Worlds Collide

A/N: Amethyst-eyed Koneko, yeah, the fight between them wasn't good-natured, and this chapter really doesn't have the twins interacting at all. Glad Russell's not permanently unredeemable. As far as Ed getting in the middle, he's protective of Wrath and really only has to ask Roy to separate the two. Not a lot of work involved. Glad Frank seems to have redeemed himself for the attack on Roy. I doubt you'd be rooting for him as a parent otherwise. We're finally building to the opening, yes.

Chapter 49

Couples and Interaction

Three months later

Nicholas stood in the hall, waiting on Victor, but entertaining himself while he did. He tucked a strand of red hair behind the ear of the girl a year behind him. She giggled and blushed.

“Tomorrow night?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm.” She curled a finger at him. He leaned down and kissed her gently, cupping her cheek with his right hand. She smiled again as their lips parted, waving to him as she left.

“How the hell do you do that?” Victor asked.

“What?”

“Get a girl to just… I don’t know…”

“Melt?” Nicholas asked with a knowing grin.

“Oh, don’t be so damned smug, Nicholas.” Victor grabbed the blond by his automail arm. “Come with me. I want you to see this.”

Victor pulled Nicholas into a janitor’s closet. “Victor, whatever you want to show me, I’ve probably seen before,” the alchemist said suggestively.

“Stop being a pervert.” Victor said, shutting the door and turning on the light. “I mean this.” He unfolded a mimeographed sheet of paper. “They rate us.”

A blond eyebrow raised itself as an automail started scanning the list for himself, looking somewhere around the middle—he’d lost some of his popularity after publicly coming out as bi.

“Oh, look closer to the top.” Victor then muttered, “Bastard.”

Nicholas’s smirk turned into a full-out smile as he saw himself at number one.

“Hmm. I’m guessing scale of one to ten. Butt: 10,” Nicholas glanced over his shoulder at his backside. “Body: 9.” He looked down at the thing that probably lost him that point at his left. “Kissing: 10, dear lord a ten.”

“It doesn’t say that…” Victor snatched the paper from him. “Holy shit, it says that.”

“You’re just jealous because you got a…” Nicholas looked at the paper. “Oooh, damn, Victor. Sorry about that.”

“A two! They gave me a two!”

“I’m sorry, man.” It was all the young Mustang could do not to laugh at his friend’s expense. “Look, maybe when he’s home on break next month, Phillip can help to set you up with someone to give you practice with who has more experience and isn’t at this school.”

“Oh, yeah, exactly what I need, people at the military academy knowing I suck too.”

With that, Nicholas grabbed Victor’s face and pulled the other teen to his lips. “Well, I’ve figured out your problem, Victor,” Nicholas said as his friend sputtered. “You don’t kiss back. You just kind of hold your lips to someone.”

“I kiss back when it isn’t my male friend trying to do it.” Nicholas laughed, watching his friend root through his pockets for any form of mint he could round up.

********

Frank kept his eyes open to watch as Kain began to grow erratic above him, eyes twisting in concentration, hips pumping with no definite rhythm. When they did this, Frank tried not to think about his age or how sore he’d be. All he thought about was the sensation of his husband inside of him, his legs on either side of the smaller man’s neck, Frank’s hands fisting the pillow behind him, two careful hands rubbing over Frank’s own soaked body.

Frank began moaning as his husband thrust harder into him, while Kain was leaning down to kiss at the taller man’s neck, pushing Frank’s legs to his chest. Their sweat slicked bodies moved against one another as Frank thrust against Kain, pushing the younger man further inside of him. Kain continued to ram down, Frank finally reaching a hand between them, the friction to his member not quite enough. He could feel Kain was getting closer, as the grunts above him turned into near howls, all timidity gone as his hand joined Frank’s and the sounds of skin smacking against skin grew louder.

“Kain,” Frank said. “Oh, Kain, ah… harder!”

“Frrrank,” Kain said in a near growl.

That voice, that sound… Frank found his eyes rolling to the back of his head, the hand not working on his own cock now scratching down Kain’s back.

“Oh, damn, Fraaank!” With that, Frank felt his insides being filled with that familiar warm, wet substance.

“O shit! Bloody… Shit!” Frank yelled as he came, Kain still riding out his own orgasm inside of the older man’s body.

Kain removed himself from Frank’s body, rolling them both on their sides, arms around one another.

“Happy birthday, Frank.”

