The Rest of the Story

Summary: The twins are five, and they and Ed are getting to visit Roy's hometown for the first time.

Hometown

Ed smiled as he listened to Roy in the back seat with the twins. “Over there, on the right, that’s the soda shop where your Auntie and I used to go to get those cherry phosphates and malts that were so much better than any place in Central.”

He could hear Raine chuckling beside him in the passenger seat. “Roy they probably tasted better because we were kids when we had them. Everything tastes better and seems bigger and grander when you’re seven and ten years old.”

“Tasted better to me,” Roy said, almost childishly. Ed glanced up in the rearview mirror, seeing his husband smile as the twins sat on his lap, leaning from window to window.

“So, we’re really here?” Nicholas said. “We’re where you grew up?”

“If that sign is anything to go by,” Ed said. “I’d have to say we are.”

“Welcome to Amhon, birthplace of Fuhrer Roy Mustang, Flame Alchemist,” Raine read, then huffed. “And what about Raine Mustang, older sister and doctor extraordinaire?”

“I could make a comment, but I’ll refrain myself,” Ed said. “Since you’re giving the directions.”

“Good idea, Baby.”

“Auntie,” Aideen’s voice asked from the back. “Why do you call Daddy a baby?”

“Because it’s her nickname for me,” he said.

“Like you call me Squirt?” Nicholas asked.

“Or me Princess?”

“Yep, same thing.”

“But Daddy’s not much like a baby.”

“But he was so young when the two of you were born. I couldn’t help myself.”

“Not to mention the fact that your daddy’s so short,” Roy joked.

“Who are you calling short?” Ed asked. “You should be glad the twins are back there with you and not strapped in like they should be, or I’d have slammed on the brakes so hard you’d be flying into the windshield.”

Ed glanced up to the rearview mirror to see Roy giving him a smug little wink.

*********

As though a soda connoisseur, Aideen swished the red liquid around in her mouth, Nicholas leaning forward just a bit as he sat on Ed’s left.

“Hmm-mm,” she said as she swallowed. “Nope. Not any different from Central.”

“I’m telling you,” Roy said, taking a drink from his daughter’s straw, looking crestfallen as he realized the truth. “It really isn’t any different, is it?”

“Oh, don’t take it so hard,” Ed said, patting his husband’s hand. “There was a time when I thought Auntie Pinako was a great cook, too.”

“You’re kidding!” Nicholas said, turning as he knelt on the wooden bench to look his father in the eyes. “Didn’t your mommy ever make you anything? You said grandma was a really good cook.”

Ed ruffled his son’s hair. “She was, but Auntie Pinako made different food, and when I was eating there I was usually starving.”

“You’d have to be,” Aideen said, earning two surprised looks from her parents. “What? Granny Pinako can’t cook. Even I know that.”

Roy squeezed Aideen tightly in his arm. “Well, now that I’m thoroughly disillusioned, are you two ready to go with your Auntie Raine to the stables?”

“Can we really ride the horses there?” Nicholas asked

“Yes,” Roy said, a smile on his face as he continued to hold Ed’s automail hand.

“I want to ride one of the really big ones. With the furry hooves,” Nicholas said.

“It's called a Clydesdale, and no. You’ll ride a pony, Nicholas, and you can just tuck that little pouting lip back in your mouth,” Ed said, inwardly rolling his eyes at his son’s short-lived enthusiasm.

“So, are my two rodeo stars ready?” Raine asked as she leaned over the back of Ed’s booth.

Two little heads bobbed excitedly as Ed and Roy stood to let their children out. Ed glanced up at Raine, seeing the smile on her face. The woman could be annoying, even more so than her brother, but she did love the twins and, Ed supposed, Roy and him as well. Sometimes, though, when Ed saw her smile as freely as she did it made him wonder what that smile would have looked like on Roy’s nearly identical features. Admittedly, it wasn’t the same as the open, happy smile he’d seen on both their faces in a shot from a year before they’d lost their parents, but for the most part, Raine had always done everything she could to save lives while Roy… well… Roy had a lot on his conscience.

Aideen waved back as she left while Nicholas was pulling Raine by the arm to get to the horses faster.

Roy stood at the counter, insisting he get to pay the bill for the sodas and hotdogs, and finally, he won, as he ually did.

