Envy/Winry, Anti-ship table, "Words to be Shared", Part Two
Title: Words To Be Shared Part Two
Author: Sofipitch
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Claim: Anti-Ship Table, Apathy
Characters: Envy/Winry/Edward, Alphonse
Word Count: 14,511 (overall, lj says this post is too big so i had to make it smaller)
Rating: PG-13
Summary/Warning: major character death, bondage, adult themes, and cursing
---X---
It was hard for her to locate them in the crowd, there were so many people, and she couldn’t seem to find Al’s suit of armor in the crowd, which she found particular. As she made her way through the crowd, she heard two voices calling her name, two very familiar voices calling her name. She felt her throat tighten. “Ed? Al?” was all that she could manage to croak.
She expected to see a giant suit of armor lumbering towards her, but she found none. Instead she saw Ed coming towards her first, and a young man who looked to be about Ed’s age with almost the same features, just rounder with darker coloring running and swerving people to get to her. The tears she had blinked back on the train ride arose once again and this time, she let the fall. “Al?” she managed a broken cry.
Alphonse’s smiled widened and as Ed approached her, he slowed down to a stop. Al kept running towards her till he was embracing her. “It’s so good to see you again Winry,” he whispered into her shoulder, where his head was buried. He looked up into her eyes and she almost began bawling. “I missed you. We both did.”
She wrapped her arms around Al. “I missed you too. I’m so glad you managed to get your body back.”
They both let go of each other and Winry smiled at Ed, who managed a weak and embarrassed smile in return before she hugged him. “I’m also glad to see you, Ed.”
Ed awkwardly put his arms around her and she felt the cool metal of his right palm against her back. He hadn’t managed to get his arm back. “I missed you too,” he mumbled.
She withdrew herself from his embrace, but held onto his forearm. He held her elbow. “You didn’t get your arm back, what about your leg?”
Ed smiled and shook his head. His smile, it reached his eyes, but it felt as if he were trying to say something more, but couldn’t. “It’s okay.”
“But now Ed and I are going to look for ways to get his limbs back too. We’ve been looking into Cretan alchemy but-“
“-but we were looking for you instead.” Ed’s eyes held worry and concern as well as a twinge of guilt. Winry felt her mouth go dry as she looked into his eyes and saw months of him searching and worrying, him and Al crying themselves to sleep and blaming themselves for the disappearance of their friend.
She didn’t know what to say in return. What could she possibly say, sorry? It wasn’t her fault for getting captured. There were words that could have been used to sooth his soul, but Winry couldn’t think of any. She had been too terrified herself of everything that had happened, being kept down in that cell trying to figure out a way to trick the monster keeping her captive, fearing every day that he would somehow guess her game and beat her. For him to be so unspeakably angry that she…well she just couldn’t picture it. She wouldn’t let herself think of such things.
But what had been really fucking terrifying had been the thought of pitying the creature. That had been a horrible thought, feeling bad for her captor. But it was unavoidable. She couldn’t stop it. And now she wasn’t even really free yet. She was still tied to him.
She just put her arms around him in return. She didn’t know what else she could do, and she knew she would have to fix this situation by herself. “I…” she tried.
“Sssh. It’s all going to be okay now, Winry.” Those words nearly made her burst into tears, and she felt Alphonse come up and hug her from behind.
---X---
Ed and Al were incredibly sweet to her from then on, and made sure to include her in everything. She knew more about alchemy and their current plans as well as their old ones than she ever had. Ed even hadn’t been picking as many fights and wasn’t yelling as much as he used to.
It all felt like a dream come true.
The only question she held was why they had yet to ask her any questions on where she had been and what happened to her. When she had returned to the hotel suite they’d be staying in she had expected to be bombarded with questions and for her to have to squirm and wiggle her way out of giving them answers. But the brothers had been oddly silent about what had happened. Sometimes when she did certain things, like the time she had been so excited about eating the food presented to her that by most peoples standards would be plain and in need of flavoring, or how she flinches and looked upwards every time she heard a loud noise, more specifically something crash and break. They would always look at her with sad, miserable, guilty eyes then, but the only comments made would be to remind her that better more luxurious food existed and to sooth her racing heart.
This lack of them needing to find out made her wonder what terrible thing happened on their part for them to already understand what she went through.
---X---
She was always on time and punctual to her meeting with Envy every week. Now that they no longer had every sparing minute of the day together, things were different. They both acted like they barely knew each other, which they did, but before they were able to delude themselves into thinking that they knew everything and were close. They talked less because of this, most of their visits solely consisted of sex. From the moment she walked in the door and from the few minutes before she left they had sex. And that was it.
And the more the weeks that past she found herself dulling at the thought of having to go see him became less and less a noble act that she would have to accept and more something she had dug herself into that she was beginning to grow older and would not be able to live the rest of her life with. Also with the less time spent with him, became blurrier to her vision than it had before when she had been spending enough time with him to see the sorrow. With no real answer to why he had been lonely and so miserable looking, she began to question whether or not her pity had been valid or not. And her doubts could have been that now that she had been reunited with her loved ones and her old life, she could reminiscence on what he had taken away from her.
---X---
“Before I was set free,” she started nervously, “I was told the person in charge of the person holding me captive no longer need me.”
The three of them, Ed, Al, and Winry had been having breakfast in a quiet silence that had been only been broken once when Alphonse mentioned something of the brother’s research Winry couldn’t quite understand. Winry had been itching at a particular question that had come to mind yesterday afternoon. After rethinking her theory, she decided that it might just be safe to ask the brothers.
“Would you two have had anything to do with that?”
Ed and Al both gave her blank looks, which told her that they knew nothing of what she was asking them. Ed put down the coffee cup he had been holding and periodically sipping. “We were never even informed who your captor was. We were contacted by someone, about your ransom, and we had our guesses that the homunculi were behind it, but we were never really informed for anything.”
“We were told that “she” wanted us to create a philosopher’s stone for her, just as the homunculi had asked of us, but there was only one female homunculus out of the ones that we had met, and she didn’t appear to be the leader. This gave us doubts as to whether we were contacted by the homunculi or by someone else,” Alphonse continued, painting a bigger picture of the position the brothers had been in.
“They wanted you to create a philosopher’s stone as a…” She couldn’t find the nerve within herself to complete the sentence.
“Ransom,” Alphonse finished for her.
She felt her mouth go dry and her palms begin to sweat. “I didn’t, you didn’t do, their made of,” so many different thoughts, and scenarios, and questions that to came her mind that she couldn’t put them all into words, just mish-mashed phrases that didn’t go together, but the Elrics were still able to decode.
“We didn’t pay the ransom, if that’s what you’re afraid of. We already told you that we never met your captor,” Ed fidgeted under her gaze and turned his head to look out the hotel room window. “We couldn’t do that. We already told you what the main ingredient for a philosopher’s stone is and we just couldn’t…” Ed looked over at Alphonse, who had the same expression as Ed, like a child who felt ashamed of having to tell their parent they couldn’t do something because they were afraid of it.
“I’m glad you didn’t, I’m not worth it,” Their expression changed to one that showed themselves wanting to speak up, wanting to say that she would’ve been worth it. But that would’ve been a lie, because she hadn’t been, that much was obvious to all three of them. “And I don’t think I could go on living knowing that people died to be able to save me, one tiny insignificant person.”
