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i.
The first time Roy sees her tattoo, the first thing he feels is horror.
Roy , she’d said, I have something to show you . He’d never in his wildest dreams expected to see this.
They return to the house—he’s only managed to secure a day and a night of leave, and even that much solely because the train only runs in and out of town once a day—in silence. When they’d first met, Riza had been so shy and silent, flitting around the outskirts of his new life. They’d seen each other a dozen times before she ever spoke a word to him.
Even once they grew close, she remained so quiet, reserved; it was just that now he knew that behind her silence she was watching, observing, taking stock of it all. Theirs was a friendship built on stolen nights in the library, her with a book in hand and him begrudging the alchemical texts her father had him up until all hours reading. When they could escape from under the shadow of Master Hawkeye’s constant judgment, he learned to understand her quiet just as well as he understood her words.
But this silence, as they make the trek from the cemetery, is tense, loaded. He doesn’t know what she’s going to say or do, mind flitting through increasingly absurd possibilities.
In a bizarre parody of their earliest interactions, they enter the kitchen and she brings him a glass of water without saying a word. Without looking him in the eye. It doesn’t take long for her to steel herself and gather her courage, though—he knows she trusts him, and she knows there is little she could say to him that would change how he feels about her.
“Can I trust you with my father’s alchemy?” she asks, and Roy’s heart stutters in his chest.
He thinks, if he was a better man, he’d say no. Only a few days before Master Hawkeye had deemed him not ready, unworthy. It was the bitter ravings of a dying man, sure, but a part of him recognized the right thing to do would be to respect his wishes. But Roy, of course, wouldn’t be in this situation at all if he was a better man.
There’s no other possible response, not for him. Roy says, simply, “yes.” It’s enough for Riza, it seems, because all she does is nod her head once, turn, and remove her shirt.
It takes him a minute to process—he’s only eighteen, and despite plenty of flirting with the girls in town he’s certainly not immune to a pretty girl taking her shirt off, even if he’s only seeing her back—but when he does, he feels cold all over.
Riza senses his horror, and by the movement of her arms he can tell she is crossing her arms over her chest tightly, holding herself together. “He didn’t force this on me. It was my choice,” she says, but Roy knows just what kind of choices Master Hawkeye gave, and his stomach twists further.
And the worst part is—he’s wanted this so desperately for so long. He’s always had a plan, a goal; with Chris raising him he really had no choice in the matter. This drive, this ambition, it’s always been there. Master Hawkeye was the first step on that path, and sure, he’d learned so much, and sure, he’d met Riza, who’d been such a human presence in that otherwise cold house, but he’d come there with a goal and he hadn’t met it.
So he sees the tattoo on Riza’s back and just behind the horror is want . Not of her—he barely even processes that she’s half naked in front of him after the initial shock of it, gaze focused solely on the array on her skin. But he knows what that alchemical array is intrinsically, immediately, and while he so viscerally hates that it’s been inked onto her skin, he still wants to study it and learn all its secrets, too.
Roy’s ambition has always held a heavy dose of optimism; he wants to make the world a better place and he perhaps arrogantly has no doubt that he can, but more than anything he believes in the innate goodness of humanity. Years later, he will look back and think that this was the first moment where that blind optimism was called into question. Years later, he will be equal parts humbled and horrified by her decision to trust him with this—humbled, because he knows the amount of trust it must have taken. Horrified, because it was the wrong decision.
Now, though, he accepts what she is offering him, even if it leaves him unsteady.
“Can I—do you mind if I—“ if she’s surprised to hear him trip over his words, she doesn’t let on, simply nods her head again. Roy swallows down his uneasiness, reaches out a steady finger, and traces the lines of the array, committing them to memory.
ii.
The second time Roy sees her tattoo, the first thing he feels is dread.
He’d promised. He’d promised . He’d do anything to keep her from breaking like she had that final day in Ishval again, and so he’ll do this one thing she’s asked of him. It’s just that he thinks he might hate himself for it for the rest of his life, too.
