bedtime stories [fma fic]
Title: Bedtime Stories
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/Manga
Characters/Pairings: Edward, Winry, Alphonse, Ed's Kids, Izumi, Sig
Genre: Family, Gen
Word Count: 3,000+
Summary: The children have difficulty going to sleep. Edward decides to remedy this by telling them stories.
Bedtime Stories
It was soft, dark evening in Resembool, and the stars twinkled mischievously in the sky down through the window. The lamp above his head glowed in a sort of ambient light, and it played with his golden hair, the shadows and light making the man seem almost as though he were a piece of a dream there on that chair.
He was intently focused on the book in his lap, his left hand occasionally jotting down notes or scribbling down some array or another, but for the most part, it was silent in the house. Therefore, he’d been reasonably startled to have his arm tugged at by small hands, and peered out from behind the lenses with a bit of a gaping mouth for a moment until everything became clear to him and a smile pulled at his tired lips. “Hello, Trisha,” The blonde man softly brushed his bangs from his face and brought the girl into his lap, her sandy blonde hair reminiscent to him in ways she would never know. “Can’t sleep?”
“Urey and I wanted a story,” She yawned, but persisted, pulling on her father’s low ponytail to accentuate this desire, and he only chuckled a bit, running his fingers through her hair and gently removing her hands from his now loose golden strands.
“This late at night?” He brought his daughter close to him, listened to her heartbeat, smiling softly. “Your mom’s going to be pretty damn mad at me if you two don’t get up in time tomorrow.”
She shook her little head softly, the hair usually in pigtails falling soft around her face at this time of night. Her precious, snaggle-toothed smile delighted him, and she whispered, “We won’t tell, Daddy.”
The man tickled a few giggles out of his daughter before blowing a raspberry on her stomach, and once she’d settled down, he hiked her onto his shoulders and they came into the room that housed both of his children, meeting one pair of golden eyes, as sharp and piercing as his own, and once he’d put his daughter down, a pair of hazel irises that glinted golden in certain types of sunlight.
“Daddy!” His son jumped up at his arrival, clinging to his metal ankle with a certain fascination, pressing his cheek to the material with no apologies through the fabric, already becoming adjusted to such things, especially in the house of the most famous automail mechanic in Resembool, and possibly even in Amestris. “Story time, story time!”
“I know, I know,” With a roll of his golden eyes, he pulled the hair tie from his daughter’s grip and managed to tie his hair up into a lazy ponytail on the top of his head once more. His calloused hands lifted his children and placed them gently upon their bedcovers, and his rough voice and threatening words made them shuffle to get under the covers in a hurry.
They whispered and giggled and started to guess which story their father would tell. “He’s gonna tell us the one about how the Fullmetal Alchemist traveled to the Youswell Coal Mines! That’s my favorite!” Urey said stubbornly to his sister, proud of his deduction.
“Nuh uh, he’s gonna tell us about the time the Fuhrer and the Fullmetal Alchemist got into a fight!” Trisha said it with such conviction as well, and with a deep laugh, the man wondered if both of his children had gotten his and his wife’s stubbornness along with their pride.
“Nope, you’re both wrong,” He said with a faraway expression in his eyes they couldn’t read behind those glasses, perched so low on his nose, because they had not lived as long as he had, or in such dire straits. “I have a different story to tell you today. But you can’t tell your mom I let you stay up this way, or we’ll all have hell to pay tomorrow.” They giggled at his foul language, but it was nothing they weren’t used to. He opened his mouth to begin telling the story, and it played out in his mind’s eye like it had been yesterday, the hand gestures used with his voice bringing the pictures to life for them.
. . .
He let out a long sigh, and tried not to feel too upset. “I hate trains.”
The armor across from him almost looked like it was chiding him, but no one save for the one he was giving a harrowing look to in his mind could tell such a thing. “Well, don’t complain about it the whole way. That won’t make it any better.”
“He’s right, you know,” The young woman next to him said, and he only stuck his lip out further, feeling bullied.
The teenager in the long, draping red coat was feeling more and more agitated by the second. Firstly, he shouldn’t have even been out here, in the middle of the Southern Country, and secondly, he definitely shouldn’t have been here on the way to Dublith. At first, Winry had said she wanted to go to Rush Valley, but then, somehow, they’d ended up on this train, as she’d said she suddenly had a desire to meet the rumored ‘teacher’ her best friends had been on about for years and years.
