Archive of Our Own

In retrospect, Ed will blame it all on Al, mostly because he can forgive Al more than he can himself. It also spares his ego, putting the blame on someone else.

It is not really Al’s fault, though, of course; it’s never Al’s fault. Ed is well aware of the fact that he is prone to… lose his temper, sometimes. That he makes rash decisions that are, although well-thought through, still made on a, mostly, very angry whim. Edward is not stupid – even with his trade-mark hot-headedness and despite what Al likes to say, he doesn’t just jump headfirst into trouble. He may be a master at causing problems, in general, but he is also extraordinarily talented in avoiding any grave consequences.

So even when his temperament runs away from him, even when he does things that cannot be considered very fitting for a Professor at Central City University, no matter how young, he never goes into it without a plan.

And a plan he had. Theoretically. The plan was Don’t get caught and Plan B, even with how little his pride allows him to admit that, occasionally, his first plan does not always work, was Run. And it would have been successful if not for… well. His prosthetic giving out underneath him that one time he would have needed it. How very typical. Not at all surprising. It tends to stop working in the most unfortunate situations, whether those are especially humiliating or dangerous. Or, in this very specific case, both.

It’s not Al’s fault he finds himself in this predicament, although it sort of is. It was Al who made the remark that got him into this mess at all. Knowing perfectly well how Ed would react.

(“It is rather embarrassing of you, brother,” Al said, casual, calm, not even bothering to look up from his newspaper. Because Al was a grandpa trapped in a nineteen-year-old’s body, reading the newspaper instead of looking up the events of the world on his phone like a normal person. “I thought you’d be better than that. You used to be.”

“Because I had to be!” Ed said, affronted and already hooked on Al’s immature little bait. “If I had gotten myself caught, I would’ve been sent to juvie and you would’ve been taken away to some foster family, of course, I couldn’t get arrested!”

“Ah,” Al said. “Because of my being of legal age, your finesse has drastically declined, is what you’re saying?”

“My finesse is perfectly fine,” Ed said.

“Sure, whatever you say, brother,” Al said, and Ed could not just let his brat of a brother be sarcastic and provocative and – Ed took the bait, knowing but dismissing that Al was, in fact, trying to lure him into reacting.

In hindsight, Al did, indeed, mean to incite, though he did not want Ed to prove anything by being successful. The little bastard wanted him to get caught, because he’d never been able to mind his own damn business.)

And now he is sitting here, in one of the interrogation rooms at the local police station – which is overkill, if you ask him, as he didn’t commit that much of a crime. Well, technically he did, but not significant enough to warrant handcuffing him to a table and letting him wait in a room without any windows and a heavy steel door as if he could do anything with his defect prosthetic, limp and motionless under the table. Which is, very conveniently, hurting like a motherfucker; metal feeling tighter against his skin and muscles spasming rhythmically.

Maybe it’s partially Winry’s fault, as well. More so than Al’s, anyway; Al might have provoked him into going out and commit petty theft, but if his leg would have worked like it’s supposed to, he would not have stumbled and collapsed and subsequently get himself arrested at all. If there’s something Ed prides himself in, it’s outrunning the police when it’s necessary; has done it often enough, when he was too young and had to provide. It grated his ego more than he’d ever admit when the two officers who had been running after him peeled him off the cement and manhandled him into a police car.

The door to this little hellhole of a room opens. Ed’s gaze snaps up, forcing himself out of his trainwreck of thought, and –

It’s Mustang. Of fucking course, it’s Mustang. As if his luck hasn’t been bad enough already. Although, thinking that, maybe, perhaps, he ever had luck, even once in his life, is a ridiculous assumption to have in the first place. He should know better, at this point.

If the universe has ever as much as acknowledged his existence before, it has never been good. Has never ended particularly well for him. He would not have a prosthetic leg that gives up on him in the most inconvenient instances, for one. Alphonse wouldn’t be coughing up blood from time to time, and they probably would not be orphans, and –

Luck is not something Ed is usually graced with, is the thing. It’s completely expected but it doesn’t piss him off any less. Maybe he is solely pissed off because it’s Mustang. He is usually the reason for Ed’s chagrin, at least in these unfortunately not very rare situations. There is no reason for him to be so – irrationally angry, as he’s been here, at this point, so many times before, but he is. So much he is barely able to sit still. And Mustang is smirking, like the schmoozy bastard he is, when he walks into the room and takes a seat in front of him, and then he steeples his hands over each other, barely hiding the obvious enjoyment of having Edward handcuffed to a table in front of him, and –

It doesn’t help; agitated as Ed already has been for the last hour, Mustang certainly does not make it better. That, exactly that, is probably why they decided to send Mustang for the absolutely irrelevant interrogation.

Irrelevant because no matter what he says – Ed’s done this before, more than he would like. Has informed himself, has read books on the law, has researched for this exact reason, to be able to defend himself. In court, even, if needed. And unnecessary because the whole of the police station, every single officer who has had the displeasure of arresting him before, knows that he will not make it easy for them by talking. Not about the things they would want to know, anyway.

Through the months, and the numerous arrests that never resulted in anything more than a fine or strong-worded lectures, Ed has made it his personal mission – not more important than looking after Al, but definitely more pressing than his work at the university and infinitively more amusing than just about anything else – to make whoever was sent to question him regret even contemplating of becoming a cop.

His usual tactic contains abusing the poor people tasked with making their rounds and accidentally picking up Ed and his petty little activistic tendencies of disrespecting the law as his own personalised form of the Duck Method. Venting the problems or faulty logistics of the newest machinery he is working on, or how the code he is programming is not working like it’s supposed to, or the general illogicality of human biological evolution that hasn’t evolved like it would have been better which really defeats the whole point.

Most officers who have been exposed to his controlled but simultaneously uncontrollable rambling about his latest interest in whatever scientific field has caught his attention do not usually interact with anything he says, except maybe when they stare at him with a delightful mix of utter confusion and reluctant respect, look at him impressed and slightly scared, because he must both sound and look completely insane in the backseat of a police car or in an interrogation room, chattering away about biology and bioengineering and advanced mathematics.

There have been some irregular instances where Ed asked for paper and a pen instead of a lawyer or making use of his one phone call to scribble down notes and solutions for some of the problems he previously lamented, driven by pure adrenaline and sleep-deprivation.

“You confiscated my bag with all my notebooks,” he’d shrug off any incredulous looks he’d get in those situations. The first time the police took him with them, they didn’t grant him his wish of writing utensils, in the same ignorant manner they did not pay him any attention when he started talking out loud about the papers he wanted to publish but still had some irregularities to correct. He didn’t mind very much, as he carried a sharpie with him, turned in his seat and started writing equations directly on the stark white wall in the middle of the waiting area. Since then, he has always gotten some blank paper and a pencil – easy to wash off, if he would ever want to repeat his prior attempt at vandalism.

Ed remembers these times fondly. The times where he could slightly disassociate, let his constant inner monologue of problem-solving and never-ending academical insight take over, and everyone at the station would sigh in resignation and let him go after a warning.

The times before Roy Mustang squeezed himself into the equation as an unreliable variable and messed up everything Ed built for himself.

xx.

The very first time they met, not too long ago but long enough, not any less present in Ed’s mind and behind his eyes, replayed in the dead of night when sleep is not being nice to him – it went something like this:

It was not the first time Ed got arrested. Or, well, not arrested, not officially, because they had no good reason to arrest him just yet. So, no, he was not arrested, not really, he wouldn’t be going to jail, probably, but he did get collected by the police, for the fourth time in two months, which, he had to admit, did not look good. He wasn’t particularly worried, though, as the previous times the police saw fit to get him into a car and to their station, there never was any actual breaking-the-law happening. There was disturbance of the public with how loudly he listened to music, and there was the one time he pissed against a library, but he never committed any crimes. Except, maybe, the third time, when he was caught spray-painting.

That last incident was the most difficult to get out of; no Music is not illegal, especially not on a Friday night and no pretence of drunkenly mistaking a library building for an alley could get him out of that one. He had been, of course, let go that time, because of the rhetoric masterpiece he had pulled out of his ass; something about spraying over a homophobic remark – which had been true – and not tolerating hate speech – which had also been true – and the police being bigots if they charged him, a homosexual who only wanted to help.

