AN: I am new to the FMA fandom so some of the characters in here may be OOC. Black Hayate especially. I wrote this for a creative writing class and took a great deal of artic liberties. Thus, I ask that you be nice, because it was not intended to be perfect. I had fun writing it though, and that's the important thing, right?

Lucky Dog

Roy was nervous. He ran his hand over his hair, smoothing it for what had to have been the hundredth time since he'd left his own apartment not half an hour ago as Riza's apartment came into view. Roy checked his watch; he was five minutes early. Riza would probably have a heart attack.

Riza's apartment came into view and Roy found himself pausing. Why in the world was he so nervous? He'd only seen Riza every day at work for the past ten years. They'd both joined the military right out of high school and met during basic training. After that, fate had seemed to want them to stay together; they'd been assigned and reassigned together since they could remember. They were good friends and, until recently, that's all that Roy had ever wanted to be.

He really had no idea how or when his feelings towards Riza had changed. She'd always been tall, blonde, and brown eyed. She'd always had a figure that had made their other coworkers stop and stare. In fact, Roy knew for a fact that she had been asked out by their underlings countless times—he also knew very well that she had turned each and every one of them down. Who wouldn't have known? The way those boys had moped around for days afterwards… It was disgraceful!

So why hadn't Roy noticed before? After all, he was the playboy of the military and could practically smell estrogen. Women flocked to him. And no wonder. He had shiny black hair, dark bedroom eyes, he was tall, and well built—broad shoulders, long legs, and a trim waist—a perfect manly specimen.

At least, that's how Roy thought of himself. (Unbeknownst to him, his underlings had nicknamed him the "Dog of the Military.")

On second thought, maybe that was why he'd never really noticed Riza before. Maybe he'd been too occupied with the other million women in his life? He did know quite a few, He couldn't think of anyone else who could actually code their secret documents from the names of past lovers. Edward had always told him that he was too self absorbed for his own good. Had the half pint actually been right?

He rang the doorbell.

Loud raucous barking sounded from the apartment and Roy felt his eyebrow twitch. He'd forgotten about Black Hayate.

Before Roy could get lost in his thoughts again, the door opened, revealing Riza in a towel.

Roy's eyes widened and Riza squeaked before slamming the apartment door in his face. It took Roy a moment to realize that his face was burning. Was he blushing? Roy Mustang did not blush. He was used to seeing scantily clad women! It was his sole goal in life to change the dress code so that women in the military were required to wear mini-skirts!

He could hear Riza shushing Black Hayate from inside the apartment and Roy felt a fresh wave of embarrassment wash over him as Riza spoke to him through the door. "What in the bloody hell are you doing here on time?"

What? Wasn't she the one that was always chasing him around trying to get him to his meetings on time? "I thought we had a date."

Riza grunted an affirmative before muttering something that sounded like curses and "men" and "think you know a person" before trailing off and then opening the door again, this time wearing a fuzzy blue robe and allowing Roy to step inside. "Come on in."

Roy nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets, surveying Riza's apartment while secretly sneaking glances at Riza as she went to her room to change. (Rats, She'd closed the door.) Somehow, even after all the women he'd dated, he felt uncomfortable openly checking Riza out. (Even though he had to admit that the sight of her in nothing but a towel had been rather nice.) Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he'd seen her at the firing range and knew that she never missed a target.

The apartment was fair sized, not huge, because Riza and her dog were the only occupants, but definitely not small. It was orderly, which was no surprise to Roy. Riza had the cleanest desk he'd ever seen. However, here and there were little things, small touches that were surprising hints at Riza's inner femininity. A small bowl of seashells on the end table, some plants, even a few small figurines.

Something was jerking on his pants leg.

He felt that odd twitch in his eye again. Black Hayate.

Black Hayate was Riza's dog. One of their underlings (Roy couldn'y remember the name) had found the dog on the side of the road and brought it into work in order to find it a good home. Riza had ended up with the dog by default. Fuery and Havoc both lived in dorms and couldn't have pets, Roy himself loved dogs but was too busy to keep one, and Tucker had made a disturbing comment about Chinese cuisine... Thus, in the best interests of the dog, Riza had claimed him. Black Hayate was seven pounds of black fur and an attitude that could fill Dodger Stadium. At least that's how Roy thought of him.

In fact. That was probably when he realized that he'd had a thing for Riza. The day that she had claimed Black Hayate as her own she had carried the tiny dog around under her arm, propped up on her hip like mothers do with their babies. Riza, a woman who could scare Roy and the rest of his underlings into submission was reduced to a cooing gushing pile of goo in the presence of a tiny black fur ball. It had been the first time that Roy had realized that there was more to Riza than the coworker who hounded him daily about his paperwork. There was a woman in there somewhere. And she was different.

Roy was a man used to getting away with anything when it came to women. However, with Riza that was nearly impossible. She challenged him—and Roy liked that. While Roy had been running around with countless other women, he'd completely missed what had been right under his nose. And it had taken Black Hayate's snatching it for Roy to realize that he wanted it.

Roy glared at Black Hayate and the small dog stopped shaking his pants leg long enough to curl his lip and show just the barest hint of fangs. Glancing around to make sure that Riza wasn't in the room; Roy growled and showed his own teeth. Sorry buddy. But I'm the big dog on campus now, and briefly fantasized about punting the small dog across the room like a football.

Black Hayate growled back and resumed trying to kill Roy's pants.

Roy made a face and decided to ignore the dog, waiting for Riza to reappear. He took the moment to remind himself that he loved dogs. Dogs were loyal! Dogs were obedient! And they never asked for raises! Don't kick the dog…

Before long Riza reappeared out of her bedroom golden hair down and wearing a dress that, unfortunately for Roy, covered much more than the towel had, grabbed her purse and turned to Roy, "So, where're we going?"

"Well. I thought we'd decide on the way there." Roy gave a pointed look to the dog still attached to his pants and gave his leg a gentle shake. "Um. Could you…detach him?"

Riza made a tsking sound and bent down to retrieve Black Hayate. "That's not nice." She plucked the dog off of Roy's pants leg and straightened, "Now. We've talked about this. You remember Roy, right?" she kissed Black Hayate on the head, "He's a nice man."

Black Hayate wrinkled his nose as though disagreeing and leaned back in Riza'a arms, placing his front paws on Riza's chest and turning his head to look at Roy.

Roy felt black clouds of jealousy forming. Now this was just unfair. If he tried something like that with Riza she'd kill him. How did the dog rate getting away with something like that?

Black Hayate grinned. Grinned.

Roy felt lightning strike as he glared at the black furball.

Lucky Dog.