The first time Edward Elric realized he felt something more for his Commanding Office, he was fifteen years old, give or take a few months, and it happened in the weirdest of ways.
Which, as an afterthought, shouldn't really surprise the blond man, considering how anything related to him was always weird shit to some degree.
Colonel Mustang was being particularly bitchy about a blood stain that had made its way to a mission report file, but come on, it wasn't really his fault: for once in his life he'd taken more than five minutes to write it up, with details and shit, and a damned good- well, decent handwriting. So it was completely valid to turn in the same bloodied report after he had gotten a freaking paper cut, a paper cut!, because there was no chance in hell that he'd write that thing again.
Which Edward believed was a very reasonably argument, as he vehemently voiced his thoughts, but the stupid bastard was having none of it. He looked as though Ed could tell him just about anything and he'd just keep on doing that irritating thing where he'd lightly huff and pinch the bridge of his nose in weariness, in that moronic condescending way he seemed to do everything, like the very oxygen he breathed was superior just because it had the honor of touching the bastard's stupid bronchi. He hadn't been able to stop, and snorted at the thought. He actually snorted as he remembered snorting at the mental image. It was oddly funny.
"Amused, Fullmetal?" Roy's eyes had a dangerous, really-not-amused glint to them, and Ed had just stared back, ready for battle. Out of nowhere, though, the Roy Mustang Insult Creating Machine in his mind short-circuited, and he was suddenly not ready for battle- what battle?- his brain was completely blank. And then… he blushed.
'Holy fucking shit' was the only thing he remembered thinking.
To this day, Edward swears by the theory that he must have been hit over the head during that mission at some point, because really, nothing had happened to trigger the dumbness that befell him. He had just been sitting there in the Bastard's office, looking nonchalant and unimpressed by Mustang's chiding, like always. But out of the blue, Ed found he couldn't fucking think. He imagined it as being swamped with thoughts that were just prancing about like they owned Ed's head, but being supreme assholes and staying just out of the Alchemist's conscious mind, like thinking nothing and everything at the same time, and time stopped and it was like a damn picture: Roy sitting behind his desk trying to hide the fact that instead of reasoning with his subordinate he'd very much rather beat the shit out of him, and Edward slumped on the couch and looking thoroughly uninterested and ready to stomp away as soon as possible. A rather normal, everyday, ordinary picture, one that not even Hughes would have put into an album. Yet, the moment was fixed there, a fluke of time, and Edward would seriously consider trading his whole golden head of hair to grasp just one of those elusive genius thoughts he was having at that moment.
Just like that, however, the frustratingly empty instant had shifted, something inside Edward had seemed to snap, and suddenly life had become a motion picture again, time had meaning and- holy fucking shit, he had a crush on Colonel Bastard. Cue the disgusting, girly blush that tainted his face and neck. And if that was not enough humiliation, he had faintly registered one thin, dark, eyebrow lift, mocking eyes acknowledging the stupid blotch on his face. He had to get out of there, stat, for he had a crap-load of soul searching to avoid.
"Your manipulating, bastard face is amusing. I'm out." Lame, but his mind had been on autopilot, so after a purposefully half-assed salute, he bolted. 'I'm in real deep shit'.