“I love you, Kain,” Frank said, rubbing over his husband’s back, feeling something slightly different from the cooling sweat. “Kain, you’re bleeding. I’m so sorry,” the older man said, shifting himself to look at Kain’s back. “I scratched you.”

Kain attempted to look over at the somewhat deep scratches. Frank felt terribly guilty. Even bottoming, he couldn’t seem to keep from hurting the gentle man, and after all, hadn’t the fact that he was paranoid about hurting Kain been one of the reasons that kept him from regularly topping?

Kain felt the strong yet soft arms pulling him closer. “It will heal, but I doubt even that miracle salve you hold onto like a bar of gold won’t keep you from being sore all night and tomorrow.” Kain kissed Frank soundly. “Ed calls that equivalent exchange.”

Then, the smaller man nuzzled his way beneath Frank’s chin, curling up against him, only long enough to feel boneless and sated in one another’s arms before he let Frank go to the shower. The man, with his still-black but quickly thinning hair, kissed his husband on his forehead before pulling his arms from around the softer body. He moved from the bed, a pleased and satisfied smile spread widely on his face. He made his way to the bathroom, limping quite a bit—Kain was absolutely right, that salve wasn’t going to work on fixing all of the aches from their pre-birthday party activities.

Cracking his back, Frank looked back at Kain before opening the bathroom door. The smaller man was seated at the edge of the bed, putting his glasses back over those big chocolate-brown eyes, and for a moment, he looked just a bit sad.

“Kain?” Frank went back to the bed, sitting carefully beside the smaller man. “Want to tell me what’s wrong, Love? I’m a bit messy here, and could use for a shower.”

Kain looked up at him, eyes smiling at the use of the little-used nickname, but almost immediately shook his head. Though Frank had his moments, Kain was by far more emotional than he was, particularly after sex. Despite the fact that the older man could practically feel the remnants of their lovemaking drying on his body, he put an arm around Kain, kissing him gently on the temple.

“It’s just…” Kain sighed. “You’ve been so good to me, for me, and I’ve been pushing you so hard this year on the children issue. I’m so sorry.”

“You think I don’t want one, too?”

“It’s just that I’ve been pushing... You’d said about being fifty and a parent and I thought…”

“You thought you only had a year left?” Despite himself, Frank was chuckling, earning an angry glare from his husband. “And if we adopted a child this year, do you think I’d have said we needed to get rid of her on my fiftieth birthday?”

Kain opened his mouth, gaping a bit like a fish, then closing his mouth once again, eyebrows meeting in a V at the center of his forehead.

“Kain, I think midnight feedings and chasing after a toddler might be out of the question, but I’ve never meant that about a child.” He took Kain’s hand as he stood from the bed. “We’re both gross. Let’s get in the shower.”

As the smaller man rose and made his way to the bathroom, he smiled up, looking as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “After your party, I’d love a repeat performance, maybe switching up the roles.”

With a sigh that made it sound like an inconvenience, Frank pulled the other man’s hand to his mouth, kissing the back. “I suppose. You know I’ll do anything for you.”

********

Fletcher was on the roof of his apartment building, tending to his plants, looking them over and realizing he had started a rather embarrassing collection of the Little Fire flowers. He certainly wasn’t helping the argument that he didn’t have feelings for the girl for whom it was named.

Clad in nothing more than a pair of cotton pants and gray tennis shoes, he ran a hand through his always tussled blond hair, looking over what he needed to do. A few of the plants needed a little alchemic pruning, others needed transplanted to larger pots. Preferring the option of getting his hands dirty and having the feeling of the rich black soil between his fingers, Fletcher chose to do the transplanting. He grabbed some of the clay pots Aideen had made for him, deciding it was best to put her flowers into those, an unconscious smile on his face as he looked at the red and orange flower. Somewhere in the middle of both putting the plants into the large terracotta pots and remembering the nervous blush on her face when she’d given them to him for his birthday, he stopped.

He liked Aideen. Had for a long time.

And worst of all, he would eventually have to admit to his older brother that he’d been right.

“Fletcher?” a familiar voice startled him. “I hope you don’t mind. I used the key you gave me.”

He looked over his shoulder at the black-haired teenager and her guard, suddenly becoming very aware that his thin upper body was completely uncovered.

“Of course I don’t mind, Aideen,” he said, watching as she walked over, wearing a black tank top, black pants, and black boots—as though that was any surprise. “If you want some alchemy practice, some of the rose bushes could use pruning and guiding.”

