The Golden Sun: Chapter Six: Father Material
AN: I'm glad everyone enjoyed the Papa!Roy last chapter, don't worry, its only gonna get better, because I love the relationship the Elrics have with Roy…mostly in my head, some in canon, but that's why this is fanfic
Everyone loving what an utter lesbian Winry is gonna be is my jam, though :)
Winry was used to the calls by now -or not calling and Ed and Al showing up at her and Granny's house, Ed's automail arm no longer in functioning condition- but she'd figured this was just like all the other times before; that Ed picked a fight, got hurt, but won.
Colonel Mustang was a name she knew very well at this point, though the last time she'd seen him had been almost two years ago when he'd yelled at Ed and Al for what they'd done, his eyes hard and dark. Ed complained about him enough, but Al liked him, so Winry was more likely to trust his ability to gauge someone's positive qualities than his hair-trigger-temper brother; on the other hand, if Al didn't trust you, then there was no way Winry was trusting any word you spoke.
Al was a freaking treasure. (Ed's words, not hers, but it still wasn't a lie)
But Colonel Mustang was quite easy to spot. He stood out in his military uniform among the sea of civilians. He lifted a hand, maybe slightly recognizing her, but Winry didn't remember him paying her much attention when he and Lieutenant Hawkeye came to Resembool.
"Colonel Mustang?" Winry asked carefully. It was best to make sure so she didn't make a fool of herself.
He inclined his head, smiling disarmingly, charmingly, and if Winry had been into men, she might've blushed, but she settled on a smile of her own, tentative and testing waters. This was the man Ed (and Al) reported to, this was the man known as the Flame Alchemist, this was the man called the Hero of Ishval -he got to go home, why didn't Mom and Da-no! Winry had to shut those thoughts down quick. Ed and Al could find out the truth about their deaths, but it wasn't fair to distract Ed and Al, even with them having more resources, their bodies mattered more than Winry getting answers.
"Miss Rockbell," Colonel Mustang said kindly, "I hope you're well?"
Winry thought it was best not to snort. Did people actually greet each other like that in the city? Winry preferred swearing at people she hadn't seen in a while, ("Where the fuck have you been?" she demanded in delight) maybe that was just her being an asshole or being from the country -Ed thought it was both, but Ed didn't count, he was a little shit one hundred percent of the time.
"I'm all right," she said. "Al told me Ed was gonna need a service call." Al had said a lot of things, told her about Ed's condition, his worries about his brother. The idea that someone had gone out of their way to try to kill Ed was appalling and terrifying and Winry didn't know what to do.
Ed and Al were her best friends…and she couldn't even help them with that, she couldn't tell them not to do what they did. She could probably ask them to be safer, but she doubted it would make much of a difference.
There'd been a newspaper left on the seat beside her on the train with the headline 'PEOPLE'S ALCHEMIST CATCHES SERIAL KILLER -Serial killer 'the Chopper' eluding police was caught by the Fullmetal Alchemist!' That sounded like an impressive thing, and Winry knew that rumors had been spreading about Ed for a while, and she had to say, it was incredibly sad that he was the only State Alchemist known -or at least, well known- to extend a hand to the common folk without any regard to his reputation, or if doing so would get him in hot water. Ed and Al really were the best people she knew, and she meant that sincerely. They were idiots, yeah, but they were her idiots.
"Fullmetal's in the hospital for a few more days, but he's recovering well—" The Colonel made a gesture with his hand for her to follow him and she did, shouldering her toolbox masterfully.
Winry wanted to ask -where was he? Ed was almost thirteen, did he even care when his subordinate was bleeding out?- but she held her tongue instead, though suspicious, worried, and annoyed all in one, luckily for the Colonel, she was distracted by the sight of Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye -she'd gone up from second to first in the past two years- and wow! She looked good! Like, obviously too old for Winry -she wasn't Aunt Trisha, large age gaps bothered her immensely- but she was very pretty and her hair had grown out…Winry had to work at not getting tongue-tied.
