Archive of Our Own

Al couldn't entirely understand why Ed got such a stricken expression when he got a wedding invitation in the mail. After all, weren't weddings supposed to be a happy thing? And Al would think the whole "free food" element would be something that would absolutely interest Ed. But when he asked some of those questions, Ed had just turned to give him a dark stare. 

"They want me to be an attendant. Like. A groomsman." 

Al blinked and tilted his head. "But... Doesn't that mean they think really well of you?" 

"Well, sure, but..." Ed sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It just... It means I have to get a suit." 

"You could just say no, if it's that awful." 

"No, no, it's not that awful. I mean, I'm the reason they met in the first place, I don't want them to think..." Ed sighed and hung his head. "It's fine. I can handle wearing a suit for a day."

Apparently, the idea wasn't just to have a regular suit either. The couple had a rainbow theme for their wedding and had decided they wanted their attendants to make a rainbow in the background. Ed said it had something to do with the fact that it was a gay marriage in June because they were saps. Al wasn't exactly sure why June was significant, but he at least knew he could at least follow along with Ed's explanation that the two people getting married—Chase and Ash—were actually two men getting married, and rainbows were apparently a symbol of the gay community. Al didn't know exactly how the points connected to one another, but he knew enough to be supportive. And a little excited, if he was honest. He hadn't heard of weddings being so bright and colorful before. 

The point was, Ed was supposed to be a part of this attendant rainbow, which meant he was getting a brightly colored suit. Being, well, Ed, he had asked for the red suit, of course. In response, he had gotten a note saying that there was already someone hoping for red, and they had really been hoping Ed would want to go for blue, considering they had seen the picture of his neon blue hair on Facebook. 

Al was shocked to see that for once, Ed actually made a compromise on his style and agreed to the blue. 

Which was the long story of how Al found himself stuck milling around a clothing store as his brother got a final fitting for his suit. Ed had promised that they would get something for Al to wear to the wedding once his fitting was done and had instructed Al to look around and see if there was anything he liked. 

The suits were... well, suits, honestly. There were a few interesting suits, such as the bright blue one Ed was currently trying on, as well as a few others in bright colors. There was also one that Al got attached to that came in a soft velvet with a flower print. Al was sorely tempted to ask his brother to get him that suit, but he was worried he would pass out from the heat wearing something like that to a summer wedding. He figured he would just ask for a generic suit, whatever was cheapest, honestly. He liked suits, but aside from the occasional oddball, suits usually meant that if you'd seen one, you'd seen them all. 

So Al instead ended up wandering over to the formal dresses, trailing his hands through the silky flowers and marveling at how different each dress was from the others. Each one had a different shape to it, different lengths and types of fabric. 

He ended up stopped in front of a dress with a shimmery blue fabric that looked like it was made of water when he trailed his fingers over it. It had been covered in bright fabric butterflies that popped off the dress in a 3D way that made them almost looked alive. The butterflies were denser at the bottom of the dress, slowly becoming sparser until they disappeared at the torso, and Al was enchanted with the effect. It made it look as if the dress itself was being transformed into butterflies, as if it had been pulled straight out of a fairytale. 

"Find anything you like?" There was a familiar voice, and when Al turned to look, there was Ed with a suit slung over his shoulder. 

"Yeah. There were some suits over there that are... fine," Al said, giving the butterfly dress one last mournful look and running his fingers over the fabric. "But don't you wish they made suits more like this? Don't you wish you could just wear something like this instead?"

Ed raised an eyebrow at Al. "Well, why don't you?"

"What?!" Al squeaked, then shook his head. "No, no, Brother, it's... a dress, I can't..." 

"Hey Al, I've got a surprise for you." Ed leaned forward with a grin, then put a hand on Al's shoulder and squeezed it. "It's not the 1910s anymore. You're allowed to wear a dress. It's not a big deal." 

"N-No... I-I... I would look silly, Brother."

"What?" Ed made a face. "No, you wouldn't. Who told you that? I mean, look at that, it looks amazing!"

Ed gestured to a mannequin wearing the same butterfly dress, and Al winced. "Well... Of course she looks good in it, s-she's... Well... Not me. I'd look... ridiculous."

"What?" Ed's frown deepened, and he pushed his suit into Al's hands. "Nu-uh, you would never look ridiculous. You just need to see what it looks like on a guy. What size do you think I am?"

"Brother!" Al made a choked sound as his brother started flicking through the dresses on the rack. "Y-You can't just...!" 

Ed paused to hold a dress up to himself before shaking his head and trading it for a size larger. "I can, I will, and I'm going to rock it. Be right back." 

Al knew that once Ed got an idea in his head, it was like trying to stop a hurricane, so he didn't bother trying. Instead he ended up pacing just by the dressing rooms, carrying Ed's suit. As he paced, he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror near the wall, and he paused in front of it with a frown. It had been too long since his last haircut, and he was looking a little shaggy, with some bits of his hair just barely brushing the collar of his shirt. He found that even though he kept telling himself he needed to cut his hair short, he still kept growing it out between haircuts, enjoying how it reminded him a little of his brother's hair. 

