HI GANG, thank you so so much for your wonderful and kind reviews! I've been working VERY hard on this fic, although as always I struggle with getting ahead of myself, which is why I'm both pleased and embarrassed to say that my word doc is now at over 200,000 words. The chapter after this, however, is at...no words. Can't win 'em all. ANYWAY, LET'S GO.
Song for this chapter is "A New Wave" by Sleater-Kinney!
Well, every day I throw a little party
Though a fit would be more fitting, fitting
And every time I climb a little higher
Should I leap or go on living, living?
Hear the voices, venomous and thrilling,
In my head they're always calling, calling
But I wanna, gotta go the way my blood beats,
So I'm not fodder for their folly, folly
No one here is taking notice,
No outline will ever hold us
It's not a new wave,
It's just you and me
I saw the only witness
Die to prove we ever lived this
Invent our own kind of
Obscurity
Let's destroy a room with this love
We can drain out all the power, power
Steal from the makers who unmade us
And leave 'em nothing to devour, devour
"So I don't have to wear the uniform to the party, right?"
"That's right—although some of the officers likely will come in parade dress," Mustang confirmed, his voice crackling a little through the receiver, "so that's an option for you too."
"But I can just wear a normal suit."
"Right. Normal black tie, though."
"Yeah, yeah, I can wear a black tie. The only tie I have is black."
"No, that's not—" Roy sighed, exasperated. "Look, Fullmetal, just go to a tailor and tell them you need a suit for the Armstrong ball. They'll know what you need. Literally any tailor."
"But I already have a suit! The one I wore to that dinner you and your henchman interrupted, remember?"
"That's not gonna fly with the high-society set. It's a completely different set of expectations, trust me."
Ed grunted in annoyance. "Man, how much is this gonna cost me?"
"A—"
"And don't say an arm and a leg, or so help me…"
Mustang stifled a laugh. "That is not what I was going to say."
"Well, I wouldn't put it past you."
"What'd I do to deserve that?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?"
"…Go to the tailor, Fullmetal." Click.
All in all it was a lot pricier than Ed thought, but at least he'd been able to get everything he needed from the local shop in Resembool and hadn't had to shell out for the ridiculous markup that seemed to come with everything in Central. He could've saved the money by wearing the stupid uniform, sure—but ultimately it was worth the egregious price of a full set of formalwear to stay out of it.
He'd taken off the stupid too-long jacket as soon as they'd gotten into the car back to the hotel, which had made him feel instantly better. Now, up in his and Al's bedroom in the hotel suite, under the baleful gaze of Snuffles the dog—Winry had commandeered the bathroom, citing a need for "counter space"—he was profoundly relieved to change out of the rest of it too. Even after the almost-positive bit of spin Hawkeye had offered up earlier, he still hated walking around feeling like that.
What was that word he'd heard earlier? "Pageantry." That was it. The whole thing was a pageant, a fucked-up little school play about fake leaders and fake heroes and a fake country.
He understood the function of it all, and he appreciated the role he had to play—but that didn't make it not fake, and he couldn't not feel a little gross about it.
Not that feeling a little gross isn't a good trade-off for all the actual important stuff, he reminded himself. You could do a hell of a lot worse.
There were worse fates than having to play the whole "dog of the military" role here and there—but he was grateful as hell to be allowed to break character again. Granted, the sleek black dinner jacket—or, what did the lady call it, a tailcoat? A waistcoat? The suit, anyway, with its tails and tie and black vest and pants and suspenders, wasn't really in his comfort zone either. He didn't feel like his usual self, per se, as he was getting dressed—but at least he didn't feel like he was pretending to be somebody else.
"Everything okay, Brother?"
Edward was staring at himself in the gold-framed full-length mirror—now fully dressed to the tailor's specifications—and oscillating between several poses with a skeptical expression on his face.
"I can't decide if I look amazing or if I look like a total douche."
Winry's muffled voice responded immediately from behind the closed bedroom door. "Definitely the latter."
"You can't even see me!"
"Don't need to," she called.
Al laughed; Ed grunted in annoyance as he transferred his silver watch from his uniform pants pocket to the pocket of his suit vest. Then he finally looked up long enough to catch a glimpse of his younger brother in the suit he'd spent days agonizing over.
Ultimately none of Yuriy Rockbell's old suits had been remotely close to Al's size, but there were a few ties and sets of cufflinks among his things, and Pinako had been delighted when Al asked if he could wear them.