“She’s going to kill us, you know,” Alphonse would’ve been sweating and whimpering for his life if he’d been in his actual body, and his brother was doing plenty of that for the both of them. “I mean, she’s already almost killed us a few times, but we’re not supposed to be her pupils anymore, so I guess we shouldn’t come back to visit-or maybe we should, or-geez, I never know with Teacher!”
Winry blinked her blue eyes at both the Elrics, trying to read their expressions. She stared for an especially long time at Ed, who seemed to be trying to sink into the seat, expecting it to swallow him whole, or at least wanting it to. “She can’t be that bad.”
Edward and Alphonse shared a look before nodding at her with fear clearly written in their normally brave eyes, and said in unison, “She can.” Winry was beginning to wonder what sort of fearsome woman this Izumi Curtis was, if she’d managed to put the boys in this type of terror. Was she the size of a bear? As strong as three oxen, and broad as one? She’d noticed that both of the boys had been quite toned and sharply attuned with others movements since long ago, in their first series of lessons with the woman, and it must have taken something special to have kept them from the troubles they’d faced every day, like Scar, the Homunculi, and Ling’s guards.
There was a silence in the booth as she thought about it and the Elrics brooded. Then, all of the sudden, a familiar voice grumbled again. “I hate trains. I hate the South. Can’t we just go back to Central? Even the East is acceptable. Hell, I’d even be willing to be in Briggs.”
Winry was aghast as his exaggeration, but when Alphonse said nothing, no reprimand, or scold, she was genuinely both curious and concerned to meet the woman all over again.
After all, it wasn’t every day Edward said he’d rather be in one of the places he hated almost as much as the desert.
The train ride was another couple of hours, and Alphonse, although he couldn’t sleep, had drifted into a daydream of sorts, leaving his eternally drowsy sibling dozing against the young woman. As they neared Dublith, around thirty or so minutes outside the city, he rustled as the train hit a bump, but wasn’t bothered by it, and kept snoring away, burying his face even further in Winry’s shoulder unconsciously.
Winry studied them silently, occasionally glancing down at the automail procedures book in her lap, but mostly watching the sun and shadows dance on Edward’s face with a small smile.
“You really care about him, don’t you?” The clink of armor moving as the helmet turned to face her, and her face suddenly felt hot from more than the sun. She couldn’t refute his words, knowing that they held no falsehood, and yet, as he was snoring away on her shoulder, the blush faded and turned into a weary smile.
She used the hand that he wasn’t currently putting out of use by putting his head on her shoulder and softly brushed a few of those precious strands from his face. Neither of them said anything, and she didn’t answer him, not really, just like his brother never had, but it was written all over her face.
“Good,” Alphonse murmured amongst the steel of his current body, and she liked to imagine him smiling. When the train jarred this time, Edward’s golden eyes startled open like he’d been caught in a nightmare, frightening his fellow cabin members more than anything else. “Awake, brother? We’re just about there.”
“Damn it,” He swore under his breath, earning a click of the tongue from his sibling and a firm punch in the head from the girl they’d both known all their lives. “Holy shit! You ever think that maybe I might need that again some day, Winry?!”
“Obviously not, because you’re already not using it, you stupid little jerk!”
“I’m taller than you, you stupid gear-head, automail-loving geek!” He puffed up at that, glaring her down unabashedly, despite all the attention they’d gathered, yelling so loudly despite the assistants announcing that the train was pulling into station. Everyone nearby was so busy watching them fight that they hadn’t even gotten off when they’d pulled to a stop, watching the fires burn in those passionate golden and blue orbs.
“Yeah, well at least I didn’t spend the last three years of my life trying to convince the whole country of Amestris that I’m the most egotistical, arrogant bean sprout of an alchemist!”
Even as Alphonse wearily began to unload their belongings and pressed them into the fighting teenagers’ hands, urging them to break up the fight, people kept watching, and the hollow armor had to push them along the path, suitcases in hand, the yelling getting progressively louder and louder, and the insults more riddled with cursing and name-calling until a shoe came out of a house that would’ve been familiar to the youth with golden eyes, had he been paying an ounce of attention to where they’d been headed.
“WHO’S OUT THERE MAKING SUCH A RACKET?!” It was the middle of the day, but in such a small town, such things were unheard of. Winry immediately bowed and began apologizing for his behavior, but then looked up, trying to get a good look at her. Looking around, she’d suddenly been behind the young woman, and had picked the shoe up, only to whack the blonde around a few more times before kicking him square in the chest and leaving him to wheeze about on the lawn.
