bakerstreet | (no subject)

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(no subject)

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

i. Scenarios
① kidnapped for ransom - everyone wants to make a quick buck. and what quicker way is there than ransoming someones life. Not that everything always goes to plan. Let's just hope that everyone comes out alive and happy.
② kidnapped for revenge - Someone was on the wrong side. Maybe it's the significant other of an Ex. Maybe it's the Ex themselves. Or perhaps it's even more complicated than that. Either way, there's nothing sweeter.
③ cracknapping - Okay, so you didn't mean to drink that much, but now you have woken up in a room with a bunch of mascots from the game and what is going on?
④ kidnapped for help - We need you help. Whether you're willingly up to offer it or not.
⑤ kidnapped for their own good - Want to get you out of a bad situation. It's for your own good. Trust us. You're safe now, you won't be hurt any more.
⑥accidental kidnapping - okay. so this wasn't... exactly what was planned. But looks like we've got an extra person now. W H O O P S ???
⑦ wildcard - Anyway you want it.

ii. relationship
① kidnapper and kidnapee - The prize and the thief, what better combination?
② kidnapee and rescuer - Don't worry, they're here to save you.
③kidnapees! - Well. Stuck together. This is a good bonding moment.
④ kidnappers anonymous - All of you need to get together and feel bad about yourselves.
⑤ wild card - That's the way you need it

Rules:
» POST with your character, canon and prefs in the subject line.
» COMMENT to other threads and pick a number. (Or let RNG pick.)
» THREAD out the scenarios!
» Have FUN.

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"Hah! You keep telling yourself that!"

For as big and obnoxious as Ed's smirk is, though, it soon melts away for a narrowed and thoughtful expression, shunting away any lingering annoyance, temper and even his body not so kindly reminding him of his hurts. This is far more interesting.

"That's what doesn't make sense. Human transmutation is forbidden, and the cost---" Ed cuts himself off, stilling. "Except, any human transmutation I've heard so far... has been someone trying to bring back someone specific, and we only had ourselves to pay with..."

It's damn tricky to rub your chin when your hands are tied up in a way to make sure you can't bring them together palm to palm easily, so Ed gives up, grunting.

"Must've used a Philosopher's Stone for it. So why?"

Focusing back on Greed, Ed frowns. Why would you make what's clearly just... a person. Well, a weird person, because Greed's focus on, well, his greed and the desires from that is far more marked than humans normally would be about it.

Greed sighs.

“Father wanted servants. And he wanted to get rid of his sins, to make himself perfect,” says Greed, his voice full of scorn. “So, he separated us out from his Philosopher’s Stone, into separate ones, and put us into bodies of our own. Some of us got artificial bodies, made with a second Stone. One of us got a form made of solidified darkness. And some of us got human bodies.”

He laughs.

“Mine’s an artificial one, custom-made by him,” he says. “And so are Lust and Gluttony and Sloth’s. Envy’s artificial too but their real body’s not even remotely human. Pride’s the one made out of darkness. Father hasn’t made a Wrath yet, though I really dunno why. Maybe he just really likes being angry?”

“Many of us are idiots,” says Greed. “Me, Lust, Envy, Pride and Father are the only ones with the ability to think ourselves out of a paper bag. I have no idea why - maybe the other sins are just too simple - but that’s how it is. You following so far?”

"Damn. You really do need a Philosoher's Stone for that, then."

Yes, of course he's following, even if most of this is useless on a personal level, and doesn't make sense on several others, since this is still piecemeal information. Stop at nothing to get their bodies back, huh. Gritting his teeth, Ed slumps forward for a moment, pulling a leg in to rest his forehead against it.

That was it, huh.

"Pfft. Yeah, I get it, I get it. Who is this asshole, anyway?"

How much more is Greed willing to spill, anyway? Not that he's sure why any of this is important, aside from that the military has made functional human-animal chimeras, the military is connected to having made Philosopher's Stones, and these... homunculi are connected to that, too.

Now that is hard to explain. ‘Cause Father is a very unique asshole.

“Well, he’s not human, obviously,” Greed says. “But he’s not quite like us other homunculi either. ‘Cause he’s the more complete version of all of us, the one with something other than just a sin in him.”

But more complete, Greed thinks, doesn’t mean better. It means he’s more powerful, yeah, but not that he’s better.

