A/N: I know I haven't updated in forever. And I apologize for that. So, here's a brand, spanking new chapter! I hope that people are still reading this. Anyway, thank you everyone that has left a review so far! It means a lot, and I'm sorry for not replying to all of them. So, please enjoy and let me know what you think!

LLLLLLLLLL (Ed POV)

This is great. I mean, I really feel good. And I know I probably shouldn't, because deep down I really do hate Envy. But at the same time it feels good to be his friend.

Ever since Envy and I had started talking like normal people, I had been a little happier. It's hard for me to make new friends, so is it so wrong of me to be happy? I guess it must have been pretty weird for everyone I knew so see me this happy, since I haven't been in quite a long time. But I hope everyone likes me like this. I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain this hidden feeling of dread.

Currently, I was walking down the hall. It was kind of a maze from the Science room to the lunch room, if I took the long way. Which I did quite often. I like walking around the school by myself; it gives me a lot of time to think. Thinking is good, right? I mean, I don't get a whole lot of time to myself at home, so this is kind of my only time.

I usually eat lunch with Roy and Russell, but neither of them had this lunch today. I knew Envy did, so I thought that I'd eat with him. It was a weird feeling, to be happy to be eating with him. I laughed to myself a little as I remembered on the first day of school he tripped me. Thinking back it was funny. At the moment it wasn't, but now it is.

I worked my way into the Commons as the crowds of people began to thicken. Envy doesn't normally eat inside the Commons since it's so loud. Sometimes it's at the tables just outside the Commons. It's kind of weird that I know this, but that's where I usually eat with Roy and Russell, so I don't feel as weird and creepy. It takes everything in me not to push someone as I make my way through the giant crowd. For some reason, everyone decides to crowd right around the middle of the room, right where everyone needs to go. And that's why I hate people.

After getting through everyone, I finally made it to the doors. I quickly pushed them open and shoved myself outside. I really am quite claustrophobic. And I hate large crowds of people. My two worst fears all wrapped in one. Yay me.

I saw Envy right away. His green spiky hair is really hard to miss. It's even spikier when it's in that pony tail that he always does. He was sitting right in the middle of all the tables. It was surprising. I remember once, a long time ago, I asked him why he did that. He was it was so he could watching everyone. That wasn't very reassuring at the time, but it's kind of funny now. Not really, but I digress.

Envy's back was turned towards me and he was hunched over slightly. That was kind of weird, considering he was paranoid and wants to see everything around him. I took this as a perfect chance to scare the crap out of him.

Sneakily and quietly, I walked up behind him. Once I was right behind him, I took in a deep breath of air and raised my arms to grab him and scream in alarm. It'd probably piss him off, but it'd be so worth the look of shock.

"Hey Ed."

I let out my chest full of air and let my arms fall to the side. I felt disappointed knowing that I could never really sneak up on Envy. Somehow, he always knows I'm there…

I threw my backpack on the table and sat down in the seat across from him. Once situated, I stole a glance at Envy. There was an assortment of books on the table; I'm guessing text books, and some notebooks. It's like Envy just dumped his whole backpack on the table. He was currently scribbling away in one that looked way more beat up than the others. I scooted forward a little bit, not being very sneaky at trying to look at what he was writing. Almost instantly, Envy slammed the notebook shut and moved it far away from me. I slumped back against the seat, looking Envy right in the eye. Or, at least, where I thought his eyes where. He's being stupid again and covering his eyes with his hair. It doesn't cover his blush, though, and it's kind of funny that he's embarrassed.

"Watcha writing there?" I ask in my totally arrogant way. The same way that pisses him off. It's great to be his friend, because then I can make him angry and he doesn't hit back. Usually. He let out this weird little half-laugh thing and looked away from me.

"Why do you care?" Envy rhetorically asked in his joking way. I saw the hint of a smile as he looked up a little, but still didn't make eye contact with me. He looked fucking crazy and like he was in his own little world. But, then again, Envy looked like that half of the time anyway. I laughed a little bit at the thought.

"What're you laughing at?" Envy asked in a muffled, embarrassed voice. It just made me laugh a little bit more.

"Nothing… you just…- nothing, Envy." I stuttered out between my laughter. Why was this so funny? I never really laugh this hard. Never. Envy let out a nervous laugh as he leaned forward and brushed the hair out of his eyes. I noticed that he was wearing his glasses again, and for some reason it just made me laughed even more.

"Tell me~!" Envy whined with a laugh. I calmed my own laughter down after about a minute or so, wiping away the few tears around my eyes.

"It's just… you always seem like you're in your own world or you're not fully there or something. And it's just funny because you really don't seem to care if people notice it." I said and ending with another small laugh. Envy drew back in his seat a little bit and stared at the table. A small, almost sad smile was etched on his face, but it went away just as fast as it came.