Aideen nodded, kneeling beside him, closing her eyes, hands on her black-clad knees. From his studying in the east, Fletcher knew it wasn’t uncommon for some alchemists to have to practice meditation, particularly as a teenager when emotions and hormones run amok, but from what he understood, Aideen’s need to do this each and every time should have been decreasing rather than increasing. But, then again, dark or negative thoughts were pretty explainable considering the deteriorating relationship between the twins and the still undiscovered source of the doll from the zoo.

Fletcher did his best to continue his planting, trying to ignore the steady rise and fall of the teen’s chest, trying not to feel like an enormous pervert. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her draw the red bottom lip into her mouth as she concentrated, then let it slide back out slowly as she relaxed, her mascara and black-lined eyes looking more at ease in their closed position. He tried not to notice that the girl had actually put the faintest bit of gold eye shadow on, or that her hands looked thin and flawless as they remained on her knees. And he tried to avert his eyes as her own opened.

With ease, she rose to her feet and began alchemically manipulating the plants into more presentable and managed shapes, all the while the older man tried to remember his work. Together they labored in silence, occasionally with the awkward bump of their hands—hers were so smooth, why had he never noticed that before?—or a faint smile. Silence was not uncommon, as Fletcher never wanted to disturb Aideen’s work, but now, it seemed to speak volumes.

Then, as he was done and had washed his hands, he didn’t think as he alchemically removed a flower from one of the “little fire” plants and tucked it into her dark hair. He watched her fair skin match the red hue of the flower. He reminded himself not allow his hand to linger for too long.

“Oh!” she said, suddenly, making Fletcher almost behave like burned as he retracted his hand. “It’s nearly time for Frank’s birthday party.” She looked down at her shirt. “I’m a mess. I should have left at least a half hour ago.”

“Aideen,” Fletcher said. “Can you transmute clothes like your father?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Come with me.” He grabbed her hand, trying to ignore as the guard winked at him when they passed. Apparently the all-knowing woman had noticed their interaction. She went into his living room which led directly out to the roof garden while Fletcher took Aideen into the bedroom, wisely leaving the door open; he wouldn’t be accused of anything unforward.

He opened his closet door. “Help yourself to what you see.” Aideen went to the closet, looking through his shirts. With a faint smirk, he said, “You won’t find a black shirt in there.”

She looked at him, as though trying to argue. “Why not the green? I bet it would look nice with your eyes.”

He walked out of the room at that, looking smug but feeling incredibly awkward. He could have gone a very long time without realizing his feelings for her.

Yet, when she came into the livingroom clad in a pair of his black pants and an emerald green shirt, she just stood and pointed at him, mouth open.

“I said you wouldn’t find black in my closet. Not that I didn’t have one.” He grinned at her as he stood in brown pants, a brown and black tie and a black shirt. “But I was right about the green. Very nice with your complexion.”

She blushed at the compliment. “Come on, we need to head to the party.”

********

Roy and Ed sat at the long table in the restaurant, handing Frank a birthday present.

“Where’s Aideen?” the older man asked, blue eyes searching the group of friends.

“She was at Fletcher’s, and her guard said she should be along soon,” Ed answered with a smile.

Roy glared at him. Ed only wrapped an arm around his husband’s waist. Roy didn’t like the idea of his little girl dating Fletcher. When Ed had told Roy that the guard had called to let them know she felt their daughter needed some additional time with the older man, Roy had reacted so violently against it, Ed had practically dragged the reason out of him.

Apparently, Fletcher was a threat that Phillip had never been, maybe because Roy feared his daughter had similar tastes for older men that her dad had, or because the older blond shared interests with their daughter. Any of these reasons made perfect sense, but the one that had been confessed earlier that evening only showed that the older father was hurt; Roy had admitted it bothered him more that the younger Tringham so easily got Aideen’s trust when no one else could.

Ed scratched at his husband’s back as he watched his son casually and fluidly manage to flirt with one of the waitresses, one who was probably three or four years older than him. He looked up at Roy, remembering when he had once seen his husband behave the same way. He didn’t like to admit how often he’d felt pride that he’d been the person to make him settle down. Roy got to be smug about a lot as fuhrer and just as a naturally arrogant person, but Ed got to feel that way about his husband.

