I liked writing this one! I'm also on tumblr btw - as capthawkeye where i accept requests and post things a lot quicker than i do here!
Riza Hawkeye doesn't need to open her eyes to recognize the heat of the Ishvalan sun on her. It gleams just right to hit her square in the face through a transparent panel of the dark tent. The Medic's tent, she realizes. She lacks any memory of how she got there and trying to remember goes as well for her as trying to grow trees in the desert.
Riza sits up to get the heat out of her face in time for the middle-aged medic, who she recognizes as Petra, to rush to her side, "No, no, Captain Hawkeye. You need your rest!"
Riza tries to rebuff the hands on her shoulders trying to make her lie back down and she gestures to the light. "The sun…" The words come out scratchy and croaked, like she hasn't had water in days. "What happened?"
With hands on her hips, Petra purses her lips, "You fainted. I was told you were at your post on one of the high towers and you collapsed on the spot. He said you might've had a sunstroke."
She blinked, trying to remember, but her disorientation was so well set she asked, "Who?"
"Your commander – he carried you in here and everything. It was very heroic – just like those films you see back in the city." The mousy woman says ecstatically while pouring a glass of water. "You don't see gentleman like that anymore, much less generals who care so much for their subordinates."
Riza nods in appreciation when she takes the cup offered to her, and stows away the information for later. She chews on the inside of her cheek at the General's blatant familiarity. She knows Promised Day has left them in unfamiliar territory, but part of her wishes to go back to the time whenever it was easier to define their roles, ignore their history, forget that day, and erase the conversation that cracked her resolve from their time in the shared hospital room when he was still blind. She dusts the thoughts away.
Contemplatively, she brings the cup's rim to her lips. The images are still fuzzy for her. A sunstroke is a serious, serious condition and an incredibly common thing for soldiers in the desert without a sense of precaution – and so unlike her. The glass in her hands refracts the orangey-red of the setting sun. "I see, a sunstroke."
"Yes," the nurse reaffirms. "It's so easy to forget the strength of the sun out here. There's no water in the ground to absorb all that heat so that energy goes into warming up the ground." The empty glass is taken from Riza and the woman places a hand over the other in front of her white uniform. "Is this your first time in Ishval, Captain?"
Riza almost laughs, but shakes her head instead. If what the General said is correct, then it isn't her fault she thinks so. She meets eyes with Petra and chokes out a sound instead of forming words, like she's grappled the words and kept them in place. She pauses with the phantom feelings ghosting over her mind when it's trying to recall. It suddenly halts all train of thought as she clings to it. Her eyes glaze over as her mind finally decides to catch up and she tenses.
A discussion, an argument? A stubborn voice over radio. A target. Hercrosshairs. A threat. The details are a blurry mess, but her mind wrangles around with those words and she can hear the nurse calling out to her and Riza hushes her. Right before I hit the ground–
She inhales sharply, and springs from the cot with enough adrenaline to fight off the vertigo. "Where is he?"
Startled, Petra eyes her up and down, "Who?"
"The commander. General Mustang." Riza asks hurriedly, locating her shoes. The points in her mind are connecting, telling her she doesn't have time to consider putting on her heavy-in-wool military jacket.
While Riza fastens and loads her holsters, Petra clarifies, "In the Market's Ward. About a block from here. They're still investigating the area, don't you remember?"
Angered breath shoots from her nose and it's hot, but not as hot as the air of the Dahlia district when she enters it. "Oh, I remember."
Petra calls for her from the edge of the tent. "A sunstroke is no joke, Captain!"
The sand is kicked up with her heavy footsteps, Riza could even call them stomping if she cared enough. Her arms are taut and tensed as she crosses the streets to reach the Market. From where she was, Riza could see the tower she had been assigned to when the hostile entered her scope. She huffs again, tightening the tendons balling her fists. It wasn't a sunstroke, she thinks. Not even close.
Despite the movement of soldiers working through the lingering smoke, she spots his back to her easily enough - that unkempt hair blowing with the wind. Her own hair barely touching her shoulders as it is whips too. It grates at her knowing it'll harbor enough grains of sand to fill a child's sandbox. It's Havoc, standing next to him, that sees her first.