Ishval is behind them, at long last—or, rather, they have left the war zone behind but they carry it with them nonetheless. It’s in the circles under their eyes, the haunted expressions, the way her face goes blank sometimes as if she’s caught in a memory. They’re still gaunt from the military rations they could only sometimes bring themselves to eat. But they’ve survived, they’ve left, and all that remains to be done is to continue towards his goal and make sure nothing like Ishval ever happens again.
As the Hero of Ishval and the Hawk’s Eye, their higher ups were all too willing to grant their leave requests, granting Roy more free time than he’s had—well, ever, possibly—before they have to settle into East City. The new team that’s been assigned to his command assured him they certainly didn’t mind the break, either. Everything has been planned and organized and taken care of.
It should be a chance for him to recover, a chance for Riza to recover. She’s always been a better person than he is, always cared so deeply in that silent way of hers; if anyone needs the break, it’s her. Not that she’d take it, ever, of course. And besides, she insists this will be enough, or at least a start, and even now he’d do anything for her even if it meant damning himself in the process.
All the lights in the room are on–including a few he’d brought in from other rooms, to help, definitely not to delay as much as possible–and she sits before him straddling a chair, torso bare and knuckles white on the wooden back. They’re in a quiet, idyllic town somewhere in the country, in a place that’s a little too reminiscent of her father’s home. There’s some irony in that, but if she sees it too, she hides it well. It’s not ideal, but when Roy had told Hughes he was taking some time off, he’d offered use of the country home no questions asked.
On the table before her, an empty glass sits, the whiskey bottle next to it. It’s how he knows she is just as nervous as he is: when he’d offered a drink before he got started, she’d accepted without hesitation. Roy wishes he could do the same, but this is something he has to be steady for, clear-headed.
Sucking in a deep, shaking breath, he steels himself and nods. When he speaks, his voice is calm and level as always. “I’ll be as quick as I can, but it might take me a few rounds. Do you want me to count you down?”
“Please.” Her voice, too, doesn’t shake, because of course it doesn’t. Riza Hawkeye is unflappable. But her shoulders are tense and her knuckles are still white and he would bet her eyes are squeezed tight. When she reaches out to grab the leather strip ( “So I don’t bite my tongue.” ) her movements are controlled.
He counts down from five. It takes three tries—he’d learned the flame array so shortly before being sent to the front lines, where his orders were to bring about as much destruction as possible, and he’s still perfecting precision with his alchemy, Even if he’d been a master for decades, though, there’s no scenario where Roy isn’t more cautious with this than he maybe needs to be. The concept of marking her more than is absolutely necessary is unconscionable.
Years later, he still has nightmares about her screams.
iii.
The third time Roy sees her tattoo, the first thing he feels is concern.
Because he can’t see it, not completely. Because her back is covered in blood.
“Colonel— Roy —take care of your own injury first. Don’t worry about me, sir, really—“ Riza resists, but Roy expects it, knows her too well not to, and has his standard response ready.
“And I’m your superior officer. You were stabbed .” If his voice comes out hoarse, he’ll blame it on all the yelling. He’ll blame it on anything but the abject fear narrowing his vision to the blood soaking through her uniform, to the way she has gone bone-white with pain. “You will let us stop the bleeding, and you will let the doctor look you over first. That is an order, Lieutenant.”
She wants to argue more, he can see it in the fierceness in her gaze. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d disobeyed an order that she deemed ill-advised or likely to place him at risk. Their eyes meet, and she backs off, and Roy can’t even bring himself to wonder what she saw in his expression.
“Just cauterize it. Sear it closed.” She keeps talking, he thinks, but Roy tunes it out, wracking his brain for any, any other way to stop the bleeding, and though he knows several, for a gut-wrenching moment he can remember none of them.
At some point over the years, it had crept up on him, this concern for her safety over his own. It worked out, of course—she’d always (infuriatingly, amazingly) cared more for his safety than her own in turn. Much as he is the holder of her father’s legacy, in so many ways she is the holder of his humanity. There is no one else he trusts more, no one else worthy of holding his life and his death in their hands. The ties that bind them run deep, and he knows this with absolute certainty: he cannot lose her.
