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Maes knew that today was going to be a good day the moment he woke up, Gracia curled peacefully into his side. What he didn't know was just how wrong he was.
"Honey, it's time to get up," Maes said softly to his wife. They didn't have an alarm set for weekends, meaning one of them had to take the initiative to get up. Usually, it was Maes. Gracia loved her sleep. "We have a very special day today!"
Gracia gave a soft grumble and burrowed herself deeper into Maes' chest. The sight made Maes' heart swell and he couldn't have stopped his smile if he'd tried. He almost gave up right then and let her stay asleep; he couldn't remember the last time the two of them had had a quiet morning together. Unfortunately, today could not be that.
"Honey," he said again, lightly moving her off of him, "you have to get up. Elicia's about to get up, and besides, we have those special plans!"
Gracia made another sleepy, disgruntled sound but pushed herself up, blinking blearily. One of the many things Maes loved about her: how absolutely adorable her bedhead was. "What time are they coming, again?"
"Noon. Just in time for lunch."
Gracia nodded, yawning through the motion. Maes sat up and stretched, yawning himself. "And what time is it now?"
Maes gave a glance out the window. They had a clock, but after his time in the military, he didn't need it. "A little after eight. I'm surprised Elicia hasn't woken us up yet."
Gracia stood and started getting dressed; Maes followed suit. "We did have quite a late night last night. She didn't get to bed until nearly ten. Let's not try for a repeat of that, yes?"
Maes snorted. Elicia had been her wonderful, exuberant self last night, but to the extreme. A lesser parent might have called her hyper. Roy probably would've called her a hell demon. He knew that Gracia's gently phrased question was really a statement: we are not letting that happen again. As per usual, Maes agreed with her.
"For once, our sweet girl actually reminded me a little of Ed, if you can believe it."
Gracia laughed as she finished buttoning up her blouse. "I wonder how his parents dealt with him when he was a child...I love the Elric brothers, but they are quite the handful. His father must've had his hands full, not to mention his mother."
"Their father...wasn't around for much of their childhood," Maes said, wincing. "And their mother died when they were young. I believe they were mostly raised by a family friend."
Gracia's eyes widened, one deceptively delicate-looking hand covering her mouth. "Oh! I had no idea. Now I feel horrid for saying such things..."
Maes gently took her hand from her mouth and kissed it. "Don't worry, sweetheart. I know you didn't know. Just, you might not want to mention that today!"
For that was the very special plan for this very special day: the Elrics were coming over for lunch! Ed and Al had decided to move to the military barracks for lodging, not wanting to infringe too much on the Hughes' hospitality. Of course, Maes and Gracia had told them not to worry, but Ed, and surprisingly Al, were quite stubborn when they wanted to be. As such, it had been a while since they'd been at Maes and Gracia's house, so they'd invited them over for the day.
"Thank you for telling me," Gracia said, smiling at him and leaning over to peck his cheek. "I'll brush my teeth and head out to make breakfast soon. Why don't you call Roy and make sure he's not thinking of ditching us last minute?"
That was the other part of this very special day. Roy was coming as well. Maes had invited all three of his guests at the same time - he'd heard that Ed and Al were up in Roy's office and had sprinted over just in time to catch them all in the same room.
Looking back, he realized that asking Roy and Ed to voluntarily coexist in the same room for hours on end probably would've gone better if they hadn't both been in the same room at the time of the invitation. Roy and Ed were infamous across all of Central Command and practically the entirety of Amestris for despising each other. Their mutual hatred had been the subject of a metric ton of gossip and possibly inspired at least two plays. As it was, Maes and Al had had to resign themselves to sit back and watch quite the epic shouting match.
"You want me in the same room as Colonel Bastard!?" Ed had cried, looking both furious and betrayed. "I'd slit my own throat before I ever had lunch with him!"
"Oh yeah, Fullmetal?" Roy retorted before Maes could even begin to respond. "Only a child would be so immature he couldn't even-"
"I'M NOT A WATER DROPLET SO SMALL YOU COULDN'T EVEN WRING OUT A DISHTOWEL FROM IT!"
"How does that even make sense?" Roy asked. "If anything looks like a wrung-out dishtowel, it's your hair. Who has radio antennae as hair?"
"It's called ahoge, you bastard! Why don't you take your little too-good-for-you smirk and shove-"
"Boys, boys!" Maes had cut in, diving in between the feuding pair and holding up his hands in placation. "There's no need to be nasty, is there?"
