awkward good times
As requested, this is That Dinner, the sequel to Defying Murphy's Law. Which, I forgot to mention, was originally supposed to be a 500-word prompt for
zephy_magnum (Ed/Roy: car, leather, rope, light). Clearly, it turned out far, far longer than 500 words. Sigh.
I do not own FMA. Not even a little.
Dining In
“Put in more of that.”
“I’m not putting in more of that. You don’t even know what ‘that’ is. It’s fine!”
“Your food always tastes like nothing. Put in more of that.”
“Your food is always inedible after a day! Remember the jalapeño chili?”
“That was one time!”
“That was part of the general trend!”
“Anyway, the chili was fine the first day. It just got hotter over time. We’re gonna eat all of this tonight. Put more in.”
“Ed, why are you in my kitchen?”
“I’m helping.”
“Get the hell out of my kitchen before I hit you with a pan.”
She’s violent, is what she is. She always has been violent, ever since she was a tiny kid. Luckily, there are people around now who’re supposed to be able to keep her in line.
“Havoc, your wife is threatening me!”
“Sorry, boss, but you kind of deserved it.”
“You did, brother. Don’t distract Winry when she’s cooking.”
Of course, those people are traitors.
I head back out to the living room. Dodge the ladle she throws after me. Like I couldn’t see that coming; like she hasn’t attacked me with ladles and wrenches and every other kind of hand tool a hundred times before. Psycho mechanic.
I flump down on the couch next to Roy. At least he’s on my side, right?
“Why do you antagonize her, Edward?”
Or he’s a traitor.
“Why do I antagonize her? Why do I antagonize her? What about all those times with the wrench!? What about all those times she hooked up the automail and laughed when I screamed!? What about-”
“Chief, really, don’t try,” Havoc says, wheeling in to keep us company. Good job, Havoc. When we first came in the door, he couldn’t even look Roy in the eye.
Hah. Shy people.
“Some of their arguments started around fifteen years ago,” Havoc’s explaining to Roy like I’m not in the room and Winry can’t hear him perfectly well from the kitchen. “Al’s the only one who knows enough to step in.”
“And I don’t bother,” Al says, leaning in the kitchen doorway with That Face. He says it’s a smile. I say it’s a smirk.
But hell, it’s still so damn exciting that he has a face, I guess I don’t care what smirky, superior expressions he decides to make with it. Even if it does seem a waste.
Al pushes off the doorway and settles next to Hawkeye, and she passes him the last of her wine. (Al, see, no alcohol tolerance. Virgin liver, I guess. But he loves wine, so Hawkeye generally drinks most of a glass and then gives him what he can handle. It’s pretty freaking adorable, actually. Questions of backwash aside.)
Havoc and Al think I haven’t noticed that they were only in the kitchen so they could herd me out, but I noticed. I know whose side they’re on. Whatever. If they really want tasteless food, that is their problem.
“Oh, hey.” I turn to Roy. “What do you think about spicy food?”
“What do I think about it?”
We’re going to have to do something about this inability of his to answer a goddamn question.
“Yeah. Like, are you one of these boring, bland food people? Are we gonna have open warfare in the kitchen when I move in?”
“…When you move in?”
Think I’ll just ignore where he put the emphasis in that question.
“Yeah, your place is nicer,” I point out, and then before he gets a chance to clarify and ruin everything, “Obviously it’s nicer; you’re the Fuhrer. You live in a giant abuse of tax money.”
Keep him off-balance, that’s key. If I let him think about this relationship-with-Ed thing too hard, he’ll scream and run like any sensible person would.
“Whereas you live in a public health hazard,” he says. Hah, sidetracked! “That building was condemned for a reason, Edward. I’ve been meaning to ask what you thought you were accomplishing by putting a moat around it. Apart from improving the aesthetics, of course; the gate with fangs was a particularly nice touch.”
Anyway, Roy’s fun to pick on. He always fights back like a weasel.
“You got a problem with my taste in decor?”
“Condemned, Edward.”
