weakly. “I think Al would have found a way to skip a grade if you hadn’t pulled yourself back.”
“That sounds about right.” The homunculus hums. His posture relaxes just a little. Al wouldn’t be able to take being separated from his brother any more than his brother would be able to take being separated from him. The real Edward really was an idiot for dying on him, the homunculus decides.
Winry flips through the pages again, this time stopping at a picture of three adults. One man and two women. The man was blond haired, blue eyed, and tall. The woman to his right had curly blond hair and brown eyes. To the left a woman with brown hair tied off to the side smiles. Her eyes are green. She’s wearing a purple dress with a white apron over it. Who is she? Her name and face are on the tip of his tongue. He defensively tries to hide his confusion but gives in quickly.
“Who is she?” Ed asks. He really doesn’t know? It’s unnatural. She hates to be the one to break the news to him, but it’s not like she can just leave him in the dark about it.
A shadow covers her eyes. “Your mother, Ed.”
“She’s dead, right?” Winry shudders at the disconnect in his voice, his emotions purely checking factual information. As if she wasn’t once everything to him.
“She died when you were six.” Winry informs him.
“And when I tried to bring her back?”
“Ten.”
Winry watches the silent contemplation in the teen’s eyes. It was a lot to take in. She can’t imagine how Ed would feel about this situation given his memories. “How do you feel?”
Sloth pauses to consider the question. On one hand, this is exactly what he asked for, so he should be happy? But the knowledge that Winry knows even part of the truth sits uneasy in his gut. And the knowledge that something as important to Edward as his own mother’s face rests unknown to his imposter is just another reminder to the homunculus that he can never be real. Not to mention how the talk of Ed and Al’s mother left his own involuntary emotions in a tangle of longing, bittersweetness, and guilt, none of which he could ever hope to properly understand.
“I don’t know.” He finally says.
He falls into an almost comfortable silence as Winry flips through the rest of the scrapbook and explains anything relevant to Edward’s past that she can find. Sloth takes in the information. It’s useful to know, but it’s also hardly the context that Al needs from him.
“What happened after we transmuted mom?” Ed asks. Winry frowns, sadly. There’s not much she can say.
“You joined the military, Ed.” She sticks to the facts that she knows. “Maybe a week after you passed the State Alchemist, you sent me a letter saying that something horrible happened. I rushed over by train to talk to you, but I was kidnapped and nearly killed before we got the chance. After that, you closed yourself off from me. I never knew what the original thing that upset you was, much less what happened after.”
“I can’t remember.” Sloth mutters. If he did, would he tell Winry now? It was Edward’s life, not his. Al deserved to know because it was his life too, but if he never told Winry, it wasn’t Sloth’s right to betray that information.
“The next time I heard from you was three years later. You came home with Al in pieces and your automail completely destroyed.” Winry continues. “I pulled three all-nighters to remake the arm from scratch, so I hardly got to talk to you then. And you never told me what destroyed your automail in the first place.”
The metal arm, right? Sloth decides not to comment. Winry doesn’t realize that he wouldn’t know about that, and he knows enough to not need an explanation. She continues anyways.
“About a week later, I realized that I messed up the repairs and needed to rush to Central. You were already in the hospital and Al thought you somehow created him.” Winry continues.
“That I made him?” Sloth echoes, curiously.
“Yeah.” She sighs. “Since he didn’t have his real body, he thought maybe his memories were just lies that you created and that he never existed in the first place. But you made up with him.”
“Ironic.” Ed mutters beneath his breath, clearly not intending for Winry to hear him. She doesn’t pry. Ed is already opening up to her more than he has in years, she doesn’t want to push her luck attempting to unravel more.
“Afterwards, we met with your old teacher in Dublith.” The comment makes Sloth perk. That’s where Wrath is. “You were sent to an island for around two weeks to ‘relearn an old lesson,’ as Mrs. Curtis put it.”
Sloth nods, following along. Winry shoots him a disapproving frown behind sad eyes. “We met her child, a homunculus who called himself Wrath.”
Sloth nearly falls out of his chair at this, which causes Winry to pause. That little bastard knew Edward and didn’t tell him?! He’d hunt the older homunculus down himself if he wasn’t certain that it would arise too much suspicion from Winry and Edward’s old teacher.
“Do you remember something about him?” She asks slowly, raising a brow. Sloth straightens his back, trying to think of a convincing lie. He settles for a half-truth.
“He found me and sent me here.” Sloth says. Winry looks at him blankly but then smiles a moment later.
“I’m glad he forgives you.” She whispers. “You and Al scared the hell out of him.”
“What did I do?” Sloth frowns, not liking the tone of Winry’s voice. Winry sighs.
“You assaulted him.” Winry sighs. “He was just a small amnesiac child, but when you realized what he was, you attacked and harassed him nonstop for several days. He also apparently had your old arm and leg. I never knew Al could be so scary, but I thought for sure that he was going to try to rip those limbs off the child himself.”
Wrath has a metal arm and leg, like Edward did, Sloth recalls. He never made the connection that they could be related. He shudders. Did Al actually go through with that idea? Is that how Sloth has all four appendages? He hopes not.
“So, we hated the homunculi that much…” Sloth sighs. Yet another reason why Al and Winry can never know. If Al really was willing and apparently capable of dismembering Wrath for the crime of having Edward’s arm and leg, he shudders to think what his friend might do to him upon learning the truth.
“I know it must have been hard for you since you must have put together that if Wrath existed, then your mother must be a homunculus too. And you were already fighting the homunculi.” Winry begins, “But he was just a child who had nothing to do with them!”
“Lovely.” Sloth mutters absently. It sure is nice to know that the Elrics would hate his existence. And considering that the only homunculus he ever knew lost his arm and leg to them, he can only assume that they were responsible for murdering the allusive others. Wrath kept his distance from him in the brief time they knew each other, and Sloth can see why now.
