Sorry I know it's been awhile! This may seem like useless fluff, but trust me, it comes in handy later! Let me know what you think!
"Can we go to the High Market?" Ed asked hopefully as he bounced into the passenger seat of Roy's car.
"Brother. That place is crawling with sketchy people." Al admonished from where he was settling into the entire backseat of the car.
"We aren't going anywhere until you two put on your seatbelts." Roy admonished, shooting a glance over at both boys witheringly.
There was clanking from the backseat as Alphonse hurried to comply.
Ed blew out a breath and rolled his eyes.
"I don't see why I gotta wear a seat belt. My automail can't be broken. And Al's a suit of armor- nothing can hurt him!"
"No, but Alphonse could hurt us. If there was a crash and Al were to get thrown forward, we could be hurt. And you might have automail, Ed, but you're not invincible."
Ed crossed his arms. "It's stupid. Don't tell me what to do."
"Oh, so you think I'm being bossy, huh?" Roy asked.
"Ed, just put it on." Al piped up from the backseat. There was a click. Al was too large to fit the middle seat seat belt, so he had taken 2 seat belts from either side of the backseat and fastened them both over himself in an x-like fashion.
"I'm tired of old people trying to tell us what to do, Al!" Ed protested.
"It's for your own good, you know." Roy supplied patiently. "Seatbelts reduce the risk of death by 45% and cut the risk of serious injury to 50%(1). They also hold you in place so you don't get ejected in a crash. 3 of 4 people who get ejected from a vehicle don't survive(1). You wouldn't want to do that to Al, would you?"
Ed was silent.
"Remember that car crash was saw in Bresh, brother?" Al added. "We couldn't do anything to help. Everyone was gone. All we could do was cover up the mess with blankets so that the teenager's families wouldn't see them. Maybe if they'd been wearing seat belts it'd have been different."
Ed clicked his seatbelt into place. "Fine, whatever. Let's get going we have shopping to do."
Roy turned the key in the ignition and started out.
"So- does anyone want anything specific from the store?" Roy asked.
"Waffles." Ed said happily. "And soft pretzels."
"Scented candles." Al added.
"You're gonna polish yourself with that flowery smelling wax again aren't you?" Ed spoke up.
"It's the closest thing I can get to deodorant, brother." Al sounded slightly hurt.
"I know. Get some of those cucumber melon candles-I like the smell of those." Ed said quietly.
"Okay." Al brightened significantly.
"I wanna go to the High Market too." Ed piped up, looking over at Roy.
"For what?" Roy was wary. The high market sold useful things, but it was also a backdoor apothecary that sold unregulated pharmaceuticals and other odd, possibly illegal substances in the alley under the guise of traditional medicine.
"They got those cookies that have your future written inside them!" Ed looked childish with excitement.
"You need a cookie to tell you that?" Roy scoffed. "I could tell you for free. 'you will be short and miserable'."
Al sniggered from the backseat and Ed frowned. "Normally I would yell at you for that, but I wanna go to the High Market. So can we go?"
"Yes. IF you two stay close to me and we don't take long."
"Score!" Ed pumped his fist in the air, looking excited.
"What do you want to get shopping, Colonel?" Al asked.
Mustang shrugged. "Trash bags, milk, butter, eggs, bread, jam."
"Boring stuff." Ed added.
Roy pulled into the shopping center. "You say that, but I don't see you complaining when we eat dinner."
"Can we get Mac n' cheese?"
"Yes, we can get a few boxes."
"Can we get frozen burritos and ramen?"
Roy wrinkled his nose. Ever since Ed moved in with them, he'd realized the kid seemed to live off microwaved food.
"Yes, a couple. But you need to eat a vegetable every once in awhile." he got out of the car, and Ed did the same.
"Well excuse me for being too busy to go harvest nature's bounty." Ed scoffed.
"Guys!" Al called from the back, muffled by the car doors.
"What's up, Al?" Roy turned around to see Al still strapped into the back seat, his large hands struggling with the seatbelts.
"Can you unbuckle me? I'm stuck!?"
"Okay, this actually isn't so bad." Roy had his list nearly halfway completed. Ed insisted on standing on the bottom rack of the cart and holding onto the back to ride it, but Al was pushing, so Roy couldn't complain. And Al was tall enough to reach everything on the top shelf.
"Ed- name something that isn't microwaved that you'll eat."
"Peanut butter sandwhich."
"Done." Roy grabbed a jar of peanut butter off the shelf and tossed it into the cart.
"Fruits and vegetables you like?"