"Hey, Lieutenant Hawkeye!" She waved wildly in excitement, hoping the flush on her cheeks was light enough to be mistaken for her natural pigmentation or from the humidity in East City.
Winry was effectively distracted for no less than five minutes -be still her little gay heart- before she was ushered into the car so Lieutenant Hawkeye could drive them to the hospital.
"Ed'll be all right, though?" she asked Colonel Mustang.
"Just so long as he takes it easy, I've been assured." Colonel Mustang gave her a faint smile and it jarred Winry, like seeing her father's faint amusement at Ed and Al creating her a doll from alchemy when she was a little girl. She wasn't expecting it.
Winry looked away quickly, blinking furiously. It had been years, almost as long as Aunt Trisha had been gone, almost as long as Hohenheim had abandoned his sons and wife, but it still stung like an open wound.
"He's not too happy with me right now for putting him on leave from field work, but recovery takes time."
"I think he might've been more annoyed about having to wear the uniform, sir," Lieutenant Hawkeye spoke up from the front.
Winry paused, trying to imagine Ed, four foot something Ed, with his long braid, permanent scowl and his terrible fashion sense and platform boots to make him look taller, wearing the Amestrian military uniform.
She just about died of laughter.
"Oh, get me a picture!" Winry howled.
He could've looked worse, she supposed. He was pale enough that it showed in his dark cheeks, but not enough to be overly concerned, not like when she and Granny had had to care for him after he'd lost his arm and leg; he'd been almost translucent then, which was saying something. The braid seemed to be in working condition, which was good, because Winry would've felt obligated to tie it herself and she was shit at braids, bad enough that Ed had complained about it.
"H-hey, Winry." He worked at keeping the terror out of his voice and Winry's grin widened. He'd been expecting the wrench, apparently. Ironically, this was the one time Winry wouldn't dare to bring it against his temple; Ed's injuries, this time, weren't his fault. "How's it going?"
"Why is it that I only ever see you and Al is if your automail is busted?" Her eyes were sharp and Ed cowered slightly behind Al's large armored body, only to squeak and whimper, curving into a ball.
"Brother! Are you all right?"
Winry had approached suddenly at the sight of his pain, worry sparking across her face. She could just barely see the bandages disappearing under the hem of his hospital shirt.
"Moved too fast," Ed gave a pain-filled grunt. "Gimme a sec."
He pressed a button beside him and Winry gave him a few moments to let the pain meds do their work while she took a look at the automail arm that Al had apparently been guarding -Al was really too sweet. She held it in her hands, hefting it. She'd only repaired it twice since he'd gotten it, though she wasn't surprised to hear it had been damaged; Ed wasn't exactly the best at keeping his arm in functioning condition, the moron. But she was surprised at how little it was damaged this time around.
It must've just popped right off…it wasn't supposed to do that. A flash of panic rocketed through her. She'd screwed up the last time she'd checked it, that had to be it. The catches the locked it completely in place had been misaligned or—
"Stop worrying about it," Ed told her tiredly when the pain had smoothed from his brow. "You always say that destroying the arm completely would send a shock through my body enough to knock me out -probably- it was better that it just popped off this way."
Winry swallowed, trying not to imagine golden hair red-stained or crimson splashed across dark cheeks. No! She couldn't think about that! Ed was fine, he was alive, and he was recovering…everything had worked out.
"Its not too badly damaged, is it?" There was a false sort of cheer in Al's voice, like he was forcing himself to be upbeat.
Winry decided it was best not to make a big deal about the situation. Ed really hated that. So, she examined the arm closely, her fine craftsmanship, her handiwork. Ed's arm had been resized a few times, though not very much, since the initial placement, and she had been the one that had built it and rebuilt it over and over.
"It's not too bad," she noticed in relief. "It might take me an hour, then I'll get out of your hair."
Both Ed and Al looked at her curiously.
"What? We've got other clients than you, you know," Winry joked. "I've got to get back and help Granny as soon as I'm done with you…and she also wanted me to make sure you were okay."
Ed's cheeks flushed in embarrassment and he rubbed his fingers over the soulmark on his throat, a nervous tick that Winry doubted he'd ever grow out of. "I'll be okay."
