[closed catchall for Homeward Bound Boy Wrath]

[garbagechild]

Who: Wrath, Lust, Envy, Scar, Henry
What: LASSIE WRATH COME HOME
Where: Shark House (ie, quiet suburban neighborhood in Goldenrod City)
Warnings: Later threads include graphic dialogue about subjects like child death/injury, suicide, etc.
Summary: Wrath can't avoid the inevitable any longer. After meandering in awkward emotional paralysis for a month, he finally arrives in Goldenrod City to find out if his family is still there or not.



The city streets haven't changed a single bit.

The same smells hang on the humid, seaside air. The same warm yellow lights blaze above the sidewalks. The same buzz and murmur of never-sleeping nightlife float along main roads and narrow alleys alike.

Wrath remembers all of them with startling clarity, and yet they don't feel familiar anymore. He shies away from all of it, slinking along like an awkward shadow and trying not to be noticed. Which is blessedly not difficult, at least in the heart of town where there's still enough bustle and activity that a short kid and his Cubone hardly stand out. But even with his memories intact... coming back to a bona fide city after the isolation he'd wrapped himself in back in Amestris is overwhelming in every way.

What he's looking for, however, isn't in the heart of town. No, his destination is down in the southern half of the city, in a much sleepier pocket of suburbia...


____


His feet remember the path there better than his brain does, and all too fast, their surroundings have shifted from broad bright streets to ones lined with houses, trees, and lamp-posts. Completely preoccupied with his own growing anxiety, Wrath barely even notices how fast they've arrived until he realizes that downtown's golden hum has been replaced with the soft, velvet drone of chirping insects and whirring fans. The clank of his automail foot on the pavement is painfully loud now that there's so much less background noise to drown it out.

He stops right there in the middle of the road like a statue as the realization hits him.

This is it. This is their street...

Down at his side, Son squeezes his hand. The Cubone had been keeping up with his trainer valiantly all night long, despite his stubby little legs. Keenly-attuned partner-Pokemon senses aside, it hadn't exactly been hard to notice that Wrath had been growing tenser and tenser the closer they got (even though escaping from the chaos of the inner city should have, would have been a relief for most people). Although Wrath doesn't look down, the squeeze tugs him back into reality enough to carry on.

It isn't long until he spots it.

There.

It's there.

It's still there.

The House... but that doesn't mean it has the same people in it. Or that they would feel the same way they did once, even if they'd remained. ... It's not too late. He could just keep walking. He could just head straight out of town and into Ilex Forest, never to be seen again. They would never know that he was here. ... And vice versa.

A shadow briefly passes in front of one of the windows, and Wrath stiffens, freezing again. He feels like throwing up.

But Son delivers a gentle headbutt to his automail leg. CLINK. Wrath grimaces, swallowing, and stumbles up the walk.

Approaching the house is ten times more difficult and painstaking than it had been with the cottage in Violet, but eventually, he finds himself standing on the doorstep, almost too tense to breathe. He lifts a hand several times, only to drop it again. Once, he manages to make contact with the door... but just scratches it timidly with his nails, too quiet to be heard.

"... I can't," he mumbles hoarsely after these failed attempts, more to himself than to his Pokemon... but Son responds anyway with a whispered but no-less-vehement "Bone!" Yes you can!

Wrath lets out a shaky, miserable sigh, but... he can't say no to his son.

Steeling himself and taking a deep breath, he raises his hand again... and knocks.




Thread Timeline because we're out of control:
1. Wrath arrives and is ushered in by Henry + Envy; Scar informs Lust about Wrath's return; Lust and Wrath reunite.
2. As Lust + Wrath Cry In The Living Room (tm), Henry re-enters with a failed hot cocoa attempt; Envy flees to the laundry room.
3. Heather receives distraught Envy phonecall.
4. Envy and Scar briefly discuss The Gluttony Thing in the hall.
5. Wrath and Envy catch up; Evil Brother Hug! at Kitchen Island.
6. Heather and Scar fail to communicate on the porch, but it's fine.
7. Hot Cocoa Attempt 2.0 by Henry; Evil Brothers + Henry quiet couch time.
8. Scar + Lust discuss personal growth and parenthood.
9. Heather gets home with pizza baked goods, gets caught up on the tea.
10. The following morning, Scar + Envy discretely get info from Wrath; also Don't Tell Mom About Gluttony.

