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Hughes says, “Hawk’s Eye.”
And the words are a shot direct to Roy’s adrenaline, on the heels of a now dead Ishvalan. Fresh blood wafts in the humid air, and he feels how his own blood courses through his veins. He’s acutely aware of his body: the lingering tingle of his fingers, his brain buzzing with chemical equations - all just milliseconds ago at the ready.
Hawkeye is a name that circulates in his mind nightly - not with any particularity, but in a distant sort of way. When the nightmares and insomnia render him alone with his thoughts. When the outside raucous laughter of his unit doesn’t drown out the replay of shrieks and chorus of Ishvalan groans in his mind’s eye.
Hawkeye is not something that has existed outside of his memories, the array of his gloves, his hands.
He thinks, he hopes, ‘no, can’t be.’
Hughes goes on to say “Cadet,” and Roy calculates the years since her father’s passing, since his hands passed over the raised ink tapestry across her back. He knows the count of her birthmarks, as vividly as he can call to her father’s formulas that make good kindling out of human flesh.
He measures out the years since, considers her age: calculates the years of post-secondary education, and maps out the time required to train and enroll in the military academy. He is left with staring up and far, as Hughes points vaguely in the direction of a tower.
(He foolishly thinks for a moment, of this cliche: she, Princess Of (not in) her Tower, who needs no rescuing.)
He looks so intently across the distance, as if he’ll find his answer - this terrible, dreaded answer, when he already knows. She is here, and near.
“She’s got a good arm.”
And his mind pushes him backwards - to escorting her on ventures into the woods, just a little aways behind the Hawkeye Manor. Such times were few, can be counted on one hand, but he remembers - plump berries and balmy herbs scooped up in her skirts, before falling into her basket, while he fumbled practicing alchemy in the open space of a forest clearing. On another occasion, he accompanied her in small game shooting - a past-time of hers that became more and more seldom as house staff were dismissed, and her responsibilities piled up.
And he recalls how each year, she would best her prospective suitors at the local bi-yearly town fair. There was this floating rumor - Miss Hawkeye might entertain your courtship for the end of the fair’s dance, if you won a game over her at the shooting booth.
Her offhand comments helped him steady his aim, and she was the fifth person he told when he received his papers, having passed the first phase of military qualifications. (Technically she was the second, after her father. Mail delivery of letters to Madame Christmas and his sisters evidently took some time.)
But he is done listening to this second-hand account of a girl he does not know anymore, that he really only knew on surface levels anyway. This young soldier that he feels he has had a hand in making, while he has been trying to reconcile daily with how she and her father made him as he is now.
(Some days, he half-resolves himself to this: that it’s futile to place any singular blame on Master, her, or himself. It leaves him hollow trying to make sense of this guilt, and find, displace, fault outside of himself. It doesn’t serve him any good. And it certainly doesn’t serve any Ishvalans any good.
Other days….
Other days.)
“Where is she,” he finds himself saying, stumbling over the words, “I should- Let’s look- Can we find her.”
Hughes doesn't question this - for the moment. He simply leads the inquiry, as they head back to the encampment, and asks colleague after colleague. Roy, though - he’s only catching every other word of the faint conversation between Hughes and the soldier that tries to direct them. He searches across the field of fellow soldiers, and he keeps hoping despite how his mind repeats ‘foolfoolfoolfoolfool-‘
And there she is.
Her shadow meets him at first. She stands where the sun mercilessly blazes right down on his face, and his eyes smart and water as they adjust.
(Another cliche: an Angel of Death, with the marked dark circles under her eyes.)
She looks directly at him, gaze sober. Her hands linger on her hood for a moment, before falling to her sides as she straightens herself, and he can feel her spine under his fingertips, the goosebumps across the top of her shoulder blades, the patch of eczema.
(One, two, birthmarks below her left floating rib. A third diagonally across.