“So? So what? Where d’you think those people’re gonna go? If they could afford anything better, they wouldn’t have moved to that shithole in the first place.”
“Why did you move to that shithole, by the way?”
“Huh? I dunno. I knew a guy. Don’t change the subject.”
“‘Knew a guy.’”
“You can’t just kick them out.”
“You suggest I should leave them in a building that is demonstrably unsafe?”
“I suggest you find a place for them to go before you kick them out. Well, and anyway, that place isn’t unsafe anymore. There was just rot in the supporting beams. I made new ones.”
“And you didn’t think to mention that? Before, say, creating a moat?”
“That’s not the point, it’s not the point. Not everybody gets a good fairy alchemist to come along and fix their building. You can’t just kick those people out before you give them a place to go!”
“Using whose money, Edward?”
“Stupid fucking landlord. His damn fault, anyway.”
“And yet if we’re making this policy, bear in mind that the state of the building isn’t always the landlord’s fault. Sometimes it’s the fault of the previous landlord. Sometimes the building was badly constructed. Sometimes the building is just old. Apart from that, assume that your corrupt landlord doesn’t have enough money to house all of his tenants. When he’s bankrupt, he’s bankrupt. Then where will the money come from?”
“You’re cutting back on military funding, right?”
“We were going to put the extra money toward school funding. As opposed to vague, undefined housing projects.”
“So don’t build random buildings, just have some kind of office or whatever to help settle people who get booted. Split the money fifty-fifty.”
“But how-”
“Dear God, is this what you two talk about all the time?” Havoc asks, sounding like he might up and cry about it.
Ah. Had completely forgotten that we’re at, like, a dinner. Should be being social or something. I look over at Al and Hawkeye, and they look back at me with these innocent, wide eyes. “We’re laughing at you,” that’s what those eyes say. “Laughing until we can hardly breathe.”
“No, Havoc, sometimes we talk about the finer points of fellatio,” I say because I’m embarrassed, and when I’m embarrassed, I like to make other people more embarrassed. “What the hell did you think we talked about? What have we ever talked about?”
Havoc goes red, Roy makes a little dying noise, and Winry starts cackling.
Whoops.
I huddle closer to Roy because I’m sorry. I went to take Havoc down, and accidentally got Roy, too. I keep forgetting he cares about this stuff; it seems so weird that he would.
“I’m sure you talk about alchemy, brother,” Al says. Al’s so good. All our lives, he’s been making things less uncomfortable for people who talk to me.
“Yeah, and alchemy,” I admit. We don’t fight about alchemy as much, though, so it’s not as fun. Still, no need to go into that.
“It’s the hazard of dating a politician, Jean,” Hawkeye says. “A lot of political discussion.”
That did nothing to cut down on the awkwardness, Hawkeye.
“It’s what you sign on for, right?” I say. I’m feeling a bit resentful toward Hawkeye, suddenly. I’m not sure why. “Don’t date an alchemist if you don’t want to talk alchemy. Don’t date a politician if you don’t want to talk politics.”
Hawkeye smiles at me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Of course you’re right, Edward,” she says.
And now I feel like a dick. Just going by Al’s expression, he thinks so too, and I can feel that Roy’s gone all tense.
“Is this a good time to mention that I brought chocolate to make up for it if I said anything really unforgiveable?” I ask. It seems worth a try.
Hawkeye tips her head back and laughs, which isn’t something she does often. Hawkeye’s alright, really.
I notice that Al huddled in closer to her while we were talking. We both do that when we want to make someone feel better. Al used to do it for me, which is why I was always getting stabbed by the armor. We both did it with Mom when she was sick-we’d squish in on either side like we could keep her safe between us. But she died anyway.
“Dinner,” Winry says.
* * *
“The food wasn’t as lousy as I thought it would be,” I tell Winry. She threatens me with the ladle again because she doesn’t appreciate graciousness.
“Want help cleaning up?” I ask.
“No, I want you to stay out of my kitchen,” she says. She’s so bad-tempered. It’s like she’s going for some kind of nastiness record.
“Al can help clean up,” I say.
