Basically, hurt!roy for the sake of hurt!roy. I'm still chugging away at my parental RoyEd multichap (check my profile for progress) but since I'm working on a part with no Roy at all, my muse got feisty and wanting to play around with some Mustang flavored angst (that somehow became Riza angst, too), so this aimless, meandering oneshot of stream of consciousness randomness happened. What? I have a final paper and a final exam due tomorrow that I'm woefully unprepared for and I'm just procrastinating, you say? I have no idea what you're talking about! *runs away and cries in denial
Her watch told her it was 1:13 AM.
Her internal clock had told her it was sometime around 1:10, so, the watch really wasn't that helpful at all, but it was nice to have, all the same.
Riza watched the second hand tick away for a moment, feeling a yawn trying to tremble through her jaw and keeping her mouth stubbornly clenched shut. She waited until the urge had passed, glanced around at the utterly deserted street, and kept on walking.
These late night walks had become something of a pattern for her, ever since That Night. She hadn't been sleeping well, and on the occasions that restlessly tossing and turning transformed into exhaustion born visions of blood on her hands and a body slumped cold and unmoving as the dead, further sleep became a lost cause all together.
She'd walk the city streets, drifting through Central with one gun strapped to her ankle and another at her hip, just because. Black Hayate would come with her, pacing peacefully along at her feet, and she'd just walk for a while, aimlessly wondering until her mind had calmed and she could ground herself again; remember what she needed to remember and forget what needed to be forgotten. Sometimes she'd get back to her apartment and sleep, eventually; other times, well...
Riza rubbed her eyes tiredly, feeling the ache of sleepless nights crawl lazily through her head and back. Tonight would just be another one where no more sleep was to be had.
Tonight had been a bad one.
Sighing to herself, Riza lifted her face up towards the crisp night air and turned the corner, gazing up at the moon and the stars. The silverly light did nothing to warm her up, but the coldness helped ground her, somehow (probably because That Night had been warm, so warm that if it was warm she couldn't sleep at night anymore). She smiled slightly at the little breeze that started up, letting it sing through her long hair, so rarely let down but now flowing free past her shoulders.
Central's military hospital stood tall at the end of the street, and Riza paused, glancing over it. She'd found her way here, again.
Not a surprise.
Black Hayate nudged quietly at her ankle, and when she looked down to him he met her eyes with a mournful whine. She smiled a little, bending down to pat his head. "Sorry, boy. I should stop dragging you out with me, shouldn't I? You're surely very tired, by now... and all just to walk around the city with me..."
He whined mournfully again, too well trained to bark at this time of night, and Riza sighed again, giving him another pat. "Good boy."
A few more head scratches later, and Riza rose to her feet again, stretching out the sore muscles in her back and starting down the street again. Her gaze wandered towards the hospital, and even at this distance- fifty five feet, she knew exactly- her sniper's eyes still found the window to his room easily, training in on it with perfection. If she'd had a rifle with her she could've shattered the glass without even using the scope.
But there was no rifle, and no danger, and so instead Riza just looked at it and tried to smile. She put a hand over her heart, felt it still pounding, and tried to breathe easier. Tried to remember he's alive.
Tried, being the operative word.
Riza sighed.
Yes, she thought absently, tonight was not a night that had been destined for sleep.
Black Hayate nudged at her ankle again, more insistent than before, and Riza frowned. She reluctantly tore her gaze away from his window and blinked to see him pawing at her foot, whining again in an attempt to get her attention. The moment she looked at him he moved forward a little, still pawing at her foot, clearly impatient with her, and she frowned again, unsure.
"What..." Riza trailed off and looked ahead, glancing up the street like he seemed to want her to do. "Black Hayate, what... oh."
Again, no matter the distance, her sniper's eyes saw it all.
Because even though distance blurred detail, she'd been trained to commit any and all details that could not be blurred to perfect memory, and right now, in the black hair darker than the night sky, the pale skin whiter than the half moon, and the cane that leaned up against the bench beside him, she recognized him.
Riza stilled for several moments, surprised and unsure of what to think.
