Magnificent Muscles
Ron decides to show off his beautifully muscular self. Ed and Al decide to make him look like a pansy.

- Annie - Laura -

"I... uh... don't know what to say..." Winry mumbled, glancing at Ed next to her before looking back to Ron's... err... 'spectacular' chest.

"I know, right?" He boasted proudly, hands on his hips.

"Uh...no," The mechanic denied. "Not really...it's kind of like...uh...an automail spare. It's just...you can't stop looking at it because it's just..." She glanced at Ed. "So damn pathetic."

"What?"

Winry looked back to Ed, latching her fingers onto the hem of his shirt. "Ed, take your shirt off. I need to make a point."

"What? No!" The blond growled, pulling the edge of his shirt down to contradict her actions.

"Prove what point?" Fred chuckled from his seat behind his younger brother. "Ron's? From how Ed reacts and how he wears so much loose, long-sleeved clothing, he's not so proud."

"What?" Winry replied. "Why not?" She looked up at Ed, honestly confused.

"Uh..." Ed paused, looking over to the twins and making a short argument in his head before stuttering out. "Y-yeah...they're absolutely right, Winry. You'd just prove his point." He chuckled slightly, trying to edge away from the blonde.

"What are you talking about? You have nothing to be ashamed of—"

"You only say that because you're my damn mechanic in the first place!" He snarled, jerking away from the girl.

"Wait, wait. What would her being a mechanic have to do with your body?" George spoke up, a confused tone to his voice and expression.

Winry looked equally confused, looking toward the twins. "It has everything to do with his body, I make his prosthetic—"

He'd been too late in clapping his hand over her mouth, the group of red-heads (plus Harry and Hermione) widened their eyes and stared toward Edward with shocked eyes.

Ed withdrew his hand and sent Winry a short glare before dropping his gaze to the floor. Slowly, he drew his shirt over his head, keeping the baggy slate-grey garment fisted in his gloved right, undoubtedly metal hand.

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Hermione half-listened to the Weasleys' conversation with Edward and Winry as she worked on her Transfiguration essay in the sitting room of Grimmauld Place. It wasn't the ideal place to work—especially with the loud chatter coming from both that room and the kitchen—but Harry and Ron had dragged her down to get to know the two newcomers better.

She usually didn't have a problem with that...but she just wanted to work in peace. Her first impression of the two of them had been Edward nearly strangling Fred for mentioning the word "short," and Winry subsequently throwing a heavy wrench at his head.

Any way she looked at it, she wasn't sure she wanted to be involved with such violent people.

"Do you guys play any sports?" Ron was asking excitedly. "Quidditch? Even that 'toeball' the Muggles play? We should get a game together sometime, I bet the Lovegoods have a broom you could borrow—"

"...Quidditch?" That was Winry. She had such a kind voice, and she always offered to help Mrs. Weasley with the cooking and the washing. Hermione couldn't tell which side of her was the real one. "And Muggles? I'm not sure..."

"If you count martial arts as a sport," Ed grunted. He, on the other hand, seemed rather grumpy...all the time. It was amazing how different he was from Winry and his brother, Alphonse..."I've never had time for games and that sort of shit."

Surprised pause. "Well, I've been working out!" Ron said excitedly, loudly clambering to his feet. "The past couple years! I'm gonna try out for the house team this year, now that Wood's gone..." Hermione heard fabric rustling, and she glanced up to see Ron standing, shirtless, in the middle of the room. She allowed herself only a few seconds to admire his stomach—much flatter than when she had last seen it—and chest before blushing furiously and turning back to her essay with renewed fervor.

Just when she thought she had gotten away with it, Ginny elbowed her in the ribs and snickered quietly.

Hermione ignored the amused jab, though, and absorbed herself in the essay, ignoring the ensuing conversation, until Ginny screamed. She looked up wildly, wondering who was being attacked, who had said the word "short," but all she was met with was the sight of two shirtless men. Ron was still standing in the middle of the room, staring rather stupidly at Ed, who was glowering deeply at everyone.

She was surprised that her eyes had gone to his face at first; after all, he had taken his shirt off, and the sight was nothing to scoff at. She would have liked to say that her eyes had been drawn to his chest and stomach first, but a flash of steel made her gasp. His arm—his entire arm—

"What—" Harry said, staring at him in horror. "You lost your—"

"Yes," Edward answered, drawing out the s, obviously irritated. When she finally ripped her gaze away from the horrifying sight, Hermione was struck by how many emotions were simultaneously playing across his face. Anger, frustration, shame, annoyance, pain...

