Title: Chemicals React
Genre: Romance / Humor
Rating: M
Pairing: Edward x Russell
Spoilers: A/N
Summary: How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?
Word Count: 5,630
Warnings: Rare pairing. Brotherhood does not exist, first anime only.

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist is not mine. Summary is an Albert Einstein quote.

A/N: I thought they were cute together way back then.

Carbon (C) (6) is one of the few elements known to humanity since antiquity. It is a non-metallic, tetravalent element, and the fourth most abundant in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Carbon atoms can bond together in different ways, forming allotropes. The best-known carbon allotropes are graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon. Carbon is one of the most common elements of all known life, thanks to its abundance, its unique diversity of organic compounds, and its unusual ability to form polymers at the temperatures commonly encountered on earth.

Almost everything in his life has a place, a neatly ordered slot in his mind for the memory or information to be stored away for further use. There is a time for work and sleep and revenge and study. There is a time for all those other things that need to be done in order to live like eating and sleeping. It might not seem like it to those on the outside, because Edward Elric is brash and loud and a relative train wreck during his missions, but it's true. His life has order.

It has too.

When his life shattered as a child, first because of an act of God, and then because of his own foolishness, there was no safety net anymore. No parents. No adults who understood. Just a younger brother who looked up to him. And suddenly he was in charge. He needed to make the plans, make the rules, make sure they survived and make sure that Al got his body back.

But Ed does nothing but blossom under pressure. He's carbon and coal turning into a diamond in nature's most beautiful example of equivalent exchange. He thrives under pressure, welcomes it. He takes those things that would make others have fits of panic and he puts the in those ordered boxes in his mind, opening the drawers inside his head and finding a solution. Philosopher's Stone, Homunculus. With those a daily problem in his life, what care had he for rogue state alchemists or crazed zealots?

What he did not have a place for… was Russell.

Russell Tringham had waltzed into their lives like an explosion, all pale hair and grey eyes and pretending to be him. He was arrogant and loved his father who was also gone and he loved his brother and he was so much like Ed that sometimes Ed thought maybe Russell was who he might be if he didn't hate his own father. On that front, he agreed more with Fletcher. Their fathers were both left in the past.

Years pass and nothing changes. Well, almost nothing. The sins of their fathers remain the same. Al was still a suit of armor. Ed still had 50% of his limbs made of automail. But they themselves had grown up.

Hydrogen (H) (1) is the first element in the periodic table, and also the lightest element. It is a highly combustible gas, which has no color, odor or taste, and is non-toxic. It is the most common element in the universe, constituting around 75% of its viable mass. Most of the hydrogen atoms existing today are 13.5 billion years old, dating from shortly after the universe itself emerged.

Al has a theory and Ed hates it.

Russell became such a fixture in his life that Ed almost forgot what his life had been without him. Everywhere he went, Russell popped up. He appeared out of the stacks in the library when Ed was doing research. He would be taking lunch at the same bistro that Al had suggested they eat at. The Tringhams would be loitering accidentally outside on Central's steps as soon as Ed left his debriefing with Mustang.

Judging by the look on Russell's face the tenth time it happened, their two younger brothers were conspiring against them.

Or for them.

Ed tries, in vain, to pretend that Russell's proximity to him doesn't make him hyperaware of the other boy, but he would be lying. His eyes already search for Russell every time he leaves a building, zeroing in with rigid awareness when they spot that shock of pale hair. He feels compelled to notice everything about him, to know him, to know everything.

Al has a theory that humans, though all made of the same elements, well… some people were made out of the same star. Millions of years ago, there was the Big Bang, and elements poured out into the universe in droves. And eventually, they came together and made you. But your elements are drawn at a subatomic level to the elements that existed near them all those eons ago, hydrogen atoms pulling back to those familiar from the universe's birth. Over and over, across all lifetime. Soulmates.

Al has a theory and Ed secretly loves it.

Nitrogen (N) (7) is the seventh most abundant element in the Milky Way and the solar system and compromises 78% of the Earth's atmosphere. It is a colorless and odorless diatomic gas. Nitrogen is an essential component of nucleic acids, amino acids, proteins and the energy carrying molecule adenosine triphosphate. It is therefore vital to all life on Earth. Liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic cooling liquid that is cheap and readily available. It has a boiling point that is (-196 degrees C), so it is cold enough to freeze almost anything.

