konekowrites

[konekowrites]

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: Explicit Warnings: Sibling incest

Written for the AruEdo server Valentine’s Day exchange!

It was Ed's idea to sneak back into central command after hours, so they won't have to worry about waking up everyone in the neighboring hotel rooms.  Of course, Al isn't going to pass up this opportunity...

~~~~~~~~~~

Ed’s brother is a lot of things.  The world’s best little brother, of course.  That goes without saying.

He’s also beautiful.  This is an objective fact.  Ed can’t imagine anyone exists in the world who wouldn’t lose their breath when Al laughs, or smiles, or tilts his head in confusion.  His eyes are bright and soft, his hair shines, and he’s just so good it’s visible a mile off.

He’s kind.  He’s patient.  He’s generous.  Honestly, Ed could go on at some length about his brother’s virtues.

Under normal circumstances, that is.  Right now, though…

“You’re the worst,” Ed growls.

The effect is somewhat spoiled by how breathless he sounds, and Al muffles a laugh against the side of his neck.  Worse still, his hand stills where it had been rubbing against Ed’s crotch.  “Do you want me to stop?” he asks mildly.

Asshole.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Ed hisses, twisting his head so he can get his lips back on his brother’s.  Bucking his hips seems to get the message across, as Al’s fingers resume lazily teasing him through his pants.  The hard edge of the desk digs into the backs of his thighs, so he wraps his legs around Al’s waist before scooting backwards to a more comfortable position.

That has the added benefit of pulling Al in close, and oh his brother may feign indifference but the hard length pressing against his trousers says otherwise.  Ed manages to work his right hand down between their bodies to fumble at the buckle of Al’s belt, growling his frustration when he can’t get it undone with one hand.

“Patience,” Al breathes against his mouth, and makes a light little noise when Ed nips him in retaliation.

“Get on with it,” Ed retorts.  His voice cracks on him halfway through, and Al huffs a laugh.  He does relent and tug Ed’s pants down, somewhat hindered by Ed’s refusal to allow more than an inch of space between their bodies.  Really though, Ed lifts his hips up enough that they can be slid down his thighs, that’s all Al needs.

His boxers are probably soaked at this point, but Al still shoves his hand inside them as soon as he has the space to do so.  Ed’s breath hitches as Al’s long fingers tease either side of his entrance.  His body throbs, hips bucking involuntarily at the sensation.  He loses his leg-lock around Al’s body, thighs falling open to accommodate anything Al wants to do to him.

Instead Al pulls back from their kiss, and Ed doesn’t manage to stifle a noise that’s uncomfortably close to a whine. “What’re you—“

He’s not left disappointed for long, as Al drops to his knees in front of him.  He tugs Ed’s boxers down with him as he goes, and when he looks up his eyes are sparkling with mischief.  “Come on, Brother.  It’s not like we have to hurry tonight.”

“If we get caught I’m blaming—fuck!—I’m blaming you,” Ed gasps.  Of course Al chooses the moment he tries to speak to finally quit his teasing, leaning in and running his tongue between Ed’s folds and humming his approval at the taste.

Ed’s hands both clamp in Al’s hair, shoving his brother’s face against his crotch.  Al’s definitely smirking down there, but as long as he keeps his mouth busy he can gloat all he wants.  And that smooth-talking tongue is very, very good.  Al moans against him, eyes sliding shut contentedly as he settles in to eat Ed out.

Ed’s thighs twitch, quivering as he resists the urge to clamp them against the sides of Al’s head.  Instead he manages to guide Al’s attention up to the apex of his junk, to the point that makes his toes curl when his brother purses his lips and lightly sucks.

The first loud groan squeaks past his teeth before he can swallow it, and Ed bends an arm across his face to muffle the next noise.  Al makes a disappointed little sound, reaching up to tug at Ed’s fingers.  “Brother, it was your idea to do this here so we don’t have to worry about being overheard at the hotel.”

“I know, but—“

Al doesn’t let him finish, fingers plunging into him and tongue circling lightly around the hardness he’d been lavishing attention on before.  Ed cries out, back arching and his hands landing back on Al’s head.  The sudden penetration is rough, just shy of painful, and Ed revels in it.  “Fuck, Al—“

“That’s the plan,” Al murmurs, and how is he so damned articulate when he can’t possibly have more blood in his brain than Ed does?  Speaking of…

Ed tugs at Al’s arms, bucks his hips insistently.  “C’mon, you know I need more.”

“More?” Al asks innocently, flicking his tongue against Ed’s hardness and curling his fingers inside him.

“Yes!”

It takes shoving at his head before Al finally, reluctantly, releases him.  He licks his lips as he leans back, pink blotches burning high on his cheeks and eyes dark with lust, and Ed needs.

Al doesn’t even stand all the way up, instead pulling himself up the desk so he’s pressed tight against Ed’s body the whole way.  He catches Ed’s mouth, lips sticky and hot and soaked with Ed’s arousal, and his fingers finally join Ed’s in divesting himself of his pants.  Well, he has that under control, so Ed takes the moment to shuffle his own trousers down and off entirely.

He doesn’t get any time or space to breathe, Al kissing him open-mouthed and hungry even as he drops his pants to the ground and kicks them away.  His length rubs against the wetness between Ed’s legs, smearing slippery against Ed’s thigh when their rocking hips fall out of sync.

No matter how many times they do this, how many years Ed’s had to enjoy his brother’s return, that first heated contact is always overwhelming.  He locks his legs around Al’s back again, drawing him in, and pulls gasping away from their kiss when his lungs burn for air.  They pause, foreheads resting together, eyes locked, and Ed’s hit by such a wave of affection that it threatens to take his breath away again.

“Where do you want me tonight?  Front or back?” Al breathes at last.

He can’t possibly expect Ed to make decisions while his brother’s cock is twitching, throbbing eagerly right against his most sensitive bits.

“I don’t—anywhere, Al—“  The question makes his insides ache, needing Al now.  “Front, no lube.” “So practical,” Al teases, and Ed growls as he yanks him back into a kiss.

Unfortunately he has to loosen his grip on Al slightly, to allow him to draw back, align himself, and push forward with a mutual groan of relief.  Ed gasps at the stretch and slide, the emptiness finally, blissfully filled.  Al halts when their hips meet, breath shuddering against Ed’s lips.  Another long, suspended moment hangs between them, just feeling.

Ed is the one who loses patience, of course, rocking insistently against Al.  “You said you’d fuck me, now fuck me.”

He feels Al’s slow, wicked smile against his lips, and an anticipatory tingle runs down his spine.  Al kisses him sweetly, then straightens.  He keeps Ed down with a firm hand on his pelvis, the combined pressure inside and out making his toes curl.

“You’re the one who decided we should sneak in here, so we could be as loud as we want,” Al points out.  He draws his hips back and thrusts, almost lazily, and Ed bites down on his own lip.  “Dear Brother, I’m going to make you scream.”

***

It turns out the position of attaché to the fuhrer is not all that different from her previous job.  Including tagging along with her superior when he goes back to the office at midnight in search of a signed paper.

“Are you sure I left it in my desk?”

Not to mention the accompanying complaints.

“Your exact words were ‘they won’t actually ask for it, this is all a formality’, sir,” Riza says, staring straight ahead at the elevator doors.

By the time they reach to top floor he’s loudly patting at his pockets, as if the papers will appear and save him the twenty paces to his office.  She blames the noise for her distraction, for the way she doesn’t react until they’re almost outside the door—

A cry echoes down the corridor, and her gun is drawn in the split second it takes her to recognize the voice.  Mustang freezes beside her, hand raised and ready.

The next sound that reaches them is a full-on moan, and her cheeks flame.

“…I think the ambassador may have to wait until tomorrow,” Mustang says at last, strangled and pained.  “Clearly there is a security issue in my command center.  Lieutenant, please—deal with it.”

“A-ah!  Fuck!  Al!  Fuckfuckfuckfuck—yes!”

Riza risks a glance up at Roy’s scarlet face.  “Not on your life.  Sir.”

[konekowrites]

This one comes from a slightly more complex AU that I talked out with Kyler many moons ago.  In which Ed panicked just a little bit more and bound Al’s soul into his own body instead of the armor.  This particular ficlet takes place after they’ve restored Al’s body, but @kylermalloy wrote a fantastic little piece set while they’re literally living in each other’s heads, Dream a Little Dream of Me.  Everyone go check it out, and all her other fics!

Also trans!Al because I enjoy shamelessly projecting.

Written for the smut prompt “If we weren’t in public right now...”

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: E Warning: Sibling incest

Sometimes Ed wonders if they were ever actually meant to inhabit separate bodies. Then again, that would mean giving up the utter bliss that is the way Al feels around him, and that might be a difficult choice.

~~~~~~~~~~

It has been six days since Ed has been able to touch his brother.

Well, no, they touch each other all the time, hand in hand or sleeping against each other on a train seat or Al hooking his chin over Ed’s shoulder to read the book in his lap.  But they’d spent the last week trying to track down one of Bradley’s chimera specialists.  Which meant dashing from lead to lead, overnight train rides and days spent in libraries and laboratories.  They’ve been under the public eye constantly, and Ed can feel the ache building deep in his chest.  The empty space in his heart and his head that used to house Al’s soul throbs.

Al’s feeling the same way.  Ed wouldn’t characterize his brother as clingy, as a rule, but he certainly gets very tactile when he’s starting to fray around the edges.

While Al was technically in charge of this little adventure of theirs, Ed winds up delivering the verbal report to Mustang.  He’s not about to miss an opportunity to needle his former superior, and from the way Al hovers beside him with their arms just barely touching, Al isn’t up for answering questions.

“So in conclusion, we don’t have shit, the fucker disappeared into the south, and we’re taking a break from chasing him to get some rest,” Ed finishes, turning on his heel before Mustang has a chance to dismiss them and marching crisply out the door.  He can hear Al making half-hearted excuses before his footsteps hurry to catch up.

“I miss you,” Al whispers, his warm fingers finding Ed’s hand and squeezing.

Ed doesn’t say anything about the fact that they’ve been together continually for the past several weeks.  He knows full well that isn’t what Al means.  He glances over his shoulder to make sure they’re alone in the hallway before he tugs Al to a stop and brushes his fingers ever-so-light over chapped pink lips. “If we weren’t in public right now…” he breathes.

Al grabs his wrist and presses kisses to his fingertips, daringly bold for where they’re standing in the middle of East City command.  But Al’s eyes have gone unfocused in the way that means his brilliant little brother is thinking hard, and Ed shivers in anticipation.  Of course, he’s going to have to wait until they get checked into the hotel to find out what Al’s planning—

He almost loses his balance when Al sets off down the hall again, suddenly purposeful, towing Ed along behind him by the arm.  “Hang on, the stairs are over there—“

Al turns just long enough to press a finger to his lips, eyes sparkling with mischief, and Ed shuts up immediately.  They turn right at the end of the hall, then left down a dimly lit corridor.  Al’s pace has increased with each turn until they’re jogging, laughing breathlessly when they duck out of sight just before a door opens behind them.  Another turn—Ed isn’t even sure where they are at this point, but Al certainly seems to know where he’s going—and Al skids to a halt in front of a door that looks exactly like all the others they’ve passed.  He tries the knob, pushes it open, and bundles Ed in in front of him before he closes it firmly behind them.

It’s some mid-level bureaucrat’s office, though this one has dust sheets covering all the furniture and no name plate on the desk.  That’s all Ed has time to register before Al is pulling him into a searing, open-mouthed, desperate kiss.

Wondering how Al knew this was here can wait till later.  Because Ed’s entire being is thrilling to his brother’s proximity, his hands running down over Al’s shirt—always in so many layers, damn him—and yanking it out of where it was neatly tucked into his pants.  Al has already shoved Ed’s coat open but he stops to help Ed when he’s reduced to cursing at Al’s infernally complicated belt buckle.  It takes a team effort to get it loose, but then it’s a matter of seconds to yank Al’s pants and briefs down to his knees.

The speed at which his blood had rushed southwards has left Ed almost dizzy, and he’s caught at a vaguely painful angle in his own pants, but he has too many things to focus on to prioritize that.  Like balancing on his less-shaky automail while he uses his right foot to help kick Al’s trousers all the way off, then wedging his knee between Al’s thighs.  Al gasps into their kiss, hips bucking forward and shoving Ed back into the solid wood of the door.  His hands find Ed’s body again, scrabbling at the fastenings of his pants as well.

Ed moans when the pressure on his erection is released, but he’s more occupied with working his fingers up between Al’s legs, delighted to discover that Al is already absolutely dripping. A single finger slides up into him easily, both of them shuddering at the sensation.  It’s very nearly but not quite enough to satisfy the craving that’s rooted in his very soul, and it takes them down from the edge for a couple of seconds.

It’s long enough for Al to finally get Ed’s pants unfastened entirely, shoving them down just enough to free his hard length.  Ed gets them turned so Al’s back thumps into the door, rattling it on its hinges.  The wetness on his fingers smears across Al’s thigh as he slides his hands under Al’s buttocks, lifts just as Al hops up to hook his legs around Ed’s back.  Al weighs more than he does, discounting the automail, but between the leverage against the door and Al’s arms around his shoulders Ed can easily lift him.  It’s enough to get himself aligned and push forward and in—

There are no words to convey the relief of sinking into Al.  Sometimes Ed wonders if they were ever actually meant to inhabit separate bodies.  Then again, that would mean giving up the utter bliss that is the way Al feels around him, and that might be a difficult choice.  Al makes a noise somewhere between a moan and a contented little hum, tucking his face against the side of Ed’s neck.  His legs tighten, pulling their hips flush together.

It’s just enough, just enough to let him feel less lonely inside his own skin.  His thighs tremble, and his hands are occupied with supporting Al’s weight, so he can’t cling quite as close as he would like.  He settles for pressing Al between his body and the door, as if he could somehow merge them together by sheer force of will.  It doesn’t work, of course, just as it hadn’t the last hundred times he tried.

Al gives a little squeak as he’s smushed, his clutching hands starting to unravel Ed’s braid.  It shifts Ed inside him, and the elder’s hips give an involuntary little buck at the sensation.  “We can’t…can’t stay too long,” Al gasps, voice cracking.  “Need to feel you, Nii-san.”

Not that Ed’s going to last long anyway.  Not after a week’s forced abstinence and with the velvet wet heat of Al around him.  “I’ll make it up to you later,” he promises.

