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She knew how to make her quiet voice stern, never needing more than a word or two to convey her message. With him, she didn’t even need words. They spoke in glances, pens tapping against wood, and the weight of their footsteps. When he was just the city boy her father took on as an apprentice, she read him like the book that he was. It took her time to realize that he read in-between the lines of her frayed pages as well, and thus he understood her when she couldn’t use words to communicate. When she suffered due to her father’s erratic moods, he knew just by standing in the same room. Unable to speak, fear taking her words and locking them in her throat, she only needed to meet his gaze. One look into amber eyes, and he always knew what she needed from him. No one else possessed that ability.
Now, though, he didn’t. Truth took their language from them when it took his sight. So accustomed to using eye contact to convey what he needed, he didn’t know what to do. His shoulders shook as he held back the sea of emotions within him, scarred hands gripping onto his shirt while he tried to regain composure. Any words he wanted to say stayed behind stone walls built in haste.
“Roy.”
So, she needed to adjust.
It was the first time she said his name not as Elizabeth, but as Riza Hawkeye. Always, the two of them maintained professional boundaries. Even when he was just her father’s apprentice, he was Mr. Mustang while she was Riza. Once they met again on the front lines of war, he never called her by her first name again. He didn’t deserve to know her on a first name basis. How could he when he so thoroughly betrayed her trust? Flame alchemy hurt everyone it touched, and the pain started with her. Only recently did it come full circle and blind its user.
He said he deserved this punishment. He told her that, after hurting and killing so many people, this was the price he needed to pay. To him, this was a light sentence, and he got off easy. In-between those words, though, his heart ached as it uttered, “I don’t deserve to live,” to hers. For years, they both let those words be unspoken between them. After what they did, neither of them should be alive. His trembling form added more, screaming, “I shouldn’t be alive,” for only her to hear.
No. No more. Dead people couldn’t fix what they broke. Their sins would never be forgiven, but that didn’t mean they needed to burn themselves at the stake. Maybe it was selfish of her, but she wanted him to live. He didn’t need to keep punishing himself.
“Hold your hands out for me, Roy.” Again, her voice stayed soft yet stern. Obediently, he stopped twisting his fingers into his shirt, and he held his hands in front of him. Slowly, she closed the distance in-between them, and took his hands in hers. She gave them a gentle squeeze before she placed them on her back, her arms wrapping around his torso. It was a hug: simple, yet something they never did save for the Promised Day. On that day, he held her close as if she’d fade the second she left his arms. Today, she returned the gesture, and her heart gave him the same short and earnest plea.
“Live.”
In an instant, he crumbled. Tears rushed down his cheeks as he crouched and hid his head in the crook of her shoulder. His arms wrapped around her, hands gripping onto the fabric of her shirt as he sobbed. She shattered those stone walls with ease, proving he had no need for them. He never did with her. From the second he trusted her with his back, he also entrusted her with this: his weakness, his vulnerability. It was okay to cry in front of her. It was safe to cry in front of her. For as long as this moment lasted, he could put down the world he carried on his shoulders, and he could let himself be an ordinary man.
“I didn’t ask for this!” Oh how his heart cried out as his tears stained her shirt. She heard it without him needing to say a word. Slowly, she started to sway in place with him. There wasn’t music playing, but it didn’t matter. They didn’t need it.
“I know,” she whispered, one hand rubbing his back. He didn’t speak. All he could do, as relentless sobs wracked his body, was sway with her.
“I’m scared.” She could feel how his heart ached with those words, ones he loathed saying. Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist and Hero of Ishval, didn’t get scared. Nothing made him afraid. Yet, they both knew better. It was okay to be scared. It was safe to be scared when she was right here.
“I know,” she repeated, her head resting on his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Captain Hawkeye did not give that promise to Brigadier General Mustang. In that instant, as they swayed in the middle of his kitchen, Riza made that promise to Roy, and she intended to keep it for the rest of her life.
Always.