Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters from FMA, they belong to their rightful owners and not me.
Requiem of the Fullmetal alchemist
Winry Rockbell slaved over yet another automail arm, it sat on the mahogany surface of her desk and had been manoeuvred into a particular position where she could easily work on it.
She was always lost in thought whenever she worked on her beautiful automail, her attention was unwavering and her gaze was always fixed upon the artificial metal limbs that she always prided herself on creating. Ever since she was little she always enjoyed assisting her grandmother in finishing the technological marvels that would always be littered around the "Rockbell automail repair shop" that her granny had always tended to.
Her dedication to the craft became enhanced because childhood friend (and her romantic interest), Edward Elric, and his little brother, Alphonse, had become involved in an incident years ago and he required two automail limbs to replace the ones he lost long ago and ever since then, Winry would spend much of her time calibrating her automail to make the perfect limbs that could support Edward and Alphonse on their journey to restore their bodies to their original states.
The two had recently decided to come home for an upgrade, and some of Winry's apple pie.
Alphonse had gone for a walk whilst Ed stayed behind at the shop.
Deep blue eyes were staring in deep focus as she delicately twisted a small screw into place, fingers tightly gripping the top of the nut. However she couldn't help but pause in her work whenever a beautiful melody flowed to her ears, and she raised her head and frowned when a sense of overwhelming confusion hit her like a ton of bricks.
She instantly recognised the sound as music.
She hummed thoughtfully. This was strange, she knew that she had a piano down in the cellar but she didn't know who would use it. Heck, even though she had an idea as to who was playing, she couldn't bring herself to believe it.
"Hmm..." she scratched her chin. "...What could that be...?"
Abandoning her work, she decided to quench her thirst for an answer to this conundrum and investigate.
Winry rose up from her seat, standing on her own two feet, and quickly found that she had probably been sitting for longer then she had been meaning to. Her legs ached and she couldn't help but moan as she went to straighten out her aching joints. She exited through the door and, after heading down a labyrinth of corridors, she meandered down the hallway and the music got steadily louder when she did.
The gentle piano piece was like literal music to her ears and she felt at peace just listening to the beautiful sounds.
It didn't take too long until she finally found herself stood outside the door of which the music was apparently coming from. It sounded muffled due to the door barricading the sound in and she didn't hesitate in the slightest when she reached forwards and pushed the door open, watching it slowly creak open.
What she saw when she peered into the room made her heart stop.
The one occupying the darkened room was none other then Edward Elric seated on a stool in front of the huge, grand, black, shiny instrument. He had his back turned to her as he apparently failed to take notice of the automail mechanic's presence as he sat on the seat in front of the grand piano. He played by the rich, gorgeous ember glow of candlelight as he had been surrounded by wax candles...he probably set those up. Flesh and metal fingers delicately danced on the keys, creating a beautiful cacophony that glided through the air and reverberated through the room.
The owner of the fingers' eyes were closed, it was as if playing the piano was second nature to him as his fingers gracefully leapt across the black and white keys.
Winry had been rendered dumbstruck.
She could feel a thousand thoughts race through her mind as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing; First of all, she had no idea that her family had even owned a piano. Second, she had no clue that her shorty of a friend (she would never say that to his face) even had a clue as to how to play the piano. Thirdly, how did Ed even find it? He knew better then to snoop around her house!
Just what was going on here!?
She wanted to catch his attention but she decided against it since she didn't wish to disrupt his beautiful piano playing and decided to keep listening to Ed play. She honestly did feel very much at peace when she listened to what Ed had to play as she leaned not-so-heavily against the door to try and not make too much noise and she closed her light blue eyes as she listened carefully to the tone of the music that burst from the piano.
The song he played was interlaced with this calm and somewhat soothing air, it made a little smile curl up on Winry's lips and hearing such beautiful music made her feel so happy that mere words couldn't even describe it. She had to wonder if Alphonse knew about Ed's secret talent of playing the piano?
After all, he knew him better then anybody...
The blonde-haired young man kept playing the music, heedless of the woman stood behind her. His entire focus was fixed on the large piano which he played from with his eyes opening to reveal his exotic golden pools for irises. He was in complete bliss as he looked up at the musical notes that instructed him on which keys to press —which his fingers pressed with ease.
