FMA -- The Warmest Thing in Winter
Title: The Warmest Thing in Winter
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Ed/Alfons
Rating: (high) PG-13
Word Count: 1,860
Warnings: a bit of language; vague-enough-to-be-tactful sex; major SPOILERS for 2003/CoS
Summary: Just this once, Alfons's life is perfect.
Author's Note: In which I go mad with the power of parallel structure, but it's all for a good cause: hopefully giving Crow a reason to smile. ♥ It was meant to be fluffier than this, damn it.
THE WARMEST THING IN WINTER
The first snow in Munich in the winter of 1922 fell softly-so softly that the ground was damp before anyone quite realized that the clouds had finally made up their mind.
Alfons saw it first as they stepped out of the workshop, and he turned his face up into it and drew a careful deep breath. Flakes dotted his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead-tiny wet kisses-and he hunched his shoulders and started to smile.
Ed was already half a dozen steps down the path, stretching his arms over his head, tugging on the left one with his right until his good shoulder gave a terrifyingly audible pop. “I swear, if I’d sat still another second, my ass would’ve broken in ha…” He stopped, went still, blinked upward, and for a moment he was lost and innocent and ethereal and adorably confused. For a moment it was just his sharp profile pale against the charcoal silhouettes of the buildings and the darkening sky. For a moment he was alone with the snow and his wonder.
The snow clung tenaciously to his hair and his eyelashes and melted on his skin. Ed had the most extraordinary eyes of anyone-anyone-Alfons had ever met, and not just because of their color; he’d never seen another gaze with such intensity. Ed looked at things actively, adamantly, fiercely. Ed didn’t just glance around himself, like most people; he was always assessing, always analyzing, always prying things open with those marvelous eyes, like he needed to know what they were made of and how they worked. It wasn’t enough just to look, for Ed. Ed had to see.
Ed raised his hands slowly and wound his-well, Alfons’s-scarf a little tighter around his neck. As with everything he mostly used the left one; the fingertips of that left hand ran back and forth across the fabric; the fingers curled into the folds; they uncurled, and Ed’s left hand lifted almost tentatively, extending towards the sky. Flakes touched his palm and turned to droplets and chased each other down his wrist.
Snow was just water, after all. Clouds were, too; frankly, people were, more or less. Snow was just water behaving in the way the laws of the universe demanded-and the water would keep moving, keep cycling, keep snowing long after all of the human beings had gone, as it had before they’d come. It was all they could do to describe the things around them-to understand the vast, irrevocable web of physics and fundament and nature and truth. It was all they could do to look and to see.
Anyone who thought science cold, thought science clinical, though science unromantic was a fool. Science didn’t kill the magic; it made it all the grander by explaining it. Science deconstructed the phenomenon and examined its component parts and gently put it back together and placed it on a pedestal higher than before, because science loved that the world was strange. Science just wanted to know why, how, what if, what might, what could. Science embraced everything the universe had to offer.
Ed lowered his hand and turned to Alfons and grinned.
And if they walked home shoulder-to-shoulder, closer than most schoolmates would-if their arms bumped and brushed-if their half-numbed fingers tangled sometimes as the darkness closed in around them and the crowds fell away-well, it was awfully cold.
And if, as they made their way through Gracia’s shop, Alfons selected one of the nicest roses and held it out to Ed, with his face going so hot that the snow on his cheeks must be steaming-well, it was Ed’s birthday, and they were good friends, after all.
And if Ed flashed that devastating grin and caught his hand and hauled him up the stairs and pushed him against the wall and kissed him until his knees trembled-well… they were out of sight by then.
Being alone with Ed was like tumbling into the world he’d always dreamed existed-the world a lot of other people seemed to live in, where the sky was bright and not so big it left you quaking; where a touch and a quirked eyebrow could make a whole day worthwhile; where you didn’t just trudge from one minute and one hour and one too-short year to the next simply because you didn’t have a choice. It was a world where hope was a white-feathered bird in Alfons’s mangled chest, instead of an abstraction flitting by in the darkness. It was a world where he wanted-wanted everything, wanted too much, wanted until he was dizzy with the beat of his own blood. It was a world where there were reasons to move forward other than just outrunning the reaper; where there were ways to move that had no purpose but stuttering ecstasy and overwhelming heat.
It was a world where anything was possible, because it was a world that centered around Ed, and Ed had been impossible from the start. Ed didn’t belong and couldn’t be tamed and wouldn’t be tied down. Science called something that didn’t obey the natural laws-something like Edward Elric and his molten-gold eyes-an anomaly.
Most people called it a miracle.
