FMA -- Conditional
Title: Conditional
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Miles/Alfons (and past Ed/Alfons)
Rating: light PG-13
Word Count: 810
Warnings: CANONSMASH, schmooooooooooop with a side of angst
Summary: Morning: when the light is palest, and the facts are inescapable.
Author's Note: It's for Phindus, of course! ♥ And also for myself, because sometimes fluff is all I can handle, damn it, and I need to accept that that's okay. X'D
CONDITIONAL
Alfons is used to sharing a small bed with a warm body. It isn’t until he’s rolled over and nestled in that his brain catches up-these are broad shoulders; this is a long spine; there are no cold, unbalanced metal caps where limbs would be. This is not just a warm body: this is a large, whole, strong, firm, scarred, set body. It is fully-grown and solidly defined. It is radiating heat. It is extremely naked.
And it was unfamiliar until last night.
Even half-awake, Alfons is not dumb enough to think that going still can retract the abortive attempt at snuggling, but at this point, it can’t hurt to try.
No luck. That’s characteristic, at least; he can’t remember the last time he had any luck to speak of.
He scoots back hastily as Miles starts to roll over. There’s a cold well in the sheets, and his hip lands squarely in it-it doesn’t even bother him anymore, that Fortune hates him like a bramble in her stocking. He’s used to it. He’s just resigned. Sometimes he can muster a little bit of amusement, even-exasperation. It’s not so bad. If nothing else, he always knows to expect the worst, and at the rate he’s going, that very nearly makes him psychic.
He wants to say something; he doesn’t even care what. An apology, maybe, for encroaching on Miles’s space; an apology for waking him; an apology for presuming; an apology for dragging him here; an apology for being Alfons Heiderich, for knowing better, for still not finding a way to change. But Miles’s bright red eyes are just so arresting that all of the possibilities tangle together and lodge in the bottom of his throat.
Miles has wonderful hands, talented hands-steady, careful, fine. The right one is reaching out and gently tucking an errant wisp of hair behind Alfons’s ear.
A part of Alfons wants to say You know, you’re really quite stunning, but it hits the bottleneck and sticks with all the rest.
“I’m sorry,” Miles says.
And thus it is that “I beg your pardon?” is the first thing Alfons manages to articulate since several dozen Yeses and a great deal of fractured cursing in German last night.
“To have put you in this position,” Miles says. “To have let myself put you in this position. I should have done… well, hell, I should have done anything else.” His fingertips linger against the curve of Alfons’s ear, whisper down over the shell, settle softly at the top of his jaw. “And it won’t take anything back, but for the little that it is worth… I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” Alfons says. He clears his throat, clears it again, and again, until all the clutter falls away. “I… am not.”
Miles’s eyes soften, deepen, and crinkle at the corners. He has an extraordinary mouth (some of the many applications of which Alfons has now discovered in considerable detail), which is even more unexpectedly lovely when it’s curling into a smile.
“I didn’t mean that I regret it,” Miles says. “I’m sorry for the complications, and the restrictions. And… the… consequences. Whatever they turn out to be. I’m sorry that this is all I have to give.”
Alfons lays his hand over Miles’s and presses the warm palm to his cheek. “I am not,” he says again.
The smile widens a little at that.
“There is one thing I would like to ask of you,” Alfons says slowly.
There’s a twist to the smile now that scares him. “If it’s in my power, it’s yours.”
Alfons learned that structure a thousand times-the conditional tense. If. Is it always conditional, or is it just always conditional for him? I could want you like you want me-if it wasn’t for the military, if it wasn’t for the General, if it wasn’t for this bastion in the snow that’s the only place we have. I could love you like you love me-if it wasn’t for my brother, if it wasn’t for my dreams, if it wasn’t for the galaxy-sized gap between us where all of your dreams gasp and strangle while the constellations turn.
“Forgive me,” Alfons says. “But Major, what is your given name?”
Miles stares at him.
Alfons feels the blood creeping into his cheeks, but he holds his ground. For heaven’s sake; they’re lovers now, aren’t they? At least by the strictest definition of the word?
“That,” Miles says, “I am sorry for. I forget that not everyone has access to the personnel files…” He strokes the pad of his thumb over Alfons’s cheekbone, then along his eyebrow. He looks faintly… embarrassed? “It’s… Solomon. My name is Solomon. Sol, if you like.”
“Good morning, Sol,” Alfons says, biting his lip on a tentative smile.
“Good morning, Mr. Heiderich,” Miles says, and kisses him until it is.
