FMA Fic: Roots to Branches: Part 2
Well, here is a continuation of Roots to Branches. Now lightly lemon-scented for your enjoyment. We'll see how this works....Thanks to acexkeikai for encouraging me.
Roots to Branches: Part 1
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When Ed had told Russell to take him home from the library, leaving the two younger boys absorbed in their books, he’d had visions of some rare alone time between the two older alchemists. With any luck, some naked, rolling-around-on-the-laboratory-floor alone time.
Instead, Edward found himself kneeling and sweating.
“Are we almost finished, Russ?” he whined.
Russell rolled his eyes and sighed. “As soon as you finish this row, we can go inside.”
Ed groaned as he scraped a tissue sample off a leaf out in the experimental vegetable patch, not quite a substitute for the lovingly laid-out one back home in Risembol. He hated the scraping sound emitted by his automail when sand got caught in its joints.
Russell stepped over a row of leafy greens to come up behind his lover, squatting with his long thighs pressing onto either side of Ed’s hips, wrapped his arms around the small torso, and nuzzled his nose into the long blonde hair.
“You’re doing really good. I appreciate your help, Ed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ed growled, trying to sound defiant, but the softness rubbing at the edges of his voice betrayed his contentedness. “You’re slowing me down.”
Russell felt a grin spread across his face. Edward always put on a good show that could fool most people, but it never fooled his lover. Russell knew Ed better than almost anyone, aside from Al. He knew that Ed liked to think that they were such different creatures, and maybe they were in some ways, but Russell knew better. He knew from their first meetings together that their was more depth to their similarities than to their differences.
He slid one arm under Ed’s knees, keeping the other cradling his back, and tugged the older boy up out of the soil. Ed squirmed and tossed and shrieked about being treated like a girl, but really, he put up less of a fight than Russell had been expecting.
“I still have to finish my row!”
“You were just complaining about it a minute ago. I’d think you’d be happy for a break,” Russell said with a smirk.
Ed stilled and slipped his automail arm around Russell’s neck. “Just what kind of break is this?” he asked with eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Why do you talk so damn much?”
Ed gave an annoyed grunt and relaxed his whole body, becoming dead weight in his lover’s arms. Russell’s legs buckled a little and he staggered. He frowned and bounced his knee off Ed’s bottom, tensing the boy back up.
“Careful with that!” he said, using his free hand to rub his offended ass.
Once inside, Russell dropped his prize down onto the couch. Before he could properly stand up, he felt warm, soft lips on his own. The kiss was hard and urgent, a small tongue swiping between his lips, lapping at teeth, and he felt himself being pulled down on top of the long haired boy beneath him.
Russell grinned against his lover’s lips. This was certainly one thing they had in common. He tangled his fingers in those long, blonde strands, feeling them cool, vining between his fingers. Edward smelled like earth and Russell liked that. He liked the moist dew that was already forming on Ed’s skin. He liked the older boy’s autumn-colored eyes. Ed was the feral, burgeoning outdoors and this was what drew Russell to him, leaving the younger alchemist begging for one more chance to seesmelltaste his lover.
This urgent, flickering passion he felt as Ed’s mouth moved down his throat was something relatively new between them. It was another testament to the parallel, the caution with which they had approached each other. Even after Russell’s uncharacteristically emotional response to Ed’s sudden homecoming, the two had regarded each other tentatively, slowly warming to this growing feeling that had forced their eyes, hands, and mouths upon each other. Russell could feel something - it was not possible that it was Ed’s hands - something that would grab hold of his shirtfront and drag him toward his would-be lover. This something would navigate a sleepy Russell to Edward’s room at night, to the chair neighboring Edward’s at dinner, to the very garden row that Edward was weeding in the early morning sun.
But that something was always cautious, careful, reserved. The kisses came slowly at first, guarded. I don’t want to be hurt again, Russ. The fingers that would tendril into blonde hair moved with the deliberation of petals following sunshine across the sky. I promise I won’t hurt you. Lips drank gently, roots shyly probing soil, finding a path to nourishing water, careful to not start into a betraying direction. Don’t stop, Russ. And finally, bodies twined, vines on a trellis, around each other. I need you.
