that madame christmas fic
*stares at fic*
*fic stares back*
*fic throws spitballs*
...WHATEVER, AT LEAST IT'S FINISHED.
I do not own FMA. Sigh.
Family Business
“Oh, it’s Roy!” Chorus of screaming girls. Poor guy was mobbed before he even made it all the way inside.
I love it. My boy is the Fuhrer now, and only a handful of people can get away with calling him Roy. It cracks me up that my girls are a pretty big portion of that handful.
“You haven’t visited in ages! You think you’re too important for us now, is that it?”
“I’m never going to be too important for you, Vanessa.”
“Ah, still such a sweet-talker.”
“And he wastes it on politics! Roy, you could’ve gotten an honest profession.”
“Garbage collector.”
“Dog catcher.”
“Kept man.”
“Ladies.”
They’ve been doing this same routine for years; I wouldn’t have paid much attention in any case. And in this case, there was a little blond thing standing behind Roy. That was pretty distracting.
Blond and good-looking and male. And, most importantly, here. Roy hadn’t brought anybody to my place in years. In fact, he’d never brought anyone but Riza, and Riza had been (and still was) a special case.
Apparently the young thing was a special case, too. My, my.
Vanessa noticed him a second after I did, and leaned around Roy to take a look. “Who,” she asked, voice just waiting to switch over to scandalized, “is that?”
Young thing grinned at her, like he was delighted with everything he’d seen so far.
Special case, yes.
“I’m Ed,” he said, and stuck out a hand. He was promptly swamped by cooing women. The grin didn’t change intensity a bit.
“Madame Christmas,” Roy said from right next to me. I hate it when he sneaks up on me like that. Someday he’s going to make me jump, and he’ll never let me live it down. “I think I’d like a drink.”
“Looks like you need one,” I muttered at him. Sneaking brat. “But I need you to be sober at introduction time.”
He turned away and leaned his elbows against the bar, stared at the young thing with the same look he gets when he’s staring into a fire. (I raised a pyromaniac. It’s worried me before; it will again.) “That,” he said, “is Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist. He’s ruining my life.”
“How sweet,” I said, letting the smoker rattle swamp my voice. Drives Roy crazy when I do that.
So that was the Fullmetal Alchemist. Damn. He really did look like trouble waiting for a place to happen, just like everybody said. And from the look of it, he’d happened to Roy.
I liked him already.
“You sleeping with him?” I asked. Roy looked all shocked, but he really should’ve seen that one coming.
“It wasn’t my idea,” he said. For God’s sake, he was pouting.
“So against your will, you were molested by a…wait, is he even legal?”
“I’m way past legal,” said the Fullmetal Alchemist, who’d finally weaseled free of the girls. “I’m not gonna get him arrested or anything; it’s cool.”
He hopped up on the stool next to Roy and grinned at me like he belonged there. Like he was daring me to say something about them.
Oh, yeah. I liked him.
“Roy’s acting like you took advantage of him,” I said.
“Yeah, he was really unhappy about it.” He rolled his eyes and elbowed Roy, who was scowling at me. What, he expected me not to say anything? Please.
“I didn’t say I was unhappy,” Roy said in his put-upon voice. “I said it wasn’t my idea.”
“Good. Your ideas are usually bad,” I said, and then, before Roy could muster a response, “Madame Christmas. Nice to meet you.”
“Edward Elric,” said the son-molester. “Nice to meet you, too. I guess I had something else in mind when I was picturing Roy’s foster mom.”
“What, like a housewife?”
“Don’t knock housewives,” he said with a shudder. Afraid of housewives. Interesting. Sometime I was going to have to find out why.
“But no,” he went on. “Like…I dunno. Someone more mainstream. Look at him, he tries to act normal.”
“But it’s a lie,” I told him.
“Yeah, obviously it’s a lie,” he agreed. “But he had to get the idea from someplace. I figured he got it from you.”
