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What a shame that this morning started with soft sunshine on the back of my neck as I walked to work. It started with a cup of green tea waiting for me on my desk with just the right amount of honey and lemon, not too hot, the perfect drinking temperature. It started with a subtle smirk twisting your lips as you watched me take a sip and sigh in contentment.
What a rainy ending given to a perfect day.
Havoc and Falman both make a point of avoiding you, even though Havoc is scheduled to be your chauffer today. The ugly look in your eye is enough to warn them off, so I'm left to drive you home at the end of the day on my own. They always leave you to me when you get this way. Apparently I have a way with you. You come more easily to me than you do to the rest of them.
If that's meant to be some sort of badge of honor, it's one I wish I didn't have to wear along with the insignia on my uniform.
I sigh as we start down the building's front steps, out into the gloom.
"What do you make of it, Hawkeye?" you ask tersely, your fists clenched at your sides. I pause and consider my answer carefully.
I won't coddle you. You know that, and it's one of the reason you prefer my company over the empty reassurances the others might offer.
"I'd say this can only be called the work of the devil, sir," I murmur, tilting my head down against the raindrops.
"The devil, huh?" you repeat. "To put it bluntly, all state alchemists are human weapons serving the military."
You take on an abrasive, lecturing tone, and I'm momentarily stung by it, because if anyone knows the danger that state alchemists pose as human weapons, it's me.
Then I catch sight of Edward, huddled near the bottom step, not bothering to shield himself from the rain soaking into his cloak, turning it a shade of wet, bloody crimson.
"We are called in to handle all kinds of incidents and are expected to get blood on our hands at their orders," you continue. "In that regard, our actions take lives just as easily as Tucker's."
I understand your point. It's not that you're making excuses for the monster, not really. It's that you're reminding Edward (and yourself) that the potential for harm is always there.
"Yes, an adult would find that excuse acceptable," I say scoldingly but quietly, so my voice won't carry to the bottom of the steps. "But no matter how mature he tries to be, Edward is still too young for this, sir."
It's an old argument. I've never approved of your decision to recruit the boy into the state alchemy program. You insist that if you hadn't done it, someone else would have. At least this way, you can try to look out for him when possible. If he were under the command of another officer, his age might not be taken into account.
I still don't think you take it into account enough.
"Sure, but he will have to face greater hardships and dilemmas in the path he has chosen for himself. In the end, he will have to accept the truth and move on." You shove your hands into your coat pocket as you make your way down the steps, pausing just behind the boy. "Isn't that right, Fullmetal?"
Alphonse looks over at you, and I wish I could discern the expression masked by his body of armor. I know the boys are both heartbroken. I didn't know the girl, but I'm sick about it, too. Because it was a heinous crime and also for my own reasons.
"Are you going to sit there and mope all day?" you growl.
I barely hold in a flinch. You're being too hard on him.
"I don't need your sermons," Edward mutters, barely discernible over the rain. I'm proud of him for at least trying to stand up to you, even as dejected as he sounds.
"You knew what people would say once you joined the military," you sneer, continuing down the steps. I follow dutifully behind you. "Yet you chose this path for the state privileges so you can get your bodies back. You don't have the time to wallow in sorrow for something so trivial."
Trivial?
How is the life of a little girl trivial to you? I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to light a fire under him, to motivate him to continue on despite the pain. It doesn't make it any easier to hear you dismiss that child's pain out of hand.
I wonder, if you'd understood the depths of my pain at the hands of my deranged alchemist of a father, if you'd have considered it trivial. I wonder, if you'd known that he planned to tattoo his research on my back, if you'd have tried to stop him. I wonder, if in your desperation to learn the science that has since so thoroughly cursed and damned the both of us, you'd have gone as far as helping him hold me down while he—
"Trivial…?"
Edward's voice is biting, his hands clenched in the sleeves of his coat, and my body goes tense as I consider whether he'd be stupid enough to attack you for your cruel and insensitive words. Thankfully, he isn't.
"Sure! Al and I will get our bodies back no matter what people say about us!" the boy shouts. "But that doesn't mean we're demons! Nor do we have a right to play God."
My stomach clenches, as I'm sure yours does, too. Because we both know that you are one of the worst demons of all. You've played God, demon, devil, and executioner with other people's lives, all in the name of nothing but following orders.
And I'm the demon who let you do it, which makes me even worse than you.
You continue to stride onward, not rising to the bait. I wonder if Ed even realizes the nerve he's touched, how he's turned your lecture back around, condemning you.
"We're only human!" Edward shouts at our retreating backs. "We can't even save one little girl! We're just pathetic human beings!"
I hear the catch in his voice and long to turn, to kneel down beside him and hug his neck. Of course, it would be unprofessional, and he wouldn't accept it anyway, so instead, I keep following you out into the rain.