“Hello, Teacher,” Al said quietly, even for him, obviously wishing his brother a merry afterlife as he twitched on the lawn. “I’m sorry we came back unan-NOOOOUUNCEEEED!” The end carried loudly as he joined his brother in a heap of metal limbs, both of them practically unconscious.
Winry stared, both terrified and fascinated. The woman stood up straight, dusted off her hands, and then gave the girl a proper look. Her dark hair in those thick braids framed her face, and the scowl that had adorned her face turned into a personable businesswoman’s smile.
“Ah, you’re that friend of the idiots over there!” She clapped the girl on the shoulder and led her into the house. “Come in, come in! I’m in the middle of cooking dinner. Wanna help?”
The young woman with hair the color of cornfields spared a glance for her childhood friends, and even pointed them out. “Will they be alright?”
She shrugged and opened the door, sliding her sandal back onto her foot.
By the time dinner had been prepared, Edward and Alphonse had slunk into the house, apparently having run into her husband, Sig, on the way in, who really did have the appearance of a mountain bear. But he was kind and didn’t say much.
“So,” Izumi finally pointed a fork at the elder of her pupils with a scowl as she chewed her steak. “What’re you here for this time? I thought you two were busy getting ready for whatever this storm on the horizon everybody’s talking about.”
“We were,” Ed grumbled around his mouthful of food, glancing at his mechanic for a moment before continuing. “But someone insisted that we go on a detour. I’m headed back to Central tomorrow.”
The woman clapped the blonde, much younger woman on the back with a wide smile. “Good for her!”
Edward and his teacher started into some huge debate that had started off harmlessly enough but escalated into insults involving alchemical terms, and by this point everyone around was used to it, so dinner carried on as usual, as though nothing were happening.
Finally, it seemed that Izumi had resolved something within herself, stood up straight, and stared back at her golden-eyed pupil. “We’re going to fight, Edward,” She stated simply, and he blinked owlishly, as though the words had slapped him in the face. “If you can manage to land one clean hit on me, we’ll forget the whole thing ever happened.”
This wasn’t about their fight, and everyone around knew it. Sig was the first to speak. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to it, dear?” She sent him a soft smile and nodded, and then gave Edward a stern look, encouraging him to think faster by stamping her foot and he stood up, ramrod straight, nodding furiously.
When they’d arrived at the lawn, there was a strange, almost resolute thickness in the air. This was the beginning of something they’d both known would happen long ago, but were never quite willing to discuss.
“Why do they have to fight?” Winry asked Alphonse as the two of them crouched on their hind legs like panthers prepared to prowl and pounce upon their enemies, breathing in deeply, as though the air might dissipate the moment someone moved.
She liked to imagine Alphonse with a wistful smile, and knowing, honey-brown eyes. “It’s the way they communicate. They’re more alike than they’d like to admit aloud.”
“You’re not allowed to get soft or hold back on me, Edward, or I’ll kick your ass back to Central myself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” He said the words with what he hoped sounded like his usual amount of confident brashness, but deep inside, he knew it was staged.
All of the sudden, she’d leapt clearly into the air, like an eagle prepared to dive and destroy the snake it had claimed for lunch. Her feet came back poised in a dangerous kick, but the monkey-like Edward had lurched out of the way, clapped his hands, and transmuted his automail into a more comfortable weapon of choice. His teacher clapped and pressed into the ground, but while she’d done so, her apprentice had opted to roll next to her and catch her off guard, but found himself hitting a surface far more unyielding than the woman’s grass.
As she noticed him wincing, Izumi smirked. “Hmph. Quick little brat, aren’t you? You would’ve gotten me if I hadn’t planned that ahead of time.”
He wiped his mouth slowly, and a genuine smile graced his lips. “Ha! As if you didn’t think of that at the last second, just like me.”
They shared a look, and Edward moved first this time, trying to circle her before attacking. A flurry of kicks and punches, dodges, alchemical reactions with the soil around them, and, quickly enough, smiles and laughter, were exchanged. They were covered in blood, sweat, and dirt, but they didn’t care, and when Edward had finally landed a crippling blow to her knees, only to help her up and be sent toppling to the ground, they were both nearly crying with mirth in their eyes.
In the evening’s cool, Winry had gone back inside upon Izumi and Sig’s insistence to go to rest, and Alphonse had joined her, if only to further explain their teacher and Edward’s relationship.
