Indelicate
By Yellow Mask
Spoilers: Nothing overt.
Disclaimer: I do not own FMA.
oooooooo
Most of the automail mechanics Ed knew were muscular. With thickset, stocky bodies, looking as sturdy as the metal they crafted. Working with machinery day in and day out forged hard, bulky muscles. Even Pinako, aged as she was, still sported impressive (if rather wiry) biceps.
But Winry wasn't muscular. Far from the usual weightlifter build, she looked more like a fairy – those tiny, female beings in gaudy dresses that danced and twirled in music boxes. No matter how long or how hard she worked, Winry remained as lithe and slender as ever.
Her arms didn't seem to have any meat to them, just lean tendons that coiled beneath the skin whenever she stretched them. Her legs lacked the traditional crooked lean from sitting down all day - bent over a table and tinkering - and there was no sign of the stiff, shuffling gait that such legs induced. Winry's legs looked and moved like a gazelle's; graceful, quick and slender.
Delicate.
It was more noticeable when she was asleep. Deprived of the vibrant energy she possessed when awake, Winry looked fragile. Gentle, refined features, pale skin like softened alabaster. Hair that looked and felt like gossamer threads of golden silk. Fingers that – in spite of working with sharp tools and hulking metals – were almost dainty, slim and fine-boned. She looked like a china doll, and seemed just as breakable.
But Ed knew appearances were deceiving. Winry was far from delicate.
So what if she didn't have huge muscles? The muscles were there, he knew they were. The force her wrenches hit him with left no doubt they were there. Those long, narrow arms never gave the slightest hint of them, but as he watched her straighten dents in automail plates with her bare hands he knew she was far stronger than she appeared.
oooooooo
Even as a child, Winry had been resilient. At the age when most girls were considered 'whimps' who cried over a chipped nail, Ed had actually respected Winry. Respected her for barely making a whimper when she fell off the swing and broke her arm.
In fact, he and Al had probably been more distressed than her. Al was terrified that they wouldn't be able to put the bone back together, and she'd be stuck with a wonky arm forever. Ed had been horrified by the obvious agony in Winry's eyes, and by the chilling, sickly grey colour her skin had gone – even her lips had looked like pencil lead.
But she hadn't even screamed. In fact, the only sound Ed remembered Winry making was a tiny whimper when her mother set the bone. Even as a child, Winry had been strong.
And not just physically.
When her parents died, she had cried for weeks, before picking herself up and soldiering on. When he and Al's mother died, she'd put up with their tantrums and impatience and bouts of depression, even though she was hardly a patient person herself. And when he had been struggling to learn to move the automail, it was Winry who stood beside him and encouraged every shaky, faltering step.
Ed remembered taking his first step with the automail leg, stumbling and falling to the floor. He'd started to reach for Winry as he fell, then snatched his hand back, afraid of breaking her flimsy wrist with the force of his descent. She'd helped him struggle to his feet, and deliberately placed his hand on her wrist. He remembered feeling the bones beneath the thin layer of her skin.
"Ed," she chided, "I'm not that delicate."
Like a miniature diamond, Winry looked beautiful and fragile, as though she could be crushed within a fist. But like the diamond, she was strong, able to endure what many thought would destroy her.
oooooooo
Whenever he returned to her for repairs, Ed was always surprised by how slight Winry was. Surprised by the reminder of how delicate she looked. Though he knew appearances were deceiving, sometimes he caught himself acting as though Winry really was as delicate as she appeared to be.
Like when he'd leaned across the worktable late one night and pressed his lips to hers as gently as if she'd been made of spun glass.
Winry had taken charge; clutching his shoulders and kissing him back, hard. When they parted for air, she'd looked him straight in the eye and told him that if he was going to kiss her, he'd better kiss her like he meant it!
A lesson he'd already known, repeated and learnt anew. Winry was not as fragile as she seemed.
And that night, when she'd lain beneath him, kissing and touching, fingers running over bare skin as they shed their clothes with aching hesitancy. He'd been scared to touch her with his automail, certain he'd lose control and hurt her. She'd known, even as he pressed kisses to the hollow of her neck, she'd known that he was doing it again.
Winry had grasped the metal hand and guided it her hip, urging his fingers to splay and grip the flesh they found there. And she smiled as she kissed him.
"Don't worry, Ed. I'm not that delicate."
EndAN: Hmmm, my first shot at implied sex. How'd I go?