A/N: For Tara again, since she's just about the only thing that can smack me into writing.

There's no excuse for this one-shot, so I'll say this: I love Hughes. And Roy/Ed. So...yeah. A homage to picspam and love! Yay.

Disclaimer: I don't own them. I rent.

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Capture

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Of course, Hughes was the first to know.

When isn't he?

"It's for Elysia," he had cooed at the time, ignoring the massive pile of paperwork on his best friend's desk almost as well as Roy Mustang himself. The camera hung ominously from his hands, its innocent demeanor a good enough act for the unsuspecting victim.

But Colonel Roy Mustang was no unsuspecting victim. He knew the viciousness of that little device, the dastardly intent of that tiny click-snap noise. And he was very, very familiar with the torture Maes Hughes could inflict with it.

" 'What's Uncle Roy do all day?' she asks me. 'What's his office look like? Why's he so afraid of the gun lady?'" Hughes beamed at him. Roy's lips thinned, pressing together hard. "And how can you ignore a precious little question like that?"

Suddenly, in a move that was almost too fast for the eye to see, Hughes was leering down at him, green eyes fiercely protective.

"You can't ignore a question like that, can you, Mustang?"

…damn it.

"I never could refuse a lady," Roy deadpanned, and the torture began.

Pictures of Uncle Roy, shirking. Pictures of Uncle Roy yawning. Pictures of Uncle Roy balancing a pencil on his nose. Pictures of Uncle Roy watching the door in horror. Pictures of Uncle Roy dodging a bullet. Pictures of Uncle Roy furiously scribbling away at paperwork, The Gun Lady standing next to him, pistol firmly in hand.

What an interesting photo album for Elysia. She could watch the pain of a workday unfold before her very eyes.

As the day wore on, Hughes got better and better at going unnoticed. He hid behind file cabinets, sat on top of bookshelves, crawled into cabinets and left the doors innocently open.

"Don't you have work of your own?" Mustang frowned, trying very, very hard to not sound like a petulant five-year-old and knowing he was probably failing.

"How can you compare a mission sent down from my perfect daughter to a lowly desk job?" Hughes asked indignantly, face blatantly gob smacked at the thought his little girl didn't hold the center of the universe for everyone else in Amestris.

"By comparing the salary each gives you? And the fact I highly doubt your daughter will demote, transfer, or discharge you from parenthood?" Roy smirked, getting very, very tired of his friend's picture snapping. The man was so much easier to deal with when you could just hang up on him. "And the fuehrer is also much bigger than your six-year-old daughter."

Hughes sighed- a patronizing, goofy sigh that had Roy practically snapping his pen in half, not to mention restraining himself from literally snapping. Sometimes it was difficult to remember Maes was his best friend, and as such got a certain amount of leeway, since really, a charred, dead best friend wasn't nearly as fun as a live, annoying one.

"Really, Mustang, sometimes I wonder if you even know you're a hopeless hypocrite," he said, his sigh flavored with a strangely knowing smile. "

Oh, how he loathed what that smile meant. It was the 'I know something you don't yet and I'm going to lord it over you until either you crumble and ask (and sit through three hours of pictures, minimum, in payment) or find out for yourself' smile.

"I'm going to lunch," Roy declared, and Hughes' smile changed to the far more friendly and pleasant 'you sneaky boy you' smile.

"It's ten in the morning," Maes blinked innocently.

"Well then, I'll be beating the rush." With a thin, almost sardonic, smile towards his friend, Roy shrugged into his black overcoat and walked out the door.

Hands in his pockets, Roy did his usual circuit around Headquarters – have Fury beaming in awe as he delivered another stirring speech to get them off their lazy asses and working, try to tempt Black Hayate into doing something other than blinking up at him confusedly without resorting to commands or his gloves, flirting the skirts off the newest member of the secretary pool, and the sacred coffee pot in the cafeteria (which contrary to popular belief was not laced with rat poison and in fact was one of only three brews that could actually give him a buzz) – and returned to his office, and desk, and paperwork.

Again, he tried not to sulk, and failed spectacularly. It was only eleven thirty…and the paperwork was due at noon.

Suddenly, Roy mustang was a very, very busy colonel.

At least there was no snap-happy Hughes in sight…

But, when 325 pounds of kitten-obsessed armor rammed the door open and lunged toward his desk, Roy figured the deadline was pretty much screwed, since-

"AL! GET BACK HERE, DAMMIT!"

- since where Alphonse Elric went, so went Edward Elric.

Even if you couldn't see him.

