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May. 26th, 2010 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsPart 2 of fic; part 1 over here.
Unity Day, 1350 Hours
“Orange. Grape. Um, banana –”
Ed groans and presses his hands into his stomach. “Stop it, stop it! You’re making me hungrier!”
It’s impossible to get last-minute train tickets the day before Unity Day, or the day after
Unity Day, but on the holiday itself the trains are nearly empty – a tip they’d gotten from Lieutenant Breda. Unfortunately, so are the staff compartments, meaning that all the lines are prone to enormous delays, which was a detail the lieutenant had forgotten to mention.
“Okay,” Al says, with a sigh, “so we can’t do Name That Fruit and we already named all the elements too . . . how about I Spy?”
“Around here?” Ed says, scowling out the window. “I spy with my little eye a sheep. I spy with my little eye another sheep. The fun never stops.”
“Okay, how about Would You Rather?”
Ed looks sulky, but he doesn’t say no, which is good enough for Al. “Okay, would you rather . . . be at Teacher’s with Mr. Curtis’ roast and the mashed potatoes, or be at Granny’s with the chocolate-chip pancakes?”
“Al, you jerk! What did I tell you about talking about food?”
The benefit of traveling on Unity Day is that there’s no one else in the train compartment to object to the brief sparring match that this sets off. It takes a few minutes for a conductor to notice the sound of thumping and come pound on the door of the car. “Hey, you kids! What the hell are you doing in there?”
“Sorry!” calls Al, slinking back onto the bench. “We’ll be quiet!” Ed pauses to alchemically smooth out the dents that have appeared in a few of the seats, and then flops back down across from his brother, with a dramatic sigh. Ed does not take well to boredom.
“Brother, the train’s not moving now,” Al offers, after a moment. “You could probably read.”
“All my books are packed,” complains Ed. “By the time I get to the luggage compartment and back the train’ll start moving again and the books’ll just be there mocking me. You are so lucky not getting carsick.”
“Ummmmmm.” Al taps his fingers together, fidgeting. “Okay, what about the question game?”
“I really hate that game! I’ve always hated that game.”
“Yeah, but Winry’s not here,” Al wheedles, “and you only hate it because Winry always beats us.”
“Uh, no way! Dammit, Al, when did you get to be such a liar? You remember Resembool last winter? You beat Winry almost every time.”
“Well, anyway, brother, you shouldn’t be a sore loser,” Al says, all virtuous dignity; when this gets no response, he slumps down in his seat. “I kind of wish we were there now,” he says, like a confession.
“Whatever,” says Ed, who would never in a million years admit to the same wish. He aims a light fraternal kick at his brother’s metal leg. “Isn’t it going to be way better when we’ve got our real bodies back? And you can actually eat dinner? Think about it – roast turkey and Granny’s cobbler and . . . dammit, now I’m hungry again!”
“That one wasn’t my fault, brother!”
“Well, anyway, if this stupid train would get moving,” Ed says, glowering out the window at the scenery as if it is personally responsible for the delay, “we’ll be one step closer to all of that. We could have our bodies back by this time tomorrow, maybe, if this lead turns out to be – hey!”
Al jerks his gaze over to the window. “Huh, what is it?”
“You know how they said over the intercom we were stalled because of track repair?”
“Yeah?”
“Well,” Ed says, leaning further out the window, and points up to the front of the train, where a group of men in bandannas have surrounded the front car, “I think maybe they were lying.” He turns and flashes a sudden grin over at Al. “This trip just got a lot more interesting, little brother!”
“Brother, maybe we should –” says Al, but he’s too late; Ed’s already pushed open the window and launched himself through, with a showy somersault. He hits the ground running and bounds up to the small congress in front of the train like an excitable red kangaroo. The wind carries his voice back in through the window – “Hey! Hey you up there, you’re bad guys, right?”
A loud clank echoes through the train compartment, as Al slaps a metal hand into his metal forehead before pulling out his chalk to draw a set of the alchemical symbols. He’s got to transmute the window into a door large enough for him to follow.
Unity Day, 1430 Hours
“My mom,” Bido says wistfully, “used to make this really amazing apple crumble thing.”
“My family always ordered takeout,” Martel says. “But it was really good takeout, you know? And then we’d have the annual family darts tournament.” She leans her head back against the wall. “I kicked my brothers’ asses every year.”
“My brother always kicked my ass,” says Dolcetto. “Didn’t ever think I’d miss that smug face.”
Greed stares at them all and crosses his arms in front of him. “What the hell, guys? What’s with the whinemobile trip down memory lane all of a sudden?”
“Well, you know, it’s the holiday,” mumbles Bido. “You start thinking about your family, I guess. It gets you kind of down.”
Greed frowns over at his chimerae. He’s greedy for all their loyalty, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t have it, because, let’s face it, he is the awesomest. They don’t need to be missing anyone else. “Come on,” he says, flipping himself abruptly to his feet. “Let’s cut the maudlin. We’re going out.”
“Out where?” asks Martel warily.
. . . Greed hasn’t really thought that part out yet. Fortunately, Greed is often prone to strokes of genius. “To the movies,” he announces, grabbing his sunglasses.
“But Mr. Greed,” Dolcetto says, “the movie theater is in a pretty ritzy part of town. Bido can’t –”
Bido tugs awkwardly on his lizard tail, currently sprawled out in plain view over the floor, and then shuffles it back under his raggedy cloak. “You guys should go,” he mutters. “I mean, it’s okay, I don’t mind staying behind.”
“Ahhh, whatever,” says Greed, dismissing this objection, and uses one finger to flick the sunglasses onto his nose. “We’ll go to a horror flick, yeah? If anyone notices they’ll just figure he’s dressing up, gotten all into it. Anyway –” He grabs the fur-lined collar of his vest and pops it higher, grinning. “It ain’t like they’re gonna be looking at any of the rest of you, with me around.”
