Things to read before you read: I pronounce myself sovereign owner of all reviews for this story. :be's communist:
My apologies to Charles Schultz.
His Holiness Pope Benedict VI declares this story disclaimed.
Colonel Roy Mustang's Observations. Subject: Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist.
Monday, October 12th – Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, is short.
Subject A's allergy symptoms are beginning to subside. This is good. Roy Mustang was starting to entertain thoughts of homicide.
One of Subject A's aforementioned distinctive features is his size, which is certainly nothing spectacular. At the age of seventeen, Subject A stands at a less-than-stellar height of four feet and ten inches. Regardless of popular opinion, he has grown. The conversation is preserved here for Roy Mustang's amusement.
"Fullmetal," Roy Mustang says, signing an order form for pens (1), "Go into the filing cabinet, top drawer, and get me the folder in the back."
"I'm not your secretary." Subject A mutters sourly, folding his arms over his chest.
"That was an order."
Subject A childishly sticks out his tongue and treks across the room. Roy Mustang watches the scene play out.
Subject A stands on tiptoes, reaching up towards the handle of the top drawer. His fingers graze the metal but he cannot grab on. Roy Mustang snickers. Subject A jumps and still can't reach. Now clearly irritated, Subject A grabs a box of books that has been gathering dust in the corner for weeks and climbs up on it. Success! He opens the drawer, and discovers he is unable to reach the back folder.
"Would you like some help, Fullmetal?"
"NO!" Subject A grunts, again on tiptoes in an attempt to retrieve the requested folder. "I – can – get – it!"
"Mmm." Roy Mustang mmms, smirking when the Subject turns back to look at him. "Forget it, I'll get it myself." He stands, reaches over Subject A, and plucks the folder from the drawer. "Face it, Fullmetal," he says, walking back to his desk, "You're short."
As expected, Subject A explodes. "I AM NOT SHORT, DAMN IT!"
"Have you even grown since you joined the military?"
"Yes! I grew an inch and a half!" Subject A looks triumphant.
"Hm." Roy Mustang taps his chin. "You were... what, four eight when you were twelve? That'd make you four nine and a half now. Sorry, kiddo, but you're still short."
"I'M FOUR TEN!" Subject A screeches, face red, eye twitching slightly. He spins around, kicks the filing cabinet (2), and stomps out in a fury.
Clearly, Subject A is extremely sensitive about his height (or lack thereof) and will unleash his violent temper on anyone who dares mention it in his presence.
At 8:55 am, Roy Mustang once again skims the newspaper, shaking his head at the state of the country and thinking how much better things would be if he was in charge, when Subject A tromps out of the kitchen. For once in his life he is wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of leather. "You need to go shopping." He advises. "There's no food. At all. The only things I could find in your fridge were a carton of milk-" Subject A visibly shudders, much to Roy Mustang's enjoyment, "and something that's oozing all over the bottom shelf. It smells pretty bad, too."
"I see." Roy Mustang responds, chuckling to himself as Lucky yet again pulls the ball away before Charlie Blue can kick it. (3)
"...Well?" Subject A taps his foot impatiently.
"I'll get around to it."
"But I'm hungryyyy." The Subject continues to whine. Roy Mustang establishes his maturity and ignores him. Subject A sticks his head in front of the paper. "There's no food." He repeats. When Roy Mustang calmly turns the page and reads around his rather small head, Subject A growls, and proceeds to wriggle under Roy Mustang's arm until he is planted firmly in his lap. Roy Mustang raises a well-shaped eyebrow. "I'm not moving until there's food." Subject A tells him, statement punctuated by his growling stomach.
As he does not want to have a hungry and temperamental seventeen year old with the ability to transmute his soul to a blender or something equally useless in his lap all day, Roy Mustang charitably decides to go to the grocery store. He's kind of hungry too.
At approximately 11:59 am, disaster strikes.
"Aw, what a cute little boy you are!" Roy Mustang hears this exclamation from behind him, and suddenly there is a very elderly, very wrinkly, very excitable senior citizen (who will subsequently be known as 'Victim S') up in his face. "Is he yours? He's so adorable! How old is he?"
Subject A's eye is twitching.
Victim S does not recognize the signs of impending explosion. Roy Mustang backs up a few steps, bumping into his cart. The girl bagging his groceries swears at him in Xingian as the wheel meets her toes.
Victim S turns around to face Subject A. "You're just the cutest thing!" she coos. "How old are you? Come on, you can tell me, don't be shy... how old? Ten? Eleven?"
The mushroom cloud goes up. "WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT HE COULD STILL FIT IN THE BABY SEAT IN A SHOPPING CART!"
Roy Mustang is put on damage control. He thrusts his money into the cashier's hand, grabs Subject A by the back of his shirt, and drags the boy kicking and screaming and foaming at the mouth (4) out the doors. "Fullmetal! Shut up! That's an order!"
"SHE TOLD ME I LOOKED LIKE A LITTLE KID!" Subject A screeches. Pedestrians look over curiously and then scurry away. Roy Mustang grabs a lollypop from the cart, rips off the wrapper, and shoves it in Subject A's open mouth.
"Quiet. Eat."
"No!" Subject A pulls the lollypop out of his mouth, blinks at it, licks the little green sphere slowly, then grins. "It tastes like apples."
"Good. Eat it and shut up."
Roy Mustang has gained a valuable piece of knowledge. Green apple lollypops shut Subject A's big mouth.
They eat chicken for dinner. Roy Mustang is exhausted, having spent two hours on the phone with Victim S's lawyer, trying to convince him that it was not his fault one of the Victim's eardrums was broken and no one needed to be sued.
Roy Mustang falls asleep on the couch. When he wakes, Subject A is sprawled across the sofa, feet on Roy Mustang's flat, nicely muscled stomach. There is a permanent marker in his hand. Not wanting to know, he picks up Subject A and dumps him unceremoniously on the bed for the second night in a row.
Subject A falls off, thudding to the floor and snoring softly. Roy Mustang leaves him there. He's had enough trouble for the day.
(1) This order form is now worth quite a bit of money, now that Roy Mustang has put his signature on it. No, he does not do autographs. Well, usually.
(2) Thankfully, after an extensive inspection, the filing cabinet was declared unharmed.
(3) The comic strip 'Walnuts' is © Charles Schmutz.
(4) Roy Mustang suspects rabies.
Seriously, the amount of footnotes is increasing every chapter. By the last chapter, they're going to be longer than the story.
Review, or I shall smite thee.