"Four projects, two essays, and an interview for business class... Is this not ridiculous?" he grounded out, roughly rubbing the nub-shaped eraser of his pencil against his temple, glaring down at the scattered loose-leaf papers upon the table. He clenched his jaw, feeling the growing, pounding headache that was, just for now, hiding behind the brink.
"All due on Monday... And it's Friday. So much homework over the weekend-and there's a school dance at nine tonight!"
"You were planning on going to the school dance...?"
"No!" the blond huffed, slamming his pencil onto his desk, making it sound out a nice clap that made the elder man blink. "But it's just the sheer fact that even if I actually had the choice to go, and was actually thinking about going-I couldn't-can't! I have no choice because of all this lousy homework!" His golden orbs narrowed at a piece of paper that he had snatched up in the midst of his snarl.
They were instructions to one of the various assignments he was given just earlier today whilst school was in session. It was now growing onto five o'clock and young Edward Elric, a mediocre third-year in high school, had been doing these said assignments since school gave out around three P.M. for the day. He had just finished one of the essays for his English class, his other for his language class of German.
"Ugh... I don't even want to do the German essay-I don't want to even think about German! I'm sick of it! I'm sick of school in general! You're damn well lucky you've graduated!" Edward steamed, slapping the paper onto the desk to glare amongst the victimized others.
"Mhm..." Roy Mustang hummed, just going along with the young blond's rants; he found it best to do so, for if he truly did put forth a statement, he didn't wish to feel the sixteen-year-old's wrath that he was currently doing unto his assignments, along with the heated curses he made to them and their instructors. The tall, sleek, elder man leaned against the doorway of Edward's room, peering at him as he seemed about ready to let his forehead make contact with the smooth, hard surface of his desk top.
"I can't wait to go into my last year of this Hell and just breeze through it-or something of the sorts... Like you did!"
"I breezed through it because in my years of high school, I was placed in advanced classes, so I gained my credits early. My last year was easy because they were all basically free-lance classes-you don't have the option, Edward... You're stuck taking the still needed classes-"
"I realize that, thank you!" Edward barked, flicking the raven a glare. This made the man sigh.
Roy didn't much care for when Edward was in a fit-he'd take his anger out on many things, and sometimes Roy just wasn't at a good place at a good time. The raven-haired eighteen-year-old actually had horrible timing-when it came to Edward, anyways. He could just never time things right around the blond-or maybe the blond couldn't time things right around him. Either way, it caused complications.
"Mm... I'm barely started on my Law Education project... So much to do...! This is all just-just bogus! And frustrating! And just stupid!" the blond continued to boil.
Roy gave a soft smile. Despite the fact Edward was a temperamental teenager, he still had an unconscious way of being cute about things-such as now. The eighteen-year-old pushed himself from the door's border and padded in his cushioned slippers to behind the boy, lightly laying his fingers over the blond's shoulders, thumbs lightly kneading at the muscles. "Calm down, would you?"
"Calm down? Calm down? I don't see you doing all this bloody work!" Despite Edward's growl, from Roy's touch his shoulders relaxed, sinking a little to a loosened position. Although, his glare never seized on the papers, pencil still in it's ordered place.
"I've already done all this "bloody" work, remember? Just because I was in advanced placement in school didn't mean there wasn't hard work-Hell, it meant the work was harder. I've done this work n' plus... I can understand why you're overloaded... Just calm down, alright?" Roy brought his lips to rest against the back of the young teen's head, and as he breathed in lightly, the scent of metal and wood came from his hair. He smelled like that often, and oddly enough, it suited the short boy. It was a unique smell; not quite like others. It individualized Edward-Roy liked that.
"Yeah, yeah... Whatever..." Ed muttered with a sigh, now releasing the papers of his hellacious gaze, sliding his golden orbs closed. He let his head loll as the raven rubbed at his shoulders, massaging the tense muscles. "Just... An English class essay, German essay, an interview that I don't even know who to interview for-"
"You can just interview me, okay?"
"-That I now know who to interview for, and a Law Education project, a computer programming project, history project... And the woods class project!" (1)
Roy chuckled when Edward changed up his words. "But you like your woods class projects... I remember what your first project was-you made flowers out of wood. I think I still have those somewhere..." He peered around in gesture to his words.
