Oh my god, I don't even know how long its been since I updated! I am so freaking sorry! I was sitting around thinking that I would be sooo happy if someone would update a story so I could read something when I realized I hadn't updated this in forever. Sorry!!!

This chapter is longer than the last, I think, because I had a shitload of ideas floating around. Hope you enjoy!


Ed watched the bastard walk away and felt very self concious as he did so. Had he always been amazed by the Roy's walk? Ed slowly brought two fingers to his lips and tried to figure out what exactly had just happened. He immediately yanked his hand down, trying to hide the obvious confusion he felt and ashamed that he was acting like such a...girl.

Ed was not one of those stupid girls who got all excited and confused over one lousy kiss from the bastard.

One stupid kiss that the bastard probably hadn't cared all that much about.

He was probably just trying to get under Ed's skin and embarass him. He didn't care about Ed, and if Ed let it show that the kiss had meant anything to him at all, then he would be publicly humiliated by that self-centered, crazy, smirking bastard. As a matter of fact, Ed was glad he had eaten the bastards steak. He deserved to...

The steak.

Ed felt sick as he realized that he had broken his promise that he made to himself. He had eaten food when Al had a perfectly good body and was capable of eating. Ed looked down at the ground, feeling like a complete failure of a human being. He had broken his promise to Al by eating with the bastard of all people.

The bastard that had just given Ed a kiss and then just left.

He freaking left after that. Ed straightened up and held the kitten against his chest, stomping his way to Al's apartment as he did so. Even if he was a horrible excuse for a human being, he was still giving his brother his kitten.

And not thinking about Roy.


Alphonse heard a noise from outside his door and put his ear to it, surprised to hear Edward talking to himself. He leaned in closer and could barely make out faint mutterings that couldn't be made into real words. He opened the door and saw Edward standing in front of the door, holding a bundle in one hand with the other hand raised in a fist, ready to knock.

"Oh, Al!" Edward apparently got over the shock of having the door open before he knocked quickly, flashing a smile at Alphonse as he walked in the door.

"Yeah. Hi?" Alphonse moved aside to let Edward in and closed the door, waiting for his brother to explain why he was here.

"I, uh, got you a cat." Edward held out the bundle and Alphonse realized that there was in fact a kitten inside, and he fought the urge to glare at the cat and all that it represented.

"I even found it outside, Al." Edward smiled quickly and extended the cat to Alphonse nervously.

"Oh..." Al loves cats. I have to love cats. "Thank you so much!"

Alphonse tried his best to look excited and joyful as he took the cat from Edward. He didn't really like cats as much as he thought he was supposed to. They were cute, but Alphonse didn't really feel an unnatural attatchment to them. He did feel sorry for them...alone, cold, without anyone to care for them, but still...

'Al' was supposed to love cats and Alphonse didn't. Cats were just a constant reminder of how he could never be the 'Al' that everyone wanted. Why was it that this brother came in, expecting him to like this cat? Expecting him to be Al?

"By the way, my name is Alphonse." He could tell the cold tone hurt Edward, but his name was a touchy subject.

"Well, yeah," Edward began, shuffling his feet, "But everyone still calls you Al, right? I mean, its a nickname, Al."

"No. I'm Alphonse. Didn't you notice?"

Realization hit Edward's face as everything clicked into place. He would probably realize now what everyone else knew. That Alphonse wasn't the 'Al' that everyone wanted, that Alphonse was a better name for him, that-

"Oh, well, does Al...bother you?" Edward pulled Alphonse out of his train of thought with a thoughtful expression and a confused tone to match.

"...No." But I'm not Al, I'm Alphonse. Everyone knows that.

"Okaaay, do you prefer Alphonse in some weird way?" Edward was beginning to look skeptical and Alphonse now felt just as confused as his brother. Did he prefer Alphonse? No, but Alphonse was his name. Everyone called him Alphonse, even Winry had stopped calling him 'Al.'

"...No," Alphonse answered hesitantly.

"Then, Al it is." Edward's statement was so plain that Alphonse couldn't help but feel lost.

No, it's not that easy. I can't be Al that easily. It won't work.

"But I'm not Al." Alphonse stated, feeling irritated at his brother's simple dismissal of the problem. He couldn't just be 'Al' all of the sudden when everyone knew that he didn't act like 'Al' should.

"That's so stupid. How can you not be Al?" Edward questioned in an exasperated tone, throwing his arms in the air.

"I'm not the same!" Alphonse attempted to throw his arms into the air in a similar fashion, being rewarded by scratches on the hand that had been holding the cat he had forgotten he was holding. Alphonse sighed and began to walk out of the room to find a place for the cat.

"Who's to say?!?" Edward followed Alphonse into the kitchen, where cabinets were slammed open in search of a bowl for the cat.