“The attempt to be normal was more in reaction than in imitation,” Roy said. He was looking off into the distance, like if he just pretended hard enough, he wouldn’t be stuck in this room with the both of us.
Doesn’t work like that, though.
“That explains why you fail at it, then,” Ed said cheerfully. “So when did you leave home?”
“As quickly as possible,” Roy said.
“Oh, but he always comes back,” I said, and smirked at him when he scowled. “He ran off to become an alchemist. I told him it was stupid at the time, but did he listen? I don’t care how decent his daughter turned out to be, that man was off in the head.”
“He wasn’t off,” Roy insisted, just like he always does when I bring this up. “He’d had a stressful life!”
“All that twitching,” I reminisced. “Looked like he’d never eaten a decent meal in his life. Eyes like two piss-holes in the snow.”
“It was stress!”
“Who was this?” Ed asked, eyes lit up. It must have been some kind of special occasion for him, hearing all this. Roy usually guards his past like it’s worth money.
“Roy’s teacher,” I told Ed, feeling inspired to tell him everything Roy would let me get away with. “Hawkeye, his name was.”
Ed blinked at me. “Oh, yeah. I totally forgot Hawkeye’s dad was a crazy alchemist. But it figures.”
“Does it?” Roy asked, looking mildly alarmed.
“Sure. Her and Al. They probably bonded over it or something.”
“I believe there’s more to their relationship than bonding over alchemist fathers.”
“But it’s a start,” Ed insisted.
“I can’t believe you still-”
The conversation was getting boring, so I interrupted it.
“You know Riza?” I asked Ed. Obviously he knew Riza; he used to work for Roy. Still, I thought he might make an awkward, talking-about-the-ex face.
But no.
“Yeah, she married my brother,” he said. Gotcha. His brother Al, then. The world makes sense again.
Apparently my face didn’t stay as blank as I’d have liked, because he gave me a laughing-at-your-pain kind of grin.
“Well, that’s…” What would be the right word? Wrong? Weird? Hilarious? “Incestuous,” I decided.
“That’s not even the half of it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I still think it would have been funny if Hawkeye’d hooked up with the blowing-things-up woman. Though Al would’ve been sad if she had, so I guess it turned out for the best.”
“Her name is Major General Rebecca Catalina,” Roy said mechanically, in the way of someone who’s said it a million times and knows he’ll have to say it a million more.
“Yeah, Rebecca. Hawkeye would’ve had to like girls, though.”
“And so would Catalina,” Roy said.
Ed gave him a wide-eyed sidelong look. “Uh, yeah.”
Roy turned to face Ed. “Are you saying Catalina does like women?”
“I did not say that,” Ed answered firmly.
Roy continued to study him, while he stared back like a deer in the headlights. “Hawkeye in particular?” Roy asked.
“How about that fiscal policy?” Ed asked desperately.
“How did I not know this?” Roy demanded.
“Yes, the equivalent exchange finally came through,” Ed cried. “I don’t know, I thought it was pretty obvious. My secret genius at understanding people comes out at last.”
“I suppose you and Catalina are appallingly similar. It makes sense that you understand each other.”
“We are nothing alike.”
“Go on,” Roy said, turning to me. “Say it. I know you have something to say.”
I smiled at him. “It’s too much,” I told him. “I’ll have to think for a few days about where I want to start, how I want to go on, whether I want you in public or in private-”
“This,” Roy said. “This is why I never wanted you two to meet.”
I waited for a reaction from Ed, but there wasn’t one. He was too busy staring into the lobby like he was puzzling something out. Which meant I’d have to make Roy squirm all on my own. Luckily, it’s not hard.
“Too delicate to hold your own?” I asked Roy.
“I am not delicate,” he insisted. “You’re evil.”
“Oh, I get it,” Ed cut in abruptly. He spun his stool away from the room back to Roy and grinned. “It’s because you’re not for sale, right? That’s why you get all embarrassed.”
