Title: And Found
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairings: Roy/Ed
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,085
Warnings: PG-13 language galore!
Summary: Ed gets the slightest bit spatially disoriented and takes drastic measures.
Author's Note: Written for a sad anon on the website that has ruined my life. I HOPE THIS SPEEDFIC MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER, SAD ANON. ♥ Thanks to
eltea for providing me with the premise. :D Oh, God, I am so sleepy; please tell me if there are typos and/or HTML fails, and I will fix them tomorrow.
AND FOUND
“I’m going to disown you,” Ed says into the endlessly-ringing phone. “You are dead to me.”
Al still doesn’t pick up. Where the hell is he? Crap. Now Ed’s more worried about what could’ve happened to Al that would have drawn him out of the dorms and away from the phone than he is about the fact that he himself is totally fucking lost in the middle of Central at one in the morning.
He bangs the phone back down and collects his unused coins from the slot. He curls the automail hand around them and shakes gently, listening to the way they clink against each other and his fingers while he scans the unfamiliar streets outside the phonebooth again. His options are narrowing pretty fast.
Well… desperate times and shit.
He thumbs the coins in again, half-blesses and half-curses his impeccable memory for stuff he wasn’t supposed to see, and dials the Bastard in his natural habitat.
One ring. This is kind of dumb.
Two. This is so totally fucking stupid; why is he doing this?
Three. He’s just going to hang up and try Gracia; Bastard’s probably out wining and dining some big-chested blonde chick, and even if he wasn’t, he’d just be all smug and mocking about i-
“Mustang,” the Bastard’s voice mumbles into Ed’s ear.
“Oh,” Ed says blankly.
Wow. What an awesome start. Ed’s really on a roll tonight.
There’s a long pause. “…Edward?”
The asshole says it like he can’t believe it, and for some reason that riles Ed up like crazy. Mustang’s good for that. “Yeah,” he says.
“What time is it?”
“I dunno. Late.”
“…ah. What can I do for you at this dunno-late hour?”
“Dick,” Ed says. He worries at his lip with his teeth for a couple seconds. “I’m… not… sure… where I am. Is the thing.”
“You’re lost?”
“That’s not what I said!”
“There’s no need to shout.”
“I’m not shouting! Al and I had a stupid fight about my research, and I walked out, and now I’m in some stupid dark-ass part of this stupid fucking city, and he’s not picking up the phone!”
“Just tell me where you are,” Mustang says in a soothing-an-agitated-puppy kind of voice.
“If I knew where I was,” Ed says, “I wouldn’t be lost!”
Mustang makes a slightly strained sigh-type noise and then goes silent.
“Are you counting down from ten?” Ed asks.
“Not anymore,” Mustang says. “What’s the nearest intersection?”
“Fucked if I know. I told you; it’s dark.”
“Imagine that,” Mustang says. “Dark, in the middle of the night. The gall of this city sometimes. Can you give me a landmark?”
“Uh…” Ed cups his free hand against the glass and peers out. “There’s… a bakery.”
“Oh, excellent. I knew precisely where you are now; I’ll just pop into the ca-”
“Called Marcena’s!” Ed growls. There isn’t even time to tell the bastard exactly where he can shove his fucking sarcasm at a time like this. “And-there’s not a whole lot of traffic, and there’s a park a little ways down the road.”
“That should do,” Mustang says. “I have a fairly new city map, and if I get stuck I’ll call Second Lieutenant Falman. It might take me the better part of half an hour to get there. Just-don’t move, all right?”
“Fine,” Ed says. “Hurry your ass up.”
“I will make every effort.” He pauses. “Edward?”
“What?”
“Be careful.”
“Whatever, Mustang,” Ed says. “C’mon, it’s cold.” He hangs up before the Bastard can say anything else that’s too weird to process. What’s the worst thing that can happen to him in a phonebooth, anyway?
To the Bastard’s credit-and the Bastard needs all the credit he can get-he turns up in eighteen minutes flat.
Ed jumps into the passenger seat and slams the door. “Okay, let’s go! I don’t have any more money, so I couldn’t call the dorm again; I dunno if Al’s…” The solitary flickering streetlamp makes the shadows under Mustang’s eyes and the stubble on his chin stand out. Ed swallows and says, “You look like crap.”
“You’re too kind,” Mustang says, guiding the car out into the empty streets. “I’d just gotten to sleep when you called.”
“You didn’t have to drag your ass out here if you were sleeping,” Ed says.
“Yes, I did,” Mustang says.
Ed’s stomach is squirming like it’s full of snakes. “But-”
“Wouldn’t you have done the same for me?” Mustang asks.
“You never get lost,” Ed says. “It’d be beneath your dignity or some shit.”
“I don’t get lost physically,” Mustang says softly, and then his fingers tighten on the steering wheel a little, and he doesn’t say anything else.
Ed lets the silence settle in, because he’s too busy worrying about Al to worry about Mustang.
When they swing around the corner towards the driveway up to the dorms, though, he can just make out Al’s spiky silhouette in the window of their room-which means Al must’ve just been pouting, or maybe he went out for a while to clear his head too, or whatever, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s okay.
“He’s back,” Ed says for Mustang’s benefit, since the guy is driving like something other than a lunatic for once, and that kind of behavior should be rewarded. “He’s fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Mustang says, and Ed listens hard for the sardonic edge, but it seems to be mysteriously absent.
“Probably still pissed at me, though,” Ed says.
Mustang smiles thinly. “He has my sympathy.”
Ed hits him.
Then Ed catches his uncharacteristically rumpled collar and hauls on it until Mustang blinks a lot and shifts closer, and then Ed kisses him.
He tastes like toothpaste and morning breath, because of course Mustang would taste like morning in the middle of the night. His mouth is softer than Ed expected, and perfectly warm, and sort of startlingly wet, and the stubble scrapes against Ed’s chin as Mustang’s broad hand flattens on his chest and levers them apart.
“What-” Mustang says faintly.
“Thanks,” Ed says. “I owe you one.”
Mustang’s hand presses a little harder and then pulls back. “You-you’re welcome, but-”
“G’night!” Ed says.
He leaps out of the car and slams the door and flashes his watch at the night guard and runs up the stairs and bursts into their dorm room again and refuses to tell Al why he can’t stop grinning.