And now, for the first time, he almost has lost her. It had been a simple enough mission, some low level gun running scheme along the border, but the problem with gun runners is they tend to be a tad over-equipped and quick on the draw. The team had been a little–well, tactless, frankly, when they raided the base of operations. Guns had been drawn, and Roy realized his mistake just a beat too late. Surrounded by gunpowder and explosives, one stray spark and the whole place would blow. Without his flames, he wasn’t exactly powerless , but he was still wrongfooted and too slow. His men, however, were not; the gun runners were taken out, with minimal damage to Roy’s team.
Minimal, but not none. Hawkeye had caught a spare bullet to the shoulder, too focused on protecting his back than watching hers. Both Falman and Roy had been grazed on the side and leg, respectfully, but Roy had never cared less for his own pain than he did in that moment.
Roy’s no medic, but between the five of them, they’ve seen enough combat that they can passably take stock of an injury and at the very least stop it from getting worse. With all the calm due his station, he orders her to sit in the first chair they can find, to let him tend to the wound while the others scrounge up whatever supplies they can find in the building and call in actual medical support.
Her shirt is slick with blood, and his stomach twists, heart racing at double speed. Based on Riza’s reaction, or lack thereof, he can be reasonably certain it’s not a fatal wound, but he can’t see through the red, sticky, clinging fabric. There’s no other option; he has to cut off her shirt. Given their surroundings, there’s little he can do about her modesty, especially not with the location of the injury, but she raises no complaints on that front. No, she’s too focused on the growing bloodstain on his own trousers for that; he made the mistake of removing his coat for her to hold in front of her chest, putting his own injury on display.
Blood coats her back, pulsing from the wound in her shoulder. With a twist of his gut, he’s relieved to see that the bullet went clean through, at least. Even in Ishval, he’d at least known she was safe , viewing the carnage from afar through her scope. It had been one small reassurance in that hellhole. While they’ve both had their share of injuries in the line of duty since then, they’re too good at their jobs to suffer anything too serious. It feels wrong, now, that they survived Ishval physically unscathed just for her to be quickly losing blood in a back room of a shitty warehouse.
Fuery comes back in with what he’s pretty sure is abhorrently cheap alcohol, and Havoc returns shortly after with a half-stocked med kit. In a half-mad way, Roy’s almost thankful that the blood obscures the worst of the tattoo and scars on her back; at least this way they don’t have to worry about any questions about that later.
Realistically, one of the others should probably be in charge of cleaning Riza’s wound—Falman with his steady hands, Fuery with his seemingly endless knowledge and relative uselessness when it comes to taking stock of the rest of the building–but Roy’s voice brokers no arguments as he orders them to take care of the investigation while he takes care of his Lieutenant.
The room is clear and there is so much blood and Riza has finally gone silent, stopped arguing and barking her own orders, and that’s almost more frightening than anything else. He wonders in that distant, abstract way that tells him he’s grasping at anything he can to take his mind off the sight of her blood or the sound of her gasps as he pours the alcohol over her shoulder and wraps it tightly with gauze, if he will ever see her tattoo without feeling sick to his stomach.
He whispers apologies and soothing words for her ears alone and sits with her until the medics arrive.
iv.
The fourth time Roy sees her tattoo, the first thing he feels is—well, he doesn’t really feel anything. Not right away.
The Ishval reconstruction moves in fits and starts. For the team, it’s mostly paperwork upon paperwork, phone calls to contractors and vendors and an uncomfortable dependency on Scar and Miles in the field. Roy and Riza have traveled out three times now, all to handle one catastrophe or another; this is the first time they’ve been able to see the progress for a happy reason. It took months to clear the rubble, to find the proper supplies, to actually build, but the first row of houses in the old city center have officially passed all inspections. There will finally be people living, officially, in Ishval again, in homes instead of the tents or rubble or whatever temporary structures they’ve been reduced to. And Roy and Riza, after playing such a heavy hand in the destruction, get to see it. They’ll never be able to atone, not really, but this—this is the first step towards being able to live with themselves again.
Each time they’ve visited, they’ve shared a tent, and this time is no different. Accommodations are few as it is; Roy isn’t about to kick someone out of their tent just so he can have some privacy. Of course, such a declaration comes with a knowing look from Riza that she really was better at hiding before the Promised Day, he thinks, but will never say. This new openness, or as close to it as they’ve ever gotten, is too precious to acknowledge with words.
