Hi guys! This story is set up as a repository for my future FMA romance drabbles, especially post-series ones… I'm not sure for that reason when/if it's going to be updated. At one time I had a whole bunch of them in my brain (it maaay have been somewhat correlated with the last chapter being released, hee—) but now, as I'm juggling my Howl fic (The Business of Happily After), poetry, songwriting, my own novella, and a large summer research project, I'm not sure what to expect. Anyway, I have an inscutable love of canon pairings, so this may end up having one-shots containing Royai, EdWin, LingFan, or whatever else the heck I get the whim to write… at the moment, it's AlMei. (Yay! AlMei! So much love!)
I wrote this particular little fic last summer, I believe, and when I re-read it I realized it's one of the more effective romance scenes I've written. Win? …I don't know.
Enjoy, and beware of the dangerously high levels of fluff!
~The Things They Can't Help~
"Fireworks Dance at Festival Pavillion," the note burned into his chamber floor read. "Be there!" Around the simple Xingese characters were scrawled a myriad of dopey little drawings that appeared to depict explosions, people dancing, and a very sparkly Visiting Scholar watching in sheer delight.
Alphonse Elric, the first and only Visiting Scholar in Chang history, could not help himself. He laughed out loud, though no one was there to hear him, and grinned so hard he almost dropped his laundry. As a guest of the Chang elders and the heiress's personal advisor, he had been studying Rentanjustu and the culture of Xing on and off for the past few years, whenever his travels took him through the area; but he hadn't been back nearly long enough to warrant sparkly drawings from his Alkahestry...tutor.
Al put his laundry away and went in search of the Festival Pavilion. He'd never been to Chang territory in high summer before, and already something inside him felt as though it were glowing. Maybe it was the right time at last.
~TTT~
Mei Chang could almost hear the crowd's expectation. It seemed to creep into the dusk around her as she and the other girls lined up behind the flower trees, silently adjusting their hair and making last-minute sweeps of their outfits. They were all nervous: it was a great honor to be in the Fireworks Dance, and a little dangerous, too.
Mei figured she must be twice as nervous as all the rest of her clan-girls put together. Alphonse-sama was out there in the crowd somewhere, watching. He would have gotten her message and come; she didn't doubt it in a second. It was him, after all.
The lanterns about the Pavilion were put out suddenly. That was their cue.
When she and the other girls moved into the beaten-earth dancing circle, she heard the muttering crowd go silent. She did not have time to search the stands for her tow-headed Visiting Scholar sticking out among the dark heads of her people; the music started, a low drumming and and eerie wail, and she had to focus on moving. First, like always, each step seemed terribly out of line; then she reached into herself and felt the Dragon's Pulse in her feet, connecting her to each of the other dancers, and the steps came more and more easily. The oily paint that striped her exposed skin and the ceremonial clothing served as the circle; and as she clasped hands with and spun away from the other girls, turning back and forth in intricate patterns, the marks on each of them combined into a complete summon for the purification arts.
Alphonse-sama, she thought, as the first fireworks began exploding into life above them, drawn into being by the living Alkahestry circle, are you watching? Can you see me now?
~TTT~
Amazing was the word going through Al's mind. Amazing, amazing, amazing. He could barely see the dancing girls' faces; they melted together into a perfect Alkahestry circle, changing continuously, each change summoning up new glittering displays of light and fire in the atmosphere around them. He tried to pick out Mei's figure from among the circle; at some point he found her, her lively step and braids giving her away. She stood still for a moment under a rainbow of colors, and Al tried to catch her eye—but then she disappeared as the crowd of dancers abruptly broke ranks and taller people got in the way.
It was over, Al realized. It had been so beautiful it took a few moments for the fact to sink in; once it did, he got up and went to find Mei.
The dancers were breaking out of their formation and coming out to the crowd now, joining their friends and family members—Chang rituals always had that informal feeling, the realization that their members were, outside the ritual, just people like the rest of the clan. The sound of people's conversation rose into the air around him; if he tried, Al could understand half of the words, maybe. But he wasn't trying; a flurry of girls in flowing dance costumes passed by him, and he searched for the right one, all the words waiting on his tongue. Excitement sang in the air, even though the dance had ended; the night seemed to hang down over the Festival Pavillion tangibly, softly perfumed, swollen with summer flowers and the day's shed heat.
"Alphonse-sama!" a voice called, and Al turned toward the sound automatically. It was Mei, of course. Who else called him by that ridiculous title? He'd been failing to get her to stop for as long as they'd been studying the purification arts together—that is, what felt like for ever. He picked the girl out of the crowd a moment later: shorter than all her friends by a few inches, she was waving her hands at him, rentanjutsu lines still flowering and coiling generously along the curve of her limbs, her long braids canting about with her motion. Al smiled. He couldn't help it.
