Vivid Verte

A/N: Flashback one-shot mostly... I've always wanted to write the scene where Ed and Al fight over who gets to marry Winry, so here it is. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own FMA, or the beautiful countryside landscape of Resembool :{

Now that Al has an armoured body, he can't sleep. Instead he passes the night with waking dreams, memories usually.
He looks vaguely around him at the whitewashed clinical walls and the plastic floor and wishes he were at least in a place that looked more comfortable. He glances over at his brother, still snoring, hand on his stomach, the hospital linen gathered at his fist. He sighs... his brother is so slobbish... If he still had his body, he'd take more care of it, that he feels certain of.

With nothing else to do, he thinks over the past day; when he believed that all his memories were fake... Influenced so easily by Barry the Chopper, it seems ridiculous now. He doesn't still believe it right? He bangs his metal leg against the floor and it makes a resounding echo, though it doesn't wake his brother. His mind wanders across his memories...

He relishes every one of them now. Each of them more brightly coloured and fresh than they were yesterday, now that he knows they are real. Each of them are dazzling, and he can't wait to make new memories when he gets his body back, combining experience with flesh, and senses, and the smiles that will adorn everybody's faces. He can't wait for that...

His mind skips over his childhood, scenes of Edward pulling his hair, scenes of his mother smiling, scenes of a narrow door and the broad back of his father in a dank office... They rush past his eyes with invigorating senses. Then a particular scene occurs to him. Time skips and he's seven years old again. And he's in this gloriously green garden, he doesn't remember his backyard being this luminous but in memory it is. His mother is hanging clothes up on the laundry line. Everything is brighter than it used to be. She turns and gives him an affectionate wave. "Be careful!" She calls and suddenly someone grips his arm, his flesh arm, and tugs him away with a cruel force. It has to be his brother.

Then they are running across the rolling hills... under the pale blue sky with marshmallow clouds. His brother is laughing, and he's headed somewhere specific.
Once the Rockbell house is in view, Ed quickly pulls him behind a brick wall. Al moves to exclaim, but his brother rapidly quietens him, and the only sound comes from a harmony of sheep. Ed peeks over the wall, letting his slits of eyes comb the house for any sign of their residents. This is something he thinks is effortlessly cool... Al just sighs. "Brother," he complains, and grumbles with a cuteness only equated to youth. "What are you doing?"

Ed turns back and grins at him and beckons him closer. "You remember last week, right?" Armoured Al gasps and falls into another memory. Now he is sitting on the Rockbell couch, across from Ed; and Winry has just gone to fetch them a drink. "Hey Brother," he chirps, making sure she is out of earshot. "Will ... will you come and visit me here when I marry Winry?" Ed is caught off his guard, and flushes a brilliant red. He usually pretends like he hasn't noticed the innocent crush his brother has on their best friend. He takes a violent bite from an apple in his hand, and the juice drips down from his lips. Armoured Al would salivate if he could; the memory is just so vivid.

"What makes you think she'd want to marry you," his brother says, and his eyes become slits. Little Alphonse cocks his head, and he doesn't understand why he and Winry wouldn't get married. She is the only girl he knows, after all, and isn't that what people do when they grow up? Ed scoffs and lies back against the couch. "If she had to choose one of us, it's obviously gunna be the cooler brother." And it suddenly occurs to his miniature self that he is not the only guy Winry knows... and that he has competition. "You want to marry Winry too, brother?" he concedes, and his eyes grow wider while Ed's grow narrower.

"That skinny little brat? Of course not!" He yells, and the couch almost rolls forward with the effort. "I'm just saying that if she had to pick, I'd be a better... husband... or whatever." He leans back again and finishes his apple, and little Al frowns, and Armoured Al smiles and is hurled back into the earlier memory. The Ed that is a week older is nodding at him. "You remember that?"

Little Alphonse nods in confusion, and his brother pulls him up to the house. It's painted a stronger yellow than he's ever seen before and everything is gleaming like its new. They hear Den barking from somewhere around the house but Ed pulls him straight to the front door. The look on his face is defiant as he rings the doorbell. A young Winry answers. Her cheeks still hold the plump edge of youth and her golden hair is short and frames instead her pin-like nose. Soon Ed is pulling her arm too.

He leads them both into a field in front of the house. "Winry," he says suddenly, and pushes his brother in front of her. "Al wants to marry you. Whad'ya say?" She flushes pink and Al could cry at his brother's cruelty. Winry is looking at him strangely now... Ed snickers to himself, as if her confusion has just proven his point and Alphonse suddenly throws himself on his brother and pounds at him with little fists. "It was a secret!" He cries. "How could you, brother!"

Ed pretends at first like he has the upper hand. "Don't fight your betters!" He yells, and protects a particularly tender spot of flesh on his stomach. But Al keeps pounding until his brother yells for mercy.
"You want to marry her too!" He cries. "Don't pretend that you don't!" At this Winry turns an even deeper shade and Ed almost collapses from the humiliation.

"Do not!" He retaliates, and soon the brothers are rolling around the grassy fields, attacking whatever limbs are visible throughout the dizzying haze. Ed escapes somehow and grabs a piece of chalk from his trouser pocket. Within seconds he has transmuted a wooden club from an old oak tree. Little Al laughs at his brothers determination as he claps it in his hand. "I'd make a better husband anyway," Ed calls and runs with stunted legs to bash his brother with his weapon. Winry calls out in shock and it's just enough to distract Ed so Al can floor him.

"I win," he smiles over his brothers twitching body. He looks over the field that has been sullied in their fight. The brilliant green is now interspersed with brown where chunks of grass have torn away from the soil. He picks up his brother and goes over to Winry who glares at them both. "Granny Pinako's not going to be happy," she murmurs. His brother pushes him away and stands on his own two feet with his head hung in anger. Little Alphonse grins at the girl he just won...

"You're going to be my wife now, Winry," he says, and touches her hand shyly. "I won!" Ed groans and picks at the grass-stains on his newly ironed shorts. Winry only frowns... She stands closer, in step with the two brothers and looks over their heads. Den comes bounding over and she pets the dog affectionately with one hand and puts the other on Al's shoulder.

"Sorry," she says with real pity in her eyes. "I just don't like guys who are shorter than me." Den follows her inside, leaving the two Elric brothers in a state of despondent despair.
"She... rejected us both?" Tears begin to prickle at the young Al's eyes. Ed glares at him and crosses his arms. "Yeah well, I never wanted to marry her anyway."
The rolling hills fade as they run home, and by the time little Alphonse is crying in his mother's arms, Armoured Al is back into the hospital room, watching his snoozing brother tense, and wonders if they saw the same thing.

The night ticks slowly on.

Alphonse thinks of his first and only crush and wishes again that he could have his original body back...

Maybe then he could remember what it was like to blush.

A/N: Hope you liked. :) I've always thought, that even when the series began Al still had a little crush on Winry, but he doesn't voice it any more because he understands Ed. I actually kinda like them as an unrequited love. Poor Alphonse :{ R&R please!