Well, this has been a long time coming...

Disclaimer - I'm not Japanese, and my self-portrait is not a really awesome cow. So no, I'm not Arakawa-sensei, but I do borrow her characters for abuse in non-profit products of boredom such as this.

Roy Mustang was sick. He couldn't breathe through his nose at all, he felt like he would throw up if he moved too fast and his head felt like it was full of sand, but all of his sick days had been used up because of hangovers. His last sick day had been taken just over a week ago. He knew he shouldn't have gone out drinking with Havoc, the guy could put it away like no-one else, but with Maes gone… With Maes gone, Roy had little inclination to remain sober. The stack of papers on his desk was still almost six inches high; since the morning he had only managed to sign a handful of them, barely managing to focus enough to get the gist of what they were about. Each time he looked at a new one, the lines would blur together and a spot directly above his left eye would sting until he sat with his eyes closed for ten minutes.

There was a sharp knock on the door to the inner office a moment before Hawkeye walked in with a stack of papers almost a foot high. Roy squinted at her, his fingers massaging his temples. She raised her eyebrow as she walked over to the desk and placed the new pile of papers on top of the old one. Roy shut his eyes until he heard them shuffling and looked up to see that she had picked them up again, along with over half of the original stack, and was heading for the door. He managed a weak smile.

"Edward is here, Sir."

Roy groaned, his head drooping until it was cradled between his elbows instead of his hands. He heard his Lieutenant close the door and looked up just in time to see the young alchemist flopping down onto the sofa.

"Did you find anything useful in Kestra?" Roy asked, forcing himself to sit up straight.

Edward looked over at him. "Are you sick?"

"Yes."

"Ew." The boy edged along the sofa until he was at the end furthest away from Roy.

"Thank you, Fullmetal. Your concern is as heart-warming as ever, much like your ability to stay on topic."

"Yeah, it was a dead end. How the hell are you even sick? It's summer."

"It may have escaped your notice, but illnesses are not seasonal. So there was nothing at all there?"

"No. It was just some guy who was good at sleight of hand and had figured out a way to turn the light from a reaction red instead of blue. Which I can now do, and it's way cool."

"It's good to see how productive you've been."

"You're one to talk. I saw Hawkeye leaving with a bigger stack of papers than she came in with, you've got all of them signing off everything you're supposed to be doing."

"Speaking of, where's your report?"

Edward stood and went to hand Roy the papers, taking several quick steps backwards and shielding himself with them when Roy began coughing. There was a sharp tickle at the back of Roy's throat that choked him when he tried to take a breath. He ended up leaning down the side of the desk, one hand braced against the smooth mahogany, the other on the arm on his seat as he coughed. His eyes watered and his chest burned as the coughs subsided and he gasped for breath; he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve before straightening up and wincing as the sudden movement made his head throb. Across the room, Edward was watching him with a frown.

"What?" Roy asked, his voice croaking. Edward shook his head. "Just give me the damn report."

He took the papers from the blonde and dismissed him with a wave before setting the report down on the desk and trying to focus on it. To his surprise, Edward didn't slam the door on his way out. Almost as soon as he tried to read the scrawled report, Roy's eyes began to ache and his brain refused to take in any of the words. He sighed, and laid his head down on his arm while he waited for his headache to dissipate.

(-)

"Wake up, Colonel."

Hawkeye's hand was on Roy's shoulder as she shook him awake. His face was flat against the desk, and it took more effort than it should have for him to turn his head to look at her. He felt his skin sticking to the large round pins along the edge of the leather writing mat, and rubbed his face to get rid of the small welts.

"What time is it?"

"Seven p.m., Sir. Time to go home."

"What about that pile of papers?" He pushed himself up to a sitting position with a groan. "There's no way you got it all done on top of your own work."

"We had some help."

Roy frowned as he held his breath to stave off another coughing fit. Once it had passed, he cleared his throat and shook his head to clear it. He ended up feeling dizzy, and the stinging above his left eye returned. He winced and glanced up at his Lieutenant.