"Winry said so, I don't remember the games we played when we were kids, I don't remember who you were, I don't remember the adventures we went on, and I don't remember what this stupid secret that everyone has is. I don't remember!"

"Well, yeah, but you're still Al!" Alphonse sighed at his brother's obtuse nature as he poured out a bowl of milk for the kitten, moving to grab some towels to make a bed for the cat.

"But I'm not the same Al," he replied, carefully folding the towels up in a corner and placing the kitten in the bed.

"What the hell?! People change!"

"Well...I don't like this cat." Alphonse found it hard to get angry with his brother at the moment, simply because he felt the need to balance out all of the shouting Ed seemed to do.

"Fine! Now you have more common sense than before!! Whoever you are is Al, get that through your head! If you wanna not like cats, fine. If you wanna be called Al, fine. Hell, if you would like to run around in a goddamn tutu, be my guest!!"

Al tried to collect his thoughts as he looked down at the kitten Ed had brought as he fed it another bowl of milk that the very kitten-bearer seemed determined to glare at. The thing kept drinking and drinking and he vaguely wondered if it had ever eaten anything.

"You are seriously one gluttonous exc-"

Gluttony. As the word echoed through Al's mind, he could barely make out the outline of a strange person. He had never really realized it before, but it was true, a faint whisper of a memory. He quickly pushed past his brother to grab a pencil and some paper, writing down the word and what he could make out in his mind.

This had to be a part of his past. If he knew about his past he could figure out if he was really Al. Was it wrong to wish that he was his past-self? To be so envious of yours-

Envy. Al felt a faint ringing noise in his mind as the word echoed through his thoughts, leaving the imprint of another person. He scrambled to copy down the faint outline again, feeling more confused by the second.

He had never gotten so much of his past at once, and especially such odd parts. Usually it was the occassional memory of running through the grass with Winry or playing with a dog, never something so odd as people he had never met who went by names of...the deadly sins? Al excitedly began to go through all of the sins he could think of, ending up with vague outlines of six odd people.

Gluttony, Envy, Greed, Lust, Wrath, Pride...Sloth!

Alphonse dropped the pencil quickly as grief and regret washed over him completely. He felt as if he would suffocate from the sorrow around him, but he didn't know why. Sloth made him feel like curling up and crying about something, but what something was, Al did not know. He painfully drew the outline of the person, though the edges were sharper than they should've been.

Ed seemed to notice the change in his brother and curiously tried to see over his brother's shoulder only to stiffen when he saw what Al had written down. Al noticed the change and quickly turned to his brother.

"Wha-" Before Al could even finish his sentence, Ed had run out the door.

"Well. That's not suspicious," Al announced to the room in general before turning into his room for some well deserved rest.


Ed ran. Again.

It was actually a stupid thing to do, anyone would be more than happy to tell Ed that running madly out of his brother's house did not make said brother magically forget a part of his past that he had just uncovered. Ed too had a small voice in his mind that sounded unnervingly similar to Al's that was more than happy to tell Ed how stupid this was.

It was not one of Ed's most thought out plans. And Ed's most thought out plans often only involved thinking about how his actions would affect his ability to procure something to eat. That being said, Ed had not thought about this. At all. And the relatively sane part of Ed's mind was more than happy to point this out.

Ed would be much better of going back to his brother's apartment and explaining everything so that Al would undesrtand everything from a more personal level, not just what he could dig up in the library would tell him. The two of them could even possibly bond over the experience. Edward Elric, however, rarely listened to the practical voice in his head, and as a result often ended up in situations such as his current.

Running madly down the street.

Ed stopped running for a moment as confusion settled in.

He knew Central, more so than he would like to, in fact.

He knew Central, but he did not know where Riza's house was from here.

"Oh...Shit."

Never let it be said that Edward Elric is about as eloquent as a four year old.

Four year olds can throw quite the tantrum and don't like being made fun of.


"You kissed him?"

Riza made two cups of coffee and came back to Roy at the table, patiently awaiting his undoubtedly stupid answer. She prayed that he hadn't done what she thought he had. Ed could fall in love with Roy, he might've already done so to some level, but Ed wouldn't think like any woman Roy had ever dated.

He wouldn't think it was charming that Roy had kissed him unexpectedly.

He would think it was weird of Roy to kiss him unexpectedly.

He wouldn't feel drawn to Roy's seemingly aloof manner after the kiss.

He would become annoyingly aloof for the next few days.

He wouldn't go home and write in his diary about how the famous flame alchemist had kissed him on the lips and then left him with butterflies in his stomach.

He would come back and write in his journal about how the annoying bastard had kissed him and now his stomach felt gross.

He wouldn't talk with friends about how he could win over the flame's heart.

