Rainjoyswriting - Ever After.pdf - FMA Fanfiction - Mojaunicorn

Ever After

He'd come so quickly to love these summer mornings waking up with her, from the very

first one.

A small foot running down his ankle, her stretch and wriggle in the sheets. The sun

prodding eager fingers through the curtains, the day raring to get started, ecstatic with

light, and her fingers scratched playfully at his cheeks, she whispered, "Shave," before

she kissed him and smiled against his mouth.

He kept a spare razor in her bathroom. In a strange way it was the most grown-up thing

he'd ever achieved.

There were always the hollow gauze-ghosts of stockings hanging over the edge of the

bath to dry. He loved them, loved their tops and toes and seams. He loved her bottles of

scent and that ugly flowered bag she kept lipsticks in. He loved Alisa in slip and

stockings, blouse flapping open, clipping her hair back, pen in her teeth, "I have a piece

due in in two hours , how do you always make me late-?"

"It's my overpowering animal magnetism," he said, as she shimmied into a skirt and

threw his uniform jacket at his head.

"It's your deeply pathetic puppy dog eyes, I feel like I'm kicking a kitten if I say no." she

snorted. And then, "You are coming this Saturday, then?"

". . . ah." This Saturday. The almost-argument over dinner, the increasing snippiness, this

Saturday, driving into the countryside to see her mother. To see her mother. Ah.

"'Ah'?" Alisa said, buttoning her blouse.

"I . . . uh, I mean, I can see if I . . . uh."

He hated when she glared like that. "Is there even any point in me asking for a simple

yes or no?"

"Well it's not - I mean, I have to check if-"

"Oh my god ," she snapped. He hated it when she snapped. "Yes or no, Jean, though if the

question is 'do you have a pair' then clearly-"

"Well, excuse me for taking two seconds to think and not working to your immediate

schedule-"

"To think about what, some excuse for weaselling out of meeting my mother?"

"I - excu-? Weasel ?"

She'd stepped into her shoes, shrugged a jacket on, spritzed her throat with perfume

while he was spluttering. "I think I can piece my answer together out of that," she

snarled. "Lock the door behind yourself."

The door banged behind her.

And Jean stood, lost with his jacket in hand, quietly hating the summer morning outside

the windows.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Strictly speaking," Roy said, "this meeting was supposed to be about the state of the

country, not your love lives."

The pen wagged sulkily up and down in Havoc's mouth, Fury was still near tears because

Breda had said he was completely giddy for the Xingian ambassador (and he had been,

Roy thought with some weariness, for years ) which had prompted him to explode with

the announcement that he had never had one unchivalrous thought towards Miss Yao

and he respected her greatly and Heymans stop laughing and Hawkeye had sighed, and

then Falman had offered the information that the woman he was seeing had broken up

with him because he couldn't see her on her birthday (he always spent Sunday cleaning

his flat) and she had taken offence to the suggestion that they simply hold her birthday

on a more convenient day.

"I mean, why does she have to be so unreasonable ?" Havoc said, pen cracking a little

between his teeth. "I need more warning than that before I have to go face down her

mother-"

"-utterly professional and have never, never once have I-" Fury spluttered, so red Roy

wondered if it hurt.

"Women are deeply irrational," Falman murmured.

Hawkeye finally glanced up from her papers, eyes narrowed at Falman. Breda was

grinning like he hadn't had this much fun in years.

"If we could perhaps put all this complete nonsense behind ourselves and get on with

the business of the day-" Roy began.

"Oh, of course we can't expect any sympathy from you ," Havoc muttered, propping his

head on his hands.

"-a wonderful, intelligent, kind and thoughtful woman and I would never, never dream

of-"

"-from me?" Roy said, puzzled. "Kain, shut up."

"-even looking at her with anything but the utmost respect and professional-"

"Kain, shut up ."

"Well, why would you care about our love lives crashing and burning all around us?"

Havoc said bitterly. "Yours is always sunshine and roses, it's hardly fair ."

Roy stared at him. " Roses ? Do you honestly-?"

"It's true, sir, the way Ed looks at you - what did you do to him? Have you been drugging

him all these years?" Breda said, and Roy looked at him with his eyes narrowing from

surprised to glaring.

"Heymans."

"Why do you always get all the luck? All the women you ever wanted and then-"

"Now you're making me sound like some kind of . . ."

"- Edward waiting at home for you every night and wagging his tail every time he sees

you-"

"-that's hardly -"

"-but please don't ever tell him I said that," Havoc added quickly.