After they’d finished breathing heavily and cleaning themselves up, Izumi spoke. “You should’ve gone for my abdomen. It was unguarded three times, and you would’ve been finished long ago.”
His golden eyes looked hurt that she would’ve even thought such a thing. “Never.”
She chuckled, rolling over to sit up and roll his hair. “You never change-always so soft.”
“Shut up.” He retorted weakly, his eyes cast up at the nighttime sky once more. They shared a respective silence for a few minutes before his ex-mentor spoke again.
“You love her.” It wasn’t a question. Edward sputtered and flushed and felt rattled all the way down to his ankles, yelling all sorts of obscenities and indignations, finally trailing off when he’d realized she was laughing, a full-bodied thing. “You’re so stupidly awkward about things like this.”
He buried his red face in his knees and muttered, “Shut up,” again. “I kind of skipped over the whole time for awkward teenager things, you know.”
She knew that well, and had tried to be there for him through it all, no matter how twisted the order. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder, and they sat close to each other, dirty and messed up in more ways than one, but right now, it was perfect.
They didn’t talk about Winry, or Alphonse, or the Military, or anything, really. But those golden eyes pierced hers, questioning, cocky, certain, prodigal. And she stared back, and all he could do was lean in, thankful for the woman he’d considered his surrogate mother since long, long ago.
“Yeah,” She whispered, simply laying her hand gently on top of his, reassuring him. “I know.”
.
The train arrived early, and Edward grumbled the whole morning about the experience, but didn’t forget to wish the Curtis’ safe journeys, wherever life took them. As they rode hours away on the train back to Central, for Ed and Al, and Resembool for Winry, it was in much better sorts than they’d left, and somehow, Winry felt that Edward may have ventured down here by himself with or without her, because he looked much better after having seen the woman.
“You really care for her, don’t you?” Winry said happily as she watched Ed stare out the window with the hint of a smile.
He blinked and laughed a little bit, and she wasn’t entirely sure why, but she was happy to see him in such a good mood. “Yeah, I guess the hag kinda grows on you. Sorta like you.”
“Hey!” Winry and he had a play fight, leaving Alphonse to look on with a little giggle at their expense, and all the three of them could do was laugh. Things had truly begun to look up for the Elrics and their old friend.
Yes, She thought to herself, studying the curve of Ed’s strong jaw, more set and his head held higher as they went back to Central. Things are looking up.
. . .
“You know, your Granny Izumi almost destroyed his arm and leg that night,” The man had enchanted his children into shrieks, giggles, and now, sleepy gasps, but knew when they were beginning to fall into the arms of the sandman. “But it’s alright. He lives on today, safe and sound. He made it out an okay guy.”
“I don’t believe you,” Urey murmured, almost asleep. “Granny Izumi is scary.”
“Scary, scary,” Trisha murmured in repetition, and the blonde man only chuckled, brushing their hair out of their eyes before kissing them both goodnight on the foreheads.
“Well, now matter how scary she is, her and the Fullmetal Alchemist are still close, to this day, and she’s not going to be anywhere near as scary as Mommy when she founds out how late you stayed up.”
They rolled over with giggles and sleep in their eyes. “Goodnight, Daddy,” They said at last, and then drifted off into dreamland.
He pattered down the hallway, one leg heavier than the other, and found his wife, clad in her nightwear, and he smiled in apology. “Sorry about that. They couldn’t sleep.”
She only smiled and shook her head, following him to their bed and wrapping her arms around him as he lay down. “I don’t mind, really. But I have to put on an act in the morning or they won’t fear me any more.” Cornflower blonde hair and sunshine-golden locks mingled together on the pillow as she removed the tie in his hair and threw it on the nightstand. “Besides, I like your bedtime stories too, Ed.”
Edward Elric smiled as his wife, Winry Elric, wrapped her arms around his waist, her lips smiling against his back. They soon began to drift off similarly to their children, but he whispered one last thing to her, as he had every night he stayed in Resembool, those becoming more and more frequent, the older his children were.
“I love you, Winry,” The words were quiet, almost like a personal prayer, and she returned them as such.
“I love you, too, Ed,” She said sleepily, and both blue and golden eyes fell closed, and the Rockbell-Elric house fell quiet with soft breathing and the rustling of the countryside.
