Hey people, this is my first Full Metal Alchemist fic so please don't eat me!
Right, a little bit of background…
Al is still in his armour
Ed still has metal limbs
Roy and his unit (Breda, Havoc, Hawkeye, Fury, and Falmann) are staying at Winry's house along with Ed, Al, Hughes and his family, Armstrong and anyone else I will bring into it, for the summer holidays.
The homunculus will most likely appear at some point. Yeah I keep switching to little Japanese phrases or words like 'ne' and 'hai' and stuff so please pay it no heed, it's just habit now. Oh yeah, please tell me if I've made any spelling mistakes with the names of the people, I'm not exactly brilliant with names.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything what so ever, poor me!
Taking over me
Chapter 1- They're just children
Alphonse Elric laughed and held his older but smaller brother back as he yelled at his superior, Col. Roy Mustang.
"YOU MAY CALL ME SMALL BUT I'M NOT SO TITCHY THAT I CAN'T REACH YOUR KNEECAPS!"
"What ever short-ass, you shouldn't stress so much; I've heard it stunts your growth." Ed froze in Al's arm.
"Oh no you didn't just insult me again!" He tried even harder to get to Mustang.
"Brother please, stop!" Ed stopped struggling and pulled a face at Mustang, who stuck his tongue out in a childish manner. "Thank you. I'm gonna let go of you now, promise not to launch yourself at Roy?" Ed just mumbled something in reply. Al gingerly took his strong armoured arms away and let go of his brother but kept his hands at the ready should he need to catch him. Ed stayed where he was but looked very ticked off.
"Why don't you go get some water and cool yourself down," Mustang said looking down on Ed, "Surely such a small body would get easily over heated." He smirked as Ed's eyes narrowed, but the chibi followed the advice and walked into the kitchen. He instantly cheered up when he saw Winry sitting down at the kitchen table, her entire days work spread out across it. The new auto-mail arm glinted in the light, surrounded by wires and various pieces of metal as she sat back in her chair.
"I'm finally finished." She said looking over at Ed.
"How long has that taken you now?"
"About two days without sleep."
"And why have you made it again?"
Winry yawned, "Because I was bored."
"Okay, then what are you gonna do with it now?"
"Put it into storage like all the others I've made." She got up and picked it up carefully and walked towards the wooden door that was meant to be a pantry, but had ended up being the storage room for all Winry's products of boredom. "I made it in your size."
"What? Why? You just fitted me with a new arm." Ed paused in the action of pouring a glass of water.
"Because you go through them like crazy, like you just said, I only just fitted you with a new one." Winry shut the door to the storage room and sat back down in her seat at the table.
"And?" Ed smirked at her.
"I'd only just fitted you with another new one the week before that." She had intended to sound angry but was too tired after pulling another all nighter.
"What's your point?" Ed asked playfully.
"You're reckless, just be careful with the one you've got now okay?" Ed nodded and drank his water as Maes Hughes came in through the back door.
"Thanks again Winry, this place is great!"
"No problem, glad to have the company to tell you the truth." She yawned again. Winry had invited Roy, his unit and a few other friends to stay with her for the summer holidays. It was lonely now for Winry as Pinako Rockbell had died recently. Hughes had brought his wife Glacier and his daughter Elysia with him so as to make it a family holiday. Winry hadn't minded of course, the house was big enough for everyone to stay in and plus there was the barn should more people turn up.
"Elysia is having the time of her life. You know when I retire from the military I'm moving into a place like this, it's a really beautiful place." Winry and Ed nodded their agreement as Hughes sat down at the table with them. Silence descended on the kitchen and the sounds of Elysia and Den, Winry's dog, playing outside floated in though the open back door. It had been extremely hot the last few weeks and the villagers of Risembool were worried the river may dry up. A water shortage was the last thing they needed.
"Daddy!" Elysia called, "Daddy, Mommy's back!" Hughes stood up with a smile and walked out to greet his wife who had gone shopping at the local market with Riza Hawkeye.
"It's nice to have everyone here." Winry said quietly, knowing she was dreading the time the holidays were over and everyone would have to go back to Central, including Ed and Al. Even though that was a long way off; everyone had only been here for two days so far, but still she feared being left alone again.
"Yeah, though I wish the bastard Colonel would stay off my back. He's starting to do my head in." Winry just giggled, and yawned again.
"I'm gonna go to bed for a few hours." She announced standing up and stretching.
"About time, you need your beauty sleep." Ed joked which gained him a gentle tap on the arm from Winry. Ed heard her footsteps go up the stairs and head into her room. He sighed; he really didn't want to leave her again. The minute he found out about Aunt Pinako's death, he had come straight over to make sure she was alright. She seemed to be dealing with it alright but Ed knew she was screaming on the inside. Aunt Pinako had been the only true family she had left, she still had Ed and Al but they weren't really her family, nor did they really act like it, leaving her for months at a time, returning to get Ed's auto-mail repaired so that he could repair Al, then leave again only to come back a few months later in a worse state. Ed looked up as Riza entered the kitchen carrying a few paper bags in her arms.
"Hello Ed, how are you?"
"I'm fine thank you Riza; did you have fun at Risembool market?"
"Actually yes I did, you wouldn't think such a small, quiet village would have so many stalls devoted to guns!" she smiled brightly. "What have you been up to?"
Arguing with your god damn bastard of a boyfriend…
"Nothing much."
"You should get out and enjoy the sunshine; we won't get chance back in Central." Ed liked Riza when she was off duty and unarmed, she was nice and relaxed. She wore her hair down and casual clothing, looking more like a normal woman rather than the strict Lieutenant she was in Central city.