“Ooooh, yeah,” says Martel, snickering. “They’ll think Mr. Greed’s a big movie star going incognito. Gonna sign any autographs?”
“You bet I am! I’m Greed the Avaricious! Money, women, and fame – they all –”
“ – belong to you,” chorus Dolcetto, Bido and Ulchi, and Ulchi adds, “But save some for the rest of us!” Greed’s grin broadens. Faded memories of parents and siblings can in no way compete with the famed Greed charisma, baby; his guys are still his guys.
“I’m not a big fan of horror movies,” rumbles Roa, looking faintly nervous.
Roa is generally ignored; the chimerae are starting to get enthusiastic now, energy chasing away nostalgia, just like Greed figured it would. “So what’s playing?” Dolcetto asks Bido, who tends to read the paper more reliably than the rest of them.
Bido stops fussing with his cloak and fidgets his fingers together instead. Bido’s always a little twitchy, Greed figures it’s gotta have something to do with the lizard half. They’re zippity little bastards, right? “Okay, okay, let’s see, there’s the one about the wolf-man, that’s got –”
“Oh, no way,” interrupts Martel. “If we’re going to a horror flick, I wanna be scared. If we see a movie about a wolf-man I’ll just be thinking about him peeing on one leg the whole time like Dolcetto.”
“Hey!”
“Well, the other really big one right now is the one about the opera stalker –”
“Stop, stop right there, oh, we are definitely seeing that one,” says Ulchi, suddenly starry-eyed.
“Why?” Martel blinks at him. “It’s a pretty girly movie, for a horror flick.”
“Yeah, but that girl who plays the opera singer, you don’t understand, I have been following her career forever, she is incredibly hot –”
“Which means if we go see that one you’ll spend the whole time crooning about how gorgeous she is and won’t let any of the rest of us enjoy the movie?” says Martel, disgusted. “No thank you!”
“There’s one that’s been getting a lot of buzz that has a bloodsucking stalker and a wolf-man,” offers Bido, in the tones of a peacemaker.
“Seriously, I don’t like horror movies,” says Roa, louder this time.
Dolcetto laughs and slaps him on the back, ignoring the ox-chimera’s glare. “Don’t worry, big guy, if you get scared I’ll hold your hand –”
“Children, children!” Greed holds up his hands like a paterfamilias, and they all fall silent, varying levels of smirks on their faces, appreciating the joke. Oh, he loves his guys. “It doesn’t matter, right? If there’s a couple different movies playing – well, we’ll just have to see all of them.” He winks. “Why not be a little greedy?”
They all laugh at that, and fall into line behind him as he leads them out the door.
Unity Day, 1520 Hours
“Sister,” says Amue reproachfully, as Olivier Mira Armstrong takes her knee off of her little brother’s back, “you could show some more –”
“Proper triumph!” suggests Strongine.
“Nobility in triumph,” says Amue, firmly.
“Sparkling!” chirps Catherine Elle, which, it must be admitted, is a large component of what they are discussing – at least, according to the Armstrong traditions.
Alex Louis does not contribute to the discussion, except to lie on the floor and groan. As all of his younger sisters have recently taken their turns in similar positions, they can’t really object to this.
“It’s not that we mind that you win the family wrestling competition every year,” says Amue. “You are the eldest; it’s only right. But do you have to look so bored every time? It’s as if you take it for granted, sister!”
“Gloating might be better,” says Strongine glumly, and Amue promptly takes her slightly smaller sister by the elbow and sends her flying across the room.
“Our family’s tradition of generosity and nobility in victory has been passed down for generations! Armstrongs never gloat.”
“I must beg to differ, sister!” protests Strongine, pushing herself back to her feet. “In my studies of the Armstrong alchemical diaries, I have found that many a past Armstrong has delighted in gloating over less enlightened alchemists when they scored an academic point –”
“Now, children,” says their mother, without looking up from the newspaper, “there are many different ways of living up to the Armstrong traditions.” She coughs, and adds, in an audible undertone, “God only knows there are enough of them.” (All Armstrongs – by marriage or not – have difficulty with the concept of ‘sotto voce’. Fortunately the Armstrong sisters are used to ignoring this kind of comment from their maternal parent, and therefore don’t take much note.)
“I’m only saying, Olivier,” Amue says, returning her attention to her eldest sister, “would it be so difficult to make at least a small speech over Alex’s fallen body? To strike a pose, taking pride in your victory, and therefore rendering proper respect to the defeated?”
Olivier snorts. “Respect for that pantywaist?” She strides over to the fireplace, stepping on Alex’s back as she goes – Alex, who had been just starting to lift himself up, collapses back onto the ground – and stands in front of it, her back to her sisters, feet set apart and hands shoved in her pockets. At the very least, it makes for a suitably dramatic Armstrong silhouette. “If you’re sick of losing in the wrestling contest,” she says, without looking over her shoulder, “I could just stay up at Briggs next year –”
“No, sister!” cries Amue and springs up in distress, tears bursting from her eyes.
“No, sister!” cries Strongine and clutches the sofa for balance, accidentally splitting the sleeve-seams of her party dress.
Alex Louis mumbles something weakly from the floor; it’s mostly indecipherable, but from the woeful sparkles radiating from his head, it seems reasonably fair to translate it as “No, sister!”
“But sister!” cries Catherine Elle, “if you don’t come down for Unity Day, I’ll never be able to hear anything about your wonderful handsome subordinate?”
Olivier laughs. “I wouldn’t set your cap for Major Miles, little sister –”
“Not Miles,” sighs Catherine Elle, her eyes going dreamy. “The handsome one. Mr. Buccaneer . . .”
As Alex wheezes something incomprehensible from the floor, the Armstrong family patriarch coughs and says, “There, Olivier, you see? Your family would be far too grieved if you didn’t come down next year. Now – Catherine Elle, did you bring down the cannons and the trombones?”
