A Beach Trip With Elrics, part 5/6
Title: A Beach Trip With Elrics, part 5/6
Rating: PG
Genre: AU, crack, fluff
Pairing: Hei + Ed
Length: 1725 words
Author: kalikamaxwell
Artist: ketita
Summary: Edward is sent in search of a mad alchemist and encounters the mad alchemist's fishy victims.
Note: Entirely ketita's fault. The original picture was posted here.
Business resumed as usual, so to speak. Fish was on the menu nearly daily and so was swimming-which soon led both brothers to adopt a fetching cooked lobster color since they hadn’t spent so much time naked in the sun since their childhood. Alfons was as cuddly as ever and this caused Edward some problems: the last thing he wanted was for anyone to touch his painful sunburns.
Evenings, so far as the brothers were concerned, were spent pondering what could be done for the chimeras. The chimeras spent their evenings in much the same way they spent their days: playing, lounging or exploring the sea’s depths. They occasionally brought back objects or creatures of interest, expecting some explanation, but the Elrics came from a land-locked country and only had a limited knowledge of sea creatures.
Diplomatic relations with Creta must have been very good at the moment; there was no other explanation for the surprisingly short delay before the material on Edward’s list was brought to them. The shipment came with a cryptic note from the Colonel to take all the time they needed.
“He knows,” Edward grumbled, crumbling the message and throwing it into the fire pit. “He probably knew all along what I’d find here and he knew what I’d want to do about it.”
“He made a good choice, then,” Alphonse said from the shades where he sat studying his slow-healing sunburns. “You’re the one who was complaining about some of the other alchemists being untrustworthy.”
“He could have told me before I left! But no, he always has to keep secrets! Won’t tell me what’s really going on, makes me go and figure things out on my own and then, whatever I do, it’s exactly what he expected! He’s a manipulative bastard, that’s what he is.” His right hand twitched with the desire to strangle his boss.
Alphonse grinned. “You’re still not over him rejecting you, are you?”
“That’s got nothing to do with anything! I didn’t really like him anyway. It was just his...his…”
“Good looks? Sexy ass?” Alphonse supplied.
“Al!”
“Brother, you do realize I’m eighteen and a medical student, right? I know what sex is. I even--”
“I’m not listening to this.”
Alphonse looked about to laugh so Edward retreated with as much of his dignity as he could, noting with embarrassment than Alfons hadn’t missed a word of the conversation. He made a mental note to get his revenge as soon as Alphonse showed any interest in another human being. Two could play the ‘embarrass your sibling’ game.
He went inside the shelter, which had become even bigger to accommodate the new equipment, and picked up his nearly blank result sheets, thinking of everything he wanted to do. The x-ray machine would be quite useful, especially if he could find and catch a specimen of the huge fish that had provided the material for the chimeras’ tails. That was why he’d wanted diving gear. Oh, and perhaps also because he had a vague hope he might find one of the previous chimeras’ bones down there. The dead chimeras didn’t seem to be buried on the island but they had to be somewhere near. It didn’t seem right to ask the chimeras about it, however.
Chirp?
Alfons had followed him inside. Edward had already observed the chimeras had strong arms and had no trouble climbing on rocks or up the beach. They were disturbingly well adapted to mermaid life.
“Oh, hey Alfons. Do you mind if I check out your skeleton? Don’t make that face, I don’t mean it like that. I’ll show you…”
A few days passed, during which they successfully found the fish Edward wanted (turned out that they weren’t that rare, merely hard to catch because they were so big) and gathered all sort of data regarding body weight, bone mass and skeletons.
Alfons took his role as study subject with good humor and, strangely enough, never tried to ask what he was doing. Edward wondered if he somehow already knew. Either way, they needed to speak about it.
A moment of privacy gave him the chance to initiate the conversation. They were seated on one of the rocks on the rocky side of the island, sitting closer than mere friends should, and Alfons was trying to move things into cuddle territory.
“Hey, Alfons…” He tried to stick to the script in his head. “How’d you like it if I could turn you into a two-legs? I’m not saying I can do it just like that, but if I work at it, maybe…” He’d come to understand the chimeras did realize what they really were but it wasn’t clear how they knew it. Sometimes Alfons couldn’t explain what he wanted to communicate, and sometimes he just didn’t want to answer.
There was no answer to this question either. When Edward tried to prompt one, Alfons slid in the water and beckoned to him. They went for a long, casual swim in the clear sea, each lost in private thoughts.
Until the shark appeared, anyway.