And the bed was too narrow-Alfons had actually fallen off once, but Ed had looked so mortified that he just started laughing, and then they were both laughing so hard they cried, and for a week afterward Ed would kiss gentle apologies into the bruises on his hip-but it was all right.
And Ed still struggled not to touch Alfons with his prosthetics sometimes-as though any part of him could be anything but beautiful; as though Alfons didn’t thrill and arch every bit as avidly when they were wrapped around him; as though Alfons didn’t stroke them, didn’t kiss them, didn’t love them for their brilliant engineering as well as just for being Ed’s-but it was all right.
And Alfons was still scared of himself-of the pulse of the heat beneath his skin; of the bizarre, illogical way that pain could be good and too-good; of the way his whole brain sparked out to roaring white, and then settled to a low, sweet hum of electricity inside him; of the way Ed’s hands and mouth alone could make him crumble; of the way the gasps and wails and screams would tear out of his throat, and the noises could get them killed if Ed didn’t kiss him to muffle them just in time-but it was all right.
And tonight… tonight Ed was so eager and so tender and so vital, like he wanted it to last forever but needed it now-needed Alfons; the unquantifiable universe had contracted to this bed, to them, to the fire in Ed’s eyes and the lightning in Alfons’s stomach, to this tiny-perfect slowly-turning world of damp skin and shared breath and their crumpled clothing on the floor. Ed’s teeth scraped the shell of his ear, and Ed’s mismatched hands spread on his chest, and Ed’s hips were sharp and shifting in his grasp; he just wanted to ride this cresting wave of uncomplicated bliss forever-
God.
There was always a moment as they surfaced when it was painfully awkward-when they were just two writhing bodies drenched in cooling sweat and stickiness, and the too-human reality after so much heaven made Alfons want to squirm. But it was never more than a hiccup before they fit again, into another rhythm.
Tonight Ed snickered, gave Alfons a look that smoldered even in the snow-hushed half-light, leaned down with his loose hair sweeping against Alfons’s side, and… licked. He licked up the mess. With his tongue. Leaving his saliva. How was it that a second unsanitary bodily fluid could make Alfons forget the first? And good Lord, how was it that he could be getting hard again already when they’d only just finished-?
That was just Ed, he supposed. And he damn well wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Ed dropped to the mattress and fitted himself in against Alfons’s back-cheek pressed to the side of his neck, chin on his shoulder.
“So,” he said. “Another goddamn birthday. How long you gonna stick with this old geezer?”
Alfons rolled over to face him, the better to poke him in the sternum. “If you’re old, so am I, dummy.”
Ed’s grin gleamed, and his hair pooled pale on the pillow. “If geriatric sex is always that good, I hope we live forever.”
Sometimes Alfons thought he was going to burst and tell Ed everything. But every few nights Alfons would wake up at some wretched hour, and Ed would be sitting up just thinking, and Alfons could see the weight of an indescribable past hung on the curve of his shoulders. Alfons couldn’t foist his fears off on Ed; he and God knew Ed had nightmares enough of his own. And besides-he’d made it this far in silence, hadn’t he?
“Don’t you think we’d get bored?” he asked.
“Us?” Ed’s grin widened. “Not a chance.”
And then Ed hesitated, which was very unlike him, and flicked his gaze to the cloud-swaddled sky out the window.
“Can I tell you something serious? It’s-it’s not gonna come out right, but-”
“Of course you can,” Alfons said.
Ed wriggled forward, pressed their foreheads together, closed his eyes, and curled a hand into Alfons’s hair. He drew a breath and whispered, “It’s not you.”
Alfons’s heart beat once, twice, three times.
Ed swallowed, eyes snapping open. “You know that, right? It’s not you that I’m leaving; it’s this-it’s-I wouldn’t leave you. I’d never leave you, if I didn’t have to. But it’s-I have all these old debts, you know? I have so many it feels like there’s chains around my chest; like wherever I go and whatever I do, I’m getting dragged backwards, and I’ll never… There’s something I have to finish. There’s something I have to know. And it’s the only thing I ever had, before. It was the only thing there was until… you. It was the only thing that mattered, and if I don’t know, then everything I’ve ever done means nothing. Do you-does that make sense? I don’t-want-I just have to. I have to know for sure, because I have to make it mean something. I have to mean something. Can you-” His hand fumbled; his fingertips slid tentatively, dappled up Alfons’s cheek, skittered down along his jaw. “I know it’s asking too much, and I always do, but-can you understand that? You’re so-you’re always so fucking good to me; will you try?”
“I don’t need to try,” Alfons said. “I understand that. I do.” He shifted in closer, laid his hand on Ed’s waist, and ran his thumb slowly over the lowest rib. “And it’s all right. It’s… everything’s all right.”
And Ed smiled-lopsidedly, but only for him. Tonight, Ed was his alone.
