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Say What

- mirage -

"Do you know what the kids these days are saying?" Roy asked, striking casual conversation in a dull car ride.

Hawkeye glanced momentarily from the road ahead to Roy's smirking passenger self. She kept ten and two on the steering wheel.

"Say-what," Roy said.

"What?" Hawkeye repeated with confusion.

"That's what they're saying, say-what. The expression is: say-what."

Hawkeye made a bemused expression. Outside it was raining and the windshield wipers were doing little to keep the heavy pour from the windshield. All of Central looked gray, and the only color came from the peppered umbrella covered souls scurrying this way and that. It had been coming down for days, and commanded you to goulashes.

"What are you supposed to say?" Hawkeye asked.

Roy looked over. She was still damp from that quick run from Central Command to the waiting car. They had ordered it drawn up to the entrance, but it did little to help. Her bangs were heavier than usual, and her face misted with a gentle sheen in the dim lighting, but her eye shadow had not moved. It was slight, but subtle. A careful sky blue. Her eyes meant sunny days would return.

"To the expression?" Roy asked.

"Yes, what are you supposed to say? What is the what?"

Roy considered this. He wasn't sure what you were supposed to say. He had assumed the, 'what,' moved case-by-case, depending on the conversation. "I suppose it's different every time."

"How did you learn about this?" Hawkeye asked, baffled fascination entering her voice. Between everything and all of it, how did this sneak in? This month had been chaotic.

"The subject of your sentence would be ever changing, so I assumed, the what, of say-what, would change to be your subject."

"Did you hear Edward use this?" Hawkeye asked suspiciously. Suspicious, but certain. "Is he, the kids of these days?" her voice revealed a gentle mirth as she asked this question. Laughing at the inaccuracy. The drastic comparison between twelve-year-olds in Central, collecting comic books, and holding their mother's hands when they went out, juxtapose Fullmetal.

Hawkeye took a smooth right onto Park Drive. It was five blocks from Central Command and over looked Central's largest park. An elegant street built for the luxury of long walks, fine landscaping, and impressive trim. The real estate and lease cost for locations on Park Drive was significant, and kept it lined with reputable shops of fine taste. In the rain, the most colorful item on the long stretch was one red and white stripped awning shrouding a small seating area outside a fine chocolate store. The brightest, was the collection of military cars outside the jewelry store where a large transmuted hole gut the side.

"He used it when reporting," Roy said. "He has no idea how unprofessional it is to use slang expressions when reporting, so I talked to him about it." We didn't want that happening to higher-ups. "I made a statement, and he bursts out with, say-what!, and we had a very awkward exchange." Roy was miffed with this. There was something about Ed's advanced, or was it meager, language skills that loudly, boldly, and perhaps accurately said: YOU ARE GETTING OLD, OLD MAN.

Had that many years gone by we no longer knew the phrases on the street? Had so many days passed no one used them in conversation when speaking to him, or bothered to share them during a joke so he could be included?

Hawkeye approached the few cars crowding about the front of the jewelry store and small alley on its left. The alley was where the burglary had happened, and there was nothing special about it at all.

"Am I uncool?" Roy asked, doubtful but curious. Hawkeye gave a long groan, and leaned over the steering wheel struggling to find the curb. The rain was so heavy it was a mist shrouding everything. The parked cars lining Park Drive were black obstacles, and they needed to parallel park, or at least pull up to the sidewalk so they wouldn't hold up traffic. Park Drive was one-way, and law enforcement was eating up so much space, traffic could barely squeeze past. The addition of one more car would serve as the final cork. "Do you think the men are using these expressions, and keeping them out of the office?" Roy asked. "As if I wouldn't understand them?"

"Of for heaven's…" Hawkeye muttered below her breath before pointing to Roy's car door. "Will you roll your window down? I can't see anything."

Roy looked at the window handle with distaste. "Lieutenant, we'll be drenched."

"Well, I can't see anything." Was idling in the only driving area really an option?

Roy began a quick and angry rolling down of the car window. "He says, say-what!, so I am waiting for him to continue, and when he doesn't, I politely say, excuse me?"

"That's good," Hawkeye said. Yes, polite was good. Polite was what he had been working on. None of this, what the hell are you doing? What the hell did you just say? Pay attention god dammit. Sit your ass down. None of the standard, and comfortable, abrasive statements composing basic military exchanges could be used, because they made Edward lapse into bouts of concerned staring. As if unable to determine how greatly, and what, yes that was a big one, what, he had just done to piss Colonel Roy Mustang off.

