In which Roy is pwned, and there is a Mystery.

Edward Elric broke stride in his late night walk to gawk at the sea of forks sunk into the lawn before him. Who the hell had done that? And to such a nice looking little house, too. What jerks.

Suddenly he heard a wheezing sort of laugh coming from the base of a tree near the edge of the lawn. Were the asshats still here? Great. He could use a little exercise. Time for some… education.

No.

It… just, no.

But that laugh was so familiar… and then it was joined by an unforgettable "WA HA HA!"

Sure enough, Ed's idiot boyfriend was sitting under a tree with Maes Hughes, spilling the contents of a bottle down his front while Hughes laughed like the maniac he was.

Ed heard a voice that sounded like his own say, "Please. Please tell me you did not do this."

Ed stood frozen in horror as Roy's drunken, watery eyes lit up. "Ed! Ed, I mished you sho much!" He staggered to his feet, dropping the bottle squarely on Hughes' head before stumbling two steps towards Ed and face-planting smack in the middle of the damn street.

This was so very far beyond Roy's inebriation during their first date it wasn't even funny. Ed smacked his forehead as Roy tried to disentangle himself from the street, oh hell, he was bleeding from above one eye. Roy finally reached his goal and collapsed on Ed's shoulder. "Ed…" he sniffled.

Ed looked past mumbling Roy towards the markedly less drunk Hughes. "What did you do to my boyfriend?" he demanded. "Wait, what are you even doing here?"

Maes stood up, slightly more steadily than Roy, and looked uncomfortable. "Ah. Well. He was actually feeling rather down about your being gone for so long, and I got a phone call and… you know, I think I'm going to call it a night now goodtoseeyoubye!"

The asshat actually jumped a fence and set off running. Ed, hobbled by a limp Roy, was unable to pursue. "GET BACK HERE, YOU ASSHOLE!" he yelled.

Lights flicked on up and down the street. Roy rested his head on Ed's shoulder and began to snore.

x

The next day.

"… and since you got here so late we had to deal with that transfer paperwork on our own this morning, but apparently we made a few errors in the process…"

Yeah, right. Because you "make errors" all the damn time, Riza. No really, day in and day out.

"… and two signed copies of each correction have to be filed separately, with a handwritten addendum certifying the changes as official, so…"

You are the devil.

"I'll just add these to this stack, sir. Oh, it looks as if you need some more pens."

Roy smiled feebly at his Lieutenant. "Yes, thank you."

She stepped briskly out of the room, pausing only to open the blinds of the window to the bright afternoon sun.

Oh god, my head.

x

"Here you go sir, I finished the repairs on this one this morning!"

Well, at least *one* staff member doesn't want me dead.

"Ah, good work, Fuery!" Roy praised. "Let's just turn it on, shall –"

"Oh god, turn it – it won't –"

"What the –"

"The knob –"

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooop.

Roy gazed at Fuery with stunned eyes. Stunned in two separate ways, really, one of them due to the purely physical shock dealt to him by that noise oh my god that noise, and the second due to the fact he would never, ever have imagined the sweet young man could do something so diabolical.

Fuery's lips were moving, presumably in some sort of apology. Regardless of the words, the look on his face was convinceingly distraught and chagrined. Impressive, really. Being on Team Mustang had corrupted that kid more than Roy had realized.

Fuery exited, and Roy was left to stare at the wall opposite his desk, his eyes slightly crossed.

x

Precisely when Roy regained his hearing, Breda and Falman began extremely vital reorganization of some of the filing cabinets.

*SLAM*

*SLAM*

*SLAM*

Those drawers always had been too heavy to close properly.

x

Havoc accidentally set some of the completed paperwork on fire. The paperwork that could only be completed by Roy.

x

Black Hayate THREW UP ON HIS FOOT.

x

Riza left to take Black Hayate to the vet, Havoc managed to banish himself after the fiasco with the paperwork, Fuery went down to the warehouse to look for that other radio, Breda and Falman declared that they could no longer live with such a defective filing cabinet. Roy cried.

x

Stating Roy was in the doghouse was inaccurate. This was because he was actually in multiple doghouses, a hot seat, and a hall of shame simultaneously.

In no particular order:

Doghouse: Probably would not be allowed in his favorite bar anytime in the near future.

