Hey, happy fma day! Could you please do a prompt or like headcanons ideas of what would have happened if Ed and Al and the homonculi were siblings/cousins? (whichever inspires you more) it would be wonderful and funny, sure as hell
Happy FMA day! OMG yes this is my favorite ridiculous, silly au. Prepare for some ridiculousness.
Okay, so Father shows up randomly at the Elric (Hohenheim?) house a couple years into Hoho living there and is just like “hello, my dearest, oldest friend, so good to see you.” (Hoho is like, yeah, I’ve been rethinking our relationship ever since you literally committed genocide in front of me.)
Father tells Hoho he’s turned over a new leaf. No really, he says, no more murder. He’s content to live out the rest of his life with the one Philosopher Stone he already made and definitely has no plans whatsoever to make another one – what? How could his dearest, oldest friend – who he NAMED and cared for before anyone and helped gain him his freedom – doubt him? What is he talking about that the map of Amestris looks suspicious? Does he really think he could control how an entire country was built? His oldest, dearest friend (“seriously, stop calling me that”) has too high of expectations for him.
Anyways, Father says he showed up because he ended up with 7 kids somehow (“totally an accident. Just happened.” “…uh-huh.”) and he has absolutely no idea how to handle them and they’re all driving him absolutely crazy, and he heard that Hoho has two boys of his own (congrats, by the way, didn’t know you had it in you, your wife is lovely, good job) and maybe he’s managed to figure out this whole fatherhood thing better than he has, so can he bring the family and stay for a while? Just a bit?
And because Hoho is ultimately a sympathetic sap, he says yes. (Trisha literally might kill him. She won’t talk to him for two days. She threatens to take Ed and Al and run away. “This might be good for him, Trisha. He might actually learn to be better and care for people if he lives around humans for a while.” “If any one of his ‘children’ touch our children, I WILL find out how to kill an immortal and after I’m finished with them, I’m coming after you.” “I love you so much.”)
So the family moves in. Ed and Al meet their “cousins”. The homunculi meet the Elrics under strict orders not to hurt them. It goes about as well as you can expect.
Envy really likes screwing with Ed and Al. Their favorite hobby is transforming into one of them and trying to get in as much trouble as possible (pulling Winry’s hair, throwing things at Den, hitting the other real Elric brother, etc.) Jokes on them, though, because Trisha has gotten REALLY good at figuring out when it’s Envy in disguise and just happens to “accidentally” hit them with things. Like, she “accidentally” trips when Envy is in the kitchen as Ed and drops a metal pot on their head. (“Oh no! Edward, honey, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there!” She definitely did. She definitely aimed for the head on purpose.)
(In secret, all the Elric/Hohenheims have come up with tells to let each other know they’re not Envy. They might be putting up with them living here, but damn it all if Trisha is just going to passively let them torment her family.
Greed and Envy hate each other, so Greed teams up with the Elrics to help harass his sibling, and ends up actually becoming a big brother figure to them. And somehow, damn it all, he’ll deny it until his dying breath, he’s actually grown a little fond of the tikes. He lets Ed try on his ugly fur vest once. He puts on the invincible shield and lets them hit him with things (look just because he actually tries to play with the kids doesn’t mean he knows anything about appropriate games for human children. Envy and Lust and him hit each other all the time – and usually with a lot more blood and death involved – surely that’s fun for his little “cousins” right?)
Trisha walks outside once and sees her sons just beating on Greed with any weapon they can find and just…walks away. She doesn’t even care anymore. As long as it’s her sons beating one of the homunculi and not the other way around, she’s not going to stop it. She considers that this might be teaching her children bad lessons for the future – such as its okay to just beat people with sticks – but considering it’s also teaching them it’s okay to beat up homunculi, she thinks the pros outweigh the cons.
Lust tries to act like she’s above everything, but she usually gets dragged into arguments. She just kind of randomly flip-flops between helping Envy screw with the kids and teaming up with Greed to defend them like a guard dog, with no apparent rhyme or reason to which she’s going to do on any given day. Ed and Al are both terrified and slightly in awe of her. It’s pretty much exactly how Envy and Greed feel too.
One of their “cousins” looks suspiciously a lot like the former Furher of Amestris (who randomly disappeared a couple months ago, stating “family emergency” before vanishing). Wrath wears a whole bunch of ridiculous disguises every time he takes the boys into town. I’m talking like fake moustache over his real moustache and sunglasses. Really ridiculous hats. Hawaiian shirts. A fake nose once. (“This is just sad,” Envy tells him. “I’ve seen humans disguise themselves better than this.” “I’m not taking advice from someone who willingly walks around looking like that.” Envy has to be held back from trying to maul Wrath by Lust, because Envy has already lost FIVE LIVES since living here – one of them might have been from Trisha, but she won’t confirm or deny anything and only cackles quietly to herself when she looks at Envy sometimes – and if they keep it up they’re going to actually die FOR REAL by next year. “DO YOU THINK PHILOSOPHER’S STONES GROW ON TREES?” Father booms, then goes immediately to Hoho and is like, “That was the right phrase, right? I also tried grounding like you suggested.” “You’ll get this fatherhood thing in no time. Also, you can’t end the grounding no matter how sad they look. That’s what Trisha says.”)
Side note: Mrs. Bradley definitely moves in with them too and now she knows exactly what her husband and son are and still loves them just as much. Pride is confused and slightly mortified, but also touched – he’ll never admit it. Wrath just really loves this human woman he chose. He and Hoho trade stories about their adventures wooing strong-willed, slightly scary mortal women. They get drunk together once and cry into the night about how wonderful their wives are and the fact that their children are growing up before their eyes – “I don’t grow, Wrath, what are you talking about?” “My son sounds so grown up!” Both men sob harder.
Trisha and Mrs. Bradley become fast friends. They run a So-You-Married-an-Immortal support group. Currently they’re the only members. Meetings basically consist of them exchanging stories of the weirdest things they’ve ever seen their husbands do.
Pride becomes weirdly protective of the baby Elrics. Mostly because he believes Father wants to keep them safe and he’s the most loyal devoted son who will do anything Father wants, so he takes great pride (ha) in protecting the baby Elrics from every harm he can think of. He also looks the most similar in age to them, so he lets Father enroll him in the local school and watches over them while in class. The rest of the class and the teacher are absolutely terrified of him, because he mostly just sits behind Ed and glares at everyone who moves too close.
Ed and Al grow up with a really weird understanding of shadows – ie, convinced that they can definitely move independently and are physical things you can touch, because that one time Al tripped, a bunch of shadows definitely grabbed him before he hit the ground, placed him back on his feet, and patted his shoulder reassuringly for good measure.
Sloth does nothing, of course. He’s just happy he doesn’t have to dig that tunnel anymore. He mostly sleeps and Ed and Al try to figure out how much they can stack on him before he wakes up. Or how many times they can poke him. Or how loudly they can shout. Etc.
Somehow it turns out mostly okay though. Ed and Al make it into their teenage years without dying or any serious maiming. (Only Greed and Envy have been maimed, but their injuries heal so it’s fine.) They have at least two homunculi that are fiercely protective of them, one that usually at least has more fun fighting their enemies than them, one who acts like a weird uncle and showers them with gifts and random melons, and two that are pretty indifferent as long as they’re left alone. And Envy, who definitely still wants to make their lives as miserable as possible, but is at least usually outvoted by the other homunculi.
The Elric/Hohenheim family is very weird, but most of them (and Resembool) have accepted that. Trisha definitely would still kill any of them if they hurt her sons though.
Thanks for the prompt!