Lily: one of my favorite FMA pairing s ever
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Dot, dot, dot, exclamation point
Please enjoy
Lemon 01: In which there is Pie
It lies curled and dormant within every person, sleeping and waiting for the right time to awaken. And when that time comes it begins to unfurl, spreading slowly but surely through the heart, painful and burning like thousands of white hot needles. Yet it is also beautiful, like the petals of a flower slowly unfolding as it blooms. Suddenly the heart overrides the brain and everything feels like it may be the end or the beginning and it's exhilarating and terrifying and you want it to end but you also want it to keep going. It's the kind of feeling that tears you apart from within and makes everything seem like it's irrelevant next to it. It's love unlike any other. The kind that can live forever or die painfully. It's love with two sides, a sweetness and a sting.
It's love like a lemon…
It was the general consensus of the entire office under the command of Colonel Roy Mustang that it was a monumental mistake to ever allow one's significant other within a ten foot radius of said commander. Roy Mustang had an effortless charm that seemed to paralyze women and render them dumb and drooling over him with a single glance. It was also agreed among the men in the office that, though they all knew not to bring their significant others to meet their commanding officer, it always seemed to happen one way or another. And the one it had happened to countless times among the men under Mustang's command was Jean Havoc.
The tall blonde chain smoker was not unattractive as it were, but he seemed entirely unable to compete with his somewhat vertically challenged, pale, dark haired commander. Every time he got a new girlfriend she always ended up meeting Roy one way or another and dumping him because she was infatuated with the commander.
"It really isn't fair" Havoc muttered as he drooped in his chair on a snowy Monday. Breda looked over and sighed sympathetically,
"Mustang Taisa again?" he said, Havoc groaned and whipped out another cigarette. Fury laughed and patted his dejected coworker on the back,
"That's alright Havoc, you'll find another one" he said, but the effect was slightly ruined as he was snickering. Breda smirked at Fury,
"Stop laughing you idiot, you haven't even HAD a girlfriend yet…EVER!" he said. Fury flushed bright red and retreated to his desk muttering. Farman, ever the stick in the mud, looked up from his paperwork
"Well Havoc, if you want to keep your girlfriends why don't you try getting a woman who isn't shallow and air-headed enough to just drop you for someone they find more attractive." Havoc groaned and rolled his eyes to the heavens,
"But that's the problem" he said mournfully "all the hot ones are air-headed and shallow! All the other ones are weird and clingy and nerdy! I like my women a little more…sexy than that" a smile appeared on his face as he thought of his multitudes of girlfriends. All had been physically attractive, Havoc considered himself a man whose biggest turn on was a nice body. He loved holding on to a nice behind, or subtly ogling really nice breasts. It was just sad that all the attractive ones were in love with Mustang.
"You know Lieutenant, looks aren't everything" Hawkeye said tersely from her desk. Havoc glanced over at her, Hawkeye was an attractive woman, he decided, only he didn't go for gun toting drill sergeant types. Also it was some sort of unspoken rule that no one touched Hawkeye, partly because all the men wanted to walk out of the office every day with their genitals intact and partly because everyone was sure that Mustang and Hawkeye were meant for each other but were far too much in denial to realize it.
"They are to me…" Havoc mumbled and stood up.
"I'm off…gotta go walk off this depression." He said and exited the office. The remaining officers exchanged looks
"How much do you want to bet he'll come back with another one?" Breda said, immediately three hands holding money appeared before him, all of them looked shocked at Hawkeye who smiled slightly and shrugged,
"No need not to take part when I know it's true" she said. They all broke into a laugh. Just then Mustang walked in and saw them all laughing and holding money in their hands,
"Did Havoc lose another one?" he asked. Everyone started laughing again.
Down the hallway Havoc was having a hard time relaxing. It seemed that Mustang had just made his way down the hall and all the women, attractive and not, were outside squealing gleefully with each other over him. Havoc made his way unnoticed by the multitudes of girls towards the cafeteria, deciding that absolutely nothing but a slice of Myrtle's, the grisly old military chef, special lemon meringue pie could clear his depression.
Cheska couldn't believe her bad fortune, just as she had found it, the book she had been on the trail of for months, a horde of her fellow female coworkers had stampeded out of the library…including the librarian. The book she wanted was nestled safely behind the two locked strips of metal (there to hold the books in the shelf in case of attack on the city) and the key to the lock was dangling off of the missing librarian's waist. The frizzy haired girl sighed and turned to leave the library, a frown marking her bespectacled face.
She had woken up feeling very good that morning, so good, in fact, that she had felt it absolutely necessary to wear her prettiest and most flattering white shirt to work. She had specially pressed her skirt and worn the nice new high heeled shoes her mother had sent her (in hopes that some man would notice how lovely her feet looked in them).
"And all for nothing" she muttered, slouching to the cafeteria. No matter how many calories it had, nothing but the head chef's special lemon meringue pie could make her forget her depression.
"Lose another one?" Myrtle tsked and sliced out a large piece of pie from its foil dish. Havoc gave her a sheepish smile half annoyed that she knew him so well and half grateful that she did know him well enough to always have a pie on layaway.
"I tell you Havoc-san, you need to find a nice girl who will stay with you. That last girl you brought in here was nothing but blonde hair, big tits, and no brains. You need someone smart since you're such an idiot" the old woman smiled fondly at him as she served him his pie.
Havoc felt his heart rate increase and smirked, yes, Myrtle's lemon meringue pie was his one true love, forget women!
