Breaking In

I still am not quite sure how to feel about what I witnessed the day after my brother dragged himself back through the gate for good. On the one hand, it was the catalyst that brought me eventually to where I am today, and where I am is a very good place and I'm grateful for it, but on the other hand I'm sure there are much better ways to find out your brother is gay than finding him plastered against the library wall with his commanding officer.

I thought I'd heard Ed's voice cry out as I was passing by, and even though I always try not to disturb Ed when he's studying I thought I'd poke my head into the study room it came from to see if he was okay. From what I saw, 'okay' was an understatement.

Honestly it was hard to tell where my brother ended and the colonel began, and thinking back on it, I guess that's when I should have turned around and walked away quietly and pretended I'd never seen anything. It's not like I was enjoying the view – actually I'm pretty sure it scarred me a little bit – and it neither of them would have noticed me anyway. The colonel was way too busy undoing the rest of Ed's shirt and being engrossed in his neck, and my brother had his head tilted back, his eyes were closed. There was no way either of them would have taken the slightest note of me if I'd walked away at that point.

But my feet refused to move, and to this day I blame the colonel for what is still the most awkward and embarrassing moment in my lifetime, because it must've been something he did under Ed's jaw that made him gasp and open his eyes.

That had him staring straight at me.

For a second I don't think either of us knew what to do, I had a feeling leaving was rather a lost option at that point, but the awkwardness lasted only one potent moment before Ed unlatched his death grip on Mustang's back and I've never seen anyone shoved away with such ferocity since.

"Al! Wh-What're you – doing here?"

He sounded out of breath, holding onto the bookcase behind him as if for support, and the awkward from that was at least fifty percent Mustang's fault, too.

For his part, the culprit wasn't much better, or should I say, much worse, all he did was look at me with equal surprise and mutter a frustrated curse under his breath.

I found it hard to string a coherent sentence together, and I'm still not sure exactly what I said, but it was probably something like "I, uh, sorry I didn't mean to, uh, I mean, I'll ah, um, I'll be going now!"

"Sh-shit, Al, wait up a sec!"

He followed me out of the room, though I'd only gone a few steps, and grabbed my sleeve. I turned around, feeling slightly in a daze at that point, just in time to see the colonel step out behind him, straightening his jacket. Ed turned around, too.

"Look, Roy, uh-"

It was rather a jar to hear Ed address the colonel by his first name – it was a bit of a surprise that the colonel even had a first name – but I didn't have time to ponder that. Mustang rested a hand on Ed's shoulder and said something quietly that sounded like "talk to your brother", and then whispered something in his ear that made Ed blush furiously and nod once, and then he was gone and it was just me and Ed and the awkward silence while he fumbled to do his shirt back up.

"Uh... want to sit down?"

He was looking meaningfully at the table and folding chairs in the study room. I agreed quietly and let him pull the chair out for me.

"So how long has this been going on?" I asked, having found my voice at that point. I was louder than I intended.

"What you walked in on just now, liking Roy, or the homosexuality?" he asked, cringing.

"All three" I responded, bewildered

He rested his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his folded hands like he does when he's talking seriously, and his voice was awfully quiet; he sounded like he'd been rehearsing.

"I've never liked girls, Al. Not physically at least. I've also never laid a hand on Roy outside of a handshake until about five, ten minutes ago. Got a little out of hand, I guess. And, I, well, aw geez"

He slumped to fold his arms on the table and bury his head in them, making his voice muffled.

"I don't know how long I've cared for Roy. I just know that I do. Very, very, very, very, very much."

I stared at him while the silence grew until he looked up at me, gold eyes peeking over his folded arms with rather a desperate expression in them.

"So are you going to disown me, lock me up, or try to exorcize me?" he asked blandly

"N-none of that!" I couldn't help stuttering. "Just... give me a second to process here."

"Sure."

I could feel him watching me while I tried to convince myself that it was all real life, and let what he'd said and what I'd seen sink in. After a few moments, I was collected enough to form a question.

"What about Winry?"

He looked surprised. "What about her? She doesn't know, if that's what you m-"

"I mean she has a massive crush on you, what about her?"

At first I thought he was just trying to come up with some manner of explanation for why he hadn't informed the person who had every right to know yet, but it turned out that wasn't the case.

"Are you sure?"

I couldn't believe he didn't know, and said as much. I've always taken backseat to my brother in most things, and Winry was no exception. That said it still never ceases to amaze me how dense someone as brilliant as Ed can be, and it amazed me then, too, as I explained point by point how Winry couldn't keep her eyes off him when he was around, and divided her time between worrying about him and talking about him when he wasn't. That he wasn't interested even on the most basic level... I could already see her face.

Breaking a Heart

As I recall it took a while to convince my coward of a brother not to weasel his way out of not telling Winry at all, but eventually I succeeded.

