some people shouldn't be allowed to get bored
This is that Chaos verse fic that was supposed to be Al/Hawkeye. And it is Al/Hawkeye. It's just that it's mostly Rebecca?
...She cracks me up, what can I say. ^_^
FMA does not belong to me.
Cradle Robbing
Rebecca was getting bored with Central.
Sure, it had been exciting when Riza’d dragged her here. Explosions, arrests, people getting shot at. That was living. This? This was boring. Peace, what the hell. It was one of those things you wanted for future generations; not so much for yourself. Damn Mustang for his mad efficiency, anyway.
Though she had to admit it was nice being one of the Fuhrer’s personal whatever. Guards. Shortest chain of command she’d ever had; only one person you had to threaten. The downside was that until he got around to assigning her something to do, she didn’t have anything to do. Which bit.
So she was stalking Riza. It was only fair. It was practice, anyway, because Riza was the most suspicious person alive. Thus far Rebecca’d managed two hours before she got spotted. That meant about a month in normal-people stalking time. By the time Mustang got around to giving her an assignment, she’d be completely ready for a life of espionage.
Okay, that was a lie. She could only do sneaky in small bursts before she reverted to her real personality-she was proud she’d managed it as long as she had before the coup. But still, this was good practice for creeping around for short missions. Like a ninja.
“Um. Excuse me?”
She just about pitched off the rooftop on which she was sitting. Shit, so much for sneaky.
The kid who’d tried to kill her didn’t look like the espionage type, either, which meant she should have heard him coming.
Training in vain. She should just stick to explosions; sneaky wasn’t her milieu.
“What are you doing up here?” kid asked.
Kid, she now remembered, belonged to someone. Someone…
Oh, yeah. He was little brother to Mr. Miracles. He’d been way more useful back in the armor days, and after that she’d lost interest in him. Apparently he was still around. Well, Mr. Miracles was still around and making a nuisance of himself, so she guessed the brother was inevitable. They were practically conjoined. Wasn’t he being professor-like at the university or something? Seemed like Winry had told her that.
“Military business,” she said, crossing her arms. “What are you doing here?”
“Military business?” he asked, ignoring the question. “At General Hawkeye’s house?”
Sneaky, seriously, was not her thing.
“Okay, fine, I’m stalking Riza. Like I said, what are you doing here?”
“Stalking…?”
Kid could not answer a damn question.
“Yeah, yeah, my hugely unrequited love for her; you know how it is.”
His jaw dropped. Heh.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. For the third time. This was getting ridiculous.
He stared and blinked and generally looked confused and flustered. “Well,” he said finally. “My hugely unrequited love for her. You know how it is.”
Rebecca’s turn to do the jaw-dropping thing.
“But if you’ve got a prior claim, I’ll give up,” he went on with a little smile, apparently over being flustered. And messing with her. What was with this kid?
And, okay, it had been bad enough when Riza was pulling gorgeous guys generally, but now she was pulling gorgeous young guys, and that was wrong. Wrong. Also unfair.
“Nah, she’s always been depressingly heterosexual,” Rebecca babbled, mouth on autopilot. “You go, kid. Win your woman. I’ll pine off to the side or something.”
Kid quirked an eyebrow at her.
“But, dude, knock off the stalking. It’s creepy. It is my job to be creepy, and I don’t like it when upstart kids horn in on my turf.”
“I don’t do it often,” he said, shrugging. “I just…every once in a while have to check that she hasn’t gotten killed or something.”
“How fucking romantic,” Rebecca cooed. “And when I say romantic, I mean weird. Can’t you just go to the door and ask her out like a normal person?”
The look she got for that one was grim. Like, depths-of-despair type grim. “I’m too young for her,” he said. Must have been a thought that tortured him daily or something, given his expression.
But to this argument, Rebecca was inclined to reply, Yeah right. Check out those eyes, twenty going on Hohenheim. He wasn’t too young for anybody.
This was an insecurity thing, though. Rebecca knew you couldn’t attack insecurity things straight on, because they weren’t logical. So she attacked sideways.