Doghouse: Ed did not appreciate having to stash Roy in a quickly transmuted hole in the ground for an hour while running interference with the outraged citizens that had poured from the nearby homes at the sound of Ed's shout. After managing to convince them that he wasn't the culprit, Ed was roped into a brief manhunt for the clearly drunken miscreants ("Look! They left a bottle!") that took up even more of a night he had hoped to spend on a reunion with a [sober] boyfriend. The grueling process of hauling Roy's drunk ass home did not improve his mood.

Doghouse: Roy's staff were furious because Roy hadn't dragged his sorry self into the office until mid afternoon, leaving them to deal with a flood of transfer paperwork on their own. Also, they had closed ranks around their beloved and wronged First Lieutenant [see below].

Hot Seat: Riza did not find lawns sporting one hundred forks amusing.

Hall of Shame: Maes and he were so drunk they forked the wrong yard, instead hitting Riza's neighbor three doors down and across the street. While this made Riza marginally less pissed off, it wasn't as if she didn't recognize that she was the intended target, and it was just embarrassing. Roy Mustang: Inept Prankster. Who wanted that on their tombstone?

Not to mention the three stitches he needed above his eyebrow.

It was Doghouse the Second that was Roy's personal unfavorite. Roy had awoken that morning transmuted to his couch, with a stick of chalk barely within reach, a note that said Let's see if you can even remember basic alchemy bastard, and a screaming bladder. Edward was angry.

His pookie must be absolutely furious, to rat him out to the entire office. They all clearly knew what had transpired, and although he suspected that at least Havoc and Breda were secretly amused, they were all too pissed to laugh it off. Hence the torture. And when would Ed forgive him?

He had to work obscenely late, too late to get a car home. He trudged wearily up his front steps… and nearly tripped over Ed.

x

It really went about the way you would expect.

"WHAT THE FUCK, ROY! AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE THE ADULT HERE? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE PLAYED A PRANK ON SOMEONE? YOU KNOW, ME, THE TEENAGER? ZERO! NEVER! DO YOU KNOW HOW RI-FUCKING-DICULOUS COMING HOME TO MY 'ADULT' BOYFRIEND MAKING A TOTAL ASS OF HIMSELF IS?"

"I… I'm sorry, Ed." Roy whimpered. "I just – I missed you. And Hughes was trying to cheer me up…"

"BY GETTING YOU SLOBBERING DRUNK? GREAT! ALCOHOL SOLVES FUCKING EVERYTHING, AFTER ALL!"

Roy began to sniffle. "… and I wanted you to come home so badly and now I ruined it I'm so sorry Ed I'm so sorry please don't be mad anymore pleeeeeeeasesese…"

Roy flung himself on Ed, and after all, Ed was a total sucker for him these days. Soon Roy felt a soothing pat on the back.

x

They ended up inside sitting on Roy's couch, Roy clinging to Ed like a forlorn limpet and snuffling into the side of his neck. Ed sighed.

"Idiot."

"Mm srrry," emanated from somewhere below Ed's jaw as Roy attempted to clamber into his lap.

"Yeah, yeah." Roy rendered himself improbably small and did his best to hide under Ed's chin. Bizarrely, it sort of worked.

"Mfffed ou."

"Yeah, I missed you too, idiot."

"Fftil mddame?"

Some squirming and a resort to brute strength extracted Roy from his refuge under Ed's chin and at least halfway out of Ed's lap so the two could face each other.

"No, I'm not mad at you anymore, you disgrace to your rank. Idiot."

Roy tilted his head to rest on the back of the couch as their fingers twined together, looking sideways up at Ed. He smiled a little.

"You already got your revenge, you know. The office did its best to destroy me today."

"Really? What did you do to get them so mad?"

Roy sat up, puzzled. "About the whole, um, prank thing. As soon as you told Hawkeye Maes and I were the ones that did it, she knew that we meant to get her instead. I don't think she was much less pissed than if we had forked her yard. And she managed to spread the rage around…"

"I didn't tell her. I've been in the library all day."

"What – then who did? Wait… why were you in her neighborhood that late anyway?"

x

x

Kudos to Tara for the chapter heading (except for the part about the mystery because MWAHAHA none of you saw that coming). Also, Chapter 15 has been reformatted because FF has been sucking lately and totally gutted it the first time around. Actually, FF has gutted the careful formatting of every damn chapter, and I am working on an overhaul. Seriously, I may just head over to LJ one of these days.

Still need help for the story summary that appears on the index page. Seriously unhappy about the one I have now, it is totally lame.