Chapter 16: A (Semi)Normal Day at the Office

Havoc left my apartment three days later, taking Barry with him. I had stayed home for those, taking some of my sick days. When I got back everyone at headquarters who knew me, and some who I was sure didn't were staring at me. It was unnerving. I sped up, eventually entering the office at a run, nearly slamming the door behind me. Roy, who had been looking through a filing cabinet, raised an eyebrow at me. I scowled,

"Everyone is staring at me today, I don't like it."

Furey chuckled at me. I turned to him, slowly, raising an eyebrow.

"Is there a problem here?"

One anime freak attack later and he finally explained.

"You've worked so hard for so long, they've never known you to take a day off, and sometimes you don't even bother going home. You're probably one of the most dedicated here. The fact that you took a single day, never mind three, for being sick, there were whispers that you were deathly ill."

I scoffed, "Life is terminal, man."

My best 'hippy' voice and they just looked a bit unnerved, no one understands my comedic genius.

Havoc came stumbling into the office right about then, looking like he was nursing a hangover. I grinned at him, summoning up the most non-threatening, cutesy voice possible to grate on his headache, but not be worth reprisal.

"How ya doin' there, lil buddy?"

He groaned, handing over a mixture of bills and coins, roughly equivalent to 40 bucks, from my calculations (the fact that my conversion point is the price of a bottle of soda is unimportant, don't worry about it, seriously). Roy and Furey were looking between us, slightly shocked looks on their faces.

I shrugged at them,

"I taught him a gambling card game from my country and cleaned his ass out."

I turned back to him, and grinned,

"You were drunk off your mind, so you may not remember but you started betting wavers and IOUs."

He paled. "Ah, what do I owe you my beautiful and amazing co-worker?"

I deadpanned, "Three puppies, a cat, an owl, and your soul."

He choked on his own spit. I shrugged,

"You shouldn't have made me make some of the alcohol from my home. I told you that you couldn't handle it."

He sighed, falling into his chair.

"I suppose there's a time limit on when I have to get you this stuff?"

I shook my head, "Nah, and the soul doesn't even have to be yours. Though the cat has to be black, and the owl does have to be white. You were very specific about some of that. Wrote it down right here."

I whipped it out of seemingly nowhere, waving it in the air, grinning as he collapsed on his desk.

He sat up and slowly turned to Roy,

"Never play against her, she counts cards and I swear she slipped something in my drink."

I rolled my eyes, slightly offended,

"Bitch, I distilled that alcohol in my living room, while you fucking watched."

He gained a faraway look in his eyes, drool sliding from the corner of his mouth,

"Yeah, that stuff was good...potent though."

I rolled my eyes,

"It usually is, but in this case, you were a bit of a lightweight."

Before he could contradict me the door opened and Hawkeye swept in, plopping folders down on desks. There was no more chatter, only the sound of pens on paper. That woman is terrifying.

When my alarm went off she looked at me fiercely, I looked back calmly.

"Since I forget to eat, sleep, and take a run I bought watches and set alarms."

She looked at me for a second longer before nodding in approval,

"Go on then. You have one hour."

I bobbed my head, glancing around at everyone.

"Does anyone want anything while I'm out?"

Coffee all around apparently. I knew people tended to become slightly dependent but this was slightly ridiculous. I grabbed a soda for myself before stopping to stare at the options. I missed American food so much, Pizza rolls, Hot Pockets, McDonald's, Popeyes, Taco Bell, oh, Mexican food, Chinese food, Italian Food...I hadn't noticed the anime tears rolling down my cheeks until Scheska poked me uncertainly,

"Um, is everything alright Stephanie?"

I nodded, pulling myself together before grabbing a carry-out bowl of soup,

"Yeah, just missing all the food back in my country."

She nodded, thoughtfully,

"That's right, I had forgotten that you were foreign, your accent doesn't poke through that often. You speak Amestrian very well for someone who didn't expect to end up here."

I had an excuse for that, it was particularly effective against Sheska, for all that I was offended that I did have some sort of accent.

"Well, I liked to read when I was younger. Still do. I just don't really have the time for it now, but I've still got a couple languages rolling around in here."