Winry picked up her tools. "Making any headway on getting your bodies back?"
"Um, well, not as much as we'd like," Al had to admit sadly but then he brightened, "but we're gonna keep moving forward, right, Brother?"
Ed schooled a grin onto his face just for Al, it was sweet of him, but also terribly painful. No one could say that Ed didn't want to give Al the world, even at the expense of himself. "Right, Al."
And if Ed could manage that well enough, he probably wasn't doing too badly.
The fear that had been coiling in Winry's stomach vanished as she set to work. The arm wasn't going to set itself.
Connecting the nerves was always the worst, especially for Ed. The first time they'd done it, he'd passed out for a solid twenty-seven hours. He still passed out, that was how painful his body found it -how painful he found it- but at least it took significantly less time for time to come around.
Winry just barely coaxed him into doing the arm exercises to make sure that nothing was out of place this time around before he passed out a second time.
"Don't worry," Al assured her, "its just that he's recovering from blood loss…and Ed sleeps a lot now anyways."
That was true enough, even back in Resembool after everything, when the wounds were too new, too fresh for them to even attempt placing the ports and connecting the automail limbs into them, he'd spent a large amount of his time sleeping.
"Look after each other, or I'll come back and use my wrench on both of you." Winry's smile was a feral grin full of teeth ready to bite.
"A-Sure." A part of her was glad that even though Al was inside an armor so large and hulking, he could still be the child he was, afraid of Winry's wrench.
She gave him a hug, even though he couldn't feel it, even though the armor was hard and a bit cold. She gave him a hug because he needed it, remembering the small boy that had once clung to his older brother's arm on the playground, Ed's fists balled, ready to deck the kid that had had a go at his baby brother.
"This isn't forever," she felt the need to remind him, "one day you'll be back to normal and everything will be the way it was before." (She hoped)
"Thanks, Winry," he said in a way that told her her words had relieved him, and Winry would take that.
Winry waved goodbye. "And keep an eye out for a pretty girl with a figure eight tattoo!"
Al laughed loudly.
In a small but thriving town called Rush Valley, a dark-skinned girl with eyes so dark a blue that they almost seemed black at first glance had to pause in attempting a filch an expensive watch in order to hold back a sneeze, feeling warm behind her ears, the complete figure eight over her wrist clear to see as she swung her arms.
"I look like an idiot."
"You look like a soldier in the Amestrian military," Al corrected in a winning voice and Ed knew the brief flash he'd caught had been from a camera, though he'd never actually seen one in Al's hands.
Ed scowled at himself in the mirror. True to form, almost immediately after his release from the hospital, Mustang had called to remind him that he was due at 'work' at 0700 -was it today or tomorrow? Ed had been too annoyed to tell- and Ed wished he could've strangled his commanding officer through the phone, because he definitely would've…if it wouldn't pull so much at his stitches. He was still annoyed with him for taking him out of the field until his wounds were healed but Lieutenant Hawkeye had once walked in on him complaining about it in the hospital and had merely quirked an eyebrow.
Ed had clammed up fast, but luckily, he relaxed when she handed him a small pudding cup that she'd managed to sneak away from one of the food delivery people. She'd laughed when he exalted her to the high heavens.
"Yeah, like I said, an idiot." Ed continued scowling at himself. His hair was in the trademark long braid down his back, swinging with every movement; he'd considered pinning it up a bit more, but why bother making him look like more of a girl?
There was one star on each of his shoulders and the ranking pins on his left breast to indicate his rank as Major, even though he hated it, never used it, and never wanted to. The cavalry skirt was rather long on him, almost reaching his ankles and he just knew that the Colonel Bastard was going to make a comment about his height.
There was nothing dramatic about his appearance at all, and that was the most annoying part about it.
"You're going down to the library, right?" he asked Al, playing with the braided gold aiguillette before rubbing at his forehead a little, tilting his head to the side, the soulmark obvious and black against his skin, not dark enough to disappear into his complexion. "Gonna see if they have anything on Xerxes?"