He can feel Al’s smile against his skin.  “I know you will.”

Then Al’s mouth is moving, teeth and tongue against his throat, and Ed whimpers as he starts to move in earnest.  The door clatters against its frame again, and they’re definitely going to get found out if anyone happens down this dusty hallway.  Especially given the desperate noises falling from Ed’s lips with each thrust.  Al doesn’t even try to shush him, just holding on and muffling his own breathy sounds into Ed’s coat.

The tension is coiling in his abdomen and upper thighs, winding tighter, white hot with pleasure.  Al finds his way up Ed’s neck to his ear, nibbles at the love.  “Love hearing you,” he whimpers.  “Love feeling you.  Love you—“

Ed turns his head, presses his face into the soft skin of Al’s neck.  “Can I?” he gasps, though he’s already rapidly approaching the point of no return.  “Al, can I?”

“Yes, Nii-san—“

There’s more that he says, whispered praise that Ed can’t parse because that tight-would spring wavers and snaps, his knees shaking through his climax.  His fingers are almost certainly leaving bruises on Al’s thighs, and the damp fabric of his pants chafes against sensitive skin, and all of it builds the sensation higher still.

He manages not to drop Al, though it’s a near thing.  They slide down the door in a kind of controlled fall, until he lands in a seated position with a thump.  Al laughs, still clinging tight around him.  “Better?” he asks, and Ed laughs breathlessly into his shoulder.

“Yeah, better,” he agrees, working his hands up Al’s shirt to press into the small of his back.  “Good enough to make it to the hotel at least.”

Al hums his agreement, shifting in Ed’s lap.  “We should get up soon, though, or else we’re actually going to end up stuck together,” he comments.

“Sounds good to me,” Ed mumbles, though he can already feel his clothes drying crusty against his overheated skin.  “‘Sorry, Mustang, no more wild goose chases, my brother’s dick is stuck in my—‘“

“Gross!” Al laughs as he squirms away, though his legs are just as wobbly when he clambers to his feet.

Ed tips over onto his back, still trying to catch his breath.  He can already feel that emptiness building again, the gaps like his soul can’t quite stretch to fill his own body.  Maybe that’s part of his penance.  Maybe one day he’ll relearn how to live without Al bound up in his body and mind.  Either way—

“C’mon, get up.”  Al nudges him with a toe, already redressed.  “Let’s get to the hotel, and a shower, and a bed.”

“Fine, fine.”  Peeling his lax body off the floorboards is more work than it has any right to be, but anything is worth it for the way Al kisses him when he’s finally upright.

[konekowrites]

I love writing dom!Al and I don’t get to let him out to play nearly as often as I’d like.

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: E Warning: Sibling incest

Written for the smut prompt “Get back down here, we’re not done yet.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Ed isn’t very good at things like self-control.  Which isn’t an issue, since Al—infuriatingly calm, poised, lovely Al—has enough self-control for the both of them.  And Al is wonderfully willing to extend that control to his wild, impetuous older brother.  To pin him down and make him forget everything but Al’s name, tie him up tight when he otherwise would fly apart at the seams.

Just sometimes, though, Ed decides that enough is enough.  What kind of older brother would he be if he let Al have his own way all the time?

The fact that these little rebellions still end with Ed well-fucked and spent—well, it’s all part of the fun.

Today he’s absolutely not going to let Al have the upper hand back.  No matter how good it feels with Al inside him, when he raises himself on trembling thighs until Al almost slips out, then drops his weight back down so their bed creaks underneath them both.  All it gets him from Al is a shaking exhale, Al’s hands lifting from the blanket like he wants to grab Ed’s hips—

“No touching,” Ed reminds him, rocking slightly as he adjusts to the feeling. Al lets out a frustrated little huff, fingers tangling in the pillowcase beside his own head.  Ed leans forward, clasping Al’s hands in his own and kissing his brother deeply as he finds the angle that won’t have him overwhelmed in seconds.  Once he’s there, though, he lifts up again, starts to build a rhythm as he bounces in Al’s lap, rides it as Al groans and thrusts up against him.

He clings to his own control with everything he has, refusing to think too hard about the pleasure that ricochets up his spine with every motion.  Al is panting harshly against his mouth, meeting Ed with rolls of his hips that threaten to distract him from his goal.  The problem is he knows just how good it would feel, to sit up straighter and let Al find that spot that would flood him with white hot pleasure—

“Fuck,” he hisses against Al’s lips.  Lips that curl into a little smile even as Al tries to coax him back into a kiss.  He thinks he’s winning, the little asshole.

Ed pauses, swallows Al’s questioning little noise while he considers his options.  It’s hard to think, his whole body quivering with need, but…

He tucks his shoulder and rolls, taking Al with him so he ends up on his back with Al scrambling to try to lift his weight off Ed’s chest.  “H-hey, Ed—“

“Al?” he asks, wrapping his legs around Al’s waist and arching his back.  Al whimpers, hips twitching, but it doesn’t seem he’s figured out exactly what Ed is up to yet.  Maybe he thinks he’s the only one who can play dirty.  Ed presses his face against Al’s shoulder, breathes in his ear, “Al, hard, please.”

Al gasps as he complies, hooking his arms under Ed’s knees and practically folding him in half with the force of his thrusts.  The cool metal of his automail presses into his left side, warming to the heat of their skin.  Ed hangs on, moaning, then turns to mouth at Al’s neck.  Al likes it when he asks nicely, and likes it even more if—

Ed lets his head fall back, makes no attempt to muffle the desperate noises that fall from his lips.  “Plea-please, Al, please, I want you to—fuck, please—“

He feels the instant that Al snaps, that his focus turns from Ed’s pleasure to his own.  His voice breaks on a rough sound before he catches Ed in a harsh kiss that’s as much bite as anything else.  He pushes Ed’s knees to his chest, thrusts speeding up until he stiffens, gasping out his climax.

Ed keeps his arms wrapped tight around his brother, rides it out as long as he can.  But when Al finally collapses against him, panting and limp, he realizes the downside to this plan.  He’s close, almost painfully so, but when he tries to roll his hips to chase the sensation Al flinches.

“Sorry, sorry, too much,” Al gasps, pulling out of him.

Ed squirms at the loss, but releases his grip so Al can roll off him.  He’s…well, on second thought, he’s not all that disappointed.  Despite the arousal simmering under his skin he’s delightfully sore, and Al is still trying to catch his breath against his shoulder.  The point had been to wreck his brother the way Al does to him with alarming regularity, and it would seem he succeeded.

He grins, rolls over to face Al and presses a kiss against Al’s forehead.  Al sighs as he tilts his head to make it a real kiss.  “That was cheating, Nii-san.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ed replies archly.

Al mumbles something, letting his head fall to the pillow.  Ed sits up, stretching his legs to make sure his hips are still working after all the bending he’d just done.  Which draws attention to the fact that he should probably clean himself up before he winds up with a wet spot on the blanket.

He doesn’t even make it off the bed before Al catches his wrist.

“Where do you think you’re going?”  For someone who appeared to be falling asleep less than a minute ago, his grip is surprisingly strong.  “Get back down here, we’re not done yet.”

He hauls Ed back in, despite his protests.  Though when Ed finally gets to come, what feels like an eternity later, with Al’s mouth around him and Al’s fingers inside him—well, he’s not really complaining.

[konekowrites]

I’m finally getting around to posting a collection of disconnected ficlets that have been just gathering dust in my evernote for a couple years.  Most are smut, some are scenes from AUs that are never going to be expanded, all are Elricest.

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: M Warnings: Sibling incest, (technically) underage

What better way for Al to reacquaint himself with his senses than indulging in everything about his brother?

Written for the smut prompt “I should probably care about why you’re naked in my bed, but I’ll just enjoy it for a moment.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It takes a while before Ed is willing to leave Al alone for any length of time.  Even after he’s discharged from the hospital, several weeks after he got his body back, Ed lurks around their shared hotel room day and night.  Eventually he’s forced to leave, because evidently even the savior of Amestris can’t escape the paperwork that comes with leaving the military.

When he returns several hours later to discover that Al has not keeled over dead in his absence, he finally relaxes a bit.  While Al is pretty much stuck in the room—he can at least walk to the bathroom by himself now, which is a relief—Ed can fetch food and books from around the city.  It ensures that neither of them will get bored with the bland fare on offer in a military hotel.

And if Al might send Ed out in search of obscure texts more often than he really needs to?  Well, no one can prove anything.

“You know Falcius was an idiot, right?” Ed asks skeptically, even as he pulls his boots on.  “If I can even find a copy of his treatise it’s going to be full of bullshit.”

“A different perspective is always important,” Al says primly, twisting his hands under the sheets, out of sight.  “If it’s too much trouble—“

“No, no, I’ve got it, I’m just warning you that it’s gonna be useless,” Ed says hurriedly, standing up and grabbing his book bag from the chair by the door.  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Uh huh.”  Probably not.  He’s going to have to check at least three libraries to find that book, and he’s too stubborn to quit once he realizes just how rare it is.  Al’s just bought himself at least an hour and a half alone.

He waits for Ed’s footsteps to fade down the hallway before he shimmies out from under the blankets.

First thing is to get rid of the clothes; even pajamas are overwhelming against his delicate, unfamiliar skin.  He knows Ed probably wouldn’t care if he went nude, but he’s supposed to be trying to get used to these sensations again.  Not to mention the…other issue.

He uses the bedside tables for balance as he scoots across the gap between the beds, more out of caution than necessity at this point.  And then he can finally—finally!—tumble headlong into Ed’s rumpled bedding.

He’d missed touch, of course.  Touch and taste were the things he’d most obviously missed out on for too many years.  However, now that he’s back, he’s discovered another delightful sense that had been lacking.

Scent.

He rolls himself up in the sheets, yanks the pillow down against his chest, tucks his nose into it, and just breathes.  He can smell Ed’s shampoo, cheap stuff that’s sharp with rosemary and musky with sandlewood.  There’s also sweat, and the hot-metal tang that still clings to his automail leg.  The first couple times he’d done this he could also smell the bandages, the acrid disinfectant hospital stink of them tainting Ed’s smell.  Now, though, all that’s left is Ed, and he revels in it.

At some point he’ll have to stop, he knows.  This isn’t exactly normal, sneaking into his older brother’s bed and wriggling around in his scent like a cat in heat.  But right now all of it is new and sweet and hot and—he’s getting aroused again, just from the tantalizing sniff of Ed and the drag of fabric over his sensitive skin.  It’s happened before, and he’s always slunk ashamedly into the bathroom to deal with it.  But surely, surely just a little bit of indulgence couldn’t hurt?

He kicks the blankets off before he slips one hand down to touch himself, muffling his moan into Ed’s pillow.  Here, surrounded by the smell of Ed, his own long hair brushing against his shoulders and bare arms, it’s so easy to fall into the fantasy.  He rolls his hips, shudders, imagines that instead of the pillow in his arms he’s wrapped around his brother.

Ed is adorably shy about these newly discovered functions of Al’s body.  He’d turned an interesting shade of tomato red when he’d asked Al if he needs to have The Talk now that he’s back, or if he can work it out himself.  Al sometimes wonders what might have happened if he’d actually taken Ed up on that offer.  Maybe instead of Ed’s bedding he’d be getting off against his brother, panted hot breaths against his neck and fingers shorter and more calloused than his own gripping him.

Al groans, rolling onto his back, legs falling wide to accommodate the fantasy of Ed pressed up against him.  The movement stirs up that intoxicating scent again, dizzy and salt-sweat on the roof of his mouth.  He’s already breathless and tingling, he should move before he makes a mess in Ed’s sheets, but the sensations are so intense that he can’t imagine stopping.  “A-ah, Nii-san—!”

“Forgot my coat, and the second branch doesn’t have it, so—“

Whatever force it is that governs the universe has apparently decided to cut Al some slack, because the door falls shut on its own before Ed spots what he’s up to and freezes.  Al’s eyes had snapped open at the sound of his brother’s voice, but he keeps them fixed on the ceiling.  His heartbeat pounds in his ears, deafening and distracting, as he casts around desperately for some excuse…

“Huh.”

Well, Ed isn’t yelling or storming out, that’s probably a good sign, right?  Al squeezes his eyes shut again, finally regaining enough control to roll so his back is to the door.  “You weren’t supposed to come back yet.”

He jumps when the side of the bed dips under Ed’s weight; he hadn’t even heard Ed’s footsteps.  “I know I should probably care about the reason why you’re naked in my bed,” Ed says conversationally.

Al squirms and whimpers, both hands covering himself as he pants.  And then Ed leans down until his breath is hot against the back of Al’s shoulder.  “But maybe I’ll just enjoy it for a moment.  Especially if you want some company—?”

[konekowrites]

Me? Participating in a fandom event?  It’s more likely than you think!  For Day 3 of the AruAni week over on Twitter.  Prompt: Domestic

I am contrary and while all the AruAni kids being written/drawn for this prompt are adorable, I like to project my childfree choices on my faves.

Fandom: Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin Pairing: Annie Leonhart/Armin Arlert Rating: M Warnings: No warnings apply

Armin and Annie wake up on a lazy morning, years after the battle of heaven and earth. Unfortunately they won't get to enjoy their domestic bliss for very long.

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie swims up out of sleep slowly, a rarity even after so many years of peace.  This morning is particularly quiet, save for the birdsong drifting through the barely-open window.

She doesn’t bother to open her eyes, instead rolling over and wriggling further under the soft blankets.  From the sunlight that warms her skin it’s already mid-morning, but there’s nothing she has to do today.  She’ll just stay in bed until—

There’s a quiet laugh beside her, then a hand running lightly through her hair.  “Good morning.”

She scrunches up her nose, because even her husband’s voice is unwelcome when she could be sinking back to sleep instead.  “Why’re you awake?”

Armin’s hand runs down her neck, curled fingers brushing her cheek.  “I found a book to read.”

“Of course you did,” she mumbles.  Cracking open one eye reveals that he’s at least rejoined her between the sheets, book in one hand as the other twirls the ends of her hair.

And when he sees her looking his face lights up in that silly, lovely smile that he seems to reserve for her alone.  “Hey there, beautiful.”

She grunts, but still scoots against his side and slides her hand across his bare chest.  He’s warm—he always runs warmer than her—and she loves the way his skin feels under her fingertips.

