34. Telephone
Anime/Manga spoiler! Episode 25/Chapter 15 (same event)
For realz, I don't own FMA. Must we go over this?
He didn't like the idea of telephone booths. Too many memories and too many fears. He couldn't walk past one, even so many years later, without a gruesome, vivid image of Maes Hughes' dead body lying slouched in one. Even now, the sight of a telephone booth could turn his stomach. And from the day of Brigadier General Hughes' death forward, his stomach tied itself into knots when he received a telephone call from an outside like.
"Colonel Mustang, First Lieutenant Hawkeye is on the telephone, calling from an out—"
"Put her through," Mustang spat, his fingers tightening around the receiver.
"Hello sir." For a woman who could be in very real danger, Lieutenant Hawkeye sounded deceptively calm.
The sound of her voice was an immediate relief. His stomach warily untangled itself, and he let out an audible sigh. He heard her readjust the receiver of the phone, as though she were holding something.
"I'm sorry to phone from a public line," the way she spoke was apologetic. As though she knew without seeing how tense, how unnerved he was.
"It's fine," he replied stiffly. "Is everything all right?" He wanted frivolities out of the way.
She could hear the panic in his voice. "I'm fine, sir…"
"What's the occasion, then, calling on your day off?" Mustang regretted how aggravated the comment sounded but he couldn't quite shake the nerves from his system.
She smiled, crossing her free arm and glancing behind her to the street. "I was wondering if you would be so kind to join me for lunch, sir. You can't possibly want to celebrate your whole birthday stuck indoors."
So...this wasn't supposed to end up quite as fluffy as it did. In fact, the original idea was to have a nightmare scene of Roy finding Riza dead the same way Hughes was...this happened instead.
Oh well, fluff is good on occassion. Yaays!