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Somehow – Ed wasn’t even sure how, Winry could just talk circles around him sometimes – the subject of past loves came up as they sat together on the front steps. Winry had launched into a story about another automail mechanic she’d fancied while in Rush Valley, in far greater detail than Ed really cared for. (She pointedly ignored his disdainful grumbles of “can’t have been that great…”)
“Nothing came of it, though,” Winry finished eventually, shrugging. Her hair was soft on his shoulder. Ed thought, thank god, I would’ve, I would’ve, I don’t even know what I would’ve done to him. “What about you?”
The question reverberated around in Ed’s brain. He wasn’t sure what made him want to tell her. It certainly hadn’t been a crush, not the way Winry had described hers – truth be told, Ed had really only crushed on Winry as a kid – but it had been… something. You certainly didn’t get all hot and bothered with that wiggly feeling in your chest over nothing. And, well. They definitely hadn’t done ‘nothing’.
“Well,” Ed murmured, wondering how best to put it. He could feel himself going red in the face; was he actually going to admit this? “Uh. Ling.”
A moment passed. “What about Ling?” Winry asked, and then she seemed to get it. She jerked her head away from his shoulder, hands still on his arm, and just stared at him, mouth a little round ‘o’. For a moment, Ed thought she might be angry with him – then she started to laugh.
“Ling?” Her voice was a pitch too high with mirth. “Oh my god, Ed, really? I never even would have guessed!”
“Shut up,” said Ed.
“Ling, oh my god,” Winry laughed again, smiling rather evilly. “Oh, Ed. Oh, that’s so cute. No wonder you got so upset when he flirted with me –”
“That wasn’t why!” Ed interrupted, mortified. He really shouldn’t have told her. “It was you – I mean, you know, I, you know, I liked you back then, I didn’t want you to like him – ”
“You liked him,” said Winry with a snicker.
“I didn’t,” Ed insisted, going impossibly redder. “He was so – dumb, I don’t even know why – ”
“You liked him,” said Winry, and she had that look on her face she always got when he did something endearing. “Oh, Ed, you’re so cute.”
She reached forward to mess up his hair. Normally he might have bristled at being called ‘cute’ – so unmanly – but he always found he liked it, coming from her.
“How far did you get?” Winry whispered conspiratorially. Ed reddened again.
“Geez, Winry, do we really need to get into that?”
Winry actually squealed. “Ed! You dog! I never would have expected you to – you are shattering the whole world right now –” She burst into laughter anew. “Blushing little Ed!”
Ed shoved her as she laughed. He was a human being, wasn’t he? He had a libido just like anyone else. It wasn’t that surprising! “Ling started it,” Ed squeaked, crossing his arms. “Oh, god. I shouldn’t have even told you.”
“Nah.” Winry nestled into his shoulder again, giggles dying down. “I’m glad you told me.”
There was something ominous about that.
----
“Did you know,” Winry told Al when he returned home the next day, “that your brother once had a thing with Ling?”
“Oh my god,” Ed moaned from the doorway.
“That’s probably one thing I never needed to find out,” said Al. “But, er – yes.”
“You knew?” Ed exclaimed in horror. “How did you – ”
“Ling told me,” Al explained sheepishly. “I thought he was lying at first, but then – you know, we spent a lot of time together, Brother, and I never slept in the armor, so it wasn’t exactly subtle – ”
“Oh my god,” said Ed, feeling like he was going to faint while Winry laughed and laughed at the table. “Fucking – who the hell else did he tell?”
Al shrugged, mouth quirking up in amusement as he tossed his coat over a chair. “Honestly, I don’t think he told anyone else. I think he only told me because he wanted – approval, or something? He was kind of romantic about you –”
“Shut up, shut up,” Ed whined, and then rounded on Winry. “I never should’ve told you!”
“Oh, come on, Ed, this is great!” said Winry, her smile wide. “It’s kind of sweet –”
“It is so not sweet,” Ed grit through clenched teeth, a blood vessel in his head throbbing. “He was the most annoying person I have ever had to deal with in my life, aside from Mustang – ”
Winry gasped. “Did you have a thing with him, too?”
“NO!” Ed roared as Al broke into hysterics at his side. “Fucking – NO. Oh god, ugh, you people are sadistic, I feel so unclean…” He shuddered, glaring around at their laughing faces. “My whole life, it’s only been – Ling, and you, Winry, all right, are you listening to me? You longer than Ling! He was so insignificant I never should have even brought it up! Do you hear me? Two people, that’s it! MY WHOLE LIFE.”
