026. Cureless

Roy sat behind his desk looking like he hadn't slept in days, when in fact he had just woken up ten minutes ago. The man had not gone home the night before since he was busy researching for a case. The flame alchemist stretched his arms wide and let out a huge yawn. He rubbed his chin and groaned at the sight before him. The untouched, tall and daunting pile of papers he had conveniently forgotten to finish signing stared back at him defiantly.

The Colonel frowned at the stack, resisting the temptation of snapping his fingers and making them all turn to ash, but he knew that wouldn't do him any good since more would come back anyway, not to mention the consequence of facing the wrath of Hawkeye. He stood up from behind his desk and strolled over to cabinets in the corner of the room, pulling out a spare uniform, his towel and a bar of soap from the upper shelf where he kept his personal belongings; opening the office door he then disappeared down the hall towards the showers.

At that exact moment, turning around the opposite corner, was the Lieutenant strapped with her brown duffel bag that daintily hung by her side, she marched down the same hall, missing the Colonel by mere seconds. The woman opened the door and she stepped into the empty office. The first thing that caught her attention, before she even had the chance to reach her desk, was mountain of papers that menacingly sat on the Colonel's desk.

That man is hopeless and his aversion to paperwork is absolutely ridiculous.

The woman shook her head and sighed, strolling to reach her desk she put down her bag then set off towards his desk to inspect the papers. After a few minutes of going through them, she returned to her own and sat down. I won't fall for his pleas for help with 'that', this time.She firmly nodded, going through her own finished papers before she stood up and left to send them to their respective offices. The Lieutenant knew she was going to be asked about that stack on the Colonel's table, but she was going to try and avoid the matter as best as she could. With the papers in hand, she left the office and went on her way.

Meanwhile, the flame alchemist casually strolled into the once again empty office, patting his wet hair dry with his towel. He absentmindedly sat on his chair and noticed that his lieutenant had come. Roy smiled to himself then.

"I see you spent that night at the office again, sir." Riza stated nonchalantly as she came through the open door, at that same moment. Placing a cup of coffee on his desk.

"Good morning, Hawkeye." He cheerfully greeted, grateful to take the cup of coffee she'd brought him, after hanging his towel on the back of his seat.

"Good morning, Colonel. Please attend to that stack before it decides to bury you for ignoring it."

Roy's smile turned into a frown, eyes following her as she took her seat and started dismantling her gun to clean it.

"Staring at me won't get your work done, sir." She continued with her chore not looking up as he stared at her.

He grumbled underneath his breath, wondering how she did that and giving the evil stack of paperwork another glare. He picked up his pen and slowly starting to work on them.

"I'm giving you an hour to finish your work."

Five minutes later, the colonel looked up from the papers and whined, "Lieutenant...this is too much paperwork...I'll never finish this in time…"

"It's only been five minutes, please continue." She replied not bothering to distract herself from her chore.

He sighed, muttering under his breath once again as he carried out his work. Riza was just about finished with the cleaning of her gun and she patiently waited for his next excuse.

"And all of this has to be done, within an hour, correct?" He chuckled, while working.

"Yes." She curtly responded.

He grumbled, thinking that he wouldn't be able to finish all of this if even if he tried. He sloppily began to write on them.

"Try not to be sloppy, sir. Or else you'll have to do it all over again."

"Lieutenant, help, please?"

There were a few moments of silence, before the creak of the chair was heard and her boots briskly pounding against the concrete floor, reached his side. She promptly took half of the stack and returned to her desk, not bothering to engage the man in any form of conversation.

"Thank you...Lieutenant." He grinned.

"Finish your work, Colonel. "

"I will, I will…"

"You're completely and utterly cureless."