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Ed yawns loudly, stretching his arms above his head. The afternoon sun is warm on his skin, a gentle breeze rustling his hair.
His boots fall heavy on the pavement as he makes his way back to his hotel room. It’s one of those rare, lazy days that he doesn't allow himself to take often enough, and he’s determined to squeeze in a nap before dinner.
As he barges into his shared room, he’s greeted by a familiar face.
You smile up at him warmly, face peeking up from over the edge of an old alchemy textbook. You’re propped up on a veritable mountain of pillows, burrowed into a nest of your own creation. Glancing over, he sees that you’ve confiscated the pillows from his own bed to add to your pile, which you sink into luxuriously.
“Welcome back!” you greet, closing the book around your finger to keep your place. “Did you have a nice walk?”
Ed shrugs, kicking off his shoes by the door and crossing the room to flop down onto his own bed, burying his face into the blanket. “It was alright,” he replies nonchalantly, voice muffled, and then turns his head to face you. “The weather is nice. You should’ve come with us.”
You hum in response. “Where’s Al?” you question, glancing at the door, as if expecting the armored boy to step through at any moment.
Ed grins. “He’s on his way to the park nearby—you know, the one with the pond? He mentioned something about wanting to feed the ducks.”
You chuckle. “Yeah, that sounds like him, alright!” you agree, and then you tuck yourself in deeper to your nest of pillows, opening your book again and engrossing yourself in its contents.
He rolls over so he's lying on his back, your two beds side by side, and he tilts his head to read the cover of your book. It’s then that he notices that the tips of your fingers are stained red, a small bag of strawberry candies resting against your side.
He knows they must be strawberry, because you hate cherry, and watermelon makes your throat itch.
He knows they must be strawberry, because he knows you better than he knows himself.
He knows they must be strawberry, because your mouth is stained a sweet, sugary red, the color glistening off your lips in the overhead light.
He watches your fingers dip into the little bag, fishing out a small, wrapped candy. Your one-eyed gaze does not deviate from the book in your lap, raising the candy to your mouth. You place it behind your teeth—also stained red, he notices; clearly, you’ve been at this for a while—and then clamp them shut over the edge of the wrapper, tugging it away and using the force of your teeth to slide it free. He hears the soft clack of the treat as you tuck it away against your teeth, a sweet secret hidden in the side of your cheek, absently reaching out and dropping the wrapper into the small waste basket you’d dragged over to rest beside your bed.
He watches as you swirl the candy around your mouth, your cheek poking out gently as you pass it back and forth, rolling it over your tongue.
Inexplicably, he feels his face begin to heat up.
He watches you tuck your hair behind your ear—red hair; red like the candy you’re sucking on, red like your mouth and lips, red like his burning face—eye glued on the book in your hands.
He is suddenly very aware of the feeling of his heart beating in his chest. His pulse is racing; he can feel the blood rushing through his veins, pounding against his skin.
Which is ridiculous, of course! Why should he be reacting like this? It’s just… just you, just the same old you that you’ve always been, curled up in your pillow fort on your bed with that stupid book you’ve probably read three times by now, and…
…and still, his heart is pounding, loud enough that you can probably hear it from where you’re sitting, just a few short feet away from him. You’re close enough that he could lean over and touch you, could place his hand on your knee or your shoulder and have you look up at him, your big green eye sparkling, red lips parting to ask him—
“—What are you staring at?”
He jumps, surprised to find you peeking up at him over the edge of your book, one eyebrow raised at him quizzically.
He opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out.
Had he been staring?
He wasn’t trying to. There was just something so captivating about the red shine of the sugar coating your mouth, the way that it so perfectly matches your hair, matches the warmth of the blush that’s slowly rising up on your cheeks, in the tips of your ears.
I wonder what she tastes like.
He jerks his head away as if the thought is a slap. He sits up, shaking his head like a dog, trying to clear the thought from his brain.
Ridiculous! That’s gross! She’s… She’s like your sister!
But of course… that’s not really true, now is it? You may have been with him for as long as he can remember, by his side in even his earliest of memories; you may have grown up beside him and Al, his mother having the kindness in her heart to take in the small orphaned child that he’d spotted one night unconscious in their garden; you may call Al your brother, but…
You’ve never called him that, now have you?
He risks a quick glance at you, and you’re still watching him, eyeing him warily from the corner of your gaze, tucking another candy into your mouth.
He blushes harder.
No, he realizes suddenly; you’re not like a sister to him—not at all.
Your voice calls out to him again, startling him from his dazed reverie. He glances over, trying to clear the embarrassing thoughts from his head.