The man had already turned his head to look at her, and though she was too far away to read his expression, she could imagine it all the same, and after a few seconds of just blinking in surprise, slowly, she shook herself and began to walk forwards once again.
He'd clearly seen her. She couldn't very well turn around now.
Besides, she was tired of running away.
Roy raised a hand in greeting when at last distance had become closeness; close enough to see the shadows in her eyes mirrored in his, the slumped shoulders of an unbearably long night, the exhaustion that could not be dulled by sleep. "Good evening, Lieutenant," he said to her, all smiles, and the smile actually looked genuine, so she returned it.
"Actually, it's morning now, sir."
"Ah." He tilted his head for a moment, watching her, then patted the bench beside him with his good arm, in clear indication for her to sit. "So, it's appropriate that neither one of us is asleep."
"I'm not sure that's how that works, sir."
"Hmm."
He said no more than that, and Riza sighed herself, looking away as she sat beside him. Black Hayate, rather than take advantage and run to play in the open garden before them, simply followed her lead and sat down quietly at her feet.
Roy chuckled quietly. "You've got him trained quite well."
"Better than I do you, sir."
"Ouch."
The sat in silence for several moments, both looking out towards the street, neither towards each other. They both just listened to each other breathe, and neither spoke; neither wanting to ask what had them out of bed so late at night.
It wasn't a question that needed asking.
Eventually, she spoke just to end the quiet.
"How was therapy today, sir?"
Roy's chuckle was miserable in the night. "Hmph. Would you like to know, Lieutenant? Would you like to know what the great Brigadier-General Roy Mustang did today? Would you like to know what he did that was so amazing that his nurse clapped and told him she had never seen such progress?" The weight of his sardonic stare was heavy, and Riza found herself watching as the general turned his palm over in his lap, curling the hand into a thumbs up. He held the position for several seconds, clearly with great difficulty, then let out a sigh, fingers falling limp. "Truly. Hands strong enough to trust a country with."
Riza stayed silent.
It was only recently that he'd begun to regain use of that arm, the Fuhrer having sliced through his shoulder so deeply he'd been lucky to not have needed an appointment with the Rockbells. He would eventually have all function returned, the doctors promised, but Riza knew it was still grating, for him to barely be able to use his hand. His strong hands. His powerful, amazing hands. His hands that knew great evil and great burdens, his hands that she loved, because they'd taken responsibility that was more than any one man should bear and yet he'd still been strong enough to keep going.
His hands that she loved, and his hands that, she knew, sometimes, Roy hated.
She wanted to remind him it had only been a week since the therapy had started. Wanted to remind him he'd been unable to even feel his fingers beforehand, so this really was good progress. Wanted to remind him he'd be all right in the long run, that he just needed to grit his teeth and bear it for now. That he'd already endured so much worse; this should surely be nothing, to someone like him.
She looked away and said nothing instead.
He wouldn't appreciate the platitudes, and that was all she had to offer him.
"I'm sick of this, Riza."
His words were faint on the cold air, and the next breeze almost carried them away.
Roy sighed heavily and curled over a little on himself, staring out into the street. His one dark eye colored with a storm of restless energy no matter the exhaustion that burdened his slim form, and while she didn't need for him to go on, because she already knew everything he'd say, he did anyway, spilling out tension to the night. "I'm sick of this," he said again, hands shaking. "This, just... everything. I'm sick of this hospital. I'm sick of doctors and nurses. I'm sick of hurting every second of every damn day. I'm sick of my body not doing what I tell it to. I'm sick of being treated like an invalid." He paused, hands wringing out slowly in his lap. "...I'm sick of being an invalid."
She looked to her hands quietly, trying not to feel the cold.
"You're not an invalid, sir."
He didn't look at her, but she still saw his jaw tense, the muscles in his shoulder roll with the breath of an irritated sigh. "I can barely walk. I can barely read." One finger traced along the black eyepatch and Riza's fists clenched against guilt's needling precision. "I can't even write. I'm supposed to be trying to fix this country, looking for Edward, helping Alphonse, something, but instead I'm stuck here. They say it's a good day if I can manage to feed myself or walk around the floor without tripping. I'm a fucking general... a general, Riza- and that's a good day for me now!" He laughed out loud again, tilting his head back to gaze up at the sky, sallow skin lit faintly under the moon.
