Attraction

Edward watched as Alphonse pushed his hair around, angling his head in different positions to get a better view of himself in the mirror.

Edward was lying on his bed, arms folded behind his head with an unamused expression on his face. Alphonse was about to set off on a weekend trip with that Xingese Princess and he had spent the last two hours picking out his outfit and fixing his hair, growing more and more irritated when a strand from his bangs kept falling out of place.

"You know she will still glomp all over you no matter how neat your hair looks, right?"

"Hey, I've just gotten my hair back and I intend to give it as much care as I can," Alphonse replied glancing at Edward with a small smirk on his face.

"Heh, well you'll start losing it if you keep spraying it with that alcoholic mess," Edward said, now sitting up, feet flat on the floor with a snarky grin.

Alphonse ignored him, standing up, giving himself one last look in the mirror and walked to the closet to grab his coat.

Edward's eyes followed him, sighing, "I really don't see why you're all decked out. How much did that fancy suit cost you anyway? And that cologne is so stro- are you wearing lip-gloss?!"

Alphonse slapped a hand over his mouth.

"It's just chapstick! And… I like the little bit of color it gives me, alright?"

"Oh okay," Edward teased, laying back on the bed. "Just wanna make sure that lip locking with Mei is perfect, right?"

Alphonse' face grew beet red at that statement.

"W-well, just because you don't care about your appearance doesn't mean I don't have to!" Alphonse exclaimed.

"Hey! I make sure I am clean and well kept! And that's all anybody needs. Who the Hell cares about your clothes and hair styles? Attractiveness doesn't even exist. It's all in peoples' heads, made up by a society who wanted to profit from others' own insecurities," Edward said.

Now it was Alphonse' turn to tease him. "Oh, don't tell me you don't think Winry is pretty. I see the way you look at her."

Edward nearly fell over at that remark and suddenly shot up. "No! I don't- I never- just shut up! Don't you have a train to catch?"

"Come on Ed. You say that physical attractiveness is completely made up, and that's fair, but you can't honestly expect me to believe you never think about her. You're way too obvious about it." Alphonse replied back, now being serious.

Edward had a huge, childlike frown plastered on his blushing face, but refused to say anything.

Alphonse checked his watched, then walked to his own bed to gather his suitcase.

"Well I should be going now. You two kitties have fun!" And with that Alphonse stepped out the room and Edward could hear each of his steps down the stairs and him walking out the front door, leaving him and Winry alone for the entire weekend.

Edward was still sitting on the bed, unmoving. He couldn't keep his brother's words out of his head. He wasn't lying when he said that physical attractiveness was made up. He had meant that.

He just couldn't understand why certain nose shapes, hair colors, and body types were preferred. Sure, he had spent his entire life insecure about his height, Edward thought with a grimace, but that had nothing to do with wanting to look a certain a way; he just wanted to be taken seriously and be as strong as he could be. The same thing applied to his sense of style. He never once expected it to attract anyone to him, he just thought red, black, and skulls were badass and reflected his own personality and temperament.

Watching his brother spend an ungodly amount of time worrying about the slope of his bangs drove him crazy. It was just hair! As long as it was clean and neat, did it really matter how 'done up' it was?

Edward got up and walked to the vanity mirror Alphonse had previously sat at and took a seat and first time in so long, he just stared at himself, taking in every detail of his face.

He thought about the color of his eyes; some kind of golden and amber combination. Was this feature considered attractive to others? The only people he knew who had this same color was his late father and younger brother. He had heard time and time again that rare looks were adored by people.

His hair was the same as his eyes, almost exactly the same hue. He liked his hair long, but never did anything special with it and always chose to keep it out of the way in a braid or ponytail. He reached behind his head to undo the tie and let it fall around his shoulders. He couldn't remember the last time he had it cut. He would do it himself, just by gathering all of it in his hand and getting rid of what he didn't want in one quick chop with his scissors. It was usually a bit… choppy, but he kept it up all the time anyway, so did that really matter?

He had to admit that Winry was far better at cutting it than he was. She'd give him layers and did something called, 'point cutting,' at least he believed it was called. At least then, her hair cuts made him comfortable enough to leave it down so no one would see the choppy mess that he'd make.

Edward stared back into the mirror, noticing more and more how much he resembled his father.

His nose was longer and it stuck out a lot more and his chin and jaw was becoming squarer.

Was this appearance considered attractive? Mustang used to go on about male handsomeness and how important it was to appear manly. Edward didn't know what was worse; hearing those monologues from the Colonel or suffering Armstrongs' poetic nonsense about the same thing.

He shuddered at those memories from Central. Those time were definitely more torturous and frightening than any homunculus he had ever encountered.

No woman was really into the stuff that those two were spouting about, right?

His thoughts went back to Winry and the words his brother had left him with.

Edward had admitted to himself a year after they had returned home that there was no way he saw his mechanic as just a friend. He had suffered many sleepless nights, teasings from his brother, and anxiety every time he brushed past Winry to ignore the creeping realization any longer.

