Those with Sparks in Their Eyes: A FMA(B) FanFic

Chapter Twenty Nine: Puppet of Avarice

The next few minutes seem to blur. Fixed in my mind, but I'm unable to think. The pain has blurred my head, and the tears have fuzzed my vision. I should be happy, I know the truth about my brother. It was hard to swallow, but I finally got what I travelled halfway across the country for.

And I thought of Greed. What Envy said, about him....falling in love with me. Him, standing there, emotionless, but when Envy started to hurt me, he wanted to intervene. Is that friendship, or something more, something more intense. And the question that weighed heavier on my mind still, was did I feel the same way?

I can remember Greed running towards me once Wrath backed off. He knelt beside me, his black coat blanketing my beaten body. He put his arm under my head and lifted it up slightly. He whispered something to me, a few comforting words, like 'you'll be ok.' He also said my name. Leah.

One word, four letters, two syllables. Yet, when it came from his mouth, it sounded so foreign, like it was my first time hearing it. As if I was an infant discovering their hands for the first time; so simple, yet so amazing. When he held me like that, his arm under my head, and I was just able to make out the outline of his face, the pain faded.

For one, blissful moment, I didn't feel anything. My surrounding disappeared around me, and I was no longer in Father's lair, about to be sacrificed. I didn't have broken bones or a bruised rib cage. I didn't even feel the concrete below me. I only felt him, holding me in his arms. Why can't it all be like this?

That question, I realized, tied into the first one I had. Did I love him? Do I love Greed the Avaricious? For that little shard of time we had, I knew the answer; yes. But, was I in love with him all the time, or just in that moment?

All of him, or just this side of him? That was the question I found hardest to answer. Because when he was forced to leave my side, the pain came back, sharp and striking at my sides of me. Father had used some sort of strange medicinal Alchemy to heal my wounds. Again the pain wasn't there.

This time it felt different; dry. My wounds were healed, but something, some part of me was missing. It wasn't like when Greed held me, because unlike then, this kind of healing seems empty and cold. Was it something the Alchemy did to me? Or the emotions that came with it?

I look over my shoulder to see that Father has shed his fake skin. His true form is much more grotesque. It looks almost like Pride, like liquid shadows formed into the shape of a man. It was like black smoke turned into slime, covered in hideous eyes. The next thing I knew, Ed, Al, Izumi and Hohenheim were falling from the ceiling and on to the hard floor.

"Leah?! What are you doing here?" Izumi asks.

"Same as you. I'm a Human Sacrifice."

"What?!"

We look over our shoulder to see Alphonse hasn't come to. Izumi and I kneel at his side, shaking his armour body, trying to wake him.

"Now, my Human Sacrifices, it's time to get to work." We all jump and turn at Father's voice.

"Listen! Just because you got us here doesn't mean we'll work for you!" Ed states defiantly.

"All I'm asking for is your simple co-operation. Besides, you don't have another option. You're trapped here, no longer under Central, but within my very being."

"How is that even possible?!" Hohenheim yells "It's against the laws of nature, not to mention Alchemy!"

"Not so. If one has enough energy."

Before we could fight back, Father grabbed us in his tendrils, much like Pride in Kanama. We couldn't struggle much as he pulled us away from Al and pinned us down in a five point circle; a transmutation circle.