Countdown to Christmas

Lady Moon-Chan.

AN: The third and final part to the trilogy that began with Garland Bondage: Snow Family. Enjoy it, minna. Disclaimer: Nothing has changed sine last chapter. I'm still nothing but a broke otaku.

AlxAl 3: Snow Family

It was Christmas Eve, only three short days since the night when Edward had learned of the relationship between his brother and Alfons Heiderich. Three days since Al had nearly fallen into a raging river after a fight with Ed over said relationship. If not for Alfons's presence, Al wouldn't have come to safety. Edward would have lost his little brother.

So he had accepted their relationship. It was reassuring to know that someone would watch out for Al when the younger Elric was unwilling to let Edward do so. Now, he entered the living room to see that the couple were already up, well, halfway anyway.

Al was still half-asleep, wrapped up in a blanket in front of the fireplace, where a fire was already burning strong, and Alfons was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast.

"Morning." Edward greeted.

"Morning." Alfons replied, turning away from his cooking just briefly enough to greet him.

Al merely mumbled something nonsensical from his cocoon of blankets.

Edward settled beside his little brother on a spare corner of blanket and ruffled his hair in greeting.

Al mumbled something else before promptly using his brother as a pillow, snuggling deeper into his blanket, and falling back to sleep entirely.

Edward put an arm around his brother and addressed Alfons as he entered the room. "Looks like the storm from last night is completely cleared out."

"Good riddance." Alfons muttered, lowering the tray he was carrying in front of the brothers and taking a seat on Al's other side. "If I never go through another blizzard in my life it will be too soon."

"I hear you." Ed murmured, taking a sip of coffee and giving a small moan of a appreciation at the sudden rush of caffeine. "Unfortunately, Al will be wanting to play in it later. And we will most likely get dragged out there with him."

Alfons shot him a look of horror over Al's head. "Are you sure?"

"I speak from experience, my friend." Edward said gravely, bowing his head.

Alfons gave a small shudder, then sighed. "And we'll go, of course."

"Naturally." Edward nodded. "He's got me wrapped around one of his little fingers and you around the other."

Alfons nodded in agreement, beginning on his coffee as well.

After Al had woken up, the first thing he wanted to do, as Edward predicted, was go play in the snow. Alfons managed to detour his thoughts briefly by placing the boy's reheated breakfast in front of him, but after that it was back to the snow.

After trying in vain for half an hour to convince Al to pursue an indoors activity, the other two males resigned themselves to being cold and not properly dry for the rest of the day. So they bundled up and followed Al outside and into the snow.

Al first insisted on making snow angels. Once that was done, he instigated a free-for-all snowball fight where they were all on separate sides. Sometimes two would team up against the other one, like Edward and Alfons "punishing" Al for dragging them out in the sow. But then, Edward threw a snowball at the back of Alfons's head and the alliance ended.

Al eventually got bored of the snowball fight and wandered off to do something else. His brother and lover, however, continued, now "fighting for Al's affections". Al was to preoccupied in his new pursuit to notice this, or he would have laughed.

In the midst of the snowball fight, Edward looked around for l and didn't see him. "Alfons, I don't see Al."

Alfons walked over to the spot where Al had been, which now held three incomplete snowmen. "Probably to find the materials to finish these guys."

Edward followed. "Yeah, but where-" He was cut off by a whistling sound from above and looked up to see Al leaning out their apartment window, waving. He then disappeared back inside, and rejoined his brother and lover a moment later, with an armful of material for completing his snowmen, as Alfons had predicted.

Al set his materials down, making faces for the snowmen out of little bits of coal and carrots. Then he began to decorate them with personal items of all three boys, mainly, scarves other than the ones they were wearing. The snowman in the middle got Al's scarf, the slightly shorter one on his right got Edward's, and the taller one on his left got Alfons's.

"A snow family?" Alfons queried, wrapping his arms around Al from behind.

"Our family." Al corrected, leaning into his embrace.

Edward gagged. Al and Alfons both looked affronted, and then shared a look which did not bode well for Edward at all.

"Shall we?" Alfons asked.

"Yeah." Al agreed.

"GET HIM!!!" They ran at Edward, pummeling him with snowballs, with no intentions of stopping for quite a while.

At least until Edward admitted Al's 'snow family' was just as sweet as it was sappy.

AN: Whoo! It's fluffy and sweet and still a decent length. Review and tell me what you thought, please. Ja ne!!!