Rainjoyswriting - Equivalent Exchange.pdf - FMA Fanfiction - Mojaunicorn

Equivalent Exchange

Roy had imagined it, oh, a thousand times surely, whenever he was meant to look

impressive and impassive at very boring events, whenever meetings dragged on too long,

whenever diplomats wearied him too much. And yes, there had been a great many

variations on the dream, but it was always the same in spirit . . .

He would dress Ed in white, or cream, though he knew he was pushing his luck in terms

of meeting reality and often settled on the plain black tuxedo Ed was forced into far

more often than he would like. He had contemplated maybe just the garter but no, Ed

had enough gender identity issues as it was, and even in his mind Roy would leave him

be. He always looked devastating, he always looked painfully attractive, lethally

handsome. And his eyes never left Roy's.

Guests, cake, that was all a bit of a blur. What mattered was that he stood side by side

with Edward and they were offered a bond that no outside party could break, they were

offered each other. Ed would blush like a new bride (new husband, then) because he was

so charmingly easily embarrassed by public outpourings of love. Roy would feel so

proud, and so achingly happy, and so tense his stomach was a humming wire before the

last vows were exchanged, and Ed would lean up, Roy would cup his cheek, they would

kiss. And that would be that, sealed, and Roy's stomach would dissolve into butterflies

and Ed would sink into his grip and Roy occasionally forced himself to imagine the

reception, the first dance (Edward's cheek to his chest, his arms close around him, that

song, that smile) but it was always a torment when he could just jump his imagination

straight to the bedroom . . .

'til death us do part. Opening him, stroking him, bending down into him, rocking, rocking,

kissing, rocking. My husband, my husband, my husband.

The Fuhrer wasn't known for giving himself away through badly concealed facial

expressions. He did sometimes seem to wear a little smirk that no-one else really

understood, though . . .

Maes squirmed his way through the forest of legs, grinning up at Miss Hawkeye and

sidestepping Mr Breda, ducking right underneath a chair and scrambling into the side

room once more - where he was instantly slung up by a pair of mismatched arms, one

cold, one warm.

"- there you are." Ed adjusted Maes' tie again, eyes critical, and muttered, "It's cruel to

make kids wear one of these things." But the scowl softened as his eyes lingered over

him, and he patted it straight, and said quietly, "You look very handsome."

"You're all warm."

"It's hot in here." Ed put Maes down and brushed his forehead with the back of a white-

gloved hand, and shrugged his jacket straight on his shoulders. "Is he even ready yet?"

"Nearly."

"Maes is right, brother, you're sweating." Al said, and threw him a box of tissues. Ed

caught it and glowered.

"I'm not sweating that much ."

"Nervous?" Al said, and grinned. He still looked fourteen years old when he did that.

"Why should I be?" Ed muttered, flicking the little fern and rose decoration in his

buttonhole, tugging on his gloves. "This is Roy's thing, I dunno why we have to do this.

He wanted us to wear those stupid rings in the first place, now he wants us to take 'em

off so we can put 'em on again in a more pompous way?"

"It's your wedding day."

Ed squirmed and tugged on his collar. "Already been with him ten years. Ten years -"

"And now you'll be with him for the rest of your life." Al said gently, and Ed's face

crossed with something like horror. "Are you alright?"

"Hey, kid. Pass a message onto your dad for me." Ed crouched and murmured to Maes,

who nodded solemnly and ran back out of the room again. Behind him Al said, "Brother,

are you sure you're alright-?"

Through the hall of milling, chattering people again (not a church, Ed had refused a

church, but it was an airy light building all the same, more than big enough for the

friends and family) towards his father. He was detained on the way by bumping into a

pair of blue legs - Miss Hawkeye looked down at him and smiled and said, "Careful,

Maes." and he had to slow to a saunter as he passed his cousin Sam, leaning against a

pillar with a crooked tie and looking so bored and so painfully cool . . .

. . . and then hurry the last few feet to the room where Mr Havoc was panicking and Mr

Armstrong looked about ready to pop out of his suit and Roy was very calmly adjusting

his dress uniform cap in front of the mirror.

Maes sidled around Mr Armstrong, eyes nervously craned upwards; as always,

Armstrong gave him a look of damp-eyed, sparkling adoration . The very first time he'd

met Armstrong Maes had feared being crushed by him - he'd looked ready to trample

Maes in his joy - but Ed had grabbed Maes back by the shoulders with such a snarl on his

face that Armstrong had paused. Stillness for a tense second, and then Ed's hold on Maes

had relaxed slightly, and he'd said gruffly, guiltily, "Be careful ."

And Mr Armstrong, who was bigger than most doorways, had ever since treated Maes as

something as fragile as a snowflake, utterly delicate, could melt at any second.

Roy smirked down at Maes and said, "How do I look?"

Maes didn't know how he was expected to answer that question. "Tall," he said, and Roy

laughed, bent and picked him up.

"Do you have another message from your father?"

Maes stared for a second at his father's medals and said, "Yes." and tugged at him to

come closer, so he could whisper to his ear while Roy wore a very serious expression,

"He says hurry up. And he loves you."

An odd smile. "Tell him I won't be long. And I love him too."

He hesitated before putting Maes down. "I had a bet with your namesake, you know. If I

ever got this far. I owe him a drink." His smirk quirked, one eyebrow raised.