“Yes, Father!”
“Then we are ready,” her father declaims, and stands up, his shirt bursting off his chest, “for the traditional Armstrong family Parcheesi tournament!”
Unity Day, 1630 Hours
“What happened to him?”
“Hell if I know,” Dr. Knox says, and glares through his glasses at the man who’s just appeared across from him. “And who the hell are you?”
The other man shrugs and offers up a sheepish grin, blinking foolishly behind his own pair of too-small glasses. “Just a curious bystander?” he suggests.
“Funny thing,” Knox says, “we don’t get a whole lot of those in the morgue.”
“Hmmmm. Good point.” The man considers this, putting a hand up behind him to smooth down his blond ponytail. His voice placid, he remarks, “I could be the murderer coming to eliminate the evidence.”
Knox snorts, unimpressed, and jerks his chin towards the corpse. “You’d need to be swinging a hell of a meat cleaver to have done that.”
They both turn to look at the soaked pieces of what was once a person on the table: elbow severed off from the arm severed off from the torso, divided into neat slices like someone’s dinner roast. Knox has had a job to do, cleaning off the parts to examine them; they’d spent a few hours floating through the sewers before bobbing up in some unfortunate general’s backyard pool. You’d better believe a couple of privates got pulled to take care of that fast, Unity Day or not.
After a moment of contemplation, the blond man offers, “Actually, a meat cleaver isn’t really sharp enough to have done that.”
“I know that,” Knox snaps. “I’m a damn surgeon. It was a figure of speech.”
“Ah,” says the other, apologetically, and strides over to peer down at the corpse. His face doesn’t register any particular discomfort at the gory sight of a dismembered human being – no more than Knox’s does. “Do you work with a lot of dead bodies, doctor?”
Knox hasn’t worked on a live patient since Ishval. “No,” he says, heavy on the sarcasm, “I’m just here as a tourist same as you.”
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Once or twice.” Knox shrugs. It’s some other poor bastard’s job to clean up the streets of Amestris; they’re just paying Knox to poke at the corpse. “They call them Barry the Chopper copycat killings, but Barry never did work this neat in his life. Well, that guy did use a meat cleaver.”
“Are the bodies like this always found in the sewers? Coming from underneath Central?”
“Look,” says Knox. His feet are cold – it’s always cold in the morgue – and his lumbago is acting up, and he wants to finish up here and go back to his empty house. “I’m not in the mood to play twenty questions. It’s a holiday, right? Go celebrate somewhere. Else.”
All this gets him is another befuddled blink from behind the glasses. “A holiday?” echoes the man, bemused. “Really? What holiday?”
Knox points over at a cheery sign in sparkly colored paper taped over the door to the morgue’s bureaucratic front office, currently dark and empty: HAPPY UNITY DAY!
“Unity Day . . .” The man taps the side of his head, as if trying to dislodge a memory, and then brightens. “Oh, yes! That new national pride holiday they started up after the Wellesley Conflict. I forgot we were still celebrating that. What do we do?” He looks politely eager, as if he will promptly run out and perform whatever celebratory directive Knox gives him.
Knox debates the merits of pointing out that Unity Day has been an Amestrian national holiday for the past hundred years, and decides it’s not worth the effort or aggravation. “We don’t do anything. I come in and take the overtime pay. If it’s a heartwarming holiday family story you’re after –”
He has to break off again, because, quite abruptly, the man’s mild amber eyes have started to well over with tears. “What the hell is it now?” demands Knox, thoroughly exasperated.
“I’m sorry – when you mentioned family, I did remember about Unity Day,” says the blond man, pulling out a handkerchief and blowing his nose. “Tricia – my wife – loves holidays. She used to decorate the whole house, and . . .”
“Then why aren’t you bawling on her shoulder?”
“I will be.” The man blows his nose again and wipes his eyes, apparently utterly unself-conscious about crying in front of a stranger. “Once I deserve to go back to her. Them. My family.” His gaze settles back on the corpse as if it holds the answer to his marital problems, which would have to be some damn funny marital problems, if so.
Then again, Knox doesn’t have much room to talk. He hunches down his chin and glares down at his shoes. The left one is seaming apart slightly at the toes, which explains why his feet are cold. He hasn’t bought new shoes in a long time. He never remembers to, without someone to tell him that his old ones are falling apart.
“Yeah,” he says finally, aware that he sounds bitter and not much caring, “good luck with that.”
Unity Day, 1700 Hours
“Oiiiiiiiiiii, Roy!”
“Hughes, I know you’re at your house, so was it really necessary to call through the private military line?”
“Says the guy in the office on a national holiday. Don’t tell me you’re actually doing work?”
“Heh. I was planning on working on the Haraldson case, actually, but then Fullmetal ran into the guy trying to hijack a train to get him out of the country – ran into him fairly hard, from what I hear. So that one essentially solved itself.”
“Yeah, try and tell me you had as much fun with your cute little arsonist as I did with my adorable family over here – Elicia, want to come say Happy Unity Day to Roy?”
“Happy Unity Day, Roy!”
“Happy Unity Day, Elicia. Having a good holiday?”
“Yeah!”
“You want to put your dad back on now?”
“Yeah!”
“Hughes, your two-year-old daughter just called me ‘Roy’.”
“I know, man, she said a whole sentence! I tell you, she’s talking better than any of the other kids in her play group –“
“That’s great, but don’t you think she should be learning to talk to adults a little more respectfully?”
“Of course we’re teaching her to talk respectfully to adults! It’s soooooooo so cute, she calls the mailman Mr. Mail and the milkman Mr. Milk – ”
“— what, so I don’t count?!?”
“What do you think? - oh, hang on, Gracia’s getting on the line.”
“Happy holiday, Roy!”
“Hi, Gracia! How’d the party go this year?”
