Battle of Seduction, a fullmetal alchemist fanfic

It was a bright day, the sun was shinning, and the sky was perfect, cloudless, and gentle blue. Nothing could disturb the wonderful peace simply radiating in tsunami-like waves. Or, at least, that's what it would seem. A certain blonde alchemist named Edward Elric could most certainly disrupt such a perfect peace.

Confined behind his desk which was more like a prison of reports in need of writing, advancements in need of approval, and papers in need of signatures, Roy's eyes flicked over the growing pile of paperwork and pondered in his mind any possible way of escape. If worse came to worse, he could pull his usual: making up a fake mission he desperately needed to supervise, and having Havoc finish everything for him. He could feel Hawkeye's eyes on him from the couch where she polished one of her favorite rifles. Sighing, he remembered the good old days when he didn't need supervision to do paperwork. Then again, there was that incident with the accidental snap of the fingers that sent it all up in flames… No matter.

"Where is he!? I wanna know right now, so that I can rip off his legs and stick them on his head!"
"In his office, where he always is," came the reply, calm despite his raging fury and red face.
He settled down for a moment, briefly nodding to the blonde, trigger-happy female, and then proceeded to storm into Mustang's quarters, marching with unnecessarily loud stomps to the polished desk.

Crisp, slightly wrinkled papers were shoved under his nose, the familiar, barely legible script identifying the papers as Ed's report on his latest "mission."

Reflexively, Roy recoiled from the angered movements of the young state alchemist. His initial expression of surprise soon melted away as his face broke into his classic, signature smirk, his eyes taking in the image of Ed with pleasure. "Now, Full Metal," he said coolly, taking Ed's auto mail arm, still clenching the report, by the wrist and lowering it out of his face and onto the table. "Is that really any way to greet your superior?"

Ed didn't grace the colonel with a response, only a frosty glare, and a sharp yank as he snatched his arm back from the man's grasp.

"Just take the damn papers," he said instead, eyes cast to the side.

Roy brought the report closer to his sight, eyes darting over Ed's scrawl, that sometimes needed more willpower to decipher than the most intricate of alchemic codes. "Seems you've managed to reach an all time low."

Roy's words registered in Edward's brain faster than Al could say cat, and he had immediately assumed the familiar pose, arms flailing, teeth clenched, and vein throbbing. "Who're you calling so short he gets buried under his five page reports!?" As he ranted, he had slowly gotten closer and closer, so that by the time he had finished, his fits were clutching Roy's shoulders so tightly they were probably broken, his face a mere hair's breath away from Roy's, eyes ablaze with unequaled rage.

Suddenly Roy was intone with everything surrounding him: he could feel the tickle of Ed's breath on his cheek, the feel of his sturdy hands clenching down on his shoulders. Their position felt out of place and yet natural, like they were made to be this close all the time. He felt his expression soften and he cocked his head so slightly at Ed that it was almost impossible to notice, but somehow Ed managed it. In the next moment, the blonde's eyes glazed over, trying to comprehend.

For a heartbeat things were still, and everything felt… right.

With one swift, unexpected motion, Roy planted his hand squarely on Ed's chest and pushed hard, throwing off the alchemist's balance. In a second, Ed had toppled over onto the ground by the foot of Roy's desk, a look of stunned shock about him.

Roy tried unsuccessfully to hide the smirk behind his hand, but it didn't really matter if Ed saw it or not, he probably couldn't anyway, since he was way down there so far away on the floor of his office. He grinned suddenly, an idea creeping into his mind. "Why Full Metal, where'd you go? Don't you think it's slightly childish to play hide-and-seek in the middle of a debriefing? I didn't take you as the type to do that," his voice practically leaked with the joy and obvious pleasure at him comment, knowing that one Edward Elric would up in his face in moments, and he could repeat the process all over again.