"Whatever, fuck what people think. Hey, I was thinking that you should come over after school." Envy suddenly said out of the blue. I could tell the second he said this he wasn't originally planning it because his face went a light shade of pink. I moved my eyes off to the side in mock thought. It didn't sound like a bad idea, slightly awkward, but I'm not sure how something can sound awkward.

"Sure, I guess. I've never been over before, have I?" I wondered out loud. Envy cleared his hair from his face completely, a slight smile on his face.

"No, now that I think of it…" Envy mumbled, but it sounded slightly forced. I glanced at him for a second before stretching my arms behind my back and letting out a small sigh. I couldn't help but smile, today just seemed like too good of a day.

"Well, I'll meet you in the parking lot after school!" I exclaimed, suddenly jumping up from my seat. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I knew that the bell was going to be ringing soon. And I have way too much energy to focus in class. Might as well run some of it off beforehand. Envy just stared at me for a second, and then nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah, see you there…" He mumbled. I barely heard him as I ran away.

000

I'm not totally sure if I like Envy's house or not.

I met him after school in the parking lot, like we had planned. It was a relatively short and quiet ride back to his house. The only noise made was his car and the music coming from his stereo. We went out in a direction I hardly went, since no one I know lived out there and I never took the ferry to Seattle from that direction. It was scary at first, since the road to his house looked abandoned and was in the middle of the woods.

Indoors was overpowered by the smell of coffee and old. It was a weird mixture, and I made sure to stay close to Envy. It didn't seem like anyone was home until Envy screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Anyone home?" Envy screamed. You could hear it echo in both directions of the house. We stood between the two stair cases. I glanced back and forth, half expecting some demon to appear out of nowhere or a ghost to scream back.

"I'm up here, Envy!" Someone called from the stair case off to the right. Envy scowled a little bit. The voice sounded sort of familiar to me, but I didn't dwell on it. Envy quickly moved towards and up the stairs, leaving me behind. I ran after him because, damn, this house is creepy.

Once up the stairs, I realized that I was in their kitchen/dining room area. This house was a lot bigger than it originally looked from the outside. As I glanced around the room, I realized that Lust was standing behind their island counter thingy. She didn't look too terribly happy as she took a long drink of something from her glass… that happened to be a glass jar. It looked like one of those old fashioned jam jars. It truly blew me away.

Lust looked up from whatever she was doing, glanced at Envy, and then locked her eyes on me. It took a moment for her to realize she was staring at me. Her mouth went slack and her eyes widened just a little. I felt uncomfortable in her gaze and looked over at Envy, hoping that he would help me out. Instead, the idiot covered his face with his hair again. He really needs to stop doing that. I shifted my feet, looking anywhere but Lust. A small, nervous laugh escaped me.

"Hey…" My voice trailed. It took everything in me to not have it crack. I heard Lust click her tongue.

"So, is this like, official or something?"

The second Lust said that Envy's head snapped up, his hair brushing away from his face. There was a bright red blush that I'm slowly getting used to. My eyes darted between the two of them, trying to decide which was scarier: Envy's angry face or Lust's satisfied smile.

"Lust- "

"Calm down, palm tree. I was only asking if you guys were really friends or not." Lust replied in her slow voice. I'm not exactly sure how you would describe her voice other than "slow", but whatever. Envy's blush went away for a fraction of a second, but then came back at full blast.

"C'mon, Ed, let's go upstairs." Envy mumbled as he quickly walked past me, grabbing my arm in the process. In a whirl wind of movement, Envy and I skipped down the stairs and ran up the other flight of stairs. Before I could blink or even say anything, I was standing in Envy's bedroom, Envy slamming the door behind him.

At this point, I turned and looked at him. His face was still flushed, but as bad as before. His bangs were covering his eyes again. I'm starting to get used to seeing Envy's hair more than his actual face. I wish he wouldn't hide behind it so often. I like seeing his face.

"Sorry about Lust, she likes poking her stupid nose in things." Envy said, snapping me out of my thoughts. He sounded like he was out of breath or something. Envy was breathing much too heavy for just walking up the stairs. I raised an eyebrow, smirking a bit.

"You ok there?" I asked with a small laugh. Envy's face just got redder – I know, I thought it was physically impossible already – as he moved away from the bedroom door.

"I-I'm fine." Envy shot back. It didn't sound persuasive with that stutter, but I let it slide. There were a few minutes of awkward silence, Envy staring at me and me staring back at him. Just as Envy opened his mouth, probably to say something that would make this situation a whole lot more awkward, my phone in my pocket vibrated loudly and quite violently. I let out a yelp, not completely sure what was going on. I dug my hand into my pocket as I noticed Envy rolling his eyes. I glanced at the screen. It read:

"CALL FROM: WINRY R."

