Two weeks. He’s been alive for two weeks, sharing a body with an entitled little brat and he still couldn’t believe that this was his life.

At first, Father and his siblings had been busy cleaning the mess done by the Elric brothers and the X-faced guy. Wrath had done some kind of power move against the brothers and some Mustang guy to keep them in check. Envy had dealt with the escaped prisoner. Father had rebuilt his room and taken care of Gluttony. Sometime during that time, Wrath had come to talk to Greed again, telling him that in a few days time he was going to have to start doing Gluttony’s work, now that his brother was unavailable.
That hadn't happened yet and, until now, they had left him alone and nobody had bothered him.
Or at least, nobody outside of his own body.

Greed sighed as he watched said body, without a shirt for some reason, seated in one of the gardens of the palace. Doing. Absolutely. Nothing.

Greed sighed again, louder.
Not that the concept of loud, or noise even, had any meaning in the space inside their minds. Luckily, or the both of them would have gone crazy by now with all the screaming the Stone’s souls did in every single moment. It wasn’t like they, him and Ling, could hear them per se, but more like that all that what was left of their will was concentrate on letting them know they were there.
So every time he concentrates inwards his mind would translate that will in images and sounds. He thought that was also the reason the screaming never covered the conversation between him and Ling.
Speaking of which, the pest still didn’t give him any sign of responding, so Greed sighed a third time, in an abnormally noisy way.

“What do you want?”
“This is so fucking boring, how could you willingly do this for more than 5 minutes?”

“Shut up, we have a deal! I won the last round so I could meditate, and I have still at least fifteen more minutes before my time is up. It’s hard enough to do this with this thigh as fuck pants I’m not allowed to change because of the rules you gave that time you won.”

“And yet you took off my coat and shirt. And whoa, language! I don’t want to be known as a corruptor of the youth.”

“Shut up! And, also, you never said anything about taking clothes off! You just said to not change them with, and I quote,  ‘that hot-air balloon masked as pants’ I was wearing! And, by the way, that is MY coat.”

“Oh, come on kid, I don’t lie to you! So show me the same fucking respect.”

“What? What did I say?”

“You 've been brooding about the day you fought with Wrath long enough in this last few days that even I know you stole that coat from that Colonel ‘safe house’.”

“That doesn’t make it yours.”

“It doesn’t make it yours either.” Then he thought about it for a second and raised his voice. “And even if it had been yours, it’s mine, now. *You* are mine, now! You gave yourself to me and now you and everything you owned is mine!”

Ling stayed silent for a while, long enough that Greed started to regret his outburst. But he was true, the Prince needed to remember that. He was Greed, everything belonged to him, or was going to be, at least. Ling had been his first possession and he wasn’t going to let him forget it.

Luckily, what he had fast learned about the guy was that he easily bounced back into good mood after a punch. Or, at least, he was really good at faking it, and that was enough for Greed.

“Yeah, well, even if it’s true, it’s just a temporary situation!” He said it with a smile and a nonchalance so well acted, that even Greed, that at that moment could faintly sense Ling’s emotions, was almost inclined to believe. “One day I’m going to be able to drag you back to Xing and become Emperor!”

“ And how is your Master Plan going, again? I’ll have you remember that I’m just allowing you to be in control at this moment, because I’m a very generous boss and all.” All these fucking deja vu he's been having lately were fucking annoying, by the way.

“You’ll see. And you are not doing it for generosity, you are doing it because you are bored being a good boy for Daddy and you enjoy the challenges we play. Even if I win most of the times.”

“Wait, you win *some*times. And I didn’t know you’d start doing this boring sitting in the sun thing, or I would never have accepted them in the first place!”

“That’s your own fault, isn’t it? Now, shut up, and let me concentrate! I won and you are wasting my time! If I knew you’d be so annoying about this I would have used this time to eat some decent food!”

“Yes, please! Even being somewhat an unwilling participant of that weird act of adoration with food that you call eating is better than this!”

“It is eating!”

“No, I eat, what you do is something entirely different, that I don’t want any part of.”

“My body needs to eat more than the average, or else I faint!”

“I’ve never fainted and I use the same body.”

“You waist some of the Stone power to do so! And that’s not the point, the point is that you need to shut up and let me concentrate on my meditation.”

“Why do you want to meditate so much? How can you not find it so fucking boring? We haven’t moved in hours!”

It was true, still now, while talking to him, Ling hadn’t moved a finger of the body in the real world, what a waste of body autonomy...

“We’ve been here thirty minutes, not hours.” Said Ling rolling his eyes, finally! A movement! “I need to meditate to keep my connection with the Dragon Pulse alive.”

“Your what, now?”

“My connection with the Dragon Pulse, you see, in Xing every member of the royal family and their se… Oh shit!”

