Worlds Collide

A/N: I'll have to post my thank-you's and comments on the next chapter, my computer is being very slow at the moment with the review page.

Chapter 44

Love and Irritation

Two Months Later

“I cannot believe Elysia picked out these ridiculous dresses,” Aideen grumbled as Nicholas laughed at his sister, clad in her teal taffeta bridesmaid dress. “Not a word.”

“Never,” he said, biting his lip. All he had to do was wear a teal vest, but his sister looked like a walking wad of blueberry taffy, and it was killing Miss Dark and Gloomy. Nicholas bit his tongue, but couldn’t stop the laughter from erupting at his sister’s expense.

“I hate you,” she muttered.

Nicholas chuckled, picking up the ridiculous matching hat. “You shouldn’t forget this.”

Aideen raised a fist at him as he attempted to put it on her head. With an exaggerated squeak, Nicholas dropped the pillbox hat on the bed and darted from her bedroom. He ran out into the hall and slid down the banister to the foot of the stairs.

“Nicholas, you’re getting too old to be doing that,” his dad said from the study, which had a straight shot at the bottom of the stairs.

“You did it last week.”

“What your dad meant was too big,” his papa said.

“Who you calling so short he could ride kiddie rides?”

The teen walked by the study, finding that the arguing on his dad’s part had been cut off by his papa kissing the shorter father on the lips.

“I sometimes wonder how I’m going to manage to have a normal relationship if this is my example of functional,” Nicholas said, pulling teal gloves from his pocket. “Elysia really did go all out with her colors, didn’t she?”

“Thank goodness we’re just friends of the bride,” his papa said. “No teal or sea foam green to be seen on either of us.”

“Have you seen Aideen yet?” Nicholas asked, restraining the need to laugh again.

“Is it as awful as I’m sure she’s making it out to be?” His dad pried himself away from the older man, reaching in his suit pocket for his white gloves.

“Pretty much.”

“I’m coming down now, and can hear you all talking about me just fine,” Aideen called out from above.

“Well, then, come down,” Nicholas said. “I won’t say another word.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t make any assurances for the other two down there.”

“Since when are your parents ‘the other two?’” their papa asked.

“Since I know they’re going to make fun of me.”

“We won’t make…” Nicholas turned at the sound of his dad coughing again. “Goddamn son of a bitch,” he cursed.

“Dad,” Aideen said, coming down the stairs, “did you take your medicine?”

“Yes, mother,” he answered, coughing again.

“Don’t be too hard on her,” their papa said. “She just wants to make sure you take care of yourself. If you had been, a simple cold wouldn’t have put you into this kind of state.”

“Bite me,” Nicholas’s dad said between coughs.

As Aideen appeared at the foot of the stairs, the three men caught sight of her, Nicholas holding nothing back as he burst out into laughter, his fathers managing a moment or two longer, earning them all an angry scowl.

********

Roy rather enjoyed the sight of Ed staggering into the car, but as they left it, he was willing to offer the blonde his arm as they walked inside of the dance hall, as he was still wobbling a bit from his cold medication.

“Are you sure you can get through this, Ed?”

“I’ll be fine,” the small blond said, taking Roy’s arm. “Just stay close until the drugs wear off, and nudge me if I start to fall asleep.”

“I think I can manage that,” Roy said, kissing Ed’s forehead, both to show a bit of affection and also to check for a fever. Though Raine said it was better to let her brother-in-law’s immune system fight this on its own with things to help the running nose and cough, Roy honestly felt she liked having Ed drugged up like this.

“Still don’t understand why, when we have a doctor in the family who could just,” Ed clapped his hands. “and make me better, I’ve got to do things the normal way.”

“It could be because someone called her up in the middle of work, insisting she come over to treat him because he was miserable from a stuffy nose. It’s no wonder that she won’t stop calling you baby since you turn into one every time you get sick.”

