Draped in Wires
by. Poisoned Scarlet
Theme 045: Childhood Friend
Edward sighed for the umpteenth time, crossing his legs at the ankle for the fifth time that hour and letting the thought this is such a waste of time cross his mind for the millionth time that day. The chairs set out in a circle were mostly full, save for a few seats. The couples all sat beside each other and they all spoke heartily and friendly to one another as the Father asked one
(useless) question after the other.
All except him, who would honestly and frankly tell them they were simply wasting their time with these pre-matrimonial conversations.
He wondered how Alphonse managed to convince him to come to the talks in the first place, and blamed it on his excellent persuading skills.
Only my brother, Ed sighed, darkly. Even Winry couldn't make me budge! She had actually brought Alphonse by the ear to convince him to go in a peaceful manner, since both knew it'd only end with a nasty fight if she continued to aggravate him with this.
"Ed!" Winry hissed, fed up with the disapproving and scowling expression on his face. It was bad enough that she was aware of everyone's uncomfortable glances at him but his constant sighing and inability to sit still was making it worse. "Quit it!"
"Quit what?" He hissed back. "If you haven't noticed, I haven't been doing anything!"
"You know what you're doing very well!" She scolded, not leaving room for argument when she added: "Look, could you just please at least pretend like you're enjoying this? I'm not having much of a high time either but you don't see me acting like a toddler!"
"Who're you calling a toddler? Just because I think these pre-matrimonal talks are a complete waste of time does not make me a child, Winry!" Ed scoffed, looking away from her fuming face because he had purposely said that loudly.
"Excuse me, young man?" The head priest asked politely.
"Yes, your lordship?" Ed responded, sarcastically.
Winry shut her eyes to keep her anger in check.
The priest pursed his lips but wisely decided not to comment on it. "I see that you are not very welcoming to these talks, but I can assure you that they are crucial to your marriage's success—!"
"No, let me tell you what is crucial to our marriages success," Ed cut him off short. "Firstly, I didn't ask her to marry me because we were 'in the moment', I asked her to marry me because I am, as you constantly stress, 'in love'," he ignored the fleeting surprise that crossed Winry's face at his blunt admittance, "and I'm not second-guessing this arrangement. Hence making these talks utterly pointless because there is nothing to talk about! Secondly, we do not have problems, we are not going to get a divorce five months later, and we are most definitely not abstinent because we lost it a long, long time ago."
A few men in the room cleared their throats.
Ed was not fooled by their schooled expressions.
"Edward!" Winry gasped, looking distinctly nauseated by his blandness.
"So to end my argument," Edward continued, pointedly ignoring her distressed groan, "I can only tell you, sir, that this is not only a waste of my money which I could have wasted in renovating our home, but, also, half of the things you speak of make absolutely no cognitive sense because praying to a God will not feed my family at the end of the month if shit decides to happen!" He ended on a scathing note, standing up with squared shoulders as the priest gaped openly at his audacity. "Have a nice day brainwashing the rest, we're out! C'mon, Winry, if we're going to waste our time we might as well do it in the comfort of our own home!"
"What? No! Ed!" Winry was dragged out by the arm by one frustrated Edward Elric, who ignored her spluttering. "Edward!" Winry looked over her shoulder, meekly shouting: "I am so sorry Father!" and sighing when Ed only added: "Yeah, your job sucks!" right afterward.
"Edward, the hells the matter with you!" Winry yelled, ripping her hand from his grasp once they were outside of the parish. "What gave you the-the right to say all of those things to Father William?"
"What gave me the right?" Ed snidely repeated, sounding as if it were the most ludicrous thing he had ever heard. "Winry, that guy was practically preaching to us! There was absolutely nothing he said that did not correlate with what the goddamn gospel!"
"That still doesn't give you the right to lash out at him like that!" Winry cried, shaking her head at how badly the session had gone. "This is why I didn't want to do this in the first place! You're just so-so ugh! Impossible!"
"Well, so-rry I'm not easy to manipulate!" Ed sneered.
"You're such an ASS!" Winry shrieked, sending him the nastiest look she could muster. "That's it! I'm through with you today!" Winry stalked down the cobblestone pathway, her heels clicking against the pavement. She could hear his own footsteps follow her and she only walked faster, wanting to get as far away from him as humanly possible before she broke into tears.
"Winry!"