As he turned his face back and forth in the mirror, he found himself wondering... What would he look like in a dress, anyway? Surely he'd look ridiculous, because... Well, because that was what everyone said, wasn't it? 

Al frowned at his reflection. Granted, he wasn't the same kind of rebel as Ed, but he didn't like to think that maybe he was doing things only because everyone else said to. After all, the same society had told him and Ed not to pursue the philosopher's stone, too, and they had been wrong about that. 

"Okay, well, I don't recommend spaghetti straps with automail," Ed said with a grunt as the fitting room door clanged closed. "This would absolutely get tangled if I wore it for more than five minutes." 

Al turned to look at his brother, ready to insist that this was just another of Ed's weird plans, that he needed to take the dress off and they could grab a suit instead. But the words froze on his lips with a frown as he took in Ed's appearance. 

"Huh," was all he managed. 

Ed had pulled his hair out of his usual ponytail, and the blue of hair on his shoulders melded with the blue of the dress until it almost like it was all meant to be one piece. The dress was pooling a little bit on the floor around Ed's feet, but the upper half managed to fit him decently. And Ed looked... Different. The dress was soft and gentle, but the sharp jut of his chin and the bright glint of automail made the dress seem like... a little more. Almost a little ethereal and dangerous. A little like how Al had always pictured fairies, not quite entirely any gender in particular.

But... Al shook his head. That wasn't what he had been told a boy in a dress was supposed to look like. 

"Well?" Ed said, raising his eyebrows at Al. "Whaddya think? You wanna try one on?" 

"I..." Al felt himself pulled towards the dress, but then he pulled back and shook his head. "Er... No. No, I couldn't."

Ed gave him a look, something that Al couldn't entirely understand. It wasn't disapproval, but a sort of sadness. Maybe even concern. They stood there quietly like that for a minute, and Al ended up looking at the ground as his brother struggled for something to say. 

"Okay," Ed finally said, and when Al looked up again, he was nodding like he had decided on something. "Okay. We'll get you a suit, then. But I'm still buying this."

"What? But, Brother, I'm never going to wear it!" 

"That's fine," Ed said with a grin and a careless shrug. "But you deserve to have it around so you can at least enjoy looking at it." 

Al frowned. "But... Why?" 

"Because of the way you looked at it, Al," Ed said in a soft voice. 

There was some debate on when they came home on where exactly the dress should go. Al was nervous about having it in his own closet, like having it there would imply that he owned it more than his brother. Ed argued that he didn't want it in his closet because he knew Al would never ask for the chance to look at it, and that would defeat the entire purpose of buying the dress in the first place. So instead, the dress ended up hung on the towel hooks on the back of the bathroom door. 

Al had ended up letting Ed talk him into a hot pink suit for the wedding, and he was actually excited to wear it. The fact that this world actually had brightly colored suits was exciting in its own right. It was the most exciting Al had ever seen suits capable of being. Plus, a hot pink suit meant that he would fit in with all the other bright colors that would be at the wedding, but he wouldn't get mistaken for being one of the attendants. 

But the dress was still hanging on the back of the door, almost like it was mocking Al every time he took a shower or went to the bathroom. It would be so easy to just try it on and slip back into his normal clothes. He didn't even have to leave the bathroom. Ed wouldn't even know he'd done it. 

And yet, Al still hesitated. 

It had almost managed to get pushed out of his mind by the time Ed decided to sit down and have a serious talk, rubbing his thumb over the knuckles of his hand.

"So, ah, Al, before we go to this wedding, there's something I wanted you to understand."

"O...kay?" Al raised an eyebrow and closed the book he had been reading. Ed was giving off clear vibes that this wasn't the sort of talk that would just be a quick sentence or two. 

"So, uh... You already know that this world has developed in a lot of ways that our world hadn't," Ed said, reaching up to rub the back of his head. "And, uh. Well, one of the things that scientists have learned that some things are way more complicated than we first thought."

"Sure," Al said with a shrug. "Like the automail brain." 

Ed blinked. "Automail... brain?"

"You know, like... The thing that you said is able to think, but it's made all out of machinery." 

"You mean A.I.?" Ed snorted. "Yeah, sure, kind of like that. Brains are a lot more complicated than people knew at first. Apparently so is gender." 

Al raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying they developed automail... hmm?"

"What? No! I mean... Kinda?" Ed made a face and shook his head. "That's not the point. Ehm. This is harder than I thought. I forgot just how little you would know."

"Is this the reason why people introduce themselves with pronouns and stuff?" 

"Yes!" Ed waved his arms at Al like it was an amazing revelation. "Because it turns out there's way more than two genders. And... And there's no way to tell what gender someone is just by looking at them, because things are way more complicated than we thought." 