"Fruitsnacks!" Ed looked excited, pointing at a large box. "Those are the best, Mom used to get those for me!"
"Yeah I remember those." Al sounded excited as well.
It melted Roy's resolve. Just a little. He picked up the box. It said it was amde with real fruit juice. That was close enough to a fruit, wasn't it? If Trisha Elric had bought them for the boys, they couldn't be horrible.
"Okay. Fine. But REAL fruits, now."
"I don't have time for real fruits. I'm constantly running around to headquarters or the library." Ed complained.
Roy couldn;t argue with the kid. He was pretty busy. But still, that wasn't an excuse to live out of vending machines.
"Alright, so how about a grab and go snack. You like applesauce?"
"Yeah."
Roy snagged a box of applesauce pouches and threw it into the cart, then kept going. He just had to make sure Ed didn't realize they gave those applesauce pouches to toddlers commonly. Because he doubted Ed would care enough to grab a spoon or a more traditional applesauce cup.
"What about yogurt?" Roy asked.
Ed narrowed his eyes. "Milk." he groused from where he was holding onto the cart.
"Cheese sticks?" Roy held up the package enticingly.
"Okay." Ed acquiesced. "It doesn't taste like milk."
They were jsut about done shopping- the only thing left was to get coffee.
Roy started off towards the aisle but stopped when he realized Al wasn't following pushing the cart.
The boy was looking at a duster in the cleaning aisle. "Throw it in the cart, Al. I'll dust your armor off tonight if you want." he said. Al couldn't really eat, but it wasn't fair to exclude the boy from shopping.
"Thank you!"
"It's nothing. Let's get going. I want to hit the yellow market before it gets too late."
It got dark early in the fall. So even though it was only a little after 5, dusk was setting in on the city as he and the boys parked alongside the street in the nicer part of town and walked towards the yellow market.
Ed had an excited bounce in his step at the prospect of fortune cookies, and Al was hoping to find stray cats.
The warm glow of streetlights faded as they entered the rougher neighborhood of town- a block or so was dark, before the hanging string lights and colorful candle lanterns lit up the street.
The barren streets of central melted into a new landscape of men shouting about wares in a Xingese tongue. Men with cone-shaped hates and women in flowing garb, as well as children and stray dogs ran though the streets, adding to the commotion and the smells and sights of the market.
People were selling vibrant flowers, roast seafood on sticks, and a variety of meat and pastries.
One market stall had a variety of little animals made of colored paper, and Alphonse stopped to look.
The children stopped running and playing with their sticks and hoops when they saw Edward and stared, whispering among themselves.
Roy wondered if they recognized him as the Fullmetal Alchemist or not. Normally children were enthralled by Alphonse and his armor, not Edward...
A cold wind blew, rustling the paper lanterns and scattering the children. They took off down various alleyways and down the street.
It unnerved Roy, for some reason.
Ed had found the shop he was looking for- an old woman selling the cookies he wanted.
She shakily bagged them up for him and they chatted as he got out his money to pay her.
Alphonse squatted to set a stray cat near the mouth of an alley.
The quiet suddenly struck Roy as odd. The market callers had stopped shouting about their wares and people had stopped chattering. Mothers took their children and went to other stalls further away from them.
A woman ran into Roy and fell, scattering her things on the ground.
"Sorry!" she exclaimed, her angular Xingese eyes drawing him in.
"No, not a problem at all." Roy bent to help her pick up her scattered items, though he couldn't stop the hairs of unease form standing up on the back of his neck.
As they both picked up the fallen items from the ground, the woman leaned closer to him, eyes wide. "You must leave now. They will come for the boy. Men offer lot of money for him. Children go get men- they take boy."
Roy froze for a moment, before he nodded, handing her one of the items he'd been picked up and straightening.
"Edward! Al!"
Ed had paid for his cookies- the old woman at the shop had somehow given him a large stick of candy as well and was patting him on the head.
"What?" Ed asked, looking annoyed at the interruption.
"We're going. Now." his voice left no room for argument, and Ed fell into step beside him and Al as they headed back the way they came.
"But we just got here." Ed complained.
"You got your cookies. Now let's go."
He couldn't shake the feeling they were being watched, though they got home that night without incident.
(1) . #:~:text=Seat%20belts%20dramatically%20reduce%20risk,of%20serious%20injury%20by%2050%25.&text=Seat%20belts%20prevent%20drivers%20and%20passengers%20from%20being%20ejected%20during%20a%20crash.&text=Seat%20belts%20saved%20almost%2013%2C000%20lives%20in%202009.