This is my first story on . I was "inspired" (begged) by a friend to write an Envy/Ed fanfiction, so I decided to try my hand at it. Compared to some writers (ex: The people who wrote "Chasing Naruto" or "Smile" – two Narusasu fanfictions that have blown my mind and are absolutely perfect), I know my writing style may be kind of young and amateur-like, because I assure you, I usually am no writer. I've written a few stories, but aside from that, I generally am not an amazing, mind-numbing writer. I do want constructive criticism from people. Yes… that would be very much appreciated. Sorry about plaguing the beginning of this story with boring, serious paragraph about things you probably don't care about, so I'll shut up now. (P.S., If you bother to review, I'll do what some writers to and respond to you in the next chapter)

Disclaimer: If I owned FMA, Ed and Al would have never been separated anytime within any one of the animes or the manga, Ed would NEVER grow taller, at the end of the manga, all the milk would be thrown off a cliff, and Roy would repeatedly exclaim that Ed was far more superior than him in every way possible, especially looks and skills.

Chapter One: Rain-washed

I groaned in frustration as the freezing water droplets sapped away from my heated flesh, plastering my blonde bangs to the sides of my face. I hate rain. No matter how much people seem to be overjoyed at the devious downpour, it did nothing but put me in a foul mood, especially at nine in the freaking morning. Why was I running home so early on a school day? It was my little brother. I had gotten a text from his best friend, Fletcher, saying that Al was sent home sick. It didn't take me long to just bolt out the door to dash home.

Al means pretty much everything to me, and I get really distraught when anything happens to him. Even if it's just a cold, I know worse can come from a cold. Therefore, I am forced to grudgingly take myself home through the frozen pelts.

I usually took the train to and from school, since home was further from my school than Al's (who goes to a special institute for artistically gifted kids), but the heavy rain had stopped all of them. I actually don't really know the way by foot, since I only had walked home a couple of times, but I figured I could just go off basic memory.

To my left, I saw the park that the train passed by every morning, the one that I had only ever stared at. It was a beautiful park, but I wasn't really a green person, and there was way too much green in the park to my liking. I get the trees and grass and stuff, but painting the playground, water fountains, and benches green just pushed it too far over the edge for me.

I hadn't even gone maybe five steps past the park gate before tripping over something hard and thin.

"Gaaah!" I half-yelled as my balance failed and my entire frame collide with the concrete. Sitting up and rubbing my knees, that were the sorest upon the contact, I realized it wasn't a branch like I had expected, but a person. His dark blue, almost black, sweater was soaked through, as well as his jeans and, generally, him. I could hear his labored, harsh breathing, and feel the warm, clammy sweat – or maybe it was rain – that had gathered on his skin. Wispy flickers of long hair stuck to his skin, covering nearly is entire face. I moved it out of the way, jumping when I saw him open his eyes and speak. It wasn't the fact that he had woken up that surprised me, but his features.

His hair was dark, forest-green color, and his eyes, an astonishing violet.

"Mmmm..." he mumbled, eyes flitting between closed and half-open.

Shit.

"Envy..." I whispered quietly. There was no way I could take him home now. He was my enemy; my rival. I hate him, even more than the rain. Just recognizing him gave me a sickening feeling in my stomach that urged me strongly to go to the nearest trash can and empty it of the now repulsive contents of this morning's meal.

But I couldn't leave him to die of pneumonia or who knows what in this weather. My inner selves were battling with each other. I didn't like them. They were always in disagreement.

'You have to help him, Ed.' the honey-sweet voice, Delight, said. The perfect little angel was always trying to do the right thing. He was wearing the pure white outfit that he usually had on, his crooked halo seeming to radiate disappointment.

Of course, the other one, Debauchery, objected. The one who wore the dark, long black hoodie that looked like it came from a member of Organization XIII from the Kingdom Hearts video game. He always had a mischievous, evil glint in his eyes, and his grin seemed innocent, but unnerving. 'And why should he do that, stupid? Have you forgotten that he and Envy are rivals? That they HATE each other? That Envy probably would just laugh and leave Ed if the scenario was switched around? Psh. And you're supposed to be smart.'he sneered mockingly. He was mean. Very mean.

They argued in my head, minutes passing as I found myself drawn to one solution, and then yanked back to the other. Finally, my favorite inner self came out, the one who I almost never failed to agree with. Equilibrium. Honestly, if you're wondering about their names, I didn't come up with them. They were all completely set on naming themselves, and I didn't even know they could to that. If it were up to me, they would be named nice Ed, evil Ed, and meh Ed. But it wasn't. I shortened the other two's names to Dee and E.Q., but Debauchery refused to be called anything except Debauchery. He had made that VERY clear. Unlike the other two, E.Q. was more of the neutral "I don't really care, just shut up and pick something" type. He usually came up with answers that were sort of like a half-mix of the other two. He looked cooler too. He had heavy red and black platform boots, leather pants and a tight tank top, covered by a black mini-jacket. His coolest part was his coat: a bad-ass red coat that had a sick cross-snake symbol on the back. 'Geez, will you guys quit arguing? You're breaking my eardrums here.'

The other two groaned. They knew I would probably go with whatever E.Q. said.