Roy choked.
Ed tipped his head, thinking that over. “Wait a second. Were you ever for sale?”
“No!” Roy yelped. I was starting to feel kind of bad. Bringing up Roy’s summer job, that was lower than Ed knew. Poor guy was going to snap soon, and it would be all Ed’s fault and mine. I could throw him a little help, maybe.
“Roy used to be our…hm…receptionist, so flirting was part of his job. But I didn’t have a price tag on him.” I poured a scotch and water for Roy and snuck it over to him. He needed it.
“Why not? Because he’s your foster son?”
There wasn’t a single emotion in that question except curiosity. Interesting kid, Ed.
“Nah. No messing with the receptionist. Bad for business.” I pulled Roy’s glass back. Empty already; not good.
“Is it really?” Ed asked with a surprising amount of interest. You’d think he was looking into going into the business himself.
I wondered if I should pour Roy another drink; he was making all kinds of pitiful faces. But no. He’d inflicted Ed on himself, and he was just going to have to learn to deal with it sober.
“Customers don’t like being told to stop. It’s easier for them to clearly understand what’s for sale and what’s not.”
I checked on Roy. He had his head down on the bar. Poor baby.
“So you got a new receptionist now?” Ed asked.
“That’s me!” Vanessa chirped.
Eavesdropping is part of the business.
Vanessa had been gorgeous when she took over for Roy; it had been such a waste. But people go strange when you make them do that kind of work and they’re not suited for it. I hadn’t wanted to make her strange.
“Roy trained me,” Vanessa went on, reaching over and ruffling Roy’s hair so hard his head thumped off the bar.
“Ow,” Roy said in his wounded little kid voice. Ed looked sympathetic and leaned into him, but he didn’t get in Vanessa’s way. I decided he must have a sister.
“Good work?” Ed asked. Not polite small talk, either; I had a suspicion he didn’t do much out of politeness. He must really have been curious.
“Pays the bills,” Vanessa said. “I will say, it’s not quite what I pictured myself doing. You know, as a little girl.”
“Yeah, life. Always screwing with your plans like that,” Ed said like somebody who’d written the book on it.
A customer came in, and Vanessa wandered over to take care of him. Ed leaned out a bit to hide Roy, which was cute, but there was no point. Nobody looks too closely at anybody in a place like this.
So Ed had managed to distract Vanessa from beating up on Roy. Sneaky. And impressive, too. Vanessa’s generally pretty determined about getting her Roy abuse in. So in the world according to Ed, Ed and I are the only ones allowed to abuse Roy?
I could get used to a world like that.
“So what are you here for, anyway?” I asked them. “My blessing?”
Ed snickered, the little shit.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Roy said. Seemed like he was saying that a lot. My boy the evil mastermind. It wasn’t my idea.
The hell. This Ed kid was obviously good for him.
“It was in exchange for information about why he was living in that formerly condemned apartment building.” Roy looked all put-upon.
“Formerly?” Ed asked, grinning.
“I had it inspected. Apart from the moat, there’s nothing wrong with it. Now.”
“Am I good or am I good?”
“I’ll tell you what you are, you-”
“Moat?” I asked. “Are you talking about that place down on Grove?”
Roy gave me a pained look. “Are there more apartment buildings with moats around them that I should know about?”
“Did you make that moat?” I asked Ed. Because if he was the one who made that moat…
“Yeah,” he answered warily. “Why?”
“You, Roy, are so lucky that Naomi is not here today,” I said. “Because it turns out that Ed is her god.”
Ed was giving me an alarmed look. I have to hand it to Roy, he is adorable. But Roy would probably frown on it if I volunteered to keep him. Plus there’s the whole Naomi problem.
“We’re never coming back here,” Roy told Ed, because I’d given him all the explanation he needed. He knows what Naomi is like.
“What?”
Ed could use some background, though.