Wordlessly craning her head back, she’s rewarded with a laugh that shakes the ribs beneath her palm.  He still leans down and kisses her, soft and sweet.  Apparently he’d made coffee on his book-finding excursion, given how much he tastes like it.  Probably drunk black, since he seems to enjoy the bitter taste that makes her gag.  On his lips, though, she’ll tolerate it.

Without conscious thought she follows his mouth, rolling to her side and slinging one leg across his thighs.  Yes, he’d definitely had coffee, and there’s something else under it—

“You were sneaking strawberries in the kitchen, weren’t you?” she accuses.

“I admit nothing,” he laughs.

She’s not particularly inclined to pursue the subject, not when he kisses her again, and this time both hands close around her waist.  His palms are hot against her skin, sneaking up under her oversized t-shirt.

Well, if she has to be awake anyway…

Annie arches into the touch, her stomach brushing his and their legs entangling further.  She feels the answering stir of his interest against her thigh.  So gratifying, after all these years.  Never once had she questioned his desire for her, not when a simple kiss can get him going.

She smiles into the continued slow presses of their lips, then nips lightly at his bottom one.  This gets her a hiss, his hips twitching forward.

“You’re energetic this morning,” he whispers.

She growls, trying to catch his mouth again.  When he teasingly leans away she attacks his neck instead, kissing and nipping at the skin within her reach.  He exhales shakily, fingers dipping below her waistband to caress the tops of her hipbones.

“I think we have a few minutes before we’re expected to get up,” he breathes.  “Do you want to—?”

She pulls away to narrow her eyes at him.  “What do you think I’m trying to do over here?”

He laughs, and she can’t help but smile.  And then gasp as he tugs her shirt up over her head in one smooth motion.  It causes her loose hair to fall forward, into her eyes, and she shakes it away impatiently.  When she can see again he’s already there to meet her, hands closing gently over her breasts even as he nibbles at her earlobe.  “I’m not the only one who’s eager,” she says, reveling in the way he grinds his hips against hers with a helpless groan.

“Can’t help it, I love you.”

She pushes further, rolling him all the way onto his back so she can straddle him.  She’s distantly aware of a thump as his forgotten book slides off the bed to the floor.  She’s just started to work his loose pants down his hips when—

Bang!

Thankfully it takes the intruder a couple tries to grasp the concept of the doorknob, since it gives Annie time to dive beneath the blankets and Armin time to yank a pillow over his lap.  None too soon, as the door bursts open a bare second later.

“Uncle-Armin-uncle-Armin-uncle-Armin!”

Annie draws her feet up right before the over-excited child lands on them.

“Daddy says—daddy says it’s time for breakfast.  And to tell you to quit!  Reading!”

It’s probably meant as a stern admonishment, but some of the imperiousness is lost when it’s delivered with a toddler’s slight lisp.

“Well, we don’t want to miss breakfast,” Armin says, and she can hear the barely-contained laughter in his voice.  “Tell your daddy we’re coming.  And say good morning to aunt Annie.”

“G’mornin’ aunt Annie,” the child parrots obediently.

Annie sticks a hand out from her hiding place to wave, which seems to be acceptable.

“Okay, I go wake up uncle Jean now,” their visitor announces, bounding off their bed with just as much enthusiasm as he’d arrived.

“Please close the door!  Thank you, Nicky,” Armin calls after him.

With another bang, they’re left alone.

“Are you sure I can’t strangle Connie?” Annie mutters from beneath the blanket.  “Sending his spawn in to wake us up…”

Armin laughs, patting her shoulder through the fabric.  “I’ll let you at him the next time he asks when we’re going to have our own.”

“Good,” she grunts.  Since it was her pillow he’d snatched to cover himself, staying in bed is no longer nearly so comfortable an option.  With a sigh she sticks a hand out from her sanctuary.  “Hand me my shirt.”

He does so, then yanks the covers down.  “Hey again.”

She peers up at him, unimpressed, until he leans over to plant little kisses on her cheeks and nose.

“Three more days, then we’ll be back home where the mornings are quieter.”

“And we can have morning sex whenever we want,” she adds drily.

“That too,” he agrees amicably, nuzzling his nose against her cheek until she giggles.  “I love you so much, Annie.”

Once that statement would have terrified her.  Before that, she simply wouldn’t have believed him.  But Annie is capable of learning, no matter what some might say.  Even if it takes years of unwavering devotion for it to really sink in.

“I love you too,” she whispers, kissing his sweet smile.

[konekowrites]

Once again I disappear for months on end only to turn up with the most self-indulgent smut you’ve ever read.

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood) Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: Explicit Warnings: Sibling Incest

“After a moment Winry gives a loud snore, apparently rolls over, and the measured pace of her breathing resumes.

Ed relaxes fractionally, but Al is still stiff and shaking with tension over him. He leans down so his lips brush Ed’s ear, whispers so quiet even Ed can barely hear him—“Please, I need you.””

~~~~~~~~~~

The first thing Ed registers is heat.  It’s far more than a blanket could provide, pressing thick around and above him.  The next sensation is weight, centered over his waist and pushing him down into the mattress.

Finally, sound.  The light hiss of breath between clenched teeth, the rustle of blankets and clothes as he finds himself abruptly not alone in his bed.

There is no moment of confusion; whether it’s by scent or sound or something as deep as his soul itself, he knows exactly who is wriggling under his blankets with him.

“Whazzit, Al?” he mumbles, working his arms around Al’s waist and nuzzling into his neck.  If Al wants to sleep in his bed he’s not going to complain about it.  He can hear Winry breathing deep and even in the next room over, snorting on every third inhale.  He waits for Al to settle, to stop rustling and panting in his ear.  To stop shivering…

Shivering?

Read the rest on AO3 ->

[konekowrites]

Up to $20 with just over an hour left!

Hi everyone!

I’ve been a bit quiet (a lot quiet) thanks to work, but I’m thrilled to be participating in the Fandom Trumps Hate auction this year!  Donate to a worthy cause and to thank you I will make all your FMA fanfic dreams come true! Well, 5-10k words of them at least.  Check out my offering post for details.

You can browse my AO3 here, or just scroll through this blog.  Bids start at a mere $5!  If you don’t feel the need to shop around and just want some sweet and wholesome brother lovin’ then head over to my bidding form (as of now there aren’t any bids yet, but check here to see the current high bid)!

All of the nonprofits on the list are doing incredibly important work, along with the @fandomtrumpshate team.  Lets raise some money for good!

[konekowrites]

Only one bid of $5, guys, you can get a long fanfic for cheap here!

Hi everyone!

I’ve been a bit quiet (a lot quiet) thanks to work, but I’m thrilled to be participating in the Fandom Trumps Hate auction this year!  Donate to a worthy cause and to thank you I will make all your FMA fanfic dreams come true! Well, 5-10k words of them at least.  Check out my offering post for details.

You can browse my AO3 here, or just scroll through this blog.  Bids start at a mere $5!  If you don’t feel the need to shop around and just want some sweet and wholesome brother lovin’ then head over to my bidding form (as of now there aren’t any bids yet, but check here to see the current high bid)!

All of the nonprofits on the list are doing incredibly important work, along with the @fandomtrumpshate team.  Lets raise some money for good!

[konekowrites]

Hi everyone!

I’ve been a bit quiet (a lot quiet) thanks to work, but I’m thrilled to be participating in the Fandom Trumps Hate auction this year!  Donate to a worthy cause and to thank you I will make all your FMA fanfic dreams come true! Well, 5-10k words of them at least.  Check out my offering post for details.

You can browse my AO3 here, or just scroll through this blog.  Bids start at a mere $5!  If you don’t feel the need to shop around and just want some sweet and wholesome brother lovin’ then head over to my bidding form (as of now there aren’t any bids yet, but check here to see the current high bid)!

All of the nonprofits on the list are doing incredibly important work, along with the @fandomtrumpshate team.  Lets raise some money for good!

[konekowrites]

My gift for @tsubasa92 for the AruEdo discord secret santa exchange!

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: T Warnings: Sibling incest

~~~~~~~~~~

Al has always been good at gifts.  From the time they were little, when he presented Ed with the first tiny bird he’d successfully transmuted, he always seemed to instinctively know what Ed wanted or needed the most.  Sure, for the last few years it’s mostly been practical. A new coat after he’d singed his old one beyond any hope of repair, or the good oil for his automail when he’d left his on a train station bench.  That sort of thing.

And for the same period, he suddenly realizes he hasn’t given Al anything.  Celebrating birthdays and holidays had kind of fallen by the wayside.  Given that Al couldn’t eat sweets or really enjoy his gifts, parties seemed like rubbing salt in the wound.  So the first year that Al didn’t bring it up, Ed didn’t either.  He let Al sit with whatever thoughts were hidden behind the red soul-lights in the helmet, and didn’t push it.

That was four years ago.  Now he’s sitting in the Rockbell’s cozy kitchen, across the table from his little brother (his beautiful, sweet, restored little brother) with absolutely no idea what he’s going to do about the upcoming holiday.

“You’re making the face again."

He twitches, focuses back on Al.  Wide gold eyes are fixed on him, giving the unsettling impression that Al can read his mind.  Which is something he can’t do, Ed is sure of that.  Surely some of his thoughts would merit comment, if Al actually could hear or see them...

“I’m not making a face.  Eat your breakfast,” he says, looking away from that far-too-sharp gaze.

Al raises an eyebrow at him, and very deliberately takes a bite of oatmeal.  “Now tell me what you’re thinking about,” he retorts, as soon as he swallows.

Ed opens his mouth, fully prepared to snark back at his brother, before he changes his mind.  There’s a time and a place for pride, and this isn’t it.

“What do you want?” he asks abruptly.

Al blinks at him, perplexed. “Um. You mean...in general? Because that’s a very open-ended question.”

“No! I mean, for Christmas,” Ed clarifies. “In general, too, but mainly for Christmas.”

“Oh.” A very strange expression crosses Al’s face. He seems to drift away for just a second, and his cheeks go pink.

Ed waits for a moment, to see if Al is going to come back from wherever he’s gone in his head, before he pointedly clears his throat.

This time it’s Al’s turn to startle, to look guiltily at his brother.  “I don’t really know what I want.  You know I don’t need anything more.” Wow, Ed thought his brother was a bad liar when he was in the armor.  He’s even worse now that he has a face to go red, eyes that light on Ed’s face for just a second before he looks down and away.  "Just being back is enough."

“You definitely just thought of something,” Ed says suspiciously.  “You can tell me what it is.  If it’s something big, you know that’s fine."

“It’s nothing,” Al insists, suddenly very interested in the oatmeal in his bowl.  He busies himself with stirring in a frankly obscene amount of sugar and cream, on top of what he’d added earlier.  Ed wrinkles his nose, resists the urge to comment on it.

Al tastes his creation, hums his approval, and then looks up to discover that Ed is still watching him.  “It’s nothing!” he repeats.  “Really.  I just thought…nothing, really."

“You know you’re going to tell me eventually,” Ed says, folding his arms.  “You might as well get it over with now."

“Brother."

He shouldn’t enjoy that tone as much as he does.  The exasperation that fails to mask something warm and light.  He’s not going to be distracted, no matter how much he wishes he could just enjoy the way Al’s face pinches up when he’s annoyed.  “Tell me, and I’ll leave you alone."

“Are you two bickering already?” Winry yawns, rubbing a fist into one eye as she shuffles into the kitchen.  “It’s too early for that."

“Good morning to you too,” Al says brightly, laughing at the unimpressed face she shoots him.  “Ed made coffee."

“Ed makes bad coffee,” Winry mutters, even as she pours herself a cup.

He doesn’t dignify that with a response.  Never let it be said that he hasn’t grown up over the last few years.  Instead he turns back to Al.  “Tell me."

“Fine.”  Al sighs, picks up his cup of tea and mumbles into the rim of it.  “I just…I just want Christmas this year.  I want to decorate, and have a big dinner all together.  I want Winry to make apple pie for it."

“You do not blush over apple pie,” Ed grumbles, but he’s too late.

“Of course I’ll make pie,” Winry says, perking up considerably.  “Granny’s already planning on picking up a big ham from the butcher.  We can make all your favorites, Al!"

Well, it looks like he’ll have to drop the subject anyway.  He can’t seem to bring himself to ask again, not when Al’s face lights up at Winry’s words.

***

“If you won’t tell me what you want, then I’m not getting you a gift."

Ed fully expected that to garner him an eye roll, possibly a sigh.  He was not expecting Al to laugh at him.  “I told you,” Al says, lolling his head back against the arm of the couch to look at Ed upside down.  “Just being back is all I could ever ask for."

“Ugh, why are you being so difficult,” Ed mutters, which somehow only serves to make Al giggle harder.

His laugh is contagious, and Ed can’t help his smile.  “Come on, you know I’m hopeless with this.  Help me."

“No, it’s more fun to watch you suffer."

Ed growls, wanders over to lean on the couch and eye the book that Al has open on his lap.  “I’m going to get you boring Xingese learning primers."

“Whatever you say, Brother,” Al says, going back to his reading.

***

“Give me a hint, at least."

Ed isn’t whining.  He’s not.  His voice might have gotten just a little bit high pitched there, but come on.  He has two days to figure out what Al wants.

Al blinks up at him, tousled hair and sleepy eyes.  It’s honestly pretty adorable how he always gets sleepy right after the sun goes down.  Of course, that means he gets up before the sun does, in the winter, something Ed has never understood.

It’s almost worth getting up early enough to see the sun rise, to see the way Al closes his eyes and smiles to feel the first rays on his face.  Almost, but not enough to persuade Ed to give up his late nights.  And yet Al sits up with him fairly often, smothering yawns behind his hand while he debates the merits of different alchemical texts.

Which was what they’d been doing, right up until Ed remembered just how close the holiday is, and the fact that he still doesn’t know what he’s going to do for a gift.

Al yawns hugely, apparently too tired and too distracted even to cover his mouth.  “I don’t know,” he mumbles, half-draped over the arm of the couch, the fingers of his left hand dangling almost to the floor.  “I want you."

Ed’s heart gives a shaky little thud, even though he knows that Al couldn’t mean…what Ed desperately wants him to mean.  “What, should I get Winry to tie a bow around my head?” he teases, tossing a pencil across the room.  It misses, bouncing off the cushion above Al’s head and clattering into the space between the couch and the wall.

“Very funny,” Al says, and now Ed gets an eye roll from him.  “I just want…you.  Here with me.  Arguing with me about alchemy and making faces at my food and trying to tell me that I snore."

