"The tea's almost ready," Winry calls, and Al is jerked out of his trance, watching the rain blur down the windowpanes. He calls back a thanks, and places one hand against the glass.

It's cold to the touch, steaming up faintly in a perfect handprint.

He has missed that, and just because he can do it now, he writes his name on the window with his finger, then leans in and breathes, watches the invisible become visible.

"What're you doing?" Winry asks, voice light, and Al turns to see her in the doorway, more beautiful than she's ever been before. Her hair's down and slightly messed, because it's been rubbing against her red sweater all day and picked up static. He gave her that sweater for her seventeenth birthday and had guessed at her size badly; it always hangs off her shoulders and half covers her hands. She can't wear it when she's working, and he remembers pulling the sweater back, shoulders hunched, gauntlets clutching the material awkwardly. He remembers her pulling it back, insistantly. No, no, I like it! - but it doesn't fit, it won't - I have to relax sometime, right? Baggy clothes are good for that-

Al says, "I'm thinking."

She comes over in a lazy, unhurried walk, holding a mug out to him. "Watch out, it's hot. What're you thinking about?"

The mug is hot, and he flinches at it, shifting his other hand quickly to the handle instead. It isn't quite a sting afterwards so much as a hot ache, and he rubs his thumb against the pads of his fingers, feeling how they sense every ridge. "I should be out there with my brother," Al says, softly.

He'd had to come back to Rizenbul to recover after he'd changed back; too sensitive to everything, unable to take care of himself. Once back, it had been impossible to leave. He'd never truly wanted to go; he prefers a home, stability. He'd always been at his brother's side, but We have to grow up someday, his brother had said, awkwardly, not able to look him in the eye. And I'll visit between missions now that we no longer need the Stone. It is impossible not to miss him, though. He needs a home, and for so long, his brother had been it.

Winry considers, then leans against his shoulder, a hard, warm heat. "No, you shouldn't," she says, and he can't really argue with logic like that.

The rain is picking up, a rat-a-tat against the glass, and he brings his mug to his face, inhales over it. The scent relaxes him, and Winry's made it with milk and sugar, just the way he likes it.

"It goes in your mouth," Winry says helpfully and he gives her a dirty sidelong look. She grins at him, broadly, and he can't maintain the expression, finds his lips curving up. Obligingly, he sips, and the taste curls in his mouth.

They stay like that for a long moment, comfortably silent, drinking tea. Her warmth seeps into his side until he finds himself thinking that even if she left now, he could still feel her. He turns his head to look at her and finds her watching him, eyes content, lids half-lowered.

He thinks, she's thinking of kissing me, and it's strange that he can know it that simply. Those things shouldn't be that easy to guess, but it is. Something in the way she's looking at him, or the way she's sitting - just, something. His lips tingle at the thought and he inhales slowly, starts to lean down just as she starts to lean up.

A roll of thunder interrupts them, loud enough to rattle the windows, and he wonders how he missed the further darkening of the sky, the way the rain has moved to strict percussion. Winry stares out the window long enough for lightning to flash, throw the room into stark relief before fading again.

"Damn," she says, then, fervent, "damn!" and she's out of her seat and headed for the door.

He puts his cup down hurriedly, follows her. "Winry, what-"

"I've a huge shipment of parts laid out in the back," she calls over her shoulder. "I want to get them into the shed! You can stay if you want, but-" and she iss out the door, rain sheeting in behind her.

Automail doesn't rust, but some of the bits are quite light, and a strong enough wind may lose Winry her profit. Al doesn't say anything, just follows her out.

His shirt is plastered to his chest immediately, cold, the linen abruptly coarse. He shivers in the fierce wind, heads around back, walking against the rain. Though he keeps his hair short, it's long enough to get into his eyes when wet and plastered down, and he sops it back with a hand, catching up to where Winry is gathering together the tarp she had laid the pieces out on.

The wind is fierce enough that it's hard to breathe, and so he stays silent, just grabbing the other corners and hauling up so that between them, they've made a bag for the parts. The sky lights again and they both duck, as if that'd help. It seems doubly dark after the flash's faded, and Al inhales water with his air, tastes static.

Winry is saying something, but he misses it as thunder roars overhead, growling across the landscape. He makes a blind gesture, lets her take the lead as they haul their makeshift bag over to the shed. It's dry in there, the change sudden enough to nearly leave him reeling. Darker as well, shadows thick, leaping as if alive when lightning flashes again. Winry sags against a workbench as they put the bag down, then grins up at him as thunder rolls.