Family was family, and these moments were all that mattered-these bedtime stories of a man these children would soon discover was their own father, but for now, considered their personal fairytale hero.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood/Manga
Characters/Pairings: Edward, Winry, Alphonse, Ed's Kids, Izumi, Sig
Genre: Family, Gen
Word Count: 3,000+
Summary: The children have difficulty going to sleep. Edward decides to remedy this by telling them stories.
Bedtime Stories
It was soft, dark evening in Resembool, and the stars twinkled mischievously in the sky down through the window. The lamp above his head glowed in a sort of ambient light, and it played with his golden hair, the shadows and light making the man seem almost as though he were a piece of a dream there on that chair.
He was intently focused on the book in his lap, his left hand occasionally jotting down notes or scribbling down some array or another, but for the most part, it was silent in the house. Therefore, he’d been reasonably startled to have his arm tugged at by small hands, and peered out from behind the lenses with a bit of a gaping mouth for a moment until everything became clear to him and a smile pulled at his tired lips. “Hello, Trisha,” The blonde man softly brushed his bangs from his face and brought the girl into his lap, her sandy blonde hair reminiscent to him in ways she would never know. “Can’t sleep?”
“Urey and I wanted a story,” She yawned, but persisted, pulling on her father’s low ponytail to accentuate this desire, and he only chuckled a bit, running his fingers through her hair and gently removing her hands from his now loose golden strands.
“This late at night?” He brought his daughter close to him, listened to her heartbeat, smiling softly. “Your mom’s going to be pretty damn mad at me if you two don’t get up in time tomorrow.”
She shook her little head softly, the hair usually in pigtails falling soft around her face at this time of night. Her precious, snaggle-toothed smile delighted him, and she whispered, “We won’t tell, Daddy.”
The man tickled a few giggles out of his daughter before blowing a raspberry on her stomach, and once she’d settled down, he hiked her onto his shoulders and they came into the room that housed both of his children, meeting one pair of golden eyes, as sharp and piercing as his own, and once he’d put his daughter down, a pair of hazel irises that glinted golden in certain types of sunlight.
“Daddy!” His son jumped up at his arrival, clinging to his metal ankle with a certain fascination, pressing his cheek to the material with no apologies through the fabric, already becoming adjusted to such things, especially in the house of the most famous automail mechanic in Resembool, and possibly even in Amestris. “Story time, story time!”
“I know, I know,” With a roll of his golden eyes, he pulled the hair tie from his daughter’s grip and managed to tie his hair up into a lazy ponytail on the top of his head once more. His calloused hands lifted his children and placed them gently upon their bedcovers, and his rough voice and threatening words made them shuffle to get under the covers in a hurry.
They whispered and giggled and started to guess which story their father would tell. “He’s gonna tell us the one about how the Fullmetal Alchemist traveled to the Youswell Coal Mines! That’s my favorite!” Urey said stubbornly to his sister, proud of his deduction.
“Nuh uh, he’s gonna tell us about the time the Fuhrer and the Fullmetal Alchemist got into a fight!” Trisha said it with such conviction as well, and with a deep laugh, the man wondered if both of his children had gotten his and his wife’s stubbornness along with their pride.
“Nope, you’re both wrong,” He said with a faraway expression in his eyes they couldn’t read behind those glasses, perched so low on his nose, because they had not lived as long as he had, or in such dire straits. “I have a different story to tell you today. But you can’t tell your mom I let you stay up this way, or we’ll all have hell to pay tomorrow.” They giggled at his foul language, but it was nothing they weren’t used to. He opened his mouth to begin telling the story, and it played out in his mind’s eye like it had been yesterday, the hand gestures used with his voice bringing the pictures to life for them.
. . .
He let out a long sigh, and tried not to feel too upset. “I hate trains.”
The armor across from him almost looked like it was chiding him, but no one save for the one he was giving a harrowing look to in his mind could tell such a thing. “Well, don’t complain about it the whole way. That won’t make it any better.”
“He’s right, you know,” The young woman next to him said, and he only stuck his lip out further, feeling bullied.
The teenager in the long, draping red coat was feeling more and more agitated by the second. Firstly, he shouldn’t have even been out here, in the middle of the Southern Country, and secondly, he definitely shouldn’t have been here on the way to Dublith. At first, Winry had said she wanted to go to Rush Valley, but then, somehow, they’d ended up on this train, as she’d said she suddenly had a desire to meet the rumored ‘teacher’ her best friends had been on about for years and years.
