Chapter One

The Curse of Seven Sins

Edward Elric pushed his brother, Alphonse, in the wheelchair up the ramp into the home they had just rented. Two weeks ago, Edward, a full-time college student, and his brother had moved to Central City. Central City was the capital of the large country of Amestris, and the home of Central University. Central University was perhaps one of the best science schools in the world, and it was the one place that Ed wanted to be. His grades in high school, at least most of them, had been stellar.

He had ended up graduating high school late due to the horrific injuries he acquired during a car crash when he was fifteen. It was a little embarrassing to explain why he had graduated high school at twenty, but it had taken two years for him to recover enough to return to school. Learning to use automail limbs had taken a year of that after his body was modified to accept the experimental technology. Because of the accident, or perhaps because of the damage to his body, Ed had never grown taller than five foot five in height, and his body had retained the slim, small stature. Because Al liked to braid Ed's hair when his hands were working well, Ed didn't cut his hair, and just let it grow. Right now, it was pulled up high on his head and fell in the braid that Al had done this morning.

That same car crash had paralyzed his younger brother. Unfortunately, the damage to Al did not have a known cure. His spine had been damaged severely, and he often suffered swelling and pain around his back and limbs. He was unable to move his legs at all, and he could only move his arms in small amounts. The wheelchair he used was equipped with a panel that let Al operate it with a mouthpiece when he was unable to use his arms.

Behind them, their cousin Winry carried several of their bags. Winry was well into a graduate program at the age of twenty-four, having left home almost six years ago to attend school. Winry was actually the source of Ed's authomail arm and leg that had replaced the real ones. The mangled limbs had been amputated with no hope of them healing. Winry, a student in biomedical engineering, had a design for prosthetic limbs that attached to the nerve centers of the body. While they couldn't "feel" like normal limbs, they could sense pressure and were far easier to use than other prosthetics. The world was revolutionary, to say the least, but with the technology being new and experimental, sometimes Ed suffered malfunctions. Ed was technically her primary research subject and the person she tested all of new ideas on. It could be painful, but in the end, he was able to walk and work.

The day before, she had come home to pick the two brothers up from their old house and bring them to the home they'd found. The place had super cheap rent, and was only a few blocks from the school. The deal had been too good to pass up on, despite the rumors of the place being haunted.

As Ed paused at the door to fumble with the keys, Winry looked up at the place. The house did look like something out of a hunted house movie. It was three stories, and each floor was perhaps a thousand square feet. The exterior was all peeling brown pain, but the interior was nice.

"Ed, are you sure this place is safe? It looks really old."

"The realtor said that it was just vacant for a while, that's why I got it so cheap. The rent here is half of what the rent on a place the size of one of these rooms is. I really couldn't pass it up," Ed said as he pushed the old, heavy wooden door open with a loud creaking sound. He moved back and pushed AL's chair into the foyer. He felt a chill as soon as he passed through the door.

"Shush," the black-haired woman whispered as she peered down the heavy staircase. She glanced back at the others waiting behind her. All seven of them had gathered on the second floor landing to watch as the new residents of the house moved in. "They'll hear us."

"So?" The one with the spiked black hair muttered. "We're gonna reveal ourselves to the blond soon anyway, right?" He rolled his eyes, and there was a slight sheen of blue to his skin for a second. He stood tall and thick, and had eyes that were hard as steel.

"Yes, but the other one, the one in the wheelchair, and that female can't know," she hissed as she watched down below. No one but the target of their focus could know they existed, otherwise the curse wouldn't be broken. "This is our chance…"

"He really gonna break our curse, Lust?" the rotund and bald man whispered. He had a childish voice, high pitched and grating on the nerves.

"Gluttony, hush," Lust said and pushed him backward away from the railing. She didn't need him tumbling over the edge or something ridiculous like that. "I hope. When he passed the threshold the first time, I felt that he has need of all of us, unlike the ones that have come before."

The smallest of them, a little boy with black hair and a frown that wore a blue suit, looked through the bars. "I hope so. I've been stuck here for almost three hundred years now. They come and go and nothing changes."

Lust ruffled the boy's hair. "Don't worry, Pride. Just trust me. You sensed it, too, you just don't want to say it out loud," she said as she stood back up.

"How can someone like me help that pipsqueak?" the figure with black spiked hair and a skirt wrapped about his body muttered. "I don't want anything he has, so why should I help him?"

Lust sighed again. "I guess that you will have the toughest time, Envy. You are the youngest, after all. You've only been here thirty years."