Roy blinked at all the faces around the table, Fury's mouth working without words in

restrained rage, Breda's lazy raised eyebrow, Havoc's sullen resentment, Falman's . . .

unreadable face, Hawkeye's silent glare.

"Do you honestly all think that my love life is some kind of fairy tale affair of endless

happily ever after?"

Silence.

"You do all know Edward, don't you?" Roy said weakly. Everyone just continued staring

at him. He took in a slow breath through his nose, sighed it out.

"Vato, as soon as this meeting is over you will call your lady friend and tell her that this

Sunday you will be escorting her to the opera and you will be sitting in the Fuhrer's box,

it's not like Edward will ever agree to go with me. Jean, you will be going straight to the

flower shop and you will be buying purple hyacinths, stop looking at me like that, you

can usually guess a woman's favourite flower from her perfume. Kain, come the next

diplomatic ball you will be escorting Miss Yao that is an order Fury and Heymans -" Roy

paused. "I don't believe I have ever heard you speak of a significant other."

"Married to the military, sir." Heymans said cheerfully. "Hawkeye and I will be old

bachelors together in the military retirement home."

"I'm afraid not," Hawkeye said, straightening her papers primly. "I'm engaged."

Silence.

"What?" Havoc said.

"To who?" Heymans said.

"Laurence, you did meet him at the last diplomatic breakfast." Hawkeye said. "Are we

ever going to actually get on to the actual business of this meeting?"

"Laurence -Laurence Eliot?" Breda said. "Laurence 'my family have been hanging around

with the Armstrongs since they invented good breeding' Eliot? Laurence 'my father

owns a quarter of the West' Eliot? Laurence who also happens to be really rather

incredibly muscled and bronzed Eliot?"

"That is his name," Hawkeye said briskly. And the corner of her mouth almost smiled.

"Though it's closer to a third of the West, actually."

"Were you actually planning on informing us?" Roy said, feeling a bit light-headed after

all this.

"I had assumed that you would all grasp what was happening when the wedding

invitations arrived."

". . . well. Well. Well." He sounded like a stuck record. "Congratulations."

"Thank you. And now could we perhaps move on to the rest of the country, sir?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ed was folding clean sheets into the airing cupboard, practised, almost military

movements of snapping the sheet, folding once, folding twice, flipping over a final time

and laying on the shelf. Roy stood a little further down the hallway, watching him in

silence. He'd read to Maes, turned his nightlight on, left him to sleep, and now the

evening was just for him and Ed, and . . .

"Well?" Ed said, not even pausing between sheets. Roy took a slow breath.

"When was the last time we went out together?"

"Went out?" Ed's eyebrows folded to match the sheets. "Like teenagers?"

"Went out like - I took you out somewhere, like . . ."

Ed glanced across at him, arms full of bed linen, mouth quirked as he tried to work out

what Roy was aiming at. "There was that stupid military thing a few-"

"Not for work, nothing for work . . ."

". . ." Ed stared at him thoughtfully, suspicious sharp-soft golden eyes. "Does our

wedding count?"

"No," Roy said weakly.

"Then I guess I don't remember. What's the problem, what are you getting at here?"

"Am I a good husband?"

Now his eyes widened, eyebrows shooting up as if filled with helium. "Well," he said, less

sure now, and Roy loved still the husk on the edge of his uncertain voice. "You haven't

walked out or fucked anyone else yet, so I'd say you've done alright."

"Ed, I'm being serious."

"I guess so'm I. What the hell is this about, Roy?"

"I don't . . . know. I . . . was talking to some of the staff today, we were discussing . . . they

seem to think we're living out some kind of fairy tale." He tried to smile. Ed just stared.

"Hawkeye is engaged, by the way."

That made him blink. "What? Who to?"

"Laurence Eliot."

"Who?"

Roy sighed. Ed never read a newspaper, never remembered anyone he met at a

diplomatic event. "He's incredibly wealthy, incredibly attractive, and actually a very

charming and intelligent man."

"Well," Ed said, "he'd better be, hadn't he? Huh. That's good though. I guess I'd better

congratulate her next time I see her. And you're still staring at me funny, by the way."

". . . I do love you, Edward."

. . . and slowly his face softened, and he smiled a little as he dropped the last little heap of

sheets into the airing cupboard. "Yeah, I know." he said, and after all these years there

was still a deliciously wicked edge to his grin. "I love you too, even if you are a freak."

"Let's go out."

"-what?"

"Let me take you out."

" Now ?" Ed stared at him. "The kid's in bed."

"We - could -"

Rainjoyswriting - Ever After.pdf

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