"Hello?" I cautiously said into the phone. Winry only ever calls me when it's something really important or school related. My panic immediately went sky high.

"Where the hell are you?" I tore the phone away from my face for a second. God she can scream really loud. Envy looked at me, clearing the hair away from his face and raising an eyebrow. I brought the phone back to my face.

"Nice to hear from you, too, Winry."

"Where are you?" She screamed again. Ok, now she was just really annoying me.

"I'm at a friend's house. Why are you screaming at me?" I mumbled into the phone. I heard Winry give out a frustrated sigh on the other line.

"Did you tell Al where you were going?" Winry calmly but scarily said. I'm not quite sure how someone can do that, but she does it all the time.

"What-?" I started to say, but then I stopped and thought about it. Did I tell Al I was coming to Envy's? I ransacked through me brain, remembering everything from today, every single last detail. I couldn't remember even mentioning coming over to Al. Shit.

"You need to come home. Now. Al has been crying his eyes out for almost an hour straight and poor Wrath has been trying to comfort him. Al won't even let me near him. You better be home in the next ten minutes or I swear to god-!"

I hung up before Winry could finish. Panic and worry was coursing through me. I shoved the phone back in my pocket, glancing around the room and trying to remember where I was. For a minute, I forgot I was at Envy's house. It was a strange feeling.

"Everything alright?" Envy asked, leaning forward a little bit as he did so. It was right then I noticed just how skinny my friend was. When he leaned towards me his shirt sunk down in a "u". I could see his collarbone sticking out at a sickening angle. My eyes closed, trying to get rid of my panicking thoughts.

"I need to get home, like right now."

"But you just got here."

I know that Envy and I are friends. I know that I should be able to tell him what was really going on right now. But, with Al's mental state he's going to be in when I see him and my thoughts all over the floor, I couldn't bring myself to articulate it. I sighed, trying to get my thoughts back together. I glanced at Envy, but then looked away. He looked kind of hurt, like he was worried he did something wrong. I don't want him to think that.

"I know, but Al's having a break down and I need to be there." That was all I could say. Anything more would turn it into an hour long story. And I need to be home in like eight minutes. Envy furrowed his eyebrows together, just a little bit. For a minute I thought he was going to say "no" until he nodded his head.

"Well, what're we waiting for?"

000

Al wasn't as bad as I thought he was going to be.

Envy drove at lightning speed. I thought that he drove fast on a regular basis, but this was pushing it. Normally cops don't pull you over for doing five over, but Envy was doing fifteen over. Thank god this was the one day that all the cops decided to not be around.

Envy slammed on the brakes in front of my house. I looked out the window for a brief second before throwing the door open and running around it and up my driveway. For some reason that I'll probably never know, Winry, Wrath, and Al were all sitting out on our poor excuse for a porch. Winry turned and glared at me when she heard my foot steps behind her. I vaguely heard the sounds of Envy getting out of his car, but I really didn't care about that right now.

The sight nearly killed me on the spot. Al was sitting on the first step, hunched over across his knees pulled tightly to his chest. He was sobbing. I could probably hear his muffled cries from a mile away. Wrath was sitting next to him. It looked like the poor boy just wanted to give Al a hug or comfort him or something.

"See, Al, he's right here." Wrath soothingly said to Al. I practically threw myself to the ground as I knelt in front of my little brother, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him a little bit.

"Alphonse, I'm right here, ok? I'm alright. Look at me, Al, I'm fine, see?" I said in a flurry. I was aware of Envy standing next to me; I could see his black and green Converse in the corner of my eye. Al wiped his nose on the back of his hand, looking up from his knees. It took him a moment to realize that it was me sitting in front of him. I offered him a small, sad smile. He just frowned in response.

"Where were you?" Al mumbled in between his tears. It sounded frail and not like himself. Almost like Al had gone back to being five, not a high schooler. I offered him another smile, loosening my grip on him just a little bit.

"I'm sorry Al. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I wouldn't be home. I promise I'll never do it again." I softly said. And with that promise said and done, Al leaned forward and captured me in the tightest hug I'll probably ever have. It took me by surprise, but I guess that it should have been expected.

I glanced up at Wrath, who just looked happy that Al was going to be ok. I then looked over at Envy. He looked… I don't know. It was an expression that I've never seen before in my life. He looked sad and embarrassed and flustered. I'm not exactly sure how to describe such a look. It, in turn, made me feel embarrassed.

This was a great way to end the day.

LLLLLLLLLL

Oh my god, I'm so sorry that this took so long! Summer was so busy and with school starting it got even busier. But, instead of writing a paper for AP Lang, I wrote this for you guys! Thank you so much everyone that has left a review and is still reading it! Thank you so much!