“Hey, cradle-robbing is just one of the many things I believe her totally capable of,” she said. “So cheer up, right? You may yet get jumped by scary older women.”
Only response she got to that was a smile of enormous self-mockery. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. And then he just wandered off, like, too sexy to wait for a response.
The gauntlet, Rebecca thought, had definitely been thrown.
* * *
“So how do you feel about molesting younger men?”
“How much younger do you have in mind?”
Riza, so damn unflappable. It was a real accomplishment to get a rise out of her. The closest Rebecca had come was that time during the coup, with the ice cream truck full of weapons. That had been awesome.
Clearly young man molesting wasn’t going to cut the mustard.
“Like, twenty.”
Riza shrugged. “Men that young won’t understand you. They missed most of the action; too young for anything but the end of the wars.”
“The one I’m thinking of got involved young and managed to be at all the stupidest places. How would you feel about that?”
Riza froze with her fork halfway back to her plate (this was a lunchtime chat), and gave Rebecca a wary look. “Please don’t mean Edward,” she said.
“Edward?”
Riza unfroze and went back to her salad. “The Fullmetal Alchemist,” she clarified.
Right. Mr. Miracles. Edward. Whatever.
“No, his brother,” Rebecca corrected.
“I don’t think you and Alphonse are very well-suited, Rebecca,” Riza said, but she was still salad-focused, which meant her heart wasn’t in it.
“I don’t want to sleep with him,” Rebecca said dismissively, then considered being subtle about what she did want.
Nah. What had subtle ever done for her?
“I want you to sleep with him.”
Riza actually put the fork down (victory!) and stared.
“You want me to sleep with him,” Riza repeated.
“Yeah, why not? He’s hot.”
Long pause. Riza had the most eloquent blank face Rebecca’d ever seen; maybe that was why she and Mustang got along. Sometimes. At the moment, the blank face said, You were dropped on your head as a child, weren’t you?
“This is very like the time you told me that sleeping with my grandfather would be the fast track to promotion, isn’t it?” Riza said finally.
“No!” Rebecca insisted, affronted. “I was kidding that time! Anyway, that was incesty and this isn’t. Hey, and I didn’t know the old perv was your granddad, I told you that. I just knew he was a perv and you’d get promoted. Only. Incesty. Erk.”
The blank face said, Stop talking before I’m forced to hurt you.
“I admit I was wrong,” Rebecca continued hastily. “About that. But not this! How could this be wrong?”
Riza rubbed her temples like they were hurting. In Riza-speak, it was practically a scream.
“You’re overreacting,” Rebecca said. She’d known Riza so long, sometimes she could even say things like that and not get whacked with the irony stick. “The kid thinks you’re the sun and moon. How nice would that be? Like having a puppy, right? Like the old days with your little dog man.”
Black Hayate raised his head off his paws and gave what Rebecca could have sworn was a disapproving look.
“How did you get this idea? I’m sure it wasn’t from Alphonse,” Riza said, giving what was definitely a disapproving look. Riza had raised a doggy clone of herself.
“It was from Alphonse.” Alphonse, Alphonse. She could remember that. Wouldn’t do to call him kid in front of Riza.
“I have a hard time picturing Alphonse calling anyone the sun and moon.”
“Weeeellllll, not in so many words.” Rebecca waved the fiddling details away. “But it’s what he meant. Big old roof-stalker.”
Blank face said, I don’t even want to know.
“What’s your problem with him anyway?” Rebecca demanded. “He’s young and hot, he thinks you’re wonderful, he’s all calm, he’s got a steady income-”
“You’re starting to sound like my mother’s sister,” Riza said, and set her coffee cup down with a precise click. ‘Mother’s sister.’ She did that on purpose, because it sounded further away than ‘aunt.’ Ouch.
“Come on, this one isn’t even incesty!”
“You have such high standards, Rebecca. And technically, you don’t know that.”
“Oh, yes I do. Incest would have been number one on his litany of woe, and it didn’t even get mentioned. Don’t tell me what I know.”
