Written for Cryogenia, for the Hei/Ed requesting meme at the community: blau(underscore)und(underscore)gold. livejournal. com, right now. If you like to write or draw for them, or just want to see what's happening there, go check it out! We need more people participating!
And I hope you enjoy this. A fluffy oneshot (I know, hard to believe from me...)

Acclimation

Alfons walked along beside Edward, his eyes behind his sunglasses carefully trained on the ground. He watched carefully as each pair of ankles walked by, taking care to look away every time a delicate, feminine-looking pair passed. If he couldn't see the hemline of a skirt, that is. Not that this was always a solution, of course; there was the time he had looked up tentatively from a pair of feet that seemed decently covered, only to find that the woman in question was wearing a skimpy top that barely qualified as lingerie in his world.

Best just keep his eyes averted.

"You're acting like an idiot," Edward hissed at him in German. "Can you please stop shielding your eyes with your hand?"

"But they're not wearing anything," Alfons said stubbornly. Women might have every right to wear whatever they wanted in the street, but any man should have the decency to look away when they chose to gad about in their underwear.

"People here dress like this," Edward said, crossing his arms. Alfons knew he was crossing his arms only through the tone of his voice, because he refused to even look up at Edward. A woman could be standing right behind him, for all he knew, and then Alfons would end up gawking. Again.

"And people are staring at you weirdly."

"I don't care," Alfons said crossly, narrowly missing running head on into something in front of him.

"Well I care," Edward snarled. "I won't have people looking at my boyfriend like he's some sort of lunatic."

"Shhhh!" Alfons was startled into looking up, caught glimpses of a whole bunch of women walking around with their legs exposed, and looked back down.

"And I told you it's not such a big deal here!" Edward groaned. "Try to get a grip, you want to make a good impression on Mustang, right?"

"Yes, yes."

He followed Edward to the bottom of the wall of an army base, where Edward had a quick, irritated conversation with the guard, and then they continued down a concrete path that crossed a horribly brightly green lawn, through the bottom of a doorframe, and along several bottoms of corridors.

"Everybody here's in uniform," Edward informed him after a few minutes of walking. "So your poor virgin eyes won't have to encounter any more 'displays of impropriety'."

As usual, Edward was so utterly understanding and tactful about the entire situation, he was a joy to be around.

With a soft groan Alfons looked up tentatively, and finding that everybody around was properly attired in clothing that actually covered a good part of their body, straightened up and pulled off his sunglasses. Even indoors it was horribly bright, and he rubbed at his exhausted eyes and massaged his aching temples.

"You okay?" Edward looked up at him in concern, eyes worried behind the glasses he now wore. The dimness in Alfons' world had slowly damaged his eyesight, and Alfons had scoffed and not believed there could be such a difference in saturation until he arrived here and experienced it for himself.

"Fine." He smiled a bit tiredly at Edward. Despite his idiosyncrasies, Edward could still be adorably thoughtful when he put his mind to it.

"Good." Back to business, since Alfons was okay. "Now listen, remember what I told you, okay? Don't say anything about... you know. And take off the sunglasses, and try not to squint. And be careful about -"

"I know, I know," Alfons said, a bit irritably. "Stop babying me."

Edward looked up at him for a long moment, then abruptly grabbed him by the collar and tugged him down to kiss him abruptly on the mouth, ignoring his squeak.

"Don't do that..."

Unrepentant, Edward grinned at him cheekily, knocked on the door next to them, then pulled it open and pushed Alfons inside.

"Good luck!"

Geez, it might not be such a big deal in this world, them being together, but he still couldn't suppress his irrational nervousness.

He straightened up and walked forward into the room, barely noticing that the door quietly clicked shut behind him. The office was spacious, with bookshelves along the walls, plush black sofas, and the man he was here to meet sitting behind a large, imposing desk right in front of two massive windows which were busily sending torturously painful rays of light at his poor, abused eyes.

Trying not to squint or grimace, he stepped forward carefully. Mustang might have made a motion for him to sit, but he wasn't sure because he couldn't really see, so he decided to sit down anyway and to heck with it. It was only after sitting down he realized how impolite that might have been, not to mention how Edward-like, and he might have panicked, but decided that would only make the situation worse.

"So," Mustang began, shifting papers on his desk and pulling a folder over to him. "Your name is Alfons Heiderich, and you come from Reas?"