It is cliché. It is so cliché that Ed warns Russell that, should he ever tell another living soul of what transpired in that mountain cave, that Ed would leave him at the Gate, never to be seen again.

It's not an official mission. So when the Tringhams decide to tag along (at Al and Fletcher's enthusiastic insistence) Ed can't find a good reason to say no. So they all head up to the mountains to "accidentally run into an alchemist the military suspects of nefarious activity." Mustang's words. Apparently, they have no proof, so it can't be a state sanctioned mission. Which means no pay. But with the tagalongs it means Ed can try and unobtrusively sneak glances at Russell when the boy has his face plastered against the window of their train carriage waxing poetic about some weird species of fir tree they're passing. It's compellingly adorable.

So to mask the moment Ed calls him an idiot.

What Mustang had so kindly failed to mention was that the train station was a mile walk from the nearest town and it was winter. And snowing. And cold. It took precisely ten minutes for the pair of older siblings to be separated from the younger pair. Ed wasn't too worried about Al, he was encased in a suit of armor. He wouldn't get tired or hungry or frostbitten. But Russell was beside himself with worry over Fletcher. They spent another ten minutes searching and calling out, before Ed stated, quite reasonably that Al would probably just carry Fletcher somewhere safe before they ever found the pair.

Russell calms at that. But by then they are already well and truly lost.

So (and here comes the cliché) they stumbled into a convenient cave and start a fire. But it is still freezing. His blood feels like liquid nitrogen running through his veins. And when Ed makes a snarky joke about body heat before his brain can catch up with his mouth, Russell doesn't disagree with him. In fact, he does just the opposite.

"That's a good idea."

Ed's mind stutters to a halt. "I – what?" But Russell has already slid closer, tucked himself into Ed's jacket and draped his own over their legs. It is suddenly, deliciously warm and Ed can't tell if it's the fire or the influx of additional body heat or his own eighteen year old hormones that make his face feel like a furnace. He almost misses when Russell makes a comment about still being cold, but when he registers, and he turns towards him in alarm, the only noise he makes is muffled against searing lips.

Neither of them are cold anymore.

Calcium (Ca) (20) is a soft alkaline earth metal of a greyish-yellow color. When exposed to air, it rapidly becomes covered with a grey-white coating of calcium oxide and calcium nitride. It is the fifth most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust. In many animals it is the most abundant metal by mass, and is an important constituent of bones, teeth, and shells. As well as forming the human skeleton, calcium also constantly moves in and out of cells, mediating the actions of nerves and muscles.

Sometimes it surprises people and sometimes it doesn't, when they learn how uncommon it is for Ed to injury himself severely. The people who aren't surprised know that he wields his alchemy the way some people wield a pen – it is an extension of himself, coming to him as easily as words. The people it surprises have usually seen the reckless, headlong way he throws himself into things and wonder, quite rightly, how the rest of him as survived intact.

Winry will tell them all, that all Ed does is save up for really big injuries every so often. Nothing for months and then bam! a piece of shrapnel through his stomach.

But luck (or some saving deity or skill or whatever it was) runs out eventually. Al had a sinking feeling in his stomach when Ed jumped off that roof in pursuit of one Jacob Winchester, wanted for two counts of armed robbery, that it was going to end badly. He knew he was right when, even across the street, he heard the sickening crack of Ed's leg on impact. He didn't even have to hear his brother's startled scream before he knew the leg was broken, calcium bone snapping as easily as a stick under the force of the fall.

A clean break, by all accounts, and easily fixed, if Ed didn't mind that his good thigh was now pined together with several more automail bolts.

"Pretty soon you'll be more metal than man, pipsqeak." Ed tries to rouse himself for an irate comeback at the insult, but he's groggy and delirious from anesthesia, so all he manages are a few slow blinks and a garbled noise that sounds vaguely querying. The mattress dips and his visitor sudden comes into start focus, Russell's face materializing in bits of flesh and hair and worried eyes. "Don't do that again." His voice is harsh and he's staring firmly and resolutely at the pattern on the hospital blanket.

Ed tries to tell him that it's no big deal, this was just a minor surgery. He hadn't even lost the leg. He's been through worse, obviously. Hadn't Russell notices his metal limbs and his ability to perform alchemy without an array? But, while Russell clearly understands his slurring, stumbling speech, it doesn't make him look any more at ease.