“You’re not insignificant Winry,” Alphonse said. “But,” he treaded slowly and carefully, “thousands of people would’ve died, and that would just have been too…selfish.”
“I know, and I’m glad you didn’t.” She smiled at the brothers and they-Alphonse and Winry and later encourage to follow, Ed--all got up and hugged over the table, which resulted in Ed accidentally knocking his coffee all over himself when he went to sit down. That caused him to curse and yelp and Winry and Alphonse to laugh, which help dissolve the tension that had still been left in the air.
---X---
Her visits with Envy slowly became more against her will as she spent more time with the Elrics, with one of them in particular. Edward had always been the harder to get along with out of the two, he could be rude and cruel, firing mean comments about her being an automail junkie and having no sex appeal. And despite the fact that she had been repeatedly told by Pinako that he only said such things because he didn’t know how to act around the opposite gender and was probably harboring some sort of crush on her, she still sometimes felt hurt by the things he would say to her. There were sometimes he would notice he had hurt her feelings and would mumble a simple, “Sorry”, under his breath, but loud enough for her to hear it. It always managed to lighten her mood to hear him apologize, because she always knew he meant it and that it wasn’t just something he felt forced to do but something he wanted to do.
Even since she had gotten back he had treated her with more respect than she had believe possible from the older Elric, and was more gentle and didn’t explode upon contact. Immediately. Of course they still spat poison at each other, because it honestly wouldn’t be them if they didn’t and also because of the fact that they simply weren’t quiet people.
She had always (maybe, kinda, sorta) liked Edward in a different way that she had liked Alphonse. Ed yelled, so she never felt bad yelling back. She could be as loud as she wanted around him. Ed was harder to get along with or to get to agree with you on some things, which presented her with a challenge, which she loved. There was a certain glint in Ed’s eye that Alphonse didn’t have, a glint that let you know he was a bit of a wild card, which let on a kind of danger to being around him, which could be thrilling. But the biggest difference was that Al treated her like a girl, not that Ed didn’t, he did, but he didn’t expect that she should be dainty or refined like Al did. With Ed he could still be the same brat who ran around Risenbool with two boys, who alternated between dresses and overalls and never cared about being ‘careful’ when wearing her dresses and skirts. She felt with Al she had to be calmer and not yell and throw out curses. Al needed someone more lady-like, and she didn’t know what the hell Ed wanted, but she knew she felt more herself around him. Al was safe, and comparatively, Ed wasn’t.
And the closer she got with Ed and the more time she spent with him, the more she felt guilty for sleeping with Envy and the more her secret began to weigh her down. She wanted to say to herself that the reason she had been sleeping with him was because she had pitied him and because she wanted to use his loneliness to manipulate him and have him set her free. And while both of those reasons were true, so was the fact that she had enjoyed what she had shared with him and for a long time had looked forward to repeating the acts. But as she realized that she was falling in love with Edward, she felt dirty for thinking of such things and soiled, for having committed them. She felt for what she had done she didn’t deserve Edward.
These thoughts began to plague her mind as she visited Envy, but for the time being, she hadn’t seen that he noticed her distress.
---X---
There were things that could’ve been said between her and Envy, but most of the time they were lost when Envy began kissing her. They had done everything so many times before that there was nothing left for them to learn about each other’s bodies and how they would react. She knew him like the back of her hand.
They still talked, though, never about why she was captured. That was never mentioned, it was almost as if it had never even happened. If he seemed upset about something, she would ask him what happened. Sometimes he answered, and sometimes he kissed her to shut her up. She knew she shouldn’t, but as much as she felt hurt by the fact that she had been his hostage, she still pitied him, and could see a lost look in his eye every time she left the following day. He was still lonely, and even though she hated herself for it, and felt she should hate him for holding her prisoner, every time she saw the loneliness begin to creep back into his eyes, she felt her heart melt despite herself. And for a few seconds she would remember why she pitied him, before returning home to Edward and forgetting it all over again.
She was never able to learn more about him, by talking to him, everything else she learned was from the Elrics. And she never mentioned to him her current life. Those topics were about parts of themselves that they were both alien to them, therefore there was an unspoken understanding that such topics were forbidden. But she eventually had to mention it.
“Envy?” The sin who lay next to her had been curling her hair around his finger while he lay on the bed next to her. He tilted his head slightly in her direction to show that he was listening. “My home’s in Risenbool and I’m going to need to be returning there sometime soon, Ed and Al have been talking about it and my Grandma brings it up a lot in our calls. What do you want to do about our deal then? I can’t just hop on a train every week without them suspecting something. Right now Ed and Al are working on their research, so they either haven’t noticed me leaving or haven’t had any care to ask.” They probably think I’m going off to visit Gracia or Lieutenant Hawkeye, Winry thought miserably. Ed gave her an odd look the third time she had left the house, as if she wondered where she was going, but had never asked her about it, so she didn’t give an answer. But even though they allowed her enough freedom to visit Envy, they would not allow her to leave on a train alone, and since they personally wanted to escort her, for fear of the dangers lurking which had already made themselves present.
Envy didn’t look too pensive when answering; he just continued to twirl her hair around his finger. “Are there any hotels or anything of such value in Risenbool?”
“There’s a small two room inn near the train station.”
“Then we’ll figure something out, just tell me when you’re leaving,” he said before moving closer and tugging at her lower lip with his teeth. She complied and opened her mouth to greet his tongue. She could feel him smile in satisfaction into the kiss.
There being an inn in Risenbool didn’t solve half the problem. Once they got there, the Elrics would no longer have their noses shoved in their books and would actually notice her absence on every Thursday. Her grandmother might not with all the late night work she does on her automail, but she knew the Elrics would notice something was up. And if she were to be discovered, her grandmother doesn’t know Envy so she wouldn’t know the full extent of the horror of finding out her granddaughter is sleeping with him like the Elric brothers would if they discovered her.
She didn’t voice these fears and problems out loud to Envy though, for she didn’t believe he would want to hear it. He would probably just tell her that it’s her problem and to deal with it. She felt trapped between what she had to do and what she wanted to do, but she left Envy distract her from those thoughts for the time being.
---X---
Once she decided to finally come out and ask him what would’ve happened to her if she hadn’t agreed to this deal with him. Envy smiled cruelly when she asked her question and hissed dangerously in her ear something that would repeat itself in her head on her entire walk home.
“I would’ve killed you.”
---X---
The momentary thought of what would happen if she were to just skip a visit with Envy came to mind the next morning at breakfast, but she decided to ignore it. It would be a stupid idea, she didn’t want to anger Envy-for she already knew what hell that could be-and she wasn’t sure he didn’t know where she was currently residing with the Elric brothers and wouldn’t come hunt her down. Or even, God forbid, hurt the Elrics instead of her. That would hurt her more than any punch to the cheek, and she instantly decided that she would try to eliminate any chance of the Elric brother’s encountering Envy.
But a part of her knew she was being illogical. He wouldn’t hurt her, he would kill her, just as he said he was supposed to do before.
---X---
She didn’t normally spend a lot of time alone with the older Elric brother, normally Alphonse would also be there or they would just have short interactions. Sometimes she could have spent longer with him, but she usually fled the scene, due to awkward happenings between her and Ed, but also there was her secret of sleeping with Envy, which she always saw clearly and looking at her with resentment every time she looked Ed in the eyes. It was hard. And she began to hate herself for it the closer she got with him.