"Maybe!"
Al sounded evasive, even to Ed's ears, and he couldn't help but narrow his eyes suspiciously. "All right, have fun."
"You just don't want me to see their reaction to you wearing the uniform," Al spoke sagely and Ed flushed in embarrassment at being caught out.
"No!" Ed denied vainly, but Al could only laugh before waving him goodbye. It was still early, and he bet that Breda and Havoc were still sleeping, they weren't known for being early. Falman was generally right on time, or just barely early. Fuery was the same. Hawkeye and Mustang were usually the only ones really early.
Ed gritted his teeth before clenching the door and opening it. The hallway in the dorms was empty, so Ed didn't have to worry about running into anyone on his way to the office.
The office where he'd been stabbed, the office where'd almost bled out, the office where Lieutenant Colonel Hughes had asked him to recount in detail everything that had happened.
Ed could do this, Ed could do this…right?
He swallowed and continued on.
There were several things that Edward Elric was known for: being loud and obnoxiously, having the absolute worst taste, never wearing the military uniform, hardly ever being on time, being particularly sensitive about his height, and always opening the door with a subtle crash.
Those were all things that Roy expected of him.
But the idea of Ed actually being early, or coming in at all, was surprising. Roy would've expected that Ed would take a day to himself; he had just been released from the hospital a day ago…no one wanted to come into work that badly. Ed didn't even like office work, so Roy couldn't imagine why he would want to come in an hour early.
Roy himself had a tendency to come in early and then sleep periodically throughout the day. Some nights he was lucky, others he woke up to the smell of burning flesh and copper on the tip of his tongue and ash in his mouth and smoke in his nose.
Ishval had left its mark on him, just as it had on everyone else.
Hawkeye still wasn't due to show up for at least another forty-five minutes, so Roy leaned over slightly to look through the open door that led into his office to blink and then stare.
The door into the main office had opened quietly to admit a short blond-haired boy, dressed in the proper military blues, his ranking pins on correctly and not a hair out of place. Roy was actually impressed. The kid cleaned up nice, given he usually traipsed into the office tracking mud and blood, his hair barely in the braid, and his trademark red coat ripped in more than one way. Seeing him dressed properly made Roy wonder if this was even reality or if Roy was hallucinating, because it was a definite possibility.
Ed's eyes had fixed on a spot, not appearing to even notice that Roy was there.
The blood had been wiped away, but Roy doubted he was going to forget something like that in a hurry.
A hand was pressed against his stomach, where, hidden beneath the uniform, Roy knew, a bandage lay pasted over the stitches that Ed still needed to keep in. The blood appeared to have fled from his face and he teetered dangerously.
"Fullmetal." Roy was out of his chair and striding over to his subordinate to press a hand to his shoulder. When he didn't respond, Roy rose his voice slightly. "Fullmetal."
Ed blinked hazily, raising his eyes fix on Roy's, but it was like he wasn't there, it was like he was miles away.
"Come with me, Ed," Roy said, using his grip on the kid's shoulder to direct him, unresistingly towards Roy's office before being deposited on one of the couches there.
He sat there like he was in shock while Roy pulled out the tray from the cupboard directly outside his office, heating the water, pouring the tea and bringing it back with him.
Ed would've made a joke about that any other day -the day's not even started yet and you're already procrastinating on paperwork by making tea? Come on, Colonel- but this time he was quiet, pale-faced, and utterly exhausted.
Maybe the tea would help.
Ed took the cup listlessly, taking a tentative sip. Roy guessed he didn't mind the taste.
"Better?" he asked carefully.
Ed gave a half-shrug. "All right," he conceded, rubbing a hand against his forehead hard enough to leave a brief mark.
"You could've taken the day off."
Ed snorted. "A day off…right…who's got that kind of time?"
Mustang sat across from him, taking his own cup of tea. "Where's Al?"
"At the library." Ed took another drink from his cup, almost draining it in one go. "He thinks there might be a link between the lost kingdom of Xerxes and getting our bodies back."
