H'okay, so I got this idea while bored out of my brain in the car, and I couldn't get it out of my head.
So yeah, this is AU. The homunculi and such don't exist, just the characters. Ed is a senior in high school, and Mustang is the teacher in a particular history class.
In this fic, Mustang is modeled loosely after my US History teacher. He's my favorite teacher, and I felt like Noblitt's personality matches Mustang's enough to work. So here goes!
"Edward Elric!" With the baritone-voiced teacher roaring in his ear, Ed was jarred awake. He sat bolt upright in his desk, golden eyes wide in alarm.
"Jesus, Mustang, don't do that! Nearly gave me a heart attack!" Ed panted, clutching his chest.
"So don't fall asleep in my class!" Roy growled, leaning on the student's desk with one dark eye narrowed irritably.
"But it's so booring!" Ed whined. "All you do is lecture! Half the time you wander off to a completely different topic and lesson ends up being a debate." He crossed his arms belligerently.
"Well, I can't deny the debate part, but I can remind you that it's points off your grade every time I catch you dozing." Roy said, standing and propping one hand on his hip.
"Wow Mustang, you look really gay standing like that." Ed remarked, looking his teacher up and down with a mocking grin.
Roy rolled his eyes, strolling back to the board. "Thank you for another completely irrelevant and immature comment, Ed."
"That's what I'm here for." Ed replied, sitting back in his desk with a smirk.
Some of the other students took a few moments to get their giggles under control at Ed's comment. It was a running joke that Roy was gay and had affairs with other teachers or a student, depending on who you asked. Few knew that their joke was true, except for the affairs. Only a few of the faculty, Ed, and Al knew.
They only knew because they'd lived pretty much next door, since Roy's apartment complex was just down the street. After their mother's death, some of the adults in that area pretty much adopted the boys in a sense. Roy had started helping the boys with homework, and still did so occasionally.
This was also partly the reason Ed was so cavalier in his attitude in Roy's class, and why he let him get away with it. He was rather fond of both the boys, and he knew that irritating him was just Ed's way.
Roy was a well-liked teacher despite his sometimes brusque manner, and many of the students preferred the way every lesson dissolved into a class debate over one thing or another. Roy often let this happen on purpose, knowing that it was a way to get them interested in the subject and actually learn something. A few of the argumentative souls, like Ed when he wasn't sleepy, highly enjoyed these debates. So, even though the original lesson often wasn't covered, the students learned something and had fun arguing. By some miracle he always got enough covered that those who bothered paying attention could score high on the final exam, so his methods were rarely questioned by the other teachers(unless the class got a bit too into the debate and created a ruckus).
"So, moving on with our lives, does anyone remember what I was saying before pausing to wake sleeping beauty over there?" Roy said, quirking an eyebrow sidelong at Ed.
"Civil War, Mustang." Ed supplied with a smirk.
A bark of derisive laughter escaped Roy's lips. "Lucky guess, Ed, but if you'd been awake you wouldn'tve jumped when I shouted."
"Got me there, old man." Ed shrugged, leaning back in his chair.
"Hoi! Thirty-five isn't old!" Roy said indignantly, scowling.
"Yes it is!" Asserted several voices from the rest of the class.
Roy rolled his eyes. "Okay fine, I'm old. But that just further qualifies me to teach history. So, the war." He picked up where he left off, until someone piped up with a question that sent him into a detailed explanation, which someone else questioned. In this manner he got right off track, and when someone made a statement that another student disagreed with, there went order. Ed smirked, adding his own voice to the argument. History class was always fun.
"Seriously Mustang, you need a life." Ed remarked. School had been let out, but Ed always hung around for a little while in Roy's room after school. Sometimes he was waiting for Al, but mostly it was simply because he could. "You spend until five-thirty doing God knows what, then go home, eat, and go to sleep? You have no life."
"Of course not. I'm a school teacher. Social Security pays old people more than I get paid by the county. On my paycheck, one can't have a life." Roy replied caustically, entering grades and attendance. "Teachers who haven't been teaching for long, like me, get little more than scraps. Once I've been teaching for a while I'll get better pay."