[noli adiuvare hos incendarios] incendium dolosum delictum grave est
[Do not help these arsonists] - deceitful arson is a serious crime
Cuantum indissolubilis qualitas reverto
How much of an indestructible quality can be returned?)
She is steady, calm, as ever.
“Do you remember me?”
He’s never thought of her as anything less than clever. Education was paramount in the Hawkeye Manor, after all.
But what a goddamn stupid question, Riza Hawkeye.
Seasons don’t pass visibly in Ishval, for the obvious reasons.
And so, it’s the first in years for Roy. To watch the fading of leaves from the verdant green, to ruby red and sharp saffron, as he returns and settles into his recently acquired position at Eastern Command. It’s simultaneously new and old - these cobbled streets; the familiar crunch of leaves under his boots, where there used to be blood-stained dirt and sand that gave way.
He’s now her commanding officer professionally, but he takes her lead when it comes to their personal dynamics. (Cowardice, cloaked in regulations and propriety.)
He stopped calling her Riza since long ago. The last time her name passed his lips - or at least, in her company or in any sociable way - was years, years ago, when there was hope, youth, innocence in them yet.
Between the two of them now - there are just scraps of those things. Sure, youth; some hope; but innocence? Swiftly gone, as each body dropped swiftly to the ground.
In their ill-gotten reunion - she addressed him with her patented polite “Mustang-san,” in a voice that wasn’t familiar - drained, dry and raspy from her sand-coated throat. She had then followed that with a “Major Mustang,” void of any judgment or praise. Judgment, deserved; praise, unwanted in any case.
It has been “sirs” since.
It takes him a while yet before his heart stops hiccuping any time his name appears from her lips in the first few months. Such occasions are purely professional and not even his name, it’s just, “Lieutenant Colonel Mustang’s office. No, not right now, but..."
Likewise: opportunities in using her name are primarily professional - particularly when introducing her to his superiors, associates, and what will become their entire task unit. The only personal instance is when he has to introduce her to Hughes; the second time particularly weighs on him when it happens because it’s Hughes. Hughes is his friend, is quick and perceptive. And Riza is-
"Roy! Over here. Is it bad out there? Gracia had me take an umbrella this morning; she's a goddess, always knows when it's going to rain before it happens. Oh, hello again! We'll need another chair-" a pause as he looks around, frowns, "If we can find one. We can flag a waiter, maybe. Riza, right?"
"Ah- Uh, right. Hughes, Riza Hawkeye; she's-"
His adjutant; the Hawk's Eye; Grumman's beloved granddaughter; his teacher's daughter; his walking guilt trip; his object of denial; his so-many-things that mustn't be named.
Somehow, it’s heavier for him any time he writes out her name on reports; feels the weight of her family name as he writes in his alchemical journal.
(He thinks better of it in the end, making any record public in any way. He creates his code - reduces the research to bare bones and names of faceless women.
Flame alchemy must end with him, her, and what makes of their unholy union.)
They relearn each other as adults.
Part of that involves Riza learning Roy’s patterns - which leads to her knowing when he will fall asleep at his desk.
It’s the early days - and she will find him usually in the afternoon. Specifically, around lunchtime, and he’ll nap right in his chair, rather than take his rest in the designated break room.
Time is shifting this weekend. She’s thinking about how she’ll mention changing the clocks once everyone comes back, as she closes the door behind her. And there he is, dozing off.
The window is open, and the afternoon sun hits across his desk. The light sinks into the ridges of the dark wood; and the shadows of the tree and its entourage of leaves flicker and waver over his cheek, the shell of his ear.
Her voice carries - light, but firm - as she wakes him, calling out to him.
(His title. Not his name. No longer his name.)
“Damn,” he mumbles as he rouses, voice thick with sleep. Groaning, he rights himself and rubs at the juncture between his neck and shoulder; switches to the other side, before leaning back and presses his head back against his chair. His eyes shut, as he yawns openly.