He'd landed on a dark charcoal silk ascot ("Doesn't it have to be black?" Ed had asked, to exasperated responses) and silver-rimmed cufflinks with iridescent white-pearl centres.
"You really like those ones, eh?" Pinako had asked him, looking amused.
"Yeah," he'd replied, a little shyly, admiring them. "They're…kind of different?"
"Sure are," she'd said, nodding matter-of-factly. "Those were actually Yuriy's father's before they were his."
"Really?"
"Yup. Happy you like 'em, because I picked 'em out myself for Anton probably fifty-odd years ago."
Pinako had grinned and sort of patted him on the shoulder and then turned to get back to her work, and that had been that.
Now, in the hotel room, Alphonse was watching the light glint off of the little pearl surfaces, the cufflinks fastened to the sleeves of his black tailcoat.
"Hey, looks good," Ed said simply. "Oh—you want a hand with the tie?"
"I—yeah, if you could," Al replied, looking down. "I know how to do it, but I keep—it's like I can't—"
"That thing again, huh?" Edward nodded, making it clear he didn't need to hear any further explanations. The delicate set of motions required for the task were getting lost again on the way from Al's brain to his hands—and he wondered how long his little brother had been struggling with it behind him while he'd been striking poses. "Yeah, no problem. Here, lemme see."
Winry had never been to an event this formal in her life, and she was more than a little bit nervous about it. She'd taken a hairstyle out of a magazine and had tried it out at home a few days before, with middling success (and more bobby pins than she'd ever thought possible), but the exact same little step-by-step tutorial she'd cut out and brought along with her suddenly seemed a lot more intimidating now that she was here, in this ridiculous white-marble hotel bathroom, getting ready for the real thing.
She couldn't work out what exactly was so scary about it—after all, it was just a party. It wasn't like she had anything to prove, or even really anything to lose. These people weren't her colleagues or her peers, and only a handful of them were her friends. They were Ed's peers, sort of—but he sure wasn't worked up about trying to impress any of them, so it hardly mattered if Winry did.
She knew all that, intellectually. But on another level it still felt significant: the three of them, three kids from Resembool, finally coming out from under the shadow of everything that thing had put them through. Edward and Alphonse were themselves again, and they deserved to celebrate that. Al had made that joke at breakfast not long ago about the "new 1915 Model Alphonse;" it was a throwaway comment, but it stuck in Winry's mind. In a way the brothers really did seem like new versions of themselves—healed versions, grown-up versions.
And what about you?
Winry stared at herself in the mirror, clad in the cream-coloured slip that went under her dress, half her hair still down and half of it pinned up into bizarre loops, and she sighed. Phrases from the awards ceremony earlier kept echoing in her head, but they still sounded outlandish and fake. Words that would make sense on somebody else, sure—but not her.
She remembered how Dr. Marcoh had told her she was brave, just like her parents. And how that had rankled against the shame she'd been feeling, in that moment in the mining tunnels under Buzcoul, for having put herself into danger and disappearing without a trace. People kept acting like they saw something in her, something that pointed to what she was capable of, what she was made of—and Winry looked and looked, but she couldn't see it.
That's it, she realized, twisting another lock of hair into position and pinning it in place. Now that I'm here and everyone saw me get all those medals, it looks like I'm supposed to be this super brave, healed, grown-up version of myself too. So what if I'm not?
The boys were fully ready to go with an hour to spare before they actually needed to leave, as was Pinako in her plain black dress and pearls. The three of them were waiting together in the red-and-white living room; Winry was still sequestered in the bathroom getting ready.
Alphonse was nervous. It was so stressful being visible. He wanted more than anything to be able to prove, once and for all, that he was back, that his brother's sacrifices and everyone's hard work had paid off, and that he was whole again. It felt ungrateful somehow, and counter to the whole narrative he'd been telling himself for years, to admit that he really didn't feel so good. It was so much harder than he thought it would be to adapt to being back in his own skin, and the dizzying array of sights and sounds and stimuli of all kinds today had already exhausted him more than he was comfortable admitting. The break at the hotel for a few hours had been nice, sure—but he wasn't sure his appearance at this party was going to convince anyone he was doing particularly well.
