Vacation with the Mustangs

Chapter 2

"Well Roy? Are we ready to go?" Roy nodded and tried to keep himself from staring at Riza too much. Leroy nudged him. "Look kid, it's alright to be nervous... just don't go drooling on my car seats when you do look at her." Roy had a very large urge to light him on fire and bite him viciously, but at that moment, Alex bounded out of the house, his sparkles ever present in the air.

"Ho ho! A family vacation, it will be such fun!" Leroy rubbed his head. "Ah, well... Alex, there won't be enough room for you in the car. Where are you going to sit?" Alex Armstrong looked the car up and down, sparkling thoughtfully. "I will take my seat on top of it!" he announced, leaping on top of the car and sitting on it with his luggage. "That solves our problem, doesn't it Leroy?" Ilia asked.

Leroy still looked nervous. "I'm still having second thoughts... wouldn't it be safer to go in two seperate vehicles? What will we do if someone from Eastern HQ stops us?" Roy shivered in his seat and Maes and Riza looked at him, concerned. He had often had nightmares of his parents being seperated by force, or just taken away from him completely. Maes patted his shoulder. "It's alright, they won't get caught."

Roy's parents were two State Alchemists,Fuhrer Leroy Mustang, and Brigadier GeneralIlia Durandal. The Flame Arm Alchemist, and the Healing Alchemist. If they were ever caught... Roy just didn't like to think about the consequences. Even if Leroy was Fuhrer, he had been denied the power to change the rule of Fraternization, and so the two of them were still in great danger.The only people to know about it were the Hughes family since his mother was an old friend of Mrs. Hughes, and Riza's grandfather who was vigorously loyal to Leroy as another of his Brigadier Generals.

"We already worked it out, remember? We said we were taking them to the beach for a vacation from their parents with our own salary, remember?" Leroy still didn't like it, and he pulled at his flame gauntlets irritibly. "All right. I might as well not worry about it, it won't do me any good," he muttered. Then he smacked himself in the head.

"I forgot! I told Havoc I'd do him a favor, and owing him anything gives me the creeps, so I agreed to take his son with us too."

Roy's mouth dropped open. "Jean? You're bringing Jean?" he screamed. Leroy glared at him severely. "Yes, I'm bringing Jean Havoc with us. There is to be no burning, no needless abuse, no 'accidents', and no maiming of any kind." Roy cursed and his mother smacked him in the head. "What did I tell you about cursing?"

"Sorry Mom... but Jean?" he whined. "Do we really have to?" His father had already sat down at the wheel and had set his jaw, meaning that he wouldn't be swayed no matter what Roy did. Roy sulked in between Maes and Riza sullenly. "Can we leave him if he doesn't show up?" his father only gave him a glare that blatantly said 'NO'. "Why couldn't you have owed Falman or Fuery a favor, eh? Why'd it have to be Havoc?"

"It's your own fault. Remember who saved you when you tipped yourself out the office window?" Roy muttered a half-hearted 'Yes', and patted Belcini, who had stretched out on Maes' lap and buried his claws in his pant leg. Maes gave him a wince. "Why can't you have a dog instead of a cat! Cats hurt..."

"I wanted a dog, but Mom's allergic. So I had to get a cat. Dad doesn't like dogs either because they have a strange tendency to bite him. He's a dog bite magnet, I swear." Leroy cleared his throat and looked at his only son, irritated. "Can we go now, Your Majesty, or have you not finished complaining?" He didn't wait for an answer and backed out of the driveway, muttering, "Now I wish I hadn't had a son so early in life. What was I thinking?" Ilia directed a frosty look in his direction. "You certainly weren't thinking with your head!" she seemed irritated too, and had taken a rather dramatic swing from happy to annoyed.

"I was sixteen! You expected me to be the mature one?"

"Yes, I did."

"Love is great and all, but it comes to bite you in the ass fourteen years down the road and counting."

"Now if only you had thought of that when you were sixteen!"

