Author's Note: This oneshot is dedicated to my friend Tina as a birthday present. Happy Birthday Tina! I hope you got everything you wished for including Edward Elric XD.
It was a cold, rainy, and miserable day, and unfortunately for Mustang and his subordinates, Ed was in the office. Usually they would enjoy the teenager's company, as he was not only a good laugh but someone to laugh at, but unfortunately the newly turned thirteen year old was having one of those sulky teenage strops which left them all wishing they were anywhere else but in the safe, warm, dry office.
"Fullmetal," Mustang barked, finally losing patience with Edward's moaning and snapping. "I have a mission for you."
"Joy," Edward muttered sarcastically.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, nothing," Edward grumbled as he shuffled to Mustang's desk with great reluctance. "What is it you want me to do?"
Mustang thrusted a piece of paper into the boy's face. "I need you to retrieve every item on this list before 1700, and if you are one minute late, I will make you do all my paper work for the rest of the week.
"Tch," Edward grunted as he snatched the list from Mustang, "You're just being lazy again, let's see, juice, cake, bread, ready-made sushi packs, instant ramen…What the fuck? This is a grocery list!" he yelped. "Why the fuck am I doing your groceries?!"
"Quite frankly I am tired of you making a nuisance of yourself simply because the library has nothing new to offer on your situation," Mustang said calmly which seemed only to further infuriate the teenage brat in front of him, "and unfortunately there is no mission I can give you that is suitable for your age."
Unfortunately for poor Al, who had stepped outside to play with Black Hayate until the rain really started to pour, he had entered the room just in time to catch the last of Mustang's sentence and the full blast of Edward's rage. "WHO ARE YOU CALLING A BRAT THAT IS SO SHRIMP-SIZED HE NEEDS A STOOL JUST TO REACH THE TOLIET?!"
"Brother," Al sweat-dropped, "he didn't say that at all."
Mustang repressed the urge to hit something, preferably Fullmetal, in favour of making his case to the more reasonable, polite, and quite frankly better behaved, Elric brother. "Al, I have set a simply task for Fullmetal, I hope you can ensure he completes it and returns by 1700."
"Yes sir," Al said respectably. Did Mustang mention Al was his favourite Elric brother? No explosive anger, no whinging, no scowling, no sarcasm, just a simple, polite, 'yes sir'. It was so refreshing. "Come on Ed," Al tugged at his brother's arm lightly, "If we go now we could probably have some time for a sparring match or something."
"Yeah, yeah," Edward muttered.
Mustang waited until Fullmetal was not only out of the room, and the door firmly shut behind him, but down the corridor and hopefully out of earshot, before he sighed. He felt exhausted and it wasn't even ten in the morning yet! "Well that's the first mission of the day completed," he said with false cheer.
"Well done, sir," Hawkeye praised him stiffly. "Have you fulfilled your other mission?"
Mustang immediately wanted to bang his head repeatedly against the desk. His other mission was the most impossible task in the world. What the hell was he supposed to do?!
"No," he said reluctantly.
"Colonel," Hawkeye growled warningly.
"I don't know why I should bother!" Mustang snapped. "It can easily be viewed as favouritism; I never brought my subordinates birthday presents before, so why should I start now?"
"Because if you dare buy Edward an alcoholic beverage I will follow through with my vow and shoot you in the head."
"What am I supposed to get a thirteen year old?" Mustang whined childishly.
"Porn?"
It was not unexpected, that after such an atrocious suggestion, Hawkeye immediately pulled out her gun to shoot Havoc….no the surprise was that he managed to escape the room alive and body parts intact.
FMAFMAFMAFMA
Mustang was beyond irritated and well into 'very pissed off' as he marched through the very wet streets of East City. He told the boy to come back at 1700 that mean five o'clock in the evening not never come back. It was now half seven in the evening, and with it being winter, it was already pitch black as if it was the middle of the night, and there was still no sign of Edward and Al returning.
I swear they do this just to annoy me, Mustang thought darkly to himself, after all it would be just like Fullmetal to be hiding somewhere and sniggering at his oh so clever wit.
To be honest he probably wouldn't have minded if it hadn't been for Hughes and Armstrong. The two infuriating men had crashed his office, decorated to make it look like a party for a five year old, all those balloons and streamers….it's enough to make you shudder! And then they wouldn't stop nagging at him three hours before the party was supposed to start. How the hell was he supposed to do his dreaded paperwork with that in his ear? Then, of course, Hughes had to shove photo after photo of his wife and child under Mustang's nose while dropping hint after hint that Mustang should marry as well.
Why was this man his best friend again?
He sighed and was about to give up, go in a bar, and hope Hawkeye would be too distracted in the morning to kill him, when Fullmetal and Al came barrelling down the street pursued by a gang.
Pursued. By. A. Gang.
And not just by any gang, oh no that would just be easy, it had to be a drug dealing gang that Mustang had been covertly investigating with his team. "What the hell?!" he snarled. "Do you just like making my life difficult, Fullmetal?!"