“You do snore,” Ed informs him.  He does—little whistle-y noises that Ed didn’t realize he'd missed until he’d been able to fall asleep to them again.  He looks away, focuses on the coals glowing red in the fireplace.  “You already have me, anyway,” he says, quiet.  “I’m not going anywhere."

“I know that, it’s just…never mind.”  Al sighs, lays his head down on his upper arm.  “I want mistletoe,” he says, almost dreamily.  “I want to hang mistletoe in the house this year."

His immediate, reflexive response is to refuse.  He doesn’t think he can stand the thought of Al kissing someone in the doorways of their house.  It makes his stomach do a nasty little backflip-twist.

Who is Al even expecting to kiss, anyway?  Winry?  That seems…strange, when Ed has never noticed any real interest between the two of them.  Maybe he’s been too distracted by his own feelings to pick up on things.

Speaking of his feelings, he can’t very well say no.  How exactly would that conversation go?  ‘Sorry, Al, I want to kiss you, so I threw a tantrum at the thought of you kissing anyone else and now you’re stuck with me?’  Right.

“Mistletoe it is, then,” Ed says, successfully lightening his tone until it doesn’t sound like he’s choking on his words.

Al smiles, and Ed looks away before he does anything stupid.  Like kiss his brother himself.

***

Snow is a rarity in Resembool, but every few years a storm does hit.  The last time there had been anything more than a light dusting had been that memorable time during their childhood.  Ed doesn’t remember a single time that they’ve had a white Christmas.

So it’s a surprise when Al wakes him up early on Christmas Eve, his eyes alight with childish joy, and all of their winter gear bundled in his arms.  And because Ed could never deny his brother anything, he shrugs into a sweater, a coat, multiple layers of pants, and gloves.  Al tugs him out the door, straight into the still lightly-falling snow.

“It’s beautiful,” Al exclaims, arms wrapped tight around one of Ed’s—the right one, the restored one—to pull his brother off the porch and down the path.  He reaches the road, and turns those brights eyes on Ed…and flops backward directly into a snowdrift.

Ed can’t help the worry that clutches at his throat for a split second; it’s been almost a year since Al got his body back, and he’s nowhere near as delicate as he’d been at the beginning.  And now he grins up at Ed from the ground, snow crusting on his hat and melting on his red cheeks, and it’s something very different that makes Ed’s heart thud inside his chest.

“Make a snow angel with me,” Al demands, reaching up to tug Ed down into the snow too.

Ed sputters as he stumbles and winds up with a mouthful of the stuff, but he doesn’t really mind.  It’s too deep and too wet to really make proper snow angels, since as soon as they move their limbs the heavy ice just collapses into the void they’d just made.  After a few seconds of flailing and breathless laughter they stop, panting.

The snowflakes drifting down from the bright sky are chilly on Ed’s cheeks and find the gap where his scarf doesn’t completely cover his neck.  He can hear Al’s breath from just beside him, and then gloved fingers close around his own.

“Brother?”

He turns his head, meets Al’s shining eyes.  There’s a small smile on Al’s lips, something soft and aching.

“Thank you."

It takes him a second to come up with a retort, thoroughly distracted by the snow that clings to the ends of Al’s hair where it has escaped from his hat.  “I’m glad you’re finally recognizing my talent for controlling the weather,” he says, squeezing Al’s hand.

“Why are you like this?” Al laughs, sitting up and scooping up a handful of snow from his other side.

Ed manages to bat his hand away before Al can fling the snow in his face, but it requires letting go of Al’s other hand.  Al proceeds immediately to grab a snowball and tries to shove it down Ed’s shirt collar.

“Oh, it’s on!”

There’s no technique in the tackle, Ed just flings his full weight at his brother and sends them both rolling through the snow.  Al squeals, grappling with his thick coat and using their momentum to roll them further.  There’s probably more snow going down both their collars, and one of Ed’s pant legs is riding up so ice works its way both into his pants and into his shoe.  They come to rest with Al on top, though he’s laughing too hard to effectively pin Ed’s hands.  Ed manages to get a handful of snow stuffed inside his coat before Al catches his wrists.

They’re both panting, red, and Ed isn’t sure if he’s ever felt this happy in his life.  It can’t possibly be healthy, this balloon that swells in his chest and feels like it’s crushing his heart and lungs out of its way. 

Al’s smile falters, and for just a second he has the same look on his face as a week ago.  When Ed had asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he refused to answer.  Before Ed can ask, he suddenly leans down—a maneuver that does nothing for Ed’s already-high heart rate—and rests his forehead against Ed’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Brother."

Ed can’t come up with a response.  What he wants to do is reach up, wrap his arms around Al’s back and hold him tight.  Or kiss away the snowflakes that cling to Al’s lashes. Or kiss those lips that look so soft—

Al shudders, and apparently can’t hold back his shivers for another second.  His teeth start chattering right next to Ed’s ear, and that’s exactly what he needs to shake himself out of his daze.

“You’re going to get sick!  Get off me, we’re going in."

Al protests half-heartedly, but he most likely has snow melt dribbling down the back of his neck, same as Ed.  He still chooses to roll off of Ed and let his brother haul him to his feet, rather than getting up himself.  And once he’s up he doesn’t let go of Ed’s hand for the walk back to the house.

Stripping off their soaked outer layers at the door helps, yet Al’s chattering teeth only get louder with each wet garment peeled off.  Ed means to bundle him into the living room and get a fire started in the hearth, but Al tugs him to a halt in the doorway.

“Oh, Winry found some,” he breathes, looking up.

Ed looks up too and—oh.  He’s seen mistletoe hung up in hotel hallways by pranksters, back in Central.  He hadn’t done much more than shudder at the time, scampered under it to make sure he couldn’t be caught and taunted.  Now, though, his eyes drop to Al’s face, right in front of him...

“Oops,” Al whispers, looking away.  “Winry didn’t see, you don’t have to—"

Ed slides his hands up to cup Al’s cheeks, pulls him in and presses their lips together.  Al squeaks, but he doesn’t hesitate a moment to kiss back.  Ed inhales sharply when Al’s lips part, his mouth searing compared to the chill of his skin, and his hands find Ed’s hair and tug.  It drags a groan from somewhere deep in his chest, and he pushes into the kiss even harder.

Al makes another noise, a huffed little breath, when his back hits the doorjamb.  He doesn’t stop, though, teeth closing on Ed’s lip for just a second.  Ed’s breath hitches, and he braces one hand against the wall behind Al’s head when his knees go weak—

“Did you two get lost or—oh."

He jumps away from his brother, winds up smacking into the other side of the door frame hard enough to knock himself breathless.  Well, that might have just been from the kiss, come to think of it.  Al looks delightfully disheveled, leaning heavily back into the wood, all panting pinkened lips and lidded eyes.  Utterly irresistible.

Winry clears her throat from the living room, and both of them jump.  She’s rubbing one hand across her eyes, looking endlessly exasperated, but not at all surprised.

“You know, anyone but you two might have realized that if you want to be subtle, you could just kiss each other on the cheek,” she sighs, turning back to the piece of automail she has laid out across the coffee table in front of the crackling fire.  “Or just snog each other in the middle of the hallway, that’s fine too."

That’s…not quite the reaction Ed had been expecting.  Al looks just as nonplussed as he feels, when they glance at each other before both looking back at Winry.

“Um,” Al begins, but doesn’t seem sure where to go from there.

When he doesn’t continue Winry looks up, looking between both of them where they’re still frozen, and groans.  “Look, I’m glad you finally figured yourselves out, because I don’t think I could take any more of your pining.  But please, get a room."

Well, if she’s suggesting it...

“You know, we could probably warm up upstairs,” Ed comments slowly.

Al’s eyes are alight with the same mischief as before, as he grabs Ed’s hand and tugs him towards the stairs.

[konekowrites]

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: T Warnings: Sibling incest

Written for the FMA 60 minutes challenge on Twitter.  This week’s theme was “Alternate Universe”.  I’m doing my occasional reread of the Bartimaeus Trilogy and this AU has been kicking around in my head for several weeks, but this was the perfect opportunity to actually write a scene for it.

Basic summary: I'm thinking that after Trisha's death Al was taken as a magician's apprentice. He remembers his birth name but not much else. Ed pissed off the wrong magician and while he lost his arm and leg, he should have been much worse off. That's how he discovered that he has some resilience against magic, and wound up part of the fledgling resistance movement. Al got shuffled into city level law enforcement position because while he would rather research spirits and the Other Place he is prodigiously talented and was causing some worry for the higher ups. Which is where he met this fascinating golden-eyed resistance fighter, and he can't help being drawn to him...

~~~~~~~~~~

Al glances uneasily at the vigilance sphere hovering conspicuously over the entrance to the backstreet pub, red glow illuminating the doorposts with bloody light.

“Ignore it,” Edward tells him, stepping forward confidently.  “They like to hover out here to intimidate us, but I don’t think that one even works.  It’s never done anything before.”

Al looks at him skeptically, but allows himself to be tugged forward.  Until the sphere lets out a pulse on the second plane, a subtle crimson burst that isn’t visible to any of the many patrons passing underneath it.

“I don’t know about before, but it definitely did something just now,” he informs his companion, pulling right back.

The change is immediate, Edward not even questioning the statement before he tenses and looks around.  He doesn’t have far to look, since the heavy-jawed, grey-clad officers of the Night Police have started in from their post on the corner, deceptively relaxed as they scan the crowd for the unfortunate person that had been recognized by the imp imprisoned in the sphere.  Al’s heart pounds, grip tightening as he prepares to run for it, but he knows all too well of the inhuman speed and fury of the Night Police—

Edward is far less concerned than he really ought to be, turning and sauntering casually down the road as if he’d just changed his mind about where he wants to eat tonight.  Al can’t help the whine that escapes between his teeth, fear coursing through his veins.  “What are you doing?  You know they’re going to spot you—“

“But they haven’t yet,” Edward says out of the corner of his mouth.  “If we run, that’s way more obvious.  Right now we’re just out for a stroll.”

He does duck into the nearest alley mouth, Al’s muscles quivering with tension as he follows.  It’s only after they’re out of sight of the main thoroughfare that Edward turns, a wicked grin flashing in the darkness.  “Now we run!”

He takes off down the alley, skirting puddles and bin bags with practiced ease, and Al is tugged along helplessly in his wake.  Ed moves fast for having an artificial leg; Al can barely keep up, shoes sliding on the wet cobbles on every other step.  They turn another corner into an even darker street just as a bestial growl sounds behind them.

Terror turns Al’s guts to water.

“Come on!”

Edward pulls him around another corner, scoots between two over-flowing and reeking dumpsters, then down yet another street.  “It’ll hide our scent,” he pants, dodging across a more crowded road and plunging into another alley.  Another turn—Al has no idea where they even are anymore—and then he easily vaults a gate and disappears into the blackness.

“Edward!”  It comes out high-pitched and frantic, since he can hear the startled exclamations of the crowd in the street they’d just left, doubtless because an officer had just sprinted through them, hot on the trail.

“Climb over!”

Limbs shaking, driven by adrenaline, he scrambles frantically over the metal of the gate with significantly less grace than Edward had, tumbling to the dirt on the other side.  A single hand hauls him up, doesn’t let go of his shoulder as Edward pulls him through the dingy garden to a gap in the wall.  As his eyes adjust to the darkness he can see they’re in the gardens of a derelict set of row houses, boarded windows glaring blankly into the night and leafless trees slowly shriveling behind the high bricks.  Through a spot where the wall had collapsed into the next garden, then ducking through an open gate, then Edward yanks him into a tiny space between the last house on the street and the partially-collapsing shed beside it.

They freeze, panting, waiting for any sound of pursuit.  It’s not really a hiding place meant to accommodate two people; their chests are pressed together as they heave for breath, Edward’s one arm around the back of Al’s shoulders and Al’s thigh wedged between Edward’s.  He shoves his face into Edward’s shoulder, shaking, ears straining for the animalistic panting, the skitter of claws on stone, the chilling howl when the Night Police spot their prey—

It doesn’t come.  For very, very long moments the only sound is the distant traffic on the road and the dry-bone rustling of the dead tree a few feet away.  Al raises his head, takes a deep breath through his nose (which he instantly regrets, because he’s assaulted by the odor of garbage that they’d tracked in here with them), and cautiously cracks one eye open.

Edward is watching him, eyes alight and that infuriatingly attractive grin on his face.  “A bit different than shuffling papers in some office, huh?” he breathes.

“I’m not used to near-death encounters while just trying to get dinner, leave me alone,” Al retorts, just as quiet.

Edward muffles a laugh, something affectionate and light, and the heat in Al’s chest won’t be ignored anymore.

He’s already been spotted on the run with a known terrorist.  One of his djinn has already destroyed thousands of pounds of government property.  He might as well sleep with the enemy too.

Edward makes a startled sound when Al leans forward and kisses him, high on adrenaline and feeling more alive than he has in years.  There’s a second of hesitation, his hand clenching tight in Al’s shirt, before he lets out a huffed breath and kisses back.  Al’s pressed into the bricks behind him, gasping at the desperate way Edward’s lips close against his own, and he manages to get one hand up into Edward’s hair.  He’s wanted to do this for days, and it’s everything he could have imagined, heated and unrestrained and wanting and needing—

Ed is the one to break the kiss, whimpering even as he pulls away.  “Fletcher, I—“

“That’s not my name,” Al interrupts.  He’s giddy, drunk on life and on the taste of Edward’s skin.  His heart pounds in his ears, even louder than it had when he thought he was running for his life.  He’s about to hand over everything he is, every vulnerability he has, to this beautiful boy he met a week ago.  Nothing he’s ever done before has felt so right.  “My name is Alphonse.  Al.  My real name.”

Several emotions flicker across Ed’s face.  It’s hard to tell if he recognizes the gravity of what Al just told him.  He must, because when he leans back in it’s gentle, almost reverent.  “Alphonse,” he whispers, nose brushing Al’s cheek just before his lips find the corner of Al’s mouth, achingly sweet.  “Al.”

Al turns his head to catch him in another kiss, tears prickling at his eyes.  It’s the unquestioning acceptance that undoes him, his knees sagging and Ed’s arm around his waist the only thing that keeps him upright.

Whatever happens from here on out, he knows that there’s no going back.

[konekowrites]

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Ed/Al Rating: T Warnings: Sibling Incest

~~~~~~~~~~

The first thing Al is conscious of is warmth.  He hadn’t been in that endless void for very long—he hadn’t, his soul, not his body—and he didn’t realize just how cold it was until he felt the warmth of the sun on his skin.  It stings a bit too, and the coat that someone hastily wraps around his nakedness is rough and heavy and smells of sour sweat and gunpowder.  It’s all so much, too much to take in more than a little bit at a time.  How long has it been since he’d felt, smelled, tasted his own dry tongue and teeth?

