Sloth the Workaholic Part 1
Wow, this story is old... It was the original Short Story Starring Sloth. (I could use some ideas on how to finish it, if you have any.)
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"Why am I always the first person in the office in the morning?" Sloth asked herself as she unlocked the door to her office.
"Yeah, and you're always the last to leave, too," pointed out a lump on one of the couches. "Bit of a workaholic now, aren't we?"
Sloth flipped on the lights, causing the lump to groan and pull a pillow over its head. "'Morning, sir."
"Morning, Sloth," greeted her boss, the ever just-sort-of-there King Fuhrer Bradley.
Sloth winced. "Juliette, sir. Juliette."
"Yeah, yeah, that's what I said."
"Did you spend the night here again?"
"My wife kicked me out of the house."
"Um... sir? You...um, aren't married."
Bradley pondered this new development. "Then you know what I think?... I think I went to the wrong house last night."
Sloth sighed and sat down at her desk. "You were really stoned, weren't you?"
Deciding the time had come to wake up, Bradley rolled off the couch and pointed to his eye patch. "Glaucoma medication. Hey, I'm starving... does the vending machine have Doritios?"
(Hastily tacked on A/N: Never mind, guess he is married... but the existence of a character with no lines whatsoever is not enough to make me cut this scene.)
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So, Sloth went back to running the country while its supposed 'leader' bought chips for his munchies, which was usually how their day went, but today for some reason, it really bothered her. "I mean, he could at least come up with a better lie for me. I know he doesn't have a frickin' glaucoma. And he knows I know!" she complained bitterly to her typewriter.
The unannounced arrival of Roy Mustang didn't improve her mood much. It never did. He burst in, without knocking, as usual. "Yo, Jule. What up?"
"The name's Ms. Douglas, got it?" growled Sloth.
"Whatever. Hey, where's the Fuhrer? I've got a ton of reports I need to give him."
"He's in a meeting right now." (Scene cuts briefly to Bradley, trying to dislodge his Cheetos from the vending machine.) "But you can leave those with me. I'll take care of them."
"Well, make sure he gets them quick, 'k? I need them back ASAP," and without so much as a "thank you", he deposited a jumble of papers on her carefully-organized desk and walked off.
"What's that, Mustang?" Sloth muttered bitterly to herself, pulling a file out of one of her drawers and scribbling on it. "You're happy being a Colonel? Really? Well, I guess I'd better take your name off this promotions list, then."
The phone rang, and, as usual, Sloth answered in her prerecorded-message voice in hopes they would hang up. "Hello. You have reached Military Headquarters. To report a problem, please press One. To-,"
"Hey, sis." Sloth brightened a little. Only one person called her "sis", her adoptive "older brother", trusted friend, and almost-relative.
"Envy!"
"You sound happy to hear from me. You must be having a bad day."
"Yes. Horrible."
"Old Brad giving you a hard time?"
"No... actually, I haven't seen that much of him." (Scene cuts back to Bradley, now begging passers by to buy Cheetos, so as to unjam his own, but no one has change.)
"Well, with him, the less you see, the better. Anyway, have you seen Lust's anti-depressants? Because if we don't find them soon, someone's gonna die."
"Have you looked in the medicine cabinet behind the rubbing alcohol?"
"... no. Hey, thanks a lot."
"No problem. I'll talk to you later."
Sloth reached over to the receiver to hang up, then changed her mind. "Sciesca, since you're down there, could you do me a huge favor and check the fuses? Room 212's been complaining."
"Ok, ma'am... But I'm not Sciesca! Really!" said Sciesca, the little voice who lived in the phone. Sloth rolled her eyes and went back to work.
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All in all, it was quite possibly the worst day Sloth had ever had (excluding the one where she woke up in a burning house and had to scuttle out on half a leg... long story). Even lunch was a nightmare, as she forgot to bring money for take-out and was thus forced to choke down the cafeteria "Chicken" nuggets.
(Several people spotted her and pointed out that they wanted the old meat provider back, and she explained, less and less patiently each time, that if they wanted human fingers in their food, they could find somewhere else to work. This usually shut them up.)
She was just sitting down after her long and tiring lunch break when the phone rang. "Hello, you've reached Military—,"
"Sis, you've got to do something about the brat."
Sloth cradled the phone on her shoulder and reached for another law she was trying to get revised. "Fine, put him on the phone."
"I can't. I don't know where he is."
The papers dropped to the floor. "You LOST Wrath? HOW?"
"... just see if the old coot will give you the afternoon off. We need you back here." And, assuming that there could be no possible problem with an idea he, personally, had come up with, Envy hung up before she could respond.
"Gee, En, I'll see what I can do," She chirped sarcastically into the phone, getting ready to hang up. "Oh, before I forget, Sciesca, did you change that fuse like I asked?"
"Yes, ma'am," said the phone.
"Thanks. You're a lifesaver."
"Oh, you're welcome! Guess I'll see you tomorrow, then."
Sloth groaned. "Don't remind me. I never want to see another budget report as long as I live."