"Oh yeah," Edward sneered as he panted to get his breath back, "that was what I was thinking when I accidentally bumped into these arseholes and pissed them off, this will really annoy Colonel, because you know, that's all I think about."
He then clapped his hands and changed the road into a large muddy stone wall. "It seems like it!" Mustang snapped. "All I wanted you to do was get some food, how the fuck did you manage to piss this lot off?" Edward muttered something under his breath. "Huh?" Mustang said loudly and incredibly patronising. The best way to irritate Fullmetal. "Can you repeat that? I didn't quite catch it."
"I said," Edward hissed between gritted teeth, "that they were making fun of my height."
Mustang face palmed at that. Seriously he did. Of all the things….! "All right, I'll clean up your mess-"
"MY MESS?!" Edward roared. "I DIDN'T DO THIS ON PURPOSE YOU POWER HUNGRY BASTARD!"
"Brother!" Al scolded.
"I'm fairly certain you did," Mustang muttered, "yes, clean up your mess," he repeated much louder, "after you tell me what you've done with my shopping."
Because lord knows Hawkeye would kill him if there was no birthday cake for Fullmetal. And then Hughes will annoy him, and Armstrong would weep and sparkle, and the others…well they would just be useless.
"IS THAT ALL YOU CARE ABOUT?!"
"Yes," Mustang deadpanned.
"Bastard," Edward hissed.
"I have the shopping right here, sir," Al said sweetly as he opened the door of his armour's stomach to reveal several bags, "we thought it was best to keep them dry from the rain."
"Good work, Alphonse," Mustang praised the younger Elric brother, "now then, let me deal with this trash and we'll go back and tackle that paperwork Fullmetal has just caused."
"Why you little-"
"Stand aside, boys," Mustang strolled around the wall Edward had created with great confidence, and stretched his hands out, cracking his knuckles, and preparing to snap his fingers to create his flame alchemy in order to scare away this gang, "let someone better qualified to deal with this," he smirked.
"Wait, Colonel!" Al gasped. "It's raining!"
It was when Mustang snapped his fingers and nothing happened he realised what Al had meant…oh crap baskets!
FMAFMAFMAFMA
Mustang hasn't been to many surprise birthday parties but he is fairly certain that they weren't usually held in hospital. Actually he was definitely certain and he also knew the hospital didn't allow visitors past eight so how Hughes managed to set up the balloons and the food, and play music fairly loudly, he doesn't know….no wait, he does, that mad family man must have scared everyone off by shoving photos of his wife and daughter in their faces. They were lucky it was just an overnight observation to ensure neither Mustang nor Fullmetal had a concussion, thankfully Hawkeye came in the nip of time to rescue the pair…not that it was much of a rescue with the scolding she gave them.
Fullmetal seemed to be enjoying himself as he sat up against his brother, laughing at Breda, ignoring Hughes (good boy, he can't help but think approvingly), and opening his presents. They weren't great but Mustang was pleased to say his fine leather notebook for Edward's alchemy notes he purchased during his lunch break was far better received than the men's collection of dirty magazines, alcohol, and cigarettes (you can tell who brought what).
Havoc, Farman, and Breda had to leave early due to some dislocating of bones that his lovely Lieutenant deemed to be their just deserts. Fullmetal seemed to enjoy it as entertainment much to their righteous indignation.
"We're not letting them buy Edward a present ever again," she said firmly, "Or Alphonse. Poor Edward was embarrassed," poor Edward? What world did Hawkeye live in to think that? That kid wasn't a poor little innocent thing, he was a monstrous brat! "But Alphonse may just implode of humiliation if they try to give him something like that."
"True," Mustang grunted in agreement. Poor Alphonse was definitely innocent in his books and he often wondered how such a naïve and sweet child could be related to his demon brat from hell. "Perhaps we should just stop this birthday nonsense once and for all," he suggested hopefully as he picked disgustedly at the cake slice that had been put in front of him. Honestly who wanted such sickeningly sweet icing?
Hawkeye merely glowered at him. "You just don't want to buy another present, do you?" she accused him.
"Guilty," he admitted.
"Colonel-"
Whatever threat Hawkeye had been about to administer to him was thankfully cut off by a soft snore. They both turned to find that Edward had nodded off to sleep midway through his own party. How ungrateful!
"How cute!" Hughes cooed evilly. He had a horrible smirk that Mustang was very familiar with, it was his get married soon Roy, smirk, his look at my photos, smirk. Which meant nothing good for Fullmetal. Heh, this will be good, Roy smirked back. "Quick!" Hughes hissed. "Pass me my camera!"
"I got a better idea," Mustang said as his smirk turned into a very evil grin much to Hawkeye's displeasure. He then pulled out a marker pen. "Let's draw on his face and then take photos."
"Oh! Oh! Me first!" Al pleaded excitedly.
"Make it good, Al," Mustang passed the pen to the younger Elric brother.
And boy did he make it good!
All the photos were sent to Winry Rockbell…you know for safe-keeping and future blackmailing opportunities.