[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]

Not at you...

That really just about does it, when he's already hanging on by a thread. He swallows, and nods, a quiet, unsteady sort of laugh escaping him. His own eyes are burning.

"Well...I was really, really stupid."

And, like he's been wanting to do again since Wrath was standing in the doorway, honestly since Wrath had vanished, he finally reaches out his hand to the top of Wrath's head, carefully messing with his hair. There's not any tears falling, but his voice has gotten thick, and his eyes are glassy.

"I'm not mad at you, little brother."

[garbagechild]

The hand coming down on his head does cause a tiny flinch-- but only because he wasn't expecting it.

In any case, Envy doesn't have to worry about that, because immediately following it is a small clatter as Wrath drops his spoon and twists around to lean heavily against the other Homunculus. It's barely a conscious thought process-- although his arms following along and wrapping around Envy is.

If he hadn't cried himself parched already, the tears would have started flowing again at the 'b' word. But for now, he just crushes his face against Envy's chest. Which will probably get the point across enough.

He missed his big, really stupid brother a whole lot.

[exeggutorhead]

For a moment, Envy does have a little mini heart attack at that flinch. Oh no, oh shit he shouldn't have gone for it this soon--

And then, suddenly, he's being hugged and Wrath's entire weight is mashing up against him; it's enough of a surprise, after all the careful tiptoeing around one another they'd done since Wrath had come inside, that Envy has to be careful not to get pushed out of his chair by it.

There goes the last of Envy's fraying composure. It had only been holding on by the very tips of its fingernails anyway. He wraps his arms back around Wrath's shoulders, and he doesn't even notice or care how gross and matted the hair he's got half of his face pressed down to is. He can't erase what had happened or what had been done to them, he can't erase his own failures, but...he can be here, now. They're alive. Wrath is here, safe, and alive and none of the three of them here will ever, ever have to go back to her and her stupid dead city again. Even if it's because there's nothing to go back to at all, it won't ever be her.

In true Envy fashion, even if he's not as bad about pretending not to feel things in this place, he's still being hit all over again with the weight of how much he'd missed Wrath too. So the other homunculus doesn't have to cry, because...well, Envy's actually doing it for him this time. Not loudly, it's more like steady leaking than anything, but it is happening.

"It got too quiet here without you."

[garbagechild]

They're so lucky Envy's balance kept them both from crashing straight down onto the linoleum-- the resulting hug, no matter how clumsy or awkward it winds up being, is all that matters to Wrath right now.

Being held, being apologized to, being forgiven...

However clear and vicious the memories of Envy's violence back home are, Wrath had written them off as more sad and pathetic than frightening long ago. The impulsive, ignorant lashings-out of a leader who wasn't anywhere near as all-knowing as he'd tried to act. Perhaps if he hadn't been here before... he wouldn't be as quick to forgive.

But here, Lust spent her days writing stories and making costumes. Envy befriended humans and tamed animals without striking or screaming at them. Their Master wasn't here telling them to kill or harm, and thus they didn't.

Here they were a family-- like the ones Master insisted that Homunculi couldn't have.

That had to mean this was more real. Right?

"... D'you know th'... th'same stuff as me?" warbles Wrath after a moment, without un-mashing himself from the embrace. "You going through th' Gate... and... what I... what I did...?"

Envy's apology all but confirmed that he did, but...

[exeggutorhead]

Envy nods into the top of Wrath's head. He's not usually one for long embraces, but this...this is a special case. Right now, he really doesn't want to let go.

"Yeah...yeah, I know. Going through the Gate's the last thing I remember."

They were already holding each other pretty tightly, but he does squeeze a little tighter for a second. He knows there's more for him, that it's possible he'll be sent back to find it out one day, whether it's by vanishing or by one of those long dreaming sleeps. But that's not important right now, so he thinks.

But yes, he knows what Wrath had done. He knows why he was making those frantic apologies to Lust. Envy's so relieved that he has already known, that he already went through being angry over it and then let go of that years ago. Now he knows the whole thing was just...sad. All of them fighting each other, killing each other, and for what? His rotting mother's immortality?

