Chapter Text
Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc shows up to Falman’s apartment warming party with a girl fitting neatly under his right arm.
Breda groans. “Havoc, really? Again?”
Havoc has the decency to look ashamed, though it’s more directed at the girl than the rest of Mustang’s command. “Hey listen, I like this one. Her name’s Solaris; Solaris, this is Breda.”
In “I’m A Serial Dater And Can’t Keep A Relationship Longer Than A Month,” this means: Don’t worry baby, I love you and I’m changing my manwhore ways. See, I’m introducing you to my friends! Basically reformed!
“Havoc’s told me all about you,” Solaris drawls. There are at least seven different innuendos layered in both her voice and body language. Breda turns a different shade of red for every single one of them. In IASDACKARFLTAM, this means I know literally nothing about you and do not care. I’m getting fucked tonight. Eat shit.
“I brought a present to liven up the place,” Solaris says in the same tone. It manages to convey both that yes she’s very sexy and yes she thinks this apartment is a piece of garbage decorated by rotting wood— Which it is. Falman, being a severely underpaid Anestrian soldier, puts free stuff at a higher priority than stupid things like pride, so he graciously introduces himself and puts the gift on a couple of boxes serving as a table.
“Honestly I didn’t think to unpack, seeing as you lot are probably going to spend tonight destroying my apartment,” Falman admits. “Sorry that this has to be your first impression of me but, you know.”
In IFWH, or I’m Friends With Havoc, this means: This is probably your only impression of me anyway. Please drink the cheapest booze I have.
“Fuery is coming with Hawkeye and the Colonel. He can’t drive yet, so they’re heading to the west end to pick him up.”
Solaris nudges Havoc with her elbow, which takes exactly zero effort because it’s already in contact with his stomach. “You didn’t tell me that there would be kids at this party.”
“Ah, he’s not a kid -kid, he’s twenty-something, just keeps forgetting to take the test. I’m sure if he really wanted to drive around the city no one would give him shit for it, being in the military and all.”
“Oh, yes,” Solaris says, “I certainly—“
The door slams open and into the adjacent wall, rebounding back just far enough to show the hole left from the doorknob smashing through the wood. Falman visibly loses three years off his life. He’s really not that much older than the rest of them, but his patience for absolute fucking nonesense is in the negatives, so he looks about fifty. Havoc has forty cenz on him snapping and becoming a berserker, and Fuery has fifty on him giving up and going with it like Hawkeye. It’s a sure bet— no human can ever be like Hawkeye.
“We’re here, assholes!” Says the youngest ever State Alchemist, shadowed by the tallest ever thirteen year-old. They come clanking in with their synchronized metal limbs.
“It’s, uh, comfortable,” says Al in his high-pitched echo. “Love what you’ve done with the place. Lots of boxes.”
Havoc groans. “Solaris this is Edward and Alphonse Elric. That tiny one is the Fullmetal Alchemist.”
Edward stares. The three other military officers stare at Edward. Alphonse doesn’t have eyes, but his head is pointed at Solaris, who is looking back at the brothers. Havoc called Ed tiny , to his face , and the room is quiet.
This is when, per IASDACKARFLTAM code, Solaris should either emphasize how awesome it is that Havoc works with such a high-profile character, or lean into the kid angle and pull a nights worth of baby making allusions until they cut the bullshit and just go for it. The five of them are actually giving her the silence to get her piece in, which is a courtesy never afforded to Havoc’s fleeting girlfriends.
Instead, Solaris smiles like Mustang sometimes does when he’s at a meeting with the brass and they need to be reminded that central is only still inhabitable because he doesn’t want Elysia to smell the bodies. No one draws a gun, but the team of three outside the open door (Fuery and Mustang carrying, Hawkeye directing) drops the couch into the regrettably fragile floorboards.
“I just got this apartment,” Falman whimpers.
“I got you a welcome mat,” Fuery offers, like the Hawkeye-In-Training he is. “It should cover the holes.”
“Thanks.”
Solaris takes a step forward and away from Havoc which is probably the most physical distance they’ve had in the three days they’ve been dating. “So nice to meet you, I’m Solaris.”
Ed coughs something in Horrible Teenager that could be interpreted as “Sure you are” and Al laughs awkwardly in his most metallic voice and says “Nice to meet you!” way too fast for comfort.