One day, Alphonse stepped out for the day to visit with some fellow alchemist colleges for the day. Alphonse had explained what it was for to her, but all she was certain about was that it was to help them with some research on botanic-alchemy Alphonse had been helping them with. Alphonse had asked for Ed to come along with him, but Ed had said he’d rather spend a week alone with Major Armstrong than spend an afternoon with some plant-alchemy freaks. Alphonse had frowned in disapproval but then brightened and said that it was good Ed wasn’t going, someone needed to keep Winry company.
Ed simply snarled and said that that wasn’t the reason why he was staying while Alphonse raised his eyebrow suggestively at his older brother while chuckling. Winry felt out of place there, Alphonse hinting towards them being together and Edward so openly denying feeling any attraction towards her, and her, so desperately in love with him. It was awkward being caught in the middle of the two brothers bickering, but even more so over whether the boy she loved was also interested in her, which he would angrily deny no, getting all red in the face from yelling.
When Alphonse left, the two didn’t do anything of importance. Ed pulled out a book and Winry also pulled one out, while at the same time wishing she could return to Risenbool soon, so that she would be able to begin working on her automail again. Every once in a while Winry would make a small comment to Ed, hoping to initiate a conversation, but to no luck he would only give short one-word responses before resuming to read.
It wasn’t until later that they found a reason to talk, there was no food for them to make dinner with. There were two options for eating, buying groceries or eating out, but Central on a Saturday night almost guaranteed having to wait a long time before being seated, so eating out was out ruled by the two.
It was easier to talk when out on the street than a home. The ever-changing outside always gave her something to comment to Ed about, and this time they could sometimes drag out into conversations. They both picked out enough food to sustain the three of them for a while and Ed was at the cash register paying for the food. (Winry didn’t have money to pay for anything herself, so she swore that once she began making money again, she would repay the Elrics.) While Ed did this, Winry found her vision straying and her eyes wandering around the room until they landed on Ed. Well, his arm to be more precise. He had on his usual attire, save for the coat, which covered his automail pretty well within his long sleeve shirt and gloves. But she could still see the slightest bit of metal where the gloves and the sleeve of his shirt don’t quite meet.
There was something about seeing his automail that reminded her of the expression he wore when he told her he had not yet regained his body, bittersweet, happy, but with slight regret. She could all of the sudden see Edward and Alphonse putting their fists together and getting all excited over a new lead to getting their bodies back. And she then realized that every time Ed spoke of getting their bodies back, he had spoken of Alphonse’s. He had been lying. He didn’t quite care for his as much, so he let it go and only got Alphonse’s body. She wondered if now he really was studying to get his body back or if he was doing something else.
That selflessness made her feel heat prickling at the bottoms of her eyes and before she could even think to stop it, she had tears streaming down her face. Cursing at her weakness, Winry rapidly wiped the tears from her face, but not before Ed had seen them.
“Winry?” He had had a bag to carry extended in her direction and she took it from his grasp and hurried outside in embarrassment. Ed followed closely behind her. “Winry!”
She didn’t go very far, just outside the store to the front of the next building. She had turned her body towards the brick, not wanting anyone else to see her, since was still trying her best to push back her tears. Crying in public was something Winry Rockbell did not do, and she simply hated crying in front of Ed. Good reason or not she always felt like such a… female around him. She hated being so weak compared to him. She could hear the heavy footstep of his automail leg and his lighter human one slowing down as he approached her. She didn’t turn to face him due embarrassment. Her hair blocked Ed from seeing her face. Edward laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Winry, what’s the matter?”
She tried to wipe away as much evidence of her tears as possible with her hands. “I…” she turned and saw the people passing on the street, some looking at the two, which only made her more embarrassed. “I’ll tell you when we get back.”
She guessed that it was because he was in the middle of a moment in which female hormones were at their strongest that he wordlessly agreed.
---X---
It was hard trying to explain to Ed how she felt, without feeling she was suddenly giving him credit she didn’t give often enough, for most of the time she was cursing over broken automail.
From the moment the door closed and Ed set his bags down in the tiny kitchen, she could feel how anxious and how awkward he was feeling. She hadn’t sensed it before, she was too busy walking farther ahead of him, trying to be as far away as possible without coming across as rude.
“Nothing happened to me,” she decided that such opening would be the best for a situation like this one. “I was just thinking and…” She rocked on her feet slightly, staring downwards at her feet. Her bottom lip curled inwards as she tried to but her thoughts into words.
“Thinking of what?” Ed asked.
Her eyes fluttered upwards to look at him, but quickly moved back down under the intensity of his gaze. “It’s just Al got his body back but you didn’t get yours and I-“
“Winry,” he began softly, “It’s just an arm and a leg, not an entire body like him. I’m fine the way I am.”
Her head shot up to face him. “But you deserve to have your body back too.”
Having no response for her statement, he switched the conversation back to her. “Why are you crying about this?”
She inhaled and her chest and shoulders rose. “Because you’re my best friend and I care about you.”
He gave her a funny smile, one that had two different tones to it: you’re such an idiot and you’re so endearing. He blushed and then looked away. “Thank you,” he mumbled.
She felt herself sigh with relief as he turned to unpack their groceries.
---X---
Dinner was quiet, but yet she didn’t feel as awkward as she had before, having gotten her feelings out and off of her chest. Edward did begin to give her this strange look though, which bothered her. It was as if he was trying to study and figure something out, which made her more uncomfortable as the night progressed. Later when washing their dishes and the pots and pans used to provide their meal, Edward spoke up.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to die, I don’t plan to die. I’d don’t want you being afraid for me, I’ve let you do that long enough now.” He had been looking at the plate he had been drying, but now he turned to face her. “I’m sorry I let you down. But don’t cry for me, I have both you and Alphonse back in one piece, I couldn’t be happier. I don’t need a new arm and leg when I have the best automail mechanic in the world who can provide even better.”
Winry felt her throat tighten and tears beginning to rise in her eyes. And she felt her stomach drop as she thought of the lie she was living, seeing Envy in the shadows. She felt her temperature rise and her palms begin the sweat as she stared up into his gaze. She held the plate she had been scrubbing with less strength than before. “I’m sorry,” she whispered for probably a different reason than he believed.
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” He set the plate that had still been in his hand and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She felt her entire body go completely weak under the touch. She very carefully placed the plate she had been holding on the counter before the weakness in her muscles made her drop it. Her arms dangled uselessly at her sides; she wanted to put them around him so much.
“I missed you so much Winry. You could possibly imagine how much. I was so worried.” She could hear his voice crack as he said the last word.
“Ed,” she managed to croak. She felt so close to tears.
He withdrew from the hug to look into her eyes, but still held her close to him, as if he didn’t she would disappear. “I,” his voice cracked. He tried again. “I missed you so much, and I was so worried and I think that made me realize something. I think love you Winry,” he said before he kissed her.
Winry felt as if her brain had melted and her heart had collapsed in on itself. He squeezed her tightly against him, her shoulder aching slightly from the force. Winry in turn felt herself wiggling her arms free to wrap them around his torso. He was kissing her with him nose squished against his, but she didn’t mind, even though it made breathing through her nose harder. She loved how it felt as if it was something awkward and dorky only Ed would do.