"Yeah alright." Ed mumbled dragging himself up and out through the back door. Riza shook her head.
Typical lazy teenager…
Al appeared in the kitchen a while later. "Where did brother go?" he asked Riza.
"I made him go outside, you should be out there too, have another mock battle with your brother, he's getting lazy." Riza answered and reprimanded at the same time.
"Yes ma'am." Al followed Ed through the back door and Riza heard him yell after his brother. A long while later she heard the distinct metal clangs and clunks of auto-mail on armour. The boys never passed up a chance to practise fighting each other, and it amused everyone to know that Ed rarely won over his younger brother.
"Are they fighting again?" a deep voice asked from the kitchen/living room door way. Riza turned to see her boyfriend leaning against the doorframe.
"Yes, I told them to get some exercise." She walked across to the kitchen table and began to clear away the tools and metal pieces Winry had left out on the kitchen table. Roy almost laughed, Riza looked like a housewife or a mother clearing up after her three messy teenagers.
She treats them like they are her children, like they belong to her.
At this thought, Roy's smile faded a little and his heart tugged in his chest.
It isn't fair…
"ED! AL! BE CAREFUL WITH THAT AUTO-MAIL!" Roy and Riza laughed hearing Winry's shout from the balcony outside her bedroom.
"Ed will be the death of that girl one of these days." Roy said eyeing the gun parts Riza had bought that day at the market, "Do you really need all that?"
"Yes, it will improve my shooting skills."
"You're already excellent at shooting; you put the rest of us to shame."
"Then you should work harder." Riza deposited all of the tools into the tool bag beside the table and carried it over to the storage room. Roy sighed, he wasn't about to get into another discussion which would end up with Riza demonstrating some of her sharp shooting abilities and leaving Roy looking over his shoulder every few seconds for the next couple of days.
"I'm gonna go watch Ed and Al." Roy started across the kitchen.
"You mean you're going to criticize every move Ed makes and get him so wound up that he will start mouthing off and taking swings at you so that you can just torch him and make yourself feel good ne?" Riza didn't even look up.
Roy smirked, "Something like that." He started down towards the lake where he knew Ed and Al always placed their mock battles so as not to harm anything or anyone. He walked round the large clump of bushes and trees shielding the view of the lake from the house (but more so to keep Winry from seeing how roughly the boys were fighting) and found some of his unit sitting on the grass, cheering Ed on, in hopes that he may actually win this one (and to settle the bet they had made a few minutes prior to the battle). Roy sat down next to Cain Fury, the young, dark haired, bespectacled Sergeant Major. "Who's winning?"
"Well, they're both doing well, but Ed is tiring out whereas Al doesn't get tired."
"Yeah but Al tends to make a few mistakes which Ed takes advantage of." Watteau Falmann added. It was clear they had bet against each other and their argument over who was better caused them to miss the out come of the battle.
Al had bent over at the lake's edge with his back to Ed after receiving a kick to the helmet from his brother's auto-mail leg, Ed had then ran at Al with an almighty speed and had attempted to jump on Al's back to push him to the ground but Al had dropped and rolled out of the way at the last second and Ed had ended up in the lake. He had cried out before he hit the surface and disappeared underneath.
Roy laughed along with his friends and Al did a little victory dance. Ed surfaced again gasping from the lack of oxygen; he brought his hand out of the water and brushed his wet hair out of his face.
"Al, look what I found!" he lifted his auto-mail arm and showed his brother a little toy steam engine made out of thick dark wood.
"Wow, my train!" Al rushed into the lake and waded over to his brother; he then picked Ed up and placed him on his back so that he was giving him a piggyback ride. Ed couldn't swim very well so Al would usually carry him this way when there was water that was deep, it just made life easier.
They reached the bank and climbed out, Ed passing the toy train down to Fury as they started back towards the house, to make sure Ed and Al got dry properly before they rusted.
"What's with the train, and why was it at the bottom of the lake?" Fury asked looking the toy over.
"It was my favourite toy when I was younger; we found out from Mom that when Dad had left a few years before he had transmuted it for me. Ed got mad and took my train and the toy horse Dad had made for him down to the lake and threw them in."
"I didn't want anything that bastard transmuted left in the house." Ed said bitterly, his face set. He smiled again though when he saw Armstrong waving at them from the balcony, signalling that dinner was ready.
"Great timing," Havoc said nudging Fury, "I'm starving."
"Must have been all that nothing you did while watching us fight." Ed said sarcastically, while still sitting upon Al's back.
"Yeah okay, no need to get bitchy." Havoc retorted playfully.
"Children, children, stop you're bickering!" Roy said wagging a finger.
"You can talk!" Havoc said, "You sulk like a kid every time Riza tells you off for something."
"Have you ever tried talking back to that woman? Seriously she would kill me…"
Ed listened to his friends speaking around him without really listening at all, the sounds of their voices hummed soothingly in his skull, the melodic tones sounding like a lullaby.
"…and when ever she's telling you to do your paperwo-", Roy clamped a hand over Havoc's mouth and placed a finger on his other hand against his lips. He pointed with the same finger up to Al's shoulders where Ed had fallen asleep leaning his head on his younger brother's shoulder.
They're still just children…
Roy thought as they made their way up the small hill towards the house, talking in hushed voices so as not to wake the small blonde.
They're still just children after all.
I'm quite proud of that one, what do you think, it turned out okay ne?
Review let me know!