Riza was starting to smile like she always did when someone else’s pain was cracking her up. “He has a litany of woe?”
Riza was basically a bad person. Rebecca often wondered if that was what made her so damn lovable.
Anyway.
“I assume there’s a litany,” Rebecca allowed. “I only got Item One, which was: I’m too young for her.”
“Wait.” Riza somehow managed to sit even more bolt upright than she usually did. “You actually interrogated Alphonse about his intentions toward me?”
Yeah, well, he was on the freaking roof, wasn’t he? Pardon me for being curious.
She didn’t say that. That would not forward the agenda.
“I’m a good friend,” she said instead. “I’m looking out for your virtue. Or what passes for it.”
“And what prompted the interrogation?”
“Classified.”
“No, Rebecca.”
“Look, it’s not important.”
“I have a feeling that it is.”
“I’ve been trained to resist torture.”
“More training is never a bad thing.”
“He was on the roof.” Oh, shit. Her espionage career was going nowhere.
“Roof?” Nothing worse than having Riza’s undivided attention.
“Opposite your place. Says…he likes to check you’re alive every once in while.” This was so not advancing the agenda. “He says he doesn’t usually!”
Silence.
Then, “Rebecca?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“What were you doing on the roof opposite my apartment?”
Rebecca considered using the ‘unrequited love’ explanation, but decided it would do her more harm than good.
“I was practicing for my future life as a superspy,” she said.
Riza nodded. Apparently that was only to be expected. “You’ll need more work,” she pointed out.
She could be so hurtful.
“Well, then. Lunch?” Riza asked.
Huh? “Yeah, this is lunch.”
Riza closed her eyes briefly, like the world was just too much. “Are you planning to set up a lunch between me and Alphonse?”
“Me?” Wait a second. “Why me?”
“You’ve appointed yourself dueña, haven’t you, Rebecca? I thought you were taking care of my happiness.”
“Well, yeah, but-”
“I have a few things I’d like to discuss with Alphonse. You’ll arrange it, won’t you?”
Riza repeating herself was the last stop before she started shooting at you.
“…Sure.”
This is what my competitive spirit gets me, Rebecca thought bitterly.
* * *
“But why does she want to have lunch with me?” Alphonse asked suspiciously. Who knew that such an honest face could hide such a jaded heart?
“I can’t say.” Or at least she wasn’t going to. “But it’s your big chance, kid. Knock her flat. Work your magic.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You can call me Al. It’s shorter than kid.”
It was, but only by a letter, and it didn’t have the same ring. Then again, Riza. Advancing the agenda. Eyes on the prize.
She was never daring herself to set someone up ever again; it sucked all the fun out of life.
“Okay, Al,” she said sourly. “Whatever. It’s your big chance. You’ve only got one big item on your litany of woe, and she doesn’t care about it. You win. Go for it!”
“You care about this more than I thought,” Al murmured. “And I have lots of big items on my litany of woe; you only heard the one.”
“What are the others?” This could be an interesting walk after all.
“You’re only going to hear the one.”
Spoilsport. And after everything she was doing for him.
“Is incest one of them?”
“No,” he said, giving her a look that said he was starting to worry for her sanity.
“Fine, be boring.”
He pestered her about what Riza wanted from him the rest of the way to the restaurant, and she took great satisfaction from refusing to answer.
* * *
“It’s good to see you, Alphonse,” Riza said politely. Kid responded in kind. Riza said, “Rebecca has decided to take up matchmaking.”
Al aimed a brief look of pure poison at Rebecca, then turned back to Riza without a hitch, smiled like he meant it. “It’s good that she has a hobby. I know Roy was worried she’d get bored and destroy Central.”
Oh, ow, little brat. And, hey, why was Rebecca suddenly surrounded by people on first name terms with the Fuhrer? That was just sick and wrong.
“We were all worried,” Riza murmured.
You couldn’t call Riza a traitor, exactly. Not when she was always sure to say it to your face before she said it to anybody else. What did you call that? Apart from vicious?
“But if brother still hasn’t destroyed anything, there must be hope for everyone,” Al said.
