Fire: Roasting Marshmallows
Due: Dec 30th
Title: Home is Where the Heart Goes
Word Count: 2,917
Rating: T
Summary: He finally understood.
This was entered in the EdWin Fire and Ice contest on livejournal. Amazingly, it won. This was my first time entering, and I am still stunned by this news. :) Enjoy!
Disclaimer: C'mon, do you really think I'd have the guts to *SPOILER* blind Roy? Wait, don't answer that. In any case, I don't own.
Betaed by please-knock, many thanks to her!
"Fuckshitsunuvabitch-" Ed stumbled back, his vivid curses doing nothing to help the mild burn that ran across the inside of his flesh palm.
An exasperated sigh came from behind him and he whipped around, hand cradled against his chest. Winry raised her eyebrows at him. "That," she said clearly, stepping around the armchair and kneeling down next to him, "Is exactly why you don't lean that close to a fire; even when roasting marshmallows."
Ed grunted. "Stupid fire. No wonder it works for Mustang. It's as evil as he is."
Rolling her eyes, Winry tugged on his arm. "Go run that under water, idiot. And you owe a lot to Roy, you know that." Three years since that so-called final battle, two of which had been spent married to the now Riza Mustang had been enough to get Winry on a first name basis with him. Despite his grumblings about the man's character, Ed hadn't yet hesitated to attend a get together with the Mustang family -it was only so that he could insult Roy to his face, dammit!- where indeed, he would promptly go cross-eyed and find various expressions to make at Roy's blinded eyes. To which Roy would reply, quite calmly, "You're still as ugly as ever Edward, changing your expression doesn't help."
"Whatever." Ed pouted. Winry's blue eyes looked up at him for approximately five seconds before he stood and slouched off to the bathroom.
His metal hand twisted the knobs on the sink, quickly sticking the burned one underneath the cool water. He could hear the sound of Winry poking and prodding at the fire-
-For one wild moment he could just see her long hair caught on a flame the way his hand had, burning up like dry grass, catching onto her clothes and sending her screaming to the floor-
Before he could really register what he was doing, he found himself back in the living room, clutching at the corner of the wall, panting, staring at a bewildered Winry, her long golden hair pinned back.
"What?" She asked. "You ran out of there like the sink blew up."
Aware of the slight stinging on his palm from the burn again, Ed fought not to blush. "Nothing," he grunted. "Just wanted to make sure your hair was pinned. That's all."
Three years, and their relationship had progressed far past his stammering denials.
Winry smiled, giggling a little, her eyes very soft. "Go put your hand back under the water you left running, silly."
Ed stayed to watch her turn back to the fire, humming to herself. She was crouched in front of the flames, still in pajamas, a plate of marshmallows beside her. Ed wasn't quite sure how she was able to wear such short shorts in winter, even inside, but hell, he wasn't going to complain. His eyes ran over her long, smooth legs, which seemed to glow faintly in the firelight, her toes curling into the carpet to keep her balance.
"Ed." Winry didn't even turn around. "Quit ogling. I can still hear that water running."
He couldn't help smiling. "So bossy." He saw her mouth curl into a smile before he returned to the bathroom, settling himself to being bored for a few minutes while he ran his hand under the water.
One ear was still trained on the living room. He'd lost too many people that he loved. There had been too many close calls, too many hardships. He wasn't about to let any more loved ones die, while he was around to help. It was instinct. Like jumping in front of Scar –damn like hell I'm going to let you do this, just try it motherfucker, I'd like to see you try, you won't lay a hand on her- he would act, instinctively, give anything and everything he had for her, for Al, for those he loved. He'd die for them, but he'd live for them too.
Not that he wasn't fully aware that both Al and Winry could take care of themselves- far from it. The number of bumps on his skull was a testament to that, as was the battered and scratched remnants of Al's armor body, which Al kept down in a shed by his own apartment.
Ed turned off the faucet, wiping his hand on the hand towel. "Hey, Win, I just realized, those logs are probably about done in, right?" He waked out the bathroom and down the hall, surprised to see that she wasn't in the room anymore. "Winry?"
"Back here," Winry called from their room. He turned to see her walk out, unable to stop his smile at the sight of her.
She was wearing his red coat, the hood up around her ears, hair out of its pins and falling gently around her face. The sleeves were too big on her, and the shoulders never seemed to stay on, but she delighted in wearing it- wore it almost as often as he did. He'd offered a few times to make her one with alchemy, but, though she considered it, she decided that she liked wearing his.