"An interesting theory, though I doubt there's many books on Xerxes." Roy had been fascinated by the myth himself when he was a child, still studying under Master Hawkeye.
"Y'never know," Ed shrugged again, his eyes fixing on the doorway. "They replaced the glass, yeah?"
Roy cast a glance over him, trying to ascertain how he was feeling about the whole thing, but Ed's face was blissfully blank. "Yeah…do you want us to put a rug down over the spot on the floor?" There wasn't really any sign of where his blood had once spilled, but Roy could plainly tell that the area bothered him.
Ed's eyebrow furrowed in annoyance and he set the teacup down a little harder than necessary and Roy was sure if he'd used his automail hand it probably would've broken. "Why're you being so damn accommodating, Colonel?"
Ah, Edward, ever on edge. Roy had to wonder if the kid was ever going to relax…though his idea of relaxing was burying himself in alchemic research, so that was probably for the best.
"Maybe I just want a rug in the main office?" Roy's lips were curling into his telltale smirk. "If I put one under your chair it might bring you a little closer to the desk."
A dangerous growl erupted from Ed's throat. "I'm gonna kill you!" Ed swore, looking ready for a brawl, even if his body wasn't.
"Maybe you should settle for giving yourself stilts so you can actually reach me."
"You wanna go?!"
Ed stood up suddenly, the only moment when he would probably ever tower over Roy who had remained seated, but he'd moved too quickly and his face went pinched as he fell back to couch, bending forward and cradling his abdomen.
"Are you all right?" The concern pulsed through Roy like fire.
God, was this what being a father felt like? Common ground and concern? Throwing inhibitions out the window when children were hurt? Roy didn't think it suited him at all.
"Fine," Ed rasped. "I'm just…not gonna get up anytime soon."
He scooched himself into lying sideways on the couch without any care in the world, though Roy had been half a second away from offering it to him. The kid looked terrible.
"For some reason the boys trust you," Izumi Curtis had said before she left, "I don't know why and I think they're idiots but that's beside the point—"
"Al might, but Ed definitely doesn't," Roy had been certain.
Izumi had given him a sharp look with unending annoyance. "You don't strike me as a stupid man, Colonel Mustang but you can't tell me that you don't see how that boy looks up to you. His own father abandoned him, his brother, and his mother, you're the first person you gave his life structure and discipline and even care, even if neither of you want to admit it…Ed might like Sig, but he trusts you, so, do me a favor and don't break that, or I'll break your entire body."
How many times had Ed fallen asleep in Roy's office? He didn't even know the number. Al said that usually he hardly slept anywhere unless he was sure Al was around to keep an eye on things, but Roy had come into work several times to find Ed passed out on the couch, an alchemy book open on his head as he breathed in and out deeply with Al being nowhere in sight.
Roy was left to ponder that, returning to his desk to get started on paperwork (maybe) when the door opened and Hawkeye greeted him before approaching his office, blinking only once at the sight of the boy now easily slumbering on Roy's couch. A faint smile softened her face and she extended a paper to Roy.
He almost sighed but then he took it only to stare at its contents.
"I thought you'd like to see this before I had it filed, sir," she said kindly.
It was a release of medical records for Major Edward Elric. It had been amended on the line for next of kin.
The third people to be notified if the first and second were unavailable were the Curtises, and the first was, of course, Alphonse Elric, but the second caught his eye: Roy Mustang.
His smile was so faint it was almost unseen, but Hawkeye caught it easily.
"The next thing you know you'll be adopting those boys and you and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes will finally have something to talk about," Hawkeye said mildly and with great amusement as she took the paper back, especially when Roy choked.
"Yeah, that'll be the day," he finally managed to force out.
Like hell I'm father material. What kind of man drags a twelve-year-old kid into the military?
AN: Papa!Roy is a fucking mood and there's gonna be so much more before Ling even meets Ed, which makes me sad, but this fic is gonna end up like 50% Papa!Roy and 50% Edling, so like everything anyone could possibly want!
And Roy doesn't even think he's dad material, how hilarious is that?
As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!
