Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ I Sense You There ❯ Smell ( Chapter 3 )

Smell

 

Ed cringed as the sound of water trickling into a basin echoed like a horde of stampeding horses within the walls of his skull. He could pick out every drop, every splash, the noises combining to create a tormenting cyclone around the eleven year old's pain clogged brain.

“This sucks.” he groaned as he kept his eyes closed. “Winry, just give me the damn morphine.”

“No way. You can't have anymore today, Edward.” Winry lectured as she squeezed the sponge a second time before proceeded to run it along Ed's new stitches and scar tissue. The feel of the tepid water against his fresh wounds was enough to make Ed either scream in agony or sigh with grateful relief.

He chose to shiver.

“Too cold?” Winry asked with concern, quickly removing the sponge from his skin, water drops splattering against Ed's face. “Oops! Sorry.”

Winry quickly raised her hand to wipe away the few stray drops, her fingers lingering on Ed's flushed skin.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a whisper.

“You feel a little warm. Do you feel alright?”

“I have a fucking migraine the size of Amestris, Winry. I feel like shit.”

“Well, I…”

“Don't say it!” Ed warned, raising his hand to point at her, his indignant finger nearly poking her in the eye.

“I told you so!” Winry rattled out, slamming the sponge into the water so that it made a raucous splash. Ed cringed and under normal circumstances Winry would have sympathized with her friend, but as she stared down at his right shoulder, the gleaming metal of the newly installed automail port mocking her with its very presence, any pity she may have had flew out the window.

It had been fourteen hours since Ed's first operation.

Winry could still smell the disinfectant hanging in the air of the operating room. Her olfactory senses were clinging to the odors of solution, blood, grease, oil and burnt skin. The combination of scents was overwhelming and made Winry feel lightheaded despite her furious concentration to remain focused on helping Ed.

She had begged her grandmother for permission to help with Ed's operation, and she was surprised when Pinako not only agreed, but insisted that Winry be involved with the procedure. Although she was just ten years old and barely an apprentice, Pinako gave Winry the responsibility of securing the port to Ed's shoulder and grafting skin around the metal for a secure fit. Pinako worked with Ed's nerves, sorting the live nerves from the dead, admitting her own surprise that over ninety percent of the boy's nerves were useable.

However, this only meant more pain for Ed to endure.

Nerve function and structure were imperative to automail which meant that a patient was required to remain conscious and on light medication during the nerve sorting. If there was pain then the nerve was usable and sorted so that it could be delicately sewn into position and be prepped for the port installation and eventually a full connection with the automail limb. Winry had heard the agonizing screams of many people who sought her grandmother for automail attachment and had prepared herself for Ed's own pain-filled cries.

Ed however, never uttered a single sound.

He did grit his teeth a great deal, and at one point had even grasped Winry's arms so tightly that he left bruises, but he never screamed. Winry wasn't sure if she was relieved or horrified that Ed hadn't screamed, but however she felt, she was resolved to do whatever she could to help him.

It had been Winry's first operation and her first time applying a port to a real human being instead of a practice dummy. She had been so nervous, her palms sweating the whole time, but that did not deter the novice mechanic. Instead, Winry had performed her best, and the fact that there was minimal blood loss and perfect instillation of the port proved that she was ready to begin tackling real connections.

Pinako had praised Winry for her hard work and even told the ten year old to begin working on the blueprints for Ed's custom automail arm. It was the first time that her grandmother had allowed the young girl to work independently on a patient's automail, and Winry was eager to get started.

She just wished that Ed wasn't her first real patient.

It wasn't that Winry hadn't expected Ed to eventually get some sort of prosthetic. In fact, she had been surprised that Ed hadn't tried to make one himself using alchemy, he was stupid enough to try that. Winry knew that Ed needed an arm and a leg and as a budding automail mechanic, the prospect of designing and installing two automail limbs was thrilling for the girl. Her enthusiasm, however, was greatly spoiled by the fact that her best friend was to be her first patient and that he was going to use the automail she made him to join the military. To think he would endure so much pain just to become little more than a dog on a leash…

Winry shook her head violently, hoping to dispel the memory of Ed's surgery from her mind. No matter how hard she tried, however, the image of Ed lying on the operating table, his face contorting in excruciating pain as she and her grandmother installed the arm port stood out in perfect detail in her mind.

It was a difficult surgery to perform for both doctor and patient.

Ed would have to endure three more surgeries before his port was complete and after that his leg port would need to be installed. After that would come the connection, another torturously painful procedure, and then rehabilitation which took most automail patients years to recuperate from. After the initial connection, Ed would only have four months to recover if he expected to meet his ludicrous deadline.

Winry snorted.

“Do you have to be so loud?” Ed asked angrily. Winry looked down at Ed's miserable figure and found that she did have a drop of sympathy for him. Migraines were common after a hard surgery and from the way Ed was burrowing his head into his pillow, he was suffering through an especially agonizing headache.

“Here.” Winry said, soaking a rag in the basin, folding it in half and placing it over Ed's eyes. Knowing that light of any kind was torture for migraine sufferers, Winry figured that keeping Ed's eyes protected from the sunlight that was streaming into his room was the best way to soothe him. In her attempt to erase the smell of sickness from the Elrics' bedroom, Winry had thrown open the windows, allowing the sweet smelling fresh air of Resembool to waft in. She was not going to shut those windows or draw the curtains, so a damp cloth would have to do.

“Winry, how much more of this do I have to take? Can't you put me out of my misery?”

“Oh no! You're the one who decided you had to have automail. I'm not gonna let you quit halfway through. After grandma runs some tests, you still have three more surgeries: one for cable and nerve installation, one for insulation, and one for final capping. And then, we get to start all over again with your leg port.”