Now, the fourth time he got arrested, though, was not as easy to talk his way out of it. Mostly because he was drunk, and alcohol had always been the only substance that managed to slow down his cognitive functions. Ed had assembled enough data to back up that statement: the times he’d done weed in his life – for the chronic pain in his leg and his hip and his shoulder –, he had written whole essays about the intrinsic unfairness of life, had had night-long debates with philosophy majors about the maybe-maybe-not existence of free will, and, apparently, challenged theology students to convince him of the existence of god. Even on a truly ungodly amount of painkillers, or whatever pain-reducing pills he could get his hands on, his mental capacities never suffered.

Alcohol was the exception. When he was drunk, mostly pressured by his students – the traitorous little assholes they were –, he was still able to design aircrafts and spaceships and lecture people on the biochemical mishaps and minor explosions he had had in the lab, while also completely blacking out at the same time. He additionally tended to have the concentration span of a fruit fly, brain-to-mouth filter completely non-existent – not that it was ever working while sober, though that was by choice – and the already minimal social etiquette thrown out the window. The little pretensions of grace and knowing what was societally acceptable, keeping his words simple and clear and respectful, would just – poof, gone, when he was drunk.

Sometimes, he would get wine-drunk with Winry and Al, and wake up to a string of very humiliating videos of him stumbling around and slurring his words while trying to talk about five different topics at once. Sometimes, he would let his students buy him shot after shot after shot in some cheap bar near the university, and let himself be talked into gossiping about the general incompetence of every other professor besides himself. Sometimes, he would sit at whatever bar was farthest away from his apartment and his place of work, and drink himself numb and stupid when the thoughts in his head got too loud. It was the only thing that helped, sometimes, when everything in his mind was too fast and too heavy for him to handle. It wouldn’t go away, not really, but everything would slow down, and that was enough.

Or, on this very unique occasion, he’d gotten drunk on cheap liquor, got into a bar fight because alcohol also demolished any semblance of impulse control, apparently, and then got arrested. That was certainly a first.

And now he was at the police station for the fourth time in two months, not too drunk not to realize but drunk enough not to care all that much. He had turned twenty not too long ago, so they couldn’t charge him with underage drinking, at least, although that may have been better than… what, assault? Battery? He couldn’t be too sure, law had never seemed very interesting, but his bloody knuckles certainly told him that he would not get away with this as easily as the previous times.

Everything was sort of blurry, and he couldn’t concentrate long enough to form a strategy. Not that that would have helped; he did beat up someone, and there was blood on his hands and on his face that was mostly not his own – though he assumed that he was bleeding himself, if the familiar burn of ripped skin he felt was anything to go by – to prove it, and the only hope left was that the other guy would not press any charges against him.

Because Ed was drunk and couldn’t properly concentrate on anything, except maybe on the helpful fact that the man in front of him was the single most beautiful specimen of a human being he had ever met – but he was still conscious enough not to say as much, if only not to give the bastard anything to be smug about –, he said, “You’re new. Where’s the guy who’s usually sent to annoy me? The one always talking about his wife.”

“Maes is off duty,” the man replied, sounding very amused. “His wife delivered their daughter last week. If you think he was annoying before, he is insufferable now.”

“My condolences,” Ed said, because that sounded like absolute hell.

“Why did you do it?” the man said, straight to the point, in a no-nonsense kind of way that Ed would, under different circumstances, appreciate, but now – now Ed could only think about the borderline illegality to look this good under the fluorescent lights of the station. He didn’t know who that guy was, but he sure was distracting, and Ed already disliked him.

“And why should I tell you, huh,” Ed said. His voice was surprisingly steady, although the words were slightly slurred with intoxication and lack of focus. That couldn’t be very helpful in his case.

“Because then I could, perhaps, help you.”

“Let me ask you – what would you have done if you were called a fag?” Ed said, too volatile, too loud, and maybe the alcohol was making him more emotional than usual.

“Spat in his face, maybe. Not knock him unconscious.”

Ed snorted. “That’s what I did. What do you think caused the fight in the first place?”

The man in front of him tilted his head to the side, an eyebrow raised, and he looked more imploring than anything else. As far as Ed’s resentment towards the police went, which was to hell and back and then some, this man seemed… different. Unusual, for a cop. Despite the air of superiority dripping mockingly from his uniform, and the obvious amusement in his face, the judgement was missing. For all the nonchalance and casual arrogance in his composure, a certain smugness edged into his face, he did not appear to look down at Ed, or the fact he was here for beating the shit out of someone. Maybe the alcohol was making him more lenient. That, or the fact that the man was unfairly attractive.

Maybe that was the alcohol’s fault, too.

“You’re staring,” the man said, lips curling in a truly dangerous manner, and it was as infuriating as intriguing, and Ed really needed to snap out of it.

“Your own damn fault for being so hot.” Or dig himself an even deeper grave, apparently. Definitely the alcohol.

“Would that not be my parents’ fault?” The man was smirking even more now, and Ed was too drunk for this.

“You really wanna talk genetics now?” Ed said – groaned, really, not trying very hard to hide the frustration. Any other day, discussing the wonders of biology with someone who was too pretty to be a cop – really, what a waste – sounded like a good time. As always, Ed was not blessed with good timing.

“What, not a good enough topic of conversation?”

“Listen, Mr. Smirks-A-Lot –”

“Mustang,” the man – Mustang, what a stupid fucking name, what the fuck – said. Interrupted, and wasn’t that fucking rude.

“That’s a stupid fucking name,” Ed said, because no brain-to-mouth filter, but also because it was better than saying Do you live up to your name?. Fraternizing with the police was not on Ed’s agenda, like, ever. Not even when said police was the incarnation of Tall, Dark, and Handsome, and apparently liked talking about genetics.

“And what would be a good name?”

“Edward Elric,” Ed said.

“Ah,” Mustang said. “An alliteration. That is, indeed, a good name.”

“Thanks, I got it from my parents,” Ed said, and he laughed at his own awful joke, because he just was that drunk.

“I gathered,” Mustang said, and the right corner of his mouth twitched, just a little, and something like pride spiked in Ed’s stupid, pissed brain. His usual modus operandi was making police officers damn near cry, not laugh and be proud of it.

“You’re not here to laugh at my stupid jokes, are you,” Ed said, and Mustang’s face closed off like a steel door being shut. Like he forgot that he was, in fact, at his place of business and Ed was handcuffed before him. “Do I get charged, or what?”

“You will be pleased to hear that you will not be, no,” Mustang said, and Ed’s Don’t tell me what to feel died in his throat in favour of the very eloquent Huh?. “The guy you beat up – very impressively, might I add – has numerous previous convictions of drunk and disorderly, violence and discrimination. If he were to press charges, he would certainly suffer more from it. As it stands, the altercation will be counted as self-defence on your part. You will not even have to pay a fine.”

Ed stared. Now, he surely wasn’t well-versed in law, but – “I started the fight, though?”

Mustang gave him a look that made Ed feel asinine and uncomfortable and off-kilter, and said, “No, you did not.” Which did not help the confusion. Mustang sighed, like he couldn’t believe he had to elaborate. Like he didn’t have to, usually. “You don’t have a criminal record, nor have you ever been arrested for any sort of violent behaviour, so I made an educated guess and decided based on that.”

“You…” Ed started, and suddenly there was a shift in understanding. “Huh.”

“Don’t make me regret my decision,” Mustang said. He was smirking again, though the edges were less sharp, less complacent. Softer, somehow. “I don’t know if I can assist if this were to happen again.”

xx.

“One would think someone with your intellect would not get themselves caught so many times,” Mustang says over the table, and he’s still smirking like an asshole, and he still looks as hot as the last time Ed saw him. That last fact irritates him more than anything else that’s happened tonight.

“My intellect has absolutely no correlation to my being here again, thanks,” Ed says, and although it’s true, it comes out more defensive than intended. The pain makes it rather hard to keep his cool. The pain also makes it hard for him to care very much. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, reprimanding me, or whatever?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Then I will not,” Mustang says, graciously, like he’s doing Ed a favour. “I only operate with explicit consent in those matters.”

“Ah, a sadist,” Ed says, rolling his eyes with a truly disrespectful obviousness. “Should’ve known.”

“Only if you want me to be, though that is negotiable,” Mustang says, and isn’t that unprofessional. Not that Ed has any sort of qualifications to speak on professionalism with the utter disregard of propriety he displays while teaching and indifference towards safety in his lab. But he’s neurotic, and Mustang is an asshole, so Ed will judge him anyway.

xx.

