Go me! Here we are, another little bitlet. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, and to everyone who reads, even if they don't review. As long it gets read, it doesn't matter. (Though I certainly appreciate your opinion!)

Reading and Such Skills

"En, can you get the biochemical book from the third shelf? The one on chimera deconstruction. Thanks." Ed didn't' look up, running his finger over the text in front of him, left hand making notes quickly while he flipped through the pages.

Shuffling from the bed was barely noticed but the yank on his braid was. "Ow!"

"Get your own crap. I'm not your servant." Pale skin gleamed, shining from the lotion the brunette had been playing with. "When are we going for supper?"

A small frown and the blond stood, nudging his chair back to hit the taller man. "Once I finish. If you'd help a little, it'd be done faster, and I could take you to eat." Busy fingers undid his braid and tugged through, even when he batted at them. "I just don't see why you don't want to help, you know about this stuff too."

"Maybe because it's boring as fuck? Come on, take me out!" He trailed his shorter lover over to grab the requested book, sectioning thick hair and making two fat little braids.

The frown wasn't as effective this time, not that it had been the first time. "No, not until I'm done. You can make something if you're that hungry." The blond settled back into his chair and took up the book again, continuing his notes.

"Fine. I'm going home." Gold flashed up to him while he opened the window and started to shimmy out.

"En, come on. I have to work! So I CAN take you places. Just another half hour, ok? I promise, then we'll go out. Where do you want to go?" The slim form paused, then slid back in, watching him with violet eyes.

"Half an hour. I don't care, somewhere that's not here."

Ed grinned and waved his lover over. "Ok, we'll decide on the way." He leaned up for a quick kiss. "Can you please get the Xingian translation on organ regeneration? It's should be on the second shelf." A sigh and dark hair hung in his face; playful bursts of air lifted it to tickle his nose. "Please?"

The slim body moved away from him and wandered over to play with the books. The alchemist returned to his notes and didn't notice time passing until he finished and went to start the translation; not there. "Envy?" A quick look around showed the brunette flipping through various books, running his fingers over the scrawled writing. The homunculus didn't look up, too busy glaring at the frustrating words. The blond walked over to stand behind him and lean down. "What are you doing?"

As startled jump and Ed had to lean back to avoid the foot that came up by reflex. "What the fuck, Pipsqueak?"

"Quit calling me that! And it's been a while, couldn't you find it?" He started to put books back on the shelves, checking for the one he wanted while he went. "They're pretty interesting, aren't they?" A bit of red bloomed in the pale cheeks but he didn't notice. "These are all simple ones though, I'll take you to the library later if you want, you can look at some more advanced ones. Damn it, where is that book? I know it was here."

Envy shot a look to the book in his lap and pushed it over quietly. "Oh, thank you. Why didn't you bring it over? I would have lent it to you after I'm done with that section." Slender shoulders shrugged and he finally actually looked at his lover. "Envy, is something wrong?"

"No. Let's go eat." Gold narrowed but the blond didn't argue. At the restaurant Envy kicked him under the table, her usual sign that she wanted Ed to order for her.

"Not today. You never like what I get you anyways, so pick something for yourself." Green glared at him and he looked away, staring at the street and watching the cars go by.

"Look you little pain in the ass, order me something." The high ponytail shook quickly and gears shifted abruptly. "Won't you choose for me?" Big eyes batted and full lips pouted adorably.

"No, I won't. You choose something from the menu. You're perfectly capable." They sat in silence while the redhead scanned the menu slowly, eyes narrowed in concentration and fingers running over each word. Nearly twenty minutes and Ed finally reached across and took it. "En. You can't read, can you?"

"I can too! I read just fine, I'm not stupid!" Red blossomed in her cheeks and she didn't look at him, staring at the table cloth.

The blond reached to capture small hands, holding them in his. "No one said that. It's not a big deal. I kinda wish you'd said something though, I could teach you."

"Fuck you!" Small hands slammed his to the table, tipping it dangerously. Water sloshed over Ed's hands as he tried to keep the little table on its legs. "I don't need your pity! I'm not stupid!"

"I didn't say that! Sit down, people are staring." Napkins corralled the spill into the middle of the table while a waiter scooted over to help; the alchemist found it strangely ironic that he was apologizing for someone else's behavior after years of letting others do the same for his. "En, calm down, please. Can we just eat? We can talk about it later." A furious glare and he amended his statement. "Or we won't, ok? Come on, let's order."

The efficient young man whipped out a pencil and paper and jotted their order down. They sat quietly, Envy fiddling with the hem of her skirt and shredding a napkin in her lap. "En, don't be mad. I wasn't picking on you."

"I told you, I know how." She squeezed her hands tightly. "A bit. Enough to get by."

Her lover sighed and reached a hand over to lay on the table, palm up. "Envy, it's not a big deal. If no one taught you, it's pretty damn hard to learn; it can be hard to learn in the first place. Mom taught Al and me; we spent hours sitting at the table copying letters." Soft skin pressed to his and he closed tanned fingers gently around the smaller ones. "How about we stop at the library and pick a few out? We can read them together, take turns reading out loud." An encouraging smile and he moved his chair around to sit beside her; the menu was read quietly, a metal finger tip tracing the words as he went.

The redhead dragged her heels all the way to the main library, suddenly very interested in window shopping and trying on different dresses. Ed indulged her, letting her waste as much time as she wanted; the library was open until nine o'clock and it was just past two. Lots of time. They finally wandered in and e tugged her over to the fiction area, particularly the horror section, something he thought might be of interest.

Or not. A few covers were examined and he read the backs without gaining a flicker of interest. A mystery had potential, for him if nothing else, and the girl wandered, trailing her fingers over a variety of books. Strangely, she settled in the romance section. "Oi, this one."

