Disclaimer: Enter angst! Here is a chapter where, finally, someone with very, very bad skills at distinguishing styles, might – might, might – mistake my work for actual FMA stuff. And only that because I've finally managed to get a vague bit of angst in. Due to the melodrama and plethora of angst available throughout the actual series, I obviously don't own FMA.

Chapter 4

There is a brief and secret meeting in which Al and Hughes meet and murmur. Fuery knocks on the door. Al does a metal equivalent of raising his eyebrows at Hughes. Fuery enters. There is much muttering, and a muffled shriek from Fuery. Shortly after, they leave, slowly and secretly. In the morning, no one is aware that anything has happened.

(0.0)

"Eeeeeedddd." Al drew the name out very slowly and very happily. Ed croaked from the bed.

"Eeeeeeeddddd."

Several more croaks and 'g'way's later, Ed was out of bed and dressed. "Why'd you wake me up?" He demanded.

"Colonel Mustang wants to see us." Al informed him happily.

"Not again. Why can't the man shut up?" Ed growled.

"Ed!" Al protested.

"Sorry, Al. I'm just tired of going to his office so frequently." He glanced at the window. "Al, it's not even dawn yet! Not even Mustang is in his office at this hour -"

"Well, he should be." Al was suddenly sulky. "I made him. Serves him right to get up early, after that note."

"What note?" Ed was suddenly defensive and upset. It took some more coaxing (or rather, bullying), but eventually Al withdrew the note from within him and passed it to his brother.

It was not a happy note.

"Right. Roy will be in his office." Ed agreed. "I wonder if his walls would make good - "

"Don't kill him, Nii-san." Al begged. Ed just walked out the door.

(0.0)

Roy was dozing. Paperwork made a good pillow.

"Uh… Colonel?" The door clicked softly behind someone. It wasn't Riza. Roy stirred a little.

"Colonel?" It was almost a whisper. Roy made a small grunt and wiggled a bit. Definitely not Riza. Something smelled good.

"Colonel, you need to wake up now. The Elrics are here to see you, sir." Another moan. "I brought you some coffee, sir. And a pancake. It's a really good pancake."

Definitely not Riza. Riza would have a hole in his wall by now.

Roy sighed and pushed himself off his desk, scattering papers to the floor. "Thank you… Fuery? What are you doing here? Why did you come?" If there was one thing Colonel Mustang did well, it was wake up coherently and quickly.

"Everyone else went to bed. They said I should stay and wait for you to leave." Fuery told him carefully.

"All right. Pass the coffee. I'll be ready in a couple minutes." The coffee came in a great wash. Fuery was left wondering how Mustang's tongue didn't get burnt. He was at work on the syrupy pancake when Ed lost his patience.

This was evidenced when the door swung brilliantly open, bounced off the wall, lost its hinges, and crashed into the wall opposite. An automail arm withdrew, and Ed stalked inside. Roy wiped the blueberry syrup off his face and scooted the pancake away.

"Al, stay in there for a minute." Ed called without turning his head. Instead, he continued his trek.

"Takes a long time to cross the floor when you're - " Roy began, but Ed didn't let him finish. He didn't go off in a nice, clean rage, either. Instead, his right arm shot out and grabbed Roy's collar. It lifted. Roy stood. That was as far as Ed could go.

"I told you not to hurt my brother." He hissed.

"I didn't do anything - "

"I told you!" Ed snapped. "I swear, Mustang, if you do one more -"

"Edward?" Fuery asked cautiously. "Not to interrupt… You look kinda busy… but could you explain? And maybe get him away from the syrup? That stuff takes hours to clean off once it stains." And please, please, please let go of Roy, he added mentally.

"Huh? Oh. Yeah. Right. He would get you to do his laundry. Little -"

"Language, brother!" Al called nervously.

Ed came around the desk, a difficult maneuver when holding Mustang, and edged away from the syrup.

"And explain?" Mustang added hopefully. He was having issues. He didn't really want to burn the little alchemist, but this wasn't precisely comfortable, either. And he'd gotten in big trouble the last time he'd done spur-of-the-moment alchemy, too; it was difficult for most people to repair burns, and Mustang usually wasn't in the mood after he'd burned something. It was difficult to think where to aim his snap.