"Good luck with that." Ed pulled a face. "How you can stand to teach some of these ijjits is beyond me, and for practically nothing."
"Sometimes I think the very same thing, actually." Roy said, sighing slightly.
"So why not quit teaching and do something that pays more?" Ed inclined his head slightly.
"Good question." Roy commented with a snort. "Half the time I'm not sure. But this job has its pros, however hard they may be to find." He shrugged.
Ed grimaced and slid off the desk he'd been perching on, starting to stroll out the door. "Well, if you say so. See ya."
"Hey Ed!" Roy called before the teen was too far out the door.
Ed poked his head around the doorframe. "What?"
Roy lobbed a marker at him. "Do your bloody homework for once! You're killin' me with your laziness!"
Ed dodged the missile, poking his tongue out impishly. "Feh! If anything killed you it'd be old age, O ancient one!"
"You impudent little brat!" Roy fumed, lurching upright. When Ed yelped and scampered out of sight, Roy smiled fondly and sat back down, shaking his head.
...
"Hey Ed, you're a senior, right?" Winry asked as they strolled around the school to pull Al away from the library. The young media assistant would often immerse himself in a book and lose track of where he was and what time it was.
"Uh-huh." Ed hummed.
"You're only sixteen, you should be a junior." Winry said, her brows furrowing in confusion.
"It's called skipping a grade." Ed replied, rapping her temple with one knuckle scathingly. "Besides, if I hadn't skipped my junior year, they'd want me to be a Junior Marshal. Graduation's gonna be enough of a pain, but I'd rather not stand out there in a tux for three hours just because I'm in the top percentage of my year. I want to stand out there for three hours because I'm getting out of this place."
"That's a sorry reason, Ed." Winry said with a mock-scowl.
"It's a reason." Ed waved airily, pretending to ignore Winry's false scowl.
"But hey, since you're a senior, you can do your senior prank this year." Winry commented, grinning wickedly.
Ed smirked maliciously. "Oh yeah. I already have it planned. I know exactly what I'm gonna do, where, and how."
"Ooh, tell me!" Winry leaned close, whispering conspiratorially.
"Nah, I don't wanna spoil it." Ed grinned mischievously.
It was the first week of the final six weeks, the end was nearing. All of the students and many of the teachers were eager for the school year to be over with. So not surprisingly, it was a slightly weary Roy who strolled late into his classroom one Friday morning, pausing in the doorway to survey his room with a confused frown on his handsome features.
The desk next to his actual teacher's desk, the one that served as a general repository for papers, books, and other classroom junk, had been cleared of its burden. The mass of papers that had once rested on it were now scattered on the floor.
Mysteriously, there was a small bottle of hand-lotion on the windowsill against which the desk stood; open, mostly empty and propped against the windowpane. Some of the slick, viscous substance lolled from the open cap like a pale tongue, threatening to drop onto the sill.
Odder still was the thick white liquid that formed small pools on the desktop, some dripping onto the floor and turning a few of the papers into pulp. Roy looked at the students. Most were eyeing the white liquid warily, looking from the puddle to Roy and back uneasily. One or two seemed oblivious and were curious as to what the big deal was. Ed was slouched in his chair, apparently asleep. His lips were curved into a tiny smirk that Roy made sure to notice.
He ran a hand through his short, black hair, adopting a contrite expression. "Oh man guys, sorry about this. Dammit, I forgot to clean up again. Ed!" He turned to the teen. "You need to remind me next time!"
Ed opened one eye slowly, still smirking at his teacher. "Sorry Roy. I was in a hurry, had to get home before Al noticed I was late."
Roy struggled not to burst out in laughter at the horrified looks on the class' faces. Nice touch, using my first name. I'll get you for this, Ed. "Fine. You gonna help me clean up? It is your mess, after all."
"Pfft. I'm tired. It's your room, you clean it." Ed drawled, yawning for good measure.
