A/N: So in Real Life news: my sister-in-law had a miscarriage yesterday. I tend to deal with my emotions by doing ALL THE WORK so I don't have to think about them, so it's entirely possible I might finish the second book really fast. Of course, it's equally possible I'll end the month with a very clean house and more cat pictures than is healthy, so don't hold your breath.
Warnings: Ed POV, so, like, enjoy the cursing? (I'm proud to say there isn't as much of it as I'd feared there would be.)
Disclaimer: I'm kidnapping Cat!McGonagall and adding her to my herd of cats AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME. Not even you, reality!
Summary: Minerva McGonagall is a former Auror, a stern professor, and a formidable witch. It just so happens that sometimes she's also a cat.
Just Cat Things 4: Ed
Ed stumbled blindly into the teacher's lounge, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingertips to ward off a headache, located a chair by running into it with his knees, and gracefully turned and collapsed into it. It was just the right size for him to sit with his legs over one arm and prop his head up on the other, and he moaned with relief as he relaxed into the cushions.
He was only a little annoyed when his dramatics were met with the silence of an empty room. Sighing heavily, he opened his eyes to look around and make sure he actually was alone, and discovered a single tabby cat sitting elegantly in the middle of the sofa across from his chair, and looking back at him with what could only be called a skeptical expression. Ed scowled at it.
"What?" he snarled. The cat blinked back at him disdainfully, then dropped its head onto the cushion with a little (and kind of adorable) huffing noise. "Yeah, you and me both."
Turning his attention away, he fished inside of his jacket for the letter from Hughes that he hadn't had time to read in the morning. Knowing the man as well as he did, he assumed it would be full of well-documented stories of what Elicia had been up to in the past week. He snorted lightly when he pulled it out of the envelope and a smaller envelope dropped onto his chest. Oh, joy. Was he never going to escape from Hughes's picture obsession? (Roy must've felt this way for years, even before he'd ever met Ed. Ed shuddered at the thought; he wasn't certain he could handle the enthusiastic picture showings for that long. He wondered how he was going to survive it for the rest of his life as it was. Maybe when Roy was Führer he could ban Hughes from ever taking a picture again. He relished in that thought for a long, blissful minute.)
The letter itself wasn't as bad as he was expecting. It started out with the usual excited babble about how beautiful and perfect his wife was and how adorable and perfect his daughter was (with multiple! exclamation marks! and weird little smiley faces), and then some talk about non-classified military affairs (boring), and then finally he got around to telling Ed how Roy was really doing.
He knew he should feel bad for using his husband's (that was still weird) best friend to spy on him, but Roy could be just as stubborn as him some days. He wouldn't want to worry his family about his emotional well-being after what Harry had just gone through, and Ed suspected he would just carry on pretending everything was fine until it was too late to make things better.
Case in point: somewhere in all the talk about his job, Hughes had mentioned how much he was seeing Roy and how the generals were suspicious of his sudden eagerness to work long hours, which meant Roy wasn't sleeping, which meant he was moping, the idiot, as if he didn't know what road that led down. And Ed couldn't even say anything to Roy, because he'd end up revealing his source (because, c'mon, it was Roy), and then Hughes would send him even more pictures of his daughter.
Ed must've been frowning at the letter harder than he thought, because the tabby had abandoned her perch on the couch to jump up on Ed's chair instead. Purring loudly, she put her front paws on his chest and stretched up to butt the top of her head against his chin. Even Ed couldn't hold back a smile at that action, and he reached up with a careful automail hand to gently scratch behind her ears.
"You look familiar," he murmured softly. "Have you been wandering around with Killer and Hunter? I should warn you off; those two are nothing but trouble."
The cat seemed to be taking no interest in what he was saying, because she just kept purring and started to knead at Ed shirt. He gently untangled her claws with a roll of his eyes, then scratched at the side of her neck. The cat flopped over onto her side, eyes lazily half-lidded, and was clearly prepared to lay on his chest for the rest of the day. He decided to let her be for now.
The letter ended with a note that Hughes was sending extra pictures because he suspected Ed was moping almost as much as Roy was (infuriatingly, he probably wasn't even wrong). Damn, he just couldn't win today, could he?
He picked up the envelope full of pictures with a resigned sigh, and pulled the stack out. The very first picture was of Elicia in a snowsuit, building a snowman that reminded him of Breda, and smiling up at the picture taker so brightly and innocently it was actually painful. Ed was about to put it in the back of the stack when he noticed the cat had lifted her head and was sniffing in the picture's direction curiously. Ed gave her a suspicious look.
