an: Um, hello everybody. I present to you my very first FMA fanfiction. I honestly don't know if it's any good, so I would love any kind of feedback. I must admit I read so many gorgeous FMA stories (whether on this site or on Tumblr) that I'm a bit scared about posting this one, which has tumbled into my brain about a week ago, about a month after binge-watched Brotherhood and thus came to know the awesomeness of Fullmetal Alchemist, to which I was oblivious up to that point (I mean you hear over and over again how good a thing is, but you don't actually understand until you watch the thing and your mind gets blown). Anyway, I've been a fierce EdWin shipper ever since I started reading stuff about the characters (which was before I even watched the anime) and here I am now presenting the fandom with my first FMA fanfiction, rambling while I should just let you read the story and judge for yourselves.
So, yeah. Read, enjoy, and please let me know what you think!
disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist
Morning, Sunshine
by emoeses
Warm midmorning sunlight had slowly found a path to sneak through the soft, white curtains and into the scarcely furnished second-floor bedroom of the house at the top of the hill. A house whose inhabitants had seen much earlier mornings, but on that lazy Sunday were still profoundly asleep.
That is, until the first ray of sun climbed over the big king size bed in the room and settled on Edward Elric's face, scrunching it up as he mumbled incoherent profanities and brought a hand up to screen his eyes from the annoying light.
Unfortunately, the gesture alone was enough to wake him up and he groaned, stifling a yawn as in his head he cursed against whomever had failed to make sure the curtains were drawn properly the night before, not thinking that it'd probably been him.
He rubbed his eyes with both hands, the sunlight still threatening sharp pain as soon as he'd open them completely. The weight of his automail leg would be too uncomfortable if he were to roll his body to rest on his right side, so he settled for turning just his head, moving until he could no longer feel the heat of the sun on his face before he finally opened his eyes. He smiled. The sight before him definitely made up for the annoying awakening.
Winry was still peacefully asleep, her right hand curled on the pillow just in front of her lips, while her impossibly long hair spilled over her shoulders and onto the white sheets, looking almost angelic under the soft, clear morning light.
When they were kids, he'd always been too busy to notice how beautiful she actually was. Not just pretty, not just nice-looking, she was beautiful, so gorgeous that he almost couldn't believe that someone else hadn't come to whisk her away while he was gone. It stunned him how she'd actually chosen him, Edward Elric, out of everybody, when he'd spent so long stubbornly ignoring any attraction he might've felt towards her. Not for fear of rejection, not because there were other, nicer or prettier girls in his life, simply because she was Winry, and she was a gear-head. Nagging and exasperating and always beating him up with her wrench, yelling at him to drink his milk and take care of his automail. Always teasing him about his height, always putting her nose where it didn't belong. Scolding, infuriating Winry, who was his best and oldest friend. Who he couldn't live without.
It was truly marveling how everything had suddenly started to settle into place after the Promised Day. How easy things had become, even in times that still required attention in reconstructing everything that had been burned down. Al had his body back, he had his arm. Mustang and Havoc hadn't taken long to recover, and even the few leftover post-traumatic nightmares seemed less scary when he could wake up next to his girl—his wife, he corrected himself, his thumb grazing over the smooth, platinum band that hugged the base of his left ring-finger. The rings had been Al's present. He'd transmuted the metal himself and conjured up a speech about how he'd deemed that an element amongst the purest and most resistant would be a perfect symbol of their love, simple and lasting even the most tenacious teasing.
Winry had laughed, a light blush coloring her cheeks, while Edward had looked at the ring in his palm with a grimace and accused his younger brother of being too girly for his own good.
"Seriously, you'll never get Mei to go out with you if you don't toughen up and stop with the sentimental crap."
He should've seen the wrench coming.
"SHUT UP, ED! Don't listen to him, Al. We love them, they're perfect. Thank you so much!"
The two had hugged, Al hiding a snicker in his future sister-in-law's shoulder as Edward clutched his head and cursed from the ground, tears forming at the corner of his eyes.
He'd teased his brother, but truthfully he loved the idea of platinum symbolizing what he and Winry had. Something strong, that would abide in spite of anything. Mostly, in spite of distance.
He'd spent the past year traveling between Amestris and the West, never gone for more than a couple of months, but never at home for as long, either. It was part of the reason why he and Winry had decided to get married so soon. He didn't know how long his research was gonna take, probably years, and he didn't want her to just wait for him, he wanted a reason to come back that was more than just automail check-ups and repairs. They had all the time in the world to live together and start a family, but he'd wanted to make sure they'd actually have the chance to.