What I did not succeed at was getting him to tell me how he planned to tell her.

Winry had of course come in immediately the day before to see Ed when she heard he was back again. The apartment I was renting, where she was staying with me and Ed, was only about five minute's walk from the library – part of the reason I picked it. I followed him the whole way back there, and he didn't say a word to me.

I was about five steps behind when Ed pushed the door open and crossed the room to where Winry was tinkering with something on the table in about two steps, which was impressive for someone with such short legs.

"Do you like me?" he asked, pointing at her as if to clarify who he was talking to.

Direct approach, in retrospect I really should have seen it coming, but at the time all I could do was bury my face in my hand; I could imagine her face well enough without seeing it.

"I – uh, what?"

"Do you or do you not have a crush on me?"

I could hear the tension, even if I couldn't see him in my current position. Way to make a bad situation worse, I thought.

"I – I...."

There was silence for a minute, I heard her fidgeting with the screwdriver in her hand.

"Well... yeah"

"Damn."

I would have told him it wasn't nice to swear in front of a lady, but it wasn't like she hadn't heard worse any time his automail limbs got re-attached, and besides, I didn't think I really needed to be hanging around during the conversation that followed as Ed scraped the chair away from the table and sat down, so I excused myself from the room and stood in the hall.

I will give my brother some credit, even though he is a dense idiot when it comes to women, and always has been, and say that he probably tried as calmly and gently as possible to explain why he wasn't interested, but that didn't stop Winry from leaving the room in tears five minutes afterward.

I slugged my brother in the jaw before following her. He didn't get mad or anything. I thought I heard him mutter 'I deserved that' on my way out.

I found her downstairs, on one of the benches by the sheltered streetcar stop. I wasn't sure what I would do when I caught up to her, but it didn't seem much of an excuse for leaving her alone just then, so all I had to say was "Hey" as I sat down beside her.

"Hey."

Silence took over for a few minutes before she scrunches her face into a queer expression and flings her arms around me, her shoulders shook.

"I'm such an idiot!"

"You're not" I argued, letting her cry and hugging her while she continued

"How could I not have known? Did you know? Have you both been keeping secrets from me again?"

She pulled away to pin me with that one, and to this day I'm glad I was too concerned to hesitate in assuring her I'd only just found out literally minutes before she did.

"Geez..." she sat up, wiping at her face with her fist. "I'm such an idiot."

"You're not."

"You know what's really stupid?" I dug in my pocket for a tissue and shook my head

"Thanks. I don't even feel really hurt right now, just stupid. I feel like I've wasted so many years obsessing over him and I could've been looking for someone who was actually interested. 'never saw me as more than a friend', that's what he said! Geez..."

I put an arm awkwardly around her shoulders, and felt her hiccup. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be unloading on you like this-"

"It's fine."

I let her sit there until it was cold out. Edward wasn't there when we went back inside.

Breaking Away

I took it upon myself to ensure that Winry didn't get too much time by herself after that, while Ed seemed to be trying to keep out of her way. As the days and weeks went by, she stopped swinging between yelling at and fleeing from him and started to ease back into her old self.

I don't want to sound like I was taking advantage of the situation, though in a way I guess I was, but it was nice to actually get to spend some time with Winry without her talking about Ed all the time. I've lived most of my life in Edward's shadow, and I'm not resentful of it, but it does get stale after so long. And as Winry got over the Ed thing, a few other things changed as well.

For one thing, she smiled more; she was more willing to laugh if I cracked a joke than to say "Hmm, yeah... I wonder what Ed's up to".

And then I caught her staring at me.

At first I thought she was just daydreaming and happened to be looking in my direction, but then it happened again. And then I noticed she started dressing nicer, walking closer, wanting to hang out more.

Cloud nine was an understatement, I was on cloud twelve.

Even Edward noticed, though all he had to say was to ruffle my hair and tell me that it was "about time the two of you hooked up." I didn't bother telling him there had been no hooking ups to date. It didn't matter. Besides, that comment, like so many other things he said around that time, was made on his way out the door. He was probably headed to the colonel's place; it seemed a huge relief to him to be able to say where he was heading instead of making up an excuse. It took Winry and I a while to get used to, but in the end, if this was who my brother was, then I wasn't going to make him hide it. Besides, for once, I had my own love life to think about.

It's been a long time since all that. Winry is still staying with me in my cramped little apartment, but she's living there out of a closet instead of a suitcase now, and Ed has his own place. I'm almost through my medicinal alchemy training; Winry and I are talking about setting up a practice in Central combining our skills. Edward, unfortunately, still has to drag or be dragged into a corner or an empty room to do anything with his special someone, which he frequently gripes about, but with any luck someday that will change. For now, overall, life is good.