“Okay,” said Winry, voice hoarse from trying to quell her gasping laughter. “Okay, Ed, I believe you.”
They settled at the table together, Ed seething as Al and Winry tried to control their giggles. Every time they looked at one another, or at him, they seemed to have to bite back another laugh. Ed wanted to strangle them.
After some time things had finally settled down; Winry passed out mugs of coffee, and then Al leaned across the table towards her.
“You know, I could find out how to say ‘darling’ in Xingese for you, I’m sure it will bring back fond memories for my brother –”
“Oh, go practice it on your little Xingese girlfriend, Al,” snapped Ed, viciously pleased when Al colored and hid behind his coffee mug. For some reason Al seemed to think that neither of them would catch on to his cunningly ‘secret’ long-distance relationship with that little shrimp-girl, and well, Ed supposed if Al really liked her that much she couldn’t be all bad. Still.
“Someone’s pining for his little Xingese boyfriend,” Al murmured once Ed’s guard had dropped, and Winry’s laughter echoed throughout the entire house.
----
“Ed,” Winry murmured later as she climbed on the bed next to him, hair extremely pale in the dim light, “I’m sorry for making fun of you.”
She didn’t look sorry at all, but Ed forgave her anyway. “S’all right,” he said.
She flopped down on her side, reaching out to mess with the ends of his hair. Winry liked his hair, for some reason – it was one of the only reasons Ed still kept it long. (He thought it made him resemble his father a little too much, and he still wasn’t quite ready for that).
“I just think – ” Winry started, and then stopped herself, shaking her a head a bit. “You have a big heart. That’s all. It’s why I love you.”
Ed’s stomach still dipped every time she said it. “I love you, too.”
She smiled at him. “You’d better,” she informed him, slapping his chest lightly and pulling herself around to crouch on her knees on top of him. Her smile turned evil. “Oh, I hope I can measure up to Xingian royalty –”
“Please, please stop bringing it up,” Ed groaned. “I’m going to be sick from how much my blood pressure has been spiking, and it’ll be all your fault.”
Winry laughed, and kissed him, and what followed felt the exact opposite of sick (though his blood did pump rather fast).
----
“Ed?”
Winry’s murmur pulled him out of the pleasant haze of post-coitus half-sleep. “Yeah?”
A pause. “Okay, this is the last time I’m going to bring it up, I swear –”
Oh, god. “Just, whatever, just say it.”
Another pause, and jerky shifting at his side. Winry could be just as awkward as Ed was sometimes; it was one of the reasons he loved her. “I’m just… glad that you had something nice. Um. When you were away from home, and… all that was going on.”
Ed thought about that for a moment. It had been nice, in its own weird way. He had loved Winry even back then, but he hadn’t wanted to drag her into anything, hadn’t wanted to go try and stand fumbling before her when he was still so messed up; when half the time Winry was just this girl, his childhood friend he bickered with, and the other half she made so much blood rush to his face that he could hardly speak –
Ling, Ling had just rushed in and started something and it was so weirdly carefree, carefree even when it had to stop, even though it actually made Ed’s heart hurt a little. The only carefree thing Ed had had in his life since he was ten years old.
He’d liked Ling. It had been nice. Ling wasn’t always annoying; Ling had a stupid, pretty face, and was very, very good with his hands, and he’d made Ed feel worth something during a time he’d started to feel worthless. It had been nice.
“Also,” Winry went on in a slightly different tone of voice, “I’m glad it didn’t last.”
Ed snorted, fond annoyance in his chest. “You and me, both.”
“I would be unrepentantly jealous if it had, I think.”
“I’m surprised you took it well enough to think it was funny,” Ed admitted. “I mean, I wasn’t really happy to hear about your, whatever, your other Rush Valley guy, freaking, Rocky….”
“Rocky,” Winry sighed dreamily, nestling into his side. He thought she did it just to annoy him. He wondered, suddenly, if Winry had only ever brought the whole thing up because she wanted him to react with disdain. He wondered whether Winry expected he would have an answer for her, as well, whether she just assumed Ed wouldn’t…
“Ed,” said Winry again, “you do realize you slept with the Emperor of Xing.”
“Yeah.” Ed sighed wearily. “I know.”