#docholligay

Inspired by @docholligay specifically from t h i s p o s t (read it! XD) which is totally worth reading and is funnier than the thing I wrote but I couldn't help but write.

This takes place in Doc's FMA 03 Coffee Shop AU. Al comes to visit Ed, and Ed is determined to make the place seem like one Al might want to live in, but the thing Al is most impressed by is Ed's arrogant, annoying boss.

Word Count: 2,167

---

"Whoa! Hey Ed, can you do that?!"

Edward turned from his quick discussion with Hawkeye about what kind of baked goods they'd have on the menu next week back to his guest. Al had just arrived, and Ed had been working on the menu and getting some product in the oven to distract him from his anxiety about Al's first visit to his new place.

To see what Al meant, Ed looked to the counter just as a customer retrieved their latte. Roy had, as usual, added some latte art to the drink upon finishing, something he made sure all the baristas knew how to do but hadn't gotten around to showing Ed yet.

As Ed opened his mouth to reply, Roy leaned over the counter.

"You like that kid? Those were just chasing hearts, very simple to do." Roy turned to a customer waiting by the drink pick up station they were at, at college aged student with green braids on her phone. "Mind if I take an extra moment with your drink?"

The woman looked over, the top of her phone dropping. "Wha-"

Roy, seeing that the woman hadn't noticed the interaction, explained, "I want to show this kid," and here Roy put out a hand to ruffle Al's hair "some latte art."

"Oh for sure!" The woman replied, eyes lighting up. "That will look great on my Instagram!"

"Make sure to tag us!" Roy said, flashing a charming smile as Hawkeye handed him the college girl's drink.

Ed grit his teeth. The man was utterly insufferable. Chasing hearts was his lowest effort trick, which meant he hadn't given Al a second thought until he'd praised him, and now he was going to milk it for all it was worth, and Ed wanted to call him on it so badly. He needed this job though, and making a scene in front of customers would not help him with that. Nor would it help him with making sure Al knew this would be a good place to live once Ed could get all the paperwork through and get custody of him. He wanted Al to like it here. The apartment itself wasn't much to boast of, but the café was a lovely spot.

Roy held the drink in his left hand and the frothing pitcher in his right. Both hands were making precise, exacting movements as he carefully poured the milk strategically into the drink, creating rounded zig zags down the center. Ed was leaning strained against the counter to watch despite the fact that Roy had made sure to position everything so the boy could see.

"I still haven't taught this to Ed, though I usually teach all our baristas how to do it. I haven't figured out how to adapt it for someone with only one hand yet." Roy said it casually, easily, as though the act of pouring enough liquid from one container to another until only the surface tension kept the liquid from spilling, was no trouble at all. And all that risk of spilling for a silly design that didn't do anything for the drink's taste. "If he keeps making treats our partner Hughes would die over, he can probably get away without learning."

Fandoms thrive on cooperation, discussion, playful arguments, and fanworks. Ficcers, artists, and other crafters thrive on feedback and knowing we caused more art to appear. So, it's time for all of us to add to the pool of stuff that exists for things we love! Let our beloved fellow creators know that they aren't just screaming into the void and that they are in fact adding to their communities! Also in this specific case, give back to @docholligay (especially right after Eight Days).

It's really difficult not to marry Maes Hughes and I'm not sure why I'm trying.

That gimme aside...

God, this is legitimately tough, because they're both my type (I have a lot of types but they both land squarely in one), and also both... problems. Like. I'm not actually sure I'd manage to successfully fuck Riza Hawkeye, because my hangups interact with hers... problematically. In that I'm- I'm of the opinion that at least a bit of emotional vulnerability is necessary for good sex and I have said, recently, that it takes the emotional equivalent of borrowing the Jaws of Life from the local firefighters to get me to do that.

Riza Hawkeye is not bringing that machinery. I strongly suspect that what actually happens is that I make some calculated half-approach to calibrate whether I'm getting enough of an "interested" signal to risk a firmer proposition, don't get much reaction, and cut my losses.