The third fucking officer just walked out on Edward, leaving him still handcuffed to the table, and his patience was beginning to run out. Not that there ever was a healthy amount of patience anywhere within him in the first place, especially not after half a day of teaching and then – well. Blowing up his lab accidentally. So yeah, his tolerance for bullshit was running really fucking thin, it was transparent, really, and the third officer in forty minutes walked out on him.

It was his own fucking fault. He had kind of unwillingly but very successfully Pavlov’d almost everyone working at the police station into ignoring him whenever he started talking science. Of course, it would come back to bite him in the ass.

The door to the interrogation room opened for a fourth time, and then – Mustang. Fucking Mustang.

“God, just throw me into jail,” Ed groaned and let his forehead drop down onto the table.

“Depending on what you have to say for yourself, I might just have to,” Mustang said, and it sounded like a threat, like a promise, no small amount of superiority bleeding from his voice, and Ed felt the urge to crack open his skull at the edge of the metal table. It would certainly be less annoying. “As of right now, you are being held as a danger to others and yourself, arson, notional terroristic tendencies–”

“It’s not arson if I didn’t mean for the fire to start,” Ed said. “It was just a… symptom of sleep-deprived and over-caffeinated miscalculating. Which is not a terrorist attempt; blowing shit up comes with the job.”

“Does it, now,” Mustang cocked a stupidly perfect eyebrow at him, clearly not believing a single word. If Ed had ever been able to be the bigger person, he wouldn’t have blamed the bastard. But he was also 1.65 metres tall, which made it supremely difficult to be. So, he wasn’t.

“I’m employed as a chemist,” he said, not yet willing to lift his head from the table. He knew himself well enough not to look at Mustang right now. “Well. Among other things.”

“What other things would that be?”

“Professor for bioengineering, astrophysics and, also, if you haven’t guessed already, chemistry,” Ed said.

“No, you’re not,” Mustang said, and that managed to make Ed look at him. Mustang blinked at him, confused and incredulous. Ed blinked back. “You’re twenty.” As if that explained anything at all.

“Yeah?”

“You’re twenty,” Mustang repeated. “You certainly cannot be a professor.”

Ed groaned. “Just. Call up the university. They’ll confirm what I said, if you don’t believe me.”

Ed was sure that the university already knew. He did cause a minor explosion – and it was minor, with only two walls busted and a small fire that had been put out quickly, it was probably one of the smallest he had ever caused –, someone should have been alerted and on their way already. Maybe they purposefully let him wait and deal with annoyingly handsome police officers, to teach him a lesson or whatever.

Mustang, to his credit, only hesitated for a second before getting up and leaving. Ed let his head bang against the table again and tried to come up with an excuse good enough not to have to explain to the university board that he did, in fact, purposefully made an explosive. That would not look good on his resume, he assumed.

He was only at I didn’t know what would happen, which was weak at best and only a semi-lie, but still infinitively better than the alternative of I wanted to see what would happen, when Mustang returned, closely followed by Al. Who was having the time of his fucking life, as it seemed.

“Did you try to put out a fire with flour again,” Al said in lieu of any kind of greeting, the little brat.

“I learned last time,” Ed said, and he really would have preferred not to have this conversation in front of Mustang, of all people. Who was also crouched down beside him, working on opening the handcuffs, which made stoically ignoring him no small task.

“You… tried to suffocate a fire with flour?” Mustang said, and he looked positively mortified by that prospect. “You know that’s highly flammable, right? Might as well have tried with sugar.”

“Of course, I know! I mistook it with baking soda, and accidentally blew up the lab,” Ed said, because he couldn’t have Mustang thinking he was stupid. Although it may have been a little late for that. That Mustang apparently knew of the dangers that came with attempting to put out fires with unsuitable substances didn’t completely escape Ed, though he didn’t have the brain space to dissect it at the moment. Not with Al looking thrilled at their interaction. Ed would never hear the end of it.

“You accidentally blow up your lab regularly?” Mustang looked up at him. Looking down at anyone was a rare but always pleasant occurrence, but looking down at Mustang was perversely enjoyable, and. Maybe Ed needed to self-reflect on that one on a later point in time. The angle, unfortunately, also did nothing to make him less attractive, even when the smugness glinting in his eyes made Ed want to rip him to pieces.

“I’m gonna blow you–”

“Brother, no,” Al said, looking both enormously amused and mildly disgusted. As if he had any right to be disgusted at the possibility of Ed having a sex life when Ed had to listen to him and Mei every fucking weekend. If Al wasn’t careful, he’d cut himself at his own hypocrisy.

“Now, if that’s not a generous offer, but I’m still on the clock, unfortunately,” Mustang said with that godawful smirk, and maybe Ed should retract himself from this situation right about fucking now. That was coincidentally also the exact moment the handcuffs came off, and Ed couldn’t get out of the room faster.

“We’re going,” Ed said in the general direction of Al, and powerwalked right out of the police station. Behind him, he could hear Al laugh and excuse him, like the little traitor that he was becoming, apparently, but decided to postpone the playfully beathing the shit out of my little brother. He just wanted to get the fuck out and away, and maybe hide for the following days, while also not thinking about blowing Mustang.

(“I understand why you got yourself arrested so many times in the past few weeks,” Al said when they were driving home, without any context, as if Ed was supposed to understand what he meant by that. The intonation of how he said it, however, told Ed enough.

“What the fuck are you insinuating,” Ed said, without really wanting to know. His resentment for being out of the loop, however, made him ask anyway.

“Nothing at all,” Al said, and he still looked too happy with himself, suspiciously so, and Ed narrowed his eyes at his constantly scheming little brother. “Officer Mustang is quite… good-looking, is all. I understand. Though there have to be better ways to meet him.”

Ed honestly calculated the risks of throwing himself out of a moving vehicle.)

xx.

“One would think,” Mustang says, for the second time, as though that is the only prelude for his sentences. “You’d have enough money not to resort to theft.”

“Teachers are horrendously underpaid, didn’t you know?” Ed says.

“Which is horrible,” Mustang agrees easily. “Our educators, forming future generations, selfless in their endeavour, have to steal.”

Ed snorts. “I don’t have to do shit.”

“Why did you do it, then?” Mustang asks, leaning forward on his elbows. Closer, too close. Ed doesn’t lean back.

“My brother is a little shit, that’s why,” Ed says, and Mustang blinks at him.

xx.

“One time you physically harmed someone, then blew up half a building, and now you’re getting caught carrying drugs?” Mustang said, one infuriating eyebrow raised.

“What an astute observation, officer,” Ed said and rolled his eyes for emphasis. For all the strict pretence of being serious and slightly disappointed, Mustang’s eyes glinted with something… dark. Interested, almost. He seemed to enjoy people calling him officer, probably liked being called sir, too, and that… was a thought, wasn’t it.

“Not trying to talk yourself out of this with your usual charm, Elric?” Mustang said it in a way to let Ed know he was anything but charming. And he wasn’t, ever, Ed was aware, but hearing it directly – or, not directly at all, but connotational –, made him grit his teeth either way.

“You caught me with a blunt in my hand,” Ed said, rolling his eyes again, just to convey a point. “I don’t think I could bullshit my way out of this one. Except if I pull the pity card, and I would rather go to jail.” After brief consideration, he added, just to be a little shit, “I also don’t expect you to have a single sympathetic bone in your body, so I won’t bother.”

“I am plenty sympathetic, thank you,” Mustang huffed in that – unfortunately very attractive – arrogant way of his, and it made Ed snort, incredulous. “I am, even if you don’t believe it. Try me – explain the weed. I’m sure whatever pity card you think you have is nothing more than a weak excuse.”

Despite himself, Ed felt himself bristle at that. “I know what you’re doing – trying to provoke me into talking. Don’t think I don’t realize, I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were, Professor,” Mustang said, and the way his voice curled around the syllables made something dark and deep and dangerous burn right through Ed’s spine, and it felt like revenge. “If anything, I’m wondering how someone with your… intelligence gets caught at all. You must be aware that walking around with a joint is not the best course of action, yes?”

Maybe it was the weed, or maybe it was the day finally wearing down on him, but Ed laughed at that. “Of course, I know.”

“If you do, please enlighten me about your reasoning.”

