Work Text:
The ticking of the clock on the nightstand seems to fill the small room at midnight, far louder than normal. From the foot of the bed, Black Hayate breathes rhythmically in sleep and lets out an occasional soft whimper in response to whatever he must be seeing in his dreams. And beneath Riza, the wooden bedstead creaks disturbingly with each turn to her side; for the second time tonight, her eyes snap open and her heart skips a beat when she mistakes the sound for the opening of her bedroom door.
It is the third night that Riza has struggled to sleep soundly following her discovery of Selim Bradley’s true identity as Pride—“the first homunculus”, he had boasted. Her already acute senses seem to have become even more sensitive in the late hours, as if she expects to be attacked at any time. It’s a foolish idea, and she had told Pride as much. Nonetheless, the fact of her value as a hostage of the enemy is not made easier by knowing that she has two homunculi watching her, holding her in their palm.
Riza closes her eyes again. She doesn’t expect to truly fall asleep, but her mind might at least become languid enough to be tricked into feeling rested. Or she might lie restlessly for hours instead, her body exhausted but her mind merely slipping in and out of a near-unconscious state. The palpitations hardly make things any easier, but nothing is as inconvenient as having to sleep with the lights on—still the better option compared to letting her guard down in the shadows.
A new sound joins her personal inelegant symphony, but this time, it comes from outside the window. It takes a while for Riza to figure out what it might be. A man’s voice, alternating between humming and whistling. A warm, jovial voice, one that Riza would recognize anywhere, even when it’s muffled by walls and glass and her old curtain. She bolts upright and pulls the curtain aside.
The Colonel is making a show of pacing back and forth on the street below. He is dressed in a dapper suit and tie and his usual overcoat, holding a small bouquet with what appears to be two kinds of flowers. There is a spring in his step that matches the rhythm of his song; he almost appears to be dancing in and out of the warm street lights. When he looks up and finds Riza by her window, he breaks into a bright grin.
“Ah, Lieutenant Hawkeye!” he hollers. “Thank goodness you’re awake, I’ve been hoping you’d be able to help me!”
Riza flinches, startled and embarrassed over the racket he is making at this time of night. Indeed, the Colonel and his car are currently the only occupants of the street. He immediately turns away to resume his routine, now humming even more loudly. Confused and exasperated, Riza turns and grabs a cardigan folded next to the newly awakened Hayate, puts on a pair of bottoms hanging over her dressing cabinet, then hurries out of her apartment.
She reaches the building’s front door quickly from the second floor, meeting Roy right as he arrives at the bottom of the steps leading up from the sidewalk. In one moment, it takes much effort not to smile from the comfort that easily washes over her when she sees him. But in the next, Riza steps back and pulls the cardigan a little more tightly around herself, unable to shake the feeling that they are being watched. Thankfully, she manages to keep her voice even.
“It’s terribly late, Colonel,” she says firmly. “If you needed something, you should have called on the phone. I’d rather you not wake up all my neighbors.”
Roy half-laughs, half-sighs. He leans with one hand on the wrought iron railing of the steps. “You’ll have to excuse me, Lieutenant. I came all the way here because this is exactly where I need to be. I’ve just started seeing a lovely woman who happens to live in your building—surely you know Miss Rosalind Herber?”
He taps at the railing twice with his fingernail, and at once, Riza recognizes the scheme. She takes a second to observe Roy, blinking herself into alertness. His grin is easy and wide, and yet its warmth stops short of reaching his eyes. His speech has taken on a lilt that she doesn’t commonly hear in their casual conversations. His face lacks the red flush of drunkenness.
She knows of no Rosalind living in the building.
Roy means to see her.
Riza nods, relaxing her expression. She leans slightly to the side and lightly knocks at the door frame twice with her knuckles. “Ah, yes. She lives right next door to me. I know she works rather late—but are you sure this is the right time to visit her? It might be a bit too forward if you’ve just started seeing each other.”
“I’m sure Rosalind will appreciate the company.”
“I see. She hasn’t mentioned you, though.”
