Well, look who's crawling out of their writing fortress to deliver a story!
While stuck on all my other new stories I managed to finish this prompt from the lovely No.1DigiBakuFan. Shoutout to her!
Stick Together When Stuck Together!
Chapter 1 Glue
"This", said Roy Mustang, "Is the most unbelievable, most stupid thing to ever happen to me."
"And it's your fault!" hissed Edeline Elric.
"My fault!? Who tried to put glue on my chair to get me stuck there and got it all over their hands in the progress?! That was you, Fullmetal!" An accusing finger was pointed at her.
"And who just had to take my hand?!" Ed slapped the finger away to point hers at Mustang, the digit was shaking in anger.
"I didn't take your hand, I was trying to stop you from getting glue all over my chair!" This time the finger was pointed at said piece of furniture.
"Just what is going on here?!"
They both flinched and turned towards one severe looking Riza Hawkeye who stood in the doorway to Mustang's private office, hand on the pistol at her hip and sharp eyes inquiring the reason why Mustang was not behind his desk, doing paperwork.
"Fullmetal tried to prank me and now I'm stuck to her!" The colonel growled, holding up his left hand in explanation. It was glued to Ed's right hand.
"Stuck?" Hawkeye raised her eyebrows.
"Look at the chair! She put glue all over it in hopes of getting me stuck there and when I tried to get the glue bottle away from her she dropped it but made to snatch it again and I grabbed her hand to keep her from doing so. And now I'm stuck to her because she had the damn stuff all over her hand! Even a toddler can handle glue bet-"
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL SHE SHOULDN'T USE THINGS FOR KIDS OLDER THAN FIVE MONTHS?!" Ed was flailing, Mustang was grabbing her arm so she wouldn't pull at the glued together skin.
"Well you should stay away from glue, that's for sure!" he snapped.
"Sirs, please be quiet. I'm sure we can find a solution." His lieutenant tried to do the possibly impossible and calm them down. "Maybe visit the paediatrician? I think they might have experience with glue incidents and can get it off your skin."
"We.", said Ed
"Are NOT.", continued Mustang
"Going to a damn PAEDIATRICIAN!" Ed ended the sentence.
"It's nice to see you can agree on things every once in a while." Hawkeye looked as amused as she ever got. "Maybe the infirmary?"
"I won't walk around while holding hands with him!" Ed yelled, shortly before flailing around again to underline her unwillingness with elaborate hand gestures.
"Really? A lot of women would consider that an honour, Fulmetal." Mustang grinned smugly.
"Well that's because they don't yet know how much of a bastard inhabits that good looking shell!"
Mustang's grin broadened and Ed groaned, mentally hitting herself. The colonel opened his mouth and she lifted a menacing finger. "Don't. Say. A. Word. Don't say a single word, Colonel, or you'll be done for!"
"Why so harsh when I just wanted to thank you for the compliment?" His smirk said he had planned on other words.
"GRAHHH that wasn't a compliment! Just a scientific observation!" The accusing finger came up again, this time in a warning function.
"Scientific observation, huh? Still a compliment to me."
"That's it, you damn smug-!"
Hawkeye fired a bullet to the ceiling and while Flame and Fullmetal liked to argue, in that moment they decided to agree on one action: Shut up and duck.
"Now. If you don't want to leave the room until the halls are empty and no one will see you, I suggest you kill the waiting time by doing your paperwork. Edeline, I'm sure we can find a book for you to read while the Colonel tends to his work."
"Yes, ma'am," the both of them answered, defeated.
Hawkeye left the room and Mustang started to move towards his desk. "Come on", he said through clenched teeth as he pulled at her hand. He looked like he was a hair's breadth away from incinerating something and only his unwillingness to throw even more of a childish tantrum at work and in front of Ed kept him from doing so. Grumbling, Ed followed his movement. She wanted to complain about him dragging her around, but while she still succumbed to childish streaks every once in a while, at nineteen she had matured enough to know that Mustang's anger and the resulting unfriendly treatment of hers was somewhat justified. She wouldn't admit it out loud but this predicament was her fault.
"Help me pick this up," the grumpy colonel ordered.
It took a while until they managed to pick up all the documents and stuff from the desk, neither one really willing to let the other take control of the hand glued to them. But after a little tugging war and angry glances they managed. Stiffly walking over to the couch, elbow touching elbow, they somehow managed to sit down and depose the materials on the coffee table.
