Still don't own 'em...

Growing Pains

Mustang was in his office, eyeing the forms Hawkeye had brought him with violent dislike, when his walls started shaking. The sole picture on his desk, the one of him and his team, shuddered off the edge and hit the floor. The glass let out a wet snap as it shattered. Instinct had Mustang shoving to his feet, his ignition gloves in hand, even as his logic reminded him that nothing exciting ever happened this far away from Central.

He had to grab Fullmetal, and get the kid away from Headquarters. Damn him, the teenager wouldn't think twice about jumping into battle. Mustang threw open his door, visions of rebels and riots and air raids dancing before his mind's eye.

What greeted him instead was like a scene pulled from a very bad play.

Hawkeye and Havoc were crouched in the center of the room, white-faced and obviously worried. Breda and Falman were in the corner, stuffing their knuckles in their mouths to muffle their laughter. Alphonse Elric was executing some sort of dance step that required him to leap from foot to foot, which explained the shaking walls.

Mustang relaxed as he realized that no, they weren't being attacked. Only to immediately tense once again when he saw just who Havoc and Hawkeye were hovering over.

Fullmetal was on his hands and knees on the floor, retching weakly. The boy's face was the color of month-old milk, and his eyes were all but popping from his skull.

Mustang didn't remember moving; only that he was suddenly at Ed's side.

"What happened? Is he hurt? Why haven't you taken him to the infirmary?" Mustang shouldered Havoc aside and dropped down to the floor. "Fullmetal, can you hear me? Where are you injured?"

Ed opened his mouth to answer, then let out a weak moan and hung his head.

"Brother!"

"It's my fault," Havoc said.

Mustang turned to stare at his second lieutenant.

"You injured Fullmetal?"

"No!" Havoc waved his hands back and forth frantically. "I didn't mean…I just offered…I wasn't thinking!"

"He gave Edward one of his cigarettes," Hawkeye said, glaring daggers at Havoc while she cupped a supportive hand on Ed's shoulder.

At the word 'cigarette', Ed gagged once again.

Mustang rocked back on his heels, torn between laughter and the urge to throttle both Havoc and the oldest Elric.

"Well, hell," he said finally. "Let's get him out of here before he heaves all over the carpet."

The only sound Ed managed as he was carted outside in the arms of his little brother was a pitiful croak.

"Go and get him some water, Al."

The armored boy bounded off at Mustang's order. Hawkeye helped prop Ed up against the wall, while Havoc hovered uncertainly at her back. Breda and Falman had stayed behind, and were no doubt laughing themselves into seizures by now.

"Go back inside," Mustang told Hawkeye. "He'll be fine. He just needs a little fresh air."

Hawkeye nodded. She ran an almost maternal hand down Ed's sweat-soaked braid before getting to her feet and heading back inside the building. Havoc hesitated before following.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I didn't mean to make him sick. I don't even know why I offered him one. It's just…it's so easy to forget sometimes. You know, that he's still a kid."

It really is, Mustang agreed silently. As he seated himself in the grass next to the dry-heaving teen, it occurred to Mustang that this was the only time he'd seen him look like what he was; vulnerable, and so very young.

"Go…away," Ed panted, pressing his forehead against his palm. "Don't you have to do some paperwork or something?"

Mustang crossed his arms and leaned against the wall at his back.

"Piles of it," he said dryly. "Go ahead and throw it up. You'll just make yourself sicker trying to hold it in."

Ed shook his head violently, then proceeded to spew all the contents of his stomach across the lawn. Mustang rolled his eyes. He had the most ridiculous urge to pat the boy's back. He knew though, that even in the grips of such miserable heaving, the boy would snap at his hand like a terrier if he tried.

Not that he wanted to try.

After a while, Ed stopped trying to eject his internal organs through his mouth. He lay quiet for a bit, resting his head against his knees and making soft snuffling sounds that Mustang pretended not to hear.

"You don't smoke."

Ed's voice was raspy and rough, and Mustang fought back a grin. The shrimp would get pissed if he saw it, and Mustang really didn't feel like kicking the ass of someone who'd just barely survived a heroic battle against his own gag reflex.

"No."

"But you knew what to do. You knew that I needed fresh air and stuff."

Mustang tapped his fingers lightly against his biceps.

"I smoked my first and only cigarette back in college. Hughes made me, on the night we enlisted in the military." Mustang grimaced at the memory. "I was sicker than a dog. Hughes had to drag me outside so I wouldn't disgrace myself in front of our dorm mates."

"Oh."

Ed rubbed the sweat from his forehead. Mustang continued to tap.

"Hughes always said that it was an initiation. A part of my growing pains. That after I smoked that cigarette, I was a man."

Two golden orbs bounced upwards, swift and shocked. But no contact was made; Mustang was busy burning a hole in the air with his eyes. So Ed dropped his face as quickly as he'd raised it.

He rubbed his quieting stomach. After a while, he wiped his mouth.

"Oh," he said again, but much softer this time.