Alfons nodded solemnly. Edward had chosen that country because it was northwest of some other country called Drachma, and the language there was something tangentially reminiscent of German (if, as Alfons said sullenly when he heard a sample of Rean, you were a lisping sea-dog attempting to speak the language). The country had also been chosen because Edward was pretty sure that Mustang knew absolutely nothing about it.

"And we are here today so you can convince me why I shouldn't deport you back home, like the illegal immigrant you are," Mustang said cheerfully. "And I'll have you know that the only reason I'm hearing you out is because Fullmetal would throw a temper-tantrum if I didn't."

Taken aback and trying not to look nervous, Alfons swallowed before he spoke, trying not to stutter, or stumble over the vowels of this language which was similar to English only worse. He would have gotten annoyed at the treatment, but he was aware that this Mustang was some sort of important personage, who was doing Edward a favor by dealing with this issue personally.

"I'm a scientist," Alfons said, keeping his tone civil.

"Hmph." Now Mustang looked marginally more interested. "What alchemy do you specialize in?"

"I'm not an alchemist," he said, trying to keep his voice level. The impossible had happened: he was actually marginally ashamed that he wasn't familiar with Edward's ridiculous crackpottery which somehow worked nonetheless.

"A chemist?" Now Mustang sounded mildly derisive, but hadn't dismissed him yet.

"No, I'm an engineer."

Mustang waited.

"I'm just an engineer," Alfons clarified, his stomach sinking.

"Young man, I don't know how you expect to find a position here when you don't even know enough rudimentary alchemy to transmute your own prototypes. Why would anybody want to hire an engineer and an alchemist when they could just hire an alchemist who specializes in engineering?" Mustang paused, contemplating him. "You must have some extraordinary designs up your sleeve, if you think that you can make your way in the world with nothing else."

"I can build aeroplanes," Alfons blurted, feeling small and ashamed of his life's work and furious at himself for feeling that way.

At that Mustang looked at him sharply, eyes narrowed. "And what, pray tell, is an 'aeroplane'?"

"A heavier than air flying machine." Alfons decided to forego mentioning rockets.

"You mean a balloon?" By now Mustang looked like he really didn't know what to make of him, and Alfons absolutely hated being treated like an idiot. "Because balloons are-"

"No, not a balloon!" He no longer cared if interrupting was impolite, and his head was starting to pound. "A fixed-wing aircraft which is capable of flying faster than sixty kilometers per hour."

From the incredulous look on Mustang's face, he didn't really believe what Alfons was saying.

"Like a flying automobile?"

Alfons sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Something like that."

"Hm."

Well, at least Mustang looked more interested, now.

"You're lying," Mustang said flatly. "If you had really invented that, Reas would have been using them by now. Our intelligence would have reported if any country in the area – or the world – had developed that sort of aircraft."

Shit. "Well, I, uh," Alfons stammered, trying to figure out a reasonable excuse. "Edward helped me develop them, he thought he could use one to get home... and he convinced me that I should build aeroplanes here, instead of there..."

"Your story has more holes than Drachman cheese," Mustang said bluntly. "While I assume that being Fullmetal's lover might have blinded you to logic-"

Alfons flushed.

"- it still fails to explain why you would come skulking into Amestris instead of obtaining a proper visa, much less how you and Edward managed to pass the borders of three different countries without getting caught."

He had just taken a deep breath, when Mustang continued.

"However, I suppose I can keep you in custody for a few days and see if you can come up with one of these flying machines of yours. The paperwork will be tedious, of course, but-"

With a loud bang, the door to the office burst open and Edward came storming in, evidently no longer capable of suppressing his outrage.

"WHOSE BOYFRIEND ARE YOU CALLING SO USELESS HE'S NOT WORTH THE PAPERWORK TO KEEP IN AMESTRIS?" he howled furiously.

Oh dear. Alfons buried his face in his hands and tried not to listen to the argument escalating around him, which was probably quite audible to the rest of the base.

The upshot, though, was that Alfons could stay, provided he would build an aeroplane, which Edward gleefully promised would be ready in a week.

As he followed Edward out, he thanked whichever deity that might be listening for the sunglasses which allowed him to evade the looks and pointing fingers from everybody around him, along with murmurs of 'So that's the Fullmetal's boyfriend. Things won't be quieting down around here any time soon, haha'.

Edward seemed either oblivious or indifferent, and Alfons thought ruefully to himself that he'd probably better get used to the whispers, because given how often Edward was Up To Something, they probably wouldn't be petering off in the near future.