Honesty
Roy and Riza knew each other for a long long time. Even before the army. You could say that there life were meant to intertwine. Here, you may find yet another version of their trials and joys as life got them closer and closer...
…
Hi there people, this story was already entirely written in French, my mother's tongue, but someone suggested that I translate it in English and here I decided to give it a try. This is basically a royai taking place in the major royai moments of Fullmetal Alchemist. In my point of view. And with little adds-on where I thought things were missing. This was written some time ago, like a few years and my writing has changed since, but the general idea is the same.
Rating's T since I hate getting too graphic. Royai is the only pairing, they're among my favorites. There's little interventions from other characters if none.
I tried to follow the manga thoroughly, but sometimes, the dialogues might sound different. After all, I couldn't just copy paste it. ;) I hope you enjoy my story!
Honesty
Chapter 1- Remembrance
If you search for tenderness
It isn't hard to find.
You can have the love you need to live.
The door cracks open, whining on her hinges. This is one old house, wrinkled by the time. The sky feels heavy and so the unease that he feels himself. He can hear bugs in the fields outside. He breathes in, deeply, before to walk into the old house. There's only one reason to still be coming here. She's a little younger than him. Just a little, barely a year. But when they meet, they both feel the same unease. Soon, she's undressing in front of him, turning her back on him. Her moved are clumsy and he'd like to help her, to do anything, but he can't even reach one hand in her direction. In his mind, in his heart, she's still the unreachable and untouchable daughter of his master.
Soon, he can see her naked back, branded by a scientist masterpiece. He's just as terrified as he's mesmerized by the drawing tattooed on her white skin, which seems incredibly soft under his burning stare. He reaches one hand, with hesitating fingers, not knowing if it's her own secrets or the code on her back that intrigues him the most. Soon, he'd just have to snap his fingers to create flames. But he still can't. Without her, he doesn't think that he could have ever done anything. And still, she's shaking as he finally dares to touch her. He feels as if he's profaning her. As if he isn't worth her.
But he wants her, of that, Roy is sure. He couldn't care less for the secret in the tatoo, he didn't give a damn that she was his master's daughter and that he used to see her as a sister. He wants her like he'd never wanted another woman, his desire only doused by the impression he has, that if he doesn't find out the secret fast, she'll cry.
"Riza..."
Just by saying that name, colonel Mustang awakened with a start in the middle of his dream, while he was next to another woman, someone who wasn't his loyal lieutenant. He'd forgotten where he was and only recalled last night's events now. His felt a sting to his heart before that his partner raised herself in their bed.
"Who's Riza?" She asked.
"..."
He couldn't answer. It would take days for him to describe all Riza represented for him.
"Okay, don't take it like that. Just keep in my mind that my name's Sonia."
The soldier felt disgusted at himself. He got up, got dressed quickly and left like a thief. He couldn't go on like that. Firstly because of his duties as a state alchemist and a soldier that were taking all of his time. And secondly, the ladies' company was starting to bore him out of his mind. He wanted to find a woman that would make him frantic, but that he would always feel comfortable with, no matter what the situation was.
Sonia wasn't that woman. He'd never known such a woman. Expect one. Today, she was his right hand man and, if he dared to believe so, one of his greatest friends. He knew her since they were kids. They fought the Isvalan's war together. But, after all that, a wall still stood between them. Riza Hawkeye had turned strict since she had joined the army. The once upon "impressed young girl" made vulnerable by the loss of her father had changed. She had already gave him much. But today, they acted with more restrain, merely exchanging gazes and stares filled with secret codes and complicity.
Up till now, he had all the comfort that he could need, but now, Roy needed a whole lot more. He had the feeling that each day was taking him further from his first lieutenant and that it also widened the distance brought between them by their separation, 8 years earlier, before the war. He had already felt the unbearable fear of losing her. If it had to happen again...
He sighed as he let himself fall on his bed, back in his quartiers in HQ.
"Why do I feel so nostalgic right now?" he asked himself out loud.
He threw a glance towards Maes' picture on the wall. The passed away family's father wad winking at him from his frame.
"Don't tell me you think that's because I'm getting old?" He asked his old friend.
