Yahou, I'm back! :D Thanks to all those who reviewed/faved this story... really helped boost my confidence :P
I'm not gonna blab on, so... here's chapter three! Enjoy :D
Edward sighed and collapsed onto the couch. Somehow dinner turned out successful, what with Roy trying to set fire to the food and Winry trying to disassemble the stove.
Thank goodness Hawkeye and Armstrong were there to keep them in check… And that the two of them knew when and how to behave.
Although the fact that the Lieutenant was too mature and that the Major had too much facial hair was just disturbing.
He sighed again and tried to think about the good that could come out of this. He had blackmail photos of Roy and Riza, so maybe he could use those to persuade them for a week's leave or something…
He closed his eyes, smirking to himself. Oh, the look on Mustang's face would be priceless when he turns back to normal and finds out that he was pants-less all this time… speaking of which, he'd better change out of the miniskirt after the kids fall asleep…
Edward felt something tugging on his sleeve, and he opened his eyes to find Hawkeye staring at him. Once she was sure that he was awake, she turned back to her book. Edward sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"Riza? What's wrong?" He yawned. Riza's head snapped up to look at him.
"It's rude to yawn without covering your mouth. And I woke you up because…" She pointed to something behind him. He followed the direction of her finger to find Winry disassembling the clock. He yelped, jumped off the couch and ran over to snatch it away.
"Winry! You can't disassemble the clock!" He scolded. Winry looked down, clasping the screwdriver in her hand.
"Sorry…" Edward sighed and flopped back onto the couch. A while passed until Riza started tugging on his sleeve again.
"Huh? What now?" He asked. Riza pointed to Winry, who was disassembling the radio. Again, Edward scrambled off the couch to stop her.
"Winry, you can't disassemble the radio either…" He knelt down to her eye level. Winry puffed her cheeks and stared at her screwdriver.
"Sorry…" she whispered. Edward squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.
"I'm gonna go… take a shower…" He got up and headed towards the bathroom. "My head's killing me…" He mumbled under his breath. Kids were such a handful…
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3 minutes after he stripped and got into the shower, he heard someone knocking. He scratched his head and turned off the tap.
"Edward, Winry's outside and she's messing around with the heater..." Riza's voice trailed from behind the door. Edward groaned.
"Ok, hold on a minute!" He yelled, and turned on the water to wash off the shampoo.
"AHHHHHH HOTHOTHOTHOT!!" He screamed, and quickly turned it off. Riza snickered.
"I told you she was messing with the heater." She said calmly. Edward's eyes narrowed.
"Yeah, whatever…" He went to the sink to wash off the shampoo and then ran out of the bathroom after wrapping himself in a towel.
"WINRY!!!!" He shouted, bursting through the door and scanning the area for the little blonde kid. Not long after, he started sneezing from the cold. When he finally found Winry, she was standing on a stool, disassembling the heater controls. Edward sighed and carried her down.
"Winry, you can't disassemble the heater controls either!" He said, folding his arms. Winry looked at his arm, then down at her screwdriver.
"Sorry…" Ed sighed in frustration.
"I'm going back to my bath…" He walked into the house, and Winry followed him, all the while staring at his auto-mail… Her grip on the screwdriver tightened.
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Another few more minutes passed while Ed was in the shower, and another knock at the door made him pause his bath again. He found his towel again, and opened the door, sighing.
"Winry again… right?" Riza nodded, and he walked towards the stairs. At that moment, the lights went off. Edward could hear Roy screaming, and Armstrong was trying to comfort him. Riza magically got out a flashlight and continued reading. Edward sighed once more. "The power controls, eh…"
Once he got there, he found Winry hiding in a corner and crying. His eyes softened and he put a hand on her back.
"Winry, you can't mess with the power controls…" he started, and suddenly he found himself being hugged.
"I'm scared…" she sobbed. Edward sighed and walked over to the power control. It took a long time until the power was restored, and when it was done Edward was shaking from the cold.
"I'm… going to go finish my shower… He got up and was about to walk off when Winry grabbed his hand. He stopped and looked down at her. She clasped her screwdriver in both hands, and looked down with teary eyes.