"I need to be out there doing something," he muttered, trembling with barely restrained restlessness. "Anything. Anything other than this... this utter waste of time... but instead I'm stuck here. And you know, I'd have walked straight out by now if I could have... but I can't. I was barely able to even get this far... ten minutes of walking and yet already out of strength..." He paused morosely, looking down to watch as his fingers twisted together again in his lap. The lines of tension in his shoulders didn't fade; far from it, and he clenched his teeth, shifting under the weight of restless energy that his maimed body wasn't strong enough to release.
"...They're right to treat me like this, Riza."
Guilt slithered up her spine again, joining her like an old friend, and she looked down to her hands, wondering why he was still being punished for the failure that should've been only hers to bear.
But this restless unease was very much like him, and she knew it was only needed that he be talked out of it, reminded that she and his staff were still holding down his fort and waiting only for his return to take the military by storm again- that the wold was not about to go on without him. "It's only temporary, Roy," she reminded him gently, when she thought his breaths had eased a little. "Remember. You were shot in the head. You were nearly stabbed in the heart. It's only been a few weeks... these things take time."
"Too much time," he muttered, fabric of his pants bunching under fists.
Too much time, Riza remembered thinking herself, feet pounding up the pavement of the Fuhrer's entryway, the echo of a single gunshot still ringing in her ears. I took too much time...
"I'm sorry, sir. I know it seems like a while... you just need to bear it for now. It'll pass, sir," she heard herself saying distantly, voice weak and limp, stab at comfort pathetic. Ordinarily, she'd insert a reminder here that she could start bringing in his paperwork for him, if he wanted to do something so bad, but now, him unable to sign it and barely capable of even reading it, the words would only sting.
Ordinarily, she'd smile at him now, because she wouldn't feel so helpless.
Roy breathed out heavily through his nose at the admonishment, ducking his head for several moments and clearly trying to grip on himself. When he finally tilted his head just enough to meet her gaze again, his pale face had returned to a forced sort of calm again, though the restless energy still danced, barely contained, in his eye. "So, Riza. Can't sleep, either?" he deadpanned, seeming to want to distract himself from the thoughts of inability and uselessness surely still dominating his mind.
That was good. Distraction, she could do.
"Yes, sir," she said back, smiling a little. "As you can see."
"Hmm..." Roy leaned against the bench again, eyebrow raised past his overgrown, untidy bangs. "Yes, as I can see." He appraised her for several moments, to the point that his examination and silence was almost uncomfortable, and then he said, "So you came over this way for a late night visit, was that it?"
As usual, he knew her so well he didn't need to even ask, to know why she'd ended up so near the hospital at this time of night. He wasn't asking, really. He already knew everything that she hadn't said. He was just giving her an out, a way to explain herself that didn't include answering to the irrational impulse of dreams and terror.
She was thankful for it. She took it.
"Actually, Black Hayate wanted to come see you, sir." She glanced down to her dog, who licked at her ankle balefully, as if he knew he was being used and resented it. "I told him you'd probably be asleep, but he didn't listen."
Roy raised an eyebrow at her. "Ahh, I see... is that true, Black Hayate?" He leaned down a little, gaze drifting from her to her dog, and he reached out a hand, fingers stretching. "Did you miss me?"
The dog perked up at the attention, leaping forward to lick at his fingers; Roy laughed. "Look at that, he did. Ha, I'm touched. I knew there was a reason I always liked you!"
"It's only because you feed him treats behind my back. He misses the treats, sir."
"I do no such thing-"
"Yes. You do."
"...He was supposed to be my dog, anyway," Roy muttered petulantly, giving up. He moved to lean back against the bench again with a sigh. "It's my right to feed him treats if I want to."
Riza smiled softly. "I suppose, sir," she murmured agreeably, shuddering as he licked at her ankle again. Roy seemed to have shaken off his emotional pallor now, and Riza was trying to follow his lead, as well. And for a moment, it worked. For a moment, she let herself believe that that was all this was; this late night meeting was just Roy trying to slip Black Hayate treats- they just happened to have rendezvoused outside the hospital, was all, it just happened that neither of them could sleep, it just happened that looking at Roy hurt deep in her chest, and...