It takes him a few minutes to even parse the massive amount of sensation all hitting at once.  The sun is obvious, though it’s not as bright through his closed eyelids has he might expect.  Then grass, itchy at the backs of his thighs where the coat doesn’t cover.  A different pressure-warmth-moving support at his back.

Ed.

He can feel his brother breathing, hitched and fast as it is, the way Ed’s arms wrap around his chest and the sticky sweat on his forehead when it drops to rest on Al’s shoulder.

“I got you.  You’re back.  You’re here.”

Then Al drifts, and doesn’t come back to awareness for a few minutes.

***

He does a lot of that, those first few hours of his return.  His body had been held in stasis, just on the edge of starvation, for so many years.  Now, without the being from the gate keeping it stable, it’s wobbling along the line between life and death.  He hears some of the discussion, about atrophied muscles and weak lungs and a weaker heart.  His eyes aren’t working great either, apparently suffering something like an extreme case of snow-blindness after all those years of searing white. 

Ed doesn’t hear it.  He’d confirmed that Al was awake and listened when Al insisted that he was alright to walk.  They had seen off Ling and May, and then Ed had left him with a medic and disappeared on an errand of his own.

Al doesn’t ask what it was.  It must have been important, since Ed had stayed barely long enough to get his own arm bandaged, and anyway, it’s probably for the best.  Al loves his brother, of course he does, but having Ed hover over him while the medics poke and prod and listen and palpate, getting more and more agitated with each new discovery, wouldn’t have helped.

He’s hustled into a hospital bed, an IV set in the crook of one arm and saline spreading cold up his veins.  Another thing that it’s probably better for Ed to miss.  He’s offered ice chips, which finally help with the dryness in his mouth but ache on his tongue, and forbidden from drinking the glass of water he desperately wants.  After the ice chips, he has to admit it’s probably a bad idea.  His guts churn unhappily, cramping painfully as his digestive processes restart.

“You can have some broth in a couple of hours,” one of the doctors tells him.  “You’re in for a rough time, kid.”

Well, at least she’s honest.  Al closes his unfocused eyes and sleeps for the first time in five years.

***

“Get out of my way!  I don’t care!  Let me see him—no, don’t touch me!”

It’s Ed’s strident voice that wakes him, but the massive crash that follows would have done it too.  Al doesn’t bother to sit up or open his eyes, but he feels a smile tug at the corner of his lips.  (And isn’t that a miracle on its own, feeling his own face again?)  He waits for the door to bang open before he turns his head, pries one eye open to watch the black-and-gold blur that is his brother launch across the room to his bedside.

For all his yelling and banging around, the hand that grips Al’s fingers is gentle.  “I’m so sorry, Al, I got back and they’d taken you away, and when I asked they said you were really sick, and I didn’t realize—“

“I know, Nii-san,” Al says, tilting his head and thrilling when Ed’s other hand comes up warm against his cheek.  “I didn’t know how bad it was.  I got told off for walking around so quick.”

“Good,” Ed grumbles, and there’s a loud shuffling as he sinks to his knees on the hard floor next to Al’s bed.

That can’t be comfortable.  Ed still smells like the fight, too.  Like ozone and blood and sweat and stone dust.  It itches in Al’s nose.  He breathes deep and revels in it.

“You know, you could sit in the chair,” he points out quietly.  Not that he wants Ed to move away—he wants Ed to stay close, far more than he really should—but he should be resting his own injured body rather than kneeling at Al’s bedside.

Ed snorts, and his face comes into focus just for an instant before he leans forward to press his forehead against Al’s, like he’d done so many, many times when Al was in the armor.  “I’m good here,” he whispers.  “I’d rather stay.”

It can’t possibly be good for Al’s heart to be going this fast, and had he ever felt it pounding insistent in his throat like this back before he’d lost his body?  Emotions are so strange with a physical body to feel them, the tingling warmth that reaches his fingertips and burns in his ears and tickles in his belly.

At least it confirms that what he thought he’d felt in his empty hollow soul was real.

Not that he’s going to act on it.  It’s more than enough to have Ed here, breath even and light against Al’s mouth, the flutter of his eyelashes like butterfly wings brushing Al’s own.  More than enough with Ed’s nose brushing against his, which feels different from how he expected, pressure that travels through the cartilage of his face.  More than enough to feel Ed’s inhale hitch, feel the heat of his tongue bare millimeters from Al’s skin as it flickers out to wet dry lips.

To feel Ed close that last tiny gap and—

Ed is—

Wait—

The kiss is gentle, belying the desperation he can almost taste under the restrained pressure of his brother’s lips.  Ed is shivering, even more than Al is when he raises a shaking hand to grasp at Ed’s tangled hair.  It feels greasy under his fingers, sharp contrast to the softness of Ed’s mouth, and Al wants to stay like this forever—

Unfortunately his body has other ideas, and he finally pulls away with a gasp.  His chest aches, heart struggling to keep up with current events, and his lungs burn on his inhale.  Ed has frozen, eyes wide and frightened when Al manages to force his own back open, and he can’t help the quivering laugh that escapes.

“I can’t do that very much right now, I think,” he breathes.  “We’ll just have to wait until I get better.”

He laughs again at the comical relief that washes over Ed’s face, before Ed clenches his hand tight on Al’s and leans forward to burrow against the blanket under Al’s chin.

“Thank you.  Sorry.”

He feels the words as much as hears them, and of course Ed is apologizing for the best thing that has ever happened to Al in his life.  He can’t move much—at least Ed is half-lying on the arm that doesn’t have a needle stuck in it, but it means he can’t reach Ed’s hair to stroke it like he desperately wants to do—so he settles for bending his neck and resting his cheek against Ed’s head.  “I love you,” he breathes, though he’s not sure if Ed actually hears him.

This time when he drifts into sleep it feels less like falling and more like a beginning.

[konekowrites]

The result of saying I’m bored and being given a random au

I said I was bored and @fma-thoughts instantly gave back “Ed being poor and horny and starting an onlyfans” and things spiraled from there. (This was pretty close to 50/50 my work and fma-thoughts’, if you like it go give him some love too!)

Ed starts an onlyfans account and finds he can make a fair amount off it (or another similar site).

Al finds it because of course we’re going there, where else would we take an au?

The dancing around the topic, Al keeps blushing whenever he sees Ed (Ed never shows his face or hair in videos, only shoulders down, but Al recognized a distinctive scar in a preview), Ed can’t figure out what’s going on with his brother

Finally Al blurts out “I found your page and I saw your previews and I feel really weird about it!” “I was just—wait, what were you doing on onlyfans?” “Looking for oatmeal recipes.  What do you think I was doing???”

Ed can’t even begin to defend himself because the thought of Al looking at porn (porn that led him to Ed’s page no less) has broken him.

Ed’s clearly mortified and stuttering and can’t reply, and Al takes pity on him.  “I’m not judging you, and I’m not telling you to stop.  I don’t care that you do it.  It just felt wrong for you not to know that I saw it.”

Al doesn’t mention how much he considered buying Ed’s videos.

Ed desperately wants to ask if Al bought his videos, but doesn’t dare because he honestly isn’t sure if he wants the answer to be yes or no.

At some point Ed orgasms with Al’s name on his lips—it’s not the first time he’s let himself fantasize like that, but this time Al’s out of town looking into medical schools and Ed misses his brother—and in a moment of mania he sets that part as the preview for that video.

Meanwhile Al’s been checking Ed’s page obsessively, even though he never bought any of his videos, he just watches the previews.

(Ed knows that Al has found it, so he’d keep anything he didn’t want Al to see behind a paywall right?)

(Al knows that excuse is flimsy at best and eventually he’s going to feel bad enough about it that he’ll fess up but he wants his brother and he feels addicted to the tiny tastes he gets this way.)

Ed only leaves the preview up for a couple hours, just long enough that he naps and showers and the mania subsides a bit and he realizes fuck that’s a really bad idea.

Too late, Al saw it, and saw all the comments about “does anyone know who this Al is?  A patron who pays for it to be his name?  Because it comes up a lot” and...oh.

He considers cutting his trip short because he needs to talk to Ed about this and not over the phone, but decides against it because he needs time to plan and prepare for this conversation.

Ed notices that Al gets really quiet—he still checks in every day, but keeps the conversation to a minimum, and of course with his guilty conscience he immediately concludes that yep, Al saw his stupid, stupid mistake.

By the time he gets home Al has the whole conversation scripted out in his head...and that script goes out the window the instant he sees Ed.

Meanwhile Ed spent the entire morning anxiety cleaning, swept, mopped, did the dishes, is contemplating cleaning the toilet when Al finally got home.

Ed looks like a deer in headlights when Al opens the door, and he’s blushing, and fuck Al loves him and he was going to approach this with tact but—

“Did you mean me?”

He has to know for sure. Maybe he was wrong (yeah right), maybe it’s someone else (one hell of a coincidence huh), maybe it was a test to see if he was still watching (Ed wouldn’t do that, Ed’s a lot of things but mean isn’t one of them)

Ed goes even redder...and nods.

Al steps closer, starts to reach out, and freezes. “Did you mean it?”

Ed looks down at his hands, absolutely crimson now, and nods again.

Al steps even closer, far closer than he would normally, and asks, “May I kiss you?”

Ed looks up at him, eyes huge, apparently not comprehending the question.  He opens his mouth, shuts it, thinks, and eventually comes up with “wha—?”

Honestly Al had been hoping for a yes, half expecting a no, and bursts out laughing because of course Ed would respond in a way Al hadn’t planned for.

He doesn’t laugh for long enough that Ed can think it was a joke, he finally—finally!—reaches out to touch Ed, cups his hands under Ed’s elbows where he’s got his arms folded defensively.

“May I please kiss you?”

Ed definitely doesn’t have words, he’d been prepared for Al to have another reason that he’d been weird the last few days, or for Al to be horrified and disgusted and just coming back to grab his things.

He’d hoped, but never thought Al would reciprocate.

He finally just nods.

It’s not a great kiss, all told, since between the two of them they’ve kissed three people a total of about eight times, and neither of them can keep the smile off their face so they wind up touching their teeth together more than a few times.

But at the same time it’s a great kiss, because everything comes together in that moment.

“Their souls are certainly their own entities, and can survive without the other (disregarding that life’s situation) but being together is just... the last piece in a puzzle they thought was already complete.”

(Quote directly from @fma-thoughts because sometimes he decides to just utterly destroy me with a single sentence)

[konekowrites]

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Al/Ed Rating: Mature Chapter warnings: Sibling incest, canon minor character death

Chapter 1

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s honestly a wonder that Ed makes it home a couple hours later.  He’d considered calling Al and asking him to come pick him up but, well, after unceremoniously hanging up on his brother he wasn’t sure how well that would be received.

Apparently he needn’t have worried; before he even reaches for the doorknob Al flings it open and tugs him inside.

It doesn’t make everything right with the world—couldn’t possibly make everything going on in their fucked up lives right—but Al’s touch certainly helps Ed feel better.  It’s not entirely clear which of them hauls the other in, but Ed finds himself pushed back against the door, Al clinging to him desperately.

Ed squeezes back just as hard, shoving his face against the side of his brother’s neck.  Al lets out a shuddering breath, hot through the shoulder of his hoodie.

“Sorry,” Ed mumbles, and Al’s hands clench.  He pulls back just enough to kiss Ed, desperate and wanting, and Ed leans into it.

Right up until his brain comes back online, and he yanks away.  “He’s not—“

“He left,” Al assures him, his arms still tight around Ed’s shoulders.  “When I told you he was here and you just hung up on me he took the hint.”

Ed sighs, lets his head fall forward against Al’s shoulder.  “You’re sure?  You’re sure it was him?”

“If it’s not him, he found a perfect body double,” Al says, hands twisting in the back of Ed’s shirt.  “He looks exactly like the pictures Granny has on her board.  He hasn’t aged at all.”

“Of course he hasn’t,” Ed mutters.  Al makes a funny strangled noise, and he’s shaking ever so slightly.  “So what exactly did the bastard want?  Money?”

“He wouldn’t tell me.”  Al shrugs Ed off his shoulder, presses their foreheads together.  “He said he wants to talk to both of us.  I don’t think it’s money, he didn’t look like he was so badly off that he’d ask college kids for money.”

“Well the pictures don’t make him look like someone who’d just abandon his kids for fifteen years either,” Ed grumbles.

His knee is shaking with the shock and relief of finding his home untainted.  Intellectually he knows that Hohenheim had been there, but so long as Ed didn’t actually see him he can pretend it didn’t happen.

He kisses Al rather than picture it, pressing hard enough that he can feel the line of Al’s teeth against his lips.  Al makes a breathy little noise against his mouth, kisses back as he lets Ed push him away from the door.  He keeps backing up, goes willingly as Ed tries to maneuver them both toward the bedroom that’s still ostensibly Ed’s but they’ve been sharing for the past week.

Ed has just started to hope that the subject is dropped, but Al digs in his heels just outside the doorway.  “Ed,” he whispers between kisses.  “What’re you going to do?”

“I thought that was obvious,” Ed retorts, trying to work his hand down the front of Al’s sweatpants.

Al grabs his wrist, steps back when Ed tries to crowd into his space.  “Stop that.  You know what I mean.”

Ed huffs, but Al’s free hand is still rubbing soothingly against his back so he can’t really storm off to end the discussion.  “I don’t see why I have to do anything,” he says finally.  “If he comes back, lock the door.”

“Ed,” Al sighs at him.  “He’s still our dad.”

“If he really wanted the job maybe he should have stuck around!”  His voice rises with each word until he’s shouting by the end of his sentence.  “What kind of asshole fucks off for fifteen years, and then turns up at midnight expecting us to just, what?  Hug and make up?”

Al steps close again, looking startled at his outburst.  “Ed, the neighbors—“

“Fuck the neighbors!  We have to listen to them party all weekend, they can deal!” Ed snarls.  He doesn’t fight it when Al pulls him into a hug again, even though it muffles his voice in Al’s shoulder.  “He’s not my dad.  I don’t care what he wants.”