Comments

[exeggutorhead]

Traumatic Death Reveals (tm) can really take it out of you!

But they can help. Homunculi aren't exactly the most versed in the benefits of "talking about problems", but Envy's had it pounded into his head enough at this point that he at least knows it's a Thing. Even if it's a thing he still doesn't voluntarily practice without a whole lot of difficulty, he can do it when it's really, really important now!

"Go on, nobody else'll come make you wake up until you're done."

Unless it's been like...15 hours. Then they will probably come wake him up.

But for now, Wrath is free to curl up and rest. HE NEEDS IT after the past several years month.

Envy leaves him to it, even if it's a little hard to totally banish the back-of-mind worries about baby brother popping back out of existence while nobody's looking at him. It'll be okay.

Although...he leans heavily on the wall outside the door once he's out of the room, rubbing at the bridge of his nose now that he's out of Wrath's view. Transmuted.

[officerdown]

Scar isn't looming, per se, but he hasn't gone far. He's by the top of the stairs when Envy emerges, discretely not watching the door.

He'll have a Well, that was more complicated than we were prepared for look for when Envy gathers himself.

[exeggutorhead]

Envy doesn't linger too long by the door before gathering himself; he knows Scar's there, even if he's not being watched. The time for actually acting his age isn't quite over.

He's probably going to be paying a visit to the junkyard later on today.

As usual, he can't truly decipher Scar's look, although he does think he's got an idea on the gist of this one. More than usual, enough to just go ahead and nod in agreement with it. Why yes, that was A Lot!

Envy looks about twice as tired as he did when he first came downstairs, but gestures at the stairway before starting down it. Maybe they ought to continue this not in the hallway outside of everyone's bedrooms.

Assuming Scar follows, Envy gets to the bottom before actually speaking, not looking over his shoulder, "I wasn't sure if he'd lived or not."

[officerdown]

"I suppose you were there for more of it than she was. When things fell apart."

Delivered in the tone of voice that indicates it's a question for more information as much as a statement. There's really only one she Scar can be assumed to be referring to, if not otherwise specified. His tangential involvement with the homunculi is now a great deal more rooted than it had been, 24 hours ago. He prefers to keep their dealings at arm's length. It's better for the peace, that way. Better for the lingering bad feelings.

Now, Wrath.

Now, Wrath, and Scar is going to have to learn a bit more civility with Envy.

[exeggutorhead]

That gets him to turn and look, first in surprise, and then searchingly, wondering where this is going.

He's really not sure what to expect from Scar now.

He lets out a breath, turning to lean against the wall with his arms crossed. A short, bitter laugh escapes him.

"For those last couple of days, yeah, I was there making everything worse."

There sure is a lot of regret packed into that sentence.

"Before I found out our ex-Master'd been killed, I thought she'd have just finished Wrath off after I was gone. She was done with him. When I found out he made it out of that, I guess I just...hoped he got out of the next impossible situation too."

[officerdown]

Scar's eyes dart briefly to Lust's closed bedroom door. It's still closed, and there hasn't been a peep. He makes his way quietly down the stairs, regardless.

"What need did she have of him in the first place?"

He's trying to put together a timeline, as well as some reasonable map of the who and what and why of their sick little operation, but what use could a child possibly have been to Dante? Scar had never encountered him, but he struggled to put together a tactical benefit to having Wrath eating bugs lurking in the wings.

He makes his way toward the kitchen and sets a kettle on the stove.

Its electric counterpart sits inches to its side, thoroughly ignored.