“I can what?” says Al, who was too busy being all moonstruck over Hawkeye to pay attention to the conversation.
“Jean will help me clean up,” Winry says. “You’re guests, not that you know how to behave like guests. Go sit with Roy. Apparently he’s got the highest tolerance for you.”
She’s vicious. I don’t know why Havoc thinks she’s cute.
And he totally does. He’s wheeling by and grinning at me like, “Aw, isn’t she the most adorable thing ever?” She isn’t, you deluded bastard. It’ll hit you one day.
I’m not gonna tell him that, though. I don’t like to distract him when he’s carrying three quarters of the plates from the table. I believe in his upper body strength (I swear, lately he’s trying to compete with Armstrong for Scariest Arms Ever), but I’m not sure I believe in his balance. It could be messy. Winry would blame me.
So I leave them to it and wander back to the living room. Roy’s sitting on the couch and talking about some administrative whatever with Hawkeye and Al. Al follows all that picky, day-to-day crap. The big picture’s interesting enough, but I can’t say I pay a blind bit of attention to the fiddling details. Some people get paid to think about that shit, and I’m not one of them.
Al says something about pay scales that makes Roy laugh, which is freaking weird in itself. But that’s part of Roy’s charm. Finding random things like pay scales and old lawsuits funny, I mean.
Another part, of course, is that he’s ridiculously good looking. Not that I’ll tell him that. But…this is all really new. Sometimes it hits me-I mean, I can touch him. Him, Roy Mustang! I’m allowed! It’s still all I can do not to accost strangers on the street and tell them so. “So guess who’s allowed to sleep with the Fuhrer, then?”
He’d kill me for sure. But, God, it would be a hilarious way to go.
“Edward. Don’t grin at me like that in public.”
Al’s snickering.
“Grin? I’m not allowed to grin now? I thought we had that talk about how you’re not actually the dictator of this country. Working toward democracy, remember? Anyway, this isn’t public, jackass.” He’s so bossy. It’s good I’m here to keep the Fuhrer thing from going to his head.
“And yet it isn’t private,” he says. This privacy thing of his. It is so weird.
I sit next to him and step on his foot, vaguely try to act like it was an accident. “That’s why I’m not molesting you right now. God, you’re uptight. What’s with that?”
“His childhood, maybe,” Hawkeye says.
I look at Hawkeye. She’s looking innocent. I look at Roy. He’s looking horrified.
The Hawkeye/Roy battle. I don’t understand it. I really, really don’t want to. It’s friendly, and at the same time it kind of isn’t. Given the Ishbal thing, it seems weird that they ever got together in the first place. I mean, “I made you burn my back because you abused the knowledge I foolishly gave you, and I’ll shoot you if you ever do anything like that again. Let us be lovers!”
Just. What? Seems like Hawkeye should be smarter than that. But apparently not.
So I don’t know why they got together, and I don’t know how they came to break up. I do know that they were back to calling each other “Fuhrer Mustang” and “General Hawkeye” the very next day, though.
Weird. The whole thing was weird. In fact, it’s still weird, and I don’t know what to do about it. Nothing, probably. Ignore it just as hard as I can.
“What’s for dessert, Winry?” Al asks, breaking the stalemate. Al wins everything. I’m getting Al a nice birthday present this year.
“Apple pie!” she shouts from the kitchen.
Al and I smile at each other. Of course, apple pie.
“What’s special about apple pie?” Roy asks. I’d be touched that he was looking at me hard enough to notice I thought it was special, except I know he’s only doing it so he doesn’t have to look at Hawkeye.
Oh, well. I’ll take what I can get.
“Apple pie, because Gracia taught Winry to make it before…” -let’s not go there when everyone’s in a decent mood- “a long time ago. And Al-”
“Brother…”
“When he was in the armor, he said that the thing he wanted the most-”
“Brother!”
“Was to try Winry’s apple pie. Now you know the truth, Hawkeye,” I tell her sadly. “I’m sorry. Apple pie is my brother’s first love. You had to know sooner or later.”
