Title: Braid
Pairing: Edward Elric & Winry Rockbell
Rating: K ~ it's just cute fluff, nothing more

A/N: Whooooa. My very first fanfiction. I always wanted to write fanfic but the inspiration seemed to run away from me doesn't matter how hard I tried to catch it, the little bastard was too fast to catch up to. :D Anyways, I managed it with a stolen broomstick, so here it is, I hope you'll enjoy :)

A rather hot summer day made people sweat all over Resembool. Everyone who could was inside their house or, more likely, down in their cellar, where the temperature was somewhere near to bearable.

At the end of a long dirt road was the Rockbell house, its yellow walls yellower than ever in the almost too bright sunshine and Edward, who stood in the middle of the living room with the support of a crutch, thought that the windows were definitely melting. However, the fact that he was currently the object of Winry's fiery anger probably put some more degrees into the air.

"I can't believe you," she sighed angrily, eyes shining with a death-promising glint. "If you break your arm, though I'm definitely not happy if you do, I understand it with the all fighting stuff and bullshit. But now you come home, finally, I may add because I haven't heard from you in months, and you have to use Al as a crutch because you practically haven't got one leg?! Well, at least your arm is fine but what in earth did you do to my precious automail leg?!"

Ed changed his grip on the crutch and fidgeted a little. He definitely wasn't going to explain Winry that. She already worried about every little thing, most of them totally irrelevant, she didn't need to know that he had a very risky fight again.

"Technically, it's my leg, you know," he said instead.

"I was the one who made it so show some respect, alchemy freak."

"I would if you wouldn't hiss around me all the time I come home and annoy the CRAP out of me, automail freak!"

"I wouldn't 'hiss around you all the time' if you'd come home at least once with perfectly fine limbs, lil'bean!"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLIN' SO SHORT, HE CAN'T EVEN REACH UP THE TABLE?!"

This was the start of a fight which almost longed for half an hour, shouting on the top of their lungs all along until they didn't even know what they were arguing about in the first place. So the two quieted down instead and stayed with sore throats and both soaked with sweat.

Ed, still a little furious, put aside his crutch and allowed himself to fall down onto the comfortable sofa. He was only in a tank top and his underwear – since this time his leg were in tiny little pieces he didn't have to take off his top, although, considering the rather skyreaching celsius degrees, he strongly wondered about it. He was so hot that he though his skin would start to melt in any second, no, it's already in a puddle on the floor.

His eyes were closed as he tried to fight down the urge to tore out the metal attachments from his shoulder and thigh. It was burning hot around his flesh and he really was suprised that the metal wasn't melting yet... He assumed it did something with the fact that Winry made the limbs.

He heard the clanging of Al's armor from outside as his little brother was playing with Den but his attention was torn from the clinking by another sound. It was inside, so the source of it did something with Winry. The noise itself was rather furious-sounding with all the slonging and banging.

He opened his amber eyes and looked at his childhood friend. She was looking for something, throw everything to everywhere. Now the girl's back was towards him as she dug throught all the stuff which was piled up on one of the desks.

"Um, Winry," he said, looking at her as the girl stopped her movements and turned towards him. "Can I get something… cold? You know, the automail is really–"

Winry's eyes widened. "Oh, Ed, I'm so sorry, totally forgot about that!" she cut him off and hurried out of the room just to come back in mere seconds, ice packs in her hands. After she handled them over to him, she went back to search after whatever she was looking for.

Ed watched her as he put the ice onto his boiling hot attachments – god, it's cold – but he suddenly felt hotter as he noticed that Winry was in her buggy, worn-out work-trousers. They were long and probably thick though Ed didn't checked this out ever.

Isn't she boiling?

Well, she's wearing her tube top, he shrugged mentally but frowned almost immediately. He couldn't quite grab it but something was odd. He narrowed his eyes for a while before he could recognise what the strangeness was: he couldn't see her back because she let her hair down.

It'd really grown long, he thought, the sunshine-coloured locks brushed on the waist of the trousers. They looked like soft silk, and Ed suddenly felt the urge to ran his fingers through them–

In that moment, Winry straightened up from her search and groaned out in fustration. Ed jumped in alarm as if the girl heard his thoughts but, of course, she didn't. Probably she already forgot that he was there as well. She ran ten fingers throught her hair – Ed felt somehow jealous but he brushed away it at once – and said, "Where the hell did I put my hairtie?"

Oh, so she was looking for her hairtie.

Ed followed her movements with his eyes as she wandered around again and again furiously, still didn't seem like she would find her hairtie any time soon. The young man was almost amazed watching the girl trying to deal with her hair. She tried to tie it back with two of her locks, with her bandana, but her silky hair slipped out of the loose knots. Then, she made a messy bun at her nape and try to fix it with a pencil but her hair was too much for the poor pencil to deal with, and her locks fell down the moment she let go of the bun.

Ed supressed a smile, reached back to the end of his braid and pulled out the little hairtie which clamped his golden locks together. He eyed it for several seconds. Well, it couldn't deal with Winry's hair if she make a ponytail, but if–

"C'mere, Winry" he sighed and tapped the sofa beside him. The girl turned around and cocked an eyebrow but she walked up and sat beside him anyways.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"No, no," Ed waved then motioned with his hand. "Turn around."

"Why should I–"

"Just do it already," he cut her off.

Winry looked in his amber eyes for a long second then shrugged and turned around. She had no idea what was in his mind but anyways. She already pissed herself off with that whole hairtie-missing scenario it's not like she couldn't use some rest–

Suddenly, she felt something run along on her skin, from the under of her ears almost to her nape, lifting up her hair. She shrieked on the sudden contact and was about to turn around and saw what is touching her–

"Stay still," Ed murmured behind her and she realised that the things which ran along her neck in level was Ed's fingers – the flesh and the metal ones as well. She didn't know what was he doing. Something with her hair, it was sure, but she had no idea what exactly. His fingers didn't touch her skin anymore just his knuckles sometimes as he did that whatever it was with her hair.

She felt her blood run into her cheeks and found herself enjoying the silent activity but she asked in a soft voice anyway, "What are you doing?"

"Braiding your hair," he said simply, and although there was something odd in his voice, she didn't turn around to read his facial expression.

In the garden, a big suit of armor was attached to one of the living room windows and snickered happily at the sight of his childhood friend and his brother, sitting on the sofa and both blushing madly as the alchemist was braiding the mechanic's soft hair with full concern, the broken automail leg totally forgotten.