"No – don't do that again to me." It takes Ed's slow thoughts time to process that Russell was worried about him. Ed didn't have many people other than Al who worried about him personally. Mustang and Riza and Jean and every at Central worried about him professionally. The Homunculus worried about him because Ed might kill them. Sometimes people worried about the damage he would cause. But no one besides Al worried about him.

There's a lump in his throat that he can't blame on morphine or anesthesia and he swallows to try and choke it down. When it doesn't work, he instead reaches out – the first time he's ever reached out to someone like this – and gently twines their fingers together. Russell's head shoots up. And even though his leg is throbbing in time with his thumping heart even with all the painkillers, it's worth it just to see that hesitant, tremulous smile.

Phosphorus (P) (15) exists in several forms which have extremely different properties. The two most common allotropes are white phosphorus and red phosphorus. As it is a highly reactive element, phosphorus is never found in free form on Earth. When exposed to air, white phosphorus glows in the dark. Phosphorus is essential for life. Phosphates (compounds containing phosphorus) are contained in DNA, RNA, ATP, and the phospholipids, which form all cell membranes.

At times his life seems like one big joke. But there are other times when it seems like a big cliché.

Ed didn't think anything could top the "stuck in a snowstorm so let's huddle together for warmth" turn his first kiss had taken, but he'd been wrong before and he was wrong now. It almost isn't even a surprise when, on a study trip to the state library, Al and Fletcher forcibly shove their two older siblings in a closet and (judging from the sounds of retreating armor) swiftly make a run for it.

Ed doesn't even bother trying the door, he knows, even as Russell rattles it, that Al has more than likely doodled an array on the other side that prevents him from blowing it up. There were always the walls around them to be blown up, but… Mustang would probably roast him over an open flame if he did that. "It's no use, we'll just have to wait until they come back."

"And when might that be?"

Ed shrugs, but realizes Russell won't be able to see that in the dark. "Dunno. If it's anything longer than an hour I'll blow out the back wall." He can almost hear the question before it's asked. "But I'd rather not get fired or fined for destroying state property if I don't have to.

Russell makes a disgruntled noise and, by the sounds of it, slides that the door to the floor. Ed would follow suit, but he's leaning against an uncomfortable wall of shelving and cleaning supplies, so he crouches down on the balls of his feet. He can't see anything.

"Can you…" Russell claps, the sound echoing in the small room, "us some light or something?"

A smile twitches his lips before he can stop it, but he schools his expression back to normal before he complies with the request. A clap, the image of an array in his mind, the redistribution of a few atoms and molecules of phosphorus and presto. Let there be light.

Russell's face looks divine backlit with the ethereal alchemic light and Ed chokes down the words before his treacherous mouth can say them. The words get caught somewhere in the back of his throat and instead come out as a needy whine. Russell blinks, his grey eyes shining like coins in the light. He's sprawled, legs akimbo, with Ed crouched between them. For once, he has to tilt his face upwards to meet Ed's eyes. Ed doesn't know what truths the other boy sees there, but as he watches lips part, pupils dilate, and suddenly it seems as natural as walking to lean forward.

Ed falls forward onto his knees, hands crashing into the door on other side of Russell's face. From this angle, Ed has the unaccustomed advantage of height, but Russell doesn't seem to mind. On the contrary, his face has already tilted up eagerly, mouth opening under the press of Ed's. His echoing whine is swallowed down a greedy throat. Hands fist in his collar, trying to pull himself up or Ed down, anything to get the closer. When Russell hips arch up they're suddenly, momentarily pressed together, shoulders to hips, and the frisson of electricity is sends through them makes them both cry out in startled pleasure.

"Fuck." Ed's breathy exhale is almost reverent. "Maybe I'll give them a few hours to come back."

In the dim alchemic light, Russell's pupils blow wide enough to black out the grey. He's already arching up again, trying to make Ed say more swears that sound like prayers.

Potassium (K) (19) is a soft alkali metal of a silvery-white color, which oxidizes rapidly in air and reacts vigorously with water. The high reactivity of potassium means that it does not occur in pure elemental form in nature. 95% of the world's potassium production is used in agricultural fertilizers, mainly in the form of potassium chloride. Potassium plays a vital role in the human body, mediating the transfer of signals through the nervous system.

He is eighteen years old. Eighteen. And yes, he knows that most other young men his age have had sex more than a few times. At the very least they've seen other people naked. But Ed isn't like other people his age. He's a State Alchemist. He has missions, both personal and professional. He also had never found anyone else he wanted to be closer to.

