So this is my giftfic for Pen-Name-Kitsune-Chan, for being my 100th reviewer on...something. I can't remember which. It was either BATB or SNEA. Anyway, this is her fault. It was supposed to be a short oneshot, I swear, but it just kinda...grew. It's a cool idea, you can't blame me...unless you're one of the people who still wants me to continue Remembering Edward. Hehe. Sorry. Anyway, the next few parts will go up as I complete them.

It got a lot stranger than expected, but then again the premise could go either way. And Envy is...a hard character to make do what you want.

I took a few liberties with the original scene in front of Trisha's grave. 2003 canon.

Warning for slightly disturbing material.

Lambs to the Slaughter

Part 1

Almost the entire town had turned out to attend Trisha Elric's funeral in a rare show of sympathy for the single mother. Even if the old, steadfast codgers and dames called her a 'shameless hussy', everybody knew the truth; that she'd been anything but.

And now she was gone.

Slowly, though, people began to trickle away. Usually funerals were filled with conversations about the life of the deceased, but this one was uncharacteristically quiet. Nobody wanted to breach the subject, not with the two little boys standing like toy soldiers in front of the gravestone, faces still stricken and disbelieving. It would be the epitome of disrespect.

So they walked slowly away down the hillside in twos and threes. A few people, mostly the young wives of Rizenbul, stopped to kneel by the little boys and whisper, "I'm so sorry for your loss," but they got no response.

The Rockbells were the last to leave. Winry reached out and grasped Ed's hand. "Ed, it's time to go. We gotta make dinner."

Ed didn't move, and Al crouched down, burying his head further into his arms.

"Ed? Al?"

Winry tugged at his arm, but he snatched it back, snarling at her in a sudden show of rage. "Leave me alone!"

She blinked, and then reluctantly nodded, her uncut bangs falling in front of her face. "I'm...I'm sorry...I...We'll have dinner ready for you when you get back, okay?"

He'd turned back to the gravestone, having given no sign that he'd heard, but Winry walked away anyway, grabbing Grandma Pinako's hand and using the sleeve of her black dress to wipe her eyes.

Only when the two of them were alone did Al finally begin to sob, his frame shaking with the effort to keep himself quiet. Ed dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around his little brother, rubbing his face against the four-year-old's shoulder to disguise his own tears. It was his job to be strong now. My little man.

"Wh-what are we gonna do now, Brother?" asked Al through his tears.

Ed turned his face towards the granite slab again, reading the name over and over again. Trisha Elric. Trisha Elric. Trisha Elric.

"We're gonna bring her back."

If Ed had turned - looked up into the branches of the tree and seen the stranger curled up like a cat in the crook of two limbs - he might have not said anything. He might have kept his mouth shut.

But he didn't.

Asking Envy what his motivations were, no matter who you were, was a futile game. He was a liar by nature, and to ask him the same question twice was to invite two different answers - neither of which were remotely close to the truth.

So why was he standing in front of the Elric house, wearing a shape not unlike his true form yet different enough to prevent himself from feeling sick?

He might answer with, I want to fuck with them. It'll be fun.

He might answer with, I'd like their allegiance. Make the old man regret it. And I bet Dante would have a field day with minds like theirs.

He might answer with, If they're gonna make another one of us, they might as well fucking do it right.

He adjusted the hat he'd chosen to wear and knocked on the door. After a moment, it creaked open, hinges crying out for oil. Al stood there, face tearstained but clean. "H-hello?"

"Hello," responded Envy mechanically.

"Uh-um...who-who are you?"

"I..." Envy's throat suddenly went dry. He knew what name he'd have to use for the charade. He had exactly two seconds to decide whether to walk away from this stupidity or not. He had two seconds to swallow the hatred and anger and misery that was rising like bile.

"My name is William von Hohenheim," he finally said, falling into the formal speech patterns he used when he was nervous, "and it's a pleasure to finally meet you...Alphonse."

Something curdled inside him as he said it, and only the thought of being able to take it out on them later kept him patient and calm as the little boy's bright eyes widened. He turned around and yelled. "Brother! Ed! ED!"

The older of the two skidded to the door, sliding on the hardwood in his hurry. "What is it, Al?" He looked up at Envy, eyeing him suspiciously. "Who's the codger?" he asked brusquely.

Codger-! "I'll show you codger, you little brat -" he began to say, and then coughed. "I heard about your mother. I'm terribly sorry."

Ed scowled, the hurt in his eyes obvious even behind the mask he was trying to put up. "Go 'way. Got enough people bugging us."

