A Beach Trip With Elrics, part 4/6
Title: A Beach Trip With Elrics, part 4/6
Rating: PG
Genre: AU, crack, fluff
Pairing: Hei + Ed
Length: 1594 words
Author: kalikamaxwell
Artist: ketita
Summary: Edward is sent in search of a mad alchemist and encounters the mad alchemist's fishy victims.
Note: Entirely ketita's fault. The original picture was posted here.
Edward’s third day on the island turned out to be the day of his rescue. He’d spent some time sending out his name and SOS signals on the radio in the morning, but he hadn’t expected anyone to be close enough to hear. He’d also failed to anticipate that the chimeras would notice the ship first.
He was sitting on the beach, bent over Miles’ records to puzzle out badly drawn diagrams, when excited chirps told him the chimeras were back from wherever they’d been for the past several hours.
“What are you guys so hyper about?”
The two chimeras beached themselves near him and began trying to draw something in the wet sand, chirping at each other. The end result was barely recognizable as a boat.
“There’s a ship?”
Chirp!
He stood and shielded his eyes from the relentless sun to scan the endless sea. “I can’t see anything… Wait, that thing over there?”
Chirp!
He squinted until he was sure it was indeed a ship. “It’s hard to tell if it’s the people I’m waiting for… I think you guys should stay away from them.”
Winry showed what she thought of his meddling by flinging water at him with her tail. Then she seized Alfons’ wrist and pulled him away and under the surface.
“Watch the book!” Edward was relieved to find Miles’ records hadn’t received more than a few droplets on the cover. “Geez, I was just making a suggestion.”
His first move was to hide the evidence, after which he sat on the beach to watch the ship come closer, ignoring his radio. Part of him wanted them to leave him and the chimeras alone, but the other part was concerned for his little brother’s feelings. Alphonse was always trying to convince him to stop wandering and settle down in Central, saying he hated worrying about his safety all the time. Alphonse would have heard about his disappearance by now; maybe he was even yelling at the Colonel about it. Okay, Alphonse wasn’t the yelling type. Maybe he was making very hurt eyes at the Colonel then.
The ship was making for the island. The closer it got, the less it seemed like a fishing boat. It must be the team sent to his rescue then. He began elaborating a plausible lie for his unlikely survival. He’d tell them he swam long and hard in the storm, fainted and woke up on this beach. He’d say currents and sheer luck must have brought him there; it was in line with the Fullmetal Alchemist’s reputation.
He was still trying to work out what he’d do if they suspected him of sabotage (always a possibility when the only survivor from a shipwreck was a stranger), when a familiar voice called out for him. He looked up, startled, and saw there was a tall blonde teen hanging over the railing and waving at him frantically. How in the world could his brother have traveled all the way to Creta’s seaside in mere days?
“Al!” He waved back.
The ship threw the anchor a little way from the shore to avoid getting beached and a tiny boat was lowered to the sea with on board Alphonse and an unknown Creta soldier in uniform.
“That was incredibly fast. Did you learn to fly or something?” Edward said when Alphonse laid foot on the beach. “You won’t need that,” he added, pointing to the bulky medical kit his brother held. “I’m not hurt.”
His words didn’t stop his brother from walking around him and poking various parts of his body in search of injuries. “I left not long after you actually,” Alphonse said. “I thought it wasn’t fair that you got to see the ocean and I didn’t. I was going to wait for you in the port city so we could go exploring together, but when I inquired about you I was told they thought your ship had sunk! So I called the Colonel and he told them to bring me for the search and rescue. He told me where I might find you.”
“Other survivors?” the soldier interrupted, speaking Amestrian with an horrible accent. He seemed to already know the answer, perhaps because the shelter Edward had built hardly seemed fit to house more than a single person.
“I’m the only one. I’m going to have to ask you to return to the ship,” Edward firmly told the soldier. “I’m still in the middle of my mission and it’s classified. This island is still Amestris’ property, isn’t it?” He had to hope Creta wouldn’t change their mind about it. “Al, I think I could use your help.”
The soldier saluted, more out of habit than requirement, and retreated.