"Pfft." Envy sputtered and rolled his eyes as he glanced over at the large figure sprawled on the floor asleep. "I thought Sloth was younger than me?"

"Only by a few years," The tall man with eyepatch said with a sigh as he rolled over onto his side enough to look through the bars of the railing.

"How long for you, Wrath?" Envy muttered, watching the blonde women bring in more things.

"About as long as Greed," He said, nodding toward the spiked haired figured. "Almost two hundred."

Envy leapt on the rail and stared. "This pipsqueak better do the job. I don't wanna be here that long."

Winry shivered violently. "Ed, doesn't it feel like someone is watching you in this place?" she asked, looking about the living room.

Ed looked up and around as he pushed Al into the front room. "I like this house," Al said, finally lifting his head from a nap. "Brother, is my bedroom down here?"

"Yeah, we won't need to use the upstairs at all, Al. We've got two bedrooms down here and a living room. There's a big kitchen and dining room," Ed said as he stopped in the living room. "I thought the deal on this place was really good since it has all the furnishings too."

Winry looked around again. "I don't know, Ed. This place is kinda creepy. At the University, they say that the whole place is haunted. Like, people see things in here, and there used to be a running dare that people who could stay all night were stronger than anyone else, and you're going to live here."

"Guess I'll be the strongest, then," Ed said and smiled at her.

"I'll come by tomorrow," she told him as she started to turn away.

"Ah, after noon, okay?" Ed said. "I have my night job tonight. I'll sleep in."

"Where are you working at night this late?" Winry frowned at him.

Ed smiled. His smile was fake looking, and felt that way too. "Oh, I got a cleaning job at a restaurant nearby. But the hours are while they're closed, of course."

"Which one?" Winry asked as Ed walked with her to the front door.

"Um, you know, the one down off Main and seven," Ed muttered.

As Winry stepped outside, she turned back and grinned. "Ed, your father would be so happy for you. You've done so well, taking care of Ed, and now going to school after you managed to master the limbs I made for you. He would have loved to see how well you did for yourself."

The sound that came out of Ed's mouth wasn't quite what he expected, but he turned it into a throat clearing. "Ah, yeah," he managed. "Night, Winry."

Ed shut the door and put his forehead against it for a moment. How could she have known? She couldn't because he never said anything, but every time she brought up their father, he felt like he was dying a little inside. He didn't want to think about him, and he really didn't want to remember the things that had happened. No, he couldn't think about that. He would just have to go to work.

It was a lie, of course. He wasn't cleaning a restaurant at all.

After Ed had fixed a dinner of noodles for Al and himself, then got Al washed up for the night, he got his younger brother settled into his room.

"Brother, is everything okay with this? I know that the last caretaker said there was no way you could take care of me alone," Al said as he used his somewhat useless arms to adjust the blankets around him.

The accident that had taken Ed's arm and leg and his brother's ability to walk had taken their father as well. Since then, it had just been Ed and Al together. For a while, they lived with Winry's grandmother, Pinako Rockbell. Pinako had been their mother's aunt. They had lived with her while they recovered after the accident. Of course, Ed and Al had lost their mother even before then to a sickness. That loss had led to the accident, though not in the way most people thought.

Sometimes, all Ed could see was their father's face contorted in a mask of fury as he steered the car straight over the edge of the cliff. He'd been drunk and enraged, and Ed was very glad that Al couldn't' remember anything about that day. The questions Ed had to answer when he had awakened in the hospital about the condition he'd been in before the accident had been bad enough. He couldn't ever let Al remember that night, not ever. What Al had seen, what Al had said to their father, that had been what had sent the man over the edge and made him finally try and kill them all.

Ed shook away the thoughts and turned a smiling face on Al. "You have the phone, and at my work promised that I could leave if you needed me for some reasons while I'm on shift. So it will be fine, Al, I promise. And this way, we don't have to pay some stranger to sit with you. After that last one robbed us, I just don't think I can trust anyone again." That wasn't entirely the truth. The last one had found out what job Ed did every night when he left and tried to blackmail him into paying him more. He found out that Ed's artificial limbs were stronger than normal ones.

"Good night, Al," Ed said with a soft grin as he patted his little brother's blonde hair. He was already falling asleep, and Ed felt tears in his eyes again. He would do anything to fix his brother again. Anything. If that meant working this kind of job, it would be what he had to do.

