(no subject)
Title: Distance
Author: feilyn
Pairing: Al/Sakura
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Three years on, Sakura and Al are still dating despite the seperation the school year forces on them. Ed is resigned to the inevitable, Winry is making sure he stays that way (with wrench), and Al and Sakura are just happy to see each other again.
Notes: Merry Christmas, Ver! ILU muchly, and I hope this is what you wanted~ :D :D :D
“No - Maiko, leave the owl - Maiko, I said no!” Sakura lunged for her cat just as the cat lunged for the poor owl dropping a letter off for her. She caught the hulking animal around the waist and tugged her back. Maiko mewled adorably, and Sakura just about let go when she saw the feathers in her cat’s mouth.
“You are such a brat,” she muttered, hefting her cat under one arm and snatching the letter from the frightened bird’s talons before herding it out the nearest window. “You’re lucky you’re so cute,” she chided, setting Maiko back on the ground as she flicked open the letter. “Huh. It’s from Ed. I bet that’s not a coincidence.”
It was the third day of the school holidays, and after catching up with his family, Al was coming to visit. Of course, Ed had absolutely forbidden overnight stays, but not having seen her boyfriend since August, Sakura was willing to take what time she could get. Letters and that one Hogsmeade visit weren’t quite the same.
“We did it last year, and we can do it this year,” she said softly, smiling as she scanned the letter. The usual short greeting was there before Ed launched into a description of some potion he was working on that he thought she might be interested in, but the whole thing had the air of a diversionary tactic. Sakura shook her head as the letter shifted awkwardly from the potential uses of phoenix feathers to a summary of her relationship with Al to finally end with the List.
The List was something that Sakura had inadvertently triggered one day at Hogwarts when Ed was piling on the restrictions for her dating Al. She’d asked (rather facetiously) if he’d wanted to make a list, and Ed had taken her seriously. Thus, the List was born, and Sakura didn’t have the heart to tell Ed that most (if not all) of his rules had already been broken.
In light of the fact that you and Al have been dating together for over three years now, I have decided to take French Kissing off the List. Please see the revised List below and make copies to stick everywhere around your apartment.
Sakura rolled her eyes and scrabbled around for a roll of parchment. “I should probably clean this mess up before Al gets here,” she sighed, looking around her apartment. There were a lot of differences between Muggle and magical med students but a lack of time in which to do anything appeared to be universal.
Ed. For the last time, I am not sticking that L list in my bedroom. I’ll put it on the fridge or something, okay?
I’m glad to see your apprenticeship’s going well. I want to be the first to know when you create your miracle potion, all right Mr. Genius?
Say hello to Winry for me, and for god’s sake, look after yourself. I don’t want to see you coming in as one of my case studies one day, okay?
See you at Christmas
Love, Sakura
She grabbed her cat again and whistled to call the owl back inside. Maiko made a half-hearted attempt to swipe it, but she knew when she was beaten. Awkwardly fixed the letter to the nervous bird’s foot, she Summoned an Owl Treat and sent it on its way.
“Honestly, Maiko. You make things way too difficult sometimes.” Sakura let go of her cat and cleared a space on the couch, flopping down. She was in the middle performing a few simple cleaning charms when she heard a loud crack outside the door.
In the space of a few seconds, Sakura had abandoned her half-hearted cleaning and launched herself over the back of the couch, hitting the ground at a run and skidding to a stop in front of the door. She just about ripped the thing off its hinges and didn’t bother with so much as a hello before she threw her arms around the person standing there.
He must have been expecting her, because he didn’t stumble back at all. Instead, Sakura was met with a happy laugh and a pair of hands anchoring at her waist. “Hey,” Alphonse said softly, gold eyes shining down at her. After three years, he was now half a head taller than her.
“I told you that you didn’t have to bother with the door,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
“Granny Pinako would kill me if she found out I’d been so presumptuous,” he said, arms tightening around her slightly. “Probably Winry too.”
“Well, you can’t die twice,” Sakura replied, shifting her head to look back up at him. “I missed you,” she said quietly.
Al’s smile was a little sad before his mouth brushed lightly against hers. “I missed you too. But I’m here now.”
She laughed. “You call that a kiss?” She slid her hands up behind his neck and tugged him down to her level. She felt the brief quirk of his lips before she instructed him in the proper way to kiss a lady when you hadn’t seen her in over three months.
His hands moved from her waist up to the small of her back, pulling her closer before he paused. “S-Sakura, we’re standing in the middle of the hallway.”
Sakura just barely bit back a retort of ‘So?’ and gave him a cheeky smile that said it for her. He blushed, but grinned at her as her hand reached back and found his, knotting their fingers together. “So come inside then,” she suggested, twisting out of his grasp and tugging on his hand.
“Mrow!” Maiko said happily as they entered the apartment, leaping at Al from the back of the couch. He caught heavy cat with one hand and an ‘oof’, cuddling her against his chest.
“Hey, Maiko,” he said, laughing as she licked his chin. “You’ve been looking after Sakura while I’ve been gone, right?”
“I can look after myself, thank you very much,” Sakura huffed, squeezing his hand.
Al raised an eyebrow, looking around the messy apartment. “Really?”
She hit him in the shoulder with her free hand. “I had a fight with an owl,” she fibbed. “Your brother sent me a letter.”