Not that there wasn’t pride over his children, but there was a certain ego boost to knowing you got Amestris’s playboy to marry you and stay faithful—that last part almost more than the first.

Ed was talking to Frank about his next birthday being the big one when he felt the arm around his shoulders tighten.

“Ed,” Roy said at his side. “Look.”

Ed looked beyond Frank to see Fletcher Tringham walking through the door, Aideen at his side dressed in something that wasn’t black. She didn’t look happy to be seen in that, but Fletcher seemed to be coaxing her inside the restaurant.

More shockingly of all was that she was listening.

Ed looked at what she was wearing, obviously something modified from Fletcher’s clothing. She looked very pretty in the jewel-toned green, a blush to her cheeks that was obviously from more than the faint pink rouge she put on in the mornings.

Slowly, Fletcher moved through the gathering of friends and family, Russell practically winking and nudging him to death, Wrath smacking Russell on the back of his head. All the while, Aideen remained by his side.

“How is it that boy managed that miracle?” Roy asked.

“First of all, he’s hardly a boy,” Ed said. “Secondly, I’d guess he didn’t give her much of a choice.”

When Fletcher finally reached the two fathers, Ed couldn’t help but wonder if the plant alchemist got a chill from the cold shoulder Roy was giving him. Lips pursed together, Ed grabbed hold of the excess flesh at Roy’s side—which the older man was growing very sensitive of—and pinched. Hard.

It earned Ed a quick glare, but Ed only returned it. Really, by now, Roy should have known the effect of those looks didn’t work on him, but far be it from Ed to remind him of that at this moment. Besides, he had just squeezed the man’s love handle, so Roy was justified in glaring a bit. Ed also knew that when Roy went into defensive father mode, it was very hard to dissuade him, and defensive, hurt father mode was no better. After all, they hadn’t managed to get Aideen to wear anything other than black for the last year and a half, but here she was with Fletcher looking very pretty in green.

“This is a nice change,” Frank said, apparently having grown a bit uncomfortable with the silence.

“He tricked me,” Aideen said to the floor.

“Tricked you?” Roy said, chest puffing out a bit, making Ed contemplate pinching him again. This was Fletcher, not some pervert like, well, his older brother or hers.

“It wasn’t a trick. Her clothes were dirty from the garden, it was getting late, and when she went to my closet to find something to transmute, I told her she wouldn’t find a black shirt there. It was the truth.” Aideen’s fiery hazel eyes narrowed at Fletcher. “I already had it hanging on my bathroom door to wear tonight.”

“Sounds like a trick to me,” Aideen said, again to the floor, her cheeks burning. If there was one thing Ed knew his daughter didn’t like, it was being one-upped by anyone, but the most unlikely of people had managed to fool the girl who grew up around a very clever and occasionally manipulative papa and the biggest prankster in the country, who was currently getting all the wait staff's phone numbers.

********

Russell could be a sadistic bastard, and Wrath knew it. Hell, it was part of what he liked about the man, but really, the blond could have stopped eating his food so seductively any time now. Then again, if Wrath wasn’t a bit of a sadist himself, he wouldn’t be in this position today, painfully turned on by the items Russell insist he wear and remain discreet about, if he hadn’t done the same thing to the older man a few nights ago.

As the painful twinges to his memories of Edward were fading, Wrath sometimes found himself baffled at the idea that his first relationship could have been so tame and tentative yet this one so raw and kinky. Aside from inflicting real pain on one another—a kink neither man could truly get into unless it was part of a fight before sex, which they rather enjoyed—Wrath sometimes thought they’d tried everything. He was also more than aware that the fact that their relationship had started based on seeking pleasure and knocking one another senseless, the Elric brothers and Fletcher seemed a bit concerned that it might end badly.

Looking up at the smirking steely green eyes as he ate yet another bite of the mashed potatoes, which Wrath swore he purposely ordered with white gravy, the younger man considered it still might end badly if the man continued this way.

Wrath glanced down the table at Frank and Kain, who sat, hands clasped, eating off of one another’s plates. Kain looking as though he didn’t want to finish the fried chicken wing Frank obviously wasn’t touching. Wrath knew Kain was somewhat conscious of his weight, despite the fact that since he had become permanently stationed with his husband, he’d lost about twenty pounds. Frowning a bit at his younger husband, Frank merely picked the thing up, placing it on Kain’s plate and whispered something in his ear that brought a bit of color to the rounded cheeks. Kain rubbed the birthday boy’s cheek and kissed the bridge of his nose before picking up the brown-battered food.