"Colonel Mustang, you owe us taking a kitten, don't you!" Al's frazzled, hurried voice resounded from the armor. "And you like blondes and things that need you but can bite back-"

Roy simply stared at Alphonse, having NO clue what the boy was talking about…well, teenager now, after all. He was seventeen now, after all. Sometimes he wondered about the Elrics' sanity, and then he wondered about his own, since they had a tendency to say the strangest things.

"AL! DAMMIT, AL!"

Alphonse got a sharp intake of breath in before a fuming Edward Elric stormed through the door, frazzled and apparently quite put out at his brother's behavior, from the dark look in his eyes.

"Give me the kitten, Al!" Edward snapped.

A tiny mewl came from inside the armor, and Alphonse seemed to shrink in on himself.

"But Brother, the poor thing has nowhere to go! It's getting cold outside!" Alphonse protested.

"I know that, just like you know we can't take care of a cat!" Edward frowned at his brother. "We've had this argument a hundred other times, Al. Put the cat back where you found it."

"I just wanted to see if the Colonel could take it…" Alphonse sighed out, and suddenly Roy had two pairs of eyes fixed on him.

"I'm sorry, Alphonse, but no." With his luck, any cat he adopted would be ransomed or assassinated within a month. He was impressed daily with Black Hayate's dognapping evasion training, and knew he didn't have the heart or patience to subject a kitten to that.

But, he wasn't about to simply trample the boy – no, young man, and he would get used to Alphonse growing up if it killed him, especially since age of majority was sixteen. He wasn't about to trample Alphonse's wishes into the mud.

"Perhaps Breda would be interested?"

Both Elrics, again, were fiercely intent on the colonel, and he felt a bit too much like an especially intriguing lab specimen for comfort.

"Breda HATES Black Hayate," Alphonse's scathing voice tanged out.

"He practically curls up into a fuc- uh, a ball whenever the thing SNIFFS at him," Edward growled, and even after all these years Roy couldn't help but be amused at how he cleaned his language up when his younger brother was in the room. "The bastard would kill the damn cat!"

…Well, to an extent, at least. But it was the thought that counted.

"As ineffable an observation that is, Fullmetal, I'd like you to note that cats and dogs, contrary to the popular opinion of four year olds, are not the same species."

Ah yes, there was the twitch, the gritting of teeth, the balling up of fists. So delightfully pissed at him, even after all these years. Yet another thing he'd never tire of- making Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, have to restrain himself from punching his commanding officer in the face.

Or shin.

"I KNOW THAT YOU BASTARD." Gritted out between teeth pressed so tightly together Roy marveled they didn't shatter from the force. It would be a shame when it finally happened too, since Edward's mouth was quite possibly his most used and notable feature.

"Speaking of what you know, I think you have a report for me?" Roy tilted one eyebrow up, one side of his mouth quirking, and again, that twitch he loved to coax out. It had gotten both harder and easier over the years, but the reward was always just as satisfying.

"Al, go ask Breda about the damn cat," Ed bit out.

With a downtrodden "Yes, Brother," Al complied, chunking out of the office and closing the door behind him with a muted click.

And the game began.

"I already received the written report," Roy opened, then let his smirk widen just a bit. "Surprisingly." And it was true, too- usually the written report arrived with Edward's verbal, and Roy got to whittle away at the blonde's nerves as he read page to agonizing page.

Just a twitch of the eyebrow, but acceptable for a beginning jab. "You had to have gotten some bad information, Mustang," Edward frowned, and lounged down on the couch, as ever like a gold, red and black doll simply tossed against the cushions and left in an awkward position. Gold eyes glared at the coffee table. "That IDIOT didn't have enough income to collect taxes on, PERIOD, let alone enough information to fill a fucking spoon."

Simply the MENTION of Roy's excuse to fund Edward's trip to Exar Village had his lips twitching dangerously. Edward Elric, the People's Alchemist, Fullmetal, sent to collect taxes from a senile old man in the middle of nowhere. He'd had the window replaced, and the paperweight retrieved, and everything had gone back to before…aside from the fact Roy Mustang was very, very proud of getting Fullmetal to throw a tizzy fit and hurl a snow globe out the window in a fit of (admittedly justifiable) rage.

"Did you happen to find anything interesting in the basement, then?" Roy asked, knowing there were usually two answers- the truth, and the spoken.

"Why would I?" Edward said, his face earnestly bitter. The truth, then. But…he shouldn't be that angry by now just with a false lead. "I stayed as far away from the house for as I could, actually…"

"Really," Roy mused, barely containing his anticipation. Oh yes, the third reason for sending Edward to this specific lead.