And tonight everything was all right.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Ed/Alfons
Rating: (high) PG-13
Word Count: 1,860
Warnings: a bit of language; vague-enough-to-be-tactful sex; major SPOILERS for 2003/CoS
Summary: Just this once, Alfons's life is perfect.
Author's Note: In which I go mad with the power of parallel structure, but it's all for a good cause: hopefully giving Crow a reason to smile. ♥ It was meant to be fluffier than this, damn it.
THE WARMEST THING IN WINTER
The first snow in Munich in the winter of 1922 fell softly-so softly that the ground was damp before anyone quite realized that the clouds had finally made up their mind.
Alfons saw it first as they stepped out of the workshop, and he turned his face up into it and drew a careful deep breath. Flakes dotted his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead-tiny wet kisses-and he hunched his shoulders and started to smile.
Ed was already half a dozen steps down the path, stretching his arms over his head, tugging on the left one with his right until his good shoulder gave a terrifyingly audible pop. “I swear, if I’d sat still another second, my ass would’ve broken in ha…” He stopped, went still, blinked upward, and for a moment he was lost and innocent and ethereal and adorably confused. For a moment it was just his sharp profile pale against the charcoal silhouettes of the buildings and the darkening sky. For a moment he was alone with the snow and his wonder.
The snow clung tenaciously to his hair and his eyelashes and melted on his skin. Ed had the most extraordinary eyes of anyone-anyone-Alfons had ever met, and not just because of their color; he’d never seen another gaze with such intensity. Ed looked at things actively, adamantly, fiercely. Ed didn’t just glance around himself, like most people; he was always assessing, always analyzing, always prying things open with those marvelous eyes, like he needed to know what they were made of and how they worked. It wasn’t enough just to look, for Ed. Ed had to see.
Ed raised his hands slowly and wound his-well, Alfons’s-scarf a little tighter around his neck. As with everything he mostly used the left one; the fingertips of that left hand ran back and forth across the fabric; the fingers curled into the folds; they uncurled, and Ed’s left hand lifted almost tentatively, extending towards the sky. Flakes touched his palm and turned to droplets and chased each other down his wrist.
Snow was just water, after all. Clouds were, too; frankly, people were, more or less. Snow was just water behaving in the way the laws of the universe demanded-and the water would keep moving, keep cycling, keep snowing long after all of the human beings had gone, as it had before they’d come. It was all they could do to describe the things around them-to understand the vast, irrevocable web of physics and fundament and nature and truth. It was all they could do to look and to see.
Anyone who thought science cold, thought science clinical, though science unromantic was a fool. Science didn’t kill the magic; it made it all the grander by explaining it. Science deconstructed the phenomenon and examined its component parts and gently put it back together and placed it on a pedestal higher than before, because science loved that the world was strange. Science just wanted to know why, how, what if, what might, what could. Science embraced everything the universe had to offer.
Ed lowered his hand and turned to Alfons and grinned.
And if they walked home shoulder-to-shoulder, closer than most schoolmates would-if their arms bumped and brushed-if their half-numbed fingers tangled sometimes as the darkness closed in around them and the crowds fell away-well, it was awfully cold.
And if, as they made their way through Gracia’s shop, Alfons selected one of the nicest roses and held it out to Ed, with his face going so hot that the snow on his cheeks must be steaming-well, it was Ed’s birthday, and they were good friends, after all.
And if Ed flashed that devastating grin and caught his hand and hauled him up the stairs and pushed him against the wall and kissed him until his knees trembled-well… they were out of sight by then.
Being alone with Ed was like tumbling into the world he’d always dreamed existed-the world a lot of other people seemed to live in, where the sky was bright and not so big it left you quaking; where a touch and a quirked eyebrow could make a whole day worthwhile; where you didn’t just trudge from one minute and one hour and one too-short year to the next simply because you didn’t have a choice. It was a world where hope was a white-feathered bird in Alfons’s mangled chest, instead of an abstraction flitting by in the darkness. It was a world where he wanted-wanted everything, wanted too much, wanted until he was dizzy with the beat of his own blood. It was a world where there were reasons to move forward other than just outrunning the reaper; where there were ways to move that had no purpose but stuttering ecstasy and overwhelming heat.
It was a world where anything was possible, because it was a world that centered around Ed, and Ed had been impossible from the start. Ed didn’t belong and couldn’t be tamed and wouldn’t be tied down. Science called something that didn’t obey the natural laws-something like Edward Elric and his molten-gold eyes-an anomaly.
Most people called it a miracle.
And the bed was too narrow-Alfons had actually fallen off once, but Ed had looked so mortified that he just started laughing, and then they were both laughing so hard they cried, and for a week afterward Ed would kiss gentle apologies into the bruises on his hip-but it was all right.