"S…Sorry…." She said. Edward patted her head with his auto-mail arm, and walked off towards the bathroom while trying to warm himself. Staring at his auto-mail once more, Winry decided to leave that arm alone.
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He stayed under the warm running water for a while before getting out of the shower. Pulling on a long-sleeved black shirt and a pair of pants, he walked out of the bathroom with his towel around his shoulders.
"Alright brats, time for bed!" He shouted. Riza was the first to get ready, and she walked into Edward's room. Roy grumbled as the rest of them finished and walked in as well. Edward sneezed a couple of times and pulled the towel closer to himself before going in. His head throbbed, and he rubbed his temples, letting out a frustrated growl.
"Eddie, tell us a bedtime story!" Roy said loudly. Already in a bad mood from this afternoon, his constantly-interrupted shower and his aching head, his eyes narrowed at the boy.
"Once upon a time there were four annoying kids and one annoyed babysitter who was also an alchemist. One day the four kids got so annoying, the babysitter decided to transmute up a soundproof cage and put the badly behaved ones inside. Of course, since all of them were annoying, all of them went into the cage and the babysitter lived happily ever after. The end. Now go to sleep." He said quickly before he turned off the lights and walked out, closing the door softly behind him.
After a few steps, he banged his head on the wall. Why, oh why didn't he just do that in the first place and save himself the agony of babysitting… Edward cursed quietly and made his way to the living room where he settled on the couch. Shivering, he hugged a pillow, curled up and drifted off to sleep.
Unfortunately for him, , his dream was about miniskirts, milk bottles, screwdrivers and fluffy, oversized moustaches so obviously he wasn't able to sleep well that night.
Lol... I was wondering what those pillows on the couch were called and my friend said they were cushions. So I was deciding whether to use 'cushion' or 'pillow', but I used pillow in the end… haha ^^;;;
I totally couldn't fit Tucker anywhere in this chapter, so Tucker's part will be an extra! It's right before Edward goes to take a shower… Here it is :D
"So, Alphonse-kun, do you think this one will work?" Tucker held up a beaker to the helmet on the table. Al thought.
"Hmm… it was supposed to be purplish… right, Tucker-san? This one seems a bit too… pale and pinkish…" He said. Tucker examined the beaker's contents and snapped his fingers.
"It seems you're right, Alphonse-kun! Let's see now… Aw, where's that darn… Oh, here it is…" He grabbed a flask of dark blue liquid.
"What's that, Tucker-san?" Al asked. Tucker paused.
"Well… It's… Um… Well I can't remember the name, but I'm certain it's one of the things we added previously." He grinned, and put the beaker on the table.
Tucker was about to pour in some of the liquid when suddenly, all the lights went off. He screamed in a high pitched voice and accidentally dumped all of the blue liquid into the beaker that was on the table. It started to bubble, and a purple cloud burst up from the mixture into Tucker's face. He coughed loudly.
"Tucker-san! Are you alright?!" Al asked, but Tucker was too busy screaming and waving his hands around frantically to notice.
A while passed with Tucker still screaming, and when the lights finally came back on, Al found him squatting in a corner with his arms over his head.
"Um… Tucker-san…?" Al asked, suddenly losing respect for the older man. Tucker looked up, glancing around before quickly standing up and straightening himself. He cleared his throat.
"Ok, so where was I..."
"Tucker-san?"
"Oh right, I was pouring the…"
"Tucker-san?"
"The… liquids… looks like I'll need to remake them…"
"Tucker-san?"
"Al, can you remember what we used in the previous mixture? And why does everything look so purple?"
"TUCKER-SAN!!!" Tucker jumped and looked in his direction.
"Ah, yes?" He replied, scratching his head.
"Um, your face and your glasses are purple…" Al said softly. Tucker blinked and tried looking for a mirror, but all he saw was purple. He took off his glasses and looked again, and noticed that his entire face was purple, except for the areas that his glasses had covered. He blinked, and scratched his head again.
"Hehe… Woops…"
Hehe, makes you wonder if Tucker really can complete the antidote, huh? xD
There'll be another 1 or 2 more chapters before this story comes to an end... How time flies, eh? xP