shower

Didn't seem anywhere near impossible, not yet, but even the Colonel's challenge couldn't keep him from wavering once in a while. It wasn't pain, really, he was dealing with that, it was the chair maybe or the look that Winry got whenever she watched them talking for too long, and everything was for Alphonse's sake, I'm so sorry, his as well, but he would lay awake, running the fingers he had left along the sheets and thinking maybe he couldn't do it maybe I used up my chance to cheat the truth.

It was a little more than half a month after - Mustang's visit - and Winry brought it up first, even though Granny Pinako had probably thought of it before and Al definitely did but wouldn't have said anything.

She stomped into the boys' dark room and stood in front of the wheelchair, hands on her hips. "Edward, when was the last time you had a shower?"

He shook his head. "Don't need to." His sentences had become exponentially shorter and more terse over the past few days.

Winry blinked skeptically at him. "You need to clean yourself."

"Don't want to," he rectified, frowning.

"Come on. I've seen you naked before, Ed," Winry protested. "We took baths together when we were little. We go swimming all the time. I'll hold your hand if you want. What's the difference?"

He didn't know how exactly to tell her that it was different, too different, that it'd probably be too much even if it were Mom standing in front of him. He shook his head again, lips a tight dam against whatever he wasn't able to say, squeezing his eyes shut.

One glance, and Winry eased up, like she always did by now. She prodded and coaxed him a little bit more after that, but she knew it'd already been denied and Edward's attention remained firmly fixed on his hand. It remained that way until she gave up with a frustrated growl and stomped out of the room, little fingers curled into exasperated fists.

Later, the armor spoke up from where it sat in the corner.

"Brother," he began cautiously, his tiny voice almost comical behind the grisly metal mask. Even now, nearly three weeks later, Ed tensed a little bit when it spoke to him. His mouth was a strained line, his eyes surrounded by little lines of their own and looking down, not meeting the glowing holes where Alphonse's should be.

"Brother," Al said, this time with a little more force. "I think Winry's right."

Of course you do, the sarcastic, sad, bitter little voice that was never ever allowed to reach Alphonse echoed in Ed's head.

"Seriously, Ed," the metal beast insisted.

Seriously, Ed, he mocked silently.

"Take care of yourself. Stop moping."

His head shot straight up. "I'm not moping!" he said, forgetting for a minute that Al wasn't in his own body.

"Yeah, you are!" If a soul in a piece of armor could glare daggers, that's exactly what Edward's brother was doing. "And it's making Pinako cranky and Winry depressed and it's getting on my nerves, Ed! All you do is stare into space and argue with Winry and have surgery, and it only stresses them out more to think that it's not working, you moron!"

For a minute there, he was speechless. But his tongue wasn't on the list of things he'd given up. "Yeah? Well, so what? What's there to be happy about, Al?" He slammed his fist on the chair handle, jolting his sore leg. "Does this look like a field of butterflies to you?"

"We're alive," Al said, standing up. Ed flinched involuntarily; the armor nearly filled the room. Alphonse crossed it in two strides and jammed a hard, empty glove finger into his chest. "We're alive, Ed, so get up and take care of yourself, 'cause M-mom isn't gonna." He stumbled over the word, and it broke Ed's heart for Al to say it aloud. His vision of Al's furious glowing eyes was a little bit hazy, and after another hair-raising half minute, the armor turned around, still tensed.

Al whirled to face him one last time, said in a forceful trying-too-hard tone, "We gotta look out for each other, Ed. Let us help you," and clomped to the wall.

He didn't say anything after Alphonse had sat back down, closer now. But when Winry came in with lunch and an automail meltdown story, he coughed quietly. "Uh, Winry..." he said, running his thumb against the chair arm again. "About that shower idea. I, um, I- well." He addressed a pebble on the floor. "It...might be a good thing. Y'know. To try."

His hand slipped on the wall and he reached out for the walker handle with an arm that no longer existed, his feet (foot) left the ground and he was scared, Al, terrified, I didn't want to let you down again and he knew his head would hit the hard tile and maybe he'd just drown in the hot water or wake up with his brains bashed out and the worst part was that the sinking butterfly feeling didn't leave, not even when Winry caught him

Winry caught him?