“Really well. Elicia helped with the pie –”
“By which you mean she got flour all over everything.”
“Exactly. Now it’s all over but the washing up, which of course we’re putting off by calling you. Is Riza there? I’d like to wish her happy holidays.”
“Actually, no.”
“Really? Where is she?”
“From what I understand, surrounded by happy couples and bright-eyed young cadets –”
“- Maes, you could just ask for the phone, you don’t have to gra–”
“Okay, come on, Roy, what’s the story? Where’s Hawkeye? Don’t tell me a dashing young officer stole her away from you?”
“Ha ha. In a manner of speaking. Do you remember Lieutenant Rebecca Catalina?”
“Uhhh. Don’t think we ever met, but I heard the name once or twice back in Ishval – wasn’t she the sniper with the great – uh, very flattering uniform? - now Gracia’s saying she went out for drinks with her and Hawkeye when we were in East on vacation . . . so why wasn’t I invited, huh?”
“Gracia was probably sick of listening to you talk, and I don’t blame her.”
“It sounds like you weren’t on the guest list either, Roy . . . and speaking of vacations, when are you coming up and celebrating Unity Day with us?”
“Ask me again when I get transferred to Central.”
“We’re going to hold you to that. Not that you should complain, let me tell you about the food that Gracia made for the party, I mean, seriously, it’s –”
“Seriously, I really don’t need the whole description – just a moment, I think that’s my pizza.”
“. . .”
“Happy Unity Day, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Hawkeye! I heard you got kidnapped.”
“. . . in a manner of speaking. I accepted a friend’s invitation to lunch.”
“Good for you! Have a good time?”
“I did, thanks. It was a big party, though, and the cadets were very energetic.”
“Hah! You mean they weren’t all starstruck to be chowing down with the Hawk’s Eye? Did you have to sign anyone’s tactics homework - okay, tell me later, Gracia’s getting on the line.”
“Riza, I’m glad we caught you!”
“Hello, Gracia. How was your Unity Dinner?”
“Great, and I hear you actually got one too, for once? You can pass my congratulations along to Rebecca for prying you away from your desk. Or you could just say hello to her for me.”
“I’ll do that. How’s – is that Elicia I’m hearing?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s her all right – she’s been pretty overstimulated today. Lots of people. We’d probably better go put her down for her nap. Happy holidays, Riza – we’ll see you both here at Central one of these years, won’t we?”
“I hope so. Happy holidays, Gracia.”
Gracia glances over to see if Maes wants the phone back before she hangs it up, but he’s already picked up the wailing toddler and started bouncing her in his arms. She sets down the receiver on its stand and goes to stand behind her husband, slipping her arms around his waist.
“She was amazingly good for most of the day,” he says, pitching his voice over Elicia’s crying. “I was pretty impressed with her for not breaking down when your uncle Ivan came over and did the cheek-pinching thing.”
“Well, she’s a people person,” says Gracia, “like her dad.”
“And patient as he-heck like her mom.” Maes transfers Elicia to his left arm, and half-turns to grin at his wife. “I wouldn’t want your uncle Ivan pinching me on the cheek. Come on, cranky baby, you ready for a nap?”
Elicia shrieks one more time, “Want more UNITY DAY!” and then subsides into sulky, hiccupping sniffles.
“I know how you feel,” says Maes, and kisses her on top of her head. “Back to reality now, right? It’s okay, kiddo. There’s always next year.”
Unity Day, 1350 Hours
“Orange. Grape. Um, banana –”
Ed groans and presses his hands into his stomach. “Stop it, stop it! You’re making me hungrier!”
It’s impossible to get last-minute train tickets the day before Unity Day, or the day after
Unity Day, but on the holiday itself the trains are nearly empty – a tip they’d gotten from Lieutenant Breda. Unfortunately, so are the staff compartments, meaning that all the lines are prone to enormous delays, which was a detail the lieutenant had forgotten to mention.
“Okay,” Al says, with a sigh, “so we can’t do Name That Fruit and we already named all the elements too . . . how about I Spy?”
“Around here?” Ed says, scowling out the window. “I spy with my little eye a sheep. I spy with my little eye another sheep. The fun never stops.”
“Okay, how about Would You Rather?”
Ed looks sulky, but he doesn’t say no, which is good enough for Al. “Okay, would you rather . . . be at Teacher’s with Mr. Curtis’ roast and the mashed potatoes, or be at Granny’s with the chocolate-chip pancakes?”
“Al, you jerk! What did I tell you about talking about food?”
The benefit of traveling on Unity Day is that there’s no one else in the train compartment to object to the brief sparring match that this sets off. It takes a few minutes for a conductor to notice the sound of thumping and come pound on the door of the car. “Hey, you kids! What the hell are you doing in there?”
“Sorry!” calls Al, slinking back onto the bench. “We’ll be quiet!” Ed pauses to alchemically smooth out the dents that have appeared in a few of the seats, and then flops back down across from his brother, with a dramatic sigh. Ed does not take well to boredom.
“Brother, the train’s not moving now,” Al offers, after a moment. “You could probably read.”
“All my books are packed,” complains Ed. “By the time I get to the luggage compartment and back the train’ll start moving again and the books’ll just be there mocking me. You are so lucky not getting carsick.”
“Ummmmmm.” Al taps his fingers together, fidgeting. “Okay, what about the question game?”
“I really hate that game! I’ve always hated that game.”
“Yeah, but Winry’s not here,” Al wheedles, “and you only hate it because Winry always beats us.”
“Uh, no way! Dammit, Al, when did you get to be such a liar? You remember Resembool last winter? You beat Winry almost every time.”
“Well, anyway, brother, you shouldn’t be a sore loser,” Al says, all virtuous dignity; when this gets no response, he slumps down in his seat. “I kind of wish we were there now,” he says, like a confession.