Ever since Russell that had been changing. His mind had been working overtime, his hormones playing catchup for all the years he ignored them. That first chaste kiss in the mountains had made his mind curious. But dry humping in a broom closet had made his mind ravenous. He wanted more. More breathy moans. More roaming hands. More friction. More skin. More. Thoughts and daydreams shoot along his nerves on potassium boats, relaying the messages and images to his active imagination.

But those thoughts thought in the privacy of one's home were one thing. Wondering what noise Russell might make as Ed pulled off a shirt, wondering what the long line of Russell's torso looked like sans clothing. Wondering how he could make those stormy eyes for wide and blind. Wondering what it would be link to sink into him, or to be filled by him. Wondering was one thing.

But being confronted with a seventeen year old, still dripping and soaking from an impromptu idea to go skinny dipping was another thing all other.

Russell was… If Ed had been a sculptor in the ancient world, Russell was the muse he would use as inspiration. Though clearly still growing into himself, he had the touches of perfection that only people far out of reach could attain. His shoulders were still broadening to fill his tall from, but the breadth was there. Water ran in tantalizing rivulets down his chest, catching on nipples that hardened under Ed's intense observation. The drops flowed over a flat stomach, winding down and down and down until…

Ed groaned, his erection throbbing in his pants, as his gaze traveled lower. His mouth went positively ashen.

No amount of imagination could prepare him for this. He had thought he'd be unsure and shy, but now all that was coursing through him was instinct. Ed knew he had no knowledge and no practice, but he didn't really care. He was standing in front of Russell and dropping to his knees with a thumb before he could process his own thought. He only cared about one thing and that was to see if Russell tasted as divine as he looked.

He had no knowledge and no practice but, judging by the painful fisting hands in his hair and the hoarse moans from above him, Russell didn't really care either.

Sulfur (S) (16) is a crystalline, non-metallic solid at room temperature, with a bright yellow color. Although it can sometimes be found in its pure, native form, sulfur usually occurs as sulfide and sulfate minerals. Sulfur has a strong smell, and so do its compounds. The best known of them is hydrogen sulfide, which has the smell of rotten eggs. Huge amounts of sulfur are produced and consumed in the chemical industry, mainly in the form of sulfuric acid, the workhorse acid for numerous manufacturing processes.

At first Ed feels the floor drop out from under him with Mustang asks him if he is close with "that Tringham boy." He doesn't think he's breaking any rules, but the military is notoriously dickish about the same-sex thing and Mustang is an infamous skirt-chaser. He manages to reply with a vague affirmative, hoping it's enough.

"Good, your next assignment bring him as a liaison. I don't really understand the briefing I was sent, but it's something plant related, so he'll be an asset."

Ed could have insulted him about not understanding the mission he was passing out to his subordinate, but he's glad he didn't since it turned out he didn't understand it either. Something about the root system and pulling energy from somewhere and adjusting the chemical compounds and adding sulfur in order to blah blah blah.

What he did come to understand, as Russell neatly caught the criminal and explained what he was doing to an uncomprehending Ed as the man was led away, was that, when Russell spoke about his passion, and used all sorts of big, fancy words… Ed found it very, very attractive.

"What the – " Russell's monologue about the criminal alchemist's ingenious plan to counter act photosynthesis with the insertion of a key chemical component was cut off when Ed slammed into him, sending them both tumbling down in hay in the barn. Hopefully all the authorities were gone or they were about to get an eyeful. "Ed, what – unghhh." He trails off in a garbled groan as Ed grinds his hips down in the swell of his legs. His next breaths are panting.

"Don't stop talking."

"Hm?" Russell's mind is moving slowly, it's primary focus pinpointing on the nip of teeth at his throat and the hardness rocking against his own sudden arousal.

"Talk." Ed punctuates the demand with a simultaneous bite against his pulse point and a harsh thrust that make Russell see white, but he complies. He talks about his research, about his theories, about what he wanted to accomplish with his ideas and what kinds of things he imagined were possible with plants, about what assets he thinks he can bring to the medical field by extracting chemicals from certain species of plants. His voice is thready and hiccupping with every rocking thrust of Ed's hips, his hands scramble for purchase against Ed's jacket; against his hair, his arms, as he winds higher and higher and higher.

When he shatters his eyes see stars.