Greed suddenly felt himself shoved back in control. “What the hell, kid! And wow, today you’re on fire! Two weeks with me and you are already...”
“Greed, shut up, I sense…”
 “... swearing like a… What?”
Greed didn’t know what stopped him first from finishing his sentence.
If it had been Ling sudden spark of anxiety that rushed through his body or his warning.

It didn’t matter anyway because both of them arrived too late. Greed knew that the moment he heard a voice behind him.

“So it is true. You really are keeping a human consciousness inside.”

Greed swung abruptly, not easily because of Ling previous weird Xingese meditation position, and found himself in front of a child.

“Who the fuck are you?” He said, at loud.

“Shit maybe I shouldn’t swear in front of a child, look what I did to you!” He said to Ling, in his mind.

“Don’t call me a child! I’m the future Emp… That’s not the point! Greed, I don’t think he’s a child either.”

The child looking maybe-not-actually-a-child was looking at him impassively.  His eyes locked into Greeds', like if he was trying to look inside of them, searching for something, probably Ling.
Then his face softened, and he smiled kindly, making Greed easing the tension he didn’t know he built. In contrast, he could feel Ling inside of him stiffening even further.

“You can’t even recognize your older brother? I’m hurt, Greed, I really am.” He looked around, getting serious again. Greed did too, nobody was around. He and Ling made sure to find places almost always desert, to be certain to be alone while doing their thing. But then again, they weren’t alone now.

“Come, I need to talk to you, but not where we can be seen.”

He turned to go as if sure he would be followed. But then, after a couple of steps, he cast a last glance at Greed, and added, perfectly calm. “And can please put on a fucking shirt. [cit.]”

----------

Greed followed his brother (how fucked up was that he didn’t even know his name?) out of the garden and into the tunnels that would eventually lead to Father throne room. He had, in the meantime, put his shirt and coat on, and done everything in his power to ignore everything Ling was saying. He wanted to put his entire focus on the other homunculus.

The moment he stepped inside the tunnel said homunculus stopped walking and looked at him again.

“Now that we're out of possible unwelcomed eyes we can introduce to each other in a more adequate manner.” He tilted his head. “I’m Pride, Father's firstborn, your oldest brother.”
“Name’s Greed.” He said, trying to keep his nonchalant attitude, but sounding way more awkward that he’d liked.
“From what I gathered you’ve already met every other one of our siblings, with the exception of Sloth. How unfortunate that he has to finish his work up North right when we get to meet a new brother.” He added shaking his head.

“Yeah, a real pain…” At that Pride snickered like he had just told an inside joke. Which he didn’t, but he liked the feeling he got all the same.

“Listen, Greed, I talked to Wrath and I’m here to tell you what Father works for you is.”

“Why didn’t he tell me himself?”

Pride smiled again.
“Because I wanted to meet you. Now, as far as your job goes,” how he could make his face, his entire body really, shift from one of a child to one that emanated that much authority, Greed had no idea. He wanted that too, for himself, so much. “Right now we are finding ourselves on a tipping point, we cannot make any mistake. Gluttony and Envy let outsiders infiltrate their way right to Father and we can’t have that. You’ll patrol this tunnel and do a better job at it than them. At least until it’s time for us to make our move.”

“So my job is to do the same job as the useless chimeras that crawl this place?” Greed huffed.

“Your job is to a better job than those useless chimeras. You are a homunculus, Greed, of course this job is beneath you, like being the cute kid of the Fuhrer is beneath me. But we do it and we endure it because what we’ll have at the end is far more valuable than some months of boring tasks.”

Now Pride was finally talking his language, Greed felt a big grin involuntarily creeping on his face as if he wasn’t in control of it. For a second he thought it was Ling's doing, but that was impossible because the guy was very far away inside his mind at the moment, Listening in, but hiding away from Pride. Sometimes his avarice, just like the brat himself, was less like a little voice on the inside of his brain and more like a force that almost moved him in its own accord.
 “And what will we have in return for these boring tasks?”

“Look, I know how much you value honesty, so I’m not…”

“How?” Oh, that’s where Ling was!
“Not now, brat! Can’t you see I’m busy?” He said internally, pushing him more far away inside. He went without much of a fuss, probably because he didn’t want Pride to see any kind of struggle from the outside. But not before having the last word.
“Greed, how does he know how much you value it?”
Shit.
“Yeah, how do you know?”

“....”

“ You just met me. How do you know I never lie?”

“What did just happened Greed?”
Greed let his Ultimate Shield show up to his elbows.
“Answer me, brother dear!”
Something strange was happening in the shadows in the corner of his eye. Were they not alone?

Pride sighed, aggravated, as if dealing with a child on a tantrum. Greed anger was rising more and more, his body tense, ready to strike.
“Greed, I apologize, I should have known you’d make this difficult.”
From behind him, Greed felt something grabbing his legs, then slowly moving up twirling around all his body, like invisible snakes, keeping him in place. He tried to look, but all he could see were shadows. Something inside his brain, and it wasn’t Ling, was screaming that that wasn’t the first time he saw something like that. He silenced it, putting it into a far away part of his mind. He started to struggle.