"I wasn't planning on it," Roy said with a sniff, "But it seems Fullmetal is incapable of acting in a civilized fashion. Not surprising, given where he grew up-"
"You say that again! I dare you!"
Maes gave a pointed cough that managed to derail the argument from escalating any further. "Really, now. You two fight like a pair of five-year-olds."
Roy opened his mouth. Maes glared at him.
"Would the two of you really refuse just one tiny little lunch because of your differences?" Maes looked between the two of them, softening his expression into the pleading one he'd once gotten the Fuhrer himself to fall for. "C'mon, Roy, think of Gracia! She's been looking forward to seeing you again for ages! And Ed, please? You know how much Elicia enjoys your company. How could you deny her that?"
Roy and Ed's anger had faded to uncertainty. They exchanged glances with, surprisingly, each other. The oddity was something Maes latched onto instantly. He wasn't part of investigations for nothing, after all.
"Yes, come on, Brother," Al added. "It's just for a day. Don't you want to eat Mrs. Hughes' cooking again?"
The moment Al had spoken, Ed's face had become a visage of defeat. He was too good a brother to deny Al something he clearly wanted. Ed shuffled his feet, glaring at the floor rebelliously. "Fine. I guess I'll come. But don't expect me to be happy about it!"
Roy crossed his arms. "Likewise."
It had been almost a week since Maes had asked, and both he and Gracia had expected either or both parties to attempt to back out. Surprisingly, neither of them had, but Roy habitually ditched events without notice and Maes was not going to let that happen today.
Five minutes and some brushed teeth later, Maes was sitting at the dining room table dialing up his best friend. He was certain Roy was already awake; Roy woke and slept with the sun, something Maes had always found hilarious given his alchemy specialization ("It's not like the sun gives me power or anything!" Roy'd tried to convince him once, "I just happen to wake up then!).
"Roy!" Maes said cheerily once he heard the receiver pick up, "Rise and shine! We've got a very big day ahead of us!"
"I've been awake since six and you know that," Roy told him irritably. "Besides, having to eat lunch with a subordinate hardly qualifies as a very big day, Maes."
Hmm, interesting. Another oddity. Roy didn't sound nearly as upset about being around Ed as he had when Maes had first invited him. Had he simply gotten used to the idea, or was it something else?Maes fought the urge to rub his hands together in glee. He loved mysteries, and he loved getting clues to solve them even more.
"Oh, but of course it does! Any day is a big day when you spend it with my wonderful Gracia and Elicia!"
Roy sighed, but didn't hang up. That was better than Maes got some days. "If you called to make sure I'm not ditching, don't worry. As difficult as it is to sit in the same room as Fullmetal, I do owe Gracia one for last month. I'll be there."
Maes graciously discarded Roy's off-hand reference to one of his bad days. Like all veterans of the Ishvalan War, the guilt sometimes got to be too much. Given Roy's role in it, those days were more common than most and also tended to be more destructive. Self-destructive, to be more precise.
Instead he latched onto yet another interesting tidbit: Roy's tone when he'd said it was difficult to be around Ed. It didn't sound false, exactly, but it definitely wasn't as annoyed or bitter as Maes would've expected such a sentence to sound.
"Roy, you know Gracia doesn't mind helping you out with your bad days. But if that's what'll get you here, be my guest!" Maes paused just a moment, then said as though it had just occurred to him: "By the way, Roy, do you really have such a problem with Ed? Sure, he's a bit of a spitfire, but he's really a good kid deep down."
"A good kid who insults me every chance he gets," Roy said, but once again his tone was lacking its bite. He sounded...
Maes's eyes lit up with glee.
Roy sounded how Maes did when talking about Elicia.
"I rather think that Ed doesn't really mean what he says sometimes," Maes said, trying to keep his tone level and not let his devious grin show. Oh, this was good. Prime blackmail material, plus one of the best chances to embarrass Roy ever! "You should really give him a chance, Roy. You never know, he might surprise you."
Roy made an unconvinced sound. "Right. Well, I'll see you at noon. Bye, Maes."
There was a click. Maes stared down at the receiver in his hand, scarcely able to contain his joy. He'd been wrong when he first woke up, he realized: today wasn't just a good day. Today was going to be great.
Ed and Roy were surprisingly civil upon arrival. Suspiciously civil, in Maes' humble opinion. Sure, they fought, but it could scarcely be called fighting. 'Bickering' was a better term for it: Roy would insult Ed's choice of clothing, Ed would bring up Roy's miniskirt fetish...