"Are you technically... alive?..." Sciesca started to ask, but stopped herself just in time. "Oh, you're just tired. Go home, find your kid, and get a good night's sleep. You'll feel much better in the morning."
"I suppose," the secretary sighed, completely unconvinced. "Well, I'd better go, Lord only knows what that kid's gotten himself into this time."
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One foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other... Sloth chanted to herself as she walked down the hallway. Almost home...
"Thank God! Sloth! Over here!"
Without turning towards the voice, or even turning her head, Sloth stopped dead in her tracks, shrieked, "JULIETTE!" and continued walking.
Had she bothered to look, she would have seen King Bradley with his right arm stuck up to the shoulder in the Vend-o-Matic... just inches from the Cheetos.
Ignoring the pitiful cries behind her, Sloth made it outside, where someone was having an angst session... much to her annoyance. So, she decided to put a stop to it.
Ed was wiping some tears off with his sleeve when an ominous shadow blocked out the sunlight. Trembling, he slowly raised his head...
"FullMetal! What the hell are you bitching about this time?"
Cowering away from the strange, psychotic woman, the boy gulped, "Al... er, my little brother.. He's mad at me... because... Please don't hurt me, lady! I'm an orphan!"
"Oh, yeah?" growled Sloth, clearly not impressed, "I support a family of SIX on a secretary's salary! My boss is an incompetent stoner who can't even remember my name, and I haven't had more than four hours of sleep a night for over a month! Call me when you have a real problem."
Wisely not pointing out that he hadn't called her in the first place, Ed tried to scramble away, but she grabbed him by the collar and started rubbing his nose with the corner of her jacket. "Hold still. You've got dirt on your face." Another second, and he was released, but with orders. "Now, go get some dinner! And I mean a real, full, nutritionally-balanced meal, even if you have to eat the cafeteria food! IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!"
Ed sat in stupefied silence as she walked off (muttering something along the lines of "skinny as a rail, poor kid"), wondering vaguely who the person who just assaulted him was, when she turned around suddenly just to yell, "What would your mother say?" and continue on her way.
But, to give Sloth credit, he did stop angsting.
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The house seemed deserted at first, mostly because there was no one in the kitchen and no one answered when she called out. But everybody was still around... somewhere.
Lust was sprawled out on the living room couch, a bottle of Zoloft in one hand and a martini in the other. Sloth wasn't amused.
"What have I told you about mixing meds and alcohol?" she asked. "And why aren't you looking for Wrath?"
"I'm waiting for my special 'cocktail' to kick in."
"And Envy said you were coming to look for him." Gluttony shrugged from a nearby beanbag.
"What if you had come all the way home, and we had already found him? You would have come here for absolutely nothing," pointed out Greed without opening his eyes. (He had been sleeping in an armchair.)
"And then you would have been pissed," came Envy's voice from behind Lust's couch.
Fists clenching and unclenching in annoyance, Sloth surveyed the room. "Is there a carbon monoxide leak in here or something?"
"Oh, calm down," groaned Greed. "It's not like one of us is in mortal danger."
"Hello? Wrath is MISSING!"
"So?"
"So?" Sloth repeated in exasperated disbelief. "So? So, he could be halfway to Lior by now! He could be locked in a Military Lab, Ed could be dismembering him, Izumi could be strangling him, he could be lost, he could be a captive of some religious cult, anything! Greed, I'm really not feeling your definition of 'mortal danger' right now."
"Then you'd better start looking for him," Envy noted, completely unfazed by this outburst.
"You should have been looking for him hours ago!"
"We were looking for him hours ago. We couldn't find him." Lust explained, as though talking to a rather slow four-year-old. "So we gave up and called you."
Sloth glared at her for a solid minute, and left without a word.
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Half an hour of searching later, Sloth had given up too. "Wrath! This isn't funny!" she shouted at the boy's bedroom in general, as if in hopes that one of his action figures would tell her where he was, "If you don't get your butt out here RIGHT NOW, I'm gonna make you visit Grandma!"
The little chair next to her twitched with uncertainty. That's funny. When did he get a chair in here?... oh. Of course. With a quick, sweeping motion, she removed the various pillows and stuffed animals from the seat to reveal a little face half-embedded in the back. "Not. Funny."
Wrath giggled. "Yes it is." Sloth glared at him. "You wouldn't really make me talk to Grandma, would you?"
"If you aren't out of that chair by the time I count to five, you'll find out."
"But, you hate Granny. Plus, she's, like, demented."
"One."
"Look what I can do!" The WrathChair yelled, doing a little jig.
"Two."
"Angry Mommy came in here about five times looking for me, it was great."
"Three. I mean it, Wrath, I'm missing work for this... Four."
"Fine," muttered the chair, transforming back into a little boy sitting on an inanimate piece of furniture.
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Having found Wrath, Sloth could have returned to the office, and indeed, under normal circumstances, she probably would have... But for some reason, today was different.
The others had scattered away from the living room, so she stretched out on the couch formerly claimed by Lust, not even bothering to kick off her "sensible" (ha!) work heels.