Edward led the very short way to his cabin, ushering Alphonse inside and dropping the heavy medical kit on the floor.
“You don’t look so happy to see us. What’s the problem?”
Dropping Miles’ records in Alphonse’s lap, Edward merely said, “Read.”
Just like he had done, Alphonse skimmed the text, taking in the essential in a few minutes. He looked troubled afterwards. “You’ve found some of them?”
“There’s only two left. The third generation. You know why I don’t want to bring them to Amestris. Can you tell those guys to go back?”
“For what reason? I can’t just tell them to leave us here because we feel like it.”
“Send them off to get me some material then. I need a power source. And I want food supplies, diving gear, an xray machine… No fish in the food supplies. I’ve got enough of that here. Here, I’ll make a list.”
He did so, using a blank page from Miles’ records and a pen Alphonse had in his breast pocket, and sent off his brother to present the crew with this very lengthy excuse. Shortly thereafter, they were rid of the sailors and had inherited what food supplies the ship could spare. Edward set upon the dry biscuits immediately, glad to eat something other than fish and fruit.
Alphonse, sitting in the sand beside him, was peering at something with attention. “I think there’s someone hiding behind that huge shell over there.”
Edward raised a hand. “It’s cool, you guys!”
Alfons cautiously came out of hiding, looking a little…unhappy? He was definitively frowning as he crawled his way up toward them and settled right beside Edward, very nearly leaning into him.
Edward answered Alphonse’s amused gaze with a shrug. Yeah, okay, the guy had a thing for him. It wasn’t exactly hard to miss.
“Alfons, this is my brother. You both have the same name, but I always call him Al so I shouldn’t get mixed up.”
Alfons’ frown vanished at once, replaced with a slightly embarrassed look. He was quick to pretend he urgently needed to return to water, motioning to his tail, and hurried to vanish in the waves.
Alphonse laughed. “Somebody likes you, Brother.”
“Shut up.” He half-heartedly kicked sand at his brother. “He’s just lonely.”
“I thought there was a girl too?”
“Yeah. Suppose he doesn’t swim that way. Winry doesn’t like people much either, but you’ll probably see her around, glaring at us. She’s way over-protective.”
“It’s not really over-protective to watch over the only person she has left in her life. I wonder what happened to the others…”
“I didn’t ask.” According to the files, both Alfons’ and Winry’s mothers had survived until Miles’ death: what had happened afterwards was not something Edward wanted to ask. “Look, over there. That’s Winry.” It looked like playing in the waves was the chimeras’ favorite pastime: they were doing it again, but further out at sea, perhaps because they didn’t want anyone to butt in this time.
“What do you plan to do?” Alphonse asked.
“I thought maybe I might be able to turn them back. Miles wrote down a lot of useful details and I think all the bone and muscle mass necessary for two legs is still there, but it’s hard to be sure. They’re not the originals. There are the usual risks too so-”
“How do they feel about being turned human?”
“…” He opened his mouth, then shut it.
“Brother… You didn’t ask, did you?”
“Well, it’s pretty clear Alfons wants a lover but he’s not going to find another fish guy, you know,” Edward replied defensively. “Why wouldn’t he want to be human?” He answered himself easily enough. “Winry probably wouldn’t want to…” He reflected on the problem. They wouldn’t even know what being human was like, would they? It wasn’t just about shape: it would be a new language, a new society, a new set of behavior, a new world.
“Are you coming?”
Edward snapped back to reality and found that Alphonse was down to his underwear and holding a beach ball obviously alchemy-made.
“No use moping,” Alphonse said, walking down the gentle slope leading to the sea. “I’ve never been to the beach, you know!”
Edward nearly countered that the sea wasn’t very different from the lake in their childhood village, but one look at Alphonse’s look of boyish excitement convinced him to shut up and go along with it.
The toy they pushed back and forth over the water soon captured the chimeras’ attention. Alfons was easily persuaded to play with them while Winry preferred to lie on the beach sunning herself and pretending she wasn’t watching with interest.
They spent the rest of the day behaving like the young adults they were, playing, wrestling and teasing. Angst sat in its corner, forgotten.