“She’s going to kill us, you know,” Alphonse would’ve been sweating and whimpering for his life if he’d been in his actual body, and his brother was doing plenty of that for the both of them. “I mean, she’s already almost killed us a few times, but we’re not supposed to be her pupils anymore, so I guess we shouldn’t come back to visit-or maybe we should, or-geez, I never know with Teacher!”
Winry blinked her blue eyes at both the Elrics, trying to read their expressions. She stared for an especially long time at Ed, who seemed to be trying to sink into the seat, expecting it to swallow him whole, or at least wanting it to. “She can’t be that bad.”
Edward and Alphonse shared a look before nodding at her with fear clearly written in their normally brave eyes, and said in unison, “She can.” Winry was beginning to wonder what sort of fearsome woman this Izumi Curtis was, if she’d managed to put the boys in this type of terror. Was she the size of a bear? As strong as three oxen, and broad as one? She’d noticed that both of the boys had been quite toned and sharply attuned with others movements since long ago, in their first series of lessons with the woman, and it must have taken something special to have kept them from the troubles they’d faced every day, like Scar, the Homunculi, and Ling’s guards.
There was a silence in the booth as she thought about it and the Elrics brooded. Then, all of the sudden, a familiar voice grumbled again. “I hate trains. I hate the South. Can’t we just go back to Central? Even the East is acceptable. Hell, I’d even be willing to be in Briggs.”
Winry was aghast as his exaggeration, but when Alphonse said nothing, no reprimand, or scold, she was genuinely both curious and concerned to meet the woman all over again.
After all, it wasn’t every day Edward said he’d rather be in one of the places he hated almost as much as the desert.
The train ride was another couple of hours, and Alphonse, although he couldn’t sleep, had drifted into a daydream of sorts, leaving his eternally drowsy sibling dozing against the young woman. As they neared Dublith, around thirty or so minutes outside the city, he rustled as the train hit a bump, but wasn’t bothered by it, and kept snoring away, burying his face even further in Winry’s shoulder unconsciously.
Winry studied them silently, occasionally glancing down at the automail procedures book in her lap, but mostly watching the sun and shadows dance on Edward’s face with a small smile.
“You really care about him, don’t you?” The clink of armor moving as the helmet turned to face her, and her face suddenly felt hot from more than the sun. She couldn’t refute his words, knowing that they held no falsehood, and yet, as he was snoring away on her shoulder, the blush faded and turned into a weary smile.
She used the hand that he wasn’t currently putting out of use by putting his head on her shoulder and softly brushed a few of those precious strands from his face. Neither of them said anything, and she didn’t answer him, not really, just like his brother never had, but it was written all over her face.
“Good,” Alphonse murmured amongst the steel of his current body, and she liked to imagine him smiling. When the train jarred this time, Edward’s golden eyes startled open like he’d been caught in a nightmare, frightening his fellow cabin members more than anything else. “Awake, brother? We’re just about there.”
“Damn it,” He swore under his breath, earning a click of the tongue from his sibling and a firm punch in the head from the girl they’d both known all their lives. “Holy shit! You ever think that maybe I might need that again some day, Winry?!”
“Obviously not, because you’re already not using it, you stupid little jerk!”
“I’m taller than you, you stupid gear-head, automail-loving geek!” He puffed up at that, glaring her down unabashedly, despite all the attention they’d gathered, yelling so loudly despite the assistants announcing that the train was pulling into station. Everyone nearby was so busy watching them fight that they hadn’t even gotten off when they’d pulled to a stop, watching the fires burn in those passionate golden and blue orbs.
“Yeah, well at least I didn’t spend the last three years of my life trying to convince the whole country of Amestris that I’m the most egotistical, arrogant bean sprout of an alchemist!”
Even as Alphonse wearily began to unload their belongings and pressed them into the fighting teenagers’ hands, urging them to break up the fight, people kept watching, and the hollow armor had to push them along the path, suitcases in hand, the yelling getting progressively louder and louder, and the insults more riddled with cursing and name-calling until a shoe came out of a house that would’ve been familiar to the youth with golden eyes, had he been paying an ounce of attention to where they’d been headed.
“WHO’S OUT THERE MAKING SUCH A RACKET?!” It was the middle of the day, but in such a small town, such things were unheard of. Winry immediately bowed and began apologizing for his behavior, but then looked up, trying to get a good look at her. Looking around, she’d suddenly been behind the young woman, and had picked the shoe up, only to whack the blonde around a few more times before kicking him square in the chest and leaving him to wheeze about on the lawn.