It still blew my mind that Amestrian was the same thing as English. I wasn't magically speaking German or Japanese as a gift from the Truth. It was actually English. The same puns made sense, the same things rhymed. It seemed a bit too good to be true, but then again, different dimensions, different rules I suppose.

Sheska and I parted ways soon after. I balanced my soup on top of a carrier filled with coffee, my soda sticking out of my coat pocket. I carefully avoided people, occasionally stopping to move my plastic spoon up from where it was slipping and sliding, and just overall attempting escape. I ended up having to take a detour through 7 hallways more than usual when I heard Armstrong's booming voice. I could not take that bear hug with at least 7 containers of scorching hot liquid in my arms.

Upon my return to the office, I was treated like the messiah once I started passing out coffee. Even Hawkeye spared a moment to give me a slight smile. I had figured out a while ago that coffee made this place go round. They had learned that soda was to me what coffee was to them, and brought one along when they went on coffee runs. Sometimes I loved these guys.

Several hours of solid silence and paperwork later my watch went off again. I switched it off, but stared at it, frowning. Furey poked me lightly in the shoulder,

"What's up?"

I motioned to the watch with my other hand,

"The book I read on the Amestrian workday said this would be around the time a 'normal' person would go home and sleep and stuff. I haven't even been here that long."

He stared at me,

"It's seven in the evening. We're going to go home soon, too."

A voice spoke up from the doorway to the inner office,

"What do you mean about the 'normal people' in the 'book you read'?"

We both whipped around, and met with the sight of Mustang leaning against the door to his office, looking amused.

I looked at him blankly, raising an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't know how a normal Amestrian job works, I just turned 18-" I ignored Havoc choking on his spit for the second time that day. Honestly, how old did he think I was? "-and I hadn't really worked a formal job like this back where I come from, and definitely not one here. I didn't expect to. I had my eyes on a position as a scientist for NASA, where my habits would have made more sense. I honestly wasn't expecting to get sucked into the military in a foreign country I wasn't even aware existed until I got here. Honestly, I wasn't qualified for the military where I'm from, too short, ya know. I didn't think getting randomly drafted while traveling was an issue. I was not prepared for this, I hadn't even finished high school for fucks sake."

I stopped for a breath before continuing, motioning with my hands at nothing in particular.

"Anything that I know about how life works in this weird-ass country and its weird-ass military, no offense, I got from books. Everything I thought I knew about life had to be tossed out a window and all of the theoretical knowledge I had on the working world had to be trashed, too. Different country, different people, different customs, different everything. I could go on all day and include the language barriers I face as well as your weird-ass weather and your magical Alchemy bullshit, then there's the culture shock, but I think that was probably enough to answer your question."

At this point, I had thrown on my coat, shouldered my bag, and was punching out my time card near the door. I waved behind me,

"Night, all."

I've never been keen on borderline complaining like that but the shocked look on Roy's face as he realized exactly what my issues were...that was totally worth it. Getting it all off my chest was also soothing to the soul, and being a teenager meant I could probably get away with it without too many social repercussions, not to mention the weird way this world trends in anime patterns. And maybe they'd stop making fun of some of the things I say out of hand because of the nudge at culture shock, that shit gets old.

So what if I had left some things out, like the fact that I couldn't sleep or act like a 'normal person' even if I wanted to? Taylor and Sam had both known that my freaky brain had fucked me up, so I had never really learned to hide it. What they saw as getting so involved with work that I forgot to sleep, was the actual inability to sleep, or just not needing to. All of my life I slept when my brain was done, when it decided it was finally ready for rest. Because of that, I had no circadian rhythm. My body didn't work in 24-hour cycles like normal people or even most animals. I slept when it was safe to, when my mental defenses would come crashing down because they weren't exhausted enough to just stay where I put them.

I spent a quiet night at my apartment, working on my alchemy theories while enjoying a soda and a bowl of my favorite stew. I looked around at the notes strewn out comfortably around me on the squishy couch, and despite all the complaining I'd unloaded earlier…

"I can get used to this." Honestly, I'd better.

~TimeLordOfPie