“You already have me admitting to it, recorded and all, don’t you?” Ed said. “Can’t you just fine me? The weed is wearing off, and I’d really rather not deal with you sober.”

“You are right, of course,” Mustang assented, much more agreeable than the other times Ed had met him, much more lenient, and it started to freak him out. “But I could, perhaps, pull some strings, if you told me the reason you were smoking in the first place. It is highly unfitting for a professor, after all.”

“So, you’re just curious. Is that it?” Ed asked, because how couldn’t he? Mustang had been looking at him ever since they had started their little not-really-conversation, but contrary to the other two times they had talked, there was something akin to genuine interest in his dark eyes, not only vague amusement and overplayed boredom and nonchalant superiority. It was real in a way Ed had not seen in the man before, and it somewhat intrigued him.

“I wouldn’t have bothered to ask if I weren’t, now, would I?” Mustang had the audacity to send him a look. A look only Al ever sent his way, normally, one that said Really, brother?. It looked both better and endlessly more annoying on Mustang’s face.

Ed sighed heavily, feeling the stubborn resolve of never being amical with Mustang crumble underneath the exhaustion and the dooming soberness and the pain flaring up in his leg and up his back and down his right arm.

“I have a prosthetic leg. A fake arm, too,” he said, and Mustang’s eyes widened. Even through the annoyance and pain, Ed found pleasure in certainly having won this round. “I also have a fucked up back, my right shoulder doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, and I’m in pain. All the fucking time. The weed helps. Unfortunately, legal weed for anyone to purchase is not a thing here, which is really fucking stupid because it helps, a little bit. Sometimes more than the painkillers I have to take, so. Y’know. That’s why I smoke, irregularly. In public, when the pain’s too strong to wait until I get home.”

Mustang stared back at him, and, true to his words, there was sympathy etched into every line of his face. Usually, Ed would have been bothered by that. Sympathy was not something he needed, nor deserved, but Mustang… didn’t look at him like that. Like he pitied him, like so many other people did.

He also didn’t seem to know how to respond, obviously not expecting such a truthful answer. Semi-truthful, as Ed spared him with the minor details that weren’t really minor at all; careful not to mention the exact amount of pain he was in, nor the mental aspects that sometimes drove him into substances. Because that would have been pathetic, and Ed was more prideful than was healthy. That minimal amount of truthfulness seemed to be enough, though, as Mustang leaned back slightly, contemplatively frowning at the table. Then he got up, rounded the table. Stared at Ed. Ed stared back.

Then he kneeled down next to Ed’s chair and started fishing for… something in his uniform pockets.

“Gonna fine me now? Throw me in a cell for a night?” Ed asked, mostly sarcastically, but also because Mustang was still not saying anything, and Ed had never been able to sit in silence for too long.

“I’m going to uncuff you,” Mustang said, and. That was not what Ed expected. At all. “Can’t exactly charge you for possession of medical weed, can I?”

“Medical,” Ed started, and stopped. Took in the situation as a whole and took in Mustang who was crouching down next to him, closer than strictly necessary, and who was speaking low, not quite whispering but not talking at the same volume he had two minutes ago. “Weed. Right. Because I definitely have a prescription.”

Mustang had found the key for the handcuffs in the time it took for realization to slice through Ed’s drug-fuddled mind. Dark eyes snapped up to his, and the bastard had the audacity to wink. At Ed. Conspiratorially, like they were sharing some inside joke and not being complicit in breaking the law.

“I was originally sent to maybe coax out of you where you got the weed from as there has been an increase of it floating around,” he explained, making a great show of slowly opening the handcuffs and sounding extremely entertained. “But as you have a prescription, that would be futile.”

“I grow it myself,” Ed whispered back.

Mustang’s eyes snapped back to him immediately. “Do you really?”

“I’m not a herbology professor, of course I don’t.”

Mustang laughed, and Ed could feel it against his wrists, and tried not to shiver from it. He blamed it on the weed.

xx.

Ed doesn’t explain. One, because Al is a piece of shit is explanation enough, always. Two, he doesn’t think he could explain without utterly embarrassing himself in the process. What is there to say? My little brother wants me to get laid, and he’s latched onto the idea that it has to be you. Absolutely mortifying, though Mustang would find that hilarious, probably. Mustang seems like someone who would thrive off other people’s misery. Ed’s, specifically.

So, Ed doesn’t explain. Instead, he says, very stupidly, “What’re you gonna do with me now?”

Mustang’s eyes sparkle, and Ed knows he fucked up. Then he leans forward onto his elbows, one eyebrow arched amusedly and dangerously, and says, “There is, rather unfortunately, not much I can do with you now, I’m still clocked in. Not for a lack of interest, of course.”

Ed’s brain short-circuits. Goes offline. Shuts off completely, because – Mustang’s a flirty bastard, Ed’s known that, though being openly targeted, shamelessly so, is a little much. It’s not even – it’s not like Mustang’s the first person to approach Ed, not at all, but Mustang is certainly the first… well. Mustang. How is Ed supposed to deal with Mustang?

Master of social awkwardness, Ed says, “You know what I mean, bastard.” And, effectively, cutting off whatever else Mustang might have said. Ed doesn’t know whether he’d have survived anything else; anything more.

“As it is the first time you stole something,” Mustang says, gesturing grandly with his right hand, obviously knowing that he is spouting bullshit. Ed bites his lip as not to laugh out loud and ruin whatever theatrical fuckery Mustang’s trying to pull off. It’s for his sake, anyway, he can deal with the dramatics. “You will get away with a warning.”

“Officer Mustang, how will I ever repay my debt?” Ed asks, summoning whatever innocent façade Al likes to put on whenever he wants something.

“I’ll let you know,” Mustang says, and, oh good, the smirk is back in place. Fuck that smirk, honestly. Fuck Mustang, too, actually.

“Would you uncuff me now? My wrist fuckin’ hurts,” Ed says, and Mustang’s out of his seat before he’s even finished talking.

xx.

The fourth time they met, Ed was furious.

Anger was not a rare emotion for him, although he usually was more capable at managing it. A skill he had to learn throughout the years of studying at a prestigious university since he was fifteen; always dismissed in his accomplishments, always overlooked at first, underestimated, although he was one of the only capable people there. Not to mention the privileged rich kids surrounding him on a daily basis, so obviously only there because of their money or their name, with nothing else to show for. Dealing with stupidity and degeneracy and incapability had driven Ed insane, at first, and then it had forced him to get a hold of himself.

He didn’t slip as much, nowadays, not like a few years ago. Irritation and poorly repressed annoyance were still somewhat of a baseline, but it didn’t overtake him at every turn anymore.

Today, though, he was angry. Not because he’d been arrested for the seventh fucking time in barely three months, which wasn’t optimal in any way but still manageable, but because of the why he got arrested in the first place.

The last few times, he could concede and take some of the blame. He was twenty and a half years old, and he had multiple degrees just because he could, and he was the youngest professor to ever teach at Central City University. He was an adult and a scientist before anything else, able of having insight, see the mistakes made along the way, and take responsibility for them.

Not now, however, because he hadn’t done anything. And, sure, that was probably what everyone said when picked off the streets slightly drunk and driven to the police station. But he hadn’t. There had not been a bar brawl, no bladder-emptying in public, no nothing.

Ed was so angry, in fact, he couldn’t even pull out his usual tactic of scientific and very confusing blah-blah. The only thing he could think of, however inebriated and mad, was, “Get Mustang.”

After the last three instances – instances Ed would love to forget and never waste any brain capacity thinking about ever again, more out of embarrassment than anything else –, he had learned that Mustang was the only person who would listen, no matter how much Ed despised that thought. It was true, anyway.

Asking for Mustang was a mistake. A miserable mistake Ed would blame the intoxication for, even though he wasn’t all that drunk. Because he could hear the bastard laughing before he even saw him, and when he did see him, Mustang was having trouble standing upright, the absolute fucking asshole.

“Having a good time, dipshit?” Ed said, frown deepening the closer Mustang got.

“I haven’t laughed this genuinely in a while, I almost feel like I should thank you,” Mustang said back, theatrically wiping a tear away, and Ed would love nothing more than to punch him in the fucking face and ruin his perfect bone structure.

“Don’t think I won’t fight you just because you’re with the police,” Ed said, and he meant it. But there was something like relief laced within the words, and he could only hope Mustang wouldn’t notice.