"Take your glove off first." Ed demanded.

"Set me down." Roy replied. They eyed each other warily, and nothing changed.

"I told you not to hurt my brother. I told you." Ed paused. "Fuery, close the door." Fuery wondered how this was supposed to be accomplished, seeing as the door was no longer attached to the wall, and ended up propping the door against the hole in the wall it usually covered. "Good."

"I didn't get that, either." Mustang reminded him. "I didn't do anything. Didn't even tarnish his armor. Honestly, what could I do to Alphonse, even assuming I wanted to? He's a suit of armor."

"Idiot!" Ed snapped. "He has a crush on you!"

Outside the window, Envy quivered with excitement. This was where Ed got violent. He hadn't thought that Fuery would be there, and Fuery seemed to have an unfortunately calming influence, but…

Roy's face changed slowly. There were several phases, most with a great deal of surprise. "That explains a lot." He commented carefully. "But not why you're here."

Envy stopped quivering and drooped. He had been so sure it was going to get good and bloody, and then they started talking it out. Disappointed, he left, just before Ed flung the window open and looked around.

"He won't be out there." Roy informed him. "He's sneaky."

"Irritating, interfering, hyper, tall…" Ed paused. "He sucks."

"I'm taller, I think." Roy mused. "Yes. Definitely taller."

Ed sent a sharp glance at Roy, and quickly turned it into an appraising one when he saw the colonel watching him. "I dunno about that. Envy seems taller. Course, that could be 'cause he's being melodramatic. Or because of that hair."

"I wouldn't ask you to judge. You've grown recently, so it would be difficult to -"

"You really think I've grown?" Ed asked excitedly.

"Well, a bit. You're still knee-high to a pile of paperwork, but…" Roy didn't finish this thought. He was too busy watching Ed's face, which was happier than he had ever seen it before.

"Hawkeye gives you too much paperwork anyway." Ed replied after a moment, and turned to leave.

"Aren't you going to do something to him, brother?" Al asked, confused, as they left the building for a walk.

"Misunderstanding." Ed replied.

(0.0)

They had been flirting. It took Ed a long, long time to realize it, because he was not used to flirting. He had never done it before. Or maybe he had. Maybe the yelling had been part of the flirting, too. It was hard to tell. But - Roy had flirted first. Roy had said Ed was growing.

The disturbing part was that Ed had flirted back. He hadn't meant to; it just happened. As naturally as anything could happen, he had said that Hawkeye gave Roy too much paperwork.

Except that that wasn't the most disturbing part. He supposed there was a hierarchy, an order to it, so he wrote it down, just to get it organized, with one being the least disturbing.

1. Flirted.

2. Flirting strange

3. Flirted with Colonel Bad Word.

4. Did not really feel bad about all this, except that

5. Colonel Bad Word was Al's

The last made Ed feel rather mean and miserable. Al was sweet and charming, his precious little brother, and it was just mean to take the one thing Al wanted for himself - aside from a body, of course, and Al deserved that, it didn't count. And even if Ed didn't take him, just liking him was infringing on Al's territory, and still mean.

But he really, really wanted to be able to like Roy.

Life without Roy was… not good. It was like life without Al: inconceivable, bad, and wrong. Deeply wrong. And now he thought of it, Ed wanted to have more life-with-Roy.

No, that was wrong. Sure, more life-with-Roy would be nice, but he wanted Al to be with Roy. There was one thing Al liked, and Ed was going to make sure he had it.

Because the evening before Al lost his body, Ed had taken the last piece of cake.

(0.0)

"Al…" Ed whined in the middle of the night, and Al sat up.

"Yes, Nii-san?"

"Colonel Mustang hasn't called for us in forever."

"He called you this morning." Al commented. "Us, I mean."

"But surely, if he got a lead on Envy or something, he'd call us." Ed protested. "Or maybe he has a mission. Or make-work, even. Or maybe he would try to foist his paperwork on us."

"He'll call us tomorrow morning, maybe." Al suggested.

"You mean this morning?"

"Why did you wake me up, Ed? It's three-thirty. Haven't you slept yet?" Silence. Al was glad. He needed a moment to work out why Ed was suddenly eager to see Colonel Mustang. And then he had it.

Ed's sheets rustled in the dark. "Go to sleep, Al."