Edward snorted, "They look like crap compared to how I am now-right now I'm working on a full body wood-cut-out of a boy..."
"A boy?" Roy questioned, "Feels a bit random..."
"No, it's a boy from my dreams," Edward stated, leaning back to where he felt the back of his head reach Roy's stomach. His chair had a short head and the raven was now standing, almost looming over him, looking down at him. The blond rose his gaze to match a charcoal stare. "He's about my height... But he's younger. And blue eyes. Blond, too. He's got a cheery face-"
"Are you going to paint this wood structure, too? Sounds like you plan to with those details... And why are you having dreams of a blond-haired-blue-eyed boy, hm?" Roy grinned, "Should I be worried...?"
Edward snorted, making a face, "Shuddup." His gaze went elsewhere, "And I don't know, he's just in them a lot..." He shrugged, "Not uncommon to have certain aspects of some dreams reappear, right? Anyways-yeah, I want to paint it-him. Almost done with my third year... I want my last project of the year to be a decent big-bang, you know?"
Roy nodded, "I gotcha. Mm... Quite the artist you are, you know..." He smiled, lightly kissing the top of his head, "Too bad you get frustrated at most of your works and destroy them in the process, huh? Is that why you stick to wood? Not so easily breakable."
The younger boy growled, "Didn't I tell you to shut up? You're digging yourself a grave!" Edward leaned forward, away from the raven's touch.
Roy pouted, letting his hands flop to his side. "I didn't know I was digging in the first place..." he murmured. "Anyways, I suppose that's why Mr. Henjer calls you the "alchemist" in the class, huh? Give you any piece of wood and you can make just about anything out of it, right...?" He smiled, feeling Edward beam in confidence.
The blond nodded, grinning widely, "Hell yeah! People look up to me in that class!" He nodded.
"Mm, yes... Because it's unsurprising to see Edward playing with wood, mm...?"
Edward blinked, receiving an off feeling of the comment. He slowly narrowed his eyes at the wall, "Was that a dirty innuendo...?"
"Why, of course not, Mr. Alchemist!"
"Deeper n' deeper of a grave, Mustang...," Edward snarled lowly.
Roy snickered a small bit to himself.
"Hey, if you wanna make yourself useful, why don't you go and get dinner started, huh?" Edward had grabbed the pencil and jabbed it in Roy's direction. "And make it decently appealing to look at, too, hm? I don't need that soup of ick you made yesterday."
"It's not soup of ick, it was-"
"I don't care," Edward stated with a smirk, making Roy pout again for being interrupted, "Just go make something delicious. Go-shoo!" He made the shoo-ing gesture for the raven to leave.
Roy rolled his eyes, kissed atop the sunkissed locks, then left, muttering something of "pipsqueak."
Ed frowned before calling out, "I'm not a pipsqueak, you ass!" He sunk in his seat a little, looking over his papers. ". . ." The room fell silent as the young blond leaned forward, sifting through his papers and sorting out his to-do's. He'd planned on doing the German essay, then the interview. The projects he would cram in later. He sighed, not wanting to do any of it, however... One thought kept him going.
He smiled as he peered over to the open doorway from his room to the hallway that lead to the living room. He thought of the man that was passed that, in the kitchen, attempting to make things with fire and food-for some reason that man had a real attraction to fire. Perhaps he was a pyromaniac... Nevertheless, Roy was an ingenious man-organized, good-looking, stable, down-to-Earth-the only thing he really couldn't do was cook an edible meal, but that didn't stop him from learning and trying to progress with his cooking skills-or lack-there-of.
Roy Mustang was also a very determined man. ...Maybe some of the determination fell unto Edward, because the very thought of the raven helped Edward focus on his assignments and rev himself to go.
"Every day's a new day... Take it step by step at a time... Just breathe, and walk," Ed muttered to himself with a small smile on his face as he readied his pencil to begin.
1) Edward smells like wood and metal because of his woods class, where he obviously deals with wood and metal machinery. ;3
Bah, just something random to sputter out. Been sort of overloaded at school, so feeling stressed... w; -Not that I have so many projects such as poor Edward, however... xD
Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed this. : I don't do one-shots often... (This may actually be my first, hm~) They're awkward for me to do. xD; I shall perhaps better myself at them, neh? o3o;