"Considering who I got this far with, I should probably make it a very stiff one . . ."

He set Maes back on the floor, tipped his cap from its perfect straightness to an angle of

ever-such-slight rakishness, and smiled.

She had quite possibly never felt so out of place before in her life.

She'd been to plenty of weddings before where she hadn't known a single person, of

course, but she'd always been safe behind the anonymity of her press tag. You can't be

out of place when you're not meant to know anybody. But she tiptoed her way through

the chattering crowd alone - no sign of either groom yet, and the atmosphere in the hall

was something of pre-party anticipation. A lot of uniforms, yes, and a fair few alchemists

- you could tell by the hands, yellowed and blotched by chemicals and well, you could

just tell - and a lot more faces she didn't recognise. A green-eyed woman with a warm

smile and what must have been her daughter, a pretty teenage girl wearing her first

pearls if the way she couldn't leave them alone was anything to go by. Two young blond

men, Edward's age maybe, sitting side by side and talking with casual familiarity. A

woman with wild brown hair and thick-lensed spectacles and a book open on her lap

before the ceremony began. Another mother, blonde hair clipped up, chasing a little girl

with laughing grey eyes. A woman sitting alone at the back of the room with quite a

feline smile, blonde hair brushed back from her face, knees primly together, eyes full of

amusement who for some reason Alisa guessed didn't have an invite though she'd made

it through security anyway . . . a lot of countryside accents, and a fair few voices even

more far flung in origin -

She hadn't yet seen . . .

She gripped her handbag a little more tightly, and sat on her own at the end of a row of

chairs, and kept her eyes trained down. She'd worn lilac again, and didn't know why now.

A hopeful gesture in her flat just made her feel like a moron faced with the possibility of

actually seeing him again . . .

By the time Maes had scrambled back through to the room containing his other father,

there was no longer any sign of him - but his Aunt Winry was standing at the door to the

little bathroom saying, "He's what ?"

"Throwing up," Al called through the door. "He says he won't be long."

"Jeez, I wasn't this bad at my wedding." Winry muttered, and then caught sight of Maes.

"Is your dad alright? Did he eat anything weird this morning?"

"He didn't eat breakfast this morning."

Winry turned to yell at the door, "You can't be this nervous ! You've been together ten

years!"

"Shut up . . ." Ed moaned, out of sight and sounding wretched.

"Brother, you have a temperature."

"I don't. I can't."

"I think you're ill, you shouldn't-"

"No." Ed's voice said harshly. "D'you know how long he's been looking forward to this? I

can't beg off now anyway, it'd look ridiculous-"

"If you're ill-"

"All I have to do is stay upright long enough to say two words! I think I can manage that ,

thank you very much-"

"And a kiss."

"And a- oh hell. Does anyone have any mouthwash?"

Al called, "Does anyone have any mouthwash?"

Winry turned to Maes. "Does anyone have any-?"

Maes went on a mission.

"Brother," Al said in that fond, exasperated tone of voice he'd got pitch-perfect by now,

and combed Ed's hair out of his face with his fingers. "You look terrible."

" Thanks , Al. Nice to know I can rely on my little brother-"

"This can't have only started this morning."

". . . no. Felt crappy for a couple of days. Kept hoping it'd go away."

"I don't remember you ever being ill when we were younger, and now it happens more

and more . . ."

"Yeah, well, a splenectomy'll do that to you," Ed snapped, and then closed his eyes and

leaned his overheated forehead to the coolness of the cubical wall. "It's nothing serious, I

snuck out to see the doctor yesterday. Round of antibiotics an' I'll be fine. But - I hate

telling Roy. He gets this . . . face whenever anyone mentions it. He thinks it's all his fault

and . . . fuck." Ed laughed weakly. "One arm, one leg, one spleen, and a bunch of

reproductive organs that shouldn't be there - hell, Al, there's not a lot of me left . . ."

"Don't be stupid. You'll always be you ."

Silence, for a little while; Al listened to Ed's shaky breathing and rubbed his back, and

because Al was one of the very few people in the world allowed to see him at his

absolute worst, Ed let him.

"Did you ever think that this would happen?" Al said, and Ed cracked an eye open at him,

forehead still resting on the wall. "I mean, when we were younger - in all that craziness -

did you ever think this would happen?"

"That I would end up marrying Mustang ? Or that I'd end up puking into the toilet when I

tried to?"

Al kept on rubbing at his brother's back. "That you would ever get a happy ending."

Ed looked so surprised, lifted his head from the wall - and paused, and thought. His eyes

always looked older when he was thinking. Finally he grinned ruefully and said, "Nah.

You kidding me? I knew you would, I was sure you would, but I never saw myself living

to twenty. And I never thought - having a kid, and a -"

"Husband?"

"Husband . . . well, what about you? Did you expect all this?"

"Yes." Al said calmly. "Because you promised me it."

". . . huh."

"Of course, I'm older now and I know better than to trust you so much."

"Oi. It's not the 'ending', anyway . . . rest of my life waiting for me out there. Or making

me wait, anyway, while he gets his hair perfect -"

"It would have been nice if mother or father could have been here," Al murmured, and

Ed put his head back to the wall, staring at nothing. After a short pause he nodded.

Silence, for a moment.

Rainjoyswriting - Equivalent Exchange.pdf

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