“Really, we don’t want to take your money, Roy,” an older woman said from across the counter, “but since you’re fuhrer and all, you can probably afford it.” She smiled at him. “We’re all so proud of you here, and your husband’s just wonderful.”

“Well, Ed, here understands small town life. He’s from Risembool.” Roy took Ed’s hand in his own.

“We know that, Roy,” the woman said with a smile to Ed. “You think we haven’t read and cut out every article about our hometown boy?”

“Well, I hope you did about my sister, too, she’s feeling a little left out.”

“You know we did.”

Roy and Ed said their goodbyes and left the little soda shop. “You could stay with the twins if you want,” Roy said. “You don’t have to come with me.”

“You’ve met my bastard father, and you’ve been to my mother’s grave…” Ed’s voice drifted off, remembering the first time Roy had been to his mother’s gravesite when Ed had been unable to take care of getting some piece of his mother to fight Sloth with. He felt the hand holding his own give a tight squeeze before they were in the car, traveling to the graveyard.

********

Ed leaned his head against Roy’s shoulder as they stood in silence, arms around one another’s backs. Roy had a tear running down his cheek, but he wasn’t overwhelmed with grief, apparently having made his peace with his parents’ death long ago.

Ed looked at the two stones, side by side, sharing the same date of death. It was terrible that Roy and Raine had lost their parents at such a young age, but looking at the fact that the couple had gotten to go together seemed almost romantic, in a dark, tragic sort of way. Looking up at his husband, Ed realized something he hadn’t before. It would take something as abrupt as a car crash or a disaster to ensure that he never needed to spend a day without his husband—not that he wanted that to occur any time soon.

Side by side, the two alchemists walked down the knoll to the black car waiting for them, Roy getting into the driver’s seat this time, Ed almost unable to stop looking at him.

“What?” Roy finally asked. “Ed? Are you okay?”

“It just dawned on me.” Ed struggled to keep his emotion only surprise at the revelation, not to cry like a simpering girl as a tiny but obnoxiously loud part of him wanted to. “There’s thirteen years between us.”

“And at what point did that little nugget of information strike you? It wasn’t when you were still a teenager on my thirtieth birthday or when I was in my thirties by the time you turned twenty?”

Ed scowled, refraining from telling his husband off at the moment. “I mean, I’m healthy, athletic and thirteen years younger than you. I’m almost certainly going to outlive you.”

He could see on Roy’s face that same need to make a cutting comment halted by the sudden onslaught of all the questions that had come to Ed’s mind with this problem.

“Is that such a bad thing?” Roy finally managed, rubbing his hand over Ed’s cheek.

“Not for you maybe, but I don’t…” Damn it, this was getting mushier and more sickening by the second. “I don’t like the idea of having to go on all that time without you.”

Roy pulled the car over, giving him the opportunity to look Ed full in the face. “And here I thought I was the romantic.”

“This isn’t romantic,” Ed said. “I think something is warped in my head. I don’t want to die, but…”

Roy pulled Ed across the seat, and the smaller man found himself being wrapped with the older man’s arms.

“It isn’t warped Ed, there are stories of couples who after one dies, the other follows shortly after, no height joke intended.”

“But, let’s say you go at seventy, there’s no way I’ll be near it at fifty-seven.”

“Well, what if I promise you barring all disasters or accidents, I’ll try to make it to one hundred.”

“I’ve seen your health habits, Roy Mustang. That would just be a lie.” Ed couldn’t help but feel wrong even discussing this.

“Eighty then? Aiming for eighty-five?”

“You know you can’t really promise that.”

“But I can try.” Roy kissed the top of Ed’s head. “And I’ll try if you promise not to do something really stupid that takes you away from me too early.”

Ed looked up at Roy, sitting on his knees as he looked Roy in his remaining eye. “It’s a deal.” He ran a hand through the black hair before pulling the man’s head to his own, tenderly kissing the thin lips, moaning into his husband’s mouth as it opened willingly, allowing Ed’s tongue to slowly and lovingly trace each ridge, massage along the other man’s pink tongue.

He ended the kiss and had Roy’s body tightly to his own, hearing the faintest whisper in his ear. “I love you.”