And so, somehow, two boys who had known little of love, trust, or hope found someone with whom to stumble their way through these foreign emotions, reaching around searchingly for a place to sink their roots.
Edward’s mouth was around Russell’s fingers, his tongue gently lapping at the calloused fingertips, not recoiling from something Russell considered to be rather unattractive about himself. Callouses and visible scars weren’t the only remnants of his troubled past. He still had the coughing fits that he supposed would linger for the rest of his life, a constant reminder of his sins in Xenotime.
Ed bore the visible price of his sins, too. His heavy, gangly automail, always pulling at his skin, lending an unevenness to his stride. A hand always hidden from view under a white glove. They were both sinners and while Edward’s price had seemed much higher, who was to say which had sinned the greatest? Russell had sickened an entire town, killing how many? Ed had lost his limbs, but more importantly, he had offered up his younger brother’s body as barter for a taboo. Edward would never regain his lost limbs. They would remain...somewhere else...to remind him of what he had done. Even after retrieving his brother’s body, his sin would not be absolved entirely.
Ed paused in his undressing of his lover just long enough to glance over Russell’s shoulder out the window. The younger alchemist knew he was scanning for any sight of approaching prying eyes, especially those of their easy-blushing younger brothers.
Being interrupted by beloved, shy, giggling siblings was one of the prices they had to pay for this relationship. A small price, but one of which they were constantly aware. And so, love-making was often forced into silence, slowness, and concealment. But, alone in the house on this evening, Ed let out a low growl as Russell’s mouth tugged at a nipple and began to nibble its way down his rib cage.
He could see marigolds bloom wide in Ed’s eyes as he tugged at those stubborn black pants. Pink flesh and glinting automail were revealed, goose bumps rising against cool evening air.
“You’re beautiful, Ed.”
The older boy blushed and turned his face away, burying his eyes in the hollow of Russell’s neck. The younger boy curled an arm around Ed’s back, holding him close. He knew his lover always shied away from his compliments and while he wished Ed would just smile for once and accept them for the truth they were, he understood the boy’s reservation with these expressions of love.
And it was love. Russell felt it rooted deep in his stomach, felt it bud in his soul. He said it often, every morning, every night, at odd times in between, like when they were fighting over a particularly broken-in spot on the couch or when they were taking stem tissue samples and wiping sweat from their brows. And he knew that Ed felt it, even if he had never said it. The way he blushed and almost-but-not-quite averted his eyes at Russell’s random assertions. “I could get used to this” was the closest Ed had ever come to saying it and Russell’s heart had swelled and he had no other choice than to take the older boy in his arms and kiss his blushing cheeks into an even deeper fervor.
But he understood. He understood what Ed had meant with those vague words. He had understood the reservation to express his affection. Both boys knew what rejection was. Both had lost their father’s to promises of alchemic glory, though Nash Tringham and Hohenheim Elric were very different men with very different goals. While Nash hadn’t exactly been a great father, he was a good man. Hohenheim, Edward argued, had been neither. So much of Russell and Edward’s personalities sprouted from these strangled relationships with their fathers. And Russell knew that Ed’s rejection from his father transferred over into other areas of his life.
So Russell didn’t push for Ed to say things that made him uncomfortable. He said “I love you” everyday to the older boy and had never been told to hush, he had made love to him most every night for the past year and had never been told to leave, he had lovingly existed with Ed for so long that he could not remember ever feeling any other way. It didn’t matter if Ed ever said those words. They lent each other a cozy habitat of belonging that they had rarely felt before. And it felt ...
“That is so good, Russ,” Ed moaned into his lover’s shoulder as Russell stroked at the smaller boy’s length and nuzzled his neck.
Edward had only recently taken to being so open about the things he liked to feel. He thoroughly reminded Russell of those bladderworts that he and Fletcher had been studying recently. These touchy little aquatic plants had small trapdoor bladders that opened to let water in, but were able to slam shut the doors at the precise instant that they had enough. Russell had heard that the trapdoors could shut in less than one-hundredth of a second and he grinned, knowing bladderworts had nothing on his Edward. His lover could reject like no one else. Russell had felt that sting often in the beginning, himself. But he understood and his understanding of Edward’s hurt made him crave his lover all the more.