"Alright?" 

"Well, anyway, sometimes the gender people have in their heads doesn't match with, like... What got put on their birth certificate. And that... makes them... Well, the word for it is dysphoria, but like... really anxious and uncomfortable, I guess? Gah, I'm the wrong person to be explaining this." Ed groaned and rubbed a hand at his forehead before he continued. "Well, anyway, there's all sorts of things people can do to feel more comfortable in their bodies. Like. Surgeries and hormones and stuff. And legally changing their names." 

"And... this is important to know for the wedding?" 

"Yeah. Chase and Ash, well..." Ed shrugged again. "They've both been through that. It's called being transgender. And there's going to be a lot of other trans people at the wedding, too. And I just thought maybe you'd like a heads up, because there's a lot of social rules on being polite to trans people that are different from what we grew up with." 

"You mean I could say something rude by accident?" Al's eyes widened, and he put the book he'd been holding down on the seat next to him. "Um, yeah, please teach me everything." 

Ed didn't consider himself some sort of expert on the trans community, not by any stretch of the imagination, and he kept telling as much to Al. If that was the case, then Al was a little concerned just how much someone who was an expert on the topic would actually know, because it seemed like there was a lot more information than Al had counted on. Apparently, when Ed had first started hanging out with Crow, Ash, and Chase, he'd made a few social faux pas that had led to a gentle but firm redirection. Ed assured him that everyone would be gentle, since they all apparently knew that Al had come from some unspecified other country. But Al still wanted to make sure he avoided accidentally upsetting people as much as possible, all the same. 

They had been talking for a couple hours when the conversation finally lulled again, Ed looking down at his hands as he fidgeted. 

"You know, Al, I wanted to let you know that..." Ed took in a deep breath before he looked up again, his eyes connecting with Al's. "If that's... If you relate to that concept, like... If you feel like a girl inside—" 

"No, no, Brother, I don't—"

"Hang on, just let me finish," Ed said, reaching out to grab Al's hands, stopping him from waving them around. "I just wanted to say that it's okay, whether you do or don't. Whoever you are. I'll always love you no matter what, okay? And if there's ever anything we can do to make you feel more comfortable, it's okay. I'll find a way to get anything you need, okay? I just want you to be happy."

"I..." Al stared at his older brother, his face creasing into a frown. "I... I'm not a girl on the inside, Brother." 

"And that's totally fine," Ed said, giving Al's hands a squeeze before letting go. "And it's also okay if you're just a boy who... likes to wear dresses. There are guys who do that now." 

"I..." Al took in a deep breath, his chest heaving with a sigh. " I don't even know. I spent so long not having any body at all, I don't really care about... I don't know. Gender doesn't even make sense. Maybe it makes even less sense if I have to choose it for myself. It's easy enough if everyone just looks at me and says 'oh, that's a boy,' but... How am I supposed to even know which one I am? If I woke up tomorrow morning with a girl's body... Honestly, I'd just be glad I still had a body at all. I don't really care what people call me. I don't feel like I'm anything, Brother. Or maybe I'm everything!"

Al was surprised to find that tears had started squeezing out of the corners of his eyes as he talked, and he wiped them away with a confused sniff. 

"What if... What if all those years in the armor broke me or something?" Al whispered. " I mean... Everyone else seems to actually have this strong connection to gender, and I just... don't." 

"No, no, you're absolutely not broken!" Ed said, reaching forward and pulling Al into a tight hug. "You're not broken, okay, Al?"

"How do you even know?" 

"Because I've met other people who have the same sort of feelings about gender," Ed said, squeezing Al's shoulders. "Like Crow? You met them. They don't really relate to the concept of gender either. It's okay if gender is confusing. And it's okay if you have to try things and they don't stick. I'll always be here for you." 

"But wearing a dress?" Al said, pulling away from Ed. "Everyone will laugh at me!" 

"No, they won't! Well, at least not at this wedding. Trust me, the wedding is full of a bunch of really, really accepting people. That's why they adopted the strange kid with no background who seemed like an obsessive cosplayer." 

"Cosplayer?" Al blinked. 

"Yeah, that... That's another conversation." 

Despite Ed's reassurances that people at the wedding honestly wouldn't care if Al wore a dress, the thought still made him nervous. Something about dresses felt dangerous and forbidden, and he couldn't fully explain the feeling to Ed. There were several more conversations about gender after the first one, with Ed even opening up to Al about how he'd had to adjust to the differences in this world as well. Apparently, Ed had gotten fairly comfortable with the idea that anyone of any gender could wear whatever they liked. 

But that made sense for Ed. He had always been a rebel, after all. He didn't really care if people were whispering behind his back when he walked into a room. Al, meanwhile, didn't know if he would be able to bear it. 