They’ve never needed to put their feelings to words before, anyways. He had voiced it, once, a decade into this thing between them, and while he’s glad he did, Roy knows it changed nothing.
“You know I love you, right?” He’d said, voice clear in their dark room. It’s the first time either of them said it in as many words, and he knew that saying it out loud changes nothing, doesn’t make it any more real or any less impossible. But maybe it was almost losing her, or maybe it was losing his sight, and with it the ability to meet her eyes and have the reminder of their devotion to each other reflected back, but he needed her to know, in no uncertain terms.
It took her a minute to respond. He realized, after a few beats, that for a moment she must have forgotten he couldn’t see her. “I know, sir,” came her reply, soft and steady as ever. From her voice, he could tell she was lying facing his bed, that since there was no rustling of sheets she already must have been. Roy’s heart twisted, and he rolled onto his side to face her as well; for all the good it does him, it still feels right. “The sentiment is reciprocated.” He can hear the faint smile in her voice, as attuned as ever even without his eyes, and he feels settled. “Now get some sleep, Roy.”
And so it’s out in the open, now, and has been for months, and it changes nothing. They are still able to have this, the quiet intimacy between each other. They can still share this tent and have it mean nothing new because the longing has been a constant companion since they were teenagers and putting it to words does not make it any more or less real.
All that’s changed in the wake of the Promised Day is Roy’s need to have her near has grown, strengthened, and he knows it’s the same for her. Both of them will sleep better with the other mere feet away. Both of them can breathe a bit easier knowing the other is there, safe, close enough to touch. They will continue to steal these moments where their rank and station allows and they will continue to pretend it is enough.
Their bedrolls are placed on opposite sides of the tent, as per regulation, but the tent itself is only so big. For anything besides sleep, such as changing their clothes, they will have to take turns or head to the latrine.
So when he blinks awake to the soft light of dawn to see her kneeling before her bag in the corner of the tent, back to him as she pulls on a clean shirt, he doesn’t even clock the tattoo at first. Usually, he’s so aware of its presence, even— especially —when he can’t see it. But now it’s right before him and all he can think is how he wants to wake up to her every morning for the rest of his life and how he’s running out of reasons not to.
All Roy can do is watch as she finishes dressing herself, as she runs a brush through her hair and rubs lotion into callused hands made dry by the dusty air. He’s pretty sure Riza noticed the second he awoke, but she doesn’t acknowledge him or react in any way. With her air of calm, he wonders if she’s thinking along the same lines as him. She usually is.
When she’s done, Riza turns around to face him. For just a moment, in the solitude of their tent, their gazes catch and the rest of the world feels very far away. But her lips twitch up and the spell is broken. “Good morning, sir. You better get moving, or we’ll both be late; your first meeting is in fifteen.”
“You’re cruel, Captain. Before breakfast?” They’re playing their familiar roles but their gazes remain locked. He doesn’t want to look away just yet, not until he has to, so he keeps talking, the banter as familiar to him as breathing. Eventually, she gives him a hard look, tells him to stop procrastinating and get up, and leaves the tent so he can get dressed.
It is only then that he realizes this is the first time he’s seen the ruin of her tattoo without feeling like a part of him is breaking.
v.
The fifth time Roy sees her tattoo, the first thing he feels can only be described as awe.
There’d been no real catalyst for them crossing that final boundary between them. For once, there was no life or death situation looming over their heads, no major threats. No celebrations, either; his promotion to General had come and gone months ago; hers to Major only a fraction more recently. Neither of them could blame alcohol or exhaustion or anything else but themselves. He’d made what was probably the riskiest decision of his life all on his own, and somehow, somehow, she’d made the same one.
It started like this: Riza, at his door, dropping off something he’d accidentally left at the office. Roy, offering tea, in return for her troubles. Her bemused look, one of his favorites, the upwards tick of her lips and the fond look in her eyes. Her acceptance, her on the couch, an often enough occurrence to be of little note. An often enough occurrence that still felt surreal, just a little bit.