Actually, come to think of it, Maes was pretty sure that had started an actual fight.
He looked over from where he'd been conversing with Riza, whom Roy had brought along, and the sight that met his eyes confirmed that thought. Roy and Ed were in a full on shouting match, an awkward Al standing a few feet apart from them. A metal suit of armor should've been expressionless, yet somehow Maes felt that Al was grimacing.
"Oh, are they at it again?" Riza asked. She didn't sound worried, nor did she sound amused. She simply sounded a little exasperated and also a tiny bit fond.
"It seems so." Maes got a sudden burst of inspiration. Riza was Roy's partner (in more ways than one, he suspected, but he'd not quite managed to wring that bit of information out of Roy). She was around Roy constantly, which meant she had front-row seats to nearly every one of his interactions with Ed. Here was the perfect person to interrogate ask!
"Say, Riza, do they do this a lot?"
Riza turned back to Maes. She was smiling a little. "All the time, unfortunately. If I may say, though, it's gotten better recently."
Keep calm, keep calm. You're almost there! "Better?" Maes asked, injecting just the right amount of casualness into his tone.
"Yes. They used to fight over absolutely everything. It would sometimes go on for a half-hour or more. It got the point where I'd have to get the Colonel to work early on the days we knew Ed was coming, just so the paperwork could be done."
Maes caught Ed yelling about his height. "It seems like they're doing that right now, though."
Riza laughed. "It seems like it, yes. But I've noticed they don't seem nearly as angry as they used to be. It's almost like they don't really mean it anymore."
Maes's eyes lit up behind his glasses. It took everything in him not to clap his hands in glee. This was exactly what he'd been looking for. "Oh really? Do you mean to suggest that all this fighting is just for show?"
"At least partly," Riza said. She was either completely oblivious to Maes' devious plans or had decided to help him; he honestly wasn't sure which one it was, given Hawkeye's observant nature. "I do believe that part of them simply enjoys being able to argue with someone who's their match. It's quite an invigorating thing to finally meet someone who's willing to meet you blow for blow, if you don't mind my saying."
"No, not at all. In fact, I can understand that perfectly. It's how I feel about my Gracia." Maes smiled at the thought of her. He looked across the room to where Gracia could be seen bustling about in the kitchen. Elicia was helping her, the sweet kid that she was. "Granted, with much less arguing."
Riza laughed. "I think just about every relationship, no matter the type, holds less arguing than theirs."
Maes laughed as well, agreeing.
Gracia poked her head out the door. "Lunch is ready!"
As though a referee had called time-out on a wrestling match, Roy and Ed stopped fighting and started towards the kitchen. A noticeably more exhausted Al followed.
"Thank you for lunch, dear," Maes told her as he and the rest of the group filed into the kitchen. Roy and Ed's bickering had, indeed, calmed down to the occasional elbow in the ribs. "It looks wonderful. And thank you, my little helper! Daddy's special girl is the best helper ever, isn't she?"
"She was a wonderful help," Gracia said warmly, ruffling her daughter's hair. "Thank you, Elicia."
"You're welcome, Mommy, Daddy," Elicia said cutely, smiling up at both of them.
"Thank you for the food!" Ed said enthusiastically, grabbing a plate from the counter and nearly dropping it in his excitement. "It smells great, I'm sure it'll taste even better!"
"Yes, thank you!" Al agreed.
"Thank you for lunch," Roy and Riza said.
The seven of them sat down at the table, Maes making sure to help Elicia get situated properly in her chair. She was too big for a high-chair, but still had trouble reaching for her cup or utensils sometimes. He thanked her again for helping Gracia, planted a large, noisy kiss on her forehead, and sat down, smiling as she giggled and scrubbed at her face with a napkin.
Man, he loved his daughter.
Across the table from him, Roy had somehow gotten stuck sitting next to Ed. Neither of them looked happy about it, Ed even less so when Roy mockingly asked him if he needed a high-chair to sit at the adult table.
"I'M NOT A FETUS SO TINY THE MOM DOESN'T EVEN LOOK PREGNANT!"
"Right, sure you aren't," Roy said, rolling his eyes. "Just take your fork and knife already, I'm tired of holding them for you."
"Then maybe you shouldn't have gotten them for me, bastard!"
Riza and Al exchanged glances with each other that were equal parts tired, exasperated, amused, and fond. Maes, meanwhile, was torn between covering Elicia's ears from Ed's language and leaning forward to pay better attention to the spectacle in front of him.