“I was trying- I wanted to finish this,” he makes a languid gesture towards the papers fanned out across his desk, “before I fell asleep.”
“Best laid plans,” Riza says.
He snorts, and stays as he is, yawns again.
Sleep inertia is a struggle, so she gives him a minute. The others are not in yet after all. She does, however, eye the clock, as they are expected in about fifteen - and some of them are not quite as punctual as they could be. Fuery and she have shared their gripes about that with one another; but as long as work gets done, neither feel it's necessary to make it a thing.
She’s starting to feel the usual post-lunch drag herself, and considers coffee. She’s leaning across his desk to grab a few reports, winces at the pull of fabric against the raw, blistering skin of her back, when she notices-
His neck. Specifically, his Adam’s apple. The way his throat dips, as he swallows another yawn.
It’s for a half split second that her thoughts are preoccupied by this, before she takes a step back when he swivels his chair towards her.
“Sir.”
For Roy, getting to know Riza as the self-assured adult that she’s grown up to be is….
(Well.)
Nothing about who she has become is at all surprising to him. All the same, it catches him at times - the fact that he's seen her through her teenage years; how she's seen him through his defining years in alchemy. Cohabitation - while keeping to their own - under one roof, under the thumb of a man in their own respective ways, for under a decade - these are things that only they know, share.
(Another memory: he used to tower over her, until eventually she grew and didn’t need his occasional help to grab the sugar on the high kitchen shelf.)
“I won’t be needing you for the rest of the night.”
“Are you sure?” Riza asks.
“He’s sure, he’s sure,” Hughes waves a dismissive hand, then smiles warmly at her, “I promise that I’ll keep him out of trouble-“
“Oi, I resent—“
“-so, go on, enjoy what little beauty sleep you can get before you do this all over again tomorrow, dealing with him.”
“Again, I resent that-“
“Then I’ll be on my way. Good night, sirs.”
Roy sulks, just as the barkeeper drops off two full beers in front of them.
There were Nights, of exasperation, of impatience, tempestuous as Roy was at that time, because such frustrations festered into uncertainties that Master Hawkeye could no longer be the one to foster his ambitions.
Riza did not know specifically of these frustration, but living in close quarters did not afford much privacy. She heard the arguments - their voices traveling down the halls. Or rather - the lack thereof of Roy's voice, buried by the condescension and self-righteousness of her father.
Riza would make tea. Not for Roy's benefit. Just by happenstance, whenever they evidently had to share the same living space, at the same time. After such disputes, he would turn up, just as she settled in sometime after dinner. He would look put out; other times, sheepish and apologetic. But he'd still turn fastidiously back to his studies. His chemistry books, notes, and various alchemical diagrams scattered across the table and rug. Her own schoolbooks or past-time book, neatly in her lap as she curled into a worn burgundy chair.
And then, she became responsible for the accounting. She would have to plan, in order to ensure she could commandeer use of the singular table in the room. Logically, she could have taken to her room, or the dining room. But she grew up with her mother's particular logic: bedrooms were for sleeping; the dining room for meals, and one mustn't confuse and merge the purposes of rooms. And p erhaps another part of her simply did not want to completely surrender her entire home to this boy.
All that said: what had been a rather unlived room since the passing of Riza's mother evidently became a room of convenience for them over the years. For one, the sitting room turned study had more comforts than the other parts of the manor. The walls didn't suffer the same drafty affliction as the other rooms. Maintenance became only more difficult as the years went on.
And for another, they were of hearing distance of father and teacher, respectively.
They didn’t talk much, really.
But they would sit, with the company of the crackling fireplace between them.
“I was going to marry her,” Roy says abruptly, interrupting the quiet lapse he and Hughes were enjoying.
Hughes’ eyebrows shoot up and he leers across the table, “Her? Who, her? Herwho?"
Roy just looks pointedly at Hughes, who gapes and blinks blankly before he realizes.