With the two of them dressed almost the same, standing side by side, it was hard not to feel like he paled in comparison to his brother. Ed had grown so much in the past year and a half—and, of course, Al had too. But he still felt like a work in progress, like a messy prototype of whatever he was supposed to be eventually. And maybe that was okay—but it didn't feel great. It just felt awkward. He wished he could've postponed this exact situation by another three months—or, heck, if he was making arbitrary wishes, maybe another six months, or a year—so he could have been just a little further along in his recovery. Just a little more put together, a little more grown, a little more sure of himself.
"Don't look at me, I'm not ready yet," Winry called suddenly through the bathroom door, startling Al out of his thoughts. "I just have to get something,"
"Can we not just get it for you?" Ed asked, annoyed.
"No! Just don't look, I'll just be a second!"
"It's been like an hour, how are you literally not decent yet?"
"I have a lot going on, okay? I've never had to be this fancy before. Just look away for a sec."
"Okay, fine." Ed rolled his eyes, then dutifully closed them, as did Al beside him. They covered their eyes with their hands for good measure. "Alright, we're not looking."
"Wow—you can really see the conspicuous gallantry," Winry deadpanned as she stepped out in her slip and her half-done hair.
"Listen, maybe if you go back and tell Grumman about this you'll get another medal for enduring even more severe hardship," Ed fired back.
Winry scampered through the living room and darted into the bedroom, and by the sound of it was only there about thirty seconds before they heard her come scampering back out again. Then they heard the bathroom door shut again.
"Are we good?" Al asked, his hand still clamped over his eyes.
"Yeah, you're fine now," she replied, her voice muffled again through the door.
"Well, if it's safe," Ed said dramatically, dropping his hand with unnecessary flair. "Are you almost ready in there? What are you even doing, sewing your outfit from scratch?"
"No, it's just—" Winry grunted in irritation. "—complicated—god!" There was a low, muffled noise through the bathroom door that sounded suspiciously like it might have four letters. "You know what? Can one of you grab me a pair of scissors?"
Al raised an eyebrow. "Scissors?"
"Yeah, so I can cut my stupid hair and be done with it."
"Ah, I think that's my cue," Pinako said, rising quickly from her seat. She knocked crisply on the bathroom door. "You need a hand, Winry?"
There was a long pause before Winry's begrudging reply came through the door. "…Yes, please."
Roughly twenty minutes later Pinako finally emerged from the hotel bathroom.
"Alright," she said briskly, "I think that ought to do it. That's all of us ready, eh?"
There was a beat of silence before she spoke again.
"Winry? Are you comin' out, or not?"
"Okay, okay," her granddaughter's voice sounded from inside, echoing strangely against the white marble walls.
Edward and Alphonse stood up and crossed the room, ready to finally get going, and as they waited by the door out into the hall, Winry finally opened the bathroom door and stepped out.
For the most part, Ed had been able to recategorize these little waves of emotion that had started coming up more and more around Winry as benign, general, that's-your-childhood-friend-and-you're-glad-she's-finally-safe responses, the same ones he figured Al probably had too. Not that he'd asked. It was easy enough to file them that way when she was joking around with him at breakfast, or hard at work in the shop in her bandana and coveralls, or bringing him water while he worked in the yard.
The fountain incident notwithstanding—and the incident when she'd first come home back in the spring definitely notwithstanding—he could tell himself that he was just glad she was okay, that he was happy to be home, that it basically didn't even matter what she looked like or even that she was a girl. And if sometimes it seemed like it did matter, that was probably just because she was the only girl who happened to be around all the time. There was no control group involved here, no general population of random other girls that he saw every day like there had been back when they'd all been in school together. So, really, there wasn't enough data to stake any kind of real claim, because the sample size was way too small. And without evidence, well, there just wasn't enough to go on as far as connecting the two.
He had normal, platonic feelings about her, and he was maybe a bit more aware than before that she was indeed a girl, but to assume any kind of major correlation—to assign an actual causative relationship, especially—to try to draw conclusions from those two disparate facts as if they automatically added up to something—was too much of a leap in logic for him.
The thing about being a scientist, though, was that you had to be willing to revise your hypothesis when confronted with new information. And as Winry stepped into the room, the phrase "new information" was just about the only coherent thought that Ed could register.
He'd already seen the dress. There was no real reason for it to be this different, seeing it a second time. He couldn't account for what exactly was the catalyst here, but it was definitely something, because—because—
"Wow, Winry, you look amazing!" Al said immediately, and Winry smiled in response, still looking down shyly.
