Late Night Rendezvous
"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate."
~Linda Grayson
It had been a very long day, to judge by the dark circles under Major Roy Mustang's eyes. His face was pale and drawn, but he looked faintly cheerful as he nodded a greeting to a small group of soldiers walking in the opposite direction. Unslinging the rifle strapped across his back, he propped it up against a water barrel before leaning down to splash the lukewarm water on his face. Face dripping, he sighed and stared down into the depths of the barrel.
Behind him, a shadow among shadows moved, swift and silent. Distant torchlight glinted on a twisted metal blade, and Roy just had time to look up in surprise before the knife was buried up to its hilt in his back. His startled cry was muffled by the heavy hand that clamped over his mouth, and his blood splashed across the sand as the shadowy figure carefully lowered his body to the ground. The hooded man slipped back into the shadows, leaving Roy choking and struggling for air as his own blood filled his lungs. His erratic movements grew slower and then ceased altogether as the life drained from his eyes.
No. NO!
Hawkeye jerked violently awake with a strangled cry. Just a dream, she told herself. Oh god, no matter how vivid it had been, how real, it was just a dream. Heart still thundering in her chest, she took a slow, shuddering breath and brushed a hand over her damp face.
It was only then that she realized she was not alone.
"Catalina!" she gasped. The other girl was half-sitting on the edge of her bed and leaning over her, looking concerned.
"Hi. You okay?" she asked, in an uncharacteristically gentle voice. Hawkeye flinched at the pity in her tone.
"Bad dream," she explained unnecessarily.
"Wanna talk about it?" Rebecca offered.
"Not really," Hawkeye managed, even as a chill ran down her spine. Rebecca nodded but didn't move out of her friend's personal space. It took Riza another few seconds to demand: "What are you doing here? And why are you looming over me?"
Catalina rocked back and settled more comfortably on the bed as Hawkeye sat up and self-consciously tugged her rumpled nightclothes into place. From where she was sitting, the other girl wasn't able see her back, but Hawkeye still felt vulnerable wearing just a loose tank top. And here she thought she'd be safe in her single room, without a roommate's prying eyes to contend with. Damn this early summer heat.
"I couldn't sleep," Catalina was saying. "So I decided to come and see if you were still awake. And you weren't, but I could hear you thrashing about and muttering from the hallway, so I thought it might be better to wake you up after all."
"Thanks, I think," she murmured, embarrassed. I really need to get a lock for that door, regulations or no, she thought.
"So, now that you're up, too," Rebecca chirped cheerfully, "do you wanna make s'mores?"
"It's...one fifteen in the morning," Hawkeye retorted, after a quick glance at her clock. "And what on earth are 's'mores?'" Rebecca smirked.
"I figured you hadn't tried them before. Never been camping, right?" Hawkeye rolled her eyes.
"No, the poor little orphaned country mouse has never been camping. Let me guess—I've been missing out on a time-honored tradition all these years?"
"Yes!" Rebecca insisted. "Camping's not just some dull civilian pastime; there's a lot more to it! Like…like sitting around a campfire late at night, telling ghost stories and roasting weenies and making s'mores, and snuggling up in sleeping bags under the stars, and—and enjoying the great outdoors! Yeah, okay, I'll give you that last one," she admitted when Riza just raised an eyebrow.
"I had a forest practically growing in my backyard," she grumbled. "So why on earth would I need to spend more time in 'the great outdoors?' And why would I want to sleep on the ground, under a blanket propped on poles, when I had a nice, soft bed waiting for me?"
"Would've prepared you better for the soldier's life if you had," Rebecca sniggered. "How'd that survival training go, again?" Riza groaned and slumped back down on her pillows.
"Go away, Catalina," she said. Rebecca simply flopped down next to her, rolled onto her side and stared steadily at her friend. Finally Hawkeye turned her head to glare at her.
"I'll only go away after you make s'mores with me," Rebecca said obstinately, unaffected. Hawkeye glowered at her. Rebecca glowered back. Finally Hawkeye sighed, knowing when she was beaten.
"Oh for pity's sake," she grumbled, sitting up again. "You're lucky I don't have a roommate, you know that?" Unfazed, Rebecca bounced to her feet and reached for the bag she'd brought with her.
"No, YOU'RE lucky you don't have a roommate. How'd a freshman like you manage to swing a single room, anyway? I've been meaning to ask."
"I'm sure I don't know," Riza said wearily, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Well that wasn't entirely true. She had a sneaking suspicion that her absentee grandfather was involved somehow, but she didn't have any way to confirm that for certain, so she wasn't really lying. "So…what is all that stuff?" she added, gesturing to the bag in her friend's hands.
"Marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers," Rebecca said happily as she took each item out of the bag and set them on Hawkeye's desk. When Riza simply looked blank, Rebecca hastened to explain. "See, you roast the marshmallows over a campfire until they're all soft and gooey on the inside and just a little bit brown on the outside, and then you smash them in between the crackers with a bit of the chocolate, which melts a little from the heat of the marshmallow. And voila! S'mores!"
