Branded

Title: Learning Curve – Part 6

Chapter: 3/7 (Branded – series)

Author: ibshafer

Rating: R

Character/Pairing: EdXWin… or is it WinXEd?…

Disclaimer: I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me
spin them around the page now and then.

Summary: In which Edward has some inappropriate fantasies about Colonel Mustang (I’m a
tease, I know it!) and comes to a very, very important realization; the stage is set for the
chapter’s finale...

Warnings: sexual situations, but nothing too explicit (yet...)

Genre: Fullmetal Alchemist; AU, I guess…

Spoilers: none

Feedback: Yes, please…

[from the previous chapter]

T-this is what sex is?

What it could be?

Is this was what people did?

Is this what I’m supposed to be doing?

He was freaked beyond reason and the only thing, the only thing, his mind could think to do, was
laugh out loud like he’d he saved up reacting to ever single joke he’d ever heard in his life until
just this minute.

But nothing, nothing was funny.

Not at all.

While he was rolling around on the blanket like a loon, he opened his tear-filled eyes long
enough to catch a glimpse of the porch.

Winry stood leaning over the railing; mouth frozen in surprise. Even at this distance, he could
see her blue eyes were open wide and her expression was one of complete and utter frustration.

Oh, man…

There you go… You disappointed her again…

~*~*~*~

Get a grip, Elric!

His automail hand, as if to illustrate that directive, suddenly pinched the flesh of his right thigh
painfully.

“Ow!!” he squeaked, as though unconnected to the hand. (Sometimes he caught it doing things
he flat out hadn’t told it to do; he’d often suspected Winry had built in some sort of remote
controlling mechanism. He wouldn’t put it past her – she was crafty like that…)

Another pinch.

“Ow-ow!”

Had to be Winry. Who pinches their own thigh?

“Ow-ow-OW!”

…Some guilty someone, that’s who…

Crap…

The pain was doing a good job of grounding him and while his nerves were still twitching, his
mind was starting to clear.

What a jerk I am.

All of the humor and all of the fight had gone out of him and now he just felt like a rather large
pile of something the cows had left behind…

Feeling boneless, he relaxed in the position he’d last twitched in; flat on his back, head angled
towards the porch where a clearly frustrated Winry was very clearly reaching her boiling point.

The pain in his thigh seemed to magically migrate to the center of his chest, even without the aid
of helpful, pinching fingers.

Edward sighed heavily.

You’re really hopeless, you know that? You’d think a guy who screws up just about everything he
touches would try to avoid doing that when he could.

You’d think a guy whose entire life revolves around making up for totally and completely fucking
up someone else’s life would be a little bit less selfish, too…

You’re a major shit, you know that?

Rubbing absently at the dull ache in his chest, Edward couldn’t help but agree with himself.

~*~*~*~

If he falls asleep like that, I’m going to kill him…

Winry sighed heavily.

Why is this all so damned difficult?

Before she could stop it, a rueful laugh escaped from between her tightly clenched teeth.

It’s Edward. Why were you expecting anything different?

This would be so much easier if she didn’t love him so much. She could just toss his clothes out
onto the lawn, slam the door in his face and hope she didn’t run into him on the street anytime
soon. Well, that was what the plucky heroines of the dime store novels did, anyway.

Winry counted to ten, twice, until the urge to maim had passed.

In place of the throttling he so clearly deserved, Winry instead opted to head back inside and find
something constructive to do; perhaps she could perfect that remote controlling module she’d
been dreaming about.

The rueful laugh edged dangerously close to a demonic cackle.

How convenient would it be if she could just get him to throttle himself…

~*~*~*~

Sigh…

Clearly, this was not going to work.

Books were usually the beginning and ending of all research; the alpha and omega, as it were.

This time, though, the books were just gumming up the works.

What he’d learned from his own textbook, and from the…um, lab practical and end-of-chapter
self-tests, anyway, was that there were was waaaay more to…to this than could be taught with
simple step-by-step instructions. And getting it wrong the first time could permanently damage
the…um, future performance of even the best student.

Edward’s inner movie screen flashed an image of a black-haired demon with a curled lip and
delusions of grandeur.

What a bastard! He’s probably sitting back there at that big desk of his laughing his double-wrapped ass off. Probably got a high-paid snitch stationed in some tree nearby, ready to report
back all the gory details—

Ed paused in his musings to scan the branches above him. Shaking his head at the lengths to
which is own ridiculous imagination sometimes took him, he turned back to the rant at hand…

Winry’s right – someone should teach him a lesson.

A faint smile crept onto his face as his ridiculous imagination redeemed itself, spinning a happy
reel of footage depicting all manner of devilish revenge wrought by hands both flesh and steel
upon the person of one smirking, egotistical – and while we’re on the subject, cowardly
–Colonel…

(Mustang pleading for his life – whining like a girl! – dangling by one foot in front of that big
window he was so fond of cleaning when he was supposed to be working, suddenly finding an
actual purpose for that ridiculous butt skirt – and at the same time, getting to work on the outside
of the window for a change; Edward prancing on the bastard’s pristine – because it never saw
work – desk, cackling with glee as the Colonel reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his
super-duper flamey gloves, the ones embroidered with that lethal array, to find instead, a pair
decorated with fuzzy duckies and bunnies that squeaked when he slipped his hands into them;
and so on…)

Edward spared himself a gleeful giggle.

It might be worth the court marshall…

When the happy fantasy cleared, which it did far sooner than he would have liked – so pretty
were the thoughts – Edward’s cranium returned to his most current, and urgent, dilemma.

How do I make Winry happy…

What he’d learned, what he’d actually learned, from Winry’s resource, was that it was important
to act in a way that was natural to you, to how you felt. Anything else was just plain silly, no
matter how much fun the illustrating couple seemed to be having. They weren’t real.

‘What do you feel Edward,’ she’d asked him.

Firing up the logic centers of his brain, Edward leveled his not inconsiderable analytical powers
to break it all down.

What do I feel?

There were two people in Edward’s life that mattered more than life itself. He had no question
how he felt about one.

Al. Alphonse…

‘Deeper, Edward. What do you feel?’

But how did he feel about the other?

At this point, Edward’s libido’s best buddy raised a hand to interject and the goons in the
command center, relieved to finally have something worthwhile to do, helpfully rushed to cue up
the latest image reel…

Edward growled them all down and somehow, somehow managed to clear his mind of the
distracting, albeit pleasant, memories.

Enough, moron! How do you really feel?

Another image swam before his eyes and Edward flushed hotly; a smiling, excited Winry,
thrilled by some new technological marvel, grabbing his arm to share it with him, wondering
aloud if she could work some aspect of it into improving his automail.

She was always thinking about him. Even in her work, in her need to grow stronger, more skilled:
it was all for him. Well, part of it was for her inner geek, to be sure, but the rest, the rest was for
him, for improving his life.

It was always for him.

Edward shivered, suddenly overwhelmed by the responsibility of what this meant.

He was important to her.

As if in answer, a tiny fluttering of warmth was called to life in the center of his chest. So
tangible was the feeling he found himself looking downward, half expecting to see a glowing
ember through the black fabric of his shirt. He could see nothing, but the ember grew all the
same, expanding like the cloud of some confined chemical reaction, continuing to expand until
the heat of it had spread to his fingers and toes and had soundly filled every square inch of him.

With wonder dawning, Edward found himself smiling. (Smiling so hard his face was threatening
to mutiny).

Oh…

So that’s what that feels like…

~*~*~*~

tbc…