Roy stammers as if taken aback, but he regains his composure right away. Riza secretly relishes the exchange. “Ah, well—will you show me to her apartment?”
She hesitates only for a moment, her eyes darting left and right. Not another soul out on the street. “Sure. Come on in.”
They head inside without another word. Roy resumes his song quietly behind Riza, who makes a fleeting further appraisal of the situation. Whatever has brought Roy here must have been far too urgent and delicate for him to refer to “Elizabeth”. On one hand, she surmises that it may be necessary for Roy to appear to have a new woman in his life, to continue his charade as a Casanova despite the Führer’s familiarity with his true nature. On the other, the pretense of seeing a new lover rather than his Elizabeth provides a decent excuse for Roy to speak with Riza—not flawless, but workable. Beyond all this, Riza wonders: why here? Why now? Why all this risk to see her?
“By the way,” Roy says out of nowhere, “I’m glad to hear you’ve been seeing someone too. I guess this new work arrangement has been lucky for you. What was his name? Samuel? Bernard?”
Riza’s breath catches in her throat as it dawns on her. “I’m sure you’re talking about Peter.”
“You’ll have to tell me about him soon.”
Soon enough, they arrive at her door.
“Here we are, Sir.” Riza grasps the doorknob and knocks. She speaks tentatively into the wood. “Rosalind? Are you awake? You have a visitor.”
Roy feigns a deep breath, clutching the bouquet to his chest—lovely red and white gardenias. Carefully, Riza twists the doorknob and pushes the door inwards, and she steps aside to let Roy enter first.
As soon as she has followed him inside and closed the door, Roy turns to face her, revealing a complete change in demeanor. His giddy grin has been replaced by a somber expression, and he drops his shoulders slightly, trading his confident stance for a more relaxed posture. He leans back against her kitchen table as he sets down the bouquet next to him.
“Tell me what happened, Lieutenant.” His voice is quiet but firm.
A shudder leaves Riza’s body as she exhales. She purses her lips and holds herself, and she scans the room once. Fewer unpacked boxes on the floor than there were a couple of nights ago, her fresh laundry folded on the couch, Hayate trotting out of their tiny bedroom to welcome Roy by rubbing his head on the latter’s legs. No suspicious shadows.
“Selim Bradley revealed himself when I stopped by the Führer’s mansion the other night,” she recounts methodically. “He called himself Pride. I felt his presence, like I could feel the presence of the other homunculi. And Mrs. Bradley said that Selim wasn’t her biological son, that he was adopted, but related to the Führer. I knew that it just couldn’t be possible—”
“Lieutenant.” Riza stops. Roy’s expression and voice have greatly softened, surprising her even more than the interruption. “Tell me what happened to you. I knew something wasn’t right when I called you that night. I sought you out at lunch the other day knowing that, and then it finally made sense when you told me about Selim. Please, tell me what happened to you.”
By the end of it, he has dropped all pretense of authority—coaxing her to confide in him, not commanding her to report. Riza drops her eyes in hesitation. Why she even acknowledged his presence and allowed him into her apartment despite their precarious situation, she can’t figure out. Not even with the ease she feels in the privacy of her apartment for the first time since he called her that night, not with the inexplicable warmth that she has nonetheless come to expect from him, tempting her to come closer. She shakes her head. This is what had gotten them into this mess in the first place.
“Sir, this isn’t the best time or place for us to have this conversation. Surely you know by now that we’re under close surveillance by two homunculi—”
“That’s exactly why I’m here. I…” Roy has risen off the edge of the table. He runs a hand through his hair, then sighs heavily. Hayate whimpers up at him in concern as he tries to find the words. “There’s not a single day that I haven’t been worried about all of you ever since the transfers. There’s a war being fought at every part of the border, and with General Armstrong in Central, even Briggs has been infiltrated by the Führer’s men. Havoc still isn’t stable enough to be moved to a hospital in East City. And you…”
Roy trails off, and there is a long silence. Riza keeps herself from asking him to go on.