And Ed still struggled not to touch Alfons with his prosthetics sometimes-as though any part of him could be anything but beautiful; as though Alfons didn’t thrill and arch every bit as avidly when they were wrapped around him; as though Alfons didn’t stroke them, didn’t kiss them, didn’t love them for their brilliant engineering as well as just for being Ed’s-but it was all right.
And Alfons was still scared of himself-of the pulse of the heat beneath his skin; of the bizarre, illogical way that pain could be good and too-good; of the way his whole brain sparked out to roaring white, and then settled to a low, sweet hum of electricity inside him; of the way Ed’s hands and mouth alone could make him crumble; of the way the gasps and wails and screams would tear out of his throat, and the noises could get them killed if Ed didn’t kiss him to muffle them just in time-but it was all right.
And tonight… tonight Ed was so eager and so tender and so vital, like he wanted it to last forever but needed it now-needed Alfons; the unquantifiable universe had contracted to this bed, to them, to the fire in Ed’s eyes and the lightning in Alfons’s stomach, to this tiny-perfect slowly-turning world of damp skin and shared breath and their crumpled clothing on the floor. Ed’s teeth scraped the shell of his ear, and Ed’s mismatched hands spread on his chest, and Ed’s hips were sharp and shifting in his grasp; he just wanted to ride this cresting wave of uncomplicated bliss forever-
God.
There was always a moment as they surfaced when it was painfully awkward-when they were just two writhing bodies drenched in cooling sweat and stickiness, and the too-human reality after so much heaven made Alfons want to squirm. But it was never more than a hiccup before they fit again, into another rhythm.
Tonight Ed snickered, gave Alfons a look that smoldered even in the snow-hushed half-light, leaned down with his loose hair sweeping against Alfons’s side, and… licked. He licked up the mess. With his tongue. Leaving his saliva. How was it that a second unsanitary bodily fluid could make Alfons forget the first? And good Lord, how was it that he could be getting hard again already when they’d only just finished-?
That was just Ed, he supposed. And he damn well wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Ed dropped to the mattress and fitted himself in against Alfons’s back-cheek pressed to the side of his neck, chin on his shoulder.
“So,” he said. “Another goddamn birthday. How long you gonna stick with this old geezer?”
Alfons rolled over to face him, the better to poke him in the sternum. “If you’re old, so am I, dummy.”
Ed’s grin gleamed, and his hair pooled pale on the pillow. “If geriatric sex is always that good, I hope we live forever.”
Sometimes Alfons thought he was going to burst and tell Ed everything. But every few nights Alfons would wake up at some wretched hour, and Ed would be sitting up just thinking, and Alfons could see the weight of an indescribable past hung on the curve of his shoulders. Alfons couldn’t foist his fears off on Ed; he and God knew Ed had nightmares enough of his own. And besides-he’d made it this far in silence, hadn’t he?
“Don’t you think we’d get bored?” he asked.
“Us?” Ed’s grin widened. “Not a chance.”
And then Ed hesitated, which was very unlike him, and flicked his gaze to the cloud-swaddled sky out the window.
“Can I tell you something serious? It’s-it’s not gonna come out right, but-”
“Of course you can,” Alfons said.
Ed wriggled forward, pressed their foreheads together, closed his eyes, and curled a hand into Alfons’s hair. He drew a breath and whispered, “It’s not you.”
Alfons’s heart beat once, twice, three times.
Ed swallowed, eyes snapping open. “You know that, right? It’s not you that I’m leaving; it’s this-it’s-I wouldn’t leave you. I’d never leave you, if I didn’t have to. But it’s-I have all these old debts, you know? I have so many it feels like there’s chains around my chest; like wherever I go and whatever I do, I’m getting dragged backwards, and I’ll never… There’s something I have to finish. There’s something I have to know. And it’s the only thing I ever had, before. It was the only thing there was until… you. It was the only thing that mattered, and if I don’t know, then everything I’ve ever done means nothing. Do you-does that make sense? I don’t-want-I just have to. I have to know for sure, because I have to make it mean something. I have to mean something. Can you-” His hand fumbled; his fingertips slid tentatively, dappled up Alfons’s cheek, skittered down along his jaw. “I know it’s asking too much, and I always do, but-can you understand that? You’re so-you’re always so fucking good to me; will you try?”
“I don’t need to try,” Alfons said. “I understand that. I do.” He shifted in closer, laid his hand on Ed’s waist, and ran his thumb slowly over the lowest rib. “And it’s all right. It’s… everything’s all right.”
And Ed smiled-lopsidedly, but only for him. Tonight, Ed was his alone.
And tonight everything was all right.