"–apa. Papa. Are you awake? Papa?" Was he? He was definitely in a bed, and he could definitely feel the seductive whisper of sleep, still stroking along every limb and every thought and every breath. Though, he couldn't actually remember the last time he'd been this comfortable, even in his dreams. The beds in the military dorms had always been more akin to sleeping on an especially hard road, and whenever he had managed to find his way into an inn or a hotel, the beds were always stranger-soft or stranger-lumpy or stranger-itchy by turns. The only time he'd graced a bed even marginally as comfortable as this was when it was someone else's – and in that case, Mathieu wouldn't be there asking if he was awake.
"No." He decided. Though he probably should get up, wash, get back to the caravan in time for his son to wake.
"Papa." It was just – the bed was so comfortable, and it smelled so good; slightly earthy and slightly musky and slightly something he couldn't quite place but wanted to bury himself in. Who had he gone home with, anyway? The bed felt like Mustang's, but Ed knew very well that the man wasn't on this side of the Gate. Someone similar, maybe? But, no, he wouldn't, the one time he'd looked down and seen dark hair and pale skin and thought Colonel he'd retched the lining right off his stomach. Besides, that didn't –
– Mustang's bed. Mustang's bed.
Ed jerked upright and Mathieu tumbled backward off his chest with a startled, "Aeah-!" Mathieu. Bed. Mustang. The Gate. Mustang. Oh. Oh –
"Papa?"
"... Hey." Ed blinked, blinked, finally managed to focus his eyes. "Hey, morning, bonjour, Dragon. Sorry."
Mathieu instantly offered him a tiny smile; the faint echo of his usual grin that he had when he wasn't wearing an expression at all. He crawled into Ed's lap, curled against his shoulder and tucked his head into the convenient neck. Ed's arms came up and looped around him automatically, held him close and comfortable and safe against his own body. A soft exhalation puffed warmth over his skin and the boy's body melted into an easy, boneless curve with no resistance whatsoever.
"You're alright." Mathieu asserted quietly, and Ed let out his own breath, smiled helplessly into the dark hair.
"Yeah." And he was. "How'd you sleep?"
"Good. I had a dream that there were two of me, but it just was a mirror that was born with me like Tante Ein and Tante Zwei were born. The other me wanted juice and I wanted milk and we were arguing."
"And then what?"
"We had half milk and half juice each. Then you came and untied my scarf for me, because the knot was really hard. It made the other me fall off."
"What did the other you do then?" a shift that might have been a shrug against his chest.
"I don't know. It was just gone."
No dreams of glowing eyes or reaching hands or a crazed alchemist slowly stripped of his body, and a little of the dazed hysteria from the night before rose in Ed's gut, chest, throat before he pushed it firmly back down again.
"Papa?"
"Mm?"
"I'm hungry." Ed snorted a huff of startled amusement and tightened his arms around his son, laughed at the indignant squawk that was laced with delight. It came easily, finally, as some last tension drained away from beneath his skin. His son needed to be fed, was there to be fed, was trying to retain his affronted scowl as he squirmed and protested and made every breath something love.
"Alright." Ed agreed. He tucked his son into his chest and tumbled them both out of the bed, springing easily to his feet once they touched the wooden floorboards. "Let's go see if Mustang has any food."
Mathieu forgot his attempt at dignity in favour of brightening like a particularly enthusiastic lightbulb.
"Pancakes?" he chirped hopefully, eyes wide and pleading and nothing like Ed's at all.
"We'll see." Which apparently meant yes, because Mathieu all but cheered, bounced a little in Ed's arms and alternated his shining gaze from their path down the stairs to his father and back again with ill-concealed impatience. Ed paused briefly at the bottom of the stairs, catching the hint of coffee left in the air, but then Mathieu was pulling at him, clutching at his shoulder and trying to pull him into the kitchen by will alone. Papa, Papa, come on, come on, fluttered eager behind his lips and pancakespancakespancakes chanted like a swirl of maple syrup on gold and – well.
It had never really been a choice, anyway.
Mustang was watching the doorway when they stepped through, newspaper folded on the table in a way that said he had been reading, but had put it aside in favour of – greeting his unexpected guests with a small, slow smile that made his dark eyes glimmer with guileless warmth. Ed had seen hints of a similar expression, maybe, in his youth, but nothing this open, nothing this soft, nothing this much like the man was actually, genuinely pleased to see him.
"Good morning." The man spoke, and Ed realised with a jerk that he'd just been standing, dumb, two steps into the kitchen.
"Ah – morning." Part of Ed wanted to shrink right back to being sixteen again under that familiar gaze, but that same part had never met the man sitting calm and relaxed at his own kitchen table. This man had hair slightly dishevelled from sleep and a plain cotton shirt over plain blue sleeping pants. This man's posture hinted at a slouch and his bare feet stretched out beneath the table with casual ease. This man was allowed to offer him that smile, that look, that familiarity, because neither of them was balanced precisely on a single wire any more.
"I thought you would have slept longer," Roy – because Mustang would never have let Ed see him honest like this – commented as he stood, interrupting their mutual bemused staring with a smile so easily discerned as rueful that Ed wondered if maybe he was still stuck in a dream somewhere, "otherwise I would have started breakfast."
There was a pause while he put the coffee back on, Ed still motionless in the doorway, and then the man turned, leaned back on the bench and lifted the eyebrow not hidden by the large patch.
"Do we get an introduction?" His tone was mild, innocently prompting, but even after five years Ed could hear the deliberate echo of surely it would only be a small sacrifice to practice some semblance of manners, Fullmetal. He narrowed his eyes and Mustang's smile flickered mischief for a moment, before settling into that polite inquiry. Ed wasn't sure whether to favour the helpless curve of his own lips or the twitching of his right eye.
"This is Mathieu." He didn't bother keeping the emotion out of his own voice, because he'd long discovered it was a hopeless exercise. "Dragon, this is Roy Mustang."
Mustang inclined his head to the little boy in an oddly respectful bow and said, "It's good to meet you, Mathieu," with such quiet sincerity that all of Ed's insides squirmed against his bones for a moment.
"I'm pleased to meet you, too." The boy beamed, and added, "Papa's going to make pancakes," as if, by his presence, Mustang had enabled Ed to do so, and was thus The Best Thing In The World. Ed had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing at Mustang's startled blink, and his guts settled with a final, lurching jump.
"Is he?" Mustang replied after a moment and Mathieu nodded definitely before wriggling to be let down and all but scrambling to stand before the man.
"You'll like them." Mustang was assured as the boy took a hold of the hand within reach and tugged lightly in the direction of the table. "Come on, we can be friends."