“Don’t you want to know why he left?”

“Don’t care.”

Al sighs again, hold tightening as he tucks his face against the side of Ed’s neck.  “Well, I want to know,” he says, soft.  “I want to know why he didn’t stay.  I know you’re angry at him, but I want to know if there was a good reason that he left before I get mad too.”

Of course Al wants to hear the bastard’s side before he’ll get angry.  Ed wavers, torn between frustration and fondness.  He’s never going to get over how deeply good his brother is.

Even if it’s annoying as fuck sometimes.

“I’m not angry with him, I hate him,” he corrects Al mulishly.  “I don’t care what he thought was a good enough reason.  You really think he can come up with anything that will make up for…”

He can’t even begin to list everything, settles for pressing the bluntness of his right forearm into Al’s back.

“I’m going to give him the chance, at least,” Al says, just as stubborn as Ed.  “And I’d appreciate it if you’d be there, because he wants to tell us both.  You don’t have to forgive him, but I want to know.  Please?”

Ed bites his tongue, closes his eyes against the prickling of anger and hurt behind them.  “Fine.”

Al kisses him, light against his cheek and the angle of his jaw.  “I love you?”

It sounds almost like a question, which is ridiculous given the number of times they’ve both said it in the past.  But then, they haven’t said it lately, not since the meaning expanded into something huge and slightly terrifying—

“I love you too,” Ed whispers, turning his head so he catches Al’s lips.  “I love you so much.”

***

Ed didn’t remember the accident.  He didn’t remember a lot of what happened right after it either.  He spent most of the first couple weeks asleep, or fuzzy and floaty from pain and medicine.

Pinako said that was for the best.  He wasn’t so sure.  It was the last few minutes that Mom had been with them, so he thought he’d probably like to remember it.

Al might have remembered it.  Al, who clung to Ed’s one hand that he had left, and watched the doctors and nurses with wide golden eyes, and never, ever talked.

Even if Al felt like talking, Ed didn’t think it would be a good idea to ask him about it.

Ed barely even registered it when he went home, not to the house they’d shared with Mom, but to the little back bedroom he and Al shared at Granny Pinako’s house.  He was still bandaged, itchy healing staples and stitches over the holes where his leg and hand used to be.  Al snuck into his bed every night, curled up carefully against his right side.

Over a couple weeks most of their favorite toys somehow made their way from their house to Pinako’s.  After a month Ed didn’t have the bandages anymore, but he still needed help to get to the wheelchair that was his only means of independent movement.

After two months Al stopped watching for Mom to come get them.

After three months he still hadn’t said a single word.

Pinako spent a lot of that time on the phone.  Later Ed would realize that she was trying to track down their dad.

Clearly she had no luck.  A lot of people visited the house and asked him about Pinako and Winry and Mom and Dad.  They asked Al too, but he just sucked his thumb and clung to Ed’s shirt.

Right before school started the doctors gave Ed his new, fake leg.  It took a long time to learn to walk on it, since the knee didn’t bend like his real one, but at least it meant he could leave the hated wheelchair behind.

Before they could go to school they had to go to an important meeting.  Al wore the fancy clothes Granny had gotten him for Mom’s funeral.  Ed had still been too sick to go and didn’t have fancy clothes, and she buttoned him into a coat that felt like it would strangle him.

There was a lot of talking, and Ed entertained himself by touching his fingertips against his thumb, one after another.  He used to be good at it, with his right hand.  It was harder with the left.

He showed Al how to do it too, but Al wanted to play with Ed’s fingers rather than his own.

Pinako bundled both of them and Winry into another room, where she signed a lot of papers, then took them back to her house.

Ed stared out the car window at the neat lawn, at Winry’s new puppy jumping at the gate.  “When are we going home?” he asked.  “I want to play on my swing.”

Granny paused with her hand on the door latch, her shoulders slumping for a second.  “You’re going to live here now,” she explained gently.  “We’ll set up a swing for you in a couple of weeks.”

He knew that Mom was dead.  He knew that dead meant gone.  Looking at that sunny yard, the finality of it suddenly hit him.

“Mom’s not ever coming back.  Not ever.  Is she?” he said quietly.

“Oh, kiddo.”

He hated it when Granny called him that, like he was a baby like Al.  “I don’t want to live here.  I want to go home with Mom!”

He’d cried a lot over the past few months, but always because his arm and leg hurt so bad.  Now he felt horribly, desperately alone, and scared, and—

“Ed.”

It took him a second to recognize the voice, cloggy and rough with disuse as it was.  Al reached for him from his car seat, tears welling up in his eyes.  “Ed?”

He grabbed his little brother’s hand tight, turned away from Pinako, and finally cried.

***

Ed isn’t entirely sure what he expected.  Somehow the man sitting at the Starbucks table in neat khakis and a button down shirt doesn’t scream “deadbeat dad”.

He stops in the doorway, folds his arms, wrinkles his nose.  Al had braided his hair again today, which is good.  If he hadn’t then Ed would have had the same hairstyle as the bastard, and he doesn’t think he could handle that.  Bad enough when Hohenheim turns his head to sip from his cup and…

The neatly trimmed beard is beyond anything Ed had managed to grow in his ill-fated attempts during high school, but other than that the resemblance is undeniable.

Fuck.

“Ed—“ Al’s warning comes just a second too late, as another customer opens the door right into his back.  Ed swears as he stumbles, ignoring the girl’s apologies in favor of leaning into Al’s supportive arm.  Just for a second, just long enough to feel balanced again.

Because he is looking up, his eyes wide for an instant before he stands, smiling.  “Edward!  You’ve grown so much!”

“Yeah, that tends to happen when you leave for fifteen years,” Ed snaps.

Al nudges him with an elbow.

“Ah, right,” Hohenheim says awkwardly.  The hand he’d seemingly been about to offer to shake is withdrawn to rub the back of his neck instead.  “I…ah, well…sit, sit down, both of you.  Do you want anything to drink?  I’ll—“

“No,” Ed says shortly, hooking out one of the chairs with his foot.  He hears Al sigh behind him, and cranes his neck to look up at his brother.  “I said I’d come, I didn’t say I’d be happy about it.”

“I did notice that you made no promises to behave,” Al comments, sliding into the unoccupied chair.  “Sorry, Dad.”

The word is almost hesitant, foreign in his mouth, and Ed hates to hear it. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I wouldn’t really expect—“ he trails off, looking from Ed’s glare to Al’s concerned face.  “So, how are you?”

Ed doesn’t bother to respond, raising one incredulous eyebrow.

“We’re fine,” Al answers, pointedly pressing the side of his foot against Ed’s.  “School is going well.”

Hohenheim waits politely, apparently to see if Ed has anything to contribute, but eventually gives up.  “I understand that you’re angry,” he sighs, picking up his cup and swishing it around in an aimless circle.  “You know, we could do this in a less public place.”

“No,” Ed says again.

The thought of seeing the bastard in his home makes his skin crawl.  And he’s not about to give Hohenheim the home field advantage.  Al had finally, exasperatedly, proposed the Starbucks meeting, like they were making a Craigslist purchase.  At least they’re at a corner table, relatively far from the other patrons for now.

Hohenheim doesn’t seem sure where to take the conversation from here, and Ed sees no reason to help him.

Al finally comes to the rescue.  “You said you wanted to tell both of us where you’ve been?”

“Right.”  Hohenheim rubs his neck again, shoots a glance at Ed.  “First, I never meant to be gone for so long.  And I swear, I didn’t find out about—about your mother until a few months ago.”

“You didn’t mean to—“ Ed meets Al’s eyes, and Al looks as incredulous as he feels.  “You lose track of time for a few weeks.  Maybe a few months.  Not for fifteen years!”

“I always thought I was so close, though!” Hohenheim protests, leaning forward earnestly.  “It was always one more clue, one more place to check.  I promised Trisha I would come back when I could support her, and both of you.  Give you the kind of lives you deserve.”

There’s a long silence.  Finally, Al asks.  “One more place to check—for what?  What were you looking for?”

“Um, well…” At least Hohenheim has the grace to look embarrassed.  “I think in layman’s terms you’d probably call me a treasure hunter?”

A heartbeat in Ed’s ears.  Two.  Three.  “Okay, our deadbeat dad thinks he’s Nick fucking Cage,” he says slowly.  “Well that’s just fantastic.”

Al hooks his fingers inside Ed’s sleeve, pressing his thumb to the inside of Ed’s wrist.  The message “calm down” is loud and clear.

“I wouldn’t put it like—“ Hohenheim sighs again.  “I never knew where I was going to be, one day to the next.  I had to fund my own project by taking on clients, and they would send me all over the world with no warning.  Would it really have been better for me to check in at random, then disappear again?”

“At least you would have known when Mom died,” Ed spits.

Al’s thumb twitches, the nail digging into his skin for a brief second.

“I’m sorry.  To both of you,” Hohenheim says quietly.  “I would have come back if I’d known.  But I had debts, and nothing to show for all my work.  For everything I put her through.”

“You came back now, though,” Al comments, slow and quiet.  “There must be a reason you chose now.”

Hohenheim coughs into his fist, takes another drink.  “Well, yes.  I finally got some time to dive in the Caribbean, and…”

“You found something?” Ed asks, disbelieving.  “You turned back up because you actually fucking found something?”

“…Yes?”

Silence falls for a very, very long minute.

“What did you find?” Al finally asks.

“A ship.  Well, what’s left of a ship.  One that was carrying silver.”

More silence.  Al’s thumb strokes lightly, absently, against Ed’s skin.

“So basically you came back now that you’re, what, rich and famous?” Ed says.  It’s meant to come out aggressive, but it’s distant in his ears.

“I wouldn’t say famous.  As for rich—“ Hohenheim gives them a self-deprecating smile.  “I won’t be buying a private island anytime soon, but you won’t have to worry about paying for school anymore.  Or for…anything else.”  His eyes flick down to Ed’s right arm, resting on the table.

Ed counts to ten in his head.  Then does it again.  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he growls finally.  “You think you can just turn up again and buy us?”

“No, that’s not what I meant at all,” Hohenheim protests, looking startled.  “All I ever wanted was to take care of you, and now I can.”

“You can’t do shit for us,” Ed snarls, lurching to his feet.  “We don’t want your money!”

“You can make your own decision, of course,” Hohenheim says levelly.  “But you should let your brother decide for himself.”  He looks pointedly at Al’s hand on Ed’s wrist, dragged into view when Ed stood up.  “You have said a lot, but Alphonse can speak for himself.”

It’s the wrong thing to say.  Al straightens in his seat, eyes narrowing.  “I’m perfectly capable of standing up for myself, thank you,” he says, and his voice is icier than Ed’s ever heard it before. “If he said anything I disagree with I would let you know.”  His hand wavers, then his fingers properly close around Ed’s wrist, defiant.  “I’m not going to rush into a decision.  I want some time to think.”

At least Hohenheim looks taken aback by his tone.  “Yes, of course,” he mumbles, standing as well.  “I know Alphonse got my phone number from Pinako.  Edward, can I have—“

“No, you can’t,” Ed snaps.  “Bad enough that you know where I live.  I came to find out where you’ve been, and I did.  We have nothing else to talk about.”

He twitches his left hand out of Al’s grip, sets off for the door as fast as his leg will allow.  There’s a muffles few words of conversation behind him, and Al catches up just down the sidewalk from the Starbucks entrance.  He doesn’t say anything until they round the corner, and—

“Fuck,” Ed hisses, turning and slamming his fist into the brick wall of the building.  He regrets it immediately, scraped knuckles stinging sharply.

“Ed!”

He flinches at Al’s tone, a mixture of annoyance and concern that he’s all too familiar with.  “Sorry,” he mutters, shaking out his hand before he looks up at his brother.

“You’re not going to let him get away with that, right?” he demands.  “You’re not going to let him just turn up and start acting like nothing happened?”

Al shifts uncomfortably.  “He is offering to pay for our school,” he says slowly.  “It would be nice not to have to work, and not to have debt to worry about once we graduate.”

“But he’s a bastard!”  Ed’s whining, he knows he’s whining, but really.  “He left.  It’s his fault Mom died.  You can’t just forget all of that!”

“I’m not,” Al says.  “I’m not forgetting any of it.  But if he wants to start making it up to us, paying for our school would be a good start.”

The logic is there, and if Ed were less angry he’d have to concede to it.  Right now, though, he has no interest in compromise.

“You do what you want,” he says shortly, setting off for home.  “I’m not going to be mad at you about it.  But don’t ask me to forgive him.”

“I know,” Al sighs, trotting to catch up.  “We can think about it more later.”

His hand brushes the back of Ed’s, apparently accidentally, and Ed wishes he dared to hold it.