The general sighed deeply, his breath drawing her back to the dark present. "You shouldn't be here, Riza," he said quietly into the night, and she just looked more firmly at her knees, swallowing back reality.
"Neither should you," she pointed out, just as calmly. "You should be in bed, sir-"
He waved her off. "I can't sleep. It's nothing... when you spend your whole day in bed, you end up with more energy than you know what to do with. I'm not tired at all. And I'm finally feeling well enough now that they took away my morphine, so it's just hard to sleep sometimes. Restless, is all. You, however..." He gave her a sidelong glance, hair ruffling in the gentle breeze. "You have no such excuse."
Riza shifted again, looking at hands that felt caked with blood. "...Roy-"
"Don't look like that."
She looked up just in time for his hand to catch in a section of her hair, brushing it back from her face. The hint of heat that wanted to rise was batted down, but this time she couldn't break his gaze, not even when he smiled at her, a smile so sad her heart broke.
"What have I told you about this?" he murmured, and the fingers slide through tangled, uncombed curls before coming to rest gently against her cheek, cold thumb drifting over her jaw. "You're a soldier, Riza. Don't cry because one was injured. Smile, because we're both alive. ...It's more than we had any right to expect."
"...I'm not crying, Roy."
He looked at her, hard. "You were."
Riza shivered at the accusation; quieted another lie of a denial. She didn't bother asking how he knew. He always knew. "...Roy... I..."
He sighed, breaking apart from her a little to raise his good hand to his face, fingering the eyepatch again. She shuddered at the reminder and tried not to look away, to not betray the pit in her stomach that formed at the sight of it. Too much time...
Slowly, deftly, the general's fingers shifted, fumbling with the knot that held the patch to his face. She barely had time to steel herself, no time at all to wonder why, before the thing fell, and he was looking at her again, all smiles and disfigurement, all forgiveness and scars.
"Hideous, isn't it?" he asked her quietly.
Riza betrayed nothing on her face. She was well practiced, in betraying nothing. To look at the empty eye socket, the twisted skin, felt like a punch to the face, but she kept looking all the same, kept looking and betraying nothing, because she knew he was insecure about the scars and that to let any of her own horror at the sight slip now would only leave him to feel worse. "It's still healing, Roy," she whispered, but the reminder tasted like lead.
"That wasn't what I asked."
And, with the one eye he still had piercing into her, so close to her she could hear him breathing, ruined face so completely expressionless, vulnerable in a way he could only be with her, she could not answer him.
He nodded slowly at her lack of words, knowing everything she wasn't saying, but the hurt she'd been expecting did not come. Rather, he lifted the eyepatch again, glancing at it, then returned his gaze to her. "I know," he said gently. "I know how it looks. ...Often can't stand to look at it myself." The smile was only slight this time, and ten kinds of broken.
"But, I'm still not going to put this back on just yet." He waved the eyepatch a little, still looking at her. "Do you know why?"
Slowly, she managed a mute shake of her head.
He smiled again.
"Because, it's just an eye, Riza. Hideous as it may be... it's just an eye. And I think you need to see it."
Her hands clenched again.
"...Roy, I'm perfectly aware-"
"I know you," he interrupted easily, eye narrowing. "I know you, Riza. You blame yourself for this." Fingers traced the twisted scars, trailing lightly against destroyed flesh that made her stomach turn. "A few seconds is all the difference needed... right?"
To hear it spoken in his own words hurt impossibly more than it could've ever been to think them herself, and she gritted her teeth against the blow, forestalling the shudder. To hear it from him made it unspeakably real, even though she'd known it this whole time, known the truth of just a few seconds, but from her general's mouth made it undeniable, now. From her general's mouth was the words that that bullet in his brain had been her fault. From her general's mouth was the admonishment, the rebuke, the punishment, that if only she had forced herself just a few seconds faster, then he wouldn't have had to endure such suffering. That he'd still have his eye.