The thing was, Al didn't even know how much of a rebel Ed was until the day of the rehearsal dinner came along, and Ed came out of his room wearing a dress. 

Ed had left his hair down, something that Al had noticed he'd been doing more and more lately. Maybe it was just that he liked showing off as much of the blue as possible. Or maybe he'd always wanted to leave his hair down and now he just finally had a peaceful enough lifestyle to justify it.

It didn't have the same ethereal effect that the butterfly dress had created when Ed had tried it on at the fitting rooms. Instead, this dress was short, ending just past Ed's knees. He'd put on tall boots that covered up his automail leg, along with a cropped leather jacket that covered up his arm. He'd also covered himself in metal jewelry, a couple long necklaces and a choker with metal spikes. Al absently noted that one of the necklaces was even the same symbol that had been on the back of Ed's coat for so many years. 

Something about the way the leather jacket cut off right before the dress flared out made Ed look like he actually had more of a feminine shape than Al would have normally thought. 

Still, Al was so unprepared for such an unexpected outfit that when Ed first came out of his room, Al ended up bursting out into laughter. 

"I don't look that ridiculous, do I?" 

"No, no, I just didn't expect—" Al waved his hands frantically at Ed as if that would make up for his laughter. "I just had no idea that... That you could still be so gaudy even wearing a dress!" 

"Gaudiness is above gender," Ed said with a smirk, tossing his hair over his shoulder. "Besides, you're one to talk. Who pairs a hot pink suit with a lime green shirt, anyway?" 

Al glanced down at his shirt and rubbed a hand over the brightly colored fabric with a self-conscious grin. "...I like all the color." 

The instructions for the rehearsal dinner was that it was supposed as formal or as casual as anyone wanted, which meant Al had simply opted for the same hot pink suit he was planning on wearing to the wedding. After all, he was excited to wear a suit that was so far beyond what he was used to suits being. But it meant that he and Ed were almost total contrasts of one another, with Ed like some sort of embodiment of rebellion and death while Al was a tropical bird. 

Al found that he kind of liked them being total opposites. Because it meant they were both actually getting the chance to be themselves. 

Crow had offered to give them a ride to the wedding, because apparently, despite the extra time he'd spent in this world, Ed still hadn't managed to get himself a driver's license. Al secretly thought that maybe that was the smarter choice, considering that letting Ed control a giant metal death machine seemed like a very, very dangerous idea. Still, it meant that they usually had to take public transportation whenever they wanted to get somewhere, which was why Crow had offered a ride in the first place. Formal-wear and public buses didn't generally mix very well.

"Digging the suit," Crow said with a grin when Al opened the door for them.

"Thanks," he said, flashing back a matching grin of his own before stepping aside to let them inside. Ed was getting up from where he had been slouched on the couch, his dress poofing out over his knees again. 

"Dude!" Crow said, giving him a quick once-over. "Nice dress! You smash that binary!"

Ed flashed a triumphant smirk before jamming his hands into the fabric of the dress. "It has pockets!" 

"Okay, that makes it a thousand times better!" 

Al felt like he was watching some sort of secret code get exchanged, but he didn't entirely understand what exactly it meant. Was there some sort of double meaning to a dress with pockets? Or were pockets somehow just that exciting? Was that true of everyone in this world, or just Crow?

Crow, meanwhile, was wearing a somewhat casual outfit, grey slacks paired with a button-up shirt and tie and a red sweater on top. Over everything was a long coat that reminded Al a little of the one Ed had once worn everywhere, except theirs was a dark charcoal grey instead. They still were wearing some of their piercings (though it seemed like significantly less metal than the last time Al had seen them), and they had left their hair down. It all worked for Crow, somehow making them seem like a professor with a rebellious streak. 

The ride to the dinner wasn't all that significant, with Ed sitting in the front seat and talking with Crow about some sort of modern something that Al didn't understand. Al occupied himself with looking out the window instead, since there wasn't anything he knew how to contribute to the conversation. 

He spent the time instead worrying about how people would respond to Ed showing up in a dress. Sure, Crow had been excited at the sight, but they were... Well, Crow. They had a rebellious streak big enough to rival Ed's, which was no easy feat. But what about the people who were less rebellious? Al couldn't bring himself to believe that a guy wearing a dress was really as simple as Ed seemed to think. 

When they arrived at the location, there were a bunch of people who gathered around, just like Al had thought there might be, but it wasn't for the reasons he had assumed, either. 

"Oh my god, Ed, you look so good!" 

"Those boots are killer!" 

"Is this the little brother you never stop talking about?" 

Ed beamed and crushed Al against his side. "Yep! This is Al, everyone!" 

Suddenly Al was the one getting swarmed with people telling him how they liked his suit, how they were excited to finally get the chance to meet him, how they had heard so much about him. Al was left to blink in confusion. No one cared about Ed's dress. Well, no, correction. They absolutely did care, but they were... downright celebrating it, like it was exciting that Ed had chosen to wear a dress. 

