Here is my first, and probably only, FMA oneshot fanfic! I noticed that throughout the series, Ed is increasingly more mature, but he never seems to lose what it means to be a kid. Yet at the same time, the pressures keep adding up on him.i imagined him trying to deal with all that pressure and this was born.

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"Dammit, Winry, I'm not gonna drink the stupid milk!" Shouted a boy of diminutive size with eyes of golden fire.

"How do you expecting grow taller if you don't, Ed? Are you going to stay midget size forever?" Another blonde roared in reply. "You're not a little kid anymore, Ed. You need to act your age!"

So consumed was she in her irritation that she failed to see the small flinch her opponent attempted to hide at her words.

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"If you don't want to fight that's one thing. But don't run away and expect others to make the tough decisions for you!" Ed exclaimed. "How do you expect to make your own way in the world if you try to take the easy way out at every turn?"

Off to the side, a group of soldiers stood, watching their small comrade ream out someone they had been expected to fight against. A criminal who they had been tracking for weeks, who acted as if they were ruler of the streets, and then tried to bail when the military came for their operation, leaving their accomplices to act as bait.

Among the soldiers was Colonel Hughes, a slightly scruffy looking family-obsessed man who viewed the Elric brothers as his own. He smiled sadly at the Fullness Alchemist. "I have to admit, Edward can be very intimidating." He said, turning to fellow soldier Havoc. "He's very good at playing the role of the demon from hell, but I wish he knew it was okay to act his age."

Hidden beneath his trembling rage that was aimed at his captive audience, Edward flinched again at the words.

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"You can't run forever, you little brats!" Shouted the red and black clad demon, chasing the kids in front of him. Running as if their lives depended on it, a group of small children shrieked with laughter, jumping up onto the jungle gym they and the teenager following them played on. The elder Elric, entertaining the children, pretended to hunt them down, delighting in the joy he helped bring them.

Off to the side, a small gathering of elitist State Alchemists muttered to themselves. "Bad enough someone like him, so unschooled and unworthy, got the same title as us. Now he chooses to drag it through the mud even further by playing with children. He needs to act his age."

Edward heard them, and slowly, gradually, brought his accompaniment of the children to a halt. Pretending to be tired, he left the children and returned home.

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"Fullmetal. Fullmetal! Wake up, Fullmetal."

Brought back to the world of the living, Ed slowly raised his head from the table beneath him, neck and back aching from being bent over a table all night. Looking around, he saw it was none other than Lieutenant Hawkeye waking him up, no doubtedly to send him home after a long night's work. "Oh, Lieutenant, sorry about that," He yawned, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "Must've been researching later than I thought. I'll get out of your way as soon as I get this cleaned up."

Hawkeye sighed, a sympathetic look in her eyes. "You know, Fullmetal, you don't need to work all the time. It's okay to act your age."

It was lucky for Ed that he was facing away from her, for she was much more observant than Winry, and unlike Hughes or the other State Alchemists, she was close enough to see the look on his face at her words, had he been looking at her. As it was, she noticed the slight tensing of his back, the clenching of the knuckles of his flesh hand as he replaced the books on the shelf they belonged.

She didn't say anything more, but she decided to keep a closer eye on him.

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"Colonel Bastard just loooves making things difficult, doesn't he, Al," muttered Ed as he stomped angrily down the hall. People leaped out of the way of his obvious foul temper, not that he noticed.

"Now, now, Brother," replied an innocent sounding voice of a small boy, at odds with the body it emerged from, a towering frightening looking suit of armor. "You know he is trying to help, no matter what he says." Hearing a snort from his smaller companion, but no outright denial, he continued on. "I know he can get on your nerves, Brother, but I also know you respect him. You wouldn't follow the slightest amount of his suggestions let alone orders if you didn't. But please, just for today, try to act your age?"

Sighing, trying to hide the tenseness placed on him with those words, the older brother nodded his head. He could never deny his sibling anything, except cats. "Yeah, okay. Let's just get this mission and get it over with. Sooner we get done with this, sooner we continue the search." And on they walked, the younger oblivious to the older's distress, and the older doing his best to hide it.