I don't expect you to answer him, assuming you'll just walk away, because there's no use defending yourself, and you won't waste your breath trying. You surprise me, though.
"Go home and rest," you toss gruffly over your shoulder. "Or you'll catch a cold."
I follow you out into the storm and open the door to your car for you, then hurry around to the driver's side, shivering at the cold chill as the rain seems to seep into my bones.
You're restless as I drive, tapping your fingers against the window. I know that you're upset by everything that happened. After all, not only did you support Tucker, you're the one who introduced the Elrics to him. It's only natural that you would feel responsible, because that's who you are. Guilt is your primary emotion.
Now, I'm meant to be the one to help you cope with that guilt until you're ready to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and continue on. You're meant to take encouragement and comfort in my bracing words.
Today, I've got nothing left to give.
Edward's right. We're only human, and we couldn't even save on little girl. We didn't even know we had to try, and because of that oversight, she's been transmuted into a monster—living in constant pain and fear, yet still clinging to the father who cursed her to her fate.
It's a great little story. One I've heard before. Only in our version, I was the little girl with the mad alchemist for a father, and you were the boy who didn't even know to try to save me. You did what you wanted, because no matter how much I wished otherwise, you didn't want me. I was just a little mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you, the cosmopolitan city boy. You were handsome and charming and kind, beckoning me towards you like a moth drawn to flame, all made up of things I'd never experienced before.
It's no wonder I fell in love with my father's apprentice.
Then you left, that light you'd brought into my world went dim, and it felt as though you'd taken the very best of me along with you. Just like Shou Tucker, my father made me an object, a vessel for his research, a symbol of his own alchemic brilliance. Unlike Tucker, he didn't even do it for prestige or wealth. He did it because he could.
"Hawkeye? You've passed my street."
I swallow convulsively and nearly slam on the brakes.
"My apologies, sir. I was…caught up in my own thoughts." You hum noncommittally as I round the block to return to your building.
It's an opening, of course, to talk through the events of the day. You don't take it, and I grit my teeth. It's fine. I'm fine.
Because even though on some level I recognize that I should, I feel nothing.
I can't even be angry at my father. I lost that right when our crimes surpassed his, when we discovered that for all his madness he was actually right about the festering stink of the Amestrian military, and we became part of that decay, just as surely as he lies rotting in his grave.
If guilt is your primary emotion, anger is probably mine. Perhaps that's why I cling so hard to my stoicism, because I fear what might happen if I let even a drop squeeze through my barriers, that it would become a torrent worse than the downpour outside the car.
A bolt of lightning rents the air as I pull up to the front of your townhouse, and you look over at me with your jaw tensed.
"Maybe you shouldn't be driving home in this weather," you say, furrowing your brow. "You could sleep on my sofa, if you like."
"I'll be fine, sir," I say, shaking my head. One corner of your lip lifts.
"C'mon, Hawkeye. You've done it plenty of times. I promise I won't bite," you try to tease, though I can see the lines of tension beneath your concerned veneer. You don't want me to stay because you're worried about the rain. It's not even because you're worried about me. You just don't want to be alone and upset when it's raining.
"I'm fine," I repeat, my fists tightening on the steering wheel as I wait for you to exit the car.
"Stubborn woman," you mutter in a light, affectionate tone. It's the kind of thing we say often to one another, the kind of thing that's expected when you've been colleagues as long as we have, even between an officer and subordinate. Something about it makes me snap.
"No, sir," I reply angrily. "It's not stubbornness, it's adherence to proper military protocol. Now, if you'd be so kind, I'd like to get home and out of the rain."
Your eyes narrow as you regard me, and I'm absolutely itching for the fight that's building. Because then at least I'll feel something.
Instead, you open the door.
"Whatever," you mutter. "Good evening, Lieutenant."
Fuck off, sir.
I almost say it out loud, but I'm not willing to stretch the bonds of our unconventional relationship quite that far. The lightning strikes again, illuminating you brightly for a split second as you stand just outside the car, waiting for me to respond.
I don't.
You close the door.
I drive to my own apartment, quietly fuming. The gray-painted walls are cold. Every place I've ever lived has been cold, really. There was no warmth in my childhood home. My days at the academy were lonely, because I was so socially inept I found it nearly impossible to make friends with normal people. The desert was cold at night.
For a long time, I believed you might be the sole source of warmth in my life, that you could somehow break through my numbness, could thaw me out and find a heart beneath my veneer of ice.
You may be the flame alchemist, able to generate heat with only a snap of your fingertips, able to warm me through with the scorching blaze from your eyes, in those rare moments where I let myself pretend that you might have somehow come to actually care for me. But the truth is, now that I'm sitting here in the lonely darkness, illuminated only by another bolt of lightning from the raging storm—now that I'm thinking it through, I realize I've never been anywhere cold as you.