“Calm down. I’ll explain everything, I just need you to listen and don’t do anything stupid in the meantime. Seriously brother, have some decorum, you’re behaving like a human.”
He spatted the last word, then he waited until Greed stopped struggling before continuing. “Father thought it was better not to tell you for your own good, but I think that after this disgraceful performance he’ll have to reconsider.”
 It was almost like he was talking to himself, but then he looked again right into Greed’s eyes as if his next words were going to be a test, and Greed’s fate was going to be decided from its result. The Prince, deep inside of him, was thinking the same.
“Did you know that you are not the first Greed, that there was a Greed before you?” He waited for a response and Greed, to hell with everything, wanted to give him the most sardonic one he could muster, before sensing the feeling of little hands crawling on his face in warning. He just nodded.
“ The thing about him, you see, was that he was defective. He was Greed the Avaricious but he couldn’t understand how to achieve what he wanted. He didn’t understand how following Father, the creator of all the Homunculi, was the only path in which he could get everything he the world that mattered. And he died, alone and without a thing to call his own.”
Greed swallowed, horrified by the concept. The little shadow hands were moving on his face as if to soothe him. He knew they were, in fact, creepy more than everything (even without Ling’s distressed input, thank you very much) but for some reason, it also kind of worked, he leaned in a little bit.
“Father wanted to try again, making a Greed that could have everything he desired, so he purified his soul, purged his memories and made you.” He smiled. “ And you know the path to get everything you crave, don’t you? You are avaricious, truly Avaricious, aren’t you?”

Greed needed a second. What Pride had said was unsettling, and it was making him feel lightheaded, or maybe it was the feeling of spiraling just before the loss of control of his body in favor of Ling? He couldn't have that. That was so not the time to have a Xingese brat taking his place. Thankfully Ling seemed to be of that same opinion because he wasn’t even trying to take advantage of his momentary weakness.

He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm down,

What Pride had said made sense, he knew there had been another Greed, and he knew that everything couldn't have turned out that well for him. For a second the thought of Father taking something like his own memories from him made him wanted to start to struggle and fight again.
But if it was true, if the old Greed truly had been that inadequate that he couldn’t get anything at all for himself, then he didn’t want to have anything to do with him. The less he was like him, the better, so those weren’t his memories, and Father didn’t take them from him.

Once he decided that, every other decision was an easy one. He shrugged the best he could with the shadows still keeping him still, and rolled his eyes at Pride, who was still watching him like a hawk, trying to guess what he was thinking.
“Don’t worry that creepy little head of yours, Big Bro. I know you’re right. I’ll do what daddy dear wants me to do. I’ll expect things in return at a certain point, though.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t want it any other way. You are Greed, after all, the Avaricious among the Homunculi, be proud of that.” The shadows against Greed started to loosen up, to then suddenly tighten up again. “One more thing. I heard a really distasteful thing from Wrath, and had the confirmation earlier, is it true that there's a human inside of you right now?”
He seemed so disgusted at the thought that Greed couldn’t let himself miss an occasion to be a smartass.
“Well, there's more than a human inside the both of us, if you think about it. Hundreds or even thousands, isn’t that kind of our thing?”

“You know what I mean.” He sighed. “Look, I’ve already been here too long. If really there's a soul that is more, let’s say, lively, than the others, deal with it. I don’t want to hear anything like this ever again, am I clear?” The shadows dissipated all at once. “I’m glad you saw reason about where your loyalties lie, but you need to remember that is us against them. Don’t let a human soul even come near your own consciousness, all right? You had your fun with it, now let it rot with all the others, am I clear?”

Greed, finally able to move, put a hand behind his own neck and started massaging it, smirking. “Crystal.”

“Perfect, I’ll leave you to your patrol, then. We’ll see each other again.” And with that, he started to walk away.
Greed kept talking to him until he was out of hearing range, and then he talked some more.
“Yeah, good talk, really nice chat, Bro. Come visit anytime.”

When he was absolutely sure he was alone, he let out a sigh and leaned against the wall. He took a moment to regain his composure. In the meantime, Ling, who had stayed far away and silent the whole time, came creeping back near the surface.

“Are you really going to do everything Father tells you?”

“Yes, of course. Pride’s right, it’s obviously the best thing for me. Staying with my siblings, doing what I have to do and then getting what I want.”

Ling didn’t seem happy about it, Greed could see why.

“But don’t you worry about that last part, little Prince. I’m not going to get rid of you.”

“What?”

Greed laughed.

“I thought I made myself clear in these past few weeks. You’re my possession, my first possession! And no one, I mean NO ONE, including the other homunculi, including Father, including you,  will take it away from me.”

Ling didn't say anything.