"Sumimasen…Myrtle-chan?" Havoc looked over in the direction of the dejected voice.
'Where have I seen her before…?' he thought as he studied the girl who had walked in. She was around his age, maybe younger, her hair was almost embarrassingly frizzy and her face was dominated by a pair of enormous square black glasses. He shrugged and went back to his pie; the girl wasn't his type anyway.
"Ano…excuse me….um…Mr.….?" Havoc looked up and nearly spit out his mouthful of pie as the girl who had previously been at least five feet away from him was now standing hardly three inches away.
"I-it's Havoc…Lt. Havoc" he managed to cough out, regaining his composure. Up close the girl had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and very light circles around her eyes, as if she didn't sleep very much.
"Ah…um, Lt. Havoc, sorry to pry but…is that…is that Myrtle-chan's lemon meringue pie?" she pointed at his half eaten confection, Havoc nodded hesitantly.
"AAAAH!" the girl screamed, flinging her arms up in the air and waving them about madly, Havoc jumped for the second time in a few minutes and watched as she did a little dance right in front of him,
"Isn't it the BEST THING EVER!" the girl was very close to him again and suddenly she wasn't so very shy.
"The flavor is just right! The extreme sweetness with just the right amount of lemon zest! Sweet but sharp at the same time, dissolving and slowly becoming even sweeter in your mouth as the enzymes in your saliva begin to break it down!"
"Oi Cheska-chan, you're scaring the man!" Havoc turned and nearly sighed in relief when he saw Myrtle emerging from the kitchen.
"But Myrtle-chan, I was only trying to share my love of your pie with him! Why should he be scared?"
"See Cheska-chan, this is the way you scare off all those nice boys I line up for you"
"They couldn't have been very nice if they all stood me up!"
"They wouldn't run off so fast if they knew you outside of your…moments"
"But…moments are part of my essential being! Having moments is part of who I am!"
Havoc stared back and forth between the two females and, deciding that neither seemed to be making much sense, went back to eating his pie.
"Who is that girl?"
"I don't know…but she sure isn't his type…"
"That's Cheska…she's the one who restored all those library documents and books that were burned in that fire."
Fury, Breda, and Farman stood clustered behind the door to the cafeteria. Wanting to complete their bet in a hurry (and to watch Havoc wallow in his rejection as that was always amusing), the three men had followed their depressed coworker to the place everybody knew he went when he was unhappy.
But instead of watching the tall blond lieutenant inhaling lemon meringue pie like it was oxygen while looking appropriately glum for one who has just been dumped for another man who-happens-to-be-their-commanding-officer, they were treated to the bizarre sight of Cheska twirling around the room ranting about something or other, and Havoc looking mildly befuddled.
As disappointing as not seeing the look of utter rejection on the blonde's handsome face was, his "friends" wanted to see what exactly was going on. The girl who was talking to, or rather at, Havoc wasn't the busty, generically pretty type the man usually went for. Fury took in her huge square glasses, Breda raised an eyebrow at her thick frizzy hair trying to escape from the elastic band holding it, and Farman observed her lack of makeup and frilly female accessories. In fact, the girl looked to be exactly the bookish, weird, and clingy type that Havoc avoided like the plague.
"So what's he doing with her?" Fury asked, watching as Cheska stopped dancing to rant about something or other.
"I don't know…maybe he's desperate" Breda sniggered and Farman hit him over the head,
"That wasn't very nice Lieutenant Breda…I'm sure Lieutenant Havoc could fall in love with her without being desperate!" he cried.
"Do I smell a bet?" Breda smirked as he held the top of his head. Fury smiled,
"Smells like a bet to me" he said eagerly. Farman tried to keep the disapproving frown on his face but a light of interest was creeping into his eyes,
"What about our other bet with First Lieutenant Hawkeye?" he asked cautiously.
"Pfft, we can tell her that he didn't get a girl so none of us won" Breda said dismissively. Farman hesitated for a minute,
"There'll be big money on the line…" Breda wheedled. Farman's eyes lit up,
"How much are we talking?" he asked, Fury whipped out his money
"10,000 cenz that he'll forget about her within a month!" he said.
"10,000 cenz that he'll forget her within a week!" Breda said confidently, both of his coworkers looked at him incredulously
"Aren't you giving Havoc too little credit?" Fury said. Breda just smirked,
"Come on Warrant Officer…place your bet!" he said, Farman thought for a moment before smiling and bringing out his own money
"10,000 cenz that he'll remember who she is for longer than one month for purposes other than getting into her skirt." He said. Fury and Breda stared at him, mouths agape, for around five full minutes and then…
Then they both broke into laughter.
"Lieutenant Jean Havoc under the command of Colonel Roy Mustang the lady killing girlfriend stealer? Jean Havoc who has dated over fifty different women within one year? Jean Havoc who HAS to have a girlfriend or he feels like a failure? THAT Jean Havoc not wanting to get into a girl's, even hers, skirt? That's so laughable it's sad" Breda gasped through his laughter,
"Farman-san, I think you've giving Havoc too much credit!" Fury said. Farman shrugged and turned back to the scene in the cafeteria,
"We'll see..." he murmured
"We'll see."
Lily: INDEED we will see. Um, sorry if I got the ranks a little wrong, I looked it up as best I could. Also, the spellings of their names might be off for some since there are like ten billion ways to spell their names. I hope you liked, stay tuned for chapter 2!