Work Text:
"'Ey, Little Red!"
Namori lifted her head from the sticky mess of last-night's ale that was sinking into her already-stinking bartop, the force of the elbow grease she was applying to the counter sinking into her already-aching shoulders. Clad in his signature shade, the Crimson Alchemist smirked from the Devil's Nest's propped door, looking every bit as ruthlessly delighted as he always seemed to be.
It was strange to think of him as someone who was always in "high spirits", but there was nothing else Namori could possibly compare it to. Rain or shine, Zolf J. Kimbley's omnipresent smirk was going to shine from whatever dark corner of whatever hole in the wall he'd found himself in. Even from the gallows, she knew he would be beaming at his own executioner.
"Zolf–" The toil of her workday fell away in an instant, the corners of her mouth curling upward in a glowing grin. She rounded the corner of the bar in record time, rushing across the sticky floorboards and straight into Zolf's arms. He had the best way of her surprising her. "–I didn't know you were in town!!"
"Well, it took a midnight train and a cab, but I wasn't gonna leave my favorite girl working late all by herself on her special day, was I?"
Cocking her head to one side with a furrowed brow, Namori give him a quizzical look. "Special day? What do you mean?"
"Oh, don't tell me you forgot..." He scolded lightly, smirking down at her puzzled expression. When her face didn't change, he knew she must actually be serious about the question. "You're kidding, right? You've gotta be joking me, Red, you can't really be that much of a workaholic, right? Come on, babydoll, you've gotta learn to think about yourself sometime– You can't let Greed work you like a dog around a place like this. It's just not suitable for a lil' lady like yourself."
"It's not... a holiday, is it?" She didn't remember a significant increase in the activity at the Devil's Nest today the way she normally did during any of the Amestrian Victory Days and their traditionally raucous, drunken jubilees. They didn't see a lot of uniforms coming in and out of their drafty little dive, but when the command centers closed for a day, you couldn't so much as turn a street corner without seeing a gaggle of off-duty soldiers day-drinking themselves into a stupor and trying their luck with local women. Since no hopeful 20-something with a half-cocked smile and the three-drinks-deep dazed look in his eyes, she hadn't ever stopped to consider if there was something special about her work day.
All the cruelty disappeared from his crooked smirk. Zolf chuckled with a sympathetic look down at his pint-sized lover.
"You're something else, you know that?" He shook his head playfully, before leaning in to kiss her hairline. She did not flinch away from his warm touch, comfortable in his embrace. "Happy Birthday, Red."
"Happy…?" The word felt strange on her tongue. She blinked once. Twice. There was a moment where his three words hung limply in the air around them and drifted down over her like a gentle confetti. Happy Birthday, Red. It was her birthday. It was her birthday, and he'd remembered. It was her birthday, he'd remembered, and he'd come all this way just to tell her that in person. She didn't think anyone else had done anything like that for her in her entire life. "Oh, Zolf, you remembered–!"
She squeezed his rail-thin frame as tightly as she could. In the months since escaping the Central prison system, he was steadying putting weight back on, becoming more healthy, more warm, more human by the day. Now when she hugged him, she didn't feel like he was going to break.
"How could I forget?!" He laughed brightly, his hyena-cackle bouncing joyfully through the din of the bar. "I've been planning our special night all week, dollface."
His energy was infectious. Namori found herself giggling in time with his bounding cackle.
"Special night?" She grinned shyly, snuggling deeper into his embrace the way a cat keens into their favorite spot on a warm, sunlit sofa. She felt at home in his hardened arms. "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean “what do I mean”? Of course, it's gonna be special! What time is the boss man letting you out of this shithole, anyway?"
"Aw, but, babe– I'm closing! I'll be here all night!" Namori's grin dropped from her face like a sandbag and hit the ground with a solemn thud. She was double-booked for her own birthday date? On the only birthday date she'd ever gotten? "Don't tell me you had dinner plans..."
"Dinner?" Zolf seemed unphased. "Can't say I made reservations. I had a different sort of plan for us tonight."
Namori's curiosity returned with a hopeful, half-cocked smile. "What were you thinking, then?"
"Well, why don't you start with your present?" With a signature smirk, he reached into the black lining of his suit jacket and produced a small, flat box, sloppily but lovingly wrapped in loosely-folded brown paper and tied off with a crooked red bow. Zolf was never a perfectionist, but it was perfect tinoNamori's eyes. "Before we get too ahead of ourselves."
She took the box from his hands, bouncing on her heels with giddy excitement at the thought of opening a birthday gift from someone she loved and who loved her in return. She didn't even care who heard her girlish squeals of delight or witnessed her shameless display of joy as she tugged the ribbon free from the wrapping and carefully peeled apart the layers of crumpled paper. The box inside was glossy, thin, and white– with an elegant gold embossed logo stamped into the lid. She couldn’t place the brand by memory alone, so she had to assume the shop had to be from one of the towns Zolf had passed through– somewhere far from the darkened streets of Dublith.
When she opened the lid, scarlet lace over crisp white paper greeted her. Something tiny enough– skimpy enough– to fit inside a tiny, skimpy box. Staring back at her was the smallest, most revealing piece of crimson lingerie she had ever laid eyes on.
Namori's face grew red hot in an instant, and she snapped the lid closed before any of the bar patrons could get a peek inside. She already knew what the regulars would be saying about her for weeks to come if they knew about her new gift. They'd be begging for a little “fashion show” with every pint.
"Zolf!" Namori cried sharply, clutching the box close to the fullness of her chest as though she expected it to jump out of her arms and start scampering around the bar like an off-leash dog. Despite her accusatory tone, her slack-jawed smile showed she wasn’t nearly as upset with him as she sounded.
"I told you, Red," His grin seemed to double in size, coyly displaying every bared fang in his wicked smile. He even winked, the cocky bastard. Even through the heat of her shame, Namori couldn’t help but feeI'a tingle of excitement. "I've been planning this all week."