“I would never,” Mustang said, very unconvincingly, and made work at uncuffing Ed from the chair he was bound to. “Though you have to admit that it is rather hilarious.”

“Being arrested for underage drinking when I’m a legal adult?” Edward said. “Hysterical.”

“You can’t really blame them.” Mustang cocked an eyebrow and slowly, very deliberately, dragged his eyes over his body, and if Ed hadn’t been so insulted, he probably would have been flustered.

“I can and I will, fuck you,” Ed said, solely for the sake of arguing. That only managed to get Mustang laughing again, very fucking loudly, and Ed tried not to think about how it was a very good look on him. Of course, the bastard would have a beautiful laugh that made his eyes bright and shining and his face so much more attractive than the mocking smirk he usually wore.

Ed couldn’t stand the fucker.

xx.

Ed moves, sliding forward in his metal chair, and is abruptly reminded of why he’s even sitting here in the first place. Pain shoots up his thigh – or, whatever’s left of it, anyway –, through every little sinew and nerve, and how did he forget about that? Not even painkillers are usually capable of palliating the pain, much less does anything ever manage to distract Ed from it. Nothing besides Mustang, apparently.

“Fuck,” Ed groans. Digs his fingers into the spasming muscles. It doesn’t help. “I don’t think I can stand.”

“Is it your leg?” Mustang asks, and just like that, the playful persona is, poof, gone. Concern, genuine and honest worry, is cutting through the easy smile. Distantly, Ed wonders if Mustang’s like that with every almost-not-really criminal sitting in front of him, or if Ed is some special case. That’s a dangerous door to open, so he doesn’t. “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”

“Hell no, that shit’s expensive,” Ed says, voice strained with discomfort. “It’s – I’m okay, just – a nerve’s pinched, probably, or a tendon’s locked up on its own. If I could maybe call my brother, though, that’d be nice.”

Mustang looks at him, then down where Ed is griping his upper thigh, and back again. His perfect eyebrows are furrowed, unsure and doubtful, but he seems to realize that arguing with Ed is pointless. With a nod, Mustang reaches into his police jacket, pulls out a phone and holds it out for Ed. It’s his personal one, Ed realizes, when he sees the lock screen – Mustang and the family fetish guy and a blonde woman Ed's seen around the station before.

Were the pain any less blinding, he would have allowed himself a few more seconds staring at the picture, but alas. Ed unlocks the phone – no password, which is interesting, but also stupid, how old is Mustang? – and dials his brother’s number.

“Alphonse Elric?”

“Hey, Al, it’s me, I’m calling from Mustang’s phone,” Ed says.

“Ah, so I can assume you got arrested again, brother? Not trying to tell you I told you so, but I did, indeed, tell you–”

“Not the time,” Ed says. The pain is seeping into his voice, now, through his clenched jaw and gritted teeth, making him sound choked and unsteady.

“Is it your shoulder again?” Al asks, grave and serious. The teasing tone is replaced by the kind of sombre concern Ed has never really gotten used to.

“The shoulder’s fine,” Ed says, and Al sighs in clear relief. They both don’t like to remember the last time Ed’s shoulder decided to act up. It’s not exactly a fond memory. “It’s my leg. The prosthetic locked up, I think, can’t move it at all – which, by the way, is the sole reason I got arrested at all.”

Mustang snorts. Al snorts, too.

“Alright, brother, I’ll come get you.”

“Bring Winry,” Ed says, which is enough agreement for Al to end the call. Ed holds out Mustang’s phone. “My brother and my mechanic are on their way.” And then, because Ed might not have parents, but he still has manners, he adds quietly, “Thanks.”

Mustang waves his phone dismissively. “I only wish I could do more. You said pain medication does not work?” Ed shakes his head no, swallowing down another wave of stabbing pain. “Is there anything else that would help?”

There is not. Mustang knows that, probably, but he still asks, and he seems genuine, even when aware of his helplessness. It reminds Ed a lot of Al whenever the weather’s bad and Ed can’t move because the ridges of his marred skin, melded to metal, hurt so bad. He doesn’t like the look on Al’s face, and he doesn’t like it on Mustang’s, either.

“As I assume you can’t exactly offer me medical weed,” Ed starts, pouring his entire concentration into sounding light and cheerful and not like he’ll die any moment. The right corner of Mustang’s mouth twitches out of its frown, and Ed takes that as a victory. “Distract me.”

“How do you suggest I do that?” Mustang asks, tentative, as if unsure how to proceed, though his worry seems to lessen by the second, which is good. Ed’s never known how to deal with worry directed at him.

“With your mouth, preferably,” Ed says, and – freezes instantaneously. Mustang slips right back into a smirk and an amused eyebrow raise, and Ed mentally scrambles for purchase. “Talking! I mean by talking.”

“Pity,” Mustang says – purrs, sultry and low and velvety, just for a moment, before he leans back a little. “Lucky for you, I am exceptionally talented with my mouth. Talking or otherwise.”

Before Ed can find the mental capacities to process that, much less respond in any way that isn’t incredibly incriminating, Mustang steeples his hands, elbows on the table, and rests his chin on them. He looks like the bastard again, unlikable and sticky with arrogance, and it makes it easier for Ed to breathe.

“Are you interested in hearing the story of how Maes coaxed a murder confession out of a suspect only by talking about his wife?”

xx.

“You have to go express your thanks properly, brother.”

“I don’t have to do shit.”

Al sighs loudly beside him, as if there is any possibility that he isn’t heard. Ed doesn’t look up from his book. Because if he does, he’ll find Al’s exasperation and big blue eyes, and that’ll be enough to guilt-trip him into folding like a fucking lawn chair. Like always. Like it’s been since they were children.

“You’re being obstinate.”

“No, you’re being unnecessarily pushy. You just want me to go there and embarrass myself in front of Mustang because you have some sort of delusion that we – whatever,” Ed says, still staring down at the paragraph about new micro-technology used in engineering without reading it. “Have something weird going. Do not pretend to care about manners, you gremlin.”

“You definitely have something going on, which is, coincidentally, also very unusual, so yes. That’s exactly what I’m deluding,” Al says, and the sarcasm is practiced and perfect and circles right back to sincerity, and Ed cannot even be mad because he taught him that. He regrets it more and more every day.

“At least you’re self-aware,” Ed says, and he still doesn’t look up, though he can feel Al’s stare burning through his skull, like he is trying to force a telepathic message directly into his mind. Which is not necessary, because Ed has always known exactly what Al’s thinking, without weird sibling telekinesis.

“As far as I am concerned–”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong. This does not concern you at all.”

“Since when did we give up on our borderline co-dependency?” Al asks, and Ed really does not know what to say to that. “Thought so. Now, let’s reverse the situation for a second. A little thought experiment, if you will.”

“I won’t,” Ed groans. Al ignores him. Fuck Al and his little hypotheticals that are emotionally manipulative, and, very unfortunately, very logical, most of the time.

“Were I the one getting arrested all the time–”

“Unlikely, you’re an angel.”

“– and an officer had helped me numerous, really, like a whole shit ton of times, like, loads–”

“Now you’re being unnecessarily dramatic.”

“– you would’ve already invited them to dinner, like the mother hen that you are,” Al finishes, appearing wholly unbothered by Ed interjections. But if he wouldn’t at least feign insolence, where would that leave Ed and his already questionable abilities as an older brother.

“I wouldn’t have,” Ed says, although he absolutely would have. “I’m also not a mother hen.” He is, of course, and has been since he was eleven years old, and he will continue to be until the day he dies. They both know that, but Ed cannot let his younger brother be annoying.

Ed, while fighting petulantly, pointlessly, and very bravely, knows it’s a lost cause from the very beginning. Denying Al anything at all is not something he’s ever been particularly talented at, and arguing with Al has not been possible since the fucker turned thirteen and learned how to outsmart Ed with his huge fucking Bambi eyes.

“I’ll… see what I can do,” Ed says to his book, and he feels self-satisfied happiness exuding from Al’s side of the couch.

xx.

Walking into the police station without being escorted – or dragged, or half-carried, or anything that’s not involuntary – is, well. Fucking weird, is what it is. That it’s the middle of the day makes it even more surreal, like entering a liminal space. Except that there are people scurrying around, and it’s less creepy, which kind of negates the definition. Still weird, though. The immediate drop in volume, like a record screeching to a halt, and some comically wide-eyed stares do nothing to help the unease.

