A/N: Thanks, as always, to my amazing reviewers/readers! You guys are truly amazing, and I treasure every one of you. I hope you enjoy the update (although, it's a little darker than I meant it to be).
I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, or any of its characters.
The Circles We Spin
When Ed sat still and really thought about it, he realized just how much his life came down to circles. He couldn't always see it, but they invaded his very existence, interlocking like shackles. The circles formed a tight and binding chain, the most repetitive links most obviously made up of the transmutation symbols he created every time he clapped his hands. But while these may have been the most frequent, there were other links in the chain, other circles that had nothing to do with alchemy at all.
There was the constant loop of love and affection between him and his brother. That link in the chain was by far the most durable, and even though it showed some tarnish, Ed trusted it to never break.
The steps that he and Mustang danced around each other, steps formed from subtle insults and smirks and a total understanding, formed a circle as well, a circle far shakier than the one he shared with Al. The metal it was made of grew stronger every time Mustang went out of his way to help the Elrics, but it was still so very fragile.
The endless loop of nightmares in Ed's mind also made a circle, one stained black with grime and guilt. It dangled on the end of Ed's chain, and he wanted nothing more than to sever it from the shackle completely. But he needed Al human for that to happen, so for the time being, it stayed where it was, dirty and dark and smelling faintly of his mother's perfume.
There was only one link on Edward's chain that burned bright red, deviating from the silver, and sometimes black, color scheme. It was a circle that Ed should have severed a long time ago. It was far too hot, and forged of too many troublesome emotions. But every time Ed tried to snap the link, he found himself sucked back into the circle, where the fire burned brighter than before.
Some circles needed two people to step back in order to break the spin.
When Ed was fourteen, before he really understood what the circle was, and what it meant in relation to his chain, he put a fist in a man's face, because he caught him talking to Winry on the street while Ed ducked inside a store to complete a quick errand. Winry was visiting from Resimbool, and when Ed saw the man chatting her up, something inside of him snapped. The man wasn't doing anything wrong, not in the 'howdy-hey, your hand is on my friend's butt' sort of way. But something he said brought a soft flush to Winry's face, pinkening her cheeks and bringing a bright sparkle to her blue eyes. And as soon as Ed saw such a sweet, yielding expression on Winry's face, he reacted without bothering to run the action by his brain first. Before he was even aware of moving, he was making a mess of the man's face with his fist.
His automail fist.
Later, when Ed stood shame-faced in front of Mustang, scuffing the carpet with a guilty foot, the Colonel informed him that the man wouldn't be pressing charges, mostly because Ed had frightened the ever loving shit out of him. While Ed blushed and sputtered and desperately searched for some sort of explanation for his behavior, Mustang sighed and rested his chin on his folded fingers.
"Listen, Fullmetal," he said quietly. "I…understand. Why you're judgment may not be as sound around Miss Rockbell."
Ed's face went as red as brick, and his eyes filled with embarrassment, and possibly a little fear.
"Bastard, you don't know anything!"
Mustang didn't answer with words. But the arch of his eyebrow did shatter several standing records, and when he used said appendage to redirect Ed's attention, the teenager had to oblige. He followed the line of Mustang's gaze, until he caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Hawkeye, hovering in the outer office, her arms full of paperwork. For a moment, the two men watched, taking in the almost serene expression on her face, and the graceful curl of her fingers around the pen she cradled.
When Edward turned back around, he saw the answer he'd been seeking in Mustang's eyes.
Maybe…maybe the Colonel understood after all.
That night, while he and Winry screamed their throats raw at each other, Ed watched the flush of rage fill her face, and felt the red link on his chain grow warm. He recognized it now; the reason for his reaction.
Winry shouldn't blush for anyone but him. Even if the only color he could bring to her face was inspired by anger, it was still for him, and so it was enough.
It should have been sweet, and soft, this discovery. But the only thing that this new circle brought was pain, to both of them.
Winry could never be number one in his life, not ever, because that spot would always belong to Alphonse. And Ed knew it.
And so did she.
But their specific link in the chain burned bright red for a reason. When metal melts, it runs together. And neither of them knew how to un-fuse themselves from the new shape they'd hardened into.
Although, that's not to say that they didn't try.
