Really tired, so I just might come back and revise this later, but for now I just want it published. First time posting is kinda scary, haha! But here I am, and here is both my first attempt at fanfiction, and my first attempt at writing in a good long while. I feel all...rusty. Please, please feel free to cruelly and ruthlessly bash me in reviews for icky writing, grammar/spelling mistakes, or grossly OOC moments.

Don't know what I was thinking with this one, it just...came out. The ending is a bit different than I imagined, but I guess that's what I get for having Spin Doctor's "Two Princes" stuck in my head all day. Oh well, I had fun writing the thing as a whole, and really that's the entire point of all this. Some of the alternate titles floating in my head fit better, but somehow I like "Jealousy" better anyway. Huh.
Events are from chapters 33 and 42, if you haven't read that far you're going to be very confused.

Disclaimer: Don't own FMA or its characters, yada yada.

A low, long moan attested to the pain of the crumpled heap in the corner. Stars danced in front of his eyes, and the throb of his poor injured head drowned out all other surroundings. After all, he could barely gather his wits enough to make his brain function properly, much less worry about the world beyond pain and sore ego and crap, he was probably going to be even shorter now.

Gradually, very gradually, voices could be distinguished beyond the pounding in his fuzzy mind—voices, plus a very annoying poking against his back. "Brother?" Al's soft voice with its familiar metallic ring penetrated through the pain. "You okay?"

Ed rolled over and tried to sit up, instantly regretting the premature movement. Alphonse caught him before he collapsed onto the floor, supporting the older Elric with one large steel arm. Blinking as sight returned, Ed scowled and batted away the persistent prodding—namely, Paninya with a stick in one hand and a playful light to her dark eyes. He lifted his only hand to rub the sore origins of the piercing headache, flinching as even that most tender of touches sent another wave of pounding behind his eyes. Winry, that violent little—

Wait. Where was Winry?

Edward willfully pushed through the fog of his mind to search for the wrathful mechanic. On a normal basis she'd be standing over his fallen figure like a lion over its prey, blowing a gasket about how thoroughly he'd wrecked her beautiful masterpieces of gear and wire and grease, again. That she'd broken from this usual routine concerned him, because who knew what sort of new and terrorizing punishments for him she might be scheming up in her absence.

After a moment of hard concentration, he picked out Winry's as one of the voices nearby, and soon pinpointed her location at Garfiel's little table, sipping tea with that squinty-eyed brat from Xing. That much alone was enough to set him off, but then his head cleared enough to pick up on actual words from their conversation.

"...I'm looking for, perhaps I should find myself a bride!"

Ice flooded Edward's veins, freezing every muscle in his body, down to the core of his stilled heart. Then just as suddenly, a flame roared to life in the pit of his stomach and engulfed his insides, chasing the ice away and replacing it with a righteous indignation. Indignation at the way he was staring at her, the way he clasped her hand between his, the way Ed's presence was being ignored, the way she smiled at him and didn't knock his lights out for such blatant flirting...

He bolted to his feet, golden eyes raging with just a fraction of the passionate, boiling wrath within. "Hey Winry!" he shouted with far too much enthusiasm for someone with fresh blood caking his face. Fortunately, he'd caught her attention, and he ensured it would stay that way. "I have to get back to Central right away, so hurry up and fix my arm!"

As Winry griped about his attitude, Al and Paninya exchanged a knowing look about Ed's abrupt subject change.

Some time later, after the impromptu and quite illegal trip across the Eastern border he'd gotten dragged into, Ed marched stiff and silent down the dirt path that wound through Resembool's countryside, which would bring him to the Rockbell's if he kept up this direction. He could feel the eyes, as bright amber as his own, boring into his back as the man following him fell back a little at a slower and more patient pace. The nerve of him, showing up now of all times, probing and prying and preaching at Ed until his last nerve was left shattered.

Stomping on down the path, his mind scrambled for a distraction when a cold chill slid down his spine. Ed halted in his tracks, his brow furrowing at the odd sensation. Gut instinct told him that something was horribly amiss—aside from the walking annoyance behind him in any case, but what that something could be he couldn't put his finger on. Soon, the discomfiture passed and he rubbed the back of his neck, golden blonde hair pulled into a braid after the man's comment about having similar hairstyles. When the feeling didn't return he shrugged it off as the cool breeze dancing through the countryside's dusk air.

He would probably never come to the knowledge that hundreds of miles away in Central, Lin had once again taken to a bit of flirtatious banter with Ed's automail mechanic, once again offering her a position of power and fortune as his bride.

This time, however, she'd quickly rejected him and bashed him in the cheek with her wrench to emphasize her point.

"Why not Xing?"

Ed glanced up, gold meeting blue as she watched him with a puzzled expression on her face. He shrugged his shoulders and turned his gaze away from her again as his only response. The hesitation to approve of her suggestion was stupid, unreasonable, and childish, and he knew it. Still, every time he was about to tell her "okay" that black-haired, squinty-eyed Xingese popped into his head and he inwardly groaned.

Winry sat back in her seat on the creaking porch steps, staring up at the clouds drifting by far above their heads. "I hear it's beautiful, especially this time of year," she commented, "It's far away, exotic..." The word exotic had a pleasant ring in her ears, especially concerning this particular subject of their discussion. Exotic meant memorable, and after all, shouldn't their honeymoon be just that?

Again, he shrugged. "It's also on the other side of a giant desert," he countered, then offered her a somewhat apologetic smile, which meant he probably didn't want to be questioned further. Which meant there was something else to it. She couldn't resist a smile, guessing at just what that something might be—as complicated as he could be sometimes, it didn't take a genius alchemist to figure him out.

"Somewhere else, okay? Anywhere else," he promised. Content with that much, she nodded her agreement and leaned her head against his broad, comfortingly firm shoulder. Idiot. No possessor of great status and riches from a far larger country could begin to tempt her away from her personal amber-eyed, blonde-haired prince.