But in the bottom of his heart, Roy knew it wasn't it. It was just that so many things were happening at the same time. The army was evolving at a frightening pace and the dreadful discoveries he'd made over his country's army weren't making him really enthusiastic. He was seriously worried. What he'd done to go back to these intimate moments where Riza would dare to let him see her for what she was, giving him his chance to become the flame alchemist. He closed his eyes.
He could still see himself there...
It was a cold funeral day and despite all his efforts, the young Roy shivered inside his coat. The wind played in Riza's short hair, who seemed so short and small next to him, so frail in her dress with that delicately laced cleavage.
You're so pretty, lieutenant, he thought, forcing himself to remember it all as perfectly as possible.
"If you ever need my help, for anything at all, you'll find me at this address,"
"An army's casern?" She whispered, surprised.
"Yeah, I might be staying there for my whole life. But it's the only way I found to help in giving a better life to the people of our country."
She didn't answer immediately, holding the piece of paper he'd given her in her fingers. She'd glanced briefly at him when he had asked what she was planning to do. And she had shook her head in dismay. Riza had just lost her father and her last living relative and she felt terribly marked by this brutal separation. In this drama, there had only been two persons looking out for her. Roy, who had been there to help her fill all the needed papers and arrangement for her father's funeral.
And then, there was Derek, her boyfriend who believed he had found a new revolutionary energy source. It was a great scientist who got through everything that he started. He had been Mr. Hawkeye's assistant and the first boy to which Riza's father gave the right to approach his daughter. That guy, Mustang still didn't know him back in that time. And anyway, he didn't see how one could call her boyfriend the guy that didn't even take the time to come see you when your father died...
Well, all that to come back to this casern's affair. In front of her silence, Roy, who didn't want to leave her right away, observed with a sigh that his whole life would be spent in the name of the army.
"Promise me that you won't die," she asked, looking at him with eyes that were filled with worries.
When he thought back on it, Roy wondered if that hadn't been the first sign that he'd noticed. He'd been embarrassed by her request.
"Don't talk about misfortune..."
Slowly but surely, they kept talking, Riza staring at her father's tomb and Roy staring at her nape, until they got to the secrets that her father had left behind.
She had bent her head a little more and Roy could see the start of a circle as he followed her neckline. That dress was lot lighter than it looked. As he finally understood that his father had tattooed all his alchemy secrets in codes on his daughter's back, he felt a mix of consternation, curiosity and pain. What kind of man tattooed his child with his secrets?
"If it can help in giving peace and happiness to more people, I would like to take a part in your dream, be it only to shoulder it myself. You think... Do you believe that I could do that?"
"You owe me nothing, you know it right?"
He didn't want to give her the impression he was using her. He feared that she could think less of him if he accepted her offer and at the same time, he saw at least two reasons that prevented him from saying no. He felt bound to her, like a moth to a flame. And he was dying to learn the secret to his master's alchemy.
"No, but my father trusted you. And I have faith in you myself. You may be an idealist and a dreamer, but so am I, I believe that we must feed our dreams with ideals. If I can help to turn such a dream to reality, this tattoo won't be just there for decoration anymore.
Since he didn't reply or reject anything she said, just staring in the distance, she deduced that he had accepted.
"Come to my home tomorrow, in the afternoon. You'll try to pierce the secrets to this alchemy that I can't understand."
"This science never caught your interest?"
"No. To be honest with you, it scares me. But it's supposes to serve good, so, I shouldn't fear it, huh?"
She wanted to leave, but Roy realized that something was missing. He caught her by the wrist as she was turning away.
"You don't have to do this. Especially if you don't want to," he warned her.
"But on the contrary. I'm doing this for my father. That's what ve wanted. Come to my home tomorrow. If you're willing to go through with it."
He let go of her, since she seemed even more embarassed since he had touched her arm. She was doing all she could to hold back her tears, as she had during the last few days, in between all the preparations for the funerals. And Roy felt so powerless to see her in this state, lost and resigned. He had promised himself to look after her, as his master had asked. Damn, the old man never even have to ask!
"I'll come if you want it so."
"Thank you," she said through her lips which were squeezed together in her effort not to cry.
"I should be the one thanking you."
She gently shook her head and seemed ready to fall in his arms. He wanted to hold her next to him and to let her cry to her heart content. He wished he knew a way to erase her pain. But she managed to turn away from him, to get back to her house, with all her mysteries intact. And even though he wanted to, Roy didn't run after her. He was too hurt himself, too drained by his own sadness to be a real comfort to the young girl. He deceived himself.