He kept playing contently, his blissful reverie not breaking once.
"...Ed?"
"GAAAH!" Edward's fingers abruptly and automatically slammed down on the keys and this made a dreadful and rather abrupt sound from the grand instrument.
The fullmetal alchemist jerked back fright and tumbled right out of his seat as he plummeted to the floor, startled from the voice that had broken him from his thoughtful reverie. The alchemist sat up quickly and swung his head around to glance over at the door to face the intruder and grabbed at his chest in an attempt to calm his pounding heart. His widened eyes narrowed into an angry scowl when he recognised the face of the intruder.
"Winry! Are you trying to give me a heart attack!?"
An amused giggle flew from the mechanic's lips as she looked down at the disgruntled alchemist.
"I'm glad ya finally noticed!"
Edward just stared up at her with wide eyes, his jaw slack. He couldn't believe that he'd never noticed the metal geek standing right behind him whilst he was too busy playing this piano he'd discovered by accident. His heart was hammering hard in his chest and he couldn't help but feel a few veins stick out and start pulsating against his head and neck.
"...How long had you been standing there?" He asked after an awkward few moments of silence.
Winry replied casually.
"Only a minute."
Edward's whole face reddened like a cherry and he got ready to stand up from the floor, he felt embarrassed that he'd been caught. He didn't realise how much time flew when one was expressing their joys and woes on a musical instrument and he certainly didn't realise that Winry would spot him or hear him...he knew that out of all the hobbies he could have picked —piano playing isn't really the most manliest.
However it was then that something unexpected happened.
"Can you play again?" She asked, glancing down to the floor.
Ed got to his feet to stand but his brow furrowed in a mixture of surprise and confusion and he couldn't help but frown. He hadn't expected such a request from Winry like this, and he couldn't keep himself from feeling a tad skeptical about it.
"Huh?"
In a no-nonsense tone, Winry repeated her request.
"Can you play again, Ed? I kinda liked it."
Edward thought for a long few moments. He was still a tad miffed with Winry for scaring the daylights out of him a minute ago but still this was kind of a rare opportunity for him because he thought that people would just laugh at him...he couldn't help momentarily have a bitter face when the thought of Colonel Mustang finding out his secret flashed through his mind. But since Winry seemed to be taking this new side to him quite well, he decided that he may as well do as she asked.
Plus...he couldn't say no to her.
Even if he wanted to.
The Fullmetal alchemist rolled his eyes and nodded, evading her blue eyes whilst trying to hide the fact that his face had somehow became even redder from blushing (but failing miserably at it) as he slowly made his way back over towards the stool that had toppled over after he fell off of it. It was still intact which was great. Ed bent down to pick it up off the floor and then he set it back upright and proceeded to push it back towards the front of the black and white keys; he sat back down on it when he'd finished with correcting the position of the stool and he patted a small spot on the stool next to her.
Winry took that as an invitation to sit beside him and walked over to him and she sat down where Edward had signalled for her to sit moments ago and asked him with her eyes aglow with fascination.
"Ed? What are you doing?"
Edward didn't answer her question. He just grabbed both of the automail mechanic's beautiful slender hands in his own without saying a single word and guided them down towards the console where the rectangular pieces of pressable wood awaited them. Winry could feel Edward's automail hand hold her hand even tighter then his regular hand, feeling the coldness of the metal but it somehow had this warmth that only he could put into things.
Winry asked as she smirked at him, "Can you teach me how to play, Alchemy freak?"
Ed smirked back at her, "If that's what you want, Metal geek."
She looked down and watched as Ed's hands rested on top of her own as he gently guided her hands to the correct keys and beautiful sounds started to emit from each key on the piano and that's where both Edward and Winry sat for a while, in the small room, playing some beautiful melodies on the grand piano with candles lit and flickering to give them light. The automail shop of Resembol was overflowing with the beautiful music that chimed from both Winry and Edward's harmonies as they each played on the big, black instrument.
Neither of them could have been happier as they created and weaved magnificent pieces of musical artistry together.
A/N: Sorry that this story is rather short but I hope you guys like it anyway.
I got the inspiration to write this when I saw images of Ed playing the piano and this scenario immediately popped into my head.
Please review and fave! :)
-Chloemcg
