angst, angst, angst...fluff? kinda like duck, duck, goose... songfic challenge issued by a friend. and it kinda fits in with this little fic set. so here it is. lyrics are from "Nobody Needs to Know" from The Last 5 Years. -fireun

"Hey, kid - good morning
You look like an angel
I don't remember when we fell asleep
We should get up, kid…"

Warmth. Maes nuzzled his chin into the back of his bed partners neck, reveling in the same sleepy contentment of a cat as he took in the musky, familiar smell of satiny skin and dark silken hair. The sun was working its way up into the sky. He could feel it on his bare back, a hint that the day was going to start soon, whether he wanted it to or not. With a quiet sigh he gave one last full body hug before pulling away to acknowledge the fact he should most likely be somewhere else, very soon.

"Look at us, lying here
Dreaming, pretending
I made a promise and I took a vow
I wrote a story
And we changed the ending…"

Some things life just didn't account for, at least not in any fair way. Roy Mustang was one of them. Maes looked down at the younger man, a crooked smile on his face. Even with his glasses off he had to admit the view was something splendid. Roy's pale skin…currently mussed black hair splayed across the pillow…the fact that as he woke a bit due to Maes' movement a quiet smile broke across his usually painfully solemn face.

It was the smile that had done him in. He had wanted to badly to see that closed face smile, to see full lips curve upwards. And he had wanted to be the cause.

"Hold on, facts are facts
Just relax, lay low
All right, the panic recedes:
Nobody needs to know"

"Time is it?" Roy managed in a muffled voice as he turned his face into a pillow in an attempt to evade the slight bit of light coming in the window.

"Time for me to be getting my ass back to my own place." Maes answered, sitting up and stretching.

Dark eyes registered unhappiness and a flash of panic before they became hooded and wakeful. "I see." Roy pulled himself into a sitting position as well, feigning a sort of detached lack of concern.

"Damn…" Maes leaned over and threw an arm around Roy's slender shoulders. The man was built like a dancer, all sinew and muscle. It was as if he had burned away everything he didn't need in his drive to get where he was going in life. And Maes hated it when that attractive form went so still and cold. "I need to head out, Roy. In all seriousness." He trailed a kiss across Roy's cheek, ending at his earlobe with a playful sort of nip.

"I know."

Maes took one look at Roy's set face, and knew the other man grasped the situation- he just didn't like it. Well. Maes believed in one cure for everything… He stood, hauled on his pants, and as he was letting himself out, he called out quietly over his shoulder "And, hell, I wouldn't want to be responsible for breaking the hearts of every nurse, camp follower, and female in the service!"

It was a good thing he managed to duck out before the pillow Roy launched made it to him. It hit the door with a whack and fell harmlessly to the floor.

"No one will understand
No one will understand..."

It was a careful dance, much harder on the exuberant Maes than the naturally more restrained Roy. Played right though, it just appeared that Roy was the latest of Maes' unfortunate targets. The man was a known prankster, and a brilliant one. Roy really did seem the perfect target.

It had started like that, a driving need to get some sort of response out of the reticent man, and had evolved somewhere along the way into a deep affection on Maes' part. He didn't dare let anyone else know just how deep, but his infamous knives did a lot of the talking when words or actions moved in ways he didn't appreciate when Roy was involved.

It really was kind of funny, how things just sort of…fell together. It was kind of funny how neither of them ever wanted to admit they were lonely. It was odd to find contentment in each other, but Maes looked forward to seeing just how far he had to push Roy before he would get an honest emotional response, and Roy grew oddly addicted to the others companionship, no matter how unconventional.

The saying that one thing will lead to another had to start somewhere. Which is most likely how Maes found his way to Roy's room the night before.

"All that I ask for
Is one little corner
One private room
At the back of my heart…"

Maes hated the fact he was creeping back to his room in the wee hours of the morning like some sort of criminal. If he had been with a woman he would saunter back, shit-eating grin firmly on his face. He wanted to do the same now, filled as he was with a sort of wonder at how…happy he was. The feel of impossibly soft skin, a body as hot as the fire it was infamous for…it was almost as addicting as the surprise on Roy's face, in his voice, as he realized the intensity of his own emotion.

Maes wanted to take care of him, help him…just be with him. As he shut the door of his own room behind him, Maes closed his eyes and stood still for a moment. Damn, but he didn't think it would ever be like this.

"And what can I do?
Come back to bed, kid
Take me inside you
I promise I won't lie to you"

Roy made a decision in the minutes after Maes had left. He stood, dressed, made sure his hair was presentable, took a deep breath.

Maes' cologne hung in the air like the ghost of some sort of incubus, teasing and tempting and unattainable all at once. Unattainable if he didn't, for once, take a risk that was not physical.

Maes pulled away from the door just in time, alerted by the sound of tentative footsteps that someone was approaching. There was a pause, and then an unsteady sort of knock.

"Come in." Maes stepped back a few more paces as he spoke, curious more than anything else, maybe a little nervous. Maybe someone saw him come back, where he came from and at what hour…

That was when Roy entered, and Maes' train of thought derailed. Of all the things he had expected… There was a glint in Roy's eye, a stubborn tilt to his head that did not bode well for the man who was now cornered in his own room, as Roy shut the door rather deliberately and stood directly in front of it.

"What's up, Mustang?"

"Hold on, don't cry yet
I won't let you go
All right - the panic recedes
All right - everyone bleeds
All right - I get what I need"

"Damn it, Hughes."

The stricken look on Roy's face, the fact that the walls didn't instantly regenerate, made Maes instantly regret his flippant tone. He did the only thing that came to mind; he took three large steps and enfolded Roy in a tight embrace. "Hey, Roy. I'm sorry. You caught me by surprise is all."

"And they say I go through lovers faster than socks. Bored of me already?" There was a definite self-deprecating tone in Roy's voice, one that Maes did not like at all. It reminded him of too many unhappy rants over a little too much booze. There was something he had wanted to do whenever he listened to Roy talk like that, but had never had the spine or the opportunity to do so.

"And nobody needs to know
Nobody needs to know"

In the privacy and the relative safety that provided of his own room, Maes placed a kiss on Roy's forehead. "Hey, it's alright."

"You smell good." Roy muttered against Maes' chest, feeling the rumble of the chuckle his comment produced.

"Well, I do try."

"Ass."

"Again, I do my best."

There really was no good way to get Maes Hughes to shut the hell up, at least not that Roy had come across so far. There was one thing he had never tried…As Maes opened his mouth for some sort of witty rejoinder or another Roy lifted his face a bit and gave Maes something else to do with his eternally running mouth.

"And since I have to be in love with someone
Since I need to be in love with someone
Maybe I could be in love with someone
Like you..."

"Hey, Roy." Maes' voice was a lot less sure than usual, and Roy buried his head against Maes' chest, sure he had done something to piss the older man off. "Why the hell are you hiding? Look at me man."

Roy dared a glace upwards, embarrassed as all hell at this spineless attitude on his part. He was a man used to going straight for what he wanted. Maybe the problem here was he wasn't sure exactly what it was he wanted. All he knew was that if Maes was angry enough to send him away he was not going to be at all happy…He looked up, and ran straight into a kiss.

When they broke apart this time they stared at each other wonderingly for a long moment. It was different in the day, the touching, the wanting… they had a moment too take in the fact that they were both a little out of breath, that they were both more than a little nervous, and then Maes smiled.

"You should get back to your room, ya know."

There was no sting in it this time, no feeling of rejection. One last embrace, and then the reality of the day had to be acknowledged in its entirety.

It was going to be a long day.