“Losing you has been… I haven’t been myself, Lieutenant. The work, I can keep up with. I can defend myself if I ever get into trouble. But not being around you, not knowing how you are… and now, this. Under close surveillance by two homunculi, like you said.” Riza opens her mouth to stop him, but Roy speaks over her, “I know what you’re going to say. I know this is a great risk, but they already knew how to get to me, and this will not change anything. I have nothing left to lose without you.”
The air in the room has turned heavy with tension. Not in the same way that it did when Pride revealed himself, or when she returned home with great anxiety afterwards, but in the way that it always does in her rare moments of solitude with Roy. Something fragile, something unseen dissipates between them. Riza’s heart throbs in her throat.
Roy steps closer, noticing the still-fresh scar on her right cheek. Suddenly, his hand is resting on her face, surprisingly gentle. He carefully traces the discolored line with his thumb. “Did they do this to you?”
The newness of the moment is fleeting. Deep down, Riza knows that something like this has always been waiting to happen, and now that it has, she can only welcome more of it. She lets out a deep sigh, contented, but still guarded. “Yes.”
Roy gazes at her cheek, and then into her eyes, and back again. He leans in and leaves a tender kiss on the scar.
Riza closes her eyes. A warm sensation spreads from the spot that his lips touch throughout the rest of her body. Nothing has ever felt this good, releasing all the tension that has been building up in her body for the past few days, pulling her closer to him, closer—she wants to remove the little distance left between them.
When he pulls away, something else catches his attention. He brushes her hair behind her shoulder. For a moment, she becomes conscious of the white button-down that she is wearing, its structure against her frame, how loose and poorly cut it seems on her. But his attention is on her neck, on a bruise that Pride’s grasp had left behind. Small and conveniently located at a spot that her uniform covers, but dark enough to be noticed up close. He pushes the collar of the button-down to the side to see it better, baring more of her skin.
“This, too?”
Riza nods.
There is a brief flash of alarm and anger in his eyes, but not enough to overpower his affection. Slowly, Roy kisses the base of her neck where the bruise is, then again, and he lingers there. He is gripping her by the shoulders, but whether to steady her or himself, Riza cannot tell. Suddenly, Riza is filled less with comfort and more with want, and her hands respond to the urge. Her fingers curl on the front of Roy’s shirt, reserved but unyielding as her chest aches for more of him.
Roy traces a path with his mouth down from her neck, slipping the shirt a little off her shoulders just as he is kissing them—just enough to reveal the straps of her black bra underneath, enough for the top buttons to come undone across the top of her chest. His hand travels down her arm and to the small of her back, pulling her closer. Riza is burning now with a blush all across her exposed skin, and as if there were no other part of her left to set on fire, Roy comes up and he kisses her, lips on lips.
There is no question or surprise in the way she moves against him, the way her body welcomes his touch like he is coming home. Riza wants him, just as much now as she always has—and the kiss is more than she has ever had of him, far more than what is allowed between them, but it isn’t enough, not after they’ve been together all this time. She wants more of his growing desperation, more of the desire coming through his lips, his hands. She wants to lose herself here and now. She shouldn’t.
“Colonel—”
What Riza meant as a gentle warning comes out as a longing plea instead.
“I love you,” Roy sighs against her mouth. “You’re everything to me, Riza Hawkeye.”
Riza gives in then, returning to the kiss as she flings her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe in an effort to push herself even more closely to him. Roy wraps his arms around her, lifts her off the floor, and he turns until Riza’s back hits her bedroom door. They stay there for a moment, not even looking up from each other, until she grabs him by the collar at the same time that he finds the doorknob and pushes on inside. Hayate is left behind, having fallen back asleep in the kitchen.
They break away for a moment when the door closes, with Roy pinned against it and Riza’s hand hovering over the light switch on the wall. He notices her pause. “Are you all right?”
“I’m…” Riza’s eyes wander. She sighs after what seems like a long silence. “I haven’t been able to sleep with the lights off. Not since…”
Roy nods once, and he takes her face in his hand. “I understand. Don’t worry; I’m here.”
