A/N: Day Six of 30 Day Challenge this girl is doing on tumblr. Find me and follow if you want to.
Fandom: FullMetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Riza
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: I really can't seem to make anything happy. Violence and war.
Prompt: Flame
Roy Mustang never, ever doubted himself. Or at least, he never doubted his abilities. He was the one and only Flame Alchemist for a reason, and he was pretty sure that reason wasn't that King Bradley though he was hot.
No, he never doubted his alchemic abilities.
He just doubted the way he used them.
How could he not? Better men than he had dropped weapons, panicked and fled from the horror they were causing. Yet he remained, turning whatever was in his path to ash with a literal snap of his fingers. He watched everything burn. Everything went to flames.
Because of him.
He never slept anymore. The dark of his eyes was framed by black circles; trophies of his nightmares. He walked living hell by day, and then at night when he shut his eyes it was played back to him. The images returned; slow-motion images of innocent Ishvalens burning. Of children watching their homes and schools go to flames. Because he made it happen.
He tried, desperately, to ease his guilt. These are my orders. Orders. I'm only doing this because of orders! He would believe the words, on the outside, while on the inside he tore himself apart.
For a while, he turned stone cold. Protect what's yours – destroy what isn't. Don't think. Thinking will get you killed. And for a while he was nothing more than a machine. A well-oiled, flame-wielding machine.
But... but then Riza... oh god, Riza... She'd asked something of him that had made him jolt awake. She'd asked him, asked him so honestly, with her face so serious... she'd asked him to burn her. She wanted him to burn the information off her back; to free her from the burden her father had inked into her. She wanted to be free of the research that had been penned into the pale flesh of her back. She wanted him to use the power he'd gotten from her to make sure no one else did.
He refused.
And she begged. Riza Hawkeye had looked at him pleadingly. She'd turned those beautiful amber eyes on him, so wide and open. Every emotion she felt, all the want and fear and horror, they burst like fireworks in her eyes. She begged, shoving aside the prideful, strong woman she was in her one moment of need.
The look of agony in his Riza's eyes had made him want to turn a hand on himself. How could she expect him to reach out and snap at her, to turn her perfect image into a marred mess? How could she expect him to hurt her... when she knew he loved her so much?
But he did, because he could never tell her no. Never. And he's tasting blood as he bites him lip and snaps. Her muffled screams tear through him and he nearly stops. She bites through the leather strap in her mouth as her body twists in pain and he stops, shaking and falling to his knees beside her. Her bare back stares up at him, a horrible mess of scorched and blackened burns on her creamy white skin. And he feels. Every single one of them. He can feel them; torn into his own back.
And she's sobbing, of course, but she also looks at him. "Thank you." she chokes, half-way unconscious.
He trembles. No. no. This won't happen again. He'll never ever let her get burned, by anything, every again. He'll turn the flames on himself before it happens.
He's sorry. He's so so sorry. But Riza doesn't want an apology. She thanks him. And he tastes vomit and has to turn away.
No... never again.