But as much as she was enjoying herself, she felt as if she were forgetting something, but dismissed the feeling and just allowed herself to simply enjoy the moment as she felt, somehow under all that guilt, she deserved.
---X---
Everything always felt so simple and right with Ed. She had known him for so long, and it was a warming feeling to see him acting nervous and embarrassed around her. Yet at the same time she felt him unsure of how to act after he had kissed her and confessed, she could still tell he meant it, and he wasn’t going to back down on being with her. He really wanted things to work between them. It felt so nice to be involved in such an innocent relationship. No touching, nothing of any sexual act, just Ed blushing and fumbling awkwardly as he kissed her.
They spent the rest of the night talking and kissing, it felt just as it had when they were children, before Ed’s mother died and he hit puberty, save for the kissing part. It felt like an intimacy far greater than sex. Sex could be done by any two individuals, without any care for where they end up later. She and Ed spent the night together kissing and sometimes whispering sweet nothings and recounting old memories of when they were younger to each other. That to her felt like it had much greater substance than sex could even have.
But the entire time she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something important, that there was something she need to do. And as she fell asleep on the couch curled in Ed’s arms, the feeling refused to go away, even though she was sure she wasn’t forgetting anything.
---X---
What she was forgetting came to her late at night. She woke with an abrupt start, jostling Ed, who was sleeping right beside her.
“Shit!” she cursed.
She ran to get her shoes and get out the door, not needing to change clothes since she had just fallen asleep in her dress, rather than nightwear. Inconveniently the first and closest pair of shoes she was able to find was a pair of slightly heeled boots. She didn’t think much of them though, she wasn’t ungraceful, and she was in such hurry that she couldn’t make herself find another pair.
“Where are you going Winry?”
She turned around to find Ed right behind her. His eyes were narrowed and she could tell he was suspecting something dangerously wrong.
She shook her head. “I have to go,” was all she said before tearing out the door and down the stairs to leave the hotel.
Ed followed behind her quickly, seemly determined to stop her and wrench a truth out of her she would never be able to tell. He yelled her name repeatedly on his way down the stairs, but she just ignored him and continued on, cursing herself for being such an idiot and getting herself into this mess.
She had been so distracted, she had forgotten her appointment with Envy.
---X---
“Winry please stop!” Ed yelled from behind her. He wasn’t too far behind her, the heels of her shoes prevented her from running very fast, but the adrenaline currently coursing through her veins allowed her to actually stay ahead of him, since he was running bare footed, but she knew she would have to lose him soon or he would catch up to her. He had been learning to running for much longer than she had.
And she didn’t want him to encounter Envy or even find out where she was heading anyways.
She wasn’t too far from her and Envy’s meeting place, just another two blocks before she’d be at the shabby old apartment building. The apartment was located on a rougher side of the city than where she usually went, which she feared would already have Ed more suspicious of where she was headed.
His footsteps got louder behind her and before she could speed up to get away, he pulled on her wrist and pulled her into an empty alleyway to her right. She gave a yelp and tripped-nearly fell-but his grip went from to her forearms and steadied her.
“What do you think you’re doing Winry?” he asked, almost yelled.
She grimaced and turned her head away, determined not to look him in the eye. “Ed you don’t understand, I have to go. Let me go, please.”
Ed’s grip on her only tightened. “Tell me Winry: Where do you have to go?”
She felt herself instinctively turn to face him and was overwhelmed by the amount of worry she saw in his eyes. Guilt flooded over her worry of being killed so fast she felt her stomach lurch; she suddenly felt as if she were going to vomit. Her stiff muscles weakened under him.
“Please tell me Winry. I’m worried about you. What are you doing out here that scares you so much? If you don’t tell me I can’t help you, and I want to help you.” His hands upon feeling less resistance coming from her, slipped upwards to cup her face and he kissed her very lightly on the lips. “Tell me Winry.”
She squinted her eyes closed at his feathery kiss, wanting nothing more to avoid him for the growing fear in her stomach. She had to leave, get out, distract Ed, get to Envy, but now she wasn’t sure she would know how to do that. She pulled free of Ed’s grip and tried moving in the other direction, moving only forty feet away from him, only a few seconds after he had just been holding her, looking right into her eyes, before she turned back to face him when he called her name.
What played out before her eyes seemingly happened in slow motion. Ed hadn’t been the one to call her, Envy had his hand clamped on Ed’s mouth. Once he saw he had her attention, he took a knife and sliced right through the middle of Edward’s torso. Blood splattered wildly, as if wanting to cover everything around him and quickly as it could. Ed fell to the floor like a rag doll, dead within seconds. Winry felt her entire body burn as she thought he had just been holding her against him a minute ago, but now he lay dead on the ground. Her throat burned and she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t hear anything come out.
“Why?” Envy had said but she wondered why he was the one asking her that. He was completely apathetic towards having just killed Edward in cold-blood.
Winry backed away as Envy made his way towards her. His arm had shifted into a very large very menacing looking blade, which she had already seen had the capability of slicing a human being in half. She tried to think of someway to escape, or something she could say that would make his intent less murderous, but all she could think of was Edward and how quickly he had been sliced right in two, right before her eyes.
“You vile human. Did you really think you could escape me? And to think I thought you were different, but in reality, you humans are all the same.
“You created this mess,” when she looked up into his eyes she could see the rage burning so brightly and the bloodlust in his crooked smile. “And I’m going to be the one to clean it up.”
Her back hit a wall behind her and she raised her palms to try and brace herself against it, but she was sweating so badly it felt as if the gripping brick wall was slipping right out of her grasp. She vaguely wondered how many times he had cornered her up against a wall. She had been in the position of prey so many times, she wondered how she had ever found the nerve to pity him. The moment he killed Ed all thoughts of pitying him flew out the window, and with her back pressed against this wall as she expected death, she couldn’t seem to summon any other thought than how demonic this monster finally looked before her. How in the world had that been something she missed?
Her knees were shaking, and she felt all the muscles in her body were completely limp, useless if she somehow devised a way out. Envy began slowly closing in on her and her eyes drifted towards Edward, looking at her friend, whom she would soon be following. Bile rose in her throat.
Envy followed her line of vision. “Look at the mess you made, you got his blood everywhere.” He smiled cruelly, but his lips reversed back to a thin line so fast it was almost comical. Maybe some other time she would’ve noticed.
He stood right in front of her and she lifted one arm and crossed it over her chest, a very flimsy mean of self-defense. Three blood stained fingers came up and gripped her chin, pulling it upwards for him to study her face, just as he had so many times before. Blood smeared on her face right where he touched her. They stood so close, she could hear the Ed’s blood dripping off of the blade which was a simple transmutation of Envy’s arm.
Red sparks suddenly flew across the knife and it reduced in size, till the metal only took up what she believed Envy’s hand would be. His eyes never moved from her face as he lifted his arm, pulling his elbow farther away from his body, preparing for a powerful strike. She felt her heart beat faster and her eyes glaze over.
“It’s such a shame, pretty faces like yours are found quite often, but a kind heart like the one you were rumored to have are hard to come across. But I guess even people like you can chose who to show that compassion too.” He smile bitterly. “I guess it was too much to ask for for that kindness to be showed to me.”
She felt as if she were dreaming, and her body could barely come up with a coherent thought. The last she managed was to shut her eyes before his knife-his hand-plummeted straight into her heart.
End.