“Please tell me you came to turn yourself in. I have a bet going,” someone says, way too fucking loudly and excited for the time of day, even with the buzzing of the station. It’s – well, fuck him then. The terror of the possibility to be, yet again, subjected to family photos uncoils on a cellular level. “Don’t look so excited to see me.”

“Is Mustang–,” Ed says, and halts. Blinks once, twice. Opens his damn mouth again, “Wait, you have a bet going?” Because he can’t just ignore the potentiality of being bet on without his knowledge. He really, really wishes he could. Wishes he could summon his thorough and complete indifference from his teenage years and remain utterly unbothered by everything. The blame, of course, lays with Alphonse Elric for teaching him stupid shit like sensibility and curiosity.

“Well, it’s more of a game, honestly,” Maes – or Mais? Ed was drunk when Mustang mentioned his name, so he cannot be certain, but he really hopes the man isn’t called corn – says, though that doesn’t really clarify, and Ed hates himself for being intrigued by the unknown with his stupid scientist brain.

“And I’m involved how, exactly?”

“Well, we don’t really have regulars here,” Maes says, and he’s grinning, and maybe Ed doesn’t want to know. “We do, of course, have people coming in like clockwork for the same boring things. You’re the only one who’s unpredictable enough for a game.”

“What, are you playing Bingo with the reasons I come in, or something,” Ed says, and laughs. Maes looks at him, and his grin spreads wider. Ed stops laughing. “You can’t be serious.”

“You’re here for Roy, aren’t you?” Maes says, expertly brushing over Ed’s disbelief, and doesn’t even wait for an answer before vanishing deeper into the station and out of sight. With Maes gone, there is no barrier between Ed and the obvious looks he’s graced with – disgraced, actually –, and nervousness creeps up his spine.

Ed has never been one to be intimidated by authority – or anything at all –, especially not the bastards in blue uniforms who are supremely unhelpful at the best of times, though he can’t say he’s comfortable right now. Maybe it’s because he’s not drunk or hand-cuffed, for a change. Or because everyone is throwing glances at him, with varying degrees of incredulity, scrutiny and amusement.

“What brings you here this time around, Elric?” Mustang asks with his smarmy, disgusting, smooth voice. It sounds like honey, whiskey and bad decisions, and Ed will kill Al when he gets home. “Arson? Attempted murder?”

“Are those part of the fucking Elric Bingo?” Ed says, and snorts ungracefully. Mustang’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly. Ed nods towards Maes who is, very unsubtly, lingering behind Mustang. “Your friend with the family fetish told me.”

The corners of Mustang’s mouth twitch, and he brings a hand up to, undoubtedly, cover for the slip, because he just is the kind of person who wouldn’t be seen laughing. He clears his throat – unnaturally and into his fist – and turns toward his colleague. “You told him?”

“He guessed!” Maes protests, both hands placatingly raised in defence, and shoots Mustang a look Ed doesn’t quite understand. The raised eyebrows and the predatory grin do not promise anything good, though. “Not my fault he’s pretty and smart!”

Mustang’s shoulders tense, just slightly, and Ed tilts his head. Strange.

“Attempted murder is not really on the list,” Mustang says, turning back to Ed, therefore briskly cutting off whatever response Ed might have had to the word pretty, seemingly done with dealing with Maes. Ed almost sympathises with the bastard – working with someone of Maes’ calibre sounds… arduous.

“I wouldn’t cross it out just yet,” Ed says. “My brother is on thin fucking ice.”

“You know you’re standing in the middle of a police station, yes?” Mustang says, but there is something endlessly entertained in his dark – very, very, impossibly dark – eyes, so Ed is not especially worried. “Now, how can I help you?”

“Shoot my brother, maybe?” Ed asks – rhetorically, of course.

“Why would I do that?” Mustang asks back, taking way too literal to things, as always, and answering with a question, as always. As though being a cop is merely a passion and infuriating Ed is his full-time profession. Hell, maybe it is, he wouldn’t put it past the fucker.

“Because he’s fuckin’ annoying, and I’m a pushover,” Ed says – not rhetorically, of course.

“I’m afraid that is not a valid enough reason to risk my career,” Roy says, and he looks like he’s trying not to laugh, and Ed kind of, sort of really hates him. “Except the truly tempting prospect of potentially killing your brother for you, why are you here?”

The station quietens down from a quiet buzz to a murmur, and Ed learns that not one person here has a subtle bone in their body. Or does their job, for that matter.

“Do you have, like, an office or something?” Ed asks, and he swears to god at least four people turn their heads to them. “Everyone here is staring at me, and it’s not because of how I look.”

Which happens more often than not, equal parts checking out his prosthetics and figuring out his age because he’s – below average height. And just because he is unconventionally looking, in general, with metal melded to his skin and bright hair. It’s fucking fine; Ed’s used to stares. He doesn’t get intemperately vitriolic at anyone looking, anymore. But having a dozen uniformed people who carry guns openly and unashamedly gawk at him – and subsequently Mustang – does, admittedly, colour him three shades of uncomfortable.

Mustang seems to agree. After one look around, a stern “Go back to work, you vultures!” – and wow, his deep voice barking out orders is a lot –, he nods at Ed and leads him away.

“Take your time!” Maes screams after them, although he is not far away enough to be out of earshot in the first place, before a blonde woman punches him in the throat. Ed doesn’t know who she is, but he likes her already.

Immediately upon turning away, the volume picks up again, something shrill and chaotic, and Ed honest to god hears someone whistle, low and suggestive and unambiguous. In favour of not losing his fucking mind, he chooses not to dissect that.

The fact that Mustang has an office to himself at all, instead of a single desk cramped together with three dozen more in the middle of the station, a private if minimal space, points to him having a higher… rank, or whatever perverse hierarchy game they’re playing here. Not at all surprising, given Mustang’s demeanour – seemingly warranted but no less annoying –, though it does nothing to disperse Ed’s paranoid tendencies not to trust any authority figure.

Mustang leans back against his desk, posed artfully on his arms behind him, hips cocked out and an eyebrow raised, and – Ed will kill Al when he gets back. Al has made him do a lot of shit he didn’t want to, but making him thank this attractive fucking asshole, with all the decidedly ingratitude Ed feels, is really up there. Top five, at the very least, if not three. Worse than making him run three kilometres in a hurricane for ice cream – because Al was sick and Ed would’ve run even farther for him –, but not quite as bad as having him sign up for voluntary charity work during midterms.

“My brother, Al, you met him that one time, when he was laughing because I blew up the lab? He told me I should, I dunno,” Ed starts, rather clumsily and with a truly impressive amount of awkwardness, because he has always had an ineptitude for acting like a normal fucking human being. Surrounded by all that is Mustang, while being sober, no less, makes it just that much more difficult. “Thank you. Or something.”

“Thank me,” Mustang repeats, very intelligently. He’s still just looking at Ed, intensity ridiculous and disconcerting. “What for?”

“Fuck if I know,” Ed says, although he does. He does know. And Mustang, the bastard, knows, too. “C’mon, are you really making me say it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mustang hums nonchalantly, and Ed feels the urge to gouge his stupidly recondite eyes out, so he isn’t exposed to them anymore.

“You’re such an asshole,” Ed says, because it’s true. And because Ed doesn’t think that Mustang, with his dark eyes and sharply cut face and body sculpted by the fucking gods, gets cursed at as often as he probably deserves.

“I’ve been told,” Mustang says, agreeably and with the insouciance of someone who, indeed, knows how much assholery they produce. For some reason, it doesn’t make him any less attractive.

“Just – just, y’know,” Ed starts again like a dumbass, because he promised Al he’d try, and Ed’s never broken a promise before. Won’t start now, either. “For. Helping.”

“I’m an asshole for helping you?” Mustang asks, disgustingly sweet and innocent, and it really does not match the bastardly amusement carved into the air around him.

“You know what I mean!” Ed says, louder than intended. He reins it in – the flare of irritation and anger at being played with; closes his eyes for a second, takes a breath. Opens his eyes again. “For helping whenever… when I got arrested, the past few weeks.”

“I did not really do much, though?” Mustang says, and he looks mildly surprised, the first genuine expression Ed’s seen from the fucker today, and it makes tension seep out of his bones. It also makes the next thing infinitively easier to do.

“You did,” Ed says. “More so than any other pig I’ve met before.”