“Shut up…” Ed started coughing again. “Bastard.”

With Aideen and Nicholas going into the dance hall ahead of them, Roy squeezed Ed’s arm. “Smile for the cameras,” Roy said.

“Fuhrer Mustang, Lieutenant Colonel Elric,” one reporter called, “will you be attending the parade in East City?”

“I doubt so,” Roy said. “Though we would enjoy traveling there, there are certain matters of state that need taken care of, detaining me in Central, and my husband, if you cannot tell, is a bit under the weather for such a long trip.”

Of course, the honest truth was that Roy wanted nothing more than to be a recluse until this entire situation with Dante was over, to hide his family away and go out searching for that monster inside of every single person on the planet while he knew they were somewhere safe. He didn’t want to make official engagements, parade them in front of the entire country as though nothing was wrong, but if he didn’t to some extent, it would make the twins suspect the true danger, not to mention his own country. So, he was left with no choice but to pretend everything was fine, that he could walk through the streets with his children as he had when they were young for the mentality of his country and for the twins’ peace of mind.

“We certainly hope you are soon feeling better, Lieutenant Colonel,” the reporter said, the others sounding their agreement.

Ed, with a rather gracious move on his part, thanked them for their concern, even if it was somewhat less than genuine on all but that first reporter’s part.

They entered the hall, Roy seeing Havoc leaning against a wall, looking rather drained.

“How are you holding up?”

“I will be glad when this whole mess is over with,” he said. “I love Elysia dearly, but this wedding planning is ridiculous. Makes me wish I hadn’t given up cigarettes.” He looked down at Ed. “Hey, Boss, still under the weather?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Well, he’s perfectly drugged up, isn’t he?” Havoc said with a chuckle. “Can I have a little of what he’s on?”

“Careful of the combination, though,” Ed answered with a bit of a smile. “Learned two days ago that when I combine the blue pills with the red ones, I hallucinate. It wasn’t pretty.”

“It was very entertaining, though.” Roy chuckled.

“I thought he was a giant green rabbit. I wasn’t sure if I should be entertained by it or scared as hell.”

“You didn’t mix those pills before coming here, did you?” Havoc asked.

“No. I learned my lesson.”

A head poked out of the door at their right. “Honey?” Gracia said. “Can you run and get Fletcher. Half of the flowers are falling out of this bouquet, and I think he’d do better than we could.”

“Will do.” Havoc saluted his wife with a smile and ran off on this mission.

“Hello Roy, Ed.”

Roy leaned to kiss Gracia on the cheek, knowing Ed would have done the same, but felt bad enough being at the church recovering from the cold as he was, not wanting to pass it on.

“Uncle Roy? Uncle Ed?” they heard from within the room. Gracia opened the door and hurried them both inside, shutting it quickly behind them. Roy was in a bit of shock, finding Elysia standing in a beautiful white satin bridal gown, veil trailing behind her, looking like a younger version of Gracia. It seemed so strange that the little girl he’d watched grow up, the daughter of his best friends, was now a grown woman with just a few hints of her father in her.

“Elysia, you look beautiful,” Roy said, embracing the young woman tightly, ensuring to be as careful as possible of her dress.

“Prettiest accountant in history,” Ed said with a smile.

********

It had been a very nice, if brief ceremony, with Elysia presented by both her mother and her step-father, looking so happy she might burst. Fletcher had never gotten to meet her father, but it startled him just a bit to see the picture of the man in a brief memorial to Mr. Hughes; Elysia’s husband could have passed for the man’s double, black hair, glasses, some similar features. Yet, they had actually been involved in an office romance that had very little to do with his resemblance to her father, and according to Gracia and Elysia, who had both talked quite a bit while he repaired her bouquet, she had actually been reluctant because of the resemblance. Not to mention the fact that while she worked in Central’s finance department he was assistant director and technically her boss.

