It was a miserable, rainy day in central. The freezing rain pounded relentlessly on the drenched, stony ground. Large, clear puddles forming in random dips and shifts in the ground. The streets were almost deserted, civilians and military personnel alike taking cover from the freezing water.
Edward Elric ran quickly through the drenched and deserted streets, carefully holding his finished report under his drenched jacket. Why of all days did he have to turn the damn thing in today? What with just returning from a Week long, almost sleepless, mission in west city, along with only getting just maybe two hours of sleep on the five hour train ride back. And, to add insult to injury, that bastard colonel had said he wasn't allowed to bring Al, and when he returned he had to go straight from the train station to Central Command.
He had originally wanted to head straight over to the dorms where Al was and catch a couple hours of sleep, but noooo, he had to report directly to the colonel and hand in a full, detailed report of everything that had happened.
He had finally reached Central Command, flashing his silver pocket watch to the two guards at the entrance, and quickly walked into the gigantic building, soaked and miserable.
As he walked up the several flights of stairs and through the long corridors that would eventually lead him to the colonel's office, he started to massage his right shoulder, where the automail met scared flesh. He thought he'd be used to them after a year and a half, but he was still shocked by the amount of pain they caused him, especially when it rained or he was under stress.
As his left hand massaged his automail port, hid right arm came up to rub absently at his tired eyes, and while doing so caused his soaked report to slip out from under his arm and fall gracelessly to the ground and land with a wet splat. He sighed angrily and picked the drenched papers back up with his flesh hand, glancing briefly at the soaked papers. Even though he'd kept it under his somewhat thick jacket, the pieces of paper were still sopping wet and the words were completely illegible, water having made the ink bleed profusely. Turning what had once eight pages of findings that had been as neat, legible, and detailed as possible, Into nothing.
He glared hatefully at the now useless papers, balled them up and put them in a near by trash bin, he then continued to stalk toward the colonel's office. He smiling inwardly slightly at the wide girth he was given by other soldiers, obliviously wary of the famed Fullmetal's wrath.
He reached his destination a few minutes later, opening the door to the outer office and stepping inside quietly, immediately noticing that first Lieutenant Hawkeye was the only one present inside. Riza noticed him seconds later, glancing up from her current stack of paperwork. She noted the twelve year old standing at the entrance of the office, notably shaking and soaked, glancing around the room and absently massaging his right shoulder. She reached under her desk and grabbed a spare towel she kept there, and walked over to the drenched and exhausted child.
"Good evening Edward", she said formally, handing him the aforementioned towel and nodding in greeting. He flashed here a great full look and took the offered towel, pulling out his braid and starting the task of drying his drenched head.
"'Evening Lieutenant, where-" he stopped to Yawn tiredly, "where is everyone?"
She gave a small sigh before replying, "the colonel is currently in a meeting with general Hackuro, warrant officer Falmen is out sick, sergeant Fury is down In communications fixing one of the radios, and lieutenants Heymans and Havoc are helping Hughes finish up a case." She then glanced at the open door to the colonel's personal office, "you can drop your report off on the colonel's desk, then you can head to your Alphonse."
He nodded in reply and turned to move when he suddenly stopped, glancing back at her sheepishly. She cocked an eyebrow questionably and asked, "is something wrong" 'did something happen?' She thought.
"My report got kinda...destroyed, so I was wondering if I could... borrow some paper?" he asked questionably.
"Of course" Riza replied, walking back over to her desk and grabbing a dozen blank pieces of paper and handing them to Edward.
"Thank you" he replied, walking into the colonel's personnel office, and started to work on redoing his report. 'If the colonel complains about it not being perfect, then that's his damn problem' Edward thought tiredly.
LinE BReaK liNe bREak LINe breAk
Twenty minutes later saw colonel mustang returning to his office, tiered and annoyed. The damn meeting had lasted two hours, and in the end they had solved nothing!
He sighed as he finally reached his office, opening the door to see Hawkeye, Without her military jacket, finish the last piece of paper.
"Good evening Lieutenant," Mustang said "did Fullme-"
" He's in your office sir" she interrupted. At the colonel's questing look she said "his original report got destroyed so he's redoing it."
"Ah" the colonel replied, walking over to the closed door of his personal office, opening the door and immediately stopped. On the table between his two couches, there was a messy stack of papers, and on the furthest couch was the Fullmetal Alchemist, asleep.
Edward was lying horizontally on the couch he had his flesh arm under his head, like a pillow and his metal arm had risen up his shirt to lay across his stomach.
The colonel sighed and walked over to the sleeping alchemist, and noting the semi dark rings under his eyes, picked him up bridal style. Walking out of the office, Hawkeye sent him a surprised look, " I'm bringing him to his dorm, you can-" he started, "I'll accompany you, my dorm's not far away."
Mustang blinked in surprise, but nodded, and started walking over to the dorms, Hawkeye following in step. As they walked along the luckily deserted corridors, Mustang noticed that The small form in his arms was shacking. not knowing what else to do, he awkwardly took off his jacket and draped it over Ed, smiling slightly when he unconsciously pulled it closer.
They finally reached the Elrics dorm, Hawkeye immediately nocking on the door for them. It opened seconds later, the hulking form of Alphonse Elric filling up the opening.
"Good evening colonel, lieutenant, do either of you know where broth- oh!" The younger brother had noticed the small form in Mustangs arms, the jacket covering everything but Ed's head, which was propped up on the colonel's shoulder.
"Thank you for bringing him, I was starting to get worried something had happened to him." Mustang just nodded in reply, handing Edward over to his younger brother, who tried to gently take the jacket from his slumbering brother, only to have him grip it tighter.
"It's okay, your brother can bring it in tomorrow" the colonel stated to Al, who nodded meekly, then then bowed slightly and bid the two a good night, going back into the dorm and closing the door behind himself and his comatose brother.
The two then Walked over to Hawkeyes dorm, which was a couple twists and turns later. The two bid each other fair well, and as Mustang was walking away, Hawkeye made one last remark, "that was very kind of you sir, I hope the night tweets you well."
Mustang just smirked.