He grins down, dripping. She's soaked through, hair plastered to her, skin shining in the next flash. Al sits beside her after a moment, touches her arm, feels the way the wool has absorbed the water. He puts his arms around her, leans, inhales the biting scent of wet wool, and she tugs him close, holds. He finds himself cold, shivering, but can't bring himself to move.

"Race you to the house," she whispers against his ear, playful, and there's incentive.

They run. She got a slight head start, but he couldn't have beaten her anyway, he doesn't think. His muscles ache, used too quickly in the cold air, and he watches her dark form reach the doorway, turn, as mud slides under his shoe and he slaps sharply to the ground.

"Al?!" she calls, alarmed.

He'd answer, but thunder's rolling and that was nothing, really, nothing. He plants his hand in the ground, gets a foot under him, and is off again, reaching the doorway and her with laughter interrupting his breathing.

"You're a mess," Winry says with a wrinkled nose, shutting the door, and he is, really, mud coating the front of his shirt and pants. She wrings her hair out, smiles at him standing there, arms out from his sides. "Get out of those."

Al's too cold now, and his fingers are stiff on buttons as he takes his shirt off, looks where to put it.

"Just dump it by the door," Winry says. "We tracked mud in anyway, we'll have to clean when the rain stops." Al and she both know that Pinako would disapprove if she were still there, but it's been long enough that the thought is more amusing than anything else.

He strips, dumps clothing, and turns when her sweater gets tossed to join his clothing. Winry mutters curses, struggling with wet jeans, and he goes over, puts his hands on her hips, kisses her lips. They taste like rain.

The pants give, finally, and they separate so that she can kick them away.

"Bed?" she asks, and her lips quirk up with mischief. "We have to get warm."

"Is that today's excuse?" he asks, innocent, and she punches him in the arm, takes his hand, drags him up the stairs.

They hit the bed together, and he licks rain from her stomach, listens to a laughed protest. He's getting used to the thought that he can do this, that he can have this. It took him long enough, he thinks wryly, but most of that wasn't his fault.

She winds her fingers into his hair, rubs at the scalp, and he watches droplets fall from his hair, land on her skin, licks them away. He mmphs, half-closes his eyes as the rubbing slows to a carress, then leans up.

Her mouth is hot and wet as he kisses her, and her bra slides off easily enough. He's never had trouble with that since the first time, and he's never forgotten her teasing over that.

She starts to say something, and he expects a joke, more teasing and so covers her lips again, lets comments dissolve in their mouths. He cups one breast, feels the nipple harden under his chilled hand, plucks at it with thumb and forefinger. The change in the kiss is sudden and tangible, matching the sudden surge of her body against him, the way her leg wraps around his hips.

For a while, the world is hands, and mouths, and limbs, teasing.

"C'mon," she breathes, airless, after some time has passed - impossible to tell how much, as each touch takes seconds, seems minutes. And his name, a soft encouragement.

It's easy to lose himself in the little details, always, and so much more now. His life narrows to tongue and teeth, to the curve of a breast, to the way her hand slides down his back, urging him on. It narrows to the gasp for air, inhale and exhale, to to the wet, sticky sounds of flesh on flesh. It narrows to the way lightning reflects on wet flesh, to the way her face tightens, to the sight of her muscles moving as she tenses against him, tensing, releasing. It narrows to the taste of her mouth, the taste of her skin, the moment the rain changes to salt, the musky scent when he buries his face in her throat. Exhale and inhale.

It narrows to heat, pressure, moisture, to tightness and pleasure, to things he can't name, can't think to name, can't think

She cries out, an incoherant noise, and she freezes against him, legs wrapped tight, a band of pressure, pressing him deeper and he shifts, gasps, breathes in her smell, can't feel anything but her and this, and he'd heard it described like falling before, but it's not, it's flight, it's the first rush of sensation after ten years without, it's-

and he relaxes, slowly, exhaustion spreading, focus broadening.

They tangle together, and she's quiet, content, leaning against him, warm, her hair smelling faintly of the outdoors. Her pillow is wet where she rested her head, but she doesn't seem to mind. Sleepy, he kisses the rings in the rim of her ear, then turns his head, looks to the window. It's steamed up, and he can't see out, but he hears the gentle patter of rain; the storm passed some time while he'd been unable to notice it.

It was a fair trade, he thinks, and smiles faintly, letting his eyes close.