Still, she looked happy, and honestly, anyone who could manage to make Aideen seem as miserable as she did at the moment just by taking her out of her element, or color scheme at least, was fine as far as Fletcher was concerned. Distaste was at least a change from that ambivalent front she so easily put up.

However, Fletcher could have done without having to attend yet another event with both his brother and Wrath. Russell seemed to be killing himself slowly with regret for being a complete idiot, Wrath holding onto that grudge so tightly, it didn’t seem likely it would fade. It didn’t seem unnatural to see anger from the mountain of a man. Hell, his name was essentially anger incarnate, but Fletcher had seen him being so kind, so in love with his brother that he had trouble finding Wrath so bitter now.

Not that Fletcher was siding with his brother; Russell had been a moron, but in all of Fletcher’s 26 years, he’d never seen his brother care so much about anyone aside from Fletcher himself. While he thought for a long time that Wrath was nothing more than an obsession on his brother’s part, one he was only interested in because Wrath had shown no interest initially or because Wrath was willing to fight, he suspected there was something more there.

Regardless of the reasons, Russell had never seemed so in love as he’d been while with Wrath, and without him, he’d never seemed so miserable.

Holding a tiny plate of appetizers, Fletcher mingled, knowing that the odds of talking to the fuhrer or his husband were slim to none, as they were already surrounded by dozens of people, most of whom didn’t look as though they knew them at all, and were only trying to schmooze the couple. However, he seemed to have been spotted, as Roy raised his arm and signaled him over, apparently to save them both from more mindless chatter.

Realizing that the two men seemed to want a rescue, Fletcher made his way through the crowd, and slowly parted them to get to his two friends.

“Fletcher,” Roy said, a coughing Ed at his side, “I wanted to thank you for your gifts to Aideen and Nicholas.” The salt-and-pepper-haired man put his arm around him, moving away from the crowd with the younger Tringham as an excuse to do so.

“Are you being serious or sarcastic?” Fletcher asked, nervous about the guitar more so than the art set.

“Very serious,” Ed said, sounding somewhat less foggy than he had earlier. “It’s so hard to get her to put down alchemy books, and maybe she’s not, but every so often, we hear her playing at it absentmindedly when she’s in her room.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Fletcher said, genuinely meaning it. “I also meant to ask you, the Central greenhouse is having a display of the plants I brought back from the eastern border. I thought it might be something Aideen would enjoy, especially if I can convince them to let her experiment with a few of them, but I wanted to clear it with you first to ensure there wasn’t something else going on and that guards would be available.”

“If our daughter wants to go somewhere other than her room or a library, it sounds like a good idea to us,” Roy looked down at Ed who nodded.

Fletcher looked over at Ed at that comment, not only to confirm the head bob. “You know, the greenhouse is owned by the museum.” Fletcher heard a groan coming from the blond. “So you’ve already heard from the curator.”

“Every damned day,” Ed said. “He’s furious I let my own daughter have my coat. He wants it in the museum. Like it’s the only one I have. There are pieces of the one from when I was twelve and fifteen in it, but really, I made that one after the children were born.”

Ed’s cheeks slowly turned a shade of pink.

“Your fever must be back,” Roy said in a way that was obviously covering for something Fletcher had no desire to discover. He only hoped the coat was involved in something, rather than an active part to save Aideen some creepy embarrassment.

********

Kain knew Frank felt awkward here, so he did his best to stay by his husband’s side, to show the people there that they were quite content together and the man that the colonel had married was not the monster who had taken Maes Hughes’s position in the military. It should have been obvious by the way the man held Kain with his arms draped over the shorter man’s neck, even dancing a few dances, some with Kain, two with Aideen, even one with the bride herself.

By nature, Kain wasn’t a fighter, but seeing all these people glaring at his husband made him furious, and perhaps that was why the couple actually had so few fights together. Too much of their time was spent defending Frank to try to get upset with one another. The older man called it putting forth a unified front. Kain just called it marriage; even if they were arguing every day, his sisters had taught him that no matter what, blood is more important than anything, and marriage constituted that as far as Kain was concerned.