[exeggutorhead]

Envy slouches after him to the table, pulling out a chair at an angle so he can sit sideways in it, one leg pulled up. In spite of the pose, he doesn't sound casual.

"Ha. She wasn't ever going to let a wildcard like him run around loose, out of her control. Especially not since her old apprentice was the one who brought him back. She was petty like that."

He scratches a finger at the woodgrain on the table, frown deepening to a scowl as he talks.

"I don't think she had any idea what she actually wanted out of him. We--Sloth and I, I mean--did try to figure it out, but...we didn't know what to do with him either. None of us were ever kids. I took him out on a couple short missions, easy stuff like checking leads, but Sloth was the only one who even kind of knew anything about kids and he really latched onto her."

The hand that isn't scratching the table veneer has started to gesture in frustration. This is clearly something he's thought about before.

"But she was a secretary, so he didn't have anything to do most of the time. I got sent north. And they were both...they were too new. I remember I thought maybe it'd turn out like Lust and Gluttony, but it didn't."

[officerdown]

Scar is digging out his tea tin as he listens.

"So there was no tactical reason beyond petty self-felating," Scar concludes as he carefully apportions the ground leaves into a tea basket that seems two sizes too small for his hands. His frown deepens, gears turning, turning, sticking then turning again...

Attempted resurrection can't be so common that Dante was ever drowning in options, but due to his own lateral connection to the whole ordeal, he had always assumed that those she kept under her were incidental discoveries. But with each little piece of the web that reveals itself to him, the more he starts to wonder if Lust had been the outlier.

Scar turns from the counter, looking over his shoulder at Envy, who is once again not sitting, but Perching™.

"Were all of those under her results of her immediate sphere of influence?"

It doesn't dawn on Scar that this may be a very



very



personal question.

[exeggutorhead]

The extra blunt description earns a snort before Envy nods, "Sounds about right."

At that next question, though? Since he's looking, Scar will be able to see the moment when Envy's restless movements simply...stop. Maybe he can't go quite as unnervingly still as he could as a homunculus, but it comes close. He doesn't look back in Scar's direction, just continues staring hard in the direction of the fridge.

"A lot of us were. Our last group more than usual."

[officerdown]

It dawns on Scar, the moment the words leave his mouth, that he is also implicating Envy by making such a supposition. He watches the bony homunculus (although, he supposes off to the side, there are two of those, now) through the corner of his eye, well used to being subtle in his observation. It helps that the object of such seems abruptly distracted.

He continues prepping his tea.

"I see," said in a steady rumble. It isn't an issue he's going to directly push. Callous to Envy's plight though Scar may be, this isn't a knife he would even seek, let alone twist. Not for any of them. Not again. He replaces the lid on his loose tea and carefully, intentionally, returns it to its shelf.

He stares down at the kettle, not even close to a boil, and for a beat, Scar is still. It doesn't last. He turns, just as deliberate, to peer down at Envy.

"How did you find her?"

[exeggutorhead]

Envy's eyebrows shoot up at the question and he finally turns to look in the other man's direction--it takes him a few second to switch tracks between which 'her' Scar means, and his first interpretation made that a very very personal question.

It's only the phrasing of 'you found her' versus 'she found you' that gets him to understand the actual question.

"Oh, you mean Lust," some of the startled tension visibly drains out of him as he catches on. Not all of it, it's still a tense subject anyway. Enough that he does take a little more time to consider what he's going to say, and isn't flippant about it.

"By chance. We didn't have any part in it beforehand, if that's what you're wondering. There were rumors about some other variation of alchemy that might still have people practicing it, who'd get kicked out and wind up in Amestris. I was sent to poke around and see if there was anything to it, and found her on the floor."

[officerdown]

Scar doesn't outwardly react. On the floor sends some kind of electrical impulse down his limbs and back to his spine, but it isn't a feeling he can put a finger on. It's half numb, half cold.

