Havoc felt a weight dip the couch he was sitting on, and turned back from the ashtray on the lamp-stand to find Roy Mustang settling himself down along the length of the sofa, resting his head on Jean's leg with a comfortable sigh.

"Not you, too, Sir," Jean groaned, extending his boot out under the table to help his leg lie flat despite himself. "I only just got the boss off'a me."

"Ed?" he replied, not bothering to open his eyes, "Well, I'm afraid you are the go-to guy for a shoulder to cry on, Havoc."

"Is that right?" he asked flatly. "And what exactly are you doin', then?" Mustang held up one finger, as though he hadn't finished talking.

"And… for a thigh to lie on," he added, and chuckled in drunken amusement.

"Lucky me," Havoc muttered, and drained what remained of his beer. As he set the bottle back down the amongst several others that littered the table, he realized that it very well might not have been his beer, but it was too late, now.

Then what Mustang had said registered, and Jean frowned.

"What's the boss got to be cryin' about?" he asked, glancing over to where he'd left Ed, sleeping on one of the couches on the other side of the table. He'd talked for a long time about alchemy and tried to explain a lot of things Jean pretended to understand, but he hadn't talked about much else. Then again, since the difference between Ed being drunk enough to rant poetic to the clueless and Ed being drunk enough to do nothing other than sleep like the dead was about one beer, maybe he just hadn't had the chance.

"Well," said Mustang with a bit of a shrug, "A few weeks ago he caught me alone, said he needed to talk to me. It was only a matter of time. It's not like it hasn't been embarrassingly obvious for the last ten years."

So it was true. He did have a thing for Mustang, and when he'd finally gotten the up the balls to tell him, he'd been shot down. Well, yeah, that sucked for him, especially if Mustang was right about it having been that long. Havoc couldn't really begrudge the kid a little shoulder-crying for that. Hell, he'd have been able to empathize a lot better with that than how hard it was to do…whatever the hell Ed had been talking about.

Jean took a long drag on his cigarette, watching Ed snore and trying to see him objectively. He was handsome enough he supposed, and finally taller now that he was what, twenty? Twenty-one? A bit young for Mustang, maybe, but that kind of thing had never seemed to bother him much before, as long as they were legal. It wasn't as if Mustang didn't like the kid, he'd been putting his neck on the line for him for years. So what was it, then, that had made Mustang turn him down?

"What, you know him too well?" Havoc asked, looking down at Roy. "He's a subordinate? Don't care for blonds?"

Mustang opened his eyes and studied Havoc's face for a moment. It was unfair, Jean thought, that he could manage to look so drunk and relaxed, even unguarded, and still, those black eyes revealed nothing.

"Not so much any of that," Roy said, a little ghost of a smile curving his mouth, and let his eyes fall shut again.

* * * * *

Author's Note: Since Roy Mustang has two other blond(e) subordinates, I'll leave that up to you.