"It's always 'your coat' to me," She'd said. "Back when the promised day was happening, I had your original one, remember? I used to wear it back then, too, and it was like you were with me. Holding me." And she smiled at him, glowing like she always did, sunny and clear and strong and wonderful.
Ed's smile turned softer, and he took her hand in his. She never cared whether she held his automail hand, or his flesh one, but he liked feeling her fingers in his own.
"What were you saying about the logs?"
"Oh, yeah. Those ones are probably about done in, right?" He looked to the fireplace to see that the logs were actually holding up better than he'd thought they would be, and frowned. "Never mind."
Winry laughed. "Well, do remember where we got those logs from!" She deepened her voice, slipping her hand out of his to go into a 'showing off her muscles' position.
"These gloriously long lasting logs have been passed down the Armstrong line for generations!"
Ed snickered. "Very true." Pretending to look suspicious, he took a step back. "That impression is almost too good… not related to the Armstrongs, are you!? You're scary enough as it is!"
She put on her most innocently threatening expression, her lips pressed together, eyebrows raised. "Scary, am I?"
Ed smirked. "Oh hell yeah. Those wrenches of yours, your fearsome strength. You're downright frightening."
Still smiling ever so innocently -and still, despite their game and playfulness, looking so beautiful and soft and strong that it was hard to breathe, hard to focus on anything else in the world but her, and when she put her fingertip on his chest he could've sworn that she stopped his heart with that one touch- She traced her finger along his collarbones, bringing her face close to his, their noses almost touching.
"Well, in that case…" she breathed, and Ed quite forgot about the fire, the marshmallows they were going to roast, and the piling snow outside.
He leaned in toward her, his hands finding her smooth hips, slipping under the borrowed coat, her back warm and comforting as always, but before he could press his lips to hers, she dropped her hands to his stomach, tickling him.
He stepped back, gasping through his laughter- "Now t-that's not-" he broke into giggles as her fingers went closer to his right hip, his weak spot. "Winry, that's not f-fair!" It was very difficult, trying to block her hands and get to her tummy at the same time.
Using the speed he'd garnered from his training with Izumi, he spun around, darting out his cold automail hand, placing it flat against her stomach where her shirt had come up in their struggles. She gasped, taking another step back, pulling him with her as they tumbled over the back of the sofa, and then onto the floor, Ed automatically shifting his position so that he caught the brunt of the fall.
"Oof, that hurt." He wheezed, the wind knocked out of him.
"Sorry," Winry said from next to him, her face by his, nose touching the floor from the sound of it.
Ed rolled his eyes. "Not you, the floor, crazy woman."
Winry giggled, and then put her hands on either side of his head, pushing herself off of the ground, and Ed felt the breath leave his lungs as he looked at her. Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were flushed from laughter, lips parting and teeth flashing. She looked down at him, smiling, her head tilted a little to one side, her hair a bit mussed, the hood having fallen off of her head. He reached up with his flesh hand, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, and she leaned into his touch, her smile turning soft. She leaned down to kiss him, when they heard a loud thump from outside.
Frowning, she looked toward the window, getting to her feet. Ed, grumbling under his breath, did so as well. "Sounded like something fell off the roof."
"Hmm." Winry walked toward the window, curling her legs up on the love seat, peering out of the glass. "I can't see anything. The window's too thick with frost." She put her hand against the window, and pulled it back quickly. "The inside of the window has frost on it too."
Sighing, Ed sat next to her. "Dammit. You know it's cold when there's frost on both sides of the window." He glanced down at his metal arm. "Good thing you switched me to cold weather automail."
"Yeah." She bit her lip. –don't stare at her lips, Elric! Pull yourself together!- She pressed her palm to the glass, rubbing it in a circle, pressing hard, again and again until she could see through on her side, squinting out into the white world. "Wow. I don't think I've ever seen so much snow here before. It looks like Briggs out there."
"Holy shit." Ed peered out next to her, his head beside hers. "Wow. The sound we heard must'a been snow falling from the roof. Jeez, we're almost snowed in." Already, the window was frosting over again, and they both pulled back. They stared as the frost crept along the window, remarkably fast, though they could still see a hint of the space Winry had made, that one spot looking different from the rest of the window.
"Huh." Winry scanned the window. "I wonder how long we'll be able to see that."
"Probably only for a little while. I bet it'll fade by tonight."
Winry nodded. "Maybe." Her eyes lit up. "But I want to try something."
She scooted over, around the fading mark she'd made in the frost, pressing her finger to the glass, and holding it, moving slowly, by millimeters every thirty seconds, it seemed, to where Ed felt himself getting bored. But Winry concentrated, staring at her slowly moving finger with the same kind of focus she gave his automail, and he couldn't help smiling.