A moment passes like this, several seconds too long before Scar turns back to the cabinets, reaching for his mug. He doesn't acknowledge the answer. Not even a nod. The question had been an impulse, waiting to burst from his impulsive mouth the moment the conversation even so much as glanced its horizon. He knows they aren't talking about this. He knows that there are many more pressing matters at immediate hand.

But he does wonder. He wonders a great deal more than even he thinks he does.

"Wrath's final impossible situation..." Scar uses Envy's own words, here. He's facing the counter, his back to Envy as he prepares his tea. "Another Elric mess."

[exeggutorhead]

The same way Scar hadn't pushed at Envy's closed off reaction before, he doesn't push at Scar's. It wasn't a pretty answer. Nothing about any of it is. Shame lurks around the edges of that, too. But he knows even less what to do about that than he does about what he did to Wrath, besides to deliberately avoid being cruel. He can't wish he'd never gone, or nobody would have been there to find her.

There's so much going on since last night, and Envy doesn't have much room for more. But he does take notice of Scar's reaction. The notable lack of one. With everything going on together, some unconscious facet of understanding shifts further towards it's complicated.

For now, he'll very willingly take the invited return to the present situation.

"Yeah, another one to add to the pile."

Those darn Elrics! You'd think they'd stop single-mindedly diving into the Gate chasing after other Elrics!

It does remind him that he'd had kind of a big question to ask though, and his tone goes from sardonic to something cautiously curious, "What was with the...we went in to tell him he shouldn't tell Lust about Gluttony, and you changed your mind at the end?"

[officerdown]

Scar pulls a ceramic mug in the shape of a Spheal from the cabinet and sets it beside the stove, then gets to work portioning loose tea into the brewing basket, a comically small job for his large hands.

"It is not a child's responsibility to protect their caretaker's feelings at the cost of their own," he says, still facing the stove, "I did not realize Wrath's death was entwined with Gluttony's. If he ever wants to speak on it with her, it is not our place to stop him."

Kids' minds work in odd ways. There are dozens of directions this could spiral, and dozens more Scar is sure he isn't even thinking of, given the homunculi's unique situation.

"I was uncertain of the secrecy to begin with, but I know you all have your politics."

[exeggutorhead]

Envy's head tilts as he thinks that over; not just the concept itself, but the certainty with which Scar says it. As though that was something normal, or expected.

"I...guess? She's not his only caretaker...but he did have a lot more people looking out for him before that aren't here anymore. He could still talk to either of us about it," but he does pause and concede, "I won't stop him."

He groans under his breath. This really did get more complicated than expected. The next thing is easier to sound more sure of.

"It's not a secret because of politics, anyway. It'd really hurt her, and there's not even anything any of us could do about it. Wrath needs her, and how's she supposed to be there for him and deal with what our master did to Gluttony at the same time? I don't want her to have to."

It's too much. What was done to Wrath is already so much, and Wrath's the one who's here now.

"I'm the oldest, so I should be looking out for both of them."

He doesn't think Scar would disagree on that front, given Envy's singular memory of the man from Amestris involves him busting through the ceiling to insist on what older brothers ought to be doing.

[officerdown]

"I am aware, hence my agreement to tell Wrath to keep it from her in the first place."

Scar doesn't want Lust to suffer more than she already has, but with all that's already happened between the lot of them, he's wary of the suffering waiting in the wings. It could very well kick down their almost too-quaint front door, someday.

He's grateful that he's facing the counter when Envy points out that he ought to be looking out for them, being the eldest. The surprise and amusement flickering past his eyes is brief, but undeniable. It's hard to imagine Envy taking responsibility for much of anything, even though Scar now has no choice but to admit to his increasingly nuanced understanding of what makes his housemate tick.

Words like "overgrown teenager" are not diplomatic words. They are not "share this space with a small herd of white oddities for the sake of his most important relationship" words.

"The fact remains that they would do best to start this life with as few secrets as possible. We don't know what the future holds."