The Flower of (Un)requited Love [EdVy]

Chapter 6

Notes: haha this was fun :>
love the fact im posting it a day before my birthday
AND ALso the end of the chapter (the talk between Ed + Envy at the end) was written while listening to lo-fi thats why its a little softer alfkjakl 

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Envy knew that they'd be in for it when they woke up.
Not that they had actively fallen asleep - they woke up after about an hour and decided to just lay there, next to Ed, holding his hand till he woke up. They wouldn't admit it, to themselves or to Ed, but laying next to him was the happiest they had felt since they had lost their siblings. It was the closest thing to calm that they could imagine. The only thing that could break it was the need to cough at least every thirty minutes at maximum. But they'd cough, wipe their face off, and return to the calm state of holding Edward Elric's sleeping hand at what they could assume was four A.M.
Ed woke up around an hour later. The sun hadn't risen yet, not that they would be able to see it down where they were, but Ed insisted that he couldn't sleep any longer and that he needed to stay awake.
It took him a moment to realize that Envy had grabbed his hand while he was sleeping.
"E-Envy are you," he said sleepily, having only been awake for a short time.
They snatched their hand away quickly before he could finish his sentence, "No".
"Mmmm.. Pretty sure you were."
"I think your imagining things in your half-awake, delirious state."
"There's no way I could be delirious, your just in denial. It's okay Envy, I did the same to Ling once."
"You have? It's not like I did, I'm just surprised you slept with my once brother."
Ed laughed and lightly hit Envy in the arm, "Don't say it that way! Makes it sound worse than it actually was. But you know I traveled with him, so it's not a big deal."
"You did, didn't you? Traveling with Greed sounds like a horrible time." They said, finally pushing themselves up and stretching their arms.
"Say Ed, did we have anything planned today? Any tests you needed to run?"
Ed followed Envy and sat up, "Hmmmm. Well, I should probably see if the hanahaki has gotten worse. Then perhaps we should go out so I can have some food to eat."
They sighed, "I assure you, it hasn't gotten worse. Still coughing every thirty minutes or so, but nothing more than that, I swear!"
Ed pondered their response a bit, mostly because this was Envy who said it and they usually couldn't be trusted. "Alright. Well, if you say it's still fine then it most likely is...." He paused. "Is it even possible for you to get to the critical stage? If the roots were to enter your lungs all the way, wouldn't any damage done to your lungs just heal right away?" Ed muttered, just barely audible.
Envy piped up, "What was that? Don't believe me?"
Ed sighed and shook his head. "No I believe you, just get ready, we should go out and get some food."

Getting ready is always a bit hard when you don't own clothing. Ed had brought a bag with his own clothing, so he was fine. But Envy's just needed to shapeshift to change their clothing, so they didn't really own any. No need to when you can change it yourself. Ed was wearing a simple grey shirt, and black pants and boots, Pretty plain for him, but if you looked you'd notice that the pants were definitely leather and tighter than they should have been, and that his boots were still the platform boots. Envy had changed much more - their hair was now more of a brown color than blackish-green and was tied up in a ponytail. They had a black tank top on that was cut a bit too low and a pair of pants similar to Ed's for once. They had proper sandals on this time around, no gloves, and opted to make their eyes blue.
"Heh, how do I look, better than before~?" They said, making various poses while looking at Edward.
"You look fine, Envy. Let's get going." He replied, smiling, and headed towards the door.

The place they went to was just the first market they could find in Central. They didn't really talk much, since Envy was just tagging along while Ed grabbed himself food. They didn't need to eat, so they figured that they didn't have much of a say in what food the other bought. Occasionally though, Envy would pick something up and show it to Ed. Ed usually shook his head no and Envy would walk away, sadly, to go put the item back.
Eventually, Ed tapped Envy's shoulder,
"Are you always this quiet when shopping?"
"I've never been shopping before with someone else. I don't need the food, so I'm not saying anything. Out of character, I know."
Ed just snickered and went back to picking up vegetables. Envy started coughing when they were trying to buy the items and made some customers worried, but Ed managed to keep them from trying to help. Trying to help would only result in Envy blowing up at someone.
And considering how explosive Envy could be, that was for the best.
Even if they seemed to be upset about Ed protecting them.
After all, they were a homunculus! They didn't need help. They knew how to fight if they needed to.

Once the two arrived at home, and Ed had managed to find a place to put the food he bought (there were no shelves inside the underground hideout the homunculi had made. There was no reason for them, so Father never made any, and Envy wasn't one to change the decor when they were the only ones down there most of the time.), the two of them sat down across from each other in the main room of the hideout. Ed was eating something he had bought, but also looked a bit nervous to start up a conversation. After a few more moments of silence, Ed asked,
"...Say Envy, what was life like down here?"
"Well... Most of us were gone most of the time. Father spent a lot of time alone down here. He was constantly sending us out on missions. When we were home though...," Envy paused. Was it okay for them to tell Ed how their family used to function? they thought. But their family was not there to stop them from revealing all of their secrets.
"Before Greed deflected and ran away, Father was not a good man. He treated us simply as tools. It's part of the reason Greed tried to take us with him before he left. I lashed out and refused. Lust was too loyal. Pride he never bothered to ask."
Envy stopped talking at that point. There was a sadness in their eyes that Ed hadn't seen before, and he wasn't sure what to say to them.
"I never did think that you homunculi would have had it bad down here. But.. what sort of missions were you sent on? What did you?"
"..Isn't that obvious Edward? I was Father's instigator - but with that I would shapeshift to get information out of people. You don't give me the information, you die. Simple as that."
"How far did your instigation go? How far did you go for information?"
"I resort to violence! Most of the time if you didn't get what I want I could become your loved one or threaten your loved ones. Worked in most cases. Lust went to more.. drastic measures."
"Alright. All of this fits with what we learned about you before the Promised Day. So you never used sex as a tactic, that was all Lust?"
"I don't have any sort of parts and I wasn't very interested in it. So no, I have not done any of it."
There was a pause between the two and an awkward silence hung in the air. This went on for several minutes, but Ed was the first to speak up-
"Would you be interested right now?"