It was nearly ten when he stood in the bathroom putting on the makeup and changing into the kimono with the lacy undergarments he had purchased recently with his garter belt and his stockings. He sighed as he painted on the lipstick and pinned his hair up on the top of his head. He would wear a mask, of course, but the lower half of his face and his eyes could be seen around the mask. The more makeup he wore, the less likely he was to be recognized outside of his workplace. He supposed it was a good thing they didn't have neighbors that would see him leaving like this most nights. He pulled on the red overcoat that he wore and pulled the hood over his head. He stepped out, locking the door behind him.

The real reason for this place had been because it was in walking distance of his night job. He walked with his head down until he got to a place that was lit up brightly. Immediately, someone slapped his ass as he walked through the area around the entrance. He didn't let it bother him, of course, why should he?

"You're almost late, Ed," came the Matron's voice from behind the counter as he removed his coat and hung it on the wall. He turned and faced the severe looking dark-haired woman. Lan Fan was her name, but no one used it if they were inside. Inside this the Lotus Blossom, she was Matron. He glanced behind her to see the owner, Ling Yao, playing on his own phone and ignoring everyone.

Ling Yao was the youngest member of the Xingese noble Yao family. The brothel called the Lotus Blossom was his responsibility. Luckily for the uninterested Ling, Lan was there to keep him in line and keep the business running. Like Lan, no one used Ling's name inside the place. Here, he was Owner.

"I know, I'm sorry. I was getting my brother settled. Our first night in the new place," he said as he held his phone out to her. "You promised that if my brother's name comes up you'll send for me?"

"I promised. I know you have special circumstances, but you still better bring in a decent profit this week. You don't have to worry about some weird caretaker now at your place since you live in the haunted mansion now," Ling said without looking up from his phone.

Lan took it. "Go on, I think there's Kagema customers already out there."

The Lotus Blossom had two different sections. When someone entered, there was a wide corridor down the middle of with luxuriant sofas lining the walls on either side. The left-hand side was the Kagema workers, or the male workers who dressed in kimonos and makeup exclusively for male clients. The right had the regular workers, both male and female. There was a variety of appearances there, and included the male workers that specialized in topping or with women. These had no theme to their dress like the Kagema workers did.

Ed was one of six regular Kagema. He, with his bright gold hair and slight figure, was extremely popular. Yao was a good Owner though, and no one had to fear any of the clientele. There was a no tolerance policy for violent johns, and anyone that did break the rules got black-listed. Ed really had nothing to fear from anyone in this place. Unlike a few of the other places he had worked before Ling had found him, this place was legal and well run. The pay was good, so he couldn't complain. An hour working here got him more than a week at a regular job, and considering that he was pre-paying for an extremely expensive surgery that could possibly repair Al's spine and allow him to walk again, he couldn't stop working this type of job. The money was just too good. Considering that he had to put money back for the surgery and support them, there was no way that he could work a regular job.

He pulled out the mask and slipped it on, securing it with the straps. The Kagema were all masked, but Ed had to take extra precautions. He wore opaque stockings with a garter belt holding them up to disguise his leg, and long, white opaque gloves that extended up to his biceps. He kept the kimono on over it so that his arm and the connection to the shoulder was hidden. He had yet to have a client take enough time to both trying to undress him fully. He adjusted himself and sat back on the sofa to wait.

It didn't take a long time, a man with dark hair walked by with another dark-haired man and a man with blond hair. They were chatting, but the first man stopped and locked eyes with him. Ed's most striking feature as a Kagema was his golden colored eyes, he couldn't help the smirk that found his way to his lips. That feature alone had netted him many clients.

"Ah, this boy, a Kagema," he said as he stared at him. Ed was pleased because this one was nice looking, and might actually be a fun client for a change. Most of the greasy, smelly men he dealt with didn't really know what to do with him. This guy had neat black hair, piercing eyes, and wore white gloves.

"Oh, Roy, really? A Kagema tonight?" the blond beside him said with a smirk.

Ed stood up, bowing at them. "If it is your wish, follow me, sir," Ed said and turned, the pale red kimono sweeping the ground as he turned. He glanced behind him once to see the man was following him a couple steps behind. His two companions had gone to the other side and were talking to a couple of the girls.

As the door closed behind the client, Ed bowed again. "I am ready for whatever you desire. Please instruct me in your will."

"Undress for me?" Roy said. He had leaned back against the wall and was watching Ed with a strong intensity.

"That I cannot do," Ed said and stood up straight. "Kagema are a mystery, so we do not remove our clothing."

"Then the mask?" He asked as he came close to Ed.

