Tell me that you're alone,
tell me on the telephone
--Something Corporate
"Mustang."

"Ah, Colonel," Hughes' smile is infuriatingly audible. "I didn't expect you to be working so late."

"Then why are you calling here?" Roy demands, pen stilled in the middle of a word, and Roy just knows that then he gets Hughes off the line finally, he'll have no idea what the word was supposed to be.

"I just thought you'd have a hot date lined up like usual, it is Friday night."

"I had two, in fact," Roy admits, unable to keep the corner of his mouth from curling up no matter how he threatens it with a court martial. "They fought over top billing."

"Mustang, you dog." Hughes' guffaw soothes the nagging headache he's had since Hawkeye had answered the phone and asked his first date which one she was again. Innocent his shiny white ass.

"What else is new," Roy agrees.

"So, Colonel…" Hughes draws out the title, and Roy rolls his eyes, "what are you wearing?"

"My uniform, you idiot." Roy tosses his pen away, any thought of getting some actual work done vanishing. "Is this what you called me for?"

"Oh? Hmm."

"Hughes," Roy says after a few moments of Hughes' entirely too self-satisfied silence, "what are you wearing?"

"Why don't you guess if you want to know?" Hughes coos, only Roy doesn't have to guess because when Hughes uses that voice pants are never involved. When Roy doesn't rise to his bait, he chuckles. "Or you can see yourself tomorrow when I arrive at the station."

"How indecent." Roy rifles through his papers quickly and comes up with the next day's train schedule. After a quick perusal, he's the one smirking. "But shouldn't you be getting some sleep? You're on the early train, after all."

"The early—Roy, you bastard!" Hughes laughs, the sound rich even over the crackling connection, and suddenly Roy's chest aches with missing his best friend, and not just because he's miles away in Rizembool.

The bastard could at least be here to buy him a drink.

"Colonel?" Hawkeye sticks her head in the door and Roy tries to put more of himself subtlety behind the desk in case she's found another ashtray to throw.

"Is that the little missus now I hear?" Hughes asks, making little kissy noises into the phone. "Coming by the office for a little late-night unit deployment? Be sure to clear off your desk a little first, Colonel, you don't want her to get a letter opener stuck in her pretty little—"

Roy slams down the phone and glares at Hawkeye. "Is there something you want?"

"Not in here," she sniffs, apparently still mad about that 'Ruger up the rear' comment. She marches into the room and slaps a folder down on Roy's desk smartly, expression telling Roy exactly what she'd like to papercut with it. "Intelligence reports on Bard's movement."

"Ah." Roy keeps his eyes on Hawkeye as he reaches for the folder to be sure she doesn't make any sudden movements, but she seems content to emasculate him with her eyes alone for the moment. He forgets about her entirely when he sees the contents of the neatly typed page inside and smirks. "Looks like Hughes will have his work cut out for him then."