“He’s got a soul. A broken soul and not a human one but still a soul. So he can use alchemy,” Greed says. “Me and my siblings can’t but he can. And as for where that soul comes from, well... the answer to that is ‘beyond the Gate.’ He is like the Truth but while the Truth is made of light, he is made of darkness. Does that make any sense to you?”

He wouldn’t be surprised if Elric said it was all impossible.

He's not...

Okay, homunculi are one thing, a hypothetical and forbidden something that was still a theorethical possibility, but this? Ed stares. And then stares some more, face screwing up.

"That's some fucking nonsense!" Enjoy another bout of Edward Elric Yelling, Greed. "How does that make sense!? How'd that even be possible? You're having me on, aren't you?"

Though, everything had sort of made sense, for as much as must be missing, still, from the story, up until this. Still, the first reaction is to reject it, if only reflexively (while, of course, behind the anger, Ed is already turning all of this over in his head, almost against his own will).

“No,” says Greed. “I’m not having you on. You know I never lie, right?”

He tries to keep his voice calm. He doesn’t remember if he’s ever told Elric that he doesn’t ever lie but he thinks he might’ve. That or that his behaviour should really make that obvious. Like, would a liar introduce himself by saying that he’s literally Greed the Avaricious and wants everything? Would they?

Greed doesn’t think so.

People lie when they have something they want to hide, when they’re ashamed or when they think the truth can’t get them what they want. But, for Greed, those things have never been something to worry about.

He’s shameless and he’s almost always managed to get what he wants with blunt honesty (and the few times it failed, he didn’t resort to lies). And he doubts that’ll ever change.

He missed that part, but in the end, there's no more yelling either way, because this is so exceptionally strange that it'd probably be stranger if it wasn't true. Why lie about that last part, when everything else prior to that, as improbable as it'd seemed but backed up where Greed had had proof at hand, seemed to be true enough?

"Damn. What does that even mean?" It's a mutter, less to Greed and more rhetorical towards Ed himself. The light/dark thing does make sense insofar as the being there had been white. White on white, though there had been darkness still, of course. "All right. You're not. So what does this bastard want wit---"

There's baying in the distance. Ed blinks, then looks down. At himself, the multiple tears in his clothes, then tries to glance up at his forehead, but the last isn't really necessary, because he can feel the tacky stickiness of drying blood. Sure, he seems to have stopped bleeding finally, but he has been bleeding for a while, and must have dripped some at some point during Greed's escape.

A rather easy trail to follow, if you had the nose for it.

"Maybe you shouldn't have beaten me up so much, you asshole."

“Oh shit,” Greed says. “You’re right.”

He really hadn’t expected this to happen, and he’s not entirely sure what to do now. He supposes he could just leave Elric here but he wants the information he can get from him. But if he takes him, maybe the blood - which seems to have dried by now - will just keep on leading the dogs in their direction.

“I really should’ve planned this all out better.”

But he hadn’t thought the military would find him. He had thought he was invincible, in Dublith, leading the Devil’s Nest. He had thought he was free, living a life that his ‘family’ would never intrude upon.

He was wrong, though.

And now, he’s not sure what to do.

So, he decides to continue with what he was doing before, to try to carry Elric with him again.

Admittedly, Ed's state is as much his own fault as it's Greed's, considering how much of a fight he insisted on putting up while trying to avoid telling the homunculus anything. The blood has mostly stopped by now, so if nothing else he shouldn't be dripping anywhere, but on the other hand, the dogs must have gotten a good whiff of it up until he stopped dripping blood for them to follow.

Ed snickers, not about to offer any commiseration, because Greed sure should have planned it better. Though... while Ed is sure this being spun as being about him, by now, from what Greed has said, it's quite obviously about Greed. Of course everyone's going to be real antsy to rescue him, youngest state alchemist blah blah, but it's Greed they, whoever 'they' actually are, want.

"I feel stupid like this," Ed grumbles, since he hadn't had the chance to do more than scramble to his feet before Greed plucked him up again. he could start yelling, of course. That'd be real easy, even if the dogs are probably too far to pick up on anything like that just yet, but... there must be more to this, right? And Ed's always been bad about mysteries put in his path. "I can run!"

He says, but hanging like this is making him rather dizzy and not doing him any favours when it comes to the headache that'd settled in while Greed had been running.

“Yeah, but I don’t reckon you’d be very good at it, all tied up like this,” Greed says casually, as though that state was something Ed just randomly ended up in and not something that he caused. “And I can handle running and carrying you just fine.”

