#so!! things to consider perhaps. if ur not fond of old anime dads that are to come on this blog lol

[merry-the-cookie]

mullet nation

[tsaritsa]

if we don’t bend then this might break

happy (hella belated) holidays @pixiesandink! i am ur secret santa, and i had a lot of fun playing around with the prompts u gave. i hope u like the end result!!!

The visit had been months in the making, with delays aplenty and constant reschedules.

But finally General Mustang and his aide had managed to find a day to sneak out to visit Winry and Edward, and to meet their new son. Eight months! her husband had grumbled. He’s not even Führer yet and the guy’s already too big for his own boots. Paperwork my ass, the Captain does it all.

Grumbling aside, it had been good to see them again, and Winry knew her husband had especially, even if his way of going about expressing it was a bit backwards. Her and Miss Riza – just Riza, please – had spent a lot of time meeting each other’s eyes in fond exasperation as their respective men had grown more animated in their discussions, debating some alchemical theory over the scones Winry had picked up from the market that morning.

Nikolai had played his part remarkably well, all things considered. He had just figured out that crawling was something he was capable of, and much time had been spent admiring the way he’d motor along from one end of the sitting room to the other, throwing toys around in wild abandon. Mustang had been… well, enamoured with the child to say the least, his change in demeanour even shocking Edward a little. Riza had been somewhat more restrained, giving Roy an almost doubtful look when he finally passed Nikolai to her, fussing worse than Edward had in their early days.

“I think I’ve got it,” she told him pointedly, before Edward loudly announced that he needed the General’s help moving the stock from the upper to the lower paddock. It didn’t need to be done, but Winry suspected that her husband merely wanted to make Mustang out to be a fool, as apparently his handling of Nikolai had gone too well for personal taste.

Men.

Nikolai, who had become increasingly agitated with the new attention, seemed to practically still in Riza’s hold, big blue eyes blinking owlishly at the unfamiliar face above him. She had seemed… uncomfortable with his focus, the line of her back pulled taut and almost to the point of unnatural.

The strange line of tension doesn’t resolve until she passes him back into Winry’s arms, who quickly puts him to bed. His sleep schedule wasn’t too bad now, but the both of them could do with a break.

When she returns after a few minutes, Riza has already collected up the dishes from the sitting room. They lapse into comfortable silence as they do the dishes – Riza works quickly and methodically, and then finds another tea towel to help her dry. Winry is grateful for the help – as attentive a husband as Edward was, sometimes she wished that she’d need only look at him to convey her wants and wishes. In hindsight perhaps she was projecting only a little, considering present company.

“It must be nice for the two of you to finally have a break.”

Riza nods, wiping down the sink top with the damp tea towel. “Little sojourns like this are the best kind of break, I find. Not that I’m saying Resembool is a place where nothing happens, but it is lovely to just… be.” She folds the tea towel and turns to face Winry properly. “I do remember Edward telling us you had based your practice out of Rush Valley. Why settle here again? It’s a long way for your customers to travel.”

Winry shrugs. “It just seemed right. Closer to Mum and Dad, to Ed’s as well. Granny was nice enough to conveniently decide she wanted to travel the country with some old friends when I told her I was expecting. But in reality, I knew I’d bite more than I could ever chew if I tried to keep going exactly as before. I love the work I do, and I love helping people with their automail – but I couldn’t let Nikolai become second to any of that. We all make sacrifices for the people we love.” It would be a lie to say it was an easy decision to come home, and even Edward had been taken aback when she brought up her reasons for returning; but it seemed right.

Parenthood still didn’t come easily to her, despite what the other women told her at the weekly produce markets, how well it suited her, how well she seemed to be coping. Even doing the basic maintenance schedule she had planned out for herself meticulously seemed like too much to manage at times. Being responsible; equally responsible – Edward absolutely pulled his weight and then some when it came to their son – for another human being was still a strange experience that never seemed to settle well on her skin. Seeing Riza hold Nikolai earlier had brought about a wave of jealousy for how easily the older woman had seemingly soothed his fussing despite her obvious discomfort, how quickly Nikolai had lost become enamoured with a new face, too transfixed to be upset.

Edward would tell her it was because the Captain already had decades of experience taking care of another baby, but Winry liked to think she knew better. It was just hard, especially when her insecurities rise up like this, unwanted and unneeded.

Riza hums and crosses the kitchen to fill up the kettle. “I think that’s a very smart thing to do,” she tells her, leaning in to smell the tea they had brought as a gift, before spooning four heaped servings into the adjacent teapot. “It takes sacrifice to be a good parent. I think your son will be very lucky to have such an attentive mother and father.” The way in which she says this – in such a wistful, wanting manner – spurs Winry to press on without considering the consequences.

“Did you not have that?” It sounds so clunky and impossibly rude to her ears; there’s no reason for Riza to divulge any ghosts of her past, but the woman doesn’t seem to notice, instead looking blankly into the middle distance, lost in thought.

“I think it depends on how you look at it. On the one hand, my father was a distant man who could hardly give a whit of care for the daughter living in his house. On the other, I knew that he cared for me in his own strange way, that he valued my right to a proper education. He was a complicated man. But it would be a lie to say I could love him for what he did and did not do for me. When I was a teenager, I had envisioned a life where I would marry young and be a better parent than he ever was. The sad truth is now I don’t think we would differ much.”

It’s incredibly difficult to form a response to this – how can she, when faced with such a dire summation of this woman’s childhood experiences and outlooks? Instead, Winry bends down to get the milk out of the ice box, and chews on her tongue. The lack of any mention of a mother is perhaps more telling than anything else.

“That’s a pessimistic way to look at yourself,” she says finally, as Riza pours the freshly boiled water into the teapot. “I’m sure the General would agree with me.”

A small, rueful smile grows on Riza’s face. “Perhaps. But I don’t see any children in my future. Working for the General is a full-time occupation.”

“I don’t know about that, he seemed to like Nikolai-” her hand flies to her mouth, but Winry knows the damage is done, cheeks already burning with embarrassment.  

“A conversation for another time, perhaps,” Riza says after a moment, though her hands tremble slightly as she reaches for the sugar, and her face seems a little pinker than usual. “Are you joining us as well, sir?” Winry starts, whirling around to see the General leaning against the door frame, an inscrutable expression on his face. Suddenly, Winry is very aware of what Edward had meant when he had talked about the two of them and the way in which they interacted and orbited around one another. It was almost like she was forgotten in the room, the tension so thick she could cut it with a knife.

Nikolai’s cries suddenly sound out, and Winry pushes past the General with a muttered apology barely crossing her lips.

Perhaps the delay of their visit wasn’t entirely down to logistics after all.