"Let's go, Hawkeye."
"Sir."
I follow you away from the scene of Scar's attack, leaving Havoc behind to supervise the cleanup of rubble leftover from the alchemic battle between Scar and Major Armstrong.
Edward insisted he didn't need medical attention, so Falman helped him to gather up the blasted apart pieces of Alphonse. His automail arm will have to be repaired before he can complete the complicated transmutation required to restore his brother's metal body.
"Colonel," I say, slightly hesitantly, "don't you think that Edward should at least be checked out at the hospital to ensure he's not more seriously injured? I'd gladly volunteer to go with him—"
"No," you say flatly. "With Scar on the loose, I'm afraid I can't spare you."
"Sir, he'll be after Edward, too, just as surely as he'll be targeting you."
"Yes, and you're my bodyguard, Hawkeye. And as you so helpfully pointed out, I'm useless on rainy days, so I'm afraid you'll just have to bear my company," you snap angrily as you wrench the car door open. "He'll be fine with Falman."
I take in a breath and make myself unclench my fists before getting in on the drivers' side of the car.
"You embarrassed me in front of half of East City Command," you snarl as I buckle my seatbelt and start the ignition.
"It was a necessary—"
"Bullshit! You didn't have to make me look like an idiot!"
"Sir," I say through gritted teeth. "Do I need to remind you of the incident with the Bandy Brothers' Gang?"
It was a drug bust that happened in the middle of a rainstorm much like this one, about six years ago, not long after we returned from Ishbal. I was newly under your command, a second lieutenant. You'd just been promoted to lieutenant colonel.
When we surrounded the brothers, we realized that they had a hostage. You foolishly assumed that you could use pinpoint precision flame alchemy to neutralize the hostiles without harming the innocent. It didn't even occur to me then that you wouldn't be able to strike a spark with your ignition gloves because of the rain, and it didn't occur to you, either.
Everything went to hell. The hostage was killed, and we ended up in a firefight. You were front and center when it happened, staring incredulously at your wet glove as though it had betrayed you, and you went down before you even had a chance to reach for your gun. I covered your motionless body with my own, firing round after round until all of the enemy targets were neutralized.
Fortunately, the bullet went through and through, missing all your vital organs, but I spent a sleepless week at the side of your hospital bed. I stood there, silently loving you and wishing your pain away. The guilt ate a hole in my own stomach worse than any bullet wound, and every time you fell asleep, I cried for you.
If you knew, you never did give a damn.
"No," you reply sullenly, because you know I'm right. Childishly, you cross your arms over your chest, pouting. "I still say you could have done it without tripping me. You certainly didn't have to call me useless."
"If the glove fits, sir."
The worst thing about your behavior is that even though I saved your damn life, putting my own on the line, I never expected you to act any differently. Your petulance is as much a part of your personality as your penchant for guilt, your charm, your depression, your kindness, your determination, your brilliance…nobody knows the real Roy Mustang. Every smile you fake is so condescending, and sometimes I think I'm the only person who can see through them.
You tear the sodden white gloves from your hands in frustration and run a hand through your wet hair, spraying water over the whole front seat of the car.
"Damn it all to hell," you mutter. "If we'd just apprehended him, it would have all been worth it." You glare sidelong at me, like you're counting all the scars you've made—the ones on my back and my heart alike. "I can't believe you missed that shot."
Shame floods my cheeks with heat, and as the sky is once again illuminated by lightning, all my tight control on my anger finally snaps.
"I tried. I did everything I could out there, to keep you safe, to keep those boys safe, to apprehend Scar! I-I tried!"
I glance over at you as we hit a traffic light, and your face is wooden. You're at least kind enough not to say it aloud, but we both know what you're thinking.
Not good enough.
I never have been. I wasn't good enough for my father to teach me alchemy. I wasn't a good enough person to avoid being sucked into the abyss of bloodshed in Ishbal. I haven't been a good enough adjutant to secure your rise to power. I'm not good enough for you, as a woman.
"Do you even care?" I ask brokenly. All the layers of veneer have worn off my polished mask, and I'm laid bare in a way I've rarely ever been. "I mean, I put myself in danger, too. I could have died for you, and you…nobody would have ever even known I existed. You certainly wouldn't tell anyone about me. I'd just be lost to history, unimportant to anyone."
The car is deadly silent in the aftermath of my quiet outburst, pelting rain and squeaky windshield wipers the only coda to my lament. Finally, I pull up in front of your building and park the car. I stare straight at the windshield, trying to pretend that the tears rolling down my cheeks are just more rain drops.
"Is that really what you think? That I don't care?"