“Very true.” Riza passed him the bread. Usually she hoarded the bread; this wasn’t fair.
And, hang on, were they comparing her to Mr. Miracles?
“Did you just say I’m like your brother?” she demanded.
They stared at her with matching, vaguely curious expressions. “You don’t think you’re like my brother?” Al asked, taking a bite of the bread that hadn’t yet been offered to Rebecca.
“I’m nothing like Mr.-like your crazy brother. Nothing!”
“That’s exactly what my brother would say,” Al mused. “I’m nothing like that crazy explosions-for-fun woman, that’s what he’d say.”
“I believe it’s what he has said,” Riza said with her little Riza-smirk.
Rebecca told herself firmly that she was glad they were getting along so well. Even if they were bonding through abuse, the sickos.
“So I’m leaving you two to whatever the hell it is sadists talk about together,” she announced, standing. “Have fun.”
She got about two steps away from the table, and then Riza said, “Rebecca.”
Bad voice. Bad, scary voice.
“…Yeah?” Maybe she’d be safer if she didn’t turn back around.
“You’ll come pick Alphonse up in an hour, won’t you?”
What the hell? She turned to see the both of them smirking at her. “Why?” she carefully asked and did not wail.
Riza picked up a menu and smiled at her over it. “That would be the proper thing for a dueña, wouldn’t it? Technically, you should stay for the whole lunch. But in view of the changing times, I won’t insist on it.”
Evil. That’s what she was. Rebecca didn’t have a problem with either of them when they weren’t, you know, extremely annoyed in her direction. But they were. And that was why she’d been planning to run away and let them stew for about a week before she faced them again.
Instead, one hour. Not good.
“I’d love nothing more, Riza,” she said. “I’m touched by how well you know me and that.”
Riza smiled the evil smile again, then turned to Al and completely cut Rebecca out.
Rebecca got all the way to the nearest bookstore before she realized she was kind of enraged. In fact, to say that she was having both a temper tantrum and a hissy fit would, perhaps, not be overstating the case.
She was trying to do a good thing for Riza, dammit. She’d been worried when the whole Roy thing blew up spectacularly, she’d been nervous about Riza’s apparent plan to become a crazy dog lady with guns, and look! She’d done something about it!
Okay, admittedly, that something had been to seize the nearest stalker off the roof and chuck him toward Riza, but the intention had been pure!
“Miss?” someone said in a voice perilously close to homicidal. “Please, if you’d like to read the books, you’re welcome. But don’t bend them.”
Rebecca glanced up at the bookstore clerk, who looked like he was having to continuously remind himself that maiming customers was not permissible, and then down to the book she was mangling in her hands.
“Oh. I’ll buy it,” she said.
“Thank you,” the clerk said, smiling tightly. She was proud of him for not saying, You’d better.
After that, she slunk out of the bookstore with her mangled book and went off to hate everything in private.
* * *
“So how did it go?” Rebecca asked Al with a nice, smooth voice that did not imply I just had a fit in public. She was proud of herself.
“How did what go?”
She was going to lose it again in a minute if he kept this up, though.
“Yeah, just because I’m on your side doesn’t mean I won’t break your nose if I have to, kid.” Less smooth. Definitely less smooth.
“Oh, I’m supposed to ask, do you want to come to every lunch like a real dueña, or are you satisfied now?”
“You’re having other lunches? I’m satisfied. I’m taking that to mean it went well.”
He smiled at her. It was funny, because Riza would have stared at her with absolutely no expression and given nothing away. And the kid was smiling at her and giving nothing away.
Deserved. Each other.
“So what do evil people talk about when they’re alone?” Rebecca asked.
“Evil,” he said. “You know. Poison, death, revolution…oh, wait.”
“Too late for revolution, huh?”
“We could always have another. Or we could join forces with Ling and rule the whole of the desert.”
“Al, there’s nothing in the desert. Except dirt.”
“But it would be our dirt.”
“So I’ve decided it was a pretty good date.”
He grinned. “She didn’t shoot me.”
Hopeless.
