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Ed fucking loved central heating.
Having spent his entire childhood with a tiny coal boiler and the hot water running out at the most inconvenient moment, the concept of hot water just flowing and not stopping filled him with an unimaginable amount of joy. That's what made the betrayal all the sharper when one hot summer day Ed turned the hot water on and nothing came out, save for the ungodly gurgling sounds of a pipe soul being choked out.
When Havoc told him half of the city will be without hot water for the next two weeks due to maintenance, the betrayal was unreal.
"What do people do?" Ed asked in despair, because he knew for a fact the barracks didn't have boilers.
Havoc shrugged, unbothered.
"Eh, you can heat some on the stove in a bucket and then mix it with the cold one in the shower. That or going to the public baths, there's still a few left from the pre-plumbing times."
Ed didn't study alchemy for the majority of his life just to be forced to boil water, oh hell no.
That's how he had ended up dismantling the wall in the bathroom of a hotel he was stuck in on a trip with Mustang; the heat was especially brutal in the massive Central buildings, and he needed a shower now.
The solution to the problem was quite elegant, if you asked Ed's opinion: a thick metal coil was wrapped around the pipe with cold water and brought to red heat with alchemy, providing him with a steady stream of pleasantly warm water.
Ed was just finishing testing out his creation when he heard Al's "brother, you have visitors!" through the wall.
Once he made his way out of the bathroom he was greeted with the sight of Mustang and Hughes crowding their little room. They both stared at him.
"Isn't the hot water off in this part of the city?" Hughes asked, obviously having noticed Ed's flush from the warm shower.
Ed shrugged.
"I'm an alchemist." He left a 'duh' unsaid.
Hughes gave Mustang the meanest side eye that Ed had ever seen from the guy yet, and then turned his attention back to Ed.
"Edward, you and Alphonse absolutely must visit us," he said, clapping his hands together. "I can't have my dear Elicia near the boiling water, you understand, no matter how careful my dear Gracia is."
"You could just buy a boiler," Mustang muttered. That earned him an elbow in the side, and the bastard started to groan as if Hughes had stabbed him.
Ed covered his face with his hand and sighed.
Gracia’s food was payment enough, in his opinion, so he and Al tagged along, Mustang and Hughes squabbling the entire way there like the manchildren they were.
Once they had had late lunch provided by Gracia, Ed inspected their bathroom, pleased to find their plumbing to be external. He heated the full tub, then recreated the heat coil before adding a few thin railings to prevent accidental contact with it. If anything, the visit to the Hugheses helped to gauge the approximate time the coil lasted: between Elicia, Gracia, and Maes using the water, Ed only needed to reheat it twice.
Mustang went last, and Ed left him to his own devices; surely he could manage something as simple as heating some metal on his own.
Mustang emerged from the bathroom in a borrowed t-shirt and sweatpants, a towel hanging from his shoulder; seeing Mustang in anything other than the uniform, especially something so casual, was extremely weird. Ed wasn't sure how to describe the feeling he got about that, so he shoved it into the 'consider later' mental box.
The news had spread like fire, which led to the team cornering him the moment he stepped into the office once they had returned from Central.
"Is it true?"
"I'd kill for a normal shower-"
"Ed, please, it's been a week-"
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose to block out the noise.
"Guys, look, I have research to do, I can't-
"Aw, boss, don't be like that." Havoc winked at him. "We can make it into a barbeque party at Falman's place, my folks sent me half a pig yesterday."
Well, if he put it like that.
Perhaps Ed could be persuaded to do community service, after all.
Just because he was that generous.
The next Saturday morning found all of them at Falman's, since Falman was the only one who both had a yard for the barbeque and was willing to turn his bathroom into a communal sauna. Turned out Falman had two cats, one of whom had had kittens recently, which effectively soothed Ed's worry about Al being bored during the barbeque. The guys got busy with starting up the grill and butchering the meat, while Ed set up the coil. He'd made a few calculations the day before, so by his estimation the new coil he had made out of a steel wrench should last for about an hour without warping the pipe metal.
Falman, as the owner, went first to test it out, emerging significantly happier than before - as much as Falman could look happy, Ed deemed. Fuery went next, claiming he physically couldn't wait any longer, followed by the burst of laughter from the rest of the team.
The temperature outside rose to the point there wasn't any need to towel off since the water simply evaporated in mere minutes, but the picnic still went on, with Breda manning the grill and Havoc distributing the cold beer between the team.
Havoc offered him a sip of his beer later when he caught Ed in the kitchen on his way to reheat the coil, and how anyone could drink that bitter shit was beyond his comprehension.
In the short moments when he wasn't busy stuffing himself with roast pork, Ed checked the coil two more times, checked on Al surrounded by kittens, and observed the team interacting with each other outside the office.
They were much more relaxed off the clock, especially Hawkeye and Falman, since the rest of the guys messed about at work pretty much all the time. Mustang was surprisingly chill as well, for once looking human instead of like an asshole, laughing with the team at Breda's jokes. The highlight of the whole thing was watching how Hawkeye effortlessly bullied Mustang into leaving the last piece of quiche be and then stoically ignored the pout it got her.
All in all, Ed decided spending time with the team wasn't half bad.