She didn't know that she could blame him for being so irritable anymore.

Her eyes strayed downward, and she made a point to avoid the metal attached to his collarbone as she examined the rest of him. She didn't think she had ever seen anyone so muscular—what a six-pack!—even in the magazines at the shops her mother dragged her to—he should have been a model—

And then she saw the scars.

All around his prosthetic—as much as she wanted to pretend it wasn't there, her eyes were inexplicably drawn to it—were gruesome, dark scars; there were also several lining either shoulder, an assortment of what looked horribly like stab wounds in his abdomen, and an enormous, half-healed star-shaped mark that looked like it should have been fatal.

If that was the price for such toned muscles, Hermione was glad Ron was so skinny in comparison.

"You - how much do you work out?" Ginny asked in a strained voice, obviously trying to steer the conversation away from the prosthetic and the scars. The air was tight with tension, though, and Hermione knew everyone—everyone but Edward and Winry—wanted to discuss the terrifying sight before them.

"Since I was nine," he said shortly, glaring harshly at Ron. "Is that all? Can I put my shirt back on now?"

"Brother! You're stripping?" Alphonse walked into the room from the kitchen, sending a surprised glance at Edward but showing no horror at his arm or scars. Hermione supposed that was to be expected; the two boys were inseparable, after all.

"Ginger decided he wanted to show off his magnificent muscles, and Winry wanted a comparison," Edward said shortly, though not as harshly as he could have. Ron's ears turned red, and he opened his mouth to rebuke him, but Alphonse interrupted before he could.

"You?" he turned to Ron incredulously, looking him up and down. "Geez, you think that's muscular? No offense, Ron, but I started from complete scratch four months ago and—well..." He shrugged, pulling his shirt off as well.

Hermione wondered for a moment what he meant by "starting from complete scratch" before gawking at him as well. While he was nowhere near as muscular as his older brother, his abs—four of them—were nothing to scoff at.

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"What exactly do you do to work out?" Ed asked, slipping the shirt up to his elbows and rolling his shoulders back to throw the garment back over his head. He cast Winry, whose cheeks had tinted red at this point, a quick glance before looking back to Ron. Al stayed to listen, too, coming to sit at Winry's ankles.

"Uh, I've been doing a hundred pushups a day." The red-head responded, sounding a bit proud of himself, but his confidence seemed shot down.

After a good pause, Al piped up. "...and?"

"And what?" Ron replied, freckled face turning toward the fair-skinned, and...well, everything else, boy.

"What else?" The blond asked, scratching his neck slightly in his confusion and cocking his head.

The ginger simply cocked his head to the side in confusion.

"...You're kidding, right?" Ed inquired. He stared at the redhead for a ten-second-long silence before looking to Winry. "He's kidding, right?"

"Well, he is...in shape...?" Winry replied, trying to be optimistic.

"What? In shape? How is that at all in shape? He's only working his abdomen! ONLY! And not even a lot! He's only doing a hundred! Seriously! What the fuck?"

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Ed, technically he's doing all he really needs to do, alongside the regular everyday exercise. He is, by no means, overweight or even pushing overweight—"

"Oh, stop with the doctor-talk!" He cut off, putting his hands on his hips. "If Teacher were here, she would kick his ass for even thinking that was a work out. I'm pretty damn flabby right now. I haven't gotten decent exercise in weeks. Winry," His tone suddenly dropped to a serious one as he gestured to the still-shirtless red-head. "He's more pathetic than Alphonse."

Al, surprising everyone who was expecting him to be offended, nodded in agreement, "Seriously, and I haven't used any of my muscles since I was ten!"

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To say she was surprised would be the hugest understatement Hermione had ever heard. She had been surprised when Ron had excitedly told them all his new workout regimen at the beginning of the summer; when she had—in the privacy of her own room—attempted one hundred pushups, her arms had collapsed beneath her after ten.

The fact that Alphonse, by far the kindest of the three, was scoffing at that, was beyond her comprehension. She opened her mouth to cut across Edward's rant about someone he referred to as "Teacher," when Al struck her silent once again.

"Seriously, and I haven't used any of my muscles since I was ten!"

Ed and Winry both laughed a bit (though Hermione saw a pained expression flash across Ed's face), but she, Harry, and the Weasleys all were terribly confused. Hermione tried to rationalize what he had said; maybe he meant that he hadn't been working out, or practicing any sort of sport since he was ten. Especially if they considered one hundred push-ups wimpy...that seemed reasonable, right...?

