Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, but maybe someday, if I close my eyes and cross my fingers and wish really, really, really, really hard, then I just might…yeah, right.
A/N: There isn't much that I have to say about this fic only to warn you that there is a discussion about the differences between boys and girls and yes, the word 'penis' is said. However, I don't think it should leave anyone blushing. After all, don't you remember the first time you learned that there was a fundamental physical difference between boys and girls?
I know I do.
Enjoy!
Innocence
"Winry! Ed! Al! Bath time!" Trisha called. She gladly placed the empty bucket down at her feet, her arms aching because she had been carrying it between the stove and aluminum washbasin several times, careful not to slosh warm soapy water all over her floor. Normally, bath time would be taking place in the upstairs bathroom, but thanks to the mischievous experiments of her little alchemists, there was no longer a tub in the pretty tiled room.
Earlier that morning Ed and Al had decided to alchemize the porcelain tub into a rather crude, but certainly functional, clay fort for them to play in. While Trisha had been angry, especially when her sons reluctantly admitted that they weren't too sure how to transmute the tub back into its original form, she couldn't be cross with them for very long. After all, the only reason they had made the fort was in order to make Winry a proper princess, and all princesses needed a great fortress where her noble knights could protect her.
Children really could be too cute.
However, as it was, Trisha Elric had three tots in her home in desperate need of a bath before bedtime, but no tub. So, the young mother had improvised and filled her washbasin with water, deciding that she would bathe all three at once in the middle of her dinning room.
Winry was the first to barge into the room, struggling to pull her dress over her head, her socks already lost somewhere in the house. The young Rockbell girl was spending the next month with the Elrics, her parents and grandmother having left for Rush Valley to participate in the grand opening of a new, automail focused hospital and the ensuing celebrations. Trisha adored having the girl and the boys also seemed to be pleased that their friend would get to spend a good portion of the summer with them.
And speaking of the boys…
Winry had her back to the archway when Ed and Al entered the room. Both boys were already stripped of their clothing and sunk into the warm bath water before Trisha picked Winry up and placed her into the tub with Ed and Al.
"Do you want your ducky, Ed?" Trisha asked her eldest. The boy nodded and Trisha patted him on the head before making her way out of the room to collect the bath toys.
"My turtle, too, Mommy!" Al requested just before the flutter of Trisha's apron strings disappeared beyond the archway. The Elric brothers reclined in the comfortably warm soapy water, their skin taking on a healthy pink glow brought on by a good day of activity and the balmy water.
"I gots more bubbles." Winry boasted, having piled a vast amount of suds on her head like a frothy crown.
"You look like Granny." Ed teased, splashing both Winry and his brother as they all laughed.
"I got a beard. Look!" Al said, burying his chin into the soapy water and emerging with a runny white beard of bubbles. "Now Ed's got no bubbles."
"I do too!" the elder Elric declared, hating to be left out of anything. If Winry and Alphonse were going to start collecting bubbles then he was going to amass his own horde of suds, and he would be sure to have the most.
The silent challenge issued, all three tots began to scoop their arms along the water's surface, capturing all of the bubbles and suds and cloaking their bodies with them until there wasn't a single one left to be had.
Surprisingly, Ed actually won.
"Yeah!" the five year old cried victoriously, standing up in the tub, water sloshing onto the wood floor. His arms were raised proudly over his head and all of the bubbles he had so viciously collected slid down his body to pool in the water around his knees. "I won! I'm the best!" Ed declared, looking down at the other two, expecting to stare into awe-filled, adoring expressions.
Al was blinking up at his brother, thoroughly shocked that Ed had bested him in a challenge. Ed stuck his tongue out at Al and looked down at Winry who was staring up at him with such large, transfixed blue eyes, that some of Ed's bravado began to slink away.
She was frozen, too focused on staring at Ed to even bat away the long trail of runny suds that were slinking down the side of her face and dripping off of her chin. Her eyes, as blue as the sky at the height of summer, were making Ed uncomfortable, staring with quizzical concentration right between his legs.
Ed lowered his arms, completely confused.
"Auntie Trisha!" Winry yelled, her eyes finally breaking away from him. She leaned over the edge of the washbasin, her chubby fingers digging into the edge of the tub. "Auntie Trisha you gotta come quick!" Winry called again, concern coloring her young voice. "Ed's gots a tail. And it's on backwards!"