“Hello, Teacher,” Al said quietly, even for him, obviously wishing his brother a merry afterlife as he twitched on the lawn. “I’m sorry we came back unan-NOOOOUUNCEEEED!” The end carried loudly as he joined his brother in a heap of metal limbs, both of them practically unconscious.
Winry stared, both terrified and fascinated. The woman stood up straight, dusted off her hands, and then gave the girl a proper look. Her dark hair in those thick braids framed her face, and the scowl that had adorned her face turned into a personable businesswoman’s smile.
“Ah, you’re that friend of the idiots over there!” She clapped the girl on the shoulder and led her into the house. “Come in, come in! I’m in the middle of cooking dinner. Wanna help?”
The young woman with hair the color of cornfields spared a glance for her childhood friends, and even pointed them out. “Will they be alright?”
She shrugged and opened the door, sliding her sandal back onto her foot.
By the time dinner had been prepared, Edward and Alphonse had slunk into the house, apparently having run into her husband, Sig, on the way in, who really did have the appearance of a mountain bear. But he was kind and didn’t say much.
“So,” Izumi finally pointed a fork at the elder of her pupils with a scowl as she chewed her steak. “What’re you here for this time? I thought you two were busy getting ready for whatever this storm on the horizon everybody’s talking about.”
“We were,” Ed grumbled around his mouthful of food, glancing at his mechanic for a moment before continuing. “But someone insisted that we go on a detour. I’m headed back to Central tomorrow.”
The woman clapped the blonde, much younger woman on the back with a wide smile. “Good for her!”
Edward and his teacher started into some huge debate that had started off harmlessly enough but escalated into insults involving alchemical terms, and by this point everyone around was used to it, so dinner carried on as usual, as though nothing were happening.
Finally, it seemed that Izumi had resolved something within herself, stood up straight, and stared back at her golden-eyed pupil. “We’re going to fight, Edward,” She stated simply, and he blinked owlishly, as though the words had slapped him in the face. “If you can manage to land one clean hit on me, we’ll forget the whole thing ever happened.”
This wasn’t about their fight, and everyone around knew it. Sig was the first to speak. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to it, dear?” She sent him a soft smile and nodded, and then gave Edward a stern look, encouraging him to think faster by stamping her foot and he stood up, ramrod straight, nodding furiously.
When they’d arrived at the lawn, there was a strange, almost resolute thickness in the air. This was the beginning of something they’d both known would happen long ago, but were never quite willing to discuss.
“Why do they have to fight?” Winry asked Alphonse as the two of them crouched on their hind legs like panthers prepared to prowl and pounce upon their enemies, breathing in deeply, as though the air might dissipate the moment someone moved.
She liked to imagine Alphonse with a wistful smile, and knowing, honey-brown eyes. “It’s the way they communicate. They’re more alike than they’d like to admit aloud.”
“You’re not allowed to get soft or hold back on me, Edward, or I’ll kick your ass back to Central myself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” He said the words with what he hoped sounded like his usual amount of confident brashness, but deep inside, he knew it was staged.
All of the sudden, she’d leapt clearly into the air, like an eagle prepared to dive and destroy the snake it had claimed for lunch. Her feet came back poised in a dangerous kick, but the monkey-like Edward had lurched out of the way, clapped his hands, and transmuted his automail into a more comfortable weapon of choice. His teacher clapped and pressed into the ground, but while she’d done so, her apprentice had opted to roll next to her and catch her off guard, but found himself hitting a surface far more unyielding than the woman’s grass.
As she noticed him wincing, Izumi smirked. “Hmph. Quick little brat, aren’t you? You would’ve gotten me if I hadn’t planned that ahead of time.”
He wiped his mouth slowly, and a genuine smile graced his lips. “Ha! As if you didn’t think of that at the last second, just like me.”
They shared a look, and Edward moved first this time, trying to circle her before attacking. A flurry of kicks and punches, dodges, alchemical reactions with the soil around them, and, quickly enough, smiles and laughter, were exchanged. They were covered in blood, sweat, and dirt, but they didn’t care, and when Edward had finally landed a crippling blow to her knees, only to help her up and be sent toppling to the ground, they were both nearly crying with mirth in their eyes.
In the evening’s cool, Winry had gone back inside upon Izumi and Sig’s insistence to go to rest, and Alphonse had joined her, if only to further explain their teacher and Edward’s relationship.