Edward's eyes snapped back to glare darkly at Roy Mustang's face. He just had to say it, continuing the banter past the point of no return. He lurched to his feet, leaping onto the desk like an all to eager jungle cat, feet and palms simultaneously slamming onto the desk in one loud, thunderous bang.
"Who're you calling so short he can't be tipped over cause he's too close to the ground!?" the blonde raged, teeth clenched so tight you could hear the muscles of his face straining and flexing under the skin of his cheeks.

Hardly even stirred by Ed's all too familiar tantrum-like shouting, Roy scarcely found himself reacting to the classic retaliation of his subordinate. Resting his cocked head on his hand calmly, he averted his eyes to meet Ed's. Instinctively, he followed the pattern of his and Ed's typical encounters: Entrance, short joke, retaliation, moving on. As always, Roy didn't even comment on Ed's outburst. "Why Full Metal, is something wrong?" he drolled, not even bothering to feign real interest. "Today you're acting even more childish than normal."

Even though Ed's face was a contorted mass of rage, it did nothing to show the inner battle currently taking place just below the skin and muscles. It was logical to simply end this tirade, it was getting him no where, and most obviously adding to Roy's amusement, but then if he did in fact back down, it would be... submitting to the fiend currently smirking in his direction.

Best to chance it, the sooner he got this over with the better. He settled back hastily, as soon as he realized that he had once again breached Roy's personal space, a light pink dusting his cheeks.

Unable to resist taking pleasure in Ed's flustered expression, Roy took in the site of him all at once. Even without a retaliation to build on, he knew exactly which buttons to press. "Would this be a bad time to ask how the search for your philosopher's stone is going?" Now he easily feigned a caring face, portraying the innocent opposite of his real intention.

Ed's neck made a rather loud, unpleasant snapping noise as his head jerked to glare at the Colonel.
"You think?" he challenged, "just read the goddamn report."

Roy leaned back in his chair, sending a loud creak to his ears as he reclined. Obediently, he took the crumpled paper and brought it to his face, leaning back almost so far he could comfortably mount his legs on the desk. The report was standard Elric materiel: only facts, no details, nothing really helpful. Really just a formality for him not to get put onto probation. Though he may as well have been reading any of Ed's countless reports, his eyes scanned through it lazily but found nothing out of the norm or worth commenting on.

Squinting slightly as if contemplating something, he glanced up at Ed, and back to the paper slowly. Roy placed the paper back on the desk, weaving his fingers together like a doctor just assigned to tell a child his father had died. "Full Metal..." He fixed his eyes on the report.

"You need a hobby."

Ed scoffed, he had a hobby. And he said so, adding at the end: 'I have the hobby of reading and studying alchemy so that I can return Al's body to him.

Roy raised an eyebrow at that. Did Ed really consider the work that made Roy want to purge a hobby?

He cut his eyes at his subordinate. "No, Ed, I meant a real hobby. Or a good lay."

Sighing as if he actually cared, Roy continued before Ed had a chance to explode. "Which I doubt would last long, seeing as you've probably never had a girlfriend since you were born and would therefore have no experience. I doubt you could even get a girl to look your way with sexual interest."

Ed sputtered indignantly at Roy's comment. "Reading is a hobby, and secondly... I'm not you, Colonel Bastard," he sat venomously, "and I can so get a girlfriend if I wanted to. In fact, I bet I could steal all the woman in central by the end of the day, and have them groveling at my feet." He finished his rant with a confident tone and determined pose.

Roy couldn't prevent the smile from spreading across his face; things were getting interesting. Without losing his cool, he addressed Ed's retort. "Was that a challenge?"

Ed didn't miss a beat, replying to Roy almost instantaneously. "What'd you think it was, your grandma's birthday? Of course it was, you empty-headed, morally corrupt, sex-obsessed excuse for a colonel."

The smile broke into a full-fledged grin as Roy pushed out his chair and stood, towering over Ed. "I accept then. At six thirty, in front of Head Quarters, we'll see which of us is more empty-headed. May the best player win."

Peace out.

-Moony-kouhai and Eddily-sempai.