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“Fly with the birds, and let the spent world be. / Float, float,” it says, “with lightest things that pass…. –John Vance Cheney, “The Grace of the Ground”
Roy lifts the mattress up corner by corner so Urey can tuck the bottom sheet beneath, frowning in five-year-old concentration with the tip of his tongue poking from the corner of his mouth. It’s hard not to laugh, seeing an expression Ed wears so often replicated exactly on the round baby face of his son.
Urey puts the pillowcases on the pillows and sets them in their spots with careful precision. Then he and Roy share a grin, and the General shakes out the top sheet, and the boy leaps eagerly into bed. “Come on, Daddy, put Nina in too!”
“Yeah, come on Ed,” Roy echoes, and the blonde just snorts and steps forward to lay his sleeping daughter down beside her brother. Urey wraps an arm around her like she’s a stuffed toy, and she snuggles into his side without so much as fluttering an eyelash.
Then, with an air of great ceremony, Roy grips the top sheet by the bottom edge and snaps it out sharply over the bed; it billows down over the children like snow falling. Urey squirms in eager delight until the first touches of blue pinstripe on his skin, soft from so many washes, and then he goes still, closes his eyes in bliss. Roy tucks them in, and Ed leans down to kiss their foreheads. “G’night kid,” he murmurs.
“‘Night Daddy,” the boy chirps back. “‘Night, Uncle Roy.”
“Goodnight, Urey,” Roy replies, then claps and sets his hands to the bedframe, reshaping the wood, drawing it up around them to hold them in and keep night monsters out. He stands, flips on the nightlight. He looks over at Ed. Ed’s eyes are on his children, tender, the sort of expression he used to reserve for an Al newly returned to his body.
Every time the littlest Elrics visit, their nighttime routine is the same—and Roy can’t help, every time, but search Ed’s face for some sign that he’s saddened, or angered, or affected at all by what was once his signature alchemy taking shape between Roy’s clapped hands.
All Ed ever does is smile softly at his children, and turn out the light.