Tiny ficlets from Roy/Ed Day Chat

[krait]

anotherfmafan hosted her usual Roy/Ed Day chatroom a few days early this year. There was a trivia contest (which I did terribly at), a custom crossword puzzle, lots of laughter, and 5-sentence fic prompts (most of which I missed the 5-sentence mark on), and much fun was had by all! Thank you so much, Fanny, for hosting it!

Here are my collected tiny ficlets, lightly edited, for anyone interested:



"California King Size?" Ed sounded dubious. "How big is that, exactly? I dunno what Californians think is king-sized!"

"Big enough that you might have to wear a reflective safety vest, to keep from getting lost," came Roy's response.

"HOW DARE YOU IMPLY I'M SO SMALL THAT I'D--"

"Or perhaps we could handcuff you to headboard to keep you in place," Roy interrupted, smugly.

Ed finished yelling at him anyway, and hit him with a pillow, but when Roy had gone to put his suitcase by the door, Ed transfigured a couple of tea canisters into a set of handcuffs and slipped them into his bag.



"You're playing with fire, Roy. I know that's your specialty, but I'm not sure you've considered the Elric effect. Even you can get burned, if the flame is big enough - and any fire Fullmetal is involved in becomes a raging conflagration that could burn the whole of Central City down. I don't know if Amestris is ready for a Fuhrer candidate who's openly involved with his former subordinate... his very young former subordinate." Riza smiled and squeezed his hand. "Just... think about it, please, before you strike that match."


"And I've got a new alloy - chromium! not cheap! - I'm dying to try out, and I've had some thoughts about the screw arrangements after the last Rush Valley conference and I'm pretty sure that I can increase stability in a pivot by 23% by staggering the screws in the humeroradial seam. There were some promising prototypes, and I played around with a couple of different spacings to find the most effective resistance to torsion stresses. Oh! There's a new waterproofing compound on the market, too, that should be perfect for your hand and foot. A little fussy to apply, but...."

Ed let Winry's enthusiasm roll over him like the smell of Granny's baking, and felt at home for the first time in months.


Disturbing reports had crossed Mustang's desk this morning: strange lights and noises in an unused warehouse, strange mechanical parts found inside, and odd "tourists" seen in its vicinity arguing in unknown languages, and a number of traffic accidents of mysterious cause. The military feared spies, the police were concerned about smuggling, and Roy was beginning to wonder if he'd offended the god of paperwork enough that he was behind it all. He nearly had a wreck himself as he was driving home, and when he reached the door at last he realised it wasn't locked.

Advancing cautiously into the entry, he nearly fell over an object on the floor that proved to be a nondescript brown coat. Had someone broken in to his house to dump random clothing there instead of stealing the furniture? Prepared for anything from a serial killer to a disoriented drunk, he flipped the kitchen switch.

He wasn't prepared for a trio of blonds, two wheat-bronze and one incredibly, beautifully golden. "Surprise," said the Fullmetal Alchemist around a mouthful of bread. "We got the rocket to work at last."


"Where did you go?"

The words were murmured into Ed's hair, so softly Roy's lips barely disturbed the silky strands. He didn't expect an answer; Edward was probably asleep, but Edward had never answered that question any of the times Roy had asked him while awake, either.

It didn't really matter, in some ways; what mattered the most was just - this, Edward lying in his arms with heavy, lax limbs, in a bed in a house in Central in Amestris. So what if he sometimes woke with strange words on his tongue? If Ed rolled over right now and said "I was in Faeryland," what would that change about this moment? Nothing. Roy hadn't been there with him; any explanation would be nothing but words, as meaningless as the things Ed sometimes asked when waking.

No, he thought, let Edward keep his past; it would only hurt more to know everything he has missed. Roy was determined instead to be Ed's future.


"You'll see," Heiderich's voice rang out tinnily from under the nosecone as he checked over the bolts again, "we're going to make history! The first viable manned rocket ship - just think of it, we're taking the science of flight all the way into the future!"

"Not if you don't hurry up with that propulsion system," Ed called back, scribbling yet another equation out and starting over again without looking over toward the echoing words. "I've got five different fuel ideas, but I can't know which ones to synthesise until we figure out the tolerances of the tank and valves."

"I'm done, I'm done," Heiderich laughed, climbing out and tossing Ed his spanner along with a cocky grin; "give me just a minute to clean up and we'll find out whether the future holds any dinner."


(Meanwhile, once they're back in Amestris:

"Al, c'mere a second. Hold this," he added as Al appeared.

"Brother? Why do you have my old armour? And what's this tube?"

"I've got a great idea," Ed said, and attempted to drag him outside; Al, however, was wise to situations where Ed avoided answering questions, and dug in his heels.

"Brother," he said, reprovingly.

Ed melted like gallium. "Yeesh, Al, stop with the sad puppy eyes, that should be illegal. I was looking at your helmet yesterday and I noticed that your old helmet has a pretty aerodymic shape. We actually tried some rocket designs that looked pretty close to it! So I whipped up this jet pack and--"

The rest of Ed's idea disappeared in a yelp. A moment later, the jet pack and Al disappeared, too, although a howl of, "Stop right there, Al, don't you dare throw that in the pond, get back here....." followed them both over the hill.)

Or, as I summarised it in the chat:
Ed: Go fast!
Al: What about stopping?
Ed: Go fast!
Al: But can you steer?
Ed: Fast!