I should have done more, he thought as his memories were running at full speed in his mind, one stretching over all the others, getting them all mixed together.
The walk to her house, on the next day, which was almost painful. The shy greetings, fleeting gazes, the impression he had he was fooling himself as she sent him to wait for her in that room. The fascination for what he was suddenly discovering. And Riza's breathing that he could heard in his ears as he let his hands wonder on her back, to follow the lines and symbols and retrace them in the air, so that he would understand.
He hoped that he didn't look disrespectful. That was the last thing he wanted to do. During those moment, she seemed to consider herself as an object and he had to work really hard not to do the same. The curiosity, the need that this soft skin awakened in him and all the knowledge engraved on the skin, all the knowledge... But the anger he felt toward his master for sullying his own daughter like that and have her bend under the way too heavy burden of such a secret.
Sometimes, while she undressed herself in front of him, slowly, hiding all she could with a shirt or a blanket, giving him her bare back and shoulders, he'd want her to stop and to grab her by the waist and to hold her in his arms as long as it'd take to get her to relax next to him. She seemed so small, frail, beautiful and sweet. At the same time, she was cold and rigid, like a marble statue, her nerves as hard as steel. When she would shiver under his touch, he'd pretended that she felt cold. But secretly, he hoped that she took some pleasure in these weird encounters they were having.
Roy took his face in his hand, trying to push back the pictures awakening in his mind. He'd never had the occasion to see Riza like that afterwards. Touching her. And she was really careful herself. Maybe they'd never get another chance to be this close. And still, Roy never felt himself this far from a human being before... As he profaned her virgin's skin with his caresses.
The next day, he found his men at work, as usual. Hawkeye was filling up forms. The temperature looked nice outside. But Roy could already smell trouble. He suspected that something was up. Ever since Hugues' death, he'd been extra careful. There wasn't only Scar, who kept on evading the army, but there was more and more tension in the very heart of Central's government.
And that day was one of the first that Falman would spent not working, since he was living with 66 for an undetermined time. The time that the thing leaving in that suit of armor could prove useful.
Havoc was off on his own little cloud. He got himself a new girlfriend, a real bomb as he said so himself. Breda seemed jealous, so Mustang believed that for once, his second lieutenant had hit the jackpot before him. He wasn't really interested in that either. Sonia's memory was a blur. He had no idea why he'd even followed her to her place. To quiet the loneliness he was about to feel one more night in his quarters, between a pile of files and of alchemy research. Sometimes he was getting the impression that everything he was doing was in vain.
"Colonel," Riza said " you still have files needing corrections, get on with it," she reminded him.
He looked up, caught in the act of reminiscing, but knowing that Hawkeye's scolding was just as the scolding of a mother looking after her good for nothing son with a smile. A well hidden smile when the threat was serious, but a certain endearment, nonetheless.
Grunting a little, more to keep his face, Roy got to work. Fuery explained them the fright he'd had when a secretary from office's 104 had accosted him, asking for peculiar services. While Havoc and Breda shunned him for not jumping on the occasion, Mustang let his gaze wonder and it fell on Riza, despite his better judgement, turning into an insistent stare. She raised her head from her work and frowned as she noticed that he was observing her. She seemed half surprised and half ready to reprimand him.
In fact, the young woman was just as troubled as her superior. He could only bet she was, since she was composing herself a professionalism's mask to prevent herself from eating him up with her eyes. Without trying to guess what was hiding beneath this uniform that really did suit him. She already had a good idea of it. But she was thinking to the beating heart in his chest mostly and to this idea that always cross one woman's mind when she's closed to the man she loves.
She'd remembered the exchanges they had a few years ago, after her father's death. Just as he did. She had gone out for a walk with Black Hayate and had noticed Roy disappearing in the house of a much prettier young woman than her. Prettier, classier. A long tine ago, she'd believed in them. She'd believe that there could be more than a friendship there. But she didn't believe anymore. There had been Derek at that time, such a long time ago...
"Get in, quick! It's cold outside."
The young soldier had hurried himself, fearing that she might not like the fact he was letting cold inside; but she was more worried about him catching a cold. She had taken his coat, being careful not to move too close to him. The uneasy silence between them was incredible, in a good way. From an outsider's view, this clumsy moment that was forcing them to get closer while they didn't know what they meant to each other could have looked cute. But for the young woman, it was a torture.