“You sound like you're enjoying this.” Ed grunted. “More morphine!”

“Nope, sorry.” Winry said a little too cheerfully as she patted Ed lightly on the head. “Ew! Ed, your hair's all greasy.”

“So?”

Winry paid Ed little mind and leaned over so that she could give his slick golden strands a critical whiff.

“Your hair smells like you.” she said with disgust as she made her way to the adjoining bathroom.

“What's wrong with how I smell?” Ed demanded, the clunk of cupboards opening and closing sounding like bombs to his sensitive ears. He really wished he'd pass out.

“You stink, that's what's wrong.” Winry replied as she returned to Ed's bedside. “Scoot down.”

“Why?”

“Just do it or I'll make you.” the eleven year old threatened. If he wasn't feeling as if his head was about to snap in two, Ed might have argued with Winry. However, he had no fight in him and so just shimmied his body down the bed as Winry had told him to.

He wondered what she was going to do.

When Ed felt the mattress by the top of his head dip, he could feel a blush creeping up his neck. Winry was sitting behind him, so close that he could smell the cinnamon on her breath. What had she been eating that had cinnamon in it?

“Hey! What're you doing?” Ed demanded when he felt his hair being lifted and dropped into water.

“Washing your hair. Seriously Ed, if you want to grow your hair long at least learn to take care of it.” Winry lectured.

Ed would have snorted if he knew it wouldn't hurt his head.

Just after coming to his decision to join the military, Ed had decided to grow out his hair. He had always wanted to have long hair, but his mother insisted that little boys didn't wear their hair long. Every since that stormy night, however, Ed no longer felt like a little boy, and so he was going to grow his hair as long as he wanted.

He grimaced, remembering how Winry had laughed when he made his announcement. She had told him, through her giggles, that he would look like a girl with long blond locks flowing freely down his shoulders.

`I'll wear it up.' Ed decided as he felt Winry's fingers comb through his hair, determined to get out all of the tangles before washing it. He would never say it out loud, but it felt sort of nice having Winry take care of him.

Ed had been friends with Winry for years, had known her even longer than his brother.

His first memory of Winry was filled with flowers.

Al was barely crawling and their mother had taken them to a field of wildflowers to spend the day. Winry and her parents had been invited, the two families partaking of the warm sunlight, cool breezes and the fields of colorful spring flowers.

Ed even imagined that his father had been there, but he chose to ignore that fact for fear of contaminating a rather happy first memory.

While Al was crawling through the tall grass, Ed and Winry were pretending the baby was a lion hunting them. The smells of grass and dirt and air blossomed in Ed's memory as he recalled taking Winry's soft hand and pulling her behind him. As he and Winry dodged Al, they exited the tall grass and discovered the wildflowers, each one nearly as tall as they were, with so many colors that Ed believed there were some that he had never known existed. With the perfume of fresh spring flowers surrounding them, Ed took hold of a pink flower, tugged it free of its roots and presented the prize to his friend. Winry had accepted the flower, graced Ed with a glowing smile then took off to continue playing with Al, the scent of flowers trailing after her.

Ed was surprised at himself for recalling such a deeply protected memory. It was returning to him so strongly that he was sure he could still smell the flowers from the field…

“Winry! You're using girl shampoo!” he cried when he realized that the scent of flowers was coming from the soapy suds that Winry was currently massaging into his hair and not from his own imagination.

“It's all we have.”

“Well why was it in my bathroom?” Ed demanded.

“Because your showerhead has stronger pressure than my bathroom.” Winry explained with rising ire. “Besides, it's not really your bathroom…it's my house.”

“I'm here enough that it's my bathroom.” Ed insisted. “Come on, Win.”

Winry stalled, Ed's hair wrapped around her fingers. Only Ed was allowed to call her Win, and he didn't do it very often because he knew it vexed her so much that she would hit him over the head with a screwdriver. He only ever called her Win when he was trying to be shyly sweet or whiningly persuasive.

“I'm not gonna stop, Ed. I'm nearly done.”

“But I'm gonna smell like a girl.”

“So? What's so bad about that? It's better than smelling like stink.”

“Not if you're a boy. You just don't get it.” Ed groaned.

“Nope. I guess not.” Winry answered sweetly as she continued to work the lather of her shampoo into Ed's hair.

As far as scents went, Winry didn't particularly care to smell constantly of flowers. She preferred the smell of her grandmother's workshop, the combination of motor oil, grease and steel forever clinging to the air. However, when it came to her hair, Winry had always used this flowery shampoo. The smell of flowers all around her as she washed her hair made her feel calm…like a fond memory.

Looking down at Ed, Winry noticed he was grumbling to himself, the words `girlie', `flowers' and `sucks' making their way to her ears. As much as she did enjoy antagonizing Ed, Winry really didn't want him to concern himself with something as stupid as shampoo when he had to recover from major surgery.

“Here. How does this feel?” Winry asked as she pushed her fingers closer to Ed's brow. Mindful of the soap on her fingers, Winry began to massage Ed's temples, pressing firmly into his skin in soothing circular motions. His grumbling stopped instantly, the lines in his forehead telling of his incredible migraine disappearing as he began to relax under her ministrations. Winry smiled to herself, forgoing Ed's hair for the moment so that she could massage his scalp.

Ed felt like a purring kitten under Winry's firm fingers. His migraine was not going away, but it was less sever the more she rubbed those small circles along his head. And even as he found himself drifting off to sleep, Ed could smell the strong scent of flowers surrounding himself and Winry.

He would not realize it until years later, when he was spending long nights traveling by train, that he missed the smell of flowers surrounding him as he slept.