Al wanted a chance to corner his brother and ask questions about this strange new world and new rules, but the dinner was an outright flurry of activity. There were people for Al to be introduced to, photos for Ed to pose for. Al was a little surprised at how easily Ed jumped into the photos with a wide grin. He seemed perfectly comfortable with being forever preserved in a photo wearing that dress. Like he didn't even care that these would probably be photos that the couple looked over for the rest of their lives. 

Ed was... Happy. Which was normal for a wedding, but not very normal for Ed. 

This world was good for him, Al decided. 

The dinner was fairly casual, especially considering it was for a wedding. An entire table of food had been dragged in, and people were expected to just serve themselves as much or as little as they liked. There were also tables spread around the room, but only a few people were actually sitting. It seemed like a couple of people would sit at a table, only to have a couple more join them, and a couple more, until there was a crowd of people standing around the table and chatting. 

Al didn't really know anyone and didn't entirely know how to talk even when he was introduced to people. He wasn't sure what he could add to a conversation about a presidential election he didn't know anything about, and that was just one of the conversations he actually understood. 

It dragged on for hours, and while Al was enjoying himself, he also felt himself draining from the socialization. Meanwhile, Ed (who was usually the anti-social one between the two of them) kept bouncing from one circle of people to another. Al could hear Ed's laughter bubbling up over the voices of the crowd, an infectious sort of joy that Al wasn't particularly used to seeing. 

Which meant that he couldn't bear to admit he was tired and wanted to go home, not when it meant interrupting Ed's fun. 

So he instead found himself a little table that was out of the way and settled down there with a heaping plate of hors d'oeuvres and desserts. He'd already eaten what felt like far too much, but the food was so delicious that Al couldn't entirely help himself. He'd taken a particular liking to the roasted jalapenos, filled with some sort of cream and wrapped in bacon. And the Caprese salad skewers. And some sort of tomato and vinegar thing combined with goat cheese and spread on small slices of bread. 

So maybe all the food was amazing. 

"Okay, as the host, I'm obligated to check in and make sure you're alright if you're sitting over here by yourself." 

Al stammered and looked up into the smiling blue eyes of a man with glasses, red hair, and a short beard. 

"Oh, no, I'm perfectly fine," Al stammered, waving his hands. "I'm sorry, I just needed a... break." 

"God, I feel that." The red-haired man let out a deep sigh and nodded. "My partner is the really extroverted one. He's the one who wanted this whole big wedding thing. And I can't say no to him when it makes him so happy, but..." 

"Right?" Al said, practically groaning in relief. 

"I'm Chase, by the way," the man said, holding a hand out for Al with a grin. "You're Ed's brother, right?" 

"Yeah, I'm Al."

"Well, Al, it seems kind of counter-intuitive, but do you mind if I take a break with you?" Chase said

"Sure, of course," Al said, pushing out a chair. In his mind, he honestly felt a little relieved. It wasn't necessarily that he just didn't want to socialize, but the way Ed was doing was so intimidating. For one, Al didn't really know anyone there other than Ed and Crow. For another thing, everyone else seemed to know one another so well that Al felt out of place, made even worse by the fact that he was still so out of touch with this world's culture. He didn't understand even half the references everyone was making. 

"Thanks for letting me come to the rehearsal dinner, by the way," Al said as he took a sip of his punch and looked down at his plate of food. "I know it's not usually—"

"Oh, don't worry about it," Chase said with a wave of his hand. "We pretty much ordered Ed to bring you along anyway. We've all been hearing so much about you for so long that we've all been kind of dying to meet you."

Al felt a bit of a blush beginning right at the back of his ears. "Oh, well... I hope I live up to everyone's expectations." 

"Don't worry too much about it," Chase said with a laugh. "We've all adopted Ed by now, he's basically family. Which means that if he says you're family, then you're family too. Which means we already love you and think you're great. You don't need to worry about expectations."

"I'm really glad he managed to find friends who support him so much," Al said, glancing over to the other side of the room where Ed was with a soft smile. "He seems... Really happy." 

"Well, he's happier now that you're around," Chase said with a shrug, nicking a jalapeno popper from Al's plate. " I mean, he was talking about playing around with gender presentation or wearing a dress or something for months, but he wasn't doing anything about it. Then you show up, and bam, it's like it's effortless for him all of a sudden."

Al let out a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure that's because he's trying to prove something to me." 

"Really?" Chase raised an eyebrow. "Like what?" 

"Uh..." Al kept his eyes trained on Ed instead of looking over to Chase. He told himself that Chase had just talked positively about Ed wearing a dress. And Ed had explained that Chase had gone through his own gender stuff, so surely he'd be accepting to Al, right? Al let out a breath. 