"No, I..." Envy took a deep breath and tried again. "Phillip and I..." He needed to get better at lying. "We were not on the best of terms. I came here to make amends, and that's when I heard about Trisha. Is he here?" Ha, that's going to sting.

Al looked at the floor, seemingly ready to start crying again. Ed put his hands on his little brother's shoulders. "Go read a book, Al, I'll talk to the old guy." After the four-year-old had gone, Ed glanced up, crossing his arms. "The bastard doesn't live here."

Envy almost took a step back. It was like looking back through the years, when Ed wore that hateful expression. He hadn't realized how similar they looked, even if they had different mothers. Ed's hair was straighter, less unruly, and his eyes were a bit farther apart, his chin the slightest bit wider - focus on the differences, dammit -

"Oh? What happened?" Act surprised.

"He left," muttered Ed bitterly. "He left, an' we wrote a ton of letters, an' he didn't come back, not even for her funeral!" His voice rose until it was almost a shout.

"Oh," was all Envy could think of to say.

"So if you're looking for the bastard, you can piss off!"

"You've got quite the tongue for a five-year-old," commented Envy, although his inner voice was already screaming at him to shut the stupid kid up. God, just looking at him made him angry, did the brat have to be so irritating on top of it?

Ed said nothing in return, his scowl deepening.

"I know it's probably not my place, but I apologize. My brother has never been strong on priorities."

Ed's scowl changed, although it didn't disappear. He was clearly processing what Envy had said, and then -

"You're - you're our uncle?"

Bingo.

All according to plan.

The boys, understandably, weren't quite sure how to act around William - which was perfectly fine, since he didn't know how to act around them either. After a few minutes of terse conversation, Ed finally said that they were going up to the Rockbells for dinner, and wouldn't he like to come?

Envy almost refused. Only the shy, hopeful look on Al's face made him reconsider, and reaffirmed his resolve to go through with the plan (and oh what a plan it was; he'd wipe that hope and innocence off of Alphonse's face before it made him sick).

So he doffed his hat respectfully to Pinako and little Winry, introduced himself as glibly as he dared, sat down at the dinner table and played out their bloody, gruesome murders in his head. The little girl especially - she was so chirpy it made him wonder how many birds she'd had to eat to steal their voices.

"So...William, is it?" He glanced up from the stew, and into Pinako's beady eyes. "Funny, Hohenheim never talked about having a brother."

Fighting back the sudden feedback of sheknowssheknowssheknows, he shrugged. "We weren't on the best of terms. Had an argument before he left home and haven't really talked since."

"Oh? How'd you know to come here then?"

Is this a conversation or an interrogation? "Oh, he sent letters, so I knew he'd settled here. I figured now was as good a time as any to try...patch things up." Envy glanced at Ed out of the corner of his eye. The kid was staring very intently into his bowl. "Besides," Envy added with false good cheer, "I wanted to meet my nephews before they were too old for doddery uncles."

"I see. You're the younger brother, then?" At Envy's nod, Pinako chuckled. "That makes you Al, then."

Envy blinked, and then winced inwardly when he realized that that made Hohenheim Ed. He could see Ed stiffen next to him, and quickly interjected, "Well, every family's different. We weren't ever really close to begin with." Ed relaxed a little - just a little.

God, he'd forgotten just how exhausting being thoughtful was.

Winry, however, soon piped up. "So are you gonna take care of Ed n' Al now?" she asked, blue eyes wide and curious.

Envy opened his mouth, trying to figure out how to answer. Thoughtful, thoughtful, thoughtful...aha! He turned to the boys, Al still slurping away and Ed ruffling Den's fur under the table. "Would you like me to?"

Their eyes snapped up to him for a moment, and Al nodded at the same time that Ed shook his head furiously. The blond then proceeded to elbow his brother in the side.

"We c'n take care of ourselves," pronounced Ed, glare like molten gold.

"No we can't, Brother -"

"Shut up, Al!"

The 'nice' act was starting to wear thin. Envy rolled his eyes. "No, you can't, pipsqueak -"

"DON'T CALL ME SHORT!"

"- and I bet if you tried, the old lady would end up doing all the work."

Ed paused in the middle of his tantrum, eyes going wide. He looked at Pinako, and then back at Envy.

Huh. I was clutching at straws there - I must have hit on something.

Slowly, Ed sank back down into silence. The chatter around the dinner table continued, Pinako leading a mostly one-sided conversation about types of automail. Envy listened politely, soaking in as much information as he could be bothered to - but out of the corner of his eye, he was gazing at the boys. Ed had his hand buried in Den's fur under the table, and was giving Al a desperate look which was only partially returned.