Rating: PG
Genre: AU, crack, fluff
Pairing: Hei + Ed
Length: 1594 words
Author: kalikamaxwell
Artist: ketita
Summary: Edward is sent in search of a mad alchemist and encounters the mad alchemist's fishy victims.
Note: Entirely ketita's fault. The original picture was posted here.
Edward’s third day on the island turned out to be the day of his rescue. He’d spent some time sending out his name and SOS signals on the radio in the morning, but he hadn’t expected anyone to be close enough to hear. He’d also failed to anticipate that the chimeras would notice the ship first.
He was sitting on the beach, bent over Miles’ records to puzzle out badly drawn diagrams, when excited chirps told him the chimeras were back from wherever they’d been for the past several hours.
“What are you guys so hyper about?”
The two chimeras beached themselves near him and began trying to draw something in the wet sand, chirping at each other. The end result was barely recognizable as a boat.
“There’s a ship?”
Chirp!
He stood and shielded his eyes from the relentless sun to scan the endless sea. “I can’t see anything… Wait, that thing over there?”
Chirp!
He squinted until he was sure it was indeed a ship. “It’s hard to tell if it’s the people I’m waiting for… I think you guys should stay away from them.”
Winry showed what she thought of his meddling by flinging water at him with her tail. Then she seized Alfons’ wrist and pulled him away and under the surface.
“Watch the book!” Edward was relieved to find Miles’ records hadn’t received more than a few droplets on the cover. “Geez, I was just making a suggestion.”
His first move was to hide the evidence, after which he sat on the beach to watch the ship come closer, ignoring his radio. Part of him wanted them to leave him and the chimeras alone, but the other part was concerned for his little brother’s feelings. Alphonse was always trying to convince him to stop wandering and settle down in Central, saying he hated worrying about his safety all the time. Alphonse would have heard about his disappearance by now; maybe he was even yelling at the Colonel about it. Okay, Alphonse wasn’t the yelling type. Maybe he was making very hurt eyes at the Colonel then.
The ship was making for the island. The closer it got, the less it seemed like a fishing boat. It must be the team sent to his rescue then. He began elaborating a plausible lie for his unlikely survival. He’d tell them he swam long and hard in the storm, fainted and woke up on this beach. He’d say currents and sheer luck must have brought him there; it was in line with the Fullmetal Alchemist’s reputation.
He was still trying to work out what he’d do if they suspected him of sabotage (always a possibility when the only survivor from a shipwreck was a stranger), when a familiar voice called out for him. He looked up, startled, and saw there was a tall blonde teen hanging over the railing and waving at him frantically. How in the world could his brother have traveled all the way to Creta’s seaside in mere days?
“Al!” He waved back.
The ship threw the anchor a little way from the shore to avoid getting beached and a tiny boat was lowered to the sea with on board Alphonse and an unknown Creta soldier in uniform.
“That was incredibly fast. Did you learn to fly or something?” Edward said when Alphonse laid foot on the beach. “You won’t need that,” he added, pointing to the bulky medical kit his brother held. “I’m not hurt.”
His words didn’t stop his brother from walking around him and poking various parts of his body in search of injuries. “I left not long after you actually,” Alphonse said. “I thought it wasn’t fair that you got to see the ocean and I didn’t. I was going to wait for you in the port city so we could go exploring together, but when I inquired about you I was told they thought your ship had sunk! So I called the Colonel and he told them to bring me for the search and rescue. He told me where I might find you.”
“Other survivors?” the soldier interrupted, speaking Amestrian with an horrible accent. He seemed to already know the answer, perhaps because the shelter Edward had built hardly seemed fit to house more than a single person.
“I’m the only one. I’m going to have to ask you to return to the ship,” Edward firmly told the soldier. “I’m still in the middle of my mission and it’s classified. This island is still Amestris’ property, isn’t it?” He had to hope Creta wouldn’t change their mind about it. “Al, I think I could use your help.”
The soldier saluted, more out of habit than requirement, and retreated.