* * *
She let about two weeks go by after that. Letting things settle, she told herself. Not hiding; she wouldn’t call it hiding. After all, she hadn’t changed her address or left the country. Anyone who wanted to find her could. She was just…just refraining from stirring things up.
At the end of two weeks she crept over to Winry’s. Riza and Al were almost bound to be there, so she could check on them. And Rebecca would have lots of people to hide behind. You know. Just in case.
They were standing together. Rebecca felt a nice, warm glow of success, right up until she realized that they weren’t talking, the freaks, just sharing space.
Then again. Then again, they were watching the same people. And when the people they were watching did something stupid, they sort of smiled at each other, then went back to watching.
Wow. It was like spying on the courtship rituals of evil telepaths.
“Rebecca!” Winry said happily once she got around to noticing Rebecca was there. “Where have you been? In a couple more days, I was going to send out a search party.”
Winry was alright. Kind of scary sometimes with the wrenches, but basically alright. And she was slowly coming to own Havoc’s soul, which was hilarious and excellent.
“I was hiding from Riza.”
Winry frowned. “What for?”
Now, see. This was one thing on which they didn’t quite see eye to eye. Rebecca loved Riza; Riza was one of her very dearest friends. But Rebecca found her genuinely frightening.
Winry thought Riza was a very sweet person, and she couldn’t be talked around. Then again, she’d grown up with Miracles and Al, so she was bound to have a skewed worldview.
“I pissed her off,” Rebecca said. “Oh, and I set her up with Al.”
Winry blinked. “Wait, you what?”
“What do you mean, you’re dating Hawkeye?” Miracles howled on the other side of the room, and Winry made a little choked-laugh sound. “Are you insane?”
Tactless, what with Riza standing right there. Standing there trying not to laugh, maybe, but still.
Rebecca tried to sidle close enough to hear without getting close enough to be readily visible. That was tough, because everybody with sense was sidling the hell away and going home. Rebecca would have been right behind them, too, but she kind of felt responsible.
“Ed,” Al was saying, scary-voiced. “I want you to think about the things I could say about your love life. I want you to think really hard.”
Miracles looked confused for a second, then paled dramatically. “You wouldn’t,” he said.
Uh, obviously he would. He had merciful moods, did Al, but this was not one of them.
“Okay,” Miracles said, hands up defensively. “Okay! But…but what the hell? I mean, since when? And you never said anything! What kind of brother are you, keeping secrets like that!?”
“I didn’t think anything would ever come of it,” Al said, looking embarrassed like unto death. “I mean, you know. You know.”
Miracles frowned at Al, and then almost viciously at Riza. “Yeah. I know.”
“He shouldn’t have worried,” Riza said.
Apparently it was the right thing to say, because suddenly Miracles was freaking beaming at her. “Well, he is awesome,” Miracles said.
“Agreed.” Riza smiled back at him.
So, right, Rebecca had no idea what that was about. An item on the litany of woe, at a guess. If it had been anybody but Al, she’d have said he couldn’t get it up. But it was Al. That meant it was bound to be weirder and more disturbing than that, because weird and disturbing was just the way he and his brother did things.
But whatever. Apparently it was a non-thing and everybody was happy. Surely that meant it was time for Rebecca to sneak away before she got caught.
“But you suddenly just up and talked to her?” Miracles was asking suspiciously. “Why?”
“In fact, it was Rebecca’s idea,” Riza said. “Wasn’t it, Rebecca?”
Rebecca froze. She felt sudden sympathy for small, doomed animals.
“Rebecca,” Miracles repeated, like it was a word he didn’t know how to define. “You’re setting my brother up with people now? How is that your business?”
He was such a bastard.
“Look, Mr. Miracles, I see a guy on the roof stalking a lady, I assume a certain amount of interest. You’re lucky I didn’t just turn him in.”
“‘Mr. Miracles’?” he repeated, incredulous. And then, after a second, “Stalking?”
“Um,” Al said. Riza smirked.
“You were stalking Hawkeye?” Miracles almost shrieked. This evening was probably doing seriously bad things to his blood pressure.