Roy shifts in his seat, is all too aware of Hughes's expectant gaze, and taps his thumb against the curve of the mug’s handle, trying to wait him out. But Hughes's curiosity has been a hungry thing, and morsels are evidently not enough.
His eyes flicker across the empty beers between them, falls on Hughes's wedding ring, sees how it winks under the dim lights.
“I had just turned twenty. She was...seventeen? Maybe months away from eighteen. Before that, we weren’t… At all. She wasn’t- It- It just wasn’t like that, between us.”
Roy snorts.
“There wasn’t much of anything. But Master-,” he squeezes his eyes shut, clenches his jaw as he rebukes himself for the slip, rebukes himself for even telling Hughes any of this, “her father had died. I figured…. After some time, sometime in her twenties, and we’d still be in contact - I gave her my card before I left - And if she needed it, then I’d just marry her.”
He absently circles the rim of his glass with his finger.
“It’s better to say I was going to ask her to marry me. Presumptuous of me to think she’d just say yes. But if nothing else, I could look after her that way. If she didn’t have anyone else as a prospect, or other means.”
“Yeah,” Hughes says, “because that’s what a young woman wants in a beau. Her love to be out and about, across a war.”
Roy’s voice goes small.
“It wouldn’t have been about love.”
“Roy--“
“I thought-,” Roy stops himself as a woman passes by, bumps into their table, and is followed by her companion. He leans back in his chair and waits for them to leave, rubs the condensation from his fingers one by one.
Then, “It’d be about companionship more than anything. Love didn’t really register for me at that time. There wasn’t any room for that, you know?”
Hughes’s ring winks at him again, as some kind of answer.
“And when orders for Ishval came- Became official…. Well, I knew it wouldn’t be right. For a lot of reasons,” he takes a shaky breath, “a. Lot. Of reasons. But I thought about it, before. Spousal compensation, for one."
("Riza, listen - you don't have to do this. You can keep some of this, and still manage to make up the difference of the estate's debts. There’s other assets to sell. It'll take time, but it's not as if your father’s debtors are looking to collect any time soon."
She had been silent, brow furrowed as she looked pensively over the clutter of furniture, the tangled mess of legacy jewelry and trinkets on the table between them. In that same half-second, she had shaken her head - all the while as her fingers possessively curled over the wood of that burgundy chair of hers.)
Hughes remains quiet for a bit; then, his voice low, conspiratorial really:
“And now? Barring the obvious - what is it about now then, Roy?”
Roy flattens his lips, closes his eyes. If he focuses, he can still catch her faint lotion. His mind betrays him, anchoring him to the singular scent of charred flesh.
It’s timely when the barkeep does last call.
(When they're outside, and waiting for their respective rides - Hughes's cigarette smoke is illuminated by the faint light of the overheard street lamp, travels the short distance between him and Roy, before dissipating up in the night breeze.
Roy professes quietly:
"Her mother's chair is in Christmas's basement.")
Unsurprisingly - Riza had the foresight to open the window beforehand, the last dregs of the seasonal winter air filtering in. The moonlight limns, fractures, across her floor, over half-unpacked moving boxes and not quite yet placed furniture. In Roy's haste, he’s forgotten to turn off her kitchen sink completely, and there’s an uneven rhythm of dripdripdrip that hits an unwashed butterknife. Neither will notice until the next morning.
Her bed dips, his knee pressing into the mattress. The sound of his starched sleeves rolled up to his forearms is accompanied by the shifting of cotton as she settles across her sheets. A kick of her legs inadvertently causes her half-off blanket to slip off completely.
"Leave it," she says with an impatient huff, when she feels him graze across the curve of her calf, in an effort to reach over and grab back the blanket. His uncharacteristic obedience is immediate, as his hand snaps back.
He tries again to insist, to put her in the most comfortable position as possible, before she simply commits to lying on her stomach.