A/N: All this has been based off of this drawing- http://psychybrid.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=scraps#/d4cccg1
Author: Sofipitch
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Claim: Anti-Ship Table, Apathy
Characters: Envy/Winry/Edward, Alphonse
Word Count: 14,511 (overall, lj says this post is too big so i had to make it smaller)
Rating: PG-13
Summary/Warning: major character death, bondage, adult themes, and cursing
---X---
It was hard for her to locate them in the crowd, there were so many people, and she couldn’t seem to find Al’s suit of armor in the crowd, which she found particular. As she made her way through the crowd, she heard two voices calling her name, two very familiar voices calling her name. She felt her throat tighten. “Ed? Al?” was all that she could manage to croak.
She expected to see a giant suit of armor lumbering towards her, but she found none. Instead she saw Ed coming towards her first, and a young man who looked to be about Ed’s age with almost the same features, just rounder with darker coloring running and swerving people to get to her. The tears she had blinked back on the train ride arose once again and this time, she let the fall. “Al?” she managed a broken cry.
Alphonse’s smiled widened and as Ed approached her, he slowed down to a stop. Al kept running towards her till he was embracing her. “It’s so good to see you again Winry,” he whispered into her shoulder, where his head was buried. He looked up into her eyes and she almost began bawling. “I missed you. We both did.”
She wrapped her arms around Al. “I missed you too. I’m so glad you managed to get your body back.”
They both let go of each other and Winry smiled at Ed, who managed a weak and embarrassed smile in return before she hugged him. “I’m also glad to see you, Ed.”
Ed awkwardly put his arms around her and she felt the cool metal of his right palm against her back. He hadn’t managed to get his arm back. “I missed you too,” he mumbled.
She withdrew herself from his embrace, but held onto his forearm. He held her elbow. “You didn’t get your arm back, what about your leg?”
Ed smiled and shook his head. His smile, it reached his eyes, but it felt as if he were trying to say something more, but couldn’t. “It’s okay.”
“But now Ed and I are going to look for ways to get his limbs back too. We’ve been looking into Cretan alchemy but-“
“-but we were looking for you instead.” Ed’s eyes held worry and concern as well as a twinge of guilt. Winry felt her mouth go dry as she looked into his eyes and saw months of him searching and worrying, him and Al crying themselves to sleep and blaming themselves for the disappearance of their friend.
She didn’t know what to say in return. What could she possibly say, sorry? It wasn’t her fault for getting captured. There were words that could have been used to sooth his soul, but Winry couldn’t think of any. She had been too terrified herself of everything that had happened, being kept down in that cell trying to figure out a way to trick the monster keeping her captive, fearing every day that he would somehow guess her game and beat her. For him to be so unspeakably angry that she…well she just couldn’t picture it. She wouldn’t let herself think of such things.
But what had been really fucking terrifying had been the thought of pitying the creature. That had been a horrible thought, feeling bad for her captor. But it was unavoidable. She couldn’t stop it. And now she wasn’t even really free yet. She was still tied to him.
She just put her arms around him in return. She didn’t know what else she could do, and she knew she would have to fix this situation by herself. “I…” she tried.
“Sssh. It’s all going to be okay now, Winry.” Those words nearly made her burst into tears, and she felt Alphonse come up and hug her from behind.
---X---
Ed and Al were incredibly sweet to her from then on, and made sure to include her in everything. She knew more about alchemy and their current plans as well as their old ones than she ever had. Ed even hadn’t been picking as many fights and wasn’t yelling as much as he used to.
It all felt like a dream come true.
The only question she held was why they had yet to ask her any questions on where she had been and what happened to her. When she had returned to the hotel suite they’d be staying in she had expected to be bombarded with questions and for her to have to squirm and wiggle her way out of giving them answers. But the brothers had been oddly silent about what had happened. Sometimes when she did certain things, like the time she had been so excited about eating the food presented to her that by most peoples standards would be plain and in need of flavoring, or how she flinches and looked upwards every time she heard a loud noise, more specifically something crash and break. They would always look at her with sad, miserable, guilty eyes then, but the only comments made would be to remind her that better more luxurious food existed and to sooth her racing heart.
This lack of them needing to find out made her wonder what terrible thing happened on their part for them to already understand what she went through.
---X---
She was always on time and punctual to her meeting with Envy every week. Now that they no longer had every sparing minute of the day together, things were different. They both acted like they barely knew each other, which they did, but before they were able to delude themselves into thinking that they knew everything and were close. They talked less because of this, most of their visits solely consisted of sex. From the moment she walked in the door and from the few minutes before she left they had sex. And that was it.
And the more the weeks that past she found herself dulling at the thought of having to go see him became less and less a noble act that she would have to accept and more something she had dug herself into that she was beginning to grow older and would not be able to live the rest of her life with. Also with the less time spent with him, became blurrier to her vision than it had before when she had been spending enough time with him to see the sorrow. With no real answer to why he had been lonely and so miserable looking, she began to question whether or not her pity had been valid or not. And her doubts could have been that now that she had been reunited with her loved ones and her old life, she could reminiscence on what he had taken away from her.
---X---
“Before I was set free,” she started nervously, “I was told the person in charge of the person holding me captive no longer need me.”
The three of them, Ed, Al, and Winry had been having breakfast in a quiet silence that had been only been broken once when Alphonse mentioned something of the brother’s research Winry couldn’t quite understand. Winry had been itching at a particular question that had come to mind yesterday afternoon. After rethinking her theory, she decided that it might just be safe to ask the brothers.
“Would you two have had anything to do with that?”
Ed and Al both gave her blank looks, which told her that they knew nothing of what she was asking them. Ed put down the coffee cup he had been holding and periodically sipping. “We were never even informed who your captor was. We were contacted by someone, about your ransom, and we had our guesses that the homunculi were behind it, but we were never really informed for anything.”
“We were told that “she” wanted us to create a philosopher’s stone for her, just as the homunculi had asked of us, but there was only one female homunculus out of the ones that we had met, and she didn’t appear to be the leader. This gave us doubts as to whether we were contacted by the homunculi or by someone else,” Alphonse continued, painting a bigger picture of the position the brothers had been in.
“They wanted you to create a philosopher’s stone as a…” She couldn’t find the nerve within herself to complete the sentence.
“Ransom,” Alphonse finished for her.
She felt her mouth go dry and her palms begin to sweat. “I didn’t, you didn’t do, their made of,” so many different thoughts, and scenarios, and questions that to came her mind that she couldn’t put them all into words, just mish-mashed phrases that didn’t go together, but the Elrics were still able to decode.
“We didn’t pay the ransom, if that’s what you’re afraid of. We already told you that we never met your captor,” Ed fidgeted under her gaze and turned his head to look out the hotel room window. “We couldn’t do that. We already told you what the main ingredient for a philosopher’s stone is and we just couldn’t…” Ed looked over at Alphonse, who had the same expression as Ed, like a child who felt ashamed of having to tell their parent they couldn’t do something because they were afraid of it.
“I’m glad you didn’t, I’m not worth it,” Their expression changed to one that showed themselves wanting to speak up, wanting to say that she would’ve been worth it. But that would’ve been a lie, because she hadn’t been, that much was obvious to all three of them. “And I don’t think I could go on living knowing that people died to be able to save me, one tiny insignificant person.”
