Rated: K+

Prompts: Braids

Warnings: Some language (because it's Ed), and killer mushfluff. Beware the cavities!

Fluffy Blanket Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, and am not working for profit. This belongs to the original owners.

AN: I've been watching this for the first time recently, and this thought kept nagging me "How does Ed know how to braid his hair?" Most guys I know don't, then again I don't know any guys with long hair (wish I did). This kinda ran away with me at the end, but I let it, and I really liked it. *sigh*, it's been awhile since I've done a ficlet...

This is set in the original Anime/or pretty much set in any universe you like. Forgive any and I are best buddies.

Phff

Edward Elric blow the strands of long blonde bangs in front of him in boredom, the puffs of hot air momentarily moving away before settling back into place. He sighed, and crossed his arms irritably, winching slightly as a sliver of stabbing pain shot up his leg as he rested upon Granny Pinako's coach. His had been out of surgery with his new automail arm and leg for several hours now, but was unable to proper rest, the pain and his natural impatience preventing him from closing his eyes and getting some much needed, but vastly overrated shut-eye. Lifting one of the few limbs in his whole body that did not ache like a bitch, Ed twisted a few hairs of sandy gold between his figures, staring at the strands without really seeing them. He sighed again, and frowned deeply. He tried not to think what happened or what would happen to him and Al…

"Edward!" Winry's chipper voice sent Edward cringing from the throbbing bells she sent off in his already frizzy head.

"Damnit!" Ed swore under his breath, turning to face the door and hoping against hope that he wouldn't do anything for her to come to torment him with her wrench—yeah, like that was ever not going to happen.

"What?" Ed asked, un-amused as Winry entered the room, the pain and his mood simultaneously worsening.

"Nothing," she punched herself on the edges of the couch, way too close for comfort near his automail leg, and smiled her sunny, disarming smile. "Just checking to see if you were feeling better. Granny said with luck you're be up and walking tomorrow."

"Huh, I'll be up and walking tonight." Hopefully.

"Edward! You just got out of surgery, your body need time to properly heal."

"It's fine."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

They glared at each, slightly difficult when one of the fighters was smaller than the other, but making it up with just as much and more stubbornness. Oh, and the fact that he was in excruciating pain, but was too damn stubborn, too manly not to show it. Just when the argument was about to veer off the deep end, and end up injuring Ed more than he already was, Granny Pinako mysteriously made her appearance, and tapping her long-steamed pipe against the doorframe to announce her tiny but intimating presence, she frowned disapprovingly at the two guilty.

"You're staying there, Edward Elric," Pinako pointed her unlet pipe down at him, making the twelve-year-old feel almost two again. "No buts!" She said as he opened his mount to retort and insult. "You want to get to Central, you heal up first. You're no good to anyone dead." With a huff, Granny Pinako left them, not before tossing over her shoulder, "Winry, you keep an eye on him, and make some lunch while you're at it!"

Lunch was a sober affair for Edward, and in the end he pushed away his plate without touching his sandwich. Surprisingly, Winry didn't protest and he was glad, he didn't feel like getting into another argument with her today. He laid his head on the back of the couch armrest, and sighed, he was sighing a lot lately, but what else could you do when your body's on fire and painkillers are a thing of the past? He tried turning his head to the right, but the sore tendrils in his arm shivered and rippled with pain, and hissing, he turned away, blinking back the tears that came to his eyes. He would not cry, he would not cry…

"Ed, are you alright?" Winry's concern voice pulled him back from the brink, where she sat on the floor rolling around with Den.

"Yeah." Edward untruthfully confirmed. "Hay, Winry? What should I do with my hair?" He abruptly asked, holding up a handful of his hair. He was growing it out—mostly because he didn't dare chop it off himself, Mom always did that for him and Al, and mostly because he was too lazy; who cared about hair when you had alchemy?

"What's wrong with it?" Winry stood up and strode over to the couch to inspect the hair in his hands.

"What should I do with it?" Edward asked again. "I don't want to cut it, but I can't—" His voice trailed, his mind slowing down with heightening exhaustion and pain.

"I can always braid it for you," Winry offered. She didn't know much about hair, or jewelry or dresses, or overall being too girly, but she did know a thing or two about braids. She had to, so she didn't tangle and knot up her hair whilst working.

Edward swallowed, his throat suddenly tight and dry. "C-can you show me how?" He reluctantly stumbled out. He just wanted to know so that he could do it proper-like in the future, and he wanted to learn so that he wouldn't have to worry about his hair sticking to the back of his neck on a hot day or get messed up in the wind.

Winry shrugged her shoulders, while she had nothing better to do after Granny ordered her to watch over Edward for the rest of the afternoon. "Sure!"

