It was the first day of spring and Riza hadn't shown up to work. Roy had walked into the office (only three minutes late today), plopped down at his desk and reached for his coffee only to find it nonexistent. Riza always stopped by the coffee shop before work and picked up coffee for them both. Maybe she had decided to take the day off and hadn't told him? No, she always warned him ahead of time if she was taking the day off. Maybe she was running late. No, Riza was never late. He must not have been listening when she told him she was taking the day off. Roy suddenly felt guilty. He'd been so busy lately, catching up on backlogged paperwork that was due at the end of the month that Riza could have shown up to work in a mini skirt and he wouldn't have noticed.
No, scratch that, he definitely would have noticed if she showed up like that.
Roy was just about to settle into a daydream where Riza was wearing a short, tight skirt when he sneezed. And then sneezed again. He tried to fight the thought that came into his head. If he was sneezing, then that meant Riza was too. And he definitely wasn't sick. He sneezed again as Furey and Havoc came into the office.
"Bless you," said Furey from his desk. "Are you coming down with a cold or something?"
Roy shook his head. "I don't think so…there must be dust in the air or something."
Havoc laughed. "That's what happens when you leave piles of paperwork untouched for months!"
Roy glared. "You're one to talk, Havoc, I know you have a report that is over two weeks late sitting in the bottom drawer of your desk right now." Havoc had the decency to shut his mouth and sit down at his desk, his face turning pink as he reached for the drawer in question.
Roy sneezed again. "Bless you," Furey said again.
The next few hours passed by agonizingly slow for Roy, and hilariously for the rest of the men. He had sneezed no less than three times each hour, each time with Furey saying "bless you," and each time Roy had to fight the blush creeping onto his cheeks as the men chuckled at their desks. And they weren't even trying to be subtle, he could hear them with his door shut. He knew why he was sneezing, or at least most of the reason why, and it was possible that the men had inklings as well, but all any of them could do was just pretend that there was an unusual amount of dust in the air and ignore the implications that anything else was going on. But he couldn't just run out of the office, he had work to do. Riza would kill him if he skipped out on paperwork because he was sneezing.
Finally it hit 6:00 and the men started clearing their desks to go home. Roy sneezed again, and Havoc paused before leaving the office. "It's odd that Hawkeye didn't come in today, isn't it? Maybe she's got allergies. I've heard they're particularly bad this season…" He turned and left, a knowing smirk on his face. Roy gave him a halfhearted glare before sneezing again.
Roy stopped by the pharmacy before making his way to Riza's apartment. If anyone asked he was merely bringing along medicine for a subordinate who was sick. And he wouldn't even be lying.
Riza didn't answer the door when he knocked, but he could hear Black Hayate bark in excitement, so she must have been home. He pulled out his key and slipped it in, hoping Riza wasn't so out of it that she thought he was a burglar. All the lights were off when he made his way in so he reached for the switch and flicked it on. An angry groan came from the couch and he saw Riza turn her face into the cushions.
"Sorry, I didn't realize you were asleep."
"I wasn't asleep sir, the light is too bright."
Roy walked over to the couch as Riza sat up. She was a mess. Her hair obviously hadn't been brushed, and her eyes were red and puffy. Squinting in the light she eyed the bag in Roy's hands.
"Is that medicine, sir?"
"Yes. Allergy suppressants."
Riza sighed in relief. "You're a life saver, I couldn't even make it off the couch all day. I apologize, for not coming in to work today, but I woke up with a horrible headache, and the light as too bright, and I just kept sneezing."
Roy smiled. "I know. The men wouldn't shut up about it. I told them that the office was just dusty, but none of them believed me. As if you would let the office get dusty anyway."
Riza smiled and then her face scrunched up and she sneezed. A second later Roy sneezed too.
It would have been hilarious if it weren't for the fact that soulmates really shouldn't be working for their superior officers, but luckily, Mustang's men were trustworthy. Not to mention too scared of both Mustang and Hawkeye to ever say anything about it. But it certainly was funny when one of them got the other sick, no matter how hard the men had to fight to keep laughter from escaping the building's thin walls.
It was particularly bad this winter, because Hawkeye had come down with a cold but refused to stay home for more than a day, and then Mustang had coincidentally come down with a cold the day after she finally relented to his orders (Mustang had left the office early that day, claiming he had a date, but they all knew that he was checking in on Hawkeye and making sure she wasn't trying to sneak back to work). Now they were both at the office with sniffly noses, neither of them relenting to the others orders to go home and rest.
Mustang was the first one to sneeze. There was a second's pause and then Hawkeye sneezed.
"Bless you," said Furey.
Five minutes later found Hawkeye scrunching up her nose and staring determinedly at her paperwork as she tried so very obviously to suppress a sneeze. It didn't work. A second later there was a sneeze from Mustang's office.
There was a stifled chuckle from Havoc, then a loud thump as Breda smacked him on the arm.
Two minutes later Roy sneezed again, followed simultaneously by a "dammit" from him, and a sneeze from Hawkeye.
It went back and forth like that all day. Roy would sneeze, causing Riza to sneeze, and a few minutes later Riza would sneeze and there'd be a muffled sneeze from the Colonel's office. The rest of the squad was trying very hard to pretend that they were deaf, and Riza and Roy tired very hard to hold in their sneezes. It's safe to say that not one of them succeeded.
It was a high stakes mission. Their target, a man with ties to most of the crime happening in the city, was currently hiding out in an abandoned warehouse. Team Mustang was tasked with taking him down before he could escape.
Everything was going well until the crime boss had Hawkeye cornered. She had one bullet left, but the crime boss had his gun pulled on her as well. She couldn't risk him firing first. She knew that Roy was somewhere nearby, but couldn't figure out how to get him to distract the criminal. Suddenly she eyed the dusty floor and an incredibly ridiculous plan came to mind.
Riza was saying something to the crime boss-probably to delay him- but Roy wasn't sure what she was aiming for. She was walking back and forth as she walked, kicking up dust as she went, and the criminal was keeping pace with her, his gun trained on her with every step. Was it a signal? Did she want him to do something? Roy saw her scrunch up her nose and felt a sudden tickle in his own nose.
Riza sneezed. A second later, Roy sneezed. The criminal spun around in surprise. A shot rang out.
"So Lieutenant, what should I put on our report for how we caught the criminal? The power of love?"
"Sir, if you mention anything about what I did I will shoot you too."