Entry tags:

billions of hearts all over, fma, happy belated birthday, ilu, utterly serious, winry/sheska

Treading on Dreams - Happy (Belated) Birthday
Title: Treading on Dreams
Author: Kallianah apocryphal_muse
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Winry/Sheska
Warnings: Femmeslash, mention of Elricest, explicit sex, spoilers for everything




This was written as a (very belated, I admit, because I‘m a Professional Procrastinator) birthday present for my longtime friend mieu.

I met you when I was around twelve years old (and I am now twenty -- I’ve known you for nearly half my life) and you were one of the few ‘older’ people who would give me the time of day on the internet. I’ve read old posts I made on your message boards and I’m not entirely sure what you saw in me then, because as far as I’m concerned I wasn’t much more than a squealing, uneducated fanbrat, but I’m incredibly thankful to you for being so amazingly patient with me as I grew up.

There have been periods of time where we communicated sparsely, or not at all. Months have gone by at a time without talking, though I’ve visited your website daily (when able) for the past eight years to keep up with how you’re doing, to make sure that I can at least have that much contact with you.

You’ve been the big sister I never got to have growing up, an incredibly understanding and accepting friend (even when I was stupid or silly), and a wonderful writer and (very recently!) creative companion.

Thank you for having me in your life. You mean more to me than I can say without hideously embarrassing myself in front of large throngs of people. I can’t say that I’d be who I am today without knowing you -- you’re emotionally stronger, smarter, funnier, more beautiful and completely incredible than you give yourself credit for.

* * *


Winry stood at the window overlooking the sparse garden and tried not to think about watching Al wrest himself from Roy Mustang's grasp and fling himself across what had, from the ground, seemed like an impossible gap.

Below, Den chased a butterfly through the flowering rows of peas, leaving broad paw prints in the soggy earth. The heat was oppressive, and Den’s tongue lolled, flopping bright pink as he ran.

She closed her eyes and fought off stab of abandonment, but the effort only summoned forth a memory of Ed and Al standing at the edge of the lake with bare, boyish legs six inches into smelly mud. Five and six, and they had orbited one another like two small stars, bright and glowing and full of laughter in the midsummer heat. They'd caught a frog then, and put it down her dress.

It would have been cruel to keep them apart.

"Winry? Is it okay to come in?"

When Winry turned, startled, Sheska slipped through the door and closed it behind her, looking sheepish. "I knocked twice, and you didn't answer."

Winry's cheeks felt warm. "I didn't hear," she said, and shuffled backwards until her calves bumped the bed. She wondered how she must have looked -- hair disheveled, nearly midafternoon and still not out of her nightclothes, unwashed and standing despondent. Staring at nothing.

"I didn't knock very hard," Sheska said, her eyes round and sympathetic behind her spectacles. “Were you thinking of--”

“Ed, and Al,” Winry said, smoothing her hands over her gown. “Yeah. I miss them sometimes. The heat -- we all used to go down to the lake, the one down the road from the bridge into town, and wade through the reeds. They would catch frogs and lizards, and fight with cattails.”

“Ed was responsible for my career,” Sheska said, slowly, but not hesitant. “We all miss him, but I can’t imagine how it must be for you.”

“Horrible,” Winry said, then turned her face away so Sheska wouldn’t see her squeeze away the jab of impending tears.

“When Hughes was murdered, I spent a whole day locked in my bedroom crying over my books. He was like a father,” Sheska said. She was straight-backed, shoulders squared, proud in her uniform; the Amestrian Military, and the men and women who had gone through disaster and loss with her, had instilled some sort of subtle elegance and strength to her bookish mentality.

When Sheska moved, she moved slowly, and closed the space between them with confidence, one hand on Winry’s cheek.

Winry wished desperately that she were stronger, more like Izumi had been or Lieutenant Hawkeye was. Like her parents, or her grandmother, or even Wrath, pale and full of sorrow. She felt insubstantial and petty, and she wrestled with her jealousy -- Ed and Al had chosen one another over her. Her shoulders tensed; she wanted to yell, and not have to be strong, to cry that it wasn’t fair that she didn’t get her fairytale. She wanted to be just another petulant child.

Sheska leaned forward and gave her a soft, pressing kiss.

Winry had kissed Ed once; it had been awkward and Ed had stood stiff with his lips stretched into a tight, hard line. She had mostly missed and only half of her mouth had been on his; the other half had brushed against the faint, prickly weeks-old growth of stubble that had sprouted along his cheek and chin.

She hadn't tried a second time. Afterwards, Al hadn't spoken to her for days, but she had never divined if his stoicism had been heartbreak or jealousy.

But Sheska's mouth was soft and fit over hers like she thought two gears might mesh, warm and pliant. Sheska's bottom lip tasted like grapes, sharp and tart, when Winry hesitantly ran her tongue across it, but when she repeated the gesture the flavor was gone.

Winry exhaled, long and low, when Sheska pulled away.

Sheska's long fingers were calloused from clutching a pen, and the knot of anticipation in Winry's chest tightened when they brushed over her cheek and slid so delicately down to the hollow of her throat.

“Oh,” Winry said, and Sheska stared at her from behind her glasses. Winry reached out and tugged them off, leaving Sheska blinking myopically.

Winry closed the distance between them again, and pressed Sheska into the sheets, mouth open against the bare strip of flesh at the neck of her uniform. The buttons made dull popping noises as she worked her fingers under them, prying the clasps apart and exposing the cream-colored curve of Sheska’s torso. Sheska smelled like sweet powder and the skin at the swell of her breast was faintly salty.

The low, tight burning coiled low in Winry’s stomach intensified, and she gasped when Sheska shifted to bring a thigh up between her legs, grinding silk and starched cotton against her pelvic bone. Her hands moved hungrily over Sheska’s sides, down across the pale, soft swell of her stomach, pushing away clothing impatiently.

“This okay?” Winry asked, pressing her mouth against Sheska’s jaw.

“If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have kissed you,” Sheska breathed into her hair, and ran one hand up Winry’s inner thigh, finding bare flesh and hot wet heat. Winry ground her teeth together to hold back the low moan of relief, smothering the sound in Sheska’s shoulder.

Winry jerked when Sheska moved her hand, and fumbled to pull Sheska’s trousers down, sinking her fingers into the wetness she found. Sheska lifted her hips off the bed, a perfect arch against Winry‘s stomach.

She had spent hours of her teenage years with fuzzy fantasies of long braids and muscles, of automail and cattish mischief. Or of Al, grown and broad-shouldered like his father, with sweet brown eyes and a meticulous tongue. Or, and her cheeks flushed bright red at thinking it, both of them coiled around her in a tangle, passing kisses through her.

But when her eyes were closed she could see them more clearly with hands tangled, colliding at the hip, bent back until one or both of them might break, rough and muscular. Golden, beautiful; they had always toed the line between one and two, inseparable, even in her imagination.

The sensation crept up on her, and her breathing hastened to panting, her thighs slick where Sheska’s hand had come away with involuntary twists and jerks. Her thoughts fogged over and all she could think about was the way Sheska’s thigh felt on her hip, close and warm, nothing like a man or any of her sweaty summertime dreams.

Sheska stiffened and gasped little noises into the blanket, bottom lip between her teeth, and Winry thought that she looked beautiful. Her own orgasm swept over her and she sealed her mouth over Sheska’s right breast, blinking at the feverish sweep of pleasure that raced over her skin and left her panting and unable to open her eyes.

Winry lay with her arms across Sheska's stomach, chin pillowed at the soft feminine curve of a hip. Her hair fell in damp golden ringlets around Sheska's navel, and for a time she didn't think of boyish angles.