Nearby, Nicholas was carrying on a conversation about chess with Breda, all the while flashing smiles at the young waitress serving them, then at the busboy who looked a bit closer to his age.

Aideen had remained quiet most of the night, but it seemed that every time she or Fletcher reached for anything, they ended up bumping fingers or hands together, her cheeks going red, a nervous smile spreading across his face. Sitting where he was, Wrath grinned, himself, at the obvious sign that Fletcher had realized Russell wasn’t trying to randomly tease him about Aideen, but that the little signs of his feelings for the teenage girl had been there for a long time. Though, while Russell teased Fletcher about trying to make a move on the girl, Wrath had a bit more faith in the younger brother, sure he’d take things slow and at a pace that was best for the young Mustang.

The eldest Mustang sat across from her long-time boyfriend, nagging him a bit about his food choices all the while he smiled and nodded with practiced skill. Jean and Gracia had apparently had a recent fight and were patching things up, but they seemed happy all the same even though they were more quiet than usual. He watched little James Havoc and all three of the elder Elric children chatting together, not failing to notice that Sasha was watching the blue-eyed boy just a bit more closely than her brother and sister. Rose and her husband looked somewhat less pleased, as she still didn’t approve of her son entering the military academy or the fact that it was her husband’s “glorious” speeches that had driven him there. This argument had been a long-standing one, one which many suspected might lead to the very first Armstrong divorce. Just down from them, little Alex and the two youngest Elrics were discussing their “stinky” teacher who gave them way too much homework.

Then there was the couple who had their movements down to a routine seated at the end of the table opposite Frank and Kain. Ed grabbed a roll and buttered it, handing half to his husband, while Roy got the salt and pepper, finished using them and set them in front of Ed. There was a casual ease to which the two interacted, one which came from a long-standing relationship that despite its arguments and playful nature, was solidly built on common understanding and survival.

As he was watching Ed and Roy perform their little culinary ballet, Wrath found his left hand was now in someone else’s and a pair of lips at his palm. He turned and looked at his left to the man still holding his hand and smiling up at him. This wasn’t the smirk of knowing exactly what Wrath had beneath his boxers or that they’d be removing the complicated straps and plug the moment they got back to the apartment. This was a smile that always accompanied the gentle kiss to the palm, one that, even obscured by the older man’s rebellious hair that fell into his eyes, said the words Russell so often claimed he never felt he said often enough to the larger man.

Wrath didn’t care if he heard them daily or if they remained something expressed wordlessly. He’d been through enough to worry about tallying things like that.

********

Dante observed the happy gathering with some caution. While she could smile broadly at the brat and his fuhrer and never be suspected, she didn’t like to meet a pair of large coal black eyes or emerald green. More than anyone else in that restaurant, even all of Amestris, those two seemed acutely aware of her, even if they didn’t know it was her they were aware of. Still, it wouldn’t matter for long. She could count down the days until the worlds merged.

It would take a blood sacrifice to open the Gate long enough and wide enough to allow the Germans passage through. She was more than aware of that, but once they did come through, in order to gain mastery over the other world’s technology, she would need to be more powerful, powerful enough to open and close the Gate on her own.

But the plans for that were already in the works. She just needed to give things a bit more time.

********

Really, Roy didn’t think it was possible for Ed to manage both pieces of automail on top of him at once, but he was very wrong. The younger man seemed certain to crush him beneath the weight of the steel limbs.

Roy tried to be mad at Ed for sleeping practically on top of him, just as he’d tried to stay mad at him for pinching that damned fat that wouldn’t go away at his side, but he couldn’t make it last. Ed was back to researching and wasn’t spending every waking moment in the lab. He wasn’t sleeping in the cot out there or crashing on the sofa long before he made it to their bedroom. Ed was asleep and now sighing contentedly as his body meshed itself to Roy’s, and the left hand, which was attached to the only limb not on top of Roy at the moment, was curling itself into Roy’s head of steely hair.

Waving a flag of defeat, Roy wrapped his arms around the thirty-three year old who honestly believed it was a good idea for their daughter to spend time around Fletcher Tringham, who was a terrible alchemy geek, who weighed about three tons, who was obsessive compulsive when it came to protecting their children, who was undoubtedly and unequivocally the most irritating and infuriating alchemist to cross Roy’s path.

Who was, without question or doubt, completely Roy’s.