In fact, Greed is running as he says this - and fast too. He’s never been as fast as Sloth - ironically enough, given the sin that homunculus is based on - but his speed exceeds that of most humans. It’s easy to be fast when you don’t have to worry much about your body, after all.

“And I’m not sure if I can risk letting you go yet. I really want that info, you know...”

"Well if someone would just untie me I could!!" The shout is brief, more an explosion of temper than any intention of possibly drawing attention. Mostly because Ed hasn't decided yet if he should cut his losses or not - what Greed has told him is a lot already, but is it enough? He can tell there's more.

So, for the moment, despite that he certainly could struggle more, to at least be more of an annoyance than he's currently being, Ed doesn't. It's also plain humiliating to know any struggling wouldn't be anything more than an annoyance, too, since with that damn shield of Greed's and no way to alchemically counter it at the moment, actually kicking the bastard won't do anything.

"Pfeh. Damn it. Well, you still got a chance, of that..."

Greed smiles.

“Well, a chance is better than nothing.”

He doesn’t untie Ed yet, though. Though Greed’s honest, he’s also smart enough to know that not everyone is and he doesn’t yet know Ed well enough to be sure whether he’s telling the truth now or not.

And he keeps on running.

Listening to the distant baying is actually rather creepy instead of potentially reassuring, but he can't quite put his finger on why. Maybe because of all the stuff Greed's told him; the military isn't safe.

Nothing he can do about that right now, though. He's actually, ugh, gonna have to go to the Colonel.

"Can tell you right now though - hey! Be more careful, bastard! - that if your blood doesn't contain any specific genetic information in the same way a human's does, I'm not sure you could tie your soul... souls? to something else. You've got a whole Stone in there, after all, who knows what the hell that'd do."

It's actually an interesting thought, but the ramifications of that are impossible to figure out on the fly... even less so while hanging over some asshole's shoulder.

Greed sighs.

“Well, then, it’s lucky that’s not actually me I want it for, then,” he says.

He wants it for his gang. He wants them to live forever, to be his forever. ‘Cause he fears losing them, fears their inevitable deaths. He’s already lost other gangs ‘cause of the mortality of chimeras and humans, and he doesn’t want to lose any more.

Ever.

‘Cause he’s attached to them, maybe too attached, in a way that Father and his siblings never are or were to anybody.

"Wait, what?"

Whatever Ed had expected it certainly isn't that. He could have sworn... But then, he hadn't exactly given Greed much chance to talk before he made his declaration and they duked it out. He could have missed something important.

Of course, that doesn't change anything about the methods employed - Ed is still pretty pissed they resorted to kidnapping his brother - but that isn't a reply he'd have expected from what he's heard and seen so far.

“I want it for my people,” Greed says. “The Devil’s Nest gang. ‘Cause they’re mortal and they’ll all die one day.”

They, however, he thinks, have no idea he wants it for them. Sure, they know he’s pretty much immortal but he doubts they’ve realized what this means for his search for immortality yet.

“And when they’re all gone, I’ll still be here.”

And sure, he could find himself new people but... he wants to keep the ones he has.

"Huh."

Again, that was definitely not what he expected to hear. Sure, Greed could be lying, even if he said earlier he doesn't lie, but for someone making noises about how much stuff they want, Ed thinks it also makes sense, that he'd want to keep some particular people.

But...

"Sure hope you'd give them the option to say no, if I even give you the rest of the information."

'Cause he sure as hell isn't here for inadvertently getting people stuck in a horrifying situation unless he can help it. He's already committed that crime once, thanks.

“To say no?” Greed says, confused. “But why would they do that?”

He has never even considered that that would be a possibility. Sure, people have refused to be infused with Philosopher’s Stones before - and died for it - but none of those people were his people, and he doubts that you have to endure the screaming of thousands of souls and accept another person into you to become an immortal suit of armour. So Greed has literally never thought about that aspecf of it, and he has no idea what he’d say if he did.

“That makes no sense.”

"Of course it makes sense!" Awkwardly whacking Greed on the back as that is the only target easily available to him, Ed snarls. "Weren't you listening, damn it?! Actually being unable to eat or sleep or cry isn't some gift! It's part of life and we're made to do it! Taking that away---!"