“Whatever,” says Ed, who would never in a million years admit to the same wish. He aims a light fraternal kick at his brother’s metal leg. “Isn’t it going to be way better when we’ve got our real bodies back? And you can actually eat dinner? Think about it – roast turkey and Granny’s cobbler and . . . dammit, now I’m hungry again!”
“That one wasn’t my fault, brother!”
“Well, anyway, if this stupid train would get moving,” Ed says, glowering out the window at the scenery as if it is personally responsible for the delay, “we’ll be one step closer to all of that. We could have our bodies back by this time tomorrow, maybe, if this lead turns out to be – hey!”
Al jerks his gaze over to the window. “Huh, what is it?”
“You know how they said over the intercom we were stalled because of track repair?”
“Yeah?”
“Well,” Ed says, leaning further out the window, and points up to the front of the train, where a group of men in bandannas have surrounded the front car, “I think maybe they were lying.” He turns and flashes a sudden grin over at Al. “This trip just got a lot more interesting, little brother!”
“Brother, maybe we should –” says Al, but he’s too late; Ed’s already pushed open the window and launched himself through, with a showy somersault. He hits the ground running and bounds up to the small congress in front of the train like an excitable red kangaroo. The wind carries his voice back in through the window – “Hey! Hey you up there, you’re bad guys, right?”
A loud clank echoes through the train compartment, as Al slaps a metal hand into his metal forehead before pulling out his chalk to draw a set of the alchemical symbols. He’s got to transmute the window into a door large enough for him to follow.
Unity Day, 1430 Hours
“My mom,” Bido says wistfully, “used to make this really amazing apple crumble thing.”
“My family always ordered takeout,” Martel says. “But it was really good takeout, you know? And then we’d have the annual family darts tournament.” She leans her head back against the wall. “I kicked my brothers’ asses every year.”
“My brother always kicked my ass,” says Dolcetto. “Didn’t ever think I’d miss that smug face.”
Greed stares at them all and crosses his arms in front of him. “What the hell, guys? What’s with the whinemobile trip down memory lane all of a sudden?”
“Well, you know, it’s the holiday,” mumbles Bido. “You start thinking about your family, I guess. It gets you kind of down.”
Greed frowns over at his chimerae. He’s greedy for all their loyalty, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t have it, because, let’s face it, he is the awesomest. They don’t need to be missing anyone else. “Come on,” he says, flipping himself abruptly to his feet. “Let’s cut the maudlin. We’re going out.”
“Out where?” asks Martel warily.
. . . Greed hasn’t really thought that part out yet. Fortunately, Greed is often prone to strokes of genius. “To the movies,” he announces, grabbing his sunglasses.
“But Mr. Greed,” Dolcetto says, “the movie theater is in a pretty ritzy part of town. Bido can’t –”
Bido tugs awkwardly on his lizard tail, currently sprawled out in plain view over the floor, and then shuffles it back under his raggedy cloak. “You guys should go,” he mutters. “I mean, it’s okay, I don’t mind staying behind.”
“Ahhh, whatever,” says Greed, dismissing this objection, and uses one finger to flick the sunglasses onto his nose. “We’ll go to a horror flick, yeah? If anyone notices they’ll just figure he’s dressing up, gotten all into it. Anyway –” He grabs the fur-lined collar of his vest and pops it higher, grinning. “It ain’t like they’re gonna be looking at any of the rest of you, with me around.”
“Ooooh, yeah,” says Martel, snickering. “They’ll think Mr. Greed’s a big movie star going incognito. Gonna sign any autographs?”
“You bet I am! I’m Greed the Avaricious! Money, women, and fame – they all –”
“ – belong to you,” chorus Dolcetto, Bido and Ulchi, and Ulchi adds, “But save some for the rest of us!” Greed’s grin broadens. Faded memories of parents and siblings can in no way compete with the famed Greed charisma, baby; his guys are still his guys.
“I’m not a big fan of horror movies,” rumbles Roa, looking faintly nervous.
Roa is generally ignored; the chimerae are starting to get enthusiastic now, energy chasing away nostalgia, just like Greed figured it would. “So what’s playing?” Dolcetto asks Bido, who tends to read the paper more reliably than the rest of them.
Bido stops fussing with his cloak and fidgets his fingers together instead. Bido’s always a little twitchy, Greed figures it’s gotta have something to do with the lizard half. They’re zippity little bastards, right? “Okay, okay, let’s see, there’s the one about the wolf-man, that’s got –”
“Oh, no way,” interrupts Martel. “If we’re going to a horror flick, I wanna be scared. If we see a movie about a wolf-man I’ll just be thinking about him peeing on one leg the whole time like Dolcetto.”
“Hey!”
“Well, the other really big one right now is the one about the opera stalker –”
“Stop, stop right there, oh, we are definitely seeing that one,” says Ulchi, suddenly starry-eyed.
“Why?” Martel blinks at him. “It’s a pretty girly movie, for a horror flick.”
“Yeah, but that girl who plays the opera singer, you don’t understand, I have been following her career forever, she is incredibly hot –”
“Which means if we go see that one you’ll spend the whole time crooning about how gorgeous she is and won’t let any of the rest of us enjoy the movie?” says Martel, disgusted. “No thank you!”
“There’s one that’s been getting a lot of buzz that has a bloodsucking stalker and a wolf-man,” offers Bido, in the tones of a peacemaker.
“Seriously, I don’t like horror movies,” says Roa, louder this time.
Dolcetto laughs and slaps him on the back, ignoring the ox-chimera’s glare. “Don’t worry, big guy, if you get scared I’ll hold your hand –”
“Children, children!” Greed holds up his hands like a paterfamilias, and they all fall silent, varying levels of smirks on their faces, appreciating the joke. Oh, he loves his guys. “It doesn’t matter, right? If there’s a couple different movies playing – well, we’ll just have to see all of them.” He winks. “Why not be a little greedy?”