“Hey, you two,” Al said with a smile, a glass of champagne in his hand. “How’s the cat doing?"

“You mean that hyperactive thing you saddled us with?” Frank asked. “DB’s fine.”

“DB? That’s what you named it?” Al asked.

“It’s his name for Mephistopheles,” Kain said, grateful that that Al had no idea that Mephistopheles was just as nasty a name as DB as far as Frank’s world was concerned.

“Yeah,” Frank said, putting his hands on either of Kain’s shoulders as he continued to stand behind him. “Damned Bastard.”

“You call your cat that?” Al said in complete shock.

“Yes,” Frank said. “That ruddy thing takes pleasure in scaring me. It’s always hopping on top of me just as I’m about to go to sleep. Or better yet, he sleeps on top of my face. I think he’s trying to suffocate me.”

“Ignore him,” Kain said. “He likes the cat, he just has to find something to bitch about, and right now it’s Mephistopheles.”

“So how is your growing brood?” Frank asked.

“Hannah and Jacob are fitting in just fine with the other children.” Al looked back at the two newest Elrics, a pair of siblings who were about to be separated as everyone wanted the younger brother, who was only five, but had little interest in the older sister, who was eleven. “Sasha had to take a little adjusting to no longer being the oldest girl, since Hannah is a month older, but really, everything’s going well.” Al ran his hand through his recently cropped hair. It wasn’t short by military standards, but by Elric ones, the hair was a definite deviation. “Speaking of adoption, how are things going on your end?”

“We’ve all but given up. Our lives aren’t exactly simple, and finding the right kid to understand it all, well, that isn’t going to ever be easy.”

Kain just nodded in agreement.

“Don’t give up entirely,” Al said with a smile, glancing back at his children. “You never know when the right one or ones will find you.”

********

Wrath stood, arms folded against his chest, leaning against the wall. He hated being in the same room as Russell, wanting nothing more than to strangle the blond. As he glared at a set of grey-green eyes that looked at him pleadingly from across the room, another blond stepped up between their locked eyes.

“Are you going to stand here and pout all night? I swear, this is worse than when you didn’t talk.”

Wrath looked down at Nicholas, who was smirking up at him, oozing that charm he had to have inherited from his papa.

“Come on, at least dance a little.” Nicholas glanced over at Russell. “I’ll even let you lead, though since I’ve never danced with another guy, I may be on your feet more than the dancefloor.”

Wrath grinned and rolled his eyes. “Fine, no reason I have to be miserable just because I’m trying to make him miserable.”

“Exactly.” The song was slow, and Wrath found himself doing his best to convince Nicholas’s body that he wasn’t leading this dance, though more than once, they stopped moving on the floor to laugh at the younger man’s inability to follow any sort of direction.

“So, since you still show more interest in women, I’m guessing you’re doing this to help me out.”

“Well, Wrath, I didn’t realize you had any interest in me.” That smug smile reappeared. “But, yeah, I figured if I’m a ‘quintessential slut,' then I should make your boyfriend—”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Wrath corrected.

“Boyfriend,” Nicholas re-corrected, “very jealous.”

“He’ll only think I’m a pervert for hitting on a teenager.”

“You’re going for a younger man. Besides, I’m fifteen, you’re only eleven years older than me, and excluding the time you were behind the gate, we’re practically the same age.” Finally, Nicholas seemed to be getting the hang of following Wrath’s lead. “You’re leaving the old man for me, young, energetic, plenty of stamina.” Nicholas raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“Talk like that to other people, you’re going to get yourself in trouble.”

With another flirtatious grin, Nicholas added, “Talk like that to you much longer, I think I’m going to get the both of us in trouble.” With a quick jerk of his head, he gestured to Russell who seemed to be silently stewing in anger.