Roy Mustang, on the other hand, is a smug clever man whose work draws attention to his hands, which I am also extremely not immune to; and he's witty and emotionally aware enough that he can probably bait me into exposing some kind of vulnerability. Which he may then be a complete prick about. But like, I responded positively to that post that goes "casual sex implies the existence of ranked competitive sex" for a reason: I think that would actually work for me. We'd fuck, and probably both be trying to win, and that would work more than well enough for a one-off encounter.

Maes Hughes, as noted, is a man to come home to, and plenty of wordcount has been spilled on this already.

This proves, I think, that I'm more or less with you on "characters I like" not being the same as "characters I'm attracted to," because I'm leaving Hawkeye on read* despite her being the one I'm probably most unhinged about. I just- realistically the other two just slot better into what I want from F and M.

Truly, Kill la Kill is always going to be that one show where I watch it and go god yes, I absolutely fuck with Studio Trigger doing its normal crazy ass hyper-stylised animation that just makes my brain happy. And the freedom vs conformity themes! Great stuff.

Got this lovely postcard the other day from Lena (care of @docholligay) and forgot to post it.

Win!

Em and I are holed up here just outside the park, and you were right, is beautiful, absolutely something to see. You did spoil us with the room, but I suppose it is only your 1st anniversary the once.

21. do they have an idea about how they’ll die? do you?

Ahahah, I love you being on brand. Never change.

She has in fact died died twice (so far). Once when refusing to give up the location of Strahd's much sought-after vampire hunter nemesis - being a stubborn righteous ass, she got pretty beat up and blood-sucked, then dropped off one of the towers of Castle Ravenloft to her death. She got brought back a few in-game days later thanks to said vampire hunter having a scroll of Raise Dead and being convinced by the party that, if nothing else, a glowy smitey paladin was pretty useful in the fight against a vampire, so it was worth it. Recovering from that is... well, still ongoing.

The second one happened when facing some extremely pissed off Strahd harassment just before the endgame, engaging him in melee and trying to keep his attention away from the rest of her exhausted companions as well as the Martikov family - great allies of the party who were at the moment providing desperately needed sanctuary in their winery (and also I love them). Strahd had a magical fire shield up which meant each attack on him was… costly, to say the least. This one was very brief, as one of the family's three precious magical gems was sacrificed to bring her back almost as soon as Strahd, that absolute bastard, left after a brief gloat and threat or twenty. This was also very costly for the artificer in our party, as the backlash of tinkering with the gem to unleash its magical properties ultimately led to him losing his arm. It was a very, very grim time and a real “darkest before the dawn” moment nearing the end of the whole Barovian misadventure.

I know player character death gets handled wildly differently depending on the table. Some folks love permadeath and going through a dozen characters and just rolling (haha) with whatever the dice decide, while some lean fully into playing in worlds where bringing someone back from the dead is just a couple of diamonds and a brief cleric visit away. I feel like I’ve played in games that fell all throughout the spectrum, but in this particular case we went more narrative focused than probably ever before. In our discussions with the DM about how we'd even handle character death in the campaign we all agreed bringing in new outsider characters would be kind of a pain and would ring pretty hollow, so we agreed we'd use the scarce and often very costly possibilities given in the adventure itself, and, if all else failed, we'd go the Revenant route - i.e. whoever dies can be some brand of Too Angry To Die, swear to do one last thing (probably defeating Strahd and freeing the land in this particular case), and come back as an extremely driven undead version of themselves, a sad kind of semi-existence, that, bittersweetly, is guaranteed to end when the task is accomplished. It never actually came to this, as it happens, though each member of the 3-strong party had a brush with it. But it was certainly a rather grim (and appropriate) possibility.

The Silver Flame, which Ramiel formally belongs to via her knightly order, believes that the souls of the worthy and faithful are supposed to join the flame after death and strengthen it in protecting the world from demons/fiends/all manner of evil - so essentially she expects the fight to never really end. Barovia, however, is a prison for a specific evil lord - which also happens to be a prison for the souls of anyone who dies within it. So not only was that hanging over her, but she experienced a small, brief taste of it (twice!) - the revenant option doesn’t seem so bad anymore, suddenly.