Ed turned his face away and stepped back. "My mask remains. Please, you may want another partner for the night," Ed started to turn but Roy grabbed his arm.

"No, I can work with it. Will you… Will you ride me, then?" Roy said with a devious looking smirk on his face.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Roy rarely indulged in something like going to one of the legal Brothels that existed in Central City. The Lotus Blossom was perhaps one of the most upscale ones in the area, so when he had been asked to go to it by Havoc and Breda, he'd gone along. He hadn't expected to become enraptured by the blond Kagema with the gold eyes. That was so very rare.

After they had gone several rounds, Roy thought that the boy he'd purchased was exhausted so he'd let him sleep. Curiosity, though, was killing him. He thought he'd wake the boy if he tried to lift the mask, but he did want to see something. While Roy had been fucking the boy in several ways, he'd felt something was just off about his arm and his leg. Both were covered, so he had no idea for sure. As he slept, he pushed the sleeve of the kimono up and saw that he had some sort of integrated metal arm attached at the shoulder of his right. He checked down his left leg and found that his leg had also been replaced by a metallic limb just above the knee. He replaced the clothes and waited. He had told him he'd wake him after an hour had passed. Roy himself drowsed a bit, but after a bit, he shook him awake.

"Wha?" he muttered. "You okay, Al?"

"Hey, you needed to be awake in an hour, um, right?" Roy stammered.

"Oh," the boy said and sat up. "Yeah, thank you. Please, come again."

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

The sun was rising as Ed put his coat back on. As usual, he cleaned his face before he left, so that if someone saw him in the morning they wouldn't equate him to working at the Lotus. He wasn't sure why it was so important that he hide where he worked. It wasn't like it was illegal or anything.

As he stepped into the house, though, he sensed something was off. He blinked and heard a noise upstairs. That was strange, he thought. No one should be there at all. He slowly walked up the stairs to the second level. He'd been up there before, but only once when the realtor lady was showing them around.

Ed came out into the entry from the landing and didn't see anyone at first. There were shadows moving here and there, but he couldn't catch sight of anything. Was there someone else in the house? He knew it had been empty before, but he couldn't be sure that there was no one here now. He turned to leave and found himself beginning to get frightened by the house for the first time.

"My, my, a little whore like me," came a female voice from behind him.

Turning around, Ed found himself facing a statuesque women with black hair and a strange mark on her chest above her breasts. She was in a black strapless dress and she smiled. "Well, at least I used to be one at a local brothel. But that was years and years ago. Because of the curse, I'm stuck in this house now, waiting for you."

"Wait, who are you? What curse?" Ed said, glancing behind her to see that he was blocked into the room without a way out.

"Hey, you really gotta help us out, man," another voice, this time he turned around to see a hulking man with a cover over his eye and watched as he yawned. "Different for each of us. I'm Sloth. That's Lust."

"I'm Gluttony!" came a higher pitched voice and Ed jumped as a large, round man stepped out of the shadows. "I like food."

"What's happening?" Ed asked as he turned around again, this time, a man with dark hair in an old army uniform was standing in front of him.

"My boy, you are the one that can break the curse on the seven of us. We used to be human. Well, now we're somewhere between human and ghosts, I guess." The man smiled and Ed saw that he had an eyepatch too.

"I don't… how can I help you?" Ed asked. "And were you here all the time? When I was here before? How did you even get in here?"

"We've been her all along, waiting," a child's voice this time. Ed turned and saw a little boy with black hair staring at him.

Ed nearly screamed when someone grabbed him from behind and he spun around faced another figure, this one a smirking face with a head of black spiked hair. "What…." He muttered.

"The little one there is Pride, I'm Envy, and the uniform wearing fellow is Wrath. The last of us is over there in the corner, Greed," the one clinging to his back said. "So, tell me pipsqueak, how are you going to help all of us?"

"I don't know…" Ed said as he looked between the seven people that were somehow in his house and apparently always had been.

Lust stepped forward and put a gentle hand on Ed's shoulder. "There was a demon, named Father. He found each of us and cursed us while we were humans. Each of us was given a specific task, though even we don't know what that task is. We have to try and figure out how to break the curse. All we know is that when we have someone we've chosen to help, that by helping we break the curse on ourselves, that no one else can know we exist or the curse doesn't break at the end. So we help you, and by doing so, you help us."

"I don't understand," Ed said. "How come no one knows you're here already?"