“You’re not insignificant Winry,” Alphonse said. “But,” he treaded slowly and carefully, “thousands of people would’ve died, and that would just have been too…selfish.”
“I know, and I’m glad you didn’t.” She smiled at the brothers and they-Alphonse and Winry and later encourage to follow, Ed--all got up and hugged over the table, which resulted in Ed accidentally knocking his coffee all over himself when he went to sit down. That caused him to curse and yelp and Winry and Alphonse to laugh, which help dissolve the tension that had still been left in the air.
---X---
Her visits with Envy slowly became more against her will as she spent more time with the Elrics, with one of them in particular. Edward had always been the harder to get along with out of the two, he could be rude and cruel, firing mean comments about her being an automail junkie and having no sex appeal. And despite the fact that she had been repeatedly told by Pinako that he only said such things because he didn’t know how to act around the opposite gender and was probably harboring some sort of crush on her, she still sometimes felt hurt by the things he would say to her. There were sometimes he would notice he had hurt her feelings and would mumble a simple, “Sorry”, under his breath, but loud enough for her to hear it. It always managed to lighten her mood to hear him apologize, because she always knew he meant it and that it wasn’t just something he felt forced to do but something he wanted to do.
Even since she had gotten back he had treated her with more respect than she had believe possible from the older Elric, and was more gentle and didn’t explode upon contact. Immediately. Of course they still spat poison at each other, because it honestly wouldn’t be them if they didn’t and also because of the fact that they simply weren’t quiet people.
She had always (maybe, kinda, sorta) liked Edward in a different way that she had liked Alphonse. Ed yelled, so she never felt bad yelling back. She could be as loud as she wanted around him. Ed was harder to get along with or to get to agree with you on some things, which presented her with a challenge, which she loved. There was a certain glint in Ed’s eye that Alphonse didn’t have, a glint that let you know he was a bit of a wild card, which let on a kind of danger to being around him, which could be thrilling. But the biggest difference was that Al treated her like a girl, not that Ed didn’t, he did, but he didn’t expect that she should be dainty or refined like Al did. With Ed he could still be the same brat who ran around Risenbool with two boys, who alternated between dresses and overalls and never cared about being ‘careful’ when wearing her dresses and skirts. She felt with Al she had to be calmer and not yell and throw out curses. Al needed someone more lady-like, and she didn’t know what the hell Ed wanted, but she knew she felt more herself around him. Al was safe, and comparatively, Ed wasn’t.
And the closer she got with Ed and the more time she spent with him, the more she felt guilty for sleeping with Envy and the more her secret began to weigh her down. She wanted to say to herself that the reason she had been sleeping with him was because she had pitied him and because she wanted to use his loneliness to manipulate him and have him set her free. And while both of those reasons were true, so was the fact that she had enjoyed what she had shared with him and for a long time had looked forward to repeating the acts. But as she realized that she was falling in love with Edward, she felt dirty for thinking of such things and soiled, for having committed them. She felt for what she had done she didn’t deserve Edward.
These thoughts began to plague her mind as she visited Envy, but for the time being, she hadn’t seen that he noticed her distress.
---X---
There were things that could’ve been said between her and Envy, but most of the time they were lost when Envy began kissing her. They had done everything so many times before that there was nothing left for them to learn about each other’s bodies and how they would react. She knew him like the back of her hand.
They still talked, though, never about why she was captured. That was never mentioned, it was almost as if it had never even happened. If he seemed upset about something, she would ask him what happened. Sometimes he answered, and sometimes he kissed her to shut her up. She knew she shouldn’t, but as much as she felt hurt by the fact that she had been his hostage, she still pitied him, and could see a lost look in his eye every time she left the following day. He was still lonely, and even though she hated herself for it, and felt she should hate him for holding her prisoner, every time she saw the loneliness begin to creep back into his eyes, she felt her heart melt despite herself. And for a few seconds she would remember why she pitied him, before returning home to Edward and forgetting it all over again.
She was never able to learn more about him, by talking to him, everything else she learned was from the Elrics. And she never mentioned to him her current life. Those topics were about parts of themselves that they were both alien to them, therefore there was an unspoken understanding that such topics were forbidden. But she eventually had to mention it.
“Envy?” The sin who lay next to her had been curling her hair around his finger while he lay on the bed next to her. He tilted his head slightly in her direction to show that he was listening. “My home’s in Risenbool and I’m going to need to be returning there sometime soon, Ed and Al have been talking about it and my Grandma brings it up a lot in our calls. What do you want to do about our deal then? I can’t just hop on a train every week without them suspecting something. Right now Ed and Al are working on their research, so they either haven’t noticed me leaving or haven’t had any care to ask.” They probably think I’m going off to visit Gracia or Lieutenant Hawkeye, Winry thought miserably. Ed gave her an odd look the third time she had left the house, as if she wondered where she was going, but had never asked her about it, so she didn’t give an answer. But even though they allowed her enough freedom to visit Envy, they would not allow her to leave on a train alone, and since they personally wanted to escort her, for fear of the dangers lurking which had already made themselves present.
Envy didn’t look too pensive when answering; he just continued to twirl her hair around his finger. “Are there any hotels or anything of such value in Risenbool?”
“There’s a small two room inn near the train station.”
“Then we’ll figure something out, just tell me when you’re leaving,” he said before moving closer and tugging at her lower lip with his teeth. She complied and opened her mouth to greet his tongue. She could feel him smile in satisfaction into the kiss.
There being an inn in Risenbool didn’t solve half the problem. Once they got there, the Elrics would no longer have their noses shoved in their books and would actually notice her absence on every Thursday. Her grandmother might not with all the late night work she does on her automail, but she knew the Elrics would notice something was up. And if she were to be discovered, her grandmother doesn’t know Envy so she wouldn’t know the full extent of the horror of finding out her granddaughter is sleeping with him like the Elric brothers would if they discovered her.
She didn’t voice these fears and problems out loud to Envy though, for she didn’t believe he would want to hear it. He would probably just tell her that it’s her problem and to deal with it. She felt trapped between what she had to do and what she wanted to do, but she left Envy distract her from those thoughts for the time being.
---X---
Once she decided to finally come out and ask him what would’ve happened to her if she hadn’t agreed to this deal with him. Envy smiled cruelly when she asked her question and hissed dangerously in her ear something that would repeat itself in her head on her entire walk home.
“I would’ve killed you.”
---X---
The momentary thought of what would happen if she were to just skip a visit with Envy came to mind the next morning at breakfast, but she decided to ignore it. It would be a stupid idea, she didn’t want to anger Envy-for she already knew what hell that could be-and she wasn’t sure he didn’t know where she was currently residing with the Elric brothers and wouldn’t come hunt her down. Or even, God forbid, hurt the Elrics instead of her. That would hurt her more than any punch to the cheek, and she instantly decided that she would try to eliminate any chance of the Elric brother’s encountering Envy.
But a part of her knew she was being illogical. He wouldn’t hurt her, he would kill her, just as he said he was supposed to do before.
---X---
She didn’t normally spend a lot of time alone with the older Elric brother, normally Alphonse would also be there or they would just have short interactions. Sometimes she could have spent longer with him, but she usually fled the scene, due to awkward happenings between her and Ed, but also there was her secret of sleeping with Envy, which she always saw clearly and looking at her with resentment every time she looked Ed in the eyes. It was hard. And she began to hate herself for it the closer she got with him.