Edward’s eyes only caught a shadow but his brain came to the proper paranoid conclusion. “Shark!” He immediately propelled himself toward land, painfully aware of how far it was.
Alfons could out swim a shark; he couldn’t. Knowing this as well as he did, Alfons took him by the waist to help him along, his powerful tail moving fast. But not fast enough. For the first time, Edward regretted no longer having automail: here in the middle of the sea, there was nothing he could transmute into a weapon. Oh, there was at the sand at the bottom, but it was too deep to reach. He clapped anyway, trying to think, trying to figure out what he could do with only air and water-
He didn’t see what happened but suddenly they were yanked under the surface and there was blood in the water. It wasn’t his.
Alfons went wild with pain, thrashing hard. Reaching around Alfons, Edward sought the shark’s face and drove his thumbs into what he guessed to be the shark’s eyes; he couldn’t see much in the bloody water. He was rewarded; the shark let go.
There remained the problem of getting to shore before the shark decided to try again and before Alfons bled to death. This problem was swiftly solved by the arrival of a blonde missile armed with a big rock. Rock and shark met brutally. Edward wasn’t sure how much damage the collision had done, but the shark seemed uninterested in remaining somewhere people were jamming fingers into its eyes and hitting it with rocks.
Winry dropped the rock. Wrapping her arms around the weakened Alfons, she headed for shore. Edward followed, swimming as fast as he could while screaming his throat raw for his brother the doctor-in-training. By the time he staggered up on land, Alphonse was already there, hoisting the wounded chimera on a rock, where sand was less likely to get in the wound. Wounds, in fact: the bite had left a half-circle of bleeding gashes just where Alfons’ human midriff met his tail.
Alphonse rummaged in his medical kit, preparing an injection. “Brother,” he said tightly, “I need fresh water.”
“On it.” He ignored his tired muscles and ran, returning with a large container that required the use of both his arms.
He followed Alphonse’s directions, keeping parts of the wound covered while Alphonse worked with thread and needle, and all the while tried not to look at the blood gathering under Alfons. The rational part of his brain told him it was, all told, a minor wound: no flesh had been torn off and the teeth marks were shallow enough to be closed with thread. A serious wound, logic told him, would instead be packed and left open to allow the flesh to heal first. Still, looking at Alfons’ pale face or at the limp hand Winry was holding made him feel sick.
Winry seemed to be the least affected one: her face showed not pallor and her eyes followed Alphonse’s every move with curiosity and interest. It occurred to Edward that Alfons’ previous wound, with the harpoon, must have been more serious than this. Yet Winry and Alfons had managed to treat it well enough for it to heal and leave nothing but a faint scar behind.
“Sit up,” Alphonse told the chimera. “I know you’re awake. You were twitching all the while.”
Edward started: he hadn’t realized Alfons was conscious.
With their help, Alfons assumed a sitting position, which allowed Alphonse to wrap layers upon layers of protective gauze around him. Alfons carefully didn’t look down until they were done, face quite, quite pale.
“Is it me or someone doesn’t like blood?” Alphonse said, gently mocking.
Winry grinned; Alfons ignored them both.
“Now we’re going to figure out how to keep his bandages dry and his tail wet,” Alphonse added. “They’re nearly on top of each other.”
The extended shelter got yet another extension, in which they crafted a glass container similar to the one Edward had made (and subsequently destroyed) the first time, but with a rising backrest.
Alphonse gave his approval, then went outside and collapsed on the sand, his eyes shut.
Edward followed, worried. “Al?” Was there something about the wound Alphonse hadn’t told them? Was something wrong?
“I bet my lousy stitching will leave scars. I don’t even have the proper training for this stuff, you know! I’ve never sewed anyone before!”
Edward thought it was better that he hadn’t known: he would have fretted harder. “You did great. I couldn’t have done it.” He sat down beside his younger brother and felt a strange, burning pain. “Ow. Why is that- Oh, hey. I’m bleeding.”
Alphonse sat up with a short laugh. “Brother, Brother… Show me that.”
His injuries were abrasions resulting from his contact with rough sharkskin; they were not serious, merely ugly. Alphonse applied disinfectant and bandages liberally and Edward complained accordingly.
“This is going to scar, isn’t it? The skin’s all fucked up.”
“You already have tons of scars. Just don’t play with sharks anymore, okay?”
Winry provided dinner this time; she brought more fish than needed and pushed the extra ones on Alfons. Eating was the last of their activities for the day, sleep claiming them early.