They all laugh at that, and fall into line behind him as he leads them out the door.
Unity Day, 1520 Hours
“Sister,” says Amue reproachfully, as Olivier Mira Armstrong takes her knee off of her little brother’s back, “you could show some more –”
“Proper triumph!” suggests Strongine.
“Nobility in triumph,” says Amue, firmly.
“Sparkling!” chirps Catherine Elle, which, it must be admitted, is a large component of what they are discussing – at least, according to the Armstrong traditions.
Alex Louis does not contribute to the discussion, except to lie on the floor and groan. As all of his younger sisters have recently taken their turns in similar positions, they can’t really object to this.
“It’s not that we mind that you win the family wrestling competition every year,” says Amue. “You are the eldest; it’s only right. But do you have to look so bored every time? It’s as if you take it for granted, sister!”
“Gloating might be better,” says Strongine glumly, and Amue promptly takes her slightly smaller sister by the elbow and sends her flying across the room.
“Our family’s tradition of generosity and nobility in victory has been passed down for generations! Armstrongs never gloat.”
“I must beg to differ, sister!” protests Strongine, pushing herself back to her feet. “In my studies of the Armstrong alchemical diaries, I have found that many a past Armstrong has delighted in gloating over less enlightened alchemists when they scored an academic point –”
“Now, children,” says their mother, without looking up from the newspaper, “there are many different ways of living up to the Armstrong traditions.” She coughs, and adds, in an audible undertone, “God only knows there are enough of them.” (All Armstrongs – by marriage or not – have difficulty with the concept of ‘sotto voce’. Fortunately the Armstrong sisters are used to ignoring this kind of comment from their maternal parent, and therefore don’t take much note.)
“I’m only saying, Olivier,” Amue says, returning her attention to her eldest sister, “would it be so difficult to make at least a small speech over Alex’s fallen body? To strike a pose, taking pride in your victory, and therefore rendering proper respect to the defeated?”
Olivier snorts. “Respect for that pantywaist?” She strides over to the fireplace, stepping on Alex’s back as she goes – Alex, who had been just starting to lift himself up, collapses back onto the ground – and stands in front of it, her back to her sisters, feet set apart and hands shoved in her pockets. At the very least, it makes for a suitably dramatic Armstrong silhouette. “If you’re sick of losing in the wrestling contest,” she says, without looking over her shoulder, “I could just stay up at Briggs next year –”
“No, sister!” cries Amue and springs up in distress, tears bursting from her eyes.
“No, sister!” cries Strongine and clutches the sofa for balance, accidentally splitting the sleeve-seams of her party dress.
Alex Louis mumbles something weakly from the floor; it’s mostly indecipherable, but from the woeful sparkles radiating from his head, it seems reasonably fair to translate it as “No, sister!”
“But sister!” cries Catherine Elle, “if you don’t come down for Unity Day, I’ll never be able to hear anything about your wonderful handsome subordinate?”
Olivier laughs. “I wouldn’t set your cap for Major Miles, little sister –”
“Not Miles,” sighs Catherine Elle, her eyes going dreamy. “The handsome one. Mr. Buccaneer . . .”
As Alex wheezes something incomprehensible from the floor, the Armstrong family patriarch coughs and says, “There, Olivier, you see? Your family would be far too grieved if you didn’t come down next year. Now – Catherine Elle, did you bring down the cannons and the trombones?”
“Yes, Father!”
“Then we are ready,” her father declaims, and stands up, his shirt bursting off his chest, “for the traditional Armstrong family Parcheesi tournament!”
Unity Day, 1630 Hours
“What happened to him?”
“Hell if I know,” Dr. Knox says, and glares through his glasses at the man who’s just appeared across from him. “And who the hell are you?”
The other man shrugs and offers up a sheepish grin, blinking foolishly behind his own pair of too-small glasses. “Just a curious bystander?” he suggests.
“Funny thing,” Knox says, “we don’t get a whole lot of those in the morgue.”
“Hmmmm. Good point.” The man considers this, putting a hand up behind him to smooth down his blond ponytail. His voice placid, he remarks, “I could be the murderer coming to eliminate the evidence.”
Knox snorts, unimpressed, and jerks his chin towards the corpse. “You’d need to be swinging a hell of a meat cleaver to have done that.”
They both turn to look at the soaked pieces of what was once a person on the table: elbow severed off from the arm severed off from the torso, divided into neat slices like someone’s dinner roast. Knox has had a job to do, cleaning off the parts to examine them; they’d spent a few hours floating through the sewers before bobbing up in some unfortunate general’s backyard pool. You’d better believe a couple of privates got pulled to take care of that fast, Unity Day or not.
After a moment of contemplation, the blond man offers, “Actually, a meat cleaver isn’t really sharp enough to have done that.”
“I know that,” Knox snaps. “I’m a damn surgeon. It was a figure of speech.”
“Ah,” says the other, apologetically, and strides over to peer down at the corpse. His face doesn’t register any particular discomfort at the gory sight of a dismembered human being – no more than Knox’s does. “Do you work with a lot of dead bodies, doctor?”
Knox hasn’t worked on a live patient since Ishval. “No,” he says, heavy on the sarcasm, “I’m just here as a tourist same as you.”
“Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Once or twice.” Knox shrugs. It’s some other poor bastard’s job to clean up the streets of Amestris; they’re just paying Knox to poke at the corpse. “They call them Barry the Chopper copycat killings, but Barry never did work this neat in his life. Well, that guy did use a meat cleaver.”
“Are the bodies like this always found in the sewers? Coming from underneath Central?”
“Look,” says Knox. His feet are cold – it’s always cold in the morgue – and his lumbago is acting up, and he wants to finish up here and go back to his empty house. “I’m not in the mood to play twenty questions. It’s a holiday, right? Go celebrate somewhere. Else.”