"You know it confuses him," Hawkeye said, managing to pull them flush to two curb parked cars. There wasn't quite enough of a single lane left behind, but using the shoulder cars should be able to squeeze past.

"That's why I was polite," Roy said. "But then we had a conversation composed of mainly the word what. He says say-what, so I ask what, then he asks me what again, so I asked what with greater force, and then he's just staring at me, as if unable to continue."

"You confused him."

"I didn't confuse anyone," Roy said irritably. "It shouldn't have been confusing." Ed was the one who started it. "I ended up just moving on in conversation, and abandoning the entire thing, but he's used it a few times."

"So what does it matter?" Hawkeye asked, again beginning a small laugh.

"It means something," Roy said, mildly annoyed. "I want to know what it means. I can't judge it in context."

With the window entirely rolled down, their car, which looked to be under a pressure hose of rain, became identifiable as one with military personnel, and a few of the damp and bored officers noticed. They sent shouting notification into the alley, and one began approaching the car.

Roy didn't want this. "Send who is in charge!" he called out, trying to lean back and avoid the rain pelting in. Angrily he began rolling the glass back up, and left only two inches of space.

Hawkeye glanced about the windows before twisting around in her chair trying to gauge if she was pulled close enough. "This is so unnecessary," Roy said, gesturing angrily to the cars in front of them. Their lit headlights were casting long ghosting shadows toward the alley and the front of the shop where displayed jewels glimmered like stars. "Everyone always wants to deploy their own car, and we have all this useless mileage."

About the mouth of the alley, a few soldiers were talking and pointing. Their faces were wincing under the heavy rain; eyes squinted for protection, and hair separating into wet strains. Fullmetal became apparent in seconds, a foggy red blur half the height of everyone else. He had no umbrella, and was saturated to the extent he looked to have climbed out of a swimming pool. Roy found this disgustingly obnoxious, but Hawkeye let a small defeated sigh escape.

Through the large front windows of the jewelry shop, military personnel and a towering suit of armor could be seen moving around and using flashlights.

Ed ran to Mustang's idling car. "Colonel," Ed greeted, boots stomping through puddles with a wide grin. "I didn't think a fat-cat like you would leave the office with all this rain coming down," Ed said, grinning into the open window with water trickling over his face and dripping off his chin.

Roy found the constant sassy commentary agitating and had something to say, when Hawkeye beat him to it with a quick, "Edward, why don't you have an umbrella?"

Ed's grin faded, and he gave a quick shrug. "I did have one, but it's raining so hard it was pointless. The alley is too narrow for us to use them, and we kept getting tangled up." He hooked a finger over his shoulder, and Hawkeye looked to the alley. The visible soldiers did not have umbrellas either. "We're almost done here though." Ed turned his gaze to Mustang. "You want my report in the morning, Colonel?" Ed leaned into the side of the car and looked down at his feet. It was clear he was lifting a foot out of the gushing water running like a river down the slight incline of Park Drive.

"What have you found?" Roy asked, expecting it to be standard.

"Exactly what you'd think I'd find," Ed said, sounding bored. "They triggered a chemical evaporation of the oxygen atoms in the silica compound of the brick, causing it to break apart. Without its main component, the remaining Alumina helped it pretty much break into nothing, and it was more-or-less the same for the hydraulic material and calcium silicates in the mortar." Roy was satisfied with this. He had sent Ed to view the burglary just to rack up the boy's field time. He didn't think things would actually be complicated, or require alchemist attention. "The guy took every diamond in the shop," Ed said, sounding impressed. "They said that would have been a lot of them."

"Really," Roy said, not the slightest bit interested. He was watching the lumbering body of Alphonse Elric wedge his way through dainty glass display cases before arriving at the front door.

Alphonse threw it open and called to them. "Nii-san!"

Ed turned around, but with the weight of the water, the boy's bangs didn't even move. They hung like yellow lead ribbons beading water. "What!" Ed called back.

"They found how the robbers escaped!" Alphonse sounded excited. "There's a big hole in the floor!"

"Really?" Ed called, becoming excited as well. He took a small step forward, as if to run and look, before pausing with the reality he hadn't been dismissed.

"Yeah! And they took the safe with them! Right through the floor! They dropped the floor out so the safe would fall through, and it exploded in the sewer!"

Looking shocked, Ed cried out, "Say, what!" and Roy jerked up in his chair. He turned quickly to Hawkeye to verify she'd heard it.