“She’ll try to trip you into bed,” I told him. “Failing that, she’ll tie you down. Could be scary. I hate to say it, but Roy may be right about this one. Maybe I’ll visit you guys next time. Wouldn’t that be wild?”
“I thought you said I was bad for business,” Roy said, suspicious as ever.
“In my place you are, but not so much just to be seen with,” I reassured him. “Especially not now you’re sleeping with a boy.”
“He is not-”
“Hey, hey, wait a second,” Ed cut in. “This Naomi, she’s gonna jump me why?”
“Clearly she lives in your apartment building, Ed,” Roy huffed.
Ed just looked at him, clearly still waiting for the explanation.
“Kid, you’re a hero in that apartment building,” I told him. Seriously, no one had let him in on this? “Everybody thought they were about to get booted out into the gutter, and then suddenly, there’s this moat. Oh, and the building’s fixed. The building’s fixed, so there’s no reason to move out, but the guys who are supposed to be evicting people don’t know that. They can’t get in because nobody’ll lower the drawbridge for them. Just like a big ‘fuck you’ to the system.”
“I am the system,” Roy said sourly.
“Yeah, you’re supposed to be fixing it, aren’t you?” I gave him the unimpressed eyebrow.
“I am fixing it!”
“People really liked the moat, huh?” Ed said, just softly, smiling a little. “That’s cool.”
I waited for Roy to make a smart comeback, but he didn’t. He was too busy gazing at Ed the way you do when you’re so proud of someone it hurts.
Oh, he is doomed, isn’t he?
“I’ll definitely visit,” I said.
“You’ll like Winry,” Ed told me. And with enthusiasm.
“No,” said Roy.
“Why not?” Ed asked, wounded.
“I know you love to throw all of your acquaintances together and see who’s strong enough to survive, but Edward-”
“Winry will like her, too!” Ed insisted.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Roy said.
“Winry?” I asked.
“My best friend,” Ed answered.
“And ex-girlfriend,” Roy said, because he knew I’d find out sooner or later. Definitely safer to go for sooner and from him. “And automail mechanic. And childhood friend.”
“And married to Havoc,” Ed snapped. “You don’t have to make it sound like that.”
“And now you want to introduce her to my mother,” Roy went on mournfully. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Hey, Roy,” I said. He looked up. Always knows when I’m serious, does Roy. “Ten minutes.”
He closed his eyes and nodded, then stood and wandered over to chat with Vanessa. She’s out of hearing range of the bar. Deliberately out of range, as it happens.
Ed was looking at me expectantly. I love this about military types. They hardly ask questions at all.
“So what are your plans with my boy?” If we were only getting ten minutes, might as well cut to the chase.
“What do you mean?”
I was about to get irritated, but no, he wasn’t dodging the question. Just looking for clarification. Damn alchemists.
“I mean, how long do you see this lasting?”
“Until one of us dies,” he said, not missing a beat. “You shouldn’t be worrying about me going when he wants me to stay. You should be worrying about me clinging when he wants me to go. Trust me, that’s more likely.”
I smiled at him. “No, it isn’t.”
He smiled a crooked smile back. “Yeah, nice thought.”
“Okay, Roy!” I called.
Roy looked up, startled. True, it wasn’t anything like ten minutes. But we’d covered the important stuff and gotten down to the wacky insecurities, so I figured we were done. Me and Ed. Efficient, that’s what we are.
“Done with the interrogation already?” he asked, bemused.
“Done. I’m happy,” I said. “Now get out of my place, you’re a liability.”
“Hey,” Ed said. “It was good to meet you.”
“Yeah. Try not to drive him to drink,” I said. Ed grinned.
“At least now I know where you got the awesome from,” he told Roy as they walked to the door.
“Edward,” Roy said. I bet he thinks that’s a quelling tone. It’s not, though; that kind of thing never works when everyone can tell you’re about to start laughing.
I’ll say this much for Roy: he’s always kept some interesting company.