"What?!" Ed cried, his face turning a deep crimson as he dropped to his knees and submerged himself into the water up to his chest.
"Where's a tail?" Al asked, trying to peer through the water and discover his older brother's newly acquired appendage.
"I ain't got a tail!" Ed hollered, pressing his back up against the tub and shooting his brother a filthy glare. "Don't lie, Winry. Don't tell my mom I got a tail when I don't!" he commanded.
"You do, too! I saw it." Winry insisted. "It's 'tween your legs."
"It's not a tail!" Ed roared, his small voice sounding lethal as he slammed his fists against the water and protectively cupped himself from Winry's analytical stare. His movements caused a splash of soapy water to land in Al's eye, promptly making the four year old cry.
That was the scene Trisha walked into, Ed blushing madly as he and Winry barked at each other and Al crying, rubbing his stinging right eye. Placing the bucket of bath toys, which included the wooden duck and turtle that were her sons' favorites, on the counter, Trisha made her way to the trio and knelt down next to the basin.
"Edward Van Elric and Winry Sarah Rockbell!" Trisha chided as she cuddled her youngest son, using her apron to dab at his injured eye.
The two five year olds immediately ceased their squabbling knowing that when an adult addressed them by their full names that they were on the cliff's edge of deep trouble. They retreated to their own ends of the washbasin shooting each other disdainful looks, Winry's arms crossed around her knees and Ed's firmly covering the 'tail' between his legs.
Al's sobbing soon stopped, the soap lodged in his eye having been washed away with his tears and his mother's gentle touch. Once her youngest was calmed, Trisha turned her attention back to the two sulking children.
"Now, what's the matter here? I heard you both yelling about a tail?"
"I saw Ed's tail!" Winry declared, pointing an accusing finger at her friend.
"It's not a tail, it's a penis!" Ed said through grit teeth.
"You got it on backwards." Winry insisted.
"No! That's where it's 'upposed to be." Ed snarled.
"Well, what's it for?" Winry asked snobbishly.
"Don't be a dummy! You use yours for the same thing." Ed shouted, tears of embarrassed frustration nearly spilling out of his eyes.
"I don't got one!" Winry announced.
"Now you're lying!" Ed yelled.
"Look!"
And before Trisha could put a stop to the angry and confused discussion, Winry stood up in the tub to show Ed that there was no penis to be had anywhere on her body. Ed looked at her for a moment, a baffled expression on his face before he narrowed his sharp golden eyes and snorted.
"So did it fall off or something?" he asked.
"No!" Winry snapped, falling back into the water. "I never had one. Girls don't have a penis."
"Is that true, Mommy?" Al asked, turning to look at his mother. Trisha stuttered as she found herself the focus of three pairs of eager and determined eyes, each one expecting her to explain the conundrum of the differences between their bodies.
She had been hoping they might be a little older before having to get into a discussion about basic human anatomy, but as the boys and Winry hadn't bathed together since they were still in nappies, it should have been obvious to her that, at five and four, they would be curious and want some answers.
She sighed.
"Ed, Al, Winry," she started, "boys and girls are made different. Boys have penises and girls don't."
"But why, Mom?" Ed asked in his demanding tone, much in the same way he angrily muttered at an alchemy book when he didn't fully understand what he was reading.
"Because how would you tell the difference between boys and girls?" Trisha answered with a gentle smile.
"So…so boys gets a penis and girls don't and then mommies and daddies know what's a boy and what's a girl?" Al asked, simplifying the explanation as only a child could.
"But that's stupid!" Ed insisted.
"No it's not." Trisha amended, stroking her eldest's face. "Boys and girls are just supposed to be that way. It's very important."
"Don't make sense." Ed grumbled.
"One day you'll understand, sweetheart." Trisha assured.
"So…my penis didn't fall off?" Winry checked shyly, pulling on her wet hair.
"It didn't. You never had one, Winry."
"And that's OK? Cuz I'm not 'upposed to have one?"
"That's right."
"What does Winry have, then?" Ed asked, scrutinizing his friend with the eyes of an alchemist. They were eyes that studied and observed and mentally broke things down before building them back up again. One day, those eyes wouldn't be so wide and innocent. One day, those eyes would grow with age and wisdom and become the eyes of a man…
And maybe, one day, those innocent eyes wouldn't look at Winry as if she was some strange, fascinating discovery.
Or maybe they would.
"That's a secret." Trisha responded.