His expression rises and falls when he asks, "Hawkeye! Good to see you're okay. Did you have enough wa-" he looks from her to Mustang and back to her, "-ter?" And clears his throat because Havoc has enough sense to look meek.
The General, however, turns to see his red-faced, arms-crossed and angered Captain more wound up than an attacking desert cobra. He says to her calmly, "Captain, is it wise for you to be walking around? Your face is already pink and you don't even have your protective coats on you."
"I'm fine," she mutters.
Roy speaks again even though she opens her mouth to get another word in. "If that's the case, I'll need to speak to you privately. Havoc – " Roy shifts his attention to the Lieutenant. "We're done here. Wrap everything up. Communicate with the leaders that it should be safe to reopen tomorrow morning and get everyone back to the Command." He gestures her to the same watchtower, noting how wrapped in her emotions she is if she isn't going to protest or argue – as if she was biding her time.
"You got it, Boss." Havoc watches them both leave, knowing when a storm is brewing and when it walks away. He claps to the men in blue. "All right, all right, fellas. Let's round up these cows and head on home."
Within the watchtower's walls, the temperature drops considerably and she welcomes it. The fabric has been heated from the short span of time she was out there. At the base, the space is no bigger than her bedroom back in Central, the brick stairs on the easternmost side that wraps around the tower's length, and there's a rickety wooden bench against the wall that would much sooner break apart than hold her weight. Not that she wanted to sit. She paces towards the end and back to see him cross the threshold and closes the door, leaving the light to seep in from the slits of glassless outcroppings in the brick and clay posing as windows. Riza bites on her thumb's knuckle when she sees his expressionless face, meaning he's had time to rehearse this conversation more than she has. She readies herself and launches in the first word before he gets a chance to seize it, "With all due respect, but what were you thinking?"
"You're angry."
"That's very astute of you," she snorts derisively, "Now that we've established that, let me ask again: what were you thinking?"
He breathes in and crosses his arms. "I could ask you the same thing. I gave an order and you chose to neglect it."
"I'm not in the mood for your antics, General."
There's bite at the mention of his rank and while it's amusing, it would be more so if her fury wasn't directed at him. Roy senses very little patience in her, if at all, and he's very efficient at exhausting that of late. "It wasn't that bad…," he explains. "I made a call with the tools that I had."
Riza isn't having it. "You took - the oxygen - away from me," she enunciates each word pointedly. "Standing with a loaded rifle in my hands."
"Don't worry, I caught you so you wouldn't hit your head." After a moment, he can tell his light-hearted comments are falling short; her expression remains indomitably vexed. He tries a more familiar approach, "Look. I apologize that I've upset you. But do not make me apologize for saving your life."
"You're unbelievable," Riza's jaw slacks and her head shakes again at his negligence. "Out of all the inconsiderate, asinine–" She stops herself, thinking better of it. This isn't a couple's spat. They are two colleagues. Professionals. Regardless of his motives, she would rather not lower herself or place herself in a position again where she can express her grievances so familiarly. She must try to widen the distance; embrace their professional relationship and nothing else.
Instead he closes the space between them; his palms are up and seeking an understanding. "Riza -"
"Captain!" She interjects with her index finger in his face. Fleetingly, she wonders if she's imagining the desperation in her voice."You can address me as Captain."
Roy frowns and corrects himself, "Captain, don't get me wrong, I understand you may be upset -" she stomps a boot, "Okay, why you're upset, but the situation looked different from the ground and there wasn't enough time for shoddy guesswork without risking the entire situation.
"Stubborn as you are," he shrugs, "you wouldn't stand down."
Her blood simmers in frustration. "The target could have easily been taken out from my position if I wasn't busy arguing with you -" she pokes just over the colored bars on his uniform, over the headset. It was a complete lack of foresight to resort in incinerating those materials after they took so long to procure. Moreover, there was absolutely no need for you–" her finger sinks into him again and again with each pause "- to make me look like an idiot who can't handle this blasted heat."
