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Edward pressed a red crayon to paper, sketching perfectly symmetrical lines and shapes. He used to be a bit rusty since he didn’t need to draw transmutation circles for years, but when he lost his alchemy, and began doing research, illustrating transmutation circles in his notes became second nature again. Granted, crayon wasn’t too forgiving, making the lines not as crisp as he wanted, but it felt like the old days of drawing in chalk when he was a kid.
Plopped down on Ed’s knee, his three-year-old son observed him, admiring his skill. He too clenched a red crayon between his chubby little fingers. Theo didn’t want to just fill in coloring books, and he didn’t want to draw people, houses, or dogs. He wanted to draw the cool pictures in Daddy’s notes.
Of course, Ed saw this as an opportunity to start teaching alchemy away, “See, son, each of these symbols in the circle mean I understand what is in the materials I want to move or change. Like that triangle there with the dot in the center. That represents iron, so if I wanted to transmute my automail leg…”
“Don’t you touch my design!” Winry scolded from across the room, in the middle of a consultation with a customer. His wife must have bat ears when it comes to her automail, because whenever he mentioned something like that, even from another room, she always made herself known.
Ed nervously smiled, the corner of his mouth twitching. “You know I can’t transmute!”
Theo was attempting to copy him on a sheet of paper slightly overlapped with his father’s. By the time he was finished, he got his dad’s attention, happily pointing to his squashed circle with scribbles inside that were supposed to emulate the intricacy inside a transmutation circle. He even included the triangle.
The boy looked up at Ed with a shit-eating grin that had to be genetic, clapping his hands giddily and pressing them against the table.
“I can trans-moot for you, daddy!” he exclaimed.
Ed mirrored his grin, placing his large hand over his son’s dirty blonde crown. “With circles like that, you’ll be a better alchemist than me!”
Ed picked up the crayon again, beginning to sketch something else. Theo watched curiously as the picture came together. First, it started a mouth of very sharp teeth, then a pair of angry cartoon eyes, horns, claws, flames, piercings—okay, now he was getting carried away. Ed set his crayon down, proud of his masterpiece. It was a fire-breathing beast similar to the ones he used to add to his transmutations as his “stylish” touch.
“Cool!” Theo said, before critically adding, “But it needs a tongue. And a crown, and more flames…”
Ed’s jaw gaped open as he began to add modifications, each change a hit to his ego. It didn’t have enough flames?
With Ed and Winry’s ten-month-old daughter in her arms, Paninya was sitting back, watching everything unfold between the two.
What an odd pair, she thought.
A man’s voice cut into her thoughts, “200,000 cenz?!”
Paninya and Ed looked up to realize that voice came from the customer.
The guy already had what seemed to be a decent piece of automail, at least artificially. The metal was so reflective he probably had to put in a lot of maintenance to keep it shiny and free of smudges, but it wasn’t in Ed’s taste. It almost seemed too much for show, like something a pretty boy would wear, and judging from the way the guy dressed and wore his hair, he was nothing short of a pretty boy. Not that Ed cared about other people’s sense of style, but usually, pretty boys in Rush Valley fulfilled their stereotype and were douchebags.
The customer continued, “You’re telling me that you want to charge me 200,000 cenz just for some plating?”
Winry calmly replied, “You want diamond-coated plates. I need to pay for the materials, not to mention for them to be shipped.”
“How do you expect to run a business with prices like that?! I can go down the street and get the same thing for 100,000 cenz!”
Ed and Paninya exchanged looks. They both knew very well there is no one in Rush Valley who would sell an alloy with diamond for that cheap. If anything, you would be lucky to get it under 500,000 cenz.
“The materials will be worth 180,000, including diamond,” Winry explained. “And where I source the product is actually much cheaper than most sources.”
“Ok?” the man said, in a way that made Ed cringe. “And what about the other 20,000?”
Winry paused, eyebrows raised. Then they lowered, lips dropping into a frown. “The other 20,000 is for my time.”
The man replied, in a drawn out, pompous way, “Are you kidding me? This is your job.”
He then added, “I’m not asking to make automail from scratch. All you are doing is installing new plates. Anyone can do that, my nine-year-old niece can do that.”
Ed rested his jaw on his knuckles with an irritated look on his face, thinking to himself, Then why don’t you go and have your niece do it?
The engineer still kept her cool, but the frown remained. “You’re asking me to charge you for less than the plates are worth. I do need to make a profit.”