"I think he's trying to prove to me that it's safe to wear a dress," Al said, letting out a breath. He flicked his eyes over to Chase for a second, just to confirm that no, Chase wasn't looking at him like he was some sort of freak. Instead, Chase looked downright sympathetic, so Al continued, "There was this dress I really liked at the store, so he bought it for me. But I... I haven't been able to bring myself to wear it." 

Chase nodded thoughtfully and swallowed the last of the jalapeno popper. "Well, do you want to wear it?"

"I—" Al started, but the words stuck in his throat. "I don't know. Maybe. It's... It's really pretty." 

"Oh, yeah? What's it look like?" 

"Like magic," Al sighed. "It's this really pretty shade of blue, and it has these butterflies all along the bottom. They're all made out of fabric and 3-D, and... It just looks like the dress is being turned into a swarm of butterflies. Like it was made by fairies." 

"Oh man, that sounds amazing. I wish I could see it," Chase said with a grin. "I bet all the butterflies flutter when someone's wearing the dress and walking around." 

Al's eyes widened at the thought. Somehow, the dress seemed even more exciting with the thought. He had forgotten to consider that maybe the dress would look a little different when someone was actually wearing it than when it was just hanging on the back of the bathroom door. After all, the butterflies did flutter every time he opened and closed the door. Maybe they would look even more alive if they were on a person instead. "Y-Yeah..."

"Well, if you ever do feel brave enough to wear it, you should get Ed to send me a picture," Chase said. 

"You... You'd want to see it that much?" 

"Yeah, of course!"

"Really?" Al raised both his eyebrows. "You wouldn't think it's... You know... weird?" 

"Weird? Why would it be weird?" 

"Well, I don't know, I just..." Al sighed and bit at his lip. "I'm not, like... I'm not a woman trapped in a man's body or something. I'm just... Alphonse."

"And a dress is just a dress," Chase said. His voice had somehow turned more serious, even though he was still smiling at Al. "It's just fabric that's been sewn into a shape. It's not even much different from a shirt, it's just really long. At one point it was considered ridiculous for women to wear pants, and yet here we are."

The words hit home for Al a little harder than he thought Chase might have intended. But the thing was, he was a lot closer to remembering a time when women couldn't wear pants. Sure, Hawkeye had worn pants as part of her military uniform, and girls like Winry and Paninya wore pants while they were working, but it wasn't how the majority of women chose to dress. Al had listened to Winry gripe about how ridiculous it was, how pants were sometimes just more convenient than a dress and how it was ridiculous to say women were only allowed one tube of fabric around their legs instead of two. 

So when Al had shown up in this world a hundred years in the future, he had been a little surprised that so many women were wearing pants, but he had adjusted quickly. He thought about how happy Winry would be at the sight of a world where women not only wore pants, but all types of pants. 

And if it was ridiculous to say women couldn't wear pants just because of their gender, well, then... Didn't it follow that it was ridiculous to say that only women could wear dresses? Besides, if Al had shown up in a world where it was culturally expected that men wear dresses, wouldn't he have just had to learn to adjust? He bit his lip. 

"Hey, Chase?" Al whispered. "Would it... Would it be okay if I wore a dress to the wedding tomorrow?"

Chase beamed. "It would be beyond okay. I would love to see it. Heck, we have a professional photographer coming tomorrow, I think I could get her to take a few photos of you spinning or something, so you can see all those butterflies dancing."

Al sucked in a little breath at the thought. He was so curious to see what a professional photographer could do with that dress. And then he'd be able to forever enjoy the dress in a different way, a way that actually captured its movement instead of just hanging it on the back of a door. 

"No pressure though," Chase added, reaching out to pat Al's arm. "You should only do what you feel comfortable with, at your own pace. If you can't handle it tomorrow, it's totally fine." 

"Ah, so this is where you two have been hiding."

Al and Chase both jumped and turned to see a smirking Ed and a short, dark-haired man that Al assumed must be Ash. Al shot a look over to Chase, who gave him a helpless shrug and grin. Apparently, there wasn't much chance to take a break from the party for long, not with those two around. 

Al wanted to thank his lucky stars that Ed was good at reading his body language and could tell Al was kind of worn out. Which meant that even with Al trying to insist that it was okay, that Ed was having fun, excuses were still made, and Crow offered to drive them home. Crow and Ed talked animatedly the entire way back to the apartment, while Al sat and stared out the window, thinking about what he was going to do. 

Was he honestly going to wear a dress to a wedding?

He turned the question over and over in his mind all the way home, even once he was laying in bed, staring at the ceiling and trying desperately to fall asleep. 

Sleep didn't come easy, and he ended up tossing and turning through the night until he woke up a couple hours earlier than he had planned on. He tried for a few minutes to make himself fall back asleep, but eventually realized he was fighting a losing battle. So Al got up and went to the bathroom, softly clicking the door closed behind him before he sat down on the edge of the tub and stared at the dress hanging on the back of the door. 

