The Empath Alchemist {Edward Elric X Reader}

26

Winry couldn't tear her eyes away from (Y/n). She watched the exchange between her and Edward the moment she stepped inside, but that wasn't what caught her attention- what forced her to look at her and only her. It was how (Y/n)'s mind instantly went to the wellbeing of the blonde girl. How she had probably risked her life to come make sure that she wasn't hurt. Winry was scared, yes, but she was more so completely befuddled. Alphonse held her shoulder tightly and told her that everything would be okay, and though she appreciated the attempt to comfort, she wished that Alphonse would explain the situation to her instead. Why was she always the one who had to be protected? The one who had to be shielded from the truths within the lives that the Elrics led? Why could she do nothing but wait when things went awry?

The mechanic understood that the boys didn't want to make her worry, or frighten her with just how frequently they found themselves in trouble, or running from something. She understood that. As their precious childhood friend, they wanted to keep her away from the results of the mistake they had made. They didn't want her to see them like this, tired, violent, and uncertain. They didn't want Winry's image of them to change, the image of the two boys that she'd known all of her life. The boys who walked her to school every day, the boys who played tag with her out in the yard, the boys who smiled and laughed in the midst of the simple joys of the youth. The brothers wanted those memories of themselves to remain intact, and to not be hindered by the sights of them fighting, crying, and bleeding.

But she hated that.

Winry could handle whatever they were going through, she swore she could. Knowing what they were experiencing was better than being aware of something wrong, yet constantly being told that everything is fine. She knew everything was not fine. Winry Rockbell wasn't an idiot, and even if she weren't the boys' family, she would have been able to pick up on the peril they were in just as easily as any stranger would. She was older than them, two years older than Alphonse and one year older than Edward. Yet somehow, somewhere along the line, she was the one who began to be treated like the baby. She was the one, out of the three of them, who was being mollycoddled and patronized. It was all unintentional, out of love, but she hated it so much.

That's why she became an automail mechanist- so that she could help people, just like her parents. She wanted to prove that she could handle herself, that she could protect others just as much as the boys protected her. Winry could spark life back into people's eyes with the very talent in her fingers. She worked diligently, tirelessly, and effortlessly to help others. This tedious work was what made her happy, because she got to make other people happy whilst doing the one thing she loved most in the entire world. She'd managed to bring hundreds of people back onto their feet, both literally and figuratively, and yet she couldn't manage to find a way to look out for two of the closest people in her life. It was so frustrating.

The last thing she wanted to do was live vicariously through another person. Winry was growing happier with who she was each day, but sometimes she found herself thriving off of the life of a separate soul- the only other person she found to be quite similar to her. She didn't mean to thrive off of (Y/n)'s experiences, but it was honestly so easy to do. She and her loved the same person, held the same morals, experienced similar traumas, and longed for the same thing- to stay by the boys' side. And Winry discovered that if she couldn't achieve her one goal in life, then she could always rely on (Y/n) to. (Y/n) didn't give up on the boys, she was a constant. She refused to leave their side, and Winry couldn't have been more grateful to her for being someone that the boys could share their troubles with.

It hurt that Winry couldn't monitor them the way (Y/n) could. It hurt that (Y/n) had taken the place beside them that she had thought she would always have. Winry knew that she meant a great deal to Edward and Alphonse- that wasn't what she was worried about. She was just worried that she'd become less important to them, that they'd forget about her. Not that they'd forget about their love for her, but about how things used to be- about how she wanted to be just as involved in their lives as (Y/n) was. She didn't want to be the girl they left out forever. She knew she was naive to think that things would return to how it had been before Trisha died and before the boys committed the Ultimate Taboo of alchemy, but she at least wanted to return to some kind of normalcy. Normalcy where the boys would confide in her with boyish smiles, that displayed both their content and lack of need to worry any longer.