It's rare, this prodding gesture, but an invariably infuriating one that always gets his fingernails to bite into his palms and rise the temperature of his ears. He had closed his eyes the first time, but his heart rate spikes with her unrelenting jabs and tenacity.
Roy snatches her wrist and holds it away from their bodies as he stepped in closer to berate her; she steps back with nowhere to go. In his actions, he sees a life could've have been lost in the rubble, given the right conditions. "Your target was about five seconds from discovering your location and the necessary tools to compromise the integrity of the building had I not–"
"Had you not intervened we wouldn't be having this conversation!" She snaps sharper than a gutting knife. Riza yanks her hand back and pushes him back. Any vestiges of reason or rationale, forfeited.
"Do you have sand in your ears? Or did you just decide to ignore everything I just said?" He asks her in agitation. The volume increases with each word. "I'm telling you I was just trying to protect you." Her jaw clenches and he sees the fire burning furiously behind her eyes – all ire and raw emotion.
Riza bangs her balled up fists at her side against the wall behind her. "Are you telling me that for the past six months that we've been here, I've been purposely set aside, by you, under some mismanaged sense of protectiveness? Do I need to remind you of my duties, sir?"
Even though they're effectively in each other's faces now, he replies through grit teeth, "Your duties involve following orders." His words are low, dangerously so, but he manages a crisp delivery. She only glares so he continues, "And I'd appreciate it if we could avoid particular situations where you're that close to death's door."
He's only inches taller than her but she looks tiny in the way he stares her down and the way she stares at him stirs something he'd rather not name. She inhales sharply when he dares another inch of a step, directing his attention to her lips without wanting to.
As he nears again, spiced nuances of his aftershave wafts in her direction and Riza reflexively averts her eyes away to his chin or his hairline. She cages the air in her lungs, despite herself. If she looks up, if she meets him, the lack of oxygen or the sunstroke she never had would make her unravel everything they have stowed away. But this tension they've chosen to ignore…
It's like an elephant in a cramped room.
"It doesn't work that way," Riza murmurs, barely above a whisper. She chances a direct look at him, and tries not to abandon her rank for what's fluttering in her ribcage. "Your objectives do not include saving me in every situation."
His face is unreadable before Riza feels the impact of the wall behind her through the release of air in her lungs. Hands cradling her jaw, the pressure of his lips are on hers before she can process it and the reaction, on her part, catches quicker than fuel to a fire. Riza's hands fasten onto the stars of his uniform, treacherously so, using the lapels for leverage just to have lips, chests, and hips collide against each other. The fingers that tighten in her hair all but melts any reservations she held with a loose grip.
"Please don't try to stop me." he whispers back and she catches his yearning look; his brow is knit and creased deep towards his closed eyes.
She's pulled in into him again and breathes him in this time: taking in the sweat and spice and smoke of him. She responds just as before, because it feels right- a synchronised harmony despite the wrestling of their tongues. She doesn't forget the argument. No, that had been born out of an ambiguous standing – a limbo from two people who didn't want to set the defined lines they were given and unable to place the ones they wanted.
The tension, the argument as a result, everything that had been coiled tightly between them, releases into an adrenalized marriage of their lips. It pleads with an urgency as if they had been waiting for it with bated breath all along. They fumble against that wall like teenagers discovering the advantages to solitude. Their hands are cartographers exploring new regions that had been restricted before, excited with the momentary passage.
She doesn't know if it's seconds or minutes or hours when they allow themselves to separate, taking steps apart. Chests heaving for breath, she observes the discarded pile of his outer coats, leaving him in the Oxford white that's been pulled free from his belt. Her shoulder holsters lies near her, at her feet. All her doing, she notes. Riza gives a little smirk, quite unlike her, and his lips curl too.
In an unspoken understanding, her tiny smile widens into a grin at the feel of his hands on her hips. She spreads her fingers gingerly through the tendrils of his black hair, basking in a new kind of quiet intimacy at last; like longtime lovers meeting for the first time.