When they reached each other through the crowd they both started speaking immediately, so it took a minute to sort out the confusion. "How was it? How did it look? What did you think?" Mei cried, while Al began, "That was amazing. It was incredible. I've never seen anything like it."
They regarded each other over the outburst and laughed. "I guess that's answered, then," Mei said, leaned forward a bit on her hip. Al found himself not quite looking at her, glowing in her festival attire—or else he'd probably be caught staring.
"No, really," he said, still caught up in the whirling excitement that the whole thing held. "Whoever created the Fireworks Dance was a real genius. I would never have thought to use human bodies like that…let alone… Think what it must've taken just to figure out the combination of symbols to use—"
"No one knows who designed it," Mei said. "It's as old as the Chang clan. Um—" Her brown eyes floated to the ground; with one hand she plucked her other wrist, then she burst her gaze upon him again to ask, "So how did I do? I've been practicing for weeks and weeks, I was so afraid that the whole thing would explode if my foot slipped, could you tell? Did I dance alright?"
"You looked great," Al said. There was so much more he could have said, but the thoughts caught at the back of his throat, heady and warm, and convieniently did not solidify into words. "I didn't notice any problems at all. Really."
Around them, the crowd of spectators was dispersing quite rapidly in the gathering twilight—moving off toward their homes, toward another summer festival feast, Al would guess. The soft murmur of receding conversation seemed to blur with the temperature of the night air, making one whole mess of sweet summer night. Al thought he might begin to love summer in Xing nearly as much as spring in Risembol. He wondered briefly what Ed would think of that; but his mind was rather too distracted at the moment.
"Thanks," Mei said, her face radiating a glow warmer than the lanterns lighting the village paths—though perhaps it was a side effect of just having finished dancing. Al didn't know. "You're very welcome," he said. "Anytime."
Mei laughed. "I should ask your opinion more often, Al-sama. Anyway, come on! I'm starving. Let's go to the feast."
"Okay," Al said. What else could he say?
With a quick turn the girl was in motion, twirling off down the street, and dozens of her braids—tied up into ceremonial loops, but familiar nonetheless—turned in an arc with her, trailing behind the two symmetrical piles of her dark hair. Something ocurred to Al. "Mei," he asked, following her down the dirt path toward the royal family's dwelling, "How long is your hair?"
"Um," said Mei. Her round-fingered hand fluttered up to the closest bun as if to check. "I've been growing it at least since I first met you, since my trip to Amestris."
"Two feet?" Al guessed. It was a random estimate.
"I'm not really sure…" Mei began; and then a light came on in her brown eyes. "I know!" she declared, seized Al's hand, and abruptly pulled them about-face against the flow of the crowd. "Let me show you!"
Dragged up the street, dodging groups of Chang courtiers and commoners alike laughing away in the night, Al felt caught up in something uncontrollable. "Um, don't you think we should go to the feast?" he asked. "Won't you…be missed or something?"
"It'll only take a few minutes," Mei said briskly, quite set upon her new course of action. It seemed like only moments later they were back at the pavillion—they hadn't really gotten that far, had they? This time, however, instead of the raised seating stands, Al found himself at a cluster of small huts half-hidden behind a copse of blooming trees that bordered the beaten-earth dancing circle.
"Dressing rooms," Mei explained, pushing through the outer door's beaded curtain and dragging Al along with her. She still hadn't let go of his hand, a fact that he couldn't help but notice—in fact, he hadn't been able to stop noticing since the moment she took it: four soft, round-tipped fingers curled around the outside of his own. Her hands made his lanky fingers look ridiculously long and bony, but Al didn't mind. There was something fascinating about it.
Inside the dressing room hut, they went down a short darkened corridor into a smaller room, its walls crusted with ornate mirrors and a few extremely cluttered tables placed along the walls in seemingly random places. Several three-legged stools tottered at the tables, and all available surfaces dripped with garment hangars and fabric, scissors, paint pots, brushes, things Al didn't even want to wonder about the function of. He squashed the feeeling of trespassing in someplace utterly private and female. He was here with Mei, after all.
The girl finally let go of Al's hand then, in order to go straight to a clear spot on the wall and stand for a moment studying it. "Could you get the lights, Al-sama?" she asked.
There was a gas-lamp in one corner; Al lit it as best he could in the dark, and was rewarded for his efforts by a much clearer vision of Mei Chang rummaging in the sash of her ceremonial dance costume. For a dizzy moment Al thought she was taking it off; then he realized she was only taking something out of a concealed pocket where the sleeveless front sash met the bias-cut layers of the skirt. He sat down hurriedly on a nearby stool. His face felt hot.