“I’m sorry,” Al said immediately, rolling his eyes. “What did he say?”
“Oh, not much. A little on how his apprenticeship was going, a whole lot on his latest potion and then the usual flailing about us.”
Al groaned, as Sakura led him to the couch. Maiko squirmed a little as the blond sat down, and he let her go. “He sent you the List, didn’t he?”
“Yep. Do you want something to drink?” Reluctantly, she let go of his hand.
“No, I’m fine.” He didn’t seem to even realise it when he reached out and took her wrist back. “I told him not to send that.”
“He showed you?” she asked, surprised, as she dropped onto the couch next to him. Al let go of her hand for a moment to wrap his arm around her shoulders, lacing their fingers together when she was settled against him.
“No, he left it on the kitchen table and Winry found it.” Another smile quirked on his lips, and her own was an almost instinctive response. She’d missed him, probably more than three or four months worth - spending the summer together after a year apart had made her forget that they’d have to separate again at the end, which had just resulted in making the separation worse. “It didn’t take too long to stop the bleeding, but I thought he got the message.”
“Bleeding?”
“Winry found it.”
“Oh, of course.” Sakura shook her head. “In a weird sort of way, I’m pretty sure that’s his blessing. It’s the first time he’s altered the list since I yelled at him for being selfish, and he did it on his own.”
There was a faintly guilty pause, a few seconds into which had Sakura twisting around to look Al in the face.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he replied immediately. “I’m very proud of Brother. And - happy. That he managed to come to his senses about us. On his own. Finally.”
Sakura frowned, then suddenly rearranged their hands so she was gripping his wrist. In one smooth move, she lifted his arm over her head and twisted under it, swinging a leg over both of his so that she was straddling his knees, one hand pinning his wrist to the couch and the other next to his head.
Al blinked.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked curiously, leaning in closer.
“N-nothing,” he laughed, and if it wasn’t for his eyes skittering off to the side she might have believed him.
“Teeeell meeeeeee,” she insisted, cocking her head to the side a little, fringe falling across her face. Al’s free hand reach up to brush it lightly back behind her ear and Sakura shivered slightly (involuntarily) as his fingers settled against her neck, thumb resting lightly on her cheek. “That’s cheating,” she protested, not moving. He knew how sensitive her neck was, damn it - and that was probably the point.
His face was artfully schooled into an expression of innocence that Sakura judged to be approximately an eighth sincere. Maybe one-sixth, but the way his thumb slid along her jaw made her doubt that.
“Cheating?” he prompted, innocent look completely destroyed by the teasing glint in his eyes.
She gritted her teeth and frowned at him. Sakura Haruno didn’t give in to anybody that easily. Not even the man she loved. Especially not the man she loved. “You talked to Ed,” she insisted. “About us. What about us, exactly?”
Al looked to the side again now that his trick had (sort of) failed. “Well, I wasn’t talking to him, I was talking to Winry, and he overheard. And at first I thought he’d throw a fit like he usually does, but he just looked a little sad and then thoughtful and then he disappeared to write that letter and Winry found it. And hit him.”
Sakura blinked. Sometimes, she thought, Al rivalled Ed in his nervous rambling. “You’re avoiding the subject,” she prodded. “What were you talking to Winry about, exactly?” In the back of her mind, she wondered if she wasn’t pushing for something better hidden, but Sakura seldom paid attention to the things happening in the back of her mind.
“Um...about...after school. And-” Al cut himself off and abruptly looked Sakura straight in the eye. “And she asked me whether or not you and I were going to move in together.”
Sakura blinked, and felt her breath catch oddly in her throat. “What-” She cleared it to get that annoying air bubble out. “What did you answer?”
Al looked a little nervous, but determined, too. She’d always loved that expression on him. “I said I’d like to.” A pause. “Actually, I said that it was pretty much all I’d been thinking about since the end of summer and that I really wanted too, only I wasn’t sure if you’d want your space inva-”
“Al,” Sakura interrupted before he could make himself too nervous. “I kind of don’t want anything more than for you to move in.”
“...Oh.” Silence, and then a wide grin spread across Al’s face. “Need someone to protect you from those nasty owls, huh?”
“Oh, shut up,” she grumbled, leaning up and kissing him. She rolled her eyes, feeling his smile against her lips before his hand tangled in her hair, pulling her closer as her eyes slipped shut.
Al’s hand moved around hers, fingers tangling together as Sakura shifted flush against him. There was a faint pause in the kissing, which Sakura only noticed because there was a faint pause in the kissing and then suddenly the world blurred slightly. When it came back into focus, Al’s hand was pressing hers into the couch, much in the same way Al’s body was pressing hers into the couch.
“Still playing Quidditch, then?” she teased breathlessly, squirming a little and enjoying the sudden colour that shot into his cheeks. Sure, three years had passed, but some things never changed. If she had a crueller sense of humour, Sakura might have teased him about a certain control spell, but-
But he was giving her a cheeky grin that just screamed Al despite (or maybe because) of his blush and the hand not entwined with hers was at her hip and working its way under her shirt to trace light patterns on skin that were really very distracting and oh god, he really did have the most beautiful eyes.
“I love you,” he said quietly.
She smiled brightly (if dazedly) back at him. “I love you, too.”