Roy groaned audibly in the backseat and they turned to look at him for a moment at a traffic light. Then Ilia burst out laughing and Leroy directed a bewildered glance at her. "The world is going mental," he muttered darkly. Ilia then promptly fell asleep in the seat. Leroy stuck his head out of the window. "Alex! Tell me when the light turns green, would you? Driving is hell for me." Alex said that he would and watched the light like a hawk.

Riza giggled in the seat and Maes and Roy stared at her. "What's going on?" they asked, both confused at the sudden strangeness Roy's parents were exhibiting. She looked at both of them. "Oh, nothing!" she giggled again and they pleaded some more. "Please, Riza! Come on, tell us!"

"I'm surprised Roy doesn't know already! But..." shepaused thoughtfully. "I'll tell you if you can find me a stray puppy at the beach." Roy and Maes goggled at her. "Done!" they said. Leroy gave them a suspicious look, Alex boomed out that the light had turned green, and Leroy put his foot down on the pedal, made a turn and stopped in front of a largish house. He honked loudly and a man with a cigarette in his mouth ushered Jean out the door.

"He isn't sitting next to me! I remember what happened the last time he did!" Roy said. All that will be said of that unfortunate incident, is that Roy was in the hospital for two months with a broken leg and screaming that he would kill Jean Havoc no matter what it took. He was constantly put on sedatives, to no one's surprise.

Maes sighed, resigned to his fate, and scooted over so Jean could sit down next to them. Roy smiled brightly. "Dad didn't say anything about-"

"No mental or psychological torture whatsoever."

"Darn."

Jean grinned at Roy sheepishly and Roy gave him a glare that would have killed and disentegrated him on the spot if looks could kill. Maes and Riza decided not to interfere with them and let them stare huffily out their respective windows, Roy grimacing at anyone on the sidewalk, and Jean fiddling around with the straw in his mouth.

"Stop glaring at people like that, Roy, people will wonder if you have problems."

"Good, then I'll say I have psychological problems and say it's your fault because you're an abusive father."

Leroy weighed his words carefully. He shrugged. "At least tell them I'm nice every once in a while."

Roy grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. "I can never win with him, ever." Havoc had just begun to engage in conversation with Maes, in reference to all of Roy's personality problems, which Roy ignored. He'd kill them later, he decided, and turn their bodies to ash. He was then wondering how he would dispose of the ash, when Maes whipped out pictures. Roy jumped up in his seat and hit his head on the ceiling of the car, which caused Alex to sway unsteadily on top, and his weight caused the car to shift crazily to the left. Leroy put his foot on the brake and stopped on the side of the road in a cloud of dust, and Ilia woke up with a start and a soft cry of surprise.

"NO PICTURES! I'VE HAD ENOUGH! I'VE SEEN EVERY ONE OF YOUR PICTURES OF GRACIA AT LEAST FIVE HUNDRED TIMES, MAES!" Maes pocketed them with a sniff of indignation. "What are you talking about, it's only been four hundred and fifty-two..."

Leroy was attempting to comfort a panicky Ilia and glare at the backseat at the same time, an action of which he was unsuccessful. "Can you four, please, for Ilia's sake, try to keep it down back there? Especially you, Roy!" Roy sulked and Leroy turned back to the road.

"You're just like me, and don't even think about snapping those gloves in here!" Roy put down his hand, wondering how Leroy had seen it without looking at him, since their rearview mirror had been snapped off some days before. "I know how you think. Don't even think about it!" he said, as Roy tried to think of some way he could cause his father bodily harm.

"Let's just try to get there in one piece." Leroy swore that he would never have another child after this if only he could get to the beach in at least two pieces.

I wasn't expecting 5 reviews a day after I posted! Thank you! I just thought I'd make everyone younger and send them to the beach, and I came up with these strange little episodes of a thoroughly paranoid Roy, same old Maes, and a (as strange as it sounds) bit more carefree Riza. Havoc will definitely cause havoc in this story though, so let's just hope Roy doesn't blow him up before the fourth chapter! - T A