Alex sat at his rather small desk. Today had been a slow day, a rather good thing for the department he made his living in. He looked over to the desk of his superior officer who he was forever indebted to, Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes, who, as per norm, chatted away to his very dear friend, Colonel Mustang, over the phone about his precious daughter and his beautiful wife. While everyone in the department felt bad for the Colonel on the other end on the line, they prayed their lucky stars it wasn't them.
"Hey, Roy, helloooo?" The Lt. Colonel looked into the phone's mouth piece, "he hung up on me." The dead beeps of the phone resounded through out the room.
"Maybe it's because you won't stop talking about personal affairs over a military line, sir." Reprimanded one of the officers. The Lt. Colonel dutifully ignored the comment. Alex looked up to the clock. His work day had ended already. The Lieutenant Colonel hung up the phone and sighed.
"I'll be leaving for the day, sir." The Lt. Colonel looked up from where he had been sulking, pictures of his wife and his daughter scattered beneath his forearms . He nodded and gave him a two finger salute.
"Have a good one Major." Alex pulled on his coat and exited the office space. 2nd Lieutenant Ross and Sergeant Brosh stared to one another. It had been like this for almost 2 years now. Around the end of the week, Major Armstrong would leave around normal working hours, instead of after hours, as he tended to do.
"There he goes again." Maria Ross whispered to one Danny Brosh.
"Do you think he has a girlfriend?" Danny Brosh whispered to one Maria Ross.
Before she even had enough time to return a response, Lieutenant Colonel swooped over, seeing an opportunity to flaunt around his beautiful wife and child once again. He smirked to himself, stopping rumours and ideas of pursuit before they could flourish, because when the investigation department became interested in something, they would go to the means to figure it out.
Roy so totally owed him.
Alex made his way back to the family estate, greeted by his lovely sisters and the sound of Catherine inadvertently smashing a piano. He rather enjoyed the sound of home, but there had been one thing he rather missed.
He picked up the phone and spun in the numbers. Sitting himself down in front of the large window, giving him access to the view of the garden, he slowly petted the dog that had decided to curl beneath his feet. The call passed directly to the receiver.
"Hughes if you're calling me from an outside line to blab on about your 'oh so amazing wife and daughter' I will let you be the test dummy to finding out if you can actually burn someone via phone." Alex found himself laughing slightly.
"It's good to hear your in a good mood," his voice was as ever loud and as ever cheerful.
Roy perked up suddenly and switched the phone over to his left ear. He swivelled in his chair, facing the opposite direction of one leaving Riza Hawkeye. He waved her off, but she waited slightly within the ajar doorframe.
"Alex, good to hear from you." With that she sighed with a small content smile. She let go of the door and departed for her apartment, tomorrow they would be leaving. "How was work?" There was no longer anyone within the room, but the phone and the Colonel.
"A rather slow day." In other words, no one had died today, "And how about you, not slacking off on paperwork are you?" He had forgotten that like his Lieutenant, Alex took much care into making sure he was getting his work done, or not slowly killing himself with alcohol. There was also that. He pulled the collar of his shirt slightly.
"So how's the weather in Central lately?" He diverted the topic with that rather cheerful tone he had become accustomed to using around Alex when attempting to divert topics.
"Roy…" Mustang looked over to his pile. He could easily blame Hughes as the main suspect in his inability to finish his paperwork, but he still could not avoid the cold hard facts that his tendency of delegating his work and high amounts of procrastination were to blame. There was just something about the paperwork… something that made him not want to do it. He picked up the more immediate ones in the pile and gave them a quick read over before signing.
"I'm getting it done, hear that? The sound of a fountain pen scratching the table?" He wrote slightly louder than normal in a means to exaggerate his gestures. Only two people in this world could get him to do his paperwork. Those two were also rather proud of that fact. Where all others failed, they shined -one of them rather literally sparkling.
There was a small snort from the other end line, and Roy smirked.
"I'm glad to see you're rather sarcastic as ever." Roy dropped his pen and grinned to himself, leaning into the desk, he better grasped the phone.
"And you still find me as charming as ever." He said smugly into the receiver.
"Of course." There was another muffled laughter. Roy leaned back into his chair again, a sigh escaped his lips. The sun had begun its descent in the sky, while still rather bright out, the city lights bellow turned on, giving the streets a rather magical glow.
"How's the weather in Central by the way?" He asked suddenly, as he leaned his hand on his head. He would be leaving tomorrow.
"It will be clear for the rest of the week, why do you ask, Roy?" As expressive as ever, Alex was, curiosity as clear as to his motivations behind asking the question.
"Oh no reason." Brushed off Roy as if it was a rather common question to ask the weather of a place you were, supposedly, not supposed to be in for the area, at all, "just…curious." He hummed to himself, his voice sounding rather far away, as if in thought.
He heard Alex grunt a response. He wasn't going to push any further. He smiled. It was one of the things he rather liked about Alex, he trusted him enough to know he would tell him when the time came. A trust he really did not, and had no intention to break. There were some things he was not ready, or currently willing, to tell Alex, and Alex accepted it. He would wait. He felt his heart grow warm.
He quickly mentally slapped himself. 'Roy Mustang you are currently at work and should not be acting like a love sick high schooler. You can act like that once you get home.'
"I'll be seeing you than," with that he began to end the call, until, "Also tell Sparky I said Hi and that I love her." He could hear the small bark that radiated joy and loyalty from the other end of the line. God he loved dogs. Just so amazing.
Right. He nodded to himself and coughed into his gloved hand. He walked over to the coat rack and picked up his black trench coat. Today was the end of a day and tomorrow would be a new one. He looked to some of the paperwork on his desk. He shrugged it off. He could just read a book on the train. No need to worry about something that would still be there when he got back. With that, he flicked off the lights, locked the door, and headed straight home to the bottle of whiskey -which he promised, to both Hawkeye and Alex, would only be one glass- that was calling his name.