“Brother, I wasn’t exactly stalking her,” Al said, sounding put-upon and shooting Rebecca one of his Looks.
Which she had not earned. She had not told a single untruth.
“Exactly?” Miracles repeated faintly.
“I just…every so often I’d check that she got home alright. I was walking back from the university anyway, so I’d just swing by her place around the time she got back. I wasn’t lurking there.”
“You knew what time she’d get home?”
Al shrugged.
“You walk around town on the rooftops?”
“It’s not as crowded.”
Miracles rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then pointed one finger toward Riza. “You’re okay with this?” he demanded.
Riza smiled a little, enigmatic smile.
“Well, there you go, then,” Miracles said, waving his hands wildly around. “I’ll just look into stalking to improve my love life!”
“Brother!”
“I wish,” Winry said, quietly but fervently, “that I had one of Kain’s recording bugs right now.”
Havoc chuckled. Rebecca was briefly surprised that Havoc hadn’t bailed, but then she noticed how he’d placed himself. He was close to a high-backed chair, and being low like he was, he was completely hidden from the action.
No fool, Jean Havoc.
“Does Roy know about this!?” Miracles demanded.
“Of course not,” Al said.
“There is no of course!” Miracles insisted. “I’m going to tell him!”
“If that will make you happy, brother,” Al sighed. “But then, yelling at him usually does.”
“I’m not going to yell at him, I’m just going to tell him.”
“If you say so.”
Rebecca now knew people who yelled at the Fuhrer to blow off steam. The world was ending after all. That time they thought they’d stopped it? Clearly a fake-out.
* * *
I win everything, Rebecca thought proudly. It had been two months since the coming out to Miracles extravaganza, and Al was still around, and Riza was actually smiling like a normal person sometimes.
Rebecca had made her happy despite herself. Hah.
There was only one downside to it all, and that was that Riza didn’t have as much time for Rebecca. She still had time, but it was, you know. Back to status quo, like it had been when she and Mustang had been a thing. Well, not that bad. Because she and Mustang had been a thing the same time they were plotting to overthrow the government and take over the world, so that had been pretty intense.
Anyway…
It had been fun, that was all. Having Riza all to herself. Because she’d been single and Riza had been single, and they’d been single together. Right? It wasn’t like she had any claim on Riza. She didn’t even want one. It was just that it had been nice when nobody else had had a claim, either.
Maybe this matchmaking thing hadn’t been all that well thought-out.
Except that Riza was happy now, instead of slowly turning into a crazy dog lady. That was undeniably a good thing. So the only problem here was with Rebecca’s brain.
I’m only panicking, Rebecca thought, because now it seems like I’ll die alone and be eaten by my cats.
But surely she’d find someone before that happened. Surely.
Oh, hell.
* * *
She showed up at Riza’s place two days later feeling guilty and crazy. And not really sure why she was feeling either one.
“Rebecca.” Riza looked mildly surprised, so that was a victory. “What’s wrong?”
Why did she have to be so damn perceptive?
“I’m crazy,” Rebecca said. “But you knew that. Make me tea or something.”
“In honor of your insanity?” Riza asked, eyebrow up. But she stepped back and let Rebecca in, so she could make whatever faces she wanted. And Hayate looked happy to see her, so that was something.
Rebecca petted Hayate, then collapsed on the couch and gazed around Riza’s living room. She loved that living room. It was a lot like Riza herself, in that it appeared anally neat and flawless, but when you looked closer, there were tiny signs of weirdness. Like the newspapers on the coffee table, carefully arranged so that the visible articles all had titles like Boy Eaten by Household Pet or Man Dressed as Giant Turtle Arrested for Sedition or Police Arrest Five, Insist Sixth Was ‘Tricksy’. Like the subtle fact that every one of her potted plants was either poisonous or carnivorous. Like the gnome things in the potted plants, all of which had something a little off about them.
Take, for example, the one peeking out from under the Bleeding Heart. It was cute. Really cute. On closer inspection, it was also gnawing on an anatomically correct heart; Rebecca could see the little arteries or veins or whatever poking out.