"That's it," Roy said quickly, gesturing to the wet glass and Ed's murky image. "That's the expression. He just used it." Hawkeye had a critical expression of attentiveness on her face, and she glanced at Roy, before simply moving her eyes back to the boys.

"Sir, I am going to go check that out," Ed said, turning back to face them, and slipping a drenched gloved hand into the cracked window. "Take down the window, it's really annoying," Ed complained, tugging on the glass. Roy reluctantly lowered it an inch, and Hawkeye watched Ed lick at the stream of water running off the tip of his nose and drink it. "Did you need me for something?" Ed asked, sounding impatient before grinning like a wise ass. "What do you want to bet these amateurs took the same approach on the cement structure, and attacked basic building molecules, right Colonel?" Ed asked, reaching in and giving Roy's shoulder a nudge. "Right?"

Roy narrowed his eyes. He felt his luck spike when Ed used the expression in front of Hawkeye. He wanted to get to the bottom of this. The expression appeared to be a bit more versatile than he thought, so feeling a bit awkward, but still rather confident he was catching on, he asked, "Say, what?"

"That the robbers focused on dissolving the structuring atoms, attacking the silicon-oxygen bond!" Ed said, laughing at the simplistic use of science. "Basic level-one alchemy," Ed said, shaking his head. Oh, the foolish people below us.

Alphonse returned to the jewelry store door and called back out to Ed, impatient and wanting to go down and look at the mess of pearls and rubies scattered in the below sewer main. With Ed looking back at his brother Hawkeye said, "There sir, it means you didn't hear what he said." That appeared to be it. Roy turned to her and she moved only her gaze to him before lifting a single questioning eyebrow. That was what had happened, but it didn't fit Roy's memory correctly. Ed hadn't looked as if he had misheard; he looked as if he were saying something with this logic-less expression.

"I don't think that's accurate."

"That's what just happened," Hawkeye countered not unkindly. She glanced to Ed, but he was still distracted, and they had realized early on that they could talk directly in front of him, and it did not mean he would notice. "He probably didn't hear what you said, and was asking you to repeat it."

Somehow it was a bit frustrating to find out all this was a stupid request for a statement to be repeated. Were we that uncool something so simple seemed so complex? Get a grip, Mustang.

Alphonse was relentless. "Nii-san, the soldiers are going down and we're being left behind!"

Ed was irritated. "Yeah, okay! Just wait one second!"

"I'm going to go without you, Nii-san."

"Don't go without me!" Ed yelled angrily. "Just give me one second! I'm almost done!"

Ed turned back to the window taking a large huffing breath, and looked to Roy expectantly. What was it the Colonel wanted!

It was simple, and with determination Roy tried again. "Fullmetal, I said, say-what."

"What?" Ed asked, reaching up and smearing water off his face with a glove that looked as if it were leaking. "What do you mean?" Ed asked, sounding exasperated with this. He pushed his bangs back into his hair and they stuck, exposing all of his wet frowning expression.

"Sir, I don't think we have anything to worry about," Hawkeye said. Ed looked to her with confusion before training his eyes again on Mustang. The direct report, the other male.

From behind them Alphonse threatened a loud, "I'm leaving, Nii-san!" and Ed had a small fit where he stood. He broke out stomping, and they heard the water splashing about his feet and the side of the car, before he was yelling at the armor to wait one stupid minute.

Hawkeye leaned into the driver's side door, and propped a comfortable elbow on the steering wheel wearing a smile. Her commanding officer was frowning darkly at his stomping and yelling twelve-year-old subordinate, and she felt herself rise to a pleased and content place. "I don't think we have anything to worry about, sir." Roy looked over at her. The expression of disgusted disapproval still obvious. "We're plenty cool." Her smile widened before she shrugged playfully. "I know I'm cool."

"I don't think this is funny, Lieutenant," Roy said stonily, before lowering the window entirely, and jerking Ed's attention back around with a loud annoyed. "Fullmetal?"

"Yeah, what!" Ed snapped. "What do you want? What do you need? Can I go?" Ed broke out sulking. "I want to go see the second transmutation."

Of course we did.

"I want you to stand still like a civilized person, and explain to me the meaning of your statement," Roy said, tone entirely serious.

"Explain the meaning of Silicon atoms and silicates tetrahedral coordination!" Ed asked looking surprised. "But that's a lot!"

"No, your other statement," Roy said angrily. He wasn't going to repeat it, and Ed lapsed into a confused silence. His chin was dripping steadily, and the interior passenger side door was wet to the touch. Ed was thinking quickly over what he'd said, but it looked as if nothing was coming together for him.