[konekowrites]

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Al/Ed Rating: Mature Chapter warnings: Sibling incest

Chapter 1

~~~~~~~~~~

“Ed, we need to get going…”

Al’s voice is stern, but he doesn’t actually unhook his fingers from his brother’s belt loops.  Which is equivalent to tacit permission, in Ed’s view, for him to continue what he’d been doing previously.

Namely, building a mental catalogue of all the most sensitive spots on Al’s neck, based on the noises that he makes when he feels Ed’s lips or tongue or teeth.

By far the most interesting place is just under his right ear, and he draws a trembling breath when Ed nips him.  “Hey, stop that.  We said we’d be there for dinner, and you work tonight.”

“All the more reason to spend as much time as we can here, first,” Ed points out.

It backfires, Al sighing at him before he pushes Ed away.  “Maybe we can make it back between dinner and your shift,” he allows.

Good enough, Ed will take it.  He leans up for one more kiss before Al steps back and opens their front door.

It’s like a seal is broken; from the instant that door opens they’re only brothers again.  Al tucks his hands firmly into his coat pockets, while Ed shoves both forearms into the pocket of his hoodie.  They walk with a comfortable separation between them, rather than shoulders touching.

It’s only a couple inches, but after a week spent tangled up in his brother, skin to hot skin, that negligible distance might as well be a chasm.

It makes something deep inside Ed ache.

The reason for their caution meets them halfway up the stairs to their apartment.

“There you two are,” Ling says, swinging around the corner with one hand on the railing, very nearly colliding with Ed in the process.  “Winry sent me to tell you two to quit sulking, or whatever it is you’re doing this week, and come to dinner.”

“No one’s sulking,” Ed informs him loftily, ducking under the arm that Ling tries to sling around his shoulders.  “We’ve been busy, that’s all.”

Ling looks unconvinced.  “Right.  Because everyone knows that the workload is killer during the first week of the semester.  Nice hair, by the way.”

He flips the end of Ed’s braid, the style adopted after he’d learned just how much Al loves to play with his hair.  To be honest, Ed prefers the way it looks over his habitual ponytail.  Al’s hands in his hair every morning before class isn’t half bad either.

At least Ling doesn’t pursue either subject, turning to Al instead.  “I hear you’re in creative writing this semester.  Did you end up with Robinson?”

They’re still deep in debate about the merits of different language arts professors when the trio makes it into the nearest dining hall, a block onto campus.  Ed cranes his neck to see over the barrier, scanning the tables for Winry’s distinctive hair.  She would probably be over by the pasta bar, or maybe the grill—

“Hey!”

Ling snatches his student ID out of his loose grip, swipes it through the entry turnstile, and pushes through before Ed has a chance to catch him.  “Ling, you asshole, I have a limited number of swipes!”

“I know,” Ling calls over his shoulder, looking utterly unrepentant as he tosses the card back to Ed.  “But you always eat lunch in the student center with your brother anyway.  Thanks for treating!”

He’s made a beeline for the food before Ed gets through the turnstile himself, disappearing into the scrum around the day’s entrees.

“Why do we hang out with him again?” Ed mutters as he and Al follow at a more sedate pace.  “He has more money than any of us, why does he have to mooch?”

“You’re the one he adopted like a stray puppy last year,” Al says lightly.

Ed looks up, scowling at the smile he can see playing at the corners of Al’s lips.  “Who told you that?”

“Lan Fan.”

There are many things he could fight about in Al’s first statement, but Ed elects to take the high ground and let it go.  For now, anyway.  He’s in too good of a mood to have it spoiled by Ling’s usual nonsense.

He picks up a plate of shepherd’s pie from the grill, weaves his way over to the soda fountain.  That’s where he finds Winry and Lan Fan, the girls having claimed a table that Ling is now spreading food on like he’s serving up a holiday feast.

“Are you planning to share any of that, or is it all for you?” Ed asks, handing his cup to Winry before he sets down the plate he’d balanced on his forearm.

“I share with people who are nice to me,” Ling says sweetly, sliding a plate of chocolate cake in front of Lan Fan.

“I bought your food!”

“Do you actually need more food, or are you just arguing because you can?” Al asks, scooting into the seat on Winry’s other side.  “Wait, where did you find pudding cups?”

It’s sheer bad luck that Winry happens to glance over just as he cranes his neck to look at Ling’s haul.  Ed spots the incriminating marks a second before she does, but with his mouth full of potatoes he can’t redirect her attention in time. Everything seems to move in slow motion.  Winry’s hand darting out to grab Al’s sleeve, Al’s yelp as his coat is yanked down his shoulder, Lan Fan’s eyes going wide as her head jerks up at the noise—

“Alphonse Elric, is that a hickie?”

“No,” Al says, far too quickly as he claps a hand over the side of his neck.

Ed freezes up, mouth suddenly dry as sandpaper, and he’s definitely going to choke if he tries to swallow his bite now.  His ears burn when Ling hooks the other side of Al’s collar, dragging it down to reveal another bruise in the dip of his collarbone.

“Hey!”  Al squirms away from them both, face bright red.  “It’s not—they’re not—“

Ed does choke when Winry rounds on him, eyes blazing.  Oh fuck, she knows, she figured it out, made the connection between the marks and his scarcity over the past week.  The bite of potatoes he’d already swallowed feels like a ball of thorns in his stomach—

“Who is Al dating?” she demands.

It takes him a second to answer, since he’s a bit distracted by the metaphorical bullet that just whistled over his head.  He blinks stupidly at her until someone—probably Al—nudges his ankle under the table.

“How should I know?” he says, kicking back at that prodding foot on principle.  “He doesn’t tell me everything.”

Winry squints at him, clearly disbelieving, and he scowls back.

“I bet it’s May,” Ling says smugly, and that distracts Ed completely.

“It’s not May,” he snaps.

This time it’s definitely Al who steps on his foot.  “I thought you said you didn’t know who it was?” Lan Fan asks.

This whole table is a fucking minefield.

Ed scoops up another bite of potatoes.  “I don’t.  I just know it’s not May,” he grumbles, then shoves the food in his mouth before anyone can ask him anything else.

“Can we please drop the subject of my personal life?”  Al says.  He tugs his coat straight, a flush staining his cheeks.  “It’s not a big deal.  You guys won’t get to meet them or anything.”

Winry looks from Ed to Al and back again, and finally sighs.  “Fine.  I guess you two have been weird enough this year, you might as well start having random hookups and not even telling Ed.”

Al opens his mouth, probably to protest the “random hookups” phrasing, and this time it’s Ed’s turn to kick him under the table.

“Hey, it could always be weirder, it could be Ed showing up with hickies,” Ling says, snagging one of the pudding cups that had started the whole debacle and dipping a spoon into it.

“Ew,” Ed says shortly, turning his attention to his own food.

Hopefully no one but Al notices the way his fork trembles on the way to his mouth.  The foot that sneaks up the cuff of his pants to rub his ankle is shaking too.

This whole secret relationship thing is going to take some getting used to, he decides, meeting Al’s eyes and hoping his little brother can read his expression.

He still wouldn’t trade it for the world.

***

Trisha Elric had always considered herself to be a very patient woman.  It was probably the only reason she survived being left alone with two toddlers.

That said, some days were harder than others.

She picked up Ed and Al from Pinako’s on the way home from her shift, as usual.  None of what she heard from her friend was surprising in the slightest.  Ed had learned a new curse word, and had put it to extensive and gleeful use.  Al had stuck a wet finger in Winry’s ear and caused a meltdown.  All three of them continued to meticulously color inside the lines of their coloring books, something that amused Pinako to no end while making Trisha quietly question whether her boys will ever be close to “normal”.

Ed was quiet as she buckled him into his car seat in the back, and that did give her pause.  “Did you have a good time with Granny and Winry?” she asked, moving on to get Al strapped in as well.

Her younger son watched with wide eyes as his brother scrunched up his face.  He thought about the question for much longer than usual, long enough that Trisha finished settling Al and looked up—just in time for Ed to burst into tears. Alphonse, always ready to follow his big brother’s lead, promptly followed suit.

“What’s wrong?” Trisha asked, startled.

Ed wailed louder, kicking his feet against his car seat.  Al shrieked.

She caught the eye of a man wheeling his garbage can to the end of his nearby driveway; he looked deeply unimpressed with her screaming children.

She might as well head home.  If Winry had been pulling his hair again she could call Pinako about it tomorrow.

It was only a ten minute drive from Pinako’s place to theirs, but with two hysterical toddlers in the back it felt more like an eternity.  She pulled into the driveway, took a deep breath between shutting her car door and opening Ed’s.

“What’s going on, little man?” she asked, hefting him up and bouncing him on her hip.  “Was Winry bugging you again?”

“W-Winry says when we grow up she’s gonna—gonna m-marry m-me.”

And he was lost to another paroxysm of grief.  She’d never been so glad to live well outside of town and away from judgmental neighbors.

That said, she’d still rather not deal with this at ten o’clock at night.

Al went willingly as she scooped him up with her free hand, though he was still sniffling, and she’d just have to get her purse out of the car in the morning.

“Why are you crying about that?” she asked as she carried them both up to the front door.  Al seemed to be the more stable one at the moment, so she set him down to fumble with her keys.  “It seems like a nice thing to say.  She must like you very much.”

“But I d-don’t wanna marry Winry,” he sobbed against her neck, digging his toes into her thigh in his distress.  “She says we gotta, but I don’t wanna!”

Al clung tight to her hand as she stepped up into their front hallway.  “Is that all that’s bothering you?”

Ed nodded, rubbing his wet face against her shirt.

“Well I have good news for you,” Trisha told him, gently prying his arms loose from her neck and setting him on the floor.  “If you don’t want to marry Winry, you won’t have to.”

“R-really?”  He rubbed one fist into his eyes, looking up at her hopefully.

Al latched onto her leg while she tried to pull her shoe off.  “Really,” she said, and Ed gave her a watery little smile.  “You don’t have to marry anyone if you don’t want to.”

Ed’s face crumpled slowly.  His lip stuck out, and then his nose wrinkled, and then his eyes welled up again.  Before Trisha could even guess what she’d said wrong he let out a wail, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Ed, what—“

Al flung himself to the ground too, howling.

“What on earth…”

It took her almost half an hour to get him calmed down enough to get a semi-coherent sentence out of him.  Finally, with his brother clinging to his side and seated on his mother’s knee, Ed hiccuped and explained—

“B-but I wanna marry Al!”

“What do I tell him?” Trisha asked Pinako over the phone the next morning.  “The parenting books did not cover this!”

At least Pinako didn’t seem nearly as concerned as Trisha felt.  “It’s sweet, he loves his little brother more than anyone.”

“I know that,” Trisha sighed.

Leaning around the corner, she could see her boys right where she’d left them, sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street.  Ed appeared to be explaining the important concept of the letter “C” to Al in a mixture of clear words and excited babble.  Al sucked his fist, apparently absorbing all of it with fascination.

“He keeps bursting into tears about it,” Trisha hissed into the receiver, leaning back.  “I mean, I can’t tell him he can marry his brother when he grows up.  Can I?”

“I don’t see why not,” Pinako said, and Trisha could hear the way she shrugged even over the phone.  “He won’t remember it if you do.  Even if he does, he’ll grow out of it before you know it.”

***

Ed’s still on edge when he gets to work, and sitting alone at the desk for a few hours doesn’t help.

It’s not that hard.  They’ll just have to be a bit more careful in the future.  He studiously does not think about said future.  If he did he’d start to wonder just how long they could possibly expect to keep this hidden—

Thankfully it turns out to be one of the rare eventful nights at his job, and he’s thoroughly distracted by the time midnight rolls around.  He’s back in his chair, still torn between horror and hysterical laughter, when Al makes his usual nightly call.

“Hey,” he answers, continuing before Al can even say anything.  “You’re not going to believe what I just caught a couple doing in the racquetball courts.  It seems like it would be really echo-y, but it got me thinking—“

“Ed.” Al interrupts.

He sobers instantly.  There’s something about Al’s tone, flat and shocky, and ice seems to flash through Ed’s veins.  “What’s up?  Are you okay?”

Al takes a deep breath, crackly in his phone’s speaker, before he replies.

“Dad’s here.”

[konekowrites]

Do you have any headcanons for your fma college au?

Oh boy, dearest nonny, you may regret asking because heck yeah I do

Ed has a ridiculous number of piercings that he got throughout his freshman year. He's up to five rings in each helix, one in his right lobe, two barbels in his left eyebrow, and a ring in the right center of his lower lip

He's an Edgy Boi with no time for color theory so his usual jewelry is a mishmash mess of black and silver and gold and red

Al will never voluntarily admit that his knees almost gave out the first time Ed came home with the lip ring, he never thought he'd find that attractive but damn if Ed doesn't pull it off

Related, Al will get two rings in his right helix. Because unlike his brother he has some sense of understatement and moderation

There's a "free speech stump" on the school plaza that's generally occupied by a fire-and-brimstone preacher shouting at the indifferent crowds of college students, who likes to yell at Ed about his piercings whenever he sees them. "You've allowed the devil to penetrate your virgin flesh!"

"Wow Al he just called you the devil, pretty rude." "Not in public-"

May's roommate that is the reason that they can't study at her place is nontraditional student Scar, who's studying something like comparative religion

Ling is the child of a wealthy Chinese couple who want him to have an American university on his record but don't really care what he gets up to there, which is why he's a third year, still undeclared, and has seemingly limitless cash

Not entirely sure what his relationship to Lan Fan is myself, but after she lost her hand in a car crash a couple years ago his family has paid all her medical expenses and for her fancy bionic hand

Riza Hawkeye is the DARPA representative who works with the engineering students on capstone projects, which is how she'll meet Winry :)

Both the Elrics almost failed Psych 100. It's not even that difficult a class, but they just could not wrap their heads around it for some reason. It bothers them both to no end

Courtesy of @fma-thoughts: the boys get those little couple's touch bracelet things that lets you tap to each other long distance, and they use them constantly

the usual university campus chaos applies

"I just saw a man wearing nothing but a rubber horse mask and tighty-whities go zooming past on a bicycle screaming 'I'm on fucking fire'?? O.O" "Oh yeah I hadn't seen him around yet so far this year, good to know he's doing well!"

Ed was accidentally out during the annual "undie run" the previous year, in which a large portion of the student body runs around campus in their underwear to celebrate the end of spring semester. He's still traumatized

[konekowrites]

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist Pairing: Al/Ed Rating: Mature Chapter warnings: Sibling incest, sexual content

Quick housekeeping note: Chapter 9 will be delayed because I want to get a bit more of a head start on other chapters (I do have chapter 9 done, I just want a bit more buffer room, fret not!) so I’m skipping the next scheduled update.  Chapter 9 will be out on October 5th!

Also, if you’re reading this as a completed fic, please take after this chapter as your rest stop.  Get a snack, drink some water, sleep if it’s 4am.  Then buckle up buttercup, shit’s about to get real.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 9

~~~~~~~~~~

He can’t do this.

Ed hadn’t expected to sleep at all after their conversation and the…well.  Instead he’d crashed as soon as his laundry was cleared off his bed and slept like a log until Winry woke him up the next morning.

There is no blissful moment of amnesia; he rolls to his side and opens his eyes, sees Al still tucked into his bed on the other side of the room, and he knows.

“Are you okay?” Winry asks, leaning into his field of vision.  “You’ve got a weird look on your face.”

“You have a weird look on your face,” Ed retorts, looking away.

“What are you, twelve?”

“Can you two please let me have my tea before you start getting weirdly aggressive with each other?” Al yawns, sitting up.  He meets Ed’s eyes for a second before he looks away, all soft and sleep-dazed, and Ed swallows hard.

Four hours is way too long to hold this burning in his chest.

He lets Al have shotgun for the ride home.  Mostly because he thinks he might actually combust if Winry tries to talk to him.  Then he discovers that it means he can zone out staring at the back of Al’s head without having to crane his neck around.