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Miles/Alfons (and past Ed/Alfons)
Rating: light PG-13
Word Count: 810
Warnings: CANONSMASH, schmooooooooooop with a side of angst
Summary: Morning: when the light is palest, and the facts are inescapable.
Author's Note: It's for Phindus, of course! ♥ And also for myself, because sometimes fluff is all I can handle, damn it, and I need to accept that that's okay. X'D
CONDITIONAL
Alfons is used to sharing a small bed with a warm body. It isn’t until he’s rolled over and nestled in that his brain catches up-these are broad shoulders; this is a long spine; there are no cold, unbalanced metal caps where limbs would be. This is not just a warm body: this is a large, whole, strong, firm, scarred, set body. It is fully-grown and solidly defined. It is radiating heat. It is extremely naked.
And it was unfamiliar until last night.
Even half-awake, Alfons is not dumb enough to think that going still can retract the abortive attempt at snuggling, but at this point, it can’t hurt to try.
No luck. That’s characteristic, at least; he can’t remember the last time he had any luck to speak of.
He scoots back hastily as Miles starts to roll over. There’s a cold well in the sheets, and his hip lands squarely in it-it doesn’t even bother him anymore, that Fortune hates him like a bramble in her stocking. He’s used to it. He’s just resigned. Sometimes he can muster a little bit of amusement, even-exasperation. It’s not so bad. If nothing else, he always knows to expect the worst, and at the rate he’s going, that very nearly makes him psychic.
He wants to say something; he doesn’t even care what. An apology, maybe, for encroaching on Miles’s space; an apology for waking him; an apology for presuming; an apology for dragging him here; an apology for being Alfons Heiderich, for knowing better, for still not finding a way to change. But Miles’s bright red eyes are just so arresting that all of the possibilities tangle together and lodge in the bottom of his throat.
Miles has wonderful hands, talented hands-steady, careful, fine. The right one is reaching out and gently tucking an errant wisp of hair behind Alfons’s ear.
A part of Alfons wants to say You know, you’re really quite stunning, but it hits the bottleneck and sticks with all the rest.
“I’m sorry,” Miles says.
And thus it is that “I beg your pardon?” is the first thing Alfons manages to articulate since several dozen Yeses and a great deal of fractured cursing in German last night.
“To have put you in this position,” Miles says. “To have let myself put you in this position. I should have done… well, hell, I should have done anything else.” His fingertips linger against the curve of Alfons’s ear, whisper down over the shell, settle softly at the top of his jaw. “And it won’t take anything back, but for the little that it is worth… I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” Alfons says. He clears his throat, clears it again, and again, until all the clutter falls away. “I… am not.”
Miles’s eyes soften, deepen, and crinkle at the corners. He has an extraordinary mouth (some of the many applications of which Alfons has now discovered in considerable detail), which is even more unexpectedly lovely when it’s curling into a smile.
“I didn’t mean that I regret it,” Miles says. “I’m sorry for the complications, and the restrictions. And… the… consequences. Whatever they turn out to be. I’m sorry that this is all I have to give.”
Alfons lays his hand over Miles’s and presses the warm palm to his cheek. “I am not,” he says again.
The smile widens a little at that.
“There is one thing I would like to ask of you,” Alfons says slowly.
There’s a twist to the smile now that scares him. “If it’s in my power, it’s yours.”
Alfons learned that structure a thousand times-the conditional tense. If. Is it always conditional, or is it just always conditional for him? I could want you like you want me-if it wasn’t for the military, if it wasn’t for the General, if it wasn’t for this bastion in the snow that’s the only place we have. I could love you like you love me-if it wasn’t for my brother, if it wasn’t for my dreams, if it wasn’t for the galaxy-sized gap between us where all of your dreams gasp and strangle while the constellations turn.
“Forgive me,” Alfons says. “But Major, what is your given name?”
Miles stares at him.
Alfons feels the blood creeping into his cheeks, but he holds his ground. For heaven’s sake; they’re lovers now, aren’t they? At least by the strictest definition of the word?
“That,” Miles says, “I am sorry for. I forget that not everyone has access to the personnel files…” He strokes the pad of his thumb over Alfons’s cheekbone, then along his eyebrow. He looks faintly… embarrassed? “It’s… Solomon. My name is Solomon. Sol, if you like.”
“Good morning, Sol,” Alfons says, biting his lip on a tentative smile.
“Good morning, Mr. Heiderich,” Miles says, and kisses him until it is.