One day, Alphonse stepped out for the day to visit with some fellow alchemist colleges for the day. Alphonse had explained what it was for to her, but all she was certain about was that it was to help them with some research on botanic-alchemy Alphonse had been helping them with. Alphonse had asked for Ed to come along with him, but Ed had said he’d rather spend a week alone with Major Armstrong than spend an afternoon with some plant-alchemy freaks. Alphonse had frowned in disapproval but then brightened and said that it was good Ed wasn’t going, someone needed to keep Winry company.
Ed simply snarled and said that that wasn’t the reason why he was staying while Alphonse raised his eyebrow suggestively at his older brother while chuckling. Winry felt out of place there, Alphonse hinting towards them being together and Edward so openly denying feeling any attraction towards her, and her, so desperately in love with him. It was awkward being caught in the middle of the two brothers bickering, but even more so over whether the boy she loved was also interested in her, which he would angrily deny no, getting all red in the face from yelling.
When Alphonse left, the two didn’t do anything of importance. Ed pulled out a book and Winry also pulled one out, while at the same time wishing she could return to Risenbool soon, so that she would be able to begin working on her automail again. Every once in a while Winry would make a small comment to Ed, hoping to initiate a conversation, but to no luck he would only give short one-word responses before resuming to read.
It wasn’t until later that they found a reason to talk, there was no food for them to make dinner with. There were two options for eating, buying groceries or eating out, but Central on a Saturday night almost guaranteed having to wait a long time before being seated, so eating out was out ruled by the two.
It was easier to talk when out on the street than a home. The ever-changing outside always gave her something to comment to Ed about, and this time they could sometimes drag out into conversations. They both picked out enough food to sustain the three of them for a while and Ed was at the cash register paying for the food. (Winry didn’t have money to pay for anything herself, so she swore that once she began making money again, she would repay the Elrics.) While Ed did this, Winry found her vision straying and her eyes wandering around the room until they landed on Ed. Well, his arm to be more precise. He had on his usual attire, save for the coat, which covered his automail pretty well within his long sleeve shirt and gloves. But she could still see the slightest bit of metal where the gloves and the sleeve of his shirt don’t quite meet.
There was something about seeing his automail that reminded her of the expression he wore when he told her he had not yet regained his body, bittersweet, happy, but with slight regret. She could all of the sudden see Edward and Alphonse putting their fists together and getting all excited over a new lead to getting their bodies back. And she then realized that every time Ed spoke of getting their bodies back, he had spoken of Alphonse’s. He had been lying. He didn’t quite care for his as much, so he let it go and only got Alphonse’s body. She wondered if now he really was studying to get his body back or if he was doing something else.
That selflessness made her feel heat prickling at the bottoms of her eyes and before she could even think to stop it, she had tears streaming down her face. Cursing at her weakness, Winry rapidly wiped the tears from her face, but not before Ed had seen them.
“Winry?” He had had a bag to carry extended in her direction and she took it from his grasp and hurried outside in embarrassment. Ed followed closely behind her. “Winry!”
She didn’t go very far, just outside the store to the front of the next building. She had turned her body towards the brick, not wanting anyone else to see her, since was still trying her best to push back her tears. Crying in public was something Winry Rockbell did not do, and she simply hated crying in front of Ed. Good reason or not she always felt like such a… female around him. She hated being so weak compared to him. She could hear the heavy footstep of his automail leg and his lighter human one slowing down as he approached her. She didn’t turn to face him due embarrassment. Her hair blocked Ed from seeing her face. Edward laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Winry, what’s the matter?”
She tried to wipe away as much evidence of her tears as possible with her hands. “I…” she turned and saw the people passing on the street, some looking at the two, which only made her more embarrassed. “I’ll tell you when we get back.”
She guessed that it was because he was in the middle of a moment in which female hormones were at their strongest that he wordlessly agreed.
---X---
It was hard trying to explain to Ed how she felt, without feeling she was suddenly giving him credit she didn’t give often enough, for most of the time she was cursing over broken automail.
From the moment the door closed and Ed set his bags down in the tiny kitchen, she could feel how anxious and how awkward he was feeling. She hadn’t sensed it before, she was too busy walking farther ahead of him, trying to be as far away as possible without coming across as rude.
“Nothing happened to me,” she decided that such opening would be the best for a situation like this one. “I was just thinking and…” She rocked on her feet slightly, staring downwards at her feet. Her bottom lip curled inwards as she tried to but her thoughts into words.
“Thinking of what?” Ed asked.
Her eyes fluttered upwards to look at him, but quickly moved back down under the intensity of his gaze. “It’s just Al got his body back but you didn’t get yours and I-“
“Winry,” he began softly, “It’s just an arm and a leg, not an entire body like him. I’m fine the way I am.”
Her head shot up to face him. “But you deserve to have your body back too.”
Having no response for her statement, he switched the conversation back to her. “Why are you crying about this?”
She inhaled and her chest and shoulders rose. “Because you’re my best friend and I care about you.”
He gave her a funny smile, one that had two different tones to it: you’re such an idiot and you’re so endearing. He blushed and then looked away. “Thank you,” he mumbled.
She felt herself sigh with relief as he turned to unpack their groceries.
---X---
Dinner was quiet, but yet she didn’t feel as awkward as she had before, having gotten her feelings out and off of her chest. Edward did begin to give her this strange look though, which bothered her. It was as if he was trying to study and figure something out, which made her more uncomfortable as the night progressed. Later when washing their dishes and the pots and pans used to provide their meal, Edward spoke up.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not going to die, I don’t plan to die. I’d don’t want you being afraid for me, I’ve let you do that long enough now.” He had been looking at the plate he had been drying, but now he turned to face her. “I’m sorry I let you down. But don’t cry for me, I have both you and Alphonse back in one piece, I couldn’t be happier. I don’t need a new arm and leg when I have the best automail mechanic in the world who can provide even better.”
Winry felt her throat tighten and tears beginning to rise in her eyes. And she felt her stomach drop as she thought of the lie she was living, seeing Envy in the shadows. She felt her temperature rise and her palms begin the sweat as she stared up into his gaze. She held the plate she had been scrubbing with less strength than before. “I’m sorry,” she whispered for probably a different reason than he believed.
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” He set the plate that had still been in his hand and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She felt her entire body go completely weak under the touch. She very carefully placed the plate she had been holding on the counter before the weakness in her muscles made her drop it. Her arms dangled uselessly at her sides; she wanted to put them around him so much.
“I missed you so much Winry. You could possibly imagine how much. I was so worried.” She could hear his voice crack as he said the last word.
“Ed,” she managed to croak. She felt so close to tears.
He withdrew from the hug to look into her eyes, but still held her close to him, as if he didn’t she would disappear. “I,” his voice cracked. He tried again. “I missed you so much, and I was so worried and I think that made me realize something. I think love you Winry,” he said before he kissed her.
Winry felt as if her brain had melted and her heart had collapsed in on itself. He squeezed her tightly against him, her shoulder aching slightly from the force. Winry in turn felt herself wiggling her arms free to wrap them around his torso. He was kissing her with him nose squished against his, but she didn’t mind, even though it made breathing through her nose harder. She loved how it felt as if it was something awkward and dorky only Ed would do.
But as much as she was enjoying herself, she felt as if she were forgetting something, but dismissed the feeling and just allowed herself to simply enjoy the moment as she felt, somehow under all that guilt, she deserved.