Al gives me a paint-peeling death glare. Better be a really nice birthday present, then.
“I’ve lost out to a food product,” Hawkeye sighs. “Tragic.”
Hawkeye rocks when she’s not being terrifying. Al was so right about her.
“Don’t take it personally, Riza,” Al says, because he can pull it together when he has to. “I knew apple pie years before I knew you. It’s not that you’re not wonderful! It’s just…well, my heart was given.”
“Maybe I should tell you about chocolate,” Hawkeye says with a very serious expression.
“They’ve gone strange,” I tell Roy.
“I think you’ll find it’s your fault, Fullmetal,” he says. But he’s smiling. Someone should warn him how hot he is when he smiles.
“What did I tell you about that grin, Edward?”
“Pie!” Winry shouts directly behind my ear and makes me jump a foot. She hands me a plate and scowls. “Ed, if you drop it on the couch, I’ll kill you.”
Roy gives me this alarmed look. “Do you drop food on the furniture often?” he wants to know.
“Oh my God, whose side are you on?” I wail.
“The Fuhrer’s first love is his leather armchair, Edward. Be warned,” Hawkeye says, and smiles.
Horrible silence.
Hawkeye is way better at people than I am. And yet she’s made three awkward silences tonight, while I’ve only made one. Which means she’s doing this on purpose.
Oh, and Al’s sneaky-laughing. So he’s in on it. They are bad. Alphonse Elric, I’m reducing the quality of your birthday present right now.
“Anyway,” I say loudly, “how’s the security business, Havoc?”
Havoc looks up from the pie he was blamelessly eating out of the line of fire, and gives me a look that says, loud as words, “Boss, why me?”
Because you were there, Havoc. Wrong place, wrong time, lousy luck.
“You know what being a contractor’s like, Boss,” he says warily, like he thinks I’m up to something. These people, they work with Roy for too many years, pretty soon they’re suspicious of everyone.
“Well, yes and no,” I say. “I expect people don’t routinely threaten to tie ropes around you and toss you down sewers. Do they?”
“They used to, Boss,” he says with a totally unapologetic grin. “I did my time.”
“Tell them about the new security system we’re putting in next week,” Winry says, settling on the arm of the couch nearest him with her pie.
“Oh, yeah-Chief, did we tell you about Winry’s idea about the tripwires? It’ll be beautiful, Fuery said he’d help. So listen…”
I tune him out. I think I’ve gotten this lecture from Winry five times since Friday, and I don’t need to hear it again. How she has time to run an automail shop and obsess over her husband’s job, I don’t know.
Winry’s beaming at Havoc; she looks so damn happy. I never made her happy like that. Mostly I made her look like she wanted to tear all her hair out and then throttle me with it.
Come to think of it, it’s how Roy looks at me a lot of the time. He doesn’t have enough hair, but the sentiment’s there. Which means what, exactly?
“And don’t scowl,” Roy hisses in my ear.
“I’m not allowed to scowl in public, either?” God, he’s a pushy bastard. Why do I want him around, again?
“You’re not allowed to scowl like that at all. What the hell were you thinking about?”
He looks worried. I don’t want him to worry, oh hell.
I check the room. They’ve all gotten into an argument about the intricacies of bug installation. I could tell him what my problem is.
Oh, tell him what, exactly? I’m already afraid my brand-new relationship is going to end in shit. Uh, not that I’m paranoid or anything.
“I’m morbid,” I tell him instead. Hey, it’s true. “Ask anyone.”
He studies my face for a bit, then reaches up and brushes my hair back. In public, wow. “I don’t think you have anything to be morbid about, at the moment,” he says. “Stop.”
“Um. Sure.” Come to think of it, so far he’s looked ridiculously happy with me almost as often as he’s looked like he wanted to tear his hair out. That’s good, right?
Crazy brain takes this time to remind me that I’m allowed to molest this guy.
“Ed. That grin.”
* * *
I sidle over to Hawkeye as Al and Roy are bargaining for leftovers and Winry’s threatening never to feed any of us again because we’re vultures.