Sodium (Na) (11) is a highly reactive alkali metal, which is soft and silver-white. It is the sixth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and is present in many minerals such as feldspars, sodalite and rock salt (NaCl). When it is thrown in water, sodium rapidly generates hydrogen gas, which ignites seconds later with an enormous bang. Yellow sodium vapor lamps create more lights per unite of electricity than nearly any other type of lamp.

Ed has heard the locker room talk among guys. About one night stands and leaving the lights off so that you never had to see what your bed partner truly looked like in the light. Ed honestly didn't care, but he had worried that Russell might have a preference, that his preference might be like those men in the locker room that wanted the illusion the dark brought on of someone better. But if he did it was for the brightest light possible.

Ed discovered the Russell had a fondness for his hair. While it might have made Ed shy or uncertain if Russell had asked him upfront about it, that's not what happened. Because Russell also had an absolutely hard-on for Ed doing alchemy with just a clap of his hands.

If Ed ever mustered up the courage to ask him why that was, Russell might tell a half-truth and tell him that it was the crackling electricity that made everything stand at attention. He might keep to himself the truth that the glow and spark of energy from between those hands made Ed's face glow in a positively angelic fashion. That it highlighted the lines of his cheekbones and made his golden eyes glow like garnets. That it made his halo of blond hair look like a crown of flames. A sodium lamp blinding in a dark room.

That's how it happened the first time.

Russell usually has composure, restraint when they are being chaste. Chivalrous, even. But when things get heated Russell is usually being ground into a mattress (or wall or bale of hay or bookshelf) by a boy who, although shorter, had strength on his side. Russell usually is boneless with pleasure and too mindless with it to do more than hold tight to arms and jacket and shoulders and hang on for the ride.

But this time… this time, Ed was sprawled across the floor in a semi-circle of books, his brow creased in thought, his mouth a moue of concentration, and Russell can't help himself. He's closed the gap and flipped Ed over without so much as a 'how do you do.' Ed stares up at him with shocked eyes that as slowly narrowing in anticipation. He reaches out to flip their positions but Russell stops him. A new interest gleams in those eyes. "Well, at least let me put all this research away." His hands clap together and Russell only half notices the intricate piece of alchemy that exchanges all the sheets of paper for one large book. He's focused on tawny hair and, now that he's in charge, he wants to see those strands loose and wild.

He pulls out Ed's hair-tie as the older boy watches him with interest. Those same eyes flutter closed on a sigh when Russell undoes the braid and cards his fingers through the mane. Ed's hair is so different from his pale locks. It's as bright as the sun, like a lion's mane lit with heavenly fire. It halos around his face, softening his features, like gold turned liquid and tangible, spiraling out against the floor like a supernova of starlight.

A wayward thought makes him wrap a length of hair around his hand and pull. He expects a fight. But Ed comes alive with something else. His eyes shoot open, but they're unseeing. He shouts as his head is pulled back, revealing the long, smooth column of his throat. His hips cant upward a mindless thrust.

Russell observes this as interestedly as a scientist. Just to be sure, he deliberately does it again, pulling Ed's head back farther. A low, needy whine uncurls in his throat. In sudden inspiration, Russell shifts his grip, now taking two fistfuls of hair, like pigtails, low on Ed's neck. He pulls.

This time Ed's hands scramble for purchase on the smooth floor. The whine pitches upwards until it's almost a scream. He thrusts instinctively upwards, seeking heat and warmth and release. Once, twice, three times, as Russell grips him with his knees and grinds down against that bulge.

"Oh… oh fuck…" Ed's trying to thrash his head from side to side, but Russell is gripping each side too tightly. All it does it put more pressure on his scalp. When Russell yanks again his head arches back almost painfully and then there is suddenly a slick tongue sliding along his erratic pulse. "F-fuck… holy shit…" He's still bucking his hips upwards, unmindful of anything except his own release, even if it means coming in his pants.

But Russell is grinding down against him, staring in wonder at the famed state alchemist falling apart under nothing more than his hands. It's a moment of clarity and shock for him, that he selfishly wants to make sure no one else ever gets to see Ed like this except for him.

He wants to be the only one who gets this.

Chlorine (Cl) (17) is an extremely toxic yellow-green gas at room temperature. It is too reactive to occur as a free element in nature, but is very abundant in the form of its chloride salts. Sodium chloride, or common salt, is the most common compound of chloride, and has been known since ancient times. Hydrochloric acid, a compound of hydrogen and chloride, is the main component of stomach acid.

