A/N: Happy Halloween everyone! I'm just letting you guys know I'm still alive over here--life's been incredibly evil to me, and I just haven't had much time to write. I'm almost done with chapter 3 of Ed-igami though, so when I post that, I'll let you know what I've been doing in my fanfiction-writing absence. XD This is by no means finished, unfortunately. I really wanted to get this up tonight, but I have an ebil SAT II tomorrow morning, so I have to go to bed early rather than finishing this. -shakes fist at the College Board- I haven't even gotten into the main plot of it yet, but hopefully this will give you a taste of the rest. It's only a one-shot too. The failure. It burns.-sigh-
Riza sighed. Sometimes it just didn't pay to be a lieutenant under Mustang. "Sir," she grumbled impatiently, "Would you please just go hang that where it's supposed to go?!"
Said colonel happened to be grinning like a loon, dangling a fake plastic spider above her head.
"What's the matter, Lieutenant? Don't you like spiders?" he asked innocently, his infuriatingly self-satisfied grin making her want to smack him.
She had let out a rather uncharacteristically undignified shriek a few moments earlier when the offending object made its presence known by suddenly landing in her hair. Mustang was never going to let her live this down, she thought with a sigh.
"Not in my hair, certainly," she responded irritably, "Just go put that in those fake cobwebs Fuery and Breda are putting up over there." She pointed to the hapless duo in the corner struggling with the fluffy, stringy stuff, just stifling a chuckle at their attempts. She had to remember she was irritated at Mustang. People don't chuckle when they're irritated.
It was Halloween at Eastern Headquarters at Eastern Headquarters, and under direction of their resident Santa Claus, one Maes Hughes, the soldiers were busily dressing up the headquarters for the occasion. Because, simply put, they were all too lazy to have gone and bought decorations (and actually decorated) in advance. Well...again, there was Maes, but he was busy decorating his own house and working on his costume with Gracia, which, incredibly, the investigations officer had actually spent more time talking about in the preceding weeks than Elysia. Even more incredibly, despite all of his gushing, no one had any idea what his costume was of, because it was evidently a huge secret, according to Maes. By now, there was a general consensus that his costume better be the most brilliant damn costume in the history of man and Halloween to justify all the bragging.
Despite the last-minute decor job, though, the office was looking more and more Halloween-like by the moment. There was a skeleton hung up at each corner, orange-and-black streamers with ghosts printed on them adorning the ceiling and upper walls, and little knick-knacks from party stores all over the place, from a crystal ball with an ugly witch-doll hovering over it, to a bowl filled with eyeball-shaped chocolates inside with a severed hand on top that snapped down whenever anyone reached into the bowl, to a creepy-looking butler holding it's disembodied head posted near the front door. Falman had finally taken pity on Fuery and Breda, and started helping with the cobwebs--after collecting his ten bucks from Havoc, that was.
Things were going well--there was a Halloween party being held at the headquarters, and all of the friends and family of the soldiers were invited. Even Winry Rockbell was coming all the way from Risembool at the behest of the Elric brothers (who also happened to be in town) to participate in the festivities. Hughes was in charge of all the food and sweets (which he had purchased a week in advance and were merrily waiting to be consumed in the man's fridge) and the overall party planner/organizer; Hawkeye was to bring the drinks, both alcoholic and nonalcoholic (because she didn't trust the colonel with the task, she claimed); Havoc, Breda, Fuery, and Falman had the duty of sending out invitations to all the guests (Maes had insisted upon it); and, for lack of anything better to do, Roy was to organize the costume contest and come up with any suitable party games.
(NOT DONE. -grumbles- I SWEAR I'LL HAVE THE REST UP TOMORROW. O)