“What was that about, Hawkeye?” I ask, quiet so Roy and Al won’t hear. “You’re not planning to do this all the time, are you? The embarrass-Roy-horribly thing, I mean.”
She smiles her little Hawkeye-smile at me. “No, no. I feel better now. Alphonse promised I would, and he was right.”
Ah. So it was Al’s idea. “This co-conspirator thing you and my brother do is really, really creepy.”
The Hawkeye-smile stays firmly on. “I know,” she says.
“Uh huh. So…you’ve been bottling this up for a while? Or, I dunno, why now?”
She tips her head at me, looks as close to apologetic as Hawkeye ever gets. “I knew it would be hard when he found someone new,” she says.
So it’s all my fault, basically. I can feel my face fall. I need to learn to keep it from doing that.
“It was inevitable, Edward,” she says. “He wasn’t going to pine forever. Honestly, I’m glad it’s you.” The Hawkeye-smile comes back. “I have every confidence that you’ll keep him in check.”
Right. As long as she’s happy, I guess.
* * *
Goodbyes, threats and instructions from Winry, food all over the place, various people yelling at me not to drop anything. You’d think I was some huge klutz. I’m not, thank you.
We finally get ourselves and the food settled in my car (yeah, my car. Like I was risking his again), but Roy grabs my arm just as I’m about to start the engine. “‘Knew a guy,’” he says.
He’s clearly stuck on that.
I lean forward until I’ve got him pinned against the passenger door. “Do you. Like. Spicy food?” I ask.
He thunks his head back against the window and starts laughing.
See? I make him laugh.
“Yes. Yes! I like spicy food. Are you happy now? What guy? Who is this guy? Why are you living in that goddamn apartment building?”
I give him some space and grin at him. “I dunno, that’s more than one question, Roy. It’s not equivalent.”
“Edward!”
“Heh. Yeah. So, this old guy, I knew him because he lived in Rush Valley. One of Winry’s old clients. I think he actually moved to Central to chase Winry, which is kind of creepy, but it’s not like he had any family left in Rush Valley. Right?”
Roy raises his eyebrows at me. No comment, apparently.
“So. He and Winry were friends and stuff, and Winry and I were…a thing. So, I dunno, he was around. And he was kinda feeble. I got groceries for him sometimes, or, whatever, fixed his furniture. We talked about stuff; he knew a lot of neat things. History, languages, art. Winry made him food. He said my food was terrible. He didn’t know what he was talking about.”
Roy had better be laughing with me and not at me, is all.
“I guess he died, oh, like a month before Winry and I split? And he’d-crazy guy-he’d left us everything in his will. Including his dump of a place. I guess we were…I mean, he didn’t have any family. So after Winry kicked me out, I figured I might as well move into his place. We hadn’t sold it yet, and it was the only thing Winry didn’t have a use for. He had some really neat books on Xing, you know? Out of print. Really cool. I’ll have Winry show you sometime. Anyway. That’s why I live there.”
Roy’s staring at me and I don’t know why. It’s enough to make a guy uncomfortable.
“Anyway.” What the hell, is he just planning on staring at me all night? “Can we go home now? Or do you just love sitting in cars that much?”
“You’re moving in with me?” he asks.
Ah. I get what that blank stare is now. It’s the I’m so fucking confused I don’t even know how to look blank stare. It’s one of my favorites, actually. It just doesn’t happen very often.
“Sure. Now we’ve had that talk about evicting people, I figure there’s no point in staying. I mean, obviously I’m not moving until you’ve got some relocating-people office set up.”
“Obviously.” Now he’s smiling a little. It’s the you’re such a bastard, why do I like you? smile. (All of his expressions come with subtitles, see.) He says, randomly, “You still owe me 520 cenz.”
“No I don’t. It’s in your top right desk drawer.”
“The locked one?”
“Yeah. Isn’t alchemy great? Now I owe you a letter opener.”
“You stole my letter opener?”
“Shut up. It’s been three months, and you didn’t even notice.”
“I did notice. I thought-foolishly-that I’d misplaced it.”