By the end of the night (or nine pm, when Hawkeye calls a taxi to bring the boys back to their long-term hotel room so the rest of them can wreck their livers) the resident alchemists have successfully destroyed and transmuted and re-transmuted the apartment so it barely looks like three assholes got into a contest about whose alchemical style is best for household decorations. At least Falman’s landlord probably can’t sell the apartment to anyone else— there’s no point in evicting him now.
Solaris acts exactly as she’s expected except for the part where Havoc’s dates usually run screaming. Havoc is making actual heart eyes that are only seventy-five percent because of her tits. Mustang resigns himself to calling Hughes about the potential security risk a somewhat-serious girlfriend would pose to his team.
Solaris sticks around long enough that the female populace of Eastern Command start to get depressed. The secretary Havoc’s been on-again-off-again sleeping with hasn’t brushed her hair in days. Madame Christmas calls Mustang to ask if Havoc’s still alive.
“It’s been two weeks, if that,” Mustang groans like he doesn’t know the exact numbers. “About how much of my subordinate’s paycheck goes to you and your girls?”
Madame Christmas laughs “Don’t complain, it’s money towards your birthday card.”
Six months in, it becomes Mustang’s problem. Not that it wasn’t already Mustang’s problem— the position of the sun in the sky is Mustang’s problem, but he usually doesn’t have to actively resolve it.
Hughes calls from a secure line: “Havoc asked me about long term relationships. Havoc.”
“Jean? We’re talking about the same guy, right?”
There’s no sound to indicate Hughes nodding, but Mustang knows he does. “Yeah, and I’d be happy for him if I didn’t dig any deeper into her after our talk, but I’m me , so.”
“What’d you find?”
“Her records hold up; she was born near Briggs, moved to Central when she was six and moved to East City a few months ago. Broke a few bones when she was nine. It’s just that she lived in Central in 1904, during the Aerugonian Flu, and there’s no record of her checking in at the hospital that year or the next.”
1904 was the year Trisha Elric died in the Aerugonian Flu epidemic. It’s also the year at least eighteen thousand other Amestrians died from it. It became mandatory for Amestrian metropolitan citizens, due to their proximity to hospitals and to each other, to check in with military doctors at least once during the height of the disease. These doctors were mostly research-based alchemists, and managed to find a cure fast enough to save most of the more wealthy areas. These doctors also never left their cities, preferring their cushy, state-funded lifestyle to the dirt of outer-ring Amestris. Trisha Elric died well after the cure had already been discovered.
Mustang doesn’t ask “You’re sure?” because apart from the “Jean?” earlier, he doesn’t ask Hughes useless questions. What he does ask is: “Is she a threat?”
“Everyone’s a threat, Roy,” Hughes laughs. “Just depends what kind. Right now she’s a security threat, and a national threat, and a regional threat, and—“
“Motive?”
“Illegal immigrants don’t usually have papers as well-forged as she does, and even if an alchemist did the forgery they usually don’t have the idea to add in fake medical records to make their story more concrete. Spies don’t usually have papers this good either, and Drachma doesn’t have alchemists, but there’s always traitors or even Creta , if the Briggs part is just to throw us off.”
“Xing? They have alkahestry.” Solaris doesn’t look or sound Xingese, but she could be a few generations removed from a Xingese relative or even just have a grudge against Amestris strong enough to work with them.
“Xing doesn’t have the motive, too focused on internal affairs and too far from Amestris.”
“Then who has anything to gain from spying on my office?” No one should know of their plans for Amestris, before or after the spy was sent, Havoc is too good to leak even to a warm body. Without the treason, as much as it pains Mustang to admit, he’s not even in a powerful enough position to be worth spying on.
“I think she’s from Central,” Hughes says. Breathes in. “And I think she’s watching Fullmetal.”
Maes Hughes is never wrong.
Three weeks after the first night, Ed finds his second-favorite cousin when he comes back to his hotel room to a locked bathroom and running water.
“I’m taking a bath!” Lust calls through the door.
“Like fuck,” Ed yells back. “Put some clothes on and get the fuck out!”
Ed’s third-favorite cousin tugs on his coat, and he jumps about two feet Because fuck how didn’t I see him there— “Ed smells good! Can I eat him, Lust? Can I?”