Mustang’s eyebrow twitches, but so does his mouth. “Should you be talking like that in front of me?”

“Do you disagree?” Ed asks, never one to take obvious bullshit. Mustang continues to stand there, biting down on the inside of his cheek – it makes his cheekbone even sharper – and joviality is etched into every line of his face, so Ed takes it as assent. “Here, I got something – wait a sec – here.”

Rummaging through his leather bag doesn’t take longer than half a moment, usually, as there’s an organized kind of chaos, but Ed’s hands are clumsy, and the prosthetic locks up with nerves, sometimes, and he almost drops the small package before holding out to Mustang.

Mustang stares, seemingly caught entirely off-guard and wary and whole lot of other emotions that are new. Delightful to watch, but also completely unjustified. “Is that a bomb?”

“Ex-fucking-cuse me – a what?”

“Do not pretend not to know how to build one, if you wanted,” Mustang says and – he’s not wrong, really. Fucking around with not exactly safe substances and creating chemical compositions that might be, maybe, dangerous and explosive, is kind of Ed’s profession. He also got arrested not two weeks ago for blowing up a university lab, which he didn’t do on purpose but also not not on purpose, so he can’t fault Mustang for his hesitancy. It pisses him off, nonetheless.

“As if I would bring a bomb into the police station,” Ed scoffs, already regretting promising Al anything. “I’d send it to your house, if anything, or find out which of the pretentiously posh cars is yours and attach it underneath, not bring it here personally. How stupid do you think I am?”

“Now I’m reassured,” Mustang says, and rolls his eyes, and never before has such a trivial gesture looked so good. Anything would look good on Mustang, probably, and –

Not the time. It’ll never be the time, actually, so Ed shakes it off and pushes the surge of hormones away, like the fucking adult that he is.

“It’s, it’s from my brother,” Ed clarifies, elaborates, although he despises having to explain himself, but Mustang has not stirred a muscle, still, and Ed’s metal-wire-bullshit arm starts to hurt from holding it up. “Just take it. He’s gonna be mad if you don’t. And you don’t wanna have an angry Alphonse Elric storming into your office, do you?”

Dark eyes narrow, an expression of suspicion flitting over Mustang’s face – which, fair, but also not –, and then something akin to curiosity takes over.

“Wouldn’t want to upset your darling little brother,” Mustang says, and finally – fucking finally – pushes himself off his desk. Steps forward in a marching manner that reminds Ed of the military, and gently takes the package out of Ed’s metal fingers. That’s also the exact moment Ed realizes the glaringly obvious lack of his gloves. Mustang seems to realize it, too.

The thing is – Ed is used to obnoxiously blatant stares directed at his artificial limbs, always the same mélange of curiosity and distaste and pity. What he isn’t used to is the pure fascination oozing from Mustang, package in his hand forgotten, and the special brand of unfiltered interest that is exclusive to a scientist’s inquisitiveness. It’s weird and so different that Ed momentarily forgets to be aggravated by the unwanted attention.

“You wanna take a photo, or something?” Ed says – mutters, more flustered than anything by the first non-negative reaction to the metal on his body from anyone who isn’t Winry or Al.

“May I?” Mustang asks, still not taking off his gaze from Ed’s hand – still outstretched, and Ed almost thinks the battery’s empty by the frozen stiffness of it. Mustang’s free hand twitches, like he wants to reach out, like he wants to touch, but aborts the movement immediately. Ed is grateful, if only because he doesn’t think he’d survive being touched by Mustang, even when he would not feel it. “This is a work of art.”

“I–,” Ed says, and almost chokes on absolutely nothing. Except the compliment, maybe, because no one ever compliments him, though it’s not even for him, exactly, it’s for Winry, but it makes something warm and sticky and disgusting spread beneath his sternum all the same.

“I’m joking,” Mustang says, tearing his gaze away from Ed’s arm. “Unless you allow me to.”

“Didn’t know you were so interested in prosthetics,” Ed says, trying to redirect with his usual sarcasm reserved for particularly annoying people. He fails miserably, and it sounds like a question and curiosity because, apparently, Ed’s exceptional mental capacities turn minimal and useless when stupidly attractive police officers give him human decency and attention. Maybe it’s just Mustang. He seems to make for quite a few exceptions, for Ed personally. Isn’t that delightful.

“I’m not. Or, wasn’t, until recently,” Mustang says, and then – the absolute bastard – winks. Casual, nonchalant; like it doesn’t make Ed’s heart do palpitations of pure distress.

Or, something else, which Ed doesn’t name, because naming would be acknowledging – the medically worrying unevenness of his heartbeat, the blood circulating only in his face, somehow, the closing of his throat –, and he’d sooner bite off his own tongue than admitting anything. To himself because he’s a conglomerate of tenacity and stubbornness and insolence. To Al because that fucker has long lost his privilege of being privy to Ed’s life. To Mustang because – Ed doesn’t need a reason; Mustang is an asshole and the sole reason of Ed’s despair, he doesn’t owe the fucker anything.

“I really can’t deal with you,” Ed says, because it’s true and he’s never been a liar. It is also, conveniently, less pride-demolishing than You make me feel things I don’t want to feel, and it’s confusing, and I don’t like being confused. “I’m leaving.”

And that’s that.

xx.

It isn’t that.

“What – with all due respect – the fuck.”

As per usual, Ed starts to doubt the nonexistence of a higher power, as it seems to like to fuck with him, specifically. Maybe reincarnation is real, as well, and Ed’s been a particular horrible person in his past life, being punished for it in his current one. As unrealistic as it is, it seems like the only possible explanation. Why else would Mustang be standing outside his damn door, if not to symbolise a personalised torture to Ed’s person.

“Nice to see you, too, Edward.”

“Edward?” Al says, very amused.

“Edward?” Ed says, decidedly very unamused.

“Oh, I apologize, should I call you Professor?” Mustang says, and he says it – god-fucking-damnit – so suggestively, Ed feels the urge to cover Al’s ears.

“You shouldn’t call me anything,” Ed says. “At all. Ever.”

“You’re being very rude, brother,” Al says. “I’m sorry for him, officer, please do come in.”

“Thank you, Alphonse,” Mustang says, completely ignoring Ed’s elegant spluttering. “But call me Roy.”

“Al, then,” Al says.

Ed bristles. “Stop befriending my–”

Ed snaps his mouth shut. Al whips his head around like a shark smelling blood. Mustang – Mustang perks up while trying very hard not to look like he does.

“Your what, brother dearest?”

“Are you gonna stand in the doorway forever?” Ed says roughly, selectively ignoring Al’s delighted laughter at his slip. Mustang, bless him, pretends not to hear Al, either, and moves into their little apartment. “Sit wherever.”

“Thank you,” Mustang says, ever so politely, as though he didn’t just show up unannounced at Ed’s apartment. He sits down on the old sofa in the middle of the living room, hands folded in his lap, and he looks severely out of place between the battered cushions and the coffee stains and the books scattered all around because Ed was researching before having been – rudely – interrupted.

“How did you find my address?” Ed asks, because that has been on the backburner ever since opening his damn door.

“It was noted in your file,” Mustang says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to rummage through a personal file to find an address. As if that isn’t creepy and stalkerish.

“Is that even legal?” Ed asks, though he has never been very interested in law, but he thinks it’s important now, with the potential prospect of being allowed to call the police on Mustang.

Mustang shrugs. “Probably. Maybe? Perhaps not.”

“I’m very concerned that you’re with the police,” Ed says.

“I’m very concerned that they let you be around chemicals,” Mustang says back.

“It’s batshit, right?” Ed agrees, and Mustang’s mouth twitches again, like he wants to laugh but doesn’t, for whatever asinine reason, and it kind of really pisses Ed off. Not that he wants to see Mustang laugh. Not at all. Even if he looks really fucking good doing it. That’s not the point. Point is – “What are you doing here, Mustang?”

“I do not want to seem unappreciative – the pastries were delicious, really, I have to relay compliments from my subordinates, by the way – but,” Mustang says, and stops, and he looks… weird. His hands, previously loosely, neatly, in his lap, are tense and white-knuckled and fidgety, and his spine looks too straight to be comfortable. “When you came to the station, I’d hoped for something… else.”

Ed’s eyes narrow without conscious thought. Somewhere – because their apartment is miniscule and cramped and privacy is non-existent –, Al makes a quiet but distinct noise of indignation-turned-delight.