---X---
Everything always felt so simple and right with Ed. She had known him for so long, and it was a warming feeling to see him acting nervous and embarrassed around her. Yet at the same time she felt him unsure of how to act after he had kissed her and confessed, she could still tell he meant it, and he wasn’t going to back down on being with her. He really wanted things to work between them. It felt so nice to be involved in such an innocent relationship. No touching, nothing of any sexual act, just Ed blushing and fumbling awkwardly as he kissed her.
They spent the rest of the night talking and kissing, it felt just as it had when they were children, before Ed’s mother died and he hit puberty, save for the kissing part. It felt like an intimacy far greater than sex. Sex could be done by any two individuals, without any care for where they end up later. She and Ed spent the night together kissing and sometimes whispering sweet nothings and recounting old memories of when they were younger to each other. That to her felt like it had much greater substance than sex could even have.
But the entire time she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something important, that there was something she need to do. And as she fell asleep on the couch curled in Ed’s arms, the feeling refused to go away, even though she was sure she wasn’t forgetting anything.
---X---
What she was forgetting came to her late at night. She woke with an abrupt start, jostling Ed, who was sleeping right beside her.
“Shit!” she cursed.
She ran to get her shoes and get out the door, not needing to change clothes since she had just fallen asleep in her dress, rather than nightwear. Inconveniently the first and closest pair of shoes she was able to find was a pair of slightly heeled boots. She didn’t think much of them though, she wasn’t ungraceful, and she was in such hurry that she couldn’t make herself find another pair.
“Where are you going Winry?”
She turned around to find Ed right behind her. His eyes were narrowed and she could tell he was suspecting something dangerously wrong.
She shook her head. “I have to go,” was all she said before tearing out the door and down the stairs to leave the hotel.
Ed followed behind her quickly, seemly determined to stop her and wrench a truth out of her she would never be able to tell. He yelled her name repeatedly on his way down the stairs, but she just ignored him and continued on, cursing herself for being such an idiot and getting herself into this mess.
She had been so distracted, she had forgotten her appointment with Envy.
---X---
“Winry please stop!” Ed yelled from behind her. He wasn’t too far behind her, the heels of her shoes prevented her from running very fast, but the adrenaline currently coursing through her veins allowed her to actually stay ahead of him, since he was running bare footed, but she knew she would have to lose him soon or he would catch up to her. He had been learning to running for much longer than she had.
And she didn’t want him to encounter Envy or even find out where she was heading anyways.
She wasn’t too far from her and Envy’s meeting place, just another two blocks before she’d be at the shabby old apartment building. The apartment was located on a rougher side of the city than where she usually went, which she feared would already have Ed more suspicious of where she was headed.
His footsteps got louder behind her and before she could speed up to get away, he pulled on her wrist and pulled her into an empty alleyway to her right. She gave a yelp and tripped-nearly fell-but his grip went from to her forearms and steadied her.
“What do you think you’re doing Winry?” he asked, almost yelled.
She grimaced and turned her head away, determined not to look him in the eye. “Ed you don’t understand, I have to go. Let me go, please.”
Ed’s grip on her only tightened. “Tell me Winry: Where do you have to go?”
She felt herself instinctively turn to face him and was overwhelmed by the amount of worry she saw in his eyes. Guilt flooded over her worry of being killed so fast she felt her stomach lurch; she suddenly felt as if she were going to vomit. Her stiff muscles weakened under him.
“Please tell me Winry. I’m worried about you. What are you doing out here that scares you so much? If you don’t tell me I can’t help you, and I want to help you.” His hands upon feeling less resistance coming from her, slipped upwards to cup her face and he kissed her very lightly on the lips. “Tell me Winry.”
She squinted her eyes closed at his feathery kiss, wanting nothing more to avoid him for the growing fear in her stomach. She had to leave, get out, distract Ed, get to Envy, but now she wasn’t sure she would know how to do that. She pulled free of Ed’s grip and tried moving in the other direction, moving only forty feet away from him, only a few seconds after he had just been holding her, looking right into her eyes, before she turned back to face him when he called her name.
What played out before her eyes seemingly happened in slow motion. Ed hadn’t been the one to call her, Envy had his hand clamped on Ed’s mouth. Once he saw he had her attention, he took a knife and sliced right through the middle of Edward’s torso. Blood splattered wildly, as if wanting to cover everything around him and quickly as it could. Ed fell to the floor like a rag doll, dead within seconds. Winry felt her entire body burn as she thought he had just been holding her against him a minute ago, but now he lay dead on the ground. Her throat burned and she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t hear anything come out.
“Why?” Envy had said but she wondered why he was the one asking her that. He was completely apathetic towards having just killed Edward in cold-blood.
Winry backed away as Envy made his way towards her. His arm had shifted into a very large very menacing looking blade, which she had already seen had the capability of slicing a human being in half. She tried to think of someway to escape, or something she could say that would make his intent less murderous, but all she could think of was Edward and how quickly he had been sliced right in two, right before her eyes.
“You vile human. Did you really think you could escape me? And to think I thought you were different, but in reality, you humans are all the same.
“You created this mess,” when she looked up into his eyes she could see the rage burning so brightly and the bloodlust in his crooked smile. “And I’m going to be the one to clean it up.”
Her back hit a wall behind her and she raised her palms to try and brace herself against it, but she was sweating so badly it felt as if the gripping brick wall was slipping right out of her grasp. She vaguely wondered how many times he had cornered her up against a wall. She had been in the position of prey so many times, she wondered how she had ever found the nerve to pity him. The moment he killed Ed all thoughts of pitying him flew out the window, and with her back pressed against this wall as she expected death, she couldn’t seem to summon any other thought than how demonic this monster finally looked before her. How in the world had that been something she missed?
Her knees were shaking, and she felt all the muscles in her body were completely limp, useless if she somehow devised a way out. Envy began slowly closing in on her and her eyes drifted towards Edward, looking at her friend, whom she would soon be following. Bile rose in her throat.
Envy followed her line of vision. “Look at the mess you made, you got his blood everywhere.” He smiled cruelly, but his lips reversed back to a thin line so fast it was almost comical. Maybe some other time she would’ve noticed.
He stood right in front of her and she lifted one arm and crossed it over her chest, a very flimsy mean of self-defense. Three blood stained fingers came up and gripped her chin, pulling it upwards for him to study her face, just as he had so many times before. Blood smeared on her face right where he touched her. They stood so close, she could hear the Ed’s blood dripping off of the blade which was a simple transmutation of Envy’s arm.
Red sparks suddenly flew across the knife and it reduced in size, till the metal only took up what she believed Envy’s hand would be. His eyes never moved from her face as he lifted his arm, pulling his elbow farther away from his body, preparing for a powerful strike. She felt her heart beat faster and her eyes glaze over.
“It’s such a shame, pretty faces like yours are found quite often, but a kind heart like the one you were rumored to have are hard to come across. But I guess even people like you can chose who to show that compassion too.” He smile bitterly. “I guess it was too much to ask for for that kindness to be showed to me.”
She felt as if she were dreaming, and her body could barely come up with a coherent thought. The last she managed was to shut her eyes before his knife-his hand-plummeted straight into her heart.
End.
A/N: All this has been based off of this drawing- http://psychybrid.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=scraps#/d4cccg1