“Do you want one?” you offer, your own cheeks darkening as you peek at him from the corner of your eye, gesturing to the small bag at your hip. “They’re strawberry.”
“I know.” The words come out quickly—too quickly. Your eye widens, brows raising as the blush dusts your cheeks further, staining them—red.
He nearly groans.
He scratches the back of his neck, staring at anything but you as he tries to regain his composure. “I mean—of course they’re strawberry, your mouth is all red! You look like a clown!”
But hard as he tries, his gaze always comes back to you, and it lands just in time to see your face change. A brief, barely-recognizable look of hurt washes over you, visible only in the minute details of your features, in the tiny signs he's learned to read over the years. If he didn't know you as well as he did, he wouldn't have known you reacted at all.
But he does know you, and he finds himself cursing the words as soon as they leave his mouth. He wants to take them back, to reach out with his hands and snatch them from the air, but it's too late.
Too late, because now you’re grinning at him, your red-tinted teeth flashing in the light to hide the hurt, challenging: “How do you know they’re not cherry? Or watermelon? Or apple?”
He rolls his eyes. “That’s easy—you don’t like cherry. And watermelon makes your throat feel funny, and the apple flavor of that kind is green, not red!”
He says the words nonchalantly, scratching the back of his neck, pretending that his heart isn’t racing, his pulse pounding in his throat. He risks a peek at you from the corner of his gaze, and you’re staring at him with a look that he’s never seen on your face before. He can’t make out your expression for the life of him, and that just makes his heart beat harder, his palm beginning to sweat by his side.
You’re looking at him like you’ve never seen him before—or maybe, like you’re just really seeing him for the very first time.
You glance away, candy-sweet color rising high in your cheeks. “I didn’t know you knew all of that,” you whisper, so quietly that he almost thinks that you’re talking to yourself. “I didn’t think you were paying such close attention.”
He sneaks another glance at your red sugar mouth, watching the light reflect off your shining bottom lip as you pout. “Of course I pay attention,” he hears himself say—though he doesn’t recall opening his mouth. “You’re my…!”
My…
He doesn't know what to say.
But he can’t back down now—not when you’re watching him with that look on your face, with that light in your eye, with that strange, curious angle to your body—as if he’s a magnet whose pull you cannot resist.
My…?
“...My family,” he finishes lamely, and the word falls flat, landing so far short from what he really wants to say.
But he doesn’t know what he wants to say, and frustration begins to eat at his chest. He watches your face change, your lone eye darkening with something that he can’t quite read, biting your bottom lip and glancing away.
As if that’s not the answer you wanted to hear.
But what could he say?
My best friend? My… partner? Something—more?
You chew on your lip, staring down at your lap for a minute as he curses himself. Finally, you sit up, reaching into the little bag at your hip and pulling out a candy.
You unwrap it in deft fingers and he knows that it’s for him—you always unwrap candies for him before you hand them over, a habit leftover from childhood when he used to struggle with clumsier hands than yours.
Your lone gaze darts toward him—quickly, and then away, like you hadn’t meant to be caught. You hold the little sweet out in his direction, puffing your red cheeks out as you stare hard at the floor, a little pout on your sugar-red lips. “A peace offering!” you bluster, cheeks glowing red. “Take it!”
He reaches out to grab the treat from your hand, but you jerk your arm away, glancing up at him from the corner of your eye for a moment before dropping your gaze to the floor again. You blush harder, sticking your arm out in his direction again, shaking your head so that your hair tumbles up around you.
He blushes too, knowing what you want—and knowing that he’ll give it to you.
Beginning to sweat, he leans forward slowly, feeling his mouth go dry as he gets closer and closer to your hand, held out in offering. He risks a glance upward in your direction, but your face is firmly turned away, the tips of your ears the same vibrant shade as your hair.
He takes the candy into his mouth as carefully as he can, but his lips still lightly brush up against the skin of your fingertips—warm, sugar-slick, trembling. You flinch, but don’t pull away fast enough to hide the shiver. He tastes the strawberry, but all he can think about is the electric tingle running through his lips where he’d made contact with you.
Impossibly, the little bit of skin he can see on your face goes even redder.
As he rolls the sweet strawberry candy over his tongue, he feels his heart thundering in his chest, his hands shaking at his sides.
“T-thanks,” he stutters, trying to keep his voice even as his breath hitches in his chest.
You hum, picking up the book and burying your nose in it determinedly, effectively shutting him out.
He takes one last glance at your red lips as he sucks on the candy, and he smiles.
It’s sweet.