"You can use our guest room if you'd like. I'm sure the boys would offer you their house but there isn't any extra space to speak of."

"That's alright," Envy responded, the manners ingrained in him from years under Dante making themselves useful for once. "Thank you very much."

"It's no problem. I'm just happy to hear that they've got some family after all." She turned and looked up at him with shrewd eyes. "Hopefully you're more dependable than their father."

Envy chose to pretend he hadn't heard that. It was a better option than tearing the old woman's head off and throwing her corpse into the river. Marginally better, anyway.

Although he did have an idea..."Say, do you have any pictures of Trisha? I never got to meet her, and I'm...curious."

Pinako smiled at that. "I've got thousands." She disappeared into the kitchen, and returned a moment later, a photograph in her hands. "This is her."

Envy swallowed the lump that had definitely not appeared in his throat as he stared down at Trisha Elric. She was smiling at the camera, loose ponytail slung over her shoulder and a few stray strands of hair falling over her face and into her soft eyes, and somehow the photographer had captured her in the first few seconds of a dawning blush that coloured her cheeks the faintest shade of red.

"What...what was she like?"

She took another puff of her pipe. She'd offered one to him earlier but he'd declined. "Sweet, gentle, couldn't harm a fly. Those boys loved her to pieces."

It was strange. He'd seen her once before, from a distance, but it was only now seeing her face that he could truly appreciate that this...this was who Hohenheim had chosen over his own son, his own wife. This...stripling of a girl was who he'd given up his name for, his titles, his land, his immortality - except he hadn't on that last one, had he? He'd gone off to places unknown to find another body that looked just enough like his to pull the wool over everybody's eyes.

And he'd return to find his precious whore dead and his bastard kids somebody else's property -

"Are you alright, boy?"

His head snapped up, and as he returned to awareness, he realized that he'd been grinning a little too widely. It faded quickly as he searched for an answer, the proper response to what she'd asked. "I'm fine...just tired. It's a pity she's gone, she seems like she was a wonderful mother." The words sounded hollow, insincere, and he thought the bloodlust hidden behind them might burst out at any moment. "And I'm closer to your age than you think...girly." Slightly flirtatious, teasing...normal?

She chuckled. "You don't look a day over thirty, but I drank with Hohenheim for over thirty years and I never saw him age a day. Must be good genes."

Yeah. Good genes. That's it. Thank God for dumb old bitches.

The spare room was small and sparse, with a bed, closet and bedside table, but it served well enough for his purposes. He hadn't had a proper night's sleep in something like ten years and he didn't feel like breaking the trend in a place as gingerbread as this one.

So instead, he closed the door and stared into the mirror on the back of it, dissecting every detail of the face he'd chosen.

Golden hair, golden eyes. Those had been vital. The idea that he had to pass off being related to Hohenheim and not have that thrice-damned Xerxian colouring was laughable at the least, impossible at the most. But the shape of his face was subtly different - more angular, more like his preferred form. There was a dusting of yellow stubble around his cheekbones, and light crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes, which were too wide, too far apart for either of his shapes.

He looked so, so old, but he had to - because William von Hohenheim had been eighteen years old when he'd died.

Envy growled involuntarily, drawing his fist back and driving it towards the mirror - but he stopped himself inches from the glass.

Self-restraint.

He'd never, ever policed himself before, and it almost physically hurt to do so. But when he thought about what the pay-off would be, it made it a bit easier. It was worth a little discomfort now, surely, to revel in the pain and heartbreak of the entire Elric family?

Unbidden, the image of Edward - feisty, bratty, blond - rose in Envy's mind again, morphing into a self-portrait far too easily. The hatred curdled in his stomach like rotten milk. He called up the picture of Trisha in its stead, and began to change the face in the mirror into hers.

The Elric boys were going to regret they'd even been born.

The next morning, as he smiled and not-so-insincerely complimented Winry on the breakfast she'd made (he hadn't eaten in so long that he didn't have a frame of reference, but it tasted alright) he glanced out of the window. The boys were dragging themselves up the hill, Ed scratching Den behind the ear with a morose look. Neither of them looked like they'd gotten much sleep.

Well, he'd made sure of that.

When they told him in quiet, sad voices that they'd thought about it and that they should probably go with him after all, he managed to turn his crazed grin of victory into a comforting smile, drawing them close in a hug that was only inches away from becoming a bone-crushing grip.

They were his now.