Work Text:
“Are you crying, Lieutenant?”
Riza held her breath and looked to the side. Her eyes burned from the ashes, the smoke, and, most importantly, the tears that flowed incessantly down the sides of her face. The tears that were supposed to be her secret.
“Sir?”
She kept her voice just above a whisper, still trying to conjugate an explanation, then let out a slow, shaky breath as her hands gripped the side of the crate she sat on. In the distance, she could hear Ling, Mei and Lan-Fan chattering in Xingese, a language she had grown quite acquainted with over the months. She wondered if Roy could pick up on anything from his studies and broke out a smile through her tears, briefly, until the salt slipped between her lips and she forced them shut again.
“Are you there, Hawkeye?”
Riza closed her eyes in an attempt to control her breathing. “Yes, sir.”
“Are the brothers well?”
“They haven’t come out yet, sir.”
He turned his ear towards her voice, but his eyes remained distant. Riza felt the lump in her throat tighten and she lifted her hand to her mouth, muffling the hiccup she couldn’t contain. It had been a short-lived secret, evidently. She should’ve thought it through: without his eyesight, Roy’s hearing would obviously become more acute. Still, she couldn’t run to a corner; she had become his guide in this newfound darkness and cursed herself with his company. Another surge of tears welled in her eyes and she gripped her mouth tighter, with both hands, and then she curled into herself, unable to nullify the terrible pressure that built up in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut and pursed her lips. Her hair smelled like iron and glued to the sides of her face, and she thought about how she had washed it the night before because if she was going to die at least she had given herself a final moment of self-care. But she did not die, and her ingenuity cost her Colonel his eyes.
“Are you in pain?”
Roy started patting the area around him as if searching for something. Riza closed her eyes again and counted to five, then ten, and then she finally sat upright and let herself look into his eyes, hoping, in vain, that he would meet her gaze. She let herself trace the folds underneath them, up into the wrinkles of his nose, watching them contract slightly as he moved his eyes aimlessly. He could try to hide it, but she could tell he hadn’t yet accepted the darkness. And she was sure she would never accept it, either. Her heart sank again, and she struggled to hold in yet another hiccup.
So inconsolable, yet surrounded by joy. Everyone had put aside their injuries to celebrate Alphonse’s return, and she held it in, for the most part, until Roy tripped on a discarded sandbag and crashed into the concrete. When she helped him onto a crate and saw his eyes look past her, even as she spoke directly to him, two wretched tears squeezed out of her eyes. Still, she remembered her father's words the day Roy left; how he rolled his eyes at her cries and muttered, You only bring misery. And so she tried, truthfully, to keep her tears quiet, because the attention was due elsewhere and no one needed her to bring everyone down --- again.
Roy pulled her out of her thoughts again. “How are your injuries?”
“Don’t worry about me, sir.”
His hand finally brushed against her leg and his eyes stopped moving. He adjusted his position, making himself more comfortable, and she took another deep breath, watching him use the back of his small finger to play with the folds of her trousers. He spoke softly, letting his voice dance around his words in an almost playful tone, and Riza wondered why he still hadn’t told her to focus on the good things. After all, for the longest time, she’d been Hawkeye the cold, Hawkeye the dry, Hawkeye the pessimist, and now, again, she was letting the bitter outweigh the sweet. It couldn’t be pleasant, and she wished he’d just let her suffer on her own.
“You know,” he continued. “I keep searching for a little bit of light, but I really can’t see anything.”
Somehow, it hurt more to have it come out through his lips. She couldn’t even protect him from his reality; couldn’t even give him the false expectation that everything would fix itself in the end. She sat and cried helplessly, brooding over the regrets that swirled around her mind and desperately searching for a way to go back and try again. Because maybe if she hadn’t let her guard down for a moment --- maybe if she hadn’t missed the last shot in her cartridge and if she hadn’t taken a second to reload --- maybe then, Roy would be able to see past today and give their lives a new meaning.
She, for herself, had given up on trying.
Roy shifted again and his other hand slipped across the air, sending him forward for only a second before he found his balance again. “Oh, I think I got lost,” he said with a chuckle.
