Roy Mustang wanted to stab his paperwork with his pen very hard. His slave driver of a Lieutenant had kept him overtime for 2 hours so far. The small stack of papers of finished paperwork on the floor was starting to look lonely.
"Hawkeye… can I please leave now? I'm almost done!" he moaned.
"No sir," Riza replied back sharply. "You are not almost done. You've slacked off long enough, and I'm not going to tolerate any sloppy work, so you better get on task. Or else."
Roy shivered at the thought of what "Or else" could mean. Knowing Riza, it could be anything. He gulped, and hugged his knees to his chest.
Riza drummed her fingers on the side of Roy's desk impatiently. It wasn't like she really wanted to be there in Roy's dull office, but she could end up in deep doo-doo if Roy didn't get his work finished. Avoiding her superior officer's gaze, she was glaring at a crack in the wall.
"I don't hear the sound ofa pen scratching."
"Y-yes, ma'am!" Roy stammered
Riza started to pace back and forth across the floor. Roy wasn't writing fast enough for her, and her temper was rising.
Forgetting that the finished paperwork was next to the desk, Riza stepped there and fell. She could have fallen on the desk. Or maybe even the floor. Even the window would have been fine, but Riza had to fall on Roy in a lip-locking kiss.
Maes Hughes was usually off-duty and at home at this time, but today Gracia and Elysia were out shopping. Maes figured that he could get in some extra cash (To buy new cameras and film, of course) by working overtime. Finished with his work long ago, he was roaming the halls of Military HQ, hoping to find something interesting to do. He was contenting himself by rambling on about cameras and his family.
"With the new Kodak camera, I can take even more pictures of my adorable Elysia!" Maes said happily to himself. "I can take some of her at the beach, at the store, and I'll have to do a whole roll of her and the new rocking horse I got her!"
Maes happened to pass by Roy's office, and the door was conveniently open. Grinning to himself, he peeked in to say something to his old buddy. He was caught by surprise to see Roy kissing none other than Riza Hawkeye!
His mouth wasgaping, and his eyeswere wide in a combination of suprise and shock. He pulled out a small camera from his pocket, and snapped a few pictures.
Riza scrambled off of Roy quickly, and turned to the nosy Lieutenant Colonel.
"Hughes, you are going to burn that camera or there will be a few new holes in your head," she threatened.
It wasn't the most convincing threat, because she was blushing redder than a cherry.
"Are you kidding? This is gold, I tell you!" chuckled Maes.
Roy didn't say anything. He just stared at his Lieutenant's bottom side.
Wait, when was she ever my Lieutenant? he thought. She's just an ordinary subordinate. Riza…
"Develop at your own risk."
Maes just laughed, and walked gleefully out of the room. Riza stomped after him, deciding it was now a good time to go home. Roy threw his unfinished paperwork in the garbage. He left a half an hour later just in case Riza or Maes wasn't still in the building.
The next day, both Riza and Roy came to work, dreading what might come that day. Heck, they were worried about the rest of their lives.
Riza shut her eyes in anticipation of something very embarrassing as she walked into Roy's office. She took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. Nothing unusual that she could see so far.
As she collapsed into a chair, she spotted an envelope on her desk.
"No…"
Riza quickly checked every desk within 50 feet of Roy's office and came to a disturbing conclusion.
"He made copies for every military member?"
"Yes, Colonel. You can check for yourself if you like," Riza said quietly. "I collected all of the ones I could find, but there's just too many. It's a nightmare."
Roy started to laugh. "Hughes… he probably thinks this is funny, that it's all a game. He doesn't know how bad this is going to be."
"What do you by that mean, sir?" Riza questioned.
"If word gets out –and it will- that we're kissing, then we could both be demoted quite a bit."
Riza frowned. If she and Roy got demoted, then they would be so much further from their goal. She believed that Roy could truly make a difference in the country. All of their hard work couldn't all be for naught just because of Maes and his camera.
"What are we supposed to do, then?" she asked after a long pause.
Before Roy could say anything, Maes came waltzing in with his beloved camera. He flashed a grin at Roy and Riza before sitting in Roy's personal desk chair. Roy gritted his teeth, but kept his mouth shut.
"Now that you've kissed, when can you expect the wedding to be? And how many babies are you going to churn out, 3? 7? 12?"
"We're not in the mood for games, Hughes. You got us into this mess, and you're going to figure out how to fix it," Riza growled at him.
"All right, all right… what do you want to do? I want to see you two get together so bad, it's crazy. You two were made for each other. Seriously."
Roy and Riza glanced at each other for a moment before turning back quickly. Riza realized sometimes that she had in fact felt feelings for Roy, but she just never really spent time thinking about it. Roy somehow came to the conclusion that Riza was right for him, but he'd never thought about it before.
"All right then, Hughes," began Roy. "Let's make a compromise. We'll get together if you figure out how to get us out of this mess."
Riza smiled slightly, and nodded. It was a better idea then leaving the situation to be resolved on its own.
"I think I can help you there, buddy."
Edward Elric was happily drinking some tea in the military cafeteria. His younger brother Alphonse was staring wistfully at the tea. Being a suit of armor, he couldn't enjoy the pleasures of food and drink.
"Brother, how does the tea taste?" Alphonse asked sadly.
"Hm? Oh, it's great! You know that the military is dreadful right? If you squeeze three lemon wedges and poor in a bit of milk, it's better than any tea ever!" Edward marveled at this wonderful experiment of tea.
"Oh, that's interesting, brother," Alphonse moped.
Poor Alphonse would have cried if he still had his body. But if he did have his body, then he would have been able to drink the tea! And if he had his body, he would have a headache from trying to figure out what he had just thought, but then he would be able to drink tea…
"-pper is photoshopping images like crazy!"
Alphonse snapped out of his thoughts and heard Maes going on about something or other. He shrugged, and tried to reason with himself about the advantages to having a metallic body. He could always reflect the sun into attackers' eyes.
"What's this "photoshopping" that the Lieutenant Colonel's going on about?" asked Edward.
Alphonse shrugged and glanced quickly at Edward's tea; the tea that he should have been able to drink. He sighed, and went back to his thoughts.
Maes scooted into the cafeteria, and panted. He was out of breath from running around HQ for so long.
"Have you heard?"
"About that weird "hobohopping" thing?"
Maes raised an eyebrow at Alphonse. "No, about Barry the Chopper photoshopping pictures and framing people for making them. Seriously, he blamed me for doing one!"
"That's great, but what's the photo thing?" Edward asked impatiently.
"You edit photos on a computer."
The Elric brothers stared at the Maes like he was out of his mind. That might have been true…
"What's a computer?" they asked at the same time.
"Never you mind, but just warning you, you could be next!"
Maes went out of the cafeteria, singing a silly song about peanuts and Cracker Jacks. He walked directly to Roy's office. Maes flung open the door and crossed his arms proudly.
"So did they buy it?" asked Roy unsurely.
Maes shrugged. "They were too confused."
"Well I guess you fulfilled your end of it, so it's our turn," said Roy with a goofy grin and raised eyebrows.
Riza pushed Roy off-balance so that he only stumbled in his step. "Not until after the second date," she said firmly.
"Aw, come on Riza…"
"Since when were we on a first name basis?" she asked him playfully.
"I'm going to leave you two alone then…"
Roy's grin widened. "We won't be too bad. So how about a second kiss?"
Riza paused. "I'll think about it."