I give a jerky nod of my head. It's more honest than I've let myself be in years, but after the past twenty-four hours, I'm laid bare. Everything tender and painful inside me feels flayed open, revealed in all of its rawness, entirely against my will.
"Come inside. The weather's too bad for you to drive home tonight." I open my mouth, but you glare at me. "No arguments. That's an order."
With that, you get out of the car and walk towards your front door, and I've no choice but to trudge along behind you.
"I'll get you something you can change into, so you can get out of your wet clothes," you say as you shut the door behind me.
"Um, okay." I'm not at all sure what's going on at this point. You disappear into your bedroom and come out a few moments later with a small folded pile of clothing.
"Bathroom's through there. We can put your wet things in the wash, and they'll be fine by tomorrow."
I make quick work of changing, trying not to inhale your scent as the soft t-shirt slides over my head. Wearing your clothes is oddly intimate, and I can't make heads or tails of how I feel about it. When I come out of the bathroom, holding onto my dripping uniform, you're standing in the kitchen, pouring water into a kettle on the stove top.
You're wearing sweat pants and a t-shirt, bare-footed and casual in a way I haven't seen you in nearly a decade. You turn and smile slightly over your shoulder.
"I was just putting the kettle on for tea," you say. "Here, give me that." You take our wet clothes and disappear around a corner. I hear the clanking sounds of you starting the laundry to wash and stand frozen in the kitchen, unsure of what to say or do. True, I've been in your home before. I've even stayed the night on your sofa a couple of other times, but there's something…distinctly odd about it, now.
"I didn't want to order takeout," you say as you come back into the kitchen and open your freezer, frowning. "Don't want some poor delivery person having to brave the storm, but I think…" You rummage around for a minute, then pull out a glass container. "Remember when I had the flu a couple months back and you made me chicken soup?"
I nod, crossing my arms over my chest, still uncertain what's even happening.
"I froze the leftovers," you say. "So that's dinner sorted." You kneel down and start digging in the back of one of your cupboards just as the kettle starts to whistle. "Could you get that?"
"Oh. Yes, sir." I hastily move it to the side.
"Leave the burner on for the soup," you say, still looking, presumably, for an appropriate pot in which to heat it. "There's mugs and tea in that cabinet there."
I open the door you indicated and find that there is, in fact, a small collection of tea bags…including my favorite green tea blend.
"I don't have lemon," you say regretfully as you stand. You put the pot in the sink and start carefully running warm water over the bottom of the glass container to get the contents to separate and clunk into the pot. "But there should be honey up there, too. This shouldn't take too long." You put the pot on the stove and stand next to me to make your own mug of tea—extra strong Earl Grey, unsweetened. "Shall we?"
"…Okay."
I follow you into your living room, and you gesture to indicate I should sit on the sofa. I perch gingerly on the edge, holding my mug in my hands and realizing that I'm still shivering from cold. You walk over to the large radio in the corner and turn it on, filling the room with soft, classical music. You quickly and easily set a fire in the hearth with a dry pair of ignition gloves. Then you grab a large blanket from the back of the sofa and sit down, covering both of our laps with it.
I sit there and stare into my cup of tea, utterly at a loss as to why you're doing this. It's entirely unlike you, and yet…it also isn't.
It's not like Colonel Mustang, but it's a lot like Roy, my father's apprentice. I'd come down the stairs in the morning and find that last night's sink full of dirty dishes was already washed and dried. He'd pick a flower from a bush outside and tuck it behind my ear, saying, "Pretty flower for a pretty girl," and winking at me. He'd sit at the kitchen counter while I kneaded bread dough and ask me about my day: how my studies were going, if I'd read anything interesting in the news, anything at all he could do to draw me out of my shell and get me to talk to him. And, slowly, he did.
He did so much more.
But I haven't seen that boy in a very long time. Tonight, though…
"Sir?" I rasp, then clear my throat. "What are we doing?"
I manage to look at you, and you're wearing the softest, saddest smile I've ever seen.
"I'm showing you that I care," you say quietly, swallowing hard. "And you're letting me. Is that okay?"
"Oh," I whisper. Maybe the answer should have been obvious. Or maybe I should ask more questions. Maybe there's nothing else to be said, because we say it all as we sit there in silence, listening to the music, sipping our tea, and eating our chicken soup while the storm continues to rage outside. The harsh bright lightning can't compete with the orangey glow of the flickering flames.
Somehow, we gravitate closer to one another, until your arm comes around my shoulders, and I lean my head against your chest. You recline back against the arm of the couch and pull the blanket up, tucking it just under my chin.
I fall asleep feeling your deep breathing and listening to your heart beat steadily against your chest—still able to pound its quiet rhythm because of me.
For the first time in as long as I can remember, I'm warm from the inside out.