A/N: For the prompt 'Skin'. I might revise this one at some point.
Perfectionist
There was something about the way that the skin joined with the automail that really annoyed Winry. She disliked how the cold metal didn't just run smoothly into soft flesh. Whenever Edward came back, she'd run her fingers over the hard bumps of the scarring and wonder what the best way of making it go away would be.
He would grimace in his own hot-headed annoyance. He'd move his false arm up and down and demand to know what she was doing and could he go now. She'd respond that he could leave when she was finished. Did he want his arm to fall off at the drop of a hat? He'd tell her he was hungry, he had places to go and people to visit and Al needed his armour looking at, too.
Sometimes, Winry preferred the aesthetics of Al's large suit of armour. With a pang, usually, because Edward's jagged scars were a testament to his sacrifice and the pain he'd suffered just so he could go and get his brother's body back and his limbs. It made her feel guilty, then. But Al's armour was smooth. No jagged lines and if only it could segue back into his real skin.
Of course, both Ed and Al should have all of their real bodies back. Just warm living flesh because, really, she knew that that was best. But she loved the efficiency that automail offers, the way that it could do things that human limbs just couldn't. The flexible bend as its innards clicked in and out of place and the veins of wire and coils contracting and undulating were mesmerising. This had been the case ever since Winry, six years old, had sat and watched her grandmother's meticulous putting together of arms and legs and anything else that might be needed. The way that pieces of metal and general inanimation came together to make something that could function as part of a living person.
Winry really heavily disliked the way that Edward's automail arm seemed to fit so unevenly with his skin, like a forced jigsaw puzzle. She couldn't really say that it made him look awful, because she'd been noticing recently with disturbing regularity that it really didn't detract from the way he looked. Not a lot did, really. And it worked, and was part of him, anyway. But, damnit, it could really be better. Her beautiful, fastidiously made automail shouldn't fit so awkwardly. It deserved better.
And Ed deserved better.