And his craving touches, combined with soft encouragement and late-night discussions in a darkened living room with only a single oil lamp to cast shadows across pained faces, were slowly enough to pull Edward out of his dormancy, to bring to germination the kind, passionate, loving soul that seemed to have withered on the other side of the Gate. He’d achieved his life’s work at the age of 17, finally returning Al’s body and himself, at least physically if not emotionally, back to Amestris. And he had been tired, depleted.
Slowly, slowly he had been returned fully from Munich. His soul finally breached the threshold and he’d bloomed in Russell’s arms.
Edward cried Russell’s name as he came, shoulders shaking against a strong chest. The younger boy buried his face in nectar-sweet hair and kissed the top of Edward’s head. Ed hadn’t been the only one renewed by this assimilation of bodies and hearts.
Russell coiled himself around his lover, content to have him here for an afternoon before he left on another mission for the military. And he was happy, damn it, he was. He has happy that Ed could still traipse about the country, stretching his branches, soaking up the sun of another victory. Happy that he wouldn’t remain at home, bouncing his knees as he sat in chair waiting for something interesting to happen.
Russell sighed and tugged his lover closer. Maybe this was where Ed saw their differences. The younger alchemist would never be the adventuring type. He would never be one to sow his wild oats about the countryside. Instead, he would remain at home, remain where Ed could always find him, remain here, planted for Ed. He would be the roots to Edwards branches, he would remain, Ed would stray.
Edward mumbled something sleepily as he was hoisted up from the couch, still wrapped in a blanket. He felt Russell carry him into their bedroom and sighed and smirked a smirk that would give Roy Mustang a run for his money as he was dropped upon a soft mattress.
“The samples can wait until tomorrow, beautiful.”
Ed scowled, but his drowsy eyes were smiling. The last sun slipped from the horizon, leaving only shadows on Ed’s sated face and Russell closed the door quietly behind him as he let his lover sleep.
Roots to Branches: Part 1
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When Ed had told Russell to take him home from the library, leaving the two younger boys absorbed in their books, he’d had visions of some rare alone time between the two older alchemists. With any luck, some naked, rolling-around-on-the-laboratory-floor alone time.
Instead, Edward found himself kneeling and sweating.
“Are we almost finished, Russ?” he whined.
Russell rolled his eyes and sighed. “As soon as you finish this row, we can go inside.”
Ed groaned as he scraped a tissue sample off a leaf out in the experimental vegetable patch, not quite a substitute for the lovingly laid-out one back home in Risembol. He hated the scraping sound emitted by his automail when sand got caught in its joints.
Russell stepped over a row of leafy greens to come up behind his lover, squatting with his long thighs pressing onto either side of Ed’s hips, wrapped his arms around the small torso, and nuzzled his nose into the long blonde hair.
“You’re doing really good. I appreciate your help, Ed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ed growled, trying to sound defiant, but the softness rubbing at the edges of his voice betrayed his contentedness. “You’re slowing me down.”
Russell felt a grin spread across his face. Edward always put on a good show that could fool most people, but it never fooled his lover. Russell knew Ed better than almost anyone, aside from Al. He knew that Ed liked to think that they were such different creatures, and maybe they were in some ways, but Russell knew better. He knew from their first meetings together that their was more depth to their similarities than to their differences.
He slid one arm under Ed’s knees, keeping the other cradling his back, and tugged the older boy up out of the soil. Ed squirmed and tossed and shrieked about being treated like a girl, but really, he put up less of a fight than Russell had been expecting.
“I still have to finish my row!”
“You were just complaining about it a minute ago. I’d think you’d be happy for a break,” Russell said with a smirk.
Ed stilled and slipped his automail arm around Russell’s neck. “Just what kind of break is this?” he asked with eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Why do you talk so damn much?”