"Are you sure we're supposed to be here?" he asked.
Mei pulled her hands out of her sash full of rentanjutsu knives, stood up against the wall, and without any discomfort began to shove them through her hair, pinning it to the wall. "It's—fine," she mumbled around a mouthful of knife, but Al was no longer paying attention.
"You do your hair with rentanjutsu?"
"Only—" the knife glinted against her teeth— "for stuff—like—this."
"That's ridiculous!" Al cried. "What about using alchemy for the good of others? What—" He couldn't take it anymore; he snickered. Mei flushed and clapped her hands together; Al missed the flash of the alkahestry's activation, as he was doubled over, giggling into his palms.
"Have you learned anything at all? This isn't alchemy. Regardless, it's a perfectly legitimate use of the arts," Me's voice said, sounding chagrined. She also sounded closer; Al turned and to find that she'd walked over and was standing behind him, arms folded.
Whatever he'd been about to say in reprimand died on his lips. "Wow," Al said.
"Oh, it's not that—"
"That must be at least two and half feet long," Al said, astonished. "Turn around!"
Silent, and perhaps a touch flushed, Mei did so. Her hair was longer than Al had estimated. Freed from the piles and braids she normally pulled it up in, it fell below her waist, almost to mid-thigh, and the light from the gaslamps gave it a rich, wet sheen. Strands were standing out and there were kinks in places from where it was normally held back; but it was still striking. Somehow the smooth and rounded curves of Mei's little body seemed emphasized by all that hair falling down along them.
"I've never measured it," Mei said softly, relenting from the war-path; her voice caught a little, but she seemed to recover. "You think it's more…?"
"Oh, definitely," Al said. Without really thinking, he found himself kneeling next to her, taking a handful of the dark fringe and measuring it up against his hand. "How tall are you, Mei?" he asked. "Five-four?"
~TTT~
"I think." Mei half-turned to face him as the young man squatted next to her, holding his hands up near her leg. What was he…?
"From here," Al-sama said, tapping the side of the girl's foot, "to here." There was the lightest touch of his hand, held flat, palm toward the floor, against the outside of her thigh, where her hair fell and finally stopped. He was measuring with his hands, she realized belatedly. From her angle she could just see him holding the tip of his tongue between his lips, his eyes alight with concentration. This was just like Alphonse-sama: going off into a fit of scientific wonder over the smallest detail. "I'd definitely say that measurement is three feet or less."
Mei nodded silently, trying to decide for the millionth time whether his wonder about her hair was purely scientific. She wished Al-sama would take his hand away from her leg. Quickly. Having it so close was this hovering question of possibility: either it should be well away, or actually touching, not just waiting for her to figure out whether she was imagining his little finger brushing her bare skin—
~TTT~
Al looked up at Mei, waiting for an answer.
None was forthcoming; she just stared widely down at him, blinking in the orange lights. The young man felt whatever he was about to say leave him in a rush. "Oh, yeah," he muttered, standing up too quickly and far too close to her, so that the two of them almost collided. "Aah—" he said, and clutched at Mei's shoulder to balance himself. Mei cried "Hey, watch out!" and caught at his arm.
"Sorry," Al began, and then, before she let go, something else struck him. "Your hair—" he said. "It smells like witch hazel." An he shut his mouth before something else equally stupid could come out. He had managed to get his face almost directly above her head, looking down from almost perpendicular to her; instead of stepping away, Mei seemed frozen.
"Oh," she said, then gave herself a little shake and pulled back just slightly. "Oh, it's probably from the soap—"
Al was barely paying attention to what she was saying; he got the sense that Mei wasn't really thinking about it, either. Beneath the witch hazel, he could actually smell her, an indescribable human, female sort of smell. If he raised his right hand and ran it through the heavy silk strands of Mei's hair, peeling back the long curtain, his's fingers would brush the curve of her shoulderblade, then her spine, left bare to the small of the back by the ceremonial sash, with the rentanjutsu symbols still gleaming there in oily paint lines on her skin…
Not thinking of anything, Alphonse Elric reached his hand up, gingerly, and set it against the back of Mei's head; when she tensed but did not resist, he traced his nails down against her skull, following the wave of her falling hair. By the time he had worked all the way down he could feel Mei's shiver where her shoulder bumped his chest, and at the dimple of her spine under his fingers, and at the top of her head which brushed his neck.
"Alphonse-Sama," Mei said.