"Yes," Roy said quietly, and the fingers left his scars then. "Just a few seconds' difference, Riza. Do you realize what that difference would be? If you had come only a few seconds later?"
So lost, was she, in her own punishment, it took her several moments to realize what he'd said. "...Roy-" she started unsurely, blinking.
The general poked himself in the middle of his forehead, so hard his finger left a faint red mark. "That would be the difference, Riza," he stressed. "That. That was where his next bullet was headed. ...That was what you stopped."
No.
No.
He couldn't possibly... not still...
He couldn't possibly still be so painfully uncaring, so forgiving, so stubbornly hey, look at the positives! about her failure in everything he had ever asked of her- not after what it had cost him.
He couldn't, he couldn't, he could not.
"Roy," she choked out, reaching for him; he caught her hand in mid air, not finished yet.
"I know you don't see it that way," he told her. "I know you keep telling yourself just a few seconds earlier. But I never cared, Riza. You saved my life, and I still trust you to do it again. What happened that night was..." he hesitated, searching for the word, "hideous, yes." He smiled at her gently, lifting her hand to hold it against his ruined cheek. This time she could not help herself; she flinched at the rough scars under her palm, but his hand remained against hers, trapping it there.
"But it's not your fault, Riza."
When he kissed her, she wanted to cry.
The tears did eventually come, but only after he'd leaned back, and she'd turned her face away to hide them, clenching her teeth against shuddering breaths and her fists against the grief that rocked down her spine.
The dream from earlier that night took form in her mind again; Roy, collapsed, Roy, bleeding, and Roy, dying in her arms. Roy, dead. Hot tears spilled over to streak down her cheeks, her arms aching with the weight of cradling her dead general, sightless eyes seeing only his unmoving body still in her lap, dead face so still it made her scream until she woke.
The tears refused to stop, and she clenched her hands harder, shaking against them. He'd been so close... she'd honestly thought he was dead when she'd first seen him. And then, later, the many hours he'd been in surgery or intensive care and she'd been barred from seeing him, it had been somehow even worse...
Just a few seconds, and...
And he wouldn't be here.
Roy's hand climbed to rest over hers, and in that moment, Riza needed nothing except that steady, warm presence next to hers. The proof that he was alive, no matter how heavy the weight of his dead body against hers was.
He really could've died...
He...
He really could've... almost...
Riza knew, somehow, as she wept silently in the night, that the memory of how it had felt to hold him as he was dying would never leave her. It was her penance, for failing. She'd accepted that.
But he was still alive.
Just an eye...
Roy had already said to her that if just an eye was what he had to give to take down Bradley, then he was more than willing to pay it. But that was an alchemist's language, talk of equivalent exchange that she had never studied nor liked. For she was no alchemist, and to her, there was nothing equivalent in this. And even while Roy said he was fine with it, she knew he wasn't, not really, not when she saw how firmly he clung to that eyepatch and avoided so much as a glance in any mirror-
But in the end, it was just an eye.
His price to pay, to take down the monster that had helmed this country.
When that price had come so very close to being so much more, just a few seconds later and it would've been his life, she knew he was right, and to cry because of what had been lost rather than what had been saved was wrong.
And if her price to pay was sleepless nights and the unbearable, remembered agony of this man that she loved dying in her arms, then she would just have to take it, and make herself remember he was still alive, and had forgiven her.
His warm hand over hers, and his unwavering presence by her side, eventually eased the ceaseless turn of memories behind her eyes, and with that, the tears stopped as well. She swallowed silently, finally letting out a breath now that she was sure it wouldn't crack under the weight of a sob, and gingerly turned her hand over to squeeze his.
It would be a long while yet before she forgave herself, if she ever would, but to know Roy had forgiven her- indeed, saw nothing to even forgive- still left her so overcome tears continued to well in her eyes, and she continued to hang on to his hand so tightly it hurt.
God, she loved him.
Another cold breeze blew, drawling through the night air of Central. She felt his arm shiver and shifted just enough to look at him, glancing over his thin hospital pajamas and wiping her eyes on her sleeve in the same motion. "Cold?" she asked, starting to unzip her jacket.