"Edward, you used a statement just a moment ago," Hawkeye said. "You said, say-what. Can you explain that?"

"What did I say?" Ed asked, baffled.

"You said, say-what," Hawkeye repeated. "Just like that, say-what."

"Say, what?" Ed asked, and when he said it, it sounded correct. There was an inflection when he pronounced it that Roy realized they were missing. It wasn't a dry and monotone say-what, the second word had a lifted nuance. "You mean, what does, say-what mean?" Ed sounded confused, before he began snickering. "Yeah, of course I know what it means." He was laughing because who didn't know what it meant. Who. "It's like saying, oh my gosh, or, you've got to be kidding me, or, that's crazy, or like asking what did you say, but you're saying it wrong, Lieutenant."

Hawkeye took things in strides, and entirely patient and attentive, she said, "I'm saying it wrong?"

"Yeah," Ed said, still smirking. He lifted a wet hand and scrubbed at his nose, before leaning into the side of the car as if he were stepping under an umbrella. "You have to say it like I'm saying it." Roy found this ridiculous. "You have to say the word say like me, like normal, but then exaggerate the what."

Roy felt he had enough. This expression was terrible. "Fullmetal."

"So say it louder," Ed continued. "I've heard a lot of people saying it in Central, but they say it like that." Roy felt things become clear: Ed was simply repeating something he had heard with perhaps very limited understanding of the subtle implications, or who was truly appropriate to use it. "They make the word 'what' longer, like, say, whaaaat, or say,whaaat! That's how they do it."

Roy tried again. "Fullmetal." Hawkeye was keeping a straight, non-judgmental expression, as Ed stepped back from the car in order to place some body language into his examples. He repeated the phrase while lifting his shoulders in an overstated clueless gesture, and then repeated it again tossing his hands with a bit of disbelief.

"Fullmetal, enough!" Roy snapped. He lifted his hand and pat uselessly at the space between them to stop all activity. "I've heard enough. I have decided, I hate this expression."

"You hate the expression, say-what?" Ed asked, looking flabbergasted.

"It's dreadfully unintelligent," Roy said, "I won't have it used any longer in my presence." Ed's jaw was hanging open. "Repetitive low-information statements do not properly express sentiment, and I demand greater vocabulary use, so we will no longer be using this expression, do you understand?" Roy asked. Ed gave a slow uncertain nod, as if the idea of censoring an expression was brand new to him, when in fact man had been doing it for centuries. Roy felt relief, and rolled the window up a few inches with a quick, "Thank god."

"Nii-san!" Alphonse called out, stealing Ed's attention again. "We found the robbers' escape route!"

Ed jerked a step from the car, and cried out, "Say…" and then he went mute. Hawkeye exchanged a fast glance with Roy, and they both looked at the boy who stood in the pouring rain as if he'd lost the ability to speak, before Ed continued with, "Get, out!"

"Yeah!" Alphonse cried. "They blew a hole right into the bank two blocks away! We're going in now! They probably robbed that too!"

"Get, out!" Ed said louder. He spun back around to face Mustang, and broke into a solute while backing away. "Okay, thanks sir! Good to see you! Gotta go! See you back at the office! I'll have a report or whatever done for you tomorrow or whatever!" Ed took off running, and Alphonse held the door for him before following Ed into the dim building.

Nothing was left in Ed's absence, but the insistent patter of heavy rain. Then softly, Hawkeye teased, "I think you may need to expand your directions, sir."

Glad to be rid of everyone Roy began a quick rolling up of his window before muttering an irritable, "I think I will order him to stop talking while in proximity of me, if he's not reporting or greeting people to be polite."

Hawkeye was in the midst of verifying there were no approaching cars so she could pull out, when Roy's words stopped her. She looked to him quickly, an odd smile breaking her stoic expression. It sounded like a corky joke, but Roy was sitting with a pointed stare of confidence that suggested he may be serious. "Think about it," Roy said dryly. "If he's not reporting, I haven't benefited from a single thing he's ever said."

Hope you enjoyed. Reviews are love.

Next Posting: 11/25/16, my multi-chapter story, Board of Squares.

If you like my writing, you'll enjoy. Please join me for Chapter 1: Fourteen Year Old Fetus, posting right before the holidays as the first of 19 chapters. The adorable Ed and Al interaction, fabulous Colonel, and all around awesome will hook you. And let's not pretend like we all don't need something to read over the holidays.