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Ling--or Greed, whoever--Heinkel, and Darius opted to room together in the guest room. The soldiers from Briggs cheerfully set up camp on the living room floor, insisting that the civilians take the beds available. Granny has her own room, of course, and no one even considered taking it from her. Everyone is accounted for, Winry knows, as she slips into her own room late at night. Including Edward Elric, lying in her bed, his back to the door as she lets it shut with a soft click.
"Comfy?" she asks, her voice almost a whisper; the house is quiet. He doesn't respond, doesn't even flinch, so she strides across the room and sits on the edge of the bed, her hips pressed close to the small of his back as she leans in close. With a grin, she pinches his ear. "I know you don't sleep on your side, dummy," she whispers, laughing as quietly as she can as he flinches, flipping over completely to get his elbows and knees between them, eyes blown wide and very much awake.
"Fuckin' hell, Winry," Ed groans, his voice a little rough as he relaxes again, flopping his good arm over his eyes. "For the record, I was almost asleep."
Winry rolls her eyes. "Yeah, in my bed. Go sleep with Ling, I'm sure he'll be happy to have you."
Ed moves his arm to raise an eyebrow at her.
Winry flushes. "Not like that!"
Ed laughs. "Geeze, Win, aren't Lion King and Donkey Kong in there too? What kinda kinky guy do you think I am?"
"Oh, shut up--"
"Ling I could understand, and who knows what kind of shit Greed gets up to in his free time, but I am an upstanding young man!"
Winry's eyebrows rise to her hairline. "You're upstanding, are you?"
Ed presses a hand over his heart in a pledge. "So upstanding that your grandma could trust me with you," he says with a wink.
"Don't think you can charm your way out of this, Edward," Winry huffs, jabbing a finger towards his face. "Upstanding young men don't sleep in upstanding young girls' beds."
"Oh, but they sleep with homunculi in front of old soldiers?"
"I didn't say that--!"
"All I was doing here was sleeping," Ed insists, cutting her off. "You're the one who woke me up for a late night, illicit chat. Are you trying to take advantage of me?"
Winry gasps. "Says the one who was about to let me take my shirt off in front of him without saying anything, you perv!" Ed's eyes instantly drift down to her chest before snapping back up to her face, a smile tugging at his lips.
"Not my fault you started--" he gestures vaguely-- "undressing right in front of me, what was I supposed to do? By the time the shock wore off you were already yelling at me!"
"How about," Winry hisses, jabbing her finger into his stomach, "You stay out of my room, and we don't have these problems anymore."
"Hmm," Ed hums, grabbing her wrist and tugging until she flops fully on the bed beside him. "No."
"Ed..."
"I mean," he says, suddenly looking unsure of himself. "I'll leave, really, if you really want me to. I'm not gonna make you uncomfortable, I should just go," he decides, suddenly sitting up and starting to maneuver around her to get out of the bed.
Winry grabs his arm before she can think about it, before he can move more than a couple of inches, and he looks at her. Looks at her, his face raw, emotion written clearly all over it. There's hope, but also fear, sorrow, doubt. He looks exhausted, like he's barely holding it together, and Winry realizes that same exhaustion has been in his voice all night. "Ed," she says carefully, hesitantly. "Something's bothering you."
He looks away. "Don't worry about me," he laughs, tugging his arm out of her grip and ruffling her bangs. "Get some sleep, I'll go hang out with Greedling."
Oh, that's--! Winry sits up, flings an arm around his neck, and slams them both down on the bed, pinning him below her as she glares at him. "Bullshit."
Ed swallows. "I--I just--" he can't quite meet her eyes.
"Ed," Winry pushes, "You can tell me anything."
He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat and reaches up to pull her on top of him into a crushing hug. His face by her ear is wet as he lets out a hoarse whisper:
"The world might end in a few days, Winry!"
Winry stiffens, but then forces herself to relax, letting him hold her as tightly as he wants and holding him back just as tightly. "Shit, Ed," she murmurs, feeling tears pile up in her own eyes. "I've been trying not to think about that, you know?"
He laughs, and it's painfully wet. "Sorry," he says, "I just thought you might want to know."
Winry takes a deep, shaky breath. "Listen," she tells him, tapping his shoulder with a finger as it's wrapped around his back. "The world is not going to end on the Promised Day. You and Al and Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Hawkeye and even Ling, or Greed, whoever--you guys are gonna stop it. And then you and Al will get your bodies back and you'll come home and we'll live happily ever after, okay? And then the biggest worry in my life will be how to improve the durability of an automail shoulder joint without adding to its weight, because lord knows the things are heavy enough already. You're going to win, and you'll save the day. Okay?"
"You don't know that, though."
"Doesn't matter if I know it or not. I believe it, and you and I both know that's most important with things like this."
He's quiet for a long time, after that. He starts playing with her hair, though, tugging through tangles gently against her back; she can feel his tense muscles slowly ease back as he calms down. "You're right," he says eventually. "We'll see each other again at the end of the week."
Winry smiles. "Damn right you will. I can't believe you're leaving tomorrow, you haven't visited in so long and now you just leave as soon as I show up? I'm starting to think you don't like me."
Ed laughs. "That's not true."
Winry sits up, just enough to look at him. "Well, I would hope not! I'll have you know, I'm very likeable--"
He kisses her.
(It's polite, chaste, just a gentle meeting of closed lips, but his lips are soft against hers and as she stares in shock at his closed eyes there's a chorus running through her head of I love you, I love you, I love you. She's not sure if it's her voice or his, and then she's suddenly sure it's both.)
He pulls back and smirks, the effect ruined by his beet red face. Oh my god, I love him, Winry can't help but think. "I know," he says, and she feels her own face heat up like a supernova.
"You know?" she squeaks. Her heart's pounding.
He quirks an eyebrow. "I know you're very likeable. Isn't that what you were just saying?"
She thought she couldn't blush any harder. She thought wrong, she knows, as she buries her face in his chest. "Ed," she squeaks out. "Not--not allowed!"
"Not not allowed? So it is allowed. Good to know," he laughs, though she can hear his heart pounding. Winry scowls. Cocky bastard.
"No," she decides, straightening her arms to hover over him, glaring in what she knows is an entirely ineffective way with her red face. "Not allowed, you can't just--no last minute, 'what if the world ends' kisses! I want real, normal kisses, you can't just spring this sort of thing on me!"
His pupils dilate slightly, a slow grin stretching across his face. "What are you talking about? World's not ending, you said so yourself. That was a completely normal, one hundred percent real kiss."
"I--shut up," Winry scowls, moving off of him to flop down on the bed, her head on his shoulder and her back to his side. "We can talk about this in a week. When you come back."
Ed snorts. "Fine. I'll hold you to that, gearhead. You gonna kick me out, or--?"
"Good night, Edward," she says, grabbing his arm to wrap it around her waist.
"...Night, Winry," he says eventually. Soon his breath is even against her hair, and the moon rises.