********

Phillip was nervous, standing on the balcony, black suit coat draped over his arm, sea foam green gloves in his pocket. He had wished he’d been paired up with Aideen in the bridal party, but the twins held the position of maid of honor—Elysia’s best friend was matron—and first usher, leaving him to walk one of Elysia’s classmates down the aisle, but at least he’d been in the party with Aideen. He could hear her coming as she stepped outside, the ruffling of the taffeta she seemed to despise with every fiber of her being signaling her exit from the dance hall.

“You wanted to talk, Phillip?” Aideen asked, putting her gloved hand over his on the railing.

“Yes.” He smiled at her. “You know that in a month I’ll qualify to start the military academy.” She nodded, but moved her hand. “Well, I thought that maybe we…”

“Should break up?” she asked, calm as ever, not sounding the least bit shaken by that idea, though for Phillip, it hurt just to hear it from her lips.

“No, not at all,” Phillip answered. “I just thought if I’m going to be away, we might need to make some form of commitment to one another.”

“Aside from being boyfriend and girlfriend.” It wasn’t a question, but was another cool statement.

“Well, yes,” Phillip said. “I mean, some call it going steady, or they give a promise ring.”

“So, while you’re away at the academy, you want me to commit only to you.” Her full lips tightened into a thin line. “At fifteen, you expect me to devote myself completely to you and you alone. Phillip, that is a lot to ask, and it isn’t fair to either of us.” She leaned on the railing, hands together, thumb of her right hand rubbing the palm of her left. “It isn’t fair that I let us stay together anyway.”

“What do you mean?” Phillip asked, heart in his throat, anger flashing just a moment at the only man Aideen ever talked about with frequency that wasn’t family.

“I mean, you and I have always been close, but I just wonder why you and Nicholas feel close in such a similar way.”

Phillip knew this didn’t mean she had any designs on her brother, but that he, himself, was like family. “Are you sure?”

She shook her head.

“Then, can you take time to think about it? I care for you a lot, Aideen,” he covered her hands with his. “I’d hope that once I’m done with the academy, that you and I—” He looked into her eyes, seeing affection there, wanting to see more, thinking certainly, there was more there. “When you have an answer, please tell me.”

********

Ed grabbed Nicholas’s coat and as he and Roy walked through the hall.

“What are you doing?” his husband asked him.

“Something I really should have done a while ago.” Ed finally let go of Roy’s arm, still feeling a bit dizzy, but overall, much better than he had felt for the last few days. He knew he was followed as he made his way upstairs, his uneven footsteps followed by the soft padding of his husband’s stocking feet. “I’m going to need your help, and no wisecracks about it.”

“You’re much more coherent,” Roy said from behind him.

“I just took my medicine. I’ve got an hour before I’m hazy again.” With that, Ed began to cough once again. They made their way to the bedroom, Ed opening up the closet and pointing to a rather large box at the top. “Can you get that down for me?”

He could almost see Roy visibly biting his tongue as he simply nodded that he would help. Ed was coming down from the pleasant side-effects of the blue cold pills and was in no mood for playful banter about his height. A single short joke would have ended in a full-out battle between his husband and himself.

“Thank you,” he said as Roy guided it to the floor. Opening the flaps at the top, Roy watching all the while in interest, Ed began pulling out dozens of coats, or what remained of them.

“I always thought you kept the same one,” Roy said.

Ed shook his head. “I always integrated a part of the old ones, but I was too rough on the things. They’d have been a mass of patches if I kept the same one.” He looked up at Roy strangely. “You’ve never looked in this after all these years?”

“No. It was yours, and didn’t seem to be anything life-threatening.”

“Oh.” Ed looked away from his husband.

“It’s okay, Ed,” Roy said, sitting on the foot of the bed. “I already know you ransacked everything of mine, most of it before we were even married.”