Al sitting up every night, alone. Not because he's chosen to do so, but because there's no other choice. Reading can only do so much when the world grinds to a halt because most other people are asleep. All of those times Al has written down something he wants to try to eat, later.

Not to talk about those creepy brothers bonded to one armour, and how they'd said him thinking of them as human enough to not want to murder them, and that being the first time they'd been treated as human...

(Yes, they'd been awful people, but they'd still been people!)

"It's not something you should just shove onto someone."

He had. He shouldn't have, but he'd had to...

“I didn’t say I’d force it onto them,” Greed says, still confused. “I just said that I didn’t think they’d refuse.”

He supposes that, now Elric has said that, he kinda sees where he’s coming from. But still... immortality? Why wouldn’t they want immortality? And isn’t being in his gang the best, something they’d do forever if they could? And don’t they like him and want to stay his?

He frowns.

“And I’m not sure what I’d do if they did. All I know is that I don’t want to lose them.”

It doesn't feel like enough reassurance for it to be safe to hand over the rest of it, but even if Greed had been overflowing with assurances, Ed probably wouldn't have taken them. This is less suspicious on the whole actually, and maybe it's as good as it'll get.

At this point, since he was tired of being carted around like this the moment it started and the dogs doesn't seem to be getting closer yet, finishing this the most reliable way he currently has might just be easiest.

"I'm just saying, you damn well better ask, and you're gonna have to prepare yourself for the chance someone says no." Grumbling, Ed grimaces, feeling dried blood crack even more and flake off. Pleasant.

“Well,” says Greed, surprised that Elric thought he even needed to specify the asking part. “I was definitely planning on asking. Didn’t wanna shock them with it, after all. I just didn’t think about the idea that they might actually say no.”

He sighs.

He’d wanted to ask as a formality, to familiarize his gang with the idea before he did anything. Not to get an actual answer ‘cause he thought he knew for sure what answer they’d give. But, now, it seems like it will be more than just politeness, more than just a way to get them accustomed to the idea. It will be what determines if he gets it at all.

“But how do you humans deal with the fact that you all die?” Greed asks. “How do you get to be okay with it?”

How?

The laugh from Ed isn't loud, or humorous. Rather, it's bitter, though it also quickly cuts off with a wheezy groan.

"Lots don't. Really, really don't, and either you pay for it... or you walk forward from it." Snorting, Ed shrugs awkwardly, teeth grit. "It's just life, that's all."

And you get punished when you try to get around that.

"Find some place to stop and I'll give you what I've got real quick, 'cause those dogs ain't gonna stop."

He doesn't want to say that, because he doesn't really trust Greed, but Greed gave his information first, and Ed's not feeling too hot like this, honestly. The river would've effectively broken any trail, but it's really broad near Dublith, and Greed can hardly easily swim while carrying Edward as well.

Greed is glad that Elric said that. Partly ‘cause it means he’s gonna get what he wants real soon, and partly ‘cause it means they won’t have to dive any deeper into his feelings. ‘Cause, damn, Greed is not good with them. Most of the time, they feel like they are all one thing - greed - but sometimes, he gets the sense that they have more facets than that and it kinda scares him. He doesn’t want to be complicated, doesn’t want to have to deal with all the emotional shit that everyone else does, but sometimes, sometimes... it seems like he might have to anyway. Might have to be more than Greed the Avaricious, more than just a fragment of Father’s personality.

And he doesn’t know if he can do that.

“Alright.”

Greed keeps on running till he feels like they’re far enough away, and then he takes Elric off his back and places him on the ground.

“Here good?” he asks.

Hey, not like he wants to talk about feelings either, regardless of if that's Greed's or his. Especially not around the question of death and how you deal with losing people. So really, that's fine. More than fine.

"It's fine." Ed grunts, and takes a moment or two to just sit there, head cocked. They are probably far enough away as it is, given how the dogs can't be heard for now. Shaking his head and awkwardly rubbing some of the dried blood off his face, he squints at the ground, sweeping a spot clear enough.

"Okay, listen up, asshole, 'cause I'm only saying this once, and then you're on your own."

He has neither the time or inclination to be a patient teacher, least of all for random assholes he's not even sure he trusts. He's really only doing this because of how much Greed told him, before.

Ed is as thorough about as he can be, though, using his clear patch of ground when needed and finally looks up.

"Got that?"

Not that he cares if Greed did or not, because as he said, he's not explaining this again.