"What did we just talk about before coming here, Ed?" Roy asked, holding out a hand. "Pay up. You know you're not supposed to swear in front of Elicia."
"Swear?" Elicia asked. "What's swearing?"
"Nothing you should be concerned about, sweetie," Maes told her quickly. "It's this boring things grown-ups do."
"Boring? Oh." Elicia looked disappointed.
Meanwhile, while Maes had been preoccupied with Elicia, a storm had begun brewing. Apparently Gracia had thought that milk would be a good choice of beverage for their meal, as she'd made something spicy. She had set a glass of milk down at every place, excluding Elicia, since she had her own cup - Elicia, handling breakable objects? That was a nightmare to consider.
That was all well and good, and normally Maes would've spent the next five minutes enthusing over his wife's thoughtfulness and preparedness, were it not for one small problem.
Ed, apparently, disliked milk.
Well, perhaps 'disliked' was too weak a word.
Ed, apparently, hated milk.
"But Roy!" Ed was whining petulantly, and his pleading, puppy-dog eyes would've given Elicia herself a run for her money.
Maes spared a thought to the fact that Ed was apparently on first-name basis with Roy, and let himself grin. He looked over at Gracia, who smiled back at him, having picked up on the same thing.
"Not buts, Ed," Roy said sternly. "Drink your milk."
Where pleading had failed, Ed now tried his next tactic: screaming. "YOU CAN'T MAKE ME IF I DON'T WANNA!"
"Fullmetal."
"YOU JUST TRY, BASTARD! TRY AND MAKE ME!" Ed glared at him. "I bet you can't, I bet you're just as useless at this as-!"
Roy's eyebrow twitched. He leaned close to Ed and very deliberately whispered something only Ed could hear. The change on Ed's face was striking: he went red with fury, then white, then switched his burning gaze to the innocent glass of milk sitting in front of him.
"I hope you burn in hell," he said to no one in particular (possibly the milk), then grabbed the glass and chugged it.
Everyone - Maes, Gracia, Al, Riza, even little Elicia - gaped in awestruck silence.
"Roy..." Al said, something approaching reverence in his tone, "Did you just..."
"Holy shit," Maes said, then abruptly winced. He frantically covered his little Elicia's ears and said, "You didn't hear that! You didn't hear that! Daddy didn't say anything just now, okay baby?"
"Shit, shit, shit," Elicia said happily.
"Gracia, stop her!" Maes pleaded, but his wife, traitor she was, just laughed. It was Riza who saved the day, bending over from her place next to Elicia and saying something that made her nod solemnly and stop swearing.
Ed set the empty glass on the table with enough force to nearly upset the table. Maes and Al quickly grabbed glasses and plates to stop them from dumping their contents on the floor, but Maes still found himself unable to keep from gaping at his best friend.
"What?" Roy finally said, irritably, setting down his fork and giving Maes an annoyed look.
"Yeah," Ed said, "what are you all staring at? Eat your damn- dam...damsel dinner. Yeah."
Maes gave Ed a very unimpressed look. Everyone else except Elicia followed suit. The child had gone back to eating her dinner without a care in the world to what was going on around her, another reason why she was the best kid ever.
"Pay up, Fullmetal," Roy said after swallowing another bite of food. "That's 150 cens now for swearing in front of Elicia."
"That last one didn't even count!" Ed protested hotly. "And I don't have any money because some bas- idiot keeps taking mine to call his girlfriend!"
Riza started, then fought back the edges of a smile that had begun to creep up her face.
Maes's own smile had begun to split his face. "Roy," he started slowly, teasingly.
Roy took one look at his friend and paled. "Maes, don't you dare."
"Why didn't you tell me you'd adopted Ed?"
The reaction was like a nuclear bomb going off: utter silence, then an explosion.
"A-adopted!?"
"N-no, Maes, it's not like that at all-"
"Yeah, it's not like that at all, Mr. Hughes-"
"Mr. Hughes?" Maes echoed, still grinning maniacally. "No more Mr. Hughes for you, young Ed! That'll be Uncle Maes from now on, you little whippersnapper!"
Ed stared at Maes with wide eyes like he wasn't sure which was worse: that Maes had told Ed to call him uncle, or that Maes had called Ed a whippersnapper.
"Uncle Maes!?" Roy sputtered, looking absolutely horrified. "No, Maes, you've got the wrong idea!"
