Fullmetal Alchemist (Reverse'verse) - Rainstorm [EdRian]

[scriveyner]

Title: Rainstorm
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
AU: Reverse'verse
Characters/Pairing: Ed/Rian
Rating: T
Length: 732
Summary:

Rian Martin winced as Edward aggressively rubbed the towel over his head again. It was not that it hurt - quite the opposite, in fact - but he couldn’t see with the fluffy old towel draped over his face and Edward was QUITE brisk in his drying function. “Honestly,” the colonel huffed. “You’re - fuck, what, eighteen now? And you don’t even know when to come in out of the rain?”

Rian’s hands curled into fists against the cold white bathtub he was sitting on. He had not expected it to rain - the day had started out with sun, after all - but it had been a convenient excuse. Not that he really, truly needed an excuse to be here, he knew that the colonel appreciated his company but he was still really insecure about that fact. This was the man’s home he was invading, after all. On his day off. His one, solitary, single day off.

Edward lifted the towel off of Rian’s face and peered at him. “You still alive under there?” he asked, and Rian squinted at him. The light in the bathroom bounced off of every white surface, and it dazzled him somewhat. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and blinked muzzily.

“‘m fine,” he muttered sullenly. Edward’s mouth pressed into a flat line, and he turned to shake out the towel before draping it over the curtain rod above Rian’s head.

It wasn’t often that he was privy to Edward in casual clothes. Most of the time that he saw him, he was in some variation of the military uniform. Today, however, it was slacks and an old stained button-down with the sleeves rolled halfway up his arm. Edward caught his eye and Rian ducked, having been caught looking.

This was so strange and nebulous and NEW to him, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Edward was still his commanding officer, technically - although his few occurrences of trying to ‘pull rank’ had all been in jest, he had noted Rian’s knee jerk reaction to that and had, for the moment, shelved that particular repertoire of jokes. They were existing in this new space, somewhere between a relationship and not, and all at once Rian’s lungs constricted and it became hard to breathe.

Edward had not been all that surprised to see him - Rian tended to stop by once or twice a week. It wasn’t all that unusual - even in the office Edward had somewhat of a mentor role with Rian, and they could write off the repeated visits as two geeky alchemists getting knee-deep into things that would make a normal human fall asleep in record time. They were geeky together, but they were also … more.

Rian’s hand shot out almost of its own accord, grabbing Edward’s arm by the sleeve as he turned away. Edward stopped and looked at him calmly, and Rian wanted to scream at him, it was RIDICULOUS, how can you be standing there so calm and collected when I feel like my heart is about to burst being this close to you, it’s just not FAIR - and Edward smiled for him and whatever it was that Rian was about to say died on his lips.

Edward removed Rian’s hand from his arm, and then, embarrassingly, leaned forward and kissed the knuckles. He went red instantly, all the way to his hairline and Edward grinned this saucy, amused look. “You’re staying the night, I hope?”

As if on cue, thunder rumbled in the distance. Rian nodded his head dumbly, and Edward smiled more. “Good.”

Dammit, why didn’t he turn EDWARD into a quivering pile of mush with just a single smile? There was simply no justice in the world. Rian closed his eyes as Edward ran a hand through his damp, shaggy hair, and leaned in to kiss the top of his head.

But then again, he would take this, too.