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Water leaked from every inch of the boy, from his squelching boots to his soaked clothes, and up to his plastered golden hair. His limbs aching from the combination of stress, weather, and general fatigue that seemed to follow him around lately, all the Fullmetal Alchemist wanted to do was go home and sleep…. forever.

But no, first he had to listen to his bastard superior list everything he did wrong on his latest mission. For the first time, he was too tired to fight back. Too tired,that is, until he heard those goddamned words he could never seem to escape.

"Dammit, Fullmetal, it seems no matter how many times I try, you never seem to understand the effects your actions have on those around you! Why can't you just act your age!"

SLAM!

Before he could say any more, he and the whole office was silenced by the sound of metal on metal. The team, who had studiously been ignoring the one-sided argument going on, looked over to see Ed's fist on the desk in front of him, a good two inches dented into the surface. Stunned into silence, Mustang and the others could clearly make out the quiet words of the terror in front of them

"Act my age?" Ed whispered. "And how, pray tell, am I supposed to do that?" He was getting louder now, quickly heading toward hysterical shouting if he didn't get himself under control.

"Every time I try to relax, I shame or offend someone around me. Every time I do my job, I make other soldiers nervous. EVERY TIME I DO SOMETHING FOR ME, THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT!"

They were all staring wide-eyed now. None of them, not Feury or Falman or Breda, not Havoc or Hawkeye or Hughes, not even Mustang or Al had seen Ed like this. Sure, they'd all seen him pissed or annoyed to the point of yelling, but something about this seemed desperate, like he was almost to the breaking point.

"HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO ACT MY AGE WHEN I HAVE NEVER BEEN IN A SITUATION THAT SHOWED ME WHAT THAT LOOKS LIKE?! I STOPPED BEING A CHILD WHEN I WAS ELEVEN YEARS OLD, MUSTANG. AND EVEN BEFORE THAT, I WAS NEVER JUST A KID! YOU WANT ME TO BE AN ADULT? WELL, I'M NOT! I'M NOT AN ADULT AND I'M NOT A KID EITHER!"

Turning to Hughes, he continued his rant. "YOU WANT ME TO ACT LIKE A NORMAL FIFTEEN YEAR OLD?! THEN TELL ME! WHAT DO THEY DO?! HOW DO THEY ACT?! I HAVE NEVER BEEN AROUND THEM BEFORE! AND WHEN I TRY TO AT LEAST ACT LIKE A KID, I GET SCOLDED FOR BRINGING DOWN THE STATE ALCHEMIST NAME!"

He turned back to Mustang, who seemed slightly shell-shocked at this point. "I KNOW I ENTERED THIS WORLD THROUGH MY OWN CHOICES! I KNOW IT WAS MY OWN MISTAKES THAT LED ME HERE! BUT GUESS WHAT?! THOSE DECISIONS- THOSE MISTAKES?! THEY WERE THE CHOICES OF A LITTLE KID! A LITTLE KID WHO COULD ONLY TRY TO FILL THE ROLE OF PARENT, OF PROTECTOR, AND I ACCEPTED ALL THE RESPONSIBILITIES THAT CAME WITH IT! BUT HOW CAN I ACT THE PARTS OF BOTH KID AND ADULT?! EVERYONE WANTS ME TO ACT A CERTAIN WAY, AND ANYTHING ELSE IS UNACCEPTABLE! SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?!"

His voice was getting quieter now, breaking on occasion. "Please. Just… just tell me what to do."

Before anyone could say anything, Ed abruptly turned around and strode out the door, leaving a shocked and somewhat guilty silence behind him.

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Okay, so I'm not entirely sure how this idea came to me, but I had to get it out there. Ed's rant didn't go how I planned, but whatever. If anyone wants to take the concept of this and make an entirely new (read better) version of this, please feel free but also message me about it because I will want to read it and see how I can improve my own writing. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you think everyone stayed in character