Ed, covered in the blood of innocent farm animals from his last mission, smells like a restaurant trash bin. Gluttony’s mouth has got to be the second most toxic place on earth save for Mustang’s mind.
“Please don’t,” Al begs, rushing through the doorway, putting up a Do Not Disturb on the knob, and locking it behind him. Gluttony pouts. “Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see Lust!” Gluttony says.
“Explain further, please.”
Gluttony goes on about how Lust has had no time for him recently, hanging out with her new human pet.
“Spy mission!” Lust yells. “You know that I can’t go against Father’s orders.”
“But you do it all the time! We’re doing it right now!” Gluttony whines.
Al puts his face in his hands— meaning he takes his face off and holds it in exasperation. “And you decided to have your reunion here? When you guys literally own Amestris?”
Lust opens the door to the bathroom, towel wrapped loosely around her body but really only covering the most X-rated areas. Eyes are quickly averted and the faces that can go red. “It was my idea to come here, since we need to talk anyway. Gluttony tracked me here because he missed me.”
“I did!”
Lust pats Gluttony’s bald head. “I’m sorry for abandoning you for so long. I’m sure there’s a small town around the border we can… visit.”
Gluttony cheers, but Ed flinches. “Are you plotting fucking mass murder right in front of us?”
“Oh? Did you not want the heads up?” Lust drawls. “If we buy the train tickets in packs of four we get a family discount.”
Ed screams and pulls on his own hair. He stares at Lust in a way that hopefully conveys all the terrible things he wants to do to her stone and would if he wasn’t covered in the remains of livestock. “I hate you so fucking much. I’m taking the shower.”
Once everyone is sufficiently clean, they gather around the coffee table— Ed and Al on one side, Lust on the other. Gluttony is off playing the treasure hunt game Lust invented shortly after Ed got out of the shower, with the aim of finding “a picture of Pride in baby clothes.”
Lust sprawls out across the couch, tossing her limbs artfully over the cushions because she is physically incapable of existing in a way that doesn’t scream stare at my boobs. Do it. You know you want to. Being that Ed and Al are 1. minors and 2. related to her, this has no effect on them except for annoyance. Ed leans forwards, sneering. “What do you think you’re doing with Havoc, Solaris.”
“Straight to the point? How boring,” Lust sighs. “We can’t all be pleasant to be around, I suppose.”
“You literally make me want to eat glass every time I’m around you.”
Al readjusts in his seat. “Huh. That’s an idea.”
Lust pouts. “All this from my favorite baby cousins?”
“Cut the shit,” Ed growls. “Why’s Uncle got such an interest in Colonel Bastard’s office, huh? You’ve spent literally every day with blondie since you started this shit, so it’s gotta be important.”
“Simple. I’m dating him.”
Shut down. Reboot. In unison: “Eh?”
Lust rolls her eyes, tilting her head up as she does so because every single fucking movement just has to reveal more of her skin. “It’s not that hard to understand. I like this human. You two are going to help me keep him and not act like you want to kill me every time I’m around.”
“After the way you treated Greed for his Chimeras?” Al asks. “This seems rather hypocritical of you.”
“Greed’s Chimeras are ugly. Havoc’s gorgeous and good at sex.”
Ed and Al shriek at the same time and try to cover each other’s (maybe nonexistent) ears. Ed glares at her. “God, I hate talking to you.”
“Sure, but you’re going to help me anyway, aren’t you?”
Al straightens you. “Why should we? You’ll just kill him in the end.”
“I will not.” Lust growls— she sounds so much unlike herself that the brothers actually flinch back. “I want him. I’ll kill anyone who tries to take him.”
There’s a beat or so of silence before Ed shakes his head. “Lust and Greed aren’t really that different after all, huh?”
It’s Lust’s turn to flinch back now, but Ed doesn’t stop. “We’ll help you, but if you hurt him it’s your stone.”
Lust swallows. “Pleasure doing business with you, boys.”
The door swings open and slams against the wall so hard it shudders and falls off. “Lust! Lust, I found it!”
The three of them freeze before remembering what the target of the game was. “Holy shit—“ Ed says before they all race over to see. It’s probably the happiest they’ve been to see Gluttony in years.