Wrath hadn't even been alive a year, when he'd done it. Sloth had been four. Lust, fourteen. Not a single one of the people fighting to the death in that warehouse had hit twenty years old.

It was the same idea Heather had always pushed him on when it came to Al, even if human ages hadn't ever meant the same to homunculi in that literal sense. Wrath was an actual kid.

"I know what happened. I already knew when you came the first time...it's okay. You didn't know any better. I'm not mad at you anymore, neither of us are."

[garbagechild]

At that, Wrath shifts a little, turning his head enough to look upwards through his curtain of (very unfortunate) ratty, unkempt hair.

"You knew the first time?"

His voice is not accusing-- just... surprised. Although he'd been fairly certain (even if he still felt compelled to make sure) that they knew... it hadn't at all occurred to him that they had known back then. The way timelines bend into each other in this world was well past the scope of what he was capable of comprehending, and truthfully it's barely any more parseable now.

But this does cast a new light on... a lot of things.

"... I..."

He goes quiet again, just... letting it sink in for a minute. A couple minutes. He's not withdrawing from the hug or... starting to shake violently or anything, so he's okay, probably, but his mind is doing its very harried best to put pieces together.

And then...

"I thought you were just mad because you were traitors and I wasn't," he confesses finally, and the half-choked snuffle that follows it is, shockingly, a laugh. Which turns into quiet but slightly-hysterical giggles. "I thou' ... I thought you were jealous that M-master was gonna like me better."

THIS IS... A LITTLE FUNNY.

ENVY YOU MUST AGREE THAT THIS IS, AT LEAST CONCEPTUALLY, A TINY BIT FUNNY.

... Oh, he's crying a little bit too. That's okay.

He's okay.

"Thahat... makes so much sense..."

He is relieved, and it's funny, and his chest hurts, and he's very, very tired.

[exeggutorhead]

As Wrath goes quiet to start putting everything together, Envy waits with a new little jolt of nerves to see how that news is going to be taken. It doesn't seem like he's upset over it...

And then Wrath starts to laugh.

AND YOU KNOW? Maybe it's the shock, maybe it's too many emotions, whatever it is? It is kind of funny.

Envy hasn't actually stopped crying, although he does bring one hand out of the hug to swipe the heel of his palm over one cheek out of reflex as a laugh starts to bubble up out of him too.

The delirious hysteria is contagious, apparently. This is too many damn feelings. He'd been so angry and conflicted over the whole thing and all that time Wrath had just...just thought...

"I guess...I guess I didn't think about what you'd have..." he has to stop to laugh again before he can actually keep going, "My name is Envy! I was justahaha...just so jealous...she was gonna give you all of my red stones..."

Here they are, the oldest and the youngest, the last two survivors back in Amestris. Laughing and crying and hugging in the kitchen of a house in another dimension full of fuzzy animals. Who would've ever thought?

[garbagechild]

He's not upset-- truly, he isn't.

The empty, aching void in him is still there, and will remain so to continue troubling him until he's ready to start digging in it... but tonight, it took every ounce of willpower to get him through the city and up those porch steps and through that door, and the only thing he has the power to do now is wheeze quietly into his big brother's arm. Because of the existential absurdity of it all.

"I was go-honna have... so many... All the ones that wou... woulda gone to you n'Lust..."

It had just seemed so obvious! Almost a given!

... Of course, remembering now how Lust had treated him with such kindness and affection after the initial enmity had dissipated... is a unique kind of painful. Even as he laughs, he can feel the knot of it in his chest. Which is maybe why the laughter cuts off in a small coughing fit eventually.

But he doesn't pull out of the hug.

He knows it can't last forever, but he'll sit crooked like this for as long as it does.

[exeggutorhead]

It's true, the hug can't last forever, especially not as tight as it is. Envy does wait until the hysteric, quiet laughter has subsided and his eyes have quit leaking before lifting his head, leaning back enough to be able to get a look down at Wrath.