Riza came in with the tea. Hayate’s tail thumped at the sight of her. Aw. Come to think of it, Hayate fit in pretty well with the theme. All cute and furry and devoted to Riza. You’d never know he was trained to go for the jugular on command.
“Where’d you get this one?” Rebecca asked about the heart-gnawing gnome. “I’d remember if I’d seen it before.”
“Alphonse transmuted it for me,” Riza said, smiling faintly. “Something to match the spirit of the room, he said.”
Well, there you go, Rebecca thought. Observant, thoughtful, and possessed of the same freaky sense of humor as Riza. Match made in heaven. Rebecca was clearly a genius.
“You look miserable,” Riza said. “What happened?”
I’m stupid, Rebecca thought in her direction. It didn’t happen; I was born with it.
“I’m being randomly depressed over useless things,” she said. “I’ll be over it in a day or two. You know how I am. I just came here so you could pity me.” She took a sip of the tea. “Holy shit, this is jasmine. Do I look that bad?”
Riza, though she would deny it to her dying day, obsessively memorized people’s drink preferences. Possibly she’d never recovered from her childhood training. Anyway, she tended to use it as commentary. If she’d given Rebecca the much-loathed chamomile, it would have been her way of saying, ‘I hate your face right now.’ Jasmine, Rebecca’s absolute favorite, meant, ‘I’m afraid you might be dying.’
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Rebecca insisted.
Riza frowned.
“There isn’t! I’m just being crazy, I feel sorry for myself for no reason, I wanted sympathy. But not for you to panic, because that’s weird.”
Riza studied her dubiously for a long moment, then sat next to her on the couch, shoulder-to-shoulder. The way they used to sit during training, when they were both so sore they couldn’t move, and their ears were ringing from too many gunshots. Comfort huddle.
“How’s Al, then?” Rebecca asked. It cleverly sounded like she was changing the subject, but she wasn’t.
“You did well with Alphonse,” Riza said, but she said it very carefully, like she was testing the ground. “Having second thoughts?”
“There’s something wrong with the world when you’re asking me if I’m having second thoughts about your boyfriend,” Rebecca muttered.
“You’re the dueña,” Riza said lightly. “I’m prepared to listen to your warnings, if you have them.”
Rebecca forced a smile. “He’s perfect for you,” she said. “He’s young and hot and smart and makes you freaky gnomes. I rock the matchmaking.”
“Hm,” Riza said, eyeing her. “Now all we have to do is get you a girlfriend, and everyone will be settled.”
It took a lot of strength and willpower, but Rebecca didn’t jump, scream, or drop her teacup.
“Oh yeah?” she croaked. “Any special reason we’re not getting me a boyfriend?”
“Of course you’re easy either way,” Riza said thoughtfully. Rebecca gasped indignantly, which Riza ignored. “But you’re noticeably less…hm…hyperactive when you’re with women. This way is best for the human race.”
So Riza had noticed when she’d been with women. Stealth, seriously, was not her thing. And it wasn’t that she didn’t trust Riza, it was just…the military being what it was, she couldn’t picture the dating women thing going over well. The old military, anyway; probably less the new military. She hadn’t wanted to make things awkward for Riza, what with duty or whatever.
Though, now she really thought about it, Riza had never been as worried about the rules as she seemed like she ought to be. Which was all part of her sinister plan. She looked so much like someone who obeyed all the rules that everyone just assumed she did. Sometimes even including Rebecca, who should obviously know better.
“I’m touched you’re looking out for me, Riza,” she managed around the shock.
“Of course,” Riza said. “Alphonse would say it’s only equivalent. I’ve been observing your matchmaking techniques. Leave it all to me.”
Rebecca stared. “Have I told you that you scare the shit out of me?” she asked.
“Not today,” Riza said, sounding surprised about it, and took a sip of tea.
* * *
The months went by the way they do when you’re locked into a routine, which is to say, so fast it’s horrifying. Rebecca only looked up every once in a while, just long enough to say, Hang on, where the hell is my life going?
