It was nothing much to look at, even for a pen. Green. Dark, of the forest variety. Silver writing, rubbed off in the middle to indecipherable. A bit small for his tastes. It probably fits perfectly in her hands—she's a soldier's hands, wide and strong, but her fingers are very short. (Every officer knows the length of their subordinate's fingers. Obviously. It's necessary for…leadership.) She was particular about her pens, when she had the luxury to be; he's tried scribbling on the edges of pages, and the thing did write smoothly. But still. It was just a pen.

But that was not, of course, the point. The point was that she'd left it right out in the middle of her desk when she went out to the hall, cross-wise over one of the ever-present stacks of papers. The point was that she was always writing, even when he (occasionally, periodically, frequently) tried to catch the corner of her eye from behind his own highly flammable red-taped mess. The point was that she got through he didn't even know how much more work than he did, and she's got far better handwriting, and how was that even fair? She hardly seemed the sort to spend her evenings practicing penmanship.

(He was not thinking about her evenings.)

So it was perfectly reasonable that he couldn't resist. Five steps over to her desk, swinging his arms for nonchalance—just a stroll around the room, nothing to see here. Pat the top, absentminded, and one-two-three, the pen was up his sleeve.

The door opened. Roy made precise, compartmentalized use of every one of his battle instincts to neither to flinch nor scurry back to his chair.

Riza stared at him for a moment. Her face was perfectly blank.

Scurrying it was.

He dragged a paper towards him to pretend he wasn't peeking at her as she walked back to her desk and sat down behind it. A pause—she'd noticed it was missing, then! Would she look up? Frown in confusion? Finally waver in her infuriating competence?

Riza pulled open a drawer, took out a new pen, and resumed writing.

Roy tried not to pout. Really, he did.

It was in packing up that he realized he hadn't come up with a plan to return it to her. He could just drop it back on her desk, but—well, he'd braved the Wrath of the Lieutenant to for it and he wanted to have some fun, at least. It wasn't until he was smoothing down his coat that he realized he'd tucked the pen inside his breast pocket, right beside the pocket watch. Well, it was certainly safer to leave it where it was until he figured out what to do with it. He couldn't risk giving himself away.

She went up to him, like she always did, at the end of the day, to see if he'd stay later or if they were to walk out together; he started to nod her off, the "Thank you, Lieutenant," already half-way up his throat, but she—she didn't stop. She hadn't misunderstood, had she? Not Riza. His eye twitched. What was she…?

She was still a full pace away, there was nothing to be embarrassed about, she stood closer as they walked down the hall. Her hand was coming up, coming toward him, and she kept stepping closer (air? Who needed air? Highly overrated stuff, it was) and her fingers slid underneath the flap of his jacket and was she going to was—

Something glittered; Riza flicked her hand back up in front of his face, the pen dangling from her fingertips. She did not look pleased.

Roy swallowed.

"Um," he said, brilliantly.

She did not break eye contact as she stepped backwards and over to her desk, opened the drawer and laid the pen back into it—he was pretty sure she should've turned around at least once, but he should've known better than to expect Riza to follow the rules of ordinary people—and closed it with a snap. Then she straightened up, in that way she had like she was expanding, filling all the space, and Roy wanted very much to cringe in the nearest corner.

"If you need a pen, Sir, the supply closet down the hall is exceedingly well-stocked."

She was the very picture of polite concern. Roy blinked.

"Um," he managed again.

"Good night, Sir." She pivoted sharply and marched out, her spine as iron-stiff as ever. Roy stood for a moment, gaping; then he forcibly shook himself and continued packing up as quickly as he was able.

The next day there was a veritable bouquet of pens on his desk, in every shape, size, and color he could have imagined, and some he distinctly could not have. Fuery kept glancing at it, possibly wondering what sort of girl would leave a gift of pens, of all things. The others were better disciplined.

Well. They kept glancing at each other, and they sported identical far-too-knowing grins. They were less obvious, at least.

Havoc snickered.

Marginally less.

Roy sniffed and made a show of dragging out his chair, thumping down into it with somewhat more than the usual force. He yanked the nearest pile of papers towards him, (vindictively happy) when they crumpled under his thumb, and reached—with an audible sigh—towards the, ah, singular arrangement leaning up against the telephone. He sorted through them, letting them clack noisily against each other, trying for something that didn't have sparkles—

Green. Dark, of the forest variety. Silver writing, rubbed off.

He raised his head, ever-so-slowly, wary for the punchline. Riza was working studiously. Ignoring him, just like she always did.

The pen in her fingers was blue.

Notes:

Based off the Royai Week 2014 Day One prompt ("Stolen")