At a snail's pace, Winry's shape began to reveal itself. Ed had half been expecting an automail limb, but was surprised to see that she was drawing a small heart, like the kind they'd cut out in school as children to decorate with.
"There!" She said triumphantly, as if she'd completed a task she'd finally finished after years of work. She did everything that way- all or nothing. No half-assed attempts. She'd told him that she did it because he'd inspired her to by his own efforts in such a way, but she'd always done it, and he'd partly learned it from her.
Three years, and she never ceased to surprise him.
Winry traced it again, this time more quickly, and then breathed on the heart, seeing her breath mist and begin to ice over, before she traced it again.
The entire day, she kept going back to the window, tracing it again and again, until Ed was starting to believe that she just might wear a hole in it, though the scientific part of his brain insisted that the idea of something staying on the glass like that was just about impossible, but then again he'd seen Winry do some pretty amazing things.
When he asked her why she kept at it, she'd paused, putting a finger to her chin. Then she smiled, and went back to work. "Well, you know what they say- 'home is where the heart is.' Right?"
And he smiled, turning her around and kissing her like he'd been trying to the entire day. Her tongue traced his upper lip and they'd made their way over to the sofa, not making it to their room, work and wood and marshmallows yet again forgotten.
Looking back on it, he realized that his definition of 'home' had changed many times. When he was ten, it was with his mother. When he was sixteen he realized it was in Resembool, with the people that took care of him. A few years later, he thought that it was with Winry or Al, wherever they were. Then he thought that maybe home wasn't a place that could be easily defined, wasn't cut and dry like in his alchemy textbooks. There were levels and layers to it, different options and points of view. Home changed and varied because of the people around. Home, he thought, was Winry smiling, Al teasing him over the phone, the pain he felt getting new automail attachments, challenging Roy to alchemy battles and still tying with the man, despite his blindness, being wary of Riza's gun. It was hating his father, but forgiving him in the end. Visiting his mother's grave, or Hughes's, and seeing what a woman Elysia was becoming, even as he and Winry left behind that first apartment to move into a house he didn't forget it, because it was part of his home too, just as the charred remains of his first home still gave him that irresistible pull, the need to see it every once in a while. The heart of home didn't stay in one place.
And he seemed to be born of alchemy. He couldn't get without a little give, couldn't own without theft, couldn't smile without sadness coming around the next corner. Couldn't live without death. Couldn't love without loss. Could go so far, only to be left behind once he'd arrived, or discover that he'd dropped something along the way.
Winry would shake her head and smile, say that there's nothing he had to give (-though he did anyway, because looking at her he knew that he had everything to lose-) and she told him that the world didn't always work that way, that he could live and be happy and not lose very much at all, nothing at least that could be worth as much or more than the happy things.
Unwittingly, he thought of his father, remembered something he'd said, just before the end-
-Even if I lived for a thousand more lifetimes, I could never deserve the gift of my children.-
And each night he felt Winry beside him, through the cold and the nightmares, even when he was gone from her he could still feel her there, somehow, as if when he opened his eyes he'd be with her again, with the home and the heart again, for despite all the other hearts of homes that he feels and that he knows, none hold him like hers, none warms him and keeps him like hers.
And when she looks at him, he understands. When his brother marries and smiles with a body that's his own, Ed understands. When his own children beam up at him, faces mixtures of his and Winry's, he understands what Winry had always been saying, his father said, and forgives the man that left all over again.
And he started thinking of that house, that house that had been their first house by themselves, and he thought of the heart she'd drawn. Of the family that surely lived there now. And he liked to believe that one day, the children in that house would breathe upon the glass, and they'd see it there- the heart that Winry had drawn years ago, still there, despite it all.
And that was what it was. Home, love, hearts. Never, ever gone. Not with death or with winter, or harsh words. No frost could freeze it over, no alchemy could break it. It was beyond all those other hearts and homes- not diminishing them, but different, and constant.
Maybe it was the 'truth behind the truth behind the truth,' or another truth altogether. But Winry, with her eyes and her strength and her laughter and anger and tears and love was his heart, his home, held securely in her ever-capable hands- hands that had built him up from the ground when he'd fallen, hands that found him in the dark, hands that he knew better than his own, cupping his heart, keeping it safe and warm.
The amazing thing was that he held her heart too; his automail didn't harm the soft looking thing, because her heart was so strong.
And he held it, caressed it in his fingers, shielding it as she did his because maybe that was the only equivalent exchange that mattered, in the end.