Roy frowned at her. "I'm the man. Shouldn't I be offering you my jacket?"
"And what jacket would that be?"
The frown deepened, the general withering because he knew she was right. "...Fine. I am cold," he admitted grudgingly, then scooted closer and dropped a firm arm around her shoulders before she could make any more progress in getting off her jacket for him. "There," he said, letting out a sigh of satisfaction so deep it was almost a purr, and drew her even closer to his side. "Much better."
Riza blinked, a little takenaback, then just sighed in the face of melting resistance and shifted under the warm weight of his arm, feeling her lips shift into a smile.
Yes.
This was much better.
They sat like that for a while, saying nothing; no words were necessary, and they knew each other well enough that anything that could've been said would be no surprise, anyway. It was quiet, and this time of night, they were left entirely uninterrupted, and Riza found herself free to simply sit there and close her eyes, breathing in time with Roy and listening to his heart beat reassuringly in his chest, letting it remind her of everything that felt so easy to forget.
"Tired?" he murmured at length, lips brushing against the top of her head.
"...Yes," she whispered back, almost surprised to find that the black memories that had lurked behind closed eyelids before had retreated, balking from his heartbeat in her ear and breath against her hair and hands around hers. "Are you?"
Roy hmmed for a moment. "A little."
It took her a while to sigh, far too comfortable and tired to really want to move away from him but knowing she should, all the same. "You should get back to your room, then."
Calmly, the general reached out a foot, kicking his cane away. It skittered against the cobblestones, hitting the ground and rolling a bit to land several feet away, and with that, he leaned back to sit against her again, arm still wrapped securely around her shoulders. "Nope. Can't stand, now. Can't happen."
"Black Hayate, fetch."
Instantly, her dog leaped up from his position at her feet, bounding over to where the general had kicked the cane, grabbing it in his mouth, and dragging it back over to her. She smiled victoriously as he climbed up onto her feet, pawing eagerly at her leg in hopes of attention, and she felt Roy wince against her, his foolproof plan withering before his eyes.
"And now it has dog slobber all over it. Like I'm supposed to use that?"
"I thought you loved dogs."
"Dogs. Not dog slobber."
She smiled into his shoulder again, listening contentedly to his heart beat, and decided the effort to move wasn't worth it after all. To help Roy back to his room, and then, find her own way home, would take hours, surely, and she didn't care much for that future, anyway- him still here, her in her own bed, both tossing and turning to find sleep again when right here, right now, it felt so easy.
At long length, however, Riza sighed, reminding herself that just because it was easy didn't make it right. Sleeping on a bench may be fine for her, just give her a sore back the next day, but Roy's still healing body needed a bed, and they needed to get him back inside, anyway; the chill in the air was prominent and the last thing he needed was to catch a cold on top of everything else. She squirmed reluctantly under his tight embrace, trying to make herself move. "Come on, Roy. You need to go back."
His head rested a little more heavily against hers, but beyond that, he gave no sign that he had heard her.
"Roy. Come on."
To that, her only answer was a snore.
...
Well. This complicated matters.
With his head currently pillowed in her hair, she couldn't turn easily enough to check on him, but she could tell from the deep breaths alone that he was completely out of it. Waking him up would probably need to entail a shove to the ground. And by the way he'd been talking earlier, if she woke him up now he might not be able to get back to sleep for the rest of the night.
So, therefore, the only logical course of action was just to stay here.
Riza smiled to herself quietly, quite aware that the reasoning she'd just employed was one she'd normally chastise the general for, but right now, it was late, she was tired, and with Roy's arm around her and his breaths lazy against her head, this was the best she had felt in weeks. Never mind that the right thing to do was wake him up and take him back in to the hospital. She wanted him to stay right here, like this, next to her, and that was just that.
Smiling again, she wrapped her fingers tighter around his hand, tucked her head more warmly against his neck, and shut her own eyes.
When Roy's night nurse finally found them, three hours later, they were still asleep, Riza folded under his arm and head against his shoulder, Roy's ruined cheek hidden in her hair, eyepatch fallen from limp fingers.
They were both still smiling.