The paperback was taken and held at arm's length. "Envy, I don't think you'll like this one." A half naked man, built to make Armstrong jealous, was leaning over a slim woman with big breasts and almost no clothes who was pressed to a wall, hair tumbling around her. "Why would you pick this?"

"You said pick something I'm interested in. That one will have sex in it, right? I like sex." She started skimming the books, picking the ones with the least amount of clothing on the cover. Ed refused to hold them, crossing his arms and staring resolutely at the wall.

"I'm not getting those. They're stupid with no plot or surprises. It's a bunch of romantic crap interspersed with the odd sex scene." He didn't look down until a hard finger stabbed him in the chest. "Ow!"

Now that she had his attention, she grinned, a wide, frightening look. "Get these for me or I will cause a scene that you will never live down. You won't be able to walk down the street without everyone knowing exactly who you are; the guy who wouldn't even carry his girlfriend's books for her." He snorted at her and a slim brow rose. "You don't think I will?"

He smirked down at her. "I don't care if you do. I've embarrassed myself in every part of this country, and a few places outside of it, and everyone stares anyways. Of course, if you do throw that fit, then everyone will know you were too much of a baby to carry your own books, now won't they?" Little points appeared at the edges of her grin and he leaned down, brushing his lips over hers. "However, in the interest of saving my eardrums, I will get two for you. If we get two for me and we'll switch off. Deal?"

A quick bounce on little feet and pink lips pressed to his firmly. "Deal." The small stack she'd gathered was spread out and deliberated over until two were chosen and the rest put back; a bit haphazardly but they were on the shelf at least.

A librarian called to them as they started to the desk. "Excuse me, miss?" Envy promptly took the excuse to not carry her books and handed them off, bouncing over to see what she wanted. Nodding and low discussion while Ed tapped his foot and checked the time.

"Really? Where?" Blond hair whipped around to see his redhead bouncing on her toes and getting directions. She whirled by him, grabbing his flesh arm and dragging him behind her to the very back, through a short maze of stacks to a small shelf, well hidden and discrete. "Look!"

Amber widened and red rushed to his cheeks. "What the hell? How did you find this?" She looked at him like he was an idiot and his ears burned. "Why are we back here?"

"I want these." She was already pulling them off the shelf and rummaging around, looking for the perfect choice.

"No. No way, I am not getting you these." He would die of humiliation if he had to take those up the front. It had been bad enough when Havoc pushed those magazines on him last year, never mind actually getting something like this from the public library. "We aren't practicing reading with porn."

"It's not porn, the girl said it was erotica. She thought I might like them when she heard me talking about sex. See, this one looks fun." Two blonds were kissing on the front, twins from the look of it; Ed's face got redder and he dropped the books he'd been carrying. "Or this one." He closed his eyes fast enough to avoid looking and covered tem with his hands just to be sure.

"Envy, En, no, come on, please no. Anything else, you can have as many of those stupid romances as you want, just not this." Faint humming and she kept looking. "What do you want?"

"I want one of these. Just one." No, no, not the eyes, and the pretty pout and her arms pressed together in a pleading gesture, pushing her breasts up, enhancing the cleavage. Gold crossed and he fought to look away, hands flexing and she giggled; one more point for Envy.

"Fine. One. But you put one of the others back." Long hair flopped over his shoulder when he sighed and gathered the dropped novels.

Apparently 'one' to Envy meant one of each genre, of which there were apparently a great many. They ended up with eight books, including Ed's two. 'Ok, I can do this. It's Carol today, it'll be fine.' Carol was nearly eighty and had been a librarian for over sixty years; she's seen everything twice and wouldn't even blink.

Everything was fine until Jean and Cain walked in; they spotted him immediately, of course, and started over to chat. A shove set Envy in front of them and the catty smirk he got over a shoulder almost had him thinking she would refuse to distract them; she didn't, and looked to be flirting nicely with the two men.

"Damn. Carol, do you have a bag or something? Anything?" A small bag was produced from behind the desk and the books just fit. "Thanks. What do I owe you?"

Cool blue eyes assessed him from under grey hair. "Five dollars."

"Five?" A bit of squeak in his voice made him lower it to a whisper. "That's outrageous." He still dug around and handed it over and got a receipt in return.

The old woman just shrugged and patted his new bag. "You paid it." A tiny smile at his glower and he turned to find his coworkers standing right behind him.

"Hey guys. What're you doing?" The little bag slipped behind him as subtly as possible and he grinned a bit uncomfortably.

"Ahh, nothing really, just dropping off some things and going for supper. You?" The small blond just shrugged and waved in a 'me too' kind of way.

"We should probably get going, been out all day."

"Ok, see you. Nice to see you again, Tiffany." A cute wave from the young lady and they escaped, Ed practically dragging the redhead behind him. "So, do we tell him?"

"What? That his face was as red as his coat or that Tiffany told us what he was getting?" They laughed their way to supper and decided to share with the rest of the office as soon as possible.

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"This is fun." Envy rolled over, shifting as he crawled over Ed. "We should have done this sooner."

Exhausted patting and even the metal hand fell to rest beside the heaving side. "We'd have died in the first month." Pale lashed fluttered weakly. "There is no way we would survive doing that every night, or any variation of."

"But I thought you liked to read?" Taunting laughter and the blond suddenly had energy again, at least enough to tickle.

"You are incorrigible." Little kisses pressed to any bit of white skin that came close enough. "And you were reading pretty well there, moving right along. You just wanted to get to the good parts."

"Damn right."

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Yay, another done! Wow, I'm a bit impressed with my productivity recently. Hopefully it'll keep up. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, I appreciate your feedback! I don't remember seeing Envy read anything in the series and I don't see Dante taking the time to teach him how, at least no more than necessary.