After they’d finished breathing heavily and cleaning themselves up, Izumi spoke. “You should’ve gone for my abdomen. It was unguarded three times, and you would’ve been finished long ago.”
His golden eyes looked hurt that she would’ve even thought such a thing. “Never.”
She chuckled, rolling over to sit up and roll his hair. “You never change-always so soft.”
“Shut up.” He retorted weakly, his eyes cast up at the nighttime sky once more. They shared a respective silence for a few minutes before his ex-mentor spoke again.
“You love her.” It wasn’t a question. Edward sputtered and flushed and felt rattled all the way down to his ankles, yelling all sorts of obscenities and indignations, finally trailing off when he’d realized she was laughing, a full-bodied thing. “You’re so stupidly awkward about things like this.”
He buried his red face in his knees and muttered, “Shut up,” again. “I kind of skipped over the whole time for awkward teenager things, you know.”
She knew that well, and had tried to be there for him through it all, no matter how twisted the order. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder, and they sat close to each other, dirty and messed up in more ways than one, but right now, it was perfect.
They didn’t talk about Winry, or Alphonse, or the Military, or anything, really. But those golden eyes pierced hers, questioning, cocky, certain, prodigal. And she stared back, and all he could do was lean in, thankful for the woman he’d considered his surrogate mother since long, long ago.
“Yeah,” She whispered, simply laying her hand gently on top of his, reassuring him. “I know.”
.
The train arrived early, and Edward grumbled the whole morning about the experience, but didn’t forget to wish the Curtis’ safe journeys, wherever life took them. As they rode hours away on the train back to Central, for Ed and Al, and Resembool for Winry, it was in much better sorts than they’d left, and somehow, Winry felt that Edward may have ventured down here by himself with or without her, because he looked much better after having seen the woman.
“You really care for her, don’t you?” Winry said happily as she watched Ed stare out the window with the hint of a smile.
He blinked and laughed a little bit, and she wasn’t entirely sure why, but she was happy to see him in such a good mood. “Yeah, I guess the hag kinda grows on you. Sorta like you.”
“Hey!” Winry and he had a play fight, leaving Alphonse to look on with a little giggle at their expense, and all the three of them could do was laugh. Things had truly begun to look up for the Elrics and their old friend.
Yes, She thought to herself, studying the curve of Ed’s strong jaw, more set and his head held higher as they went back to Central. Things are looking up.
. . .
“You know, your Granny Izumi almost destroyed his arm and leg that night,” The man had enchanted his children into shrieks, giggles, and now, sleepy gasps, but knew when they were beginning to fall into the arms of the sandman. “But it’s alright. He lives on today, safe and sound. He made it out an okay guy.”
“I don’t believe you,” Urey murmured, almost asleep. “Granny Izumi is scary.”
“Scary, scary,” Trisha murmured in repetition, and the blonde man only chuckled, brushing their hair out of their eyes before kissing them both goodnight on the foreheads.
“Well, now matter how scary she is, her and the Fullmetal Alchemist are still close, to this day, and she’s not going to be anywhere near as scary as Mommy when she founds out how late you stayed up.”
They rolled over with giggles and sleep in their eyes. “Goodnight, Daddy,” They said at last, and then drifted off into dreamland.
He pattered down the hallway, one leg heavier than the other, and found his wife, clad in her nightwear, and he smiled in apology. “Sorry about that. They couldn’t sleep.”
She only smiled and shook her head, following him to their bed and wrapping her arms around him as he lay down. “I don’t mind, really. But I have to put on an act in the morning or they won’t fear me any more.” Cornflower blonde hair and sunshine-golden locks mingled together on the pillow as she removed the tie in his hair and threw it on the nightstand. “Besides, I like your bedtime stories too, Ed.”
Edward Elric smiled as his wife, Winry Elric, wrapped her arms around his waist, her lips smiling against his back. They soon began to drift off similarly to their children, but he whispered one last thing to her, as he had every night he stayed in Resembool, those becoming more and more frequent, the older his children were.
“I love you, Winry,” The words were quiet, almost like a personal prayer, and she returned them as such.
“I love you, too, Ed,” She said sleepily, and both blue and golden eyes fell closed, and the Rockbell-Elric house fell quiet with soft breathing and the rustling of the countryside.
Family was family, and these moments were all that mattered-these bedtime stories of a man these children would soon discover was their own father, but for now, considered their personal fairytale hero.