He does leave his arms loosely around his brother's shoulders, though.

"Al told me you got out of the city...didn't know you got automail, though."

He's quietly relieved about that too, even if it's a little weird that Wrath hadn't managed to grow any new ones back. It must have been something weird about the human limbs being taken back.

[garbagechild]

When the embrace reaches its natural end, Wrath straightens back up and swipes a hand across his own face, sniffling slightly. It's the first time he's laughed in... he literally can't remember. It got the waterworks going again a little, but the catharsis was... vital.

"Mhm... it was from Miss Winry."

Lifting the metal hand up in front of him, he clenches his fingers a few times. It's still in good shape from when she tuned it up... even though, between him and Gluttony, it had been wrecked beyond all possible reconstruction.

He doesn't know how that's possible, but... clearly there's a lot he doesn't understand, and the only real difference is that now he's aware enough to notice.

"She put it on when they took me to Resembool..."

[exeggutorhead]

As he listens, Envy tilts his head to look at the arm now that Wrath's holding it up. He doesn't actually know very much about the way different automail looks, but this one definitely does look familiar.

It's a nice surprise, to hear where Wrath had gotten it from.

"She did? Knew I liked her...I met her here, once."

Well, he met the other version of her anyway. But she'd always been decent to him even after finding out who he was, and by then he would have been hard-pressed not to be in return. It's good to hear that Wrath had been able to have someone treat him well even in Amestris.

"...I do think I recognize it."

Did Wrath manage to get hold of yet more of Edward Elric's limbs? That would be kind of funny too, honestly. And it doesn't seem like a bad thing to keep things on the lighter side if he can, at least for the moment.

[garbagechild]

Although his feelings towards the automail had been (and remain) complicated... Wrath's faint smile returns as he looks down at the intricate joints on each finger.

"Everyone likes Miss Winry."

Including him.

Out of every single human he'd met, she was the only one who had remained consistently patient and kind... even when the other humans refused to be, and even after Wrath himself had given everyone ample reason to refuse.

It had been unfair of him, perhaps, to keep leaving without warning, usually only to return when he could no longer put off needing repairs done. But, as Winry HERSELF had wryly remarked at least once, maybe this particular set of limbs was just cursed like that.

Speaking of which.

It could be a trick of the light, but there might be the tiniest degree of smugness in that near-nonexistent smile when Wrath adds, deadpan, "You should..." and picks up his spoon again.

[exeggutorhead]

Everyone likes Miss Winry! If he thinks back on the brief glimpses he'd had of the girl, he does sort of remember that she'd spent a lot of the big fight on Yock Island trying to yell at everyone to calm down. She'd...honestly been the singular human who WASN'T reinforcing Envy's manipulative recruitment tactics at the time.

She can have a retroactive Valid Human gold star!

That teeny tiny little hint of smugness though, actually gets Envy to grin for real. There he is, still in there! A little spark of The Mischief!

"Ohhh, I thought so. Managed to get 'em again, very clever."

There's a proud smirk, but he's still on the careful side as he says it instead of going full tilt on a brash villain performance, if only because he was. Well. There for the loss of the human ones. He knows it's complicated and probably painful. He also noticed that Wrath picked his spoon back up like he was going to eat more soup, so he doesn't want to distract him from that too much.

[garbagechild]

For all that Wrath's entire existence had been a whirlwind of fear and uncertainty from start to finish... he never forgot that Winry was the one who'd bathed him, dressed him, watched over him while he slept... Even if she hadn't been able to stop her best friends from terrorizing him as much as humanly possible, she at least tried, and that stood out!

As for the glimmer of mischief... it's almost as surprising to Wrath as it is a relief to Envy, because it's been buried deep, and hasn't peeked out in a long time. Almost self-consciously, Wrath stirs his soup around, mumbling, "They were the only ones that fit. S'not clever..."

But... being a Homunculus, his sense of irony was already keenly sharpened-- and it had only grown moreso, once the wool had been pulled off his eyes.

So there is another, tiny little glint of the Goblin Inside when he adds:

"... but it is funny."