Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Automail ❯ Property ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Property

Roy Mustang was hunched over his desk, glaring daggers at the military form in his hands, one that he was supposed to have read and signed well over ten minutes ago. And it wasn't the only one, either. There were several stacks on his office desktop that needed tending to before he left work that day, otherwise Hawkeye—blonde-haired, blue-clad, gun-toting paperwork Angel of Death that she was—would metaphorically swoop down and put a real bullet through his head.

The colonel mentally shook himself from his stupor and looked down at the form again. Really, he would rather just sign the damn things and be done with it; however, policy stated that he had to read them, so, he sighed begrudgingly and found the sentence that he had been rereading for the past ten minutes.

Do you agree the above statements are true to the best of you and your subordinates' knowledge? If so, please sign below.

Now, Roy was smart.

He had an IQ of 165; he had become a State Alchemist at the age of 24 and had achieved the rank of colonel by the age of 28. He was going to be Fuhrer one day, come hell or high water.

A sentence so simple shouldn't have given him such pause.

However, all above statements relating to the Flame Alchemist's intelligence went down the proverbial toilet, when a certain short, blonde-haired alchemist was leaning over one aforementioned stack of unsigned papers, doing his damnedest—however unintentional—to distract Roy from his task.

Said alchemist noticed that Roy had lifted his eyes and was now glaring at him instead of the paper. Ed blinked and asked innocently, “Done yet?”

Roy ignored the question. “Must you stand so close, Fullmetal? You're ruining my concentration.”

“Sorry, Colonel. I didn't know you needed concentration to put your illegible scrawl on a line.”

Roy growled, but said nothing as he finally signed the paper and added it to the small stack of completed work. Pulling a few more forms towards him, he looked up into Ed's golden eyes. “I'm serious. I can't get any work done with you being so . . .”

Roy paused, mulling over his word choices within the vast thesaurus of his mind, before finally sighing and lamely throwing out:

“ . . . there. Besides, I need to get this all over and done with by eight tonight.”

As Roy got back to signing, Edward leaned heavily against the stack of forms. “Why?” he asked, lifting a blonde brow and grinning mischievously. “Gotta hot date?”

Without looking up, Roy shrugged and said, “As a matter of fact, I do.”

The grin vanished.

“Y-you what?” Ed asked incredulously. “With who?”

Roy signed the paper he was working on, pushed it aside and began on another before he answered Ed's question. “No one that you know, so don't worry about it.”

“Don't wor—“ Ed stopped himself before he turned into a mynah bird. The blonde took a deep breath before continuing, doing his best to keep his hands from balling into fists and smashing into the colonel's smug face. “But . . . but I thought that . . . that we . . .?”

He trailed off. Roy paused in his work to look up at the younger alchemist, dark eyes shining through his black fringe. “We are. But that doesn't mean that . . .”

There was an awkward pause while the self-proclaimed `smart-with-an-IQ-of-165' alchemist tried for the second time in five minutes to come up with words that could fit the situation, if not make it—at the very least—appear better.

“ . . . that doesn't mean that I . . . that we can't both see other people.”

Edward's eyes were hidden behind his blonde bangs, keeping Roy from seeing his immediate reaction to the words. When he finally responded, his voice was gruff and heavy with several different emotions—anger being right up at the top of the list:

“But I don't want to see other people!”

He threw his head up and Roy saw the tears dancing around the edges of his gold eyes, threatening to spill over. “And neither should you!” Ed yelled. “I . . . I won't let you! You're mine!”

The Flame Alchemist blinked in mild surprise as déjà vu lifted its ugly, horned head to grin at him. This sounds familiar, Roy realized with mild consternation. It took only a few more seconds for him to figure out why he thought thatthe scene had played out before.

It had been a few years back, before he had known the Elric brothers—a woman that he had been dating had turned viraginous whenever he had explained, in his most soothing, sultry voice no less, exactly why he could not see her anymore.

“You . . . you can't. I won't let you! You're mine and if I can't have you, then . . . then no one else can!”