A moment later, with the impression of being a slut, Riza was undressing in front him, feeling his hesitating fingers on her skin, noticing his nervous breathing on her back and her nape as he did his best in recognizing the signs and decoding the symbols. She felt to the very depth of her soul his childish enthusiasm and excitation at the idea that he was getting closer to the answer. But at the same time, every encounter felt a little more uneasy, since they were always getting to know each other more and since his hands on her skin were turning in a habit, a soft caress that even her boyfriend Derek hadn't given her yet.
Four visits had been enough for him to uncover the secret behind fire's alchemy. But even before that he'd learned to snap fire to life with his fingers, Roy had awakened in her a brutal and unwavering desire, the need of his presence, of his proximity, of his man's voice in her back and around her. Contrarily to the unease she had felt when her father, master Hawkeye had marked her back with her tattoo, the shivers she felt with Mustang were dizzying, intoxicating. Her heart was still beating too fast when he'd leave her house and she'd watched him walking away, as she was hidden behind the windows' curtains, afraid that he'd look back and would spot her looking right back.
In her young woman's naivety, she wondered what he was thinking of those meeting, if he wasn't slowly gaining confidence and wasn't starting to imagine things.
"You don't have to do this."
How many time had he repeated that? What should she tell him so that he'd know that she didn't feel forced to do it in the end? Could she say that she liked him, that she took pride and a fierce joy to see him becoming a state alchemist in the army? He was like a big brother that she'd pushed forward in his dream.
I've never felt forced in doing anything. Not even when you've started giving me orders, she thought to herself.
Their common life in the army had given them an occasion to rediscover bits of their past. Maybe not enough. The other fay, for the first time since years, he'd seen her dressed in civilian's clothes. She'd seen the panic in his eyes to see him she'd changed since their last informal meeting. She had liked to feel his stare on her, even if it had been only for a moment.
"Lieutenant?"
"Hmm?"
"There's Denver on the phone, he'd talking about a report and..."
"You don't know what he's talking about?"
Roy preferred not to admit it to keep some of his self-esteem. It wasn't really his fault, since Breda soon realized that he'd forgot to give the report to his superior, for he had been too preoccupied by his meeting with a band of dogs ready to eat him alive! It had only been some nice doggies looking for a nice playmate that were being walked around by a young boy... But Breda had ran for his dear life, terrified just at their sight. And his panic had taken over his logical mind, making him forget about everything, even his job.
"Yes, Denver? The report will be there in half an hour. It's a promise from the colonel!"
She hang up, happy to take her revenge over him, for taking good time the other day and was springing the next, looking lost, while she was worried the whole night, trying to understand where she stood in his eyes. Riza already knew, but his player attitude was making her questioning herself.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
Hawkeye didn't answer, finding the document he needed to fill out instead. She gave it to him, with a sly smile and since it was lunch time, she leaved, instead of staying by his side to watch over him, making sure that he'd do his work, as she used to. If he hadn't stared at her as he did earlier, she wouldn't have felt so flustered from the memories they shared. She was suffering a little more when she felt as if their past had been erased by their soldiers' obligations.
The door closed behind her, softly and Havoc whistled. Fuery wondered out loud if the first lieutenant was angry or not.
Roy had a little idea of what was going on. Riza sometimes had the habit to run away from him when things were off. He still remembered. To have spent month without news to learn that her situation wasn't good. She hated to need anyone's help. And there was nothing that a man liked as much as being dependable and strong.
But maybe that…
"Colonel? "
"Hum? "
"What's up with Hawkeye? " Breda asked.
Seeing that his subordinates were staring at him with eyes filled with questions, Roy got the impression to be a culprit standing before a court.
"Why should it be my fault if something's up with her? Huh?"
A little later, he realized that it was exactly the question he should have asked himself. Since Riza asked herself that question on every day…
…
But if you look for truthfulness
You might just as well be blind.
It always seems to be so hard to give.
… To be continued in chapter 2.
I'll have you know that the italic writing at the beginning and at the end of this chapter are lyrics from a song, made by Billy Joel. This fic happens to be named after that song. You'll hear more from it in the upcoming chapters. Now, tell me if you've liked it!
