AN: Written for the prompt: Fullmetal Alchemist, Ed/Winry, crossdressing

It started out as a joke—costumes for the costume party Grandma Pinako was putting on. The dress wasn't meant to be form flattering on Ed, and it wasn't—his shoulders were too wide, his jaw too square, his muscles too solidly defined for him to even approach feminine regardless of his long hair. Winry had wanted to laugh, her hair tucked up under a hat as she wore a dress uniform Ed had outgrown and never worn anyway. She'd wanted to laugh, but when they stood in front of the mirror, Ed's hair down loose on his shoulders and her back straight with military poise, she couldn't. It was ridiculous, but something in that ridiculousness felt right.

After that, it happened infrequently. Ed would be wearing one of her forgotten skirts when she got in from a day fixing automail, the silver glint of his leg—so rarely bare—peeking out from under folds of cloth. She'd kissed him then.

Another time she bound her breasts to see what she would look like and had been lost searching the mirror for some resemblance to the pictures of her father. If she'd been a man, would she have resembled him more?

They never talked about it, what it gave them to wear each others' clothing and hide signs of their sex. She didn't comment on the time Ed's flesh leg lacked hair. He didn't count the number of times he found her in his old clothing, chest bound, looking at nothing and everything at the same time. They didn't talk about the days when they swapped roles and swapped bed positions and Winry let Ed be the vulnerable one for once.

They didn't have to talk about that though. If it healed what was broken in them, it was enough.