He couldn't admit it out loud, but he had been screaming in his mind about it for so long, and he knew in just a few weeks, he and Alphonse would set off on two separate adventures once again. It felt like he was running out of time, and it was killing him.

He buried his face in his hands and ran them in his hair, frustrated with the world. He knew he needed to say something soon.

Looking back up to see his exhausted expression, he thought about himself and his childhood friend.

Edward knew he didn't care what anyone thought about his appearance; whether they found him attractive or not. As far as he was concerned, his body was serving each of their respective functions properly and he had a clean bill of health. His scars, missing leg, hair, nose, whatever, was not of anyone's concern if they ever decided to 'validate' his physical attractiveness.

Still… he couldn't help but think what Winry thought of him in regards to his appearance. Did she care about his eye shape or body type? Did she like it? The only he knew for sure about her, was that she liked men taller than her, and he would think Truth every day that he finally achieved that goal

His childhood friend was so hard to read at times. She wasn't afraid to show her concern or love for himself and his brother, but if she ever had any feelings beyond friendship for him, then she was damn good at not showing it. Or maybe he was just too stupid to notice that. Edward chuckled at that thought. He could recite the Periodic Table, name all the solubility rules, and name every compound increasing in acidity, but he would never be able to know any thought that crossed her mind just by looking in her eyes.

Her eyes…

They were blue. Some kind of mixture between the color of the sky and the berries they would pick outside. They contrasted from her sandy blonde hair that would glow when the sun hit every individual strand.

That's she reminded him of. Spring and Summer. The bright yellow sun in the blue sky.

He may never know what she thought of his appearance, but God, he had memorized every color, scar, curve, blemish, and callous that made up his mechanic.

The older he got, the more aware he became of her physically.

There was something satisfying about the gentle slope of her nose, the curve of cheeks, and the length of her eyelashes. The top of her head reached his collarbone, and this fact made him feel much more… protective of her. He had always been overbearing in regards to her safety, but since the Promised Day, he became much more aware of her fragility compared to him. She had muscular arms and strong, calloused hands due to her work, but that would never stop him from treating her like glass. He could never imagine doing anything to mare her smooth, ivory skin.

He took a breath in and closed his eyes as he thought of her more feminine features. Her heavy chest and thick hips and thighs had done more than just keeping him up at night, agonizing over her body.

He had never once thought of or given any second glance to other women when it came to this thing. He wasn't stupid. He was very much aware of the differences between the male and female anatomy and what he was apparently supposed to be attracted to, but he felt nothing when it came to them.

When he saw Lust for the first time, he knew right away that she had features that made her attractive, but that was just the biology in his brain talking. Physically he never cared.

Even as an eighteen year old man, he still never takes a second glance at women, no matter what clothing they wore or what their body type was. The longer this went on, the more he realized that he only ever had any kind of physical attraction to Winry.

It frustrated him a bit, that he didn't understand this kind of thing as well as his younger brother, because he felt like he could never truly know what Winry would want or what he could do to appeal to her, as stupid as that sounded.

He didn't know if she saw him as attractive, if she didn't even care, or if she, to his horror, thought he was ugly.

The only thing he knew for sure, was how much he noticed her, how much he thought of her, and how he knew that there was no possible way that his feelings were only friendship.

He was truly afraid of what would happen to them once he departed for his trip. It would only be for a few months and then he'd be home for good, but that didn't stop his paranoia. Edward knew for a fact that if someone like himself had these thoughts for Winry, then there would definitely men who noticed her too, and probably held much less innocent thoughts.

That thought alone mortified him, because he couldn't stand the idea of losing the one thing he never had to someone else, all because he couldn't express himself the way he wanted to.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Winry open the basement door and make her way to the kitchen, opening and shutting cabinets.

He looked out the window and was shocked to see the sun setting, which had been high when Alphonse was still there.

Edward slowly got up from the vanity chair to make his way to the kitchen to help her with dinner where he stopped at the doorway and gave one last look into the mirror to see his sad expression, before shutting the door to his room.

This is a one shot I wrote months ago, so a couple of you may have seen this before.

I've always thought that Edward was written as a demisexual and Winry is the only person who he'd be attracted to. I've always just really liked that idea and I feel like he'd see himself and everyone else as just regular humans and never take a second thought about whether someone was good looking or not. It's just something that I really appreciated seeing.

I'm currently working on two other oneshots to really get into writing, but I'd like to work on something more long term. Someone messaged me about an EdWin pregnancy fanfic and I've definitely thought about doing one. I was thinking of a fluffy oneshot and longer, angsty version. But I'd really like to write a real serious AU. A Medieval AU is really speaking to me, so is a 1920s/50s New York AU. There are just so many possibilities. So if there's anything you guys have really wanted to see for EdWin, even in canon, let me know!

I've been kinda sad about the lack of EdWin content, which seems to be declining, which was my drive to start writing. I'd like to see if we can turn that around and revive this beautiful ship.