He couldn't lose her, not after they'd survived the end of the world. Not when he finally had her.
"Don't be silly," she'd tell him, when he voiced such thoughts out loud. "You've always had me. We've known each other our whole lives and if I'm still not sick of you, it's pretty safe to assume I never will be."
If he tried to reason that there were bigger things, things out of his or her control, that could tear them apart, she just rolled her eyes and kissed his forehead.
"You're just being paranoid. You've already saved the world once, you could do it again," and then she'd walk away, leaving him no chance to argue.
She was still painstakingly frustrating. He hoped she was right.
Edward yawned again before stretching his arms first, his leg later. He'd arrived to Resembool only a few hours before, in the middle of the night, and his back was still stiff from the whole day he'd spent on the train. He sat up and cracked his neck with a sigh of relief, rubbing his sore shoulder with one hand while the other went down to pat his automail limb. The surface was cool and smooth under his palm, but when he tried to bend the knee, the metal junctures screeched as if they hadn't moved in years.
"Edward." He cringed and turned towards Winry, still laying down with her eyes closed, to notice a crease between her eyebrows. She somehow managed to sound deadly even before being completely awake. "Please tell me that sound didn't come from your leg."
"Ergh—it, um, didn't?"
"Edward."
"What? You said—"
She sat up, fuming, and ripped the covers off him, discarding them on the floor without so much as a glance. She put one hand on his metal knee cap and the other over the shin plate, then carefully bent the leg a little more, her eyes darkening when she noticed the friction, along with the horrible creaking. She then pushed down to straighten it and, even before it aligned to the bed completely, a loud clunk resonated through the room, followed by some jangling, until the leg went completely limp in her hands. The creases were now crinkling her forehead as well. Edward paled.
"You were gone for just three weeks! I checked it before you left and it was perfect! What could you have possibly done to come back in these conditions?!" she asked, her voice loud and high-pitched.
"Well, I might of—there's this big, salt lake between Creta and Aerugo which is believed to be sacred because of the magical properties of the water. It's all a myth, of course, but since the alchemy they use in the tribes around the lake is largely based on water—"
"You swam in salt water?" interjected Winry, clearly not captivated by his alchemy rambling. "Edward that's not just bad for the automail, it's dangerous!"
"I didn't go in deep! I just wanted to analyze some of the debris on the bottom! My guide was there the whole time, and he's an excellent swimmer," he assured her, waving his hands as if to dismiss whole thing.
Winry still looked greatly irritated. "Jeez, couldn't you at least find someway to cover the leg before you went in? And I bet you didn't properly dry it after, either! And it was salt water too, how many times do I have to tell you that salt water is automail's biggest enemy?"
"I don't think you've ever told me that, actually." On some level he was probably conscious that he was pretty much just making it worse.
"How the hell was I supposed to know you were gonna dive into a salt water lake?!" she yelled, throwing her arms in the air. He scooted back, flinching as he expected a wrench to pop into her hand at any moment so she could beat him to death with it. He was still afraid of Winry more than he was of anyone else, even more so when his automail was somehow damaged.
He couldn't even run for his life.
"And I shouldn't even have to explain you that metal rusts! You're an alchemist, for crying out loud!" She ran her fingers through her bangs, ruffling them up even more, and in the instant her hands left her face and she started gesticulating again, he caught a slither of pain in her bright eyes. A pain he knew very well, because she only reserved for him and Al.
She was worried about him. Because every time he left, there was a slight chance that his proneness to trouble wouldn't allow him to come back. Because he wasn't even responsible enough to take care of his own automail leg, and she was too far away to come and fix it whenever he might need her.
"I'm sorry, Win."
She dropped her arms and looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time in weeks.
She is, he thought bitterly, and took advantage of her sudden calm to take her hand in his.
"You hardly ever apologize," she said, dropping her gaze on their fingers intertwining. "You usually just look for excuses."
"You're right, I should've known better," he ran his thumb across her palm. "I don't—I don't want you to worry about me."
She smiled, then let go of his hand to wrap her arms around his shoulders and peck him on the lips. "Thank you," she whispered, pressing her forehead against his.
He ran his hands along her forearms, closing his eyes so he could just feel her for a moment. It'd been too long since the last time he'd been able to touch her, and he wanted to enjoy every second of her proximity. She was always too far away in his dreams, and dreams were the only time when he could see her while he was gone.
"I'm pretty sure you're still gonna be too lazy to take care of your automail, but it's nice to know you care enough to apologize," she added, after a few seconds. Her voice sounded like she was smiling.