Was he actually going to do this? And even get photos forever immortalizing that he had done it? 

A small sob forced its way out from the back of his throat, and Al rubbed the heel of his hand against his eyes. Why was this so difficult? It was just a piece of clothing, and here he was literally losing sleep and crying over it. 

He wasn't sure exactly how long he sat there, just staring at the dress and debating should I, shouldn't I, but eventually he heard the soft pad-thump of two mismatched feet stumbling around the apartment. He'd almost begun to think that maybe Ed had just gotten up to get a glass of water when there was a soft knock at the door. 

"Hey, buddy, you okay?" 

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine," Al choked out. "I'll just... I'll be out in a minute." 

"...Alright." 

He knew that Ed was probably debating whether he should be talking to Al more or not, but at least the sound of his footsteps moved away from the door. Al took in a deep breath. This was his chance. He couldn't spend forever debating whether or not to do this. If he wanted to wear the dress to the wedding, then he had to at least try soon. He could at least see if it actually fit him. If it didn't, well, he had an easy way out, didn't he?

It was once the dress was on him that Al suddenly realized he had no idea how to zip the zipper on the back of the dress. The zipper was frustratingly just barely out of reach, even as he strained to try and reach it. 

He struggled with it for several minutes before he realized: He was just going to have to ask for help. 

"Uh, Brother?" Al said, opening the door just enough to poke only his head out. 

"Yeah?" Al couldn't see him, but Ed's voice came from the direction of the kitchen. 

"Can you help me?"

There was a pause from Ed, though Al could hear him setting something down. And then there was Ed, coming to stand in front of the bathroom door as he wiped his hands off on a dish towel. "What's up?" 

"Promise not to laugh," Al whispered. Ed raised an eyebrow. 

"Of course not. What's going on?"

"I need help zipping this up," Al said, slowly opening the door to reveal the rest of himself and turning so Ed could see his back. 

"Ah, zippers," Ed said with a knowing snort. He reached out and zipped it up, the fabric tightening around Al and clinging to his body. 

Al smoothed out the fabric of the bodice and looked down. His feet were surrounded by a pool of butterflies, and when he twisted back and forth, they waved with the movement as if they were actually alive. Al sucked in a breath at the sight. Did he even dare go look in the mirror? What if seeing the dress on himself totally changed it and made him suddenly hate it? 

"Does it... Do I look ridiculous?"

"Not at all," Ed said, putting his hands on Al's shoulders. "You look amazing. You look like... Honestly, you look a little like mom." 

Al sucked in a breath. "Really?" 

"Really. You want me to do something with your hair?" 

"I don't know..." Al frowned. "Wouldn't you just end up doing something with spikes and gargoyles?" 

Ed put a hand to his chest as if he were deeply wounded. "Why, Alphonse! I know better than to pair butterflies with something like gargoyles! I mean, they're carrion creatures anyway. Clearly, the correct pairing here is skeletons, not gargoyles." 

"Brother!" 

"Relax, Al," Ed said with a laugh. "I was just going to put some flowers in your hair." 

"I don't know if I trust you now..." 

"Then take it out as soon as I'm done," Ed said with a shrug as he wandered off to his bedroom. 

When he came back, he had a bunch of silk flowers that had been attached to hair clips, as if he had been planning for this moment beforehand. For all Al knew, maybe he had been. Sometimes it felt like Ed knew him better than he even knew himself, so maybe Ed had just always figured that Al would eventually come around to wearing the dress. Or maybe he just happened to have flower hair clips for another reason. Maybe he had actually worn them himself. 

Al couldn't entirely picture the thought. But then again, he wouldn't have been able to picture himself in a dress a few weeks ago, either. 

Either way, Ed was twisting and working at Al's hair like he knew exactly what he was doing. Then again, he had always known hair a little better than Al, what with him having grown his out for so long. After Ed had dyed his hair blue, he'd tried to talk Al into growing his own hair out, something that Al was still mentally debating with himself about even though he hadn't had a haircut for almost a couple of months. 

"Alright, you can go look now," Ed said, patting a hand against Al's shoulder. "You should use the hall mirror so you can see the whole dress." 

He took a deep breath as he stood up from the chair, prepared to hate what he would see in the mirror. Sure, Ed said he looked nice, but Ed was biased. He had to be saying that just because he couldn't bring himself to say anything mean about Al. So he found himself putting together excuses for why he couldn't wear the dress even as he approached the mirror. 

All those excuses flew out of him as soon as he saw himself. 

He looked... ethereal. Like the sort of being that normally only existed in storybooks, some sort of fairy or other magical being. The flowers Ed had put in his hair somehow managed to look like they just belonged there, like maybe that was just how they grew. His hair fell around them in soft waves, an occasional small braid popping out here and there. 