"Were you—in a coma, or something?" Harry asked, looking doubtfully at the boy. "You said you've been working out for only four months, right? But I thought even Muggles had stuff to keep you healthy...I mean...especially those who're in them for years and years..." He trailed off, looking to Hermione for support. Always, it was always her who they trusted to have the right answers. But with these three strange foreigners, Hermione wasn't so sure of anything anymore.

"I'm...not sure," she said. "They at least are able to keep you nourished and such, but didn't you guys mention that he was so terribly thin?" She turned to Ed, Al, and Winry, raising her eyebrows.

"Uh...it was kind of...complicated," Ed mumbled, sitting on the couch next to Winry. "You could call it a coma, I suppose. But I guess our technology's not quite as advanced as yours. He was only...he only had just enough to survive." His head lowered a bit, his bangs shielding his eyes.

Al barked out a laugh and punched Ed's leg from his vantage point on the floor. "Brother, how many times have I told you? It was the best anyone could do. Stop worrying about it."

Al and Winry continued to try and lighten Ed's mood, disregarding the rest of the teenagers in the room, and Hermione wondered what really happened to Al.

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"You know, if it hadn't been for you, Al wouldn't even be alive right now!" Winry tried to assure him, rubbing her hand over Ed's back in what she hoped was a comforting manner.

"Well, If it hadn't been for me, he wouldn't even need me to have been keeping him alive!" he only snarled back, jerking away from her touch, however soothing it was.

"But, Ed—" Al tried to say, only to be over-spoken by his brother.

"No, Al, I was the one that bonded you, I was the one that suggested we cut ourselves and used the blood, I was the one that suggested that whole thing. Don't you remember? Who was it that thought that he needed to be strong, and glared at her grave through the entire funeral? Who was the one that conjured all that hate toward him after her death? Who was the one that insisted we sleep by that tombstone, night after night, reading alchemy textbooks? Who was the one that suggested we do what we did?" He jabbed a hard, metallic finger into his chest and let his voice raise louder, ignoring anything that the wizards might have said—or rather, their whole presence—or did. "It was me, Alphonse, your oh so dear older brother! And you know who it was that said that the whole thing was a bad idea? That was you Al, it was you that said that it was a bad idea!" The older brother was snarling now, ignoring the comedy his pony-tail was making, having hooked onto his bottom lip somewhere between when he started talking and when he started shouting.

"Ed, you didn't—"

"You know what, Winry?" He shouted before she could even finish the sentence, locking his prey-seeking eyes onto her. "I should have known!"

Rage suddenly over-took the blonde's features as she whipped her wrench out from her back pocket and sharply smacked him over the head with it. "You were five years old, Ed!" She was trembling, now, glaring down at the crouched figure that was her beloved alchemist friend, clutching his dear, bleeding head. Tears were streaking down her cheeks furiously, fighting past her lower lip before throwing themselves to the floor or into the silky, heaven-like strands of Edward's—the man that caused their escape—hair.

Said man, upon feeling wet droplets hit his forehead and the crown of his head, looked up quickly, alarmed to find his best friend crying. His resolve broke, and he just felt like an asshole. "Win—"

"Don't apologize to me!" She sharply commanded, pleased to find his jaw clamping shut at those words. "Apologize to your brother!" She sharply pointed to the reason tiny gasps for air had filled the room before her tear ducts activated, and Ed drug his gaze down her slightly-muscular arm and onto the face of his little brother; who was making no effort to prevent the tears, ones that he hadn't felt since he lost the ability to feel and cry, from cascading down his cheeks.

"Now!" Winry commanded loudly, jabbing her finger toward the boy again. Edward didn't even glance at her, his legs collapsing under him and allowing him to drop down to his butt on the floor. He stayed that way for a moment before he simply held his arms out.

Elric Brother Telepathy prevailed, and Al wasted no time launching himself into his older brother's chest. Taking in the smell of smoke (Al took the time to remember that his brother had smoked, at one point, to relieve the incredible stress that weighted him down. He hadn't approved, but he couldn't really blame him.), and grass. The younger Elric—quite the contradiction to the older—felt no shame in crying as hard as he pleased into the older's shirt. Al was always really touchy-feely—even more so after regaining the ability to feel—and he easily accepted the apology that was hugging tightly and stroking hair lightly as well as the hushed promises that Ed didn't mean it, and he was sorry, and he shouldn't yell at his younger brother, and that he was a terrible older sibling.

Elric Brother Telepathy prevailed, for a second time, and Ed knew that Al knew that he wasn't a terrible older sibling, even if he really was.

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A/N:...Yeah, this was supposed to be humor. Laura wanted it to be humor. But then it just kind of...wasn't. We still like it, though~