Winry and Havoc got married, and that was a three-ring circus of hilarity. By the time the reception was over, the guy who owned the venue had banned every single one of them from ever walking into it again, “I don’t care if you are the Fuhrer, sir.”
Al and Riza got to be more and more of a thing. So much so that it was hard to remember they’d ever not been a thing. Rebecca was extremely proud.
Meanwhile, she was keeping a constant paranoid eye out for this girl Riza was going to set her up with, but she hadn’t appeared so far. Rebecca knew better than to think it was because Riza’d, you know, given up or forgotten. She was just waiting for her moment, was all.
Rebecca took to whining about all this to Winry’s friend from Rush Valley. Paninya, her name was. Least sympathetic person Rebecca’d ever met, criminal mind, two automail legs. She seemed to enjoy Rebecca’s pain, though, so it only seemed fair to share it. Let someone get some joy out of it all.
“She’s sneaky,” Rebecca explained. “She’s devious and evil. I’m afraid.”
“Yeah? Cuz she looks like some kind of poster child for proper military behavior,” Paninya pointed out.
“White gloves and a gun,” Rebecca muttered. “It’s all part of her plan. She’ll probably set me up with someone who will be good for me.”
“Good for you? That’s bad?”
“Good for me in that way where I end up respectable and having a white picket fence.” The horror, the horror.
Paninya smirked. Paninya was given to evil smirking. “I really don’t think that’s what she’s got in mind.”
“No? Why not?” Rebecca asked suspiciously.
“Hey, you said she was devious on the inside. Why would she even want you respectable?” she said, switching to an innocent look, an isn’t my logic impeccable look. For some reason, Rebecca didn’t trust it at all. Possibly because there was something inherently wrong with Paninya looking innocent.
Work, in the meantime, was…uplifting?
No. It was too unholy to think of it like that. Rebecca refused to jump on the propaganda train, and that was all there was to it. It was only a matter of time before it all went to shit. She was clinging to that thought, because otherwise it was just too damn weird.
Oh, and speaking of unholy, Miracles had taken to hitting on Mustang. All the time. In public. Everybody’d noticed it but Mustang.
All this partnering up all of a sudden. It was like the clap going around.
* * *
About six months after the Winry and Havoc wedding, Rebecca and Riza went out for coffee, just the two of them. It had been a while; they usually brought Al. Which was cool; Rebecca liked Al. Rebecca had found Al, what was more. But still. If Al was around, it was pretty much impossible to ask personal, embarrassing questions about him. And she hadn’t gotten around to it the last time she’d visited Riza at home because she’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself.
No time like the present.
“So about Al’s litany of woe,” Rebecca said. “Remember that time Miracles almost had a fit over something on it? What was that about?”
“You could try to call him Edward,” Riza pointed out. Just an observation, not a suggestion.
“I can’t be bothered to remember what his name is all the time,” Rebecca said impatiently. “Are you planning to ignore my woe question? Just tell me if you are; I don’t want to have false hopes.”
Long silence. Long, scary. “Alphonse was in the armor for a long time,” Riza said finally.
“Yeah?” Rebecca said. “Hey, the sky is blue.”
Riza sighed at her. Rebecca tried to hide behind her coffee cup.
“He doesn’t do well with too much sensory input,” Riza continued. “I suppose he thought I wouldn’t…want to cope with that.”
“Oh.” Rebecca considered. “He have panic attacks?”
“Not exactly,” Riza said.
Topic closed. Actually, topic slammed, locked, and barred. Which was fair enough. Wasn’t really any of Rebecca’s business, anyway. She wasn’t sleeping with the guy. Speaking of which…
“So are you actually sleeping with him yet?” Hey, it was the logical continuation of the conversation. And she’d set them up. She had a right to know.
Blank face said, If I shot you right now, would anyone really mind?
But then Riza thought of something happy, and it lightened the expression right up. Happy for Riza, which probably meant evil for the rest of the world. “Rebecca,” she said with a small, dangerous smile. “How would you like to be my maid of honor?”
Rebecca spit coffee across the table.