He would plot revenge on Roy for "trying to embarass him."

Riza sighed and turned to Roy, who currently wore the expression of a satisfied cat until her tone of voice settled in.

"Is that somehow harmful?" He asked, obviously confused about how she was reacting to this.

"Sir, you know Edward," she replied simply, watching as Roy thought about the repurcussions of his actions. He put his head in his hands and she could barely hear him when he softly murmured into his hands.

"Oh...Shit."

Being in love can make you drop all the masks you put up as armor against the world.

It can make Roy Mustang not care that at the moment he was just about as eloquent as Edward Elric.

"Sir, go home, and get to work on time tomorrow," Hawkeye said calmly, collecting the coffee cups and seeing Roy out the door.

After Roy was gone, Riza was about to go to bed when she realized that Ed hadn't come back yet. Roy had said he was going to see his brother, but it was late, and Al wouldn't have let Ed stay to this hour. Alphonse would have sent Ed home at a reasonable time to avoid waking Riza, but it was well past midnight and the Elric had yet to return.

Riza locked the door and went to bed with a sigh. Even if Ed did come back, a locked door wouldn't be a problem for him.


Roy walked into his room in a dreamlike fashion as he tried to assess the damage he had done tonight. Roy unbuttoned his shirt with trouble as he got ready to try to sleep, but gave up halfway and collapsed on his bed with his shoes still on. Roy ran hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling, wondering how much Ed would hate him the next day.

Riza was right. He shouldn't have kissed Ed. Ed didn't like Roy that much yet. Ed didn't love Roy like Roy loved him.

...Ed didn't know Roy loved him.

Roy let out an angry sigh and turned onto his side so he could look at his door. Even in the dark, he knew where every line on the door was, every imperfection in the wood. In his more pathetic times, Roy had spent hours in the middle of the day staring at the door as he longed for Ed to come back.

Roy slowly sat up, feeling less desperate about the situation with Ed than before. Sure, he had kissed Ed. Ed would probably be mad and confused. Ed would probably throw things; But all that meant was that there was an Ed to be mad and throw things. There was an Ed to kiss and make confused.

Ed was there.

Roy fell back down onto the bed, feeling better as he did so. He might've made a little mess with the situation, but he had time to clean up the mess. The mess wasn't going anywhere. Things wouldn't be easy for Roy, but Ed was back, and that was all that mattered. Roy closed his eyes and began to make plans for winning Ed over. Without realizing it, his trademark smirk was in place as he considered the possibilities.

This was the first night in the longest time that Roy could fall asleep knowing that Edward Elric was alive and safe in Central...

Where he belonged.

Roy's smirk was replaced by a soft smile as he dozed off into a peaceful, nightmare-free sleep.


Havoc drove to pick up Roy for work in a good mood. Hawkeye and Roy had left early the day before for some reason of their own and taken Alphonse with them. An office without Hawkeye or Alphonse meant no work. An office without Roy meant no competition for women.

Not that women sat around in their office all that often.

Hawkeye had told everyone to stay at the office and finish work, but no one did. The only one in favor of listening to Hawkeye had been Fuery, and even he had been tempted to the slacker side with promises of a day off. Everyone had left the office, and they would probably pay for it if Hawkeye was back tomorrow, but today Havoc had been rewarded with an entire day off, and he was happy.

Havoc considered how upset Hawkeye would be today after she realized that no work had been finished after she left when he saw someone sitting on the side of the road, looking like someone who was...sad enough to be sitting on the side of the road. Upon seeing long, golden hair, Havoc felt that he might just get a date today and quickly resolved to stop and help the poor girl.

As he got the girl's attention, she looked up and he was met two golden eyes. Havoc blinked, expecting to see the figure in front of him change back into the girl he had been imagining before, but it was useless. No matter how many times he blinked, Havoc was left with the same truth.

"Boss?"

Havoc took a hesitant step backwards as he tried to make sense of the situation. He wasn't confused about Ed being alive; Havoc could take these things in stride. The only problem Havoc had with the current situation was that Edward Elric, the famed fullmetal alchemist, was currently sitting on the side of the road. He wasn't with his brother, or Hawkeye, or even Roy for that matter.

Ed was alone, and Havoc was the first one to find him. Havoc allowed a smile to slowly pass over his face as he realized that despite how much work it might be to take Ed in for a while, the look of shock on Mustang's face would be worth it. Everyone knew that Mustang was breaking down, and only a fool wouldn't see that it had all started after Ed left. Havoc figured that Roy, deep down, enjoyed the blonde's company.

And Havoc had found Ed first.

"Boss, you want a ride?"


You know, I saw those isins that have ipods, and I realized that even when you can't see their faces, the sins look pretty weird.