'Hey,' he said, directing his attention to me. Well, sort of just talking to the air in my head since he WAS my inner self. 'Why not, instead of taking him to your house, you put him in a drier spot, like under a tree or something? Then you can cover him with the jacket that you had forgotten about in your backpack since it's the only dry thing that you have. Then you won't have him dying from the cold and left out on the rain, but you don't have to take him with you.'

And of course, I did just that, dragging him to the nearest mass of trees that were surprisingly dry and kind of warm underneath. I took off his sopping wet sweater and replaced it with my red one that had the same symbol E.Q.'s had on the back. It was my favorite jacket, but if E.Q. had said to let Envy use it, I wasn't going to complain.

I got up and left. I hadn't noticed the half-lidded, violet gaze staring at my retreating form.

"AL!" I yelled as I tumbled through the door of our apartment.

'Be quiet!' Dee reprimanded. 'Alphonse might be sleeping!'

The other two, even Debauchery, agreed. They always did whenever it came to the best for Al. The only time they got along was when they were talking about Alphonse. I immediately clapped my hand over my mouth, not by my will, but because E.Q. had taken over and forced me to do it. That's another reason I hate my inner selves. They can CONTROL me: legit moving my mouth and limbs and everything. It freaks me out. Al says I have multiple personalities, but I swear up and down that I'm the one in complete power, seeing as I usually had enough strength to overpower a large amount of their attempts. Debauchery didn't take that well, and had tortured me with cruel, painful nightmares to nearly a week. I shuddered at the oppressive memory and willed it away.

"Alright, alright!" I whispered frantically. It felt weird whenever they decided to take over. "Just stop doing... You know! Stop doing that! I HATE it!"

I sluggishly trudged my wet self over to the bathroom next to me and Al's room, kicked off my shoes by my door, and hopped into the shower. It felt good to slip out of the heavy clothing, and even more heavenly as the lukewarm water fell on me, clouds of steam blanketing the air, a thick hazy coat.

My thoughts kept going back to Envy, plaguing the blissful feeling that had begun to come over me. I felt a bit... not guilty... but just... iffy. I felt iffy about leaving him out there in the park. I
guess it was that really lenient part of me. The part that completely disregarded that I loathed every cell in Envy's body and pretty much everything connected to him in a positive manner. I sighed, suddenly feeling very exhausted, but I knew I couldn't rest yet. I had to check on Al.

I wrapped a towel around my waist, knowing that besides Al, it was just me. Our mom had died when we were young, Al was five, and I was six. Eleven years without her, and we are still more attached to her than to Hoenheim. Hoenheim is our father, but I don't care. He's a bastard. He's home maybe five days a year: Christmas, my birthday, Al's birthday, Mom's death anniversary (I would probably kill him if he missed the last two), and one extra day if we're lucky.

Stepping into the room, I was kind of surprised to see Al, perfectly fine -a little red, but otherwise fine- sitting on his bed sketching. "Al?" I asked, dumbfounded. "Weren't you sent home because you were sick? Like dying in bed sick?"

Al didn't react to me being home. He had probably expected it. "Did you hear that from Fletcher? He probably exaggerated too much." he shrugged, sending me a pathetic half-assed wave without even glancing my way.

I groaned inside. I had forgotten that Fletcher goes to a creative writing program at Al's school. He once made the sentence "I peeled a banana." into an excruciating story of pain and agony on the banana's behalf. I probably should have only read the first sentence of his detailed ten page text of how Al was doing. "I hate your best friend." I stated.

"How?" Al questioned. "He's your best friend's little brother, and he's a lot nicer that Russell. Plus, I get along with Fletcher way better than you do with Russell."

I scoffed at that. Sure Russell and I didn't exactly have the perfect best-friend bromance going on, seeing as we were both too "stubborn and proud" as Al had put it, but we had a system. We understood each other in odd ways and got along fine seeing as we were both interested in science due to our fathers' careers. We weren't a normal pair, but at least we covered for each other.

'You two are cute best friends!'Dee chimed. He sounds so much like a girl when he gets all gushy and angelic. Winry and Al keep making fun of Dee, calling him my inner "feminine" side. I ignored his comment. Russell and I were far from "cute" when it involved the both of us. There was arguing, fighting, yelling, teasing, mocking, and the list just goes on and on.

"Well instead of the really long and detailed text, he could have just said, 'Al was sent home sick'." I growled. "I ditched class to come home and find you perfectly okay?" I playfully punched his arm. He laughed, knowing I wasn't serious, and ran his hand through his short
light-honey brown hair.

"Yeah right!" he scoffed teasingly. "Like I even want you here anyway!"

I grinned. I love Al more than anything in the whole world. I know it sounds childish, but I don't know what I would do if I didn't have Al. He's my little brother. We spent the rest of the day talking, watching TV, eating, and overall being lazy. After I went and picked up some medicine for him at the nearby pharmacy, we ate dinner and went to bed. Depending on how Al felt tomorrow, we would see if we have to go to school or not.

I looked at the large window between me and Al's beds. It was still pouring, even more heavily, if possible, than it had been in the morning. My thoughts returned to Envy. I fell asleep staring at the clear raindrops in the window, but all I saw was green.