"Wha—" Al's heart jumped in his chest. It was as if he had just realized how close he'd gotten, how fast his blood was pumping in his veins. He fumbled his hand back, getting it caught in loose strands of Mei's hair—
"It's unfair," Mei squeaked at the same time, "for you to sit there and smell my hair without letting me smell yours."
And before Al could even process the words, the girl had turned in his arms, darting up against him with both hands groping for the back of his neck. "Hmm," Mei sniffed, nuzzling her nose up past his ear, one hand pulling his head down so she could reach the dark blonde scruff of his hair. The young man could feel his pulse beating against the smooth skin on her cheek, and it tickled when she exhaled. "Yours smells like…" She considered. Al fought the urge to shiver, but thrills passed over his skin anyway where her lips formed the words against the side of his neck. He sucked a his breath in through his teeth; he couldn't help it. His hand was still trapped in Mei's hair, forming a shell against her shoulder.
"Sand," Mei said.
~TTT~
The girl pulled her face back a little, giddy. "Yep. Sand," she repeated, looking straight up into the young man's amber eyes. Alphonse just stared at her from between her two arms, his head still crooked down at a ridiculous agnle even though she'd let her hand go limp at the very base of his head, where his hair stopped in a coarse spray of chopped bits.
They stayed that way for a few moments, looking at each other. Mei felt herself flushing all the way up her neck, heat rising from the oddly-exposed scoop neckline of her sash top to her forehead; it was a silly, stupid situation to get into, wasn't it? Being so close to him, so close she could feel his chest rise and fall with each breath, was turning her insides into water. And maybe, maybe she was not alone in the feeling: Al-sama's pale skin turning crimson. His mouth had fallen open just a little. She could amost feel their awareness rising at the same time, a mutual realization of just how ridiculous the situation had gotten. How—nice.
Mei smiled at almost the same time that Alphonse-sama's narrow lips curved up and he looked to the side, grinning. "This—" he said— "This is—"
"Silly—!" Mei finished, and the both of them burst out laughing. "Smelling each other's hair," she added, and dared to lean her forehead into the boy's collarbone, giggling and feeling his chest spasming with laughter underneath her cheek. Shaking silently with mirth, it was still impossible for her not to feel Al's left hand come up and rest on the bare skin of her back, his right begin to stroke through her hair again, gently. Her skin felt like it was going to melt off under his fingers. It was almost difficult to believe it wasn't some sort of delusion.
Mei felt her laughter going soft inside of her, dying down as the shivers in Al's chest slowed. She had her eyes closed; his head was bent down to hers, his warm cheek—with just a touch of stubble—nudging her own, his lips breathing out against her chin—the distance between them seemed to have shrunk to almost nothing, and then it was gone altogether.
~TTT~
Al felt Mei's lips join his without any hesitation, with no effort at all, almost: brushing, fluttering, tasting. And then she stopped kissing him and he opened his eyes to her most excited grin, brown eyes brimming with golden light—
"I knew it!" the girl breathed. "Al-sama, I knew it, I knew it, they always said I was stupid but I knew it, I couldn't stop believing that—"
She was babbling. Her face was shining brighter than all the lanterns, nearly bursting with a radiance that Al could feel reflected in his own body, like a fire that burned all the way to his bones: "Even when we first met, I always knew—" she trilled, her body beating in his arms—
"Mei," Al said.
"I can't believe it—"
"Mei—" Al said. He pulled his hand around from her head and held it flat against her lips.
"What—"
He bent his head to hers again, pulling the hand out of the way at the last minute. "Shh."
Mei's hands curled up against the back of his neck, twining in his hair, clinging to him, and her lips parted against his. She didn't stop this time, either: just moved with him in the quiet, seeking deeper into his mouth, her body running up against his like a live wire, until they were both dizzy, gasping, electrified.
At some point Al stumbled backwards into a table corner, and the pain in his hip was enough that he jerked his lips away from Mei's to yelp.
"Sorry!" Mei said. "Sorry, sorry!"
"It's okay," Al said, scratching his head and looking away, trying to think beyond the throbbing pulse that was his entire body. Mei stepped back from him to let him get his balance; he reluctantly let his hands slide off her back, wondering how they'd managed to work themselves so thoroughly under the edges of her clothing when there was so little of it to begin with. He wiped his face; something wet was clinging there.
~TTT~
"Mei," Al-sama asked sharply, looking up at her from leaning back on the table, "are you crying?"
"Sorry!" Mei said again, and burst into a sob as she felt herself turning red again. She couldn't help it. "I can't—I'm sorry—I can't stop!"