“Something,” Ed says, slowly and carefully, like he would to Al when he was younger, “else.”

Mustang nods, as tentative an action as Ed’s ever seen on him, but with steely determination in his eyes and in his composure, and it’s really starting to ring alarm bells. For all Ed knows, for all the minimal context clues at his disposal, Mustang could ask for anything. Years of dealing with the police force, and any department working with and for it, has taught Ed nothing if not suspicion and expectation of the worst-case scenario. Pessimistic – maybe. Warranted? Hell yes.

“And what would that be, officer,” Ed says, not trying very hard to make it sound like a question. Because – annoyance has sliced through the prior confusion, and it’s not difficult to deduce what Mustang might want from him. There are not a lot of possibilities, in the first place, because the police has never had any other routes than, what? Blackmailing and bribing? Whether that might be monetary or sexual, and Ed has had to deal with enough of both of those options already.

“Well,” Mustang starts, voice diplomatic and amicable, as though Ed’s some sort of stuck-up politician and not a borderline criminal. It’s confusing as all hell. “Dinner, maybe? If you’d like.”

“You want me to buy you dinner,” Ed says – repeats, like a moron, because the pieces don’t really click together. Mustang should earn more than enough money with whichever fancy position he occupies to buy his own damn food. More than Ed, anyway, with his adequate but certainly not opulent university professor salary.

“No, that’s not – no. I’d like to invite you to dinner,” Mustang says, and his hands do the strange, weird, nonsensical thing again, and – Oh. He’s nervous, and if that doesn’t rewrite Ed’s perception of reality. “Only if you want to, of course.”

Ed doesn’t know what to say to that. Because Mustang – the bastard, the asshole, the smarmy sycophant – couldn’t possibly mean what he insinuates. The mere implication of Mustang’s statement, the kind-of-not-really question hiding behind an artificial air of confidence, is enough to tilt everything off its axis, because he couldn’t possibly want a, whatever, a date or something. With Ed, of all people. Ed is – he’s not dating material. Especially not for ethereally gorgeous and just and intelligent police officers who render him – Edward Elric, patented loud-mouth – speechless with their mere presence.

Turns out, Ed doesn’t need to say anything.

Materialising out of thin air, manifesting out of whatever corner he was hiding in, Al appears from – wherever, and says, “Yes. Yes, he’d absolutely love to!”

“Excuse me?” Ed says, high-pitched and embarrassing, and Al looks at him unimpressed. “I would not.” Although he probably, really, certainly would. But Al cannot know that.

False outrage has never worked on Al, though, because the fucker’s always seen right through his bullshit, and by the shift of nervous energy to something playful, Mustang does, too.

“I thought you said I am, what did you say?” Mustang says, tapping a finger against his chin in mockery of a thinking pose, and that doesn’t sound very promising for Ed’s dignity. He snaps his fingers in mimicry of coming to a conclusion, and Ed wonders if Mustang was a theatre kid. “Hot?”

“Did you, now, brother?” Al turns and grins, and Ed will disown his traitorous ass.

“I was shitfaced,” Ed says, though that is not a very good excuse. By the pair of amused – Mustang – and exasperated – Al – eyes on him, they know that, too.

“But you do remember,” Mustang says, much to Ed’s dismay, dissecting and interpreting the particular choice of words correctly. Fuck him and his adequacy of analysing Ed’s linguistic idiosyncrasies. An achievement only Winry and Al are capable of, usually. And in typical fashion, it’s used against him, because he can’t catch a fucking break.

“Aren’t drunk words sober thoughts?” Al chimes in, sing-songs his unwanted and unnecessary opinion, and Ed will kill Winry, too, for teaching his little brother bothersome things.

“How very true, Al,” Mustang agrees, and these motherfuckers share a look, and Ed contemplates – honestly, truly, and whatever other word for I’m fucking serious – the pros and cons of killing them both, right here, in his apartment. The practical know-how of removing blood and of being untraceable – courtesy of all the criminal thriller dramas Al forces him to watch and his varying degrees in biology and chemistry – would make it an easy task. The surely following feelings of guilt, however, would make it unviable, so they will see another day. For now.

“Don’t gang up on me,” Ed says.

“I would never,” Al says, tone indicating that he absolutely would.

“Ditto,” Mustang says, and who even says ditto, nowadays. Ed would love to occupy that irritatingly intelligent mouth with something else. Like his fist. Or his tongue, maybe.

“Unbelievable,” Ed breathes, in his nose and out his mouth, and he sounds desperate, though he doesn’t know why that is. Why he even tries, in the first place, because he’s never managed to push against Al and his stupidly adorable button nose all up in his business, and he won’t manage now, with Mustang and his stupidly attractive – everything, also all up in his business. Which is, wow, also a thought, isn’t it, having Mustang anywhere near his business.

The situation, with every modicum of strangeness, starts to scrape at the vestiges of Ed’s patience, and it feels like some sort of comeuppance for all the bullshit he’s pulled in his life. Like a cosmic kind of punishment, forcing him to atone for all the criminal offenses he’s committed, like thinking about fratricide at least twice a day.

He’s lived moderately peacefully, until now, minus the several arrests and the whole orphan thing and raising-his-little-brother and – okay, Ed hasn’t exactly lived peacefully, maybe, but contently, nonetheless, and now everything is starting to stir, sort of. Started to, since Mustang stepped into the interrogation room and messed up his strategy of being let go, saw through his rhetorical bullshit, and helped him, either way. Ed doesn’t like change, is the thing, never has, the boring old sameness of everything is reassuring, and he doesn’t need anything else. Apparently, the universe – and his brother, which is virtually the same thing – disagrees with him about that. Forces it onto him incessantly, until he gives in.

“Will you piss off when I agree to dinner?” Ed asks, hopeful and resigned simultaneously, which is a combination of emotions he never thought he could feel, because, on principle, he doesn’t feel either.

Mustang’s head snaps towards him so fast that black strands get mussed up a little from the suddenness of it, and almost-kinda-not-really black eyes are startling wide and full of hope and something else entirely that Ed hasn’t seen before, and Ed… he can’t really take it back, now, can he? He already breached whatever immature anti-authority covenant he made with himself by even allowing somewhat amicable contact with Mustang, since the very first day – well, evening – they met, and Ed didn’t start to enumerate every single distantly realistic, though not yet invented, chemical element or the periodic table or some complicated physics calculation. Didn’t try to scare away Mustang at all, although he should’ve, and that’s where he fucked up.

Now he’s in too deep. It’s too late; to pull back, to run away. He made a vague but distinctive promise, and Edward Elric has always kept promises, no matter the degree of absurdity.

“I actually hoped you would piss of with me,” Mustang says, reining in whatever complicated emotional cocktail flickering across his face, and is back to his old, flirty, unbearable self unreasonably fast.

“Why, scared I’m gonna stand you up? You gonna arrest me if I ditch?” Ed asks, only half joking, because he’s only half-funny, but he’s also half-curious about his options here.

“Not unless you ditch me by committing a felony, no,” Mustang says. “But I can handcuff you, anyway, if you’d like.”

Ed chokes. It’s not the first time, and probably won’t be the last, either, if Mustang plans on continuing to be smart and suggestive and inappropriate. In front of his baby brother, no less. He’s not too sure if he wants Mustang to stop, though, because, apparently, Ed likes his men dorky and suave and smooth. Not that he likes Mustang.

Well. Two can play this game – although Mustang surely plays it better – and Ed has always had nothing but raw and unfiltered boldness on his side, and shame is not something he’s ever learned to feel, and really, what is there to lose?

“As long as you’re gonna wear your uniform, you can do whatever to me,” Ed says, and then Mustang chokes, and it’s the best thing Ed’s ever seen.

“Oh, disgusting,” Al says, apparently still not done committing the equivalent of familial treason. “Please, take him off my hands.”

“And I have nothing to say?” Ed asks, though it’s pointless. He already indulged himself, indulged Mustang, and Mustang does not seem like someone to disregard that so easily.

“Mei is coming over tonight,” Al says, casually, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m coming with you Mustang,” Ed says. “Right now. Let’s go.”

The smile stretching over Mustang’s face at that, surprised and happy and somewhat disbelieving, is both extremely beautiful as it is impossible to look at without getting fucking blinded. Ed’s really done it now, huh?