"We are not lighting a fire in here, Rebecca," Riza stated firmly, folding her arms over her chest. Her friend snorted.
"Well of bloody course not. What kind of idiot do you take me for? Don't answer that," she added quickly when she saw Riza's lips curve upwards. "We're gonna improvise. You've got a hotplate somewhere in here, don't you?"
"Mmhm, top shelf in the closet," she replied. The second Rebecca's back was turned, Hawkeye rose and reached for the sweatshirt she'd left draped over the back of her desk chair. Feeling a lot more secure once she'd pulled it on and thus safely hidden her tattoo from Rebecca's observant eyes, she then set about clearing papers to one side of her desk so that they'd have a place to assemble their treats.
"All right, here we go," Rebecca said cheerfully, bending down to plug the hotplate in. "We can use these forks I borrowed from the mess hall to hold the marshmallows over the heat of the hot plate. Might take a bit longer, but it should still work."
"Um, Rebecca? You don't see any problems with that arrangement?" Riza asked, amused. Her friend blinked at her. "Remember how metal conducts heat? Especially these cheap utensils."
"Oh crap," Rebecca muttered, face falling. "I didn't even think about that. I don't suppose you have any wire hangers in there, do you?"
"Nope. But I have another idea," Riza said, bending down to rummage in one of her drawers. She emerged with a pair of socks, and unfolding them, tossed one to Rebecca.
"Seriously?" Rebecca said incredulously. Riza shrugged.
"This was your harebrained scheme in the first place. You couldn't have 'borrowed' a couple of oven mitts while you were pillaging the mess hall?" Rebecca giggled.
"I'll remember for next time. Now come on!"
Arranging the hotplate in the middle of the floor, Rebecca plopped down cross-legged in front of it and stuck her 'roasting fork' out over it with a look of intense concentration on her pretty face. Riza hesitated for just a second before following her lead and self-consciously settling herself on the opposite side of the hotplate. The strangeness of the whole early morning visit was still sinking in.
"You're a little bit crazy, you know that?" Hawkeye finally said, fondness seeping into her tone. Rebecca grinned.
"Aw, but that's why you like me. I keep things interesting," she retorted. "Come on, when's the last time you did something like this?"
"Roasted marshmallows over a hotplate on the floor of a dorm room just shy of oh-two-hundred? I can honestly say never," Riza chuckled in reply.
"Come on, you never stayed up late with your friends, talking about boys and braiding each other's hair? Painting your toenails and all that?"
"What, you mean slumber party sort of things? No, not exactly," she said thoughtfully, slowly twirling her own fork above the hotplate. Although...now that she thought about it, there had been all those late nights with Roy. They'd certainly stayed up until the small hours of the morning plenty of times, caught up in studying or talking or just enjoying each other's company. But she was fairly certain that code breaking, nightmares, astronomy, and the merits of Drachman fiction were probably not the sort of subjects most teenage girls would want to discuss at a sleepover.
"Hm, I'm beginning to recall something about your having a deprived childhood," Rebecca said, staring fixedly at her. "So you really never did the slumber party thing, then?"
"Nope. Small town? Home schooled? No girl friends?"
"Something else you missed out on," Rebecca sighed. "I'd offer to braid your hair, but..."
"But that would be an exercise in futility," Riza laughed, running her free hand through her short locks.
"I don't suppose you'd let me paint your nails, then?" Rebecca asked.
"You don't suppose correctly," Riza retorted. "And the last time I checked, nail polish is against dress code." Rebecca wriggled her own painted toes with a mischievous grin.
"Who's gonna see 'em? We're always wearing boots for inspections. What are they gonna do, have everyone stand out there barefoot one day, or follow us into the showers or something, just to make sure no one's got Harlot Scarlet or Berry Naughty on her toenails?
"All the same, I'd rather not risk it," Hawkeye said wryly. "Are those real color names?"
"I've got Pink-a-Boo on right now," Rebecca giggled. "I don't know who comes up with this stuff."
"Well you certainly have no room to complain, since you bought it even after seeing what it was called," Riza teased. "Hey, are they supposed to look like this?" she added doubtfully, poking at the inflated white blob on the end of her fork.
"More or less," Rebecca confirmed. "It's better with an open flame, cuz the outside gets all brown and crispy. But beggars can't be choosers. At least they're getting melty. Here," she said, popping up.
She passed Riza a graham cracker with a piece of chocolate on it before assembling her own. In spite of the mess of crumbs and melted marshmallow that wound up all over their faces and fingers, Riza had to admit that this s'mores thing tasted pretty damn good. As she licked the last of the gooey sugar from her forefinger, thinking about a certain late night tea party she'd once had, Riza froze.
There were footsteps echoing down the corridor.
"Shit," Rebecca whispered, stiffening as she heard them too.
"Under the bed, quick," Riza instructed, unplugging the hotplate and shoving it against the wall under her desk. Rebecca scrambled to obey while Riza quickly opened books and papers to spread out over the open packages of chocolate and marshmallows still strewn across her desk. She dropped into her desk chair just as the door handle turned.