Edward led the very short way to his cabin, ushering Alphonse inside and dropping the heavy medical kit on the floor.
“You don’t look so happy to see us. What’s the problem?”
Dropping Miles’ records in Alphonse’s lap, Edward merely said, “Read.”
Just like he had done, Alphonse skimmed the text, taking in the essential in a few minutes. He looked troubled afterwards. “You’ve found some of them?”
“There’s only two left. The third generation. You know why I don’t want to bring them to Amestris. Can you tell those guys to go back?”
“For what reason? I can’t just tell them to leave us here because we feel like it.”
“Send them off to get me some material then. I need a power source. And I want food supplies, diving gear, an xray machine… No fish in the food supplies. I’ve got enough of that here. Here, I’ll make a list.”
He did so, using a blank page from Miles’ records and a pen Alphonse had in his breast pocket, and sent off his brother to present the crew with this very lengthy excuse. Shortly thereafter, they were rid of the sailors and had inherited what food supplies the ship could spare. Edward set upon the dry biscuits immediately, glad to eat something other than fish and fruit.
Alphonse, sitting in the sand beside him, was peering at something with attention. “I think there’s someone hiding behind that huge shell over there.”
Edward raised a hand. “It’s cool, you guys!”
Alfons cautiously came out of hiding, looking a little…unhappy? He was definitively frowning as he crawled his way up toward them and settled right beside Edward, very nearly leaning into him.
Edward answered Alphonse’s amused gaze with a shrug. Yeah, okay, the guy had a thing for him. It wasn’t exactly hard to miss.
“Alfons, this is my brother. You both have the same name, but I always call him Al so I shouldn’t get mixed up.”
Alfons’ frown vanished at once, replaced with a slightly embarrassed look. He was quick to pretend he urgently needed to return to water, motioning to his tail, and hurried to vanish in the waves.
Alphonse laughed. “Somebody likes you, Brother.”
“Shut up.” He half-heartedly kicked sand at his brother. “He’s just lonely.”
“I thought there was a girl too?”
“Yeah. Suppose he doesn’t swim that way. Winry doesn’t like people much either, but you’ll probably see her around, glaring at us. She’s way over-protective.”
“It’s not really over-protective to watch over the only person she has left in her life. I wonder what happened to the others…”
“I didn’t ask.” According to the files, both Alfons’ and Winry’s mothers had survived until Miles’ death: what had happened afterwards was not something Edward wanted to ask. “Look, over there. That’s Winry.” It looked like playing in the waves was the chimeras’ favorite pastime: they were doing it again, but further out at sea, perhaps because they didn’t want anyone to butt in this time.
“What do you plan to do?” Alphonse asked.
“I thought maybe I might be able to turn them back. Miles wrote down a lot of useful details and I think all the bone and muscle mass necessary for two legs is still there, but it’s hard to be sure. They’re not the originals. There are the usual risks too so-”
“How do they feel about being turned human?”
“…” He opened his mouth, then shut it.
“Brother… You didn’t ask, did you?”
“Well, it’s pretty clear Alfons wants a lover but he’s not going to find another fish guy, you know,” Edward replied defensively. “Why wouldn’t he want to be human?” He answered himself easily enough. “Winry probably wouldn’t want to…” He reflected on the problem. They wouldn’t even know what being human was like, would they? It wasn’t just about shape: it would be a new language, a new society, a new set of behavior, a new world.
“Are you coming?”
Edward snapped back to reality and found that Alphonse was down to his underwear and holding a beach ball obviously alchemy-made.
“No use moping,” Alphonse said, walking down the gentle slope leading to the sea. “I’ve never been to the beach, you know!”
Edward nearly countered that the sea wasn’t very different from the lake in their childhood village, but one look at Alphonse’s look of boyish excitement convinced him to shut up and go along with it.
The toy they pushed back and forth over the water soon captured the chimeras’ attention. Alfons was easily persuaded to play with them while Winry preferred to lie on the beach sunning herself and pretending she wasn’t watching with interest.
They spent the rest of the day behaving like the young adults they were, playing, wrestling and teasing. Angst sat in its corner, forgotten.