"Hey, I don't even get the benefit of the doubt?" he protested, she giggled.
"No, you don't," she moved a hand to graze his cheek. "I know you," she poked his nose.
He kissed her, blushing like he had the first time he'd done it. Except this time it wasn't because he had no idea what he was doing, but because the moment was too intimate for him not to blush. She knew him, she loved him. She was not gonna stop loving him.
She scooted closer, tilting her head slightly to deepen the kiss. They both had morning breath but neither cared. He didn't even know how he'd managed to go three weeks without kissing her, and he was gonna make up for every second of his absence.
She leaned back slightly and he took it as an opportunity to start kissing her neck, just below her jaw and down towards her collarbone, oblivious for a moment to the fact that she was patting his automail leg.
"I think I might have to take apart the whole thing, probably substitute most of the wires. The junctures are probably too rusted to do anything, but I might be able to save some of the metal from the thigh and the shin," she mumbled, escaping his lips by moving closer to the leg to get a better look.
"What? Are you seriously gonna start fixing it right now?" slight irritation quickly took the place of bewilderment.
"Yes, of course. This might take a few days, the earlier I start, the better," she answered, matter-of-factly. "Can you move your feet at all?"
"But Winry," he complained. "I just got back!"
"You can't blame me for wanting to be sure you have a perfectly functioning leg by the time you leave again!" she told him, raising her finger to add to her stern expression.
"There's plenty of time!" he said, halfway to exasperation. "You can do it later!"
Her eyebrow quirked in half-amusement, half-skepticism. "Later?"
"Yeah," he relaxed a bit and pulled her towards him once again with a crooked grin. "Later," he repeated, practically against her lips.
She rolled her eyes. "You want me to believe you can do anything with thirty-five pounds of dead weight attached to you?"
"What?! OF COURSE I CAN!" he yelled in protest, looking mortally offended.
She didn't even try to stifle her laugh. "Aha, sure."
So he kissed her hard, mostly to shut her up, but also because he really wanted to. She jumped a bit in surprise, which made him smile, but soon enough she returned the kiss with just as much passion. He gently scooped her up onto his lap and let his hands linger on her hips while his tongue dipped into her mouth and she sighed contentedly, hooking her own arms around his neck to bring him closer.
Her chest grazed against his, only the thin fabric of her nightgown between them, and he felt a chill run down his spine that made his grip on her hips tighter, as all of the desire he'd suppressed while he was away came rushing back. For a short, terrifying second he worried that he was never gonna have enough time to fill his need for her, but then her hand closed around the hair at the nape of his neck to pull his head back, making sure she could keep kissing him while she readjusted her position so that she was straddling his lap, and when their bodies collided once again, he remembered that they'd committed their whole lifetimes to each other, and he would never run out of time with her. She would always be there, whether right by his side or on the other part of the world waiting for him. He should've probably felt selfish because of that, but he was overwhelmed by gratitude instead.
No matter what the universe threw at him, he would always have Winry. There weren't many thoughts as comforting as that.
His hand left her hip to slide along her thigh and she moved against him, the friction causing even his most dormant senses to tingle. She sighed one more time, and he smirked, before briefly breaking the kiss.
"See? You should know me better than that," he told her, sounding smug even to himself.
She raised her eyebrows at him. "Well look who's talking."
"What's that supposed to mean? I know you better than you know yourself."
"Oh really? Seems to me that if you did, you'd know I'd never have sex with a guy who took such poor care of my automail," she retorted, self-righteously. "Not even my husband."
This said, she moved off him, using his shoulders as support not to lose her balance, and swiftly jumped off the bed. "Now, first things first, let's asses the damage. Then we can go get some breakfast before I start taking it apart."
Edward looked at her in shock as she brought her hair up in a ponytail and dragged a stool next to the bed so that she could sit while she inspected his leg. Sadly, she didn't look like she was kidding.
He groaned and let himself fall backwards on the bed, mumbling half-hearted curses at the ceiling. Typical of Winry to punish him for something as stupid as busting his automail. He should've thought of a better exit strategy. Maybe next time he'd bring back some sort of present to distract her. That used to work when they were kids.
"Can you move your foot at all?"
He tried and the rusted metal produced another set of horrifying sounds. Winry huffed out her indignation, but Edward was a bit more troubled about another part of his body that was starting to express painful concern at Winry's lack of lenience. He gritted his teeth.
"Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium..."
Winry snickered, Edward ignored her.