"How?"

"Edward decided it was unfair of you to dump all your work on us, so we taught him and Alphonse to forge your signature."

"You did what?" The force of the exclamation caused Roy to choke as he fought back coughs once more. He cleared his throat a few times as he stared at Hawkeye through his now-watering eyes.

"Relax, Sir. I told him I'd shoot him if he even tried forging your signature without my permission."

"What about my permission?"

"What about it, Sir?"

Roy grumbled as he rose from his seat, leaning heavily against the mahogany desk as he waited for the light-headedness to leave him. "I can't see myself feeling much better by tomorrow."

"Edward said he'd keep coming in until you were up to doing it yourself. After that, you're on your own again."

The Colonel paused on his way to the door and smiled. "You know there's no way he isn't going to forge my signature for other things, right?"

"Of course he will. But right now he's helping you out, so I suggest you stop complaining and at least pretend to be in charge."

"Don't I always?"

"Pretend to be in charge? I know you do, Roy." Hawkeye smirked at him as they left the inner office and she picked up her jacket, feeling in the pocket for the keys. She paused before they left the abandoned main office. "He was worried earlier, you know. Your coughing fit made him all jittery."

"I noticed. I'll have to ask Alphonse why it freaked him out so much."

"Why not ask Edward?"

"Do you really think he'd tell me?"

"You never know."

(-)

The blonde was sitting at the table trying to explain an array to Havoc when Roy saw him a few days later. The Colonel had come out of his office to get some more pens, and gestured for the boy to follow him as he returned to the inner office. As Roy sat down he watched Edward kick the door closed and flop down onto the sofa.

"Are you ever going to stop doing that? You'll break the damn thing one day."

Edward shrugged. Roy pushed the papers in the centre of his desk aside, resting his elbows on the edge of the wood and sitting his chin on his interlinked fingers as he watched the boy. He decided there was no point in drawing the conversation out for longer than was necessary, and he wanted a straight answer, so he resisted pissing Edward off on purpose by teasing him and got right to the point instead.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye tells me you've been helping with the paperwork these past few days."

"Yeah, well, they were swamped."

"Thank you."

Edward stared at him. "You were too much of a lazy ass to do it, and they couldn't keep up with it all. Figured why not, since we didn't have to be anywhere."

"It's a good way to be thinking, I'm sure they all appreciate it."

The boy shifted around on the sofa and avoided looking at Roy, who just watched him for a moment.

"Though I have to ask – why did my coughing freak you out so much?"

Edward froze; Roy could see the boy tensing up and was about to change the subject when he spoke. "When she… Just before she died, she couldn't breathe right. I can't stand people coughing like that ever since."

Roy nodded. "It's like when someone who's nearly died before keeps putting themselves in harm's way." He kept a steady gaze as Edward stared at him then frowned and looked away, shifting about on the sofa.

"You know we can't avoid it," he murmured.

"The least you could do is not throw yourselves in front of it at the first opportunity."

Edward looked away and sighed. Roy sorted through the papers on his desk as he told the boy he could leave. He watched out the corner of his eye as the blonde stood and walked towards the door. There was a moment when Edward hesitated as though he was going to say something more, but he just shook his head and reached for the handle. Roy waited for the door to slam, but Edward pulled it shut with a soft click instead.

Roy raised an eyebrow as he began reading through the form in front of him; maybe the kid would listen to him this time. He smirked to himself. Like that'll ever happen…

For everyone who's come back to this after all this time (if anyone even has...), thank you. I can't promise anything like regular updates, but I'll try and not leave it almost two years again... I have a second part to this chapter planned out, which should be up relatively soon (two weeks, max), but beyond that I have absolutely nothing. If anyone has something they'd like to see (even if it's just a different version of a situation I've already done), please let me know. I really want to keep this series going, but at present I have absolutely no idea what to do beyond the follow-up to this. I have a massive soft spot for parental!RoyEd, so this is my favourite fic to write. Help me keep it alive!

- Puddy