Ed gave an annoyed grunt and relaxed his whole body, becoming dead weight in his lover’s arms. Russell’s legs buckled a little and he staggered. He frowned and bounced his knee off Ed’s bottom, tensing the boy back up.
“Careful with that!” he said, using his free hand to rub his offended ass.
Once inside, Russell dropped his prize down onto the couch. Before he could properly stand up, he felt warm, soft lips on his own. The kiss was hard and urgent, a small tongue swiping between his lips, lapping at teeth, and he felt himself being pulled down on top of the long haired boy beneath him.
Russell grinned against his lover’s lips. This was certainly one thing they had in common. He tangled his fingers in those long, blonde strands, feeling them cool, vining between his fingers. Edward smelled like earth and Russell liked that. He liked the moist dew that was already forming on Ed’s skin. He liked the older boy’s autumn-colored eyes. Ed was the feral, burgeoning outdoors and this was what drew Russell to him, leaving the younger alchemist begging for one more chance to seesmelltaste his lover.
This urgent, flickering passion he felt as Ed’s mouth moved down his throat was something relatively new between them. It was another testament to the parallel, the caution with which they had approached each other. Even after Russell’s uncharacteristically emotional response to Ed’s sudden homecoming, the two had regarded each other tentatively, slowly warming to this growing feeling that had forced their eyes, hands, and mouths upon each other. Russell could feel something - it was not possible that it was Ed’s hands - something that would grab hold of his shirtfront and drag him toward his would-be lover. This something would navigate a sleepy Russell to Edward’s room at night, to the chair neighboring Edward’s at dinner, to the very garden row that Edward was weeding in the early morning sun.
But that something was always cautious, careful, reserved. The kisses came slowly at first, guarded. I don’t want to be hurt again, Russ. The fingers that would tendril into blonde hair moved with the deliberation of petals following sunshine across the sky. I promise I won’t hurt you. Lips drank gently, roots shyly probing soil, finding a path to nourishing water, careful to not start into a betraying direction. Don’t stop, Russ. And finally, bodies twined, vines on a trellis, around each other. I need you.
And so, somehow, two boys who had known little of love, trust, or hope found someone with whom to stumble their way through these foreign emotions, reaching around searchingly for a place to sink their roots.
Edward’s mouth was around Russell’s fingers, his tongue gently lapping at the calloused fingertips, not recoiling from something Russell considered to be rather unattractive about himself. Callouses and visible scars weren’t the only remnants of his troubled past. He still had the coughing fits that he supposed would linger for the rest of his life, a constant reminder of his sins in Xenotime.
Ed bore the visible price of his sins, too. His heavy, gangly automail, always pulling at his skin, lending an unevenness to his stride. A hand always hidden from view under a white glove. They were both sinners and while Edward’s price had seemed much higher, who was to say which had sinned the greatest? Russell had sickened an entire town, killing how many? Ed had lost his limbs, but more importantly, he had offered up his younger brother’s body as barter for a taboo. Edward would never regain his lost limbs. They would remain...somewhere else...to remind him of what he had done. Even after retrieving his brother’s body, his sin would not be absolved entirely.
Ed paused in his undressing of his lover just long enough to glance over Russell’s shoulder out the window. The younger alchemist knew he was scanning for any sight of approaching prying eyes, especially those of their easy-blushing younger brothers.
Being interrupted by beloved, shy, giggling siblings was one of the prices they had to pay for this relationship. A small price, but one of which they were constantly aware. And so, love-making was often forced into silence, slowness, and concealment. But, alone in the house on this evening, Ed let out a low growl as Russell’s mouth tugged at a nipple and began to nibble its way down his rib cage.
He could see marigolds bloom wide in Ed’s eyes as he tugged at those stubborn black pants. Pink flesh and glinting automail were revealed, goose bumps rising against cool evening air.
“You’re beautiful, Ed.”
The older boy blushed and turned his face away, burying his eyes in the hollow of Russell’s neck. The younger boy curled an arm around Ed’s back, holding him close. He knew his lover always shied away from his compliments and while he wished Ed would just smile for once and accept them for the truth they were, he understood the boy’s reservation with these expressions of love.