Hours passing. Conversations, comfortable silence, the chill from outside making her shiver. A fire in the fireplace started with a flick of his fingers and her calling him a show off with more affection than she’d have dared outside these four walls. A shared blanket, the feeling that they’re on the verge of something, as they have been so many times before. Riza, warm, pliant, beside him, leaning a little too heavily into his side until he gives in, slides an arm around her shoulders, pulls her in closer.
It goes like this: foreheads, pressed together. Shared breath. Wide eyes. “Please,” he says, unsure if he’s asking her to pull him in or push him away, knowing what he wants, knowing what he can’t have. “Tell me not to,” he says, the request of a desperate man. She doesn’t.
They’d been near frantic, all greedy hands and lips and tongues; it seemed once that last line had been crossed, their composure disappeared completely. They’d barely managed to remove their clothes completely; he hadn’t exactly had a chance to examine any of her as carefully as he wanted– wants – to, let alone her back. A part of him—the part that was a coward, the part that never learned how to process guilt properly—hadn’t wanted to see it anyways, hadn’t wanted to come face to face with all the ways he’d scarred her now that he was able to hold her in his arms. Properly. The way he’d wanted to since they were teenagers, as he’s long since admitted to himself.
Roy opens his eyes to soft sunlight drifting through the window, illuminating Riza’s still sleeping form before him. In this light, she looks gilded, like something ethereal, and he thinks once again that having her love makes him the luckiest person alive.
In her sleep, she’s drifted away from him, curling up on her side and facing the window instead of him. Their legs are still intertwined, he’s relieved to discover, and his hand still rests on her bare hip. Roy lets himself marvel in it: Riza is here , in his bed , tangled together as if now that she’s let herself touch she never wants to stop. It feels like he’s getting away with something he shouldn’t.
And there, directly before him, is what remains of the tattoo, the patchwork remnants brought about by his hands. For the first time since he burned away the mark, he lets himself take it all in, the ink and the scars but the expanse of smooth, pale skin too.
Unable to help himself, Roy takes the hand off her hip and lets his fingers drift over her lightly. He connects the faint scatter of freckles across her shoulders, first, playing it safe, building up to it, except then the ridges of her back muscles are right there , and he’s pretty sure if he doesn’t touch them he’ll burst into flames, and he’s distracted further. But there comes a point where he can delay no more, and his fingers drift in and down; he follows the lines of her tattoo with a gentle fingertip, tracing the lines he knows intimately, the same lines scarred into the back of his hand, stitched onto his gloves.
The alchemical array has brought so much destruction, so much pain, but he’s not a good enough man to hate it, certainly not in the way that Riza does. Roy is the Flame Alchemist, after all; the array made him who he is today. And it brought the two of them together, all those years ago, when he was still just a kid hungering for the power her father’s research promised. If for no reason other than that, he can’t hate it, not entirely. It’s a secret he’ll never tell her.
Where scars interrupt the faded lines, his breath catches, the same guilt that he feels every time he thinks about that day heavy in his chest. He doesn’t allow himself to stop touching, though, tracing the outlines of the burns as reverently as he’s touched the rest of her.
In a little while, she’ll wake up, and they’ll talk, and they’ll kiss, and if he’s really lucky he’ll convince her to wear his shirt while he makes them breakfast. After, she’ll get dressed, tell him to finish the paperwork she’d brought over, and leave. There will be no kiss goodbye, no lingering questions of what are we . They know, and it is enough. For now, though, she sleeps peacefully, and he watches the rise and fall of her chest and thinks it might be a miracle that they’re still alive after everything.
This thing between them is no less impossible now than it was before, might even be more impossible now that they’ve actually, concretely broken the frat laws, but it’s okay. They’ve done impossible things before and come out on the other side. They’ll figure this out, too.
It creeps up on him slowly, and at first he doesn’t have a name for the feeling, barely even recognizes it. He hasn’t felt it since—childhood, maybe, but he doubts even then. There’s always been such drive and ambition in him; there’s always been another goal to accomplish, never completely at rest, and he wants it that way, he does. But this, now—
The fifth time Roy sees her tattoo, the second thing he feels is peace.