All this gets him is another befuddled blink from behind the glasses. “A holiday?” echoes the man, bemused. “Really? What holiday?”
Knox points over at a cheery sign in sparkly colored paper taped over the door to the morgue’s bureaucratic front office, currently dark and empty: HAPPY UNITY DAY!
“Unity Day . . .” The man taps the side of his head, as if trying to dislodge a memory, and then brightens. “Oh, yes! That new national pride holiday they started up after the Wellesley Conflict. I forgot we were still celebrating that. What do we do?” He looks politely eager, as if he will promptly run out and perform whatever celebratory directive Knox gives him.
Knox debates the merits of pointing out that Unity Day has been an Amestrian national holiday for the past hundred years, and decides it’s not worth the effort or aggravation. “We don’t do anything. I come in and take the overtime pay. If it’s a heartwarming holiday family story you’re after –”
He has to break off again, because, quite abruptly, the man’s mild amber eyes have started to well over with tears. “What the hell is it now?” demands Knox, thoroughly exasperated.
“I’m sorry – when you mentioned family, I did remember about Unity Day,” says the blond man, pulling out a handkerchief and blowing his nose. “Tricia – my wife – loves holidays. She used to decorate the whole house, and . . .”
“Then why aren’t you bawling on her shoulder?”
“I will be.” The man blows his nose again and wipes his eyes, apparently utterly unself-conscious about crying in front of a stranger. “Once I deserve to go back to her. Them. My family.” His gaze settles back on the corpse as if it holds the answer to his marital problems, which would have to be some damn funny marital problems, if so.
Then again, Knox doesn’t have much room to talk. He hunches down his chin and glares down at his shoes. The left one is seaming apart slightly at the toes, which explains why his feet are cold. He hasn’t bought new shoes in a long time. He never remembers to, without someone to tell him that his old ones are falling apart.
“Yeah,” he says finally, aware that he sounds bitter and not much caring, “good luck with that.”
Unity Day, 1700 Hours
“Oiiiiiiiiiii, Roy!”
“Hughes, I know you’re at your house, so was it really necessary to call through the private military line?”
“Says the guy in the office on a national holiday. Don’t tell me you’re actually doing work?”
“Heh. I was planning on working on the Haraldson case, actually, but then Fullmetal ran into the guy trying to hijack a train to get him out of the country – ran into him fairly hard, from what I hear. So that one essentially solved itself.”
“Yeah, try and tell me you had as much fun with your cute little arsonist as I did with my adorable family over here – Elicia, want to come say Happy Unity Day to Roy?”
“Happy Unity Day, Roy!”
“Happy Unity Day, Elicia. Having a good holiday?”
“Yeah!”
“You want to put your dad back on now?”
“Yeah!”
“Hughes, your two-year-old daughter just called me ‘Roy’.”
“I know, man, she said a whole sentence! I tell you, she’s talking better than any of the other kids in her play group –“
“That’s great, but don’t you think she should be learning to talk to adults a little more respectfully?”
“Of course we’re teaching her to talk respectfully to adults! It’s soooooooo so cute, she calls the mailman Mr. Mail and the milkman Mr. Milk – ”
“— what, so I don’t count?!?”
“What do you think? - oh, hang on, Gracia’s getting on the line.”
“Happy holiday, Roy!”
“Hi, Gracia! How’d the party go this year?”
“Really well. Elicia helped with the pie –”
“By which you mean she got flour all over everything.”
“Exactly. Now it’s all over but the washing up, which of course we’re putting off by calling you. Is Riza there? I’d like to wish her happy holidays.”
“Actually, no.”
“Really? Where is she?”
“From what I understand, surrounded by happy couples and bright-eyed young cadets –”
“- Maes, you could just ask for the phone, you don’t have to gra–”
“Okay, come on, Roy, what’s the story? Where’s Hawkeye? Don’t tell me a dashing young officer stole her away from you?”
“Ha ha. In a manner of speaking. Do you remember Lieutenant Rebecca Catalina?”
“Uhhh. Don’t think we ever met, but I heard the name once or twice back in Ishval – wasn’t she the sniper with the great – uh, very flattering uniform? - now Gracia’s saying she went out for drinks with her and Hawkeye when we were in East on vacation . . . so why wasn’t I invited, huh?”
“Gracia was probably sick of listening to you talk, and I don’t blame her.”
“It sounds like you weren’t on the guest list either, Roy . . . and speaking of vacations, when are you coming up and celebrating Unity Day with us?”
“Ask me again when I get transferred to Central.”
“We’re going to hold you to that. Not that you should complain, let me tell you about the food that Gracia made for the party, I mean, seriously, it’s –”
“Seriously, I really don’t need the whole description – just a moment, I think that’s my pizza.”
“. . .”
“Happy Unity Day, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Hawkeye! I heard you got kidnapped.”
“. . . in a manner of speaking. I accepted a friend’s invitation to lunch.”
“Good for you! Have a good time?”
“I did, thanks. It was a big party, though, and the cadets were very energetic.”
“Hah! You mean they weren’t all starstruck to be chowing down with the Hawk’s Eye? Did you have to sign anyone’s tactics homework - okay, tell me later, Gracia’s getting on the line.”
“Riza, I’m glad we caught you!”
“Hello, Gracia. How was your Unity Dinner?”
“Great, and I hear you actually got one too, for once? You can pass my congratulations along to Rebecca for prying you away from your desk. Or you could just say hello to her for me.”
“I’ll do that. How’s – is that Elicia I’m hearing?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s her all right – she’s been pretty overstimulated today. Lots of people. We’d probably better go put her down for her nap. Happy holidays, Riza – we’ll see you both here at Central one of these years, won’t we?”
“I hope so. Happy holidays, Gracia.”
