Kain Fuery first realized something was wrong with him when Havoc said 'coffee, Fuery' and he said no.
It wasn't that Havoc didn't say please. Havoc never said please. He just sat or stood or walked in a cloud of smoke and – was Havoc. Besides, with Havoc's personality, Fuery had asked for it, just by first seeing the irresistible combination of empty mug and the expression on Havoc's face.
Fuery did not explode to say no. It wasn't in his nature to explode. He just said 'No, thank you.' He was doing Colonel Mustang's paperwork. He sat stunned for a while, writing. Then Havoc realized his mug was still empty.
"How 'bout that coffee, Fuery?" He prompted, assuming Fuery had said 'just a moment' and forgotten. Even forgetting wasn't a Fuery thing to do, but Havoc didn't notice Fuery.
"I'm busy Havoc. Sorry." Fuery replied.
A moment later, Falman, Brieda, Havoc, Mustang, both Elrics (where Roy was, Ed was, anymore, and where Ed was, Al was), and Hawkeye were all staring at Fuery.
"What?" Fuery asked, a strange emotion making itself apparent. Something like what people described irritation as. "I'm doing your paperwork, Colonel, I have my own to do afterwards, not to mention whatever comes up. I don't have time to fetch coffee for everyone right now."
They were still staring at him. Except now most of them were gaping.
"Do you feel well, Lieutenant Fuery?" The large suit of armor asked.
"Perfectly." Fuery assured Al, and went back to the paperwork.
They kept staring at him. Fuery couldn't concentrate. After a while, he sighed, stood up, shoved everything into a briefcase in un-Fuery-like disorder, and retreated to the closet. They couldn't stare at him through a door, though he had no doubt they tried. Besides, the closet was Fuery-sized.
Hawkeye knocked on the door after a while. Fuery, to his surprise, was tempted to say 'Go away.' He didn't. Instead, he placed the pen carefully across the point he was at and opened the door.
"May I come in?" Lieutenant Hawkeye asked. Fuery stood aside, and Riza Hawkeye managed to squeeze into the closet with him. It wasn't a walk-in closet. It was Fuery-sized. Edward Elric-sized. Maybe -sized. Not Riza Hawkeye-sized. It was too close for comfort for either of them, and Hawkeye managed to knock Fuery's pen off of where it was marking his place. Fuery gritted his teeth and did not say anything.
They stared at each other for a while. Fuery was trying not to say something biting. That was something other people did. Riza Hawkeye, he decided, had asked to come in. She had something to say to him. She could start saying it any time now, he was ready.
"It's kinda cramped in here." Riza Hawkeye remarked.
"Not when it's just me. It's my size." Fuery explained. There was a silence. "Why did you come in here?"
Riza Hawkeye fidgeted. Fuery watched, fascinated. He'd never seen her do that before. "I don't really know." It was a phrase she didn't use. Fuery listened, even more fascinated. "I thought I'd see how you were doing. See if anything was… wrong."
"I'm busy." Fuery explained. There was another awkward silence.
"Because, you know, if something's wrong, you can talk to me. I mean, us. We're your coworkers. Close than family. Right?"
Sure. Fuery thought. "Right." He said.
Riza turned the handle of the closet. She paused. Fuery watched. "Do you think of yourself as Kain or Fuery?" She asked suddenly. "I mean, sorry, it's just that I've always wondered, and everyone calls you Fuery, even though it's your last name, though we really ought to be on first-name terms at this point, I mean, we call Colonel Mustang Roy and everything."
"I'm Fuery." He explained. And then, since she had introduced the topic, he added, "Are you Riza or Hawkeye?" Everyone called her Hawkeye. Mostly they called everyone by last names, really, but occasionally there was a Jean or a Roy or something – only Fuery was always Fuery. Everyone seemed to think it was actually his name. Fuery didn't mind. He thought of himself as Fuery.
"I'm Hawkeye." She admitted. "But… you can call me Riza." There was another awkward silence.
"My pen was marking my place. You knocked it away." Fuery explained.
"Oh. Sorry." Riza left before she could do the most un-Hawkeye-like thing yet and blush.
(Ooh! And I found out what this symbol () means. It's a shortcut for similarity! Now if I could just find out how to combine it with the button…)
The next day, Fuery found himself alone in the office with Havoc. Again. He wondered who kept setting this up. They'd been trying to get him together with Havoc for weeks. Sheska did some of it, though that was only when she sent them both to the library. The Elrics had tried before, too. And Roy. Now Roy and the Elrics tried. In fact, Fuery had gotten the impression that Hughes had tried to set them up once. He had ditched this thought immediately, though. Hughes was too clever for that.
As much as Fuery could dislike anyone, he disliked Havoc. Havoc was stinky, rude, and he made bad jokes, jokes that Fuery could not let pass even when he recognized them. He didn't appreciate the Sweeties, either.
No one had spoken to Fuery since Hawkeye left his closet. Fuery was a little disappointed at this. He wasn't really mad, there was just something wrong with him. He didn't understand it. In any case, they hadn't spoken, and even though Fuery had managed to get everything done, with extra time, it didn't feel good to be ignored. Fuery had felt shunned. He had needed all the Sweeties to cheer him up.
"Uh, Fuery…" Havoc said. Fuery looked up. He felt more himself today. It was relaxing when people tried to set him up with Havoc, even though that was something that was never, ever going to happen.
Havoc was sitting at the desk across from him. Where he could peek up whenever he liked and look at Fuery. There was another thing. If Fuery had liked Havoc, he would have realized this right off the bat and taken advantage of it. He had just noticed.
In point of fact, the desk across from Fuery's was Brieda's, but it had a spinny chair, so Havoc had taken it when Brieda left. Havoc used to just swipe the chair, but Brieda had finally taken steps against this and bolted the wheels to the floor. Brieda no longer swooped tauntingly across the floor on the chair, but it didn't end up at Havoc's desk anymore, either.
It was a silly way to resolve an argument. Fuery would have taken the solution that involved a very nice, squishy spinny chair ending up at Havoc's desk, or maybe at every desk in the office. But that was Fuery-solution, and Brieda made Brieda-solutions. So Havoc stole Brieda's desk and messed things up whenever Brieda left the office. Then Brieda got really mad, and they shouted.
Actually, Fuery reflected, giving spinny chairs to everyone in the office would be a silly idea. They'd end up spending the entire day drifting across the floor.
"Fuery?" Havoc asked again.
"Yes?" Fuery asked.
"Um… I'm in the middle of something, and I know if I go I'll get distracted, and I really need to get this done, but I'm falling asleep in my chair, and if I go I'll get distracted and… I've said this before, haven't I?"
"Yes." Fuery agreed. "It's okay."
"But my point is, I'm really busy and I can't go, so could you… I mean, would you… please… please get me a cup of coffee?"
Fuery was Fuery. He smiled in Fuery sweet fashion. "You could have just asked." He assured Havoc, and stood.
Havoc said thank you before he left, and when he came back with the coffee, too.