"Leave me alone, Ed!" She yelled, thickly. Her hands clenched; she had left her wrench at home and, regardless, she held too much respect to knock him out in front of the church although she sparsely believed in God. "I really don't want to speak to you right now!"
A hand grabbed her wrist and she wrenched it out. "Winry, please, wait!"
"No! I don't want to talk to you!" She shouted, quiveringly. "Ed, please...just stop..." She dropped her eyes to the floor when he managed to grab her again, forcing her to a stop just a few feet away from the entrance of the parish. She felt his fingers lift her chin up, forcing her meet his apologetic gaze.
"I know I acted like a total dick back there but I'm not going to take back what I said," he began, quickly continuing when he saw her part her lips to speak and her eyes flash with rage: "I don't need someone to tell me to think about what I'm doing because it might be a mistake," a small smile tugged on his lips, softening his eyes to a buttery gold. "Winry, you're my childhood friend! I've known you since before I could even crawl! I've never been so sure of anything else than this in my life!"
She swallowed, blinking away a few tears.
"I'm sorry if I made you cry because I was being a jerk but these talks are completely unnecessary... unless," he swallowed nervously, "you're not...sure of this?"
"No," Winry shook her head vigorously. "I'm sure I want this, but.."
"But?" He encouraged hesitantly, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes.
"It's mandatory if we want to marry like my mom and dad did." She replied, after taking a deep breath.
Ed stared. "You mean...we have to go to these sessions before we can get married?"
Winry cleared her throat, wiping away a few stray tears. "Yep. It's mandatory...you—didn't know that?"
She watched Ed swear under his breath before resting his forehead against her own in exasperation; a string of curse words escaping his throat when he remembered his little scene back there. She giggled at the look of utter frustration and dread on his face, laughing when he muttered: "I fucked up, didn't I?"
She kissed him softly and said: "We'll work it out. That's what these talks emphasize on: communication and all that."
Ed returned the kiss after a few seconds, grumbling: "I heard nothing narrowly similar to what you just said. All I heard was 'the good lord this' and 'the devil would first temp' that!"
"Oh, you're being to hard on the guy! He just wants what's best for us!" Winry smiled optimistically, reaching up to wrap her arms around him. "But you're right about one thing: you did royally screw up. I bet half the town will know by tomorrow that I'm expecting!"
"How?" Ed asked, puzzled. "I only said we threw abstinence out the window! You can't actually believe all of those people in there haven't screwed at least once."
Winry pressed her lips together and Ed busted out in laughter.
"You're so gullible!"
"Some people actually value their virtues!"
"No one in there was a virgin, Win!" Ed cracked up, burying his face into her hair to muffle his laughter. "Trust me on this!"
Winry huffed. "Well, how would you know?"
"Because every single guy in there got this perverse grin on their face when I mentioned the abstinence rule!" Ed sang out. "Alphonse likes to say I'm quite observant but I digress," he smartly added.
"Oh, shut up, Ed!" She fondly said, jerking a thumb behind her. "C'mon, let's go check up on Al! He might need some help with the roof since we all know how much of a pro you are at fixing rooftops!" She giggled at his annoyed sigh and continued to walk.
"Just because I fell off the roof once doesn't make me incompetent, you know!"
"You broke your arm!"
"Yeah and how many times have I broken a bone?" Ed snorted, dismissively. "It's nothing new! That was probably the highlight of the week for me, you know!"
"...was it?"
"Was what it?"
"Was that the highlight of the week?" Winry asked curiously, taking his hand in her own when he caught up with her.
"Kind of," he answered, vaguely. "Actually, if you want me to be honest, it was when you stripped me and proceeded to 'check' my leg." He smugly stated, her cheeks growing pink.
"What—how was that the highlight of your week? I was worried for you! I seriously thought you hurt yourself!"
"Sure." Ed agreed, skeptically. "That's why you molested me while checking my leg! Father William would frown upon that." He clucked, mock-disapproving.
"I did NOT molest you!" Winry snapped, upturning her nose loftily. "Don't flatter yourself! Just because I like you doesn't mean I'd compromise my professionalism—stop mocking me!" Winry snapped when she noticed Ed was only mimicking her.
"C'mon, lets just go help Al!" Ed changed the subject wisely, pushing her ahead. "We both know you stripped me to get a good, long, look at me so it's pointless to argue about it!"
"No, I did not! Edward!"
Ed just kept pushing her ahead, not believing her one bit when her cheeks were as red as the color of his old alchemist cloak.