She rubbed her eyes furiously, trying to stop the tears, but they wouldn't. It was as though her body were overflowing: all the feelings that had been singing under her skin in the past few minutes had finally grown too big for her chest and had to escape somehow. What must Al-sama think of her? Crying and smiling at the same time, both uncontrollably.
Through blurry vision she saw young man's shoulders hunch and his eyes go wide.
"What…what can I do?" he asked, raising his two bony hands nervously, as if they hadn't just been caressing her skin, insisting, holding her closer to him—just the thought of it sent a second wave of shivers through Mei and she had to put her hands in front of her face just so she could believe it.
Al-sama's voice sounded a little panicky. "Mei…Mei…Oh no…wait, how does this work? My first kiss and you burst into tears? That's not normal, is it? Did I do something wrong? Mei? Tell me!"
Mei felt a giggle burst through her tears. "No, no, no!" she said. "You did something right!"
She wiped her eyes once again to see the boy's confused face, lips half-open and maybe a little swollen, a flush of pink running across his bony cheeks, his eyes a cross between chagrin and luminous hope. She'd never seen him like this before. "Al-sama!" the girl said, and flung herself at him.
"Ow!" Al-sama said, bumping into the table again; but he didn't fall down and he didn't pry her off. "Sorry," Mei said for the thousandth time, wrapping her arms as far around his thin waist as she could and wiping her face on his shirt collar, finding a good place to rest her cheek, where she could feel his heartbeat right through his shirt.
Al's arms came up and wrapped around her, so she felt completely enfolded by him, warm all over. His voice sounded from somewhere close above her head, a little shakily. "Oh. Oh, that's good then. It was my first time kissing someone—I thought maybe I'd done a bad job, or something…"
"You were great," Mei said into his chest, and sniffled. The tears were subsiding, but she was afraid to think too much, or they would start again. After all these years, finally, getting what she wanted was better than anything she could have imagined.
"Th-" Al began, "Thanks."
"You're welcome. Anytime."
Silence. After a time that could have been minutes or hours, in which they simply breathed with one another, adjusting to this entirely new kind of warmth, Al-sama said, "Mei?"
"Alphonse-sama?"
"Do you think we should to go to dinner now?"
"Oh!" She had just about forgotten about the feast altogether. A large part of Mei's mind wanted to go back to forgetting it immediately. It was so much more…comfortable here. "Well, we have to, don't we?"
Al-sama's finger came around and poked her in the ribs. "You said you were starving," he said.
"I'm not that hungry," Mei began, and then her stomach interrupted her with a collossal gurgle. Above her head and against her chest, Alphonse Elric began to laugh. "I'm not!" Mei said, mortified. "I'm not!"
"Come on," Al told her, and with a great sigh, he managed to get himself out from between Mei and the table. As soon as his arms let go of her the girl felt like she was missing something; she had to squash the urge to grab his waist and pull him back to her.
The young man was peering in at himself in one of the dressing room's numerous mirrors. "Is there a wash-bucket around here somewhere?" he asked. The black paint, which had been so delicately traced over Mei's body for the Fireworks Dance, was now distributed across his palms—and a good deal of other places—in oily smudges. Mei turned around to look at her back, and the beautiful sash of her ceremonial dress, and felt herself grimace.
"I think I should change my clothes," she said.
They looked from the mirror to one another, and the smiles sort of unfolded across their faces simultaneously, grinning as hard as Mei had been crying a few minutes earlier. She figured the whole thing had been silly from the start; there was no reason to stop now. "Visiting Scholar-sama!" she cried at him, in her most officious voice. "Accompany me to my chambers!"
Al –sama started a little at the change in tone, but he recovered and said, "Of course, my lady."
"And make haste, before the feast is over!" Feeling just a little foolish, Mei gathered up her rentanjutsu knives, stuffed them in her sash, and took off for the door—only to have a long-fingered hand close on her wrist and yank her back.
"Wait, Mei," Al-sama said, pulling her to face him.
"We do need to go," Mei said, blindsided by him all over again: his sandy hair, pink-tinged cheeks, easy smile. "They'll miss me. And you, too, Visiting Scholar-sama."
"I know, just—can I—just one last—" the young man said, and the fingers let go of her wrist and moved up to graze Mei's chin with the lightest touch.
Mei didn't let him finish his sentence; she just stood up on her tip-toes and kissed his lips again, and once again it was like the floor had been pulled out from under her feet. Feeling blossomed in her mouth and rushed all through her body, leaving her shivering, as in some strong wind. She could swear she'd never been so happy.
They left the dressing rooms and hurried out into the warm evening—almost full night now—smeared with ceremonial paint and smiling like lunatics, like lanterns.
They couldn't help it.
~TTT~