"Cadet Hawkeye, what are you doing up at this hour?" a stern female voice asked. Feigning surprise, Hawkeye leaped to her feet and hastily saluted the older woman.
"Lieutenant Colonel Weston, ma'am!" she gasped.
"At ease, cadet," the grey-haired woman said. "Lights out was four hours ago, young lady," she added, folding her arms and clearly expecting a plausible explanation.
"Forgive me, ma'am. I-I woke up and couldn't fall back to sleep. So I thought I might as well get some reading done, since I was up anyway," she stammered quickly. The nervousness wasn't all an act, and she prayed that there were no tell-tale crumbs on her face. But her superior just chuckled quietly at her.
"If you're really reading the early history of the Xingese Dynasty, then I suspect your plan may work," she said lightly, glancing at the pile of books. "However, it is past lights out. And I cannot make exceptions, even for my most diligent students. So I must ask you to extinguish the lights, now, and get back into bed. Perhaps you could try counting sheep, instead," she added, not unkindly.
"Yes, ma'am, I understand. And I'm sorry; it won't happen again." The older woman waved her apology off.
"Just make sure your light is off by the time I pass back this way, cadet. Good night," she said, and closed Riza's door behind her with a soft click. Riza held her breath as the footsteps moved off down the hallway.
"Man, that was close," Rebecca breathed, wriggling out from under the bed. "Just my luck that the harpy had to pee in the middle of the night. Normally she sleeps like the dead!"
"Won't she notice you aren't in your room?" Hawkeye asked, bending down to retrieve the still-warm appliance from under her desk. Rebecca began stuffing the leftover s'more ingredients into the bag she'd brought them in.
"Nah, she never does bed checks. She saw your light on, that's all." To Riza's amusement, Rebecca stuffed the bag of sweets into Riza's closet under a pile of soft grey standard issue gym shorts. Noting Riza's raised eyebrow, Rebecca just shrugged. "What? No one would ever search your room for contraband sweets. That old battle ax adores you. Crotchety old thing has never used that motherly tone on any of us, that's for damn sure."
"Maybe because you call her a harpy and an old battle ax?" Hawkeye suggested mildly.
"Oh for...all right, fine, you may have a point," Rebecca huffed.
"We're just lucky she didn't come by five minutes sooner," Riza said with a grimace. "Suppose she'd walked in when we were still roasting the damn things?"
"Think we could have gotten off if we asked her to join our impromptu slumber party?" Rebecca asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Only if you offered to braid her hair," Riza shot back. And then both girls broke down into hysterical giggles, shushing and elbowing each other in an effort to stifle the noise.
Remembering that Lt. Colonel Weston would be passing by again soon, Riza finally shoved Rebecca towards the bed and flicked out her lamp. They huddled together in the center of the bed in the darkness, straining to hear and still occasionally shaking with silent giggles. After what felt like an age, the slow, heavy footfalls of the Lt. Colonel approached at last. Her steps slowed as she approached Riza's door and then stopped as if the woman was debating opening the door again. Rebecca threaded her arm through Riza's and the two girls clutched at each other, excited and slightly afraid of what would happen if they were caught.
Finally the older woman made up her mind, and the two cadets listened with racing hearts as she moved away from the door and back towards her own quarters.
"That," Rebecca whispered, slightly breathlessly. "That was even better than a ghost story by a campfire."
"I'll have to take your word for it," Riza whispered back. "That was completely insane!"
"I know, wasn't it great?"
"You madwoman, what would we have done if she'd opened the door again?" Riza asked, although she was giggling again.
"We would have figured something out," Rebecca said loftily. "I was debating between 'I was sleepwalking and wandered into the wrong room,' and 'I had a horrible nightmare and Riza's the only one who likes me enough to pet my head before sending me back to my dorm.' That one would have had tears."
"It might have worked if you'd thrown yourself at her and wept on her shoulder," Riza mused. "Hey, don't get comfy. You should go soon," she added as Rebecca wormed her way under the comforter.
"But my room is so far away," she mumbled, shifting over so Riza had room to lie down. "And this way, if you have another bad dream, I can wake you."
"You're going to get us both in trouble," Riza protested halfheartedly, fighting a smile.
"Shh," Rebecca said, nuzzling her face into Riza's pillow. "Sleepy now."
She kept her eyes closed for a few seconds longer before carefully opening one eye to see whether Riza was buying her act. Catching her peeking, Riza couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. Which led to another lengthy bout of barely restrained giggles as well as a brief fight over the single pillow.
"Fair warning," Riza murmured sleepily, as the girls finally began to settle down again. "If someone catches us, I'll disavow any knowledge of your actions."
"See? You're getting the hang of the cutthroat rules of a slumber party after all," Rebecca chuckled.
"Sweet dreams, Rebecca," Riza whispered, as her eyes drifted closed. And you, too, Mr. Mustang. Please don't die.
A.N. So I've never actually attempted to make s'mores over a hotplate, but I have utilized an electric range. Which works, though it's not ideal. It's okay. I'm judging me, too.
;)
xoxo Janie