And it was love. Russell felt it rooted deep in his stomach, felt it bud in his soul. He said it often, every morning, every night, at odd times in between, like when they were fighting over a particularly broken-in spot on the couch or when they were taking stem tissue samples and wiping sweat from their brows. And he knew that Ed felt it, even if he had never said it. The way he blushed and almost-but-not-quite averted his eyes at Russell’s random assertions. “I could get used to this” was the closest Ed had ever come to saying it and Russell’s heart had swelled and he had no other choice than to take the older boy in his arms and kiss his blushing cheeks into an even deeper fervor.
But he understood. He understood what Ed had meant with those vague words. He had understood the reservation to express his affection. Both boys knew what rejection was. Both had lost their father’s to promises of alchemic glory, though Nash Tringham and Hohenheim Elric were very different men with very different goals. While Nash hadn’t exactly been a great father, he was a good man. Hohenheim, Edward argued, had been neither. So much of Russell and Edward’s personalities sprouted from these strangled relationships with their fathers. And Russell knew that Ed’s rejection from his father transferred over into other areas of his life.
So Russell didn’t push for Ed to say things that made him uncomfortable. He said “I love you” everyday to the older boy and had never been told to hush, he had made love to him most every night for the past year and had never been told to leave, he had lovingly existed with Ed for so long that he could not remember ever feeling any other way. It didn’t matter if Ed ever said those words. They lent each other a cozy habitat of belonging that they had rarely felt before. And it felt ...
“That is so good, Russ,” Ed moaned into his lover’s shoulder as Russell stroked at the smaller boy’s length and nuzzled his neck.
Edward had only recently taken to being so open about the things he liked to feel. He thoroughly reminded Russell of those bladderworts that he and Fletcher had been studying recently. These touchy little aquatic plants had small trapdoor bladders that opened to let water in, but were able to slam shut the doors at the precise instant that they had enough. Russell had heard that the trapdoors could shut in less than one-hundredth of a second and he grinned, knowing bladderworts had nothing on his Edward. His lover could reject like no one else. Russell had felt that sting often in the beginning, himself. But he understood and his understanding of Edward’s hurt made him crave his lover all the more.
And his craving touches, combined with soft encouragement and late-night discussions in a darkened living room with only a single oil lamp to cast shadows across pained faces, were slowly enough to pull Edward out of his dormancy, to bring to germination the kind, passionate, loving soul that seemed to have withered on the other side of the Gate. He’d achieved his life’s work at the age of 17, finally returning Al’s body and himself, at least physically if not emotionally, back to Amestris. And he had been tired, depleted.
Slowly, slowly he had been returned fully from Munich. His soul finally breached the threshold and he’d bloomed in Russell’s arms.
Edward cried Russell’s name as he came, shoulders shaking against a strong chest. The younger boy buried his face in nectar-sweet hair and kissed the top of Edward’s head. Ed hadn’t been the only one renewed by this assimilation of bodies and hearts.
Russell coiled himself around his lover, content to have him here for an afternoon before he left on another mission for the military. And he was happy, damn it, he was. He has happy that Ed could still traipse about the country, stretching his branches, soaking up the sun of another victory. Happy that he wouldn’t remain at home, bouncing his knees as he sat in chair waiting for something interesting to happen.
Russell sighed and tugged his lover closer. Maybe this was where Ed saw their differences. The younger alchemist would never be the adventuring type. He would never be one to sow his wild oats about the countryside. Instead, he would remain at home, remain where Ed could always find him, remain here, planted for Ed. He would be the roots to Edwards branches, he would remain, Ed would stray.
Edward mumbled something sleepily as he was hoisted up from the couch, still wrapped in a blanket. He felt Russell carry him into their bedroom and sighed and smirked a smirk that would give Roy Mustang a run for his money as he was dropped upon a soft mattress.
“The samples can wait until tomorrow, beautiful.”
Ed scowled, but his drowsy eyes were smiling. The last sun slipped from the horizon, leaving only shadows on Ed’s sated face and Russell closed the door quietly behind him as he let his lover sleep.