“Wrath came here with Al initially.” Winry continues. “I had some replacement limbs meant for you in the back and I gave them to him. He finished rehab impossibly quickly and left without a word a month later.”
“He must have gone straight back to find me.” Sloth realizes aloud. How did Wrath know? Maybe Al said something that tipped him off. Or maybe he just wanted to go somewhere no human would follow and found Sloth by mistake. Did the smaller homunculus secretly hate him? Sloth never figured out what was behind those exhausted eyes.
“Maybe…” Winry trails off. Ed didn’t even consider the child to be human, so she can’t begin to understand why. “I wonder what caused the change of heart.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Sloth dismisses with a wave of his hand, letting his thoughts wash away with the declaration. Winry shoots him a questioning look at the reaction and Sloth sighs. “What happened after Dublith?”
“We headed east. You and Al were going to investigate the philosopher’s stone in Ishbal, and we parted ways.” Winry says. “I saw you a month later. You and Al were being hunted by the military. Hohenheim, your father, was here and you kicked him in the face.”
The mention of that bastard makes Sloth’s theoretical blood boil. He has to remind himself that the emotion isn’t his own. It was Edward’s, and the more he hears, the more he begins to think the human to be a bastard himself.
“You and Al left to deal with the homunculus you created.”
“And by deal with, you mean kill?” Sloth scoffs.
“I don’t know what happened to her.” Winry sighs. “Sheska and I were investigating Hughes’s murder and she tried to kill us.”
Sloth’s eyes widen. A homunculus tried to kill his friend. His predecessor too. Sloth clenches his fists and lets that fact sink in.
“How so?” He squeaks, despite his attempts to stay calm over the declaration.
“Her body could become water. I think she and the other homunculi must have killed Hughes.” Winry looks like she’s about to cry. “I don’t want you to blame yourself, okay? I know you made her, and Hughes investigated her partially because of you, but you couldn’t have known.”
“Homunculi look identical to their human counterparts.” Sloth says, not able to meet Winry’s eyes out of the fear of realization crossing them. “If he saw her, it would have been impossible not to notice.”
Winry blinks. She must have misheard. Or maybe Ed meant to say “we.” She shakes her head. “Even if that’s true, you might not have seen her before. And you didn’t know what the homunculi were, so even if you did, you probably wrote it off.”
Sloth wants to scream that even though he came here with his hair down, wearing clothes Edward never wore, Al only knowing what Ed looked like when he was ten, and Edward being presumed dead for six weeks, they both instantly recognized him as Edward. Even with his un-Edward-like eyes. Two dull greyish orbs, unable to decide whether they want to be the brilliant gold of the original owner’s or the lilac slits more traditional for homunculi. His hair is also charred black, a physical characteristic that he realizes now didn’t belong to Edward. So, if he could be mistaken for Edward despite his physical dissimilarities, it would have been impossible for the real Edward not to recognize his homunculus, no matter how she might have tried to hide it.
The homunculus watches Winry carefully with his carcass eyes. He tilts his head slightly. “You never asked about my hair?”
“You dyed it so that it would be harder for the state to recognize you.” Winry says. “I figured you were just trying to keep a low profile.”
“Something like that.” Sloth decides. He rubs the back of his head and shoots her a smile. It was a convincing enough story. Winry’s eyes furrow, which is enough to say that she doesn’t believe him.
“But if you’ve lost your memories, you wouldn’t know to disguise yourself.” Winry points out. So much for that story. It was stupid for him to bring the question up in the first place. Sloth tries to temper the racing thoughts that she’s going to find out and tell Al. “Ed? I’m not mad or anything, just curious.”
“Then you should just leave it.” Sloth crosses his arms. He doesn’t need Winry prying into the details of why he doesn’t quite look like Edward Elric, even if it is a topic that he invited on himself.
“You know, you’re still declared missing, but you don’t have to keep it up while living here.” Winry suggests. Though really, she suspects that maybe Ed didn’t realize that his hair was dyed. Not that she has any idea how the hair dye he made could lasted several months without wearing out.
“Well, maybe I like my hair like this!” Sloth says defensively. It would be easy to steal some yellow hair dye and contact lenses from a nearby store. In fact, he probably should have done that before coming here, but he didn’t know what Edward looked like then. And now that he does, there’d be a lot of explaining to do either way.
Winry shoots him an unimpressed look. “Let me guess, you think it makes you look cool?”
“E-exactly!” Winry doesn’t miss the panicked stutter in Ed’s voice. As much as she wants to know the full truth, which she is certain Ed hasn’t given her, she’s pulled more than enough from the boy. And Ed already looks about ready to flee. Winry sighs, mercifully dropping it.
“I don’t mind if you keep your hair like that.” Winry says. “At this point, I’m mostly just curious what the hell you put in it.”
“The dye’s pretty strong stuff.” Sloth offers weakly, seeing his chance to escape. “I’d offer to tell you what I used, but I honestly don’t remember.”
“Fair enough.” Winry sighs. She watches him go but interrupts him right before he exits the room. “When will you tell Al?”
Sloth frowns. Ideally never, he wants to say. “I’ll tell him when I’m ready. And don’t you dare tip him off before I have the chance.”
He doesn’t wait for a response before tucking away and stomping upstairs to maybe get in a few minutes of sulking before Al wakes up. Sure enough, the youngest Elric was sound asleep. Sloth sits on his bed and pulls in his knees. Al is an alchemical prodigy, unlike Winry. If he were to ever learn part of the truth, it would only be a matter of time until he discovered the rest. It doesn’t matter that his memories are also missing. Sloth can never risk losing him like that.