"I was sitting there," Lust informed her, settling on the armchair instead with a tub of cake icing.
"You know what we are, Lust?" Sloth sighed, ignoring this comment, "pathetic."
"You just now realized? No soul, no name, no life..."
"No, not ALL of us. Just us girls. We are so losing the battle of the sexes here. I mean, look at the guys! They all do what they're supposed to. Greed is greedy, Envy is envious, Pride is proud, Wrath is wrathful, Gluttony is... um..."
"Gluttonous?" Lust suggested, digging another fingernail full of frosting out of her tub.
"Is that a word?"
"I think so. Anyway, what were you saying?"
"So... they're all what they're supposed to be, and we're pathetic! I'm Sloth, I have a job, I practically run the country, even, and you're Lust the pure little virgin." Sloth snorted. "We should have traded places. You are really lazy."
"And you're a whore," Lust added, rather attracted to the idea.
"If you weren't all the way over there, I'd hit you," Sloth growled.
"What? We all know. If you spent all that time at the office working like you say you are... well, the country would be in much better shape, hmm?"
"I am doing work!"
"Oh, is that his name?"
Fuming silently, Sloth closed her eyes. "Well, from here on out, I'm living up to my name. Sloth is taking a nap."
"Good luck with that," Lust rolled her eyes and took her frosting elsewhere.
Sloth tried to sleep... but she realized that she was working out a new tax policy in her head instead of counting sheep, so she opened her eyes. Hmm... that picture on the wall is crooked... maybe I could just... NO! She caught herself just in time. My, but it isn't easy being lazy... this room is getting really dirty. It wouldn't hurt to dust a little, would it?... Ah! No! Must. Not. Work.
She did manage to fall asleep, twitching from the dreams she was having, involving evil vacuum cleaners, angry Military troops, and little kids with really sticky fingers and muddy boots. "No...off the carpet," she muttered in her sleep as Envy walked by, Lust having informed him of his "little sister's" new ambition.
"Going through withdrawal?" he asked, shaking her awake.
"Shut up."
"I always told you you were a workaholic. You don't even know how to take a nap!"
"... don't you just...sleep?"
Envy grinned. "It's traditional to take your shoes off first."
"Oh... no wonder my feet hurt." Well aware of the greatly amused Envy watching her, Sloth pulled off her shoes. "Hey... this does feel better... God, my feet itch. What? Can't a girl scratch her toes?" she snapped at Envy's puzzled smile.
"Do you know you're missing two toes on your left foot?"
"Yeah, I was created without them. She lost them in a lawnmower accident when she was little."
Envy kept grinning. "So, that makes you a..."
Sloth winced. "Don't say it."
"Makes you a..."
"Don't. Say. It."
"A..."
"Three-Toed Sloth!" cheered Greed, walking through at exactly the right moment. Sloth buried her head in her hands out of disgust for the pun. "Hey, Slothy? Is dinner ready yet?"
"NO! Dinner is not ready yet! Why don't you people learn to cook for yourselves? You're how old? 190? 250? 400? Can't you get your own food by now?"
Greed turned to Envy for the explanation of this outburst from the usually-serene Sloth, but the other Sin just shrugged.
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When Sloth next opened her eyes, she was surrounded by the other Sins.
"Sloth, honey," Lust patted her arm, biting back a mocking grin, "We were a little worried about you, so we,"
"By which she means me," Envy butted in.
"Actually, she means me," Greed added.
"When I say we, I mean all of us," Lust snapped, "called up a doctor, and he says it sounds like you're having an emotional breakdown caused by too much stress, and he recommended that you take a day or two off from working, which includes your job, housework, cooking, and plotting anything to do with souls, alchemy, or the Elric brothers."
Sloth had winced as each banned activity passed Lust's lips. "But... what am I supposed to do?"
"Get really comfy." Envy suggested. "Do you want me to get you a pillow or anything?"
"Yeah, we're going to order some pizza for dinner, what kind of toppings do you want?" Lust asked.
Hey, everyone's fussing over me... Sloth thought. Nice. "I'm just going to go to sleep."
Gluttony nodded. "He said she'd be tired," he told Lust as though she didn't know.
"G'night, Mommy!" Wrath warbled, hugging her. "Get well soon!"
"I'll try, baby. Don't forget to brush your teeth."
"I won't." the boy promised.
"And don't stay up too late, ok?" Wrath shook his head. "That's my boy."
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A brief interval for those of you who are wondering what happened to King Fuhrer Bradley:
After Sloth abandoned him on her way home, Bradley gave up all hope of being rescued. Fortunately, he had forgotten how popular vending machine food was on Chicken Nugget day.
"Sir, what are you doing?"
"I'm gnawing my arm off," he told the mysterious voice. (He couldn't really see who it belonged to, thanks to his blind spot.) "And I'm not getting very far. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm almost through my shirt sleeve."
"Do you want some help?"
"That would be nice," the indisposed despot admitted. "... Um... who are you?"
"Who am I? Who am I? I am Alex Louis..." Brad winced. Because he had just recognized the voice. God, anybody but Armstrong...
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