"Thanks, Al," she said. "It was my hair that took forever, but Granny really knows what she's doing."
"Eh, it's all muscle memory," Pinako said, waving the compliment away.
Winry's hair was up in a complicated arrangement of loops and curls, with her bangs curled softly away from her face and a few tendrils hanging delicately loose. The gown—her mother's dress—had been properly dry-cleaned and refurbished, and the ice-blue silk shone like it was brand-new. The sheer chiffon panel across her shoulders sat smoothly instead of looking crumpled from its long sojourn in a garment bag, and the beaded pattern of frost-coloured leaves and vines curved smoothly down past the bodice of the dress and trailed down the floor-length skirt. She'd ventured to use just a touch of lipstick in a soft, rosy shade—nothing too dramatic—and a smidge of mascara, plus a plain sterling-silver chain around her neck with a little star-shaped pendant that she hadn't worn in years.
Winry finally looked up, and eyes lit up as she took in the sight of Ed and Al in their suits. "Look at you guys!" she said, grinning in earnest. "You guys look—" She stopped mid-sentence. "Oh, I can't believe I almost forgot! Wait—just wait right there—"
She darted back out of the room and into her assigned bedroom, her skirt swishing dramatically as she went. Al turned to look at his brother, and noticed with amusement that he was still blinking in confusion, a definite pink tinge rising on his face.
"—I got something for you," Winry said, rushing back into the room again. She was holding a little black square box, and she strode over and held it out to Ed.
"I—what?"
"Open it!" she said eagerly, placing it in his hands.
"Uh—" Ed stammered for a moment before he finally did, lifting the little black lid. "Oh! It's—"
"Cufflinks!" Winry cut in excitedly. "Al found some that worked, but you didn't have any, so…"
"Yeah, I was just—I just stole the ones from the uniform," Ed replied, gesturing to his wrist where the plain gunmetal-grey studs were already in place. "But these are—"
"—way more your style," Al said, in a tone that was equal parts mockery and approval.
"Yeah!" Winry continued, too excited to let Ed finish his sentence. "I made the casings out of scrap carbon fibre, and got the jeweller in town to glaze them and put the stones in! I figured—red, obviously…"
"Obviously," Al echoed, laughing.
"I—" Ed was still stammering, overwhelmed, but he nodded, and immediately started swapping out the military-issued cufflinks for these new Rockbell-issued black-and-red ones. He put the box down on the end table, then took a moment to look at his newly-accessorized wrist. "Yeah—thanks, Winry," he choked out, feeling his face get hot. "These are awesome."
Winry beamed in response, and he had to look away, staring hard at the new focal points on the ends of his sleeves and watching them catch the light just like Al had been doing.
"Well, alright," Pinako interjected, "are we finally ready to head out, then? You kids look about as cleaned up as cleaned up gets."
"I—I think so, yeah," Winry said haltingly. "Are you guys ready?"
Ed and Al exchanged a quick look, and they both nodded. "Yup."
"Okay—then let's go," Winry said, and they all strode out of the P &S Emerson Suite and into the hall, and then into the wood-paneled elevator with its gilded mother-of-pearl buttons and its floor-to-ceiling mirror.
Pinako couldn't help but admire the way the three of them looked, standing behind her in the warm amber light of the elevator. Grown up—not all the way, sure, but certainly more so all at once than she'd ever seen—and somehow more like themselves than carbon copies of their parents, even though it was hard to see past the resemblances sometimes. They couldn't have looked further away now from the sunken-eyed, scared, broken kids they were right after the accident, all three of them—and she didn't think she could take much credit for that, really, if any at all. But she could still feel grateful, at least—and she definitely did.
"Oh—Winry," Pinako said, looking up suddenly. "Don't you want to take your earrings out?"
Winry paused, lifting her hands to her ears. "Oh…" She swallowed. "Do you think I have to take them out?"
Pinako looked at her with an oddly wistful expression. "You don't have to do anything, Winry," she said, smiling. "You wanna wear 'em, you wear 'em."
Winry smiled back, then took another quick moment to admire her reflection.