"But Mom…"
"Ed, you are too young for me to tell you." Trisha answered, making her way to the bucket of toys and then handing them to the children.
"Aw! That's not fair! How long before I'm not too young?"
"A long time." Trisha promised. "But, maybe when your father comes back he'll tell you."
Trisha had meant for the reassurance of her husband's homecoming to be a comfort for her oldest son, but if anything, it only served to make the five year old sullen and quiet for the rest of bath time. The children were dressed in their pajamas and told to get ready for bed, giving Trisha enough time to clean up the washbasin and sudsy mess on her floor before going up to read them a story. The tail incident seemed to have been washed away along with the dirt under the children's fingernails, Al and Winry laughing and singing as they made their way upstairs, the awkward moment forgotten. Ed, however, remained quiet, his eyes downcast and his mouth twisted into a small frown.
It bothered Trisha that Ed, always so vivacious and full of energy and so very, very intelligent, was troubled greatly by his father's absence. Van had never been a man to fully interact with his children, his own feelings of self-loathing and uncertainty depraving him of basking in his sons' presence and simply enjoying them. Trisha hadn't even been fully aware of the relationship forged between Van and Ed, but surely it must have had some strength and importance for Ed to always get so angry whenever he was mentioned.
Perhaps some of Ed's innocence was already gone, having walked out of the door with his father…
Making her way upstairs and down the hall towards Ed and Al's bedroom, Trisha was about to walk into the room and ask the kids which story they would like to hear when Winry's little voice, so quiet and sad, reached her ears and Trisha stopped just outside of the door to listen.
"…mad at me cuz I'm different?" Winry wondered shyly.
"No, don't be stupid." Ed muttered. "That'd be a dumb reason to be mad."
"I'm sorry Auntie Trisha wouldn't tell you the secret. If I knew what it was, I'd tell you."
"It's OK." Ed insisted.
"Know what?" Winry announced and Trisha peeked into the bedroom, spotting Alphonse already fast asleep on his side of the bed while Ed and Winry sat up against the headboard and whispered.
Winry was holding out her pinky finger and made Ed link his own pinky with hers. "Auntie Trisha said we couldn't know everything about the differences because we're too young. Well, someday we're gonna grow up and I promise that when I grow up and learn the secret I'll tell you, and if you learn the secret first then you tell me."
"OK." Ed conceded, blushing as Winry gave his pinky finger a firm squeeze and shake before settling in the bed and waiting for Trisha to come in with a storybook. Trisha didn't miss Winry's obliviousness to Ed's focused stare nor did she ignore her son's blush or the way he flexed the pinky Winry had made her oath on.
A pinky swear to one day inform each other on why it was the boys and girls were made physically different. It was the most sacred of promises to a child and from the look on Ed and Winry's faces, both were determined to keep this pledge. It was a simple bond, unbreakable and unquestionable and nevermind what the pinky swear was actually about, it was something that was important to the two five year olds and it made Trisha wish that life could always be so certain...that life could always be viewed as black and white...that when they finally did grow up and learn about the secret of boys and girls they wouldn't let it change their bond...that they would still make promises to each other and keep them.
Trisha chuckled.
She wished for them to stay that innocent forever.
OK, so looking back on this, I realize that how I wanted this story to turn out didn't happen and to be honest, I really have no idea where this came from. At first I had intended to do a piece about Ed and Winry discovering that boys and girls were different from each other. It was going to be a humorous piece and not venture so much into the dramatic or angsty areas, but there are tinges of both in this fic. What ended up happening was I began to write from Trisha's perspective, and really, whenever I even think of Trisha I just get all melancholy because, seriously, she is so sympathetic a character that I always want to reach out and give her a great big hug.
So, anyway, I'm not super over-the-moon thrilled with this fic, but I like it.
A few notes:
1. Hohenheim's full name is Theophratus Bombastus Van Hohenheim and as I was writing I realized that Trisha probably doesn't call him by his surname like everyone else. She likely called him Van or even Theo. I went with Van.
2. The artwork that originally inspired this fic can be found at aquaspirits. The artist's name is Len and she has a deviantart account as well. Just be forewarned, most of her work is for mature viewers. That being said, she draws some of the best EdxWin on the net and her doujinshi are stunning!
And I think that's about all.
I hope you enjoyed the fic. By all means, leave a review and let me know. No flames, please and thank you!
Giant Nickel