Gracia glances over to see if Maes wants the phone back before she hangs it up, but he’s already picked up the wailing toddler and started bouncing her in his arms. She sets down the receiver on its stand and goes to stand behind her husband, slipping her arms around his waist.
“She was amazingly good for most of the day,” he says, pitching his voice over Elicia’s crying. “I was pretty impressed with her for not breaking down when your uncle Ivan came over and did the cheek-pinching thing.”
“Well, she’s a people person,” says Gracia, “like her dad.”
“And patient as he-heck like her mom.” Maes transfers Elicia to his left arm, and half-turns to grin at his wife. “I wouldn’t want your uncle Ivan pinching me on the cheek. Come on, cranky baby, you ready for a nap?”
Elicia shrieks one more time, “Want more UNITY DAY!” and then subsides into sulky, hiccupping sniffles.
“I know how you feel,” says Maes, and kisses her on top of her head. “Back to reality now, right? It’s okay, kiddo. There’s always next year.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2010-05-26 04:14 pm (UTC)I CONTINUE TO LOVE THIS FIC. AS YOU KNOW. Two thumbs up on all the edits! (You've got a couple of extraneous spaces and line breaks scattered about, though -- I dunno if you care, but.)
<3333333333 is my intellectual, nuanced conclusion.
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Date: 2010-05-26 04:59 pm (UTC)<333333333333333333333333!
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Date: 2010-05-26 04:24 pm (UTC)Well, okay, I'm automatically partial to the Bradleys (united souls slhfksh oh god) and omg, Greed's posse, I kind of wasn't expecting them because I didn't pay attention to the character list!
ALSO, DID I DETECT A BLUES BROTHERS REFERENCE IN THE ARMSTRONG PART AND A MONSTER REFERENCE WITH THE "TENMA CASE..."
Also goddamn, that last line. That last line. That's so FMA, man.
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Date: 2010-05-26 05:02 pm (UTC)There might have been one or two references scattered throughout. >.> Sometimes I amuse myself by being a dork! Much like Bradley undoubtedly cracks himself up by putting SUPER SUBTLE evil in-jokes into his patriotic Fuhrer speeches.
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Date: 2010-05-26 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 05:10 pm (UTC)Yep. I'm tickled, and I love it, and the world needs more FMA fic like this. :)
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Date: 2010-05-26 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 06:06 pm (UTC)It reminded me of what I love about FMA: despite the magic and the crazy prosthetic technology, it feels like the characters are real people written by someone who understands how real humans act, not just the steps for a literary "type". You've hit that really well with your take!
(I read your last one too, but I always forget to comment because everyone else says what I want to say before I get there and
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Date: 2010-05-26 06:13 pm (UTC)(And hah, I am always more than happy to be spammed! >:D)
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Date: 2010-05-26 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-26 11:48 pm (UTC)- “Hey! Hey you up there, you’re bad guys, right?” Oh, puppy Ed, you are indeed a cute little arsonist.
- old horror movies are a big weakness of mine, and I loved hearing the Devil's Nest crew dork out about them. I love Greed's excuses to himself about why he loves his buds, and how much they all bully Roa.
- Catherine's crush on Buccaneer is hilarious
- I am too sleepy to describe why I love Hoho and Knox here, but I just do
- Hughes' dad technique in action was very sweet and real, reminds me of friends with kids. (the whole Hughes thing has become 400% more upsetting for me since several of my friends became doting fathers)
Anyway, in conclusion, ♥
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Date: 2010-05-27 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-27 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-27 01:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-05-27 05:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-27 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-27 10:29 am (UTC)He has been saying this often, in the silence of his own mind. He thought it each time he walked away, stiff-backed, from a countryman or woman who offered him shelter and a chance to rest for a while. He thought it when he reached out with his brother’s arm, and used it to kill an Amestrian alchemist. If you didn’t want this, you shouldn’t have – if you didn’t want this, you should have been the one to –
amazing characterization...
The traditions of our Unity Day celebration have been passed down in the Armstrong family for generations!”
They’ve been passed down in every family for the past few generations, but nobody points this out.
Hehe.
Love the part with Miles and Henschel (and Olvier seen through Henschel's eyes - the respect that she garners from her men). And Roy and Riza doing paperwork together and creating UST by virtue of being in the same room :). And Izumi and Sig and painful memories... and Ed and Al don't have a family to celebrate with but at least it looks like they have some fun on their own...
(The last line slayed me.)
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Date: 2010-05-27 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-27 04:21 pm (UTC)This fic is so in-character that I can imagine these scenes having taken place before canon, or even during canon (missing scenes / behind-the-scenes stuff). And I love how most of the vignettes ended quite heartwarmingly / optimistically, because it just fits with the themes of FMA - hope, camaraderie, resilience and basically the good in humanity. Great job!
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Date: 2010-05-27 04:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-05-27 08:51 pm (UTC)In short, you win!
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Date: 2010-05-27 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 04:52 am (UTC).......♥♥♥♥.......♥♥♥♥.....
.....♥♥♥♥♥♥♥..♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...
..♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥..
..♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥..
..♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥..
...♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥...
.....♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥....
........♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥......
...........♥♥♥♥♥♥........
..............♥♥..........!
YOU SEE WHAT YOU HAVE REDUCED ME TO. A PILE OF INCOHERENT LOVEHEARTS. A TRAVESTY.
(I don't mind.)
I actually spent a Very Long Time picking out quotes and awesomesauceness from each section, then I realised that the comment was nearing the size of a fic in its own right, so I chucked that out...
I really, really just adore how you've characterised! Everyone was so spot-on. Every line was so in-character I could hear it in my head. Everything just made me want to HUG EVERYONE EVER. You've really captured what I love about FMA, and I will never get over your awesome! (Ever!!)
Thank you for this fic! ;_;
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Date: 2010-06-01 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 12:01 am (UTC)Really, really fantastic! <333
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Date: 2010-06-01 11:36 pm (UTC)