Roy rolled his eyes as he set to mopping up the cream and replacing the salvaged junk back on the table, pitching the cream-soaked papers with the wads of paper towel. He tossed the almost-empty bottle of lotion to Ed. "I think that's yours, lazy-ass."
"So it is. I need to bring better stuff next time, though." Ed grimaced, rubbing his lower back. Roy stifled his mirth by biting his lower lip, not looking up for fear of bursting into hysterics when he saw the expressions his students were wearing.
The class was unusually quiet that day, and they got over twice as much covered than they normally did. All through the lesson, Ed struggled not to grin, instead settling on a smug smirk. The rumors would abound for a while, until they got tired of that particular piece of gossip. Ed didn't really care that he'd be the butt of many a snide comment until the excitement died down. It was so worth it.
He had actually half-expected Roy to play along, but it was a surprise when he pulled Ed into it. That was an opportunity too good to miss. The class' looks of fascinated horror and repulsion were enough to make him want to burst out laughing, even more so when Roy looked on the edge of hysterics himself.
Most of the people in the class rushed out with uncharacteristic alacrity when the bell rang, and Roy took the brief respite during class-change to compose himself. He'd have a word with that impossible teen after school, whether on school grounds or back home.
...
Ed dropped by the room after school, pushing two desks together and stretching out on his back across the desktops in nonchalant silence. He fixed one gold eye on Roy, waiting for the teacher to speak with an expectant smirk curving his lips.
Roy pretended to ignore the teen for a few minutes, finishing up the attendance charts for that day before looking up at Ed with a carefully neutral expression. "Can I help you, Ed?"
Ed burst into hysteric giggles, unable to contain himself. He rolled onto his side and curled up into a loose fetal position, covering his face with the hand not clutching his abdomen.
Roy's lips twitched despite his effort to maintain a straight face, but soon Ed's mirth caught and he allowed himself a chuckle, shaking his head at the teen.
"Oh man…" Ed gasped through his laughter, sitting upright and dabbing at the tears beading in his eyes. "That went better than expected." He got himself under control at straightened up, taking a few shaky breaths before grinning at Roy.
Roy quirked an eyebrow at the teen. "Really? Well, I'm glad I could entertain you for a while. But it seems sort of pointless since you turned the joke on yourself."
"Hey, your comment pulled me into it." Ed asserted with mild indignation. "I just went along with it. Besides, I can tolerate a few off-color comments from the peanut gallery. That was worth it." He stifled another bout of chuckles by biting his lower lip.
"So, that was cream you spread around, right?" Roy asked, slightly wary.
"D'oh. What did you think I used, real cum?" Ed retorted with a scathing snort.
Roy smirked. "With you, Ed, I can never tell."
"Good point." Ed grinned.
"Hey now, don't have too much fun! We're going over to Winry's for dinner tonight, remember Ed?" Al called from the door, grinning.
"Hey Alphonse." Roy waved to the younger Elric.
"Hello, Mr. Mustang." Al smiled, entering the class. "By the way, Ed, I'd appreciate a picture of ground zero the next time you prank him! I wish I was there when you walked in." He matched Ed's mischievous smirk with his own.
Roy rolled his eyes. "I'll be sure to snap a photo for you next time, Al. So, were you in on the plan?" He quirked an eyebrow.
"I only knew he was gonna prank you, Ed never tells me details." Al shrugged. "But I wondered were all that cream went, and why you wanted to borrow that lotion from Winry."
"If I'd told anyone, the prank would've been ruined. Word spreads too fast." Ed commented by way of explanation, throwing an arm around his brother's shoulders. "So Al, did Winry say what's for supper tonight?"
"She said Granny's making stew." Al replied as the two siblings made their way out the door.
Roy grinned at Ed's exclamations of delight, shaking his head at the impossible teen's antics. He acted like a little kid sometimes, but both of those boys were more mature on many levels than any of their peers, since they'd been taking care of themselves for several years practically unaided. If Ed only acted it!
This is what happens when I get bored. That prank idea came to me actually during a wedding reception, I think. X.x
Anyway, hope you like it so far. I'm certainly having fun! XD