"I've never seen anyone convince Ed to drink milk before, not even Al!" Maes said imperiously. "What's more, you're actually making him pay up for swearing around my little Elicia!"
"He is not! Bastard just has a big head!"
"That's another 50 cens, Ed," Roy said. As soon as he had, he returned to looking horrified. Maes just found it hilarious. If only the higher-ups knew it was this easy to make Roy utterly lose his composure.
Speaking of losing composure...
"And don't think I've forgotten you, Al," Maes added, looking to the younger Elric, who shrank backwards into his seat. Riza and Gracia had both started to laugh. "You called him Roy as well!"
"Th-that's, you're reading it all wrong, Mr. Hughes!" Al said desperately. "If I don't call him that, the Colonel m-makes me-"
"That'll be another day sorting files for you, Al," Roy said, utterly unconcerned. He was beginning to look like he was enjoying this. Too bad; that meant Maes needed to change gears. He hadn't had this much fun in a long time.
"Aww!" Maes cooed. "You're so parental, Roy!"
Maes actually saw Roy's hand fly to his pocket where he kept his gloves, before Roy caught hold of himself and returned his hand to his lap. The sight was, quite possibly, the funniest thing Maes had ever seen. Roy was one of the most powerful State Alchemists in existence, a Colonel in the military with decades of experience behind him, and Maes could make him unsettled enough to reach for his ignition gloves.
"I-I'm not! Tell him, Ed!"
Ed looked across the table at Maes. Maes winked. Ed slowly began to smile, and in that moment Maes knew he'd won.
"I dunno Roy," Ed said. "I think that what U-Uncle Ma...Maes...what he says is kinda hard to contradict."
Maes looked over at Gracia, who was smiling just as widely as he was. Hearing Ed call him uncle, even just to spite Roy, was akin to when Elicia had first called him dad. Ed stammering his way through it was even cuter. He really was all bark and no bite, just like Roy.
Roy looked stricken. "What?"
"I have to agree," Al piped up. "I mean, you're the one who keeps finding us all those leads on the Philosopher's Stone, aren't you?"
"Because sending two children out on potentially life-endangering missions is so fatherly," Roy deadpanned. He couldn't hide his flush, though. Maes's skilled eyes caught the nervous, incessant, subconscious fidgeting Roy was doing.
"Oh, so you weren't the one who sent us backup that time in South City?" Ed asked innocently.
"Well, I mean, I was, but-"
"And you're telling me that wasn't you who ripped the countryside apart when I got kidnapped by those Drachmans and almost carted off to Drachma?"
"I was just looking after my subordinate," Roy tried desperately. His hand was clenched so tightly around his fork that Maes absently wondered if he were planning to use it, and if so, on whom.
"Right," Al said, sounding so dismissively unconvinced that Maes almost burst out laughing. "It was also just 'looking after my subordinate' when you stayed up 'til three in the morning to distract me since I can't sleep, I'm sure."
"Y-Yes, that was exactly-"
"Which means," Al cut in, "that time Brother got stabbed by a rogue alchemist, your reaction was also just towards a subordinate? Do you clutch all of your subordinates' shoulders and beg them-"
"That's enough!" Roy broke in hotly, looking one step away from bolting. "Okay, fine. Maybe I..."
Everyone, even Elicia, waited expectantly.
"...maybe I..." Roy coughed. His hand twitched towards his pocket again.
"Maybe you what, Roy?" Maes prompted.
"Oh, damn you, Maes," Roy scowled. He stood abruptly as if he thought that would hide the clear embarrassment written across his features. "Fine! Go ahead and let them call you 'uncle' for all I care! And you know what, Gracia, you can let them call you aunt! Just see if I care!"
"That'll be 50 cens, Roy," Ed said innocently. When Maes looked closely though, he could see that Ed's eyes were shining and he was trying his hardest not to grin.
What a cutie, Maes thought affectionately. He looked over at Al, who seemed similarly emotional, and let that affection encompass them both.
Maes watched Roy sputter in outrage and start a whole new feud with Ed. Gracia pulled Al aside to let him know he didn't need to call her anything he didn't feel comfortable calling her, and Al looked down shyly and said actually, he wasn't used to having anyone besides Ed and if it would be alright, could he...? And Gracia hugged him and told him that that was fine. Riza watched the whole thing with the most genuine smile Maes had ever seen on her face, and Elicia just continued her dinner, probably wondering why the weird adults were so loud.
And that was how Maes' day started as good, became great, and then finished as absolutely spectacular.