Needless to say, there had been a gun involved, one shot—which had embedded itself into the wall four feet to the right of Roy's head—ignition gloves, snap, some screaming, police, ambulance . . . a stay in the hospital while she recovered from her burns and then a padded room and heavy doses of medication.

Colonel Roy Mustang hadn't told anyone about this little incident; however, if he hadn't known any better, he would have thought that the Fullmetal had paid his old girlfriend a little visit at some point and they had swapped stories over tea and Thorazine.

Roy swallowed. He reasoned that Ed would not risk being imprisoned and kicked out of the military—thus ending his little search for a method to restore he and Al's original bodies—by killing his commanding officer . . .

Although, knowing Ed, he wouldn't put anything past him.

Roy arched his eyebrows and pursed his lips off to one side, trying to look amused at the comment. “Beg pardon?” he asked, sounding a bit croaky. “I'm . . . what?”

“Mine,” the blonde answered immediately, fire dancing in his eyes. “You belong to me! Nobody else!”

The black-haired man sighed, aggravation now replacing anxiety. “I belong to you, do I? Interesting . . . I've walked around for almost thirty years thinking that I was my own person! How silly of me!” Roy barked out an abrasive, mocking laugh before continuing. “I never realized . . . but it's so obvious now! I belong to you!”

Ed nodded, not at all put out by Roy's harsh words, and said, “Yep. You're my property.”

Roy's annoyance with the whole subject had been biting at his legs like an angry chimera, slowly but surely pushing him back towards the looming edge of a cliff. Though he kicked and tried to fight the beast off, this comment was the final snap of saliva-stained teeth that sent Roy plummeting over the side into the abyss.

He stood up abruptly and bellowed, “Your property?”

Unmoved by the explosion that was Roy Mustang, Ed crossed his arms before his chest with steely, almost automail-esque resolve. “Yes, my property. Your hands, your face, your mouth, your mind, heart, body . . . especially your body . . .” Ed blushed slightly at this. “ . . . are mine.”

Roy trembled with rage, his gloved fingers wishing to snap and set the pint-sized alchemist ablaze. However, Roy knew that if he were to set his office on fire—which had happened before—Hawkeye would kill him several times over and he wouldn't be able to go out on any dates or enjoy any extracurricular activities of any kind, with anyone. So Roy stroked his temper and sat back down at his desk.

After a short time, he sighed and picking up his pen to begin signing papers again. Only after he had pushed away his first signed form did he reply to Edward, most childishly, “I don't see your name on them.”

There was a pause as Edward rolled his eyes . . .

Then smirked.

- + -

At her desk, Riza was startled, though admittedly not entirely surprised, when she heard a loud crash from inside Roy's office, followed by some angry cries of protest. She sighed, but did not get up to see to the colonel.

Fullmetal had entered the office not twenty minutes earlier and—Riza knew all to well from personal experience—that it would be quite unwise, if not a little unhealthy, to interrupt whatever was going on.

However, as several muffled curses, yells and more crashes issued forth from behind the closed and, presumably locked door, Riza's curiosity got the better of her. Those two weren't normally this loud.

Yet, as she stood up to go and investigate, the door flew open and a blonde, red, black, grinning streak rushed out of Roy's office. As Riza watched Edward Elric disappear around the corner at the far end of the hall, the colonel nearly stumbled out of his office, yelling after him, “You get back here, Fullmetal! I'm not done with you! Edward!”

It was no use: Edward was long gone. Riza watched as Roy's shoulders slumped in defeat and . . . was that acceptance?.

“Um . . . Colonel?” she ventured. Hearing her voice, Roy turned to face her and Riza blinked.

Sloppily scrawled across his forehead, in what Riza didn't doubt was permanent marker, was a short message:

`Property of Edward Elric'

The Lieutenant fought hard to keep a straight face as she asked the colonel, “Should I cancel your date with Miss Rosewood tonight, sir?”

Roy narrowed his eyes, but sighed and mumbled an affirmative before stalking back into his office. As he closed the door behind him, he thanked whatever gods there were that—perceptive though Hawkeye might be—she didn't have X-Ray vision.

It would have been quite an embarrassment for both of them had she seen where else Ed had signed him.