Ed shrugged as he pulled out the smallest of the coats, it was missing part of its bottom, and both of the sleeves, but this was the original, even if it was nothing but scrap. And he knew there was just enough fabric to cover the inside of his son’s coat. Kneeling on the floor, with a quick clap of his hands, he removed the lining and replaced it with the red coat, the flamel centered at the back. He rooted through the box a bit more, finding the one with the most wear to it. He knew he couldn’t make this one look perfectly new, as he’d done for the one now lining his son’s coat, but he would make it complete. He’d taken the sleeves off of this one to incorporate into the material for Aideen’s, just as he’d always done. Pulling out a few scraps of the red material left from rags that could no longer be called his red coats, he alchemized a coat just a bit too short for him, but perfect for the fifteen-year old version of himself. It would be a bit tight over his broader shoulders, yet it would likely still fit.

“What’s that ratty thing for?” Roy asked.

“The museum. I’m not listening to them any more. They can have the one I wore when I was still called the ‘People’s Alchemist.’”

“You still are,” Roy said as Ed stood, the fair hands reaching out to Ed.

“They call me the ‘Fuhrer’s Alchemist’ now.” Ed wrapped his arms around Roy’s head. “I don’t mind, since I know the term isn’t derogatory.”

“It just says you’re mine.”

“Pretty much.” Ed looked down at Roy. “You know, we never did get to fool around while I was wearing one of those coats. The one Aideen has always hit the floor before we did anything.”

“Thank goodness,” Roy said, moving Ed’s arms to look up at him. “I don’t think I could have agreed to her having the coat if it hadn’t.”

“We really should break in the one I’m going to give the museum. It can be a bit of history that only you and I know.”

“Well not tonight,” Roy said. “You’re still too sick.”

“Just be glad you haven’t caught it yet,” Ed said, brows knitting together. “Exactly why haven’t you? You certainly haven’t stopped from kissing me or holding me since I caught this bug. So, if you’re not sick, then you got help that I didn’t. Raine told me I needed to let my immune system fight this one out because it would be weak if it didn’t.”

“What can I say? I’m her baby brother and the fuhrer. She wasn’t going to let me get a nasty cold.”

“You suck,” Ed said with a glare.

“Only when you ask.”

********

Russell cornered Wrath as he was leaving the bathroom. “A teenager?” Russell asked. “That’s where you’ve sunk to?”

“Right, because dating a breastless twig of a woman while you and I are pounding one another into the mattress each night is so much better.”

“I told you from day one that it wasn’t a relationship.”

“But you changed your mind after a year?”

“You told me you loved me.” Those steely green eyes bore into Wrath’s violet. “No one, no one, told me that and meant it before except Fletcher, and I guarantee he didn’t say it the way you did.”

“Oh, so you felt sorry for me and decided it might hurt me if you kept screwing around on the side?”

“Three times I tried to be with someone else in that first year. Three damned times, and not once could I manage anything without thinking of you, and I figured what the hell, if I’m thinking about him, I should be with him. So yes, I dated, and I tried, but I couldn’t, still can’t, without you because somewhere long before you told me, I realized I loved you too. I just didn’t have the balls to say it.”

“But that woman said you—”

“She was one of the three and she got pissed because I left her in the middle of the night to be with you.”

“This doesn’t change anything,” Wrath said.

“I didn’t expect it would,” Russell answered, “but at least you know my side and are listening to me. We started this whole thing out ass backwards because I’ve never really had a relationship, so maybe we can give it a try, starting at the beginning, or are you still sick every time you see my face?” Russell found his voice level rising.

“Fine,” Wrath said just a bit louder than Russell.

“Then we’ll have a date on Friday.” Russell was all but yelling.

“Fine.” Again, Wrath was louder still.

“See you then!” Russell walked to the end of the hall where Fletcher was standing.

“Well, that was entertaining,” he said.

“Bite me, Fletcher,” he said to his brother.