The vein in Edward's forehead was pulsing. "BECAUSE, you BASTARD. He tried to- to-"

"I believe ballet is out of style," Roy dryly prompted. "He tried to what?"

"HE TRIED TO GROPE AL, AND YOU DAMN WELL KNOW IT!"

Colonel Roy Mustang's eyebrows practically burst through his hairline. "He tried to grope ALPHONSE?"

A menacing glare was quickly received on all fronts, like a lion just about ready to put an innocent zebra down for eternity. But, unpredictably, a smirk drew itself out on Edward's face, all the more…scary.

"Didn't calculate for him having the eyesight of a fucking BRICK, did you, Mustang?" The blonde's sprawl evaporated, and where a formless doll had been now perched a vengeful feline simply toying with its prey before it finally slashed its quarry to bloody ribbons. "And why the FUCK would you send me to a place with NO leads for NO reason other to get GROPED by a BLIND PERVERT!"

"…Experience, perhaps?" Roy mused aloud, smirking.

Edward snorted- a strangely pleasant sound, probably due to the fact Roy usually was subjected to growling and cursing and ranting and shouting and other such cacophonies. Occasionally a surprised laugh, which was usually the result of a very well placed jibe.

"Oh yes, now I can write a book – Forty-Five Ways To Avoid Sexual Molestation By The Elderly Pervert. Dedicated to Roy Mustang: The Bastard Colonel Who Forced Me To Learn How."

Roy smirked. "How thoughtful, your first published work, entirely dedicated to me." The smirk deepened. "But perhaps the phrasing needs some work. People might get ideas."

"Like what, that you can teach worth shit?" Edward snorted. "I don't think ANYONE'S that gullible." A hand was thrown across the back of the couch and again, he was back to the lounging, although there was something…different about this position. Something that evoked a…

Well then.

"I'm certain I could teach you something, Fullmetal, if given the opportunity."

A pale, daring eyebrow rose. "Nothing I don't already know."

Roy mused, smirk turning positively predatory. "Would you like to put your pride where your mouth is?"

Edward's eyes met his own, flashing with something intoxicatingly new and thrilling. "I'll show you where you can put my pride, Mustang." And that look, Roy decided, was better than a thousand twitches and glares combined.

"And I'd be more than happy to show you where to put your mouth," Roy said, positively leering, and right then, RIGHT then, all the pieces clicked into place, like the tumblers of a lock finally snapping to and heaving the door open.

At that precise moment, Roy Mustang realized he was in hopeless, dazzling, mind-blowing love with Edward Elric in every way imaginable-

CLICK!

And Maes Hughes had gotten it on film.

Edward was as red as his coat as Hughes quite literally threw himself off the very, very top shelf of Roy's bookcase, a barely restrained grin on his lips as he landed effortlessly on the floor.

"Roy," Hughes greeted, clearing his throat a bit, and Roy realized he'd stood up from his chair, posture so tight he was nearly in a salute. His green eyes twisted to Edward. "Ed." He paused, and, almost as an after-thought, got off another lightning-quick picture. "Have a nice afternoon."

Maes, the lucky bastard, managed to skitter out the door before Roy could tug his gloves on. He couldn't decide if that was a good or a bad thing.

But what was decidedly a good thing was that his homicidal pursuit of his best friend had brought Roy closer to Edward, the blonde snickering through his smile. And it was a real smile, not one of those rare take-that-I'm-far-superior-you-bastard smiles, or one of those I'm-grateful-but-ashamed-I-needed-help smiles, but a pure smile that sent Roy's head ringing as if his brain had been transmuted into a gushy blob of happy.

"What was that about where I should put my mouth?" Ed asked, grinning, and Roy smiled back. Ed's breath hitched, and Roy absently noted it was probably their first mutual smile right before he closed the distance between them to initiate their first kiss.

The first press of their lips meeting sent a jolt down the back of Roy's neck, almost concerning in its intensity, but after a little while of the exquisite softness of Ed's lips he was far beyond caring. Unsurprisingly, Ed immediately wanted more, hooking his arms around Roy's neck (and the automail weighed down his left shoulder) and pressing closer, deepening the kiss.

When their lips separated, neither seemed very inclined to moving.

"I may have to ask Hughes for prints of that film," Roy mused, still feeling slightly muddled in his mind.

Ed snorted, and dropped a small, sweet kiss onto Roy's lips. He smiled.

"Get doubles."