Thus began their rather lengthy braiding lesson. Later years, both would look on that particular afternoon with fund if different perspectives, and Ed would find himself time and time again looking back for references as he squinted blurry-eyed into the mirror in the early mornings and tried to tame his tangled locks. He didn't own a brush for a long time and even then, he preferred combing through his hair with his figures.

Winry diligently showed him how to make a ponytail and a basic three-strand braid, and Edward would blushingly try to repent the process on her hair before trying it out on his own. It was fairly easy, once he remembered where and when to move his fingers, and that working with hair was slippery than it looked, even if it was several days unwashed and texturizing—he would later go one to realize that he had "medium-fine" hair, as professional barbers dubbed it the one and only time he ever dared go near a barber. But Ed didn't overly mind spending the afternoon away on something so urge girly. If he was honest with himself, which he wasn't, he rather enjoyed running his figures through Winry's long straight hair as he tried to figure out just how the three different strands should overlap, accompanied by Winry's constant grouching.

"Do pull so hard!" She scowled.

"I'm not pulling!" Ed responded, this time gently tugging her hair down a little more than usual, on purpose to anger her further.

Winry hissed at him, and glared back at him with icy eyes. "Stop that, Ed!"

"Fine, but stay still. I can't do anything with you moving like that."

"I'm not moving, see?"

Ed glowered, but didn't reply as he forced himself to concentrate on the task before him with as much intensity as he gave alchemy. He tried to braid the rest of Winry hair, trying not to marveling at the surprisingly silk strands, despite being continually present to grease and grim from automailing. Finishing, Ed tied off the braid with her leftover hair ribbon and sat back, smug with himself, if a little frustrated at just how hard it actually was to do.

"Again," Winry inspected her hair and ordered, and he was forced into braiding her hair yet again.

"Again." "Again." "Again." Was all Winry said after each one of Ed's attempts.

"Really, Winry?" Ed snapped back the last time she said that.

"The only way you'll learn is if you practice." Was her curt reply.

By the seventh attempt, Ed was pretty proficient at both the ponytail and braid, and by then he allowed Winry to stand behind him and guide he through as he proceeded to do his own hair. It didn't turn out well, more a nest of tangles than anything else, but after several more tries he was able to do something with his hair to keep it off his neck and out of his way. Edward got better over time, and by the time he finally returned to Resembool with the newly humanized Al, he was deftly able to pull out any ponytail or braid in thirty seconds flat. It helped that he had once read a whole book on hairstyles back in Central, when he had been sick and bored and Roy Mustang had given him it on a tease, the bastard. He got so good in-fact, that by the time he and Winry had finally stop surpassing their desires and decided to finally marry, much to the mischievous approved of Al and Granny Pinako, Ed offered to do Winry's hair for the wedding. Traditionally, he wasn't suppose to see the bride beforehand, but they were unconventional and he did so anyway.

Ed smiled slightly as he slid her bristled brush through her long hair and bangs, with gentle fingers untangling all the little knots and evening them out. He brushed through her hair several more times for good measure, basking in the feel of her sunny, silky strands against his calloused fingertips, then laid the brush down and began to work, not noticing Winry watching him in the mirror before her. She was dressed in a simple, lacy summer dress with no sleeves and a short, soft train that bunched around her sandaled feet. Her hands nervously smoothed down her skirt as she watched Ed behind her pick up several white ribbons and began to twist and twin her hair, several bobby-pins sticking out of his mouth as he concentrated. Ed left most of her hair and bangs down, preferring it that way as he instead picked up several sections on either side of her crown and loosely braided them, then twined the braids around themselves and pinned them in place, letting the ribbon ends fall away on either side of her face.

Ed stepped back and surveyed his handiwork, impressed with himself.

Winry looked at herself in the mirror, surpassing a gasp at the image before her, and she smiled tearly. "Thank you, Ed. It's beautiful."

Seeing her eyes water up, Ed bleached and groaned aloud. "Stop that," he bemoaned. It torn his heart to pieces seeing her cry. "Stop it, you know how much I hate when you cry."

Winry shook her head. "I-I'm sorry, it's just so nice. I've never had anyone do anything like this for me before."

Ed smiled cheerful, if still a little warily, and gently caressed back some hair from her bare shoulders, bowing his head to gently kiss the side of her neck. "Well, I can do this for you any time."

A few years later when Edward and Winry's second child and firstborn daughter arrived, he was beyond excited he could have rivaled Hughes. Since marrying, Ed had always secretly wanted a daughter, and although he loved his son to the moon and back, a daughter he wouldn't encourage to blow up the backyard or tie a piece of string on the tail of Uncle Al's cat. No, a daughter he could protect against the prey that was little boys, and cherish and braid her thin baby hairs with a bright pink bow. And when she was older and going to school, she would drag Daddy out of bed because he did the best braids ever.