Granny was right—the earrings definitely did stick out a little. None of them individually, really—but something about having four piercings in one ear, to her, had something very Resembool about it, very stubbornly not from here—where "here" was this insane, otherworldly high-society luxury dimension—and it was something she wanted to keep. She couldn't put her finger on it exactly, but it felt almost like a tiny little broadcast that she might be a little dazzled by all of this, sure—but that didn't mean she was fooled by it. That felt important.
The cab dropped all four of them off just outside the gates to the Armstrong mansion, and they were left to walk through the elaborate gardens toward the front doors, where an entourage of uniformed Armstrong staff waited to greet them.
Ed was stopped in his tracks, staring up at the absurd size of the house itself, about to remark on it for a third time, when his thoughts were interrupted.
A woman in a long, deep burgundy gown swept past them, her locks of black hair piled high in a complex arrangement of twisted braids fastened with shining jewel-tipped pins. Had the idea of seeing her in a place like this not been so ridiculous, Ed would have said she looked an awful lot like—
"—Teacher?! What are you doing here? I thought you were sick!"
"I'm sick of being the puppet of an illegitimate military dictatorship," Izumi replied brightly, speaking before she had even turned around. When she did it was with a genuine smile, despite the inherent venom in her statement.
"Um…so how come you showed up here?"
"Here? Oh, Alex invited us—" she gestured toward the front steps, where Sig and Major—or rather, Lieutenant Colonel—Armstrong were standing and talking animatedly, "—And we thought it sounded like fun. So here we are!"
"Huh," Ed replied mildly. "Well, you look…fancy."
"Is that what passes for a compliment from the Elric brothers?" Izumi laughed. "You guys are looking pretty fancy yourselves. Who would've thought you two cleaned up so well?"
The boys both shrugged and grinned awkwardly.
"Hey, I mean it," she said, clapping them both firmly on the shoulder. "Especially you, Alphonse. You must be working hard—you're looking a lot better."
"Thanks, Teacher." Al grinned in earnest. It was really just a statement of fact—anyone who'd seen the state of his body right after he'd crossed back through the Gate would say the same. He'd been scraggly and frail and hollowed out like a skeleton—and now, well, he wasn't. But it was high praise considering the source. "I still have a long way to go, but it's good to be back."
"It's good to have you back," Izumi replied, and she turned to greet Pinako and Winry.
Weeeooooo! There we go! I wish this chapter had more *plot* going on, but it's mostly just character. Characters being characters. It took me a long time to figure out exactly how to get into everybody's heads for this, and especially how to set up everything that's coming in the other, uh, six (?) parts of the Party arc, WHICH WILL UNFOLD SOON ENOUGH.
SOME NOTES:
Lovely reviewer joshannis12345 asked why Havoc is still in his wheelchair in this fic, which confused me greatly UNTIL I REALIZED that this is a manga/anime difference! Thank you for pointing this out, O Helpful Reader! The bulk of this fic should be understandable if you've only watched the anime, I think, but it's worth a reminder that while I pull from all kinds of sources, in my brain (and for the purposes of this fic) the manga is the One True Canon.
In that same vein, the EARRINGS THING is referencing the gaiden/extra chapter "Simple People," which was also released as an OVA of (I think?) the same name. I was able to buy a copy of the manga chapter in the original Japanese, because it was only released with some certain figurine originally but you can get copies on their own through the power of the internet. This would be great if I could read Japanese, but I cannot; luckily, there are fan-scanlations available out there somewhere, so I highly recommend finding them if you can! I'm a strong supporter of paying money for the original work when possible, but it was literally never released in English, so we do what we must. It's not necessary to understand what's going on here, but it definitely adds some texture. Plus it's a really cute story, guys. ;A;
I don't think I have a whole lot of fun research facts for this chapter, but I do need to acknowledge my very dear pal and writing comrade-in-arms, who let me lift that "bring me the scissors" incident directly from her own real-life misadventures in formal hairstyling. It is also thanks to her that this chapter is coming to you guys this fast and not, like, another two months from now, because my god, has she been HOUNDING ME. And she is correct!
Anyway, the NEXT chapter is going to be extremely silly and fun, but is currently zero words long. The chapter AFTER that is going to be extremely...well, I won't spoil it, but I THINK YOU GUYS WILL LIKE IT A LOT. And it is currently 3,121 words long. So that's where we're at. Thank you again, SO SO SO SO SO much, for all of your reviews-they genuinely make me SO happy! Please let me know what you think, and I'll be back soon-ish with more!