Forgive me, school tried to eat me. I'm back now. >.>
Rating: PG
Genre: AU, crack, fluff
Pairing: Hei + Ed
Length: 1725 words
Author: kalikamaxwell
Artist: ketita
Summary: Edward is sent in search of a mad alchemist and encounters the mad alchemist's fishy victims.
Note: Entirely ketita's fault. The original picture was posted here.
Business resumed as usual, so to speak. Fish was on the menu nearly daily and so was swimming-which soon led both brothers to adopt a fetching cooked lobster color since they hadn’t spent so much time naked in the sun since their childhood. Alfons was as cuddly as ever and this caused Edward some problems: the last thing he wanted was for anyone to touch his painful sunburns.
Evenings, so far as the brothers were concerned, were spent pondering what could be done for the chimeras. The chimeras spent their evenings in much the same way they spent their days: playing, lounging or exploring the sea’s depths. They occasionally brought back objects or creatures of interest, expecting some explanation, but the Elrics came from a land-locked country and only had a limited knowledge of sea creatures.
Diplomatic relations with Creta must have been very good at the moment; there was no other explanation for the surprisingly short delay before the material on Edward’s list was brought to them. The shipment came with a cryptic note from the Colonel to take all the time they needed.
“He knows,” Edward grumbled, crumbling the message and throwing it into the fire pit. “He probably knew all along what I’d find here and he knew what I’d want to do about it.”
“He made a good choice, then,” Alphonse said from the shades where he sat studying his slow-healing sunburns. “You’re the one who was complaining about some of the other alchemists being untrustworthy.”
“He could have told me before I left! But no, he always has to keep secrets! Won’t tell me what’s really going on, makes me go and figure things out on my own and then, whatever I do, it’s exactly what he expected! He’s a manipulative bastard, that’s what he is.” His right hand twitched with the desire to strangle his boss.
Alphonse grinned. “You’re still not over him rejecting you, are you?”
“That’s got nothing to do with anything! I didn’t really like him anyway. It was just his...his…”
“Good looks? Sexy ass?” Alphonse supplied.
“Al!”
“Brother, you do realize I’m eighteen and a medical student, right? I know what sex is. I even--”
“I’m not listening to this.”
Alphonse looked about to laugh so Edward retreated with as much of his dignity as he could, noting with embarrassment than Alfons hadn’t missed a word of the conversation. He made a mental note to get his revenge as soon as Alphonse showed any interest in another human being. Two could play the ‘embarrass your sibling’ game.
He went inside the shelter, which had become even bigger to accommodate the new equipment, and picked up his nearly blank result sheets, thinking of everything he wanted to do. The x-ray machine would be quite useful, especially if he could find and catch a specimen of the huge fish that had provided the material for the chimeras’ tails. That was why he’d wanted diving gear. Oh, and perhaps also because he had a vague hope he might find one of the previous chimeras’ bones down there. The dead chimeras didn’t seem to be buried on the island but they had to be somewhere near. It didn’t seem right to ask the chimeras about it, however.
Chirp?
Alfons had followed him inside. Edward had already observed the chimeras had strong arms and had no trouble climbing on rocks or up the beach. They were disturbingly well adapted to mermaid life.
“Oh, hey Alfons. Do you mind if I check out your skeleton? Don’t make that face, I don’t mean it like that. I’ll show you…”
A few days passed, during which they successfully found the fish Edward wanted (turned out that they weren’t that rare, merely hard to catch because they were so big) and gathered all sort of data regarding body weight, bone mass and skeletons.
Alfons took his role as study subject with good humor and, strangely enough, never tried to ask what he was doing. Edward wondered if he somehow already knew. Either way, they needed to speak about it.
A moment of privacy gave him the chance to initiate the conversation. They were seated on one of the rocks on the rocky side of the island, sitting closer than mere friends should, and Alfons was trying to move things into cuddle territory.
“Hey, Alfons…” He tried to stick to the script in his head. “How’d you like it if I could turn you into a two-legs? I’m not saying I can do it just like that, but if I work at it, maybe…” He’d come to understand the chimeras did realize what they really were but it wasn’t clear how they knew it. Sometimes Alfons couldn’t explain what he wanted to communicate, and sometimes he just didn’t want to answer.
There was no answer to this question either. When Edward tried to prompt one, Alfons slid in the water and beckoned to him. They went for a long, casual swim in the clear sea, each lost in private thoughts.
Until the shark appeared, anyway.