And the dress. The dress was somehow even more magical than all the time Al had been admiring it before then. Chase had been absolutely right about the butterflies, and they fluttered with every movement Al made as if they were actually alive. Al swished his hips back and forth a few times, delighting in how it made him look as if he was transforming. He was fae royalty, dangerous and yet alluring at the same time, he was—

"So, whaddya think?"

"I... I kind of love it," Al whispered. 

The rest of the day passed by in a bit of a blur for Al. He found that once he had seen the dress on himself, he couldn't really bear to take it off, so he decided to just go ahead with the whole plan to wear it to the wedding. Chase would love it, anyway. 

When Crow showed up, they spent several minutes gushing over Al's outfit and how it suited him so perfectly. Al felt himself blushing with the praise, though he also adored it. It reassured him that everything really was okay, that he would manage to get through the wedding with people being accepting. 

Of course, there wasn't much time for people to be very accepting before the ceremony, because it was mostly comprised of a couple people giving orders to those in the reception party, while everyone else was pushed out of the way. Al couldn't even see where Chase and Ash were through all the chaos, so he left Ed to deal with the confusion of being an attendant and instead went off to find himself a seat. 

He ended up sitting next to a group of people who asked him how he knew the grooms, and were excited when he explained that he was Ed's younger brother. Apparently, Ed really had talked to pretty much everyone in this world about Al, because they were all downright ecstatic that the two of them had managed to reunite. 

The ceremony ended up being nothing like the ones Al was used to at home, filled with all kinds of bright color and laughter. Ash and Chase had each written their own vows, and Al found himself sniffling through them. Ash and Chase had clearly been through so much together, and they managed to keep loving one another so deeply through it all. Obviously, this was what love was supposed to be, and the fact that the two people in love happened to be the same gender was just an inconsequential detail. 

Once everyone had moved out of the garden and into the building for the reception, that was when the comments on Al's outfit really started. He first got comments while he was waiting in the receiving line, people saying that they loved his butterflies and that it was perfect for a summer wedding. Of course, once he actually got to see Chase and Ash, Chase couldn't help but gush about how the dress really was as amazing as Al had said. Al almost wanted to stay and talk longer, since Chase was now one of the three people he actually knew at the wedding, but unfortunately, there were plenty of other people who wanted to talk to the grooms. So Al was left to go off in search of Ed instead. 

To Al's relief, Chase and Ash had decided not to go with a traditional seating chart, which would have had Ed at some sort of attendant table and Al sitting with probably no one else he knew. Instead, all the attendants had been scattered around to sit with people they knew, and Al found his name card placed at a seat right next to Ed's. 

"Hey, Al, come here."

There was a hand wrapped around his arm, and suddenly he was pulled in the direction of Ed's voice with a choked splutter. 

"Chase said now would be a good time to get a minute with the photographer," Ed said as he dragged Al back out into the garden. Oh, so Chase had actually intended for Al to get specific photographs instead of just whatever happened to get caught at the reception? The thought was a little shocking to Al. After all, professional photographers were expensive, and he was pretty sure every minute of a photographer's time was accounted for at a wedding. 

But the photographer was nothing but kind, saying she was happy to spend a few extra minutes taking pictures of such a pretty dress. 

Al, however, had no idea how to pose for such a thing. He was still used to how photos of the 1910s worked, stiff things where you wore your absolute nicest clothes and tried to stay as still as possible for as long as you could. Cameras were apparently much more advanced now, able to make even a blur of movement get frozen perfectly clear. So the photographer ended up directing Al to spin a few times in order to capture the full magical movement of the butterflies, and Al found himself giddy and laughing as he spun. He wasn't sure whether he was laughing from the blood rushing to his head or from how he felt wild and reckless wearing a dress to a wedding and having his picture taken in it. 

After the photos, Al relaxed into the rest of the reception a little more easily. The food was delicious, everyone was beyond kind about Al's dress, and he eventually found himself laughing and dancing with Crow and Ed. There was just something infectious about the energy at a wedding, after all. 

The photos didn't come in until several weeks after the wedding, long after the dress had been hung up again. (Except this time, Al had actually hung it up in his own closet.) Ed refused to show Al the photos immediately, saying he wanted to surprise Al with the prints. Which meant Al was stuck waiting with baited breath for another couple weeks before the photos were printed and shipped, arriving in a thick, rigid envelope. 

But it turned out to be absolutely worth the wait. The photos captured a side of Al that he hadn't even known could be captured. He could suddenly see why Ed had said when he'd first put on the dress that he looked like their mom. He could definitely see her poking out through the carefree smile that had been caught in the photo. The dress was frozen in a spin around him, the butterflies each frozen in their own joyful movements. 

That was why he had loved the dress when he'd first seen it. Somehow the photographer had captured the magical feeling of the dress perfectly. So the photo ended up getting hung in Al's room (not to mention shared on Ed's Facebook), even if he felt a little vain for it. 

For the first time, Al felt like maybe he actually belonged in this strange new world he'd landed in.