Lust smiled and then disappeared in a puff of shadow. She appeared a second later. "Remember, we're not really alive anymore. We're attached to this house, and we're attached to you now. The house chose you."

"Chose me?" Ed asked.

"You see, the thing with this curse is that there is no way for us to break our curse alone," Wrath said as he watched Ed carefully. "There have been many people that come and go; those the house has chosen before you. They weren't willing or able to help us. So, this time, we decided to reveal ourselves all at ocne to you."

"What do you have to do?" Ed inquired, feeling a strange kinship to these strange people. Or were they ghosts?

Lust sighed. "Well, each of us used to be human. Because of who we were, what we did, we became cursed. We know what caused us to be chosen, of course, but the solution to our release is something we have to figure out ourselves. The Father demon didn't tell us exactly what to do about it."

"I think we have to do the opposite of what got us cursed in the first place," Greed said as he walked toward Ed. "Each of us became what our greatest sin was. Now, we have to undo our sin."

Ed nodded, thinking he understood. "I think I get it, but I have no idea where I fit in?"

"You are who we have to help." Lust smiled and patted his head. "You work a brothel at night to help your brother, and you hide something deep inside that you want no one to know."

Ed nodded slowly. "I have secrets I can never tell, even to , I have to think about this, and I have class in about three hours, so I need to sleep a little. I'll… I'll come up tonight after Al goes to bed and we can talk before I go to the Lotus Blossom."

Ed jogged back down the stairs and stopped at the bottom. He looked up, half expecting no one to be there. Instead, Lust stood at the top and waved at him before she disappeared in a puff. So it wasn't a dream.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

"Late on the first day?" the professor snapped as Ed tried to sneak into the room without being noticed. He winced as he slid into his seat and looked up. Oh, that was awkward, he thought, as he recognized the man he'd had as a client the night before sitting in the desk at the front of the class.

"Sorry, sir, I have a disabled brother, he needed help this morning," he lied, because he had actually just overslept some.

"Name?"

"Edward Elric, sir."

"Well, since you're late, you get to start the round of introductions we were about to start," the professor said with a smirk.

"Ah, yes, sir," Ed sighed. He hated this sort of thing. "Um, what should I say?"

"I asked for what your major is, one fact about you, and why you took this class," he informed Ed.

Ed licked his lips, running a hand over his loose bangs. Al hadn't been in a good place with his hands this morning and hadn't been able to braid his hair. He'd done it himself, and it was never as good as when Al did it.

"Ah, I'm a chemistry major, I have a brother who requires a lot of my attention, and I took this as my history class because I want to know more about military history."

"Since you werne't here for my introduction, Mr. Elric, I'm Professor Roy Mustang, and this is my first year teaching here. I graduated from this very school last year."

Mustang. Ed found himself smiling at the name. He couldn't help but watch the man as others did their introductions. No one else really caught his attention, but he thought Roy was fascinating. He had just graduated last year, so that meant he wasn't really that much older than Ed. That put him at perhaps twenty-five or so. If that. Not everyone took so long as Ed had to get into school, but he had obviously done military service.

At the end of class, Ed stopped at Roy's desk. "Um, sir, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Roy looked up at him and frowned. "What is it?"

"Sir, I wasn't lying about my brother. I just wanted to let you know that he really is disabled. He's paralyzed from the waist down and sometimes loses use of his arms, so if he has a really bad morning, I might be late. If I could have your cell number, I could text you when something happens," Ed was hoping that he would be reasonable. He couldn't imagine the gentle lover he'd had the night before would be unreasonable.

Roy glared at him. "You want special treatment already?"

"No, not that, I just want to be able to tell you when something happens. I'll take responsibility for it, but I would rather tell you than not," Ed stammered. He didn't want Roy to think he was trying to get favoritism.

Despite his words, Roy handed over a card with his cell number. Ed took it and put it in his pocked. "Um, thank you, sir, I will only use it when something comes up." He turned to leave and Roy called after him.

"Don't expect that anyone around here is going to give you special treatment because you take care of an invalid. You are still expected to do your work like everyone else."

Roy watched him leave and knew for sure. That had been the boy he'd visited at the brothel. When he'd reached out for the card, Roy had caught sight of the metal above the gloves he wore. No one else could have those eyes, that golden hair, and metal prosthetic limbs. He swallowed a ball in his throat as he watched the door. Now, he had to somehow teach someone he'd slept with. He was, however, impressed by the fact the boy didn't seem to have a problem having a client as a teacher. He guessed that with a job like that, he had to be able to handle being around his clients in the real world.