He plants a kiss on her forehead, then on her nose, and at last, he finds her lips again. Roy is unhurried this time, his hands lingering over every part of her body as he undoes the remaining buttons of her shirt, then slides it off until it drops to the floor behind her, followed by her pajama bottoms. Riza, in turn, helps him out of his black coat, his tie, his shoes, his suit, then at last his inner shirt, leaving him only in his undergarments and the dog tag dangling from a chain around his neck. Here, she pulls away from the kiss only once, crouching down to the scars over the left of his torso from his encounter with Lust. She kisses them like he did the marks from her own brush with danger, taking her time over the stretch of red tissue—a second for every moment that she feared she had lost him, realizing then how important he has been to her.
Soon, they are once again lost in each other’s arms and lips, all the way into Riza’s bed. She rests her back on the pillows by the headboard, watching Roy settle into a comfortable position where he leans over her. There is a mutual pause as they take in the moment in all its perfection, and then its fleetingness. Riza’s heart sinks with the realization. The night has only a few short hours left before dawn comes, when they must resume their respective routines, back in certain danger on an uncertain path and without the promise of another meeting in the near future, let alone a moment like this.
“Where does this leave us?” Riza asks quietly.
Roy sighs, staring at her somberly as he thinks. He caresses her in the meantime, sweeping a stray lock of hair behind her ear, tracing the outline of her face, her neck, her shoulder. He pauses when he comes to her collarbone, then his expression changes into a thoughtful, more tender one.
“Come here, Riza.”
He straightens into a sitting position next to her, and Riza follows suit. Roy continues, “What happens if our plans fall apart? What if the enemy wins? I don’t plan on giving up, but after your encounter with the homunculus, I realized that anything could happen to either of us at any time—”
“Roy—"
“—and more than not fulfilling my dream for this country, my greatest regret will be if either of us were to be killed without a proper goodbye. Without something to hold on to. I couldn’t leave you without letting you know how much you matter to me. That I always want to be by your side, no matter where this fight takes us.”
“I don’t want that.”
Roy is stunned, until Riza continues, “I won’t settle for that. I want us to promise that we will come back to each other once all of this is over. That we will both make it back safely, even if we have to fight our way through.”
He relaxes into a warm smile. “As you wish.”
Roy takes the chain of his dog tag, pulling it over his head and off himself. Riza pauses only for a moment, her breath caught in her chest, before bowing her head to give him room to slip it onto her. “Riza Hawkeye,” he says softly, his fingers settling the chain carefully over her skin, “you have my solemn vow that I will commit myself to you from this day forward. I will comfort and keep you, and remain true to you, and love and honor you all the days of my life.”
He takes her hand and leaves a light kiss on the back of it, eyes shining when he looks up at her again. Riza swallows back the emotion that fills her throat, and she turns to her nightstand, where she has left her own dog tag next to her clock. She holds the chain up and lets it unfurl out of her hand, and she parts it over Roy’s head to hang it around his neck.
“And you have my solemn vow, Roy Mustang,” Riza begins, “that I will commit myself to you from this day forward. I will be true to you. I will love you and cherish you, remain by your side, and protect you all the days of my life.”
For a moment, they exchange a tender, awestruck look which then turns into laughter—free, unabashedly joyful, like the laughter they used to share and had almost forgotten among the memories of their younger years. How wonderful, how surreal to have this moment of bliss. Roy eases down, leaning over her again before kissing her, steady and soft and as if the world has stopped for them, as if it all exists only for them now. He pulls back, gazing at her, and Riza sighs contentedly.
“You’ll have to leave before dawn,” she tells him after a long pause.
“I know. I miss you already.”
Riza moves a few inches to the side, making room for Roy to lie down next to her. He pulls her in and strokes her hair, and they lie silently for as long as they are able to keep their eyes open. His embrace is a blanket, his breathing a soothing lullaby. Riza does not know when she falls asleep, nor does she care—not when she has found rest in the arms of the man she calls home.