"So this is Elicia," he said eventually. "She's Roy's best friend's daughter, and honestly she's just as cute as he always rhapsodizes. She was born on my twelfth birthday, actually. Me'n Al were there, panicking. Let me tell you, if there is one thing I don't envy women, it's childbirth."
He stopped talking and gave the cat another suspicious look, but she was now licking the top of her paw and didn't seem to be paying attention to him. At least not until he moved on to the next picture (Gracia this time), which she also gave a curious sniff to. Giving a mental shrug, he entertained himself by providing commentary on the pictures he revealed. It was a nice little distraction from worrying about Roy, and he was starting to feel a lot better as he neared the end of the stack.
Which, of course, was when he found the picture of Roy.
He was laying on the floor with Elicia, very seriously directing what appeared to be an army of dolls against an opposing army of teddy bears. Elicia was just as serious as she looked up at him, her mouth opened wide in speech. It was so damn cute (and so damn Roy) that he felt a lump form in his throat as a vicious surge of longing settled heavily in his chest.
"Meowww?" the cat said loudly, headbutting his chin again.
"Yeah, so that's my husband," he said, then had to clear his throat as his voice almost broke on the last word. "He had to stay home, obviously, and I just—really miss him. It's kind of funny because I hated him until I was like fifteen—or at least I wanted to, pretty sure I started crushing on him when I was eleven and saw his alchemy for the first time—and now I have a hard time getting to sleep when he's not in the bed. Annoying bastard."
The cat seemed to be able to sense how distressed he was, because she started kneading at his chest again. Ed let her get away with it as he stared at the picture for longer than was probably healthy. Finally, he took a deep breath and moved on to the next picture, which of course was of Roy again. This time he was playing paper football with Havoc (they'd even rigged up actual goal posts out of what looked like paperclips and toothpicks), but he was glaring at the camera as his football flew through the air directly on target to hit Havoc in the eye. Havoc was looking alarmed himself, in the middle of ducking to avoid getting hit. It was a nice, innocuous little image, and Ed managed a grin as he imagined what Hawkeye's reaction must've been.
The next few pictures were in similar veins: Roy screwing around at work with a smile and managing to appear as if he didn't miss Ed and Harry at all. Ed tried to dispel his worry, but the camera couldn't hide how tired Roy looked, and he wished for nothing more than to be home curled up on the couch in front of the fireplace with his husband and complaining about college politics.
And the very last picture was the worst.
The entire team must've gone out for drinks, because he could see Fuery, Havoc, and Breda laughing at something in the background, and there was an extra uniform jacket hanging over the back of an empty chair that could only belong to Hawkeye. But the focus of the picture was on Roy, not quite looking as if he was part of the moment. His arm was resting across the back of the chair where Ed would usually be, and he was looking at the empty seat with a gaze that was so bitter and resigned that Ed felt unbidden tears prick at the corners of his eyes.
He sat up so quickly that the cat ended up clawing him as she leapt for safety, but he didn't care as he shoved the pictures viciously (carefully) back in the pocket he'd taken them out from. He scrubbed at his eyes angrily to wipe away pointless tears, and growled at nothing.
"I've got to fucking get Roy out here or something," he muttered. "He doesn't need to be dealing with his depression right now on top of everything the fuck else."
There was the distinct feel of magic being cast, and Ed looked up with a start. His wand was already in his hand by the time he realized that what he was seeing was the end of a tabby cat being transfigured back into a human being.
"I believe that can be arranged, Mr. Elric," Minerva McGonagall said calmly, as if she regularly slept on the chests of young men.
"You—!" Ed snapped, but couldn't say anything else because he just had no words. Minerva raised her eyebrows at him, her amusement palpable. He was going to fucking kill her.
"This Hughes of yours has been in contact with Albus for this very purpose. I believe the Headmaster was going to deny the request." Minerva gave him a slim, not very pleasant smile. "I'll convince him otherwise."
She started walking out of the room without waiting for agreement from Ed. He growled and stomped after her, not letting his glare move from the back of her head. Fine. First he'd let her get Roy to him, and then he would kill her.
A/N: McGoogles is such a troll, and Ed is secretly even sappier than Roy is. These are my fondest headcanons and you can't take them away from me.