His gaze drifts over and—Al is looking at him in the rear view mirror.  He looks away, but not before he catches a hint of a blush on Al’s cheeks.

“Did you two have a fight or something last night?” Winry demands, after a silent hour.

“No, why?” Al asks, at the same time Ed protests, “no, we didn’t!”

Now Winry eyes him in the mirror.  “Okay, jeez, I’m just wondering why you’re not speaking to each other,” she mutters, turning back to the road.

“We’re fine,” Al says, but he’s looking at Ed as he says it.

Ed grunts his agreement, shifting sideways on the seat.  He’s shivery with anticipation and nerves and he’s so sweaty, why is he so sweaty?  The hardest part is over, they just have to get home and then…

It’s not so much an image that strikes him as a rush of phantom sensations.  Al’s lips against his again, Al’s hands on his body, and—

He curls his leg up defensively, forces himself to concentrate on the view out the window.  Ninety minutes left.

Winry turfs them out as soon as they get to their apartment building.  “You could cut the tension between you two with a knife,” she tells them, dropping Al’s duffle on the sidewalk and planting her hands on her hips.  “Leave me out of your argument, or whatever it is.  And sort it out before you get in my car again.”

Al makes a noise that’s very obviously a laugh hastily covered by a cough, and she rolls her eyes.  “Gotta get back to the dorms.  RA meeting,” she says, slamming the trunk and swinging her keys around her index finger.

Ed tries to say goodbye too, but his words can’t seem to make it through his throat, so he waves instead.  Al lets him go first up the stairs, even though Ed is slower at it.  He’s right at Ed’s back, though, close enough to hear his breath, and Ed almost fumbles and drops the keys as they finally—finally!—get to their door.

He doesn’t back off even when they get inside, and as soon as Ed drops his bag on the floor there’s a warm hand on his side.

It snaps something, some last thread of hesitancy, and Ed almost trips as he pivots on his heel and Al meets him in a kiss.  It’s sloppy, wet when his mouth parts in a gasp and Al’s is right there against him.  His heart is pounding, desperate, exhilarated.  Al moans into it, hands on Ed’s hips, pulling him in while Ed’s arms loop around his neck.

There’s nothing slow or soft about it this time, Ed staggering back until his butt hits the couch.  Al pulls away minutely, apparently about to apologize, but Ed hauls him back in and kisses him again.

He’s starting to feel like he’s getting the hang of this new activity, catching Al’s bottom lip between his own and sucking.  Al’s breath hisses out, then when Ed nips experimentally at plush skin his hands slide lower.  They press at the backs of Ed’s legs, lift just a bit until he takes the hint and hops up on the back of the couch.

That puts him at just the right height to clamp his thighs around Al’s waist, pulling their bodies flush together.  Al gasps, fingers tightening against Ed’s legs, and he has a brief image of bruises pressed into his skin, his brother’s marks in his flesh—he moans into the kiss, his arms sliding down Al’s back too.

An actual whimper slips from him as Al bucks against him, evidence of his enthusiasm hard against Ed’s stomach.  “Fuck,” he hisses between his teeth, hooking his right arm around Al’s shoulders and resting his left hand at the fastening of Al’s pants.  “Can I?”

Al lets go of his thighs, instead snaking his hands up under Ed’s hoodie and shirt.  “Please,” he breathes, hoarse, and his hands burn when they find Ed’s bare skin.

It’s all frantic, all-consuming, all heat rising in his core and Al’s deliciously breathy moan into his mouth.  Nothing at all matters except Al’s touch, feeling Al on every inch of him, and Ed finally gets the button popped open on Al’s pants—

Al catches his wrist, pulls away from their kiss.  For a second they just look at each other, panted breaths and wide eyes.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Al asks.

Ed can’t help but laugh.  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“You can not go all big brother on me now, I’ll—o-oh—“

Al buckles forward when Ed actually gets his hand inside his pants.  Not to be outdone he nips at Ed’s neck, takes advantage of his distraction to get his shirt shoved up.

Somehow Ed winds up with his forehead resting on Al’s shoulder, clinging tight and quivering under Al’s touch, barely conscious enough to keep his own hand moving.  There’s no finesse or technique or thought, just need.  Al has one hand against Ed’s back, the other finds Ed’s fly and works it open and—

Later he’ll feel embarrassed about the fact that he lasts under a minute after Al finally touches him.  Maybe not, since Al follows him over the edge with a desperate broken sound a few seconds later.

He slumps into Ed, nearly toppling them both over the back of the couch.  Ed hooks his leg around Al’s thigh to keep them upright, still out of breath.  Al pants against his neck, and when he turns to press his lips to Al’s skin he can feel the pulse racing just under it.

“Well, that was almost anticlimactic,” Ed says finally, and Al gives a tired little giggle.

“Almost,” he agrees.  “You know, I had a whole plan.  I was going to sweep you off your feet and carry you off to bed—“

“And instead, this,” Ed says, retrieving his sticky hand from inside his brother’s pants.

He considers wiping it on his own shirt, but Al probably won’t appreciate that.  Come to think of it, he is a bit curious about the taste—

“I can’t see what you’re thinking, and don’t you dare,” Al gasps, swaying as he finally shifts his weight back on his own two feet.  “I don’t think I can handle it if you did that.”

“Fine,” Ed sighs at him, reluctantly letting go just enough for Al to lean over and grab the box of Kleenex from the couch arm.  When he straightens back up, however, Ed pulls him back down for a kiss.

Al goes so beautifully willingly, sighing deeply as he melts into it, and fuck it’s everything Ed has wanted for so long.  Al’s hand comes up against his neck again, warm and firm and right, and they’re still pressed close enough together to feel each other’s racing heartbeats.

He completely forgets why Al had just grabbed the tissues, realizing too late that he just wrapped his still-dirty hand in Al’s shirt.  Al makes a disgruntled noise at him, but makes no move to actually stop kissing him.  It’s Ed who breaks the kiss eventually, tilting his head down just enough to part their lips.

“Is there a waiting period before we revisit that ‘carrying me off to bed’ thing?”

*** Out of all the unfair things that had happened to Ed in his life, curfews were probably the worst.

Okay, that might have been a slight exaggeration, but only slight.

Why was it that if he or Winry turned up two minutes late there was hell to pay, but Al is now an hour past his curfew and Pinako had just…gone to bed?  “I’ll talk to him in the morning,” was all she said when Ed had asked.

Injustice is what it was.

At least Al had been answering his texts, so he knew his little brother wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.  On the subject of where he was and what he was doing, however, Al had been frustratingly tight-lipped.

Ed finally gave up on pacing at eleven, but he stayed sitting up in bed, waiting for Al to come back.  If Pinako wasn’t going to read him the riot act then Ed would just have to do it himself.

It was almost midnight when he heard the front door open—Al was trying to be quiet, but the knob squeaked no matter how slowly it was turned.

Ed put down his book, scooted up the bed, and folded his arms.  He was ready when Al cautiously cracked open their door.  Evidently he wasn’t expecting Ed to be awake; he jumped with his hand on the handle.

For a long minute they stared at each other, and Ed tucked his right leg up more comfortably.  He should have left his leg on, since he didn’t much feel like hopping over to confront his little brother.

Finally Al sighed.  “If you’re going to yell at me, get it over with.”

“You wanna tell me where you’ve been, so I can decide how much trouble you’re in first?”

Al looked over his shoulder guiltily, then stepped into the room and shut the door.  “I haven’t been anywhere, really.  I was just thinking,” he said, and he wouldn’t meet Ed’s eyes.  “I parked by the library, and I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.”

Something was off about his tone, about the roughness of his voice and the way his shoulders hunched.

Ed cocked his head.  “What were you thinking about for so long?”

Al swayed, looking between Ed and his own empty bed.  Finally he seemed to come to a decision.  “Can I sit with you?” he asked, quiet and unsure.

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Ed said, scooting over and patting the blanket beside him.

Al sat, but his back was rigidly straight and he stayed partially turned away.  He fiddled with the edge of the blanket, still not answering.

As usual, Ed was the one who lost patience first.  “What were you thinking about?”

Al barked out a humorless laugh, chin falling to his chest.  “A lot of things.  A lot of stupid, stupid things.”

Ed shifted over until his thigh was pressed against Al’s biting his lip.  He wanted to tell Al off for referring to any of his own thoughts as stupid, but he knew that would just make Al argue, and they’d be back to square one.

So he held his tongue, until Al looked at him sidelong.  “I was on a date,” he said, eyes fixed on Ed’s face as he apparently waited for a reaction.  “It didn’t go well.”

Ed blinked, opened his mouth, shut it, blinked again.  “…Oh,” he finally replied.

He had a lot of thoughts of his own, honestly.  He could demand to know why Al hadn’t told him before, or who had dared to hurt his baby brother.  A selfish little part of him wanted to know why Al was dating in the first place.  Weren’t Ed and Winry enough for him?

But Al was hurting, and that was far more important than Ed’s jumbled feelings.  He was still looking at Ed, waiting for a reply.

“So whose ass do I need to kick?” he asked finally.

Al looked away with a quiet laugh.  “No one’s,” he said, soft.  “Except maybe mine.”

“The fuck do you mean by that?” Ed snapped, knocking their shoulders together.  “I mean, I could, but you’re the one who got hurt, so—“

Al shoulder-checked him back.  “It wasn’t her fault.  She was fine.  Probably better than fine, she was great.  But I couldn’t…I didn’t…”  He turned away, but not before Ed spotted the quickly-bitten tremor in his lower lip.  “I didn’t feel the right way about her.  I should have!  But I didn’t.”

It took Ed a second to respond to that, because he did possess enough social intelligence to know Al probably didn’t want him jumping up to cheer right now.  “That’s not your fault,” he said finally, leaning into Al’s side.  “If you don’t feel it, you don’t feel it.  I mean, I probably wouldn’t even know ‘it’ if it bit me in the face.”

Al laughed a bit at that.  “I guess so,” he mumbled.  “I’m more upset because…because what if I want something I can’t ever have and that means I can’t ever be happy with anything else?”

It all came out in a rush, and he froze before trying to scramble off Ed’s bed.

“Nope,” Ed told him, hooking both arms around Al’s shoulders so he couldn’t leave.  “I’m probably the worst person to ask about this, because I don’t really understand it…”  He used his weight to haul Al back down.  “But you’re my brother, and I love you no matter what.  And I’ll always be there for you.” Al made a harsh noise, a pained laugh, and curled up under Ed’s hold.  “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” Ed said stubbornly.  “I’m older, I know everything.”

That got him an actual giggle.  Quickly stifled, but still better than the horrible uncertainty he’d heard before.  “You literally just said—“

“Not the point,” Ed interrupted, ruffling Al’s hair to hear him whine.  “Now will you promise not to stay out worrying again?”

Al sighed, and then suddenly turned in Ed’s hold to squeeze his own arms tight around Ed’s middle.  “Thank you,” he whispered, and Ed blinked down at him.

“Uh, sure?” he said uncertainly.  “Dunno why you’re thanking me.  It doesn’t mean I’ll help when Winry kills you for keeping her car all night.”

“Of course not.”  Al looked up at him for a second, still drawn and worried, but then he let go and squirmed out of Ed’s arms.  “If I’m going to die tomorrow I at least want it to be on a full night’s sleep.”

“Fine,” Ed acquiesced, letting him go.

He meant to bother Al into telling him what he’d been so stressed about.  He did.  But the next morning his acceptance letter arrived, and somehow it never came up again.

***

Ed wakes up to orange-golden sunset light spilling around the edges of his curtains.  He doesn’t move for a few seconds, taking stock of the sensations.

He’s kinda thirsty, and he’d definitely fallen asleep sticky, and he’s a bit sore in new and very interesting ways.  And he’s very much fine with all of those things.

Because Al is asleep at his side, naked as the day he was born, curled up so his back is pressed against Ed and snoring quietly.  His head is pillowed on Ed’s left arm, hand curled lightly around Ed’s wrist.  His hair is sticking up in the back again.

When Ed rolls to wrap his right arm around him too, drops gentle kisses at the ridge of his spine, Al’s breathing hitches.  He hums contentedly, legs stretching out straight before he wriggles around in Ed’s hold so they’re facing each other.  “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Ed answers, accepting a kiss that tastes like sleep.  What’s tacky between Ed’s thighs has also dried crusty on Al’s front, and he really should find that a lot grosser than he does.

Al hooks both his legs around Ed’s one, rests their foreheads together.  “I guess this is happening now?” he breathes.

Ed considers the question for a moment.  “I mean, probably not right now, because I’m hungry.”

“I’m serious.”  Al nips him.  “You know what I mean.”

Ed sighs, nuzzling close so Al can’t meet his eyes.  “I mean, I think you can tell that I want this to happen,” he mumbles.  His lips brush Al’s as he speaks, but he doesn’t want to pull away.  “I should probably be worried that I somehow planted the idea in your head, or made you think you had to do this for me to stay with you, or—“

Al gives an inelegant snort, and it knocks their heads together.  “Ed, I figured out how I felt about you by the time I was sixteen.  I’m just guessing, based on when you started acting completely weird—“  Ed makes an offended noise, squeezes his thighs tight around Al’s leg— “You didn’t start to think about this until last year.  Am I right?”

Ed scowls, but he can’t exactly deny it.  He kisses his brother instead, and he’s never going to tire of the way Al’s laugh feels against his mouth.

“I want this,” Al breathes between kisses, when Ed pulls away just enough to adjust the angle.  “I want you.  I have for so long but I didn’t think it could ever—that you would ever—“

His voice breaks, and Ed pulls him in tighter.  They’re tangled up so thoroughly it’s hard to tell where he ends and Al begins, without any clothes to get between them, and it’s simultaneously overwhelming and not enough.  Al’s hands are in his hair, messy as it is from their earlier exertions, and by simple expedient of gravity they wind up rolled so he’s on top and Al’s on his back beneath him.

Lithe thighs bracket his waist, and Al’s eyes are dark with desire when Ed finally breaks the kiss.  His hips twitch, almost involuntarily, and Al gives a breathless little laugh.  The way his hips roll under Ed’s is positively sinful, and it clearly gets the response he’d been hoping for.

“I thought you were hungry,” he teases when Ed works his hand between them to grasp Al’s reawakening arousal.

“I guess I can wait,” Ed gasps, pretending his voice didn’t just crack when Al returned the attention.  “We can take some time.  As much time as you want.”