“Hey, I warned you. A deal’s a deal. No letter opener until Amestris is a democracy. If you got a new one, I’m stealing that too. I thought about taking more money, but I figured the letter opener would be more annoying.”
“How perceptive.”
He’s still smiling, but he’s rubbing his fingers together like he always does when he’s upset. Luckily he’s not wearing the gloves right now. Always makes me nervous when he does it wearing the gloves.
“You told me not to make General Hawkeye worry anymore,” he says. This conversation is all over the map, Roy. But man, I knew there was going to be Hawkeye fallout today.
“Yeah, well. You didn’t worry her. You pissed her off so much that she taunts you in front of your friends on purpose, but hey. She doesn’t do it in front of your staff. That must mean she doesn’t hate you.”
His fingers are practically snapping now. I wonder how he’d take it if I just grabbed his hands and held him still.
“You’ve never asked what happened,” he says, staring straight ahead.
“Because I don’t want to know,” I tell him. “Hawkeye and I aren’t much alike. How would it do anybody any good for me to know? I still have to work with you people.”
He’s blank staring at me again. Hell. At least he stopped almost-snapping.
“So if we’re sitting here in the freezing cold car asking all the hard questions, you freak, what about your childhood? Let’s talk about that.”
He blinks. “Let’s go home,” he says.
“Oh no-”
“And I’ll take you to meet Madame Christmas tomorrow.” He thinks about that, then makes a sour face, which is way better than the blank one. “She’ll love that.”
“Yeah?” I start the car. Damned if I’m sitting here all night waiting for freaking permission. “Who’s Madame Christmas?”
“My foster mother,” he says.
I slam on the brakes. Luckily, we weren’t actually on the road yet. “Foster mother?”
“I thought we were going home?” he asks like he thinks he’s cute.
“I never knew you had a foster mother.”
“Not many people do. She doesn’t like it to get out.”
“What? Why not?”
“Bad for business.”
“What kind of business?”
“You’ll see tomorrow, won’t you?”
“You. Are such a bastard. Such a bastard.”
“And you’re moving in with me anyway.”
That makes me grin. “Yeah, well. You’re so good at being a bastard. I’m kind of proud of you.”
It dawns on me that we’re randomly sitting stopped in Winry’s driveway, and I hope to God she hasn’t noticed, because I’ll never hear the end of it. I pull out onto the road.
“We’re going home, idiot. No more questions today. Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to molest you?”
“Since somewhere shortly after dinner?”
“Yeah. Why do you know that?”
“Everyone knows that, Edward. That grin.”
“Is that why it bothered you so much?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. I’ll make it up to you?”
“Yes. You will.”
“Hey. No feeling me up while I’m driving!”
“It’s payback. It’s equivalent.”
“How is it equivalent!? You’ll get us killed in traffic, you realize that?”
“I always thought you had an impressive ability to focus.”
“There are things you practice for and things you don’t, you-stop that or I will crash.”
Trying to kill us to get out of introducing me to his foster mom seems kind of extreme, the idiot. And it’s not going to work.
“I’ll transmute you to the seat, Mustang.”
“If that’s what you’re into.”
“Or we’ll get pulled over for my crappy driving and my pant’ll be undone. Would that be embarrassing or what?”
And the hands disappear. That’s right, you menace to the road.
So the prospect of death in car accident didn’t stop him, the idea of being tied to his seat didn’t stop him, but he can’t cope with being embarrassed? And this guy is the Fuhrer?
“You’re weird, Mustang.”
“Pot, kettle.”
“And really witty, too.”
“Shut up and drive faster.”
“God, you really want to die in traffic, don’t you? Do you have some kind of death wish? I feel like I should know.”
“If you’re going to grin at me like that all night, you’ll just have to cope with the consequences.”
“Shit, I didn’t realize the consequences would include death by car accident.”
“Lack of forethought.”
“Hey!”
I changed my mind. I am gonna tell Winry about this after all. And she’s gonna say, “Oh my God, you deserve each other.”
That’s about right.