“I’ll give you 185,000, and that’s being generous,” the customer told her. “Without customers like me you would be nothing. We make your business, you should provide discounts, especially for how lousy the service is.”
Hearing this asshole berate his wife was agitating Ed more and more. She actually was pretty affordable compared to other automail engineers. Not to mention she was in the field for the right reasons. There are a large amount of engineers only in it for the profit, and Winry was one of the few that won’t turn those in need away, even if they don’t have a dollar to their name. Judging from the customer’s automail, clothing, and demeanor, he wasn’t one of those people. Moreover, diamond-plating definitely wasn’t a necessity.
Don’t get involved, Ed told himself. Winry gets pissed when I do that. Unless I can find a way to punch his face in a professional way…
Winry crossed her arms. “5,000 cenz? That’s less than the going wage for an apprentice. Most experienced engineers charge more than double what I do in labor. And only family, friends, or people in need get discounts.”
The customer clenched his automail fist in a way Ed didn’t like. “Are you actually talking back to me? You need to fix your attitude, chick.”
Now it was escalating. Winry could feel heat rise in her face, even though she kept her composure on the outside.
He continued, “I hope you know how to do your job better than you treat your customers. Who trained you, anyway? I don’t know any respected engineer that would train a female with a big mouth.”
That was all it took. Ed was out of his seat, cutting in between Winry and the customer.
“Do we have a problem here, buddy?” he said, staring down the customer in the most intimidating way possible.
“Ed!” Winry hissed through her teeth, but Ed ignored the seething woman behind him.
The customer had a cocky look in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. “Yeah. Your employee disrespected me and I want a refund for my consultation.”
Ed could feel Winry’s glare on the back of his head, but he couldn’t care less. He smirked back at the customer, trying to match, if not exceed, him in cockiness.
“Winry doesn’t charge for consultations,” Ed said. “And she’s not my employee, she’s my wife, and she’s pretty damn good at what she does.”
Again with the condescending tone, the customer retorted, “Is she?”
Ed’s finger stuck out at him. “Too good to help entitled pricks like you. Now get out, or I kick your ass out.”
The two men stared each other down, but it was obvious who had the stronger resolve. The customer backed away, heading for the door as he said, “Whatever, this place is trash. Won’t be here for long after I name and shame your business.”
Before any word could be put in, the door slammed shut behind him.
Paninya rolled her eyes. “Whatever will we do?”
While Ed and Paninya were pretty satisfied, Winry had her hands clenched at her sides.
“Ed!” she said a second time, much louder than the first. “I could have handled that!”
The smile fell from his face, looking back at her. “Hell you could! I can’t let that asshole talk to you like that!”
“I’m not weak and helpless, I don’t need—“ Before continuing, Winry got distracted by her daughter getting fussy in Paninya’s arms.
Relieving Paninya of her duties, Winry used her hip to support the child, gently bouncing her, while her free hand pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, man,” she sighed. “You could never work with the public.”
Ed started to walk away, preferably to a bedroom where he could go and sulk. He knew what Winry’s reaction would be, but he couldn’t help but feel a little butt hurt. She doesn’t “need him”? Is that what she meant to say?
A little hand pulled on Winry’s jumpsuit. “Mama,” she heard her son say. He showed her the array of drawings he and his father created, his newest addition being a furry, four-legged creature. “Don’t be mad at Daddy. He’s like this dog. He barks a lot, but he protects everyone.”
The blue in Winry’s eyes melted with her heart at that comment, and deep down behind her ego, she knew she wasn’t really upset at Ed.
Staring into the back of his flannel shirt, a pang of guilt hit her. She used to feel like he was taking her for granted all those years, when he and Al were on a journey to restore their bodies. Now, it seemed the opposite at times.
Yes, she had pride in being what made her a Rockbell woman: strong as steel, tough as nails. She always looked up to her own grandmother in her ability to hold her own, with or without a man, and Winry swore to herself she would be the same. Ed has always respected that, but at the end of the day, he is intrinsically a man. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with leaning on her man, her protector.
Winry grabbed the side of his arm, stopping his march upstairs. His ponytail swung as his head turned and he gave her a curious look. Pressing their daughter between him and her, she dropped a kiss on his jaw, followed by a loving whisper, “Thank you, babe.”
Ed itched the side of his face, surprised at her change of attitude. “It’s, uh, nothing.”
The little girl looked up at her parents’ faces with round blue eyes and a toothless, giggling smile.