When Scar demolished Ed's arm, the teenager gripped the phone in his sweaty fist for at least fifteen minutes while he wrestled with his conscience. He knew that Central was full of automail mechanics. Any one of them could have fixed his arm, and without any of the messy emotional involvement that the blonde ultimately embodied. Bringing Winry from Resimbool was unnecessary, and only served to strengthen the bond that he knew he should have been trying to sever.
He called her anyway, and cursed himself as a selfish bastard.
When they were fifteen, Ed started writing in his letters to Winry about all the different girls he met on his travels. Beautiful and exotic females that Ed completely fabricated, in one of his more noble attempts to push the girl away.
One night, Winry boarded the overnight train to Central, and dropped by Edward's dormitory, under the pretense of a 'Surprise Automail Check-Up'. She spent the next week at his side, stuck to him like glue, and glaring daggers at any girl that so much as glanced at him.
On and on.
They hurt each other on purpose, because they could. Ed with dismissive gestures and careless words, and Winry with hot insults and a hard wrench. They burrowed into each other's skin with metaphorical claws, desperately trying to draw blood, wishing it would push the other away while secretly hoping that they'd leave scars like stamps of ownership.
On and on.
Ed got used to the sight of Winry's tears. To his disgust, he found that they didn't bother him anymore, because they were for him, after all. Winry's tears were a signal, a sign, that she still felt, felt something, for the older Elric. Even if that something was mostly anger and despair.
Although, the rage was better, it burned cleaner, than the huge, hopeless ball of caring that stretched underneath. The caring hurt so much more than the hate sometimes, because it never went away. It just existed, always constant and never changing, a helpless jumble of want and need and no, I don't mean it, stay with me, please.
Once, after a particularly vicious cycle, Winry made an honest attempt to walk out, to walk away for good. Ed stood there, his automail cold, colder than normal against his skin, and tried to pretend that the sight of her retreating back didn't fill with him with panic.
It's better. It's good this way. Let her go. She deserves more than this; she's worth more than you can give her.
But the circle they'd formed couldn't be denied. They'd spent too much time strengthening it with false starts and failed attempts at escape.
Don't. Don't do it. Let her go. Why can't you let her go?
Ed caught her wrist in his automail fingers.
"Winry. Wait. Don't leave. I need you."
Bastard. Cold, cruel, sadistic bastard.
Later, after Winry didn't leave, Ed felt her hot tears strike his bare back as she made unnecessary adjustments to his arm.
"It's never going to end, is it," she whispered, but Ed knew that she wasn't talking to him. "You won't let me go, and I can't walk away. " For a moment her hand rested, a living flame on his shoulder blades. "Why can't we make this stop?"
Ed heard the despair in her voice, and shut his eyes against his own sense of helplessness. But he didn't move to cover his automail, to hide the thing that tied them together.
Once, towards the end of everything, Ed tried to explain it to his most important person.
"It's not that we want to hurt each other," he said softly, while a silent Al hung on his every word. "But we'll do it, we'll both do it, if it means keeping us together. But it still doesn't work. Because it's not enough. She should be the most important thing to me, and we both know it, but she's not, and that's where the hurt is. The center of the circle."
Once, after returning to Resimbool exhausted and exquisitely battered once again, Winry tried to clarify it to her concerned grandmother.
"We like it, I guess," she said, with a small, weary smile. "In a way. The pain. It's ours, just ours, and that makes it special, and sweet. It's like we'd rather share something like that, than have nothing at all. And those are our only two options. Believe me-we've tried everything else."
And so it went.
They fought, tooth and nail, against what was meant, and only succeeded in struggling closer to each other. It was the only link in Ed's chain that made him dizzy when he looked at it. But they couldn't break the circle; they couldn't stop caring.
They could only spin.
With their eyes shut, and their arms out.
And spin.
Knowing that eventually, they'll fall.
...
A/N: Whoooooooa, angst. Never again shall I listen to 'Love the Way You Lie' by Eminem while I write. That's what this chapter was inspired by, in case anyone picked up on it while reading. I don't actually believe that Ed and Winry's relationship is this dark, but there were definite parallels in the song, so I wrote them out in their most extreme form. Hopefully, I didn't frighten any of you away! Happy Reading!