His palm is hovering over Non delenda non creada lux est Et mutantur proprium when he realizes- At the same time as she does, and she reaches around, swiftly unhooks the snap of her bra. The straps slacken, but the bands don't part and fall. He has to push them out of the way with his ungloved hand, revealing the salamander beneath. Her breath catches, exhales, at his rough cool fingers, and he can feel that shiver, watches the rippled flex of her shoulder muscles as she props herself up just slightly with her forearms, in order to remove her bra completely. She's left herself bare.
The smell is acrid, familiar to both their senses. This alabaster, marked plane of her back is also a familiar, and unwelcome sight.
It's here, in her bedroom, that he slips up.
He says her name, her mother-blessed name, followed by profuse, ineffectual but nonetheless heartfelt apologies as he continues to burn her father from her skin. He says her name, especially when she’s not responding to his calls, because he needs to check on her, while confirming she wants this. And she only urges him on, even as her back arches, away, an unconscious reflex each time she hears the spark. She just presses into her bed, clutches the sheets, with each stroke of flame. His aim is steady, but his heart is pounding erratically that he’s going about this wrong, and it is Wrong. He says her name, accompanied by more apologies, and-
Again, again, as he trails across her skin and irrevocably mars her birthmarks, and she just cries and moans through this shared absolut-(mockery of absolution) living misery.
And the thought hangs - during, and certainly after.
He wrings his gloves in his hands, wanting to smooth a hand across her arm as she takes deep ragged breaths. Wants to provide support as she shakily moves to the bathroom, and he compromises by hovering because he can't just keep on watching as she stumbles and clutches to the walls. Wants to give comfort, and curses himself for thinking he could ever. She hates him on some level, he knows this, but he can’t even begin to fathom what will come from this.
He thinks as she finally half-sleeps, cheek pressed against her pillow stained with tears, sweat.
He thinks, as he wipes her face and neck down with a soft lavender cloth, as he dares to touch the soft hairs at her temple with the back of his knuckles, the towel crossing the slope of her jaw.
How is this possibly looking after her.
(He hates her on some level. He never asked for this responsibility, knows she doesn’t even need his care. He knows what will come of this for himself.
It is still futile to place any singular blame on her father, her, or himself.
And she leaves him feeling hollow and whole, all the same.)
“Best laid plans,” she says.
Roy half-chuckles at that as he yawns, struggles in waking up from his unintended nap. He can sense her standing by patiently, and he yawns again as he opens his eyes, knows soon enough the quietude of this moment will be broken if her return from lunch is any indication. She is punctual, always five minutes early from the end of lunch.
He watches her reach over to grab a completed report, but catches her slight wince as she grabs his mug. She talks about making some coffee for herself and she might as well make some for him too, but don’t get comfortable about that; she refuses, it’s not going to be a thing, he has his own two hands. Watches her fail to stifle the pain on her face, as she pulls her arm back. He feels the familiar tug, tightness, in his chest.
(Sometimes, when he’s standing right above her, and at a certain angle, he can see the vanilla white of her bandages just peeking slightly from the back of her collar.)
“Plans.” He says quietly, as he turns his chair towards her.
“Sir?”
“It’s going to be a long night.”
“Yes, well, the coffee should help.”
“No, I mean-,” he clears his throat and catches her eye, “I mean, it’s going to be a rough rest of the day. And it's been a while, for you, since you...came back from- Well- We've got that deadline. Might take all night. So when you get home, just- Don’t forget to…. To change. Your clocks, tonight. I can- I'll call, to make sure.”
(And he's stumbling on his words, like he's fourteen again, and insisting he can dry his own laundry, while Riza is sensibly trying to come up with an effective laundry day schedule for everyone.)
They just look on at each other for a moment, as his words settle. She pointedly squares her shoulders, as she straightens herself.
“That won’t be necessary.”
The door rattles, and the rest of the team start coming in. She just turns away and walks towards the coffee station, her back facing him. He himself looks away from the view of her nape, and his fingers curl into a fist over the arm of his chair.