Mumbling an irritated "Should have reached out with the right hand, at least that would've spared me this, a pity you were closer to the left...," Mustang grabbed his pen with said dominant right hand and sat about ignoring Ed and doing his paperwork.
Edeline shifted uncomfortably, resisting the urge to pull her hand towards her. She wasn't used to the colonel ignoring her. Usually she had his full attention, either because he was mocking her or because he was lecturing her. Hell even when he had pretended to ignore her before she had his attention, sharp ears picking up the sound of her aggravated pacing as he sat there, appearing calm to the world when she knew he was trying his hardest not to laugh. But now he was really ignoring her, working on hated paperwork.
"Um, Mustang..."
"Fullmetal, I am currently trying to not kill you, so: Stay. Quiet."
"I was just going to suggest if maybe we can transmute this shit off!" Actually she hadn't known what she was going to say, she had just wanted to break the damn silence.
Mustang glared at her. "You can't do alchemy anymore and I can't clap like this. And a circle needs to touch the stuff it's supposed to transmute, so how do you plan on drawing a circle on glue stuck between our hands? You have a better chance transmuting the skin off and while I'd love to have my hand free again I'm not that desperate." It was delivered in a tone that told her to either think before talking or to keep her mouth shut. Mustang then went back to doing paperwork while Ed fumed.
Before she could say something though Hawkeye re-entered the room, carrying a few books.
"You really should stop putting your key underneath the doormat," she said when placing the books she had gotten from Ed's small apartment in front of her on the table.
"Well, you try keeping it in your pocket without loosing it when every damn criminal out there seems to think he needs to rip your clothes apart while fighting," Ed grumbled, not quite daring to snap at the blonde lieutenant.
Hawkeye raised an eyebrow. "Very well." She looked at the colonel who still seemed to be pouring over his files with appreciation, then turned to leave again. "I'll come back to collect you when the hallways seem mostly empty."
"Okay," said Ed while Mustang just hummed a confirmation.
It was easier to ignore the colonel ignoring her once she started reading and when Hawkeye finally came back her butt had gone numb from sitting for so long, without her even realising. She stood and made to stretch, only remembering she was glued to Mustang when her hand met resistance upon trying to lift it over her head. So without stretching and while scowling Ed followed Hawkeye on the way to HQ's infirmary, Mustang walking beside her, just as irritable.
The medic didn't dare to laugh at their predicament when faced with the glare of what he knew were two very deadly people. He looked over their hands and read the description on the glue bottle.
"This is, like, the strongest glue out there, the chemicals to remove it would probably do more harm to the skin than the glue itself. I think it will be safest to wait until the glue comes off by itself. Seeing as your skin will slowly regenerate itself and as hands sweat every once in a while it shouldn't take too long. But I'm not an expert for stuff like this." The medic looked like he had an revelation. "Maybe see a paediatrician, I'm sure they have more experience with cases like this seeing as kids..." he tailed off, rapidly turning pale while Ed became quite red in the face and Mustang glared. "A-Anyway, you should be fine as long as you don't tear at it with force. That won't make it go away faster, unless you rip off all the skin at once, which I wouldn't recommend doing," the man finally stuttered out.
"That can't be true!" Ed howled while Mustang sighed in defeat before glaring at her. "We have to wait until it gets off by itself?!"
"You just had to take the strongest glue there was, hadn't you? Now stop complaining, the only one here en-righted to complaining is me." He stood before Ed could even think of a comeback. "Lieutenant, please get the car. We'll collect some sleep wear for Fullmetal, then go to my place."
"What? Why your house?!" Ed did not like the thought.
The colonel rolled his dark eyes. "Because it seems like we'll stay like this over night and I'm pretty sure you have a bed build for one person, while I have a bed made for two people. That and I have things to do which I'm not going to put on hold just because you want to sleep at home with your security blanket and your teddy bear."
Ed jumped to her feet. "WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL SHE HAS A ROOM LIKE A TODDLER WITH STUFFED TOYS EVERYWHERE?!"
"Fullmetal stop the flailing!"
But Ed had already stopped, the feeling of her skin stretching before Mustang's arm followed her angry moving not pleasant at all. She really didn't want to rip her skin off. At last she grouched a "Fine, we'll go to your stupid place!" before slumping back into her chair.
And so they trotted towards the carpool where Hawkeye was waiting with an idling vehicle. And while slowly scooting over on the back seat of the car so Mustang could get in after her, Ed thought that this was going to be one horrible, crazy and nerve wrecking night.