Riza hesitated for a moment and fumbled with her fingers. Finally, she tucked her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat. “Right now, you’re facing North, sir,” she said. “Alphonse is in the tent across from us.” Riza swallowed another hiccup, and accepted that she couldn’t speak anymore. She didn’t want to live in it. How many more times would she have to describe the scenery for him? Maybe one day he’d get used to it, and he wouldn’t talk about it anymore, and he wouldn’t need her as his seeing eye, and she’d be able to walk to a corner and cry in all the privacy she wanted.
She felt him wrap a trembling finger around one of the folds on her trousers and realised he had closed his eyes again, pressing them firmly under his eyebrows. “I’m sorry. Can you stay with me? I need something to hold onto.”
Riza nodded, out of habit, then realised it was futile. She almost laughed at the irony: his blindness was forcing her to talk more, and she noticed she’d never really given him enough credit for how well he could read her little gestures and expressions. Tentatively, she leaned over to wipe her hands on the hem of her trousers, then hovered over his finger, pitying the tremble that reverberated up his arm. She slowly slipped her pinky over the fabric, and he responded by holding it tightly in his own.
Riza held in her tears as he moved to intertwine their hands with a slow, unsure motion. The bandages on his hands did little to contain the blood that poured through the wound and transferred onto her palm, but, for that moment, it all seemed so insignificant. The burn on her neck and her shoulder, the headache that pushed against her temple --- even the foul smell of sweat suddenly moved into the background, allowing Riza to focus on his calluses and how warm his skin felt against her own. They were trapped somewhere between soldier and civilian, waiting for the dust to settle so Roy could decide where to go next. And Riza shyly thanked God for this strange purgatory; for allowing them to share an intimate moment, be it one in forever, in the corner of what used to be Central Command. To be Roy and Riza, the survivors, living above the laws of man and finding comfort in each other’s bodies.
Riza closed her eyes, expelling more tears that met at her chin before dripping onto her lap, and this time she didn’t stop the hiccups, because it wasn’t in her right to manipulate the world around him. She squeezed his hand gently, mindful of the wound, and used the back of her other hand to press against her cheek, fearing how warm her face had become.
“It’s gotten cold,” Roy said. “Has the sun set already?”
He blinked a few times and Riza assumed his hair was tickling his eyes, so she used her free hand to brush his bangs to the side. His hair felt soft to the touch, like silk, and she thought about her own hair and how matted it had become. Yet, he didn’t seem to mind --- not now, and not earlier, when he held her so tight she felt like the most special person in the world.
She shook her thoughts away and looked towards the West, squinting at the light. “Not yet, sir.”
“Tell me when it does,” he said. “And tell me when it rises again.”
She scoffed and shook her head, shivering under a cold breeze. It really was getting cold. “I’m really sorry, sir. This isn’t how it should’ve ended.”
“And do you really think this is the end?” He opened his eyes and let them move around the darkness. “I know I still have my own things to finish. But I won’t force you to stay, so you tell me: what will you do?”
She wanted to follow him, of course, because the world had taught her to follow, and because she’d built a life so parallel to his it was impossible to go another way. He could give her the atonement she’d been searching for, be it from within the military or in another way. And, in turn, she’d give him her life. Again.
“I don’t think I have an option, sir.”
“Stop with that, Riza. You’ve always had an option.”
She sighed and looked down at her boots, now completely covered in brown mud and blood. With her eyes, she followed a path of small ants, and then she looked up at the tent and the yellows that had started to wash over the blue sky. The world was so vivid; what a blessing to be able to see it. She let him lose this once, and she wouldn’t let him lose it again. “I want you to use my eyes for as long as you need.”
“Just don’t let me put you through all this trouble again.”
“It’s not trouble, it’s just the job.”
“No, Riza. No one should be hired to die for someone else. If I had known, I wouldn’t have put all this weight on you.” He stopped and considered, and then he spoke again. “Are you blaming yourself?”
She slipped her hand out of his. Another one of her secrets had been spilled so easily. She realised it wasn’t just her gestures --- he could see past every breath she took.
“We’re both hopeless,” he chuckled. “I can’t even say anything; it’s not like I’m blaming myself any less.”