Edward’s eyes only caught a shadow but his brain came to the proper paranoid conclusion. “Shark!” He immediately propelled himself toward land, painfully aware of how far it was.
Alfons could out swim a shark; he couldn’t. Knowing this as well as he did, Alfons took him by the waist to help him along, his powerful tail moving fast. But not fast enough. For the first time, Edward regretted no longer having automail: here in the middle of the sea, there was nothing he could transmute into a weapon. Oh, there was at the sand at the bottom, but it was too deep to reach. He clapped anyway, trying to think, trying to figure out what he could do with only air and water-
He didn’t see what happened but suddenly they were yanked under the surface and there was blood in the water. It wasn’t his.
Alfons went wild with pain, thrashing hard. Reaching around Alfons, Edward sought the shark’s face and drove his thumbs into what he guessed to be the shark’s eyes; he couldn’t see much in the bloody water. He was rewarded; the shark let go.
There remained the problem of getting to shore before the shark decided to try again and before Alfons bled to death. This problem was swiftly solved by the arrival of a blonde missile armed with a big rock. Rock and shark met brutally. Edward wasn’t sure how much damage the collision had done, but the shark seemed uninterested in remaining somewhere people were jamming fingers into its eyes and hitting it with rocks.
Winry dropped the rock. Wrapping her arms around the weakened Alfons, she headed for shore. Edward followed, swimming as fast as he could while screaming his throat raw for his brother the doctor-in-training. By the time he staggered up on land, Alphonse was already there, hoisting the wounded chimera on a rock, where sand was less likely to get in the wound. Wounds, in fact: the bite had left a half-circle of bleeding gashes just where Alfons’ human midriff met his tail.
Alphonse rummaged in his medical kit, preparing an injection. “Brother,” he said tightly, “I need fresh water.”
“On it.” He ignored his tired muscles and ran, returning with a large container that required the use of both his arms.
He followed Alphonse’s directions, keeping parts of the wound covered while Alphonse worked with thread and needle, and all the while tried not to look at the blood gathering under Alfons. The rational part of his brain told him it was, all told, a minor wound: no flesh had been torn off and the teeth marks were shallow enough to be closed with thread. A serious wound, logic told him, would instead be packed and left open to allow the flesh to heal first. Still, looking at Alfons’ pale face or at the limp hand Winry was holding made him feel sick.
Winry seemed to be the least affected one: her face showed not pallor and her eyes followed Alphonse’s every move with curiosity and interest. It occurred to Edward that Alfons’ previous wound, with the harpoon, must have been more serious than this. Yet Winry and Alfons had managed to treat it well enough for it to heal and leave nothing but a faint scar behind.
“Sit up,” Alphonse told the chimera. “I know you’re awake. You were twitching all the while.”
Edward started: he hadn’t realized Alfons was conscious.
With their help, Alfons assumed a sitting position, which allowed Alphonse to wrap layers upon layers of protective gauze around him. Alfons carefully didn’t look down until they were done, face quite, quite pale.
“Is it me or someone doesn’t like blood?” Alphonse said, gently mocking.
Winry grinned; Alfons ignored them both.
“Now we’re going to figure out how to keep his bandages dry and his tail wet,” Alphonse added. “They’re nearly on top of each other.”
The extended shelter got yet another extension, in which they crafted a glass container similar to the one Edward had made (and subsequently destroyed) the first time, but with a rising backrest.
Alphonse gave his approval, then went outside and collapsed on the sand, his eyes shut.
Edward followed, worried. “Al?” Was there something about the wound Alphonse hadn’t told them? Was something wrong?
“I bet my lousy stitching will leave scars. I don’t even have the proper training for this stuff, you know! I’ve never sewed anyone before!”
Edward thought it was better that he hadn’t known: he would have fretted harder. “You did great. I couldn’t have done it.” He sat down beside his younger brother and felt a strange, burning pain. “Ow. Why is that- Oh, hey. I’m bleeding.”
Alphonse sat up with a short laugh. “Brother, Brother… Show me that.”
His injuries were abrasions resulting from his contact with rough sharkskin; they were not serious, merely ugly. Alphonse applied disinfectant and bandages liberally and Edward complained accordingly.
“This is going to scar, isn’t it? The skin’s all fucked up.”
“You already have tons of scars. Just don’t play with sharks anymore, okay?”
Winry provided dinner this time; she brought more fish than needed and pushed the extra ones on Alfons. Eating was the last of their activities for the day, sleep claiming them early.
Forgive me, school tried to eat me. I'm back now. >.>