11 for Ed and Mustang (Foster Family AU or not) for Let Me Count the Ways, if you please?
Let Me Count the Ways ask game
Prompt: "How could you do this to me?"
“How could you do this to me?”
“With great satisfaction. Your medals are on upside-down.”
With a muttered curse, Ed fumbled with the pins again, grumbling, “Only had your sight back for five minutes and already criticizing....”
Roy rolled his eyes. It was more like five weeks, but Roy decided not to stoop to the pipsqueak's level and belabor the point. Instead, he batted away Ed's hands and fixed the medals pinned to his chest.
Using the pretense of brushing lint off his shoulders and straightening the gold braid clipped to the opposite side from the medals, Roy took a good look at the little boy he'd brought into the military. Not quite so little anymore (though he'd never admit it), and not quite a boy anymore. Sixteen. Old enough to be sent to the battlefield—and in a way, he had been, on the Promised Day. Just an unconventional battlefield against the very people running the country he'd signed up to serve.
And after all these years, here stood the boy he'd first seen slumped in a wheelchair, now standing tall with two hands of flesh and blood fiddling with the stiff collar of the blue uniform he'd never worn before.
Ed met his scrutiny with a scowl. “I look stupid, don't I.”
Roy smirked. “You look every part the dutiful soldier.”
With another curse, Ed stormed over to Roy's desk and yanked a drawer open, rummaging around until he found a small hand mirror. How had he known Roy kept it there? Well, never mind.
Crossing his arms, Roy watched Ed grimace at his reflection as he tried to hold the mirror far enough away to see all of himself at once. “See? It's not so bad, is it?”
“I can't believe I let you talk me into this,” Ed moaned. “Why did I let you talk me into this? I'm not even going to be in the military once Al gets released from the hospital.”
“I believe it had something to do with the additional pension a colonel receives,” Roy said dryly. They'd had this conversation five times already. “Gotta start saving up for a ring for that girlfriend of yours, right?”
Ed dropped the mirror with a crash, his whole face as red as that coat he used to wear. “She's not my girlfriend!”
“Give it time; I'm sure that will change. Nice to see some things don't, though.”
Roy pointed at the mirror shattered by his feet. “You destroying my property as usual.”
Ed looked down, the blush fading away. “Oh, sorry. Let me fix...oh. Right.” He froze halfway towards kneeling on the floor, hands poised to clap.
“Never mind. Allow me.”
Roy tried not to feel too smug about dropping to one knee, holding the simple transmutation in his mind, clapping his hands, and watching the shards of glass fit seamlessly back together again. Because rubbing it in that he could now do Ed's signature move when Ed himself couldn't was childish. And a bit cruel.
When Roy stood up again and put the mirror back in his desk drawer, he caught sight out of the corner of his eye of a strangely wistful expression on Ed's face. But when he turned to look at him fully, the characteristic scowl was firmly back in place.
“Can we get this over with already, Colonel? I wanna get back to Al.”
“Brigadier General,” Roy corrected him for the tenth time. “Almost ready.” He reached for the last few items waiting on the desk. “Your gloves.”
“Oh, nice. Lost my last pair on the Promised Day.”
“I am not wearing that stupid thing.”
“Uuuuuuggggggghhhhhh, fiiiiine. But it looks dumb.”
“No. No way. I am not going to be seen walking around in half a dress!”
“It's not a—“ Roy bit down on his indignant squawk and said in more dignified tones, “It's not a dress. It's a cape.”
Ed snorted, looking at the blue cloth in Roy's hands with utter disgust. “Yeah. A butt cape.”
Roy found himself uncomfortably conscious of the fabric hanging down behind his own legs. Gritting his teeth, he said, “Full Metal. You can't go to a formal ceremony in front of the Fuhrer himself while you're only half-dressed.”
Ed smirked. “So you admit it's half a dress!”
“What? No, I didn't—stop twisting my—put this on, Full Metal, or I'll transmute it to your behind!”
The clearing of a throat interrupted them in the very moment Roy reached out to grab Ed's arm, while Ed squared off as if to punch him in retaliation. They both froze and turned to the open door, where Hawkeye stood watching them with a sharp eye. Roy immediately straightened and tried not to look like he'd been about to throttle Ed with his own cape.
“The Fuhrer is expecting you, sir,” she said. Was that...were her lips twitching in amusement? “Once you are...fully attired,” she added, giving Ed a pointed look.
Ed put on the cape without further argument. He didn't look happy about it, but he'd done it. That was what mattered.
Roy and Hawkeye studiously avoided catching each other's eye. It wouldn't do to show up in the Fuhrer's office with a fit of the giggles.