Ed hates salty food. But he finds out he does like the salt that seeps from Russell's pours on a hot day. He likes to work Russell into a lather with their bedroom activities, watching him come undone, watching the sweat plaster his bangs to his forehead, watching the sheen of it glow on rippled muscles and smooth skin.

He especially likes to lick it off. Sucking up the trails of sodium like they're sugar

He likes to lave his tongue in wide strokes up the beating pulse point. He loves to leave a trail of nips and sucking bruises over pecs, down the ridges of stomach, so he can swirl his tongue in his bellybutton. It always makes Russell cry out, hands fisting sheets, as he arches up his hips in a silent plea for more, more, more.

But Ed likes to take his time here the way he doesn't in regular life.

He bypasses searching hips to leave his mark first down one leg, then up the other. His arms get the same treatment, Ed pausing to suck the salt from each finger. Only when Russell is a writhing mess of nerve endings and thrashing limps. Only when he is whining on every exhale does Ed lick the salt from his weeping length. It makes Russell keen, makes hands fist in his hair and nails prick his scalp.

It makes Ed's mouth water.

Magnesium (Mg) (12) is an alkaline Earth metal, which is grey-white and lightweight. It is the ninth most common element in the universe and the fourth most common on Earth, making up 13% of the planet's mass. Magnesium is vital for almost all living organisms, and is also important for photosynthesis. It is highly flammable when in the form of a ribbon or powder, but it very difficult to ignite as a more solid mass.

It is only inevitable really, that someone will see how close the Elrics have become to the Tringhams. He has enemies everyone. Some of a supernatural kind, yes, but many others who are just normal criminals or AWOL state alchemists or liars who he outed. Before their only option to take something he loved was a seven foot tall suit of armor. But now there are flesh and blood boys. So when the Tringhams are kidnapped, he's almost not even surprised.

What he is, is very, very angry.

They set a trap for the Fullmetal Alchemist, hoping that he'll give himself up to save Russell. But they underestimate the depth and breadth of his simmering anger. It is a white-hot thing, roiling beneath his skin like magma, just waiting for an opening to explode. If they touched one hair on that head, nothing was going to stop him from destroying every single person that was responsible.

When he follows the leads and the clues and stumbles into their hideout, he is gleeful to discover just how stupid these criminals really are. Russell is tied to the far all, arms ties behind him, but looking whole and hale, if a little confused and anxious. But what really strikes Ed as lucky is the vein of magnesium he sees trailing though the wall like a river of manna.

When he claps the first time and presses his hands to the floor, there is a rumble of moving rocks and Russell vanishes behind and impenetrable wall. The brigands bristle and ready themselves to attack, but Ed claps again, and this time, when he presses a hand to that seam of element, everything goes boom.

Ed crawls out of the rubble aching and bleeding and covered in blood and bruises. But Russell is unscathed and that's all he cares about.

Oxygen (O) (8) is the most abundant element on Earth, making up almost half of the weight of Earth's crust and 86% of the weight of the oceans. Oxygen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless diatomic gas. Oxygen is extremely reactive, and forms oxides with almost all other elements. The reaction with oxygen is one of the criteria used to distinguish between metals (which form basic oxides) and non-metals (which form acidic oxides).

There are many things that give his life meaning. His family, his friends, his alchemy, even his title as a State Alchemist. Even his automail, while heavy and burdensome, are something that make him who he is. But there is one thing in his life that he thinks might be as irreplaceable as oxygen.

Russell is curled onto his side in the bed they share more nights than they don't, hair tousled, eyelashes fluttering in sleep, his mouth slack and smiling. His hand is outstretched between them, fingers reaching for contact even in slumber. Ed reaches out a hesitant hand to trace the line of jaw with one reverent finger. Russell sighs, shifting in his sleep. Content and relaxed and peaceful.

This was something Ed never imagined for himself. He wished it for Al, wished it more than anything, but for himself? He just thought he'd waste away his life doing research and running stupid missions for the state until one of them finally killed him. But these perfect and real moments with Russell are something he will never tire of, never want to be rid of. He reaches out to pull Russell close, heart swelling when, even without waking, Russell settles himself against Ed with a contented sigh.

There could be no alchemic array to duplicate this feeling.

A/N: Would you believe this started as a drabble?